Shilbottle Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle

This programme contains some strong language.

I've managed to...it's really ebbing away.

I mean, you've made me, you've made me realise what slender

threads the whole thing is based on. And I...

Well, look, that's in the nature of weaving magic out of thin air...

-Well...

-and it's also in the nature of indulging

in some sort of elitist prank.

A charlatan, really.

Today's young people are exposed to pornographic imagery everywhere.

In advertising.

In fashion.

In music.

And above all, in pornography.

Where it is extremely prevalent.

The first naked woman I ever saw

was a centrefold from Knave magazine stuck to the inside

of the cupboard in my dad's flat

where he kept his non-perishable goods.

To this day, I still get an involuntary erection

whenever I see a packet of Paxo.

Try explaining that to your mother-in-law on Christmas Day.

It's a good joke, that, but it's not like something I would do, really.

It's like a cheeky boy...it's like a Lee Mack joke, innit?

Like the cheeky boy next door.

I like Lee Mack, but I can't do those cheeky-boy-next-door things.

I'm not the cheeky boy next door, am I?

I'm a...

"cultural bully from the Oxbridge mafia..."

"..who wants to appear

"morally superior but couldn't cut the mustard on a panel game."

Or so I infer from Lee Mack's autobiography.

Cultural bully, honestly.

And anyway, you don't cut mustard, you spread it.

Idiot.

Now, the thing I remember most...

What have I ever done to him? Nothing?

The thing I remember...no, really.

The thing I remember most about this Knave centrespread

is even though she was naked and in bed, she had her socks on.

Which when I was eight or nine years old seemed ridiculous to me,

to be in bed with socks on.

Of course, now that I'm 45, it seems entirely normal.

I mean, I've been married for ten years,

I can't remember the last time I took my socks off in bed.

Or my pants, to be honest.

In fact, my wife, she said,

"Do you have to wear the same pair

"of old dirty pants to bed every night?"

I said, "I don't have to, love, but it will just make more washing."

I know, that's not like me either, is it?

That's like a...

You're thinking "Oh, that's a bit sexist."

"He's made more washing for his wife, who obviously does all

"the washing in their relationship."

But that's not the case, that's your assumption.

My wife doesn't do all the washing in our relationship.

We have a little Filipino who comes in and does it.

And you know what?

He's very good.

Yes!

If Adolf Hitler came round today, you'd send a limousine anyway.

That's who you are.

That's your assumption.

Our slave is a man.

But a charlatan is at least something. It's not nothing, is it?

-He has skills.

-Exactly.

The skill of deception.

Yeah. You're persuading people that they've had a good time.

When, measurably, they haven't.

Yeah.

And they don't know that, even if you tell them.

In fact, you spend the act telling them

sometimes that they are not having a good time.

-Yeah.

-They do, they will not accept it.

No...I mean...well, I don't...

It's like being the devil.

Yeah. I don't want them to be operating

under any illusions, you know?

I don't think they are.

No. Well, they won't be after they've seen all this.

To try and spice things up, I've taken to wearing an old pair

of Primark jogging bottoms to bed.

And my wife...

..my wife told me that it makes me look like a Scottish heroin addict.

I tell you, any more knockbacks like this

and I'm giving up making the effort.

It's just another example of how pornography has unreasonably

raised people's expectations.

I've got nothing against pornography in of itself.

As long as there's no bad language involved

and any soft furnishings in shot are reasonably tasteful.

But I do hate the internet, because it has made access

to pornography far too easy for young people.

It's far too easy, I think, for young people to

stumble across pornography today.

Because it was hard to see pornography in the 1970s.

Today's young people, all they have to do is temporarily rouse

themselves from their skunk-induced zombie coma and go on the internet,

and go, "Err, is that what it looks like? Err...Boring!"

I think the internet has utterly disconnected today's young people

from their imagination, from their environment.

It wasn't like that, was it, when we were young.

You'd be out and about, you'd be in the fields,

playing with a stick and a hoop.

Climbing up trees, getting frogspawn out of nests.

Kids today, they're on the internet all the time,

looking at internet pornography and goading each other to self harm.

Illegally downloading hard-working stand-up comedians' live DVDs.

