Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Russell Kane (Part One)

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

This week, we’re having a catch up with our old friend - the wonderful comedian Russell Kane.Russell was one of the first ever guests on Walking The Dog - all the way back in 2017. You can listen back to that episode here!We were sad to find out that Russell’s beloved pug Colin is no longer with us - but the joyful news is that the Kane family home is now teeming with animals! Russell is "bi-petual"… he has three Chihuahuas and three cats! We chatted about Russell’s passion for chasing the correct pet, his fascinating childhood and the impact his relationship with his dad had on his life.Russell has written a brilliant book for kids called Pet Selector! He’s collated this uniquely accessible compendium of 40 typical and not so typical household pets, packed with facts, but prioritising the info that matters most to families like neediness, lovingness and outdoor skills! Hilarious to all animal-lovers, it doubles as an insightful yet fun-filled resource for families picking their perfect pet. You can get your copy here!Russell is on tour across the UK and Europe until December 2025 with his show Hyperactive. You can find a date near you and get your tickets here!Evil Genius with Russell Kane is available on BBC Sounds - or wherever you get your podcasts!Get your copy of Son of a Silverback: Growing up in the shadow of an alpha male here!You can find out more about JOLT - the award-winning supplement, combining 7 scientifically backed ingredients, designed to slow down the ageing process at joltmyworld.comFollow @russell_kane on InstagramThis episode contains some very strong language and references to suicide. Follow Emily: Instagram - @emilyrebeccadeanX - @divine_miss_emWalking The Dog is produced by Faye LawrenceMusic: Rich Jarman Artwork: Alice LudlamPhotography: Karla Gowlett  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If all the chihuahuas you've met, if you've met 100 chihuahuas, I would say probably 80 to 90 were twats, probably. This week on Walking the Dog, Ray and I had a lovely catch-up with an old pal of ours comedian Russell Kane. Russell was actually one of the first guests I ever had on this podcast around eight years ago with his pug Colin. So by the way, do go back and give that one a listen. The wonderful Colin, very sadly, is no longer with us. And I know that must have hit Russell hard as he. He's a huge animal lover. So I was thrilled to discover that the Kane family home is now teeming with animals.

Three chihuahuas, to be precise, Marty, Brian and Pappy. And three cats, Terry, Donna and Bobbin. In fact, Russell is such an animal fan. He's written a book for children all about them. It's called Pet Selector, a hilarious guide to all the usual and unusual household pets. I obviously went straight to Shih Tzu, and I was relieved to find them. find out, he describes them as awesome, even if he does suggest they have hair like a member of a heavy metal band. It's a total joy of a book, so do grab a copy for a little person you love

immediately. Russell is always a fascinating person to chat to. We talked a lot in this podcast about his relationship with his dad growing up, which is a subject he's also written about very honestly in his memoir, son of a silverback, as well as the life-changing moment he had that ended up propelling him into education and ultimately a career is a hugely successful stand-up. Russell has also become a bit of an expert on anti-aging strategies. In fact, he and his wife Lindsay launched their very own supplement, Jolt, designed to slow down the aging process, which has legions of fans. And I have to say, if it makes me end up looking as ridiculously young as either of those two,

give me a lifetime supply. You can find out more at joltmyworld.com, and you can also go see Russell on tour in his show Hyperactive. Tickets available at Russell cane.com. It's always a total pleasure to chat to this fabulous man, so I really hope you enjoy it. I'll stop talking now and hand over to the main event. Here's Russell and Marty and Brian and Pappy and Ruiway. Russell Kane, I am so thrilled to have you on Walking the Dog again. Do you know it's been, I reckon it's been about eight years since you were last on. Thanks for let me fill in.

I know you had Greg Wallace booked. It's just nice to fill in for the last minute. So thank you. He wanted to tell you all about his sausage dog. Greg's had a difficult time at the moment. I know, I know. I defended him initially and then he came out and went, women are the problem.

And I'm like, I'm pretty sure I came out of a woman and I'm married to one. I quite like them. Sorry, Greg. I was team Greg until he said that. What a start. Well, last time, wonderful Russell Kane, you were on this podcast.

or you went for a stroll with your beautiful pug Colin. He did. And I'm really sad to hear that Colin is no longer with us. Well, he hadn't walked for about two years. He hadn't had a walk because his sight was going. His legs were going. So he had two years of like sort of nursing home existence. But the reason I didn't, you know, get the needle out earlier than that was he was a content at being a vegetable.

Some dogs are just good at it. He was eating. He's a pug at the end of the day. they've trained their whole lives to be fat vegetables. So when he finally got there, I always say, is the dog cuddling, is it wagging its tail, is it eating? And he just right until the last day when literally he's just a blob that laid on a mat and I couldn't bear the guilt anymore. He seemed to be sort of happy on some level, but it just wasn't right to take it any further than that.

It became more about my emotional needs than the dogs. So we had it done at home. The first injections are sedative. So they go into a deep snoring sleep. he's in my arms. And it's just they do one. And that's it. He was gone. So it was about as lovely as it can be for a dog that has been in your life for 13 years. I sort of track him really from the start of stand up really taking off meeting Lindsay. He was a puppy when I met my wife. I think he was like six months old, even though she's not his biological dog mother. She took him on

at six months, which is still, well, puppy age. So there was 24 hours of like bad sort of Iranian documentary wailing, but it didn't go past, it didn't go past that where because the time was right, it's the same when, because I've lost my granddad this year, I lost my great auntie last year, short grief because you sort of in a way consoled that they're at rest and they weren't in a good way. Whereas when my Tonkinese cat Wayne went, I think I was crying for about two, weeks, must have been their fortnight because he was 14 and in my mind, you know, ripped too soon.

