The Blindboy Podcast - Scroobius Pip

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

I chat with the artist, actor and podcaster Scroobius Pip about music, neurodiversity and the joys of trying and failing  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fan the daffodils, you candlelit avarils. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. As I record this, there's an absolute bollocks of a housefly on the front of my computer monitor. I'm not into killing houseflies. I prefer to try and usher them out of the room using wind where possible, but it's just that time of year. wind where possible but it's just that time of year about about a week into August it gets very house flyish there's a particular type of house fly they're not blue bottles they're not green bottles they're not huge they're medium-sized house flies and I really really dislike them they are house flies that they just love human skin

they love human skin and anything that my mouth has touched they also hate leaving via an open window and they'll stay in the same room for maybe 5 days and this particular housefly their favorite thing to do is to just land on my skin just land on my skin doesn't matter how much I

bat them away they just like to land on my my exposed leg yeah it is always this time of year because it's only in late July and early August that I wear shorts in my house and I associate that tickle on my leg with wearing shorts so it's just this fucking fly whatever breed it is and it's favourite thing to do is to land on my skin as much as humanly possible

and when it's not landing on my skin it likes to land on the bit of my mug of tea where my lips touch and i don't know whether that same fly has been crawling through dog shit that's the only fly actually that i'll get angry enough that i'll try and kill it it's the only because we're talking days here we're talking days of one fly being in the room, landing on my skin landing on the TV when I'm looking at it trying to play a video game and the fly decides

to land on the TV, it's as if the fly isn't real and I'm going a bit mad and it's just this fly that knows exactly how to piss me off and they've just returned every summer at this time for most of my life so I have tried to kill this fly and they've just returned every summer at this time for most of my life. So I have tried to kill this fly.

It doesn't work because they're the fastest ones. I refuse to use fly spray because when you spray a fly with fly spray it takes about a half an hour for him to die and I just don't believe in doing that. I'd rather be annoyed by a fly than to let that happen. And the spiders seem to be just sitting on their fucking arses because I do allow spiders in my house. If I see a spider in my gaff I don't remove it. I let them set up their web, do their thing because they're not harming me. But the spiders seem to take a break when these

fucking August house flies come out out i've tried looking up what the fly is i've taken photographs of it i sent pictures of it to collie ennis who's an expert in insects i don't even think he came back to me with a like an exact answer as to what fly it is because if i can just find out the exact name of this specific medium sized fly that lands on my skin. I dunno then I'll learn about it, read about it. The more information I have about this specific breed of fly the more compassionate I can be towards it and just allow it to exist and let it land on my forehead. It loves salty human sweat. I think what this fly wants is the saltiness of August human sweat because it lands on my fucking forehead when it's a bit too warm

and I might have a bead of sweat. Then I slap myself in the face and then on like day three of being consistently harassed by this fly I start to get phantom tingles in my body. I start to imagine the fly landing on my leg or landing on my arm when it hasn't. There's no real solution. You open a window and then more come in. Then you're dealing

with two of them and I'm not resorting to chemical warfare. And then in about two weeks, the end of August, when it starts to get cooler, then I won't hear from this breed of fly again, and then what happens? That's when the big fat bastard spiders come out. The European house spiders, the huge ones, who I'm sure would have no problem devouring this fly, they seem to come out, and start wandering around the house,

as soon as this fly is gone. And then I'm being passive aggressive with the spider, like where the fuck were you last week because I know what those spoken about this many times those huge

European house spiders the ones that you can hear if they're on lino they come out at the end of August they're the male spiders who are searching

for the female spiders because what they've done is they've actually masturbated into their own hands, and then they walk around the house with spider hands full of sperm. And then the female spider, who's like behind a washing machine or whatever, she lays a little, a nest full of eggs.

And he just punches the nest of eggs with his own cum. And then she eats him. And even though they're huge and terrifying massive spiders i always let them be because i just feel sorry that like that's what their life is i feel sorry for them but like why can't they come out a week beforehand and deal with this prick of a fly i might have to start getting one of those fucking zappers that you hang on the wall and then my living room turns into a kebab shop. No I won't do that because if I had one of those I'd end up electrocuting myself. So this week's podcast is not about flies or spiders. I have a fantastic

guest on the podcast this week. It's from a live podcast I recorded a couple of months back in London in a venue called the Troxy. It was the biggest live podcast I've ever done. It was 3,000 people in this wonderful art deco, gorgeous theatre called the Troxy in London. And my guest was Scroobius Pip, who's a spoken word artist, a rapper,

a podcaster, a Twitch streamer, an actor. Scrobius Pip has had a career that's more than 20 years long and he's a lovely, lovely person and someone who I've known over the years and someone who's been a huge help to me. Scrobius Pip got me into podcasting. He was the one who showed me how to podcast, to make it happen. Before I get into the podcast with Scroobius Pip, I want to do a few little plugs for him.

His podcast is called Distraction Pieces. He's been doing it for years. I think he started it back in about 2012 or 2013. He has a wonderful back back catalog with some fantastic interviews distraction pieces is a brilliant podcast he's just started a second podcast a new one with his mate stew whiffing called tell me about it also scroobius pip is a twitch streamer um just google scroobius pip twitch if you want to catch his Twitch stream. He's a very interesting, funny, kind, compassionate person

who has achieved quite a lot with his art over the years. So that's what we speak about. We speak about making art. We speak about making podcasts. We speak about neurodivergence. We speak about the importance of failure within creativity. And it was a wonderful chat with a lovely audience.

And I hope you enjoy it. Dog bless. So I first came across you in about 2007. You had a song called Dau Shal Dau Was Kill. Initially, I thought you were an Islamic fundamentalist.

That was my first thought. It happens. Because I'd never seen someone with that beard before. Yeah. I was in Limerick and I didn't know those beards were cool because it was 2007

and those beards didn't become cool until 2012. I was going to say they weren't yet. They really weren't, but it took a while. Actually, just before I get into your career, you were almost blamed for every hipster in the world having a beard. Yeah, pretty much. I invented hipsters. But literally, when hipster, because I remember.

There was a Guardian article. There was a Guardian article that had an illustration, a picture of a typical hipster and one of the little arrows that came from it said, beard, big beard,

like rapper Scroobius Pip or spoken word artist Scroobius Pip. So, I'm actually in the history of hipsters. But I invented hipsters, I invented spoken word, I invented podcasts. I'm about to invent screenwriting. I'm the Elon Musk of arts and culture.

