Stephen Fry on Intelligence - Work In Interview with Heights

so you've got a picture-in-picture I do I do it would appear that we are live hello everybody I believe so it says so I'm going to trust that it is correct I am going to just make sure I'm just going to make sure that the audio input is fine and that people can actually hear us mmm you have a way of knowing do I have a way of knowing I'm really asking for feedback yeah okay yes people can hear us weird we are on the first time using YouTube live and I know zoom integration but thank you very much for joining us joined by the wonderful Stephen Fry just going to start with a little introduction for why we're here and then we'll get straight into it so welcome to working in with heights is a series all about the most important organ in your body your brain where donations encourage to raise money for mind the mental health charity for kovat 19 support now my name is Dan Murray Sirte and I'm the co-founder at brain health and mental wellness company Heights alongside my co-founder Joel Freeman and our chief science officer dr. Terrace wort that many of you tuned in last week to hear from and we believe a healthier brain leads to a happier life and if you're trying to stay healthy and active at home then there's a good chance you've been working out your body and some capacity already and while it's true that this does benefit your brain as well as your body it's our belief that our brains need to be exercised to with their own focus and you might be doing leg day and abs day already but this is brain day sometime you can schedule in and dedicate to your brain each week to understand and learn about how you work from a variety of leading voices and unlike our bodies our brains are just not something we can see so ironically out of sight and out of mind and that's a lesson I learned the hard way I suffered from acute insomnia and anxiety trying to find path back to a healthy baseline and after a lot of research I found out that I've been spending all my time trying to cure my mind as opposed to my brain and in the end it was meeting a nutritionist and a dietician who explained that they weren't strictly the same thing and at the well-researched but lesser known part of the puzzle was nutrition and I was recommended some dietary natural supplements that within two weeks took me back to a healthy baseline sleeping through the night and feeling calm again and all because I got the right nutrition for my brain now we all know it to be true that nutrition greatly impacts our physical health so it's no surprise that the same is true about our mental health and we're very lucky to have some wonderful customers who believe in our mission which is how we've been able to put on this wonderful series full of such incredible thinkers and we hope throughout the course the series you'll consider putting your brain first - so on to tonight's working firstly according to neuroscience you can't concentrate well you we any of us can't concentrate on talks for longer than 18 minutes which is where that magic TED formula comes from and that's why we've split up our session into three different topics and indeed three different workings so you can learn bite-sized information about a variety of ideas every week to keep your attention strong you're invited to do a live Q&A which our wonderful community manager Emma is making sure to feed into me so we can ask them throughout our conversation so please do pipe up and just so you know there's a saying in neuroscience that if you read or watch something you learn it once and if you share it you learn it twice so we do encourage you to share on social with at your Heights and at Stephen Fry on Twitter and at Stephen Fry actually on Instagram so that's all from me it's time to introduce today's guest mr. Stephen Fry so Stephen welcome to working in Howey Thank You Daniel thank you very much indeed I'm delighted to be here how are you I'm I'm pretty well thanks I'm in every sense it's a cheap cliche but the I mustn't grumble is used all the time but I don't think it's ever been truer that one mustn't grumble because my things are numerous and and profound and I should be aware of them I only have to think of how some people must be facing this crisis to realize how lucky I haven't to be with the best I love and to be in a good condition and to have fresh air and the ability to walk in the countryside and all of that so yes I am very fortunate and the ability to be on zoom and live YouTube streams all at the same time modern day yes so sure that that's a pleasure but so in today's cranium gymnasium we're looking to cover intelligence mental health and the sinful brain so should we start from the top and get stuck into intelligence ok so the definition of intelligence is the ability to acquire understand and use knowledge now given that you're broadly considered to be one of the most intelligent men in the country how do you think you fare with that definition mm-hmm well I'm gonna have to query the definition it's a definition the ability to I think a lot of people have the ability to the the question is whether there's the will and the energy to do it the drive to do it the concentration to do it sometimes I wonder really if intelligence isn't a bit like what Sherlock Holmes said about genius you know the an infinite capacity for taking pains it's it's the effort of it I I often feel I've just sort of spanked my intelligence up against the wall to some extent I think I am quite gifted you know in terms of the important useful attributes that are subsets of intelligence memory key absolutely key to that because I have a good memory and really pattern recognition isn't it and the ability to see things inside other things which is why language is always such a clue as to the real meaning of words because you can give a dictionary definition but it's the derivation in talega ray to read into is what intelligence intellect means and you read into things so there's a poetic intelligence which reads the history of and desire in the fall of an acorn from a tree or the brush of a wing of a butterfly that's seeing into things so the great thing about the language the word intelligence is it doesn't need division into cognitive mathematical intellectual intelligence which is a bit of a bit of a tautology it's all about that seeing into I think and to see until you've got to look into so first of all you need the curiosity the drive because the difference between seeing and looking is like hearing and listening isn't it you could you can see all kinds of things but you don't you know you don't notice them but you've also got to move your head towards them you've got to be interested and I think one of the tragedies of much of life is how many of us are really all as intelligent as each other but some people just don't have the drive to find out that they are either they've either been made afraid by education that has made them feel left out that that somehow certain words phrases references they've decided they can't catch up with just as I you know I feel like that a bit like that with music I can pick out single notes with my fingers on the piano and build them into a chord that I can't sight read and I decided why I had 40 years ago that it was too late which is nonsense it's never too late but but you make that decision so a lot of it is to do with will I think tell me would you would you agree with that I think that I think you're certainly right in terms of the the intention and the desire needs to be there but I think you know a lot of what you just said is also true in in circumstance and upbringing you know there's there's definitely an interesting class divide when it comes to intelligence which is essentially a lottery of where you're where you can be born and you know that you know that that doesn't take away obviously anyone's natural drive to change those things but I guess it can also be you know considered at least as part of the debate yes I mean that that's a very very very huge subject isn't it I mean I think the actual intelligence and capacity and capability of all humans is more or less the same you know within an ambit of you know in as much as we can all without a deficit at birth or an trauma we can all walk and we can all run but obviously some people are going to be able to run faster than others and that can be to do with training and it can be do to do with with just innate you know physical ability that they've somehow been born with and the same slightly with the mind isn't I mean given you don't have a deficit of cognition in terms of speech and understanding so on everybody is within the same band but there'll always be some people a bit faster and something or a bit slower on top of that as you say there is upbringing there's how much your parents read and how much they read to you and all kinds of things which which are terrifying but again they tend they tend to reinforce this idea that things are too late because