Pod Insights Elis James and John Robins #542 - Junk Kerplunk, Big Low Bum and Is It Time For =? About this episode Redemption for Elis James. After unspeakable failure 12 months ago, he rises from the ashes like a phoenix at this year’s charity football match. John also wears running shoes in goal and gets his baps out.
Plus, we hear of some of your late relationship icks, Dave’s been sent to jail with Gok Wan and would John actually like to be the COO of a medium sized business? He’d get reserved parking, but he also already has this at home.
Got a big ick relating to your partner of 35 years? Well get it over to [email protected] mailto:[email protected]
For lots of exclusive EJJR #content, join our Patreon at patreon.com/elisandjohn http://www.patreon.com/elisandjohn.
For weekly visual highlights, head to youtube.com/@elisandjohn http://youtube.com/@elisandjohn.
For everything else, head to elisandjohn.com http://www.elisandjohn.com/.
The Elis James and John Robins Show is a Significant Production.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript 10,210 words · 8 speakers
0:00 Speaker 00 Before we start this episode, we want to invite you along to the adventures of Ellis and John.
0:04 Speaker 01 If you head over to patreon.com/ellisonjohn, you can join us on our monthly escapades, including...
0:10 Speaker 00 Mini golf picks.
0:11 Speaker 01 It's the strangest legal jump in the history of long jump.
0:14 Speaker 00 Bird watching.
0:15 Speaker 02 My two favourite things are birds and football.
0:18 Speaker 01 And you can watch our latest episode now, where we tackle an escape room.
0:22 Speaker 02 So John is absolutely flying here. Well, Ellis is there as well.
0:26 Speaker 01 Ellis is there as well, Dave.
0:27 Speaker 02 We did the first three, Dave, for complete chill.
0:32 Speaker 00 So for adventures and so much more, head over to patreon.com/ellisonjohn now.
0:58 Speaker 00 Hello and welcome to this latest episode of Ellis and John. And I've got to say, I think it's another mega week.
1:07 Speaker 00 Because obviously, somebody did the Hackney Half Marathon on Sunday.
1:13 Speaker 02 Was it you?
1:14 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:14 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:15 Speaker 00 No, no, it was a guy, no, called Andy. And we played in the Taskmaster charity football game on... The previous day on the Saturday. And John, yet again, the guiding hand of John Robbins, on my shoulder, improved my life.
1:33 Speaker 01 Really?
1:34 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:34 Speaker 01 How so?
1:35 Speaker 00 Because it went to a penalty shootout. And I didn't fancy it, having missed the decisive penalty in a penalty shootout about... when was it? Two years ago. And I wasn't going to put my hand up.
1:48 Speaker 02 You were going to Paul Ince it.
1:49 Speaker 00 I was absolutely going to Paul Ince it.
1:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, I actually caught him mid-Paul Ince-ing.
1:54 Speaker 00 Yeah, he did.
1:54 Speaker 02 Oh, did you?
1:55 Speaker 00 I was halfway through saying, "I don't fancy it, gaffer", when John said, "Ellis fancies it. It's time for him to rewrite the script."
2:05 Speaker 02 Did you?
2:06 Speaker 00 And I thought to myself, "Yeah, maybe I will rewrite the script, actually." And I took the third pen. I know, the pressure, one of the highest pressure penalties, third pen.
2:18 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:19 Speaker 00 Rifled it into the top right hand corner.
2:21 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:22 Speaker 00 And it felt really, really good, Dave.
2:25 Speaker 02 Did it?
2:25 Speaker 00 It felt so good. And that's all thanks to John. He basically bullied me into rewriting the script of my life. And I'm very glad he did it because I can't stop thinking about it. I've had a sort of glow for four days.
2:36 Speaker 01 Ellis put his laces through that ball so much that somewhere in Chesham, there's a ball full of laces. They're inside the ball.
2:45 Speaker 02 Really?
2:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:46 Speaker 00 Also, Tom Rosenthal is so funny. Like, he couldn't play because of, I'm assuming because of his knee injury. And so he was the manager. And he, for the entire day, adopted a kind of Spanish or Portuguese volatile combustible manager persona.
3:07 Speaker 02 Yeah.
3:07 Speaker 00 A bit like Diego Simeone. So he had a, he had a black suit on.
3:13 Speaker 00 He was managing John and I. When I walked onto the pitch for the warm up, he was already on the pitch with a lot of our players. He ran up to me, held my face and screamed in my face, "You are my son! You are a lion! You are my son! You are a lion!" And he kept doing it. And I don't, no one's ever done that to me before. And I loved it.
3:35 Speaker 02 Did you?
3:35 Speaker 00 I did, yeah. I really, I could feel myself growing into the role.
3:40 Speaker 02 Nice.
3:41 Speaker 00 It was nice. "You are my son! You are a lion!"
3:43 Speaker 02 Well, we have, a little bit later on, we have a, an official review of the day. So we can play that a little bit later.
3:49 Speaker 01 Why do we play that now?
3:50 Speaker 02 Do you want to play it now? Hey, why not? Let's just crack in and crack on. So this is the wonderful Chloé Pett's take of the match itself.
4:01 Speaker 03 Hello, boys. Chloé Pett's here, just analysing the big game on the weekend. Chicken City versus Egg United. Look, it was a fantastic spectacle, a wonderful occasion. 3,000 fans turned out in style. They were on top form. I would say, in terms of how I played, I was pretty ineffectual for large swathes of the game. But I sort of modelled myself on Lionel Messi, where I was kind of thinking, "I'm just going to watch the game. I'm going to see what everyone else is doing. I'm going to find pockets of space."
4:34 Speaker 02 Yes.
4:35 Speaker 03 So then as the game progressed, I did pick up the ball a few times. And I did ping a few good passes to Maisy Adam and Elis James, for example.
4:46 Speaker 03 In terms of how Ellis played, he did have a big marathon the next day, so it was quite mental that he was there and running around. I was managing my minutes. He was a real impact sub, and what I will say is he was an absolute mentality monster. He stepped up for that penalty and he absolutely tongued it in the top corner. And he looked, he looked very, um, he was very serious, he was a real bruiser is what I would say. John's performance, um, I think he looked very stylish in goal. He was the only person on the pitch not wearing football boots, but instead wearing hockers. And they were extremely large hockers and they made him look like a clown. So when the song Sit Down by James came on and all of the outfield players had to sit
5:31 Speaker 03 down, and only the goalies were allowed to go at each other, it did look like a big clown running up and down the pitch, sort of flapping around. Um, but it was a beautiful sight to see and he was very brave and very strong trying to save all the penalties at the end. And he got his baps out and all of the ladies and all of the mothers, I can tell, were very pleased to see it. His baps out? In terms of my standout players, obviously the professionals were absolutely insane. At some points they played so well that I just kind of stopped and looked at them as they glided past me and their muscles rippled. I'm gonna say in the wind, but it doesn't feel like a wind ripples a muscle.
6:14 Speaker 03 But, um, the wind was certainly adding a certain mise en scène. Uh, the pros were, yeah, like I say, all fantastic. I thought Matt Winning was an absolute player. Great player. Because none of us really wanted to defend, we just all wanted to sort of run up and try and score goals and push the big duck around. Um, but Matt Winning was just sitting back in the defence and doing the dogs' work for the lot of us. Um, and he played really well, and then he almost scored a goal by running the full length of the pitch at one point. Yes, good player.
6:49 Speaker 03 And fair play, credit, kudos to him. Winning by name, winning by nature. What a day. Sending my love to you, boys. Um, at the end of the day, it was a big win for Chicken City. And we can, we will, we're pleased to um, take the title and hold the trophy aloft. Thanks and goodbye.
7:10 Speaker 00 Uh, Chloe Pats, thank you very much.
7:12 Speaker 01 Thank you, Chloe.
7:12 Speaker 00 John made two world-class stops.
7:15 Speaker 01 Did you?
7:16 Speaker 00 Yeah. I wish, I don't know if this, if Fidu exists, but he made one stop that actually took my breath away. I just didn't expect him to get to it.
7:23 Speaker 02 What does Chloe mean by you got your baps out?
7:25 Speaker 01 Um, so when it came to the penalties, um, everyone took really good penalties, actually. And so me and Charlie Baker, my opposite number, really didn't have a chance. There wasn't any that I thought I could have saved.
7:40 Speaker 00 No, they were all sort of bottom or right, bottom or top corner jobs.
7:44 Speaker 01 Such a thing as an unsavable penalty, as you'll know. Um, so when um, Luke McQueen stood up to take a penalty against me, I complained to the referee that he was too handsome and that it was putting me off. So they subbed him off. And he was replaced by Andy Devonshire, one of the producers of Taskmaster.
