Sheen Quirk (2:21)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then charming. I love the word charming. It's probably my favorite word. It's my word of the year. You know, charm when you see it. And charm, I think, is a kind of playfulness. It's not too serious. And it also respects the. A person looking at something or viewing something when you make it charming. Right. There's no obvious use to charm, you know, there's not really a profit margin there. Yeah, exactly. But when it's charming, it's like, oh, wow, the person who made this thing has thought about me. They wanted to give me, you know, something to look at, something to make me smile. I think that's charmingness is kind of.

Chris Williamson (3:02)

Like playfulness, I guess, whimsy in the experience.

Sheen Quirk (3:04)

Yeah. And it doesn't have to be like, you know, where's Anderson? Level of whimsy? But he just has to show that there's something about this object that isn't just interesting in the straight sense of like having something to it other than what is basically necessary. But also. Yeah, makes you smile and kind of reminds you in a way. In a way, charm. What it does, it gets you out of your thoughts, you know, walking around and, you know, miserable, thinking about. Got an email this fine. I think it's all the time. I hate emails. So I've got to email this person. I got to read Chris Williamson's text or whatever. And then, you know, then I see something charming and I smile and think.

Chris Williamson (3:38)

It'S also Chris Williamson's text.

Sheen Quirk (3:40)

Indeed. And then you think the world isn't so bad. And then finally meaningful, which I guess, I mean, this conversation is more about the physical world than anything else. And meaningful basically could mean a few different things. But a good example is when you walk around a town and you find that the way things have been designed reflects something about that town, its people and its history. I think that's what meaning is. And it kind of brings you out of this generic, standardized, convenient, hyper optimized, online, modern world. And it brings you back into the reality we're living in, the one that we have been since the dawn of civilization. So meaningful, charming and interesting are much more useful words than beauty. And I think also they're much less inflammatory. Like if I put out On X or something about the modern world is so ugly, or look at this palace of Asar is so beautiful, people start getting angry about it. But you say it's interesting, say it's charming, or you take a sort of a modern building and say, well, this is boring. People say, yeah, actually, you know what, you have a point. It is boring. It's funny how quickly you can take the charge out of these conversations by using better words.

Chris Williamson (4:54)

I wonder whether some of this is because beauty and ugliness feels like a moral judgment. Yes, it feels like a value. So I. I got a speech coach who you met at the Leicester Square, sorry, London, last year, backstage Miles. And when I started working with him, some of my friends said, working with a speech coach is going to sort of neutralize your identity. What. What if you lose your speaking cadence? What if you lose who you are? And I found it really fascinating because I realized that there were preferable and less preferable, more optimal and less optimal ways to speak, in the same way there are to write and in the same ways that there are to sing or play the piano. And nobody would say to you, learning to play the piano well, why are you going to that piano teacher? What about the lovely natural way that you played the piano? And you say, well, yeah, but it sucks. Or, it can be refined. Even if I'm great, it can be refined. So what it taught me was that there are certain things that people attach closely to our sense of self, like the way that we speak. And there are other things that people don't attach so closely to our sense of self, like the way that we play the piano. And it feels to me like beauty is this word that's imbued with moral weight, with judgment. Oh, it's. It's. It's the sense of the building or the piece of art or the poem itself, as opposed to a simple comment on the way that it presents.

Sheen Quirk (6:18)

Yeah, exactly. Right. So imagine, like, you know, before you'd seen this vocal coach, I said, you know, Chris, the way you talk is ugly, man. That feels quite offensive. But if I said to you, you know, the way you talk, you can work and you can. Yeah, it's boring. Suddenly, like, oh, wow, really?

Chris Williamson (6:32)

Like, I should work on that.

Sheen Quirk (6:33)

Yeah, exactly.

Chris Williamson (6:33)

I should work on my ugliness. Doesn't feel quite the same level of. What are you getting at? I want to see you bought props. I bought props.

Sponsor/Ad Host (6:44)

So excited.

Sheen Quirk (6:45)

I went to Snappy Snaps a couple of hours ago.

Chris Williamson (6:46)

Oh, thank you.

Sheen Quirk (6:47)

It's about two hours in there because I'm not very good at emailing, and I sent all the wrong files, and they were Google workspaces.

Chris Williamson (6:52)

If you spent more time on your emails, you would be better at sending emails when you go to Snappy.

Sheen Quirk (6:57)

Well, we can get into that.

Chris Williamson (6:58)

Okay.

Sheen Quirk (6:58)

The good news is. So in terms of illustrate, because what I find is that when you talk about these things, having visual illustrations helps so much. You Know the whole saying, a picture paints a thousand words. It's so true. And I've found in order to make points, effectively, all you have to do is contrast two things, put two images next to each other, and it says everything. So when we talk about things being beautiful versus ugly, interesting versus boring. I have some pictures of drain pipes. Now, I love drain pipes and gutters and air conditioning units. And, like, I love all the stuff that the world is filled with. It's amazing. You sort of don't really pay attention to it, but once you start noticing how much fricking stuff that is in the world, like, you know, go outside on the street. Anybody here, you know, listening or watching, when you finish watching, which is hopefully not just yet, go outside and just look at how many things there are on the street outside. There's literally like the cars, the signs, the windows, the drains, everything. And all of that has been designed.

Chris Williamson (7:55)

Right.

Sheen Quirk (7:55)

This stuff didn't just appear. Like everything in this room, it's all man made. Like, someone had to decide how all this stuff looked. And I guess my big gripe and the thing that bothers a lot of people is that all these things around us feel increasingly boring and standardized and generic, regardless of beauty. So I have some pictures of drain pipes and I will show them. I mean, I could maybe. I don't know if you can put them.

Chris Williamson (8:19)

Yeah, we can put them up.

Sheen Quirk (8:20)

Yeah. So These are some 19th century drain pipes. Wow. And, like, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you these are beautiful. Like, I think that'd be crazy for me to say, oh, Chris, isn't this beautiful? Isn't it? But what it is, it's charming, it's interesting, it's fun, and it's meaningful, and it's. It's basically, it shouldn't be revolutionary idea, but it is that drainpipes can actually improve the appearance of a town or city or home. You think of it as something that has to be functional and you want to get it out of the way, but you still have to see it. And it's like, well, you know, it's kind of ruining this wall. No, Our drainpipes can make our towns and cities more beautiful. They can make our lives better.

Chris Williamson (8:58)

Make drainpipes beautiful again.

Sheen Quirk (9:00)

Exactly. Yeah. And so here's another one comparing some of the same to some modern, more modern drain pipes.

Chris Williamson (9:06)

How would you categorize the difference between the two in terms of what they are if you were trying to describe them to someone?

Sheen Quirk (9:13)

What do you mean?

Chris Williamson (9:14)

So you have this list on the Right. And this list on the left, what is the difference between those two? Because they do the same thing.

Sheen Quirk (9:22)

Well, I don't think they do do the same thing.

Chris Williamson (9:25)

Functionally, they do the same thing, but.

Sheen Quirk (9:26)

This is the point. So you know this famous line, form follows function, right? Everyone knows that line and everyone sort of thinks what that means is that the function is what matters and appearance doesn't matter. That's kind of how people interpret it, that we shouldn't care about appearances, we should just care about how it works. But the guy who said that, Louis Sullivan, the great American architect who kind of solved the big skyscraper problem in the late 19th century. So skyscrapers, they appeared in America in Chicago first, in the late 19th century. And no one had ever seen a skyscraper before, so no one knew how to make them look. And the first skyscrapers, if you look, you can go and see them or look at photos. They. The first skyscrapers in America were basically just like stacks of smaller buildings. You know, you sort of take what would Normally be a three story building and just replicate that for another 10 stories.

Chris Williamson (10:12)

Command C, Command V. Yeah, exactly.

Sheen Quirk (10:15)

And Sullivan realized, this is nonsense, it's not working. And he identified the chief characteristic of skyscrapers as what he called loftiness. You know, their height. And when he said form follows function, he was the guy who said it. What he meant is that its innermost purpose, the appearance, must be suited to that. So what he did was he got rid of this weird multiplication thing and basically just made all the stories the same from the top to the bottom, without all these horizontal lines. And kind of, in short, he figured out how to make them, make them look good.

Chris Williamson (10:47)

I've done an architectural boat tour of Chicago.

Sheen Quirk (10:51)

Oh, wow.

Chris Williamson (10:52)

This. I mean, so many people do this tour. It's musically, at least mine was musically accompanied by the guy. Maybe it was a harmonica. But I went on my own. I was there on tour and I went on my own. It's fucking freezing. I wore shorts because I'm an idiot. And I was enthralled. It was brilliant. It was so cool. And you go and you see the fire. This is where the fire was. It goes down, it does a U turn. You see everything of one side and you see everything of the other. I think it's got the tallest skyscraper in the world that was designed by a woman there. It's got the tuning fork building with this sort of unbelievably thin base. And the way that they had to structure that in order for it to go. The most hilarious thing is you're pulling in very beginning. You go underneath the bridge from the harbor. You pull through, and they're showing you.

Sponsor/Ad Host (11:34)

All of the different buildings.

Chris Williamson (11:36)

And he's going sort of from right to left, all the way around, right at the end, right in the middle, huge, big thing, big letters, Trump Tower, Chicago. And this guy's going, the tallest building in the world. It was built by a woman. And this is using the granite that was imported from East Germany.

Sponsor/Ad Host (11:52)

And this is da, da, da. And moving over to the left.

Chris Williamson (11:54)

And he just completely leapfrogs the Trump thing. I'm like, it's probably safe. It's probably safe. Some people are gonna hooray you for doing it. Some are gonna be not so happy. And they just made the executive decision that we'll forget that building. I thought it was quite funny.

Sheen Quirk (12:10)

No, it's true. It is. But by the way, we may need to mention that name again later in this conversation. Cause Trump is weirdly and maybe unfortunately important in this conversation. You know, he, in both his terms, has done these executive orders to say that all federal buildings need to be in traditional architectural styles, which is, I think, in some ways good and in some ways bad. But actually, I will put a bookmark there and we'll come back to it. Because on this point about form and function, Sullivan decorated his buildings, right? Like his skyscrapers have this beautiful sort of ornate terracotta paneling and all these floral wreaths and stuff. His point was just that the decoration should be suited to what the building is. The problem, he felt in the 19th century, why he said that is cause people decorated everything the same. And he was saying, no, no, no. We need to decorate and design things according to their purpose, not that they shouldn't be decorated. And in my view, with those two different sets of drain pipes, he said, you know, they're both functionally the same. But I don't. I disagree. I think any object we design, not in all cases. You know, I don't need the inside of my laptop to look beautiful, right? It's just got a fricking work. Which it still does, by the way, all these years later. But I think anything that's in the built environment, in our homes, in our offices and our streets, if it's not making that environment more humane, if it's not making the lives of people there better, it is not fulfilling its entire function. So those drain pipes on the right hand side don't seem like I'm picking on them. They do their job, which is great. But my point is very simple. It's just like, if we can also make drainpipes that do their job and make the world a more interesting place to live in, shouldn't we be doing that and now why things have changed and how to achieve it? We may get into that, but I think that's the first point to establish. And yeah, it sounds kind of shocking to people, but drainpipes can be not beautiful, but charming. You know, like all those weird creatures or whatever. Like imagine, you know, you're walking down the street and you see those. It does something which doesn't occur when it's just a plain metal or plastic pipe.

Chris Williamson (14:13)

Well, it's interesting when you say form follows function, but you ask, what is the function? Is the function to add charm to your day? So there's no reason that the job of a drain pipe needs to begin and end with water?

Sheen Quirk (14:24)

Exactly. Yeah.

Chris Williamson (14:25)

Yeah. I saw a photo. You are the leader and traffic in the world of viral X posts about beautiful things and interesting, meaningful, charming. And I saw one, I think it was the inside of the latch on a door. So when you look at a door and there was all this engraving, imagine that this is a common currency that you traffic in. And yeah, another thing, you do kind of see it. You do. You don't see it much, right? But doors are left open, especially if it's an internal kitchen door or something like that. So why not make the edge of a door a opportunity to add charm. You go, well, what's the door for? Well, it's to create a boundary line, a territory line between the kitchen and the hallway. Well, but what if it could be even more than that, a source of charm?

