That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Matt Haig

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

Bestselling author Matt Haig joins Gaby for a chat about books, reading, anxiety, shyness and overcoming severe depression. Matt is a huge advocate for good mental health - and he and Gaby share stories of rockier times in their lives. They discuss his new novel - "The Life Impossible" - which saw him return to Ibiza to write it (the place he almost committed suicide). After many years he felt he could go back and has written a novel set there. He also talks about the things that bring him joy, why he writes and how much it means when he gets reactions from his readers. *Please be advised that some of the topics discussed in this episode may be triggering. These include severe depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are both headphoneless. We are. It's liberating. It's nice. It's nice to have my liberated ears. Yeah. And Joe, who's behind the glass, now I won't be able to speak to me

and say, stop talking. Matt Haig, I love your new book. You know, because I've told you practically to your face, because we've known each other a while, that The Midnight Library is now up there as one of my favourite books of all time. You know I'm obsessed with it. I've read it three times.

I give it to everybody's presence. It's life-changing book. So I owe you royalties. That's where I'm coming to. Yeah, that's exactly. You knew what I was thinking. But thank you for the books. It was very interesting.

The other day, so I go on the train a lot, do it for TV shows. And I was on the train reading Life Impossible. And this woman came up to me, and her name was Mary. and so I was photographing the book to put on socials because I want everybody to read it and she came up to me she said

I hope you don't mind if I chat to you about and I thought I was going to say about what I do she said about Matt Haig so I said of course you can and she sat opposite me and she said Matt Haig's book The Midnight Library have you ever read it and I said yes and I give it to all my friends

and I've read it three times because it's extraordinary and it's sort of mind-changing and life-changing. And she said that it changed her life. And I said, well, I'm actually seeing him in a couple of weeks. And she said, will you please say, Mary says thank you. So I didn't text you. I didn't message you.

I didn't WhatsApp you. I wanted to say that to your face. Mary says thank you. That is a lovely story. I mean, my mum is called Mary, so it might have been my mum. Was he your mum? I don't think it was. She was about the same age as you.

That would be really real. But it was really sweet. And then she told me, which I won't share, but on here, but she told me about things that she'd been through in her life. And she did think of times where she didn't want her life to carry on. And she said that through the midnight library and through reading all your posts that she felt saved. We talked for quite a little.

Oh, wow. No, that is lovely to hear that stuff. I mean, I am quite bad at absorbing it. And with a midnight library, I never really absorbed it because it came out during the time. of a pandemic and I never did a book tour I never met any readers from it it was all very abstract you'd get nice emails

obviously about it and messages and stuff but you know I never went out and physically did a tour and so it's only been recently that I've been hearing those sort of things and obviously yeah it's quite it's lovely it can be a bit too much sometimes but it's lovely too absorb or yeah and of course

it can be a bit much but I just wanted to tell you to your place but with your new book as well though it is there's something extraordinary about Some authors, because I read, this sounds really weird. I read publicly. You know what I mean? On trains and on tubes.

I have my books on me. Same here. It makes me sound like some weird, I read publicly. I'm not a secret reader. There we go. But it brings people... Yeah, you don't invite people round to just look at you reading. That'd be so weird.

Debbie will be reading today. I'm going to read. And just quietly to myself, you can watch me. But some authors bring people together and you do that. Is that what you think when you write? I don't know what I think when I think, I've been analysing it recently. I think certainly when I'm writing towards the sort of mental health stuff, I think subconsciously,

because when I was depressed and I still occasionally do go through patches of depression and anxiety, but when I was really, really depressed when I was younger and suicidal and stuff, a biding thing I remember about that was the loneliness, the complete feeling that. no one understood, very isolated. You know, you go back 20 plus years. You didn't really have accessible stuff on TV or in books that you can access. That has, thankfully, changed a lot now. But I think, so subconsciously, when I'm writing, I'm not just writing to try and be

of use to other people or to help them. That is very nice to do that, and that is an incentive. but it's also because I you know I felt alone for so long but it's nice to have a kind of community of people who are like you who have gone through something similar who understand you we all want to be understood

don't we so I think books are a way you can do that whether writing or reading them it's to sort of like understand ourselves and when you, so that's interesting you said you don't really know what you think when you're writing them obviously thinking about the book and whether whether... Yeah but it's not.

