TRIGGERnometry - Politics, Religion & Cancel Culture - Jimmy Carr

Episode Date: April 17, 2024

Jimmy Carr is a British comedian, presenter and writer. His latest stand-up special, ‘Jimmy Carr: Natural Born Killer’, is out now on Netflix. Jimmy is also on a brand-new international tour with, ‘Jimmy Carr: Laughs Funny’. For tickets and info visit: https://www.jimmycarr.com Sponsors: Go to https://CozyEarth.com and enter promo code TRIGGERNOMETRY at checkout for up to 35% off. Buy gold and earn interest on it! https://monetary-metals.com/triggernometry/ Go to https://givesendgo.com and raise money for anything important to you. Join our Premium Membership for early access, extended and ad-free content: https://triggernometry.supercast.com Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube: @xentricapc Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/#mailinglist Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Selection varies by location. You want to hear my big idea for American politics? Go on. They'll never be reparations. Okay, I've got some great news. There's still 40 million slaves in the world. I'll tell you why it's great news. It gives America.

So I can't joke about anyone with a disability because they're below me. Oh, that's a great way to see the world. And you're above them, are you? So you wouldn't joke about them because you're better than them, are you? Michael Gove recently came out and was going... Did he? Well, that's an exclusive, isn't it?

I think we all knew. Hey, up. You're watching his decree. Get the locals. It's worth getting it. When the Prime Minister of the country that you live in breaks off from the G20 Summit to do a press conference about your personal tax affairs, that's going to be a problem.

When is Jimmy going to apologize for his take on the vaccines? No wonder they're not going to take the vaccine. They can't even take a fucking joke. Anyone in the Illuminati gets it first. That's the viral bit, right? Well, first things first. Why do you want this job? It's much feels like that, isn't it, guys?

Very nice to be here. It does. It feels like I'm applying for a job in an investment bank. Exactly. Well, you are the sharpest guest, the sharpest dress guests that we probably ever have.

You know, I come correct. Look, how you do anything is how you do everything. So, you know, stick a tie on, make an effort. It's a bit of podcast. He's talking to you, man. At least I've got a jacket.

Yeah. Anyway, listen, Jimmy, welcome. Thank you. It's great to have you on. We've been in touch for a while. But one of the things that we wanted to talk to about, we want to talk to you about comedy and mindset and all sorts of stuff.

Sure. But the stuff that we often talk about, as you know, because you watch the show, is culture, war, and politics and all of this stuff. And it sort of feels like it's not something you've been commenting on much, but you are starting to take an interest in this stuff. I always take an interest.

I have, I can't, lots of my degree was politics and sociology and kind of, you know, studying Foucault and Markov. and Adorno and Leotard and all those kind of guys, right kind of, you know, in the 90s, when that stuff was really taken off. It seems to have escaped the lab, yeah, somewhat, the kind of cultural Marxist thing. And I don't know, it's a, it's a very strange world now where sort of Marxism and the left have left, they've left economics behind. And it strikes me that the most

important factor is money in, in the modern world in terms of, you know, the equality of opportunity. I mean, the idea that there'll be equality of outcome just seems like a nonsense to me. It's just never going to happen. because we're not, you know, the quality of effort doesn't exist, and we're all given different gifts. You know, I think we, so much of it is, is nature, you know, and so much of nurture is nature. So much of it is just, it's our factory settings,

this is how we come out. And what you want to do is give people agency. That seems to be the great sort of freeing factor. So I don't know about politics I never really comment on, but it strikes me that the great, the saddest thing in my life was when universities started charging. That for me was just the end in terms of going. That was the ability to move from class to class.

Yeah. I don't read as this at all, so you sort of have to say it, but I'm sort of first-generation immigrant, Irish parents moved over in the early 70s, sort of economic migrants. And we did very well. And I think that's, I think there's something about migrants that we don't talk about enough.

They're incredible high-agency people. we're all from elsewhere a generation ago and you go, what's great about London? Why is it the great city in the world? Well, migration. It's this amazing sort of melting pot of energy and people with kind of hopes and dreams and aspirations. It's fantastic.

We should be encouraging more of it. It's interesting that you say that because the way that you present and the way that you appear are two very different things. Well, I think you have to be aware in the world about it's character and reputation, isn't it? So you have your character, what you know about yourself,

and then you have your reputation. You have to be aware how you're perceived in the world. You can't just sort of assume, well, everyone will know. I'm aware how I sound, and I sound like Silver Spoon, I sound like I probably went to public school, I went to the local grammar school,

so I'm a big advocate for the grammar school system because it was fantastic for me. You know, the idea of going, well, everyone's got sort of different abilities. Some people are very academic and some people aren't. And it's, in our society, it's like, it's painted like there's better and worse. Well, it isn't. I much prefer the sort of the German system, where a lot of people just are very good at doing

practical things, and they do very well. Because I think that's the thing that we kind of, we do in this country, in that we look at somebody and we go, oh, you must belong to this class, therefore you have this opinion, therefore you've had this background. When the reality is, it's actually more complex than that. Well, I think that, but there's a lot of, you know, non-player characters. Is that what they call them? Yes.

MPC. MPC. So you go, there's a lot of NPCs out there. Single data point human beings. So what's your view on, whatever it is, whatever the issue, what's your view on the environment? And you go, oh, I know what you think about everything from that one data point. And I'm not interested. I like to be surprised.

I like to have, and it's also that thing of like, you go, well, politics. I'm very wary of people that are into a political. party. Because it strikes me it's like the set menu. Like if you know nothing about Chinese food, nothing to matter with a set menu. But if you've been a couple of times, you know what you like, you know what you don't like, and you have different opinions on different things. You know, Chris Rock has got this amazing routine about left wing, right wing. You know, are you Republican, or you Democrat? Well, what's the issue? Because if it's about theft, I'm a Republican. And if it's about prostitution, I'm a Democrat. You know, you moved left and right depending on what

the issue is. Yeah. Well, that's something interesting that I, As you might know, I call myself politically non-binary, and people always ask me about this, because my thing is, like, you've got to think for yourself about different issues, and you might end up being right on this and left on that, and that's kind of normal. Well, isn't that an awful thing with politicians now, where we talk about hypocrisy? And we talk, well, you said this five years ago. Yeah, the facts changed. The facts keep on changing.

People forget, Obama ran on an anti-gay marriage ticket, right? And I think we all agree he's a pretty good guy. Yeah. But that was, that was, he was obvious time and things have changed and more for the better. And there is kind of progress. I don't agree. It was a bigger, mate. Isn't that like a weird thing with you go, it's, it's all seen as left and right. And I don't see it like that. I see it like it's authoritarian or sort of libertarian. You know, there's more liberty and freedom or there's more authority. And it doesn't matter whether it's left or right. It strikes me in the last hundred years. We've only really learned one lesson. We've learned that fascism is wrong. It's a great lesson. It's a valuable lesson, but it's only half the story. Because communism's also wrong and toxic and awful. And, you know, the people in, I know you from Venezuela, the people in South America still know it. And the people in Eastern Europe still know it.

But we seem to, there's people walking around in Chairman Mal t-shirts. Like venerating these pricks. It's insane. And you go, and it is that authoritarian thing. It sort of comes around in a circle. It's about that kind of authority from above. And do you think part of this is, just a bit of it? Jimmy, that we've, in the West, particularly, we've just got so comfortable that a lot of these

crazy ideas now just, they're quite tempting because we've sort of got nothing better to think about. I think, I mean, I think gratitude is the mother of all virtues. And I think the more gratitude you have, the better your life is. But from a political standpoint, I think the thing about gratitude is we can't even see the freedoms that we've had. We don't even conceive of, it's kind of the Chesterton's fence, the idea that we don't know what. what the US Navy is for, because we've so taken it for granted the last 70 years. And really, it's only when, I mean, if you look at kind of the sweep of what's going on in the world today, I'm sure your listeners are, you know, and viewers are very aware, but the idea

that really since the fall of the Berlin Wall, America has become more isolationist with every single president, right? So they're pulling back and they're spending less on their Navy. And I'm sure lots of people would go, well, good, good, what do we need, America is the policeman of the world. Well, we do need that, because that's the first. what globalization is. And it isn't for America to make money. They did it for ideological reasons. They did it to bring down communism. And it worked. They guaranteed free trade. They're net exporters of fuel and food. They don't need us. We need them. And they protected everything for the longest time. And now we see that kind of recede slightly and things start to get very fractures.

