← The Rest Is Politics
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- [00:00]
Alastair Campbell
Thank you so much for listening to the Rest Is Politics. Here's a thought for Christmas you can gift somebody membership to the Rest Is Politics. Plus ad free listening bonus episodes, early access to Q and A book discounts. So spread a little political peace and goodwill, head to therestagepolitics.com and click Gifts. This episode is powered by Fuse Energy. Now, a lot of politicians like to talk about the future of renewables, but Fuse is on the ground building clean energy for the here and now.
- [00:29]
Rory Stewart
And they're making it happen, thanks to you. Fuse Energy is is putting the power in your hands by inviting you to refer land to Fuse that can then be used for renewable projects.
- [00:37]
Alastair Campbell
So we already know Clean Energy has cut at least 104 billion pounds from the UK's energy costs since 2010. But Fuse wants you to benefit directly from the green revolution. That's why you can win £2,000 for a successful land referral. Be it your land or somebody else's.
- [00:53]
Rory Stewart
Land that is 20 acres or over could be transformed into the renewable backbone of this nation, benefiting all of us for the generations to come.
- [01:01]
Alastair Campbell
I'd love to know how many of our listeners have 20 acres of land. We should maybe find out. You can watch the energy revolution from the sidelines or you can join it today.
- [01:08]
Rory Stewart
Turn idle land into forward progress with Fuse. Contact fuse@landusenergy.com to start a referral and have the chance to win £2,000.
- [01:18]
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- [01:51]
Alastair Campbell
Give big, Save big with Rack Friday deals at Nordstrom Rack. For a limited time, take an extra 40% off red tag clearance for everyone on your list. All sales final and restrictions apply. So bring your gift list and your wish list to your nearest Nordstrom Rack today. Welcome to a Christmas Day Rest is Politics special with me, Alistair Campbell.
- [02:19]
Rory Stewart
Lovely to see you. And are you eating, Alistair? That's a real sign of Christmas.
- [02:22]
Alastair Campbell
Usually.
- [02:23]
Rory Stewart
You're telling me that was Saddam Hussein's favorite suite, wasn't it?
- [02:26]
Alastair Campbell
Quality street, was it?
- [02:27]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, love Quality Street. Every time George Galloway went To see him, he'd bring him a box of Quality Street.
- [02:31]
Alastair Campbell
Oh, it was also a line in Kemi Badenot's budget speech.
- [02:34]
Rory Stewart
Quality Street. Yeah.
- [02:35]
Alastair Campbell
Good. Anyway, yeah, let's get on with it. Okay.
- [02:38]
Rory Stewart
Happy Christmas to you. I love you, Christmas. Let's get on with it. What surprised you, Alistair, the most, even.
- [02:46]
Alastair Campbell
Though I knew that it was going to be awful, is just how awful the first year of the Trump presidency has been on so many levels. Far better organized than the first time, far more extreme, far more truly terrible things going on that you almost can't keep up with them. Undermining the rule of law, the horror of some of the behavior of his. And the budget for ice, the tariffs that we talked about on Christmas Eve, the hokey cokey on Ukraine, the way that Putin plays him, the awfulness of some of his people around him. I could go on and on and on and on.
- [03:23]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, I mean, it's surprising. Trump is surprising. I mean, in a horrible way. But, you know, if you were Narendra Modi in India, the one thing you were confident of is that India was going to get a good deal out of a Trump presidency. They'd invited Jared Kushner to a fancy wedding. They'd done all the right things. They were filling stadiums together. India was the counterbalance to China. America was going to be focusing on China, so they were going to be nice to India. No, the one thing you were confident about if you were Israel, is that Trump was not going to recognize Syria and lift the sanctions on Syria. The one thing you were confident on if you were Israel, is that Trump's not going to sell F35s to Saudi Arabians.
- [04:03]
Alastair Campbell
Is this a gibbon?
- [04:04]
Rory Stewart
Yeah.
- [04:04]
Alastair Campbell
No, it's a mating gibbon.
- [04:06]
Rory Stewart
It's good.
- [04:06]
Alastair Campbell
It's not mating given.
- [04:07]
Rory Stewart
No, no, no. That's. What is it? It's the red buzzer that we had in our live shows a year ago just to remind people of our live shows. We can keep going on, but, I mean, one of the most amazing things is occasionally, I'm, I don't know, unfortunate enough to sit next some of these great titans of American finance, these kind of famous people who run the big hedge funds and banks, they are consistently wrong in their predictions about Trump. They really think they know him well. And every four weeks he does something which they absolutely assure me that he won't do.
