EP.225 - MIRIAM MARGOLYES

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin.

Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening.

I took my microphone and found some human folk.

Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke.

My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man.

I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan.

Hey,

how you doing podcasts?

Adam Buxton here.

Reporting to you from the usual crunchy farm track

in Norfolk, East Anglia.

And it is just into the second half of September 2024.

It's a beautiful sunny afternoon here.

And I am not with my best dog friend Rosie.

She's back at home.

She's doing very well,

but she went for a run this morning

with my wife, her mum.

Not actually her mum, Rosie's real mum was a dog, but they went for a run and I think that was enough exercise for one day for Rosie.

When I proposed going out

for a summary ramble, she looked at me askance.

And when I gently encouraged her to join me with the harness and the lead, she made it absolutely clear that that was not going to happen

and I didn't want to drag her along against her will so I just walked her back left her curled up on the floor in my wife's office while she does important law business

so I'm out here on my own I apologize but look Rosie's fine if you're wondering she's actually been very well we had a lovely summer We went to the lake district as a family

Which we've never done before.

I can't believe it's taken all this time for me to get to the lake district and we went for some lovely long walks and Rosie came along.

We did the whole of the Derwent water walk 10 miles or something.

Rosie was yomping along

very sprightly, having a great time, which makes me slightly annoyed when she

refuses to come out on relatively short walks out here with me.

I don't know, maybe she just doesn't like the podcast.

Fair enough.

It's not for everybody, is it?

But look, I'm glad you're back.

It's been an extended break this year

because I've had a lot on.

I was doing the live podcast shows back in the summer.

Thanks to all of you who came along, they were great fun.

You'll get to hear some bits and pieces from some of those shows at some point.

But since then, I've been recording some more conversations for the new run of this podcast and trying to finish my book.

That's the main thing.

I've got another quite serious looking deadline looming, so one way or another it's going to be wrapped up fairly soon.

But right now let's get back into it, shall we?

Let me tell you about podcast number 225 which features a rambly conversation with the British Australian actor, writer and presenter Miriam Margulies.

Margulies, Facts.

Born in 1941 in Oxford, England, Miriam grew up in a Jewish family and studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she was part of the legendary Footlights Theatre Club.

Her professional career began with voice acting for radio dramas and TV commercials, before moving on to working in film, TV, and on the stage.

In the theatre, Miriam has starred in acclaimed productions of She Stoops to Conquer, The Killing of Sister George, The Vagina Monologues, and in 1989, Dickens Women, a one-woman show written by Miriam with Sonia Fraser, in which Miriam portrayed over 20 different characters from the works of Charles Dickens.

In feature films, Miriam has voiced characters in Babe and Happy Feet and appeared in front of the camera most famously in a couple of Harry Potter films where she played herbology teacher Professor Sprout and in Martin Scorsese's 1993 adaptation of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, a tale of suffocating upper-class mores

set in 1870s Gilded Age, New York.

Miriam won a BAFTA for her role in The Age of Innocence.

She has also played a demonic nurse who works for Satan in End of Days, the Arnold Schwarzenegger film.

Miriam writes about that production in her memoir This Much Is True and talks about the fact that she accidentally farted

in one scene and Arnold Schwarzenegger was so outraged that in another scene when he had to pin Miriam down, he was fighting the demonic nurse in the film, he took the opportunity to fart while he was on top of her, which Miriam did not find cool.

To mention just a couple of Miriam's TV roles, she appeared in the mid-1980s as Lady White Adder in the second series of legendary sitcom Black Adder, and more recently recently she played the part of the sharp-tongued Sister Mildred in the BBC's Call the Midwife.

As you'll hear in our conversation, Miriam also had a brief dalliance with American TV in the early 1990s when she was cast as the lead in Franny's Turn, a short-lived sitcom executive produced by Norman Lear, who created the legendary American sitcoms All in the Family and the Jeffersons.

In the last few years, many of Miriam's TV appearances have been as herself for documentaries in which she's visited Australia and America and talked to people there in her candid and typically open-hearted way about identity and politics.

And of course, she has popped up a number of times as a guest on the Graham Norton show.

It was these Graham Norton appearances, the first of which was in 2012, that provided many people with their first taste of the full unfiltered Margolese experience.

And they were, at least in part, responsible responsible for Miriam ending up doing those documentaries and indeed writing two memoirs.

This Much Is True which was published in 2021 in which she talked about her life and her career and O Miriam published in 2023 that contains more of her own thoughts and opinions on love, sex, politics, old age and much more.

My conversation with Miriam was recorded in a London studio where she'd just been doing a voiceover towards the end of July this this year, 2024.

And that was shortly after the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

And that was also before Joe Biden had stepped down when it looked as though Trump was definitely going to win on November the 5th.

Now he's running against Karmala Harris.

There's a few more options.

He could win, or he could claim the election was stolen.

Having read both of Miriam's memoirs, I was aware of the kind of subjects that she's comfortable discussing, which is basically anything as far as I can tell.

Even so, there were a few times during our conversation when I worried that I'd misjudged her tolerance for crudeness.

But if I had done, she didn't let on, I'm happy to say.

Still,

I was curious to know how much that openness and outspokenness, which has become her trademark, has led to trouble in her personal relationships, especially when it comes to speaking out about something as divisive as the Israel-Gaza war, where criticizing one side is often taken as a blanket endorsement of the other, or indeed, if you're criticizing Israel, as anti-Semitism.

Anyway, I hope you have a sense now of some of the subjects that will come up in this episode in case you would rather avoid any of those.

It's also a bit of death chat, there's some sexy business as well, and a little bit bit of very strong, filthy language.

So be aware.

But we began with me positioning mics in the studio and Miriam wondering how she entered the pop star phase of her career.

I'll be back at the end with Adam and Joe Live podcast news and a bit more waffle.

But right now, with Miriam Margulies, here we go.

Ramble chat, let's have a ramble chat.

We'll focus focus first on this, then concentrate on that.

Come on, let's chew the fat and have a ramble chat.

Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat.

One, two, three, one, two, three.

One, two, three, one, two, three.

Sounds great.

Buxton and Margulies.

Here we go.

It's what the world's been waiting for.

Thank you so much for doing this, Miriam.

No, I'm very glad to have the opportunity.

I'm so

pleased to meet you, and I'm really grateful for your time.

Not at all.

I'm still kind of bewildered at what's happened to me.

Yeah.

You know, that I'm suddenly terribly, well, not terribly famous, but I'm.

I don't know.

I've entered that curious

world of the minor celebrity.

