MUNYA CHAWAWA: TRUMP IS FALLING OUT OF A DICTATOR'S HANDBOOK

0:28Hi, this is Knox from the Popcast with Knox and Jamie. contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

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1:53Hello, everyone. My name is Jamie Lang, and this is Great Company. One, two, three, action. Welcome. I'm going to keep that in. Okay, you keep that in. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Great Company Podcast. This is Jemima and I am... Sorry, what? That's fine doing me. That sounded quite slick. This is Jemima sitting on my right, producer Jemima, and my name is Jamie. I'm the host. Do you know your left from your right? That's my left, that's my right. I don't. What? Yeah, I don't. And there's a few reasons why I don't. So just quickly, hold both hands up. I've just checked. Put it on your right.

2:29That took quite a long time. That took a long... And she had to look to her right. So I attribute this to a few things. I'm left-handed, so I don't have a very strong dominant. Very creative. Indeed, indeed. And also, as a child... Do you write with your left? Yeah. Because you're left-handed. I do. You're left-handed, see, right? That's exactly... Yeah, I do. Exactly that. I also thought left and right was like east and west. And as a child, I didn't know how to express that. And I was like, is this always the left? And they were like, yeah. And then they turned us around and then they went, where's the left?

3:01And I was like, this way. And they're like, no, that's now your right. And I was like, what? Do you know what the good news is? We're both sounding quite intelligent. We're sounding really... Do you know you're left from your right? Yes, left, right. Well, good thing you're... Right, left. Right, left. Left, right, right, left. This is confusing me too much. Are you serious? Yes. Everyone has a black hole. A black hole of their knowledge. Everyone has a black hole. and I'm going to work out what yours is. Of knowledge? Of knowledge. Yeah, I definitely have a black hole of knowledge. That sounds wrong.

3:34Well, you just said everyone has a black hole. I was like, what are you talking about? Okay, listen, everyone. We have a very exciting podcast today because Munya Chihuahua is coming on the show, which is very exciting. So exciting. Who is Munya for people who don't know? Good question. So Munya, you may have come across his stuff on social media. He's a comedian, a satire comedian. his sort of work around politics and certain individuals who are in the sort of press the zeitgeisty sort of press it's amazing how he sort of creates these sketches in a funny humorous way but also making them informational it's so good it's so good he's a great great satirist I would say he's one of the sort of up and coming talents in the UK oh 100 % he's amazing and I've been trying to get him on the podcast for a long time and he's kind of been umming and ahhing I imagine and he's finally sort of said yes and he's coming on today and I cannot bloody wait.

4:26I am very, very excited. I frequently send them his... I can't even bother saying it. No, say that. You frequently what? I frequently... I can't wait. Tell me. I'm very excited. You have to keep this in as well. I frequently send his videos to my friends. That's awesome. I sometimes like them as well. Okay, that's brilliant. I know also, which is very exciting, and you said this to me, you feel like we're back on our sort of roll together and we're sort of making some great shows. We are. I do feel like Jamie's back. He's back, boys and girls. I'm back. I had a little bit of a period, but maybe a little bit, being honest with you guys, maybe a little bit of burnout, maybe a little bit of exhaustion.

5:08But I feel very strong and I feel back. Tell you what, doing a show every single week, and as Jamie wanted it to be, essentially, it's got no end. It's got no end. For the rest of his life. Just keep going. We are going to have a little season end, actually. Yeah, the new year time. Yeah, it takes up to 40 episodes. so I'm putting a little... But we're still putting something out. We are. Okay, so we're not really doing an end. No. But we're going to have a little break. We're going to have a little break. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, please get ready for this amazing episode, which I kind of wait for, on Great Company with Munya Chihuahua.

5:41Hey, I'm Munya Chihuahua, satirist and six-time winner of Britain's Bushiest Eyebrows, and I am Great Company.

5:51Have you ever heard about the dog called Hatchie? Me, personally, I don't really like dogs too much. What? Because... You don't like dogs? First of all, they do stink. Let's be real, they do. Yeah. And I even know someone's... Okay, you know what puts me off dogs, for real? Yeah. Because I know it's a big red flag if someone's not a dog person. Listen, I had a dog, yeah? I'm not even going to tell you what happened to the dog, because every time I say it, people lose their minds. What happened to the dog? I didn't do anything to it. What happened to the dog? Well, I'll decide whether I want to tell you at the end of the podcast.

6:22Okay. So you're going to say this is a cliffhanger to the end? Well, maybe. Oh, quite nice. So that would keep people to the end. I said it on Taskmaster and they cut it out of the show because of how much shock was in the room. So it's not like a grim story. You drowned it. No, no, no. It's not even that grim. It's just unbelievable to hear what happened to the dog. But you've got to tell me. You've got to tell me personally what happened to the dog. No, I will wait. you know this is you know you have to make the audience wait isn't it very true

6:51I re-listened to your off menu one man I didn't it's so good I didn't know anything about that format so I thought I was doing it totally right so good and then we got to the end and I was like wow I've only just told you my starter maybe we should set up a food yeah me and you should we do that call it on menu what would the concept be I need to get back to you on that because the IP you know I don't want to be giving it out in a room full of people do you know what I mean I totally get that. I mean, it just has to be about, you know, there's so many questions you can ask about food. You could do the whole thing of, you know, what's the one food you'd eat on a desert island?

7:23Sweet or salty? I'd always pick sweet. I have a massive sweet tooth. So you would pick sweet on a desert island? Yeah, a million percent. Because then if I ever desire salt, I just have a bit of seawater and that's going to put me off for months. Okay, so let me just get this straight. So you'd go to a desert island? Well, I wouldn't go there. if I was trapped there. Right. But I would know how to survive on a desert island because I watch so many survival videos. Okay, well, here's a question for you. You allowed three bits of survival kit to take to a desert island. What are you taking? All I need to survive is a piece of plastic.

8:02So a ruler? No, no, no, no. Like a sheet of plastic. Oh, so like a bigger ruler? No. You're obsessed. At school, did you have straight rulers? Did you have one of them bendy ones that you slap people with? I had the bendy one, but I also had the straight one. I had both. No, I loved the slap rulers. You see, this is how I know you were living. You had both rulers. Most of us, we had to make a decision, and that shaped our characters. But personally, so if I was on a desert island, you get a sheet of plastic, okay? You dig a big hole on the beach, which actually as men, we are naturally inclined to do it.

8:36We'll come back to that. You dig a hole on the beach, and you put a sheet of plastic over it. Okay. And then you put stones in the middle of that sheet of plastic. So it's sort of sagging into the hole. Because when the thing is sagging into the hole, condensation, I've left out an important bit of this. Yeah, I thought. Yeah. Never mind. Forget that. No, no, no. But you see, in the heat of the moment, I would know what to do. Yeah. But basically what I was going to say is you put leaves underneath, they evaporate. No, but don't rush it. We're trying to survive here. Is this a part of the podcast?

9:02Yes, this is. Oh, right. Oh, I thought this was still like icebreaker. No, no, no. Right, right, right. This is it. Right, we're on a desert island. We find some leaves. Just quickly, how have we got there? We've stranded. Just woke up. Ryanair flight, dodgy, Bermuda Triangle, we're stranded. Everyone else died. Well, I don't want to say that, but we can't see them.

