Get Booked – Andrew Shanahan, Before And After

Hello, I'm Hazel and this is Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station. On Get Booked, we love talking to authors about their new releases, going into detail about the topics covered, the mental health and well-being elements, publishing and writing tips, and giving you the extra special insight into a different book and author each week. And coming from today's show, we have Andrew Shanahan, the author of Before and After. Before and After was brought to my attention on Twitter after I put out a request for a fun and unique book recommendation. What I got back was, "Have you ever tried post-apocalyptic humor? I Am Legend meets The Biggest Loser." Obviously, I was sold on that. It's funny, clever, and resourceful with a perfect dose of swearing and dry sarcastic wit, one that leaves you thinking about so much, challenging our perceptions of life Chocolate Bourbons, Fear, and DIY Survival. Such a random and thoroughly enjoyed book. I love it. Andrew, hi! Good morning, how are you? I'm all right, actually. Looking forward to chatting to you. I must say, this book, whenever people just say, oh, they need a little bit of a distraction, something a little bit funny and kind of off the charts, this is what I recommend to people. I've even asked my 14-year-old to read it, regardless of the swearing. Well, I read it, so my sort of first reading team is my two sons who are 13 and 11. So you can only imagine how polluted my 11-year-old son's mind is. To be honest, I mean, I'm a northerner anyway, so my kids were brought up on swearing. Because, you know, it's just, you can do it jovially, can't you? I did kind of think, I did want my 14-year-old to read it because I was like, It's how resourceful Ben is and things like that, that, you know, if kids want to be on tech all the time, then at least do something good with it. I really want to get into talking about before and after, but if you can just give our listeners a little bit of background on who you are and what your background is, basically. Yeah, okay. So, for all of my adult working life, I've been a journalist. I wrote mostly for The Guardian and The Times. Primarily, what I wrote about was food and just features, so essentially anything that interested me that I could convince another editor that was interesting. Partly as a consequence of writing about food, I did a lot of restaurant reviewing and things like that and got incredibly fat. As you do. As you do, yeah, exactly. It was very enjoyable getting fat, but it wasn't so enjoyable being fat. And round about sort of 2014, I started trying to lose weight and really struggled because all of the support out there was just aimed primarily at women. And it struck me that there were so many specific challenges about trying to lose weight as a man, you know, from cultural differences between men and women in that, you know, for men being bigger is seen as a positive thing often. Biological differences, such as that, you know, men naturally carry more muscle mass, so they tend to lose weight a little bit quicker. And I just didn't think that there was any support out there for men, so I started an organization called Man V Fat. And the idea was that it was a project to support men who wanted to lose weight in the same way that I did, you know, so just healthily losing weight rather than any magic pills or anything like that. And that's gone very, very well, and I'm pleased to say has helped a over 4 million men around the world now. Which is fantastic. Yeah, I mean, it is. I'm very proud of it, but equally, I think it shows the scale of the issue with regards to men and weight. So, quick stat for you is that 70% of men are either overweight or obese. And, you know, obviously that has huge consequences. In, you know, just the last 12 months, we've learned that men who are obese are far more likely to die of COVID for instance, but it also has impact in terms of diabetes and cancer. And just generally it has a massive impact in terms of mental health. So Man v Fat's really trying to be a support organization to, to men around the world. And we do things like we have the Man v Fat football leagues, which are football leagues exclusively for overweight and obese men. And that's played on, I think, 4 different continents now, which is, is really exciting. And also we have online challenges, things where, you know, people who don't like football can get involved. And for me, you know, that just grew out of my frustration with not getting that support. And ultimately, as Man Be Fat grew, I wanted to go back to writing. And so my first book, Before and After, my first fiction book, came largely from those experiences. So, you know, my struggles with weight as a man, and also just having had so much insight into how impactful weight was for men and how damaging it was for, for mental health. And I just wanted to, to say something about that and to, to share some of those experiences in a fictional world. Well, I mean, I actually felt— I said in the intro that I learned quite a lot, even though it's a fictional book. I learned quite a lot. Um, I mean, even just the DIY survival element, but just, you know, You really got inside his head, and obviously you've explained why you could get inside the main character's head. I assume you weren't as large as your character. No. So Ben Stone, the main character in the book, is 601 pounds at the start of the book. And if it's not a spoiler, I'll just say that he's not 601 pounds at the end of the book. No, I was never that big, but I was certainly well into, you know, I was very, very obese. And I think I lost 6 stone in total when I lost weight. But you know, my weight continues to fluctuate. I'm not someone who puts myself on a pedestal and says, you know, "Follow me, I know everything about weight loss." But what I do know is I know what that experience of being overweight is and trying to lose weight. And also, I am a firm believer in championing other people who want to change things about themselves, whether it's weight, whether it's, you know, mental health. And just supporting them to try and do that. That's that. I think the world needs more champions. Well, you've actually done it in more of a personable way as well. It's sometimes you don't really want to listen to somebody who thinks they know absolutely everything. I was looking at some of the recipes on Man V Fat and like, it's not— I mean, you have got a couscous dish on there, but like, it's not all kind of, um, quinoa and kale salads. You've got like healthy pies and stuff. Yeah, you know, ultimately I think what's quite nice about writing about weight and men is that, you know, men continue to want to sort of live their lives. A personal trainer once told me that whenever he spoke to male clients, they always wanted to exercise more so they could eat more, and female clients always wanted to eat less so they had to exercise less. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's an interesting sort of dynamic really. I mean, do you think that's true? Does that hold true for you? Um, the majority of my friends like working out and working out a lot, but we do also like to eat. So maybe I've just got a little bit more of a Ladakh culture surrounding me. Um, but I'm a huge fan of, um, I love eating. I eat a lot, and I'll just happily do an extra workout if I really want to go to town on it. But, um, I think definitely, um, it would be more of a female trait to want to eat less, to work out less. But it's definitely not in my group of friends, you know, we're more than happy to go and spend a couple of hours in the gym so we can then come out and then neck 2 bottles of rosé, if you see what I mean. Yeah, yeah. I think that, in part, I think we can trace a lot of this back to the early experiences of sport for boys and girls, in that I think that still there's such a reprehensible culture around girls and sport in schools, that I think the whole experience of PE classes for girls needs to be just ripped up and started again. Oh, completely. You know, so many of the women that I know have really, really poor experiences and memories of PE, you know, being forced to do netball, rounders, those sorts of things, and just hating them. Whereas boys typically sort of have this allowance of being able to enjoy sport, of, you know, they go out at playtime and they opt to kick a football around.. And I think that so many of those barriers are causing huge problems throughout our culture. And, you know, it also creates problems on the other side as well. So you get these situations where, as I said, the diet culture since the 1960s, really, if you look at that, the sort of the start of Weight Watchers as the birth of the modern era of weight loss culture, you know, that, that was targeted at women. It was a group for housewives.. And so you've got this whole culture around diets and weight loss, which is a feminized space. And we are told, you know, that it's— so I have been the one bloke in the Weight Watchers class before. And, you know, it is a— still, although they try and sort of change it, it is still very much a feminized space. I remember in one of the— one of the Weight Watchers groups where we, you know, the leader was talking about how, you 'You know, during your time of the month, your weight will fluctuate,' and I'm sort of sat there at the back thinking, 'This doesn't really apply to me.' No! Yeah, exactly, yeah. So I think that there's real— a lot of thinking and change needs to happen around these twin worlds of gender and sport, and gender and weight. And, you know, this is a global problem.— it dwarfs any other health concern, weight does, in terms of the impact that it has. You know, billions is spent on this as an issue, and I think that what would really help is having some fresh thoughts in some, you know, in places like PE classes and asking questions about why girls aren't encouraged into sports as early. Do you know what, what was quite interesting, I do think that it's changed definitely in the last 5 years that, you know, being strong is now quite sexy. But I remember back in my modeling days that I was told by a client that I had to stop swimming because I was bulking up too much and that's just not sexy. Yeah, well, it's this whole sort of, um, you know, let's not get too deep into this, but the male gaze and, and why men have the right to dictate what a woman's body should look like. And, you know, it's clearly nonsense, but we still have those media power structures where that exists. You know, you look at the number of lead editors who are men and the number of chief execs and the owners of businesses who are men. And it's, you know, that sort of power structure that really informs a lot of this debate. So in short, in conclusion, from my TED Talk, Smash the Patriarchy. Yeah, well, do you know, I'm just reading a book at the moment by Patricia Seabright that's called She Said, and she's pointing out how when, um, there was Theresa and Nicola Sturgeon going on stage and the main topic was Legxit, who wore it best. Yeah. Whereas you'd never get that if it's— there are still lots of barriers and lots of issues around that. But yeah, um, I mean, digressing a little, I could talk I could talk about this for hours, to be honest. I get really quite passionate about it. Yeah, I agree. I think that it's such an important debate. It's really actually quite gratifying to see it being a lot more center stage these days. I think that that's in large part due to younger, the next generation who are much more aware of these things. The attack line from the boomer generation is that they're woke and woke is bad. But really, I think that wokeness, that awareness of the problems that we have in society is the first step in saving it. And for me, you know, when I was writing Before and After, it was really— it's strange that this feels like such an unoccupied space to talk about weight in a fictional world and to talk about men's bodies. But it's just not done. And it's, it's a really fascinating space to play in and to sort of put thoughts out there. Well, this is what I love about, um, men's radio station where they, they focus on men's topics that, you know, sometimes, you know, men and women are different and we need to attack certain subjects from slightly different angles because, you know, we're not going to need the same response. And yeah, I just want to point out to the listeners, they can go and check out at manbeefat.com and sign up and have a look at the recipes and see what's going on with the football games. And yeah, it looks great. To be honest, I kind of got lost in it a little bit this morning. I was like, when I emailed you before, I was like, I think I'm going to go for a run. Do you know what our most read article is on manbifat.com? It's what being fat does to your