And that's...

It's just very bizarre because people keep coming up to me in the street and saying, I love you.

And

I don't know why.

I don't know why they do.

Do you really not know why?

You must have an idea.

No, I don't know why.

I think I'm nice, you know, I think I'm friendly and and all that.

But the kind of

when I come out on stage,

when I'm doing the show that I do, um, to to s to s really to sell the book that I've written, they roar

like a pop star.

Yeah.

And I'm I'm not a pop star.

I'm a I always say somewhat disingenuously that I'm a little old lady trying to make a living but I do find it puzzling.

I really do

I think that the thing people love about you one of the things is how straightforward you are how you seem fearless about saying what you really think in a climate where people are treading ever more carefully in a good way in some ways.

You know, they're thinking harder about the things they say and the way they might affect other people.

But also people feel that they'll get in trouble if they say the wrong thing.

I know.

I've noticed that

conversation is wary

now.

People are a little bit anxious about how they're going over to the general public.

And I just have no time for that.

You can't constantly be self-editing.

It's not good for you.

Otherwise, the directness, the immediacy of communication, which is what I love,

disappears.

And I love connection.

I was trying to think what's been the watchword of my life.

And it is connection.

It is wanting to be with people

and seeing them absorb my personality and then my absorbing their personality.

And

that's what I long for.

But you have to have confidence in yourself to do that.

You have to have confidence that you are fundamentally a decent person, that you're happy with what's going to come out of your mouth, more or less.

You may regret the way you say certain things, but I think it's...

Most people don't know their own mind in that way that you seem to.

I've always known my own mind.

I've sometimes been wrong, and one of my best points is actually that I always admit when I'm wrong, and I say, that was wrong, I'm sorry.

I'm very good at that, because I think it's important.

I think the word sorry is one of the words that I look for.

If I pull someone up on something, and I do pull people up on things, if they don't say sorry, I get really pissed off.

But I just love immediacy.

I don't want to censor myself or be anxious about what I've said.

You mustn't hurt people.

You mustn't say cruel or nasty things.

but

you should,

and I do, say what I think.

I mean the other day we went to a restaurant.

One of the joys of touring is that you can go out with friends and eat.

I love doing that.

And the food was excellent, but there was one thing that wasn't good.

And I had to say to them,

the potato salad missed and i'd like you to taste it

and they said no no, we, you know, we don't do that, I'm afraid.

I said, well, what a pity.

But I don't know how to tell you what was wrong, but if you taste it, you'll know.

And she mentioned it to the chef, and I think he did taste it, because when we went in to say goodbye afterwards, he said, you were right.

Well, there you go.

That's good feedback.

What about, though, if you were in a restaurant that was just all over terrible?

And really, they wouldn't, like, where would you even start start with your criticism?

Would you just think, I'm not gonna bother, I'll just chalk this one down to experience, it's not my kind of place, or would you sit down and say, Look, I've got to tell you, you're running a terrible establishment here.

I wouldn't do that.

I would just forget about it because, you know, I'm not a hotel inspector.

Yeah, it's not my job.

But if I thought there was some hope of saving things, then I would say something.

But if they were just hopeless,

I would lie.

I mean, I would would say, that was great, thank you very much, and just leave it and go.

Yeah.

How does it work?

I'm interested, because I've read both your books.

Have you written more than two books?

I wrote a book called with Sonia Fraser, who was my original director on Dickens' Women.

We wrote Dickens' Women.

We wrote it as a book.

So that was, but it wasn't a book about me.

It was a book about Mr.

Dickens.

I've read O Miriam, and I've read This Much Is True, Your Memoirs.

And do you change a lot of names?

When you're talking about your uncle-in-law, for example, your auntie's husband, and you call him an absolute shit of a man, and then you name him.

Have you changed that name?

No.

Wasn't that complicated for your extended family?

I don't know.

I don't know if it was complicated or not.

It was true, That's the point.

I didn't think about that.

But don't you get people coming after you from your family?

Do you not get email blasts out of the blue saying, Hey, I just read what you said about Uncle Trevor.

That wasn't cool.

No.

I think they just leave me alone.

Or they agree.

Because usually if people are really ghastly, everybody thinks so.

And I'm not sure that it was a man that that I spoke about.

I think it was actually my my aunt that was so awful, who married my father's

brother.

She was the

can I say bitch?

You say what you want.

Okay, she was.

You can go for it.

Use all the words on this podcast.

How about your partner, though?

You do talk about her and you describe your relationship in a very beautiful way.

And you talk about how you met.

You're also quite explicit about the passion that there was between you.

Your I mean, it's not absolute pornography, but it's more explicit than I would be about my wife, for example.

I know that if I even described having a kiss with my wife the way you do with your partner, I would get some grief.

Oh, what a pity.

Well, Heather is a very private

person, and she hasn't read either of my books.

And I must say I'm relieved, because I don't think she would like her name mentioned at all.

She gets very irritated, actually, when she looks herself up in Wikipedia or something, and her name is mentioned, the partner of Miriam Marglees.

That offends her, and I understand that completely.

So I dedicated my first book to her, perfectly certain that she would never read it.

And she hasn't.

But I don't think I've said anything that

she would dispute.

She just would rather it were not available to the general public.

And I think that's fair enough.

I kind of regret

having been perhaps a little specific.

But you know, we've been together for 57 years,

and that is an unusual number of years for people to stay together.

And it hasn't all been wonderful.

Like every relationship, it's, you know, how people say, oh, we've had our ups and downs.

Of course, of course, life is ups and downs.

But I found somebody,

I think, quite, quite perfect.

She did not.

She found somebody who was good,

a good person, but not perfect.

She is perfect.

Ah, that's nice.

I guess the the thing is, the longer I am married, I've been married since 2001.

That's not very long.

I mean, nearly 25 years.

That's quite good.

Yeah, it's true because you're not 83.

Yeah.

I mean, you have to be 83 to be married to somebody for 57 years.

Exactly.

So I don't feel I'm doing too badly, especially as I'm now entering a phase where some of my friends are getting divorced and their long-term relationships are coming to an end.

And now, because that has begun to happen, me and my wife are, I've noticed, softer when we have a row because we're a bit more protective of the relationship.

Now that we have seen that it can end, you know what I mean?

Like watching other friends suddenly split up, and you think, oh shit, that's an option, is it?

Yes, it's it is a perilous adventure, marriage.

And

it's worth it if you get the right person but some people really choose badly

and obviously you have chosen well and I chose brilliantly yes

but do you ever think people have the wrong idea when it comes to the perfect relationship i.e.

they are

too much the perfectionist.

