Was this a good idea?

This is a solo episode! Does that excite you? Or fill you with dread, like meeting The Dread Pirate Roberts? 

A reflective, rambling solo episode recorded on a morning walk in which I talk about why this show is audio-first, whyI'm making it, and how he thinks about cadence, audience and membership communities and Christian comedy among the crunching leaves and a cameo from some geese.

How should this podcast work? Best weekly with seasons - or weekly with more solo episodes? I also explain Kevin Kelly’s “1,000 True Fans,” the Loyal Lollards/Wycliffe Papers, and how the podcast supports live shows (God, the Bible & Everything); turning 50, kids now at school after home-ed, asking new questions of ageing parents, and thinking while walking. Plus an exclusive on the name of my next tour show.

I mention: Adam Buxton, Jonah Goldberg (The Remnant/The Ruminant), Cal Newport (Deep Questions/Deep Life), Scott Adams, Paul VanderKlay, Buzzsprout’s Buzzcast; Paul Kingsnorth (Against the Machine), Dominic Sandbrook (Never Had It So Good), Anthony Trollope (Barchester Towers, read by Timothy West), Bishop Hugh Latimer (new video supported by the Latimer Trust), Wycliffe & the Lollards, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs; Jordan Peterson vs. Cathy Newman as a lesson in media dynamics; and the realities of hard rives and music/licensing.

Want to talk about the podcast and engage with other listeners? Come on over to the Facebook Group.

Find out about my touring show, God the Bible and Everything (in 60 minutes) and get in touch via my website.

If you’re serious about the Bible and church history and like jokes, I’d recommend subscribing to The Wycliffe Papers. It's free. But you can also support the podcast by coming a Paid Subscriber to the Wycliffe Papers, making you a Loyal Lollard. Could you consider that?

Or email me in gmail now you can see how to spell Wycliffe...

Transcript

Welcome to the stand-up theologian podcast. This is a different episode from normal because you catch me out on a walk and this is a solo episode, which is not because I don't have any guests lined up. I've got loads coming further I thought I would like to try something different for a week and see if that is something that people respond to. I've got lots of things going on in my mind, and as you know, when you listen to the podcast, I'm often not sure of things to say and in fact, in the episode with Andrew Satch, there was about six, seven, eight more minutes of stuff in that episode and all of it was me. And I thought I'd rather dominated that conversation. I mean, they're not interviews and I try to explain this podcast, it's not an interview show. It's a conversation. So therefore, you have two people talking, not me asking questions and then listening to the answer before going onto the next one. but it's a conversation. And so, obviously this isn't the conversation because I'm just now talking to you. This is about as one sided as it gets. But it feels like we're having conversation, 'cause I'm out on a morning walk, and this is a route that I often do after I've dropped my kids off to school. Yes, they go to school now. We used to home educate and we're very pleased we did and then there came a period where we decided to stop that and there was a law of diminishing returns on the homeschooling and upsides to the school schooling, home education, you call it. Home adders don't want to call it homeschooling, by the way because it makes it feel like you're trying to replicate school at home and why would you do that if you don't really believe in school the idea of setting one up in your own home is barking so that's why there's a difference there. This episode's already careering off track, because I've actually made some notes. But I've printed out on paper, even though I could just have them on my phone. I don't know why I did that. I think it's probably because I'm 50. I've spent a lot of time saying I'm a 49 year old man in my show, the God, the Bible and everything, where I talk about how my printer doesn't work and I've got all the cables because I'm a 49 year old man. I can't possibly ever throw away a cable. Well, I'm now 50. And that's not something I'm particularly perturbed about.. I see it as being halfway between 20 and 800. My life expectancy is probably 80., maybe a bit more, but I don't think I'll get much useful work done after that. No offence, Dad. 81.. But, he packed in farming in his '50s, which is incredible. And so, yeah, from my birthday, I had lunch with them and I was asking them what life was like when they turned 15, my mum and my dad are a very similar age, and turned 15, 1994. And so we didn't really talk about the country in the '90s. We talked about their lives. And I've really noticed what's interesting about growing older as your parents grow older. You start asking them very different questions because you're interested in different answers, because, you know, when my parents turned 50, I was, uh. a student at university. And I was the youngest, so I'd gone, so they had an empty nest, pretty much half the university, I didn't really come back for any length of time. And we were all out of there. So those are the questions that you start asking. Anyway, so this is an audio podcast. Some of you may wonder, why is this audio only podcast, and why are there no videos? You can hear, by the way, all of the sound effects are real, you might be able to hear wind. There's some geese in the background earlier. That's a farm nearby, which I presume fatting up geese for Christmas, rather than Michaelmasmas is traditional, for a goose, I got my almanack hat on