Guide To... S1E3 "The Arts" (February 24, 2009)

September 05, 2022 53m

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A new series, called The Ricky Gervais Guide to... featured the trio discussing various topics in their entirety during individual 50 min episodes. The first volume The Ricky Gervais Guide to... Medicine was released on 31 December 2008. This was followed by The Ricky Gervais Guide to... Natural History on 21 January 2009. This in turn was followed by The Ricky Gervais Guide to... The Arts on 18 February 2009. The 4th episode, The Ricky Gervais Guide to... Philosophy aired on 17 March while the 5th and final episode of season 1, The Ricky Gervais Guide to... The English followed on 21 April (2 days prior to St. George's Day).

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Pablo Picasso once stated, We all know that art is not truth.

Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.

From painting and poetry to symphonies and sculpture, the arts bring beauty and illumination to some, confusion and frustration to others.

But what is art?

The idea of a work of art created by an artist did not truly exist before the Renaissance.

And what value do the arts still have?

Do they still make us realise the truth?

Or are they increasingly rarefied and obsolete in this digital, disposable age?

With me to discuss the wide spectrum of the arts are Stephen Merchant, graduate of the University of Warwick, an award-winning writer.

Thank you so much for having me.

And Carl Pilkington, a man with no qualifications, very little education, but who is now known the world over as a man with a head like a fucking orange.

Well, I suppose if I can pick up on something from your introduction, Ricky,

you posed a question, in a sense, what is art?

It's a very broad term.

It's a very difficult one as well.

I think the earliest people to ponder it were

the Greeks.

And I think they thought that art was, and its point, was to try and emulate as close as possible the beauty of nature.

So they knew art was a sort of a quest for beauty.

And I suppose they thought nature was pretty perfect.

in its aesthetic.

And so the point of an artist was to try and tap into that.

Well, let me throw that question over to Carl Pilkington.

What do you want to know?

Well, we were just trying to clarify what art is.

Ricky's just referring back to the Greeks.

It's just something for your eyes to look at.

It's just a change from the norm.

I mean, that's why I think most people have it.

But then the problem is, I'd never buy a piece of art.

I don't see the point in buying something because I know that my eyes will get bored of it eventually.

Right.

So it's better to keep it in a museum, like a lot of places, you know, a lot of museums keep the stuff.

They rotate it because people get sick of looking at it.

They shift the art around, don't they?

People go, I'm sick of that now.

They move it around the world, let someone else's eyes look at it.

Well, that's more to get everyone the chance to see it, as opposed to the people who looked at it once and now sick of it.

Oh, I'm not the shitting Mona Lisa again.

How many times can you look at the same thing?

I think there's a snobbery with art.

I think people do go, Well, you see the new one at the Louvre.

Well, I think there should be a snobbery with art.

Why?

Because the world is full of idiots.

And just because there's not safety in numbers with art.

I think you should be a complete fascist when you're creating a work of art.

I don't think it is open to utilitarian or democratic

referendum.

You end up with the X-Factor winner, that way.

No, no, but that pleases the masses.

That's what I'm saying.

There was a painting knocking about when I was a kid, right, called The Blue Boy.

Yeah.

Now every house had one, right?

It turned out that it was just a bloke who had a load and he was flogging them to everyone.

But the thing is, that sums up art to me.

Someone's got a load.

You want one?

Go on, then, I've got a wall to fill.

And they stick it on.

It's not.

No, what does that represent?

Well, what's that going to bring to the room?

It's just

filling a gap.

And that's what art is to me.

It's filling a gap that would otherwise have now in it.

But you're obsessed with the functionality of things.

This is all you're ever obsessed with.

What's its function?

Things always

need to get you from A to Z in some way.

And art's not about that.

Have you got much art in your house?

Yes.

Because it gives me pleasure, and I don't get tired of it.

I don't get bored of it.

You look at it every day.

Well, it's there, isn't it?

It just adds.

I'm thinking about other things as well.

Pleasure dust is there, but.

Surprisingly, I've not compared

to dust as often as I perhaps should.

But

the thing about,

and this, I think, may be intriguing to you, Damien Hurst, of course, is more of a conceptual artist like Tracy Emin.

And a lot of what contemporary art does is followed on from a guy called Marcel Duchamp, who I'm sure you're familiar with.

Now,

he famously took a gentleman's white urinal like you'd find in a pub toilet, and he put it on its side, and he signed it with a fake name, and he put it in an art gallery.

Now, he did that in about 1917, perhaps a bit later.

It just annoys me, because there'll be snobby people who haven't got a clue, and they're looking at that, and they go, oh, yeah, yeah, see what he's trying to say.

Well, that might make them think they might.

Damien Earth, I don't I don't feel angry with Damien Earth really, because he's getting away with it.

But why does that annoy you?

Because it's people falling into the trap.

Damien Earth, before he dies, a bit goes, what a laugh that was.