Because they're supposed to live till 20. I do genuinely think, Ross, there is something, I know it's an odd comparison, but I think if you love something, you know, if you love a being, you love it, whether it's an animal or a human being. Absolutely. And I know with my sister, I think the reason that took so long to get over and I still don't think I'm over it, to be honest, was the sense of it being a life interrupted. Those ones are always harder, aren't they? Horrible. Horrible. So, Amy, my daddy was. Okay, what he wasn't like 30 or anything, but he was 62. He hadn't even retired.

No illness, no time to say goodbye. Jim three times a week. Bang, massive heart attack. Birth defect that had never been detected. Birth defect, 62 years old. And just killed it. It was a ticking time bomb that he'd been born with. No one wants to nurse someone like Colin.

Let's take it back to animals. No one wants to nurse a dog old and frail like a pug. But that's a hell of a lot easier. than a cat being or a dog being hit by a car when it's four. Even though the price you pay is watching that animal suffer, your brain is more chemically adjusted to saying goodbye because the grief has built up over time and it's mixed with the age of the creature.

So all the emotions, your intellect and emotions are in line and the grief process is much smoother. Whereas if you watch a young person suffer or if someone's taken away soon who wasn't ill, your brain's like, no, that didn't happen. Yeah. No, they're not. I'm just, I'm studying acting at the moment for a problem.

projects I've got coming up. And we, and we were doing this acting plot where you're pretending you're going in to see someone in the morgue to identify the body. And most people, when they act that scene, go in and go, oh my God, I can't, I can't believe this has happened. Whereas the real way to act that scene, because you were pretending it was your, a child in the scene we were improvising, is to not acknowledge, no, that's not my child. It's your child, DNA. It's not mine. It's not dead. Sorry, no. It's really fascinating. It's sort of, It's counterintuitive, isn't it? But do you ever remember watching that documentary with Michael Kane on acting years ago?

And he had these acting students and he said they were playing drunk. And he said, no, what you're doing wrong is that you're acting drunk. Drunks act sober. You've got to pretend to be sober. Then you will appear drunk. Correct. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's the same with all extreme things. But as I say, pet grief, the only time I've really had it bad would be because I'm bipedual, as you know. I know this is a dog podcast. but I am definitely by pectoral. We welcome all sorts here. I was with my Tonkinese cat, Wayne. But when we go on to talk about books,

my next book coming out comes out of a near grief. So I'll tell you all about that in a minute. So that was pretty intense. With my Burmese cat, Terry, who's like the centre of my upstairs world because he has an upstairs pass, Terry. And so he's upstairs at the moment. It's a very intense relationship.

But the Burmese cat, just so your listeners know, because you'll have some listeners that would love a dog and are passionate about dogs, can't for economic reasons or the hours they work or allergy reasons. So I'm doing a tour at the moment speaking to people about dogs weirdly. I was just at Goodworth the other week. I'm going to all primary school speaking to children about dogs. Is this to do with your pet selector book? Pet selector and all the children always like my mum and dad won't let me have a dog and we can't. You won't pick the poo up. We both work eight till eight. So I always say look into the Burmese cat

research it. It's called the dog cat for a reason. It fetches. It's. It's. It's. sits and it will make your life hell where it misses you and it's needy. But there is its own poo and you can go on holiday. Do you know what? I was fascinated because we should, let's mention your book now because you've written a brilliant book for kids called Pet Selector. It's not just for kids. I loved it and I'm an adult. I recommend it's genuinely a really brilliant guide to buying a dog or a cat, but it's, you know, because it's Russell Kane, it's funny and it's charming and it's brilliantly written. Thank you. But what I was fascinated by, we had Burmese cats when I was growing up. I was always desperate for a dog.

And my mother was always like, oh, let's get Burmese. They're so civilized. She wasn't wrong. And I was fascinated that possibly the reason I love them so much is because they are the most dog-like of all cats, aren't they? Why is that, Russ? What do you think that dog qualities? A combination of selective breeding. Right. You know, back when Wong Mao came over on the boat, she was a very unusual. brown cat. Unusual in looks, but also unusual in temperament. So if you think about human evolution, back in the day, I don't know if you've watched that brilliant serious human that's on eye player

at the moment, it's so, so good. And in the fourth episode, she's, we're about 10,000 years ago, just, we haven't even discovered fire, but we're trying to find a way to hunt better. And what happened what wolves came to the edge of our clearing and some wolves would come up begging for scraps, but what the humans noticed was the friendlier ones, these wolves could be manipulated to help us hunt. So over a period of generations, the friendlier and friendlier and friendlier wolves was selected until eventually you've got a domesticated husky

and from that all breeds follow. It's exactly the same with cat breeds. You know, someone, a needy person who would secretly like a dog obviously found Wong Mao when she came off the boat and it's just, Burmese are selected for their extremely unusual temperament. I will say they're won down from a sime, Now, I have had a Tonkinese, which is half Siamese, half Burmese. And I think Siamese can be a bit too intense.

I mean, it is, wow, every time you come around a corner, can be destructive. We'll smash the house up if they miss you. So you might as well just get a dog. They also, once you go to that level of... They are the sort of glenclose and fatal attraction of cats. Well, once you go to in dogs or cats, a certain level of really friendliness, the price you pay is you tend to get more one persony. So they'll be, oh, he loves me, but it's funny with, well, I don't, my dog will go to any stranger all three chihuahuas immediately to try and get their attention.

