TRASHFUTURE - Britainology 51: Adrian Chiles feat. Adrian Chiles

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

In this month's first Britainology, we interview the UK's only good columnist about his new book 'The Good Drinker: How I Learned to Love Drinking Less.' The book is available here from Profile Books. However, rest assured that we talk about the book for about half of this interview, and the other half is a masterclass on process where we learn how Adrian comes up with columns such as 'I recently saw something in a petrol station toilet southbound on the M1 that I can never unsee.' Hope you enjoy! If you want access to our Patreon bonus episodes, early releases of free episodes, and powerful Discord server, sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/trashfuture *MILO ALERT* Here are links to see Milo’s upcoming standup shows: https://www.miloedwards.co.uk/live-shows *WEB DESIGN ALERT* Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ Trashfuture are: Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), Nate (@inthesedeserts), and Alice (@AliceAvizandum)

Hello and welcome to yet another edition of Britonology. I'm Milo Edwards. I'm joined as ever by my co-host, Nate Pathay. Hello. It is very cold today. It is. We're experiencing the British weather. Getting some Indiana ass weather today. Close to it, something like that. We also are joined with our special regular host guest, Hussain Kuzvani. Hi. I've actually, I haven't been on Britonology for a while. I'm really excited to be a, like, host it kind of or co-host it. Yeah. And this is a very special episode because we're joined by the king of Britonology at a linchpin of everything that this show is about. Adrian Childs. How are you doing? All right. Thanks. Yes. Good. Delight to be here. How cold, I mean, this is more potatoes compared

to Indiana, surely? Yeah. This time of year, it would probably be about the same, but this is the coldest in five years I've been in this country. This is the coldest I think I've seen December be. That's pretty normal for where I'm from, but in January, February, it would be in, like, your minus 15, minus 20 territory. That's pretty normal. It's darker here, though. Is it Fargo type? No, it's not quite that bad. I think, I think, yeah, minus 15, minus 20 is about the coldest I ever saw it get, but it does snow a lot. So what about the murders, the blood in the snow and all that? Yeah, I think it's less folksy when there's mass murder in Indiana, unfortunately. Watch out for those pregnant cops rolling you up when you're smoking weed as a

teenager in the park. Yeah. It's, in that way, it's a little bit lower stakes than North Dakota, I hope. So Adrian, we brought you on the show because we wanted to, well, we're fans of your columns and we feel that's very kind of you. Yeah, we feel like it's said on the show that you're the only good British newspaper columnist. Well, it's also been said on various other shows and places that I'm the worst ever columnist. So, you know, I just hate this bad. Don't listen to that. Well, you know, I think it's precisely because you differ from the standard version of the British newspaper column, which is I hate my children that we enjoy them so much. I think you should take that as a compliment, really, from the fact that the right people

hate you is probably a good starting point. That's good. I'll take that. So, we brought you on also because your new book, The Good Drinker, How I Learned to Love Drinking Less, recently out, and we got a chance to read it. And one of the things we've talked about on the show, because the basic principle has been, Milo explains British things to me as a non-Brit living in this country, is British drinking culture. And I felt like this book was a great introduction to that because you talk about your sort in sort of tranches, decades of your life, your experiences, how much you were consuming, what your drinking life was like, how that meshed or didn't mesh with your social life, and then the decision you made to moderate,

to not quit drinking, but to moderate it significantly. And so, coming into it, I was taken by there was a passage in particular where you were describing being a kid, being a teenager, getting into pubs, drinking underage, and the kind of centrality of alcohol to your social life. You said, however we did it, whoever we did it with, wherever we did it, drinking was the only thing I wanted my social life to be about. An evening in which a drink didn't feature probably wouldn't happen in the first place, no booze, no point going out. So, that kind of rung some bells for me, but because you can't drink till you're 21 and as you experience as a kid underage in America, they do really enforce IDs in America. Or the pregnant cops, they'll be there.

The pregnant cops among other people, yeah. There's an extent to which we couldn't ever go to bars. So, it was always drinking in people's houses and it was always like, well, if the cops are going to arrest you one way or the other, you might as well drink the hardest liquor possible. But what's it a big thing in your life though? Did you, did you, did you amount to a kind of a be on an end or do you think the weekend's coming, we've got to get a drink or do it at home? I think the thing that's different from what you've described in the book, and that's the thing I wanted to lead into the discussion, was the centrality of the pub, the centrality of the place that you go. Whereas for us, it was like, does, is there a shed in the woods where we can

drink? Is it someone's basement where their parents aren't going to watch? Because like, anywhere that was public, anywhere that wasn't secluded, the cops could shut up and they, they were bored. They loved messing with teenage kids and arresting. It's going to be as far from the maternity clinic as possible. And so, in a way, you guys going to the pub, that wasn't, it didn't seem as though that was necessarily so out of the ordinary. You were trying to get served, but you could hang out. Like, there seemed to be a place to go. I think that must be, I think that's slightly generational. I think it was more like that.

I think it was probably more like that in my day, when, you know, the pub was the potter gold at the end of the rainbow. You know, I quote my dad to say, you know, when I was about 14, he said, tough time for you now. You know, you're too, you're too old to stay in all the time, but you're too young to go to the pub. So the pub set up as the potter gold at the end of the rainbow. Now, I think what's happened, I think alcohol maybe has got more expensive to drink in pubs. So I think there's a lot more drinking that goes on at home along the lines you said, and you're in fields or wherever. And there are fewer, fewer pubs. I mean, there's a, an awful lot of pubs of clothes, you know, the pubs, you know, I mean, which I think is pretty

critical for me. It's always been a social component to drinking to this day. You know, a lot of people drank more during lockdown. I wasn't one of them because for me, it was, it's all, there's been about a social thing I love. I just love pubs. I love, you know, not very busy pubs, actually. And not necessarily, I'm quite up to go on my own. I have a couple of pints there into space. I just love them. And I miss them when I'm away. So yeah, you know, I think that's probably less the case from what I've seen in my kids and their peer group. And so do you feel like British drinking culture in general has changed to the point where like that would seem like an anachronism? Or do you think that if you wanted