9:25So what we do is we take some leaves, loads of leaves, and we put them in a hole. Got it. We stretch some plastic over the hole. Sorry, who's dug the hole? You and I together? Well, I didn't even know you were on the island I am, I'm with you I'll probably kill you You will what? Because otherwise I have to now keep you alive And are you good at survival? Unbelievable Unbelievable I don't really trust people with those beaded bracelets Because it means that there's not enough danger in your life To even risk them coming undone When I wear a beaded bracelet, instantly it disintegrates so you've got the plastic sheet you've dug a hole you've got half a plastic bottle you're collecting the condensation so the water's going into the bottle from the leaves in the hole what are you doing next for survival?

10:19well the next thing you've got to do is make a fire and then a shelter so water fire shelter so stop, listen, live that's like for the road water fire shelter Of course, because you have to drink because you get thirsty. You have to make fire so you can be warm and cook and then shelter so you can protect from elements. How are you making fire? I'll probably just get some sort of flint. From where? You look like a man who has lots of different bits of wood on him. Do you know what I mean? Like lots of small pieces, like a bit of sage and then the bracelets and whatnot. So something we'll be able to craft a fire from.

10:56Do you know any survival tips? Yeah, I know how to make a catapult. Okay, go on. Which is? Which is a stick with a... Have you ever watched Dennis Venice? I mean, I had catapults in Zimbabwe because they weren't illegal. But in England, when I came over, suddenly they're like, no, this is a weapon. So I then had to get rid of them all. But did you... Okay, here we go. So did you have a proper catapult? Oh, the one that you... With thick rubber. And it rested on your arm and you put your arm through it and you have it back. So you hold the stem. You're talking about some neck sniper rifle catapults, which we did not have that technology in Zimbabwe.

11:25So in Zimbabwe, was it handmade by you or did you go and buy it in a shop? There was a marketplace. No, no, not a shop. There was a marketplace that sold them. Different thickness of, different girth of elastic depending on the power of the shot. Get out of here. Of course. Why wouldn't there be? Was there really? Of course. And depending on the power of the catapult, the more expensive it was? Yeah, because some of them were so thick. If you shot something, it can literally go through any substance. Give it a, what was it like growing up in Zimbabwe? I mean, growing up in Zimbabwe is just the greatest thing ever.

12:00Really? Because what was so fantastic about Zimbabwe was the total embodiment of what being a child should be. Right? When you're a kid, you're adventurous. You know, kids do weird stuff. They're always falling and climbing and jumping. In England, it's hard to do that because school finishes, it's dark, you have to go home and you have to sit on an iPad. In Zimbabwe, you can do whatever you want. Climb trees, go on mad adventures. You know, I've done it all. I remember the example I always tell people as a sort of indication of if you had a thought, you could do the thought. Was I remember I saw bungee jumping on TV once and I said to my sister, let's try bungee jumping.

12:38So I climbed in a tree with a rope, just a normal rope, tied it around my waist, tied some around the tree and then just jumped out the tree. Now, obviously, when I fell now, it just cracked. My ribs were just hanging on this rope and my sister has to lift me whilst we quickly asked my dad to come in and tie the rope. If I wanted to do it, I could do it right as a kid. But hang on, isn't that like what growing up as a kid back in the 90s, that's what it was just like? We didn't have Distract. We had no iPads. We had no nothing. We could, we just, our minds were our iPads. True, but you also, no, you're right.

13:11You're right. Because, you know, kids back then had adventures as well. But think about the terrain as well. Think about the weather. You know, if it's always sunny, you're always outside. There is not really any winter. and you know you're able to climb trees and you're able to okay so gardens for example is a good example in in england a garden's quite the luxury i'd say for many people right yeah uh but in zimbabwe because there's so much land it's almost like everyone has a garden and um you know our garden for example we didn't have a wall at the end of it meaning it just sort of spilled out into this vast terrain so we could basically decide where to build the wall right so when i remember when we first moved to the house, the house that we thought we were going to live in forever, right?

13:54So the garden is so vastly overgrown, anyone can hide in it, right? So my dad said we need to do a controlled fire. Now, of course, none of us knew how to do a controlled fire. So my dad and his two brothers were there and we just set fire to the garden. So it's gone up in flames. This grass is burning like mad to the point where at the end, all of the ground was black. And sure enough, we found little nests where people had, there was no people in the grass at that time, but where people previously had just camped out. You serious? Yeah. Yeah. Because there was no one living at the house before.

14:25And then obviously, you know, you build your Jura wall and then that becomes your land.

14:33When you left Zimbabwe, sad, upsetting. I mentioned it before, but really, because you basically you speak so beautifully about it. And obviously it's such a, you've done your documentary about it. It must have been pretty shit at times. Oh, yeah. I didn't have any concepts of the future in the sense of, I thought, look, we're probably going we'll probably come back As it transpires in the first of the documentaries which I made, which was about Robert Mugabe really the reason we had to leave because of the political and economic upheaval he caused when we left, it was pretty much permanent Could you feel the tension at the time as a young kid in Zimbabwe?

15:16My parents did a good job of not necessarily showcasing it to me. I mean, I'd hear stories of violence and stuff, but put it this way. I had a big ice cream tub full of pocket money, right, which I'd collect. Let's say I had about$400, which is nothing in Zimbabwe. I remember my mum come into my room and I just put like another bit of money there. And she went, it's totally pointless what you're doing because tomorrow will be worth nothing. That was the extent of inflation to the point where inflation, I mean, I forget the status in the doc, But it was at one point you could go into, say, your Sainsbury's equivalent, buy a loaf of bread for two pounds.

15:51And by the time you walk over to the till, it's 10 pounds. Get out of here. Yeah. No ways. The only reason that they had to change currency to the US dollar is because they ran out of space on calculators to calculate the figures of things. That's how much inflation was. It was within the billion percent. That is mad. So naturally, so my parents, you can imagine if your money is literally devaluing by the day, by the second even, they spent everything they had on the tickets to come to England. And so when we arrived in England, we will stay with my grandma and then my dad would hitchhike around different parts of England to see where it would be safe for us to grow up.

16:33Wow. And what's really interesting is that. Wow, that's amazing. You know, my dad, he had this, you know, he would do what he needed to, you know, he would like work all of these jobs in order to try and hitchhike. And then when he would go to the place, he would look around and be like, try and speak to landlords. Obviously you need to show proof of earnings, which they didn't have. So he was so terrified that I would fall into like a gang or whatever. So he was like, I just need to get my son in a good place. I remember going with my dad to these schools and he said to me, look, we're going to put you in really smart clothes to go and meet this deputy head teacher so we went to the school I brought I was dressed to the nines walking around the school everyone's looking at me like a madman and I've sat down with this teacher I've like memorized all my long words proper being like you know be such a pleasure to come to this school Mrs Hammersley it'll be the greatest honor of my life you know really trying to you know blag it and sure enough we know we We got into the school and we had to rebuild from there.