They've seen too many films where you're waiting for the right person and they are everything you want them to be.

And actually the secret of a successful long-term relationship is making peace with the fact that there are many areas where you're never really going to connect, but overall, there's a meaningful bond.

Does that make sense?

Yes, yes, it does.

I

think ours is slightly different

because we don't live together.

And most people live together.

And I think that is a stressful closeness.

Living together.

Living together.

Ours is a less stressful closeness, because we don't.

But now we want to.

Now we want to.

And bloody Boris Johnson, with Brexit and all that nonsense, has stopped us living together in the place that we intended, which was in our house in Italy, because we can't stay there for longer than ninety days in every hundred and eighty.

So our plans for our ending together, to be together until we both stop,

then

we can't do that.

And that is really irritating.

So we're working out now, trying to work out what we do with

our last days.

Because death is

the last big thing, as I say, and

I think we need to prepare for it.

I think you're right.

We're not a culture that does really prepare, though, are we?

No.

I think people are embarrassed by death.

I mean, one of the things I was saying last night I was in Cardiff and I was talking about death.

And I said it's an embarrassment.

People don't really you know, you say pass away instead of die.

And I don't like that.

I always say die and death.

I prefer to be absolutely on the nail with it.

And um people are embarrassed by it.

They don't talk about somebody who's recently died.

And I always do.

If I hear that somebody's husband has died, I will always say, I'm so sorry to hear that your husband's died.

Tell me about it if you want to.

Because I think that is genuine.

That's facing a true fact and dealing with it.

But people don't want to do that.

And they put people in these funny plush coffins.

I don't get that.

You know, Jewish people never do that.

We always have very, very plain deal wood coffin.

I had one I did one on a programme.

I did a programme about death.

And Coffin Club have a special coffin that you can mail order.

And I tried it out.

And the thing that was embarrassing, I'm a bit fat.

And I had to get into it quite gingerly.

And I just about fitted.

And then, of course, you had to put the lid on.

And that was not an easy business.

But, you know, I had to kind of hold on to my tits to stop them from poking into the lid.

To get some guys to sit on it.

That could happen.

I mean, it

but it was just a rather odd feeling.

Yeah, I'm sure it was an odd feeling.

But you haven't picked out the casket that you're going to end up in yet, have you?

Oh, yes.

If I I get buried, and I'm still not sure about whether I will or not, because it seems an awful taking up of space.

No, I have the coffin.

I got it from Coffin Club.

Oh, yeah.

It's in.

I think it might be in my attic.

If not, it's in Hastings, waiting for me.

But it's very plain.

It's just got a star of David on it, because I thought I ought to make some acknowledgement about my Jewishness.

and so that's all.

But

death is an unvarnished business, I think.

I was speaking of coffins, though, I saw a program the other day with a guy there who does bespoke coffins for car enthusiasts.

So he will build you a big, what looks like a Cadillac, a beautiful Cadillac, but it is actually a coffin.

Oh, I think that's appalling.

The height of vulgarity.

Jeez.

But what does vulgarity mean after after you're dead, though?

Well, it means something to

the idea of non-vulgarity.

I mean, vulgarity is a real thing.

And

we're guilty of it sometimes.

But I think to have a Cadillac for a coffin.

I mean, a built one.

Yeah, I like Cadillac.

It was beautifully made.

But the other day, me and my family went walking in the lake district and we attached the roof rack thing.

You know, one of those it's a tula uh t-h-u-l-e and it looks like a kind of silver oh i know yes i know what a coffin yes and i was thinking i said to my wife this is where i've got to end up in the tula on the top of the car bury me in the tula i think that would be it surely someone has been buried in one of those roof racks don't you reckon I don't actually think so, but I think it's a perfectly fair enough thing to do.

I want to be in the roof rack in my fleece with my shorts on.

That's quintessential me.

Well, I don't know you very well

yet, and

I might think again about that.

It's not biodegradable.

No, it wouldn't be.

So that's not good.

Yeah, but the body is.

Yeah, yeah.

The body is biodegradable.

There's lots of room in that, too large.

It's pretty good.

Have you known someone who was...

We're not going to just talk about death for the whole time, right?

No, no.

We're going to talk about life.

Sure, but I do think it's an interesting subject.

And if you don't mind me asking you about it.

Not at all.

Have you known someone who had a, quote, good death, who was prepared in some way and dealt with it well?

I think my father dealt with it well.

He wasn't a great thinker.

Life just happened to daddy.

And so he didn't mull over things and prepare.

But he was ninety-six when he died, which is quite an age, and

he was

largely unworried by death, I think, because I remember saying to him, Are you not afraid to die, Daddy?

Don't you worry about it?

He said, No, why would I be worried about death?

I mean, there's nothing to worry about.

It's inevitable.

You just accept it.

And

he w he was like that.

He was very

he wasn't spiritual in any way, he was temporal and um a very good, decent man.

And I said to him, Daddy, I think you might have Alzheimer's.

And he said, Well, you know, at my age I'm entitled to Alzheimer's And I thought that was a very sweet remark.

He wasn't always sweet.

I mean, he was very

he wasn't pleased that I was a lesbian.

And we watched a programme once together, sitting together watching the television, and there was a man who was changing sex or something like that.

And he looked at me rather nervously.

He said, You're nothing like that, are you?

I said, No, of course I'm not.

I was quite irritated that his perceptions were so blunted that he was.

He knew by that time that you were a lesbian.

Yes.

And so he was seeing this person and thinking,

is that what you're going to be doing?

Yes.

Yes.

And,

you know,

he wasn't liberal in his attitudes.

He was very closed and fixed.

But he was kind and he was decent, a decent man.

And you still had a relationship with him.

Absolutely.

So it couldn't have been disastrous the way it is for some people when they come out.

The relationship really suffers.

Well, with Mummy, it was awful because,

I mean, it was just the collapse of all her hopes and dreams for me and for herself as well to be a grandma and it it destroyed her I think in some ways I really do but Daddy I don't think he was capable of deep emotion he doesn't he didn't feel things the way that mummy and I felt things and when when he died I mean he was looked after by women from the cradle to the grave because first his mother and nursemaids looked after him and and then my mother looked after him and then I looked after him and when I stopped looking after him nurses looked after him and I had him at home

and that my my sweet I think sweet story about Daddy is

I brought him to live in my house because he really was incapable he had a stroke I think or he just stopped being able to look after himself so I sold the house in Oxford where he lived and I brought him to London And for two weeks he was recovering in London.

