The Blindboy Podcast - Graham Norton

Episode Date: October 7, 2020

I chat with Author and TV presenter Graham Norton about living in a San Francisco commune in the 80s, Meeting loads of Famous people and writing his latest novel Home Stretch Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. We're going to begin this week's episode with a short poem that has been submitted to us by French actor Juliette Binoche. This poem is called The Priest. The priest has broken free from the paddock. The steam of freedom careers from his leathery nostrils. His hooves stamp a sad beat

on the cold October lawn we feel the thuds in our chests there is a mass to be said but the priest has broken free from the paddock and is running towards the lake thank you very much

Juliette Benach I loved you in the English patient if you very much, Juliette Benash. I loved you in The English Patient. If you're a brand new listener to this podcast, maybe you could start with this episode. I've got a very special treat, this episode, a very special treat. If you don't want to, go back to some earlier episodes.

There's lots of episodes to listen to. Regular listeners listeners we've got a special treat i'm speaking to graham norton this week graham is the biggest tv presenter in the uk and ireland without a doubt he's also an author and he's on this week to speak about his brand new book, which is called Home Stretch, and you can pre-order it right now. It's his third book. And fair play to Graeme for coming onto this podcast

because, like I said, he's massive. He's absolutely huge. So for Graeme to come on here and give me a full chat is very humbling and very nice and very sound of him because he's in big demand and you know there would have been a lot of competition from large radio shows all shit like that this is a podcast that's run from a fucking essentially a bedroom in limerick where i still speak into a sock as a microphone. So fair play to Graham. Before I get into the interview,

have I got anything to plug? Look, I haven't had fucking gigs in a long time because of coronavirus, as you know. I won't have gigs for a very long time. But I got offered an online podcast festival. There's an online podcast festival called the Unmute Podcast Festival. And they said to me, will you do an online podcast festival called the Unmute Podcast Festival. And they said to me, will you do an online podcast gig?

So I said, fuck it, yeah. What have I got to lose? Why not? Let's do it. See what it's like. So, on the 22nd of October I'm doing an online live podcast where I speak to a guest and it's exclusive. exclusive so if you want to get a

ticket for that just go to theunmutepodcastfestival.com and look for the blind buy podcast and you can buy a ticket to see a live online podcast I know it's going to be crack I've never done one before but why the fuck not So if you're interested in that, get an old ticket. Here's the interview with Graham Norton. It's... I just wanted a chat. Listen, this is...

The whole point of a fucking podcast and what makes it different from traditional media is it's not an interview. It is an interview, but you want to create the intimacy of a fucking kitchen. That's what you want. It's an interview, but you leave space for the conversation to go where it needs to go. And it's a nice long interview. It's 90 minutes long.

So if you're listening to it, you can get two days out of this podcast if you like pause it listen to the rest later and i'm very happy with how i recorded it i'm after sorting my shit out with recording podcasts over long distance so graham is actually in london i'm in limerick but to be honest it sounds like we're sitting in the same room because I got my shit together with how I record long distance podcasts, it's it's better audio fidelity

than the one I did with Sammy Zane which I was really happy with and I recorded that over Zoom but I used a new method this time and the chat with Graham is better audio fidelity, it closer to the the podcast hug um i have a feeling sammy will be back on at some point i have a feeling me and sammy are going to have another chat again and when we do i'll use this method to record it but here you go

here's the chat i had with graham norton um a talented funny and generous person. So, Graeme, what is the crack, first of all? How are you? I'm very well. How are you? I'm good. I'm getting used to... Sure, look, man, we're six months into it now, so it does feel normal. And I'm lucky that I have the type of job where i can work from home so i'm just reminding myself each day to be thankful of that you know because some of my friends don't have that there they have to work in shops and shit like that so i don't allow

myself to complain you know i must say talking to people who uh or put on furlough or freelancers and stuff like it's not just the financial thing it's just they've got so much time and like time is a bad thing too much time is is really yeah it's it's that must be hard so and also I think the other thing is because what we do was never nine to five it was never routine so we're used to being in our house at kind of weird times of the day and for extended periods of time. Yeah, so. It really doesn't feel that different for me.

I mean, I miss gigs. I miss gigs and I miss connecting with people at gigs. But other than that, I've spent my life writing, being on my own, spending huge amounts of time on my own at the expense of kind of social things

just to do my art yeah and the one thing i want to start that and what one thing that i really want to ask you and that i'm really curious about yourself right and it's kind of it's a parallel between myself and yourself you write serious fiction you write actual serious fiction um but you come from a background of being an entertainer and a well known face I'm in a similar situation I'm obviously not as well known but I also

write serious fiction it's kind of being promoted off the back of my pre-existing image but how do you find okay for me personally I do find it difficult to get received critically as someone who it's like all of a sudden, oh, he's writing books now. The lad with the bag is writing books.

You've written three books now. You've written A Keeper, Home Stretch and Holding. Yeah. Right. Like, how did you did you find resistance first off? Did people go, what the fuck you mean he's writing a book of fiction? Well, look, there's that. And also, well, two things.

One is, what's good is that the bar is very low. Probably not with you. I think people thought you'd be able to write fiction. I think they knew you'd be able to write fiction. be able to write fiction um and see i find i find the disconnect between you the comic and you the writer smaller than the disconnect between me as shiny faced fool on television and and a writer i think the disconnect is smaller i i didn't when when I read your book, I kind of thought, yeah, this is the book that man would write. It didn't, I didn't think it was that, that jarring that it was, that it was you,

the man in the plastic bag was writing that book. I thought, I thought it made sense to me. I could, I could hear your voice in that book. I think it's hard. Look, I made a choice, didn't I? I made a choice years ago to go down a particular route. And so I can't really complain now that I'm not taken as seriously as a writer as I'd like to be. Because if I'd wanted that respect, I'd have been a writer.

That's what I'd have done all those years ago. You know, instead of scrabbling around comedy clubs and facing and living together doing that, I'd have been doing bits of journalism and writing short stories and all of that. And I didn't do that. The kind of the showing off gene was stronger than the writing gene well that's one thing though when i found myself kind of defending your writing in in just in social circles if anyone said what the fuck do you mean he's writing a book i'd get angry because the thing is is that like i you started off in doing edinburgh shows right so you started off essentially you're writing you're comedy being up on stage responding to an audience all of these things that's writing that's creativity so I was saying well why the fuck shouldn't he write a book didn't doesn't he have a career in comedy behind him doesn't he have all these things that have prepped him to do it why is it so strange that all of a sudden what's the difference between a page and an act on stage? It's still taking something from your mind and creating something outside of yourself that people engage with, you know?

Well, especially when I started, when I started up in Edinburgh, I was doing like comedy characters and stuff and I was doing these monologues and it was really written. I mean, like if I'd been heckled, I don't know what I'd have done, you know, because I was such a kind of I was such an actor trying to kind of get into comedy. And it took me and that was when, you know, no, it was difficult because I wasn't a stand up and people don't really know what to do with you if you're not a stand up. But you're not, you know, but yet you are a funny person. You are doing funny things and you're doing an hour in Edinburgh and people like it. But actually, there's no career there. You like, you might do Edinburgh, you might do the Brighton Festival, you might do Dublin Theatre Festival, but that's it. Or Kilkenny, you might do Cat Laughs or something. Yeah.

Tell us about, so the, when you started in Edinburgh with the Mother Teresa character, are you saying that like you had strict monologues and you didn't deviate from that monologue like that? Was there room for improv? Because Edinburgh's nuts. People will heckle you. You have to expect to be heckled. Mother Teresa, she was able to talk to people and she would interact with the crowd and there were stupid

competitions and stuff like that. I think it was... Tell us about the others. What were you doing? What other stuff were you doing what other stuff i did a show called uh what do i there was one called charlie's angels go to hell and that was a proper monologue that was kind of about me in america and it was kind of you know all of that and was it about graham it was yes it was about me it was kind of it was autobiographical but it was like a little one-man play type thing.

And then I did, oh, that's, I did the Karen Carpenter Bar and Grill. And that was, it was a different time. It was a different time. What year are we talking here? A long time ago. That would have been 19, oh, when would that have been? Like mid 90s, 94 94 or 95 something like that and and that again that was all um uh that was all just monologues to uh the audience and it had a kind of story but I mean with Edinburgh you've got to put in the title of your show in January or something. So you haven't written it, but you just kind of think, I want a show name that stands out. So, you know, Mother Teresa of Calcutta

that stands out. Charlie Sayers Go to Hell, Karen Carpenter, Burger Arm Grill. And so you wanted the names that kind of people would notice in the program. But then of course you've got to write a show that has got something to do with Karen Carpenter or Charlie Sayers.enter yeah that was going to be my question man like that you know that's a tough one it is tough uh when i i did graham norton and his amazing hostess trolley and i just i realized i'd not i thought surely i've got something funny to say about no so i just i kind of pretended that the show like i was i had a hostess trolley in the poster. And yeah, I just pretended that it didn't exist. I just, I can't remember.

