4:00

I mean a few producers have then gone

4:02

to comedy or a few comedians have

4:05

been, like Armando Ioannucci is a good

4:07

example, he was a before-rebegging producer, he's then

4:09

performed and now directs and produced, so you

4:11

know it's not that these jobs are unconnected, but you

4:13

were a producer for a long time before, and I

4:15

know you tried out stand-up when you were a

4:18

teenager, right? I did, that's right, that's right,

4:20

I did, I was, I

4:23

did stand-up when I was like 16. And

4:27

I would say I was quite good,

4:29

I will say I was good for

4:31

a 16 year old, but shit by

4:33

any general standard, I think. And

4:35

they would either go, and they would sometimes, the

4:38

audiences would either love it

4:41

or they would just decide there is

4:43

no way we're gonna laugh

4:45

at a spotty teenager and would

4:47

just heckle me up, and

4:50

there was no way I didn't have any of the

4:52

skills to ever turn it around. If

4:54

the audience decided they didn't like me, that

4:56

was it. I mean I really should

4:59

have got off in the first minute, there's no

5:01

point in carrying on. I think it's very hard

5:03

because obviously most comedy gigs are, at least people

5:05

in their 20s, I'll call

5:07

them adults. But

5:09

yeah, so I remember the same,

5:12

when kids, when kids

5:14

and teenagers did stand up, as a stand-up

5:16

you're always a bit sceptical and a bit

5:18

like, whoa, and it could go one

5:20

of either ways. Jack Carroll was an example

5:22

of someone who did very well with it. But

5:25

mainly... Some of them went really well. Yeah. Some

5:28

of them went really well, but I think you

5:30

just don't have, at that age, you just don't

5:32

have, well certainly I didn't have any of the

5:34

skills to turn around if it wasn't going well.

5:37

No, exactly. And it was, I think

5:39

you're on a hiding to nothing really, but yeah,

5:41

it's a very brave thing to attempt.

5:43

So what was it, what was it, I'm just kind

5:45

of interested in what kind of swung you back that

5:47

way, was it? You know,

5:49

you're very successful at producing, let's say, from Little

5:51

Britain. Oh, well. One of my absolute favourite shows

5:53

of all time. Oh, thank you, yeah. Yeah.

5:56

Oh, I'll tell you exactly what happened, it was

5:58

real serendipity. So again,

6:01

talking about different phases of my life,

6:04

I have had a series

6:08

of what I can only

6:10

call hyper-fixations. And I

6:12

should say, well, just to recap, I've written

6:14

this book, it's called Normal to Normal, my

6:16

occasionally helpful guide to parents, kids with special

6:19

needs. And it's about my children and

6:21

their special needs. I have an adopted daughter with

6:23

Down syndrome, two sons with autism and ADHD. But

6:26

having written the book, I actually realized,

6:29

you know what, I could have been writing about myself

6:33

and I decided after

6:35

writing it to get myself assessed,

6:38

and I will be writing an

6:40

extra chapter about it in the

6:43

paperback edition, that I was recently

6:45

diagnosed myself with autism and ADHD.

