Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd with John Lloyd

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

This week's book guest is The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd.Sara and Cariad are joined by legendary director, producer and writer, John Lloyd. John is the BAFTA, Emmy and Grammy award-winning creator of such shows as Spitting Image, Not The Nine o'Clock News, Blackadder and QI. In this episode they discuss quizzes, friendship, toilet seats, Sweden and Judi Dench.Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!The Meaning of Liff is 42 by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd is available here.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclubTickets for Sara's tour show I Am A Strange Gloop are available to buy from sarapascoe.co.ukCariad's children's book Where Did She Go? is out here now. Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Pasco. And I'm Carriead Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read. We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. Which is why we created the Weirdo's Book Club. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. Each week we're joined by amazing comedian guests and writer guests to discuss some wonderfully and crucially weird books, writing, reading and just generally being a weirdo. You don't even need to have read the books to join in. It will be a really interesting, wide-ranging conversation and maybe you'll want to read the book afterwards. We will share all the upcoming. books we're going to be discussing on our Instagram, Sarah and Carriads, Weirdo's Book Club. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. It's the last episode of the series. Thank you so much for reading or just listening along with this series. We've had such an amazing time and we have loved all your listeners suggestions and comments on the Instagram and the Patreon. Thank you. And in real life, there's a woman who shouted at me when she ran past. I loved it. Yes, I've had that a couple of times as well. Thank you. We'll be taking a break just to catch up with our reading pile, but remember you can sign up to our Patreon for some extra bits while we're away. Yes, it's an amazing community of bookworms there who can give you weird and wonderful book suggestions and chats as well. And it's just a great way to support the show, to be honest, even if you don't want the extra content.

It's just a nice way to help us. Yeah, that's lovely. It's like slip in a fibre into our purse. And we're grateful for it. Please do follow us on Instagram at Sarah and Carrieads Weirdo's Book Club and send us your suggestions of book recommendations for future series. But for now, to see us out this week's book game. The Best is The Meaning of Lift by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd. What's it about? It's a dictionary of things there should have been words for, but there wasn't. What qualifies it for the Weirdo's Book Club?

Well, all of the words are existing place names. In this episode, we discuss quizzes, friendship, toilet seats, Sweden, and Judy Dench. And joining us this week is John Lloyd himself. John is a phenomenon, the creator of QI, not the 9 o'clock news, Blackadder, and basically every iconic comedy show you can think of. Hello! Welcome to the show, John Lloyd. How the tables have turned.

Yes. We booked you. We used to be on your shows. Yeah, we are these few days. And now you are our guest. We're very, very privileged to have you here. I'm so honoured. No, we're honoured.

I'm an humbled. Thank you. Thank you. You feel like we've got a proper guest. A proper guest. What do you mean by that? Like a grown-up. I feel like a grown-ups here.

An adult. Yeah. Yeah. But maybe that's... Your posture's improved. I know, I know, because I feel like the teachers here. But maybe that's not fair. Oh, Mr. Lloyd.

My father. Do you feel like a growing up, John? Well, Richard Curtis used to call me the headmaster, which I was a bit hurtful. Oh. No, you have a bit of a vibe of authority. Oh, do I? That's nice. It's the tie. It's the tie. Do you ever have that thing?

You know, like, was it the swan analogy where your legs are under the water, but no one can see it. You're sort of gliding around. Yeah, you give a bit of that. Do you think that for you? Well, I have two modes, really, Sarah, one is I have no idea. I don't know what to do. This is an intractable problem. And then the other is, oh, no, shut up.

This is what we're doing. Yeah. No, you can speak to a sign. No, no, no, I've got it. Yeah. That's what we can, that's what I can sense. There's a vibe that if you did, if an idea came to you, you'd be able to execute the idea.

Whereas some people give off, there'll never be an idea. I'll just be pissing around in the corner while chaos is happening. But you give up an energy of, no, no, I might be able to solve this. I like that. Yeah, I like that. Shut up. We're doing this. Yeah.

But that's, it's rare because so much of comedy, like you said, is like the jester of like, oh, who knows. Yeah. It's nice to have a bit of. It's why I've never been asked to sit on a board. I've never been a school governor. I've never, you know, because at first three meetings, I go, I don't know why they've asked me.

And then the fourth meeting, excuse me, no, no. Shut up, all of you. Shut up. Get rid of the GCSEs. Yeah, done. That one's enjoying them. Yeah. I think that's good.

