Bobby Seagull on Starter for 10

Guest Bobby Seagull stops in today to talk about his movie crush, Starter for 10.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, everybody,

(00:29):
Welcome to Movie Crush Friday Interview edition and everybody. I
just had such a fun conversation with my new pal
Bobby seagull Um. Bobby is from England and he sort
of made his name as a contestant on the show
University Challenge, which if you are from the UK you

(00:50):
absolutely know what University Challenges if you are not, it
is a quiz competition between college students that is a legendary.
It's been around since the d's and Bobby was a
very popular contestant on that show. It would be the
equivalent like UM someone on Jeopardy here in the States,

(01:10):
like Kim Jennings maybe UM becoming really really popular in
the cultural zeitgeist. And that's what Bobby did and he
has since pivoted from that to doing to writing books. Uh.
He is a teacher and a mathematician. He wrote a
book called The Life Changing Magic of Numbers. We talked
to him about math and numbers in this which is
very interesting and he has done a couple of shows

(01:32):
for the BBC with his former University Challenge rival and
now friend UM Eric Monkman, and the shows are called
Monkman and Seagulls Genius Guide to Britain and Monkman and
Seagulls Genius Adventures, and I think, um yeah, those are
in order twenty in order of release. And Poppy is

(01:54):
just a good guy. He interviewed Josh and I for
the Stuff You Should Know, a book event that we
did in the UK virtually, of course, and I'm not
sure who lined it up. I guess someone with the
publisher over there, and it was just a great fit
because we're birds of a feather. I feel a lot
of kinship with him and what he does as far
as a spreader of knowledge and curiosity and a um
and an academic and a champion of that stuff. And

(02:18):
he's just a good guy. He's so cool and nice
and enthusiastic and you just can't help but smile when
you talk to him. And um, so I asked Bobby
back then when he interviewed Josh and I to come
on movie Crush in a bit, and here we are
about six weeks later he was able to come on
and talk about his pick a movie called Starter for ten,
a movie which covers UH University challenge a young James McAboy,

(02:42):
a great young cast all the way around as a
student who goes away to college joins the university quiz team. Um,
it's got a young Rebecca Hall, a young Vennerdict, Benedict Cumberbatch,
Alice Eve, Dominic Cooper, a lot of names before they
were famous. And it's a come ring of age stories
set in the eighties and a and a rom common
a romance movie. And it's really really good and I

(03:04):
hope you watch it. It is on HBO X if
you want to check it out before you listen. But
we had a great, great talk. Bobby is an awesome dude,
And here we go with Bobby Seagull on Starter for ten.
How you doing? Yeah, just I've been doing started doing
something really fun with them. So in the UK got

(03:27):
something called strictly Come dancings like Dancing with the Stars
in the US. So the champion from Seen, she's really
trying to get into education, so he's starting Instagram lives right,
maths and dance. Um. So it's very surreal because university
challenges what I'm from, as it were, and she's some
strictly come dancing to ever collide. But it is cliding

(03:47):
in the most bizarre way, which is great for kids
and young people because it's like a yeah, it just
brings together two things you wouldn't expect. Well, how are
you bringing them together? Like what's the actual thing? Oh?
So what we're doing is so we do two sessions
a week. One is on a Saturday. We talk about
our I Essentially I talked to her about experiences with
maths and numeracy, how she's in daily life. Then I

(04:09):
teach her some some math tricks, like clever ways of
let's say, multiplying by nine or multiplying by leaven or
dividing by age. I give a little tips and tricks,
and then she teaches me like an interpretive dance of
that trick. She comes up with this, Yeah, I can't
even do. She's a dancer. She tries to teach school. Yeah.
And then on the Wednesdays we make it a bit
more simpler. We set people the task of learning a

(04:32):
particular times table and it's just like the speed tests
that people come on the Instagram live, and then we
have a leaderboard. Um, she lost for the first time,
so she's a bit upset. So she's catia. So a
lot of people take part and then we're going almost
like in the UK top gear people do race plap.
She came second this time, which is that's funny man. Well,

(04:54):
you know you're a you're a multi hyphen it sort
of renaissance man. You know, you've you're a teacher, you're
an author, you're on television. What is it about doing
all these different things that appeals to you rather than
just sort of staying in one lane. I think it's
my hyperactive mind. How by that I find it hard

(05:17):
to focus on one thing. Thing is I do work hard,
and I'm very diligent, but I find if I'm doing
one task for a long period of time, I get distracted.
And I think the stems from my childhood of going
to the local library. So my dad used to take
myself and my younger brothers and one elder brother to
the library and he set us there for three or
four hours, saying, explore, read anything, and I get a

(05:40):
book from on the Aztecs civilization, on Victorian engineering, the
fiction of Tolkien. But I would I would find it
hard to stay on one book from one and like
half and forty five minutes, I'd be like two thirds
do I know what's gonna happen next book, and I
think from then my my mind's always dotted things. It's
great for dinner parties, annoying for things that PhD the
season you're meant to be focusing on. Well, it's interesting

(06:04):
because you know, you and I record these intros separately,
so people will have a little background on on who
you are and how we met. But uh, you, uh,
you were kind enough to sit with Josh and I
when we did our our book of it for the
for the store there in England, and I think I
just felt a real kinship we both did, because yeah,

(06:26):
there it is. There's the book. Because you that's sort
of the nature of our show too, to jump around
and cover all these different topics. And I started diving
into your life a little more and what you've done
with your former university Challenge rival Eric Monkman, and saw
some of the like TV things that you did and

(06:46):
like the Good Morning Britain, and I was like, man,
I just I've been there before, Like when Josh and
I have done these TV opportunities is kind of the
smart guys, and you have these two kind of goofy
TV people that aren't really taking you seriously and it's
you just you guys do a great job at doing
that stuff. But I really could identify, yes, because I
often find um less so when I'm by myself, but

(07:08):
when we're with the pairing the Monk Went and Seagull,
the Genius Guide branding as it were with the BBC.
Often on TV shows, they're trying to almost shows up like, okay,
you might know eso technoledge about you know the top
albums of the year, or um the longest Shakespeare play,
but do you know the price of milk? Right? And

(07:29):
and the things it annoys them because often I I
think I like my high brow knowledge, which is what
high school college trivia is all about, learning about your classics,
your mythology, science, your literature. But I also like my trash,
like I love watching Terrible Things and Netflix from coms,
really bad cheesy eight pop music. So it means I'm

(07:49):
actually like I am an academic, I'm very serious academic,
but I'm also a silly academic too as well, if
I can. Yeah, they do the same thing to us
me and what is it we we go on these
shows sometimes and they're just like, okay, smart guys, like
they want to knock us down a peg almost, and
it's all the spirit of fun, but it's annoying and

(08:10):
I just have to buy but sort of bite my
lips and be polite because I wanted to be invited back,
so I can't say what you're trying to. I thought,
you you don't like dumb people, you don't like smart people.
Who do you like? Yeah, exactly so, And we'll get
to the film. You know, this first part is about
your life for a bit. But um, you did pick
a movie that had to do with University Challenge, which

(08:30):
is I mean, how long has that show been around?
It's it's sort of a cultural phenomenon in the UK, right,
absolutely so, it's I did a bit of Wiki Peter
or googling on this, and it's not I thought it was.
I used to always say before this conversation, it's the
oldest running quiz show in the world. It's not. It's
actually second. There's something in America called It's Academic. It's

(08:51):
a high school show, and that was nineteen sixty one,
I think, and this is two. But it's it's the
oldest in the UK, definitely the oldest one beyond high school.
For Chris Shows UM and I I think it's one
of the unique things. It's already had two presenters in
its entire history, one guy called bamber Gas going for

(09:12):
twenty five years and he's like school masterly quite supportive
for twenty five years. Weirdly enough, the show had seven
years where it went off screens and it got and
it got brought back up and itually I actually interviewed
Stephen Fried the poly Math for another show and he
was asked to be the host of the new the
new version of it, but he turned it down and
it took on a really tough interview called Jeremy Patsman

(09:35):
and he's been the hosts ninety four and he's he's
regarded as I a really mean pantomime villain. He's Mellard
a bit in his elder years. But yeah, so it's
two years, two different hosts UM and like in the
UK when other people like I've got cousins who live
in America, in India, the Middle East, and when they
come to the UK as well, let's look at you know,
the Queen Wimbledon, UM, the Beatles University Challenge and eventually

