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This file was generated by Descript 

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Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Live Free
Ride Free, where we talk to people who

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have lived self-actualized lives on
their own terms, and find out how they

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got there, what they do, how we can
get there, what we can learn from them.

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How to live our best lives, find
our own definition of success,

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and most importantly, find joy.

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I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson.

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New York Times bestselling
author of the Horse Boy.

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Founder of New Trails Learning
Systems and long ride home.com.

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You can find details of all our programs
and shows on Rupert isaacson.com.

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In today's live free Ride free
podcast, we talk to my dear friend

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and I could say mentor Tim Smit.

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Sir Tim Smit, in fact, who is
the founder of the Eden Project.

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Rainforest under a roof in the
west of England and now starting

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these all over the world and the
Lost Gardens of Halligan, one of

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England's top tourist sites, but also
just a beautifully whimsical place.

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This is just a.

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A little bit of what Saim does.

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He's really at the cutting edge of the
movement to bring our planet and our

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societies into a more ecological and
sustainable future without making us feel

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guilty about what we do, without making
us feel pessimistic about what we do.

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In fact, giving us all sorts
of good reasons for optimism.

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One of the reasons I really love talking
to Tim is so often in the environmental

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movement we're dealing with doom and
gloom and being shamed for what we do,

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or taking airplanes or driving cars.

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Really, Tim is not coming
from this place at all.

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Tim's giving us really practical ways
forward to build this better world.

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So without further ado, Tim.

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So Tim, Tell us who you are.

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Hi, my name is Tim Smidt.

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I am probably the only
palander you've ever heard of.

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My name is the same spelled
forwards as backwards.

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and I was born in Holland to a Dutch
father and an English mother, Dutch

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blue collar and English blue blood.

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And , the interesting thing is that
I was brought up in a mixture of a

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two up two down in the city of Ana
in East Holland,  where my Dutch

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grandfather was a mill worker and in a
stately home in the north of Cheshire

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in England,  called Hartford Hall,
which,  was owned by my grandparents.

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My grandfather was a mill owner.

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. So it was a a, a rather
interesting thing because that

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that milling tradition ran heavy.

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But the social class thing was massive
in terms of the difference between

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the backgrounds of both my parents.

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And I have to tell you, I learned
early on that the two up two down in

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AUM was a far friendlier loving place
than a cold stately home of an English

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aristocrat in the north of England.

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and it was always us.

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It's been really interesting because
when you are brought up with the

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social values, which I know you Haru
and I iha, which is kind of, I dunno

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what you call 'em, they're kind of
socialist, communist, capitalist, sort

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of all sort of woven together into
a very confusing, you know, dessert.

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and the thing is that when
you've been brought up in that.

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I can speak about cricket
until the cows come home.

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I can put on a very posh accent
if I need to, and I can get on

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with people who've been to all
the good schools and universities.

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And indeed I've been to a
fairly good school and a

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fairly good university myself.

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but the thing that it teaches you when
you come from the background,  the

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have saved my gra my Dutch grandfather,
is you, you get in, in inoculated,

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I think, if that's the right word,
all vaccinated with a thought of,

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of notions of fairness and equity.

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And what words like belonging,
meaning community mean.

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, and you develop a kind of,  spiritual
with a small s uh, not related to

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any religion, but mainly to a way
of being philosophy about the world.

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I was very lucky.

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I.

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Unlucky enough to be sent to an English
prep school at the age of six and a half.

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And I say unlucky and unlucky
at the same time, it meant

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that I had to leave my life.

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Cuz it's quite lonely being a
youngster being sent away like that.

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And you have to make what, what, what
it teaches you, the English public

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school system is that you learn how to
make acquaintanceships really quickly

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because they're defensive things.

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Almost like alliances.

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Yeah, yeah, they are.

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Exactly.

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They're like alliances because
you wanna be made safe, you wanna

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have people having your back.

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And the effect of that is that I think
most, look, this is dated, I'm now

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in my late sixties, but when I was
at private school and I, I know it

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has changed an awful lot since then.

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There was this sense that you were
foraging a class of people who had

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a loyalty to their class because
they were all sent away from home

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rather than to their neighborhood.

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Um, and it would later shape me by not
sending my children to public school

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because I wanted them to feel that
they could play for the local village

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cricket team and they would be known
in the local pub and bakery and they

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would do scouts and learn to go fishing.

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You know, all of those things
which give you a sense of

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who you are, a sense of self.

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So I was very aware, I was an observer
of, of that class distinction.

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I was also really aware, having been
left on my own for a long time, that my

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imagination was different to most people.

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I spent most of my time very happily
on my own imagining whole scenarios.

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And it was only when I bec was quite old.

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I mean, I'm talking about late thirties
that I realized I was a bit of a.

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I, I actually imagine.

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I, I imagine, and then I imagine the
delivery of that imagining, and it, a

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lot of people say about me that with Eden
and GaN how odd it is to meet somebody

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who is a dreamer, stroke visionary, which
is a rather overrated word, um, who not

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only can dream these things but dreams,
the process of how to deliver them.

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I'm fascinated.

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I'm fascinated by the idea of putting one
stone next to another and then another,

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and day after day you do this until
there's a wall, and then there's actually

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a roof, and then you've got a building.

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And I can imagine it all.

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I can imagine the whole
process and it thrills me.

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Absolutely thrills me.

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And it's who I am.

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Actually, I've realized that I
am, um, my greatest pleasure in

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life is the kissing of frogs.

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That's what I realized early on.

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I love the idea of making things that
were not whole, complete, making things

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that were broken, mended, um, making.

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people not unhappy.

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That leads to a kind of weird thing as
well where you become almost, uh, directed

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by the desire to create happiness,
almost as if your self def definition

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is through either removing angst or
creating moments of, of happiness.

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Um, which could I think, get
interpreted earlier in your life as

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a fear of being disliked or wishing
to fit in in some strange way.

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But then later if you mi, if you ride
that kind of instinct, it turns you into

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somebody who I think really understands
the nature of what makes communities,

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what, what, what a good community is,
which is not a new labor line on a map

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with the people contained within it.

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It is actually about the relationships.

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And the older I've got, the more
I've realized that everything is

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to do with relationships and that
the biggest job you've got in life.

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If you're a person like you, Ruth, or
me, You don't realize, and it's 80,

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it only creeps up on you after years.

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You realize that what
you are is an exorcist.

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You are an exorcist of the notion
that failure just lives here and is

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permanently rooted in this space.

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And there are far too many
people who let f for a failure

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be like aall on the landscape.

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And we come in and we give people
the idea of things could be better.

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Things could be if we do things together,
where we can make things better and nicer.

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And you don't have to own all the ideas,
you don't have to feel, you own much

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of it except the, the good spiritedness
to actually see the talent in others.

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And ultimately, I think that is the, the
wicked secret that often, especially in

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males, our vanity gets in the way of being
quiet for long enough to listen to things.

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and actually realizing the pleasure of
listening and really, really listening and

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then understanding and then transforming
things because you've really understood,

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as opposed to giving people the benefit
of your genius, and I see that with

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middle-aged men, the world over.

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They want to give you the benefit of their
genius and insight, and you sometimes

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wish they would shut the so-and-so up.

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When did, do you have a memory of
the first time you imagined and

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then also imagined a delivery?

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Where are you?

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How old are you?

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Are you a boy?

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Where is this

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like all boys and many girls?

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The first dream would've been doing
the simple things like twigs and

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leaves and mud and making dams.

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That would be followed I think, quite
closely by the desire if you live.

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In nature rather more than most have
the benefit of doing now, but of

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catching those things which live in
the ponds and whatever, and looking

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at them and examining them and
getting this extraordinary thrill.

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I mean, I can bring to mind
now the thrill of catching a

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stickleback or yeah, water boatman.

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And you know, when you then graduate
later on to fishing for, you know, fish

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that are bigger than sticklebacks, God,
that, that, that I remember, you know,

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getting white bread and putting it in my
mouth and getting enough saliva on it so

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that it was pliable, and then turning it
into a ball of bread, and then getting

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a fish hook and putting it on some line,
and then throwing it across a pond where

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the trees were too low to be able to
have a fishing rod with throwing it.

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But you'd actually put a bit of candle wax
on the line so that when it hit the water,

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the weight of the bread would take the.

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Hooked down to the bottom, but it wouldn't
take all the rest of the line down.

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It took it down as far as it would go.

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But then you'd had the line just
lying prone on the surface, and then

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you'd sit there for ages and suddenly
you'd see the line at the end of it

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start to disappear under the water.

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And you'd know there'd be
something big underneath there.

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It was sucking.

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It was sucking that bread of yours
and your head was just so full of

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the imagination of what it could be.

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Of course, in your brain
it was an enormous eel or a

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tench or carp or something.

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But just imagine what it was like when
you do strike that tension of deciding,

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am I gonna pull it and am I going to
then have the frustration of pulling

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it outta the mouth or whatever it was.

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Was it gonna catch?

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And then it catches and then it,
the line bites into your hand

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and you are just excited as you
see a bit of blood on your hand.

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Cause you've caught something
that was big enough to do that.

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And you're sitting there, you know,
underneath the BR branches and

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you're pulling this fish in and.

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Chess, fantastic.

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Those big lip carp and tench are amazing.

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Unlike the eels, which were incredibly
glamorous when you caught them, but

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then when you had to get them off
the end of a hook as they arrived

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and they put their slime all over
you as you took them out, wow.

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That was, that was the
other side of amazing.

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But it was just great.

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That whole adventure in nature, that whole
sense of the mystery of things that lived

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below and the things that lived above
hunting for, you see, I'm 68 now and then.

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Then it was okay to go hunting for
bird's, eggs and things like that.

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And the excitement of finding a nest,
you know, the little, little nest with

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the song thrush eggs in it, and then
learning how to blow the egg and creating

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a collection of bird's eggs and just
learning where the, where you'd find them.

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And you didn't know you were
learning things, did you?

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I mean, I'm sure you were the same.

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You, you just suddenly, every day
you just had a bigger picture of

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the homeland you were walking in.

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as branches started to have their
own history, trees had their own

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history of things you'd found there,
things you'd heard there, things

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that had disappeared into there.

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And I love that sense of a countryside
being made, almost filled in like one of

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those coloring books that what was general
essence of tree became particular trees.

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And you would be able to describe
them to your close mates.

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You know, the tree with the broken, you
know, the broken so-and-so, the one with

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the squirrels very at the top, you know?

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And I found that absolutely
thrilling, discovering a language

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of direction, place and being that
I'd never actually truly had before.

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But you felt it like, like learning
a language, but it's not the same

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as walking out and it's actually
being in it, it's being in nature.

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Yeah.

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I w uh, is, is what we're talking about
and what you are talking about here.

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The shamanic aspect of the hunting
and gathering life, which is sort

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of at the root of every human
being, cuz that's what we are still.

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And is it also that if you learn to
order a natural environment first,

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does it become then easier to order
non-natural environments that you

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might want to thrive in or even build?

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I don't know.

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I, I think a lot of questions that you
get asked, uh, that one gets asked, you

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are naturally inclined to lie about.

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You see, I've discovered that Bec you
see, humans don't naturally embrace chaos.

00:14:09.765 --> 00:14:12.525
They also don't really
naturally embrace change.

00:14:13.605 --> 00:14:16.725
Therefore, they cannot believe that
their lives have genuinely been

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as chaotic as they actually have.

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Which means that when they describe
their lives backwards, they give it a

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linearity or a shape that is preposterous.

00:14:25.320 --> 00:14:26.670
That was never like that.

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But it, you, you can't believe
that you were quite so unfocused.

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I've lived my life pretty much unfocused,
and I can tell you my story now.

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When I tell my story, I
sometimes shock myself.

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Uh, the order and intent behind that
story and how this internal logic

00:14:48.450 --> 00:14:52.320
of this extraordinary fellow who did
all these things comes to the fore.

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And it looks like you were blessed
by some kind of secret, um, uh, spell

00:14:57.180 --> 00:14:59.430
that you were given, but actually no.

00:14:59.460 --> 00:15:04.920
It was about, it was about embracing
chaos and embracing it in a way

00:15:04.950 --> 00:15:07.440
that you just went with the flow.

00:15:08.460 --> 00:15:15.090
And I decided at the age of 37, Very,
exactly 37 that I was going to embrace

00:15:15.150 --> 00:15:17.320
going with the flow as you talk.

00:15:17.320 --> 00:15:19.860
Why, why, why did you, why then, and how?

00:15:20.250 --> 00:15:21.150
Yeah, why?

00:15:23.700 --> 00:15:28.350
I, I had become very
bored with my cleverness.

00:15:29.640 --> 00:15:36.600
I realized any fool can use the trappings
of knowing a thing or two to appear as if

00:15:36.600 --> 00:15:41.700
you worked hard or you had a deep wisdom
when in fact you were more like a parrot,

00:15:41.700 --> 00:15:46.620
but were too vain to admit it, and your
intelligence wasn't particularly striking.

00:15:47.430 --> 00:15:51.000
Um, and, and more to the point you
realize something really difficult,

00:15:51.000 --> 00:15:55.170
which is that you are clever, so you
don't actually have to work so hard.

00:15:56.100 --> 00:15:57.870
So quite a lot of it is about busking.

00:15:57.900 --> 00:15:59.850
You know, what were you doing at 37?

00:15:59.940 --> 00:16:01.050
What, where are you in life?

00:16:01.050 --> 00:16:02.010
What are you doing for a living?

