A Conversation with John Cleese - Cornell University 9/11/17

[Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] ah there he is the Provost we had dinner last night we lost a great deal good evening everyone I'm Mike Kotlikoff Cornell's Provost and I have the pleasure not of endru introducing John Cleese who hardly needs my introduction to this audience but if telling you a little bit about his long association with Cornell University in 1999 Cornell first enticed John to come here as one of our 80 white professors at-large intellectuals from around the globe who make periodic visits to Cornell to enliven our intellectual and cultural life at that time many people of course were admirers of his work on TV his writing and acting in Monty Python's Flying Circus his writing and starring both with Connie booth in Fawlty Towers and in films like Monty Python and the Holy Grail Monty Python's Life of Brian and a Fish Called Wanda which he wrote and for which he received a nomination for the for an Academy Award since that time John has been engaging delighting and stimulating Cornell students and faculty as well as area fans discussing his films as he did yesterday conducting master classes for student actors leading discussions of group dynamics with film majors and lecturing about creativity John has consistently fascinated Cornell audience with his eclectic talks and performances that have demonstrated along with his ingenious comic talent is keen intellectual explore lay explorations into multiple fields a few examples he has given a sermon at Sage Chapel Neriah narrated Prokofiev's Peter in the wolf with the Cornell Chamber Orchestra conducted a class on script writing discussed religion in the Monty Python film life of Brian and lectured on psychology and human development of course John Cleese all along has continued to create perform and entertain playing the role of headless Nick in nearly headless Nick and two of the Harry Potter movies performing as the voice in numerous animated films including Charlotte's Web and Winnie the Pooh hosting a television special about football aka soccer and a BBC documentary about lemurs in Madagascar and contributing to lemur conservation efforts which led scientists to name a newly discovered species Avakian pleases woolly lemur John's visits to our campus have been received with so much enthusiasm that Cornell took the unprecedented step of extending his 6-year appointment as professor at large for another two years and then even after that we couldn't let him go and cooked up another title Provost visiting professor food [Applause] John's appearances have been so memorable that we wish to share them with a wider audience to that end Cornell University Press is collecting some of those campus presentations for a forthcoming book tonight's discussions will provide material for the books final chapter as the director of the University Press Dean Smith interviews mr. Cleese using many of your questions please welcome Dean Smith in conversation with the incomparable John Cleese [Music] there's a dead bishop on the landing there's a dead bishop on the landing what was its diocese haven't got a clue well it's tattooed on the back of his neck we said that today at lunchtime he suddenly surprised me with that line which I hadn't remembered for 30 years and we both fell about and I thought it was a good starting point today because sometimes very very silly things have the ability to touch us deeply like a grasshopper hops into a bar the barman sees in hop grasshopper jumps up onto the stool varmint says oh we've got a we've got a drink named after you and the grass over says what Norman [Laughter] this is sort of silly joke that you laugh at and you sort of laugh at it again for some reason I love that it's like in the life of Brian do you remember the way the wind when he starts saying you won't got to think as individuals and they all say yes we all got and this is you or you are all individuals they say yes we are all individuals and then one man says I'm not it doesn't mean anything but you don't get that with more care and temporal or cerebral jokes you know you just get it with silly ones like bishops with their diocese that day what are we going to talk about so the pantomime elephant in the room really is Monty Python Python yeah yeah it's funny how it it's more loved here in the United States that it is anywhere you know if I go for example to Scandinavia or Australia or Britain they're all about 40 towers but here Monty Python has some effect you know what I mean it touch people it's a very deep level and there's so many Americans have come up to me and said you've got me through my exams at college Friday night they used to sit down and have a good laugh and decide that what life was worth living uh that's very touching because there's no way we knew you know we when you do something when we were sitting in the room reading out things that we'd written in the previous week and we started to laugh it was the first sign that we thought maybe it was funny you know when I when Michael Palin and I were standing in the wings just before we recorded the very first show and it started with a sketch about a sheep that hood was trying to teach the other sheep to fly because they knew what their ultimate fate was and I said tomorrow just before Graham Chapman and Terry Jones started the sketch I said you you know Michael this could be the first time in history where people have recorded an entire comedy show - complete silence and Michael said I was having the same thought so it was it was that it felt that dangerous you know was there one of them when they laughed you knew you had something yeah when that sketch went on Michael and I listened to it and they always thought are they gonna think it's funny flying sheep you know and then there was a giggle and then there was a bigger giggle and then there was something approaching and laugh and then there is a real laugh and I remember thinking I think we're going to be alright that's how little you know about what's happening to what you do and and and people will sometimes certain lines will become well well you'd say become viral these days but certain lines become viral and other lines that you love no one ever notices all the pieces you know like pining for the fjords pining for the fjords is where everybody remembers that but the the chocolate box gets you know when he when he goes to the Wizard Chocolate Factory thee that their health inspector asks about these disgusting chocolates and they eventually he C puts a chocolate out of the policy says and what is this one spring surprise and the man said well he said when you bite into the chocolate two sharp Springs and lacerate your cheese the health inspector says where's the pleasure in that I always thought it was really funny life where's the pleasure in that I want to say it to Mountaineers see where is the pleasure in that but no one else ever picked up on that line whereas the city walks which I never thought was particularly funny I read it I never it never really appealed to me he's electronic and I never won again everyone wants that at my age of 78 they still say will you do your silly walk I think it's the one where the both legs fly up backwards yeah that's right well I now have a totally artificial knee and two artificial hips so I can do a geriatric version it hardly involves any movement so talk about why in America the Holy Grail is more popular than the life of Brian yes that's very strange because in England there's no question they like life O'Brien better and here it's always being wholly grown there was a BBC poll about two weeks ago which I was rather greatly pleased to see they literally I think they asked an enormous number of good well-established critics and what a lot of good countries to list the favorite movies number one is still some like it hot which is really interesting it's a great movie number four is Groundhog Day one of my favorites and I'm seeing the musical on Sunday which I really looking forward to but we had life of brian at number six and holy grail at number 15 which is not bad you know and then further down the list cuz I'm a little dubious about these pool or poles you know further down the list is a fella called Charlie Chaplin you know so today I read that the Holy Grail is one of the most authentically shot movies about the Arthurian legend where did you read this somewhere really happy review well it probably was because Terry Jones knew a lot about made evil literature and I've got a lot about medieval history and we do did get people who checked out a lot of things but something like the coconuts you see that was so good about that you know what they say necessity is the mother of invention you see well that stuck with those coconuts was was genius and that was Michael Palin Michael came and read that sketch out to us and we thought it was wonderful and we sort of said well what do you mean the coconuts you know and he said well the they've each got a page and they do that like that we said well how do they go along he says well they go along we could never a