Adam Buxton on Why Podcasting Has Got WORSE & Comedy Jingles

26:32Romesh Ranganathan:There you go. You know? Well, my answer to that would be, yep.

26:40I do want to be left behind because it's another concession to the numbers. You film it so that you can maximize the reach. You can have it on more platforms. You can connect with a bigger and bigger audience. Yeah, fine. Connect with a bigger and bigger audience. But it changes what you're actually doing if you're talking about podcasting. To me, the thing I like about podcasting is the aural experience, listening to it and being in a non-visual world. and I just think it's more absorbing, and it's a different thing. This is a TV show, what we're doing. Yeah. It's not a podcast. No. It's a video podcast.

27:19Yeah. Yeah.

27:21Romesh Ranganathan:And it's worse for it, isn't it? No, it's just a different thing. Yeah, but it's worse. It's slightly creative. I've just wanted to... It's not worse. It's not worse. I mean, it's not worse. It's not worse. It's just different. For example, you've interrupted there. Yeah. I would say that's slightly worse. Okay. That's not a good year. You wouldn't have done that if it was just audio, would you? Yeah, but not on a TV show. Okay, right. So, okay. Do we see a shot of you? No. It's good, isn't it? That's very frustrating. As a viewer, that would make me very angry. Could we not just cut into just your press shot?

27:57You need the game. Every time.

28:01Romesh Ranganathan:Not every time, but I think at the beginning of every episode, because there hasn't been an episode when you haven't spoken, I don't think. so like every time like at the very top you said you wanted like a little community atmosphere in here yeah but I don't see you inviting Will and John to say anything they say a lot he sang he sang with Paloma Faith he did a duet upon being forced to well he wasn't on camera he wasn't on camera I think we should see them you know they're sitting there he's got underwear on yeah the other guy he's not no he's playing with himself yeah people should be able to see that before we started recording it's like the 70s in here yeah yeah it's a vibe but you know so but in all honesty when so when i do you remember when we did your podcast in la yeah right in that tiny airbnb yeah yeah and i remember that was like i think i was doing hip hop save my life at that time 2017 2017 yeah it was 2017 yeah 2016 2017 and i was doing hip hop save my life at that time in fact you came on hip hop save my life yes you did and uh and did a Kenny Everett rap or something like that.

29:05Romesh Ranganathan:Yeah, but you also, it was so funny. I remember we were talking about Joey Badass, the rapper, and you found his name so ridiculous. You started talking about Martin Naughty Man.

29:21Romesh Ranganathan:It was so good. But when I came to see you and do that podcast, it was like what I thought was exciting about it, of course seeing you, but our chat was just like it was just so uh all-encompassing and sprawling and it was i was about to say this direction i know you were you were nudging the conversation where you wanted to but it didn't feel like it didn't feel structured in the same way that we're doing a chat show and that's kind of when they're at their best right yeah yeah when it's truly meandering the way that it would be if you'd met someone for the first time yeah you're getting to know someone that you you're interested in them you meet someone at a party and you go oh yay oh yay hey here you go i was up quite late last night actually i should say john and ben were there oh yeah yeah it was great yeah thank you good good uh i played a show at rough trade east with the adam buxton band yeah who are comprised of various current and former members of metronomy yeah and that's very exciting isn't it yeah really exciting how did that happen um well i got approached to make an album years ago like 2019 just because it was someone a record label who liked the podcast and said you should do like a album of those jingles except longer so i said yeah okay but then i then my ambition got the better of me and i started overthinking it which i often do and then the pandemic happened blah blah blah but finally i got it together and the reason that it finally happened was because i got uh hooked up with joe mount who is the main guy in metronomy and i'd met him a couple of times and he's really good at doing things more or less the opposite way that i would normally do them which is i would normally worry about every single detail yeah carry on until things just didn't get done Whereas he moves quite fast.

31:18He's like, don't worry about all that shit that you were saying about before all the ambitions you have for this album, Bulgarian choirs and let's do a Nina Simone parody and all this kind of thing. It's like, just bring in some of your demos and we'll do that and that'll be fine. Yeah, but then it won't be good.

