September 2019 – Oliver Manning

Bishop’s House

Two nights ago I saw Robbie Thompson play at Bishop’s House.

The house was built almost 500 years ago.

Rachel played first. For one song she was concerned that the lack of vocal reverb would spoil the intended effect of the song.

I spoke to Robbie in the queue for toilet before he played. He was nervous and excited to play new songs for people.

Towards the end, a tall man almost fell on a group of girls who were sitting on the floor. Bones would have been broken. Tears would have been cried.

Throughout it all, my mind raced with its typical generation game of thoughts – some pleasant, many less so.

Everything seemed to matter massively to everyone. We thought that what we wanted was good, what we didn’t was bad.

But to the house, it was just another day.

Episode 4: What Would Conor Do If His Son Wanted to Be a Pornstar?

Chapter 2 of my Saturday afternoon conversation with Sheffield-born, but London-based musical boy Conor Houston.

In this episode we delve into the importance of seeing everything as some kind of cosmic joke, and Conor makes the case for encouraging young people to take up trades like plumbing or pizza delivery instead of resorting to filming themselves having it away with strangers.

Episode 3: Who is Conor Houston jealous of?

After two incredibly self-indulgent solo episodes, I finally have a guest.

It’s none other than Conor Houston, a man who has gone from being a complete stranger to a best friend over the past three years or so.

Last Saturday, we set up microphones in my loft and we chatted for almost two hours. “We can edit it down,” I thought, but then when I listened back I realised it was all pretty good. So I’ve chopped it into 5 pieces, and that’s the next 5 episodes of the podcast.

Highlights from this episode:

How to pronounce Conor’s name
Mrs Poo
Conor’s only memory of his History GCSE is watching Simon Pegg in “Run Fatboy Run”
Conor was put into bottom set GCSE Maths in attempt by the teachers to help the other kids catch up – without his knowledge
Oliver leaves for a few minutes to go to the toilet
Oliver asks Conor: “Who are you jealous of?”
Oliver asks Conor: “What’s your favourite thing about me?”