thought of that if we had enough money for horses so that was what really got the creative juices going and once we wrote that sketch we began to know what the whole film was about because you won't believe this but of the first draft we threw out 90% there's with no idea what we were doing we've never done a movie before we had I realize in retrospect no idea what we were doing but we staggered towards something that had some very very very funny sketches in it which became scenes a little bit as we found ways of linking them together but it still doesn't really have a story or a plot and I think life of Brian's better because it does have quite a good story you know absolutely that's why I prefer it so there's something also about life of Brian where the biblical study was oh you won't believe this but this is absolutely true and we did the Python show at the o2 which is this huge arena 16,000 people and we did that two or three years ago at the same time in one of the London the university colleges I've gone forgot which it isn't he was Kings College they had a weekend a whole weekend of a proper academic conference about the effect that life of Brian had had on the study of Christian theology and there's a book out there and they took it absolutely seriously extraordinary thing was they felt that some of the jokes there through lights of Christian teaching in a way that was original to them I mean it's astounding but that's actually what happened as a book out there and I went along and talked to them a couple of times about what we did but they felt that we we did things that highlighted certain things that were really important to discuss which they hadn't discussed before it's strange because people can very easily get caught in a particular sort of way of thinking you know when I talk about creativity it's really trying to get out of the normal habits of thought you see what I mean and I remember saying to a very senior theological lecturer I said it seems to me that when you read the Beatitudes you know the Blessed are ones that it's all about trying to reduce the power of the ego which was to me was so obvious and he said I'd never thought of that seriously so sometimes I suppose in comedy because we're not hampered by too much knowledge issues we can we can come up with stuff that does make people think so do you want to take a couple of audience question yes so this is an anonymous question what was the most controversial Monty Python sketch you were part of oh I think the the undertaker sketch do you remember that I I do was very very naughty and I remember it was it was the third series it was the last show of the third series in Graham Chapman and I had been writing the show at that point you know writing part of the show at that point for I don't know four years or something and I said to grab one I said the last show we're gonna do for a bit races yes I said I'm bored he said so so am i and I said what are we what are we gonna write about he said let's do something really naughty so I said like what grave was a medical student he was a qualified doctor by that he said something about dead bodies so I said right I'll tell you the sketch because it's wonderfully outrageous I come in and I say I need I need your help because well quite simply my mother's just died and he says ah well we we deal with stiffs and never gets enough that it's funny and and he says well basically it's three things we can do we bury it we can burner or we can dump her I say dump er I said what you mean dumpy said well dump her in the Thames I wish you so we won't dump her in the Timothy I said well is this a to things we can burn our own barriers he says well which you recommend he says well he said I'm not sure really he says if you burn it you know whichever in the frames of Griffin which is a bit of a shock if she's not how it dead but quick else we put her in the ground and weevils little weevils beat her up slowly which again he says is not nice if she's not quite good and then he says to me where where is your mother and I say oh she's here and that's in this Shack oh she was a friend I think we've got a meter I love that intake what's she gonna say no and then he said we got an agent and I do a lot of you know what I said you're not suggesting eating my mother he says what not raw you know ah wonderful and some people think it's hilarious and then I look in the audience and there are some people say yeah I didn't know if you were gonna go all the way with that one I can't even remember how it finished in the television they allowed us to do it which was great on the condition that the studio audience invaded the set in protest but when Eric and I do it on stage and we do the lines together it's just wonderful how it makes people love when it is your dead mother you can't get much naughtier that was the naughtiest was that the question yes it was now what this one is similar by Jeffrey coke menorah tockman what is your favorite Monty Python sketch to watch to watch Oh might surprise you is that it's in the Holy Grail and it's a scene with Michael and Eric and Graham Chaplin and there's the two gods there and Michael is trying to tell the memory and people are naughty people I was trying to tell that these two gods just keep my son in this room and they it's so wonderfully performed that I could watch it I'm with Eric we put it up every night and I watch it every night it still makes me laugh that they just don't get it and there's something something terribly funny about stupidity provided you're not on the on the receiving end of it I mean I tell you sometimes when you're on the receiving end it's quite funny about six months ago I was in Miami I shouldn't be making Miami references but what does happen to be a Mario and I had a massage in the spa and afterwards I went up to my room and I got a phone call saying mr. Cleves you left your slippers in the spark and we send them up so I say yes of course thank you very much so three minutes later I go to the door and they say mister please here your slippers give them to me in the back and I say thank you very much and he says could I have some identification so I said well you know my name right because you just called me mister please you know my room number he said but could I have some formal light so I remember that I had a copy of my autobiography so I I got my autobiography and I went back to the door and held it that's the name you see that's my name Lucy I'm John Cleese that's the same person and he looked at me he said I'm afraid that's good [Applause] he's got one this is a wonderful there's something about stupidity how do we get there okay it was that the option I don't know yeah why does it still play so well Monty Python why does it still I don't know I I wondered I mean I'm really we should ask the audience you see what I mean I did he go yawning already [Applause] stand up I'm not going on to the stand up she's yawning already this when we were talking and we were talking yesterday a little bit about movies and today's comedy movies they don't tend to stick with you as much at least for me and and these do they they stand the test of time and I think it has to do with the writing so a line like there's a also has to do with the audience you see I when I say the people now what was the last really classic comedy that you saw there's usually a complete silence while they try and think of what was the last classic comedy do you see what I mean because Judd Apatow has cornered a particular kind which i think is summed up in hangover but the problem with hangover is funny but it was the problem about it is it's about drugs gambling sex alcohol you know celebrity just very contemporary things and that's a very limited palette with which to paint a comic picture you see what I mean and I always wanted to do a funny film about 1776 because so much about it that's funny which all gets covered in the myths you know basically 1/3 of the Americans were pro-british a third of them were anti British you didn't give a [ __ ] and that itself is quite funny and the other thing that always made me laugh is that most of the British troops were actually German they were from Brunswick and HESA and I thought have you started the movie with the British troops they're saying yeah that's our decision then you cut to the American trenches and they say goddamn British [Laughter] and everyone said John they won't know enough about it they don't know enough about it now this audience would but this is very rare now because most people most movies because young men go to the cinema and most people don't actually go to cinemas anymore so they make movies for young men who go to cinema they finish up with hangover because that's their main frame of reference you see what we're in drugs and sex and alcohol and gambling so it just means the whole thing becomes really not very interesting and when somebody does come up with a classic movie now it's usually one I haven't heard of from Denmark you know it's not to say there isn't funny stuff being done and some of the stand-up is funny but the thing was is it often boils down