17:35Because literally, if you imagine moving to a place, I, Zimbabwe, and being like, this is our home now. This is our life. This is where we're going to live forever. We're going to build our dreams and our family here. Then next thing you know, you're moving with nothing. For my parents, it would have been really tough. For me, personally, I don't, you know, I was just enjoying life. You know, as long as I was with my sisters having fun, it was cool. I think it was difficult for them. what I find incredible is I can't imagine the sort of passion and desire and willpower you have just to look after and protect your family what's interesting is that often times African fathers sacrifice so much in order to for the self-preservation of their kids and for their kids to do well they tap out of everything out so like my dad doesn't even know who Beyonce is do you know how crazy that is if you said to my dad do you know who Beyonce is he'd be like nope he just has no reference of popular culture so it's a weird one because I can't talk to him about anything other than stuff that's really deep I once tried to take him to Avatar because I thought you know it's three hours long you have to understand part of it by the time we get to the end and in Avatar they constantly mention this place Pandora you remember to the point where people got Pandora Blues because they felt so much in love with this place and we got to the end of the film and I thought you've got to take us something from this and I said to him Dad, what did you think of Pandora?

18:57And he went, who is she again? I thought, no, it's a lost cause. I saw that you kind of give all of your credit to being the entertainer that you are down to pretty much your dad. Well, so specifically my granddad. I mean, academically, yes, my dad, but my granddad was the funny one. And he bought you a joke book, didn't he? Yeah, that's right. My granddad was a cool dude. And like his, all of him and his brothers, they were like the guys. So like when I used to go on the walk, when I used to go on a walk with my granddad through the village, all the old ladies would be like, hi, Brian. And I was like, yo, I want to be like that guy.

19:30You know, then my uncle, my uncle Doug, who again is a legend. You know, he used to be apparently amazing at every sport. And I remember my grandma would tell the story one time, like they came out the cinema or whatever. And there was this huge circle. Yeah. And these guys were beating up this one guy with knuckle dusters. Imagine that. And my uncle Doug stepped in there, finished them both off bang, bang, bang, dum. And I was like, Doug, Doug, Doug. and I'm like what it's unbelievable movie and then people say that my grandma used to tell me this story about how the swimming gala there was like a race and my uncle Doug they blew the whistle or whatever and then the race started and my uncle Doug disappeared under the water and everyone's like where's Doug man where's Doug I hope he's okay and he just appears at the finish line you know I'm like yo I need to be like Doug sorry what are you doing what because you're swimming underwater sorry sorry He just appeared Yes He did his whole length Under water Sorry And he goes He walks outside the cinema I love this And Doug Meets up everyone With Doug and others And even the crowd Don't know who he is Start chanting Doug Doug Doug Yeah because he was A local legend I reckon he's called Doug Doug Doug He's a local legend Yeah So I wanted to be like You know As a kid I'm like You know They they were like my male role models.

20:54So important to have in life. For sure. But when you're beyond important. And if you don't really have that, you don't really understand what it is to sort of become a man in lots of ways. It's very interesting because, you know, you can obviously scrutinize what that definition is. For me, I think maybe you would have, you know, the desire to have a male role model is just to begin to shape some form of moral compass. Because then technically you can separate that from any sort of traits of masculinity. It can be more like, can you teach me or do I have someone who can teach me to be a good person?

21:33You know, to instill values of helping others or being polite or having respect for boundaries. When I, you know, if and when I become a dad, those are the kind of things that I will aspire to do, especially if I have a son. Of course, you know, I'm thinking about, oh my God, like how do I create a good young man? and most of what I can hope to do, that needs to be my priority before being like, how can I create a really strong macho man? That needs to fall second to, how do I create a respectful human? And I think that's what we need more of. Your documentaries that you're doing at the moment, you obviously did one about Zimbabwe.

22:08Now you're doing one about North Korea. Or it's out at the moment. Just something a bit more lighthearted, I think. Yeah, yeah, of course. But again, what you do is, as you said, it's such a heavy topic that you have to put these sketches and sort of entertainment in it because otherwise it becomes too much. Do you worry about reviews or anything like that when things come out? Being in Zimbabwean and having had my dad's feedback, if I hear anything remotely bad about something, I'm like, it's a total failure. If it's not five stars, it's a failure. In your eyes? Of course. So that's not a good way to think.

22:43I remember at GCSE I got six A stars four A's I broke you would have thought that I literally failed every subject the way I was in the shower like an Usher music video hammering the wall you know it's crazy that's literally just the way that I'm built so that creates a drive yeah it creates my drive but you know people around me my friends say look you can't go through life like that that's just going to get in the way of you being a grateful person so when we made the documentary what I spent the week doing, and I will read the reviews eventually just to learn and become better. But I said, look, in the first week, I'm just going to take a moment to be like, cool, I got to make a doc.

23:23I got to go to South Korea and Switzerland and I got to study and I got to meet all these amazing people who shared very real stories with me. That's got to be worth something before I read someone's review. So I'm just absorbing that. Then when I'm in a good place, I'm going to check out the reviews, try and pick what bits I can learn from and then move on. And why do you want to do the docs? I want to do the docs because number one I'm interested in politics as you know actually one thing that have become very apparent to me after doing both of these documentaries now is dictatorships are things that we wrongly and arrogantly assume happen in poor places and two dumb people quote unquote right because if I said to you in England do you think we'll ever have a dictator you might be like what are you on about England have a dictator what about America nah man come on we're America we're England Donald Trump is saying stuff that could very easily fall straight out of a dictator's handbook I've seen a tweet of him saying you know maybe we should just have one like really rough day where there's like no law enforcement and maybe that will help stuff bro that's a purge you're talking about the purge yeah for him to have what is it 34 no he tweeted that yeah that with this no he didn't even tweet it's a video footage you can go and look at it just type in rough day Donald Trump.

24:37Him talking about the fact he has so many felonies and we're all just cool with it. And it's like, nah, yeah, it's fine. He can operate. The fact that if anyone and anyone says, look, this thing about you has been said, it is true. Here are the statistics. Here are the pictures. Here are the words. And he can just go, that ain't true. I never did that. Boris did that as well. Those are all things that dictators do. And so the membrane between us and them, by us and them, them by which I mean, you know, your Zimbabwe, your North Korea and whatnot, is thinner than you think. And that's why it's really interesting for me, even personally, just to investigate that, to see how many parallels are there and how close are we?

25:20You know, any president saying stuff like, I might even scrap the judiciary when I come to power, because, you know, they're a bit pesky, aren't they? You're removing checks and balances. and the number one prerequisite to be a dictator is to have no checks and balances. So the documentary, as much as they are just interesting investigations, could also very much be a foreshadowing for the direction the West is heading in. What do you think? American election coming up. What do you think is going to happen? Well, I hope Kamala Harris wins. Yeah. You know what's really interesting is that in politics, if you express wanting one person not to win, the instant assumption is that you totally love the other person You know, I don't, I don't, I don't know enough about Kamala Harris, to be honest.

26:03And I don't know tons about Keir Starmer, even though I wanted him to win over the conservatives, right? Politics, one thing I was taught is that you have to understand it's not even in most cases because it's so innately flawed. It's not even about picking who the best person for the job is or who the person you like the most is. It's like a choice between the impalatable and the utterly insufferable. You know, it's the lesser of two evils, particularly in a two party system, as in America, as in the UK. So I just honestly feel like there is more to be said for a convicted felon being able to rule one of the most powerful countries on the planet.

