A (2:17)

And I'm Richard Osman. And you are the stars of the show with your many, many questions. Can I. I'm going to go straight in with Annie Ludlow.

B (2:23)

Hello.

A (2:24)

Hello. Sorry.

B (2:25)

Hello.

A (2:25)

All right. Okay, I'll ask me. Okay, Marina, I'll ask you a question. How are you?

B (2:30)

I'm fine, thank you. How are you?

A (2:31)

That's got out of the way. None of your business. It is none of your business. She says. Annie says. It's from Annie Ludlam. She says the new Wuthering Heights trader is incredibly sexed up Would the Bronte estate have any control over the adaptation? And how do studio execs tell if an audience will enjoy something like this?

B (2:46)

Okay, that. I have seen this trailer. I've seen it a couple of times. I agree. First of all, it's out of copyright. They're all in the public domain because copyright expires 70 years after the author's death. So we're well past that. Periodic.

A (2:59)

So it essentially means anything that's written by someone who died more than 70 years ago is absolutely fair game. You can do absolutely anything with it. And there are certain anniversaries coming up of people. That's why we can see. So there's so many Sherlock Holmes movies and so many different versions of that Sherlock Holmes story is because anybody could do it. You know, anyone at home now could film a Sherlock Holmes film, I should

B (3:18)

say, if you don't know about it. It's. It's the Wuthering Heights. It's directed by Emerald Fennell, and it's got who did Saltburn and Promising on Women. And it' Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie as Heathcliff and Kathy. First of all, I do find these things quite hilarious. I love it when the trailer like this comes out because you can just imagine the sort of frothing fury and, you know, people saying, this is quite disgusting, you know, and it's kind of like, get over it, grandpa. Everyone's gonna go and see it. I don't know where they are, but I'm telling you right now that the Daily Mail are currently running about two articles about a week, about a film that doesn't yet come out till February, Valentine's Day, obviously.

A (3:56)

Oh, wow.

B (3:57)

She's very provocative. She's actually kicking. There's a Bronte Woman's Writing Festival next year, so she's kicking that off. I'm sure there will be some people who are absolutely furious about that. But I do think if you're gonna do the classics, you should just redo them. I mean, people will probably annoyed about Kate Bush doing it in her inimitable style, but it was bonkers and brilliant. You know, she's got a real sort of talent for this kind of event thing, Emerald Fennell. And it's kind of transgressive and whatever. And they've done a preview screening, I think, quite deliberately, because the leaks that came out of it were all like, oh, the first thing you see is a hanging. And there's the person being hung ejaculates just before his death. And then a nun sort of gropes his corpse. It's like, wow. This is. It's all. I don't want to say it's all seeping out after what I've just said, but it is. All this information starts with an ejaculating corpse. I know. I mean, like I said, that's an

A (4:55)

idea for the next novel.

B (4:56)

Yeah. Divisive, but. But jolly.

A (5:00)

See, I think the question is not what would the Bronte estate make of it, it's what would Emily Bronte make of it? And I would have thought she'd be delighted beyond words to still being, you know, written about all those years later and to have another artist do a different version of it. What fun. I mean. I mean, the last thing she wants to do is someone else has done a kind of dark and brooding adaptation. You know, Emily Bronte is watching this remote control in hand Bag of Maltesers.

B (5:28)

This is incredible.

A (5:29)

Look at the advances that hanging wasn't in the book. I wonder where they're going with this. Oh, okay, I see where they're going with this. Well, listen, in for a penny, in for a pound. What for? You know, you've got to do it differently. You got to do it differently. Yeah.

B (5:41)

I mean. And as for the question of, like, does would audiences enjoy. How do they know whether audiences enjoy this? There is a sort of technical answer to this, which is that when you're releasing films throughout theatrical, you do have things like preview screenings, and you have screenings before the final edit is anywhere close to anything, because a lot of directors find it quite helpful to see. And you get audiences to fill in cards of how they felt. And sometimes you can kind of shepherd them into asking particular questions. And lots of directors find this very helpful. But audiences did enjoy something like this with Saltburn, and they. In a way, they enjoyed something like this Knock. As I've just described with Barbie, which obviously, because this is Margot Robbie's production company. Yeah, he's made this.

