Pod Insights Elis James and John Robins #548 - Two Mice, Scrabble With Dixon and Leeds Train Baguette About this episode Elis is fresh from the jolly japes of being surprised with being made to do a headline set in front of 5,000 people at an iconic venue. He’s just soooo totally cool about it.
“Feel free to leave if it’s bad, but give the guy a chance.” So if you want to miss the rush during the gig then stay til the end.
John revives an old, and at times deeply criticised, feature. We also hear some more good old fashioned Common Zense, which helps us ask the question, if the Dalai Lama spilt coffee on an important letter would he be calm?
Got any parabulation to send in? Well send it on the calm winds to [email protected] mailto:[email protected]
And please stick around til the end of the show.
For more information on Pressure is a Privilege head here https://www.patreon.com/posts/160603681. And it's here for Don't Think So Somehow https://www.instagram.com/dontthinksosomehow/, and here for Skinwigs https://linktr.ee/skinwigs?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio&fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQPOTM2NjE5NzQzMzkyNDU5AAGnd0f_GM9bcI7LPmzBs4N80QdPNW1mFWJGNrAlahSb6_f-c33MYFJPu-gmXU4_aem_ovaXLinhOdhZ2Yovqd_08w.
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Transcript 11,487 words · 8 speakers
0:00 Speaker 00 Before we start this episode, we want to invite you along to the adventures of Alice 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 Miniumpicks.
0:11 Speaker 01 It's the strangest legal jump in the history of long jump.
0:14 Speaker 00 Birdwatching.
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 03 So John is absolutely flying here. Well, Alice is there as well.
0:26 Speaker 02 Alice is there as well, Dave.
0:27 Speaker 03 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.
0:40 Speaker 02 Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets and our shared Google Doc, the Headline Hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalised AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithGemini.
1:13 Speaker 04 I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh. Anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody, listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.
2:05 Speaker 01 Hello everyone and welcome to the Elis James and John Robbins show. It's a big day, it's a fun day, but what you hear of that will be dependent on what platform you're listening on.
2:19 Speaker 00 That's a, that's a nice positive start.
2:22 Speaker 03 What a start.
2:23 Speaker 01 It's information.
2:25 Speaker 00 Oh my god, keep it tight for the first 20 minutes, that's what managers say.
2:28 Speaker 01 It's like an announcement you get on a train which tells you a bit too much, but you're glad to know.
2:34 Speaker 03 But let's not do that, John.
2:36 Speaker 00 I'd get told off if I started the podcast like that. If it was my turn to start the Friday app and I'd done that, I would have been told off.
2:43 Speaker 03 Okay, George, I can tell him off.
2:44 Speaker 01 All right, tell me off.
2:45 Speaker 03 John, that was poor.
2:47 Speaker 01 Okay, it was informative though.
2:49 Speaker 03 And I'm actually really disappointed in you.
2:51 Speaker 01 I don't think you are.
2:52 Speaker 03 Because we treat all our listeners with the same respect.
2:55 Speaker 00 I thought you were brought, I thought you were brought to.
2:56 Speaker 01 I wasn't disrespecting anyone, I was informing them.
2:58 Speaker 00 I thought you had brought her better than that.
3:00 Speaker 01 I was brought her well. All right, do all yourselves.
3:05 Speaker 01 Don't ever fake tell me off again, that was horrible and I hated it.
3:12 Speaker 03 So.
3:13 Speaker 00 That's John's kryptonite, being told off.
3:15 Speaker 03 Oh, it is, yeah.
3:16 Speaker 01 I'm sweating now.
3:17 Speaker 03 Same here, same here.
3:18 Speaker 01 Great.
3:18 Speaker 00 Come on, we're your friends, it's not year nine, you're 44.
3:22 Speaker 01 For some people, Ellis, it's always year nine.
3:26 Speaker 03 That's deep.
3:27 Speaker 00 Oh, oh, of all the years in school to be trapped in, which one would you want to be trapped in least?
3:34 Speaker 01 If my therapist was here, she'd say, say sorry to six-year-old John, Ellis. Say sorry to 14-year-old John and say sorry to 18-year-old John.
3:40 Speaker 00 Sorry, sorry, sorry.
3:42 Speaker 01 There you go, it was better.
3:43 Speaker 00 Sorry.
3:43 Speaker 01 You're welcome.
3:44 Speaker 03 To all three.
3:44 Speaker 00 What about 44-year-old John?
