S11 EP25: Amol Rajan

29:32And a huge, huge thing is because we're all having kids so much later, there are a lot of people, a lot of women who, for absolutely understandable reasons, think about their careers and prioritize that. And they get to their late thirties, for instance, and they're thinking IVF's an option. And then they look into it and they realize you can only do three rounds on the NHS. And after that, it costs a huge amount of money and it's not guaranteed to work. And it's a lot of heartache. And God, I just say my heart goes out to those people because it's a horrible thing. And you would go through it and go through all the pain if you knew that there was going to be a baby at the end.

30:03Yeah, it's not guaranteed. But you're in the tunnel and you don't know there's light at the end of it. And that's, yeah, it's a horrible thing. It's a horrible thing. How old was you when you had your first one? 32. 32. Oh, okay. How old were you guys? I was 29. I was 34. Yeah. Which is 10 years late for where I'm from. I'm going to say one journalistic thing here. This is, I think, such an interesting phenomenon. In 1981, which is when Charles and Diana got married, the average British woman got married at 23 and had kids quite soon after that, and the average man at 25. Fast forward 30 years, and the average British woman is getting married at 30, and the average British man is getting married at 32.

30:43In other words, in the space of a single generation, because we're all basically skint and can't afford houses, we've delayed childhood and marriage by seven years, which is a massive change. Is that why it is? I think it's two things. I think it's partly because it's an economic thing, which is that we can't afford houses, so you need two mortgages to get on the housing ladder. Yeah, people are skinned. And I think it's also slightly a kind of cultural thing, which is a kind of feeling that you should be freer for longer. And a lot of people think their 20s is this decade of experimentation. They want to experiment with their careers or their living arrangements or their partners, and they settle down later on.

31:17And in a way, that's an amazing thing because you get to have your 20s and, you know. Uni as well. I think no one really went to university, especially in the sort of more working classes but when I went 20 odd years ago there was so many more grants to go and stuff like that you know more people went in that generation I think do you know what I mean was it worth going to uni in your case for me not academically no but social mobility wise yes because I found out there was a different world and a different way of doing things through meeting other people exactly and not staying in my tiny sort of microcosm of area and family and friends it was a hundred percent worth it for me in terms of who i developed to be because i needed to leave home i needed to go and i grew up in devon i went to manchester and i it was just a brilliant three years where i kind of found out who i was but i did that it was like what you'd call a shot to nothing and snooker isn't it in those days i was like what was it four grand a year or whatever it was i think i left uni i think 11 grand debt for the whole three years yeah i lived on whatever my rent in my final year was 32 quid a week

32:27we had a box room in our flat it was 200 quid a week for four people and then we were like we just negotiated so everyone else paid 56 i paid 32 quid just go in the tiny room and i was this is fucking brilliant it's like a zero-sum game isn't it it's like why not in those days it was like this is a great thing to do for three years while you work out i was totally rudderless and didn't know what to do with my life at the time you didn't have to pay your loan back if you didn't earn over 15 grand a year i never thought i'd be paying it back well i thought i would be but i'd only be telling the government i was earning 15 grand that was my show you had rob did you say it was 11 grand that'd be nine actually but then it was 11 by the time some interest went on like immediately and it grew.

33:11That's quite a lot. I mean, that's quite a lot. I never thought I'd pay it back. Yeah, you don't. I was 18. I didn't know what, no one else had been to uni. My family didn't know what I'll sign in. Basically, someone said, sign that and you get a loan. You don't have to pay back. I thought, well, I'll never earn that much, whatever it was to pay it back. And then you got grants as well. So you got three grand a year grants and the three grand loan. My fees were paid as well, I think. I can't remember. Something like that. So I think it was nine, basically nine grand for it all. But then the interest started building up after that.

33:36and I paid it off with comedy money. A lot of young people are just thinking it's not worth it. You have to come out with 50 grand in debt, which is going to be around your net for a long time. And actually, to be honest, I mean, not to bring it down, but I feel so sad, not only for that generation that are affected by COVID, the people that went to uni for their three years lived on Zoom, they didn't get to meet anyone, the people at school. It's stored up so many problems. But also just generally for young people these days, I feel like a lot of people are just feeling very down about their prospects.