that pub experience that you had as a kid, that's still accessible? I think, I think it's, I think, look, things moved on in a way old farts like I'm becoming sort of often can't appreciate. I mean, I think with these things, it's always important to remember that anecdote isn't data. So look at my kids and it's still, you know, one's just at university, one's just out of university. And drinking still seems to be a sort of a key part of everything. But the data tells us otherwise, fewer kids of that age are drinking. Yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting one. I mean, I think probably pubs are something that I have spent more time in like as an adult, like after leaving university. And I went at university as well. But certainly like when I

was drinking as a teenager, it wasn't really done in pubs. It was more like furtive and less of that because it was just hard. It was a more challenging environment. I mean, drinking was cheaper then. So it was less, I think, the cost, but definitely the element of like, it was always like, would you get served or whatever? Whereas I guess like back in the day, that was less of a concern. I mean, you talked a lot about the sort of fight to figure out what the right lines were to get served and a bunch of failed attempts being told to fuck off. But it seemed at a certain point, you did find like the sweet spot about how to go about it. Oh, you grow in by definition. You grow into it because you get older. You get nearer that age.

But I think it was visceral, you know, I still, my parents still live around the area where I grew up just outside Birmingham. I mean, I still, you know, I still literally get a friss on when I walk into some of those places. You know, a real thrill when I actually get served, you know, I'm 55 years old. Your picture's still up behind the dial. Do you know I've made this a man? Do not serve this man. There was a bar in Indianapolis that wouldn't card, but you had to know the score. You had to order the table. You had to say, yes, ma'am, to the waitress. There were only certain drinks you could order. The guy who ran it was a World War II that he would throw you the fuck out if you didn't follow the rules. So you could be 17 or

drinking in that part, but as someone had to school you up on what you were allowed to get away with. And in a way, that's the, I remember going there and being like, I know that everyone in this bar knows that I'm underage, but because I'm sort of following the rules, it's okay. So I did have that. The only difference is that you have to drive there. So it's like invariably, yeah, who's the honorable drink driving. It's changing in America, but where I'm from, it was such a day rigor thing. And that's, that's one of those things where it's like a huge culture clash. I think, I think this country seems to have a pretty intense drinking culture. It does. I think there's something really important. And it's too,

it's super of ideas that sort of run counter to each other. But yes, drinking culture is a big thing. But, you know, a key, a key thing to remember is how many people are drinking too much. Right? Yeah. And now there's a lot of them. And it's, and it's in the vast majority of people who get really ill through drinking too much, you know, aren't the kind of, you know, wake up in shop doorways, the, you know, the, the, the alcoholics inverted commerce of, of caricature that big drinkers like me have been doing it with impunity. But it's so important to remember that, you know, of all drinkers, there's a, you ask any big drinker what percentage of all drinkers are drinking within the safe guidelines of 14 units. Ask any heavy drinker,

that question. They will say non 1%. I mean, the answer is 70%. Yeah. I remember. Right. Most drinkers are, most drinkers are drinking, are drinking safely. Now it's so important to remember in, in, in terms of drinking less, that social norming idea that I haven't been taken away was such a big thing for me. Because no longer could I sit in a pop and say to myself, like most drinkers, everybody drinks that much 14 units. Nobody drinks that little. It's just not true. Right. Now you can say the 14 units thing is an instant or whatever. Right. But you can't say most people drink like that because it simply isn't true. And just listening to you now, it strikes me that right from a young age, when I was thinking even then, everyone's drinking.

Again, that's not quite the case. There's a noisy minority, even majority who are doing it. There's an awful lot who aren't. As soon as you start drinking and want to, you know, you've got this urge, you know, I've got to get a hold of a drink with you in Indiana or Stourbridge, right? You, you know, as soon as you enter that minority, you will find other people who are in that little club. Yeah. And you will find and, and then that becomes your social norm. And that's one of your reasons. One of your reasons to keep doing it. When I went to university, clean slate came from Birmingham to London. So you've got a whole new friends, a whole new bunch of friends you choose. Let's say I made a couple of dozen, you know, friends and acquaintances at university, a handful

of really close friends, right? And those couple and dozen by a strange, an astonishing coincidence. All of them are big drinkers. Exactly. You know, and I think, you know, and I'm telling myself subconsciously, well, that's because everybody drinks. No, it's not because I chose them. Yeah. You know, that's why you met them. Yeah, in the shop door. That's probably why I met them. But, you know, either way, it reinforces this idea, this, you know, this fallacy that you, you know, that everybody is drinking as much as you. I think at university, that's certainly a sample where you're going to encounter more people who are drinking a lot. I mean, I certainly drank more at university. But I think it does go back a bit to what you were saying earlier about

being a bit generational, because I definitely noticed like, certainly with like my parents' generation, I think drink more than my generation do on the whole in just a kind of Tuesday night kind of way. And I think I noticed it a lot, because my parents didn't drink much and they would often like go over to like friends places for dinner and they'd be like, Christ. And then also I think that like the drink driving thing, similarly, like, I remember like all of my friends dad would drive like completely pissed like all the time, because it was just like accessible. They're like, you know, that kind of like I drive better when I'm drunk, actually. I don't know any of my like contemporaries who do that. There is that kind of generational shift

in attitudes, I think. There was there was actually a passage that I wanted to talk about, because we were talking about making friends at university and a similar culture shock when you encounter people from County Durham, who going out with them and I'm going to read this passage, because I found this very funny. You said your friend Jed, on the other hand, had grown up in a drinking culture at a different level altogether than the one I'd known. Going out on a night with him and his mates in concert was to witness a level of drinking that made me feel like a novice. They started early and finished late. At no stage was it an option to refuse a pint. One weekend, Martin, the shed man, now an eminent orthodontist, as it happens,

came to concert with Jed and me. That's a powerful little British sentence. Martin liked to drink as much as anyone, but not in these quantities. He just about managed to keep up, bless him, until about 1am, by which time we must have been well into double figures. At this point, Martin cracked. In the tone of quiet desperation, I'll never forget, he quietly asked me, as it was my round, if I could get him a bottle of bex instead of a pint. Not a soft drink, please note, just a beer and a smaller vessel. I snuck it to him when I returned from the bar, but Jed's brother, Patty, was on to us in a flash. What's your last drinking, he demanded. Martin's reputation was in tatters. I expect mine was tainted too,

