Might Delete Later - Ep 8: Andrew Hunter Murray

Episode Date: July 16, 2020

Is there anything Andrew Hunter Murray can’t do? Not only is he a QI elf, a quarter of the No Such Thing As A Fish podcast, a writer for Private Eye and part of West End smash hit improv troupe Austentatious, he’s now a best selling author. AND he’s great on Twitter. Not fair, actually.👉🏼Remember you can find all posts discussed on Instagram @mightdeletelaterpod and we're on twitter too @mightdeletepodAndrew Hunter Murray’s book The Last Day is out now. Buy it here.Follow Andrew Hunter Murray on Twitter @andrewhuntermFollow Gina on Instagram @ginamartin and Twitter @ginamartinukFollowing Stevie on Instagram @5tevieM and Twitter @5tevieMWant to help us make more episodes? Support Might Delete Later at https://supporter.acast.com/mightdeletelaterHosted by Gina Martin and Stevie Martin.Photo by Joe Magowan.Artwork by Zoe Harrison.Edited by Clarissa Maycock.Recorded at The Court.Produced by Plosive Productions.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/mightdeletelater. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you love Mike Delete Later? I bloody hope you do. You can support our show by using the new ACAS supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give and there is no regular commitment. Just smash that link in the show description and support us now so we can keep making this podcast. Thank you. Hello, welcome to Mike Delete Later, the show where we look at a guest's first, worst, and best social media posts, among other things. with me, Steve E.

And me, Gina. And that's all Gina will be saying. Although we share many traits that me and Gina, namely big sisters and having come out of the same woman, we have very, our mom, just for clarity, we have very, very different opinions on social media. For example, I absolutely, I do despise it. Yeah, and I absolutely love it.

Almost as much as I love Andrew Hunter Murray, our guest in this episode. He was so great. He's like a drink of spring water. I'm using the past tense because we recorded this episode pre-lockdown. Andy, our guest, is one of those people who is very, very good at very many things. So he is a QI elf, so he knows every fact ever. He hosts the QI and knows such thing as a fish podcast, as well as the Private Eye podcast, Page 94.

He also writes a Private Eye. He's in the West End Improv Smash hit show, Ossentatious, and recently became a Sunday-time's best-selling author with this debut novel The Last Day. Andy, that's actually too much. Good Lord, Andrew. Also, you're obviously a massive fan. What's so great about Andy's social media is that he's created this kind of adorable community on Twitter, on Twitter. How can you pronounce it?

Twitter. Antwerta. Of people who just love jokes and love him, and it's a really lovely little place to be, and I don't really know how he's done it. There's absolutely no negativity. No, I want this. Also, he admits to deleting tweets in this episode, which I really like. I make feel good about how often I don't.

do that as well. Have a listen and don't forget to check out our Instagram at Mike Delete LaterPod to see the post Andy Menschwans. Hello Andy. Hi. I'm going to call you Andy. Yeah, sure. We know each other. Yeah, to an extent but Andy's a big famous author now. So now he's just an inspiration rather than a friend. So we're going to start off with doing what we'd delete each week Because if there's Gina, sister of mine, loins, what would... No, what would you...

Lewns. Gina came out of my loins, what would you delete that? That comment. This week, I would delete Quicksand. Okay, that's... And I'll tell you for why. Because when I was younger, I had nights and nights and nights of nightmares about the idea that Quicksand was going to be like a real problem

when I was older. Did you? Yeah, yeah. You never told me this. 90s films used to make Quicksand seem like this thing that was like big in the world and it was really dangerous. You'd go on holiday and then the moment you were like,

maybe I'll go down this, then you were in Quicksand. Yeah, yeah. Terrified of Quicksand. And I saw a clip yesterday of a woman up to her waist in Quicksand in real life on TikTok and she showed like a crowd of people how you get out of it and she couldn't move her legs. Like she literally couldn't get out. She showed how you get out of it cleverly.

And I was like, if I'd had that video when I was nine. Wait, how did she get out of it cleverly? I'm afraid you're going to have to explain. So you have to move one leg real fast in circles and it creates like an air suction, like a vacuum around your foot so you can pull it out. But then once you've got the one leg out, you can't get the other one out.

