I'm officially a weirdo now

Well well well, here's a thing ...

I am the guest on the latest episode of Dan Schreiber's marvelous podcast We Can Be Weirdos! (listen here)

Why this this a big deal for me? It's because this podcast was the Number 1 podcast WORLDWIDE on Spotify recently.

Wow.

And guess what? I was on two other podcasts that achieved Number One status in the past - QI's No Such Thing As a Fish (also co-hosted by Dan) and Stephen J Dubner's Freakonomics.

How mad is that?

We Can Be Weirdos is a fantastic deep dive into the weird and wonderful world of human beliefs and comes off the back of Dan's excellent bestselling book - The Theory of Everything Else.

It's a hugely entertaining book that explores many 'batshit' theories and beliefs but never in an insulting or preachy way. Rather like Louis Theroux, Dan has the knack of always sounding interested and respectful while maintaining an almost childlike enthusiasm for other people's enthusiasms. Do get yourself a copy.

I've known Dan for 15 years or so and we worked together on both QI and Radio 4's The Museum of Curiosity. Over the years we've had many many conversations about cryptids, curious beliefs, conspiracy theories and so much more.

And back in 2013, we created a pilot for a podcast/radio show called 101 People to Meet before You or They Die which was a kind of precursor to Weirdos. I did a lot of the research, Dan and I bashed the script together and then he presented the show (he's good at that stuff). 

We recorded the pilot with explorer Charles Brewer Carias, a somewhat eccentric and controversial figure who has discovered many new species of insect, a South American breed of dog with 'two noses', and what he believes to be living rocks. At the time we spoke to him he was also convinced that he had discovered clues that would lead him to El Dorado - the fabled lost City of Gold.

We then took the show onstage with a live performance featuring Dr Jan Bondeson - who has written books on subjects as varied as extraordinary dogs, Victorian freakshows and instances of people being buried alive - and Marc Abrahams, creator of the Ig Nobel Prizes. We did the show at Conway Hall (home of the Ethical Society) in London. Other highlights of the show included a performance by the insanely tall magician Pete Heat and a guest appearance by Ig Nobel Prize winner Elena Bodnar, who invented a bra that can - in an emergency - be turned into two gas masks. Of course, back then we had no inkling of the Covid pandemic to come so I hope she sold a few! We also had New Scientist cartoonist Maria Boyle - better known as TwistedDoodles - in the audience creating live cartoons of the show.

The event went down very well with the audience but pressures of work meant that we never got the chance to take it further. But, a decade later, Dan has now done so and very successfully too. I am delighted for him.

 

To listen to the Weirdos podcast, click here. Apart from me, guests include Dan Aykroyd (yes, THAT Dan Aykroyd), Danny Robbins, Dr Irving Finkel, Lucy Cooke, Ross Noble, Prof Richard Wiseman, John Higgs, Dan Snow, Sara Pascoe, Richard Herring and many more great people.

Add it to your podcast playlists today!