not like, you don't think about the impact. No, you know, you just think what's going to be a good book and what do you want to write. And I think I always try and write the book I want to read, you know, in that moment. You know, you're trying to sort of feel, and you don't want it to be a book that's already there because that book's already there. So you're trying to think of a book that doesn't exist that you want to read is the best sort of way to do it. But, yeah, I think, you know, it's a massive cliche, isn't it, about writing is therapy. But I think for me, it is a kind of therapy. because you take something very internal

and you put it into words. I mean, that's what therapy is. You're talking or writing to a therapist or journaling or whatever you're doing, but you're putting a very personal wordless experience into words and it then automatically, even if no one's reading it, it kind of becomes a shared thing

because you put it into language and it's shared and it's open. So it's almost like, I don't know, like a metaphorical kidney stone or something that you're taking out and you're taking out and externalizing this impossibly, internal thing. And I think there is a therapy in that. So, you know, I'd recommend anyone,

even if you find it hard to speak about it, even if you don't want an audience for it, to actually get a journal open, write down what you're feeling. I did that when I was advised by my partner Andrea years and years and years ago when I was going through depression. I could literally hardly speak. I mean, there were times where my sort of like throat was dried up, my tongue wouldn't mean. Oh, you do mean literally? Well, mentally and physically, it was kind of the same thing. I was literally like a zombie. There's photos of me at that time where my whole face looks like

slack and loose because I just couldn't speak. But I could write down very slowly what I was feeling. And you wouldn't want to read that stuff. It's like the lyrics of the worst heavy metal song ever written. You know, lots of fire and ravens and things. But it was all just what I was feeling like at that time.

And just that act, there was a lightning that goes on when you do it. So I think words, you know, words are, and putting your own experience into words in whatever form, whether it's talking in a podcast, whether it's writing it for no one to see or whatever you're doing, there's a kind of therapy to it. It's very interesting. When my mum died almost 28 years ago, I remember somebody saying to my dad, because he was, he also had cancer, or she died of cancer and he survived. And somebody said to him, Clive, write down how you feel. And he said, he was a broadcaster, write down how you feel. And he said,

What do you mean? And he did. And then, and they said to him, now, just fold it away or tear it up or burn it or stamp on it, whatever. It was just how you felt. And I remember him ringing me up and saying, do you know what I found? Something's wonderful. If you write it down and then you get rid of it, it lightens you. And it was, and he was a young man.

My mom died very young. And it was suddenly that. And I'd always loved that. I mean, I always like writing. and I love reading. But hearing somebody who was straighter and hadn't done that before, it was amazing.

Just a simple, so simple. I totally understand. Yeah. My mum used to keep a, my mum's still around, but she used to keep a five-year diary. Five-year diary. Yeah, so they used to have these five-year diaries

that she used to lock up. And when me and my sister were young, she unfortunately went through quite severe post-natal depression. and she would write it and she'd be very honest the one place she could be honest was in the diary about what she was feeling

and what medication she took or whatever but because it was a five-year diary so even if she was feeling a bit bad the year later she could look back at a worst day and then see the progress she was made over the five

because the days were on top of each other so March the 12th 1975 would be there and then March of 12th 1976 would be there and she'd see the... Oh what a wonderful thing to do yeah yeah yeah

It's very interesting because I go on and on and on about living in the moment and I mean everything that you that you write whether it's on social media because I love what you write on social media and I love your books as you know but but living in the moment is something I just really wanted to talk to you about because I personally believe that if we all think too much about the past then everybody gets bogged down and oh I wish that hadn't happened or I wish he hadn't gone or I wish that I had got that job whatever it is.

And if you think too much about what's going to happen in a year, you don't know what's going to happen in a year. But it's living right now and every time you put your foot down, you feel the ground, you think, wow, I'm not going to do that footstep again. I just wondered how you feel about that, about living today in this second, in this moment. Yeah. I'm, you know, and I'm someone who's struggled to do that.

Yeah. I mean, as a younger person, I was living in a hypothetical all the time. So I was, you know, depression gives you just pessimistic versions of your future all the time. And so I think now I'm always consciously not fighting it, but moving the tide against that. Because that pessimism was wrong. You know, people are very cynical about hope and happiness and optimism and social media. And sometimes, you know, there's good reasons about it. There's a lot of hollow, be kind out there,

which from people that you think, you're not always that kind. But, you know, so there's a right reason I understand why people can be cynical about optimism. But for me, I'm more cynical about pessimism because pessimism in my life was so wrong. My pessimism told me I would be dead at the age of 25. I am now, surprise, surprise, older than 25.