8:03 Speaker 00 Which, although I think that was Luke's choice, which means that I don't, Luke will be on Taskmaster.
8:09 Speaker 01 Andy Devonshire went on to score. Um, so then when Luke came back to take a penalty.
8:14 Speaker 00 Well, he sashayed to the spot, which was very funny.
8:18 Speaker 01 He took his top off, uh, and then I took my top off, which you would think, you know, is an incredibly sexual experience for a spectator. Unfortunately, when you're trying to take a top off over goalkeeper gloves and it gets stuck on the gloves. Cause the gloves are so big these days. Um, I had to sort of pull them off with my teeth and my feet and sort of stand on them.
8:39 Speaker 00 I thought it looked quite sexy, actually. Yeah.
8:42 Speaker 01 Uh, and then Luke scored and we embraced.
8:44 Speaker 00 Nice.
8:45 Speaker 01 Um, flesh on flesh.
8:47 Speaker 00 Great.
8:47 Speaker 01 And we both looked at the photos and decided we were going on diets, just as a coincidence.
8:53 Speaker 00 How did Toby Tarrant do? He's got lab, Hannah always says about my dad, my dad's got golden retriever energy.
9:00 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
9:01 Speaker 00 Toby's got that and then some.
9:04 Speaker 01 He is.
9:05 Speaker 00 He's a lovely guy.
9:05 Speaker 01 He's running up to greet you at the door.
9:08 Speaker 00 He's, yeah, absolutely.
9:09 Speaker 01 He's so excited.
9:10 Speaker 00 And he licks you.
9:12 Speaker 01 But he's a lovely, lovely guy. Good footballer as well.
9:14 Speaker 00 Yeah, he's a good player, Toby.
9:15 Speaker 01 He's also.
9:16 Speaker 00 Six foot eight.
9:17 Speaker 01 Well, he hides it quite well. He is a big unit, as in he's like, strong and tall and athletic.
9:24 Speaker 00 Yeah.
9:25 Speaker 01 Booming voice.
9:26 Speaker 00 Yeah.
9:27 Speaker 01 Radio voice through and through.
9:30 Speaker 00 I liked it when Lou Sanders in the dugout, just in a kip with like a fake fur coat on as well, just looked very, very funny. It's a really, it's such a fun day.
9:42 Speaker 02 It must be. I've never been.
9:43 Speaker 00 I shouldn't have played football before running a half marathon, but that, what can you do? It's the funnest day of the year. I scored in open play, which I've, I've never done, I've never scored in front of, it's 4,000 people, actually.
9:55 Speaker 02 It is.
9:56 Speaker 00 And I'd never scored in front of 4,000 people before, and it is a nice feeling.
10:00 Speaker 01 Is it? Is it? And also for Patreons, there's a little behind the scenes action, a few minutes of hot takes from the ground.
10:09 Speaker 02 There is.
10:10 Speaker 01 There is footage of Ellis's penalty and my company in commentary, and we've got a little bit of a clip of that. It's Johnny J here. Been here for an hour and a half. Chesham United at the Meadow. Got my keeping kit, got my gloves. No Ellis though. Ellis has arrived. I think it's about an hour late. Last year, a miss that cost him his reputation. This year, is Bob Marley singing redemption song inside Elis James's boots? It's a penalty shootout. Here goes everything.
10:51 Speaker 01 There you go.
10:53 Speaker 02 What a tease.
10:54 Speaker 01 Sort of massively spoiled that entire, but it's fine.
10:57 Speaker 02 It's a bit of texture.
10:59 Speaker 00 It sounded very cinematic.
11:01 Speaker 02 Yeah. Because you want to see that, and you can.
11:03 Speaker 01 You want to see that and you can.
11:04 Speaker 02 And you can. Where can you see it, John?
11:06 Speaker 01 You see on Ellis's URL, which he has reminded me, it's patreon.com forward slash Ellis and John.
11:14 Speaker 02 Patreon.com slash Ellis and John.
11:17 Speaker 01 All right, so I say forward slash. It's not a problem. So I'm going to bring down the G8.
11:25 Speaker 00 I've trained myself not to say forward slash though, because I cannot handle Dave's ire.
11:29 Speaker 01 Well, what if someone put a backslash in there?
11:31 Speaker 02 No one's backslash. You may as well, you may as well retire the backslash from the keyboard, John. No one's using the backslash.
11:38 Speaker 00 The backslash has, the backslash has had a bad decade.
11:41 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, terrible decade.
11:43 Speaker 00 The, the at sign has had an absolutely fantastic 15 years.
11:47 Speaker 02 And the hashtag.
11:48 Speaker 00 And the hashtag. I don't think I'd ever used the at sign prior to social media.
11:52 Speaker 01 In the eighties, that the hashtag, just a humble little number indicator.
11:56 Speaker 02 Yes.
11:57 Speaker 01 I mean, what other punctuation, what do you call them? Marks are gonna have their day.
12:06 Speaker 02 Wow.
12:06 Speaker 00 Well, the, the semi-colon is dying out, isn't it? Let's face it.
12:10 Speaker 01 Yes, the Oxford comma.
12:12 Speaker 00 Has had its day.
12:13 Speaker 02 Is that the Oxford comma, the semi-colon? Is that the same thing?
12:15 Speaker 01 Well, you use it for an Oxford comma, I think. I don't know, Dave.
12:20 Speaker 00 I don't think that. I think the Oxford comma is something different, actually.
12:24 Speaker 01 Well, I'm going to decide which is the next to go big. And I want it to be.
12:31 Speaker 00 The more than sign is doing quite well at the moment. I see a lot of more than's.
12:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:36 Speaker 01 Is it time for equals?
12:40 Speaker 02 Equals is just there and it'll always be great.
12:42 Speaker 00 Always be okay.
12:43 Speaker 01 But you don't type equals. You might draw it every so often.
12:46 Speaker 00 But equals is gonna be mid-table for the rest of its life, I think.
12:49 Speaker 01 Is it the yen sign?
12:52 Speaker 01 When have you ever, considering it's on the iPhone keyboard?
12:56 Speaker 00 Yeah.
12:56 Speaker 01 When have you ever used the yen sign?
12:59 Speaker 02 I've never used it.
13:01 Speaker 01 Never?
13:01 Speaker 02 Never.
13:03 Speaker 01 Because what could it be? It could represent a shirt with laces on the front. If you were trying to make an emoji out of it.
13:11 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's a good shout.
13:13 Speaker 01 Yeah. The little, this guy, the little squiggly dash. What's that called? I should know that. I once did a pub quiz round on the names of these marks.
13:22 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah.
13:23 Speaker 01 Yeah. Good, good times.
13:25 Speaker 02 Good times. So, patreon.com slash Ellis and John, where next week we will announce the next.
13:32 Speaker 01 We will what, Dave?
13:33 Speaker 02 We will.
13:34 Speaker 01 We will.
13:36 Speaker 02 Announce the next adventure special.
13:39 Speaker 01 Woo!
13:40 Speaker 02 Hot on the trail of the marathon extravaganza. We've gone somewhere else, haven't we? And we've done something else.
13:46 Speaker 00 The seashells.
13:47 Speaker 01 We've gone to the seashells. And as a result, Patreon prices are increasing.
13:55 Speaker 00 It cost us 18 grand, so it's a really brilliant 40 minute piece of content.
13:59 Speaker 02 So, uh, next month's adventure ep, announced next week.
14:03 Speaker 01 Good stuff.
14:12 Speaker 01 So where do we go from redemption?
14:16 Speaker 00 Hmm.
14:17 Speaker 01 What comes after redemption? Sort of chilling out? Hobbies?
14:23 Speaker 02 Vindication, I suppose.
14:25 Speaker 01 Yes.
14:26 Speaker 02 Satisfaction.
14:27 Speaker 00 Well, I, uh, I mean, scoring a, I hate, I, I really hope that someone comes up with some footage of my goal. Because Stu Law scored immediately afterwards, because it was the slightly strange pinball wizard section of the game. Where pinball wizard is played over the, uh, public address system. And then there are three balls on the pitch. So I was still celebrating my goal when the ball just arrived in our box and Stu volleyed it in. So there's lots of footage of that.
14:54 Speaker 01 Did you not get tagged in any?
14:56 Speaker 00 No, because people were, people were filming Stu because Maisie and I were already celebrating. Because we had, uh, Tom Rosenthal had, had made us practise our celebrations with a props box. So one of the celebrations was a gender reveal. One of the celebrations was Chloe dressed as Russell Brand looking for passages in the Bible. I heard about that.
