Stuart Goldsmith | I Need You Alive (Full Comedy Special)

- [Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen, Stuart Goldsmith! - Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Wonderful to be here. All right. I'll tell you a bit about myself to get us acquainted. I am, I think of myself as a self-made man. That's my thing, right? By that, I mean, I left home at 18 with nothing but the shirt on my back and every conceivable privilege. Still got them, white, male, middle class, and if they invent anymore, I dare say I shall have them too. I'm very lucky, I own a house. I own a house. You

can't, thank you, thank you. Yeah, it's hard saying that to people in their 20s. You can watch their dreams die in real time, it's not fair. I say I own a house, my wife owns a house. I own a wife. So that's good. Lived in, lived in London, the sprawling metropolis that is London for the last 15 years. And then five years ago, I moved to the hipster capital of Britain, Bristol, as the result of losing an argument about starting a family. I left the city I love to be with the woman I like, and...

She hates that joke, and she's absolutely right to. We now live in Bristol, up a hill, in a creative community full of wankers. It's not a gated community, it is quite a steep hill. And everyone, if you like that, You're gonna enjoy the rest of the show. This is gonna be fun, just relax. Everyone, when I say it's creative, it's like everyone on our street has an arty job, right? So we've got comedian, we've got a DJ, a videographer, a dancer, a musician, and one architect to give the rest of us a sense of perspective.

Like, sure, sure, you're artistic, but if you tried, and, and I gotta tell you, the area is gentrifying really nicely in a way that I am absolutely responsible for. When I, when I first moved there, Brunch on a Sunday was eight pounds. Now it's 13 pound 50, you're welcome. That's me, I did that. And, if anything, it's too comfortable. It's a really comfortable place to live. So I'll give you an example. We take the children, local kids, we take them on... I mean, my own children. I've said "local kids" there, as if we're some sort

of Pied Piper couple. We're like, "Come children, let's go on a walk." No, not at all. We have two, two fabulous children. Lovely, lovely little boy, and the girl one's good too. And we... I've known him longer. We go on, we go on walks and we go to the forest, right? The forest is technically a cemetery, but there's no point getting into that at this stage. And what we've noticed is such as the nature of our groovy creative community, that someone from the community has been sneaking into the forest and nailing lots of little four

inch high doors To the bases of the tree trucks. Have you seen anything like this? Little fairy doors, right, you've seen them. So it's all twee and it's all sweet and the children come along and have an important cultural experience and go, "Oh, this must be where the fairies live." Not my son, my son's like, "Well, they're out." You know, but there we are. And, and that's why they do it. But the problem is, we're such a bunch of wankers that all of the couples have gone home and go, "Have you seen it? "Have you

seen the forest? "I can't whittle, I can't carve, how will we contribute?" And so what they've done is everyone's gone back and added little embellishments. They've put little accoutrement. That's a fun word, isn't it? "Accoutrement." They've put like a little rocking chair in the front garden. Someone's cut up a doormat into inch squares and put little fairy doormats for the fairies to wipe their little booties on. Someone's got a lolly stick and two bits of string and made a little swing on an nearby branch. It's twee as hell and it's my duty to disrupt it.

So what I've done is I went to a doll's house furniture shop and bought a load of white goods, like fridge freezers... microwave ovens, and I just left them outside in the fairies' front gardens to rust, get a scale electric car, set fire to it, leave it smoking on its edge outside, bring the area into disrepair, you know, some miniature police tape here, some tiny crack pipes there. And what I did last night, I snuck in, I put a tiny white tent in one of the front gardens. Yeah, so it looks like there's been a

murder. Take my son from it earlier today. Yeah, I think the cat got him. Ooh, nasty. It's not true, of course, I haven't done that. What I've done is I've decided to take it far too far in the opposite direction. So what I've done is I got on etsy.com and I bought a job lot of about 200 of these fairy doors, and night after night, I've been sneaking in Adding more and more fairy doors, right? More doors, everywhere you can let, every inch plastered with doors, up trees, up branches, doors, doors, doors, doors. Until the

area is completely oversubscribed, right? Doors everywhere. And so many doors, eventually, the fairies, they're gonna need somewhere to get their coffee, aren't they? So a little artisanal coffee shop there, maybe a vegan upholsterers over here. Doors, doors, doors, doors. And then, at the very end, what I'm gonna do tomorrow is sneak in with an arm full of tiny little estate agent signs. Start sticking them everywhere as all of the local fairies are priced out of the area by these fluttering, iridescent wankers from London. That's the plan. That's the plan. I recently achieved the dream of

every middle class person, I had a bit of work done on the house. Had a bit of work done, had a new kitchen put in. I stress, we're not wealthy, but we came into some money On the death of an elderly relative upon which I had bet heavily. Come on, Uncle Oscar, daddy needs a kitchen island. So, we got this work done, and I don't know if there are any men in the audience who are man enough to admit that when you meet a proper man, you go a bit funny, right? Like if you see

walking down the street, if you see a guy who's like wearing overalls, he's got paint all over them, and you see him and you go, "There goes a proper man." And you go a bit limp. You know, "Oh, he's proper." All it really means, of course, is that he's not that good at painting. And what happens, and I don't want to do this, this happens despite my best endeavors, I open the door to them and I do a bit of a voice, right? I dunno what it is, these guys turn up, I'm like, "All right,

lads..." Like... Where is that coming from? What is that? I go, "All right, cup of tea, cheeky Stella, "All right, lovely." I think, on some level, I'm trying to sort of leverage a friendship with them in order to create the possibility of the discount for cash. Dunno if anyone's ever pulled that off. "All right, lads, cup of tea, discount for cash. "What that is, I'll give you the cash, "you knock the vat off, everybody's laughing, "apart from obviously the schools and the hospitals." Anyway... And and they must know. They must know, right? When I turn

up like, "Ooh, hey, hey," like this, they must go around the corner and go, "He's rather patronizing, isn't he?" "Yes, he is. "He is condescending to us, talking down to us, isn't he?" "Yes, yes, yes, he's trying rather hard." "That's what she said." "Careful." And... We tried to do the whole job in a week, right? They wanted to get it done in a week, so at one point they were all in the living room. Now our living room is underneath our kitchen, with this little squeezy house on a hill, and all five of them were

