Tim Marshall

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So you were not an attentive student, is that right?

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Pardon?

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You were not attentive in school.

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That was my little joke, Malak.

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You know, Tim, it takes luck. It takes one person to see what's there.

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If a door cracks open and you think it's the one you want to go through, push politely.

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Absolutely.

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I wish I was D.H. Lawrence, but I'm not.

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It's a formula. This is great. I hadn't thought about this stuff for decades.

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That's the point of the show. You have to go back. Thank you.

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You don't need to lie down afterwards.

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Yeah, exactly. This episode is brought to you by EFG Hermes One,

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your one app for investing in more than 35 stock markets worldwide.

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Hi, everyone. I'm Malak Fouad, the host of What I Did Next, coming to you from A&T Media.

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This month, I've had the pleasure of bringing to you Tim Marshall,

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who is a best-selling author of books on geography and how they intersect with

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geopolitics and with current affairs and why it's an area that is so underrated.

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We are all so concerned for what's happening around us, and we're all looking

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for answers to really fundamental questions.

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Who we are, why is this happening to us, why does it keep happening to us,

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and what is it about our region that attracts all these problems and this chaos?

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Tim's books really help us put this in perspective,

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understanding key questions from the point of view of geography and how each

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country inherently has advantages and disadvantages, both in terms of history and geography.

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So I want to just pull up here.

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two of your books, which I adored.

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Thank you.

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Right here. I attended, you gave us a talk in London in October for Intelligence

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Squared, and I just absolutely loved it.

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And I found it, first of all, it was a packed hall, which is kudos.

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You obviously have, you're a magnet.

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And I found it really interesting that your audience was made up of every demographic.

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You had every age group, but you had a lot of students, which I thought was

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fascinating and I thought that was brilliant.

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You know, we worry that the new generation is complacent or not interested and you proved it wrong.

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I mean, you had an all, the majority of the questions that you took that night

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were from students and they came up with really interesting questions.

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So I felt quite hopeful leaving your talk, you know?

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Good. And, I mean, they have proved that they are not many of them, not that.

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You know, I think younger people were the ones that probably drove the rise of podcasts.

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Yes. And also proving they're not three-minute attention span people necessarily.

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You know, people said that long format was dead and podcasts have proved it wrong.

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As for the demographic, I think, to praise myself, forgive me,

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I do try and make things accessible.

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How refreshing i.

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Do try and make things accessible and therefore uh it's accessible to you know

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everyone but also the subject matter of course uh it doesn't matter if you're

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18 or 80 you know it affects us and it's of interest

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Absolutely one thing i noticed which which um which

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i do um now that i've got this

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sort of uh podcast profile i guess

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which is you and i met before your talk and

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we had a coffee and we chatted like two

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normal human beings and i paid for your coffee yes

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i bought you a coffee yeah yeah um so the the funny thing about that is so we

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had this really nice chat and we you know kind of broke the ice a little bit

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and then when i went into this to the hall and then you came on to sit onto

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the stage you had a stage persona,

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So, you changed. I did? Yes.

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So, you suddenly, you switched, a switch went off, and you became Tim Marshall,

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author, best-selling author, presentation to get through, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

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And I found it really, I started laughing, actually. I thought it was really cute.

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Well, I mean, that is the real me as well. Yeah. I behave differently when I

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go and see my football team, Leeds United, than I do when I go and see my mum.

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Because she would be so astonished at the team that goes to see Leeds United.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. So, you know, yes, it's an act in a sense,

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but I think a lot of us are acting nearly all the time.

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I don't mean that negatively.

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You step out the front door and you put on a different kind of persona, right?

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But the other thing that you just maybe think of is it's also because I spent

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so long in television, television news.

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And I used to say to some younger reporters, be aware you're acting.

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You don't have to ham it up.

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Yeah.

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But be aware, you know, this is not normal. You know, you don't go downstairs

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every morning and say, this morning I'm going to have cornflakes.

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You know, you don't. But when you're on the telly, you have to project.

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so i think there's probably a bit of that

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As well i found it i found it funny um and and and entertaining i mean you were

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extremely entertaining on that stage terribly.

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Bad jokes but

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Everyone laughed so you know we all went along with it yeah shakespeare.

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Went into a bar right into a pub and the landlord said i've told you you're barred

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Which is an English language thing because he was known as the bard. Yeah. That sort of joke.

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Honestly, I think— But it gets the room going, really, you know.

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People realize then they're not necessarily going to be brought to tears with

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arcane, complicated geopolitics.

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Yeah. So I want to go back, Tim, before we get into your new career and your new stardom.

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You left school at 16.

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What did you leave school with your GCSEs only?

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I was invited to leave.

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Oh, you were invited to leave?

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Yeah.

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Okay. And so you were not an attentive student, is that right?

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Pardon?

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You were not attentive in school.

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That was my little joke, Malak.

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I'm going to have to get on the Tim Marshall wavelength to get through the interview.

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No, I wasn't. I was thoroughly, thoroughly bored.

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Didn't know what was going on most of the time. I got into a lot of trouble in and out of school.

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They stuck me in what was called the remedial class. And this was for people

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with mostly learning difficulties.

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And yeah, I had learning difficulties, not because I wasn't capable,

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just because I wasn't trying.

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Do you think that today you would have been diagnosed with ADHD,

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one of those attentive disorders?

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I think it's not impossible. I think there's far too much diagnosis of that.

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No, I... Well, yeah, it's possible.

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But I think it's more that, I'm not blaming the teachers in the school.

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I mean, it was a bog standard state school, comprehensive school,

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35 to a class, lots of disruption of which I then was drawn into and participated in.

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I think if I had gone to a different type of school with better discipline,

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I might have been disciplined.

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But you would go home and read avidly, right?