I had everyone on.

There's a very good point as well, because some people think that the greatest art form of the last hundred years is marketing.

Some people say that that is his art.

That it's not good enough to do it.

You've got to then get away with it.

And if art, if the point of art is to inflame, I don't think anything inflames people more than the discussion about whether something's art, or if someone's taking the piss, or if someone gets 50 million for something, do they deserve it?

Is it worth a hospital?

Well, what do you think?

What do you think of the shark in a tank?

I think I was blown away by it.

I thought I'd never seen it like it before.

It was sort of spectacular because it is so huge and so vast.

And to have put a shark, you know, in formaldehyde and to have hung it in an art gallery, it's very striking when you see it.

It's a remarkable achievement.

Why is he an artist or a fishmonger?

What he's done, anyone could have done what he did.

Yes, but not everyone did it.

He did it.

This is an interesting point that you raise.

It's the same old point you always raise.

Not anyone could have done it.

That's always the same point you make.

Anyone could have done it.

But they did it.

You could say the same about Michelangelo.

Is he an artist or a painting or a decorator?

Well, it hasn't caught on, has it?

Like the crying boy photograph.

No one's having them in their house.

No one's gone, oh, oh, have you seen this?

Have you seen the new trend?

A shark in a tank.

No one's got the room, no one wants it.

And that, to me, shows you what's popular.

At the end of the day, if everyone wants one, it's got to be good, hasn't it?

But I think if people were given a chance to appreciate more sophisticated things,

then they would.

And I just think that's true in all walks of life.

You know, it's an acquired taste.

And the best things are an acquired taste.

They really are.

Well.

You know, if all you eat is processed cheese and white bread, you get a taste for it.

But if you try something that's,

you know, in my opinion, better than that, then, you know, you'll leave that behind.

That's pretty rich coming from you.

I know, I love a bit of Cheddar on that mother's pride.

Yeah.

Whereas if you were to be offered perhaps some calamari, your reaction would be, Squid, get it out of my face.

Sure, yeah.

But I take your point, Rick.

Thanks for it anyway.

Calamari was an artist, by the way.

I mean, I haven't got pictures in our flat because of that mirrored wall I've got.

Yeah.

So, I mean, it's tiny.

He's been in it.

I've got windows on one wall, door to get in on the other, kitchen on the other, mirrored wall on the other.

So there's nowhere for art.

There's no space for art.

I'm intrigued how you sit at home.

Where's the sofa?

At home, facing the mirror.

So you sit looking at yourself all night,

as opposed to a painting, yeah.

But at least that changes each day.

No, it doesn't.

It does, the pictures.

No, it does not.

It's round and miserable every fucking day.

No, no, honestly, it's it's good to because you don't look at yourself otherwise, especially me, I haven't got any hair to comb or anything, so I don't look in the mirror as much as the normal person.

Whereas now, I'm looking there every day.

So, you're sat at home staring at yourself?

No, because the tell is in front of the mirror, but are you not distracted by yourself?

Yeah, you do.

When the adverts are on, you look up, and if Suzanne's sat next to me, I tend to talk to her through the mirror.

What do you mean?

So, why don't you look at her when you talk to her?

Well, you don't have to turn your neck or anything.

There's no neck usage going on.

I can just look forward.

I look at the telly, lift the eyes up, look in the mirror, look at me, look at her.

What did she do?

Look,

you're used to it.

There's nothing wrong with that.

It's like there's more people in the room in a way.

And they're further away.

There's nothing odd about that.

Why wouldn't you use it doesn't matter?

Sorry, remember that.

You mean when you talk to your girlfriend via a mirror all the time?

Is that your question?

Well, no, I think it's quite normal.

If your head is facing a mirror where you can see everything in that room, remember, it's a small flat.

I can see everything that's going on in there without moving my head.

Stephen Hawkin would be well happy.

So I can look forward.

She sat next to me.

If I'm watching the telly, I can say something.

Now, she's getting the sound from me still because she's sat close.

Yeah.

But yeah, we're further away, but things look better from a distance anyway.

So that's how you've managed to keep this relationship along with you.

You're such an odd little man.

But no, it's not odd.

You see, there was a woman on the estate who did use.

Have I told you about Miss Piggy before?

No.

It rings a bell.

Go on.

I think I told you ages ago, it's this fat woman who used to be on the estate.

She had a three-wheeler bike

and her husband.

Pin bike, pedal bike.

Yeah, like a tricycle thingy.

A big one.

Right.

She used to sit her husband in the basket in the back.

Cycle about what I did.

Yeah.

She was known as Miss Piggy.

Anyway.

Oh, is this the one that she used to beat him up so your dad pretended to be a policeman?

Yeah, that's it.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

You remember?

No, I don't remember this.

Yeah, yeah.

She used to always duff her husband up and that, and people in the area knew that she was being a bit tight on him.

And my dad went round with his mate.

