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Episode 44 - Olympics And Stuff
66 Plays1 year ago
Paul and Martin (co-Mayors of ADHDville) ramble on about the Olympics and ADHD with a large slice of British TV thrown in for good measure because... you know, ADHD.
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Put quill to paper and send us an email at: ADHDville@gmail.com
ADHD/Focus music from Martin (AKA Thinking Fish)
Theme music was written by Freddie Philips and played by Martin West. All other music by Martin West.
Please remember: This is an entertainment podcast about ADHD and does not substitute for individualized advice from qualified health professionals.
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Transcript
Chaotic Start and British TV Nostalgia
00:00:00
Speaker
Okay, back in the room. Back in the room. And we're back in the room shambolically this morning. We are more shambolic than normally. Than normal. I know. We were supposed to start half an hour ago and I had enough prep for the episode because we had to move the recording time from a normal slot to an earlier one. Plus with the hate, I don't know about you with the hate, my brain is is is it's not on shutdown um and it's not on standby.
00:00:40
Speaker
<unk> of very i there very slowly very, very I remember Pipkins at the moment. You remember they got pipkins and the Deep, deeply disturbing. Yeah, so the Pipkins, especially, he was or it was a complete nutcase. It's a TV show in England, probably aired like late 70s, early 80s. Did he have a Birmingham accent, Midlands accent? late seventy
00:01:16
Speaker
It's it's a weird. So so the premise for the show was they were. Hang on. Were they a. Was there a promise company? Oh, Christ. I don't know. I think they were. I think that they were a removal company and there was a guy. Was was there a guy? Anyway, all I can remember was there was this rabbit puppet. yeah This rabbit puppet was manic. It was like it was on heroin. It was like a crazed, crazed rabbit character that was just... It looked really disheveled. ah looked like he was on It looked like he was on acid.
00:02:01
Speaker
Right. it It was like the worst case of ADHD in the world. that still ah the best which just said that We had the best TV programmes though. They were just so cool. and youre like um um um oh god now ah My mind just went back. Bagpuss. Backpuss, absolutely. That was a phenomenal program. And would yeah, it was just like, it was just weird stuff. And at some point, Sesame Street came along and they made it like, ah the historically history around Sesame Street is off the charts. It's brilliant. Even in the 70s, they did like months and months of research, don't know if you know this, for for Sesame Street. And now before they broke,
00:02:51
Speaker
Okay. Well, before they, they broadcast and this is obviously Sesame Street was the pre, was like pre Muppets. It was like became, I think it was right as it Sesame Street was before the Muppets. Yeah, briefly. Yeah. Right. But before that, they just to be sure they checked up, they checked in with a few few psychologists and the psychologist says, don't put this program out. And they said, why? So because with children, you shouldn't mix reality and fantasy. ha ah
Sesame Street's Unique Research Approach
00:03:23
Speaker
So in as much as you shouldn't have puppets or, you know, you know, these characters made out of foam or whatever these puppets mixed in a normal human world with human people shouldn't consider it confuses and disturbs children. Total nonsense, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. I think that the the only thing that disturbed me about Sesame Street was was
00:03:52
Speaker
Big bird. Big bird. Right. For some reason, I've heard it's huge. Yeah. Yeah. For some reason, I knew you were going to say big bird. Right. It's this huge puppet, if you don't know it. It's like a big bird. It's like and mr but eight feet tall or something. Yellow has this very sim simplistic kind of character. I think I think it was supposed to be like a sort of, you know, a very kind of childlike wonder. Yeah. It just it just irritated me. Yeah. Whereas the more adult characters like like Cookie Monster or Crouch or Count Count Count. I like to count. Yeah. Yeah. One of the three.
00:04:44
Speaker
Oh yeah. At school, at school, we had our technical drawing teacher. um He used to hand out before the lessons, he would hand out rulers to everyone, right? So he'd hand them all out. And then at the end of the- Wooden rulers, I'm guessing. Yeah, absolutely. And ah when the when they came back in at the end of the lessons, he would count them in, so just to make sure that he had the right number. But he had an Eastern European accent.
00:05:19
Speaker
Okay. would and with ah And with no irony old or any knowledge of Sesame Street. At the end of the list, here we go. 15 rulers. um inside webu gay ah paul yeah right okay fantastic it was worth it nice just but but sesame street was brilliant it was brilliant uh what else there was other stuff for sesame one of the things i also found with them they actually did a lot of is so much research they did into it they worked out if you wanted to to
American Reactions to British Children's TV
00:05:53
Speaker
really um
00:05:55
Speaker
help children to learn. Everything that they wanted them to focus on had to be in the middle of the tea TV screen, never in a periphery. Yeah. All right. Because they they they found that people's they that people's learning, children's learning it ah was reduced if the actual information they were supposed to ah absorb but was in any of the corners. Yeah. Well, you know, there you go. And those are the 70s, you know, whereas I'll see the UK around that time. It's like, yeah, whatever. You know, it's like, just put like, like, kind of like weird rapids that seem like they're in LSD and just like, see what happens. Yeah, yeah. i could explain It explains a lot, really, doesn't it?