I mean, I think getting America more involved and engaged in the world would be a fantastic thing. It would be good for everyone. I think the danger that we're currently facing is what you've alluded to, where people think that this is life, this is how it's always going to be, and this is how it always was. And the bad times, yeah, they were the bad times,

but now this is always how it is. It's the end of history. When the reality is, this is just a moment. Well, that was the era, the, is it Fukuyama? Yeah. That was the era I was a university for where it was really, liberal democracy was kind of being exported around the world and, you know, the Berlin Wall had just

come down and it was a victory and there was, there was a, it was an extraordinary sort of time. It was very sort of very peaceful time as well. But then America kind of receded. They pulled back and actually, you know, there's kind of this chaos going on as a result of that. I'd like to get them more engaged in the world. Do you want to hear my big idea for American politics? Go on. All right. It's a big idea. Right. So there'll never be reparations, right? There should be. The slavery was terrible, and reparations is a good idea. But it's too complicated. To unpick that, it's going to be, okay, I've got some great news.

There's still 40 million slaves in the world. I tell you why it's great news. It gives America... No, it gives America... That's making the trailer. People don't do well. People don't do well without purpose. And nations don't do well without purpose.

And America doesn't really have a purpose at the moment. I think that would be a great foreign policy for America. We're going to stop slavery. We're going to stop slavery around the world. Okay, you've got six weeks. If you've got slaves, you've got to free them, anywhere in the world, and otherwise, we're cleaning house. They've got the resource to do it. They've got the reason to do it if they want to correct that.

They've got a blot on their history, right? And, you know, Britain did it. Britain did it after they, you know, with the first to abolish slavery and then we spent about, you know, 100 years, 150 years, patrolling the seas with our Navy. Well, that's no longer our role in the world. We've got a different role now. you know, what's our purpose? We'll come on to that. But the idea of like America ending slavery globally, I could get behind that. I think that's like not a terrible idea. And what's the British purpose,

Jimmy? Well, I think Britain could serve as an example. That's really the best we could hope for now. We're not, we're not running the show anymore, but we've left an incredible, an incredible sort of gift to the world in our language and in our culture. And I think we could, I mean, broadly speaking, I think we should have bitten America's arm off when they offered us a trade deal post-Brexit. Japan went for that deal. We turned our noses up. We went over there and we had a look at it and we went, oh, no, that's not right for us. We should have bitten their arm off. They're going to have the most incredible 20 years. The next 20 years for America, they can afford to have a terrible political system because the gifts that they have, geographically and demographically, they are just in the sweet spot. absolute sweet spot. So they've got Canada above, Mexico below, they're going to double their manufacturing base over the next 20 years, right? That's clearly going to happen. They're going to take all the stuff that was made in China. They can say, look, we can't trust these supply lines.

We have to make it all at home. It's going to be a boom time for the states. I think we should, you know, pin ourselves to that. You're not worried about the states because we get loads of people coming on who's saying, you know, this is the end time for the United States, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, et cetera, but you're not worried at all. What? What? What? What? Who's worried about America? Why would you worry about America? It's never been objectively better. I'll give you it's never been subjectively worse.

Right, people think it's like you go over there. I'll travel around a lot in America. I do a lot of tours. And I'm lucky enough that I don't just do the big cities. I also get to do kind of the bee cities. Incredible places, wonderful places to live. The land of milk and honey. But again, there's maybe a lack of gratitude

because they can't see how fabulous this is. People will cross oceans to get to America. Because the gift they gave the world was their, you know, classic liberalism, right? The idea that they're, that the document, the idea that, and that's why they kind of run the world still is the Declaration of Independence. It's a fantastic document. Really, when you think about kind of classic liberalism and what's that about, what do we all sort of agree on? We're not gods. We have no God-given right to rule over people.

Well, you start with that, and you very quickly get to the rights of man, and the idea that, you know, we can rule, but it has to be by consensus, and it has to be just. And people need rights, and they need the right to free speech, and they need the right to protest is very important, and the right to petition. All of these things come from that sort of initial premise, and that document is just, it's genius. And, yeah, America's got its problems, but they're all fixable. Well, this is the thing that I think people are concerned about in terms of America. So levels of political polarization. It's not the first time America has been politically polarized if you read history. I do remember there being a civil war.

Yes, right. I mean, the thing, I kind of think that thing about there's a certain sort of, certain people that are just so shocked by the state of the world. You go, have you never read any history? Yeah. Like spatially and temporally, they're ignorant of the world. So everything, I can, it must be such a shock. Yeah.

Like, you know, there's a war and they go, my God, this is awful. Have you read about the second world war? It was awful. You know, it's that, I think I picked up the fact from this show, actually, the idea that we did a Hiroshima every six weeks in Europe. Yeah, that was something I talked about. Throughout the last two years of the war. And no one really talks about that. And the idea that that wasn't an easy thing to do.

That wasn't, it wasn't simple. But it was a terrible war. It was a just war. But war was awful. Of course there. And the more you know about history, the more you think, well, actually, these are the best times. I don't want to stand like Stephen Pinker.

I know Stephen Pinker gets given a hard time for this, but the world's pretty great at the moment. No, but let me give you some more things that people talk about in terms of America, because I agree, like Francis and I travel to the US regularly now, we absolutely love it. I think it's the most incredible place. I think the gun laws, right?

Okay, so that's the thing that comes up over here and we can't understand, because it's not part of our psyche. Okay, so it's, you know, we've got other stuff that we worry about, hunting bands or whatever. We've got our things. Every nation's got a thing. I think the secret to the gun thing might be gun clubs. So collective responsibility.

You say you can have a gun, but you have to be a member of a club. You have to find a thousand other people to be in a gun club, and you all support each other. And then there's a level of collective responsibility. So if one of those guns is used in a crime, you don't go to jail, but there's a fine for everyone. Because you let one of your guys get out of hand, and you didn't check on their mental health.

And so you go, you come together and you form, the thing I worry about is a lone guy on his own, an individual with a gun. I don't worry about groups. Groups of, you know, groups of people, there's something great about that. You know, that's our superpower as human beings. You know, you put one guy in the jungle, you fed the animals.

You put a hundred guys down. You've got a new apex predator. I'm not worried about groups. So you go, we'll put those groups together. The genius of this, of course, is if you don't agree, and you don't want this to happen in America, you're going to get together with your mates that own guns and protest against it.

Well, you've already formed a club. I'm already having it. Fantastic. I think that's the thing, though, the collective, the group, the tribe, is that's what's kind of missing a little bit. And the community, which is what a lot of people talk about being lost. The worship of the individual above all else. It's like the dose is the problem.

Yes, we're individuals and we have individual rights. But there's also something above that, which is kind of the group and the tribe and people are searching, you know, there's a god-shaped hole in all of us. and we're searching for things. And for some people, it's politics. You know, sometimes I listen to this show, and people are sort of talking about politics

like it's going to offer nirvana. You go, no, no, we should avoid catastrophe with politics, and then search for your own personal piece elsewhere. Are you a believer, Jimmy? No, no, I'm not. Although, I think there's two types of idiots. There's people that believe literally in fairy stories, and then there's people that think

there's no purpose in religion. And they're both idiots. Pete, Pete Holmes, you know the American comic? Yeah, I know. Really good guy. Yeah. He had the Great Liney special.

And it's a quote from ACDC's Roder about religion. Okay. He says, God is the name we give the blanket. We throw over the mystery to give it shape. Wow. I love that. Yeah. Because it encompasses everyone, right?

We all know there's a mystery. We all know we don't know. And we throw something over that mystery and give it shape. And for some of it, for me, it would be, it's science and technology and progress and the idea that we are incredible. Human beings are incredible. Not us three specifically, but you get the idea. And I lost my religion when I was in my mid-20s. I kind of miss it.

I miss it. There's a certain melancholy that, you know, when you pass, you know, a big church, you kind of think, well, yeah. It's a nice, you know, I think church works, not because God's pleased by the ritual, but because the people came together. Yeah. And I feel that sometimes at comedy shows. I feel sometimes like, why are people obsessed by going to comedy shows or going to Glastonbury and feeling part of this big thing and they all want to be part of a group?

