List Envy

Fellow podcaster Jon Hickman joins Mark to cast aside things from our adolescence that we can get by just as well without.

Jon co-hosts the hilarious and often genuinely moving – no pun intended — fitness, running and tech podcast You Don’t Look Like a Runner with Nick Moreton, and Thread with Mark.

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You can follow Jon Hickman on Twitter, and add 101 Things Birmingham Gave the World to your Christmas wish list.

Everyone can stand to be a little bit more banana, so this week’s guest is professional clown, public speaker and banana enthusiast, Emma Stroud.

Emma’s personal day of relevation – perhaps not dissimilar to Albert Hofmann’s bicycle day, as covered in our first episode — came about when Emma realised how transformative she found the act of dressing up at a grown-up function, not like a fancy duchess, but like a banana.

Emma believes part of her purpose is, not only to help people laugh, but to encourage them to think more as a result. But that’s not where the healing ends: the pair uncover a way to save yourself from embarrassment at the hands of a mushy apple, and Mark asks Emma if she’s ever eaten a noni.

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You can follow Emma on Instagram, and on Twitter. Also check out her website.

Mark gets mathematical with bayesian mathematician Sophie Carr.

Sophie describes herself as an “accidental mathematician”, getting into the subject after studying to be an engineer. She got her PhD on the job, and transitioned from fluid mechanics to Bayesian statistics.

Here’s the piping speech from Patriot Mark mentioned.

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Sophie runs Bays Consulting, who you can follow on Twitter along with Sophie herself.

Mark and his guest Jamie Garner have snuck out of bed, crept downstairs and turned on the telly for a channel-hop through ‘90s nostalgia.

Both Mark and Jamie grew up with Saturday morning programming from the BBC, including /Going Live!/, /Live & Kicking/ and What’s Up Doc?, which showed cartoons and showcased some of the UK’s newest pop acts.

Mark does not pass up the opportunity to discuss the kids’ presenter Andy Crane, and the fact that he narrated one of his favourite children’s books. Incidentally, you can hear more about that book and MArk’s thoughts on it — and Andy Crane — on a recent episode of Your Own Words.

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Follow Jamie on Twitter, and maybe one day he’ll release a podcast again.

The show gets #spoopy as the Thrilling Adventure Hour’s Ben Blacker joins Mark to count down his top five silver-screen terrors.

Ben co-created the Thrilling Adventure Hour with his writing partner Ben Acker as a live theatre show in the style of an old-timey evening of radio entertainment. There’s over a decade’s worth of Thrilling to enjoy, so subscribe to the free newsletter to get some hand-picked favourites you can see and hear via YouTube.

Ben’s picks

In order of discussion

1. Xenomorph
   Known more commonly as “the alien from Alien(s)”, the Xenomorph or internecivus raptus is Ben’s top pick because at its heart, Ridley Scott’s 1979 Alien is a horror film, and this monster ticks all the boxes.
2. The Creature from the Black Lagoon
   Whether in its original 1954 form or its most recent, romantic incarnation, the Creature makes Ben’s list for its exceptional design, its pathos, and because childhood memories. If you’d like to know more, you can read Ben’s friend Mallory’s book, The Lady from the Black Lagoon, about the Creature’s designer, an overlooked name in Hollywood’s history.
3. Gremlins
   The original Gremlins is fun for most, if not all the family, as it so well intersects comedy and horror. Ben appreciates how the rules are set out, but that as an audience we don’t yet know what the consequences are for breaking them. Ben is not a fan of the sequel, as it skews too much towards the funny.
4. The Thing
   The titular Thing from The Thing is terrifying in its amorphousness. It can take the shape of anything it touches, and although it involves some body horror — of which Ben isn’t a big fan — it comfortably makes Ben’s list as a full-on monster, albeit a somewhat formless one.
5. Graboid
   Ben’s final pick is the worm things from Tremors, one of his favourite movies (and a firm favourite of Mark’s). Ben appreciates the cool, gross and classic monsteriness of these underground creatures, but is not on board with the name “graboid”, and he wishes to make this position absolutely clear.

Mark’s pick

In order of discussion

1. Zombie
   For Mark, a proper zombie film ends with courage in the face of utter hopelessness. They’re one of the few fictional entities that still scare Mark. Although he originally lauded  28 Days Later as a great modern take on the zombie, he’s not so sure it holds up.
2. Audrey II
   Although Ben doesn’t consider this Little Shop of Horrors baddy scary, Mark thinks potentially being grabbed by the balls and eaten by a giant blood-sucking plant with the voice of a Motown legend to be a little intimidating.
3. Hannibal Lecter
   Hannibal the cannibal, in all his incarnations, makes Mark’s list as an almost supernaturally naughty man, but can Ben reconcile this against his criteria, or does this constitute a slippery slope?
4. Pennywise
   Mark put Pennywise the dancing clown on his list for similar reasons to Ben’s selection of the Thing. (And yes, Mark understands that Pennywise is just one form of It, but it’s the version we see most in the films.) Mark finds the films not only funny, but really scary (especially the first).

More of Ben Blacker

Follow Ben on Twitter, order your copy of Hex Wives and read his Writers Panel blog.

Photo credit for Ben’s headshot: Roman Cho