there. But Christmas, and actually, I found that as geese out in the road about a year ago, and I'm sort of herded them back into the farm. I think they'd left a gate open for the geese to wander into, and then they wandered out and into the road. They didn't seem terribly perturbed. Or particularly grateful that I had done them a favour. I thought, well, that's about three grand's worth of geese there, but I go. So anyway. So that crunching underfoot is leaves on a path. If you can hear that, that's all real. What was that talking about? Oh, yeah, this is an audio podcast. Yeah, and I haven't got extra folia effects to really hammer home the audioess of it. But I've I listened to a podcast called Buzz, what's it called? The Buzzcast from Buzz Sprout, who hosts my podcast. I think they're really good. And they're kind of a podcast only podcast first audio first kind of set up. And I don't really want to make videos. Videos makes everything incredibly complicated. I mean, I've just made this latmer video, and I thought this whole episode would be me, reflecting on Latimer, but as usual, as it starts to make notes, I just think, "Oh, I'd like to talk about that.O I should mention this. I should mention that, oh, and I probably haven't got time to talk about Bishop Hugh Latimer about whom I made a 45 minute video. And again, I wanted to do that as a walk and talk as much as possible, but then I realised I wanted to get the story right. So in the end, I, uh.. I did a lot of it static sitting down in my garden, Having been to Oxford in Cambridge and the Tower of London and various places, so that I had B roll to make it. I'm really pleased I made it. Side note, the video file, which I assembled in final Cut Pro, which I've taught myself to use, because it's much better than iMovie, iMovie's the free version. The Final Cut Pro. And that was paid for by the Latimer Trust, who did me a favour there by supporting me making that video. It was half a terabyte, was the actual file of the edit, which is sitting on a hard drive attached to my Mac Mini, which I never thought would be used for video editing. If so, I would have probably bought a much bigger hard drive, but Anyone who knows Apple knows that they charge an awful lot of money for extra hard drive space, that's a complete cul de sac that we really don't want to go down, is it? So, yeah, making video just makes everything more expensive and also, the rhythm of a video and the rhythm of an audio podcast completely different. So you decide within 20 seconds if you're gonna watch a YouTube video. And even if you like it, you might bail after five minutes or think, "Oh, I'll watch that later, or you might skim through. Youtend not to do that with the podcast. Your podcast thing is a regular thing. The algorithm's not working at all. That's one of the big frustrations for audio podcasters, and one of the reasons why people do YouTube. is because the algorithm's amazing. But it's then kind of doubling, tripling your workload, causing you to spend a fortune on hard drives. But the rhythm's very different, so you're hooking people in very quickly and it's just a very different way of making stuff. And so hopefully you enjoy my intros, where I sort of throw a load of clips at the front and hope that I don't get sued and give you a sense of what's to come. And I always make that last, obviously, once I've edited the episode. And, uh But with that's another thing, so using video clips and licensing and that kind of stuff, there are certain things you can and can't do on YouTube that are completely different for podcasting. I'm not entirely sure what they are, but I do you know what? Can't really be bothered to check. Now, I do want to make YouTube videos, and I am making them. I've made one. by Latimer, and a friend of mine suggested, oh, you should put some music in here. Maybe at the beginning or here or there. And I just thought, A, I don't want any music. B, the music will probably be Tudor music and will immediately sound na. You know what I mean? Once you're watching a thing about a Tudor person and you hear Tudor music, I don't know, just suddenly sounds.m, I don't know, a bit hack or clichéd or fake, even though it's probably real Juda music played on real Tudor instruments. But thirdly, there's a whole licensing system to YouTube, but I just can't be bothered to get my head around, because I don't really want to do that. And actually, I have hard recorded bird song and on some of my other YouTube videos where I'm wandering around the place, there's one where I wander around. The monarch's way near my house, very close to where I am now. And, I've got birdsong underneath, which I recorded separately, and played underneath. And it's almost as if I would like nature to be my soundtrack, and you can't copyright that, or at least, you can't yet have not yet had a chaffinchch come to me for royalties, but, you know, it could happen. So, um.. I just love audio. That's the other thing. I'm an audio first guy. I listen to tons of audio. I've started listening to a few more audiobooks as well. because sometimes podcasts in their conversational nature do kind of get on your nerves after a while, you think, oh, I would like someone who's really thought about every single word. So I've gone back to audiobooks and I've just listened to Paul Kingsorth's book Against the Machine, and I'm listening to Dominic Sandbrooks's book. You've never had it so good, about England, Britain, in the '50s, and I also saw suddenly, oh, Adam Buxton's released his new book, uh, Success is to Ramble Book, I think it's called Love You Buy or something. Now, I really like Adam Buxton. I don't