A (6:22)

It's got the same opening scene.

B (6:24)

Yeah, had the same opening scene.

A (6:26)

But, Ken, they cut that out in the end.

B (6:27)

In the end, they just decided to go with the no genitals thing. That was fine. So they kept it canon. But actually, I mean, people have always done these things. They're those Pasolini films that are based on, like, the Canterbury Tales and the Decameron and things like that. And they've just kept all the raunchy bits and just got rid of all the sort of moral dimension. I mean, Roman Polanski's test, I suppose. I'm trying to think of Other ones that have. Anyway. But the point is, you know, you don't have to go and see it on vacation, Valentine's Day, but you don't

A (6:55)

have to see it at all.

B (6:55)

Anything that can make newspapers write free articles about it. This many months, six months out, or whatever we are from February 14th, is very, very. It's very, very helpful for filmmakers. And there will be lots and lots of hype about this movie. Whereas with Saltburn, it didn't do so well in theaters. But it suddenly became. Once it got onto the streamers, very quickly, it became a really big thing. I mean, she has a talent for this kind of provocation. So I think we have to say that we know people like it and probably they will see. See it.

A (7:25)

Yeah. And if you think it goes against the spirit of the book, well, I have good news. The book is still available.

B (7:29)

Yeah.

A (7:30)

You know, Emily Bronte's done her version of the story, and she moved on quickly afterwards. So she's done it, she told the story, and it's absolutely always there. It's in black and white. You can read it forever and ever. And for the next 500 years, people will go, do you know what? There's something in that story that gives me a different idea. So I'm going to use it as a springboard for something I want to say. And that's all those films are. But, you know, you cannot besmirch Emily Bronte's memory.

B (7:51)

I never feel younger than when I don't care about things like this. I just feel like, oh, shut up, Grandpa.

A (7:56)

All the.

B (7:57)

The moaning and the pile clutching. I never feel young. These things sort of things make me feel young again when I see them, because I don't care.

A (8:03)

Yeah. An awful lot of people who haven't talked about Emily Bronte much for the last 30 years suddenly talking about Emily

B (8:07)

Bronte in a very protective way. Oh, here's a question for you. This is a little bit connected, so I'm going to ask you this one because it forms part of a nice discussion. Okay. Victoria Wallace says, why are there so many Stephen King adaptations each year?

A (8:20)

And some of the greatest movies of all time as well? Stephen King, well, you know, a number of reasons. Firstly, he writes a lot of books and he writes a lot of short stories, and they have incredible beginnings, middles and ends, and have incredible imagery. So, you know, generations of screenwriters and directors grow up reading these books, and the first thing they think about when they think, what would I like to film Is Stephen King. So you have that in that the source material is fantastic and that he sometimes is hands on, sometimes is hands off, and seems to be quite good at working out what to be when. But the interesting thing with Stephen King and this talks to the. The idea of, you know, if someone's been dead for 70 years, you can do their work for free. You can almost do Stephen King's work for free. So he has long had this idea. He said. He said it was. It was my idea. And my accountant was absolutely furious about it. But he has this thing which he calls his Dollar Baby project in the sort of 70s when he started getting big and students contacting him and saying, I love this short story of yours. I'd love to adapt it one day. And so he has said right from that moment, he said, you know, whatever legal issues there are, he says, I will grant any student filmmaker the right to make a movie out of any short story I have written. Not the novels. That would be ridiculous, so long as the film rights are still mine to assign. I asked him to sign a paper promising that no resulting film will be exhibited commercially without approval and also that they send me a videotape of the finished work. And so he now has a shelf of these of, you know, young student filmmakers who've adapted short stories of his. He has a whole shelf of them and he calls them his. His Dollar Babies. Firstly, that's, you know, it's indicative of. There's something about his work that speaks to young filmmakers. There's something about the spirit of it. But secondly, on a very practical level, for example, one of the very first people to take him up on that offer, one of the very first people who wrote to him and was. Was assigned the rights to something for $1 was Frank Darabont.