And then I said, Daddy,

I want you to live downstairs in the flat that I have, which I now live in, in fact.

And he said, a doctor doesn't live in a basement flat.

And I said, look, it's not really a basement.

It's lovely.

I want you to look at it.

Well, he wouldn't.

And he locked himself in the room that I had reserved for him when he came to London.

But eventually I said to him, Look, Daddy, I give you my word of honour, I won't make you move downstairs, I won't do that to you.

But please will you look at this flat?

Because I've really done my best with it.

I gave the people notice who lived in it, and I paid them actually to leave early, and I had it decorated, and it was really nice.

And he said, All right, if you make that promise that you will not move me to a care home or something like that, I will have a look at it.

I promise.

So he came downstairs, and it was it was just down the front steps, you know, and into the the garden and all around.

And he looked at the bedroom, the kitchen, and the bar.

He said,

It's very nice, actually, very nice.

Then he paused and he said,

This is not a basement flat, Miriam.

This is a garden flat.

And so he moved in.

Very nice.

Why didn't he like the idea of the basement flat?

Well, in the world that he had lived in before, in Glasgow, and he lived in the slums of Glasgow when he was a boy, people who lived in basements were the dregs.

They were the Hoi Poloi, and he was very class conscious.

Oh, right.

And so he wouldn't have wanted to be part of that cohort at all.

When you write about your dad in This Much Is True, you say he was handsome despite being of below average height.

I was a bit offended by that line.

Are you below average?

Yeah, I would say.

Are you really?

Well, I'm practically a dwarf.

I mean, I'm four f I think I'm four foot ten, which was the height of Queen Victoria.

And you know what a funny, dumpy little woman she was.

But I used to be five foot.

You know, I had class.

But as I got older, and this does happen, I shrank.

Yeah.

And I'm irritated by it, because I now have to carry a stool with me everywhere so that I can reach the cupboards.

If I'm in a house y you know, I might r be touring and renting somewhere with which has high cupboards.

And I hate that.

So either people have to reach down all the cups and plates, or I have to bring the stool with me and get up on it.

Yeah.

I must say you do look very well, like you're in good shape.

You're 83 years old.

And

I got a look at your schedule because we were arranging this podcast and you very kindly fitted us in to an incredibly busy schedule that just made me tired just looking at it.

You've got sort of three or four big things every day, whether it's an interview or a T V appearance or an acting job or whatever it might be.

It's absolutely packed.

And I'm just in awe of how you have the energy for that.

I would find that difficult now, aged fifty-five, if I was that busy.

It is difficult, and I do get tired.

But when I talk to somebody, I can perk up and the adrenaline kicks in, and the the joy of contact invigorates me.

But then when you go out of the room, I'll just sort of

slump and be just

a slumpy old lady.

You'll lose another inch.

I'm afraid so.

But I'm glad to be able to do things, and I want to do things as long as I can.

That's what I want.

You talk as well about you're very honest when you talk about wanting to be liked.

And that seems like a very vulnerable, a vulnerable thing to say.

Well,

it's the truth.

Yeah.

You know, truth makes you strong.

If you tell the truth, you're stronger than anybody in the world.

I'm stronger than Trump and Boris Johnson, because all they could do is lie.

But I tell the truth.

And that always works.

That's stronger than anything.

It's a funny thing, though, admitting to wanting to be liked, because

doesn't that make people suspicious of your motives?

Doesn't it make them because there's a thin line between wanting to be liked and being ingratiating, right?

And you don't want to be ingratiating.

I don't find

relationships difficult.

I don't find that I have to pussyfoot and negotiate every contact and every meeting and every

moment with people.

I just

enjoy it.

I sail through my

intercourse, my social intercourse.

And

I don't think I'm ingratiating.

I mean, I don't give a fuck whether I am or not.

I do in the moment what I want to do.

And I think the immediacy, and I'm blessed with this really open face, you know, it's a good face for contact.

And so

it connects.

I connect with people.

And I don't think I'm ingratiating.

I mean, I might praise somebody when somebody else might not praise them, but I don't hold back with that.

But it's not just to make them like me, but if you want to have real contact with people, and I'm sure you know this because your life is making podcasts and talking to people and having them open to you,

people

need a little bit of oil for the door to open, just a little bit, but it has to be pure oil.

It can't be rancid,

otherwise, it doesn't work.

Yeah, yeah.

Maybe the difference between wanting to be liked and being ingratiating is that you want to be liked on your own terms.

You don't want to be liked for the sake of it.

No, and I mean,

I don't want to be liked by people who are shit.

Right.

I don't give a bugger about them.

So you don't waste too much time.

I mean, I've seen you talking a little bit about some of the uncomfortable and unhappy conversations you've had around Palestine and around Gaza, and the fact that you have ended up losing friends over that because they don't like what you say about the issue or how you say it, maybe.

I mean, that must be painful in itself,

but are you tortured by it?

Do you worry that you have said the wrong things?

Do you worry about the friends that you have lost in the course of having those conversations?

I worry about having lost

a couple of very close friends.

And when

one in particular, who is Jewish and lives in Israel,

when he said, I don't want to be friends anymore, go well on your journey.

Don't contact me again.

And he was somebody to whom I was very close.

And that

was and is a deep hurt, and that doesn't go away.

But I can't help it, because I know I'm right.

I don't know that I'm right about everything,

but I do know that I'm right about the immorality of the Israeli position on Gaza and the activities of the Netanyahu government.

That I know for sure

They have done wrong.

And it doesn't please me to say it.

It's uncomfortable.

But if I didn't acknowledge it,

if I pussy-footed around that issue,

I would be,

I think, in a moral quagmire.

And I don't want to do that.

As I've got older,

I think it's

clear to me what's good and what's bad.

And that is why I do what I do and say what I say.

And although my heart was broken,

I accepted it because he could not make the the effort to see

what was in my mind,

and he only saw the betrayal and the shock of seeming to endorse uh the killing that Hamas

started on the seventh of October.

Well, it it happened and I I'm terribly sad that I've offended some people, but to me

they

proved that Hitler had won and that for me was such a shock that really hurt me

because I didn't want to think that was possible.

But it it's true.

The essential decency and compassion of the Jewish people has been

squeezed out, evaporated, and

it is a terribly sad

thing.

But if I don't speak out against what I think is wrong, who am I?

What

what what can I say about anything?

It takes away

it takes away the point of being alive.

Your relationship with your friend who wrote to you and said that he didn't feel he could still be friends with you, would you have been prepared to continue your friendship with him despite your difference of opinion?