6:51

That's the face of a man thinking, well, I could have told you that. Well,

6:54

also, you're a comedian. The

6:57

fact that you're a comedian probably means that you've got an 8 and

6:59

10 chance. But yeah, you

7:01

know. Exactly. So I have

7:03

had a huge number of incredible hyper-fixations

7:07

in my life, one of

7:09

which bizarrely was a

7:11

kind of 10 year adherence to,

7:13

I mean, I am Jewish, born

7:16

Jewish, will die Jewish, but a

7:18

10 year adherence to very strict

7:20

Orthodox Judaism. And

7:22

during that period, I

7:25

once got an email from a rabbi

7:27

who said, someone was

7:30

telling me about you and

7:33

apparently you are very

7:36

religious, Jew and very observant, but

7:38

you work with all these famous

7:40

people and you've written Graham Norton,

7:42

you work with Lucas and Williams

7:45

and etc., etc. And

7:50

that sounds quite interesting. I'm sure I'd

7:52

love you to come and talk to us about it. And

7:56

I really, I

7:58

didn't even think to even ask for any money. I think he

8:00

might have given me a bottle of whiskey. And

8:02

I went and spoke to this

8:05

community about my life. And

8:07

because obviously I'd been a comedian, but I'd certainly been

8:09

a writer and producer and what have you, it,

8:12

I liked,

8:14

I could make it funny. And I liked hearing laughs,

8:16

you know what it's like. It's a

8:18

bit like being a smoker. And you take your

8:21

first drag on a cigarette for the first time

8:23

in years, I go, God, I love this, the

8:25

audience are laughing. She's great. And so he must've

8:27

told other people because suddenly

8:29

I kept getting more requests, right? And

8:31

every time I did it, I

8:34

made it a bit funnier. And I put in

8:36

a few more jokes. And at one point I just thought, you know

8:38

what? I could actually, I'd like to just turn

8:40

this into a bit of standup. And I didn't,

8:43

suddenly like I'm doing, I've

8:45

got a show

8:48

I'm ready for and I'm doing two

8:50

off Broadway shows and you just cook

8:52

up and I'm touring around the world.

8:54

It was the strangest, real,

8:56

just serendipity is the only word for it

8:59

really. Yeah. All

9:01

because of- Are you now, have you

9:03

now relaxed? I thought you were gonna say to

9:05

the rabbi, call me and say, darn it dad, a bit mate, you're being

9:07

a bit too, bit

9:10

too much. Yeah, you're about to be nervous.

9:13

No, exactly. Well, do you know what the weird

9:15

thing is? Is that I became

9:17

really, and God, there's

9:19

another book to be written here about how I

9:21

ended up in effectively what's a

9:24

cult and then ended up leaving it.

9:27

But what I will say

9:29

is that becoming very religious

9:32

led to me touring as a standup around

9:34

the world, which led to me not being

9:37

doing it anymore because it's one of those

9:39

things that you have to kind of just

9:42

do by rote every day, going and doing

9:44

the same thing. And suddenly I was off

9:46

doing other stuff. Yeah. So

9:48

yeah, it's been an odd

9:51

life. It's really interesting

9:53

actually, it's a great story, yeah.

9:55

As you said, I'm sure there's another book in

9:57

there. Obviously your Jewishness is a part of this

9:59

book. book, but this book,

10:02

as you've said, is really about being

10:04

a parent of kids with special

10:06

education needs and without as well. So

10:08

I mean, you've got six kids, which

10:10

would be enough for me. I've got

10:12

two kids who I

10:15

as far as I know, don't have any

10:17

special education needs, but they are both the

10:19

children of two comedians. So there's

10:22

every chance something's going to appear.

10:24

So far, neither of us have

10:26

been diagnosed with anything. But that's

10:28

only because we haven't tried. So

10:31

yeah, so two kids is hard.

10:33

I've got a friend who's committed with five kids

10:35

and I've been ran to his house and

10:38

it was absolute fucking bedlam and

10:40

he seemed unable to cope with

10:42

it. So just

10:44

having six kids is incredible, but you

10:47

know, an incredible thing

10:50

to have to navigate and get

10:52

through. But obviously this, you have extra

10:54

challenges on top of that. So do

10:56

you want to, I want to do

10:58

by bit from Encanto. I love Encanto.

11:02

So many kids in your house. So let's turn

11:04

the sound up. You know why I think it's

11:06

time for a Baker geared round up. That's

11:09

Encanto. But there's a lot of kids in your house.

11:11

Do you want to take us through who everyone

11:14

is? So yeah, well, the great

11:16

thing is, is that the people

11:18

always like, always say to me, can't

11:21

be mental in your house and what have you.