(09:59):
beyond their list of things are quintessentially, it's really cool.
I watched Actually You're one of your episodes. I did
quite a bit of youtubing today and I watched UM Jeez,
I think it was episode thirty five. It was one
where it was you versus the team Monkman and you

(10:20):
guys end up losing in the end, and but I
watched the whole episode and it was It's pretty riveting
stuff to watch one of those. It's like, it's because
I get well in sport, isn't it? And it's just
it draws the audience and people and the way it
works in the UK, they start broadcasting from about July

(10:41):
and it goes all the way every Monday eight thirty
on BBC all the way through to April. So people
start following these teams and these individuals, and people start
for following the personalities. Like in my series UM, people
started following Emmanuel College, Cambridge and Seagull the Captain and
Monkman and Will set out the following and people said

(11:01):
could they face off? Could what if they face off?
And then by the time our game came around, we
had personalities like Louis through Stephen fry or saying are
you monk, when are you Seagull? And then the media
hyped it up um and actually was the most watch
match of Universe Challenge this century not your last century. Again.
I guess television had bigger audiences in the seventies and
eighties audiences like outrageous, like billions, but for modern TV

(11:24):
was huge audience. Um. I think it's the funny thing
is that that match I had, they recorded the semifinal
and final, and the same morning I was just thinking
about the final and I got my outfit ready and
I was thinking, how am I going to lift the
trophy if I get there? And I slightly lost focus
on what you're meant to do. Win the match now
and then deal with the final. But Erica was like focus.
He was like, I got to win this match, then

(11:44):
deal with the final later. But I was just thinking
about the trophy too early on. Well, I mean, did
I see the final match then? Oh no. This is
the thing is even to this day people often introduced
me on teley shows in the UK. They'll say, oh,
buts Egal, he must he must have won the show
because he's made a career out of it. And I
know I didn't win. Oh so you're the finalist. No, no, no,

(12:05):
no semifinal. Okay, I think that's what I saw. I
think my teammate he ended up losing in the final,
but not the winners were very worthy and actually they
got some formidable quizzes. But people seem to remember that
match as the sort of It wasn't the final, It
was a semifinal, but it was like the memorable match
of the series. It was a lot of fun to watch,

(12:27):
um now do now? You and Eric became sort of
friends after that and partners and ended up doing a
couple of cool docuseries for the BBC. Do most University
Challenge contestants go on to be celebrities or did you
guys just work it? This is okay, this is unexpected.
So since sixty two the show has been on, there

(12:48):
have been personalities that have been former contestants, like Stephen Fry.
He was a finalist for Queen's College, Cambridge. Oh he
was an actual contestant. Yes, he was an actually contestant.
Um so he did very our top quizzer, but he
built his media career like ten fifteen years after it.
It was like an incidental part. Whereas for Eric and I,

(13:08):
I think it's a combination of many things. Um, social
media had become really powerful by then. I think Twitter
was it two thousand and six SyncE theory. Twitter had
been there for ten seasons before, but by our season
had built up sort of like a critical massive interest
of followers, and the media would pick up on what
would go on Twitter and then in our series. Normally

(13:28):
every series is like a standout contestant and the realities
they get ten fifteen minutes of fame on the day
of the final and they're not a couple of nice local,
local interviews and that's it. But I think what made
our series different was Eric. One is, Eric was probably
the single most meaned contestant ever on the series, but
a long country ViOS so he by himself. He you know,
he's transformed the way people think of the series. But

(13:51):
in my series, we all said again, I'm not gonna
blow on trumpet, but I offered a different sort of
personality and I went I think I went viral as
well on my second match, and it was remember I
was teaching part time and doing my master's part time.
I turned the next day at school and my kids
all saying this, you're trending number one and UK Twitter
your Instagram. So I went viol as well, and over
the course of the months that the matches played out,

(14:13):
both of us kept on violing, and then when we
played each other, it's like Twitter and meldown go like
doing like he's like rumbling the jungle with Yeah, well,
I mean you're It's it's sort of the classic uh
and the same. It's true for TV and movies, like
the classic odd couple. In a way, Um, he's this Canadian,
which I didn't expect when I first started watching the show.

(14:35):
I kind of just thought everyone would be British or whatever.
But um, you know the way just the physical appearance
of you two guys together, it's kind of a fun juxtaposition.
And I can see how it became you became this
sort of media duo afterwards, you know, it makes sense. Yeah. So,
and I think one thing people don't realize that Eric
and I actually were friends before recording, really, because what

(14:59):
happens is in the sort of UK trivia college university scene,
teams or get selected so back in the sixties, seventies, eighties,
even nineties, even early naughties, quizziness sort of regardless an
amateur gentleman, you sort of turn up no revision, you
just like effinently sort of woff through the questions, like
I'm sure Stephen Friday. But nowadays, partly because of in America,

(15:21):
quizin is very competitive. They've got scholarships to the top
ivy league universities. UK is not UK still regardless a
bit like an amateur gentleman, but it's become more professionalized
in the sense of teams practice prepare um. And again
we would have weekly practice sessions at Cambridge. You know,
Monkman's team, my team playing in mini tournaments, so by
the time you went to actually face off on TV,

(15:44):
we knew each other really well. And actually Monk and
I we had multiple facetoffs in Cambridge. There are times
he would win, times my team would win. Times his
team would storm away, all the times my team would
run away, So we knew it would be like it
could go on either sort of almost a flip with
the coin in that particular day. But we knew each
other very before the series, which is why I think
our partnership sort of developed on social media as well. Well.

(16:05):
And you were both team captains, which I know is
good for drama and press and everything too, because uh,
and I guess traditionally you sit in that that third
spot is that where the captain sits. Yes, always, um,
they have a captain there, and interestingly the way they
pick teammates around the captain is strategic as well. Sometimes
you put the solo loan thinker on the far left

(16:27):
hand side. In fact, we've had some of the best
ever contestants on the far left because you will leave
them as like a lone wolf buzzing in. But then
they don't really get involved the discussions, but they just buzzing.
And then often you get the science person on the
right hand side on the far corner, next to the
captain because science knowledge is quite niche she he doesn't
need to he or she doesn't need to be involved

(16:48):
with the rest of the team, and you get the
sort of buzz bubbly person in the middle maybe, or
sometimes you get someone who might be the opposite gender
in the middle to the captain to make the team
more diverse or like a four me like, you try
and work out what's the OPTI seeding for your team. Well,
it seemed like the guy for this from you, he
was kind of what was his name, So is this

(17:08):
there's two it was this the guy with glasses. Al
there two guys, but blonde hair or dark hair. Blond hair. Yes,
so he was like our killer. You could tell that
he Yeah, Hill, he was in his own sort of zone.
He know this is phenomenal. He I don't think in
the entire series buzzed in incorrectly once once and it
rab is normally. The thing is in the game, you

(17:31):
occasionally you've got to gamble and take risks um and
then you've got the team question the bonuses where the
team bonuses a lot depends on the captain trying to
steer the discussion, which I really enjoyed. But Thomas Hill,
on the far right, he would just sit there quietly
buzz away and yeah, he he was a it was
an artist story. Historians had that breadth of knowledge. Yeah. Well,

(17:54):
it's interesting that it's almost like a trope, the different
um sort of personality types that go into being regarded
as like a really smart person and someone who seeks knowledge.
And I think that, I mean, I think that's one
one real reason why you really broke out is because
your personality is so infectious and you're so excited and

(18:17):
enthusiastic about everything and you kind of break the mold
and not to stereotype too much, but there are a
lot of like sort of quiet, bookish types that you
can tell are petrified to be on television. And you're
in there with your suit and you look cool and
like you've got a great smile, and I can see
why people like latched on. It's pretty cool. Yeah, thank you.
I think I'd like to sort of think that inadvertently

(18:40):
I was sort of bringing geek back into Chic and
some parts of England, because you know, it's all pre recorded.
It's the recorded between February April over over academic year,
and it's broadcast in July. So people often think that
you sort of put on a personality based on how
Twitter responds to you. You have no idea because all
prerecorded and then it's broadcast. But again, now I always