I think we should have talked.

I don't think he should have responded as he did.

It was because I signed a letter with some other protesters about the situation.

Right.

A lot of artists, and

he just wrote it off completely.

And I think

we should have talked.

I feel bad asking you about it.

I can see how upsetting it is.

It is upsetting.

But, you know, I'm alive.

I'm upset by things.

I'm overjoyed by other things.

But I know

that

my decency

is true.

It's there.

And

I'm glad I'm as I am.

I don't want to to be different.

These are strange times in so many ways when it comes to these kinds of divisions and these kinds of very painful conversations and the disagreements around them

because you do feel like, well,

we do have to get along

whether you feel absolutely right or in the right

on any subject.

There is a possibility that you're not completely right.

There is a possibility that those you extremely deeply disagree with have some valid points.

You know, it's like, do we try and find some common ground or do we all just have to turn our backs on each other if we can't concede to each other's way of looking at the world?

You know what I mean?

Better jaw-jaw than war-war.

Yeah.

You know, probably we're looking, I don't want to get especially political, but we are probably looking at another four years of a Donald Trump first.

Oh, I've been saying that for years.

Yeah.

So it's going to be a challenge to those who disagree with him and dislike the way he does things to get it right as far as how they talk about him.

I was wondering what it was like for world leaders who must also, of course, be pondering the forthcoming election in America and wondering how they're going to react to it.

And

much more important, how they react than how we as individuals react.

And I think we're all thinking about that.

What happens when he takes over?

What happens when he tries to undo gay marriage?

How do we deal with that?

What is the correct

human response?

And I'm afraid I feel a bit intransigent about it.

I want always, I mean, you know, I do documentaries, and one of the things I say in my documentaries is I want to meet the enemy.

I want to try to understand the enemy, and then maybe they won't be the enemy.

If I understand why,

I might be able to move my position, and it won't be so tense or so hostile.

But, you know, with Trump, I absolutely feel hostile.

If I had him in front of me, I would say exactly the same.

You are contemptible.

But I think with him, with someone like him, part of the problem is that he is never really going to concede very much at all.

No, I know that.

To anyone.

He's not going to go, oh, I hadn't really thought about it like that.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Let me go and think about that for a while.

His whole MO, a person like that, is to project strength by

not dithering and just saying,

no I'm right about this and uh and I'm not going to hear anyone's differing opinion at all.

Which is what I just said about my attitude to Israel.

I know.

But you see I'm good and he isn't.

I don't know how else to

establish a difference between us.

I don't know what is going to happen.

I think we're all pondering and wondering and I just tell my American friends to leave, to get out while you can.

It's a shame, isn't it?

It's a beautiful country.

Yes, it is.

I've lived there for 16 years.

Where did you live?

In Santa Monica.

Oh.

So it's not really America.

I mean, it wasn't the.

Santa Monica is part of California, isn't it?

It is, yeah.

Near Los Angeles.

It's the kind of beach city of Los Angeles.

Yeah.

And it's very beautiful, and

you know, I had sea view and

sands and money and friends and a car and all those sort of things.

Living the Hollywood high life?

Yes, in a way.

In a smaller scale.

When was that?

It was in the late 80s and 90s.

You were doing a fair bit of filmwork around that.

I was doing quite a bit of film work, and it happened because I met Norman Lear, who was a well-known

comedy producer, and he took me on as a kind of possible possible talent and he paid me a lot of money to do nothing at all.

I couldn't believe it.

I was just I was just there swanning about and being wined and dined by people and having supper with Walter Mattow and things like that, which was gorgeous.

So I had a nice time.

Yeah.

But you did a sitcom out there in the States, didn't you?

Yes, I did.

That that was Norman Lear's stable.

Right.

What was it that he had seen you in that got him so excited and he thought, I've got to develop a sitcom for Miriam.

He saw me on Johnny Carson's chat show.

Ah.

And Johnny Carson saw me on the Today show with Katie Couric.

And he brought me over to LA and interviewed me.

And everybody thought I was terribly funny and sort of amusing and charming and different.

I don't know, whatever they thought.

And I knew I was clever.

And I am clever, but

I don't know why they reacted quite so.

Anyway, he signed me up to do and I got an agent, a wonderful agent, Susan Smith, and

that was it.

That's how I came to do a sitcom, and it was lovely doing the sitcom.

I adored it.

My fellow actors were simply heavenly.

Tomas Millian played my husband, who was a he was Cuban, and he played a Cuban

man who was unreconstructed.

And I was Frannie, who was a sparky sempstress from New Jersey who wanted to be modern and have a modern way of life.

And that was the premise of it.

And I was good, but the writing didn't work and it folded.

After six or five episodes, it was an ignominious end.

And the interesting thing for me was that the minute it was taken off air,

I never got another phone call.

That was it.

That was it from Hollywood.

Absolutely.

Yes, I was.

I was a dead duck.

Brutal.

Did that not sting?

It was puzzling at first.

I didn't quite understand, because I didn't know that people could be so

nakedly nasty, that they were only interested in success.

And also, and this is kind of a joke, but they were terrified of fat.

And so

I was always fat.

And there was also a suspicion that I might be gay.

But Susan Smith said, Don't talk about it, please.

Just leave that part out.

You don't need to say anything.

So I didn't.

But, you know, people knew.

I don't know.

The Americans, well, the Californians, they're scared of failure.

Failure for them is a bitter pill.

And

I don't like failure, but it doesn't define you.

It just leads you to the next success.

Yes.

Well, they're the most valuable learning experiences in most ways, aren't they?

Absolutely.

And,

you know, people said to me, you will be successful when you're older.

And as I say, I never expected to be this old.

I I thought it would come a bit sooner.

To be 83 and

you know, everybody knows me.

It's okay, but it would have been nice if it had been earlier.

Oh, yeah, but it was all ticking along quite nicely before then.

I mean, come on.

Not bad, but it could have been better.

What would the ideal of success have looked like to you 30 years ago or something?

Oh, to be asked to be in things at the national

and the RSC.

you know, to be a working actress in quality material.

Okay.

And that didn't happen.

Yeah, but I mean, you ended up in so many quality productions.

Yes, I did.

Despite, but maybe not as many as you would have preferred.

No, I mean, nobody has the career they want.

Sure.

You just don't get that.

Even Judy Dench

is sort of irritated that she didn't get some parts and do some things.

But you can't look back.

You just have to be grateful for what you've got.

