The Rest Is Entertainment - Should Children Watch The Shining?

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Why is the new Wuthering Heights adaptation too raunchy for Brönte fans? What is the best Stephen King adaptation? Why did Marina make her 9-year-old watch The Shining? All these questions, and more, answered by Richard and Marina. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at therestisentertainment.com The Rest Is Entertainment is proudly presented by Sky. Sky is home to award-winning shows such as The White Lotus, Gangs of London and The Last of Us. Requires relevant Sky TV and third party subscription(s). Broadband recommended min speed: 30 mbps. 18+. UK, CI, IoM only. To find out more and for full terms and conditions please visit Sky.comFor more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Assistant Producer: Aaliyah AkudeVideo Editor: Kieron Leslie, Charlie Rodwell, Adam Thornton, Harry SwanProducer: Joey McCarthySenior Producer: Neil FearnHead of Content: Tom WhiterExec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Requires relevant SkyTV and third-party subscriptions, Central TV includes a selection of Sky channels, 18 Plus, UK, Channel Islands, and I Love Man only. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Restors Entertainment, Questions and Answers Edition. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osmond, and you are the stars of the show with your many, many questions. I'm going to go straight in with Annie Ludley. Hello. Hello.

Hello. All right. Okay. Ask me. Okay. Marina, I'll ask you a question. How are you? I'm fine, thank you. How are you? That's got out of the way.

None of your business. It is none of your business. She says, Annie says, it's from Annie Ludlam. She says, the new Wuthering Heights trader is incredibly sexed up. Would the Bronte estate have any control over the adaptation? And how does studio execs tell if an audience will enjoy something like this? Okay, I have seen this trailer. I've seen it a couple of times. I agree. First of all, it's out of copyright.

They're all in the public domain because copyright expires 70 years after the author's death, So we're well past that period. So it essentially means anything that's written by somebody who died more than 70 years ago is absolutely fair game. You can do absolutely anything with it. And there are certain anniversaries coming up for people. That's why we can see so there's so many Sherlock Holmes movies and so many different versions of that Sherlock Home story. It's because anybody could do it. You know, anyone at home now could film a Sherlock Holmes film.

I should say, if you don't know about it, it's the Wuthering Heights. It's directed by Emerald Fennell. And it's got... Who did Salt Burn. Who did Salt Burn and Promising, Young Woman. and it's got Jacob Allardy and Margot Robby as Heathcliff and Kathy. First of all, I do find these things quite hilarious.

I love it when the trailer like this comes out because you can just imagine the sort of frothing fury and, you know, people saying it's quite disgusting, you know. And it's kind of like, get over it, grandpa. Everyone's going to go and see it. I don't know where they are. But I'm telling you right now that the Daily Mail are currently running about two articles about a week

about a film that doesn't yet come out till February Valentine's Day, obviously. Oh, wow. She's very provocative. She's actually kicking... There's a Bronte Woman's Writing Festival next year, so she's kicking that off. I'm sure there will be some people

who are absolutely furious about that. But I do think if you're going to do the classics, you should just redo them. I mean, people will probably annoy about Kate Bush doing it. In her, in an inimitable style. But it was bonkers and brilliant. She's got a real sort of talent for this kind of event thing, Emerald,

and it's kind of transgressive and whatever and they've done a preview screening I think quite deliberately because the leaks that came out of it were all like the first thing you see is they're hanging and there's the person being hung ejaculates just before his death

and then a nun sort of gropes his corpse it's like wow this is I don't want to say it's all seeping out after what I've just said but it is all this information starts with an ejaculating corpse I know I mean like I said that's an idea for the next novel

