Hello, this is Everything Else, the FT Culture Podcast. I'm Gris. And I'm Al, the FT's food and drink editor.

And I'm one of the commissioning editors on the Arts Desk. This week we'll ask two experts from the

world of hip-hop what it takes to make it as a rapper in 2018.

And later, we'll hear from Thomas Page McBee, who I met earlier this week.

He's an American writer and journalist and the first trans man to fight a boxing match at Madison Square Gardens.

So, Gris, we've been away for, well, I was away, on a holiday in Wiltshire.

Was that lovely?

Yeah, I mean, it was Wilshire.

It was lovely, just, yeah.

It's trees and there was a lake, and it went as well as could be hoped for until I took

the recycling out at the end.

And I got stung by a wasp.

And then my hand is now swollen up, if you can see it.

And you had another piece of bad luck.

I did.

Quite a significant bad log.

On my wife's birthday, we got burgled, which is never happened to me before.

But it was they took every electrical item we had, apart from half of the baby monastery.

They didn't fancy that.

And they took the car.

Shit.

And it's a slightly spooky thing.

...