Jinkx Monsoon

Jinkx Monsoon – two-time ‘Drag Race’ winner, actress, singer and the new star of ‘Oh, Mary!’ – has a table booked in the Dream Restaurant this week. And she loves a British accent… Jinkx Monsoon stars as Mary Todd Lincoln in ‘Oh, Mary!’ in at the Trafalgar Theatre in London’s West End from 17 Aug-26 Sep. Get tickets from ohmaryplay.co.uk https://ohmaryplay.co.uk/ Follow Jinkx on Instagram @thejinkx https://www.instagram.com/thejinkx/, TikTok @jinkxmonsoonofficial https://www.tiktok.com/@jinkxmonsoonofficial and YouTube @jinkxmonsoon https://www.youtube.com/@jinkxmonsoonofficialofficial https://www.youtube.com/user/jinkxmonsoon Watch the full video episode on the Off Menu YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@offmenupodcast. Off Menu is now on YouTube: @offmenupodcast https://www.youtube.com/@offmenupodcast Follow Off Menu on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/offmenuofficial and TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@offmenuofficial: @offmenuofficial. And go to our website www.offmenupodcast.co.uk https://www.offmenupodcast.co.uk/ for a list of restaurants recommended on the show. Off Menu is a comedy podcast hosted by Ed Gamble and James Acaster. Produced, recorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive https://www.plosive.co.uk/. Video production by Ben Williams and Megan McCarthy for Plosive https://www.plosive.co.uk/. Artwork by Paul Gilbey https://www.instagram.com/pushgilbey/ (photography and design). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hello, it's Ed here from the Off Menu podcast that you are listening to right now. You'll know that I'm doing a brand new stand-up comedy show on tour next year, Fresh Hell, and we are delighted to announce that we are doing two more shows at the London Palladium, Friday the 19th of March, Saturday the 20th of March. You've got to come to these shows, they're going to be great, they're on sale now, edgamble.co.uk for ticket details.

• 0:25Speaker 01

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• 0:58Speaker 02

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• 1:46Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Off Menu podcast, taking the brisket of conversation, smoking it over the wood of humour. And I'm in a lovely old smoked bit of brisket chat, James.

• 1:55James Acaster?

  That's a gamble, my name is James Acaster. Together, we own a dream restaurant and every single week we invite in a guest, asking the favourite ever star, a main course, dessert, side dish and drink, not in that order. And this week, our guest is...

• 2:07Speaker 00

  Jinkx Monsoon! The wonderful Jinkx Monsoon, James, she's an absolute superstar.

• 2:12James Acaster?

  An icon.

• 2:13Speaker 00

  An icon, Drag Race winner two times over. A fantastic turn in Doctor Who recently.

• 2:19James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 2:20Speaker 00

  I've seen Jinx do a couple of shows in the past. Jinx has also just been in Over the Rainbow, so her Theatre Walthamstow.

• 2:27James Acaster?

  Julie Garner.

• 2:27Speaker 00

  Yes, and is about to be in Oh Mary on the West End.

• 2:33James Acaster?

  So she's already done it on Broadway.

• 2:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:36James Acaster?

  Is now bringing her performance to the West End, very exciting. Oh Mary is a fantastic show and it will be running from...

• 2:44Speaker 00

  17th of August to the 26th of September, James. I think I'll go and see Jinx in the show because I've seen Oh Mary already. We've both seen Oh Mary with Mason Alexander Park. It's wonderful, of course.

• 2:57James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  But I'd be excited to see Jinx's interpretation because I was sad to miss it on Broadway.

• 3:02James Acaster?

  The great thing about the show is that each Mary brings a different flavour to the whole thing. Maybe we can get into that.

• 3:07Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 3:07James Acaster?

  We love talking flavours on the Off Menu podcast, but listen, if Jinx chooses a secret ingredient which we have deemed to be unacceptable, we will be forced to kick her out of the dream restaurant. And this week, the secret ingredient is...

• 3:19Speaker 00

  Gin!

• 3:20James Acaster?

  Gin sounds a bit like Jinx, it's like the first bit of Jinx.

• 3:23Speaker 00

  It just sounds like it, it's a part of it.

• 3:25James Acaster?

  It's a part of it.

• 3:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:26James Acaster?

  So like, and I don't really like gin on its own.

• 3:33James Acaster?

  Well, of all, I do drink gin cocktails, to be fair to me, but like, I don't like it on its, like, of all the spirits.

• 3:40Speaker 00

  No one really wants to drink gin by itself, to be fair. I'll have a gin and soda now and again, which is pretty much just drinking, just watered down gin.

• 3:49James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  I don't mind that, but it's probably, you're probably right, out of all the spirits, it's the, it's the least solo.

• 3:55James Acaster?

  So I'll be saying gin on its own?

• 3:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think so.

• 3:58James Acaster?

  Just gin on its own?

• 3:59Speaker 00

  I mean, Jinx will be having a very bad day if she picks gin on its own.

• 4:02James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 4:03Speaker 00

  Especially as I'm pretty sure she doesn't drink.

• 4:06James Acaster?

  Right.

• 4:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:07James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll see what happens.

• 4:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:09James Acaster?

  It's the Off Menu podcast, it's unpredictable.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  I'm on tour next year, Ed Gamble, Fresh Hell. Go to edgamble.co.uk for tickets, UK tour and Ireland.

• 4:18James Acaster?

  And I'll be going to see it.

• 4:20Speaker 00

  This is the Off Menu menu of Jinkx Monsoon!

• 4:31Speaker 00

  Welcome, Jinx, to the dream restaurant!

• 4:33Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me.

• 4:35James Acaster?

  Welcome, Jinkx Monsoon, to the dream restaurant, but it's been you for some time!

• 4:38Speaker 04

  It's been years in the making. I think I started planning this meal like eight years ago, nine years ago, when we first talked about me coming on and then it just never happened and now look.

• 4:50Speaker 00

  It never happens. I mean, look, and...

• 4:51Speaker 04

  What would it have been then?

• 4:53Speaker 00

  It would have been probably in, in an office somewhere. We wouldn't have had our own studio, we would have been in your agent's office.

• 5:00James Acaster?

  Yeah, probably all echoey.

• 5:01Speaker 00

  I think we wanted to wait until we were truly ready to have you on, James.

• 5:04Speaker 04

  You know, patience is a wonderful thing.

• 5:06Speaker 00

  Also, you've been busy.

• 5:08Speaker 04

  I like being busy. I always say better busy than dead, but I eat my words constantly because one could lead to the other, you know?

• 5:21Speaker 00

  Eat My Words is a perfect name for this podcast.

• 5:23James Acaster?

  We should have called it that.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  We should have called it Eat My Words.

• 5:25Speaker 04

  It was right in front of me.

• 5:28Speaker 00

  Feels too late now.

• 5:30James Acaster?

  In those nine years since you talked to Ed, how much has your taste changed in food? How different do you think your menu is now to what it would have been?

• 5:38Speaker 04

  The biggest thing is I don't eat mammals anymore. And this is what I, because it's like, I say, I don't eat red meat and then they're like, so pork? And I'm like, no, I don't eat pork either. And, and then they're like, what about lamb? And I'm like, well, is, what is lamb?

• 5:55Speaker 00

  Lamb feels like red meat.

• 5:56Speaker 04

  Right? So now I just say I don't eat mammals, but that sounds weirder.

• 6:01Speaker 00

  I've never heard anyone say I don't eat mammals. It makes sense.

• 6:05Speaker 04

  So I eat poultry and fish, but it happened one day and do you want to know why I stopped?

• 6:11Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 6:12Speaker 04

  I was watching, I was doom scrolling while I was filming Doctor Who. My one episode, it took a month. And I was doom scrolling one day and saw a video of a pig that someone had as a pet that was exhibiting just as much intelligence as a dog. And I was like, well, that feels like a double standard. Like, why, we don't, you know, it's frowned upon eating dog, it's socially, you know, but why not pigs when pigs, like, you can form just as much of a relationship with them?

• 6:50Speaker 04

  And so I brought this thought to my makeup artist at the Bad Wolf Studios, not knowing she was a vegan. And so I'm just kind of pontificating on the intelligence of pigs. And then she goes, yeah, Jinx, pigs are very smart, aren't they? They're very smart. And cows are basically as smart as a, as a horse, Jinx. And, and you wouldn't eat them poor horses, would you? And then I'm like, you're right, I don't like all these double standards. I think I'm going to stop eating pork and beef. And then she goes, and those baby lambs. And I went, are you a vegan? And she goes, yes, I was very young.

• 7:34Speaker 04

  And I was like, well, okay, so lamb too, you know what, just all the, all of that. I think I'm going to stop eating it. And that's when I stopped eating it.

• 7:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:45Speaker 04

  And then she goes, chickens are quite sweet, Jinx. And I go, and let's, I just gave up a lot of food at once.

• 7:54Speaker 00

  You leave with half your makeup done, you're like, I've got to get out of here before chickens off the table.

• 7:59Speaker 04

  So that was about, I don't know, three or four years ago. So, and I've been thinking a lot, like, will I, if this is my last meal, do I say fuck it and eat whatever I want? But I don't know, principles are nothing if you throw them away, you know?

• 8:16Speaker 00

  And you don't need to think of this as your last meal, this is just your...

• 8:19Speaker 04

  Oh, I thought it was the last meal.

• 8:20Speaker 00

  But it's your dream, it's your dream meal, so you, you might want it as your last meal.

• 8:25Speaker 04

  I was preparing for like, my escape from death, bro. I had all these plans to make my death with the meals so that they thought I was dead.