34:04and you know so what do you go and study most stuff it's being threatened with oh ai will do that even like becoming a solicitor or lawyer which would be one of the most respected things you could become people would be like well that would point is because you could just ask chat gbt what i should put in a legal letter to reply to this so can i tell you something hand on heart two weeks ago i was sat in this very seat where i'm doing this from a podcast studio in the bbc yes talk to us about radical so the idea behind radical was yeah for the reasons you guys say we are living through this absolutely terrifying era in human history.

34:34A lot of the stuff that we thought would never happen is happening. A lot of the old norms are dying. And there are these big things like AI, environmental change, which are kind of scary. The idea of radicals say, what are these big trends changing the world? And how do you understand them and try and get ahead of them? And two weeks ago, I sat in this very studio. I was talking to the boss of one of the AI giants, a company called Anthropic. And this guy is my age. He's 42. He's a multi, multi, multi-billionaire. What's he called? Dario Amaday. Two episodes ago, we did it. And it was like literally getting a bucket of cold water poured over my head.

35:04And he's got no need or incentive to talk this stuff up, first and say. Secondly, he has been proven absolutely correct in his analysis of how quickly AI was going to develop. And he said, and it's shocking, but he said, basically, within three to five years, half of entry-level white-collar jobs in things like finance, in things like consulting, in things like law, they're going to be wiped out. And then I went away and looked at it. I was like, can this really be true? And he said that's a worst case scenario. He also said there's going to be lots of good things from AI. But he said that's a worst case scenario.

35:36And it's already happening. There are massive companies that are employing the future Josh Whittacombs and the future Rob Becketts, people that came from humble or ordinary circumstances, got themselves into university, and all they wanted was a decent first job. These jobs are disappearing. I worry about the prospects for young people. I really feel like we're not giving them a reason to be optimistic quite often and you know the cultural script they're getting is one saying that things are pretty kind of grim and the truth is with ai for a lot of them it will be quite grim and this is the kind of stuff of the today program yeah i'm reading a book on ai called the coming wave have you read this don't start him off on ai again am i he loves it i interviewed him about it it's fascinating i think it's fascinating but ai's got a lot of good things about it are you then saying to your kids you need to do this you need to do that the world's going to be completely different for them yeah they've just got to use it a lot i don't know if you guys if you're nine-year-olds have got smartphones yet but i'm basically trying to keep my kids away from smartphones and all of that palaver but i do occasionally let them google stuff or put it into like chat gpt and it's so weird for them isn't it because it's just normal i don't know if you've got a home speaker like so i find the fizzy water thing really weird when my kids go i want that with fizzy water i'm like what the hell are you talking about but now they go and other home speaker systems are available but they They go, okay, Google.

36:53And then they ask for something and they get an answer. Yeah. And I think that is so weird. And I'm like. But is that not when our parents were going, they're just playing Super Mario Brothers or something? I was playing Super Mario Brothers. I was playing Mario Kart. Mario Kart. But it's just a generational thing, right? Yeah. Technology has to improve. Technology is always advancing. We're relics. Nans must have been well scared of Excel. Don't you want your kids to have that lovely childhood that you had in Mottingham or in Devon on Dartmoor, rolling across the fields, looking at the sheep, picking the blackberries, watching the seasons turn.

37:27Yeah, but I didn't have that childhood. I just watched television and played computer games. And it's worked out. It has worked out. Do your kids have access to games consoles? Yes, they do, but they're not that obsessed with it. They occasionally play a bit of Mario Kart. They play Roblox a lot on their iPads, which I don't really like, but they love it. And a bit of Minecraft is what they play. So the Roblox universe, is that something I should be keeping my kids away from? Well, so basically Minecraft's like a game that you buy and you can play around with and build your little houses. But what Roblox is, it's almost like a user generated worlds.

