Modern WisdomYou’re Not Depressed, You’re Living The Wrong Life - Jimmy Carr
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
130 min read · 25,984 words- 0:00 – 0:43
How Many Shoes Has Jimmy Done This Year?
- CWChris Williamson
How many shows did you do last year?
- JCJimmy Carr
Uh, maybe, oh God, I don't know, 250, 300, something like that. Uh, it's the, it's the two shows a night thing that, that ramps up the numbers.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
And that's been the big kind of innovation in my touring. Of like going if you-- Yeah, there's an old line, um, I think it was B.B. King said it. "I do the shows for free. They pay me to travel." And I kind of feel like that. I feel like getting there is the hassle. Doing the show is a joy. And the-- So I do a show at 7:00 and then a show at 9:30 in most places. So it's that thing of like, it's one for me, one for HMRC.
- CWChris Williamson
[laughing]
- JCJimmy Carr
Right? One goes to the tax man. The other one's just all-
- CWChris Williamson
Does it really?
- JCJimmy Carr
... all mine. Yeah, pretty much these days, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, it'd definitely be after that much scrutiny.
- 0:43 – 3:57
Why Jimmy Never Gets Stressed on Tour
- CWChris Williamson
What's your-
- JCJimmy Carr
[laughing]
- CWChris Williamson
... relationship with worry like? Do you get overwhelmed? That's a pretty intense schedule.
- JCJimmy Carr
Oh, no, not, I mean, not at all. I think that thing about if anything that, um, decreases the stress level. Doing that many shows makes you less nervous because it's, it's kind of like being an airline pilot. It's about sort of hours in the sky. So if you spend that much time on stage. And then, you know, I, I, I film everything now, so it's often you're, you're kind of, in the shows you've got-- you never get bored of it because, you know, a good third of it is just that night, just that show.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
And it changes all the time. But it's interesting. I was like, I, I, I sort of used to think about jealousy and envy a lot. Like the idea that they're different and one is, I don't want that person to have that thing, and it's a really dark energy, right? And then there's envy, which is telling you what you want. You see someone's got something. You go, "Oh, wow, I want that." And I remember looking at like, um, uh, Matt Rife and Andrew Schultz and their video content online, and they were kind of blowing up and going, "I should, I should do that. I should take someone on the road and film it and just, you know, copy that methodology." And I did it, and I've absolutely loved it. It's really kind of changed the way that I, that I gig.
- CWChris Williamson
Why is it the case that you're not-- I mean, I've been backstage with you before you go out and within minutes before you're about to go on stage, you snacking on an apple, not really thinking about it, and then going out and performing in front of 7,000 people. Is then just reps now under the belt that-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... nerves kind of don't kick in in the same way?
- JCJimmy Carr
Well, I think it's also like it's, it's quite self-selecting being a comedian at sort of at that level where people are... You know, if I play a club, then people have just gone out to see comedy. But I'm, I'm not in the entertainment business. I'm not in the comedy business. I'm in the Jimmy Carr business.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
And people have come out to see my show, so they kind of know what they're gonna get. If anyone's offended at this point, it's like they bought tickets for a horror movie and they're complaining they're scared. It's just, it's like, "Okay, dum-dum."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
It's like d- it doesn't, it doesn't count. It's like-- So it's also that thing of like the, the moments you can have with the crowd now are because they've seen it online, because they know what, what you do. They're, they're expecting it. "You okay?" "Oh, wow, okay, perfect."
- CWChris Williamson
There you go.
- JCJimmy Carr
Can't believe my luck. Thank you.
- CWChris Williamson
The service is fantastic. There's this line that, um, made me think about the level of intensity perhaps that you go through with your touring. "Your life does not need to be easier. It needs to be simpler. Your system is designed to handle stress and challenge, but not complication. You probably handle hard things pretty well but feel overwhelmed when they become messy. Do not attribute to difficulty that which can be explained by complexity." And it seems like if what you're doing is touring and focusing on touring and doing the live shows and getting to the next show and being in a good mood and performing well, that's kind of one thing all the way-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... as opposed to trying to do that whilst number two and number three and number four and number five.
- JCJimmy Carr
Well, I think it's also that thing of like it's not repetition. It's like how many gigs last year. You go, uh, you know, 250 or 300, and that sounds in a way kind of boring, like it would be the same thing again and again. And actually, it's not. It's never repetition. It's iteration. So you're changing it subtly every time.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JCJimmy Carr
You're changing the jokes. You're trying new jokes in, at every show. Every single show at the end of the show, you're trying new things. So it's con- it's quite-- it's very, um, stimulating intellectually to-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JCJimmy Carr
... to be writing.
- 3:57 – 18:47
Why We’ve Become So Anxious
- CWChris Williamson
Why do you think people get stuck in overthinking?
- JCJimmy Carr
Uh, well, let's, let's have a think about it. That'll help. It's like trying to sniff our way out of a cocaine problem. It's just like-
- CWChris Williamson
Correct
- JCJimmy Carr
... how, how, like the fact that you're the person asking that, the, the rumination king.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
Um, I don't know. I think it's like, it's, it's anxiety, I suppose, is what it is, overthinking, uh, in, in a larger form. And my sort of view on it is anxiety is thought without control. Your thoughts are just wild. And a flow state is control without thought. And so on stage, you are in a flow state. You, you know what you're doing. You know what the jokes are. They're just like, you don't even have to think about it. It's the next thing.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
And then people are talking to you and you're just being sort of yourself. You're just being loose. So it's, it becomes like it's a flow state. It's not, uh, you're not being anxious about anything. So finding something where you can do that is, that's the secret sauce. Finding something that you enjoy doing that you can be in that kind of flow state.
- CWChris Williamson
A thought without control is an interesting insight. I think helplessness. A lot of people have this sensation that I can't enact my will on the world. I can't ensure that this thing is going to, uh, behave in the way that I want to.
- JCJimmy Carr
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
But if I think about it enough, it's kind of the same as preparing for it.
- JCJimmy Carr
I, I, I, I wonder, are we, um-- Mark Fisher wrote about this beautifully, about the privatization of anxiety and stress and the idea that we're blaming the individual for mental health problems, when if you look at the numbers now, if you look at the stats of how many people are suffering with depression and anxiety, I think you have to, uh, conclude that it's a societal problem. We're not arranging our society in a way that is, uh, conducive to good mental health. People are incredibly stressed-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- JCJimmy Carr
... uh, in the world, and it's a collective action problem. It's not something that you can solve on your own.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
If you're a depressed young man, you cannot solve the problem on your own. You have a dispersed identity. If you want to be happy, go and make some other people happy.
- CWChris Williamson
It's a vicious cycle though, right? Because the thing that you need is to rely on other people, but given that you're around fewer people than ever before, you don't have the same level of cohesion as you would have done a few thousand years ago.
- JCJimmy Carr
Well, look at, look at what we've done. Everything's now for the individual, right? So what used to be a game of five-a-side- You know, uh, uh, you know, on a, on a Wednesday night is now a personal best at the gym.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
Well, that's isolating.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JCJimmy Carr
And the idea that you're tracking your, uh, steps every day rather than going for a walk with a friend, it's like, it's, it's very isolating. So I'd think of like, you know, think about the, uh, the manosphere. Um, you know, there's, there's a lot of kind of talk about it the last six months after Louis Theroux's brilliant documentary, and you, you kind of look at it and you go, "Well, it's, it's the wrong prescription for the right problem." There is definitely a problem going on. So I mean, my, my take on it is I'm very, I'm pro-gang, pro-drinking, pro-gambling.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
Let, let me, let me give you the argument, right? So pro-gang, where should men be? Together. Men are really good at checking other men. Now, gangs, gangs have got a bad reputation because some of them do shoot people and deal drugs, okay? But that's a very small percentage. Mostly it's like guys with other guys, you know, hanging out, and they kind of check themselves, and it can be an incredibly positive force.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
And I'm very pro-, uh, drinking. I mean, Scott Galloway has the best line on it. The risk to your liver is as nothing compared to the risk of social isolation. So I think we should, like, lower the drink... I, I've set up these, like, youth clubs around the world. Uh, they, they've got like jukeboxes and pool tables, and they play sports on a big TV, and they're really fun. Uh, they're called pubs, and they're everywhere, right? And what we should do is just lean into that and go, the youth clubs are already there. They're called pubs.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
We should lower the drinking age to 16, because if you think 16-year-olds aren't drinking, well, you're living in a fucking fantasy world anyway.
- CWChris Williamson
Certainly in the UK. I don't know about... How much do people drink in the US at 16? Quite a bit.
- SPSpeaker
A lot.
- 18:47 – 23:52
Is Optionality Making Us Miserable?
- JCJimmy Carr
life.