penis. Oh, the cucumber one. Yeah. Yeah, and it's amazing how that is such a good way into the discussion around weight for men, because clearly, you know, there's not a man alive who wouldn't go, yeah, well, you know, if I could lose a few pounds and gain a few inches, that would be all right. Whereas women like to just completely lose inches. Yeah, it was interesting actually, because then before and after, he kind of— he talks about the fact that he hasn't seen his penis in, you know, years. Mm. And that is, I mean, before and after, there's like, it's when you kind of go back in time to kind of explain why certain things have happened and why he's got certain elements of knowledge and, you know, just explaining why he's in the situation he's in. And as he starts to lose weight and he realizes because, wow, he's seen his member for the first time in ages. Yeah, exactly. And it's, you know,— that it's one of those things, just, it's something that I really wanted to dwell on in the book because for me, I love the horror genre, I love sci-fi genre, I love post-apocalyptic fiction. But often one of the things that people are doing in those genres is that they are creating these incredible and barely believable foes. So it's aliens landing on the planet, it's monsters from the sewers, that sort of thing. You know, the— for me, the real interest is always the horror that exists around ourselves and around our— and especially around our bodies. And so I really thought that that was fertile ground for, for really focusing on what happens when our bodies horrify us, and also what happens when our own behaviors are the things that are killing us. Ben has compulsive eating. Really, I think compulsive eating sometimes sounds like a bit of a far-fetched medical condition, but I think we've all suffered or experienced compulsive eating because it's that sense of when you finish the pack of biscuits and think, "I didn't really want even one biscuit, but Here I am, you know, 30 minutes later and there's an empty packet at the bottom of the bin. You know, that for me— and Ben is just much more developed in his compulsion. He, you know, eats Bourbon biscuits compulsively and often goes through sort of 3 or 4 packs in a morning. And that, I think, is really— for me, that's horrific. You know, the idea that you might not be in control of something so basic as what you're putting in your mouth. I think is the very essence of horror. It's, you know, because it exists, it's believable. And it's quite simple. Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. You know, you see programs, and when I was talking to, you know, the, the character of Ben is based on, you know, my own thoughts, obviously, and but also the experience, the lived experience of hundreds of men who I've interviewed who are either shut-ins or they are similar weight to Ben. And, you know, they really shared very openly with me about some of the things that happen. And so, you know, it depends how graphic you want me to be, but one of the things is that they, you know, when you get past a certain size and your stomach is so cumbersome and is blocking your ability to even see your penis, let alone reach it, you know, they lose the ability to to urinate in a controlled way. So often it's sort of done through just letting go and, um, you know, being where it lands and deal with it afterwards. Yeah, and then as a result of that, because so much of it sort of comes into contact with the skin, it develops very strong acid burns as a result. And so, you know, that for me is— and I'm sure for a lot of people, they think of that and they think, well, Why don't people just lose weight? It's so simple. Why don't they just stop eating those biscuits? And that, I think, is such an interesting question because, of course, that's a valid question. Why don't people who have weight problems just stop eating? But then, in other ways, it's like those sort of silly thoughts about, you know, well, if I had depression, I would just be happy, or, you know, it's— Yeah, why can't you just cheer up a little bit? Just look on the positive side. Oh, why didn't somebody tell me that? That's so awful. Yeah, come on, give us a smile, it can't all be bad. Well, you know, if your brain is not working in the right way, then it can certainly feel that way. And, you know, I think that that for me was one of the real, uh, sort of cogs of this as a story, was that the horror of compulsion and the body horror of the, the after-effects of compulsion, what it does to your body. You see, although this is fiction, and actually a lot of the parts of this book were kind of awkwardly laugh out loud, I think books like this are important because they give you an insight without it being a lecture into somebody else's life, somebody else's issues, and, you know, tries to broaden the mind of the reader, um, just to kind of, um let the listeners get on board a little bit. The book starts where he's been airlifted by a crane out of his fourth story, fourth story, no, no, fourth story, that's what I meant. Yeah. Flat, because he's got such an issue with one of his limbs that he has to be, they have to take the front of the flat off and lift him out by a crane to get him to hospital. And that's when basically something apocalyptic happens where everybody that's hit by— I mean, I can't— is it some sort of virus where they all turn into sweary, abusive zombies? Yeah, it's, um, it doesn't actually sort of— it leaves it very open in, um, the first book. The, um, I'm not going to say too much because the— I'm I'm just in the middle of writing the sequel at the moment, and that goes into a little bit more. What I can tell you is that it is absolutely not far-fetched what happens in To Create the End of the World. I think it's around about 6 out of 10 of all of us will suffer from the initial condition that causes what happens to those people. Oh wow, so I have been reading. So you think that this book's going to be— first draft's going to be finished by the beginning of April? Are you on track for that? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, I mean, so what happens is this is a man that's basically housebound and he's had to use— I mean, at the end of the day, if you are housebound, we've all been locked in for the last year or so. We've got Uber, we've got Tesco delivery, you know, we've got We've got Skype, we've got anything. What a time to kind of have to be locked down. You can really get hold of anything you want to get hold of. But in the event of an apocalypse, and funnily enough, there aren't people running these platforms, and so he has no internet, no form of being able to research. I mean, can you imagine not being able to ask Alexa the answer of a question? Yeah, I sort of base that on me because I like to think of myself as relatively intelligent, but then when Google's off for an hour, then I just feel immensely dumb as I struggle to remember my mum's name. Okay, Andrew, tell me, right, if your kids are— do you say 11 and 13? Yeah, and I've got a daughter who's 4 as well. Right, so when you've been homeschooling, how many times have you ever when they've asked you a question and you've just said, rather than say, "Ooh, I don't know," you've gone, "Oh, come on, try and figure it out," while you've quickly Googled it? Do you know what? None, honestly. Through some freak genetic occurrence, my kids are really smart. But when I do have to Google things is when they're talking to me about some sort of, you know, concept or other, or an idea or an event. And I have to nod along and go, "Yes, of course I know what that means." And then only when they're out of the room can I Google it. Right, yeah. I mean, there is, I mean, the thing is there's so many, like, I'm sure that we weren't even taught some of these particular elements of English. And I'm like, contractions and whatever. And I'm like, oh, Alexa, help me out, sweetheart. I mean, maths, I'm all right with that. I really enjoy it. But no, I have found that interesting. But we need the internet. And then in before and after, Obviously, that goes. That goes. And what I want to point out as well, just if we go back a little bit to do with his diet, what I liked that you really challenged people's perceptions with is that Ben, the main character who is grossly overweight, is a vegan. Yeah. Yeah. Because he's healthy. I mean, he knows that that's the right way to go for the environment, but— Yeah. And he just, you know, he's a vegan on principle of animal protection. And loathes the idea of anything that he does impacting on another creature, regardless of whether it's deemed sentient or not. And so, but I quite liked the, the irony of the fact, I think, and do you know what, in part it's based on, um, Instagram gives you this wonderful, uh, insight into what people eat, and I'm always a little bit surprised when people who I follow are vegetarian and they seem to eat a lot of packaged foods. It's just rubbish. Yeah, and I totally get it. It takes quite a long time to make vegetables interesting and sustaining enough to constitute a meal. My eldest son was vegetarian for about 6 months recently and again, it amazed me how often We were going to the freezer for Linda McCartney sausages and things like that. There's that sort of sense of just because someone's vegan doesn't necessarily mean that they eat incredible food. Subsequently, quite a few vegans have said to me that's actually quite accurate. Yes, of course, there are wonderful vegan foods and meals that you can create, but when you can't quite be bothered, it does tend to be quite packaged and reliant on that sort of stuff. But likewise, people who are eating vegan or vegetarian food, they can eat the packaged rubbish as well. But just getting the vegan option at McDonald's is not the healthy option. No, no, exactly. And I think it's just that sort of disparity or the sort of the dissonance between people's idea of what vegans eat. And what vegans actually eat. In Ben's case, he exists almost primarily on Bourbon biscuits, different packaged foods, takeaways, those sorts of things really. That's what he eats. Funnily enough, that ends up— Again, I'm not going to give too much away, but that ends up being one of the reasons why he's unscathed by this pandemic, this apocalyptic event, and other people aren't. Well, yeah, it's the skinny people that are going to go first, isn't it? In the face of starvation. Exactly. Do you know what was quite interesting is an ex-boyfriend of mine who I got on very well with, his daughter, who was a vegan, and he was like, I'm just worried that she's doing it because she doesn't want to eat any food and she wants to just be really skinny, and I'm like, she eats Pringles. Pringles are vegan, but that's basically her staple diet, mate. I think you're fine. Yeah, absolutely. It does. So one of the things that happens in the book is that Ben is, as you say, he's cut off from his— how he would get supplied with food, and he's always operated this sort of just-in-time process for getting his food into his flat. So he— when the apocalypse strikes, he's left with no food. And there has been some sort of questions around how valid the science and the research is around what happens to him, which is that essentially he lives off his own fat reserves. And the simple truth is, is that there is a lot of evidence that people can live for a long, long time on the fat deposits around their body. Obviously, in many ways, that's kind of how we were created. Primitive man would have eaten more than he needed in times of plenty so that when the food dried up and the herds weren't being caught, he could live off those fat reserves in his body. It's been valid as a survival technique for millennia. You must have done a lot of research because, I mean, he is very resourceful. Some of it, some of what he came out with, it's one of the reasons why I want my son to read it as well, um, just because it just shows how resourceful we can be and we should know about. Because quite frankly, if we don't have the internet, we need to make sure that we know the basics of survival. I mean, things that you can't Google. And I did find it interesting that I assumed that everything that you were talking about were things that could happen and that would work, and that must have— I mean, did you just know about this, or was it just a lot of intensive research? I think when— so the idea that I wrote down in kind of, I think it was June 2019, was what would happen to a shut-in at the end of the world. And so it was just that one line, and then I started writing the book in I think July 2019, so not that long after, and finished it in October later that year. Oh, wow. And then it was published in January 2020, just before the pandemic hit. So, sort of the timing of writing a book about someone who's trapped at home during a global pandemic, it