26:40I just think the implications of that would be terrible. And I'd also ask any Trump supporter, just out of genuine interest as opposed to an attack, if Obama had one felony against him, or even close to the amount Trump had, would there not be riots in the streets saying this guy should have never been president? Again, not a perfect president, not a perfect man, but it's just a question I'd love to ask a Trump supporter.

27:08Growing up in Zimbabwe with that just landscape And just the amount of space you can have to go and experience everything That is what childhood is about It's about just having those adventures So then when you move to England, you move to Norfolk That's a culture shock Oh yeah, for sure Matt, I can't even imagine How old were you when you came to England? I was probably about 12 And it was a culture shock You know, in Zimbabwe, we would say stuff, you know, when I told people I was moving to England, everyone would say stuff like, no, don't go to England. I've heard that they throw chairs at teachers.

27:39That was like mythology. Literally, two weeks into moving to England in the music lesson, someone threw the chair at the teacher. Get out of here! And if I say to you, do you know anyone who was in a school where they threw a chair at the teacher? Of course, in England, that's like your rite of passage, isn't it? For Jesus Christ, I was nodding ahead. So look, you know, if I say this, as even though I'm born in Britain, if I say this, it will be deemed as a criticism of England. But you know, England can be a very cruel place, really, in terms of even how, you know, kids are. And I think it's shaped, you know, psychologically, my degree is in psychology.

28:14And, you know, we would describe England as an individualistic culture, which realistically is a slightly scaled down version of the American dream. In America, it's amped up to the ninth degree, which is, if you fail, it's your fault, right? In England, it's perhaps less so about that, It's more shrouded, but it's certainly a case of it's your job to be successful. And if someone falls over in front of you, sort of not your problem. It's about you, right? In Zimbabwe, it's a collectivist society. So it's people are happy to see each other do well. You know, when someone begins to climb the ranks of success or whatever in their discipline, people are very excited for that.

28:50You know, even on an academic level in school, you know, in American movies where the jocks like the football player and they've got their cool varsity jacket. in Zimbabwe, being smart in school was the equivalent of being a jock. Was it really? To the point where people would get detentions in class because the teacher would ask a question. Everyone would shoot their hands up and people would be clicking just to be able to answer the question. And the teacher would go, don't click at me, you're in detention for wanting to answer a question. So when I moved to England now and I put my hand up in lesson, I'm the only person to put my hand up, then sure enough people start calling me boffin.

29:22I'm thinking, what's a boffin? Sounds like that thing freaking Harry Potter catches in Quidditch, right? and I'm like what a snitch it's such a yeah but there's boffins and quibbles and snitches and right so my point is my first survival instinct as a teenager in England was to hide any and all talent I had for fear of being bullied or ridiculed so you suppressed that really oh yeah yeah for sure so I would try to answer questions less or if I did I was like cool it's a Hail Mary I'm going to get bullied for it but I really want to answer the question because I know I'm uninterested. So, you know, that was the biggest culture shock.

30:01It was like, you know, don't, don't openly succeed. And sure enough, we do see it. That's hard though, because you're unlearning something that you learned, which as 12 years old, 13 years old, that's tricky because you have to become so good at your own psyche and understand other people's psyche straight away and go, shit, okay, this is my protective nature. I need to now not do everything that I was doing before, which is mad. Yeah. And, you know, if to participate in class or to be good at, say, a sport or music or whatever, you know, I never really think it's to it's never to the spite of others.

30:32It's more so just realizing there's a thing that you're, you know, good at and want to go in. But so often I think it's taken as an attack on others. You know, like in a I remember in a PE lesson, we had to do this circuit and I a guy called I did 10 press ups. Right. It was like a yeah, you had to move from station to station. I did 10 press-ups. Then a guy called Callum did about 14 or whatever. Then I said, oh, I can do another lap. So I went round and this time I did 20. Obviously, I'm going to want to try. And bro, it was like I committed a war crime. Everyone's like, nah, man, why are you trying to do 20?

31:06Why is he beating Callum, man? Callum did 12 and you should have let him have that. And it was this thing of like, wait, are we meant to, what am I meant to do in life right now? Like, am I meant to try and do my best or am I meant to try and do deliberately less? that was the hardest learning as a kid that's a weird i never thought of it that way in the uk because because america the america language america dream right is like we want you to succeed oh my god he's driving a car he's talking about how much money his business it's that kind of sort of attitude the uk sort of philosophy is a little bit like oh we want you to do well as you said but you don't we don't want you to become a show-off and as soon as you start doing well oh, we don't like it that you're doing so well.

31:50And that sort of does, it suppresses us as individuals because we don't really want to do that. But surely you're right, as kids, you want to be competitive, you want to be the best, you want to do the things, but then if the, what is it, is it a jealousy thing within the class? Yeah, but that thing even to describe it as a show-off, right? If you watch anyone, and I'm talking, you know, a pianist or an athlete or whatever in their flow state, the nature of a flow state is such that it appears effortless. and totally thoughtless. And it's like water, the way that it flows. Naturally, a person's going to look like they're showing off in many cases.

32:25You know, the flourish of somebody doing something well, you know, if you're watching a pianist and they're lost in the music and they're moving in certain ways, you might be like, oh, this guy loves himself or she loves herself. When actually it's just the full embodiment of what they're doing. You know, similarly like, you know, like boxers, for example, charisma sells fights. So you want a meek boxer. you want a box who's like I don't know maybe I'll beat him I'm not sure maybe I'll be able to knock him out I'm the greatest in the world you know those two things are not synonymous you're like Muhammad Ali would Muhammad Ali be memorable if he'd gone around being like well I'm not sure I think I could knock him out I'm not sure we'll have to see won't we Larry do you know what I mean it's like it's part of the you know it's part of the of the game I agree with you in the sense that you know arrogance is not an enticing quality but you know charisma is something that we all think we want, you know, even within a political framework, you know, the biggest criticism, well, one of the initial biggest criticisms of our current prime minister, Keir Starmer, is that he's so bland, he's so boring.

33:27And what people say they loved about Tony Blair is how charismatic he was, and he had the it factor. But then if Keir Starmer became that, he would entice his own brand of hatred for that. So I guess it's weird, though. Well, it's weird. And I'm just saying that as when I moved here, it was something I really struggled to understand. It's strange how we have to find a box for individuals. Look, everyone's different. Some people, you know, everyone is different. Everyone's on their own path. And some people, for example, can achieve, you know, can move mountains through their meekness and it's part of their, you know, their innate charm and who they are.

34:02And, you know, we should totally celebrate that. I think we should just be open to celebrating all different manifestations of a person's talent and drive. You know, if you're from a family, you know, for example, most African families will encourage this extreme over-ambition and over-achievement. And so when people enter a culture that is not an African culture and they want to continue to do that, it's not for any desire to show off. It's because of this underlying pressure of, oh no, I have to be the best I can be, otherwise my dad won't love me. You know? So it's crazy. It goes back to that, isn't it?

