EP.277 - SARA COX

Adam talks with broadcaster and author Sara Cox about hair raising childhood farm injuries, being a Daddy's girl, cringey memories of The Girlie Show, whether she feels she needs to watch what she says at the Big British Castle, the challenges of parenting teenagers in the digital age and the physical toll exacted upon her by Pudsey Bear. Conversation recorded face-to-face in London on 10 June, 2026 Thanks to Diggory Waite and Claire Broughton at Hattrick and Séamus Murphy Mitchell for production support. Podcast illustration by Helen Green https://helengreenillustration.com/ PEOPLE'S EMERGENCY BRIEFING ON CLIMATE https://www.nebriefing.org/the-filmInformation about where to see the film and how to organise a screening. Sign Chris Packham's petition HERE https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/767687 “The UK faces growing risks from climate and nature breakdown – from extreme weather to economic disruption and national security threats. Yet the public has never been given a clear national briefing on the scale of these risks. Government should hold an emergency briefing from leading experts. These risks could have serious consequences across UK society, with threats to health and food supply – which could become irreversible without urgent action. Many people are unclear how these risks may affect them, and information in the public domain is often misleading. A credible national briefing from independent experts would give people clear, trusted guidance on what these risks mean in practice, and what we can do – both together and individually – to prepare and respond.” Chris Packham. ADAM BUXTON PODCAST LIVE WITH MAWAAN RIZWAAN https://www.roundhouse.org.uk/whats-on/adam-buxton-podcast-cf/ @ Roundhouse, London, 5 August, 2026 (Roundhouse) THE TRUTH OF US https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/sara-cox/the-truth-of-us/9781399737722/ by Sara Cox - 2026 (Hachette) THE TEEN COMMANDMENTS PODCAST https://www.youtube.com/@TheTeenCommandments (YouTube) THE TEEN COMMANDMENTS PODCAST https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-teen-commandments/id1794354390 (Apple Podcasts) 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.

• 0:00Adam Buxton?

  I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening. I took my microphone and found some human folk. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buckston, I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan.

• 0:31Adam Buxton?

  Hey, how are you doing, podcast? It's Adam Buckston here. I'm back on, well, it's not a crunchy Norfolk farm track this bit. This is the side of a field. It's a crunchy field. Because the sun's been drying the heck out of it. And I'm walking past some new fencing. That's the big news from around this part of the world. They've been hammering in new fence posts. They've got a very particular smell. They coat them in Krea Soap to waterproof the wood.

• 1:07Adam Buxton?

  Ooh. Atari. Atari Fence Post. One of my favourite video games back in the eighties.

• 1:17Adam Buxton?

  Now although I am back in Norfolk, I'm still without my best dog friend Rosie Buckston. Because, she's perfectly fine. We had a walk earlier today. Because I had the opportunity to go for a walk with one of my children and I took it. Even though I wasn't ready to record my intro at that point. And at her advanced age, double walk on a hot day is not really what she's after, I don't think. Anyway, she made a point of asking me to send you her love. I was like, really? She's like, yes, yes, I do.

• 1:59Adam Buxton?

  Because it's been a couple of weeks and I really miss them. That's my impression of Rosie. It's quite accurate, isn't it? Oh no, look, there's the fence post team up there. I'm going to go a different route. Last thing I want to do is bump into the FPT.

• 2:19Adam Buxton?

  Now, since uploading the last episode of this podcast with Louis Theroux, I have played the last couple of shows from the Adam Buxton Band Tour, which took place at Hoxton Hall, East London. What a great venue, hadn't been there before. Thank you so much to everyone who came along, I really hope you enjoyed it as much as the band and I did. But, oh boy, it was hot. It was two of the hottest days of last week's heatwave, so it's intense. Speaking of the weather, thank you very much to everyone who came along to the Norwich Arts Centre the other night, as I speak, for the screening of the People's Emergency Briefing

• 3:02Adam Buxton?

  climate film, which is presented by Chris Packham. It's part of an initiative calling for the government to hold a UK-wide televised briefing on climate and nature risks. You know, like one of the emergency briefings from Covid times that we all loved watching so much. Maybe they could get Chris Witty along. The Norwich Arts Centre event was sold out in the end, which is fantastic. I was seeing the film for the first time along with the audience. And afterwards, myself and Guardian journalist and acclaimed nature writer Patrick Barkham talked with each other and with the audience

• 3:42Adam Buxton?

  about our responses to the information in the film and, most importantly, what's next. One audience member there that night asked why the film isn't available to watch in full on the internet at the moment. And as far as I'm aware, that is a conscious decision by the organisers who wanted the first wave of engagement with the film to take place in a physical space, in rooms full of people who could talk about it amongst each other afterwards, rather than having people watch the film in isolation online.

• 4:19Adam Buxton?

  Incidentally, you can find out where a screening close to you is happening or arrange your own screening, indeed, that's what I did, by following the link in the description. And that link will also take you to the talks delivered in Westminster in November 2025, at the event which kick-started all this. So in other words, if you can't get to a screening for whatever reason, you can still take a look at the information in there and, very importantly, you can sign the petition. There is a link in the description of today's episode to Chris Packham's non-partisan petition to the government, calling for a UK-wide briefing on climate and nature risks. And I'd like to encourage all of you to sign it.

• 5:03Adam Buxton?

  Chris Packham says, "The UK faces growing risks from climate and nature breakdown, from extreme weather to economic disruption and national security threats. Yet the public has never been given a clear national briefing on the scale of these risks. Governments should hold an emergency briefing from leading experts. These risks could have serious consequences across the UK society, with threats to health and food supply which could become irreversible without urgent action. Many people are unclear how these risks may affect them, and information in the public domain is often misleading. A credible national briefing from independent experts would give people clear, trusted guidance

• 5:47Adam Buxton?

  on what these risks mean in practice and what we can do, both together and individually, to prepare and respond." So that's the point of the People's Emergency Briefing film and of the petition. If the petition gets more than 100,000 signatures, as I speak, it is just under 30,000, the issue will be discussed publicly by MPs and addressed by the government. Hope you can help. Thank you if so. Okay, let me tell you a bit about podcast number 277, which features a rambling conversation with English broadcaster and author Sarah Cox.

• 6:31Adam Buxton?

  Oh, it's lovely and breezy here. I'm gonna stop by this here gate.

• 6:36Adam Buxton?

  And enjoy the cool wind. Cox facts. Sarah was born in nineteen seventy four and grew up in Bolton, Lancashire. After working as a model for a period in her late teens and early twenties, she was chosen to be one of the presenters of Channel Four's post-pub Lady Lads programme, The Girlie Show, in nineteen ninety six. In two thousand, she took over BBC Radio One's breakfast show, hosting for three years before moving through drive time and weekend slots until leaving Radio One for good in February twenty fourteen. She'd already joined Radio Two in twenty eleven, later taking over its drive time show in January twenty nineteen.

• 7:20Adam Buxton?

  On television, Sarah has presented The Great Pottery Throwdown, Too Much TV and Back in Time For, as well as BBC Two's Between the Covers since twenty twenty and since twenty twenty five, the miniature series The Marvelous Miniature Workshop. Having recently entered her fifth decade, Sarah has described her fifties as "a golden time". She's certainly busy enough. Last year, Sarah and her modelling friend Claire Hamilton started the Teen Commandments podcast, initially recorded in Sarah's garden shed. The show features the pair talking about the experience of parenting teenage children having been boundary pushing teenagers themselves,

• 8:03Adam Buxton?

  and includes hilarious and sometimes shocking contributions from their listeners. Meanwhile, from Monday the sixth of July, Sarah takes over as the host of the Radio Two breakfast show, broadcast live from the big British castle every weekday morning from six thirty to nine thirty a.m. As if all that wasn't enough, Sarah is also a bestselling author. Her memoir, Till the Cows Come Home, which fondly describes growing up on her father's cattle farm in the nineteen eighties, was published in twenty nineteen, and since then, she's written two hugely popular novels with a third, The Truth of Us, out on July the sixteenth.

• 8:47Adam Buxton?

  Oh yeah, and towards the end of twenty twenty five, Sarah ran a one hundred and thirty five mile ultra marathon for children in need. My conversation with Sarah was recorded face to face in London at the beginning of June twenty twenty six, and we spoke about life on the farm, hair raising farm injuries, being a daddy's girl, how Sarah got into modelling, cringey memories of the girly show, whether she feels the need to watch what she says at the big British castle, the challenges of parenting teenagers in the digital age, and the physical toll exacted upon her by Pudsey Bear. But we began with me asking Sarah about the incredible level of detail in her memoir.

• 9:30Adam Buxton?

  Back at the end to say goodbye, but right now, with Sarah Cox. Here we go.

• 10:17Adam Buxton?

  Well, you were saying it's easy to write a memoir because you just have to remember some stuff. Yeah. But the detail of the stuff you were remembering was extraordinary until the cows come home. It's really about the experience of your childhood, growing up on a farm. There's quite a lot of good injury stories, farmer drama on there, falling down holes and gashing your leg on bricks in the middle of thunderstorms while you're carrying heavy chickens. And then also there's just stories about little moments, like lovely moments of being with animals or all that sort of stuff. How did you remember that? Is that all just family legend or?

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Not really. I mean, I just, my brother was really helpful. Robert, my eldest brother. I mean, he was great with the details of what, what year things would have been. And because, you know, my dad couldn't really, I mean, I'd ring my dad and ask him what the name of a certain bull was or whatever. But our Rob was helpful with all that. But yeah, the other stuff, just stuff I'll never forget. I mean, there was a sort of older railway. What do they call it? You know,

• 11:21Adam Buxton?