Yeah, so you have to lean on your knee, put all your weight onto your knee, and then do the same with the other one. Keep bringing the knee out, do the same with the other. So you basically flap one leg to get like a vacuum. But Quicksand to me was like terrifying when I was younger. And I still even now when I think about it, it fills me with fear because I was so scared

it would like kill me when I was older. So I would delete Quicksand just because I think it cause a lot of trauma to kids in the 90s. Okay, that's a really strong one. Thank you so much. Mine's really boring. Okay, good. But it's just like a thing that I've... It's more like a thing in my life. Is it the patriarchy?

You know what? It actually is to do the patriarchate. Oh. Isn't everything. Actually, Andy, you'll be able to maybe say if this is true. Did men used to wear heels? Yes. Right. I mean, you used it like a long time ago.

Yeah, like a long time. Not like in 2015. Not like on Wednesday. All men can wear heels. You know, that's the lovely world we live in. True. But generally, it's a woman thing. It has been so, like, well, sometimes it is, isn't it?

No, but sometimes it is. Sometimes it shouldn't be, and it isn't. But, oh my God, do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean? Right. All I'm saying is, when I was younger and I'm maybe like, up until like two years ago, I wore heels all the time. Yeah.

And now trainers are cool. And I've been like, cool, I'll wear trainers. And now I'm so much more comfortable. Bought a pair of heels the other day. And I don't actually want it anymore. You don't have to want them any. more and then yes and then I realized because I was like well what am I going to wear

what am I going to wear? What to the Brits? We're not invited but what would we wear it? It was fine and then I didn't have to wear them but like what if it were like a wedding and then I was like well I've been to weddings and I've worn like my nice cool flat shoes and like god damn it this is good so I'm going to delete heels but if you want to wear them as a form of self-exam expression. Hun babe you're deleting them babe it's fine

but not for everyone else yeah especially for men men please wear heels ideal so for that to be chilled out what would you I can't think of anything edgy to delete. That's fine. Which is much love by everybody. So I'll just pick something everyone probably has experienced, but we haven't quite called out yet. So how about the feeling of being at a show and watching something, but while you're coming down with something? Do you know that kind of quaggy, horrible feeling where you think I'm meant to be enjoying this purely, but you've got a big glass of orange juice, another big glass of water?

Yeah. And you know that this was a mistake. to do, but you're here. That's nothing you can do about. That's like a fog on you. Those are a fear sometimes that I will, when I'm coming down with something in a show and you're sat quite close to people, aren't you?

And like, that I'll make a noise like, or something, everyone will be like, that's disgusting, you should leave. Or, you know, when you're coughing, you can't stop coughing and you're aware that it's annoying, but you're really enjoying the show. Oh, the worst. I can't stand by.

I always hate those people and then I am that person, and I'm like, why it's it's mean? It's not my fault. Exactly. That's a good one. I want to ask you what you feel, what your opinion is on social media? Like, do you like it?

Do you not like it? What's your kind of vague relationship with it? It's mixed. So I really like being on there. I like thinking of a joke, saying that joke, and then people writing back with normally better jokes off the back of it. That's a very exciting experience. Your Twitter is like excellent.

And it's been excellent for ages. Oh, well, thank you. It's just very funny and it's also like, it's just, it's very light and like, and you're always like, a poca fun. It's a difficult thing that's happening. Everyone's like, there's Andy. Just like making our life smile. Fundamentally like dancing around the volcano. Not trying to do anything about the volcano.

Certainly not getting any closer than he needs to. But he's very much present passing commentary on the funny things the larva is doing. Yeah. He's in a pun on it. Yeah. So, you know, it's not, I wouldn't describe it as much of a contribution to any kind of serious. discussion. But yeah, there we go.

If it's a tiny, tiny lance in the side of the boil of modern life, I guess. Oh my God. Yeah. What a phrase, man. You should follow him on Twitter. Yeah, you should,

at Andrew Hunter M. That's right. Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, you, you tweet, you're more of a tweeter on you. Like, you, than a Instagram or Facebook. TikTok.

I did join Instagram. I'm not joined TikTok. Come on. It's absurd. I'd be arrested if I tried to go on TikTok. You would be the rest. I'd like to see that. It'd be fun.

Yeah, no, I did join Instagram for about five minutes and then I realised it's not for me. Yeah. I don't come across beauty often enough in my day-to-day life to photograph it, and I don't have the impulse to create more beauty for other people. And I don't especially like looking at more beautiful surroundings than me. I feel you.

