This is a global player original podcast.

Veal.

Coming once more into the breach, dear friends, this is Restless Natives, the podcast equivalent of that feeling when you've woken up with your face stuck to the pillow of a strange bed with only a munchie box for company.

The original version of this was so dirty that I had to change it because we don't want to get cancelled.

We've got somebody with us today who can help with that.

I digress.

In fairness, that's just known as Friday at the Compston's in Vegas.

And they don't even sell munchie boxes in Nevada, do they?

I'm sure we can find one.

Can you find one?

Okay.

Right.

Speaking of the star of his own reality TV show, or documentary, as he's calling it, to get it past his agent, it's the Travelling Wilbury, the trike riding, waistcoat, wearing over 40's Las Vegas party thistle midfielder.

It's Martin Compston, mate.

I've genuinely.

It's been great fun.

I've done the first half of it now, but some of it's been wild.

I was in a proper legend hoos, right.

Interviewing him, spending a day with him and you know when somebody's on a different level, like, do you want to meet the penguin?

What, a penguin?

An actual penguin.

An actual Penguin.

Not Danny DeVito, not Col, but I.

But yeah, I've been cutting a boot with penguins, racing supercars and helicopters and it's pretty cool.

But here, that reminds me, I've got a present for you.

Have you really?

I have.

And I have been carrying this about with me for a long, long time.

And I'm actually a bit sad I won't be carrying this with me anymore.

But this is for my neighbours.

Cha Cha got me this.

I've got one of these and it's a pride of.

It takes a pride of place in the house.

So you're not re gifting?

No, he's not re gifting, but he says he's like, gordwin won one.

I says, I think Gordon would love this.

So this.

So this is from the Wallace Oak Project.

Sir William Wallace, after his capture of Royston near Glasgow on 3 August 1305, the year of our Lord 1305, was taken to Dumbarton Castle and held overnight.

The next morning he was taken across the River Clyde to an area now known as Port Glasgow, where, according to local legend, he was an oak tree by his captors before being handed over to English troops for his transfer to London and his judicial Murder.

The oak Tree survived until 1992 and what is now the grounds of the Holy Family Church.

It eventually fell during a winter storm.

The Society of William Wall, supported by leading dendrochinologist.

What's that?

Dendrochinologist Dr.

Coralie Mills, verifies that this piece of wood in this package is from the legendary Wallace Oak of Port Glasgow.

So I've got a wee bit of the tree.

No way.

That William Wallace was chained to before the head.

Thank you very much.

Freedom Free.

People say this podcast too Scottish, but I mean, that is.

That's amazing.

It's got a lovely little stamp.

It makes a beautiful.

Well presented.

See, I've got.

I've got mines framed in the house, but, yeah, my neighbor Cha take out me.

So you're touching the great man.

Touching with the wall of the alcoholic Australian.

He was at Donald Trump's house, Mar a Lago, the other day with Russell Brand.

Did you see that?

Right, longer.

Have a little look at this.

This is fantastic.

Right, mate, that's a piece of the Wallace oak from Port Glasgow.

Yeah.

And as we know, there aren't many trees in Port Glasgow.

No, mate, that's class.

Brilliant, isn't it?

Delighted with that.

We Touch of Scotland patriotic chat.

Thank you very much.

And it's got the Wallace stamp on it as well.

Oh, that's class.

Thanks, Marlon.

But it's madness.

You definitely feel like.

I mean, and he was hung, drawn and quartered in a farfa here, wasn't he?

Turbo Bridge not far away.

I'm a bit worried on that skin.

I'm going to have to use it for fireweed.

Does it burn?

Well, thanks, Martin.

That's a lovely, lovely touch.

Right, so you're back.

You just arrived back.

Bit of jet slag.

Aye, mate.

I mean, I was.

It seemed to matter what you do.

Like this time it was actually pretty good because I was working.

Literally took my case to work when I was in Vegas and then got dropped off and then I had to read the scripts in the airport and fell asleep.

So, like, I was well behaved in the way over and I got here, had dinner, went to the gym, went to bed and then fucking half one in the morning.

Doom.

Awake, wide awake.

Like 28 days later in London.

But I'm walking about.

So I went back down at the gym again to try and knock myself out.

I'm still wide awake and I try to get some room service and the guy says I can.

Nothing, mate.

There's a McDonald's up the street.

So I was walking through Trafalgar Square.

And I went, how many times have I done this walk at this time in the morning, steaming, going back to the hotel, literally going, right, you've got five hours, five hours enough, get in there, four hours, shower, then you'll be all right.

So I feel jet lagged, but I'm not hungover, which has changed.

So I.

It's good to see you, buddy.

And you didn't go to the Groucho?

I didn't.

Well done.

I'll see if I can just stay out of it altogether this trip.

If you can manage that, we should have a bet about whether.

How long you.

I think I can because I've had too much on.

It's not possible.

Right, Martin.

Last week we were graced with the presence of a fantastic Welsh broadcaster, the one and only Gethin Jones, the safest, most caring pair of moisturized TV you could imagine.

This week we're joined by another broadcaster who was a regular on breakfast telly until he decided to wage war against pharmacists during an appearance on this Morning just for the sake of it.

He's worked for Russian telly, glossy entertainment magazines, some not so glossy magazines.

He's written countless books and he's got not one, but about three super successful podcasts as well.

He's got another brand new book on the cusp of being released, which I've been reading recently.

It's fantastic.

And he's here to tell us all about it, whilst probably getting everyone within about 2 miles cancelled in the process.

It's the professional gobshite, Sam Delaney.

Hello, fellas.

Thanks for having me.

That's accurate enough, isn't it?

Yeah, I think that's sort of.

Yeah, that's kind of.

I can't argue with any of that.

Yeah.

Sam, the new book starts with this.

I don't know if you know the story of the pharmacist, Marlon.

No, no, it's class that, isn't it?

I remember there being a little bit of an issue at the time, at the time, but you just started a fight for absolutely no reason on the telly and it went.

I didn't realize how much it hurt you.

Actually, it was quite a bad one, was.

Yeah, it did hurt me and I, as I said in the book, it surprised me how much it hurt me because it felt like a storm in a teacup and then it inflated.

What happened was mine is I went on, you know, go and do the review the papers on breakfast telly, which I'd done for years on various different channels.

Yeah.

And I'D I think I'd just been signed up for like a long period doing it weekly on this morning and I was supposed to be doing it with Vanessa Phelps every like Wednesday or whatever, right?

