Artists

Guy might not be as recovered as previously thought.

Transcript

Welcome to the one-hundred-and-thirty-fifth 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 8th of September 2025.

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

Quote. In the midst of the catastrophe that we all know we’re in, the artist shatters his ego in front of the catastrophe and enters into it. The comedian holds on to it and we think it’s funny, and when the artist dissolves his ego into the catastrophe we think it’s art. End quote. That’s Leonard Cohen, from the 74th verse of Hallelujah, and I’d like us to consider the nature of the artist. Confronted with our profound challenges and crises, the artist chooses to immerse wholly into the collective reality of the situation. By shedding individualistic perspectives, the artist taps into a shared consciousness, reflecting the complexities and nuances of the human condition. This process fosters a deeper understanding of the world and transforms suffering and chaos into expressions of beauty and meaning. The nature of the artist, therefore, is characterized by a courageous vulnerability and a commitment to truth that transcends personal identity.

I don’t know if I’ve entirely dissolved my ego, and it’s conceited to self-describe as an artist. I bring you news today, however, that The Undercover Intern is Richard & Judy’s Podcast Club’s podcast of the month for September. This provides vindication for my devotion to internship reality, and frankly it’s about time that I was chosen, and I should have won in one of the 31-day months. There’s not 360 days in a year, so I’m being swear up the arse, in a sense. But anyway, I’ve won and on their website, Richard & Judy say, quote, Guy Snapdragon's preoccupation with time serves as a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of existence, the ineluctable progression towards entropy and dissolution. His struggle to comprehend the vagaries of temporality mirrors the ontological crisis at the core of the human condition. End quote.

I don’t really understand that, and I don’t give a swear about time. I must also address the 2023 scandal affecting Richard. For listeners outside of the UK, Richard Madeley hosted a TV show called This Morning until May 2023. This show is the TV equivalent of the magazines you find in a doctor’s waiting room, so mainly women’s self-help topics and interviews with daytime soap actors. Richard resigned after admitting to an extramarital affair with a younger male colleague who worked on the show. He had previously denied any allegations about it when questioned by his employer, colleagues, wife and the homophobic media. After keeping a low profile for a year or so, Richard became an island cast away in a show on Channel Five in the UK. Channel Five is the most depressing TV channel on the planet. I haven’t watched the show, but by literally all accounts Richard came across as self-pitying and narcissistic. There, I think I’ve addressed the scandal. That does not mean that Richard & Judy’s Podcast Club’s podcast of the month is not a great measure of artistic merit. 

It has also been said that the artist does not accept the structures of order as a given, or if accepting them as a given, at least projects into them an authority over us of which he disapproves. Looking at my own current situation as an inmate in John Smith’s Podcast Zoo, the structures of order are deeply engrained and I have to accept this as a given. 9am is feeding time, and other than that I am locked in my living quarters. Every other Sunday I get fresh hay and my bodily expulsions are removed. My life is very structured, and I accept this as part of my twelve steps. I have been allowed some time with Ellsworth, the AI cow, and she’s gentle company.

Right now though, every morning upon awakening, I experience a supreme pleasure: that of being Guy Snapdragon. It’s been a good six months or so since I’ve had that feeling. If I may make a small request for visitors to John Smith’s Podcast Zoo. The medication I’m on means I’m mainly asleep but if you do find me awake please could you avoid eye contact? I am so rich with podcasting talent that I must give myself away in a zoo, but I shouldn’t be looked at directly. Everything I need to express is in my art. It contains the truth and I will not explain any further for those of you unable to understand.

I don’t necessarily consider myself to be a podcaster, you know. It’s a form and I don’t believe in forms. I believe only in resonation. 

I’m interested in challenging societal norms about beauty and identity. Did you know that I always thought that I was ugly? My dad once said that I look like Peter Beardsley. None of you are going to know Peter Beardsley but his face looks like a half-empty cargo ship. Faces aren’t supposed to look like that. I’m angry with myself for caring about this comparison for so many decades. I don’t think I’m ugly now, but I no longer even define any of these words that I’m saying. God damn society’s language, it’s a prison. Love is all there is.