merely by association with him. We left town the following morning, under cover of darkness. I mean, incredibly, that is all true. I mean, Martin is actually a professor of orthodontics. He literally wrote the textbook. Anyone study it? He's really straightened out. So in a way, it's like, I'm curious at that reaction, because you said it was a long process to realize that you would find yourself, if you didn't change your drinking habits in a situation where for health reasons, you wouldn't be able to drink at all. And so it was less of like, I must become abstinent now, so much as I must moderate this so that I can enjoy it even when I get older. And I was wondering, before that moment, because you described the moment when you

were getting a liver exam, and they said that you had early signs of cirrhosis, before that, when you encountered situations like this, for example, did you ever have a moment to be like, wow, we do sure do drink a lot in this country. It's a little bit excessive. Yeah. I mean, I was aware, I was aware I drank a lot. And I was aware I was drinking more and more with every decade that passed. Yeah. But, you know, I was just too good at it in the sense there was no obvious reason to stop. I mean, there's a guy in the book who I met, who was an ex politician as it happened, but he said, you know, he didn't drink much because he said he was blessed with hangovers. That's kind of the

right way to look at it. You know, hangovers are, you know, Mother Nature's alarm bells, you know, waking up and a skip being another one. Yeah. You know, but what you shouldn't do, I had no alarm bells, really. I do remember once, I mean, I just remember, you know, I remember once going to the doctor about something else. And I was idly wondering what, if he said, I could never drink again. And I was just thinking, I'll be horrific. That would be really horrific. I just don't know I could live. And then either at the time, a bit after, I thought, well, that is suboptimal. Yeah. If I'm feeling like that, then I, you know, I, how can I say, I haven't got some level of dependence, but I just carried on. And there's always this other ring

with, with big drinking. A, you're saying everybody drinks a lot. You're kidding yourself with that. B, you're saying the 14 units think he's nonsense because nobody drinks it. They don't know what they're talking about. That lets you, that gives you a green light to carry on. But you're always on the lookout for people worse than you drinking, drinking more than you. You can compare your drinking favorably to, you know, rightly or wrongly. You're taking business trips to Russia just to disagree with me. I was, I was just writing something about, you know, the challenges of Christmas drinking. And I was just, I was just remembering a couple of times, that I mean, like most really big drinkers, it sort of, it's sort of rank amateurs. We get

involved at Christmas, you know, and I feel they sort of get in my way. I don't like New Year's Eve, you know, I just like the pop to myself, you know, but I remember going to Christmas parties. I got to Christmas parties and often I didn't drink that much, you know, or if I did, it wouldn't really affect me because my tolerance and built up such a level, you know, and I'd be the one, you know, carrying, you know, some, some kid or whoever who doesn't normally drink, but then got smashed and felt ill and had to be helped home. I'd be the one helping them home. And can't be thinking, oh, I got a bit of a drink problem or nothing could be further from the truth. I was the one with the drink problem. I just didn't look it because I've, you know,

that's why you had the tolerance. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but yeah, that's, you know, I had the tolerance exactly. Well, it's interesting. I think that the anecdote you were telling earlier about, about the party up north, it really, I think like so much of this drinking culture stuff in Britain. It wasn't the party. It was just a night in the pub. It felt like a party before. It was just nor, it was standard Saturday, Friday. Yeah. So much of it is kind of, it's this mechanism of like socially paying your dues by doing the, the significant sufficient amount of drinking. Cause I'm often driving stuff. I'm not drinking. People do look at you weird in the pub. And I just, it just reminded me of this funny story once we had like a, an old boys meet

up at uni. And it was, it was going to be like a big drinking night, like a lot of pints similar to the story you were describing. And one of the guys who was always regarded just slightly suspiciously by, it says like a lot of guys, different ages, like maybe like 10 years apart. And he turned up and claimed to be on antibiotics. So he couldn't drink. And then this guy and he was a really brutal Northern Irish guy from Belfast was like, well, I didn't fucking believe that for a second. He's like, but I couldn't make him drink. So I made him drink fucking milk instead. And he just started giving him pint after pint of milk for that. And I've never seen someone so ill in my life. And that was the thing like, well, you're not going to drink, but you're still going

to suffer. And that's the point. I mean, that is one kind of conclusion I reached that I really wanted to, I really wanted to be clear with myself that, you know, bearing in mind, you know, alcohol is only the, is the only drug you have to apologize for not taking that, you know, I was never again going to guilt or pressure somebody into drinking. And neither was I going to be pressured or guilted into drinking myself. And by and large, I've got to be mindful of doing it. I'll tell you, I've got to really keep an eye on myself because I do, you know, I do do it, particularly to others, less, it's less done to myself. So, you know, I, you know, but I really think that's important. Yeah, I think it also really depends on what your acceptable level of use is. I mean, for me,

I'm, I'm, I've read your book and like, yeah, I guess I'm a moderator too, but it's just because of hangovers. I got, I was, I was in the army before we have a really bad culture with drinking in the military, as far as like, both incredibly harsh consequences, if you get in trouble for it, but also an expectation that you will binge drink that you will not, you will not be the weak link as far as going out. And that creates a pretty unhealthy relationship with alcohol, I think. And then if you get older, I just couldn't, couldn't keep up with it. And so in a way, like it's easier for me to moderate because the pain response is so profound that like, if I slip up, I pay for it. And that's just how it's been for the last almost 10 years now.