  Sleepers.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Sleepers, yeah. And great fun to sort of skip along. And I kept getting told not to do that. And then of course went flying and stuck a big like three inch nail or whatever through the fleshy bit of the bottom of my thumb.

• 11:34Adam Buxton?

  I had to stop walking when that bit came up on the audio book. And a chill went through me. Oh God. How old were you?

• 11:41Speaker 01

  I reckon I must have been maybe, God, four, I think, five.

• 11:48Adam Buxton?

  And you described very well the response that every parent has really after something like that, that's so shocking. And it's just rage.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, you get absolutely bollocked for it. It's my main memory as a child is hurting myself and getting bollocked for it.

• 12:04Adam Buxton?

  You're just so shocked as a parent.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:07Adam Buxton?

  But also relieved that it's maybe not worse or very shocked because it is really bad.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:12Adam Buxton?

  Or whatever. But your first response is often not to say, hey, it's okay. I love you. It's just go, Jesus Christ, I told you not to do that. Now you've got a nail through your hand. Now we're gonna have to go to the hospital.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Well, that's it as well. When you're busy, you're like, jeez, that's why I said, because you, you instantly map out how many hours it's gonna be of dealing with this. Like driving to Bolton General or whatever and sitting in A and E for hours. You just already go, well, that's the rest of my day gone. I think there's something about being raised on a farm where you just don't wanna make a fuss. My dad always had like a black thumbnail or fingernail where he just thwacked it with a lump hammer or, you know, a cow would run into a gate and he trapped his thumb or what, you know, it was always that, just be all right, give it a rinse and carry on.

• 13:00Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  And I think it feels like you're failing a bit if you don't keep up that kind of like, oh, be all right. You know, I remember like I used to plunge my hands into like freezing cold water when I'd mix up sugar beet and like the horses feed from my little pony goat. And I'd just used to think, oh, can't wait till I've got a sort of big, sort of wrinkly, calloused, scarred hands like me dad.

• 13:23Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  I was like twelve. Obviously now I'm like, oh, where's the hand cream? I'm like, what was wrong with me? I'm such an unbelievable daddy's girl. It's just pathetic, really.

• 13:35Adam Buxton?

  Well, that's very touching. Your love of your dad comes across in that book and I mean, it sounds like a kind of idyllic childhood you had in a way, really.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  There were some amazing bits of being on the farm, but for a lot of it, I was living down the road in a little council house with my mum and stepdad.

• 13:54Adam Buxton?

  After they separated?

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, from sort of the age of like seven or eight, but it was really close, like a sort of like seven or eight minute walk. I'm just smiling because my husband goes mad at me because I can never say five minutes or 10 minutes. I'm always like seven.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  He's like, do you mean 10? No, seven. It's not as much as 10. It's not as little as five. So, yeah, it was like a seven or eight minute walk up to the farm. So I'd always, you know, I'd always be up there and amazing things. I mean, going to like shows, you know, going to the the Great Yorkshire Show and the Royal Welsh Show, whatever, you just pack up a truck where you'd have the cows in the back and you'd have this big show box. It was amazing.

• 14:34Adam Buxton?

  And what were you showing? You were showing bulls and things like that, weren't you?

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, so pedigree Pold Hereford. So Pold just means if not got horns. Brown and white cows, basically. Lovely sort of deep chestnut brown and white faces and a little white on the neck at the back and the white socks and then the end of the tail is white, like gorgeous, gorgeous animals. And I'd get to like hold like the calf and just get dragged along at the back with the calf and dad would be showing like the big bull. It was a big sort of family affair going to. It was lovely.

• 15:04Adam Buxton?

  I mean, you do talk about the fact that you really fell in love with a lot of these animals and Yet you were aware of what happened to them and what the system was, what you were doing there.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  When I was really little, I didn't really know where they were going. Obviously, when I was tiny, when I was like four or five, I had no idea. Whether the pigs would be getting bigger and going off. But yeah, then I guess I became more aware of it. But it was all very like.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  I don't know, just kind of like a fact of life really, that these animals would go off. And, you know, we had two lambs called Freezer one and Freezer two. That, that, you know, because we never had sheep, but my dad had mates who had sheep, some other farmer friends, and if they were, they'd been orphaned or whatever. So they'd been like a cardboard box next to the fire. So, you know, obviously, when you're a little girl, that's incredible. You get to bottle feed a lamb. I mean, it's so amazing. And so it was always with nicknames like that, you'd always sort of understand. The deal. It wouldn't be around forever.

• 16:04Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  But they had a great life when they were on my dad's farm.

• 16:07Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  As much as seventies and eighties farming allowed, I guess.

• 16:10Adam Buxton?

  Uh huh. Did you ever see that film, Okja?

• 16:13Speaker 01

  No.

• 16:14Adam Buxton?

  Oh, maybe you shouldn't see that film.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  What is it? I've seen Simon Amstall's film.

• 16:20Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah. How did, what did you make of that?

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Uh, that was ages ago. Yeah, I thought it was interesting and it really did make me think. And I was kind of like, I've been. Flexitarian over the years and I was sort of. I was vegan for quite a few months after watching that. I think a lot of people probably do that. It's a real contradiction, I think, as a farmer's daughter and trying to support British farmers to then be a vegan just feels kind of.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  Wrong.

• 16:45Adam Buxton?

  Do you have conversations about George Mombio in your family house?

• 16:49Speaker 01

  No, well, my daughter, Maura, she's doing GCSEs right now and she's really aware of the climate and meat production on the climate and. We're having like meat free Monday type.

• 17:01Adam Buxton?

  Listeners, um, George Mombio, I mean, his, his thing. As far as I'm aware, is not so much about the ethics of eating meat as the, well, I suppose it is, but his angle is about the damage that it does to the environment, especially sheep, like he hates sheep. Or at least he doesn't hate sheep. He hates sheep farming and he hates the ravenous destruction that is wrought by sheep on the environment. So that's his thing, but we live out in the middle of farms out in Norfolk. And so we're surrounded by people who don't like George Monbiot. And feel like he doesn't understand.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Can I just do my dad back really quickly?

• 17:43Adam Buxton?

  Of course. Did he overhear what I said about George Monbiot?

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's like, you tell.

• 17:50Adam Buxton?

  He's like, let me tell you about George Monbiot. That was your dad calling you there?

• 17:55Speaker 01

  Yes, Len. And it's, yeah, Len's getting on a little bit now. I think he'd be the first to admit that. And it's tough, you know, he's still on the farm. And it's tough because, you know, you see this man that you just have idolized all your life. He was just so strong. I remember I only, I think I only took two boyfriends up there. And, you know, I think he just used to do a handshake and just his hand would just envelop their entire like hand and forearm like, big sort of, you know, big, strong guy. So it's hard when they're, you know, when they're not in, not in as good nick anymore.

• 18:33Adam Buxton?

  Sure.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  And it's hard being far away, you know, because it's up in Bolton. So my brother, you know, goes up and helps him out and looks after him. But my sister's in Oxford, I'm in London, and then I've got two siblings who are close by who are popping up. So I just feel bad that they're taking the brunt of it, you know?

• 18:52Adam Buxton?

  It's an intense time when your parents are still around, but they're older and.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  You know, you moved yours in with you, didn't you, with?

• 18:58Adam Buxton?

  Uh, yeah, I did for a while with my dad towards the end of his life for a few months. You know, it wasn't like, it was like sort of seven months or something in the end. And with my mum, that was the plan, but then she decided that she would rather die. Live with us for any long period. I mean, I'm joking, obviously.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 19:22Adam Buxton?

  But I think there was a little part of her which was so determined not to cause a fuss.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 19:28Adam Buxton?

  And so determined that she should not interrupt our lives. That was her whole plan was like every time we talked about, why don't you just come and live with us? You know, she was like, no, no, I'm not going to do that. You know, you've got your own life. You've got your kids there and everything and that just seemed to her like a defeat that she would do that, which I really, on the one hand, that's nice of her, but I really wish she hadn't felt like that because it would have been fine, you know, I mean, we would have, of course, there would have been trying moments.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it could have been lovely overall. It could have been.

• 20:03Adam Buxton?

  Possibly, I mean. It was, it wasn't, I wouldn't describe it as lovely with my dad.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  No, it was.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Were you like hoping there'd be?

• 20:13Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah, definitely.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  Moments of.

• 20:15Adam Buxton?

  Oh man, totally. I, I was completely deluded. I just thought that suddenly he would turn into a different person. In the way that sometimes happens, especially if people have dementia. Not always, but sometimes there can be a real softening of their personality.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:33Adam Buxton?

  And I don't know, it's really hard all that because it can also bring out the absolute worst of them. But anyway, he didn't have dementia.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  No.

• 20:41Adam Buxton?

  But he was just determined to carry on being the same bloke that he always had been, which did not accommodate sitting down and having deep heart to hearts with his son.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, there was zero softening and, and.

• 20:55Adam Buxton?

  I wouldn't say zero. There, there was a couple of moments.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:58Adam Buxton?

  And it was worth it for those moments of tenderness and contact.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:02Adam Buxton?

  But I could have handled a few more.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. You would have been open to just a few more.

• 21:08Adam Buxton?

  Also, they, they were, they were counterbalanced by moments of real hardness and real kind of.

• 21:15Adam Buxton?

  A little bit more like the sort of um very brutal, direct, unfiltered version of people that you sometimes get when they are older and when if maybe they have dementia. Sometimes you just get the total.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, and.

• 21:32Adam Buxton?

  Oh, they just say exactly what they mean.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, real zinger.