For all these reasons, Instagram is not the thing. And you're a words man as well. You're a words guy, so like Twitter's perfect for you. If you could just write long captions in Instagram and have that as the picture, And no picture. And no picture. I mean, that would just be a blog, wouldn't it?

Look, Andy, you should start a blog. I don't know if you've heard about them. You've not got enough on. But so the people that respond to you are quite, you don't tend to get a lot of shit, do you? No. Oh, that's joy! That's a really nice thing.

Normally, I mean, people who follow me, either follow me because they listen to the podcast that I'm part of, no such thing as a fish, or they read private eye, or they like ostentatious. I mean, these are all... Positive things. They're all relative.

positively positive. Yeah, they're all quite nice. And so you get people just chipping in with great extra jokes. And they are genuinely are better than the ones I come up with. You know, people take the next logical step in the joke and you find yourself thinking, oh, why didn't I write that? Well, maybe I had to walk so they could run. How kind you are, you know? Yeah, just take them off the team. Absolutely, yeah, yeah. But it is, it is a really, really nice feeling doing that. And weirdly, the times I like it less are sometimes times where I've written something that's been much more successful and then you've you obviously you are reminded of what twitter really is which is this huge

fog of millions and millions of people and you have no control anymore over the thing which has been a bit more successful than usual and then you will have thousands of people piling in telling you that you're wrong or that you've you've fucked up somehow and that so yeah because you've created like a nice little community of people that sort of often feel and act on Twitter the same way as you do like right you know kind of they get you and you get them and it's kind of a nice space to be it You're all friends. It's a coral. It's a bubble.

When that bubble gets burst by, like, it's almost like you burst the skin of it. And then like, lots of all the people come in. You're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. It's nice here. No, this was really nice a second ago. Why are you all ruining it? We were in a very agreeable drawing room. And everyone had a drink or whatever they like.

There's trading some apper-su here and there. And then suddenly the walls have collapsed. They've just pulled out like in an old Hollywood film. Yeah, millions of people are here, just shouting. Yeah. Yes. It's very hard. It is hard.

I mean, I spend most of my time in the just shouting parts. So I really would like to be in this part for a while. And they're kind of like nice, yeah, Andy's World. I just have to spend more time there, really. Andy's town. Yeah, I don't know why, I don't know how it's ended up like that. Because I do, reading my own timeline, I sometimes worry that I'm a very negative person. If I read back over my tweets from the last few weeks, I think, who's this bastard?

Really? Why is you so miserable? You're just being like, yeah, I've got a book out. I mean, the last few weeks I have exclusively been saying I've got a book out, which I think is a special kind of help for my followers. So, you know. But then again, the other really comforting thing is how, how. how little you matter on Twitter,

because I've been tweeting pretty much every day, hey guys, I've got a book out, it's about this. Please, please buy it. It's, you know, I hope you like it and all this stuff. And tweeting bits of good news and stuff that have come in. And then I saw a real life friend the other day, we follow each other on Twitter, and she said, oh, you've, um, have you written a book or something.

I mean, the extent of penetration of her consciousness was so minor. Yeah. Even though she and I are both relatively online, a lot of me, you know, so, so it just goes to show no one else is really paying much attention. See, this is comforting, yes, I find that very comforting. And I think there's kind of, often there's two types of people who will find that really, like, difficult because, okay, well, that means I'm irrelevant or that means I'm not doing enough or whatever. And then there's someone who will go, well, actually, it's kind of the feeling like when you lie on the floor and you look at the stars and you go, oh, I'm actually quite small, so it's all kind of okay. Yeah, it's a bit like that.

Some people I found find that, I love, I look at the stars when I'm like, I look at the stars and I need a bit of a boost. Like, what sort of woman am I? And also, I live in London so you can't see them. But you can't. I go, really like, oh, wow. Yes, I'm so small and all of that, and that helps. But yeah, I know people who that, it freaks them out. And they hate looking at the sky and they hate thinking about the moon.

And I'm like, but why wouldn't you... The scale of it scares you. Whereas, yeah, on social media, if you can do that and you can find comfort in that, and that's actually really good, because people are often too worried about the fact they're not doing enough or they're not big enough or whatever. We say in our first episode about how, like, I just delete tweets all the time because I'm like, oh, it didn't do very well. It's stupid.

and everyone thinks I'm stupid. Oh, I do that? I do. Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you?