• 8:34Speaker 00

  We can do it like that. We can do it like that, absolutely.

• 8:37Speaker 04

  Well, I can pivot, I can pivot.

• 8:39Speaker 00

  You can pivot.

• 8:40Speaker 04

  I think it's probably going to say, be the same meal.

• 8:44Speaker 00

  Was it Merlin the pig that you saw on Instagram?

• 8:47James Acaster?

  Was it Dance With Me Mummy?

• 8:48Speaker 04

  I don't remember the pig's name, but what the pig was doing was it didn't like the vacuum cleaner in the house, like, like a lot of dogs don't like. And so whenever the person would start vacuuming, the pig would run to the cord and pull it out of the wall. And I was like, that's, that, some pig.

• 9:11Speaker 04

  It was a Charlotte's Web moment. I was like, I would never eat that pig. And then I, and, and you know, then when you start pulling at that thread, the meat industry is as flawed as anything else. I think things seem to be slightly better here. America's meat industry is...

• 9:32Speaker 04

  Like so many things in America.

• 9:34Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 9:35James Acaster?

  Well, I'll tell you, one great thing that America has given us is Oh, Mary.

• 9:40Speaker 04

  Yes, that's true. That is true. And the people who created it, Cola Scola, and Sam Pinkleton and the whole Oh, Mary crew. And I've gotten to do it twice on Broadway, and now I'm gonna do it on the West End. Have you seen it?

• 9:55Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 9:56James Acaster?

  Fantastic.

• 9:56Speaker 04

  Who was your marrying?

• 9:57Speaker 00

  Mason Alexander Park.

• 9:59James Acaster?

  Yes.

• 9:59Speaker 04

  Incredible, man. I saw Mason. I've been friends for Mason for years, and nothing has ever made me so attracted to Mason as seeing him perform Mary. I was like hot for Mason afterward. It was like an artist crush, though. It's not like I now want to jump Mason. It was more so like, I can't wait until the stars align and we're on stage together or on screen together, because I got horny as an actress, if that makes sense.

• 10:32James Acaster?

  Yeah, sure.

• 10:33Speaker 00

  What about?

• 10:34Speaker 04

  Do you get horny as a comedian when you see really good comedy?

• 10:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, comedy crush, yeah, for sure, yeah.

• 10:41Speaker 04

  Not to limit what, what could turn you on.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm turning on my other arts, thank you very much. I can't limit myself to just comedy.

• 10:50James Acaster?

  Constantly.

• 10:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:51Speaker 04

  What is the sexiest art form?

• 10:52Speaker 00

  Good question. It's not clowning. I can tell you what it's not.

• 10:57Speaker 04

  Depends. I've seen some really hot clowns. There are some sexy clowns.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  James has pornography, by the way.

• 11:03Speaker 04

  Pornography. Could be.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  Is that art, though? Big question.

• 11:09James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, there's scripts and they learn the lines.

• 11:13James Acaster?

  Yeah, true. You wanna tell the?

• 11:14Speaker 04

  Jesus.

• 11:16James Acaster?

  You wanna tell an adult actor that they're not?

• 11:18Speaker 04

  Come on, Chalamet, you wanna?

• 11:20Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, sorry. I've just ruined my Oscar chances.

• 11:24James Acaster?

  Yeah, there you go.

• 11:25Speaker 00

  The pornography industry are gonna be up in arms.

• 11:28Speaker 04

  There goes your AVN, right there.

• 11:31James Acaster?

  Do all the Marys know each other?

• 11:33Speaker 04

  More or less. I mean, well, it's like this. I've met a lot of the other Marys. I've seen a lot of the other Marys. I haven't seen Catherine Tate yet. She will have finished by the time this is airing, but, but it's like this. I think of it as like the Maryverse, where to play that role, you have to get into such a specific head, my mind state, head state. And, and the show moves like a freight train without brakes. And it just puts you in this weird mental space.

• 12:14Speaker 04

  And then when you look into the eyes of another Mary, it's like, you've been there. You've seen it.

• 12:21Speaker 04

  And I have seen so many Marys at this point, and none of them have performed it quite the same as, like, no two Marys are the same. But if they have found the secret, which is just playing the truth of the situation and playing it like it's Shakespeare, then it works. It's a really, really well-written play. I think the fact that the casting has been so diverse is a testament to how well-written it is, because when it's structurally sound, you can move the pieces around and it still can really work as long as everyone agrees on what they're doing there that day, you know?

• 13:01Speaker 00

  We can't, can't wait to see you in it. I'm gonna.

• 13:04Speaker 04

  Me too.

• 13:04Speaker 00

  I mean, that is, that's the exciting thing about it, and they've worked out a way of doing this, that every time they replace the lead, I'm like, I've gotta go, I'm gonna go again now.

• 13:13Speaker 04

  They're really smart about who they cast, and knowing a lot of the team members, I just, I know how much they care about this. And it's such a testament to, when something starts small and remains authentic even as it grows, it stays the thing it always was, even if more money gets involved.

• 13:41James Acaster?

  Still a sparkling water is what we always start with.

• 13:44Speaker 04

  Still, I gotta say, I like, I like carbonated drinks, but my water should be still.

• 13:53Speaker 00

  Are you anti, anti the sparkling water? If, if someone brought you water?

• 13:57Speaker 04

  Just give me a goddamn Coca-Cola, you know what I mean? Like, why am I torturing myself with something that almost has a flavor?

• 14:05James Acaster?

  So just remind you of like nice, like soft drinks that like.

• 14:08Speaker 04

  I tried, I tried the flavored sparkling water during the pandemic. Our house was full of it, right?

• 14:19Speaker 04

  And I, and I tried to get into it, and then eventually I was just like, yeah, it reminded me of soda I actually liked.

• 14:26James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 14:27Speaker 00

  The flavored sparkling water is still, I've, I've tried so many times. I'm like, that'll be refreshing. It looks so refreshing. And then it's just, it's such a whisper of flavor.

• 14:35Speaker 04

  And then you feel more thirsty afterward. And someone once told me, the thing that got me fully done drinking them, is someone said, "Do you drink those because you think they're better for you than soda?" And I was like, well, they have to be, right? They just have to be. And he said, "Let me ask you, what do you think essence is?" I was like, "What do you mean?" And he goes, "They just say fruit essence on the, there." "Where do you think they're getting the essence? How do they, where are they like extracting the essence from? Explain to me where essence comes from." And I was like, I don't think they've really explained that either.

• 15:17Speaker 04

  "Where is the essence coming from? How do they get it? How are they harassing these fruits to get just the slightest?"

• 15:24Speaker 00

  Such a really dark thing to say as well, the essence of an apple.

• 15:28James Acaster?

  Was this another makeup artist?

• 15:30Speaker 04

  It's very vampiric, and I just stopped cold there.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  They somehow capture what it is to be an apple, and they put it in the water.

• 15:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, it sounds like dark magic.

• 15:45James Acaster?

  You can't trust that anymore. You've gotta go straight for like a Coca-Cola.

• 15:49Speaker 04

  Well, now I, I do like a, I like a calorie-free soda. Diet Dr. Pepper is my favorite.

• 15:57Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 15:58James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 15:58Speaker 04

  I don't drink anymore, but, so, since it's not my last meal, I won't be having vodka martinis like I planned. I thought it was like right before I was gonna die, so I was like, I'm going out drunk one last time. But I haven't drank in seven years, so, and I really don't miss it. But I do think, like, if I know I'm going out, I'm gonna get drunk one last time.

• 16:25James Acaster?

  Yeah, sure.

• 16:26Speaker 04

  Like, I don't wanna be conscious for that.

• 16:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:28James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:31James Acaster?

  If you want us, we can like have it, it's your last meal if you want it.

• 16:35Speaker 04

  No, no, I've got too much to do, let's skip it.

• 16:38James Acaster?

  What do you think about the amount of O's on Dr. Pepper Zero on the can?

• 16:42Speaker 00

  Oh, good point.

• 16:43James Acaster?

  It says zero, like that.

• 16:47Speaker 04

  I haven't seen that.

• 16:49James Acaster?

  Yes, well, it does.

• 16:50Speaker 04

  Is that a British thing?

• 16:51James Acaster?

  Yeah, I guess so. I just, I just think Dr. Pepper's crazy enough.

• 16:54Speaker 04

  Is there an ad that says, that sings it like you did?

• 16:57James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah, there should be.

• 16:59Speaker 00

  I've never seen a TV, TV ad for Dr. Pepper in the last like 10 years.

• 17:03James Acaster?

  No, it used to be, Dr. Pepper, Some Misunderstood.

• 17:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:06James Acaster?

  That was the, the OG tagline that I remember. And then it was, what's the worst that could happen?

• 17:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:12James Acaster?

  Do you remember that? Yeah, for a while it was Dr. Pepper, what's the worst that could happen? And someone would be like, oh, I might get Dr. Pepper. I'm not sure. What's the worst that could happen? And then they would get it, and it'd like come out the vending machine, and then it would like roll out, and then like trip someone up, and then fall over and die, and they're like.

• 17:27Speaker 04

  What was it refreshing? Did he still drink it and go?

• 17:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like trembling, all his bones are broken.

• 17:35James Acaster?

  Yeah, pretty dead.

• 17:36Speaker 04

  I, I like Dr. Pepper because it's less popular.

• 17:40James Acaster?

  Right.

• 17:41Speaker 04

  I'm a very, I'm a contrarian, but the, the thing is, I only drink one soda with dinner a day, and that's about it. And I've gotten on the prebiotic sodas that actually have flavor, and they're fewer calories.