And on that I used to do it on Scar and they just go, talk about what you want, pick whatever stories you want.

But on this morning it was extremely produced.

So they're like, you're there really early and they're like, they're more, they're more or less like telling you precisely what you know, what they want you to talk about and what the angle is before you go on, right?

So there's no wriggle room, which is not really my style, but you know, I'm a pro.

I thought, okay, I'll go in.

And one of the stories was they said, right, there's a new government directive that to relief, like the workload from GPs, certain medical questions can be addressed just by your local pharmacist, Right.

One of the things it said, if a pharmacist thinks, for instance, you might be overweight, they can bring it up and advise you on that, right?

So I've gone on and I've straight away, God, this is ridiculous.

Pharmacists come in telling me I'm overweight or giving me advice.

No one wants to hear that.

I mean, look, at the end of day, pharmacists are just glorified shopkeepers.

That was the phrase I used, right.

It's a silly phrase I want to say on record.

Now, of course I know that's not the case and, and believe me, since then I have been thoroughly educated on just how qualified pharmacists are, right?

And what an important part of society they are.

But I just said it.

Who knows why?

It's the sort of thing you say, right?

Who knows?

I said, just for the clap.

I thought it was funny because I thought sometimes you're ironically like sort of saying things that you think the most ignorant people at home might be thinking and you're sort of like, I don't know, but please, it's something that people say, yeah, And I've got a tendency to do that.

But I tell you actually the truth is, is that one of the runners had come up to me in the green room beforehand when they were doing the briefing and he'd handed me the cut ins and he said, oh, by the way, I really like your podcast Top Flight Time Machine.

I do, Vandy Dawson.

And I was delighted.

It was still quite the early days, that podcast.

So, you know, as you know, you're very delighted if someone mention something like that.

You go, it's really funny, blah, blah, blah.

So I've, you know, I'm easily flattered and I get very easily excitable in, in situations.

And so I'm like, oh, you like it?

Do you think it's funny?

So then I've started trying to make him laugh and when he said to me, can you talk about the pharmacist?

I've started doing this routine to him.

I'm going, pharmacist, come off it.

And he's laughing.

And I've got into the mindset of the podcast, right?

Yeah.

And it's like, you guys, yeah, you're behaving a certain way on this podcast and then you've got your day and sometimes there's a bit of an overlap and it can compromise you somewhat.

And I think I went on in that mindset and basically cut a long story short, I've come off air.

It seemed to be all right.

They corrected me.

Like Eamon Holmes and Vanessa Felts and, and Ruth.

They're all like, saying, come off it, Sam.

You're being a bit out of order.

I said, yeah, fair enough.

Hahaha.

See you later.

Same time next week.

Invoice.

Here's the invoice.

See you later, lads.

Right?

And then I get home and like, Twitter is full of pharmacists having a go at me and I'm like, oh, well, you know, whatever, silly.

Then like later in the day, I check again and someone's clipped out the video.

Oh, no.

And shared it.

And there is a big, organized and swiftly mobilized global pharmacist community.

Global, Global.

So there are pharmacists in America and in India getting on this.

And it is a raw nerve with these guys, right?

Because understandably, they might be sick of hearing this sort of joke, this, this sort of lame joke.

And I'm like, all right, calm down.

And.

But what I thought was, what I usually do is I think I'll just ignore this.

I won't respond.

Because if you don't respond, it goes away usually.

Yeah, but I was wrong about that.

It didn't go away.

And in fact, they were like, they wanted blood.

And once the video got shared, it went viral and I was trending.

And in the end, you know, when it's coming in through every channel, it's like, at first you're like, ah, it doesn't matter.

I just won't look at Twitter for a while.

But then like, you switch on, like, any other social media, it's there DMs, everything vitriolic, right?

Increasingly vitriolic.

And then it's like emails and then it's agents calling me up saying, oh, Sam.

Including agents who I haven't been with for years.

But they've somehow, they've done a good call.

They've gone to Google and found someone who was my voiceover Agent in 2006, right?

And they've got, hi, how you doing?

Which is cool because we've been inundated with really angry pharmacists and we just thought, you better know, right?

And then like even death threats are coming through.

They're going, be careful next time.

Pick up a prescription, right?

You'll never know.

You'll never know for the rest of your life when you pick up a prescription, right?

What?

It's obviously nonsense.

Someone me up.

But in the end, the onslaught was so relentless and went on for so long and was so unavoidable.

You know, if I just woke up and was somehow these messages with that, I just, it got to me and I really like went to ground it.

Like the anxiety ended up taking over and I spent a couple of weeks just more or less like incubated from anything this morning just sort of canceled every future thing.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society contacted my agent and said, more or less, we will, we, we will call off the dogs if he comes and agrees to do a day shadowing one of our pharmacists.

I should have actually done that.

It would have been interesting.

But I had, I was sort of like, I was just, I was like, no, I don't want to involve myself in this at all.

Right.

In the end, they got Alice Beer to do a report the following week in which she went on this morning and investigated all the marvelous work and the high level of training that pharmacists do.

Was it not the most complained about?

And it ended up being the most complained about moment on British television that year.

And this is a year in which Piers Morgan is like really, really going for it on Good Morning Britain.

You know, every morning he is trying vegan sausage rolls.

Yeah, he's.

He's going.

That's his ambition.

And he's brilliant at being the most complained about person.

I smashed him.

Absolutely smashed Piers Morgan by mistake.

And who knew it'd be the pharmacists?

But you know what, it's hard to explain to people when you're.

Except the odd thing like that.

And I mean, I've got a friend who just went through it not long ago.

Cause it was like an outfit they Wore to a party that got a bit sad.

Dave, explain that feeling that Kanye's misses.

Was it Kanye's misses?

That feeling, the pit in your stomach when this keeps going on and every.

Like you kind of get the fear of your phone.

It's horrible.

Yeah.

I couldn't joke for a while because you feel really exposed and you're right, you're carrying it around you.

So whatever else is going on in your life, you're out with the kids doing something nice, you're going to the movies or you're with your mates having laughter.

You're at a football and you're having to like paint or smoke because also maybe it's a bloke thing.

I don't want to admit to people that it's got to me.

Right.

Because you're like, ah, well, you know, it's just a little bit of nonsense.

It'll pass.

But actually, on that occasion, it really did get to me.

So you're painting on a smile, which is exhausting.

You're trying to carry on with your life.

But you're right, it's in your pocket.

Yeah.

So the reason, Sam, is that I brought you in today because your new book is called stop shitting yourself 15 life lessons that might help you calm the down.