I'm 49 years old. and you know it said if I stayed around somehow I'd be in a straight jacket or this would happen or everyone you love would turn against you and obviously life isn't a bed of roses and bad things happen to everybody

and it's a roller coaster and it's up and down but that view of total bleakness was not the future for me and even if you're stuck in depression even if you've got chronic depression things can change

perspective changes different things change treatments change there's always changed so life is changed And change can be scary, but change is also hope. You know, if you're stuck in a bad place, change is good. And life is changed. So if you hold on long enough, if you're stuck in a situation, that is terrible.

You know, like you two songs, I'm stuck in a moment. I used to play in my head because that's a powerful thought I used to have about being stuck in a moment. But you're never stuck in that moment forever. See, everything that you say always makes me think more. And that's why I love your writing. Do you do, do you do talk? I know you do book tours, but do you ever do talks?

Do you ever go out there and just talk? Because you talk so wonderful. I have done it before. I don't like being on a stage on my own. I'd be fine. If us two are sitting on a stage right now, I'd be fine with that. I'd just be chatting like this.

I'm fine at chatting on a stage. But TEDx talks on all of eight. Oh, good Lord. Yes. And also just, I really admire interviewers. because that's the hard bit. The sort of like, because you've got to keep various things in your head, haven't you, when you're interviewing.

So when you're the interviewee, you're just being led. You're just being handheld through the conversation. But to actually go out there on a stage, which I did, I foolishly did, because I had a thing, this was back in 2019, and I was asked to do a tour, and I said, do you want to be with someone, like, in different venues? Sorry, I'm coughing. Or do you want to talk?

And because I was scared of talking myself, I had this foolish thing about things I was scared of I've got to do. So I said, yes, I'll do the... Facey fears, because that's always... And I did face my fears, and I'm glad I went through it. But I just... I was...

It was like the world's worst TED talk because I'm really bad at technology. And I couldn't... And because I've got ADHD, I can't really focus enough to be like an actor and remember a script or remember... So what I did was I remembered a sequence of slides in the presentation,

but every night the slides went wrong. Oh no. I used to know. No one was that. No one wants that. And so I get so scared. So I like, I think I'm better actually just in a natural conversation. As soon as a, and also because I was a nervous sort of young person,

my mum used to send me to try and correct that to like speech and drama classes and things like that. So all of that makes me feel like I can back it as a nervous 13-year-old. Isn't it interesting? Right. recite a poem or something. We go back to that 13-year-old self. So if you and I were now 13, I mean, I couldn't speak.

I was the shyest person, except I knew I wanted to be a TV presenter so nobody could understand it, but I couldn't speak. Can I just actually, I know it's your podcast that's asking me, but can I just ask you, what was your change from shy Gabby?

No, I still am. You really are? I talk very openly about it. I still am. Don't make me ever go to a house party because I can't go to party. Oh, that's so comforting because, yeah, I hate that. I hold my husband's hand really tight, and if he says he's going to the loo,

I go, don't you dare go to the loo. No, no, no, no. But I love, love, love what I do. So I think you're the same. You love what you do. I think we're lucky to have found something that we're passionate about. Yeah, I'd really be scared if it didn't, because I don't know. I mean, I started writing because I literally, I had such social anxiety amid my sort of panic disorder.

I could not have gone out and done a nine to five. And, you know, I was lucky that I had parents where I could live at their house. But we had no, you know, we were in debt. We had to do something to go out there and earn money. And the only thing I had was writing. So it sounds ridiculous. But that was my most solid choice to do. So, yeah.

That doesn't sound ridiculous at all. Makes total sense. Yeah, in the sense that is kind of hard to a write a book and then try and turn that into a career. Career, is kind of tricky. And I love that you did that. So when did the anxiety, the really, the big anxiety, if we could call it that, not the regular stuff that most kids have?

When did that, well, kick in? I mean, teenage years, I had a lot of it, but I didn't know it. I didn't have the ability to know what was going on. I mean, it's only recently when you get sort of diagnosed with things like ADHD and autism, which I still haven't come to terms of it. I mean, I had those diagnoses, but I don't see myself as that. So life's just a journey of understanding yourself.

As a teenager, I obviously had issues going on because I was a problem for my parents. I was a shoplifter. I had massive mood swings. I know that's a standard teenage thing, but I was slightly off the scale sometimes. I was told by teachers I was special needs. I got arrested for shoplifting of age of 16.