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So you were not encouraged at school, but you still went home and you realized

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that you still had a thirst for knowledge, basically, and you were almost self-taught in a way.

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Voracious reader um and also i mean it's it's funny i was this um dichotomy if you like in that

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i went to the football i got into bits and bobs of trouble uh same at school

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big in a fashion and music you know i wasn't a nerd in that sense but i was i was a nerd

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simultaneously in that you know at 12 years old i'd be watching documentaries

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about international affairs.

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I remember even at nine years old being fascinated by Martin Luther King's funeral

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and realizing this is some sort of a momentous event. This is a nine-year-old

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kid in Leeds in Yorkshire.

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But I could just, oh, what is this? And then there are the books.

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So yeah, I was this sort of caught between two worlds, but there was only whatever

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one world in which anything was possible, and it certainly wasn't the world

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of academia and journalism and news.

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And what was that world? What were the expectations for you at the time?

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Zero.

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Um, yeah, I'm not trying to paint a hard luck story. Yeah, yeah.

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You know, most, my brother went on to be a refrigeration engineer,

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uh, and then a minicab driver, now he's a chauffeur.

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Um, most of the lads, half the lads went into the, uh, wood factory,

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which was opposite the school.

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Um, some went on to the sixth form, uh, you know, I mean, it wasn't a disaster as a school. Yeah.

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But, no, I mean, so I became a painter and decorator.

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Yeah. That was my first job on leaving school.

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And how did you make your way from that? And you were also a petrol pump, petrol attendant.

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Yeah, yeah, I did a bit of that.

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You had a brief span in the RAF.

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Four years.

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Four years. How did you make your way to broadcast journalism?

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I mean, that's a stretch. Where did that come from?

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It was a bit of blagging. Sorry for non-native English.

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Blagging is the way into a lot of these jobs, right?

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Chancing, you know, a bit of a chancer. I think the Air Force played quite a

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role in that that gave me discipline. That gave me structure.

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Why did you join the Air Force, Tim? What was it about that that attracted you?

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Not very much. I was unemployed.

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I see. Okay.

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Well, all right, that's a little bit disingenuous. I went down the Navy and

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I said, you know, what jobs can I do?

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And was it my eyesight? There was some problem. And they said you could be a warehouse man on shore.

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What's the point of joining the Navy to be a warehouse man?

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So I went to the Army and they were very keen to tell me that I'd very soon

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be in Belfast in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

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Not very appealing.

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Well, I mean, later on, I wouldn't say I was attracted to war, but, you know...

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I did cover a lot of wars and combat, and there is something compelling and horrible about it.

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And then I went down to the Air Force, and they said to me, you can be a telegraphist. What's that?

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And radio operator. And I'd seen enough World War II films, you know, Morse code.

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Yeah, cracking the Enigma code.

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So I went into the Air Force, did four years. So that gave me this sort of structure

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and discipline that you actually have to do stuff and teamwork.

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Unfortunately, after about two years, I really figured I want out of this,

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but I signed up for nine years, fixed, couldn't get out.

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Wow.

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Yeah. Well, when you're 18, I joined at 17. And when you're on your 18th birthday,

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you have to decide three, six or nine. And so I thought, well, hang on a minute.

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You said that, and now it's this. So I tried to get out and they wouldn't let me.

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So I embarked on a two-year career of growing the hell as long as I could get

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away with not shining my shoes.

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Career of mischief to get out.

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Basically, I was back at school again.

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Exactly. You regressed.

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And they eventually said, oh, go on, get out.

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I think the end point came when the warrant officer came in on the night shift

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and I was standing on a table declaiming from Karl Marx or a communist man just

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for a laugh you know I wasn't a communist but it didn't go down very well in the Cold War you

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Were an agitator yeah.

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Well I mean I wasn't I was just having a laugh you were having fun I think that

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was the tipping point so anyway

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This is great. I hadn't thought about this stuff for decades.

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That's the point of the show. You have to go back. Thank you.

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You don't need to lie down afterwards.

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Yeah, exactly.

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On the way out of the Air Force, you had to do this career review or whatever.

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And there was this wife, a woman, a female officer.

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She said, what do you want to do? I said, I want to go to university.

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Because I had spent that four years reading.

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And also, don't forget that new wave and punk music was happening at the time.

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So we're talking about the early 70s by then.

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Yeah, late 70s. And they were referencing a lot of politics.

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If you listen to a British band called The Clash, they were referencing the

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Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua, or The Jam were referencing George Orwell, etc., etc.

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And if a teacher references that, I'd have fallen asleep, but oh, these cool guys.

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And so that got me into exploring and I thought, oh, I quite fancy going to

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uni, but I didn't have any qualifications.

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You need A-levels and I didn't even have O-levels, the one below,

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but I took a night school course.

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So she just wouldn't give me any help at all. She said, no, you can do this,

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you can do that, refrigeration, painting, decorating, radio operator in civilian life.

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I said, I don't want that, I want this. And she said, well, no.

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It's not your path. I did a night school course, got an A, and on the basis

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of one O level, at A, they let me in to college on a mature student.

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And in those days, you didn't have to pay, which was great. And then I was down in London.

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Again, I was unemployed. And I was doing another night school course in something,

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which again was free in those days.

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And doing the same course was the news desk secretary at LBC IRN told her of my ambitions.

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I didn't know what a curriculum vitae was, because I didn't speak Latin.

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Didn't know what a CV was, but she said, get yourself a CV.

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And there was a department that required for three days work.

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They required a sort of T-boy researcher, news information it was called.

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And bless her, this woman called Vivian Fowle, wonderful woman.

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After journalism, she went into charity work.