• 17:56James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 17:56Speaker 04

  But.

• 17:57Speaker 00

  What's a prebiotic soda? These are the, basically, these things.

• 18:01Speaker 04

  It's the word they put on it to make you feel better about drinking it.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  And this'll start, we'll only get prebiotic sodas in the UK in 10 years' time, so we're like 10 years behind everything.

• 18:09Speaker 04

  I bet they get it from the same essence factory.

• 18:14James Acaster?

  By the time we get it here, someone would have already tortured about drinking it.

• 18:19James Acaster?

  Jinx, what do you think prebiotic even means?

• 18:21Speaker 00

  Yes, prebiotics are very intelligent, you know?

• 18:25Speaker 04

  I feel like now that we're talking about it, I feel like they're probably just mixing brine shrimp. Something, it's sea monkeys. There's always sea monkeys in there. Anyway.

• 18:35Speaker 00

  Would you drink a drink with sea monkeys in it if it was really delicious?

• 18:39Speaker 04

  I mean, I eat shrimp.

• 18:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:42James Acaster?

  I guess sea, sea monkeys aren't mammals.

• 18:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:45James Acaster?

  Even though they're called monkeys.

• 18:46Speaker 00

  No.

• 18:47Speaker 04

  They're little shrimp.

• 18:51James Acaster?

  Poplums or bread? Poplums or bread, Jinkx Monsoon? Poplums or bread?

• 18:54Speaker 04

  Bread, yeah, bread. I thought a lot about this.

• 18:57James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 18:58Speaker 04

  I would want the, the, the brown bread from the Cheesecake Factory. Have you ever been to America and?

• 19:04James Acaster?

  I've been to the Cheesecake Factory. I've been to the San Francisco one and one in LA.

• 19:08Speaker 00

  I've never been to the Cheesecake Factory. I've watched a lot of videos about the Cheesecake Factory, sure.

• 19:12Speaker 04

  There's no reason to go unless you just want to experience it. But when I was a broke college student, and they had like lunch specials where you could get an appetizer and a lunch salad and bottomless bread for a certain amount of money, it was like our bougie treat to ourselves. And when I won Drag Race the first time, I took my roommates to the Cheesecake Factory, and I said, "No spending limit."

• 19:39James Acaster?

  Love that.

• 19:40Speaker 04

  "Get whatever you want," because we were always so used to, you know, budgeting our meals and stuff at the fucking Cheesecake Factory. But the brown bread there, it's like, it's just like wheat brown bread with oats on top, and it just tastes better than every other bread.

• 19:58Speaker 04

  It's probably not even bread, it's probably cake.

• 20:02James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:03Speaker 00

  It's cheesecake, yeah.

• 20:05Speaker 04

  But it's very good with some, you know, room temperature butter, it can't be beat.

• 20:10Speaker 00

  I just love, when I watch the videos about Cheesecake Factory, the menu's so big.

• 20:15James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 20:15Speaker 00

  Like, there's so much food before you even get to the cheesecake, it's like.

• 20:18Speaker 04

  And then they have, my favorite, the Skinny Licious menu.

• 20:25Speaker 04

  First of all, anytime someone adds "licious" to something, I'm like, already wary of whatever's gonna happen.

• 20:33Speaker 00

  It's such a gross thing to add to anything, "licious."

• 20:38Speaker 04

  The Skinny Licious menu is basically just regular portion sizes instead of Cheesecake Factory.

• 20:45James Acaster?

  Normal restaurant.

• 20:46Speaker 04

  And so it's a lot of the same menu items, just like, um, prepared for one human.

• 20:55Speaker 00

  When you win Drag Race, is it true that they film everyone winning and then you only find out when it goes out?

• 21:00Speaker 04

  Yes, that only started being true the year before I won the first time. Because I think there had been a leak.

• 21:10Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 21:11Speaker 04

  And so then they started doing the three endings. And to this day, when I won the second time, I still, they filmed both endings and we didn't know until the day everyone else knew.

• 21:24James Acaster?

  So actually aired, did you have to watch it on TV to know if you'd won?

• 21:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I was in Australia at the time, so it was airing in America and I was gonna have to wait like fifteen hours to know. Or like, have it spoiled on the internet, so I just, as soon as it was available, I I had an alarm set, I had a friend show me the ending on FaceTime, so I could just watch it myself. Have my own reaction to it, and then I like got on my phone and everything was there and it was, you know, it was a crazy time, I was on tour in Australia and then I won Drag Race for a second time in America.

• 22:11Speaker 04

  Um, and I encapsulated it all by replicating, "We did it, Jill." That was how I celebrated. I replicated the Kamala phone call.

• 22:26Speaker 00

  It must be weird having to celebrate knowing that then the person next to you is gonna celebrate and you're like acting, winning it. Not having, I mean, I guess it is a genuine reaction, but.

• 22:37Speaker 04

  Well, we've all just kind of gotten used to it, and that season was all winners, the second time was all winners. So we all knew what we had signed up for and it was a very, like, as far as reality TV goes, that was one of the best, you know, possible, all the circumstances were great, you know, like, they really did do everything they could to treat it like an all winner season, and the fact that none of us got eliminated and we all got the same amount of episodes. It's like putting out the best demo reel you possibly can.

• 23:14James Acaster?

  When you're filming, you're, um, you know, winning it, are you thinking like, well, I better do, maybe this is also gonna be taken into account. If I don't do a good celebration here, maybe I don't win the series.

• 23:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, luckily, I can spin a yarn out of nothing, like, I, what did I end up saying? I said a lot of stuff, um, and then I ended it with, and I claimed this prize, and I claimed this victory in the name of Hecate, Queen of Witches. And I thought, that's at least a good soundbite to go out. It's a definitive sentence, but that's what came to me in the moment. But when you live true to yourself, you always, like, everything's always floating up at the top.

• 24:03James Acaster?

  So your dream starter, your menu proper now, is this gonna be from Cheesecake Factory as well?

• 24:07Speaker 04

  No, this is gonna be from Zidell.

• 24:11James Acaster?

  Oh, yeah.

• 24:11Speaker 04

  My favorite restaurant in London.

• 24:13James Acaster?

  Very nice.

• 24:14Speaker 04

  Um, I feel like it's a time capsule restaurant.

• 24:17James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 24:17Speaker 04

  Every time I go in there, I feel like Joan Crawford

• 24:24Speaker 04

  in Mommy Dearest, like, sitting down, like, and they even have steak tartare, so I can recreate the scene. But, um, I just really like French food and they do it pretty right. Um, and they have a carrot salad, and it's just like, julienne carrots or shaved carrots in a dressing with some parsley on top, and I can't get enough of it. And I've tried to replicate it at home, and I can't get it to taste quite right, and I can't get the carrots thin enough, I don't know what they're using back there to shave these carrots down, but it's so good.

• 25:03James Acaster?

  I've been to Zidell, I haven't had this carrot salad.

• 25:06Speaker 04

  And get it, it's like, it's a bullseye on the menu. And then I'd also want coconut shrimp, I just, I don't care how tacky it is, I really love coconut shrimp. Especially when they do it with real coconut, you know, with the sweet chili sauce.

• 25:23Speaker 00

  I don't think I've had coconut shrimp.

• 25:24James Acaster?

  I don't think I've had coconut shrimp.

• 25:27Speaker 00

  So it doesn't sound, it certainly doesn't sound tacky.

• 25:30Speaker 04

  Thai restaurants.

• 25:31Speaker 00

  Okay, yeah, so is it like deep fried, deep fried shrimp?

• 25:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, so it's shrimp dipped in batter, and then, and the batter has coconut shavings in it. And then you deep fry the shrimp, and, and it's usually served with sweet chili sauce and it's very good.

• 25:48Speaker 00

  I think we can let you have both of those things, because one of them's a little sort of fresh salad.

• 25:52James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 25:53Speaker 04

  And then you've got the coconut shrimp. Fried something, because, well, again, I thought this was gonna be my last meal, so.

• 26:00Speaker 00

  Again, we don't mind if it's your last meal.

• 26:02Speaker 04

  But the salad is enough on its own.

• 26:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:05Speaker 04

  That salad, a little of that Cheesecake Factory bread.

• 26:08Speaker 00

  You're having the shrimp, and we're bringing you all the, it's unlimited Cheesecake Factory bread, it's bottomless.

• 26:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:14James Acaster?

  Zidell is one of my favorite restaurants to sit in, and that room is so great.

• 26:18Speaker 04

  I've had, I think, all my favorite meals, uh, with all my favorite people there.

• 26:25Speaker 00

  Who are your favorite people?

• 26:27Speaker 04

  Um, don't make me list them.

• 26:30Speaker 00

  James likes it when people list their friends, top three favorite people.

• 26:34Speaker 04

  Um, well, my top three favorite people aren't even necessarily close friends, like, one of my favorite people alive right now is Alana Eubach, and I've just messaged her a couple of times on Instagram, and she's very sweet, but I think she's one of my favorite people alive. Catherine Hahn, her and I have never met, but she's one of my favorite people.

• 26:54James Acaster?

  Sure.

• 26:55Speaker 04

  And then one of my favorite, my favorite person that I've met is Corbin Blue. Um, he is, he and his wife Sasha, I always say, are two of the best humans I know. Um, so anyway, there you go.

• 27:07James Acaster?

  So I know Catherine Hahn out of those three, I don't know the other, who those other two people are.

• 27:12Speaker 04

  You know her personally?

• 27:13James Acaster?

  No, no, no.

• 27:13Speaker 04

  Text her and tell her.

• 27:16James Acaster?

  No, I'm also like you, just a fan of Catherine Hahn.