3:46 Speaker 01 Uh, he's sort of out of the picture. He does the tax returns and sorts the insurance out and that's good. We like that side.
3:55 Speaker 00 Sends you a Christmas card.
3:57 Speaker 01 Uh, no, he can't be arsed.
3:59 Speaker 00 No, and that's fine, actually.
4:00 Speaker 01 And moonpig.com just feels too cheap to do.
4:04 Speaker 00 Yeah.
4:05 Speaker 01 So unless they want to sponsor the podcast, in which case I use them every day of the year.
4:09 Speaker 00 Yes, and I use funkypigeon.com and all of the other ones.
4:13 Speaker 01 Um, yeah, 44 year old John, you've got to, you've got to lean into the positives.
4:19 Speaker 00 Yeah.
4:19 Speaker 01 He get, he hits a deadline. Well, does he? He keeps a house tidy.
4:24 Speaker 00 Does he ever? That's true.
4:25 Speaker 01 Um, he's always like taxed, MOT'd, insured, his tyres are never bald.
4:31 Speaker 00 Good.
4:32 Speaker 01 He.
4:32 Speaker 00 Your house is tidy. I'll give you that.
4:34 Speaker 01 Thank you. He is good at sort of coming up with practical solutions. Uh, he's a good listener.
4:41 Speaker 00 Uh, to things he cares about.
4:44 Speaker 01 That's very true. Completely zoned out of your World Cup conversation. In my, in my, in 44 year old John's head, he was just going corrupt, corrupt.
4:53 Speaker 00 And also the World Cup, the World Cup conversation was 20 seconds long.
4:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, I couldn't tell you what happened.
5:00 Speaker 00 Three red cards in the opening game.
5:02 Speaker 01 To the organisers, to Donald Trump.
5:06 Speaker 00 That's good.
5:06 Speaker 01 I'd like to send him off.
5:09 Speaker 00 Forty four year old, forty four year old John is also a satirist.
5:13 Speaker 01 Yes. Um, so there, but yeah, but no, all the Johns are now content because they've had their apology and it was just a game.
5:20 Speaker 00 It was just a fun game.
5:22 Speaker 01 It's just a fun game and we manage our emotions on a day to day basis.
5:26 Speaker 00 We do, we do.
5:28 Speaker 01 Uh, so what have you been, I've got a treat for you both.
5:31 Speaker 00 Have you?
5:31 Speaker 01 But, well, I'm not sure I do anymore, but I do because you apologized.
5:36 Speaker 00 Okay. Oh yeah, we'll always apologize. And I must admit, I did enjoy telling you all.
5:43 Speaker 01 What have you done in your weeks?
5:45 Speaker 00 Absolutely massive week for me, again. But I should begin by saying, uh, thank you for all of the messages about the Royal Albert Hall gig, but there's a few things I need to clear up.
6:00 Speaker 01 Okay.
6:01 Speaker 00 It was a genuine surprise.
6:03 Speaker 03 Okay, so on last Tuesday's app, if you haven't listened to that yet, well, you're behind, so catch up. But there was a big old announcement whereby we surprised Ellis with news that he will be headlining, that little club venue in West London.
6:19 Speaker 00 The Royal Albert Hall. When you say little club venue, there is, there is bizarrely and hilariously, a studio at the Royal Albert Hall. And I actually have.
6:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, we both done gigs.
6:26 Speaker 00 Actually have done that gig.
6:28 Speaker 03 Okay.
6:28 Speaker 00 So I did the studio at the Royal Albert Hall about, I don't know, God, 12 years ago, probably.
6:33 Speaker 03 Did you sell that out?
6:34 Speaker 00 Uh, it wasn't really on me to sell it out. It was run by a company called Avalon, and I think the gig did broadly sell out, and I was actually closing. So, but yeah, so for a long time I said I'd played the Albert Hall, but in reality it was a technicality.
6:49 Speaker 03 Yeah.
6:50 Speaker 00 So I did get surprised. I didn't know we were going to play the Royal Albert Hall. It was a, um, a secret that was kept from me by, uh, from, uh, by John and Dave and my wife, Izzy was involved.
7:00 Speaker 01 Also, and I don't mean to throw shade on you for this, um, but that, A, that's the sort of thing, it's actually more work to fake.
7:11 Speaker 00 Thank you.
7:12 Speaker 03 I don't know, it's quite a lot of work, Sean.
7:13 Speaker 01 No, I know, but that, as in the sort of 10 minute scene.
7:16 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah, absolutely.