I turn up and claim it. That was me. Yep, I invented that one. I did that. But Dowsha Darou Was Kill was... ..a viral video before viral videos were a thing. Like, I first saw that... I didn't see it on TV. I saw it on someone's Bebo flashbacks. Amazing. I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cos that's how it was being passed around. Yeah. And it was really important for me because I just knew the lads making this, they don't have a big label, they've clearly done this themselves and this looks like a self-produced thing that they've kind of put online. We made that for 300 quid

and we borrowed 200 of that quid because we didn't have 300 quid genuinely a mate of Dan Lesac's paid for 200 of the 300 quid and we shot it all over, I think we did like a three day shoot on it or something and yeah and then it went mental

Was the internet the reason that that went mental? Yeah, yeah, MySpace initially, uploading the song to MySpace, got it on people's radar yeah yeah Myspace initially uploading the song to Myspace yeah got it on people's radar I burnt off one CDR

of it of Thou Shalt and I wrote our name and the name and I put it in an envelope and I put a note and I sent it to

John Kennedy at XFM and I said Kate Nash said that we should send you this. And she had, we'd done a gig with her a few days before. She said, you should send that to John Kennedy. And he played it that night and it all blew up from there. And I was, yeah, I recorded the vocal in my bedroom at my mum's house.

I put three mattresses up. I had a step ladder I taped the microphone to because I didn't have a mic stand and just recorded it there and yeah it was all of a sudden it was on the radio on the internet on myspace all over the place now you know I'm obsessed with the musical lineages and I'm obsessed with listening to music and trying to hear the DNA of music and my personal opinion is that Idols Sleaford mods and now wet leg

Three bands I don't think they would be doing what they do if it wasn't for the shit that you were doing in the late 2000s it's really interesting because it's mad how Like we were never that big like We played some decent-sized venues, but we were never regular chart-toppers or anything like that. But when I had idols on the podcast, they said, then, yeah, we heard that when we were at uni and it influenced their writing and their style and approach.

And the same with Sleaford, when I had Jason on. I think I'm big with people whose names begin with J. So Joe from Idles was all over it, and Jason was all over it. And yeah, he heard it in a fish and chip shop. He heard that shout. I think it was because it got on like daytime radio one and that's the bit that's different there's loads of amazing

smaller acts and stuff like that that don't maybe influence things as much as maybe that did but because we never expected it to it didn't have a chorus it wasn't three and a half minutes long or whatever it didn't have any of the structure

of what you'd expect a pop hit to be. So I think it stood out to the right people. I guarantee there was millions of people around the country who it had to be played. Because it was picked as someone's record of the week, it had to be played on every show on Radio 1 for that week. And it was people who were really into music. Yeah.

So when I was, I would have heard it in college, and it was the people who were really, really into music who were listening to what you were doing. And it definitely gave us confidence to go like, all right, okay, if you're rapping as such, you can do it in your own accent. Yeah. That was really important to me right, okay, if you're rapping as such, you can do it in your own accent. Yeah. That was really important to me,

because, again, everyone I knew growing up, even when me and my mates would mess about and freestyle, we'd do it in an American accent, and that felt like a joke. I was like, I don't want this to feel like a joke. I want this... It's the weirdest thing. It's why every time I did radio or after gigs, I'd always

do the merch booth myself and I'd talk to people and the first thing most people would say, I'd go, you sound exactly like you do on the records. Yeah, they're my records. That's me. It's hard to realise it now, but like

in the 2000s and before the 2000s, to do... I know the song isn't strictly hip-hop but it's hip-hop adjacent 100% it wouldn't have happened I I got into spoken word because I didn't know any rap producers I was into hip-hop I wasn't into spoken word and then I started doing it I was into hip-hop I didn't have any beats and then you know I learned more in the spoken word world and fell in love with that but yeah but it was really it was a shame I don't know a shame for the word to to make a song in the 90s or the 2000s in your own accent was seen as death it's like no you have to try and sound American like even yeah like

it's like no you have to try and sound american like even yeah like there's a an amazing fucking rap group from london from the early 90s called the london posse yeah incredible fucking amazing stuff but london posse were doing rap in a london accent and it really wasn't accepted at the time like quite a lot of london rappers at that time in the early 90s were trying to sound American. And even, like, we take for granted... I think my personal opinion is that around 2006, when illegal downloading

had started to take over record labels, that's when people started to realize, oh, fuck it. There's no such thing as breaking America anymore. Like, remember the days of like, the idea that like Blur were huge in the UK and Ireland, and then no one had ever heard of them in the fucking US. Yeah. Like, that's nuts. Yeah. But you had bands, like even Blur, when they did that album with Song 2, Blur were trying to sound like pavement because Blur were being pressured to try and get into the American market.

So bands, whether it was hip-hop, whether it was indie, were like, try and sound a little bit American. Don't sing or rap in your own accent. That's shameful. And hearing you do that in your own accent was like, wow, okay, there is a way to do something and to make it sound cool. But weirdly, it was because of that, it was because of the clarity as well and the enunciation that we were kind of tipped to blow up in America.

And we toured a bit, but it wasn't like we had, Rick Rubin was looking at maybe signing us and all sorts of amazing people. But that was because Dizzy had blown up in the UK. Yeah. America couldn't understand him at all. They literally couldn't understand a word he said because he was in his own accent,

but not clear to them. And they felt a lot of labels seemed to think that because what we were doing was clearly British, was unlike anything in America, but they could probably understand it. When gangs hear English rappers, they hear it as posh. No matter what the accent is, they hear it as

like fucking things, chairs, wanking on a cracker. But the beauty of it is if you're doing kind of spoken wordy stuff, they also hear loads of extra intelligence that maybe isn't there. So I'd always put as much intelligence as I could into it, but America would think I was like a professor or some shit. There was that vibe, though.

From your earlier stuff, there was the sense of, fuck me, this cunt's got shit to say. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I do, like, I hate interrogating lyrics now but what did you mean when you said the beatles were just a band that actually the the first one that i wrote of that list of bands was a radio head and the reason

i wrote it was because i fucking adore a Radiohead but I was having Christmas dinner with my mum and my brother and I think my aunt might have come down and I was passing the potatoes and I was thinking, it's mad that Tom York's also doing this, isn't it? Like it's mad that Tom York has got his aunt round and his brother's taking the piss out of him or whatever and he's passing it. That was the idea that these are all just bands and they're all just people. So yes, the art that they create is this different

thing but it came from, I said a Christmas lunch because I thought everyone in the UK is just there. He's not Tom York from Radiohead. He's that person's nephew and that person's son and that person's brother. So that's what that bit was about.

But then it turned into like a battle cry and everyone thought it was an attack on you. Everyone who was into those bands would be like, I love you, but Oasis ain't just a band, mate. Get real. I loved how it was quite prophetic in the sense that that again is something we kind of can't relate to right now.

If the Beatles were around today they'd all have Twitter and we'd fucking hate them because John Lennon would be insufferable. But like let's just be honest here, like it's Radiohead... I was talking to you backstage about... Genuinely I've got two videos saved on my phone that I like to watch and just laugh at. And one is Paul McCartney acting like a Wally and one is Ringo Starr acting like a Wally. And that proves that they're the two around still.