• 27:18Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 27:19James Acaster?

  But like, I don't, I've never heard of those other two people, so I'm old.

• 27:22Speaker 04

  You have undoubtedly seen in something, because she has been in just kind of a little bit of everything. And she is such a transformative actor that you never realize it's her. And like, she was in Meet the Fockers as the, the like nanny with the boobs. And she's, she was in Sister Act. As one of the teens, and she was in Clueless as one of the best friends.

• 27:50Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 27:51Speaker 04

  And, and, uh, she's in so much, and then she's also a recurring

• 28:01Speaker 04

  crack addicted sex worker on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

• 28:05Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 28:06Speaker 04

  And she has this great line where she goes, "Man, this jacket's tighter than dick skin."

• 28:12James Acaster?

  I do remember that, I do remember that line.

• 28:15Speaker 04

  That's Alana Eubach.

• 28:19Speaker 00

  So for this dream meal, do you want Alana Eubach to be there?

• 28:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, she has to be there, yeah, let's have those three.

• 28:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:25James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 28:25Speaker 04

  Corbin's, uh, Corbin's a gentleman, he'll pull the seat out for all three of us.

• 28:30James Acaster?

  Yeah, who's Corbin?

• 28:31Speaker 04

  Corbin Blue, um, is most popularly known from the High School Musical franchise.

• 28:38James Acaster?

  Okay.

• 28:38Speaker 04

  He had, um, big curly hair at the time, and then he has a cult following from a film he was in called Jump In about jump roping, and, um, but he's also a musical theater actor and he's been killing it in the Great Gatsby on the West End recently.

• 28:59James Acaster?

  Nice.

• 29:00Speaker 04

  But we met during Little Shop of Horrors together, he was my Seymour.

• 29:04Speaker 00

  See, this feels like a bit of a sort of West End post-show dinner already.

• 29:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, we're probably having it at the Groucho.

• 29:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:13Speaker 04

  Why not?

• 29:17Speaker 00

  You can pick one of the worst places in London, that's fine.

• 29:20Speaker 04

  Hey, well, you have to know people to get in.

• 29:24James Acaster?

  Real good people as well.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  I've only been to the Groucho once, and what made me laugh out loud is they have signs outside the toilets saying, don't, don't do drugs in the toilets. And like, the most pointless sign in the history of the world.

• 29:35James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 29:35Speaker 04

  I've been to the Groucho a handful of times, always had a lovely time, but the first time I ever went, there were just like, there was a celebrity on every floor, everyone from their West End shows was there. And everyone I was with was like, do you wanna go meet this person, do you wanna go try to meet this person? I was like, they're here chilling out, right? The only person I wanna walk up and introduce myself to is Noel Fielding, so if you see him, just let me know.

• 30:03James Acaster?

  I imagine you did.

• 30:03Speaker 04

  And I was like, I was adamant, right?

• 30:06James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 30:06Speaker 04

  Then I'm out on the smoking patio, because I smoked at the time, probably, I don't, I don't know what I was doing there, I must have been smoking. And, um, someone taps on my shoulder and asks for a lighter, and I turn and it's Noel Fielding. And we've been pals, I'm, I'm, I'm real good pals with his partner, Birdie.

• 30:28James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 30:28Speaker 04

  I haven't met the kids, but, but we've been pals for a while, I went to his parents' anniversary.

• 30:35Speaker 00

  Oh, that's so nice.

• 30:36Speaker 04

  And his, um, his brother Mike.

• 30:39Speaker 00

  I think, um, back in the day anyway, if you went to the Groucho and said Noel's name three times in the mirror, he would appear.

• 30:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, we had a funny night that night. We didn't stay there, we, we went roaming around.

• 30:51James Acaster?

  Fantastic.

• 30:55Speaker 00

  Off Menu Podcast is sponsored by Cozy, the home of possibilities, James.

• 31:00James Acaster?

  Ah, man, Ed, Cozy has everything you need to make your home feel like it has a plan. Do you know what I mean?

• 31:05Speaker 00

  I know what you mean. Cozy is a wonderful furniture company. It makes furnishing your whole home easy. Sofas, dining, storage, rugs, bedroom, even outdoor, all designed to make your space feel put together without the usual furniture stress. And James, we talk about dream meals on this podcast. But you know what? We very rarely talk about where we want to eat this dream meal.

• 31:25James Acaster?

  Sure, yeah, I like it when it does come up. It is very important. It changes the whole meal, the setting, the vibe. And Cozy's modular, customizable furniture for the whole home does just that.

• 31:36Speaker 00

  And the meal, James, doesn't necessarily end at dessert. We've often talked about wanting to take our maybe final course through to a comfy room. And I think this is where Cozy can really come in handy. Go and relax on the sofa, maybe even eat your meal at a lovely, beautiful, cozy table, linger a little bit, move through with coffees and dessert to a lovely couch. But I know what you're like, James, you're a mucky pup.

• 31:58James Acaster?

  I'm gonna spill stuff everywhere. Is that gonna ruin the Cozy furniture?

• 32:01Speaker 00

  No, don't worry about that, James, because it's highly washable, James. It's sauce, wine, sparkling water, dessert crumbs. You telling one of your big stories and sloshing a coffee everywhere? Don't worry, you can pop it in the wash.

• 32:13James Acaster?

  Oh, so you're saying Cozy makes every day at home feel like my best day?

• 32:16Speaker 00

  Absolutely, that's exactly what I'm saying. And with Cozy, your home can grow with you, adapting to new spaces, new styles and every era of your life, James. I think it's so hard, especially when you move somewhere new, to immediately make that place feel like yours, that it's been put together well. And that's where Cozy comes in.

• 32:33James Acaster?

  And because it's Cozy, the furniture isn't just good looking, but actually practical. Modular pieces, easy assembly, washable and interchangeable covers and free design consultations if you want help making the whole room work.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  And it's easy to order, ship and assemble and maintain, James. The only way is the Cozy way.

• 32:51James Acaster?

  Visit Cozy today, that's C-O-Z-E-Y dot com and make yourself at home.

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• 34:02Speaker 01

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• 34:43James Acaster?

  Your dream meal course, Jinx.

• 34:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I'm gonna keep the answer I prepared. It's a full lobster and a full crab.

• 34:54Speaker 00

  Fantastic.

• 34:55James Acaster?

  Oh, I feel kind of weird about that.

• 34:57Speaker 00

  Why? Because they're hanging out?

• 34:58James Acaster?

  They might be friends.

• 34:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, but then, then it's nice. They die together.

• 35:02Speaker 04

  I was thinking-

• 35:03Speaker 00

  Holding claws? Do you want them holding claws with each other?

• 35:05James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 35:05Speaker 04

  I was thinking of something more complex to make or something more like, but I really, I really just enjoy, for someone who loves animals, I do enjoy rituals. And there's something about the care and the effort at which you have to eat the lobster and the crab. And there's a, I don't know, but it's also kind of barbaric because you're ripping them apart.

• 35:32Speaker 00

  I know what you mean, the sort of effort you'd put into getting just a tiny bit of meat out of a tiny bit of claw.

• 35:41James Acaster?

  You're calling the emergency services?

• 35:43Speaker 04

  No, you said that in-

• 35:48Speaker 04

  Well, now you know my Siri's voice.

• 35:55Speaker 00

  Does your Siri have a South Asian accent?

• 35:57Speaker 04

  Yes. I enjoy that dialect a lot.

• 36:01Speaker 00

  Absolutely, that's fine, yeah.

• 36:02Speaker 04

  And I enjoy her talking to me.

• 36:06Speaker 04

  I have a very polite relationship with my Siri.

• 36:09James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 36:09Speaker 04

  One of my best friends pointed out that I don't say please a lot. So I started practicing saying please with Siri. And now I say please more in my, in my day to day. And so I always say please and thank you with Siri and she always says you're welcome. And it's very, it's a very polite relationship.

• 36:27Speaker 00

  It's a very healthy relationship.

• 36:28Speaker 04

  Changing the dialect can change everything. Because I hate that white bitch.

• 36:36Speaker 04

  Sorry.

• 36:38Speaker 04

  Know where that came? But you know, she's in everything, so it's like-

• 36:43Speaker 00

  Sure, yeah.

• 36:44James Acaster?

  Yeah, tired of her.

• 36:45Speaker 04

  It's like she gets enough airtime, that Siri.

• 36:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she knows it as well. She really acts like she knows, yeah.

• 36:51Speaker 04

  This was not against the actual voice actress I know.

• 36:54James Acaster?

  No, no, you're mean.

• 36:55Speaker 04

  I think we met her in an exposé, the voice of Siri. She seems like a normal lady.

• 37:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, she's a lady, yeah, she's a normal lady.

• 37:02James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah. Overexposure is a thing.

• 37:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:05Speaker 04

  So I want the, I want the lobster and the crab. I would settle for just like the claws and the tail. Like, I don't need the whole body. I'm not one of those people who sucks out the entrails or something.

• 37:19James Acaster?

  Sure.

• 37:19Speaker 04

  I just want the normal parts.

• 37:21James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 37:24James Acaster?

  What would you prefer, lobster or crab?

• 37:26Speaker 04

  I couldn't make up my mind, so that's why I need both. But the thing is, is I like crab cold. And I don't like lobster hot.

• 37:34James Acaster?

  How do you want the lobster cooked?

• 37:36Speaker 04

  Just steamed lobster. Yeah, just classic.

• 37:40James Acaster?

  Steamed lobby.

