PROFESSOR GREEN: Diagnosed With Autism Age 40 & Why Working Class Men Are Lost

0:00Coming up in this episode of Great Company. Was there ever a time where you felt that maybe you wouldn't be here? Yeah, loads. Really? I felt uncomfortable for a huge part of my life having to do all these things which I felt like I should have been grateful for, but not feeling very comfortable doing them. Wow, what a juxtaposition. It's like a constant battle. I'm not going to cry on this podcast, Jamie. Not here for that. I'm Stephen Mandison, better known to some as Professor Green, and they forced me to say this, I am in great company. A singer and mental health campaigner. Another UK legend, Professor Green.

0:34This is Millie McIntosh, who is on the show, who is your ex-wife. The second and third page of the Daily Mail the day after we got married was East End drug dealer marries Quality Street heiress. That's mad. Do you think there's a correlation between having your boy and then figuring out yourself as well? Yeah, massively. It was the most significant kick up the backside I've ever had. You know, he'll just be like, Dad, I really don't want you to die. And I'm like, OK, keep it together. Keep it together, Stephen. Can we talk about your dad? It's really unusual for my dad and his two brothers to have taken their own lives because it's not a decision that many of us are capable of.

1:10And this is the thing with grief. It changes shape. It never disappears. I will forever be sad about my dad having passed. It was the absence that he couldn't be there to help or to aid and I couldn't talk to him and get a response from him. And I would love for him to meet Mike, you know? If your dad was here? Yeah. What's the one question you would ask him?

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4:02Hello everyone, my name is Jamie Lang and this is Great Company.

4:11Well, hello Jemima. Hello Jamie Lang. How are you? I'm very well, how are you? Okay, so we have Professor Greene. Don't know how he is. Yeah, I'm great actually. I'm really, really good. He's good. I think I'm just excited for today's episode. That's why I jumped straight into things. Yeah. I'm really, really excited for it. Speaking of which. What? Well, we've been having to think at our production end. We just want to get into the episodes. Yes, that's very true. I think it's time for me to not be here. Jemima has decided as the producer of Great Company, what we would always do. If you're new to the show and you haven't listened to the episodes before, Jemima as the producer has always been with me at the start where we talk about things.

4:50We've had conversations about the guests and what we think and what we like and what we enjoy. but you as producer have got your producing hat on. You decided actually someone listening to this right now, we just want to get into the content quicker. I think we've just got to get going. I think people know the show and I think, you know, we see the name. We just want to know. We want to get into it. We've also started putting the trailer at the top. Yes, we have. So people already know what's coming. So we've got a little intro. It just feels bish, bish, bish, bang. Bosh. So is this the last, so this is the last time we're going to hear you on the podcast for a bit.

5:21Yeah, I think so for the time being. but if you guys do have questions about how we run things because this was originally one of the things that we talk about and like this episode in particular is quite an interesting one because we interrupted our kind of schedule because we just thought it was such an amazing episode so we've kind of rearranged things to make sure it comes out and if if people are still interested in those types of things please do keep emailing us because we do love reading all those things and you know like great company is a live show we're always trying things out always changing things so if you have feedback and questions and things do keep sending it and we're going to try this out for a little bit.

5:55Yeah we are so on that note we're going to get into the conversation with Professor Green but before I start I do want to say that we do have some conversations around some sensitive topics and I want to warn everyone before we start about that there's a lot of things so we really hope you enjoy it we really hope you like this episode one thing I ask before we start If you haven't subscribed to our show, it takes one second. It does its absolute wonders. It's completely free. So if you like the content, please subscribe. Okay, you ready for this? I am. Enjoy this episode of Great Company with Professor Green.

6:32Hello, I'm Stephen Mandison, better known to some as Professor Green, and they forced me to say this. I am in great company. I sent you a message last night because my neck was really sore. Yeah. And I didn't think I was going to make this, but I made it. So I just want you to just validate the fact that, can you say you feel sorry for me that you just, my neck, you know, all those things? I empathize, yes. Thank you so much. Psychopathy is not something I suffer from.

7:06It looks really, and I've had something similar. I said to you upstairs, when it happened to me, I thought I was having a stroke. It was grim. It was like this tendon or something. I'd never felt it in my neck and I couldn't move. and it was like almost whomping, like a dubstep base. It was like, what? And I was, yeah, I felt stuck. And then the point - How are you? Apart from that, great. But that was sore. But then last, yesterday when it kicked in, so Sophie, my wife, is eight months pregnant. Yeah, I've seen. Congratulations. Thanks very much, man. I used to hate children. Well, I didn't. I was scared of them.

7:36Like, we're going to get into this. But she, there was no sympathy. Like, zero. Are you kidding me, mate? I'm pregnant. That's exactly what happened And I was like Get used to it Man I was like Where's the sympathy? I'm like Are you kidding me? Like it's this And I was like She was like Look at me I'm eight months pregnant There is like You're not gonna get anything out of me And I was like Please help me And Were you on the floor? Dude the only sympathy I got Was from you In the email And I just read it over and over again And I was like Okay I feel much better now Thank God

8:14I want to ask you a big question. There's this idea of like sort of toxic masculinity, right? And I found, and I want to hear your thoughts on this, is that when I was dealing with anxiety, crippling anxiety, right? What was hard for me is I didn't really, I didn't have a reason. There was no reason. I didn't know why I was feeling it. And that for me was really, and I really want to tread carefully here. You came from your father not being around, committing suicide, to mom being sick. All these things. There's a lot of reason there, in a way, for you to feel a certain way. I had a lovely upbringing.

8:57I had loving parents. I had money. I was privileged. I went to a supposedly good school. I had friends. But yet, I felt like a fraud. And that was what I think made it even more difficult. You know what I was saying to you about becoming successful and then feeling the guilt around like, oh my God, I'm not happy necessarily all the time. Nor should anyone be. That's not a realistic aim. But surely that contributed to just making things worse. You shouldn't diminish what you feel because of something that you presume you don't deserve to feel or shouldn't because someone has it worse than you. It's all relative.

9:34So your experience is the only experience you have. You can't step into my shoes. We can discuss things. We can talk now. about life in the way that we are and we can develop some sort of understanding. But one of my pals didn't know what anxiety was until his parents separated. And then he, cause he just used to go, put yourself together, you know, and fine. I actually needed to, in that moment, like there's so much talk around, you know, that's really unhelpful language. You know, I disagree. I think at times we have to man up in the same way that sometimes women have to woman up. There are things we have to puff our chest out.

10:04Resilience is important. Exactly. 100%. But don't be ignorant to things that you're not addressing. and I just there's a book called the middle passage by James Hollis and he talks about angst anger anxiety angina they're all born of the same word right and they all relate to what he suggests is yourself screaming your authentic self saying hey your life is not aligned with anything that's conducive to you attending to what you actually could or should or want to do really and at that point in life would you say there were things going on that you didn't really enjoy but that felt necessary 100 yeah and also i was doing a television show where i was completely out of control and everything was eligible for me and i didn't really know my place in life and it's going back to work i've got not in my stomach just hearing that i've never thought about it in that way but you know we you were you were also amongst that sort of thing and saw you saw what that did to people when you were you know i saw it i saw it you know in my home exactly it was that level of attention like when millie and i started seeing each other that that just i mean it just it things change so significantly and what people don't realize is because we were spoken about so often and i very rarely did this but you know like comments on news sites it would just be like oh, here they are again.

