Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Geoff Norcott

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

This week, Emily and Ray are in Cambridgeshire with the brilliant comedian, writer and political commentator Geoff Norcott and his dog Anne-Marie (or Annie, to her friends!) Geoff tells us what it is to be a bloke, how being part of a news story makes him feel and what it means for your child to say that they like you. The podcast takes a surreal turn when we have to take a trip back to Geoff's house and it reveals just how much of a gentleman he really is...Geoff's book The British Bloke, Decoded is available now! https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-british-bloke-decoded/geoff-norcott/9781800961296Geoff is on tour throughout the UK in Spring 2024. Get tickets here!Listen to Emily and Ray's first walk with Geoff which was recorded remotely in April 2021Follow Emily: Instagram - @emilyrebeccadeanX - @divine_miss_emWalking The Dog is produced by Faye LawrenceMusic: Rich Jarman Artwork: Alice LudlamPhotography: Karla Gowlett Walking The Dog is a Goalhanger Podcast brought to you by Petplan: visit petplan.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You see that photo of one of the massive balls? I mean, you can write all the comedy you want, but it is quite sobering. A funny picture of a video of an animal. You go, I will never be as funny as a squirrel of massive balls. This week on Malking the Dog, Ray and I popped to Cambridgeshire to go for a stroll with fabulous comedian Jeff Norcott and his beautiful dog, Annie.

Jeff is obviously a hugely successful stand-up, who's also appeared on shows like Live at the Apollo and Would I Lie to You? And he also talks about politics regularly in a very entertaining way, popping up on everything from question time to politics live. Jeff is hilarious company, as you'd expect, but he's also got this very calm, old-school,

sort of decency and honour about him. He's the kind of person who you'd always trust to have your back. Basically, the opposite of Ray, who'd sell you down the river if there was cheese involved. I had such a lovely walk with Jeff and Annie because the man is a diamond, and if you want more of him, do go see him live in his show, basic bloke touring all around the UK or check out his book the British bloke

decoded available everywhere or you can listen to his podcast what most people think on all the usual platforms all the info is on jeff norkop.co.ukh. I'm going to stop talking now and hand over to the man himself. Here's Jeff and Annie and Raymond. Is your dog good at jumping over stuff? I mean okay I asked that because your dog doesn't look like it would be good or even capable of jumping over anything. Oh here we go there's a little gate here. I've started off I'm being mean about your dog again. I didn't want to go back to this. Jeff, I mean, what are your feelings about this podcast, given how Raymond is at the moment? Well, he's just stopped in the middle of a car park. He seems to be more intent on going towards a road than the field, which

I think is a very undog-like behaviour, but he's got a very undog-like haircut. So... Come on, Ray. He doesn't look as evil in person. What a lovely thing, Jeff. I said, As evil. Should we walk around this way because I'm just conscious of that dog of the lead? Yeah, do you know what? That dog and that owner look quite ill-suited? Yes, I know. It's weird with dogs now because there are,

there's this talk about aggressive breeds, and you don't know if it drifts into bigotry to make presumptions about breeds, but there's also statistics. I don't know if that is an Excel bully. What the woman? What we're seeing? Oh, there we go.

They make the same noises. Say hello then. Well, she's half the size of them. Well, she was supposed to be bigger. This is an embarrassing size dog for a bloke to have. Oh, she's gorgeous. She's a handful. Are these their names, Hugo and Ralph?

Yeah, obviously I can tell them apart. But from a distance, even I struggle sometimes. So when they're running off, so I know which one to call, it's easier. having their names on them. Powerful names. They're beautiful dogs. What kind of dogs are they? Oh they're cockapoos. And also I like that they're both fashion branded, Hugo and Ralph. Well, they're going to be Colin and Brian and my husband was like absolutely no way. I'm not having that at all, but he likes his designer label. Meet Raymond. Yeah, good call by the husband.

Bye-bye, Hugo and Ralph. Jeff, this is where Ray really comes into his own on the grass. Can you see? I can. Well, he sort of seems to be hovering because of his style. His hair style. Is it first, what's it called? His cut? Yeah. I call it his look. His look? How often do you have to, because what happens with our dog is that they just get really hairy and then we shear them like sheep, as you can see. And then they try to do what she's doing now, which is to cover herself in geese shit. And she hasn't worked out that every time she does that, she then gets showered when she gets home. There we go. Hugo and Julius.

Hugo and Ralph. Hugo's fast. Me, Hugo, very middle-class names as well, aren't they? We should talk through your dogs, Jeff. In fact, I'm going to properly introduce you. I'm so thrilled. I'm with the enormously talented comedian, podcaster, writer and dog owner, Jeff Norcott, and his gorgeous dog, Annie.

Or Anne-Marie, if you want to be formal. And you have another dog as well, don't you? Who's not with us today? She's not with us today. Lily Allen. We had a thing of naming our pets after like prominent pop stars of the day. So we had a cat years ago we called Dizzy Rascal. So we like giving them two names.

But yeah, Annie to her friends. I can't let off the lead by the way because I just can't. And Annie is some sort of a poo. Yeah, they've all got poo in them. She's a cocker poo, but she just didn't get big. And she's also fade in her colour. So when we got her, she was a really lovely rust colour and now she's sort of fading into the same sandy colour

and she's less distinctive. I wouldn't want her to hear me say that. She's absolutely beautiful. I mean, could I die her? Just to, you know, does that happen? People probably do that, don't they? I vaguely remember there was a thing back in the naughty's. There were a lot of regrettable choices made then by all of us

but there was a vague sort of fad for, colouring dogs hair. Yeah. I'm thinking those sort of Paris Hill, you know, pink streaks and things. That must be, but you know how, like, I always think dogs are just must be so, so disrespectful by other species because of how they cozy up to us. Do you think so? Yeah.

If you use another, anything in the wild, you'd look at dogs and go, my God, you absolute Vichy regime pets. But that would be the ultimate wouldn't it? It's like, not only that, look at you, what happened to you? There are some animals where you think they might do all right in the wild for a little while. I think dogs are so, they've lost contact with that side of themselves. Being very negative about dogs, this is my point. I think true love is to love something, but to also criticise it endlessly.

And that's what I'm like with both my dogs. Both my dogs have got serious character flaws. What are their character flaws, dear? The thing is, all dog owners listening to this will immediately presume this is all my fault. This is what happens with dog owners. They just think, well, this is something you've done, which I think is victim blaming. but because I've seen myself as the victim. Lily is incredibly stubborn and willful and yeah,

she's quite aloof and superior and detached, whereas this one is very loving, Anne-Marie, she's most loving dog I've ever had, but she's also so entitled, like whatever's happening, she feels that she should be the absolute lead sort of living thing in that situation. She's quite an alpha female, is she? So, so alpha.

Like the problem is she goes up to all this. these dogs and I'm sort of expecting a dog to kind of growl and show, but they never do. They just tolerate it. So she honestly thinks she's the undefeated heavyweight champion of this area because she's never had a slap. Don't, not that I approve slapping. You've got to be careful these days, isn't you? Look at this, Jeff. That is lovely. How can you not hear the black beauty music when he does that? Ray, Ray. What breed is it, a species? What breed is he? You've gone from that so easily, Jeff. You just said, what species is he?

Yeah, I think it was a Freudian slip. I mean, I don't think I've ever been in the company of this kind of dog before. He is an imperial Shih Tzu. Uh-huh. And do you want to know a great fact about him? Yes. He is the brother of your friend Catherine Ryan's dog. He is the brother of Meg Ryan, Catherine Shih Tzu.