But what's this got to do with the mirror?

Anyway, well, the way she used to communicate, she used to always go in quicksaving Nick Biscuits.

And if anyone went up to her to say, stop nicking the biscuits She'd pull out like a little mirror out of a bag and she'd look in it but talk to you via the mirror.

Oh God!

Oh my god

it's like a Salvador Dali painting you exist in there

It's really really so hang on so she used to talk to people through the mirror because she was mental I couldn't sit watch the telly and look at me watching the telly in the mirror all night.

No, that's weird.

No, that would be really weird.

It's really weird, Carl.

I'd be very conscious of myself.

No, I think it gives you confidence in that.

And if you are.

It gives you confidence.

Well, yeah, because you're seeing yourself more and you pick up what habits you do and stuff like that.

So, what have you changed through your viewing of yourself?

I sort of grew a beard through the week, just something different to look at for a bit.

And then you get sick of that, it's like a piece of art.

Change that, have a bit of a shave.

Can you see the back of the telly in the mirror?

A little bit, yeah.

If the flat's a mess, it's a mess twice.

The earliest art, which we know, which we call cave paintings,

they date back

between 30 and 10,000 years BC.

Even those

people

tried to brighten up their cave with a bit of art.

So, in many ways, they were more advanced than you.

Yeah, but they didn't have a big mirror.

I mean, if you're living in a cave, let's face it, you're not going to go mad if your kids start drawing, doodling on the cave wall, are you?

Doesn't matter.

Right.

Brighten it up.

But they always did the same thing.

It was always a yak.

Wasn't it?

Well,

it was always a yak.

Yeah, but they drew what they saw.

I mean, yeah.

I love the fact that 30,000 years ago, they're being criticised for being a bit literal.

No, but surely, if all you ever see when you step out of the cave is a yak, do something different on the wall for when you get in.

What?

Why is it always a yak on every wall?

Is it always a yak?

It's always a yak.

Whenever you see these Tom Robinson time team programmes, who's Tom Robinson?

He's excited, by the way, isn't he?

Yeah, a 70s singer-songwriter.

Tony Robinson, you mean?

Tony Robinson, whenever you see him digging around, they say, hold up, everyone, get the brush, what's this, what's this?

It's always a yak.

Yet they pretend they're interested.

So you're saying that

you'd have been, no, I'm not going to draw yak, I just saw yaks.

So, this is what I'm saying to you about trends.

One person has it, the next caveman going, oh, I'll have one of them on my wall.

I'll do a yak.

Why was there no one just doing something a bit different?

Well, it's not true.

They did.

It's not true.

This thing about is yak.

It's just in your own head.

The programmes I've seen,

I've been to Pompeii where they had

doodling on the walls.

And that was all like knobs, tits, and arse

all over the shop.

Now, do that now.

People go, That's a disgrace.

Rub that out, clean that, get it down.

Whereas now, if you see one in Pompeii, they go, Oh, look at that, that's look at the detail on that.

Well, you know what I'm saying?

This snobbery in art, it's the same knob, the knob has not changed.

Yeah, but I imagine in 50,000 years' time, if they dig up a cubicle and there's tits and arse, people take pictures of it.

It won't be.

This is the interesting thing with the way we live now.

We're cleaning stuff up constantly now.

There's no

almost no record of our time.

Because we're getting rid of everything.

We clean everything up.

Everything's clean.

Getting rid of rubbish.

Recycling everything.

Well, that's a very good point.

Is graffiti

a valid art form?

Some of it is.

I think it is, yeah.

I mean, we're not talking about the classic spunking dick, which is still, I mean, it's still great, isn't it?

Well, I mean, if

you see a lovely clean white wall and you see a spunking dick on it, you're going to laugh.

Always laugh.

Do you add hair to the testicles when drawing this fucking dish?

A few.

The testicles are.

It's always clean.

My testicles are always clean.

Really?

Yeah.

I put the four or five bristles sticking out straight.

See, I always thought that was a kind of common aversion.

It looks like mine looks like.

I don't mean my real one.

I mean my

illustrative problems.

It looks like two Gooseberries and Thunderbird 2.

Do you add much detail at the tip of the penis?

No, it's a straightforward, it's dissecting across, just a line across

to show the helmet.

Then one little line for the helmet.

And do you tend to keep the same number of droplets coming out?

Three droplets.

I do three, but I don't do the line.

I actually do the little teardrops.

The little teardrops.

And that is the spunking dick.

When I was at school, it was referred to, and this may be specific to Briz, but it was referred to as the sacred.

I've just drawn a sacred.

Oh, really?

I don't know where the origin of that was.

Some graffiti is funny.

I saw one in London.

It just said

Rachel is a big-assed, big-chinned cunt.

Now,

I think Rachel's going to see that and know, well, I'm the only big-assed, big-chinned cunt round here.

I don't know how big her chin was.

Sure.