(19:03):
think now, since Monkman and myself, contestants almost go on
the show now, so almost a bit unfairmly because now
there's expectation who's going to be the new Monk Wan,
Who's going to be the new c Gun. But when
I went down on monk foint event and we went
on with the objective we'd love to do well, we'd
love to win. And again, because I'm a part time
high school teacher, I thought, wouldn't it be cool to
bring the trophy back to school? But beyond that, I

(19:24):
didn't think. I thought, maybe fifteen minutes of my local paper,
that's it. I didn't quite expect any of that. Again,
I wouldn't speaking to you today if it weren't for
the sort of snowball effect of that series. Well, and
you know you've I think you're you really kind of
went in uh sensible directions with it. As far as
the BBC series looks really cool and I look forward

(19:44):
to watching it. Can we watch that here in the States?
Is that available? So it's a BBC I player thing
and they haven't. Surprisingly, they have not put it out
to any of the other like Netflix. There is a
there is a Canadian I will find a Canadian link,
which is like a free thirty day trial and things.
People do put it on YouTube. BBC often like they'll

(20:04):
find it. I'll make sure you get a link so
you can see. I'll make sure so Chuck Bryant gets
a special link that's in America. Get on emails that
Director General BBC in England and say why is not
released in the US on Netflix or whatever. Well, I
mean the nature just for the listeners, the nature of
the show. The two series are you and You're, like
I said, former rival in our friend Eric Monkman, sort

(20:27):
of road tripping around the UK UM just kind of
seeking out cool historical places and and like being fun
and also talking about smart stuff. And it seemed to
have been very well received. Yes, we've had two series
so far. So we filmed the first one UM straight
after the summer of University Challenge. We filmed Universe Challenge seventeen.

(20:51):
We did a pilot that summer and the voice of
the pilot was Stephen Fry. This is actually the first
time it was in public. But I think we couldn't
afford him for the real one. You know, maybe they could,
but he didn't work out. We had what's his name
o God Heroic Boy, Simon Simon Callo. Simon Simon Callo Callo. Yes, yeah,

(21:13):
I don't know. You'd be like, these guys are dreadful.
Simon Callo is weird because he narrates sing Bobby and
Derek get out of the car and off to the
Science Museum, and it's just like my life being narrated
heroic fashion, and I had for a few weeks after
the show came out, I had friends mocking me, there
is Bobby now going to be a couple of tea.

(21:35):
He put the milk in before the hot water. Who knows?
That's great, That's so funny. That'd be like if like
James Earl Jones was walking around narrating my life over here.
That's pretty cool. So let's switch gears to talk about

(21:55):
your teaching career. What great do you teach? And what
does teaching mean to you? My my parents were both teachers.
My father was my elementary school principle, my mom was
an elementary school teacher, and I my sister has an
education degree. I always kind of thought I was going
to be a teacher, and in a weird way, I
kind of ended up being a sort of teacher. But, um,

(22:15):
what does teaching mean to you? So the way I
got into teaching is a slightly roundabout way. Um, even
though I don't think there's such thing as a born educator,
but I've always been someone that's enjoyed sharing ideas with people.
If I learned something, I want to teach it to
someone else parties because being with the family of I'm
one of four boys, so we always encouraged to discuss things.

(22:36):
But actually, after university, my first career was an investment banking. Again.
I'm a NUM. I'm a mass graduate, mass and econg graduate.
I went to Lehman Brothers, which in the UK now
people are not quite Lehman Lehman, but America everyone knows
Lehman Brothers. I was a trader there, not a good
choice of bank as it turned out, but I joined

(22:58):
Leman share president down. But I did the same job
at a Japanese bank called Nomura. Then I moved to
p w C Price Wae House Coopers Um. In the
UK they call it charted the account that see in
America they might call the c p A the guys
that do the public accounts for all the big corporates.
And I thought, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be a
corporate guy. This seems like, you know, I quite enjoy it.
You make you know, you you earn a good salary.

(23:19):
But when I was at p WC, and this is
all like a pinch point in my life, I took
a mini sabbatical to teach new graduates. So these were
children one three year old, Um, not kids, but kids
just left college and I taught them for about two
a couple of months to three months, and I absolutely
loved it. Chuck Wants. I enjoyed my corporate job. A

(23:40):
couple of my siblings work in the corporate sector. But
I found like I came to life and I thought,
this is what I've got to do. And then I
went to university, back to university again, did my teacher training,
my masters at Cambridge, and that's when I did my
uh experience, the university challenge and life to return but
interesting my when I joined teaching, when I changed careers,

(24:02):
my plan was to be a career, full time teacher
because I loved educating. I love teaching because I think,
you know, there's an add about master Card. There are
many things master Card can buy for other things. What
does the end what does they say, their priceless moment
for everything else there's master Card. Yeah, yeah, so mineus
that the prices moments that master Card can't buy. As
a teacher, when you're teaching a child, the concept usually

(24:25):
a mask, but I sort of teach other subjects as
well if I can, UM, and you see there's sort
of the lightbulb switch on. You're like, they finally get it,
and they finally understand in Pythagoras there and you went
the square roote at the end, They're like ah, and
You're like, yes, you feel that great sense of satisfaction
and teaching offered that to me. UM And again, I
when I go back into full time teaching at some stage, possibly,

(24:46):
but I think now my public from the UK is
better served as some of that teaches every week in
the school but spends a lot of time in the
public doing work promoting library usage, numerousy campaigning again I
do I don't know the campaign recently around the digital
dividing kids that don't have access to laptops or broadband.
So I sort of used my platform UM in a
way which being a teacher, I've got the access because

(25:08):
if I was a full time teacher, I wouldn't have
time to do the campaigning all the extra work. But
if I was just a full time media personality as
it were, I would lose the sort of authority I
have of being a classroom presence. Uh and what grade
are you teaching? Oh? Grade? I teach all the way
from seventh to twelve. That's pretty great. Yeah, so pretty
kids have just left um in the UK in the

(25:31):
middle school you guys would call it in Yeah, elementary
school or middle school into high school. Yeah, and kids
all the way to the ones who apply to before
university or college. And I think that I love the
breath because of the young kids who are eleven twelve.
They've got this sort of blue Skies optimism night. So
you can just tell them children, we're gonna learn about

(25:52):
what the sky is bloom. But yeah, this seagull about
the number zero. Yeah, this is the seagull. They love it.
The kids in how they get a bit cynical on
this daye that I looking at about irrational lumbos and
the silence Stone did reaction, try and bring my personal
de Stone did reaction. When they get a bit older, sixteen,

(26:15):
at that stage they're thinking about college and then they
stopped becoming these young adults. They can challenge you, they
can they can overrule you that they they're bright young adults. Actually,
it's a variety that I love. That's really cool. It's
I have a daughter who's going on six and it's
hard as a parent to to try and not ram
too much down their throat. She's a curious kid, but

(26:38):
it's hard and they are sponges. They can they can
handle a lot of input, but I have to regulate
myself to not overdo it. And we were in the
car the other day and I was she saw a
hearse and uh, these new modern hearses just look really
cool and interesting of it here and she said, what
is that? What kind of car is that said, oh, well,
you know, that's a hearse And they take care of

(26:58):
the very important job they take care of when people die.
They transport the body to the funeral, and it's a
very important job because people are upset. And I told
her about funeral homes and then that led somehow to
talk about uh mountain that she pointed to a hill,
and I started talking about elevations and then cartography and
I said, boy, I'm really kind of said, let me

(27:20):
know if I should slow down, kid though, if I'm
teaching you too much, And she said, Daddy, what would
I do without you? And I was like, man, that
that's just like that's all I need to hear. And
then but that was also her cue, her queue to
move on to to like sing a silly song or
something like that. That's that's I think. Um, parents are

(27:41):
I always telling us a teacher. Obviously, as teachers we
also have a huge role Monday to Friday in this class.
But parents there, I think they're still the biggest influence
because they're the ones that kids learned sublimeantly home, over dinner,
over watching movies, the little conversations, the holidays. So parents
are so crucially parents I engaged with their children's learning.