11:23

And it certainly was. This

11:27

book is written on like

11:29

19 years of lived experience. My eldest

11:31

son is now 19. He

11:33

works at now he has autism and

11:35

ADHD. He was, to put it mildly,

11:38

a handful of the child. An

11:41

absolute wild force of nature. He was diagnosed

11:43

with autism and ADHD when he was three.

11:46

But he, his

11:48

story alone is quite remarkable. He now works

11:50

at terminal three at Heathrow in security.

11:52

He's one of those people who's telling you to get

11:56

your laptop out your bag. He was

11:58

telling me recently that whenever and

14:01

you know what most of which

14:03

is you know you have to

14:05

work it out for yourself but it's still very

14:07

it's still very helpful because obviously every situation is

14:09

different I think it's you know it's very helpful

14:11

as a parent just to see someone else admitting

14:13

to struggling with screens screen

14:15

time and you know kids fighting it

14:17

kids disagree so you know I think

14:20

everyone will get something out of this

14:22

and as you say it is funny

14:24

as well as being traumatic

14:26

at times and worrying at times

14:28

and you know you you've had

14:30

to you're a very obstinate person

14:32

yourself which you

14:34

know I think that the chapter

14:37

about you trying to get one

14:39

of your kids into school you

14:41

want to get into I mean I wouldn't

14:43

like to have dealt with you even though

14:45

I think you you were clearly

14:47

in the right and you know legally in the

14:49

right about you know that school

14:51

you know must have

14:54

been kicked out this guy or

14:56

this guy's gonna give up in a second well

14:58

this is this is what I think a lot

15:00

of schools so a lot of parents of kids

15:02

with special needs go through this kind of thing

15:04

either in terms of the they don't want the

15:07

kids or they don't want to provide the help

15:09

that's necessary whatever and it is a bit of

15:11

a battle and parents have

15:13

got the weight of the law

15:15

usually on their side and

15:19

but they I think they do rely on

15:21

basically being such assholes they

15:24

will go away and that's

15:26

exactly what we had so yeah

15:29

so that's in the chapter so I say

15:31

the so the book is you know they

15:33

ate a zed but appropriately for about

15:36

kids who might find learning difficult it's all in the

15:38

wrong order it's all jumbled up the first chapter is

15:41

M is for meeting and the chapter you're talking about

15:43

it's called N is for no room at the inn

15:45

and we did have an absolute nightmare with our

15:48

eldest son of the school we wanted him to

15:50

go to just wouldn't they wouldn't play ball at

15:52

all and even when the local council said you've

15:54

got to take him they took it to the

15:58

they took it to a double himself

16:00

the now star of Good Morning

16:02

Britain, is it? Yeah, but yeah,

16:04

but at the time was Secretary

16:06

of State for Education, what have

16:08

you, they even then wanted to

16:11

take it to the House

16:13

of Lords. Actually, that chapter, bizarrely,

16:16

if you think, oh, you

16:18

might be making some of this up, I've turned that down.

16:21

Because it was, it's just

16:23

too unbelievable. They do

16:25

rely on and I know, actually, as well, a lot

16:27

of people at the time, they do say this

16:29

in the book, said, Well, hang

16:31

on, they didn't want you. It

16:33

just seems strange why you would have fought

16:35

such a battle. But the truth is, we

16:38

really did believe it was a very good

16:40

school. And which is why when he did

16:42

eventually get in, we, you know, our relationship

16:44

with them, was we did repair

16:46

the relationship quite a lot. And we trusted

16:48

them, we because, you know, there's no point

16:50

in fighting and then just trying to

16:52

micromanage that would have been nonsensical. So

16:55

we did a leading to go on with

16:57

it. And he left, he, you know, secondary school,

16:59

that's my eldest, Adam, he, you know, he

17:01

went to more schools and an off-stead inspector.

