Pod Insights The Blindboy Podcast I cant describe what this one is about, you'll just have to trust my process and listen to it please About this episode Spanish coffee, the history of suits, dog pulled trousers, persian desserts, fairy fog Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript 11,919 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies, made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a berry chantilly cake. Ready to cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings. And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.
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1:00 Blindboy Boatclub? Head over to Mallorca, you cautious Anyas. Welcome to the Blind by Podcast. If this is your first episode, consider going back to an earlier episode.
1:14 Blindboy Boatclub? Some glorious concerts even start from the very beginning to familiarise themselves with the lore of this podcast.
1:22 Blindboy Boatclub? I'm recording this quite late tonight. I'm sipping on coffee to keep myself alert. Not just any coffee.
1:32 Blindboy Boatclub? My fetish is a quite disgusting Spanish coffee. It's called Torre Facto. I'm a big fan of cultural scarcity. I'm the last generation to experience cultural scarcity. I grew up in a time when, if you heard a song on the radio or on an advert on television and it was the most amazing song you've ever fucking heard. If you didn't get the name of that song in that moment, you may never hear it again. And you just had to accept it. You had to accept that loss. R.
2:06 Blindboy Boatclub? You might be staying up late at night time flicking through TV channels because that's all you had was fucking TV. And there's a film on, a late night film. I remember being a child, would have been a Friday or Saturday night, staying up way past my bedtime, probably one in the morning. And I flicked on the television and there was this movie on. I'd never seen anything like it at the time. It was about this teenage girl who ran away from home. She came from absolute poverty in Los Angeles.
2:39 Blindboy Boatclub? And then this creepy old man tries to pick her up in his car and tries to assault her. But then she pulls out a gun and shoots him into the mouth. And then as I watched the film, I slowly realise, fucking hell, this is the story of of Little Red Riding Hood, but it's set in in Los Angeles in the nineties. I was 10 or 11. This was the greatest thing I'd ever seen in my fucking life. And I fancied the girl in it. I really fancied the girl in it. And then the film was over and I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep thinking about the incredible film that I'd just seen, thinking about the girl in it who I fancied, thinking about the man who'd had his face blown open and his weird teat.
3:23 Blindboy Boatclub? Now, normally when you were watching a film, there'd be an ad break and then just before they go back to the film, the announcer would say, and now back to our Friday night film. And they'd give you the name of it. This was one in the morning. They didn't do that at one in the morning. They just cut straight to the ads and went back to the film. So I was like, this is fucking incredible. No one's telling me what it's called. I waited to the end. I watched the credits. There was no announcer. I'm like, oh, fuck, this is gone. This is gone now. I can't even go to the video shop to get a video to see this again. And this is amazing. It's gone. What am I gonna do? The next day I looked for a newspaper to see. I think it was Channel Four.
4:07 Blindboy Boatclub? Trying to find what was that film that was on last night? Nothing. There was nothing I could fucking do about it. We didn't have teletext. There was nothing I could do about it. So then I had to wait until Monday morning in school. And I asked everybody, you didn't see that film on Friday night, did you, at one in the morning? But it was, it was, it was a film about this, this girl. She was thirteen or fourteen. She, she was, she had bland hair and she used to carry a gun around in her purse. And she was really poor and she shot a fella into the face. And then you realise at the end of it that it's actually read Riding Hood, but it's set now. No one had seen it. Because we were ten and no one else had stayed up till one in the morning to try and see films. No one had seen it. And this movie just had to live in my head as a memory.
4:52 Blindboy Boatclub? And I would lie awake and replay it in my head over and over. Until it became detached from what it originally was. And I had to worship it like a religious item, like a religious apparition. And when I'd meet people, I'd say, I saw this fucking film once, right? And it was about this, and then that happened, and that happened. And people would listen to you. Because you can't pull out YouTube on your phone and look for it. You had to listen to the person describe the film that they're never gonna see either. Years later, in the mid 2000s, when we had the internet and YouTube and Google. I finally found the movie. And it was called Freeway from 1996.
5:34 Blindboy Boatclub? Starring Race Witherspoon, a teenage Race Witherspoon, and Kiefer Sutherland. And I watched it and it was a piece of shit. It's all right. Look, it's okay. It's an okay film. It's an okay film. It would have been made around the time of, there's a bit of pulp fiction in there. There's a bit of Boys in the Hood in there. There's a little bit of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet. The point is, when I finally got to see this film in the mid 2000s. I was let down, I was disappointed. I wished I hadn't found this film. I wished that I'd just left it as this fantastic, wonderful memory.
6:17 Blindboy Boatclub? This wonderful memory, because when I was ten, or whatever age I was, this was incredible. It was a, I'd never seen anything like it. It was astounding. Because it was taken away, because of the scarcity of it, because I could never find out what it was. I just made it this massive thing in my mind and then was let down when I finally found it. Same with fucking. I was about nine years of age and this Honda Civic pulled up with two hard cunts inside in it. Windows rolled down, blaring out a hundred and sixty BPM rave music. And they were playing this one song and it was the hardest, fastest rave tune I'd ever heard in my life.
6:59 Blindboy Boatclub? Like at this point, I'd have been listening to The Prodigy every single day and now I was hearing something faster and harder than The Prodigy. And I stopped in my tracks and I'm like, what is this tune? And I'm staring in at the car with the two boys in it. This is a stoplight. The whole thing must have lasted thirty seconds. And then the lads drove off and the tune disappears with the car and bends in tone with the Doppler effect. And I was just, I nearly cried. I'm like, I need that fucking song. I need to know what that song was, my god. And I marched into, into HMV in Limerick City and I marched into Empire Music, which was a, a record shop at the time.
7:44 Blindboy Boatclub? And I was a little child and I had to go up to the counter and I had to, I had to hum. I had to, I had to say to the people behind the counter, I heard this song. It's like a rave song. It was really fast. And it went like this and, and I, I would do it. So I was, I was really young.
8:04 Blindboy Boatclub? So I'd go into the music shop and I would hum the song for the people working in the music shop and then they would bring their friends and go, do you know what this song is that this little boy is humming? And then they go, can you come back next week? Uh, my friend Deki knows dance music, he's gonna... And it kept happening over and over again. Now I realise they were just laughing at the humming child. Now I realise that's what was happening, but I didn't give a fuck. I was like, I need to know what this song is and anyone you bring who's willing to listen to me, who might know what this song is, the song that I'm gonna hum. I don't care if you wanna laugh at me. Tell me the fucking song. I need to hear it again, please. Cause it was the greatest song that I've ever heard in my life.