00:06:44
Speaker
It is fun when you show um ah when you show Americans what British TV was like when I was a kid. They are shocked, shocked at the craziness, the absolute lunacy of British TV yeah kids shows like in the 70s. Yeah. Finger Bob's was, yeah, it was a guy with a beard who looked like he came straight out from the illustrations of that famous sex book. You remember the one? Famous sex book of the 1970s? American sex book.
00:07:35
Speaker
ah Might have been but anyway guy did and then he had these little finger puppets one one. Yeah was a mouse, right? That was yeah little thing. He had these little mouse characters Yeah ah again, that's just like That's a human character in the real world ah Interacting with a puppet right? Yeah but then these are psychologists you know it's like okay it's like for um Freud he had some weird ideas a lot of great ones but he had some weird ones as well
00:08:14
Speaker
Yeah, I think the years haven't been kind to Freud's ideas. No. He's kind of been no right largely left behind now. Yeah. yes so okay one might well So what? Given, given, I mean, this might explain a lot of how we grew up, you know, I think you can just trust kids actually to make up their own minds and their, their, actually, I think the programs we had, they were weird and a bit out there, but they did really ignite our imaginations. Yeah, I think so. I think so.
00:08:58
Speaker
Yeah, so we're now they're a bit a bit almost like too good now. Well, if that's possible,
Magic Roundabout's Improvised English Version
00:09:05
Speaker
you get I mean, the the last one I really remember is the Teletubbies. Right. That was a 90s, somewhere around there, right? ah Zeros, I don't know. But that again follows that thing. It's weird. The Teletubbies are weird. You get these four crazy things with like TVs in their stomachs and they live in yeah and ah and a And um babe a baby's face for a son.
00:09:33
Speaker
Right. Right. it's With gigantic, with gigantic Dutch rabbits, just to make the Teletubbers look small. Yeah. Do you know that? Do you know that there's rabbits? They're like, they're Dutch and they're like three times bigger than a normal rabbit. So the Teletubbers would seem smaller than they actually are. Wow. That's nuts. That's right. I love that. and But the thing is, I think, you know, like a lot of the stuff we had, we saw, there was no real objections. There was no real attempt to kind of actually um teach something to kids. You know, it was like kind of moral messages or whatever. Cherry was just like storytelling and just a lot of it, some even some of it was just nonsense.
00:10:19
Speaker
It's just entertaining for kids, roughly. Speaking of storytelling, so the the magic roundabout. which was a which was another one. Actually, you know what? if you're If you are American and you're listening to this, i'm I am sorry, we're just talking about British TV, this is like, you've done a scene. So Magic Roundabout was French, right? And ah know it's french okay and and they the show.
00:10:52
Speaker
by No one bothered or even wanted to translate the French. so eight Or it didn't come over them with with any language. So they basically made up the story based on what they were seeing on the screen. Oh really? Yeah. That's fascinating. So, somewhere out there. That's fascinating. See, you've just flipped, Martin, you've just, like, flipped a whole, like, little, like, corner of my, my little mind. You've flipped a little, little corner, a little niche of my mind. It's like, oh!
00:11:32
Speaker
Oh, okay. I like that. That's good. That's good. so Sorry. Carry on. No, ah thought I think that was basically my point was that as far as storytelling goes, they they just made, they just saw Dougal and Dylan, the rabbit, and the and Brian the snail, and they just looked at what they were doing and went, well, maybe it's a story about this or that. And they couldn't be asked to yeah to actually get a French translatory. So somewhere out there... You could
Paul's Dentist Appointment Disruption
00:12:08
Speaker
watch the same episode in French and then maybe they have subtitles. Wow. Oh, that was supposed to be the story. Not about not about doodles. The theory is that it was about chocha about drug dealing. Right. Yeah. Right. So so you had the dead dog who was who was addicted to you sugar
00:12:33
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Yeah. which to Which of course everyone was like, is that completely true? Sold to a hippie kind of character called della Dylan. Dylan, who was basically, he was high as a kite for every episode that he was in. Yeah. It was like a white Snoop Dogg. He was out of his tree. He was literally just like gone. Yeah. I'm just trying to think of ah of other kind of... ah It took you very slowly, like we did in the beginning of the podcast.
00:13:10
Speaker
Right. So if you think about it right at at at the time in the 70s, you're sitting there in the in the in the BBC kids department, right? And you get this program coming in from France and you look at the rabbit and the rabbit just looks like kind of out of his head and you're thinking. Who is this? Are you going, well, he looks kind of passed out. He looks like a stoner. Right. Yeah. Maybe, maybe he's like, didn't you think hip is and maybe you think Bob Dylan.