listen to his podcast because I don't actually think he's very good interviewing people. So I don't listen to that. I used to love the Adam and Joe podcast or Radio 6 Music Show, and those were some very happy times that made me very sad when that finished. I love their relationship and I also love how tortured it is, and a way they probably see it completely differently. Sorry, lots of crunchy leaves up ahead now. I can't really get over it get around it. But also at the beginning of his podcast, he goes for a walk with his dog Rosie. Now, I have a Rosie, not a dog. And Rosie is not with me. But I love the way he just talks like this, like I'm doing to you now. And in a way, that's partly why I'm doing this. I'm going for a walk and having a chat with you, and not making a video. At the same time. I've got a DJI camera that I used for the Lma video, and don't we want to use that.Cause also, it gets quite monotonous. And so essentially, you probably wouldn't watch it, you probably listen to it. So I don't quite know what the visuals are adding there. So anyway, I'm listening to more audiobooks and really enjoying that. I don't quite know what my next ones will be. But I tend not to listen to fiction, not as an audiobook, but maybe I should. do a bit more of that. I listen to the Bchester Barchester Tower, I think the second in the Barchester Chronicles series, read by is it Sam West? No, the other West. Timothy West. That was excellent, very long. That was very good. So I should probably listen to more fiction as audio, and there's something in being able to tell good writing if it reads aloud well. And actually, I just listened to a podcast, the Novel marketing podcast, about dictating and writing by dictation and how that massively increases your speed. Well, I tried that and I did a weekcliff Weekender. recording of my take on Andor and what I have basically bailed on it 'cause it's fundamentally quite boring. And I just dictated that whilst I was driving, had AI sort of turn it into grammatically correct prose. but not change it very much, because I tried to speak in sentences and punctuate it as I went, and I don't know if you put a comma beforehand, you probably don't. I was never really taught grammar, I didn't know grammar 'cause I learnt Latin, but they didn't really teach people grammar in the ' 80s, early ' 80s. That's a whole other thing. Education will do an episode on that, I'm sure. So, Buxton has his podcast, but also his audiobook, which I really, really like, 'cause he puts in extra bits as well. And I think if I did audiobooks, I would probably do more like that. I still do own the audio rights to do the gospel according to a sitcom writer. And I should put that out as an audioobook somehow. But again, I don't particularly want to put it on Audible, even though that's where all of the listeners are. You don't really make any money that way, and I'm a bit fed up of helping build Jeff Bezel's next yacht. So, haven't quite resolved that one yet. But anyway, lots to talk about on Buxton's book, and I hope to maybe chat to my old mate Barry Cooper about it at some point in the future, so listen out for that So this is an audio podcast, and it's not a video podcast or a vlog or a vodcast. And do you know what? I think that's fine, even though you would actually enjoy the surrounding countryside that I'm walking through right now that's very familiar to me, but it always looks good. I might take one or two pictures as I go and put them up on the weekcliff weekend. And that's something that you can look at. In fact, I'd like to talk about that a bit in a minute. But first, let's just talk about the fact that I've reached episode 8. I think this is episode 8. So I've got over number seven, which is in the podcasting world, which I've been in for a while. The bit where most people give up. If you start a podcast, I think most people don't get beyond the first or second, but then at one point, the received wisdom was that seven was the next point, where if you get over seven, you're all right. Well, I don't think that's statistically true. That may have been true at some point, but also, as many of you all know, this is not my first rodeo. I used to do a podcast called Cooper and Carey Have Words. We did 180 of those, and I did a podcast called sitcom Geeks, and that's still available to go and get to listen to online about how to write Situation Comedy. I think we did 222 of those. and I also still do the faith in Kids podcasts with my friend Ed Drew. That's a podcast for Christian families and you can listen to it in the car. It's kind of aimed at a 10 year old, who was the middle son, middle child of three, and that the older one doesn't find it annoying, and the younger one, maybe doesn't get all of it, but loves the fact that his older siblings like it. And it is not annoying for the parents, doesn't undermine them, and it gives them something to talk about, so that making faith normal as part of the conversation is all part of it. That's the faith in kids podcast. You can go and get that. Anyways, done at least 125 of those. and before that, I made podcasts for the Good Book Company, at the Kazitt Convention. So, I made a podcast years before anyone even heard of podcasts called the Agenda, which I did three or four episodes of, "Oh, that faded. There you go. But that's part because literally nobody knew what a podcast was, and it just seemed a little bit pointless. And then, the podcast app was automatically on every iPhone. I think that was a bit of a game changer. And then there was a podcast called Seal, which took the world by storm.ound about 20 13, 14, I seem to remember it being a