8:48 Blindboy Boatclub? I can't get it out of my head and I must hear it again. Maybe 10 years later, I finally find the song, 15 years later possibly, finally find the song. And the song was called Tears Don't Lie by a German happy hardcore producer called Mark O. Did hearing it compare to the memory of thinking that this was the greatest song ever made? No. Is it the greatest song I've ever heard or the greatest song ever made? Absolutely not. But to me, as a little child, whatever could have happened on that day, might have been beautiful weather, I might have just had a good day, but in those 30 seconds, that
9:31 Blindboy Boatclub? stoplight, this was the greatest song that I'd ever heard and then it was gone. And the memory just reinforced itself as this, it became heaven, it became a fantasy land, it became religious. And I say that, I've made this comparison before, but there's this very unique cultural phenomenon called cargo cults. You don't see this as much anymore, but there's, there were islands in Micronesia, around near Polynesia, tiny, remote, uncontacted islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean
10:10 Blindboy Boatclub? that had people living there in tribes who had no contact with the modern world until World War II. And suddenly... American soldiers start landing on their islands in their planes. And they they meet the the tribespeople and they give them gifts. They give them chocolate, they give them sugar, they give them cigarettes, Coca-Cola. Now, they can't communicate because it's an uncontacted tribe and Yanks, but they understand exchange and gift giving. But it's so shocking and so strange and so new that the people on the island,
10:50 Blindboy Boatclub? they just naturally assume that these weird looking men that came down on on flying machines, they just assume these must be gods, they have to be gods, like they're drinking a can of Coke. They they don't have, they don't have fizzy things, they don't have a lot of sugar. They may not even have metal and now they're drinking a can of Coke, given to them by a white man who came down on a plane. And this happened in in a few incredibly isolated islands in the Pacific Ocean during World War Two. World War Two ends and then the Americans leave, the soldiers leave. And then the people in the island.
11:32 Blindboy Boatclub? Years pass and they start to tell stories about when the gods arrived, when the gods arrived and brought us Coca-Cola and brought us chocolate, when the gods came down on flying machines. And then slowly but surely, the people in the tribes start to develop religious practices around the memory of the time the gods came to the island and brought things. So they start to design runways made out of bamboo and and they start to do religious rituals that look like US soldiers doing military drills. And and they're making religious rituals about everything they remember from the behaviour of the US soldiers.
12:17 Blindboy Boatclub? And the reason they're doing this is they hope that maybe one day they'll come back and bring more stuff, because what happens as the 20th century progresses and globalisation progresses. Every so often, a ship might crash in the Pacific and cargo will wash up on shore. A crate of Coca-Cola might wash up. So then the people on the island, the tribespeople, they start to think, well, our prayers are working now. This religion that we have is working because this shit is washing up on shore. And that becomes known as a cargo cult. And it's a very fascinating thing. And sometimes it's used to laugh at those people or to belittle those people or to portray them as primitive.
13:01 Blindboy Boatclub? To confuse US soldiers with gods. No, it's just, it's just the human mind when it's exposed to scarcity. There's no difference between that and me hearing that song when I'm a kid and then going into HMV and humming it. I'm in a cargo cult. That moment, something wonderful happened. It's gone forever and I need to hold on to its memory and hope that I can bring it back somehow through the ritual of humming. But now as a, as a, as a middle aged man.
13:32 Blindboy Boatclub? If I smoke a little bit of Baldi, couple of Kens. I will throw on Tears Don't Lie by Marco and try and relive that little moment. But that there is cultural scarcity. And now what's becoming scarce are those opportunities. Like even when I travel abroad.
13:53 Blindboy Boatclub? Like I've been touring, touring as a professional entertainer since maybe 2009. And you used to be able to rely upon. If I go to Canada, if I go to Toronto, or if I go to America, or if I go to Australia. 15 years ago, these places felt quite different to Ireland. And I mean, the way that buildings are designed, the clothes that people are wearing, the music that people are listening to, the food that people are eating. Each time you go to a different country or a different city, you get a little bit of culture shock. Everything's different and the novelty of that experience. It's wonderful because it forces you into the present moment.
14:39 Blindboy Boatclub? When everything looks different and tastes different, you have to experience it in, in the present moment because everything's exciting. And then you just hold on to it as a memory of your holiday. But I'm going back to these countries every two, three years for the past 15 years. And then I notice over time. Yet less and less of a shock because global culture is becoming completely homogenized. We're all on Instagram, we're all on TikTok, whether you're in Australia or Canada or America or Ireland or England, whatever the fuck, it's all the same memes, it's all the same music. And the last time I was walking around the mall in Toronto, I'm just like, holy fuck,
15:23 Blindboy Boatclub? there's the body shop, oh, there's Zara. And you walk into the Zara and you walk into the body shop and it's like, I might as well be in fucking Limerick because everything, absolutely everything is the exact same as back home. And then you look around and all the people are wearing the exact same clothes. And then you look up and the light fixtures are the same. Everything is the same, no matter where you go in the world, because it's all being made in China. And this is globalization, this is cultural homogenization, and this is real. But what you lose then is the wonder and novelty of scarcity. So when I do find something that's rare and scarce, I try and respect it.
16:09 Blindboy Boatclub? I had two things that I was respecting. Number one, there's a type of sparkling water that I can only get in Spain called Vicci Catalan, which tastes a little bit like bread soda. I think I've done an entire podcast on it about six years ago. I can only get this sparkling water in Spain. I know I can go online. I can go online and I can order it and I can have it sent to my house in Ireland very easily, no problem at all. I refuse to do it. I need that sparkling water to stay in Spain. I need to worship it. I need to treat it like a religious item, something that I can't have, I can't touch.
16:50 Blindboy Boatclub? It needs to stay as a memory, as a taste that I can recall. And then all the lovely, wonderful memories of being in Spain come back when I do that. Because this isn't about sparkling water. It's about wonder and memory and value.
17:08 Blindboy Boatclub? There's an Oscar Wilde quote, which is, "Through a slit too wide, there comes no wonder." And I think what he was referring to there was, like, being able to see into a beautiful garden, but you can only see, you can only peek in with your eye. So you can't see the whole garden, just a little bit. And you have to wonder about what the rest of that garden must be like, behind the high walls. Same with my Spanish sparkling water. "Through a slit too wide, there comes no wonder." I need to leave it in Spain, and recall it, and memorize it, and look forward to it. And no, if I ordered this to Ireland and I can drink this sparkling water whenever I want, it loses value, it loses wonder. So I don't fuck with that, that's a religious item to me.
17:53 Blindboy Boatclub? There was one other thing, that I was treating in a similar way, that I was trying to keep scarce. And I just couldn't resist it.
18:04 Blindboy Boatclub? It's shit Spanish coffee.
18:07 Blindboy Boatclub? Do you ever go to a coffee shop in Mallorca? One of the little Spanish cafes, and you say, "Can I have an Americano?", or "Can I just have a coffee?", or "Cafe con leche", as they call it. And you sit down, and you can see, oh, they're using a coffee machine. Okay, this is proper bean-to-cup coffee, it's real fucking coffee. And then they come down to you, and they give you the worst cup of coffee you've ever tasted in your life. And every single Spanish cafe serves the exact same cup of shit. And you're drinking it going, "Is this instant? What the fuck is this? This isn't like any other coffee I've tasted anywhere.
