The Cover Podcaster

Guy risks losing another limb and becomes Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich.

Transcript

Welcome to the one-hundred-and-thirty-fourth episode of The Undercover Intern podcast, coming to you live from the centre of London. I'm your host, Guy Snapdragon, and today is Monday the 1st of September 2025.

We are sponsored this week by John Smith’s Podcast Zoo. 

OpenAI have just recommended right leg amputation, just below the buttock, in order to restore my left-right weight equilibriums and nip this falling-to-the-right disease in the bud once and for all. But one needs to know when to draw the line; when to stop the amputations. I don’t want to end up all torso and head. Also, what if they make the same mistake and remove my left leg instead? I wouldn’t put it past them. Ultimately it’s up to OpenAI but I hope that it ends here. I still have my right lung, my right testicle, my right nipple and my right arm. A lot of people have much less than this. Most importantly, I still have my whole voice. Quote. You want to place the characters in a situation most congenial to their discovery of their deepest nature – which is that the sense of themselves as separate is predicated on an utter misapprehension, and that they are all one thing. End quote. That’s Laura Kelly, my ex-therapist but I think it’s also something David Milch said in his memoir. 

The main problem with this is that, outside of school summer holidays, I am to be literally confined to – it’s not a cage as such – but it’s far less than a house. I am in this living zone 24/7, so am separate from the other podcasters in the zoo, in a very actual way. Yesterday marked the end of the crossover podcasting events that have taken place throughout the summer holidays, and so we’re no longer mixing and I’m facing eleven months of isolation apart from a couple of days to attend funerals. It’s for the best; you can never be too careful with infectious diseases amongst podcasters, and I’m something of an introvert and so time alone helps me to recharge. But I don’t think I’ll need 330-plus days to recharge. I’m going to be at least 20 metres or so away from any human for the next eleven months. The exception to that, of course is my Higher Power, John Smith. He and I get very close together at times, as part of my therapy.

I think I’ll ask my Higher Power why each podcaster needs to be quite so isolated, though I guess I’m no more isolated than is a tyre to the rest of a car. A front right tyre on its own is not close to being a car, in the same way that I on my own was not close to being a zoo. A front right tyre doesn’t spend its time wondering why it can’t hang out with the rear left tyre, or the steering wheel, or even non-circular parts of the car like the leather seating. No, the front right tyre is just grateful to be a part of something larger than itself. A front right tyre is essential for the car to fulfil its function. But a front-right tyre is also replaceable if it doesn’t keep its mouth shut and stop complaining all the time. I won’t ask my Higher Power anything, actually. I think I just need to trust the process. I can’t, per Step 3, make a decision to turn my will and life over to the care of John Smith but then question everything he does. That’s ridiculous. I can’t choose to be powerless but then keep trying to exert power. Focus on writing podcast content, Guy. That’s what you’re here for, you worthless piece of shit.

While they’re still in my memory, I want to introduce you to some of my fellow zoo-members. Remember that they are all one thing so although I’m going to introduce them individually, what I’m really describing is different aspects of a collective, a zoo of over 60 podcasters. The bars in our living quarters keep us separated, but visitors to the zoo get to see the collective.

Adam Buxton hosts The Adam Buxton Podcast, featuring insightful and humorous conversations with a variety of guests. James O'Brien hosts Full Disclosure with James O'Brien, where he conducts in-depth interviews with public figures. David Tennant hosts David Tennant Does a Podcast With..., featuring interviews with celebrities and industry peers. Rob Brydon hosts Brydon Ampersand in which he talks to his celebrity chums … Jeez, how many swear interviews do we need? How difficult is it just to have a conversation with someone, that’s no premise for a podcast. Come up with something at least slightly original for christ’s sake. But some of these podcasts are very popular, for some reason. Let’s move on. Deborah Frances-White hosts The Guilty Feminist, a podcast that combines humour with discussions on feminism and social justice. I’ve never listened to this, but it sounds a bit like The Undercover Intern podcast, though I do not trust women with double-barrelled names. Ed Gamble and James Acaster co-host Off Menu, a podcast where guests share their dream meals in a fictional restaurant. I’m not really into food but mine would be oysters with Bianca while in her prison cell, both of us are naked. Helen Zaltzman hosts The Allusionist, a podcast delving into the quirks and histories of language. That sounds a bit niche. Cariad Lloyd hosts Griefcast, discussing experiences of grief and loss with fellow comedians. I’d happily appear on this if you want me, to talk about Aunty Gwen. Kelechi Okafor hosts Say Your Mind, covering pop culture, politics, and social issues from a Black British perspective. I don’t think that’s aimed at me. Ed Miliband and Geoff Lloyd co-host Reasons to be Cheerful, a podcast exploring progressive ideas and policy solutions. Ed Milliband is a communist. Lance Armstrong hosts The Move, which is about how to run a successful doping program. They’re the podcasters that I’ve chatted with so far, and there are loads more.

