Ha ha
Here is another Steve Brown masterpiece, mainly of Richard, who had a letter printed in the Guardian today. As it happens, we did not record a new podcast today, as previously promised, for mundane domestic reasons, so we are recording number 15 on Monday morning. Please be patient, and imagine how much better it will be with three whole days' more news to talk about. Incidentally, I very much enjoyed pretending to be a comedian on the bill of Robin Ince's School For Gifted Children night at a packed Albany, and it was especially good to see a low-key performance by Stewart Lee, who, if he is jealous about me stealing his ex-comedy partner, managed to disguise it well under bonhomie and righteous anger about other injustices. (Thank you to anybody in the audience who laughed at my ten-minute routine about serial killers. Don't worry, it won't make me want to be a comedian full-time.) Ben Goldacre was also on the eclectic bill, but I'm afraid I had to leave before his set, as I've not been feeling 100% this week, due to overwork I suspect.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 1:22 PM
16 Comments
Contact
Andrew at
16 Comments:
I just saw that pic on Herring's blog and thought "how effing typical" for a man who seems (at times) to be obsessed by cocks and a bit childish!
Did you see the news in today's Daily Express (and probably other papers -- I didn't buy the paper, it was left in the canteen where I had lunch) that Jeremy Pratster Clarkson has been very "cool" at the Hay Festival and admitted to a journalist to doing 186 mph on the Limehouse Link!
Way to go Pratson! Now there are calls for the BBC to sack him for divulging his illegal driving habits!
Ha ha ha ha ha. Some days just get better !!!!!!
Sharon (aka GBTAF)
Those homeopathic remedies not helping Andrew? ;)
happy to wait, but i don't think you both need th4e news so much now, as you've 'hit your stride' gracefully, that you can just talk about anything. it's nice to hear how podcasts evolve. find any long running 'proper podcast' [not the cut and paste best bits] and go back to the first ep.
nice pics BTW
backtoblack
I hope you feel better soon. I recommend you listen to 'The Swan and The Rat' here. I reckon it's pretty much guaranteed to cheer anyone up. On the same page, you can also listen to a call to your friends at 118 118.
xx
Stephen, thanks for supplying the punchline!
And who says I was drawing a cock. That could be anything. It could be a sideways man's head and shoulders. You people are the obsessive ones.
It was a great evening. Really glad I went, though it was pretty cramped in there!
I'll write up a few thoughts on it tomorrow.
Hope you didn't just scuttle off early 'cos you were scared that Goldacre might offer you out.
I met and shook hands with Ben Goldacre.
Did you spike him with nux.vom.?
Ishouldbeworking: Nah, I bet Andrew could probably have Ben in a fight. He's a bit stockier.
Fight fight fight fight!
I value my non-violence as dearly as my open mind.
So, I wrote down a few thoughts on the night. It's a bit long (sorry) but if you want to know what the night was like you might enjoy it.
School for Gifted Children – 28th May
When I saw the lineup for this event I just knew I had to be there. Sod the early morning I had planned for the next day, I couldn’t miss the chance to see Andrew Collins, Stewart Lee, Simon Singh and of course Ben Goldacre on the same bill. I knew a bit about Robin Ince, but not so much about the remaining line-up. I wasn’t entirely certain what to expect but knew it wouldn’t be a typical stand up night.
After a mad rush from Guildford into London I finally get there with my girlfriend to find our names weren’t on the list (thanks to Ben/Robin/whoever for eventually sorting that for us!). The venue was pretty small, particularly given the size of the crowd that came down for the gig, but we eventually crammed ourselves in and settled down for the night’s entertainment.
Robin Ince was compere for the night. When he kept quoting Richard Feynman (nobel prize winning physicist, bongo player and womaniser) I knew we were in for a good night. He set the overall theme for the night well – Knowledge. I instantly warmed to Robin. Not only was he very funny, but he also clearly had a passion for knowledge and science which is nice to see in someone who isn’t a scientist.
In what I think is the order they were on for the night here’s a brief look at who was on:
Simon Singh – I was expecting Simon to talk about the theme of his new book, a critique of alternative medicine, but instead we were treated to a talk on the scientific method. We started off with a bit of Led Zeppelin, played backwards. The vocals sounded like typical backwards gobbledegook, until we were played them again, this time with “hidden” lyrics provided on a screen. From these it turns out that we should worship “my sweet Lord Satan” (in your tool shed, no less). What was the point of this? To show how priming can lead to misinterpretation and the mind making patterns when none exist. The scientific method gets us around this and keeps us as objective as possible. From this he went on to explain why we know how old the universe is (with the use of an electrocuted pickled gherkin that glowed orange) and why Katie Melua got it wrong.
Jo Neary – The poor dear was obviously very nervous about talking in public (maybe she doesn’t do it enough) but chose a nice low-key topic to discuss… an illustrated history of sex toys. Of course, the nerves were an act, but were superbly done, which is more than can be said for the diagrams! Her nervous delivery style was a great contrast to her stories, particularly the one about the complicated contraption made from a children’s climbing frame, leather straps and pulleys on which she was waiting to be lowered onto a giant dildo. Having been forgotten by her husband (he was too busy watching the footie) the gas man eventually saved her.
Scientist/Musician Chap – I’ve forgotten this guy’s name but he’s a research scientist who played guitar and a small keyboard with his toes (he assured us it wasn’t as easy as it looked) and sang a song for the little guy in science. For every Einstein, Feynman and Darwin there are thousands of little guys (and gals) doing the day-to-day work, advancing our knowledge one small step at a time with the one experiment that works and the dozens that don’t. When you win your Nobel prize don’t forget the little guy!