00:16:02.400 --> 00:16:06.120
And what's your road to Damascus
moment that says, I'm now sick?

00:16:07.095 --> 00:16:09.945
Being clever, Tim, I want
to be go with the float.

00:16:10.635 --> 00:16:12.795
No, it, it was, it was
a, a range of things.

00:16:12.795 --> 00:16:16.725
It wasn't actually a road to
Damascus moment in, well, there

00:16:16.725 --> 00:16:18.345
was one road to Damascus moment.

00:16:18.345 --> 00:16:24.405
I was in a limousine, I'm sorry I've told
you this, over a drink together, but, um,

00:16:24.885 --> 00:16:28.965
I was in a limousine in Paris and we had
a record with this lady, Louise Tucker,

00:16:28.965 --> 00:16:31.125
that had been number one for 15 weeks.

00:16:31.935 --> 00:16:35.115
And I was in the back of this
limousine and the radio was

00:16:35.115 --> 00:16:37.305
playing and it was our song.

00:16:37.395 --> 00:16:41.505
And when it stopped playing,
the next record on that was

00:16:41.505 --> 00:16:43.005
going to knock our record off.

00:16:43.035 --> 00:16:46.095
A number one spot came on by
a lady called Michelle to,

00:16:47.145 --> 00:16:48.345
and we'd written that as well.

00:16:48.855 --> 00:16:54.435
And we were big honchos in the music
business, as I say, the biggest

00:16:54.525 --> 00:16:59.445
selling record except for later
live eight, um, in French history.

00:17:00.255 --> 00:17:02.035
And I felt suddenly bereft.

00:17:02.790 --> 00:17:06.240
I felt as sad as I've ever felt in my
life being in the back of this limo

00:17:07.110 --> 00:17:10.320
because there's nothing sadder than
achieving what you thought you wanted

00:17:11.220 --> 00:17:13.500
and realizing, you know, what was it?

00:17:13.500 --> 00:17:18.210
Gude Stein said, um, told, getting
there is, there's no there there.

00:17:19.050 --> 00:17:24.690
And it felt incredibly arid,
like dust in your hands.

00:17:25.530 --> 00:17:28.650
And I always say to people,
beware of chasing something

00:17:28.800 --> 00:17:30.570
that is a theoretical desire.

00:17:31.410 --> 00:17:33.420
Imagine it what it feels like.

00:17:33.420 --> 00:17:37.230
And actually having all that success
and arriving in places without your

00:17:37.230 --> 00:17:41.100
friends, without your family, the
people around you see you as a product.

00:17:42.270 --> 00:17:46.020
Um, and the thing that you
really loved was music.

00:17:46.770 --> 00:17:50.190
But even that is almost getting stolen
away from you because you've become

00:17:50.195 --> 00:17:54.600
addicted suddenly to the commercial
success of the records you had written.

00:17:55.350 --> 00:17:59.040
And you end up almost like a
factory producing music three

00:17:59.040 --> 00:18:01.620
minutes, 20 seconds long with a.

00:18:02.310 --> 00:18:06.690
Sort of kind of weird start and then
two verses a chorus, another verse

00:18:06.690 --> 00:18:11.280
two choruses, then a middle eight,
and then chorus is now very formulaic.

00:18:12.360 --> 00:18:14.610
And I decided I wanted to leave.

00:18:14.790 --> 00:18:15.690
I I'd had enough.

00:18:16.560 --> 00:18:19.560
I just knew, it's a really weird
feeling when you have the chance to

00:18:19.650 --> 00:18:25.200
have the success you thought you wanted
and you to be able to discover that

00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:29.730
before the end of your life is amazing
cuz you suddenly realized that that

00:18:29.730 --> 00:18:30.990
is not what you were meant to do.

00:18:32.100 --> 00:18:36.150
And the truth was, if I'm honest, that
I could hold a tune and I'd fallen

00:18:36.150 --> 00:18:37.470
into being in the music industry.

00:18:37.530 --> 00:18:40.830
Cause I had a band at university and we
were skin, so we were just playing covers

00:18:41.370 --> 00:18:43.080
and then start to write our own music.

00:18:43.470 --> 00:18:47.190
And the truth was we were quite
good, but we weren't very good.

00:18:47.820 --> 00:18:48.840
We weren't genius.

00:18:48.840 --> 00:18:49.770
We were quite.

00:18:50.715 --> 00:18:53.715
So that we could actually have
a hit record here and there, and

00:18:53.715 --> 00:18:56.865
once we'd got a hit record, people
would buy our album and whatever.

00:18:57.555 --> 00:19:00.195
But we weren't the stuff of legend.

00:19:00.285 --> 00:19:01.845
We, we didn't have that.

00:19:02.115 --> 00:19:04.335
We had the ability to hold a good tune.

00:19:05.325 --> 00:19:08.715
And I guess it's a form
of, of, of, um, vanity.

00:19:08.775 --> 00:19:14.325
The desire to find the thing that you
really are good at as our friend, uh,

00:19:14.505 --> 00:19:21.525
Ken Robinson, um, of late Ken Robinson,
to say happiness is about finding

00:19:21.525 --> 00:19:23.625
your element, being in your element.

00:19:24.315 --> 00:19:27.495
And I think that is actually one of the
things that you are about, isn't it?

00:19:27.495 --> 00:19:32.775
It's about the freedom riders, the,
the, the riding to be liberated.

00:19:32.775 --> 00:19:39.255
And the rest of it is, is about
finding the music of you as a person.

00:19:39.555 --> 00:19:43.275
If we're using that analogy of
music further, um, it's very

00:19:43.275 --> 00:19:46.455
interesting, anybody who listens to
this, the five people who listening

00:19:46.455 --> 00:19:49.305
to this podcast eventually, or
maybe even 10 if we're lucky.

00:19:50.265 --> 00:19:51.885
One thing I what?

00:19:52.185 --> 00:19:52.725
You never know.

00:19:53.385 --> 00:19:53.925
No, you never know.

00:19:54.225 --> 00:20:01.275
One thing I would advise you to do as a
moment of incredible insight is to go to

00:20:01.275 --> 00:20:08.175
a piano, put your foot on the sustained
pedal, and then bang every note with

00:20:08.175 --> 00:20:13.515
your elbows, every note, and then put
your head on the soundboard that would

00:20:13.515 --> 00:20:15.375
teach you something close to religion.

00:20:15.375 --> 00:20:20.415
As that chaos of all the notes jarring
through each other, they go like,

00:20:21.015 --> 00:20:24.915
like the mouth of a trumpet, they
disappear expanding into the distance

00:20:24.915 --> 00:20:29.235
of sound, and then suddenly at the
end of that, you see this magnificent

00:20:29.235 --> 00:20:30.945
chord, which is harmonic coming out.

00:20:31.875 --> 00:20:36.195
And it is a really interesting thing that
chaos is just disor disorganized harmony.

00:20:36.795 --> 00:20:41.175
And that's the only way I've ever seen
that you can learn it or understand it in

00:20:41.180 --> 00:20:44.665
a way that some people get when they are.

00:20:46.380 --> 00:20:50.070
In nature for a long time, and
suddenly the chaos of pattern suddenly

00:20:50.070 --> 00:20:51.630
reveals something bigger to them.

00:20:52.320 --> 00:20:53.310
It's that sort of thing.

00:20:53.310 --> 00:20:58.410
I think I, I'm talking in a musical
equivalence of your experience of, of

00:20:58.410 --> 00:21:03.090
shamanic work, but it's, it's, it's
kind of a clarity which comes to you

00:21:03.660 --> 00:21:07.500
almost by allowing it to catch you by
surprise from the side of your eye.

00:21:07.500 --> 00:21:07.920
You know what I mean?

00:21:07.920 --> 00:21:09.120
Not, not as a direct view.

00:21:09.120 --> 00:21:11.070
It's, I've got a question then.

00:21:11.070 --> 00:21:17.520
How do you, how do you go from a
boy who's, um, ordering nature and

00:21:18.030 --> 00:21:22.230
fascinated in love with it, climbing
the trees to find the bird's eggs?

00:21:22.350 --> 00:21:26.430
Um, how do you go from
there to be, to music?

00:21:26.730 --> 00:21:27.630
What's the link?

00:21:29.040 --> 00:21:33.690
Oh, I'd always played music ever
since at the ti each time I was at my

00:21:34.350 --> 00:21:38.160
English grandparents' house at Hartford
Hall, they had a huge grand piano.

00:21:39.120 --> 00:21:43.050
Um, I'm trying to remember what the
make of it, a Broadwood, I think it was.

00:21:43.830 --> 00:21:47.070
And, um, No one in the family played.

00:21:47.430 --> 00:21:50.460
And from the age of two, I just played it.

00:21:50.460 --> 00:21:53.180
I just, was it in the family?

00:21:53.190 --> 00:21:54.060
Was your mom musical?

00:21:54.060 --> 00:21:54.990
Was your dad musical?

00:21:54.995 --> 00:21:55.920
Was somebody musical?

00:21:56.730 --> 00:22:02.190
Uh, my dad, my dad could, um, uh,
play sort of pub piano, three or

00:22:02.195 --> 00:22:03.690
four tunes or something like that.

00:22:04.140 --> 00:22:07.650
Um, which he'd been taught by my
grandmother, Dutch grandmother.

00:22:08.070 --> 00:22:11.100
My mother loved music, but didn't play.

00:22:12.270 --> 00:22:14.220
No, I just, I just sat down.

00:22:14.220 --> 00:22:18.030
I mean, there were lots of pictures of
me as a two, two and a half year old

00:22:18.270 --> 00:22:26.040
right through sitting at the piano with
pair on, um, just picking out notes.

00:22:26.070 --> 00:22:28.710
I was absorbed by notes.

00:22:29.730 --> 00:22:31.890
I had zero interest.

00:22:32.550 --> 00:22:36.840
I was given piano lessons and I
did piano up to grade five, but I

00:22:36.840 --> 00:22:40.350
had absolutely zero interest in it.

00:22:40.350 --> 00:22:41.700
I did it because I was told to do it.

00:22:42.850 --> 00:22:44.310
and that was the only way
I could get at the piano.

00:22:44.310 --> 00:22:49.020
When I went up to the public school,
I was only interested in composing,

00:22:49.740 --> 00:22:50.790
and it's still the same for me.

00:22:51.090 --> 00:22:53.760
I love listening to the
music of other people.

00:22:54.360 --> 00:22:57.030
But if you said to me, would you
like to join a Beatles cover band?

00:22:57.090 --> 00:22:58.620
Be, I'd prefer to drill my teeth.

00:22:59.670 --> 00:23:00.690
It's it not.

00:23:00.690 --> 00:23:03.570
And I love The Beatles, but I, I,
that's another point I'm making.

00:23:03.750 --> 00:23:09.510
For me, music was a form of therapy and I
could, I, from a really young age, I could

00:23:09.510 --> 00:23:14.750
play the piano to the degree where if I
was feeling a bit blue, I could actually

00:23:14.755 --> 00:23:18.450
play it in such a way that, you know,
20 minutes later I was in a merry mood.

00:23:19.350 --> 00:23:20.910
And I've always loved music for that.

00:23:20.910 --> 00:23:23.850
And I've always loved
the repetitive nature.

00:23:23.850 --> 00:23:28.530
Sometimes just being on my own, playing
chords with very little variation and.

00:23:29.385 --> 00:23:34.305
Almost in a mental trance just
going round and round and round.

00:23:34.695 --> 00:23:38.355
And the luxury of being able to do
that for yourself, it's just gorgeous.

00:23:39.135 --> 00:23:42.525
And that's one of the good things
about having a bigger house and a

00:23:42.525 --> 00:23:47.325
keyboard and occasionally a headphones
if you want to, is that you can just

00:23:47.330 --> 00:23:51.315
do that repetitive playing time after
time, which pleases you, even if it

00:23:51.435 --> 00:23:54.075
drives everybody else nuts, you know?

00:23:54.135 --> 00:23:56.085
Um, and uh, so I've always been like that.

00:23:56.085 --> 00:23:59.145
I've always treated piano as
being something which had a sound

00:23:59.145 --> 00:24:03.195
of spiritual force for me, but
it was almost medical, you know?

00:24:03.225 --> 00:24:05.655
It was like a health thing.

00:24:05.655 --> 00:24:08.655
I needed to do it, I needed to play.

00:24:09.555 --> 00:24:11.025
And I know what you mean.

00:24:11.025 --> 00:24:12.525
I, I have the same thing with horses.

00:24:12.525 --> 00:24:13.335
It's a compulsion.

00:24:14.295 --> 00:24:14.715
Yeah.

00:24:15.615 --> 00:24:16.815
So there you are.

00:24:16.815 --> 00:24:17.115
All right.

00:24:17.115 --> 00:24:19.155
But, so then, okay,
question number two then.

00:24:19.155 --> 00:24:21.435
So you are, you, you, you
discover music very young.

00:24:21.440 --> 00:24:22.665
You're also discovering nature.

00:24:23.535 --> 00:24:26.925
And then through college
you have this band.

00:24:27.975 --> 00:24:30.735
The band becomes successful or
the band morphs into another

00:24:30.735 --> 00:24:31.725
band that's successful.

00:24:32.265 --> 00:24:33.265
Uh, band.

00:24:33.405 --> 00:24:38.535
The band morphed into another, another
band that, uh, we, we came down from

00:24:38.655 --> 00:24:42.585
Durham where we, it was the punk boom
and we had a great pa and we rented

00:24:42.585 --> 00:24:45.645
it out and make our lot of money
doing that, but we weren't that good.