It's not just young people either, is it, doing that.

If you've done that at home,

if you've stolen one of my live DVDs off the internet, that is

the same as just stealing food out of my kids' mouths.

Not exactly that, but it is...

it does delay the point at which we've got enough money

to move into the catchment area of a selective grammar.

How are my kids supposed to grow up to be campaigners for social

justice without the benefit of educational privilege?

LIMITED APPLAUSE

Hear that?

That's the sound of the middle classes applauding their own guilt.

But they're not absolved.

Only God can forgive.

You're sounding like you've got yourself into a bit of a mess.

Well...I don't think so, I think...

-Well, no, you wouldn't.

-Well, no, I don't, I think...

That's consistent...

No, I don't, I think I want to see us

going backwards, technologically.

You sound like a mad old Pope, you sound like a Pope who's

threatened that somehow

the distribution of knowledge will corrupt.

You sound like a corrupt baron.

-I'm not against...

-Well, you sound like you're worried about people nicking your money.

Yeah, I am worried about them nicking my money. For my stuff, that I've made.

Yeah, but you're looking at it as a sort of a threat

that isn't necessarily manifest.

It works in two ways.

It's like people genuinely worrying about too many people

out there having ideas.

Well, you've made me sound like a reactionary figure

for simply wanting a communication tool destroyed.

And I don't think that's fair.

I hate the internet though, I hate everything about the internet.

I hate, I hate Alta Vista and Myspace.

I hate Jeeves, hate everything about it.

Most of all I hate Twitter, and I'll tell you why.

Because if I was to have a mental breakdown

and forget everything that ever happened to me, it wouldn't matter.

Because I could just go on Twitter

and put my name into the search engine

and I could gradually piece together everything that ever happened to me

because every 90 minutes one of you feels obliged to go online

and do a live update of exactly where I am and what I'm doing.

"8.30am. Can't believe it.

"I've just seen Stewart Lee taking his son to school on the 407 bus."

"He looked depressed."

"10am, can't believe it."

"I'm sitting next to Stewart Lee in the Clocktower Cafe, Highbury."

"He's eating a muffin. He looks fat."

"Can't believe it,

"I've just seen...11.30...I've just seen Stewart Lee

"walking around Dalston Junction eating a falafel in the street."

"He looked fat and depressed, and fat as well"

I hate Twitter, it's like a state surveillance agency

staffed by gullible volunteers.

It's a Stasi for the Angry Birds generation.

And that's you, you're the Angry Birds generation.

Imagine the shame of being the Angry Birds generation.

Means nothing.

I hate the internet, can't bear it.

Kids where I live,

they get sent home from school with a book about how to be safe online.

It's produced and given away free by Vodafone, presumably

paid for with all the money they save from massive tax avoidance.

It tells you how to avoid online predators

and how to avoid online paedophiles.

It doesn't tell kids how to avoid online marketing campaigns,

as obviously that would strike at the very heart

of the public-private partnership.

It's called Digital Parenting, this book, Digital Parenting.

Thank God for that.

If there's one thing I can't stand it's analogue parenting.

The tears, the mucus, the vomit.

The endless declarations of love and the duty of care.

The sheer fucking interminable human joy of it.

And the cover of Vodafone's Digital Parenting

is a picture of three lovely-looking little kids,

about eight years old, all sat in a line on a sofa,

where they're all absorbed by handheld devices and computers and

screens, and they're not interacting in any meaningful human way.

And all through Digital Parenting are all these disguised advertorials

about "edu-taining" software that you absolutely need to buy.

Vodafone's Digital Parenting.

It's like the fox's guide to chicken security.

I'd like to see... I'd like to see the internet,

I'd like to see them get it and blow it up with a big bomb.

The internet.

What about the dissemination of information against those

in power who operate in some way, dark or corrupt practice?

Well, if that's at the expense of the fact that you look on one

underwear site to try and find your wife a present,

and you spend the rest of the year being bombarded with pop-ups

for underwear retailers, I think it's a small price to pay.

Get rid of it all.

So you'd rather avoid the pain of being bombarded with a few

-underwear adverts...

-Yeah.

Than help bring down a corrupt government?