Do you think that makes a good producer? Well, I think it may sound an odd thing, but producing is a very humble job. I don't have an ego at work. I'm there to help everybody else be as good as they can. And of course, it's annoying if you say this isn't. good enough. It's not because it's my idea, it's because I know how good

you are, because you were better than this yesterday, let's help you be that good today. And the other thing is that ideas, you know, I haven't taken credit for an idea for 30 years because they're not yours. They arrive, don't they? They arrive from

the sky. If you ever hear a songwriter talking about this, Noel Gallagher on Desert Unders saying, there's a man with a bucket of songs in the sky and he just pours them into my head. Yeah. And that's what I feel is like, so when was it, day before yesterday, potentially very sticky meeting with a lot of people and my lawyer had to come along. And, you know, the lawyers, you know, with all the detail, all this kind of thing. And you suddenly, I know what to do.

Fine. It's a one sentence thing. Yeah, yeah. And it's very exciting. You go to the meeting and suddenly everyone's very happy and then they stop being tense and the problem solved in five minutes. It was really exciting. Oh, that's great. But it's not my credit, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Creative people talk about, like you say with Noel Gallagher, the muse. Yeah. It being a sort of, well, I guess, like the union idea of collective consciousness. Yeah. But most producers aren't that generous. They would definitely say, but then it was my idea. I saved it.

It was me, guys. It was me who saved it. Yeah. But we're here to talk about the amazing, the meaning of life is 42. Which is very meaningful. It's very meaningful. Because the meaning of life is 42 in the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. I know that everyone listening already knows that.

Yeah, but just in case. But in case you're thinking, the 40th anniversary, surely that's a big one. No, 42. Yeah, there have been three actually. There's a deeper meaning of lift that's folded into this. Oh, I see. And there's another one called afterliff, which John Cantor and I wrote, as a sort of tribute to Douglas, which sold, I think, no copies.

But it's actually, it's great the new one because it's all up to date. So it's got, for example, Battlesmere. So we should explain really what the book is, shouldn't it? Yeah, yeah. So the idea is a dictionary of things there should be words for, but aren't. Yeah. Common feelings or, you know, objects that you know, you're very familiar with, but which there are no names for, and all the words themselves are recycled place names.

So, for example, Kettering. Yes. In Northampt,shire. Kettering is the marks left on your bottom and thighs after sitting sunbathing on a wicker-work chair. I love that one. Aberystwis, Swiss. Yeah. So beautiful.

Aboriswis. I mean, a nostalgic yearning, which is in itself more pleasant than the thing being yearned for. So, but I was going to ask you, I mean, 42 years ago, does it feel like 42 years? No. Yeah. How long does it feel? It's amazing that one can fit 42 years into one's life quite comfortably. Yeah, yeah.

I never thought I'd make 40, to be honest. So I'm very grateful. Yeah. For any reason, I'll just... For being alive. You identified being as a young person. Was there a reason you didn't think you were going to make 40? I didn't look after myself at all.

You know, living high on the hog and probably drinking too much. And I wasn't a druggie, but... Yeah. And of course, the work. You know, I worked the 80s, for example. Yeah, I just worked every single weekend. I missed everybody's weddings, you know. I did Spitting Image Blackadder and Not the 9 o'clock news in 10 years

and all the books associated with them and all the other stuff. And it was mad. You know, I was two hours. benight most of the time. So, John, what was that? Was there just not anyone else who wanted to do comedy? Or are you so much better than everyone else? Yeah, why?

Because also even that list of, you know, we would do a separate intro for you when you're not here. We will say what you've done. But if people don't know, like, your comedy CV is unbelievable, like the shows that you were involved in. Those are like some of the hugest shows of that decade. Like, yeah, how come people would make it? Were you just so, did you just feel like I've just got so much to say?

Well, it's like it's not like it's a one-man show. I'm not an author of all. But still, you're involved. My thing is that my only talent is knowing what's good. So you're good, you're good. This is a great line. That's it. And because I've only ever had one job and I was very, very young when I got it

and I was told, do stuff you like. So that's what I've stuck to. So it's not me. Yeah. I'm just allowing other people who are talented to have their go. And I'll fight, tooth and nail for them. But I bet there's lots of other people who, who, were around at that time,

who don't have that backlog that you do, backstory that you do. Do you know what you mean? Like, you're being very humble is what I mean. You're like, I'm not that humble. Okay.