- CWChris Williamson
That would be a wonderful gift. I don't know how the hell you would give it to people, but the gift of being able to say you don't have to impress anybody else would liberate so many people from perverse desires, from being distracted by things that they don't actually want to do, that they're only doing to perform. It's the hidden versus observable metrics thing that me and George talk about all the time.
- JCJimmy Carr
Well, it's, it's interesting. Getting, getting stuff is fun. Having stuff isn't fun. Getting stuff is fun.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
Um, and that's... It's a, it's a weird kind of lesson. I mean, you talk about that, the 2D, 3D lessons.
- CWChris Williamson
Correct.
- JCJimmy Carr
It's a real 3D lesson. You have to experience that.
- CWChris Williamson
Correct.
- JCJimmy Carr
You kind of go, you know-
- CWChris Williamson
Bill Perkins was my first big-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... 2D, 3D lesson thing. I read the book, and then I brought him on the show. That's like a 2D and then maybe a 2.5D lesson, getting to sit down with him and, and-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... talk about these ideas about how to structure your life and to focus on having fun and spending money in smart ways that brings you together with other people. And then we finished the episode, and he said, "What are you gonna do now?" And I was like, "I'm pro- probably gonna go home and, like, write the show notes for this episode and upload the... get the file across to my editor and stuff." And he says, "Do you wanna come wake surfing?" I was like, "Okay."
- JCJimmy Carr
"Of course, of course I do."
- CWChris Williamson
Went, went downstairs. He had a driver outside waiting for us. We got on the boat with the boat captain, who had swim shorts and, and a towel, and then we did that, and then we went back to his house on the lake, which the most expensive house ever sold in Austin. And then we did this thing, and then his driver, on the way to take him back on his jet, dropped me off at home. I was like, "Oh, that's a, that's a 3D lesson."
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, I could have read the book 50 times and not had the same tangible, visceral experience-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... than that.
- JCJimmy Carr
What should be... What you... Yeah, what you should be doing right now is, is... It's hard to get your head around that, though. I think it's, uh, it's not easy for young people.
- CWChris Williamson
I think-
- JCJimmy Carr
I think-
- CWChris Williamson
I, I-
- JCJimmy Carr
It, it's... It feels like, it feels like, um, limitations are very freeing.
- CWChris Williamson
Correct.
- JCJimmy Carr
Feels once you decide what you wanna do and what you're gonna work at and who you're gonna be with, life gets very simple because you, you stop thinking about how to live, and you start thinking about living.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, yeah. I, I guess an analogy would be if you were in a boat in the middle of the ocean, if you just have to row real hard, and you know the direction you're going in, that's-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... probably not-
- 23:52 – 27:45
Why Broken Promises Keep Costing You
- CWChris Williamson
There's a Mark Manson line I wanted to get you to react to. "The small thing you didn't say six months ago has been collecting interest ever since. By the time resentment shows up fully formed, most people have forgotten what the original conversation even was." And I think that the same thing is true for when we don't keep promises to ourselves as well. When you had this plan, you made this deal with yourself a long time ago. You can't quite remember it, but there's this latent distrust in you doing what you said you were going to do, and no one else knows about it.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's just you. It's your relationship with you. I said that I was going to do this thing, and I didn't show up And I didn't show up, and I didn't show up, and after a while, you begin to resent the part of yourself that makes plans because you don't think that it's going to come into fruition.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah. Well, I suppose it's that thing of like, you know, having a, a six-pack doesn't give you confidence. Being the guy that shows up at the gym every day gives you confidence.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
Like, the, the... You, you, you take care of yourself. I think it's that... Yeah, it's a, it's a very interesting sort of... I think the- it's about compound interest, really, 'cause compound interest on money is miraculous. When you, when you look at, you know, uh, Buffett and his wealth, most of it was built through time. Time is the factor-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- JCJimmy Carr
... that people don't take into consideration there. A very smart investor, but really time was the thing.
- CWChris Williamson
90% of his wealth was accumulated after the age of 60.
- JCJimmy Carr
That's exactly right, yeah. It's, it's like... But compound interest on your skills is insane. If you put the reps in, if you do the work-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JCJimmy Carr
... it's insane what you build over time. But it's, it's-- it gets back to that thing for me about your, your goals will be beaten by your systems every time. Everyone's got great goals. Everyone's got big ambitions. But, like, what are you gonna do tomorrow? What's the small thing that you can break off and it's manageable and you can do it today?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
It's why I love kind of what I do. You know, m- mainly it's jokes, and writing jokes is, is comparatively easy because you can just sit down and write one. And then you test it. There's no point discussing it. There's no point having a, a meeting where you go through it with some, some friends. Just go out, find an audience, tell them. They'll tell you whether it's funny or not. Great feedback loop.
- CWChris Williamson
I suppose the problem with most other projects is that you can't iterate a product and get audience feedback quite so quickly. You can't work out whether or not you want to release a, a T-shirt design in one small chunk.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Go through all of the process of getting the T-shirt design, get it printed, see how many people wanna buy it. Oh, one person bought.
- JCJimmy Carr
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, let's get updated again. The iterative nature of that is, is pretty cool.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah, it's, it's, it's harder. It's hard. I mean, I've-- you know, I'm, I'm very lucky, I think, to be in a business where it's, it's that thing of like if, if the audience like it, they tell you straight away.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm, and they can't not tell you either. Even people can dislike you, but if you tell a joke that's sufficiently funny, I think that the response just sort of kicks in.
- JCJimmy Carr
Well, even if it's like my favorite noise, uh, uh, in, in comedy is still that kind of cognitive dissonance laugh, where there's a laugh followed by a deep [gasps] where they go-
- CWChris Williamson
They're shocked at themselves-
- JCJimmy Carr
Oh, God
- CWChris Williamson
... for having just done that.
- JCJimmy Carr
Oh, I guess you laughed at it 'cause your, your, the laughter kind of betrays you. I think your laughter, like, you, like, it's kind of a deeper level of you.
- CWChris Williamson
I, I suppose, actually, I might be a little bit wrong there. If you really, really don't like somebody and you decide to sit in the third row with your arms crossed, you know, "Go on then, funny man, make me laugh," I think you can will yourself or convince yourself into not liking somebody that's doing well at their craft in comedy. I don't think that the same thing is quite so true in music. I think that an absolute banger pierces through your defenses even more so than comedy. I think something that would be less than that would be a conversation, right? Conversation between two people on stage or some sort of like keynote speech or whatever. "Uh, it wasn't even that interesting. I didn't find it engaging."
- JCJimmy Carr
It is interesting.
- CWChris Williamson
Comedy is deeper, and then music is deeper still.
- JCJimmy Carr
It's like the art, the art and the artist, and can you, can you separate them?
- 27:45 – 29:43
The Power of Unshakeable Self-Confidence
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Peter Crone's got a question: "Who could you be in the absence of your concerns?" It made me think about-
- JCJimmy Carr
Oh, that's, that's, that's really good, isn't it?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JCJimmy Carr
Like, uh, that's, that's, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Who could you be in the absence of your concerns?
- JCJimmy Carr
There's a, there's a great line I often think of which is the, um, uh, you can do anything you want. You only have to face the consequences.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
It's like it's really powerful 'cause it's that thing of, like, going, you've got absolute freedom, but you have to wear it. Like, there's freedom of speech, but not freedom of consequence.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
And I think about St. Lawrence a lot. You know the story of St. Lawrence?
- CWChris Williamson
No.
- JCJimmy Carr
He's the patron saint of comedy, and St. Lawrence was, um... He was burnt by-- I think it's like... He's a really good name for an emperor. Some, like, it's something like Voldemort.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
Like, this emperor burnt him alive over a fire, and as he was being burnt alive, St. Lawrence went, "Turn me over. This side's done." And it makes me think of bravery, right? That's, that's a very brave thing to say in a pretty awful moment.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
But the only reason we remember him is 'cause he said that. You go, "There's, there's a certain amount of, like, bravery." Like, yeah, no, say the thing. Say the thing. Good luck.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
Some people won't like it. Be all right.
- CWChris Williamson
Who could you be in the absence of your concerns? But me and George keep on talking about the fact that so many people are held back by a lack of confidence rather than a lack of competence. Like, their self-belief is the biggest rate limiter on what it is that they can achieve.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah, but I mean, that self-confidence comes from-
- CWChris Williamson
Reps
- JCJimmy Carr
... it's Bill Mose's line.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JCJimmy Carr
It's, you know, self-confidence comes from giving the world irrefutable proof you are who you say you are.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh-huh.