Well, why didn't you say so? We're family. Do you know what though? Now you say it I see I mean like obviously all breeds of dogs look like other breeds of dogs

but I do see the resemblance Do you? I do actually I know exactly which dog I mean Catherine's got a lot of dogs There's a lot to There's a lot to choose from But I think I know which one it is

I should say at this point There was a brief break Because the producer Has just said She's desperate for a wee The reason I'm telling you this Is because I think it's a lot about Jeff, who said, I'll just come back to mine and use the loo.

You don't always get that offer. In this climate, I said it like in a really nice, non-creepy way. I think it's really important to stress that. Just come back to mine. I didn't say, come back to mine sounds bad. I say you could always use, for historical contact, I said you could always use the toilet in my house while I am outside. We're in Cambridgeshire and this is your local park, isn't it? Which is really pretty. Yeah, no, it's nice for it.

I mean the thing is is that Cambertshire it's always it's not good for the brand you know living in Cambridge here and what's the brand well it's what you know every man but I live I live in Cambertshire in the townhouse you know so class-wise I've definitely you know moved up oh what a beautiful dog is it four months well is it our fox trade lab beautiful oh it's like a dog on an advert yeah don't you think Joe what's the name Harry. Harry? Yeah.

Come on there. Lovely to meet you. Bye, bye, Harry. Come on, Harry. I mean, Harry's putting all of us to shame. Yeah, Harry's just, you know they talk about that phrase rude health. I get what that means as you get older, it's like if someone looks offensively good, you know, like there's a kind of... There's a glow.

If he was a bloke and you're in a relationship with him for 18 months, it could suddenly the scales could fall for your eyes and you go, oh, it's only the love. just coat, you know, and the bounding enthusiasm. Getting a bit threatened by Harry. Well, I'm 46, you know. Jeff, you still got it, I'm sorry. A long time from my... I don't know, I don't think I was ever a Harry. I don't think it was a Harry.

You know what you've got? I think you've got what me and my friends call the confidence. Oh, do I? Do you know what the confidence is? Um, well, I know why I see it in other people. It's a specific male thing that we talk. about where there's an inner it's kind of like you don't have to shout about it. Ah, right. That's tiredness.

Genuinely, a lot of the time just having to take it slowly and to think of what I say, God, I'm really glad that it plays out as confidence. Well, it all depends on what level the anxiety is on any given day. Like if we'd have had this chat yesterday, I'd have been a bit prangy, a bit... Why? I don't know, just, well, yesterday all that business was blowing up in the press from that panel chat I was part of. What was that, Jeff, then?

So I was on Politics Live, and we spoke about a lot of stuff, and then we were going to talk about my book. And to make it sort of relevant, the hosts mentioned that the government were talking about a minister for men, and I said, well, look, I'm not massively wedded to the idea. It might be a good idea, might not. I said, but, you know, the issue of male suicide and all this sort of stuff means that maybe there is some things that deserve specific attention.

And then the two sort of female panelists sort of were looking to take it in another direction and I was quite insistent like no I think these are serious things and I don't think we should kind of try and distract from that and so that clip then got quite a lot of traction and then I woke up yesterday and the journalist involved Ava Ava Evans

who's a good mate you know what about loads and we get on well and even straight after we had the chat she said look maybe we could continue this discussion you know keep it constructive but then Lawrence Fox had said some very sexist stuff about her on GB News and it all became a sort of different discussion

but yeah all day long I was sort of just on edge because I was obviously nowhere near as bad as it was for her but it's weird anything like that when you're trending or part of a story that's trending it's an unnatural place to be in isn't it having that much focus so I think you just go into the state of high alert possibly I was trying to explain it because, you know, my wife's pointing out that mostly people were saying, you know, positive things about how I'd handled the discussion. And then I guess a really weird analogy.

I was like saying, like, imagine if you were, if everyone was saying there was a photo of you out there and everyone was saying, oh, doesn't she look beautiful today, but you just didn't feel beautiful that day, right, on that particular day. So on that day, you'd rather no one was discussing you for good or real. Whereas today, you know, today's a different, I don't know why, you know, you wake up a different day, you feel completely different. So I sort of thought, right, rather than engaging in a negative side of that story, I thought I should do something, you know, with men's charities and all of this sort of stuff. But then there's always still that thing as a stand-up comic and especially coming from where I'm coming from where you think, oh, you virtue signalling, wanker, you just do, you know, like you sort of have that narrative where you sort of heckle yourself. But I don't think that internal narrative is a reason to do nothing. So we've got to my car. Are we going to drive to Jeff's now?

I could just do a wild week. Oh my God. Is that mad? He says the gents head. It's not mad. It's not mad. I mean, I really don't want to interrupt the... No, I think we're at the car.

Let's do it. Okay, I'm so sorry. Don't worry, right. You're going to feel so much happier once you've done it. Right, shall I just hop in the car with you guys? Yeah, please do. Let Jeff go in the front. We're just getting in the car and we're going to take the producer back to Jeff's house for a wee rather severely.

and he's in the back. Here he is, here's Dad. How do you feel? I just called... It could be weird if my wife's in the house. I'd just suddenly arrive. Two million in my dog. I just met these women over the park, babe.

One of them said that she needed the toilet, and she'd be like, yeah, this is how it begins. Here we go. This is your local manor then? So is this where you come every day this park to walk the dogs? Not this one. I would with... Lily's a really good walker, but Annie is not so much, so it's more of a localised.

Annie is little and often, whereas Lily, she will smash out an hour job. I have a real lack of entitlement on the road. I don't have it anywhere else in my life, but when it comes to this, I always assume I'm in the wrong. Really? Yeah. Driving, I suppose, I'm driving something I'm quite confident with just because I do it so much. Like when I first year I did stand-up, I think I did 55,000 miles, and I suppose, and touch wood, the amount of miles I've driven without anything bad happening, I'm bit by bit

come to believe that I'm maybe one of the greatest drivers ever in a classically understated male way. I was just because I've never heard a man say that before, but not like in skills, but just in terms of like safety and please, I mean, God, if this is like, is this so terrible happens this podcast? I was just going to say. I mean, the hubris of saying this.

But I believe that about, like my son. Is it left here? It's right here, sorry, I should have said. And my son as well, he is, I think, one of the top sleepers there's ever been. He sleeps so well and he slept. Weird flags? Yeah, but I sort of, I even say to him, like, do you know something? Might be one of the greatest sleepers that's ever lived.

It's not quantifiable, but it's good for everybody to be the best at something, right? Jeff, I let him go, was that right? Well, I think, look, technically, I think that bridge we just went over is big enough for two cars, but the optics of it make people think that it's not. so I completely think it was the right thing to do. It's the two walls on either side. But sometimes when I'm going over that bridge, I just carry on driving.

It's interesting to see the people's eyes get big as they suddenly. Do you know what I have, and it's a proper phobia in that it's like a horse at the Grand National... You know when they refuse a fence or something? Is some railway crossings. Yeah. I can't actually drive over them. I get that, because you just think, what if, right?

Well, it's just the potential for things going wrong, seems so enormous. If you turn just right at the end and then sort of pull up on the right. Shall I stay with Annie? Yeah, why don't I? I'll stay with Annie and Jeff will take you into his house. Good girl, Annie.

Annie, stay there, darling. Annie, he's coming back in a second. Jeff, thank you so much. Yeah, I appreciate this so much. What an old-school gent you are. Well, this is the thing, you know, is I think there's a place for that, isn't there? I mean, my mum was like, she was so big with that stuff on me. Was she?