Listen, I've won more BAFTAs than anyone in the world except Dame Judy Dench. Wow, you and Dench? Yeah. They should give, Des that mean every year

before the nominations, just sort of WhatsApping each other. Well, it's been a few years. Stephen's got another one. There's only, there's a strange reason for it is because in 1990, Bafda decided to have an advertising awards.

They've never done it before or since. I think they were very embarrassed that they'd done it. But it's a great way to make money because each agency takes a huge table for thousands of pounds. Every ad that is presented, you know, it costs you 50 quid to enter and so on. They made a fortune. And it happened to be,

1992 had been a good year for me, Berkeley Card and Red Rocksider with those years. Famous Boddington's ad. And I won six BAFTAs on the same night. It was at the Royal Albert Hall. By the fourth one, people were starting to mutter. And by the fifth one, they were out booing. No, not him again, no!

It was fantastic night. And I gave them all away because I was so happy. I just gave them to the clients or the, you know, the talent. Yeah, because we interviewed Alan Davis recently about his brilliant book, White Males stand-up. And there's a whole section in that about the adverts that you worked on together, the Abbey National Adverts. Yeah, that's how I met him.

Yeah. Which I didn't, I think I didn't know that you. you had been involved in those adverts. No. Because, you know, you were in my head as a kid back then it was not that. So they never got to use blackout. Yeah. I didn't realize.

I remember knowing the adverts and thinking they were funny, but not knowing that they've got funny people to do those things. Is the Boddington's one with the ice cream van? No, it's... What's the Boddington's advert? It's a young woman. It's in a very cool flat. Like, it looks like a New York loft.

Yeah. And she's putting on her face cream. and then you see that what she's putting on is the foam from the beer and Boddington's the cream of Manchester and then in comes her boyfriend who's this looks like James Bond is in a dinner jacket

and there's a swan on the bed you know that's something you have swan loire guy in a dint jacket comes and he goes he kisses her on the neck and he goes e you smell gorgeous tonight pet I remember those ones that was very good and the thing is that those

just to show how not humble I am I mean, one thing that I was very good at was directing ads, and that is something where you, as the direct, you have control over every single frame. Yeah, yeah. And I like the miniature. I've never done a perfect half hour, not near, but I've done some ads. I can't see any faults in them, really. Yeah.

Wow. Let's go back to 1983 when the original meaning of Lyft was created. So it came about from your friendship with Douglas Adams. So tell us what was the backstory to the meaning of Lyft becoming a book and moving from something that you and Douglas were just being silly with each other. Well, as is probably known, Douglas got stuck four episodes

into the original H-Iker's radio show and asked me if I'd help because I was his best friend. We'd shared flats together, we wrote a lot together. Anyway, he got stuck four episodes in and he said, obviously, it's not going to go anywhere. It's just a little radio show,

but if it does, we'll do the next series together. So great. So we knocked the two episodes off in a moment. That's where 42 comes from. It was one of the last two in this series. Oh, yeah. And it was just a random number. You know, Douglas said, oh, we used to say 42 is the funniest of the two-figure numbers.

It was just pulled out of the sky, really. Yeah. Anyway, when it started to go, it went mad. It had reviews and all the papers. Six publishers who were pursuing this. And he thought the better of it and sack me. So that was a bit of a blow. You say this in your foreword.

This isn't like a work thing. We've all had work things where we got let go, or we're going somewhere else, or we didn't love your draft. And that in itself is quite hurtful. But if it's an existing friendship, that's a much deeper sort of falling out when someone goes, my thing's really successful now. I don't need you anymore. And I called you in when it wasn't successful.

It happens to me a lot, Sarah. Does it? Yeah, it's happened to be probably 10 times with people I've been very close to. And you mentioned perspicaciously, Carriad, as you are, that I'm a sort of daddy, father-figure headmaster type thing. And that's the way people see me. Yeah. And they feel they want to get out from out of my shadow.

It's like, okay, I've got it. And also that person doesn't have feelings. That's the other thing. You know what I mean? No, no. The authority figure doesn't do. No, because they know, if I'm in a panic, I'll ask them, but I can't think of them as being vulnerable because that will affect my safety.

So you have to be fine, solid, you're the rock that you said, I can be free off because I've grown up, but you're not thinking, oh, that person might be sad that I said, you're not working on it. It's axiomatic. Nobody thanks the producer, not. Yeah. They just don't. The director, wow, what a cool dude.