I think of her chin maybe looking like the ass.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like the big ass that they're.

Maybe she couldn't see the last part of it because the chin was in the way.

Rachel is a bit.

And that's the thing.

So, where was this graffiti written?

It was in near centre point.

So, do you think someone was so angry?

Well, I think.

Well, maybe Rachel nicked this woman's fella.

Right.

And she went out

and saw that.

Yeah.

In a lot of different places.

I saw one that was something, I don't think it was Beck and Bristol, it was something like, Michael Peters is gay.

And I always wondered if that was Michael Peters himself who was having trouble coming out of the closet and was just writing that in a number of different places.

So that by the time he finally mentioned people, they went, oh, yeah, I knew that anyway, I spoiled your toilet.

Sculptures.

What do you think of sculptures?

I mean, because that's something that really is getting into the 3D world there.

No longer do you have to represent something as 3D.

You can make something.

You know, is it, you know, the statues are amazing, aren't they?

They're clever, aren't they?

I mean, they always look the same.

Well, that's not true, is it?

Because recently there was quite a controversial one, a huge one, in London.

The pregnant

thalidomide woman.

What do you think of that?

Yeah, I saw that.

Thoughts?

I wouldn't have it in my house.

Well, there wouldn't be room because it would just be you, Suzanne, and a pregnant thalidomide watching tele.

I don't know what he was trying to say.

Maybe she was saying, Okay, we've had the human form.

This is an example of the human form.

Yeah, but do you think she started off trying to do normal and it was like, oh, I've chipped a bit off.

She one of the arms got chipped off.

Well, it makes you wonder, doesn't it?

And why, you see that?

That square, Trafalgar Square, you've got that.

Nelson's column, he's got one arm and a leg missing or something, and a patch over his eye.

Then you've got the th thalidomide.

Why can't they just do a full person?

Whoa!

That was what they saw.

That was what the artists saw.

It's about confronting us with certain preconceptions of

what we expect of the human form, what we expect of sculpture.

It's probably a little ironic comment as well on the famous Rodan.

It's wrapped up with all kinds of ideas of maternity, of the human form, of what sculpture is.

Why wouldn't you put that in a big public place?

But what about the subject?

Did you think who's that subject?

Who is that woman?

No, not really, because the lidomids are around and we've all seen one.

It's not like a

shocking image.

It's one of life's little things that it chucks out.

There's some out there.

So it's not shocking, is it?

I don't understand what you mean.

I think what I thought is it just goes to show we're sort of running out of ideas.

What do you you think of people who are so angry at art they try and censor it or they try and destroy it?

Do you think art should ever be censored?

It's where you put it.

If it's in a gallery, then it doesn't have to be censored.

If it's in Trafalgar Square, where everyone's wandering around having a nice time, you don't want a 12-foot cock.

So it's all about where you put it.

I think some art looks better because of where it is.

Angel in the North, that's a bit of art.

But it's a bit of a surprise, isn't it?

You're driving along a miserable motorway.

Oh, what's that over there?

It gives you something for your eyes to look at again.

Motorways are the most boring place to drive.

But you go, oh, there's a bit of art over there.

Yeah, but

then again, should you be looking at art when you're going at 70 miles an hour along a motorway?

Well, yeah, because it's really big.

You can keep your eye on it and look in the mirror.

It's not a problem.

Wait till you go past it and look in the mirror like normal.

So you like the Angel of the North?

Because

it's something in the middle of nothing.

Right, but if if you put it somewhere else.

Stick it in Trafalgar Square, you'd go, oh, more clutter.

Now, you've spoken, Carl, about, you know, art and what impact does it have, blah, blah, blah.

And as Ricky's just pointed out, of course, in some instances, art has been considered incredibly controversial, very provocative, and has been banned.

Famously, one thinks of the Nazis banning and burning certain books, not all of which were just books, you know, criticising them.

It was often artistic works, things which they felt were subversive in some sense.

And you get that in many many repressive regimes where people's artistic work is not allowed to express the way they feel about something.

For Stalinist Russia, for instance, art there, literature, are not able to express its views because people see it as dangerous, as provocative.

Well, yeah, the threat always comes from scholars

with any dictatorship, you know, and they know that.

But not just scholars writing, you know, scholarly texts, criticisms, but also people expressing themselves through poetry, through creativity, things which are not dangerous.

They can be abstract and yet they can still be subversive.

Yeah, but I think if it's done in a way that isn't just like a lunatic,

they get away with it.

Like a nice poem, some people would read it in a different light.

I might read it and go, I don't even know what they're going on about there.

So, as long as it's done clever,

get away with it, don't they?

So it makes the artist bad.

But that's not often not the case, that's what I'm saying.

Often in these regimes, these things are repressed.

No, but there's always like code words and that that you can use and they can't have you on it.

Such as?

I don't know.

I'm not into that sort of work.

Right.