thing when I was in South Africa filming Bluestone 42. Suddenly that bumped a whole lot of people to get podcasts and particularly true crime, but people get fed up with that after a while, and end up listening to bozos like me. So I've made it to episode eight. and what I'm not sure about is whether I can just do one of these every week for the rest of my life, or for at least another year, two, three, four, five years, as time permits, or whether I do a season and stop, which then makes it more likely to have a second season. So, longevity might be more likely. Cooper and Gary have words was weekly for the first, I don't know, 15, 20 episodes, and then we switched to fortnightly, but. I'm not sure about fortnightly, because I consume things weekly. I think that's one of the tricks of producing content. I can slightly dry wretch as I say those that word content. is you sort of forget how you consume content. So I may be appalled that people don't sit down with their dinner and watch my Latimer video that lasts 46, 47 minutes. Would I do that? Well, actually, I might. I mean, there are some long videos about Latimer. They're a bit boring and dry, and hopefully I mine is a bit less so. And they're made purely from archive pictures and not much else. But it's always good to remember how you consume things. So weekly, I think, is better, and there are certain weekly podcasts that I listen to every week. And actually quite a lot of them are solo podcasts like this one. So I like interviews. There's a guy called Jonah Goldberg, who I've listened to for a very long time and I've read his books, he wrote a book called Liberal Fascism. And I heard him on the on start the week on Radio 4 in the Days when I still listen to BBC Radio. And he was really interesting. I thought, well, I should get his book. And he used to work for the National Review, and he's interesting, funny ish, conservative writer, Jonah Goldberg, will tell you, probably his ethnicity. Raised in New York, interesting guy. And he does every Saturday, a solo podcast where he just talks. It's called The Ruminant. His podcast is called The Remnant, and some Christian listeners will know what a remnant is in a theological context, and it's sort of that he's a Jew, Jonah Goldberg. But he What does he do? Yeah, he just talks about stuff he's thinking about without trying to tell you what's in his article that some people pay extra money for and those sorts of things, and stuff that's on his mind. He talks about his dogs much more than I'm interested in, but that's just part of it. It matters to him. Therefore, I'm happy to put up with it. He does two interviews a week. And I used to listen to some of those, but then there comes that point where I just thought, I don't really care what they think. I kind of care what Jonah Goldberg thinks. Although I slightly care less now because I think 10 years ago, he was a bit more interesting to me as a conservative, but not a Christian. And therefore, his perspective is never quite going to align with mine. Now, I'm fine with completely different perspectives, and so, one other guy I listened to, most nights, as I go to sleep 'cause he's got a very soothing voice, is the Dilbert comic guy, Scott Adams, and he sort of had a bit of a epiphany in recent years, when he predicted Donald Trump would become president, never hated him for it. That's slightly red pilled him, I think, into a different world. So I listened to him. And I kind of don't really if he interviewed someone, I don't think I'd be interested. As a guy called Cal Newport, I listened to his productivity podcast called, I don't know, It's a Deep Life. Deep Work with Cal Newport. I honestly can't remember. That's weird, isn't it? It's red on the app on the app. There's a YouTube version of it. I don't watch it. And then there's an audio version, and I tend to listen to him do a 20 minute spiel at the start on something interesting, and then he answers questions, and I sort of skim through those. Some of the questions are basically, can you say the thing you always say every week again, but to me personally? And that's another thing that's really interesting, 'cause I listened to a lot of audio and watch a lot of YouTube about how to essentially broadcast online, build an audience and that kind of stuff, all of which, obviously blatantly trying to do. And essentially, the receive wisdom is that people want you to say the same thing again and again, and they find that comforting. And also, they don't believe that you the first time or second time. The problem is, then, you get a bit of audience capture, and so if you're telling them stuff they want to hear, they might egg you on to tell you stuff. Um, that you' you're less comfortable with, or make false promises, or there's all kinds of toxic ways in which that can go. So, I don't think I'm particularly worried about that. Partly is my sort of niche is pretty weird in internet terms. And so, yeah, there were various people who do really good.. another guy, yeah, Paul Van Clay. He has a YouTube channel, and he just thinks in YouTube videos. He's incredible. I listened to his podcast, the podcast version of it. I might watch some YouTube videos of it, but probably only when I'm in the kitchen doing something else. And his assessment of the world as it is in the Christian world and various denominations and tribes and stuff, he's got an incredible mind for synthesising stuff whilst having, not particularly dissimilar convictions from me on most things, I would imagine, but he is incredibly open in the way in which he listens to things without necessarily saying, I think we're all right. I think he's got a