I was a problem for my parents and I have a lot of guilt about that time. But I wouldn't say I had the full-blown anxiety that I ended up having at 24 because that felt like entering a different world. Different. That was a, you know, you think of a panic attack 10 minutes. This was a panic attack that lasted three years of just being in that. So my 20s were dominated by that. I was very lucky in the sense that my parents were there for me

I had a partner that was there for me so I had three people who were properly, properly there for me and they weren't pressuring me to be something I wasn't at that moment. It wasn't ever a, oh, pull yourself together. Come on, pull yourself together. I mean, there were moments of frustration and there were moments I was telling myself to pull myself together

and I'm sure my dad did utter those words like, one point, but it was in a very much like they'd run out of things to say, you know, come on Matt. You know, there's ways you can say things, aren't there? Yeah, yeah. And I think sometimes, like, but one, and I fall in cropper

to this as well, you know, when you get told off for using the wrong words about things and stuff, I think it's more about intention. Like with my dad, like, he didn't have all the right words of a politically correct language, but he cared, you know what I mean? He was doing it, you know what I mean? And I think...

He's doing it from a really good place. From a really good place. And he didn't come with all the answers or knew what I should do. So, I mean, but one thing my dad did, and of course it's not a wonder cure, but my dad's always been a runner. So it, and he's always done marathons and stuff.

And so one thing that helped in the very early days was just going out with my dad running. And it wasn't like it got rid of my anxiety or depression, but what it did was because running, you're obviously breathless and your heart is racing it's very hard to have a panic attack while you're running because you are having the symptoms of a panic attack

while you're running so just having that every day and being able to talk to my dad was a sort of a little safe space and yeah no that was that was like you know when people say oh it's all in you know it's all in your head of but don't believe anxiety or depression or whatever and I think it's something everyone has that was definitely you know when you've crossed the line

into something that's sort of serious illness. And that was like, oh, you know, because I myself had been someone who didn't really believe what depression was. I thought it was just feeling sad. Yeah, and lots of people use it. They're going, oh, so depressed. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that's fine. But, you know, depression itself is something very different. And, you know, and so, like in my case, it wasn't a conscious thing of, oh, I've weighed up my life and, you know, I'm suicidal now. it was like, I still want to live. I just can't cope with this situation that I'm in and I can't get out of it. And so I think, but I would love that to change around the conversation,

and it's been happening in the media recently as well, around suicide. I still think there's a, we talk a lot about it and we talk a lot about mental health. But I think we're fundamentally missing an understanding of it. There's always a sort of slightly moral dimension. to it. And I think people don't realize that suicide doesn't always feel like a choice and simply saying, oh, well, you've got people to stay alive for or anything else. It's kind of victim blame. Because when you're going through an illness and suicide might be the last symptom of that illness for some unfortunate people, then it doesn't help to add more stigma and add more shame. I think we, you know, get people to stay alive by

understanding and by compassion and by encouraging people to understand that this situation they're in won't always be the situation therein. I met some amazing young people recently because I'm doing stuff and loneliness

and they were early 20s and they had all attempted suicide and they all sat around and talked all about the different reasons but they, it's interesting because the word they used was compassion and there needs to be more compassion. Yeah.

And they were the most uplifting, wonderful young people. They were mad about books. That's what brought them all together. There we go. But it was about compassion. And I think, and I know it's a really sort of, it's a sweeping statement. But I think everybody feels it at the moment.

Around the world and the news that we all get 24 hours. however you get it, whether it's a lot. It's a lot. It's a whole generation now. I mean, I'm a father of teenagers. Yes, exactly. They have their struggles. I can't think of any of her friends

who haven't had their struggles. We're in a world now, but it's almost, it couldn't be designed better for anxiety. Oh, my word. And we don't see compassion. No. We hear about the bad news,

for want of putting it any other way, we hear about the bad news, we hear about the bad things that are happening around the world. And goodness me, we need to. some good things that are happening. We need to hear about those good things because otherwise,

where is, you use the word hope, we both use the word hope a lot, where is the hope? If all we're being fed is that negative stuff? No, well, you know, negative stuff goes on, but even within the negative stuff, I always think it's useful to like look for the helpers, you know, look for the, with any situation,

and there are tough situations all the time, but there's always compassion within that. And yeah, you're right. I mean, news, somewhere along the line, we decided but news was just the worst things that are happening everywhere. But, you know, important, significant things that are happening in people's lives all the time are hopeful, compassionate things that are happening.