B (10:10)

Oh, yeah.

A (10:11)

So he made the Woman in the room, written in 1986 with some fellow NYU film students, wrote to Stephen King, said that we'd love to do a version of the Woman in the Room. And Stephen King said, yep, there's the rights for you for $1, you know, under all the usual terms. So Frank Darabont made that. And less than a decade later, Frank Darabont gets in touch with Stephen King again. Because they've been in touch, right? They have a. They have a commercial relationship already. He can talk to him directly. And Frank Darabont says, I've just been reading your. The novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. I would absolutely. I just think I can do an adaptation of it. And Stephen King's like, I just don't See how that would be a film. But listen, I know you. I like what you did before. You're on my shelf of dollar babies. You can have the rights to Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank redemption. Charge him $5,000, which actually is much less than you would normally charge to someone. But, you know, he knows Frank considerably. He thinks it's unfilmable anyway, so he says you can have the rights for $5,000. There's a lengthy back and forth where I think Rob Reiner was originally going to direct Shawshank Redemption, but Frank Darabont does it himself in the end. And it's obviously one of the most beloved movies of all time. It made the reputation of Frank Darabont again, made huge amounts of money for everybody. Is. Is greatly loved and comes directly from Stephen King letting student filmmakers pay just a dollar to adapt things. Even the $5,000 that Frank Darabont paid Stephen King for the rights. Stephen King did not cash that check. Instead, after the movie was made, Stephen King, he sent the check back. He framed it, sends it back to Fran Darabont, this $5,000 check with a note saying, in case you ever need bail money, you know, so that's a guy who understands filmmakers, who understands storytellers, and he works kind of hand in glove with him. So there's lots of reasons why there are millions of adaptations.

B (11:59)

There are four this year alone, which I think is amazing. That Long Walk Life of Chuck you loved Long Walk. Oh, my goodness me. I'm still harrowed by it. Still deeply harrowed by it. The Monkey and the Running man, starring

A (12:11)

Glen Powell, your friend. Oh, yes, we're getting.

B (12:15)

Edgar Wright's directing it with Glen Powell.

A (12:17)

That'll be a lot of fun. That's a good combination of people. Edgar Wright and Glen Powell and Frank Darabont.

B (12:22)

Because we've also had a question which we'll just deal with this very quickly. Like, whatever happened to Frank Darabont? He sort of just withdrew on purpose. He had a fallout over Walking Dead and things like that. He is coming back because he's gonna direct, I think, a couple of episodes of the final season of Stranger Things. So lots of people have said, oh, where is he? Wasn't ever happened to him. He. He is returning to our screens behind the camera in not too long. Not too long a time.

A (12:47)

So he did the Green Mile straight after Shawshank as well, didn't he?

B (12:50)

Yes.

A (12:50)

Which felt. Felt like more. More of the same, but, yeah, another great film. Oh, that's great to hear. What's Your favorite, Steve.

B (12:56)

Stephen King adaptation, the Shining, which he hated.

A (12:59)

Really?

B (12:59)

Yeah, I just think it's.

A (13:00)

I know about the Shining.

B (13:02)

You don't think it's a good movie. Oh my God. I can't start this just before. But probably. Why? Going to.

A (13:06)

I don't hate it. It's just not my sort of thing. You know, I find it's a bit, you know, as soon as something becomes sort of magical realism and you know, I just. Yeah.

B (13:13)

Do you know Kieran's dad took him to the world premiere of the Shining when he was nine. So on suitable. My husband. Incredible parenting. Some incredible parenting there. Not the first or last incredible parenting. It was really.

A (13:26)

That is amazing. It's also an object lesson with a

B (13:28)

friend who I think still had to sleep with a light on, you know, by the time he was 30.