34:34Yeah. In school, if you miss Pave in Zimbabwe, you get the cane, right? And there was different thicknesses of cane. So I never got the cane at school because I was very clever to being mischievous only behind the teacher's back, right? I was actually head boy at school. I was actually head boy twice. But I was also quite naughty. Wait, sorry, sorry. So you were head boy twice. How does that work? So let me tell you the, in Zimbabwe, again, this is one thing I love about Zimbabwe, right? In Zimbabwe, it was like the Triwizards tournament. when they wanted to select a leader. So what they did is this.

35:09They said, right, when you're in year seven, we're going to send you all the way to this camp. There's no adults there. There's just older students, either from a different school or who volunteer at the camp. When you go to this camp, you'll be separated into groups with other people in your year group, and you will be monitored and observed across the week to see which of you are leaders. We'll determine from there who'll be prefects, deputy head boy, head boy, head girl. So I get to this camp. It's in the middle of nowhere. It's not the jungle, but it's certainly rural, right? There's snakes and stuff.

35:40The girls would sleep in like these huts, right? And the boys, we slept in the roof of this ginormous hut. So we just slept in this attic, right? On these thin mattresses. And I was divided into a team. Some people from the group I knew, some I didn't. And the challenges were mental. Because in Zimbabwe, there's no health and safety. Your parents don't sign a little form saying, oh, please look after my kid. It's just like, yeah, whatever happens, happens to see at the end of it. so one of the challenges was they took us to a crocodile farm and the guy literally showing us around only had one arm because the other one had been death rolled off and they took us into this room which had this huge basin of crocodiles this huge pool right and a very thin plank leading over the pool and it was filled not with big crocodiles but with baby crocodiles like toddler crocodiles so if they bit you they'll still mess you up still scary ain't gonna pull off a limb but they hurt you just literally clamoring over each other.

36:31And they said, right, if you're brave enough, walk over the plank. Now there's no guardrails. Are you? Sorry. There's no harness or anything. So they said, if you're brave enough, walk across the plank. Now, naturally we all wanted to do it. So actually in that case, they couldn't pick a leader because everyone was literally queuing up to run across. So we all ran across the plank. No one fell in. Thank God. Then the other challenge, one of them was, they took us into this forest and there were these two trees, right? and between the trees was an electric wire. Yeah, just one single wire. And they said, right, all of your team will start on this side.

37:03By the end of this challenge, your entire team needs to be over the other side, which means we had to lift each other over this electric wire. So the first person literally had to be chucked over because there's no one to catch them the other side. So we found the skinniest person. We just threw them over, land on the dirt, right? Then we had to start lifting everyone over. I was the last person. Of course. And I went, I actually used to be high jump champion. I was the second best person in Norfolk at high jump. Do you know that? No, I don't. So I was really good at high jump. Anyway, I high jumped over the wire.

37:33We had loads of different challenges. We had this one challenge where you had to wrestle each other. And then it was like winner stays on. And at the end of this camp, we were like battered and bruised and whatnot. That's when I became head boy. Sorry. There's been a huge jump. Sorry. Did you wait? When you wrestled everyone? Yeah. You were a winner? Yeah, I won. Good, yeah. But loads of stuff happened. I'm trying to remember all the different challenges. Basically, I would always do the challenge, and I would always try. I got put with, like, because I was a bit of a nerd, but I got put with, like, the freaks and geeks.

38:03We were the freaks and geeks. And no one expected us to win. But you know in movies where you're like, you know, there's a geek doing, like, a motivational talk. It's like, come on, guys, we can do this. That was me. Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop.

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39:58I heard you speak about it before, and there's this wild story that you mentioned, which is someone wiped their WhatsApp dust on your afro. But you know what? Those kind of experiences, they're very normal. Like, you know, people with curly hair or people with afro hair, like, if someone touches it, you don't even deem that as any form of racism because it's so normalized within your experience. But, you know, having moved to somewhere like London and heard the stories of my friends here, you know, I understand certainly that, you know, I was probably very lucky to have, you know, to be mixed because I would have benefited from, you know, you know, there's a light-skinned privilege.

40:34That totally exists. In Norwich, where I lived, especially in Framingham Piggott, there was no people of color, full stop. So if they saw me, they would just say, you're black, right? And as such, they would treat me in those ways in certain instances. So, for example, I remember once I was this guy in my class called Jason and he had a photographic memory, right? This is how this exchange went. I held up a calculator to him and I said, Jason, I put nine numbers on a calculator and I went, right, Jason, look at this. And I flashed in front of him and I went, what were the numbers? And he relayed all of them perfectly, right?

41:08And I went, Jason, that's so cool. I can't believe you can do that. And he went, yes, I hate you because of your nationality. I was like bro more time when these kind of things happen you don't even know what to say because it's just so baffling you know what I mean what do you say to that I don't know I didn't say anything I just was like oh okay you know I wasn't equipped with it so I guess what I'm saying is yeah like I you know I had like all of the sort of quote unquote common experience of racism and all that kind of stuff to me does it affect me deeply um maybe yeah it makes you conscious of being in your own skin for sure because you're sort of like you know this is always sort of this is a an unobscurable factor of me that i you know it's something i can't hide about myself which i can be you know judged about in a certain way that's just a subconscious thought i have it's not something that you know i walk around with especially when i hear the stories from my dad's era or i speak to some of my friends and hear what they went through i think to myself you know what come on you know try to find a way to deal with what you've experienced.

42:14But what I find really interesting from observing Britain and how Britain dissects race or whatever is, you know, if I come on a podcast or if I do like a standup show or whatever, or if I go on a panel show and I mention anything to do with race or a person mentions anything to do with race, you know, people are very quick to suggest that with mobilizing the race card, right? And I remember when I was practicing for my stand-up, I watched Lenny Henry live at the Apollo, and all of the comments were about how he was making jokes about his race and all this kind of thing, and they were sort of really chastising him for it.

42:52And what's really interesting to me is that, you know, when you are a certain color, all of your experience is dictated by that color. You know, everything from, you know, going to the shops and being followed around, or, you know, people asking, you're from or touching your hair or you know utilizing certain words against you whatever like so much even you know if to use the shop example you know if even if the only thing i did in a day or the only thing you know a person did in a day was to go and buy a kitkat but in going to buy that kitkat they were followed around a shop is an experience that has been solely influenced by race in many instances and so it's quite difficult oftentimes to talk about race within a medium like stand-up or whatever without mentioning it because all of your experiences change because of it you going to buy a Kit Kat versus me going to buy a Kit Kat could be totally different only by the fact we could wear the same clothes and have the same haircut and only by a variable of race could they be different so of course it's something that we mention more because it has such an influence it's never, you know, I think very rarely is out of sympathy But then, because you were experiencing those sort of things you were in Norfolk, everyone else in the whole place was white do you then have to learn how to suppress certain feelings?

44:05Well, remember, I'm half white, you know, I'm mixed. So, you know, part of what my exploration in my standup show was, was this ability to, to go between, you know, to know how to do both. You know, people will refer to it as code switching, and it can happen in many ways, you know, you know, my black friends will talk about how they have to code switch on the phone. You know, they talk about the phone voice, which is the voice you want to be. And especially with African parents, you can, we all laugh about it, because you hear them adopt this particular way of speaking. so for me I actually used to read the dictionary right in order to try and learn words and you know come across more intelligent in school or whatever or to to be able to play the game that way when I was in lessons and stuff because I don't know maybe consciously I didn't know but subconsciously I think maybe I thought I'll be on the back foot in English school because I think I'm just like you know a stupid new kid so when I would go into lessons I remember one my teacher would always say to me, whoa, like your vocabulary is crazy.