15:16 Speaker 00 Uh, one of the, um, celebrations who had dressed as a centurion and shouted, are you not entertained? One of them was I to, so was involved in cricket ball and cricket bat. Which I was, I was halfway through doing that when Stu scored. So there's lots of footage of Stu's greatest moment, but there's none of mine, unfortunately.
15:31 Speaker 02 I saw you topless.
15:33 Speaker 01 You're looking insane.
15:35 Speaker 02 Mid swing. I swear, Ellis.
15:39 Speaker 00 It's a very flattering photo.
15:41 Speaker 02 There is a six pack.
15:42 Speaker 01 Tensing so hard you asked yourself. You knew where the cameras were.
15:47 Speaker 02 I saw a rippling Peter Andre.
15:49 Speaker 00 Of course I was and I was, I was just hitting the cricket ball or trying to, I missed it as well.
15:53 Speaker 01 That's just him relaxed, Dave.
15:54 Speaker 02 That's just him chewing out.
15:55 Speaker 00 That's just me reading a book.
15:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
15:59 Speaker 00 I just, it was a very flattering photo.
16:01 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:01 Speaker 00 It makes me look like Peter Andre.
16:03 Speaker 02 It's great. Well done, everyone.
16:05 Speaker 01 We've had lots of emails.
16:07 Speaker 02 Ah, yes.
16:08 Speaker 01 Now, we have had, we were talking about what's the longest into a relationship you've got the ick. My specific request has yet to be answered.
16:18 Speaker 02 Oh, really?
16:19 Speaker 01 Because I wanted, I wanted an ick that has ended a relationship, a long-term relationship.
16:24 Speaker 02 Yes.
16:25 Speaker 01 However, that's yet to come in, which I'm glad about.
16:27 Speaker 02 No, you're not.
16:28 Speaker 01 I don't want everyone's relationship to end.
16:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, you do.
16:30 Speaker 01 But I'm just interested by whether it is, there's ever a point, this is the question, at which point would it be an ender?
16:38 Speaker 00 Well, you've had a couple of very funny emails about late relationship icks, though. I'm going to read, there's so many good ones, but this really made me laugh. Hello, my little possums. In response to your request last week for examples of people getting the ick deep into relationships, I present the following. My wife and I have been in it for 12 years. Eight months ago, we had a baby and last month, we went on our first holiday together as a family. Dinner on the last night allowed me a chance to really put my weight behind a few glasses of wine for the first time during the holiday. There was a live musician playing in the restaurant who covered a few all-time rock classics, such as Free Falling, Saltons of Swing and a brilliant rendition of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. Wow, I'd like to hear that. As I got towards the bottom of the glass of rosé, I started to really, really enjoy it.
17:23 Speaker 00 When we left the restaurant, I followed my wife with a pushchair. I glanced across at the musician and gave a cringe dad wink.
17:32 Speaker 00 A strong thumbs up and a knowing nod.
17:35 Speaker 01 I love that idea. He's like, yeah, we know dire straits.
17:38 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:39 Speaker 01 Okay, I'm, I'm on board.
17:41 Speaker 00 I'm a musician too, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We should, I should go and get my guitar from the room. We should, we should jam.
17:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
17:46 Speaker 00 Why don't we record something? Are there any local studios available openly? What I didn't know was my wife had just diverted herself from the pushchair away from a bucket that was catching a leak coming from the roof. I proceeded to trip over the bucket mid-wink.
18:04 Speaker 00 I was crestfallen. My wife was mortified. When we exited the restaurant, she turned to me and said, I've never been less attracted to you.
18:13 Speaker 00 Wow. I then proceeded to tell her why I tripped over the bucket, explaining how I felt the need to inform the musician, how appreciative I was of his work. She cringed so hard she couldn't look at me. I'm so glad to say that that was the end of it and she took no further action. But I'm afraid to report there was no ravishing that evening. Love and champagne, Henry. I mean, tripping in a bucket mid wink is Frank Spencer territory.
18:38 Speaker 01 Especially when you're, it's, it's quite, if you crossed Frank Spencer with James May.
18:45 Speaker 00 Yes, yes.
18:47 Speaker 01 It's, we get dire straits. I'm gonna show you with a wink and trip over a bucket.
18:53 Speaker 00 I know good guitar playing when I see it.
18:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think this guy's spent a bit of time listening to Slow Hand.
18:59 Speaker 00 Yeah.
18:59 Speaker 01 That's Eric Clapton to you, mortals.
19:02 Speaker 00 AKA God.
19:03 Speaker 01 AKA God, but not AKA the Boss, because that is Bruce Springsteen.
19:08 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah. Imagine the God and the Boss being in the same room. It's something I imagine all the time, actually.
19:15 Speaker 01 People who know the nicknames of all the major 90s and 80s and 70s guitarists.
19:21 Speaker 00 Yeah.
19:21 Speaker 01 The Boss, Slow Hand, there are others.
19:26 Speaker 00 The Chief.
19:27 Speaker 01 Who's that?
19:28 Speaker 00 Noel Gallagher.
19:29 Speaker 01 No, not, not, not on your Nelly.
19:32 Speaker 00 Absolute.
19:33 Speaker 01 Not on your Nelly is he getting into that list.
19:36 Speaker 00 He's the Chief and he is invited at the front door to enter.
19:40 Speaker 01 No, sirree. Not the Chief. He's wrong gen. He's wrong gen, he's wrong music.
19:47 Speaker 00 Stop gatekeeping Noel Gallagher.
19:49 Speaker 01 I will gatekeep Noel Gallagher because he's not on, he's not Rock Guitar Magazine's top 10 licks of all time. I'm running a go at him.
19:57 Speaker 00 I know what you mean, though.
19:58 Speaker 02 I would agree.
19:59 Speaker 00 When I did the last, when I did the Half Marathon, the last couple of K, acquiesce, Live at Roch Gilder, some might say Live at Earl's Court or the other way around.
20:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:09 Speaker 00 Effing in the bushes several times and I felt good.
20:11 Speaker 01 You were listening to them?
20:12 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah.
20:13 Speaker 01 Have you got shocks?
20:15 Speaker 00 What do you mean?
20:15 Speaker 01 Like bone conducting headphones?
20:17 Speaker 00 No, we've just got some in-ears that are very, very loud.
20:21 Speaker 02 That's not safe, is it?
20:22 Speaker 01 That's actually banned.
20:24 Speaker 02 Yeah.
20:24 Speaker 00 From what?
20:25 Speaker 01 Which I think might invalidate the time.
20:29 Speaker 00 Well, you're disqualified.
20:30 Speaker 01 That's a real shame.
20:33 Speaker 00 That's fine.
20:34 Speaker 01 That's shockwaves.
20:35 Speaker 02 Okay, that's all right. That's cheating. You Southampton'd it.
20:37 Speaker 01 That's insane.
20:39 Speaker 00 All right, fine.
20:41 Speaker 01 Oh, my god.
20:41 Speaker 00 Shoot, shoot me.
20:44 Speaker 01 Uh, this one also really made me laugh. This is from Anna. Hello, my charismatic content kings.
20:49 Speaker 00 Oh, this is good.
20:50 Speaker 01 You posted a question recently about whether it's still possible to develop the ick in a long-term relationship, or whether this is a phenomenon confined to the throes of a new passion. I can confirm from a recent experience that it is indeed still possible to develop the ick after 20 years of marriage. A few months ago, my teenage daughter was gifted an Udi. Do you know what that is, Dave?
21:11 Speaker 02 No.
21:12 Speaker 01 It's a hooded blanket.
21:14 Speaker 02 Uh, yes, in that case, I think.
21:17 Speaker 01 She decided she was-
21:18 Speaker 02 She's got armholes.
21:19 Speaker 01 I think some of them do, yeah.
21:21 Speaker 02 It's like a, it's like a, it's like a Cuddly Pond show, isn't it? Yeah.
21:25 Speaker 01 Uh, she decided she wasn't too keen on it, as she felt a bit swamped by the size, so she gave it to me to take to the charity shop. Never one to bypass an opportunity to dress for comfort, my husband decided to fish it out of the charity bag and started wearing it himself.
21:40 Speaker 02 No.
21:41 Speaker 01 His favourite thing to do now, upon finishing work, is to run himself a long bath, grab a can of lager, and watch an episode of Ancient Aliens whilst relaxing in the tub before getting out and slipping into his newly acquired loungewear. The problem for me, however, and the thing that saps any remaining vestiges of sexual desire-
22:00 Speaker 02 What a sentence, that is.
22:02 Speaker 01 Is that he also has a penchant for going commando, so he likes to literally just throw on the Udi and nothing else, bar a pair of Adidas Stan Smiths.
22:11 Speaker 02 No.
22:11 Speaker 01 As he says slippers make him feel old.