Sheen Quirk (15:18)

Yeah. I mean, the analogy here is like, is life itself? Like, I'm not gonna ask you what is the point of life right now? But, like, universally, people agree the most important things in life are love and friends, fun and adventure and achieving stuff like all of that that is beyond the function of life. Like if I said to you, Chris, what is the meaning of life? And you said, well, it's to not die and reproduce. Some people do believe that to be fair, but most people don't think that about life. Most people think a good life is one that has love in it and.

Chris Williamson (15:49)

Friendship more than raw functionality.

Sheen Quirk (15:51)

So the way we view life is that view of life is reflected in drainpipes like those.

Chris Williamson (15:56)

Wow, what a take. Drain pipes are life.

Sheen Quirk (15:58)

Yeah. But it's funny you mentioned, the virality of these things is so interesting to me because this is kind of how I got started on X. Or Twitter as it was then.

Sponsor/Ad Host (16:06)

No, why don't you tell the story?

Chris Williamson (16:07)

Tell us the. Regale us with how you began, how you became a cultural tutor.

Sheen Quirk (16:12)

So how did I become the cultural tutor? So my name is Shien Quirk. I was born in Scunthorpe of all places, actually. Anyway, that's not really relevant. Well, it is maybe relevant, but I won't go into that just yet. So I went to university and then when university finished, this weird thing happened where all my friends had plans and they went into their master's degrees, they went and got jobs in the City of London as lawyers and accountants and all that. And it kind of took me by surprise because I just did not have a plan at all. So I'd always wanted to be a writer. I've always been writing and reading since I was a child. My head has been. I've just. My bedroom as a child was filled with nothing but books and I always wanted to write. And I've been writing since I was, you know, since I could first hold a pen basically. And I'd always thought it would happen. And then after I left university without a plan, I sort of got into this state of complacency where I was expecting life to just hand it to me on a plate. I sort of thought one day someone would knock on the door and say, shin, we've heard you're a great writer, here's a book deal. Obviously that's not how the world works. So I got a job as a security guard, sort of more or less. This was four years ago, doing the night shifts, you know, which I loved. I loved the night shifts, the 12 hour night shift at. In my old university, actually. So it was when Covid came, Covid came and then they ran out of night watchmen, or porters as they're called. Cause guys were off sick, they didn't want to work and all the students had gone and I was still living there just in like a small house with my girlfriend at the time. And I needed a job. So they rang me and said, shein, we don't have any porters left. Do you want to be one? Normally they're sort of guys who are in the 50s, 60s, semi retired, retired. I said, sure, like I need a job. So I did that and I spent a year and a half unblocking toilets and like fixing door handles and sitting, sitting through the whole night and doing rounds and making sure no one was trying to break in or seal anything. And in those night shifts I would write and stuff and watch Films. But in terms of the big picture, where I wanted to be in life, it wasn't happening. I wasn't unhappy, but things weren't heading in any particular direction. I left that job. And then I realized I didn't have any money. I didn't have a job for about three months. I ran out of money. I needed to pay the rent on this house I was living in. I borrowed money from my friends and my family, and I just needed a job as quick as I could. So I just went on, indeed, applied to everything. Pizza Hut rejected me, but McDonald's said yes. And so on the 2nd of January, 2022, I went for my interview, and then two days later, I was there. And. And I wasn't a burger flipper. I was a maintenance person. So my job was to take in the stock. You know, I'd get in at sort of six in the morning. The truck would arrive, bringing all the fries and all the sausages, which were packed in Scunthorpe, as it happens. And the chicken came from Cambodia, which surprised me. You know, I'd get into the freezer, stock it all up, and then I'd have to get out the jet washer and go and clean the car park. You know, there's McFlurries everywhere. And tomato ketchup. The McDonald's tomato ketchup. And when it solidifies, it's like viscous, is like rock solid. You have to freaking get, like, boiling hot water to get that stuff off the walls. So that's what I was doing. And there was just no sign of this ending. And I wasn't earning enough money to actually pay back all my friends. And I guess it was a bit of a spiral. And then I have a very good friend, Harry Dry, who you may know, of course, he's a genius and. And also a fiercely loyal, brilliant friend who tells it how it is. And one day I was with him and I was giving him all these ideas. Oh, Harry. Yeah, I'm going to write this novel about this and, you know, I think I'm going to make a film. And he's like, xin xin. All you're doing is telling me that you're going to do all these things, not doing anything. And he said this great line. He said, what you lack is deadlines, not ideas. You lack deadlines, not ideas. And it was maybe one of the most important things anybody said to me. And I had this, what I call my Mulan moment. Have you seen Mulan? The Disney film? Mulan? Not the most recent one. The Animation.

Chris Williamson (20:06)

A long time ago. You might need to.

Sheen Quirk (20:08)

Well, anyway, so there's this wonderful scene in the film where Mulan, her father, gets called to war. He's very old, very sick, he doesn't have any sons. And the eldest male member of the family has to go off to war. Mulan, she loves her father, doesn't want him to go off and die fighting, so she goes in his place, which obviously they don't want her to do, but she has to pretend to be a man. So there's this wonderful scene in the film where the synths kick in. It's the middle of the night, and she goes and gets out her father's arm, gets out his sword, and she cuts off her hair. She cuts off her hair so she can ride off to war as a man. And I kind of had that moment. There was this one day when I thought, you know what? I'm just gonna quit my job at McDonald's and gonna just give everything I've got to getting to where I think I should be. And I took off my McDonald's beanie for the last time and my big yellow jacket. And it felt like that moment in Mulan, it was like a point of no return. I did a few things. I applied to film school. They rejected me. I applied to the army and went through the whole process. They actually offered me a place at Sandhurst, which I said no to, because by then something else had taken off, which was this Twitter account I made. My plan had been to make some money. How can you make some money? Well, by tutoring. Online tutoring is quite a good way to make money. People sometimes pay, like, fricking £50 an hour for a good online tutor. And I thought, well, I'm going to tutor people. Not in maths or. I'm terrible at maths. Or law. I did law at university. I don't want to tutor law. I thought. I wanted to do cultural tutoring. I thought some parents might want their kids to be more rounded, so I thought maybe they'll pay me to tutor their kids in poetry and architecture and art, which I've always loved, you know. And so I made a. I made this little website offering tutoring lessons. And then. How do you get eyes on the website? I made a Twitter account, hoping to drive traffic towards this website so people would book in tutoring sessions, and I could finally make some money. What did I call the Twitter account? Well, the Cultural Tutor, because that's what I thought I was. And I put this little statue of Plato as a profile Picture. And within six weeks, it became pretty clear that no one wanted me to tutor them. But they did like what I was writing about. And after six weeks, I had 100,000 followers on Twitter. As it was then, and kind of from there to here, it's been a dream. But what I did, I said when I made the Twitter account, I was going to post a thread every single day for a month and just see where it gets me. Obviously the first ten threads, you don't get a single. Like, so I would stay up all night, like going on Twitter, searching for other people who'd posted about church windows, seeing who'd liked it, then message. Those people say, hey, I saw you like this post about church windows. I've just written one too, you might be interested. And sort of, you know, after a week you're getting two likes on a.

Chris Williamson (22:44)

Post really bootstrapping your way.

Sheen Quirk (22:46)

Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah, I was obsessed. He was like, I had this clear mindedness, which is a very rare thing in life. It's very rare to be able to have that level of focus and determination. And what started out as a month ended up being two and a half years. So for two and a half years, I posted every single day online.

Chris Williamson (23:04)

What was the first day that you didn't post like?

Sheen Quirk (23:08)

It was when I was writing my book. It was after I got the book deal. And there was this one day when I thought, like, I have a choice today. I can either make this particular chapter of the book better or I can post on X. And at that point I thought, you know what? It's very hard to let go of something like that. Like, it's really hard to let go of a ritual because that was my life. Like, I would just, I was obsessed. Like, I would, you know, I said no to all my friends. If ever there's friends going out, I'd say, no, I've got a ride on Twitter. Why the hell do you want to tweet instead of hanging out with your friends? And I can remember sometimes I would go out and then I'd get home at 5am and stay up till 8am Putting something out on Twitter. And eventually got to a point where I was where I needed to be. I had my dream, which was to have a book deal. And then that became the focus. And a key part of the story is Mr. David Perl, who, you know, of course he saw I was going viral online and he reached out to me and he just, in this fantastically American way, just said, let's get on FaceTime. And so we're on FaceTime. He said, look, Shien, I really like your work and I'm guessing you need to make some money from this, but rather than you monetizing your audience and trying to, you know, maybe start a substack, and then you turning your focus from the wider public to your audience, I'm gonna support you. I'll be your patron. I'm gonna pay you a living wage, a good wage, and all you have to do is write every single day. And thanks to David and his patronage of me, I was able to write every single day and then get to where I am now with, like, you know, nearly 2 million followers or whatever, and a book deal and some other exciting projects on the way. So that's how it happened. And it kind of brings us back to where we started. I mean, maybe. I don't know if you want any sort of. If you have any comments on that or any reflections. It was one hell of a journey. But the post that went viral, the post that took me from. I'd sort of ground my way after five and a half weeks to 15,000 followers, which is pretty good. But then I did a couple of posts and they got like, you know, less than 100 likes. And I was thinking, maybe this is it, I'm washed. I don't know if you ever have. I mean, you've been, you know, you're an old hand now. And anyone who works online will know the sort of the dread and anxiety that hangs on your back, right, because you live by those numbers. And as soon as they dip, even by half percent, you like, this is it, my time, you know, my 50 minutes of fame is done. And I was. I was really mad, really mad. And I was staying with my mum at the time and I thought, you know. And I decided to write about something which had always bothered me. This one. I used to moan to my friends about it all the time, which was this thing we're talking about, because ever since I was a kid, I'd always said, like, why is stuff so boring again? I would look at older things and think, well, they're so pretty, so interesting. Why is modern stuff so boring? So I wrote about that online. I did bring a screenshot actually, of this post to just kind of show the point. This was the post.

Chris Williamson (25:47)

It's called the Danger and the Danger of Minimalist Design and the Death of Detail. A short thread.

Sheen Quirk (25:56)

Yeah. So it got 440,000 likes.

Chris Williamson (25:59)

Yeah. That'll build a 15k account. Yeah.

Sheen Quirk (26:02)

And it got me 90,000 followers overnight. And what's so funny about it? This is what's so funny about it. And it's so interesting. And look at the lead image. It's just two bollards, right? It's like a typical old bollard. It's not even that interesting. But then it's a typical new bollard. And what it turned out is that people all over the world had been feeling exactly the same way that things are boring and generic these days, and that people are crying out for the world to be a more interesting, charming and meaningful place.

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Chris Williamson (27:58)

Dude, what a great story. You know, I'd heard this from David's side, but it's really wonderful to hear it from you. It's really inspired me even hearing what David did with you. I've had a bunch of conversations with the people who look after my accounts. Yeah, and in America you can start a nonprofit and do these things. It's a fucking nightmare because what I would love to do is start a kind of scholarship thing where maybe once every 12 months I find somebody or maybe a small group of people who are in your position and liberate them.

Sheen Quirk (28:35)

Yeah, man.

Chris Williamson (28:35)

To be able to go and do the thing and it's so difficult. It's so difficult to be able to do that because if they're an employee, then it means this. And if it's a nonprofit, then you can't be the person that chooses because the opportunity for nepotism is, you know, obviously through the roof. It's basically a way for you to tax free funnel money from your business to other people that you like. Well, obviously I like them if I want to support them because I think they're good. But. Oh, you're not allowed to like. So you can be the director, but then you need to have a symposium or a board of people and they would choose and you can't have in. I just want to give someone. I just want to enliven one or a few people that I think are making good work to go and do it and it turns out to be really difficult. So that's a work in progress, but you've got it.

