Reflections on winning the Grierson documentary award

Last week I won the best prestenter award at the Griersons, I reflect on not allowing external praise to define my self worth Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a Berry Chantilly Cake. Ready to cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings. And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  If you've felt stuck trying to lose weight, you're not alone. Enter Weight Loss by Hers. It's designed to support you in reaching your goals. And Hers now offers access to an affordable range of FDA-approved GLP-1 medications, including the Wegovy pill and the Wegovy pen. Even better, with a range of affordable GLP-1 options, Hers makes it simple to find an approach that fits your needs and your budget. If eligible, you'll get a treatment plan personalized to you and unlimited dosage changes as needed. It's weight loss designed to work with your life. Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/eligible to get personalized, affordable care that gets you. That's F-O-R-H-E-R-S dot com slash eligible. Forhers dot com slash eligible.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Weight Loss by Hers is not available in all 50 states. Wegovy is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk AS. To get started and learn more, including important safety information, Wegovy clinical study information, and restrictions, visit forhers dot com.

• 1:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  Behold the glens of Saint Anthony, you cranky Donnecous. Welcome to the Blind by Podcast. If this is your first episode, consider going back to an earlier episode to familiarize yourself with the lore of this podcast. I've had a very overwhelming week. Quite unexpectedly, I won that award that I was nominated for. Best presenter at the Grayson Documentary Awards over in England. So the week has been overwhelming because...

• 2:09Blindboy Boatclub?

  I've been exposed to quite a, quite a large amount of external approval. And that's something I have to be incredibly mindful of because that amount of external approval, winning a giant award and lots of people contacting me to congratulate me. It's wonderful and fantastic and I'm very grateful for it, but it's like a drug. It's, it's cocaine, it's sweets, it's Bobbies. I just have to be cautious that I don't allow external validation to become, to feed my self-worth and my self-esteem. Because when that happens, when my identity and self-worth becomes tied with an achievement.

• 2:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  I'm a good person now, I'm valuable now because people are telling me I'm valuable. I have worth because people are telling me I'm worthy. And then I start to believe it, then I become scared of losing it. Because to lose it means that I don't have worth as a human being, which is impossible. So this week I'm focused on reminding myself of my intrinsic worth.

• 3:23Blindboy Boatclub?

  No aspect of my behaviour, no achievement defines my worth as a human being. My worth is intrinsic, I have intrinsic worth, which is equal to everybody else's intrinsic worth. Simply because I'm a human being.

• 3:40Blindboy Boatclub?

  I'm no better than anybody else, nobody else is better than me. Because we're humans and we're too complex to evaluate against each other. And you know, art is the same, art is the exact same. Even though I won this award, that doesn't mean that my documentary is better than anyone else's fucking documentary that I was up against, or worse than anyone else's documentary. You can't compare one piece of art against another because art at its core is one person's, it's self-expression. Or many people's self-expression through collaboration. When it comes to being an artist, you can only be the best version of yourself.

• 4:23Blindboy Boatclub?

  And you know how you get better, how you become a better version of yourself as an artist?

• 4:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  By failing, by fucking failing, by making huge mistakes and not winning awards, and making a bollocks of things, that's how you become better as an artist. You strive for failure, you don't strive for winning. You can only get better from failure, you learn from failure, you develop skills from failure, whereas success, like an award, if you're not careful with it, if you take it on board, you allow it to define your self-worth, it feels good. Then what happens? You're scared of losing it, and what does that look like? You become terrified of failing. And what do you do when you're afraid of failing? You become scared to try, and you make nothing.

• 5:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  When you fail, at least you have something, you have a thing, you have something you can learn from that you can build on. But when you don't fail because you were scared to try, you legitimately don't have anything, you have nothing that you can build on. And that's the strange dichotomy, that's the contradiction of being an artist. What are you doing it for then? Why are you doing it if you don't want successes, if you don't want awards? How can it be enjoyable if the thing that you're saying is good is failure? What's the point of any of this? And the thing is, the point is, the bit in the middle, the process, the doing, the curiosity,

• 5:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  the journey, the frustration, the resolutions, that's meaning, that's, that's the mid, that's, that's why you fucking create art, for the bit in the middle. You can't do that without failing, without leaning towards failing. And if you do that well, and you enjoy the process, and you take meaning from the process, then the successes just look after themselves, and a little success pops up like an award.

• 6:23Blindboy Boatclub?