11:32But we don't ask for that. Those pap shots are not set up. They're invasive. We don't talk about ourselves anywhere near or our relationship, anywhere near what we're spoken about, you know, however much we're asked. But this thing has grown into its own thing and the pressure that came from that. It just made it impossible in hindsight to have, I guess, like a really truly authentic relationship and also undiagnosed neurodivergence between both of us. We had a conversation about this recently and it was quite... Did you? Yeah. And it was quite like, it makes sense, doesn't it? Like, it just...

12:11It makes sense. It kind of makes sense. Can I ask though, because this is Millie McIntosh who is on the show, who is your ex-wife. Yeah. When, because it was what I think, looking from an outside in, right, the reason why it was so attractive to everyone to press because it felt like the boy from Hackney and the girl from Chelsea. Well, the first two, the second and third page of the Daily Mail the day after we got married was East End drug dealer marries Quality Street heiress, which do you know what? There is, I've sold weed and she's, I mean, it's, you know, it's like many, many generations.

12:48Yeah, there's probably some inheritance somewhere along the way. Right. But like, I mean, when we met and this is, I don't say this as a, like in any way to be offensive, like Millie was working, she was doing made in Chelsea, but she was working at space and K right. So like it, I was already at a point in my career, which, you know, it was allowed us to meet, I guess, because, you know, we weren't in similar worlds. We were very, very separate and there was something so like, she's beautiful, man. Like she's, you know, there is something so, and I stand by this. I don't want to sit here and speak ever at all.

13:25There isn't a bit of like, there's no resentment in me. She is gorgeous. We were not good for each other at that time. We were for a point. And then, you know, I think things that we didn't understand were happening. And it was way more than we could have ever understood it. Man, I spoke, by the way, beautifully put, man. I spoke to a guy called Alain de Botton, who's this like amazing guy. He's incredible. Something amazing that he said to me once, right, which really stuck me, is that I said, what gives you the best chance of staying together? The statistics show that marriages break up and it's over 50%.

14:01And that's only counting the people who actually divorce. Yeah, a lot of people break up in the home. Yeah, you know what I... Exactly, right? And he said, if you realize that you're two broken souls trying to figure out life, then you have a good chance of survival. And I think what happens is, especially when you're younger, maybe with you and Millie, two broken souls who are hoping one other is probably going to heal them. Yeah. Extrinsic. See, back to that thing of looking for something is going to be, but it's going to be out there. I'm not going to be able to do this on my own and it's not in here.

14:39It's something there. Happiness is something I'm pointing at and it's out there. I make you right. Yeah. And I imagine we both felt that at that point and it wasn't happening. And therefore there was probably building resentment from that. God, I'm thinking about this more than I maybe ever have. Yeah. But it, it made, you know, it, it was challenging. Like most relationships are, but there was so much else in the mix as well. But, but it was a tricky because, you know, you were, you were making music that was like top of charts and it was like killing it. And like, like all these different things.

15:11And then your, your relationship is also, it's like that, that feels to me in my world, in my existence, at that time, that feels very attractive as well. It's like, oh my God, this is exciting. This is exciting. That feels exciting. Was there a sense of excitement around it as well? And then my second question is, is that I think my parents got divorced when I was eight. And I found that very tricky. Looking back at it now, I actually go brave of my dad. Yeah. Perhaps to do it because he'd already come from one divorce. Wow. So then he was in a second divorce and everyone's, all his friends, it's not even the public eye, but he didn't like, oh, it's kind of a brave thing to do.

15:53When you guys go through your separation, how hard is it to make that decision? it was really tough um and if there wasn't that pressure we we may have never got married is the truth it it it very nearly didn't happen and yeah it was but you know i remember having a conversation with my two best mates lewis and felix and you know am i getting cold feet what's going on here and one of them said yes one of them said no i won't put him in it because it's not their responsibility, but I didn't, you know, I made my own decision and I, and we made our decision and we didn't get married for the wrong reasons.

16:34You know, we loved each other. It was intoxicating. It was, it was probably, there was probably an element of trauma bonding. The thing is about the body, right? Is it gets used to a feeling and it doesn't really matter whether it's positive or negative. It's probably more stimulating if it's negative. Um, and if you have that over prolonged periods you need more and more of it to feel alive and i think that leads a lot of us to to to finding ourselves in situations which are not necessarily for you know the better of our lives because it's what we're accustomed to and it takes a lot to get to a place of going okay well i had a significant part in that 50 at least because there were two of us in a situation um and it didn't work out but hopefully we can both go forward and find you know happiness and belonging and be grounded and regulated do you think i think this happens so many times man where um we get to a position a job relationship marriage and we think well everyone's looking at us so we're gonna have to do this and it takes a lot of strength to kind of go this isn't right i'm not going to do it actually wait hang on a second this isn't that i reckon so many people again listening right now are going yeah i wish i'd said no tither not yesterday ah yeah looking for an element yeah based off our conversation no but it's that you know there's you know unless i guess in in more sort of day-to-day situations we will choose familiar hell right it's that you know we don't know what's on the other side of change and therefore we will choose what we know best and if what we know is noise we'll choose noise if what we know is suffering we'll choose a way to suffer um but you know we also even in that you're handing that over to someone else when the responsibility in that situation is is yours i mean one of the things you you also have and you sort of spoke about is the scar you have in your neck which is where uh someone on the other side now as well down there i've got one there and I've got one all the way across my stomach and different reasons.

18:50These were all surgical. I was professionally shanked. But man, because someone stabbed you in the neck with a bottle. Yes. Yeah. He accused me of barging someone. The person who said our bars never said anything because I said, excuse me, in a loud club and he didn't hear me. So I put an open hand on his back and said, excuse me, please. And move by. You've seen me enough to know how I carry myself. 100%. And, yeah, it just, it descended and it just, you know, I didn't need to go there. It didn't, the arc of, you know, just how quick it went from nothing to nearly taking my life, which would have took both of our lives.

19:31It was just so unwarranted. It had no, there was no history to it. I never got stabbed on no G shit, no block shit, no road shit. It happened really randomly. And I wish for both of us that it didn't. Isn't it crazy how one moment can change life? Really quickly. That sliding door moment. Yeah, yeah. One decision, one moment. There was a kid on the very same night who sadly on Amherst Road passed away, got stabbed in the neck on the same night in Hackney, and he passed away.

20:05And how many other lives altered, changed, maimed, ruined, destroyed because of it? it's really and the thing is as well like you know outside of psychotic behavior it there's a place where it happens and so when you see campaigns around zombie knives and stuff i agree they shouldn't people should not have access to tools like that but most people are stabbed with kitchen knives you're not going to get rid of kitchen knives there's an you know there's areas and there's a kind of socio-economic background where this happens and the problem we're dealing with is poverty. You know, Skinny Man talks about it on his album, brilliant album, best UK rap album ever to Council State of Mind.

20:43You know, the science of social deprivation. This is understood and we're not tackling poverty so we're not going to tackle knife crime where I would argue it's being perpetuated at the moment with. So what would you do? Big question. Speculate, you know, front end the spending. We know what it costs when someone ends up in prison. We know what it costs when someone's life's taken. £60 ,000 a year Right. And we know, so, I mean, you could probably have that and give someone a wage, not that people should just be given, but if you improve someone's, if you improve someone's opportunity, you improve outcomes.

21:17If you, so from a completely capitalist, selfish point of view, let's improve opportunity because if we improve opportunity, we improve outcomes. If we improve outcomes, we improve the labor force because more people go into the labor force. What happens then? Well, more people have money to spend. So what happens? We grow the economy. There's a lot of reason to improve opportunity. And then from a human point of view, from a I grew up with fuck all point of view, you improve the quality of someone's life. And we only have one. And it's really short, isn't it? God, that's the first time I've nearly cried this whole fucking episode.