(28:02):
As a teacher, it makes my life so much easier.
And the ones that, well, you have to be and
I think there's more of that now than ever. I
feel like when I was growing up, I'm a bit
older than you ensure that. I mean, there were certainly
parents back then that we're super engaged, but I think
a lot of parents just sort of drew that line
and they were like, no, you go to school and
that's where you learn the stuff, and then come home

(28:24):
and then you know, stay in your room and play
or whatever. Parents are way more involved now, I think. Yeah.
I think technology also plays a part now. There are
lots of people posting on Instagram or on TikTok how
they educated children's and those are like a social media
pressure to be good educator. Yeah, yeah, Well, before we
move on to the movie, I also want to talk

(28:44):
a little bit about math and numbers and um this
is something that on stuff you should know has always
been a a thing with Josh and I because neither
one of us are very good at math. Josh really tries. Um,
I never had much of an interest in math. My
brother did, was an aerospace major for a little while

(29:05):
at Georgia Tech and then got out of that, but
was always really gifted in math, but I was not,
And I just it just never clicked with me. But
you love numbers and maths so much that you wrote
a book about the magic of numbers and just talk
about that. What what? What are people missing out on?
Why do you love it? So actually, for me to
tell you how I got into maths a fascinating little story.

(29:27):
So in the UK, um in the sort of mid nineties. Um,
it's still popular now, but a lot of boys and
girls collected soccer sticker books for sticker books. So these
are weat things that you peel off and stick in
and often in the playgrounds and schools you try and
swap ones that you need and you might go got got,
got need, and you get really exciting. You do it

(29:49):
in trade and it's also popular nowadays, but it's still there.
They still do the stick as Panini. I think it's
a brand that does it globally. Um, but often boys
and girls that have conversations about which players are better
the other. And what I found is often would just
be they would shout loudly, go uh, he asked them,
why do you think that plays better? Because I said so,
and because I'm like, I'm five five, I'm sure, And
then there would be taller than me. I'd like, okay,

(30:11):
you're right, and I'll just go. What I found is
these sticker books were treasure trolls of information contained the names, ages, heights,
goal scored, left foot penalties, substitute appearances, all the sort
of micro level detail about these players. When bear in
minds is a sort of early mid nineties, I took
all the data from all the twenty four teams in

(30:32):
the in the English Premier League input into an early
version of Excel, and my one of my friends made
this is this is crazy? I think, I was, yeah, again,
this is my I get obsessed by things from time
to time. This is my obsession football stickers and data.
But my friend had this conversation saying, there's a player
called Ian Right, it's actually quite prominently the UK. Now
he's actually a game show host. Now Ian write a

(30:52):
footballer for Arsenal Football Club. And one of my friends
said a player called Southampton's Matthew Lutzia we also is
a television host. Is a He said, Matthew Lutzier Southampton
is a better striker than Ian Wright. And I said
why is that? And he said, because it is because
I say so. And then I went I did a
little simple interrogation on my my database spreadsheet, and I

(31:12):
went back the next day and I told my friend,
actually I did a little investigation and he s took
out the number of goals for penalties this season. Even
Wright's actually more effective player in the field. My friends
like m probably, actually that's a good point. And you
know what, it didn't make me popular, but but showing me,
Chuck and my friends the power of numbers, because the

(31:33):
world is very subjective, is often about vehetoric and who's
got the best argument, who can flavor it with lovely
sort of stylistic flourishes but numbers, we can look at it. Okay,
now I know we've COVID people can some of dressed
up numbers, but we could look at the same number
and agree what we're looking at. And that opened up
for me a world where I didn't need to be tall,
I didn't need to be stronger. I could just understand

(31:55):
look at the numbers and make the arguments come to
life that way. And what was the name? Was it?
The Magic of Numbers? Was that the title of the
book the like the life changing Magic of Numbers, Because
for me, it's about how numbers are magical, but actually
how it can help change your life. Because there are
a lot of kids out there who maybe I feel
a bit withdrawn ice stage and their peers, but they

(32:16):
find with nothing numbers, they really get excited. And they
should all know that there are loads of other kids
around there, across high schools and all the states in
the US, across the world, that have the same passion
for them. Because in sometimes in elementary school and in
high school, kids can feel, oh, I don't think there's
anyone else like me. I feel like I'm I'm one
of the kind. But actually, in the real world there's

(32:36):
so many people who've got passions for esoteric hobbies and
and fascinations. That's amazing, man, you're quite an individual. Like
I feel like you've become sort of an ambassador for
for knowledge and curiosity. And it's really a cool lane
that you found yourself in. I think, thank you chucking.
I sort of like to think in twenty years, who
would I like to be? Um, I'm actually getting I

(32:58):
was gonna say gray, I'm actually getting a few gray us.
But again here's another top secret admission. I actually do
pluck out the odd white hair. I pluck it out
because for now, in a few years I won't be
able to, but for now so just to keep my
my black beard and hair look. But the person I'd
love to be is in about five years. It's almost

(33:19):
like a version of Stephen Friday. Because UK he's regarded
as the sort of polymathic ambassador for knowledge. You know,
he talks about Greek culture, you can talk about science,
you can talk about education, you can talk about politics,
and he's got this really beloved role in the UK.
People see him as a voice of authority and a
voice of reason. In fact, one of the things that
he's done I'm actually following in his footsteps quite almost

(33:42):
quite literally is he's been the champion for UK libraries,
so promoting the role of libraries and importance of making
in the UK libraries have an often has sort of
budgets cut and the asome too communities the main Yes,
it's a real tragedy because I think more than just
the books, these are community centers. But Stephen Fry has
been campaigning for them. And then the Libraries Organization heard

(34:04):
about the way that I became knowledgeable through libraries and
my weekends they're visiting reading all sorts of books, and
they asked me to take on the role from Stephen Fry.
So I can quite literally see myself on the sort
of role like in my job now is liked a
lot of work lobbying Parliament, the House of Lords in
the UK, organizing petitions events, trying to get people to
use libraries. Um. So yeah, I would love to be

(34:26):
someone where people need like an educational campaign or supporting
something from knowledge they're like in twenty years or not
even twenty years, less than that. Bobby Seagulls a guy,
That's why I love That's amazing. Do you have a
podcast yet? I have. I have one called Maths Appeal,
which with a fellow maths teacher called Susan okarik Is.
She's her parents and Nigerian. She's if actually's raised in

(34:48):
East London, like I am, so my parents Indian, but
I'm born and raised in East London. So it's called
Maths Appeal and we're trying to show maths is quite
fun and engaging. So it's always like a mathematical female
version of me as a high school each sort of.
That's funny. When we write our scripts for the podcast,
we we've got a rough idea, but we've got this
thing called vibing where we go off script and they're

(35:09):
the best bits. Yeah yeah, I know about that. Well,
we came on tangents where we just start talking about
our life or whatever. Yeah, I should use that word
because we call it vibing, but as mathempetitions, I should
call it tangents. That makes sense. Time I make that.
Next time, I'm gonna make it. Say so, Susan and
I we're going off from now, We're not vibing. We're
gonna go from a tangent like yeah, well, and our

(35:32):
listeners like the people I think love the tangents. But
we'll hear from people You're like, just stick to the fact, man,
we don't want to hear about your life and what
you have for breakfast. I love those bits, by the way.
I love the middle Honestly, when I listened to you,
I often listen to it when I'm parttling around doing
the laundry, making breakfast, I feel like I'm in your

(35:53):
with the I'm in the room with you. It's like
just yeah, and I feel and sometimes it feels to
real because I might be like brushing my teeth and
why is Chuck talking to you? Not chuckle for seconds?
But your podcast goes around with me. Everyone cool man, Um,
before we jump in real quick, I did want to ask,
since I know you're a football fan, west Ham fan,

(36:14):
that's how we first, um sort of bonded. I saw
your west Ham jersey and my best friend grew up
in Chiswick and as a west Ham guy from from
way back in the seventies and eighties. Have you seen
Ted Lasso the TV show? Do you know about it?
Why haven't this? Can Can I google this right now? Yeah?
It's uh, it's on it's an Apple plus, uh, like

(36:35):
an original Apple TV production, and it's a Jason Sadakis
is he was he was on Saturday Night Live here,
and he plays an American football coach who goes to
England to coach in the Premier League because the wife
of the former owner is getting a divorce and she
wants and he loves the football team and he she

(36:56):
wants to wreck the football team. So she hires an
American football coach to come in there and you know,
ostensibly do a really poor job, but it turns out
he's a really great coach. He doesn't know soccer, but
he's a good motivator. And it's just it's one of
the most heartwarming fun shows. And it's it was shot
in London, it's shot in some of the real stadiums.
It's about the Premier League, it's about darts, it's about