31:37Romesh Ranganathan:how long would could he have taken before because obviously you're working with somebody that you really admire how long could he have taken before you started to get you know assertive about getting a move on with it do you think is that infinite how long could he how long well i'm just thinking like if i was doing an album with kendrick lamar for example yeah right who i really love and he said okay let's do this track together this and then i said okay and then i'll get the verse back to you i think it could be it would be decades yeah before i'd even send an email saying do you remember when we yeah i mean but could you were you did you just have to you're just at the mercy oh no it was fine because we were in the same room we're like doing it i'd go and stay with him okay he's got a studio at the end of his garden in kent yeah just a little studio and so it would be just a question of well let's get together then we didn't really do anything remotely uh so it was all like we'd save it for those sessions and i'd turn up and play him something new and he'd go okay well either we can use that or we've got to reconstruct all that because you can't play guitar you know i'd try and do demos playing the guitar but i'm really like a five-year-old yeah just who's had one lesson um so for those people so what's the what is the album basically uh the album what is it i mean it's uh 14 pretty short songs and most of them are sort of funny yeah like some of them are straightforwardly funny yeah it's one about a non-absorbent tea towel in the style of uh you know bossanova pioneer joao giberto and um that's i would say mainly funny it's not deep it's an observation about how annoying it is when tea towels are not absorbent yeah in the way that you want them to be yeah and there's another one about the fact that i love wearing shorts and uh i i don't see why i should be made to feel bad by some people as a as a middle-aged man wearing shorts why do you love wearing shorts well They're just more comfortable.

33:48I cycle a lot. Yeah. So it's practical for me. But I just like the freedom. Also, I don't mind the look too much. Right. I get when people think that it's a little depressing to see a man in shorts. But...

34:03Romesh Ranganathan:I think you look good. I mean, I do... Sat there, I do think you've got great... I think your calves are particularly impressive. I think I've got good calves. You've got really good calves. So... I don't have that. Right. So I'm slightly more reluctant to wear shorts, but they are more comfortable. I don't know. Even on holiday, I'm reluctant to wear shorts. Really? Yeah. But you dress quite well. Also, I'm a shorter man. So like often, often if I wear trousers, they just accentuate my shortness in a way visually. Yeah. Like I've never been able to wear suits or anything like that. I've always envied people who can go around like Richard Iowa.

34:42what they always think of. Whenever he turns up, he's always immaculate. He looks like he's just stepped off the Wes Anderson set. I wish I was like that, but he's an entirely different type in every conceivable way. Yeah. So I'm just doing what's practical. What do your family think about you wearing shorts? They're fine. I mean, they've got used to it by now. They've never really seen me in long trousers.

35:05Romesh Ranganathan:Because occasionally, like Lisa will say to me, because I'm so into hip-hop, it sort of influences the way I dress sometimes. Yeah. and occasionally Lisa will say to me, you're flirting with looking like you're in a fancy dress. Like what kind of things are you wearing? I don't know. A VW badge on a chain. I mean, I did that years ago, but I wouldn't attempt that now. But say, for example, I'm really into varsity jackets and a big pair of trainers or whatever, and then I'll be going to leave, and she'll say to me, what is this look? Yeah. and then I'll go do you not like it and she goes it's just um it's just unusual for you but it isn't unusual for me yeah so what she's saying is I don't like that look yeah correct but she would never but Lisa is like she will express distaste but would never stop like she just if that's what you want to wear that's what you do it isn't it I say that to my wife sometimes if she's wearing something I really don't like yeah I go like what though What would that be, for example?