Yeah, massively. I mean, like, she, I mean, she was not to the extent of, like, standing up when a woman enters a room, that could be. That's been much, isn't it? No, but my mum was like, you know, she, I think she just wanted to, I think women are very good at this, is that of trying to make men be better for other women. So if you go and buy, if you go shopping to buy your wife a Christmas present and you just say to the shop assistant, that's what I'm doing, that woman, not just for her job, but she'll try and upsell you

because she's got in her mind, you turn left here. Like I can see that they're sort of thinking, oh, how nice it will be for that woman to get a nicer gift. I think generally speaking, there's a lot more appetite among women to do things that will make stuff better for other women in relationships. So we're back in the car now, And Jeff very kindly allowed us to drive back to his home so the producer could use the loo. But see what I'm starting, is I thought this is going to set out here excessively humble,

but I would just hope that that would be a default thing that anyone would do. I'm now worried about people in the entertainment industry not allowing people to use toilets. I think what it's to do with, and it does come back to what you were saying, saying, I'm not saying you wouldn't have done it for a guy. I don't know, I felt there was like a deference there and a respect for the fact that... Yeah, no, you're... Do you know what I mean? No, you're absolutely right.

Like it's an easier thing for a man to just maybe say, oh, I'll go in a bush or something. I would definitely have said that, yeah. And I think it's little things like that. I've noticed already about you, which is... I keep a note of this, that Raymond's slow, and I've got little legs, you... walk quicker than us and I noticed you immediately slowing down to accommodate our speed that doesn't off always happen see this is where I think women are a strategic advantage is just the level of detail that women absorb about human beings is greater right so the data but it can cause confusion if you turn left here

because sometimes too much data can be overwhelming and detail there's a lot of detail but um but Yeah, I mean, it's always one of the things I've been speaking about is that balance that blokes need to strike between when you're together just chatting shit, inconsequential nonsense that you find refreshing. But not also, not to the extent that you're just simply not up with the details of each other's lives, like the headline figures. Because if you, I think I mentioned in the book, but I sort of said, if you don't want to be in a position where a guy says his second wife has left him and you didn't know the first had two, you know, you've got to have some grips. So I just think there's a lot of the dialogues at the moment are just like, well, men have got a switch right here. They've got a switch to become like head massively empathic and things that just don't come as natural. It's so obvious that the solution is somewhere between those things, isn't it? It's just checking in a bit.

And, you know, a lot of places just, well, they don't know fuss. Do you think this is an selfish place to park it? I think you're fine there at the distance that they already need to be. Are you sure? Yeah. I would say so. Come on, Annie. Oh, look at you. Do you know, Jeff? Come on, though.

When you went inside, Annie was really whining for you. Was she? She was really pining and looking at it. And then I gave her a little stroke and she calmed down. But I said it was very touching that she was really... I mean, she does do that for most things. I would say, I'm not just batting back the love here. She's a big whiner.

Come on, I'm going to pick you up because you're being silly-billy. See, I use the word silly-billy around Raymond. And I think it's because I forgot to have children. I use the sort of language I would use that you might use with your son or something. I think dogs, there's a vend... You can't fully equate it. I think that the first bit of having a dog

and the first bit of bringing a kid home, There's definite overlaps. You know, like it's overwhelming. Like when we bought Annie back, say we were a couple that decided to have another kid a lot later, you've forgotten about the level of responsibility that goes with it. And I had proper, I felt like one of those blokes would go, well, darn, it's too much, can't go,

and we'll run away and live in Great Yarmouth. But I do like the increased family unit size. I do like that because we, you know, we've got the one kid as well. So having more animals feels nice. And that's your son, Sebastian? Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I generally go as Seb because I'm trying to keep some sort of working class credibility.

But you know what? I like the way that women say his name, because when women say his name, they make him sound like a romantic hero, you know, Sebastian. It's like sort of melodramatic in a good way. But whereas bloke say it, they sort of go, Sebastian. Well, you're only if you say it like that, lads. Well, it's bright head revisited is where I go instantly. Yeah.

That was my first crash, which tells you a little bit about my background. So when I was a kid, and I still might have a guy, this is the point where I am as stupid as some people think I am. So it wasn't a sequel, Bride's Head revisited. Because it sounded like it, didn't it? For years I thought that as a kid. Like it was made and then they sort of did a reboot, like Marvel, you know.

Was that what I did, like a multiverse reboot of Brideshead one? Bride said he's back and this time it's personal. You know what's so tragic now is I'm coming. currently averaging reading about a book a year and I blame brilliant podcasts like yours and just general audio stuff because it's so easier to listen to stuff. But you know what I like to do when I was teaching was I did to be the best thing I was good at was engaging teenage lads because they had to learn this stuff but they couldn't have given less of a shit. So when you go to a teenage lad, how does Romeo feel an act free scene four? It's like they haven't ever

really contemplated their own feelings. So you're trying to get them to. So I was quite a good at making it make sense to them on that level. I had a little bit of guilt that I could have made a difference. Well, you did. Well, actually, I want to go back, because we've got lots to talk about. I want to talk about your brilliant book, The British Bloke Decoded. And I just want to remind myself of the Jeff Origin story. So things started in Wimbledon with your mum and your dad and your sister.

You always say, you know, you use the word working class. That was your, I suppose, did you feel that was your brand? Were you aware of that when you were growing up? Well, it wasn't like that probably for the first bit of my life because, you know, both my mum and dad were working and we were living in a property we owned. And then the sort of almost sitcom style status drop was when my mum divorced my dad, but she let him keep the house

and then we moved into a council estate. That's your sitcom star, isn't it? Like, why the hell have you done that? When I started living there, I would have seemed anything but working class. You know, I was almost like a comic figure because of how I spoke and how we acted. Like my mum used to not let us swear and stuff. She had standards. Standards.

But then what happened was my dad got made redundant. And then that recession of the early 90s was pretty brutal. People sort of tend to forget, really. It wasn't as much state support as, as do is now. I'd always remember when I saw Sebastian and Bright said, oh dear. That really is indicative of the whole thing was I was trying to talk in an elevated way and then I just burped in the middle of a sentence. But then, so the formative bit of my life was then.

So I was like nine or ten then. She spoke to my sister, who's a bit older, who had more time in the sort of more middle class bit. She's very sophisticated and elegant and, you know, like people often, there were times where they thought like, you're definitely, you know, related. That was shit that happens to you when you're nine, I think. which might be the next book. Shit that happens to you when you're nine. Because everyone you meet

that's got like a big story or formative thing. It's roughly about the age of nine that it happened. Your parents got divorced, as you say. Yeah. Was that a sort of seismic shock for you even then? It was spoke about in hushed tones and I remember confiding in a girl at school,

a primary school, Nicola. I remember whispering it to her and I remember that the teachers were being different with us because there was a proliferation of divorces. Because I guess, you know, the more it happened, there were a lot of women that just thought, I could be a lot happier than this, right? And my mum and dad's relationship,

it was definitely the best thing at that time. I wasn't devastated by them divorcing, but you can't escape the difficulties around it. You know, and it was weird that we moved into a council state. It was, you know, but my mum, you know, I sort of respect her maverick energy now because she just wanted independent, so she didn't want to depend on her.

him, which is so weird, is it? Because on one hand, you could take a feminist argument, which is right, you've given him your energy and your love, take him for everything he's got. And then there's this other one of like, if he doesn't support, no, it's not that he didn't support us, that's not true. But she just wanted as much independence. And I think on another level, she just trusted him more

with the house. My mum was terrible with money. Right. Yeah. And your dad was, he worked for, um, was it like an engineering company, he was a draftsman or something. Yeah, he's a draftsman for BT.