45:02And it's because in my mind, in my kid brain, that's what I had to do to like, you know, to blend in seamlessly or to impress. You know, it was to be able to, you know, the expectations I thought they would have of me is that I wouldn't be, you know, equipped with that kind of vocabulary or that ability to speak. So, you know. That's a sort of unique, because what's unique, right, is that you're living your life in Zimbabwe, you're going out on all these adventures, you're having the funnest time. And then you come to your new school where you're meant to just be a kid and you're meant to be having fun.

45:35But actually, your homework isn't adventures or doing that. Your homework is trying to survive in life. I think it's incredibly naive, right? That I've just thought you haven't experienced that in my life because of the color of my skin. Yeah, look, I mean, for me personally, and maybe this is sort of just classic repression or whatever, But those things, they don't make me sad. You know, they don't make me feel any type of way. They don't make me feel as though I want any sympathy. I don't feel any type of way about it. I very rarely feel sad about those things. You know, if anything, I like to dissect them and tackle them via my satire.

46:14That's my outlet. That's my expression. you know also these are all one-of-one experiences by which i mean you know a person another person might have come from ghana or nigeria and be like no no i didn't feel the need to learn long words because i was very happy to be unapologetically myself um you know i felt you know being speaking the way i speak in the way i speak if you don't accept it that's your problem i totally admire that and for someone else that might have been their story these are just how the various factors that make Munya combined to sort of shape my behavior. And, you know, everything brought me to this point.

46:50And, you know, I learned so much about people through it. And ultimately, it's enabled me to make work that I'm very proud of and, you know, to think in a way that I'm very proud of. So although they may have been hard at the time, I'm quite like a, what's the word? I'm very oblivious to strong emotions. You know, I try to sort of take everything in my stride and embrace it from very far, to observe a feeling from very far away, which is why I never cry. I never cry. Get out of here. The only time I... What about when The Rock left WWE? There must have been a little moment. You know what? I only cry at...

47:29This is very... I know exactly the things that make me cry. Number one, I cry at instances of extreme achievement. So, for example, before he went absolutely off the ropes conor mcgregor had a documentary way you know well before all these accusations and stuff came out where it tracks his journey through the ufc and i remember that for some reason i was watching that back in whenever it was 2000 and whatnot but i just started crying i didn't even know why and i just tried to i was with people so i just tried not to show up i couldn't even hold back the tears and i don't know what what that was in relation to I just did and then um the other things that make me cry is up the movie up with the balloons oh my god that does make me cry and then and then we're unbelievable that another achievement based one is when I watched soul the Disney movie I think yeah very good when he's playing on the piano for the first time he's like doing an audition to be part of this band and he's playing on the piano and he enters his flow state and all of the world around him dissolves whatever again I just started crying and I don't even know why I think we've all I think every human has their boulder that they're pushing up all the time and so when you see that real fight or that real moment within individuals where either they're sort of beaten down but they're getting back up and if you've had that sort of fight within you at certain times that's what triggers it for sure and it becomes that real emotional moment yeah I mean Muni's crying oh no no you know there's been times that I've tried to cry my hardest and literally not a single tear will fall out.

49:02But, you know, also the people that I like, you know, when I'm going through tough times, I'm always imagining fictional characters like Kratos from God of War. And they're these totally emotionless. Now, I know that isn't healthy. That's not healthy. That's just suppressing everything. Yeah, but I know how to be good to help others with their emotions. I know how to do that. you know and that's why I say you know if I when I have kids I am totally conscious I can't create another munya I am the way I am because of my dad and he is the way he is because of his dad but when I speak to my boys I have like five of them that I'm so tight with them we've been friends forever we all say we can't be our dads we were at we were at center parks in the on-site restaurant eating like a microwave burger and we decided in that moment we can't be our dads We understand why they are the way they are, but we can't continue with that, with our kids.

50:01We have to listen to them. We have to, when they fall and they cry, we have to say, well, you know, it's okay. You know, you can cry. How hurt are you? Instead of being like, don't cry. So I don't know what that's going to entail for me, but I know that I have to change a lot to get to that point, but I want to change that way. I love that, man. I think that's great advice.

50:27Do you know what's so amazing about your career? You leave Sheffield, studying psychology. You decide that you want to go into this industry. But you were told, unless you had 30 ,000 followers, you probably wouldn't get an agent. So you went, right, I'm going to go and post a video twice a week on my social media. So you made a video twice a week. I think it was four years or something until one of them really popped off. Yes. So first of all, to get in that room, I would lie to agents saying that I was Idris Elba's son in the email. In the email. and then oftentimes either they would figure out it was a joke and go, okay, you got me.

51:01Like, this is quite interesting. Come in. I want to meet you. Or they'll be like, you know, they would believe I was his son. So I get in there on this one occasion, and they're like, look, we really liked your email. It was very smart what you did. Watched your show reel. It was good. You got charisma. You got what it takes. But how many followers do you have? And I was like, oh, I don't know, like 2 ,000. They went, no, no, no. If you had 30 ,000 followers, maybe we would have connected you to someone in the digital team. So, I mention this because it's very important within the dissection of what the term influencer means, for example.

51:38I slightly have beef with the term because I think in many cases it disguises a person's actual talent or skill. This is less in reference to me, it's more in terms of my peers even. What do you mean by that? So, what I mean by it is this. in press you know okay so thus far when I have been reviewed in the press or whatever oftentimes journalists will steer away from calling me a comedian or a satirist even though that's predominantly what I do you know I've been called a YouTuber despite the fact that I rarely put anything on YouTube when I went on Bake Off they described me as a podcaster I don't even have a podcast Jamie you know how mad that is I don't even have a podcast Is that what he said?

52:22I've been called a rapper, even though rap is sometimes what I do within my satire. And I think, okay, and of course I've been called an influencer, which is interesting to me. Influencer, in people's minds, is somebody whose only skill is being popular, right? That's what the term is used to imply. It's like, oh, you're just a popular person. However, to gain popularity, especially now, surely requires oftentimes some sort of skill. to be amazing at cooking or music or dancing or something to actually entice an audience to go, oh my God, that's amazing. I want to, I want to invest in that. I want to follow in that.

52:58And so, you know, what we're really, what we're really talking about is what does a person do beneath the label of influencer that we are not calling them? So, you know, for example, there's a, there's a girl called, I think Poppy Cooks who, you know, her specialism is recipes involving potatoes and she is sick. She could do a million and one things, but people call an influencer, She's a chef. She was a chef before she was making potatoes as well. She's a chef now. Call her a chef. Ditto with a musician. Ditto with a dancer, with a whatever. Just because oftentimes the only reason people want followers is so that they are then afforded the opportunities to do the things they want to do.