So, Sam, meet Martin.

Martin, me, sir.

Yeah, hello.

I mean, you know the chapters in this book as well, like just running through them.

Stop yourself about having fun, stop yourself about calming the down, stop yourself about booze.

And it's.

I mean, so much of this book's true to where I am in life and we've had a very similar career.

But, you know, Martin, he's not mentioned on the podcast, but he turned 40 last year.

You the one that fucking all the time and then pin it on him.

But like, you know, that.

Was that.

Was that where you got the starting point for the book or was it somewhere else?

I mean, no, it was basically.

I did a book a couple of years ago called sort your head out, which was like.

Which was called sort your head up mental health out all the bullets.

And that was the first time I dipped into the area of writing about my own mental health.

Recovering from a drink and drugs problem when I've turned 40.

And I thought I felt like I was.

I guess I was about 47 when I wrote that, but.

And time had passed and I felt good with it and I thought, I'm going to share this because was I had noticed that when I did share it in my own particular way, it got a good response from BLOKES who were struggling with similar stuff, right?

And so I wrote it all down and it kind of, you know, and it was successful.

And the publisher came back to me and said, what's next?

They were keen quite quickly for a follow up.

And one of the things that I touched on a lot in the book was my attitude to work.

But that wasn't the main theme of the book.

A lot of it was about booze.

Why did I have a drink problem?

What.

What would have, you know, how did I get past it?

Where did it come from, all of this?

Stu.

But a lot of people responded to the stuff I'd written about my career and my attitude to work and how that had been very similar to my attitude towards drinking and drugs and everything else, which was very full on, very intense, you know, all or nothing.

And I burnt out continually throughout my life.

So it was very, very similar to my drinking, drugs problem.

And then, in fact, even when I got sober at 40, the work thing, actually, I became worse because I had a lot of energy, I had more time, and I still craved the distraction that boozing and drugs had given me.

So I threw myself even harder into work because I got it into my head, all right, I'm Superman now.

I've got superpower.

Because you feel when you first get sober that you do feel like you got super because suddenly you're like the same bloke, but with 10 times more energy and time and your brain's sharper and you feel like it's like Bradley Cooper in that film Limitless, right?

You think, oh, yeah, I've taken a magic pillar.

Yeah, right.

So I said, right, the next book, I'm going to write it about burnout and work.

Then when I've started reflecting on what are the stories that really reflect where I was at in my life in this state that this morning thing, spring.

In fact, my Mrs.

Said, I said, I always like to start a book with an anecdote that neatly.

So the last book, I sort of, you know, started it with being chucked out of the darts at Alley Palace.

That's a great story, actually.

Getting booted out of the dark, pissed, drugs in my pocket.

I'm turning up to the darts on like, New Year and we're like.

And I'm with my brother and my best mate and my nephew who's like, 18.

I can't.

To the darts it'll be Love is Right passage.

And they've like, got me on the door and they put their hands.

I don't know if you've ever been searched at darts, but it's brutal in comparison.

It's not.

That guy in the meme, oh, my God, they go right through your pockets.

And I, you know, in those days I was living a life whereby any pair of trousers would have.

You would have found something in them that I was often not aware of, of historical substances, you might say.

They found several pockets.

And I've ended up thinking, oh, no, there's old Bill.

I'm gonna get knits.

I've just gone mad and sort of started fighting with the security guards and they're trying to, like, I don't know what they're trying to do, whether they're trying to detain me, but basically I caused a scene, right?

Caused a big scene, Escaped Ali Pally.

But then for.

I don't want to miss out on the dark side, Go around the corner and sort of give the geezer on the door to VIP entrance a load of cash that I've just got out of a cash point on the credit card and got him to let me back in.

Then I've steamed back into the darts and my older brother's there looking at me like, sam, what is going on here?

You were just fighting security out the front, now you've bunked in around the back and blah, blah, blah.

So that sort of summed up where I was at back in those days, in my late 30s when I was drinking too much.

And then this time I thought, well, what story sums up where I got with the work and the burnout and the stress?

And I thought, yeah, that my wife said, you got to write about this morning because you were.

You're an absolute mess.

And in actual fact, it was only Covid that called off the dogs.

Yeah, because a couple of weeks after all of this, Covid kicked off and the pharmacists obviously had something more important to distract them from me.

You know, it's funny, see, even with that, Covid was a big thing for me in that high performance thing when I was.

I'm excited to come out and say to people because it was all like, use this chance.

Now we're at home.

If this isn't when you take your dream and you build your career, then it's not.

And I was like, when else are you going to be off fucking work?

You can be with your family and not have to worry.

Look, if you want to go and write and day something or chase and use the spear, fair play.

But if you just want to fucking sit at home, yeah, I know that's fine.

I know, I know.

I've always thought about that.

Is there a great podcast in low performance?

Yeah, I think this is it.

It's called Restless Natives.

But I find that really annoying because there's always the subtext of, I know what it's like because I've got this multi million pound successful story.

But there was a point where I was really struggling and it always comes from a point of success and never from a point of, I'm on my real downers here.

And in the book, you know, I loved that book, by the way, getting your heads straight, you know, because, you know, you were really honest, really properly honest about how shy it was.

I mean, I remember reading that, but I think it was the last book, or maybe this book where you're sort of rewarding yourself with drugs for getting a bit of work done.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you know, that's a pretty dangerous spiral to be in, isn't it?

Yeah.

The reward system of drink and drugs was, you know, it was almost like, yeah, you just mark everything, good or bad, it need to be marked or honored with some sort of binge.

Do you know what I mean?

And I must admit, when I first got sober in the early days, that was another thing that I was like, what do I do now?

I remember getting quite a big job that I've been chasing for a while and I was about six months sober at time, maybe less.

And when it came in, it was a sunny afternoon, I was in Covent Garden and the news came in.

I was on my own and I hadn't ever been in a situation like that in my entire adult life where your first instinct is not right.

Go to the pub, yeah, let's go paint, celebrate.

And like, it was like, it was like I was sort of confused.

I didn't know what, how to respond because you get the email, you look it on your phone and then you go, but what do I do now?

I don't.

I don't know what to do.

But you have to honor these things.

You have to mark them.

It's important to mark good moments in your life.

Right.

But I didn't know how.

I remember going and buying to like one of them fancy ice cream places, and I bought like a massive ice cream.

I just sat on a wall in Covent Garden on my own and just ate it and thought, yeah, yeah, this isn't too bad.

And then I sort of built my new systems from there, basically.

Yeah.