36:08She's got a weird pair of trousers. Speaking of trousers. Yeah. It's like, I can't. They're just a strange cut. Yeah. And like they're a little too short. Yeah. And I don't know. They're not my favorite. She has other outfits that I think are way better. Yeah. So when I saw them the other day, I was like, those new trousers. She's like, you know, they're not. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. anyway but but i always get busted as soon as i mention anything if i make any comment on a item of clothing uh she knows that it's probably because i don't like yeah yeah even though i do say very regularly you look great but then she doesn't take me seriously she doesn't remember the times when i say that means anything sorry i don't i'm not trying to cast

36:57Romesh Ranganathan:suspensions on your sentiment but what i mean is like from your partner compliments are like massively devalued right like what like i don't think if i say to lisa you look really nice i don't that she'll go oh thanks but if somebody if we leave the house and somebody says oh you look quite nice that is i mean she's walking on air but that's because you're living together so you're having to navigate this weird relationship of like well we've made our bed yeah you know what i mean you're locked in together yeah like it doesn't matter even if look terrible so you kind of yeah like it's it's it's all very well being honest in a relationship and you obviously you want a certain degree of honesty you want to be able to say what's really important but from day to day you don't yeah you're right you're right because because the most important thing yeah is to maintain civil relations yeah within the house for the sake of everybody i know and so that sometimes means deprioritizing um comments that after a while you kind of you might have made them back in the day but now you've learned oh i'm not gonna say yeah those times are over yeah yeah i tried to break lisa really that sounds but i tried to i tried to break in the idea of some trousers to her during lockdown where i bought i bought some of those do you know like the japanese kind of yogary sort of harem you know the crotches down here and they're oh yeah more like yes i do yeah sort of uh mc hammerish is how i describe if i was using an adjective yeah so i bought a pair of those and i i put them on a lot i was just very excited to wear a different cut of trouser i was very excited about wearing them and so um and so because we weren't going out that much i thought i'd wear them in and around the house yeah to get her used to the idea of that silhouette and so i started wearing it quite a lot quite quite wearing them quite a lot and then we were about to go out and i thought this is the time and so i came down the stairs and she said no that is the one time she actually said what shoes do you wear with that like because unless you're wearing like those shoes with the curly toes

39:18it's hard to know what no i just wear trainers trainers yeah yeah yeah like like exactly because who else other than mc hammer popularized that look who gets away that's something that pharrell

39:29Romesh Ranganathan:would probably wear pharrell would but that's the problem is you have i think you have to manage expectations yeah um anyway so shorts i deal with on the album i deal with um all the big important topics this one about grating my thumb accidentally while zesting lime for lunch and it's quite a good bit of word play on there my blood, my grating the blood is yeah it's good that is good and what else is on there Pizza time? Oh, yeah. There's pizza time, which is about that. That's like the first sort of proper song that I tried to write. Got some real emotions in it about my son who was a teenager at the time.

40:21And he was going through a very indolent phase and he was eating a lot of pizza and hanging around the house. It was after he, I think just after he left school, it was that phase when I was thinking, how much longer are we just going to let him get on with this and not nag him every time we see him in a bathrobe? at 11 o 'clock eating pizza, you know, and stealing more of my Carlsberg. And so it was a song about that trying to navigate as a dad and as someone who had been similarly indolent with lots of bad habits that my parents hassled me about as well, trying to think like, how much do I put up with this and how much do I nag?

41:02Anyway, so it was about that. But then I got some feedback from a friend saying, hmm not sure you're you're kind of in between two stools here it's sort of funny sort of heartfelt I think you've got to pick a side and then I went back and forth on that note for a long time before realizing actually I think that's my comfort zone is a sort of slightly awkward place in between funny and serious so you don't mind that no I get why it's a little off-putting but I feel like that is my natural mode and and and it it feels inauthentic to push myself too far