So again, it's one of those jobs, and this is where I find myself, which is between the worlds, you know. It's just got one eye up into the boardroom and the kind of the elevated nature of business, but also you're dealing with the shop floor and all of that stuff. And I do think that the Norcots have always been in that middle ground. Like my dad, he went to like the poshist church in Wimbledon, St Mary's Church, but he also drank like in the most rank-and-file.

boozer and I guess I've sort of ended up in the same place as him Jeff I've run out of poo bags I don't have any poo bags either do you know what we could get arrested I've got some receipts I mean this is clever isn't it oh wait a minute wait a minute this is being a dog owner is that you might just have one just found a poo bag yeah I do you know though I did that on stage once I've reached into my back pocket and just went oh I've got a poo bag problem with comedy is people always think that you've set something up and not just you're an idiot reacting in the moment. So what they go is good, what's the joke? And then when they realize it's not a joke,

they just lose respect for you as a human being. They go, oh, you're a mess of a man who has poo bags in. And I was driving once. I just, I've always been paranoid that I had like terrible breath. And then I was, I could just smell, as I was sort of like breathing, I could smell of shit. I was like, oh my God, does my breath smell of shit? Not just like bad breath, but smell of actual shit. And what happened was I'd put a dog poo bag down in a pocket earlier. And then I was just thinking, and this was not that long ago. So I was thinking, how many years have I been the subject of derision?

And then I went all the way to thinking how lovely it was that people had tolerated it. It was a real roller coaster. So tell me, yeah, about your dad, Jeff. It's interesting what you were saying because I know I loved your memoir. I want to get the title right. Where did I go right? And it was really interesting in that. You talked about, your dad had issues with alcohol.

I found that really, I mean, it obviously wasn't great for you, but it told me a lot about why you are, how you are, I think. It is a kind of chaos it brings, whether you like it or not. And I think it's inevitable that you'd want to create structure and order. and sort of control things in your own life. Well, it was like that for a while, but it wasn't like that all the time. And he got very sober and he got very sort of like engaged and stuff like that.

So it's weird, isn't it, with difficulties. You don't want to rank yourself too highly because he was always like, you know, loving dad, a hard working dad. But it was a strange culture, you know, like in the 80s of kind of, you know, drinking on that level. It's weird because I've never had a problem with like drinking, you know, every night or getting drunk. Like if I get, I've never probably got drunk two days in a row in my whole life. But when I do get drunk, absolute asshole. Not like a bad person, but just goes so stupid with it. Because in a way, I suppose in my mind, it's like,

I can do this today. This is the day that I can do this. And my God. But do you think that was the factor, as you say, at that point, your dad was drinking. more than was practical in terms of raising a family and do you think that is what led to your parents divorcing in some ways? Well yeah, and then he got sober, like straight afterwards. Straight afterwards. So it's all complicated to work out what...

I think generally with blokes is that the process of becoming a husband and father. I'm not saying it's easy for women to be mothers and wives, but it's really complicated for a lot of blokes. the responsibility element of it is something a lot of blokes don't talk about, like how they adapt to that, how they take it on, what it does to their blood pressure, all of that. I think maybe he had a bit of that as well, because it's a sign of taking it seriously in a way

is if you're not a bit terrified by being a provider, then you're probably not paying attention because it's a lot of responsibility. But that, I mean, those things like in terms of being a bloke provide and protect, I think are really important things. I think that I'm not saying, again, that there's unusual or specific to men. But if you had like a pillar of masculinity or a couple of pillars, you go, those would be on the motto in Latin. You moved to the estate and you were suddenly sort of had a slight sense of otherness, I guess, didn't you? Yeah.

Yeah, I had a decent vocabulary at that point. Hello? Hello, schnauzer. Hello, schnauzer. What's the schnauzer call? What's called? Frank? Frank, the schnauzer.

Ever so cute? Thank you. Oh, Frank. Bye, Frank. Bye, Frank. Oh, I like the look of Frank, Jeff. Something intriguing about Frank. Frank's my middle name, you see.

Is it? Yeah. It's a weird. Frank Norcott would have been quite a cool name, wouldn't I? I would sound like an East Den villain if my name is Frank Norquhar. But Jeffrey knows, it's just weird. Jeff Nort, it's just a weird name. It's so weird that my dad was also called that and they just thought,

oh, let's go again with that name. Let's give another run out. Let's have a sequel. Although, interestingly, I once read something about patronymes, which is what I think they are, aren't they? Didn't know that way? And it's an old tradition, isn't that? Which is kind of dying out now. The idea now is that you put your personal brand onto a kid more.

Whereas back then, you get what we had. But what's interesting is that I'm sure there was a survey once. And it said that kids who'd been named after their friends. father, because it's usually boys, had fewer behavioural problems, because there was always that sense of a parent breathing down your neck. Yeah. And carrying, being, representing the brand. You know what, that's really interesting.

I never, until literally this moment, genuinely never thought about what the psychological impact. I only just thought it was just this funny, stupid thing that I had his name. I never thought about the fact that this was a great thing about being a bloke, 46 years old. And this is the first day of my life that I'm reflecting on what the impact. impact of that was given that it's quite rare in my generation. Do you think there may be some truth in that though? You were quite conscientious and keen to do the right thing by your parents and your family and name. Yeah, definitely.

And I was definitely like that at school. I got in trouble sometimes, but it was mainly through exuberance. It was, you know, I've always been quite respectful of authority and discipline. And, you know, even if you look at my like character, I'm not anti-establishment in the sort of. conventional sense of the world. It's not very cool thing to be, but pro-establishment. It's like, all right, it's not totally discount the establishment. But because I suppose some people say that I've done all right by it, which is a fair point, but also, I don't know, just I don't want to be instantly dismissive of everything. It's like the monarchy, you know.

It's all too easy to get rid of it. Sorry, I don't know why it's got into this area, but maybe there is something psychological here. He spoke about my dad, I mentioned the monarchy, but I sort of think, I was, well, what goes in its place? I've never been good. convinced that there was a better option. I also think that it underlies a small C conservative mindset, which isn't politically binary to left or right, but it's just a pragmatic, not seeing the world as you wish it to be, but as it is, that I think, and I think

that actually really squares with the stand-up personality type, right? That is exactly what stand-up is. So, yeah, I think that, you know, obviously some of what I'm known for is about voting a certain way, but I might not vote for those guys forever, I think that part of my personality is, you know what your political identity is. It's probably formed actually by bigger things than just a party. What would you do, Annie, if that squirrel come down and said, come on then, you would run a fucking mile.

So you're giving it all that. Once again, please, just a muscular squirrel to just come and give her a real. They're very muscular squirrels, aren't they? They can be quite hench. Do you see that photo of one of the massive balls? I mean, you can write all the comedy you want, but it is, it is. It's quite sobering that a funny picture of a video of an animal. You go, I will never be as funny as a squirrel of massive balls.

You were pretty smart and studious, weren't you? I get the sense that your mum really had aspirations for you in a brilliant way. Yeah. And she pushed for you to get into what had been a grammar school and then, and had those traditional grammar school values, I suppose. Yeah, Rutlish, again, if you talk about this hinterland between class systems, Rutlish school was the epitome of that in that it was a comprehensive in south London had a you know mainly working class kind of a student base but it also had a

recent grammar school pass so they used to have like a speech night and they used to get out the gowns and the boards it's fucking weird it was a bit Hogwartsy they had like a manor house as well so the main administrative nerve centre of the school was all like dark oak and carpets and all this sort of stuff I don't know what's happened to the school now but I quite like that it had an old boys club as well the old rutlishans but it was a really weird culture there because you used to go drinking with the teachers quite regularly you know I mean I was having beers with my teachers at the age of 15 I think boundaries are blurred

sometimes where did the funny start there and how did it start was it to do with that thing that we were talking about because all comics often have some sense of being otherised. You know, why would you bother to try and be funny otherwise? You'd just be the jock, the, do you know what I mean, that everyone love? Why would you bother to sort of like work that muscle? A formative memory that I have is being eight years old and we went to Afafield holiday camp in the Isle of Wight. So the marriage, it was tough, you know, at home, but we had a really good holiday. And I stood up on stage in a best cowboy competition, which is just weird anyway. But all the boys went on so they had holsters and Stetsons and they said stuff like,

my name is Brad and I come from Texas. Because in the 80s, we were very obsessed with American culture. It's kind of embarrassing to remember. We, you know, that we loved NFL. But that was the kind of cultural environment. And so I'd heard all these boys saying that they were from Texas, but I misheard it and I went out. And my holster didn't really fit.