7:18 Speaker 00 Yeah, well, it was, it was drawn out because I just couldn't believe it. I think if I was faking it, I'd have gone, no way! And then I'd have done some crocodile tears and gone, oh, I'm so glad.
7:27 Speaker 01 But also, in the main.
7:28 Speaker 00 I just didn't believe it for about 10 minutes.
7:30 Speaker 01 In the main, people aren't good enough actors to do that. Like, someone said to me that, um, Someone said to me that the like, the whole thing with Russell Brand on Piers Morgan finding the page was like a skit.
7:45 Speaker 03 Yeah.
7:46 Speaker 01 To sort of claim he's sort of got some kind of mental health issue which will help him in future trials.
7:52 Speaker 03 Yeah.
7:52 Speaker 01 And I was just like, I don't know if you've ever seen Russell Brand acting. He can't, he can't do that.
7:59 Speaker 03 We've all seen Get Into The Greek.
8:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:00 Speaker 00 Yeah. So, so it was a genuine surprise. I've since talked to Amy, our producer for McIntyre Entertainment, who was like, yeah, I've been involved in this since February.
8:13 Speaker 03 Heavily involved.
8:14 Speaker 00 I love the poster.
8:16 Speaker 03 Yeah, we're the poster.
8:17 Speaker 00 Who does all of our artwork. The poster, Anne, who did the artwork on John's Book Thirst, the, the poster is sensational and I love it. I'm also extremely glad and looking forward to the show because it's playing the, the Albert Hall's a once in a lifetime opportunity. So I'm delighted about it. I was just, I was, I just, I'm not very good with surprises and kept thinking that there was a catch or that I was going to have to do it with my trousers down or something.
8:42 Speaker 03 No, no, no.
8:42 Speaker 00 So I'm, I'm also incredibly grateful to the two of you for going to that much work because I've always, it's been a.
8:49 Speaker 01 And that's all the Johns?
8:51 Speaker 00 Yes.
8:52 Speaker 03 What was six year old John doing?
8:54 Speaker 01 Oh, he was colouring in the poster.
8:55 Speaker 00 Yeah. I'm incredibly grateful because it's been an ambition of mine to play the Albert Hall for a long time. Never thought I'd get to do it, right? So obviously incredibly pleased and grateful. However, I've had an awful lot of messages on social media and under no circumstances will I be doing Geordie Financial Year or Leeds Train Station Baguette.
9:14 Speaker 03 I think that's, I think not doing Geordie Financial Year is a huge misstep.
9:19 Speaker 00 You're mad, Dave.
9:20 Speaker 03 But it's funny because it's fun.
9:22 Speaker 00 We also did Geordie Financial Year at the end of the first tour in 2016.
9:26 Speaker 01 Ellis doesn't rest on his laurels. Geordie Financial Year was 10 years ago, Dave.
9:31 Speaker 00 Well, actually it was 20 years ago. So for any new listeners, because this is a deep cut reference, I used to keep a diary of my early gigs, a very, very detailed, self-flagellating diary about my own stand-up in the early days. And I used to read it out on the Radio X show, might have even been XFM actually.
9:51 Speaker 01 Ellis's gig diaries.
9:52 Speaker 00 Ellis's gig diaries. And, because I've kept all of my notebooks from 2005, 2006, but the setlists are very funny because they're so, like any stand-up comedian, it's all bullet points. And my opener for about 18 months was Geordie Financial Year.
10:10 Speaker 00 Which was just an excuse for me to do a Geordie accent, right? And the material itself was quite weak, but I did it probably 80 times. And the problem with doing weak material ironically at big gigs, like I did Geordie Financial Year at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, is it is just a bad bit of stand-up.
10:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, it doesn't really make sense.
10:30 Speaker 00 It doesn't really make sense. I couldn't also, in my defence, I couldn't remember the nuance, because it had been 10 years, I certainly won't be doing Leeds Train Station Baguette, because that material was never good enough.
10:43 Speaker 01 And what are you feeling about the growing number of people who are suggesting they might leave before you're set, because they're not fans of your stand-up?
10:50 Speaker 00 Yeah.
10:51 Speaker 01 Which is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
10:58 Speaker 00 I would say my self-esteem is fairly decent.
11:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, because we'd not factored in for the fact that the audience might leave before it ends.
11:07 Speaker 00 No, the people who hate me, Dave. Well, no, no, no, the people, the people who, this is seemingly a far more, far more common sort of belief and opinion than I'd been, than I'd realised, the people who'd like to have a pint with me but hate my stand-up.