How did you work Karen Carpenter into the, into the Karen Carpenter's Bar and Grail? How did you work her Bar and Grail into it? Now, I remember, I remember the climax was a spaceship that looked like a Frey Bentos steak kidney pie tin came down and she went away. She was taken away in that. That's the only bit of the story I remember. But yeah, it did. I haven't. It's in the house somewhere.

But it did have a structure. It did have a structure it did have a story how does it feel sometimes one of the things that freaks me about it out about edinburgh is i think back to doing a show every single fucking night for 30 nights sometimes two times a day and i literally can't remember what i did i can't remember what i did on stage for for for that long what what the fuck are What the fuck? Are you the same? Like, can you not? You're talking about entire monologues. Oh, yeah. I remember what they were about. They're entirely gone. I mean, I've little images of little snippets of things that

I remember. But but that's all. And there's certain shows you remember for all, you know, because what's nice about Edinburgh is it's such a small audience. You know, certainly the venues I was playing, it was always like a hundred people tops. And what's nice about that audience is that you can take them in lots of weird places, you know, like odd things can happen. And you don't lose the audience. There's a kind of a trust with that audience because they're so small and you're all in this room.

And it's kind of what Edinburgh is about. And I remember I used to do this stupid thing just to fill time. And it was an interview with an audience member became a guest. This was before I had a chat show. But an audience member would become a guest. And, you know, it was just I got the names. I think I got the names from the tickets or something or the credit card receipts. I'm sure it was all data breach. That's what those scammers do.

Not scammers, not hypnotists. What are they called? The psychics. Psychics, that's what they do. Oh, is that where they get the names? They get the names from the tickets, then they do a load of research and then all of a sudden

the person is surprised that they know this information that's coming from a dead relative. So you were doing that game without even knowing it. Without even knowing it. I'd call out the name and they'd come down and I'd give them a choice between

topical questions and personal questions and then both envelopes ended up having the personal questions in it. So they had to answer these personal questions. So anyway, and it was fine, it was funny. There's one afternoon I called out the name and it's a small room and this guy put up his hand And this one afternoon I called out the name. And it's a small room.

This guy put up his hand and he was clearly really ill. He was sick. He was sort of emaciated, grey. And I kind of thought, God, is he going to be able to get down here? But he did. He got onto the stage and he sat in the chair opposite me. And the last question on this questionnaire was, it was, oh, you can have sex with anyone you like, right?

You can have sex with anyone you like, but it's the last time you'll ever have sex. Who would it be? Right. And normally, you know, it's a funny question because maybe their partner's in the audience and they're feeling pressure. I ought to say them, but really I'd like it to be, you know, Angelina Jolie or I'd like to be George Clooney or something.

And with this guy, this suddenly became an incredibly dark serious profound question oh my god because you kind of thought well you're not long for this world this oh this is a sort of a true question and and there was nothing funny but but i but i remember it because it was a kind of such a special moment i loved the audience in that moment. I loved him as well. Was there compassion? Oh, not totally.

Everyone was just, everyone wanted to hear his answer. And his answer was, it was, I think it was his first boyfriend who now lived in Australia. That was who he wanted to be with. Did you get a sense that you'd,

this person who is looking at their own mortality or who doesn't know how long they have left, that you would ask them a question that they themselves hadn't really considered and it was a big existential moment for them? I think it was a, what was nice was he wasn't glib about it. He, his answer was sincere, you know, because it's a, it's, you know, it's a hypothetical, stupid pub drinking game question. But for him, it wasn't. For him, it was like, actually, I'd love to see that guy again. I'd like to be with that man one more time. And then, you know, whatever. And, and that's the magic for me. That was the magic of Edinburgh. All those kind of crazy things would happen. And everyone, there's kind of a pact

that you're all in this funny little hot, sweaty room and those things can happen. Do you ever find yourself trying to chase that on television? How do you feel television? Like, do you miss that? Or do you feel that in in a tv setting you can achieve that it's essentially what we're talking about is intimacy it's a contract of intimacy with an audience and with a room and i think on telly certainly on my show on telly that's really really hard i think on the radio you can achieve it um where i think people feel what's the difference between the two there because one you can't see the audience you can kind of What's the difference between the two there, do you think? Because one, you can't see the audience.

You can kind of forget about the audience on the radio. You know, it feels like two people in a room. I remember Mary Berry was on the show, on the radio show. And, you know, I have a stupid, you know, we'd chat on about cooking and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I say, oh, and you've chosen a record stupid you know we chat on about cooking and blah blah blah blah and then I say oh and you've chosen a record what have you chosen why and Mary Berry looked at me and she'd chosen Sailing by Rod Stewart that was her choice and I said and why did you choose this and she went I had a son and suddenly her eyes were filled with tears and suddenly I was just convicted and it was the thing that her son had died you know decades earlier and I think she

thought she was fine I think she thought oh I can say this I you know you know, I won't, this won't move me. This won't upset me. But I think it was somehow saying it out loud in front of someone, me, who I didn't know any of her family history. Yeah. Suddenly it hit her and it was, oh, and that's the sort of moment, you know, you couldn't have on the TV show.

And in fact, if you did, I think we've had one guest who cried on the television it was John Voight he moved himself with some story and we cut it out we didn't leave it in you know and I it's not a safe space that's the thing

like with you and Mary in a studio that's a safe space but in a TV setting often it's not a safe space for raw emotion. No, and I think, and also it's very hard to come back from it. You know, do you kind of go, well, I was going to talk to,

you know, Greg Davies about his tour. But let's just hold Mary Berry's hand for a while. And, you know, and at least on the radio, you know, we have this moment, but then we play a record. And then that's all, you know, there's a kind of people accept there's a kind of a grammar that after the record, things will be different. We won't still be crying. And the power of music as well, the power of music to create an emotional space. Yes, absolutely. Because, yes. And, you know, and it was Rod Stewart Sailing and he loved boats. And that's why she and she, you know, and it was so sweet that she thought this was going to be lovely. Oh, great. Well, I love that song because it reminds me of my son. And just it overwhelmed her.

What I'd like to know about as well is, so some of the questions I'm asking, they came from the internet. I asked people on Instagram what to ask you. Oh, yeah. I don't follow you on Instagram. I think of you as a Twitter boy, but are you big on...

I just, Asher, I have to do the whole shebang. I prefer Twitter. Twitter's better crack. I don't know, Instagram's nicer though. People aren't pricks on Instagram, but people are pricks on Twitter. Yeah, Instagram is... I don't know what it is,

but I think because people know you're not going to read it. Whereas on Twitter, they know you'll see it. That's it. That's it. Yeah. So one of the questions I got asked

was to ask you about your time in a commune in San Francisco when you were younger. And what I'd like to know is, in the context of that, but also, how do you go from being a young lad in West Cork to all of a sudden knowing that it's like,

I want to be on a fucking stage. I want to be on Edinburgh. And what's what happened in San Francisco and influencing that? It was. Those hippies were amazing. They were so good for me. You know, I was 20. Was it the 80s?

It would have been the 80s. 83, 84 around then. And what type of hippies like, so hippies in the 80s, were they older hippies? Was hippies still a thing that was happening in San Francisco? It was. Hippies is still a thing that's happening in San Francisco. There are hippie retirement homes now.

Oh, wow. So that, you know, they can talk, you know, they speak to their own people. So they're not stuck in a retirement home sitting next to a Trump supporter. They're in a lovely hippie retirement company, you know, and it'll all be eco and vegan. And, you know, they've done it well. They've done it well. But back then we were in this hippie

it was called Stardance the hippie commune and like how do you get like just for me there's no internet there's nothing

what how do you you just get on a plane did you decide you were going to join the hippies back in Cork or did you get to America it was all all accidental

I was going to see I this this was this makes me sound older this makes me sound like all accidental I was going to see I this this was this makes me sound older this makes me sound like a character from Jane Austen but I had

I had these pen pals and I oh fucking hell oh my god do you remember wow remember them um

and uh I you know I from everywhere you signed up with an agent I think you signed up with an agency how do you get a pen pal like how does that there with an agency? I think you signed up with an agency.

How do you get a pen pal? Like, how does that? There was an agency and you wrote away. You paid some money and you sent in your address. And then you started getting letters from all over the world. Half of them you couldn't understand because they were in such bad English. And you'd try and write back. Did you advertise yourself? Did you say, my name is Graham.