A (13:32)

Yeah. But it is an object lesson in parenting. Has very little impact on children because your husband could not be more level headed. He's not like a man who saw the Shining when he was nine years old.

B (13:44)

Although he very much did. And some other bad stuff too. But yes, it depends whether the child can take it or not. I allowed my child to also see it when he was nine. But yeah, not all of them would be allowed to.

A (13:56)

Just one of them.

B (13:56)

Yeah, well, I mean.

A (13:57)

And the other two.

B (13:58)

Not letting my daughter see it at night. She'd have an absolute. She. I mean she gets scared from a lot of things.

A (14:03)

Bake off.

B (14:03)

Yeah.

A (14:04)

Look at those eggs.

B (14:06)

I'm not advocating showing the Shining to 9 year old, by the way.

A (14:09)

It sounds a bit like you are because. Should I tell you what you did?

B (14:11)

He loved it. He loved it.

A (14:12)

Richard, you told a cautionary tale. Like, can you believe how awful my husband's father was that he took him to see the Shining at age of nine and then literally within 30 seconds

B (14:23)

he's saying, I remember the payoff to the story.

A (14:25)

I know the Shining when he was nine as well.

B (14:27)

I should have kept a secret. But I tell you what, I can't keep anything secret from you, Richard. I've got to have it all out there. And that's the reality that. Yeah, I've compromised myself in the same way.

A (14:36)

Okay, okay. What was that? What's my favorite Stephen King adaptation? Sorry, self obsessive.

B (14:43)

Sorry. I'm so. I'm just reflecting on my parenting. What is your favorite Stephen King adaptation?

A (14:48)

By the way, listeners, if you have let your child watch something more inappropriate at a younger age, do let us know.

B (14:54)

That might not even be my worst.

A (14:55)

I'd Be amazed by the way I just.

B (14:58)

Just got to think it through.

A (14:59)

Kids, kids, there's a. There's a new Wuthering Heights adaptation. Come in. Gather round the television. I think, listen, it has to be Shawshank Redemption. Shiny. Wouldn't be anywhere close to the top three because you've got Misery and Stand By Me as well.

B (15:10)

Okay. That. Well, yeah. I wouldn't put Shawshank in it myself.

A (15:14)

You would not put Shawshank really? Really? Any reasons? You think it's schmaltzy?

B (15:20)

Yeah, I think it's trite.

A (15:21)

You think it's trite? Yeah, but I love trite.

B (15:23)

I know.

A (15:24)

What do you mean, you know?

B (15:25)

I'm just going to break. I can't say. And I'm gonna get. I just can only say the wrong thing currently.

A (15:30)

No, I love Shawshank. I think if you're going to do small, do it brilliantly.

B (15:33)

Yes.

A (15:34)

You know, and I think for someone does schmaltz brilliantly, then they've just made the best film of all time. That's my opinion. If you make the best schmolzy film ever made, you've just made the best movie of all time. I think it's harder to make a great small C film than to make a great art house film.

B (15:45)

That might be the case. Yeah. That might be the case.

A (15:47)

Yeah.

B (15:47)

I think. I think you're probably right. Okay, Fair enough. We can agree on that. All my mistakes. Okay. Should we go to break?

A (15:55)

Let's do that. This episode is brought to you by Sky Sports, home of the wsl.

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A (18:05)

Welcome back, everyone. Actually, that conversation we just had about showing children there's a question which we'll do next week. I think I love it as a question, which is somebody's got 11 and 13 year old kids and they're saying I want to educate them on the basis of good entertainment. So can we pick a film, a TV show and a book that we would show to an 11 to 13 year old to put them on the right path?

B (18:24)

Anything, as far as I'm concerned.

A (18:26)

That's a we, we'll do that next week because that's a really lovely question. But I, I have a question instead. I have a question about football audio.

B (18:32)

This is safer. This is a lot safer.