What do you do when you find out you've got a gig?

Have you got a routine, a Lot.

Of it is go for it.

I mean, usually a nice meal with a wife, but it would include booze mostly.

You think, let's go with a glass of champagne.

You're right.

Is it, Can I work?

You think, you have to sell, but it means I need to get pissed.

Which, yeah, it's not the healthiest way, is it?

I was thinking that.

Can you remember the one you celebrated the most?

The role you got, where you went and thought, right, we had one with the podcast.

We thought we'd sign the mass appeal.

Did you celebrate too early?

I've got a track record of celebrating too early.

It was for news agents, it wasn't for us.

And he went and had dinner and paid for six people, and I took my lot out and had a very expensive night.

And then the next day he got a message from the agent saying, bad news, lads, It's a clerical error.

And we'd also done the whole.

Is this.

Absolutely.

Honestly, it's dead.

It's straight up, isn't it?

Yeah.

Celebrating and spending the money before it's actually landed.

That is my.

I've done that.

I've never learned my lesson.

But the thing is, as well, do you know, the reason it is important to market is because I usually get this initial sense of euphoria and exhilaration.

And then it's just anxiety going, like, right now, you can get work now.

And then you start picking apart in your head going, oh, fuck, I've got to date this way.

I've got to do this, or, how long am I going to be away from home?

Going to be missing the family and all that kind of stuff.

So you have that initial moment of getting that thing you're chasing and then you just.

You just.

It's a bit of a stress spiral after that.

Well, maybe.

I mean, that's a good point.

I think that's true.

And Matt might have been why the drink is part of it as well.

It's partly cultural because we just associate booze with celebration, but it's also.

There is anxiety when you get a reward or a big successful thing, or you get the next step in your career, you do yourself about it.

You might not want to admit that to yourself or anyone else because you're like, this is what I've been dreaming of and chasing.

But your first thing is, I now got to do it.

Because you've been going around telling everyone, I can do this.

And then when someone goes, they call your bluff.

Yeah.

All right, then do it then.

Yeah.

And you're like, oh, and that might be one of the reasons why in the immediate aftermath we just think, I'm just gonna go and get pissed up.

So I don't need to worry about this for a while.

We've got me, Chris McQueer, who wrote that was it the three pint glow.

He.

He makes that point that after three pints he could take on.

I feel like that, you know, genuinely after three points, I could do a good job of running the government.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Four pints.

I'd make an ass of it.

It's like playing pool or dart.

Same thing.

And yeah, like you're.

And then you hit the third point.

Suddenly that is it.

You are Jimmy White on the pool table.

I feel like I can cope with hangovers because I feel like I could just get through it.

Whereas it takes the edge off that fear.

Like, I've got a read through tomorrow and I've.

I mean, I've been dating this for 20 years now and I'm.

And I still shit myself at them.

They're a horrible thing.

Because you're in.

Got to read the script for the first time in front of the director, all the producers.

Now usually it's just you and the actors on set.

Now tomorrow's gonna be about 40 people from every.

Because everybody's got to get together and do.

And they're all staring at you and there's millions of people around the room.

And even with this one, because I'm joining, which is already quite a successful show for.

For a series.

And so you're like, don't this up.

And you're always.

And it's usually it's the first day of school, but no, it's like first day at a new school where everybody else knows each other, you know.

And it's like I said, I've been doing this for over 20 years and still.

Doesn't he not scare me?

I suppose there's a bit.

If you lose that, that then you're not excited.

If you lose that and you get too confident, you're on this morning taking the piss out of pharmacies because you lose sight of all consequences.

What was it like the first time you went in a pharmacy after.

Did you go, were you panicking?

Well, do you know what?

It's not been.

Yeah.

In all honesty, right, about two years later, I went in to collect my.

My regular tablet prescription.

Right.

Let's leave it at that.

And I've gone home and.

And I've like, as usual, like, yeah.

Tore it open, not looked.

Popped one out of the Foil had eaten it.

Munch, munch, munch.

And then I've gone, they look a bit different to usual, right?

And I've looked and it's like, it is not my usual prescription.

It's some name I haven't ever thought of, right, Ever heard of.

So I Google it and it's for gastric complaints or something like that, right?

So I thought, this is mad, right?

So I've gone to the chemist and I go, I want to see the gaffer, right?

So the.

The main chemist come out and I said, look, this is not good.

But I kept it on the low down because I thought, this is quite scandalous for a chemist to make this sort of mistake.

And I didn't want to throw him straight under the bus.

And I said, look, this is what's happened.

And he was like, oh, I'm gonna look into this and then come back later at the end of the day and we'll talk it through.

So I said, okay.

So he's done a little inquiry.

I go back and then he sits me down, he's like, so apolog it.

And he was very worried because he thought this could finish us or whatever, because I suppose you can get shut down for doing that, right?

And I've gone to him, he said, he explained what happened and how it was an honest mistake.

And I guess, is there anything else you want to say to me?

And I went, do you anyone here watch this morning, what it was two years later and I'm.

I swear to God, he didn't have a clue what I was on about, but I was convinced that one of his stuff.

There's Delaney.

Here's our chance at last.

But it was just a coincidence.

But I will tell you now, at that chemistry, the red carpet is rolled out.

It's all worked out well, like, you know, like the chemist is busy.

But if I'm in there, Mr.

Delaney, please come to the front.

Is there anything else you need?

I feel like royalty.

I would have loved it if they.

Went though, sorry about the others mistake, but while you're here, I have noticed you're overweight and I've just reported.

So there's 15 things then that you should stop shitting yourself about.

How did you decide the running order and how did you decide the subjects?

Well, if you want the truth, I wrote it in originally as a sort of a chronological account, kind of of roughly of my career, which was a sort of a.

Mapped out the numerous times in my life that I have burnt out up, got exhausted and, you know, Blah, blah, blah.

And what I've learned along the way.

And I originally wrote it like that.

And it was originally called Low Performance.

Right.

The book.

And it was actually.

The publisher said, listen, this is similar structure to your last book.

We think it would really work.

But there's a lot of different things.

You tackle a lot of different subjects.

It's more than just like a romp through your career and your history of stress and anxiety.

It's more like there are.

There are different areas here.

Can you do it thematically?

And the other thing is, right, weirdly, considering that I've got in trouble for swearing in inappropriate situations, you know, a lot in my life.

The publisher like swearing.

They said, oh, we thought it was great that the last book said mental health out all the bollocks.