was a sort of a propitious time to to have released it, I guess. But it also— it meant I had to be really sensitive about how I marketed it and how I talked about it, because clearly it was, you know, it had gone live at a point where that actual thing was happening to billions of people around the world. And that felt like interesting at one side, but also a bit a responsibility not to, to be, you know, jumping up and down going, "Oh, I predicted this," because that just seemed like an exceptional poor taste. For me, the research phase of it was broadly only about a month. I spoke to lots of people about the causes behind this particular apocalyptic event and really working to make sure the science of that was accurate. The weight stuff had really been researched and Certainly, as part of it was based on my lived experience, that, that was a lot of the, the reality of it. But also, I had interviewed hundreds of men about their experience of being overweight and being a shut-in and, and how that, that played out. And so for me, for that side of things, it was really a case of, you know, I think I felt a responsibility to to tell their stories accurately. But also, you know, for me as a writer, one of the things that I really wanted to, to talk about in the book was about hope and about the sources of hope that there are at large in the world. And I was— I really wanted to be careful not to be too didactic about what my personal views are about what, you know, where our hope should stem from. Because that's not how I believe we should behave. But equally, I want it to be really, really clear that even in these sort of incredibly dark situations that Ben finds himself in, there is hope all around him in the form of, you know, his pet Brown, his dog, in the form of music, in the form of faith and religion. In the form of friendships and the love that persists from those people who love us regardless of whether they're here or not anymore. And so that, that was really what I felt I wanted to embed in the book. And as a writer, that's kind of what I really feel passionate about, is, is just being someone who, who talks about these sources of hope. And, and again, you know, going back to the Man B. Phat thing, really just someone who champions people and helps to, you know, encourage. I think that, you know, especially now at this point in the world, I think we need to have this spirit of encouragement in us and to spread that and to, you know, to love people and to bring that around the world. And what you also did was you pointed out what everybody else— you kind of predicted what everybody else then found out in the coming Yeah, that, you know, dog is man's best friend, and that's what you need in a state of emergency. Absolutely, yeah. And it's, you know, I think that's probably true. The animals and kind of the— but again, you know, I think that goes back to what I was just saying, really, that animals are a source of amplification for love because they just love us and they you know, I mean, providing you're not kicking them around the house or anything, that they just want to love you. And that, I think, is really an important lesson that they teach us. There's a fantastic picture that I keep on my iPad, and it's of a man and a dog sitting on a bench, and there's little dream bubbles above the man's head of a bigger house, a bigger car, holidays and whatnot. And then there's a dream bubble above the dog's head where it's of a dog sitting next to his owner on a bench. That's lovely. It's really sweet. It's just so profound. Um, I just want to point out to our listeners that they can go and find out more about you at— it's hellosian.com, isn't it? I think hellosian.co.uk. And if they want to— if they go to help biscuits.com, and then that will take them to the Amazon listing for the book, which they can get in paperback or on Kindle. And I mean, you've got just a ridiculous amount of web addresses at the moment. They're going here, there, and everywhere. But I do want to also point out that you are offering people the opportunity to— for you to literally kill them. I'm gonna fill this in a bit later as well, actually. I was just trying to think of some of my responses. But basically, you put it out there that sometimes when you have names in your books that you feel a bit bad about, you know, killing people off. And so, so I could say, hey, my name's Hazel, I want to be killed off, and use my name. That's exactly right. Yeah, I mean, my lawyer would want me to point out that I am not offering to literally kill people, I am offering to literarily kill people. Very little. They can die in my book rather than by my hand. So the, the essence of it is, is that this was last week. I was— there was a character dying in the scene that I was writing, and he was— he had his name across the top of his shirt. And I spent probably an hour ridiculously going back and forth thinking about a name for this character to have. It didn't really matter hugely, but I just find myself getting hung up on these things unnecessarily. And so, um, in the end I had him as— it was Guy Garvey, and I thought, yeah, that's a good— yeah, that, that name will fit. And then about 15 minutes later I thought, no, that's the lead singer of Elbow. I thought I recognized the name. I was going, yeah, what? I know, because I was thinking, oh yeah, that's a good name, and like sort of gave me warm, happy vibes. Then I thought, "Now I've just accidentally killed Guy Garvey." Yeah. I don't think he'd like that. No, exactly. Well, maybe he would. I don't know. Some people do find him quite melancholy. Yeah, but not to the extent that you'd want to kill him. Come on. No. I mean, switch off the radio maybe, but it seems extreme. For me, it's just a useful thing to have where So what people are doing at IWillLiterarilyKillYou.com is— and you can find that by just going to either my Twitter feed or on my blog, which is HelloShan.co.uk— is they just fill in a form and put themselves forward to be a death character, be someone who dies horribly, usually, in the books. So fill it in, Hazel, and I'll bludgeon you to death. Oh, I'd love that. I mean, that's the thing, because I'd read the bit, you know, is there any particular way that you would absolutely would or would not like to get killed? And I want to come up with something really fun. Um, I mean, the more the gruesome, the better, really, for me. Yeah, I mean, people