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and only because that nice woman gave her the cv she said oh well take a look

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at him and she clearly bless her saw something and the three days turned into 30 years yeah

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You know you know tim it takes luck it takes one person to see what's there

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and um and you know you just you you make the most of that that first entry

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don't you that's what it did that's what it is.

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If a door cracks open and you think it's the one you want to go through, push, politely.

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Absolutely. Yeah. So, I know you from your years at Sky, foreign correspondent,

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then you became diplomatic editor, but you were there for all in all about 30 years, weren't you?

225
00:15:58,890 --> 00:16:03,330
Yeah, I am actually 87.

226
00:16:06,170 --> 00:16:07,930
You obviously started young.

227
00:16:08,670 --> 00:16:13,850
No, I mean, it's the thing, I started late. I didn't get a full-time job.

228
00:16:14,030 --> 00:16:19,090
I didn't get a full-time staff job until I was in my early 30s,

229
00:16:19,130 --> 00:16:24,110
but I didn't get into journalism until my mid-20s, which is quite late.

230
00:16:24,110 --> 00:16:33,130
Then a documentary series when the BBC were looking for an unknown to do some

231
00:16:33,130 --> 00:16:35,670
undercover work on a five-part series about racism.

232
00:16:37,570 --> 00:16:42,070
So I left the freelance job to freelance with them for a year.

233
00:16:42,810 --> 00:16:47,250
Quite successful. A bit of sort of, oh, you've done something now.

234
00:16:47,490 --> 00:16:52,330
And then I, this is going back to being a chancer or a blagger,

235
00:16:52,350 --> 00:16:58,150
if you like. I still had contact with LBC radio, and they didn't have a Paris correspondent.

236
00:16:58,370 --> 00:17:02,230
I remember the editor saying to me, we get these people, they go across,

237
00:17:02,410 --> 00:17:06,370
they disappear down the metro, we never hear from them again. I won't do that.

238
00:17:06,670 --> 00:17:07,690
I'm going to go to Paris.

239
00:17:08,010 --> 00:17:12,690
I'll be your Paris correspondent. I'm not going to disappear down the metro.

240
00:17:14,410 --> 00:17:16,890
And they looked at it and said, well, I haven't got anyone there.

241
00:17:17,070 --> 00:17:20,110
I mean, freelance, you know, not staff. And they said, do you speak French?

242
00:17:20,870 --> 00:17:23,310
And I said, do you think I'd be so

243
00:17:23,310 --> 00:17:26,710
stupid as to go to France and be a correspondent if I don't speak French?

244
00:17:27,070 --> 00:17:29,390
Which is a question, not a lie.

245
00:17:30,870 --> 00:17:33,250
And rhetorical, I presume. Yeah.

246
00:17:33,850 --> 00:17:36,990
Because once I got past Bonjour, I was struggling.

247
00:17:37,990 --> 00:17:45,170
But packed everything up in an old car, went across, got a flat.

248
00:17:46,360 --> 00:17:49,500
Bought a very old-fashioned one of these.

249
00:17:50,900 --> 00:17:55,320
Learned how to unscrew a phone and stick some crocodile clips on it to have

250
00:17:55,320 --> 00:17:57,860
a better quality. Made it up as I went along.

251
00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:02,580
And I didn't disappear down the metro except in the mornings.

252
00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:05,960
And I used to come back, because this is pre-internet, pre-mobiles,

253
00:18:06,120 --> 00:18:08,180
and they'd say, oh, I've been ringing you, where have you been?

254
00:18:08,340 --> 00:18:12,880
Oh, I had a meeting with President Meater on or whatever.

255
00:18:14,780 --> 00:18:18,640
whereas in fact i'd been at my intensive french language course i

256
00:18:18,640 --> 00:18:21,940
Was going to say you were you were at the cafe having a croissant and a.

257
00:18:21,940 --> 00:18:27,060
Coffee yeah oh yeah pretending to read le monde yeah exactly and um off the

258
00:18:27,060 --> 00:18:32,680
back of that sky asked me in their first year which was 89 sky news

259
00:18:33,260 --> 00:18:37,720
to file occasionally from paris and then in 1990 they said can you come back

260
00:18:37,720 --> 00:18:43,600
and be a reporter for us and i said yes which was difficult because the last

261
00:18:43,600 --> 00:18:49,080
story i covered in farence was the cambodian peace talks and to go from that

262
00:18:49,080 --> 00:18:51,500
to then being the most junior of the junior

263
00:18:53,420 --> 00:18:57,880
reporters uh covering as we say in english dogs up cats up trees dogs up trees

264
00:18:57,880 --> 00:19:00,320
would be news cats up trees cats

265
00:19:00,320 --> 00:19:03,600
Up trees is pretty common yeah but why did you do that then tim what was the

266
00:19:03,600 --> 00:19:08,080
what was your rationale what did you see in sky that you wanted to be part of maybe.

267
00:19:08,080 --> 00:19:12,200
I could see that it was something new.

268
00:19:13,040 --> 00:19:19,420
It wasn't establishment. I mean, they'd have buried me at the BBC if I'd ever gone there properly.

269
00:19:19,880 --> 00:19:22,420
They'd have buried me. Um...

270
00:19:24,100 --> 00:19:29,420
The Australians were front and center in setting it up and running it.

271
00:19:31,460 --> 00:19:35,920
And they have pluses and minuses. But one of the pluses is that can-do attitude,

272
00:19:36,460 --> 00:19:39,000
that, well, give it a try, let's do it.

273
00:19:39,180 --> 00:19:44,900
Whereas the BBC at the time, I don't know now, was, let's have a meeting about

274
00:19:44,900 --> 00:19:50,420
this, and then we'll put it on the agenda to make it the third item on the agenda next week.

275
00:19:50,520 --> 00:19:53,840
You had that newcomer versus establishment philosophy, didn't you?