Yeah, divisive, but jolly. I think the question is not what would the Bronte Estates make of it, it's what would Emily Bronte make of it. And I would have thought she'd be delighted beyond words to still being, you know, written about all those years later and to have another artist do a different version of it. What fun. I mean, the last thing she wants to do is someone else

has done a kind of dark and brooding adaptation. You know, Emily Bronte is watching this, remote control in hand, bag of mortisers thinking this is incredible look at the advances that hanging wasn't in the book I wonder where they're going with this

oh okay I see where they're going with this well listen in for a penny in for a pound you know you've got to do it differently you've got to do it differently yeah I mean and as for the question of like does would audiences enjoy how do they know whether audiences enjoy this there is a sort of technical answer to this

which is that when you're releasing films throughout theatrical you do have things like preview screenings and you have screenings before the final led it is anywhere close to anything because a lot of directors find it quite helpful to see and you get audiences to fill in cards of how they felt and sometimes you can kind of shepherd them into asking particular questions and lots of directors find this very helpful but audiences did enjoy something like this with sort burn um and they in a way they enjoyed something like this not as i've just described with barbie which was obviously because this is margot roby's

production company yeah he's made this it's got the same opening scene yeah it's got had the same opening scene. Yeah, but Ken, they cut that out in the end. In the end, they just decided to go with the no genitals thing. Yeah, yeah. That was fine. So they kept it canon. But actually, I mean, people have always done these things.

They're those Pasolini films that are based on, like, the Canterbury Tales and the DeCamaran and things like that. And they've just kept all the raunchy bits. And I just got rid of all the sort of moral dimension. I mean, Roman Polanski's test, I suppose. I'm trying to think of other ones that have, anyway. But the point is, you know, you don't have to go and see it on Valentine's Day. No, but...

You don't have to see it. at all. Anything that can make newspapers write free articles about it, this many months, six months out or whatever we are from February the 14th is very, very, it's very, very helpful for filmmakers and there will be lots and lots of hype about this movie. Whereas with Saltburn, it didn't do so well in theatres, but it suddenly became, once it got onto the stream was very quickly, it became a really big thing. I mean, she has a talent for this kind of provocation, so I think we have to say that we know people like it and probably they will see it. And if you think it goes against the spirit of the book, well, I have good news.

The book is still available. Yeah. You know, Emily Bronte has done her version of the story and she moved on quickly afterwards. So she's done it. She's told the story. And it's absolutely always there. It's in black and white. You can read it forever and ever.

And for the next 500 years, people will go, do you know what? There's something in that story that gives me a different idea. So I'm going to use it as a springboard for something I want to say. And that's all those films are. But, you know, you cannot besmurch Emily Bronte's memory. I never feel younger than when I don't care about things like this. I just feel like, oh, shut out, Grandpa, all the moaning and the pall clatching. I never feel young.

These sort of things make me feel young again when I see them because I don't care. Yeah, an awful lot of people who haven't talked about Emily Bronte much for the last 30 years, suddenly talking about Emily Bronte. In a very protective way. Oh, here's a question for you. This is a little bit connected, so I'm going to ask you this one because it forms part of a nice discussion. Okay, Victoria Wallace says, why are there so many Stephen King adaptations each year? Ah, and some of the greatest movies of all time as well, Stephen King.

Well, you know, a number of reasons. Firstly, he writes a lot of books, and he writes a lot of short stories, and they have incredible beginnings, middles and ends, and they have incredible imagery. So, you know, generations of screenwriters and directors grew up reading these books, and the first thing they think about when they think, what would I like to film is Stephen King. So you have that in that the source material is fantastic, and that he sometimes his hands on, sometimes his hands off, and it seems to be quite good at working out what to be when. But the interesting thing with Stephen King, and this talks to the idea. of, you know, if someone's been dead for 70 years, you can do their work for free. You can almost do Stephen King's work for free. So he has long had this idea. He said it was my idea and my accountant was absolutely furious about it. But he has this thing which he calls his

dollar baby project in the sort of 70s when he started getting big and students contacting him and saying, I love this short story of yours. I'd love to adapt it one day. And so he has said right from that moment, he said, you know, whatever legal issues there are, he says, I will grant any student filmmaker the right to make a movie out of any short story I have written, not the novels, that would be ridiculous, so long as the film rights are still mine to assign. I asked him to sign a paper promising that no resulting film will be exhibited commercially without approval, and also that they send me a videotape of the finished work. And so he now has a shelf of these, of young student filmmakers who've adapted short stories of his. He has a whole shelf of them and he calls them his dollar babies. Firstly, that's a you know, it's indicative of there's something about his work that speaks to young filmmakers. There's something about the spirit of it. But secondly, on a very practical level, for example, one of the very first people to take him up on that offer, one of the very first people who wrote to him and was assigned the rights to something for $1,