Sheen Quirk (29:20)

Because honestly, like patronage is like a very old fashioned way to make things happen in the modern sort of throughout the 20th century you had establishments, you know, you had the publishers and the media broadcasting organizations. That's where you went to get stuff done. Now we have the online creator economy as it's called. You become an influencer like us, I guess you get sponsorships or you have a substack. The old fashioned way is a guy who has some spam money, finds people who are talented and gives them that money. Right? And then that's how so many of the world's most famous and beloved works of art appeared. Pretty much all of them. Like, you know, Michelangelo didn't paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel based on, you know, substack subscriptions. He didn't have a sponsor. Pope Julius ii. Said Michelangelo, you're the best artist in Italy right now. I'm going to pay you 400,000 ducats or whatever it was to paint the ceiling of my chapel. And he did it. Same as the Mona Lisa, right? The Mona Lisa, which is a pretty boring and overrated painting. But anyway, it was commissioned by a guy, Leonardo was back in Florence after being in Milan for a while. And this guy, he just got married and was moving to a new house. Said Leonardo, I want you to paint a portrait of my wife. So his load of money paint A portrait of my wife. Like this is how great art throughout history and many books as well, and poems and stuff. That's how they appeared. Somebody with the funds directs it directly to the person who needs it. And then it gets created patronage. It's an old fashioned system, but I think maybe it has a future in our modern world.

Chris Williamson (30:45)

Tell me more about your opinion on the Mona Lisa.

Sheen Quirk (30:48)

Well, look, I think, I mean a few facts about it. First of all, here's a question. Who is the Mona Lisa? What is she called?

Chris Williamson (30:56)

It's not after Mona Lisa.

Sheen Quirk (30:58)

Well, no, her name is Lisa. But I think there's something interesting about the fact that the most famous painting in the world in some sense the woman with the most famous face in history, no one knows what she's called. Her name was Lisa Gherardini or Lisa del Giocondo when she got married. And also the crazy thing is she never actually saw the painting finished. Leonardo was a famous procrastinator. He would just freaking take forever to do anything. And he actually left Italy with the painting. He went off to live in France because the king of France asked him.

Chris Williamson (31:31)

To come and work in high demand.

Sheen Quirk (31:32)

Yeah, he hired him and he took the painting. So Lisa Gherardini never saw the finished portrait, which is kind of crazy, I think.

Chris Williamson (31:38)

And also she died before it was done.

Sheen Quirk (31:39)

No, no. So he took it. So Leonardo took the portrait with him to France before it was finished and then he finished it in France and then gave it to the king of. King of France. Francis I he was called.

Chris Williamson (31:50)

Anyway, here's a painting of someone else's wife.

Sheen Quirk (31:52)

Well, yeah, I guess, I guess. But yeah, it's Leonardo. So even then the guy was a celebrity. Even then, like his reputation now savant. It hasn't changed at all. Like people then worship the guy. But I just think it's a shame that the most famous painting in the world is a relatively boring portrait.

Chris Williamson (32:08)

Why is it boring?

Sheen Quirk (32:10)

Well, if you look at other paintings and the things that might get people interested in art, like imagine. Cause like I'm passionate about art, it's my lifeblood. But the way our culture works, like if you want to get someone interested in art and they kind of start looking into it and they see that the most famous product of the entire history of art is just like a woman smiling, I don't think it's gonna excite them particularly.

Chris Williamson (32:34)

What do you wish was the replacement? If you were to say, hey, the world is gifted, I can hot swap the Mona Lisa for something else. This would be a Good. Front end of the funnel for people into art.

Sheen Quirk (32:49)

Sure. I think there's a few contenders. Yeah. Some of which are already quite well known. Look, it depends on the person because I think when someone's, for example, young, when they're a teenager, I think you need something a bit more brash and exciting. If you look at the paintings of a guy like John Martin, he was a 19th century English painter from County Durham, actually, and he painted these kind of crazy biblical catastrophic landscapes, you know, and there's lightning and there's thunder and there's like cities blowing up and there's gigantic waves and it's epic, you know, it's like sort of watching Lord of the Rings, but in a single painting, like that kind of thing is exciting. Also, you know another painting which is very, very famous, you know, the Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, that one is pretty famous. And I think paintings more like that are more likely to get people excited about art.

Chris Williamson (33:37)

Little bit more interesting.

Sheen Quirk (33:39)

Yeah, they're basically more. Because I don't hate them only. So if you like it, then you like it. But I think people should be free to call it boring if they want. This is another problem, like art. The problem with art, like, it's in this space where people feel very intimidated. They feel ignorant.

Chris Williamson (33:54)

Yes, I certainly do.

Sheen Quirk (33:55)

Sure. And then suddenly they feel like they're not allowed to say the Mona Lisa.

Chris Williamson (33:59)

Is boring because it feels unrefined. Like I don't get the joke that everybody else gets or I don't get the subtext. I'm not sufficiently sophisticated.

Sheen Quirk (34:08)

Exactly, exactly. Whereas my view is the only thing you need to get into art. You only need two things. Your eyes and your heart. That's all you need. And you've got to fall in love with it. And that's a lot of my work has been that. Just trying to put art out there, not in the context of art, but in the context of just something that's not that different to cinema.

Chris Williamson (34:26)

A nice drain pipe.

Sheen Quirk (34:26)

Yeah, exactly. Or a nice freaking dairy tripe. Yeah, man, exactly. Anyway, so that's. How did. How did the Mona Lisa come up?

Chris Williamson (34:36)

You were explaining. I think you were going through a bunch of. Oh, it was da Vinci, Michelangelo. He's laid on the ceiling.

Sheen Quirk (34:44)

So this thing you're thinking of doing, man, good luck with that, Good luck with that. Because who knows what it might lead to.

Chris Williamson (34:49)

What else have you got by way of example? I'm excited for what comes next.

Sheen Quirk (34:54)

Yeah, I've got some really good stuff there, man.

Chris Williamson (34:56)

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some deep cuts from the world of architecture and art.

Sheen Quirk (35:00)

So the reason I brought these is again, just to illustrate the points I'm making, I could say, oh, just Google it. But it's much easier if I show it myself here. Now, a big part of my work online, a big part of the book, but not only the book, and a big part of this documentary, this short film, which is being released tomorrow as we speak, made it with David Perel.

Chris Williamson (35:23)

Congratulations.

Sheen Quirk (35:24)

Thank you very much. It's a 15 minute short film and we're treating it as a standalone piece and as a pilot for a future series we want to make about art and architecture and learning from art and architecture, about life in the 21st century. It's called the Modern world, actually, because I think we can learn a lot about life now and how to improve it by looking at art and architecture and things like that in the past. And people are crying out for a sort of a high quality art documentary series. Anyway, now what I think is really important, my life's work, in a way, is to establish first of all that there is a problem with the way the world looks today and the way we design it. And then secondly, this is the crucial part, to establish a consensus around this issue. A problem I ran into pretty early on, which I hadn't anticipated, is that as soon as I started writing about this, this like, just bollocks. Like, people have very strong views about it, most people are inclined to agree. And like, the polls show very clearly, studies and polls show very clearly that people are dissatisfied with how things look and that they generally prefer traditional to modern architecture. But I found that as soon as I started writing about it, people have all these connotations based on whether they think they're left wing or right wing. There's this idea, for example. No, it's a big issue because people think if you're to criticize modernism, right? So like modern architecture, to criticize that must mean that you're somehow like a traditionalist, conservative, even a fascist. And also, if you want to revive traditional architecture, you must therefore be a conservative or a fascist. And then people also think if you defend modern architecture, the conservatives think you're like a radical socialist or a communist. And all of this is complete nonsense. It's just not true. Now, so that's the second part. I want to demolish these misguided political associations around the issue and establish a consensus, which is why I've brought some little graphics. So the first thing I'll do is I just want this should be quite good fun. I just want to show you these and ask you what you think they are. It's sort of a trick question and I'm hoping you get it wrong.

Chris Williamson (37:39)

They look like towers. Towers of castles in some way.

Sheen Quirk (37:44)

Yeah, exactly. Right, let's have a look. These are water towers. These are 19th century water towers.

Chris Williamson (37:49)

Wow.

Sheen Quirk (37:49)

So all they do is, you know, for people who don't know what water tower is like in a town or city, in order to have water pressure, you need to lift all the water up high. So the pipe. Right. So that's what these are. Unbelievably, these somehow are just bits of like the most boring infrastructure you can imagine. Water management infrastructure. And yet they look like they're just. They're so much fun. Right.

Chris Williamson (38:08)

Imagine Northumbrian water created one of those.

Sheen Quirk (38:10)

Exactly, exactly. And what's most interesting, perhaps is that these have all been decommissioned now.

Chris Williamson (38:16)

Right.

Sheen Quirk (38:16)

Because obviously, you know, we've got more advanced technologies and yet they still stand because people love them. They've been converted variously into houses. Some of them are like gallery spaces or on viewing platforms. And again, just like the drone patch, it's crazy to think that in the past people believed that even something as simple and ostensibly boring and functional as a water tower could make a town or city more interesting. But this isn't about past versus present, which is what people assume. All I'm interested in is improving the present by learning from the past. Now, I want.

Chris Williamson (38:52)

It's difficult to learn from the future.

Sheen Quirk (38:56)

Indeed.

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Sheen Quirk (40:11)

The first to stop each other. I mean, look at this. This is another screenshot of a tweet I did. So this is like I can't read. What does it say?

Chris Williamson (40:18)

Why are you Cities all around the world starting to look the same. You've got the usa, Japan, Russia, Colombia, Germany, Ethiopia, Brazil, Taiwan, Poland, Australia, Spain, China. These are high rise skyscrapers.

Sheen Quirk (40:33)

Yeah, they just like. It all looks the same, right? And what's. So I did this glass, steel, vertical lines, and he's got like 174,000 likes, you know, so, like people really care about this issue. Like, people feel very, very strong. Like, the easiest way to get traction online is just to post two images, one of like a nice old thing, one of a crappy new thing. And everyone loves it because everyone feels it to be true. It's just like a global issue as well. So you're not with those water towers, with those drain pipes. The reason I wanted to show them to you is just to kind of give an example of two things. First of all, the fact that things have changed, that we don't design things how we used to. And secondly, to show that it's possible to make boring things, to make infrastructure interesting, meaningful and charming. So that is the problem now at this point, people start getting very angry. And if I can sort of address the two sides one after the other, this is what I would say. So I think it's very important to defend modern architecture, right? It's not popular with the public. Even though a certain sort of group of architects and planners love it. The general public do not like modern architecture. Look at any city, any poll. Look at, you know, look where people go. Look at where tourists take photos, right? When tourists come to London, where do they want to go and take photos in front of the pretty old buildings? Where do people want to go on holiday? They go to Paris, they go to Rome, they go to Venice, they go to Kyoto. They want to see beautiful old buildings, right? What the public want is very clear that being said, I think it's very important to defend modern architecture. There's this idea, I think maybe among conservatives and what you might call more right wing or traditionalist people, which are all such unhelpful terms anyway, that modern architecture, these big sort of boring concrete tower blocks, skyscrapers that they replaced these baroque palaces and these charming cottages. But the truth is that this is the kind of. This is the kind of thing they replaced. This photo was taken in the Netherlands in the 1930s.

Chris Williamson (42:40)

Okay. This is a mud hut.

Sheen Quirk (42:44)

Yeah.

Chris Williamson (42:45)

It's a family of three, two adults and an infant. I'm not doing this for the visually impaired. I'm doing it because some people are just listening. Black and white photo of what looks like farmland. Middle of a field, essentially. I think there's a wheel. Is that a wheel?

Sheen Quirk (43:00)

Yeah.

Chris Williamson (43:00)

On the top of the house? Yeah. So it's very low. It's basically the height of maybe even slightly lower than the height of people. It's an A frame sort of. There seems to be a bigger bit at the back, but I mean, it's halfway between a mound of dirt and a tent made out of wood.

Sheen Quirk (43:18)

Yeah.

Chris Williamson (43:18)

With a chimney.

Sheen Quirk (43:19)

Would you want to live there?

Chris Williamson (43:21)

No, probably not.