276
00:19:53,840 --> 00:19:59,180
yeah and it probably suited your your your abilities and your character and all of that i'm afraid.

277
00:19:59,180 --> 00:20:02,860
So and again i didn't really you know i didn't i didn't know that

278
00:20:04,180 --> 00:20:11,300
i'm not sure how much i know about myself especially at that time i'm not particularly

279
00:20:11,300 --> 00:20:19,060
reflective um i yeah i think it's instinctive i think i instinctively knew i could do something here

280
00:20:19,060 --> 00:20:24,980
Most of our decisions i think are instinctive and we don't stop and think in

281
00:20:24,980 --> 00:20:30,280
a 360 way when we're making those decisions at least i was like you i didn't

282
00:20:30,280 --> 00:20:33,800
do that i would just jump into things and say yeah that sounds like fun i'll do it.

283
00:20:33,800 --> 00:20:34,980
Yeah that's me

284
00:20:34,980 --> 00:20:39,000
Yeah and then it's only later that you start thinking oh actually that was a

285
00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:43,940
really good decision and it led me to or bad and it led me to meeting so-and-so

286
00:20:43,940 --> 00:20:46,200
that led me to the next job and so on.

287
00:20:47,140 --> 00:20:53,760
Sliding doors. But I take your word you're like that, and I suspect I'm like

288
00:20:53,760 --> 00:21:00,640
that, but there are quite a lot of people that really do think it through chess,

289
00:21:00,840 --> 00:21:02,500
if you like, this will lead to that, this will lead to that.

290
00:21:02,620 --> 00:21:07,240
I mean, was it either Boris Johnson, the former prime minister,

291
00:21:07,480 --> 00:21:11,340
or it was Michael Heseltine, One of the two, I forget, when they were at Oxford

292
00:21:11,340 --> 00:21:12,720
or Cambridge, probably Oxford.

293
00:21:13,100 --> 00:21:14,160
They were both at Oxford.

294
00:21:14,220 --> 00:21:17,240
I think. Generally wrote down on the back of an envelope, you know,

295
00:21:17,300 --> 00:21:19,280
I'm going to do this, this, this, this, this.

296
00:21:20,230 --> 00:21:24,130
And at the top of the list is prime minister. You know, there are people like that.

297
00:21:25,530 --> 00:21:29,690
Both of them, it sounds in character for each of them. So it could have been

298
00:21:29,690 --> 00:21:31,750
either one of them. Yeah.

299
00:21:32,510 --> 00:21:36,070
And also, you know, let's say you're in the military and you're in the army.

300
00:21:37,250 --> 00:21:44,990
You know, to rise through to major general, you have to have some combat experience.

301
00:21:45,330 --> 00:21:46,430
It doesn't have to be that much.

302
00:21:46,890 --> 00:21:51,110
You then can go into like management. you can go into logistics you know there's

303
00:21:51,110 --> 00:21:56,210
all these steps you have to take whereas nah i i'm just

304
00:21:56,210 --> 00:21:58,150
Yeah you know but one.

305
00:21:58,150 --> 00:21:58,790
Thing after another

306
00:21:58,790 --> 00:22:04,870
No i agree with you but i think your age group my age group even um we had more

307
00:22:04,870 --> 00:22:09,810
of a path to success that was clearly defined if we chose to do it or things

308
00:22:09,810 --> 00:22:14,570
were very clearly demarcated in certain careers today i think yes i look at my

309
00:22:14,950 --> 00:22:17,670
children, I've got two children, 20 and 18,

310
00:22:18,470 --> 00:22:22,650
their world is, there's no blueprint for anything anymore.

311
00:22:23,090 --> 00:22:25,770
It's just, you almost make it up as you go along.

312
00:22:25,810 --> 00:22:29,930
You're right. Because I used to say to younger people, and I don't as much anymore,

313
00:22:31,010 --> 00:22:34,370
be very careful when you make your decision because you're going down this road

314
00:22:35,690 --> 00:22:39,470
and there's not going to be very many branches off if you find you don't like this road.

315
00:22:40,930 --> 00:22:46,690
Whereas now, I think there's still some truth in that. But I do think it's easier

316
00:22:46,690 --> 00:22:50,410
to, you know, even make a U-turn or just come across.

317
00:22:51,130 --> 00:22:59,070
And media is a good example, you know, with its multimedia. Whereas before, you print radio or TV.

318
00:22:59,290 --> 00:23:02,790
I also think that there's no road now. There's just no road.

319
00:23:02,950 --> 00:23:07,450
And fewer jobs for life. Exactly. Fewer, more, what do you call it,

320
00:23:07,490 --> 00:23:08,930
portfolio careers, etc.

321
00:23:08,930 --> 00:23:18,430
I mean, it's liberating in one sense, but it's also unsettling and unsafe.

322
00:23:19,290 --> 00:23:21,910
You know, jobs are far less safe.

323
00:23:22,050 --> 00:23:30,310
It's just another way of being. And it hasn't yet shown its true colors yet.

324
00:23:30,310 --> 00:23:35,370
I mean, it's still very much in the infancy of all this AI stuff and how do you juggle jobs.

325
00:23:36,150 --> 00:23:39,770
There's still a lot that's unclear in my head. This episode is brought to you

326
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334
00:24:13,050 --> 00:24:15,050
Let's go back to Sky, Tim.

335
00:24:15,690 --> 00:24:22,170
So 30 years, that's a lifetime. You covered every hotspot, every war, every peace treaty.

336
00:24:22,210 --> 00:24:25,070
You've been to every part of the globe.

337
00:24:26,050 --> 00:24:29,930
Why did you stay there? I mean, what kept you doing this for 30 years?

338
00:24:30,070 --> 00:24:32,690
It's a tough job that you were doing, you know.