was Frank Darabond. Oh, yeah. So he made The Woman in the Room, which in 1986 with some fellow NYU Film students, wrote to Stephen King said that we'd love to do a version of the woman in the room. and Stephen King said, yeah, there's the rights for you for one dollar, you know, under all the usual terms. So Frank Darabont made that. And less than a decade later, Frank Darabont gets in touch with Stephen King again because they've been in touch, right? They have a commercial relationship already.

He can talk to him directly. And Frank Darabont says, I've just been reading your, the novella, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshack Redemption. I would absolutely, I just think I can do an adaptation of it. And Stephen King's like, I just don't see how that would be. film, but listen, I know you, I like what you did before, you're on my shelf of dollar babies, you can have the rights to Rita Hayworth and the Shorchamp Redemption, charging $5,000, which actually is much less than you would normally charge someone. But, you know, he knows Frank, he thinks it's unfilmable anyway, so he says you can have the rights

for $5,000. There's a lengthy back and forthright. I think Rob Reiner was originally going to direct Shoresham redemption, but Frank Darabont does it himself in the end, and it's obviously one of the most below. loved movies of all time. It made the reputation of Frank Darabond. Again, made huge amounts of money for everybody, is greatly loved. And comes directly from Stephen King, letting student filmmakers pay just a dollar to adapt things.

Even the $5,000 that Frank Darabont paid Stephen King for the rights. Stephen King did not cash that check. Instead, after the movie was made, Stephen King, he sent the check back. He framed it, sends it back to Frank Darabant to this $5,000 check with a note saying, in case you ever need bail money. So that's a guy who understands filmmakers, he understands storytellers, and he works kind of hand-in-glove with him.

So there's lots of reasons why there are millions of adaptations. There were four this year alone, which I think is amazing. That Long Walk, Life of Chalk. You loved Long Walk. Oh, my goodness me. I'm still harrowed by it. Still deeply harrowed by it. The monkey and the running man starring Glenn Powell.

Your friend? Oh, yes. We're getting near and near it. I'm right directing it with Glenn Pard. That would be a lot of fun. That's a good combination of people. Edgar Wright and Glenn Powell. And Frank Darabon, because we've also had a question,

which we'll just deal with this very quickly, like whatever happened to Frank Darabond. He sort of just withdrew on purpose. He had a fallout over Walking Dead and things like that. He is coming back because he's going to direct, I think, a couple of episodes of the final season of Stranger Things. So lots of people have said, oh, where is he was ever happened to him? He is returning to our screens behind the camera

in not too long a time. So he did the Green Mile straight after Shawshank as well, didn't he? Yes. Which felt like more of the same. But yeah, another great film. Oh, that's great to hear. What's your favourite Steve at Stephen King adaptation? The Shining, which he hated.

Really? Yeah, I just think it's... I don't know about The Shining. You don't think it's a good movie. Oh my God, I can't start this just before, probably why I'm going to a break. I don't hate it. It's just not my sort of thing.

You know, I find it's a bit, you know, as soon as something becomes sort of magical realism and, you know, I just, yeah. Do you know, Kieran's dad took him to the, well, premier of The Shining when he was nine. So, honestly, incredible. Really? My husband. Incredible parenting. Wow. It's an incredible parenting now.

Not the first or last incredible parenting. It was really. That is amazing. It's also an object lesson. With a friend who I think still had to sleep with a light on, you know, by the time he was 30. Yeah. But it is an object lesson in parenting has very little impact on children because your husband could not be more level-headed. He's not like a man who saw The Shining when he was nine years old.