38:01So you have your little Roblox person, but you can search stuff like say you like fairgrounds. You can search fairground and use a 4469 fairground. You can go in and just some random person around the world's built a world. so because it's so open and so much opportunity to create your own worlds roblox itself struggles to keep everything safe because it's all user generated it's not them creating a computer game like mario kart so you have to be really on it with their terms and conditions and stuff like that but ultimately i think roblox want you to be on all of it and more of it because then they can earn more money from selling robux and advertising so you've got to be one step ahead of the safety protocols because in an ideal world roblox wants everything open to everyone but obviously if you're in children you want them in a safe part of it yeah so you have to just keep making sure that they can't direct message people or there's different ratings of world because they can do ones like a ghost train but if you're 18 plus the ghost train can be horrendously awful to be on but if you've got the four-year-old to six-year-old one it's not as bad but even then there's you know gradients but because it's user generated it's hard to know what they're exactly on every second But the single biggest thing is to keep them for as long as possible away from the open internet, isn't it?

39:13What you don't want is your kids to be able to go onto Google, let alone social media. I mean, that's YouTube. We keep them off YouTube. I hate, what I think is the scariest thing is the algorithm is terrible. Yeah, YouTube Kids has been the most problematic. Why is YouTube Kids so bad? My problem with YouTube Kids was slightly different, which was it wasn't that they ended up on bad stuff. it was that the way the fact it just kept going on to the next video and on to the next video and on to the next video yes and it takes you away from the original search exactly it seemed to really affect my daughter and make her kind of edgy and angsty and not so much the content as the way the method it was just on to the next on to the next on to the next on to the next as opposed to just maybe it was all in my head but that's what i found was really difficult for her to deal with yeah basically it was constant it never ended and also yeah it would be like funny video but then if my daughter liked or watched one that was a bit like oh my god fake death prank but it's a girl going hey welcome to my channel i'm c andrew yeah and then she was like laying on the floor like and it was sort of funny because it was so like caricature but then if she liked that one found it quite funny then it would take you to another one that may be a little bit more grown up in tone yeah yeah yeah she might be watching it through like oh my god you know when you're scared of something or you watch it because it's so addictive isn't it like that so kids want that thing that is just a little bit kind of naughty for them to get to because the slightly older kids for the slightly older kids.

40:37So an eight year old wants what a 10 year old is allowed to watch. A 10 year old wants what a 12 year olds. And, and all of this stuff is worth saying this stuff. I mean, we're not that ancient, but this stuff is new, right? You know, when we were growing up watching cartoons, I love cartoons. I love computer games. I watch a huge amount of screens. I'm not going to pretend I was there like immersed in Shakespeare. I was watching a lot of screens, but the stuff that you get now is literally designed on Netflix, on prime, on Disney. It's prime to like hook kids in and it's grabby with its colors and it's very addictive and they like literally tweak the plots so you have to keep watching and keep watching and keep watching and let's be honest one of the things about screens is when you're a parent you're exhausted yeah you know you want to be able to look at your screen you want to be able to like make a meal i want to look at my algorithm actually and you don't pretend you're not watching unicorn academy on a friday night

41:31and to be honest the screens letting your kids watch the screen is a way of giving you a bit of respite and you know what that's reasonable it's fair enough you know as someone who's kind of you know you're observing where the world's going where do you think the mobile phone thing with kids will play out in the next five to ten years do you think there will be government intervention do you think there will be rules or do you think it won't happen like that so there's this big new law in australia where social media rather than smartphones have been banned for kids of a certain age and i do think that basically we had nick clegg who used to work at facebook or metas it's now called sat in the studio a few weeks ago and he was saying that even he is sort of looking at that closely because even he thinks there is a case for kids under the age of 14 not really being allowed to have smartphones and you know what i know he's going to make it sound sort of name-dropping, but I'll say anyway, I interviewed on the Today program, Eric Schmidt, former boss of Google.