I listen to this music. I like these books? No. Or was it just hit and miss? I think it was more random. I think maybe it started in school, you know. I think it might have been

a school thing because I'm thinking now I wouldn't have paid money. So I think it was something to do with schools and it was some sort of pen pal thing like that. Anyway,

I ended up pen pal with this guy called David Filippando. Isn't that a great name? Fantastic name. David Filippando. Isn't that a great name? Fantastic name. David Filippando. And he was in LA. So my big running away scheme was I was going to go and see David Filippando in LA. So I get the J-1 visa. I get to New York. New York, terrifying. I couldn't, you know, I just had to get out of there. But New York was scary

in the 80s too, wasn't it? And also I'd seen, I'd seen a lot of, what was that? The Equalizer. I remember the Equalizer with your man, Edward Woodward.

And I do not know. But what was the crack with that? It was just, it was a lot of people being shot in wet, dark streets in New York. And I'd seen too many episodes. So, and also,

like when we got to, when we got there as kids, we stayed in like a YMCA or something in New York. Was this in like Manhattan? Yeah, it was in Manhattan. And Manhattan was very hardcore back then.

That was dodgy. It was, but it was exciting too. I remember we came through the Midtown Tunnel and, you know, and we were like, we were pathetic. All these little Irish kids pressed against the glass like looking at the big cars. And then we came through the Midtown Tunnel out into those big glass canyons. And I remember the bus driver came

on the mic and went, welcome to the Big Apple. And we were like, yay. And then they took us to the YMCA. And the next morning they gave us a talk. And I don't know what the talk was called. I think it was, you know, whatever, orienteering or something like that. But I said it could have been called How Not to Get Killed in New York. And they scared the shit out of us. We were... And I still do these things. So you never look up.

Don't look up. You walk by the curb, not by the wall. Oh my God. And you, if you have to look at a map, go into a shop. Never look at a map on the street. Don't advertise that you're a tourist or that you're, wow. And weirdly, I still do all of that.

It's kind of ingrained in me now. And, you know, if I'm with someone in New York and they start looking up at the buildings, I'm thinking, you're going to be killed! Stop it! Someone's going to shoot you in the head! So how do you go from there then to meeting this

David Philip Handoff well I had a seven day rambler ticket for the bus for Trailways bus okay you went on a bus

from New York all the way across the country I had with me and it was going to last me a month I had 200 pounds right 50 pounds a week

and because I thought that's more than I was living on in Cork. So I thought, I'll be grand. My parents waved me off. They knew that I had 200 pounds and I was going to America. Like it was madness. So off I go, get on the bus, trailways. But of course, because I was kind of, you know, pretentious, if you get,

I thought I won't get a map. I won't be tied down, tied down, tied down by maps. So I would just look for the leaflets in the bus stations that were going like, that were like a straight line across rather than a straight line up and down. And I thought, well, that's me heading West. Anyway, that's not a very good way. thought well that's me heading west anyway that's not a very good way to find a way what type of young fella were you graham like what music were you listening to what what visions did you have who did you want to be who did you think you were who did i think i was i don't know i mean i wanted to be i i i think i wanted to be an actor but then but then i thought i couldn't be an actor because i didn't know how you did that i just didn't know how you did that. I just didn't know how you did that.

So I think mostly I was looking for adventure, I suppose. I mean, I wanted to get away. And this seemed like as far away as I could get. And it was, you know, it was like so much of it was like a movie. Like I remember I didn't have a walkman or anything but i remember being on the bus and uh we the guy beside me had a walkman and bless him he said oh do you want to listen to some music and he gave me the headphones for a little bit and i remember i put the headphones on and it was the you know know, the song for Midnight Cowboy.

Everybody's talking. Everybody's talking. Oh, my God. And it was just you're suddenly you were in a film, you know, and I was going across a bridge across some big anonymous river in somewhere in the middle of America. And you're really lucky with that, man, because the thing is, you got to go to America at a time when you could genuinely experience culture shock like kids nowadays can't experience like there's two you can just look at all of america right now on the internet like we're aware that america is a horrible place in parts we know about it all but you got to go to america with this division that had just been sold to you by hollywood and to experience it that way.

And also to discover that every bus station in America is in a shithole. Like no bus station is a nice bit of town. They're all in the worst bit of town. So like you're literally stepping over people when you, it doesn't matter where you arrive, that it's just terrible. And, and like, but what was good was, you know, I had that kind of fearlessness of youth as well. So I probably wasn't as scared as I should have been. Yeah. The naivety, the wonderful naivety that can actually serve you well. And, and it's great so long as you survive, you know, that's why I'd hate to be a parent

because you'd be so terrified every time your child left the house because you'd remember all the incredibly stupid things you did when you left the house. But anyway,

the long and the short of it was the bus ticket, the seven day Rambler ticket, it ran out in San Francisco. So I never met David Bibanda. I never met him. Wow. I know.

Did you write to him and say sorry for not meeting you? Do you know what? I just got, I was ignored. And then my mother, you know, you do these long distance calls and because it was so expensive, you'd basically like you'd call home and go, hello and then hang up. And just so they

knew you were alive. But I remember my mother must have written to me, maybe she sent it on the phone, that this guy, some guy called David Villapando was calling the house. Because, of course, he thought I was dead. Oh, my God. I was one of the bodies who were stepping over, getting out of the bus station.

And so I did call David Villapando and say look I'm in San Francisco and I'll try and get down to whatchapacallit but to LA but anyway it wasn't going to happen

and then I had a phone number for someone in San Francisco I had one phone number for someone in San Francisco that someone had given me

back in Ireland and I and did you know this person? No, never met them. Just like, here's an Irish person, here's someone who's been recommended a sound, I'm just going to ring him up. No, she wasn't even Irish. She was some perfectly nice American woman living her life and suddenly got a phone call from me. And she couldn't help me, but she knew someone and she said,

look, call these people, maybe they'll be able to help you. Anyway, a few phone calls on, I got a room for the night in this hippie commune. And I was just paying nightly to rent this room. And then I think they said, look, do you want to stay? And so I said, yeah, I would. What were the conditions of staying like? Like a commune, you don't have to pay rent, but you're expected to do washing up.

You did have to pay rent. You did have to pay rent. It was very, compared to everyone else, it was really cheap rent, but you did have to pay. And, you know, there were all those classic things. rent but you did repay yeah and you know there were all those classic things there was a chore wheel where you know you had to clean bits of the house and you had to cook a couple of nights a week you can imagine how much they dreaded when the 20 year old from Ireland was cooking yeah yeah because I didn't know how to make anything though I went to the reunion. I went back. Oh my God. Wayne, how long ago? Oh, like, I was

actually, it's quite a long time ago now. I suppose about 15 years ago, something like that, I went back. And some of them are still there. Some of them are still in the house. But lots of them had come back for this party, this reunion. And this woman

said, oh, I still make your soup. I was like, what? What was the fucking soup? Some sort of potato and leek thing that I made. I had no recollection of making this soup. Were you, did you, were you pulling this soup out of your arse or did you have like,

did you know like? I must have, somebody must have told me how to make this soup, but also even now. Have they ascribed some type of ancient mythological Did you know, like... I must have... Somebody must have told me how to make this soup. But also, even now... Have they ascribed some type of ancient mythological Irish meaning to this soup

that you just brought over that you just fucking invented on the flight? Yes, on some traditional recipe and it's just like me. This comes from West Cork on the west of Ireland and it was handed down

from Cú Chulainn over in fucking San Francisco. And like... and even now though I find it very hard to make small amounts of food I over cater all the time

because I when I learnt how to cook it was in vast pots of food yeah and that's where I met

that was the first time I met tofu wow yeah there's not a lot of tofu in fucking Ireland. No, there really wasn't. And also it was disgusting. I mean, tofu now is quite nice. They put flavours in it. It's quite firm. But back then it was just gelatinous glop. And we'd have that and mostly vegetarian food. And then you sat on these cushions around these big electricity spools,

you know, those big wooden cable spool things. There were two of them together and they formed the infinity table. So there was no head of the table or any of that. You just all sat around. And there was quite a few house meetings involved. And, you know, there was, on a Sunday night, you could go to this barefoot boogie where people, you know, all left their shoes in a pile and you dance barefoot.

But in like some community hall somewhere. Were these people the same age as you? No, no. Were they older? Much older. They were in. Were you the only young person? There was a kid.

There was a kid called Mindy. And what was fascinating about her was so so all the hippies blah blah and then me sort of pretending to be a hippie uh and then there was mindy and mindy had no interest in being a hippie she was going to a school and so her room was like this weird window into mainstream commercial America. You opened her room and it was just full of Barbies and rainbows and, you know, pink dolls houses. And you could tell that kind of the mother was sort of embarrassed that it was like a cuckoo in the nest, a sort of capitalist cuckoo in the room. But now she's not that. She has, I think she's followed her mother

and she's grown into a kind of, into a... The irony of that. I know, weird that children, that all children rebel. That's the... Yeah, but then they return to the values they're brought up with at their earliest life. Yeah, I guess so, yeah. Well, also decent values. It wasn their earliest life. Yeah, I guess. Well, also, decent values.