I saw a couple of bands recently play live. I saw the Peshmodo in Paris last week. And it was genuinely religious. It was like it's incredible experience of like being part of a group and all sort of singing together. It was joyful, beautiful. We've kind of lost a little bit. And that's why, you know, when I don't watch as much football as I used to, but when people go, oh, I don't understand why people are football fans, it's so stupid. And you look at the group together. That's one of the few times that a community can come together. They can sing. They can be a group. And they can mobilize. And look, some people's lives aren't great. And they follow a team and the team wins. And that's a win for them. Do you think that's not important? You're a fool. You're an idiot. Some people, some people,

People need that. And it's, that's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing to work. I think the issue is really nations need a purpose beyond sports. I think we may be put too much on it and it becomes like a, it can become a little bit toxic. But it's great. Do you think sometimes a mistake that we make when talking about things like politics and left versus right, if people make the mistake that equality of opportunity is the same as equality of outcome? Well, that seems to be, it seems like a very obvious thing to sort of say, well, a quality of outcome isn't really doable. As soon as you get to that, you're three moves away from Stalin. Because how are you going to do that? You're going to have to enforce it. But the level of, you know, is the problem poverty or is the problem inequality?

Let's be honest about it, right? What's the problem? What do you perceive the problem as? Because I've perceive the problem as poverty, not inequality. It's, it's because when you get to inequality, it's about memetic desires, right? It's the René Girard thing about the idea that, well, your happiness is your standard of living minus envy. There's nothing I can do about that. Comparison is the thief of joy. Someone else's life, someone else is on Instagram on a yacht with 15 models doing a ton of cocaine. Oh, okay, great, that's, that's their thing. Lovely. I got my thing. You can spend your life looking elsewhere. And, and, you can spend your life looking elsewhere, and trying to, you know, and you want people to get to a level, though.

You want people to have a fair chance in life. For me, education. Education should be free. It should be difficult to get into university. It should be free. I think we could start with STEM as a nation just go, well, STEM is free. It's hard to get into. These are the standards.

If you get there, we pay for you and we pay for your life for three years to study. Right. And anyone with a STEM degree, by the way, anywhere in the world that comes with a British passport, come. Jimmy. How would that be a downside? No, it's interesting that you say that because you're someone, first-generation immigrant, could say white working class,

you've got to the very top of your profession. A profession... Not the very top. I can see the top from where I'm saying. We'll talk about this, because that's one of the things about you. No one's at the top. No one's ever at the top. There's always... The grass is always... But in terms of the UK.

You've done all right, man. You've done all right. Jesus, I've come a long way on one tank of gas. Grazatez Omburg, be proud of me. Very environmentally friendly. I've seen you late, it's special, mate. I don't think she'd like some of those times. Having said that, you have got, you've come, as you said, very far on one tank of gas.

What do you attribute your success to? Because there's a lot of people who make the criticism that the UK comedy industry is very class-based. We live in a very class-based society. Yet, you've done incredibly well. So what do you attribute your success to? Well, I suppose the perception of my class is very different to my class. So there's something going on there as well. Like, I did turn up suited and booted when I came on the comedy scene.

And I think that thing about the people's perception, it's a visual medium and the idea that you turn up in a suit in time. But he looks like a TV host. You should do a game show. Yeah. Great. Okay. I'll do that. That was always a side hustle.

I would attribute my, any success I've had in life to stoicism. So do less better I do jokes The world ordered a stand-up comedian And I honoured that So I didn't get as distracted I got a little bit distracted But I didn't get as distracted by other things

But you know There's kind of that thing of You get offered your first bit of TV And I know a lot of people That got offered their first bit of TV And then they didn't talk for two years Who doesn't talk for two years? It's your job

Your job is being a stand-up comedian You should be working Five nights of Me a week minimum And possibly more I mean, I now do two shows a night. It's a joy. One at seven, one at nine-thirty. Have a drink in dinner before.

Have a drink. They like it. Have a drinking dinner afterwards. Great. It's like that thing of like, there's no substitute for reps. You need time in the gym. You need to be a comic.

You need to be writing new stuff every single time. You'd be trying new stuff at every single show. That's why, like, new comics, sometimes you see a new comic and they're working on 20 and they're doing the same 26 months later. Okay. I don't know what you want to do for, what do you think you're, the jokes, the set isn't anything. They're the bullets, you're the gun.

And you've got to keep on feeding that joke-eating monster. You've got to keep on writing. And that's the joyful thing. It's because you rise, you don't rise to your goals, you fall to your systems. And if you have good systems and you go, right, this is what I'm going to focus on. This is my thing. This is my little gift. This is what I offer the world.

It's easy. And the idea that we're telling people, to have a portfolio approach to life and to have lots of different things going on and different side hustles. Generalists suck. Do you really think 25% of effort being a stand-up comedian is going to compete with 100% of my effort? Good luck. I think maybe you're being slightly arrogant.

Jimmy, where did you get this attitude? Because I'm guessing you weren't born with it. Did you learn this? What? Well, look, you probably don't realize it, but your attitude is very rarely. very rare, especially in this country. In America, much more common. Go for it, do this, do that. In the UK, a lot of people are kind of encouraged to be mediocre, don't reach too far, don't work too hard, you wouldn't want to fail, all of this kind of stuff. Were you always like this?

I think comedy has given me a lot. I really do. I think my work ethic came from comedy. Suddenly when you're in the right stream, you know, what feels like play, it looks like work to everyone else and it feels like play to you. And no one can compete with you because you're just, you know, whatever, it's 12 hours a day. Who cares? two shows a night, who cares? I love it. I just want more of it. I don't think it's that unusual an attitude.

I think comedy, though, the great gift of comedy is failure. You make friends with failure. And really, it's the myth is we only have it. People see the results, right? And they don't, people are jealous of what you've got. They're not jealous of how you got it. That's right. So that thing of like going, we've got lies, big lies in our society.

We've got lies about genius. The guy's a genius. It's just a genius. Of course, Michael Jordan, he's a genius. Or Bill Gates, oh my God, he works so hard. He works so hard. Works really hard. Total bullshit.

Both of them. It's always a mix of the two. Michael Jordan, if you hadn't turned up to training, is literally no one, right? And Bill Gates, same same. Like, the genius is, I mean, there's different types of genius, obviously. There's sheer innate genius. There's, you know, there's Bach and von Nerman. But there's also hyper,

accelerated rationality. And you're saying that it's comedy, but you've got dyslexia, which... Yeah. And you made it to Cambridge, which is... I'm a dummy. What they used to call a fucking idiot.

Yeah, they're very dyslexic. So I can't write that well. I didn't learn to read till I was about 11. I've got, like, very, very bad penmanship. I'd be very embarrassed. Like, even now if someone sort of sees my notes or handwriting, I'm embarrassed by it. It's very childlike and it's difficult for me.

I don't really think in what I sort of do a letter at a time. But that's, I suppose that thing of like getting into Cambridge was a big deal for me because I didn't want to be a dummy. I sort of, I'm very aware you are a story you tell yourself. And so I changed schools when I was 16 and I would really recommend this if you have kids or if you're listening to this and you're young and you have a narrative that you don't like. Oh, I'm the guy that messes around and I'm a losing. cannon and I'm badly behaved. Just put yourself in a new environment and reinvent

yourself. It's why people love traveling. Because when you travel on your own, you get to, you kind of arrive and you can kind of go, well, I can tell it any story you want. And it's not bullshit. You're just kind of, you're just changing it slightly and going, well, I could be this now. And I remember changing schools and, you know, it's often, it's often the way my, a guy called Mr. Clay and a guy called Mr. Thile, first name, not Pido, very good guy, sort of saw us on the first day. this new school and I sort of went, I'd quite like to go to Cambridge. And he went, yeah, okay, you seem bright enough. Very good at writing, but we'll get around that. And then that

was about pattern recognition, which is really one of the gifts of stand-up comedy. What a stand-ups good at? What are jokes? It's pattern recognition. A lot of it's pattern recognition. So it's that thing of like going, you don't copy someone's essay, but you read a couple of A-grade essays and you figure out, okay, well, that's how they look. I could do that. You figure out how jokes work and then different types of jokes and you figure out how to reverse engineer. I think comedians, I think our minds are quite similar to detectives in that most people are thinking about what's next and we're thinking about, well, this is what's going on? What just happened? It's quite an interesting way of thinking. But that way of thinking can sometimes

lead you to being distracted and unfocused because you're going, well, this is going on, but what's over there? And that makes for a good joke with that kind of tangential thinking, but also as well, it can lead to a kind of unfocusedness when it comes to... I don't know, maybe I got lucky as well in the timing. You know, I came to comedy in my mid-20s, and it felt like Indiana Jones getting his hat back. It felt like I had one shot at this for a life less ordinary. And I was very all in very quickly. So I went from working for a big oil company to going, well, yo-ho-ho, a pirate's life for me.