So it's easier to do that with a chihuahua breed, but some other breeds are a bit more intense. Shih Tzu can be a bit like that, dare I say it. Oh no, he is definitely intense. Yeah. But he's, what I found, Russ, is there's something, and I read all about him in your book, I was a bit narcissistic. And at first I did go straight to the Shih Tzu section. That's the brilliance of this bit. You can do that.

You can be a narcissist. No one will know. But I just want to know about shitts for now. And they've got a good review from you. You described them as awesome, in fact. Yeah, well, they're extremely popular. I mean, they're like the Chihuahua listeners that's on my lap while we're recording this. They're only bred for companionship originally.

So the difference between dogs that were bred for hundreds of years for companionship is what type of companionship they were bred for. And with a Shih Tzu, memory serving, working for a memory here. Because of their way, they were bred to be in the temple and keep company to the monk. They have a slight guarding and protective streak in them, which needs firm training. Same with Chihuahuas. If all the Chihuahuas you've met, if you've met 100 Chihuahuas, I would say probably 80 to 90 were twats, probably. They require an almost Excel bully level of knowing what you're doing training. Right, because they can get easily spoiled, right?

How many show hours have you met that are nice and docile and don't bark? Mine don't bark. They do not, if you walked in through the door, not one of my three chihuahuas is permitted to make a single noise. Now, that's interesting because Ray doesn't bark and someone said, why doesn't your dog bark? And I said, I genuinely believe, people don't believe this. But when he came home and he made a few barking noises and I just kept looking at him and saying, no, we don't do that. We don't bark. You disagreed with the behaviour.

I think I did, Russell. Is that bad of me to think that? There's only two aspects to dog trading. It's not like a mysterious science. Disagree with the behaviour you don't like, which everyone does, even the dickhead owner of a dog that bites. But most people forget the second one. Agree with behaviour you want.

People forget to pet and reward their dog for being boring in the corner. They wait until the dog's running towards them. But what you want is when your dogs just like staring at the wall being really boring, lavish love Teddy's treats that's the state you want calm submissive happy so you must reward the states you want as well as disagreeing with the states you do not want and because the states you want are often passive it's harder to remember to agree with them and that's why you have dogs running up and jumping around the neck of their own and where they walk in which feels nice until they do it to a toddler scratch them and your dog gets put down yes i always i always decided early

on when I got my dog. What I don't want is one of those very exuberant mock the week panellists. I just don't want that. Do you know what I mean? Where you think, okay, I'm done with this now. For five minutes, it's fine. Eventually they get axed just like the program. But my dogs, my dog, when I will come down in the morning, they do, I follow no touch, no talk, no eye contact until all are silent and not silent, not silent with wagging tails, won't for me to look, completely sort of gone back to sleep. He's not going to talk to us. Then, good morning.

Oh my God, my babies. So they know that if they're calm, submissive and well-behaved, they get lavished with loves and treats. And if they're noisy, disruptive or aggressive, they get nothing. So this is, so after Colin, you lost Colin, very sadly. RIP, Colin. See you at Rainbow Bridge. Did you then decide to get Chihuahuas after that?

I'm a big believer in selecting the right pet that matches your energy level, your financial resources. But most importantly, because most people buying a dog aren't normally on the breadline, what they miss, what they forget to check is their energy and time resources. That's the one, no one thing, oh, we've got a garden, we can afford the dog food. They're the second two most important. The most important is energy and time resource. The most rehomed dogs are not rehomed because people couldn't afford them,

or they didn't have outside space, hardly any. That's 5% of the rehomed dogs I see. 95% are the dog was unhappy because we didn't have the time. And yet we have an epidemic of cocker poos, which is a combination of a poodle, a waterproof hunting dog two hours walking a day minimum, and a cocker spaniel, a run and retrieve a pheasant from a bush, hour and a half walking a day minimum. So if you don't have 90 minutes a day to walk in the pissing,

fucking horrible cold British weather. I advise you don't get a cockapoo. Or you're going to have, I don't know what's wrong with that dog. It's just mental. Just ignore him. Your dog's fine. It's fucking you. You've got the wrong breed.

You did not select the right breed. Why do you think I got a lazy shitsuit? Right. I've got no life, basically. My life is either work, writing or playing with my daughter or making sure my wife feels cherished like a princess. So, a queen rather. So I, there's not much left where I'm just going to go for a walk for 20 minutes with the Cocker Spaniel.

There's none. So I want a dog that is actively fucked after five minutes of walking. Chihuahua? That's a very small list. Pug, chihuahua. And the other one, everyone forgets the dogs that need, that are most available to rehomed with, I'm going to say top five temperament of family dogs. But because they're a bit ugly, no one's interested. Who's that?

Greyhound. out one sprint across the park done you could be done in five minutes they're so like lazy they'll do without a walk they're just very fast when they sprint but they're not keen walkers and there's loads of them premium quality greyhounds just sat there at two and a half three because they're retired from racing and they are the most friendly loving that's if i was allowed to have a bigger dog which i'm not because we're like three dogs three cats the arc is full that's what I would love, a greyhound. How many chihuahas?

Three. Three. And what are the names? Brian is the pack leader. He's out there. Marty is the slightly neurotic middle one. And then Pappy is absolutely lobotomized. I mean, look at that.