downstairs in the living room having a chat, right? So there was a chippy, a sparky, you've got another lingo. There was, whatever the fuck a plumber is. Cheeky dolphin, I don't know. Splash Harry. And a... A bender? That's unlikely, I think. And a gaffer and a "spaffer," Which is my word for a plasterer. I've made that up myself, you're welcome. Spaf, spaf, spaf, it's harder than it looks. So all five of them were in there and I went in to offer them a coffee, right? And I panicked 'cause I didn't know how to address them

together. And I walked in and I went, "All right, men." I dunno why I said that. I think I was gonna go for "lads" and then I bailed out halfway through the center. So I tell them, "men," as if I'm the brigadier At the back of the battlefield on a white horse, and I'm expecting you obviously to die tomorrow in your are hundreds of thousands, but for now, can I offer you a coffee? So they all said, "yes." So two minutes later, I'm standing upstairs in the kitchen at the worktop, in front of a coffee

pod machine I already feel bloody guilty about, and I've got five pods on the worktop in front of me thinking, "Am I really gonna chuck five pods "at these bastards," right, these are... What if they want another coffee later on? They're here all week, this is gonna bankrupt me, right? I'm gonna have to kill another relative. They're not... They're not the usual pods, is my point, there from a special collection called "Simply Regime." And... And so I've got the five, I scoop them up, I've got five pods in one hand. I've got a jar of

dirty instant coffee in the other hand, and I'm looking from one to the other, trying to make my mind up when I look up And one of the builders is standing on a ladder looking in through the kitchen window. "Hmmm. "Hmmm. "He, he." There's.... There is no other thought I could possibly have been contemplating. I ended up having to do a sort of extended improvised act out to my wife who was not in the building, say to her out loud, "Oh, all right darling, "what are you doing there, what are you doing "getting this instant

muck? "Nothing but the best for my boys. "Ha, ha, sorry." I just hate being caught out being my real self. So, but someone who is unencumbered with that is my son. He's a lovely boy, right? He's cerebral, he's sweet. Very early talker. His first word was "Mama." Of course it was his mum, had been training him from birth to say the word "mama" in order to win an argument I didn't know we were having, all right? To be fair to her, I had been coaching him, in secret, the entire time to say the word "pathetic."

'Cause I thought that'd be quite funny. Like how good would that be if the first thing he ever said was when she went, "mama. "mama. "Mama." And he looked up and went, "pathetic." I thought she'd get a laugh out of that. And he's a lovely guy, he's called, his name is Boutros. And... He's not really called Boutros, but thank you, the 80% of you didn't laugh just in case. I call him Boutros when I'm on stage in order to anonymize him, and because if, when he's a teenager, if he sort of interacts, he sees my

work online on tele or something, then he, if he's aggrieved, if he's pissed off I've been talking about him this whole time, I can just say, "No, no, no, you had an older brother who died." So you've gotta... You've gotta appreciate the elegance of the system. Sweet, little guy, and he is every inch the Bristolian child. There is not a stitch of clothing on him that isn't a rainbow sequin. And if he grows up to be heterosexual, it's gonna break his poor mother's heart. I'm telling you that now. I will still love him. But he

has, weirdly, he's very empathic, right? He's very sensitive. And he has this swimming teacher, right? A very muscular, Spanish guy called Jose, With a beard, very broad, muscle, muscle-bound guy. And my son insists on misgendering Jose. I say to him, "How was swimming?" He's like, "Yeah, it was a good one, she was good." I'm like, "I'm pretty sure he's a he." And he goes, "No, no, no, he's a she." And he gets really angry with me. So one of two things is going on, both of them equally brilliant. Either, in 2021, today's five year olds

just recognize, innately, that gender is a construct, it's all meaningless and it doesn't matter at all, Or... or, my son can smell true gender. Like one of those cancer dogs, do you know what I mean? If he lies down in front of you, you gotta ask yourself some pretty penetrating questions. I say to him, "I'm pretty sure Jose's a dude." He's like, "Well, maybe now, "but she's got a long journey ahead of her." Okay. I told him I'd get him a treat, right? So I was at the supermarket and I promised I'd bring a little

something back for him. And you do need to be careful about the cultural artifacts you put into your kids' heads. So, like, he loves the "Mr. Men." Him and his sister, they love the "Mr. Men." I dunno if you've revisited the "Mr. Men" stories recently, but my god, the, the male Mr. Men, the Mr. Men. The men, the men, the male ones, they're all called names based on physical prowess and dynamism, they drive the story forward. They're all called Mr. Noisy, Mr. Strong, Mr. Rush, even Bump and Tickle, there's something going on. Do you know

what I mean? Not necessarily something very savory, but they, you know, they have agency. Whereas the, the lady Mr. Men, the Little Miss, the Little Misses, they're all called these incredibly diminutive patronizing names. They're all called Little Miss Bossy, Little Miss Splendid, Little Miss Passive and Fat. And I dunno, I don't know, why we put up with it, it's stunning. So I, you've gotta be careful about the decisions you make. And I'm standing in the supermarket, I'm standing in big Tesco, other sizes of Tesco are available. And on one side of the magazine rack, there

is a copy of "Lego Batman," right? It's "Lego Batman," on the other side, there's "My Little Pony Magazine." Now I want him to want this, but I know that he wants this, right? I'm fine with that. It's just that I want him to be into Batman. 'Cause I was into Batman, as a kid. I'm still quite like Batman. And I just want him, for some reason, I want him to grow up like I did, like Batman, vengeful and furious and alone for some reason, I don't know. But it's like my inner landscape. I think like

a lot of men, the inner landscape of my life is like, "I'm Batman." Every problem in my life is like a crisis only I can solve. I must never ask for help and I must get a special car. Right, that's my... That's the inner landscape. Whereas his in a landscape is the world of "My Little Pony." So everything in his imagination, his view of the world is this sort of lurid, candy floss hypersexualized in a way that he can't really comprehend, like a kind of quivering bubblegum fuck horse. And, and so... Like I, the characters

in my world, the Batman world, they've got names like Harvey Dent. You know, the Joker, Two-Face, Penguin, all that stuff. The characters in his mind have, Have got names like Princess Celestia, Twilight Sparkle, Twinkle Pips, Cloud Gush... Gliteras. You know, I... Obviously, I'm making some of them up, but not all of them. And so I panicked and I made the wrong decision. I got him the Batman comic, and I took it home and he was crestfallen but polite. And I was like, "Oh, sorry, "I got the wrong thing." Until he looked through it and he

said, "Oh no, this is great Daddy, look. "Look, there's a Lego Bat Girl comic strip." And I was like, wow, he loves Bat Girl. So I said, "Why don't we play Lego Bat Girl?" And he was like, "Yeah, yeah, great." And I said, "Okay, fantastic. "You be Bat Girl, I'll be Batman." I pointed at you then, you be Bat Girl, you're up for it. Well into it. "You be Bat girl, I'll be Batman." And he went, "No, no, Daddy, I'll be Bat Girl, "you be Wonder Woman and you have to call me sis." Okay. Cool.