- JCJimmy Carr
So it's that thing of, like, find something small that you can do. You know, do what you can with what you've got where you are.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
You know, it's, it's... You could wish away the first two. I wish I had different things, and I was somewhere else. Just, you know, accepting the reality of where you are and working with that seems to, seems to be pretty powerful 'cause you just, you know, start off. And, you know, you can't choose where you start. You just choose where
- 29:43 – 33:29
Jimmy’s Relationship With Gratitude
- JCJimmy Carr
you finish.
- CWChris Williamson
What's your relationship like with gratitude?
- JCJimmy Carr
I do a lot of gratitude practice. I think it's... There's a, um, Meister, uh, Tolle, um, said, uh, "If you only said one prayer and it was thank you, that would be enough." I think that's bang on.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
I think it's the, the only... Because disposition is more important than position. Where, where you are in the world doesn't matter. Your disposition is everything, and the only thing that seems to shift disposition is a sense of gratitude. So across sort of time and space, like, we're lucky to be here now, and we're lucky to have the friends that we have. We're lucky to have, live in the world that we live in. It's extraordinary. We're in a privileged position, uh, and I think acknowledging that on the regular is, is great.
- CWChris Williamson
Are you able to take time to celebrate when you're moving so quickly?
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah, I, I kinda think that thing of, like, celebration and gratitude are kinda linked. I think done correctly- Celebration is gratitude in action
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JCJimmy Carr
Like you, you know, you throw a party and you invite everyone and you celebrate and you, you know, there's kind of a, there's something lovely about that kind of connection to other people and, and kind of doing it with others. I don't think you can really celebrate on your own. I think being grateful with other people is really good as well. You know, sit down and chat with other people about how great is this. It's really nice
- CWChris Williamson
Well, I think a lot of people struggle, especially when they're at their busiest, to take time away from doing the thing, to think about the thing, and to realize how fortunate they are to be in that situation
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah. Well, Chairman Mao, wasn't it? Uh, you can't smell the roses from a galloping horse
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs] Right. Okay
- JCJimmy Carr
I think I should, I should put together-
- CWChris Williamson
Dropping Chairman Mao quotes
- JCJimmy Carr
I should, I should put together a book. I was thinking about this. Put together a book of like incredibly wise stuff-
- CWChris Williamson
From dead people
- JCJimmy Carr
... shared by shitty people.
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- JCJimmy Carr
Like it'd be, be quite a good quote book of like going, "Well, I guess, you know, a stopwatch is right twice a day"
- CWChris Williamson
Well, it would be nice to have the quote on one page-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... and then the person that said it on the next page
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah, yeah. Oh, "Equanimity within permanence. Wow, Hitler. Oh, fuck"
- CWChris Williamson
Damn it. Yeah
- JCJimmy Carr
Fuck.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- JCJimmy Carr
That's ruined that for me
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Uh, but, uh-
- JCJimmy Carr
Not that he never said that. Don't panic
- CWChris Williamson
It is a, it is, it is an interesting challenge, right? When things are going well and everything's busy and you're not really paying that much attention, that is the time when gratitude is probably most available to you, but you're so busy and the calendar is always packed, and you're moving forward. You're excited about the future. So taking time to reflect on the present is pretty tough.
- 33:29 – 39:53
Give Your Brain Better Problems to Solve
- CWChris Williamson
I was in the gym a couple of months ago
- JCJimmy Carr
Of course you were. Look at you
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. And one of my friends was talking to me about how his wife keeps on complaining at him that he uses his phone at night, and he's always sending messages, organizing stuff, running businesses or whatever, and he came up with a very fortunate but, uh, I think actually philosophically pretty interesting excuse, which was he said, "I've got a mind that likes to solve problems. I'm just trying to give it good problems to solve."
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
I think lots of people have a problem-solving brain-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... but only some people have great problems that they're going to solve with it
- JCJimmy Carr
Well, that's what I think of with anxiety. Like a- and my, my, my mind is often racing. I often like wake up, um, with I suppose what you'd call a panic attack at like f- four, five in the morning. I'll wake up and my mind's just on
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- JCJimmy Carr
And I'll worry about stuff, and it's, it's often counterfactuals. Worry about, you know, things going wrong, people getting hurt. You, you just kind of ruminate on crazy stuff. And if I give it like, "Oh, w- we, no, but we need to write a joke about Keir Starmer or Andy Burnham or something," you go, "Okay, right. Oh, great." Give it something to do
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. So using action as an antidote to anxiety then
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah, I love that. I love the idea that you go, "Well, that's, that cures it pretty, pretty well"
- CWChris Williamson
It's very difficult to worry about the future when you feel like you're moving yourself toward it. And yeah, that, that problem-solving brain thing is interesting because I, I wonder how many people are churning themselves up inside because they have a brain that likes to solve problems, but they don't have any good problems to solve. So they pay attention to politics or porn or their ex or, uh, this situation that's outside of their control in some foreign country that they, they can't get access to
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah. What, what have we... Is that not what the news is, though? I mean, if you were trying to design something to, um, engender mental health difficulties, you'd make someone aware of a problem and, and give them no agency, right? And that's what reading about the Middle East is, right? So you just go, it's a absolute clusterfuck of a situation, and there's nothing-
- CWChris Williamson
Good luck dealing with that
- JCJimmy Carr
... we can, we can do about it. There's nothing we can-
- CWChris Williamson
Well, there's nothing that you can do about it
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
Because if... I don't know. I wonder whether it would feel better or worse for the situation to actively have nothing you could do about it. There's an asteroid coming to Earth, no one can do anything about it. It's the, the simulacrum that someone could fix this, but not you
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah. I mean, we're not, we're not in that game. It's, uh, yeah, it's, it's very... I think that thing about having, uh, agency at a... I think, I think that... Okay, there's a, there's a bigger thing here, which is I think we give maybe empathy to people that we like-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JCJimmy Carr
... and agency to people that we don't like. So if you imagine there's two marches, right? And one of them is like super far-right, uh, dudes marching with skinheads and jackboots. We give them agency. If they put a brick through a window, we say, "Right, lock them up and throw away the key"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JCJimmy Carr
Right? And then there's another, um, march, and it's people marching for social justice, right? And we, we, and they throw a brick through a window. We go, "Well, you know, that's the language of the, the streets, you know, the unheard." Uh, that thing of like going, so we give them empathy and them agency, and actually you should give both, both
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JCJimmy Carr
You need agency and empathy for everyone Like the idea that you go l-l... believe that people can handle it and believe that they, you know, everyone's got like, um, a part to play
- CWChris Williamson
Well, you need to be responsible for the things that you did, but also you're enmeshed in the situation that sort of brought you to that point, too.
- JCJimmy Carr
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like the motivations of, of what got you there. But yeah, that, that, that problems thing, I really do think... I, I, I wonder how many people would... All that they need are better problems to solve. All that they need is something to focus their time and their attention on in a better way. And yeah, if you've got this situation that's occurring overseas. I came back from a, a meditation retreat last week. I'd spent seven days without my phone, almost exclusively in silence, and I came back and I was flying out of SF and walked into the departure terminal, and one of the pieces of advice that we'd been given was to put sunglasses on and put AirPods in, because you've basically been in silence for a week and no screens, no nothing. Like, it's a lot of stimulus to go from-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- 39:53 – 48:14
How Comedy Shows Expand Conversations
- CWChris Williamson
The gratitude point is Michael Smoker's got this line where he says, "I have a hard time celebrating my achievements because in my mind it was my obligation to achieve it." A lot of people that are high performers have this sense that the higher that you climb, the further you have to fall. As you get better, your standards are always going to increase, so you're always going to suck in comparison to what you think that you should do. And that's great because it continues to push you to work harder, to improve.
- JCJimmy Carr
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
But also it means that success isn't a cause for celebration. It's just the minimum level of acceptable performance, and anything less than success becomes a failure.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah. Well, I think that, that thing then, you need to, you need to be in, uh, a state of, um, uh, I guess imposter syndrome once every 18 months, two years. You need to level up constantly-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. Hmm
- JCJimmy Carr
... where you feel like you're in a space where, "Oh, wow, this is, this- I can't believe I did that."
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
"That was good." Uh, like push yourself a little bit. I think try and do something else.
- CWChris Williamson
Is that difficult when you've got close to the top of your game?
- JCJimmy Carr
Well, it de- depends what game you're in.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
You can change games. You can just sort of do things a little bit differently. So that thing of like going... It's, um, it's about, uh, I suppose, you know, my, my business is, uh, you know, you... I'm in the service industry, right? I'm, I make something that people want. I make them happy.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
And no one seems to remember any of my jokes, but they remember how I made them feel, and the show tonight is nothing more than an advert for the show when I come back next time. That's the way I'm kind of thinking of it. And then you're trying to find these moments now. I f- I... The show's changed over the last couple of years, where there's moments in every show. There's like a moment someone will ask something and you'll chat to them and it'll be slightly more, um, heartfelt, and it'll l- they'll, they'll always be kind of they're, they're kind of sweetening the pill with laughter.