00:24:46.245 --> 00:24:50.235
We went to London thinking we
would make our fortunes in punk.

00:24:51.255 --> 00:24:51.615
Sorry.

00:24:51.855 --> 00:24:52.335
In punk.

00:24:53.535 --> 00:24:57.045
No, we were actually
unbelievably complicated.

00:24:57.045 --> 00:25:02.655
We were more on the um, uh, uh, uh,
the Mark Knop end things, the Da Strait

00:25:02.655 --> 00:25:08.205
and, but not you pro rockers were
you, Genesis and that, or commercial?

00:25:08.605 --> 00:25:15.285
You, you were kind of slightly affected,
um, poets with an attitude with electric,

00:25:16.005 --> 00:25:19.275
electric sounds and stuff, but it
wasn't like heavy metal or anything.

00:25:19.545 --> 00:25:20.895
It wasn't quite Genesis.

00:25:20.900 --> 00:25:22.605
It wasn and it wasn't the Smiths, it was.

00:25:25.020 --> 00:25:27.570
To be honest, we weren't
like anything else.

00:25:27.575 --> 00:25:28.110
Mm-hmm.

00:25:28.190 --> 00:25:29.010
, what was the name of the band?

00:25:30.150 --> 00:25:33.570
That band was called The Shake
As in the Shake of Arabic.

00:25:33.930 --> 00:25:34.420
Okay.

00:25:34.710 --> 00:25:37.350
But anyway, we didn't last very
long, once we reached London,

00:25:37.350 --> 00:25:41.040
because London is a brutal place
and it's not a very good place to

00:25:41.040 --> 00:25:42.360
build a music career, to be honest.

00:25:42.360 --> 00:25:45.540
Because you get there, the
few clubs and pubs that you

00:25:45.540 --> 00:25:47.070
can play in, it's pay to play.

00:25:47.070 --> 00:25:48.960
You have to know your own audience.

00:25:49.560 --> 00:25:52.950
Whereas when you got to Cornor, I mean,
what's amazing, my young son, he formed

00:25:52.950 --> 00:25:57.480
a band and in four years, between the age
of 14 and 18, he'd saved bloody nearly

00:25:57.480 --> 00:26:02.010
20,000 quid because they'd pay really
well in the pubs and clubs down here.

00:26:02.850 --> 00:26:09.180
Um, and so we decided to become
songwriters and I was also a mini

00:26:09.180 --> 00:26:12.300
cab driver because the songwriting
wasn't making us any money.

00:26:13.110 --> 00:26:17.730
And on Sundays we'd play football,
um, down on Clapham Common.

00:26:18.120 --> 00:26:22.200
And one day I kicked a guy in the
opposing team and someone said, Christ,

00:26:22.200 --> 00:26:23.550
do you know who you've just kicked?

00:26:23.550 --> 00:26:24.810
And I said, no idea mate.

00:26:24.960 --> 00:26:26.340
And he said, that's Pat Staple.

00:26:26.340 --> 00:26:29.490
He's the lead sound engineer
at Abbey Road Studios.

00:26:30.540 --> 00:26:31.560
So I said, hello.

00:26:32.400 --> 00:26:33.150
I called him up.

00:26:33.810 --> 00:26:36.780
And uh, anyway, we would
become firm friends.

00:26:36.785 --> 00:26:40.830
And of course, as you know, if you're
an engineer in a studio, you get the

00:26:40.830 --> 00:26:44.070
ability to use what's called dead time
if it's not being booked for money.

00:26:44.610 --> 00:26:46.500
Provided you've got an
engineer, you can use it.

00:26:46.500 --> 00:26:50.400
And the deal is that you, if
you have the benefit of a bit of

00:26:50.400 --> 00:26:53.700
luck, you then pay a percentage
of your luck back to the studio.

00:26:54.630 --> 00:26:58.860
And, uh, anyway, we, we did
this and it was terrible because

00:26:58.860 --> 00:27:00.210
we were working late at night.

00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:02.220
Cause that's when usually
the dead, dead time is.

00:27:02.760 --> 00:27:10.530
And I had my first child with my wife and
um, it got to our, the good bit was we'd

00:27:10.535 --> 00:27:14.640
got five record deals back to back with
a bit of money, which meant that we were

00:27:14.645 --> 00:27:18.960
able to pay the studio bit and all the, as
songwriters or as a band, as songwriters.

00:27:19.050 --> 00:27:19.380
Okay.

00:27:20.145 --> 00:27:22.605
Um, and we created the bands ourselves.

00:27:22.605 --> 00:27:26.325
They were kind of like, um, stock
water make and that sort of thing.

00:27:26.325 --> 00:27:31.665
We were finding people to sing
on these songs and, um, anyway,

00:27:32.535 --> 00:27:35.625
rather unbelievably, which is
something which happens to me a lot.

00:27:36.795 --> 00:27:40.545
The very first night that we felt that
we could get babysitters for me and

00:27:40.545 --> 00:27:44.925
the wife to go out, we went out and
we had my sister-in-law babysit and

00:27:44.925 --> 00:27:49.395
she asked whether she could bring a
friend called Louise Tucker who was

00:27:49.395 --> 00:27:51.225
studying opera at the Guild Hall.

00:27:52.005 --> 00:27:55.545
And we came back from a night out
and obviously we were being polite

00:27:55.550 --> 00:27:58.875
and having a small talk, and Louise
gave me a card and said, if you

00:27:58.875 --> 00:28:00.375
ever need an opera singer, call me.

00:28:01.635 --> 00:28:06.525
At that time, I would, it never occurred
to me I'd ever want to work with an opera

00:28:06.565 --> 00:28:09.805
opera singer, but completely unbelievably.

00:28:09.805 --> 00:28:13.125
The following day we go to Abbey
Road and the singer that we'd booked

00:28:13.125 --> 00:28:18.750
to sing on this song we'd already
recorded, um, Phoned in hill, and

00:28:18.750 --> 00:28:21.810
this is before mobile phones, right?

00:28:22.320 --> 00:28:25.530
So I only had the phone numbers
of three other singers, all

00:28:25.530 --> 00:28:27.330
of all of whom were out.

00:28:27.780 --> 00:28:33.240
And I still had in my top
pocket the card of this woman

00:28:33.240 --> 00:28:34.530
that I'd met the night before.

00:28:35.580 --> 00:28:38.460
And I asked her, I
mean, I was dreading it.

00:28:38.460 --> 00:28:41.850
I just didn't wanna waste the
studio time by not using it, but I

00:28:41.850 --> 00:28:42.920
thought it was gonna be terrible.

00:28:42.920 --> 00:28:47.310
So she came and she did a duet
with my music partner, Charlie.

00:28:47.610 --> 00:28:52.500
And extraordinarily four weeks to the
day after that studio session, the

00:28:52.500 --> 00:28:58.050
record went number one in Belgium, then
Holland, then Scandinavia, then Germany.

00:28:58.170 --> 00:28:59.250
What was the name of the record?

00:28:59.490 --> 00:29:00.630
It was called Midnight Blue.

00:29:01.500 --> 00:29:04.470
And that record in the
album sold 7 million copies.

00:29:04.500 --> 00:29:06.150
It was the most extraordinary thing.

00:29:06.690 --> 00:29:08.550
Why did it do so good in Europe?

00:29:09.315 --> 00:29:10.935
Do we know of it in the uk?

00:29:11.175 --> 00:29:12.405
Do we know of it in the West?

00:29:12.405 --> 00:29:13.605
What, what, what's the story there?

00:29:13.895 --> 00:29:16.035
It got to the top 20, but not the top 10.

00:29:17.085 --> 00:29:26.385
Uh, basically it was, um, a record
based around Beethoven ditty, his fifth.

00:29:27.135 --> 00:29:31.185
Um, and we wrote a verse
for it and a chorus.

00:29:31.635 --> 00:29:36.195
And it was a duet, it was a love
song, and we filmed it in gothic.

00:29:36.195 --> 00:29:39.735
The video was gothic in terms
of Louise wearing sort of black

00:29:39.735 --> 00:29:45.015
velvet, having black, cold
coal eyes and curly black hair.

00:29:45.015 --> 00:29:49.035
So she looked very glamorous, being
filmed with white horses with a

00:29:49.035 --> 00:29:51.045
full moon and a dark, dark lake.

00:29:51.045 --> 00:29:52.185
You can imagine this sort of thing.

00:29:52.475 --> 00:29:54.085
Very, and who financed this?

00:29:54.085 --> 00:29:56.355
This is a record company
had already gave a deal.

00:29:56.955 --> 00:30:01.575
Arista, Arista, uh, and then
when it went to France, it went

00:30:01.575 --> 00:30:03.885
bonkers, absolutely bonkers.

00:30:04.245 --> 00:30:04.815
And it was great.

00:30:04.815 --> 00:30:07.515
And we had a, a good two years
selling a lot of records.

00:30:08.670 --> 00:30:12.480
In the middle of that, I had
the experience of being in the

00:30:12.480 --> 00:30:15.360
back of that limousine, which
depressed me beyond endurance.

00:30:15.840 --> 00:30:16.890
And I decided to leave.

00:30:17.700 --> 00:30:23.790
Um, wasn't instant, but I, I
then bought a house in komo.

00:30:23.850 --> 00:30:25.080
Again, completely random.

00:30:25.085 --> 00:30:27.030
I was leading my life random already.

00:30:28.710 --> 00:30:32.460
And, um, we were on
holiday, it was raining.

00:30:32.460 --> 00:30:35.130
I walked into an estate
agent, I saw a house for sale.

00:30:35.130 --> 00:30:36.690
I said, let's, I want to see that house.

00:30:36.690 --> 00:30:38.700
The estate agent said, sir, won't like it.

00:30:39.210 --> 00:30:39.930
We went to see it.

00:30:39.935 --> 00:30:42.960
We lived in Brixton, and this
is 280 miles from Brixton.

00:30:43.590 --> 00:30:47.520
And we drove there the following day, and
it was p because it was pouring with rain.

00:30:47.525 --> 00:30:51.330
And then this tractor moved
across us and I had to stop.

00:30:51.330 --> 00:30:56.100
And this guy came out in a waterproof,
and I, I wound down the window and he

00:30:56.105 --> 00:30:57.960
said, ear, old buck, what you doing?

00:30:57.960 --> 00:30:58.230
Ear?

00:30:59.190 --> 00:31:00.690
And I said, um, excuse me.

00:31:00.690 --> 00:31:00.990
Sorry.

00:31:00.995 --> 00:31:03.780
Okay, say that again.

00:31:03.780 --> 00:31:04.860
So I'm probably have to cut that up.

00:31:05.845 --> 00:31:06.915
A tractor stops you.

00:31:06.975 --> 00:31:07.215
Can you?

00:31:09.075 --> 00:31:11.745
I said, look, this is really embarrassing
cause we haven't got an appointment,

00:31:11.745 --> 00:31:15.495
but the house is, um, uh, there's
a house at the end of this road, I

00:31:15.495 --> 00:31:18.435
believe, and we just wanted to have
a look and see whether we liked it.

00:31:18.440 --> 00:31:20.115
And the guy said, well,
happened, it's my house.

00:31:20.625 --> 00:31:21.525
Can't have a cup of tea.

00:31:21.525 --> 00:31:22.605
So we went and had a cup of tea.

00:31:22.605 --> 00:31:25.896
The kids then disappeared into
the hay barns and two and a half

00:31:25.901 --> 00:31:27.915
hours later, I shook his hand
and said I was gonna buy it.

00:31:28.815 --> 00:31:29.565
So I arrived.

00:31:29.655 --> 00:31:34.365
We arrived in Cormo about six weeks later.

00:31:34.365 --> 00:31:35.805
It was an incredible quick turnaround.

00:31:35.895 --> 00:31:37.665
And I basically gave
up the music industry.

00:31:37.665 --> 00:31:42.695
I was gonna record music for films
and things a little bit, but I, I, I,

00:31:42.700 --> 00:31:44.175
I actually wanted to have a new life.

00:31:44.895 --> 00:31:48.705
And what happened was a, again,
I, by this time, I'm leading

00:31:48.705 --> 00:31:50.475
my life by pure serendipity.

00:31:51.225 --> 00:31:55.665
I was almost thinking we spent all
the money I'd made in the music

00:31:55.665 --> 00:31:58.425
industry on this house and doing it up.

00:31:58.425 --> 00:31:59.325
It was a money pit.

00:32:00.090 --> 00:32:04.095
and we were at the Verge Candy and I
have, have actually going bankrupt.

00:32:04.125 --> 00:32:10.095
We spent everything I, I went to
the dentist, this is how my life is.

00:32:10.100 --> 00:32:19.785
I went to the dentist and in the dentist's
waiting room in Triny, in Cormo was

00:32:20.145 --> 00:32:23.385
a current copy of the Stage magazine.

00:32:24.165 --> 00:32:27.675
You don't expect to have a magazine that's
younger than two years old in a dentist.

00:32:28.485 --> 00:32:29.115
And there it was.

00:32:29.115 --> 00:32:35.625
And I opened it up and it opened up
really randomly or OB or, I dunno, but it

00:32:35.625 --> 00:32:41.385
opened up on a picture of the footballer
Jack Charlton holding a very big salmon.

00:32:42.195 --> 00:32:46.425
And it said underneath it, Jack
Charlton is to make a big TV

00:32:46.425 --> 00:32:48.525
series for ITV called Go Fishing.