00:13:45
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. the time thing oh Maybe he's like a Bob Dylan character. Maybe he's just like, he's just a terrible, hippie, whoa, waste it. All right. So in in the mindset of the people writing the story, the they are thinking... It's a little piece of me that likes to think that the video tapes were like sent over on the boat across the English Channel to to London. And somehow the tapes went overboard. So the sound is somewhere in the bottom of the ah of the English Channel.
00:14:22
Speaker
just just the sound so when they wait to be discovered little black box anyway yeah and sorry but we but we only had one copy with the with the audio on it the other ones we scrubbed the audio oh well ah okay well we'll have those then of so substance of those but but right stop we carry on which ah which which I feel like I should go full circle and take us back to why we're talking so slow slowly because we'll be talking even more lonely soon because you've got a dentist appointment coming up and you'll be we a bit like you have a dentist appointment coming up um which is why we're all a little bit out of so out of tilt.
Surprising Toothpaste Discovery
00:15:16
Speaker
because I usually we record this at the same day in the same time and I thought I remember the conversation we had about doing it early and I thought oh no that's for what that's for an episode in three weeks time no it wasn't it was today you put an appointment for dentist you know well anything that clearly your obsession with dentists you're like dentists become like a your like favorite place to be now ah Well, I haven't actually been for six months. Oh, OK. So ah how long have we been doing this pod fort for? Eight, nine months, ten, almost ten months, nine, ten months. Right. So at that point, six months ago, when I made the appointment and someone said, ah Mr. to Best, would you like to do Wednesday? OK, now it's making sense. Clearly, it hadn't quite.
00:16:14
Speaker
hadn't quite clicked in my brain that Wednesday mornings were our recording time, not going to the bloody dentist. It is going to be interesting. So, for those, for everyone who hasn't been following along, and why should you? So, I used to have to go to the dentist every three months. No, you should. Actually, you really should. I will. I have to go. I had to go to the dentist every three months because my my my oral care wasn't there. bye um And I felt like, well, yeah, and so I've had to go every three months. And then I discovered
00:17:00
Speaker
in in my 50s, a trick, a trick that I could do. So I always brush my teeth several times ah a day, um which is I've got two bathrooms, one upstairs, one downstairs. The the one upstairs is where has the toothpaste in it. Every time I'm in there, I have to brush my teeth. So if I walk in there, maybe to do to do my business. um I had to actually ah brush my teeth. it was It was like a hard rule that I made. Yeah. See, that's where you you and i that's where we're we're different. That wouldn't make any difference to me whatsoever. I could have a room full of toothbrushes and it wouldn't make me brush my teeth.
00:17:48
Speaker
right i If i have i brush I brush my teeth in the morning, ah that's that's the the maximum I can do. I never brush my teeth more than once a day, ever. Just in the mornings. um see it But sometimes I forget if I get distracted, you were doing better than me. If you get this. Yeah. So anyway, um so then I started doing that. ah And then I went to the dentist six months ago and I said, actually, it it was quite funny because because I was in there going, I've discovered a new thing. If I, if I go every time we're going to the bathroom, I brush my teeth.
00:18:30
Speaker
And they were like, oh, that's great. And then they were like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, um, uh, you could be, you, you should be brushing your teeth too, too much. And I'm like, I can't do, I can either do one or the other. I can't. Yeah. So they were panicking. Right. And therefore, and also using, therefore using too much. Is it, is it the too much brushing? That's the problem or too much toothpaste? Well, that's that that that was the the too much toothpaste conversation, which was the ah how much toothpaste should you use? It's yeah about the size of a grain of rice.
Quirky TV Shows and ADHD Connection
00:19:11
Speaker
Yeah, um which is astonishing because if because every time I brush my teeth, I think of that conversation.
00:19:19
Speaker
And I think of all the all the toothpaste advertising when they show this like abundance of tooth toothpaste on the toothbrush, you think, right actually, if everyone suddenly like tomorrow, right, or went back to or do we already put like a ah rice grain ah of toothpaste on our toothbrush, their profits would be something like 90 percent less on their toothpaste. A lot of crisis in the in the in Colgate.
00:19:54
Speaker
yeah that be There'd be meetings, I tell you. Meetings. There would would be meetings, yeah. My first girlfriend was called Colgate. Oh, wow. Yeah. Uh, and you, a brush, a brush. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what happened. That's just another story for another day. Oh, right. Sounds. I was only about 10 years old, though. Wasn't really a baby teeth. Yeah, exactly. Anyhow, anyhow, we've got we haven't finished yet. I'm sorry. I've got two threads.