Well, so you've just made a statement there but he's not backed up with any action.

Well there is a good point there.

No, there was a very good point there.

The McCarthy era where

he was threatened by communism

infiltrating the country and he thought that

entertainers might be a part of that, the conspiracy.

It was a hotbed and he made everyone come forward, writers, actors, say they're not a communist and some people were out in the cold.

And so people had to be a bit cleverer, like

was it Arthur Miller, the Crucible?

It's a metaphor.

It's about witch hunts, but it's about McCarthyism.

So, yes, good point.

You can put coded messages CB radio was the same thing.

Go on.

Oh, it's all the codes.

Yeah, okay, well, I thought you had a.

I mean, I was trying to make your point sort of more valid than it obviously.

No, but if you need to refer to CB radio, that's the obvious.

Well, that's what I can relate to.

Sure.

Yeah, we've done this.

There's no point in CB radio.

They go, How many candles are you burning?

What?

How old are you?

Eight.

Okay, yeah.

I mean, there's no point to those codes at all.

This is in no way relatable to the Crucible.

Why would you be talking about one of the most respected plays of

the 20th century and suddenly this in your head reminds you of CB radio?

Just having this code going on that only certain people knew it great.

Everyone knew it.

No, it's pointless.

Not that remnant.

Pointless.

I remember we were shown the cartoon version of Animal Farm when we were about like 15, 16.

We were discussing it afterwards about, oh,

oh, yeah, great.

Oh, yeah, communism versus, oh, the poor proletariat, and all this.

And this bloke went, you like, make me sick.

It was just a nice film about some animals.

Brilliant.

Yeah.

What's your take on that, Carl?

No, go on, go on, what's your point?

Because you can see the irony there, can't you?

I haven't seen it.

No.

If you want to do a serious point, don't use animals.

No.

Well, I disagree with you there because we're going to get on to literature later.

And I think

my favourite is probably Charles Dickens.

And I think the greatest story ever told is a Christmas carol.

And there's only one way that could ever be improved, and that is a Muppet Christmas carol.

That's absolutely right.

Yeah.

So, and I think that you could, and I think people could take a lesson from that and maybe do other films with the Muppets.

A Muppet Schindler's List.

Yeah.

I mean, you could make it so moving, couldn't you?

Schindler's List in Space.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I think it would certainly help bring that story to a wider audience.

I think so.

Yeah.

People who are like Carl, who were put off perhaps by the depressing black and white

of it, they would suddenly see the Muppet singing and dancing.

Miss Piggy's choice.

Miss Piggy's choice, yeah, yeah.

Well, have we talked about that?

What?

About things like that in art as well.

Bringing something so serious

to the masses, like films do, things like the Holocaust and like Sophie's Choice, where she has to choose which child

lives and dies.

Why did she have to pick?

Well, because the Nazis were horrible, nasty, evil people.

And which one did she pick?

I don't think that's the point.

This is not a betting game.

No, but I imagine.

This is like deal-no-deal.

It's kind of you're down to the last, down to the last two.

Which one are you going to go for?

Oh, God.

But why did you ask which one did she choose?

Because

if he said the names Robert and Alison, what difference would it make?

You don't know the story.

Why is it?

Because then I'd ask more, I'd ask more then.

If he said Alison, I'd go, what was it with Alison?

What did she have over Robert?

That's what films are meant to do.

You question it.

Whenever I watch a film with Suzanne, I always say at the end, what was going on there?

Oh, that's because you're an idiot.

That's because you've just watched them up at Christmas, Carol, and you can't understand why a frog's able to talk.

I'm all for films with a good storyline.

Yeah?

Brilliant.

That's a fresh point.

What extraordinary voice?

He's going to follow this up, mate.

He's going to follow up.

He's got something there.

He's got something.

Come on here.

Carl, go on then.

What's your take on films?

Films are really good.

You can get lost in them.

Right?

And.

You like one with a good story?

I like.

I mean, whenever anyone asks, it's always the same.

It's Elephant Man.

It's Kez.

Mission Impossible 2,

Mission Impossible 2.

These are what you consider the great works of film.

These are ones that I've enjoyed recently.

There's so many films that I haven't seen, yet you always say, Oh, have you seen so-and-so?

Well, Mission Impossible 1.

And there's good news for you.

Three's out, that's true.

One of the most striking art exhibitions that I ever attended, Carl, was an exhibition of outsider art, something I'm sure you're very familiar with.

Outsider art, of course, is work that is made by people who are often institutionalised for mental health problems

or they are just incredibly,

you know,

they're people who aren't in any way part of the artist standard.

Well, they are right up to psychopathic murderers.

Clinically insane mass murderers would count as outsider art.

I I went to an outsider art exhibition in New York, it was incredible.

And I bought a painting of this guy, he's a chronic schizophrenic, and he paints in tar,

like road tar, that he gets from roads.