There’s actually a bit of variety overall in the zoo, it’s not just famous white men talking to other famous white men. It’s mainly that, but take look at any car and you’ll see that around 65% of it is steel. Famous white men talking to other famous white men is the car-steel of podcasting. Then you’ll have your plastics and your rubber and what have you. But no car is just steel, just like John Smith’s Podcast Zoo isn’t just famous white men talking to other famous white men.

What all of these podcasters have in common, though, is that they owe John Smith. It may be money. It may be blood, as with Adam Buxton. It may be an apology. It may be a favour. It may be an explanation. Lance Armstrong owes John Smith three tonnes of Human Growth Hormone procured during the late 1990s. I owe John Smith everything.

Oh so this so this is Jad Abumrad. Well hi. This is Jim Gleick. Hi how are you? Fine, how are you? Pretty good pretty good. Rainbows rainbows. Okay so we’re gonna start today with author James Gleick. As I recall, you wanted to talk about Isaac Newton. That’s right. We did call him to talk about Isaac Newton but more specifically, colors. All right Isaac Newton - he’s 23 years old. 1665. And he’s - he’s home for the holidays - no, there’s no holiday. He’s home for the plague. There was actually a plague. They sent everybody home from school. In any case, he’s in his room – famously solving all these mysteries of the world. And one of the questions that he thinks about during this break is what are colors? Where do they come from? Like when I see the color red, is that red - is it inside my head or is it something that exists sort of out there in the world? Yes the light without or it’s the light within. Hm. So he pokes a knife into his eye. He what? He. What do you mean? Here’s what Newton wrote in his notebook: I took a bodekin - put it betwixt my eye and the bone as near to the backside of my eye as I could. Ugh. And pressing my eye with the end of it, there appeared several white and colored circles. Huh. Did that lead to him some conclusion about where the spots live? Whether they’re outside or inside? No. This didn’t get him very far. Cause seeing spots when you poke your eye doesn’t tell you much about what color is. But um. But what he did next did. And this one he’s a little more famous for.

He got himself a prism which is just a a bit of glass shaped like a pyramid. Wasn’t so easy for him to get his hands on a prism, but he did. Then he shut his blinds so the room was totally dark. But he poked a little hole in one of the blinds and then he waited. And the sun had to be at just the right angle. And he waited [clock ticking]. And when the sun got to just the right spot. A ray of light shot through the room, Newton immediately stuck his prism into the light and the light shattered and became a rainbow on the wall. Or in Newton’s own words. A colored image of the sun. Now that’s gorgeous isn’t it. Mm. A colored image of the sun. That’s Victoria Finley, she wrote a book about color and she says the thing to understand about this experiment is at the time, people believed that white light was given by god or given given by this amazing thing called nature. The light from the sun was sort of holy. Yeah. If there was anything that was pure it was white.So when the prism did the rainbow thing which people knew prisms did they just figured the colors are in there, in the glass. In other words that rainbow had nothing to do with the light itself. That was just the prism. Adding some kind of impurities to the light. Oh wow I hadn’t thought of the possibility that the prism is muddying the light. It’s polluting yeah that’s the light. Well how do you know that the prism isn’t generating these colors? Yeah. So he got a second prism. And this was the trick. While the first prism was still making that rainbow on the wall. He moved a few feet away [sound of footsteps] and he held up a second prism in the blue area to see what would happen to the blue light. Would the prism add more colors to the blue light? Or would it be transformed in some other way? And what he found was nothing happened, it remains blue. So he thought hm if the blue light isn’t getting muddied by the prism, then maybe the prism wasn’t muddying the white light to begin with. Maybe that rainbow of colors was actually coming from inside the white light. He inferred that the first prism is dividing light into its constituent parts. Which means that that white light we see around us is actually constituted of all of these colors. The colors were in the light, they are the light. He had his answer. Light is a physical thing in the physical world. You can tweak it. Test it. Study it. This was the beginning of everything we know about light today.

I’ve been your host, Johnny Cash. Just kidding, I’m Guy Snapdragon. My producer is Robert Barnes. May you use your time wisely, and may your use of wise be timely.