Because it communicated very quickly that it was a different sort of take on this subject that is written about a lot, but you're doing more this sort of blokey thing, and it's got a bit of humor.

I said, you asking me to put a swear word in?

Because I really like low performance.

I said, because I'm on a bit of a crusade against high performance culture and I quite posh at publishers, most publishers, it would be quite nice if you use some of that cheeky banter and all that sort of stuff.

I'm obviously.

I'm thinking, actually, I think I'm gonna be quite a highbrow cultural commentator.

And they're like, nah, stay in your lane, Delaney.

Get a swear word in there.

No one's gonna seriously just put some swear words in it.

That's where you're.

That's where we're pitching you.

Right?

And I was like, oh, okay, how about if I called it Stop yourself.

Yeah, okay.

I could go, 15 life lenses might help you calm down.

Yeah, yeah, calm the down.

Because that's what you said in the meeting when you told us, all right, fine, call it calm the down, I say, but we're not getting on loose ends this time, I tell you that much.

What's the battles like?

See, when you hand something in, because you must be quite protective of it, especially if it's personal experiences.

What is it like when somebody sits and goes, well, this bit isn't quite.

Maybe she'd do this.

Is that hard to let it go or take advice?

Yeah, it is when you're writing personally.

But I have been lucky in this particular case because I got put together with an editor and it shouldn't have worked.

Like, I mean this in a way that's judgmental but she's quite posh, much younger than me, a woman.

And this is like my first.

But.

And this one is about my life and my life and.

And everything.

All my cultural references and everything be completely different to hers.

And I thought, is she gonna like this?

Might she even find parts of it offensive?

Might that kind of alienate us?

And it's a difficult process working at all for an editor together.

And the first time she emailed me after I'd handed the manuscript in, I don't think I'd had a conversation with her yet.

And I was in Frankfurt for UEFA Cup Europa League game, West Ham Frankfurt.

And I'm in this hotel room.

She's emailed me, said, have you got time?

I've got the thing.

Have you got time to talk about it?

I've had her first look over it.

And I went, no, I'm in Frankfurt watching West Ham.

And she wrote, oh, gosh.

And as soon as I wrote, Saw, oh, gosh, I just thought, this isn't gonna work.

This is gonna be an absolute nightmare.

Right?

Oh, gosh.

And that's my prejudices, right?

It's just bad.

And I.

And the point of the story is don't have those prejudices.

I was completely wrong.

She loved the book, she loved the writing.

Every single thing that she advised was sound and I liked it.

And even on occasion, where I was originally.

No, I don't think you're right.

She had this lovely phrase where she went, why don't we leave it a few days and let it percolate in your mind.

Right?

And I've started using that as well.

But it doesn't sound as good when I say it, Right.

When you're waiting for someone to come round to your point of view.

And I always would.

Yeah.

So she's just very smart and it just goes so that all those other prejudices that I've carried around with me, that we all do to some extent, whether it's about class or anything else, you're so often wrong.

She's just a really intelligent and sensitive person, and she kind of gets what I'm trying to say.

Yeah.

You know, and so with the second book, I went into it with so much more confidence that whatever I handed in her feedback would be.

And her main feedback on the second one was, let's change the structure and make it thematic.

And those were the things that were already in the book.

Booze, work, you know, fitness and health, you know, relationships with other people.

All the things that most blokes I know of my Kind of rough age group, right.

Blokes who are dads or whatever, you know, middle aged guys, 40 plus.

You know the stuff that everyone's worried about.

Everyone's themselves, do you know what I mean?

From time to time and, and the worry's always there.

I think we all have a low hum of anxiety constantly in the back of our minds because that's just being human woman.

Right.

And sometimes it spikes.

Sometimes it spikes, you know.

Would you yourself the most about.

I tend to get anxiety now traveling away for.

Away from the wee man, like because it's just weird because I'm all right.

Because to be honest, obviously it's, it's kind of how these things flipping it because I'm like, Tiana's been on the.

My wife's been on the road a lot and she's in Brazil at the minute and it's kind of like.

And so it's been getting them up, getting them ready for school, get them doing stuff, then going to work and Tana's like actually getting away and get a wee break would be nice.

But then as soon as they're on that plane you're like, what if, what if something happens while I'm away?

You know, I think it's distance kind of gives me the fear.

Like it's.

You can't get back quickly.

You can't get back quickly and.

But that's on both sides.

You know, what happened at the tail end of last year, you know, you're.

Yeah.

I think that just gives me.

I get the anxiety of not being there if something happens, whether I be family or whatever.

That, that kind of does get to me.

Would you shit yourself the most about even after writing that book, Maddie?

Money, money.

The perpetual pressure of money.

Yeah.

And it's not.

And it's whether I've got money or not got money.

I've noticed over the years, I've had good times and bad.

I've been self employed for the majority of my career.

So I've always been in a perpetual state of feast or famine.

And you live in a city where.

It'S £8 for the pint of Lucky scent.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Right.

And so, you know, money is a.

Is a big thing for a lot of people, but I think that they don't.

People don't talk about it enough, you know, and, and there's a thing I write about in the book is like if you grow up in a working class environment, which I did, my mum was skin all the time, but she just talked about it and so did her mates.

And it was just like normal to refer to your skinness.

And I'm not saying that made it easy peasy, it wasn't.

But I think that she had support because it just wasn't.

It wasn't a source of shame, it was just reality and people talked about it, right?

And, and I think that because it was talked about so much, that might have informed my sort of anxiety around money, I must admit.

But what I find you then graduate into living a middle class life.

In middle class culture, people don't admit to worrying about money, right?

They don't, but they're worried about money often as much.

I mean, the stakes are different, they're not as high.

But you're still worrying, right?

You're still worrying you might like have other overheads, right, or whatever.

So actually one of the ways in which I worry, I wouldn't say I don't worry about money anymore.

I do, but I'm much less bad.

One of the things I do is I, I know I not just talk about being skinned when I am feeling skin, I revel in it.

And in the more polite situation I'm in, the more I enjoy it, right?

So I go, I go to this posh dentist, right, in Fulham for various reasons.

I think I started going there years ago when I did have a few quid and then I just liked it and never stopped going, right.

But then we, then we moved, right?

So my kids and my wife go to, I was about to say dentist.

They don't want to get canceled by the dentist.

Let's call it the castle.

Just qualified doctors council dentist, right?

And they saw once when they go, why don't you go send dentists?

I said, I just got a different one around the corner.

And I go, what, what is it better?

And I go, I just like it.

And they go, so you go to a better dentist than us, your own kids?