• 21:36Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  You want some ice for that bird.

• 21:39Adam Buxton?

  You know, things like, which I've heard from a few people, actually. Like, I know that older parents have said, maybe towards the end of their lives, things to their children about where they are on the pecking order. You know what I mean?

• 21:53Adam Buxton?

  And um.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Oh, that's brutal.

• 21:56Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  I mean, my dad, like, my my dad is a different person, like, we all are to an extent, but he's he's very different to each of his children. I guess it's a little bit like, it's sort of a weird similarity or kind of when I when I was living with my mum and stepdad and down the road, the farm was the place where I went and I saw my pony and there was not really any rules and dad was sort of relaxed and dad's kind of quite quiet and he's always like still waters run deep kind of thing. And women have always liked my dad. He was he was really handsome and rugged and people thought, you know, there was this depth to him because he was quite quiet and women just loved if they could make Len laugh or if they could charm him, you know, he had this sort of magnetic quality. Women loved him.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Uh perhaps a bit, perhaps a bit too much and he might have loved women too much. And so my mum was like, you know, homework, clear up after yourself, eat your vegetables, be polite. You know, she was doing all the boring drudgery stuff. And then I'd go up to the farm and be like, la la, you know what I mean? Everything's great up here. And there was, you know, no boundaries or rules or boring stuff. And now I think it's kind of weird where when he speaks to me, like, he really lights up and when we when we get off the phone, you know, and I think because maybe he doesn't see me that often and I'm I'm just sort of the fun stuff. I'll ring up and pull his leg about the fact that, you know, if he's falling or something, I'll be like, oh, you've been practicing your breakdancing again, you know, I'll try and make him laugh and he'll be like, oh.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Whereas actually it's my siblings who are doing all the donkey work, you know, my brother's fixing stuff, climbing up ladders, see how much oil's left in the tank for his heating or whatever. Fixing a gate, trying to organise a roof for the cattle sheds or whatever. My brother's doing everything. And so I think when I speak to him, you know. I'm just sort of like the light relief because I'm a big chicken and I don't want to talk about anything scary. You know, I I've had to a couple of times. And he'll kind of listen to me then, but I'm his little girl, you know, I don't really want to be. Telling him stuff that he needs to do or that he needs to be careful with because I'm his little girl. So how bad is that for him, you know, just to try. And then we get off the phone to each other, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, dad, you know, it's kind of like.

• 24:08Adam Buxton?

  You hang up first.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is a bit like that with my dad, oh god. But I've made it up to my mum for all the years of being, you know, a complete madam.

• 24:18Adam Buxton?

  Uh huh.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  And sashaying off to the farm and thinking my dad's the bee's knees. I've since made it up to mum.

• 24:24Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  I look after my little mum. We're close now.

• 24:28Adam Buxton?

  I mean, until the cows come home.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 24:30Adam Buxton?

  You seem like a nice person. Did you go off the rails massively?

• 24:36Adam Buxton?

  I don't know much about your history, your sort of more tabloidy history, like when you started entering the public eye and your modelling years. And I don't know if you don't like talking about that sort of stuff. Have you been, because you sort of deliberately don't. Talk about that stuff in the first book. Are you going to write another book where it's hardcore? Wild years.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  No.

• 25:00Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Uh, definitely not. The book ends when I get the girly show.

• 25:04Adam Buxton?

  Right, that's nineteen ninety six.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah. I think I signed the contract, yeah, just uh December ninety five and we were on air, I think ninety six.

• 25:13Adam Buxton?

  And what was the run up to that? So you started modelling when?

• 25:17Speaker 01

  I started modelling at. Just straight after my A levels, I hadn't applied for uni. I wasn't sure what I was going to do. And then I ended up modelling because I went to Paris to see my sister who was at uni doing law with French. And as part of her degree, she was working at like, I think it was the electricity board in Paris. And I just went over there and I got scouted like in a boutique, in a French boutique by some guy. Who was like, oh, your look is very strong at the moment. And I was like, you're an axe murderer. You're gonna put me in a van and take me off to somewhere and kill me. But he didn't, he sort of got in touch with like a Manchester modelling agency. So I came back from Paris.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  Started work with them, but you know, I didn't, I made about ten p over the next couple of years. But I had a great time. I met the woman who's still my, my bestest friend in the world.

• 26:08Adam Buxton?

  Who's that?

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Claire Hamilton.

• 26:10Adam Buxton?

  Right, who you do your podcast with?

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Who I do my podcast with.

• 26:13Adam Buxton?

  Teen commandments.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Yes. So yeah, so I met Claire and then, you know, so that was a good thing to come out of it. And then the girly show was just another modelling casting. Nearly didn't go into town because to get from Bolton to Manchester was like three quid or whatever. And I didn't have any money. I was also working behind the bar at my mum's pub at the Pineapple. And hanging out with a bunch of lads who were like my best mates. A mate of ours, their mum ran a nursery, a preschool nursery. But they had this big attic and we would just be up in the attic with like, smoke billowing out of the windows. As we played Street Fighter three and.

• 26:50Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Listen to the orb and the kinks.

• 26:52Adam Buxton?

  Wow, good combo.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:55Adam Buxton?

  But nothing more extreme?

• 26:57Speaker 01

  No, not really. I mean, I used to, when I was like fifteen or sixteen, I'd go out raving and go to like Blackpool. And the sort of clubs where you go in and you just can't see your hand in front of your face because of the dry ice. Like, I loved all of that for a couple of years, just getting lifts off unsuitable boys in their XR2s. And going raving, just loved that rave culture for a couple of years.

• 27:18Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  Must be when I was like, I started going out when I was fifteen and underage. Underage drinking and going to local bars and stuff.

• 27:27Adam Buxton?

  So that's at the end of the eighties, early nineties?

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that'd be eighty nine, ninety and going out then sort of ninety one, ninety two and going to like. Flesh at Hacienda, which was the gay night because it was. Just felt the most in- inclusive.

• 27:43Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Fun one, you know, but back then there were very much bouncers on the hacienda and you'd have to do a twirl for them before they'd let you in.

• 27:50Adam Buxton?

  Oh, really? Okay.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Grim, kinda like.

• 27:53Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, but that's what clubs were always. I mean, clubs must still be like that a bit, right? If they've got door policies, then they sort of screen for cool people. A door poli- the first time I heard about a door policy, I was like, are you joking? You're not allowed to go in unless they think you look cool enough.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was always weird, the kinda with a clipboard.

• 28:10Adam Buxton?

  Right, or just some guy coming out and going, yeah, no, no, no, yes, okay, yes, you're coming. No, no way, no.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  I mean, hacienda was more like creepy bouncers wanting to look at your body whilst you did a little twirl for them, you know? That wasn't so much like the door person. But yeah, the door, the tyrant with the clipboard who'd make you do the walk of shame if you weren't on the list and you'd like tried to go. I should be on the guest list.

• 28:36Adam Buxton?

  And so then you transition into the world of television.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  The world of TV.

• 28:41Adam Buxton?

  Having not done anything in between, like no radio or no kind of.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Nothing.

• 28:47Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  I mean, nothing. And you can tell, you can tell. I was so thrown to the lions. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I was so nervous.

• 28:54Adam Buxton?

  What was the company? Was it Planet Twenty Four or something?

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Rapidor.

• 28:56Adam Buxton?

  Oh, Rapidor.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, who made, uh, with, uh, Jean Paul Gaultier made.

• 29:01Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, Eurotrash.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Eurotrash.

• 29:03Adam Buxton?

  And Rapidor itself, which was just one of the greatest music shows. Uh, about left field music, hosted by Antoine de Cohn.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:12Adam Buxton?

  Who wore a snappy suit. And once I saw him in, at the Edinburgh TV Festival towards the end of the nineties. And everyone was swooning because he smelled so good.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I bet. He looked like he smelled good.

• 29:24Adam Buxton?

  Smelled incredible. But he was also funny and cool and weird and he had this over the top French accent.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:33Adam Buxton?

  But it was all very ironic and the way it was filmed was super minimal, just him against a kinda white psych. Leaning towards the camera.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:41Adam Buxton?

  Talking about all these cool indie bands, cut to interview with like Dinosaur Junior or Sonic Youth or whoever it might be.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  That's so cool.

• 29:49Adam Buxton?

  That's great, man. I loved all that. So quite a good company.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:53Adam Buxton?

  To be working with.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, the offices were on, um, on Notting Hill Gate. And I remember just going in there for a meeting. The casting had gone well. I'd gone last because not in any sort of. I didn't plan it like that to be like, I'll make a lasting impression, go out. But as it happened, I went out last and there was a woman called Esther. She was a TV producer and she had a little camcorder and I just showed off and she asked me about dating and stuff. And boys and I'd just try and crack a few jokes and.

• 30:24Adam Buxton?

  You floored her with your northern charm.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, a little bit, must have been that.

• 30:28Adam Buxton?

  And who were your co-presenters again?

• 30:30Speaker 01

  So for the first series, it was Rachel and Claire. They were both great.

• 30:35Adam Buxton?

  There was an American.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  There was an American, Rachel, who was sort of billed as this edgy, cool. She had a piercing in her bottom lip.

• 30:44Adam Buxton?

  Oh, come on.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  She was.

• 30:46Adam Buxton?

  No need for that.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Six foot.

• 30:48Adam Buxton?

  Rachel Williams.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Rachel Williams.

• 30:50Adam Buxton?

  Claire Gorham and Sarah Kaywood.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Sarah Kaywood for the later series.

• 30:54Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  I think for series two and three of a sea, yeah, I think. Uh, Claire, it wasn't, it really wasn't for Claire. She, and she said as much herself. She was like, what am I doing?