Look at that shot. Wow. John, this is really sad. I feel like we needed an Esther Perel episode. Do you want to be happy or do you want to be right? No, but I'm cool about it. It's like it's a sort of private pleasure that you think, I know people hate me and they're fed up with me saying no and you can't and it's too long.

But privately, you know, if I wasn't here, it wouldn't be as good. Yeah, yeah. So you know, let's think, again, it's very authority figure, isn't it? Like, it's parental. Like, you're not always the fun person, but you are doing a very important job of protecting someone from something. So you get things started. But let's go back to you and Douglas. So because you did, that wasn't the end of your working relationship.

Yeah, no, no, no. Okay, so I'm saying disaster. a gift, okay, because you have terrible things happen. But actually, usually you look back 30 years later, you think, thank God that happened. Thank God I didn't marry that person. If I hadn't been fired from that. Yeah, yeah. Oh, we've got plenty of those. Yeah, yeah. But so I've said, and Doug, I was very, very close to Douglas as you can get. And I have, of course, to be grateful to him because I'm quite lazy. I'd have always been the guy who works with Douglas. Who's the guy? I mean, there's a guy, for example, you probably didn't even know this as a guy who worked with Terry Pratchett for 30 years.

Wow, no, I didn't know that, yeah. Lovely guy. Yeah. Doesn't get any credit really. Because he's not the big name. No. And there's a guy. So that book, for example, used to be a little tiny book like a prayer book.

Yeah. Just the title and our names. And quite often, especially in advertising, the creatives would say, do you know a book called The Meaning of Live? Wow. So, yeah, I wrote it. and they go, you didn't. And they pull out, that used to fit in a pocket.

Wow. And there's my name. They didn't notice. They had this book for 20 years. Wow. And they never noticed. And it's weird. No, not that I'm grand about it.

Lloyd is such a strong surname. So that's weird that they didn't notice that. It's very strong. Absolutely. I was talking about Welsh surnames. Ponte Bodkin. Do you know what that is? No.

That's in Flintshire in Wales. Okay. Ponte Bodkin is the stance adopted by a seaside comedian, tells you the punchline is imminent. Oh, lovely, yeah. You can see that shape. Yeah. They're such great one-liners.

You know, a henny is the way people stand when examining other people's bookshelves. Oh, heny, yeah. I like the noise. There was one about the noise that, um, nazing. The rather unconvincing noises of pretended interest, which an adult has to make when bought a small, dull object for admiration by a child. I have to do it. Tell me again what the word is.

Nazing. I have to do so much nazing at the moment Oh wow It is a fork, yeah And where did you get it from? The draw Yeah, with all the other forks Wow

Okay I'm worried I'm too far the other way You're too encouraging I just think my kids are geniuses Theodore did two drawings at nursery yesterday So Albi's just died of nursery He's very upset

So he did two drawings When he went back to his own room One of Albi crying One of Alby not crying They're so good I want to start ringing round Like the collectors to go like, watch this kid.

Harry, my son, used to ask these questions all the time where, you know, I used to think I knew stuff when I was, you know, like 38. I thought, yeah, I've done a few things. Yeah. But children come along, you think, I don't know idea. I know, I know. Harry's to say, Dad, does God look after burglars? Why is there something and not nothing?

Yeah. I mean, what? Leibnitz had that idea in the 17th century. That's what's so amazing about spending time with children as you go. This is the kind of stuff they're debating in Corpus Christi at university. Yeah. This is... Get a bunch of five-year-olds.

Little brain is the questioning that's the important thing, isn't it? But you have kept that. Like, to be able to write this book of these made-up meanings, it's keeping that questioning and that observing and that silliness of a child. And disobeying rules. The word isn't a word because Samuel Johnson wrote it down. Yeah, yeah. It's because humans have thoughts and we have to...

create symbols to go with them. But it started as a game, is that right? You and Douglas just on holiday. So he sacked me from the show. We had been jointly commissioned to write a book together. And we booked a month on the wrong side of Corfu. It's now very touristy, but it wasn't then. It was just seaweed with, you know,

one tavernor and a church and three little villas. We booked this holiday to write the book. and I have been fired, but I didn't have been money. You know, we were penniless radio producers. So I went anyway, and Douglas would sit up on the terrace in his writer's hat, you know, and his huge typewriter composing. And after about 11, 15, I can't do this. It's too difficult.