I wouldn't say it was better.

And then one day we drove past it, right?

It's on like the Fulham Road, yeah?

And I go, I made them say, going, oh, there's my dentist.

And they're like, what?

Because it looks like a boutique, right?

And they go, that's your dentist.

That one's barely got a door on it, right?

I go to this dentist, right?

And I'm spend.

I've been spending the fortunes dense for ages ago.

You've got gum disease, you know.

You know, like, I don't know if you ever go to hygienists, they tell you like they're like, they're, they're militant, aren't they?

They're like, quit your job and devote your entire life to flossing.

If not, you're a maniac, right?

And so careful, Sam, you're gonna get cancer.

So they go, right?

I.

They go, you know, if you.

They're going to me, you need to get something or other root canal on that, right?

And I go, how much?

And they tell me, you know, they give me some bill.

It's like it's in the thousands, right?

Yeah.

About something I've got to get done.

I go, all right, can't you just pull it out?

And they go, what?

And I go, can't you just pull it out?

And they go, no, you can't pull it out.

I go, why not?

And they go, well, but then you'll just be missing a tooth.

I go, yeah, it's not a front tooth, it's at the back, so pull it out.

And they're like, ha.

Laughing.

So then I go out to reception, they go, they'll sort out your next appointment.

The reception's full, right?

It's in Fulham.

There's a lot of hoorays and people, right?

Sloan Rangers, right?

And I'm at the reception loudly going, right, I got.

They go, oh, and that's, you know, whatever for today.

And then your next appointment is going to be a two hour thing and we're going to put that.

And go, I'm not doing that.

And they go, but the dentist said, I know what she said, I'm not doing it.

And they go, why not?

I go, how much is it?

And they go, okay, sorry, right?

Because they're looking, they think, don't want to discuss money in front of you.

How much?

They go, it's gonna be like a thousand.

I go, I can't afford that.

You must be mental.

I said, tell them I'm gonna get it pulled out.

How much it to pull the tooth out, right?

They go, I don't know.

Go and ask him.

So, yeah.

And he's gone, oh, it costs like, it still was expensive actually to put the tooth out.

So you're thinking I might do this myself or get a mate to do it, right?

And I go, I'll do that.

And they go, you can't.

Okay, get it out.

I said, I'm skin.

I can't afford it.

It.

So I've just had to get my roof fixed.

I'm going deep into it because the more uncomfortable the people behind me feel, the more I'm going into it.

And before you Know it.

I'm going through everything.

I go, I got a tax bill, there was a hole in my roof.

I've just had to get that done.

That's cost 10 grand.

I said, if you think I'm going to spend another grand on getting this just so I can save a tooth at the back of my mouth that no one can see.

So, yeah, I just.

And I sort of walked out and I felt really liberated and freed from my anxieties and I thought it was funny that, that the posh people felt.

So I said, what's it bother them for?

It should make them feel good about themselves, that they're not in the state I'm in.

I've got a class question for you relating to the podcast, actually.

Did you or did you not have a packed lunchbox at school?

Yeah, I had a packed lunchbox, yeah.

Working class man there.

Best working class London.

That's a fair point.

I've forgotten the London weight in there, haven't I?

Another one is, when you have a fish supper in London, does it have the skin on or the skin off?

Off.

It just has batter on it.

Yeah, that's the right answer.

That's the right answer.

You know, Martin was saying about the, you know, hand in the book, what.

Do you shut yourself about?

You know, you skipped over all of it at the moment.

Money.

Money worries me.

Health at the moment is the other thing.

It's like every time I've got this problem in my eye at the moment and I showed it to my dad, he went, you know when my dad, like, is a GP and he never gets flustered?

Glorified pharmacist, basically.

He's basically a shit surgeon.

And you can tell by his reaction if you've got something to worry about.

I remember, you know, when I was younger, I was really hell.

And he's like, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine.

I'm like, dad, I can't.

I can't breathe.

He's like, you'll be fine.

I was like, dad, I really can't breathe.

He's like, yeah, we better take you to hospital now.

Your lips have gone blue.

And I had a quinsy throat and ended up having to get a syringe in my throat and have it all.

And he was like, yeah, next time tell me you're ill, Gordon.

I've been fucking telling you for weeks.

But he looked at my eye the other day and he went, yeah, that's not good, is it?

Yeah, yeah, give me some more.

So I wonder about that.

My mum's married to a GP now.

Yeah.

And I find him deeply annoying.

Right.

Don't worry, he can't cancel me.

He's tried, right.

But he's like.

He's that thing of, like, GPS can be.

If you know a doctor socially, they can be annoyingly relaxed, like airline pilots.

You know when you, like, hit, like, really heavy, like you're hitting, like, turbulence, and they go.

Just hitting a little bit of a bump here.

That's what GPS are like, aren't they?

Like, look at this.

That can't be right.

I remember when I was a kid, we were at this having lunch somewhere local.

Where we lived, it was a fish farm.

It had, like, a little.

Little calf next.

And a woman came over with her son, like, grabbing him when his legs aren't moving.

She's dragged him across and she's like, Dr.

Smart.

Dr.

Smart.

And he had a fishing hook through his hand.

Oh, f.

He'd gone right through the middle of his hand and out the other side with a barb on it.

And my dad's eating his lunch and went, right, give me a pair of scissors.

And he carries on eating his lunch.

And me and my brother are sat looking at him and he's like.

Gets the scissors, chops the barb off, slides it through his hand, gets these, like, little serviette thing, wraps his hand and went, you better take him to the hospital, right?

You'll be fine.

And carries on eating him.

Amazing.

And it was just like, nothing.

That's incredible.

And it's just that ability to just stay calm, you know?

And I remember played football with a doctor in Edinburgh called Larry.

And Larry got booted in the coupon and he broke his nose and his nose was fucking all over the place.

And he went up to another lad on the team and went, look, I broke my nose.

This is gonna be a real nightmare for me unless you straighten it now.

So fucking just straighten my nose, would you?

And Stuart's like, what do you mean?

He went, just look, just get my nose.

Go on.

You hold my head.

If you just.

Just move it as hard as you can.

And he went, I can't do it.

I can't do it.

He went, I'll fucking do it myself then.

Hold my head.

So Stuart's got hold of his head and he's just gone crack.

And pulled his nose back into place.

And he's like, that's all right.

Play.

I will play on.

He just carried on playing.

That's amazing.

And you just.

That that's really hardcore that's like.

Did you ever watch, like, First Blood?

Yeah, I remember that was a bit.