Sheen Quirk (43:22)

Now, most people throughout history were living in conditions not totally dissimilar to this. Like throughout most of history until the last century, people were living in conditions of absolute squalor and material misery. And all these modern buildings, which are very easy to criticize aesthetically, they look pretty nice when you compare them to that sort of thing. Modern architecture using concrete and steel and glass and plastic, building quickly and cheaply and efficiently, basically gave the world a roof over its head. It lifted humanity out of material squalor, out of and into a world where they could have, you know, they weren't living in places like that, where you're warm and you're dry and there's no danger of imminent collapse. So it's really important, I think, that more conservative or traditionalist people recognize that modern architecture has actually been a blessing for humankind insofar as quality of life is concerned. I also think a lot of modernist buildings are very beautiful, but that's kind of a separate point. I think they can be lovely. And I think I like the Shard, you know, and I like the gherkin. These buildings are so much fun, and I wouldn't want to see a world where we didn't build those.

Chris Williamson (44:32)

Definitely not boring, though.

Sheen Quirk (44:34)

Exactly. They're not boring exactly. That's also true. And they're charming and they're Charming.

Chris Williamson (44:37)

Yeah, Meaningful.

Sheen Quirk (44:41)

But here's what I love about these buildings is like London has this fantastic practice of giving buildings nicknames, right? So the gherkin, the shard, the fricking walkie talkie, the cheese grater. That I think is meaning emerging basically when we give them those names, you know, the gherkin feels like a part of London. You can't imagine London without the Gherkin. Now, even though 20 years ago a lot of people didn't like it. So that's my sort of piece aimed at the traditionalists who are, I think too overly critical of modern architecture. But now the problem is that maybe the slightly bigger problem is that as soon as you start talking about this issue, a lot of more progressive people, generally conservative progressive, maybe socialist, left leaning, liberal people, think that to call for traditionalism is some kind of like retrogressive, conservative, fascistic worldview, which I think is clearly not the case. Like asking for the world to be more beautiful, especially the streets where ordinary people live and work. Like the rich can freaking afford whatever paintings they want. They can afford lovely houses. The people suffering most right now are ordinary people all over the world who, whose streets and homes and offices are literally making them depressed, like studies have shown. I mean, you don't even need studies to prove it. But I suppose it's helpful. Like we are more stressed, more anxious, less productive, less happy when we're in boring environments. Like, why do prisons look the way they look? Like, why does solo string of confinement have nothing in it and harsh lighting? But there's this crazy situation where we literally design buildings these days in the same way that we design prisons. I mean, it's kind of sad to think about, but there's this game that some people play which is, is it a prison or is it a school? And if you look at prisons and schools built in the UK over the last 50 or 60 years and I show you a photo of each, you can't tell which is which. They look pretty similar. Anyway, more to the point about why I think liberal people should embrace and progressive people should embrace some traditional architecture. Bunch of reasons. One, it's more sustainable. I look at those water towers, right? You build something that's beautiful, that people like, you don't have to demolish it. It lasts decades or hundreds of years, which is way more sustainable than building things like we do now, which are going to be demolished in 20, 30 years because they're crappy and no one likes them. It's also more environmentally friendly. Traditional architecture is way more Interested in using local materials. It's also more suited to the local climate. Like why do all old houses or buildings in northern Europe have very steep roofs? Steep gables? Because it snows, right? And you don't want snow to build up on the roof. Now we have flat roofs, so we spend like a crap ton, you know, having to, you know, we have to clear it or we have to heat it so it melts. Da da da da. It's a mess anyway. So it's more environmentally sustainable. And also the final thing, I realize I'm going on a bit, but this is so important. Like when you have beautiful stuff, like those beautiful hinges you were talking, the beautiful latches in the doors. William Morris, the great, Great William Morris. 19th century poet and designer and campaigner. Also a massive communist and Marxist as well. The reason he loved beautiful medieval old fashioned design is because he felt it made people's lives more interesting when they have to use stuff, but it also made people's lives better when they had to make stuff. Like right now we're forcing people all around the world, on other sides of the world, to be fair in other countries, paying them like crappy wages to make crappy, boring stuff. As soon as your job involves making something interesting and beautiful and you've got some creative say in it, like imagine if, you know bricklayers in this country, we ask them to make plain brick walls. Throughout the Middle Ages, bricklayers, what they did, they would make patterns in the walls. You know, you can do wonderful things with bricks. They sound boring, but bricks can be so charming, so much fun. And now we don't do that. But in a world where we embrace beautiful design, everyone benefits. The people who have to make stuff and the people who have to use stuff. Anyway, that is, I think most of what is needed to be said that I want to establish a consensus that the world can be so much more interesting, that we will all benefit from it and that it's not a political issue. Anyway, I didn't get through all my.

Chris Williamson (48:54)

I want to see more of your examples. Do the presentation.

Sheen Quirk (48:58)

Here's one. So here are some, Here are some. Do you know what they are?

Chris Williamson (49:02)

Water fountains.

Sheen Quirk (49:03)

Yeah.

Chris Williamson (49:04)

So there's a variety, sort of a green. The classic green's okay. It's a little, a little sterile and minimalist, but it's not bad. And then there's one that's sort of a real aqua blue and looks a little bit like a cartoon.

Sheen Quirk (49:21)

Yeah. So these are some water fountains that have been installed around London in the past. Sort of 10 to 20 years and around the UK actually. And that like they're fine, like they do their job, but on the whole, I wouldn't say that they necessarily make the place where they are prettier or more interesting for. Now, here are some Victorian water fountains which.

Chris Williamson (49:48)

They look like mini chapels.

Sheen Quirk (49:50)

They do, yeah, they do, they do. They're beautiful.

Chris Williamson (49:54)

And they're really four sided. Yeah. I mean, that almost looks like a fountain that you would go to. Yes, where ducks would swim.

Sheen Quirk (50:03)

Yeah, exactly. And there's a few points on this, but I'll keep it relatively brief. The main one to me is that when you see something like this, when this much care and thought has been put into designing water fountains, which are one of the most important kinds of public architecture you can have. Right. Like water is a sacred thing. It is the source of life. When you treat the public and treat water in this way, I think everyone is much happier. And now the other slides, I can probably kind of speed through them.

Chris Williamson (50:38)

There's no speeding through anything. We can indulge as much as you want.

Sheen Quirk (50:41)

We can, we can. But there's just so much exciting stuff to talk about here. So this one is kind of fun. So you remember I showed you the screenshot of how all modern architecture looks the same? All these skyscrapers. Well, it turns out in the past things were naturally necessarily so different. Like here's, here's one of.

Chris Williamson (51:01)

Wow. Ireland, Mexico, Greece, India, Russia, Cuba, usa, Philippines, Argentina. And these are all quite sort of baroque style pillars with the classics. A frame, greased Greek. What is that?

Sheen Quirk (51:19)

Pediment. Pediment, yeah. And they all look the same basically all over the world. And it's the same here.

Chris Williamson (51:25)

Difference being, I think people don't mind when they think it's pretty.

Sheen Quirk (51:28)

No, they don't mind exactly. But I think it's important to recognize that we shouldn't romanticize the past. Even though I am prone to doing that. I think I've got better in recent years of being much more realistic about what things were like. But it's interesting first of all. Yeah. That people don't mind homogenous architecture when it's pretty. But also that things in the past were also, you know, it's not like there was necessarily more variety. And these ones are kind of more to the point. Again, it's just like fricking loads of buildings that look the same.

Chris Williamson (51:54)

Wow, look at that sort of gothic style cathedrals. Uk, Norway, Slovakia, Germany. Czechia.

Sheen Quirk (52:02)

Oh, Czechia. I guess that's the Czech Republic.

Chris Williamson (52:04)

Czechia, Italy. That one in Italy is insane. Yeah, that's in Milan, Hungary, Portugal and.

Sheen Quirk (52:10)

Belgium all again, they're all very, very similar. Right. Because they're all part of the same. And that was kind of. And then, sorry, there is one more of these which is a now Byzantine style architecture.

Chris Williamson (52:21)

Okay, so this is with domes. Yeah, a little bit lighter color, a lot of white, some yellows in there as well.

Sheen Quirk (52:31)

And again they all look very similar. So I kind of like making that point just because again, perhaps more. Some people who are more traditionally aligned tend to forget that there are phases in the past when buildings look the same all around the world. But then the equal point that you made straight away is that people don't mind architecture. They don't mind when it's homogenous, if it's pretty. Then the final thing came out a bit blurry, unfortunately. But anyway, what do you think this building is? What do you think that is?

Chris Williamson (53:04)

I think it's a church.

Sheen Quirk (53:05)

Sure. That's what anyone would think.

Chris Williamson (53:07)

Okay, you tell me. It's showers or something.

Sheen Quirk (53:11)

So this is, this is a still from a documentary actually. It's been my dream for years to visit this place and to film there.

Chris Williamson (53:18)

Where is it?

Sheen Quirk (53:18)

So that this is. It's called Crossness Pumping Station. This is a sewage facility. When London's new sewers were built in the 19th century, they needed a pumping station a few miles, like about 20 miles east, closer to the mouth of the Thames. And the Victorians thought this was how you should design a sewage facility. And it's just absolutely gorgeous. And this in a way sums up the change. And I think we've lost the belief, the conviction that even sewers can be beautiful, can be charming, interesting, meaningful. People working sewers.

Chris Williamson (54:06)

And what's the excuse other than convenience and cost?

Sheen Quirk (54:11)

Yeah, well, so this is where it gets really interesting. The cost point is frequently raised that we can't afford to build like that or design like that anymore. But this kind of isn't true. Now there are two things to say about it. First of all, one point, it is a bit more expensive, but like anything is too expensive if you don't want it. And then the question is, is the extra investment worth making? Well, if it's going to cost 1% more, which is usually what it's like to decorate. Like decoration is so much cheaper than every other part of a building. Right. Just gotta stick some pretty stuff on the front of it. Now that's all cast iron. It's mass manufactured. This isn't made by some artist slaving away for years. You literally melt the iron, stick it in a mould, pull it out, paint it a bit, looks beautiful. Like, is an extra percent worth an increase in human happiness and joy worth increasing? You know, the lifespan of the building will be expanded by, you know, decades. I dare say that that's a wise investment. And also, in purely speaking, purely commercially, think of what it does for tourism, like cities, especially like in Europe. You know, in Europe, people don't make stuff anymore, don't manufacture stuff. Where does all the money come from comes from tourism. Like, you put up beautiful buildings and people from around the world will come flocking, spending all the hard earned money just to spend one night in this one freaking pretty street in your city. So it's one of the best investments you can make is in decoration. That's the one people usually raise as cost. It's kind of the biggest one. And it really is that simple. I think there's also other things we could get into that probably aren't worth addressing right now. But it's the point I want to make is that it is a choice. We act like it isn't a choice. And the problem with that, however, is that we live in a consumerist society. And again, this is why I think traditionalists and liberals, conservatives and progressives should be united. The problem, the biggest problem with modern design isn't people who want to return to the past. It's not socialism, it's not communism. The biggest problem is consumerism. Like, we live in a society where we have a culture of obsolescence. Nothing is built to last because you can make more money, obviously, if you don't build things to last. Where the cheapest, most convenient, quickest route is the one that we always take with everything we do. Like, everyone stands to benefit from that kind of meaningful, beautiful design. Apart from if you're a property developer or a planner, whatever it is, and you want to spend as little money as possible and get back as much as possible in a short time span. You make it boring, you make it ugly, you don't care about how it looks. That's the consumerism I think is the biggest problem.

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Chris Williamson (58:19)

Where do you think on the planet has got a good balance of beauty, of charm, meaning interestingness? I imagine some unsophisticated idiot like me is immediately going to say Rome because it's so obvious and in my face. I went to Vienna for the first time.

Sheen Quirk (58:43)

Oh yeah? What do you make of it?