And I said, my name's Jeff and I come from Essex, which now I realize is a very staple way of getting a laugh of a weird name and a weird place, right? And I remember everyone laughing and it just felt, it felt great, you know. So I suppose if you're on the therapist couch, you go, well, there you go. There was a moment where laughter sort of made everything okay temporarily, you know. If you have a good gig, it's like putting out a fire. You feel really great.

But then the next day the fire is raging again. You know, for fuck's sake. Like at some point I'd just like to comprehensively put out this fire. So, yeah, your parents both had disabilities as well. And I love the way you talk in your memoir about how your dad sort of dealt with that. He lost an arm in a motorbike action. Yeah, that was a long time before I was born.

So that was all quite normal to me. Yeah. Yeah. There wasn't a sense of sort of gravitas around it. No, he didn't want to be seen as disabled as well. Because he, now that could be seen as problematic these days, but he was, I guess, if you'd have asked him, he'd have probably seen disability as not being out of,

stand up, you know, a more old-fashioned version of disability, but also that, that self-perception of taking responsibility and not being diminished in any way was a positive thing for him. Yeah. And again, on that holiday, where I was wearing a cowboy outfit, was he actually won a, like, he entered into a swimming competition. He was in the bar. He'd had a few beers, and then there was this dad's swimming competition. And he just exited, and I remember, my sister remembers it better than me, but fully

closed, went in there with one arm. I think, I don't know if he definitely won, but he didn't do bad either, you know. It was kind of like, a screw you, wasn't it? It's like, I've got one arm and I'm drunk and I'm fully clothed, and I'll still give you a lot of run for your money, you know. I love him, Jeff. Well, it's funny because, like, you know, in life, you know, both of them have passed now, but in life, I never thought, my mum was the funny one as a person, you know.

She had a strangely, Annie, Annie, no, no, no. She had a strangely sort of, no, Annie. Yeah, so she was funny as a person. She would make people laugh. She had a great sense of humour in the moment. But once he passed, my dad, all the best stories were about my dad. And I didn't expect that because everyone was like, well, Jan's funny. Jan's a funny woman.

And my dad would seem quite serious because he was into his union work. He always wanted to debate people. But his stubbornness and his single-mindedness really are, you know, he sort of left me with this rich treasure trove of anecdotes, which I didn't realize. Some of the things your dad did, like the obsession with transport and fascinated by it anyway with men. but he would go to France just for the train and then he'd do nothing there he took the Eurostar to Lille

and he basically got off it and he just went to the other platform waiting for the other one back so the only food he ever ate in France was a croissant from a vending machine I'm not that guy but the croissant from a vending machine again I think it's one of these sort of symbols of where my family tends

Why did he go there then Jets? He just wanted to go on the Eurostar he wanted to go on the train so when there was the bullet train into Stratford for the Olympic same thing. He got to the Olympic part. He could have got off and walked around the Olympic Park while the Olympics was on. He's like, no, that is pretty slick. That was his phrase for these sort of things. That was pretty slick. And he also once said to you, oh, I drove around the M25. Yeah, so he was in the morning and he was a bit dishevelled and up late, but for him late was like 7am. I asked him what he got up to and he said, I drove around the M25. And

initially, I just thought he meant euphemistically. But then there was something in the pause. I said, Hang on. And he said, yeah, all the way, every junction, always wanted to do it. Like, it was a real kind of bucket list thing. And I've always wanted to do a sitcom episode of something where there's a dad who drives all the way around the M25. Because a lot of blokes I say it to, and they're like, yeah. I said, but you've got to think it through, lads.

It would just be like being on a normal motorway. You wouldn't feel like you were driving on this big, like, kind of loop-de-loop. It would just be like being on a road where you end up back in the same place. But I think that's interesting. and again, possibly this is a trope, and we're making generalisations here, but certainly in my experience, a certain type of man,

it is to do with imposing order, I think. It's the sense of I can control this. Yeah. Because the world is a chaotic place, and I think women are sometimes a bit more comfortable with chaos. Well, I suppose the multitasking mindset would lend itself to that. You can accept that there are a number of crazy things happening. Yeah, if you think of what,

blokes look like at airports, right? I always think it's really funny to observe blokes at airports. If there's like one of those trolleys and the wife's pushing it and there's two or three kids hanging off either side and the guy just looks like he's had to access a really like sort of peaceful place in his mind just to deal with the chaos of it all. And you often see bloats getting told off in airports, which I love, right, like where the wife's giving him proper hair dryer treatment. And you think it can seem a bit cruel, but then you also think, I bet you any money that morning he's basically tried to get out of doing as much as possible so by the point you see them having the row it's not about what happened in the last five minutes is it the fact that he

thought that maybe checking the live departures board on his phone was a job and made that like a 30 minute thing it's the one thing that I think I will never be like you is when I see those dads with those sort of holster wallet things they wear around the shoulder with passports and foreign currency and things in it and I'm like Like, who would buy that? Anyone that was wear that and destroy a look with that horrible holster thing, have you got one of those? I haven't. So my wife was the, I used to do a routine about it, that my wife would have all the passports.

Okay. But since it's become electronic, weirdly, the fact that I can screenshot every reference number, detail, hotel. I want to put in, in advance, on the Maps app, I want to put in all the postcodes of where we need to be. But what I've realised I've become is, you know National Lampoons, Chevy Chase, right? Clark Griswold, such a brilliant comic archetype, is that there is something in that character that's really funny, whether it's him or Phil Dumfey and modern family, is the dad that just wants to make everything nice and stuff, but the attempt to impose order. My dad used to say to me and my sister, like, as a joke, you will have fun.

You know, he used to say that to us. And I think that there is a certain kind of dad, which I'm sort of becoming. where, like, you know, blokes will be out and about on holiday and sometimes the wife would just say, look, we need to put some food inside this child, but the dad would be like, but that restaurant's like a 4.2. It's only a 4.2. There's a 3.9.

If we just walk for another mile, there's a 3.9, and they'll get really obsessed about the 0.3 difference between these restaurants on TripAdvisor. I think that's where the modern bloke resides in that kind of anal behaviour, I think. Okay, something's happened. There's an abandoned pair of track suit bottoms, which is alarmingly.

in itself. Yeah, on a log. Ray has just gone to the bathroom on them. Yeah. I'm going to guess that they were pre-soiled as well. Just playing the odds. In fairness, I've just checked the label. It's ripped out, but I can tell the font is Zara.

Wow. You know what you were saying earlier about women? Yeah, that's incredible. And it's also, I don't know what kind of detective show this would be, but she's really good at checking what label clothes were. Jeff Norcott was a teacher, which I'm obsessed with that bit of information. You can walk down. Yeah.

After you'd left school, you did it. You worked in sort of ad sales for ITV. Yeah, so after university, I was, yeah, I worked in broadcast admin, as it was called then. So check in compliance, I guess. And then I worked in like ad sales, but it's not like cold call here. It was for ITV. It was a reasonable level. he had the veneer of being an important job

and then you ended up teaching you got a 2-1 as I say from Goldsmiths I feel it's interesting that you you got your act together and your dad helped you didn't he like imposed help in post-stop trying yeah yeah moved in for yeah get up early that's one thing I fundamentally agree with him and believe yeah just get up early for God's sake you know

I mean it's my probably most British-sounding thing I'd ever say But for God's sake, get up early. Get out of your pyjamas. Get a shower, get a dress, just get on with it. Like, it makes me feel very tacky when I see people in their pyjamas after 9am. Really? And dressing gowns on women after, it's a real... What's it called, an ick?