42:26And he said something which was so nuts about kids. He said, in a few years time, we will ask ourselves how on earth we ran the biggest experiment in human history on all the world's kids. And what you talk about is the fact that we've given these devices to all these kids, which is nuts. If you think about the 1950s or 60s, or even when we were growing up in the 1990s, you came into school and you pulled out a television and put it on the table in front of you in class. And then you pulled out a speaker and then you pulled out a camera and then you pulled out some typewriter that allowed you to connect with every other person in the world and put that all on the table in front of you.

43:00And then the teacher was trying to teach you. You'd be like, that's mad. And yet now we've got all of that in this tiny thing that fits into our pockets and millions of children around the world are going to school with these things in their pockets. And I do think we'll look back on it and be a bit like, that was a bit wild. Do you think people will step in then in the UK or do you the striking thing is it's not happened yet you know so keir star was on it is uh it's up to schools to do it but i think what matters is what other parents do and you know there's obviously a stereotype about pushy middle class parents at certain schools will kind of campaign for it i think what really matters which you don't realize before you become a parent is that you need the solidarity of other parents it's a bit like with computer again this is the sort of thing you never think about until you have kids yourself but like with screens or computer games what matters isn't just what your kid is doing, what their mates are doing in the class, but what their older siblings are doing.

43:52You might have a seven-year-old that goes to school and the other seven-year-olds have certain rules. But then one of the seven-year-olds has got an older brother who's nine, who's got roadblocks. And suddenly all the chat is about roadblocks. So you just need the other parents to help you in enforcing your rules. Well, yeah, because my seven-year-old got roadblocks the same time as my nine-year-old. But in an ideal world, the seven-year-old would have waited until she was nine. But there's no way she's going to see the nine-year-old and not say I want to be. Well, I think there should be a law.

44:18It shouldn't be allowed a social media account and list TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram until you're 16 and that'd be a law and you have to show your ID to sign up. It's a very simple thing that can be implemented. Obviously, you can cheat that with fake IDs that most people do with cigarettes, nightclubs and stuff like that. But at least it gives the parents a thing. It's against the law. It's illegal. And then you will create that solidarity through the majority. Not everyone's going to do it and people think that's a, and there will be loopholes, but just accept that. But then at least most people go, no, wait till you're 16 and then we do it.

44:48But haven't you guys heard, especially from some of you, because you guys got big following amongst people that are teenagers, young people in their 20s. Haven't you heard a lot of people say, I wish I'd never been introduced to TikTok? I hear that all the time from young people saying, you know what? God, I wish I never even looked at it. It's just, it's swallowed my life or like I'm just spending time doom scrolling. I think in a way though, I think social media will naturally turn into content as opposed to members of public publishing everything. think i think the way we put instagram stuff on the next generation will find that embarrassing and cringe like facebook and friends reunite like why the hell are you putting photos of you and mom on the holiday on the internet but what they'll have is an account that's got like their photo and then like one or two posts and they'll do a few stories but what it will be used is to watch their favorite content creators and it become tv and youtube as opposed to because most people watch youtube and don't post and i think tiktok snapchat and instagram eventually from the next generation will be the more watching creators as opposed to publishing everything about themselves i think you've just designed the future of the internet rob beckett far-sighted analysis i'm meant to be the one with a podcast about the global trend of the web oh my god that's what i think it's gonna happen anyway but you know i might be wrong if you were to give people three episodes of radical to come in on which are the three you're proudest of and the most interesting okay can you one for sort of the everyday guy because when you said i don't have your name drop here i didn't even know what name i'm supposed to be picking up eric schmidt or something eric schmidt he was a former boss of google everyday guy there's loads of everyday people so one i'd say is we did an episode with billy no but for people like it's new to them this kind of because what you are doing i know you're a very eloquent speaker and you're from like humble beginnings but you are operating at quite a high intellectual level of debate and insight into these complicated things so if there's an entry-level gap for people to get in on top of your other two favorite ones that would be great i'd say first up billy bragg yes billy bragg he came on this podcast he's a man of the left in politics and he talked about how the old working class that he grew up with is no longer there because that whole solidarity is completely gone but we also talked about the power of protest songs and it was so inspirational and he was really honest about it so i said do protest songs work and i thought he was gonna say of course they do that's what i spent 40 years doing and he said no they don't work so billy brag was incredibly interesting and exciting if you are worried about ai and a lot of people are worried about ai and they're right to be though it's also exciting there is an episode with this guy called dario it's like mario but whoever d dario amadei which is really really good so ash sarkar is this really really interesting person who's a kind of thoughtful about the left of british politics and she's like, you know, she's from Tottenham and she's very influential.