339
00:24:32,850 --> 00:24:33,050
Yeah.

340
00:24:33,870 --> 00:24:39,690
What was it? Obviously, as you said earlier, there's a bit of adrenaline there with conflicts.

341
00:24:40,830 --> 00:24:42,390
There's a whole bunch of stuff, I suspect.

342
00:24:45,270 --> 00:24:50,150
Ambition, probably, to do stuff.

343
00:24:50,470 --> 00:24:50,950
Yeah.

344
00:24:51,210 --> 00:24:51,950
I've never had an ambition to...

345
00:24:51,950 --> 00:24:53,910
To make your mark? To make your mark?

346
00:24:58,180 --> 00:25:01,720
Probably, yeah. Yeah, probably.

347
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:04,880
But that's a good thing. You say it like you're embarrassed about it. It's a good thing.

348
00:25:04,940 --> 00:25:09,540
Ego isn't necessarily a bad thing. Too much ego is. So, yeah, okay, there's that.

349
00:25:11,020 --> 00:25:15,360
Testing yourself, which is, you know, mostly a male thing, but not entirely.

350
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:22,980
Sheer interest. Oh, my God, you know, to go to these places that you'd read

351
00:25:22,980 --> 00:25:29,160
about. I mean, I've been to many, but there are some like Tashkent.

352
00:25:29,340 --> 00:25:33,720
I've never been to Tashkent. I've never been to Timbuktu, these great romantic names.

353
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:35,680
They're romantic-sounding names, aren't they?

354
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:40,380
Yeah, I've been to the Euphrates Valley, and I've been to Al-Quds,

355
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:45,780
Jerusalem, etc., etc. Oh, Damascus, wow. Anyway.

356
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:47,780
Damascus is amazing, yeah.

357
00:25:48,020 --> 00:25:51,440
Amazing. So there's that. There's the money, which wasn't bad.

358
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:57,160
Always always something that's going to keep everyone yeah of course it's important.

359
00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:02,160
And also i enjoyed it you know i enjoyed the challenges i enjoyed writing writing

360
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:08,340
for television when it's done well is really really good uh forgive me there's

361
00:26:08,340 --> 00:26:11,300
not that many people can do it especially now give

362
00:26:11,300 --> 00:26:16,300
Me an example what does what does writing for television mean in the sense of a news bulletin for.

363
00:26:16,300 --> 00:26:21,000
Example do not say what is in the pictures what's the point It

364
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:25,840
Seems really obvious, doesn't it? So you're describing the experiences of being

365
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:28,600
where you are, what's happening around the scenes.

366
00:26:28,860 --> 00:26:32,960
No, I'm talking about writing with, or as we say, to picture.

367
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:45,080
So the worst ones will, as Prime Minister Starmer arrives in a black car outside Downing Street,

368
00:26:46,820 --> 00:26:49,780
They will say, the prime minister arrived in Downing Street.

369
00:26:50,120 --> 00:26:55,480
What's the point of saying that? The prime minister arrived in Downing Street. That's seven words.

370
00:26:55,660 --> 00:26:58,560
And you've only got maybe 280 if you're lucky.

371
00:26:58,820 --> 00:27:01,100
Why would you say seven words doing that?

372
00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:08,920
You know, let's say someone opens the door for him.

373
00:27:09,700 --> 00:27:13,080
You can say the prime minister is looking for a way out.

374
00:27:14,810 --> 00:27:19,710
You know, if the story is, he's in a real problem. So that's writing with picture.

375
00:27:20,030 --> 00:27:20,350
Yeah.

376
00:27:20,950 --> 00:27:24,270
And hardly anyone does it anymore. Forgive me for praising yourself.

377
00:27:25,090 --> 00:27:26,950
I was in Kosovo in Pristina.

378
00:27:27,250 --> 00:27:28,490
You're allowed to do that on this show, by the way.

379
00:27:29,550 --> 00:27:33,110
I was in Pristina when the Russians arrived. And that moment when they rolled

380
00:27:33,110 --> 00:27:38,890
down Pristina's high street was when the tide began to come back in or out.

381
00:27:39,050 --> 00:27:39,250
Yeah.

382
00:27:39,950 --> 00:27:43,830
And I knew that because the Russians had made sure they got there before NATO.

383
00:27:43,830 --> 00:27:46,390
Now, it didn't work out for them, but that's not the point.

384
00:27:46,490 --> 00:27:52,490
The point is, my opening line was, forgive me, the Russians roll down Main Street

385
00:27:52,490 --> 00:27:54,010
and back onto the world stage.

386
00:27:54,870 --> 00:27:56,250
Because I knew that was the moment.

387
00:27:56,570 --> 00:27:57,390
That was the hook.

388
00:27:57,570 --> 00:28:01,210
Yeah. Now, that's writing to picture. So anyway, yeah, we did all that.

389
00:28:01,750 --> 00:28:05,950
Really enjoyed. And that was a bit, possibly I enjoyed the most,

390
00:28:05,950 --> 00:28:10,370
was using image and words and putting them together. Really enjoyed it.

391
00:28:10,370 --> 00:28:14,150
You had a point where you were in Egypt covering the Arab Spring.

392
00:28:14,470 --> 00:28:20,230
You had a good friend and cameraman who was shot at the time.

393
00:28:20,870 --> 00:28:28,350
And it kind of made you take a step back and reassess a lot that was going on

394
00:28:28,350 --> 00:28:32,550
and whether you really wanted to be doing this to continue with.

395
00:28:32,930 --> 00:28:38,270
Yeah, Mickey was shot in Cairo, Mickey Dean.