See? We're all the same. Did you think you deleted tweets? I just thought you're just constantly just being like just... Turning out bangers. No, no, no. Every day. You'd turn out bangers, though.

You thought you were honking out the chonkers. I did. 24-7. Hunking out the chunkers 24-7. See, but not all of us are hunking out of the chonkers 24-7. How often do you think you delete tweets? Every couple of weeks. I might treat something.

And if it, I mean, that's the other lovely thing is, if you're trying to write comedy, you instantly know whether something's funny enough or not because people will not respond if it's not. Yeah. And so I normally tweet if I think I haven't quite nailed the joke. And I think actually it's not very funny. And then I just do the next best thing,

which is to delete the joke and pretend I never made it. I think that's fine. I wish we could do that in conversations. You know, sometimes when it all goes quiet and then you say something and they're like absolutely not. So we're going to do your three posts. Oh, okay. Now, your three, the first tweet, Gina,

Gina the creep, she knows how to hack into people's Twitter. Yeah, I thought this was impressive, but it's actually kind of fucking weird, is it? Gina can, has figured out of some sort of code or something. I mean, it's very, it's very, it's fine. She can find your tweet very quickly. You've just been scrolling for a day. I've been scrolling, yeah, since 2011 when you're doing Twitter. I've just seen.

So the first tweet you tweeted was. What day was it? Sorry. So it was June 11th, 2011. June, I'm just trying to think if there was anything. In your life at that time. Well, it was a couple of months after Wills and Kate got married, of course. Oh, yes, right.

I was probably still on the come down from that, I imagine. Well, we all. My God, I blew my mind that. So, it was when they got married. Was it? Yeah, yeah. Some more of this excellent knowledge. They said in the press release that was explicitly why they'd chosen that day, of course.

Of course, yeah, I mean, that makes sense. Just to really commemorate it. Also, what did you start with? is a classic Andrew tweet, I think. It says, a QI fact. The word Gatwick literally means farms where goats are kept, something to consider as you're kept waiting for your flight. Ah! Etymology, the joy of etymology in your first tweet. So you joined Twitter and you were very much writing for QI at the time and stuff. Right. So that, look, what a good knowledge of your

brand. Yeah. Because you're the only person that we've spoken to out, ought of all of the guests who had any engagement with their first tweet. You've got a like three retweets and two replies, which in 2011 is basically viral. Like you went viral with your phone was on Twitter there. See, I mean that probably is the point of which I got hooked. Those three retweets, what you see there are the needle going in. The slapping dolphin. Then here we are.

My first tweet, one of my first tweets was I added somebody, a friend and said like Star Trek is gash. That was her first three. But I added a friend and they didn't reply. It's very hard to get engagement on the first tweet. It's so hard to get engagement with people. I think I used to go out with him for a man, maybe that's why. But like, insane. Insane.

Really, really good. And so, and what was, was Andy tweeting regular QI business or was there a bit of just like musings? This doesn't seem to be like a theme with you at first, which I thought it might have been. But you were just, you seemed to have it. You were having like lovely conversations with people. Oh, who would have? Like, I don't know who this.

Daniel Roberts. As usual, your churlishness fills my heart with sorrow and it was supposed to be a larky online playpen. Sigh. You're having all these kind of conversations between your friends, which is really like, it just sounds like you were using social media exactly as it should have been used from the back. Instead of just tweeting, like, what you were doing and what you were eating, which is what most of us were doing at the very beginning. Yeah, because I didn't know how to, did you have an, why did you join Twitter? Like, what would you remember? I think a few of the other QIEL were on Twitter. And if that was in June, it might have been when we were actually filming. the series. Right. So we used to film in the London studios in Waterloo.

And there would be a main gallery where the producer sits and the director and the sound and lights are in different wings. And it's all really, you know, Starsthip Enterprise, cool technology and also properly 70s kit in there. But then there's a little gallery behind that main gallery where the elves would sit where the elves are the researchers for QI. I mean, I just love that so much. That's like a joyful, magical thing.