  And you notice it calmly and you go, ah, that's nice. You can't stop and be mesmerized by it and drawn into it and let it feed your self esteem. You notice it like a little bubble in the air and go, isn't that lovely? Now on to the next piece of work. And then if you can do that, hopefully when a failure comes up, when you don't win the award, when you see a negative comment online, when you get a bad review, hopefully when they pop up, you can also go, ah, there's, there's a shit review or this piece of work isn't great. I could have done better. You go, okay, and you move on. Where's the next piece of work?

• 7:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  Where's the next thing for me to be curious about, for me to ask questions about, for me to enjoy doing? And you just keep moving then, you keep moving and then you keep creating. But if I stop to be mesmerized by a success, then it means that when, when the next failure comes along, which it will, cause it's inevitable. When, if, if I mesmerize myself with the success, when the next failure comes along, it cuts like a knife and it stagnates me and I get writer's block. And that happened with my, my last book. I'm sure I told you about it when it was, I had writer's block for one fucking year and I was miserable. It was very, very unpleasant.

• 7:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's a very unpleasant thing to be a creative person and to have lost or forgotten how to create because you're like a rabbit in the headlights. And what caused that creative block, well, not what caused it. What created that creative block was how I responded to one particularly negative review of my second book. I read that review and whatever the way the fucking tone was, it brought up all my insecurity from being a kid in school. And I read that review and I just felt absolutely worthless and I felt like anything I'd ever created before had been a mistake and this reviewer had found me out and they'd found me out.

• 8:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  And finally they'd proven to me that I was worthless and that's absurd. How could it be worthless because a book got a bad review? Because I'd placed my self-worth and my self-esteem and my identity in being a good writer, I'd let the good reviews go to my head. I'd taken the good reviews for my books in as external validation and approval of me as a human being. And why am I like that? Because I was shit at fucking school as a kid. I was shit at school, undiagnosed autistic. But I was very good at anything to do with creativity.

• 9:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  And whenever I wrote a little song or painted a little picture or wrote a little story when I was four or five years of age, the adults were telling me that I was good because everything else I was doing was shit. But as soon as I created something, then my teachers, my parents, my brothers and sisters said, wow, that's amazing. And as a tiny little kid, I internalized that as conditional worth, because that's conditional worth. The little child looks around and goes, when I do these certain things, the adults tell me that I'm good. And then that external conditional worth becomes internal conditional worth.

• 9:58Blindboy Boatclub?

  Oh, well, I must be good then when I'm good at creative things, at artistic things, I must be a good person when I do these things well. Then the flip side of that is, oh, when I don't do these things well, when I fuck up in something creative, then I must be utterly worthless, worthless, pathetic, terrible human being. And that there, that's called conditions of worth. And we live in a society which is full of conditions of worth. We're told by media advertising, we're worthy if we're physically attractive, we're worthy if we're wealthy, we're worthy if we have successful jobs.

• 10:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  Capitalism thrives on this, absolutely thrives on conditions of worth because then...

• 10:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  Advertising doesn't need to sell you a product, it can sell you a better version of yourself. Some people are lucky enough to have been brought up with unconditional positive regard. You know, some very, very lucky people, who I reckon are the minority, were brought up by caregivers who were like, "You're worthy of love no matter what. Nothing that you do, doesn't matter if you're good at drawing, or good at sports, or polite, or physically attractive, doesn't matter about any of these things, okay? They're nice, but regardless, we love you regardless, you have worth regardless."

• 11:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  And people who are lucky enough to have grown up in a regulated environment like that, these tend to be people who have high self-esteem. And high self-esteem isn't, "I think I'm fucking great." High self-esteem is having a stable, consistent sense of self-worth. The capacity to regard yourself as being worthwhile, even when you fail, even when you're criticised, even when you're unexceptional. That you understand intrinsically that no aspect of your behaviour defines your worth as a human being. Children who are raised with the privilege of that,

• 12:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  tend to have parents who also have very high self-esteem, who are very emotionally regulated, calm people. Fair play to those lucky individuals, but the vast majority of us, our caregivers, our parents, were fallible human beings. Fallible human beings navigating their own shit, stressed out, navigating trauma, pain, their own self-worth, and then...

• 12:49Blindboy Boatclub?

  For us as kids then, you don't have the consistent feeling of safety as a little child, that consistent feeling of I'm safe and loved. Cause you're a tiny little kid, you don't have critical thinking skills.

• 13:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  So you end up thinking, oh, my emotional needs are burdensome on my parents. Cause my dad's stressed or my ma's stressed and I'm four, so it must be my fault. I better stay quiet. I better stay quiet in case something I say or do will make my parents upset. Or, Jesus, I'm a bit of a fuck up, except when I do these one or two things really, really well. When I do these one or two things really, really well, all of a sudden, all the adults around me tell me I'm fucking brilliant. So I must only have worked when I do these things well. And then we internalize these things and we grow up to be fallible human beings, fallible fucking human beings.