21:53Because it is immediate. I go to my son and I'm like, how much time have I got? My head just goes... But you improve people's quality of life And that should be where we start. But sadly, you know, I think that the more selfish aspect of how it can benefit the economy is probably more attractive to people who can possibly make a difference. I don't know why there has to be such disparity. I don't know who it aids. Do you think in the working class community, typically men, there's a lot of men who are lost? Yeah, massively. Massively. There's a really terrifying book, Boys and Men by Richard Reeves.

22:32And he talks about the effect of men becoming less marriageable, men becoming unmarriageable. So therefore women looking at them as just an extra mouth to feed and thinking they can do everything themselves and the impact that that has on them raising boys. And that's not villainizing women, by the way, but just what's happening. And then men being at much greater risk. I can't repeat all of this verbatim. I need to go back and read the book another six times. But men being at much greater risk of mortality if they're not in a relationship. So the women offered most independence by way of success.

23:08are most likely to marry. Which, you know, like there's so much fucking division. Man, we're not even, you know, against patriarchy together. It's just, well, if women are doing better, it must be at the cost of men. You know what I mean? Like, let's feed that to men, you know, in the same way that people are encouraged to be angry at immigrants because they're the problem, right? Despite you having much more in common with them than you ever will your middle or upper class counterparts, they're the problem. It's all of this division which is encouraged and relied upon that stops any significant change from ever happening because there's no unity between us.

23:42How do we ever unify and make substantial change when we're not all pulling in the same direction? So how do we stop them versus us? Oh, we try and work together. I always say fix your home. Genuinely, I just think it does. You know, my son hopefully will grow up with ideas of how to do this better than I've ever had the ability to. And I just think if we all start from there, but we have to educate ourselves. You know, we can't just look at, we need to save boys. We need to help men. It's not necessarily a woman's job to do that, but collectively, we all have responsibility with each other because where we are, for better or worse, we are all in this together.

24:18People, there's a lot of people who are angry with the situations they find themselves in. And some of that anger is just, you know, I'm not here to diminish that anger, but it's then leveraged by people who benefit further from, you know, further division. and you look at reform and it's just, I find that side of things really scary. Like, can I ask, man, because you, all the British flags going up. I went through Basel in the other day going, what in the Brexit is going on here? And it's a sad use of something which, you know, soldiers coming home from war gave a real good feeling of I'm okay.

24:52I've made it back. It's not that anymore. There's, you know, people talk of being patriots and a lot of people not knowing their own history. It's a lot of people consuming conversations that we're stuck in our own algorithms. And so we're being taught by our own algorithms rather than the wider algorithm which we need to see. And then therefore, and there's also not much safe space for conversation because you have to sit and talk with people that you're not aligned with and that you don't agree with. But the art of disagreeing agreeably is forgotten. And you can't... You've got to win now. You've got to win.

25:30Rather than going, again, Alan Bottin says, is my favorite thing. The thing that turns me on is when someone goes, oh, that's interesting. Oh, I haven't thought of it that way. Oh, maybe you're right. We've lost that. Without the need to be right though. Yes. Without the need to be right. Yeah. But you know what I mean? We, we, we feel like we all, we all have a voice because of social media. So we all become lawyers or dictators and we have to say, this is what we think and you've got to believe it. And if you don't believe it, then. And it's so people can't, and I think there's also the, the other thing that comes with phones and you know, I'm guilty of spending too long on it, but is the distraction from what we feel and being able to just swipe from what we don't like feeling.

26:04So if we read something that challenges us and that prompts a feeling, see you later. Man, you speak so clearly from a place of such personal growth, but then go and spend two hours scrolling on my phone. I just want to be absent. I am not, everything I've spoken about, I'm still very much, not victim of, that's handing over accountability. Sorry, bad language. I'm still very guilty of is what I wanted to say. Yes, but you're still, you're still. I'm trying, man. I'm trying, Jamie. Man, and that's the most brilliant thing, right? But what's the most important thing you've learned? Try. Yeah, yeah.

26:40It's really easy to sit with, you know, it sounds crazy, doesn't it? Because it's not easy to sit with ill feeling or the feeling of I could do more or I should have done different. You can't, you know, you can't, unless you go down the rabbit hole of quantum physics, you know, you can't impact anything that's already happened. but you can take that and try and do something different going forwards. And that's really, really hard because especially, you know, 40, you've got a life of experience and it's really easy to just continue without making conscious effort, but it has to be conscious and it has to be effort to do something different.

27:17So yeah, try, fail, try again, do something different. Actively force yourself to do something different.

27:27Can we talk about your dad? Yeah. I got a I got a picture of you there I look so much more like my mum's side of the family it's so like I saw so he had two other sons Jason and Gary yeah and Jason came to a show of mine recently and we hadn't seen each other in years I looked out into the crowd I knew he was coming and and I was like looking at my dad I look way more like my mum's side of the family man look how cute this is you the most adorable kid I've ever seen in my entire life That's amazing. I can't, I'm in that process now where I can't even, if I talk too much about my baby, I get, whoa.

28:10Yeah, yeah. It just gets so much better. You're going to cry so much more, but like in the best way. My friend, Olly Pradluck, who you've met and things like that, he is, his emotions, I've never seen it with, his emotions are like up to his eyeballs. Like any time you say anything, it clicks on. That's also sleep deprivation. Yeah, I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. But it's, I wrote something for Sophie the other day. And I basically said, I said, at the end, I said, I said, I can't wait to meet you, little one. And that now, like, I haven't even met this kid. I had words for him that were a little bit harsher before he was born.

28:48We were told that we miscarried. We had a really fragile pregnancy and it was during COVID. And we were told that we miscarried so we went home i was crying in a car park i wasn't allowed to go through with her and the nurse which was uh you know a mistake on her part said i've got someone who's miscarrying here may her partner come through and they said no but she had told us that we were and then it was confirmed on the other side what week can i ask um we were about four and a half five months it was late so it was like it was at the part where you're in and you also realize that you don't want a kid you want selfishly that kid and then so we went home we cried all night went back to the hospital the next day um i was allowed in at this point they did the ultrasound because they wouldn't do it in during the night and um the little fucker was boggling in the womb and we were like honestly you want to talk about tears mate but way more happy tears honestly i've cried so many you know there's been some difficult times but i've cried way more happy tears since having a kid and i just said to him listen i don't know what age it will be but you will be grounded

29:59enough uh but it continued that emotions man going from but from losing yeah to finding out that he was all right it was thankfully quite a quick turnaround but like it because at that point you have to yeah you're dealing with your own emotions yeah but knowing you're focusing so much on your partner's and i couldn't and i couldn't tell her that everything was going to be all right you know it's a situation where you can't and sometimes things aren't and that's that's a god teaching kids that he's already like he says oh man like kids i understand why i used to be petrified of them because they will just say things but when you have this connection to one is, you know, he'll just be like, Dad, I really don't want you to die.

30:42And I'm like, okay, keep it together. Keep it together, Stephen. Okay, well, we don't have to think about that yet. And hopefully not for a long time. You're like, honestly, you're presented with so many situations that you haven't got a blimmin' clue how to respond to. Like, you are thinking on your feet. There is no amount of reading that can prepare you for every question. It's like your heart just like running around the place. Oh, mate, that's a great explanation. It's like getting your heart and then putting it on the road and letting it run around. In the body of a bipolar narcissist. Because they go through like...