to economics you know and it boils down to the fact that more and more grown-ups were not going to the cinema and that the audience was primarily for very young Americans sort of what is it 15 to 20 to something like that and that the choice was normally made by the man so we finish up with hangover you see it's very sad you know I was in the Bond movies which I loved being and I really enjoyed it I got on well with the producers they used to let me fiddle with this dialogue in my own scenes and it was a thoroughly good experience I love working with Pierce Brosnan who's a lovely man totally professional gets everything right no fuss at all all done in a nice friendly low-key spirit and people often talk about old Bond movies I did four days of filming it spread over four years not a big contribution you know it didn't dominate my life but what happened as it was that they started discovered that it was making huge amounts of money in the Far East South Korea you know were you mean the Philippines and of course the audience's that we're going there didn't understand the nuances or the jokes about British society or the class system or anything like that what they loved was the action sequences you see so slowly they realized there were these vast audiences going you know and and the audience going in Britain that would get the little jokes was so tiny they've just forgot about it and it all became about action sequences and I thought that that's wrong is an action sequence should be kind of three minutes of really intense action when you really feel if they start lasting for 12 minutes it's too long for an action sequence you know I have to go back to bullet you remember all the people bullet you remember the moment when he clipped the seat belt in the hole or disco so you lose everything because people are always going where the money is and that really ultimately suppose most things I think so what's happening in 2019 from Monty Python there's a big oh yes the Victorian Albert which is one of our great museums that they're having a they call it a retrospective and there's gonna be is all the stuff you know the costumes and all this kind of thing and it's going to be there for six months and then it's going to talk like Tokyo and Paris and Berlin so it's rather fun I'm quite looking forward to that because we're all much too old and doddery to perform anymore it was very good that show we did the last one you know at the o2 and it was it was it taught me something which I'd never I never thought this sort of realized before which is I always thought it was jolly good to make people laugh and it's nice to make people laugh you enjoy it when you're making people laugh it feels good that's very simple but I always thought it was just entertainment and when I was in the when I was vo - I used to sit there with Terry we were doing two of those you all yes his don't pull such issues we met him on holiday in Envy say issues very nice it was a bit grumpy but mrs. Sartre we will play one of those and I had about 10 seconds when I was able to look out into the audience the lights were on the audience I could see 16,000 people and you know they were all having a really good time and I realized it wasn't an ordinary comedy show because the audience on the whole knew the lines better than we do you know and that's very unusual even Shakespearean scholars don't go to Hamlet know every single line and so what was it and I realized it wasn't a stage show it was some kind of occasion you know we were making them laugh but they knew the jokes and I was still laughing at them and I realized that there was something very good going on because people were happy and there's not as much of that around as there should be as you might have noticed in recent years particularly if you watch TV news so it was lovely to see people just happy in a few days later I was who's that famous singer is sing Sweet Caroline you know Neil Neil Diamond I was on a TV show with him and he started to sing speech and all the audience stood up and son I had the same feeling there's a whole lot of people together and there's a good spirit in the room everybody's happy with everyone else and they're all having a good time and I said he thought this is really important that we can give people an experience of just being in a room with lots of other people having a good time you see what I mean because there's so much less of that these days with everyone focused on their wretched or the computer question from the hat mm-hmm Stephanie hustla described the worst first date you've ever been on I can't really room they were all pretty terrible well they were I I was so hopeless as we used to say with women is that a sexist thing to say no you have to be so careful these days yeah I like your laugh you have to laugh again come on they were all hopeless oh they were all hope yeah I was so hopeless with I can't say girls again young women I was so helpless with young women it means because I didn't know you said a very uneasy relationship with my my mother emotionally it was not a good relationship she was a very neurotic woman very nice she the only only person I've ever met in my life who used to write her worries down so that she wouldn't forget [Laughter] it was as though she had this vast spectrum of anxieties only she spent enough time worrying about them all she somehow managed to keep them at bay the actual act of worrying you see what I mean kept the bad things away and so if she forgot to worry about one of them who would come and get her I tell you if you have a brother like that as you grow up it takes some time to get better which is why I spent about a quarter of my life in psychiatrists chairs and another quarter in dentists chairs because I'm a war baby I have the worst teeth in the world I'm rambling aren't I well no but your your there was a line in your book about your father preferring to be on the front rather than being home well she did have a pretty mean temper she there was I always say there was only one thing that my mother wanted is one thing but that was her own way if she didn't get it there was trouble you know and yes there were you know tantrums and and a great deal of anger and dad who'd fought in the First World War for three and a half years I think he's sometimes yearned for the relatives tranquility of the trenches there was one another scene where you're you've come back and you were we've got a career on writing television and they're trying to decide you want to take them to the movies or your oh yes that's right you suddenly realized because old people people even as old as myself they become so nervous and worried about all the things that could happen you know and I would I would come down to weston-super-mare to spend three or four days with them it was hard work and then some days I would get up and I'd say how about going to the movies this afternoon and this sort of anxiety what wasn't once a mother would say well we were are we going to go before - you're after - dad would go stopping at the weather this is I said why don't we invade Poland and in the end I'd say let's not go to the movies because it was causing so much fear disruption ayat response not only was the Viennese and Jewish but he knew Freud he'd actually and I was talking to him about problems I was having and he said to me John television did things happen easily in your family [Laughter] so but then when you and your dad were playing cricket in the house where was your mom Oh mom reserved my memories were I had a very nice relationship with dad I loved him very much and he was very kind in fact the fact I'm not psychologically scarred for life is entirely due to that dear man but we used to know my mum was somewhere in the background his mom was very very good and everything to do with providing the meals and making sure she was terribly good at that really great it was just emotionally that she was lacking because she was so full of anxiety and people were always worried about what's gonna happen next you know life is a series of hurdles you know Garlin a breakfast this morning how are we gonna get life the series of hurdles so there was no she had no energy over for anyone else you see what I mean which meant was quite it was quite amusing because she was not a stupid woman I mean she spoke impeccable English never didn't make grammatical mistakes he spoke that she wrote very good English and we never spelling error you know that she wasn't highly educated but she was very literate but she just she just couldn't couldn't manage things most of the time because she had much you see she had no information she was only interested in what was about to affect her life in the next ten minutes so anything more than about twelve feet away from her wasn't of interest you see it was just anything that might come at her and the next ten minutes and and and that result was that Jim she went through life without acquiring any information of the normal kind so that when for example my ex-wife that this ex-wife person produced a salad with very small quails eggs in it I don't know if you've ever eaten