- CWChris Williamson
Why did you change that?
- JCJimmy Carr
I, I, I think it was... I, I don't know what happened. I don't know what, you know, went on that I suddenly started chatting to people in the audience and we started to connect in a slightly different way. It's been really lovely.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
And people, I think, I think comedy is, it's a... I love that line, "Laughter's the shortest distance between two people." And I've often done this thing, I've spoken about it, I think, to you before about, um, if you... Your best friend is the person you have the least filter with.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
Right? So, so if you meet someone on a plane and you go, "Wow, see the World Cup. It's a good game, innit?" Nothing, right? Surface level. And if you say, "Oh my God, you have to see these hemorrhoids."
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- JCJimmy Carr
"It's incredible." Like, so you c- you know, it's connecting at another level. You're just like, you've got no filter with that person. That's your best friend in the world.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- JCJimmy Carr
And if you treat the audience like that, you get paid back, um, 10 times over. Like, people feel that, oh, okay, there's no... He's treating us like adults. He's saying the things that he thinks are funny, and there's a real, there's a connection there. And then increasingly, like, people aren't talking about things in the, in the, in the media, in the mainstream media. So there's a gap there to chat about things that, you know, what's going on in the world.
- CWChris Williamson
Isn't it interesting that what you're looking to do with comedy to kind of say the thing that maybe lots of people think or hadn't realized that they thought- And to say it with a degree of, um, no fucks/bravery that mean that you're the person that, that, uh, pushes the boundary in that regard. But-
- JCJimmy Carr
Well, I think the, the Overton window, like people talk about the Overton window in politics, the idea that you go, "There's-- What's the most left-wing and what's the most right-wing thing you could say that's socially acceptable at a dinner party," right? That's the Overton window of conversation, right? And it's expanded massively in politics the last couple years to the left and to the right, m- for better or for worse. I think comedy does that for conversation. I think the real benefit of going to a comedy show isn't necessarily the two hours you spend laughing at the jokes at the show, it's the conversation you have on the way home.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
Where you've-- the conversational Overton window has, has broadened. I don't think people were as open talking about sex and politics, uh, before and after George Carlin and Richard Pryor came along.
- CWChris Williamson
That's interesting.
- JCJimmy Carr
I think they expanded the window, and I think, you know, someone like, you know, Chappelle's out there expanding the window of what you can and can't talk about.
- 48:14 – 52:52
Is Social Media Stealing Our Souls?
- CWChris Williamson
room.
- JCJimmy Carr
I was thinking about this recently, about the, the idea of social media and the, the issues around it, the bigger picture. There used to be a thing when I was at school where people talk about, um, uh, the Native American peoples having this belief that if someone took their photo, it would steal their soul.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- JCJimmy Carr
And I remember thinking, "Oh, that's crazy. [chuckles] That is ridiculous. They think their photo's gonna steal their soul." And now I think, yeah, I mean, it might not be one photo, but a thousand a day, that'll do it. That'll absolutely do it. That will, that will break you away from who you are.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
That'll, you'll, you'll be alienated from yourself. And then I was thinking about the, even the language of it. It, it's not hiding. It's nets and webs, the internet.
- CWChris Williamson
How so?
- JCJimmy Carr
It's the web, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
It's the internet. What do nets and webs do? They catch people. That's what it's doing. I think Aldous Huxley was right about this. Our power will not be taken from us by some overlord. I think we'll give it away for cheap dopamine. And Aldous Huxley said it was, uh, soma, which was the tablet, right? And he was even right about that. It's just a different kind of tablet.
- CWChris Williamson
So not some equivalent here of, uh, treating people like slaves caused them to not work as hard as you might want them to, and they would rebel, and sometimes they would be lazy. But if you can manage to create a system where people actually want to work as hard for you as you want them to work by incentivizing them on the back end, then you'll get them to continue to drive themselves insane as they work harder and harder. I guess it's kind of the same here, but with regards to distraction and freely giving away your information and giving away your attention as well. You don't need to demand it from people. You just need to make the incentives align that they want to give it to you.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah, it's, I mean, it's a, it's a really interesting time. I think we haven't got this... It's a very new technology as well. These new technologies are coming along. We have to, uh, sort of integrate them into our society. I do- I think it will be, ultimately, the trajectory will be up and it'll be better, but we have to learn how to work with this stuff.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
I mean, AI is the other thing that everyone's kind of talking about. You go, "We haven't quite figured out what it is yet." I think AI is like a musical instrument, and anyone can sit down at a piano and make a noise at the piano, but it takes time and attention and practice to direct it into creating a, um, symphony, right? It's, it's, it's like an instrument. You g- we're gonna be using that tool, but how do we use it? And at the moment, it's, it's very sort of early stages. It's that thing of, um... I mean, my take on AI is like I don't have religion. I don't think we were made in God's image, but I think we so wanted there to be a God, we created one in our image.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
It's all-knowing, all-powerful, can create miracles, and lives in a cloud. Well, what am I talking about?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
I think it's like that, that it's, it's... Hegel and Nietzsche had the idea hundreds of years ago, the idea that the God wasn't there for the Big Bang, but the universe is a device for creating God.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
And that we are the universe experiencing itself. I think everyone's very impressed with AI because they've forgotten what they are.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. It-
- JCJimmy Carr
We are much more impressive than AI. AI is really good at left brain shit, really good at left brain stuff. But the right brain stuff... And, and, and the left brain, um, apprehends, but the right brain comprehends. It's all in McGilchrist's stuff. And that idea that you go the gestalt, the whole, the, the complex stuff, it can't do. It can do the complicated though so well. So in a sense, maybe it'll take away the drudgery of life and allow us to be more human and to do more artistic, fulfilling, fun things with our lives that make us feel more connected. That's the dream.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. That's, that's the dream that's being put forward. I think a lot of people have kind of forgotten about the connection, comprehend side of things, o- of their own existence, so much that if there is a threat to the drudgery being taken away... And that's not to say that that's all it's going to do, right? It very well might take away everything else as well.
- JCJimmy Carr
Well, it b- b- but we can only see the jobs it will take away because they already exist. We can't see the jobs it will create because by definition they don't exist yet.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
So it's that thing of like going, well, it's, i- i- we're in this... We're in a pickle now, and it's, this has happened before. This is precedented. The Industrial Revolution really made physical strength, uh, obsolete. You d- you don't need that anymore to farm the land, to, to, to make things. You don't need physical strength. Machines do all of that for us.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
And then this is taking away some of the, the drudgery of white collar work, but hopefully the creativity will become, will be uniquely human.
- 52:52 – 57:22
Stop Waiting for the Perfect Conditions
- CWChris Williamson
"Favorable conditions never come. There are always plenty of rivals to our work. We are always falling in love or quarreling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come."
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah. That's really good, isn't it?
- CWChris Williamson
But just there is this sense that at some point in future, my problems will be out of the way, and I can finally get down to doing the real thing, as opposed to thinking this is the situation that I'm existing in. I'm always going to be faced with problems. There is never going to be a time where I have none, like completing a video game and arriving at a level where there's no more enemies.
- JCJimmy Carr
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
That's just what life is.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah. Well, you want people to have some idea that there's a future, that there's a, um, that, that they wanna start families, that they wanna, um, live a life. You know, there's, you know, shocking statistics about the abortion rate in the UK. Have you heard this?
- CWChris Williamson
I don't know.
- JCJimmy Carr
So it's, uh, I think it's one in three viable pregnancies now end in abortion in the UK.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- JCJimmy Carr
Which, you know, put the morality to one side. Um, that's not my business. But the idea of going, well, what does that really suggest? That people feel that they can't start a life.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
They can't build a family. They can't, you know, settle down. They don't feel able to with the, you know, the, the climate that we have at the moment.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JCJimmy Carr
The idea-
- CWChris Williamson
Favorable conditions never come.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah, the favorable conditions. You want people to feel like they can... you know, that life's gonna be better for their kids.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, wouldn't it be-
- JCJimmy Carr
That life's gonna be better for them
- CWChris Williamson
... wouldn't it be wonderful if favorable conditions felt like they were here even when they weren't? Like, that's the kind of world that you want people to be in, right? An abundance mindset as opposed to a scarcity mindset. Uh, believing that you need-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... to wait for favorable conditions in future is by definition a scarcity mindset. Right now is not enough, and in future it may be better if I can construct the world into this very specific kind of a way.
- JCJimmy Carr
It does feel like we're living through a very kind of unique time. I mean, I suppose everyone always thinks this, but, like, did, did they in the '90s? There was nothing going on in the '90s.