It wasn't like, you know, you would. But I remember that. Well, do you know what, man? Fucking everyone making soup for each other and having this sharing communal lifestyle is a lot healthier than the ultra capitalism of Barbie. Yes, it's a lot healthier. But she but at the same time, she needed it. You know, I suppose. Yeah.

It's a lot healthier. But at the same time, she needed it. You know, I suppose. And you would think somewhere in San Francisco, like at school, she'd have found her tribe, you know, the other hippie children. But I suppose it was kind of, you know, the mid 80s. So I guess it wasn't a great time for hippies. They were on the wane. So I guess she wanted to, you know, she wanted wanted the pink bubbles in her hair and all of that.

But the mother did that experience. What did it do for your for your what did it do for your confidence? And again, what I'm trying to get at here is like the point in your life where and I had it myself where you go, fuck it, I could go onto a stage. Do you know what I mean? That point where you go, you know what? could go onto a stage. Do you know what I mean? That point where you go, do you know what? I think I could chance going up onto that stage. And it's a strange transition to make.

But did you have a person or did you have a moment? What was it for you? Do you know what it was? It was, so the other rubber, so I used to be in a thing called the rubber band. You're familiar with that. But like I was in school, I was 16 and often like I did have a lot of support at home with my creativity. It was either music or painting. It was quite a narrow definition of art. Right. And comedy didn't fall into that. Comedy and performing didn't come into that. So when I was in school, what I was doing, when I was kind of messing in class or doing funny voices

and making people in the class laugh, okay, I thought that was me misbehaving. And I was being informed by the teachers that that was me misbehaving and I was being informed by the teachers that that was me misbehaving now as an adult I look back and I go no no I was training myself for the stage when I was in class making people laugh that's me responding to an audience everything I learned that I was doing on the stage in Edinburgh and all this stuff that came from the classroom and Mr. Chrome the other rubber bandit he came from a family where things like musicals and performing were valued in his family and he was the first person to say to me no you're creative what you're doing is you're not messing

you're not creating trouble what you're doing is actually creativity and that's what made me realize oh fuck when i make everybody laugh um i know it's disrupting the class but i'm exhibiting a talent of some description there yeah it's learning and that helped me learning how to value it too because it comes easily to you you think you think it doesn't matter yeah you think yeah and it's only as you get older you realize oh actually the other kids in the class couldn't do it the way I could the other kids weren't like this is a this is a this is a commodity this talent um yeah because you know because it's just what you did it was just your way of your coping mechanism whatever you kind of don't think it's of any value um and you see I I see that with actors and stuff where at a read through,

they're hilarious in the first read through. They're so funny and good. And you kind of think, aren't they lucky that they can just do this, you know, falling on their head, they can just do it. And of course, they then torture themselves trying to do something else or trying, you know, trying to do something else or trying, you know, because they won't accept that the thing they did first was actually, that's the best. That's, that's as, you know, you have a, you have an incredible talent. So just relax. You're great.

But they, there is that kind of weird thing where people don't accept it. They don't value it. They've got to torture themselves. Did you try any performance in San Francisco? I did. I think I auditioned for a couple of things. Didn't accept it. They don't value it. They've got to torture themselves. Did you try any performance in San Francisco? I did. I think I auditioned for a couple of things, didn't get anything. But the big thing that I got out of the hippie commune was, and it sounds so, and it is hippie. I was going to say it sounds so hippie dippy. It should. It came from a hippie

commune. But it was that, you know, they were saying to me, you know, what did I want to do? And I was saying, oh, I'd like to be an actor. And I suppose I always thought, well, I don't know how to do that. Or, well, that's not something that I would do. Or, sure, if I tried to do that, I'd probably fail. That's not something that I would do. Or sure, if I tried to do that, I'd probably fail. And they, in that kind of amazing kind of American way, were just like, well, if you want to be an actor, that's what you should do.

You should follow that dream. And I kind of thought, well, that's true. Because I realized if I go to London and try to get into drama school and don't get in, then I think, then I can think again. But unless I do that, I'll never know if I could be an actor or not. And I remember to the, the, the mother of the little capitalist cuckoo, she was in, she'd come back to school to study to be a nurse. And she was, I think she was 40 years old. And I remember just thinking how tragic that anyone at 40 would try and start to do something. Like, why would you bother at 40 years old starting a new career? And I must have, hopefully I didn't say it that bluntly, but I must have voiced that opinion to her in some way.

Because I always remember her saying to me, well, look, if I do this, you know, till I'm 60, I'll have been doing it for 20 years. In brackets, as long as you've been alive, you little dick. And that was a really good thing at 20 to hear. You kind of think, oh, actually, God, you know, because you're in such a rush when you're dick. And that was, and that was a really good thing at 20 to here. You kind of think, oh, actually God, you know, cause you're all, you, you're in such a rush when you're young and it was great to kind of go, God, actually there's more time. There's a bit more time than I thought there was. Like I could, you know, fuck around until I was 40 and then start a career because you know, you're still going to be, I'd still be doing a job for 20 years, which is longer than I could imagine doing anything for. So it gave me kind of permission to go down some dead ends, you know, some cul-de-sacs and things.

Rather than kind of being on the fast track and, you know, knowing exactly what I wanted to do and, you know, having life goals and things I had to reach. You kind of think, actually, the meandering approach is probably more fun, more interesting and ultimately more rewarding because. Searching for failure. Yeah. Brilliant phrase. Looking for where are my opportunities to fail here and then recontextualize because people it's it's a thing that I try and incorporate a lot failure is is this thing that's seen as a negative but if you're creative if you're working in any creative field you have to search for and embrace

failure because it's the only way you progress and learn so failure isn't a bad thing in the creative industry it's just a way to develop. Yeah, it is. It's got to be about risk. There's got to be some risk and some challenge. Otherwise, well, the main thing, you'll just get very bored if you live a life with no risk or challenge in it.

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Wednesday, Thursday, Friday at around 8.30pm Irish time I come on, I chat I play video games I'm writing a non-stop live musical two video games it's good crack you can come on, you can chat with me come along to that

back now to part two of can chat with me. Come along to that. Back now to part two of the chat with Graham Norton, where we get into a bit of celebrity gossip. Graham gives me a bit of celebrity gossip. Yum, yum. So did you head back from San Francisco then and train in London

with a bit of acting? Yeah, so I came back to I came back because I realised, you know, I couldn't live in America. Because, you know. Was that just because of visa restrictions? Visa stuff. So I had to come back. So you did what, like a year and a half in San Francisco?

A bit less than that. Just a bit over a year, I think. And then I. Actually, one tiny thing before we move on. When you were speaking there about, you know being told by the people in san francisco about the the hippies about you know you can if you want to be an actor you pursue it did that give you any type of how did that contrast to the support you would have received at home like were your parents supportive of if you said you wanted to be an actor, how does that fly in West Cork?

Well, it couldn't fly. You know, well, certainly not in my family. You know, I think the idea was, if that's great, you like acting. And they were supportive of my interest in it. Like my father used to drive me up to Cork to go to rehearsals for the Everyman. And, you know, they supported me as much as they knew how, you know. And your dad was like a Guinness, wasn't he? So like they, they gave me all the support that they understood how to give.

But if I said I wanted to be a professional actor, like they would, you know, the three of us would just look at each other blankly because that wasn't a thing, you know, and I don't understand why I was so kind of paralyzed by it because there were actors actors, but the only Irish actor I knew kind of who knew someone I knew was Fiona Shaw. You know Fiona Shaw? Yeah. And she was from Cork. She'd been to UCC and she'd gone to London and she went to RADA. Boom. So I kind of thought, so that is, so that's, So I kind of thought, so that is, so that's, she's left breadcrumbs for me. I will follow that. And so that was the only thing I knew how to do. You went to London and you went to drama school and then you become an actor.

So that was the route. So I did it. I went to London and I applied to drama school and I got in to Central. So, you know, following the hippie thing of, you know, follow your dream as far as you can. I, you know, until you reach failure. Um, so I was being, I was finding success, you know, I got in, um, and then I got an agent and then I got a couple of jobs and that's when, uh, the dream, the dream sort of hit. I was sort of quietly steered into a lay-by and yeah, it just stopped. I just didn't get any jobs, really.