31:22That's what kids are like. No, completely. So until they're seven, they're completely egocentric. So it's not like negative narcissism. I'm not sure there's such thing as positive narcissism, but it's, you know, they're completely egocentric. So everything in the world happens in relation to him and he can't see himself, anything or anything that happens outside of that. And therefore, he puts himself in the middle of everything. So I'm really conscious of trying to keep him in the middle of real situations, but safe situations. Everyone's like, I want my kid to be happy. Happiness is great. Content is way better.

31:52And emotionally regulated, as far as their abilities allow, is probably more important. Do you think there's a correlation between having your boy and then figuring out yourself as well? Yeah, massively. I mean, I was on that journey before, or I thought I was. But, I mean, it was the most significant kick up the backside I've ever had, yeah. Man, I read an article where it said that the birth of your son brought up feelings of your dad. Yeah. Can you explain that to me? Yeah. I wanted to go and see my dad. I wanted to, you know, immediately, I'm grieving her. And this is where I talk, you know, when I said about rumination, it was also just in, you know...

32:35living in the past. If I think about things that happened then, and I feel the feelings that I felt by way of those things, I'm in the past. I'm not present. That's not fair to my son. But there was a grieving that took place. And this is the thing with grief. It changes shape. It never disappears. I will forever be sad about my dad having passed. And when I got married to Minnie, you know, I looked out, my dad couldn't be there. That's awful. It feels horrendous, you know, and not being able to go to my dad but also having not had him in a way that gave me example of of of what to do when you're in a situation you think like oh my god we're walking out the hospital and the only thing that was required for us to leave the hospital with this life that we've got to protect care for and look after and nurture is a car seat for the car where's the book yeah but it's it's just it's the absence you know it was it was the absence that that was difficult.

33:32And the absence that had, you know, had taken place while he was alive and the absence that it was more permanent in his death and that he couldn't be there to help or to aid. And I couldn't, I couldn't talk to him and get a response from him. And I would love for him to meet Mike, you know, and he'd be a young grandfather. Can I ask you a big question? Yeah. If you could, if your dad was here. Yeah. What's the one question you would ask him?

34:06what was it that hurt so much

34:14yeah because i feel i feel like you know people make that decision in in isolation hence why so many especially male because we're more impulsive and uh i guess by way of testosterone more violent um we choose more violent methods and therefore three out of four male suicides are successful three out four suicide attempts are female but three out four successful suicides are a male and in that moment no one can ask that question you know what is it that hurts so much and it's really sad to think that people make a decision that generally affords them some sort of relief. Relief, yeah, or feigned elation, happiness, control.

34:57Like I've established control over my life again, but what I'm going to do in this moment with the control that I have is end it because that's the only way that I can put end to what I'm feeling. And that's really awful. And yeah, it's just, I can't even imagine. yeah it's it's so it just presents so many excuse me so many questions you're like and they can't be answered so you have to quite quickly let go of that best you can because because i think the question i want to ask is that you know you you spoke and you put that so beautifully by the way about like how you know men in a weird in a sort of such a sadistic way you you spoke about it so beautifully and because of the stats because of the nature of it because of it is the biggest killer for men under 49 i think now 49 now i think it's 49 right well statistically i understand things are getting worse i was with simon gunning the ceo calm recently and he had him man he was an ambassador for calm as well like you're not it man it's it's really really telling of times i think and you know people there's so much discussion around masculinities and i say masculinities because there are varying you know many varying types of masculinity but i feel like there's such a distinct lack of connection with self and it's not to diminish nor discredit the the hugely negative and oppressive impacts of patriarchy on women but we don't discuss the impact of patriarchy on especially the working class man who has gone through detachment from self-detachment, from family detachment.

36:36Those are the really significant impacts of patriarchy on men, or the most significant, I would suggest then, or say. And I think that's really telling in a sense of disconnect, of lack of purpose. I think it's a lot of us lack of purpose. And I think there's so many things I want to pack here. Because the first thing I want to say is that again someone listening right now is probably listening because they're going i i want stephen to help me through the grief that i'm going through because they may be in the same similar situation how do you get through something like that because i i i heard that you had to you had to go and identify your father's body yeah well i was at the hospital and and his reluctant to call him family but you know his family his you know the the three children who weren't born his but took his name um and his partner wouldn't wouldn't walk in and therisa the woman who owned the shops he used to manage this and that um was gonna was gonna i was just I couldn't I'm like how can you let his boss I don't know it wasn't easy man I get it wasn't it wasn't but I just I I found it very difficult to understand my my my brain went this doesn't make sense absolutely not how dare anyone that isn't actual fat you know like it just how can you not you're hit and so I just walked in and it was tough it's just like you know the last thing I said to him as well as if I see you again I'll knock you out which I wouldn't have I would have just cried and thrown my arms around him um oh mate it was grim it was jen like you know he's bruised he it was so and it's like but still very young still very handsome still you know still a reminder of the ever so charming gorgeous human and when i unpacked that for the bbc documentary documentary man and anyone who hasn't seen go and watch it have you never watched it No, I will have to with my son one day.

38:41You've got to, man. Yeah. But that will be the time. I struggled. And also life was, you know, during the making of that documentary, there was a lot going on outside of it. Things weren't great in a few places, a few parts of my personal life, as well as that contributing to all the difficulty because it was really hard. It was really, really hard living through that and existing in that. And then the documentaries beyond that, which weren't as personal, but they were situations that I'd seen friends encounter or that I'd been through as well, childhood poverty or hidden homeless. There was nothing pink or fluffy.

39:19That four years of documentaries was really difficult because my feelings are quite sticky. My empathy isn't broken. If anything, it's the opposite. I overempathize. And those things stick. And when they're things that you can't change or alter, that was a really difficult four years for me. And there was a lot of residue from investigating those situations.

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41:27When you walked in the room, right, I do this quite awkward thing where I clap. And start clapping. I start clapping. That was weird. And what I've noticed is that everyone feels quite uncomfortable when that happens. But do you enjoy discomfort if you're in control of it? So like awkwardness, if I'm in control of awkwardness, I'm completely okay with it. At the moment, a stand-up comedian is having a bad time. You feel bad about it? Well, I don't feel bad for them. I feel bad for me immediately and can't escape. I feel like I want to hide in my belly button. That's generally my, when I get awkward or there's awkwardness that I'm out of control of.

42:03Not in control of. I want to hide. I think there's like a kind of, not a disconnect, but a misfire between what I feel and my ability to... Articulate? Not necessarily articulate. I think I've over time found a way to do that, especially through music. But I think my face doesn't necessarily align with what I'm feeling at times. So I can get bad news and I will, you know, I used to laugh when I was shouted at at school. I definitely didn't think the situation was funny and it definitely didn't help things. But it's just like, well, that's awkward. Someone's losing their temper. They've lost control.

42:37And I would also think that, which is quite a lot for a young kid to understand and establish. But yeah, I don't know. I feel less like making all of the effort that I used to, to suppress all that because that was quite draining. What do you mean? So you found it exhausting to try and hide things that you were feeling and now you express or you show or you, you put out what you're feeling rather than trying to cover those up. Yeah, way more than I used to. I went through an assessment for autism after an assessment for ADHD. And I was like, it was answering those questions. So like when I was a kid, I used to count words people would say, and I'm tense my left bicep.

43:15Explain that more to me. What do you mean? I had a tick. So you would, if you were talking to me when I was a kid, I used to count words and I would tense my bicep for every word you were saying. It was just something that it kind of, I guess it, it for me was calming in a situation that I found quite overstimulating. I didn't have those words or understanding then. And because I was thought of as bright, it wasn't exceptional, but I was thought of as bright. Despite the fact that I was never in school, the focus seemed to be on, well, when he's here, he's great. It wasn't, well, why is he not at school for all of this time?