• 31:03Adam Buxton?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  I think she was a magazine editor. I think she got carried along on a wave of excitement. I got off the like, we all were a bit like, okay, God, we're out, we're doing this TV show, fine. And Rachel was just sort of cool and edgy and kind of that sort of slightly androgynous and.

• 31:24Adam Buxton?

  Didn't she have more of a wild child past? Like, hadn't she been a real scenester or something?

• 31:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. Like in New York, she was from New York and. She had, um, her girlfriend at the time was, oh, Egg. What's that band called? Not called Egg, is it? She called Egg. My memory is so shot. This is why I'm not doing the memoir. The nineties, I like can't remember any bit.

• 31:48Adam Buxton?

  And then. There was a girl, she used to be a model. I think her girlfriend was in Egg. Is there a band called Egg?

• 31:55Speaker 01

  There is a band called.

• 31:56Adam Buxton?

  Chapter three.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Something in the egg or some, I thought you'd know, you know, your cool music.

• 32:02Adam Buxton?

  Egg, I don't, I mean, there is, there's a band called Egg and Alice.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 32:07Adam Buxton?

  Really?

• 32:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:08Adam Buxton?

  Oh, okay.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  It's Egg and Alice.

• 32:09Adam Buxton?

  Ah.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  She might have been Alice.

• 32:11Adam Buxton?

  Right, I think she would. Yeah, I know. Egg is, Egg is Egg White, who is a, a songwriter, who has written some like really huge songs.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  There you go. You do know.

• 32:21Adam Buxton?

  We got there, okay.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. If I ever do write that nineties memoir, I'm coming knocking at your door to, to help me.

• 32:26Adam Buxton?

  I'll fact check.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Uh, so yeah, so we were just suddenly on Friday night post pub TV. Quaking. Now, what happened with Adam and Joe? Is it just after? It must have been after the girly show just was it?

• 32:40Adam Buxton?

  Same era, definitely.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, same era, but uh possibly just different seasons.

• 32:44Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah. But we felt like we were in an entirely other universe to a show like The Girlie Show, you know? I mean, we were doing this DIY show from our nerdy man bedroom. And meanwhile, you know, it felt like The Word, The Girlie Show, right?

• 33:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:02Adam Buxton?

  It it was a sort of post pub.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:06Adam Buxton?

  Lady lads situation. Is that fair?

• 33:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. My husband loved Adam and Joe.

• 33:12Adam Buxton?

  Uh huh.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  And I don't think he caught The Girlie Show that much, so he's very much in the Adam and Joe. Like, he's a huge fan of that show and loves you.

• 33:20Adam Buxton?

  Sounds very clever.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  I was, yeah. And I was like, do you ever watch The Girlie Show? And it was, it was, yeah, off the back of the word. I think The Word was more extreme.

• 33:29Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, The Word was like vomiting into a cup and drinking it.

• 33:33Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Uh, and snogging a grandma, wasn't it?

• 33:37Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Big French kissing with like, that's an eight year old or something like mad. I think ours was cheeky and brash for sure. One week I'd be like waxing a fireman's chest and then he'd carry me off stage, you know? Fireman's lift whilst I looked up to camera four and went, we'll be back after the break, you know? Oh my god. And um we'd have guests on, a music guest. I saw a clip, there's not, I feel like there's not loads of clips, and I'm not that I'm really searching for them. But there was one that came up on Instagram that somebody had tagged me in on. So we'd have musical guests and we had Lemmy.

• 34:18Adam Buxton?

  Oh, wow.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  On, who was uh.

• 34:21Adam Buxton?

  From Motorhead.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  From Motorhead. And we brought on three of his ex-girlfriends and it must have been, he hadn't probably seen them for fifteen or twenty years, but they still had like the tight leather trousers on, they were still like rock chic kind of. Cool girls. And they sort of, but by this time, probably someone's mum and stuff, and they just came out onto The Girlie Show and like, you know, one on each knee and one just, I was like, oh my god.

• 34:42Adam Buxton?

  He was legendarily and surprisingly personable, wasn't he, Lemmy?

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was friendly. He was kind of.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't wanna say he was doing, he was doing speed off a fifty pence piece in the, in the dressing room.

• 34:58Adam Buxton?

  He probably was, wasn't he?

• 34:59Speaker 01

  No idea.

• 35:00Adam Buxton?

  He would hoover up anything, I think.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Um, and yeah, it was, it was just the maddest, the maddest show.

• 35:08Adam Buxton?

  Was it live?

• 35:09Speaker 01

  No, recorded as live on, I think on a Thursday, then out on a Friday.

• 35:13Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  But it was, yeah, it was, it was full on. I think when Joanna Lumley on the first episode and I was just so nervous. Like, I panicked and asked her if she ever bought big soups on her shop. Do you remember that? Big soup.

• 35:28Adam Buxton?

  That's a good question.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  What joke, Paxman? God.

• 35:32Adam Buxton?

  What did she say? Oh.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  She's like, what's a big soup, darling? I was so multi, I don't know. Yeah.

• 35:38Adam Buxton?

  Okay. Wanker of the week, I remember.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  I can't. Honest. I mean, it was so mean. It was so mean.

• 35:47Adam Buxton?

  Everyone was so mean in those days.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Everyone was so mean in those days. It was horrible.

• 35:50Adam Buxton?

  It was really like, everyone was just trying to ratchet up the horribleness levels.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, like it was like anyone was fair game, just if you're in the public eye, just. And I used to, it was the first bit of writing that I did and, and I used to present them like in the production meeting quite proudly. Here's this week's wanker. And the producers would be like, that's great. And I was like absolutely buzzing that they liked my writing, that they'd let me do that. You know, let me take charge of that bit.

• 36:18Adam Buxton?

  For our younger listeners who may not have seen The Girlie Show, this was a segment called Wanker of the Week, in which you would, well, you sort of took turns, didn't you? Or was it always you?

• 36:26Speaker 01

  It was always me.

• 36:27Adam Buxton?

  It was always you.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  I don't know why I've suddenly got a flash of Sarah Kayward doing one. And it would be perhaps a sort of minute, minute and a half, maybe, please God, it's not any longer, takedown of someone in the public eye, be it like Chris Evans or Liam Gallagher. And then I did Patsy Kensit.

• 36:47Adam Buxton?

  Mm hmm. Did you ever run into her?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  I did. I ran into Liam first backstage at Top of the Pops.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  So I had to pause there while I just put my head in my hands. I don't know why I went over. I went over to chat to him. I'd called his wife a wanker on the telly like the week before. You know, you're just fearless, aren't you? You're twenty one, you're twenty two. I was just completely fearless. Oh, I'll go and sell auto, maybe like his music. So I go over to him and we have a short exchange, which ends with him calling me a slag. Which was like, you know, if you're raised in the eighties and nineties, like the S word is the worst word you can be called. And he was, you know, quite rightly miffed at me and was like.

• 37:30Adam Buxton?

  So he knew who you were?

• 37:32Speaker 01

  He knew who I was. He knew what I'd done. And, you know, he was like, yeah, you can fuck off your slag or whatever he said to me. I can't remember what, how the exchange happened. I just know that he called me a slag. I was like, I don't know what else I was expecting.

• 37:45Adam Buxton?

  I'm not a slag.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Which I'm not a slag. And then obviously I couldn't listen to Oasis for ages. I mean, they were, they were huge, but I was like, well, that's ruined definitely maybe for the foreseeable. Uh, and I could listen to them again now.

• 38:00Adam Buxton?

  Have you bumped into him since?

• 38:02Speaker 01

  I don't think I have. I've interviewed Noel since. No, I've definitely said hello to him at stuff. There's no like, I don't think there's any ill feeling there now.

• 38:11Adam Buxton?

  It was a different time.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  It was a different time. And I saw Patsy Kensit. I mean, this is really timestamping it for the nineties. I saw Patsy Kensit in Nobu on Park Lane. And she kind of waved and smiled and I sort of went over again, like potentially throwing myself into the, into the jaws.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  Uh, and, um, and I went over to Patsy Kensit and she was really gracious and really friendly and kind. And really nice to me. Which put me on the back foot because I thought I was going to get a bollocking over like a plate of sashimi or whatever. I was just like, oh, hi. And she was really lovely to me. And whenever I've seen her, she's been lovely. So I'm like, did she not know or did she know? But she was just much wiser than me and a little bit older and was just like, this idiot's on telly saying this stuff. Who cares?

• 39:03Adam Buxton?

  To be fair, there was probably quite a long list of anxious making things that happened to her at that point in her life that.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably. Don't make me feel even worse.

• 39:15Adam Buxton?

  As far as the radio goes though, was that a steep learning curve? Did you have to watch what you were saying? Did you have moments when you misspoke and you were pulled up either by your bosses or by the listeners? I remember when me and Joe were on the radio, you would say things totally innocently and then you would be informed by a wave of communication that actually that was not okay.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's interesting because for me, radio was just like, oh, I'm home. This is like live radio is just, it just feels like the love of my life. I love everything about live radio. And I felt like it was a really natural home for me. Like right away, I was just, I loved the immediacy of it and just kind of being able to communicate with listeners like that. And, and the sort of watching yourself, certainly with language, you know, obviously I never would have sworn in front of my nana. So it was that kind of little, you know, instinct that would stop you ever from obviously accidentally swearing. That'd be ridiculous. Sometimes you would get carried away and then you'd get in trouble, you know, saying, just trying to push the envelope a little bit.

• 40:22Adam Buxton?

  Being smutty. Being smutty, Sarah.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  I don't know if it was, I don't think it was smutty.