Because writing a novel from scratch is not an easy thing to do, you know? So he'd come down to the bar and we'd play games. And one of the ones we really like doing was there's a marvellous men. memory trick, how many things, random objects you think you can remember in a list, we would try and trick each other to make them very difficult. So if I said to you, for example, Bodmin, Lamlash, Caboon, Edgebaston, Shermer's, Nad, Jeffers, Bullteens, Ard Cronian, Ludlow. Yeah, I've got one. I've got Bodmin. That's it. Lab lash. But that's the thing. The trick to do it is you connect them, as you say. You can make them physical and then you lock them together

in some odd way. And Douglas and I got up to do it. to 250 we could do it in a row to the full afternoon. It's like the memory palace thing. Yeah, exactly like that. And the other game we used to play, there was a game that his old English teacher at school used to do it, you know,

a free period or at the end of term for fun. So boys, what do you think an Ely is? What do you think Epping might be? Epping sounds like it's something. So as you know, an Ely is the first tiniest inkling that something somewhere has gone terribly wrong. Producers must get Ely's word. I'm having an Ely.

And Wembley is the hideous moment of confirmation that the disaster of presage by the Ely has finally come to pass. Oh, Wembley! Nearby Ely, you've got Royston, and I love Royston, because that's someone, I think, singing behind you at church, is it?

And I can see Royston, the man behind you in church who sings with terrific gusto almost three quarters of a tone off the note. I love those guys. You love him. You need them. So, because it's 42 years old,

some of these definitions, and I sort of love it, because it does date it a little bit. Yes. I love Kurdistan, because Kurdistan is that. hard stare given by a husband to his wife when he notices a sharp increase in the number of times he answers the phone to be told, sorry, wrong number.

Oh. Which is such a landline problem. Yeah, the landline problem. You won't realise anymore with mobile phones that it used to, it could have been your other half sometimes, and that would have been the only way for your paramour to contact you. And try explaining landlines to children right now. It's like talking about horses and carriages. Why would you have a landline?

But they still have as toys as toddlers. They love them as toys. So they understand that their phones and you think, how do you know? Because when they pick them up, you know, there's little like Fisher Price ones with the dial. When they pick them up, they say, hello, do you think, how do you know that? There's a good one that's very apt for us, which is a bali cumber, one of the six half-read books lying somewhere in your bed. That's a good one for us and our listeners. Because of the people we were, Douglas and I, there are lots of book things.

Beppu is the triumphant slamming of the book on the last page. Yes. Bepoo. Bepoo. And you're like, done. Yeah. That the book gives you like one clap. Well, done.

You finished me. Yeah. I'm finished. My daughter is saying the other day we're in the kitchen doing something. I mean, she had Peoria. The fear of peeling too few potatoes. Oh. That's very good.

You look at them and you think, is that enough? Is it enough? And I read a lovely, always do a couple more. Yeah, talk a couple more. Yeah. I read a nice quote. I don't know if it was you or Douglas. You've never regretted having extra potatoes.

That's why I always say to my husband. Just chuck if you. Ever. There's a nice quote from the top, when the first in Night 8-A-3 that you said, which I thought was so lovely, that everybody experiences these things, but because there isn't language,

you feel alone. Yeah. So you, the woking one, isn't it? So, like, we all walk into the kitchen and think, oh, why'd I come in here? But you think it's just you, because there's not a word for it.

And as soon as you give it a word, that you're telling people, oh, I also woking. Well, the other day I did, the thing with Amanda Anucci, which was about climate change. And Sweden has all of these words that we,

don't have, which shows how they're thinking about it more often. So they have a word for the guilt you feel when flying. Oh. Or they have a word for people who don't post on social media the fact that they're flying. They're pretending that they're flying in greener ways. They've got a word for the smugness you feel when you've taken longer to get somewhere. That's amazing. You're discussing this more within yourself.

But also, Sweden doesn't have a lot of words for grief. They really struggle. They don't have a phrase for, I'm sorry for your loss. Maybe they're not sorry. They don't talk about deaf, but it's not interesting, they don't talk about death. That's so good, Carrie, because there's a dolly drop link here. Shoebriness, do you know what that is? Oh, yes, I've read that someone.

It's the vague, uncomfortable feeling you get from sitting on a seat still warm from somebody else's bottom. Yes, yeah, especially on the tube. I was reading an academic journal the other day, and there it was, shoebriness. Because it's an example of, in 1973, an American anthropologist went to study culture in Tahiti. And he was astonished to find, like the Swedes, they have no concept of grief. Oh, wow.