Yeah, it was like a little gallery in the Muppet show. basically and you just look back and see us kind of flailing around and having a good time and occasionally checking a fact as we were filming a show and so I think they persuaded me to join in that moment because a few of my colleagues were on it it was a fun thing and so you had other people to look at me like oh that's what they're so that's how they're using it we now know that 75% of people use twitter for the news so it's now just the big world's biggest news site yeah that's interesting and that comes from that doesn't come from platforms that comes from like That comes from going onto Twitter and being like,

I now have access to, like, the journalist and the analysts who are writing the pieces, so I can just go there straight instead of waiting for the spin that a paper is going to put on it. So, like, it makes sense that it's a news sign now. Yeah. Whereas then it used to be, I guess, just, like, great voices and a few of the great voices making you laugh. Now it's become far more serious.

Or top facts, like you were churning out. Do you have a tweet that you regret posting? I mean all the ones that are not funny enough I regret those A little moment for the ghost tweets Very sad I regret I don't regret too much

I regret sometimes writing things about my personal life But oh sometimes it's just an ill-judged knobgag And I think I don't think it's seemingly Yeah We are the old judge knobgags Yeah Yeah it's like excellent yeah

So sometimes when I write something a bit, you know... Fruity? A bit fruity? I shouldn't put worse in your mouth because you weren't going to say fruity. Well, we're saying it now. So if there's a fruity tweet out there,

I'll take it out of the punnet, and I'll have a look at it. And even if I'll give it a rinse, and then I might still... Peel it. God, it's getting worse. And then I'll still chuck it away, so normally, although I did find a joke I made

about a diseased pickle that was a very easy knob gag. and that apparently survived the cold because it got enough likes. And there it goes. Even if I don't really like it, doesn't matter because people engaged. I'm afraid so.

A diseased pickle. That's how we all feel. I think it was a New York Times headline and the headline was it looks like a diseased pickle but looks can be deceiving. And my tweet was basically just retweeting that and going,

uh, any more shame ones or should we move on? Okay, so there was, I mean, shame is a bit of a strong word, isn't it? But the best any tweet I ever had did was when, is that right? Yeah. When Donald Trump first visited the UK as president. And I wrote a silly joke which just said,

Dear America, we have your president. If you don't send us $30 million in our mark bills by 20 hundred hours on Friday, we will let him return to you. Yeah, you know, me. Long, very good. So, and that went really nuts because, you know, sometimes through no fault or intention, if we don't think something just catches the wind a bit. And then J.K. Rowling retweeted it.

Oh my God. It felt like a benediction sort of descending. Like a big clouds part of this big Twitter hand came down and gave me a thumbs up. Also, I bet then your mentions went insane. They went for about a week or two afterwards. They were just totally nuts. And that was very, very delightful and fun. And I spent far too long reading all the replies.

But there we go. Including several hundred people saying, I think you mean we'll keep him. You know? Yeah, yeah. I find that quite stressful sometimes because it makes me be like, oh, no one understands jokes and I get quite down about the majority of people not getting. I get it, yeah.

But why did you not like that tweet? Well, I like that one. And then a year later, he came back to the UK. And I sort of retweeted it with a little update saying, well, I've raised the ransom this time. And I just felt that was a bit of a dog returning to his vomit, kind of. Did J.K. Rowling not retweet that? No.

Maybe that's why you're like, oh, this one didn't work because J.K. Rowling didn't retweet it. If that is the level now. Do you honestly think if that had gone like just as viral as the first one, would you feel like that? I still think there would have been a little tang of shame at the heart of it because we're meant to be moving forwards and looking forwards. God, but sometimes it's exhausting making new content all the time.

I agree, I agree. Fresh content. It's so hard to forge. Forge. Thank you. Smelt. Smelt. Smelt. You feel like you're constantly smelting.

And I get very recently, have been very, like, overwhelmed by how much... Like, you just said then, you tweet pretty much every day. I probably tweet like twice a week. I'm like, this? Do you want this? But isn't it interesting how you can make a joke that goes so well and everyone loves it? And then when you retweet it, you're like, yeah, but I already tweeted that. Yeah, but people are...

Comedians are going and telling jokes, the same jokes in different venues. True. So, but why is that different? But it makes you feel like you should better every time. Yeah, because other people are... I can do better than that. I've already tweeted that. Yeah, but it's not funny.

New people are probably seeing it as well. Your job, you were constantly coming up with things and like new, like, you know, for all of your writing jobs that you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's weird. And, you know, private eye sometimes has jokes that are 50 or 60 years old and that's fine. Yeah, that's still funny. They're great, yeah.