quails except tiny tiny little completely pointless eggs she bought some and she put them in the salad and my mother said what are these little eggs and I said well they're mole things and I said yes you see Alice Faye goes up on Hampstead Heath on Sunday mornings because on sand or when the when the moon is very bright the moles lay their eggs at the mouth of the Burrow you see and she goes I never knew that and one time she said she'd heard somebody talking about Mary Queen of Scots and she said Mary Queen of Scots I said well she was a Scottish keba thrower who got killed during the Blitz but the fact that her focus of her attention was so so much life at this moment was it was yeah I use an extraordinary thing while she lived so long she was born in 1899 and she did lived to the year 2000 Wow 101 so she's in life I say I say this my stage show I say her life spanned the entire 20th century you know she lived through the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo the first world war the the Great Depression the rise of Hitler and Stalin the Second World War the atomic bomb the space age the Cold War the collapse of communism she lived through it all without it's really noticing any other so there are two ways we can go now all right so this is the first time you've been back here in a while what have you been up oh yes everything was was described just now whether they asked me would I come you know and and I said well what do you mean a visiting professor what am I supposed to do and I can still remember someone said to me well you have to come up here twice a year and stir things up a bit and I thought that was such a wonderful invitation and then I had a look at a great seven years and then two more and then I was hit with this ridiculous divorce and I had to find 20 million dollars which is a lot you know you can't pay someone 20 million dollars just by sitting around watching television so the trouble was I just worked and worked and worked and worked and finally I cleared it all off and I'm fine now and that's a goodbye headed back about water so I hope to come back regularly if the Provost still needs a professor [Applause] so what are you what are you working on now are you writing another I'm writing a show which in many ways it's sort of began in Cornell when I met David Dunning now David's the stunning social social psychologist that's how he describes himself he has now gone to Michigan Michigan but he's coming he's here in the next couple of days he's presenting a paper on Friday I think and I met him and he was fascinated by it always been fascinated by whether people were good at understanding how good people were at knowing how good they were at doing things in other words self-assessment and he carried out a series of tests with a young student called Kruger and and what he discovered was that in order to know how good you are at something requires almost exactly the same skills as it does to be good at that the thing in the first place you see with a wonderful corollary which explains so much of the world which is that if you are absolutely no good at something you lack exactly the skills and aptitudes that you need to know that you know it explains a great deal because what happens as you get older and I promise you I'm not exaggerating at all is that you begin to realize first of all that almost nobody knows what they're talking about right gives you something very extraordinary thing about being Cornell is that there are a few people around who really do know about something you see and that's very rare all right that's the first thing the second thing is you have to realize that as a result of this this this mental aberration we hear most people are no good at their jobs I wrote two books for the psychiatrist robbery and Skinner and he was a remarkable guy he was a bomber pilot during the war you know and there's not many psychiatrists who were bomber pilots during the war you don't can't imagine Sigmund Freud sitting in the back of a monitor and he was a remarkable man he knew more about people and meeting him changed my life in a way which would talk about you know who moved me out of my sort of I was a victim of a good British education is the way I was pretty and he he was probably harmless and I said to him on one occasion I said Robin in your profession how many how many people what percentage of psychiatrists know what they're doing and I remember he said to me about 10% and I was shocked but from then on whenever I met someone who I just instinctively knew was particularly good at their job I would say how many people in your profession really know they're doing I never got an estimate higher than 20 I asked the question many times sometimes it was as low as five but it was normally 10 to 15 percent wasn't people's guess so that means that 607 people don't really know what they're doing I mean they've learned a process or a procedure but if that doesn't work then they're lost like I am and my computer crashes you see what I mean so this is quite a quite a starting point of 6 out of 7 people don't know what they're doing and it explains why the world doesn't work people sometimes say well why does the world work you know it's just no it doesn't work it's hopeless so I'm writing this show called why there is no hope [Music] the nice thing as I started it year oh he's got a camera I thought you were leaving oh that's alright if you got a camera why there is no hope oh why there is no when I start out I say to the audience you know a lot of you come to hear me turn tell me why there is no hope and you think I mean it humorously but I don't and I then point out to them that there is absolutely no hope there's always been no hope but it's even worse now shall I tell you shall I tell you something interesting I met a man he would hardly believe this is sorry Havel four weeks ago runs one of the biggest if not the very biggest marketing company in America he tells me has profiles of somewhat between 185 and 190 million people he has profiles with this person like this doesn't like that like service and I was in the middle of a conversation him and we started talking about attention span and he said well do you know in in 1990 when they measure the average attention span it was about 4 for most people it was about 15 seconds for young people it was about 15 seconds at the moment recent measurements of its suggestions now at about 6 seconds tension span is at 6 seconds I want you to guess what the attention span of a goldfish is it's 9-second how can there be any hope in a society where people have a less good attention span than the goldfish and you can go on and on and on and on I mean I I had a mind mind a problem with a little bit of surgery in my leg I was naughty and lazy about taking the stitches out and I had to go and see a very good specialist Cromwell Road hospital and when I saw him four weeks ago and he said it's fine it's healed now we started chatting about this and he said do you know that during the doctors strike in New York a few years ago the death rate went down so I got on the computer that's what I hate computers I got on the computer and and looked and there's some wonderful statistics there I mean there was a big analysis from a very respected academic Medical Journal of five different doctors strikes that in no case did the death rate every go up in three out of five of the cases it went down when there is a conference of cardiologists right cardiologists leave the hospital and go to the conference so the death rates at the hospital drop but the good news is that when they come back from the conference they the death rate recovers right then I have a swift my cardiologist a few weeks ago he said we got it well you my age you spend most of your time Tony the doctors really are you any good doctoring no because I got a Walter White's a nurse she's right there really where are you you know I've got a problem with my back oh yes so I said I said him what what is this about sugars and fast he says John for 60 years we cardiologists have got it wrong it's not fast that cause hot trouble it's sugars I said wait a minute 60 years and he said yeah but there was a lot of research and he said you know what it's much easier to get research for projects that confirm the current paradigm see what I mean if you challenge the cure anyway so nobody challenges because they don't get funds for up for doing that you see that's the sort of stuff you're up against the paradox and the contradiction so that's why I say there is absolutely no help there's less help at the moment of course because naturally a president Trump which is the most extraordinary thing that's happened in my lifetime I couldn't believe that people have voted from and it reminded me when I was 18 I went to professional wrestling for the first the coast of the whole Bristol and these huge hulks came out and they were wonderful athletes wonderful but terrible actors just terrible and the worst act you've ever seen in your life and yet the fascinating thing was that about 40% of the audience thought it was real now if they can't see with their own