11:24 Speaker 00 For those people, I would say, don't come.
11:27 Speaker 01 Well, we've only just started planning it.
11:29 Speaker 00 The people who'd love to have a pint with me but loathe my stand-up.
11:33 Speaker 01 We've only just started planning it, but I would suggest people stick around because even just from a production.
11:39 Speaker 01 I love that we're having to say, please stick around to the end of the show.
11:44 Speaker 00 I'm headline naming, you absolute monster.
11:46 Speaker 01 Nolan Liam went there going, Richard Ashcroft is good, but can you hang around for Oasis, please, guys?
11:51 Speaker 00 Yeah. Or, or if my stand-up's that bad, why don't I have a pint? We'd try and have a pint with 5,000 people. I'll have 5,000 pints, fingers crossed.
11:59 Speaker 01 Feel free to leave during the stand-up if it's bad, but give the guy a chance.
12:05 Speaker 00 That's even worse, because then at least if you leave before it, it just looks like you're trying to catch a train home.
12:09 Speaker 01 Well, Dave, that is, that is the win-win. If you're not enjoying it, you will miss the rush.
12:14 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah, great. But the rush is gonna be bigger than the normal Excel. That's the problem.
12:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, actually. So if you want to miss the rush, stay to the end.
12:24 Speaker 00 Yeah. Actually, if you can bear to sit through 20 minutes of Einstein, 20 long minutes.
12:30 Speaker 01 God, no.
12:31 Speaker 00 20 long minutes, because obviously it's pretty weak stuff.
12:35 Speaker 01 You can now, with this, you can have clips like people have on social media. You can have clips of your stand up.
12:41 Speaker 00 Yeah. Have you ever done that? I would.
12:43 Speaker 01 No.
12:43 Speaker 00 No, I'm too embarrassed to do that.
12:45 Speaker 01 I'm too, I'm, I'm just riffing all the time.
12:48 Speaker 00 It's also very expensive to film in the Royal Albert Hall, I think. So we'd have to have a chat about that.
12:52 Speaker 01 Not if you have secreted a spy camera in your bow tie, Dave.
12:56 Speaker 00 Oh, good. What an odd angle.
13:00 Speaker 00 Just straight at your chest.
13:01 Speaker 01 So you can get tickets on the 24th of June if you're a Patreon subscriber.
13:08 Speaker 00 What's the, what's the URL, John?
13:09 Speaker 01 Ellis, please be silent while I tell you the URL. Patreon.com forward slash Ellis and John. And, uh, Patreons get 48 hour pre-sale access.
13:22 Speaker 00 Get, gotta get in there.
13:23 Speaker 01 For the general public, the butcher, the biker, the candlestick maker, it's the 26th of June.
13:29 Speaker 00 10am.
13:30 Speaker 01 10am.
13:32 Speaker 00 Somebody said on my Instagram, give me Geordie financial year or give me death.
13:39 Speaker 00 It was like.
13:40 Speaker 01 Make a great t-shirt.
13:42 Speaker 00 I had a quick, I had a quick look at people who've played the Royal Albert Hall and it is crazy. And we did, we were lucky enough to do the Apollo last year and, you know, like the Beatles played at the Apollo and all, you know, Queen played the Apollo. Winston Churchill did the Royal Albert Hall. Albert Einstein did the Royal Albert Hall.
13:59 Speaker 01 Good grief.
14:00 Speaker 00 As well as all the mega bands.
14:01 Speaker 03 What did Churchill do? What was his set?
14:04 Speaker 01 He was at ballet, I think.
14:06 Speaker 00 Yeah.
14:07 Speaker 01 It was the Swan Lake.
14:09 Speaker 00 Not a, not a great interpretation, but it was, you know, it did shift some tickets.
14:13 Speaker 01 Yeah. Strong old dancers there to catch him.
14:17 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah.
14:17 Speaker 01 Uh, so there you go. Elis James, Pressure is a Privilege, live at the Royal Albert Hall on the 24th of March, 2027.
14:24 Speaker 00 I went to watch Paul McCartney do a live in conversation.
14:27 Speaker 01 Wowee.
14:28 Speaker 00 I've, I've breathed the same rarefied air as a beetle again.
14:33 Speaker 01 Did you rush the stage and just go, like trying to inhale his breath?
14:37 Speaker 00 Alongside 1700 other people and he-
14:39 Speaker 01 I wonder if he's got good breath?