much more mature perspective than that. I really like his stuff, but I've not joined his group because he just produces so much content, I couldn't keep up with it. and I think that's really interesting thing I learned that if you have a tribe online and they pay for a extra content or whatever, they don't actually want the extra content. They pay because they want a bit more access or they just want a bit more of this or they just want to support you or they want to feel part of something. And then you bombard them with stuff they never wanted and then they they leave the community because they're getting all this stuff and they're not making use of it and they're getting they're not getting value for money. Well, they didn't even join for the money, so the human brain works in very strange ways. That's why I have a thing called the Wickliffe papers. which is a free, weekly newsletter with jokes in. A bit like the Babylon Bee, as I often say, who a lot of people haven't heard of, which is surprising. But a bit like the Babylon B, but without jokes about Trump and Democrats and guns, which are less interest to British people, and something more stuff about church history. So I describe it as jokes for those who are serious about the Bible and church history. And there are a few contemporary jokes. I've got a few coming your way at some point. One recently that has gone out is about how the sermon consumers Association demand the wordfally, is banned from sermons, because they just keep hearing it, and it's, you know, it's kind of gaslighting. You're thinking the sermmon's about to finish, and it doesn't. So there's stuff on that, like listening to sermons and those kind of stuff, but I'm not terribly interested in having a crack at various tribes within the Christian world today.. And I think that's why I like doing comedy about the Bible, is because I do about what the Bible says, which is not particularly controversial 'cause that's what it says. That's what your Bible says the same as my Bible. And so, um had that in mind when I was doing a gig the other day, I wrote about this on the weekliff Papapers weekcliff Weekender about doing the Derby Clergy Conference and it's obviously, you've got three tribes of Anglicans there, who are all a bit suspicious about the other ones. And so they're trying to work out when I'm standing up to speak. What tribe is this guy? Now, they probably know anyway, or someone's told them more. Oh, he does the Kezac convention. He's conservative Angel. Oh, he's chair of the 1990 group and general It's complimentarian. I don't know, really. Uh. But if you just talk about what the Bible says, and I did some shtick about, um my parable support group sketch, and people who are in parables who aren't very happy about it. sort of a bit python. And I did my, you know, Peter and John running to the tomb thing, and I did had a bit of a go at Pilgm's Progress, which, again, people will find less funny than I do, but that's okay, and I did tell them that. I always saying, if you tell the audience, you won't find this as funny as I do, they don't really mind. It doesn't It's not reverse psychology, so they sort of start laughing at a politeness or to prove you wrong. It just primes them the fact that this bit's for you, rather than the audience. And they kind of I think they respect that. If you've earned the right to do it, having been funny earlier. So. Yeah, so, uh. That's why you don't want to overload people with bonus and extra content,'cause it's not about the extra content, I don't think. And so that's why if you join the Wickliff Papers and become a loyal Lollard, so Lollards are the people that that essentially take up the teachings of Wycliffe. They're not called Lollards in Wycliffe's lifetime, I don't think. But afterwards, he dies in about 13 I can't remember. 1390, something like that. And his followers become Lollardss. and we're not quite sure why. Some say it'cause it implies mumbling that they would mumble the words of scripture, but I'm not terribly convinced by that. But it doesn't matter. They're called Lollards. And so I have a membership, and it just, it's one extra email on Saturday morning, and anything I've got that's bonus or extra, I put it into that, and you can sort of pick the bits of it you like, and that's it. I'm not sending you emails on Mondays and Wednesdays as well. Oh, I've got this and all. Please like this and what about this and sort of desperate to deliver value for money, which is what I think a lot of creators think they have to do, which is a noble, a good thing, and I honour that, and I honour that. But you're a hassle people. People are not basing their lives around the stuff that you're doing producing and saying. You're busy, I get it, and you are interested in what I have to say, but I'm not starting a cult, where you make me your leader or anything like that. As a Taipe Angram, the last thing I want to do is start a cult. It sounds like a lot of work to me, like being dread pirate Roberts. Work, work, work. So that's where I am with our membership section. And again, I don't want a separate membership for this podcast, 'cause then that's yet another weekly thing I need to feed. And so I'm trying to work out, how can I balance all of these things?Cause I'm doing care is almanack for Thursdays, which is hopefully going to turn into a book next year. And I'm doing No, that's on Fridays. Then there's weekly papers on Thursdays. Hopefully that's going to turn into some kind of book or compilation as well. So I'm kind of doing double duty on the writing, I think some of it will turn up in book form. There's a Wickliff weekend or on