A (18:33)

Keep listening everyone. Natasha Boyd asked this question. Natasha says, with the football back on the telly and following the lionesses roaring summer success, I have a question about the sound capture in games. I've noticed that the noise of football players hitting the ball is often audible when watching football on the television, particularly during key moments like penalties. You can hear a clear and satisfying thwack when the players kick the ball. But how is the audio captured?

B (18:55)

Well, you're right, Natasha, it's got so amazing and actually if you go back and you, you know, you watch old matches and stuff on YouTube, you're like, oh my God, I can't believe I listened to this or watched this. It's so sort of basic. It's become, and particularly ever since the, the money came in with the, with the football rights and with the Premier League and with sky, they've been able to make it so good Premier League production set it up at every Game and you've got three mics on every side, like sideline, which are boundary mics.

A (19:23)

In the 70s in football, there are three. Every team weren't there?

B (19:25)

It's just, I mean everyone was called Mike.

A (19:29)

Sorry.

B (19:29)

You've got. Yeah, okay, very good. You've got the. You got your boundary mic, mic boundary. And then that picks up the ambient stadium sound. Then you've got two mics on each goal, which is in the top left corner, in the top right corner. These are pressure zone mics so that they can get that, you know, if it gets hits the bar or else it hits the net, you can feel the sort of.

A (19:49)

Oh, really?

B (19:50)

Yeah. Then there's one mic at each corner flag. There are 360 degree microphones for crowd sound. And some of them have the big stadiums have them put into the roof already rigged. There are four for general atmosphere, which is like ambisonic and surround sound mics. And then there's one on the beauty shot camera which gets up individual tackles and action. And then there's one on the steady cams with the technical area. And when they're coming up the tunnel, they're using shotgun microphones. That's very important. You're pointing at the thing that you want.

A (20:19)

So they're incredibly directional.

B (20:20)

Yeah, they're very, very directional. And they don't pick up the other stuff. So you're thinking that's a lot of sound. So the real scale comes in the outside broadcast truck because there's a specific sound mixer who's taking all these different feeds and is they have to follow the state of play and then they boost and the dip the levels of all these. I mean, can you imagine the stress?

A (20:40)

I know, that's amazing.

B (20:41)

So if there's a penalty, then you want to dip the stadium sound and like bring up the behind the goal mic so you can hear it. And then if you think the player's gonna just, I don't know, like when Rooney slagged off the England fans, you want to make sure that that's brought up. So you're mixing all these different audio channels all the time. You've got commentary, crowd pitch. Tony Pasta, our esteemed boss at goal

A (21:02)

hanger, the governor, he's there, he's the

B (21:04)

power, but he's quite literally our lord and master. Now he says that the best sound net sound in the premiere because he

A (21:10)

comes from a sporting background, by which I mean sporting broadcasting, not sporting. He didn't, he didn't used to play cricket for England.

B (21:16)

Although, you know, I believe he could have.

A (21:17)

Oh, he could have.

B (21:18)

Anything he sets his mind to.

A (21:19)

He could do anything he wants.

B (21:20)

Anything Tony sets his mind to. But he was once doing the titles for Match of the Day, and he said the sound of curtains being opened really rapidly sounded much more like the ball fizzing into the back of the net than the real thing. So that's what they used.

A (21:32)

Oh, wow, that's great.

B (21:35)

I'm now just imagining Tony's in front of these things. But we know a lot about these types of sound because I was talking to someone who was part of doing all the soundscapes for Covid, because obviously. And by the way, you should be on a list if you watched it without crowd noise during that time.

A (21:49)

Yeah, it's like those people who say, I only watch sport without the commentary because I don't need to. You think, oh, my God, really? What? I mean, you don't, like. Don't want to hear a human being.

B (21:58)

No, it's just they think of themselves as purists and it's unbearable.

A (22:02)

But I would rather hear Lee Dixon and silence.