eyes that it's phony how could you explain to them that it's phony if they can't see it that's how I thought about people voting for Trump it's inexplicable he has given me one or two very well the Trump supporters are giving me my my biggest laughs two years ago was when they asked a woman about that recording that was made when he talked to a young chap called Billy Bush and just excuse the bad language but you remember what he said he said well that if you were a celebrity than women more or less expected you to grab their [ __ ] do you remember he said that yeah and a woman a middle-aged woman who was a trump supporter who was defending him was asked about in making that remark she said well he would never said that if he we'd known he was being recorded it is hopeless but the great thing when you realize that it is completely hopeless you start to relax and then your aims become more reasonable which is to do with you see what it means here what I tell you what sir changing society I'll just be nice to a dozen people because that's achievable so Cynthia M asks what is the secret to a happy life ah very good what I think it is quite seriously it's about having modest aims the most important thing in life apart from finding the right person to be with is to do something a job that you find interesting if you can do that what about her that's Cynthia hello Cynthia why are you pointing Cynthia out to us what is her question oh it's your questions in there oh good well the thing is keep if you say I think there's a wonderful statistic which is something like 33 percent of the American population believe that they're going to be billionaires within the next five years you see no survey they're going to be disappointed on you know so keep you of aims targets very achievable because all that big stuff about billionaires and money and power they're a miserable lot somebody was telling me yesterday of about a doorman and a extraordinarily expensive apartment block in New York where a lot of the people there are billionaires billionaires and the doorman who sees them going in and out every day just commented they never seem to be happy and and and people forget that they in America in particular there's a sort of feeling that if you're not rich and and famous you're sort of a failure you've missed the boat and this is the most pernicious attitude because for centuries we had people who were quite content to be part of a community it's a doer job well do you see what I mean and to have good friends in the community and then to bring up children and that was considered a good life and now it's not good enough well that means that 99.9% of the population are going to be disappointed so simple so keep your the first thing is keep your your your aims achievable make them modest and the second thing is don't have children okay you're laughing then I killed Renault's most of the misery in the world you have children you worry yourself sick about them they cost a fortune and then they grow up like their mothers so avoid children instead have cats [Applause] [Music] cats are fantastic they're absolutely wonderful they're affectionate when they feel like it and they're just a pleasure to have around my wife and I have four cats three of them American three of them are Maine Coons one of them is bigger than shears what's the biggest [ __ ] cat I've ever seen this big she's having a saddle made so that she will and the nice thing about cats is that when they grow up they don't blame you for everything so we today talked a little bit about Cornell students and how hard they work and I was thinking oh we are kind of sum up what we were just discussing a message for them that you had but if we gotta take a break how long are we going we can why don't we take a break for five minutes because people some people may want to stretch and some people may want to go to the loo would be back in five minutes we'll talk about Cornell [Applause] [Music] [Applause] take your time folks no hurt well Dean was mentioning something just before we left which was the first observation I had when I started coming to Cornell I remember being very impressed talking to students everywhere they were they had a real pride in being at Cornell it was lovely they really they felt good about it and when I said well give me some criticisms they I had to think for it and they said well they were just too hard of course oh yes he said yeah they work it's very hard so when I got back I started chatting to some of the professor's I said well the students think that that you work working the professorship what we do and I thought this is a very odd I said well if they think you're working too hard and you think are we coming towards some sort of plan yeah and I said to them whoa I said to the professor's well why white everybody working harder than maybe they need maybe they should maybe the bottle is really healthy and I said why annulled one person said well maybe it's because we're not Harvard or Yale don't you see what I mean you see what I mean and this sums up to me one of the problems that we have in our in our society which is that I don't think we know in America now how to live very well there's such a such an emphasis on acquisition and money and fame and all this I was in Sarajevo you know and this is not a very wealthy part of the world and they were all having a marvelous time and I was very struck by this and I've heard this again and again I was a doctor that I was with a couple of years ago went sailing during the year and he went out the coast of South of America and then he would you know tie up the yacht and go inland and he said he never seen such poverty in his life and everyone was happier than they where in America so I think it I think happiness is a jolly good aim you see whatever here and I think everyone thinks they want to be happy it's just they don't know how to go about it because the culture is sending them the wrong signals I mean there's something I don't know others two things I would love to do on television I would love to do a series of documentaries about what relieved would be if the churches hadn't [ __ ] it up I think now would be fascinating the other thing is I would love to do a series about why very rich people still want even more money I think it's it's crazy but the trouble is these very rich people owned the most of the newspapers and television series so this kind of stuff doesn't get talked about much because it means challenging the belief systems of your employers but I think it's great that people should be happy I think I have a revolutionary idea which is people should do what they want I know I love this lady here good oh it's so simple and yet people decide that having a bigger car so you know there's a mindless competitiveness about that doesn't really help anyone so we could explore that in different ways but it does come back there's one of the this is starts from my finger I thought that if the Cornell students are working a bit too hard can we do something about it because what's what's it all about you see I mean it's difficult in a way for me because I grew up in the fifties in England and it was still strangely and in some ways rather nicely old-fashioned and the idea was not to become very rich during the whole time I was at Cambridge and that was between 1960 and 1963 during the whole time I was at Cambridge University I only ever met one person who wanted to go into business money was not important it didn't mean the world was in competitiveness he was lots of people wanted to go to the BBC and if they went to BBC it mattered whether their carpet went to the walls of the room or whether it stopped a few feet shopportunity then explained where they were in the hierarchy there was sort of silly competitive things didn't go away but there was no none of this obsession about money you'll hardly believe this but when I started worked in 1966 with David Frost on his show I was paying income tax at the rate of 83 percent so you'd go in and work from Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday 10:30 the government would say anything you earn for the rest of this day Friday is yours you know and people would let were ok with it and if you talk about Scandinavia you find the level of happiness is far far higher than it is in America and for all the people who go on and on about you know what a great American comedy the people in Scandinavia know that they're going to be looked after health-wise and so there isn't learning anxiety of what happens if I get seriously sick and that's a terrible thing to be carrying around with us you know and yet people who have never been to any other country you know when you mention the word abroad to them they don't know where that is these people will fight fight for the American Way and the Trump supporters you know they're angry that they don't have a better lifestyle but resolutely determined not to consider it socialism when it's capitalism that's delivering them the sort of society that they did [Music] it's going to Scandinavia and and the people that are happier it's a very inflammatory