No reaction to anything. Pappy is just the best. Safe with babies, toddlers. No bark. Never heard him growl. Also, slight Yoda qualities, I find. Yes, extreme Yoda qualities. So, but the problem with a chihuahua is,

although you want to select for temperament correctly from the litter, which is a whole other skill, you also want to really be on it with the train. I would say Chihuahua is in, if you had to make 10 to 20 breeds that require the most training, Chihuahua is in that league. 17 or 18, you know, it's in there. Yeah.

My only worst scar on my body is from a Chihuahua right, obviously not one of mine, but for some idiot that didn't know how to train their dog. I went in to say, Happy Christmas to a girl and didn't even see that Christmas Day, didn't even see she had a chihuahua nestling in her arm. Happy Christmas, it flew out, tore my lip open. Casualty Christmas Day, yeah. Oh, okay.

Ray, you wouldn't do that, would you? Do you like Ray, Russ? Yeah, I thought he was a griffon. People often think he looks like a Brussels griffin. Ed Miliband came on this podcast and said he looked like a toupee. Oh, that's nice. A topeche-cure. Very good. I want to talk to you about so much, but you're a busy man. So I want to talk to you a bit more about your brilliant book, Pet Selective. But before we get to that, I want to just remind myself a bit of the Russell Kane, or should I say Russell Grinard, origin story.

Because you wrote another brilliant book called Son of a Silverback about your relationship with your dad. And I really loved it. I thought it was beautifully written. And it also told me. me so much about you really and him obviously and you grew up in it was sort of I get confused Enfield and then you moved to Essex or are they on the borders of each other is that right both those things are true okay everything you just said there was correct yay that's a first and it's David and Julie it's also my grade at university yeah Dave David and Julie was it Dave Dave yeah he's David by birth because his Jewish heritage on that side so he said David but it's Dave, obviously, Dave from Essex, Julie from Enfield, which although it identifies as London,

it's biologically Essex. And when my mum got pregnant, there was an issue because she was living with her own grandma. So I'm also obsessed with Connie, not Joyce, Connie. So my mum was living with her grandmother because Joyce was an alcoholic bell-end. That's my biological noun. So my mum made herself homeless.

I thought, right, if I put myself in like a demand, domestic abuse mother and baby shelter. They'll have to house us, but it massively backfired. So my mum was, we were there for eight months. Like, you know, I think she was in like a dorm with six other women. It all had the shit beaten out of them by toxic partners. And my mom was being visited by my dad. So you can imagine the looks he was getting. He could have me just say, no, he said, not beat me. I'm just genuinely homeless. So that was the first lovely, shameless eight months of my life when we finally got a council flat. It must have been like we'd run the lottery or something. And your dad,

is such a fascinating specimen, if you like. Yeah. Because, I mean, he did all these, every job he did, and there are a lot of slashes in his job descriptions, bodybuilder, he's a sheet metal worker, he's a builder. He's one of those blokes that I think, if I said, I have a question about which road to take, he's definitely the person I would have gone to.

Probably, yeah. How would you best describe him, Russ? Job-wise, primarily a sheet metal worker and a lagger or thermal insulation engine, if you want to support it. So that's the person that crawls down into small spaces and puts the insulation on the outside of pipes. Really horrible job. We're speaking in summer in August when we're recording this. And I just remember that being the worst time of year for him because going down into boiler rooms with hot water pipes and put insulation on it. He hated his job.

He hated it. And there was no way out. You can imagine, like, getting into your late 50s, early 60s, getting up at 5am to beat the M25, even though you leave sight at 3pm, getting in at 6 p.m., it's just fucked, he was absolutely fucked. And he said to you, he used to, I might be paraphrasing here, but he would essentially say, you know, life is hard boy, it's shit and it's hard. Correct.

And that was very much, you grew up with that, that kind of atmosphere around you, right? But only now, talking in middle class way with you, can I look at that and call it problematic? I would be lying and trying to join in the Channel 5 documentary pity parties. But if I said I had any issues at the time or my childhood felt anything other than blissfully happy, I know looking back, what it was like living next to a blade that I never fell onto, I suppose, or having a noxious gas in the room that somehow I was immune to breathing in. Yeah. That is a noxious gas to grow up with a dad that hates himself and telling you life shit.

And his other catchphrase, take care of number one, boy. I mean, that's what fucking phrase to tell your son. Am I not number one? My daughter's number one. Lindsay and my daughter are joint number one. So that's number one. But I'm about number four after, you know, is my mum all right? is my mother-in-law all right.

But my dad and my mum were very much take care of number one. You meet your own needs first for holidays and pleasure and things like that and funds and whatever's left you spend on the kids. That sounds probably harsh to 2025. But I grew up,

I grew up thinking that was correct, not, oh, why can't they be like the other kids? There was, most of my friends had no dad or fucking in a tower block with a junkie mum or the fucky, dad's like trying to kill him. So I thought, my childhood was great. I had no perception other than finding it funny how negative my dad was.

We used to trade his phrases and laugh our heads off with my friends. My brother, who know? My brother is severely, severely mentally ill. So we don't know what's caused that. He was totally fine until he was 17 and then was gone within a year with schizophrenia and bipolar. He's not like, yeah, I've got bipolar disorder. I can do a podcast about it.

He lives in, Warden assisted accommodating. He can't text. He can't write. He's never had a girlfriend. He's never worked. He can just about shop independently. He's fucked. Like proper.