I had kind of a little flurry of activity early on and then that was the end of it. And that's how I kind of ended up writing my own stuff. And, you know, how happy am I that i didn't end up being an actor i'm delighted i'm not an actor but when did you start to feel like my first encounter with you was obviously on father ted but like when did you start becoming really comfortable with presenting with presenting a tv show and because i remember remember your first one the very first what was it called it was on Channel 4

Carnal Knowledge yeah Carnal Knowledge was on weirdly that was ITV that was was it ITV it was when ITV decided right we're going to

we're going to own Nighttime and that's why I thought it was Channel 4 it was obviously ITV trying to compete with Channel 4

yeah so they they do these late night shows. So Davina hosted one. Hers was called God's Gift. And that was a dating show for men. Like, didn't

men come on stage? And then all the women, I think, did the women all crowd around a man and that's how he won or something? I can't remember. But she had a really out there thing and then we did carna knowledge which was produced by um rapido who also made euro trash and things like that and ours was like a filthy mr and mrs game show yeah and of course we were you know back then people didn't understand so So we signed a contract to do, I think there were 12 shows.

And, you know, because we all came from a traditional world, our agents were like, okay, and then if it goes well, there'll be more shows, there'll be more shows. No, they will just show those 12 shows for like about three years. They just showed those 12 shows over and over and over again. But surely there was a benefit in that because at least it means if you're doing some type of live shit,

it's effectively an advert. I suppose. It was just frustrating that you kind of think, oh, like, yeah, because we didn't get paid to reflect the fact that it was being

like flogged to death on the telly um yeah the problem with that is someone then takes your image and they then decide how oversaturated you become well there's that and also the people think that's still who you are you know three years later i'm still there in an orange mohair jumper going, this is... But that's where I'm... Well, I knew Maria McCurlin before that, but she was kind of the main host and I was her sidekick. And, oh, it was grim. Like, there'd be huge fights in the car park afterwards and you'd be getting them to drink bottles of Becks at nine in the morning to relax. Oh, my God. It was really, it was hardcore.

Everyone wants to know, like, who was the biggest, who's been the biggest asshole ever on your show? Is that something you're okay to answer? Well, you know, the thing about assholes on the show is I'm always quite forgiving if they're an asshole. Yeah. Because I've got to think, well, it's nobody's job.

You know, nobody left school and kind of, I'm going to be a chat show guest. You know, people are something else. They're actors, they're musicians, models, writers, whatever the hell they are. Yeah. So if they're awful on the show, I kind of think, well, okay, well, we'll never have you back.

But I don't hate you because you were awful on the show. Weirdly, I am kind of spared the assholery, mostly. It's really the next day when I'm talking to people in the office that I discover the assholery that went on. Fucking classic. It's never always the case, man. It's the same with me. You meet someone and you think they're sound,

but then you ask the assistants, and then it's like, no, this person's a prick. They were nice to you, but they were a prick to the people who were underneath. And also you often tell if they are surrounded by pricks, if they've got like a really horrible publicist, really horrible manager, you kind of think that's odd.

Yeah. And then you figure it out. It's a pile of bricks. And they're just another one. I mean, I suppose for the people backstage, they have a hard time. Like there was one person, I won't say it was, and they already had nine dressing rooms I think this sounds made up this sounds like how can that be true how could one person need nine dressing rooms they had nine dressing rooms and and you know we did notice we it wasn't like that doesn't happen every week so we were kind of going they've got nine dressing rooms and then somebody came running into the production office someone someone from that person's team, going, we have a 911 situation. And we're like, really?

What is it? We need another dressing room. And so Catherine, the line producer, she's very calm and she gets on the phone to get another dressing room. We'll get you another dressing room. And while she was waiting on the phone, she just went, oh, out of interest,

why do you need another dressing room? And they went, oh, they want to charge their mobile phone. And that's why they needed another dressing room. And we were talking about it afterwards, kind of like, how does that happen? How do you get... Yeah, that's my immediate question is,

I'm like, I don't need to know who the person is, but I'm going, what level of fame are they at and how the fuck does that happen to a human being? Well, see, I think't need to know who the person is, but I'm going, what level of fame are they at? And how the fuck does that happen to a human being? I think it goes back to the kind of Mariah Carey basket of puppies thing, you know, where she's backstage. You know, the story about Mariah Carey, that part of her rider was a basket of puppies that she would play with. And I think where that comes from, that comes from people making work for themselves, people making themselves indispensable. So Mariah Carey is sat in a room and you go in and you go, how are you, Mariah? And she goes, I'm fine.

Do you need anything? No. Would you not prefer this room if it was white? It's a really horrible color. Would you not prefer this room if it was white? It's a really horrible colour. Would you not prefer this room if it was white? So she goes, I suppose it would be, it would look nicer white. Suddenly Mariah Carey is demanding her dressing room is painted white.

Would you like some scented candles? I'd say, I'd look to be nicer with scented candles. Mariah Carey demands scented candles. And then suddenly you get to the point where somebody goes, wouldn't you like some puppies? Wouldn't it be lovely to be rolling on the floor? And now all of a sudden

there's a new job that's created called a puppy wrangler. There you go. Yeah. So you think it's a culture of essentially grifting a person who has a lot of money to create work?

I think so. So like, so that person was going to charge the mobile phone and somebody kind of went, oh, now it might beep and you want to have a nap. So like, so that person was going to charge the mobile phone and somebody kind of went, oh, now it might beep and you want to have a nap. So it might make some noise.

Would it not be better if we, if we charge that in a separate room? Because that's the only explanation. Yeah, it's something in my career, like, like obviously I'm nowhere near that fucking level of fame, but it's still, I go, I go on stage and I do festivals and you have people who are responsible for your rider and stuff and it's something I've always battled with over

the years especially when working on TV. Now one thing I learned is so when it comes to doing a gig and you do, when I want a rider I literally just want what I need and what I need is some food, some some beers some water that's it but from an early stage i was encouraged to be like no no you can't do that and i'm like why well here's the thing with a rider you need to put on the really weird thing so my really weird thing on my rider is i need a hand drawn image of Elvis Costolo and every venue has to give me a hand drawn image of Elvis

Costolo. What's that about? So what I was told from the early stages of my performance is the rider that I get, my needs, my food, my water, that's not really that important. But what is fucking important is the sound,

the lights, all these things out there on stage so what you do is you create a rider that has some curveballs in there and by doing that when I when I go to a dressing room and I don't see Elvis Costolo then I go well okay Elvis Costolo isn't here what have they fucked up outstage and then you go up to outstage and you see ah shit they don't have monitors there for me this is the wrong microphone now we have a real problem about how the show gets affected so there is a culture of put weird shit in your writer because it lets you know the the quality of the entire venue if they don't read your personal writer they're certainly not reading the really important technical writer so once i heard that I was like okay I'm okay now to have a little bit of weird

shit I don't feel like I'm abusing people or wasting their time but one thing I will say Graham is and it's a huge thing with me and my plastic bag and my anonymity like mental health is hugely important to me and maintaining a healthy sense of self-esteem and a healthy sense of identity. And when I first started working on RTE and all of a sudden there's people who are employed as runners. So their job is to come up to me and say, would you like a chair? Would you like a cup of coffee? Now, I don't want someone doing this for me because I'm like, why the fuck should someone get me? I'm a grown man. I don't need I can get my own coffee but then it's like please it's my job I have to get you coffee but then it's like Charlie Brooker did a piece on this too it's you let someone get your chair

you let someone get you a coffee and then two weeks later you're going where the fuck is my coffee and then I have to mind myself around that because I'm going am I now becoming a prick you know what I mean and it's one of the things that my bag protects me because I know what it's like if I'm in Ireland and I can walk into a room with my bag on and everyone knows who the fuck I am everyone knows there's blind boy but I can walk back into that same room with no bag on nobody knows who I am. And the experience of those two things is very different. And what I find is when I'm blind by, I don't have to win anyone's approval. Everyone looks at me with this sense of their jaws are open because they're looking at the guy they've seen on TV or seen on YouTube. But when I go back into the same room and even speak to the same people now I have to I'm a

nobody I have to earn that person's trust through demonstrating that I'm a trustworthy nice person and that helps my mental health because I'm engaging with empathy yeah like how how do you find that with fame like you're fucking Graham Norton I think that like it's weird you say that thing I remember uh and and there's kind of nothing you can do about this, but I remember when I first got a show on Channel 4 and I remember going to a production meeting and I walked in, we were all sat around the table and I just noticed when I spoke, everyone shut up and everyone looked at me like

what I was saying was important. And, and I'm aware that that probably still happens, but I no longer notice it. There you go. And, but I am, so you can't continually notice that or you'd go crazy, you know, because it just becomes the way meetings are. Yeah. So I suppose. You know, one thing I can say to you, Graham, in your defense, and it's one of the reasons I was really, really happy to have you on this podcast. I don't know if you remember, right, but about five five years ago there was a party for Troika because we shared the same agents and I was just there with no bag on

and I got talking to you and me and you ended up talking about it was about your wine but then we ended up chatting about whatever and about an hour into me and you having crack you goes who are you by the way and I'd assumed the you goes, who are you, by the way?