thing to say I'm a bit of a firebrand in my old age to say that I think people ought to be happy but then we'll think about it it's a bit revolutionary so what course would you want to teach if you if I was here oh how interesting what I want to teach maybe I'd want to teach how to be happy well you know that never used to be 20 years ago then when any bomber books about this it was very strange and there now there's lots of books about happiness and positive attitudes it never used to be I mean the whole thing which we wrote these two books but with Robin Skinner the psychiatrist the odd thing about psychiatry was that it was all based on the study of people who went very well do you see what I mean and if you were writing a book about how to play better golf you wouldn't consult the worst players in the world [Music] you'd go to the good ones and the extraordinary thing about Robin Skinner was that he was one of the few psychiatrists I've ever met who was seriously interested in what was good mental health and what were the characteristics of people who had good mental health and there were a very small number of studies there was a grant study done at Harvard over a 40 50 60 years and and we got quite familiar with all that stuff but you said what would I teach I think I'd try and teach something to do with psychology because I don't think there's anything more interesting than the human mind and this is stuff that affects our lives you know what ever had she been saying to this evening even the funny bits it what I like about that information is it actually gives us thoughts about how to live our lives whereas no matter how good the teaching is if you're studying geology that's not gonna help you when you get home so related to that talk about what was one of the happier times in your life well I'm happier now than I've ever been and I don't say that in England because it makes people angry oh if the papers find out you are happy and got a nice marriage they can't wait to find out so disproven but I finally after many many attempts I have married someone and I just adore she is insane but I'm kind of used to that and she's totally lovable in a way that I've never come across before and in a way she loves me in a way of not being loved before and it seems to have removed a kind of deep anxiety that I had there's so much in my life because that relationships now I'm more important I think that my work I think it is and that takes the pressure off my work and then as I've already told you we have four cats and so and also might my aims I I'm not interested if somebody said oh if you work really hard on this part you will earn an Oscar you see what I mean if an angel came those that if you take this part you know and Oscar I would say well how hard do I have to work because I don't need an Oscar you see what I mean though most people to the high point in their life it isn't it's not what life is about life is very much my pin it's about really for quite simple pleasures and we'll right at the moment I find an extraordinary pleasure in looking at trees the trouble is we don't have the time to do these simple things that make us happy because our society won't excuse me well let's just answer my phone you know it's extraordinary we publish a lot of books on trees on trees yeah well I think now I'm all in favor of trees I think trees should have a vote [Applause] well there are only about three IQ points lower than Trump supporters at this point the show with our goggle people are walking so Priya sreekumar asks what are your top tips for seduction I'll be honest I was so terrible and embarrassed and uptight and totally English you know with with women that they sort of like me but I was the least attractive sort of man you could come across and I think it was because I didn't know because my relationship with my mother and going to a single state school when I went to Cambridge I mean there were 200 people studying law with me and three of them were women you know and I just didn't know how to relate to women and I think I thought having been to the James Bond films that there was a sort of button that if I pressed in myself I'd suddenly become masterful mysteriously it's very simple just trying to be yourself and then it's very easy to see whether the woman likes you instead of spending a long time pretending to be someone else so that goes eventually they find out who you really are you wasted eight months of your life I just think the more you can be yourself and not try too hard I mean and and the other thing roses actually be interested in them when I went to Australia the first time I remember I started to become successful with girls and if they couldn't get over the fact that I actually listened to what they said you see because this is not part of the Australian and so just sitting and hearing what somebody said and being interested in it was seen to be a very powerful sort of aphrodesia bit like Northern Ireland you know where they used to go to dances and the men would be at one end of the hall and the women would be at the other so we can move over to psychology and how well do we know ourselves not at all I think not at all and I think the great problem is that that we are basically run by our unconscious and very few people are really interested in digging a bit deeper to find out you know I I think most people aren't interested I mean I had two friends in school they're both now professors in America one in New Orleans and the other oh so Canada well is it McMasters in Canada once basically in urologists the others are psychologists they both been very successful in the life and I've stayed in touch with them all these years and not one of them has ever meditated I find that extraordinary not one of them the psychologist this professor psychology has never sat quietly and observed his own line so that's what I think we're up against that people aren't terribly interested in themselves an English doctor once it we know an English psychiatrist said job most Englishmen know much better what's going on under the bonnet of a car than they do in their own minds you know and very few people I mean the fascinating thing about Trump is one of the extraordinary things he said about Trump is he's very very uncomfortable if there was a moment of self-reflection Gary Schwartz the co-author of art of the deal who spent more time with him than almost anyone else's spent about 18 months with him said whatever they were talking it would only be comfortable talking for six or seven minutes and then he didn't wanted to talk about something else and if he was asked any questions about his own internal processes he just wasn't he anyone's said to Gary Schwartz he said I don't want to find out about stuff like that because I might not like it you know and I think a lot of people feel that they don't really want to find out what's going on in themselves because we all have good sides of me all have bad sides of mother Teresa took up her work when she realized one day that she potentially had a Hitler livering in her you see what I mean because she saw that she had the capacity for evil then she was able to do something about it and for example I can tell sometimes when I become envious which is I think a particularly English trait I've become envious but because I recognize it as Envy and say oh I'm becoming envious that gives me a control over the consequences of my you see what I mean if I didn't realize I was being envious I think there was something wrong with the person that I was envious of you see what I mean I would start making negative robots about them to pull them down you see what I mean but if you think I want feeling envious you know that's all right I'm just feeling envy it doesn't mean you have to do anything you see you're just aware of the emotion so in the work that you did on yourself was that did that become easier over time yes it did Robyn Skinner said something a lot of artistic people are worried that if they go into therapy and examining themselves that they're lose their creativity and Robyn Skinner said to me that he didn't feel that that was true at all which I think helped me so that I was able to what I think now is that I'm I'm more creative but I'm less driven you see what I mean and a lot of people confuse the two they think there's somebody who's very very productive is very creative well that's not a lot of people are very very very productive but not very creative and that's because they're driven and if you're driven then you really ought to know what's driving you you know you really ought to try and work it out because otherwise what are you doing with your life being driven it's kind of funny but it's also rather sweet lots of people running around thinking they think you don't have a slightly bigger house they'd really be happy you know just a newer car or you know what I mean if they could get promotion so do you find it easier to get into that creative space now well I know how to do it now because it is all about just creating a space the space is exactly the right word if you want to be more creative than what you