00:32:49.605 --> 00:32:56.145
And we're looking for music now
about five or six years before that.

00:32:56.505 --> 00:32:58.865
Very drunk in a studio in.

00:33:00.305 --> 00:33:01.580
, um, Farham.

00:33:02.520 --> 00:33:08.700
I had written a song with my mates, um,
who'd been drinking cider in the studio.

00:33:08.700 --> 00:33:14.010
We'd done something serious before, and
one of the guys was, um, a banja player.

00:33:14.550 --> 00:33:19.080
So I wrote this song, which was a, it
was a complete set of puns about fishing.

00:33:19.085 --> 00:33:20.490
You know, I can't salmon up the energy.

00:33:20.490 --> 00:33:22.680
This isn't the time and the place,
you know, all of that sort of stuff.

00:33:23.520 --> 00:33:27.100
Um, and it had his chorus which
went, go fishing, go fishing,

00:33:27.720 --> 00:33:29.540
you know, and, and, and whatever.

00:33:29.630 --> 00:33:33.690
So I sent the cassette of this thing,
which had been a complete joke record

00:33:33.750 --> 00:33:37.170
off to the re the, um, uh, film company.

00:33:37.680 --> 00:33:44.760
And they got back to me literally by
return and, um, said, we love this music.

00:33:44.940 --> 00:33:47.160
We, this is gonna be our
theme tune if you let us.

00:33:47.730 --> 00:33:49.440
And by the way, have you
written any more music?

00:33:49.440 --> 00:33:52.440
Cause we've got no backing music for any
of the other parts of the sixth series.

00:33:53.010 --> 00:33:56.130
So it bailed me out of
potential bankruptcy in one go.

00:33:56.190 --> 00:33:56.910
Isn't that weird?

00:33:57.360 --> 00:33:59.130
I'd written this joke record.

00:33:59.280 --> 00:34:01.380
The father even kept a cassette.

00:34:01.380 --> 00:34:03.210
That was all I had left
was a cassette of it.

00:34:04.230 --> 00:34:07.770
Um, and, but you had
loved fishing as a boy.

00:34:08.430 --> 00:34:16.080
I'd love you had you had spent hours there
touching whatever spirits of the river.

00:34:16.650 --> 00:34:20.250
Um, I know we were clearly
waiting to, uh, reward you.

00:34:20.280 --> 00:34:21.240
All right, brilliant.

00:34:21.720 --> 00:34:23.430
So, so that bailed me out.

00:34:24.090 --> 00:34:26.580
I was wondering whether I needed to
go back to university and learn a

00:34:26.580 --> 00:34:29.940
skill or whatever because I, we now
had enough money to pay to finish the

00:34:29.940 --> 00:34:33.270
house, but I didn't have a job and
I wasn't gonna go back into music.

00:34:33.960 --> 00:34:37.380
Um, and I couldn't expect to have
lucky breaks like that all the time.

00:34:38.670 --> 00:34:44.100
Anyway, I've met this bloke
who drove up in a van, um, and

00:34:44.105 --> 00:34:45.300
he had a trailer behind it.

00:34:45.390 --> 00:34:47.910
And he said, in the, in
this trailer is a pig.

00:34:48.510 --> 00:34:52.020
And I'm either gonna draw it, take it to
the slaughter house to become sausages.

00:34:52.720 --> 00:34:56.250
, or you can have it as a pet because I
know that you've got a garage that hasn't

00:34:56.250 --> 00:34:59.190
got a car in it, and we could easily
turn it into a place for a pig to stay.

00:35:00.120 --> 00:35:01.980
So that's how I was introduced to Horace.

00:35:02.850 --> 00:35:06.300
So Horace came to stay and Horace had
a very powerful nose, and he decided

00:35:06.305 --> 00:35:09.540
he didn't like the garage, despite
the fact he had plenty of space.

00:35:10.170 --> 00:35:13.241
He broke into the farmhouse
and would then warm his butt on

00:35:13.246 --> 00:35:16.170
the arga, and I'd talk to him.

00:35:16.170 --> 00:35:19.740
And then eventually I realized,
um, that he needed a mate.

00:35:19.920 --> 00:35:25.950
So through the local newspapers, I
found another black pig, and we got

00:35:25.950 --> 00:35:31.560
hold of Doris and Horis just fell
hopelessly in love, um, with Doris.

00:35:32.220 --> 00:35:34.500
And from that moment on,
they just lived in the barn.

00:35:34.500 --> 00:35:36.660
He was happy in the barn now,
and it, I'd fill it up with

00:35:36.660 --> 00:35:38.310
hay and they were very clean.

00:35:38.310 --> 00:35:40.230
They always cracked in the
same place and what have you.

00:35:40.230 --> 00:35:42.840
And, um, you say Black
Pigs, is this a local breed?

00:35:43.410 --> 00:35:44.430
No, they, it wasn't.

00:35:44.540 --> 00:35:46.620
They, they were actually
Vietnamese Pop bellies.

00:35:46.710 --> 00:35:46.980
Okay.

00:35:47.430 --> 00:35:51.585
Um, and, uh, um, Hideously ugly.

00:35:51.585 --> 00:35:54.375
They look as if they've run
at great speed into a war.

00:35:55.185 --> 00:36:04.365
Um, and uh, anyway, in the November
of 1989, I think, um, Doris gave

00:36:04.365 --> 00:36:09.465
birth to 11 baby piglets under
a heat lamp in thick straw.

00:36:09.765 --> 00:36:12.045
Um, and this is two in the morning.

00:36:12.045 --> 00:36:13.755
I'm thinking, how am I gonna
educate all these pigs?

00:36:13.755 --> 00:36:14.595
I'm going bankrupt.

00:36:14.595 --> 00:36:15.465
How am I gonna bring 'em up?

00:36:15.525 --> 00:36:16.485
Yeah, exactly.

00:36:16.485 --> 00:36:20.115
But I saw it as a sign that I was
meant to start a rare breed park.

00:36:20.115 --> 00:36:21.735
Most people don't do that, but I did.

00:36:22.485 --> 00:36:25.635
So I went to hunt for a place that could
be a rare breed park and there was some

00:36:25.635 --> 00:36:29.565
land and I phoned up the guy where, why
rare breeds from a not rare breed or a

00:36:29.565 --> 00:36:31.245
Vietnamese popularly big there, there.

00:36:32.775 --> 00:36:33.975
And I thought, I love this.

00:36:33.980 --> 00:36:34.905
So a lot of people will love you.

00:36:34.905 --> 00:36:37.695
See, one of the things I learned from
the music industry, which anybody who's

00:36:37.695 --> 00:36:40.905
looking for a steering in life is if
you're not a freak and you love something,

00:36:40.905 --> 00:36:42.855
there will be millions of people like you.

00:36:43.365 --> 00:36:44.985
The issue is simply marketing.

00:36:45.585 --> 00:36:46.875
You know about it.

00:36:47.055 --> 00:36:49.145
That's a really valuable
piece of information.

00:36:49.495 --> 00:36:51.265
It's a very valuable piece of information.

00:36:51.945 --> 00:36:58.305
Um, anyway, to cut a long story short,
I've got very sensitive lips and I went

00:36:58.305 --> 00:37:02.295
to see the guy who owned the land that
I thought could be a rare breed park.

00:37:02.295 --> 00:37:04.995
He gave me a very hot cup of
coffee, but told me instantly I

00:37:04.995 --> 00:37:07.635
couldn't have the land because he
just rented it to somebody else.

00:37:08.055 --> 00:37:12.555
I had to make small talk with him,
and as I made small talk, as I, as the

00:37:12.555 --> 00:37:16.785
coffee called down for me to drink it,
I told him that I had studied archeology

00:37:17.025 --> 00:37:21.345
at university, and he then said to me
the immortal words, I have need of an

00:37:21.350 --> 00:37:23.625
archeologist, which I couldn't believe.

00:37:24.405 --> 00:37:28.365
And anyway, the following day we broke
into what was this huge estate that

00:37:28.365 --> 00:37:30.435
he'd inherited, but he had no money.

00:37:30.495 --> 00:37:35.505
He didn't, his, his, uh, uh, a
distant no, his uncle had died,

00:37:35.985 --> 00:37:37.635
childless, leaving this estate.

00:37:37.965 --> 00:37:41.505
The house had been tended to
flats long ago, but the garden

00:37:41.505 --> 00:37:43.005
had been fenced off because.

00:37:43.860 --> 00:37:47.880
The majority of the gardeners, uh,
that had worked there were killed,

00:37:48.060 --> 00:37:51.060
uh, in Flounders in 19 15, 16.

00:37:51.900 --> 00:37:55.950
And the owner is so sadly fenced
off and went to live in his

00:37:55.950 --> 00:37:57.630
Italian house and never returned.

00:37:57.750 --> 00:38:03.150
Now, when you say a garden, those
listeners who are knowing you for the

00:38:03.150 --> 00:38:08.430
first time, um, particularly perhaps
in America, we're not talking about

00:38:08.430 --> 00:38:10.140
a backyard here with a privacy fence.

00:38:10.230 --> 00:38:12.690
Um, what describe this garden?

00:38:14.040 --> 00:38:21.450
Well, the garden in total is, uh, in
total about 70 acres of gardens with

00:38:22.980 --> 00:38:30.180
about a hundred acres of woodland forest
and 200 acres of home farm, and how

00:38:30.180 --> 00:38:31.710
you break into this, what does that.

00:38:32.565 --> 00:38:36.255
Whereas, well, we, it's not just there
to walk into, how do you break into it?

00:38:36.495 --> 00:38:36.675
Yeah.

00:38:36.675 --> 00:38:39.885
Well, the hedges that have been planted
all those years ago had now become

00:38:39.885 --> 00:38:41.955
trees and you just couldn't get through.

00:38:41.955 --> 00:38:45.075
So we had to take machetes and
cut our way in, and then in the

00:38:45.075 --> 00:38:47.445
evening, so it's basically like
a Cinderella castle of thorns.

00:38:47.445 --> 00:38:49.545
You've just got a wall of
thorns in front of you.

00:38:49.550 --> 00:38:49.995
Yeah.

00:38:50.025 --> 00:38:50.265
Yeah.

00:38:50.475 --> 00:38:53.325
That's not even, that's not
exaggerate, not exaggerating at all.

00:38:53.685 --> 00:38:58.095
And the bloke says, behind this
wall of thorns is an enchanted land.

00:38:58.575 --> 00:39:00.945
Do you want to chop your
way into it with me?

00:39:00.945 --> 00:39:02.535
Is that basically what he says?

00:39:02.925 --> 00:39:03.165
Well, no.

00:39:03.165 --> 00:39:04.485
He said, you're an archeologist.

00:39:04.485 --> 00:39:06.945
You'll be able to understand what
you're looking at better than I,

00:39:07.785 --> 00:39:12.195
um, and I didn't, and what is behind
this, this, this, this wall of thorns.

00:39:13.095 --> 00:39:13.605
Yeah.

00:39:13.605 --> 00:39:18.845
But quite quickly we discovered what was
behind it because there were enormous

00:39:18.855 --> 00:39:23.715
palm trees and rodded engines in there
that were way, I mean, the, the brambles

00:39:23.715 --> 00:39:25.815
themselves are about 15 feet high.

00:39:26.565 --> 00:39:31.215
Um, but um, I cut my way through
with John and I just fell

00:39:31.215 --> 00:39:32.175
hopelessly in love with it.

00:39:32.345 --> 00:39:39.075
I, I, I broke into a, a greenhouse
after finding a wall with a, uh, a door

00:39:39.405 --> 00:39:43.485
painted green with it, the paint flaking
and the rust was staining the wood,

00:39:43.485 --> 00:39:46.575
you know, where the, um, hinges were.

00:39:46.575 --> 00:39:48.645
And I put my shoulder to it to go in.

00:39:48.785 --> 00:39:52.065
And there was this greenhouse that I cut
my way through very gingerly because all

00:39:52.065 --> 00:39:57.255
the wood had rotted out, so the glass
was hanging like guillotines above it.

00:39:58.275 --> 00:40:02.265
And, um, in there, the light
broken a very funny way.

00:40:02.355 --> 00:40:04.695
And I suddenly saw these
scissors on the wall.

00:40:05.415 --> 00:40:08.055
And it's a bit like one of those
1970s paintings, you know, with

00:40:08.055 --> 00:40:10.665
dots, where suddenly you see an
elephant in the middle of the dots.

00:40:11.265 --> 00:40:11.895
And it was like that.

00:40:11.895 --> 00:40:13.335
Suddenly I saw tools everywhere.

00:40:13.335 --> 00:40:16.215
I saw terracotta everywhere,
and I fell in love.

00:40:16.215 --> 00:40:21.105
And the following day I said to John, who
own it, look, I haven't got the money.

00:40:21.780 --> 00:40:24.180
To take this off your hands,
but what I'll do is I'll do a

00:40:24.180 --> 00:40:25.710
music business contract with you.

00:40:26.160 --> 00:40:30.030
You give me this estate for nothing,
and if I can get it open to the public

00:40:30.030 --> 00:40:32.100
inside two years, you'll let me have it.

00:40:32.880 --> 00:40:36.330
And, uh, I'll be able to rent
it off you into the future.

00:40:37.020 --> 00:40:41.400
Uh, and I will pay you, um,
20% of whatever I charge

00:40:41.550 --> 00:40:43.290
Netta v a t to the public.

