"Couldn't handle it". It's a pun. Handle. You know, like a mug has a handle, it's... ah, suit yourselves. Thanks to Florian: he's got a lovely channel full of both calm narrated pottery videos, and gentle natural-sounds-only pottery videos!

Tom: Oh, it's like stretching taffy!
Florian's eyes: That's not what we usually compare it to but I appreciate why you went that direction.

I'm really thankful for the acknowledgement at 14:20. The competition between the juvenile part of my brain laughing, and the mature part being awestruck, was worrying me for a second.

It was great showing you how to make pots! May those mugs bring you many nice cups of tea.

I'd like to take a moment to appreciate not just the encouragement Florian offered Tom throughout the day, but most importantly the reassurances. Tom seems to be very resistant to receiving compliments on anything but excellent work. Even so, Florian kept reinforcing the idea that Tom was doing well for an absolute beginner. It was nice to watch.

(Edited for a spelling and sentence structure error that was bugging me.)

Tom Scott plus in a nushell:
Tom: "this is terrible. I'm terrible at this. I've ruined it. I'm the worst"
Expert: "It's not that bad, I mean, I have seen at least one person do it worse"

14:20
deep breaths
"I'm an adult. I'm an adult. I will not laugh at silly things. I'm an adult"

I appreciate the “we know how ridiculous this looks”

That part at the beginning where you cut the clay in half then stack the two halves on top of each other and do it repeatedly, that is the "Baker's map" in mathematics. It's important in chaos theory and ergodic theory, and it does exactly what Florian said it does, it homogenises the clay so it's "well-mixed". It's fascinating to see a practical application of some obscure mathematics!

I'm torn between yelling "just take the damn complement, you're comparing yourself, a complete beginner, to someone that does this for a living", and thinking "why can't I be this annoyed on my behalf when I can't take compliments?".

I enjoyed the video, and needed the mental reminder to be nicer to myself. Definitively a win win!

I knew that second mug was gonna flop. Know why? Because in learning something new, my experience has always been that the first attempt is better than I dared to hope and the second attempt is always the worst one. Noticing this pattern has helped so much in not feeling like a failure early on. Stick with something and it will get better.

14:16 "Yes, we know how ridiculous this looks". Tom Scott knows the Youtube community really well. ;)

That last mug - Tom has successfully mastered making a pottery version of those plastic "mugs" you get on top of Thermos flasks!

Honestly Tom, I think you're too hard on yourself. Considering you'd never done this before, that was pretty bloody good. Certainly better than I could've done.

Many minutes of smiling! The second pot is almost always worse because new students are thinking ahead instead of  setting themselves to the current task. Florian was so great as a guide too, I like how the pulling knuckle was explained.

"Like stretching taffy." Not where my mind was going, but I guess so.

I love that this channel is just Tom Scott learning assorted esoteric skills

Before the video: How can a pottery video be interesting?
It's a Tom Scott video so of course I watch it.
After the video: I want to build my own pottery studio!
That looks soooo relaxing and engaging at the same time.

Always appreciate a good pun in a video title.

To be perfectly honest, all three of those mugs look prefectly fine.

And being heavy isn't entirely a bad thing, it makes it harder to accidentally knock over.