Although he very much. much did and some other bad stuff too but yes it depends whether the child can take it or not i allowed my child to also see it when he was nine but not all of them would be allowed to because they're all different just one of them yeah well i mean i'm not letting my daughter see it and i she'd have an absolute i mean she gets scared from a lot of things bake off yeah potentially i'm not advocating showing the shining to a nine-year-old by the way it sounds a bit like you are because should i tell you what you did he loved it you loved it rich you told a caution retail like Can you believe how awful my husband's father was that he took him to see The Shining at age of nine?

And then literally within 30 seconds, he's saying, I remember the payoff to the story. I know. The Shining when he was nine as well. I should have to secret. I'll tell you what, I can't keep anything secret from you, Richard. I've got to have it all out there. And that's the reality that, yeah, I've compromised myself in the same way. Okay.

Okay. What was that? What's my favourite Stephen King adaptation? I'm sorry. Wow. Self-sissed much. I'm so sorry. I'm so, I'm just reflecting on my parenting.

What is your favourite Stephen King adaptation, Richard? By the way, listeners, if you have let your child watch something more inappropriate at a younger age, do let us know. That might not even be my worst, by the way. I'd just got to think of it through. Kids, kids, kids, there's a new Wuthering Heights adaptation. Come in, gather around the television. I think, listen, it has to be Shawshank Redemption. Shiny wouldn't be anywhere close to the top three because you've got misery and stand by me as well.

Okay, that will, yeah, I wouldn't put Shawshank in it. You would not put Shawshank in it? Really? Nope. Really? Any reasons? Do you think it's schmaltzy? Yeah, I think it's trite.

You think it's trite? Yeah. But I love trite. I know. What do you know? I'm just going to... I just go to a break. I can't say it and I'm going to get...

I just can only say the wrong thing currently. No, I love Shawshank. I think if you're going to do smaltz, do it brilliantly. Yes. You know, and I think if someone does schmaltz brilliantly, then they've just made the best film of all time. That's my opinion. If you make the best schmaltzy film ever made, you've just made the best movie of all time. than to make a great art house film.

That might be the case. Yeah, that might be the case. I think we'll probably right. Okay, fair enough. We can agree on that. Draw fair over all my mistakes. Okay, should we go to a break, Richard? Let's do that.

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welcome back everyone actually that conversation we just had about showing children thing there's a question which we'll do next week I think so I love it

as a question, which is someone who's got 11 and 13 year old kids, and they're saying I want to educate them on the basis of good entertainment. So can we pick a film, a TV show and a book that we would show to 11 to 13 year old to put them on the right path? Well, anything as far as I'm concerned. But we'll do that next week because that's

a really lovely question. But I have a question instead I have a question about football audio. This is safer. This is a lot safer. Keep listening, everyone. Natasha Boyd asked this question. Natasha says, with football back on the telly, following the lioness is roaring summer success. I have a question about the sound capture in games. I've noticed that the noise of football players hitting the ball is often audible when

watching football on the television, particularly during key moments like penalties. You can hear a clear and satisfying thwack when the players kick the ball. But how is the audio captured? Well, you're right, Natasha, it's got so amazing. And actually, if you go back and you, you know, you watch old matches and stuff on YouTube, you're like, oh my God, I can't believe I listen to this and watch this. It's so sort of basic. It's become, and particularly ever since the money came in with with the football rights and with the Premier League and with Sky

they've been able to make it so good Premier League production set it up at every game and you've got three mics on every side line which are boundary mics In the 70s in football there are three mics on every team

weren't they? It's just I mean everyone was called Mike sorry you've got yeah okay very good you got your boundary mic mic, Mike boundary and then that picks up

the ambient stadium sign then you've got two mics on each goal which is in the top left corner and the top right corner. These are pressure zone mics so that they can get that. You know, if it gets hit the bar

or else it hits the net, you can feel the sort of... Oh, really? Yeah. Then there's one mic at each corner flag. There are 360 degree microphones for crowd sound and some of them have,

the big stadiums have them put into the roof already rigged. There are four for general atmosphere, which is like ambisonic and surround sound mics. And then there's one on the beauty shot camera which gets up individual tackles and action. and then there's one on the steady cams

with the technical area and when they're coming out the tunnel. They're using shotgun microphones that's very important. You're pointing at the thing that you want. So they're incredibly directional. Yeah, they're very directional

and they don't pick up the other stuff. So you're thinking, well, that's a lot of sound. So the real scale comes in the outside broadcast truck because there's a specific sound mixer who's taking all these different feeds and they have to follow the state of play and then they boost and the dip the levels of all these.

I mean, can you imagine the stress? know that's amazing so if there's a penalty then you want to dip the stadium sound and like bring up the behind the goal mic so you can hear it and then if you think the player's going to just i don't know like when runy slagged off the england fans you want to make sure that that's brought up so you're mixing all these different audio channels all the time you've got commentary crowd pitch tony passed up our esteemed boss at goalhanger the governor he's there he's the power he's quite literally our lord and master now he says that the best sound net sound in the preface Because he comes from a sporting background, Tony. By which I mean sporting broadcasting, not sporting. He didn't used to play cricket for England. Although, you know, I believe he could have. Oh, he could have.

Anything he sets his mind to. He could do anything he wants. He sets his mind to. But he was once doing the titles for Match of the Day and he said the sound of curtains being opened really rapidly, sounded much more like the ball fizzing into the back of the net than the real thing. So that's what they used. Oh, wow. Just imagine.

I'm now just imagining Tony's in front of these things. But we know a lot about these types of sound because I was talking to someone who, was part of doing all the soundscapes for COVID because obviously, and by the way, you should be on a list if you watched it without crowd noise during that time. It's like those people who say, I only watch sport without the commentary,

because I don't need to, you think, oh my God, really? I mean, you don't like, they don't want to hear a human being? No, it's just that they think of themselves as purists and it's unbearable. I would rather hear Lee Dixon than silence. Oh my God, absolutely.

But the soundscapes during COVID, they had to kind of create this thing. from stuff that already existed because obviously once it was shut down they couldn't record anything so they went to EA Sports and they got all the individual stuff for individual teams

they got the chance because EA Sports had already from FIFA had got lots of this stuff and then they kind of created these things to make it seem less horrific which as I say you should be on a list if you didn't listen to those things but part of the whole thing about doing something like that

is that audiences at home pick up and on the queues from the stadium and are led by them And actually, you know, we all have to admit that sometimes you're talking about your team or whatever or thinking about it or watching something online at the same time

and there's something that pulls you back. So the noise is actually, the crowd noise, they've tested it and done lots of research. If you have it to kind of push down the crowd noise, then people don't find that, they don't know why, but they didn't find the game as exciting. But if they're being led by it, people are very, very suggestible, basically.

And so that swelling noise really makes people stop being distracted by whatever's happening in their home when they're watching at home. But it's quite a technical big business. That's unbelievable. Do you know what I would like AI to do? You know, if you're ever out in the countryside or something on a Sunday,

going for a walk and you come across a game of cricket or if you're walking past some playing fields and there's a game of football going on, if you could sit down, put your headphones in and AI could do a commentary on that game, I would say and watch the whole thing. Because you know, you sort of watch you think, oh, I wish I knew he was playing. I wish I knew who had a cheerfire. I wish I knew, you know, if the plot lines, switch on these. slept with the other one's wife.

Yeah, I'd like to know. All of that stuff. If AI could do that, in fact, if AI did that, you would have huge crowds at every single village cricket game, wouldn't it? It'd be amazing.

Did you ever? Yeah. Wow. And then you're like looking and goes, is that, is that her? I bet that's her. That's her with the jammed tarts, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

God, you can, you know what? You can tell. You can tell. Looks at no better than you should be. Yeah. How's that? I'd like that. Yeah.

Well, okay, another of your great idea it's just cast as pearls before. That feels to me like that's less fully formed than some of my other ideas. That's like me saying, why don't we invent a pill that kills all diseases? Yeah. That's what I'd really like.

And you just take it one morning. It feels a little bit like one of the dreams you've had rather than one of the ideas you've had. But yeah, I put it in your dream category folder. Yeah, I was being reminded the other day of the perfect episode of The Bill that I dreamt, but I'll tell that story another day. If anyone wants to ask me a question about

the perfect episode of The Bill that I dreamt, then do feel free. Oh, okay, I do, but okay, we'll save it to next week in case somebody actually obliges us. This is a question, but it's also therapy that I need you to give me. It's about skipping bad books, and it's from Damien O'Rourke.

He says, it's life too short for a bad book. Maybe it's a modern attention problem, but I find I have less tolerance as I got older. Do you quit a book if you don't like it? And if so, when, or do you keep slogging at it? Yeah, different people have very different views on this. I'm afraid I do skip things. I know it's great

I wish you've only got so little time in life But also I'm aware that some people Might read the first chapter of one of my books And just go you know what this is not for me I know what I like This is not quite it And that's absolutely fine And if they're allowed to do it to me

When do you drop it? Quite quickly Because by and large it's not always The story hook in me And it's how am I enjoying this writing There's always someone has a style And if I know the things that I like I like things to be fairly direct

I like beautiful writing but I'm not sure I love dense writing unless it's got humor or something or a bit of a spark in something. So, you know, very kind of flowery descriptive writing. If the first three pages are describing a hedgerow, a bit in me is going, I know there's going to be more hedgerow stuff in the rest of this book. And I don't know if I can handle it. If after two pages of hedgerow description, like a car comes through the hedgerow and skids and someone fires out of the window, count me in. Yeah. Okay.

But if that car is not, if on page four the car comes through the hedgerow, I'm afraid I've switched off. I think you can. It takes a really, really long time to write a book. So it feels rude to not read. Oh my God, I read all the way and I hate myself. I mean, I read, I don't think I've ever not finished a book in my life. But why?

What's the thinking? I don't know. It's like a, no, no, it's like a, but, you know, huge, like, 800-page non-fiction things. Oh, my God. But I really want to stop doing it. I really, you know what I have? I have that psychological feeling.

you know say you've got a chocolate digestive and you eat half and you put it down some in the house because the doorbell goes or whatever I do not know that feeling though but go on but say the doorbell goes I agree but say it goes and you're aware that there's a psychological half of biscuit somewhere around the house and you know where it is and it doesn't matter that you've got a whole another packet and you could eat all of those it's the half that you've somehow got to just you know complete and finish yeah and these are all psychological half chocolate digestive biscuits even if they're like 800 pages on something I'm not very interested in I love you got and I need to stop doing it because it's a wet because you know we have a finite amount of time

on this hedro blighted world infested planet and I just won't someone please destroy the hedgeros burn them and I need to learn to remove myself I think that's a nice flaw

I think that's a nice flaw to have I would say I think it's a good thing and it feels your brain full of things you wouldn't otherwise come across because the reason I don't like not reading everything is I'm aware I'm missing out on some of the serendipity, some of the things where you discover something you wouldn't otherwise have discovered. And sometimes if I'm giving up after five pages,

perhaps it's because I'm not, five's hard. I'm not so great at reading. Do you know what I mean? I wouldn't give up to five pages. But, you know, after maybe 30 pages, when I know, I know this is not. I think 30 is reasonable. I'm not interested in the story. I don't love the writing. I can see that other people might adore this. I know the sort of books I like by now. So yeah, it makes me miss out on broadening my horizons for sure. But I think that maybe one in 20 of those books would broaden my horizons that make me a more interesting reader. And 19 out of 20 wouldn't. And I'm going to be here for 87 years or something. And I just do the maths. And I think I think I just let it go. And so long as you put it down and pick up something else, you know, then I think

it's okay. And you read stuff that you love. And so long as you never ever then write saying, Oh my God, I hated that book. You just got to let it, but it's not for me. Read something else that you do love and tell people that you love that one. I think it's okay. I think it's okay to not going to do. It's easy to do. No one minds.

No one wants you to be reading under sufferance because you're not finishing it and thanking the author if you read it and didn't enjoy it. I want people to finish a book and go, oh, I read it. That was great. I really, you know, that's made my life 0.0.0.0.1% better. Whereas I quite often think, thank God that's over. God, the boring book is over. I told you, I read this

incredibly boring one about the whole history of HBO. I don't know how they made it so boring. And it was just referred to every night as my boring book. I said, well, I suppose I've got to read my boring book then. Oh my God, that's so, what is that? I don't know. Help me. But I imagine it must do

your great favours in other parts of your life. Just that ability to see it through. You're like Shackleton, but for books. Where's my medal? Yeah, where's your medal? Thanks. It's been nice to mean nominated. Yeah. They should have the British Book Awards.

Yeah. The person who's read the most boring books to the bitter end. It's a gold half digestive biscuit, which we've mounted on a... We call it a marina. Yeah. Ingrid at the moment is one of the judges on the comedy women in print prize. And on that you have to read every moment of every book. And funnily, if that's instructive about what you're saying, because she's enjoyed reading every moment, every book.

Because there are books there. She said, I might not, yeah, there's a couple of ways. She said, I don't know would I put this down, but she's read every bit of all of them. My big worry is always, I read a sort of chapter that I don't enjoy at all, and so I put it down. And chapter two is, aha, thought John, that's the end of my novel writing days. And it was like, it was a chapter of a bad novel, and then someone comes in with a gun. And I miss this book. But that would be a very brave author.

He did that. He did like a whole chapter of a bad book, just to sort of introduce a character who's a bad novelist, who then goes on to have a gunfight. I think your editor would try and dissuade you from doing that. Not yours, but one's editor. Yeah. There's one thing you haven't done with your books is that. But, you know, maybe in the future.

Yeah, exactly. Listen, yeah, maybe I'll do that. Just a whole series of really bad chapters by different characters. You only discover in Chapter 6 that it's a book club and they're all writing stuff. Not unreliable, boring narrators, a series of boring. Reliably boring narrator. written narrators. It's interesting, it's a very interesting example of the poorly written narrator, that book. It's very harder to write in some ways. Yes. Like a terrible book.

When you had the chat GPT stuff or the AI stuff in We Solve Murders, did you actually put that in? No. I just, I wrote it as the, I tried to write deliberately blank text. And I was thinking, it can't, has it become sentient? Because it was funny. Sorry, sorry, just a, there's a thing which is not spoiling a plot point. in We Solve Murders where in order to try and disguise the villain to disguise him or herself send all the his communications via or her communications via Chat-G-T. Exactly, yeah. So I just, no, if it had actually gone through Chat-G-T, I would God knows what it had been like.

Did you even not try to see what it would like? No, God, no. I just thought I wanted to write them blank first and I wanted it to be entertaining and I wanted to have some fun with it. But yeah, it was fun just to write deliberately blank sort of progress for a bit. But, yeah, it makes you slightly ill. In the character of a very polite English gentleman Which is why I keep saying

Yes That was the prompt So I think that it is okay To give up books after a while But I admire people who don't But if you got to an age You sort of know sometimes You know a book

Some of the best books in the world I did not enjoy So I know they're amazing books I know they're so I'm not giving them up because they're badly written I'm giving them up because in the same way I might switch a TV program off You're badly defective

That's why you give them up No, I'm joking. And you are not defective. And so you're able... It is a defect. Give them up, Damien. Just toss them. I really wish I could do it.

I think we should probably wind this episode up. Yeah, shall we? How quickly do you switch off podcasts? Is it okay to switch off after 35 seconds? Well, do you switch off tomorrow because we've got a really funny bonus episode on Waterworld, just because the story of that waterlogged movie is very funny. as for all our friends who like stories about movies on waters that go wrong. Exactly, and that is for all of our members.

Don't forget if you are a member, you get ad-free listening and all that kind of stuff as well. All right then, everybody. See you next Tuesday. See you next Tuesday. This episode is brought to you by the TV from Sky, Skyglass. Think of Skyglass as the best. pit crew Ferrari didn't know it had. Fine-tuning every detail for the perfect lap.

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