I'm down with that, sure. So I said, "Okay, okay sis. "I think there's a giant robot attacking the city. "It must be something to do with Lex Luther. "Let's do a team up." And he says, "No, no sis, it's our day off. "We're just gonna relax." So we did, we built a sofa fort with the the cushions. And I said, "This is the Bat Cave." And he said, "No, it was a salon." And... And he let me have "Bat Salon." So... It was all the more strange then when we had to start doing discipline, right?

Because eventually, of course, his baby sister turned up and this sweet, lovely little boy started having incredibly powerful rage-filled meltdowns. Right, of course he did. He'd been used to being the main guy in the house. Suddenly he had to share power. And it turns out, when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Who knew? Oh, a bunch of smug people knew. Oh, well done, well done. So we had to start doing the "Naughty Step." Now, if you are over the age of 30, you'll probably remember the "Naughty Step" from "Super Nanny" in the 90s.

If you're under 30, you might just remember the "Naughty Step," I dunno. And the way it works is simple. You explain to the child, I'm an account to three, if this behavior doesn't change by the time I get to three, They've got to sit on the "Naughty Step" for a while. Do you know you're not supposed to call it the "Naughty Step" anymore? Right, 2021, you're not supposed to call it that. Do you know what you're supposed to call it? You're supposed to call it the "Thinking Step." Because we don't wish to imprint upon the

child the concept that they are a naughty child. The behavior is naughty, the child themselves is not naughty, so it's the "Thinking Step." Not in our household. We understand that you have to win the psychological victory early doors. So in our household, it's called the "Huge Disappointment to Me and Your Mother... "Hatch," is what we call it. And I'd explained the system the previous week, he was having a meltdown, so I said, "Listen, Buster, "I'm gonna do counting. "If you don't change this behavior, "I'm gonna do counting like we talked about." And his face changed

his, his face darkened, his brow furrowed. He said, "Don't you do counting." Bloody hell, Batman. I said, "I'm gonna do counting." He said, "Don't you do counting." I said, "Here I go, here I go." I said, "one," he looked at me very coolly. He said, "two." I didn't know what the hell to do, there was nothing, there was nothing in the training material about what to do when your child takes themselves hostage. "I'll do it, old man. "Try me." What he's done is he's artificially escalated the jeopardy, hasn't he, he's left me nowhere to go.

I can't say three now, and I feel like he knows that. I didn't know he could count. So now, without seeding any authority, I've gotta deescalate. I've gotta sort of take the air outta the situation. But still, I've not have a bluff called this hard since his sister was conceived, so... I said, I said one, he said two. I, rather weekly, said "Two and a half?" He fixed me with his eye contact, he said "Three and a half." And then the two of us locked eyes, we both sat down together, I lit two cigarettes... and

we just carried on counting. Eventually, of course, he ran out on numbers. I'm calling that a win. That's fine. I'm just not used to dealing with that sort of anger. I mean obviously now, now I've got kids. Christ, probably the hardest thing Is negotiating with a child, using every ounce of creativity and guile and cunning and a song to try and convince them to do something that you personally could not give a shit about, right? Something you have no personal stake in whatsoever. So you're there going, "Just put your shoes on. "Just put your shoes

on, we're gonna leave the house. "Come on, put your shoes on, we can all go. "Put, I've got my shoes on, Mommy's got her shoes on. "Your baby sister's got her shoes on. "Doesn't need shoes, can't walk, put your shoes on. "Put your shoes, just put your shoes on. "Please, put your, okay, seriously, man to man, "put your shoes on, just put your shoes on. "Let's, let's sing the shoe song. ♪ Shoes are good ♪ ♪ Everyone thinks that you should put your shoe ♪ "Put your shoe, put your shoes on. "Put your shoes on,

put your shoes on. "Fine, fine, do you know what? "Walk outside, lacerate your feet to ribbons "on the broken glass that I've left there "specifically to teach you a lesson... "Because you have stolen from me even the luxury of suicide. "That was too much, that was too much. "That was too much, I'm sorry. "Sorry. "I didn't... "Yeah, he's upset for some reason, I dunno why." I don't know why I'm trying to explain this. Like, trying to explain what it's like being a parent to someone who doesn't have children is like trying to explain being on

acid to someone who's never taken it. Like, nope, it's like trying to explain your dreams or your hopes, no one cares. Right, what's the point? But before, before I became a parent, I had no relationship with anger. I don't get angry, I don't get angry with people. I get angry when, like, when a system is broken or stupid or doesn't make sense. That's what me off, and I don't direct it at anyone. You know, like if you are, when you're on a plane and the plane would land, and then 10 minutes before they open the

doors, everyone else on the plane stands up and just stands there putting their bags on, Banging each other in the face and like this. And you all just sat there in your seat, quite justifiably thinking, "Pack of twats!" Just... Perfectly reasonable... common or garden anger. You know, or if you're in the bank, there's three desks, two of them are open, a customer at each, three people in the queue in front of you're thinking, right, this will take no time at all, this'll be fine. And you find yourself sort of hanging around going, "Well, come on."