18:50 Blindboy Boatclub? I can clearly see they're using espresso machines. This is real coffee. Why is it so terrible?" But you're in Spain, you're on holiday, you're relaxed, you're with friends. Everything is beautiful and wonderful. You tolerate the shit coffee, you don't care that the coffee is shit because you're in fucking Spain and everything is different and magnificent. And then before you know it, you leave Spain. And now you're thinking about shit Spanish coffee. You're thinking about terrible coffee because of the memories that it brings back. And you don't know what it's called. And you don't know why the Spanish coffee is shit. And you don't know why every single Spanish cafe sells the same cup of shit. But you just know it exists. And we've got access to fantastic coffee in Ireland.
19:36 Blindboy Boatclub? You go to any little country village in Ireland and there'll be a coffee shop with a trained barista giving you decent bean to cup coffee. And many a time I've been drinking real high quality coffee and I've thought to myself, just give me some Spanish shit. I want a Spaniard to shit into my mouth. That's what I want today. Oh, if only I could have that shit Spanish coffee. And all the memories would flow back. And I'd reflect on that and I'd really cherish it. I cherish that and I'd say to myself, isn't that great? That's the closest thing that I have now to when I was a child. And, and a song would come on, an advert on TV and I'd never hear it again.
20:19 Blindboy Boatclub? And I just had to record it in my memory and pine for it and want it and desire it. And I can't have it. I can have anything I want, but I can't have this. And I used to love that about the Spanish coffee. Until about six months ago, I found out shit Spanish coffee has a name. And it's called Tarifacto. So from what I read online during the Spanish Civil War, which would have been late 1930s, I think. During the Spanish Civil War, there was a shortage of coffee because there was a huge civil war going on. There was a shortage of coffee. So the Spanish people were like, all right, there's a coffee shortage, but everyone still wants to drink coffee. What are we gonna do?
21:04 Blindboy Boatclub? So what they would do is they'd start to roast their coffee beans in sugar. And then they'd grind it. So you'd end up with, it would bulk out the coffee with about 20, 30% sugar. But the sugar would burn to fuck, burnt sugar and would also burn the coffee beans. And it also meant you could store the coffee for longer. And this became known as the Tarifacto process. It was a way to make the most of having less during the Spanish Civil War. So now you have this. Incredibly bitter, burnt coffee that's also mostly burnt sugar. Tarifacto coffee and it's been served in Spanish cafes.
21:47 Blindboy Boatclub? And then the Spanish Civil War ends and the rationing is over. But now people have a taste for this terrible disgusting coffee. And this becomes the standard coffee that's served in Spanish cafes. Tarifacto, tarifacto. And when I found that out, I was like, well, fuck it. I gotta order some bastard in tarifacto now, don't I? So I did. I managed to find some online, got sent some ground tarifacto in the post, made myself a cup of it and instantly like, fuck it. I'm back in Cardoba, my God. I could close my eyes and I'm back in Spain. And then that's immediately followed by, I wish I didn't do that.
22:32 Blindboy Boatclub? I wish I didn't do that. Now I did, now it's not scarce anymore. I can have a cup of it whenever the fuck I want. And then I, I went just to show you how small the world has gotten because of the internet. How insanely small the world has gotten. So after I purchased this tarifacto and had it sent to me in Limerick, the brand was called Tirma. I posted a photograph of the bag of coffee on my Instagram stories and said, look at this Spanish shit. I love drinking this shit Spanish coffee. And within 10 minutes, a family member of the company of this particular brand
23:14 Blindboy Boatclub? of Spanish coffee is, is messaging me on Instagram because they're a regular listener to this podcast. So that was a very long description of why I'm, why I'm up late this week drinking coffee. But I really do love my tarifacto. Even though it's considered a bitter, acrid, poor quality. What makes it beautiful is that when you take a sip, you're chasing the ghost of sugar. You see, it's not sweet and I don't put sugar in my coffee. But because the, the beans are roasted and caramelized in burnt sugar, there's that faint taste.
23:55 Blindboy Boatclub? And not, if you've ever tried to make your own caramel, if you've ever put sugar in a frying pan and tried to dissolve it to make caramel,
24:08 Blindboy Boatclub? you get to that stage where it's golden and it's turning and it's turning and you need a lot of skill to nail it, then you go too far and it burns and a little piece of smoke curls up to your nostrils and pinches it where that warm and golden caramel smell disappears and now you're left with a little violent zing, something bitter, something astringent, something pinty. The Tarifacto has a shadow of that. And the other thing that I adore about Tarifacto coffee is
24:48 Blindboy Boatclub? once, once you find out that, oh, it's burnt sugar, once, once you find that out, it completely reframes the taste of the coffee. Something unlocks, something clicks and you're like, oh, that's what that is. And also it'll make shitty your coffee machine. If you have an espresso maker that uses pressure, the Tarifacto will fuck it up. You're actually not supposed to put it into an espresso machine, you're supposed to do it in like a mocha pot, but I put it in my espresso machine and it fucks it up. I have to clean it every week, but I'm up late. I'm doing the night
25:28 Blindboy Boatclub? shift tonight, which I like. I tried to get the podcast recorded in the daytime, but sometimes
25:39 Blindboy Boatclub? I like to record in the stillness of night. I stuck my head outside there and it's November dark and cold and the fucking sky is very clear. The moon looks like a jaundiced light bulb. The stars are all proud and obvious and then, which is becoming an ever increasing fucking sight, when you look at a clear night sky, you see the little dots. You'll see a little trail of what you think is stars.
26:13 Blindboy Boatclub? But there's a row of them, like five or six, and it's a Starlink satellite. Five or six little dots like a train in the sky, moving pure fast. Elon Musk put it up there. You can't escape the fucker. But outside right now, there's this creeping fog. It's fucking gorgeous. I wish I could show you. It's half two in the morning and there's a spooky hovering graveyard, smoky fog out there. Only about six foot off the ground and you can breathe it in, you can drink it. And that's the, that's the spooky Irish other world mist.
26:55 Blindboy Boatclub? That's the mist that in mythology, people believed that that was the curtain, that was the veil between this reality and the parallel reality of the other world. And it is, I don't think it's spooky or creepy, but I can see why people think it, it is. It's ghostly. You'd hallucinate a figure in it if you got anxious enough. There's many a gig I'd be coming home from. Like again, my job, like I said, it's touring. I've been doing it for a long time. So sometimes I'd finish a gig, get out of the place at maybe half twelve, one in the morning. Then we're driving back to Limerick.