43:46you know I saw a psychiatrist when I was a kid and everything was was handed over to um my my not having my dad around you know my mom and dad not bringing me up and therefore I was anxious I was also born with an issue in my digestive tract and was operating on it six weeks so it was always is it physiological is it psychological it was both at different times but everything was handed over to me not having my dad because I loved him to bits and I still do and I don't have them now. But I'm not going to cry on this podcast, Jamie. Not here for that. I don't want to live in my once misery. Oh, man.

44:22No, but it's important. People do have the power to do that and so do I. And I can miss him, but I don't have to be sad every day. So everything being handed over to that situation when I was a kid means that there was stuff that wasn't really assessed properly. Because there was relative trauma and that was easy to see. there were things that were probably a little bit that required a little bit more investigation that weren't assessed until I was 40, 41 I remember the first ever therapist I ever went to they I was feeling so anxious and this was the sort of time that we knew each other you know there was a lot there was a lot going on there man and we're going to get into that hey whatever what does roll with it But I remember the, I was feeling so anxious, man.

45:14And I went into the therapist and the therapist said to me, so tell me about your childhood. And I went, okay. And they went, do your parents argue a lot? And I went, I don't think so. And therapist went, you know, sometimes you block things out, I reckon. And they were trying to pin it on something. And I remember leading it going like, this feels like a simple answer to like quite a complicated situation that I'm going through. It's a lot of different things. And like you're saying, is maybe they were trying to put it on to something rather than looking a bit deeper under the surface about actually what was going on.

45:49Is that fair to say? Yeah. But then I think I learned quite early to disguise things and hide things. And, you know, I was always called shy. I think I would argue I was considered. Were you a happy kid? Yeah. Yes and no. I felt a lot that I didn't understand. And then even throughout adulthood and talking to therapy, something I've really had to come to terms with is that there's people in my family who either because they're not here or because they're not that way inclined. There's people that I won't be able to have conversations I wish I could have with. Not for lack of trying, but like, you know, my nan grew up during rations.

46:30She was post-war. My great grandmother who brought me up pretty much until I was 13, lived through two world wars in Hackney, used to tell me where I was bombed. you know what got flattened during the blitz and she passed away when I was 13 at an age when I just started to want to ask the interesting questions and could really take all of that on um and you know my nan I think people are it kind of winds me up a bit when people are like I just wish my parents would go and see a therapist and it's all there it's not their fault they were people doing what they had to do and and we weren't there for their you know we weren't presented with the choices they had to make and if my nan went to therapy you know Now, hypothetically, oh, that would have been great.

47:07She would have had, you know, such a better understanding of herself and may have been able to, you know, to unpick things that she's definitely not dealt with. But if she did that, she would have had to have come undone. Now, she raised three kids single-handedly, then looked after her mum and me at a time when she could have been building a life for herself. But she was. she was you know her life has largely been in service of other people and that's what makes her happy and I'm eternally grateful for that because you know there was a chance I could have ended up in care had she not had and I just think it's really rich for people to sit around going I've got the luxury of therapy and I can afford to come undone and put myself back together and therefore my parents just should go and do the same thing well if my nan done that I probably wouldn't have you know had the joy being brought up by her so I'm quite happy that perhaps she didn't what was your nan like um she was uh tough but kind her love language definitely came in the shape of um buying things which was tough because we didn't have much money so therefore there was you know debt and stress around money and I saw a lot of that but didn't really put two and two together until I was at an age where I could practically buy things for myself but she gave me such a good example as far as work ethic but also by way of her work ethic I learned that working hard doesn't equate necessarily to having anything because she would work three jobs a day she used to get up she used to get up at 4 a.m was picked up by her governor went to the strand to clean banks I went with her sometimes I didn't go to school much then she would come home if I went to school she would take me if I didn't she didn't have too much time to really fuss around whether I did or didn't because she had to go to work and would go and do a day job at Percy Ingle in Stamford Hill.

48:56And then she would clean houses for people in the Jewish community in Stamford Hill. So, you know, it was, there was, you know, there was stress in my household and it's understandable, right? That's a lot of energy and so not much reward. When you didn't go to school, why did your nan not say you got to go to school? she really really sympathized with my situation um and you know through part of a conversation we have had she feels like it was purely owing to the anxiety around if I went to school perhaps my nan or my great-grandmother or both of them would disappear and I'd have no one because my dad would be in and out my life and he wouldn't be around for and there's probably some truth in that but there's a huge amount of even in adulthood with all the therapy that i've done there's a huge amount of discomfort around social situations so explain that to me busy rooms and people say but you're on you know you're you're you know you've got huge crowds when you perform and yeah but i don't have many people on stage it's just me and at the moment tommy jules you know i'm touring with DJ and vocalist Tommy Jules, who's brilliant.

50:10But it's just us on stage. So I don't have to be in that crowd. Like I said to my partner, I went for a lunch the other day with a load of my friends. Some of us had our kids, some don't have kids yet. And I just, I mentioned something about, because I'm not drunk in nearly 15 months. Congrats, man. Thank you. It's great, isn't it? Yeah, it's very better. It's so much better. I want to get on to that. Yeah, we're going to. Yeah, we're edging towards it. But, and I said to my mate, like, I can't be here much longer. And he's like, oh, the first two pints are always a bit awkward and I'm like so you get it too because you're explaining the very same thing it's uncomfortable to be in this environment unless you're drunk and I had a rule that so I had this like consciousness this is true for many things throughout my life I had a saying a rule which was never a rule I broke it um constantly and it was if I have to have a drink to be where I am or with who I'm with or both then I will leave and I never left I had the drink I made the call i took everyone back to my kitchen like i didn't re like i guess there was like a sort of conscious but not integrated understanding of of how uncomfortable i found those situations and i think there was a lot of my brain that allowed me to be brilliant in the studio that really aided my success in music and my ability to see things a little bit differently or to make you know to have a different approach to things but the flip side of it was when I became successful was having to do all these things which I I felt like I should be should have been grateful for but not feeling very comfortable doing them and periodically what a juxtaposition yeah it's like a constant battle but you don't want to feel you also don't want to seen you don't want to be seen to be ungrateful and I struggle with people who are successful complaining but that's removal of authenticity because it doesn't matter how I can't imagine it matters.

52:05I don't think there's an amount of money where you don't have good or bad days, good and bad days. It's just, it just is what it is. That's what you're talking about when your nan or great nan, um, felt sorry for you is that that fear of abandonment, right? That's what you were feeling. Well, that's what they presumed. And I imagine that to be true, but it was a lot about, I just didn't like the part of school, which was the, uh, the worry of um being there yeah amongst the classroom full of people the noise the the unpredictability that you know when i did the assessment for adhd i just started laughing i was like oh no this is i'm in no way unique this is just textbook like and it was i was just shocked at how much became visible because all the work i've done around um mental health and especially around men's mental health.

53:00I've never looked at ADHD or autism. So I didn't, because they're not psychiatric conditions. You can have mental health issues owing to, especially undiagnosed or mismanaged ADHD. I think, I know I have, but they're not mental health conditions. They're differences. It's a difference in wiring. With the autism, which you mentioned before, what was the diagnosis afterwards? Level one. So I would have had support throughout my childhood. Wow. Had they had no. And how does that come out? What does that mean? So there was a few, I mean, it was a really lengthy process. And I was really lucky that my uncle was a very present part of my upbringing because I was trying to ask my nan over 80 questions for just one of the forms.