No movement up ahead, a few more people join the queue. You're starting to rumble, "Oh God, come on. "This doesn't, this can't be how you're supposed to do. "No, no, it's fine, it's fine." And then a third cashier turns up you're thinking, "Thank goodness." They whisper something to the second one. Turns out what they've whispered is, "It's getting busy, isn't it, you fancy your vape?" And then they leave... One desk, 30 people now in the queue. And what saves me is that I'm so volatile, I just flip. I'm so emotional that all it takes, I'm

getting all this energy, "Oh, for God's sake." And it, all it takes is one person in the queue in front of me to actually have an audible meltdown, and I do an emotional 180. I'm there going, "For God sake!" All it takes one person to go, "Oh, for God's sake!" Suddenly, I flip, I'm like, "Hey baby, relax, it's just..." "It's just the, it's just the bank, man. "It's just, hey... "It's just money, I mean, what is... "What is, what is money? "What, the guys behind the desks, man, they're... "They're us. "They're us, aren't they? "They're

the same guys. "They're all the people, we're all the people. "We're all made, we're all made out of stars. "What even is time? "It's just a shared illusion. "Don't normally do this under colored fairy lights. "It's kind of..." "Sure, baby, I'll leave the premises. "Yeah, cool, cool." They say, they say when you become a parent, you recognize that you are no longer the picture but the frame. That's a weird concept. You're not the picture anymore, you're the frame. Do you get what I mean by that? It's like you are no longer the star of the

movie of your life. You're not even the camera crew. You're just catering. That's... And I've got these two friends. I'm not showing off, at least two, and I've known them 20 years. They're a married couple. They're both about five years older than me. And as long as I've known them, I've been secretly sort of not quite copying their life. But I've been noticing the challenges they go through, five years ahead of when I might, and trying to glean information from them. You know, they're like the canary the coal mine, The dog in the space shuttle.

They're the mouse on the unapproved antidepressants, right? I'm following them. What happens, you do that, you don't, okay, fine, fine. I realized very recently, my friend, Tom, he's five years younger than me and he's been doing the same thing to me and my life the whole time, right? They're ahead of me on the timeline, he's behind, he's copying me. There are people five years younger than him copying him. They're doing it to people five years older than them. And all of us are just clinging grimly to this rope. Like Shackleton through the Antarctic, howling advice

to one another across the frozen tundra. What happens next? You're not gonna like it! And you're not gonna like it, are you? Because the people right at the end of the rope, they're just looking out over a crevasse. There's very little point in persevering! What's that? Something about persevering! Right-O, we'll keep on persevering! And it's pointless trying to give each other advice because today's advice is meaningless tomorrow, because the terrain shifts so fast. You're there in the middle thinking, what are you gonna do for money when you get too old to work? That's easy, that's

when the pension kicks in, right? Shit. Did, did you guys get a pension? We don't need one! We've got Bitcoin! Okay. Let me know how that works out! It's insane, it's like... The advice we got given the first time we were pregnant. Yeah, "we." Get over yourselves, people hate that. We, we were pregnant. Yeah, we got pregnant again, 'cause as it happens, apparently we couldn't keep it in my pants. The advice we got given the first time was very simple, it was always the same. Go and enjoy yourself, go to the cinema, go for meals

out. Have fun while you can. The advice we are shouting down the line to Tom, five years younger than me, thinking about starting a family, the advice now is very different. The advice now is just, "Get money!" That's the advice. "Get money, and if you can, "high ground!" Because there's not, the one thing I was really unprepared for was the fact that I was going To become a breadwinner. For some reason I haven't given that any thought. I'm a breadwinner. I have to win... bread. Very few places offer bread as a prize. Apparently I've gotta

win it. Younger people in the room might be thinking, "Well, just buy the bread." You can't buy the bread, you idiots. You buy the bread, you take it back to the nest. They're like, they know. You didn't buy this, right? Did you buy it, you buy it? It tastes bought. No, no, no, I won it, won it fair and square. Casino, was it? No, no, funny story, bumped into a duck on the way home. Correctly guessed his secret name. Any other breadwinners here? Any breadwinners? No, no one. Just a bunch of you, bunch of bread

losers. Great. But everything's now, people talk about the gig economy. It's so weird, my job is, I'm so free, right? Comedy, standup comedy is the ultimate zero hours contract, Right? If I want, I'm so free, I'm free as a bird. If I want to stop working, ever, I can just die. It's extraordinary. I don't wanna paint my wife as some sort of grasping, bread-hungry chill. No, far from it, we get on. She's, she's great. We have very different leadership styles, me and my wife. We're both, we're both natural leaders. I think that's quite unusual for

a couple. We're both like, we're two leaders. Most couples, a lot of couples, I think, is one leader, one follower. And if you, if you're in a couple now and you're thinking, "I wonder which one I am," I've got some bad news. Some couples, presumably two followers, but we don't hear much from them 'cause they don't get out. But a few couples, I think, small percentage of couples, two leaders. Now I don't like to ask at shows, Are there any couples in where it's two leaders. 'Cause one time in a gig, at the back of

the room, a little voice went, "Yep," and then there was a pause and another voice went, "No, you're not." And it was... You don't wanna do harm, you know, so... But I think me and my wife, it's true, we're two leaders. We've got different leadership styles. So I'm more like a, I'm like a loose Maverick, MacGyver. You know, I'm like a sort of, a kind of rolling, adaptable kind of a leader. Whereas my wife actually gets things done. So it's... We have to, we have to separate, we have to divvy up the labor. You know,

I'm in charge of mowing the lawn, packing the car, lifting things. And my wife is the architect of all of our futures. Don't look at me like that, I'm good at packing. I pull my weight. It's my dream, I'm so good at packing, it's my dream one day to be going through a supermarket checkout, and when the lady says, "Do you need any help packing?" By the end of the sentence, she realizes she's in a bag for life. I just moon walk, I climb up on the conveyor belt and pretend to moon walk out, just

slowly like that. That'll be the plan. The reason I'm giving you this intel, insight into my marital dynamic, is to explain why, at the age of 44, my wife is currently trying to organize a grown up play date for me to go on with another man in order that I make a friend. I wanna be absolutely clear about this, I'm not lonely, But I moved to Bristol, I moved to a foreign city at the same time as I became a dad. So I don't get the chance to meet other dads, right? They all socialize during

the evening and work during the day. I have to socialize during the day because I work in the evening because of you. And... And so I don't get to see them, It's just not fair. My wife can walk up to any other mom and go, "Hey, we should get a coffee, should we be friends?" Suddenly they're friends. Doesn't work like that for men, does it? Not the system at all. No, the system for male friendships is you've got the kids you knew at school, minus one who died, and that's it. And that's how it's always