And, yeah, I just think we need to be a bit more gentle with each other. But I think one thing about the internet is we've forgotten that the people we're dealing with are effectively people like us. Everyone is a context. And yes, bad behaviour exists. you know, bad things exist. But, you know, if we, you wonder how many of these sort of internet arguments would disappear

if we literally could transport ourselves into other people's context. Oh, wouldn't it be? I mean, I'd like to know what makes some people say that. Maybe I just do live in a happy place, happy land. But I'd like, I think that a lot of people who say the nasty things online, I think it's about them. It's not about the person that they're writing the horrible things too.

Yeah. I mean, there was some really horrible stuff said to Katie Piper recently, which was really nasty. And that she had to read that about... It was horrible, and I'm not going to repeat it. But she called them out, and she put it on her social media.

Yeah, she's so strong. She's so strong. And... But that was probably about that person. They weren't thinking, I'm going to be really cruel and nasty to her. but they were thinking, there's something in their life that's not right. Yes. And it's hard when you're an insecure person necessarily,

I'm speaking about myself now, but like when you've had anxiety yourself and you're not necessarily thinking you're that great yourself. And then if someone else is saying it, then it really, that's what really gets in. And that's why it's so dangerous. And I think we need to see this stuff. You know, just as we've had laws about passive smoking and whatever else it is, we need to get an understanding

that this stuff is a health issue it's an actual health issue trolling is a health issue the internet is a health issue it's not about banning things it's about an intention a grown-up discussion about what's good for us

and you know we're all you know the genie's out of the bottle we're all on social media and all of that but within that we need a serious conversation about how we go forward I think you're so right think you should lead it you should lead that conversation I wouldn't be very organised.

I'd be too addicted to my... I'll be too much scrolling to actually get anything done. I'd be on Instagram. I want to change it, but hold on a minute. I'll just look at this meme about this... Who do you read? What books do you read? I'm really eclectic.

I read all kinds of stuff. I mean, like, you know, everything. I'll read Elton John's biography. I'll read a book on philosophy. I'll read an old, you know, like Victorian classic by, you know, whoever, Emily Bronte, I'll read an old Graham Green novel, I'll read a thriller, I've just read The Silent Patient, which is brilliant. I read all kinds of stuff.

I'm quite a bad reader, though, in the sense that... Bad reader? But what I mean is, I'm not very faithful, so I'll have a pile of book and I'll flit, you know, between them because I've got my attention spans. As anyone who's read any of my books in my short chapters, we realize, I probably don't have the best attention span. So I'll go from one book,

until I get hit a slower bit and then I'll pick up another book and I switch between non-fiction. Are you able to retain the story the one you put down? Sometimes and sometimes not, but I definitely am an unfinisher. There's lots of books I don't finish. There's old children's books I sometimes pick up. My favourite book of all time is The House at Poo Corner, A.A. Milne. I honestly think the Winnie the Pooh universe is one, because A.A. Milne himself. You know, we think of him as this sort of gentle children's writer,

but he'd been through war. He was sort of like in the woods when he wrote that, and he was sort of overcoming his own trauma. And I see the Winnie the Pooh stuff as kind of mental health. Oh, it really is. Because you've got, like, piglet with anxiety, you've got Eon with depression, you've got Tigger with whatever else, ADHD.

ADHD, whatever thing. You've got a poo who's addicted to honey and happiness. And you've got Christopher Robin, who's hallucinating the whole thing. But no, you've got like, you've got a whole world to escape it. And that was my comfort read. When I was really depressed, I couldn't read anything. I couldn't watch TV. I couldn't go to the movies.

But one thing I could read was The House at Pew Corner, which was funny because I'd just done this degree in English literature where we've been told to value just the most complicated highbrow stuff. And the only thing I could actually read when I... So after that, I left my sort of highbrow pretentiousness and realized, no, you just want to communicate. You just want to sort of like create little nice, gentle worlds for people. Do you know, I'm now going to go back and read it. I mean, I read bits of it, but I haven't actually sat down to read it from beginning to end.

I haven't done that for years. I'm going to do that. Thank you. That's the one thing you've left me with. Thank you very much. And your book. Let's talk about the new book. it's so incredible.

I don't know what you do is if I, I've got a very vivid imagination. I always have had. But I close my eyes and I'm in your book. That's a really weird thing, but I'm doing it now. So I'm there. I'm in, I'm in all those places. It's very visual what you write.