genuinely— it's, it's disturbing reading all of the entries so far, and there's been a phenomenal number of them, way more than I thought there would. People are really desperate to be fed into mincers. Wow. This is the learning that I have from this. Or, you know, yeah, just— Awesome stuff. Yeah, it is, isn't it? Yeah. It's been a lot of fun. It's interesting actually, because I'm writing a book and I really struggle. Some of it's like kind of, it's part fiction, part reality. And I'm struggling to come up with the names. But I can't steal your idea. But I do like it that you can kind of Yeah, and get people involved. Of course you can. Yeah, definitely steal the ideas. I mean, I'm sure that other things have probably done this before. I can't think of one offhand, but the thing is, I bet— What would be interesting is what sort of genre is the book you're writing? It's kind of taking the mickey about how— It's a tough one. About how the mistakes we make and women and the rubbish that they're fed from birth and how it kind of affects how we behave. Yeah. It's kind of autobiographical, but just a few little bits added into it pointing out, you know, why we do silly things and whatnot. But what— the reason I was asking is that, you know, if it was horror or sci-fi or post-apocalyptic or, you know, those sorts of areas, I think that that stands a better chance of getting people to put themselves forward than a book in the sort of genre that you're talking about, largely because people seem to want to be exploded, driven over by large buses, fed into mincers, as discussed. And, you know, people are weird. That's my conclusion. People are weird, and what a great way to get people to want to buy your book. Exactly, that they might be in— I might see my own death unfold. Wow. I mean, I think like, you know, limbs have got to be blown off in some way, shape, or form. You'd be disappointed if, you know, your ending, wouldn't you, your— the ending of your life wasn't in some kind of way like the sort of thing that made the news or the Darwin Awards or something, you know. Like you say, you want arms and legs being blown into the horizon. You want implosions in space. Yeah. That sort of thing. You know, like, or falling from an incredibly tall building whilst screaming as, you know, someone was supposed to hold your hand at the top. You know, fiction— let's just stress again, fictionally speaking, we want those things. Yes. I take it you haven't read A Wash of Black by Chris McDonald. Um, do you know what, it's on my TBR pile. Is it good? It's really good, but it is basically, um, when somebody makes a book into a movie and he's— and they're not happy, like the fans aren't happy of— I say fans, I'm not going to give away the storyline too much, uh, but they're not happy with how the producer and the director has depicted the murders in this book, so they go out and actually do them properly. Ooh. And show them how they should have been done. So that would be my only issue in terms of, you know, if I get like bludgeoned to death and someone goes, "Oh yeah, maybe she'd like that." Definitely opens up the possibility of some kind of, you know, unlikely curse where people end up dying in the way that they specified. Yeah. That could be really messed up, couldn't it? Yeah, that could be. Yeah, let's hope that doesn't happen. But that could be book number 3. No! And I'm not the only one that's absolutely loved Before and After because it's coming to the silver screen, isn't it? It is indeed, yeah. So this was completely out of the blue for me. So Before and After, as I say, is my first fictional book. I've written a number of nonfiction books before, so I was kind of— I'd always been published by publishing companies before and really found that my experience of being published didn't really match what I'd imagined. And so, on that basis, I'd always wanted to try indie authorship, so self-publishing. Through the different platforms that are available. I just found it such a gratifying experience. It really, really just gave you so much control, and for a weirdo control freak like me, that was just a gift. From there, I didn't have any marketing team or anything. It was literally just me. I focused on really just trying to get the book out in ways that I thought were authentic and interesting. One of the things that I do and have done since the book came out is that people can book in to— I phone them up and read them an extract of the book. That was really popular. I've done well over, I think, probably about 200 of those now, calling people all around the world. That's been really interesting. And it's certainly been interesting for the discussions that I've had with people and, you know, made some interesting friends from there and just sort of interesting contacts. But the film really just came out of the blue. Someone emailed me in August and said, I've just finished the book, absolutely loved it, and have spoken to my agent to see if the rights are available. And it's just, we've negotiated on from there really. And my literary agent sort of negotiated with his, and we've concluded the deal recently, and the book is in the process of being screenplayed, I guess, converted into a screenplay. And I don't know whether it's going to be for TV or for film yet. My suspicion is that it might be TV, just because the film industry seems to have ground to a halt obviously, with COVID less so the TV industry, which seems to be able to operate in a slightly sort of smaller, more mobile way. But it's just, it's fascinating. It's a really interesting— I think for me, I was really keen to do it regardless of anything actually comes to the screen or not, just because I really like to learn about how the process works in Hollywood and, you know, the process of creating that screenplay and kind of the reality of pitching it and getting it made, I just think is a really interesting thing to be involved in. So it's quite, you know, it's really exciting. Oh, hugely exciting. I mean, even when I finished reading the book, I was like, right, I want to see that on the screen because of the wit as well. I mean, it's kind of, I don't even know whether they'd do it on a serious note or kind of with a bit of comedy in it because of the amount of swearing and the insults. I don't know, it'd be really— how do you think it's going to go in terms of— um, all I know is that the, the, uh, screenwriter, I've, um, read some of