- [04:36]
Alastair Campbell
It's that phrase that when we did the miniseries with Michael Wolff about Murdoch, this thing about people ache to believe that Murdoch's going to be a good Guy, I think with Trump, you ache to believe that it's going to sort of be some sort of normality in this presidency.
- [04:50]
Rory Stewart
I still think you've got onto the great analytical tool here, which is the reality TV show. That's the only way of explaining why, having done an entire campaign saying Mamdani was a communist anti Semite who would destroy the world, when he invites Mamdani into the Oval Office, he does a kind of thing. It can only be that. That he's running the equivalent of a reality TV show where he just has to go, I hate him. I love him. I hate him. I love him. In order to keep the narrative going.
- [05:17]
Alastair Campbell
So what's your big surprise? Were you on the same thing?
- [05:20]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, I'm totally on the same thing. What's your personal highlight of the year?
- [05:23]
Alastair Campbell
Personal highlight of the year? There are two. One was in Sarajevo being told by the organizer of the youth sport games that next year I will be captain of the team in the Pro Am match. And Luka Modric, your lookalike, will be on my team.
- [05:41]
Rory Stewart
No.
- [05:41]
Alastair Campbell
Yeah.
- [05:42]
Rory Stewart
You're going to be captaining Luka Modric.
- [05:43]
Alastair Campbell
Yeah. Yeah.
- [05:45]
Rory Stewart
Wow.
- [05:46]
Alastair Campbell
So that was good.
- [05:47]
Rory Stewart
And are you. Are you playing enough football, Alistair, to be able to play with Luka Modric? I know he's considered to be getting played with Maradona. Modric is getting years ago. I mean, I know people think Modric is getting a bit old. He's. He's now 40. But you're a little bit older than Luka modric, aren't you?
- [06:02]
Alastair Campbell
28 years older. 40 is great for a footballer in the modern age. That's amazing. I actually watched him play in the Milan Derby the other day. He's still got it. Still got. He's. He's not as fast as he was, but, you know, nor am I.
- [06:15]
Rory Stewart
Can you tell us what it means for your actual style of play now? Are you. Are you moving a little bit less for the ball, a little bit more stationary?
- [06:22]
Alastair Campbell
When I. When k. I played, I told. I told Sean D, the ex Burnley, now Nottingham Forest manager, I was going to be playing this charity match. He said. He said, do the Dick Turpin style stand and deliver.
- [06:33]
Rory Stewart
That was very good.
- [06:34]
Alastair Campbell
Very good. So, no, but my actual personal highlight was being taken by the Woodland Trust to play my bagpipes to my favorite tree, which then appeared in the exhibition launched by your friend the King, ahead of Cop.
- [06:53]
Rory Stewart
Oh.
- [06:54]
Alastair Campbell
It was called Living Legends and the Legends of the trees rather than the.
- [06:58]
Rory Stewart
People, not you and the bagpipes.
- [06:59]
Alastair Campbell
It Was me, Theresa May, Nile Rogers, a few other people, Fiona Bruce. And we were pictured with our favorite trees and it was just the most beautiful day. The tree is called the Skippinish Oak because it was a friend of mine who is in this band called Skippinish who they discovered this, this extraordinary tree. It's just one of the most impressive trees on the planet. And, and the day, the day that we went to, it was just one of those days in the Scottish Highlands when it was beautiful weather, blue skies and it's just wonderful. We should treat our listeners and viewers to me playing my pipes to this tree. It was a wonderful moment.
- [07:38]
Rory Stewart
Yeah. So you don't talk to trees, you. You play music to them.
- [08:00]
Alastair Campbell
Yeah, I still want to talk to them. Give them a bit of a hug.
- [08:02]
Rory Stewart
Bit of hug. Hug is good. Hug is good.
- [08:05]
Alastair Campbell
But it's massive. It's massive. And I love standing there and looking at this thing and think, this thing has been here for hundreds and hundreds.
- [08:11]
Rory Stewart
And now you can understand La Chen when it began.
- [08:14]
Alastair Campbell
Le shen Len not screw up our French grammar, Len.
- [08:20]
Rory Stewart
And what you learned from that is that this thing will have started as a tiny acorn, probably in a mast year with tens of thousands of other acorns scattered across the ground. And by some miracle, maybe in a thorn bush or whatever, it survived. And then at the right moment, the thorns were cut away and it sprung up into the air.