B (22:05)

Oh, my God, absolutely. But the soundscapes during COVID they. They had to kind of create this thing from stuff that already existed because obviously once it was shut down, they couldn't record anything. So they went to EA Sports and they got all the individual stuff for individual teams. They got the chance because EA Sports had already, from FIFA, had got lots of this stuff, and then they kind of created these things to make it seem less horrific, which, as I say, you should be on a list if you didn't listen to those things. But part of the whole thing about doing something like that is that Aud audiences at home pick up on the cues from the stadium and are led by them. And actually, you know, we all have to admit that sometimes you're talking about your team or whatever, or thinking about it, or watching something online at the same time, and there's something that pulls you back. So the noise is actually the crowd noise. They've tested it and done lots of research. If you have it to kind of push down the crowd noise, then people don't find that. They don't know why, but they didn't find the game as exciting. But if they. If they're being led by it, that people are very, very suggestible, basically. And so that swelling noise makes people stop being distracted by whatever's happening in their home when they're watching at home. But it's quite a technical. Big business.

A (23:13)

Unbelievable. Do you know what, What I would like AI to do, you know, if you ever. If you're ever out in the countryside or something on a Sunday going for a walk and you come across a game of cricket, or if you're walking past the kind of. Some playing fields and there's a game of football going on, if you could sit down, put your headphones in and AI could do a commentary on that game, I would say, and watch the whole thing. Because, you know, you sort of watch. You think, oh, I wish I knew who was.

B (23:36)

Yeah.

A (23:36)

Playing. I wish I knew who had a cheer fire. I wish I knew, you know, plot

B (23:39)

lines, which one of these slept with the other one's wife. Yeah, I'd like to know that stuff.

A (23:43)

If AI could do that, you would. In fact, if AI did that, you would have huge crowds at every single village cricket game, wouldn't it? It'd be amazing.

B (23:52)

Did you ever?

A (23:53)

Yeah. Oh, and then you're like, looking goes, is that. Is that her? I bet that's her. That's her with the jam tarts, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. God, you can. You know what? You can tell. You can tell.

B (24:03)

Looks no better than she should be.

A (24:04)

Yeah. How's that? I'd like that.

B (24:07)

Yeah. Well, okay. Another of your great ideas. Just cast as Pearls before Swirl.

A (24:11)

It feels to me like that's less fully formed than some of my other ideas. That's like me saying, I'd like, why don't we invent a pill that cures all diseases? Yeah, that's what I really like. And you just take it one morning.

B (24:21)

It feels a little bit like one of the dreams you've had rather than one of the ideas you've had. But, yeah, I put it in your dream category folder.

A (24:28)

Yeah. I was being reminded the other day of the perfect episode of the Bill that I dreamt. But I'll tell that story another day. If anyone wants to ask me a question about the perfect episode, the Bill that I dreamt, then. Then do feel free.

B (24:40)

Oh, okay. I do, but. Okay, we'll. We'll save it to next week in case somebody actually obliges us. This is a question, but it's also therapy that I need you to give me. It's about skipping bad books. And it's from Damien o'. Rourke. He says, it's life too short for a bad book. Maybe it's a modern attention problem, but I find I have less tolerance as I get older. Do you quit a book if you don't like it, and if so, when? Or do you keep slogging at it?

A (25:03)

Yeah, different have very different views on this. I, I'm afraid I do skip things. I do.

B (25:09)

It's great. I wish you've only got so little time in life.

A (25:12)

But also I'm aware that some people might read the first chapter of one of my books and just go, you know what? This is not for me. I know what I like. This is not quite it. And that's absolutely fine. And if they're allowed to do it,

B (25:22)

well then when do you, when do you drop it?

A (25:25)

Quite quickly. Because by and large it's not always the story hooking me and it's how am I enjoying this writing? There's always someone has a style and if I know the things that I like, I like things to be fairly direct. I like beautiful writing, but I'm. I'm not sure I love dense writing. Unless. Unless it's got humor or something or a bit of a spark in, in something. So, you know, very kind of flowery descriptive writing. If the first three pages are describing a hedgerow, a bit of me is going. I just, I know there's going to be more hedgerow stuff in the rest of this book and I don't know if I can handle it. If after two pages of hedgerow description like a car comes through the hedgerow and skids and someone fires out of the window, count me in. Yeah, okay, but if that car has not. If on page four, the car comes through the hedgerow, I'm afraid I've switched off. I think you can. It takes a really, really long time to write a book, so Feels rude to. To not read.