- CWChris Williamson
There was... I mean, you-
- JCJimmy Carr
Pretty quiet
- CWChris Williamson
... you, you lived through it. You tell me.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah. Rel- relatively quiet.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. Yeah. I-
- JCJimmy Carr
Good times since the, kind of the end of Pax Americana, and really since this phase of history sort of starts in '89, '91.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
As the Berlin Wall collapses, the Soviet Union's gone, and suddenly you go from being a bipolar world to a unipolar world. And no one noticed for, you know, 30 years. But just as the American Navy got smaller, like the canary in the coal mine was the Somali pirates. Like, that never would have happened when the US Navy was at full strength-
- 57:22 – 1:00:17
Are We Living in the Good Old Days?
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think that people are gonna look back in 50 years' time, 30 years' time at 2026 and go, "Those were the good old days"? The nostalgia that a lot of people have for the '90s.
- JCJimmy Carr
I, I don't know. I think there's, there's something about the, uh, the... What's that lovely quote? The, uh, "Strong men make good times. Good times make weak men. Weak men make hard times. Hard times make strong men," and so it goes.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
And I think there's something about we're in a very tumultuous time now, like the, the technology plays a-
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think this is hard times?
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah. Yeah, I think this is, this is hard times. I think it's, it's very tough out there for people.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
And, um, I think that there's a lack of leadership and there's, you know, you look at how countries are being run, it's, it's, yeah, it's clearly these are, these are hard times.
- CWChris Williamson
So you know the idea of kayfabe, right? That thing-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... from WWE where it, it's all about the kind of the meta game that's being played, the optics. It's everything is unreal and surreal.
- JCJimmy Carr
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
And definitely if you look back, I mean, there was that, um, debate analysis between Obama and I can't remember who it was that he was going up against, uh, in sort of 2012, 2008. And before they begin, they just wanted to, "I just wanted to say my opponent, I respect him very much and I appreciate that this thing," you know, da, da, da, da, da.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And then you roll the clock forward to this literal WWE event where there's personal insults and swearing and-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... back and forth, and you think, I, I, I don't know. The, the, the, is statesmanlike behavior unnecessary stodge? Is it this sort of, uh, prim and proper pomp and circumstance which isn't needed? Or has something there been, if not lost, like caricatured, sort of turned into this, this, uh, uh, exposition of itself, this sort of ridiculous role-playing game? Everybody's LARPing as what they're supposed to be, and it's all been turned to extremis.
- JCJimmy Carr
It certainly feels very extreme at the moment.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JCJimmy Carr
I mean, it really, it really does. Uh, but I think it, I don't think it's unfixable. I think we've been in worse spots-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- JCJimmy Carr
... than this in the past. You know, there must have been, there must have been people sort of in 1943 going, "This is... We're in the middle of a world war. This is bad, isn't it?"
- CWChris Williamson
I, so I think about-
- JCJimmy Carr
"This is bad. What's gonna happen? How are we gonna straighten this out?"
- CWChris Williamson
I think about that a lot. I think about how sort of kinetically and literally things were significantly worse at almost every period in human history up until now.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But I wonder whether sort of metaphysically and symbolically things were quite as bad. I wonder whether we have the most sort of confusing time now, even if it's not the most kinetically dangerous time.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I think there's, there's solutions out there, and I think it's a, it's a question of, um... I think statesman is really the thing that you, you need. You need great leadership in these kind of times. You need someone that's kind of thinking about sort of 20 years in the future rather than the election
- 1:00:17 – 1:06:53
Can the UK Be Fixed?
- JCJimmy Carr
cycle. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
What's happening in the UK at the moment? I've not been back for a while.
- JCJimmy Carr
The UK is not, it's not in a great situation. And I mean, I, I think Andy Burnham's gonna take over, and, uh, I wish him well, and I don't know what's gonna change. I think it requires some sort of radical realism. You know, if you were gonna fix the UK, what would you do? I think the fundamentals are it needs to be more competitive as a nation, and what makes a nation competitive? Well, it, 2% on income tax either way or changing the stamp duty laws. It's, it's all kind of nothing, just rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. They need someone to come in and, and actually address the real problem. Uh, you know, there's four things that affect a country's competitiveness, I think. There's the currency, the rate of the currency. There's the energy cost. There's the amount of, um, uh, what do you call it? Um, red tape bureaucracy. Uh, and, and there's, uh, well, and then... Hang on. I'll have a drink.
- CWChris Williamson
Culture?
- JCJimmy Carr
Uh, no, no. Uh- Sorry, I'll, I'll give you that again. Um, so you've got the currency.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- JCJimmy Carr
You've got energy costs, you've got, um, red tape, and you've got tax. And you can do things to all four of those to make the country more competitive. And really Britain needs to be competitive on the global stage. When, you know, when we left Europe, for better or for worse, people voted for, for that, and we never really did it, and we never really competed.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
So I mean, if I was in charge, right, if you, if I was in charge for the day, I'd devalue the currency. I'd devalue the pound. I think the pound's overvalued. And y- you know, why a pint £7.50 in London? Well, because it's overvalued as a currency. Uh, the, the idea that you, you would decrease the value of the pound. People talk about redistribution of wealth to the North. We keep it high because of the City of London, and actually, I'm not really concerned about the exchange rate affecting your holiday in France being more expensive for two weeks of the year. I'd be more concerned with the other 50 weeks of the year where you work. We've, we've got to be a net exporter of things, so our things need to be cheaper, and in order to do that, we have to lower the, the currency value, which is relatively easy to do.
- CWChris Williamson
People say that the UK is the seventh biggest economy in the world, but it's not. It's the seventh biggest city in the world, surrounded by a very poor country.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah. And then, but you want it to be redistributed. You want there to be, you know, factories being built in-
- CWChris Williamson
As far away from-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... London as you can get. Um-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... yeah, it didn't feel like the wealth of the City of London was reaching Newcastle or Middlesbrough, Stockton.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah. We have the most expensive energy in the world. I think it's like four times higher than America.
- CWChris Williamson
No way.
- JCJimmy Carr
And you go, "It's crazy." We, you know... And it's systematically being, um, being con- I mean, we-
- CWChris Williamson
Is this Green New Deal stuff? Is that why that's-
- JCJimmy Carr
Well, there's a bit of that, but I mean, it's like we, we... I'm, I'm all for the Green New Deal. Just give me a long enough runway. Give me 25 years, and I'll give you net zero.
- CWChris Williamson
Not 2030.
- JCJimmy Carr
But, but what I want to do, I want to be as technologically advanced, if you can imagine this for ambition, as technologically advanced as France was in the '70s. So France in the 1970s built 56 nuclear plants. They've got the cheapest energy in Europe. They give a fuck what Russia says or what's going on in the Middle East because they've got their, they've got their energy sorted.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. Hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
Do that. Do that, and then... But it's a very long range. Anyone that says they can fix energy in, in a, in two months, like you're living in a dream world.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
It's a very long range problem.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
And then regulation, the red tape, the regulation, just cut all of that. Cut all of that. We're like, we're like the sort of... It's like the end of the Soviet Union, the amount of regulation you need to do anything in the UK now. They could cut an awful lot of that red tape and, and kind of free people to be more, um, entrepreneurial.
- CWChris Williamson
Everybody likes the idea of being in a country that's got an illustrious history. It's so esteemed, like how long it's been around. It's got... The, the guy comes out and he's got this mace and he goes and dots his cap.
- 1:06:53 – 1:14:08
Address the Problems Whilst They’re Small
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, have you heard David Ogilvy's line, "You can't save souls in an empty church"? Heard it a couple of weeks ago, and I've kind of been obsessed with it since. This sort of idea that if you believe in something, you have a moral duty to spread that message around, and that a lot of people insulate themselves from having to have their ideas meet reality by, "Oh, it's just so, it's so sophisticated and refined. That's the reason that it hasn't managed to become sufficiently popular." It's like being the underground band whose music is just, you know, it, it, it's, it's very, it's sort of a virtuoso type thing. It would be very hard for you to... The, the, the, the, the proletariat, they wouldn't be able to understand how-
- JCJimmy Carr
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... sophisticated it is that we're doing. Um, but yeah, you can't save souls in an empty church, to me Makes it kind of incumbent on anybody that believes in a thing to find a way to get that message out and to Monday morning quarterback whatever it is that you care about, whether it's climate or young people or suicide or the birth rate or fucking art or taxes or whatever.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, it is kind of incumbent on you to find a way to-
- JCJimmy Carr
I, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. I think the idea of, like, talking about those things that are, uh, third rails and getting a message out there is really good. It's probably the most, um, difficult but the most kind of beautiful bit of my show at the moment is, uh, uh, I talk about suicide in the show, and I say... Well, I, I tell people the terrible truth, which is suicide doesn't work. People commit suicide because they want to get rid of the pain, but you can't get rid of the pain. All you can ever hope to do is redistribute the pain-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JCJimmy Carr
... to the people that loved you. And it's a big moment. It's like a... people that are, you know, and there's a non-zero number of people in the audience that are suffering that go, "Oh, right. Oh, this is, this is my burden to carry."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
It's a, it's a tough thing, but it's, it's kind of... It's interesting to talk about that stuff. It's interesting to have that platform and to feel like, "Okay, I can, I can say that."
