Hello and welcome to Extra Bad Gays, your monthly podcast from the hosts of the Bad Gays podcast for all our loyal patron subscribers. Thank you so much for your support. He does help keep the show on the road. Sorry, I'm just knocking apart the studio here. My name's Hugh. You might not recognize me for my voice this time. I've got a bit of a, yeah, I'm sick. You already knew that, Ben. I did already know that. But I am a sick puppy at a moment.

Oh, no, and'm, I'm sick. You already knew that, Ben. I did already know that.

I am a sick puppy at a moment. Oh, no, and I'm making you record as a sick puppy freshly back from holiday, which is very mean of me, but we wanted to get this episode out to our subscribers before the end of the month. Yeah, I'm going to be making liberal use of the mute button, I think, the cough button on this episode.

I had a very, very beautiful time up in the Pyrenees.

I might. making a liberal use of the mute button, I think, the cough button in this episode. I had a very,

very beautiful time up in the Pyrenees. I went on a hiking holiday with my dad and my brothers,

but I went there already having something and then two days in got trapped on the top of a

2,000 meter mountain in an electrical storm with, I think it's the wettest I've been in my entire life.

I felt like I was wetter than if I'd been swimming.

It was really soaking into every crevice.

And we made a hurried escape back down to a mountain hut for the day.

But yeah, my cold has got a lot worse since then. So apologies to my voice. Anyway, I'm Q Lemmy and this is. My name is Ben Miller. You know who I am if you listen to the show. And thanks, of course, come from me as well. And yeah, it's nice to be back. I don't know. I still have that, you know, speaking as someone who completed a PhD, or as I refer to with the 27th grade,

I still have that feeling of September as being the actual beginning of the year. Like, we get into

late September and it feels like this is kind of the new year. This is the beginning. Weird. I can talk

about that with my analyst thinking about fall, a season of beginnings when everything withers and

dies and falls off the trees and the days become shorter and colder. But I'm also enjoying the beginning of fall.

I've had the chance to start seeing a lot of really exceptional performances recently,

which has been a nice, is always a nice treat of living in Berlin. This last Thursday heard a particularly

impactful performance of the Mahler's eighth symphony, which is kind of pure, uncut, 19th century

gigantism for giant orchestra, extra brass section, nine countem nine solo singers, two choruses and children's chorus.

The first movement is the text of the Pentecostal hymn and the second movement is the

final scene of Faust.

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