And I'd assumed the whole time you knew I was blind by. And I was like, isn't that lovely? Graham just met this random Irish fella at the party and connected with me the whole night just because I was crack and then found out I was blind by. And I just found that really a good reflection on your character.

Do you know what I mean? Well, I've seen, and I don't know whether this was intentional, but it's certainly true, that I don't know celebrities. People assume that I must kind of hang out with famous people. And I don't.

And I think, I think partly that's to do with that I'm the host. So, like, literally, I will, I'll have a bunch of people on the show, a couch full of people and we'll have a great time. The show went really well. And the next day online,

I'll see a picture of everyone on the couch leaving a restaurant. They've all had dinner after the show. But you're not present. Not present. And I don't care, but I just think it's interesting that because you're sat on that chair over there, you're like some sort of comedy butler. You know, you've got like your silver tray with questions on it. But the others, they feel like peers on that couch. So it's a, I mean, I've talked about this before. others, they feel like peers on that couch.

So it's a I mean, I've talked about this before. There's an odd thing about hosting a chat show where on one level it's very high status because your name is above the door and you walk out and everyone's going, yay, yay, Graham, and that's, you know, the big I am. But the minute you have the guests out it doesn't matter how you know crappy or terrible they are you've got to be low status you've got to be you know you've they've got to be higher status than you and i think a lot of people who think they're going to enjoy hosting a chat show uh that's where it all falls apart. Where they suddenly realise... Because you have to have

humility. Well, you realise it's not about you. The show... Yeah. And it's kind of about you set the tone, I suppose. But it is literally not about you. It's got to be about those other people. Or the whole show

is kind of doomed. You're a DJ, but with the crack instead of music that's a very good description yes yeah that's exactly what i am um do you ever worry about like so because you use the couch model and that's the the one of the most enjoyable things about your show is you see people sitting beside each other and you never think that these people be in the same room and that's what's so lovely about your show do you ever have to like beforehand go we've two people now sitting on the fucking couch and we have information we've reason to believe that they don't get along with each other i mean sometimes you've got to kind of think, oh God, here we go. Like we had, like Tom Cruise and Seth MacFarlane

were on the couch at the same time. And, you know, there are some, there's, what's it, Family Guy. There's a Family Guy episodes that, you know, if Tom's seen them, I can't imagine he enjoyed them very much. So, you know, that was a nervous time because, you know, that could go horribly wrong.

But of course, you know, as it happens, kind of, I think Seth kind of apologized to Tom. I'm not sure if they did it on the show or whether it was

a little recording break. Was Tom aware of it? He must have been. Because the thing is with Tom Cruise, it's one thing I wonder about recently. So,

someone was describing, it was Trump's niece who wrote a book about him recently and she's also a psychologist yeah she said something about trump which i found fucking phenomenal which was do you know the way people try and assess trump's mental health from a distance yeah she said when someone is that famous you you can't use the regular rules of society to assess their mental health because they're effectively institutionalized and I would put Tom Cruise at a level of fame

where he's effectively institutionalized I mean that yeah I do and also as well have you ever met someone who's so fucking famous that you're just kind of taken back on? They don't live on my planet.

There's something different. You know, he would be in that category. Definitely. But it's not about. Well, I suppose it is about him, but it's about me. It's about I never get past the kind of the line that's been drawn around him. You know, he never seems like a real person. Is that a physical line now?

Does that mean assistance? Or are you literally going, it's Tom Cruise, it's Tom Cruise, and I can't get past the spectacle of Tom Cruise? You can't get past it. You never forget. Most people who come on the show, no matter how famous they are,

you know, after a little bit of, you know, oh my God, they become a person. And they either become a dull person or an interesting person or a funny person or a dick God, they become a person, you know, and they either become a dull person or an interesting person or a funny person or a dick or whatever they become. But they morph into a human being. He remains Tom Cruise.

And my God, he's good at it. Like he's so good at it. And also I feel like it's his choice. He decided to do that. And I hope it's worth it. I hope for him the rewards are worth it because you're right. What he's done to his life is kind of extraordinary that like he will he won't experience things in the way that the rest of us experience things. He won't know stuff in the way that the rest of us know stuff. Maybe he remembers, you know, maybe he could think back to when he was a boy and when this was his dream. You know, it's that. Bob Dylan said something once which was just jarring and kind of depressing. So Bob Dylan is also at that level of fame.

And Bob Dylan was saying that when he goes to a restaurant, even a famous person restaurant, everybody changes how they eat when Bob Dylan walks into the room, including someone like Robert De Niro or Bruce Springsteen, because it's Bob fucking Dylan. So Bob Dylan doesn't get to be a normal person, even around other famous people. And Tom Cruise is also that. He would be definitely. I mean, that's. And I think personality types like I mean, OK, so the reason I wear a fucking bag is I couldn't handle any notoriety. That doesn't suit my personality. I've got a history of anxiety, agoraphobia. I like being an artist. I don't like being recognized or well-known.

But I think some people do have the type of personality where being completely recognized and everyone knowing who you are, that suits who they are and that works for them. But does it though? Because I think what's incredible that you had the foresight to know. It was season one of Big Brother. I first started doing Rubber Bandit stuff in season one of Big Brother. I first started doing Rubber Bandit stuff in season one of Big Brother.

And I watched, the guy who won it was called Craig. And I watched how he became the most famous person in Britain and Ireland. And then after two months, he wasn't. And then after six months, he was like working in B&Q.

But people were still coming up to him. And I remember thinking, Jesus Christ, famous or disposable right now. Imagine being really famous, but you don't get to live that life or have the trappings of it. So you're essentially just being a regular person, but being bothered all the time. And it scared the fuck out of me. But don't you wonder, why is it that, because those Big Brother people back in, you know, season one, season two, Big Brother, they were more famous than God.

I mean, they were so famous. Yeah. into a big brother they were more famous than god i mean they were so famous yeah and yes the the kind of the bad things have happened after love island you know people's mental health now seems to be worse or or fame seems to social media is that all it is is it just is it just the people are sitting on twitter scrolling through vile stuff about themselves the like the only people who were absolute pricks

back then were the newspapers the newspapers were horrible like the treatment that Jay Goody got and then you could but you could throw it away you can throw it away

or you can say to yourself it's a journalist's job to be a prick but with social media and it's real people and man people are fucked up on the internet you know people really there's some people who really try and hurt people with words

really really have a good think about hurting people with words and you said a brilliant thing about that about you look at the little avatar and you see that it's a man and he's got he's holding his granddaughter or something. Or rubbing a dog. Yeah. And you've got to think, like, they're not that. They are. Like, they have goodness in them. Yeah.

And I try and latch onto that. When I see, like, an old man rubbing his dog and he's on the Daily Mail comments calling for the death of refugees, you know, it does jar me because I'm going, you have enough compassion to put your dog because i'm going you have enough compassion to put your dog into a photograph you have enough compassion to tell your granddaughter you love her what's going on here yeah i mean i you know in this moment of hatred that you have right i find that fascinating the that weird thing where it it's like road rage i think it's like you know

oh very similar where you call everyone every name under the sun when you're driving. But like, even if your window was down, you wouldn't do it. Or something as simple, Graeme, as you could be in traffic and you'll pick your nose if you're in the car, but you will not pick your nose walking down the street. The car gives you this sense of this illusion of privacy that I think social media does the same thing. think you're not vulnerable you think you're i'm i'm protected here because i'm in this in this car of twitter my twitter mobile yeah uh yeah but it's yeah i it it's i do think it's and and it's a bit like because i didn't learn how to drive till I was in my late 30s.

And the minute I got in the car, I was furious with everybody. And I go, where was this anger? Like, what the fuck is that? What was my vent? What was my outlet for this anger before I drove? And it's a bit like that with Twitter. Before these people had a Twitter thing, they weren't out in their garden screaming at neighbours. They weren't, you know, in the supermarket just throwing

packets on the floor going, I hate this. I hate it. Or calling for genocide. That too. And you're like, how did it? It's weird that that anger is in us. It just needs an outlet. And but yet if you're not given the outlet, you seem to be fine. Like I didn't feel I wasn't walking around like a pressure cooker before I had a car. But the minute I had a car, Mr. Angry. And were you shocking yourself going, I didn't know I could get this angry? Why am I beeping this horn?