47:38She works for Navarro Media and she was great on all the stuff that's going on with Jeremy Corbyn and the Green Party. And then we got someone who is at the more intellectual end for sure, as is Ash Sarkar, called Dr. James Orr. And he's basically the main intellectual influence on reform. And if you think that there's a serious chance, I don't know how you guys feel about this, but if you think there's a serious chance that reform and Nigel Farage could in some distant future run the country and you want to understand their thinking, there's an episode with James Orr that you'd really enjoy. So the thing about your intellectual level, Rob, I'd say, which is so interesting you say that.

48:10Yeah. The reason I do what I do is I want big ideas to be accessible to everyone, including the sort of kid that I was when I grew up. And I really want to break the connection. This will get me in trouble. I want to break the connection with big ideas and a posh accent. And I really think that one of the great developments in our culture is that people, including people like you, if I may say, both of you are able to show that you can have cultural capital and be someone with a voice, even if you didn't come from a wealthy background. And I think that's a good thing. Is this radical podcast your own thing or is it a BBC podcast?

48:47It's a BBC thing. It comes out of the Today programme. Don't let that put you off. It's a good thing. Do you know what? If you listen to the Today programme, you'd love it. I bet you would. Yeah, I know. But can I say what my, with that accent thing. So I've seen you on social media. It was like, oh, I like this guy like that. And I was like, oh my God, that's the bloke on the news you present slightly differently because you have to be but like your accent i think your accent as you your career's developed you've become more south london than you have been previously i don't know if that's a conscious thing when you are on the today program because i noticed it with lauren laverne when she went on to do desert island discs she's not really from the north northeast anymore but you're saying that i've become more south london that's what i'm saying so i think you've gone the other way i think you had to be when you first went on there and you've got more that way, which I think is really refreshing.

49:29And it cuts through to me. Whereas when I listen to someone on the Today programme with that voice, I go, that's not for me. And also I think most of the time that's them doing their little performance for that show. I know you can't be, you have to be impartial, but it just sprinkles that slight bit of inauthentic. No, no, don't have to be impartial by accents. So I'll just say, I did this two-part documentary called How to Crack the Class Ceiling. And a big part of it was about accent bias. and accent bias, as your listeners will know, is a real thing in this country. And I'm afraid to say there is a hierarchy of accents and the ones at the bottom have been at the bottom for the last 50 years and it's Wolverhampton in the black country and then quite soon after that it's Scouse.

50:09And one of the big things we try and do is try and get people who don't talk in received pronunciation to talk about intelligent things. I'm trying really hard. It's going to be harder now that we've had this conversation. I'm trying really hard to not have this kind of code switching, kind of hyper awareness of access. Also, it's not like people do it consciously as well. Do you know what I mean? It's just because you're in that building with those people can sometimes shift it. But I think what I was saying was it was meant to be a compliment. You are becoming more, I think, authentic in the way you are speaking, I find, as a viewer of yours.

50:50And I try really hard on University Challenge, where you often have to talk very fast, but really clearly enunciate. Enunciation is different from pronunciation, which is the accent. I try really hard to still be me, but I'll be completely honest with you. I feel paranoid and self-conscious about whether or not I accidentally and unconsciously seem to posher up in order to be understood. But everyone does that. I do that sometimes on certain shows, but do you have a triple threat of this where then you'll be, because obviously your presenter's working class South Londoner and you have that accent, but then you won't be Asian enough for Asian people because you're so South London.

51:33Do you get that as a... Everyone feels like you're letting them down. In the end, you've just got to be yourself. And, you know, when you get to my ripe old age, I know what I'm about. And the thing that's really wonderful, which young people who talk like you do coming from Mottingham or like you do coming from the part of Devon, you're from Josh, young people can often be very, very paranoid about it. When I did these documentaries, it's so funny. I did this documentary called How to Break Into the Elite. I got so many emails, hundreds of emails from people pouring their heart out to me, okay?

52:02Saying, you know, I was the chief constable of Somerset Police, but I would have been a much higher rank if I didn't come from Birmingham. Because I'm paranoid about sounding like I come from Dudley, because there's bad connotations from that. and I really felt after these documentaries that accent paranoia is a much bigger part of being British than accent pride just this week I got an amazing email I won't say her name because I'm going to meet up with her and try and help her out but I got this email from someone who said the basis she had a very strong Scouse accent she was very paranoid about it she watched my documentary and then she said she's going to not try and hide that Scouse accent and she went for a big job in London as happens she's now doing really well I think a lot of people in this country are terrified about how they sound and try and posh up and i think the three of us in an unspoken club and with a little bit of kind of mutual solidarity can try and break that connection i just think we need to give people the confidence most people in britain talk in regional industrial accents and i just think we should hear more of those accents and i should say i think we're making progress on that i think people should be positive about it oh 100 definitely better than it was last question how do your kids talk absolutely pucker london north london not posh not posh kind of classless i'd say yeah classes yeah they're talking a sort of actually not classes middle class middle class north london which is i guess what they are yeah i'm so i feel like i've wondered about all i'm so delirious No, it's great.

53:30It's perfect. I've scared the crap out of you on AI. No, I'm already there. I'm already there. You're already there. I think it's either going to destroy us or save the world, Amol. And let's see what happens. You can cut this bit. I'm just going to say that you can cut this, if you like. I think you guys are absolute legends. Oh, thank you. I know from having followed your careers really closely that you have both overcome significant hurdles to do what you do. And to be funny and to be appreciated for it and to still be yourselves is, I think, absolutely fucking amazing. So I hope you keep on doing what you're doing.

53:58Oh, thank you. Oh, thanks, mate. It's been a joy. It's been a joy. It's been a great ep. We've got a final question as well, if you've got time. I've got time. We've not really spoken about your wife enough, I don't think, so this is a chance for you to rizz her up to the max. Basically, what is the one thing she does as a parent that you're in awe of and think you are amazing, and then what's the one thing she does as a parent that frustrates you slightly, and if she wants to listen, she'd go, yeah, he's got a point there, and you can answer in any order. On the first one, the whole childbirth thing.

54:27turning a little dot that's smaller than a pinhead into a person inside of you and then ejecting that person into the world means every woman in the world deserves more credit than every man that's ever lived i think that's the first thing yeah but try getting it up after your fourth pigs in blanket on boxing day oh dear the one thing that she does that frustrates me i know i just did a silly joke but yeah i totally the childbirth thing is absolutely mental But what's the second thing? What's the one thing that she does that was a source of frustration? Oh my God, if I can't think of something, does that mean I'm implying that she's absolutely perfect?

55:02What would you get called on the internet? You'd be called something male. What's it called for a simp? A simp, a ham, but it's a pussy boy. Anyway, growing up in South London, that was a mark of respect. I would say that we're in a way that is genuine. It's not me being diplomatic. I'm being completely honest. We're absolutely opposite characters, right? I'm from South London. She's from Devin. I'm, you know, whatever. I'm much, much more affectionate than her. And I think affection is a good thing.

55:33I feel sad for you. He wants a little cuddle after the Today show. Someone give up all the cuddle. He's knackered. After the Today program. I tell you, I always need a little cuddle. That is all I do. I think affection is a good thing where she's very, she's English. She's incredible, obviously. She's the most amazing person I'll ever meet. But she doesn't kiss you enough. Oh, is it about me rather than her with the kids? Oh, with the kids. Oh, right. I thought you were saying that you wanted more kisses. Well, that's also true. I do want more kisses. Listen, you know that Stone Roses song, I Want to Be Adored?

56:08I mean, it's just totally true. When you've got four kids of that age group, the time for that seems to shrink. Does it come back? Does it come back eventually? No, you're at the worst of it because you've got the two-year-old. I'd say like another 18 months or so when the youngest is four you'll get a little kiss in 18 months if I'm lucky I'll get a little smooch when the youngest is four I think it literally that is a dramatic easing of parental stuff and they're getting to school it's just you know you're nearly there and holidays are easier holidays are easier you don't have to take milk and napping and then you'll have more time together because you do the school drop off and then you can be indoors together and then you can do other stuff you've got a bit of time back to yourself so you'll get there We're going to have a kiss.

56:48You can kiss each other. And a little cuddle. What time do you get home from the Today programme? Well, it depends if I'm talking to you or not, really. Usually my country's going to work. So I get home at 9.30 and try and sleep, wake up, and then do the school run. So there's no time for kissing at all, I tell you. It'll come, Emma. Just, yeah, boxing day. As soon as I'm done here, I'm going to go and listen to your AI guy because I am fascinated. You get so hyper-focused on stuff. He's not stopped talking about AI. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It was a joy. I loved that. You guys are legends.

57:16thank you so much I feel honoured to chat to you it was an absolute joy good luck with the podcast radical you go back to bed and hopefully you get another series of the Today Show well it's not a daily show oh yeah no you might be whinging about when we invite you on to talk about your next tour or to talk about social ability or your next book and then you'll be like hang on a second there's 3 million people listening to me like that 3 million people listen great to have you on Mr Raj the influence is absolutely enormous I think I got invited on I got invited on recently when Plymouth Argyle beat Liverpool.

57:47I know, I spoke to you, mate. Do you not remember? Yeah, I know. I know. It's just for the listeners. Right. See you soon, mate. Good luck, David.

57:57Amal Rajan. He came in all... Oh, he came in all guns. Oh, I loved it. Do you know what? I'm going to put that in my top five interviews that didn't go how I expected. That's what I was saying to him when I was saying, like, he's much more himself in recent years. Well, I just thought he was going to be, like, quite a straight news guy. Yeah, so did I. He was down to fuck, man. Yeah, right. What I loved as well, he didn't want a couple of the Today Show digs, but he had to drop in three million. I was like, yeah, respect. Come on, guys. I've been a serious guy here. I like a laugh, but I do like respect as well, actually.

58:29Yeah, I've seen the ratings of the last leg. Don't fucking take the piss. All right, Josh, I'll see you next time. See you Tuesday. Bye.

58:47Hello Parenting Hell listeners, recognise that voice? Yes, it's Josh Whittacombe here.

58:55I have got a new podcast, Josh Whittacombe's Museum of Pop Culture, and I'm going to say it, I'm about 85 % sure you're going to love it. Here are the reasons why. Number one, I'm confident if you're listening now you don't hate me and possibly think I'm funny. Number two, I'm confident if you're listening now, you like podcasts. Number three, I'm confident if you're listening to me and Rob, you prefer pop culture to people talking about things, let's be honest, boring things, like history, economics, or politics. I know I do, and that is why I made this podcast. I wanted a show that tells the stories I love from popular culture in the way other podcasts do for drier topics.

59:32See above. Basically, I wanted a podcast that realized Millie Vanilli were more interesting than Elizabeth I. Join me as I give the definitive, or at least the funniest, takes on Mr. Blobby. When Ghostwatch convinced BBC viewers ghosts were real. When a band burned a million pounds for a laugh. The Spice Girls, a truly catastrophic Spider-Man musical with music from U2 and David Hasselhoff, Baywatch and his part in the fall of the Berlin Wall. All of them are real, by the way. Either you know what these things are and you're about to learn far more about them than you ever realised you wanted to, or you don't.

1:00:05And you're about to be introduced to some of the maddest things in modern or ancient history. Stiff necks will learn, loose necks will laugh New episodes available every Wednesday and Saturday Perfect to fill those gaps between your weekly doses of parenting hell So go on, you might as well listen, subscribe and follow wherever you get your podcasts now Museum of Pop Culture with me, Josh Widdicombe Available everywhere on the 1st of January