Welcome to this podcast about the everyday effects that life science can have on people. I met Toby in the Oxfam shop down the road where we were both volunteering. He showed me a bunch of LadBaby videos and the rest was history.
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Timestamps
I’m considered the Steve Jobs of my house when it comes to IT… 00:35
Two hours after I was born I started to turn blue and the doctors looked at me and said “Yeah… That’s not right… 3:10
Some people have reacted incredibly badly, thinking Oh God, he’s gone through a lot; and then others have just said… 4:51
I’ve always had a passion for cooking so I found a Hospitality course in college… 7:37
Some people can be incredibly good at what they do to the point where they’ve got millions of subscribers… 8:45
But with CBD oil it helps for certain things like epilepsy, a friend of mine has. He’s potentially taking it and… 10:25
Transcript
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Intro
Arian Hi guys, how’s it going? Did you know the human brain uses less energy than a fridge light? Didn’t see that coming, did ya? ♪ tune
Varied Subjects
Arian Welcome to this podcast about the everyday effects that life science can have on people. I met Toby in the Oxfam shop down the road where we were both volunteering. He showed me a bunch of LadBaby videos and the rest was history. Toby, welcome to the podcast!
Toby Thank you Arian, it’s a pleasure to be here.
Arian Talk to me about your school and your A level subjects that you did.
Toby My A levels, I did business, IT and photography. When we were supposed to be revising and all of that, I just spent time just watching a film or on Facebook, basically doing the opposite of what we were supposed to be doing.
Arian And was there like, one of them that you actually enjoyed, one of the A level subjects?
Toby Well, to be honest I did photography cos my brother is a professional photographer, so I got sort of influence off of that. And my dad is incredibly good at running businesses, an that’s why the business studies came in; and to be honest I’m considered the Steve Jobs of my house when it comes to IT, so everyone comes to me for help basically.
Arian Did you want to take any of those subject as a career path, did you wanna study them after A levels or did you have any plans with them?
Toby Not really actually, I didn’t. I was just doing those cos I think they were the best that were out there that I could do.
Arian So how long did you spend actually choosing those subjects?
Toby I’d say, about a month cos we had to go from Year 11 to Year 12 knowing what our subjects wanted to be to get our places in the classes that we had.
Arian So a month is not that long really is it?
Toby No, but at the same time the subjects that were available, they just stood out for me.
Arian Yeah. I don’t know if anyone knows this, but actually when I chose my A levels I actually chose Politics A level for like a month or so, and then I decided, I just, the teacher was not very good, so I decided I absolutely hated it. And I just decided to do Chemistry instead, which says how much I didn’t like the Politics A level [laughter] Ok, so Toby has some very interesting stories. We’ll hear them in just a sec ♪ tune
A Start in Life
Arian Toby has a very interesting story that started only a few hours after he was born… Tell us what happened.
Toby How do I put this… Two hours after I was born I started to turn blue and the doctors looked at me and said “Yeah… That’s not right, we need to take a look at him”. And then after a few scans they found out that I had a hole in one of the ventricles in my heart. So two hours after I was born I had a 6-hour emergency surgery. So, great start in life!
Arian That is really intense. So what, did they fix the heart issue?
Toby They fixed… For the time, yes they fixed it. And then 3 years later when they were, when they were checking on it, I had a stroke on the table.
Arian Why did you get a stroke on the table?
Toby I think it was just pure… I’d say chance but that’s not right… Pure unluckiness.
Arian So just bad, just bad luck like…
Toby I’d say that, yeah.
Arian That was quite, that was a few years ago wasn’t it? How old are you actually? Maybe I should’ve asked that.
Toby I’m 23 so it happened about 20 years ago.
Arian Oh wow. That is a while ago. I guess it’s just… It’s very rare and I’m hoping it doesn’t really happen anymore. Hopefully.
Toby Yeah, well, what happened happened. Can’t really change that.
Arian We’ll hear more about Toby’s story, coming up next ♪ tune
People
Arian You always say you don’t want people feeling sorry for you, you just want them to be informed. How have people reacted to it in your daily life?
Toby Some people have reacted incredibly badly, thinking Oh God, he’s gone through a lot; and then others have just said You’re still here so I’m surprised by that. I just put it down as just Shit happens.
Arian [laughter]
Toby That’s pretty much it.
Arian Yeah. But have some people been really supportive and really understanding?
Toby People have been really understanding, yeah, considering what has happened otherwise, because of it.
Arian Yeah. Is there anything else that got affected from the stroke as a result of that?
Toby The stroke that I had was because of an air bubble that went through one of the ventricles in my heart, so that’s when the stroke came in. and because of that I have a right-handed weakness that is unfortunately affecting me still today.
Arian So have people noticed that or?