396
00:28:38,270 --> 00:28:41,350
um i'd been with him in exactly the

397
00:28:41,350 --> 00:28:46,210
same spot two weeks earlier i mean i think this was probably already percolating

398
00:28:46,210 --> 00:28:52,850
because i'd had a couple of narrow escapes down the years but it was after i

399
00:28:52,850 --> 00:28:58,690
mean i did the fall of mubarak and and this was after um fall of mubarak this happened right um

400
00:28:59,330 --> 00:29:06,410
and then from there i went on to and i'd already done afghanistan and iraq uh

401
00:29:06,410 --> 00:29:08,230
but from there i went Syria.

402
00:29:09,660 --> 00:29:14,020
and had two or three narrowish escapes.

403
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:22,920
And I think if it hadn't been for Mickey, I might have kept chancing it. Going, yeah.

404
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:25,300
It really had a profound effect on

405
00:29:25,300 --> 00:29:29,140
me. Yeah. In fact, I've known about 12 colleagues that have been killed.

406
00:29:30,220 --> 00:29:32,920
Mickey was a friend and two or three others I was friendly with.

407
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:39,220
But also, I know Mickey's widow and the effect it had on her.

408
00:29:39,220 --> 00:29:48,800
and his children and uh you know i was aware that you know i i have my own responsibilities yeah and

409
00:29:48,800 --> 00:29:54,600
You you probably felt you had the nine lives you know you don't want to push it yeah.

410
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:56,900
Yeah and i think you have to listen

411
00:29:56,900 --> 00:30:01,940
I wanted to change tacks a little bit tim um and then we're going to end with

412
00:30:01,940 --> 00:30:06,720
a really light fun lightning round just about your writing process um how do

413
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:10,780
you research your books how do you write do you have a system are you the type

414
00:30:10,780 --> 00:30:15,640
that writes from 5 a.m until 12 uh i mean how do you do this.

415
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:17,460
Because you switched

416
00:30:17,460 --> 00:30:19,680
Careers in effect didn't you you've changed careers.

417
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:25,000
Yeah yeah i'll tell you what i found hard to get used to given that

418
00:30:25,700 --> 00:30:30,840
it's 20 to the hour we're finishing this piece editing it it's quarter to the

419
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:35,000
hour oh my god it's 10 minutes to the hour wow we make it with a minute to go

420
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:38,820
get it on there it's lead story to what do you mean you're publishing it next

421
00:30:38,820 --> 00:30:41,280
year that was very hard yeah

422
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:41,960
Yeah yeah yeah.

423
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:50,980
Um so i wish i was uh dh lawrence or um

424
00:30:53,220 --> 00:31:02,660
Hemingway but i'm not um it's a formula so the formula once you've got your

425
00:31:02,660 --> 00:31:07,760
title that's a big start and then most important than anything structure

426
00:31:09,260 --> 00:31:11,940
these are the things i want to write about let's say there's 15 of them

427
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:15,660
what order do i want to write them what order would they make sense

428
00:31:15,660 --> 00:31:18,520
now i've got my chapters bang bang bang bang bang

429
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:23,760
great once i've got title and structure it's almost it's not the hardest thing

430
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:27,660
because the hardest thing is a year of bloody doing that typing away yeah but

431
00:31:27,660 --> 00:31:32,380
without that i think you're all over the place and everything can be finessed

432
00:31:32,380 --> 00:31:33,520
and moved around but once you've

433
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:38,460
got your structure and then let's say you're gonna write 80 000 words

434
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:43,260
all of them most of them your own and this

435
00:31:43,260 --> 00:31:46,060
isn't plagiarism you then begin to

436
00:31:46,060 --> 00:31:53,840
research and let's say you download 15 papers from russi the military think

437
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:59,900
tank here chatham house diplomatic think tank council of foreign relations uh

438
00:31:59,900 --> 00:32:04,540
the egyptians report on the sinai whatever it is

439
00:32:05,740 --> 00:32:14,300
and then newspaper articles and then history and then you do your interviews and I transcribe them.

440
00:32:15,780 --> 00:32:19,600
I have now got a million words. I need 80,000.

441
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:23,240
That's the hardest part actually, isn't it? Yes. Narrowing it down.

442
00:32:23,380 --> 00:32:25,660
Then I start going through them. That's actually quite easy.

443
00:32:26,060 --> 00:32:30,740
I've got the delete button going, oh, hang on, this bit's important.

444
00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:34,280
So now I've got 400,000 words.

445
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:41,200
Where do they go? Right, this whole block goes in that. So now I've got 10 folders open.

446
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:47,780
And are you doing this bit all alone, or are you working with an editor at this stage?

447
00:32:47,860 --> 00:32:50,920
In the first instance, completely on my own. You're on your own, of course.

448
00:32:51,260 --> 00:32:55,420
I've never, ever used researchers.

449
00:32:55,680 --> 00:33:00,020
I mean, when I was at Sky, sometimes when I was presenting, one of the jobs,

450
00:33:00,100 --> 00:33:06,780
and it's a good job, and I understand it for researchers, is they present you with an A4 on subject X.

451
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:12,460
i it's not i didn't trust them it's just that i always wanted

452
00:33:12,460 --> 00:33:15,160
to go through the same research and pick out

453
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:18,000
what i think this is the important bit so

454
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:20,940
i always used to do my own if i'm researching i find a oh

455
00:33:20,940 --> 00:33:24,900
moment if i oh that's

456
00:33:24,900 --> 00:33:28,220
going in yeah for sure i mean it could be little things

457
00:33:28,220 --> 00:33:33,080
forgive me but the uh when when i i mean it's obvious really but i hadn't thought

458
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:36,820
about it when i was doing my book about space the future of geography and when

459
00:33:36,820 --> 00:33:42,300
i read that the astronauts had left all their human waste behind in little plastic

460
00:33:42,300 --> 00:33:47,200
bags on the moon that's going in that's

461
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:48,280
Brilliant of course.