I'm off doing this thing. And the people that I met, I found it incredibly inspiring, the world of stand-up comedy, because it's a great community out for ourselves, but in it together. You know, we're all kind of, you know, zone wolves, but we all sort of come together. And it's a great community. So one of the things that everyone I've spoken to who knew you in your early days in stand-up says

is that you were just a level above everybody in terms of professionalism. You'd turn up and you'd say, here's my business card. What's your phone number? This might be. This might be the faintest praise there's ever been. the most professional comedians, like being the tallest dwarf.

It's the best-looking guy in the Burns unit, right? It's like, yeah, yeah, okay. But that thing of like going, taking it very seriously from the jump and being, I mean, my first Edinburgh show was called bare-faced ambition because I knew I'd entered this world, I went, I want this, this is amazing. And really, I walked into a graveyard. There was nothing going on in comedy 25 years ago. It was not a career.

Now I think it's a career. Really? So even 25 years ago it wasn't a career? There was not much going on. There was no one really touring when I started. I remember it's kind of booking the rooms and it was like, it was very old school comics would be maybe playing that room or someone had played it a few years before, but they weren't, I mean, now you get at any theatre in the UK and we're blessed with this incredible number of theatres around the country.

And you look at them and four nights a week, there's a comedy show. It's amazing. It's amazing how many people are out there touring now. It's become, the industry has grown hugely during the time I've been in it. And I've kind of ridden that wave, I think. It's been like a... Comedy's very new. Not loving your AT&T or T Mobile Bill.

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Best Overall Mobile Network, From the US second half, 2025, all rights reserved. It must provide a recent consumer mobile bill. My name of the person, reguming me the deal. Additional terms, conditions and restrictions apply. If you think about it, really, you could sort of trace it back. You can trace it back to ancient times, obviously. There's always been tricks to guards and all of that.

But really, George Carlin and Richard Pryor, Billy Conley over here, the idea of these guys in the early 70s being on stage for an hour or more talking and people paying to see them. And there being a couple of amps, that's it. That's really quite new. And really, when you think about what that means for guys like me, and it feels like you get to be the Beatles. You get, you know, George Carl and Billy Colley,

they're kind of John the Baptist, and you kind of created this thing, and then there's more and more people get into it. I think comedy should be taught in our schools. I'm a huge advocate for this, because you think about, like, learning music, music's non-verbal communication, and there's a huge value in teaching kids, music.

But how much practical application is there for grade three piano in life? I'd argue not much. But comedy, what does it teach you? Well, I suppose it teaches you how to write down and order your thoughts, and it teaches you how to discover your own voice, and it teaches you how to communicate, and it teaches you some public speaking.

They're all pretty useful things in pretty much any life. I mean, the great tragedy is most people live and die, and they never get to hear their own voice. And really, just doing a short stand-up course, it will kind of, it teaches you become who you are. And there's something great about finding your voice in comedy, because you kind of don't know. I mean, I used to love storytelling comedians.

I mean, I love all different types of comedy, but storytellers that I adore. And I'm not one. I sort of don't, I'm trying to work on that. I've got a fastball, and I'm trying to work on my knuckleball. And especially in the new special, I'm trying to do some different things. But it's really interesting that you go, you come out kind of fully formed.

You go, oh, I'm a one-liner guy. I wouldn't have necessarily predicted that when I got into comedy, that one-liners would be my, love language. Because when you started, you used to do musical comedy, didn't you? I did a couple of things with guitars and songs early on, just kind of trying some different stuff and telling some stories and doing other stuff. It was interesting. But then I pretty quickly, I suppose it's that thing of the feedback loop of comedy is so valuable. It's such an easy job, really, compared to music. People, musicians go away for 18 months and they make a record and they release it and I wonder,

will people like it? It was me. I wrote some jokes yesterday. I was on staging, Cardiff last night. I read them off a piece of paper. Laugh, laugh, laugh, no laugh, no laugh, laugh, laugh, great. They tell me. The audience is a genius. It's a wonderful thing. It is a wonderful thing. And we're looking at comedy. So I started comedy in 2009. In 2009 was the kind of the apex of pretty much the Frankie Boyle era of stand-up comedy where he was on Malt the Week. And the more offensive you could be, the better. If you didn't tell a rape joke on stage, you were kind of this sort of left-wing cuck figure that everyone would kind of look down on you, particularly in the open mic. And now we went through a period where it felt like it was

very restrictive. Do you think we're still in that period now, or are you going to disagree of my analysis, which you're more than well-to- I think I would disagree with your analysis. Yeah. I think I've been working throughout that whole period. And I've been doing my thing and, you know, I would say no complaints, few complaints. Yeah. But it's, you know, if you think about, I don't know who the, I don't know, I'm doing all right, and Ricky's doing all right, and we do our thing, and Hannah Gatsby's doing okay, and Nish Kumar's doing okay. It's a broad church comedy, right? There's a lot, like, politically, and in terms of your artistic kind of bent, there's this huge variety in stand-up comedy. It'd be like saying, if you were in a metal

band, oh yeah, I was in a metal band, and then some people were playing some chamber music and off. But you live together, you live in the same world. It's fine. The venues can accommodate both. And I think that's kind of the magnificent thing about comedy. You go to somewhere like the Edinburgh Festival. It's incredible kind of melting part. And the thing about a sense of humor is it chooses you, it betrays you, your sense of humor. So people come and see the show. And my favorite thing that comedy shows is that kind of cognitive dissonance. Where people go, we shouldn't be laughing at that, but we are laughing at that. And in a world where I don't think there's any problem with censorship from above,

but there is a little bit of self-censoring going on in our, not in comedy, but in our world, right? And then there's people that don't self-censor. There's people that just say whatever they think is funny. And people come and see me on stage, and there's a catharsis in that. Yeah. Because you come and you see it and you go, oh, and then you have a very free and easy conversation after the show because you feel loose because you, oh, yeah, this guy,

this guy doesn't give a fuck, God, he's using all kinds of him. all kinds of things. You forget as a comedian. A lot of people don't swear in their everyday life. Never mind. Talk about some of these terrible things. And I feel sorry for the people that get offended. I genuinely do because when tough times happen in life, people are going to die in your life. People are going to get sick. Awful things are going to happen. You're going to lose your job. You're going to lose money. Tough shit's going to happen. At least if you have a dark sense of humor, you can laugh on those roughest of days. There's a little bit of humanity in it. And the people that are easily offended, fuck me, they've just got a white knuckle it.

Poor loves. I agree with you. Can I push back on your idea about not, I think all comedian self-censor, if I'm being honest with you, Jimmy. So I would watch your latest special. I loved it. Really, it was great. Correct. That's the correct answer.

You have a beautiful way of pushing back on somebody. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I am the modern-day Paxman. similar nodes. Anyway, but you did a joke where you were talking about Christianity

and it was very funny all the way through. And then you went, well, I'm the, and people go to me, oh, and I'm going to paraphrase it and it's going to be terrible. But why don't you make a joke about Islam and you go because I'm not fucking mental? But then I go on to make a joke about Islam. Yeah. Immediately. But it's a, yeah, I did make a joke about Islam directly after that. Yeah, yes. But in the way that, how can I put the, in, in, not in, how. I'm loving Jim's face around. Yeah. In a way that I kind of, I felt it how, when you, when we tackle jokes about Islam, I feel that we tiptoe around it more than. Not this guy. No, I've got loads of stuff about Islam. And actually a lot of, I mean, I just played Istanbul. Yeah. I just played a Muslim country.

did the bit about, you know, the bit in the special that I think you're alluding to is the thing where I go, you know, I'm a bit short for time, I can't do, I've done jokes about Christianity, but I can't do jokes about Islam. And the crowd kind of go, can't you want to go, well, fun fact, I'm not a fucking idiot. So if you're sat there thinking, well, that's not fair, you're a joke about Christianity all day long, but you won't make the same sort of joke about Muslims. Well, then maybe, as a Christian, you should think about blowing something up. Yeah. It's fun. I don't think anyone gets particularly offended by that because it's the, I mean, we all know those, the people are fine. Yeah, exactly the same as everyone else.

