The Undercover Intern

Award Winner

Paul Watkinson Episode 41

Guy gets some good news, but then something very bad happens.

Let me just take my helmet off, otherwise I’m muffled.

Welcome to the one-hundred-and-forty-first episode of The Undercover Intern podcast, coming to you live Damascus. I'm your host, Guy Snapdragon, and today is Monday the 20th of October 2025.

We are sponsored this week by John Smith’s Podcast Zoo and also by John Smith’s Podcast Farm. Please listen to, ‘The Runner’, a new podcast from John Smith which actually has nothing to do with running, but is mainly just two guys talking about what they watched on TV last night and sharing in-jokes that are inexplicable to 99% of listeners.

Our quote this week is from Robert Penn Warren. Open. ‘Tell me a story. / In this century, and moment, of mania, tell me a story. / Make it a story of great distances, and starlight. / The name of the story will be time, / But you must not speak its name. / Tell me a story of deep delight. Close.

You are listening to the winner of the 2025 The Interns’ Choice Award at the Internship Podcasting Awards. I’ll say that again, but louder. You are listening to the swear winner of the 2025 The Interns’ Choice Award at the swear Internship Podcasting Awards. I’ve done it! I am king of the world! Finally, my dreams have been realized. All of my efforts earlier this year have paid off, and I can tell you that this is a story of deep delight. This is my time.

I was obviously unable to attend the awards in person, held this year at the NEC in Birmingham, because of the arrest warrant, but now everybody knows that nobody understands interns like I do. I’ve revolutionized internships single-handedly, and there’s no need for false modesty or conciliation today. This is my moment. People might not want to see me win, but my record speaks for itself, and even my biggest enemies have to acknowledge my genius now. To the people who didn’t believe in me, including my family: swear you, and may you all die in pain, poverty and obscurity.

I’ve been given half a day off to celebrate with Ellsworth. My IQ is one of the highest – and you all know it! I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters. I have the best words. Nobody respects women more than I do. I’m a very stable genius. January sixth was a day of love. I need the kind of generals that Hitler had. Just stay calm; it will go away.

Ellsworth, come here. I could kiss you. You’re the only one who has stood by me all this time and look at what I have done! swear you Adolf Hitler, I am officially the best internship podcaster in the whole world! 

If you have arranged your life in such a way as to conceive yourself as a victim, you have lost your god-given gift, your art, as a way to heal, we do go to the familiar, if we have a stake in believing ourselves victimized, we pursue situations in which we can conceive of ourselves as victims, art’s possibilities are that for just an instant you feel whole, you feel part of things, there’s a wave that comes over you and you think, I’m home and nobody’s trying to hurt me, I have a place in the world, the spirit is what moves in us when we allow the act of imagination, without conceiving a goal, we are not pursuing a purpose which will benefit us, we have a blessed release from the sense of self, if you accept that you are free, then the organization of your stories should testify to the spirit expressing itself in works, it’s the work which generates and purifies faith, so when you’re not working your sense of self as separate will re-emerge, all writing is the same idea over and over again with very good examples, the reason you’re pulling for me is because I’m operating on faith, and don’t have an outline, you see my vulnerability and the tenuousness of my hold on the organizing principle, and you try to help me, that’s structure, enlisting the energy of the viewer, faith is generated by the willing submission, in all our imperfections, juxtaposed with an announcement that my identity is only fulfilled in my relationship to you, the reason for that is that we’re not really separate, all fearful people really want is someone to blame, I’m good in a room, I reckon I can have this ready for you in six weeks, two months should be no problem, now I have no intention of delivery in two months, I don’t care and neither do they, they have me to blame.