Uh, gone. So how much of that was, he was affected by my dad's crushing heavy, negative, bullying masculinity, not in a conscious way. Or was he just genetically always dested to develop schizophrenia if he smoked too much weed and took LSD, which he did all of that? Who knows? All I know is I'm one of the most mentally sound people I know. Apart from a small brush with anger management, which I sorted,

I've had an easy path compared to most people. But you've done work on that, as we both know, because you and I both did the Hoffman process. Yeah, yeah. When you look at a parent, and it's clear to me that your dad, you know, there were rage issues there, weren't there? And I think it's a, I think you can. sort of get over those things with a parent, providing you recognise them and deal with them. And it sounds to me like you knew, you were never violent towards anyone else.

You were more, I'm going to bang the laptop, weren't you, and punch them all. Now, whether this just was, you know, I did experiment with a bit of weed and stuff like that when I was 16, whether it was not being taught anger or emotional regulation by my dad, who I, he wasn't, nothing extreme happened. He was just a bit, oh, fucking traffic, fucking fuck, and I would rip the sat-neve off. but I never saw him really smash the house up. I saw him kick a bin in and slam a door and not regulate his temper over the tiny. Where's my keys?

Where's my fucking van? Like within it, but nothing, I was never scared ever as a child. I've got no memories of being scared. But nonetheless, I was taught, don't regulate your temper.

If you want to say, cunch, fucking say it over the smallest thing. So maybe that put in too young, fuck something up. I don't know. But that's the one part of me that I couldn't control with intellect

because it was a physical sensation. It wasn't emotional. It was like an itch or like a twitch. So I would go from, my laptop's not working, my laptop's talking to, oh, my laptop's got a hole in it. How did that happen? I was like, you just punched a hole for it. I didn't even remember doing it. So I was doing shit like that from the age of about 16, breaking handles off doors, trying to find cover stories.

And that just got, it got worse and worse. So normally, things like that you grow out of in your 20s, but it was ramping up. And then it ramped up to, right, I'll just grab a pencil, stab it through my arm then. And I was like, what the fuck? Why did I do that? Got a pencil in my arm. And I was like, shit, I'm not having that. That's dangerous.

So it was a very isolated, controlled issue. And I went to get it fixed, like getting a mole lased off. In and out, done, never had. People don't understand how good the Hoffman is. That's how good it is. Went in, grabbing pencils and stabbing through my arm, came out, not one occurrence. Don't give me wrong. I can slam a door and shout, cunt at the traffic and can't find my car keys and be a

prick about it, but that's, I think, within the normal range of highly strung man territory. I don't go beyond highly strung man territory. And there's an incident that you describe, you know, just touching on, I suppose, that sort of male anger that you grew up around, which again, I appreciate it was totally normalized to you, and it's to a lot of people, where it's in the early days of him dating your mum. You'd heard about this from your mum, and they go to a club. that they used to go to and they pull in at the car park and he's wearing his new shirt that

he's very proud of and what happens russell so my dad because my dad was a bodybuilder his clothes had to be like adjusted by a tailor because he obviously had a really massive chest and a slim a slim waist and he was a very good looking man he was a model at one stage was a model so he was a model and he was a lot of that in my dad that he was a bit frustrated that it didn't work out even try i think he even tried stand-up he was like a red just a red coat telling gags at butlins when he was like early 20s or something so there's a lot of that he was a lot of all that inside him and that was all just stopping when he met my mum but he still had the he was still on the steroids and had the body so physically vain a man but that sort of tracks

with his childhood which was total shit and they pulled up to the club tree tops nightclub essex epping where he used to also work the door there was a guy wearing the same shirt as him in the queue and they just went round to the little car park bit around the back took his shirt off and tore it to pieces in front of the headlights. You know, with the dust coming out around him, like some sort of gorilla, like King Kong, basically, with the spotlight when they got the searchlight on him, then got in the car and just drove my mum home, just with his top off. But that would have been steroids, I would have thought.

Really? Because he was on steroids because of the bodybuilding. Yeah, Deca Durabalin he was on. Deca Durabalin. And do you think that did contribute to his support issues? I want that to be a yes. Every time AI updates, I'm like, is there any way my dad's bicuspid aorta could be caused by steroid abuse? Yeah.

But it is 95% of the time congenital unless you get really bad rheumatic scarlet fever. So the aorta is the valve that looks like a Mercedes sign, three triangles. And those three triangles open and close every time we pump blood around the body. But in a certain percentage of the population, they've only got two triangular flaps. So what happens is over time they get tired 30% quicker, obviously. So the stuff that you should have been experiencing at 95 or 100, if you live that long, you experience in your 50s and 60s. So it's highly likely my dad was just born with it. But it does seem to stretch the imagination, jacking yourself up with steroids.

Every single one of those wrestlers die early. Even Hulk Hogan only made 72. So they're healthy beings, but they all die early because steroids also grow your heart. They grow every part of your body and the heart gets bigger. So it could have exacerbated it. That said, for what my dad died from, biocuspid aorta, he's in the upper age range of when you pass away. Most people pass away in their 40s or 50s.

So I don't think so, no. I think he was born with it. And a year before he died, he's like, I'm getting fucking, I'm smashing my workout. But if I'm walking fast to the car, I'm getting chest pains. Went to the doctor. The doctor was like, yeah, you've got a bicuspid aorta. You're going to have to consider valve replacement surgery. And he's like, fuck that.

Never really got time. I guess they didn't realize how bad it was because he was gone within eight months. He thought he had more time to get it fixed. And it was really suddenly, wasn't it? He was a bit of a coward, a bit of a didn't really want to be weak, didn't want to be an old man, didn't want to take a year off, had no. You got to remember when you're a manual labourer and you work manually, even as a comedian, right, if I stop work, there's nothing.