you'll read Oh having your mother read to you when you were three is a sign that you are likely to get a bit of more ease at a level than if she didn't well if your mother didn't read to you and you come across this statistic you're gonna go oh well what's the point then I give up and that's nonsense because none of these things is defining one of the most important things I think that we have to address because it's also relevant to this crisis is the fact again oddly enough that Sherlock Holmes pointed out in the very second elcome story which is called a sign of four the sign of four he says to Watson at one point it's not relevant to the story he just makes the observation that while you cannot predict what a single person will do you can never predict what a single person to do you can predict with an astonishing amount of precision what an average number of people will do and that's more shocking really than that the most people would perhaps think it's the basis of all behavioral sciences and I think in this crisis we're all aware that there are viral logist sand epidemiologists who have the ear of government and when government says we're following the science we all think our they're following virologists and epidemiologists but sitting in on those sage meetings in Cobra meetings and subcommittees are dozens of behavioral scientists who can model our behavior in the same way as an epidemiologist models the course of the disease you know with these famous Peaks and so on and that's of course why Chris Witte and Patrick valence the the the chief medical officer and chief scientific officer why they said we didn't bring in the lockdown and until the date we did because we wanted the peak to coincide with the population still putting up with it because they're aware that we will stop putting up with it it will become more and more relaxed about it more cross about it more upset more unhappy and that will affect our health in our mental health and our physical health and you can't say that of any individual but you can say it of the average of humanity and it's the same with so when you talk about this is what makes people intelligent this is it makes it but you this person listening you're different every one of us is an individual even though as an average we can be plotted and predicted and that's a strange paradox about human behavior but I think a very important one to bear in mind whether you're talking about something as loaded as intelligence or something as urgent as this particular crisis and it's interesting because the example you give kind of plays nicely into EQ emotional intelligence realistically because you know that that's that's part of what that is modeling right which is our capacity for the patience and understanding as a society to do these things yes I suppose it is I mean these things leak into other words like wisdom you know we're fully aware of the distant difference between intelligence and wisdom though it's quite hard to pin down that at a sentimental level one can say that you can go into a developing country and see an old person who may not be able to read or write has no knowledge of the you know abstract intellectual things that that make an intellectual but you can watch them behave and say this person has extraordinary wisdom and and I sometimes wonder what you know what the point of intelligence is when wisdom is so much more hand ear thing the best definition of wisdom I ever came across was a man called Michael Ramsay there was the younger brother of one of the great intellectuals of the twentieth century Gordon come Frank Ramsey who by coincidence there happens to be an article about in New York but anyway Frank Ramsey died at the age of 26 it was really extraordinary genius but his brother Michael though there's my computer going sorry about that his brother Michael who became Archbishop of Canterbury and he had a huge white eyebrows and I'm when I was a boy in the 60s I just saw him being interviewed by someone like Malcolm Muggeridge and they said your grace you are accounted by all who know you to be a very wise man and and to look at you one can say that you look wise and Michael Ramsay said am I am i why I wonder I wonder if I'm wise and the interviewer said well what would your grace say is a definition of wisdom he said Oh wisdom I think wisdom is the ability to cope and that's always stayed with me because what you know we are all aware of the chess genius the math genius the musical genius you can't sit the right way on the lavatory you know who's just completely incapable of either socialising or connecting with other people or with ideas or with them you know anything that we might consider deepen fulfilling in life and yet they are genius and and we look at people who have wisdom like I suppose it's mrs. Wilcox in Howard is there sort of characters like that who you know in in you just and in fact mrs. Ramsay she's talking of ramesses into the right house the wolf seems to be a ramsay day anyway sorry I'm beginning to babble but I suppose what I'm talking about is you know not sure not knowing is the greatest privilege of intelligence because if you're intelligent you have the confidence to know the limits of your knowledge and don't have to prove to anyone else I know this I know that you're actually much happier to say I don't know this I I am completely ignorant about this branch of philosophy or this branch of science of mathematics I only vaguely know it as a as an idea I'd love to know more about it and and you define yourself by the limits of your knowledge and you're happy to do so but people who are less sure less likely and that leads one to things like the dunning-kruger effect which is much talked about these days this you know the fact that the least competent have the highest view of their own competence naming no Trump's and and and and it's all very well to be this kind of unconcerned not unconcerned this I'm sure it's unsure sort of intellectual who says well we don't know do we and look at the Brussels on all these great heroes and how they don't have any answers and it's it's Tweedy and it's comforting but unfortunately we live in a at a time even this particular crisis aside when people want answers and so they they veer between two extremes between absolute materialism in science and absolutely materialism and spirituality and religion and it's quite difficult to be in the middle you know in the same way that the hard left is trying to make the word centrist politically an insult which I was thinking preposterous it's never that that dog is never going to hunt that that flag is never going to fly because I mean it being centricity is obviously a very sensible position West at the time but it being centrist in the worlds of materialism of science and spirituality of religion is is a tricky one you can sometimes think you're falling between two stools that you don't really you don't really have you don't really have a grip it's so easy to have a grip on things if you're entirely material and if you're entirely spiritual because that they seem to provide answers and if your whole being is sort of absorbed in not having answers and enjoying that you can seem like a useless excrescence you know an ivory tower Musa who has no particular use in the world we have use for hard science and we have used to people to pray or give us mindfulness lessons and spirituality and yoga and other such things but but people in between her a bit doubtful about all that spirituality and who feel that the the splendor of science which is magnificent and we wouldn't for a minute wanted to dispute isn't isn't everything you know we have a sort of it comes down in view that there is something else another another realm if you want to call it that which science as yet seems unable to say anything useful about an only art seems to be able to say useful things but that again seems in terms of urgency to be a dinner temte or at least a luxury I don't believe it is one but am i answering a question I'm not sure oh yeah no never and I know I can certainly see the comments no one does think that I guess I just wanted to touch on before we go to the questions I'm being fed through and you know you raise it we raise a really good an interesting point on on on knowledge on absolutes on wisdom and I suppose those things really cover human intelligence but when we're creating a world with artificial intelligence you know it's very interesting to think about the makeup of where the insights come from in order to design the future within artificial intelligence because there's a lot of finites there rather than a lot of curiosity and so to the definitions you were giving potentially a lot of knowledge over wisdom and and I'd love to get some of your thoughts on on that transition well I mean that is that is a truly perplexing and fascinating issue isn't it because if if our ability artificial intelligence is able to solve problems including human problems and problems that