So why is it, I don't know, I do sometimes see other comedians and I'll name no names here who retweet former gags of theirs. And I always look a bit down my nose at those. Understood. Yeah. those tweets, I think, come along now, my friend. Come along now, my friend. We've eaten this pasty once before and it was very, very yummy that time, but now it's a little cold.

Oh, that's a good analogy. It's been in your mouth. It's already been in your mouth. Don't spit it back out. No, exactly. Well, to end on a high, well, end on a high because we haven't finished, but like, do a bit of high. Yeah, to regain some momentum. Some momentum after we've completely dropped off edge of a cliff there. What tweets are you proud of? Well, as I think I've made clear, the one that JK Rowling signalled that she liked.

And yeah, pride is another weird one because, again, I treat it as such a, not a job, but it is, it's just a thing every day that it's not, the ones I'm really proud of are the ones where you think of something and you write it as quickly as you can because you think, oh, I really hope no one else has thought of this. And then, and those are so satisfying. And then when, if they take off or enough people, if they prompt lots of different reactions, that's when I'm just. sitting for the next half an hour after posting the tweet, reading people's replies and thinking, oh my God, this is so much fun. Yes. Because it's like you're in a writer's room, basically. It really feels like that.

So there was one which was, I think it was just about, Boris hadn't become Prime Minister yet, but it was looking like a dead cert. And I read a thing, and again, these are all just gags. But it was, to prove that Boris Johnson is fit to be Prime Minister, please join my rally today. We meet at noon in the middle of the Garden Bridge. So, yeah, Garden Bridge. For anyone who wasn't following the Garden Bridge story, which is reasonable. It didn't, it's not a real bridge.

It was one of these mad fucking nonsense plans that he just screams every so often. It was expensive. Am I saying, like, they also pumped money into it before, like, yeah, and it didn't even work. I think it might have been 30 or 40 million quid. Yeah, and it didn't even out. Sort of feasibility studies and all of this stuff. And then it, you know, didn't happen, fell through as well. So anyway, but that.

That was, so I wrote that, and I even remember where I was when I was walking. I was on a long walk through London just from A to B, and I just thought of that. Banged it out. And then, you know, you sort of have a little peek a few minutes later. Yeah, to see, because you know the rate, because if it's like, I've got, like, after five minutes, if I've got 20 likes, I am flying. Right, exactly, yeah, yeah. And if there's one, we're in delete territory because it's like, well, it hasn't been caught up immediately.

And because you know how this moves, and you also know the algorithm. And if it's not responding in the first five minutes, you know it's probably not going to. Right. Anyway, go on. And so people had taken it and run with it, and people were applying saying, my flight's a bit delayed, but I should be flying into the Boris airport quite soon. Another one of his mad plans. And then someone else saying, well, I'm trying to get the Boris bridge over from Northern Ireland.

You know, all the Boris, I'm coming in on a zipline. All these stupid things that Boris had proposed or being caught up in, all of these things, they all just said, everyone just kind of piled in. And it became this lovely fiesta of replies. And when people write saying the replies to this are great, that's almost nicer than this is a great tweet because you've started a thing

rather than you've just like yeah people are just responding to one tweet when you look at I always think the test of a person or like a test of someone's work is when you like look at the person okay it could be anyone it could be like journalist whatever

let's take Peirz Morgan an example because he is the most obvious examples and you look about the company they keep so like who's in their comment who's retweeting them and stuff you get a really good idea of what the community is they've created and what that community feels like

it's like you've created the nicest community You're basically in a writer's room online I think that's very rare. And that is not so like, look, I've mentioned it before, I'll mention it again, I did one tweet, one tweet that went viral, it was about bread, one tweet.

And it was about bread, and it was about how bread does not. Come, give it to us, yeah. I've already read it out on the podcast, but, right, so basically it was about how, it's lovely how, it's lovely how, when, it's something like, it's lovely how,

when you buy some bread, you've got to eat it within three days, bread for sandwiches, bread for, the morning, bread for toast, make bread as a hat. make a bread friend called bread and watch bread with it or something. And so it's a bit silly.

But then no one like, no one like picked it up and round with it. Everyone was just like freeze your bread. And I was like, oh what? It went viral for all the bread things. Like I want you to come up with other things we could make out of bread. Let's do some bread puns. Let's riff, guys. Riff with me.

