‘My Dad Wrote a Porno’: A chat with the creators

I sat in on the FuseFM interview with Jamie Morton, James Cooper and Alice Levine at Waterstones Deansgate. Being a big fan of their hit podcast ‘My Dad Wrote a Porno’ it was hard not to fangirl.

Amazed, happy, proud; some of the words that could describe how you feel after finding out your dad has become a published author, albeit, self-published.

Shocked, distraught, mortified; some of the words to describe when you find out it’s porn.

This is how Jamie Morton felt after receiving an email containing his Dad’s most deep and dark desires which, for some reason, occur solely within the pots and pans industry. Jamie had done something that I’m sure we’re all guilty of, he had ignored this message from his Dad for several weeks. Although we all face some kind of karma for doing this, such as a passive aggressive ‘Oh, so you are alive after all?’ next time you ring Mum up, what happened to Jamie was far worse. His Dad had self-published his erotic novella on Amazon.  The whole world could see inside the mind of Jamie’s Dad, under the ever-so-sexy pen name, Rocky Flintstone.

Instead of doing the sensible thing and moving to Nepal to live as a goat, Jamie had other plans. He decided to stock enough wine for 20 hen nights, sit down with his two best mates, and turn his Dad’s literature into what has become one of the most successful podcasts in the world. With over 100 days atop the UK podcast chart and thousands of dedicated fans over social media, there’s no wonder that the magic of My Dad Wrote a Porno has now been turned into a real life book.

I was lucky enough to catch up with the gang on the Manchester leg of their book tour for a quick chat alongside Ciaran Algar from FuseFM. BBC Radio 1 DJ and now Dad-porn expert, Alice Levine, told us that they ‘always wanted people to feel like the fourth friend around the table’ and it’s clear to see how they’ve accomplished that so easily with their podcast. All three of them were so easy to talk to and so genuinely funny, it’s hard to imagine that their podcast needs any editing at all.

Some of the best bits:

Ciaran: For anyone listening to this, the book is currently in the middle of the table, sort of like a book of worship.

Jamie: It has got a prayer look about it, actually.

James: We want to put one in every hotel room in the world. Like Gideon’s bible.

and

Ciaran: Lot’s of children, Jamie, aspire to follow in their father’s footsteps. Is that something you want?

Jamie: They do when they want to be fireman and when they’re five years old. You know what? I think I’m going to leave the erotica to Dad because I think he does a great job. I will just continue ripping the shit out of it.

Jamie, James and Alice all met at The University of Leeds through Leeds Student TV, showing that getting involved in student media can lead to the most amazing things.
Amazing things like talking about a porn-based podcast turned published novel with two students and recommending onion cider over Chilean Chardonnay to them.

If you want to cure the blues caused by the lack of #pornoday, listen to the amazing interview over on FuseFM and buy the fully annotated version of Belinda Blinked 1 which comes with a drinking game that’ll spice up any predinks.