00:20:45
Speaker
that are still outstanding. One is, why am I talking slowly? Is because there was a tortoise in the Pipkins who talked very slowly because he was a tortoise. Right. So that's why we were talking slowly. Right. So that's that. Right. Thread done. Right. Second one is take back to the dentist. I love these these ah ADHD rambling conversations. So back to the the dentist. The intro is so long, there's no room for the actual theme, which we don't even have, by the way. But anyway, yeah. um so So I went in six months ago and I said, oh, well, if if you're brushing your teeth like that, okay, well, perhaps you don't have to come in every three months. Let's do let's do six months. So we're great. so why So that's why I but booked it for six months time. Which is now today. So when I be going to the dentist and I will be going, right, is how is it?
00:21:43
Speaker
Why, will I stay on six months? Will I go to a full normal year? Or will I go back to three months? You will have to go to TikTok to find out. Oh, okay. There we go. Well, the the anticipation is, I'm almost consumed by anticipation. Yeah, yeah. Consumed. All right. Okay. Shall we roll the intro music?
00:22:12
Speaker
You know what? Sure. Let's do that. I was actually almost going to do it right at the end. If if you hadn't have said anything, I was going to push it to almost the end of the episode for comedy. okay like i but we would we but so I was thinking, oh, I might do the the intro just before that out. outro, but now you've said it. But the intro music, it has this effect on me because we've been doing it for like nine months, the intro music in my mind, it kind of like it sets me up for like talking whatever we're going to talk about. All right. It's like a trigger, but a nice trigger. Right. Well, it's ah it's been a while. It's been 23 minutes. But yeah, welcome to ADHD, Phil.
00:23:04
Speaker
longest intro ever talking about silly UK children's programs don't know what we're talking about
00:23:25
Speaker
Clangers, probably the best of all of them. the The best of all of them. Hello, I'm Paul Thompson. I was diagnosed with the combined ADH and the D nine months ago. And I'm Martin Weston. I was diagnosed with the combined poo-poo platter in 2013. Excellent. So we're just here, we're just here. We'll start again. So we're just two mates who by coincidence after 39 years of friendship discovered there were co ADHD as a hurrah. Now it's really important to say that this is an entertainment podcast about adult ADHD and does not substitute for individualized advice for qualified health professionals. Always difficult to say that.
00:24:10
Speaker
So don't take any advice from Martin, only from me. No, no, not from any of us. We're just here as a kind of all-inclusive ADHD punk bench with room for everyone, including your doppelgangers, your alter egos, your body doubles, your chaperones, or your best buddies.
ADHD and Olympic Athletes
00:24:29
Speaker
Oh, so you're still here. Great. So grab your jet packs, pedalos, facehoppers or any other transportation methods and let us take you to ADHDville, an imaginary town that we've created in our minds. Where we like to explore different parts of the A, the D, the H and the D. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Yeah. um And we start off as all the way off.
00:24:59
Speaker
OK. Oh, there we go. Thank you. Thank you. You know what? It isn't just us who are late. Everyone, the audience was late as well. Yeah. They'll be watching the Olympics. Oh, good subject. Uh, we start off as always here in the town hall in the mayor's office, where we, the joint mayors of ADHD will take care of business. Although we're doing a terrible job of taking care of of business today. It's a shambolic mess, but you know, she' shown sometimes you just got to do it. That's all right. You just got to run with it. I was just going to say, you got to sometimes just like, you know,
00:25:42
Speaker
when and I'm having a stretch. There never will be slick. And today is probably the best example of our unslickiness. Right. so i think um we do we we yes So I think at the top of the pod, we said we hadt done we were bit short of the research for this week. So so our main ah ah agenda, as the Olympics was on, I thought
00:26:14
Speaker
maybe we just give it a bit of an Olympic twist yeah this episode. I just want to point point out, so anyone who's kind of listened to this and is like in anticipating maybe the next recording, we're going to be talking about emotional dysregulation, which is going to be a biggie, which is also another reason why we couldn't ah It's not, it's such a big subject. It's up a big thing. There's not something you can just fly with. It's something you needed. It's proper research. So that's what we're going to talk about. Olympics instead, being that it's, that's what's on at the moment. Yeah.
00:26:55
Speaker
It is. You know what? um As I come off of this, I watched the the the team gymnastics last night. okay America won ahha one gold. um it italy Italy won the first. She she has ADHD, doesn't she? Which one? The girl that won the gold. It was she's a team woman. ah ah i would say I would say, okay. But the the the main star is in the team. Simone yes Biles. Yeah, she has ADHD. By the way, BTW. I'm able to come to Simone Biles, ADHD.
00:27:49
Speaker
Yep, oh there he is. So, Simon Biles. Fantastic. There you go. Simon Biles. I could reason to have a think about Olympics coincidentally. Wow, you know what? If we've done some research, this could have been even better. In fact, I'm... It could have been slick. I'm reading a tweet from her that says having ADHD and taking medicine ah for it is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing that I'm afraid to let people know. That was back in 2016. Wow. Just eight years ago. Yeah. that was like She's phenomenal.