So when they lose a loved one, they get angry or they get sick, but they don't know how to grieve because they don't have the concept. And he's referencing chubriness because if you've never heard the word before, you just think it must be me. Yeah, yeah.

You know the word. You're more likely to get it. So all your listeners would be, oh, no, I've got chubrinas again. Yeah, shubrinners. So nice, but like you said, attaching words to feelings that as humans can, then we all have a shared language. It could be a funny or flippant thing, but actually it can be a very meaningful.

Yeah, yeah. Deep. Also, you can imagine when we're, so we did it, wrote it in two ways. We'd either get lists of get a gazetteer and write down all the silly words that we thought might be useful. Or we'd think of things that had happened that there wasn't a word for. And then we'd try and put them together. It was quite embarrassing. You say, Douglas, you know the thing when you're in the loo? And he goes, no.

No, no, no, I've never had that. I never do that. No, I don't know. No, no, no. But a part of the reason it's so effective some of the words is because you often think, I thought I was the only person that happened to. Delaware, the hideous stuff on the shelves of a rented house. Every family has these sorts of words, don't it?

You in your family, you have words for parts of the body or certain ways to cook eggs that is a little... My mom has this thing which everything, she is dyslexic, that everything becomes completely the wrong word. So she has really bad hay fever, and she used to take the brand Claritin, but she just couldn't remember the word for Claritin. So it became San Quentin,

and then it became your Quentin Tarantino, and now it's Mataritinos, where's my Tarantinos? But trying to explain how she got there, it makes no sense. But if she says, where's my Tarantinos or where's my Quentins? I'm like, they're in that drawer.

And she can't say ibuprofen, so it's become ibufrin, and now it's just friffin. Is there more dyslexia in Wales? She's from Essex? Oh, is she? That's the Essex side. Yeah, yeah, sadly, Wales can have no blame for that.

That's pure Essex. I think it's that's like brain thinking. But also it's James Joyce, it's Beckett, it's sound dissent. The people who you're communicating with know exactly what you mean. It's only when you don't have to translate it to somebody else. Yeah, exactly. She'll tell me to take about Tamaninos. Don't forget to take your Quentin's.

if I'm going to a house with a cat. Yeah. Which is what, you know, like rhyming slang and backwards slang and all those kind of things. I like it. Also, it feels very connected, doesn't it? If you are part of a secret language, which is also what the meaning of live does,

is like making you feel, if you said shubriiness to someone and someone was like, oh, then you get that sense of, oh, we've read the same books. We have the same humor. Just shout it out in public toilets to see if anyone goes,

yeah, same in here. On a tube, on a tube, being like, anyone else got shoobriness. Because that's when I dislike it the most on a bus, actually. and the seat is warm. Where's them when a toilet? Public toilet.

Oh, I was thinking about transport. No. Oh, okay. Sorry, yeah, that is worse. But you know, sometimes have you ever sat on the tube and been like, is it damp? Oh, don't. When you redid this, when you came back to it, when Douglas was still alive, had you been thinking about it? Do you know what I mean?

Did you come to Douglas with like, oh, if there's, we need a word for this, we need word of this. Had the pair of you still been? Well, we just put, we played this game, as I say, on the working holiday. And I never waste anything. I wrote them all down and kept them. And in 1982, we had, we brought out a Joker Day calendar from Not the 9 o'clock news called, not, I think it's called Not 1990. It was a joke for every day of the year and one on the bag. There's a lot of jokes.

Yeah. So I ran out and I suddenly, oh, well, I'll put those in. I'll put in all the definitions. And the publisher, Matthew Evans, after the book came out, it did really well this book, sold half a million. Because, you know, not the line was part of this day. And of course in those days, the BBC would give you a plug after the show. Wow. What for your book? Can you think? Wow. It was just a shoe in. It was nice.

And I had to get an accountant. Wow. And the accountant said, go out and buy pianos, buy as many pianos as you can. Buy because of get the tax down because suddenly I had money for the first time of my life. And 25 pianos. Anyway, so Matthew said this should make a book in its own right. That's how it came about. But anyway, years later, we used to have a QI club in Oxford briefly.

And one of the members there was a lovely Japanese woman. She married to a Brit. And she'd come to Britain about 20 years before as speaking almost no English to study, I think. And somebody had given her as a joke, the meaning of live. And she thought it was a real dictionary of English. Oh, no. She'd be getting, oh, Kibblesworth. I'm sorry.