00:40:44.250 --> 00:40:46.260
And that's how it all began.

00:40:46.380 --> 00:40:50.490
And I knew that to be famous,
I needed press and I was

00:40:50.490 --> 00:40:51.570
always been good with press.

00:40:51.660 --> 00:40:56.700
And I got the BBC hooked by telling
them that I had found the finest,

00:40:56.705 --> 00:40:58.110
most romantic garden in Britain.

00:40:58.110 --> 00:41:00.420
And it was going to be called
the Lost Gardens of Hellan.

00:41:01.020 --> 00:41:04.020
And I was gonna give them one
day to make up their mind whether

00:41:04.020 --> 00:41:05.130
they were gonna come and film it.

00:41:05.130 --> 00:41:06.750
If they weren't, I was
gonna go somewhere else.

00:41:07.110 --> 00:41:10.860
How did you, you say you
got what, who did you call?

00:41:11.070 --> 00:41:14.580
Why did you have someone who
you could call and why would

00:41:14.580 --> 00:41:15.870
that person take your call?

00:41:19.635 --> 00:41:21.615
I've always been socially pretty adept.

00:41:22.185 --> 00:41:27.695
So I had a pretty decent dress book and
I knew through the music BI, basically.

00:41:27.965 --> 00:41:28.975
Yeah, yeah.

00:41:29.355 --> 00:41:34.245
But the guy I called was the producer
for Stephan Buchs, who is a bit of

00:41:34.245 --> 00:41:38.055
a rock God for garden, um, films.

00:41:38.835 --> 00:41:42.915
And he was on, um, gardens World,
and they came in and made it special

00:41:43.755 --> 00:41:47.745
and it won the award in 91 for
the best documentary of the year.

00:41:49.095 --> 00:41:50.505
And it was very mysterious.

00:41:51.225 --> 00:41:54.555
I, you see, gardens had never been
treated the way I treated them.

00:41:54.585 --> 00:41:56.625
I wanted it to be very rock and roll.

00:41:56.685 --> 00:41:59.715
I wanted to even put dry eyes
down when people were filming.

00:42:00.375 --> 00:42:04.785
I wanted to, I knew that if people
came to Halligan looking at it through

00:42:04.785 --> 00:42:07.095
my eyes, they would fall in love.

00:42:07.965 --> 00:42:09.135
And that's what actually happened.

00:42:09.585 --> 00:42:13.455
So the restoration wasn't about
restoring it to a role of a culture

00:42:13.455 --> 00:42:15.165
society, your Nat National Trust Act.

00:42:15.525 --> 00:42:19.095
I wanted to capture the very spirit
of lostness, which would make people

00:42:19.095 --> 00:42:23.235
feel the gentle ebb and flow of
melancholy, because melancholy is

00:42:23.235 --> 00:42:24.495
the sexiest thing in the world.

00:42:24.495 --> 00:42:26.025
Happy Clappy is nowhere close.

00:42:26.925 --> 00:42:30.465
And I wanted he halligan to be a
place which was at its absolute

00:42:30.470 --> 00:42:32.445
finest in, its in a gentle drizzle.

00:42:33.255 --> 00:42:35.025
Um, and that's how it's become.

00:42:35.355 --> 00:42:38.595
The Lost Garden of Halligan are the
most romantic gardens in Britain.

00:42:39.135 --> 00:42:45.525
We've won award after award the most, uh,
the nation's favorite garden, the national

00:42:45.525 --> 00:42:47.175
treasure, according to Radio four.

00:42:47.895 --> 00:42:51.075
But the thing I'm most proud of is
that more than 400 people have chosen

00:42:51.075 --> 00:42:52.695
to have their ashes scattered there.

00:42:53.625 --> 00:42:58.755
And I think that's a tremendous thing
that's a, a real, uh, a real accolade

00:42:58.755 --> 00:43:00.105
to the team that have restored it.

00:43:00.735 --> 00:43:05.805
But, you know, the weirdest thing after
all this time is, uh,  in my ancient age.

00:43:05.805 --> 00:43:10.095
Now I can see, uh, it
doesn't belong to me.

00:43:10.095 --> 00:43:15.825
I'm a steward, a complete steward, and
it's such privilege and I go around it Now

00:43:15.825 --> 00:43:19.005
as a punter, I got no sense of ownership.

00:43:19.395 --> 00:43:22.095
I mean, literally, I don't have a
sense of ownership because I gave

00:43:22.395 --> 00:43:27.045
away, uh, the company that runs it
to my children about six months ago.

00:43:27.795 --> 00:43:32.895
Um, but I think it was necessary to
put it in younger hands, keep it going,

00:43:32.900 --> 00:43:36.285
get them to understand the fact that
it's a privilege to be a steward of it.

00:43:36.765 --> 00:43:38.505
It's not a vehicle for making money.

00:43:38.505 --> 00:43:40.365
It's a vehicle for creating livelihoods.

00:43:40.370 --> 00:43:43.965
We have a hundred people that work
there, and it revolutionized the

00:43:43.965 --> 00:43:45.585
whole economy of the local village.

00:43:46.185 --> 00:43:50.745
You see, we were the first place in Cornor
that ever asked a very simple question, is

00:43:50.915 --> 00:43:55.365
Cornwall empty in winter because nothing
is open, or is nothing open because

00:43:55.365 --> 00:43:59.205
people, uh, the, the, the or or do not.

00:43:59.205 --> 00:44:01.065
People not come because nothing is open.

00:44:01.630 --> 00:44:05.700
. So we decided to open all year round
and until everybody's astonishment,

00:44:06.120 --> 00:44:11.550
people came all year round and suddenly
pubs and restaurants opened and things

00:44:11.550 --> 00:44:15.900
were got renewed and galleries opened
and all over komo people suddenly woke

00:44:15.905 --> 00:44:17.820
up as if, you know, they had a kiss.

00:44:18.780 --> 00:44:22.950
You know, the sleeping beauty was
open and the effect of that would

00:44:22.950 --> 00:44:32.520
lead fairly shortly in the end of 94,
we opened the public in on, um, good

00:44:32.520 --> 00:44:39.540
Friday, 1992, and we were about a third
of the way through the restoration.

00:44:39.540 --> 00:44:43.320
And people were coming to watch us do
the restoration and they would come and

00:44:43.320 --> 00:44:44.850
we'd give them tools and they'd help us.

00:44:44.850 --> 00:44:46.350
They'd pay to come in
and then do the work.

00:44:46.350 --> 00:44:47.010
It was brilliant.

00:44:47.940 --> 00:44:50.970
And we had a tea room cafeteria
that was an old goat shed.

00:44:51.960 --> 00:44:57.780
Um, and our restaurant is still the
skeleton of that old B shed today.

00:44:57.840 --> 00:45:00.750
Uh, we built it out a bit,
but that's actually its root.

00:45:02.145 --> 00:45:03.735
And we pioneered all sorts of things.

00:45:03.795 --> 00:45:07.695
I, I used metal detectors to find the
old plant named nes, which meant that

00:45:07.695 --> 00:45:14.085
we could restore many of the productive
ward gardens, uh, by finding the original

00:45:14.090 --> 00:45:19.335
plants that were named on these, uh,
copper zinc labels by washing them with

00:45:19.395 --> 00:45:23.145
warm water and then putting olive oil in
on it, and the Indian ink would react.

00:45:23.895 --> 00:45:24.525
Is it brilliant?

00:45:24.585 --> 00:45:25.575
It's absolutely brilliant.

00:45:25.575 --> 00:45:28.245
I can't tell you the fun of
doing a project like that.

00:45:28.245 --> 00:45:33.615
And we would go, like, we went to a
Methodist chapel and we bought the

00:45:33.615 --> 00:45:38.925
chapel in order to take all the floor,
the floorboards, the joists, the

00:45:38.985 --> 00:45:41.055
roof, the roof slates and everything.

00:45:41.055 --> 00:45:44.950
So when you come to Halligan, A
restoration that would probably

00:45:44.955 --> 00:45:46.890
cost 20, 25 million to do.

00:45:47.220 --> 00:45:48.660
We did it for about half a million.

00:45:48.780 --> 00:45:51.360
We all our volunteers and
everybody, we were just sniffing

00:45:51.360 --> 00:45:56.220
about finding things and that is
actually where the joy of life is.

00:45:56.280 --> 00:45:59.160
It's actually realizing that
amazing things can be done and

00:45:59.165 --> 00:46:01.470
they don't need to cost the earth.

00:46:01.560 --> 00:46:03.840
That actually what you need
is the energy to do it.

00:46:04.650 --> 00:46:09.690
Um, and then another documentary was
made which followed us for two series.

00:46:09.720 --> 00:46:13.440
It was two 10 part documentaries
on channel four, and that kind of

00:46:13.500 --> 00:46:19.800
enshrined GaN as being the most
popular garden in Britain and after us.

00:46:20.490 --> 00:46:24.870
So I the one, the last thing I ought to
say is that we wanted to tell the whole

00:46:24.870 --> 00:46:29.940
story because going back to my childhood
and I told you about my background of

00:46:29.940 --> 00:46:36.210
my grandparents who were of different
social classes, what I found amazing was

00:46:36.210 --> 00:46:39.930
that Halligan had these walled gardens
and a vegetable garden and some little.

00:46:40.980 --> 00:46:42.720
And some little war gardens as well.

00:46:43.320 --> 00:46:46.380
And I said, I want to tell the story
of the ordinary men and women who

00:46:46.380 --> 00:46:52.760
made these, these gardens great, but
the national trust and um, uh, the rg

00:46:53.220 --> 00:46:55.590
they're all society were far too posh.

00:46:55.590 --> 00:46:55.950
Posh.

00:46:56.520 --> 00:46:59.040
They said the garden visitors,
they're not gonna be interested

00:46:59.045 --> 00:47:00.030
in working men and women.

00:47:00.930 --> 00:47:02.250
And that's absolutely extraordinary.

00:47:02.700 --> 00:47:06.330
At the moment that we opened to the
public, at that day that we opened,

00:47:07.080 --> 00:47:11.280
there were no working gardens in
Britain open to the general public.

00:47:11.550 --> 00:47:15.990
Vegetable gardens were not one the
great vegetable garden that had

00:47:15.990 --> 00:47:20.610
been at Chatsworth in Darbyshire,
um, the devs house, they had

00:47:20.610 --> 00:47:23.850
bulldozed their ward gardens because
they were no longer fashionable.

00:47:25.110 --> 00:47:28.170
Tatton Park, which was the National
Trust, most famous well garden

00:47:28.170 --> 00:47:30.060
that was also completely gutted.

00:47:31.290 --> 00:47:33.540
And the national trust
was very slow witted.

00:47:33.570 --> 00:47:36.600
And when we, uh, when the public
started to go bonkers, they decided,

00:47:36.600 --> 00:47:38.040
Christ, maybe we missed a trick.

00:47:38.040 --> 00:47:39.270
And they started to restore some.

00:47:40.335 --> 00:47:41.535
But they didn't understand it.

00:47:41.535 --> 00:47:45.525
It's kind of like, uh, uh,
it was kind of like class

00:47:45.525 --> 00:47:47.715
certainty, devoid of intelligence.

00:47:48.075 --> 00:47:52.125
So their first walled garden, they
restored, they found bricks that

00:47:52.125 --> 00:47:56.775
had moss on them, so they looked all
romantic, which is crazy cause any had

00:47:56.775 --> 00:48:00.915
gardener who was worth his weight or
her weight would never have allowed

00:48:00.945 --> 00:48:03.105
moss on a brick or anything like that.

00:48:03.825 --> 00:48:06.795
So what they were trying to do was
to do that kind of shabby chic, you

00:48:06.795 --> 00:48:08.115
know, to give you some kind of thing.

00:48:08.505 --> 00:48:09.615
And it was completely fake.

00:48:09.620 --> 00:48:12.105
And they didn't know where to
get the vegetable varieties from.

00:48:12.555 --> 00:48:14.445
For us, we were just like pirate kings.

00:48:14.450 --> 00:48:17.925
We, we, we, we would travel all over
the country to meet people that had

00:48:17.925 --> 00:48:20.925
allotments that had kept seeds going at
their grandparents had had and whatever.

00:48:21.285 --> 00:48:24.615
So we started to build up this
body of, um, what we called

00:48:24.615 --> 00:48:26.205
heirloom and heritage vegetables.

00:48:27.315 --> 00:48:33.045
And slowly but surely we started to get
the whole place properly productive.

00:48:33.045 --> 00:48:34.005
And then we had to make it.

00:48:34.005 --> 00:48:38.535
So, see, the thing is that when you
look at all the posh magazines, They,

00:48:38.805 --> 00:48:40.545
they're just lying to you all the time.

00:48:40.785 --> 00:48:45.675
Their lifestyle choice, a bit of
a drizzle of this on your food, do

00:48:45.675 --> 00:48:51.435
they not realize the pure genius, the
unadulterated genius of these ward

00:48:51.435 --> 00:48:54.315
gardens in an age before refrigeration?

00:48:55.305 --> 00:49:00.735
April was called the dying month because
it was too early to have the vegetables

00:49:00.735 --> 00:49:05.715
ready for the next year and too late to
have anything left from the previous year.

00:49:06.435 --> 00:49:11.895
But the great horticulturists knew how
to create clamps for potatoes and some

00:49:11.895 --> 00:49:15.435
of the vegetables to keep them cool
enough so that they didn't go off.