14:41 Speaker 00 Oh, I don't know.
14:43 Speaker 01 What if he's got old man's breath?
14:45 Speaker 00 John, don't. I've got a real thing about breath. We're not discussing this. Anyway, he, he was great. Um, but he walked on to a, um, a standing ovation.
14:56 Speaker 01 Of course.
14:57 Speaker 00 I thought, can I walk on to a standing ovation and then go straight into Leeds train station baguette?
15:02 Speaker 01 Oh, right. Yeah. I think you will, you will obviously walk on to a standing ov-
15:08 Speaker 00 Standing ovation at the R A H.
15:10 Speaker 01 And then slowly people will sit down, then they'll start fidgeting and gradually begin to leave.
15:15 Speaker 00 Some people will loudly pontificate, uh, about the disparity and how much they'd like to have a pint with me and how much they'd like to listen to my stand-up.
15:23 Speaker 01 Yeah.
15:23 Speaker 00 I'll try and deal with that. Um, fail and then the gig will come to a horrible end.
15:38 Speaker 05 Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of the best one yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer.
15:45 Speaker 02 With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work.
15:56 Speaker 05 That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about.
16:01 Speaker 02 Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at g o o dot g l e slash workspace with Gemini.
16:08 Speaker 05 That's g o o dot g l e slash workspace with Gemini.
16:14 Speaker 01 And there's more big news for Significant Productions. It's the podcasting powerhouse, co-owned by Ellis James, John Robbins and Dave Masterman. Because today, we've announced the launch of two significant podcasts.
16:29 Speaker 03 We have.
16:29 Speaker 01 And then we're very excited because they're both absolutely brilliant. And we believe in better.
16:34 Speaker 03 We do.
16:35 Speaker 01 Brought to you by Tomorrow.
16:37 Speaker 03 What's that?
16:38 Speaker 01 Freedom, you can trust. These are all the taglines for our company.
16:41 Speaker 03 Yeah.
16:42 Speaker 00 Believe in magic.
16:43 Speaker 01 Audio squared.
16:47 Speaker 01 Well, it's more audio.
16:48 Speaker 00 Okay.
16:48 Speaker 01 Audio cubed. Audio times audio equals significant.
16:52 Speaker 03 Audio squared, we're at the podcast show, weren't we?
16:54 Speaker 01 Were they?
16:54 Speaker 03 No.
16:55 Speaker 01 Oh, right, okay.
16:57 Speaker 00 The podcasts-
16:57 Speaker 01 Believe your ears.
17:00 Speaker 00 Oh, nice, yeah. The podcasts we are launching, number one, Don't Think So Somehow, starring the great Alistair Green and the great Rachel Stubings.
17:07 Speaker 03 This is huge.
17:07 Speaker 00 That is gonna be massive.
17:09 Speaker 03 This is brand new.
17:10 Speaker 01 It's massive. It's huge, it's enormous, it's Alistair Green and Rachel Stubings.
17:16 Speaker 00 A lot of you will know Alistair from his online videos on X and Instagram. He's been doing that for years and years, he now does them at sort of live shows. He, um, John and I have known him for quite a long time. I've known, I can't remember the first time I met him, but it was quite a while ago.
17:32 Speaker 01 I think I saw his last ever stand-up gig.
17:34 Speaker 00 Oh, did you?
17:34 Speaker 01 And that was like 15 years ago.
17:36 Speaker 00 Yeah. He's an extremely funny man and Rachel is extremely funny as well. And the two of them together are great. The pilot, we are so pleased with the pilot.
17:46 Speaker 01 It's so funny.
17:47 Speaker 00 Yes.
17:47 Speaker 01 It is so funny.
17:48 Speaker 00 The trailer's funny.
17:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:50 Speaker 00 I sure did see the trailer last night and she was laughing. So it's just, this is, it's a galactico, isn't it?
17:55 Speaker 03 We're signed to galacticos. It's, it's a fascinating relationship that they have.
17:59 Speaker 01 And I think it's a real tonic to anyone who's bored with podcasts that are slightly like, uh-
18:09 Speaker 01 In the toxic positivity realm, I think, and in the sort of constant improvement.
18:19 Speaker 03 Oh, optimization.
18:20 Speaker 01 Optimization. It is through and through. It's toxic negativity.
18:24 Speaker 03 No, Alistair and Rachel are not tech bros.
18:27 Speaker 01 No, they're not tech bros.
18:28 Speaker 03 Who see death and illness as a glitch in the matrix.
