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Concordia Winter 2022

Andrew Gold

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Andrew Gold (2002-2007) is a journalist and hosts the award-winning podcast On The Edge. He writes of his varied journey so far which has taken him from the daunting atmosphere of the MTS Exam Hall to interviewing famous personalities.

A n exorcist threatened to kill me; police tear-gassed and water-cannoned me; and Viggo Mortensen called me a virgin in front of millions on live TV. But I’ve never felt quite as stressed as I did during my A Levels. Fifteen years ago this May, I handed in my final assignment for MTS. Or so I thought. As I write this unexpected addendum, I’m now 33, and working as an author and podcaster – a mix of the traditional and avant-garde that typifies the Taylors’ ethos (they should pay me for marketing). I love my job – I get to interview famous people online in my pyjamas. But I must confess: I still have that dream where I’m about to enter the Exam Hall unprepared for a paper that will shape my future. I think it’s all the uncertainty at that age. With those dreaded exams out of the way, I went to Leeds University to study English Literature, a subject that did little to establish a clearer path. I had no idea what to do with my life, until an email changed everything. There was an unanticipated space on the Erasmus study-abroad year up for grabs … so Montpellier soon became my home. This was ironic, because French was my weakest A Level: a C (murky waters at Taylors’). In the luminous Côte d’Azur, I became obsessed with French. Evenings passed practising the difference between beaucoup (a lot) and beau cul (nice bottom), and I befriended locals too proud to speak English. I had been terrible – both academically and behaviourally – at school, but there I was,

chatting away with new friends over drinks in the language of Voltaire and David Ginola. I took a job at a publisher of art books in Bordeaux for several months, and later completed a six-month journalism course, finding night shift work at The Sun. At times, I – at 21 – was responsible for the tabloid’s entire website. I resisted the temptation to delete all the articles. That language itch returned. To my parents’ chagrin, I moved to Medellín in Colombia to work on coffee farms, before getting into freelance writing. My 20s played out across Colombia, Argentina, Brazil and Germany, and I now speak five languages. In Buenos Aires, I made and hosted documentaries (I was besotted with Louis Theroux). The films – which went to HBO – covered fringe topics, including infidelity and porn. My highlight was a trip to Córdoba to search with crazed believers for aliens ‘from the fifth dimension’. Soon, I stumbled across an exorcist – as you do – who was gaining prominence in Buenos Aires, and took the idea to the BBC. They said yes; then nothing happened. So, I went with a friend to film the priest for two months. I took part in the exorcisms, and exposed his inappropriate relations with young schizophrenic women. With no budget, we borrowed equipment and learned to edit (integral to my start in podcasting later). The BBC bought the film, which you can find on iPlayer as ‘Exorcism: The Battle for Young Minds’. Those were heady times. I was flown to Texas to