There's no money, no one's got my back. You can't provide. Yeah. So he couldn't see a way out. So he worked himself to death slightly on purpose, I think. I think it's a great area. But my uncle, Ivan, of course, is my great uncle. You've always got to add one generation when a chav talks about a nan.

So everyone is one generation. Only a middle class. I had my first baby when I was 48. And I had Lottie when I was 52. I had a year between my first birth. Do you know what I was struck by? I'm always struck by. I remember I was,

I'm always struck by when I think I went to Blackpool and there were all these baby grows. And there was a lot of sort of like world's best grandma. It all seemed to be centered around the grandma. And I'd never really seen so much of that. And I think I was with Frank Skinner and he said, oh, that's because unlike your lot where the grandmas die when you're born. Because you all have parents. So well, our grandmas are big parts of our lives. They raise the kids.

My name was 39 when I was born. and my great grandma was 61. So that's why that's why this is a big part. So anyway, my uncle, it stays with me this. So my uncle, my dad had been dead six years. And Uncle Ivan, who's my mum's uncle, because my mum was raised by her grandma and my grandma's eldest daughter, her auntie.

My uncle Ivan, who's a massive part of my life, only passed away last year, said to me, your dad said to me once, I'm a ticking dime bomb. I could die any day, Ivan. And I don't know if my uncle meant to upset me that much. But that was the evidence that my dad sort of died on purpose. Because if my dad knew that, why didn't you go to the NHS and go, let's get this.

Aortic valve replacement is one of the simplest heart surgeries. It's fucking literally, you can get pig valve. You can get, I think they've probably got silicon ones now. Why did he not go for it? He didn't go for it because he knew he couldn't take six months off. He was trapped. So he thought, I would rather die. and my life insurance pay out,

than put myself in that position. That's my opinion. So my dad died of a sort of soft suicide, really, if you think about it. If, I know, why would Uncle Ivan lie to me? He waited six years to tell me that. He never told my mum that. And my mum, when I told my mum, she's like, no.

And I'm like, did I even say that to me? Questioning myself, I didn't want to go back to uncle and say, did you mean that? Because I didn't want to make him panic and make him feel bad. And, you know, he's 90 odd. but I think I think my dad said that to him. Yeah, it's funny when you hear seemingly insignificant things like that, but how significant that is, you know, from your perspective,

it changes everything in some ways. Well, if you could go for a procedure next week with six months recovery that would save your life and you told your mum, you're not going for it, don't tell anyone. And then you died two weeks later, it's suicide, isn't it? Yeah. Is it not? It's one step removed from doing it yourself. Anyway, so that's pretty tough to process because obviously he was a gorilla alpha male.

But that was his choice. He said to me since I was little, I'm doing, I won't make old bones. I will not be an old man, boy. Another thing he said to me when I was 12, I don't know if I put this in the book or not, it's so disturbing. I left some stuff out of the book. If I do get, lose my marbles, meaning dementia, I want you to put, I was 12, I want you to put a bottle of sleeping pills in one hand, whiskey in the other and leave the room.

and I agreed to do that, not realizing I would be criminally implicated. So me and my dad had a pact that I would give him the means to kill himself should he get dementia. Pretty fucked up. Gather around the fireside, Minner, whilst I tell you about your grandfather. It's not the best thing he ever said. Once he was putting petrol in the car, I think I was about 13, and he looked at me and promised me one thing, boy, never have kids. And then went back to putting the petrol in the car.

Now, a different person would take that personally, but even at 12, I took that to mean, for fuck sake, don't have kids before you're 40, live your life. My dad got my mom up the duff accidentally. And yes, he was 35, so he wasn't like 21 years old. He was a lot older than my mum. But I think he was still sort of finding out what he wanted to do. And that stopped dead and then he became a lagger. So he associated having kids with the end of it

Like women do, it's worse for women, I'm not saying it's not So he, I think that he wasn't saying, I wish I didn't have you son Because I never got that from him But he was saying, fuck being a father, look what it leads to So he was speaking to me like a man about it Because he came from a culture where you're a man at 11 You got to remember that

And you, in some ways, you know, you were very, well in a lot of ways You were very different to him Every single possible thing you can think of emotionally, physically, intellectually, spiritually, disposition, tastes, desires, things that I'm fond of, hobbies. There's nothing. My dad, my dad had blue eyes and blonde curly hair and was 16 stone bodybuilder. In a lineup, you would pick out an African man as my dad before you picked him out. I could be sort of mixed race. I could be like a bit Italian or something or a bit Moorish. You would not pick my old man out. I'm a carbon copy of my mum. Do you think he viewed you as a bit of a

Walter the Softie? You what, sorry? Did he view you as a bit of a Walter the Softie, you know, from the Beano? Did he think you were quite sensitive and, you know? No, I never got that impression. He just saw me as a baby that needed to be protected and that his authority was not to be questioned. I never, ever heard him say, you're softer, you can't survive. He used to just tell me you need to do this, you need to bodybuild, you need to prepare yourself. But he never verbalised anything negative like that. Everything else he was negative about. I've cycled 30 miles today, Dad.

I was so proud. 30 miles, yeah? I used to do 35 miles a day when I was 16, a fucking day. And then we'd walk off. So it's more like that. Or if I was going to start, because he died the month I tried stand up. I mean, it's so like it's almost Shakespeare. So I got to tell him, I've had this idea, Dad, I'm going to try stand up.