have to do is you have to create a space and that means you have to create boundaries of time and space so you have to find a place where you can just be quiet and if you top the tree and then you've got an office my secretary you say don't to the secretary you said I don't want to talk to anything or anyone for an hour unless the buildings on fire please don't and if you're at the bottom of the tree you may have to sit in the park at a friend of Cambridge who came from poor working-class family and if he needed to be quiet in his house he would go and sit in the loo and felt the door and study in there because he could create a place that so you have to create boundaries to keep people from interrupting you because interruptions are absolutely fatal to creativity because you have to let your mind roll like this you don't know where it's gonna go so you you just sort of push off from the bank and toss the or away and you just see where you go and the moment the outside world comes in it interrupts you then you're not doing that anymore the most important things you can't be creative unless you can play and if you're going to play then players got to be separated from everyday life you've got to put boundaries as already it starts here and it ends there timewise and I'm in a space where people are gonna drop me if you do that then you start finding that you just get in touch more and more with little ideas that are floating around there there are only the beginning of ideas but if the phone range is to get them immediately you see so you and then as you get calmer it's just like meditating into the minds all over the place for a bit and then as the Buddhists say it's like cloudy water slowly settings and becomes clearer and then you can hear the little promptings of it'll ideas and if you the interesting thing is scientists have discovered we're not the skeleton sarong were they simply by the experience they do they they they find out that they often have their most important ideas when they're in a slightly dreamy state you see not at all Edison used to sit in a very comfortable leather armchair and he used to have a little metal tray and he used to have ball bearings in his hand and he liked to be at that little Twilight area between being sleep and awake so he does and as he dozed he would his hand would relax and he would drop the ball bearings into the metal pan of wake up again he'd be come on and he did an enormous amount of his creative work like that and the guy who the guy what was his name somebody von Stratton it's German probably he discovered the the structure of the carbon ring he was late at night he was very tired and he was looking into a fire and he just started watching the flames in the fire and he suddenly got the idea that they were snakes and they were chasing their own tails it was amazing that's how he realized that the carbon molecule was a ring so when these greatest of all scientists make these discoveries when they're in this very dreamy state it's completely the opposite of what we're talking about being decisive you know and the the the research and creativity shows that one of the characteristics of creative people is that they defer decisions much longer than most people do because they can tolerate that vague feeling of irritation uncertainty that you have if you haven't resolved something you see some people can't tolerate that they've got to resolve it so they take the decision before they need to take it and then I had this company that made management training films and the most important thing I ever learned is that if you have a decision to take if you have to take a decision the first question is when does this decision have to be taken because that's a real world it's got to be taken before this happens or you see what I mean it's got to be taken for he comes back on that's a real worth it what does it have to be taking then don't take it until that moment most people want to take it straight away to get rid of that feeling of uncertainty but if you're going to be creative you have to tolerate the answer and then just take the decision when you have to or when you really feel you've got to it but it's two things happen first of all you may get new information and I find that a lot of people want decisions I said I'm not sure yet I'm not sure it and then during the course the week it becomes obvious it's all sort of heart or just kind of well it's kind of obvious that this is the best choice earther these five and it comes to you so easily if you if you don't don't rush it so find out when the decision has to be taken and tried to defer it in to them because the other thing is because it gives your mind more time to come up with new ideas and we're not taught that I mean you know everything I'm saying to you I think instinctively you know it's right right it's not you don't think it was just rubbish you just think it's unusual but it sort of feels right because we're not taught this is school I mean who at school ever said to you what I'm saying to you know you know and it's a basic part of Education and yet nobody teaches it it's quite crazy meanwhile there we are memorizing the books of the Old Testament or learning how to do trigonometry and simple things about how to make our lives more enjoyable I get forgotten am I going on a bit well no no I have a question else from the audience we should probably tell them a joke why do the French have so many civil wars so that they can win one from Dan Zimmerman what's your favorite Fawlty Towers moment I'll tell you exactly it's when basil dude you know faulty does runs down to the town to get the duck that he gets the strawberry mousse by mistake and the fat my favorite moment is he brings it back in the diners would be waiting for their duck for an hour and he puts it down and he lifts the top off and he sees the strawberry mousse does that there's no somehow he's buying time and then he opens it up and he looks into the straw so you travel the world visiting corporations and talking to executives what what are some of the things going on when you do that well I'm always struck by what a decent bunch they are and I'm always surprised because I do think corporation man in America is AB you know there's a lot of people out there in the food industry in the pharmacy industry who are not interested in really in helping people to lead healthier or more nutritious lives they're you know they're they're very keen to hush up any research that's out there that shows that the thing they're selling is harmful to people you know and that's wicked but in my own experience working with each year I've always been rather surprised at how altruistic they are they really love to make it work and they'd love to have an organization where people feel that they belong and that they can do good work and you know just generally contribute something so I don't know because I do think cooperation thinking is at the heart of so much that's not right with America and I'm confused about it what are the traits of the most successful leaders that you see well this again you see this is all the question what you believed is there's so much bull I don't know if any of you have read the Black Swan have you read the Black Swan it's a marvelous book it's not the movie you know that was about a lay as now this is just a trader with the name of Talent t really be Nicolas has him tell him and he he talks about you know you take investment bankers you know this is a statistic from a book by Leonard broaden offers one of the smartest people around he says that the average investment bank is earning about three million dollars a year their main aim as you know is to do as well as the market average that extraordin they just try to choose shares that will do as well as the market efforts it doesn't seem very difficult does it but they get three million dollars for that because people don't realize that they make the investment bankers make their money off the trading of the percentage of provisions that's where the money comes from you see what I mean they don't not very good at actually making people money and there's all these paradoxes out there that fascinate me and I'm gonna spend the rest of the next year basically going through this material in order to produce more mature for why there isn't a home okay let's talk a little bit about spirituality and religion and what where are you how has that evolved your spiritual journey over time well I you know I was Church of England which was once described as the Conservative Party at Prayer I was Church of England which meant really that nothing interesting was ever discussed in in in in religious classes and I was confirmed when I was fifteen and I waited for about four weeks to see if some golden haze would come down carry me off and they were not kept me off physically you know but the booze boost me spiritually and nothing happened and I just gave up the thought it was all complete rubbish and then in the thirties I started reading books by an Englishman who came to California called Alan Watts and I started reading stuff about Eastern religion which