Plus, you have got a lot of good anecdote fodder out of your various encounters,

being farted on by Schwarzenegger, etc.

Yes.

Yes.

Well, I owe a lot to Graham Norton because

when he brought me onto his shows,

I started to become well known.

And that was what began everything.

Everything for now.

Yeah.

This is, by the way, of your career.

This is just a sort of questionnaire about what you're like as a person and what you would be like if I came to stay with you.

Do you have house guests ever?

Oh, God, I have house guests all the time.

But the reason I have house guests is because I've got Marina, who has been looking after me for 26 or 7 years.

And, you know, she does the sheets and cooks and things like that.

I don't look after people.

I have the space to offer.

And that I do.

Well, so let's pretend I'm coming to stay at at Shea Margalley's for a few nights.

If I use the loo at night, should I flush?

No.

Why not?

Because it will wake me up.

Wake you up.

And it doesn't matter.

Look, if you have a shit, you flush.

If you don't have a shit, you don't flush.

You flush in the morning.

Thank you.

How long can I lie in?

As long as you like.

That's cool.

Is it okay to smoke in bed?

Not in my house.

No.

Can I look through your books?

Oh, yes, I love people doing that.

I don't like them taking them away.

Sometimes people just take them away.

I don't like that.

On the last day, should I strip the bed?

I do prefer it if people do that.

But some people, you know, my guests are usually quite elderly.

So I say, could you leave twenty pounds for Marina?

Yeah.

And she will do what's necessary.

Perfect.

What kind of a present is best for your house guests to bring?

Would you like your house guests to bring a present?

No, I stipulate what I want.

I either want um a spray perfume of Joe Malone, lime, basil, and mandarin.

If they're if I know they're not well off, I say the smaller spray bottle.

If I think they can afford it, the larger one.

And the other present that they could give me i is a rose from uh David Austin's Roses.

Beautiful.

Noted.

May I ask you what your wanking policy is?

Is it like if everyone is out of the house, would it be okay to crack one off?

I don't know that I have a wanking policy because most of the people I know don't ask me about it.

No.

I hesitated to ask you.

Oh, no.

I mean, I'm glad you asked.

I think

the problem about wanking is that when men wank, there is an issue.

There is.

And I think an issue must have a tissue.

So I really do

would rather not have stained sheets.

That upsets me and would upset Marina.

But it hasn't come up recently.

So I don't think anybody, I mean, I suppose people have wanked in my house, but they've never told me, and I I haven't actually seen evidence of it.

You've never been in a fancy house and thought,

time for a wank.

Not for years.

I honestly don't think the last time I wanked was because I had my yonni steamed in Australia, which was last year.

What's a yonny?

A yonny is a cunt.

It's what they call it.

I thought it was like a device of some kind.

Well, it is a device, if you like.

It's an enclosure.

And it's steamed.

Yes,

I talk about it actually

in my show.

What you do is you boil water, you sit in a chair which has no seat, you put the water, the steaming water in a bowl and fill it with herbs.

I said garlow and oregano and everybody said no it can't be garlow and oregano.

So garlic, I mean garlic and oregano.

Yeah.

But I think I got muddled with pasta, so I don't think that's

actually what it is.

I think it's, you know, there's lavender and mint and sage, you know, things that have a nice smell.

And then you you sit over this steaming saucepan and you part your labia and your legs, and it wafts up and just soothes the area.

I mean, you could probably men could probably do something similar, right?

Men can do it up their ass.

I don't quite know how effective that's going to be because I can't quite imagine.

But you could do the

meat and two veg, though, couldn't you?

That would be worth it.

I don't know what that means.

The scrotum, the scrotal area.

Is that what they call it?

Meat and two veg.

Yeah.

I've never heard that.

Have you not?

I think that's meat and two veg.

Sure.

That's funny.

Oh, I think that's quite funny.

No, I've heard it called tackle and, you know, that sort of thing.

Yeah.

But what were you inquiring about the steam?

The steaming, the steaming of the meat and two veg.

No, I think it has to.

Well, it could be front body.

Sure.

Yeah.

I don't know.

But I mean,

I haven't...

for many years bothered about wanking.

It's not because I have a partner in any way I'm not interested in sex now.

Does it?

I wanted to ask you about that.

I don't know how much.

You see, this conversation would make my wife cringe.

She would go to her.

I'm sure it would.

Yeah.

And I apologise.

Don't play it to her.

Okay, I won't.

I won't.

I mean, maybe I will one day, and it'll be sexy.

But

is it a question of sexual desire sort of just very gradually diminishing?

Or is it like from one week to the next?

You just think, well, I'm not going to do that again.

No, I think it's just gradually as you get older.

In my case,

as I got older, I stopped being interested in it for myself.

I'm still fascinated by other people's sex lives and how they conduct them.

But I know that I love my partner and she loves me.

And we don't do sex any more, but we are happy together and we want to be together.

And that's for me is en is enough.

I think sex is is wildly over discussed and over

over stimulated and

it really is.

And I've somehow cornered the market, not exactly, but a bit, in being extraordinarily explicit in front of people in these shows that I do.

And I think they do come to hear that.

They want to hear a well-spoken woman say cunt and cocksucker, and they they laugh and they find it funny.

I suppose it is funny a bit, but

you know, there are limits to how long you can go on talking about that sort of thing.

Well, I hope I haven't strayed too far behind.

Not at all.

No, I mean, it is worth talking about

because everybody's interested in it.

It is a universal,

practically an obsession.

Yeah.

But.

Plus, I've been introduced to the concept of steaming my.

No, you haven't got a yawning.

I have.

Yeah, but I've got bits.

they can be steamed,

dear boy.

Your bits are not in doubt.

Here's a question from my wife.

And she says, you were in the film Yentel.

Yes.

In 1983, that came out.

1983.

I mean, a big deal for a film in 1983 to be co-written, co-produced, and directed by a woman, Barbara Streisand.

And she is,

you know, well recognized and well-respected as a powerful woman in the industry and extremely accomplished person.

My wife was wondering what it was like for you as a similarly powerful and self-possessed woman working with someone like Barbara Streisand.

Was she the kind of woman who would feel threatened by someone like you?

Oh, not at all.

She wouldn't feel threatened by anybody.

No, I mean, I was an extra in that film and I remember meeting her and liking her very much and I think she liked me.

She was young.

I mean we were all well not that young.

I mean we were 41.

She's the same age as me actually

and

I said you know she said how old are you and I said forty one.

She said you're forty one hmm I'm forty one and I thought Christ the difference in our lives

you you have the world at your feet and I'm scrabbling for an extra part but she gave me the respect and attention

that she gave people and I loved her for that.

