Chapter 1: What personal announcements does Bill make at the beginning?
Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, depending on where you are on the planet. This is ill-advised by Bill Nye. I am Bill Nye. And I'm going to take the opportunity to use this introduction to make an announcement. And the announcement is that I've retired from a few things. I've retired, don't panic, from Zoom. I don't care who you are, we're never going to meet on Zoom again.
I've also retired, obviously, from FaceTime and I've retired from lunch. Not all lunches, because there will be exceptions, I expect. But I've retired from ever talking about work whilst my mouth is full, basically. So I'm never going to eat and talk professionally ever again. And I don't really want to have lunch because it's like a soft bomb in the middle of your day. And then it's 3.45.
And what are you going to do now? And you've spoiled your dinner. So lunch is over as far as I'm concerned. But the big one is that I've retired from stress. It's just over. I've had enough of it throughout my life, like everybody, and it's time to call a halt to it. So I am formally retiring from stress. So if you're going to bring pain of any kind, forget about it.
because I am no longer prepared to be a part of it. So that's the big announcement. So thank you very much for listening. I don't normally hijack the podcast in order to talk about personal matters. What am I saying? But on this occasion, I think it's important that you know. Thank you for all your questions and comments. And let's have a question now.
Hello, Bill. This is Edith. My question is, how can you exit a party politely when you've just walked in and you realize you made a huge mistake in coming? Thank you.
Edith, I feel you, as the young say. And I think anyone over 32 is not actually allowed to use that expression. But I just did. So forgive me. But it's a very good question. And it's something that I've had to deal with on many occasions, which may not surprise you. I think the best thing to do is immediately ask someone... where the ladies room is, or if you prefer, where the bathroom is.
I don't even know if it's okay to say ladies anymore, because I always feel, I hear some other scoundrel man saying ladies, like they used to say in the 70s, I think, when people would say, I'm bringing my lady, like some sort of medieval prince, and they would dress in velvet and silk, which always made me, you can imagine, it was unsettling.
But you ask where the bathroom is immediately and then you just find the bathroom and see if there's a back exit. If there's not a back exit, just fake it for a while, do a circle and just go to the door and just hold your head up high. It's not your fault that the party doesn't work and just hit the street. And laugh all the way home. It's so exciting when you leave a social gathering, I find.
I always have to remind myself that there's always the door. A great friend of mine called Alan used to say, there's always the door. And it's a wonderful thing to be reminded of. So you have every right to go home. I went to a social gathering, which I had to attend recently. And the writer, Julian Barnes, was there. who I know to meet occasionally.
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Chapter 2: How can you escape a party politely if you realize it's a mistake to attend?
All of which was fictional, obviously, because we were all intensely concerned about our personal appearance. So I don't remember when I started shining my shoes, but I must have got to a certain age where it just became too daft to continue to have scuffed-looking shoes like I don't give a damn because it was so sort of embarrassingly obvious that you did.
I did actually say to a friend of mine once, stop impersonating the poor. It's bad manners. You know, it's vulgar because he had lots of money and stuff. And he drove a car which was actually an ashtray. And he wore rags most of the time. And I had to say to him, impersonating the poor is not a thing. You know, it's not something you should be involved in.
And he was well past the age of attempting the I don't give a damn. And he was in no way did he give any indication that he was sensitive to anything. So therefore, I'm with you, really. If I see one of my contemporaries walking along the street and they're still doing that thing, I cross the street, to be honest with you. So to conclude, never trust anyone who doesn't polish their shoes.
It's that simple. Because if they don't polish their shoes, they're up to something. Don't worry about it.
Hi Bill, Matt here from Lewis in East Sussex. Now, I share your points on too much coffee being a bad thing, but worse is calling it espresso, which I noticed you did in a recent episode. I'm really sorry. It may have just been a slip of the tongue, though, after one too many espressos, or if I'm being really pedantic, an Italian espressi.
Now, sorry for being a pedant about this, but it prompts my question, and it also relates to your banning of certain words and phrases. What are you most pedantic about? And conversely, what are the things are you aware that you have a mental block or a blind spot about? If it helps, you've prompted me to stop using the words amongst and whilst. Thanks, Bill.
Matt, thank you. Yeah, no, you're quite right. I was thinking about it. I was writing the word espresso the other day and I looked to see because somebody had brought it up in a text and I looked to see how they'd written it and they had written X-spresso. And I was about to write espresso, but I changed it to X-spresso just to be polite, you know.
But I know that X-spresso is wrong and it's good of you to point it out and I'm grateful for it. But I think expresso has entered the language. I don't know whether we're ever going to rid the language of it, but we will put it on the banned list. How about that? As for espresso, come on, Matt, give us a break. But that is a blind spot. You've identified it. Have I got other blind spots?
I don't think it's a blind spot. I think it's just righteous. But when people say bored of... it gets to me because I'm of that age. It's bored with, anyone would tell you that, but I think it's too late. It's now you see it written by, you know, quite grown up people. You know, it's bored of, but it just goes through me like a thing. It really, it makes me physically uncomfortable.
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