Well, this is based on an incident. Your poor mum. Yeah. You came home, and how old were you? You must have been... You're quite a young kid. Maybe 11, maybe. And you were disgusted because she...

She had a dressing gown. Yeah, she was sitting with a bunch of other women that were all in their dressing gowns. And I just, again, you talk about your political identity. That's the most Middle England thing in the world to do is come and think, for God's sake, you know, just... And of course, she's an adult, she was a great mother and stuff. I had no right to judge her like that, but I just was... I just couldn't believe that she'd been pissing about all day in a dressing gown. I forget, maybe moving to the council estate.

My mum actually, it was her instilled it, right? Don't drop your standards and stuff. and it sounds like a problematic thing to say but there were a lot of people on that state out of that work at that time there were social problems so it was like right let's keep a stance up let's not swear let's get dressed

and so I'd been to school and a lot of kids on that estate weren't going to school so we used to get the piss taken out of us me and my sister so it's probably seeing my mum in the dressing gown and it was just one day but it's probably a symptom of like bloody it's hard enough

you know going to school and ever since then it's a running joke between me and my mother-in-law is that she loves a dressing gown once you gets inside the house. And, you know, I've seen evidence addressing gowns at school pickups and stuff. I just keep my thoughts to myself. I think that's just interesting in terms of where you are now.

And how I suppose that it's order again, I see that as a need for order. It's an interesting thing. When you've got kids that didn't have as much order at a time in their lives when they were young, it's interesting they can become very serious like older people, you know, because they're trying to, you can, there's a lot of it. You know, with my parents, I want to recreate all the great stuff. But being a parent yourself is that chance to sort of recast your own childers in a weird way. You go, I can sort it out.

I can sort it out. But you don't really. You just sort of create different problems. And how do you deal with the fact that you're obviously in a better position financially? You're more secure financially than your parents were, presumably. And I always think that's interesting how that works with your kids, because you're aware. I can imagine you have that sense, understandably, I don't want my kids to experience any deprivation.

I want to shield them from having to fight and strive. Yeah, it's almost pathological, I would say. It's tricky, Jeff, isn't it? Because that's what's got you the things that you want. That's what's got you doing a job that you love. Shielding them from all pain is also not teaching them to meet life. Yeah, I think that with my son, I think he had, you know, some circumstance, so he's material situation, he won't experience that, but there are other

things going on which are emotionally not, they're hot, you know, there's issues with illness in the family, there's been certain deaths in the family. So he's, he's sort of had his share of that in that respect. Yeah. But I, I think when you live in a council state, there's definitely a feeling. I think Colin Murray said this once. He said it's like you never stop running from poverty. It's like this breakneck sort of sprint and never. ends and and there's an old agent of mine and Jeff Whiting who's a bit of a legend you know Jeff. He said you know it's comedy's like pushing a car up a hill so you can get a really long way up the hill but the moment you take your hand off that car you could go all the way back down to

the bottom so that sort of suits my way of thinking but I think it's probably a bit destructive it's quite exhausting you know you basically give yourself no time off and the way that my game works now with social media podcast numbers it's about numbers with me it's all about numbers Right, how did that tweet do? How did that video clip do? How did this week's podcast do? You know, what's the bank account doing? It's really weird how much of it just comes down to numbers.

Is it up or down? It's like a footsie in my mind. Well, you've always viewed comedy in quite a pragmatic way because when you started doing stand-up, you're a teacher, which I imagine taught you some useful skills about crowd control and imposing sort of status and authority on a room. You started doing stand-up, essentially as a kind of side hustle to help meet your bills. Yeah, that's what's weird.

It's not a very romantic view of doing an art form. Like, I always loved it, but actually the reason I did more of it was because me and my wife, it was the mid-noughties. And we were both working and we were just getting more skin. The council tax was going up a lot of that time. There was a lot of stealth taxes and it was just, you couldn't put it down to any one thing. It wasn't like the cost of living crisis now, but everything seemed to be getting. getting more expensive. And I didn't want to get in debt. A lot of people were getting in debt at that time, as you remember, partly why the credit crunch hit so hard. So I just thought,

shit, I just need to work more. So that's what I did. So then I became full-time comic, but then was supply teaching as well. So I was sort of supply teaching three times a week, maybe gigging four or five times a week. And to be honest, you know, again, this is revelations that I'm happening. That's kind of what I do now because I write on TV shows, I do radio stuff, I write articles, you know, I've sort of found a way of carrying on that work pattern right now because you just think, well, there is that bottom falling out. You know, I don't know, maybe people who've come from money also have this, but it's just that feeling that the ground could give way.

But you seem quite stable for a comedian. Yeah, it's funny, like there are people in comedy. I would say that, you know, Catherine has incredible stability. Ramesh is another person as well where you go, you don't feel like a comic, feel like a normal person that does comedy. You know, they have this exceptional mind and way of seeing the world,

but yeah, the sort old-fashioned view of how a comic was would be too exhausting, really. But I do get jealous when I think about the old-school guys where they would just even how I used to work. You gig Thursday at Saturday, sit around scratching your balls for five days and...

What I mean by stable, I'm not knocking any of your contemporaries and friends and similarly my friends. I guess what I mean by stability is I'm talking about that extreme idea, like Richard Pryor, that idea of the comic genius and the tax you pay. Yeah, and I think that, like, I think as a live comic,

I back myself a lot. I don't think I would ever be in the absolute top tier, but so maybe... What do you mean? Well, I think that when you look at people, like, for one, what you're talking about, necessitates either a level of perhaps trauma or ego perhaps to even... Do you think so to be...

So you think to be at the level of... I don't know. John Volusci or... John Volusci, people like that, in the last... Even that level of attention, I don't know. I don't think I'll cope very well with it. I mean, this week alone I've been a sort of sidebar to a story that's been a lead story in the news and it's done my head in. So...

Really? Yeah, a bit, yeah. So I don't... You know, I play sort of four or five hundred seats now. If I could play 700 seaters, that would be great. If I could do that for the rest of my life, there's no... How would you feel if they said tomorrow you're doing the O2? Um, terrified.

Yeah. I mean, that's what you sort of realise as well is that, you know, the people that do really well in comedy, they are built for it, that they have a different engine. Like someone like, like Romish, when I, you know, I've seen how busy he gets and how well he deals with that, of having lots of different things going on. I can get overwhelmed much quicker than that. quicker than that and I fret, you know, fret a lot.

I've this recurring dream about being doing A levels again. So I've got three A's at A level, right? It was a shining moment at that time and then the dream is that I'm back at Sixtham College, I've taken the same subjects, right, for some reason, and it's going shit. And I'm trying to tell people it's going bad and I won't be able to get free A's. It's so literal as well, this is what I hate about my dreams. There's no like subtlety in them. It's just so obvious what's going on is like, I find it hard to sort of recreate past successes,

and I'm trying to find out whether or not if I fail my A-Levels, whether it will supersede the A-level results I got before. I'm good at being, you know, very busy, being exceptionally busy. I don't know how well I'd cope with that. I want to talk just a little bit more, because I know we should let you go soon, but I should say again, your book, which I've just read, and it's fantastic, and it's called The British Bloke Decoded.

Everything from Bantor to Man Flu, finally explained. And it's basically It's kind of a celebration Of a very particular type of man And would you say you You are the archetypal bloke I can be I mean even if you just go

Basic metrics You know height weight Interests You know like I suppose the thing is I am the basic bloke But I'm also because I'm a comic There's another version of me

Looking down at me and finding it funny how basic I am. Like I like curry. I like Lager. I like Marvel films. I like football. You know, I like solitude.