- [08:38]
Alastair Campbell
God did that, didn't he?
- [08:39]
Rory Stewart
Well, I don't know. I don't know. Connecting. That's a nice Christmas message. Oak trees, of course. Well, of course, some people say pagan festivals around mistletoe and oaks, you know, quite connected to this particular day. Idea of rebirth. Anyway, my highlight. So my highlight of the year is I've discovered a little trick in the morning which is I go into the kid's bedroom and I take him out for a little expedition to get a croissant and a coffee for the family. So I have a lovely sort of. I suppose I have five minute walk there, three minutes queuing for the croissant, five minute walk back, but a really lovely time. Just seven in the morning with the kids. Sometimes just one of them, sometimes both of them. It's just very precious.
- [09:23]
Alastair Campbell
Good, excellent, excellent. Book of the Year.
- [09:27]
Rory Stewart
Book of the year. What's your book of the Year?
- [09:28]
Alastair Campbell
I think if I'm only allowed one. I've mentioned this before, it would be if Russia Wins by Carlo Masala. Written in German, it's been translated into English and it's a sort of novelette. It's actually called a scenario. So it's obviously with real people, real events. It's about what's happening in Ukraine now, but it's what happens if Russia wins. And it just sets out this amazing story and it really is. It's gripping and it feels very, very, very realistic.
- [09:59]
Rory Stewart
And then you had another book by a friend of yours who's writing about A.I.
- [10:02]
Alastair Campbell
Oh, that actually would be my. My novel of the year. We both have lots of people who say, I've written a book. Can you read it for me? Maybe do. So this friend of mine I was at university with who went. He was a medic. He went on to become a war doctor called Robin Coupland. He now retires. He sends me this book and he says, I've written this novel. I'd love to know what you think. It's absolutely brilliant. And I'm actually now trying to get him what might call a proper publisher because it's self published. He published it himself. It's about an AI companion that a family gives to an old man who's lost his wife. And this AI companion just becomes ever more important in his life. The guy eventually dies, then the AI companion goes on to this vicar. And then bit by bit, you get to the. The AI companion adapts to.
- [10:46]
Rory Stewart
Well, don't tell us too much.
- [10:48]
Alastair Campbell
Just the political bit gets to. When the AI companion links up with AI Systems and somehow finds a way into North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
- [10:57]
Rory Stewart
Well, any publisher.
- [10:58]
Alastair Campbell
What the CIA have been trying to do for decades.
- [11:00]
Rory Stewart
Any publisher listening to this, please, please pay attention.
- [11:03]
Alastair Campbell
So that's. And then my third one, Roy, which I mentioned many times on the. On our tour, Bagpipes A Cultural history by Richard McLaughlin. It's a great book.
- [11:13]
Rory Stewart
That's a lovely, lovely pitch. Now, in tribute to you and my long years of apprenticeship at the feet of Alastair Campbell, I must plug my book Middleland, which is out, and it's a lovely set of 100 very short little essays. You read it in the loo, read it in the bath, read it on the tube with positive, optimistic stories of the British countryside.
- [11:36]
Alastair Campbell
As if we haven't plugged it enough. I gave it the better. I gave it a better plug than that when it came out.
- [11:40]
Rory Stewart
I feel. You did, you did, and I feel I'm learning. Now. Here's three books, though not written by me. I've become increasingly entranced by a novelist called Nick Harkaway, who's John Le Carre's son. Yeah, he's written a great follow on Le Carre book called Carla's Choice. But he's also written under his own name, a whole series of extraordinary sci fi dystopian novels, of which the Titanium Noir series I thought was most interesting, partly because it's about Tech Rose and it's also about his understanding, which we've touched on but maybe haven't done enough on. The sense in which time sort of freezes, the sense that the 1940s feel much more different to 1980 than 1980 does to today, that there's a sort of odd sense that you get back into the 40s or even the 70s, and you really think you're looking at a very alien culture. Get back into the 90s, which is now quite a long time ago. Things haven't changed as much as you'd think. And you get that sort of sense in a lot of things, fashion, music, food, culture and British productivity. Anyway, so Nick Harquay, second one, talked about AI. If people are interested in the amazing story of the businesses, the egos, the personalities around a Karen Howe's empire of AI, I think is really lovely. And for people, more on the kind of spiritual side because we're at Christmas, almost any podcast or interview done by either Rowan Williams or Father Zacharias worth listening to.