we would regard as exclusively previously the domain of softer Sciences like psychology and sociology and indeed politics and he was able to come up with answers that satisfied all kinds of there all kinds of problems there we we would we would be hard-put to claim an exceptionalism to those parts of our brain that are other that are that are soft and artistic and creative and loving and emotional and you know so we we again we return to those wonderful science fiction writers who've been there before us whether in popular culture like you know whether its data and Spock in Star Trek or whether it's you know how in in 2001 this this that the misery of the robot that wants to be human and the and the envy of the human that wants to be a robot these are both very strong and very ancient I mean they predate the idea of robotics and androids and artificial intelligence I mean they're in myth and would we I mean if you know if there was a button and we could press it and we would lose everything in our makeup that made us unhappy and miserable and yearning and empty and dissatisfied with ourselves and ashamed and guilty and all the negative human feelings if we could press that button because they would be replaced by a supreme ability to solve problems and to make money and to achieve things and to do well but without any any of the drawbacks would we press it and you know it's almost it's almost a psychopathy test isn't it because because most of us feel for no reason that that can be easily expressed that we we want to be weak and fuzzy at the edges and slightly fluffy and a little bit of a faltering human and we don't want to be perfect because we can't by definition because that's always the thing that's not what people are new to be saying in the comments I'm afraid oh really what do they say there's a lot of people saying that they think you're definitely as close to perfect as okay I'm gonna I am gonna go to a couple of the questions though just so people are aware that they're definitely they're definitely going to get them answered I guess on the basis of you know because a lot to cover if you can make them as snappy yes Nonie so that we can get through a few because it's just same anywhere of her verbose a.m. I'll start I'll start you off with a super easy one that's mostly a yes/no with some context which is does Stephen Fry meditate um you know III did for a while I I was interviewed by Sam Harris on his waking up podcast I just did as Sam Harris right before our interview to get me an O oh did you yeah and then he changed his name to making sense I think but it's the same idea and and I sort of promised him I'd have a go and so I downloaded his his app and it really hasn't and I just sort of dropped out of it I can't pretend that there was some empirical achievement that it but I loved the experience of it because I was surprised by how the mind could simultaneously be very very focused and deeply relaxed and and they've always seemed to me to be opposites in the past and meditation she appears to bring them together but I can't claim that empirically it made me feel that I thought better faster it was just an interesting experience a bit like taking a drug but we didn't have a big crashing K hole at the end of it if you know what I mean so in that sense it was very busy and it probably is like taking a drug because it presumably does help release some of one's own opiates as it were once you know well then that is a you tried but not currently I know okay we've got a question from Julie who says can being intelligent be a drawback in keeping a healthy mind can you overthink do you think yes i i'm sure that that's probably true and i think i think you have to have if you want to divide it into into these kind of different types you have to have the emotional and intelligence to realize that problem-solving intelligence in the quickness of mind you know the ability to whether it's play chess and solve puzzles and absorb abstract ideas and remember them and repeat them in elegantly and be in charge of language and that sort of intelligence is not going to help you with problems of mood love and emotion and feeling and betrayal and all the things all the storms in the mind that can drive one to intense feelings of misery right to the very brink where you really wish not to live anymore that that you cannot solve them with the same intelligence that you can solve a crossword puzzle or a chess problem and to think that you can to say all right now come on I've got this problem there there must be an A and a B and of therefore and a syllogism and oh you know a sort of series of of steps in in logic that can bring you to the end because I just maybe could have drawn but I just don't think that that's the rights it's like trying to it's like trying to tune a piano with a lawn mower it's just the wrong tool for the wrong job so I think the most important thing is if to have enough emotional intelligence to let go of your problem-solving cognitive intelligence and to try and use your sense of what's right and what's working and and and also to let down your defenses your pride because that problem with intelligence is you can lead to a very strong sort of intellectual pride which can't accept that you need to ask for help I think that's often it's called being a man asking for directions ok so we're gonna do a last question on intelligence and then we'll move on to our next topic but you know Karma amazing name for this question how do you think intelligence is limited by poor mental health state or poor sleep ah your karma just ran over my dog mo we used to say in the 60s that's a really good question I suspect that the answer is greatly almost every day I'm setting until this crisis though there seemed to be a new to call in in a newspaper or a journal linking sleep and poverty of sleep with all kinds of problems whether it's problems heart problems atrial fibrillation whether it's buildup of plaque in the brain that leads to dementia and whether it's to ability to concentrate during the course of the day in fact I was reading so many articles about how important sleep was I was losing sleep over how much sleep I wasn't getting I was spiraling and and then you do all the wrong things I think well maybe a stiff whiskey before I go to bed will help and of course it's the last thing that can possibly help us sleep so yes I I have a strong feeling that that sleep has a great deal to do with it and not just the actual effect of sleep but if you are able to sleep if sleep is coming easily to you it's a sign that other things are going right in your life that I think will help with your intelligence and with your happiness which is more important and so it's it's a kind of a virtuous circle you have to get into you have to live during the day in such a way that sleep becomes a natural and easy thing but I I'm really worried when people put numbers on things like that I I know I know that's useful and it's just the way we we we measure every there's a metric for everything but if people start to feel bad because they've only had six hours sleep and they've read that it should be six now seven oh no someone else said seven and a half and you know they'll start punishing themselves or feeling that they've failed or they'll believe there's a sleek Bank and that they're now Oh after a few months they Oh a thousand hours to their sleep Bank and how are they ever get that back and you know that's a that's a mad way to think or at least did you know you can read it's a deranged it's it's wrong thinking I I think you have to one of the most important things in mental health in all areas I think is to forgive yourself to learn it's to forgive others certainly but to forgive yourself primarily for mistakes in the same way as it is with going on a diet or anything yes you will fall off the wagon you will you know make a mistake but but if you believe that that's that shuts out any chance of success then then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy so so I think all these things are clearly important and they are important to intelligence but but I think it's a huge mistake to get absolutely obsessed by them I think this is the perfect segue into our next session which is all about mental health so obviously you are globally well recognized as one of the leading activists yeah one of the leading mad people exactly you know one of the first people to come out and talk openly about it being honest about it pioneering the the comfort which you know is certainly accelerated in the last few years and but you know the comfort of being able to talk about it and talking about mental health like physical health now I would love to know and if you wouldn't mind giving us a brief overview of your own experiences with your your own mental health hmm oh that's developed over the course of your life so you know is it is it like you feel more stable you know in the last few years than you used to or is it not a continuum like that