22:13 Speaker 00 That's mega grim. We've invented mega grim.
22:17 Speaker 01 When I catch sight of him in the kitchen, bare legs protruding from clouds of billowing polyester with everything hanging loose in between.
22:25 Speaker 00 Oh, wow.
22:25 Speaker 01 I often think to myself, hmm. When we made our marriage vows 20 years ago, this wasn't quite the romantic vision of our future I imagined. However, as Ellis mentioned, whilst this is certainly possible for new icks to arise, they don't carry the same significance after decades together. I wouldn't swap my ancient alien-loving Udi wearer for the world.
22:46 Speaker 00 That feels like an add-on.
22:48 Speaker 01 And the ick factor is more than balanced out by the fact that I enjoy seeing him happy and comfortable, which, if you can't be in your own home, is surely a rum do indeed. Great use of the phrase rum do.
22:58 Speaker 00 Yeah.
22:59 Speaker 01 This is the thing.
23:00 Speaker 00 Much love from Anna.
23:02 Speaker 01 So in a sense, that isn't the ick, because the ick is something that means you can't go back to the well.
23:08 Speaker 00 I love that email, apart from the lies in the last paragraph.
23:11 Speaker 01 What's ancient alien?
23:13 Speaker 00 I don't know.
23:14 Speaker 01 Does anyone know what ancient alien is?
23:15 Speaker 00 No, I'm gonna start watching it, though.
23:17 Speaker 02 The biggest ick in that is walking around the house with Stan Smith's on.
23:23 Speaker 01 What are they?
23:24 Speaker 02 Well, it's just a very outdoorsy trainer.
23:26 Speaker 00 Trainers. Sometimes with Velcro. They're all tennis shoes.
23:29 Speaker 01 With no socks and with your junk going kaplunk.
23:35 Speaker 00 Maybe the, maybe he's never worn them outside.
23:38 Speaker 02 It's just the least comfortable shoe, I'd imagine.
23:41 Speaker 00 But they're leather.
23:41 Speaker 02 Yeah. I'll show you Stan Smith.
23:43 Speaker 00 And they're quite sweaty, I would imagine, if you haven't got socks on.
23:46 Speaker 02 I used to love a Stan Smith back in university.
23:48 Speaker 00 I loved a, I loved a Stan Smith.
23:50 Speaker 02 It's just a very functional.
23:51 Speaker 01 It's a house shoe.
23:52 Speaker 02 Yeah, madness, isn't it?
23:54 Speaker 00 I, I don't really like that kind of Uber lounging gear.
23:58 Speaker 02 I'll do joggers and a hoodie. I will do that.
24:02 Speaker 00 I'll, I'll do football shorts and a t-shirt.
24:05 Speaker 02 Got it. Yeah, I can see you in that.
24:06 Speaker 00 But the, the sort of slank it kind of scene, I find it a little bit grim. And also, I'm not having a go if you're wearing your dressing gown in spa. Have a word with yourself.
24:21 Speaker 02 It's nice to have a reset of an evening. I always put a fresh pair of socks on before I sit down and watch the TV.
24:27 Speaker 00 Do you?
24:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, because it's a nice little reset as I get to the end of the day.
24:30 Speaker 00 I'm barefoot in the house.
24:31 Speaker 02 Fresh pair of white socks, just because then you feel like you're settling in for a couple of hours.
24:36 Speaker 00 Because we've got a very slippy carpet.
24:38 Speaker 01 Have you?
24:39 Speaker 00 Yeah, so I've gone, I'm barefoot in the house now.
24:41 Speaker 02 Are you?
24:42 Speaker 00 But I don't know, the sort of, the mega comfy lounging gear, it's the kind of stuff that looks nice and is nice for about an hour on Christmas morning, but when it's two years old is the grimmest item of clothing you've ever seen in your life.
24:55 Speaker 01 Often polyester, so it's often, or often sort of fake, so it's often, it gets sweaty very quickly.
25:00 Speaker 00 And it doesn't get washed often enough.
25:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah, big time. I saw a chap walking down a very steep hill in Bristol. And you know that trend for like wearing your trousers under your bum cheeks? So that your boxers are on. So his was so low, it was, that he was holding on to them with his hand the whole time.
25:31 Speaker 01 And also had his hand, he was also had his hand down his pants, like for some reason.
25:36 Speaker 00 Like young men do, yeah.
25:38 Speaker 01 So he was walking.
25:39 Speaker 00 Imagine shaking hands with that guy.
25:40 Speaker 01 Well, you wouldn't, you wouldn't. You're not, you're not going.
25:43 Speaker 00 Hello mate, nice to meet you. Ah!
25:44 Speaker 01 But it's just like, so odd that someone's doing, I can get that like performative thing of maybe doing it when you're around all your mates, if that's what men do now. But the idea that you walk, so he kept pulling up his trousers with his hand down his pants, it looked really odd. It looked a bit like he'd sort of had an accident and was desperately trying to get home.
26:04 Speaker 00 Yeah. What if he becomes, what if he becomes the CEO of a top 40, 100 company?
26:10 Speaker 01 Well, he'd have to stop smoking doobies at four in the afternoon, unless he's going to be CEO of Doobcall.
26:17 Speaker 00 Thing is, if you've got a slouchy jean, you can't go past the, the peak of your buttocks. Because then it's, they're just gonna slide right down.
26:25 Speaker 01 Well, these were like quite thin jeans. I don't know how they do it. I think they're securing the top of the, front of the trouser somehow to the T-shirt.
26:37 Speaker 00 The bayonet or something.
26:38 Speaker 01 It's absolutely nuts.
26:39 Speaker 00 The problem is.
26:40 Speaker 01 And gross. So, and I associate that with joggers. So I would never wear.
26:44 Speaker 00 Jogging bottoms?
26:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:45 Speaker 00 Not people who run.
26:46 Speaker 01 He was wearing jeans, but I would, like, if I see a guy wearing joggers outside, I'm like, he's the sort of person who cups himself all day.
26:52 Speaker 00 If I'm, if I'm cupping myself.
26:56 Speaker 01 But why would you be doing that? Anyone ever at any time?
26:59 Speaker 00 Unless I'm walking across the London about to have a shower. Have a quick.
27:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:04 Speaker 00 Yeah.
27:05 Speaker 01 Unless you're a GP asking someone to cough. You have no reason to be doing that.
27:12 Speaker 00 No. Unless you're extremely scared. Or defending a freak. A freak, yeah.
27:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, free kick is acceptable.
27:18 Speaker 00 Yes.
27:18 Speaker 01 Like about to get hypothermia is, is, is acceptable. If you're warming your hands to stop getting frostbite.
27:25 Speaker 00 Yeah.
27:26 Speaker 01 This is great from, uh.
27:28 Speaker 00 I will tell my son to not cup himself.
27:30 Speaker 01 Oh god, yes.
27:31 Speaker 00 If that's still a fashion when he's a teenager, I'll say, come on, mate.
27:34 Speaker 01 That would be, if I was, um.
27:36 Speaker 00 I can't shake your hands to say, well done about your sats now.
27:39 Speaker 01 If I, if I was attracted to a guy and I ever saw him do that, like, unconscious cupping, then I would consciously uncouple.
27:50 Speaker 00 Yeah.
27:51 Speaker 01 That would give me the, this is great from Jake in Charlotte. Jake says, one of the world's great literary classics features a moment where a character gets the ick from a long time partner. Anna Karenina encounters the handsome, handsome Vronsky on a train, then is met by her husband at the station. Seeing him, she has a niggling thought. Have his ears always been so large? Very good.
28:12 Speaker 00 Dear.
28:12 Speaker 01 I've not read Anna Karenina, have you? Have you, Ellis?
28:15 Speaker 00 No, although I do own a copy.
28:17 Speaker 01 Oh, well done.
28:18 Speaker 00 I've never, I've never actually read it. But it, god, it looks good in the living room. People are so impressed. I'm more, I'm more excited that Jake is from Charlotte in America.
28:28 Speaker 01 Isn't that Charlottesville?
28:31 Speaker 00 Is there a Charlotte in the UK? Very disappointing if there is.
28:34 Speaker 02 I think it's America, isn't it? There is a Charlotte in America.
28:39 Speaker 01 What state's it in, Dave?
28:41 Speaker 02 Uh, North Carolina.
28:42 Speaker 01 Ooh, I wonder what snacks they have there?
28:46 Speaker 02 Or maybe South Carolina.
28:48 Speaker 01 Do they have Cheetos and chili dogs, Dave?
28:50 Speaker 02 And Twinkies.
28:52 Speaker 01 I had a tamale this week.
28:54 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah.