And it's like, oh, look at these fucking dickheads. But I was chatting to you backstage about how much I adore the Prodigy. Because you know Liam Howlett in real life and I can't believe that. But when I was growing up listening to the Prodigy, they weren't just a band. Literally, these were ethereal gods. And what made the Prodigy ethereal gods was... I didn't even know what they looked like. I had

the Prodigy experience on tape and I opened it up and all there was was cartoons of the members. And I just loved that one of them had a bogger name like Liam Howlett. The most Irish name going, you know. He sounded like I should rent a generator off him.

Yeah. Next to Keith Flint and Maxim and, like, the most comic book names ever. Love it. Now that we have so much access to stars, you can't think of... Rock stars aren't gods anymore. Like, Beyoncé is the best example of someone who tries.

Like, Beyoncé's not on Twitter. Beyoncé is able to be like, I'm not a human, I'm a fucking alien. I am royalty. That's what Beyonce can do. But most other artists, no matter how big they are, I have to go onto Twitter and read about a shit they had that morning.

And now they're human beings and they're flawed. And it does get in the way of how I worship that art. and it does get in the way of how I worship that art. That is summed up by the time I saw Prince live and it had that feeling. It didn't feel like I was watching an artist or a musician. It felt like an alien force. I'd never had anything like that. Since the age of about 13 or 14,

any money I got I spent on going to gigs. I was always about going to see bands. So I've seen thousands of bands at that point, bands I absolutely idolise. And when Prince stepped on stage, it was... Yeah, it was like something else. And it's because of that, because of the mystery behind him, I guess. But do you remember being in school and everyone said

that he had his ribs removed so he could suck his own dick? Yeah, I think that's why I was so excited to see him. But that's the thing too. That existed for fucking dick. Yeah, I think that's why I was so excited to see him. But that's the thing too. That existed for fucking years. Yeah. Like, imagine that. That just couldn't happen now. Someone would just go onto Twitter and go,

Prince, did you remove your ribs to suck your own dick? I mean... No. I mean, that might have been a negative in your school, but I went to an all-boys Catholic school, and that was very much a positive. He was praised for that. We ended up... Oh, my God! It ended-boys Catholic school, and that was very much a positive. He was praised for that. We ended up...

Oh, my God! It ended up in my school, there was a fellow we called Bin Laden. His second... No, sorry, Bin Ledin. His second name was Ledin, and his party trick was that he could climb into a wheelie bin, and he claimed he was able to sell fillets in his own wheelie bin.

But it was inspired by Prince Conversations. So, Leden, he's, oh, I didn't use his first name now because he's probably a fucking accountant now with kids. But what Leden used to do was he would crawl into a wheelie bin with his legs up there and his head there and he would claim, I do this at home, I suck

my own dick like Prince. Bin Leden, we called him. It was after 9-11. Weirdly, at some point, I came to a rave here. In this room? In this room. And I was leaving, and they had kind of the barricade bits out the front. I was leaving, and as I walked off, someone

went, Saddam Hussein. And I genuinely turned around and went, think you mean Bin Laden, mate? It was before Saddam hadsein. And I genuinely turned around and went, I think you mean Bin Laden, mate. Because Saddam, it was before Saddam had the big beard. So I've been called Bin Laden loads of times, but it was before Saddam had the big beard. So it was literally, I corrected him on his insult.

No, actually. Do you remember they made Saddam grow the beard when they executed him? Yeah, exactly. The Yanks are cunts, aren't they? They're fuckers. Like, I'm no fan of Saddam Hussein. I'm not a fan of Saddam Hussein at all,

but the way that they fucking made him grow his beard, hung him on CNN, and then released a load of stories that he used to love Doritos. I love it. Do you remember that? When Saddam Hussein was a prisoner and then they got some Marine that was his guard and they said to him, what's really like like he loves fucking Doritos and

Then CNN were like all right, but I thought you hated America Saddam It's like when they went through bin Laden's hard drive And they found what did they find on bin Laden's hard drive? and a lot of some cartoon a lot. A lot of Al Qaeda shit, obviously. And then he had the meme Charlie bit my finger.

Like, saved like nine times in different files. It's a funny video. It is funny. I wonder what Charlie's getting up to now. I mean, I won't defend him for many things, but I will defend him for his love of the Charlie bit my finger video.

Just imagine Bin Laden and his compound going around biting his friend's fingers as a laugh. I'm Charlie, I'm Charlie. Death to America. So... Just before we move on though, I don't think I've told anyone, I've definitely not told you how I know

Bin Laden. Liam Howlett. Alright. Other end, other end of the spectrum. But I've just realised it works with your kind of music lineage thing. Because I grew up as a Prodigy fan as well. I remember taping this stuff off the radio and listening to it on my paper round on my Walkman.

But we ended up meeting because my accountant is his accountant's son. I was expecting something cooler, man. We were sniffing glue in Essex. How basic is that? I know, yeah. Essex is so small and not rock and roll that there's only one family

who look after anyone in music because they know how those taxes work. And yeah, that's genuinely how we met. And then he ended up being a fan of my stuff and asked me to write

for The Prodigy. Fuck off. And he sent me some beats and I wrote some stuff and I was too young and ignorant at the time so I wrote Scrooge's Pip type lyrics. I wrote this stuff and I was too young and ignorant at the time so I wrote Scrooge's Pip type lyrics. I wrote

this one that was a history of hip hop that kind of goes through the full history of hip hop talks about how the Ultramags kind of invented sampling and then says, ain't that right Liam because Liam sampled the Ultramags a load of times so it's all kind of self-referential and then Liam was like

this is wicked but like we were asking you to write stuff for Keith Flynn and that's not his style Keith isn't going to come back from Firestarter with a wordy rap about the history of hip-hop so it didn't work out at all um yeah I always regretted it because I thought I should have if I'd been more experienced I would have thought right what can I I would have written a song called Whiplash or something. Yeah. Because that's the vibe. That's a tough gig, right?

Songs for the fucking Prodigy. Yeah. Because the Prodigy's lyrics, Jesus Christ, they're silly. I'd love it now. They're silly, but they're amazing. I'd be all over it now because I'd get into it more. I mean, it was purely my own ignorance and a mistake there. Now, yeah, I'd be all over that.

But how do you follow, like, I've got the poison, I've got the remedy. I've got the poison, so something, something, something, the remedy. You don't follow that. Yeah, it's tough, isn't it? I'm gone sending to outer space to find another race. Fair play to you. Go.

Good luck. Tell me about Essex, because I don't really understand. So I grew up in Ireland. Essex to me meant the prodigy and large tits. Yeah. That was what Essex was presented to me as on

television. The prodigy and page three boobs. You've pretty much nailed the spectrums of Essex, because it is a weird thing, like when The Only Way Is Essex blew up. I was tall for that. Yeah, it was a mad one, because everyone thought that that was Essex, and that's part of Essex, but

there's wealthier parts and there's poorer parts. And the reason I've stayed in my same hometown is I think it's really important to be reminded of where you're from. I always remember I did a gig at the Shepherds Bush Apollo, is it?