41:42Romesh Ranganathan:one way or the other but you are very funny though I mean you could have made it just funny well I did try I didn't after the note I didn't try and nudge it towards something a little funnier and there were a couple of lines that were just straightforwardly nauseatingly cloying that I tried to remove well look we but I'm this next thing that's going to happen here yeah I'm I just want to be clear I'm not in favour of this but this has come from the team okay so I just want to distance myself from it unless you love it in which case we can edit can't we so you're good you're great at jingles oh yeah and so I think you're not selling it okay let me try again let me try again you're great at jingles thank you so much you're so good at doing jingles and we thought it would be fun yeah to see if you do a jingle for us now so it doesn't require any instrumentation um but we've got three topics for you can pick whichever you want you want okay the joy of descaling a kettle descaling a kettle could you the joy of descaling i'm not going to give you more do you want all three can i choose okay i'll give you the three options so the joy of descaling a kettle i think we we we know when that's followed with can i choose that suggests that one's out wiping sleep crust out of your eye in the morning or cumin cumin well all i can think of with cumin is hold on i'm cumin hold on i'm cumin that's good it's good sam and dave yeah um i mean descaling the kettle it's difficult without the music because for me the music comes first yeah i'm using logic i'm using garage band yeah and uh i'm thinking here's where i'm going with this okay because we've got a genuine hard water problem up where we live i think it's good to channel something real yeah so um oh my god the problem with the hard water makes me think that i really really ought to and get the scale in but i'm failing.

43:55There's still bits a-flying in the kettle.

44:02Romesh Ranganathan:Do you know what? You snatched victory from the jaws of defeat there. I thought that was going to be an absolute shit show. I genuinely did. For a number of reasons. One, I thought it was putting you under too much pressure. Which it was. Yeah, it was, see. But you didn't help that. No, but I'm just saying, people don't want... He's being sensitive. He knows what I'm like. He's reaching out a hand. Well, somebody's agreed to, he's had a late night, right? He's done a show, he's come here to do the thing, and then you go perform. I mean, to be fair, it could be worse. There's all sorts of other ways you could have put me on the spot that would be worse.

44:39Actually, although I think you are going to do that later on, and maybe I'll go into a long, boring speech about it. Oh, what is it that you think we're going to, what is it? Your viral moments. I know how this show works.

44:58Romesh Ranganathan:Okay, good. Let's save it for later. We'll put a pin in it. On your own website, you said that your career can be divided into two parts, right? Blimey. Did I? Yeah. Research. Stuff you've done with Joe Cornish and stuff you've done without. Yeah, that's true. How do you see those two phases or two parts of your career? The funny phase and the less funny phase. No, I mean, if you're talking about me occupying or if I'm talking about me occupying a space somewhere between funny and sincere, that part began after I did stuff with Joe. Yeah, that is what I mean. Yeah. And when I did stuff with Joe, I think we were much more focused on trying to be funny.

45:43Yeah. And not trying to be kind of cloyingly sincere or deal with anything particularly emotionally resonant. Yeah. There were little bits here and there. And I always felt like I was putting clues in some of the stuff we did on the Adam and Joe show as to how I was genuinely feeling every now and again. Yeah. But on the whole, we were just being solidly stupid. Yeah. And then that changed when we stopped doing stuff together, when he went off and started making movies, which was 2011, I think, Attack the Block came out, his first feature. and that really meant that he was from that point on so busy that we couldn't practically do stuff together anymore yeah and that was sad for me because we we were doing things on six music on the radio and that was the happiest that i'd been in my relationship my professional relationship with him yeah i felt like here we are this is what we should have been doing for ages this is really fun i love doing the tv show our kind of homemade adam and joe show thing but channel four reached a point after we did four series like that was a lot yeah yeah but they sort of said okay you've done that now grow up yeah get a shiny floor show get behind some desks do some proper tv and we were never able to make that transition you know and we did try it's not as if we went did you want to do you wanted to make that i mean it was like half fuck you we're not going to do that because it was genuinely everything that we never wanted to do we wanted to take the piss out of all that but on the other hand we were insecure and we didn't want to just not have careers anymore suddenly so we really did try and we did lots of weird shows going off to tokyo and uh doing a kind of um pop culture show there adam and joe go tokyo which was fun i don't know that was another one i i remember reading a review of that in back when i used to read reviews and this was 2003 so like over 20 years ago and it said there um god they look old in this review yeah and um i was like wow that's a bit harsh anyway that just never worked out doing doing all those um types of shows and trying to make the transition into more regular tv and so So that's how we ended up on the radio, really.