B (26:17)

Oh my God, I read all the way and I hate myself. I mean I read. I don't think I've ever not finished a book in my life. Really.

A (26:23)

But why? What's the thinking?

B (26:25)

I don't know, it's like, it's like. No, no, it's like a. But you know, huge like 800 page non fiction things.

A (26:31)

Oh my God.

B (26:32)

But I, I really want to stop doing it. I re. It's almost, you know what I have? I have that psychological feeling, you know, say you've got a chocolate digestive and you eat half and you put it down some in the house because the doorbell goes or whatever.

A (26:42)

I do not know that feeling.

B (26:43)

No, but say the doorbell goes. I agree, but say it goes and you're aware that there's a psychological half a biscuit somewhere around the house and you know where it is and it doesn't matter that you've got a whole nother packet and you could Eat all of those. It's the half that you've somehow got to just, you know, know complete and finish. Yeah, and these are all psychological half chocolate digestive biscuits. Even if they're like 800 pages on something I'm not very interested in. So you're childhood, have you got. And I need to stop doing it because it's a. Because you know, we have a finite amount of time on this hedgerow blighted world infested planet and I just won't

A (27:17)

someone please destroy the hedgerows, burn them.

B (27:20)

And I need to, I need to learn to remove myself.

A (27:23)

I think that's a nice flaw from

B (27:24)

the theatre of boredom.

A (27:25)

I think that's a nice flaw to have, I would say. I think it's a good thing and it fills your brain full of things you wouldn't otherwise come across. Because the reason I don't like not reading everything is I'm aware I'm missing out on some of the serendipity, some of the things where you discover something you wouldn't otherwise have discovered. And sometimes if I'm giving up after five pages, perhaps it's because I'm not.

B (27:43)

Five's harsh.

A (27:44)

I'm not so great at reading, do you know what I mean? I wouldn't give up after five pages but you know, after maybe 30 pages when I know, I know this is 30 is reasonable. I'm not interested in the story. I don't love the writing. I can see that other people might adore this. I know the sort of books I like by now. So yeah, it makes me miss out on broadening my horizons for sure. But I think that maybe 1 in 20 of those books would broaden my horizons and make me a more interesting reader and 19 out of 20 wouldn't and I'm going to be here for 87 years or something and I just, I just do the maths and I think, I think I, I think I just let it go. And so long as you put it down and pick up something else, you know, then I think it's okay. And you read stuff that you love and so long as you never ever then write saying oh my God, I hated that book, you just gotta let it. But it's not for me. Read something else that you do love and tell people that you love that one. I think it's okay. I think it's okay to not cond. It's easy to do. No one minds. No one wants you to be reading under sufferance because you're not finishing it and thanking the author, if you read it and didn't enjoy it, you wanna. I want people to finish a book and go, oh, I read it. That was great. I really, you know, that's. That's made my life 0.0001% better.

B (28:57)

Whereas I quite often think, thank God that's over, thank God the boring book is over.

A (29:03)

I mean, that's extraordinary.

B (29:04)

I told you. I read this incredibly boring one about the whole history of hbo. I don't know how they made it so boring. And it was just referred to every night as my boring book. I said, well, I suppose I've got to read my boring book then.

A (29:14)

Oh, my God, that's so. What is that?

B (29:16)

I don't know. Help me do you know?

A (29:18)

But I think. I imagine it must do you great favors in other parts of your life. Just that ability to see it through. You're like Shackleton, but for books.

B (29:27)

Where's my medal?

A (29:28)

Yeah, where's your medal?

B (29:30)

Thanks. It'd be nice to be nominated.

A (29:32)

Yeah. They should have the British Book Awards. They should.