She was great.

I mean I didn't tell her that years ago I joined her fan club

because I remember at Cambridge somebody played a record of hers,

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

And it was brilliant.

And I thought, that's a talent.

I didn't realise you were a fan.

Have you exercised?

Not now, not any more.

Right.

I'm not a fan now.

I worked for her again, and I found her cold

and dismissive of people and really locked into the persona of being Barbara Streisand,

but immensely gifted nonetheless.

When was the second time you worked with her?

About five years ago, on a film called The Guilt Trip.

Oh, yeah.

With Seth Rogan.

Right.

Haven't seen that one.

I haven't seen it either.

But it was,

you know, she was just too up herself, really.

And

I require people to be humble.

I think it's extremely important.

Maybe she was having a bad time.

Maybe she just felt out of place and she was

defensive.

You can make any kind of excuses,

but I don't accept them.

Maybe Rogan rubbed her up the wrong way.

I wouldn't be surprised.

I don't think they they got that close.

Have you ever compared notes with Richard E.

Grant, who is an absolute Streisand fanatic?

Yes, I have.

Oh, yes, we've talked about him.

I love Richard.

He is a majestic, wonderful man.

I love him.

Did you get to know him on Age of Innocence?

Was he in that?

He was.

And

it was full of English people.

And I have mentioned this before, but I asked Mr.

Scorsese, why

do you have so many English people?

Why are you making a film about tony people, about posh types, when your milieu has always been the criminal gangs of New York?

And he said,

because I'm interested in brutality.

I thought that was an amazing remark.

And I think it's true that there is brutality in the upper classes.

You only have to look at Jacob Rees-Mogg, and you know there's a violent criminal in there.

Jacob Rees-Mogg.

He's doing a reality show now

where they follow him and his family around.

And I think it's part of an effort to kind of reinvent himself after the collapse of the Tory Party as a more approachable and furry figure.

Do you

not going to be watching that?

No.

No, I shan't be watching that.

I think he's contemptible.

Well, I talked to another podcast guest, Tim Key, about that image of him slouching on the benches and how contemptuous that image was, and that sort of

left me with an impression that I found hard to shake, however polite he is, because people, he's one of those people that many people that encounter him will tell you that he's very polite.

Oh, I'm sure he is.

He's very well brought up, he has every advantage.

But his remarks about those who perished in the Grenfell flames

they lacked common sense.

I can't forget that.

That's a lack of compassion, a lack of humanity.

So he can go on a reality show till the cows come home.

But I shan't be watching.

Brutality is a good word.

Well, maybe that kind of brutality is part of the experience of being at boarding school and

having a

class of people who are prepared to have that be the standard way of educating their children to send them off as well.

It may well be.

I think it does.

The class system perpetuates itself.

Yeah.

Miriam, we are coming towards the end of this conversation.

Are you okay to carry on for about ten minutes or something?

Yes.

Would you like a break or a drink of water?

No, no, no.

If I break, I won't be put together again.

All right, okay.

We'll go on.

Okay.

Am I like what you expected?

Yeah, in the best way.

Everybody says that.

It's really quite bizarre.

Wow.

Nobody's ever surprised by me.

No, that's a nice thing, though, isn't it?

Yes, I suppose it is.

I mean, it's just...

Maybe I'm surprised that you are what I expected.

There was part of me that thought perhaps she's a little bit more reserved, or perhaps some of that willingness to talk about outrageous things is a bit of a front.

And actually, when it comes down to it, it might not be so easy.

So I'm glad to find that that's not the case.

No, I I

I haven't got a front.

It's all just a window.

I want to ask about getting older, if that's okay.

Yeah.

I'm an expert on that.

Yeah.

Well, I'm fifty-five.

I was interested to know what you would say to the fifty-five-year-old Miriam.

Was she a very different person to the one you are now?

I don't think so.

I would say just keep going.

So there's nothing you've learned in the intervening years?

Oh, I hope I have.

I hope I've learnt

something.

Um

but I'm not sure I listen to what I've learned.

I

because I would say don't worry so much.

Relax.

Don't care so much.

But I still do, and I still worry.

I'm anxious.

I'm a little frightened of things, I think.

But I don't know if age allows you to learn, because as you age,

things go wrong with your body, and that's the real bugger.

Because I could do so much more

if I could walk, if I could run,

if I could remember things.

But I can't.

So you just do the best you can, and that's what Daddy said.

No, I'm not afraid of death.

You just do the best you can.

That's all you can do after all.

Do the best you can.

When we were talking earlier about people's awkwardness around the subject of death, and you were saying they find it embarrassing, I suppose I was thinking, well, perhaps more often they find it fearful, and they just don't want to even engage with the subject because that would mean engaging with their own fears.

Yes, I'm sure that's true.

I did a whole programme about death on the BBC and I went to Holland and I sat in one of those pods which

they inject you or something and you just kind of sail away in your mind to music and pictures of the sea.

Well, as a final exit,

as a deliberate exit.

A euthanasia to euthanasia, yes.

Which I strongly believe in.

I do.

But it's so funny because, you know,

people when they think of me, they think of me as somebody who's funny.

That's one of the things they think.

But you and I have talked, and I have not been funny.

I have been immensely serious, almost groaningly melancholic.

And I wonder, is that you that's doing that to me?

Or am I doing it to you?

But it's it's certainly true.

I had an audience in stitches last night in Cardiff, lovely people.

I was so witty and funny and fast and amusing.

And I haven't given you any of that side of myself.

I've only been contemplative, reflective, a little anxious, a little sad.

It's still Miriam, but it's only half, half the pudding.

Well, it was a delicious half.

I fear that that's me projecting my own anxieties onto this conversation.

I don't necessarily think that's true because I've thought about it a lot.

I'm concerned because I feel my

powers waning,

my bodily powers, certainly.

When my mental powers go, then I think I'll pack it in.

I mean, that really is the fucking end.

Think about Biden.

I mean, that poor chap.

having to say to people in the world,

I'm finished.

I'm not good enough to finish th w what I started.

I've got to leave in the middle.

I mean, that really is a hellish thing.

I feel very sorry for him.

And, you know, I didn't want Trump to die.

If we want him to die, we're as bad as he is.

We've let ourselves down.

But I certainly feel a bit like that photo of Melania that everybody saw, which said she was on the phone and she's saying, what do you mean he missed?

And

do you mind if we take a photograph with both of us in it?

Yes, of course.

Who listens to these programs?