if you could give us your your life story yes well I mean from from almost the earliest time that my parents can remember I was I was a hyperactive child and I think had the condition being as readily diagnosed as it is now I would have been I would have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD and and probably given Ritalin or something similar um and as it was through school by the time I got to 13 or 14 as I think he's quite common when puberty starts to to kick in in a big way I became pretty much unmanageable and was expelled from school but in the period before being expelled my parents had had sent me to a psychiatrist and he was casta college anything with a huge Mont Blanc pen about that big and and a three-piece suit in a gold chain in fact it was a Tory MP was a was a health minister as well it's like just weird but I only found out years later that he wrote on on a piece of paper which he sent to my parents and to my husband Astor at school bipolar question mark which was very interesting diagnosis in those days bipolar wasn't used very often most people said manic depression in but so he saw that there was something in my baby because talking to me he realized that I not only was very disruptive and mannequin in the schoolroom but also that I had periods of extreme distress and close down and couldn't be addressed or talked to and then oh you don't went so bad in so many schools that I ended up in prison I because I had a hint of kleptomania which is not a diagnosed condition but I I made free with credit cards for a while and there was a you know I can laugh about it now but obviously it was pretty tough when I was 17 18 and got away with to two years probation and then settled down to work really really hard to get into university which I was desperate to do because I'd thrown away so much my schooling and I got into University I got a scholarship to Cambridge in and there I met some extraordinary people and was fortunate to join the footlights and have a career in show business and and I was so I had discovered how to work and to focus in to concentrate and I was so periods of mania and you know I can remember my friend Hugh telling me well quite early on we were shooting at one of our first television things that the director had come to him and said is Stephen on drugs in those days I absolutely wasn't anything I never taken a drug in my life from aspirin but but Hugh just didn't know that's the way he is so and I didn't realise it was odd but but I spoke credibly fast and it was just bounced off the walls and it seemed to you know if I was unwell it was just a mania because the depression was seemed fair way off but then tours my thirties it started to change and like a lot of people I when you start to get him mood change and you don't know what it is you don't know that it's an illness you week for something that can alter it so if you're feeling low you take something that can make you feel high in my case cocaine in a dismal a cliche showbiz way and and alcohol too easily one pulls you up one down and it did things you know it came to a head in 1995 and Western play one Sunday I was in a state of complete emptiness obsessive drained of all energy and all feeling and all hope and all possibility and I tried tried in a lock-up garage that stop the car and make myself make myself go away through the exhaust fumes the catalytic converter was such it would have taken a week breathing in the fumes or something anyway so I drove to Europe and ran out of a play and there was a big scandal and anyway it meant that I concentrated on doctors and was was given for the first time a proper diagnosis of bipolar disorder and and some medication and and it's the medication started to work and and I started to learn about this this condition and it went and and it came back and it went and it came back and and I agreed sometime they said to make a film about you know the secret life of the manic-depressive it was called in order to find out more about it and to share what I learned because it struck me that it was a you know a big subject and that it had been so taboo and that even rather in the same way that it's easy for someone in show business or was easy for someone in show business to come out as gay in the in the eighties as I did much easier than somebody who was I did say a teacher or a librarian or spot welder or a we know whatever folk lift truck driver much harder for them but actors you know no one surprised similarly no unsurprising actors are a bit loopy in the mind as well so we can get away with it it's one of the privilege of the artistic license I suppose you might say so it it struck me as being a kind of necessary thing to talk about you know and and it did have a remarkable effect actually I mean just simply and doctors would would would tell me that then kind of people would come to them presenting with depression and the doctors often just gave them an anti-depressive without even asking them if they'd ever had an upcycled which is what you know bipolar is the two poles of the anyway so that's sort of roughly my history and I stayed on on medication for some time and then I went off at about five years ago four years ago because I don't know as I got married I was taking more exercise and looking after myself and I won't claim that these solutions if they were it would be the easiest illness in the world to to cure and and it isn't and they did there is no cure such as just ways of managing it for me this has helped enormously but I still have that medicine on standby should I mean you don't occasionally I go off into kind of manic cycles where I get a bit kind of weird and I have to take these things that bring me down a bit and and I do have times when I'm not feeling happy but generally speaking I mean the lucky cycle at the moment and I drink almost nothing now I mean very rarely drink and that helps too I think beginning you say you say you don't think those things you know necessarily you know they're not obviously because there is no there is no cure but in the very similar way that you know you can't just have a healthy body there are you can try your best and you have great wellness principles to be fit and look after your health span and lifespan for your body but it won't stop you getting cancer that's just bad luck that's that's what can happen same thing that I think with with mental health and when I hear you say you know that you took up exercise you stopped drinking alcohol I know you became a vegetarian necessarily that I'm saying but just the conscious awareness to make those changes they you know you know I'm sure it's no surprise that they helped to contribute like say not a cure if you don't care about yourself don't know if you've given up on yourself or you hate yourself then you naturally that your body slides as well as your mind and it is easier to deal with the body if you start caring about yourself then it's much easier to say okay I'm gonna stop poisoning my liver with you know all that vodka and stop poisoning my nose and brain with all that cocaine I'm I'm gonna walk my body a bit more I'm going to reward it a bit because I like myself a bit more that that's much easier to do than to turn any ones in your mind and reward your mind as it were so that's that's why yes I mean the N reason I'm saying I I'm not saying this is a cure because I think also coaches would say it's a really good idea for people with with a mental illness to try and look after their bodies as much as they can for all the reasons I just mentioned but but I'm always very very Larry about saying this is a cure because some people have the disease so much more seriously than I do and and and I wouldn't want likely to suggest that all you have to do is do what I do and go for a walk every day and it'll be fine because that's going back to the old days of people saying why don't you just walk it off as if it isn't a real illness and it is and especially in sensitive in quarantine yes yes and and the thing thing I always want to say is that there are two sort of opposite points of view you have to have about a mental illness disorder and one is you must never underestimate its seriousness it is it has what doctors call a high morbidity in other words you can lead to serious Hill health and death and then we will know the suicide figures are very alarming in this country and around the world so it's not something to take lightly it can affect it can cause people to spin out of their family and their work and go right down onto street level where they become you know really at the very very end of everything that's hopeful in life so you mustn't forget that that's a truth about about mental illness on the other hand you must also bear in mind that some of the most remarkable and fulfilled and inspiring people who've ever lived have had mental illness so those two things are true you know my great heroes is Kay Redfield Jamison who's this extraordinary American woman who read the