And I was on with The Cure with Stuart Lee, Steve Coogan, like loads of my idols and then I got the train home and some girls from Tilbury tried to put makeup on me, steal my idols and then I got the train home and some girls from Tilbury tried to put make-up on me, steal my shoe and set fire to my beard. And I was sitting there thinking, I can't

say to them, I was just shared a stage with The Cure, young lady. Because they're not going to give a fuck. And again, it's great. That was one of my first big moments that could have gone to my head, that I'm like, I'm doing these gigs with these people. And I was like, nah. I I'm back in Essex you're still that weird hairy prick and and the people of Essex ain't gonna appreciate it so yeah there's a variation I guess it's

there's a lot of rougher areas and poor areas my area has had a lot of racism, a lot of drugs. When... Who was it? Nick something? No, the guy who was before Nigel Farage as the main racist. Oh, Nick Griffin, yeah, that fucking prick. When Nick Griffin went off the radar after a bit because someone, like, punched him in the street or egged him or something, the first place he did his public address was ten minutes up the road from me, because that's the kind of area.

So when you say racism, you obviously mean organised racism, like National Front skinhead type shit. Exploited racism. A lot of people who are working class who've got nothing to do but do coke in the pub and whatever else, or a lot of people who are losing jobs. The areas that immigration came to on a second wave, so unlike London that had so much amazing initial immigration

and the communities were built off of it, so much culture was brought, my kind of area of Essex was, oh, now they're coming to steal our jobs or whatever else and all that ignorance that can then be exploited and marketed to and flies through your door by your Nick Griffins and other such cretins.

And this is while you were growing up? Yeah, yeah. My parents all grew up in South London, which was an incredibly mixed and diverse area. They couldn't afford to start a family there because London's expensive. We moved out to essex and in my school in my year there was one kid that wasn't white two two kids that weren't white

that's changed a lot now it's a far more diverse area and it's wicked i love it um But yeah, it's still, you look at it as a few years behind on the developments of dealing with cultures coming together, of dealing with, as said, the myths and stupidity that is so easy to sell to people who haven't got too much to get excited

about, I guess. You know, it's easier to get angry at the people that are taking what's theirs or whatever else rather than accept the facts of it all we were chatting backstage about so I've got autism

and I was chatting about how I hate the fact that autism is referred to as a disorder because I don't experience it as a disorder at all. I experience it as something that's hugely advantageous. Like, the second I walked into this venue, I was supposed to be up here doing a soundcheck,

but instead I was just screaming and shouting about the Art Deco. And I got tremendously, terribly excited about it. And that's my autism. That's a wonderful thing for me. It's a lovely thing to walk into a building and then to admire the architecture and to have that awareness and to have that make me feel good.

Your autism got me through seven months in an Airbnb on my own in Canada because I was shooting a film and going for a walk at night and listening to your podcast, and the deep dives you do on stuff, kept me sane, man, because it was the middle of the pandemic, couldn't socialise,

and I'm shooting this TV show, but I'm not in every day, I'm often not in for fucking four or five weeks, couldn't fly home for Christmas, all this kind of thing, so I genuinely remember, around Christmas, walking and listening, couldn't fly home for Christmas all this kind of thing so I genuinely remember around Christmas walking

and listening I did the same kind of night walk and I went through three different episodes of yours three nights in a row and it was just perfect thank you very much Pip hot takes

it was an era of hot takes I know you don't like the hot takes to take over because you need the variation but yeah it was an era of hot takes. I know you don't like the hot takes to take over. Yeah. Because, you know, you need the variation. But, yeah, it was an era of hot takes and then deep dives into, like, Irish history and stuff. Yeah.

And it was fucking brilliant. So... Thank you. For me, that's a huge advantage. So if I decide tomorrow I want to start thinking about mustard i'll fucking really think about mustard and i'll think about it so much yeah that i will unearth something about the history of mustard that's really interesting and i hate that that's diagnosed as a disorder that's not a disorder it is a disorder if i was working in an office then it's a fucking disorder and everyone wants me out but in the job that I have it's not a disorder it's a huge advantage and you have stammering

you stammer and I checked it online stammering is also neurodivergence yeah so within neurodivergence which is 40 percent of the population so that's 40% of this room. You have autism, ADHD, you have dyslexia, dyspraxia, Tourette's syndrome and stammering. Yeah. And your stammering has been a huge advantage to what you do as a spoken word artist. 100%. I didn't go to an amazing school and I think my vocabulary was increased by the fact that I spent a lot of my youth in any conversation thinking a sentence or so ahead, finding a word I'm going to stammer on and replacing it with another word, having to learn alternatives for almost every word so that I could kind of hide this thing.

Now I just stammer freely, as you will be able to hear. But that was key to my kind of survival at school, was to try and bury it down or avoid it as much as possible. And I think that helped me with music, with spoken word, with Americans thinking I'm a professor because of my big wordy raps, with the podcast, with all of these other things. I think if I didn't have a stammer,

I wouldn't have had all that things. But I do a lot of work with the British Stammering Association. And I was being interviewed for a book by this amazing guy who was doing this amazing book about stammers, but he asked one question at the end and it fucked up my whole week. Like genuinely, it put me in a weird mental spiral

because he asked, if you could get rid of it, would you? And that's not the same as if you could have never had it, would you? Because the fact is, at this point, it's not helping me at all. So I would, but I can't. And that was a mad question to end on

because I had to go, yep, I think I'd get rid of it if I could. That's the end of the interview on my way, on the train back to Essex, going like, fucking great, I can't though. So you've just made me face the fact that, again, I embrace it it I speak all the time about the benefits it's been but

in that moment he kind of accidentally made me face the fact it's done it's good and now it's just mildly annoying yeah I get asked that as well like if

you could not be artistic, would you choose it? No, I just think I'd be into Love Island loads. Yeah, your autism helps your podcast. The only way my stutter helps my podcast is run time. I get slightly longer run times. But that's not the be-all and end-all. I've clocked more hours than I would have if I didn't have a stammer at this stage.

But, again, I wouldn't consider stammering to be a disorder. The disorder is... I agree. Like, people who stammer are more likely to experience social anxiety, more likely to experience depression. That's not because of the fucking stammer. It's because of people teasing you, people being uncomfortable about the stammer, the exclusion that you feel.

Yeah. Same way. Because of my autism, I ended up with fucking massive panic attacks and being afraid of society because society meant consistent and continual rejection and no matter how much I tried to be normal people go oh you're a lunatic you're you're mad you're eccentric and that's not nice all the time so I became afraid of people my autism didn't make me afraid of people people reacting to it made me afraid of people yeah and it's something we need to look at with neurodivergence. The example I always use... So dyslexia is neurodivergence, right? And dyslexia is when you're not great at reading words. Simple as that. But here's the thing,

people with dyslexia, they get anxiety, they get depression, tremendously low self-esteem because people mislabel them as being stupid. They're more likely to fail at school because school will measure them and their ability to read. But if you look at, I always use pubs as the example. Do you know the way you might have a pub and the pub's name is the dog and the duck or the horse and hound? Yeah. Like the reason that exists is reading is quite a recent thing for the majority of the population.