It's a book about hope. I know there's bits in it, but it really, to me, it's a book about hope. I finished it two days ago. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it was, yeah, it's about hope and it's about impossible things happening, which is why it's called The Life Impossible.

And it's about, yeah, it was a very personal book in a strange way, even though the narrator is a 72-year-old widow, former maths teacher. So nothing like me on paper. but because when I was suicidal after years of depression after drink after drugs after everything else

in a bea 25 years ago to write a novel set in this place I'd escaped from never wanted to think about everyone's got their cliches about parties and dance music and stuff and to actually sort of focus on it

and focus on a very different side of the island as well that was kind of a therapy for me as was going back there to Spain to that particular part of Spain to the cliffs in the Bifa where I nearly died to the hospital where I was prescribed diazepam to get on a plane home, all of that. And then to actually just really focus on the place where I'd been ill and then find the joy in it and find the sort of nature and the calm

peace in it was really, for me, it really was writing as therapy. Well, thank you for the book. It's really bizarre. There are some books. If I close my eyes, in the same with the Midnight Library, and I'm mentioning it again, that if I close my eyes, I'm there. What is it like to see your stuff come to life in the films and things? Well, I'm still, like, because I was a struggling writer for a long time, I didn't sort of, like, find an instant hit or anything.

I wrote, I mean, Midnight Library was like, something like book number 22 or something, ridiculous. I wrote a lot of unread books early on in my career. So even if I see my book in my book, a bookshop, I'm still incredibly grateful for that. So anything that happens from a moment I've sent off the manuscript, you know, I'm just very grateful for it. I'm actually happy that I had a struggle at the start in terms of my career because I think if you go in and you're like, super star New York Times bestseller from the first book, then where do you, where do you go?

You don't have a sense of a career, you know, development. And so I try and be very grateful and philosophical about it, you know, good reviews, bad reviews, things happening. And obviously, yeah, if they turn something into a film, that's surreal, but you have to at the same time know it's there, you are the impetus, but then

it becomes something else, and that's great. And as soon as you signed it off on it, you don't think too much about it, or you'll go insane. And then, you know, and you just focus on what you're doing and the writing and writing the next one and try and have fun with it. I mean, the thing that doesn't change, whether you're an

unknown and published writer and you're writing your first manuscript or whether you're like 90 years old and you've written 100 books. The thing that doesn't change is the writing. And you have to kind of enjoy at least part of that writing print because that's the thing. If you're a writer, you're writer because you're writer because of any of the other stuff that happens. So it's about writing. How does it feel to read how many people have read your books? Is that really, is it extraordinary in a good way? It is. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah. I mean the millions and millions and millions. You sort of can't see those people. No. And it's been very nice

to sort of like do some international things recently. I've just, you know, yesterday was in Germany and I've been in Canada recently. Around the world. America. Everybody knows you, Matt. They love your book. The world loves you.

It's just, yeah, it's hard to absorb but at the same time I am getting better. I think if you just, what are, what, you, obviously numbers and stuff are abstract, but what I like, It's like when you told me that story about Mary that you spoke to, is when a person comes up to you and you can look that person in the eye, and then you think, okay, that's a person who's read my book,

enjoyed my book, or it helped them in some way, or, yeah, slightly scary when they say, like, with Midnight Library, oh, I quit my job because of that book, and, you know, you think, oh, in a good way, so, yeah. But, yeah, when it's a one-to-one, like, or someone, it doesn't happen very much to write, but occasionally you get stopped in the street and someone says something to you.

And that's lovely, yeah. I can deal with a one-to-one. But, yeah, thinking about the whole thing gets a little bit like, wow, that's a bit much. When I left home this morning and it's half term and my younger daughter was there and I said I was coming to chat to you. And she said, honestly, she looks, she went, oh, God, do you think you should tell him that you're his cheerleader? Because everyone was of the family. must they go back.

I looked, it's as if I'm just, give me an M, give me an A. I have these little, because everyone, so I'm saying that from my daughter to you. If you need a cheerleader to sort of walk down the street before you, so everybody can come up and talk to you with your million selling books. No, you've been lovely, Gary. No, no, I'm not. No, I just think you're fantastic. Yeah, it's surreal when people are like, you know, like,

when I was a drunk and depressed student watching the big breakfast. And then you, you know, so. So it's a good, but you're what, you've been so kind and lovely to me. Matt, thank you. Thank you, Gabby. You're a total joy. No, you too. It's lovely.

Thank you.