Round Tables
It all started with the Round Tables. After 9/11 Karl invited a series of people all of whom in one way or another were experts in having conversations when the stakes were high. He hired La Maison Verte - a big house owned by friends Teddy and Nicola in South West France and brought an extraordinary group of people together for three days to share their approaches to talking to people when the stakes were high. Everyone said yes. Such were the times. And so a Lebanese peace negotiator, a primary school teacher, a psychologist, a cancer surgeon an army officer, an advertising executive and a few more besides, spoke and listened for three days.
Latitude Festival
In 2005 we were asked to be part of the very first Latitude Festival. Not having been part of a big festival before, Karl turned up with a suitcase on wheels, five small iPods and some recorded conversations. The Listening Booth had been built. Just. In the form of a shed. And on the first morning of a fairly chaotic weekend (it was after all the first Latitude!) no-one really found our hidden location in the woods at first. But then, slowly people started to appear through the tress and within a couple of hours they had outgrown the shed and were sitting on blankets, and stools in the woods, listening to some of the first series of conversations we’d recorded and edited. Towards the end of a day, a lean, tall, slightly worse for wear looking guy with black hair almost covering his face appeared. He asked if he could have a listen and even though we were packing up after our first day, of course we said yes. It turned out he was Arts Editor from the Observer and he gave us an amazing review. Never judge on appearances!