Toby Oh, it’s pretty obvious. It’s very obvious. The way I do stuff is… They definitely notice the difference in what they see as normal compared to what I have.
Arian Ok. What thing do you like doing in your spare time?
Toby If anything I just watch films, game and go out and have something to eat. Just have a drink and that’s pretty much it. Not much of a social life.
Arian I think most people would probably like, feel like they don’t do enough but the small things that you do are a big deal. Like, if someone asked me Oh, what are you into? I’d just freeze and I’d just be like Oh, I don’t know, I’m not into anything [laughter] But then, if I think about what I do in a day, it’s like Ok, I like cycling, I like walking or I like reading or you know, there are stuff that people do.
And like, from what you’ve shown me, I think like I’ve, you’ve given me some of your hobbies because you’ve shown me some new videos and things, and told me about stuff. And I didn’t know about that, like there’s a lot of movies and shows and games and things like that, that I just don’t know about, sometimes I feel like a total ignorant person really.
But from that I can tell that you definitely spend quite a lot of time on these things and you’re super into it. And also knowledgeable about it. Like you just come up with like, random fun facts, Did you know this?, Did you know that? And I’m like No, I didn’t. So you do spend a lot of time reading, watching stuff. So yeah, maybe you don’t realise that [laughter] ♪ tune
Places
Arian Did you have any job that you wanted to do or any ideal job that you thought you wanted to do when you were in school?
Toby I didn’t have the greatest of experiences with my A levels. It ended up causing me to leave my school, and looking round thinking What do I want to do? And I’ve always had a passion for cooking so I found a Hospitality course in college. Then it’s just gone from there. I’ve had job to job working in a golf & country club, a children’s getaway – a place called PGL or Parents Get Lost – it’s like a kids’ getaway
Arian Or right [laughter] Parents Get Lost
Toby Yeah.
Arian What do the kids do at Parents Get Lost?
Toby Well, I worked behind the bar and in the retail shop and kids were doing stuff like…
Arian Just running around? Was there like a climbing…
Toby Yeah, climbing, pretty much everything a small child wants to do. ♪ tune
Professionals
Arian So, tell me a bit about your, what was it, movie reviewer? Movie critic thing, you said you, at one point you were potentially interested in that.
Toby [laughter] There’s always one person that everyone just looks to for professional reviews. Like I use IGN, or International Gaming Network to look at video games; and a bloke called Jeremy Jahns to look at films. They find stuff just incredibly to the point basically about everything that you need to know.
Arian So you wanted to, you like… You just thought you might wanna do that as well, or just watch them doing it?
Toby Some people can be incredibly good at what they do to the point where they’ve got millions of subscribers, and it takes a lot of time to be able to get to that point. But as much as I would like to do that, it just seemed to, not to take too much time, but it would put a lot of pressure on me to get up to that level.
Arian Yeah. I don’t know how long it would take but… Even just editing the audio content for podcasts takes a bit of time, and then for videos even longer.
Toby Yeah.
Arian So yeah, there’s a lot of investment really that you need to put into it. So have you dropped that or you’re thinking
Toby I’ve dropped that.
Arian Maybe one day…
Toby I’ve dropped that.
Arian Yeah. Fair enough. I have another question for Toby, in the next segment. ♪ tune
Servicing Health
Arian So people sometimes have mixed feelings about the NHS whether it’s a treasure, a national treasure, and I was wondering if you thought there were any aspects of it that needed improvement or if you thought that it was good.
Toby National treasure it is heading towards, I’ll give it that. But in terms of my whole medical history they’ve always been able to provide the best service because of my past. But in terms of other, in terms of other parts, this whole thing with CBD oil, it needs a bit more… A little bit more…
Arian Research?
Toby Research, yeah. A little bit more research is a priority compared to other stuff.
Arian Yes. Yeah, well there’s always, there always needs to be constant research for everything actually but yeah, that is a new area isn’t it?
Toby But with CBD oil it helps for certain things like epilepsy, a friend of mine has. He’s potentially taking it and it’s potentially going to help him out. I know someone who’s got extreme anxiety and someone who’s got extreme depression and they’re both taking it and it’s really helping them out.
Arian That’s really good. I thought, is it already available on prescription from pharmacies?
Toby No…
Arian No?
Toby Not yet. It’s available at shops, yes, but it’s not the complete package as you would expect.
Arian Right, ok. But the bottom line is, the NHS is like, pretty decent.
Toby I’d say it’s pretty decent, yeah I’d say that.
Arian I agree.
Outro
Arian Thanks for joining me Toby, thank you for listening, and remember, the Moon is not a sphere. It’s an egg shape where the pointy end is facing away from us. Look it up. It’s terrifying! Byeeee ♪ tune