book an unquiet mind who was extremely bipolar and is you know Piper the one very Jared you know a youth but she's the the professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University which is the leading Medical Hospital in in America and as well as a professor of comparative literature at st. Andrews University in Scotland she has the most compendious mind and she's written touched by fire which is a book that about the some of the people who had mania and how they turned it to creative uses and and and yet she also has the highest level of lithium as a dose every day so she has to have a kidneys checked so they don't explode because it's you know almost toxic levels she has to have to keep her but being able to live any kind of normal life so she's extremely ill but she achieves standing things and so it's bearing those two things in mind is I think important it's not a death sentence but it is serious absolutely I think something really helpful I know I certainly know that people would find it helpful to hear from you is obviously it's a estimated that one in four people suffer from a mental health disorder in their time but if you look at the other side of that figure three and four that don't probably going to know someone live with someone have someone close to them that does and won't necessarily be able to naturally relate to the right way to deal with their the right way to communicate with them the right way to be helpful so do you have any insights or experience from people in your life who have helped you what has worked what hasn't works what's felt like the right approach and what hasn't it's it's tricky because you know almost by definition if you're having a real sort of episode you are unreasonable so sometimes even the most delicate and tactful question can be irritating to one but generally speaking you know I think I've said it before you don't know for a reason in the sense of are you depressed because you know I don't know your bank balance is lower than you thought it would be or because you know this that or the other sometimes you know depression isn't that simple it's lowered down on you it is depress it's pushed down onto your mind like a great force like whether I said this you know or often it is like the weather in as much as it's completely real but also that it's not one's fault one didn't create it oneself and the digit isn't permanent that's the other important thing but so you know the the best thing is if you see someone's in you know miserable and so on isn't it not to shun them but just to say this now I can't possibly understand what's going on with you but is anything that would be useful let me know if you let alone I won't be offended if you want me to sit with you I'll happily do that just just let me know if you can and that's that's that's as kind and good of things you can say to someone but try not to be the doctor and says I'll cheer them up because I know you'll feel a failure for doing it they'll feel pressured to try and be cheerful just for your sake when in fact it's going against what the natural flow of their illness so you know it's it's a sensitivity thing really and I'm sure most people are good at it okay I'm gonna go to some questions because we've been getting a lot so again if we can try and keep them concise I do go on into I think everyone's enjoying it so as long as you're okay well be okay so a question from Georgina who says that she's been diagnosed with bipolar and she wants to know how are you cope with it initially and how to come to terms well initially initially probably not very well and as much as I knew so little about it and and I really resisted the idea of medication of any kind I had it in my mind that that that any medication was a zombification and that it was just it would destroy my personality that that that my illness was part of who I was and that if any medicine intervened they would be squad my personality of my mind my identity and I became so slightly obsessed with that and and also I think there was an arrogance that I believed I could kick it myself and that it was didn't have nonsense and that there was too you know too much it was too unscientific or - I don't know I resisted is the answer but but once you know once I really understood once once a wise doctor looked me in the eye and told me about how dangerous it was and and how likely he was I mean not 100% lightly but he this doctor said to me psychiatrist he said he said I think there's a 60% chance you won't live for the next two years if you don't do something about this and absolutely shocked I still exert give us a shiver and I remember it that she just looked me - clear blue eyes and told me and I said you said no you'll take your own life you you don't take her in life or you drink yourself in to overdose in some way that's that's the likelihood it's not overwhelmingly like but that's what I think is like from your illness and and I needed to be told that I needed to hear that sometimes it is helpful to get metrics and numbers that's it and that's a very good point down you're absolutely right and that really really did sort of pull me off the edges weren't and it allowed me to say yes you know let's let's investigate a cocktail because I think what you'll discover Georgina is that it's like alcohol you know how you can sit with someone and you both drink exactly the same we both have say three glasses of wine together and you might feel a bit sleepy remember but the person who's drunk exactly the same Amanda wine from the same bottle becomes aggressive or or loud and Ana nuisance they both have the same relatively simple chemical alcohol is relatively simple to a chemist as a substance but with wine it's got other things in it well how much more is it therefore the case that when a doctor says we're going to try on this drug that he's not going to have the same effect on you as it has on someone else and this is the problem that a lot of people lose a bit of faith when they first have the diagnosis because they think they'll be maybe a medical you know a pharmaceutical treatment that will work straight away but what happens is it can be a two or three years sometimes much longer period in which you juggle this you know cocktail of of our pharmaceutical you know interventions and maybe they won't work they don't work for everyone maybe they work straight away or maybe the side effects will depress you because some of them weight gain and you know that you know just as they help with your mind in one way they you know pull you down in another and you may you know sort of most people would say Georgie no and I think this is worth looking at is that don't turn your back on on on drugs that the doctors recommend dentin entirely but nor turn your back entirely on on talk therapy that most good psychotherapists and good psychiatrists would agree that a mixture of the two is better than one on its own if you could manage it and of course these things might be expensive if you can't get national health cognitive behavioral therapy say which is a kind of talk therapy or psychotherapy as well as your GP or referring you to a psychiatrist then you've just got a bully or GP and into showing you know how much you need it but also reach out I obviously say there's as president of the institution mind who are benefiting from your kind presence of this event I'm happy to say and and mind and and there are other churches of course you know of only two are happy to try and guide you as you as you get used to dealing and coping with your condition but best of luck I have a question I'm scared to answer who is it scared to ask more even more terrified to answer that's for sure but scared to ask us and know that it will invoke interesting debate from you it's a fantastic question but go on you'll have to be you'll have to be willing cuz the audience is asking that we do go over the 630 times okay as long as you are comfortable that knowing that this question will provoke you to answer which is how can philosophy see help improve on mental health goodness me well there's a big distinction between philosophy and a philosophy isn't there that there is philosophy which is speculation about the mind in the brain and reality and truth and the way things are so you know and and philosophy as a study is divided into different mansions different you know groups as it were different houses within the village of philosophy logic is an obvious one which is almost mathematical really but then there's ethics which is a perhaps the most popular because it's something we can all think about you know ethical quandaries and thought experiments about the right way to behave and questioning in moral philosophy whether happiness and goodness are connected whether virtue you know doing the right thing makes you happy or whether being happy makes you do the right thing and then there's how do we know things what is the basis of our understanding and how real is reality and and is it all like