Josie Long interview
I met up with the kind and exuberant comedian Josie Long for an interview just before she went off to plunder charity shops for her London is Funny column. She suggested a pub in Holborn for the venue which turned out to be a BNP hangout with a distinct smell of dead rat. Next time I’ll choose.
The interview is up at Den of Geek, but here’s an extra added special bonus piece of conversation around my question about her atheism. I brought up the only other thing of note in Holborn: the Sceptics in the Pub meetings.
Josie: How are they? Are they great?
Me: It’s quite good; I’ve seen Robin Ince there, Jon Ronson, Ben Goldacre… It sometimes creates a church-like atmosphere in itself.
Josie: Yeah, ‘cos people are so… but you know what? It’s a way that people bond and that bonding is for good.
Me: You can tell that the bonding there is the only bonding some of the attendees get.
Josie: Aww, yeah, lonely dorks. People need ways to look after one another a bit and be kind to one another and anything that does that can be good. More and more I find I have to organise community events. Where I live there’s a resident’s group and they have meetings and it’s so lovely and I wish there was more things like that in cities ‘cos in villages you have your village mayor, and when you have kids you have your school fête so it’s more for people who don’t fit into established community categories; something to bring them together.
And here’s a bonus piece of poor quality audio, straight from the dictaphone, of me asking a question which a friend suggested.
[podcast]http://www.cakeinmilk.com/podcasts/Josie%20Long.mp3[/podcast]