That's a good question.

Lonely,

lonely wankers.

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Continue.

Hey, welcome back, Podcats and lonely wankers.

All welcome.

That was Miriam Margulies, and I'm very grateful to her indeed for making the time to talk to me and for being so friendly and open.

If you enjoyed that conversation and you haven't yet read her memoirs, I do recommend them.

There are links in the description of today's podcast to Oh, Miriam, and this much is true.

By the way,

as far as being buried in the

car storage rack, the Thula or Thule,

I asked ChatGPT if anyone else had been buried in a Thula.

And

Jeeps said, as of my knowledge cut off in September 2021, there are no known or documented cases of anyone being buried in a Thula roof rack.

Thula roof racks are designed for transporting gear on top of vehicles, not as a burial method or coffin.

While it might sound like the setup for a humorous or absurd urban legend, this type of burial would be highly unconventional, impractical and likely illegal, given the various regulations surrounding burialshandling.

Thanks, Jeeps.

So anyway, how are you doing, podcats?

It's good to be back.

I'm in an unfamiliar part of the countryside around Castle Buckles in a little woodland area and it's like a scene from the Rings of power with beautiful sunlight coming through the trees although no half foots and

elves called grim gromselibobel it's a little shout out to all the rings of power fans out there i believe it's quite a select club

Anyway, I'm sitting beneath a tree now.

You can hear the rush hour traffic on this balmy afternoon in September.

It's really nice and peaceful.

I wish Rosie was here, but yeah, she wasn't up for it.

I'll try and get her out next time.

But she's doing fine, if you're wondering.

She's on good form, actually.

I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast that we have another Adam and Joe live event coming up on the 5th of December, Thursday the 5th, at the Royal Festival Hall.

Once again, we are doing some Christmas podcast waffling live on that day.

We're doing two shows, in fact, back to back.

And the 7 p.m.

performance is sold out, but there are a few tickets remaining for the 9.30 performance.

That'll be the even more relaxed and unguarded performance, the 9.30.

But I appreciate it's quite late for some.

Currently the plan is for myself and Joe to meet up and record a Christmas podcast face-to-face after the live shows so that we've kind of got the best of both worlds.

Because I appreciate some of you guys prefer when it's just face-to-face for the Christmas podcast, not in front of an audience.

I get that.

We're gonna mix things up and see how it goes.

Maybe I'll include a few bits from the live shows in the Christmas Day podcast.

But if you would like to come along and be part of the live experience and see me and Joe all old and unedited, then come along to that 9.30 performance on the 5th of December.

There's links for tickets in the description of today's podcast finally a recommendation for another podcast actually it was Louis Theroux who told me about this one and it is very good million dollar lover

part of the intrigue series on BBC Radio 4 I believe

but anyway you can now hear it as a podcast on BBC sounds again link in the description and I think it came out towards the end of last year 2023.

It is, well, it's not exactly true crime as I think of it which is not a genre that I normally enjoy although there are definite crime elements in it and there's some shocking stuff in it actually as well about some of the things the bloke involved with this podcast got up to in his younger days.

as a drug addict.

Anyway, it's really a fascinating thing.

It's a veteran journalist called Sue Mitchell, crime reporter, who put this thing together.

She lives, part of the time anyway, in a town called Cayucas in California.

And it's a sort of slightly, I get the impression, chocolate boxy seaside town with a lot of fairly wealthy older people living there.

And one of Sue's neighbors was this woman, Carolyn, an 80-year-old wealthy widow.

And Carolyn became involved with this guy called Dave, a 57-year-old

homeless, I'm trying to think of the word that is now supposed to be preferable to homeless, unhoused,

ex-convict, ex-drug addict,

altogether a bit of a rough around the edges guy, but a charmer and someone who came into Carolyn's life, did some work in her house and ended up living there and having a relationship with her, which was the cause of a a lot of anxiety for her grown-up children, Carolyn's grown-up children, who felt that she was being taken advantage of by this guy.

So, the series, which is brilliantly put together, brilliantly recorded, I mean, I just don't know how, I would love to find out how Sue Mitchell did it because she seems to be there recording at all the pivotal moments as this story unfolds over ten episodes.

And she gets completely unguarded bits of conversation and commentary from all the people involved with this story from Carolyn, from Dave, from Carolyn's daughters, from members of Dave's estranged family and it is really fascinating and she's got the permission of all these people to you know, put their stories out there

even though it doesn't reflect well on many of them.

Carolyn really is the only person who is sort of blameless in the whole thing.

But it's one of those things where you

pick a side fairly early on, and then you go back and forth, and your sympathies shift.

And it's a very complicated story about so many things, you know, like families, the dynamics, complicated dynamics within families, and

the experience of getting older, and loneliness, and regret and loss

and

having transgressed and being forgiven and having a new chance at life, elder abuse, you know, older people being taken advantage of by unscrupulous

people

and

there's so many things going on in there.

I really recommend it.

I've been listening to a few good things recently actually, which I will recommend to you in forthcoming weeks.

probably you'll be across all of them already I know you're all plugged into everything you guys but just in case all right that's pretty much it for this week thank you once again to Miriam thanks to Charlotte and Georgina as well who helped set the whole thing up I really appreciate it thank you so much to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for all his invaluable production support it was great having Seamus on the live tour for most of the dates that we did earlier in the year.

He lives in New York, but he came over for those shows and

it was good fun having him there and touring around and he made the experience a lot smoother and more fun than it would have been otherwise.

Thanks Seamus.

Thank you to Helen Green.

She does the artwork for this podcast.

The picture of my face, that is.

What a great picture it is, like all her artwork.

Although she's gonna have to do a new one fairly soon.

I'm getting a lot grayer.

My temples have been invaded by greyness.

Not fully, but it's crept in there.

Like in the last few weeks, there's been quite a considerable encroachment.

You know, just, I know you're interested in the progress of my cowardly hair, which continues to retreat.

But there you go, that's fine.

I'm fine.

It's cool.

That's time.

I embrace you, time.

I kiss you on both cheeks.

Even as I knee you in your stupid old nuts.

But thanks most of all to you, podcats, for coming back, for listening right to the end.

Let's have a hug.

Come on, let's cuddle up under this tree.

Oh,

hey, how are you doing?

That's fine, that's enough.

Okay, I don't want to be creepy.

I'm going to go home now, check on dog legs, and get this edited.

Until next time, we are together next week.

I hope there'll be another episode out next week.

Take care.

I love you.

Bye.

Also, thank you very much to everyone at ACAS for all their hard work.

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