28:54 Speaker 01 For the first time in my life. Um, I don't have a microwave set to do it in the air fryer. Uh, this is from Rachel. Dave, you've been sent to jail with Gok Wan.
29:05 Speaker 02 What do you mean?
29:07 Speaker 01 Uh, this is from Rachel. Hi, Todja, Todja B and Todja C, AKA the Todger Boys. I'm a listener to the Good Ship Ellis and John and also commercial indie radio rival, Absolute.
29:17 Speaker 02 Oh, God, okay. I used to work at Absolute Radio.
29:21 Speaker 01 And when listening to John Richardson's show last Saturday, featuring friend of the show Angela Barnes, the two worlds collided.
29:27 Speaker 02 Ah.
29:27 Speaker 01 John has a feature around the incorrect use of the word Dave. Your head is gone.
29:33 Speaker 02 That is fine.
29:33 Speaker 01 Uh, Dave has a, uh, John has a feature on the incorrect use of the word literally.
29:37 Speaker 02 Yeah.
29:38 Speaker 01 And it appears Dave fell foul of this a few weeks ago on your podcast. I've attached a clip from John's show.
29:43 Speaker 02 Okay. Yeah, go on then.
29:46 Speaker 04 Now, Claire has been in touch, uh, and she's, she's hit the topic we love the most. Here is an accusation about a fellow comedian.
29:53 Speaker 05 Bring it on.
29:55 Speaker 06 Hi, John. I've got a literal offence to report from the Ellis and John podcast last Friday. Producer Dave used the word.
30:03 Speaker 05 Come off it.
30:03 Speaker 06 When he was describing John's book sales and it went unchecked by both Ellis and John. So please investigate. All the best. Claire in Scotland.
30:16 Speaker 04 Well, you've just got to be careful here. You're not being hoodwinked into a free advert for somebody's book, are you?
30:21 Speaker 01 Such a cynical little sin.
30:23 Speaker 04 Let's have a little listen. Let's have a little listen. Here we go, Dave.
30:25 Speaker 00 I walked into my local bookshop on the day it was published and Justine said, he's shifting some copies, your mate.
30:32 Speaker 01 Am I really?
30:33 Speaker 02 Was he literally flying off the shelves?
30:34 Speaker 01 Flying off the shelves?
30:35 Speaker 02 This is the epitome of flying off the shelves.
30:37 Speaker 05 No, slam dunk that. The book did not literally fly off a shelf, did it?
30:42 Speaker 01 Right.
30:43 Speaker 04 Yeah. Uh, no, it didn't.
30:45 Speaker 05 Did it sprout wings? Have a little, like, fly, no?
30:48 Speaker 04 Yeah. What a shame. What a shame. I, I think just Dave going to jail.
30:53 Speaker 05 Yeah, okay, fine.
30:53 Speaker 04 He's just run the marathon, Annie, be glad of the break. So Dave Masterman and Gok Wan into jail this week.
31:02 Speaker 02 Hold on, what's Scott Quann got to do with it?
31:03 Speaker 01 He must have been the previous offender.
31:05 Speaker 02 Oh, I mean, good company then.
31:07 Speaker 01 We should start doing a feature where we pick up on radio shows where you can hear a slight echo coming through the mic. Because it's obviously their headphones are leaking into the mic. Did you notice that, Dave?
31:17 Speaker 02 Clearly not in the same room. That's fine.
31:19 Speaker 01 So who's going to jail? Is it Angela Barnes and John Richardson for poor sound quality?
31:25 Speaker 02 Well, I'm obviously part of the producers' union, so I'm not going to blame the production teams.
31:28 Speaker 01 But it is their fault.
31:29 Speaker 02 Probably. They should just get those headphones turned down a little bit.
31:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, just a touch.
31:34 Speaker 02 In my defence, fair enough, yeah, of course they're not literally flying off the shelves. Thing is, I actually use that phrase quite a lot. So if anything's going well, I'll say, oh, it's flying off the shelves. So tickets to all my friends. Oh, it's flying off the shelves.
31:48 Speaker 01 Isn't that happening in Sheffield, Dave?
31:49 Speaker 02 Yeah, there's a couple of them coming up. But so but the reason I said that is because this is almost as close as you can get because it's a book on a shelf that people are buying. So as much as I know it's not literally flying off the shelves, given how far away I am in terms of the actual meaning, when I do say flying off the shelves, it's pretty close.
32:07 Speaker 00 Do you reckon Sean would have allowed you to get away with it selling like hot, literally selling like hotcakes? Is that literal?
32:14 Speaker 01 Well, then it's then it's literally like.
32:17 Speaker 02 Yeah.
32:18 Speaker 01 But then I I the annoying misuse of that I find is when people say literally for things that are literal, not literally for things that aren't literal. So if you said to me, I was chatting to Annika Rice the other day, and she was literally sat as far away from me as you are.
32:35 Speaker 02 Yeah.
32:35 Speaker 01 I would go, I wasn't going to like accuse you of lying.
32:39 Speaker 02 There's no need to lean into that. Yeah, okay.
32:41 Speaker 01 Because you're being literal when she's when you say she was as far away from me as you are, whatever.
32:47 Speaker 02 But that is accurate.
32:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, but it's such an odd way to go. I was literally walking down the street.
32:52 Speaker 00 It's an intensive fight. It's for emphasis, isn't it? Especially, I mean.
32:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, but if you say to me, I was walking down the street, I'm not going to go, were you?
32:58 Speaker 00 No, but I would be like, what, you were that close to Annika Rice?
33:03 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's true. Annika Rice, you probably do want to say literally sat opposite because it's a shock.
33:10 Speaker 00 If I was literally sat opposite Annika Rice on a train. And I would, I would, I would call you up and I'd say, sorry, Annika, I've had to talk about you like you're not there, but you are. I'm literally sat opposite her now.
33:24 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:24 Speaker 00 Because you're trying to emphasise it's, you're just a table width away. She's not the other, she's not in the vestibule.
33:31 Speaker 01 But then just say, I was sat, it's a tautology for me.
33:35 Speaker 02 Oh, what does that mean?
33:36 Speaker 01 It's when you sort of do the same thing twice in language.
33:40 Speaker 00 Oh, it's annoyingly irritating, I suppose is a bad example, but that's the kind of thing we're on.
33:45 Speaker 01 Yeah. Anyway, good stuff. You're in prison, Dave.
33:49 Speaker 02 Okay. I mean, yeah, it's, it's fair enough, but I think it's close enough as well to be flying off the shelves, that it didn't quite deserve.
33:57 Speaker 00 No, books don't fly, Dave.
33:59 Speaker 02 I know they don't.
34:00 Speaker 01 If you throw them.
34:01 Speaker 02 But they're whipped off the shelves.
34:03 Speaker 01 If you're, if you were selling them so fast, you're having to throw them to customers, you could say they were flying off the shelves. Cause flying doesn't necessarily mean something is propelling itself.
34:12 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's just going through the air.
34:14 Speaker 01 Yeah. So if I throw this vape juice across the room, it will be flying through the air.
34:19 Speaker 00 Okay. Well, then I, I want to go to a bookshop where Thursday's selling in such enormous quantities, people that they are actually having to be thrown across the bookshop.
34:29 Speaker 01 Well, it is in the Sunday Times bestseller list again, for a second week running.
34:33 Speaker 02 How have you managed, how long does it stay in for usually?
34:35 Speaker 00 What position?
34:35 Speaker 01 Usually they just drop straight out.
34:37 Speaker 02 Do they? You've hung around.
34:39 Speaker 01 I've hung around.
34:39 Speaker 02 Like Mr. Brightside from The Killers.
34:41 Speaker 01 Bird Guy's still ahead of me.
34:43 Speaker 02 Is he?
34:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, but it's a big book.
34:46 Speaker 02 And birds are always around.
34:47 Speaker 01 Birds are always around.
34:48 Speaker 02 It's always topical.
34:51 Speaker 01 We've had a drop down disaster and a breath hold bonanza. And both are very funny.
34:58 Speaker 00 Oh, I like the.
34:59 Speaker 01 Do you want to read the drop down disaster?
35:01 Speaker 00 I like this one. Hello and thank you for keeping me company and amused on my drive to work. If I could take you back to the dark days of Covid, it's early 2021. And I was pleased to hear that my elderly parents and parents-in-law had been contacted by their GP surgeries to go and get their first doses of the vaccine, protecting the elderly and the vulnerable. As a healthy, active man in my late 40s at the time, I was somewhat surprised to get a text message from my GP at the same time as my elderly parents, inviting me to book a vaccination slot. Confused as to why, I booked a slot nonetheless. On the day when I rocked up at the local community centre, I was definitely in a different demographic to my fellow vaccinees. They were either very elderly or appeared to have underlying conditions.