Yeah. There's no, there's no sacred cows in my show. There's nothing that I'm like pulling punches or going, well, I won't, I don't want to stray too close to that. It's about what's the funniest thing I can possibly say. Let me try a different postback on a different thing, which I think I disagree with you on, because I think it's absolutely true that for people who've already made it, you, Ricky, Dave Chappelle, Joe Rogan, Bill Burr, whoever, the ability to go on stage and make whatever joke you want is totally there. And even if people come after you as they did about the gypsy joke or whatever, like, you're going to be fine.

No one's going to be pulling your shows, etc. But there have been, including a Dead River Festival, people whose shows have been cancelled. Yeah. Jerry Sadowitz. Jerry Sadowitz is a very good example of this. Brilliant comedian. Incredibly offensive, but brilliant comedian.

And, you know, there will be other examples of people like that as well. I do think I'm in a privileged position of I'm kind of grandfathered in. Yeah. Like it's that thing of, you know, whenever I get dragged, it's like people always go, yeah. And also you've got to right size it. Like, you know, I told a joke than some people didn't like it. Yeah. It's not the biggest deal in the world.

I think it's probably tougher in the clubs. That's right. People are like, you know, sort of saying, well, you can't say that, you can say that. And it's, you know, I feel like. But saying something is too terrible to joke about. is like saying a disease is too awful to cure. We can't use medicine on that, it's gross. But you go, well, the joking about it is, it helps.

It's a cathartic thing. What about this idea that particularly in more kind of progressive leaning comedy circles, the idea of punching down, where you were using your privilege to make fun of people who don't have as much power as you, and therefore this is wrong, offensive, evil, etc. Okay. I don't know what they want.

I don't really get it. I don't get the idea that a joke is a punch. I don't kind of agree with the premise. So never mind getting into the weeds of it, but you go, what, sorry, there's people you can joke about. So I can't joke about anyone with a disability because they're below me.

Sorry? I'm punching down at them because they're below me. Oh, right, okay. Interesting. Oh, that group is below me. Oh, that's a great way to see the world. And you're above them, are you? So you wouldn't joke about them

because you're better than them, are you? Okay. I mean, I think you've only got to step back from that one second ago. The arrogance of that is unbelievable. The idea of being an equal opportunity's offender and going, well, we can all take a joke. That seems a much more reasonable point of view to me. And the idea of saying that, you know, whoever it is in your audience,

it's, oh, well, they wouldn't be able to take it. They are a sacred cow. We can't make jokes about that one thing. Well, you're on a very slippery slope, because who's making the rules? who's deciding what is and what is unacceptable. I'd like the audience to decide. If they laugh and, you know, there could be a sharp intake of breath, but as long as the laughter is the first thing, great.

You said that very well. And one of the people you mentioned Jimmy is George Carlin, who was an absolute hero of mine for a whole host of reasons. And one of them was... The cocaine abuse. At the level of cocaine abuse. I mean, obviously. But apart from that, he was someone who really was incredibly fearless,

completely unafraid, really, really principled in calling out bullshit, irrespective of which side of the political spectrum was promoting the bullshit. And he made a lot of fun about Christianity at the time, a lot of jokes like Bill Hicks, who was another hero of mine, because those were the restrictive forces of the day.

Well, the basket of things that you can't talk about changes through time. And comedians are sort of the canary in the mind. We kind of, we push... So what's really the role of edgy comedy? I always think, like, the only defense of edgy comedy is to be fucking hilarious telling edgy jokes, right? So, tick. The other thing is, what does it do? What is it for? Well, there's an overton window in politics,

right? We talk about what is and what is an acceptable policy, and that moves through time. There's also an overton window in society. Well, what's acceptable to talk about, and what isn't acceptable to talk about in society? And I think comedy plays a big part in that. So both on the edgy stuff, the super edgy, well, we can talk about these political things. Because the comedian started the conversation. So when Dave Chappelle talks about stuff, and it becomes a huge issue, well, that's culturally very relevant. But also when, you know, someone at Edinburgh might start talking about mental health. And then the paper do a big article about this young guy talking about his mental health struggles.

And you go, oh, that's very interesting. And it opens that Overton window of conversation. That's a very, very healthy good thing for society, in my view. And that's really, and I think comedy's got that ability to kind of, it sugars the pill. You could talk about these incredible. difficult things. I mean, there's a whole bit at the end of the new special, the natural born killer, where I have the talk with a young man and basically school him on consent and sex and what you should do and what should ask for and what's okay and what's not okay. And it's

fucking hilarious and super route, like crazy route. But I'm not wrong about anything in it. And it feels like it's a really valuable thing because they might just listen to me. Whereas, you know, I don't know how else they're, what, no one else is doing that message. people that are far too keen on going, oh, well, that's obvious. We don't need to talk about that. Yeah, we fucking do. Do you see yourself almost as kind of a release valve? So people who, maybe in their own personal lives, they can't talk about certain things, or they feel constrained at work. Yet they come to watch you, the lights go down, it's a darkened room, you make jokes about all these different topics, and that's a cathartic experience. Yeah, I think there's a real truth to that. I think it's a very, I think it's interesting actually the, you talk about Christian. doing that stuff in America felt much edgier than doing it here. And actually as you travel around, you sort of notice, oh, wow, that was much edgier in South Africa

than it was in the UK. Because, you know, it's religion is much bigger. Yeah, well, they're actually religious and American. That's what I was going to ask you, because my sense is that the conversation we started earlier, which was about God and belief and a lack of purpose and a lack of meaning that increasingly in our society's people experience is like Jordan. Peterson is on tour now and I'm going to be joining him because he wants to have a conversation about his last book, the latest book is called We Who Struggle with God.

And my sense is this is going to become a big talking, not a talking point, it's a wrong phrase, but like this is a big thing that people are going to be talking about. And comedians stopped making fun of Christianity, really, in the way that they did during the Carlin and Hicks era. Have you seen the new special? Yes. I'm not saying... I mean, yeah.

There's genuine blasphemy in there. Well, I'm excited. Look, I'm excited for you, mate. I'm excited to see how your show does in Alabama. But my point is something else, which is, I think, I don't know if you agree with me on this, but I sense that there is a guard conversation coming. As you mentioned, the guard-shaped hole in everybody. And it just feels like this is the moment when we're going to have a different take on it going forward.

Do you see what I'm talking about, or does this make no sense? I think so. I think there's, listen, there's always going to be, there's a movement and then there's a counter movement. And the new atheist movement sort of came along and there's kind of a counter movement against it going, well, don't throw it all away. But I don't think that's about saying, well, necessarily subscribe to this religion. Yes. But we're sort of going, well, what's going to be the thing that brings people together? And that's right. I think like politics isn't the right thing to replace religion. No.

It's because, because really, if you think about it, it's about what is God? Right? What's, what's God a proxy for? The future, right?

It's like live well. Now, it's very self-help religion. Yeah. Because it's, all self-help is prioritized later. Every self-help book, that's the core, prioritise later. And God is,

well, do this now for a better life later. And the issue is, they're promising heaven. So when you're promising heaven, well, by any means necessary, because it's heaven

we're talking about here, it's perfection. And I think there's something about Marxism, which is very similar, because Marxism promises, albeit in a very secular way, they promise perfection. So it's perfection. So, communism, by any means necessary, it's worth it because we're getting to this Valhalla. And I think that's very, it's very dangerous to put your sort of belief in that. So I'm, I mean, I'm still an atheist. I don't believe, but I can see such purpose and worth in, in being part of a community. And what community are you part of? You know, you can't care about everything.

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discovery. Watch remarkably bright creatures with your remarkable moms this Mother's Day weekend. Only on Netflix May 8th. That was why I was going to ask, so if it's not politics, which it isn't, I think we can all agree. What is it that modern society has to offer people to replace? Well, in a sense, it's been the environmental movement for young people. Yeah, yeah. But that's, it's absolutely valid, right?

So it's the idea of going, with something bigger than me, and I want to give myself purpose in life an omission, and saving the planet. What could be more beautiful? It's a lovely thing. I think I absolutely agree on the problem, and I do not agree on the solution. I cannot imagine a world in 50 years' time, and by the way, there will be a 50 years time. The sky's not falling in. If you think the world is ending in the next 20 years, you're in a fucking cult. But someone gluing themselves to the pavement isn't going to make the difference.

If you want to change it, go and get the STEM degree and do the work on something that will make a difference. You want to hear my environmental plan? I got an environmental plan. You know what I have. Here's what we do. All of the COP23 aims, all of the stuff, all of the, we're going to bring down CO2, all of the, we're going to decrease the amount of fuel that we use at the expense of poor people. Lime through it.