• 40:29Adam Buxton?

  I remember, I remember listening to you on that. No, no, I don't, I don't.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Have you got a clip now? Well, here we go. Evidence A.

• 40:35Adam Buxton?

  I do remember you saying, instead of the phrase fair enough, you would say furry mouth.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. I mean, that's still funny.

• 40:41Adam Buxton?

  I do remember thinking, I was kind of pushing it for like morning, BBC in the morning.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I try and push it now a little bit even on, on Radio Two, because I feel like Radio Two listeners, you've got to be, I don't, I'm, I'm not remotely fruity now. I've obviously grown out of that. I think you go through stages of your career. Well, you know, there was innuendo and this, I do, I do sort of fun innuendo now, but kind of, it's much more like where I'll say, not a euphemism, you know, I just can't still resist that sometimes if, you know, my pilates teacher got rear ended this morning, which was actually a true story from last week, you know, not a euphemism, just being silly like that. You know, I feel like there's a misconception sometimes of Radio Two listeners where they, you know, they don't want cosy. They want you to be warm and friendly, but they also want you to be funny as well and to be a little bit irreverent

• 41:32Speaker 01

  as well. So, so I, yeah, I try and, I'm a frustrated stand-up. I'll forever be that youngest of five trying to get a laugh out of, get a bit of attention.

• 41:42Adam Buxton?

  And what was the first time you were on the radio then?

• 41:45Speaker 01

  It would have been for maybe the second series of The Girlie Show, maybe. I was interviewed by Simon Mayo on daytime Radio One. And I remember feeling really comfortable being on the radio, thinking, God, this is nice. No one can see you. Obviously, everyone can see you now because radio's changed, but then they couldn't. And I was like, God, especially as an ex-model and being on telly, I'm like, I can slump a bit and I've tugged my belly in. I can just try and be funny and not worry about how I look. Silver Farmer's daughter not wanting to put makeup on and I'm much happier when I'm sort of slovenly. And so I was really relaxed chatting to Simon and I thought, this is really nice. And then I managed to get a foot in the door at Radio One and I got the Saturday afternoon show with Emma B.

• 42:27Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  A co-host of Emma B. And then Sunday evening, we did the Sunday Surgery, which was a new show that was taken over from Dave Pearce's dance anthems. I had a doctor there, Dr Mark Hamilton, and we'd do this Sunday Surgery. The rave kids were not happy. They were like, where the hell is Dave Pearce gone and his dance anthems? So for the first couple of weeks, we'd just get crank calls of people being like, hello, I've got a spot on me bottom, you know, and then they'd be like, bring back Dave Pearce.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  That's where I started and then worked my way up, kind of like, just, I just loved it. I loved the Saturday afternoon one, you know, straight away. Just, I just felt like bits of my upbringing was just so helpful for the radio. Creatively, I felt they just gave me completely free rein. But before that, I'd done MTV and I'd done MTV Hot. And that was just me with a little fisheye lens camera, talking to camera and just on my own with a completely white background. And I loved that because it was kind of, I could take the Mickey out of things. I'd be introducing pop videos, but it'd be kind of like my own version of of comedy, just trying to make people laugh.

• 43:38Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. Well, that's quite rapido-ish.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:41Adam Buxton?

  Just, yeah, I really like things like that. I think TV's so good for that.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  MTV was a real, like, great training ground.

• 43:48Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  For people.

• 43:49Adam Buxton?

  That's when they used to show actual music videos on MTV, isn't it? Instead of all the reality.

• 44:36Adam Buxton?

  How many kids have you got now?

• 44:38Speaker 01

  Three.

• 44:39Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Stuck at three for quite a while. I always thought I'd have four.

• 44:42Adam Buxton?

  Well, you were from a family of five?

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Five, yes.

• 44:45Adam Buxton?

  Yes, so I think people from larger families, I would call that a large family.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:51Adam Buxton?

  Tend to think that they'll probably have that many kids themselves. That's been my experience.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:59Adam Buxton?

  So I understand that.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  How many are you?

• 45:01Adam Buxton?

  Uh, I.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  How many are you?

• 45:03Adam Buxton?

  I, we are, um, three, we have three plus a dog.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:09Adam Buxton?

  That is a surprise to me because when I was a teenager and into my twenties, if you'd asked me, I would have said, no, I'm not gonna have kids.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  Really?

• 45:18Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 45:19Adam Buxton?

  And then that changed, obviously, but then after we had the first one, I was thinking, this is nice, but it's a lot of work and it's quite a change.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:30Adam Buxton?

  And then we had the second one, I was thinking, that's enough.

• 45:35Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, done now.

• 45:37Adam Buxton?

  That's quite enough. They're great, but now we have two of them and that's all anyone really needs, isn't it?

• 45:43Speaker 01

  And we can all fit comfortably.

• 45:44Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  In the car.

• 45:45Adam Buxton?

  Exactly, round the table and it's all much, much more manageable.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  And then you've got a little girl though, so cute.

• 45:51Adam Buxton?

  Then my wife held me to ransom and blackmailed me emotionally and said that we had to have another one. And I strongly resisted, but I negotiated. I got some stuff in return.

• 46:06Adam Buxton?

  And she got another child.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  What did you get?

• 46:09Adam Buxton?

  I got to move out of London.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, nice.

• 46:12Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, I said, if we have another one, then let's

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Lovely.

• 46:15Adam Buxton?

  get out of here because by that time it's like, well, there's no point in living in London. If we've got these young kids, because we don't go out, we don't do anything, we just go to the terrible park and stand around in the gloom and think about what fun we would have been having in the old days. This is my experience. No, of course, there were many joyful times that I would never exchange, but I must say I prefer it now.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too.

• 46:43Adam Buxton?

  Lots more now.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Me too. When they're little, I mean, they're so cute. And obviously with you, with your phone now, just constantly sending you little video clips of them when they were squeaky and little. It's so cute.

• 46:57Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  You forget like my, my eldest was very nasal but very high, you know, she's, she's nearly twenty two. And, you know, she's now got a septum piercing and she's really cool, but she was ever so squeaky. I had Lola and, and then I, I got an upgrade on husbands. And then I had my son and my daughter. And I do feel that there's a lot of parenting, which is obviously this, everybody knows this, but it's just, you know, the time you spend. It should be magical, but just like pushing a child on a swing.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  Gets boring, doesn't it? It's that horrible. It's, it's quite hard.

• 47:35Adam Buxton?

  It's surprisingly bleak.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  It's just like the first two pushes, you're like, whee, and then you're just like, oh God, like, we're here again.

• 47:47Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  I mean, I was just around London Zoo the whole time, like, I know every inch of London Zoo. To the extent where we went on a school trip and I was one of the parents volunteering and I was like leading the way that Miss Martinez thought it was amazing. I was like, this way for the penguins. Okay, down here, we've got the, you know, the anteater, because I just knew it like the back of my hand. It's just, once your member's there, they've got you. They've got you, man. I was there the whole time with the three kids.

• 48:11Adam Buxton?

  Was that the best place? Where were your other go to locations?

• 48:14Speaker 01

  It was the. Zoo, it was uh Primrose Hill, we'd spend a bit of time on, which was funny, cause that's where I used to go yomping around when I had Snoop D O double G, my Basset Hound.

• 48:25Adam Buxton?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  In my wilder days, where I'd be snapped for Heat magazine, you know, and instead I'd just be there having a little picnic with the kids and that. And I never lived round there. I'd always travelled to Primrose Hill. People would like, do you live round here? I'm like, no, can't afford to live round here. Uh but yeah, it was, it was largely the zoo, it feels like, and obviously swimming, you know, bloody islands.

• 48:46Adam Buxton?

  Oh, swimming.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  Swimming less, I mean, the changing rooms, just try not to brain your child by dropping it on a, you know, a slippy. Child that you've got in the shower with you while another one's toddling around and on a tiled, a slippy tiled floor with discarded plasters.

• 49:04Adam Buxton?

  My memories of going swimming with them, which didn't happen very often, I always feel as if I have to. Add the disclaimer that my wife just did so much more than I did in those days. But I would go with them to the Clapham swimming baths every now and again. And it was terrible. And just the, the, the worst thing that would happen is you bump into someone, you know.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  Oh, God, it's the worst.

• 49:31Adam Buxton?

  And I just want to, as soon as you get in the pool, actually, my wife was talking about this the other day, she was making me laugh, just um. Her memories of being in the pool and just immediately sinking into the, like, under the water as far as you could, just hiding yourself. And wanting to hide.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Sort of hippo style or, yeah, the whole crocodile, just your eyes peeking out.

• 49:52Adam Buxton?

  Sheen in Apocalypse Now.

• 49:55Adam Buxton?

  His head's poking above the water and he's waiting to terminate someone with extreme prejudice.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Have, um, have you been recognised in the pool? I've been like, I've been recognised a couple of times.

• 50:05Adam Buxton?

  No, I haven't been there since that was a possibility.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 50:10Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, how does that go?

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Terribly, of course, you know, cause you come up for air, you've got your goggles on and you, you've got the inevitable snot coming out of your. And I was just like, is it Sarah?

• 50:21Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 50:22Adam Buxton?

  Hello.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  Hello. And off, off I go again.

• 50:26Adam Buxton?

  I got recognised in a urinal the other day.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Horrible.

• 50:30Adam Buxton?

  And I was like, that, come on, mate, who thinks it's okay to, like, I've got stage fright anyway. Trying to do my wee wee business and now suddenly I've got to deal with you going.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  What kind of monster would not go for the blank in that situation? You have to go for the blank. I mean, it's madness.

• 50:49Adam Buxton?