300 years ago, in Ireland, in England, people just didn't fucking read. This was something that rich... Particularly the working classes. No, they spoke. It was an oral culture. So because most of the population didn't read because they didn't have access to it,

the pub would have a painting of a dog and a duck. And it was just a square with a painting of a dog and a duck. And these oral people would say, go down to the pub, the dog and the duck. Which one is that? The one with the fucking dog and the duck outside. But people existed then who were dyslexic. And no one knew. And they didn't have to experience rejection, anxiety, depression,

because they lived in a culture where being able to read was not the measure of your intelligence. And that's something that only arrived after the Industrial Revolution. Now, I'm not saying we should all not read, but I'm just showing that's an example of the problems and the mental health struggles of dyslexia not being caused by the person's brain but being caused by the attitudes

that society has towards that person and that's why we as a society need to change our fucking attitudes when we come across someone who's neurodivergent in any way growing up I was really lucky because my parents put me into some speech therapy and stuff

and they took me out of it because they felt that the speech therapist was kind of approaching it as if I'm broken and I need to be fixed and their argument was I'm not broken that's just how I speak, I don't need to be fixed if I want help and can have help then that's good

but it's not a broken and fixed thing and I now work with Stam help then that's good but it's not a broken and fixed thing and I now work with Stammer a lot the British Stammering Association and one of the big things is that representation of people with stammers in film TV, all these things like that

it's not just because I've started working with them now and I want more roles, that's part of it but it's also because the more people see it and the more people are aware of it, as you say, the people with the stammers aren't going to stop stammering but the people who haven't encountered one before aren't going to get nervous, aren't going to feel awkward, aren't going to feel uncomfortable. I'm going to assume it's a nerves thing. Again, that's a big thing that people think stammering is to do with nerves. We're having a wonderful time tonight. I'm here because

I want to have a catch up with you and talk to you. I'm here because I want to have a catch-up with you and talk to you. I'm not nervous, but I will stammer. And the same with my podcast, with my friends and family, whatever else. These are moments I'm having a wonderful time. Often, if I'm more relaxed, I'll stammer more because I feel I'm turning off all of the kind of auto switches

I have in my head to cope with it. So, yeah, there's a lot of... The masking. Yeah, exactly. It's also why I think, like, we were talking backstage as well about being kind of a bit introverted, and it was only in recent years I realised

I'm probably like my own company because I don't have to be doing any of the work at that time. I'm not having to deal with... Because even though I'm comfortable with my stammer, my whole life has been controlling it. So there's stuff in there that I'm always doing to try and avoid and and get around things so when I'm at home on my own and just watching loads of tv or loads of films I'm not having to deal with any of that and I think that's if I've had a lot of social stuff I think that's part of my

particular needs is I need to go and go I don't want to speak for a bit, this is exhausting. And something you said there too which was interesting about representation of people who stammer like I'm just thinking in my head I have never ever seen stammering on television

that wasn't portrayed as comedic Comedic or some big tragic dramatic, dramatic story. I did a show on the BBC two years ago now called Out Of Her Mind. It was with Sarah Pascoe. And it's actually while I was in Canada in this Airbnb that I watched it on iPlayer.

I got a dodgy VPN. I ripped it. I watched it illegally. I love the shame. That's fantastic, man. I ripped it. I watched it illegally. I love the shame. That's fantastic, man. Just help myself. And I'm only in one episode. I've got a couple of scenes.

And in one of the scenes, they used a take that I stammered in. And I didn't know they'd done that. And it might have been because of the isolation, but I got proper emotional about it, because I don't think there's ever been a character on TV that stammers and hasn't had it explained. And the problem with it was it was only a small stammer,

but people with a stammer will have recognised it instantly, that that wasn't a character thing or that was a stammer. And I don't think that's ever happened. And it's why now with all the scripts I'm working on, there's a couple of scripts I'm obsessed with trying to get made, the characters I've written for myself in there will have a stammer, but I'll just say the first time you meet the character, this character has a stammer and it will present naturally.

Don't mention it again. There's no big backstory of how they almost died or this or that. There's just... There's going to be stammering. And that excites me, man, because, yeah, it doesn't exist. The other thing that you notice too is if you do have someone with a stammer, it's part of like their trauma story. Yeah, exactly.

So it's just, this is... There'll be a big moment that they get over it and speaking freely is their big release. Yes. And they're like, fuck off, mate. Yeah. So how far off are we from having just someone on EastEnders with a stammer for no reason?

The thing that worries me a little bit as well, another thing that gets in my head, all of us have stuff that get in our heads and we beat ourselves up, particularly when you're creating. But another thing that worries me is I also don't want to be the stammer guy. I don't want to be the guy that get in for every character that's got a stammer. Because every character I've played so far hasn't had one and I get it under control. I do the't want to be the stammer guy. I don't want to be the guy they get in for every character that's got a stammer, because every character

I've played so far hasn't had one, and I get it under control. I do the work, I do the prep, I figure out where my breathing is going to be. If anything, it means I've drilled this character more than, or as much as anyone could, because I've really, I've figured out exactly how I'm going to

approach every sentence, approach every bit bit because that character hasn't got a stammer and I want to play characters who don't have stammers because I don't want it to be a well you've got to get I'm a stammer it's important but as I said I love the idea of being able to either

write my own stuff or have a character that if a stammer feels right for I've done it a few times recently on self tapes and it's been such a buzz to at the beginning of the self tape say look, it's not in the script but this character

feels like it would be comfortable having a stammer, I'm going to turn off the switches and perform it naturally I normally do two takes I'll give them a take without a stammer. And then I'll say, if you don't mind, I've got another one. Here it is.

And again, that excites me because that's fucking true. Have you had anyone respond to that and go, that's cool. We're not going to write this in. We're not going to explain why. No, no. But you don't get feedback on self-tapes in the action industry you just don't if you get it you would so if so one that comes through we'll have that conversation but it's so common to just not hear anything but it excites me because what we should be striving for in acting

and in any art is to get truth across to find truth truth. And I went to see... I had a Tourette's hero on my podcast, amazing performer, and I went to see their version of a... It was a play... Who's the dude who does all the monologues? Not Beckett, is it? Beckett, obviously Beckett.