- CWChris Williamson
That's a terrifying realization.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, it's big, but, but if it... if, if one person listens to that and goes, "Oh, right, okay, yeah, that means I can't," great.
- CWChris Williamson
There's some data from the... George from the Tin Men told me that I think 90% of men who took their own lives had sought help from a mental health practitioner before they did it. So the-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... we just need people to sort of open up and talk to the professionals thing, it doesn't seem to be working in the way that we anticipated it to.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah. It's, it's Rilke, isn't it? "Feel everything, beauty and terror. No feeling is final."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Well, unfortunately, it can be if people decide to make that, make that decision. Yeah, I, um... There's, uh, something similar from Blake Burge. "One of the best pieces of advice I ever got: If you want a calmer life, you need to address small problems while they're still small. The cost of dealing with an issue rarely gets cheaper with time. Procrastination turns uncomfortable things into unavoidable things." Basically, like, if it doesn't fit, eventually it'll hurt wearing it.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh-
- JCJimmy Carr
I think that's, that's really... That's again, it's on the, that kind of c- compound interest-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- JCJimmy Carr
... on the positive things and, you know, if you're saving money, it works. If you're building skills, it works. But also, if you have problems and you don't address them, it's gonna get worse over time.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
Um, so addressing that and having the tough conversations. I think getting a quality of a life is kind of, is... You could probably track it with how many uncomfortable conversations are you willing to have.
- CWChris Williamson
Or do you feel comfortable to have, right? How many people around you can you speak to with no filter? And then there's the other half of that, which is who can you sit in silence with and not need to fill it the most? It's the way that you can work out who your best friend is.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah. Make a terrible fucking podcast.
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs] Yeah. Yeah, but it would be wonderful-
- JCJimmy Carr
Sounds like it. Yeah [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
... regulating for the two guests that were there. Just don't publish those ones. Publish the ones where you talk-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- 1:14:08 – 1:20:27
Why Anyone Can Be a Comedian
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, the addressing problems while they're small thing I think works very much personally as well. Like, the way that you degrade your trust in yourself, like we were talking about earlier on, happens with one missed promise, with one, uh, attempt at a change that you decided against doing or that you couldn't hold yourself to doing. And this is why, yeah, small changes do end up compounding. It's also why it feels very unfair that people can look at someone who's at the top of their particular industry and say, "Well, h- like, why is it that all of the gains accrue to that person?" It's like, well, because the compounding interest is working in their favor.
- JCJimmy Carr
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And the same thing happens in reverse, unfortunately, too, that people-
- JCJimmy Carr
Well, it's, it's-
- CWChris Williamson
... kind of spiral up but they spiral down
- JCJimmy Carr
... it's another thing I worry about the, the arts for that reason. Like the, um, uh, oligarchy of the arts. There's an oligarchy in the arts now where you go, with movies, um, it's existing IP or it's sequels or prequels-
- CWChris Williamson
[chuckles]
- JCJimmy Carr
... that dominate. I mean, really dominate. There's like five big movies a year that dominate like 90% of the box office.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JCJimmy Carr
And with music, it's the, uh, oligarchy of, like, five huge artists that dominate globally.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JCJimmy Carr
You know, and it used to be 100 artists or 200 artists that all sell pretty well. Books is the same. You know, books are the same. Um, you know, I hope comedy is broad enough that there's like, people can pick their favorite stuff and it doesn't get dominated too much by big names. That you, you want it to be so that there's lots of different people enjoying it. I think, I mean, my big kind of driver is I want to get more people interested in doing comedy rather than just going to see it. I mean, I, I've, I've written this book, um, on jokes with my friends, um, Abby Grant and Amanda Baker, and it's, like, how to be a comedian, really. Essentially, how to, how to write jokes.
- CWChris Williamson
Can anyone become funny?
- JCJimmy Carr
I think so, yeah. I think so. I think everyone's got kind of a story to tell. And if you think about what stand-up comedy is, right? It's, um, ordering your thoughts, writing them down, and finding your own authentic voice. That strikes me as an incredibly worthwhile activity. That should be taught in schools.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
That's probably got more, um, going for it than learning music. I mean, music's very valuable to learn as well, but you go grade eight on the piano won't come in handy when you're doing a best man speech or a presentation at work or talking to your partner. And actually having that ability to, um, write down your thoughts and find, find some perspective in life, which is also kind of what comedy does. It's, it's, it's very good at, um, waking us up. Think about what jokes are, right? It's, it's kind of like Kahneman... Uh, is it Kahneman? Um, uh, Thinking Fast and Slow.
- CWChris Williamson
Kahneman.
- JCJimmy Carr
Kahneman.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JCJimmy Carr
Okay. So, um, first order and second order thinking. So the setup for a joke is first order thinking. It's, it's you, you make an assumption about what the guy's gonna say, and then the punchline kind of snaps you into, "Oh, I actually had to think about that."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
Oh, okay. So it's that idea of the brain-
- CWChris Williamson
It's a good way to think about it
- JCJimmy Carr
... the brain is designed to not have to think.
- CWChris Williamson
It's a prediction machine.
- JCJimmy Carr
Your brain is designed to... Yeah, it's a-
- CWChris Williamson
Your brain's an LLM.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah. It's, it's pattern recognition. It's exactly LLM. Yeah, right, so and then comedy makes you kind of, "Oh, oh, okay. I'm think- I've got to think about that in a new way."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
You've actually got to think about that thing. It, like, snaps you awake. I think it's k- it's quite childlike in a sense, because children really think, and grown-ups tend to be like, beyond a certain age, you're just pattern recognition. You've seen this all before. And so comedians have this ability to really think about stuff. It's a very attractive, um, uh, way of being. I think teaching that is, is a... I'd like more people to kind of get into it. I think they'd enjoy watching it more if they knew a little bit more about it. And also, I think the idea of going, there's so many great... It, it's quite a new medium-
- 1:20:27 – 1:22:34
The Science of Why Jokes Work
- CWChris Williamson
You say that you've got the first scientific theory of what actually makes jokes work.
- JCJimmy Carr
Well, I don't know if it's a scientific theory. You know, we've got... It's, it's kind of it's, it's all in there. I mean, it's a bit inside baseball, but-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JCJimmy Carr
... that thing of, like, the different ways the jokes work and the... I mean, it's, it broadly speaking, it is that thing of, like, um, taking that, that pattern recognition and reversing it, like ma- making sure that you're waking up the mind.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
The sudden revelation of a previously concealed fact.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
It's, it's so simplistic in a way, but that trick is just delightful. And-
- CWChris Williamson
Have you ever felt guilty at giving the trick away? Like, do you think that other comedians-
- JCJimmy Carr
No
- CWChris Williamson
... are gonna get den- annoyed at you for demystifying it?
- JCJimmy Carr
No, it's like the, it's like the, the... Ev- everyone had a, a, a guild, right? Everyone had a, um, a, a secret society. It's like the, the magic circle of comedy. But I think most comedians that I know don't really know how they write jokes. They kind of, they find it on stage or stuff occurs to them, and they, they note it down, and they remember it and, but they don't have, like, a-
- CWChris Williamson
They're virtuoso musicians, but they don't know notation.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah, it's a, it's a... They wouldn't be able to teach it because they, they haven't thought about it in that way.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
Great, well, they're doing their thing, and they're doing great. Fine. And but I think the idea of being able to be more sy- systematic about it is, is a really sort of positive idea. And I, I'd like to have that. I'd like to give that gift to people, to, to, to be able to, um, throw the rope down and say, "Come on, we, we can all do this."
- CWChris Williamson
Is writing harder than performing?
- JCJimmy Carr
I think writing's the, yeah, writing's the job. And writing is self-assignment. You've got to sit down, and no one ever tells you. There's no point in a comedian's caree- career where their manager sits down and goes, "Right, you've got to write." It's like the people just assume that. Um, and you know, and you, you... That's the preparation. That's the reason that you sort of, you know, succeed or fail. You've got to sort of deliver on that.
- CWChris Williamson
How do you feel about comedians having writers or buying jokes off other comedians?
