How to be Human: Meeting Ruby Wax

“I'm on Medication,” says Illinois-born TV presenter and comedienne Ruby Wax OBE. “Ask me anything, I don't care!”

I plan to hold her to that.

It's Thursday, 17^th January and we're nestled in the history section of Waterstones on Deansgate. Ms Wax is introducing her new book, How to be Human: The Manual. She's written the guide with assistance from a neuroscientist and a monk (the latter of whom 'matches her sofa'), each offering their respective scientific and spiritual input. During the talk, Ms Wax tells us not only of how the book was put together- how her time with the monk led him to be picked as the face of the Lufthansa airline (and taught mindfulness on the planes), among other things- but describes her own challenges with mental health.

“We all have a higher brain and a reptile brain,” she explains. “You're smart, but you still want to screw the plumber. We're built to be in small tribes of 50-150 max. Whichever direction we walked in, that made us out to be bigots.” Ms Wax describes the differences in pigmentation, and from that we've developed to the stage of creating reality TV shows, in which we worship people with no talent.

I've written a lot on PIASOM about instincts, something Ms Wax details better than I could: your thoughts are computed 200milliseconds after your feelings. That's why you should trust your gut.

“Imagine your thoughts are manufactured by a queen bee in your brain. She has all these worker bees around her. Let's say the queen wants a cup of coffee. Some bees start to make an image of coffee, nasal bees make the smell, others do other jobs, but they all put together her desire for coffee.” This explanation, Ms Wax claims, has gone down well in the scientific community. “Neuroscientists are amazed!” she sarcastically claims.

The talk meanders on from one quirky analogy to another, featuring bizarre research findings (all her straight-A school friends are now 'all crack whores'), to British comedian Ken Dodd (who 'scared her out of her brain'), to compassion ('watch your thoughts, but don't get out the whip.') She advises us to fix ourselves before helping others, to stop us 'carrying a stick of dynamite.'

She touches on medication, but doesn't give away too much.

“My drug of choice is revenge,” Ms Wax claims. “You take my parking space, I'll rip your throat out.”

She describes her experience on BBC Genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are?, giving us a great impersonation of her Austrian mum, who 'used to do wild Indian impressions in front of Americans' and telling us of her 'insane' great aunts. All of this spurts out of her energetically, like a burst water main, before the Waterstones compare steps in to move us on to question time.

First she swiftly moves on from a question about the film Romance on the Orient Express,  in which she featured. (“Could we not discuss that? It was pretty shit.”) Before long though, she's telling of her favourite place ('in a kayak'), of receiving her Damehood in The Priory, of support group system Frazzled Cafe running meetings in M&S, and of her favourite interviewee, Philipino First Lady Imelda Marcos. Ms Wax describes her as 'the hardest to crack' and a 'star fucker' who 'sang love songs in her wedding dress.'

A young guy a few rows back from me asks, “Hi Ruby. Do you remember me?”

“Did we have sex?”

“I'm the guy in the Hawaiian shirt. You signed my book saying I was mad.”

There's a silent pause.

“I'm not stalking,” he says, perhaps unconvincingly, “so, please relax.”

“You look familiar,” Ms Wax replies, also somewhat unconvincingly. “Sorry if I was rude.”

“How do you keep your good looks? Is it the gym?”

“I think it's your eyesight.”

Another audience member asks, “Is curiosity innate?”

“Teachers can train kids to be curious,” Ms Wax suggests. “I practice paying attention. I'll focus. Everybody's interesting, but you have to practice."

After this we queue for the signing. Unfortunately I give my camera to the guy behind me instead of to the Waterstones rep, and the guy puts his finger in front of the lens when he takes the picture. Lesson learned: always let the assistant take the picture. They've taken hundreds. Here's the doctored image:

While she's signing, I ask her the immortal baboon vs badger question. Who would win in a fight?

“I would say a baboon,” Ruby says.

Well, she did say we could ask her anything.