53:48And she just kept going, no, you were fine. You were normal. You were fine. You know, and my uncle was going. That generational thing. Just literally just ignore, ignore, ignore. No, must carry on. Keep calm and carry on. Yeah, completely. Yeah, it's funny. That saying is funny. I look back and I'm like, that was not calm. That was not calm. So you, because I know with the, I recently did an ADHD one, which was interesting, but it wasn't as many questions. But with, I know with autism, it's like a lengthy, lengthy process that really goes into so many different things. I mean, it was, you know, like the, the tick that I used to have, um, that, um, that there's things that I do, especially in the privacy of my own home where I will, you know, make noises or discuss things out loud, which I just, I, there's many things that I didn't think to be anything unusual, but I'd never discussed with anyone.

54:41I was wet until I was 12. I wasn't dry through the night until I was like 12. Things that I just didn't think had any correlation to, you know, me being, or because I never understood autism. I never thought to look at it because I didn't. And also you can't diagnose yourself. I had that until I was eight. I used to wet the bed until I was eight. Yeah. I've never said that out loud. Not that there's ever been a reason to, but I don't feel uncomfortable about these things anymore. but there was a lot of, I felt uncomfortable for a huge part of my life. Not, not just, you know, those are things that you don't need to bring into conversation, but I felt really uncomfortable for huge parts of my life.

55:20For how long, Sim, would you say? Ah, man, 40 years. Really? I don't think like, listen, the diagnosis didn't make everything okay, but it gave me such an understanding and really prompted a level of, of intrinsic focus. Like let's, okay, Instead of looking at everything that happens to you, look at what happens here. What starts here? What's my place in things? And, you know, if I wanted to go through the last 40 years of life, I'd waste the next 40. Wow. So I kind of looked back and went, okay, cool. Make peace. How do we improve life going forwards? How do I create a life with supporting the places I need it?

56:02Because I think, you know, we find our tribe, right? Yeah. So I think what I've done and what I'm sure a lot of people have done is instead of building support in the places you need it, you have to know that first. But you kind of align with people who probably need support in similar places. And that's not always helpful. Lots of people are open about ADHD. Yeah. and some people wear it as a sort of badge of honour sometimes because it kind of represents being a bit mad and a bit crazy and energetic but actually real ADHD is a real nightmare and I'm sure a lot of people you know do quite like the diagnosis.

56:42A lot of people aren't open as much with autism because it's doesn't seem as a fun neurodivergent kind of And at a greater level, the impact it has on children and families is huge. So it's not like a, you know, and I think that there's so much that you see around ADHD being a superpower. Yes. What about, and to paraphrase Charlie Sheen, like suicide binges, the fact that I could just keep going and felt normal because drugs were having the converse effect on me. but I've never discussed what they did to me with anyone else who had the normal effect. You know, like, and the fact that I could have died how many times, you know, through drinking or doing drugs and not having an off switch, you know, what about the rumination that I've suffered my entire life, negative cyclical thoughts that have exhausted me and made me incredibly unhappy that have made life incredibly difficult that I took, you know methylphenidate for the first time and went okay i can still hear my voice in my head and it's mine but it's calm and i can think about what i choose to for the first time ever i'm not stuck in this cycle of you know a thought that enters and then won't leave what's methylphenidate is uh ritalin so it's a medication that i'm prescribed for my adhd and there's you know there's there's fours and against for everything sure right now where i am in life it is the right thing for me it's not the right thing for everyone it's probably not the right thing for anyone all the time but it gave me the ability to create distance between the me that had ruminated my whole life and the me that doesn't when was the first time you took it um i think it was january this year wow man yeah nervous to take it yeah because you kind of don't want to Which is funny, considering all the things I've willingly taken.

58:41I opted in to take him before. There's always a meme. There's a lady at a festival, a white lady with dreadlocks, and it's like, takes acid from strangers, won't drink cow's milk. Yeah, it's just mad. So just talk me through that. The ruminating thoughts that you have, because I know people listening right now, especially to you, man. And what I'm just loving about this conversation is like, so many things you're saying, I'm going, oh my God, oh my God, yeah. And I know people listening are going to be thinking, oh my God, the same thing. The ruminant thoughts, what were they like? What were those negative patterns that you were...

59:14Awful. And it would often be when my head hit the pillow. So saying what? No distraction. No distraction, healthier otherwise. No noise, no task, no... And just like, what are the 10 things I don't want to think about? And they would just all enter my head at the same time and just replay over and over and over and over. And it would always be like, if I ever daydreamed as a kid, I used to skate, right? And this might feel like a weird analogy, but for example, I would imagine trying a trick and I would always fall at the end of it. It was just, there was never a positive outcome. It was dread.

59:42And so any worry I had, there would never be a positive outcome. And when you... When you wire your brain that way. Exactly. So me unlearning that now would be almost like talking therapy was not very useful for me up until this point because I couldn't escape what was so hard wired. It's probably why psychedelics are so beneficial in therapeutic settings because they create neuroplasticity, which undoes some of that hard wiring. Again, this is really layman's way of explaining it, but as I understand it, and I haven't done this yet, but I find the idea of it quite interesting because it creates neuroplasticity, which allows you to, it doesn't do the work for you, but if you're doing the work alongside something like that, I imagine it can be hugely, hugely beneficial and there's really good outcomes being shown from it.

1:00:32Can I ask you a big question? The idea of nature and nurture. Yeah. You grew up in Hackney. Yeah. Your great-grandmother dies when you're 13. Yeah. You're then brought up by your grandmother. Nanny Pat, right? Yeah, Nanny Pat. Nanny Pat. And then your mum is 16 when she has you. Yeah. She can't really look after you because she's too young. No. Your dad is in and out of your life. Mm-hmm. how much of that wiring in your head that negative thinking the way that you are your natural sort of 40 years you have been is down to nature or is down to nurture i think both i think entirely both environmental impact can't be discredited or discounted but nor can the 40 aspects you take on of your personality by way of your parents i don't think you know it's it's definitely both and that's kind of like when you look at epigenetics the expressions that your genes make are informed by your environment it's why you can have two people with the twins who both respond to things completely differently and that's down to a combination of nature and nurture but a connection that people often forget about is the one with self 100 % totally Yeah, exactly.

1:01:56I'm learning as, as an adult and I feel like I want to expedite because I've got, you know, a very soon to be adult in my care, my four and a half year old son. And it's been like, honestly, I learned so much by parenting him because, you know, the things you explained about my mom not being old enough to look after me, my dad being in and out of my life, my great grandmother passing, me being brought up by my nan. They were, strangely, they were all positives as well as, you know, negatives. negatives I didn't have you know I didn't grow up in the 2.4 children household that I was made to feel at a time like I should have or perhaps just made myself feel like I should have because I looked around and you know that was more normal or people were at least brought up by their mum but I think we all too often right every almost everyone I hear only associates seemingly negative things with the negative things that happen in life and that's not the case so any good parts of my character are as owing to the bad things that I've experienced as they are the positive things that have happened and people it's like people don't like there is there's so much good to come from difficult things that happen but it takes perspective but it also takes hindsight as well like look like for sure right because I imagine oh mate when I was at 100 % when I was in the thick of it there was no positive no positive right because you're just going hang on a second why is this happening to me this is unfair why am I feeling this way no no no no, no, no.

