This article is taken from the October 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

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In my last column I lamented how talking can replace doing — and, in turn, how listening can replace talking and doing. Are podcasts the appropriate form of entertainment for a future of living in pods and eating bugs? Are we going to become ever more passive consumers of other people’s thoughts and memories?

Hoping to answer in the negative, I turned to Pretty Sure I Can Fly, in which Johnny Knoxville and the writer and comedian Elna Baker interview people who have gone to extremes of doing — ultramarathon runners, boxers, surfers, climbers and even a streaker.

Knoxville is an expert on extremes. He started in entertainment by “testing” self-defence equipment on film — peaking when he put on a bulletproof vest and shot himself. As the star of Jackass he was tossed by bulls, almost killed by an exploding rocket and knocked out by the boxer Eric “Butterbean” Esch.

It’s strange to hear him nattering away in the laid-back, cheerful style of a podcast host. He’s Johnny Knoxville! He should be bungee jumping off the top of his podcast studio from his microphone cord. Still, Baker and he are funny and natural hosts. “Are we going to do that pitter patter thing?” Knoxville asks at the beginning of a recent episode. “No pitter patter,” Baker says, refreshingly.

This episode was with the ultramarathon runner Courtney Dauwalter. As someone who had almost conked out doing a half-marathon a week before, I was interested to hear her perspective.

How does she drive herself forward? She uses mantras, we learn. “You’re fine, this is fine, everything is fine” is a prime example. I used mantras as well, except mine was “you’re a weak, pathetic little bitch”. Perhaps I should have used her positive approach.

Then again, if someone feels like emulating Ms Dauwalter, be aware that she pushes her body to such extremes of exertion that she can begin hallucinating. “I’m lucky because my hallucinations are always very friendly,” she said. I’d hate to be unlucky.

Another recent episode featured the legendarily tough, aggressive boxer Micky Ward. Ward is a favourite of Knoxville’s, who says he used to watch his fights before — his stunts? No, before he went out drinking. I’ve thought of trying boxing as well, but have been dissuaded as the victim of a neurological condition known as “cowardice”. Ward, who has taken more punches to the head than I have written sentences, seems like a sweetheart — humble and quick to laugh.

Baker made a rare misstep when she said that Mark Wahlberg had played him in a film (in 2010’s The Fighter) and said, “How cool is that!” It should have been more cool for Wahlberg than it was for Ward.

Toughness is to some extent innate. You can’t learn to be tough like Micky Ward. I don’t just say that because of his boxing, which he took up when he was seven. According to the man himself, he also suffered a life-threatening injury on a construction site when a piece of metal speared him up the backside. Knoxville is almost too horrified to speak, hearing this, and he’s a man who has looked death in the face so many times he could describe its nostril hairs.

Sadly, Ward has CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). A “good day” means waking up without a bad headache. The episode doesn’t dwell on this, understandably as Ward doesn’t seem to want to talk about it. But it would have been interesting to hear about the darker side of human physical extremes — even if most of us will never have to fear them.

Is this podcast interesting, or is it inspiring? The latter, I think. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not about to run an ultramarathon or box ten rounds. But you don’t have to mimic someone to be inspired by them. I don’t want to jog so far that I have hallucinations, but it might be interesting to have at least one. As for boxing, well — I hope I get a chance to try it out.

Hell, perhaps there’s some money in it. There are always going to be people who want to see critics get punched in the head.

If I want to listen to something that is guaranteed to put me in an appropriate mood for pugilism, I’ll go for Ed Balls and George Osborne’s Political Currency. This dull rip-off of Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell’s The Rest Is Politics is somehow dragging on, despite its hosts having all the charm of a bout of flatulence in a lift.

Apparently, people are listening but the kind of person who seeks out the political wisdom of Alastair Campbell or George Osborne should be studied. It’s like taking safety tips from the management of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

Can’t someone give Osborne some more jobs to keep him away from the microphone? The only way to amuse myself as I listened to a recent episode as Balls and Osborne droned their way through answers to listeners’ questions was to imagine the questions they chose not to answer. Those I would pay to hear.