Chris Williamson (58:45)

Again, that kind of very. I've just read my first philosophybook.com unnecessarily Baroque architecture thing for me is very. It's easy to enjoy. I find it. I find the detail very pleasant. The fact that every street that you turn down is really wonderful. I thought that was lovely. I really, really enjoyed Venice. I thought Venice was fantastic. And small quaint streets and higgledy piggledy buildings leaning almost leaning up against each other and they're being supported by bits of wood and the wood supported by iron and the iron brackets are on the side of the house and nothing. No two streets look the same and all of the pavements are cracked and that was. That felt quaint to me, which was charming. I think that would be very, very charming. Where else has got it right that I like? I'm a fan of Harrogate.

Sheen Quirk (59:44)

Nice.

Chris Williamson (59:45)

I think Harrogate in the uk. Edinburgh.

Sheen Quirk (59:47)

Yeah.

Chris Williamson (59:47)

Edinburgh's phenomenal.

Sheen Quirk (59:49)

Just. Yeah. When your spirits lift, when you go to Edinburgh, you're excited every corner.

Chris Williamson (59:53)

But these are maybe not for Americans, but these are maybe more obvious examples.

Sheen Quirk (59:59)

No, but they're good examples, man. Like you made such a. Like a good point like when you said about Vienna like it's easy to enjoy. No, I've got like, I'm deep into this stuff and I don't like baroque architecture. I'm much more of a Gothicist. I much further gothic and I could sit here and talk for 12 hours about why that is, but it kind of doesn't matter what I think, just like it.

Chris Williamson (60:23)

I like it because I like it.

Sheen Quirk (60:24)

Like it makes you smile, you think, and you get out your phone, you start taking photos, you know, and that is what matters here. So Edinburgh, Rome, Vienna, other cities in the world as well. All over the world, where else?

Chris Williamson (60:37)

Give us some maybe less obvious beautiful locations that people could.

Sheen Quirk (60:42)

That you wouldn't think of.

Chris Williamson (60:43)

Yeah.

Sheen Quirk (60:44)

So I love Sofia in Bulgaria. Okay, that's got a wonderful mix. It's got a mix of architecture, which is why I like it because for a long time it was under the Ottoman Empire. And the same is true all around Bulgaria. You've got a lot of Ottoman era, kind of Turkish influenced buildings, but then you've also got, after it was independent, you've got all these 19th century Neo Byzantine or big domed cathedrals. And you've got art Nouveau, all spiraling and flowery and pastel colours. And then the communists came and started building their massive brutalist monuments. And I adore brutalism. And so you go to any city in the Balkans really and they've got this just amazing mix. Over 500 years, you've got several different chapters of world and cultural and architectural history crammed in on the same street. And I love variety. I think variety is key. Again, I'll say it once more. I wouldn't want to see a world where we just get rid of modernism in design like some modern buildings. Just wonderful. We mentioned the Gherkin earlier and I think the world benefits from variety. Look, it's a law of nature. One of the big points I make is like, okay, but why do human beings like variety? Why do we need variety? Why is decoration charming to us? Like, why is a door handle with a little spiral on it nicer than a door handle that's just a bar? Because it reflects nature. You go outside and look at a tree. John Constable, the painter, has this great line that no two leaves in the history of the universe have ever been identical. And it's true. Look at a tree. Every single leaf is different, every single tree is different. Nature is constantly changing and it's varied and it's detailed. And those principles of natural beauty, I think, which is the, which is the environment that we were not raised in, that we evolved in and that we've been in since the dawn of the human species is the one we feel most at home in and. Go ahead, go ahead.

Chris Williamson (62:39)

No, I'm just. I totally get it, that the straight lines don't necessarily appear in nature. So trying to replicate some more complexity and some more uniqueness in design is a good idea. You mentioned brutalism. There's. I can see how brutalism might not be boring. I would absolutely say it is not charming, though.

Sheen Quirk (63:01)

True, true.

Chris Williamson (63:03)

Make the pro case for brutalist architecture.

Sheen Quirk (63:09)

Yeah. Oh, God.

Chris Williamson (63:10)

You might need to do a tiny briefer on what brutalist architecture is as well.

Sheen Quirk (63:13)

Sure. So brutalism is a word that conjures a lot of images in people's heads. Like it emerged after the Second World War in the late 50s, well, early 50s, and then kind of really took off in the 60s in the west, and then it took off in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc a little bit later in the 70s and 80s. Now, when people say brutalism, they usually mean any building that is concrete and square. That's not what brutalism is. That's basically just. That's the most basic form of modernism, I suppose. Brutalism, properly told, is about these big, bold shapes. So, you know, the National Theatre or the South Bank Centre, just on the other side of Waterloo Bridge.

Chris Williamson (63:52)

Okay.

Sheen Quirk (63:52)

That's like a great example of brutalism I probably should have. Probably should have added to my presentation. But what you've got is these great big cubes and pyramids and weird angles and big open spaces, and it's all concrete. It's all unpainted, raw concrete, which is very honest. It's truthful. That's the idea. Anyway, the reason I love brutalism is because it's bold and it's exciting and it presents a vision for the world. It's like brutalism. You look at all this old, like, fancy, pretty detailed, delicate stuff. Brutalism is the opposite of that. It is massive. It is pure geometry on a huge scale. Like the pyramids of ancient Giza or Stonehenge are kind of brutalist. Like, imagine those things, but made of concrete. Suddenly they're brutalism. And that's what. Brutalism has this, like, ancient monument monumentality to it. And I think that's way more. I agree it's not charming, but not everything needs to be charming. Some things should be imposing or impressive, and I think brutalism is impressive. But what you said was so true. You said you don't think of it as boring, Right? Because it's not boring. It's maybe ugly, but maybe ugliness is a good thing sometimes. But what did I say? The one thing we cannot bear is boredom. Ugly is fine. Boring is not fine. And brutalism, I grant that some people find it ugly and I wouldn't want a world of brutalism, but I think it's something inspired and to me very optimistic. It emerged after the Second World War. You know, the whole world has been devastated by the greatest cataclysm in the history of civilization. And from the ashes emerges this new style of architecture. If you pick a brutalist building and look at a photo of it from when it was first built in the 50s or 60s, it looks so futuristic. And I can imagine people like, imagine you're surrounded by all these like, you know, delicate Victorian buildings. They're all the plaster is peeling, the iron is rusty. And then you see this like concrete spaceship, imposing. It's like this is gonna be a better, fairer, more prosperous world.

Chris Williamson (65:47)

Only in comparison with a much more delicate, refined, glass, steel, chrome building does this begin to actually look kind of raw and primal and threatening.

Sheen Quirk (66:08)

Yeah, threatening is a good word. It can be pretty threatening. And the problem now, which. Yeah. Is that the world has been filled with so much boring design, plain squares and cubes, that brutalism has lost its charm because it worked by virtue of its contrast with that older environment. Now you have these brutalist buildings surrounded by just fricking glass boxes. Doesn't look that interesting. Right.

Chris Williamson (66:31)

You mentioned earlier on you're a hopeful romantic. I think I put myself in the same category actually. How do you come to think about romance in the modern world? We've spoken about beauty, something that I think people wistful for struggling to find perhaps interestingness. And where is it this sort of increasing sterilization as they feel of the environments that they have to spend time in, whether inside or outside. How do you come to conceive of romance in the modern world?

Sheen Quirk (67:07)

So you mentioned. Yeah, sterilization, a really, really good word. I think romance. Romance is the least convenient thing. Oops.

Chris Williamson (67:19)

You say the word romance twice and things start falling out of the wall. That's the way it works.

Sheen Quirk (67:24)

That's how it should be. Yeah, that's how it should be. We live, as I said, I think we're okay. Someone agrees we live in a world of convenience and of hyper commercialized optimization. And in this world, in amongst it, romance screams out as the opposite. Like I said it to a friend of mine, I think I said it to David, actually. I said we were talking, we were talking about Dating and how he's getting on. And I said, look, man, it's not love if it's convenient. Love is anything apart from convenient when you're in love and when you're taken by these passions, right, you stop doing things you should be doing. You think, well, I've got to work today, but I just want to be with this person. You stay up all night. No. You arrive at work, you're tired, just sleepless. That is not convenient. And it's not beneficial to a world where your focus would be on kind of optimizing according to those material conditions. And yet it's worth it, you know? And I think that's how I think of romance and why we're struggling to find it, because it runs contrary to all the instincts that are being taught to us by the world. Like, I don't think you can schedule romance, you know, And I think online dating culture, it has transformed the way maybe we think about love into something that fits into a broader scheme of a scheduled and organized life. And I think it narrows the scope of possibility for passion to sweep you away, you know, and that is why I. Yeah, that's how I think of romance. Does that answer the question or not?

Chris Williamson (69:13)

To a degree it does. I think the inconvenience makes an awful lot of sense, you know, to go from your slightly more artistic, whimsical approach to my remote area of expertise of evolutionary psychology and mating dynamics. Humans have two attachment systems. We have the passionate and the companionate. And the passionate is highly irrational. It's the honeymoon phase. It's obsession, a lot of anxiety. It's very painful anyways. It's very beautiful. It's the rush, it's the spark. You're unable to focus on anything. It wouldn't make for a particularly good society. It certainly wouldn't really even make for a particularly good family life. There's a lot of articles online you can go and find. This couple kept their honeymoon phase going for 20 years, and here's how you can do it too. And there's a bit of me that thinks, well, that sounds nice in some ways, because there's the rush and there's the novelty and there's the uncertainty and.

Sponsor/Ad Host (70:13)

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Chris Williamson (70:15)

I would not want to be the child of parents who At 10 years, I'm 10 years old, or 5 years old, and they're still in the honeymoon phase. I don't think that your executive functioning. That's why you stay up late, right? You should go to bed.

Sheen Quirk (70:31)

You should go to Bed.

Chris Williamson (70:31)

It's a good idea to go to bed. Something I imagine you tell yourself all the time, knowing your sleeping pattern, and then you move into companionate love. Companionate love is friendship categorized much less by sort of this obsession, but a deeper kind of connection. It's closer to friendship, but with the romantic interest in there too. And I think we. I don't know how much of a place there is in the modern world for romance. Certainly not given some of the challenges of roles that men and women have to try and contend with now. That women can be their own provider and that men don't need to be the provider at all, especially if the woman is. Neither need to be procreator, which would have been very novel ancestrally. You know, if you have two people that are together in a relationship and there's no child that's come out of it, it's pretty likely that we're probably gonna part ways. I don't know whether the fertility issue is me or whether it's you, but if we both split up, then, you know, there's a 50% chance that we might. This might work with somebody else. Maybe it is you or maybe it's me, and it'll be another. Another whiff. But I wonder, given these sort of changing modalities, in order for you to be romanced, in order for you to apply. And this is a Joe Foley idea. I fucking become obsessed with this idea. It's so good. Spoken about it twice today already. Joe makes this great point that the modern world is defined in many ways categorized by ironic speech.

Sheen Quirk (72:11)

Yes. Yes, man. Hell, yeah.

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Chris Williamson (73:05)

That's functionhealth.com ModernWisdom Earnestness. Beautiful word. The courage to take your emotions seriously. Right. Sincerity. You're planting a position in the ground that you truly believe in. Okay, this is me. Here I am. This is what I want, this is what I believe in as opposed to this is what I don't agree with or I don't believe in or I don't want. Anybody can define themselves. There are far more things in the world that we don't want than we do want. And it doesn't define who we are to say what we don't want. But it also means that you don't risk the fear of rejection. You can't be rejected for not liking something. You can in some ways, but it doesn't feel existential. You can be rejected for saying, I like this thing or that feels like a comment on yourself. We were saying earlier on your ability to speak versus your ability to play the piano, that feels like a real. That's, you know, close to the core of who you are as a person. Oh, I really showed you a bit of myself. I showed you a bit of myself. I opened up, cracked my heart open and there it is. Here's a thing that I like. Sometimes that's a person and sometimes it's how you feel about a person. And for that to be rejected, it's painful. So I think a culture of ironic speech, of sardonic, distanced, second and third order aloofness is a prophylactic against being hurt, but results in romance, which by definition is sincere and earnest. The courage to take your emotions seriously. It doesn't leave much room for that.