00:49:15.795 --> 00:49:19.725
They knew which apples to grow
that perhaps didn't taste the best,

00:49:20.445 --> 00:49:25.845
but actually they had the ability
to stay sweet until right the

00:49:25.845 --> 00:49:27.435
end of March, beginning of April.

00:49:27.945 --> 00:49:32.595
So what you were looking at was an
incredible act of applied science.

00:49:33.495 --> 00:49:35.895
Um, and that's always stayed with me.

00:49:36.195 --> 00:49:40.875
Uh, the notion that, that, that, how
is it possible that a basically a smug

00:49:40.875 --> 00:49:46.605
middle class has allowed the traditions
of great horticulture to die and

00:49:46.605 --> 00:49:50.055
pretend that it's the third thickest
child or the third thickest child

00:49:50.385 --> 00:49:52.065
that is a gardener or horticulturist?

00:49:52.545 --> 00:49:54.495
It's absolutely not true.

00:49:54.495 --> 00:49:59.205
And the future we're going to see is
going to see an awful lot of young people.

00:49:59.265 --> 00:50:01.245
Your young people, my young people.

00:50:01.605 --> 00:50:05.295
Go back to the land, go back
to interest in food production.

00:50:05.595 --> 00:50:10.365
Go back to realizing that many of these
old varieties were called heirloom

00:50:10.725 --> 00:50:16.545
varieties because, uh, big agriculture
wanted them to sound quaint and not

00:50:16.545 --> 00:50:18.225
current so that you bought their types.

00:50:18.885 --> 00:50:24.375
The truth is there isn't an apple that
has been bred over the last 50 years.

00:50:24.380 --> 00:50:25.665
That's actually very good for you.

00:50:26.385 --> 00:50:30.495
That saying an apple a day keeps the
doctor away is absolutely true for the

00:50:30.500 --> 00:50:34.665
old varieties that are still around cuz
they're full of what are called phenols,

00:50:34.665 --> 00:50:36.705
which are very powerful antioxidants.

00:50:37.275 --> 00:50:41.445
And I think, I think the generations
coming through and I meet so many young

00:50:41.450 --> 00:50:44.805
people who come to work for us and
who want to do their own allotments or

00:50:44.805 --> 00:50:49.005
even small holdings or the, the market
gardening, which used to be popular.

00:50:49.005 --> 00:50:49.365
Remember.

00:50:50.145 --> 00:50:53.415
And it's really interesting how the
conversations are going about, can

00:50:53.415 --> 00:50:56.085
we produce food and drink that's
actually really good for your health?

00:50:56.085 --> 00:50:57.525
I mean, really good for your health.

00:50:58.155 --> 00:51:02.835
Um, so that, you know, your, your,
your, your internal biome, you know, the

00:51:02.835 --> 00:51:08.385
bacteria and your insides are actually
encouraged to really go for it and so on.

00:51:08.385 --> 00:51:09.255
So I'm really excited.

00:51:09.405 --> 00:51:12.385
I hope you can tell I'm really excited
about all of those discoveries,

00:51:12.390 --> 00:51:15.435
all of which were made accidentally
and I think could only have been

00:51:15.435 --> 00:51:17.205
made by somebody who knew nothing.

00:51:18.285 --> 00:51:21.015
I think the excitement was that
for me, it was like a Sherlock

00:51:21.015 --> 00:51:25.125
Homes adventure to try and find
all the ingredients of this story.

00:51:25.630 --> 00:51:27.330
It's the narrative arc, if you like.

00:51:27.990 --> 00:51:30.810
And then I realized that everybody
was so smugged, they thought it

00:51:30.810 --> 00:51:33.060
was known and then it wasn't.

00:51:33.060 --> 00:51:34.320
It was all about to get lost.

00:51:35.220 --> 00:51:39.180
And so the lost gardens of Hellan became
symbolic, not only of it having been

00:51:39.240 --> 00:51:46.200
lost, but also the lost varieties and
techniques and so on that also were going.

00:51:46.800 --> 00:51:48.390
And so I've been really
thrilled doing that.

00:51:48.420 --> 00:51:54.030
And that would in turn, inspire
me to think, well, we started to

00:51:54.090 --> 00:51:57.810
tell stories at Halligan that did
not have lots of Latin, because I

00:51:57.810 --> 00:51:59.310
didn't, I wasn't a horticulturist.

00:52:00.180 --> 00:52:02.820
So I'd ask people like,
why do leaves coal?

00:52:02.825 --> 00:52:05.400
And they get so annoyed when I
asked them to dumb down, dumb

00:52:05.400 --> 00:52:08.460
down, dumb down until they were
basically telling me a nursery story.

00:52:08.460 --> 00:52:09.570
And I said, wow, that's great.

00:52:09.570 --> 00:52:12.060
And I would then tell people at dinner
parties and they go, wow, really?

00:52:12.060 --> 00:52:12.660
That's great.

00:52:13.200 --> 00:52:15.150
And I suddenly realize, let's
tell stories to everybody that

00:52:15.150 --> 00:52:16.020
comes and say, wow, that's.

00:52:17.010 --> 00:52:19.620
So we told really simple stories
and people got very excited.

00:52:19.620 --> 00:52:20.490
And I thought, what, what?

00:52:20.490 --> 00:52:25.290
Imagine what, what happens if
we find the equivalent of, um,

00:52:26.250 --> 00:52:27.780
like a creature of a volcano?

00:52:28.260 --> 00:52:28.650
You know?

00:52:28.710 --> 00:52:32.400
And in that volcano, like in Conan
Doyers Lost World, it's where

00:52:32.400 --> 00:52:34.020
you've got this lost civilization.

00:52:34.620 --> 00:52:38.550
And we would gather all of the really
important plants in the world together

00:52:38.555 --> 00:52:41.700
there to tell people about how
dependent we are in the natural world.

00:52:42.420 --> 00:52:43.080
And that's what happened.

00:52:43.260 --> 00:52:46.620
I decided to do the Eden Project
and gathered a team around me and

00:52:46.620 --> 00:52:50.670
we built, um, Eden with a whole
bunch of volunteers to start with.

00:52:50.670 --> 00:52:55.540
And then we raised a lot of
money through the lottery banks.

00:52:56.670 --> 00:53:01.680
Overall, it cost about 144 million
pounds, but it's blinking great.

00:53:01.680 --> 00:53:05.430
It's designed on principles
that were invented originally by

00:53:05.430 --> 00:53:07.200
Buckman Sta Follow Who's my hero?

00:53:07.620 --> 00:53:08.400
The Bucky Ball.

00:53:09.360 --> 00:53:12.870
The strongest structures on earth
when they're fully built and the

00:53:12.870 --> 00:53:16.530
weakest structures on earth until
the last moment of their being built.

00:53:17.580 --> 00:53:22.050
And we created 90,000 tons of soil
and we opened to the public on St.

00:53:22.050 --> 00:53:26.700
Patrick's Day to celebrate all of the
Irish builders who'd made this possible.

00:53:26.760 --> 00:53:29.280
Cause we built it on time, on budget.

00:53:30.210 --> 00:53:34.050
And the other thing that's great is
we don't allow advertising on site.

00:53:34.620 --> 00:53:39.240
Cause we want people to understand
and read the landscape as why

00:53:39.240 --> 00:53:43.290
a wild place, even where it's
nurtured in a, in a husbanded way.

00:53:43.920 --> 00:53:47.190
But we wanted people to just have one
place where they weren't being sold to.

00:53:47.190 --> 00:53:51.570
Where you didn't have QR codes, where you
didn't have buy such and such a coffee.

00:53:52.380 --> 00:53:55.140
So anyway, Eden is a really good place.

00:53:55.140 --> 00:53:57.440
We've had, we get about
a million visitors a.

00:53:58.425 --> 00:54:03.735
We've put nearly 2 billion pounds worth
into the local economy out of opening

00:54:03.735 --> 00:54:07.005
it, and we built it starting in 1994.

00:54:07.005 --> 00:54:09.135
The idea we opened, as I say, St.

00:54:09.135 --> 00:54:13.455
Patrick's Day 2001, took us
actually two years of building.

00:54:13.995 --> 00:54:16.845
But the amazing thing is today
all the things we were championing

00:54:16.845 --> 00:54:18.075
then have become fashionable.

00:54:18.885 --> 00:54:21.495
And now we're, we are big fromage.

00:54:22.005 --> 00:54:26.775
I mean, we've got 17 big projects
around the world, around a billion

00:54:26.775 --> 00:54:29.035
quids worth of construction contracts.

00:54:29.035 --> 00:54:32.715
I mean, they're not all signed
up and ready and working, but I'm

00:54:32.715 --> 00:54:35.505
actually becoming more and more
interested not in the testosterone

00:54:35.505 --> 00:54:39.615
lead and signature architecture,
but in the regeneration of places.

00:54:39.615 --> 00:54:44.655
So we're working in places like Eastborne
on the so Downs, uh, Darby in the middle

00:54:44.655 --> 00:54:49.815
of Darby, which is falling to bits,
uh, in Derry in Ireland on the banks.

00:54:51.475 --> 00:54:54.405
Of the river there and so on.

00:54:54.555 --> 00:54:57.075
And we've Dundee you will
have seen in the papers.

00:54:57.075 --> 00:55:00.855
We recently got, um, a lot of
government funding who are gonna

00:55:00.860 --> 00:55:03.225
partner us to do a project in Moham.

00:55:04.275 --> 00:55:07.155
But basically all of this
is about storytelling.

00:55:07.155 --> 00:55:09.135
Everything is about storytelling.

00:55:09.495 --> 00:55:13.815
And these are all old, no longer
fashionable, falling down what people

00:55:13.815 --> 00:55:15.165
in England will call crap towns.

00:55:15.585 --> 00:55:15.855
Yeah.

00:55:16.575 --> 00:55:18.315
And then what they need is an exorcist.

00:55:18.555 --> 00:55:19.335
And that's us.

00:55:19.875 --> 00:55:22.005
And we come and we tell
'em, you think this is crap?

00:55:22.185 --> 00:55:22.995
It's wonderful.

00:55:23.175 --> 00:55:27.285
And you know, the, the most amazing
thing about your town is you the people.

00:55:27.615 --> 00:55:27.855
Yeah.

00:55:27.945 --> 00:55:28.815
And stories.

00:55:29.265 --> 00:55:29.505
Yeah.

00:55:29.510 --> 00:55:29.775
Yeah.

00:55:30.075 --> 00:55:35.565
Stories and, and, and, and, and creating
groups of people, a crew, wherever you go.

00:55:36.135 --> 00:55:40.335
People are just not expecting
people like us with our background

00:55:40.335 --> 00:55:43.035
to actually listen, just listen.

00:55:43.935 --> 00:55:48.375
Don't give them the benefit of our
genius to regenerate their town.

00:55:49.260 --> 00:55:53.100
Help create a story in which they
regenerate their town and you fit

00:55:53.100 --> 00:55:54.600
in some gaps where you can help.

00:55:55.380 --> 00:56:01.380
And the biggest task is to make
humans realize what is possible.

00:56:01.380 --> 00:56:05.310
And that's why Eden is really powerful,
because we have done big things

00:56:05.820 --> 00:56:07.290
that everybody said was impossible.

00:56:07.980 --> 00:56:12.990
We've done deep geothermal, we've
dug 5.3 kilometers down, and uh,

00:56:13.020 --> 00:56:16.500
we got 187 degrees centigrade
water coming out the ground.

00:56:17.220 --> 00:56:18.540
And everybody said we couldn't do it.

00:56:18.600 --> 00:56:20.340
The government said we couldn't do it.

00:56:21.560 --> 00:56:22.560
Scientists said we wouldn't do it.

00:56:23.040 --> 00:56:23.790
We have done it.

00:56:24.810 --> 00:56:27.690
And to anybody listening, you know,
probably coming to the end of this,

00:56:27.690 --> 00:56:32.880
but everybody listening is do not
believe the establishment that

00:56:33.060 --> 00:56:34.800
ama amazing things cannot be done.

00:56:35.880 --> 00:56:39.330
Because when you look at our.

00:56:40.275 --> 00:56:44.325
I would put to you, we're living
amongst a whole bunch of people

00:56:44.355 --> 00:56:46.485
that are ill, but we don't know it.

00:56:46.995 --> 00:56:53.445
And that illness is a collective PTs d and
that PTSD is because we aspire to so much.

00:56:53.445 --> 00:56:57.075
Whether you are formally religious
or not, we know that we're living in

00:56:57.080 --> 00:57:02.295
a country where it's equity, where
it's social values and care are being

00:57:02.625 --> 00:57:04.845
honored almost in there being ignored.

00:57:06.165 --> 00:57:06.885
We know that.

00:57:07.335 --> 00:57:08.085
Say that again.

00:57:09.465 --> 00:57:15.285
We ha we ha We know that every
child instinctively should have an

00:57:15.290 --> 00:57:17.295
equal opportunity to an education.

00:57:17.655 --> 00:57:22.395
We believe this is wrong, to allow
children and adults to be hungry, to not

00:57:22.400 --> 00:57:25.395
have a roof over their heads and so on.

00:57:25.515 --> 00:57:28.245
There's a whole long litany
of things that we know.

00:57:28.605 --> 00:57:30.345
We know that it's cravenly.

00:57:31.110 --> 00:57:35.490
To allow companies to poison our water
and think that you are un businesslike

00:57:35.490 --> 00:57:40.140
or you're not a proper capitalist if
you complain about it, this is rubbish.