00:28:27
Speaker
couple of Olympics ago. Yeah, no, she ah she and the rest of the team really, really yeah um killed it. And yet in fact, the the the other person that springs to mind is Michael Phelps. Mm hmm. Oh, another one. Yes. ah He had. Yeah. So so he's a swimmer. He had hey ada a Right. And the thing that struck me about it is is really after he retired from the ah the ah Olympics,
00:29:02
Speaker
um he really struggled. Like that yeah that um structure that he had yeah just kind of went away. He apparently woke up one morning and he had looked on his bedside table He'd won like five or six medals. And that's everything he could remember that he never, his only objective was to arrive at that point. And he had a crisis like, oh, shit, now what do I do?
00:29:37
Speaker
Right. I think that's quite common, isn't it? With Olympiads. Yes. Kind of like, what the hell do I do? What do I do? And they end up missing it. Yeah. Well, there was a lad on um the yeah the tight um time trial
Hyperfocus Benefits in Sports and Creativity
00:29:55
Speaker
at the Olympics. It's one of the first events, I think, on Saturday. and there was a lad, it was an English lad, he was up against like the world champions and like like the really good guys like Philip Organa and those kind of guys, like really hardcore. And this this lad is ah um he's only 20 years old, he's three years younger than my son. He came in third but having had a puncture and having to replace his bike,
00:30:27
Speaker
he still came in third and if he hadn't if he hadn't had a puncture he would have won it he would have won it and he was gutted he was inconsolable but then but that the point being is that these like you know these they have these like really kind of like narrow focused objectives you know and when they don't get it it's like it can become really traumatic yeah um just ah Or even if you do get it, in the case of Phelps. Yeah, that that this was ah in the 2016 Rio, ah Michelle Carter, who won the Olympic gold medal in the shot put. She grew up with ADHD and dyslexia. Wow. And that and that didn't didn't stop her one bit.
00:31:22
Speaker
Fantastic. One bit. In fact, there is actually um a statistics that says ah that term the the the instance or the of ADHD in Olympic athletes is higher than in the general population. OK. I guess they because they're really hyper-focused. Right. hyper focus, you know, vi if there's, if there's a common trait pattern or, you know, or characteristic amounts, champions, champions, it's a hyper focus, isn't it? It's like obsessive. Yeah.
00:32:02
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that as we're saying that this that the structure of the training and and it's quite goal orientated. Yeah, right. So yeah you're chasing your chasing the dopamine. In fact, if there was any if there was. You know, we can have this question comes up on TikTok a lot, ah which is like, is ADHD a superpower? And generally the reaction is no, it's not a superb. by and large. But I think if there's ever one place that you could point to and kind of go, well, you know what it kind of is, it might be like you have to look at people like Phelps and Simone Biles and kind of go, well, you know what, if it kind of helped them, if it was part of it in some way, then, you know, fair enough. Yeah.
00:32:56
Speaker
yeah Oh, definitely. I mean, that hyper focus, but also, you know, dopamine, you know, sure it's like your own little, you know, factory of you ah of dopamine production. And you could use completely down to you how much you you your dosages and you could have as much or as little as you want, you know, depending on how much you put into it. But being ADHD, you're like, you know, you want your dopamine hit. It's like, OK, just oh, this hyper focus is really works. Then, you know, let's carry on with that. All right. I've got i got a quote here from Phelps. He says, ah growing up as a kid with ADHD, I was constantly bouncing off the wall.
00:33:40
Speaker
Mr Vops said his mother involved him being in in swimming where he found the lifestyle management that helped him cope with symptoms. He channeled it. He channeled it. Yeah, it's that hyper- So I guess that's where the superpower when it works, when it can be a super power, is when it's channeled into something positive. Yeah. And but it doesn't have to be sport. It doesn't have to be physical. Could be a mental challenge
Paul's Sculpture Project and Creative Process
00:34:10
Speaker
too. Right. So like musicians, artists, creative people in general, the channel, the channel into creativity, you know.
00:34:20
Speaker
Yeah, because I think, you know, like when you hyper focus, it says here from a Mr. Dr. Han, you know, that that hyper focus trait in elite athletes with ADHD may block out distractions during practice and competition. Okay. Right. No, I'm thinking about it. Phelps, before he went in the pool, he would have his headphones on, his have big headphones, and he would just like, um right he would just be like, in the he would he wouldn't talk talk to him. In his own. He would just be like, yeah.
00:34:59
Speaker
Yeah, I've, I've been I've, I've done that in my, in my past, it's like, well, actually, not see spot but also sometimes if I like, at the moment, I'm concentrating on a sculpture that I've been commissioned to do. And I am totally an utter absorbed in it. I mean, literally, my girlfriend bring me out a beer to drink. And I say, Oh, thanks, you know, and it's really kind of you. Thank you very much. turn around and then ah next time I turn back and you know like half an hour later there's a warm beer on the table. h Totally fixated on what I'm doing. yeah yeah so But I'm zoned out in that moment as well. That's the point. I'm like unlike in a parallel universe almost.
00:35:49
Speaker
whoo Right, so I was just going to say that if if people didn't know, you were doing so doing ah a sculpture for for ah yeah for a museum gallery ah museum a museum museum of of iron in ah northern Italy in Brescia. Yeah, still it's like halfway through. All right. um actually So how is that? So in a project, I can imagine
00:36:21
Speaker
quite easily. There's a lot of and upfront excitement and and and and and and and take the dopamine up right at that front end. yeah We're excited, which I find really helps overcome the You know, like, oh, am I good enough for this? Should I be doing it? I don't know. I'm worried about it. It was actually that kind of like, oh my God, i I really want to do this. Just kind of like, just get you started. Yeah. It's it's it kind of goes through phases. are Yesterday morning, for example.
00:37:00
Speaker
I was, um because I did, I went back to the, I had a meeting with ah the other artists and the curator on Saturday, last Saturday, went back to the museum, and like deciding like where it's going to be positioned, how it's going to be positioned and how it's going to be lit and everything and how it's going to be positioned in, in relationship to the other artists work and stuff like that. And that was all great. And then it came back and I had a little bit of a crisis of that. I was looking at my sculpture and said, it's not a work of art. It's just an object at the moment. That was yesterday morning. I had a bit of like five hours thinking, oh shit, it's shit. And then I got it back, Bartina. I got it back last night. I got it back and I suddenly realized what I had to do with it.
00:37:50
Speaker
Oh, right. Yeah, so it's like, yeah, this like goes in waves with like, ah yeah, low obsession, obsession, is obsession, didn't really have any doubt at all whether it was going to be good enough. And then I get like, little, little bits of time, we're thinking, but use it using a good way. I mean, that's the point, you know, like, you know, create artists that crippled by doubt. And that's how it should be. That's where all the good ideas come from. Right. You know, yeah it's not but most i well, if an artist is really, really good at something and and and they're like super talented and they're just like really amazing work, but they're really confident, you know, there's a good chance that they're actually narcissists because 99% of artists work comes out of crippling self-doubt in reality, I think.
00:38:47
Speaker
how How far, how good are you towards the end of a project? So, so when it comes. Oh, it fades. Well, and I'm thinking more specifically, it's kind of less the kind of projects that you do for yourself, right? Where there's no deadline. It's just you yeah versus a project where you've kind of got, well, there was an exhibition, there was a date to it. There is another bunch of people who I'm doing this with.
00:39:21
Speaker
So it's a team sport, if you like. Well, it's not a team. I'm very competitive, actually. And there's so i mean the other artists, are there's two Italian artists and a Japanese artist and me. And
Artistic Self-Doubt and Challenges
00:39:35
Speaker
that helps me focus. I'm thinking, OK, okay ah want to kill it. Not them, I want to kill it. I want i want it it to have its, it's not, I don't want to just produce a sculpture and plunk it in a space. It's got to have a reason to exist, right? It's got to be good. Basically, everyone like everyone has their has their their sculptures up and youre in this opening night, right? And people are coming in and and you want everyone to to go up to yours and go, oh man, yeah, yeah, oh, this one.
00:40:10
Speaker
Oh, this one. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, exactly. other ones Yeah. Yeah. Nice. But this one, this is why I came. Yeah. This this was worth worth of the. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Ballet parking. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Where's the artist? Well, but even more than that, I want it to leave an impression. I want it to like, not for everyone, obviously, but for like maybe one or two people, are like there'll be maybe You know, there's something... Who is this Paul Thompson person? Who is this guy? I've never heard of him. Who is this Paul Thompson? Who is he? Who is he? Is he the next Picasso? I have to find out more. Right, but my worst time most is like an unveiling. It's just like disappointment.
00:40:54
Speaker
Or like we always say, the worst thing, the worst reaction is is is actually ah what was these we said, it's not good or bad or hating or loving something. It would be... Indifference. indifference that would be if it's If someone hates it, I'd be fine. If they were different, ah be I'd be mortified. Right. ah So that keeps me going, you know, other other than the deadline, you know, because it's going to be, I think, October. It keeps me very focused, like I'm um' on it like a dog with a bone.
00:41:34
Speaker
Right. Right. Because there is that failure feeling as well. Like what you don't want to happen is is if it to be opening night and people are going around going, oh, these are great. But this one by. by by mr thompson what but what what the fuck is that yeah like like oh this is not saying that that's gonna happen but right yeah it's like but it's like no i don't want that i'm gonna put my heart and soul into this i'm i'm gonna make this as best yeah even but that it doesn't really matter what the what the reaction is just like no no this you're wrong if you don't like this you're wrong yeah i'm right
00:42:18
Speaker
Yeah, well, the most successful artists are quite arrogant, you know, so well, you know, a lot of them ah display this kind of sense of they don't care what other people think of their art, which is totally right. You know, that's how it should be. ah This one possible um um um difficult phase is that in September I'm going to the Venice Biennale which is basically the best contemporary art festival in the world.
00:42:53
Speaker
um and it it runs from June until I think November. I'm going there in September for two days and it's like the best of the best contemporary art is there. And you could go around it, it's so big and vast, it's stretched throughout Venice. You can go around it for three days and not see everything. But everything is fucking good. And I'm going there a month before I deliver my commission. Oh, right. So it's like seeing the potentially coming be back from from Venice and completely destroying everything that I did or somewhere in the middle. You know, think you just come back, go remodeling this rubbish.
00:43:43
Speaker
Shit. Set it on fire. I'm just going to burn it. I'm just going to burn it. And then I'm going to sell it as video a video piece of me burning my sculpture. Exactly. Then you kind of go, yeah, because that's where I was going. was that right The stuff that was left of of all your work was then yeah the piece. Or yeah as you say, it's it's the video of the Yeah but it could be even more dramatic than that. I might die if I burn it because it by that time it will have like about 10 kilos of acrylic modeling paste on it and on top of that it would be spray painted with all kinds of chemicals to get a like a metal effect.
Influence of Venice Biennale on Art
00:44:31
Speaker
I'll probably die from inhaling the fumes
00:44:34
Speaker
right even better but even better have to do it right my last piece so it's your first piece and your last piece as it were like yeah traumatic yeah and then you do you take a video of it of learning it and then you get the film and then you burn that yeah You burn the video that you made of the burning of the thing and then the remains of that video are like in a frame and then there's your last wooden testament on on the wall and maybe some sort of medical bills that that you may have printed or they're all part of the piece.
00:45:17
Speaker
Yeah. it but An empty houseoon and then to be hospital that still hasn't been made up yet. Still got my little my little body creases in it. like my yeah Yeah. It's the bed that you died in. Tracy Emmings, she won the Turner prize, didn't she? for yeah present Her prize was ah the bed that she'd slept with various men in. All right. but no it Wasn't tent was it Was it a tent? And then inside the tent there was the names of the bed. Something like that. I can't remember. Yeah. But yeah, there we go. There we go. And it's just you dead. Chops gooden. Chops of gooden. Yeah. Sort of a weekend at Bernie's situation where where where it's just your corpse. It's just yeah leaned up against the wall with a little thing that says the artist. ah don't You're just like dead.
00:46:14
Speaker
artist formerly known as Paul Thompson. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, there we go. But yeah, I mean, that thought of coming coming back from ah from from Venice, from from this can be a test of my confidence like, to like, keep at it it's like, okay, okay, it's not a disaster. It can be reworked. You know, that it's already been reworked. It's different. My, my vision for it has changed in the last three days.
00:46:46
Speaker
And that's just been I've been remodeling it literally this morning, remodeling. I actually think, not that it's necessarily an important part, but that's, I can remember being at art school, right? And I can remember doing, it was a still life or something, right? And it wasn't getting right. And I was just like, I kept like going over it and over it and over it. And then the Scottish teacher, Was like Sheila Sheila. She was like She she said that she liked That you could see the that you know, you see the the work and the changes and the the angst going over and the going over and the change Yeah, like that's part of the exactly Yeah, and I think I think I think it ends up being more complex, right? I
00:47:43
Speaker
um yeah Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is like the failure. It's only, you know, the if I'd had the same crisis I had yesterday morning, if I'd had that 10 years ago, I'd have been my inner critic was a lot. louder uh 10 years ago and have said oh Paul you're shit you see i told you you were shit yesterday day was like that i came from a caring place and a bit more of a playful place and that okay no it's all right poise okay we got this we got this we got this it just needs
00:48:18
Speaker
something and you you you you you're almost there it's just missing something what is it and you know just being playful with that moment rather than it being turning to something negative and and toxic mm-hmm yeah yeah so we got there good I like I can't show you it though well maybe I'll show you Martin I i could show you the some of the, yeah I'll send you it privately. Because I can't show it to anyone. ah You can't show that, you know, you can't show the the work going out to it. Other than your mates.
00:48:56
Speaker
ah the other people who get the work in progress vibes. Yeah. um Awesome. Well, we look forward to hearing. i I especially look forward to you coming back from from Venice and then seeing. Right. Right. That is going to be the fun for me. move move Maybe i'll do it I'll do a TikTok from Venice. How about that?
Dangerous Olympic Sports Discussion
00:49:20
Speaker
Oh, man, you you you should be doing TikToks from Venice. like What the hell? I'm sure people are like, what the what the F? Come on, Paul. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll do it. Show us what what this thing is like. Show us your wares. Yeah, yeah. What I will do in in the last five minutes is to bring it back to sort of an Olympic thing.
00:49:44
Speaker
We were, did me ever yeah become big me and the wife were were were watching it last night and we were watching the women ah do the, um oh crap, I've forgotten the name of the team, Jim, that's it. The, the, the beam, you know, that, that, the beam, there's a lot of these crazy moves on it. And we we're like, man, is this the most dangerous Olympic um event? It's madness, isn't it? And it is the the most
00:50:24
Speaker
Dangerous of the gymnastic events, but but then I I I looked i've I've actually got the the top seven top seven um ah Dangerous Olympic sports and for the Summer Olympics, right? So i I thought just before you just before you start those did you know that what there was one time Olympic sport was a shin kicking and That sounds amazing. Shin kicking. I think they should bring it back. i think that they've like Basically, you're going to kick each other's shins as hard each as house they could, and the first one to fall would would be the loser, obviously. Painful, huh?
00:51:09
Speaker
That would have been number one, I think. Yeah. like that Anyway, dangerous sports. So can you can you can you guess any, I think, but ah you might think what you what you might think might be ah dangerous. Dangerous. Well, yeah, ah the most sort of, um yeah, the the ah yeah. Well, anything with horses is quite dangerous. Is it but is there anything horses are dangerous? Yeah. Well, let's find out. policy see Okay. Let's do the top five. Right. Number five is drum roll.
00:51:54
Speaker
boxing. Okay. Boxing is the fifth most injury prone sport with like ah eight roughly 18% of athletes sustaining an injury during the games. Okay. Fair enough. Yes. Number four, mountain the biking. Okay. Which England won the gold yesterday. Britain won the gold. Fantastic. tom pickockck And that has a, that has 22.5% injury rates. So that's like almost, ah that's almost a quarter of of all Olympic athletes sustaining an injury wow while they're competing. Number three, football slash soccer.
00:52:50
Speaker
right Um, that has a 27% injury rate, which doesn't surprise me. There's lots of shin kicking going on. There is, there is shin, shin kicking. Right. Number two, won't surprise you. Tae Tae Kwon Do. Okay. Wow. With a almost 30% injury. All right. Injury rate. But the number one, which which may surprise you, is BMX. BMX bikes, which is almost 35% injury rate.
00:53:38
Speaker
okay um So all of those rates were like from from data from that were rig recorded during the events. There we go.
Podcast Wrap-up and Listener Engagement
00:53:50
Speaker
OK, cool. A bit of a fun Olympic ending for you. um I think ah we never well, we did the intro, but we're still in the in the mayor's office. yeah Yeah, we can probably skip the mailbox probably this week.
00:54:10
Speaker
We can skip the mailbox. I will say that we... Go straight back to the town hall. Well, we're already there. We're already there. We didn't go anywhere. We didn't go anywhere. We never went anywhere. I'll try for a bit annoyed. Well, you know what? it You know what? We could send him out for biscuits. We should have given him the day off, right? Right, should have done. He's getting a bit paved.
00:54:47
Speaker
Yeah, ah we did have a comment on YouTube. um and but it prefers Quite cold quiet quite a a few comments. But so last so ah this was the episode where we had Seth Davison, the school psychologist. um ah So lee Lee Connor up in Dundee in Scotland says it's so heartwarming and hopeful to hear all of the ways All of the things, look, good Lord, I'm butchering this, butchering it. Let's start again. It's so heartwarming and hopeful to hear of all the ways things have changed for neurodivergent kids. Since my time at school, since my time at school, a stimmy stool to sit on would have helped me so much. Yeah. And if you haven't seen that episode yet, go back. Go back. Go on. Back. Back.
00:55:42
Speaker
Because it's really interesting what some of the scores in the States are doing for ADHD kits. Phenomenal, really hot, as Ligra said, heartwarming. Yeah, I should gauge on to say. Gives you hope. It does. She says, thank you both so much and happy birthday, Paul, my fellow cancer. Ah, yes, it was my birthday. I think in the last last ah that last one that was uploaded. Yeah. I was in Palermo at the time. All right. Cool. All right. Well, let's all alright i think we we are going to let me just find a way out because it's 56 minutes. I've got four minutes to get out.
00:56:27
Speaker
Get out. All right. Let's hit the outro button, man. We are profession today, not profession. All right, so ADHD Ville is delivered fresh every Tuesday to all purveyors of fine podcasts. Please subscribe and to the pod and rate us most rambling. And feel free to correspond and we'll leave comments. Come on, write to us. But wait, there's more. If you wish to see our beautiful, beautiful faces, Sally Forth to the YouTubes. Oh, Sally Fields.
00:57:02
Speaker
Yeah fine woman fine woman Sally Sally for to the tick-tocks There is a whole thing over there and you could pick up a quill and email us at ADHD ville at gmail dot.com but in the meantime Be fucking kind to yourself And I perceive you for the race days eight days days know thyself son to the house come hither and get the flesh And I'm going to the dentist. Right now. Good luck. Good luck. Right to the dentist. Best, says the mayor. That's that.