his, his work and seen some of his work, and I, I really, really rate him. I think he's, he's terrific. Um, so I'll be really interested to see how it works. My question to you, Hazel, is who would you see playing Ben? Oh, I was going to ask you that. But this is the thing, because he's quite a young character. He's what, 24? Yeah, 24. Well, 25, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So, and it's going to have to be somebody— I mean, there's going to be prosthetics. There's not going to be anyone— I mean, I know that people like to put on a bit of weight or lose a bit of weight for a role, but I think that's taking it to the extreme. So the best person I don't know. Yeah, see, I know that you have been thinking about this from the second somebody got in touch. Now, but I— oh, come on, I want to do— I want to figure this out. Who would be perfect? Um, should I tell you who my wife wants it to be? Yeah. Um, I'm now gonna completely blank on his name. Hang on. Adam Driver. So, you know, I love him from Marriage Story. From Marriage Story, but, and perhaps more frequent, more recently from Star Wars, Kylo Ren. But yeah, she really— I mean, she was— he's fantastic. She wanted to be him so she can elope with him, in truth. But Yeah, I get her. I get where she's coming from. Yeah, I mean, he's a, he's a Nepali guy, isn't he? Is he really? Yeah. Oh no, he was like— have you been stalking him? Yeah, because I kind of, when I watched the marriage story, it's like he's been in quite a lot and I wanted to find out a little bit more. Um, and I just, I was absolutely— it was Adam Driver. I'm just quickly Google it as well. Um, It's somewhere in there, it's coming up. Um, but he's— oh, that's a perfect shout. I think he'd look good as a fat bloke as well. Yeah, the other one I think would be really interesting as it, and I think that from some of the stuff I've seen him do, I think he could really do a great job of it, is Tom Holland. So, okay, uh, he plays Spider-Man currently. Yeah, but he's done a lot of, um, sort of more serious roles in the past. And I really rate him. I think he's great. And I also think that he'd be, it'd be really cool to see him super fat. Yeah, that'd be good, wouldn't it? I know, in my mind, I was kind of like going, Benedict Cumberbatch, it'd be nice to see you looking a little bit chubby. But he's a bit too old for it. I've just Googled it. Benedict Cumberbatch is not too old. He's the same age as me. And I am eternally youthful. I refuse to hear otherwise. Do you not think he would struggle playing a 25-year-old though? No, I think Benedict Cumberbatch's range is perfect, and this is nothing to do with the fact that I went to university with him. I was in Starter for Ten with him. Oh, were you? Yeah, I mean, to be fair, my part was nowhere near as big as his, but, you know, it was brilliant. I've just looked it up, right, um, Adam Driver joined up to the Marines shortly after 9/11 and there for 2 years and 8 months as a Marine. Really? Yeah, yeah, I think it's fantastic. And there's some brilliant pictures of him. Every— I bet there are. Sorry, that was my really dirty laugh. Yeah, that restraining order is going to kick in soon. Yeah, yeah. Um, so Benedict Cumberbatch, Adam Driver, uh, possibly Tom Holland. What about somebody I mean, Benedict's English, but I'm thinking, oh, who else? You need a good northern lad. Someone— how about left field, because he hasn't been in much recently, Ralph Little. Oh wow. I mean, that would have to go down the whole BBC kind of route, wouldn't it? Yeah. In which case, yeah, I'm probably doing a great disservice, and he has been in loads. It's just stuff that I haven't seen. I think he does that Is it Death in Paradise? I've not seen that. Yeah, he does some thing on kind of like Sunday night TV on BBC. Oh, because he did get a little bit political for a bit, didn't he? Yeah, I think so. Oh, it's always like when actors go into politics. So, talking of which, we're storming through. We've only got 10 minutes left and I've got a couple of questions I'd like to ask all our guests here at GetBooked. So I'm gonna put you on the spot a little bit, but I think you'll be able to smash it out of the park, don't worry. Yeah. 3 of your favorite tips on mental well-being and wellness. Oh, that's a good one. 3 of my favorite tips on mental— what, achieving mental health and wellness? Just things that you think are best, whether, you know, people should be out on a walk, or they need to be looking after, you know, in your case, I suppose, looking after your diet, which helps you mentally, or, you know, things that— if somebody said, what 3 things do you think would make make sure that I would be as healthy as I could be and help me live my best life. You see, I'm going to assume that if these are regular questions that you ask people, that you've had all of the most frequent answers. So I'm going to skip things like go for a walk, get a good sleep, and all that sort of stuff, and go for things that are slightly weird but probably help me. Number 1, practice and enjoy absurdity. I think reveling in absurdity is really important. Things like reading On the Ning Nang Nong, Where the Mice Go Bong, that sort of thing. Just being aware of anything to do with Monty Python, I think, is exceptionally good for mental health because they were a foundation source of absurdity. I really think that sometimes just accepting how crazy life is and how absurd and unlikely it is, is really— it makes you go, yeah, that's, that's true. It is, it's really weird, and that's okay. We can celebrate that. So celebrating and surrounding yourself with absurdity. I find a really strong source of mental health wellness in hats. And I wear a lot of hats, partly because I'm bald, but also, and my head gets cold, but also because I think they stop your brain spilling out too much. So I often like a nice bobble hat for kind of mental coziness. Oh, I like that. Yeah, your mileage may vary, but I find that it helps me. And finally, I don't think enough is said and practised with regard to smell. It is, but generally it's behind people's backs. But, you know, I think smelling good is definitely great. Yes. Also smelling nice things, like, you know, fried chicken is just a good smell. Oh yeah, my dog would agree with you. Literally, she always makes me stop outside KFC just so she can breathe it in a little bit before we carry on. Yeah, just, you know, you can often