1:03:21I want to change everything. Yeah. But then instead of why, if we switch that to how, and that again is perspective and hindsight, but being able to think, you know, instead of why me and tiny violins everywhere going, okay, how do I improve the situation? There's immediately something that can be done. And it's not the easiest thing to do. And I'm telling you, I still fail at this miserably, but there are times when I do succeed at it and my life is gradually improving because of a shift in perspective. And you're saying that from experience, which is really important going from that position.

1:03:58I had to suffer. Yeah. I had to, there's no, like, how do you build resilience? Unless you're using therapy at a point of not crisis, like, you know what I mean? Therapy, not a point of crisis. How do you build resilience? We are resilient. We are, you know, it's really unusual for my dad and his two brothers to have done what they did in taking their own lives because it's not a decision that many of us are capable of it largely is circumstantial and I don't believe anyone is necessarily safe from that least of all men between the ages of 15 and 45 for who it is the you know the most likely thing to kill you is yourself which is crazy how good at battling were you I was all right I had to dumb it down a lot um at the jump off just because of i couldn't get too rappy but then when i went to and also when you're rapping to a beat and coming up with something off the top on the spot that's what it is against someone that you don't know and didn't know up until the point they got to the final or whatever um it's hard to be as timely or as thoughtful as you you necessarily can be but when i went to do um the power summit 50 cent was in the crowd buster rhymes remy mar all these people but i beat serious jones i beat axel and it was like you could hear the whispers from like what is this kind of, I still have my bent teeth at the time.

1:05:15And, um, you know, I could hear the whispers in the crowd. Like what's this white English kid with those teeth here battling for? And then by the time I was battling serious, it was like UK, UK, get out of here. Yeah, man. It was crazy. Like proper eight mile style. Yeah. But like no eight mile at that point, but it was, it was live. It was proper lively. Can I just ask you, I just want to say when you're battling and you're in that moment, yeah. Is it, is it like, um, I don't know how I'm going to describe it. like I can describe it. So like playing a game of tennis where you're just in the fricking groove and you can, and it just like moments, sometimes it clicks and your brain is working.

1:05:52And then, and sometimes you're in like a flow state and you're just like, and you're just like, here we go. And you can just do it. Yeah. Yeah. There's times when you don't, my, my, my approach to it was always don't think. So I would walk around the, like the crowd, Astoria or Scala, wherever Jump Off was at that time or wherever I was battling. And I would talk to anyone about anything apart from battling. wow i just had to keep my head clear and that allowed me to and this was you know i used to i'd look at someone and go right i want to talk about that and i'd hold that there and that and that would be there it wouldn't be in rhyme but this was how it's like a puzzle in your brain but it's also i didn't realize so i thought i just had wrap hands because when i started to become successful and people would recognize me they'd come up and they'd go wait green and they'd do that and i just thought yeah i do have wrap hands in fact could i even wrap if my hands were tie behind my back what i discovered through the autism um assessment was i'm a visual thinker and i thought but i'm my skill set is words and previous to that it was numbers so i thought that's surely that's academic it's not creative it's not visual but i'm a very visual thinker and i draw i do i i you draw it in front of you yeah and i didn't realize that it was that that was like get out of here i didn't so you're basically drawing a map in front of you'll take Like a minority report.

1:07:05But it's not something I can see. I can't explain it. But it is something I just thought, you know, I gesticulate. I do a lot with my hands. And I do. But I didn't know how significant it was to my way of thinking. That's mad. I thought so, yeah. It's blowing my mind. But at least I don't feel so bad about being so busy with my hands now. Fucking hell. I knew this was going to be a good conversation. I didn't realize. I was really excited. I didn't realize how great it was going to be. I'm not even kidding you like I'm not even kidding you it's quite nice to just sit down and talk I love it I find it so difficult to find times and like space in life to just do this yeah but that's why I love podcasting because it gives you an excuse and also I truly believe I have a theory that every relationship every business whatever it is friendship you should do a podcast together because it gives you an excuse to like actually talk about this conversation that we don't do it's disarming as well isn't it 100 % because it's like oh we're doing it for a podcast but actually we aren't just going to talk about this we're going to talk about things that we actually want to talk about but it's a podcast so it gives us an excuse it's weird I don't put any thought into what's going to be said or what's going to happen I'm just like I just enter into it going let's have a chat I do this thing now which is I always want everyone to like get up and like speak and say something and it's quite hard to encourage people to get up and say something so what I said with the Candy Kinnons team is I said I want you stand up and give something that you're proud of professionally that you've done this year but also something proud that you've personally achieved this year and the response was just amazing.

1:08:33Mate, well done for encouraging that sort of stuff. Do you think you would have been encouraging those things that it had not been for all of the conversations you've had here? No freaking ways. No ways. No ways. Like, it's so important. Like, dinner parties, lunch parties, whatever. Yeah, how's life? How's life? Sure. Much better questions saying, like, how are you feeling at the moment? What are you doing? You know, like, what have you overcome this week? Whatever it is. Those are the real conversations to be having. Steven, man, can I just say, I've loved every minute of this dude Thank you, likewise It's been really nice Man, I've always appreciated you even though we haven't seen each other for so long but always have I've always supported you by way of buying Candy Kittens Man, keep doing that Very good We're going to also, I want everyone to I'm going to link your documentaries below and also all of your music and your new track and just everything because there's so much passion, meaning, and just like, it's just fucking great.

1:09:33I can't wait till Slimane's old enough to appreciate the bit of commentary on the new single. Daddy, I want more olives. Olives? I didn't know what an olive was when I was your age, you little middle class. Man, we'd like to end the conversation with eight questions. Are you ready for this? Yeah, man. What's a saying or phrase that makes you smile or cheers you up? Maybe something your son says. I'm trying to think of something that, oh, he says supper instead of sucker at the moment. He's like, you supper. And I'm like, it doesn't matter if you use a different word. I know what you're saying.

1:10:03You do realize like there's context here. And he's like, what's context? Supper. Best compliment anyone's ever given you? Someone recently said, I don't think he's a singer, but there's a nice quality to his voice. I don't know if there was any compliment in there, to be honest, not even backhanded. I think sometimes you maybe find it hard to take compliments. I think you've had a lot. I think you've had a lot. What scares you most about yourself? Myself, probably. Yeah, I'd say, and I know that that might seem like a cop-out, but there's a lot more to it than, yeah, myself. Yeah, I've been my own worst enemy throughout points and periods of my life and at very specific moments as well.

1:10:43And yeah, I've definitely feared my own actions and reactions, especially more than anyone else's. when was the last time your son made you laugh

1:10:59um the other day he was he woke up for his morning poo he's very regular highlighting of how regular i'm not and he's woke up he's having his morning poo and i started folding clothes and he's like daddy you um folding folding like a butterfly's wings he goes to a stymus school um and i was like is that a new song he was like yeah and if you go when we go downstairs if you get me a blanket i'll show you how to fold. I know how to fold now too. And I was like, oh my God, that's so about to cry. And he went, can you wipe my bum? That's fricking beautiful. It is, man. What's something you can't let go of?

1:11:36Salt and vinegar crisps. Nice. I just, it's that habit. It's far too hardwired. I don't think there's any psychedelic therapy, talking therapy, hypnosis that could ever, ever, ever get rid of my my like want need for salt and vinegar crisps what brand ah listen walkers Squares I don't mind that Squares are pretty good not a big fan of discos no Tyrell's furrows are okay but the normal Tyrell's feel a bit greasy feel a bit dirty after eating them yeah yeah yeah um I feel like a grab bag is getting ever closer to just being what we thought a bag of crisps was yeah have you ever had salt and vinegar popcorn no it's like powdered yeah game changer oh you can see my yeah game changer why haven't I thought of that game changer what's your guilty pleasure I don't it shouldn't need to be a guilty pleasure there's several Lewis Capaldi's one of them but I don't think it's like they're so do you know what I mean you know when people are so popular it's almost just like guilty pleasure because god forbid you listen to something that's not a sub-genre it's actually so true do you know what I mean yeah yeah yeah can I not I love Alanis Morissette.