It was a Beckett play, and it was fucking edge of your seat stuff because it's a quickly delivered one but their Tourette's would take them where it wanted to go and the truth in it was just hugely exciting and I get a buzz about that

with finding a character that I can allow a stammer to have it's rawness in and it's truth because you can't fake it. There's a few times I've had scripts through where a character has a stammer and I've had to say at the start of the tape, I'm not doing the f-f-f-f-f-f,

whatever you've written in the script. I'll do your script, but when the stammer comes, it'll come. I'm not going to fake it. You're not in control of it. Yeah, that's the point of it. Again, obviously there's i've got kind of parlor tricks um one example is there's a comedian who i've had on my podcast and his name is dylan moran hard d's are a tough one for me and that's a name I can never say, but I got taught that if you tap out, you can then say, Dylan Moran, Dylan Moran,

Dylan Moran, Dylan Moran, and I can say it. So it's fascinating how the... I like to show people that, to show how weird it is, how the brain works, how misunderstood it is, but that's not a... I don't particularly stammer on Fs. One of the beautiful things about that is that... But that will be something that's written a... I don't particularly stammer on Fs. One of the beautiful things about that is that... But that'll be something that's written a lot.

It will be. In a room full of Irish people, no-one gives a fuck that you couldn't pronounce the D. Everyone's just going, it's Moran, it's Moran. But I found if I scratch my head, I can say Moran. Really?

Whereas if I don't, I say Moran. So it's the variation, man. The brains are fascinating things. Let's have a little ocarina pause and you will hear a digitally inserted advert that was placed there by Acast. On April 5th, you must be very careful, Margaret. It's a girl.

Witness the birth. Bad things will start to happen. Evil things of evil. It's all for you. No, no, don't. The first omen. I believe the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what?

Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. Who said that?

The First Omen, only in theaters April 5th. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind.

So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. that was the ocarina pause I have my ocarina with me because I'm recording this in my home studio hence the intrusive fly that's buzzing around I don't have any flies in my office

I don't know why that is, there's no flies in my office. They're only in my gaff. But anyway that was the ocarina pause. Um, there's something I want to correct that I said there in that chat with Scroobius. I said I have got autism which is the incorrect

language to use because I'm still learning. I don't got autism and I don't have autism. I am autistic. It's not something I have. I have a neurodivergent brain which is different to a neurotypical brain. It's just a different type of brain. Also when I speak about autism I speak about my experience not the experience of anybody else who is autistic. I don't want to perpetuate the myth that autism is a superpower. All I'm saying is that for me and my environment and the job that I have, my autism certainly is an advantage to the specific job that I have in my specific

environment. However, it was not this way in school and it would not be this way if I was in a different situation. Through much difficulty, I have formed a life where I can thrive within those parameters. But if those parameters were changed, I might not thrive. So I speak for me and me alone and my experience. This podcast is supported by you, the listener, you glorious bollocks, via the Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash theblindboypodcast.

This podcast is my full-time job. This podcast is how I earn a living. I adore this work. I absolutely love it. It's a privilege and a pleasure to make this podcast for you each week. What I'm asking is, if this podcast brings you enjoyment, solace, entertainment, distraction, whatever the fuck, please consider paying me for the work that I'm doing. All I'm looking for is

the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month that's it if you met me in real life would you say fuck it i'd buy him a pint well you can via the patreon page now if you can't afford that don't worry about it because i want to keep this podcast free for everybody to listen to so if you can't afford to be a patron of this podcast you can listen for free because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free. So everybody gets a podcast and I get to earn a living. It's a wonderful model based on kindness and soundness.

But if you can support my work in any way, please do. Patreon.com forward slash The Blind Boy Podcast. Price of a pint or a cup of coffee, four podcasts a month. Everyone's happy. Also, it keeps the podcast independent. Advertisers can't come in and tell me what to speak about. They can't dictate the content of the podcast. They can't change it in any way. Because this is patron

supported, I have the agency to say, no, I'm making what I want to make and you can fuck off I really really want to keep it that way because that's the backbone of this podcast it really is so support any independent podcaster that you enjoy and go and listen to Scroobius Pip's podcast Distraction Pieces and support him also you can support in any way it doesn't have to be monetary. Sharing, liking, tagging, leaving reviews on the podcast, or just telling a friend. So I'm going to go back to the chat now, where me and Scroobius Pip speak specifically about making podcasts, about creativity, and about the importance of failure,

and trying something just for the sake of it, for the love of it. You look a bit like Santa Claus if he's been through addiction recovery. He's got that vibe, like Santa Claus. All that shit, man. I was flying to every house in the world drinking whiskey, man. Eight-year-olds were giving me whiskey. There was eight-year-old children leaving whiskey out.

I was drinking it. I was kicking the shit out of my reindeers. And now, he had a big red nose from the bait and I gave him. That's basically my touring life. We've nailed that there, really. On my podcast once,

I got called a woke Fagin. And I think that's a decent look. I'm a woke Fagan I do want to talk James Acaster, I should give him credit there James Acaster is he with Acast? He is

That's weird, that feels like a psyop, feels like MI6 shit. He called me that when drunk on one of the drunk casts. I was then catching up with him six months later and I made a reference to me being woke Fagan. He cracked up not knowing it was his joke. Because he genuinely didn't remember it. And I was like, you know, that's what?

Yeah, if he knows, he knows his own humour perfectly. He nailed it. So one thing I need to give you fucking credit for is I would not be doing a podcast if it wasn't for you. That's good, man. I appreciate that. And... Like... I was in The Rubber Bandits. Yeah. And it was like

similar enough to What you were doing with Dan LeSac as in making this music that appeals to a very niche audience Yeah doing the gigs but kind of going fucking hell. How am I supposed to make a living out of this and We used to do gigs up in Soho Theatre which used to be up there in Soho Soha as I thought it was called for a long time

but I was gigging in Soho and we used to do like we'd do fucking 30 nights we'd do 30 nights in Soho Theatre which was 150 people a night and it was so expensive to rent out the theater and kind of going how the fuck am i supposed to make a career out of this yeah and i was really upset and it was 2014 or 15 and you became a fan of the song spastic hawk i believed

yeah oh i'd i'd been aware of you guys and and then when I was doing the Edinburgh Fringe in 2013, me and my mate Tom, who was up there, he filmed my show for me on one of them. We came to see you guys at a late night one, and just it took it all to a next level. I was aware of a few of your songs, but I just thought, ah, it's quite funny, and your live performance blew me away

and I got all of the songs more. So we were staying in a little two-bedroom apartment at the Fringe and we were just binging your videos on repeat and just became, yes, Spastic Hawk was a massive favourite. Thank you. So you gave me a shout,

you came up to my apartment when I was in London. I didn't really know what a podcast was. I'll be honest, I wasn't too sure. I invented podcasts, yep. That's one of mine. And you just sat down with a pair of mics like this and a little recorder, and we chatted for about an hour,

and it was amazing. I fucking loved it. And I asked you, is this what you're doing now instead of gigging and you said still doing the odd gig but this is my main thing this fucking podcast is my main thing and I asked you are you able to make money out of it you're like yeah I can make a regular income this is my regular income yeah and that made me think to myself fuck it

maybe I can have a go at this. Maybe I can try doing this. And that's why I tried doing a podcast. And you introduced me to Acast. And you really, really helped me in that respect. I love it, man. Again, particularly from doing podcasting early on, the one thing I worry about podcasting getting big is it loses that kind of feeling. And it becomes competitive and stuff and