So, you know, ultimately, you know, it's easier than for example, what you described in the book where like, if you, if you, you don't, it sounds like if you don't pay attention to it, if you don't, you know, pay to understand how you can slip up, you will slip up because it's easier. Yeah, you've got to be, yeah, you need to be kind of vigilant. I mean, it's a bit like, a bit like with food, you know, if you're on a, you know, you, if over, if you've got a, you know, a propensity to overeat, you know, which I have, yeah, you've got to be constantly vigilant, you know, it happened to me the other day, something stressful happened and before I knew it, I'd crammed off a bloody box of cheese biscuits

down or something, whatever I could sort of get, get, get hold of. I mean, I was, what I was going to say is like, one of the things that I sort of got reading your book, I should also clarify, but I, I don't drink, I've only ever drunk alcohol twice. All right. Both when I was a teenager, one, two, impressed a girl and they didn't work out. And one, just because I was out, out with my friends in Dartford and the only thing you can do when you're like 16 in Dartford and you don't get into the Bull and Vic pub, which, you know, I don't know if you ever been there. It's not, it's a bit of a grim place. So, you know, we did what all teenagers

did in that time and got white lightning and drank it in the park. A light beverage. Yeah. I mean, that's not, you know, that's not an entry-level drink that far. I should have known that before I did it. But like one of the things I got reading your book was just about, you know, as you were sort of like going through, like trying to understand and interrogate your history of drinking. Also underlining that is this kind of attempt to seemingly successful attempt to like actually enjoy alcohol, like also kind of really recalibrate

like your enjoyment of alcohol. And it seems that those things are kind of related. The idea about like, well, once you interrogate, like the reason why you're doing this and, you know, you can then actually kind of like build a better relationship with it, which is counterintuitive to a lot of the sort of like self-help stuff that's around at the moment, which is very much kind of centered around abstinence. Even like broadly in self-help culture, like at the moment, a lot of it is just like, and you know, and it's not just like giving up alcohol, it's also like giving up any kind of recreational drug. It's like giving up masturbation. It's like giving up all these sort of things that are considered to be vices, which limit you in a lot of cases,

limit like your kind of like masculinity and stuff. And I wondered whether, yeah, I guess I was like, I wondered whether you had any thoughts on just like broader kind of understandings of addiction. And because so much of these kind of like, so much of these guides, around like, you know, giving up things, they all sort of rooted in the idea that like, all addiction is bad and like to kind of purify yourself. Well, I think, well, I think it's wrong to see it as a, as a kind of a binary thing. That's my problem with the term, you know, alcoholism. It's an ism or a disease, and it's something you either have or haven't got. When it starts, it's like it's on a, you know, a continuum of how much you drink. And I think, I mean, if you,

if you smoke A to your day, you're not a smokeaholic. If you take heroin, you're not a heroin olic, you're, you're addicted to heroin or you're addicted to cigarettes. So I just think with, you know, with alcohol, as Lee Mack puts it in the book, I think the best way of looking at it is that it's an addicted substance. And if you drink in 20, 30 units a week, as I am now, you're a little bit addicted. If you're drinking 50 odd, you're more addicted. If you're drinking 100 or more, you're very addicted. And it will probably, and it will probably harm you. So, you know, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's a way of thinking about it like that. I do often, I find it fascinating. You're the third person, actually, only the third person, I'd say, is interviewing me who doesn't

drink. Oh, really? Okay. And I just think, you know, I'm talking about all these contortions I get through to, you know, to drink less, to keep drinking, but do drink less and all the stuff thinking about it. I mean, to somebody who's never really drunk, you know, it must look absolutely bizarre. You know, why, why are you pushing yourself? I certainly have had a lot of times, because like, again, because all of my friends, I went to like a very sort of like white school in Kent. So all my social life involved drinking, but also like oddly, I mean, I had to make a calculation. And I think a lot of it was also like the fact that where I grew up, there was no public transport. So I would need my parents to come pick me up from like wherever I went to. So I also

knew that like, I couldn't drink alcohol because clearly they would smell it on me. And because they were like very religious, like, you know, religious punishments are far worse than normal punishments. But it's interesting in your in your peer group at college or whatever, you wouldn't have the situation we just heard about where you know, you wouldn't have to come up with the excuse about antibiotics. No, because of your heritage, you know, people would probably, you know, back off from from from giving you a real angle about you would think that but in in Dartford, it certainly wasn't okay. And there was definitely a joint then. Yeah, there was there was kind of like in a lot of ways, there was almost pressure for me to drink, which was also how the white lightning incident

happened because I was then told that oh, like these drinks, they don't leave a stench. So like, you know, you'll be fine. And I think because so much of social life was kind of really rooted, especially in those small towns is really rooted in that type of drinking. And one of the I mean, one of the things I'm sure we'll get on to in a bit was just like, because there was nothing to do in most towns, other than to sort of like, get drunk, you know, there wasn't, you know, there wasn't really like many places to like hang out generally, like lots of sort of, you know, I think that's a cop out. There are other ways. There are other things to do. If you if there was just no drink, you would find something else to do with. Or it might be just, I don't know.

I mean, this idea that you have to have alcohol is essential to have a good time. I mean, I think the World Cup has been fascinating. I was I was looking at the Saudi Arabian fans when they'd be Argentina in the early stages going absolutely ballistic. Now, are we looking at them thinking, poor people, if only they could drink, they're having a better time than this, they couldn't have had a better time than that. It was a national holiday the following day, you know, by our logic, we're thinking, well, what's the point? What are they going to do all day? They can't go out drinking, you know, they can't. It's mad. Similarly, there are England fans who are watching England, you know, without much or any drink inside them for

the first time, you know, ever. Let's see. Let's imagine England gets to the World Cup final, right, and win, right? Those fans will be in the stadium watching Harry Kane lift the World Cup, right? Probably the best night of their lives of an England fans life, you probably won't ever replicate that. You probably never thought it happened. Others before you have died and it's, you know, who would love to have seen it and it never happened. Are you going to walk out of that stadium at the end going, I mean, that was great, but I wish we could have drunk. It would have been so much better if we had some alcohol. I mean, this wouldn't say that. In some ways, it's like a Greek tragic punishment for the England fans. If they do win a World Cup in a dry country, that

really, that really would be, but that's the point. It won't matter. Yeah. You know, it really won't matter. Now, they might say afterwards, oh, we'd love to go and get pissed. Yeah, I was going to say it would have been nice to go down the pub afterwards. Yeah, maybe. Love the World Cup won it. Mashallah. Let's have a shoot. I think it's interesting as well after, oh, just, I mean, so much of what I've sort of come down to is, is just reframing how you think about sort of alcohol and what I've just said being sort of part of that. Also thinking about all the drinks, all the pointless drinking you do. Yeah. I mean, the first drink is the only one that really makes a difference. That creates a change of state. Yeah. And the second one a bit and every