Sheen Quirk (74:50)

Yeah, every word. That was very eloquently and beautifully put. And yeah, in response to all of that, two things. First of all, yeah, I agree with what you're saying. When the word romance I think can mean a couple of things. And I certainly don't believe that pure romance is enough for a sustainable relationship and a long lasting, oh, you're so utilitarian.

Chris Williamson (75:11)

Incompatibility.

Sheen Quirk (75:12)

That being said, I think the romantic life is one you can like. There's two sides to it. The romance is at the sweeping passion. You stay up all night, you leave your job, you run down the street with no shoes on, whatever the hell it is. I don't know. But I think romance can also be a way of life and a way of understanding the world. And what that way is is exactly what you said. This ability to express those sincere, earnest feelings. And the possibility of doing that is less available to us than ever. We all have. Every human has this deep well of passion and love and light inside them. And I think the modern world in many ways is wonderful. And even modern dating culture does a lot of things right. But that particular part of us, we can't get it out there. And I wanted to read you a few lines from. It's the obvious place to go to. But from Romeo and Juliet it sounds like the obvious play to choose. And I don't want to get into what the play necessarily means and how it's even misunderstood, but it is in many parts a wonderful evocation of how to express oneself so far as love is concerned. So here's a little scene. Romeo, Juliet is speaking from the balcony scene. Romeo says, oh, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied? Juliet, what satisfaction canst thou have tonight? Romeo, the exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine. Juliet, I gave thee mine before thou didst request it. And yet I would it were to give again. Romeo, wouldst thou withdraw it? For what purpose? Love. And then Juliet says, but to be frank and give it thee again. And yet I wish. But for the thing I have, my bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite. Now that's a kind of expression which we doesn't really dovetail with this age of irony. And I think it would be if.

Chris Williamson (77:19)

She'D said all of that and then put LOL at the end, it would have hit slightly less.

Sheen Quirk (77:25)

Indeed, indeed. I think we would be wrong to assume that all expressions of love are equal. And the language is obviously very old fashioned. I'm not saying we should all start talking like that again, but those lines are as powerful and sincere and they're also not generic. Right. It's not just oh, roses are red, violets are blue kind of thing. That is like a really profound thought. She's providing it in explaining her like at this point in the play she's like way ahead of Romeo in terms of emotional maturity. Like he's freaking playing catch up there. He does catch her by the end of the play, but at this point he's just a guy who's. He thinks she's very good looking and he'd like to kiss her, let's say. I think he's still in that stage. But Juliet at that stage of the play is already well beyond that into the realms of actual enduring life affirming. Spirit, expanding love. Which is what I think when I say romance. I think that's why it's so important, because it allows us to access that side of it. Like romance and love are good for your freaking soul. You know, they make the world brighter. And being able to talk, not in those words precisely, but to express oneself.

Chris Williamson (78:34)

The sentiment that I've loved you since before you knew it, and I love you so much that I'd withdraw it just so I could have the pleasure of giving it to you again. And it's boundless and reciprocal and circular.

Sheen Quirk (78:50)

And.

Chris Williamson (78:53)

Regardless of how you say it, it's sort of cosmic and it's bigger than you and it's real. And for that. For you to say something like that to somebody, for you to give them that much of yourself, which is actually giving you more than them. Right. You're giving more than yourself, which is what love feels like. Love feels. For instance, one of the wildest things that I've done when flying into London. I had a big day scheduled, I had all of this stuff planned. And I decided I was going to torpedo these plans, land in London by the time I've landed in London at Heathrow, I've got an Uber book to go to Gatwick. I go an hour Uber to Gatwick, completely annihilate all of the plans I had for the day trip to the dentist, hairdresser, to dinners that had been organized, meetings, all the rest of this stuff. Go to Gatwick, fly to Edinburgh to meet a girl. To meet the girl.

Sheen Quirk (80:01)

The girl.

Chris Williamson (80:02)

Hell yeah.

Sheen Quirk (80:02)

Yeah.

Chris Williamson (80:03)

And then I spend 20 hours in Edinburgh to then fly back to Gatwick to then go and do the thing. And destroyed the start of the week. Awful, horrible idea, romance.

Sheen Quirk (80:17)

Edinburgh is a great city as well. To be walking around hand in hand down those little alleyways.

Chris Williamson (80:21)

Very much so, yeah.

Sheen Quirk (80:22)

Yeah. That's a beautiful story. And it's actually. I was so into that story, I've.

Chris Williamson (80:27)

Completely lost Romeo and Juliet. Ernestness.

Sheen Quirk (80:32)

Yeah. Well, I was gonna say something absolutely life changing, but I can't recall this, but I think there is. This touches on a broader point. And the poetry stuff might seem like it's kind of a trick or a gimmick, but it really isn't. And I'm not saying that. 6:00am in the morning, you wake up and I wake up and I make my girlfriend breakfast every morning before work. She starts work at 7, I'll wake up at 6, make breakfast. If you can believe it. I do sometimes get up before I.

Chris Williamson (80:58)

You've been Texting me at 8am awake as opposed to going to bed.

Sheen Quirk (81:02)

Yeah, for the first time in a long time. I am now, actually.

Chris Williamson (81:05)

You were nocturnal for a while.

Sheen Quirk (81:06)

I was, yeah. I was fully nocturnal.

Chris Williamson (81:08)

Your diet was largely red wine and cigarettes.

Sheen Quirk (81:11)

Not red wine, actually. I didn't. I can't work drunk. I don't think you can work drunk.

Chris Williamson (81:15)

That's Alex, isn't it? It's Alex's thing.

Sheen Quirk (81:17)

I do not. But it was. It was one meal a day. Far too many cigarettes.

Chris Williamson (81:22)

I think I asked you one, one day what your plan for the evening was and you said, I'm just gonna smoke and walk around.

Sheen Quirk (81:30)

Yeah, yeah, that's.

Chris Williamson (81:32)

That's romance.

Sheen Quirk (81:33)

Romance. But it's actually a bloody good way to live. Not the smoking. It's bad for you. It's good fun, but it's bad for you and you shouldn't do it. But the walking around part, doing nothing in particular is so much good for you. But I will probably get back there. Although on this point, I'm not saying we should be giving these kind of speeches to our loved ones. You know, six in the morning, just woken up, face is a bit shiny and soft or whatever it is, but there is a place for it. And I think to speak practically, like, how. Like, why this age of irony? Why do we struggle so much with romance? You know, this particular side of love, modern love. I think, and this is a broader issue, it comes down to education. And when I say that, I don't mean what you're learning in school. I mean the kinds of media and content you're consuming, like what you watch and what you read and listen to shapes you even more than what you eat that shapes your body. Right?

Chris Williamson (82:38)

Yeah.

Sheen Quirk (82:39)

Like, you know, this kind of thing you talk about all the time just.

Chris Williamson (82:43)

As a really lovely. Hold the point. Keep it.

Sheen Quirk (82:46)

Don't worry, I'm not gonna lose myself in your.

Chris Williamson (82:49)

Just this is a lovely little. Someone put this in the comments forever ago, which was. Your body is made up of everything that you put into your mouth, and your mind is made up of everything you put into your eyes and ears. Prioritize appropriately. And I think, how lovely. And you want a mental diet that is spirulina for the soul, not fast food for the amygdala.

Sheen Quirk (83:15)

I'm not sure what three of those words meant, but I think I probably.

Chris Williamson (83:17)

Agree you had spirulina at some point. I'm sure they put it in cigarettes. I think that the new menthol cigarettes that you've been smoking has probably got spirulinated.

Sheen Quirk (83:27)

I don't have menthol, but I don't smoke anymore. Anyway, so that's solved.

Chris Williamson (83:31)

That's because your girlfriend's listening. That's what you've said.

Sheen Quirk (83:33)

Yeah. Anyway, the point I was gonna make was. Yes, that's also a beautiful way to put it. Prioritize appropriately. I love that. And in the same way that I think our souls and our minds and our hearts are better when the things we consume with our eyes are charming and interesting versus boring. It occurred to me a little while ago, it sounds obvious, but I think, you know, I sort of. If I have a talent for anything, it's realizing that obvious things are true. And one thing I realized, I was speaking at an event about the manosphere. I was telling you about it, this weird event about the manosphere where nobody.

Chris Williamson (84:11)

Was on the side of the manosphere.

Sheen Quirk (84:12)

Yeah. As I said, put your hands up if you're in the manosphere. No one. Put your hands if you know anyone who's in the manosphere. No one. So it was just. It was a bit of an.

Chris Williamson (84:17)

We're not even two degrees of separation from a manosphere.

Sheen Quirk (84:20)

Exactly. But it was a good event. Well, meaning it was just a really weird thing about it. But anyway, at that event. And one thing I realized suddenly as I was talking, like one thing that we've done really well in the past decade, you've been a big part of this as well, is like, I think a lot of parts of our lives are better now because we're focusing so much more on the kind of habits we have and the things we eat or the way we. Even the way we schedule and journal stuff. The mass. The past 10, 15 year boom in self optimization has been like a blessing for human well being, I think primarily in a material sense. And maybe what we're lacking is the equivalent boom in an. What I would call an artistic or cultural or emotional spiritual.

Chris Williamson (85:03)

I was trying to work out what the word was.

Sheen Quirk (85:06)

Yeah, I need to. I need to find a word that I will then use forevermore. But it's something along those lines.

Chris Williamson (85:10)

Yeah. Yeah.

Sheen Quirk (85:11)

And I realized, I was like, what is. Look at all these people. Imagine everyone's there, they're eating well, and they've got all the habit. They're living great lives in a lot of ways. But what is the best piece of art they've ever been exposed to? What is the best show they've watched? What is the best film they've watched? What is the best book they've read? What is the best poem they've read? And these days, notwithstanding, the fricking infinite spew of Instagram reels, many of which are very funny, of course, but anyway, notwithstanding that spew, which is obviously negative effects for how we think and feel. And like, I don't. We don't need to go into that, but because, you know, we always focus on the bad stuff. Like, people are spending too much time on Instagram and Reels, YouTube reels, brain rots. But we never look at the other side, which is. Okay, what is the best stuff we're putting into our brains and minds? And in the past 10, 15 years, I was looking at these. These people all about my age. I'm thinking maybe the. The greatest piece of art they've ever, ever witnessed. And be, you know, scene is Game of Thrones or White Lotus. Okay, yeah, yeah. And like, they're. I've not watched them. I know they're very popular and they're obviously well made and, like, they're clearly extremely good, otherwise it wouldn't be that popular. But I suspect across the scope of human history that they, they're not. I think there are other forms of art, by which I mean poetry, films, books, paintings, music, which access and exhibit an even higher, profounder, deeper, broader, and ultimately more meaningful side of humanity. And the great value of art is that it lets you into those secrets. It lets you see the world in a new way. Like, what is the point of looking at a painting or reading a poem or reading a book? Okay, maybe you want to be entertained. But more than being entertained, it changes you. It either reveals things about the world that you didn't know or reveals things about yourself that you didn't know. And, like, the difference between a whole life spent watching nothing but sitcoms and one where you watch sitcoms half the time, but the other half the time, you deal with slightly more challenging, more complicated, more difficult, but profounder forms of art. I think that second case, that person is going to be happier. It's gonna be more at peace. And this is why I think poetry is so important. That bit I read from Romeo and Juliet, I think the world stands to benefit from. When I say education, this is what I mean. Like a more enriching cultural. A more culturally enriched environment where people do the hard work of, like, reading difficult books, reading these great poems, looking at these great paintings, listening to this great music. It's not just for fun, and it's not just to show off. Like, this whole thing about being cultured can so quickly become like, oh well, you know, I'm the cultural tutor. Like, oh, you know Beethoven's Third Symphony? Well you're, you know, the troglodyte.

Chris Williamson (88:01)

Look at how refined I am.

Sheen Quirk (88:02)

Yeah. That is not what it's about. And some people think it is. They couldn't be more wrong. Like those people are idiots. What it's about is what it does to you. In the same way that eating a freaking Big Mac or a Spirulina ball. Which one is better for you? Same thing. And I think we need more poetry for that reason. And there is another poem I wanted to read.