• 37:40Speaker 04

  And, you know, drawn butter. And then as an accompaniment, I want a pile of Tobiko caviar, black Tobiko caviar, just to spoon into my mouth between bites as a palate cleanser. Now, Tobiko caviar is, it's just the caviar they dust sushi or, yeah, in Nagiri. And I like caviar, but I don't like a lot of the most expensive caviar. I actually just like, there's a caviar that I get at a grocery store and it's black lump fish caviar.

• 38:17Speaker 04

  And it's not very good, but it like is such a strong caviar flavor that I take a tiny spoonful sometimes in the middle of the night when I'm having like salt cravings. That doesn't happen to you.

• 38:33James Acaster?

  I get up in the middle of the night and have a little tiny spoonful of caviar.

• 38:38Speaker 04

  Anyway, so I'd like a, I'd like a big pile of Tobiko to just kind of like eat with the, if I'm gonna get it from the sea, let's keep a theme going.

• 38:49Speaker 00

  And you can save some of the caviar in case you have any of your night cravings.

• 38:52Speaker 04

  Exactly, that's what'll go home with me after.

• 38:56Speaker 00

  I like the, my favorite is the stuff you get in Japanese restaurants, the really big guys, the orange guys.

• 39:02Speaker 04

  Oh, the salmon roe.

• 39:03Speaker 00

  The ikura, yeah. The, that, those are my favorite, the ones that really pop.

• 39:06Speaker 04

  The bo-, the bofa. I like the tiny ones that really pop.

• 39:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 39:11Speaker 04

  Because a lot of the expensive caviar, it's like smooth and it doesn't really-

• 39:16Speaker 00

  Creamy, isn't it?

• 39:17Speaker 04

  Pop, yeah. And I'm not, and the first time I ever had caviar, it was really expensive caviar, but it had the pop and it was black and I don't know what fish it came from. And I only ate it because my friend had asked me to get mustard or something. And because I have ADHD, I grabbed the first jar I saw and opened it and went, what's this? And he goes, did you just open that? And I said, yes. And he goes, well, now we have to eat it. And I was like, what did I do? And he goes, let's not talk about it, but we, I have like three days to now eat that caviar. And so I had my first ever caviar, like 2:00 AM with my friend. I was dating a mortician at the time.

• 40:04Speaker 04

  He told me all about my pronounced globial mastoids on my skull. And I said, is that how you're gonna identify me one day? Anyway, enough pillow talk.

• 40:17Speaker 04

  So I don't know what that caviar was. It was very expensive, but I don't know from what fish it came. So lately I've just been eating the cheapest stuff and calling it.

• 40:27Speaker 00

  I think that's great.

• 40:28Speaker 04

  Calling it enough.

• 40:28Speaker 00

  I love the idea of going between the lobster and the crab and then- Using something that is fishier as a palate cleanser.

• 40:34James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 40:35Speaker 00

  If anything, you're you're absolutely fishing up the palate.

• 40:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I go big or go home.

• 40:40Speaker 00

  Respect, respect.

• 40:42James Acaster?

  The lobs and the crab become the palate cleansers between.

• 40:47Speaker 04

  It's just a, it's a sampling of the sea. And also, I was raised poor. And what we did whenever we went out to restaurants, it was a family favorite to go to buffets. Every time we celebrated something, it was at a buffet. And the joke was always made, eat a lot because this is dinner for the next few days, you know? And I've always loved having options. And lots of times I like to order too much food with friends so that we can at least all try everything, you know?

• 41:27Speaker 04

  I like a little bite of everything. So I guess that's behind my fish mentality.

• 41:33James Acaster?

  Yeah. If this was your last meal, would you want your ex to be the mortician?

• 41:38Speaker 04

  Um, this was a part of the answer. I was going to say, if it was my last meal, call him up. Get the caviar, he'll know which caviar I'm talking about. And have him deliver it. Then what they didn't know is me and the mortician will have planned. That he will have dosed the caviar with something to make me appear dead. Like, oh no, she's having an allergic reaction. She's going into an allergic shock. She's dead. We can't give her the lethal injection. And then, you know, like.

• 42:14James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 42:14Speaker 04

  Ten hours later.

• 42:15James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 42:16Speaker 04

  And then I escaped. So that was part of my plan when I thought this was my last meal. I know he'd figure it out. If they did it in Romeo and Juliet, we can figure it out.

• 42:27James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 42:30Speaker 04

  Well, there were two people involved then and they didn't communicate.

• 42:35Speaker 00

  That's the main lesson to take from Romeo and Juliet, definitely.

• 42:38James Acaster?

  Yeah, that's what I think. Communication is key.

• 42:43Speaker 04

  It really, that's, if the families had sorted it out. Anyway, there you go. I cracked it.

• 42:51Speaker 00

  Finally, all Shakespeare's there to be solved.

• 42:53Speaker 04

  Stop performing it now.

• 42:57James Acaster?

  That's that why they keep doing Shakespeare, because they haven't cracked it yet.

• 42:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:00James Acaster?

  What's this about?

• 43:01Speaker 04

  What's going on here?

• 43:03Speaker 00

  People haven't studied it enough.

• 43:04Speaker 04

  Keep happening.

• 43:11James Acaster?

  Your dream side dish, Jinx.

• 43:14Speaker 04

  Um, dauphinoise potatoes.

• 43:17Speaker 00

  The king of potatoes.

• 43:18Speaker 04

  Truly.

• 43:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:19Speaker 04

  Well, the prince.

• 43:20Speaker 00

  The prince.

• 43:23Speaker 04

  I've always, my grandma used to make scalloped potatoes that came from a box.

• 43:28James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 43:29Speaker 04

  Where you just, they were dehydrated potatoes. And there was a powder that you mixed in with some milk, comported over the potatoes and baked them. And then when I learned there was a fancy version of this, scalloped potatoes were no good to me. Now it has to be dauphinoise.

• 43:47James Acaster?

  Is that what you, um, julienne your finger on?

• 43:49Speaker 00

  Yes. I was making, uh, dauphinoise potatoes using a mandolin to slice the potatoes thin. That's, you can still see the scar there.

• 43:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, I have one on this. Well, no, it's gone. It must have fully healed. I had a little dent in this thumb for a long time. Cause I was, I make ratatouille as my show off dish.

• 44:09Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 44:10Speaker 04

  And one time I was really trying to show off, so I wanted the perfection from the mandolin. But I was running behind on time and.

• 44:22Speaker 04

  And when it happened, I was so stunned. That I looked at it and then when the blood started coming, I was like, you, no.

• 44:33Speaker 00

  Not you.

• 44:33Speaker 04

  No, I cooked too much for this to be happening. And yet it did. Um, and then I was screaming so many, um, expletives that my flatmate at the time. He was like, when I heard the third one, I knew it wasn't normal cooking. Cause apparently.

• 44:53Speaker 00

  Normal.

• 44:54Speaker 04

  Two or three normal expletives, a normal amount of screaming while cooking. But this was an abnormal amount and he came running. We bandaged me up. Luckily, no blood got into the vegetables and I rinsed them anyway.

• 45:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. I think I got a lot of blood in the dauphinoise.

• 45:14Speaker 04

  Did you still eat them?

• 45:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, we, we cooked them, but.

• 45:17Speaker 04

  Well, yeah.

• 45:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, they were salty.

• 45:19Speaker 04

  You were eating raw blooded potatoes.

• 45:21Speaker 00

  I had to go to A and E, so.

• 45:23Speaker 04

  Oh no, did you have to get stitches?

• 45:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, I got eight stitches in my thumb.

• 45:27Speaker 04

  I didn't need stitches. I just had a little coin missing.

• 45:31Speaker 00

  Do you think, so your flatmate heard you swearing and then knew it was an accident in the kitchen?

• 45:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:37Speaker 00

  Gordon Ramsay is, if he ever cuts himself really badly, no one's ever gonna know. Cause he's always effing and duffing in there.

• 45:43Speaker 04

  But he, but there are two Gordon Ramsay's. There's the American Gordon Ramsay. Who has based himself off the devil.

• 45:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:53Speaker 04

  And the, I mean, like, that's the theme. He's the devil.

• 45:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:57Speaker 04

  Um, and then, then there's the British Gordon Ramsay and he's a much softer, gentler Gordon Ramsay.

• 46:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, he is. Yeah.

• 46:04Speaker 04

  Why do you get the nice daddy and we get drunk daddy?

• 46:08Speaker 00

  I mean, he's still, he's still like angry guy.

• 46:11Speaker 04

  You're his secret of the family.

• 46:16James Acaster?

  I think over here, I think it's cause over, he started over here and he was pretty, he wasn't nice.

• 46:21Speaker 04

  No.

• 46:22James Acaster?

  But then then America was like, great, come over here.

• 46:25Speaker 04

  If you watch, if you watch like side by side episodes of like these, these twin brothers.

• 46:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's really turned it up.

• 46:33Speaker 04

  I think, I mean, some of those kitchens.

• 46:36Speaker 00

  Yeah. I don't know why anyone's going to Hell's, like, they're restaurants, proper restaurants now, Hell's Kitchen, right? People go to Hell's Kitchen.

• 46:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:45Speaker 00

  But like, why would you go to that?

• 46:46Speaker 04

  But isn't that like his chain of restaurants?

• 46:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, it is. But like, the TV show is like loads of chefs fucking up the whole time.

• 46:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I would imagine the, oh. What is the idea there? That it's all the perfect meals he's salvaged from other people?

• 47:03Speaker 00

  Out of the bin. He's got it all out the bin. No, I just think like, it's got a, you know, a history of people fucking up. I don't wanna go to Hell's Kitchen.

• 47:10James Acaster?