it was never about that it was always about i loved making a podcast because i loved listening to him i want to listen to more i helped you out introduce you to a cast now adam buxton came up to me and was like he wanted to start doing a podcast which was confusing to me because i was a fan of his but then i realized it was the highlights of a six music show he'd never done a podcast so i helped him out a bit i introduced him to a cast and just all sorts of things like that and yeah there's been loads of people along the way that i've been helpful to but it's purely selfish it's more stuff for me to listen to i have a wonderful time there's loads of people i'm not i'd love to hear them do a podcast like there's a load of people who like the hardcore listing lads who you've met

they were lads who i was like i love hanging out with these guys i love their chat i love having them on my on the drunk casts so i suggested that they start a podcast and now again it's out every week i thoroughly enjoy it so it's purely it helps out yeah it works both ways i guess but it's it's a wonderful example of um what i learned from you then was the the generosity there's two ways to look at anything when it comes to an opportunity and it's you can either be jealous of someone or you can say fuck it maybe i'll give this a go maybe i'll give this a go and Maybe I'll give this a go. And that's what I did. And I was able to repay you with that then when recently you got into streaming on Twitch. Yeah.

So when you got onto me, I was like, well, I'm going to help this content any way I can without the stream. Yeah, exactly. Because streaming is difficult. I think all of these things, though, it's like the fact that I was making a living out of podcasting blew my mind

so I was excited for anyone to do that with the music industry stuff I didn't expect to have a career in music I didn't expect to have a career in radio I mean we spoke in the first half about having a stammer I didn't expect to be a presenter and all these other things so I'm always just

it's mad I get to do all this shit and I want as many other people as possible to realise that they can do all this shit as well. Because every time... I was speaking to David Earl about this recently, amazing comedian and podcaster and actor, and he was saying, do you get nervous about acting and going on set and stuff?

And I don't really, and I think it's because I'm three careers on from when I thought, this isn't realistic for me. Like, I shouldn't really. And I think it's because I'm three careers on from when I thought this isn't realistic for me. Like, I shouldn't be doing this. And now everything that's happened since, I'm like, fucking mental. They're letting me do this as well. I'm on set with this lad. This is mad.

So I'm just there every time going, this is nuts. Again, like, this could end any minute. So I'm just excited to be there most of the time. And it all keeps going. Another thing, too, we were talking about, so you do a lot of writing for television I try to I've not had anything made yet but I'm on it but that's the thing with writing for tv so and this is one thing that I'm kind of addressing to the general fucking audience which is if you want to do something if

you're thinking of doing a podcast if you're thinking of fuck it maybe i might make some music maybe i might start writing poetry do it even though it might fail because the thing is is that if you do it and it fails that's not actually a failure there's only one failure and the only thing that's actual failure is not doing something because you were scared to like nothing exists that's the truth that's the truth mate this is

again I keep going how much do you get turned down with TV writing how much of your job is working and then that getting turned down and turned into nothing constantly and with the acting the best example of that I've got, again, I keep saying, I've not told anyone this, but one of the best things I wrote,

kind of I started it before the pandemic and finished it over the pandemic, is a Black Mirror episode. No cunt has asked me to write a Black Mirror episode. No one has requested it. It's fucking brilliant, but I had such a good time writing it and I'm trying to get it somewhere, I'm trying to get the right people to have a look and see it

because I think it could be a great episode, but if it doesn't I still learnt loads from writing that, I had a really good time writing that the next thing I write is improved because of it so, there's no such thing as failure on a long enough timescale if you do the thing that you wanted to do, nobody likes

it, no one picks it up, it turns into a pile of shit, the thing that you wanted to do nobody likes it no one picks it up it turns into a pile of shit the fact that it exists informs your decisions in the future yeah so like and realizing that the process is the fun part as well that's the process yeah if i'd hit my agent up saying i've got a good idea for a script can you talk to someone about a black mirror just after that the pandemic hit, the black mirror, we didn't know if there was going to be any more. So I would have just got a no, it would never have happened. Instead, I went, I'm just going to write it and then see.

So if I get a no now and it never happens, I've still got more fun than if I just asked for permission. Do you know what I mean? Rather than wait for someone to tell you, yeah, you can do this, just fucking get on with it and enjoy it. Do it know what I mean? Rather than wait for someone to tell you, yeah, you can do this, just fucking get on with it and enjoy it. Do it and enjoy the process. Even my book of short stories,

my first book of short stories, a huge amount of the ideas in my book of short stories were ideas for TV that were rejected. Shit that, like, that thing there, the story I read out about the two lads

from Cork, that was a TV sketch I pitched to RTE in fucking 2009. And they were just like, this is mad. We're not putting someone's skin in Rory Gallagher on RTE. And I felt really shit about that in 2011. I felt like,

oh, this idea is terrible. That was a failure. It's like, no, it wasn't a fucking failure because 10 years later, I turned it into a short story that was in a book that was a bestseller. So you fucking... You never ever...

You never ever want to look back and go, I did nothing because I was scared. Do whatever the fuck it is. Start a podcast tomorrow if 10 people listen to it. Write a book of poetry. It's not about no one consuming it. It's about you did this thing and then you grow from it. And you get to desensitize yourself to failure.

100%. And that can be too much of an additional. I'm worried now because I wrote so much over the pandemic i'm worried that i'm moving on to the next thing and not trying hard enough to get this made or that made but i don't know if it's going to be your experience but i find the weirdest thing i find about screenwriting is that it's the one thing i won't really talk to many people about because you sound like a lunatic. So with music, with everything else, with a book, I've written a book.

If someone's like, what have you been up to? I've written an episode of Black Mirror. Oh, that's amazing. You're making an episode. Oh, no, no, no, I'm not making one. No one asked me to. Oh, so you just, yeah, just spent a month writing. And the same with all the scripts.

I've written this film. oh wicked, like what's happened with it? I don't know at the moment I'm going to spend however many years I've been lucky to be exposed to a lot of really successful people that talk to them about the reality of it all and things like a show I did called

Taboo, Tom Hardy and his dad spent eight I forgot you were in Taboo, yeah, Jesus Christ. Well, they spent eight years getting that made, from when they had the idea and first started writing it. And yeah, Tom Hardy wrote that with his dad. Yeah, and then Stephen Knight came in and made it this

astounding thing, but hearing things like that and going, and that's fucking Tom Hardy. It took him that long to get that made. Is there going to be a taboo season 2? Because season 1 was fucking amazing. There's meant to be, apparently. But again, it's one of them that I've been being

told there's going to be a new season of it for a long time. But apparently it's the nearest it's been. Like, when it came out on Netflix, I put a little message in our group going, look at this. I did one post about this and all the comments are, season two, season two.