Rift. And then no. And it's because I haven't created like a community. I just kind of like tweet out silly things. Sometimes they get picked up sometimes they don't. But yeah, you've really like, you know your audience really well. Like, that is a very, if I used to work in social media and higher influences and advertising, like I worked as a social media manager and we did full scale campaigns and like,

that is such a sign of understanding the people that are around you. That's why you get so much engagement and that's why like all the things you've done as well. Like, how has social media been for your book? I imagine it's been really helpful because those people have been with you for a long time. Yeah. And also like you play together. Like you have a laugh together. They feel like they know you.

So that really helps when you start to do all the things as well. I think so, yeah. It's made me feel a bit less bad about self-compliant. promotion which is you know people can feel very vexed or conflicted about it and i decided to i've kind of made a conscious decision not to be too worried about that because i've loved the process of writing the book and now i'm loving telling people about it and and saying i think this is a cracking book and i hope you like it if you decide to pick it up and i hope you do so that has been it is cracking thank you i'm really i haven't said that but i will um but it that has been really

really fun and just telling people about the different stages of it is really interesting because I'm not claiming it's kind of education about publishing or anything but it's very interesting the journey from you know a word document to something in a shop yeah what's so nice is that your audience have been like yeah we want to see Andy right yeah yeah they've not been like sorry I don't understand what like what does this mean for your brand because like it's so strong like you're just a good writer and people are like really like the way you write your tweets So they're like, I'll read more of those stuck together. It makes you feel good, does it?

About social media when you have a community like that. Like it makes me feel really happy to hear about people riffing on jokes and stuff when we decide I see it, which is activism and like, why have you got plastic bugs in your house? And you're like, I just want to go to sleep. So, like, it makes me feel happy and good about the world. So funny. But that's such a thing.

I don't do, yeah, I sort of don't write enough activism tweets. I don't have to. I don't write many. That's the thing. I occasionally tweet about climate related things, and that's partly because the book is climate related, and I'm reading a lot more about it. But you do do that by, through jokes.

You know what I mean? There are different ways that you can, like, discuss or work through things like Trump and the ridiculous selection that we had and all of that through kind of like light humour, and then that's the way of doing it. That's one way of doing anyway. Yeah, because it can feel, feel completely trivial in the bad sense of the word.

It can feel that you're not doing anything at all and that we are all just talking to each other. Echo Chamber, yeah. And actually, there's a book that's about to come out in America, which I'm really looking forward to. It's about the difference between political hobbyism, which is normally something done by people, often men, weirdly, in the middle classes who are on Twitter and on news websites for two or three hours a day, that it is so interesting to them and they follow it all. But the difference between doing that and the actual process of politics, which is gaining power in order to carry out the ideas that you've had and that you think are

important, saying that this latter thing, the book's thesis is that this latter thing is the more important thing. It makes you, firstly, makes you more empowered. And secondly, it is more important for your local community. It will have more effect. Or an impact. Tweeting some stuff out. You're organising one letter pick a year is more important than you spending two hours a day reading the news.

It'll make you feel better probably too. So I think with Twitter there is a risk that I'm just doing the former thing. And I don't have a good answer to that apart from to try and balance it out with a bit more engagement. I've been trying to work out what I want to do. And also, let's be honest as well, when we think about societal issues like climate change, politics or whatever. I think, I mean, I've worked in this space talking about this for a long time and I think we always think, okay, I have to get out there and like, change the law or like go and do a list pick or whatever. But telling, talking about those issues,

like you've said, you touched on it in the book, it's part of, there's a theme about climate change in the book, right? So touching on that issue in a storytelling narrative is actually how you open up people's minds and, like hearts to ideas. That's true. Stories really open up people to things in a way that maybe you're going outside and being like, let's do something Claremontage, maybe wouldn't, because they might not expect that from you, but in a story, it'll make them go, oh, that's interesting, we'll look into that again. Everyone's got, like, their own delivery system. Delivery system, or just, as well as I'm going to say, like, special powers.

Oh, why we talk differently. Gorge. They've got their own special powers, and I don't think we should feel bad that, you know, you're very, very good at writing witticisms on Twitter, that that is not enough. Like, you know, you stick to the things that you're good at, and storytelling is a super powerful way to get to some of those issues. We're going to play follow-unfollow-block. Oh, this is good.