  Definitely. Who's been your best celebrity encounter?

• 50:53Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh. Uh, it's a hard one, isn't it, really?

• 50:59Speaker 01

  It's funny because with Tea Time, with Radio Two Tea Time, the show that I've done for seven years, what I've loved is that I haven't had to deal with any celebrities.

• 51:09Adam Buxton?

  Mm hmm.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  And the, the listeners have been the VIPs.

• 51:13Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  And I've, I've really enjoyed that. Now, I, I do feel ready for another challenge now, and I'm moving up to breakfast. So I am actually quite looking forward to flexing my interview muscle again.

• 51:28Adam Buxton?

  Are there guests every day on that show?

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Maybe three times a week, possibly, depending on who's knocking about. But I, I really wanna keep the listeners, the sort of focus of the show and of the fun, because I think that's where the magic lies.

• 51:42Adam Buxton?

  Definitely.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  The problem is with interviewing celebrities is that I imagine, I don't know if this will be the case now, but back in the day, I used to think, we'll probably become friends, you know, like the unlikely friendship that'll blossom between little old me and this Hollywood superstar. Of course, it wouldn't, it wouldn't happen.

• 52:00Adam Buxton?

  I heard Elizabeth Day saying exactly that about Emily Blunt.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Oh, really? Yeah, I think, I think she's the classic sort of girls wanna be her kind of girl. She just comes across as like somebody that you just wanna be pally with, that you'd get on with really well.

• 52:13Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  She also like Cameron Diaz, you know?

• 52:16Adam Buxton?

  Right, okay.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  She'd be like smoking a little bifter on a beach and then going surfing. Like, how cool to be, to be mates with Cameron Diaz. But yeah, I mean, there's been people who, like, I will never forget that I got the chance to interview them because it was just kind of iconic and very much of the time, which would be like in New York with Eminem, when, you know, when record companies had the money to just jet off a DJ. And Missy Elliott, I loved, I always loved Missy Elliott. And I interviewed her quite a few times on breakfast. So they've, you know, the record company flew me to Miami to go and perch on the bonnet of her Lamborghini and interview her, you know, and that kind of fun stuff, you know?

• 52:52Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  Well, when I am in the home for discombobulated DJs is one of the things that I'll think about, I think. And then obviously you repair and, and you, you know, some of Eminem's lyrics don't age that well.

• 53:04Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Some of the songs.

• 53:06Adam Buxton?

  Well, speaking of being a parent,

• 53:08Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 53:09Adam Buxton?

  I was listening to a couple of episodes of Teen Commandments.

• 53:12Speaker 01

  Oh God, when from? This makes me so nervous.

• 53:14Adam Buxton?

  Quite recent.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:16Adam Buxton?

  Is that good?

• 53:17Speaker 01

  Possibly.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  I mean, whenever anyone goes to me, I've read your book, I instantly just get like, I just get, I just have a physiological reaction and just start perspiring wildly in the armpit.

• 53:30Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  It's horrible.

• 53:32Adam Buxton?

  No, it was all good. I was laughing at the story about someone had written in.

• 53:38Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 53:39Adam Buxton?

  And it was a woman who was working from home while her teen son

• 53:44Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 53:44Adam Buxton?

  was upstairs

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:46Adam Buxton?

  having a shagathon.

• 53:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 53:48Adam Buxton?

  And I think maybe he didn't realise that his mum was in the house.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally didn't realise. Horrible.

• 53:54Adam Buxton?

  And it was noisy.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:56Adam Buxton?

  There was noises.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, I was hoping, because what we do, we have a Monday, which is the main episode where we'll cover a couple of topics and we'll have feedback from the listeners and stuff. And then on the Wednesday, it'll be, it's called Your Turn, and that is all the stories from our listeners about either parenting teenagers or their own teenage years. And there's gold in them hills with teenage stories. I mean, that's great. Every, every Wednesday app I really love because, and also it's over to the listeners, so I don't have to do as much work. I can just gasp along and be like, oh my God, with these stories.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  And when this story about the banging and stuff coming from upstairs, a bit of me was like, um, is this leading to sort of it being an innocent, you know, they were, they were moving the wardrobe or whatever. And it sounded like they were having sex. Uh, but it wasn't. No, they were banging away up there. It was full on.

• 54:49Adam Buxton?

  They were banging away noisily until she was so mortified that she just, all she could think of doing was standing at the bottom of the stairs and just shouting the name of her son at the top of her voice.

• 55:00Speaker 01

  It's awful.

• 55:01Adam Buxton?

  Until he was aware that she was down there.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  And there was no, like, at the end of the email, I remember there wasn't even any sort of, like, snappy ending or, like, so be warned, parent or whatever. There was no real moral to the tale. I think, I think it was just quite cathartic for this poor woman to

• 55:16Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  tell us about it. Like, what fresh hell she's just.

• 55:19Adam Buxton?

  Well, he came down and he apologised later, but their way of dealing with it was just ignoring it completely.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  They just couldn't look at each other in the eye for quite a while.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 55:37Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 55:38Adam Buxton?

  Hello.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Hello, hello.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  Hello. Hello.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 55:50Adam Buxton?

  Hello.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  Hello. Hello.

• 55:56Adam Buxton?

  Hello.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 55:57Adam Buxton?

  Hello.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 56:02Adam Buxton?

  And how are you physically after your incredible running expedition for children in need?

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Uh, fine, good.

• 56:09Adam Buxton?

  When was that?

• 56:10Speaker 01

  That was November last year, November twenty twenty five.

• 56:14Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  Five marathons in five days.

• 56:17Adam Buxton?

  Whoa.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  Final total eleven point seven million pounds.

• 56:22Adam Buxton?

  That's fantastic.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Thanks to the listeners of Radio Two, paying a lot of money to see a middle aged lady cry, stumbling down a deserted road.

• 56:32Adam Buxton?

  I watched the programme and I was thinking like, maybe the hardest thing is being filmed.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Did you?

• 56:39Adam Buxton?

  While you're.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  It's funny you say that.

• 56:41Adam Buxton?

  While you're trudging through the.

• 56:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:43Adam Buxton?

  Rain and you must be in physical pain and you must feel like you want to cry and yet you have to smile and try and look sane and.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  It's so funny you say that because I was exactly like that before. I was like, I'm really gonna struggle with being filmed. It's like.

• 57:00Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  And I didn't want it to feel fake when I'm like high fiving children, but actually when you're doing it, there's nothing better than like a high five from a slightly confused four year old who doesn't know why they've been taken to the side of the road and there's like, hello. But actually, I was just, I'm quite shy and I just thought the whole being filmed and, but turns out when you're trying to run just over a marathon a day, it's the least of your worries is being filmed. And it was quite, um, there was a lot, the, the actual documentary, they caught out a lot of the crying. There was a lot more, there was a lot more crying. I think there would have been complaints. I mean, some of my friends were like ringing Ben up going, you know, Annie Mack, who's a mate was like, Ben, they're

• 57:45Speaker 01

  gonna break her. You've got to stop it. And he's like.

• 57:51Adam Buxton?

  I'm not laughing at you crying, by the way.

• 57:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was a, there was a lot more like birth breathing, but I think, I think people, telly viewers would have been like, you can't do this to people.

• 58:01Adam Buxton?

  And what kind of things were making you cry?

• 58:03Speaker 01

  The, uh, the pain, the physical pain. No way was I ever going to stop. And I had a huge amount of support. I mean, I was in the middle of like cavalcade of like eight vehicles or whatever. There was like a motorhome that had like a little loo on. So I could just, you know, run in there and have a wee if I really needed to. And there was a medic and obviously all the producers and the radio and just so much, you know, a huge amount of support, but ultimately it was up to me to do it. I couldn't. Of course you want to raise as much money as possible for children in need and you want to raise awareness of all the amazing projects that they support. But also there's a bit of you like, you cannot forevermore be the woman who didn't complete the challenge. You just can't. And also a man would have took over as well. It would have been Vernon or Paddy.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  Cause there's always a standing. I'm, I'm usually the standing for other ones and I don't do a bit of training because you think, no one's gonna stop. You can't. You've just got to keep going. That's the maddest thing about them and you just do. And my trainer, the brilliant, Nick, the physio was amazing. And he was just like, look, what's good is that the pain is moving around your body. If you get knee pain on day one and day two, three, four, and you know, then you're in trouble. But if you get knee pain and then hip pain and then shin pain and then knee pain again, you know, you're, it's fine. Your body is coping with it and it's moving the pain around. Like what the hell is happening here?

• 59:27Adam Buxton?

  Hardcore. So you didn't get any kind of, um, pain blocking super injections or did you?

• 59:33Speaker 01

  No, I mean, there was certainly on day, it was only on day five really where I was like, can I have some codeine? They didn't keep that in the documentary. When's codeine?

• 59:48Speaker 01

  You know, the medic, it was obviously it's BBC, you know, they're not gonna dose me up and push me out there. Just wanna make that clear. But on the final day, I I definitely needed some painkillers. You know, and he gave me like a half dose the first time. I was like, have you read about me in the nineties? Dose me up, please. I can have a full, you know, I'm allowed. It was all, you know, over the counter stuff, nothing dodgy, obviously, but.

• 1:00:11Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  And they kept, um, they kept just squeezing my shins. I didn't know what they were doing, but they was, they were checking for stress fractures. And the physio and the medic kept giving a little look at each other, having a feel in my leg. I don't know what they're doing. Just checking that I've not broke, actually broken my legs running, because then they would have had to stop it and I would have been devastated.