53:35The only thing that ever made me want followers is an agent saying you can't present until you have followers. If she said to me in that moment, you can present, I would have done it without followers. See what I'm saying? The only thing that gave me a desire to be popular is being told it is a prerequisite to do the thing you want to do and love to do. So the term is slightly reductionist in that it actually buries the talent that somebody has used to acquire their audience. And also, you know, we have to say that if anyone had, if someone said to you, I'm going to do a show in a minute and there's going to be 10 ,000 people there, you'd be like, bloody hell.

54:10Like, who are you? That's incredible. those are the kind of numbers that people are building every day behind their talent and so it's worth actually giving it its dues and saying cool what is it you do and I want to acknowledge you for that does that make sense? yeah it makes total sense but again goes back to that same sort of thing that we like to put people in some sort of box because it's easier for us to articulate it then you know you are a community and your videos are so smart when I first did Radio 1 I don't think you even know this but I can't wait to tell you in Radio 1 because it's a very live show as you know it's every day people are constantly thinking on their toes of what to talk about and what to do the producer at the time would say right let's go and check out Munir's social media he'll tell us what's going on he's like guys so they would go and check out what you were talking about right right to use that kind of vibe to help with what kind of conversation we should have on radio one oh that's crazy without you realizing I think you're influencing so many people on because you're spreading information in an entertaining way which is actually what people really want to engage with that's why podcasting is quite a good thing if you can make it entertaining and informational at the same time, you kind of got this great blend of something going on.

55:14And that's what you do so well. How long does it take you to write and create and direct those videos? Well, first of all, you know, I really appreciate the compliment, you know, especially, you know, I really appreciate it. And also when I meet people and they say, you know, they say to me, look, I know you don't want to hear this, but I think your videos are da-da-da. I always am so grateful for anyone who watches a video because, you know, it's just my dream. so I take every compliment at face value, full value so I appreciate that. In terms of how long it takes me to make a video some days you just wake up and you just know you just know exactly, the idea just carries you straight to where it wants to go and you execute it and it's just seamless other days you really have to wrestle with ideas, they will torment you and they will torture you.

56:04What's also really interesting to me or what I value most about creating satire is sometimes I go on a streak of videos where they're not really related to anything. You know, it might be about what happens when you skip leg day or whatever. And it's like just fun. And I remember, oh my God, you can make things just because they're fun and like, there's no consequence to you. There's no danger, but that doesn't really bring me satisfaction. If I do it long-term, I like to do something that really holds up a mirror and makes people ask about us as a society. For instance, two videos which, you know, had real discourse in the comments, and to a degree, well, for some people, backlash.

56:45One I made about Andrew Tate, right? This is really early on in his conception, where I just knew this is not a good man. He's not a good person. And I did a video expressing a search via the medium of the Andrew Tate modern. I think it was like this fake museum I'd invented. And, you know, people were like, I loved you up until now, but Andrew's spreading a good message. This is before all the human trafficking investigations, by the way. It was that thick in the comments. That's what people were saying. They were like, you know, this is how we know you've sold out to the Western media or whatever.

57:16I'm thinking, bro, about Western media, I can't even get into Soho House. What do you want about your nutcase? Then, similarly, I made a video very recently about, you know, Russell Brandon and what felt like, to me, a convenient conversion in the face of some very serious allegations. And, you know, lo and behold, in the comments, it was like, you know, people were getting into it and fighting each other and stuff, talking about whether, you know, religion should be used as like a veil and all of these kind of things. And in those situations, my job is not to go and slog it out in the comment section.

57:50I'm just providing a stimulus upon which to have a conversation. And that is very valuable to me. It's encouraging us to think about these kind of things. You know, it's encouraging us to discuss some of the institutions which previously we have just been told, you know, just allow them to exist and don't ask any questions. I want people to ask questions. I want people to ask questions about politics and to question their beliefs and what they stand for because ultimately, through discourse, you'll either change them or you'll strengthen them. And I think that's to the benefit of society. So I like to provoke conversation more than I like to be popular, if that makes sense.

58:27If you were to do this kind of satire and these kind of things on, I don't know, SNL. Or you kind of separate it. Oh, SNL are going to get the sort of comments. Not you as the comedian or individual, it's SNL. Because it's on your own personal page, it's about you. So there has to be a slight combination between, okay, I've got this big following. Am I worried now I'm going to alienate some people because then maybe people stop liking me. But also I want to produce content that sparks this conversation and I want to do stuff that I think is right. So it must be a hard kind of road to follow. There's a very good point about the SNL thing.

59:05You know, maybe I would, if there was an SNL here, maybe I would have never started to make my own things. But in relation to what you're saying, if I make a video and people unfollow me because they don't like what I am, you know, what I'm, the message I'm putting in the video, there's a few things to consider. First of all, as an innate psychologist and also as a satirist, what I believe my role is is to often reflect how we are feeling together how we are how most of us are feeling same way as a political cartoonist will often do you know I love Ben Jennings who you know if you've not seen him you can check him out he's like sort of similar age to me he does really bang on the money political cartoons and his job is even harder than mine because he needs to in a single image capture everything and I just think he's he's just totally incredible.

59:52But I'm studying constantly how people feel before I load up the bone arrow, right? So when I take the shot, I already know by and large, I'm trying to encapsulate how many people are feeling, right? As opposed to just putting out something that I know is going to alienate people, if that makes sense. So that's the first thing. Number two, I check every video I send to my manager and I send to the same group of friends to number one, ask, is this funny? number two is this you know is this inoffensive and when i say inoffensive what i mean is i don't know i don't want to hurt anyone i'm not a malicious person it's not in my interest to cause any form of harm to anyone and i care more about not harming people than i do being liked if that makes sense and that that translates as i could have a video that i think is hilarious and i don't care people are hurt by it and i just put it out i'm never going to do that i'm always going to check first that's the second layer of defense thirdly if a video goes out and someone goes look I'm going to follow you because I don't like what you're saying about Rishi Sunak and I don't like what you're saying about Russell Brand and I really like Andrew Tate.

1:00:55That's fine. I'm not in a race to become the most followed person. All I want to do is leave a body of work that was challenging and that meant something and that inspired some sort of change. That's all that matters to me. Do you think humor and satire is a good vehicle to land a message? Of course. It's like this phrase, I think I must have invented it by now. It's like putting the medicine in the lasagna, right? If I said, do you want lasagna? Nine out of 10 people in this room, bar the psychopaths, would say yes, right? So if I need you to eat lasagna, if you're a kid and I need you to eat medicine or vitamins, whatever, I'm just going to put it in the lasagna.

1:01:35It's a Trojan horse. Some people might refer to it as. But if you want people to understand something, humor is a language we all speak and enjoy speaking, right? And that's why in something as intensive as a documentary about North Korea and Kim Jong-un, which are extremely ominous topics, you're talking about people suppressed under a dictatorship, somebody who could literally end the world with the press of a button. I have to put sketches and songs in there because otherwise, why was a British person scrolling their TV guide if they even watch TV going to go, let me watch a documentary about a group of people who are having a much harder life than I am.

1:02:15How do you get them to care? How do you get a person to care who has everything? So it's like, cool, if I can communicate through song and through satire and make you laugh, hopefully through that you will absorb some of the other messages. So in my own experience, comedy is a great communicator.