  No, I'm not gonna go to any of his restaurants. I think his cooking's awful.

• 47:13Speaker 00

  No.

• 47:13James Acaster?

  And I think he's awful man.

• 47:15Speaker 00

  He's got so many Michelin stars. He's got so many astonishing restaurants. I wouldn't go to any of the chain things, sure, but he's got like.

• 47:21Speaker 04

  I don't have strong feelings about Gordon Ramsay. But I do know, because my ex is a Brit. That Jamie Oliver took away your turkey twists. This was a huge thing.

• 47:37James Acaster?

  This is the thing, right? Gordon Ramsay has been openly just a bully and horrible to everyone on his TV show. Oliver once tried to help people.

• 47:49James Acaster?

  But by saying, hey, maybe we don't eat these turkey twists anymore. And still to this day, it haunts him. Everyone's like, fuck you, Jamie Oliver. Taking our turkey twists away. But everyone still likes Gordon Ramsay for being abusive and horrible.

• 48:01Speaker 04

  He told me, my ex told me they had a walkout.

• 48:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:04Speaker 04

  A bunch of little children. They were like, get those back all turkey twists, Jamie Oliver. I saw it on the news.

• 48:13Speaker 00

  They were trying to give kids vegetables at school, because they weren't getting any vegetables anywhere else. And the parents would turn up and like push pizza through the railings to their kids. Like they were feeding their own kids at a zoo.

• 48:25James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 48:26Speaker 00

  And that's just the most British thing that's ever happened. It's like, we, if we wanna feed our kids shit all day, we will.

• 48:31James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 48:32Speaker 04

  That sounds really American to me. Shoving pizza through a wall of fence.

• 48:39Speaker 04

  I mean, I guess we had to learn it from somewhere.

• 48:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. All I remember, and I've probably said this on the podcast before and it's been cut out, I remember the TV show where Jamie Oliver was trying to make everyone eat healthier at school.

• 48:51Speaker 04

  Naked chef.

• 48:51Speaker 00

  And, no, no, not that one. He was not.

• 48:54Speaker 04

  Leading title.

• 48:55Speaker 00

  He was not allowed to be the naked chef in the school show. Very, he was very much a clothes chef. He, they interviewed a kid who was eating so badly that they did a shit out their mouths.

• 49:06Speaker 00

  That's all I remember. There was a kid who did a shit out their mouth.

• 49:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:11James Acaster?

  Not possible.

• 49:12Speaker 00

  It is. They did a shit out their mouth, Jinx.

• 49:15Speaker 04

  Like, is it, no.

• 49:18Speaker 04

  That is literally a South Park episode, first of all.

• 49:22James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:23Speaker 04

  And second of all.

• 49:24Speaker 00

  Of Jamie's school dinners.

• 49:25Speaker 04

  I just, um, and this was on television? This was on your television?

• 49:30James Acaster?

  Not the actual actor. So I'm guessing the kid just said to Jamie Oliver.

• 49:35Speaker 04

  I'll shit out my mouth.

• 49:46James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 49:46Speaker 04

  Um, dauphinoise potatoes, but, oh, I already had some salad.

• 49:50James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 49:51Speaker 04

  But I, I like a lot of vegetables, so I would also probably wanna beet salad.

• 49:55Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 49:56Speaker 04

  At this point too, with some goat cheese, some dried fruit and some nuts.

• 50:02Speaker 00

  We'll throw that in. We can, we can throw that in for sure. It feels like this, you could get a lot of this in Brazzary's Adele, right?

• 50:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, but it's not just me eating. Remember, it's me and Catherine and Alana and Corbin. So this is a dinner party now.

• 50:19Speaker 01

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• 50:52Speaker 02

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• 51:31James Acaster?

  Your dream drink now, it was to be loads of martinis.

• 51:33Speaker 04

  It was gonna be Grey Goose martinis with a lemon twist. But now my favorite thing to drink, I really like the alcohol free Kylie Minogue champagne.

• 51:47James Acaster?

  Wow, wow.

• 51:48Speaker 00

  First, first time that's gotta show up.

• 51:50James Acaster?

  That's exciting.

• 51:51Speaker 04

  And, but also you can't like chug that between bites. So then I'd also need a diet Dr. Pepper on, on ice.

• 52:00Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 52:01James Acaster?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 52:01Speaker 04

  And I need an American amount of ice, not your idea of what ice is in a drink. You all will, I have watched British people.

• 52:12James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 52:13Speaker 04

  Take a warm Pepsi Max off a shelf.

• 52:17James Acaster?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:18Speaker 04

  And just start drinking it. That is insane behavior to me, like a.

• 52:22James Acaster?

  Jamie Oliver took all our ice away. So we, we, we can't, we can't have it now.

• 52:29Speaker 04

  The room temperature soda thing doesn't make any sense to me. But someone told me once it's very European to drink it that way. And I'm like, does that make it taste better in your mind?

• 52:42Speaker 00

  I don't, I would, I would always go out of the fridge, I've got to say. But in a, in a pinch, I'd probably, I'd have a little.

• 52:47Speaker 04

  I really like the ice, I think, and I really prefer, I don't like straws. I really prefer, my dream drink is this big.

• 52:56Speaker 00

  Like a vase.

• 52:58James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 53:00Speaker 04

  We call them big gulps in America, but I love when I've really been eaten.

• 53:09Speaker 04

  A huge glass of ice cold soda that I just ask any of my friends. It freaks people out.

• 53:20Speaker 00

  We can get you a big gulp.

• 53:21James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:22Speaker 00

  We'll get you a big gulp, yeah.

• 53:23Speaker 04

  Wonderful, thank you.

• 53:25Speaker 00

  I don't like when, I'm in America and the ice is like crushed ice.

• 53:30Speaker 04

  Some people travel distances to go to the, the, the drive-throughs that do the crushed ice because they love it that much.

• 53:39James Acaster?

  I quite like the crushed ice.

• 53:40Speaker 00

  You like the crushed ice? It just melts straight away and then you're just drinking a watery, you're drinking a watery soda.

• 53:45James Acaster?

  I guess you're right.

• 53:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, I am right.

• 53:47Speaker 04

  You have to drink it fast. You have to be a chugger like me.

• 53:51Speaker 00

  I'm a chugger actually.

• 53:52James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 53:53Speaker 00

  You said that about me.

• 53:54James Acaster?

  Yeah, chug, you do this weird thing where it's like, just, it just, you take what looks like a normal sip. And then half the drink's gone. I don't know how he's doing it.

• 54:03Speaker 04

  That too. It's because you're used to what, getting water on stage when you're gonna.

• 54:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, just neck it.

• 54:10James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 54:13James Acaster?

  All over your face.

• 54:16Speaker 04

  I really enjoy your dialect. You sound like one of the young ones.

• 54:20James Acaster?

  Me?

• 54:22Speaker 04

  You sound a bit like Vivian from The Young Ones.

• 54:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's good, that's a good shout actually.

• 54:25James Acaster?

  I've been compared to him a lot, like, well, actually no, not Vivian.

• 54:30Speaker 00

  Rick probably.

• 54:30James Acaster?

  Yeah, I get compared to Rick a lot.

• 54:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:32James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 54:33Speaker 04

  Vivian was my favorite.

• 54:34James Acaster?

  I mean, I love, I love Vivian, obviously.

• 54:37Speaker 04

  But yeah, Rick, I guess your voice is closer to Rick's, a bit Drop Dead Fred.

• 54:42James Acaster?

  Yeah, Drop Dead Fred. Yeah, I, I, I, a lot when I, uh, in, in, in my stand-up show at the minute, I do my hair up. So it's this really messy and spiking and I've been compared to Drop Dead Fred.

• 54:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:53James Acaster?

  Uh, by people at stage door.

• 54:56Speaker 00

  I watched that again recently.

• 54:57Speaker 04

  Imaginary friend I would have wanted as a kid.

• 55:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, the one who stumps dog shit everywhere.

• 55:02Speaker 04

  Well, I was a very shy, quiet kid, but I had a lot of internal monologues going on. And I could have used someone to process that with.

• 55:15Speaker 00

  I, I, I held that film in such high regard in my head.

• 55:19James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 55:19Speaker 00

  And then I watched it again recently and halfway through I was like, I shouldn't have watched this again.

• 55:23James Acaster?

  Why?

• 55:23Speaker 00

  It's a great film.

• 55:25James Acaster?

  It's really not.

• 55:27Speaker 04

  It's got a lot, it's got a lot that you are like, I guess I forgot this part.

• 55:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the fun parts are still fun, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff that ruins it a little bit.

• 55:39James Acaster?

  It's not aged well?

• 55:41Speaker 00

  Uh, no, I don't think it hasn't, it's not like, you, I don't watch it and go, ooh, that's a bit dodgy.

• 55:45James Acaster?

  Hmm.

• 55:45Speaker 00

  But it's just not a quality film, I don't think.

• 55:47James Acaster?

  Remake it, we should remake it.

• 55:49Speaker 00

  Well, they were gonna remake it for a bit.

• 55:50James Acaster?

  What?

• 55:51Speaker 00

  They were gonna remake it.

• 55:52Speaker 04

  Well, then what happened? What'd you do?

• 55:54Speaker 00

  But no, it wasn't me. It was supposed to be with Russell Brand.

• 55:58James Acaster?

  Hmm.

• 55:58Speaker 04

  What happened?

• 56:02Speaker 00

  I actually don't think it was even that. I think it was long before it just got canned. But I remember reading they were considering remaking it with Russell Brand.

• 56:07James Acaster?

  Sure.

• 56:08Speaker 04

  And they just realized before he had done horrible things.