the matrix is you know is it all a show scenario in which we are computer-generated in some way in someone's screen and and and that the the theory and grounds of knowledge epistemology as they as they call it that's the study of philosophy and it's fascinating it's deeply rewarding really amazing but then there are philosophies and I would say that in terms of happiness and self-respect the one that most people are looking at at the moment is a very ancient one well I had a mystic one which is a late classic one late Greek one but classical Roman one which is called stoicism I assume that might be something that you you subscribe to yes I think so I mean people often used word stoical to mean phlegmatic and and and not emotional and you know you know I'm I'm battered by fate and so on a certain extent stoicism suggests that but it's a if you were to read Marcus Aurelius meditations that his meditations that he was a remarkable figure because he was the Emperor of Rome and you think most Roman Empress's be extraordinarily decadent ghastly figures like Tiberius and Nero and Ilya gobblers and people like that but he was a truly extraordinary man and he wrote these meditations and they're well worth looking at and there are apps some of them free which allow you to look at the different meditation every day and in that sense it's a bit like being a Jesuit readings and Ignatius I suppose they're little spiritual exercises mostly they teach you that the primary lesson of stoicism it's a bit naughty to try and reduce it to one pill that you can take but the primary lesson which has you know many ramifications is is learning not to worry about things over which you have no control and that's so obvious you might say well why bother to give that the name of philosophy and of course it's obvious but so many things that are obvious need a little bit of extra inspection if you like and it's surprising how much of our unhappiness does find roots in our attempting to change things over which we can never reasonably expect to have any power you know other people's behavior other people's views other people's things things that really just aren't for us to get churned up about if we're going to get churned up we should get churned up about how we feel about ourselves and what we've done how we've acted and how we've behaved and our effect on others because that we can control we really can and it's we're such a silly species because we around so yes stoicism is quite simple but it's a bit like saying Greek architecture is simple it doesn't take away its grace and its monumental importance and can be very powerful for our control of our mental health yes I think it can genuinely can that perfect segue into our third section so you're talking about self-control and you're talking about all the things that you know we can affect in our lives there you know keep us on the straight and narrow and you know concentrating on our positive forces and voices but I happen to know that you're also quite a fan of sins coming on in the sinful brain so the path the path to temptation the path to wrongdoing the path to well according to philosophy and theology hell so shall we shall we talk a little bit about the sinful brain can you take us through what's your favorite sin favorite well you say I love sins I mean of course I'm frightened of the moon man because I'm like all of us I'm so pray to them I think sins are destructive but they they they can harm the world but they really do harm the self more than anything else I think you know an obvious example is gluttony glutton is deeply pleasurable because food and drink the physical pleasures of this world are so great and there's never been more available you don't even have to be a Roman Emperor to to enjoy great sustenance and and beautiful food and wine and all the things that are on and and yet it doesn't really hurt anybody else if you're gluttonous and yet of course it does ultimately we'll come to that most of all it hurts oneself and glutton is an obvious example because you just get fat and diseased and sclerotic arteries then you keel over like or you explode like mr. creosote in Monty Python's meaning of life when you have that last wife a thin mint so everything that's true of the individual in sin is true of the human race as a species what I find interesting so we can be that fat person who is who explodes but as a race we are that fat person we are a greedy race and we have sucked almost all the juice out of the peach of a planet unto which we were born and we are in handing over a dried-out husk to our children and grandchildren at least there's a danger of it so as individuals it hurts us to be greedy to be lustful to be proud to be angry because it it does it eats into oneself it corrodes oneself to be like that but each one of those things as a species when we like that is ghastly too but the thing that that interested me about it is is that because I'm not religious or at least as part of not being a religious person in a sense of believing in a God or adhering to a particular religious doctrine or series of doctrines is it doesn't mean that one isn't aware of right and wrong and good and evil and over time people have thought about these things very hard obviously and and different people have come up with different views as to how to behave well and the current one in philosophy which is called consequentialism these days but used to be called utilitarianism which is to say you know you act such that you do the least harm to anyone around you and the best thing the greatest good for the greatest number the utilitarian philosophy that is that that you you you but hey you have as much freedom as you need that as and as long as your freedom doesn't impinge on the freedom of health and happiness of others as long as you don't cause suffering to others you can do what you like and and and so on and everything is based on the consequences of your action if the consequences of your action are then then there should be thought about then that's how we define them as bad and while I think that's true there's an a more ancient kind of philosophical view with the deontic view as its core which is best best known through a philosopher called can't but actually you don't need to be beautiful also it's Jiminy Cricket it's the voice in your head it's that strange impulse this obligation this feeling when you're falling asleep at night I was such an be better please let me be a better not so that you're more admired not it genuinely is a feeling I you know and it can it can be that you feel as a God watching you when I was you know when my grandfather died whom I adored and I I thought for a couple of years afterwards that although I didn't really believe in life after death I thought he was watching me so when I was alone doing something bad stealing masturbating whatever it might be she thought would that when you were 12 I imagined my grandfather was watching me and it made me shrivel up with with guilt and most of us would say yeah that's the problem with with the society the Victorian society of this patriarchy looking down on you this God with big side whiskers telling you how to behave and making us feel guilty and and that's the awfulness of the ebrake Christian tradition of God pointing at Adam Adam being ashamed and covering up his nakedness and and yet while I agree with all that there is a part of me that just genuinely feels there is such a thing as wickedness my wickedness my greed my selfishness my meanness and I would love not to have them and I and I you don't hear about people talking about them so I did a podcaster it's called the seven deadly sins just because these days we just we look in every direction except inside ourselves as to what's wrong with the world and I thought maybe maybe it's worth looking inwards to one's own wicked cavernous black dripping so it is quite interesting how all of the low-hanging fruit the thing that gives us an easier pleasure for the brain so you know we will reward spike for immediately quite often is the stuff that's actually bad for us mentally and physically long-term and the stuff is good for us physically and mentally long-term is the stuff you don't necessarily enjoy quite so much in the moment and there's there's a kind of cruelty to that reality and you can see why people gravitate towards sins even though they're not good for you because in the short term it leaks back to intelligence actually because it's a it's a it's a mistake of evolution if you like we made this extraordinary evolutionary leap that is sometimes called the you know the cognitive revolution where within a surprisingly short in recent time we developed language and we refined our tool-making skills as a result of language and and our social skills are banding together to such a sophisticated degree that we suddenly had a calorific intake which was far escs in excess of any other living thing that the mixture of language the ability therefore to plan to