27:35 Blindboy Boatclub? And when you do it this time of year, you're driving along the motorway and then suddenly out of nowhere, the fog is there in front of you, tangible, floating just above the ground. And then you're stuck in the middle of it, like being in a cloud when you're in an airplane. And then if you're not careful, you lose sense of up or down or left or right. And you can see why it's associated with the fairies or the other world in Irish mythology. I mean, the fairies in Irish mythology and in Irish folklore. Fairies aren't little cute things with wings. They're strange, malevolent demons. Like even if you type fog or mist into Ducas,
28:19 Blindboy Boatclub? which is the Irish National Folklore Collection, you get loads of stories. Like there's one story I found here from the 1930s in Waterford. It says there's a field in this locality known as Knock Parson, where the fairies are said to dwell. And on several occasions, people went there after nightfall to gather mushrooms. And when they entered the field, a great thick mist seemed to fall everywhere. And when they tried to get out of the field, they found it surrounded by a great stone wall. And the parsons inside in the field had to remain there until morning. As soon as daybreak came, the mist suddenly cleared and the people could get away. So what you have there is a folklore story about the terror of this mist.
29:04 Blindboy Boatclub? You go into this field and then the mist surrounds you. And now you're lost, you're in the other world. But what I enjoy about that story is
29:14 Blindboy Boatclub? how you can explain it using science. So this type of thick fog, it usually only happens on nights like tonight, when you have a really clear sky, when the sky is so clear and the stars are bright and the moon is bright and it's cold. But in that story there, it mentions there's a hill. And when people go out there at nightfall to pick mushrooms, that's when the fog comes on them.
29:43 Blindboy Boatclub? Now, I'm guessing that those people, they would have believed if they're picking mushrooms, that they're stealing them, they're stealing them from the fairies. And the punishment is the mist, like the mist comes about to protect the mushrooms. Thing is.
30:01 Blindboy Boatclub? When the night is, I could pick mushrooms out there now. The moon is so clear that I could see mushrooms on the grass by just the moonlight. So the people probably went out, and this is the 30s, so no one has a torch. The people probably went out to collect the mushrooms on a night like tonight, when you've got moonlight. But when it's cold and when there's no clouds up there, there's no wind, it's unbelievably still out there with the clearest sky you can imagine. What happens under those conditions is a thing called radiative cooling. There's no cloud insulation, so the heat that's stored in the, in the ground from
30:43 Blindboy Boatclub? the daytime, from the sun, that escapes rapidly, radiative cooling. It goes right up into the air, up into space. But when that rapidly cooling air comes off the ground and goes up, it meets the humidity in the air, and then that's when the fog forms suddenly, like a thick blanket out of nowhere that creeps. It's literally, it's a cloud at ground level. And it can be, it can be freaky when it just suddenly happens. It's what I just saw when I went outside, it's all around me. But that's what's been described in that old folklore story. The same conditions that make it great for picking mushrooms under moonlight are the
31:26 Blindboy Boatclub? same conditions that create this sudden fog, but the people back then thought, oh no, it's the fairies, whatever we're doing here, taking these mushrooms, this is some type of sacred ground, and the fog is coming up to protect this area. And if we're not careful, we'll get lost in here or might even go to another dimension. And that same nighttime radiative cooling, that was actually harnessed thousands of years ago in Persia, in what is now Iran, to create the world's first desert. The world's first, the world's first frozen desert, which you'd expect to come from a cold country, it didn't. The first civilization to have frozen deserts were the Persians.
32:13 Blindboy Boatclub? The ancient Persians, and I'm talking maybe 2000 years ago, maybe a bit longer. They had these structures in the desert called yak chaise. Tall, sandy columns like round pyramids. And the desert, desert would get hot in the daytime. All that heat gets stored in the ground. Then the night time, it's a clear sky, it's cold. You get this evaporative cooling. But these Persian towers in the desert, they could harness that evaporative cooling and they could create ice. They could create ice in the desert using nothing but air and cooling.
32:55 Blindboy Boatclub? And then they'd get this ice and they used to make a dessert called falooda. You can still get it today. If you go to a decent Persian restaurant, they might have falooda on the menu. There's a place in Parnell Street in Dublin that does it. And it's this really weird.
33:14 Blindboy Boatclub? It's like icy spaghetti with rose water and that's the world's first frozen dessert. So while the Irish were going, fuck that. This is a mist that's going to transport you to another dimension. The Persians were going, I think we can make desserts out of it instead. Okay, let's have a little lacquerina pause now.
33:36 Blindboy Boatclub? I have some dull keys. I have some keys here that have a very dull jingle. I enjoy jingling them because, I don't know, ki- keys are usually quite abrasive. The type of things that'd disturb a dog. These keys would never disturb a dog. So let's jingle them and hear an advert for some bullshit.
34:02 Blindboy Boatclub? Listen to this. Dull Keys.
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35:42 Blindboy Boatclub? Very dull keys.
35:45 Speaker 00 Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a Berry Chantilly Cake. Ready to cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings. And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.
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37:22 Blindboy Boatclub? Gorgeous. We don't hear enough of dull keys.
37:27 Blindboy Boatclub? Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page, patreon.com/theblindbypodcast. If this podcast brings you mirth, merriment, distraction, whatever has you listening to this podcast, please consider paying me for the work that I put into this podcast, because this is my full-time job. It's how I rent out my studio, it's how I purchase my equipment, it's how I pay all my bills. This is how I earn a living. It's my job. It's how I have the time to make a podcast each week and to research it and to write it. So if you enjoy this podcast, just please consider becoming a patron. All I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month. That's it. If you can't afford it, don't worry about it. You listen for free.
38:13 Blindboy Boatclub? Listen for free, because the person who's paying is paying for you to listen for free. Everybody gets a podcast. I get to earn a living. It's a wonderful model based on soundness and kindness. Patreon.com forward slash the Blind Vibe Podcast. If you are becoming a patron, avoid signing up on the Apple app, the Apple Patreon app, because Apple will take 30%. So try and do it on the browser on your phone or on a desktop, but not the Apple iOS app. Apple are greedy. This podcast is listener funded. No advertiser can control the content in any way. Fully independent. Also, give me a follow on Instagram if you choose, Blind by Ball Club.
38:57 Blindboy Boatclub? And speaking of Instagram, social media is kind of collapsing in general. Social media as we know it is disappearing and it's been replaced by the algorithm. We don't follow people anymore. We just have a timeline that's defined by the algorithm. And this is, that's tough for people who rely upon social media to get their work out there. So if you like this podcast, doing something as simple as recommending it to a friend actually makes a massive difference. If you really like this podcast, just tell a friend about it and say, give a listen to Blind by, you might like that. That makes a huge difference. This is a word of mouth podcast, to be honest. I think most of my listeners come from word
39:41 Blindboy Boatclub? of mouth. Okay, I'm contractually obligated to promote some gigs. I'm not doing any gigs in this, this 2025. My next gigs start in January 26. So these are wonderful Christmas presents. If you're thinking of getting a Christmas present for someone. January, I'm in Waterford in the Theatre Royal. I'm also in Kildare at the Spirit of Kildare Festival. Yum yum. Then February, Vickers Street, Belfast Waterfront Theatre, Leisure Land in Galway. The Aineck down in Killarney, that's February.