• 56:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 56:12Speaker 04

  Or, or revealed, they just realized it was gonna be shit anyway, cause they watched Arthur.

• 56:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 56:17James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:20Speaker 00

  I guess a film where Russell Brand sneaks around, uh, doing loads of stuff and everyone's pretending they can't see him is not necessarily the, the ideal situation.

• 56:29James Acaster?

  That, that, yeah.

• 56:31Speaker 04

  This podcast gets dark.

• 56:34Speaker 04

  One of my favorite jokes my comedy partner ever wrote for me, it was for a web show a billion years ago. But you have to really know your cinema to get it. But he wrote a joke that said, you're becoming a real alcoholic and not a fun alcoholic like in the movie Arthur, but a sad, depressing alcoholic, like the remake of Arthur.

• 57:02Speaker 04

  Anyway, if you liked that.

• 57:06Speaker 00

  Phoebe Cates is still beautiful though.

• 57:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:08James Acaster?

  Respect, shout out.

• 57:09Speaker 04

  She's such an icon for that film, but also for Gremlins. Gremlins, Gremlins holds up.

• 57:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 57:16Speaker 04

  You can't say shit about Gremlins.

• 57:18Speaker 00

  And an icon for just being like, I'm done now.

• 57:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. I like people who know themselves.

• 57:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:24Speaker 04

  Um, uh, who, who, uh, uh, oh, oh, oh, now, oh, now that's, now Rick Mail is the only name I can hear. But, um, oh my gosh, he was the comedian, the comedy actor, he played Seymour in the movie. Rick Moranis, who also decided he was just done.

• 57:41Speaker 00

  He went out, yeah.

• 57:42Speaker 04

  I have a friend who, we went to, um, middle school and then high school together. He said he wanted to be a Broadway actor and a lawyer. And he was a Broadway actor. And then he said one day, I think I'm done with this. And then he went to law school.

• 57:58Speaker 00

  Amazing.

• 57:59Speaker 04

  And I have the utmost respect for people who are just like, know when, I have known my entire life, there's only one thing for me. And I haven't even considered anything else. The thought of like one day just being done and pivoting terrifies me because I have no other marketable skills.

• 58:18James Acaster?

  I can't wait.

• 58:19Speaker 04

  I can't do simple math.

• 58:20James Acaster?

  James can't wait.

• 58:21Speaker 04

  I would never survive.

• 58:22James Acaster?

  Cannot fucking wait.

• 58:23Speaker 04

  You can't wait to get out?

• 58:24James Acaster?

  Can't wait, yeah.

• 58:25Speaker 04

  What are you gonna do next?

• 58:26Speaker 00

  Lawyer, isn't it? You're gonna go to law school.

• 58:28James Acaster?

  Yeah, Chuck, yeah, Chuck from The Goonies is a lawyer.

• 58:30Speaker 04

  Doesn't that mean you have to, well, you have to wear one of the wigs here if you become a barrister?

• 58:35James Acaster?

  Good point. I think I'd suit that wig.

• 58:37Speaker 04

  I think you would too.

• 58:38James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah. So yeah, maybe. Or maybe I'll just get the wig, not even, not even go, cause law school takes ages, right? So if I just get one of those wigs and just hang out.

• 58:48Speaker 04

  Just for the job you want.

• 58:49James Acaster?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 58:51Speaker 00

  Keep doing this and just wear the wig during the records.

• 58:53James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 58:54Speaker 00

  And I'll explain to all the other guests, James was considering becoming a barrister, but he couldn't be bothered to do it, so he just wears the wig.

• 59:01James Acaster?

  Yeah, so he's a genie, but he's also a barrister. Now, now you have to like factor both of those things in.

• 59:06Speaker 04

  I just love British dialect. I worked, I, I, I, I worked with an actor named Fred Dubble in End of the Rainbow. And he has such a clear, articulate speaking voice and also a very thick accent from wherever he's from. And he will just say sentences that shouldn't be funny, but they're funny when he says it. Like someone was talking about a scene from one of the Wicked movies and he goes, is that from Wicked one or Wicked two? And I just thought that was, and like even British people.

• 59:45James Acaster?

  Yeah, that is funny.

• 59:46Speaker 00

  That's funny.

• 59:47Speaker 04

  And then someone was talking about the musical six, is that the one with Anne Boleyn? Like, that's why we laugh at your voices, because it's.

• 59:57Speaker 00

  But Wicked one or Wicked two is funny anyway.

• 59:59Speaker 04

  Wicked one or Wicked two?

• 1:00:01James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah. Stuff like that especially is, is funny.

• 1:00:04Speaker 04

  I never saw six, but I'm planning on seeing seven. You didn't say that.

• 1:00:10Speaker 04

  That's me riffing, you see.

• 1:00:12James Acaster?

  I love when adults call the first film.

• 1:00:15Speaker 00

  Wicked one.

• 1:00:16James Acaster?

  One.

• 1:00:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:17James Acaster?

  But as a kid, that's acceptable to say Home Alone one, Home Alone two.

• 1:00:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:22James Acaster?

  But when you're, but, but when you're an adult.

• 1:00:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:24James Acaster?

  To say Wicked one and Wicked two is like, come on.

• 1:00:26Speaker 00

  Don't retroactively call it one.

• 1:00:28James Acaster?

  Don't call it Wicked one. It's not called Wicked one, you know it's not.

• 1:00:34James Acaster?

  Your dream dessert. We arrive at your dream dessert, Jinx.

• 1:00:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:37James Acaster?

  Are we back at the Cheesecake Factory?

• 1:00:39Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:00:40James Acaster?

  See, the thing, last time I went to the Chee- I went to Cheesecake Factory, my friend, Mike Eagle, the rapper, took me to Cheesecake Factory.

• 1:00:49Speaker 00

  Pretty cool guy.

• 1:00:50James Acaster?

  We ate our food and I said, let's get cheesecake. He went, nah. I thought, what? Cheesecake Factory? And he was like, nah, I just wanted to come for like, the savoury food. But I couldn't believe my ears. And you've just done the same thing.

• 1:01:02Speaker 04

  Well, I had gone to the Cheesecake Factory so many times and never eaten the cheesecake because I'm always too full from the meal. Because of their portions. But one time I was on a date and he, for our date, it was like, in, like, we were just having dessert at my place and sitting and talking and other things happened. But anyway, for the dessert, he brought four slices of cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. And that was the first time I ever had cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. And it turns out, it's good cheesecake.

• 1:01:41Speaker 00

  That's the factory where they make it. It's like the main thing they do.

• 1:01:44James Acaster?

  Pineapple upside down cake cheesecake.

• 1:01:46Speaker 00

  Oh, no.

• 1:01:48James Acaster?

  Well, the waiter recommended, I said, what would you recommend to the waiter?

• 1:01:51Speaker 00

  This guy's an idiot.

• 1:01:52James Acaster?

  There was so much stuff, there's so many cheesecakes, I couldn't decide. I said, what would you recommend? He said, the pineapple upside down cake cheesecake.

• 1:01:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, but you're saying cake twice and that, it doesn't, it doesn't scan for me.

• 1:02:04Speaker 04

  The birthday cake cheesecake, cake.

• 1:02:06James Acaster?

  Yeah. The more cakes, the better, in my opinion.

• 1:02:09Speaker 04

  My dream dessert, I think I kept falling short on this one, because, oh god, I think,

• 1:02:20Speaker 04

  I'm trying to think of what I actually really, really like. And I think I'm gonna be really annoying and say it's sticky toffee pudding with a scoop of vanilla, ice cream and caramel sauce. It is the perfect dessert.

• 1:02:38Speaker 00

  That's not annoying at all. It's obviously a popular, a popular dessert choice, but James, I felt James inhale then, when he said it would be really annoying, because he was worried that you're either gonna skip or pick a cheese board.

• 1:02:48James Acaster?

  Yeah, I thought you were gonna do.

• 1:02:50Speaker 04

  A cheese board, I only do that if I'm flying and they offer dessert and I do that just to keep up appearances.

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  You don't want anyone on a flight to know you're having dessert.

• 1:03:01Speaker 04

  If it's a normal day, any old meal, I'm gonna go for whatever lemon flavoured dessert is on, if I get dessert at all. But I rarely get dessert. But when I'm at home and I eat dinner, dinner's not complete until I then eat some kind of ice cream or like, two bowls of cereal. And I think it's because I'm a former alcoholic. My body still craves that, like, excess sugar at the end of the day.

• 1:03:32James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:33Speaker 04

  And I can't get sleepy sometimes until I have like, a big fistful of candy before bed. It's not good.

• 1:03:41James Acaster?

  It's great. Respect. Full of respect. Love it.

• 1:03:44Speaker 00

  What's your go to ice cream when you're at home?

• 1:03:46James Acaster?

  And go to cereal, please.

• 1:03:49Speaker 04

  My go to cereal here has been Honey Nut Corn Flakes.

• 1:03:55James Acaster?

  Yeah. Respect.

• 1:03:57Speaker 04

  With oat milk. And then, back in the States, I usually go for nostalgic cereal, so Apple Jacks or Golden Grahams. But I also like Special K with red berries. But your Special K here is a different formula. So I've moved on to Honey Nut.

• 1:04:19Speaker 00

  Understood. And we're sorry about that. We can only apologise.

• 1:04:22Speaker 04

  I don't know what you're doing, doing.

• 1:04:25James Acaster?

  We talked about, recently on here, we talked about the kind of this oat crunch cereal that I kind of found at Trader Joe's. They, they used to do it when I was growing up, these little pockets of like, these little oat pillows.

