The Wooden Necklace: John Niven's Guide to Parenting

We Can Be Weirdos

Global

Philosophy, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality, Spirituality

4.9 • 736 Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

John Niven is a Scottish author and screenwriter known for his darkly comic, satirical novels. Born in Ayrshire in 1966, he studied English Literature at the University of Glasgow before spending a decade in the music industry. This experience inspired his breakout novel, Kill Your Friends (2008), a biting satire of the late-1990s music business. The book earned widespread acclaim for its brutal honesty and sharp wit, and was later adapted into a film for which Niven co-wrote the screenplay. His other works include The Amateurs, The Second Coming, Straight White Male, and O Brother, showcasing his distinctive blend of humour, cynicism, and moral insight. In addition to novels, Niven has written for film and journalism, often exploring themes of fame, failure, and modern hypocrisy. Known for his outspoken political views, Niven remains a provocative and influential voice in contemporary British literature and culture.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Vogue Williams and Jeremiah McNally from the My Therapist Ghosted Me podcast.
0:05.2	Join us as we share our hilarious misadventures along with those of our listeners and we try to give good advice.
0:12.1	This week we're supported by Canva. Make impactful presentations, documents, social posts, videos and more with ready-to-go templates and tons of visuals.
0:21.7	With your team or solo, create stunning visuals for everything.
0:25.2	Wow, any audience with Canva and Find My Therapist ghosted me on Global Player.
0:32.1	This is a Global Player original podcast.
0:36.6	Warning, the following podcast contains strong language, bizarre theories, unexplainable experiences,
0:43.3	and a psychoactive cat tail. It may not be suitable for younger weirdos.
0:49.6	If I can't get my foot out of the bed to touch the wood of the bed frame, I will sort of tap my forehead.
0:55.0	It's the sort of gesture to some God universal entity that I don't believe in.
1:01.0	Yeah.
1:02.0	That I've acknowledged the superstition is there.
1:05.0	Oh! Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of We Can Be Weirdos.
1:31.3	My name is Dan Schreiber and this is the show that believes that everyone out there, no matter how rational they think they are, definitely harbors a little bit of bat shit in them and that that is no bad thing. Today's episode, I'm trying
1:47.0	to eke out the bat shit from perhaps the toughest opponent we've had yet on We Can Be Weirdos,
1:53.2	someone who arrived to the recording saying that they'd had a look through the list and there were
1:57.5	zero ticks and that quite frankly he was worried that he was going to ruin the
2:01.2	show as a result of it but it is the job of the show to just go head on into a chat and see whether
2:07.5	or not we can find something so who is this ultimate rationalist it is of course the brilliant
2:12.6	author john niven john niven is an author he's a screenwriter he's a screenwriter. He's a playwright. He first became a massive
2:20.2	name in the world of books when he released Kill Your Friends, which he put out in 2008. And that was
2:26.2	a sort of story about the behind the scenes of what it was like to be in the music industry in the
	...

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