00:57:40.145 --> 00:57:42.180
We've created a world of lies.

00:57:42.630 --> 00:57:43.950
It should be treason.

00:57:44.550 --> 00:57:49.590
Nothing less than treason to poison
the water that we have to drink and

00:57:49.595 --> 00:57:51.210
our future children will have to drink.

00:57:51.210 --> 00:57:53.700
And onwards the same
with poisoning the air.

00:57:54.060 --> 00:57:57.780
The same with making our soil
infertile, and the same with making

00:57:57.780 --> 00:58:00.360
the richness a variety of life less.

00:58:00.360 --> 00:58:00.720
So.

00:58:01.590 --> 00:58:03.660
These are just a few of
the things I believe.

00:58:03.665 --> 00:58:09.630
But I think one of the things is to
teach yourself to be unreasonable at

00:58:09.630 --> 00:58:14.660
all times and to not allow other people
to write your story is quite possible.

00:58:14.880 --> 00:58:19.620
To be a capitalist, but to have a moral
compass, to be fair in all things,

00:58:19.650 --> 00:58:24.240
to be kind, to be generous, to be a
capitalist only means that you gather

00:58:24.240 --> 00:58:27.870
things and resources together to
enable something bigger to take place.

00:58:28.785 --> 00:58:29.505
To be honest.

00:58:29.805 --> 00:58:31.905
And if you get to  that place,
you're in  a very good place.

00:58:31.905 --> 00:58:35.655
And I, I have a dream that we can make
a country in which people can dream

00:58:36.255 --> 00:58:38.325
of aspiring to achieving these things.

00:58:38.685 --> 00:58:42.555
Our dreams are too small, so
our, one of our jobs is to make

00:58:43.035 --> 00:58:45.975
dreams bigger, much, much bigger.

00:58:47.085 --> 00:58:49.215
And you're looking
beyond the UK now, right?

00:58:49.215 --> 00:58:51.885
So Eden, you're doing
Edens in other countries?

00:58:52.545 --> 00:58:54.255
Yeah, Dubai.

00:58:54.735 --> 00:58:55.095
Okay.

00:58:55.245 --> 00:58:56.625
Why, why are you doing Dubai?

00:58:56.865 --> 00:58:59.865
And, and is that ecological,
is it ecological to put, uh,

00:58:59.870 --> 00:59:01.845
rainforest under a, a roof in Dubai?

00:59:01.845 --> 00:59:05.345
Or is it actually taking loads of
resources or what, or what what?

00:59:06.405 --> 00:59:08.295
We didn't China you're
doing China as well, right?

00:59:08.295 --> 00:59:12.765
I believe y uh, yeah, but we didn't
put a, we didn't put a rainforest

00:59:12.765 --> 00:59:15.195
under a, a, a, a roof in Dubai.

00:59:15.585 --> 00:59:22.545
We built like a steampunk, um,
a steampunk cartoon ecstasy in.

00:59:22.920 --> 00:59:27.300
Environmental science, and it was
the most popular thing at Expo.

00:59:28.110 --> 00:59:30.300
It was really, really cool.

00:59:30.870 --> 00:59:36.090
And my son, Sam, who's the
creative manager for Eden, he came

00:59:36.095 --> 00:59:39.240
up with all these things that,
like the first thing you saw is

00:59:39.245 --> 00:59:41.580
you went in, was some questions.

00:59:41.670 --> 00:59:45.570
Would you rather kill the last panda?

00:59:45.690 --> 00:59:51.840
And nobody knows you did it, or would
you rather not kill the last panda,

00:59:52.260 --> 00:59:53.580
but everybody thinks you did it.

00:59:54.870 --> 00:59:56.700
And he's done about 30
questions like that.

00:59:57.090 --> 01:00:01.500
And to go into a place which is unlike
any science institution you've ever seen

01:00:01.950 --> 01:00:05.820
with families just talking and arguing
and berating each other for what they've

01:00:05.820 --> 01:00:07.230
said that they believe in and whatever.

01:00:07.980 --> 01:00:12.870
Yeah, I think every, every, every
thing that Eden, every Eden that we

01:00:12.870 --> 01:00:14.850
do has gotta be a perfect provocation.

01:00:15.360 --> 01:00:16.110
What's the point?

01:00:16.320 --> 01:00:18.360
We don't, we're not in the
business of doing theme parks.

01:00:18.450 --> 01:00:21.150
We're in the business
of, of creating hope.

01:00:21.615 --> 01:00:24.345
Entertainment and the
sense of possibilities.

01:00:25.305 --> 01:00:29.475
The thing that I really want people
to feel for it from Eden is that the

01:00:29.475 --> 01:00:31.845
future still does remain asked to make.

01:00:32.295 --> 01:00:33.285
It's not too late.

01:00:33.290 --> 01:00:37.095
We can still do amazing things
if we organize ourselves around

01:00:37.095 --> 01:00:42.525
various principles and speak truth
to power, speak truth to power.

01:00:42.705 --> 01:00:48.585
Look, I've taken up far too much of
your time, but the last thing, what

01:00:48.585 --> 01:00:54.375
I'm about to tell you is you probably
have to pay 10,000 pounds just to

01:00:54.375 --> 01:00:55.575
hear what I'm about to tell you.

01:00:56.415 --> 01:00:58.335
It will be so valuable in your life.

01:00:58.695 --> 01:01:02.655
It's worth everything else I've said
up to this moment put together, and

01:01:03.025 --> 01:01:03.945
probably a hundred times more than that.

01:01:05.505 --> 01:01:09.555
If you really, really want to change
your life and have an exciting life

01:01:10.905 --> 01:01:17.385
and taste the unexpected, accept
every third invitation you receive.

01:01:20.250 --> 01:01:25.830
That does not mean you don't accept the
first, but it does mean you accept the

01:01:25.830 --> 01:01:31.110
third and you don't give yourself a get
outta jail card unless it clashes with

01:01:31.110 --> 01:01:34.980
a really important domestic obligation,
like a birthday or anniversary.

01:01:36.300 --> 01:01:39.390
The reason for that is that most
people think they are thinking

01:01:39.390 --> 01:01:42.600
beings, but most people are sheep.

01:01:43.830 --> 01:01:49.470
Most people carry a weight of what they
call thought, which is the clothing of

01:01:49.475 --> 01:01:54.670
people like them of their social class
or gleaned from the pages of magazines

01:01:54.675 --> 01:01:58.560
they deem to be of their social class,
and they've built up because they're

01:01:58.560 --> 01:01:59.880
taught they have to have a view.

01:02:00.690 --> 01:02:04.770
It is not possible to have a view on
all the subjects we've all got views on.

01:02:05.640 --> 01:02:09.540
Before you wonder, I don't
exonerate myself from this.

01:02:09.540 --> 01:02:13.170
I'm just really interested in my own
prejudices and how I come to have them.

01:02:14.010 --> 01:02:15.570
How come I'm against nuclear?

01:02:15.570 --> 01:02:16.890
How come I'm against this?

01:02:17.160 --> 01:02:20.880
And you suddenly realize the shallow
minded waffle brain that you are

01:02:21.420 --> 01:02:22.680
because you didn't know enough.

01:02:22.740 --> 01:02:24.480
Therefore, it was easy
and comfortable to do.

01:02:24.485 --> 01:02:26.040
Some people I admire against nuclear will.

01:02:26.210 --> 01:02:26.730
Do you know what I mean?

01:02:26.730 --> 01:02:28.170
So you build up this whole picture.

01:02:28.800 --> 01:02:32.610
Now when you accept the third
invitation, you are surrounded by

01:02:32.640 --> 01:02:34.380
people you did not intend to meet.

01:02:36.120 --> 01:02:37.590
You didn't intend to meet them.

01:02:38.010 --> 01:02:42.240
And I've learned this incredibly
valuable fact, which is that an awful

01:02:42.240 --> 01:02:45.900
lot of middle class people believe
that going to university or anything

01:02:45.900 --> 01:02:50.910
else is, or going to a really smart
public school is so that you meet

01:02:50.910 --> 01:02:54.320
the people you need to meet people.

01:02:54.690 --> 01:02:56.850
The thing I've realized is this is a lie.

01:02:57.840 --> 01:03:01.110
Genius is not created by meeting
the people you need to meet.

01:03:01.115 --> 01:03:04.200
It's caused by meeting the people
you didn't know you needed to meet

01:03:05.100 --> 01:03:08.100
is people who never occurred to you
that you would need to meet so you

01:03:08.100 --> 01:03:09.060
wouldn't have searched for them.

01:03:09.900 --> 01:03:12.030
And there you are stuck at a social event.

01:03:12.600 --> 01:03:14.280
I've had to open old people's homes.

01:03:14.280 --> 01:03:18.480
I've judged dog shows, cat shows,
pet shows of every description

01:03:18.480 --> 01:03:21.120
I've opened, uh, surgeries.

01:03:21.120 --> 01:03:25.200
I've o I've, I've championed
gardens of every description.

01:03:25.950 --> 01:03:29.490
Dozens and dozens and
dozens and dozens of events.

01:03:30.600 --> 01:03:34.740
And almost every life, life-changing
professional event that I have ever

01:03:34.740 --> 01:03:37.650
attended has been the third invitation.

01:03:38.640 --> 01:03:39.600
Why that number?

01:03:39.660 --> 01:03:41.490
Why not, why not take them all?

01:03:41.490 --> 01:03:43.920
Why not do them all and
just be open to everything?

01:03:44.850 --> 01:03:49.320
Because I'm also open to loving my family.

01:03:49.890 --> 01:03:50.010
Mm-hmm.

01:03:50.130 --> 01:03:50.880
And having a life.

01:03:50.940 --> 01:03:52.080
I don't wanna be out every night.

01:03:52.150 --> 01:03:52.760
Mm-hmm.

01:03:53.960 --> 01:03:57.360
I, I, when you do
something public, I, I do.

01:03:57.450 --> 01:04:02.070
I could be out every single night,
and I don't wanna be, but I do

01:04:02.310 --> 01:04:07.560
want to leave myself open to the
potential for chaos, the potential

01:04:07.565 --> 01:04:09.090
for the completely unexpected.

01:04:09.675 --> 01:04:12.915
And Eden would not be there today,
were it not for me doing that.

01:04:13.815 --> 01:04:17.805
Because one of the things I went to
that I would never have gone to, one

01:04:17.810 --> 01:04:21.195
of the people in the audience heard
me talk and later on he happened to be

01:04:21.195 --> 01:04:23.205
in a room in the middle of Plymouth.

01:04:23.805 --> 01:04:27.975
He had been the chairman of Somerset
County Council and he'd be present in

01:04:27.975 --> 01:04:32.655
this Nissen hut in the middle of nowhere,
and Eden was not gonna get its money.

01:04:32.655 --> 01:04:37.155
And then he stood up and he
said, gentlemen, ladies, I was

01:04:37.305 --> 01:04:40.995
present listening to this man
speaking a Nien hut near Toton.

01:04:41.955 --> 01:04:46.215
He so obviously loves the west country,
not just the narrow confines of Cormo.

01:04:46.815 --> 01:04:51.705
And we in Somerset will drop one of our
projects so the Eden Project can go ahead

01:04:51.705 --> 01:04:56.625
if you all drop one, each collapse of
Stout Party, that one night to 50 people

01:04:56.705 --> 01:04:59.955
and a dog was worth 12.7 million pounds.

01:05:02.805 --> 01:05:03.345
There you are.

01:05:03.555 --> 01:05:03.615
Yeah.

01:05:03.615 --> 01:05:05.145
Let's finish the interview there.

01:05:05.145 --> 01:05:07.845
That's the most valuable thing
that your listeners can ever hear.

01:05:08.135 --> 01:05:15.755
The idea of getting beyond one's
prejudices, which it seems that life

01:05:18.365 --> 01:05:20.585
forces upon one, if one's lucky.

01:05:21.605 --> 01:05:24.425
Um, but we always go into
it kicking and screaming.

01:05:25.355 --> 01:05:33.845
Um, you are now in this exorcism
business of exercising unhappiness,

01:05:34.025 --> 01:05:43.235
um, much of which is coming from
people's, uh, divorce from the natural

01:05:43.235 --> 01:05:47.735
world, which is where we started with
you, um, by the side of rivers and

01:05:47.740 --> 01:05:53.705
climbing trees, um, and then into
music, and then back into nature again.

01:05:54.935 --> 01:05:57.635
Ecology, as you said, every, it's
all becoming fashionable now.

01:05:57.995 --> 01:06:02.885
We are no longer the hippie margin,
um, with the mainstream what's.

01:06:03.770 --> 01:06:04.310
Single.

01:06:04.310 --> 01:06:10.760
Biggest thing we all get wrong
about ecology, that's easy.

01:06:11.000 --> 01:06:14.120
The biggest thing we get wrong
is believing that people who call

01:06:14.120 --> 01:06:17.720
themselves environmentalists to people
who do recycling and all of the things

01:06:17.720 --> 01:06:19.250
that actually have a social cache.

01:06:20.030 --> 01:06:24.650
The evidence screams at us that there
is a complete disconnect between

01:06:24.655 --> 01:06:28.460
people who want to do what they think
is environmentally friendly behavior

01:06:29.420 --> 01:06:33.410
and understanding ecology and the
desire to protect biodiversity.

01:06:34.340 --> 01:06:37.580
Those that do all that
recycling do not be confused.

01:06:37.880 --> 01:06:40.490
It is a desire to conform with society.