We're not doing any of that. Nuclear submarines. They've been running for 70 years, right? No one got sick. They're safe. We put a nuclear sub reactor in every town in Great Britain. Every single town gets a nuclear stuff. So there's no NIMBY.

There's no, not in my backyard. It's in everyone's fucking backyard. Nothing you can do about it. There's one in every town, right? And if it blows up, if a terrorist gets to it, it's a problem. Not a huge problem. Not a big deal. Fukushima, no one died.

Lest we forget, no one died. So you put that in every town and you go, well, we're going to burn fossil fuels until we get this all sorted. It's going to take 15, 20 years. 50 years time, fuel bills go to zero. So you paid for it all. Fuel bills go to zero, and then electricity becomes free in Great Britain. And we say to all the big companies in the world,

do you want to come and set up a company in Great Britain? It's quite expensive to employ people. Oh, energy's free. Your business involve energy? Yeah. And then when we're not using it, we're just, at nighttime, we just mine for Bitcoins. Sounds great.

But although I don't think you'll be able to mine for Bitcoin's 20 years from now, because the cap will be reached. But what else would you do if you were king of? the world, Jimmy. I mean, you seem like a man with a plan. That's not a bad idea. I'm awful nuclear. I'm not sure about one in every town, but we can argue about that. Well, I think that thing about, I mean, obviously we need fossil fuels as well. Yeah. Because the people that go, we've got to get rid of oil and gas, you go, no, fertilizer. Don't forget food. Don't forget food, the stuff you eat three times a day.

You need fertilizer. Where do you think that comes from? Good luck getting out of a fucking wind turbine. I don't care how high it is. It's not going to work. So it's that thing, You need a little bit of that. There's no solutions, only trade-offs. But I think what Britain could do is set an example to the rest of the world. Us doing that doesn't make any difference, by the way, to overall CO2 in the world. We're not big enough. It doesn't make a difference.

But the example we could set where then in 20 years time, what we need is statesmen, not politicians, because everything's about incentives, right? And we incentivise politicians in the wrong way. They're all about the next election and what happens later this year. And no one is thinking, well, what's going to happen in 15 years time? We're definitely going to need more power. And the idea that the environmental movement at the moment says, well, we need to cut back. Well, I don't buy into that.

It's not going to happen. Well, also, you go, well, try convincing genuinely poor people in Africa and India and China that they need to cut back because we used it all. So if you were king of the world in charge of everything, what would you do? All right. What are the ideas you got? Well, here's like this. It's often that thing of like, I love that William Gibson quote. The future is here, but it's not evenly distributed.

Yeah. It's kind of a wonderful idea of like, well, actually, there's great stuff around the world, and we should just take best practice from all over. So I'm not a huge fan of the... This will come as a shock to you. I'm not a huge fan of Hungary's president. But they have an idea in Hungary that I think might be the most progressive idea I've heard in European politics in 20 years,

which is if you have... If you're a woman and you have a baby in Hungary, you get 25% off your income tax for life. you have two babies, you get 50% off. If you have three babies, 75%, four babies, ding, ding, ding, no income tax ever again, right? Now that, to me,

someone should be running on that in Westminster in this election because you automatically get 50% of the vote, right? Because it's incredibly progressive. It handles the gender pay gap, right? And there is a disparity in incomes between women, and basically when you take yourself out of the workforce to have a baby, and it's harder for women

than is the men to have a baby, it just is. So you go, well, hang on, if we can give women back that money down the line for having a baby, and we can close the gender pay gap, and we can encourage mums to go back to work, which is a great example to give you kids, a great thing to do if you want to do that, wonderful, and we'll incentivise you. It strikes me as, why are we not doing that? And someone's going to go, well, we haven't costed it, it's going to, I don't care what the costing is. because demographics is destiny.

And if we encourage more people to have kids and we make it easier for people, then a better world. A better world, more of us, great. More of us is a good thing. You know, that's the other thing I don't like about the incredibly left-wing environmental people that seem to think we're a scourge on the planet.

Fuck all the way off. That's right. Too many people, all right, who should we get? Why don't we start with you? It's genocidal, it's crazy. But the idea of like going, I think we should be encouraging people to have kids and make it easier. Because really, when you think about where's the best places to live in the world,

it's places that industrialized relatively slowly. It's ex-colonial. It's like Australia, like Sydney, Melbourne, Toronto, Vancouver. Like best place in the world. Because kids went from being an asset when we were on the farms, right? There was free labour. Great, have as many kids as you can. To being a liability in the cities.

And really great suburban areas is what we need more of. So it's that thing of like people are always planning new towns. No, you need new suburbia is what you need. Because you need places where people can afford to live. with a house and a garden and a standard of living. You don't need more flats for single people. That's not what we need. We need more suburban spread areas where people can live

and have a community and, you know, a nice place. Yeah, and that's one of the things that I've found so frustrating about this government is Michael Gove recently came out and was going... Did he? Well, that's an exclusive, isn't it? I think we all knew, but that's... Sorry, sorry, do you not finish the sentence? No, no, no.

Well, that's just a mix-up, please continue. There's going to be all the Americans Googling Michael Gove and go, I understand that joke. But he recently came out and he was saying, well, you know, unless... You can't say it again. Don't double down. I'm going to triple down. He recently said...

Yeah, he recently said that unless young people can get access, to property and the housing ladder, they're going to reject democracy. Thanks for quoting my art speech, Mike. And then you go, well, that's great, mate. What a great point. Should we talk to the housing minister about it? Oh, hang on a second. You are the housing minister.

Yeah. It strikes me we need a bit more housing. Yeah. I mean, we definitely do. People need places to live. It's, it's, uh... Yeah, and that doesn't strike me as a complex idea. I'm trying to think of, like, other things I would do,

like other things that are great around the world. Like, I like Portugal. I like the Portuguese drug laws. I like what they've done in Lisbon. Like, Lisbon was like one of the roughest towns in Europe. Yeah. And it's now an absolute joy to wander around. And really, they've taken away petty crime

because 90% of petty crime is drug-related. And they legalized all drugs. And it's fantastic. Now, I would say the supervisor on my drug policy, which not everyone will love. All drugs are legal, right? Weed is legal. The legal age for weed, though, is 45.

you've got to, because it's a performance-inhibiting drug. That's what weed is. It's performance-inhibiting. Like, men in their 40s that are working too hard and you just need to fucking chill out, mate. It's more to life than this. Enough already. Marijuana.

Young people just starting out, I think, prohibition. Well, I did a personal prohibition when I started comedy. I didn't drink for 12 years. Really? Yeah. Smart on the comedy, sake, because you're constantly surrounded by drunk people. You're surrounded by it. There's a lot of it.

And I saw people, there's people that I started with that were so funny, so funny. And they got, they had a brilliant time. Oh my God, they had fun. And you don't know their names. Yeah. And I think that's really sad. And they just didn't, they didn't manage to, it wasn't the appropriate time. You know, there's a season for these things.

And I think actually for the young people, it's about where you've got time and you've got focus. Where are you going to apply that and that's your life? So it's, you know, there's a, there's a crisis for young men. I mean, Jesus knows life isn't easy for young women in this society, but for young men, there's a very clear issue, which is their, George Orwell wasn't right, Aldous Huxley was right. Our power will not be taken by some force from above. It will be given away for cheap dopamine. So guys are playing video games, 100 hours a week, right? that video games are a proxy for career. Very clearly, right?

You look at the levels and the big boss at the end. I mean, it's so clearly a proxy for career, right? And porn is a proxy for sex. You know, there's no risk involved in either of those. And what you want is young men to take more risks. You want them to, you know, so the message shouldn't be play less video games and look at less porn. It should be, go out there and have an adventure. It should be, you know, the message needs to be more enticing

than don't look at porn online. It should be, get your dick wet. More of a message. It's more exciting. Sol the population problem as well, Jimmy, two and one. Yeah, it's not a bad, you know. Jimmy, it strikes me that you're a combination of both creativity and pragmatism,

and those two normally don't go together. You tend to either get the pragmatic or the creative, particularly... This again, I mean, it comes back to gratitude. It just comes back to luck. I got very lucky. I think, like... Like, we only see luck in certain fields.

Like, we can see, like, Barbie Oppenheimer, good example, right? So we can all see, oh, Margot, Robbie. Oh, my God, she's so beautiful. She was just born like that. But no one looks at Oppenheimer and goes, ah, he was born with an IQ of 170 and a work ethic, which is also heritable. So you don't see the luck in everything. There's one side that we're very dismissive of, the luck.