- [13:16]
Alastair Campbell
Is that a book? That's not a book.
- [13:18]
Rory Stewart
Father Zacharias is. No, Rowan Williams has written books, but I think he's particularly good in his short sermons on audio.
- [13:23]
Alastair Campbell
Maybe we should have a podcast of years we should have put it.
- [13:26]
Rory Stewart
Father Zacharias is a monk in Essex, talks wonderfully about faith. But my book, Matthieu Ricard, Notebook of a Wandering Monk. Matthieu Ricard, astonishing. I mean like a sort of central casting French meritocratic success story. His father, one of the most famous left wing editors in France, went to the fanciest schools in France, graduated, and really, you know, in some ways might have been a kind of miniature Macron or Jupe or something. Decided to go and become a Tibetan monk. And this is really his diary and it's astonishing. There are seven year retreats, there are his encounters with his father. He actually wrote a book called the Monk and the Philosopher about arguing with his left wing atheist dad about being a Tibetan monk. There are incredible portraits of bhutan in the 90s when it was completely locked away from the world where he goes, essentially every village is an incredible shrine dedicated to Buddhism. Traveling with his lamas, these great gurus that he follows. Question for you. Film of the year.
- [14:35]
Alastair Campbell
Do you know I struggle with this almost as much as I struggled with UK Politician of the Year, but I'm going in the end for the Ballad of Wallace Island.
- [14:43]
Rory Stewart
Oh, my Lord. Is that. That sounds quite serious. One thing's called the Ballad of. It usually means grim, doesn't it?
- [14:48]
Alastair Campbell
No, well, it's, It's. Is it serious? It's very funny.
- [14:53]
Rory Stewart
Is it darkly humorous with drunken Scots in it or Irish?
- [14:56]
Alastair Campbell
No, drunken Scots. It's got a very small cast.
- [14:59]
Rory Stewart
Right.
- [15:00]
Alastair Campbell
It was written by a guy called Tom Basden and Tim Key. Tom Basdon also writes music and there's some fabulous music in it.
- [15:08]
Rory Stewart
And no drunken Irish people?
- [15:09]
Alastair Campbell
No. No one. Not one.
- [15:11]
Rory Stewart
Okay, maybe I've got this wrong. Dr. Scandinavians.
- [15:14]
Alastair Campbell
No, no, no.
- [15:15]
Rory Stewart
Oh, I got wrong the whole theme of this.
- [15:19]
Alastair Campbell
Why don't you listen and I'll tell you.
- [15:20]
Rory Stewart
Go on, tell us.
- [15:21]
Alastair Campbell
God's sake. It's got Carey Mulligan in it, which is always a good thing. She and Tom Basdon were an item and they were a band together, were musicians together. And this. This guy who's become very, very, very wealthy, not really through any having any special talents. He lives on this very, very small island, hardly anybody else lives there. And he sort of allures them into coming onto the island because he wants them to get back together and he wants them to do a sort of comeback concert. But he is the audience. It's very funny, it's rich. It's got beautiful music, beautiful scenery, and I loved it.
- [16:00]
Rory Stewart
My film would be Nuremberg with this extraordinary performance by Russell Crowe as Goering in the Nuremberg trials. Oh, this is now the 40th anniversary of John and Anne Chus book on the Nuremberg trials. John went to see it and he just thought, they have got this absolutely right.
- [16:18]
Alastair Campbell
Brilliant.
- [16:18]
Rory Stewart
They've got the courtroom right, they've got the star right. And if you really want to understand evil and charisma, Russell Crowe as Hermann Goering.
- [16:26]
Alastair Campbell
Excellent. Excellent. Well, neither of us watch a lot of tv. TV show of the year. I think we're gonna go for the same one here.
- [16:32]
Rory Stewart
Well, I hope we're not gonna go for Celebrity Traitors.
- [16:34]
Alastair Campbell
We're not going for that because neither of us watched a single second of it. I'm going for Slow H, Runner Up Blue Lights, which is a story about the police service of Northern Ireland. And it's very well made and it is a kind of just a sort of a police thriller type thing. But it's got so many different levels going on that are really interesting. If you're interested in Northern Ireland, the.
- [16:57]
Rory Stewart
Most recent season, I know I chose The Diplomat last year. But the most recent season the Diplomat is completely blows you away.
- [17:04]
Alastair Campbell
Is this just an admission that you've only ever watched one TV programme?