• 1:00:30Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  The day five was amazing. I was just absolutely buzzing. I knew that, I knew my, two of my kids were there at the end and Ben. And my best friends. It's really emotional. God, I'll go now. It was amazing. And just everyone just like coming out. In the driving rain and wind, like the weather was filthy, holding up little signs that were like ripping in the rain. They all felt it, pen colouring on, you know, and hugging, it's, it's just hugging women, like I had a real connection with women my age.

• 1:00:59Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, I saw you stop at one point and just hug some rando. Really hold on to her for ages.

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was really like someone, it was often someone like my mom's age or someone like my big sister's age. I'm like, you know, I'd just be like, you'll do, come here, can I have a hug? Really was. It was like a minute, like a little power up, just that feeling. Because obviously I wasn't with my husband, I wasn't with my kids, you know, I needed, I needed physical touch, like just to squeeze, you know.

• 1:01:31Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:31Speaker 01

  And I couldn't ask that of the physio. He'd be like, no, needed a bit of love to power me on.

• 1:01:37Adam Buxton?

  Sure.

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  But when I run now, sometimes I'll have the same playlist on, but there'll be no fucker stood there at the side of the road, you know, I'm still running through Kilburn like, woo. Pointing at people, listening to like Jason Statham. And, uh, yeah, no one cares. Quite right. But I'll get like a good flashback, you know, like to that, it still gets a start goosebumps.

• 1:01:57Adam Buxton?

  Huge respect. I was very impressed.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  Looking back on it now, it's only just sunk in recently, really, you know, it was.

• 1:02:04Adam Buxton?

  It was the longest one anyone's ever done, isn't it?

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:07Adam Buxton?

  For that.

• 1:02:07Speaker 01

  Definitely the, and the hills. Oh my God, I had no idea that the hills.

• 1:02:12Adam Buxton?

  Where can they go next? What will Vernon Kay have to do?

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  I don't know who it's gonna be.

• 1:02:17Adam Buxton?

  Cut off parts of his body with a rusty saw.

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  Greg was telling me, Professor Greg White, this is his fortieth of these challenges. So he was the one who'd be with Greg when he was cycling the Three Peaks in the, you know, the Beast from the East. And he was the one with doing with Davina and David Williams, I think was the first one when he swam the Thames and got like 18 different waterborne diseases. Not that that's funny.

• 1:02:44Adam Buxton?

  Well, it's got to be.

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  And Greg has obviously got all these great stories about all these challenges. And he said his best headline about Greg was, when will this man kill somebody? And there was a picture of like Davina being pulled semi-conscious from like an icy lake, you know, on her massive, because she did really hardcore ones for comic relief and sport relief and that.

• 1:03:08Adam Buxton?

  Good way to go, though.

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  Mad. Yeah. What with the world's press snapping away as you're pulled from a lake.

• 1:03:13Adam Buxton?

  You would be, you'd be golden.

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  I think she was all right for that. I think she's quite happy to have survived it. God.

• 1:03:20Adam Buxton?

  Now it's time for the part of the conversation when I said, what time are you in bed?

• 1:03:29Adam Buxton?

  I said. What time are you in bed?

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, the dream, we put the dogs to bed at nine. And the dream is to be, you know, in bed. And that's when I'm, I'm on a getting up at six ish at the moment, quarter to six. So when I'm on breakfast, I will definitely be in bed for nine. But I would have had more of an evening. It's quite hard getting home at quarter to eight. You've got to feed people, walk dogs, all that, and then still get to bed for nine is quite a challenge.

• 1:03:52Adam Buxton?

  So you're asleep by nine thirty latest?

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  I'm hoping, ideally by, by 10, I'll be asleep. Yeah, for sure.

• 1:03:59Adam Buxton?

  And then when you start doing the breakfast show?

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  I'll be getting up at five, which isn't that bad. People ask me, I forgot about, I forgot, and I was, I'm good mates with Greg James, who does Radio One Breakfast, obviously. And I messaged him, going, I forgot the worst thing about doing a breakfast show is people asking you what time you have to get up. And like, everybody does, you know, cabbies, everybody, everybody. Because everyone's fascinated, like, and I think there's a little bit of chardonnay, like, oh, you poor fucker, what time you get up? Is it three o'clock, four o'clock? So they're quite disappointed. But I'm like, five? And I've worked out, you know, I can be definitely out the house easily for half past five. I've worked out I've timed myself, I can put makeup on in eight minutes, because obviously there's cameras now, so this wasn't a problem back when I did Radio One breakfast show. So yeah, I can do my makeup in eight minutes. I've already practised making my filtered coffee

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  the night before and putting it in the fridge with the milk in it, and I will zap it in the morning. My son caught me, "What are you doing? Why are you making coffee at nine o'clock?" I'm just practising.

• 1:04:56Adam Buxton?

  And so will you still be going to bed around nine?

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:59Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 1:05:00Adam Buxton?

  Right, so that's not too catastrophic.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  No. And also I've got zero social life, like we have no social life.

• 1:05:06Adam Buxton?

  Okay, good.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  Really. I mean, do you and your wife, like we can't.

• 1:05:10Adam Buxton?

  Not really.

• 1:05:11Speaker 01

  I mean, when people, it's, there's no feeling like it then when people cancel on you for

• 1:05:14Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  social engagement and you still get the points because you've not cancelled. It's like cancelled chicken, isn't it? Like who's gonna go first? Ha ha, they've cancelled. It's amazing. We're real homebodies, we just love, and to the point where I'm like, no, we need to start doing stuff more, we need to. Because Armando Iannucci did a great thing on Radio Four that I got obsessed with, the thought of it, a programme about the brain and brain function and ageing. And he said, "Time goes quicker as you get older because there's less markers being dropped in your brain for trying something new. Whereas when you're little, you try a pear for the first time, that's new, ding, little marker, you know, you have to go on someone's tricycle, ding, etcetera, etcetera, throughout your younger years. And then when you get older, there's just no dings anymore, there's no

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  new things, there's no new experiences. So that's why time just flies by, because your brain's just not having all these little learning or little moments of like, oh, what's this?" So I try to like, get us out of the habit of just being complete hermits.

• 1:06:15Adam Buxton?

  Yes. The thing that is satisfying, I find, at this age, is trying to nail the routine, trying to perfect everything.

• 1:06:24Speaker 01

  One of the tragedies of life is that when you do start to get really good at life, you then get old and knackered and then it fucks up and then you die.

• 1:06:32Adam Buxton?

  Exactly. A whole raft of new, very annoying problems come along that you can't really do that much about.

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, because when you're at the stage, I often think it were, when I'm showing my eighteen-year-old how to do something, you know, you forget that you're just like, you, you Like I never lose my keys anymore because I put them in a certain pocket, you know. And sometimes when I can just, I can just get the lid off things and I can, you know, just tiny minor little things each day as you go through life to your point where you've, you're nailing it and you've got it and it's great. And then it all buggers up again at the other end.

• 1:07:03Adam Buxton?

  I even have a little phrase that I say in my head, which is the system works.

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  The system.

• 1:07:10Adam Buxton?

  And suddenly like if I.

• 1:07:12Speaker 01

  Oh my God, you'd get on with my husband so well. He's like, I've come up with a system. I'd like to put a meeting in the diary with you in the front room at four P M.

• 1:07:21Adam Buxton?

  I have these little things like talking about putting the keys in the right place in that same time. It's my wife. I love you so much. But she does have some stressful times where she can't find her phone and she can't find her keys. And I'm like, I, I mean, you, you just.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  So unhelpful.

• 1:07:36Adam Buxton?

  Literally have to put them in the same place every single time, but every single time. That's the, that's the way the system works. And then that whole problem will have vanished from your life. I'm just saying, anyway, she doesn't like that advice. But I have all these other little systems of putting things in the same place. And then when that moment comes where you're stressed out and suddenly it's like, ah, where's the thing? There it is.

• 1:07:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:59Adam Buxton?

  And I say in my head, the system works.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  System is king.

• 1:08:04Adam Buxton?

  The system is working. But then of course, as you say, like, there's all these other things like, oh, that is twinging in a weird way physically that I have not experienced before and I don't know how to deal with. And oh, that other ailment is giving me a problem. And oh, this other complicated situation about growing older and falling out with friends or pissing off family members. Or I don't know what stuff that you have never dealt with before.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:30Adam Buxton?

  And suddenly you're back to square one.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  I know. It's so annoying. And touch wood, I'm sort of in a sweet spot at the moment where like things are good. I'm kind of braced. I've always been a bit like that. A bit of sort of like. This is good. What's gonna go wrong? I'm kind of a mixture of that and glass half full. But I mean, with my radio brain as well, I like back time my day. I'm like, if I leave now, I'll get to the yard in twenty eight minutes. Maybe that's why I'm obsessed with the minute thing. It might be the radio thing. It's never five or ten. I'm like twenty eight minutes, you know, I can be on the horse. I'll be on the horse in twelve minutes. If I'm good, ride for forty. Wash the dog cause he's rolled in, you know, she's rolled in fifteen types of shit and a dead badger. Um, and you know, I can be back in the car this time.

• 1:09:17Speaker 01

  Another twenty minute, eight minutes home. If I don't dick about and go and eat yogurt standing at the fridge. I can be in the shower, you know what I mean? I'll be out of the shower for this time.

• 1:09:25Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:25Speaker 01

  Back time just to make the most of my day. And I think that's, I've never had therapy, but that would be the one thing I'd want to unpick. Would be, why do I always feel like I'm, I'm failing if I'm wasting time? Do you know what I mean? If I do stand at the fridge eating yogurt for a minute. And then I look at my phone a little bit and then I'm just like, oh. I thought I had all the time in the world. I thought I had so much time before I had to go into work. And it's just all gone and I've wasted it. I could have been, you know, I could have used it much more efficiently.