been. That's how it's supposed to be. So we met this guy, we met this one guy, Ollie was his name. We met him at, God, we met him at a toddler rave. That's a thing. Three hours of banging techno on a Sunday afternoon. Load of haggard parents at the side of a church hall, Hundred kids with their tops off, ripped to the tits on fruity pouches. I remember, I remember this one specifically because it was, there's always a costume theme, and this particular one was superheroes, right? And there was one particularly attractive younger mum had

come dressed as Catwoman and all of the other mums were like, "Oh, fuck off!" It was just great. We met Ollie, our kid would playing with his kid, and then eventually we chatted for five minutes, and then his kid ran off, Ollie followed him, And that was that. And then ever since then, my wife has been stalking him on Instagram in order to pimp to me as a potential friend, right? I'll be washing up and she'll side up to me and be like, "Have you seen, Ollie's into martial arts and board games "and you like

board games and talking about martial arts?" And suddenly it's put me in the position, I'm like a kid on my first day at nursery going, "I don't wanna go," like that, because I don't know how to package myself as a potential friend for a grown man. I just don't know how to do it. I've written and then deleted an introductory text to him God knows how many times. "Hello, mate. "Hey, friend-o. "Ah-o!" Who am I, who am I? I don't even talk with the friends in my life that I love. My mate, oh, my best

mate, Noel, right? We've known each other since we were 11. We've traveled the world together, I love the bones of him, right? And I will see him for a cheeky pint once in a blue moon. It's a running joke in our household. I'll come home and my wife will go, "How's Noel?" And I literally won't understand the question. How, how is he? How is he? How is Noel? He is simply... Noel. Immutable, unchanging, he reminds me of me. I remind him of him, that's why we... that's why we hang out with each other. I can

tell you what he thought of the movie, "The Suicide Squad," is that what you mean? Is that how he is? And then she'll say something weird like, "But hasn't his mom been ill?" I don't know. How do you know that? Stop asking my friends questions, you weirdo. 'Cause we don't speak with each other, we just talk at each other. We sit and conversationally groom one another, like a pair of orangutans on a log in Borneo Picking fleas out of each other's fleece. "Did you like to film?" "Yes, did like it." "You are like me." "Yes,

I am, yes." "Did you enjoy 'Black Mirror' the other day?" "Yes, I didn't like it to begin with, "but then I did like it by the end." "Yes, I'm the same, yes. "And tell me, are you playing that "the 'Red Dead Redemption' game on the PlayStation?" "No, I've had, I've had to stop playing that. "It's a little bit..." "Too immersive, yes, I'm the same." Talked about this at a show in Bristol. Stranger tweeted me the following day, "Stu, hey, really enjoyed the stuff "about the grownup play date. "Just so you know, my friend Clive lives

in Bristol "and he is freeing..." That's not what this is! This is not some sort of pathetic platonic pickup line. I'm not, I'm not coming out here going, "Hello, men. "I am very lonely and I wish to play 'Settlers of Catan.'" It's not, not that. What happens when you approach 40 is that all of your friends start running a marathon. And here's, I can't be bothered with that, even for charity, I can't be asked. My rule is, if you want me to sponsor you to run a marathon, I will pay you my money to run

a marathon, provided you look like you cannot possibly complete a marathon. I think that's fair. If you look like you'll breeze it, you get nothing from me, Dead by mile five, three pound 50. That's my... My friend Josh said he wanted to do a skydive, right? He was really interested in doing a parachute jump. He'd always gone on about it. And he said, "Finally, I'm gonna do it." And I went, "Good for you." And he said, "But can you give me some sponsorship money? "Right, I'm doing it for charity." I said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

"You're not doing it for charity, you're doing it for Josh. "Right, because you want to do it, you're doing it for you." He said, "No, no, it's for charity." I said, "Well, in that case, "let's try a little thought experiment, shall we? "See if you can follow me through this. "How about I offer you double the donation not to do it?" And he said, "That's not really in the spirit of the thing." Okay, fine, you go ahead, you go ahead. As long as you realize that now I've made you that offer and you've declined. You

are now doing a skydive against cancer research. Which is particularly appalling, given what happened to your brother, if I may say. Me and my wife were having a conversation about the making of our wills. That's what you gotta do, you get set up as a family, you have a couple of kids, you gotta get life insurance, gotta talk about your wills. And during that conversation, I made the alarming discovery that if everything goes according to plan, I die first. Like, that's the plan. That's the best case scenario. Of course it is, it's the best case

scenario. Like, kind of financially, ethically, effort wise. You know, like, I don't want her to die first. We need her. Kids, Christ, no. You know, so it's me, it's old papa bear in the ground, all done and dusted, right? That's... That's the plan. It's astonishing, isn't it? I'm 44, as you can tell from my trainers, 44 years old, halfway through my life, if I'm lucky. Halfway in terms of years. In terms of experiences, Christ, I reckon I've done 90% of the shit I could be bothered with. But that's, it's so strange to think, halfway through.

I think, there comes a time in everyone's life when you have to accept that you're unlikely ever to zorb. And I just think I'm there. But you're not supposed to mention, are you? It's considered the height of rudeness to bring up the concept of mortality. Like you are all out having a nice time, I don't wanna remind you that you will one day definitely die. Sors, you know. But it just pops into your head at random times. You'll be around the house doing up your shoelaces, because you're a grownup, you're putting your shoes on to

leave the house, you're doing your shoe, suddenly it'll hit you like a shovel in the features, right? Oh God, I too will one day die. Barely worth finishing. No, no press on. And then you... You're just expected to get on with your day. And then later on someone asks you, "How are you?" "How am I? "Oh, you know, dead one day, but today, dry feet." And when you're a kid, you look at people much older, don't you, silver tops. You know, you look at people in their 70s and 80s and you think, "They must know.