I like travel lodges. You know, I like all this stuff. It is, I suppose, yeah, it's like a sympathetic stock take for those guys

who are maybe a bit useless at times but just sort of trying their best. Because, you know, the last few years there was a point where male did become a pejorative for something negative and I understand the cultural sort of

framework that that happened in. And you don't want to be one of those guys going, not all men, but he goes, instead of saying not all men, he goes, what about blokes? Because I think the problem with dialogue that happens in sort of mainstream media, it does, you know, most, you know, people won't have that experience of most of the men around them. You know, they all have brothers, uncles, people they depend on love and stuff.

So it's, yeah, it's a fond kind of stock take of those guys, I guess. And trying to unpack it a bit, because I think men are quite baffling to women as well. like blokey behaviour. I don't think women are angry about it. I just think they're confused. You know, when it comes to blokes and loneliness and knowing stuff about our friend's lives,

it might not be, it might not become to you naturally. Like, you might be sitting having a right laugh of your mates and go, fuck's sake, like we've got to talk about our lives now. You know, it's not that your lives are bad. It's just that you just think

it's so much fun right now and we have to like drag it down with like the stress and responsibility. I was thinking, what's a realistic thing that bloats could take, Because a lot of blokes come home from times of their friends, and they've got no new information about their friends,

and I think that this is quite perplexing to their partners, right? They're like, I don't understand. You're away for three days, and you don't know about how your friends work or family lives are going. Two things, right? I reckon this is, you know, like five a day with the fruit and veg? That made sense to people. People might do two a day, but at least they're not doing zero a day.

Two pieces of information, that's what bloke should do, is if they go away and spend time together, two like solid nuggety bits of information to come home to their partners and say did you know Dave got a promotion or or Greg's youngest as they've had to move classes because of an issue with some kid that was bullying them that's a lot of detail even that I recognise for a lot of blokes listening they go whoa whoa whoa it's not for your partner it's just that I don't know I suppose the problem is you get older as a bloat you think like no one else really knows what's going on with you and one of the things I mentioned in the book

was about Mr Banks and Mary Poppins, right? The whole idea is that that film is about, he's got it all wrong at the beginning and he just needs to be nice and sing songs with his family. And he go, also he did have it right, like he was taking his responsibility seriously and everyone's just like dicking around

and dancing with penguins, like cartoon penguins and stuff. It's not wrong where he was at. He definitely could be more compassionate and more empathetic, but his family could also go, God, you do a really hard job at the Bank of England.

Cheers for that. a fucking really nice gaff. You know, we got staff. Like, actually, let's just give Mr. Banks... Is that a boar? A boar? It looks like a pig or something. Look at that dog.

I think it's just a fat dog. Yeah, so Mr. Banks... Yeah, and then I kind of thought, there's a moment in that film where Jane and Michael are just bitching about Banks yet again. And... And then Burt,

which I think was real like brocode. But Bert goes... But you've got people looking out for you, or you've got the policeman, you've got your mum, you've got your fingers. But what about your poor old daddy? Just carries on doing his work, silent and alone. And this is what I thought. The problem with men is that feeling of, like,

is anyone even clocking what's going on with me? You know, because you're supposed to just get on with it. Stop bitching about banks. You also defend Dirty Dancing. Yeah. You mount a great defence for the dad. Dr Jake Housman. The hero of dirty dancing, you mean?

who actually saves a life in that film, and quite rightly has got a very cautious eye over his daughter dicking around with some geese called Johnny Castle. I would say that what's going on in that nightclub, if it's not fuelled by some sort of amphetamine, it doesn't even make sense. And love Patrick's way, is he? God rest his soul. Yeah. But how old was he?

I mean, come on. Earlier in the film, right, it's very quickly forgotten. He was turning tricks with that bored housewife, right? And he, and then quite quickly, it's like, oh, well, they're in love. You go, no father worth his sort would not at least be quite concerned at how it's developing. And then when he comes up to him at the end, he's like, nobody puts baby in a corner. I'd be like, sorry, mate, who the fuck are you coming up to me in front of my wife? All right?

You're part of the Ents crew, mate. He just completely emasculated him in front of his misses. Also, Jeff, I'm sorry. Nobody puts baby in the corner. might be quite good for baby to have the odd moment in the corner because a little bit of a nightmare at the moment. Baby is running around all over this holiday camp, getting involved in dramas, she doesn't need to be part of.

Baby also, no previous dance experience, as far as I'm aware, suddenly setting herself up as part of the Entz crew, as you say. Yeah, when the day... Maybe sit in the corner and watch. Get your 10,000 hours, love. Do you know what I mean? How old is she? In that film, by the way.

16? Yeah. She's going to join the Peace Corps as well. Oh, come on. I'd just say, as a dad, all respect to the male dancing community, it's not a career of massive longevity, is it? So the idea of how he's going to provide when his hips give out. Oh, cool.

I just thought it's so seductive, isn't it, Hollywood, where you go, right, Banks, he's the kind of grey cloud in this film, and Dr Jake Housman is just ruining babies fun. When actually you need blokes like that. Well, I wish you every success with it, and I think it's so great your book. Thank you. I want to ask how you're doing because it's not a question that, you know, I'd always ask a woman that. You know what I mean?

But how is your head and how are you? It's okay. I went through a period in August where it came around to the anniversary of my dad Donner, which was eight years ago. And I had a real wobble, like really just it manifested in a weird way. I was like, everyone's abandoned me. No one could, you know, like sort of, it was a really weird connection. And then just this, I don't know, that weird debate I had in place. politics live about men under the age of 50, suicide being the leasing cause of death.

It was, there was a sort of sentient reaction to it, but there was also this emotional thing was like, does anyone care? And it took me back to my mate, Mick, who, you know, who died before he got to 40. And it's not connected to what. He did not kill himself or anything. It was just, when I sat down, you know, and you just journal or whatever. And that's one thing that's not very blokey that I've become good at is just start talking about, right, right, what am I really upset about? Because I can tell I'm upset, is it this? And you almost have keep moving things out of the way. It's not that, it's not that.

And you go, oh, why was I so rattled? And it goes, because I just felt like, I just wanted to make sure that people cared. Do you know what's interesting as well, is that you experienced really traumatic multiple loss because you and I, weird, I think that's why we get on, oddly, is same time, same sort of year,

but you experienced the loss of, you'd lost your mum anyway quite early. And then you lost your dad, you lost your best mate and you had... Yeah, stillborn... Yeah, still birthed for 34 weeks. And then also my stepdad died like six, eight months after my dad. So yeah, that was...

I mean, I think what's happening now is... Is I haven't realised like... If you have loads of grief that happens close together, they all have to take their time in the spotlight, but what it means is the total time grieving will be a lot longer because all of a sudden, the one that you didn't give as much attention to because you were dealing with the other one, just pops its head up like a fucking sad whack-a-mom when you go,

oh, right, is that now is it? That's exactly the metaphor that I always think of is that because it was so close together, I expected to lose my parents, but I didn't expect to lose my sister, my mum and then my dad in, like, less than three years. And then it was like, oh my God, they've all got. And then you don't get a chance to mourn those people separately. So I think what happens is that it does become this like tsunami, this. but you can't let it all out so you park it,

but it does mean that it will hit you. It will keep hitting you. And you've, you said something in your book, which I really related to, Jeff. And you said, it's almost like you're quite drawn to people that have experienced that.