• 13:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  So if it seems like I'm downplaying winning this award, or if I sound ungrateful, cause some people have a go at me over this shit. Some people say cheer the fuck up, be happy for yourself. I am happy, I'm happy for adult me.

• 14:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  But the little child in me, the little autistic kid is incredibly insecure and he's crying out for approval, for approval from a teacher, from my ma, from my dad, fucking crying out for that approval. And adult me now, I have to be a parent to little young me.

• 14:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  And the good parenting there is to go, fair fucks, you won an award, did you? Ah, that's great. What are you doing here, a painting, is it? Let's look at this. You enjoying that? Is that fun? Oh, don't worry about whether it's good or bad. You enjoying it? Do you like doing it? What do you wanna do next? Oh, you wanna write a story?

• 14:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  Oh, it doesn't matter if it's good or bad. Do you like doing it? Yeah, fucking do that if you enjoy it. So that's, that's what I'm doing right now. So winning a big, big award like that and having.

• 15:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  Like, I posted it on fucking Instagram and it got 25,000 likes. That's nuts. In, in the, in the machine, the machine that I use every day, Instagram, which has conditioned my brain to interpret a like as a little dopamine hit. I have to really step back from that. I have to step the fuck back and go, none of this matters. The only thing I should acknowledge here, we, we'll say 25,000 likes. I acknowledge that the kindness of those 20,000, 25,000 people who gave me a like. I acknowledge their kindness and I take on, but isn't that lovely? Isn't that nice?

• 15:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  Isn't it wonderful to have the, that someone has the compassion to take that little bit of time out of their day to be happy for me? And when I frame it that way, you see, it's not about fucking approval. That's, that's empathy. I'm using empathy there now. Instead of it being about someone just said, well done to me. I'm putting myself into the shoes of the person who is saying, well done. And then I bank that, you see? I bank that and then, then I'm reminding myself to extend that, that little bit of human connection to someone else, to someone else for whatever fucking reason. I want to fail at winning this award. And you know how you fail at winning an award?

• 16:39Blindboy Boatclub?

  By recognizing and acknowledging that the, the value we place on awards is a social construct. The award is for my work, for a piece of work that I did. It's not for me as a human being. And a piece of work that I do doesn't define my worth as a human being. And if this isn't making sense, I mentioned this before, a little thought experiment I always use when I'm trying to describe this particular scenario.

• 17:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  I think of, I think of something that I do where my identity isn't attached to it at all, my self-esteem and identity isn't attached to it at all. And for me, that's cooking. I fucking love cooking. I love making dinners. I'm really handy at it. I adore doing it. I used to not be able to cook. Now I can cook. Sometimes I fuck up a dinner. I put in too much salt, or I don't look at it and I burn it. What does that mean? I'm momentarily disappointed. I'm inconvenienced. Ah, fuck's sake. I have to get a takeaway now. Bollocks. I was really looking forward to that baronaise. I let it stick to the pan and it

• 17:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  burnt. Fuck's sake. Better take note of that the next time. And I just move on. I just move on. Could not give a shit. Couldn't give a fuck that I burnt the baronaise. I'm merely materially inconvenienced that I burnt the baronaise. I do not come away from that experience going, "There you go now. You're a fucking failure. That last baronaise that you cooked, that was delicious. That was an accident, that was. And this baronaise, the one that you burnt, this is proof that you're a worthless human being, that you're fucking pathetic and worthless.

• 18:35Blindboy Boatclub?

  And any good, any good meal you've ever cooked before is an accident. And everyone can see how pathetic you are." Do you think I do that when I burn a baronaise? No, absolutely not. That's mad. It's absurd.

• 18:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  What a terrible lot of things to say to myself about a baronaise. But I will absolutely say that to myself if I get a bad review. Absolutely. I'll say that to myself for fucking months. I'll paralyze myself. Why is a short story or a documentary, why is that more important than a baronaise? It's not. They're both just things that I do. The difference is, I didn't grow up in a house where the adults told me I was good or bad if I was cooking food. Just didn't happen. But if I, if I painted a picture, if I drew something good, if I made a little song, wrote a story, then everyone's like, "Oh my God, you're brilliant. You're incredible. My goodness. Oh, we gotta show the neighbors. This is astounding." Or in the context of documentaries.