"Surely they must realize they don't have that long left. "How are they cool with it?" And you get a bit older and you go, "Oh, they're not cool with it." What can you do? Legacy is important, that's what you can do as a parent. You have legacy. You can just invent stuff out of thin air and tell your child, "Oh, this is how we've always done it in this family." Just make it up. I say to him, I say our name's Goldsmith, I say, "A Goldsmith always pays his debts." We absolutely don't. There's no, no

evidence to support that. I'll consider it a personal victory if I manage to die in debt. As he will no doubt discover, eventually. I say to him, I say to him, "A Goldsmith never monopolizes the conversation." The one you have to drill in, this is critical. I say to him, "A Goldsmith always ensures "that his own parents receive only the most luxurious "end of life care." You've gotta nail that one in. I think that's what we owe our parents, is a quick death, right, isn't it? That's the minimum. Come on. We're all of an age,

surely we're all of an age now Where we've seen an elderly relative kind of kept alive by medical science far beyond their enjoyment of their life. So, presumably now, like I have, you've all had that chat with your own parents. Like, I'll take care of you and then when the time comes, I'll take care of you. Right, you... You've had that conversation. I mean, I say conversation, it's nothing we've actually said out loud, but they, they get it. It's implied, you know, that when, when the time comes, Which I'll decide. And I'll do it clean,

as well, I'll do it clean. That's the kindest way, you know. Middle of the 90th birthday, "Happy birth," bang, clean. And it'll be me that does it as well. My sister, I've got an older sister, but she's got her own issues, she's made that clear. I've got, I've got a younger brother, but he's not as strategically minded. You know, he'd be a good trigger man. But it's muggings ear, he's gotta plan the caper. And it'll be hard as well, it'll be difficult. My folks separated 25 years ago, my dad now lives in Spain. I know

where, I've got his address written down, but have you seen a Spanish address? It's completely incomprehensible. He's very physically fit, he's quite agile. One on one, it'd be hard to take him down. Plus... Plus he reads a lot of Tom Clancy, so he's probably booby trapped the villa. Whereas, my mum, frankly, is a sitting duck. I mean... I mean, she, she still lives in my hometown. I know all the potential hiding places, all the territory. Every fortnight I get an email from her. There's basically an updated list of all of her current vulnerabilities. Too easy.

Plus, she loves me, so she doesn't think I'll really do it. No, there'll be... No sport in that at all. My friend, Danny, had some bad news recently, and this is awful, right? He was diagnosed with an incurable blood disease and he was given 20 years to live. Just think about that for a couple of seconds. 20 years to live. What the hell is he supposed to do with that information? "Oh God, thanks a lot, Doc, I'm glad you told me. "I better get my skates on if I'm gonna do "two unrelated medical degrees "and

then become a deep sea diver from scratch." What's he supposed to do with that? 20 years to live? If that was, if that was you, forgive me, if I was your doctor, I wouldn't have bloody told you. I'd been like, "Oh, good news, clean bill of health. "Go and enjoy yourself. "Take some risks. "Come back and see me in 19 and a half years, okay?" He's 50, Danny's 50, did I mention that? He's already 50, plus 20, 70, that's in innings. I congratulated him. 70, guarantee. He was very patient, he was like, "It's not a

guarantee." "I'm not death proof. "I can, I can be killed." But 20, God, I'd almost rather have a week. Someone told you, if you told me I had a week to live. If you told me I had a week to live, I'd have some questions, who are you? How did you come by this information? What are you doing in my submarine? But... Once we dealt with all of that, then, you know, you wouldn't have time for the whole bucket list, would you? But you could control the dismount. You could do that last week properly, get

out as you mean to. You know, everyone's got a plan, I know mine. Sell all my stuff, buy a rowing boat. It only just occur to me, I don't know the value of a rowing boat, all of this stuff may have been, plus, I've got a wife and fam, it's too late, I've sold it. Sell the stuff. Buy a rowing boat, row out to the middle of a beautiful lake, take a shitload of heroin, watch the sun go down. That's the plan, right? Jack up, check out. I've just remembered, I'm taping this in Glasgow. Isn't

that insensitive? I didn't, I didn't... I didn't... I didn't mean anything by it. I wanna be absolutely clear. I'm not promoting or condoning heroin use. I just think, in the Venn diagram of things that you should probably only do once and things that are apparently absolutely brilliant, right? Right in the middle of that, heroin. Heroin... Heroin, and driving a double-decker bus under a low bridge. Come on. The 176 to Penge? Bollocks to Penge. Head down, foot down, under the bridge we go. All of the top deck dead, fuck 'em. But if, if it was, if

it was 20 years, obviously, I'd be be waking up the next morning thinking, "God, I feel dreadful. "I suppose I'd better row back to shore. "Try and sell the boat. "Oh. "I wonder if I could use some of the money "from the sale of the boat "to buy a tiny little bit more heroin." If I ever took one piece of advice from my mum that I really took to heart. She always said to me, "Just do your best." Just try, right? "And then even if you don't achieve your dreams, "at least at the end of

your life, you can say, 'I tried.'" And I've always taken that to heart. I've always turned up, done the work, but only occurred to me very recently, who am I imagining saying that too at the end of my life? "I tried. "I tried." Who's on the other end of that, the Grim Reaper? St. Peter? A nursing home care worker who doesn't know my name? "I tried." "Good, well you can try your soup." Or am I saying it to the Distract-a-tron, which is an android I've invented, which is to combat dementia. It's a cross between Chat

Roulette and Bop-It. And it heralds the end of western civilization. Give give me a cheer if you're ambitious. Not all of you, was it? Okay, easier question, give me a cheer if you are pretending to be ambitious. Ah, yes, you, very good. Tell me, what you do for a living? - I'm lecture. - You're lecturer, Christ, we're fucked. That's it. You're a lecturer, in what subject? - Nursing. - In what? - Nurses. - Nurse, nurses. Well this has taken a dark turn. Here's my question, are you... are you pretending to be ambitious to yourself or

to the people around you? - To them. - To them, okay. And what is the highest thing that you could achieve in your industry if you were as ambitious as you're claiming to be to the people around you? - [Woman] PhD. - PhD. Like, same shit, more money. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, I appreciate your honesty. In a moment or two, I'm gonna refer to you as a loser, but there's nothing personal, okay? Here's the thing, here's my relationship with ambition, right? In standup comedy, that's what this is. In... In standup comedy, it is absolutely

full of incredibly ambitious people. And when I started, about 15, 16 years ago, I started at the same time as a group of incredibly driven, ambitious, hardworking, talented young comics, okay? Now they are all famous millionaires, and good luck to them, right? There's no luck involved, no luck involved. They, they, they were brilliant, they worked for it, payed for and got. And whilst I didn't see them so much anymore, we appeared on the same bills, less and less often, I would see less of them. And, yeah, maybe I was a little bit intimidated by their