17:03

But in primary school, he did go all the

17:05

way through to the end of year six and

17:08

enjoyed it made friends. And it was actually

17:10

a pretty much

17:12

a positive experience. Yeah, well, you know,

17:14

it shows I mean, I think it

17:17

shows the the importance of digging your

17:19

heels in if you're right. And like

17:21

you say, I think a lot of people would go,

17:23

I don't want to go to the school that seemed

17:25

like dicks. But but you know, you know, you obviously

17:28

did the right thing. So it's, you know, it's a

17:30

testament to you. And you're written

17:32

by yourself admittedly, but you've

17:38

only heard my side. I do. I didn't know, you

17:40

know, what was quite right

17:45

in this book was quite traumatic at

17:47

times, because there were some things that

17:49

were very recent, I can remember, you

17:51

know, anecdotes are just very

17:53

fresh in the mind. And some things that I

17:55

either were a long time ago, or that I

17:57

purposely buried and I have to I

18:00

dig through a lot of emails, I

18:02

kept all the emails, I kept all the

18:04

paperwork. So for that capita, you know, it

18:07

is, I only hear my side of the

18:09

story, but it's really based not just on

18:11

memory, on proper sources.

18:17

I read history,

18:20

so I was

18:22

doing a history PhD, so I prized

18:24

myself on my sources. There was no

18:26

17th century manuscript, essentially. But

18:31

equally, as a reader,

18:33

you think, Christ, this family are going through this

18:35

with one of their children, but

18:37

they maybe didn't have five others at that exact

18:39

time, but you have several

18:41

other kids each with their own individual

18:43

needs as well. Yeah, absolutely.

18:45

And the thing is, I mean, this is the

18:48

thing is any parents of children, certainly

18:51

neurodivergent children would know, you know,

18:53

a child isn't born and the

18:56

midwife looks at a baby and goes, all

18:58

your child is autistic. These are things that

19:00

will get assessed and, you

19:03

know, a snail's pace, these things can take

19:05

forever. As I say, my oldest son

19:07

was diagnosed at three. Our first son

19:09

was diagnosed at six. I was diagnosed

19:11

at 48. So who

19:14

knows, you know, when these

19:16

things are going to kind of

19:18

become uncovered. And so had we

19:21

known now had our eldest son

19:23

been born and you were

19:25

told immediately, look, just so you know, your

19:28

son has got autism, ADHD, he's not going

19:30

to talk until he's like seven or eight.

19:33

He's going to be an absolute handful. He's

19:35

going to be, we might have thought twice

19:37

about having more children, but we didn't know.

19:40

And that's the thing. You just carry on

19:42

blindly going, yes, go on. This seems like a

19:44

good idea. We can handle another one. And

19:47

then as we had a chapter

19:49

about our adoption of, we had

19:52

four sons and then we just

19:54

saw this

19:59

very strange. He

22:00

needs to be watched the whole time. Recently, we

22:02

had no hot water in the house. And I

22:04

called, I was like, what

22:06

now? And I called the plumber, he's

22:08

hunting around, he just can't work out the problem.

22:10

And realized that there's just a switch in the

22:12

utility room she's just turned off. Very

22:15

kind man, he didn't charge us. But

22:20

you can't watch it, because you can't take your

22:22

eyes off it. Because she will

22:25

take scissors and cut her hair. She'll

22:27

draw on the walls. She'll draw on her

22:29

face. He looks like a kind of

22:31

Down syndrome post Malone, with all scribbles

22:34

all over her face. She turns off the heat.

22:37

She just needs to be watched the whole time. And

22:40

yes, I had, I know that, but there you go. These are the

22:42

things, it seemed a good idea at the

22:44

time. And we do love her

22:46

very much. Of course. But you know,

22:48

it's such a, you know, you're

22:51

a very impressive family and

22:53

it's very, you know, it's

22:55

a very humane, you know, humane

22:58

and wonderful thing

23:00

to do. As you know, even again, as

23:02

I say, even just if you had your

23:04

own kids, there was several, I guess most

23:06

people had adopted, maybe I'm wrong about this,

23:08

but most people who adopt don't have kids.