speak of the future to plant you know the Agricultural Revolution that came the home that that the taming of animals the cooperation with other human beings all this led to the ability not to Scrabble every second of the day to get one's calories to be alive as all animals other animals seem to do if you look at animals in the wild it's constant stress trying to eat enough and to avoid being eaten and and just to eat enough to be able to mate and pass on your genes and we because we developed this intelligence the thing we started talking about we were able to overcome those problems but unfortunately physically a hormonal our endocrine system a reward and Punishment system didn't didn't catch up with it so it still told us have more of that sugar because it thought that we were still in the jungle whereas a small piece of sugar could could keep one in calorific happiness for for a couple of days instead we gorged it all in you know in that half an hour and then an hour later more and our brain said yes more more more and so the very intelligence that has allowed us to rise if rise we have it has also short circuited or leapfrogged our physical evolution so that it means we are doomed to to be destructive to ourselves because we still have these impulses to to feed and to enrich us which quite nicely brings us back to you know the first the first part we were actually talking about intelligence and you know that's one of two you were familiar with the Flynn effect oh no so basically IQ just rising and rising and rising consistently but it's there's some sort of suggestion you know it's a be the end of end of IQ growing and you know there's a very interesting correlation potentially to just our gravitation towards sins and towards you know that you're saying yeah and all the others are just becoming destructive stopping us from fulfilling that exponential curve through intelligence yes I mean there's a part one also that recognizes that the greed the need to to improve to to to just to grow to that sort of stretching that that that is part of what makes us who we are and that rationally we should try and get rid of all this desire this need for for calories for riches for admiration for possessions that the idea that we could be simple some idealized medieval idea of like William Morrison at the height of the Industrial Revolution saw the ugliness and the poverty and the misery and the slavery and the pollution of it all and and sort of romanticized and idealized their made evil and we tend to do that too hunter-gatherers if any we could go back to not having this this awful desire to keep keep keep growing and getting and spending and and and yet I don't know maybe we will and and maybe this crisis of course I'm not confident or claiming anything any real belief in it but you know I'm sure we've all thought haven't we that when we do stumble out into the light and the all-clear whistle has been blown most of us would probably say let's let's get it right this time let's you know some obvious things let's make sure a health system is never ever as underfunded again let's let's help you know let's it's you know make sure that the status of our health workers is higher and their pay as iron Oh that I'm sure will say and will believe in they didn't let's hope it happens but I wonder if we want to address not in an old left/right way but in a in a different kind of way we want to address the way we organize our living and our working and if it coincides with things like artificial intelligence which you know before the crisis was still in an amazing growing phase that it's not just artificial intelligence it's the whole tsunami our that is made up of different forces different tides coming in nanotechnology brain machine interfaces by augmentation a quantum McConnel computing gene editing and genomics and artificial intelligence you know machine learning unsupervised machine learning all these different all coming together they are likely as people have found it seems very probable I like to disrupt to use that waffle with the way we work to such an extent that it's possible that like Finland will have to start paying people just basic income and not expect them to work because there won't be enough work for people to do because white-collar work is affected by AI we're used to blue-collar work being affected by automation by robotics in the car factories and so on but lawyers insurance all these kind of areas are more and more likely to be areas which has a role to play so all of that plus the coronavirus is a terrific motive and reason isn't it to rethink society to rethink the way we live and work and communicate unfortunately the people with the most passion and energy and zest are the greediest corporate people who want immediately to to piss in every corner to mark out their territory and and to make sure that nothing changes and that the money comes into their coffers the way it always has and that we're kept down you know I know I'm very lucky okay I'm not waste a but you know what I mean so some form of coming together of people who are not going to just wave the same old placards of political left and right but to find a new way which isn't too hippie and and silly and unrealistic but is twinned with science and spirituality if you want to call it that or at least a new way of thinking about human happiness and if they can all come together and then then maybe this crisis won't have been in vain but it's a big it's a big if I'm gonna go to some questions Stephen because they're coming in thick and fast and I want to make sure we abide by our rule of snappy answers and yes Marcus says when lockdown how do we keep self-control without distractions of inverted commas life hmm well and I I can't give you an answer and and anybody who says they have the answer is either a fool or a liar pretty sure of that because we're all different and for a philosopher it is well even they wouldn't dare say this is how you do it I firstly repeat what I said a bit earlier forgive yourself don't don't expect yourself to achieve and to mark how to you don't compare yourself to liars showing off on social media the perfection of their life and the jolliness of their families and the marvelous you know because everybody is different and it's perfectly okay to be grumpy for a whole day or a whole week and it's perfectly okay not to have Hoover do your carpet or you know dumb proper things with your washing and you know all of that and similarly with your work and your mind it you know you can be unshaved and you can you can slob around or you can decide one day I'm gonna make a list and some people who you know respond better to that I'm gonna say this I'm going to take this long to brush my teeth and shave and then I take this long to do laundry I'm going to cut out this or introduce that personally what I would I'm driven to distraction everyday by this kind of thing I mean not this is a charming thing at the end of the day but the number requests to join conferences of one kind of zip you know video conferences zooms and face times and skypes and whatever none of which achieve anything I mean I'm firmly convinced that writing and texting email and is it the best way of expressing who one is most of us have you know when it and it comes to its decision making by zoom its Jesus I just find it oh but that's maybe just me so there is no answer is the answer and don't feel that there should be one don't judge yourself because you haven't got an answer being okay be okay about it we have a fantastic question from Dale which is would you say there's a correlation between intelligence and atheism because the more educated mind will question in a logical scientific fashion oh no well no I these a good question and and obviously there have been some brilliant minds that have been very religious who come tonight and and and you know I would it's certainly true that most people the this part of our history who cosmologists and scientists if they do perhaps believe in in in the Divine Being it's certainly not the one that has been handed down from religion and very few intelligent people believe in the in the superstitious element of religion either the miracles or the the laws of eating or whatever I mean that there's some very intelligent Orthodox Jews but they will always tell you that they do it for reasons of self-discipline it's it's not because they really believe God is going to judge them because they've they've eaten seafood or pork it's more because they think it connects them to their ancestors and it also just gives them a structure and that's fine but certainly asking questions is important I would say there's correlation between intelligence and a repudiation of the evangelical wing of religion the desire to tell others what to believe the the pointing of the finger and the screaming of damnation and Hellfire the kind of American televangelism that is impossible to be intelligent and to to to be a part of that I would say okay I've