And he paints in that on wood he finds in sort of skips.

And it's incredible because it's sort of like scratched in, and it's amazing.

And there's this thing of Jesus being helped down off the cross.

And you have to study it, but it's there, and it's quite incredible that it's just scratched in this wood by by tar.

And there's loads of things that I was walking around,

admittedly, I was walking around there going, This is fucking mental.

And James was going, You've got to stop saying that.

Because, of course, some of the people are mental.

There was one bloke who done a sculpture of a skull, right?

And underneath

it was like a little head with his teeth.

Underneath, he'd put a sign that said real teeth.

Where's he getting the real teeth from?

What I think is interesting about that is how much therapy it provides for these often mentally unstable people, which is another important value of our, of course, people's self-expression, people being able to give a little piece of themselves through their work.

Do you not see any value in that?

How do you express yourself?

Whistle.

You whistle.

Yeah, I found over Christmas I whistled a lot more than I usually do.

And I think that was just freedom.

What do you mean freedom?

Expand on this point, if you would.

Well, that's what that's what art is, isn't it?

It's you being free of all the world's heaviness on your shirt.

See, that's a great quote, that.

That's great, that, for art is freedom.

I love that, because I think you've really hit on something there.

Would you include the free of all the world's heaviness in the future?

Well, I know what he meant.

I know what you meant there.

Would you include that one in it?

I mean, I would include the world's heaviness in my freedom.

You know, some artists are attracted to the dark side, the heaviness of the world.

But I just want to return to you whistling as your artistic expression of freedom.

I mean,

why did you find yourself whistling more?

That's what was weird.

So just take us through a bit of a story.

When would the whistling begin?

So, sorry, this was that you spent you spent Christmas down in Kent with Suzanne and her parents.

Yeah.

Could I suggest something?

Your freedom was thinking, I'm in my own place now, I'm going to annoy them.

Well, it was mainly when we were playing Scrabble,

and they were taking ages to have their go, and couldn't have the radio on because the boiler affects the radio.

It works, it just gives something off.

Every time it kicks in, the radio goes all staticky.

Right?

So I just was sort of supplying the soundtrack.

I think you've really hit on something there.

Would you include the free of all the worlds heaviness?

Well, I know what he meant.

I know what you meant there.

Would you include that one in it?

I mean, I would include the world's heaviness in my freedom.

You know, some artists are attracted to the dark side, the heaviness of the world.

But I just want to return to you whistling as your artistic expression of freedom.

I mean, uh, what why did you find yourself whistling more?

That's what was weird.

So just take us through a

day.

When would the whistling begin?

So sorry, this was that you spent you spent Christmas down in Kent with Suzanne and her parents.

Yeah.

Could could I suggest something?

Your freedom was thinking, I'm in my own place now, I'm going to annoy them.

Well, it was mainly

when we were playing Scrabble,

and they were taking ages to have their go, and couldn't have the radio on because the boiler affects the radio.

It works, it just gives something off.

Every time it kicks in, the radio goes all staticky.

Right.

So I just was sort of supplying the soundtrack.

And what kind of things would you be whistling?

It was like I just sort of did a whistle medley.

It was going from one thing to another.

A wedley.

And a man was impressed.

She was like, oh, you can whistle, can't you?

I was going, yeah.

And then she was saying, How loud can you go?

I was just doing all different levels.

So this sounds like a scene from one for the cuckoo's nest.

The boy that's setting off the radio.

I can whistle.

Oh, you're good whistling, aren't you?

Oh, it's grabbing old.

Talk about outsider art.

I love the fact that Carl's life is like living in a home when you're in your 80s.

Yeah.

But you felt that this was your way of expressing yourself.

I just found it odd because I'm not, I don't whistle that much.

I think just because I'm,

fed up most of the time when I'm in London.

And you never get, you don't whistle when you're fed up.

Whistling's a happy thing.

You never get an angry man suddenly breaking into a whistle.

Well, the people who aren't whistling are usually pissed off.

But yeah, the bloke is whistling.

It's like, yeah, it's the least, he's the least annoyed person in the room when someone's whistling.

Same as holding a drill.

The only person that noise doesn't annoy is the bloke who's drilling.

Everyone else wants to bunch his face in.

Same with whistling.

Whistling is just there's no point in whistling.

No, there is.

No, there's not.

The only point to whistling is in the bloke's changing room, everyone's whistling, going, I'm not looking at your cock.

If I'm whistling, I can't be looking at your cock.

Anything else, there's no other.

There's no.

Calling a dog, maybe.

Calling a dog.

It changes the atmosphere.

Yeah, it annoys everyone else.

I don't know.

I mean, our window cleaner was known as, like, you know, that's how he knew he was there.

He always whistled.

And in the end, he fell off his ladder, broke his front teeth.

Oh, retired.

Well, because he couldn't whistle.

That was it, it was like

can't whistle, can't clean windows.