(37:19):
you know, Ted Lasso T. E. D. L A. S. S. Oh,
that's his name. How have I never heard? You should
check it out. It's a really fun show. It's good.
My first article Ted Lasso is the perfect Apple TV
Plus show. Yeah, it's it's a lot of fun, especially
if you're a Premier League fan. Oh my god. Yeah.
In fact, like um one reason why I'd love to

(37:40):
work in the States. At some stages, I love soccer,
men's soccer, men's football, so I got again as a
child if out their boys on my elementary and secondary
school to end up being professionals. I've got some a
very strange story where I'm someone that's played against Prince
Harry and English for England international footballers. I was in
the state school in East London, like a public school,

(38:01):
and I got a scholarship to Eaton College for my
A levels and even we call it public school, so
your public schools are private school. So I played against
both but um in So obviously men's football is by
initially followed, but the last few months I started getting
into women's football big time. And actually I'm sort of

(38:21):
jealous because I've watched games in England that it's called
the Women's Super League. It's like Premier League equivalent, but
I watched equivalent games in the US. The stadiums are
packed out for women's games, and here I think the
UK will follow. I think we'll follow that in the
next ten twenty years. Women's games will get packed out
because it's a sport that's professional. Only the last couple

(38:42):
of years has become a professional top league. So when
you will see and one day we'll beat the US.
We lost to the US and the Women's Soccer World
Cup semifinal to one. We had a penalty to bring
it back. So maybe the next time England will be
the Americans. Well that is interesting here because the women's U.
S national team has been good for a while now

(39:02):
and the men's team has always been crap. And you know,
it's I think the following is probably uh, it feels
like it's bigger and this is just anecdotal. It feels
like the women's national team is bigger here. But you know,
soccer's it's a big deal here now, Like uh, it's
really like most of my friends are all their kids

(39:22):
play soccer and it's um, you know, uh during like
the the euro Cup, in the Premier League finals and
certainly the World Cup. They are local bars here that
are just packed out, you know, people on the you know,
standing room only, people on the street watching the big
screens and it's it's it's a lot of fun. I
mean that's what I watch is Generally I don't follow

(39:43):
Premier League much, but I do follow the World Cup
and uh, and the f A Cup and stuff like
that a little bit. So when you're in the UK,
I'll take you to your first Premier League. Dude, I'm
all over it. I want my buddy Justin. Heill have
to come if we go see west Ham. That is
all right. So you picked the movie starter for ten,
a movie I had not heard of that is from

(40:06):
two thousand six. It's kind of a coming of age
UM comedy drama slash. It's almost like a sports film
in some ways too. It's got a little rocky karate
kid element to it. UM. And it is a movie
that had I mean, I think it's kind of known
now as being the small indie film who had a
huge cast of future stars in it, UM, who were

(40:30):
all sort of getting started at the time. I think, yeah,
it's crazy because when it came out in two thousands
and six and I saw it, a couple of names
up I I recognize, UM like Mark Gatis was somewhere
there there about Um, Charles Dance was around. But the
people like um, uh, James McAvoy been come about, James Cordon,

(40:53):
you know who. They weren't named at the time I was,
And then some of them have gone on to James Gordon.
I was huge in the US. Um I didn't even
recognize him in this movie. Actually, my god, it's great
because he came from something called Gavin and Stacy was
larger than life character, quite literally larger than life. And
watching if people want to see James Cordon before he
became James Gordon, this is the film to see. Because

(41:15):
I watched again recently the film and I was thinking
of my cousin that is not James Gordon. Well, I
knew he was in it, and about halfway through I
was like, when it is James Cordon going to show up?
And then in the scene where he goes back to
his hometown, I was like, oh my god, that's him.
He's the sort of metal longer metal head. Oh god
it was. But even in this film, like other like

(41:36):
I always think the directors of the casting directors were
playing a bit of games because um, they're like a
Sherlock connection because Bendic Comberbatch ends up becoming Sherlock. And
then Mark Gatis, who's the character that plays the quiz master,
he's microft in the Sherlock Holmes and as the mother,
the mother of the posh girl, Alice. She's a character

(41:59):
in Sherlock, a lady small Wood. So they've got three
people unite later in Sherlock. So so so I don't know
whether it's a Sherlock host having watched the show thinking
here's some characters I could cost, or his total coincidence. Well,
I mean it was great casting. Also has Alice Eve,
who went on to do a lot of things. Rebecca Hall,
who is great. I've always had the biggest crush on
Rebecca Hall same year. Can I admit that publicly? I

(42:21):
think we all can that she's very Yeah, she's very crushable. Uh,
and Dominic Cooper um, all these young faces been in
a cumber Batches has a sort of a small part.
I mean, he's certainly not the lead at all, but
he's very funny in this movie, which is something you
don't see a lot out of him. I guess he's
kind of funny. Is doctor strange with his one liners?

(42:43):
But uh, there are a couple of like physical comedy
bits in this with him that are really funny. When
I first when I first sort of saw Bennedy come
back in this film again with the name nowadays, it's
hard to know because in my mind. I'm sort of
applying my going all of course Bene did to come back.
He's going to be this great actor. But in that film,
he's like this upper class itmost like a twit, very pretentious,

(43:07):
very snobby, looks down on people. But again he's got
this weird it's got this weird sort of vulnerability to
him as well, because he loves knowledge and he want
he wants to be praised, he wants people to love
him for his knowledge. Um. And I think he played
it really well because he combines a sort of brashness
of a public school actually you'd call it private school
in England. We got a public public school boy, but

(43:29):
at the same time, he's got this vulnerability of someone
that's maybe been bullied throughout his life. Yeah, and it's
also a story too, which is one of my favorite
kind of um themes in the movie is a good
will Hunting had this a little bit where you have
the really smart guy from kind of the working class
um section of England and he's, uh, he's got these

(43:52):
friends that that he can either let sort of drag
him back and hold him back with them, or he
can break away and do the hard thing. And you know,
it's sort of sad, but sometimes you need to sort
of sort of lop it off and had that separation
if you really want to go on and achieve something
in life and leave that those guys behind, kind of
like in good Will Hunting and you really, you really

(44:15):
root for for Brian in this movie to do that,
like you know, those guys aren't gonna lead him anywhere
good you know. Yeah, because again at the start of
the film, before he heads off to university, we see
Brian James mcvoice character hanging out with Dominic Cooper Spencer
and James Cordon. You can see that the other ja

(44:36):
again it is James Corden. Trust me, any scene it's Cordon.
They're lying, they're lying, know it is James Gordon. But
you see them and you think, okay, Um, James mc
voice character Brian, you can sense it's like a knowledge
and there's a passion for learning, just don't have Actually,
it's interesting that this film is set in the eighties
and in the UK when we started. It's sort of

(44:56):
been forgotten a bit now, but the eighties was a
very challenge time for the UK. The Margaret Thatcher, polarizing,
um opinionated, prime ministers, the people's perception of her. Some
people love her, some people hate her. So this film
is almost like a commonly on social change in the
UK because we're seeing these mingling of classes. University is

(45:20):
the Brian Jackson's very working class in fact in the
film is from a place called South End, which is
in Essex, which is like proper like east of east
landon in it like Mary Poppins, you know that Dick
van Dyke a bit like that, more exaggerated and he
got the yeah, his one of his romantic interests as
he's like, oh, hello, how do you do? And the captain.