- [17:06]
Rory Stewart
Pretty much, yeah. And this is again about the relationship between America and Britain and Europe and its vulnerability to America. So very prescient. I don't know when they wrote it, but boy is a way of imagining the current moment.
- [17:18]
Alastair Campbell
Okay, Rory, quick Bray. Then we'll come back with Best New Place Visited Homer Abroad Cultural event and campaigner of the year.
- [17:25]
Rory Stewart
Okay, very good.
- [17:28]
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- [19:04]
Rory Stewart
Welcome back to the Rest Is Politics.
- [19:06]
Alastair Campbell
Christmas Special with me, Rory Stewart and me, Alistair Campbell. Best New Place Visited Home or abroad.
- [19:13]
Rory Stewart
Blimey, where did you go?
- [19:15]
Alastair Campbell
My best place visited home or abroad I'm going to go for the bathing pools at La Valette on Guernsey.
- [19:24]
Rory Stewart
Oh Guernsey.
- [19:25]
Alastair Campbell
Most of my best places I think last year was a swimming place. I judge a lot of things by whether you have a really good cold water swim and the bathing pools on Guernsey, it's like they have this Australian model of where a pool is built into the sea and they also have I'M not a big fan of saunas, but I was a really big fan of this sauna. One because it was bloody cold and secondly because you just have these amazing views out from the sauna. From the sauna, from the sauna.
- [19:54]
Rory Stewart
It's like a glass wall in the sauna.
- [19:56]
Alastair Campbell
It was windows. The pool itself was absolutely beautiful. And I've been to Jersey a few times, but I'm trying to think. I don't think I'd been to Guernsey before.
- [20:04]
Rory Stewart
Oh, yeah, brilliant. Okay, that's lovely. My push is for Colombia, which we talked about a bit on the podcast, and particularly the Rainbow river again, us swimming in waterfalls, but above this extraordinary colored river which my 8 year old discovered through a teacher. It's actually a type of fern and the water goes from green to red and the gravel is yellow and then the light hitting it is blue. So literally the river is this kind of insane rainbow color. It's right in the centre of Columbia. Very few people go there. It's not like going to Cartagena, which, sadly, a bit like Venice, has now been completely overrun by tourists who can't move. Central Columbia, unexplored, magical Columbia.
- [20:49]
Alastair Campbell
Excellent cultural event of the year. You're not allowed to say, the rest is politics, tourists.
- [20:56]
Rory Stewart
The rest is politics. Tour. Yeah, the live tour. Well, I have seen a remarkable number of people. I was just doing a Christmas signing at Hatchard's and a very large number of people who came to see us had seen us in the live tour and some of them were talking about how you had inspired them through. Well, often through disagreeing agreeably. They seem to like that as a message.
- [21:14]
Alastair Campbell
I've got two. One of them, I mentioned Notre Dame last year, but I can't have been by then. I think that was just watching on tv. But we went to Notre Dame, the new Notre Dame, the refurbished Notre Dame, despite your loathing of mon ami Emmanuel Macron is an amazing transformation. But the other thing that we went to in Paris was the Hockney exhibition, which was extraordinary. One of the best art exhibitions I've ever been to. Finally, the National Theatre do these terrific. Where they film plays at the National Theatre and you can then go and see them in the cinema, which a relatively new thing. And Fiona and I, with Callum, we went to see the Fifth Step, starring Jack Loudon, a brilliant Scottish actor, and Martin Freeman. And it was just absolutely amazing because, you know, when you go to the theatre, but I do like going to the theatre, but for a start, you're often surrounded by people eating and shuffling and piddling about what have you. It's beautifully filmed. So it's just two guys. The whole story is two people. There's only two people in this, in this, in this play. It's about the fifth step, is one of the steps in Alcoholics Anonymous. The play is about the relationship between an alcoholic and a sponsor who's trying to help the alcoholic through. They're both brilliant actors, but the filming of it is just absolutely beautiful. And because the thing is when you go to the theater, you don't. If you're sitting third of the way, half the way towards the back of the theatre, you can't actually see the actors faces, you can't actually get a lot of what they do. So when you see it in the cinema big screen, it's absolutely brilliant.