Saturday. There's this podcast on Mondays. Now, that all sounds like a lot of work, especially up front, none of it, actually makes any money. So, if you join the Loyal Lollards, I'm genuinely thrilled, because that does at least redeem some of the time I'm put into it. But I'll be honest, all of this stuff helps me get gigs, where I can do God, the Bible and everything in 60 minutes. And that's where I can, you know, pay the bills and pay the mortgage a bit, not much, once the VAT has come off. It's always slightly disappointing. And yeah, so I'm doing all of these things, so therefore, this podcast is part of that. Some people call it a flywheel, all of these different things that are have got momentum and sort of keep going. is this something I should do every week now? If I can do a solo episode, every second or third week, well, that makes it possibly sustainable because solo episodes are quite easy. I've just made some lakes here, and we've had a chat as I've walked along. And this is very manageable. And as I say, it's the kind of stuff that I listen to that I like. And again, one of the things that I learned is, if you like it, there's quite a good chance that lots of other people will like it. Well, not lots. Some. And that's all you need, really, is some, not lots. You're not trying to appeal to everyone. I'm not for everyone. I think that's name of a podcast. No, a live standup show by that very likeable Christianish comedian who I've had on this podcast before as a clip. Now, suddenly forgotten his name. People might be shouting at their phones or podcast apps to remind me what the name is.. I I've completely blanked on it. It doesn't matter. He, but I think you just need to know that you're into certain things in a not into other things. And so I'm not really a hot take guy, even though I listen to hot takes. But I love listening to history and thinking about it and thinking how we're basically the same. This is something I'd cover in God's Bible and everything. You look at Bible characters and you just think, I'm like that. I do that. There's something magically foundational about these stories, particularly in Genesis, that obviously drew Jordan Peterson in the early days to make extremely long YouTube videos, which I haven't watched. Although, in my defence, I did call it when Port Peterson was interviewed by Kathy Newman and there's a clip of that on. I think the next podcast. I did a blog post on an old blog to say, "You need to watch this for Channel 4, take it down, because this guy called Jordan Peterson, you've never heard of that I'd been kind of aware of through podcasting and listening to stuff and him on guests and various podcasts that would have been called the Intellectual Dark Were or the altright, probably, as they were branded at the time. He, he made absolute mincemeat of Kathy Newman, who is normally very successful in shaming people like, Jordan Peterson into basically saying, sorry for who they are and what they think, and that it just wouldn't work in the real world. And he didn't give an inch, and so I thought, oh, I don't think Channel 4 are gonna leave that up for very long. I don't think they really checked it or quite understood what they had, but anyway, it went up and then it became an absolute sensation. Whilst, I think it had 10 or 20,000 views when I started typing the article. By the time I hit published on the article, it had already gone up to 40,000. And then it reached millions quite quickly. So, full credit, Channel 4, for leaving it up. I think that's a good thing. Well done, Channel 4. You don't want to buy my comedy shows. You've never wanted to buy my comedy shows. That's fine. But you did at least leave up the Kathy Newman Jordan Peterson interview. And for that, I salute you. So I guess we come to a big question, which is lurking behind this, in terms of me carrying on doing this podcast, 'cause I love podcasting. You know, I've already said, I've basically must have done 50600 episodes of podcasts in the last ten years. So I like doing it, and I like talking. That's obvious. I like thinking, and I partly think by talking. I also partly think by thinking, and being on my own and going for walks and not talking, and also not listening to anything. Quite often halfway through a podcast, I'll just go, right, I've had enough, I need to stop and think. And then I'll think. And that's kind of how it works. So it would be interesting for me to know if you are able to tell me what you find interesting about this podcast in particular, but also about my work in general. And, you, there are probably know big surprises there in terms of, oh, you're a Christian, but you're also funny. Yeah, okay, that's cool. Thank you. He says, complimenting himself. Um. So, do you like me talking in this roundabout way? 'Cause there are so many other things I can talk about, and there are so many things that could be blog posts that I just sort of rather talk about or, they might end up, because these things kind of always end up in written form sooner or later, and then they end up being talked about. And here's an interesting thing, at least it's interesting to me. I might have said this in a podcast before, I honestly can't remember, and you won't remember, and you don't care. Tim Ferris, I occasionally listen to his podcast. He's a very interesting character. He wrote a book called The Four Hour Work Week, which, on one level, is nonsense. The idea that we should only work four hours a week is completely crazy. It's not a Christian idea. We are made to work. And so we should work. But when you just say, "Well, what happens if you could make a living only working four hours