• 1:09:56Adam Buxton?

  You could have been maxing.

• 1:09:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Is that what maxing is?

• 1:09:59Adam Buxton?

  I don't know. Maybe it's some form of maxing, but it is optimization, right? It's this obsession with optimizing. It's this obsession with ringing every single droplet of value out of every situation you're in and.

• 1:10:14Speaker 01

  But I don't think like I've picked that up off anything. I don't feel like I've got that from like social media or from listening to success podcasts or anything.

• 1:10:23Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  I think I'm just, it's, I feel like I'm just aware of like an egg timer, just the sands of time.

• 1:10:32Speaker 01

  You know, it's just, it's all dropping through and obviously when you're young, you're just like. You haven't.

• 1:10:39Adam Buxton?

  Let it drop.

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:40Adam Buxton?

  Bring it on. Faster, go faster. Boring, I'm bored.

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  And now you're like, whoa.

• 1:10:48Adam Buxton?

  Oh, to be bored. I dream of being bored. The idea of going on a holiday and just being so bored. Wouldn't that be amazing? But then as soon as it happens, you're like, God, I'm bored.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:02Adam Buxton?

  This is awful.

• 1:11:11Adam Buxton?

  Does the BBC expect you to be a kind of BBC employee whenever you are in public?

• 1:11:18Speaker 01

  So a bit like at school where it's like when you're wearing the uniform and you've got the blazer on, you are representing the school, even if you're not on school property. To an extent, I suppose, but I think it's within me anyway because I, uh, I really like my job and I don't want to get in trouble. So it's as simple as that. But it's pretty easy to do. It's pretty, you know, they let me be myself on air. So, you know, I never, I, I'm like, oh, I've always been really proud that I'm so sort of BBC hatched and nurtured and reared, hand reared by the BBC because I just think it's one of the best institutions in the world.

• 1:12:02Speaker 01

  I genuinely do. I just feel like at Radio Two, there's just so many music geeks there. I do love radio and love music and there's, there's so many brilliant people work there, off air people, you know?

• 1:12:13Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:13Speaker 01

  And I've always loved that wherever you go in the world on holiday, you know, you'll get chatting to whoever, wherever they're from, or if you travel, they'll be like, oh, the BBC, they'll kind of respect it and get it and admire it. So yeah, of course I want to hold that and not get in trouble.

• 1:12:28Adam Buxton?

  Sure. Have you ever come across and engaged with extreme opinions that people have about the BBC online? Sometimes they express like either people are convinced that the BBC is this kind of far right organisation or they think it's so far left.

• 1:12:44Speaker 01

  I know. Well, to quote Jeremy Vine, if they, if they think you're far right and far left, then you're doing your job right. You're, you're probably just about in the middle, I guess. I'm in a lucky position because the show that I do is playing music and trying to make people chuckle as they make their tea or make their toast in the morning or whatever. So I don't have to tackle any thornier issues and navigate those choppy waters. You know, there was a chap who hung about a bit outside of Radio Two and he just chatted to me really amicably for a minute and it was a bit odd. It was like, and it was funny because I was with my agent Mel, who I've been with since the girly show, I've been with for thirty years. And we were just chatting about the challenge. I don't know why, there

• 1:13:29Speaker 01

  was something about it. And in my head, I thought he was gonna then say something about the challenge. But instead, he was like, do you talk about Palestine on your show?

• 1:13:39Adam Buxton?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  And I was like, have you heard my show? Like, that would be so... That, you know, luckily, it's not my job to have to talk about any kind of politics or anything important. And I think that's why people come to me on the radio, because they don't want to think about anything back.

• 1:13:55Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  They want a shiny, shiny distraction. Look at this nice thing, la la. Here's to pow.

• 1:14:03Adam Buxton?

  Do you ever worry about that? Do you ever sort of think, oh dear, I shouldn't be doing that?

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  What, with the, with...

• 1:14:10Adam Buxton?

  Being a shiny, shiny distraction?

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  No, no, I love being a shiny, shiny distraction. It's great. It's good. I'm really good at compartmentalising things as well. And I found radio really helpful myself, you know, if we've, if I'm grieving, if we've lost, you know, a family member or a friend or whatever, I'm frighteningly good at putting all of that in a box, tying a big bow around it and then going on air and saying, look at this shiny thing. So I think radio's helped me tremendously over the years, definitely. And it's a lovely escape.

• 1:14:48Adam Buxton?

  Wait, continue.

• 1:14:59Adam Buxton?

  Hey, welcome back, podcasts. Going to give you some authentic walking through gate FX here right now.

• 1:15:12Adam Buxton?

  It's fine, you're welcome. That was Sarah Cox, of course, talking to me there. And I'm very grateful indeed to Sarah for making the time to come and waffle with me. A reminder that her third novel, The Truth of Us, is published on the sixteenth of Julie. How are you doing, podcats? Hope you're well, hope you've been coping okay with the heat. That's what you've got to say in the emails, isn't it? Hello, hope you're managing to stay cool. Hello, hope you're in a nice shady spot. Hello, hope you're not sweating too badly. Something like that.

• 1:15:54Adam Buxton?

  If you don't address the heat when it's a heatwave in an email, you're a kind of monster who just doesn't really care about your fellow humann.

• 1:16:06Adam Buxton?

  I'm gonna keep this brief today. I'm gonna keep this brief today. I'm gonna keep this brief today. Yeah, I'm gonna keep it brief. So far, it's going badly, isn't it? I'm singing about keeping it brief, which is extending it, not briefening it. And now I'm looking for my notes. Speaking of reminders, if you're gonna be at the Latitude Festival this year, then come and say hello. Myself and the Adam Buxton Band will be playing on the afternoon of the Friday. We'll be the first act in the second stage tent. I think we start at twelve thirty that Friday. Come and say hello.

• 1:16:47Adam Buxton?

  Later that afternoon, I believe I am going to be doing an event at the Listening Post around about five. Sorry not to be specific with the timings, but it's Friday afternoon. Myself and Ivo Graham, the comedian, are going to be waffling about our love of David Byrne and Talking Heads for a bug-style presentation. I'll be showing a few clips, I think,

• 1:17:12Adam Buxton?

  if the technology permits.

• 1:17:15Adam Buxton?

  And we will generally be getting ourselves in the right frame of mind to enjoy David Byrne's headline set that night at the Latitude Festival, the Friday night.

• 1:17:27Adam Buxton?

  Another gate.

• 1:17:33Adam Buxton?

  So yeah, I hope you can come along to that. I think I might even be singing a Talking Heads cover that night at the Latitude Festival for Burns Night, which is an event that happens annually on Burns Night generally in London venues. It's been happening for the last few years. I did it this year and they get lots of members of different bands together to form supergroups and get guest vocalists along to do Burn and Talking Heads covers. It's really good fun. And I think they're doing it at Latitude after David Byrne comes off stage

• 1:18:14Adam Buxton?

  that Friday night. I might be popping up there. And maybe even the following night, Saturday night, I think the horn section, minus Alex Horn, are going to be there. Alex is otherwise occupied. But the mighty horn section will be rattling through a few covers with guest vocalists, possibly including A Buckles. And if you're at the Deershed Festival up in Yorkshire on the Sunday night that weekend, the Adam Buxton Band will be there too. And that, I think, is, well, that's our last scheduled appearance this year. Who

• 1:18:55Adam Buxton?

  knows? Maybe ever. We're on Sunday evening. I think around 7.30 at the Deershed Festival. There's details in the events section of my website, or if you prefer, blog. Someone was asking in the Q and A the other day why I never did the blog song anymore. The Q and A episode, by the way, should be available towards the end of next week or early the week after. Anyway, for that person, here's the jingle.

• 1:19:36Adam Buxton?

  And final reminder, live podcast, August the 5th in London at the Roundhouse in Camden. Myself, talking to comedian, musician, all-round talented guy, Mauan Rizwan. Hope you can come along to that, it's gonna be fun. All right, that's it for this week. Thank you very much to Claire Broughton and Diggory Waite at Hatrick for editing and production support on this episode, and thank you as well to Seamus Murphy Mitchell

• 1:20:16Adam Buxton?

  for his ongoing production support. Thanks to Helen Green, she does the artwork for the podcast. Thank you to everyone at Acast for their hard work liaising with my sponsors, but thank you most of all for coming back and listening right to the end. Come here, hey, how you doing? Good to see you.

• 1:20:39Adam Buxton?

  Thanks for coming along. Yeah, I am a little sweaty, but it's the sweet smell of honest labour and a bit of Mitchum. Until next time, we share the same sonic space. I'm just suggesting that you go carefully out there, you do what you want. Free country, but if I was you, I'd go carefully because it's nuts out there. Stomp about if you want, get up in people's grills. That's what you like, but it will invalidate your existing policy with me, that's all I'm saying. What won't change, what will never change, is that I love you.

• 1:21:29Speaker 02

  Like and subscribe, like and subscribe, like and subscribe, please like and subscribe. Gimme like a smile and a thumbs up, nice like a fan when me bums up. Gimme like a smile and a thumbs up, nice like a fan when me bums up. Like and subscribe, like and subscribe, like and subscribe, please like and subscribe. Gimme like a smile and a thumbs up, nice like a fan when me bums up. Gimme like a smile and a thumbs up, nice like a fan when me bums up. Like and subscribe, like and subscribe, like and subscribe, please like and subscribe.

• 1:22:13Speaker 02

  Gimme like a smile and a thumbs up, nice like a fan when me bums up.