- [22:53]
Rory Stewart
So my culture events of the year. First one, Marie Antoinette at the Victoria and Albert Museum. It begins with an extraordinary story about fashion and clothing and jewelry and celebrity. In some ways she's one of those great first celebrities, a kind of global figure for her face and her clothes. But it's the other side of celebrity too and the way in which we turn against famous people or people who are perceived to get power and in this case chopped her head off. I mean literally executed her and executed her because of what she represented. And the guillotine's there, her death mask is there, the clothes she wore at the moment for execution. It's a heart wrenching experience and it makes you think of actually so many celebrities who are kind of built up and then smashed down by public opinion in the most deadly way. On a happier note, with another unashamed plug, my wife Shoshana with Turquoise Mountain has begun doing exhibitions in London around the crafts of the west bank and Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria. There was one in Sotheby's in Bond street this year and there's going to be another one in the Garrison Chapel in central London in February. And these are craftspeople from conflict zones. These are women from Afghanistan weaving incredible carpets. Currently, Turquoise Mountain is supporting, I think, 7,000 women weaving carpets. It's Syrian refugee artisans returning home and producing masterpieces in mother of pearl and wood carving. It's people in the West Bank, Palestinians in unbelievable difficult situations creating glorious glassware, jewelry, cups. And it's a sign of economic development working conflict zones, but also just beauty pride production.
- [24:46]
Alastair Campbell
Great. Okay, last category this Christmas Day 2025, Campaigner of the year.
- [24:53]
Rory Stewart
Ooh.
- [24:53]
Alastair Campbell
I think we're going to agree.
- [24:55]
Rory Stewart
Okay, go try.
- [24:55]
Alastair Campbell
I'm going. Zoran Mamdani, political Campaigner.
- [24:59]
Rory Stewart
Unbelievable.
- [25:00]
Alastair Campbell
He's not even 35 yet. Really charismatic, really clever. I think quite strategic. He's now going to have to show that he can do it. It's going to be very, very difficult because expectations around him are so high. Political structures in America don't necessarily give them. They've got more power than a lot of British mayors have, but they don't have all the hands on all the levers. But I think as a campaigner, he was absolutely brilliant. And the fact that he's essentially. I know New York's a massive city, but in the end it's a local position, political position within a admittedly large country. He's literally gone from zero to being a global figure. It's a pretty amazing thing. He's done it through being a brilliant campaigner.
- [25:40]
Rory Stewart
Here's my little campaign of the year. And actually, curiously, it's a little bit more anonymous, more difficult to associate an individual with. It is the UK campaign around prostate cancer and encouraging people to have PSA tests. It's a needless, horrible death affecting tens of thousands of people. We're a politics podcast. David Cameron has just said that he's now been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Diagnosed because his wife heard this campaign being aired on the Radio 4 and made him have a test. It's something that I'm afraid, for bad reasons as well as good reasons, the NHS has been resisting because false positives happen with these tests. I think the campaigners are absolutely right. Let's drive through these tests. It will make a huge difference. I think people can cope with the fact that it can be false positives and it will save a lot of lives.
- [26:24]
Alastair Campbell
Excellent. Well, on the happy note of saving lots of lives, Happy Christmas. See you in the new year.
- [26:30]
Rory Stewart
See you in the new year.
- [26:31]
Alastair Campbell
Bye bye.
- [26:31]
Rory Stewart
Bye bye.
- [26:36]
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- [27:06]
Hannah Fry
Hello, I'm Professor Hannah Fry.
- [27:08]
Rory Stewart
And I'm Michael Stevens, creator of Vsauce. We thought we would join you for a moment completely uninvited.
- [27:14]
Hannah Fry
We are not going to stay too long. Unless you want us to, of course.
- [27:17]
Rory Stewart
We're here to tell you about our brand new show. The rest is science.
- [27:21]
Hannah Fry
Every episode is going to start with something that feels initially familiar, and then we're gonna unpick it and tear it apart until you no longer recognize it at all. You know our banana flavor doesn't taste like bananas.
- [27:33]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, what is that about?
- [27:34]
Hannah Fry
So it is supposed to taste like an old species of banana that was wiped out in a bananapocalypse, and now you will only find it in botanical collections in the gardens of billionaires.
- [27:47]
Rory Stewart
Wow. Banana candidates Candy is actually the ghost of a long extinct banana.
- [27:54]
Hannah Fry
So if you like scratching the surface.
- [27:56]
Rory Stewart
Thinking a little bit deeper or weirder.
- [27:59]
Hannah Fry
Yes, definitely.
- [28:00]
Alastair Campbell
That too.
- [28:00]
Hannah Fry
You can join Michael and I every Tuesday and Thursday wherever you get your podcasts.