40:23 Blindboy Boatclub? March, the Visual Arts Centre in Carlo. Yum yum. Give me some Carlo. I haven't been there in a while. What else is happening in March? Cork Opera House, go on Cork. Then Limerick, my own home city of Limerick there in fucking, when is that? March as well, is it? University Concert Hall, Limerick, April. That's in April 2026. Google any of those dates. And also you can go to my website, theblindbypodcast.ie, where you'll see a bunch of dates on it, assuming my website works. Then next October there, 2026, my England, Scotland and Wales tour.
41:08 Blindboy Boatclub? I'm in the Brighton Dome. I'm in the New Theatre in Cardiff. I'm in the Warwick Arts Centre Coventry. I'm in Beacon Hall in Bristol. I'm in G Live in Guildford. I'm in the Barbican, the beautiful Barbican in London. I'm in the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow and I'm at Stage One in Gateshead. Wonderful Gateshead. Then finishing it all off in the Theatre Royal in Nottingham. All right, that's October 26. It's a long time away, but some of those gigs are setting out fucking fast.
41:45 Blindboy Boatclub? fan.co.uk forward slash theblindbypodcast is where you'll get those, those 10 tickets.
41:55 Blindboy Boatclub? I'm up late because I'm quite distracted. I have to go to an award ceremony next week in London. I'm a bit nervous about it.
42:07 Blindboy Boatclub? A documentary I made last year, Blind by the Land of Slaves and Scotters, which is, it's about early Irish Christianity, but it's really about writing. It's about the history of writing in Ireland. So quite unexpectedly, very, very unexpectedly, that's been nominated for a Grierson Trust Award, which is.
42:33 Blindboy Boatclub? It's, it's, it's one of the most prestigious documentary awards in the world. And I'm up for best presenter. And I did not, I don't, nobody fucking expected this. And as far as I know, I think it's the only, the only Irish documentary. It's the only RTE documentary for sure. That's nominated at this award ceremony. I've never gone to an award ceremony in my life. I've been nominated for quite a few awards. First one was 2011. And I've been nominated for a few awards since then. I've never gone to any of the ceremonies. I've always avoided them. This one, I kinda have to go. It's too, it's too big.
43:18 Blindboy Boatclub? I'd piss people off if I didn't go. It's not only a big, a big award ceremony. Best presenter is, it's like best album or best actor. It's the big award within the big award ceremony. And I'm up against fucking Louis Theroux. It's a huge honour and I can't believe it. But I can't sit this one out. This is one of those ones where if, if you don't show up to this one, you better have a good reason. You better be sick or too old or something, but you kinda have to go to this. And the reason I've always avoided award ceremonies is just the practicality of it. I wear a plastic bag on my head. Award ceremonies are maybe five, six hours long.
44:03 Blindboy Boatclub? I don't wanna be sitting around with a bag on my head for five or six hours. It's not practical. Can't drink pints, can't eat dinner. Definitely can't eat dinner with a bag on my head. I could drink soup through a straw, but I don't wanna do that. So I have to go to this. The award ceremony is next Tuesday. RTE actually, if you wanna see that documentary, if you're in Ireland. RTE will be replaying the documentary on Monday night at like half ten, I think on RTE one. Because it's been nominated for this award. But I'm gonna have to go to this fucking award ceremony.
44:41 Blindboy Boatclub? I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to figure out two, two costumes, basically. I'm gonna have to wear my plastic bag and be blind by for any bits that there's a camera or if I'm lucky enough to win an award and have to go up on stage. But even if I don't win the award, I'll have to do the red carpet shit. So obviously I have to do that with a plastic bag on my head. But then I have to figure out, how do I change costumes and just go back to being nobody? And mingle amongst the crowd. It's the only way I can do it. I'm not mingling amongst the crowd with a bag on my head for several hours.
45:23 Blindboy Boatclub? Because of the amount of talking I'd have to do. Cause even if people didn't know who the fuck I was, everyone's gonna want to talk to the one person who's wearing a plastic bag on their head if he get me. That's not the bit that's making me nervous.
45:37 Blindboy Boatclub? Honest to fuck. I'm in no way nervous about the, the awards. And if I'm lucky enough to win it and I have to make a speech, I don't give a fuck about that. No, I wouldn't even prepare a speech and I'd comfortably get up and give a speech off the top of my fucking head. No bother to me. Don't give a shit about that. What I'm, what I'm nervous about is I have to dress smart, casual, and I don't know what that fucking means. Well, I kinda do, I've Googled it. I'm looking at a lot of photographs of Graham Norton. Graham Norton is the master of smart casual. I'd prefer it if it was just smart and I get away with a tuxedo. So you just wear it, I can't.
46:22 Blindboy Boatclub? This has to be a blazer shirt, some type of trousers and shoes. And then making that work with a plastic bag. Now, what would I, it's also not one of these peacocking.
46:37 Blindboy Boatclub? It's not one of these award ceremonies where you make a big statement or dress ridiculously, even though I am aware I'm wearing a plastic bag on my head, but that doesn't count. In my heart and soul, what would I like to wear at this award ceremony? If I was to follow my heart.
46:54 Blindboy Boatclub? So, something I noticed recently. I've been doing a lot of mindful walking around Limerick. I enjoy mindful walks where I empty my head and just focus on walking and breathing and my body and sensations. Nises, sounds, textures. I love doing that.
47:15 Blindboy Boatclub? And there was a familiar figure who I used to see on my walks. And I just noticed last week. I didn't see this person anymore. I may have mentioned this person in previous podcasts long ago.
47:29 Blindboy Boatclub? There used to be this fella I'd see around a certain area of Limerick City.
47:35 Blindboy Boatclub? And he used to walk around the place, right, with his dog.
47:40 Blindboy Boatclub? But the dog's leash was attached to the belt of his trousers.
47:48 Blindboy Boatclub? He was a man I'd say in his 60s. And he used to wear really skinny jeans.
47:55 Blindboy Boatclub? Which made him look a bit like a pigeon. And he had, suppose muffin top love handles.
48:05 Blindboy Boatclub? But the interesting thing about this man is, the dog, the dog's leash was attached to his belt. And I used to walk behind him just to, just to watch how insane this was.
48:17 Blindboy Boatclub? The dog used to pull his pants down. And the man's, it would start with his, his, his torso being on display. His muffin top, his love handles would be out. And they'd get a wonderful rosy red colour from the wind. And then the dog would tug more and his pants would basically come down to the point that
48:44 Blindboy Boatclub? sometimes it's just his full arse, his full arse would be out. And this man would just walk around Limerick with his arse out. And I used to follow him from a distance because I'd just marvel at how nuts it was.