23:10

I would have thought. Yes. Yeah,

23:12

I think that's a lot of the case. Yeah,

23:14

no, it's a very unusual, it was a very

23:17

unusual case all around. So normally what happens is

23:19

you will be a set. So let's

23:22

say someone decides they want

23:24

to adopt, maybe they don't have children. So as you

23:26

say, often the case, and then that will

23:28

take like best part of a year to be assessed.

23:30

And it's a, oh God, it's a very grueling

23:33

process. I go into it a little bit in the

23:35

book, some of the odd questions they ask you about

23:37

your child. They ask questions like, did

23:39

you go to many birthday parties when you were

23:41

in primary school? Why are you asking this? I

23:43

don't understand the relevance. They're trying to kind of

23:46

get this big picture of you of what you're

23:48

like. But then having

23:50

approved you, let's say you go for a

23:52

year, they go to this panel, this adoption

23:54

panel, they approve you. Then you might wait

23:57

years to be matched to a... a

24:00

child, someone who they say child

24:02

X can be matched with family Y. The

24:06

answer is very unusual case because it was,

24:08

we didn't, we had no desire to adopt

24:10

per se. It was purely this child who

24:12

we had seen advertised. And

24:14

yes, it was purely for her,

24:17

for her. And, and yeah, I mean, look,

24:21

it was, I, it's

24:24

very high. I do talk about the thought

24:26

process, but I still can't really explain this

24:28

beyond a kind of moment of

24:30

madness or divine inspiration. I

24:32

guess, I know something came over us. We

24:34

thought we could do that. I

24:38

was tempted to call Hackney and say, would you

24:40

take a part of exchange for Adam? They wouldn't

24:42

hear of it. So it

24:44

was either, or it couldn't get rid of any other

24:47

kids. That was it. And yeah,

24:49

we, we, we ended up doing it. Yeah. Well,

24:52

you know, I think you make him, I think

24:54

as a parent, you're tired. You make him head

24:56

to his decisions. This is in no way similar

24:58

to your case, but we moved house, had a

25:00

child and decided to get a puppy at the

25:03

same time. And that was that that just even

25:05

that was the craziest. It

25:07

was all spaced out in our minds, but then it

25:09

all happened at exactly the same time in the house.

25:11

It wasn't ready. And we had the worst fucking six

25:13

months as the result of that. So,

25:17

you know, we look back and go, why did we, why

25:19

did we take a dog at the same time as today?

25:23

So I think sometimes, you know, I think sometimes

25:25

you don't think as a parent and sometimes you

25:27

just make a decision. But, you know, again, it

25:30

all, maybe

25:32

you're like me, I think I like to put myself in, in

25:35

challenging positions to see if I can get out

25:37

and that was a sort of stand up thing, isn't it? I

25:39

often in a stand up gig, we'll

25:42

almost try and throw it to see if I can win it back again. You

25:44

know, so it's, it's

25:47

sort of weird. Like, let's make this a bit more, let's

25:50

make this very difficult thing a bit

25:52

more difficult. Yeah,

25:54

no, I think, yeah, I,

25:57

well, quite, I mean, that was me at 16, I suppose. I

26:00

wasn't, I wasn't throwing it. I

26:03

just, that was every gig. I

26:05

was just seeing if I can

26:07

win it. But, but I think

26:10

that we are 100% both people,

26:12

even notwithstanding what I was talking about my own

26:14

diagnosis, I think we are people who don't like

26:16

standing still. There are some people who I, I

26:19

know like I have one brother, um, you

26:22

know, he's kind of been the

26:24

same as like he's had the same haircut

26:26

even since, uh, I

26:28

can since he was 18 or whatever. Some people

26:30

stay the same. My parents have been much like

26:33

that. They have the same friends, as soon as

26:35

I can remember, they go on holidays, the same

26:37

places, eat in the same restaurant, do the same

26:39

thing for some people. Love that. We've

26:41

just not let that we are always going,

26:43

yeah, let's completely

26:45

resettled. So let's completely

26:48

throw it all by moving or adopting

26:50

a little girl with Down syndrome or,

26:52

you know, I think that's maybe that's

26:54

something you share. It's that thing of

26:56

just going, yeah, go on then. Let's

26:58

just, we're settled. Let's not rest

27:01

on our laws. Let's do something mental now. Yeah.