- JCJimmy Carr
I, I guess, you know, if you write on TV shows or whatever, it's the absolute norm. It's like on 8 Out of 10 Cats or Last One Laughing or any of those shows that I do, we've got, like, a writing room, and we... They're brilliant, absolutely brilliant, and some people are great at writing. Some people are great at writing, and they don't really want to perform. So that seems pretty valid.
- 1:22:34 – 1:24:12
Why Great Comedy Breaks the Rules
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I... There must be a comedian today who you think sort of embodies everything the book's trying to teach, and then presumably there's someone who you think is great despite discarding many of the rules.
- JCJimmy Carr
Well, I think, you know, it's comedians you're dealing with. So I mean, I think knowing what the rules are is the first step, and then breaking them all will be-
- CWChris Williamson
Who do you think breaks them the most?
- JCJimmy Carr
Uh, in terms of comedically, I'm just trying to think of, like, someone, um, that's funny. And it m- it might be someone like Bob Mortimer-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JCJimmy Carr
... um, which I don't think, Vic and Bob might be slightly lost on your American audience. But the, the, like, really surrealist comics where you go-
- CWChris Williamson
Kind of absurd
- JCJimmy Carr
... I can't quite put my finger on why that's funny, but it's really, really funny.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JCJimmy Carr
And it's taken me kind of back and by surprise and out of nowhere. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Is that stuff less formulaic? Is that a little bit more kind of the jazz virtuoso improvisation?
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's less fungible than-
- JCJimmy Carr
I think so, but I mean, but Vic and Bob love jokes as well. So I mean, it's, it... Yeah and no, and it's, it's whatever you want to be. I mean, they're, they're very unique. I think also they kind of fall into that thing of going, this... If, if, if done correctly, I think learning how to write jokes, and then you put yourself into it. So it's that thing of, like, with comedy, you, you don't want to be the best. You want to be the only. There's no best in comedy. There's no, "Oh, he's the best comedian."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
Like, a top 10 list is meaningless because it's what makes you laugh. What do you like? And the more someone is themselves on stage, the, the more people sort of gravitate towards them. So that idea of going, it's, it's like it's not a competition. It's like it doesn't matter how many people do well. It just makes it a bigger pie.
- 1:24:12 – 1:26:23
Can You Teach Someone to Be Funny?
- CWChris Williamson
Let's say that you had six months with someone completely unfunny to try and make them as funny as possible. What would you be teaching them first?
- JCJimmy Carr
I think the, the, I think the first thing would be to recogni-- you know, their, their story. What, what do they want to say? What could they say that no one else could say? What's their story? What's their take on life? What's their... And it might be they want to tell a personal story. It might be they want to talk about politics. It might be they're, they're interested in sports or whatever they want to talk about. You sort of assess that and then, okay, how do we, how do we get into that? How do we get-- how do we make that surprising and delightful to, to listen to?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
It's nice because I think everyone needs-- I think everyone's got a sense of humor. It's like everyone's got, like s- like, so when you say someone unfunny, everyone's got a sense of humor. How dark or sardonic or, or sarcastic it is-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JCJimmy Carr
... that varies. And what you like varies. It's, it's that thing of, like, your taste in comedy is like your taste in, uh, food and sex. Some people like spicy. Some people like vanilla. It's great.
- CWChris Williamson
What about timing? What's the secret to comic timing?
- JCJimmy Carr
There seems to be a pattern in rhythm that's the kind of the, the, the proximate speed of development, where if you speak at about sort of 92 beats per minute, if you speak in that kind of, in that rhythm, um, that tends to be, not just for comedy, actually for spoken word, for political speeches as well, and that seems to work very well for people That they c- they get into that, that rhythm, and you can see the audience kind of respond to that. So if you, if you're-- I, I-- It seems almost kind of, um, magical. I don't think it is. I think it's like a, uh, there's something about that cadence of speech that just lends itself to an audience being able to kind of tune into what you're saying and focus.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
And some people kind of, they, they rush it, and it feels a bit garbled, and they're all over the place. And that doesn't mean speaking fa- fast or slow. It's like, it's where you put the, the intonations, where you put the beat.
- CWChris Williamson
So is it-
- JCJimmy Carr
So I think the rhythm is incredibly important.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, I Have a Dream, is it '92?
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I think there's a Winston Churchill one as well.
- JCJimmy Carr
Obama's, Obama's '92. And he, he speaks quite slowly, but he's, he's on that, on that beat, and he's a magnificent public speaker.
- 1:26:23 – 1:27:27
The Oldest Joke Formula Still in Use
- CWChris Williamson
What joke template do you think has survived longest? What's the most classic?
- JCJimmy Carr
The most classic is, uh, I, I guess, y- you know, the, the pullback reveal, where, like, it's almost like a comic strip, where you're, you're kind of looking at this thing, and then you pull back, and, oh, he's on the bus. Y- you know, that, that thing is, that seems to work sort of universally across time.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
And there's wordplay. I mean, I think that, you know, jokes are the, the ha-ha and the a-ha are very similar. They're often kind of insights-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- JCJimmy Carr
... into something and when people kind of, um, realize something. I think the oldest joke is the, uh, it's like there's a, the Lover of Laughter. It's an old Roman book of jokes, and it has a joke in it that still works, I think, where a guy's in the barber's getting his haircut, and the barber says, "How do you want your hair cut?" And the guy says, "In silence."
- CWChris Williamson
[chuckles]
- JCJimmy Carr
It's almost like four thousand years old. It's joke-shaped.
- CWChris Williamson
I wouldn't open with it, but yeah. [laughing]
- 1:27:27 – 1:33:17
How Podcasting is Influencing Comedy
- CWChris Williamson
What's been the change since doing more of the crowd work stuff and putting that online? 'Cause I'm seeing an awful lot of that at the moment.
- JCJimmy Carr
I think it's, it's made it slightly, uh, bigger, um, in terms of the audiences. Like, you know, it's growing. Um, I think it's, there's, there's more of a connection to people now. So you kind of come up and it w- would have been, you know, five years ago, people might come up and say, "Well, I saw the show, and I... Thanks," and a photo. Now people kind of want to have a conversation about something.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
It's very nice. You know, like-
- CWChris Williamson
It's deepened the connection.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah, I think so. I think I'm tr- trying to kind of... Okay, so it was like I had my stand-up sort of persona on stage telling jokes and then this kind of, you know, podcast mode, and they're merging.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
And I'm really excited about that. I really like it. I really like the f- idea that there's like, there'll be-- Don't, don't panic. There'll be ninety minutes of bang on one-liners in the show, but there'll also be half an hour of this, of, you know, chatting about stuff-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- JCJimmy Carr
... and life. Great.
- CWChris Williamson
How much has that influenced you? Because obviously, you know, you were pretty well established doing the, the jokey thing.
- JCJimmy Carr
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And then even though you've been well-read and you did the university stuff and all the rest of it, the, it does feel to me like there's been a pivot and, you know, fortunately, me and George have been able to, like, be a part of that and, like, be friends-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... and hang out and stuff. How much has the wisdom verse cum podcast world influenced that thinking?
- JCJimmy Carr
I think it's been a huge influence. Uh, it's also that thing of, like, it, it's what are you interested in talking about? You know, it's, it's like it's not... It also, you don't want to be one note. Like-
- CWChris Williamson
That develops over time
- JCJimmy Carr
... like if, if like you see a band play on stage and they, and everything is a, is, uh, a floor filler. But sometimes y- you wanna slow it down. You need a couple of ballads in there. So it's, it's nice to have a mix in the set where you go, okay, well, I know, you know, go out there and do twenty minutes of just one-liners. Great. But then you wanna have a little bit of a chat with people and see where the evening takes us.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JCJimmy Carr
And to also make it feel like it's just live in the room, and this is happening now, and it's not gonna happen again. The quicksilver of it's really nice, the idea that it's like, okay, this is happening now and then the moment's passed.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I, I've been thinking a lot about some of the reliance that me and the boys have had on, like, really trying to drill home a bunch of core principles. And I came across this Nabeel Qureshi quote that said, "A cursed fact of the world is that the most important life lessons you learn are the hardest to communicate to others because they always sound like clichés."
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And I understand why permanently drilling the same or what appear to be variants of the same kind of, like, trite insight around, well, you know, you just fake it until you make it-
- JCJimmy Carr
Is it-
- CWChris Williamson
... but you need to believe in it and beforehand.
- JCJimmy Carr
Is it trite, though?
- CWChris Williamson
Well-
- JCJimmy Carr
I, I don't think it is. I think it's like that thing-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, maybe that's not the phrasing that's coming through
- JCJimmy Carr
... if you go... But it's also that thing of, like, if you read the comments, you know, it's, it'll be someone being terribly kind of, um, above it all going, "Ugh, rubbish."