Stewart Lee – I was really really looking forward to seeing Stewart Lee. I’ve seen him on TV a few times and find him very funny, but his set tonight wasn’t what I was expecting at all. Not that it was bad in any way, just that I was expecting more straight ahead stand-up. Stewart spent his whole set talking about a 1970’s stand up comedian’s LP which he bought in 1997 and has never listened to. For him the pleasure is all in the sleeve notes. Let me explain - The record is called “I’m a comedian. Seriously!” and the sleeve notes give us this comedian’s views on what comedy is, and that all the time that he’s on stage being funny, inside his head he’s being serious, thinking about what to say next, relating the stories to his own experiences etc. To illustrate the point the record has a picture of him laughing on the front (I’m a comedian…), and being serious on the back (…Seriously!). I won’t spoil it by telling you what the track titles are, but I do wonder how long Stewart will be able to resist opening it and listening to it.
Martin White – At this stage we needed a little musical interlude. Not content with playing an existing song, Martin White decided to write a new song with the audience. With lyrics based on the first letters of audience members’ names and chords/melody picked from audience members names we came up with a little ditty that is still stuck in my head to this day. All a bit of fun, but I bet if Steve Reich or Philip Glass had done the same thing it would only have served to elevate them to new heights of musical genius in the eyes of the critics!
Andrew Collins – This is the first time I’ve seen Andrew live and I didn’t really know what to expect. The topic he wanted to talk about what the world’s Top 10 Serial Killers. We started by identifying any potential serial killers in the room, and I think I made it into the last 10 or so before being let off the hook, mainly because I hadn’t killed three people. Worryingly during the question “Have you killed three people… who are totally unrelated to each other” the last hand went down only after the 2nd part of the question. This was probably the most stand-up part of the night (other than Robin’s compere sets). I couldn’t help but think the list was incomplete without Harold Shipman on it, but Andrew’s since explained why and it makes sense. Besides, Harold would only win on a technicality (number of dead). His actual method was quite dull, he didn’t have a particularly cool nickname (the chessboard killer is my favourite), and he didn’t even have a lorry!
One quick note for Andrew: when talking about who Ed Gein has influenced you could also mention Slayer, who introduce their song “Dead Skin Mask” at live shows with “This next song is about a man called Ed… who used to sleep… and dance… with the… deeeeaaad”. Also, all of Marilyn Manson’s band members have stage surnames taken form serial killers.
Danielle Ward - Given a lot of the highbrow content we had so far been subjected to (fried gherkins, sex toys and serial killer) it was now up to Danielle Ward to lighten the tone a bit and inject a bit of hilarity into the evening. This she did by talking to us about Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Greek gods amongst other things. No knob gags here. To be fair, she did tell us at the beginning of the set that she wasn’t going to be doing comedy and she apologised, in my opinion unnecessarily, a few times during her slot. I think her set fit in perfectly well with the “knowledge” theme of the evening and it was certainly interesting. Finally found out what the concept of the Ubermensch is.
Ben Goldacre – It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Ben’s Guardian Badscience columns and I wasn’t really expecting to learn much form this evening having kept up to date with those and his web forum. Still, this was the first time I’d seen him speak live and I thought it would be interesting to see how he delivers in front of a live audience. His topic for the evening was “the medicalisation of complex social problems” in which he took a pop at Big Pharma, quacks and the media alike. We started with a little history of medicine, focussing on the golden age of medical progress between 1930 and 1970. During this period we saw what would have seemed like miracle after miracle in medical progress – antibiotics, intensive care, vaccination, “wonder” drugs. These all helped push quality of life and life expectancy up rapidly, but also pushed up our expectations.
Since the ‘70s medicine has progressed in much smaller incremental steps but we still want those miracle cures. Unable to provide them Big Pharma has resorted to creating new illnesses out of what are actually complex social problems, for which to use existing drugs. For example Viagra is now used to treat “female sexual dysfunction”, a medical condition that never existed before. But why do we buy into it? Because it’s easy. To paraphrase Ben, as a society we're too scared to talk about the fact that she's being bullied at work, that she's stressed, overworked and undervalued, or that the 20 year old girl you first got off with on the floor of the student's union in 1983 whilst listening to the Human League is now the mother of your 3 children and you just don't see her in that same way anymore. We prefer to think a pill can cure that.
Of course, Big Pharma isn’t the only culprit, and Ben went on to talk about Nutritional Supplement salespeople and nutritionists in general, using the Equazen Durham Schools Fish Oil Trials (the one that Equazen sald was never meant to be a trial, despite calling it one in all their marketing!) as a perfect example. He then went on to discuss nutrition and diet in general as a modern obsession that we think will help us live longer healthier lives, so long as we eat Goji Berries, anti-oxidents and take the right supplements. Again, it’s a tempting proposition, but a huge study has shown it has nearly no effect – your social class, education, job, where you live… these are the things that matter. But, once again, these are the things that are harder to do anything about. Tackling social inequality is booooring. Watching Gillian McKeith bully fat people is more fun.
I seem to have written a lot more about Goldacre’s talk than the others, but then that will partly be down to the fact that he spoke for longer than the others (though he did ask Robin if he could do so, with no objections!)
Unfortunately by this stage I’d already stayed longer than I had planned to and needed to dash off for the last train home.
Overall I think the night was a success and I’d definitely go to one of these again.
Thanks for the review, Tristam, and for legitimately smuggling the words of Dr Goldacre onto my blog. About which I clearly won't comment.
Tristan, rather.
No worries. Tristan, Tristran, Tristam, Tristram... I'll answer to any and all.
Had a drum teacher for 7 years who just couldn't get the hang of Tristan, so for half an hour a week I went by the name of Tristram.
Did Ben behave?
Post a Comment
<< Home