Well, it's not just me being bombarded with unwanted

underwear adverts, it's probably hundreds of people.

Well, that's very big of you, hundreds of people worldwide...

Collectively, it's a mass inconvenience.

-Seems a bit selfish.

-Well...

You...

It's very easy to use words

and logic to make someone look like they're selfish, simply

because they've expressed a position that could be interpreted as that.

-That's what Julian Assange says.

-Yeah, I bet.

But the internet has absolutely disconnected

today's young people from their imagination and their environment

and this isn't just some mad theory, I've got cast-iron proof of this.

Every year since 1987, I have driven up and down the A1,

through Northumberland on the way to the Edinburgh Festival.

And in Northumberland, on the A1, on the coast,

there's a little town called Shilbottle

S-H-I-L-B-O-T-T-L-E. Shilbottle.

And there are ten signs for Shilbottle on the A1

and in the 1980s, in the 1990s,

local young people had gone out and they'd used their creative

imagination, and they'd engaged with their environment

in an imaginative way, to, with a single flick of a marker pen,

to change every one of those ten Shilbottle signs

on the A1 so that they said Shitbottle.

Shitbottle - 4 miles.

Shitbottle - 3 miles.

Shitbottle - 2 miles.

Shitbottle - 1 mile.

You are now entering Shitbottle.

Welcome to Shitbottle.

Shitbottle, Northumberland.

Twinned with Bouteille De Merde, France.

And Scheisse Flasche, Germany.

You probably think it's immature, but I used to find it very funny.

I'd be driving up there, I'd drive passed the first Shitbottle sign, I'd think "That's funny".

The second Shitbottle sign, I'd be really laughing.

The third Shitbottle sign, I'd be in hysterics.

By the fourth Shitbottle sign, I was take it or leave it.

The fifth Shitbottle sign was irritating me.

The sixth Shitbottle sign, I was infuriated by the audacity

of the people continuing with this idea.

The seventh Shitbottle sign, I started to find it funny again.

The eighth Shitbottle sign, I was really laughing.

The ninth Shitbottle sign, I was in hysterics.

By the tenth Shitbottle sign, I used to have to

pull off the road into a lay-by, in case I crashed.

And I don't think it's too much of a stretch of the imagination

to say that making that journey, twice a year,

for the best part of 30 years

has been a massive influence on my approach to stand-up.

It's not though that I find Shitbottle in of itself

highly hilarious, it's more about what it tells us

about the human creative imagination.

I know it seems like a silly thing, changing Shilbottle to Shitbottle,

but that is the same human impulse as when Ice Age man picked up a rock

and saw, within that, the Venus of Willendorf, it could be carved out.

When Neolithic man looked at Salisbury Plain and could see the

monuments of Stonehenge and whatever could be risen up out of that.

Or when Michelangelo looked at the roof of the Sistine Chapel,

blank, but could imagine how it could become the dome of heaven.

And that is the same creative impulse.

I don't think it's a laughing matter,

I think it's the same creative impulse

that you see in that Shilbottle, Shitbottle.

And the tragic thing now is that as you do that drive now along the A1,

now that the internet has got its coils around our kids' minds,

and they're not out and about, they are not engaging with their

environment and none of those signs have been changed to say Shitbottle.

And a lot of people say to me, "Well, if you like Shilbottle

"so much, why don't you go and live there?"

Or better still, if you think Shilbottle's so brilliant,

why don't you move to Devon or Dorset, Stew?

Because in Devon there's an actual town called Crapstone,

and in Dorset, there's an actual town called Shitterton.

So if you think Shilbottle, Shitbottle's

so funny, why don't you go and live in Crapstone or Shitterton?

I'm not going to do that.

I don't find the idea of Crapstone or Shitterton inherently amusing.

There's no human imagination.

I'm not going to stand

and look at a sign for Crapstone or Shitt...I'm not a child.

I'm not inherently amused by a stupid name.

It's the bringing to bear of human creativity,

that's what's interesting to me.

The only circumstances under which I'd be prepared

to move to Crapstone, is if I could move to Crapstone

with the intention of setting up a poor quality quarrying business.

Hello?

Crapstone Crap Stone?

Your stone cottage has fallen down?