1:02:33It's amazing. And you know what's crazy? What? This is how I know I'm going to be back on the podcast. I didn't even have to tell the dog story. No, no, I'm not telling it. I'm not telling it because he's already wrapped. He's already wrapped the podcast. We've got eight questions. No, no, no. You have to... Wait, so what happened to the dog? No, no, no, I'm not telling you now. Shit. As a presenter, your job was to remember that. So you have to get me back on one day. Please. Everyone guess in the comments what it was. Muni, we'd like to end with eight questions. Are you ready for this? Yeah.

1:02:59What's a saying or phrase that always makes you smile or cheers you up? My wife. That's mine. Is that yours? Yeah. Best compliment anyone's ever given you? Oh, I love it when I go to people, I'm five foot seven and they go, nah. That makes me feel good. because I'm very strongly five foot seven. What scares you most about yourself? So if my brain wanted to roast me, it could literally destroy me. Wow, good one. It's too strong. That's my favorite answer about that one. I'm similar. Great answer. And I think a lot of people relate to that. Yeah. Brain can be so overpowering sometimes and you have to fight it a lot.

1:03:35Like even just, you know, this morning I was just sleeping, yeah, and I was just about to wake up, but my brain was sort of awake and it was like, bro, like what did you actually really achieve this year? Shut up. I was like bro I woke up and I was like did anyone hear that? Last time you cried and why? Last time I cried was probably watching up but also the last time I cried actually was when I was writing an article about my old neighbour Peter who is still alive but I have a mood recently and Peter is like bro everyone knows Peter yeah in South London he's got this amazing garden bro this guy literally roast me every time I walk past his house yeah and um basically he became like my without me knowing he became like one of my best friends in the neighborhood because whenever I saw him I'd stop and I'd have these super long conversations with him where he'll tell me like stories about the war or stories about mad stuff that he's done and then when I moved I was asked to write an article about London and like something just anything to do with London and I ended up writing about Peter and when I was writing this article I just literally started crying because I realized that Peter was basically like my granddad.

1:04:42Yeah. And my granddad passed away in lockdown. And so I never really got to say bye to him. I went to see him at the start of lockdown and he basically had, you know, tumor in his throat. So he couldn't speak to me anymore. So I couldn't even hear him speak. So when I, when he passed away, like I didn't see him, I never heard from him again. So, and I didn't feel any emotion about it because obviously like in my mind if I go back to Derby I might still see him right but he's gone so when I'm writing this article about Peter I'm like oh my god like I realized that the reason that I'm taking all this time to speak to this guy is because I think he's my granddad like you know he's everything that I could have said to my granddad all the stories I could have told to him so that was the last time I cried when I was writing that article it's amazing man that's amazing what's something you can't let go of something i can't let go of donuts man because banging i used to have a yeah i used to get in trouble at work because one day my boss saw found uh he saw me like close my drawer quickly and then he opened it and i had had like a stash of donuts that i'd eat like a squirrel underneath the desk so i keep telling people that i'm healthy now but if i walk past any donut shop i have to eat donuts man glazed donuts yeah what's something you'd be embarrassed for people to know you like or want?

1:05:57I love the Pussycat Dolls. No cap. I love the Pussycat Dolls. Only one album though, which is PCD. And I love the tune, I Don't Need a Man. Just like the beat of that is just crazy. For real, bro. I'll die on that. I don't need a man to make it happen. I get up doing my thing. And I just hear that. I'm just like, you know what? Go for it. Go off. What turns you off? Turns me off. obviously dogs like I said but also man I tell you what's a big ick if I was a girl this would be my ick you know when guys are moving around and then their shoe squeaks on the floor bro I think why is your shoe breaking in front of me that puts me off when I hear shoes squeak I'm like it's so embarrassing you've just pierced the silence with your squeak so good so good Pete what turns you on when I go in and there's no dogs

1:06:53Oh no, cool facts. I love facts. Oh my, you like facts? I love a fact. Oh man, I can spiel some off for you big time. Like, okay, supposedly, this is a great one. Supposedly why the Apple logo is the Apple logo. So Alan Turing, he invented the first computer. He was an amazing guy, incredible guy. He was gay and he got caught and he had a choice of being chemically castrated or being put in prison. I mean, just a terrible thing back in the day. so he chose chemical castration because he wanted to still work on his computers anyway they sent him completely loopy completely mad and he took his own life but he didn't want his mother to know so he made it look like an accident so he injected an apple with cyanide and took a bite out of it that's why Steve Jobs called it Apple and in respect for Alan Turin he made the first computer that's crazy that's a brilliant fact that's a good one right I was going to say that there are no nerve endings in the flappy bit of your elbow so if right now as you're listening you grab the tip of your elbow with it straight so the skin and squeeze it as hard as you can and pinch it you can't feel a thing that's a good one what do you like most about yourself I like my brain I like my eyebrows yeah they're good you know I'm just used to them yeah I like my brain and my eyebrows that's a great combination and I like being able to jump so high imagine that I was once the second best person in Norfolk at a high jump do you not there was no one better than me in Norfolk well one person better than me in the whole of Norfolk that's crazy do you not blew my mind the other day you and I or everyone in this room we were once the youngest person in the world nah it's not true it is true it's not true because at any given second there are multiple babies being born no not as every time I click my finger a baby's been born but like two as I took my first breath not at the same time I always try and do stuff that means I'm the only person doing it in the world at that one time like what like doing like the crab

1:08:42favourite swear word I don't even really swear that much That's a good thing. But I'll say like... You don't have to say anything. One that really baffles people is when you say... Because it's so childish and it's a huge ick. But if something mad happens and you go, oh, pants.

1:08:57Last one. What happened to the dog? Nah. No. Can't tell you. It's going to be our next one. Got to be the next one, man. Thank you so much for having a great company. Thanks for having me, Jamie. Appreciate you. Take sure you watch The Dot. Yo, watch The Dot.

1:09:16What do you think? Fantastic. Any notes? I made a note for myself. Oh, really? Just, well, actually, big note for myself. Actually, both of us as a team. The dog. We forgot the dog. I'm so annoyed. And I feel like that was more my job to remember that. I don't like to put blame, but I am going to blame you for that one. Yeah, I'll take it. And I'm really sorry, listener, we didn't find out what happened to that dog. It's quite smart of him, though. I just was so engaged. I think that's a trick of him. He's done that before. I don't think there is a story about a dog Nor do I think it's a trick But can I just applaud you Because I think I get much of the applauding sometimes Well produced Once again As you guys probably know by now We have an iPad next to us And Jemima constantly writes to me Throughout the episode Saying different things And you are You're producing with Sublime We were on a good We were on the same wave We were riding that wave together Oh yeah we're riding that wave Do you know what I've just written As my note for myself Munya high jump I too was a high jump champion How high was your high jump?

1:10:19I think I did 145 That's good Is it? 1 meter 45 On that note ladies and gentlemen please remember to let us know what you think of the episodes you can send us an email greatcompany at jumpoproductions.co.uk or you can slide into our DMs at greatcompanypodcast and if you haven't already please click subscribe or follow wherever you're watching or listening to this we would love that more than anything Keep hooting. We'll see you next week for another episode of Great Company.

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