48:07And after a short period of thinking, is this a step down? Like, are we going backwards? Because that's kind of how I started, was doing local radio in Cheltenham when I was studying at art college there. But actually, it was the best thing that ever happened to us in so many ways. And those are some of the things that I'm proudest of those moments, although it was so ephemeral. You know, I mean, I think there's clips flying around on the Internet of me and Joe on Six Music, but not that many, really. it just sort of evaporates yeah um but it was really fun i really liked that and and and so anyway when that finished and when he got too busy i had some wilderness years where i really didn't know what i was doing and what i was going to do and i did a show called bug where i introduced music videos and actually that was really good but it didn't you know it was i was introducing other people's work really i wasn't doing my own thing and i would put my own bits in there as well but it was only when i started doing the podcast my own podcast in 2015 that um that that that it felt possible to be silly and have stupid elements but also actually talk about real things and genuine feelings and hang-ups and things like that does it feel quite good because i

49:26Romesh Ranganathan:on the podcast you're really funny and you're being really funny and the the bits that you create for it really really funny there must be something nice about that right the podcast is a real insight into your it's you unadulterated adam buxton and and the response has been amazing does that feel quite good yeah cool feels really good yeah and i really like all the people i meet every time i do a live thing and i meet people afterwards it feels great because they're so kind and and warm and you know it's it makes me feel really good about it but um it's quite heavily managed the whole thing i mean it's it's a it's a very finessed version of me yeah so i edit you know it's heavily edited and it's not like mark maron was someone who i was certainly impressed by and was one of the people that i listened to that made me think oh yeah this is a good medium podcast thing you know you can have a real conversation where it's as much about the host as it is the guest it's a proper back and forth so that was good but but someone like him he's much more fearless and confessional than i think i ever would be really right is there a lot of stuff you just keep back from well there's a lot of stuff that gets taken out my my editor Seamus has a fairly good sense of that's not doing you any favors.

50:56So that can come out as well as for the guests. Yeah. You know, I want, I want both people to feel protected. Yeah. Yeah. But sometimes you get the feeling that on some shows people aren't that well protected because they know like, Ooh, this is spicy. Yeah. We'll definitely keep that in because that's going to go viral and that's going to get people talking and that'll cause a stir and people will some people will go yay well done for saying that and other people will get angry about that and actually i kind of had to realize that that's not what this show is not what my show is really it's much more kind of about trying to be trying to get on and try to be friendly and sort of protect people from being thrust into a space where they're going to be misunderstood you know what i mean because that's one of the big dangers of the social media world is that you can be quite easily misinterpreted and misunderstood and people will you know have a fairly bad faith interpretation of what you're of what you're about is that why you're not on it at all oh yeah i think so i mean for lots of reasons mainly time you know it's mainly like it's just another job yeah you must have so i mean

52:17Romesh Ranganathan:it's so you're just on it all the time it's insane yeah it's really bad well i mean i appreciate that there's it's useful for people in all kinds of ways but i was got i was getting nothing really good out of it personally um i believe we've got a have we got a question from my mum oh yeah Yeah. You've not met my mum, have you? Not in real life, no. Okay, here we go. Let's have a listen.

52:46Romesh Ranganathan:Hi, Adam. I'm Rom's mum. I hope you're having a nice time with my son.

52:56Romesh Ranganathan:He's learned so much from you and your show. It's a bit of a tricky question, but I don't mind asking you. do you prefer your friend Louise or Joe? Okay. Thank you so much. Have a good time. Ah, thank you. What's your mum's name again? Shanti. Shanti. Thank you so much, Shanti. Did the person recording that put the gun away at the end of that?

53:34Romesh Ranganathan:So, Adam, who do you prefer? Louise or Joe? I mean Louise every time. She's way nicer. That was good. It's really good.

53:52She says Adam the way my mum used to say Adam sometimes.