Everyone when they were a kid, that was a bit.

They loved above First Blood.

But he starts sewing up his own wound.

See, that goes back to low performance, though, right?

You watch those amazing films, like 72 Hours or whatever it was called, and the gu.

And he saws his own arm off.

I'd be like, I'm going to die a slow, painful fucking death here.

I'm not chopping my way.

Yeah, I just think, yeah, it was.

Martin Rigs, but Lethal Weapon.

I kept popping his shoulder back.

That was the one, man.

You had to be Riggs.

Oh, man.

Definitely.

It's funny going back to what Martin was saying about your book, by the way, when you've got that editor.

I remember interviewing an author this year on five Live, and he sat down with his editor and his editor was being a bit weird and he said, what's up?

And the editor said, you need to lose 30,000 words of this book is.

And he was like.

Like, he's so proud of this.

I won't say who it was.

50,000 words.

And he was like, right, okay.

He said, is there.

Is there anything you can pick out?

And the editor said, well, if I'm being really honest, it's 50,000 words.

Oh, my God.

And you know those moments of.

And again, working with editors can be quite a painful.

I had a brilliant editor on the Vinnie book and she just.

All the way in the margin on the first draft, kept writing, show not 10, because Vinny was terrible for.

Like, when I was at Leeds, I was the fucking hardest man in the dressing room.

And she'd just write in the margin, show, not tell.

So I go back to Vinnie and say, what do you mean?

He said, well, I nearly broke the mascot's leg once.

Like, it was that story, you know.

We always ask for words of wisdom, bearing in mind you've written two books on this subject, but have you got any words of wisdom for the restless natives, resourceful rascals listening today?

I think the spirit of both of these books I've done is just recognise what you're going through through and what you're feeling.

Most blokes do not recognize it because we, you know, we've been raised to be tough and put up and shut up and suck it up and all the rest of it, and that's all great, you know.

Of course, you need a bit of resilience in life, but it can go too far.

And, you know, whatever it is, you're going through.

Don't allow yourself to think, oh, it's.

Life's easy.

It's not.

Especially when you get certain age, you're busy, you're worried about all these things.

Work, your kids, whatever it might be, your relationship, money.

And it's really tough.

And sometimes you're just like only thinking about other people and you're too.

You're too proud, maybe, or you think that your problems aren't serious enough.

That's the other thing.

Everyone thinks our first world problems, first world problems, they're not.

Whatever your problems are, I don't care whether you're rich or poor or whatever you are, you know, the way you feel is real.

Acknowledge it.

Yeah.

Accept it and then do something about it which might just be, give yourself a break, have some rest.

Take it easy on yourself.

Be sympathetic with yourself.

I think most of us talk ourselves all the time and feel guilty for the way we feel.

But don't, you know, understand life's tough for everyone.

Sometimes you need to take a break.

There we go.

No, it's really important that.

Because sometimes I say that to you all the time.

Because anytime you say, oh, I'm going through this arc, but in the grand scheme of things, you always kind of try and write it off, but diminish it by going, but if it's relative to you, you know, I mean, you got to deal with it.

It doesn't mean it's make it any less of a problem.

Sam did work for the Russian State Broadcasting as well.

I was Uncle Vladimir.

Before you go, oh, my God.

Yeah.

I mean, that's a story as well.

But the weird thing about that is, I mean, I've written about that.

And the truth about that is, is that they asked me to do a show and I said in the end, I said, I'll do it if my own company can make it.

And we have editorial control.

And they said, fine.

And we tested that out on the first couple of episodes we did by doing a couple of stories that were.

I mean, it was a funny show.

It was a piss take show.

And we took the piss out of Putin and Russia on purpose in the first couple of episodes to see if we get any blowback.

I swear to God, I don't think anyone there was watching it to give up.

We never received any feedback in about how many episodes.

We do, like hundreds of episodes, right.

It was every week for about three years.

Years.

And we had a lot of great guests would come on.

As soon as Russia became scandalized, they all started running for cover.

Like people who are now in the cabinet and stuff like that.

Yeah.

Like, we had a number of people who have since been Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer and all of these things, right?

Big name people.

And they all went.

They were all coming in, getting their 500 quid, squirreling it away.

And then when it got scandalized, they're like, did we.

Oh, we didn't know when we went on that.

We didn't know.

We thought that was just Sam's show.

He didn't tell us it was gonna be on that show today, right?

So whatever.

But he.

But the only time they ever gave us any editorial notes ever, right, Was funnily enough, Andy Dawson, who I now do my podcast with, he had a thing on Twitter years ago that was a big, big thing and ended up being turned into a book and stuff called Diana in Heaven.

When Twitter first started, he had this account where he pretended to be Diana in heaven, diarizing Princess dies, sort of.

And it was showbiz gossip from heaven as.

As reported by her.

It's a great idea.

But she was very foul mouthed, right?

And it is, it was really, really funny.

And he.

And it's like how he first got.

Well, not first got, he'd been a right for years, but he got a very big profile on Twitter through doing that, right?

And it was really popular.

So on this show, I said to him, hey, why don't we film it and you dress up as Diana and we'll put you on green screen like you're in heaven and you'll just do a showbiz report from heaven about all dead celebs every week.

And he went, yeah, great.

So you got Andy Dawson in a wig and pearls, right?

And it's all celestial background and he's doing a really bad Diana impression.

Hello, everyone.

Right?

And he's saying he's got a can of Stella while he's doing it, right?

And I thought it was hilarious.

And it was the only time the boss of the station just said, like, no, I never saw the bloke after he commissioned the show.

But he comes, he goes, sam, there is something he must remove from this week's show.

And he was deadly serious.

And I was thinking, we had a pop up Putin, or have we.

Have we offended some sort of relig that Diana thing?

He went to me and he was rushing, he went, I tell you now, there is some things the British public will not accept.

Yeah.

And that is one of them.

Remove it.

And I was like, okay.

And that was the only thing that Ever that ever got removed.

So funny enough, how I met Andy was he emailed me when I was editor of Heat magazine and said, have you seen this thing I do Diana in Heaven on Twitter.

And I went, yeah, I have, it's great.

And why don't I do it as a column for you in the magazine?

And I wrote back and went, I think it's really funny and I think you're a brilliant writer, but let me be clear, I will never ever run anything like that in Heat magazine.

And he just wrote back, pussy.

And that was how he became mates, because that was from that moment on I thought, this bloke's a great guy.

I was doing Bizarre, Sam was doing Heat magazine.

And they were funny times, weren't they?