462
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:50,440
Because that's the sort

463
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:52,020
Of nugget the reader's going to remember.

464
00:33:52,020 --> 00:34:02,340
Yeah so oh moments they go in um uh and then yeah then you better start writing your first word

465
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:10,540
once i've done a chapter it gets sent off to um a brilliant editor at elliott

466
00:34:10,540 --> 00:34:13,560
and thompson books jenny uh who is

467
00:34:15,530 --> 00:34:19,190
Takes out the worst of my jokes. And I do put jokes in serious books.

468
00:34:19,290 --> 00:34:21,010
I like your jokes. I think they're sweet.

469
00:34:21,310 --> 00:34:23,650
They usually also say something about...

470
00:34:23,650 --> 00:34:24,230
Yeah, yeah.

471
00:34:25,330 --> 00:34:32,130
But what she's brilliant at is saying, those two paragraphs there on page seven

472
00:34:32,990 --> 00:34:34,870
fit much better on page 13.

473
00:34:35,070 --> 00:34:37,910
I can't do that. I can't see it.

474
00:34:38,050 --> 00:34:40,750
No. She sees it. But that's normal because you're in the weeds.

475
00:34:40,990 --> 00:34:43,850
She's got the bird's eye view. Yeah. That's very normal.

476
00:34:43,930 --> 00:34:47,890
And there's a little bit of back and forth, But I would say 10 times out of

477
00:34:47,890 --> 00:34:52,570
10, she gets her, no, 9 times out of 10, she gets her way, because 9 times out of 10, she's right.

478
00:34:52,810 --> 00:34:57,130
And what's next for you, Tim? What are you looking at next? What's the next project?

479
00:34:57,630 --> 00:34:58,810
I couldn't possibly comment.

480
00:35:01,250 --> 00:35:05,750
When are we going to have a follow-up then? Is it in a year so that we can talk about it?

481
00:35:06,210 --> 00:35:12,410
I've spent a whole year now since I finished the 10th anniversary edition of

482
00:35:12,410 --> 00:35:17,650
Business of Geography, yeah which took me more than a year to to write because it's a completely

483
00:35:18,130 --> 00:35:23,690
you know bang up to date for the last decade i spent a whole year actually every day thinking

484
00:35:25,150 --> 00:35:28,530
i want to write this and then in the afternoon thinking i don't want to write

485
00:35:28,530 --> 00:35:32,110
another book and the next day in the morning think i don't want to write another

486
00:35:32,110 --> 00:35:34,630
in the afternoon i need to write this it's

487
00:35:34,630 --> 00:35:36,450
Niggling at you there's something niggling at you.

488
00:35:36,450 --> 00:35:38,330
I'm still there but

489
00:35:40,310 --> 00:35:45,610
I'm moving towards pretty soon, I think, sitting down and assembling a million words.

490
00:35:46,550 --> 00:35:49,410
Yeah, another million. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's how it is,

491
00:35:49,490 --> 00:35:53,270
isn't it? You have an idea, you put it on the shelf, you take it back down, you try it out.

492
00:35:53,290 --> 00:35:54,130
But why am I doing it?

493
00:35:55,370 --> 00:35:56,710
I don't know. Why are you doing it?

494
00:35:56,990 --> 00:36:00,870
I'm not wealthy. I've not got a yacht, but I don't really need the money.

495
00:36:01,890 --> 00:36:05,470
I've got an awful lot to occupy. I go to every single League United game.

496
00:36:05,670 --> 00:36:11,030
That's 40 games a season all over the country yeah yeah but um when you're

497
00:36:11,030 --> 00:36:16,070
A curious person tim you're curious and intelligent it doesn't just switch off because you think.

498
00:36:16,070 --> 00:36:21,530
I've got a sub stack i'm building i do some media work i do some talks in the

499
00:36:21,530 --> 00:36:23,150
city of london you know i'm

500
00:36:24,530 --> 00:36:26,150
So why put myself through it?

501
00:36:26,630 --> 00:36:29,330
You like to write. A substack isn't the same.

502
00:36:29,650 --> 00:36:35,450
Well, I dislike writing. But when I write a sentence, I think,

503
00:36:35,710 --> 00:36:37,410
oh, that was good, which isn't very often.

504
00:36:38,330 --> 00:36:42,030
It's kind of, yeah, I think, oh, that was good. Yeah.

505
00:36:43,550 --> 00:36:46,810
It's tickling something in you, isn't it? Obviously. Yeah.

506
00:36:47,210 --> 00:36:50,170
The Russians roll down Main Street and back onto the world stage.

507
00:36:50,510 --> 00:36:52,630
You know, yeah, I want to write.

508
00:36:53,270 --> 00:36:55,610
You're chasing more of those sentences, aren't you, Tim?

509
00:36:55,790 --> 00:36:59,270
Well, I came up with one for the Sunday Times. I did a big page article for

510
00:36:59,270 --> 00:37:01,970
them a couple of weeks ago, and it was about the raid in Venezuela.

511
00:37:02,530 --> 00:37:06,610
And I deliberately got into the beginning of it, gunboat diplomacy,

512
00:37:06,890 --> 00:37:09,590
how we used to act in the 19th, 18th century.

513
00:37:09,950 --> 00:37:13,770
And I ended it with Delta Force diplomacy.

514
00:37:14,690 --> 00:37:16,110
Nice. Which I'm very proud of.

515
00:37:16,250 --> 00:37:19,070
Well, you should be. And it's almost as if you structured the whole article

516
00:37:19,070 --> 00:37:20,810
just for that beginning and end, right?

517
00:37:20,810 --> 00:37:26,410
Well, once I thought of Delta Force Diplomacy, it was only then I went back

518
00:37:26,410 --> 00:37:29,970
and inserted gunboat diplomacy to make it sort of explicable.