27:03

But then, you know, but look at, look at,

27:05

I mean, yeah, and all this time, and I

27:07

think you've been neither of you are working, you're

27:09

both working, you're doing this very high powered job.

27:11

You're doing a job that occasionally takes you away

27:13

from home for weeks on end or, you know,

27:17

and having to pair via Zoom.

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some states. Learn more at uh1.com. Your

29:26

advice is very good, I think, but it's

29:28

also, it is very much like, you

29:31

know, embrace and accept your situation. Well,

29:34

you know, it's not knowing you have to do this.

29:36

And this situation is about knowing what

29:38

your own particular case is. Yeah,

29:41

I think, look, I think there's a real

29:43

need for, I suppose if

29:45

there's any one central message

29:47

as well, it's about embracing diversity,

29:50

I suppose. I

29:52

think we, you know,

29:55

we're very good at embracing diversity

29:58

in many aspects. Absolutely

34:00

entirely right. Now I listen to the

34:02

audio book which is a lot of

34:04

fun. What I like is, I think

34:07

it's always great to have a comedian read

34:09

their own books. I mean it really helps

34:11

with you understanding where the jokes are and

34:14

the delivery because sometimes people won't deliver

34:17

it in the right way. But there's a nice

34:19

chapter which is written by your kids but also

34:21

in the audio book read or at

34:23

least, I don't know if it's improvised for the audio book or if

34:25

it's written in the book because I listen to the audio book. Yes,

34:29

oh you can see all of it. So

34:31

one of the chapters is called K is

34:33

for kids, kids have their say. And

34:35

then we record, it's very short, it's

34:38

mostly my kids kind of swearing. And

34:42

they, and yes they actually recorded

34:44

it. They came to the studio

34:46

and recorded it. But I'm glad you enjoyed it. I

34:49

will say that was one of the things,

34:51

I'm a nightmare to work with because I

34:53

always think I can do it better. I

34:55

always think that, and thinking because I've been

34:57

a producer, I always just think I want

35:00

to produce this myself. And that

35:02

chapter I actually was saying, I was like

35:05

over the engineer's shoulder going, what can't

35:07

it be, can we not have like

35:10

at mass and then he'd be talking over each other.

35:14

And sometimes there's a scene, they're kind of just all chatting. And

35:17

he went, oh no, this

35:19

isn't, you know, this is an audio book, it's not

35:21

a sort of radio play. Yeah, I

35:23

know, but it just sounds, what it ends up sounding

35:26

like to me, I was a bit of a self-gritty.

35:28

To me it ends up sounding like they're reading a

35:30

book, which is exactly what they are doing. That is

35:32

the form of an audio book. But to me, I

35:34

want it to sound more like the Radio 4 show

35:37

that they're chatting and they're... I

35:40

think it's pretty good. I think it does

35:42

sound pretty, you know, given the... I did.

35:45

I think it does sound, you know, but I love the idea

35:47

of you sacking your own children for not performing well enough. So

35:49

well done. No, it wasn't their performance. It was the audio, half

35:51

of Colin's audio thing. I wanted to do it. My

35:57

children I thought were pretty good. Yeah,

38:01

no, I've read quite a few

38:03

books of not just

38:05

comedians, but you know, parenting memoirs about being

38:08

a parent, a mother, a father, what have

38:10

you. There's quite a few out there. What

38:12

I will say about them, and

38:15

I personally find it a little bit frustrating

38:17

sometimes, is that for obvious reasons, the

38:19

children will be very anonymous. You

38:22

often won't even get their names, certainly won't see

38:24

photos and what have you. What

38:26

I will say about my book, and one of the things

38:28

that I like about it the most, the

38:31

children are the stars. It's

38:34

not about me, it's about them. They are the stars of

38:36

it. People who've read it have said to

38:38

me, oh, my favorite is this one, my favorite is that

38:40

one. They're the stars.