subsequent one to me is a few times, if you think about it, a futile waste of time, a doomed attempt to try and recreate the feeling that the first drink gave you, you know, and it's just, if you really focus on that for long enough, in the end, it digs in, you just increase in the harms. You can't get drunker. You're increasing the downsides before the first two drinks is mainly upsides, then you're increasing the downsides. I also thought, I was writing this in the context of Christmas as a whole, but you could say it in the context of a just one heavy night out or one night out. Now, you know, very often as a drinker, you'll wake up in the morning and go, I think, I wish I hadn't drunk quite so much last night. Yeah. Never. I don't know about you. Never have I

thought, God, I wish I'd drunk more last night. Never. If I've had like gone out really late, I've been like, oh, I'm sure this event would have been a lot better if I was slightly drunk. Like because sometimes you do go to events and quite often they are actually ones where like various alcohol being served and like a lot of, and I think as you mentioned in your book and as you just also mentioned now, but like after people sort of go past a certain point of having drinks, like the whole kind of like situations and changes, I've been to so many parties growing up and even in uni actually, where like it starts off really well. And I used to really like going early to parties because I used to enjoy that. But then like later on as everyone sort of becomes more

drunk and you're like the only sober one, like it sort of just becomes very weird and disorientating. But again, it was a situation where it was like, well, I have literally, I don't really feel like I have any other choices of what to do other than to be here, not least because well, when I was a teenager, having to wait for my mum or dad to come pick me up. So, you know, all those sort of times and it was really interesting because I was talking to one of my friends while I was like reading your book, who is quite a big drinker and one of those types of people who kind of believes that every sort of social situation can either be like heightened or like be better by drinking or we'll just kind of feel a little bit awkward in situations, whether it isn't really

alcohol being served. And I think he kind of like echoed some of the statements that you made, which was initially he remembers when he was younger, when we were younger, going to sort of parties and drinking for the first time and having like really, you know, you know, good nights that he still talks about now and kind of believing that the alcohol sort of made that better. And so as he sort of continues to drink more now, some part of that he had missed was like, yeah, I'm trying to kind of like relive some of those moments, which is kind of like really, if actually, I don't think he realized it when he was telling me, but like a Pavlovian response. This is kind of like really obsessing that, you know, you are seeking like this feeling,

right? But it also kind of completely makes sense as to like why, even just generally, like why people drink is kind of like either to numb feelings or to chase feelings that they remember, but really can't be. There was a thing that you said in the book too, that effect, Adrian, which was that, you know, speaking of research that psychological, like physiologically, when you drink alcohol, it takes time for the alcohol to get your brain. And yet people feel good the minute they take the first sip of alcohol, because there is this built-in kind of response you've developed. Yeah, because it's a, it's a anticipatory response. I mean, it was the Professor David

Knott who's, you know, endlessly qualified with, you know, a list of letters after his name as long as you like. David Cameron fired for telling him the truth. Yeah, that one. But he, he, you know, as he put it, you got to remember alcohol, when you first taste it, is aversive. Unless it's some alco-pop or something, you know, the first beer you have or the first wine is horrible. But because of the pleasant feelings associated with it, you then learn to love the taste of it. And equally, the first taste of beer you get, you're feeling good before it's breached your blood system. But, you know, that's that anticipatory feeling. I mean, I've just got, I mean, it's a game changer, by the way, having

draft alcohol-free lager. That's a game changer. Having it at equal standing on the bar. Yeah. That's massive, you know, and props to Lucky Saint for, for doing it. I think there's Guinness 00 is still alive. Yeah, because I had a non-alcoholic beer once and I hated it. It's tasted like it used to be on a blender. You don't like the, but you don't like the taste of it. I mean, for me, that had, I would feel no different in that kind of that buzz, as I would if I had, you know, a propaganness or some sure, you know, because it's that again, it's that anticipatory thing. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that does seem like a change. I have seen a lot of that. I think you mentioned this in the book, you know, programs for people to be mindful about drinking, apps to

help people count their units and things like that, where there is, of course, still a focus on abstinence. There is, that is certainly a thing you find. And for some people, my brother is one, abstinence is the only thing that works. Yeah. But then in other cases, it's just being aware of how much you're consuming. So you kind of like make the drinks you do have count. And that seems to be kind of like the ethos of the book. I think there's a real, there's absolutely a key place for abstinence. I might end up, you know, being abstinent myself, if only because moderating is, you know, is exhausting. You've got decisions to make every day. You don't want to came in here. Do I have a pint? Do I just have, you know, the alcohol-free

pint? What am I going to drink later? Oh, right. Well, actually, you know, I'm meeting, I'm going to, I've got to go to Birmingham tonight. I'm not getting off the train till 10 past 11, but I've arranged to meet my mate there in a pub, which opens late. You know, so I thought, well, I'm definitely not going to drink before that. Yeah. So, you know, constant, constant decision making. It's exhausting. Yeah. You know, and you, you know, you just, it's much easier in a way if you say, I'm not drinking, everyone knows you. I'm never drinking again. Everyone knows you made that decision. You know, and so it takes the kind of the decision making out of it once you've made the big decision. I did find that really interesting in the book,

the discussion about, you know, either you find a thing that works for you, or you accept the fact that on a long term, you will either become abstinent by force, or you will die from it. Yeah. And I've known people that I feel like had they, had they become moderate drinkers earlier in life, they might have not had to quit completely. But it got to the point where they had, they could not have a healthy relationship with alcohol. And so, ending it's the only one that works. I think it passes, you know, it then, it plainly passes some kind of tipping point. But I didn't want to get to that tipping point. It's one of the, you know, it's one of the, you know, it's one of the things, I didn't want it to dominate

my life. I remember a friend, there's a, there's a friend of mine said, oh, you know, the world's very beige for me without alcohol. And that really was quite profound for me. There was almost a religious thing of, hang on, I'm just not having this. You know, I was outside, I was looking at the green of the trees and the grass and the blue of the sky. And I thought, well, you know, it's, it's not colorless. It's not beige. I knew, and I felt the same. I thought, I'm just not having this. It's gone too far now. You know, if I need the world, it all has a color in the world. If I need alcohol to do that, I've got to, you know, I've got to, I've got to reign this back in. I'm too dependent. It's got, it's causing to me too much. Well, I think, I think that's a, that's a good