35:45 Speaker 00 Yeah, I got some rather funny looks on the staff, but I was duly vaccinated and I headed on my way. It's so funny this.
35:54 Speaker 00 It was a week or so later, when checking the NHS app to see which vaccine I had been given, that the reason for my early call-up became apparent. When I'd registered with my GP a few years earlier, they'd obviously selected the wrong choices from the dropdown menu. My height in CMs and my weight in KGs had been transposed.
36:16 Speaker 00 According to my NHS records, I was a 96-centimetre-tall man. Now, my son was about that when he was five. Right, that's tiny. Weighing a whopping 187 kilograms. That would have given me a BMI, Body Max Index, of over 203. I was an exceptionally heavy, yet incredibly short man, well and truly in the high morbidity risk category. I assume my BMI got picked up in some sort of search, hence my early call-up. I didn't correct the GP's records and duly turned up for my subsequent Covid jobs months before I should have. Love the show, and if you're one of fascinating, humorous and also terrifying reader of what can happen
36:58 Speaker 00 when maths goes wrong, I can highly recommend Humble Pie by Matt Parker or the Best Boys, Kristoff. It's the BMI of 203 that makes me laugh so much.
37:10 Speaker 01 The highest ever recorded BMI, which we should point out is a flawed system.
37:15 Speaker 00 It's a blunt tool.
37:17 Speaker 01 Is 186.
37:19 Speaker 00 Wow, so he'd been a heavy, yeah.
37:21 Speaker 01 That was of John Broer-Minock.
37:25 Speaker 00 What's a 187 KG in stone?
37:29 Speaker 02 Because being un-
37:30 Speaker 01 It's two of, it's two and a bit of me, so it would be about, uh, 28 stone?
37:38 Speaker 02 Do you want to have a guess?
37:38 Speaker 00 No, it's definitely more than that, I think.
37:40 Speaker 02 Would you reckon?
37:41 Speaker 00 I'm not gonna guess, and stop making me, stop tricking me.
37:46 Speaker 02 We're nearly at it then. Uh, what did you say?
37:48 Speaker 01 Hundred and twenty-eight.
37:50 Speaker 02 No, what, what stone, did you say?
37:52 Speaker 01 Oh, sorry, um, twenty-eight stone.
37:56 Speaker 02 Twenty-nine stone.
37:57 Speaker 00 Oh, well done.
37:58 Speaker 01 Thanks, that was a really good guess.
38:00 Speaker 02 Yeah, it was.
38:01 Speaker 00 Twenty-nine stone and under a metre tall is, you're, you're a big guy.
38:06 Speaker 01 Uh, this is from Duncan. Duncan says, hello friends, I enjoyed hearing John's story of holding his breath and making money whilst his apps update. This felt relatively sane in the context of a busy mega mind. Whilst my mind is surely at best only John adjacent, I did find that his example resonated. Humble brag alert, I'm a COO of a medium sized business. I'd love to be a COO of a medium sized business.
38:32 Speaker 02 You wouldn't know, I don't think.
38:33 Speaker 00 I-
38:33 Speaker 02 It's busy.
38:34 Speaker 00 You would for a day.
38:34 Speaker 02 It'd be busy.
38:35 Speaker 01 I would have reserved parking, reserved for the COO.
38:39 Speaker 02 But then you'd have to do 10 hours.
38:40 Speaker 00 You work from home and you've got reserved parking in your own house because you just park outside your front door.
38:44 Speaker 01 That's true. Maybe I do need to get a sign.
38:48 Speaker 02 I-
38:49 Speaker 01 To have to apply to the council.
38:51 Speaker 00 Like all these things, you would like to do it for an afternoon. You'd be very good at working in marketing for an afternoon where you kept suggesting freedom you can trust as a slogan.
39:01 Speaker 01 They're now worth 600 billion as a result of my input. I cash out my shares. Bish bash bosh.
39:06 Speaker 00 Yeah.
39:09 Speaker 01 As a COO of a medium sized business, I love the fact it's a medium sized business.
39:16 Speaker 02 Which can really range.
39:17 Speaker 01 Yes, yes. Footsie 250, footsie all cap, who knows?
39:23 Speaker 01 I often find myself one of the earliest people to arrive in the office. And whilst not claiming to be a hero, I am the only senior member of staff who, when they arrive first, were deemed to empty the dishwasher from the day before. That's class.
39:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
39:37 Speaker 00 I like that.
39:39 Speaker 01 I also fill the kettle up. I know you should only boil what you need, but if people arrive just after you and you only boiled one cup worth, that's how wars start. After a few days of dishwasher work, my brain took me to a scenario where I was the Prime Minister. And because I was part of a documentary, my selfless task had made me the man of the people. I often joked in my own mind that this might be the only good thing I achieved that day. I can assure that being PM is not easy. From here, it was only another week before I filled the kettle and flicked the switch and then started to empty the dishwasher. And the more I could empty and put away before the kettle boiled was a reflection of my quality as PM. I was often still stuck in the cutlery rack when
40:23 Speaker 01 it boiled, but if I did get it done, then we were calling an early election as it was going to be a landslide. I would say this is next level daydreaming and John's example like this is worthy of more praise than derision. Take care, Duncan. I love Duncan.
40:37 Speaker 02 Yeah.
40:38 Speaker 00 I like Duncan. I used to do stuff like that and then I just stopped, probably when I was in my late teens.
40:43 Speaker 01 When you lost your imagination.
40:44 Speaker 00 Yeah.
40:45 Speaker 01 Yeah. And that's okay.
40:46 Speaker 00 Yeah.
40:47 Speaker 01 I mean, you, you might imagine being at, um, in the dressing room at half time in Wales game.
40:53 Speaker 00 Yeah, I've imagined that. I've imagined that kind of thing.
40:56 Speaker 01 But you wouldn't.
40:56 Speaker 00 I always give such an inspiring speech.
40:59 Speaker 01 Do you? What do you say?
41:00 Speaker 00 It's just all about, I just, it's not what I say, it's as I'm delivering the words.
41:06 Speaker 01 Your trousers full, David.
41:08 Speaker 00 I'm looking round and the players are wrapped.
41:11 Speaker 01 Yeah.
41:12 Speaker 00 And they're just staring at me and I'm kind of part icon, part father figure.
41:16 Speaker 01 Whereas whenever you see footage of those half time talks, all the players are doing something else. Like one of them's bum is out, one of them's willy is out.
41:24 Speaker 00 Fiddling with a shin pad.
41:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, one of them's putting deodorant on, one of them's texting, one of them's, I don't know, drinking a big Lucozade and spitting.
41:32 Speaker 00 Yeah.
41:32 Speaker 01 It's, they're not wrapped like in the half time speech in any given Sunday.
41:36 Speaker 00 Yes.
41:36 Speaker 01 We fight for that inch.
41:38 Speaker 00 Yeah.
41:38 Speaker 01 Good film. What a film. Um, right, Ellis in a cryptic crossword. Someone read it to me because I want to do the clue, if there's a clue, please.
41:47 Speaker 00 To the two chafless wonders and Ellis. We hope you've recovered from the recent squat challenge and well done on your significant run. Well, there we were last week, minding our own business, having a go at the cryptic crossword in the I newspaper on the 1st of May, when low and behold, didn't our 48% cumery connecting wizard appear in four down? We were thrilled to get the answer right, but can John manage to do the same live on air?
42:14 Speaker 01 Okay.
42:14 Speaker 00 In less than 60 seconds.
42:16 Speaker 01 Oh, oh, oh.
42:18 Speaker 00 Is that possible? I'm not really a cryptic crossword guy, so.
42:21 Speaker 01 You might be.
42:22 Speaker 00 Okay.
42:22 Speaker 01 Four down.
42:24 Speaker 00 Four down.
42:25 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think this is quite easy.
42:26 Speaker 00 Do we have a, uh, do we have a countdown timer? Put, do it in post.
42:31 Speaker 02 I'll do it. 69, 50, no, that's.
42:35 Speaker 01 Jeez, Dave. Good grief.
42:39 Speaker 02 My kids have got no chance.
42:42 Speaker 01 So 69, 59.
42:47 Speaker 00 That's, how can I put this? A huge failure on your part, Dave.
42:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, give me the clue and then start the clock.
42:55 Speaker 00 The clue is four down. All of Elis James's content revolves around some posts found online. Five.
43:03 Speaker 01 Hang on. All of Elis James apostrophe.
43:05 Speaker 00 Yeah, all of Elis James's content revolves around some posts found online. Five.
43:12 Speaker 01 Hang on.
43:13 Speaker 02 And your 69 seconds starts now.