a week? As a thought experiment, I thought, "Oh, that's interesting."'Cause Hu says, "Oh, that means you can go off and end up in Thailand on the beach, or you could go off mountain climbing or do a whole load of things in which I have absolutely no interest. But it made me think, well, okay, what do I want to do if I only needed to work for money for four hours a week? And I sort of realised, well, A, I love work. But I think that's partly a personality thing. I think that's partly a Christian conviction thing. And partly a guilt thing. But also, I came up with this. What do I want to do? I want to read, I want to write, and I want to talk about the things I have read and written. That's pretty much my personal mission statement. Those are the things I want to do. I'm going to Florence next week. And that's partly why this podcast exists in this form. So I'm just going through a gate. Oh, hang on. Where's the patch? Here it is? I'm a farmer's son, you shut the gate, I know that. Every everyone knows that, don't be a farmer's son to know that. Here it is. And, so that's kind of what I want to do, what I'm trying to do is build something, which means that people will buy my books so that if I want to write a book, so I said on a podcast, maybe it's the Glenn Scrivener One that I'm replaying next week. If I'm reported to pay me to write a book, it would be about words, and the power of words, and the fact that words are the source code of the universe. Now, that book's probably not necessarily economic, but what would make it economic is if I knew that $3,000, 4,000 people would just buy it because it's me. It's the thousand true fans model by a guy called Kevin Kelly. I'm always assuming that everyone's heard of that, but they really haven't. This is a tech guy who's actually not flavour of the month with Paul King andoth in his book. Kevin Kelly sort of spotted as everything was changing, particularly with regard to music and performers and bands and that kind of stuff, that in order to make a living, you only really need a thousand true fans, a thousand people who are basically buy your album and come and see your life. So buy your album, that's a tenor 'cause albums are still 10 pounds, despite the fact that they've been 10 pounds for 30 years. 10 pounds, and come and see you live.£ 30 pounds buy a T shirt, 10 pounds. There you go, 50 quid. If you can make 50 quid out of a thousand people, that's 50 grand, that's all right. As long as you don't live in London, you can live on that. You know, you can probably do a few other bits and pieces as well, and supplement it. But that's the basic idea. And that's sort of what Patreon does and substack does and is aiming for. And I guess that's what I'm doing. And this podcast is part of that. I mean, you could call it a media empire if you want. I mean, that's a fairly loaded term. It's obviously not true in that sense, but, it's also true in another sense. In fact, there are lots of things that I'm doing. Key's almanack Wcliff Papers, stand up theologian podcast, and the Gods of Bible and everything. I think there'll be another touring show. coming late next year. about which side I would have fought for in the English Civil War. That's might be a premium exclusive bit of content this far into the podcast. Well done for listening this far. There you go. So, it's kind of helpful to me to know what you're interested in. And I think, again, don't forget how you consume content, I'm saying to myself, "How do I listen to me? I want to listen to Jonah Goldberg's opinions, and I'm not that interested in anyone else's in that sphere other than if he's in an interview, I want to hear him riff with someone who has similar views to him and they can kind of refine them. I think I've never found, for example, I've always hated question time on BBC, where people have wildly different political views, just talk past each other for an hour. It's just awful. It's just, you know, debates between atheists and Christians. No interest to me at all. Completely pointless. They're not going to agree., you know, it can be mildly interesting sometimes, but overall, I never click on those videos. Sorry, Glenn. Sorry, Justin Brily. I've never been into that, because they're just, you know, worlds apart, and they're not for me. People real like them, that's fine. Gen X is mainly, I think, probably. I don't know. So, as I stroll across the field and note that I've been talking for 41, 42 minutes, I'm thinking, oh, yikes., I've gone a long way. So if you can get in touch with me, you could probably email the Wickcliffe papers. oubleFE, Wickcliff Papapers at gmail.com. There might be a way of getting in touch with me via, I think, called fan mail on Bussprite. I'll look into that and drop that in here about what you need to do. And I had thought, oh, in this episode, I'll talk about what I learnt from Bishop Hugh Latimer. But I don't think I'm going to do that. You can just watch the video, and decide what you think. And it would be great and help me on the algorithm if you watched a lot of it and improve my watch time, and it seems that it would then start rating it for other people 'cause that's what YouTube does now I think it doesn't really matter how many lic and subscribeble, click and follow you on YouTube. Here's another you flash. Here we go. Style number two. There it is. Classic rural scenes here. Technically in Dorset. I'm not in Somerset. I just stay over the border. There's a little rivulet stream here, which you can possibly here. Now I walk up one more hill. There are, by the way, a lot of acorns this year. My wife tells me she's heard somewhere. It's called a mast year, where