began to make more and more more sense and then I had a breakthrough I read an article a chapter by Aldous Huxley in which he basically says this he says there's two types of religion there is the type the more meditational time where people are actually interested in seeing whether they can have some sort of experience of the divine and these people do spiritual exercises you know if they're Sufis they dance you see what I mean if they're Jewish they are interested in the gabbar if they're interested in Christianity they're interested in esoteric Christianity and these are the people who wonder if there is something out there that they can connect with and they're prepared to spend a lot of time in in doing exercises and finding out more about themselves and trying to connect with it that's one type of religion and then there's the other type of religion which is basically crowd control you see what I mean that is the great head monster in the sky here are the rules you stick to the rules you'll go to heaven and you'll be able to eat all the ice cream you want without any fact which is kind of contemptible but an awful lot of people like it because it promises a sort of certainty but what is so funny is that people didn't take a religious teaching and turn it on its head Pope Pius the tenth in 1906 said kindness is for fools and you kind of think if he was Pope but surely at some point he would have read the Beatitudes so what do you see say the Beatitudes are absolute crap all that stuff about the poor in spirit you know and the meat and all those although it was you saying that's all crap what is all about is is strict discipline and kindness is for fools I mean how can you take Jesus's teaching and come up with kindnesses for fools you know then there's this what is this form of Christianity where they say that if you get lots of money it shows that you're praying enough or something what what do they call it there's a particular there's always been a feeling in America among particularly the fundamentalists that Christianity is really the sort of the cornerstone of capitalism right you know that's what we're about we're a really good Christian capitalist competitive's what's a [ __ ] leader have to say that can't get screwed up by people and the answer is he can't people please how many once said an idea is not responsible for the people who hold it [Laughter] so you have this absolutely extraordinary situation where the leader of the the founder of the release to religion lay something now and of course he's able to really explain it the people around him and they're able to explain it to the next four or five generations who were really interested in the ideas and then the people who start joining that church you're asking about the dental plan you see what I mean and you have to be at a certain level of spiritual advancement before you can ID uh understand some of the ideas I mean when Christ said turn the other cheek you see whatever it it wasn't a trick do you see what I'm saying but a certain cast of mind would think it's some kind of manipulation or trick because he kind of meant it you see what I mean so you have to be at a certain level in order to understand the teaching and most people don't get anything like that level and that's why what I like about about Buddhism is that they insist on the the oral transmission and the teachers teach because they're really very remarkable people I met the Dalai Narmer a few times and there's no question that he's operating on a different level for myself in the same way I'm operating on a higher level than the average Daily Mail journalist you believe in an afterlife yes I do but I don't know what it is I was a member of a group that they used to meet in California for a week every year and I was there for eight years they were all academics most of them psychologists or social psychologists one was a very famous quantum physicist who did not think there was anything contradiction between quantum physics of the afterlife Henry stop if anyone knows and there were one or two anthropologists we studied the stuff and I came away from the areas thinking there is an afterlife but I think the problem is trying to say what it's about you know people start trying to draw up these maps of what the afterlife I just I don't think our minds probably aren't capable of taking it but I mean Lee do think something goes on not perhaps for everyone maybe one has to do a sort of certain amount of work in order to gain you laughter I don't know but III what I like about it is it helped me with my fear of death which was never tremendously strong when I was young but but the idea I really think that when I'm lying on my deathbed probably three-quarters panics but there will be a quarter of me thinking oh I wonder what happens next and I think that it's if it helps the thought of dying if you think there's something else coming you know and I may be foolish but you see what the trouble with science is they say we that can't be possible because we don't have a theory to justify it and that's the wrong way around in in in science the the territory is primary to the map you see what I mean you look at the territory and then you draw a map of the territory and if you look at the map and look at the territory and compare them and on what the map was a bridge and on the real life there isn't a bridge you see you don't say well obviously there's a bridge you see what I mean you look at the reality and so there isn't a bridge why does the map say there is a bridge so the the territory is is primary to the map and a scientist don't behave like that scientists are much more interested in the theory they have a deep emotional attachment to the theory and if anybody starts changing the theory they're never curious about it they're just angry you know because they want to be right so we have time for one more question and it's an anonymous clip well no hold on one second let me get the name Jack Mendez Oh what is the worst article you've ever seen in the Daily Mail the one that annoyed me most is when I first started going out with my wife who I called her fish because she swims like a fish the first time I saw a swim and 45 minutes she went up and down all thank God she wasn't even out of breath and I thought she knows how to breathe underwater so anyway I was I'd started to go out with fish and the Daily Mail ran one of its nasty pieces you don't really take it personally because it's a way of life but this one got to me because they they said about her that she used to dance naked in order to keep my interest in her you see it was profoundly demeaning it also raises the question is how would they know [Music] I mean unless she did it in Hyde Park you see what I mean so you have to deal with this constant flow of malicious misinformation from the Daily Mail and I'm engaged in a innocent or a struggle with them because they are so unscrupulous so dishonest and just must never be trusted you must never trust them because they're quite clever you know Clause aboard they checked you and till you think they're actually interested in you and then they'll slip the question and that's the only thing I'll have a quote from the interview and I'm very shocked by British journalism on the way over on the plane on Saturday I read the New York Times and I read the Sunday Times and The Sunday Telegraph and the gap in quality between the papers is absolutely breathtaking and the New York Times I think is a wonderful paper you know and I read three articles in it all of which were absolutely first-class the Sunday Times is just kind of dreary and heavy there was one very very good piece of it by a guy called Matt Lucas and otherwise it was just like anything that that Murdock touches which is slightly grubby and then there's then there was the day of the Sunday Telegraph which is just hopeless it's the dullest most boring useless waste of trees you ever saw really absolutely terrible owned by a reclusive pair of twins called the Berkeley twins who was simply interested in advertising revenue and about three years ago they decided that the way to boost their profits was to get rid of all the good writers because they were more expensive it said almost entirely run by ex-employees of the daily mouth I I despair for British journalism but what I love about this country this country is there's a there's great resilience here you know and there's real you there are centers equality that it just as good as anything I'm probably better than you got most of the rest of the world and I'm absolutely delighted at the thought of being able to come back on a regular basis and boy thank you very much [Applause] you you

Channel: Cornell University Press

Views: 69,589

Rating: 4.8315787 out of 5

Keywords: John Cleese, Cornell University, Professor at Large, Monty Python, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian, Creativity, Religion, Psychology, Hollywood, James Bond, Comedy, Expertise, Happiness, Afterlife, Spirituality, Dalai Lama, Science

Id: 8DqUlaDnmqQ

Length: 107min 55sec (6475 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 04 2019