And he went, it's fucking, it's bullshit. I tried it. Your fail was really hard. It's a load of shit and then just left the dining room table. So he was negative like that. But it wasn't negative. Do you think that was painful to him as well, the idea of you possibly succeeding in that area? No, I don't think so.

I think he genuinely believed what he was saying. And it wasn't done. You know, some of my friends have got toxic parents. Don't do that. It wasn't, it's hard for people to get the nuance of what I'm saying. My dad wasn't doing that. He was just unable to edit his actual real view, which was it shit. You will fail.

And it's too hard. Don't bother. He didn't want you to be disappointed, basically. Yeah. It's just done that. It's crap. You're a cunt if you do it. Move on.

Be a carpenter. Be a builder. Get a trade. Money. But own the business. Don't be. He called himself, this is my dad's trade. Don't be a wanker builder like me.

A wanker nobody. These are his words. Own the business. like Pauline and John, his friend John, exactly the same, but he end up owning the glass company as a glazier. Fucking Epin, son's got a Lamborghini, detached mansion, I'm just a wanker. That was his script.

And so if you grow up amongst, you know, and you've described it brilliantly, but there's that sense of, look, we're slightly on the have-nots. Yes, we're aspirational and we'll build columns outside the house and we'll have a little swimming pool and make it as nice as possible. But we're the have-nots and we kind of always will be. the not wealthies. Not wealthies. So how do you end up becoming so successful and how do you have the balls to think I'm going to take a risk and I'm going to go into comedy? Well, what I noticed from an early age, I was obviously born a bit different and I know that if you'd have done this interview with me,

we have done this interview with me, my daughter was a baby when we spoke. I would have said that I've developed my humor and my unusual personality in response. But my daughter, my daughter I couldn't be living a more privileged life with a dad that dresses as a princess. I'm totally emotionally present. I've lost my temper three times she was born. I've raised my voice. How many parents have raised their voice three times in a decade? I'm very emotionally literate with her.

But by four months old, she was completely different to all the other babies. Trying to get attention. The other babies, dribble on a block play in the corner. Bored, bored, bored. I need your attention, watch me dancing, even before she could sit up. So, and my mum said, that is what you were fucking like. So I think I was born. So someone might be born autistic so they can do maths.

I was born in whatever autistic humor is and attention seeking. So I was born that way, extremely confident and funny. And then I had a luck of circumstance of being born in August. So if you look at comedians or a lot of entertainers, An unusually high percentage are either younger siblings or born in August in the UK. Because if you're born in August in the UK, you go into school and you're this high and everyone else is this high, you've immediately got to develop your personality if you want to survive. The same reason that most successful sports people, born in the UK, guess what?

Born in September, October, November, because they were the biggest when they went to school. So I think the combination of me being genetically funny and silly and attention seeking an extrovert mixed with the accident of having to survive under a silverback and being the smallest at school, that's my sort of X-Man origin story. So once I start speaking at 5, 6, 7, I realise the way to be different or to protect myself or to stand out or to be liked is to amplify those traits. So I've been doing that my whole life. Funny, funny, funny.

And then as I got to puberty, 1213, I realized. realize, you're clearly, you're not even going to get a kiss. So let's just give up on pussy for another five years minimum. So I left school without even kissing a girl, not even a kiss until I was 16 and a half, a kiss. So I gave up all that shit. And I just focused on developing my personality. So I wasn't bullied. And then I started to notice that people looked at me when I was the opposite to whatever was the dominant in the culture. So I can't get attention by being the strongest, the most weed smoking, the best fighter, because I'm small and I'm an August baby. But if I'm a little bit count or read books over the park, when everyone's meeting to smoke

a joint and I would turn up reading a book, you fucking silly, cunt, look at this freak. And I like that feeling. And I noticed it was the opposite to my dad. I really like, I'm going to make sure my friends are a mixture of gay people, black people. I'm going to not drink alcohol. I'm going to dance till sunrise at an illegal rape. What's my rebellion? Because I couldn't rebel by being hypermasculine.

My dad had already done that. So I guess my rebellion was to be sort of... Liberal elite. Camp and emotionally literate. But I never joined the dots between that and learning, unfortunately. So I got all the way to 60, no GCSEs. And this sounds so dark. I haven't found a way of phrasing it in interviews yet

that doesn't come out the wrong way. But my diaries of that time, And I made a plan. I got to about 18 and I really love raving. So I go out every Sunday fucking dance to. Is this when you were, and you were on sort of job seekers allowance and. Yes,

I'd finished my A levels because I'd just got enough GCSEs to do A levels, which I didn't study. I got two Ds and then. And you're not allowed to sign on in my house. You had, you're allowed to be on the doll for two weeks. And then my dad would pack your bags and you've gone. That was the rule.

So I knew I had to do something with him in Fortnite. So I got a job working at a watch shop, which I was good at and I enjoyed really. I'm obsessed with that era. in your life. Yes, I'm selling Rolex and thinking one day I'll own a fucking couple of those. And selling Rolex is, and living for the weekend. By now I'd had a row and I'd moved out of home.