You know, it's so different, so different.

When you think about things, but that's that.

I mean, I'm getting wound up about it now, but it's like James Blunt, 15 years, 20 years on, having a moan about what was written back then.

I mean, some of the stuff Heat magazine was doing was pretty lively as well, wasn't it?

I, I tell you what, I mean, you'll be so used to this.

But another thing that hit me hard another time where I became a little bit of a sensitive soul was when I started, I had no experience whatsoever of working in that world of showbiz, right?

I didn't know any of, I didn't really know enough about celebrities to get the job.

It came very left field, that job offer, right?

I didn't apply for it, I was approached and I'd been working at the Guardian gut, you remember the Guide magazine on a Saturday.

I've just been writing sort of funny stuff for them.

And before that I'd worked in men's mags, I'd done a bit of telly, but I didn't know, and it's a specialist area, you know, I knew magazines, I'd worked on magazines, but, you know, you needed to be in that world, you needed to know the PRs and the agents and all this stuff and I didn't know anything and I think they wanted to change in direction and they thought, we want to make it funny again, because it had got quite not serious, but it had become sort of more like salacious and they wanted to get it back to being funny and they maybe thought that's what I could do.

And I remember thinking, this has come out of the blue, what do I know about doing this?

But my wife said, you know, listen, this is like the best selling mag in the country.

You got to be a wanker to turn it down.

That was the phrase she used, right?

So I said, okay, I'll do it.

And it was a privilege to do it.

And I was.

You know, and it was.

I was very lucky, and it was great, great.

But I didn't know the landscape enough about working in that country, working on monthly glossy magazines, right.

It's like walking the park stuff in comparison to a weekly dealing with news.

Right?

So the.

The amount when the first facts came through pretty much on day one, from shillings or whatever, saying, we will sue you right now, probably you.

At that same stage, you'd be like, oh, yeah.

Every day there's another one.

Yeah.

And you're just like, yeah, normal, normal.

I was like, oh, my God.

I mean, that's the point where the team probably thought, this guy's not gonna hack it.

Because they go, what?

What?

I go, we're gonna get.

So.

Yeah.

But they're even saying they'll shut the mag down or there's a PR game.

We will get you sacked.

And I'm like, oh, my God.

And there's like, you know, I mean, we won't mention their names.

There were certain prevalent PRs and publicists at that time who I was astonished, having just worked in, like I say, the easy life of glossy monthlies.

Right?

Right.

The degree to which they would call up and go bananas and shouts and swear down the phone.

So I'm like, I'm going full West Ham on my first day.

I'm like, Instead of just thinking, this is just the cut and thrust of the world I'm now in, I'm going, right, I'm coming over to your office now, and I'm gonna.

You can say it to my face, and I'm gonna spark you out.

Right?

And then my team are going, who is that?

And I say the name.

You can probably guess some of these people, right?

And I'm like.

And they're going, don't worry about that.

He just calls up and calls us the C word like, every day.

That's just.

That's just how he rolls.

He doesn't mean anything by it.

And I'm going, are you.

I'm not gonna have that, Sam.

You have to take it.

I was a big fish out of water in the early days of that, and I would freak out by all.

He goes.

And then, you know, by about two months in, it's like, another day, another writ.

Like, don't worry about it.

No, Rich.

Yeah, exactly.

It's funny, I was thinking about it the other day because Sven, Joran Eriksen died.

And I've got an amazing legal letter from him.

And it says, our client, Mr.

Goran Erickson, we'd like you to stop referring to him as a shark shagger.

Mr.

Erickson would like to make it clear that every single one of his relationships has been meaningful.

So I printed the letter.

That's wonderful, Shagar.

Sven has been in touch saying that his shagging was meaningful.

Shaggin, as we know about all big shaggers, is that they love shagging more than anything.

Sven as a top shagger.

And they love a shag remaining as well.

So it's Sven.

Sven sent me a signed Manchester City strip.

Did he?

And a personal note saying that really made me laugh.

But this is very damaging to my reputation.

Hopefully this token of my appreciation as I know.

I understand you're a big football fan.

You'll now just take call off the dog.

So I'm like, what a shagger.

Sven.

He sent me a signed strip.

Did you put that in as well?

What a legend.

What a guy.

Actually really liked him, you know.

And to be fair to him, that England team was an absolute riot.

I remember sitting in a Lowry hotel where the England squad were Rio doing World cup wind ups.

And Sven's like, yeah, lads, do it if you want.

Rio's trying to kidnap Beckham in Moss side.

Were you in Baden Baden?

I didn't go, no.

No.

Because some of the stories I heard around that time from there were like Last Days of the Roman Empire stuff, wasn't it?

Yeah.

Crazy time.

I'm glad, Sam.

We survived it.

But hearing your story about radio as well.

I think I know you're talking about, you know, DJs phoning up and saying they're not coming in.

Yeah.

And they're like, that was a great shift you did today.

I forgot.

They forgot.

I think we're all absolutely mad.

Thank you.

It's been a joy, man.

Thanks for coming.

Best of luck with the book as well.

I've got it in front of me here.

But you've got a launch party and in my address book, it's in Buckingham palace.

For some reason it says Irvin Welsh, Sam Delaly, Buckingham palace, which I must have written down when I was drunk.

Stop shitting yourself.

15 life lessons that might help you calm the fuck down.

Sam Delaney.

And it's out when, Sam?

27Th of February audiobook hardback and Kiss.

Did you read it yourself?

Yeah, I did.

Good man.

How boring was that?

I actually loved it.

You know what I love about it.

It's a bit like being on a plane.

No one can get you.

When you're in a basement recording studio, the phone's off, there are no texts, there are no messages, you've got nothing else to think about.

You're just talking in a little room into a microphone on your own.

It's sort of strangely meditative, so I quite like it.

Sam, thanks so much for coming on in it.

Pleasure.

With the better luck, we'll be able to do a football version of this at some point, because I know that's close.

Well, I haven't had a chance to tell you about my childhood step dad, Archie Buchanan, who claimed falsely, as it transpired to have played for Hibernian.

No.

But in fact, when we met him, he was literally the milkman.

That's right.

My mum actually let the milkman move in with us in the 80s, so that's.

I haven't got.

Next time we'll get that.

We'll get into my Hibs history.

And we could have done half an hour of Paolo Ducano as well.

But that's for another time.

Right, Sam Delaney, go and check out his book.

All that, I mean, Martin, is for us to see.

That's Kenny.

Kenny Hall.

This is a Global Player, original pod.