43:18 Speaker 02 He's off.
43:22 Speaker 00 Now, either what I've, what I think it is.
43:24 Speaker 01 Uh, email.
43:25 Speaker 00 Yeah.
43:28 Speaker 00 I mean, yeah, surely it's that. I got that in 12 seconds. I think I got that in one second because it was a cryptic crossword. I assumed it would be something much more.
43:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
43:36 Speaker 00 Complicated.
43:38 Speaker 02 I think it is email.
43:40 Speaker 00 Hmm. Well, all the best and thanks for the content.
43:42 Speaker 01 Hang on.
43:43 Speaker 00 Tom and Alison, second time emailers, and Dave's Parker and Stalkers. John, your time starts now.
43:47 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it.
43:48 Speaker 00 Tom and Alison haven't, uh, told us what the answer is. We're all guessing it's email. That's the obvious.
43:53 Speaker 01 No, it is. Cause so Elis James's content means the letters inside.
44:00 Speaker 01 The E in the S and the J in the S, which is E M A I L revolves around, you turn it around, so it's email. And the definition is some post found online.
44:13 Speaker 00 Oh, well done.
44:14 Speaker 01 But you could also get it, as I'm sure you did, from the, I guess, the straight definition, which is some post found online.
44:20 Speaker 00 Yeah.
44:20 Speaker 01 So you could use that in a, you could use that in a quick, regular crossword.
44:26 Speaker 00 Yeah, it feels like something you'd get in a regular crossword. Oh, I wish I'd known because I would have, I would have cut the crossword out and I would have framed it.
44:36 Speaker 02 You did that in 12 seconds.
44:37 Speaker 01 Thank you.
44:38 Speaker 02 So there's 50 seconds left on the clock.
44:40 Speaker 01 It's good stuff.
44:40 Speaker 00 No, no, isn't it 79 seconds, Dave?
44:46 Speaker 01 I could do a cryptic crossword as a cinematic universe bonus feature because I've written lots of clues.
44:51 Speaker 00 Have you?
44:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
44:52 Speaker 00 What for?
44:53 Speaker 01 My, myself.
44:54 Speaker 02 So how would it work for the cinematic universe?
44:56 Speaker 01 We would just post a PDF of a cryptic crossword and they could print it out and do it at home.
45:02 Speaker 00 That's lovely.
45:03 Speaker 02 That's a lovely bit of business. So it's the whole thing, it's not just one?
45:06 Speaker 01 No, yeah, whole thing.
45:07 Speaker 02 How many are usually in them?
45:09 Speaker 01 Uh, like 28.
45:11 Speaker 02 Oh, let's make this a weekly thing.
45:14 Speaker 00 Are they very hard to set?
45:15 Speaker 01 Yes.
45:15 Speaker 00 Okay. Dave Gorman doesn't.
45:17 Speaker 01 I don't actually know, you need, annoyingly, you need Windows to run the software to set them, which is such a cryptic crossword setters problem.
45:27 Speaker 00 Yeah.
45:28 Speaker 01 Like, they're so Windows.
45:30 Speaker 00 They're so Windows.
45:30 Speaker 01 So I'd have to run Windows on my Mac.
45:34 Speaker 00 Okay.
45:35 Speaker 01 But it would be.
45:36 Speaker 00 Small price to pay for.
45:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, I would have to work out how to do that. I used to do that in order to play golf, online golf, so I'm sure I could do it now.
45:44 Speaker 00 Is the Times Cryptic still the big one?
45:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the gold standard.
45:48 Speaker 00 Is it? Okay, more than The Telegraph or The Guardian?
45:50 Speaker 01 I mean, they're good, but The Times is the sort of.
45:54 Speaker 00 That's the one Morse does.
45:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:56 Speaker 02 Do they have guest curators?
45:59 Speaker 01 Uh, the Times wouldn't because The Times is the only paper that doesn't tell you who the setter is.
46:05 Speaker 00 Of course, yes.
46:07 Speaker 01 Whereas The Independent might get your Gorman's in.
46:10 Speaker 00 Oh, we should get you in.
46:11 Speaker 01 Your, um, Steve Pemberton's in.
46:14 Speaker 00 Yeah.
46:14 Speaker 01 To, uh, to sort of curate it. But I do, I need to ask someone about the technically, like, how do you physically? Generate it. I couldn't write all the clues and stuff.
46:25 Speaker 00 What a lovely mind.
46:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, beautiful mind.
46:35 Speaker 01 Sorry, what were we doing? Ask us anything?
46:36 Speaker 02 Let's do Ask Us Anything, and here is the house remix.
47:15 Speaker 01 Very good. If you want to ask us anything, you can email [email protected] . Dave?
47:22 Speaker 02 A broad church of Ask Us Anythings. Schmorgasbord. How tall is Dave? Six foot.
47:29 Speaker 01 Are you? Hell's like.
47:32 Speaker 02 It's not. Why does no one believe it when I say that?
47:35 Speaker 01 You don't present as six foot.
47:37 Speaker 02 That's fine, but I am. I've just got quite a small head.
47:42 Speaker 01 Okay, shoes off, back against the wall. Where's our tape measure, please?
47:46 Speaker 02 Do we have one?
47:48 Speaker 01 We should do our heights on the wall like kids.
47:51 Speaker 02 Albert did that without us, without asking, and we were livid. She did it a lot.
47:56 Speaker 02 Okay, do you want me to take my shoes off? Because it is a faff. I've got my desert treks on.
48:00 Speaker 01 Yes, you do need to take your shoes off, Dave.
48:04 Speaker 00 Blimmin' heck.
48:05 Speaker 01 And we will be using a copy of the Holy Bible. Thank you, Zofia.
48:13 Speaker 00 Oh, no.
48:18 Speaker 00 God, it is a faff, isn't it, you undoing your laces?
48:22 Speaker 01 What's going on there? Is that triple lot?
48:25 Speaker 02 A triple, a triple lot.
48:27 Speaker 01 Why?
48:28 Speaker 02 Because otherwise the laces are too floppy.
48:30 Speaker 01 Are you worried someone's gonna steal your feet?
48:32 Speaker 02 Too floppy.
48:33 Speaker 07 Don't eat both off?
48:34 Speaker 01 Yep.
48:34 Speaker 07 Oh god, it's another triple lot!
48:36 Speaker 00 Dave, I mean...
48:38 Speaker 01 Your shoes are like national pensions!
48:40 Speaker 00 This is worse than your counting.
48:42 Speaker 02 It's been a tough five minutes for me.
48:44 Speaker 00 Old Pentagon feet.
48:47 Speaker 01 Right.
48:49 Speaker 00 One of Fort Knox, that's what I was thinking of.
48:51 Speaker 01 Right then, Dave, you can stand here by the, uh... By the "I won't listen to this rubbish" sign.
48:59 Speaker 01 Okay. Heels against the wall, please.
49:06 Speaker 01 Yep, you're not to, you're not to raise your heels at the floor.
49:09 Speaker 02 I'm not raising!
49:10 Speaker 01 Okay, we, hang on.
49:12 Speaker 02 Don't do it with a permanent marker, John.
49:14 Speaker 01 We got it. We've got the mark.
49:17 Speaker 02 Did you go to the top of my head?
49:18 Speaker 01 Yes.
49:20 Speaker 02 It sounded like it was around my ear.
49:22 Speaker 01 There you go. Step away, please, Dave.
49:27 Speaker 00 It's quite, I'm quite nervous. Because I have, for 41 years, been, not 41 years...
49:31 Speaker 02 Forty-one! You're a six-foot baby!
49:37 Speaker 02 Well, for a long time, I've been saying I'm six foot, so this...
49:39 Speaker 01 Oh, Dave!
49:41 Speaker 02 Oh no, is this devastating?
49:43 Speaker 01 You're exactly the same height as me.
49:46 Speaker 02 Which is what?
49:48 Speaker 01 Five-eleven and three-quarters.
49:49 Speaker 02 And what is it, what did it go up to again? Twelve?
49:52 Speaker 01 What?
49:53 Speaker 00 Dave.
49:53 Speaker 01 What has happened to you?
49:55 Speaker 00 Dave, five foot twelve is six foot.
49:57 Speaker 01 What does it go up to?
49:58 Speaker 02 Yeah, just for a second, I thought it went up to thirteen. Sorry, it's fine. Oh, we're basically six-foot brothers then, aren't we?
50:05 Speaker 01 Well, you, obviously, you round up to six foot, Dave. I'm gonna check just in case I'm a millimeter taller than you.
50:11 Speaker 02 Of course, it's a competition.
50:14 Speaker 02 Of course it is. And he's measuring himself. That's not fair.
50:20 Speaker 01 Oh Dave, I'm bang on the same as you.