B (29:35)

The person who's read the most boring books to the bitter end.

A (29:39)

Yeah. Ingrid at the moment it's a gold

B (29:41)

half digestive biscuit on which we've mounted on a.

A (29:44)

We call it a Marina. Yeah. Ingrid at the moment is one of the judges on the Comedy Women in Print prize. And on that, you have. You. You have to read every moment of every book. And funnily enough, that's instructive about what you're saying, because she's enjoyed reading every moment, every book. Because there are books there. She said, I might not. Yeah, there's a couple of ways. She said, I don't know. Would I put this down? But she's read every bit of all of them. My big worry is always I read a sort of chapter that I don't enjoy at all. And so I put it down and chapter two is. Aha. Thought John. That's the end of my novel writing days. And it was like it was a chapter of a bad. No. And then someone comes in with a gun and I'm like, I've missed this book. But that would be a very brave author. He did that. He did like a whole chapter of a bad book just to sort of introduce a character who's a bad novelist who then goes on to have a gunfight.

B (30:31)

I think your editor would try and dissuade you from doing that. Not yours, but. Yeah. If there's one thing you haven't done with your books is that. But, you know, maybe in the future.

A (30:43)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Maybe I'll do just a whole series of really bad chapters by different characters that you only discover in chapter six that it's a book club and they're all writing stuff.

B (30:53)

Not unreliable, boring narrators. A series of boring, reliably boring narrators.

A (30:58)

Poorly written narrators. It's interesting. It's a very interesting example of the poorly written narrator. That book. It's very harder to write in some ways.

B (31:07)

Yes.

A (31:07)

Like a terrible book when you had

B (31:10)

the chatgpt stuff or the AI Stuff in We Solve Murders.

A (31:15)

Yeah.

B (31:15)

Did you actually put that. That in?

A (31:17)

No, I just.

B (31:18)

You wrote it as.

A (31:19)

I tried to write deliberately because it

B (31:20)

was funny and I was thinking it can't. Has it become sentient? Yes, because it was funny. There's. Sorry, just. There's a thing which is not spoiling a plot point in We Solve Murders where that in order to try and disguise the villain, to disguise him or herself, send all the. His communications via. Or her communications via chat GPT.

A (31:40)

Exactly. Yeah. So I just know if it had actually gone through chat gbt, God knows what it had been.

B (31:44)

Yeah. Did you even not try to see what it was like?

A (31:47)

I just thought I wanted to wr. In blank verse and I wanted it to be entertaining and I wanted to have some fun with it. But, yeah, it was fun just to write deliberately blank sort of prose for a bit. But, yeah, it makes you slightly ill

B (31:58)

in the character of a very polite English gentleman.

A (32:00)

Yes, exactly. Yes.

B (32:01)

Okay.

A (32:02)

That was the prompt. So I think that it is okay to give up books after a while, but I admire people who don't. But if you got to an age, you sort of know sometimes, you know, a book. Some of the best books in the world, I did not enjoy. So I know they're amazing books. I know they're so I'm not giving them up because they're badly written. I'm giving them up because in the same way I might switch a TV

B (32:24)

program off, it's just you're badly defective. That's why you.

A (32:27)

I'm defective?

B (32:27)

No, I'm definitely that.

A (32:28)

And you are not defective. And so you're. You're. You're able.

B (32:31)

It is a defect. Give them up, Damien. Just toss them. I really wish I could do it. I think we all should probably wind this episode up.

A (32:38)

Richard, how quickly do you switch off podcasts? Is it okay to switch off after 35 seconds?

B (32:45)

Well, don't switch off tomorrow because you've got a really funny bonus episode on. On Waterworld. Just because the story of that waterlogged movie is is very funny. As for all our friends who like stories about movies on waters that go wrong.

A (32:59)

Exactly. And that is for all of our members. Don't forget if you are a member, you get to ad free listening and all that kind of stuff as well.

B (33:04)

All right then everybody. See you next Tuesday.

A (33:06)

See you next Tuesday.

B (33:19)

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