(45:42):
So it's like, yeah, we see this class of cultures
in this film. Yeah. And it was also a time
where um, and I think they portray it pretty well
is in the eighties when um sort of the student
activists were really starting to get much more involved. I
think that happened that in the sixties and it seemed
to kind of go away a bit in the seventies
and then in the eighties with nuclear disarmament and green

(46:05):
peace and all these like great new causes. Uh. And
Rebecca Hall is obviously the character that's you know, socialist
Jewish student activist and it's it just it really reminded me. Um.
I started college in nine, so it was a little
bit after this, but that time when you go off
to school and you're on your own for your first time,

(46:26):
and you're and especially I was a little sheltered, I
guess from the suburbs of Atlanta. But to see all
these people involved in doing these things that I had
never heard of, and your mind is just exploding with
not only stuff you're learning in class, but just socially
being aware of everything, and it's just such a rich,
sort of exuberant time. And I think he really captures

(46:49):
that well in this film. Yeah, because again, if you
look at many reviews of this film, they often talk
Clubbing a coming of age film. It is. It is
ultimately a film about a boy that's leaving is sort
of working class roots and trying to find his way
in the world, and he's experiencing all the sort of
turbulent emotions are teenager that's moving from being a adlescent

(47:10):
to a young man, his first maybe his love, his kiss,
and first relationship, all these things coming together in a
new environment. Um, and you're kind of rooting for this guy,
like come on you you really you really want him
to do well? Yeah, and you know he's going to
mess up, and he does mess up kind of constantly
throughout the movie. Uh. And I think it's just identifiable

(47:32):
as a character. I think so many of us have
been there to where you're, you know, eighteen, nineteen, twenty
years old, and I mean you're just figuring out life
and and who you are at that point. That's really
where I think people begin that journey of self discovery. Yeah,
and again I would like to think of how would
this film have been if they made it in the

(47:52):
twenty twenties, because when Brian is going to university, even
the way he finds out about the trials for the
Universe Challenge Team is little poster on the Warters. Nowadays,
kids kids, college kids might find it on on Instagram
story TikTok story that the students union post. So how
I wasn't intriguing to think how would the Brian Jackson

(48:13):
be now in one rather than in the nineties, because
the same kind of working class how will they interact
with this environment? Yeah, I mean cell phones kind of
screwed it all up. Smartphones. You know, it's fine to
go back and see these movies from the era where
everyone was engaged with one another and uh no, one's
just you know, it's disappointing to see crowds of kids

(48:37):
today sitting around staring at phones. You know, it's tough.
And I'm sure it's a teacher, you boat all that. Yeah,
that's things. There are times when we tell kids to
use their cell phones to activities, like if they're doing
an interactive task. But then there are times their kids
on their lap and you can see their face slightly
lit up and like I got you, I got you,
and you walk around them, you stand behind the shoulders,
stand behind like a pantomime villain, you and I. Everyone's

(49:00):
like this as he goes there, right, I got you.
Get your book out attention tonight. Yeah. Yeah, because they're
so absorbed in the phone they don't even know you're
behind him. No, they don't care because um. It is
also a love story, like you said, and it's sort
of the classic movie love story where you have these
two people um to choose from and he's you know,

(49:23):
one is sort of like I guess, the more traditionally
beautiful um Alice Eve that's on his quiz team. And
then you have Rebecca Hall, like I said, this socially
conscious admit she's never had many boyfriends, and it's sort
of focused on her her social activism and schoolwork. But
you sort of know. I mean, it's how these movies go,
and that's what we love about movies, like you know

(49:45):
who he's gonna end up with. But I think that
stuff doesn't matter when it's well done, Like it's the
journey that is so enjoyable. Yeah, And I think these
two characters they played so well because you've got they
do seem like polar opposites. Um and Brian when he
first enters and he sees interesting I've read the book.
The book is slightly different. Um. They they he meets

(50:07):
the characters earlier on. But in the film, there's like
this clastic scene where Alice enters the examination room and
Brian just suddenly stops dead and sees her like flashing
a move, sort of part brushing her hair, walking through
the room, like you know he's going to fall in
love with this girl. Of course, but we're still again.

(50:28):
I was rooting for Rebecca, thinking, Okay, Alice is there,
but I felt I thinks Alice did have this while
she was the sort of posh, blonde, um upper middle
class character. She didn't still have likability about her. She
wasn't like a mean, mean girls type character. Yeah, and
I think that was That's what you see a lot
in movies, is that sort of trophy character where she

(50:51):
is uh, just beautiful, but but kind of snobby and snobbish.
And she really kind of stays in the running as
it were. I think as a as a viewer, Um,
they don't tip the hat too early until you know it.
Shill she betrays him at the end, and even then
she's not seen as a super villainous type of character.

(51:13):
More like her true colors just kind of came out
and she's really not right for him when she when
she sleeps with Spencer. Yeah, I think it's quite It's
more it gives us more nuanced rather than black and
white approach to life, which is reality of how many
people's college experience will be. You know, you might like
a girl she turns you down, but then she's not
gonna be some evil mastermind planning Ah, I'm going to

(51:36):
dump you in front of the whole campus and put
a poster of you crying at the break up. No,
that that's you know, that's that's exactly it was. In
real life. It's more like, ah, it didn't quite work out,
there's someone else more suited to him. Um So I
think I think it's a fan depiction of maybe real
life rather than Yeah, I could have seen it going
a little more in the other direction. I think if

(51:56):
it were a Hollywood film, it probably would have been
studio interference would have gotten involved and made it a
bit more I don't know, just extreme with all that stuff.
But I thought the you played it out in a
pretty nice subtle way, uh in this movie. Very definitely
well done. I think the soundtrack we should talk about

(52:23):
a little bit. I love the soundtrack. Oh it's so good.
I mean that's my era. Man. I grew up in
high school listening to The Cure and the Smiths and
U Joy Division and just sort of everything echo when
the Bunny Man, And there's a lot of Cure in
this Yeah, if you don't like The Cure, can you
watch this film? Who doesn't like The Cure? Though? My god,

(52:47):
the thing is this film actually got me into eighties
music things. My elder brother, we live things like Michael Jackson,
BROSSSS Bros. Is British thing is bross. For a while
We're huge. They were like second to Marche Jackson for
like a week in the world, and but they were
a big, big deal in the UK. So we had

(53:08):
a few bands in the eighties, eighties, nineties, but I
only got into eighties music. I think to watching this
film because I heard the soundtrack The Cure the Smith's Undertones,
and I thought, hey, Bush, I thought, wow, this is
a great music. And when it kicks off the opening
the song is um Casus Spade And when it kicks
off with that, you're like, that sets the tone. You're

(53:30):
you're you get the nostalgic feel, even if you're not
from the eighties. Yeah, where the eighties is going to
be set. There Actually one thing about the soundtrack. I
think they used it in a spoof called have You
Are the Young Ones? Before Oh I Love the Young Ones? Yeah,
So the Young Ones have a spoof of University Challenge
and it's called Bambi Yeah, and it's like it's probably

(53:53):
one of the honest I think that scene from the
spoof Young Ones actually more famous than the show itself. Yeah,
because they have like Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie from House
Emma Thompson. So people are going to become mega styles
and the um in that and I think that scene
that episode actually starts off with the Motorhead song as well,

(54:13):
so it's like, yeah, that probably was no accident. Um,
the scene where I wanted to talk about where he's
he finally is hanging out, I guess on New Year's
Eve with Rebecca. And by the way, I thought, you
know their real names of Rebecca and Alice as their
character names, and I thought, sometimes you do that, but
I found out in the book that was their name,

(54:34):
so it was just coincidence of casting. I guess. Yeah.
But um, he's goes and spends sort of a um,
disastrous New Year's Eve with Alice at his her parents
cottage in Suffolk, and um, he comes back. He ends
up spending New Year's Eve with Rebecca and they're drinking

(54:54):
a little bit and you can see where it's headed
and they finally have that first kiss and you're like,
this is it, this is it, and he calls her
Alice and it's just like I didn't see it coming,
and it was just I felt sick to my stomach
after after I saw that so did I because I
generally thought, okay, so now Alice is out of the picture.

(55:15):
He's from Rebecca. Rebecca, that's that's the truth. That's a
real deepnection. It's all working New Year's Eve. And then
when he does that, like and then you feel so
sorry because you know that his mind is with Rebecca.
But it's just literally a slip of the tongue, maybe
a bit drunk. He didn't need it, and you can't
come back from that though. But yeah, I was like, Rebecca, like,

(55:38):
he didn't mean it. Why do you know he wants
to like you made for each other, don't even know. Yeah,
that's so funny, how wrapped up you get in it too,
because I was like, no, no no, no, don't stop. That
was just a mistake. Um. And you know, he sees
Alice and he goes and tells her he loves her,
and this is after Spencer comes to visit, when he's

(56:00):
hiding in the closet. But you don't even believe that
he means it. You know, he doesn't even know what
he wants. He's just sort of that kid that's just
sort of trying to be in love with anybody. It
seems like, yeah, I think he's just he's just going
with the sort of the waves. He feels like, oh,
Rebecca's tell me down. I need to go to the
person that I think loves me. Yeah, and maybe at

(56:21):
this stage he doesn't even know what love is. Is
lust for this character Alice. Um. And I'm sort of
glad that Spencer was there doing the dirty behind his
bat because yeah, it was he gave his clean break.
You know, Alice is not into him. It was good
move on, he can move on. Yeah, and that that
visit by Spencer is just um, it's a disaster too.

(56:42):
And you know when he shows up, it's like, great,
my old friend from back home is here. But it's
that whole thing with a social class and the university
student versus the guy that's you know, just from the
working class, and you know it's not going to go well,
and it doesn't, but it doesn't happen. One of the
funniest fights in movie history, I think with he invented

(57:02):
at Cumberbatch at the party, one of the funniest fight scenes.
It's like Bennedy coming Batch does this sort of like
like a cartoon, like goes like a cartoon correct, Like
it's very funny and then he gets cold. Cockton does
that kind of slapsticky turned to camera when he gets
knocked out. Yeah, and then yeah, it's a it was

(57:24):
a mismatch mismatch there, and you know it sets up
that third act so well. I think when you know
culminates in that, you know it could be the big
soccer match or the big fight boxing match or whatever,
and in this case, this university challenge. And I'm curious
for someone who's been on the show, like, first of all,
when did you watch this movie? Did you watch it

(57:45):
back then? Not as early as two dozen six, I
think a few years later, but well before I went
on really, so yeah, well before Okay, so you saw
this before you went on watching it. Now after you've
been on, what is it conjure up for you? I mean,
how real is it? Oh? It thinks it's actually a

(58:06):
very good depiction. So the author David Nichols, So, I
had a little moment last week a couple of weeks
ago where I had our starstruck because I did a
tweet about saying, oh, I'm gonna watch Startup for ten
again because I'm going to have a podcast chat with
you about it and David Nichols replied back to me, saying,
oh you're not. You're an icon of the show. What

(58:27):
an honor for him. So I feel I feel, I
feel like our starstruck at that moment. You'll have to
tweet this out. Yeah, he'll be, he'll be, He'll be through. So,
David Nichols, thank you for writing a book that probably
inspired many people to get into quizzing the game show
because it's sort of immortalizes the show. It's part of
the it's part of the folklore in the UK. And

(58:50):
when I saw the film again, I've watched it before
once it once, I've seen it since. It's a brilliant
depiction of the modes, the sort of the teams are.
You know, teams can isn't. The production crew is wonderful,
but teams can get a bit like competitive with each other,
wanting to outdo each other. The tensions between the teams
individually even between teams does exist. But I'll tell you what,

(59:14):
the questions on the the book and the film were brilliant.
And there's one thing that got edited out from my
actual episode, which I feel sad. In one of my
earlier matches, possibly a quarterfinal, second round, we had a
question that asked us about Eastles and I was like,
I know this this on television. I said, this is
from the or State, and I got I know this

(59:35):
because I saw this on Start Off a ten. So
I got a question by on the actual TV show
because the start of A ten and I referenced Start
Off a ten on the show itself. But the people
who edited the show they edited out because they thought
it's too much of a cross reference. But tragedy. So
I learned something which in the game show well was

(59:56):
he was the author on the University Challenge or not Know,
so he was at Bristol University, so which is why
he set the characters. He may have even been at
Bristol at the time University Challenge was off air, so
it was off there from eighty seven to ninety four.
And in the UK they called this the Lost Generation
of Quizzes. Oh the ratings so sixty two back when

(01:00:21):
there's only literally BBC one and BBC two. The audiences
are like huge, literally like everyone in the country would
watch it. Over time, slowly the audience dipped went to
like fifteen eighteen million, picked up again in the early
eighties and in fact in the early eighties, and they
even tried experimenting where they're a method called past the Batton,
where you'd answer one question, then your teammate answers one,

(01:00:41):
then your next team mate, and it was they're trying
to bring a bit of pizzazz and gland out. Audiences
dropped off in seven got cut quite quite sadly, and
then and it disappeared, and then seven years later people
said we should bring it back and again. One of
the beautiful things of the show is that even if
you watched again the game show on a Monday night
and he watched the old version of sixty two, it's

(01:01:02):
pretty much the same four ten points for a startup question,
five points for bonuses, five points negative if you interrupt
this music picture starter, twenty eight minute game show, much
the same four. They're not tinkered with it, which is
why I think people love it in particular. You know,
when the world changes so much, uvers challenges that sort
of constant presence and actually, like I sort of put

(01:01:23):
it out there before a few times, I'll put it
out there again. So Bamber has been hosting the show
since eight two, eight seven, twenty five years. Then Pactsman
took over ninety four two to two thousand seven years,
so he's now got the record. He's not looking tired,
but he's like I think he's had enough when he does,
when he does retire. I've been publicly saying some social
media a lot, but I'm putting my name in there

(01:01:46):
but things. A lot of people think I'm too I'm
not mean enough to be the whole, which is true.
I couldn't be like Patsman bamber Gas going like the
guy on the film. Mark Gatter's character was a bit
more gentle, more supportive. He's like a schoolmaster, and I
think I would bring back that vibe of supporting rather
than Paxman's role has been like a it was like

(01:02:07):
a pantomime villain, like no, terrible yoyo. That's a stupid answer.
I think that they think going in your direction would
be a brilliant move, and I think that would be
kind of a fun thing. I would love to see
that happen. Good luck. I'll put in a word for you,
thank you, thank you. I'm sending this podcast to the producers,
like look, it's yeah, it's there, it's there an audio now, well,
I mean here in the States. You know, Jeopardy is

(01:02:29):
such a big thing as far as this kind of
thing goes, and you know, Alex Trebek passed away and
there's been a lot of speculation about who is going
to take over. And Ken Jennings, former like most successful
contestant of all time, is doing one of the temporary
guest hosting duties right now. And I think the choices
like do you go with someone like Ken or do

(01:02:50):
you go with someone who's not affiliated with the show
that's just a TV personality that's interesting. I think having
someone a former contestant would be the way to go
who understands loves the show that the audience is familiar with.
I'm sort of backing myself here, but it's going to
be either myself or Mr Monkman, one of us two. Well,
when is he Is he finished? Is he retiring? For

(01:03:12):
I thinks he slowly retired his sort of media portfolio
duties because in the UK most people obviously know if
the University Challenge, But in the nineties and naughties he
used to be the host of Newsnight on BBC and
this is and he was renowned as the toughest political
interviewer so politicians wanted to show that they could handle
sort of the funnesce of political debate. They're going to

(01:03:33):
show and he there's a famous incident where a man
called Michael Howard, who at one stage as the leader
of the opposition party, and Patsman asked him the same
question at twenty times and he asked, can you can
you repeat that? Can you repeat that? The guy didn't
the guy just in the end. It's like one of
Patsman's most fierce moments. So Patsman eventually stepped down from that,
So he's slowly reducing his He used to represent lots

(01:03:53):
of documentaries. This is the last thing, to be honest.
The reason why I think he wouldn't want to give
it up is this is like it keeps him on
Teddy for thirty eight weeks, keeping he pays the pays
the bills. It's a great job. But I think you down,
I would look after so I would, Yeah, you would
do a great job. So in the film, you know, uh,
in the final match, there is that moment that um

(01:04:16):
where he finds the questions uh as an audience. Remember,
I was mad that they weren't taking better care. I
was mad that he was in that position to where
he would just stumble upon the questions for the show, like, no, man,
you gotta have that stuff locked away. You can't even
leave it out like that. And he looks at the
one question as all, and he messes up so bad

(01:04:39):
by well by looking at it. He shouldn't have looked um,
but he only looked at one question. He's not a cheater,
and I feel like he was labeled a cheater unfairly.
You know, Oh no, this is this is a hot
Like I was trying to think the heartbreaking moments this
film does have a little bit of a roller Yeah,
Like one of the one of them was when h

(01:05:00):
the Rebecca moment. We talked about a New Year's Eve,
and this is the one where I thought, like, yes,
he's gonna win, he's gonna he's gonna it's gonna be
the the film's gonna end on a positive note. And
you know that's what you think is coming. Yeah, And
then the question comes out astronomy. Then he buzzes in
before the questions come out and says, what was it?
A big dipper person mage and reads the whole answer. Man.

(01:05:21):
He's known this his whole life because he loves astronomy,
and you just you feel terrible for him. And I
do blame the production crew in the totally why do
you leave this? Like again, I've been on the real
show with their life there it's rubber banded up and
he left it there was it? Yes, it was the
walk of the runnerut with the host. I blame him,

(01:05:43):
don't blame James McAvoy, Yeah, because he and he didn't
even look at any of all the answers and he
knew the answer to this one too. It was just heartbreaking, man,
because you're so, like you said, you're so set up
for this heroic finish and Rebecca Hall is gonna run
up on stage and they're gonna get married and lift
the trophy and man, it's just it's really a gut

(01:06:04):
punch at the end when he gets um sort of
and I hate to say found out as a cheater,
but I think unfairly tagged as a cheater. Um. But
it does lead to one of the funniest moments if
he is when they lead him out of the studio
into the street and he has to get into the
ice cream truck. Oh God dares yes, the man that

(01:06:25):
his mother Katain takes also a quite a huge sort
of comics figure in the UK, and mother's married to
this character, and you see like Rebecca wanting to sort
of wave by the ice cream Man and they're like,
oh dam yeah, he just that's he's that's that's the
absolute low. Actually, that would have been the final. So
in the UK, one thing that didn't show the game

(01:06:47):
show because he didn't get to the stage of the trophy.
But they normally get a eminent academic or personality toward
the trophy. So my season again there's another reason why
I'm got it. I didn't get to the final. They
had the probably probably one of the most iconic moments
ever of University Challenge. In my year, the trophy was
awarded by Stephen Hawking. Way they did it, In fact,

(01:07:10):
they did it three months later in Cambridge in his
like academics lounges. It were Stephen Hawking and Twitter melted down.
It was it was the most iconic series of a
Universe Challenge, just like crying. And then I was like
and then Stephen Fry Stephen Hawking and you know he
passed me a couple of years later, so it's like
Stephen Hawking actually giving a trophy and I was like,

(01:07:30):
that could have been me, Like, and Eric suns skype him.
I see the back of his room. Um, And he
didn't win it, but he still got like award, like
a runners up equivalent, got a picture with Stephen Hawking
with the Universe Challenge, and I'm like, no, that should
have been me. I'm looking at that blank all behind
you and I love Eric, but I really should have

(01:07:51):
been in that final Oh man, that's terrible. Um. So
you know, they don't show much of the fall out.
I think it was interesting. It was a tight movie
at about I D minutes. Um, yeah, it could have
been longer, I feel like and not. I think it
would have been okay to have a little bit more,
but it was. It was a lean movie, Like they
didn't show any of the fallout from this little scandal.

(01:08:13):
They didn't show him arguing his case or them even
accusing him. It. Really they kind of just I don't
know if they shot that stuff and cut it out,
but they really just go from him being found out
to him leaving in that truck. And it was a
really smart move, I think, as far as a filmmaking
move goes, because you're left to sort of piece it together,

(01:08:34):
although as a as an audience member, you want to
sort of have him fight for himself and say I
knew the answer anyway, and I just saw it and
it's your fault. You shouldn't let it out. But it
leaves the audience to sort of do that themselves, which
has a lot of impact. I think, yeah, I think
it means that well, when you finish watching it, either
on your streaming or in the cinema or wherever it is,

(01:08:55):
you can have that discussion with the person you've been watching, like, oh,
you know, how are you going to happen? Jack, and
that you went to confessed you I can they they
sort of resolved, and do they find out who messed
up with the studio? You have the discussion at home.
So actually it is a very smart move by the
by the production and the direction of that. Think so yeah, uh,
And then you know you've got the two things sort

(01:09:15):
of lingering out there that you have to tie up
those loose ends with Spencer and whoever he's going to
go back, and you know professors love to and uh,
you know, you know where it's going. But that's why
we love movies. Because of these moments where everything's okay
with Spencer. You want him to be okay. You want

(01:09:36):
him to meet Brian up here rather than him dragging
Brian down, and you get the without it being too sugarcoated,
you get the sense that there's some hope there that
that might happen. Yeah, and I think again that maybe
with a commentary on the eighties how in the UK
there's a lot of unemployment there, people like Spencer, people
that left school of sixteen without any qualifications. Things tough.

(01:09:58):
But then it shows in because like Spence, he's sort
of turned around. He's trying to get back in the
path it was he did. You have a magistrate session
where he's been released and he's been I think he
got probation only and it's not like, you know, it
would have been too much if he was like and
now I've signed up for uh for college and I'm
gonna do this. It just sort of gives you a
hint that he's gonna like branch off from his path

(01:10:22):
of of badness. Yeah, he is. It not not nice
tile off and you can see, yuh, I liked his
character he had. It is sort of he brought the
South m the Essex Guy to Bristol University where you
know we saw the Bendict com about uh and then

(01:10:43):
you know at the end he eats. It's it's that
movie thing where he's running after his love and there's
a little bit of misdirection there when he sees Alice
in the hall and um, you know, like you said,
she's not a villain, so you don't want her to
get to faced, but he does. You know, there is
a nice little moment where she's sort of put in

(01:11:04):
her place a little bit and that's all you need.
And again sometimes like the little guy can who you know,
people who have been slighted in love can watch and
go to Alice. You know he doesn't want, you know,
but you know the person we want to speak to.
And yeah, it's it is like because this film is
also a rom com, and in rom com the guy's

(01:11:25):
got to get the girl or the girl's got to
get the guy. In fact, I've watched an interview with
James McAvoy and he said one of the reasons he
accepted this role was he always wanted to do a
rom com. Oh really, yeah, and he got it. He
got his rom com. Yeah, this little small movie. It's
a little bit of magic. I think I wish it
was better known. Hopefully this will put it on some

(01:11:46):
more people's radar. I think it was released in the
US under a different title because no one here knew
that starter for Chen was a reference to the University Challenge. Yeah,
and it did really pulling the box of less than
a couple of million dollars and even the UK to
become like one of those sleeper cult hits over the years.
It builds up the audience and builds it up. But yes,
I think it's because perhaps the cast, while they're Stella now,

(01:12:08):
weren't so Stella first came out. Yeah, and it's kind
of fun to go back and see little baby James
McAboy and all these kind of young actors, little puggy
James Corton. James Corner needs to tweet about this is
involved because he's kint quiet. He's just like, let it
be like I didn't James. He needs to James Gordon
if you thinks he's a west Ham fan, and Russell

(01:12:29):
Brands as well, So James Corner, Russell Brand. We're gonna
get James Gordon to tweet about this film. Okay, because
he could get a whole new audience for University Challenge. Totally, totally.
All right, man, well this is a lot of fun,
great movie. I'm glad you. I'm glad you told me
about it and have me watch it. It was a
lot of fun and uh, I look forward to talking again. Cheers.
Jack is always a pleasure. I'm that serendiperous. Moment. I

(01:12:51):
got a message saying, do you want to interview those
stuff you should Know podcast guys? I said yes immediately.
I'm so so thank you for pleasure. All Right, thanks Bud.
All Right, everyone, I hope you enjoyed that as much
as I did. And I always say that, but these
conversations are a lot of fun, especially now when we're

(01:13:12):
locked down in the pandemic. To be able to spend
some time with with my buddy Bobby over there in
the UK. He's a good guy. We're gonna meet in
person one day. I'm gonna take him up on that
soccer game. We're gonna hit the pub and have a
point and talk about math. He's gonna teach me some stuff. Uh.
He's a good dude, and I'm glad you you checked
out this episode and like I said, hopefully you watch
Starter for ten. If not, you can watch it on

(01:13:33):
HBO Max. Very very good, lean ninety minute independent film
coming of age rom com Love Story. Had a lot
of fun talking about it, and Bobby is just a
good guy, so big thanks to him. Check out Bobby's book,
The Life Changing Magic of Numbers, and you can also
follow him on Twitter at Bobby Underscore Seagull And that

(01:13:56):
is as it sounds, s E A g U double L.
Not Steven Seagal, but Bobby Seagull, Everyone, the real deal.
The big thanks to Bobby, and thanks to you for listening,
and we'll see you next week. Movie Crash is produced
and written by Charles Bryant and Meel Brown, edited and
engineered by Seth Nicholas Johnson, and scored by Noel Brown

(01:14:16):
here in our home studio at Pontsty Market, Atlanta, Georgia.
For I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.