Chris Williamson (88:22)

Bring it on.

Sheen Quirk (88:22)

Indeed.

Chris Williamson (88:23)

I'm ready. This is Sheern Quirk's Poetry Hour.

Sheen Quirk (88:26)

So this I.

Chris Williamson (88:27)

That is a dog eared copy of.

Sheen Quirk (88:31)

It's called Verse and Prose in Peace and War by William Noel Hodgson. Now William Noel Hodgson, he was a soldier in the First World War. He actually went to school in County Durham anyway, and he wrote poetry while he was in the trenches and he sent it back to England. And there's one particular poem which was published on 29 June 1916 which I wanted to read. I think you'll like it. Let me just take a.

Chris Williamson (89:01)

Prepare yourself.

Sheen Quirk (89:03)

This is William Noel hodgson writing on 29 June 1916. It's called Before Action. So this is him in the trenches before he wrote this, you know, just before he went off to fight. By all the glories of the day and the cool evening's benison by that last sunset touch that lay upon the hills when day was done by beauty lavishly outpoured and blessings carelessly received by all the days that I have lived make me a soldier, Lord by all of all man's hopes and fears and all the wonders Poets sing the laughter of unclouded years and every sad and lovely thing by the romantic ages stored with high endeavour that was his by all his mad catastrophes make me a man, O Lord and I that on my familiar hill Saw with uncomprehending eyes A hundred of thy sunsets Spill their fresh and sanguine sacrifice Ere the sun swings his noonday sword Must say goodbye to all of this by all delights that I shall miss Help me to die, O Lord. Two days later William Noel Hodgson died in the Battle of the Somme. So it's a very powerful thing to read regardless of the fact that he obviously wrote this poem and had those thoughts in his mind before he went off to die in war. It is nonetheless, I think, you know, you struggle to find a more impactful Poem one that expresses a more shocking worldview in a way. I mean, you imagine a soldier in the First World War in the trenches, in those miserable conditions, far worse than anything we could possibly imagine. Far from home in this war unlike anything seen before with mustard gas and tanks and in the mud and the gangrene and the rats and it's just awful. But he has the wherewithal, the composure, the sort of spiritual depth to look within himself for this darkest of moments and write a poem which, you know, make me a man, O Lord. Make me a soldier, Lord. Help me to die, O Lord. It's just, you know, almost beyond words now. Why do I read it? Well, because I think someone is better off. I think people these days in the modern world will gain immensely their health, their emotional, not much of their emotional texture, their spiritual well being. It can only benefit from being exposed, for want of a better word to that sort of thing versus, you know, I'm not punching down when I say versus Game of Thrones or White Lotus. But my point is there's more than that and I think in art we can find it. And that's just one example of one poem written by one guy. And I wonder if these days, if people found the time and effort to dedicate 5% less time to those other forms of media and more to this kind of thing, I would do us all so much good.

Chris Williamson (92:21)

So I think the problem that I've always had, and I told you this before we started the problem I've always had with poetry is I find it somewhat inaccessible. I don't know whether I'm supposed to. How I'm supposed to like it, what I'm supposed to take from it, the holes, the unspoken words that are the vacuum that allow you to suck yourself in. Are you're spoon fed Game of Thrones? You know, two or three times something is repeated to remind you of exactly who this person is. And you know, the bad guy is disfigured and the hero has broad shoulders. And you know, there is a. There's a difficulty setting on poetry. And I mentioned to you that I'd read some Tim Burton, the Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy, which is really great and fun, but it's fun not because of its depth, it's fun because of its wit. And wit has a kind of depth to it, but it's immediately apparent what's going on. Another one about poor little mummy boy. And it's a pharaoh's curse that causes this woman to give birth to a bundle of gauze and then A dog comes over one day and sort of pulls him apart. And then there's some Mexican kids at a birthday party and they mistake him for a pinata and they'd eat him to death. It's very Tim Burton.

Sheen Quirk (93:53)

Yeah.

Chris Williamson (93:53)

Yeah. It doesn't have the spiritual or emotional or explanatory depth of a guy that is waiting at the Battle of the Somme. But, yeah, I think I get it. I get that there is more to be gleaned. And it gives you the opportunity to reflect on yourself and what this means in life and. Oh, isn't that interesting? Wordplay. Or to think about, you know, a boy bobbing in the middle of the ocean, going nowhere, but being on a journey or something like that. Right. Like, it allows you to suck yourself into the story. The difference between reading a book and watching a movie of the same. Even of the same book. Right. But the inaccessibility that at least I find I'm not. Maybe I'm a little bit ashamed. I feel like I should be more sophisticated, should be more refined, capable. The insecure overachiever inside of me wants to win at being able to understand poetry. But the advantage that you have of something like Game of Thrones or White Lotus or whatever is that the barrier to entry is essentially the floor. Very few people will struggle to understand what it's about. There are certain movies. Severance, for example, might be a good example of something that's a little bit more. Or if you've ever seen. Not Looper, there's this time travel movie.

Sheen Quirk (95:19)

Oh, yeah, it's called where they have the Box. Yeah. I've not seen it, but I know exactly what it's like. A famous indie 2004 suck.

Chris Williamson (95:27)

Primer.

Sheen Quirk (95:27)

Primer. Brian.

Chris Williamson (95:29)

Brian. Little bit more difficult to follow.

Sheen Quirk (95:31)

Yeah.

Chris Williamson (95:32)

Tenet from Christopher Nolan.

Sheen Quirk (95:34)

I love it. Tenet. So underrated. Tenet's so underrated. But people.

Chris Williamson (95:37)

Why did people not like it? Unnecessarily complex.

Sheen Quirk (95:39)

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson (95:41)

Memento. Also unnecessarily complex.

Sheen Quirk (95:45)

Okay. And. Yeah, sure.

Chris Williamson (95:46)

Somewhat. Just. Again, the barrier to entry to get into this is a little bit higher. So. Yeah, you're right. For the right people.

Sheen Quirk (95:54)

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Chris Williamson (95:55)

Something deeper is better, but the breadth is not there.

Sheen Quirk (95:58)

So I'm excited now.

Chris Williamson (95:59)

I'm excited now. Get in.

Sheen Quirk (96:00)

Come on. Well, okay. So three things to say to all that. Like, really well. But maybe I end up being four. First of all, like, Tim Burton, his poem. That's a great place to start. You gotta, like. That's fantastic. Like, begin there and see where it takes you. Second thing is, yes, it can. Again, poetry, like art, is dogged by the problem of connotations. That is this refined, sophisticated, like teacups and wigs. I go, well, I can name every single one of Shakespeare's plays. Like, that's crap. That's stupid and irrelevant and just pointless. The only reason this has any value is not because it makes you more sophisticated or refined in that sense. It's because in this stuff is contained the wisdom and the profoundest thoughts that humankind and a long civilizational history has come up with. That's why these books survive. And obviously it does generate this kind of cultural gap and people use it as a. You know, which my work is fighting against that. So I want to throw that all out the window and present this stuff. And I want people to look at it on its own terms. Now, it is more difficult, right? Some of it is unnecessarily difficult. A lot of poetry is crap and pointless and you shouldn't read it. But a lot of things in life are difficult and there is a barrier to entry. Look, like, I don't go to the gym and maybe I should. Like, in fact, I almost certainly believe I should, but I've not done that. And it's quite scary. Like, just walk in like this. Like, you might walk in the gym and start put. I don't. I assume you.

Chris Williamson (97:30)

Alex, could we. Suit jacket.

Sheen Quirk (97:31)

Yes, I assume I should get changed. But, like, I don't even know how to.

Chris Williamson (97:35)

I would love to turn you into a bro. I would absolutely love the opportunity to bro up she and Quo.

Sheen Quirk (97:42)

But look, well, let's do a swap. You can start reading poetry and you.

Chris Williamson (97:46)

Can put on a. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'll get you to do chest and back with me.

Sheen Quirk (97:48)

Sure. But this. But this is about this. We're joking. This is what I want. I want a synthesis. I don't want to take us back to the Middle Ages. What I want is for modern world, modern people as they are, to have this extra life, you know, infused the system. But yeah, the gym, like, I don't know how to set up gym equipment. Like, to me, that barrier is the same barrier as when I sit down and I read poetry. It doesn't immediately make sense to me. Well, sure, but like, the only way to do anything. There are two ways to get into stuff. You either just fricking do it and learn on your own, or you have someone help you. And I would like to think something I can do in my book. There's a whole chapter of the book which is trying to convince people to write a poem. It begins with the line, I think you should write a poem. And here's why. I'd like to think my work can be to try and help people engage with this stuff without all those stupid connotations for what it is and for what it's worth and show that it has real value. Like, we need this stuff more than ever in the 21st century. And then also just get into it. Like, you got to be fearless. You got to be brave. Like people. It can be a bit elitist, a bit frightening. Like, you read Shakespeare and then you think, oh, well, like, this is what I think it's about. But like all these critics are saying, it's not about.

Chris Williamson (98:59)

Maybe what I think it's about is wrong.

Sheen Quirk (99:01)

Yeah, well, here's the truth. What you think is about is absolutely correct. Like, this is my view. The same with art. Like, look at that painting. You tell me what you think of it, what it means to you, and then maybe your view will change. Maybe I'll try and change your mind. But that view is completely legitimate. It's no less legitimate than the view of. Of whoever I.

Chris Williamson (99:18)

Do you know Andrew Doyle? Do you know who he is? Titania McGrath on Twitter. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He is the creator. Was the writer behind.

Sheen Quirk (99:27)

No, I think I know.

Chris Williamson (99:28)

For a long time. He's been on GB News. He was on the show a couple of weeks ago. He's living in Arizona now. And I didn't realize his master's or maybe his. Maybe his PhD. Maybe he's got a. I might have a doctorate in. This was in Shakespeare.

Sheen Quirk (99:45)

Wow.

Chris Williamson (99:46)

And he was telling me these stories about him. I didn't know much about Shakespeare lore, and he was giving me all of this really interesting stuff. I didn't know that. He said that Shakespeare basically made no commentary on his own plays. There isn't much by way of this is what this means. So as you said, well, this is what I think this means, but this is what the experts say it means. He goes, well, I mean, that's fine, but nobody knows what Shakespeare thought it meant. Maybe there are some small. I think there were a lot of acknowledgments that he had in some of the. The scripts, but there was no. There wasn't much in the margins. He wasn't writing about his own experience. He was a commoner. Because plays at the time were the entertainment of common folk. So I'm like, he's just. I'm fucking chewing your stuff.

Sheen Quirk (100:43)

It was really cool. Exactly. Right. When you present in that way, something like, oh, wow, this is like. Nothing's like. It's like whatever. Game of Thrones, let's say, is the same thing as he lived as Macbeth, you know, it's just the same thing. And, yeah, tearing away that veil is. Is. Is so important. I was about to say. How did you. That last spiel you gave about Andrew Jordan. What. Where did that begin?

Chris Williamson (101:05)

You had said, it doesn't matter what you think this thing is about. It doesn't matter what the experts.

Sheen Quirk (101:10)

That was it. Yeah. David lynch, who's just. Just so funny. You know, he has this great. He famously doesn't like talking about his films. Yes. Because people are like, so, David, what does this thing mean? He's like, well, look, I made the thing. Watch it. YouTube. What, you think? It doesn't matter what I think. It's made. It exists now in the world, and all that matters is what you make of it.

Chris Williamson (101:29)

Isn't that interesting? Sorry for interrupting again. Isn't it interesting that the creator of the thing is allowed to tell you what the thing means? That would be like the parents of a child being able to define what the meaning of their life is.

Sheen Quirk (101:48)

Yeah, I guess.

Chris Williamson (101:49)

As opposed to the child itself. You go, I've created this thing, and it's now in the interaction of that thing in the world that it. Maybe that's a shy analogy, I don't know. But it's interesting that people. Look, I think this is one of the reasons that we do that, is because we abhor uncertainty so much that we would rather collapse all of the different potential reasons for something's existence down into one. Even if the one feels constricting instead of enabling. I can't work out, is it a love story? Is it a tragedy? Is it a comedy? Is it a comment? Is it a comment on class? Is it Judy, what does he mean by. I just want to know? Because sitting in the uncertainty is uncomfortable, and we would rather snap that down.