find me just stood around the back of a KFC next to the extractor fan, just living my best life. Sitting there with your bobble hat on, making sure that your bloodshed brain isn't falling out. Watching Monty Python on YouTube and just smelling chicken. Yeah. That should be your third book. I think there's a lot of mileage in that. Yeah, definitely. Do you know what though? I do think, you know, when you walk, when you're going around, there's something one of the guests said, forest bathing, which is where you're out in nature and you're taking in like all the smells, all the lavender that you might smell, the garlic, and it is fantastic and it awakens your senses. I mean, you You don't smell too much KFC, which you should. I mean, you know, these pop-ups need to start here, there, and everywhere. There's a great hip-hop artist called Open Mike Eagle, and he had a song on his last album called WTF Is Self-Care? And it was just kind of making fun of this constant advice that we have around, you know, practice self-care. And he was sort of saying, well, what is self-care? And all of the things that are often recommended in magazines aren't things that are relevant to him in his life. So, you know, as— I don't mean to answer— I certainly didn't answer your question facetiously. I believe in all of those things that I said. But I think it also points to the fact that good mental health wellness is as you dictate it. What makes your brain happy is not going to be the same as mine., and that's okay. And if, you know, as long as it doesn't hurt or detract from anyone else's mental health and happiness, then, you know, if you find that breakdancing is really the source of your happiness, go and be well, you know, do it. There's nothing wrong with that. And don't feel that because the magazines are saying that you need to forest bathe that that's the route to it. Although, you know, obviously I agree, going for a walk in the forest is lovely. Do you know what? I think the most important thing is finding what actually does work for you. If going to a poetry recital invigorates you, or if jumping up on a trampoline invigorates you, find out what it is and then make sure that you can make it accessible. Yeah, absolutely, totally, 100%. And the other question I'm going to ask you is, who do you admire in the public eye in terms of, you know, you look at what they're doing on Twitter or on TV or whatever, or anything they've got to say, you just think they're smashing it out of the park and they're an absolute delight? That's a really good question. Thanks. Do you know what? The people who I follow and I like on social media, I try and follow people whose base philosophy I don't necessarily agree with and whose ideas I sometimes find antithetical to mine. One of the people who I think is really, really interesting from that regard because I don't necessarily like some of his ideas is Russell Brand because I think what I really like about him is his commitment to have the conversation. I think that that is a really interesting thing. I like his journey from, you know, his, his hedonistic days to his questioning and searching days. I often feel like he— his conclusions don't match mine, but then equally that's fine. And I think that he is quite respectful when he interviews people who he clearly doesn't agree with. And so therefore, I think that that is something that is lacking from most modern communication, is the idea that me and you could have a conversation, hate each other, and completely disagree with each other's ideas, thoughts, beliefs, but still have a sensible, civil conversation. I think that sensible, civil conversation is really a value which we need to cultivate in, in our society. And I think Russell Brand does a good job of that, even though I often find myself grinding teeth when he's reaching his conclusions. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I do agree with that. I think, but that's the thing, you don't have to agree with what everybody has to say, but the great quality of some people is being open-minded and being able to kind of put something across and yet still accept other people's points of view. And yeah, absolutely, definitely from the before and after point of view, as I said, The important thing was that there were sources of hope in there because what you find hope in might not necessarily— I'm a Christian and I know that that is a vile and awful thought for many people. I get that. I understand that. I don't necessarily think that it's my job to tell other people that I'm right, but what I do think is that we all have to reach our own conclusions. Find our way to being able to express and discuss those things, and also, you know, accept the fact that we might not know the right answer. And thoroughly, my son turned around to me yesterday and said, why have I got to do RE? And I said, because the world revolves around religion, and the more that we know about everybody, why everybody does what they do and what they believe in, the more we'll be able to understand each other and help each other. And he went, Sure, okay, fine. Yeah, exactly, our man, can't we? Yeah, so yeah, great. Do you know what, I thoroughly enjoyed chatting to you, and I've not gone through hardly any of the questions I was going to ask you, um, namely about how you came up with some of the absolutely bold-out crazy, um, swearing kind of, uh, elements of Before and After. I'll give you a really quick answer to that. Which is that all of the rats, so effectively the zombies or the monsters in Before and After, are largely based on the comments section of the Daily Mail. That's brilliant! Wow! Okay, so everybody is basically infected by the idiots of the Daily Mail. Anyway, thank you so much for chatting to us here at GetBooked for Women's and Men's Radio Station. I've loved chatting to you and I'm so looking forward to book number 2. Excellent, good. I shall make sure that you, uh, you see it early. Yes, brilliant! That's what I wanted to hear. Um, and I'll come up with— in about 10 seconds I'll be able to tell you exactly who I think should play the main character. Um, thank you so much for joining us, Andrew, and, uh, look forward to finding out about when it's going to be out on film. Excellent. Thanks, Hazel. Really nice speaking to you. You're welcome. And if you want to catch up on our previous shows, you can at womensradiostation.com/shows/getbooked and on our SoundCloud.