Why am I screaming? I'm very, I don't beep the horn. I'm not that angry. Okay. I probably am, but I'm not. Was it a silent car rage? A very silent car rage. But no, I would be verbal. I would be like screaming inside the car. Yeah. I've got better. I have

calmed down. And also because I think London traffic moves so slowly now. There's no, nothing's holding you up. Yeah. Because it just, it all just crawls along. So you just have to give it up. I'd love to talk a bit about your writing process, right?

Like you've written three novels since 20, I'm guessing 2015 you started the first one. Like that's a pretty large output in five years. How do you find the time? What is, what's your routine for writing your books? I don't know. I mean, with me, I basically, I like, I want to write. You know, it's not like, it's not like homework.

It's not like, oh, geez, I'm going to do that. It's the thing I look forward to. I like getting lost in in those worlds and those characters in the story I like all of that so if I've got time in my diary I kind of say oh that could be those are book days let's do that and and I look forward to those days because I'm sure what does writing feel like for you do you ever feel do you feel like you're kind of watching a film in your head

and your story is revealing itself to you or are you thinking more about what's going to happen it's a bit of both you know on a good day

it's like watching a film and you go oh my god I had no idea that was going to happen and like you know when I interview writers and they talk about

oh the characters have been on a life of their own you just roll your eyes and go fuck sake but until you do it then it, then you're in it. And now I'm that pretentious prick talking about my characters.

I realized my character couldn't do that. And, you know, what are you talking about? But it is true. And those are the good days. Those are the days when you're like, oh, I love this. And then there's other days when it is heavy lifting and you kind of think how am I going to get them to here or how can

you know I solve this problem. Because you have deadlines you've got deadlines you've got a publisher saying Graham this book is coming out next year and we need it finished so how do you tackle that but that's the gift. Do you put a word count you've got a word count and what's your daily word count? Oh no I don't

have a daily word count I just have an overall word count and... What's your daily word count? Oh, no, I don't have a daily word count. I just have an overall word count. The overall is about 100,000. And so the deadline is great. The deadline is the reason that I think any book is finished. I mean, I'm so in awe of, you know, writers who write novels on spec and then send them off to agents and publishers. Yeah.

Like the idea of typing the end when no one was waiting for you to do it. Yeah. Because I think there's always something, I mean, maybe it's different with short stories, but with a novel, there's a bit about two thirds of the way through and I've talked to other writers

and they all go, yep, that's right. And about two thirds of the way through where you just kind of think, no one will be interested in this story. No one wants to meet these characters. Why am I continuing? And that would be the point where most novels end up in a drawer or on a memory stick. But because as you say, publishers are going uh where's that novel you you have to push through that big wall of self-doubt and get to the end um do you have support from your editors with that like when you get to that point do you ring up your editor and go look i don't give a fuck about these characters and i can't see why anyone else will. I mean, what are those conversations? I don't have those conversations because the whole point of these books is I don't have any conversations.

The books, I mean, I do in the end, in the end, once it's finished, then I've talked to editors and da da da da. Is it very private for yourself, the process? It's private, but private makes it sound like it's secretive. It's not secretive. It's just completely personal. It's the only thing in my life where, where I'm calling all the shots. It's just about, it's just about my imagination. Whereas, you know, most things I do, there's either a meeting about the show or, or you're having to deal with someone else or they're saying, oh, we can't play that music or, you know, the guest doesn't want to talk about this or, you know, there's always

something else to consider. And with the books, there isn't, or if it is, it's something I've put in, it's a break I've put in place myself. It's not, it's a self-imposed thing. It doesn't come from external forces. Do you feel that you, what's your relationship with your Irish identity? Because that was another real common question that was asked. Like, I do find that Irish people were very, not claiming, but I mean, like, sometimes people look at Irish people who go to the UK and do TV as if

it's a soccer team and as if going to the UK is some type of betrayal or something like that how do you feel about your Irishness and your Irish identity is it important to you, is it part of who you are? Well it has to be part of who you are and that's part of like one of the

this latest book Home Stretch that's part of like one of the, this latest book, Home Stretch, that's kind of one of the themes of that book is, you know, I've talked about this before when, you know, I didn't leave Ireland. I ran away. I couldn't wait to get out of the place. That was me done. And Home Stretch, it's about a woman who's in New York. She finds out that her mother dies.

No, that's the last woman who's in New York. She finds out that her mother dies. No, that's the last one. That's a keeper. Home Stretch is about if there's a crash, three kids die, three live. And it's about the kind of following the life of the driver of the car. But I remember, you know, when you leave Ireland and you think, right, that's it, you know, done. And you come to England and you, you know, you don't go anywhere near Kilburn. And you kind of think, I've grown up with, you know, four million of them. I don't need Irish people in my life.

And you're making new friends. You've got a career and all's fabulous. It's great, great, great, great, great. And then you're at a party and you bump into an Irish person. You've never met them before. You don't know them. And you get talking to them. And it's that,

and when you're young, this is depressing. Now I find it lovely. But when you're young, it's depressing. You're talking to this Irish person and you realize, oh God,

I already know this guy better than I will ever know anyone I meet in the UK. Yeah. Because they watched Wonderly Wagon and they know who Mike Murphy is. And you just have this shared history, these weird bonds. And as I say, when you're a kid, I think that's depressing. Now, in my 50s, I love that. I love that I have a bond with this place, that when I go back to Ireland, you know, I haven't lived in Ireland full time since 1983.

So I've been out of the place far longer than I was ever there. But when I go back, like, I just, you know, you have to say say I know Ireland better than I will ever know the UK like I wouldn't have the confidence to to write a book set in Britain like I don't know what the inside of people's houses look like I don't know what their conversations are but I don't know what English people talk to each other about so and I don't know what their conversation sounds like. You know, and I read books and everything. Yeah, the intimate, private, yeah, I wouldn't have a fucking clue either. What the fuck do English people talk about when they're eating the roast beef?

I don't know. So, and it's weird because I should know. I mean, that's stupid that I don't know. I've been here for so long, but I don't. I don't. Now, having said that, um, I do feel at home here, you know, like when I get on the plane to go to work, I'm going home. When I get on the plane in Cork to come to London, I'm coming home. Uh, you know, I, I pay tax here. I

vote here. My career's here. It'd be mad if I didn't feel some sort of sense of identity with, with certainly with London. Um, that'd be crazy if i still felt like an outsider i don't feel like an outsider um but equally i think london is a kind of a separate thing isn't it because you know it is yeah who knows londoners i don't know any londoners i mean all my neighbors are from somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. You're pretty serious about your wine as well. I mean, I love it. And also, I think

if you're going to put your name... Yeah, we wanted a question. Do you get drunk on your own wine? Yes. I mean, I get drunk a lot less than I used to, I have to say. And I don't like talking about it

because I don't... because I feel like I'm... You know, because if you say, oh, I've cut down my drinking, it's like I'm judging the person I used to be. And no, I'm not. It's not that. I don't know.

You just get older and, you know, sort of. Hangovers get worse, man. It's not so much that. I remember when I was writing sort of a memoir-y thing, and it was called The Life and Loves of He-Devil, and chapters of all the things I loved. And I wrote one chapter on drink. And I thought, oh, that'll be good. I'll put all my funny stories about being drunk in one chapter. Yeah, if you put all your funny stories about being drunk in one chapter, it really stops being funny. It just becomes sort of tragic by the end. You know, and things like, I remember I was in a bar in Shoreditch

and it was this tequila bar and we were all doing shots. And I left. I was going home. And anyway, I don't know how long, maybe 45 minutes later, my friends found me asleep, leaning against a lamppost. This was only about five or six years ago.

And you've got to think, now that is cute when you're 22. If you're 50, that's fucking awful. It's the front page of the daily you can't be asleep against a lamppost when you're 50 so uh i just thought i i yeah i i this doesn't suit me anymore yeah yeah that's what it is um and also i don't want, it's that weird balance of control in your life, isn't it?

So I don't want to say I'm giving up drinking because then I've given power to the drink. But equally, I'm telling the drink, I can not have you. I don't have to have you so it's a weird it's a weird kind of power balance between me and alcohol and trying to kind of assert my control while still enjoying it and what one last question for you so graham right with your books when you're writing do you ever feel that like how much self-discovery how much like almost therapeutic going into yourself going going into your your childhood, your early memories. Do you ever find that about your writing process? I mean, what's interesting about it is that it all comes out of you. You know, like you must find this where, you know, you're writing something and no matter how odd or extraordinary it is, it's it's in you.