• 1:04:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:39James Acaster?

  And I really liked them. And then I couldn't find them for a while. No, no, that's craze.

• 1:04:43Speaker 04

  No, they're just.

• 1:04:43Speaker 00

  That's craze.

• 1:04:44James Acaster?

  Okay, wind, wind it in. These are, these are, oh, sorry, sorry, yeah, that was too much.

• 1:04:49Speaker 00

  Yeah. Being mean to me.

• 1:04:51James Acaster?

  Sorry, I've been mean to her.

• 1:04:52Speaker 04

  But it is craze.

• 1:04:53James Acaster?

  It is craze, but it was like.

• 1:04:55Speaker 00

  Want to tell him to wind it in?

• 1:04:56James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah, tell him to wind it in if you want to. But we talked about it on the podcast, the oat pillows. And then a man called Michael got in touch with me, who's a man I know, who has got his head in his hands now. He, he used to deal me iPods. He used to get me iPods.

• 1:05:10Speaker 04

  Deal you?

• 1:05:11James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:11Speaker 00

  When they stopped making them.

• 1:05:13James Acaster?

  He went to Ireland and he bought.

• 1:05:14Speaker 04

  How many did you need?

• 1:05:15James Acaster?

  Oh, every now and again, they'd break and Michael would always have a new one. And he would always come and give me an iPod. And he contacted me after we talked about the oat crunch cereal, because he said that he used to love that growing up. And then he found a, a place that, waitrose basically started doing them again. And he'd go and buy them, five boxes at a time. But now waitrose has stopped doing them. So he had to phone the waitrose helpline to complain that they'd stopped doing the cereal. And that, that the man just had to explain to him that that was just that and they can't do anything about it. They're not gonna bring them back anymore.

• 1:05:45Speaker 00

  Well, luckily, Michael just buys things that are about to be, stop being made and just deals them to people.

• 1:05:50Speaker 04

  Oh my gosh. My mom always, she has a conspiracy theory that as soon as she likes something, it gets discontinued. And I refuse to let that become my story, but it keeps happening. But I will say.

• 1:06:04James Acaster?

  Something getting into the work of Russell Brand.

• 1:06:08Speaker 00

  Hey, no, he's still, he's released a book.

• 1:06:09James Acaster?

  Oh, yeah. Not discontinued yet, Russell. Keep going, man.

• 1:06:15Speaker 04

  I just keep thinking about that, that fucking Bible.

• 1:06:19James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah. Amazing stuff.

• 1:06:22Speaker 04

  It's like, truly like, how long are we going to let this happen? Like, and does he have a plan?

• 1:06:30Speaker 04

  It doesn't look like it. He never got anywhere with it. And I really wanted to see like, where he was gonna land. But it was so clear he never was going to land anywhere.

• 1:06:41James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:41Speaker 04

  That it was like, I can't believe the things we're seeing people do openly right now. The standards are so low, thanks to people with a lot of airtime, who really don't deserve it. And now, it's just like, didn't we used to have some decorum? Didn't we used to at least, it's like, why are we still playing by the rules of the facade if they don't have to?

• 1:07:14James Acaster?

  Yes.

• 1:07:15Speaker 04

  Like, they're not keeping the facade up anymore. So how can you expect, like, people, guilty criminals can't even fake being good people convincingly on television.

• 1:07:27James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:28Speaker 04

  Who, what, hope for the rest of us, you know?

• 1:07:31James Acaster?

  You're doing a show where all of you have to fake an acceptance speech at the end, off the top of your head, and just come up with it. And you all nail it. And then you see who wins when it goes out. He can't even recite from a book where it's already written in there. All he's got to do is choose a page.

• 1:07:45Speaker 04

  Choose, any, any page will give you something to work with, right? It's like, like, I know people who do like, cold readings from the Bible to just like, get an answer on something. I don't know these people. I know they exist. Anyway, the point is, that's insane pageantry.

• 1:08:09Speaker 04

  My dream dessert, what did I say? Oh, sticky toffee pudding.

• 1:08:13James Acaster?

  But your mum is always getting into stuff that's just about to be discontinued, is what you were saying. And I interrupted with the Russell Brand.

• 1:08:19Speaker 04

  So I, the solution to your problem is, in America, there is a company, their whole thing is oats. They're called Quaker Oats.

• 1:08:30James Acaster?

  Yes.

• 1:08:31Speaker 04

  And they do oatmeal, they do oatmeal based products, and they have cereal that is the cereal you are looking for. Quaker Brand Oat Squares.

• 1:08:42James Acaster?

  This is Michael's problem. Maybe, maybe Quaker in America are doing them. Because Quaker, we have Quaker here.

• 1:08:48Speaker 04

  What happened to your oat dependency here?

• 1:08:50James Acaster?

  Yeah, it's gone bad.

• 1:08:51Speaker 00

  Well, the thing is, we have Quaker, but we also have Scott's Oats.

• 1:08:55Speaker 04

  Scott's.

• 1:08:56Speaker 00

  Which is very popular, because it's a big lad with a kilt doing shot put on the front of the box.

• 1:09:01Speaker 04

  Well, then you need to talk to him about making a cereal. Maybe this is what you pivot to. Oats. Now, I wonder, is ergot still a problem?

• 1:09:15James Acaster?

  That's when you win, was it Emmy?

• 1:09:21James Acaster?

  I'll read you your menu back now, Jinx. See how you feel about it.

• 1:09:25Speaker 04

  It's in there.

• 1:09:26James Acaster?

  Yeah, I've read it down. You would like still water, you would like brown bread with room temperature butter from the Cheesecake Factory. You would like carrot salad from Zadell with coconut shrimp. You would like a full lobster steamed and a full crab cold. And a pile of caviar to have in between. I can't say the word.

• 1:09:46Speaker 04

  Tobiko.

• 1:09:47James Acaster?

  Side dish, doughnuts, potatoes and a beet salad with goat's cheese and nuts. Drink alcohol free Kylie Minogue champagne, which we didn't speak about enough.

• 1:09:54Speaker 00

  We didn't talk enough about the alcohol free Kylie champagne.

• 1:09:57James Acaster?

  You'd also like a big gulp of Diet Dr Pepper with an American amount of ice. And dessert, sticky toffee pudding with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce, which we also didn't talk much about, the fact there's caramel sauce on the sticky toffee pudding there.

• 1:10:08Speaker 04

  Instead of custard? Well, custard, that people get it wrong so often. I don't trust it. If it's too thick, it's like, why are you putting eggs on my?

• 1:10:20Speaker 04

  And if it's too thin, it's like, why'd you, why'd you do that? Like, ice cream's gonna do that.

• 1:10:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's true. That's why I'd always prefer ice cream melting. And then you've got, you've basically got custard and ice cream.

• 1:10:31Speaker 04

  And then the caramel sauce to marry the two.

• 1:10:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:34James Acaster?

  Yes.

• 1:10:35Speaker 00

  Perfect.

• 1:10:36James Acaster?

  That's a delicious menu. Do you feel good about that, hearing your meal back?

• 1:10:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I know what I can do with the leftovers.

• 1:10:46Speaker 04

  Lobster rolls the next day, crab salad.

• 1:10:50James Acaster?

  Delicious.

• 1:10:51Speaker 00

  This is, that's why it's good that it's not your last meal then. Because you're gonna have leftovers.

• 1:10:55Speaker 04

  Yeah. But it was never gonna be my last meal, because of my plan with the mortician.

• 1:11:01James Acaster?

  Of course, sorry.

• 1:11:01Speaker 04

  When we were dating, we were making out once and he was rubbing the back of my head. And I said, are you studying my skull? And he said, a little bit, yes. And I said, what did you find out? And he told me, you have some of the most pronounced global mastoids I've ever felt.

• 1:11:23Speaker 04

  Now, if that doesn't get a girl going.

• 1:11:26James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:28Speaker 04

  And if, and for all the single dudes out there, if you want a girl with pronounced global mastoids, she's right here.

• 1:11:37James Acaster?

  Yeah, go and see Oh Mary.

• 1:11:40Speaker 04

  Wait by the stage door.

• 1:11:43Speaker 00

  Do you, do you use the global mastoids in the Oh Mary performance?

• 1:11:46Speaker 04

  Well, something's gotta hold the wig on.

• 1:11:57Speaker 00

  Amazing. Thank you so much to Jinx for coming on the pod.

• 1:12:00James Acaster?

  Thank you, Jinx. What a lovely menu. Great stories, great yarns, great accents as well. And you didn't say gin. What more could we have asked for?

• 1:12:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, thank you, Jinx, for not saying gin.

• 1:12:11James Acaster?

  Yeah, we appreciate that. So everyone should go and see Oh Mary.

• 1:12:14Speaker 00

  Yes. Seventeenth of August to the twenty sixth of September. Do go and see Oh Mary. Me and James will be there as well. Ohmaryplay.co.uk for tickets to see Jinx.

• 1:12:26James Acaster?

  Yeah, like, you know, in the meantime, just, everyone take care of yourselves.

• 1:12:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:31James Acaster?

  Be cool. Eat food.

• 1:12:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, drink, drink.

• 1:12:34James Acaster?

  And love, love. Ed Gumbel, from UK.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  Hi, it's Danny Pellegrino from Everything Iconic. Twelve celebrities, one Don and cold hard cash. From the producers of The Traitors comes The Mob, a new Hulu original series. The iconic Parker Posey hosts this unique reality competition show where twelve celebrity contestants shake down in an Italian villa to win a share of up to $250,000. Watch the new Hulu original series, The Mob, premiering October 26th on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.