- 1:33:17 – 1:43:27
Let Your Obsession Become Your Advantage
- CWChris Williamson
Has your opinion on trajectory and position changed, given that your trajectory has sort of continued to rise now to, I think, whatever the most dates in the world or something like that, that you did last year? Or the-- Was it the biggest global tour by tickets sold in comedy? Something like that.
- JCJimmy Carr
I, um, you'd struggle to find anyone to care.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- JCJimmy Carr
Um, but yeah, the, uh, like, I think the trajectory is, is very good. It's kind of, it, you know, it's building nicely. And I think more important than that, I think, when are people happy? When they're getting good at stuff.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
I think competence is the, um... It's such an important thing for people, like, to, to get good at something. It doesn't matter what it is.
- CWChris Williamson
And to feel like they're getting better as well.
- JCJimmy Carr
And you think about, like, kids. Kids learn lots of different things. They learn, you know, how to, how to ride a bike, right? So you couldn't ride a bike, and then you struggled, and then you could. It's really fun to learn how to do stuff, right? And, and then some people get better at it and can do tricks and mess around or whatever. Comedy is something that y- there's endless amounts of tricks.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
So you just keep on getting a little bit better all the time. I really like that, um, is it Kaizen? I think is the name of the Japanese thing. Like getting very-- Like British Cycling does it really well. Getting very slight improvements, incremental improvements-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- JCJimmy Carr
... over time brings an awful lot of satisfaction. I kind of think that thing about going, "That's very exciting to me," and then trying to put myself out of my comfort zone every eighteen months or so, trying to put on bigger tours or play different rooms or do it in a different way that makes me feel slightly uncomfortable. Maybe try and hold some silence and space on stage for people in a way that feels new to me.
- CWChris Williamson
You know what else is interesting about the spiraling up or the compounding of doing things and, and becoming brave at trying new things with a bigger skill set underneath? I think that, uh, people's sensitivity to cynicism keeps them in place, and as they don't do much more than the basically zero that they're doing now, their fear of cynicism just stays the same. And you need to be able to kind of get past it, because there are gonna be people who just say, "I don't think that that's cool," or, "That's a silly idea to try and do something new." But the fewer fucks that you give, the more you become acclimatized to not giving a fuck, which means you give fewer fucks over time, which means you can be more brave and you can be more experimental. You can take bigger swings with a bigger skill set underneath. But if people are welded in place by their fear of criticism or skepticism or cynicism-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah, I mean-
- CWChris Williamson
... that means they don't get started.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah, that's a really... It's, it's slightly tragic, I think.
- CWChris Williamson
It is completely tragic.
- JCJimmy Carr
Like worrying about what, what other people are thinking of you the whole time and then not wanting to do it. I remember like mid-twenties, I remember when I, um, I left my job, and I told my friends that I wanted to be a comedian, and I'd left my job. And the reactions were really like, "Oh, I think Jimmy's having a breakdown."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
"I think he's..." 'Cause obviously they didn't see this. They didn't see where it ended.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
They just saw the beginning of it, of like going, "No, no, you've got, you've got a good job. Why? What are you doing-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JCJimmy Carr
... you lunatic?" And it was like, I was like, "Yo-ho-ho, a pirate's life for me." And it, like, seemed kind of crazy. But if you'd listened to that, it was that... You talk about it very nicely, that, the, the, the lonely, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- JCJimmy Carr
... chapter, where you kind of go, you have to slightly leave who you were behind. You have to say goodbye to that, and there's a grieving to that, and you have to sort of move on to that, that new phase.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, there's two things. There's a, a grieving of where you were, and there's a fear of where you're going, because you don't know that the next step has actually got any promise for you. And again, if you're in a world where you don't have an abundance mindset, which I think a lot of people don't, there's so much complexity and uncertainty and chaos, what's gonna happen in future? I don't know if this thing's going to go completely terribly wrong. Why would I give up a certain five out of ten for an uncertain eight out of ten? Because it might be a three out of ten, and that would make me feel really bad. And if you've got high inequality too, you can see not how high you could climb, but also how low you can fall. You know, oh, fuck, like I really don't wanna fall low. That, that, that-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... that looks, that looks horrendous to me.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, um, uh... There's two most important days. Uh, the day you're born and the day you find out why.
- 1:43:27 – 1:56:33
How Do We Solve the Drug Crisis?
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JCJimmy Carr
There's a, there's a, there's an argument that the fentanyl crisis is, uh, is China's revenge for the Opium Wars.
- CWChris Williamson
What were the Opium Wars? Because I've heard this, but I don't know what the Opium Wars were.
- JCJimmy Carr
It's when, uh, the British went to, uh, China and forced them to trade with us, and we sold them a bunch of opium. That's what, that's what we did.
- CWChris Williamson
But fentanyl is mostly landing in America.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So the-
- JCJimmy Carr
Well, we are-
- CWChris Williamson
... British started it, and the Americans-
- JCJimmy Carr
We are paying the price. Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... on the receiving end of it. [laughs]
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah, but I can s- I can definitely see a connection. We are, we are Greece to America's Rome.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. Right.
- JCJimmy Carr
You know, we're kind of part of the same thing-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- JCJimmy Carr
... really.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JCJimmy Carr
I mean, I know they had the War of Independence, but come on.
- CWChris Williamson
A lot, a lot's coming over the southern border through Mexico.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
The fentanyl.
- JCJimmy Carr
Crazy.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I-
- JCJimmy Carr
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... I've seen some videos. There's this area in Philadelphia, I think, uh, where, like, constantly YouTubers are going and, and filming the- these, like, it's Skid Row's Skid Row.
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's so intense.
- JCJimmy Carr
No, I've seen it in some, in some cities around America. It's really, uh... It's... Well, I mean, look, you know, what happened, though? We, we shut down all the asylums in the '80s because we saw One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and we decided asylums were terrible places. We didn't run out of crazy people.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- 1:56:33 – 1:58:51
What British People Still Don’t Understand
- JCJimmy Carr
to the UK?
- CWChris Williamson
When it comes to culture, British culture, what do you wish more British people understood or knew?
- JCJimmy Carr
What, culturally?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JCJimmy Carr
Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Like, I, I... For me, the... British culture has an awful lot of charm to it, but there's some kind of, like, lethal poisons thrown in with it. Like, the tall poppy syndrome is one of them. The sense of a l- maybe a lack of mobility, the k- quite ossified class system that in the US what somebody earns kind of determines their-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... current level of class. But in the UK, it's where you went to school or it's your accent. Is there something that you wish more British people sort of... I- if you could, uh-
- JCJimmy Carr
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... inject something into British culture, what would it be?
- JCJimmy Carr
I think it'd be, uh... I think there's a, I think it's oikophobia is the fancy term. It's the hatred of one's own culture.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- JCJimmy Carr
I think that people need to take a bit more pride in that. You know, it's not immediately apparent that a place without a past has a future, and I think having that shared, um, belief in what, what we've done in the past, I mean, it's, you know, we beat the Nazis and we ended slavery. It's not nothing. It's, it's, it's big. And going, "And the English language is a beautiful thing." I mean, it's really... Uh, George Max got a good line on this on, like, if you had Top Trump cards for Great Britain, and you go, "Well, name a thing." "Okay, music." "The Beatles." "Okay, physics." "All right, Stephen Hawking." Uh, you know, uh, biology. "Okay, well, uh, Tim Berners-Lee for the internet." Whatever, y- we've got lots and lots of kind of... We've done great things, and we continue to punch above our weight, and people should take some pride in that. I think taking some pride in where you're from is, is quite an important thing.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JCJimmy Carr
And the local communities are kind of... There's, there's that kind of at a, at a lower level, I think. People like where they're from. They have a sense of that.
- CWChris Williamson
Heck yeah. Jimmy Carr, ladies and gentlemen. Jimmy, love you.
- JCJimmy Carr
It's a pleasure.
- CWChris Williamson
Appreciate you coming, for coming through.
- JCJimmy Carr
No, I, I really enjoy... I think, you know, you're, you're right. I think coming on this show and doing this kind of thing has really changed me as a, as a performer. It's been really incredibly valuable to me.
- CWChris Williamson
Helped you in the right direction.
- JCJimmy Carr
I really appreciate it. Yeah. Well, [laughs] they, they'll decide.
- CWChris Williamson
All right.
- JCJimmy Carr
Look at the comments section. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Until next time.
- JCJimmy Carr
Thanks, mate.
- CWChris Williamson
Bye, everybody. Boo, yes.
- JCJimmy Carr
Is that all right?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- JCJimmy Carr
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
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Episode duration: 1:58:51
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Transcript of episode gAxNYd01I6E