519
00:37:30,230 --> 00:37:34,590
Now, I copyright that. Okay, anyone listening, don't you be using it.

520
00:37:35,550 --> 00:37:39,010
We'll use it at the top of this interview. We're going to end,

521
00:37:39,190 --> 00:37:42,930
Tim, with a very quick lightning round. I don't want you to overthink it.

522
00:37:43,050 --> 00:37:46,630
I just want you to say what comes to mind immediately.

523
00:37:46,830 --> 00:37:49,010
What is your most used emoji?

524
00:37:49,710 --> 00:37:57,530
I don't use emojis. At all? If I had to, the smiley one to say, I'm only joking.

525
00:37:57,830 --> 00:38:01,490
If you had 25 hours in a day, how would you spend the extra hour?

526
00:38:01,890 --> 00:38:02,370
Sleeping.

527
00:38:03,830 --> 00:38:08,450
Actually, that's not true. Nah, sleeping. Sleeping.

528
00:38:08,630 --> 00:38:12,230
Sleeping. Is there a country that you haven't visited you're dying to visit?

529
00:38:12,850 --> 00:38:16,370
Yeah. It's a very long story. I won't tell it. I was on my way.

530
00:38:17,590 --> 00:38:20,510
A colleague kiboshed it. North Korea.

531
00:38:20,870 --> 00:38:25,590
That is interesting. Okay. If you were to choose another profession, what would you choose?

532
00:38:25,790 --> 00:38:30,750
I am so lucky. I got to do what I wanted to do when I was a kid,

533
00:38:30,890 --> 00:38:32,230
but never thought I would.

534
00:38:33,830 --> 00:38:38,490
I think I could have made a reasonable teacher, but it never appealed.

535
00:38:38,930 --> 00:38:40,170
I see that. I'm not on the radar.

536
00:38:42,370 --> 00:38:49,750
This might reveal a lot about me. I quite fancied being an actor, but maybe I was.

537
00:38:50,390 --> 00:38:54,590
Do you know what could tick each of those boxes is if you do a YouTube channel

538
00:38:54,590 --> 00:38:58,550
and explain in a fun way your books?

539
00:38:58,770 --> 00:39:01,430
I have actually thought of that. It's just too much work.

540
00:39:01,570 --> 00:39:03,050
What's your favorite activity?

541
00:39:03,050 --> 00:39:07,570
I was going to say watching football, but it's quite painful at times. Um...

542
00:39:11,350 --> 00:39:11,790
Cooking.

543
00:39:12,110 --> 00:39:13,270
Yeah? Would you like to cook?

544
00:39:13,270 --> 00:39:17,270
I'm not particularly good, but I do a very good British Sunday roast chicken.

545
00:39:17,390 --> 00:39:17,830
Sunday roast.

546
00:39:18,150 --> 00:39:19,910
I'm working on my roast potatoes.

547
00:39:20,270 --> 00:39:20,650
Good.

548
00:39:20,890 --> 00:39:25,190
That's hard, actually. The whole alchemy for those. Yeah, cooking.

549
00:39:26,130 --> 00:39:29,330
No, I mean, I only have one hobby, really, and it is football.

550
00:39:29,810 --> 00:39:33,590
It's football. Like I said, I go home and away. I watch three or four games

551
00:39:33,590 --> 00:39:36,110
a week. Yeah. I used to play quite badly.

552
00:39:37,550 --> 00:39:41,090
So, football is an abiding passion through my life.

553
00:39:41,350 --> 00:39:42,970
What's your least favorite activity?

554
00:39:43,370 --> 00:39:46,490
Oh, God. Sorry, I know you said don't overthink it.

555
00:39:48,210 --> 00:39:52,030
I don't mind driving. I don't mind DIY, although I'm rubbish at it.

556
00:39:53,390 --> 00:39:54,270
Admin, taxes.

557
00:39:54,790 --> 00:39:59,090
Yeah, I'm not very good at admin. Pretty soul-crushing, isn't it? I'm not very organized.

558
00:39:59,690 --> 00:40:03,190
Okay. I do not enjoy it and put it off.

559
00:40:03,330 --> 00:40:09,770
Last two. I'm going to read the beginning of a sentence and you just end it. I have a hard time.

560
00:40:11,650 --> 00:40:15,330
Understanding. There is an instinctive understanding that can come easily,

561
00:40:15,670 --> 00:40:19,990
but you better be right and to be confident. That's hard.

562
00:40:20,230 --> 00:40:23,730
When you think about that, what do you mean by understanding?

563
00:40:23,990 --> 00:40:25,130
Like, understanding what?

564
00:40:25,530 --> 00:40:28,130
Human nature. Geopolitics.

565
00:40:29,830 --> 00:40:35,710
Is there a god? To which the last one I think is probably, almost certainly.

566
00:40:35,950 --> 00:40:37,830
Just don't know what she looks like.

567
00:40:39,790 --> 00:40:40,710
See what I did there?

568
00:40:41,050 --> 00:40:43,390
I did see that one. I like that.

569
00:40:44,170 --> 00:40:47,250
There's one ray of light. Comes through a stained glass window, right?

570
00:40:47,930 --> 00:40:51,450
There's seven colors on the other side. I don't care what color you like.

571
00:40:51,590 --> 00:40:54,790
It's fine. I like this color. You like that color. It's good.

572
00:40:56,090 --> 00:40:58,690
Nice. Last one. I get joy from?

573
00:40:58,690 --> 00:41:05,910
Leeds United winning goals you won't believe it what we do when that winning goal goes

574
00:41:05,910 --> 00:41:06,870
In you hug.

575
00:41:06,870 --> 00:41:10,850
Strange men you've never met it's weird.