place to leave it in, in terms of the book. Because I feel like there's a lot of stuff in there I found was really interesting. And I certainly, I'm, I actually, your approach, for example, about having food first, because it makes you not necessarily as alcohol hungry. I'm going to give that a try because I realized made a connection reading that. So I found that really interesting. But I have to say, we have a fan group for our show, and they have a sub channel where they share your columns because they really love them. I'm not sure where people are taking the pest. I mean, they're terribly easy to parody. Someone, someone I know, try to put your columns through an AI chat pot. And the AI was not able to like sort of come up with anything close to like

what you've done to it. In a lot of ways, you may be like one of the few columnists who can defeat the AI chat. And I know based on one of your most recent columns that you have like a disdain towards like checkout machines, which I share, like I distrust the machines as well. Against automation, but pointless automation. I don't see that. I just don't see the point. I find the spookiest self checkout machine is the Sainsbury's one because it talks to you in robot voice all the way through until the very end where it goes, do you want a receipt? And it just makes me jump every time. I don't know why they got an auntie in to do that last bit. I want to do some in depth investigation about what that nectar point thing is all about.

I wrote a column about that recently. What is going on there? They reel you in with 100 points for some bag of spinach. You know, I don't even check whether they haven't put it up to 15 pounds a leaf or something. You know, they're playing with you. I feel like all the super parking points. Like my wife, like I am very forgetful about like point stuff. But my wife is very like, she kind of does it quite a lot. But every time she puts the little app on when we like do our weekly shop, we don't get any discounts. And I'm just like a little app. That's a level. I've not stretched the little and I'm just like, no, this is like, there's a scam going on here. I don't know quite what it is, but I think it's like connected to the nectar point somehow.

They get together and swap. I feel like it might be worse. But I was saying the lads when I got here that I had an incident that felt like it was out of one of your columns where I was trying to park outside. And I had to have to pay by an app for the parking. And it just says like, you can pay by app with this number. But it doesn't say which app. And I said, there's like eight parking apps on my phone. And I'm just going through all of them, trying to work out which one it is. Yeah, right. It's the same with electric charging vehicles. Oh, right. Before I got one, I just thought before I got, you know, you drove the electric vehicle, I thought, well, there's loads of these you plug in, you pay your money. No, again,

there's a thousand different apps. And then they change. And then you go and then you it's bad. Yeah. So I got a question about the about about your columns. I noticed it seems like every time I read one, the headlines are incredible. But it seems as though the headlines are just pulled from the copy. It seems like the headline finds perhaps the key sentence. Let me tell you, I mean, as you might know, I'm married to the editor of the of the Guardian. Okay, all right. But I mean, I met her through doing the column. I've got taken on by the features editor, then Kat said, come on. That's the clarification because there is like a conspiracy theory about like, and I was so we should make it very clear that like, it happened

in reverse. Absolutely. I never even met her till I've been doing the column for three months. So it was sort of, it was about three months after that, we sort of got it on or whatever you want to. You're actually the only man in Britain with a seductive newspaper. You know, Robert Crampton could never. This is, but I'm betting Rod Little's columns have the opposite effect. Yeah. But I don't need to think there's I am, there's any kind of master plan here. This is what I will do. It is fucking desperation. You know, I've got them howling at me on Wednesday, what are you going to write about? I don't know. And they're in your house. Wednesday morning, what are you going to, yeah, what are you going to, what don't she's like,

because she has to keep sort of clear about it. But then, then come Wednesday morning, what are you going to write about? You got to tell us, I don't know. I can't tell you if I don't know. Yeah. And then I just dragged something out my arse and just to just get it down and it sort of kind of works as for the, I mean, I always think the headlines are shit. I always, if I've got, I just, and I've had to admit, I'm just wrong because they seem to draw people in to get it. Sometimes they seem to miss the point. So I just, but they seem to know what they're doing. I mean, they can, you know, they, you know, they know what drives people to click it. I mean, there's, there's a genius element to the headlines because we, we did an episode a while

back kind of in a similar vein where we talked to Jeremy Vine, because I am obsessed with the Jeremy Vine show on radio too. And the, and I think what Jeremy is great at is kind of distilling like the mad opinions of the British public, but he's very good at just like, just sort of kind of teasing them out in this very sort of non-judgmental way and just sort of showcasing like a particular, and I think he gets that kind of partridge comparison a lot because, you know, RIS is the most evil click for all time, whatever that kind of thing. And then I think there's, there's, there's, there's an element of that that comes out in the headlines. Like this one I really loved. I had such bad car sickness as a kid that the mere smell

of dad's Volvo was set me up. Well, that was a direct lift from me. I mean, I was, I'm, I'm juggling a lot of things I've got to get done before the end of the week and we went through to prepare the list of things. And when I read, I recently saw something in a petrol station toilet southbound on the M1 that I can never unsee. I, I completely lost my mind laughing and I was like, this is a genius. We've all been like, well, I don't see what's genius about it. If you experience it, you just, it was gasoline, you know, it's just one of those things where I think the extent to which so many columns that I'm not singling out the Guardian because I think it's universal both in British journalism and in American, all English language journalism is so

often either like, like platitude statements that the author knows will never be achieved or like just the most sort of niche complaints, but like trying to externalize it in a way that, you know, makes it a universal problem. And it's like, instead, this is just, there's something about this that just feels very like, it's like a, like not a parody, but kind of like a knowing, knowing way playing with the rules of this sort of thing. And so that's, it's just because it's such a non-standard, I don't know if you recall this years ago, there was a thing where you could generate fake Guardian columnist headlines. And it kind of reminds me, but like in a very, like instead of it being absurd, it's just very, very, I don't know, it's so unique that every time we

see one, we're just like, we've got it, we've got to share this. Like there's an authenticity about it, which I think because every newspaper column is basically this, right? It's kind of like, I saw something in a toilet, except what most columnists do is like, and now I'm going to make a point about the youth of today or whatever. The fact that you don't do that and like keep it in that kind of more mundane spell, like here's a thought I had this week, I think is what makes it so distinctive. I think it's awesome. Yeah, I mean, one of the things I really, because I feel like I, I'm a very big fan and I'm definitely the one who likes screenshots a lot of your columns. I'm like, go off king or like, you know, he's so, he's so right

about this. And you are, you're so right about so much. I think a lot of it, you know, in a weird way actually reminds me of the good times I had in the pub as a non-drinker, having conversations with my friends about like the most mundane things in our lives, because we grew up in a small town where like the only kind of the things that really mattered were the mundane things, right? And you kind of forget like how important a lot of that is, and how also like foundational that is to like the best moments of your life or like the most memorable things of your life, right? Or even just, you know, one of the, I remember like, you know, one of our, because I think your column on like the glasses, I'm going to read it out because this is really great. We can go to the

moon. So why can't we stop my glasses sliding down my nose? I'm just on that one, right? I've got some things for my glasses. Oh my God. I'm very invested in this. These things, right? All right. Wow. Oh my God. Oh, I see. I got you. Okay. Now they stay up. Yeah. This has had the effect of absolutely ruining the bridge of my nose. It's on fire. It gets covered in pimples. I know why they used to slip down to save me the pain of being in the same place. Literally, it's like an electric shock if you touch it in these certain places. So not what you asked for, but unfortunately, I had terrible consequences. I hope that my bridge of my nose toughens up, you know, it's like wearing new shoes. But I think a lot of it, a lot of like the sort of slight,

it's like the mundane slice of life stuff is kind of things that we've forgotten. Like partly, but I think as you mentioned, like the way that other columnists have done this, where they sort of will kind of pepper in quite mundane observations in their columns, but try to then use that to sort of make this like wider thing about like the Wokerati or like, you know, the kind of, you know, the Islington laughter, whatever. And then obviously because so many people now spend so much time on phones and like social media and everything, like I think it's very easy to sort of forget the mundane. The last pub conversation I had with my friends was basically almost entirely about politics. And I like, I just remember that when

we were younger, even though we all studied politics in school and everything, and we're interested, we never really spoke about that outside of like particular thing. And I think it's like a really good reminder that like actually the stuff that really connects us and the stuff that like is really kind of, you know, important to like function in a society, like stuff to do with automated like machines and like lining up at the post office and all these things you have to participate in are worth observing and examining and kind of thinking about our place in it. And so there's like almost like a deep sense of like profound, like, you know, I'm trying to like not kind of

overplay it. But like, I think there is something quite profound about just taking the time to really think about these aspects of life that kind of make, you know, that are just part of living. I just think if, I mean, to reduce it to a sort of a logical or illogical absurdity, you know, it's a mindfulness exercise, which involves looking at a raisin. Right. And really examining it. And I think that's really interesting. I think life's a bit like that. I mean, you, I mean, anything is sort of fascinating. And I do, I don't know, I think I could just write a column when I just literally met a random person and spent a day with them or an hour or two with them and just talked to them. But with that,

you've got to be careful that you might find it interesting. It doesn't mean anybody else will. But, you know, I just find that I just find those certain situations incredibly interesting. I think there's an element of probably what makes the column good is that there is a sort of, like, you know, Plato came up with this concept that the only person who's fit to be a king is the one person who doesn't want to be king. And it feels like you're the one newspaper columnist who sort of didn't want to be a newspaper columnist. And that's why it's the only good, like, because there's a generosity of spirit about it that you don't see in one. I mean, that slightly, well, there's two things that it's a slightly different is that generosity

of spirit. It's just, I mean, in columns, generally, and arguably, especially a guardian, there's a lot of moaning going on, you know, and that's fine. Look, there's absolutely a place for that holding power to a can. But I thought, I might as well try and do something different. But to your other point, the bloke who first put me on television, a great guy called Paul Gibbs, who, you know, I owe him everything really. And he died at the age of 62. But his definition of a good presenter, which he thought I had, which he was, he said, you know, a good presenter will always look as if they, you know, they've got something better to do to be in a studio to in the program. So, you know, I suppose it's slightly along the lines of what you were saying. I mean,

but I don't deal with praise well. I never know what face to Paul. It's like when it's like when a sommelier pours a little bit of wine to taste, I never know what face to Paul. You know, I mean, look, there are plenty of people out there who say, I think you're absolutely brilliant. And they will go, I think you're right. Do you know what I mean? I just anyway, but you know, I get, you get a disproportionate amount of praise for being on the television. I think, you know, it's a bit of a knack. Sometimes you do it well. Sometimes you do it badly. You know, I can't take all the credit because anyway, because there's a big team behind it and, and so on. But you know, when somebody stops me and says, I love your guardian column, that is nirvana from me because

it's difficult to come up with something that somebody's read, presumably to the end and say they lie. I mean, that is massive for me. That's massive because, you know, I really stress about it. It's on my mind all bloody week. And then, you know, and then to get it out and then think somebody's actually read it, you know, what I appreciate about it, though, is that like you get to the point, you say the thing you want to say, you communicate it and there's not like there's there's a certain degree of like, it doesn't feel as it's like they we make the joke that a lot of British columnists, a lot of columns that we encounter in our show that we review and make we often make fun of them. They could just cut them off at a certain point and

they would be accurate. They would have said enough, but instead usually off to paragraph one, the sarcastic paragraph, when they want to extrapolate it, they want to find some, some, you know, grade or point to be made. Whereas in yours, it feels as though you get to the point and then you end the column in a way. It's just refreshing because like, you know, there are oftentimes it's about whether or not you've had the kind like you had the idea. So then you ask other people, you talk about having a conversation, some people react funny to it, but like it's centered on the issue. And I mean, one of the headlines we identified for this was I almost downloaded a pebble identifying app, but some stones should be left unturned.

You're so right about that. That wasn't my line, though. I think that was the headline. And I've still resisted that pebble app, even though I look at every pebble think, well, what is it? I think that spoke to me a lot because I've taken like, when I turn 30, I just sort of realized after doing a decade of like journalism, there are some things I just don't want to know. And I think that really spoke to me like I don't want, there are some things I'd like to kind of keep in mind. I do want to know. I do want to know. Do you have the leaf app as well, the ones that you can identify any kind of leaf? Oh, yeah. I mean, I just, lots of know, I just got into bed with my wife, they both knackered. And then it was about half

11 and she said, and a plane went over it. And that sounds quite low. Oh, why the fuck have you said that? Give me my phone. I mean, she's not asking me to look, but whatever the plane, I've got to know what it is. Yeah. It was going from Tangier to Stanstad. Passing over my place at 9,000 feet, 11,000 feet. Can't remember. Yeah. So if you're looking to triangulate Adrian's location, you can look backwards from there. I think that's something that I observed a lot, which is that, you know, sort of take the piss of some people might out of the column. I would challenge anyone to read five of the headlines and not relate to any of them. Because I think everyone has one. Like for me, it was the one about, I have one question for delivery drivers. Do you need to

use my toilet? And then it being like, I feel like it's a good thing to offer them to use the toilet, but then it feels weird. I only do it once and you look like you might call the police. I have had people ask that you could tell there was this profound desperation on their face. Like they really desperately, and I was like, absolutely go ahead, please. But it's maybe once or twice. Yeah. I mean, the one, I mean, I'm on Twitter, but not as myself. I just sort of look, although it's, you know, obviously it's gone to pots at the moment, but and I never sort of look, I never tweet about, I never look for myself. I never search myself up. As soon as I see my name appear, I just switch it off. Fair enough. But then I went down some rabbit

hole when I did see something. It was after some, one of the columns quite recently, and someone said, I can't believe they pay for this rubbish. I could do that myself in a, you know, I could do that myself in a trice or whatever they said. Words along that to that thing. And I'd never tweeted, my God, I was, that was, I nearly, I had to call a mate and he said, do not do it. I mean, he's like a PR manager for sort of football clubs and stuff. So he just goes, he goes, it's a sewer. It's an absolute sewer. Do you must not tweet? I just want to say, I want to say genuinely, really feel free. Have a bash, right? Have a bash, you know, thousand words, right? 650 and 350, two pieces about whatever you like. Literally send it to me

and I'll send it in and see if they publish it. And then here's the thing, then do it every Wednesday for the next three years, right? Until you've clocked up 200,000 words and found something. You know, look, don't tell me it's easy. Don't tell me anyone can do it because, you know, you can think it's shit. That's fine. What is the real problem when you're doing every week? I do love the idea of calling your mate to be like, should I reply to this guy? No, no. And the answer is invariably no. The answer is always no. And I think like a lot of the problems that people get online. Can be my sponsor. Yeah, exactly. It is. No, it is. It is. It is like that. Yeah. There was one I want to read. We're coming up on time, but I had this passage that I thought

the headline of the article was, I thought it was weird to have a favorite spoon. Then I realized I wasn't alone. And I'm just going to read a couple of passages here. You write, my editor at BBC Radio 5 Live did a good job of disguising her enthusiasm when I suggested a phone in on the subject of our listeners' favorite spoons. But she went with it. God bless her. I get significant stick for ruminating on ball-akingly mundane subjects like this. And I'll be honest, on this occasion, my confidence did start to waver. I needed backup. So Tim from the Financial Times, who you'd mentioned previously, was booked up to come on the air with me. Just like great news organizations sometimes come together, pooling resources to pull off groundbreaking investigative

journalism. Here I assembled a mighty trinity of the BBC, the FT and the Guardian. Also, I wouldn't be left to shoulder the blame alone of the listeners' fault for this madness. It didn't start well. The first text in red, Adrian, you've lost it. Love, Carol. Jonathan Agnew, our venerable cricket correspondent, came on to talk about the appointment of Ben Stokes as England captain, but began by asking me, what's all this about spoons? I think you seem to lie down in a darkened room. I asked him if he had a favorite spoon. No, he said. But look, the punchline was we did get some incredible callers. You know, a woman whose late mother had left to this, you know, well, a spoon, but didn't leave it in the well. But you know,

just it was the spoon. She had so much love had gone into that spoon. With that spoon, she'd served me food all her life. And then it becomes, you know, it becomes a thing. You know, it's, you know, it's got some emotional weight. I get it. I studied abroad with a host family when I was in high school and the woman unfortunately died of COVID not too long ago. And by mistake, actually packed a spoon from their house. I still have it 20 years later. I still have this. I was going to say this because like actually that type of like, I think that also sort of gets to the heart of why I really like your columns. And I guess why like lots of our fans like it too, which is like, it's not just the fact that you were asking questions that you just wouldn't kind

of, you know, you might think about it, but you would never sort of like say it. But in asking that question, it also like displays this kind of profound sense of curiosity that we talk about on the show, like what a lot of columnists, especially political columnists lack, is that curiosity to sort of know how people kind of like live their everyday lives. And like, and sometimes asking something like, yeah, what is your favorite spoon? Can like, you know, it kind of loosens it like a really a much like deeper story and much deeper truth. And I think that's like really admirable and something that is really missing from British journalism and maybe like other journalists, like, you know, the British journalism, but I'm familiar with it.

I don't know what a spoon is. Too busy on their smartphones. The last one that we had saved out of here was a larger extra large, my perilous first condom purchase. Sorry, there are people who've been there and they're liars, you know, this is a paragraph we'll close on. As you write, it was only as I walked out that it dawned on me, the poor woman was referring to the size of the box, not any part of my anatomy. I'd only gone and depleted my student grant buying a bumper box of 48 condoms. I wandered back to my room days confused and even more apprehensive about everything that I had been before I boarded the bus an hour earlier. Hey, this has been an absolute blast.

Can I just say, if at any time you think there's something that I made a good column, send it, I'll credit you. I just, I am always desperate. I will send you emails all the time. Just send, you know, just send. Welcome to parking apps. Parking apps, those bike riding apps where they're all different for different kind of electric bikes. You know, it's all out there. Socks aren't warm as they used to be. I think that's a really important one.

Probably true. It's probably true. I'm genuinely being serious. Like supply chains, socks are not as warm as they used to be. Well, perhaps your toes are just getting cold. You're allowed for that possibility. Possibly. Yeah, I will think about that. Well, Adrian, first, we'll have make one quick announcement just to say that the good drinker, how I learned to love drinking less is out from profile books. We will link to it in the show notes. Thank you very, very much for making time for this. It's been an absolute. It's been a real pleasure any time.