It's a bit tragic.

Could he take along a whistle, just put that in his mouth?

Yeah, I suppose he could have done.

He didn't think of that.

What about a flute or a recorder?

Not London's burning again.

Fucking clean the windows and then fuck off.

He didn't really think this through, did he?

He retired at the age of 28.

And his whole family were bankrupt with no teeth.

Yeah, and just a pocket in a single moment.

Why are you working, Dad?

Because I can't whistle.

I can't whistle anymore.

And the day you give up whistling is the day I give up window cleaning.

So you never whistle?

No.

I can't really whistle very well.

No.

Well, I don't whistle, but I can whistle better than that.

What, you did this for hours on end while playing Scroud Means?

Two hours.

Wow.

Put my word down.

Sorry, can we just hear that again?

Just hear it.

Can we hear it?

you were whistling after you had your go as well.

Fuck it now, Carl.

But hang on, let's just hear a bit.

That is Carl's self-expression.

That is his artistic self-expression right there.

A name.

No chew, no nothing.

There's mental patients who have smeared canvases with shit to have expressed more than you have in that.

Yeah, but it's not about other people.

I'm not there to please other people.

You're there to annoy them.

What was the best word you came up with in Scrabble?

Don't knock me at Scrabble, because I do alright.

What's weird is, when I play Scrabble,

your brain can come up with words that I don't normally say.

Okay, this isn't, no, I'm a cheat here.

Your brain can come up with words you wouldn't normally say.

Just words that I'd never drop into a sentence.

Tree, cat, go on.

Squirm.

That's using a Q, it's worth ten, Matt.

It's not bad, is it?

No, I'd never say that.

I've never heard of you.

I don't think I've ever heard you say squirrel.

No.

I don't think you're right, Carl.

I've never heard you say squirm.

Weird, isn't it?

Yeah, it is weird.

And yet your brain popped that one out.

And then, yeah, when it wasn't, I go just

anyway, so that's sort of doing art for yourself as opposed for other people.

I don't think you can count what you just did then as art.

Hobby maybe, craft, pastime.

I don't think you can count that as art.

I'm not being funny.

I'm being a bit snobby here, but I think there's a difference between Beethoven and

Squirm.

There's a cue in that.

No, no.

Classical music.

I wish I was more educated on classical music.

That which I've heard, I've adored.

I genuinely find it challenging because it is so spectacular.

It is so of another place.

Where do you sit with classical music?

It's good, it's good for background.

Right.

See,

you know me, I like a song with a story, and there's nothing going on in them.

That's now the problem with that is, how many times can you hear the same story?

Quite a lot.

How many songs can you watch the same film?

Same thing, except it's shorter than watching a film.

Yeah, but the film goes into the story with more depth than a three-minute song.

Yeah, but there's also, do you know, like when you watch,

what's an example?

Say, uh

think of a film.

Yeah, there's not many.

No, but a moment in a film that it doesn't matter how many times you watch it, you go, I enjoyed that bit.

Godfather swings tomorrow.

I'll say, no, over Christmas, On the Buses was on the movie.

Jesus.

When he went with The Godfather, he went with On the Buses.

I mean,

Brando, Varney, I don't know which is better.

It was the bit where, like, the toilet blows up after chucking a fag in.

That's had paint in it.

Right.

Sorry, that's in all the buses.

That's my nipo fire.

I can't remember that.

Maybe that's my father, too.

The thing is, I enjoyed that bit and I knew it was coming.

It's like, oh, I'll just watch this before I nip out and put the kettle on.

Let's just see the thing.

How many times have you seen The On the Buses film?

Maybe about four or five times.

Sure, why not?

But all I'm saying is, music is there to sing over.

No, it's not.

Music is there to sing over.

That's a ridiculous thing to say.

Music does something to me.

I don't know what it is.

I don't know why a chord can say something to you.

I don't know, mate.

It gives you that feeling.

I'm in awe of it.

I'm in awe of musicians.

My favourite piece of music is a thing by Vaughn Williams.

It's five variants of Dives and Lazarus, right?

And there's a bit there where it hits this chord, and

I can't listen to it when I'm away from home because I well up.

It reminds me of everything.

England just

does something to me.

And it does it on a level that I can't sort of quite understand.

It's just immaculate.

I just don't think you can beat a decent vocal on top of that.

Oh, that's amazing.

My mum's got a CD of Roger Whittaker, right?

Right, whistling again.

No.

He whistles Jealous Guy.

Now, the thing is, I can't listen to that and whistle on.

I end up singing Jealous Guy on top of it.

So, singing Trump's whistling?

Yeah, when someone else is doing the whistling.

Okay.

I like whistling, but if someone else has did that first,

singing jealous guy, you'd be like,

to make the classics live on, I'm surprised someone hasn't gone, I can add to this, and dub on a bit of vocal.

So you would have classical music with lyrics

just for people.