There's a kibblesworth there. What? Kibblesworth is the, on a price. It's the amount by which the price is less than the sensible number. So, you know, a flat screen TV for £1,99 and £29,000, you know. Yeah, it's very funny. But when you came back, like you said, when you did deeper meaning of lift, like had you been writing down more as they occurred to you?

Yeah, because it gets slightly, it's a bit like doing Q&R, our research, it gets into the bloodstream. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't help it. Every day, I get all these news feeds and things, and I obviously don't read the whole thing. There's a little fact there. Yeah, yeah.

And you just, you know, you're playing with some celeratame. Or that thing where you can't find the... You can't find the edge, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, we sort of collected them over the years. And then the one we wrote in 2013, me and John Cantor, there was a website where you could contribute. So that book is mainly from members of the public. a massive party for all the people who'd written one line.

Wow. And they say these are, they're very modern. So battle smear. A battlesmere is one who dishonestly ticks the I have read and agree to the terms of additions box. Oh, right. That's everyone. Everyone.

Who's read it? Yeah. Come on. It's too much. Balthasmear. Especially on the old like Apple. I agree. Yeah.

But what am I agreeing to? We've updated our terms. And in 25 years time, our children will be like, why do you? Did you sign away that? Why do I belong to Apple? I'm so sorry. But you're a genius. We didn't think they were ever going to come out and collect you.

Yeah, yeah. I thought it would be okay. Do you ever have a moment where you're like, of all the things I've done, this is funny that this is still heart beating? Well, I'm not kidding, but Douglas, when he was still alive, used to say we thought it was the best thing we'd ever done because there's something so neat about it, you know what you mean. It must be fascinating to sort of look at something that's still being read,

still being enjoyed, still being absolutely, still being added to that you came up with your mate while wasting time on holiday. There's something very beautiful about that. There should be a word for that. There should be a word for a silly thing that's still paying your bills. That's, Carriette, again, you put your finger up because I came across this thing. And every day I write this digest of the news. It's often only two things a day, but I came across one, two days called the Povey paradox.

It's an artist called Edward Povey. And his contention is that the only, art that's worth anything is the stuff you do for not for the money. Oh yeah. If you do it just for the love and for, because it's a great thing to do, that's the only stuff that becomes valuable. Yeah. Yeah, the absence of audience, don't they?

And they sort of have a thing about outsider art. So people who make work with never an intention for anyone to see it. Some people are really fat. They have just, you know, nuns who did it for years and years and years hidden under their beds. Depending on what your definition of value is, but there is a value to that, to that art being. the thing that came from two friends enjoying each other's company. And it's often why, you know, a novelist's first book will be hugely, hugely,

could be hugely successful in a bit of another, and then they never write another great novel again. Well, that's common, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, the number of pop stars have one song and never written another one. Unfollowable. Yeah, because also you're coming from a very pure creative place, aren't you? Where it's like you just created it without thinking about,

oh, in 42 years' time, I'm going to, we'll definitely make sure there's versions for that. Two friends sitting in a bar with a bottle of Ratzina having laughing themselves silly. You know, what's, well. Yeah. And of course, already the editor is in there. Like you guys go and do, you know, work in progress or whatever. We're editing as we go along. Yeah, yeah.

That's funny. I'll keep that. Yeah. It just doesn't quite work. Oh, that's a good one. And I remember when I was a young radio producer, well, before I was a producer, I was a writer. And sometimes the grand producer would have. invite you into the gallery to watch your sketch being recorded, you know. And I'm sitting there

howling with laughter. You're right. Why are you laughing at your own jokes? Well, someone's got to. But surely, I think they're funny. Yeah, yeah. You've got that purity of intent, which is you're not, obviously not doing it for the money as a radio writer. And I think that's, it's something that I've always tried to do. I think all the way, I just, I literally don't work on things I don't like. Yeah. You know, I don't have to. You know, you get sometimes you think, you produce QI,

so you must be fascinated by quizzes. I'm not interested in quizzes at all. Yeah. As you know, is not really a quiz game. No. No. Not at all. You know, a benevolent teacher with a lot of silly, naughty children.

Yeah. It's like the best detention. The detention you thought was going to be, yeah. Oh, if I'm going to be told off. And actually, it turns out they're quite tired and hung over and they just want to have a chat with you. You're like, oh, oh, wow. We talked about the Swedes in Greek.