• 19:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  I explored this in a short story I wrote called The Cat Pissed Astronaut in my last book, which is, a lot of it is based on my experience as a child. But when I was four or five in school, so I was highly disruptive, not interested in school whatsoever, until he got me talking about something I was interested in. And I was about four, maybe, and I'd been teaching myself, I taught myself how to read from encyclopedias from about three or four years of age. And I think it was dinosaurs. If it wasn't dinosaurs, it was the planets.

• 20:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  But anyway, a teacher heard me talking about dinosaurs when I was four and was like, what? And then asked me more questions. And I went down my dinosaur end. And the teacher was like, how the fuck does this kid know so much about dinosaurs? He's a little shit. How does he know this much about dinosaurs? And then that teacher brought me up to first class, to the older kids, to teach them about dinosaurs. And then all the other teachers came around to see me, the little four-year-old, knowing more about dinosaurs than the older kids and their teacher. And I just remember all the teachers and the students just being mesmerized. And I felt really, really,

• 20:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  really special. And I learned at that moment, as a tiny child, that if I'm the person who can make people's jaws drop with knowledge, then I'm safe in that moment. And that safety there, that's the fucking approval. I'm safe in that moment. I'm not getting in trouble. And those are the foundations of conditions of work. So I have to be a parent to that four-year-old, because I'm after living out his dream. If you're the four-year-old who gets brought up to the bigger kids to talk to them about fucking dinosaurs, and now as an adult... And after winning one of the biggest documentary awards in the world,

• 21:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  those two things are connected, you see. Because the safety that I chase, the meaning that I that I experience when I'm writing documentaries, that's that feeling of safety I got then when I was fucking four. And see, that bit is good. That's what in the school of psychology called transactional analysis. That's known as the free child. Little four year old me, who used to like reading encyclopedias and learning about dinosaurs and planets. And then used to enjoy telling people about all the things that I've learned. I used to love doing that. That's me at play as a child. That's that's feeling safe, playfulness. And that's the free child.

• 22:25Blindboy Boatclub?

  According to transactional analysis, all of us have in us as adults, we all have in us. A free child, an adapted child. Free child is where our spontaneity, playfulness, curiosity, creativity, emotional honesty, joy. That's our free child. And you tap into that when

• 22:49Blindboy Boatclub?

  when you're like experiencing creative flow. And for neurotypical people, when you're having fun with people you love and you're just completely relaxed and roaring laughing. When you're uninhibited and excited, completely excited and humming and singing. That's your free child and it's wonderful. And that's, there's great meaning in that. And our free child is, the heartbreaker is we're all born as, that's what we're all born into. Look at a two year old or a three year old.

• 23:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  And the justice, the wonder that they have of simply being alive. They want love, warmth, food and wonder. And we all, we were all that, that's our free child. The part of our personality that we had before social conditioning and behavioural modification. But then you have your adapted child that develops. When we're a little bit older, it develops as a response to external authority, environmental demands, fucking approval. And your adapted child.

• 24:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's when you're afraid of getting into trouble. Are you a grown adult? Are you a fucking adult? And as an adult, sometimes you're afraid of getting into trouble. Now, I don't mean getting arrested or legal trouble or anything like that. I mean, you're late for work or you haven't responded to an email. And you're not gonna get into trouble. You're not like, what does that even mean? You're a fucking adult. Adults can't get into trouble. Your boss or the person you were supposed to respond to, they might get a bit pissed off. They might get frustrated. But no, you feel like you're gonna get into trouble. You feel like you're gonna be punished. And now, all of a sudden, because you're afraid of being in trouble,

• 24:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  your body language changes, you're people pleasing. You're apologetic, that's your adapted child. Just like in a moment of joy, where you're humming and singing and laughing, and you're right back at free child. Little triggers can bring you back into adapted child, and now you think you're in trouble. And so for me, something I bring into my awareness. When I'm creating, when I'm making something, the middle, the process, I'm in free child, I'm in flow. So I'm right back to being four, reading my encyclopedias, ranting to somebody about something that I learned. That's free child.

• 25:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  But then the bit where I'm at the top of the class and I look around and all the children have their jaws open because they can't believe I know that much about dinosaurs. And the adults are whispering at each other going, oh my God, he's special. There's something different with him. And I'm internalizing this as, oh, I have worked. I must be good. That's my adapted child. And I have to step in and be a parent to him. And I go, oh, the teachers, the teachers asked you to talk about dinosaurs to the older classes. Wow, did you enjoy that? That sounds like you really enjoyed that. What would you like for dinner now?

• 26:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  Acknowledging the experience, not placing a value on it, not saying goodbye. Wow, you're brilliant, that's amazing. Or thank fuck, I thought you were thick. So, yeah, that's my, this, this award that I got.