Well, what did you expect?

The clue's in the name.

Yeah, see you on Watchdog.

I'm not going to move to Shitterton.

I don't find Shitterton inherently amusing in of itself.

The only circumstances under which I'd be interested in moving

to Shitterton, is if I could move to Shitterton

with the sole intention of setting up a business

which supplied one ton units...

..and one ton units only, of manure.

Hello?

Shitterton Ton of Shit?

You want three tons of manure?

Well, we don't do that, I only sell it in,

I only sell it in units of one ton.

I know, but you can't have three, I will only let you have one.

Well, I'll know it's you.

Well, because A, I'll recognise your voice...

..and, secondly I'm not that busy that if someone, you know...

I don't care. It's my, it's my prerogative, that is

my prerogative, if I want to sell one ton units.

I don't care.

I will know they're your friends, it's not...

Runs at a loss, yes.

14 years now.

We've never turned a profit, no.

Well, only if you, if you think that's the purpose of it,

to turn a profit, then, yes, it is failing.

But maybe I don't see it as that.

For me, the point of it is to try

and say something interesting about the human creative imagination.

No, it isn't Arts Council-funded, that's exactly

the sort of stupid thing...

They're having all their bloody funding cut.

The thing about people, I tell you what makes me sick about people

like you, you know the price of everything, don't you,

and the value of nothing.

That is...

That's me as well, Crapstone Crap Stone, yeah.

Well, neither business is so busy that I can't...

That is people laughing, you can hear that, yeah.

Well, at night I'm a stand-up comedian.

Well, I'm doing all right,

but I have to put all the money into keeping the businesses going.

A black hole, really.

I'm recording a telly thing for the...

Well, it's about...this episode is about pornography and the human

imagination and the internet and all these sort of things.

Well, I haven't really got an end to it to be honest.

I had an idea for an end, but I've lost confidence in it.

I can tell you what it was going to be,

but it won't make sense to you because you weren't here.

It relates back to the opening line of this bit

and you weren't here for that, so you won't...

Well, all right, OK.

At the beginning, I come out and I say, "The first naked woman

"I ever saw was a centrefold in Knave magazine stuck to the inside of the

"cupboard door in my dad's flat where he kept his non-perishable goods."

"To this day I still get an involuntary erection

"whenever I see a packet of Paxo."

"Try explaining that to your mother-in-law on Christmas Day."

Like Lee Mack, it is, isn't it? But it's...I know...

I think he's very, I think he's very good, actually,

but I've been reading his autobiography,

and I think the style of it sort of got under my...

Well, I thought that bit was about me.

I don't know, I've never done anything to him,

I don't know why he would do that.

I know, you spread it, don't you? I don't know what...

Strange.

Then at the end, at the end, I was going to say,

the second naked woman I ever saw was on the back...

In 1978 in a pub in Devon, on the back of a board of Big D Snacks.

I know, only one bloke knows what that was.

Anyone under 45 doesn't remember that.

You don't?

OK, what it was, in the '70s, there was these snacks,

Big D, and the more snacks you ate off the board,

you could see a naked woman behind them.

I know, well, they have the internet now, young people.

They don't have to eat snacks to see a naked woman.

Yet, ironically, they're all obese.

Yeah, I know. Peculiar, isn't it?

Then I would say, "To this day I still get an involuntary

"erection whenever I see a bowl of peanuts.

"Try explaining that to your mother-in-law

"on Christmas Day."

I know, yeah, but then...I know, but there's a topper to it.

I then say, "Especially following hot on the heels

"of the Paxo incident".

Well, a bit, but not enough for it to be a closer.

You know?

Well, I don't know how I'm going to end this one.

To be honest, I was hoping that if I keep you on the line

long enough, something might come up.

I think the next big, the next reasonable sized laugh I get,

I'm going to slam down the phone, call for a blackout

and say that's the end.

No, that wasn't enough.

If I'd been quick off the mark, that would have done.

Well, that's the beauty of an improvisation

with a secondary silent partner.

I can just wait while I try to think of something.

It's good to stop talking sometimes.

MOURNFUL PIANO MUSIC

Yeah.

MOURNFUL MUSIC THROUGHOUT