success. I ended up falling in with a newer generation of comics, a different crowd, younger guys and girls, you know, kinda oddball, political, pretty boy acts, you know, people who'd never amount to anything. Now they're all famous millionaires. Here's... Here's my question. Is it me? Is... Is there something about my presence that makes other people think, "Bloody hell, I better knuckle down?" And, and if there is, can that quality be monetized perhaps from home? Because I love the work, I love the work, I love this. I love you, I love the job. I just can't

cope with the envy, the stress, the yearning, the striving, the desperation, right? I love the work, I'd always do the work. But I'm 44, halfway through my life, couldn't I just uncouple, uncouple the striving and the envy and all of that shit? I could jettison that, slip the clutch and just coast like this loser. I feel like, I feel like I'm just in the middle of the road, kneeling in the middle of the road, cradling the fox of my ambition, recently mowed down by the truck of time, effort and parenthood... Which to be fair, I

was driving. And I steered directly towards this poor little fox. Smashed him down, I jumped out, I've scooped him up in my arms, kneeling in the road, and I'm looking down at him and his little, his body's all smashed up, spit and dribble coming out of his mouth, His eyes all wonky like that. Looking up at me. "You promised." I said a lot of things. And I'm trying to decide right now, in real time, do I expend enormous personal effort on coaxing him back to life, or... just break him? I'm fine. I know it's better.

I know it's better to travel hopefully than to arrive. I know that, I've been to "insert rival town here." I know it's the traveling hopefully, but does the traveling hopefully have to go on forever? Does the striving have to go on forever? I've got a squirrel in my loft. My wife's loft. I... There's a squirrel in there. 20 past six every morning, I hear it scuttling up this little slopy bit of the loft that you can't get into. And then it scuttles up and then it goes across this sort of flat bit that you can

get into. You can open this little hatch about six inches and you can just peep in and you can see it's all full of squirrel shit and he's all nibbled through the wires, the lights, lighting and wires and everything. And every morning, 20 past six, I hear him. Tick, tick, tick, tick, shew. Tick, tick, tick, tick, shew. Tick, tick, tick, tick. Tick, tick, tick, tick. The time it takes it to achieve that bit of the journey is gradually decreasing. He's getting better. Either that, or this squirrel community are gradually sending their best people. Taffy, walk

it off. Nutkin, you're up. There's nothing I can do about it. I can't get into the bit of the loft to seal it up, and you can't get to the outside of that bit of the building. You physically can't get there to prevent the square getting access, right? So all I can do, two choices, all I can do is either Smash a hole in my ceiling, and paint it, plaster it, get in there, seal it up, repaint, re-plaster, all the rest of that, or absolutely nothing, guess which one I'm doing? I'm lying there at 20

past six every morning listening to a rodent embody a metaphor about self-improvement while all the lights in my house go out one by one. I eat far too much Pain au chocolat. Like a terrifying amount of Pain au chocolat. I mean, you can't tell cause I've got a good metabolism, but my heart is made out of butter. I eat too much Pain au chocolat, and I eat it, so the reason is, I eat it because it's the only, it's often the only fresh bit of food you can find at a service station. And I eat

most of my meals at service stations because of you. And, what I, I don't go to the night pay window. I dunno if you're a city dweller, you might not know about this, but often the countryside, they've got the, the garage of service stations will have a night pay window for security. And I won't, I can't be doing with that. If I get out the car and the bloke in the thing waves me to the window, I just get back in the car and drive off, I'm not. I realize why. It's, I would rather be

not trusted, I would rather be followed around the shop by a security guard with a shotgun pressed against the base of my spine than have to peep in through a letter box and ask a grown man to get me a pastry. "Can you, yeah, it's, can you get me the chocolate? "No, that's almond, I don't like almonds. "Can you get the little chalky one, yeah. "Yeah, not the, not the chocolate croissant. "No, the Pain au chocolat. "Yeah, chocolat, yes, the Pain au chocolate. "Yes, that... "It looks like a little crab with no leg, that's it.

"Could you... "Could you just poke it in the tummy with the tongs? "I just want the softest one. "I know they're the same batch, "often one of them squashier than the... "No, I don't understand it either. "Just give it a little poke, poke it. "Poke, poke it, poke it. "Do the second one again. "Do the first one again. "Yeah, really do, really, I don't want that now, "you've ruined it." You know... Do that. Sometimes you'll get two Pain au chocolat in a box for fractionally more than the cost of one Pain au chocolat. Right, I

don't understand that at all. It annoys me, if anything. What I'm saying is, I'm not buying two for myself. I'm taking advantage of an unbeatable offer. And what I do is, I get the box and I go back and I sit in the car, and I've got the box on the seat there. It'd be like one o'clock in the morning on the way back from a show. And I'll take one out and I'll eat it immediately. And then I'll look at the second one in that box and I... No, no, no. That cannot stay here.

Future Stu, my name's Stu. Future Stu cannot be trusted to have that in the car with him, right? We've danced this dance before. So I get up and I put it in the boot of the car, and I get out the car, put it in the boot, come back around, sit in the car, feeling pretty happy with myself. And off I drive. About five or six minutes later I start thinking, "Who the hell does previous Stu think he is?" Just who is God's name does "History Stu," "Deja Stu," who does he think I am? Does

he think I'm some sort of idiot? Does he think I don't know? Does he think I've forgot? What does he think, I'm not prepared to pull over into a laybuy not five minutes past the garage. And what, does he think just 'cause it's raining outside, does he think I'm not prepared to burrow into the boot of my car through the backseat? Does he think I don't know about the fold down chair? There's the two one and the one one, I just need the one one. And I... Does he think I'm not prepared to about to

tunnel in there, with my legs across the backseat of the car, like a clothed prawn as I snuggle down in my little croissant burrow and I, what does he think? Does he think I'm not prepared to sit there nibbling away, nuzzling away in that second little Pain au chocolat, as the rain beats down on the roof of the car, drowning out my sobs? Does he think, does he think I'm not prepared to do that? Pain au contraire. How I choose to live my life is none of my business. When we are alone, we become our