50:22 Speaker 02 Ooh.
50:22 Speaker 01 The height, brother.
50:23 Speaker 02 This is nice.
50:24 Speaker 00 That's nice.
50:24 Speaker 02 This is nice.
50:26 Speaker 00 Right, have you got any Ask Us things, Steve?
50:28 Speaker 02 So Joe, six foot. We'll say six foot at this stage.
50:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'd say six foot.
50:33 Speaker 00 Oh, five foot seven.
50:34 Speaker 02 Ellis from Steve. Ellis, what's your most cherished memory from a five-a-side match? Can you walk us through a goal you scored or a tackle you made that will be with you till your deathbed? That's a great question.
50:46 Speaker 00 That is a good question.
50:48 Speaker 01 If Ellis was ever on ITV's An Audience with Elis James.
50:52 Speaker 02 Yeah.
50:52 Speaker 01 That's the question he would send them that he wanted to ask.
50:56 Speaker 02 Yeah.
50:58 Speaker 00 I was clean through at the Taskmaster game. I just had Charlie to beat and I play up front when I play five-a-side.
51:04 Speaker 02 Yeah.
51:05 Speaker 00 And I find the Taskmaster game quite overwhelming. This was the most I've enjoyed it. And I've enjoyed it a little bit more every year. But there are 4,000 people there, which is more people than you used to watch the Swans when I started going down the fetch.
51:18 Speaker 01 Wow, is that true?
51:19 Speaker 00 Yeah, when I started going down the fetch, we very rarely tipped 4,000. And if you got over 4,000, it was considered a really good attendance.
51:29 Speaker 01 Wow.
51:29 Speaker 00 Yeah. We'd get about three, three and a half.
51:31 Speaker 01 What league were you in then?
51:32 Speaker 00 League two.
51:34 Speaker 00 And so when I scored, it was genuinely, I've never experienced anything quite like it. I was thrilled. So it would be that.
51:42 Speaker 01 For five-a-side was the question.
51:45 Speaker 00 There are frustrate, no, embarrassingly, there are a few goals I've scored in five-a-side because obviously I'm playing against people my own standard. So every now and then you do something really good. And I had quite an instructive moment during the Taskmaster game when, you know, the professional who was playing for the other team, for Egg United, who was like Franz Beckenbauer? He's so much better than comedians. So I play in five different games and the standard is the same across the board. So there's the comedians game and then a few others I'm in the WhatsApp groups for.
52:18 Speaker 00 So this guy, you obviously try and avoid him because he's so good. But the ball came to me in the, in the box and it was in a split second. So I hadn't had time to realise that it was him. I could just see that there was someone from Egg United on my right shoulder. And the way the ball came up to it, it sat up really nicely. And I thought, it's actually a fault of this moment. I thought, oh, I'm just going to turn this guy. So the ball comes to me and I execute what I want to do perfectly, as well as I can do it. And I've turned him. I have turned him. And in my head, I'm thinking, I'm just clean throwing a goal now. It's just Charlie to beat. I'm going to score a second. Oh my God. And then he just tackled me. And I was talking to Dan Kitson about this because when you turn someone in the comedians game, or the game I play on a Thursday night, that
53:02 Speaker 00 person is 48 and is probably wheezing and is like, yeah, fair enough. You done me. That's not how professionals think. So I turned him. He thought, well, I'll just have to tackle him now. And I thought, oh, I, I don't know. I would hate to play soccer aid because they're like Didier Drogba did soccer aid a few years ago. It must be horrible playing against people who've been in the Premier League.
53:24 Speaker 02 But fascinating as well.
53:26 Speaker 00 Yeah, but this guy.
53:26 Speaker 02 You just have to park your ego and just go, this is, this is mad.
53:29 Speaker 00 He plays for Cheshire, who are in tier six, I think. And he's so much better than I am.
53:33 Speaker 02 It makes you realise how good you have to be to even bother the Premier League, let alone be one of the best players in it.
53:38 Speaker 00 Oh my God, I played against, in a charity game once, I played against Chris White, who used to play for Arsenal and Leeds. And he was in his, I was in my early to mid 30s and he was in his mid 50s. And he just saw everything about half an hour before I did. And even though I was probably faster than him, because I was 20 years younger, I could, I could not get around him. And it was really humbling. But there are a few goals I've scored in five side that, embarrassingly, when I can't sleep, my, my mind wanders back.
54:12 Speaker 02 Yeah. It's quite relaxing, isn't it?
54:15 Speaker 00 Yeah, I saw the dummy to Andy's Oldsmoney years ago and I think about it probably once a week.
54:22 Speaker 02 Good. All right. It's another Ellis-centric one.
54:26 Speaker 02 There have been many references to Ellis's thighs over the years. Below are a few interesting questions from Dario. What is the circumference of Ellis's thighs?
54:37 Speaker 01 We've already done this.
54:37 Speaker 02 We have, and I've got it here.
54:39 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
54:39 Speaker 02 I've got it here, yeah.
54:42 Speaker 00 I've not put them on Insta yet, but there are some quite nice photos of my calves.
54:46 Speaker 02 Is there? Get them on.
54:48 Speaker 00 What, on Instagram?
54:48 Speaker 02 Absolutely. 59 centimetres is the circumference of one of Ellis's calves.
54:54 Speaker 00 It's more to do with the proportion to my height.
54:57 Speaker 02 Well, there's a few more proportion questions coming as part of this collection of questions.
55:01 Speaker 00 Okay. Are there?
55:02 Speaker 02 Yeah. Does his father and his father before have large thighs?
55:07 Speaker 00 What dad has, and what his father had, which my son has, is I've got the torso of someone who's about five foot 11, and I've got the legs of someone who's about five foot two. So naked, an absolute horror show.
55:22 Speaker 02 And does that run in the family?
55:24 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's like a proper old Collier's body.
55:26 Speaker 02 Yeah.
55:27 Speaker 00 So I'm quite sort of gorilla-like, and I've got a very big, low bum.
55:32 Speaker 01 Like a centaur.
55:33 Speaker 00 Yes. And big calves and big thighs.
55:36 Speaker 02 Is she learning about centaurs this week?
55:37 Speaker 01 Is she? Does she know they don't exist?
55:39 Speaker 02 She does now, yeah. Yeah, we made that very clear. It's quite petrifying. It's quite terrifying.
55:43 Speaker 01 It's an odd thing to be learning about.
55:45 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah. Is, I mean, the third question here, is Ellis an explosive sprinter?
55:50 Speaker 01 Yes, we know the answer.
55:52 Speaker 02 We've all seen the marathon special.
55:53 Speaker 00 Yes.
55:54 Speaker 02 And then the fourth one, do his thighs make his genitalia appear smaller?
55:58 Speaker 00 Yes.
56:01 Speaker 00 And that is an issue.
56:03 Speaker 02 And that is a shame. That is a shame. Get the tape measure back out, John. Ellis gets against the wall.
56:08 Speaker 01 It's too long into your relationship for Izzy to get the ick about that.
56:12 Speaker 00 No, she's fully aware. She's had the ick since 2010 on that.
56:15 Speaker 01 That's the price you pay for big thighs.
56:17 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah.
56:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
56:18 Speaker 02 Yeah.
56:19 Speaker 00 It's fine. And what can you do? It's the way I'm made, it's the way I'm built.
56:23 Speaker 02 Thanks, Dario.
56:24 Speaker 01 Thanks, Dario.
56:25 Speaker 02 Couple of good Ask Us Anything's there. Feel free to send them in.
56:28 Speaker 01 A lot. I mean, if you put all those questions together, it does feel like someone's trying to steal our biometric identity.
56:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
56:35 Speaker 01 To create an Ellis, John and Dave passport.
56:37 Speaker 02 It's a bit Mr. Ripley.
56:38 Speaker 00 Isn't it? Weird science.
56:40 Speaker 01 A bit Mr. Rippled in Ellis's case.
56:42 Speaker 02 Oh, just a bit.
56:44 Speaker 01 Well, thank you, everyone, for your correspondence. We'll be back with you on Tuesday and on Saturday for the Bureau de Change of the Mind. That's all. Go in peace.
57:01 Speaker 01 Thanks for listening to the show and you can follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Ellis and John for more content.
57:07 Speaker 00 And you can watch highlights of every episode over on our YouTube page at Ellis and John.
57:12 Speaker 01 Plus, you can find all things EJJR, including links to our Patreon, our merch, and much more by heading to ellisonjohn.com. See you next time.
Previous #541 - Hi Jacob, Big Brynn the Hill and 14 Connections by Tenby Next #543 - Lovely Pen, The Lumley Route and Unchopped for 15 Years Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated