The Unmade Podcast - 182: The Big Round Yellow Thing In The Sky

Episode Date: July 18, 2026

Tim and Brady discuss hot honey and then go deep into the Sun (and what our local star might sound like).

Extended material on Patreon as promised (open access) - https://www.patreon.com/unmadeFM/posts/164093173And this week’s Request Room - https://www.patreon.com/unmadeFM/posts/164165856Support us on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/unmadeFMJoin the discussion of this episode on our subreddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/Unmade_Podcast/Catch the podcast on YouTube where we often include accompanying videos and pictures - https://www.youtube.com/@unmadepodcastUSEFUL LINKSHot Honey - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_honeyThe Sun - https://science.nasa.gov/sun/Alan Stewart - https://www.youtube.com/@AlanKey86Kris Mcconnachie - https://uk.linkedin.com/in/kris-mcconnachie-03566267Benji Antonio - https://www.benjiantonio.co.uk/Pete McPartlan - https://www.petemcpartlan.co.uk/Phil Moriarty - https://muircheartblog.wpcomstaging.com/Captain Disillusion - https://www.youtube.com/CaptainDisillusionNasa/ESA sonification - https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/sounds-of-the-sun/Lucie Green - https://luciegreen.com/

Man, you know how you get like culinary fads, like food that everyone's into? And it like takes off and suddenly everyone like smashed avocado, smashed avo. And suddenly you can't move and get or order anything without having smashed avocado on it and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. Like sourdough during COVID. Everyone was making sourdough. Yeah. I could be wrong about this.

But I feel like Australia and Australians really jump on these bandwagons heavily when there's a culinary fad. And there's a culinary fad that's been sweeping around here at the moment. And I'm just wondering if Australians have grasped onto it yet. I may not be in the right circles, but I'm sure I may have overheard something. What is it? Hot honey. No. Unless I'm way out of the loop.

No, I've not heard of it. Everything has hot honey at the moment, which is like honey, but with a bit of kick to it, a bit of spice to it. I don't know how it's made. I imagine you just take honey from bees and mix it in with your spice of choice or something. I don't know. but everything's got hot honey. And a few of my favorite pizzas will often have like pepperoni with hot honey drizzle over it.

But things went to the next level the other day because I went for my beloved McDonald's breakfast and I ordered my sausage McMuffin. Yeah. And you can order a sausage McMuffin with hot honey. That's their special at the moment. Get out of town. And I was like, oh, come on, this is a bridge too far. Do you know what?

Delicious. So when you said hot honey, I thought, like honey that's heated up. but actually you're talking about spicy honey. It's the spiciness, although pretty much every context you have it in, it is heated up in some way because it's on a pizza or something like that. And it's generally savory foods. It's not something you have with ice cream. It's generally savory.

No, well, I don't know. I'm not, I mean, you know, I'm no culinary aficionado either, but so far all the contexts I've been seeing in has been like, yeah, you know, drizzled on a pizza and things like that. Wow. And now sausage McMuffins. So let me know when hot honey hits. Australia because it's guaranteed Australians are going to seize it. I will ask around the beehive

and see what comes up, see if there's something going on. See if the news trickles down. Have you got, very good. Have you got a, have you got a food or anything you're into at the moment, something that you know you've been getting into lately, anything new? I'm pretty reasonably traditional with my, like I like a steady, organized diet, right? I have favorites that I go back to, which is, you know, things like cheese sandwiches for lunch and eggs for breakfast and all that kind of stuff. My wife, though, and my eldest daughter, wonderful cooks. So they are often experimenting with different things and bringing new ideas to the fore. I'll say one that came up the other day was one that I've actively avoided and mocked ever since,

which was a fish head soup, which, yeah, I had to actively and tactically avoid, you know, having to eat. What happened? Does the fish's head stay in the main bowl? Or like you don't have to ever see the fish's head, do you? No, no, no. Is it made from a fish's head? Yeah, it's cooked and steamed off and it's just getting the meat out of the fish's head. So I think it's a particular way of being very efficient. It's actually, in principle, I think a wonderful idea. In practice, I mean, I'm not big on fish in food anyway. Sorry, fish in soup, I should say. So a fish head soup was an image I couldn't get past. But I don't know if she picked that up because it was in a magazine

Because it's the latest thing or something like that But generally she goes hunting deeper for these sorts of things Or you should get her some hot honey Yeah, well, I'm into that I'm into honey in a big way I really, really love honey Right So I like, we could just

Is it the sort of thing where you have to introduce it In the cooking phase Or does it come as like a condiment that you can add later? I get the feeling that it's like a condiment You drizzle near the end Right I don't know if it's early in the cooking, but, you know, I'm no expert. I'm still stuck on you saying that you're into honey in a really big way.

Yeah. I mean, how big are we talking here, man? It's, I love honey. I often have it as a spread. I often enjoy it on a teaspoon, like just randomly, like out of all context. Let me throw a curveball at you. A teaspoon of honey in a hot milo is lovely. Oh, okay.

I've added it to tea and on porridge and stuff, but no, ooh, on Milo. Okay. Have you tried hot honey in Milo or is it just the vanilla honey? I can't imagine that would be good. No. I can't imagine that would be good. But, you know, I didn't imagine it would be good on the sausage McMuffin, but it was. I reckon we just crack on with my idea for a podcast because I've done a bit of pre-work on this one, so there's a bit to get through.

This is one where you've built up a little bit, like you've done a bit of research and giving me a heads up to be on because, you know, you've got some... Yeah, no, I'm not hyping it up as an all-time great. It just, I've just done some work to make sure I can execute it. Because I'm going to very briefly tell you the idea. Right. And then I'm going to give you a practical example. And it's the practical example that is the reason I had the idea in the first place.

Right, okay. Let's quickly deal with a podcast idea. Let's call this podcast, this is what it sounds like, because that's a lyric from a K-pop Demon Hunter's song that I like. This is what it sounds like. And this is basically... Moving that... Letting that reference go past.

Yes, happily. I'm so into K-pop demon hunters at the moment, loving it. But Tim is like, Tim's really anti, so he won't let me talk about it. I'm totally snobbish. I'm not into it at all. But there are posters of them in our house. Nice. Hunt tricks.

Hunt tricks don't miss, man. So, this is what it sounds like. And this is taking things that don't necessarily have a sound associated with them and discussing what it would sound like if it did make a sound, maybe getting experts to come on and talk about, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, right. So that's the, that's the idea. And now let me give you the practical example, which is where this has all come from

today. Yeah, yeah. What doesn't make a sound that could? Right. Yes, man. You're right. You're with me. I can tell.

I may have gone overboard in pretending I didn't know what you're talking about there. Sorry. So I saw a post the other day on social media. And it said that people who have been deaf since birth that have their hearing restored, or not restored, because they didn't have it in the first place, that are then given hearing later in life, are often expressed surprise that the sun doesn't make any noise. It's this big, bright thing that's dominated their life.

It beats down light and heat. It's the dominant thing in our sky, in our lives on our planet. And yet when they suddenly have hearing for the first time, it's completely silent. It just sits up there in silence. And they're surprised by that. I think, you know, I can imagine of all the things you thought would make sound, the sun would probably be high on the list. Particularly when you think, I mean, this is a whole fascinating area, isn't it, of people

who have never heard anything who suddenly hear sounds, even considering and conceptualising what sound is, if they've had it, if they've been deaf since birth, that's a whole other area, isn't it really? Yeah. From that perspective, that makes a lot of sense. This big thing there, surely it radiates sound. Indeed, but it doesn't for obvious reasons, which we will go into. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, right. All right. My idea for a podcast would be each week you take something that doesn't make sound, such as the sun, and talk it through, and then maybe come up with some sounds that it would make. And I have prepared for this. I have contacted a bunch of people who I thought could help me create sounds of the sun. Yep. And we are going to play them now.

to hear what the sun may sound like if it did make sound up in the sky. Tim and I will discuss each one, and then we've got some more treats coming after the chat. What do you recommend? Do you like this idea? Do you like this idea in general terms? I do like this idea. This is a good example because it suddenly makes a lot of sense.

I mean, the sun's there all the time. We're never looking at it, but it's there all the time. And it's ominous. It's massive. So what, yeah, what sound does it make? Here are some people I've asked. First of all, Alan Stewart, the Maestro, who I've collaborated with for many years now, makes all sorts of music and sound effects for me, makes most of the music and sound effects you hear on the Unmade podcast. Alan's a clever guy.

He's wonderful. I was emailing back and full with Alan today because he's making some sounds for my new podcast, which people will hear about soon. Ooh, ooh, teasey. All right. Anyway, here we go. Here is Alan's audio idea, audiation. of what the sun sounds like. Head at Maestro.

What do you think of that? Oh, I think that's, well, it's appropriate. I think it's really appropriate. Very good. Grand, sweeping. Sweeping, I like that, yeah. Intimidating. Sorry, man, I didn't mean to intimidate you.

Yes, yes, in fact, I'm a bit of overcome. It's, and just a touch, inspiring somehow, you know, like slow and grand yeah there is still a little bit of prettiness in there yes yes yes so throughout all of these I'm going to give them a name right so that if it's a piece of because these are like a piece of music right so as I'm hearing them I'm thinking what name would I give because I'm so good at naming things what name would I give to this piece of music if I was putting it out as a single or an album or something like that right and just so you know people when Tim told me he was going to do this I said, well, I'm going to do it too.

So I've quickly given some names to them as well. So you're going to get two names per piece. But Tim will go first because it was his idea. I've called this one ominous Alan. Oh, nice. All right. I called this one radiance. This is actually the only one that came with a name

because Alan always names his pieces of music and sound effects when he sends them to me. And he called it Sun Shimmer. I'm not sure about that. Shimmer, oh, that would be something more sleek. I'm not sure about this. Yeah, no. You're arguing with the person who composed and created the piece.

I'm not arguing with his music. His music's magnificent. I'm just saying that perhaps he and I should partner up and I should handle the lyrics because I think ominous Alan is a better name. All right. And let me tell you, I also fed all these sound effects into chat GPT and I asked chat GPT what it would name them

but I'm going to save that I'm going to save that for the bonus content and I'll tell you about the bonus content in a minute because it's going to be a whole bunch of bonus content here for various reasons. Let's move on to the next sound effect. This comes from Chris McConakey Chris is another collaborator of mine

he's an audio guy, does a lot of work for the BBC audio engineer, editor, really talented great guy I've really appreciated working with him I told him what I was doing. I asked him if he'd like to come up with something. And he said, okay. And here it is.

All right, there we go. Gosh, if you thought Allen's was ominous, what do you think of that one? I know. You know, the interesting thing about these is even though the sun is the very definition of light, it's the thing that gives us light, the music is kind of dark, you know. It has a heaviness to it. So there's a bit of a paradox there. But this one has, I think, in addition, like there's not just, there's the vast sweeping grandness of ominous Allen, but it also has a tinge of nasty about it too.

So, and it's, and it's, and it's, and it's, and it's, and it's, and it's, and it's, and it's, and it's, and it's, and it's, so I've, I've actually called this one ocean subwuffer. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yep. Okay. Interesting. Trademark. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I like that ocean subwaffe. Okay. All right. I don't think there's a massive danger of anyone stealing that one, man, but all right. You can trademark. A new poetry collection, ocean subwufor.

I called this one Overlord. Oh, yeah. Because it sounds like it's a big thing in the sky, like that big eye and Lord of the Rings or something, looking down on us. So I've gone for overlord. But, yeah, interesting. So both of those pieces of music, if they were to be inserted into Star Wars, would they be playing when we're looking at the rebel heroes or when we're looking at those on the dark side of the force, the empire? Wow, well, I think we all know the answer to that. See, there you go. So it's dark. The sun has a dark presence. And yeah, it's like, oh, sunny. It's the very definition of sunny.

I mean, I find it funny that's how you think of the sun, because I do think of. of the sun as a massive killer beast. That's millions of nuclear bombs going off every second. I do think of the sun as quite a dark, ominous, dangerous thing that one day will envelop and kill us all on the earth. So I don't think of the sun as like, you know, a sparkly, fairy tale, smiley face in the sky. I think of it as dark and ominous. So I'm on, I'm totally on board, what we've heard from Alan and Chris. I tell you, I tell you the, um, the sun doing its PR, has contacts in the breakfast cereal world, because I reckon every breakfast cereal has a really happy, friendly son. And bread, too. Bread always has like a really happy son, you know, like those

sorts of margarine. All these products have like really happy, you know, friendly sons. So they're doing good PR in the breakfast world, I reckon. All right. Next, we're going to hear from Benji, Benji Antonio, who is a Patreon supporter, and we've spoken about before, because I met him in person one time to give him some cards, collector cards, and we spoke about the name Benji. But Benji is also an audio guy.

You can see he's linked down below with all the other links, and he has come up with an audio version of the sun as well. Here we go, take it away, Benji. I'm just going to point out at this time, I'm not playing them in their entirety. That will be part of the bonus content as well, because some of them are a little bit longer, and if you want to hear all of them,

Because sometimes they've got like nuance and little extra bits in them that I might be missing out here on the podcast. So do go and check that out later. But for now, that gives you a good taste of Benji's attempt. Tim, what did you think of that one? And more importantly, what did you name it? Well, this one is a little bit similar. I realised the last name I gave ocean subwoofer refers to water. And this one is a bit the same.

This one sounded a bit like rain on the roof coming down. So I thought about calling it it's raining magma. but then I wasn't sure if magma is actually what or is that from a volcano? Is magma the sucks that comes from the sun? Magma, yeah, it's like more melted rock. You associate that with volcanoes and inside the earth. There is no magma on the sun.

But I think it's a good name. It's raining. It's raining rays or something. I call this one pouring rays, but something like it's raining magma or it's raining rays. Okay. Yeah, that's what it feels. It's very, it's very water.

to me. I called this one magnificent desolation. Oh, nice. I'm stealing that one from Buzz Aldrin who, that's how he described the moon. But I also, this one made the sun sound bleak. And quite windy.

But yeah. All right. Nice. Yeah, lovely. There's that sort of dark sadness. There's a lovely, the cure have got a song called prayers for rain with rain in the background. It's like the song.

saddest song on the saddest album and it's lovely but it's got a real vibe like this one so what on benjie also by the way benjy got the instructions wrong the first time around and he actually also made a audio version of what the moon sounds like he thought i was talking about the moon at one point so that will be on a uh that will be in the bonus content i was thinking about that because that is that i mean of course in space there's no sound is there no space cannot conduct sound because there's no medium to conduct it through. Is there any way that sound could have been captured on the moon? Like if they put bang two rocks together.

Is there any way that you could have captured the sound of them? Yes. Yes. And they have still got detectors on the moon that can capture seismic information, like collisions, you know, moonquakes or earthquakes, things like that, or things hitting the moon. So you can. The moon itself can conduct sound because it's a big solid object,

like a piece of rock or metal. So you can get the sound of the moon in that way. But once you're above the surface, there's no air or fluid or anything for sound to propagate through. I think it would be wonderful to have the sound of a footprint in the moon dust, like that, sort of, you know, when you step onto a beach or onto a crunchy gravel road or something, but just some sort of, you know, shh-sh, into the moon dust. I think that's the kind of thing you'd have as your SMS sound on your phone.

or something, you know, the sound of the moon. Nice. Nice. I mean, it lends itself really well. You could have a whole series doing the sound of each planet. You know, what does Jupiter sound like? You know, this is like the host planet suite, except with sort of sound effects and stuff.

But anyway, let's move on. Let's stick with the sun. You could, however, I've lost interest now after them. Pete McPartland, who is my long-time collaborator on, mainly number file but other projects as well he's a very talented editor artist animator but he's also really into making music and quite avant-garde experimental type music uh i'll link to an album he released down below that people might like so i asked him of course what do you think the sun's going to sound like and this is what pete put together there you go tim a bit different here

pete's you know deviated a little bit still quite um chaotic and intimidating but more sort of human-made it felt like to me. Yeah, it did, yeah. This took me back to the only thing that's hotter than the sun, which is one of my early laptops when left running for too long. Right. So it had a real digital kind of feel to it, real electronic kind of feel of, you know,

those early fan-generating computer units, you know, like a computer or some other item like that. So my name for this one is plasma overdrive. Oh, nice, man. Nice. Look at you, smugly smiling at that one. Very nice. I called it Soul, Destroyer of Worlds.

Is that a character on your demon hunter's thing? No. Soul is kind of the name of the sun. Some people call the sun, soul. Oh, yeah, it is. I think it's like the Latin version, isn't it? Or in another language, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, soul, destroyer of worlds.

There we go. Again, check out the bonus content to hear Pete's stuff in full. Next, I went to Professor Phil Moriarty. Oh, I know Phil. Cool. Nice. You know Phil? He's been here on our podcast.

Yep. You've met him. He's not only is he a physicist in lots of my videos, he's also a bit of a rock star wannabe and loves doing experimental stuff with music and sounds. So when I told him about this, he was. all over it. Let's have a listen. Let's have a listen with our human ears to what Phil made.

What do you think of that one? Yeah, I love this one. This is good. Yeah. It sounds like the sound or music that would be playing right before a band comes out on stage, doesn't it? Wow. Well, funny you should say that because for many,

this reminded me of the band Pink Floyd. And many, many years, they have started their concerts. with this long ambient piece that moves into the song, Shine on You Crazy Diamond, which is a long ambient piece. And you kind of know the song starting when the guitar comes in, and the guitar sound of David Gilmore is exactly what I thought of when I heard this.

I thought, oh, there's, I can hear that a little bit there. So my name for this is Shine on You Crazy Sun. And I hope he likes that reference. But the funny thing is as well, Dave Gilmore also, like Pink Floyd, have this other song called FACTS. Fat old son, which is more of an acousticky song as well. So I thought about going with fat old son, but the fact it sounded so much like shine on you crazy diamond,

I've called it Shine on You Crazy Sun. I called it The Almighty. Ooh, there we go. What do you say to that? It's lovely to hear you praying. Now, Phil has hidden some sounds in his that he told me about afterwards. So I'm going to play you a little lick here, a little guitar sample played by Phil. This is what he has hidden in here, but I'll tell you more detail a minute.

First of all, I'll play it to you, because I think it'll be familiar to most people. Sofi shop. There we go. Right, yeah. Thank you for you. So that's in there. Is that right? He's not just done this in addition.

He's actually, that's subsumed within the previous piece. Hear me out. Here it is again, played two octaves higher. So you and I can still hear that. But Phil pitch shifted it even further up. I think maybe six octaves. Either another six octaves or six octaves or he pitched up even higher to the point where it's no longer in the human range of hearing and then embedded that into his piece.

So if you take that piece and look at like the waveform and the spectrum and all that sort of stuff, you will see it, but you can't hear it. But it is embedded in there as a little easy. Easter egg. No wonder I was so positively disposed towards it. Subconsciously, I was like, oh yeah, no, this is really great. It's in there. It's in there whether you heard it or not. And of course, Phil being Phil, it was 42 seconds long as well. Next, we have Captain Disillusion. I don't know if you know the Captain Tim. He's a friend of mine over and obvious. He's a very popular and excellent YouTuber. He's a, he's a character that comes from space. And he makes lots of good videos sort of looking at

how video effects work and debunking things and stuff like that. He's a, he's well worth a watch or a follow if you don't watch or follow him already. But for some reason, I just thought he would be a good person to ask. So I reached out and said to the captain, you know, I got a message sent to him up in space and said, can you help us out? And this is what he came back with. Greetings, Brady and Tim. This is Captain Disillusion. I've parked my shuttle about 100 miles away from the sun so you could hear what it really sounds like, I am not looking forward to this.

Opening hatch. Ow, okay, I can't, I can't take this anymore. Closing hatch. Oh, boy. It's almost as bad as Miami. That's, yeah, that's great. Yeah. I came up with a name for this one too.

The name I came up with was, retina fire hose. Oh. What I thought, I just imagine, you know, those sort of, when you have a hose and it's firing straight into your face, imagine a fire hose blasting into your face. I called it right onto your eyes.

That's the, yeah, retina fire hose. Fire hose, retina, one of those, yeah. Interestingly, I called it solar retinopathy. Oh. Which is the name of the condition you get if you look in the sun and damage your retinas. Oh, right. Okay.

There you go. An experience that happens almost weekly in Adelaide, every time I'm serving from one particular end of my tennis club. Yeah. There we go. So I just thought I'd quickly play you this man as well. This is an actual kind of NASA-Esa sonification of the sun. So this is, I don't know if you could call it the sun itself, the sound of the sun itself, because that's drawing a bit of a long bow. But here's a sonification of the real sun.

There you go. So you need to explain to me a little bit more. That's not the sun, but it is the sun. It's taken, it's data from the sun from kind of the vibrations of the sun. So it's, you know, in real time and measured. But they've then pitch shifted it, I think, into a pitch that you and I can hear because I think it would be at a very low, low frequency. So they've had to up the frequency so we can hear it.

But it is the kind of, you know, the waves relative to. each other and in time are accurate. Okay, okay. Did you name that one or do you let me go? No, I did. Yeah. No, I called that one Mozzy, which is Australian for mosquito. And on a summer night laying in bed, everything's quiet and a little mosquito comes near your ear. That's what that sounds like. Well, this sounds like the ideal time to call in an expert. I'm sure you would agree. And I contacted a friend of mine who is one of the UK's leading solar scientists. She's a massive, massive expert on the sun. Her name is Lucy Green.

So we are going to hear from Lucy Green. And actually, my interview with her lasted 18 minutes, and we went into all sorts of places. I'm not going to play all of it here right now because it feels like 18 minutes is, you know, a long time. And I don't want to turn this into one of my like 60 symbols or deep sky video. So I'll play some of my discussion with Lucy, which is very accessible.

by the way and really interesting. It is. Yeah, I've listened to it. But I also will make the whole thing available elsewhere. But before I tell you about that, let's hear a bit from Lucy, who had loads of interesting things to say about the sounds of the sun and our little foray into it. Lucy, first things first.

The simple question is, why can't we hear the sun? Yeah, it comes down to the fact that sound needs a medium to travel through. So it's not like light. Light will travel through a vacuum. Sound is different to that. So you need material. You need something for the sound to propagate through. And pretty much between the sun and the earth, there is a vacuum. There's not much stuff there. So whilst the sun can have sound waves propagating around its interior, when the sound waves get to the surface, they get reflected back into the sun. They don't make it out into the universe.

into the solar system. So I know that sound can travel through the air, of course, and I know it can travel through water, because, you know, we hear whales and we can talk to each other underwater in a swimming pool. What's the sound traveling through inside the sun? It's traveling through a plasma, which is an electrically charged gas, so a very hot gas. So really, it's an electrically charged gas. It's a fluid, and that's what the sound is traveling through. So is it sound, as I know it, Like if I had an unmeltable ear, would I, I'd be able to hear stuff? Well, I mean, yes, it is sound. It is fundamentally the same thing, the same phenomena as, you know, sound around us.

It's just that it's a very low frequency. And you can sort of imagine it, kind of, because, you know, a small object, a small cavity, let's say a flute or something. you know, if you play that and you generate sound, it's fairly high-pitched. But if you go to an organ of a church with massive pipes, then the sound is much deeper, lower frequency. You know, and then you scale that up to something the size of the sun, which is, you know, in Orbis, the sounds of the sun are deep and booming

and well below the range that our ears can pick up. Okay, so we're not going to hear what the sun sounds like, even if we do get inside it with our ears. But I have seen like on websites and places like that, sometimes scientists do kind of sonificate, I think they call it. They do say, here's like an interpretation of what the sun really sounds like. What's going on when they do that? I've used those techniques myself as well to try and convey the scientific data. So you're right, you can sonify.

And with the sun, because actually we're starting with sound waves anyway, it's not a very complicated process. you're basically speeding up the sound waves maybe 40,000 times, something like that, to take a very low frequency, slow variation, and then bring it up into the frequency range that our ears can hear. Is the actual nuclear fusion, you know, the nuclear bombs going off in the sun contributing to the noise then? Or is it the sloshing and jostling of the plasma that's in there? Yeah, it's the sloshing and joshing of the plasma. But I mean, in a way, you could trace it back to the nuclear fusion inside the sun because that's the ultimate source of energy.

So that's releasing energy, which is heating the gas in the first place. And then it's that heating of the gas and the transport of energy out of the sun. So from the core to the outer layers, that's ultimately what's causing these convective motions, which is ultimately causing the sound waves. When people artistically represent the sun, there seems to be two lions of thought, isn't there? There's like this happy, loving, smiley-faced sun that's raining love and life down on us.

And then, of course, there's this explosive million nuclear bombs a second death machine that one day is going to end life on Earth. How do you see the sun? Our friend and foe, absolutely. So I totally get that because we rely on the sun and, you know, you wake up in the morning. Is it going to be a sunny day? If it is, it puts you in a good mood. Summer's coming.

So all that kind of, you know, happy vibes. But at the same time, I love the fact that hidden behind that otherwise dazzling view that we have in the daytime lies this really violent object, really dynamic. and because we rely on it so much, we are sort of, you know, at its whim. When the Sound of the Sun has been represented artistically, like in movies, do you sort of sit there scoffing and being unhappy, like in films like that, or are you really fascinated by how they tackle that problem? I am fascinated by it. It's very easy to kind of get lost in your scientific perspectives on an object,

but ultimately this is storytelling and narrative and, you know, engagement with an audience. So I think it's fascinating to see how people take these objects, whether it's the sun or, you know, any other science topic, and how they play with it. What does it mean to them? And how can they weave it into a story? So, yeah, I do find that interesting. And I'm also interested to see which bits of the science they play. played with. So which bits actually maybe help the storytelling, which bits maybe provide some

constraints that are useful versus having everything in your imagination open to you. I think sometimes knowing the science helps you with a direction, even if you're not necessarily trying to do a scientific representation. Thank you so much for your time, Lucy. Thank you for lowering your standards, your scientific standards enough to come onto the unmade podcast. Well, it was fun. It was, it was, it was, it was inspirational. It's given me some new things to think about. So I also named that interview, man. I have a title for that interview. Yep. I titled that Flaming Friend and Foe. Oh, nice. Who's the friend and who's the foe there? Well, Lucy in the interview refers to the Sun as being both a friend and a foe because a little bit like fire on earth. The fire can warm your house and you'll freeze without

out it, but of course fire can also burn down a house and kill you. So it's a friend and foe, but the sun also plays that role. The sun is necessary for life on earth, but as you say, also harms life on earth in disproportionate ways. Well, okay, people, if you want to head over to Patreon using the link down below, this won't be like behind the pay, well, this will be free for everyone, but I'm going to put it on the Patreon page because it's just easy for me. you can hear the following. You'll be able to hear all of those pieces of audio in their entirety. You'll be able to hear the chat GPT name for them.

And you'll be able to hear the full interview with Lucy in its entirety. And you'll also be able to hear Benji's sonification or audiation of the moon. All of that is waiting for you over there. There are links down below. You can go there now or you can go there later. It will be there forever. or until the sun expands and subsumes us here on earth. So go and check it out.

What do you think of my idea, man? So we've actually, like, not only if I told you an idea for a podcast here, I've kind of played it out for us. Yeah, yeah. So it's hard to say it's a bad idea when we've actually done it. It's clearly doable. My question, and that was great, and I learned a lot about the sun. The big question I have is how translatable it is to different episodes.

Like, you've talked about the moon, but what else doesn't create a sound that it's fun to think about the sound it would make? Trees. Literally, I thought of trees as I asked that question. Yeah. What sounded trees make? Nice. Yeah. You know, we've heard trees talk in various films, haven't we, like Lord of the Rings?

What was the, in the spindles books, what did Red Gum's voice sound like? Oh, yeah, red gum. I think, I think, similar to the sun, like, spoke with some authority, depth and origin. Particularly because there's a different part of the tree. Like if it's the trunk speaking, you think the trunk is big and authoritative and, you know, wise. But of course, if it was like a little twig part, if those parts could speak, then you'd think they'd be all chirpy and happy and, you know, going on like little birds or seagulls or something. Yeah?

So. Okay. It can also be abstract. Here we go. God. God. What does God sound like? Well, the most accurate picture we have of God is Jesus.

And Jesus spoke Hebrew and probably Greek as well and Aramaic. So, you know, he spoke like a 33-year-old guy. So there we go. Here's the word. But I would like, you know, you could also have like, you know, I remember my godmother, coincidentally, she was my godmother, had a piece of artwork, abstract artwork on her wall. And I can't remember who it was by or what it was. but I remember thinking that's what I think God would look like.

And it was some kind of weird light, crystally thing. And so it doesn't have to be like a voice. It doesn't have to be a spoken voice. It could just be some sound effect. When I was young, we used to go to a house of people, you know, friends of my parents. And they didn't have kids my age. So I was kind of left roaming the place on my own. And I'd go down this particular hallway.

But I wouldn't go all the way down to the end because there was this big grandfather clock. And it was so ominous that I was. scared of it. I don't remember it making, you know, the gonging sounds. I don't remember it chiming the hour, although I'm sure it did. But when I think about a big, scary, authoritative sort of figure, like, I wonder what sound, like, it was almost like the clock was personified. And clocks are a bit like that because they have a face, right? So I was scared of this thing, like it was a scary, big man down the end of the hall. I wonder what that clock would sound like if it made sounds apart from chimes.

What does time sound like? What does love sound like? What does hate sound like? Yeah. What does America sound like? You know, like some of these things could even be things that make sound like clocks, but they could also have other ways they could, you know, have sound. It's, you know, you could tell us, listeners,

tell us people you think would be good for an episode. The sound of what? What would you like to hear the sound of created by our, clever sound people and discussed by less clever people like Tim and I. That's right. There's a book I, there's a, there's a writer I really love who at the end of his books, he's a philosopher. He has a little note where he says, you may be wondering what the soundtrack is to this book. And I wanted to let you know that while I was writing it, I was listening to this album. But actually in the end, I think this, the sound of this book is

this album by, you know, radio head or something like that. So he actually gives, I really, I really love that and I end up doing a post about my own book about those well going this book, if this book had a soundtrack like a film does, this is what it would be. That's a cool idea. Nice. There we go. All done. But what was the name of it again? Things that don't make noise. No, this is what it sounds like. This is what it sounds like. This is what it sounds like. When the doves cry. Very good. Yeah. So I would have called it when doves cry and then work back from there. Yeah. Of course you would have. So I have an idea for a podcast.

Knowing you were going to talk about the sun, I have come up with a related idea about the sun. Yes. My idea, I was thinking about the sun and I thought about doing a play on the sun, like S-O-N. Like this could be a podcast about this is my son or about a son or something like that. And I know you've got a son. So I thought about going in that direction. There's all sorts of possibilities there. But in the end I didn't.

I stayed with the big round yellow thing in the sky. The big round yellow thing in the sky. Yes, that's right. And we, which is a great name for a podcast in itself. Oh, you think that's not the title of this episode? That's not very good. That's right. My idea is about the downside of the sun.

Right. Which is about my worst experience with the sun. Okay. My worst day in the sun and of course, and of course the show is going to be called sunburn. Right. This is a story. I mean, there's stories and accounts of you. It could be a sunburn story and many of them are sunburn stories, I'm sure.

But otherwise, your worst possible day in the sun. Does something come to mind for you? I know you're sensitive to the sun because of your skin. What's your worst experience, man? What's your worst story? As in I just have quite light skin. I haven't got like some condition where I can. can't go out in the sun in case that's what you, in case people think that, I just don't.

You're not like Michael Jackson wearing makeup and covering up big, massive blotches. Not that that would be any, not that would be a problem at all, but yeah, yeah, sure. I do dislike being in direct sunlight when it's hot. I do dislike it. I just don't like the feeling. Yep. I seek the shade quite often. You are shady.

I am a very shady character. I mean, the last couple of weeks have been loads of them. I'll tell you a recent one. I went to Disneyland a couple of weeks ago during the big heat wave over here in Europe and walking around Disneyland in the blazing sun that was, you know, I mean, basically I could just list all the times I've been unhappy because of hot days when there hasn't been enough shade. Right.

Has there been a particular moment maybe early in life where you went overboard? You know how it can get quite dangerous really? And that's really marked you for life. You've gone never again and you've become more sensitive to it since then? No. In fact, I was probably more. I was more agreeable to the sun when I was young. I would lie out in the sun in the warm and not worry about it.

I got sunburned, you know, my fair share of times, unfortunately. My other problem is, not only do I dislike the sun, I dislike the feeling of putting on sunscreen. Yeah. Like I find a very unpleasant experience that I avoid as much as I can. And those two don't go well together. No. I can think of lots of hot days and times I've not been happy in the sun. And the problem is everyone around me, you know, my wife to a certain.

certain extent, although she's very, because her father died from skin cancer, she's become very mindful of skin cancer and has been a patron for charities to do with it and all sorts of stuff. So despite that, she does have a bit of a penchant for the sun. She likes the feeling of the sun. And all of my friends are, you know, English people just bloody love the sun. They can't, anytime the sun comes out, they can't wait to get out in it. So there's always this massive conflict between me and all of my English friends. And it's funny, because I'm the Australian and they think I'm going to be the big sun lover. But we'll go out somewhere to like the park, to go and play, you know, kick a ball around with the kids and throw a frisbee.

And we'll have to find somewhere on the edge of the sun and the shade. And Brady will be sitting in the shade on a rug, like on the edge. And everyone else will be in the sun, like soaking up the rays because they love the sun so much. So it does make me a bit of a bit of a party pooper. You know, we'll go on holidays. We're going on a sunny holiday to the south of France in a few weeks. And they're all so excited about the sun and being out on the beach and that. And I'm kind of got this feeling of dread that, oh God, I hope there's going to be some shady spots for me because I don't want to spend all day out on the beach in the sun. So in terms of your podcast idea, I'll come to in a second because I want to hear your example. I think it's like,

it's a very relatable idea, but I do worry that it won't have much legs because the ways that the sun can impact you negatively are quite consistent. There's not much variety to it. Either it's out and it's hot and beating down on you or it's behind a cloud and or it's night. And they're the only ways the sun can really affect you. So it could affect your photography, sport playing. You've mentioned already playing tennis. I didn't think of that.

Times it gets in your eyes. There've probably been famous moments in cricket matches where people have dropped catches because the sun got in their eyes. Now I think about it. Now I think about it. Give me your example, man. Heat exhaustion and those sorts of things as well. I remember a particular time.

Mine's a sunburn story. We were on holidays. This is before we had kids. We were away with a few different. extended family members camping. It's a classic story, but it was so bad, it sticks in my mind so strongly. Of the first day, we go out surfing or bodyboarding out there, and it's just like, shirt off, not worrying about, you know, because it's first day, you don't worry about

sunscreen, like dumb, dumb, dumb, and stay out there a long time. It's not that sunny. And you come back in, and then later on that night, you start to go, oh, hello. This is really, really, really. saw. And it gets hard to sleep and it's terrible. And it's quite hot because you're in a tent. But I remember that.

I spent the next two days just laying outside the tent, like with most of my body in the tent, but at the edge of the tent so I could get some breeze and just laying there on my tummy because I couldn't lay on my back, just with all sorts of ointments on my back, treating just enormous pain. And I, everyone went off for the day and did adventures and all that kind of stuff. and I just literally sat in that one position or lay in that one position. I remember I read a whole book just sitting there in two days, which was a memoir of Nigel Hawthorne, the actor, you know, played Humphrey and Yes Minister.

I just like read his whole life. So I always equate him with my Sunburn episode, just laying there on the ground. But I was also like no one, because it was, it sticks in my mind because no one had any sympathy, apart from going, oh, that's terrible. Then there's nothing really else to say. Like, oh, how are you this morning, you know, when they come out? And then they go off and do stuff because it's like, don't sit here because of me, go off and do things. But please bring me back some lunch because I can't move.

And I remember them, one in particular, they went off and got like burgers somewhere and ordered me a burger as well. But then, like, finish their burgers and then went and did something else. And so hours later come back with my burger, which is now cold and soggy and weird. I remember them handing me, oh, we got you a burger. and I'm going, this is the worst burger of all time. How many hours ago did you get this burger? And I just remember eating a bad burger, reading a book, laying there.

Wow, I mean, this experience, pardon the pardon, this experience seems like it's burned into your memory. Well, it is, it's probably the one experience where it's like, never again, never again, I'm putting on suntan lotion, which I know when we were kids like we didn't do, and they had to be really active campaigns to get people to use it. And now it's like, of course, you know, kids literally aren't allowed to play out in the playground at school, unless they've got a hat on and they've, you know, got their t-shirts on. And everyone's just very, very careful.

Do you remember when you were a kid getting a bad sunburn and your skin would peel? And it would be quite fun peeling the skin off. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like it was a bit like it's fun peeling glue off your hands when you use like, you know, glue and then it dry and you peel it off. I remember sometimes peeling my skin off and thinking, oh, this is really soft. satisfying. What's the biggest piece I can peel in one continuous piece? Yeah, we were just like snakes. It's kids in the 80s.

Just shedding our skin every few days of summer and coming out as good as you to go again. Let's burn this new one off. There's just like pieces of child's skin just laying on the sidewalk around about all through January. Oh dear, we're going to pay for that. There's lots of stories as well about people who have, you know, fallen asleep and someone's written something on their back. But then they've had their for ages afterwards. Yeah, you're the writer in sunscreen. So you get a burn except where the word is, yeah.

Or their phone, you know, their phones sitting on their belly or something they've gone to sleep listening to something. So then they've got a square piece on their belly in the midst of the sunburn. I mean, rather than writing something on their back and sunscreen, the done thing is to draw a certain piece of male anatomy on their back in sunscreen. That's right. The very Australian. Yeah. Speaking of immature young people in Australia. Yeah, no, that's right.

Yes. All right. Sunburn, bad experiences with the Sun. Tell us your bad experiences with the Sun. Okay, people, if you want to hear all of the Sun sonifications from Alan, Chris, Benji, Phil, Pete and Captain Disillusion, go to this extra piece of content. linked below. It's on our Patreon page. It's free to listen to. You don't have to be a patron. It will also have the full interview with Lucy.

18 odd minutes. Really interesting stuff. Definitely worth a listen. It will also have Benji's sonification of the moon, which is sent by mistake. And it will also have the chat GPT names for all those sonifications if you're curious about that. And don't get angry about chat GPT. You know, you're allowed to use it. It's all right. Just relax. It's all right. And There is also a request room. We have had an unusually high number of questions and requests for the request room this week, which is our patron-only bonus show that Tim and I record after we do this. So go and have a listen to that as well if you're a Patreon supporter.

Or become a Patreon supporter and go and have a listen and listen to all the previous ones too. And I promise no questions about the sun. If you're done with the sun, you're done. Don't make promises you can't keep mad.