truest self, right? For sure, like we're all, right now, we're all aware of each other's perception of us, we know that we're out, we're out and about. So we're all pretending to be normal, right? You don't need to admit it now. I know it's hard to admit it, but all of us, all of you sat there going, "I'm normal, don't worry about me. "I'm just a normal person. "Yes, I'm just out and about in polite society, in company. "Hello, certainly never touch that. "Never, wouldn't dream of it." "No, no, no, no. "I'm just normal, I'm

just one of us. "I'm normal, I'm not some sort of wanking, screaming, "shitting monkey that's managed to put on some shoes, "forget about death and leave the house. "That's normally at all. "Ha, ha, ha, ha. "I belong." And so, when you are, when you're on your own, you let go of all of that. If you're out with your friends. "Bye, bye, guys. "Great belonging, okay, bye, bye." Click. Ugh. Oh God, take your trousers around your ankles and just slouch around the house. Turn a tap on for no reason. Sorry, Greta. Open the, open the fridge.

Use a slice of processed ham as a sort of rudimentary glove to scoop up some coleslaw. And the phone rings. "Oh, hi, hello, yes, yes. "No, just normal stuff. "Just like anyone, you know, what sort of thing? "Putting keys on a fob, you know. "Doing my tax. "Okay, bye, bye-bye," click. And when you, if you meet someone, if you meet someone in a kind of romantic context, right? If you meet someone on like a first date, their perception of you is enormous, and yours of them, right? So you find yourself, they in a restaurant or

in a bar. Hello. Hello, there. We are mutual friends of Simon. We have both been ratified by a third party, also normal. We will begin the courtship ritual. Tell me, what box sets do you enjoy? Tell, tell me.... What, what box sets? - "Buffy." - "Buffy?" Same. That's it. But by the time you've been together for 10 years, all of that has gone out of the window. The pair of you just sat together on the sofa. Do you wanna bang? Or watch "Buffy" season six again? I love you. No you don't, but thanks for saying

so. I honestly couldn't give a toss about the sex. No, fair enough. Coleslaw? But my son is so much a part of me, he's so much of me and from me that I don't regard him As an outside eye at all. When I'm with him, it's like I, it's like I'm more myself when I'm with him than with anyone else. I shit in front of him. Not as a punishment, you know? "Well, Master Goldsmith, the naughty step was unsuccessful, "we shall have to try the naughty stool. "Don't look away." He's upset for some reason, yeah.

No, but no, no, no. Like I just, when I'm with it, I'll say to him, "I'm gonna go for a poo, do you wanna come and hang out?" He'll be like, "Yeah, all right." I don't defecate in front of my wife, the very idea. But with him, he's a part of me. It's like a happy version of being alone, it's wonderful. It's just lovely. And he does this thing whenever grown up friends of ours come around, he always wants to have private time with them, right? So our friend Ed came around and my son said,

"Ed, we need to do some very important work," and marched him off into the playroom. Let you into a little secret. The playroom, it's just the living room. it's got toys in it. So... So in they go, two minutes later, Ed shouts to me from the other, "Stu, can you come in here?" And I go in, he's bollock naked, my son. Starkers. And Ed is pressed so far into the corner of the room that he's climbed it backwards like Spider-man, right? Ed says, "You have to be here. "This is absolutely fine but you have to

be here. "I'm a white man in his 30s, I've worked for the BBC. "Statistically, I am a predator. "Please, stay in the room." - [Woman] Woo! Woo! - And my son says, "Ed, I'm going for a poo. "You're coming with me." Marches off. I wish, I wish I could be like that. I live in a sort of terrified future. My son lives in a blissful present, and I just wish I could join him there. I wish I could be in that moment with him. Free of context and consequence, bollock naked before the universe. Wouldn't that

be wonderful? There's very little I can tell you about what it's like to be a parent, unless you are one. But if I could give you the distillate experience, it would be this. We were having a kitchen rave, okay? So this is one of those moments when you Just let go of everything and just enjoy yourself. My wife's dancing there, my son's dancing over there. I've got the baby in my arms and we're just rocking out, we're having an incredible time. We're listening to, my godson, he does, he's giving us a Spotify playlist. And he's

cool as anything, he does Parkour. I dunno if you, dunno if you're familiar with Parkour, it's like, it's like French jumping basically. It's so cool. But jumping is so French. Like that, it's just... Je m'appelle Stuart. It's cool when you see it on TV and movies on YouTube and stuff. When you see it in the high street near you, it's just three lads who look somehow too awkward for Games Workshop. Jumping off a bin and doing their ankle. Oh... So I asked my godson, I said, "What's the, "what music do you listen to when you're

training Parkour, "you cool bastard?" And he said, he likes chill hiphop. And I said, "Oh yeah, what kind of artists?" And what he said next shocked me to my core. I said, "What artists?" And he said, "I dunno." He said, "What do do you mean, you don't know?" He said, "Well, I just put it on Spotify, "put a playlist on, 'Chill Hiphop,' eh." You don't know the bands you like? That's the death of culture. Isn't it? What kind of books do you read? "Oh, I like Hellvetica mostly." What sort of foods do you enjoy? "I

like mostly soft textures." We're playing the music, we're playing the tunes, we're having a whale of a time, we're all bouncing around. We've forgotten the future, we've forgotten the past. We're in the present! We did it, we're in the moment. And my son is so caught up in that moment, with no malice in his heart, with nothing but love in his heart, he rushes over to me, he clasps both arms and one leg around my thigh and sinks his teeth Into the fleshy part of my thigh, drawing blood immediately. Christ, it hurt And I, let's

not forget, I have personally given birth to two children, right? This... This hurt. He just, with no no malice, he was just like, this is brilliant. He bites down, God, it hurt so much. And I obviously, the instinct is just, "Hoof!" Through the window. Take the baby and like, "Get off me!" No. You can't do that. Can't do that, I've been briefed. So you have to protect them. And this is what it's like being a parent. I had to protect her and I had to protect him, he bit me hard enough that I bled, and

that anger, that pain, that energy had to go somewhere. It went up as a shout, down as a stamp. He bit me, I went, "No, no!" He burst into tears because he was scared, And I had to apologize to him. Thank you very much, everybody. Thanks so much. - [Man] Thank you very much.