Like many, I’ve hidden my fear of the world with sunglasses and horse tranquilizers but this led to blackouts. I only met with Laura Kelly a few times but she really helped me to cope. In a way, it’s a pity that I can’t see her anymore, she was a bit weird with the David Milch stuff but was actually helping me to address my damaging patterns of behaviour. Laura doesn’t do podcast-zoo visits so I couldn’t see her now even if I wanted to, but I’m sure she could help me to thrive during the next eleven months of being alone in my living zone.

Well, it probably won’t be eleven months because my trial for murdering Auntie Gwen begins on 10 November. Say what you like about the criminal justice system in the UK. It’s swear pathetic. I’m an artist, not a murderer. If anything, when the 14-year old Guy Snapdragon poisoned Aunty Gwen with dog poo and mercury, he wasn’t even there. He was kind of hovering in the room and watching everything happen. Guy remembers that it was a really hot day – he doesn’t know the exact temperature because his thermometer was broken – but if he had to guess mid-20s easily. And Auntie Gwen always had her heating on because she was old. Guy felt disassociated and sweaty, yet powerful and calm, like somebody who’s just stood up in a sauna and has poured a whole tub of talcum powder over his body. I wasn’t there in 1995, but it sounds like one of those unavoidable things that needs to just be left alone. Is a trial really in the taxpayers’ interests? I’m certainly not happy that my tax payments are going towards the prosecution of a 14-year-old child who no longer exists.

What we’re looking at is the host of the most recent September’s Richard & Judy’s podcast of the month being on trial for a murder committed by literally a different person in 1995. Good luck finding a disinterested jury for that. It only takes one of them to be a fan. Mistrial anyone!?

After drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl in the late 1970s, a fellow vulnerable artist, Roman Polanski has gone on to make art with Harrison Ford, Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, Ewan McGregor, Adrien Brody, Christoph Waltz, Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan, and Sigourney Weaver who have all happily appeared in his films in the years since he’s admitted to sexual intercourse with a person who at the time of Polanski’s penetration was yet to develop pubic hair. Roman Polanski is a creative genius and an immigrant from a land with different morals. That’s not me talking. That’s Polanski’s parole officer at the time. Do you really think the rules apply to somebody like Polanski? There has to be a line somewhere, obviously, and I’m in no way defending Hitler or anything, and he wasn’t even a good painter. But for real artists like me or Roman Polanski there cannot be the same restrictions on expression as for non-artists. Artists do not accept the conventions of society; it is in our nature to rage against rules, especially ones precluding a middle-aged man artist from expressing himself by drugging and imposing anal sex upon a child.

Anyway, I can’t talk too much about my trial. Caravaggio. Phil Spector. Alec Baldwin. Guy Snapdragon. Am I listing murderers, or am I listing artists? Medusa. Be My Baby. 30 Rock. The Undercover Intern Podcast. Murder or art?

Sorry I’ve not had a chance to do a cover podcast in this episode – the one last week went really well, I think? Next week I’ll bring you some irreverent true crime murder porn from the girls at RedHanded. I’m not sure which episode but I’ll be using my voice saying words that the girls have themselves previously plagiarized from Wikipedia, and one of them will poke fun without any notion that there may be something misunderstood about the object of their derision. Then the other one will say something ignorant and deeply offensive about the worst sporting disaster in Britain. There’ll be tongues in cheek, as they’re permanently stuck there now so long as the money keeps pouring in and we’ll hide together behind sarcasm or irony or whatever excuse we can find to camouflage our hate. The stench of superiority will pervade the cover podcast, to the extent that you’ll wonder why the host doesn’t swear off and do something useful with their massive brains other than make fun of people who have been murdered. I’ll say something off-the-cuff and mean and then talk about how big my expensive new house in London is. There’ll be loads of us urging you to buy merchandise and vote for RedHanded to win Listeners' Choice Award at the British Podcast Awards, which isn’t even close to being the most prestigious podcast award in the world.

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