And then the other side we don't look at. And it seems very unfair. Like, life is kind of unfair. We come out with our gifts, with our factory settings. And the trick of life is to know what you are, to accept what you are early on and lean into that. And how do you get there? How do you accept what you are?

Because there's a lot of people who spend their entire life fighting against what they are. There's a lot of people with curly hair and straightness. Yeah, okay. There's a lot of people going on sunbeds. Okay. You're the color you're meant to be. You're meant to look like that.

You're great as you are. Thanks, man. Just lean into it. But you know that thing of like just going, acceptance is it's great because then you've got the starting point and then you can kind of build on that. And I think in my life, I would say to any young comic,

I'd say to pretty much anyone, avoid competition through authenticity. No one can beat you at being you. Don't be the best, be the only. No one does what I do. I mean, you know, people do a similar job like a stand-up comedian or whatever. Okay, you can categorize it like that and go, well, there's lots of stand-up comedians and some are doing better than you and some are doing worse than you.

But no one does what I do. I deliver a very specific product. You know, I make something people want. I make them happy. And Jimmy, when Francis said you were at the top, and this is something we talked privately about once as well, you were like, well, I'm not at the very top. And you just have an ambitiousness that is, A, quite unusual and be very infectious about your goal. for your career, for things that you want to achieve, that you are quite relentless about. A lot of people in your position might say, well, look, I've made a lot of money. I'm super successful.

I can just have, I can just chill. I can just, you know, you've got a family. You've got, you know, the opportunity to lie on the beach 51 weeks a year, or 52 weeks a year if you want. But you're just cringing, as I say all of this, because you were super driven to be the very best. Listen, I want to be everything I can be. Yeah, but that's not the very best.

I want it by what's the best thing I could do, right? I think I found the thing that I'm best at. Am I the best in the world? No. But I can, I've got a shot, right? I've got a shot of being, be everything that you can be within that. And really, I think the thing about having, you know, kids and family is, those kids are not going to listen to what I say.

They're going to watch and imitate. And if they see someone with a work ethic, well, that's, you know, they might, pick up on that and copy it. That wouldn't be such a bad thing. And I think also the work ethic thing is the downside of success is it fosters envy and jealousy. And really, I think letting people know how hard you work gets rid of 90% of that. Because people know, let people in our industry know how much I work. They know how much I do.

And it's so it's difficult to be resentful. You know, and I think resentment's a, it's a, it's the opposite. opposite of gratitude. It's a poisonous thing. I really love the Frederick Nietzsche quote on resentment. If you think someone's ruined your life, you're right. It's a mic drop of a line. And I completely agree with this. Actually, I'm working on a book about gratitude. But the thing is, I have to say, that is a lot easier to feel and think about when you're already successful. When you were working your way up, and I don't know what your career would have been like early on, Everyone has setbacks.

Everyone has, you know, you drive for four hours to some shit gig. You just crushed it from day one. What? Setbacks. Oh, bless him. No, but my success started way before you think it started. It's character versus reputation, right? Reputations is what the world thinks about you, right?

When did the world think I got successful? Well, I don't know. Maybe they don't think I'm successful now. Whatever. I'm selling big venues and I got Netflix specials. And great, all of that stuff, okay? Well, the locus of controls outside of me. So that's not interesting to me.

My character is what I know about myself. Well, when I started getting paid to do stand-up at the comedy store in London, which is a place I used to pay to get into to watch funny people say funny shit, and then I'm getting paid in cash to do 20 minutes twice a night. What? Sorry? And I can live my life on this enough money to live on. That's it. That's success.

Now, the amounts of money have increased and the size of rooms have increased and all of the other stuff that comes with it. That's all gravy. But from that first time, you get paid to be a stand-up comic, that's success. And people have career dysmorphia. People are working as stand-up comedians, telling jokes for money, going to the Edinburgh Festival every year, and thinking, oh, I'm not successful enough. What are you talking about? You've got the best job in the world and you're doing it and you're getting paid to do it.

How could you complain? I guess what they would say, Jimmy, is that they want to be able to perform to more people. They want more people to see what they do. They believe in what they do in their art and they feel frustrated that they're only performing to this size of audience. Well, I don't think they'll be able to get this then. But having stuff isn't fun, getting stuff. is fun. It's not the pursuit of happiness. It's the happiness of the pursuit. The happiest years, I'm going to have a great time touring at the moment. But those early years in Edinburgh, my God, those trenches that when you're out there doing it with your friends, you've got your little gang and you're, and I mean the best times. The best times in the world. It's unbelievable.

Because, you know, you're just starting out, you're kind of finding your feet and you're, you're kind of machete through the jungle, trying to find your way. amazing fun, right? It's, you know, it's the self-help thing. It's not the destination or the journey. It's who you become on the journey. That's the thing. And, you know, saying, well, this level of material wealth is success in comedy.

Well, don't work in a city. If you think this is a money game, you're in the wrong competition. Your ladder is leaning against the wrong wall. This isn't. This is about being funny. The tealess of comedy is laughter. You want to bring as much laughter as you can to people.

You want people to have an incredible experience with you every night. Everyone's got to serve someone, right? Who do you serve? You know, I think there's different things. My work life, it's the audience. You're in service of the audience. Their life, right? They've come here.

They've paid money, right? They've bought a ticket. Really, when you think about comedy shows, my shows are not expensive, but they're not cheap either, right? If you work in a regular job, right? And after, you know, chatting to people in the audience, you see what they do. And you think about, my God, right, he's come with a wife and two kids to my show. That's cost him 150 quid with parking and dinner and drinks. That's expensive, right?

You've got to deliver for that guy. It's great to be in service of someone. And then in life, I would say, my lesson, I talked to Chris Williamson about this a lot and George Matt. Do you know those guys? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're very friends with Chris, yeah. We chatted about this idea of like 24 hours ahead, right? How to live your life?

How to live your life successfully? Well, what would you tomorrow be grateful that you today did? That's a great way to live your life. Just to be in service of you tomorrow, to be in service of your potential rather than you right now. Because bad habits pay off immediately in the moment, and good habits pay off later. It's the only difference, right?

And you go, well, if I eat right and I go to the gym and I write a couple of jokes today and spend time with family, I'll be glad I did that tomorrow. And repeat. You know, that's the algorithm for life. Whatever works, repeat. You mentioned self-help a lot, and I did read that you studied various things like NLP and whatever when you were younger. This is why I was asking you about, A, how you deal with difficulties. Because, look, of course, you're absolutely right. Once you start getting paid to do comedy, do the thing that you love.

But nonetheless, everyone has challenges in life. Things happen. There are difficulties that occur. What are some of the most useful strategies that you've discovered, in addition to the one you were just talking about, for being effective and being happy and being successful in life? It's agency. Put yourself in charge.

If you put yourself in charge, it's much easier, right? It's harder in the short term, but ultimately it's easier, right? What's the difference between ambition and entitlement? Okay, so where you are now and where you want to be, if you want to do something about it, that's ambition. Great. Where you are now, where you want to be, if you think it's someone else's problem, that's entitlement.

And entitlement can come in different ways. It's like it's not necessarily a trust fund kid going, I want daddy to do this for me. But we've all got friends that have got, you know, they're blaming their career on their management, or somehow they didn't get the right meeting or the tape didn't arrive on time. Yeah, yeah, something.

But they're not putting, the locus of control within themselves. If it's within you, I remember hearing a story about David Tell, the great David Tell, backstage in a place in a couple of comics, winging about their management or whatever, their representation or their lawyer or something.

And where their career was at, and David Teller just went, Be Funnier. There you go. It's really simple. Like, what's the first principles of comedy? Be funnier. Any comic that's having a problem with their career, write 20 incredible one-liners.

You really stand out. And we've mentioned David Toll, and I love David Teller. I think he's very dark, very funny. He might be, he might be, I mean, he's certainly one of the most influential comics that people don't necessarily know. Yeah. Because, I mean, I really, it's worth people looking at,

I think you'll probably get it on Spotify, Shanks for the Memories, is a sort of perfect hour of stand-up comedy. And he did a special called Bumping Mikes with Jeff Ross, where they're just kind of rinsing each other on stage. It's really worth checking out. Like if you're a comedy, because his voice, you might hear it and go, oh, that sounds like quite a lot of comics. Yeah, he started that.