got my penultimate question and I'm gonna save the last question right for the end to make sure people are listening so the penultimate question is do you think the thing that happened with calorific intake is now happening with intake of information okay there's just too much of it being consumed too quickly that's a really good point I wonder about that yes I think of them that just dog k9 in that film you know anyway whatever it was as a robotic dog going feed me feed me tell me tell me data data data I need input I need input yes I think there is you know there is a really good there's a really good point to be made there isn't there that information in and of itself for an individual human is not the end goal it's very hard to say when you draw the line I now know enough would be a peculiar thing for anyone to say but yeah I do wonder about that because on the one hand machines AI is all about data data is is it's petrol it's what drives it lives off it it thrives off the it's never been more available but for human beings information and the information society it is it certainly isn't you don't you don't get happier the more you know that that is a very credible way of saying you get unhappy in the more you know and that if if there could be a human being or a machine in a sort of Douglas Adams science fiction er a machine that knew everything would probably be utterly miserable the most miserable machine you've ever had because oh I've got in basically the same questions come up many many times I'm going to save that one for the end snappy one for you which i think is just funny and we'll see if you know your science experiments which is from Camila which says Steven would you eat one marshmallow now we'll wait for two later that is a great experiment isn't it I I would he one how I suspect but certainly when I was a child I would eat one now it's a famous experiment you can see it online these little children it's so so touching III think maybe it is a sign of getting older is that you you do you are more likely to have the - later on the other hand I'm the opposite with unpleasant things and I think that's an interesting thing I do the washing-up I do boring admin jobs incredibly quickly to get them out of the way so that's the sort of inverse thing isn't it it's whereas I know people who just can't get round to the unpleasant jobs I hate them so much I always say I work a lot because I'm lazy I and I want to get it out of the way so I don't have it anymore anyway that's good question okay I'm saving saving the recurring want the last before we do that I just want to wrap up so I want to obviously thank you so much for all your time and attention this evening there's hundreds more questions but we're definitely going to make sure that we make out for our NHS clappers promised well we'll be following up for our audience tomorrow with an email covering all the key takeaways from Stephen and another opportunity to donate to mind it's definitely possible that email might hit your promotions folder so please do look out for it market safe and just go from there now next week we did have Jay Shetty but he's had to reschedule for a few weeks time because he's had a burst water pipe in his house he's having to move which is not ideal in a pandemic but our guest list doesn't disappoint and we've got many amazing people so instead we've got author Ted speaker and global Grandmaster of memory Edie cook who's been on the Tim Ferriss show twice possibly because Tim forgot about it the first time around the like so obviously Stephen you have a stellar memory yourself as you said but you know I think there is arguably someone better and that is a grand Marc Emery you'll be here sharing three separate working all geared towards helping you learn how to improve your memory with practical real exercises you can put into action instantly the same time next week and just to finish up another little nudge that if you read or watch something you learn it once but when you share it you learn it twice cementing and building those new neural pathways we all love so much so please do go on social and share something that you learnt or enjoyed from today with the hashtag working in and will select someone at random and send them a free month supply of our smart supplement of which Steven is a customer and I saw a few messages before saying is Dan drinking gin that's just a water bottle we just use we reuse our our bottles as water bottles offers I'm not being drinking gin honestly we wish you all a lovely week ahead it's almost time to clap for the NHS now before we do that I said there will be one final question for Steven so if you can see us out with this one please Steven and that is it would be great to know how and what you are doing to keep well mentally and your daily practice during the lockdown so what better way to see us out tell us through your daily practice how you're handling it well again I'm very fortunate because I am in the countryside here in Norfolk and so I can go I get up usually at about how about 5:00 and I go for a walk about it's either seven miles of small six miles usually can sometimes this morning because it was starting to rain it was about four and a half miles and I listen to audiobooks and podcasts while I walk well sometimes I just take the thing out and at the moment birdsong is is astounding it's just incredible what's going on with the birds in certainly in little lanes of Norfolk and so I you know I I know how lucky I am to be able to take your country walking in remote little lanes where I unlikely to see another human being and all I'd chat to horses and the odd cow so that's that's really an important part so that by the time I get home back from the walk it's it's about six or seven or about four miles now and then you know I try to be slow about things which I used not to be so I clean my teeth very slowly then coffee I'm allowed I'm allowed to but I sometimes have three cups of coffee I mean it sounds very silly and then Oh so jariyah thank you yep okay it's a delivery but yeah yes sorry and otherwise it's it's there's nothing regular at all I was saying to you before we went live it's extraordinary I would never have guessed how in this period of seclusion time has gone much faster for me than it did in the normal days and I would have expected it to be the other way around that it would hang heavy and maybe it hangs heavy for some people watching and they wonder why it is it go so quickly for me and I can't really answer that but I'm enjoying things that I never thought I'd enjoy like housework and baking and says I'm a total cliche in that since I've made banana bread and sourdough and all of them I followed your lead on making banana bread for the first time but I would end I would end with the most important thing which is I don't have a system because there is no system and it's different every day and I wouldn't want to lay down a grid of behavior for anybody because it wouldn't work you'd tried indenting the cinema for me what's wrong with me oh he might think he might think was wrong with Steven and they'd both be you know they're both be you both be right to do it and that would be a mistake because there is no system there is none and and far from that being a frightening thing it means you are the captain of your soul the governor of your your destiny to misquote WB Henley so there's no there's no wrong way of going about it and each day is a new day that you can restart and recalibrate and you know you've lost nothing if you had a miserable day yesterday you've lost nothing by it because you you might have a better one today and and I wish I could say this is what you do and follow my advice but you know that sort of way of there's no handbook so but but but be cheered by that and I hope everybody you know is getting through this as cheerfully and as they can and and finding good things both with those they're sharing sharing their seclusion whether or if they're on their own finding good things about themselves yeah I mean that was a wonderful way to summarize it and and thank you so much and you know you say captain captain of our own so well let's leave with a big happy birthday to the amazing captains indeed a hundred a hundred today lot for the whole nation to be cheerful for absolutely well done everybody that's a love you can now go out and clap the NHS and all be grateful for the good fortune that we have in this country thank you so much for your time Steven pleasure thank you all the best bye bye-bye [Music]

Channel: Heights

Views: 78,253

Keywords: Stephen Fry, coronavirus, stephen fry interview, lockdown, trump, boris, masks, fry, Graham Norton Show Official, Graham Norton, Graham Norton full episode, stephen fry graham norton, covid 19, stephen fry greek mythology, stephen fry in america, big narstie stephen fry, the graham norton show, fry and laurie

Id: Dnekseu5lgk

Length: 80min 26sec (4826 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 30 2020