Sheen Quirk (102:47)

Hell, yeah. I could agree more. And I think the artist's perspective is just a part of the picture. But, yeah, it's like if I said, chris, Joe, I got you this lovely gift today. I got this nice table that you can put in your front room. And you say, well, Sheen, that's a mug. It's not a table. I say, well, I think it's a table. Similar thing, basically. Whatever you think it is, that's what matters. You think it's a cup used as a cup. You think it's a freaking hat. You as A hat, I don't care. That's the beauty of art, that it just lifts you up and engages you. And there is one final thing I want to say about poetry, about why I think it's also so important in the modern world. Along with everything else I said about the wisdom that it teaches us and what it allows us to access in ourselves, it's also run like a lot of the problems that we find these days with the Internet and social media addiction, poetry. One reason it's so difficult is because it's the exact opposite. Like, rather than seeing 30 or 40 reels in a minute, you have to kind of sit on your own in silence for maybe a couple of minutes while you read it and then think about what it. Think about it. Suddenly you're alone and, like, all this world disappears. And all our instincts to reach for something, to scroll, to flick, to look for an explanation, to ask about it to come. Like, you're just left alone with this. With this poem. And that sort of little bit of contemplative, reflective experience, again is like just a little bit of texture that can help to lift the ailing human spirit of the modern world. I think it's good training, basically.

Chris Williamson (104:17)

Well, yeah, it's the same way. It's the same way as going to the gym and lifting a weight where there's no weight on it.

Sheen Quirk (104:22)

Wow.

Chris Williamson (104:23)

Okay, Right? Progressive overload is injecting some of your effort into what it is that you do, putting some of yourself into this thing, asking yourself, well, what does this mean? It's an opportunity to reflect. You know, I certainly. I wrote my first poetry this year, and I really enjoyed it. It was a real challenge to. To allow myself to be more whimsical. This is certainly something else that doing this, the show, the live show that I'm doing, has allowed me to do, because when you're on stage, people kind of forgive a bit more whimsy, you know, if you're in a normal. I guess if you. If you're telling stories as well. I learned this from friends that are great storytellers. Mr. Ballin, who has this huge YouTube channel. And even when he's just telling a normal story. Keegan Allen, another friend of mine, they're just about a drive somewhere, and there's so much unnecessary detail in there about, you know, where the sun was at, how hot it was, or what he was wearing or the coffee that he'd had earlier that day. And you realize that all of the unnecessary detail fleshes the story out in the ways that you care about most.

Sheen Quirk (105:23)

Yeah, that's the point of it. In the end, that is almost the point of the story. It's like in life, all the most valuable things about life are the least necessary, in a way. But.

Chris Williamson (105:30)

No.

Sheen Quirk (105:30)

Well, I remember with your show last year, you came out on stage and I was thinking, okay, here we go, Chris. He's gonna freaking nail me to the canvas and sort me out. And then you started telling jokes.

Chris Williamson (105:39)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just doing what you want, I suppose.

Sheen Quirk (105:42)

Yeah. I love that.

Chris Williamson (105:44)

Romance. Anything else to say on modern romance?

Sheen Quirk (105:49)

I think most of what I care deeply about has been. Has been. Maybe not quite as clearly as I would have liked, but I think. I think in terms of my main gripes, it's just gonna be one, maybe more than one second, of course. Like five seconds. Yeah. Without getting too. I have a bunch more slightly narrower thoughts, but I don't think there's a need to get into them. Well, one is just about the willingness to die, you know, I think it's.

Chris Williamson (106:19)

A part of romance, the willingness to die.

Sheen Quirk (106:20)

Yeah. I think Harold Bloom has this great line where he says the erotic is where sex and death overlap, which is kind of an interesting thought. And that I bring up, that slightly weird quote is because the willingness to die is an interesting phenomenon. And I think love in its highest and purest form, romance, love, that's what they are. It's gotta be a complete. You've gotta cast off your stake in worldly matters in order to give yourself to someone completely. Right. You gotta give yourself someone. You've gotta give everything up.

Chris Williamson (107:04)

That's the kind of death.

Sheen Quirk (107:05)

Yeah. There's people talk about religious duration, but then the weird thing is, I think, I wonder, in the modern world, like, here's a question for you, man, is there anything that you'd. What would you be willing to die for?

Chris Williamson (107:15)

Oh, that's interesting.

Sheen Quirk (107:16)

Like, would you die for me? Would you die for your country? Would you die for your parents?

Chris Williamson (107:26)

Yeah. Wrapped up in that is love. Right. Is wrapped up in that is romance.

Sheen Quirk (107:32)

And it also touches on this, again, broader thing, I think. And a weird, interesting thing about the modern world is I wonder what people are willing to die for. And it's kind of a morbid thing to ask yourself. But think, if you want to know who you are, if you want to get to grips with your life, you've got to ask, what would I be willing to lay down my life for? And I'm not saying people in the past had this sorted. They didn't. But it's Certainly the case that at one time or another, certain groups of people did, and in many ways the people we admire most in our films. And that's like, why people find medieval knights so interesting, or samurai, many reasons. One of them is the fact that what they do is life or death. And the same with many of. Many of the great Romans. You know, what's one thing that's so impressive and weird and fascinating about them and so compelling is the fact that they are willing to stake their life on a belief, on a conviction, on a kind of. On a kind of love. And, you know, it's. Albert Camus, you know, famously said that the meaning of life is whatever's stopping you from killing yourself. You know, it's a very, very witty line. And through my personal version is, you know, the meaning of life is whatever you're willing to die for. The meaning of your life is whatever you'd be willing to give up that life for. And if there's one question people should maybe ask, you know, I don't know whether this is the time, but often interviews end with, what's your one piece of advice? I usually have a few ones that I give, but the one that's on my mind right now is one piece of advice. Ask yourself, what would you be willing to die for? And a lot of other stuff will fall into place.

Chris Williamson (109:08)

Which is your favorite of the 49 lessons? Not the best, not the most obscure.

Sheen Quirk (109:13)

The last one.

Chris Williamson (109:14)

Can you grab your.

Sheen Quirk (109:15)

Sure.

Chris Williamson (109:15)

Grab your.

Sheen Quirk (109:16)

It's actually not the last one. I said that to be. Well, maybe it is the last one. So this is my book. You want a photo taken by the lovely Alexander Griffin in the back?

Chris Williamson (109:27)

Ah, yeah, he's. He wants more credit. I think he's got a lot of credit, but he just wants more. Very selfish in that way. I wonder if he's here. Is he here? Is he Good. Yeah. Tell him he's selfish. Thank you.

Sheen Quirk (109:42)

Maybe it is the last Wiggy Dam. So do you want me to talk about it or do you want me to read it or.

Chris Williamson (109:47)

No, just. Yeah, just give me a little explainer of it. Hi, Alex. You're selfish.

Sheen Quirk (109:53)

In terms of what's most relevant or useful here. I'm not saying it's just because it's at the end to convince people to read the whole book. But the second to last chapter is called the Last Library on Earth. And in it I kind of pose the question, this theoretical situation, which is like, imagine in the far future, there's been global catastrophe, Earth is being evacuated, and there's a spaceship. And you're this librarian, and you're like, okay, we need to leave Earth. There's only room for 10 books. Like, which 10 books would you bring? The only books that survive from all of human history. And my personal answer is that they shouldn't bring any books. But anyway, the reason I bring up this point is because this touches on themes we've been mentioning. There's something like 150 million books in the world. 150 million. Not total physical books, but 150 million different books you could read. Even if you read a thousand books a year, you wouldn't read more than 0.007%, which is kind of scary. It brings you face to face with your mortality. As soon as you realize that you literally, you can read anything, but you can't read everything, which means you've got to pick. And a lot of my work is just about trying to encourage people to pick much more judiciously and imaginatively the very few things they'll be able to consume in their life. You know, I don't think people should read my book, to be honest. I think there are thousands of books they should read instead of this one. The problem is there are thousands of other crappy books being published every single year. And if people reading my book come away with one lesson, it's that I don't need to read anything published in the last 50 years. Like, everything I need to know about life has probably already been written and written better and has also.

Chris Williamson (111:40)

What a way to make someone regret their purchase at the end of the book.

Sheen Quirk (111:43)

Exactly. But, like, what is the best filter for quality in all of that? It's time. Right? Time. If something is not good, it will not last.

Chris Williamson (111:53)

Lindy effect.

Sheen Quirk (111:54)

Indeed. So, like, an Amazon bestseller list, all it tells you is what's popular in any given week. Even book awards, they tell you what's been popular in any given year. But the past 10,000 years of human history, that tells you what. People across all ages, in all corners of the Earth, all backgrounds, all creeds, all religions, all situations, what all of those people, or at least, you know, a lot of them thought was most useful, most interesting, most meaningful. Like, we have a list of these books. You can go and read them. You can find. Like, and I'm saying not to only do that. Like, I'm not saying you shouldn't read, you know, Dame Jilly Cooper, who died today, God rest her soul, you know, Jilly Cooper, she wrote these. You know, she wrote all these books, these sort of racy novels about horse riding and football and stuff. A real legend, Dame Julia Cooper. You should read about her. Anyway, like, I'm not saying you shouldn't read her books ever, but the kind of the earn it. The burning message of this book is like, it's all waiting for you. Like all this stuff which will just completely transform the way you think about yourself and the world. And like, is, you know, for me, the whole experience of learning about culture, quote unquote, which I really got into about five years ago, I just. I kind of managed to cast off all these preconceived notions of what I should or shouldn't think and just got into art and architecture and poetry and it was like the world went from being in black and white to in full color. And I think, yeah, to summarise, that is what these days, that's what not all we're lacking. And a lot of the stuff we're doing is good, but it is one of the things that people are missing is joy. Like the words romance and adventure and death, like, these are such nobility, nobleness. You know, in our age of irony, it's very hard to say these words, but that doesn't mean that these things aren't real. And if you got every single book printed in 2025 and asked how many times the words adventure and romance and nobility came up, it would be like, you know, no one talks about these things. And my job, if anything, is to inject that back into people's lives. And this is the place to begin, but it's not the place to end. This is not the place to end. This is not where you get everything. This is intended as a primer. This is where you begin. It's like, hey, I've just discovered this whole new solar system and I want to tell you about it. Please, please come and look at this. It'll, I promise than some of the things you're doing currently.

Chris Williamson (114:17)

Shane Kwok, ladies and gentlemen. Dude, I think you're great. I really love the work that you're doing. Where should people go? They want to keep up to date with everything that's happening. And check out what have you got.

Sheen Quirk (114:26)

On X at the Cultural tutor. I also do have an Instagram page now, which is.

Chris Williamson (114:32)

Do you really? Yeah, you on Instagram. It's fascinating. It's going to be like seeing, I don't know, your dad do an MMA fight or something.

Sheen Quirk (114:39)

It's been pretty fun uploading stories, you know, take a picture of something and say, oh, look at this. Ex Instagram. I have a newsletter which is called the Areopagus. You can subscribe on Substack. Find me at the Cultural Tutor on Substack. And along with the book, there's also this fantastic documentary which I hope people.

Chris Williamson (114:57)

Where will that be uploaded to?

Sheen Quirk (114:58)

It'll be on YouTube and on X.

Chris Williamson (115:00)

Whose channel? The Cultural Tutor YouTube channel. David's one.

Sheen Quirk (115:03)

We're release it on a brand new channel which is exciting. I'm not sure if this is a venture into being a YouTuber, but it's more. It's the home of the channel and I'm sure we can.

Chris Williamson (115:11)

Join us.

Sheen Quirk (115:11)

I'm sure we can. What do they say? We can link it in the description.

Chris Williamson (115:13)

Join us. Shin dude. Thank you so much. It's been a long time coming. I can't wait for the next one.

Sheen Quirk (115:19)

Mr. Williamson.

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Chris Williamson (115:32)

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