It's not that you don't appreciate the support and love of people who haven't experienced that, but it's almost like a fluency that. Yeah, yeah. And you also know they've been stress tested as people. You know, they've got the kite mark for durability. I think one thing that's happened to me recently, and you'll have the same thing with your sister,

is you'll go, right, I'm a different woman now. I'm a woman at this age, and this is how I feel now, because I can now look back to that period where I had all those losses, and that was now seven, eight years ago. So I was a genuinely much younger man then. And so I look back on that guy and think, it's a weird process of, and I hate to use the word, but pity in that bloke, you know, going,

Fucking, that was shit. You know. Yeah, just thinking like I wasn't equipped then to actually reach out for what I needed. You can't just ignore the fact that it's different for blokes, you know, in terms of crying and stuff. I mean, I've got a thing in the stand-up tour at the moment where I say that men should cry but alone and soundproof room,

which is obviously the kind of like flippant thing that you're saying stand-up to get a reaction. But I do think it's a bit like, if you're not matched fit or something, right, you don't cry as often, as a bloke when you do it, the moment you're observed doing it, you'll become self-conscious. Yeah.

It's like if you film a line in the world, you're not filming a line in the world because there's a camera there. So I think blokes look ugly when they cry, basically. It's awful. It's almost like you having this ugly metamorphosis. So it's actually just better to do it alone, which sounds really sad. But it's just like it's better to do it at all, is my point. Because the problem with blokes is they'll be with, you know, their partner or with mates, and they'll feel that feeling coming, they'll shut it down.

But if you know that feeling's there, then just get to safety. I realise this sounds like toxic masculinity. get to safety as quickly as possible and get it out. You're turning it into SS are you tough or not? Well, sometimes this kind of language is like, you get to a physician, take the high ground. You know, like when you were younger,

if you were really drinking, some guys would have what they call a tactical chunda, which they'd make themselves sick to get in drinking, which is absolutely disgusting. I never actually did that. But I sometimes, if I'm heading into a busy period, I'll think, right, have I got anything that needs to get out?

Let's have a little purge, Not in a, you know, sort of that kind of way, but let's kind of clear the decks a little bit. And a lot of the way when you talk about mental health, if you just get the right language, it speaks to blokes more, you know, like you think of counselling as sort of like a service, you know, a full, 12,000 miles service and stuff.

Because the first counsellor ever went to, she said to me, it's okay to be weak. I was like, oh, weak, level, why we're saying weak? Why was saying the W word? And I was immediately scanning for exits. And, you know, she was saying things, oh, that must have been very hard and two in a head. I was like, I don't want to hear that. I just, I don't know what I want, but I don't want that.

You know, so I do think that there is a different language needed with blokes and, and that's great that you had counsel. Was that after you lost your daughter, Jeff? No, that was after my mum. I've had it, you know, a lot. I mean, I will say this, and this is, I've had so much counselling now where there is a point where you just, you hear yourself saying, and you think, oh, shut up, fuck up. How many times you said this? You get to the point you think it's a point you think of the counselling. is just going to be like mouthing the words along,

like a sort of like a well-known song. You just go, I really, am I at the point where I just need to just crack on with this now? And this is the problem, isn't it? I say a progressive thing on one hand, but then I can't not say what I really think, which is there is a point with trauma where you might need to check in from time of time, but ultimately...

You don't want to be the ancient mariner. Telling your tale, with a constant need to tell your tale. Is that what that's about? Yeah. You just get a bit... See, if I'd known that I would have read it years ago, that's funny. It's good. He's got a constant need to tell his tale.

Oh my God. He's just everyone he meets, oh, mate, you'll never guess what happened to me. So nightmare. See, this would be a really funny nickname for a bloke on a staggedy. Oh, it's the ancient mariners there. Tell the same fucking stories from the 90s. I think you're such a lovely man. I think you're such a lovely lady.

And I'm really glad to have met your dog. He doesn't look evil in the flesh. What do you think of him, Jeff? I really think he's really cool. Like, he's just, you know, he's been a lot of these walks. And he's just, he's really cool part of the squad. What do people get wrong about you? Well, there's the obvious mad stuff where they just think I'm a fascist.

You know, they heard how I voted like eight years ago and they think that I hate people. That's probably... Because you're a Tory. Yeah, yeah, voting patterns and stuff like that. Whereas I suppose what... A lot of the stuff I've talked about is just to try and do something that's slightly provocative to create a better dialogue, I suppose, you know, to create a consensus. And not many people think that.

now but it is kind of strange every once in a while to for somebody to perceive you as a hateful person when genuinely I I don't hate anyone I think I'm probably too narcissistic to hate anybody do you think you're narcissistic well I think I think about myself enough that I probably qualify on some level I mean I'm stand-up after but you don't I can't really imagine you being like losing your temper what happens very very very very rarely how does it manifest itself. So if I'm your... Intensity. Does it? Yeah, yeah. You know, just like I'm so

certain I'm right about something that it all get very intense. And, you know, and being a father as well, like, you realize that it's important that your child knows that that's a kind of line, you know. And it's really weird because I only like, you know, my son, there's only been a couple of times, but he's still

like, he's manufactured a wait till your father gets home situation where my wife's definitely more terrifying than me, like hands down, but He's like, don't tell daddy that I did that. I'm like, dude, it was like, I shouted at you twice in your whole life. But, you know, because I always remember my mum said to me, like, there were certain things that kids do that you really, you know, whether it's biting or stuff, you know, the really important thing that kids should never do, that the first time they do it, they have to remember that that is an absolute red line. So it's almost like you have to put on a character, a bit like a teacher as well.

I quite enjoyed that when I was teaching, you know. I'm livid. If you say you're livid, I don't know if I've ever been living. livid. It's fun to pretend. Are you quite a strict dad, Jeff? Well, yeah, like, he has to speak to me and my wife respectfully and stuff, and

there is that thing in boys. Like, where they just, they think because they're boys that they've got, like the other day I was, we were talking about fencing, right? Like about the sport of fencing, he seemed quite into it. And then within 10 minutes, he's telling me all about fencing. Like, he's the fucking world expert of fencing. it. So yeah, I sort of as well, you know, it's 20-23,

you're sort of, okay, the world you're entering into, boys more than ever need to not, you know, be like that as much. But my son is brilliant as well. I've realised I should say, I think he's incredible. What do you, when you think about when he gets older, what do you hope that he says about you? Well, I think

he said to me recently while he was away and he said, he just said that he liked me. And And even if I wasn't his dad, he thought we'd be friends. And that was the nicest thing anyone's ever said. Yeah, it's nice, isn't it? Yeah, it's making me cry a bit. Yeah, it made me emotional.

And I sort of thought, like, you know what, they say, oh, you'd never try and be your child's friend. I'm like, you know what, my son is such a nice lad. I'm going to fucking break that rule. I think saying I like you, that's pretty big. Yeah, because he has to love me, doesn't he, like legally. Yeah. And there's a financial, practical reason.

Yeah, yeah, he's got to stay, yeah. I can see why you have a dog. Yeah. Partly because there's something quite traditional about the bloke and his dog. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they're the heartbeat of a traditional family, a dog, aren't they? And the walking's good for mental health, Jeff. Oh, yeah, yeah.

I mean, you're definitely, I've never come back from a walk feeding worse than... It's like the gym, in it, or going to church. Oh, Jeff, so we're going to part here. Can I drop you home? My car's right there. Oh, your car's there. Yeah. I've had such a nice walk with you.

And I want to remind everyone, they can, well firstly, can they go and see you on tour soon? Yeah, yeah, so I'm on tour until the end of May 24, new dates. The tour's called Basic Bloke, and the book's called The British Bloke Decoded. So I am, uh, nicely, nicely, nicely. This is an amazing dog. Is this a Frenchie or a, he is? He's so unusual for a Frenchie.

He is a bit tiny. Oh, he's got beautiful colour. Oh, he's the most stunning. dog. Lovely to meet you. Thank you for being so sweet with Raymond. No, no, it's good to meet him. When do you say goodbye, Jeff? Bye, Roman. I couldn't commit, because I felt ridiculous. I really hope you enjoyed that episode of Walking the Dog. We'd love it if you subscribed and do join us next time on Walking the Dog wherever you get your podcasts.