My dad was so racist. How can racism affect a white dad's racism affect a white son? This is how it, whose girlfriend was white. This is how it affected it. Don't know how much of this I put in the book because I feel bad. because in our politics today, it makes my dad sound like a monster. He wasn't a monster. But I was seeing this girl at work and I really liked. I just had my first, like, crying on the floor split up, but I feel like I'm going to die from my first girlfriend. And I'm someone

that falls in love. You know, if someone buys me one coffee, I'm like a woman, basically. And I can't do the shag around thing. I couldn't when I was younger. And so this girl, all we'd done was meet after work once and held hands at. Liverpool Street Station and had a sort of half snog. I was like, I really like you. She went, I really like you too, but I can't take it any further. There's something I've got to tell you. And I was like, what the fuck? She went, my ex-boyfriend, you know, we only been split up six weeks. She went, yeah, she went, I missed my period. And I was like, oh, shit. Okay. Why, why didn't say go and take a pregnancy test? Maybe I did, but there was a few days in between where I didn't know

what was happening. And I confided in my mum, said to my mom, what do I do? I really like this. girl, I'm not able to not see her if she's pregnant. That's how much I fall in love with someone so quickly. And I was like, I raised the babies. I'm like 18. But her ex happened to be of Caribbean extraction, shall we say, black. And my dad wouldn't let her in the house. That's some 1800 shit. She was not permitted to cross the threshold of my house because I confided in my mum that she might be pregnant with a biracial child. And she immediately snitched to my dad, which are really fucked off about still. And my dad went absolutely nuts. I'm not, I refuse to repeat what he said on here, because it's, it's so bad. And I don't want it the words out there. But, and I said to my

dad, but I'm paying you, I'm on nine grand a year at this point. And I had to pay 150 pounds a month to live at home. So I said, I'm paying keep, as you call it. What, surely, I'm allowed to have someone over for a cup of tea. Even if we stay downstairs, you know, it's my fucking house. You have no fucking rights at all, boy. So I moved out that night. I said to my dad, I'm moving out today. I'm really sorry.

That's, yeah, fucking move out. And he probably thought I was joking. Went to work, came home, packed a bag, left. Went to your nans, didn't you? Went to my nans across the park. Was it ever discussed again, Russell? Did your family discuss things like that? Was there a sort of...

Yeah, that's a bit... It just sort of... because it didn't work out with this girl. She wasn't pregnant and turned out. I think she probably just didn't fancy me. But so it faded away. And then I just started, you know, going for,

after about eight weeks, I'd go for Sunday lunch. And it built slowly, it slowly repaired back from there. That's a bit more middle class, isn't it? Let's sit around and do conflict resolution. Yeah, right.

So, and this is the bit, I'm now going to tell you that sounds dodgy when I phrase it. So I was at my nans, part and everything, and I'm good at partying, yeah.

I've been to IB for twice this year. I go again on Wednesday for two. You look good on it. It's got to be. said, but that's down to Joel, which we need to discuss. I love dancing to house music until sunrise. I still do. I'm going to Ibiza three times this year. Third time I'm about to go, two weeks. I've got three massive fucking nights planned. I love it. But back then, I didn't know how to do things in a healthy, safe way. I don't drink alcohol. I don't put any poison in my

body. And so I actually, this is the bit, I just, I need to find a better way of phrasing this. but I did come to the conclusion that I want to live a life like Jim Morrison. I want a girlfriend by my side, but I don't want to live past 40. And that's the bit that sounds suicidely and weird, but it wasn't done like that. It was done in a totally positive, I'm just going to party and fucking 39, heart's going to give out and I fucking let's have it. It was like that. It was done like that.

It wasn't. It went to live. But I know people listening to this thing, you mentally ill and didn't know. No, I wasn't. I, in an existentialist way, not that I'd learn that word yet, chose the path of partying to extinction. I was not academic. I might have been clever and everyone told me I was clever and funny,

but I ain't going to do anything with it because I'm not gay and I'm not a fucking loser, which is what the comprehensive had told me. If you want, girls, don't fucking learn English, whatever you do. Only gays do that, or you get beaten up. So I found myself living at my nans, and this was proper council flat, walking home, I don't want to incriminate myself, but I had to carry certain things to protect myself on the walk, There's shit happening with lads across the road.

Nothing ever happened, but I was ready to defend myself. So that was my full chav life. Working in a shop, walking home, carrying stuff that could have got me killed or killed someone, partying at the weekend, way, way past what was chemically safe, so that you've got all the sobbing depression on a Tuesday, dark rings, fuck, drink it, like drink, neat vodka for you, go out, then off your tits. That was my life every fucking week. And I loved it.

I've got no negative memories apart from the sobbing in the toilet on a Wednesday, which passed. And by Thursday, I'm like, let's have it again. How the fuck did I get out of that ravine? My nans, it was a box room. I didn't even have a wardrobe. I went to the co-op. There's something really heartbreaking where you had to hang your shirts and your clothes

on like a pet. Yeah, sticky hooks. I got the sticky hooks that you put on the wall and then, because I didn't want to take up valuable space of a wardrobe because it's a box, people don't know what a box room is. It's just a single bed and there's just room to open the door. I did get some sort of cupboard unit on the wall in the end. And I was using a disabled toilet and had to be lowered into the bath on the disability lift

because my nan didn't have a shower. Hey, girls. How's I ever going to meet a woman? And determined to pipe myself to death with no qualifications, none. Didn't know who Jane Austen was at this point, didn't know who Oscar Wild was. New Macbeth was by Shakespeare. I'm 19. I'm not 13 about to discover.

This is the last moment to get off that track. If I'd have gone another year or two down that track, I'd have got some girl up with Duff, and I'd still be on a council estate now. There is no doubt in my mind. I really hope you love part one of this week's Walking the Dog. If you want to hear the second part of our chat, it'll be out on Thursday.

So whatever you do, don't miss it. And remember to subscribe so you can join. us on our walks every week.