49:00 Blindboy Boatclub? And then I came to realise. Because I'd be thinking, man, your arse is out. Your bum, your bum is out in public. The dog, your dog is attached to your belt. Why aren't you pulling your pants up? Do you not notice what's going on? And then it became apparent to me, this is deliberate. This is his thing. This is this man's thing. What made me realise it was deliberate is one day.
49:29 Blindboy Boatclub? I watched him and so he had a kind of a flamboyant walk.
49:35 Blindboy Boatclub? In one hand, he was holding like a flask, like a flask of tea. And in the other hand, he had a very large set of keys. And then I realised, oh, this is about accountability. That's what this is about. So even if he wanted to pull his pants up, he couldn't because it's like, well, I've got a flask in this hand. And I've got keys in the other and the dog is attached to my pants. What do you want me to do? Ah, now I see what this is. This is a fetish, you mad cunt.
50:06 Blindboy Boatclub? He wants people to see his arse.
50:09 Blindboy Boatclub? But he's figured out a way whereby he's not accountable. He's not accountable. He's not flashing, he's not exposing himself because it's the dog who's putting his pants down. He's not putting his own pants down. It's the dog who's pulling his pants down and showing his arse. And I used to respectfully follow that man when I'd see him. And just look at his arse and go, that's one of the maddest things I've ever seen him. What a lunatic. What a fucking lunatic. And he'd do it every time I'd see him. And I just.
50:47 Blindboy Boatclub? Just recently I noticed, I'm like, I hadn't seen him in a while. I haven't seen that man in a while. And I wondered, has he been arrested? Has, or has someone just said to him, "Put your fucking arse away, Brendan", or whatever his name is, he looked like a Brendan, "Put your arse away Brendan, there's children around the place." And then he would say, "It's my dog, my dog is pulling my pants down, he's attached to my belt, it's not me." And then the person said, "Stop it, we know what you're doing. We know what you're doing, put your arse away, or get a better belt, or how about this?
51:29 Blindboy Boatclub? Just hold the fucking leash with your hand like a normal person, because clearly, if your arse is out all the time, this isn't working, and it's not working for the community either." So I was thinking, maybe that happened, maybe he was confronted, maybe he had to stop. And I went rooting around, he died. Turned out that he died of natural causes a couple of months back. And I kind of, I never spoke to him, I didn't know his name. I wanted to write a story about him, I wanted to... I mean, that's the beautiful beginnings of a short story, or even a novel.
52:09 Blindboy Boatclub? To write a story, what's going on in that person's head? What if he, what if he went walking with the dog, dragging his pants around his ankles, and then found himself in a fairy mound surrounded by mist? And then was judged before a fairy court? But if I was to follow my heart and go, "What would I wear to the award ceremony?" I'd do that, I'd do that. I would arrive at the award ceremony with my bag on, and a dog attached to my belt, consistently pulling my pants down so that my arse is out. And then if I was doing interviews and anybody was asking me why my arse is out, or why my muffin top is out, I'd say, "It's not me, it's the dog, but she can't do that." So instead,
52:54 Blindboy Boatclub? I've just been up Googling photographs of Graham Norton, trying to figure out his style, trying to figure out what type of shirt would Graham Norton wear, what type of blazer would Graham Norton wear? And I'm gonna have to get myself some type of single-breasted blazer, I'd imagine. But then of course, like I'm, I'm shit at dressing myself. I wonder what Louis Theroux wears to fucking award ceremonies, let's...
53:23 Blindboy Boatclub? Oh, he wears tuxedos. No, he wears soaps.
53:30 Blindboy Boatclub? Louis Theroux wears soaps at award ceremonies with a tie. I wonder is he gonna go smart casual? I'm just realising, there's a, there's a strong chance I'm gonna end up speaking to Louis Theroux at this documentary awards because if, if we're in the same category together, there, there's a strong chance that we'd have a conversation.
53:54 Blindboy Boatclub? And I'm gonna have to avoid talking to him about, so I have a theory, I have a very strange theory, that there's a Tom Waits song from 1982 that's actually written about Louis Theroux's childhood.
54:08 Blindboy Boatclub? And it's one of my, it's one of my hottest takes.
54:14 Blindboy Boatclub? So Tom Waits has this song called Shore Leave.
54:19 Blindboy Boatclub? Absolutely magnificent song.
54:23 Blindboy Boatclub? I don't know if this podcast sound the way it does without Tom Waits' song Shore Leave. When I first started making this podcast and trying to decide what would the feeling be? What would the tone of this podcast be? The piano in the background, the pacing of how I speak, the imagery that I use, the literature of the podcast.
54:50 Blindboy Boatclub? A touchstone that I would use was the Tom Waits song Shore Leave, which is, it's one of my favourite songs of all time.
55:00 Blindboy Boatclub? It's not particularly nice to listen to. It's not melodic. It's a speaking song. It's closer to a short story. And that's what I love about Tom Waits. Tom Waits, a lot like Randy Newman. A lot of his songs are, are short stories. But anyway, Tom Waits wrote this song Shore Leave in 1982. And it's a short story about an American sailor who's on shore leave in Hong Kong.
55:31 Blindboy Boatclub? And it's just about his, about his night, walking around Hong Kong as an off-duty sailor, and looking up at the moon, and marveling about how the moon in the sky is the same moon that his wife is looking at back in America. The lyrics are very cinematic and descriptive. "With buckshot eyes and a purple heart, I rode down the national stroll, and with a big fat paycheck strapped to my hip sack, and a shore leave wristwatch underneath my sleeve, in a Hong Kong drizzle on Cuban heels, I rode down the gutter to the blood bank.
56:15 Blindboy Boatclub? And I'd left all my papers on the taekwondo rug, and I was in bad need of a shave. So I slopped at the corner on cold chow main and shot billiards with a midget until the rain stopped. And I bought a long sleeve shirt with horses on the front, and some gum, and a lighter, and a knife, and a new deck of cards with girls on the back. And I sat down and wrote a letter to my wife." And Tom Waits, he speaks, he speaks those lyrics, like the way I spoke 'em there. Now, here's the thing, the, the lyrics are so visually rich, they're so visually descriptive,
56:56 Blindboy Boatclub? that I have a feeling that when Tom Waits was writing it, he was using some type of visual cue. He had a very clear picture in his head. And it's very common for writers to use movies, or to use postcards, magazines, literal visual images, to then translate this into words and bring it into your own fiction. That's a very common thing to do. So Tom Waits wrote Shore Leave in 1982, and a lot of the visual imagery in that song is very, very similar to a movie that came out two years earlier, in 1979, called Saint Jack.
57:39 Blindboy Boatclub? Saint Jack, it stars Ben Gazzara, great actor.