• 26:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's an opportunity for me to be on the lookout, to be, to be, to be mindful about my internal world. And to spot when my little child comes up in me and to be a parent to that child as, as the fucking adult that I am now. So this week, I don't have a hot take this week. Some weeks I just have to show up and be authentic. And I don't want to force a hot take. This has been a big week, as you can imagine, I've been very busy doing interviews. And I want to be congruent with my thoughts. Let's have a little Ocarina pause. I don't have an Ocarina, I'm in my studio.

• 27:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  We'll bring the Ocarina back when it feels right. I think I'm gonna jingle some dull keys. And you'll hear an advert for some bullshit. So let's jingle some dull keys.

• 27:39Speaker 00

  Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a berry chantilly cake. Ready to cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings. And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  If you felt stuck trying to lose weight, you're not alone. Enter Weight Loss by Hers. It's designed to support you in reaching your goals. And Hers now offers access to an affordable range of FDA approved GLP-1 medications, including the Wegovy pill and the Wegovy patent. Even better, with a range of affordable GLP-1 options, Hers makes it simple to find an approach that fits your needs and your budget. If eligible, you'll get a treatment plan personalized to you and unlimited dosage changes as needed. It's weight loss designed to work with your life. Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/eligible to get personalized, affordable

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Care that gets you. That's F O R H E R S dot com slash eligible. For hers dot com slash eligible. Weight loss by hers is not available in all 50 states. We go V is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk AS. To get started and learn more, including important safety information, we go V clinical study information and restrictions. Visit for hers dot com.

• 29:07Speaker 03

  At Lowe's this Veterans Day and every day. Military members, veterans and their spouses get automatic Milo's Rewards Silver Status Benefits. Plus 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honor and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at Lowe's dot com slash military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms and conditions apply. Loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowe's dot com slash terms. Subject to change.

• 29:41Speaker 00

  Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a Berry Chantilly Cake. Ready to cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings and sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  If you've felt stuck trying to lose weight, you're not alone. Enter weight loss by hers. It's designed to support you in reaching your goals. And hers now offers access to an affordable range of FDA approved GLP-1 medications, including the WeGoVee pill and the WeGoVee pen. Even better, with a range of affordable GLP-1 options, hers makes it simple to find an approach that fits your needs and your budget. If eligible, you'll get a treatment plan personalized to you and unlimited dosage changes as needed. It's weight loss designed to work with your life. Ready to reach your goals? Visit for hers dot com slash eligible to get personalized, affordable care that gets you. That's F O R H E R S dot com slash eligible. For hers dot com slash eligible.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Weight loss by hers is not available in all 50 states. We go V is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk AS. To get started and learn more, including important safety information, we go V clinical study information and restrictions. Visit for hers dot com.

• 31:09Speaker 03

  At Lowe's, this Veterans Day and every day, military members, veterans and their spouses get automatic Milo's Rewards Silver Status Benefits. Plus, 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honour and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at Lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms and conditions apply. Loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.

• 31:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page, patreon.com/theblindbypodcast. If this podcast brings you mirth or merriment or distraction, entertainment, whatever the fuck has you listening to this podcast, please consider supporting it directly, as this is my full-time job. This is how I earn a living, how I rent out my office, how I pay all my bills. All I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month, that's it. And if you can't afford that, don't worry about it. You can listen for free, because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free. So everybody gets a podcast and I get to earn a living.

• 32:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  Patreon.com/theblindbypodcast. Now I'm going to fulfil my contractual obligations and promote a couple of gigs. All of these gigs are 2026, but I must say they're selling quickly because people are buying tickets as Christmas presents. So, starting in January 26, on the 23rd, I'm in Waterford in the Theatre of Ryle. Then I'm up to Glamourous Nays at the Spirit of Kildare Festival on the 31st of January. Then in February, we move to Dublin, to the wonderful Vicar Street for a Wednesday night gig there on the 4th of February.

• 33:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  Then let's go to Belfast. Let's go to Belfast on the 12th of February at the Waterfront Theatre, before moving down to Galway on the 15th of February in Leisure Land. At the end of February, Killarney beckons in the Eye Neck Theatre. In March, I go to Carlo on the 14th. I haven't had a dose of Carlo in a long time. Then let's go to Cork on the 26th of fucking March there in the Cork Opera House. And who could forget wonderful gorgeous Limerick, my home city, where I'd be playing the University Concert Hall. In April is it? And then a lot of shit in between.