01:06:40.660 --> 01:06:43.040
I'm a civilized person,
that's why I'm recycling.

01:06:43.040 --> 01:06:44.540
I don't wanna be seen as being primitive.

01:06:45.080 --> 01:06:48.500
But our connection to Washington
to protect the natural world is the

01:06:48.505 --> 01:06:53.720
biggest battleground there is for
humans at the moment because reality

01:06:53.720 --> 01:06:57.290
is competing on several different
formats, several different canvases

01:06:57.295 --> 01:07:03.275
ranging from say, middle class kids
with, with, um, Tablets and so on.

01:07:03.280 --> 01:07:06.785
Their reality of their screen is
every bit as real as the tab, as

01:07:06.790 --> 01:07:07.985
the, when you move the tablet.

01:07:08.015 --> 01:07:10.595
This way, what they're seeing there
is just another form of this thing.

01:07:11.375 --> 01:07:16.865
Um, and there's a lot of complicated
stuff in there about what does nature,

01:07:17.165 --> 01:07:18.935
nature inspired education mean?

01:07:19.565 --> 01:07:24.185
And an awful lot of people who are
worthy, I think, don't understand

01:07:24.245 --> 01:07:29.855
what it takes, what emotional hook
sleeves are necessary to get people

01:07:29.855 --> 01:07:31.475
engaged in the natural world.

01:07:32.105 --> 01:07:35.765
It's about touching, smelling mud
between your toes, so to speak.

01:07:35.765 --> 01:07:38.255
It's not by just walking
outside and seeing the trees.

01:07:38.285 --> 01:07:39.005
We've gone for a walk.

01:07:39.335 --> 01:07:42.065
I think you can do that for the rest of
your life, and it still won't affect you.

01:07:42.815 --> 01:07:44.585
It needs to mean something to you.

01:07:44.585 --> 01:07:48.995
It means to mean that you are
understanding you are creaturely.

01:07:50.435 --> 01:07:54.725
And bearing in mind, creatureliness,
I have a guest for supper and

01:07:55.175 --> 01:07:58.385
at this rate I won't have any
supper cooked for them at all.

01:08:00.995 --> 01:08:02.105
One last thing, then.

01:08:04.115 --> 01:08:11.855
Can people learn to do what you
do when you imagine not just the

01:08:11.855 --> 01:08:15.245
thing but the delivery of the thing.

01:08:16.085 --> 01:08:17.885
This seems to have come to you naturally.

01:08:18.395 --> 01:08:21.935
Is this a muscle that one
can actually exercise?

01:08:22.535 --> 01:08:26.315
Is it part of your formula for
accepting every third invitation?

01:08:26.315 --> 01:08:28.295
Is that part of the
exercising of that muscle?

01:08:28.805 --> 01:08:32.345
In fact, to find the mechanisms for doing
that, but is this a skill that people

01:08:32.345 --> 01:08:36.905
can learn how to dream the dream and
then formulate and deliver the dream?

01:08:37.219 --> 01:08:39.469
Yes, you can learn.

01:08:40.129 --> 01:08:46.279
The thing is most people find organizing
themselves a complete mystery.

01:08:46.909 --> 01:08:50.509
They don't understand the
levers of the order of events.

01:08:51.289 --> 01:08:54.589
They don't understand how to
put a narrative arc to work.

01:08:56.074 --> 01:09:02.254
My ex, um, gay, who was my joint chief
executive with me for a long time

01:09:02.254 --> 01:09:04.564
at Eden, she coined a great phrase.

01:09:05.014 --> 01:09:10.444
The secret is to dare to dream
and organize, to deliver.

01:09:11.344 --> 01:09:15.994
And I think one of the, the things I
notice, I mentor a lot of, quite a lot

01:09:15.994 --> 01:09:20.884
of people and I am just struck how people
that are really smart just don't know

01:09:20.884 --> 01:09:22.894
how to put one brick on top of another.

01:09:23.674 --> 01:09:26.344
They don't know the order
of how to deliver dreams.

01:09:27.274 --> 01:09:33.544
And when you start to show people the
order of doing things, they go, wow, wow.

01:09:33.544 --> 01:09:34.504
That's amazing.

01:09:35.284 --> 01:09:38.284
I get so many people who send me their
business ban for doing something.

01:09:38.284 --> 01:09:39.994
And I go, you know what?

01:09:40.294 --> 01:09:44.044
You've got one really good idea in
here and you've now hung about a

01:09:44.044 --> 01:09:46.864
dozen other things around it because
you, you think you need to have an

01:09:46.869 --> 01:09:48.814
education program and a this and a that.

01:09:49.294 --> 01:09:50.524
Just do what you're good at.

01:09:51.679 --> 01:09:53.269
Do what you are good at.

01:09:53.269 --> 01:09:57.139
Stop trying to do what you think other
people will think you are cool for doing.

01:09:57.859 --> 01:09:59.119
Do the thing you are good at.

01:09:59.779 --> 01:10:04.849
So many people li live their, they,
they, they waste their lives away by

01:10:04.854 --> 01:10:06.169
trying to be something they're not.

01:10:07.309 --> 01:10:09.949
If you are really brilliant at
one thing, just do that thing.

01:10:09.979 --> 01:10:14.209
Brian Cluff, my, my football manager
hero, who was used to say that.

01:10:14.239 --> 01:10:16.549
He said, I don't, didn't pay you
a lot of money to tackle back.

01:10:17.389 --> 01:10:20.389
You're rubbish at tackling back,
but you're the best crosser of

01:10:20.394 --> 01:10:22.039
the world ball in the world.

01:10:22.219 --> 01:10:24.979
I just gotta make the guys who can
tackle back work even harder to give it

01:10:24.979 --> 01:10:26.299
to you so you can then cross the ball.

01:10:27.679 --> 01:10:29.719
And I think that's a
really big secret of life.

01:10:29.719 --> 01:10:34.729
Just understand what you're good at,
and then the next bit, if you have a

01:10:34.729 --> 01:10:38.959
dream, is to then start understanding
the bits that you're not good at.

01:10:40.009 --> 01:10:46.789
I knew when I built Eden, I knew when I
did GaN that my temperament, the way I

01:10:46.789 --> 01:10:48.979
speak would not encourage bank managers.

01:10:49.354 --> 01:10:55.714
I knew the more that I was fantastical,
the more their eyes were with me.

01:10:55.714 --> 01:10:58.714
Their hearts were with me, and their
brains were shutting the wallet because

01:10:58.714 --> 01:11:01.714
they knew that they would look foolish
supporting somebody who was a dreamer.

01:11:02.734 --> 01:11:07.714
Therefore, I knew the secret was to
have on my right shoulder, somebody who

01:11:07.714 --> 01:11:12.124
understood business brilliantly and could
use jargon of business to impress them.

01:11:12.724 --> 01:11:16.804
And on my left shoulder, I needed someone
who'd built amazing things elsewhere.

01:11:17.254 --> 01:11:21.694
So they said, here is a dreamer who
really does understand what's needed.

01:11:24.574 --> 01:11:30.814
Masterminds teams, Hmm, who
can do what I cannot do?

01:11:31.024 --> 01:11:31.594
How do I.

01:11:32.184 --> 01:11:33.379
back to the alliances.

01:11:33.384 --> 01:11:36.829
How do I make alliances with those
people to deliver the dreams?

01:11:37.129 --> 01:11:39.469
And if we're lucky, perhaps there's
friendships along the way too.

01:11:39.649 --> 01:11:40.279
Yeah, yeah.

01:11:40.284 --> 01:11:43.549
Well, there's one last story I'll show
with you, which is my daughter is,

01:11:43.609 --> 01:11:48.379
is very smart, who, you know, Laura,
we were looking at creating a place

01:11:48.384 --> 01:11:50.779
for children to come and play, right?

01:11:50.779 --> 01:11:54.589
We, we own, as you know, the
Shipwreck Center in, uh, Charlestown.

01:11:55.339 --> 01:11:57.859
And she said, dad, do you
know what you're doing?

01:11:57.859 --> 01:11:58.279
I said, yes.

01:11:58.284 --> 01:12:01.399
I'm, I'm looking at how we can
build a brilliant place for kids.

01:12:02.569 --> 01:12:04.429
She said, yes, it'll go bust Dad.

01:12:05.959 --> 01:12:06.829
And I said, what?

01:12:06.889 --> 01:12:07.189
What?

01:12:08.239 --> 01:12:11.719
I said, do not know I'm
a genius at what I do.

01:12:12.049 --> 01:12:13.729
She said, yeah, but you
just don't understand.

01:12:14.149 --> 01:12:16.549
What you've gotta build is
nothing to do with kids.

01:12:17.149 --> 01:12:18.289
You are building a.

01:12:19.324 --> 01:12:24.784
Where moms do not feel guilty having
some time to themselves, a place that's

01:12:24.784 --> 01:12:28.374
safe for children and interesting
enough to keep them occupied.

01:12:28.624 --> 01:12:33.754
But you will have high speed wifi
and really good coffee and cake

01:12:34.504 --> 01:12:37.594
so they can see their kids and
have some time to themselves.

01:12:37.599 --> 01:12:40.654
You are building a
respite place for parents.

01:12:40.744 --> 01:12:43.144
You're not building a playground for kids.

01:12:43.684 --> 01:12:46.684
And I thought, wow, that is so insightful.

01:12:49.354 --> 01:12:55.114
So listen to the young, listen to
those who speak truth to your power.

01:12:56.314 --> 01:12:56.614
Yeah.

01:12:56.824 --> 01:12:59.524
When it resonates, act.

01:13:00.214 --> 01:13:00.484
Yeah.

01:13:01.644 --> 01:13:03.005
Stick to what you're good at.

01:13:05.854 --> 01:13:07.054
Well, no, no.

01:13:07.059 --> 01:13:09.184
Before you I did say that.

01:13:09.189 --> 01:13:10.144
Stick to what you're good at.

01:13:11.764 --> 01:13:16.144
Well, I was, I think I, to be more
accurate, it should be stick to where

01:13:16.144 --> 01:13:18.304
your instincts are telling you to go.

01:13:18.644 --> 01:13:20.254
Ah, which is different.

01:13:20.464 --> 01:13:23.884
So at Halligan I knew
nothing about plants, did I?

01:13:24.664 --> 01:13:29.794
But I knew everything about romance and
storytelling and I knew that I loved the

01:13:29.824 --> 01:13:33.364
romance of sleeping, beauty and plates
of time where people had lived their

01:13:33.364 --> 01:13:35.734
lives for centuries, one after the other.

01:13:36.244 --> 01:13:40.474
And I knew that if I could bottle
that essence around a canvas that

01:13:40.474 --> 01:13:42.754
was gardens, it would be successful.

01:13:42.967 --> 01:13:43.777
I know you gotta go.

01:13:44.317 --> 01:13:47.347
I've gotta go there Are those
who say they can't, they dunno

01:13:47.347 --> 01:13:48.637
how to trust their instincts.

01:13:48.967 --> 01:13:50.167
What's the fe?

01:13:50.227 --> 01:13:51.187
What do you get?

01:13:51.187 --> 01:13:56.287
Do you get a physical feeling when an
instinct comes in and an impulse comes

01:13:56.287 --> 01:13:57.937
in that says, you must act on this.

01:13:58.417 --> 01:14:00.217
Do you feel it somewhere
in your solar plexus?

01:14:00.937 --> 01:14:01.297
Yes.

01:14:01.747 --> 01:14:01.837
Okay.

01:14:01.977 --> 01:14:02.377
I do.

01:14:02.707 --> 01:14:03.277
I do.

01:14:03.397 --> 01:14:09.022
And the other thing I would say is, One of
my greatest stresses is when I'm given two

01:14:09.022 --> 01:14:13.182
choices, and I don't actually care about
either of them, I don't feel an instinct.

01:14:13.702 --> 01:14:15.322
It actually drives me nuts.

01:14:15.862 --> 01:14:17.062
So I have to walk away from them.

01:14:17.902 --> 01:14:18.052
Okay.

01:14:18.082 --> 01:14:18.472
You want this?

01:14:19.762 --> 01:14:20.752
Trust your instincts.

01:14:21.322 --> 01:14:23.602
Yeah, trust them, my dear friend.

01:14:23.872 --> 01:14:26.992
I wish I wish so much you could
walk through that screen and we

01:14:26.992 --> 01:14:28.132
could go and have a beer together.

01:14:28.372 --> 01:14:30.172
I would give a lot for that.

01:14:30.422 --> 01:14:31.142
Thank you so much.

01:14:31.142 --> 01:14:31.382
All right.

01:14:32.312 --> 01:14:33.452
Speak soon.

01:14:34.012 --> 01:14:34.712
Bye bye.

01:14:34.712 --> 01:14:35.135
Bye-bye.

01:14:35.213 --> 01:14:36.323
Rupert Isaacson: Thank you for joining us.

01:14:36.353 --> 01:14:38.183
We hope you enjoyed today's podcast.

01:14:38.421 --> 01:14:43.461
Join our website, new trails
learning.com, to  check out our online

01:14:43.461 --> 01:14:48.651
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01:14:49.359 --> 01:14:54.007
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01:14:54.007 --> 01:14:56.017
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01:15:03.633 --> 01:15:07.683
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01:15:07.683 --> 01:15:09.603
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01:15:10.045 --> 01:15:14.605
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01:15:14.935 --> 01:15:15.865
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01:15:16.278 --> 01:15:18.968
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