38:43

It's not about me. And

38:45

I think that I really liked that

38:47

aspect of it. I wanted readers to get to

38:49

know my kids. I think they are very

38:52

funny, entertaining, interesting characters.

38:56

And I think that that's something that I hope

38:58

comes across. You really get to know them. Who's

39:00

your favorite? Did you have a favorite? I do

39:03

like, now I'm going to get the names wrong,

39:05

Zoe. Is that right? Yes, yes, yes. And

39:07

the Bailey is obviously a legend. You know, I think you do get to

39:09

know all of them. You get to know them. That's the thing. That's it.

39:12

That's it. That's it. Exactly.

39:16

You get to know them. Fair

39:18

enough. Fair enough. Exactly.

39:21

Exactly. I wouldn't do that. Zoe's clearly your

39:23

favorite. Well, Zoe's the one we adopted, yes. Well, she is because she's the

39:25

only, she is the, I would say she's the absolute kind of

39:30

jewel in the crown because she's the only one who shares none

39:33

of my genes. She's

39:37

the one who shares none of my genes.

39:40

So she's never, she doesn't talk shit all day. She

39:46

doesn't, um, she's never manipulative. She's

39:51

never hurled an Argos catalog at

39:53

my head while shouting, you

39:55

know, I like football wear my goalpost.

39:57

She's an unfusty eater. So

44:01

I think the analogy still works because

44:03

I do like comedy. But there's something

44:06

about, yes, it's just a bit, yeah,

44:09

more outlet, more challenging. Yeah,

44:12

and there's some that I should really say

44:14

as well with this book. It

44:17

takes the subject seriously. I think comedy

44:19

is a great way to deal with

44:22

serious subjects as most comedians understand. And

44:24

I think, you're absolutely right, I think

44:26

a dry book about, oh, my struggles

44:29

would not be as interesting and would not be as engaging.

44:32

And there's lots and lots of funny things. I

44:34

think my favorite thing is

44:36

Johnny Vine. I don't know if that's his real

44:38

name or if you've changed his name. You've blurred

44:41

him out of the photo. I did change, yes,

44:43

I did change his name. I did change his

44:45

name and he emailed him. I

44:47

tracked him down, he's a man from LA. It's

44:50

really weird actually. So

44:53

basically, well, do you wanna tell me why you? I

44:55

guess, you know, it's a really funny story. So

44:58

it's the kids, because there's so many of

45:00

you, these can't all sit on the

45:03

same row in the aircraft and you need to

45:05

be an adult on every row. So someone

45:07

has to reluctantly volunteer on the plane.

45:09

Somebody reluctantly, this man, so basically,

45:11

yeah, we were flying to Greece, a

45:15

man basically said, look, the plane

45:17

can't take off unless somebody moves

45:19

and sits with my three other

45:21

kids. So this man

45:23

from LA he's

45:27

real name, well, I just made it slightly less

45:29

Jewish. He's

45:33

saying this a Yoddy wisely. Anyway, the funny

45:35

thing was, so he went and sat next

45:37

to Dylan, my

45:39

son's son, and he basically, and

45:41

he's very kind of him. He was from LA, they'd

45:44

been flying to London. He was really tired, he wanted

45:46

to sleep and what have you, they've been applying onto

45:48

Greece, him and his family. And he sits down next

45:50

to my son and my son sits in like, where

45:53

are you from? And suddenly he

45:55

just is like, do you know, do

45:58

you live near the... I

50:00

think it's a nice format, the A to Z,

50:02

but not necessarily all the right letters, but not

50:04

necessarily in the right order. It's

50:06

fun and also means that you can have a

50:08

bit more of a narrative to it. It sort

50:10

of works better than a simple A to Z

50:12

would be annoying because it wouldn't be the things

50:15

would, the stories wouldn't come in the right order.