You haven't you haven't plucked it out of the air you're not channeling it from somewhere it's stuff that's in your brain and I think what surprises me is sometimes the the empathy you can have or how the facility you have to put yourself in situations you thought you knew nothing about. And suddenly you kind of think, oh, actually, weirdly, obviously I have experienced that or I can imagine it really vividly. And those are the kind of the surprises, I suppose. And also the overall surprise is, I think, that these books that I've written, these novels, are much more sentimental and kinder than I ever thought I would be as a fiction writer. I imagined my books would be quite snarky and cruel and a bit world weary and jaded. snarky and cruel and a bit world weary and jaded and actually turns out that's not who i am when when i write novels that's not where my mind goes to in fiction um i'm i'm sort of an old softy

really does that make you feel good about who you are now your sense of because one thing i noticed earlier when we're speaking about you know when you're younger and you meet Irish people you have this sense of resistance which to me that what stuck out there it's like when a teenager is exploring all these different types of music or types of dressing as a way to find out who they are but now as you're older you don't find resistance to meeting Irish people you find it kind of warm like when you're speaking about there are you comfortable now with a sense of identity is this saying to yourself fuck it I'm actually quite kind and empathic and my stories are telling me this and is that a comfortable sentence it is a comfortable sentence and I feel you know as you get older god you better you better get comfortable in your skin

you've so much of it yeah um so yeah you you you want to relax into yourself um and you want to have a sense of who you are um because i think yeah if you're still if you're still struggling in your kind of late 50s to kind of find yourself or to like yourself or accept yourself you know you know i earlier, we've got more time than we think. But at the same time, there comes a point when you need to kind of be in your groove, I think. Or... Acceptance.

Acceptance. This is who the fuck I am. Also accepting what you're good at, what you're not good at, what you're never going to do. You know, I'm all for follow your dream, follow your dream, follow your dream. There comes a point when you've got to give up on your dream. There comes a point when you're kind of like, that's not going to happen anymore. And the process, the grief around that, people don't,

we speak about grief in terms of the death of people, but quite a few people experience grief around the death of dreams. Absolutely. And a bit like every sort of grief, you know, you, there is a process to get through it. You know, there are all the, you know, all those things ending in acceptance. And that's where you've, you've got to get to. Otherwise, you know, you're that person that you meet who's, you know, still working on a demo or still having meetings about something or other. And, you know, we all we've all known those people. And you think, oh, God, you know, I suppose if it still drives them, I suppose if they're still if they're still moving forward and it still gives them it feeds them in some way. It's the relationship they have with it, Graeme.

What I always think of there is, I remember it was like, I was seeing, it was fucking Dragon's Den or something like that. And it was a dude who, he had an idea. He'd invented a new type of sport like 30 years ago. That's big. That's very big. Inventing a new sport. That's ambitious.

He was living out of his car because he was so sure that this sport was gonna and it was 30 years into it and he was living out of his car he'd sold his house and it's like

look I've got this new fucking sport and I think he could be in the Olympics and it's it's when it's that it's his relationship with his dream

is now unhealthy yes it's not like I've got this sport and I think about it in my spare it's it's not like i've got this sport and i think about it in my spare time but it's not impacting my fucking quality of life or my family but it's like now your relationship with your dream is is fucking up the quality of your life that's where it's and i think it's people got sold a lie somewhere along the way i think when i was the yanks started that yeah i guess did. The Yanks are the people

who told me to follow my dream and I did, but my dream then morphed into something else. You were right. You were, you foddered it in the right direction, but what about people? I think it comes from, if you look at the history of America and frontierism, it's just like they took this country

and it's massive and we're told just go forth and take whatever the fuck is there. And there's gold in them, their hills and keep going. And that now manifests itself in the American psyche. But it's like, yes, but you need to have limitations, too. You need to self-reflect. Is this dream, if you're too deep into it and it's impacting your life and you're living in your car because it was a fucking sport you gotta go maybe this is the wrong dream maybe there's a mirage i'm not a parent but i always kind of think if i was a parent don't put all the drawings on the fridge

like some of the drawings some of the drawings must be better than others and and yeah more work went into some of the drawings than others and like i think people should recognize um you know that hard work is is required it's not you know every you know it's that thing your little princess or little prince and it's like that can't be that healthy in the end because yeah your expectations need to be managed in some way and yet at the time, you don't want to crush people. There must be some weird, there must be some happy medium where people kind of, you know, they can dream, but at the same time they understand that there are kind of practical things in life that you have to address. For me, I've always viewed what I do as a hobby. I've always viewed it as a hobby.

And the bag also was part of that. Another reason for my bag was like, because I went back and did a master's five years ago. I always have in my awareness, fuck it, what if I, what if this doesn't work out and I have to get a different job? Well, that would be quite easy now

because I have a bag on my head and I don't know who the fuck I am. When you did your master's, was there like a kind of, did you come out? Did you meet new people? And then when you got to know them well enough, you'd go, actually, I'm a blind boy. Yeah. So when I was in my class, it was a small class of about 12 people.

After a few weeks, I just kind of said, look, this is my art. This is what I do. I'm doing my master's around this. And I'm going to ask you to respect the situation but once they'd gotten to know me they didn't give a fuck that my other life meant i had a fucking bag in my head so it so i'd got i'd established trust first and so it never got out dick you never got you it wasn't no that's really impressive because you would tell people you would kind of go you'll never guess who's in my class.

I'd say they did a little bit, but they'd have never like asked for a photo. People never came in and said, they did at the end. At the very end, when I finished my master's, certain people said, look, my brother's a massive fan. All right. I didn't tell him, but we're coming near the end. Will you sign this for him? Will you do that?

But people generally, they're really respectful of it because they understand my reasons behind it you know and you just put in the work to show them that you're a person who's worth trusting and do you think you'd ever have another life where where you were something else as well and maybe that person did have a face not not publicly right but but like i i trained to be a psychotherapist uh years ago and i quit because of horse outside and i would like to think maybe if i give up this that i'd go back as a psychotherapist not in the public eye but just someone who helps people through therapy yeah you know i do get asked a lot by my agents and all that shit would you just take off the fucking bag and then we can sell you in the uk for fuck's sake but i'm like no thanks it doesn't suit me i think it's brilliant that you know that because the thing about you know having your i think people think they want

to be well known you know you know they're all those kids who go on love island and all those things they think they're going to enjoy it and and it like you need to be you need to gird your loins for it particularly now as you were saying you know that whole social media thing like it's not going to be as fun as you think it's going to be there are perks there are nice bits but yeah but and also it's that thing that you can't turn it on and turn it off that's what's brilliant about you can you you've got a tan you've got a tan yeah you pop that bag on and look at me the big i am and it's wonderful um but then you can just go to the shops it's yeah yeah yeah and i can as you were saying earlier i can get drunk and fall asleep against the lamppost. You're young enough.

I'm young enough, but still, like, I can do that with my friends, you know, and I don't have to worry about. I mean, the fact of the matter is you went out, you had a good night, you got drunk, you fell asleep against the lamppost. How easy is that to frame in the paper that you are now your life is falling apart and you're destitute? Very easy I mean there you go and how many times have I seen people in the newspaper who I don't know they were at a house party the night before they had a hangover

famous people and all of a sudden the newspaper is like this person's life is in ruins and it might not be true maybe they just had a hangover I find there's a very odd thing with newspapers where I know that everything I read about myself in a newspaper isn't true, or at least it's off. It's skewed wrong or they put a spin on it

that isn't correct. And I will read the thing about myself and I'll go rubbish. And I will literally turn the page and read a story about someone else and go well I didn't know that oh poor them they're terrible and it's

but it's so weird that you can't I cannot make that connection yeah fucking hell that's 90 minutes there Graham right so I just want to say look thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it.

And not just for doing the interview. I'm six months in fucking lockdown, so I don't get the opportunity to speak to people. So it was just a lovely conversation as well. So thank you for that. Well, listen, really, really nice to talk to you. And I'm not just saying this. I am such a big fan of your podcast.

It really is one of the best ones out there. You've got just a brilliant, brilliant mind. You're fantastic what an absolute gent, what a lovely cathartic chat that was it was, like I said there at the end

it didn't feel like an interview, it felt like being on the phone, felt like being on the phone and having a lovely conversation and a chat with someone who I had stuff in common with you you know, and I loved doing that, it was just nice, the rest of my day after that, because I'm kind of locked up with quarantine, you know, I miss human connection and when I did that chat with Graham I was on cloud nine for the rest of the day I was buzzing I had endorphins you know I'd made a human connection

I'd engaged with empathy so thank you to Graham for that just for doing that it was fantastic I'll catch you next week don't know what next week's podcast is going to be about probably a hot take we'll see what the crack is alright if you're a new listener thank you

for sticking around listen to some old podcasts subscribe to the podcast like it fucking follow on spotify whatever share it man share it with a friend especially if you're not living in ireland if you're in america or australia or britain if you like my podcast, show it to a friend and get them to listen, that stuff really really helps okay, yart Thank you. rock city you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation night on saturday april 13th when the toronto rock hosts the rochester nighthawks at first ontario center in hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game.

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