57:44 Blindboy Boatclub? And it's, it's a film about an American. He's, he's a pimp. He's living in Singapore. He's, he's a pimp and a lot of the, a lot of the clients are sailors on shore leave. So in the, in this film from 1979, a huge amount of the visual imagery, including the shirts that he's wearing, a lot of the descriptions from shore leave, the Tom Waits song, you can see them in this film from 1979, uh, Saint Jack. So my theory is Tom Waits saw this film in the cinema a year or two before he wrote the song.
58:27 Blindboy Boatclub? And some of the visual imagery from that film are actually in the lyrics of Shore Leave. You can actually place the song over parts of Saint Jack the movie. And it nearly, it almost works as a narration. I've tried it, but here's the thing. Who wrote the screenplay for Saint Jack? Paul Theroux, Louis Theroux's dad, who was living in Singapore at the time, who was born in Singapore, Louis Theroux. Louis Theroux was actually born in Singapore while his dad was living in Singapore, while his dad was writing the screenplay for Saint Jack, based on things that he's seeing all around him in Singapore. So that's why I have a plausible theory that the Tom Waits song, Shore Leave, from
59:11 Blindboy Boatclub? 1982, may possibly be inadvertently about Louis Theroux's childhood. And I'm gonna have to stop myself saying that to Louis Theroux if I meet him at that award ceremony. If he's a Tom Waits fan, I'm definitely saying it to him. If he's not, I'm not saying it to him. I'll have to really stop. So I've been, I've been bothered this week about figuring out how I'm gonna dress myself for this award ceremony next fucking Tuesday. And getting annoyed, cause I wanna just, I wanna just wear my Gore-Tex. I wanna dress for the weather, but I'm gonna have to figure out what is smart casual? Will it look okay?
59:54 Blindboy Boatclub? How am I gonna fucking put it off and feel comfortable in it? Fashion is a very social language. It's a social language and I struggle with the, the social communicative element of it.
1:00:09 Blindboy Boatclub? When I wear Gore-Tex, when I dress for the weather, you know, I'm dressing to protect myself from the elements, from the cold, from the wind, from the rain. I love that.
1:00:23 Blindboy Boatclub? But when I dress smart casual, I'm dressing to protect myself from other people's opinions. And that's quite, that's ambiguous. And there's a lot of room for error.
1:00:37 Blindboy Boatclub? You can get things wrong. When it comes to the rain, Gore-Tex breathable, keeps the fucking, keeps the weather out. Blazers. You know, if I, if I were, I just learned today, if I turn up in a, in a double breasted blazer, I have it wrong. That's not smart casual. That's, that's smart. That's formal. So you can't wear a double breast. So now I have to get a single breasted blazer. And then I'm going, what the fuck does this matter? Who started this? Who started this? Who decided this? Who decided on suits? What a strange thing. When did that start?
1:01:16 Blindboy Boatclub? And then instead of looking at photographs of Graham Norton or scanning through the River Island website, looking for, for blazers.
1:01:26 Blindboy Boatclub? The history of how it came about is actually quite fucking interesting.
1:01:31 Blindboy Boatclub? So the French Revolution, right?
1:01:37 Blindboy Boatclub? So men, menswear.
1:01:41 Blindboy Boatclub? In the 1700s, fashion was defined mostly by France, by aristocratic France. And if you think, if you look at how rich men dressed in the 1700s, men used a peacock, big wigs, big, big, huge puffed wigs, powdered wigs, frocks, frilly stuff, high heels. Men, men's clothing was what you'd call costume now. Men's, if you were to dress like people dressed in, like men dressed in the 1700s, it would be classed as, as highly effeminate. How did that stop? What happened?
1:02:26 Blindboy Boatclub? And what happened was the French Revolution.
1:02:32 Blindboy Boatclub? The opulence and the displays of wealth.
1:02:39 Blindboy Boatclub? The French royalty were getting their heads chopped off. There was a revolution. The peasants revolted.
1:02:46 Blindboy Boatclub? And aristocratic wealthy people were literally being executed. And people who were royal and people who were wealthy, once the revolution started, some of them, they went into fucking hiding. So obviously, you're not going to be dressing in high heels and wigs in an opulent fashion because you'd get your head chopped off. And this was France. But the French Revolution, the 1790s, that frightened all of Europe. All the wealthy people, all the monarchies of Europe were like, fuck, what if that happens here? And in Britain, and Ireland would have been part of Britain at the time through colonization.
1:03:33 Blindboy Boatclub? Like, the English monarchy were terrified of what if a fucking French revolution happens here? And you had a bit of it in Ireland. Wolfeton, Theobald Wolfeton and the United Irishmen. That was a movement, a rebellion, an attempted revolution, which was inspired by the French Revolution. It was a republican revolution. The French even tried to assist Wolfeton and the United Irishmen. So the English monarchy by the late 1700s are like terrified. They're like, fucking Wolfeton over there, that could be us.
1:04:14 Blindboy Boatclub? What if us, the English monarchy, what if the people here gained class consciousness and put us in the guillotine? So what happens is, is fashion start to change. Powdered wigs, high heels, frocks, peacocking.
1:04:31 Blindboy Boatclub? This, if, if you're a wealthy person in England, if you're, if you're royalty, or if you're a duke, or whatever shit they have over there, whatever royal titles they give. If you're one of these people, now you don't want to dress like a French aristocrat anymore. That's dangerous now. So a more austere way of dressing starts to come into style at the very end of the seventeen hundreds. It happens all across Europe and it's, it's known as the great male renunciation. Where bright ornate colours and clothes are abandoned for something a bit more sober.
1:05:14 Blindboy Boatclub? And the concept of the visual masculinity, how we think a man should dress and a man should look. That starts to begin now with this great male renunciation. And it's actually, its roots are in an anxiety from the ultra wealthy about what if there's a revolution? We gotta stop showing off. And in the early eighteen hundreds, there's this fella in England called Bo Bromwell. And Bo Bromwell, he was best friends with the, the prince, Prince George, right? This was during the Georgian period. He was best friends with Prince George. This Bo Bromwell fella anyway, he's a dandy.
1:05:57 Blindboy Boatclub? I think he was the first dandy, very, very stylish individual. All because the prince was best friends with him, the prince started to dress like him too. And that then defined the, the style of how men should dress in England. But Bo Bromwell, he was the first one to start wearing like double breasted suits. Um, tailored trousers, more simple cravats and shirts. So the suit as we know it today, and the blazer that I'm gonna have to purchase. You can trace it back to this fella, Bo Bromwell.
