Not Sucking At Fatherhood, DIY & Halloween - Alfie Brown - #395

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, friends. Welcome back to the show. My guest today is Alfie Brown. He's a comedian and a podcaster. Adulting is hard. I'd hoped to discover that Alfie, a dad of three, would have worked out how to do it properly. But alas, no. It seems we are both condemned to flail around in the liminal purgatory of just about getting by for at least another few years. Today, expect to learn why being a comedian doesn't mean that you can perform effectively as a compere for a seven-year-old's birthday party, what it's like entering the world of fitness at 34, why my obsession with candles was cut short, at what point after becoming a father, your DIY skills improve, and much more. I think with these conversations, 50 percent of me wants the answers. I want to know how to do it, how to grow up and finally be able to put up shelves in the house. Then the other 50 percent of me is hoping not to find out because that justifies my own uselessness by someone else who I see as being further along the path than I am. Their incompetence justifies my incompetence. So yeah, this is kind of like a gateway drug to placating your own sense of insufficiency as an adult today. Enjoy. Something else that you should enjoy is the Modern Wisdom reading list. 100 books that you should read before you die. The most important, impactful and entertaining that I've ever found. I always get asked for book recommendations. So I just did a big, a big PDF that's got them all in with links and descriptions for why I like them. You can get your copy right now for free by going to chriswillex.com/books. That's chriswillex.com/books. Go there immediately. But now please give it up for Alfie Brown.
Alfie Brown, welcome to the show.

**Alfie Brown** (2:10)
Thanks so much for having me. It's a real pleasure to be here.

**Chris Williamson** (2:13)
Pleasure to have you. Last night was Halloween. How did you spend your Halloween?

**Alfie Brown** (2:20)
I always spend my Halloween with the lights off, with my knees tucked in between my arms, pretending that I'm not in, so that I don't have to... And that's the way I've been for about the last decade. So, to now have kids that want to have to be more involved, the tiny involvement that I used to have as a man with no children has now been just so greatly exaggerated and has galloped forth into this most unpleasant of areas. So, I just don't have the same patience faculty for other people's children as I do for mine. Quite understandably, from an evolutionary perspective, why would I care about them? But that means to tolerate them is such a drain on your resources as a human being. So, I was lucky. I've looked after my baby whilst my girlfriend took my two elder children out trick or treating. But the day before it was my son's birthday party. He had a seventh birthday party and it was a Halloween-themed thing. So we all played games and I got them all to do their scariest laughs. And I had to kind of compare the thing. There's no scarier gig than that, comparing a child's birthday party. Man, oh man, it was a nightmare.
That was the true Halloween experience.

**Chris Williamson** (3:55)
I love how you've been sort of labelled as, he's a performer. You're used to being on stage, aren't you? I mean, comedian, child's performance, I just go six and two, three. You must have all of, you've got the mics. I mean, you've got the skills. You can do this. People just presume that you're used to being on stage, so you can do kid stuff.

**Alfie Brown** (4:11)
I said this the other day on, but I'm happy to say it again. I have performed at Cardiff Jonglers, which is in an oceana with fish tanks that sort of blockade the hen parties in, so that they can't leave. I think I was on at about 11 o'clock at night, because the gig had been delayed, so all they'd had to do was drink, and that audience still had more of a kind of semblance of care about my ego than the seven-year-olds. And as soon as you display any sort of like, I'm a cool, fun guy who likes kids, the children will just start hitting you. Can you tell me about that? Can anybody, can a psychologist please report to me on how or why children, as soon as they, I'll just hit you now?
Three of them, because they like, because I did silly, scary, funny laughs. I'll hit him now.