53:55Romesh Ranganathan:She seemed so nervous, didn't she? I don't think I ever said I've learnt so much from Adam. That did sound like a question that had been written by someone else. Who wrote it then? I didn't write it we have a little chat but it came from you well it came from a conversation with me right okay he wanted to force me to pick a favourite thereby alienating well it was more like a who have you become I know how this works no I mean they both occupy such a different space in my life in a lot of ways do you think Louis should do the decent thing and stop doing the podcast yeah however it's it's becoming even more complicated because the podcast wouldn't be my podcast wouldn't be what it is without louis and him having been on it so you know when i sit when i complain about his podcast doing well i'm not do you think like i'm saying this as being guilty of being part of the problem yeah but like tv like especially comedians tv is struggling you know it's sort of it's sort of uh it feels like it's it might be cyclical but it might be on its way out in terms of like you know the whole load of panel shows that we used to have and all that kind of stuff that's all gone now isn't it there's like two and um and then podcasts are like getting really really like massive and there's video podcasts and stuff like that do you think like do you have do you have an opinion or a take on where it's going to go because there's a lot of this, isn't there, of two people with microphones chatting.

55:33Yeah.

55:34Romesh Ranganathan:Do you reckon it's going to get to, to my mind, it's going to like, it's got to like, something different is going to happen soon, right? This isn't it though. We are very much behind the curve here at the Romesh Rangan. I don't know. I think this kind of thing comes in and out of fashion. Yeah. This sort of show used to be on TV, on actual TV. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There used to be shows, you know, even as late as the 90s, I remember watching, there would be half an hour of two people in a room just talking. Yeah. And you just cut between them. And that would be the show. Yeah. I remember there was one with Robert Robinson and Lloyd Grossman.

56:11Yeah. And they would just waffle away, two old blokes. And I used to watch that as a guy in my early 20s, just thinking, oh, these guys, they get on. You know, it's kind of nice to be in their company. Yeah. I don't really give a shit what they're saying that much. They've just got a nice vibe. Yeah. And that's what people buy into. So it's a sort of evergreen format, really. I think people enjoy seeing other people connecting. That's what it is. And whatever medium they do that in, they'll be up for it. So I don't think it'll ever really go away. And I think that podcasting has been as big as it has been because people really, really want to connect now in the kind of social media age.

56:57and their efforts to connect are being frustrated in so many ways by how we live and by technology and all these things that are supposed to actually make it easier to connect. It's actually having the opposite effect. So they end up, you know, I've been in that position before. Certainly in the lockdown, I remember after my mom died, feeling really mad and isolated. And rather than being with my family, I'd bugger off and listen to a podcast and enjoy listening to a couple of other people connecting, you know. So sometimes it's a bit sad. But in other ways, you know, there are times when you don't want to or can't or for whatever reason, you're not connecting with the people around you.

57:41And in those moments, it is really valuable, I think, and comforting and heartening to be in the company of people who are connecting.

57:50Romesh Ranganathan:Right. Now, listen, we've got two things that I want to talk to you. Well, we've got a little game. It's called, it's a feature that, again, another thing that I'm slightly... It's good to have features. I'm unconvinced by this feature. But I do think in this particular case, it might be good.

58:12Romesh Ranganathan:It's misquoted. So you have, we share this in common, you found an AI-generated biography of yourself. Yes. Of yourself. I found a couple out there. It took me a while. Bloody everywhere. These bloody AI generators. These things of Amazon point and click. It's in your bloody letterbox. It's ludicrous. It's 36 hours later. And it's hard to understand who and why is generating them. Who and why is. I don't understand why there's an appetite for it. I don't understand where the revenue is going. Needless to say, they exist. They exist. Oh, they do. There's no question they exist. The question is why.

59:06Romesh Ranganathan:So we have got some quotes for you. Some of them are you. And you just have to sort of guess. Okay. the best way to get people in television excited about something is to just make it yourself i mean it sounds like the kind of boring shit i would say but i don't think i did say it

59:33Romesh Ranganathan:you did say it did i the best way to get people to television excited to just make it so that's good that's not that's true now i think of it it's brilliant yeah agreed first of all before i ask you this next one do you say bowie or bowie personally i say bowie okay my relationship with bowie is complicated he doesn't know i exist and i've had and yet i've had entire conversations with him in the shower did not say that is not true how did you why were you so certain because i know that i haven't done that. Oh, you know, it makes sense. Yeah. I'm like, I don't, I don't stand in the shower and go, how are you feeling today, David?