1:06:38 Blindboy Boatclub? But really what you can trace it to is, is the anxiety of the monarchy about getting their heads chopped off. Now that for me. That makes it easier now for me to figure out how to dress in a smart casual way. It makes suits and blazers seem a little, a little less confusing because now I know the story of it and that story is really fucking interesting. So I'm gonna go and pick myself out a single breasted blazer when I go to London next week. And I'd like to say that the, the thing that I'm looking forward to the most is going to the award ceremony in London. It's not. What I'm gonna make time to do while I'm in London, I want
1:07:21 Blindboy Boatclub? to visit the last surviving sewer lamp in London. This is fascinating, right? So down close enough to the Thames, I don't know where it is, I'll figure it out once I get there. There's a fancy hotel called the Savoy Hotel. And at the back of the Savoy Hotel is a road called Carting Lane. And on this road, there's an old Victorian looking street lamp, old lamp. And it's got a flame in it. But what makes this fucking fascinating is
1:07:59 Blindboy Boatclub? it's actually powered by like farts, gas. It's a sewer gas lamp. And it's the last one in London and it still operates. So the old sewers of, of not just London, all over the cities of Britain, the old sewers, the sewers used to be underneath the city as they still are. But they weren't modern like they are now. So you had all this shit and piss underneath the streets and that would generate huge amounts of gas, methane gas, which could literally cause explosions, really dangerous. So throughout London, you had these
1:08:39 Blindboy Boatclub? special gas lamps where methane farts from the sewer would travel up this lamp and then be lit at the top. So you had streetlights that were powered by sewer gas. And the last one that's left in London, that's still, you can go to it. And if you stand beside it at nighttime and it lights you, it illuminates you, you're being lit by farts, literally. So that's beside the Savoy Hotel and I'm gonna make time to go and see that 100%. And I'm just fascinated by these English fart lamps. In particular,
1:09:17 Blindboy Boatclub? I call them English fairy trees. And that might sound strange, but I tell you why. In Sheffield in particular. So the thing is with Irish fairy trees. Fairy trees, any, any tree in the countryside in Ireland that looks out of place. It's by itself in the middle of a field or on a hill. Okay. And it's usually white thorn. But anytime in Ireland in the countryside, there's a tree by itself on a hill. And that's unusual. We always call those fairy trees. They're fairy trees and you don't fuck with them because you just go, that's strange. That's up on a hill.
1:10:01 Blindboy Boatclub? It looks like it's been put there deliberately. It must have been the fairies. In Sheffield in particular, these fart gas lamps are often situated by themselves on hills. They look out of place. It's a lamp on the top of a hill. And you're looking at it going, now there's very few left in Sheffield. There's about six, but there used to be lots of them. And they'd just be on a hill by themselves illuminating nothing. And that's why I call them the English fairy trees. Because they're just strange and out of place. But the reason they're on hills is.
1:10:42 Blindboy Boatclub? So because Sheffield is a hilly place with the old sores, the gas, sore gas from decomposing shit and piss that would accumulate under hills. So in like the, the, the 1800s, a hill in Sheffield city was at risk of exploding if it didn't have a lamp on it that could let the gas out to go on fire. So that's why I call them English fairy trees. And Sheffield in particular fascinates me because when I was there on tour, I went to visit the cathedral Sheffield Cathedral, which is in the middle of the city. Now Sheffield is very industrial. And the cathedral there is about a thousand years old.
1:11:23 Blindboy Boatclub? But where the cathedral was, there was an Anglo Saxon cross. And on this cross, which is in the British Museum now, there was designs on it that were like vines and leaves. And they reckon that Sheffield Cathedral was once a pagan sacred grove, that it was like a holy forest, a sacred forest that was worshipped by the Anglo Saxons. So I'm gonna go to my awards. You know, I don't like awards. I'm very grateful to be nominated. That that's magnificent. And awards are brilliant because they bring more work.
1:12:04 Blindboy Boatclub? That's the wonderful thing about awards. But also, awards, reviews, these are all quite external ways to evaluate art. And if you want to create art and you want to create anything that has a sense of meaning, you can't be thinking about awards or reviews or even other people's opinions. You have to be in a state of play and enjoyment where the success of the of the work is defined by the amount of meaning that it brings you when you do it. And that's what I try to do. But the flip side of that is if you approach the work in that way, where you're not thinking about making anything good or bad, but you're doing it to to enjoy it,
1:12:48 Blindboy Boatclub? that tends to create the type of work that's good enough to get recognised for awards. So it is a double edged blade. If I was thinking about awards, I wouldn't have been able to make this documentary the way I made it, simple as that. I'd be thinking, oh, what wins awards? Let's make something, let's make a documentary like other documentaries that win awards. And then you do that and you no longer have something with a unique voice you're copying. So that's the double edged blade. I'm better off staying the fuck away from awards. And the other the other guiding principle I have,
1:13:26 Blindboy Boatclub? and this takes it back to that cultural scarcity. Anytime I make anything for TV, anything, I'm always thinking about the last little space of cultural scarcity that we have is often the hotel room. When you go to a hotel, it's often the only time that you'll turn on television, use a remote control, and just look at whatever's on TV because hotel rooms are so boring. And I always try to make something that's
1:13:59 Blindboy Boatclub? I imagine a French tourist or a German tourist in a hotel in Ireland, and they just flick on the TV and then they stumble across my documentary with no context. And they go, what the fuck is this odd stuff? What is this weird shit? And that's what, that's what this documentary is, which you can, you can watch it again on RT1 this Monday. It's a documentary about early Irish Christianity. It's a dead serious documentary with loads of academics in it. It's not comedy, but it just happens to be presented by a man with a plastic bag in his head. And at all times I have a dog with me and the dog has eyebrows.
1:14:42 Blindboy Boatclub? And none of that is ever explained, ever. And that's how I wanted it. And it got terrible reviews, which is a good thing, which is a good thing. Even though that's, it can be painful in the long run. It's, it's good to be getting terrible reviews. If the thing you're making is weird, you want the reviewers to, to get it wrong, to not understand it, to be confused by it and to be upset by it. That's a good thing. Right, that's all I have time for this week. This was an incredibly strange episode. Incred, I don't even know what this was about, but I'm quite happy with whatever the fuck that was. I'm, I'm coming away with a feeling of happiness about that past hour here. I actually wanted to speak about meditation and mental health this week.
1:15:27 Blindboy Boatclub? I've been, I've been getting into a solid meditation practice the past two weeks, like daily, really sticking with it. And I'm noticing some powerful results already. I'm experiencing glimmers, they're called, which are just little moments in my day where I'm overwhelmed with the, the simple joy of existing, wonderful feeling. And glimmers are what happen.
1:15:59 Blindboy Boatclub? After sustained meditation, if you meditate every day for a couple of weeks, you'll start to receive these little lovely glimmers. And what it is, is it's your nervous system calming down. It's safety, it's the feeling of safety. And I wanted to speak about that this week. But also, I always try to be congruent. I'll never force something on this podcast. Even though I intended to speak about mental health and meditation. Instead, what came to me was whatever the fuck that was. And I don't want to interfere with that process. All right, dog bless.
1:16:42 Blindboy Boatclub? Rub a dog genuflect to a swan. Wink at a woodloose. I'll catch you next week.
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