50:17

So it's a clever little device. But

50:20

yeah, as I say, I think anyone

50:23

with zappers will find

50:25

it very useful and

50:27

anyone with cold plays or a mixture

50:30

will happen in the game as well.

50:33

Yeah, and also, yes, it's been, I

50:35

know the people also really enjoyed it.

50:37

I know so far, generally, a couple

50:39

of months, but it's like teachers,

50:41

people who are involved with care,

50:44

as well as teachers, any professionals

50:46

who are involved with children of

50:48

different kinds of need. So

50:51

yeah, not even just for parents. I see

50:53

a lot of teachers and other professionals have

50:56

really enjoyed it. Well, and it's a

50:58

warning to anyone who doesn't have kids

51:00

to never have kids, which is my

51:03

advice anyway, because it's an absolute nightmare.

51:05

Absolutely. So I think, genuinely, I

51:07

saw a review on Goodreads where

51:09

somebody said, I love this book, he gave it

51:11

five stars, they said, I've now decided I'm never

51:13

going to have children. Oh, wow. God,

51:16

oh no, what have I done? I don't know. I wasn't sure

51:18

that was good enough. I genuinely saw that. Well,

51:20

it's to be a better world if everyone stops out.

51:22

But there are enough kids now, so let's all stop

51:25

right now. I don't do

51:27

much. Is there anything, are you a big

51:29

reader? Is there anything you're reading that is

51:31

not by you that you'd like to recommend

51:33

to our listeners? Oh,

51:35

God. Well, at

51:37

the moment, I'm reading every, I mean, they don't

51:40

need me to plug this because it's

51:43

doing very well in all the jobs. You

51:46

know about this, Catherine Rundell. I do. Catherine's

51:48

been a guest when she was talking about John

51:50

Dunbert, which is amazing as well. But yes, you're

51:52

right. Yeah. No, no. So

51:56

this book, I mean, it's written to cover, you

51:58

know, there was Tolkien, there was Paul and now

52:00

there's this. I mean yeah and it is great, it's a

52:02

really really good book. So I'm enjoying

52:04

that and

52:07

now I'm quite a big

52:09

reader, but depending on what

52:11

I'm doing I will just go through phases

52:13

where I'll read three books in a week and

52:15

other times it'll take me like a month to

52:17

get through something. Well that's still still

52:20

good, I'm only reading books because I now

52:22

have to for this podcast which

52:24

is part of the reason I did it because I like

52:26

reading but I've had it very hard to find time to

52:28

do it. Anyway let's

52:33

wrap it up there, lovely to talk

52:35

to you, Dubai's book Normal

52:38

Shmormal and we

52:40

will be back next week with someone else. Thank you

52:43

of course to Chris Evans like that one and Ben

52:45

Evans like that one and we

52:47

will see you next time with another very exciting

52:49

book. This

52:56

episode is brought to you by Progressive.

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54:01

is Christopher Kimball from Milk Street Radio.

54:04

Our show covers everything and anything

54:06

in the world of food and

54:08

this holiday season we're exploring a

54:10

Welsh tradition that involves... Horses skulls,

54:13

coffee making, strange

54:15

Celtic folklore. We go

54:17

to Belgium for a lesson on gingerbread

54:19

and waffles. It always frustrates me because

54:21

there is no Belgian waffle. We

54:24

have thick waffles, thin waffles, brittle waffles,

54:26

soft waffles. I mean there's a waffle

54:28

for every occasion basically. And we learn

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about hot drinks with names like... Huggle my

54:33

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54:36

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