1:00:18I'm fine. Thanks very much. The hair washing's going great, by the way. You've used a new conditioner, which I think really suits you and smells very nice. If you don't mind me saying, thank you, David. Oh, I miss you. I wish you weren't dead. Well, I am. There's nothing that can be done about that, but I'm occupying a very sparkling temporal space that will never be truly disconnected from your reality. So don't worry too much about it and enjoy the rest of your shower. Thank you, David. That's never happened.

1:00:49Romesh Ranganathan:So I know that's not true. Holy shit. That was so good. Okay. Next one. Joe has always been the responsible one. He makes films. I make jingles about toilets. Haven't said that. That's not how I feel. As far as having a craft or any expertise, That's always been significantly missing in my life and it's been a source of anxiety. That's true. I definitely have thought that. You said it in The Observer. Yeah. But that's not true. That's not true. That might be how you feel, but that's not true. It is true. As far as having a craft or any expertise, that's been missing in my life. But everything you do shows craft and expertise.

1:01:30Well, that's nice. But I mean, it's very nebulous. It's not like I feel like I'm not consistent. You know what I mean? Like the people who are really good in their fields are good because they are consistent. And to me, that's partly to do with craft. Like they have nailed what they do so well and they have an innate gift for it. That the combination of working really hard at it and being inherently good at it means that they fail very seldom. Like their worst is better than most people's best. Right. You know what I mean?

1:02:04Romesh Ranganathan:whereas my worst is pretty bad but that's exciting though it is exciting okay um i started getting annoyed and said dad come on be professional just touch the guy's bum and then my dad got really angry we had a shouting match outside in the car park of space yeah that's true that's when we were in ibiza filming with my dad for the adam and joe show and that was one of those times where where we were being led, I think, by, is this going to be good on the show? And we were like, yeah, okay, well, this is a thing to do with dad. And actually, a lot of those ideas came from Joe. And I would never have been able to generate them because my relationship with my dad was not close in that way.

1:02:52So to me, it was just excruciating, the idea of having to spend a whole week in Ibiza with him. You know, we would hang out during the days We'd be on the beach And he liked it on the beach And then, but then in evenings he hated it Because he just found the whole atmosphere overwhelming And grotesque was his word I loathe the grotesque Anything carnivalesque You know, papier-mâché heads And just any kind of chaos He didn't like chaos You know, because he'd been in the war He was in the Second World War And I feel like once you've seen real horrific chaos yeah then your tolerance your tolerance for it as fun yeah in a recreational goes way down so i think that's what he felt like that was kind of the root of the problem with a lot of the things that we were into and my generation were into he couldn't get his head around it like why do you embrace chaos like he you remember that track uh higher state of consciousness by josh wink yeah when he heard that he was like this does not compute why would you listen to this It's like the pure sound of chaos.

1:03:59Anyway, we went to, we took him to a club. We took him to space and it was, it's pretty hard, techno, dark. And there was a guy, a greased up guy on a podium grooving around with very few clothes on. And we just thought it would be like, well, Joe said, get your dad to touch the guy's bum. I've talked to the guy. He's fine with it. Well, originally he said, get him to lick his bum. So you get him to lick his bum. I'm not going to ask my dad to lick that guy's bum. And so Joe said, Nigel, will you lick that? No, certainly not. Well, would you just touch it? No. And after a while, it was like, just touch it, dad.

1:04:41Come on. And then we can leave. No, I'm not going to touch his bottom. No. And yeah. And then we and then I accused him of being unprofessional in the car park because he wouldn't touch the guy's bum. And then it kicked off and he got very angry, which is fair enough.

1:04:57Romesh Ranganathan:I mean, I'm actually so I get it from his point of view. Oh, man, totally. He was in his 70s. Yeah, you know, it's a big ass. I mean, I'm only 56 and I find it exhausting and stressful to do any kind of filming, which doesn't happen very often these days. But imagine being in my 70s and going out into an environment that I find overwhelming and being ordered to do all these mad things and by your son. No, no. Now, this is the bit you're going to be angry about. Yeah, yeah. Viral time. So the team have decided we need to have some sort of viral moment or exclusive. Yeah. I appreciate, and I apologize for ruining what is supposed to be just a fun segment.

1:05:41No, I like it.

1:05:42Romesh Ranganathan:I like it. It's a unique take. And, you know, it's like, what's wrong with a cat playing the piano or, you know, lightsaber boy? I'll tell you what's wrong. It's bad for the cat. It's bad for the piano. And as for lightsaber boy, his whole life was ruined by that viral moment. Yeah, it was. anyway but i appreciate that there are some fun nice virals right yeah and i mean occasionally you'll get a viral thing that's entirely uplifting and positive oh look how nice and kind this person is being i mean i can't think of any off the top of my head i mean there's a hot tour girl who who went went viral and that led to her creating a crypto rug pull that lost people thousands and thousands of dollars so that's right that's the best example i mean i can much more available to me when i think of virals are stories of people's who are stories of people whose lives were ruined when they had a viral moment because it's there's something unnatural about it i think it's like that's not how life is supposed to work you're suddenly being catapulted outside of your normal environment into a space where lots of people are seeing you for the first time don't really know what makes you tick they're just getting a very superficial kick from something it's usually something that's gone wrong yeah you know what i mean it's like oh you've gone viral i.e you've said something wrong your life's gone wrong somehow you've fallen over in an amusing way something has gone wrong and sometimes that's just silly and fun but other times it's actually what you're looking at is a crack that is going to turn into a chasm in that person's life and i mean i'm taking this way too seriously but but the serious thing about it i think is that it's kind of the engine that drives the internet yeah and social media is engagement via something shocking or weird or loud and it's kind of the way that discourse is gone now as well like on a more serious level everything is engineered and geared towards whoever shouts the loudest whoever is most absolutely sure of their own views whoever expresses those views in the most extreme way they are going to be prioritized by the algorithm and it's there's a cost to that i think and bound up in that is this idea of virality and i think you see the cost all around like more and more and and the way that it's being dealt with is is almost as mad you know people getting arrested for tweets or whatever and people getting assassinated and stuff and you may and i do when i think of those things i feel like i disagree so strongly and i find it so objectionable a lot of the things that the content of those tweets or the things that were being said or whatever but you're like arresting these people and executing them in front of their families it's not gonna sort it out that's what the baddies do yeah i feel like there's a connection between that kind of desire for something to prioritization of like extreme content yeah and the way that people talk more and more especially in in online spaces yeah and the kind of the way that like the tone of the conversation becomes changed.

1:09:07Well it's like

1:09:07Romesh Ranganathan:Do you have one or not an exclusion? Do you know what I know that you're you are shitting yourself about saying that I actually respect you for having the courage to do it but no I get what you're saying I had full sex with Louis Theroux earlier this morning Amazing, thank you And that is it. Adam Buxon, everybody.

1:10:00Romesh Ranganathan:And then on Thursdays, I'm joined by my mum, widely regarded as the audience's favourite Ranganathan. And we answer your questions, your stories, and your family dilemmas. So I'll see you on Thursday when I'm back here with my mum, Shandy. Send your questions and stories to podcast at rangaby.com, voice note or text on 07731 623 355. We genuinely love hearing from you, and there's a good chance you'll hear yourself on the show. See you next time. Oh, shut up, Romesh. Spring just slid into your DMs. Grab that boho look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you, and hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up.

1:10:40Spring's calling. Ross, work your magic. You can't reason with the sun. Trust us, we've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's OmniShade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear. Level up your summer at Columbia.com to spend more time outside and less time slathering on aloe lotion. You're welcome. Columbia. Engineered for whatever.