the conditions for oak trees now are so perfect, they are shooting up and dropping an absolute ton of acorns. She is my primary source and my sole source for that. No idea. Again, I would love to write about that, find out more about that,'c I just want to read and write and find things out and tell you about it. And this podcast is kind of part of that. I am not sure of ideas. You should see my Notes app on my phone. It is absolutely bonkers full of ideas and novels and short stories and articles, you know, entire areas of thought. I haven't even gotten into the whole idea of teaching people how to write situation, comedy, which is something that I've slightly stopped doing. Things, I really like situation comedy and I would like to write more sitcoms for the television, and I probably should get back into that too. It's also, how I've made my living for the last 20 years and not doing that. It makes life quite difficult. So that's why I've been gigging. Truth be told. As it happens, I really like it. I really love doing the show. I quite like driving to the show and listening to podcasts and thinking. And one of the things I'm going to do also more next year is wander around places and make videos. So I do like making videos. It's just, I need to figure out how it's best to do them for me. And I think wandering around churchyards and historical places and telling the story of England and Christian history and how the church is essentially, in my view, built England as it is. And now weird things are happening because that's all kind of gone away, and we don't really know what to do. It feels like the original operating system has been so outdated and also not updated that now everything's not really working and certain things are shutting down. So on my almanack I've been writing about why the English have burned people for the best part of 200 years. and then that stopped. And then. we sort of had this Christianity built on Fox's book of martyrs, which made us brave and not stoic, Christian. I think Stoicism gets an awful lot of free free rides, and people look back at the Victorians, I think they were stoic. No, they were Christian. I mean, it's a certain kind of Christianity. I'm not defending it or attacking it, but noting where it came from. It came from one of the best selling books in the English language for the previous 300 years. Fox's Book of Martyrs, which was printed and spread wide, reissued, read aloud in churches, and to families. You know, it was one of the. It was a book in English that you could actually read and get a hold of. And those stories. Sted with people, and that's why missionaries shipped out in the 19th century with their own coffins, and they knew they probably weren't coming back. And now we've kind of got into the situation where we can't really imagine why anyone would do that because we're clinging onto life. We're terrified of death, because we don't believe what Jesus says when he says, I am the way, the truth and the life. When he says, I am the resurrection and the life, when he says, for God, so love the world, He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in me shall not perish, but have eternal life. We don't believe that, or if we do, we're not prepared to follow Jesus in order to have that. I mean, that's kind of the grand narrative, really, that I'm interested in. So I think my show next year, which might be called the Laughing Cavalier, might be a book, is also partly about how that's all changed in the course of a thousand years. The rise and fall and possible resurgence of Christianity. I find that really interesting. And there, you know, lots of other people are finding interesting tooth. That's why I don't think Paul King'sorth but quite does it justice. It's slightly sounds a bit hopeless and based on, well, you just live in the margins and do what you can. You just think, well, no, I think we can do better than that, but I certainly agree that's where we start on the household. So, I got an interview lined up about that. I've got other interviews lined up, lots of other interviews. But it would be interesting to know whether the solo episodes are also worth pursuing, so drop me a note, somehow, and do that, I'd be most grateful. Right. I think, I think we're done here. Got through my notes. quite enjoyed that. So, you know, there is that too, isn't there? In fact, that I enjoyed it. Anyway, my walk is about to finish. I've got a gig tonight. I've got the Bible and everything, about two hours away in Hampshire. Should be fun. The guy I've known for many years is the vicar, and his wife, I know, and every audience is different. This will be an Anglican audience in an Anglican building with a high ceiling, and they will probably smile at me throughout the whole show, not laugh an awful lot. That and then they come and buy all your books afterwards. So that's great, and there are other audiences that laugh a lot, and then don't buy as many books, although often they do buy books, too. So, these are all the interesting vagaries I've learned after having done 31 shows, and maybe that's a solo episode for another time is what I've learned doing God, the Bible, and everything. And I'm doing it a lot of next year. I've got gigs for September, 2026. So, if you want to book me to come and do your church or badger, your pastor to get them to book me, I'm not that expensive. If you can scrape together 60, 70 people, we could probably make it work. And it's fun. I like doing it, and then we could hang out and have a chat. and you can ask me questions directly. And we'll see how it goes. Okay, thanks very much for listening. Is this how it ends? Yeah.