But maybe we haven't asked how it feels to have lost a friend at such a young age and still have this legacy and your names together on a book cover. There must be, well, I don't want to project. I can imagine there must be an element of sadness and nostalgia as well. Or melancholy to it? Well, strangely, it's not like that. If you have something, you know, Douglas Knight rubbed along fine for the rest of his life. Yeah.

But when that sort of disaster happens, it's very difficult to think of the person in the same way. You know, the trust goes. And so the person that I was that close to was never, even though he went on living, I wasn't close in the same way. We were absolutely friendly and civil and go to each other's parties. But it wasn't like, he wasn't my best friend anymore. So in a way, he sort of, it sounds a bit of philosophical. and strange, but he sort of died twice for me, do you know what I mean? Yeah.

That person, the person who went on after that, was a different person to me and was somebody I respected and liked and got on with, but it wasn't. Yeah. He's something, oh, we're not related. Of course, that explains, you know, people have genetic testing done and think, oh, that's why I don't fit in the family. I'm not related to them at all. And I felt a little bit like that, I suppose.

But the thing is, he's in my life all the time, just because, Because not a year goes by, I'm not kidding, where there isn't some, you know, I did the Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture at the RGS two years ago. There was one again this year. There's a guy, do you know a writer called Idris Shah? I've come across him. Basically brilliant. He introduced Sufism to the West, an amazing person.

And his son has started a foundation and went to give Douglas an award. And so I'm in touch with his family all the time, you know, And so in another way, he isn't died at all. He's more present in my life than most people. Did you ever have a conversation with him about that moment where your friendship changed so seismically? Did you ever sort of say, did the two of you, I don't know, again, projecting two men in the 80s, maybe you just left it, but did you ever sort of say, what the fuck happened?

Well, I was, I mean, it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me up to that point. I was so shocked and surprised and his mum on the phone What's the matter? What's what are you doing guys? His agent, you know, they're all friends And I was, you know, because I've been in radio for like five, five years

I thought, I don't want to be producing just a minute forever. I need to get on and get out. And then I thought, you know, I found the escape route and that was all taken away. I was very cross and very hurt. And he bumped him,

we had the adjacent offices in BBC radio comedy. And he said, Johnny, you're right? I said, no. I was, what's the matter? Yeah. He said, well, look, go and get an agent and hadn't occurred to me.

So I went and got an agent who's going to be my agent ever since. This guy rubbed his hands. He said, we can take this bastard for 10% of everything with the name hijack. I went for the rest of his life. I said, no, no, I don't want that. I just want my half of the advance. It's not fair. I've banked on this 1,500 quid.

That's all I want. I want that back. and then we'll call it a day. So that's what, and Douglas was furious. What, you've been paid for the work, haven't you? Wow. And he said, when I said, get an agent, I meant get an agent and write your own bloody book.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He completely misheard it, you know. Wow. So just two people, he just saw it very, very differently. Douglas is not at all a malicious person, I have to say, he wasn't a bad person. He was just, you know, as anybody knew him, physically, incredibly clumsy, you know,

want to put his back out buttering a slice of bread, you know, it's like, who does that? Yeah, well. And he was emotionally, just emotionally ignorantly, just didn't have any idea that other people had feelings. Yeah, didn't sense from your perspective what that would have looked like. So it was fine. He literally never understood why I was upset. I hope this is a real warning to you about him from the podcast to carry out. That's why I brought John here today.

Things can go very badly wrong when you work with your friends. That holiday and coo food we've got booked I think maybe we should make sure we bring some pens and paper Yes We wouldn't come up with this though We would just talk It would be unpublishable You could be un-publishable

You can't do anything you want No, what we talked about on holiday Would be so deep and unfunny and emotional That the publishers would be like Can you make it more funny? We'd be like no But we also would have to get a lot of lawyers involved To publish all the things we wanted to say

John it's such a brilliant book I love it So fun, so brilliant Thank you very much giving gift and it's yeah as relevant as it was 42 years ago much like myself and sarah you're not we must give me the name of your moisturizing a buddington's thank you for listening to this series don't forget you can join us on patreon for more weird

and wonderful book suggestions keep sending us your book recommendations on instagram and on patreon and you must book tickets to see sarah on tour i was out on this weekend and a lady stopped me to say she saw you in st alban's she said must tell her it was It was brilliant. Oh, that's very kind. And please, by Carriad's book, I was stopped in St. Orban's final woman. My kids' book, Where Did She Go? Is Out.

Now, thank you for reading with us. We like to do with you.