This is where it's basically, it's not Shag Marikil and I'll say it's every single time. But it is, in a way. Okay. So I'm going to pick, so I've given you, I'm going to give you three people. Okay, okay, and you just tell me whether you would follow, who would you, who would, who you would follow, who would you, who would you, like, fully block. And why? Okay, are you picking things, and you do you have expectations of what I'm going to answer? Absolutely not.

all. I'm making it hard for you, but we don't know. You haven't picked the Dalai Lama. No, I've actually picked, which could be quite lame, because you could be like, I actually don't know two of them or any of them. I just went off the three authors that gave you wonderful quotes for your book. So I've picked Stephen Frye, who loved the book, Harlan Coben, who loved the book, and Lee Child.

Right. And I want you to tell me he. And I've also written a note underneath. And I was never going to say this, absolute titans of the literary world. What have I written that? You're not wrong. I mean, I'm not wrong. They're all great.

Read them all. But, yeah, so who would you follow on fellow and block out of those three? So the question you are effectively asking me is which two-thirds of the most influential supporters I've managed to win? After years of painstaking effort, would I like to alienate? On follow and block. Right, okay, great. It's not an easy podcast. No, it's not.

But we did, we had to do our parents, and I blocked mom. I blocked dad. They gave us life. But, like, you, you know, you, you know, you. You can, maybe one of them will be more understanding about it in which case you could unfollow them. You know, I'm leaving it up to you. Okay, okay.

Who are you closest to out of the three? Fry. Frye. Yeah, yeah. The Fry, and I'm not close to him. Good, good, good. But I've met Fry on a non-zero number of occasions, which is more than I could say for Harlan, Koebun or Lee Child.

Understood, right? I've read their stuff, but I have not ever met them. Oh, well, yeah. Wonderful. So, oh, God, there's really, really. tricky. I mean, Frye tweets interesting stuff about the cricket sometimes, so I'm loath to unfollow what's certainly to block that.

Harlan Coburn's got a very nice dog. He posts about. And Lee Child, Leachold is at Lee Child Reacher. Oh, he does the Jack Reacher. Yeah, yeah, he's written 21 of these. He has just announced... I know. In 21 years.

Fuck. I know. What am I doing? Right, go on. Just got bash out of Jackie Reacher. Yeah. Yeah. But he has just announced he is slightly stepping away from Reacher. In fact, he is handing over the character. I don't know you could do this, to his own brother.

What? So the first novel, the next novel in the Jack Reacher series is going to be by, I can't remember the name of his brother. It might be Peter Child. It's another of the child siblings. Block him. Block him. Well, if he's going to be doing that last of that, then maybe I should, maybe I should block.

And also, I know I'm going to be seeing him reviewed everywhere anyway. Yeah. Well, you can block, you can block Lee and just start following Peter. Great point. And I'll get the same stuff through that. He'll probably retweet a bit of Lee. Can you get in? Okay, well, all right, that feels like the Band-Aid completely ripped off.

And now we're just reduced to follow what I'm following. Yeah. Gosh, do I want dogs, do I want dog pictures or cricket updates? Ooh, that's the really thorny one. I think I'm going to have to stay with following Frye just because. Sort of like a sweet dog himself, isn't he? Like a lovely dog, like a lovely puppy. So I think that's fine.

And also his, I find his bio very funny. What's his bio? It's Lord of Something, Prince of Something, Duke of Swimware blogger. It's just a nice, it's just a good, silly. Solid joke, yeah. So for that reason, and I have to stress, that reason alone, I've made the choices that I've settled on. Okay, best of not getting quotes for your next book. Oh, God.

Because of course Harlan Coven and Lee Child will be listening to our podcast because they are absolute titans of the literary world. I mean, thank you so much, Andy. Thank you, Andy, for coming. This has been so much fun. It's been lovely to me. You're a genius.

Going by his book, the last day, if in the intro and also in the podcast itself, I haven't convinced you, then just be convinced, okay? I don't know what more I can tell you than you'll love it. bit. And you would be able to stop reading it. I was reading it until 3 in the morning. This morning. I'd love a book like that. Oh, it's so good. And follow him at Andy Hunter M. And also for other bits that you haven't heard in the podcast, do go to our Instagram at Might Delete Later pod, where we will have some, like, fun behind the scenes clips. You know the business. And live,

laugh, love. Oh my God, always live laugh, love. Also, remember, social media isn't everything. It's meant to be fun. People change. Things change. And if you really, really don't like Like yourself, you can just do an Andrew and delete later. Just do an Andrew. Thanks, Andy. Thank you. Bye.