Beethoven's Fifth.

That would be better to you.

That would.

But what are you meant to do with it?

What do you do?

When you've got that on, then do you whistle along or

just come?

I just let it.

Oh.

Do you whistle along?

I just don't know what to say.

Why are you obliged to whistle?

That's the only way you can enjoy music if you can whistle along.

Well, that's the same with anything.

A good song, you join in, don't you?

It's like, oh, I like this one.

No.

So, by that token, YMCA is one of the greatest of all tunes.

I mean, it's not one of my favourites, but you can't knock it.

It certainly gets the crowd up.

I mean, I did DJing.

Why did you go about the crowd?

Who are this crowd?

Well, I'm just saying.

Who are this crowd that you have to live in your head with?

Fuck the crowd.

Most of them are idiots.

Although, admittedly, if I was doing a wedding DJing set, I probably would do YMCA over Vaughan Williams.

And why is that?

Because it's happier, go lucky.

It's done in three minutes.

Classical music goes on for ages.

It fades out, it comes back in again.

Well,

it's a good point.

It's all over the shop.

Are you going or are you staying?

It's over time.

And I'm not saying we should get rid of it.

And I might grow into it, because I think that's music for older people.

Well,

I think Mozart would disagree.

I think he did his first symphony when he was five or six.

Probably playing piano and writing music before you could read.

Did the piano come out when he was a kid?

What do you mean?

If it was trendy to have a piano when he was a kid, it's like our kids now,

they're messing about on Google at the age of two because the laptop is new.

It's new to us.

To them, it's like, oh, it's Google, isn't it?

What's your point?

Because he was born at the right time.

Beethoven.

Yeah, he was born at the right time.

Mozart.

So you're saying that all three-year-olds around the time of Mozart were brilliant?

There would have been quite a lot of them.

Mozart, Beethoven, all that, they're all handled.

They're all around the same time, aren't they?

Just kissing.

Wild stars in the dark.

Just names he's heard.

So when Ricky was young, when Walter's stylophone came out, everyone was composing on the stylophone.

Yeah, exactly.

It's all what you brought up with, isn't it?

Nothing's hard if you're given it when you're a kid.

Nothing's difficult.

It can be taught all sorts.

I haven't got room for a piano.

It's too big for a pastime.

A hobby shouldn't take up a whole corner of a room.

It's so limited, isn't it?

His scope, his imagination.

But a piano, the idea that a piano in a house would be a frustration and annoyance.

Music.

That you could play.

But I'd worry about annoying other people with it.

No, you don't.

You whistle when you're playing Scrabble.

You don't worry about annoying people at all.

I'm sure people would rather have gentle piano music in the background than

squirm

squirm.

So, one of the earliest earliest and most celebrated art forms that's, you know, along with painting and music still going today, is the play.

And, of course, the most famous and celebrated exponent of that is our very own William Shakespeare.

Some say maybe the greatest literary genius in history.

I'm not a fan.

Right.

And I'll tell you why I'm not a fan.

One reason and one reason only.

Sure.

Nothing to do with the structure, his themes,

fantastic.

The pun.

Right.

Oh, I can't stand the pun.

Yeah, but I mean, although Shakespeare did include a few puns in his work, I don't think you could.

No, I suppose it's the people that have taken on the pun.

It just reminds me of a bloke with a beard

and a pipe at a party doing puns.

You know, and it's things like Shakespeare, things like, oh, take their maiden heads.

And you have to look at your brody's notes to go, okay, cut off their heads and take their virginity.

Oh, brilliant.

You know, you can't, it's like you can't explain a joke in retrospect.

You don't laugh if you then explain to you.

I'm going to have to take issue with the idea that Shakespeare was not a truly great master of our language.

I think he was.

He added to the language.

He invented words, or at least he stole words and changed them, but he took them from other languages, which is

totally valid.

And he made up loads of sayings that are still around today.

And there's a poetry in that, inventing new.

Actually, Carl, you like sayings, don't you?

I've got a list here of some of the sayings and phrases that Shakespeare made up, really.

In a pickle was his.

Yeah.

And we know what in a pickle is.

Yeah, we know what it means.

It's a saying I'd never use.

Because when you're in a pickle, it's not something that you would say.

No, if you're being sort of, if you're captured and you're being tortured for information,

and you get access to a phone, you wouldn't go, MI5, I'm in a pickle.

You'd be screaming, going, he's taking my teeth now.

Much as I love Shakespeare, when that play was first staged and someone said during the play, ooh, I mean a pickle, did the audience understand or were they baffled?

Or was it like watching Ken Dodd when he goes, humbunctious?

Exactly.

Oh, totally hilarious.

Yeah.

So Shakespeare is about as good as Ken Dodd.

That's what we appear to have established.

While you've been talking about that, I just was looking on the computer at

the Pun of the Day website because I feel I take much of what you say about puns and agree with it.

There's a couple that