• 33:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  And then fucking England, Scotland and Wales, October 2026. A long time away, but the tickets are fucking going quickly, right? So Brighton, Cardiff, Coventry, Bristol, Guildford, London, Glasgow, Gateshead, Nottingham. There, a year away, you glorious cracking tens. You'll find the English tickets on fan.co.uk forward slash the blind by podcast. And then the Irish tour on the blind by podcast.ie, which is my own website, assuming it works. If not, just fucking type it into Google. So, look, I won the best presenter award. I don't know what they make of it.

• 34:40Blindboy Boatclub?

  Um, I'm not being ungrateful. It's just overwhelming. I'm conscious of the weight of the award. It's the Grierson Awards Documentary Awards. It's basically, it's like one underneath an Oscar. It's like one underneath an Oscar or a Cairns. Is Cairns where they do documentary awards? The Oscars for fucking documentary awards. Grierson is like underneath that. So I'm very conscious of the weight of that award. And I'm trying to navigate it healthily by saying it's an acknowledgement of the work. Do you know how I won that award? By failing through failure.

• 35:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  And what I mean by that is I won best presenter award. I'm a shit TV presenter. I am not a good television presenter. It's not a skill set that I have. Like, TV presenters have a certain way of carrying themselves and walking and speaking and making eye contact with the camera. A performance, a tone of voice, something which feels television presenter-y-ish. And I'm awful at that, like really bad at that. But the thing is,

• 36:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  you can be shit at something and make it look good, so long as, so long as you're confident. The best way to describe this is dancing.

• 36:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  There's lots of performers who are actually shit at dancing, like really bad dancers. But because they dance shittily, but with extreme comfort and confidence, they're actually now not bad dancers, they're brilliant dancers. David Bowie, not a good dancer, can't dance, but what he does do, he does it confidently. David Byrne, talking heads, same thing, can't fucking dance, but whatever the fuck it is that he does, it's authentic and congruent and he enjoys it and it works his dancing. Mary J. Blige. Look at Mary J. Blige dancing. It's like she's trying to put a jacket on,

• 36:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  but she's not allowed to use her hands, so she has to shake the jacket on. That's how she dances. But she does it with congruence and authenticity and she doesn't give a fuck what you think about her dancing. Because this is her thing and this is what she does. And then before you know it, Mary J. Blige is actually a fucking excellent dancer. I, I, I can watch Mary J. Blige dancing for ages. I look at her dancing way more than I'd watch someone who's a conventionally brilliant dancer. So therefore, Mary J. Blige is actually a fantastic dancer. So you can actually be shit at something.

• 37:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  But if you, if you're shit at it confidently and you lean in towards the failure and make it work for you, you can turn, you can turn failure into success. Like, like one example in, in that documentary I made was,

• 37:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  I was presenting a scene from Schkeleg Michael. An old monastic rock in the middle of fucking, in the middle of the ocean.

• 38:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  And the whole island was just, there was puffins everywhere, fucking hundreds and thousands of puffins. And I had a job, my job was to deliver lines to the camera. And I couldn't do it because I kept getting distracted by the puffins. How the fuck am I supposed to look down the lens of the camera and deliver lines coherently? When there's puffins all around me? So I kept getting distracted by puffins when I was trying to do my lines. So what did we do? We left it in. First off, another television presenter, they're not going to get distracted by puffins. They're going to be able to focus on the work.

• 38:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  But if they were getting distracted by puffins and they couldn't do their lines, you'd have to shut the shoot down and the director would get pissed off and they go, for fuck's sake, we're after wasting a day's shooting. We have to find a new location because that presenter keeps getting distracted by puffins. But that's not how I operate. If I'm presenting a scene and I'm surrounded by puffins and they keep distracting me, then that's what we do, that's what the scene is. I'm going to deliver these lines. And, and the thing, the lines were about death. I was speaking about my own mortality, surrounded by hundreds of puffins, actively being distracted by puffins.

• 39:31Blindboy Boatclub?

  And because I was so comfortable with the absurdity of that and confident in, in like, I don't give a fuck, I'll talk about mortality surrounded by puffins. I'd actually prefer to do that than to be pretend serious or solemn. So something which actually should be. Horrendous, ends up being good. I was a shit fucking presenter, Keith Floyd. I've spoken about Keith Floyd before, he was a television chef in the eighties and he used to get shitfaced. He used to cook with alcohol and then he'd get shitfaced and he'd be pissed drunk for every single recipe he was making. And it was brilliant, he made it work.