1:12:49We went to, there's these cabins called Unyoked. Oh yeah. White OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're semi or entirely off grid. And it was just me and Slimane, my son. And they had a CD player and four CDs. I tried to play another CD and I didn't even get like 12 seconds of a song in. He was just like, I want to hear figures. That's what he calls ironic. It figures. He chooses a word from a song and that's his name for it. It's normally in a refrain. Yeah. He's singing whole songs front to back already. Yeah, it's wild. Are you serious? Yeah. but like so I love Alanis Morissette Green Day Good Riddance Time of Your Life that's my funeral song sorry to get dark but like that will make everyone cry wouldn't it as they mourn me Green Day fuckers okay make that show do you have the time to listen to me whine Blink 182 I miss you oh mate I would have been a grunger growing up but I couldn't tell anyone so I had to be a pretend rude boy people are a lot more accepting now like you can get robbed by someone wearing a Supreme jumper but times have changed.

1:13:49What turns you off?

1:13:53Ignorance. I think inability to listen and to make space. I think the biggest turn off is someone who doesn't understand that none of us are really that smart. Ignorance. What turns you on?

1:14:09Definitely inquisitiveness. Yeah, just being interested. the sort of you know that energy that comes from that only comes from people who are inquisitive yeah totally you can see it yeah it's just like that you stop learning you stop living yeah yeah and I like people who are inquisitive and also not judging yeah no judgment is so big because it just it stops everything yeah it's hard though sometimes there's something that I'm like I don't think I judge but I definitely can I catch myself sometimes and I'm like well what am I doing we all do it it is like we all do Again, prediction machines.

1:14:43We hear something and we think we know it's at the end of it. But if you don't listen entirely and with context, well, if you didn't, you'd be screwed. You'd be no good at this, which you are. Yeah, but I've learned to listen much more, which is the key, especially in these things. You listen, listen, listen. What do you like most about yourself? Why do I find that immediately so hard to answer? I just get the inversion creeping. Get that inversion out. Let's go. Yeah, no. My trying nature. people probably definitely people in my life would call me trying and not as in I make effort but you know I just I'm beginning to really appreciate my want and hopefully eventually ability to to change self-awareness hopefully that's an increasing quality of mine bonus favorite lyric you've ever written oh my favorite verse I think up until actually my I think my favorite because of an honesty and an understanding of something cerebrally that I couldn't really take and integrate was the third verse of Today I Cried in its entirety as a verse up until a song that I recorded recently with a guy called Ren.

1:15:57I love Ren. Yeah, man. Man, that guy. He's so real. I recorded it and then said I think we should because people it's funny like when I appeared on TikTok in January which I hadn't before. Yeah. that was quite detrimental I didn't really realise the importance of it I didn't realise that my entire audience were there either because when I started posting people went oh my god where have you been? just on Instagram I was literally just on that other platform nice to know that you've all been here because I didn't know where you'd all gone either Ren's big I see him on TikTok he's good but people were going you sound like Ren you sound like Ren and I'm like this goes one of two ways either we work together or we compete collaboration is the best yeah always I do like battling I'm joking well you won I'm joking but you did win that that's just a nod to my rap battle history man you won it but I think he's great and I sent him the song and his verse on it is incredible there's a Moby sample in it as well and that will be coming out if not late this year early next that's sick and that's my new favourite thing that I've ever written because I literally the opening I can feel this on you yeah the opening lyric go on give it I've locked bathroom doors just to cry my eyes out my whole life I've been overwhelmed not by anything in particular, it's all of it.

1:17:11I'm more than a bit particular and it goes into explaining something that I didn't know I could articulate but did and it all just came out almost at once. I literally pressed, I was in Bali with Karima and Slamayn and I did just literally lock the door after I pressed play on the beat for the first time and I had this, it just came out and I think sometimes things are there, they're just in reach and it just, it was there and then it was there and it I knew it front to back as if I'd been rapping it for years immediately and it articulates something that helps me understand and I know to listen now because I didn't used to listen to things once they were finished and put out into the world and I mean this isn't out in the world yet so maybe I will stop listening to it once it is but it's really significant in my understanding where I'm at at the moment and I Ren's verse is incredible similarly he touches on things that i think again are really really resonate with people dude appreciate everything thank you for being open thank you for being you know thoughtful thank you for making me think more i want everyone to go and buy um everything your new music everything we're gonna link it all below can't wait for that new track coming out man i'll send you a copy anyway you can have a listen just don't give anyone a link to that i won't do anything i swear on my life I won't are you kidding me I would freaking just really appreciate I just really appreciate the honesty I appreciate everything and

1:18:42the reason why I reached out is I saw you comment underneath some of my videos and things like that some of the conversations especially with Spencer some of the stuff he said as well you know the detachment from certain things because or his ability to detach from things because of trauma that he'd gone through just hearing him articulate that stuff it's for all of the suffering that he's gone through that anyone has gone through and the things that they're able to talk about you know you're articulating those things and those difficulties can literally change someone's life because they're able to understand something ahead of when they ever would if they were waiting to just you know understand it in their life without hearing those things so i think it's incredible what you're doing, mate.

1:19:25I appreciate it. Everyone go and buy welcome to the party. Let's fricking go. Stephen, I appreciate it, man. Thanks so much. Man, that was fricking... Big up.

1:19:39Wow, what do you think of the episode? That was so good. I also totally forgot that you guys know each other from the old Made in Chelsea days. Oh, Made in Chelsea days. Hey, I've got an idea. Yes. Because I'm not going to be in the intros anymore. You're going to be all alone on the outros. Wow. But I really love at the end when you tell us what you've taken away. and I would really like you to keep doing that. Okay, fine. I'll keep doing that. What I learned today, I think I learned from the episode today with Professor Green that life is really about learning and bettering yourself. We spend so much of our time looking towards success and success in terms of making sure we're successful in business or dating the right person.

1:20:15But we actually don't really look inward and try and build ourselves up. And Professor Green is one of those people who's spending his entire life, it seems now, bettering himself every single day. And actually that makes us fundamentally happier and fundamentally more successful. So what I take from this is that really focusing your energy on making yourself a better person is probably the most important thing you can do. Okay. And on that note, listen, Jemima, I want to say Jemima is going to still be here as producer, but you're not going to be on the microphone for a little bit. No. Because we want to get into the content.

1:20:45Get rid, get me, I'm popping myself in the bin. She's popping herself in the bin. But if you haven't subscribed to our show already, please do. as I said before it makes a huge difference to us as a channel it makes other people see our show makes us getting the guests that we want so please could you do that that would be amazing and we'll be back next week for another episode of Great Company

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1:22:31Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash acast. Rules and restrictions may apply. Hello, I'm Katherine Ryan, and this is Write Me Dirty, the podcast where two comedians write steamy, ridiculous erotica about each other. I give them a bizarre prompt, think apocalypse must include a zombie, and they read their spicy stories aloud while I judge them on sexiness, funniness, and sheer chaos. It's hilarious, awkward, and occasionally kind of hot. Write Me Dirty. Thursdays just got thirstier. Write Me Dirty. Do you find yourself overwhelmed by the reams of advice about how to live your life that you scroll through every day?

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