And then supposedly Tom and Stephen and the producers and all that have talked about it more. I'd love to have a pint with Tom Hardy. What's Tom Hardy like in real life? Is he sound? He's sober for starters. He knows his shit, man. I've had car journeys with him where it would just be him breaking down a particular thing about a character and stuff like that he'll he'll go as deep like again guarantee

some kind of neurodivergence and that kind of thing because because he'll just be so tom hardy recognizes details that other people wouldn't recognize in what he's doing yeah 100 100 yeah i wanted him there if he could be, for my scenes, because I want him to say, change this. And he did. I'm in Venom 2, really briefly, but I'm jumping up against this window in a jail hospital for the criminally insane supervillains coming.

And the first few takes, I'll smash my head on the window, going crazy, and he just pops down and goes, just move your hand over a little bit. Which sounds stupid, but where the camera was, you weren't getting that extra bit of energy. You were getting part of the energy, but not that small bit. I wasn't aware enough of what that camera was saying i'm seeing right my eyes are in but your hand isn't and just tiny

little things like just move that in there and it'll be more impactful and scary it's like that's a tiny scene that's a throwaway part of this film but he could give me a little a little note to improve it i'm gonna open up the questions now to the audience. We've got two floating microphones. So first off, you were talking a little bit about podcasts or art that helped you guys get through the pandemic and definitely... Could you bring the mic a little bit closer? Better? Yeah, there you go.

Your podcast definitely helped me get through the incredibly shitty winter of 2020 to 21 and that awful pandemic. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. And the question I wanted to ask both of you is any specific art or anything that has been really meaningful to you

either more recently within the pandemic or any other points in your life that you would love to give a shout out to in reference and to play up Any piece of art recently Well for me in the pandemic there was loads of stuff that was just created so it depends on your

definition of art but there was a thing on YouTube called No More Jockeys, which just gave me so much joy. It's three guys, Tim Key, Alex Horne and Mark Watson, playing a game that they invented over Zoom. And there's fucking hundreds of

hours of it now. It's wonderful. But Twitch as well, man. I got into Twitch through you, through David Earl and through Limmy. And someone that I watch loads of on there, I was telling you about earlier, was a guy called 1030. And most of his streams, he's not playing games.

He'll play games every now and then, but most of the time he's creating, he's making art, he's making projects. At the moment he's 3D printed. When we were all playing a game called Rust with Limimi and that, someone in that game really helped him in one moment. So to thank him, he's 3D printing the AK-47 from Rust and he's sanding it and painting it and using all sorts of things and that's

his streams for like a month, he's just working on this cool project and that kind of thing, that buzzes me, to see people just working on stuff cool project and that kind of thing that buzzes me to see people just working on stuff that's not my realm at all it's not podcast it's not acting it's not this it's not that it's just something that they're really passionate about and then having to look in the corner going oh they've got hundreds of people who just want to watch them create and enjoy that and that's fucking i love that shit um for me so I wasn't I love going to art galleries I fucking adore art galleries and throughout the pandemic I wasn't able to go to art galleries so I was in Madrid but three weeks ago and I just stood staring as a painting by Diego Velazquez of an inbred Spanish king called Philip

and I just adored it because it was the first painting that I was in front of for two fucking years now it helped that I was on a load of fucking legal Spanish weed but that to me was the most important piece of art I've seen over the pandemic. Not because it was so incredible, because this was the first painting I've been around in two fucking years. So, Diego Velasquez's portrait of King Philip of Spain, where he has a huge jaw and a weird tongue. I can't believe I picked a Twitch streamer

and you come up with fucking Velasquez in Spain. Do you know what? I've been really enjoying Twitch recently. Yours is far more valid. Yours is a lot more valid. Mine is Diego Velasquez being forced to paint the Spanish king because they're paying his wage.

Yours is some Scottish fella making a fucking AK-47 on a video game. That's way cooler than that. That's participatory art mine is just standard European art that upholds colonialism it was mostly the hash I'll be honest

so that was my podcast with the wonderful Scrobius Pip an absolute gentleman check out his podcast Distraction Pieces look him up online I'll be back to you next week with some description of hot take

in the meantime I hope you have a charming week rub the belly of a dog slow blink at a cat smell a leaf before it decays the leaves are elderly at the moment. 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 30 p.m you can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game, and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com. H O O P Whoop 4.0 is a fitness tracker and it's an app actually it's more than just a fitness tracker it's a personalised digital fitness and health coach that monitors the physiology of your

body 24 7 and it does it with this incredibly non-invasive wearable device and by non-invasive I mean you hardly know you're wearing it it's a band that you can put on your wrist or you could put it on your upper arm or you could put it on your leg but it's not bulky it's non-invasive so you don't really know that you're wearing it. Now I mention exercise a lot. Exercise is a very very important part of my life mainly for just feeling good resilience and

mental health reasons that's why I exercise regularly. I don't exercise for physical aesthetic reasons that doesn't interest me personally but when I'm physically fit as a result of exercise I do enjoy the flexibility it gives me, the energy throughout my day that it gives me, also just a general feeling of strength for bodily awareness. When I go to the gym and I exercise every muscle in my body, when those muscles grow and hurt, then I become aware of those muscles. So when I'm meditating and I'm doing something like a mindfulness meditation and I'm trying to ground myself in my body, when I sit down to meditate, I can be aware of a tiny little muscle on the bottom of my back or a small little muscle at the back of my calf. Because I'm working them out regularly I have better bodily awareness and this then helps

me ground myself when I'm meditating. I love the process of exercising. I love the free brain chemicals that it gives me. I love the feeling of mindfulness and positivity while I'm exercising. I love the resilience that exercise gives me for the rest of the day. Exercise for me personally is 50 to 60 percent of my mental health regime. It fuels my capacity to use mental health tools and emotional tools. What I enjoy about Hope 4.0 is that as an app it places emphasis on rest and recovery. I want to exercise to feel good rather than look good. I'm also not necessarily focused on goals. I'm not trying to reach a certain size or look a certain way. I want to enjoy running and going to the gym as a process-based activity. My goal is enjoying and loving the act of exercising

and the act of recovery as well because going to the gym and lifting weights feels amazing because I get those beautiful chemicals while I'm in the act of lifting weights but then the rest of the day I have a wonderful sense of achievement. I feel that lovely burn in my muscles where I know that they're growing and recovering. My appetite is different than on a day that I didn't exercise. After I exercise I want wholesome nutritious food and I look forward to cooking it and repairing the muscles that I exerted previously that day. Also my sleep that night is going to be deeper and more restorative because my body is in repair mode. I'm not thinking about getting bigger, getting smaller.

I'm focusing on feeling fantastic and loving exercise for the sake of exercise for the process of it because it's wonderful fun. Whoop 4.0 supports this process. It doesn't shame me because I haven't reached targets. It enables me to enjoy exercise as a process and reminds me to rest so that I can continue doing that for as long as I want. So if exercise is really important to you like it is me, and you like the sound of whoop, you can give it a go and get a month's free whoop membership if you just go to join.whoop.com forward slash blind bike and you can get started.