• 40:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  He wasn't hiding the fact that he was drunk, it was, he owned it, he took ownership of it and made it his own. I'm so shit at presenting television. I can't even show my face. I have to cover my face with a plastic bag. This means you don't get facial expressions. But I'm quite comfortable wearing a plastic bag, I'm not embarrassed about it. I quite like it, I enjoy it, I think it's good crack. So at all points I embrace failure, failure, failure, failure. And of course, not just me. My co-writer, producer and director, James, who I work with really closely. He's a hundred percent in with this method too. There's no such thing as right or wrong with him.

• 40:58Blindboy Boatclub?

  Right and wrong doesn't exist, there's is this working or is it not? And as I've mentioned, like, I'm consistently mentioning the importance of failure in art. And you rarely hear me talking about fucking success. Now, the only real failure is doing nothing, we've mentioned that, that's not showing up, not getting up, not turning up for the shoot. Turning down opportunities. Failure is when nothing is created. But when something is created, then there's no such thing as failure. So failure for me is, instead of trying to make something good, consistently

• 41:39Blindboy Boatclub?

  making choices that are terrible and then trying to work my way out of them. The documentary itself was commissioned by the RTE Religious Department.

• 41:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  They wanted me to make a documentary about Christianity. The fuck am I doing making a documentary about Christianity? I don't believe in Christianity. I think I'm the only contemporary Irish entertainer who was nearly charged with the blasphemy law. And I had bishops up and down Ireland who brought a formal complaint against me with the fucking Broadcast Authority of Ireland because I called communion wafers haunted bread. So the last documentary that I should be writing and I should be making is a fucking documentary about Christianity or religion. Terrible idea. Brilliant. Now I'm beginning with failure.

• 42:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  What do I want to make a documentary about? Well, I'm a writer, I'd love to make a documentary about writing. Okay. How do I make this documentary about early Irish Christianity? About the Irish writing tradition? So that's what I did.

• 42:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  I'm, it's a, it's a very serious, it's a serious academic documentary that has a number of experts in it. The documentary is, it's so serious

• 43:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  that part of the money for the commissioning came from the Department of Education because the documentary had to be shown in schools on the junior cert syllabus. It's not called the junior cert anymore, but I'm elderly, what the fuck do I know? So I knew from the start, this has to be a serious documentary. It has to be rigorous. There can't be a fact out of place. It has to be academically sound. There's no room whatsoever for any, for hot takes. This has to be rigorously academic and serious. So I said, okay. Let's be serious while being as silly as possible. I'm gonna have a dog in this documentary and the dog's gonna have eyebrows for no reason. That's insane.

• 43:46Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's, if another television presenter suggested that, they'd lose their job or they'd be in the middle of some type of crisis. Do you get me? I can't understand how I won this award. And I'm, I'm trying to dissect, I'm trying to dissect what exactly went on that, that led to this. And I think that's what happened. It's the consistent process that's based on failure. If you aim for success. Right, with any art, if you aim for success, you'll scare yourself, you'll frighten yourself, so you end up playing it safe. So aiming for success will give you consistent mediocrity.

• 44:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  But aiming for failure will give you occasional brilliance, because you're taking risks, you see. You're taking risks, you're operating laterally, and you're greatly increasing the chances of doing something new. And just something else there around confidence and audacity.

• 44:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  Something as bizarre as this documentary is gonna have a dog that has eyebrows in it, and the presenter has a plastic bag on his head. I don't feel nervous about any of that, or worried, or apprehensive, or concerned it won't work. I know that it's silly, I know it's ridiculous. But the thing that gives me the confidence to do that is that the writing is fucking bulletproof.

• 45:20Blindboy Boatclub?

  So it takes about six months to make a documentary, which I write with James. That's where the rigor is. Bulletproof thesis, bulletproof script. Knowing that the words, the words fucking work. These words work, these ideas work. Solid arguments are being made. And once you have that, that's your foundation. That's the fucking foundation. And once that foundation is solid, and it's not gonna sink, and it's staying in place, then the house that you're building in can be as silly as you want, be as ridiculous and as silly as you want, because you know it's not gonna fall over. And that's where confidence and congruence comes from. So I just have to assume that these are the things that...