Yeah. He's New York. He goes up very late at the comedy seller, and he just destroys. And who are the comics that you love that you really enjoy watching? I mean, my favorite of all time is Chris Rock. I think Chris Rock is a generational talent. He has an incredible ability to generate material.

that is meaningful and philosophical and hilarious. He's, I've had the pleasure of working with him and know him a little bit. He's just exceptional. I love him. I love Chappelle. I love, I love people that do sort of a similar thing to me. So, you know, Jervais does a similar thing.

Jesselnik does a similar thing. We're kind of in that, you know, there's a, there's almost like, I love Jim Jeffries. We're digging, we're doing some arenas in Canada later in the year together. We're doing like a double header. It'd be really fun. But that thing of like, I like my boys.

And then I love, I love Rocheonnetty. I think it's got one of the most original infectious comedy voices. She's incredible. I wish she would do more stand-up. I love, you know, Catherine Ryan. I love Beth Stelling, I think,'s got an incredible special on Netflix. Extraordinary talent. I mean, it's that thing.

I could, I could witter on all day. Neil Brennan's special, I think, blocks and three mics are some of the finest, and his new one. It's brilliant. Crazy good. Yeah, we had Neil on the show when we were in America last time. He's just wonderful. It's, and then there's the older statesman.

There's your, you know, you're Ron White's. And, you know, there's older guys that are, you know, David Tal that have been doing it a long time and they're just perfect. And they're still doing it. That's the great, they're generating new material and out there on the road. You know, no one's putting their feet up. I'm sorry. I was going to say, the interesting.

thing with Chris Rock is, is that Chris Rock is actually very controversial, but he's not controversial in a way because of the topics he tackles, but rather than the way he tackles them. That he's, he doesn't, when people think of what Chris Rock is going to say, a lot of the time they can't predict it. And when he actually talks about a subject, you actually find yourself thinking, I've never actually thought of it like that. I think he's, he's very classically dialectical, He'll set up a thing. He'll say his premise will be, and he'll get the whole audience will boo the premise. Yeah. Often, like three or four of his routines, the premise, the audience boo. And then 10 minutes later, they're this fucking guy.

Yeah. I mean, he's incredible. But it's that thing where you go to be in that industry, to be able to be on the same bill as someone like that. It's, I mean, pressure is a privilege. I really believe it. Like that thing, I got, we did gigs in Amsterdam last year. So it was like, who was it? It was Chappelle, Chris Rock and me in an arena in, in, in Amsterdam. I mean, it was, they were just took the roof on. It was just amazing. Just amazing. To be in that room, to be in that company, it's like it's, you're breathing kind of rarefied air and every day's a school day. You know, it's a great thing with comedy where you go. And sometimes it's the greats. And sometimes you're with kind of relatively new people and, you know, at a festival, whatever you,

watching someone and get something out of that too. You know, it's like the great thing about comedy is anyone can come up with something fantastic. People have got great jokes. Yeah. I love that what you said there, the pressure is a privilege. And it's so true because when you feel pressure, that's a moment where you're in those defining periods of your life, where you know that you can... It's the truth of it.

You can't have an easy life and a great character. Show me a trust fund kid. I'll show you someone miserable. You need a bit of pressure. You need tough times. And the problem with life is it's self-assignment. You've got to give yourself that challenge. That's a tough thing.

That's kind of tough love, isn't it? You need to go and find that adventure for yourself. And the adventure can't be easy. It's not an adventure. It's the teacups, and we all want the roller coaster. It's such a good point. And I think it's one of the reasons that Jordan Peterson became as big as he did, because he was telling people, go out and slay the dragon effectively, which is basically what you're saying. And I'm curious with your attitude about agency, which I completely agree with, it's interesting that we do seem to live in an age where a lot of people are being counseled to go in the opposite direction and see themselves as a victim of circumstance, victim of the political system, victim of this, victim of that.

What do you make of that? Well, I mean, I would defer to Chris Rock on this, who made an exceptional point the night he was slapped by Will Smith. He said there's two, the biggest addiction, the biggest addiction in America is not Fentanop. It's attention. And there's three ways to get attention. You can be excellent at something. You can be notorious or you can be a victim. and those incentives, it's tough to be excellent.

Yeah. And it's easier to be a victim. And that thing of going, that mentality. I just, you know, it's not that people aren't victims. Some people are victims, but is it going to define the rest of your life? Is it, you know, that thing that J.K. Rowling said, there's a brilliant thing about childhood. Some people have very, very tough childhoods, right?

Incredibly tough. What's the statute of limitations on that? Because I think if a 16-year-old said to me, oh my god, I've come up through the system, it's been really tough. You've got nothing but empathy, right? Yeah. But for 40-year-old says that, you go, ah, the thing is, though, and at what point, where do you draw the line?

Well, the answer is somewhere. Somewhere along there, you draw the line. You go, well, you need to take a stand. So it's that thing of, I don't know how we do this. I mean, it's a very big problem, but you go, how do you, you know, give a man a fish, teach him out of fish. How do you give people agency? Because the sympathy and compassion is it's no good because no one cares enough about your life.

No one cares enough to live it for you. That's right. And interesting, you mentioned childhood. What was your childhood like? I had a wonderful mother, an incredibly funny, larger-than-life character. If ever you have a comedian on this show, I'll give you the cheat sheet. here's the question you should ask. Which are your parents were sick?

Pretty much every comic I know had a sick parent, either physically or mentally. My mother was, I suffered with depression. And so being able to change the mood and to make her happy and make her laugh was something that, so I became the thermostat, mood-wise, in the house. I was able to do that, to make people laugh,

to make things okay. And that then becomes a pathology. That's kind of how you get into it, I guess. She's very funny, but also, yeah, very... And then, you know, your childhood, it's normalized. Whatever was normal for you, you think, is the same for everyone. Jimmy, it's been an absolute pleasure. I can't believe your luck.

It's great. I'm such a fan of the show. I think it's really, you know, important what you guys are doing. I think it's that thing if you go, what's lacking in the world is conversation. and feeling like you're in a conversation. And actually, I spend a lot on my life on my own. I like my own company and I like listening. And I like that thing of going and it just sort of, you go off in different directions,

you go off in different tangents, and you have very interesting conversations. I love the breadth of guests that you have on the show. I love the fact, you know, it's very open. It's a very safe space for people to chat. I think it's really adding value. And in a world where increased, increasingly the traditional media outlets aren't trusted.

What we need is like longer form. Because actually over a two-hour interview, there's nowhere to hide. You know, it's all very well doing publicity on, you know, I'll be on the one show next week, I'm sure. And it's great, it's fun, but it's three minutes ago and hi, I've got new special, you should watch it, it's great. It's like it's an authentic conversation. It's like it's a chance for me to kind of show who, oh, well, look, that could be funny,

watch the special great, but also this is who I am if you're in. and it's lovely to be able to share that. And it is because in a world, if you think about the media landscape 10, 20 years ago, you didn't really have that much of a say about how you were presented. There could be times where you were misrepresented and you're like, well, that wasn't what I said or that's not what I think, but it's tough, the story's out there. Whereas now you actually have the opportunity to present who you are. Yeah, yeah, no, it's the gatekeepers are kind of gone.

It's great. I think it's really valuable what you're doing, more power to you. It's so exciting, man. And we really appreciate you having on the show, and I will say you've been very supportive of us, you know, behind the scenes as well. So it's a great privilege to have you on. We're going to move to locals where we're going to ask some questions from our audience. But before we do, and actually before pay up. Yeah. Get the locals. It's worth getting it. Also, you're supporting new media. Yeah. He's got to eat. Well said. Yeah, thank you. And. And our last question, always the same. What's the one thing we're not talking about that we really shouldn't be? Natural Born Killer, my new special on Netflix currently streaming. We just talked about it for two hours, man. But they're not talking about it enough. Yeah.

Actually, we didn't either. We didn't even mention it. So fair point. It's a great. Go watch a special. It is great. Yeah, it is. Thanks for having us on.

All right. Head on over to locals. Pay up. Yeah. You're watching this for free. Get the locals. It's worth getting it. When the prime minister of the country that you live in breaks off from the G20 summit to do a press conference

about your personal tax affairs. That's going to be a problem. When is Jimmy gonna apologize for his take on the vaccines? No wonder they're not gonna take the vaccine. They can't even take a fucking joke. Anyone in the Illuminati gets it first. That's the viral bit right.