• 46:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  Had me win that fucking award. The reason I'm flabbergasted is this should not have happened. It's the, it's the first RT documentary in over 20 years to win one of these awards. I think I was the only Irish documentary at the awards. It's really fucking unexpected that I was nominated and 100% I was sure that I'd be coming back to you with this week's podcast going, I went over to London, I went to the awards, I didn't win. 100%. It was, I did not entertain the possibility that I was gonna fucking win. I was in the

• 46:47Blindboy Boatclub?

  long list with Louis Theroux. Alright, proper international documentary stuff. So, I'm speechless over it, but I'm not really speechless because I just spoke for ages about it. But, I'm confused and I feel weird and it hasn't really hit me. And then the award ceremony itself, I wore my smart casual fucking jacket, that worked out well, blended in nicely. The venue was in the Camden Roundhouse, which wasn't conducive to human interaction at all. A completely round building and when I was sitting in my seats, there was about

• 47:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  2000 or 3000 people there. When I was sitting in my seat, I nearly missed my own award because I was Googling the history of the fucking building. But the building itself was, it's an old Victorian. It was a turntable for trains, it's a building for trains. Big round circle. And trains used to stick their noses into this circle and then the building itself would rotate. And that's how a train would go from one track to another. And that's what the building was. And now it's an entertainment venue. But because it's this massive colosseum like circle, it's horrendous for the acoustics of the human voice. So-

• 48:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  After I won the award, there's 3,000 people there on their own.

• 48:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  I get profoundly overwhelmed by the chatter, the cacophony. Then I was getting chased down by, when you win the award, then you see everyone wants to fucking talk to you.

• 48:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  I spoke to one person from Netflix. And all I did was talk about the IRA for no reason. So I'm not gonna get commissioned on fucking Netflix, that's a guarantee. I left the awards early. I couldn't, there was too many people, there was two, 3,000 people and too many people wanted to talk to me. And I was overwhelmed and I said, fuck this. I left the awards about 15 minutes after I won the award. And I went to a quiet pub on my own. Where I drank a couple of pints, threw on my headphones. And I listened to Sepulchra, or a Brazilian heavy metal band. And then I celebrated winning my award the next day.

• 49:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  I went to TK Maxx and I bought myself some luxury shower gel. I bought rose water scented, a litre of rose water scented luxury shower gel. Which I combined with cocoa butter moisturiser, right? And I did this because it made me smell like the memory of a Turkish delight. Not a Turkish delight as you'd eat it, but what you remember. The purple fries Turkish delight to taste and smell like as a child. Then the second thing I did to celebrate winning the award. I bought a hat that turns into a balaclava.

• 49:56Blindboy Boatclub?

  And then I went out to a place in London called Wanstead, just near Ilford. It's a far east London. And I went to the City of London Cemetery to visit the grave of the Elephant Man. Who was...

• 50:14Blindboy Boatclub?

  A fella in the late 1800s,

• 50:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  he was very severely deformed. His name was Joseph Merrick, and he had a terribly unfortunate life, where he toured freak shows. But then a very compassionate doctor cared for him in a hospital, and he became like a celebrity of his time.

• 50:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  And there's a brilliant fucking film, The Elephant Man, made in 1984 by David Lynch. And what makes it phenomenal is, because David Lynch is a surrealist, it's a historically accurate film. But it's also possibly one of David Lynch's strangest films. What I adore about David Lynch's work, and he said this before, he said this before in an interview, because his films are nuts.

• 51:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  He said, "You can't view his films as being good or bad. You have to critique his films the way that you would critique a weird dream." And I thought that was beautiful. Because sometimes we have dreams that are fucking nuts. You just have a dream, and for no reason, in the middle of your dream, you're suddenly in a different room, wearing different clothes, and all your teeth fall out, and you just never question it. You don't wake up critiquing your dream going, "Oh, that plot wasn't great." You go, "Jesus, I had a weird dream last night." And David Lynch says that's how you must look at his films. And The Elephant Man is like that.

• 51:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's a historically accurate biography of a very deformed man called Joseph Merrick. But the film feels like the strangest dream you could ever have. An odd nightmare. And Joseph Merrick, The Elephant Man, his skeleton was preserved, I think it's in London Hospital. His skeleton was preserved. But then his soft tissue, they also kept in the hospital, but a lot of it was destroyed in the blitz. And then what was left of his soft tissue? They buried it somewhere and they couldn't find it for fucking years.

• 52:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  And then a biographer of him found a little grave with some of his soft tissue in 2019. And that's what I visited out in the city of London Cemetery. So that's how I celebrated my fucking award.

• 52:49Blindboy Boatclub?

  I visited the grave of the Elephant Man with a hat that turns into a balaclava while smelling like a Turkish delight. And I'm happy I celebrated the award that way because there's a humility in it. There's a humility in that. So thank you for all the well wishes. The name of my documentary, for anyone who doesn't know, is called Blind by Land, Land of Slaves and Scholars, and it's still up on the RTE player. I'll be back next week, hopefully with a hot take. In the meantime, rub a dog, wink at a swan, and genuflect to a robin. Dog bless.

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