18:30 Speaker 01 They're not telling you how to make your life better. They're not telling you how to improve your morning routine.
18:35 Speaker 03 I mean, at points, it does feel like they can barely stand each other.
18:39 Speaker 01 But what, I mean, how many podcasts do you have when people?
18:42 Speaker 03 It's great.
18:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's just so good.
18:44 Speaker 03 Indeed. And Don't Think So Somehow, lunch is on Tuesday, but you can find it now because we've got a little trailer online. So just find it wherever you listen to your podcasts. But the first ep will be coming out on Tuesday, June the 16th.
18:55 Speaker 01 And follow them at Don't Think So Somehow on Instagram.
18:58 Speaker 03 Don't Think So Somehow. And we've got a little clip of, is this ep one, Michael? A little teaser clip of episode one. I've not heard this. That's how I listen.
19:14 Speaker 06 I've told you about my list, haven't I?
19:15 Speaker 07 Yes, of course.
19:17 Speaker 06 Anyone who's ever wronged me, they go on the list. Got it on my desktop, little list.
19:22 Speaker 07 You threatened me a place on it once a week.
19:24 Speaker 06 What had you done, though?
19:25 Speaker 07 Corrected you, mildly corrected you on something.
19:28 Speaker 06 On the list. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Tried to destroy me. You will never destroy me. Mildly corrected you. What does that mean?
19:36 Speaker 07 Just like pointed something out, like earlier when we were trying to set up this.
19:40 Speaker 06 Go on.
19:41 Speaker 07 I did mine perfectly and you were just dithering around. No, having a meltdown, having a total meltdown.
19:51 Speaker 06 No, no, it wasn't. It actually wasn't. But can you hear yourself for a minute? I did mine perfectly. That is the words of a megalomaniac. That is a psychopath, a sort of thing Elon Musk would say. I did mine perfectly.
20:10 Speaker 03 There we go.
20:11 Speaker 00 I cannot wait to introduce this podcast to the world. That is, that's net positive for the world.
20:19 Speaker 03 It is.
20:20 Speaker 01 There's a, there's a segment they did, I'm not even sure if it's coming out yet, but it will come out.
20:25 Speaker 03 It's in on the, on episode one, I know what you're gonna say.
20:27 Speaker 01 The, the, the film, my dear.
20:30 Speaker 03 Yeah.
20:30 Speaker 01 Oh my god.
20:31 Speaker 03 It's at the end.
20:32 Speaker 01 I haven't laughed so much at a podcast in years. Not since Rats, the episode of.
20:40 Speaker 00 Three Bean Salad.
20:41 Speaker 01 Three Bean Salad, where Henry gets the, the rat, um, the exterminator in. Oh, I can't wait for everyone to hear it. Do also follow Significant Productions, uh, at Significant HQ.
20:53 Speaker 03 Yeah. He tried his best, bless him. He shot for the moon, didn't you?
20:59 Speaker 01 I did.
20:59 Speaker 03 You did.
20:59 Speaker 01 Was that taken?
21:00 Speaker 03 It was taken, yeah.
21:02 Speaker 00 God damn it.
21:03 Speaker 03 Cause Forrest Whitaker has.
21:04 Speaker 00 Who was that?
21:05 Speaker 03 A company in the US, he's an American actor, he's quite a big American actor. He's got a similar company. Significant Productions' handle, of course, John, is at ThatFeelsSignificant.
21:14 Speaker 01 Oh, yes.
21:15 Speaker 00 Which is better, I think, Dave?
21:17 Speaker 01 So follow at ThatFeelsSignificant for upcoming news about all our new podcasts, including.
21:22 Speaker 03 Well, we've only gone and blimmin' well acquired one as well.
21:25 Speaker 00 The double.
21:26 Speaker 01 Skinwigs.
21:27 Speaker 03 Skinwigs.
21:28 Speaker 01 Uh, one of our favourite podcasts and their social media clips you may have seen.
21:32 Speaker 03 Oh, massive, yeah.
21:33 Speaker 01 Cause they go viral as heck.
21:34 Speaker 03 They do, yeah. It's the, a lot of the songs about Ash's dead dad, um, are very popular.
21:41 Speaker 01 Very, very funny. Yeah, so the premise is, uh, Sam says he's discovered a CD of songs that Ash's father, who sadly passed away, recorded for her before he died and is releasing them week by week.
21:55 Speaker 03 Yeah.
21:55 Speaker 01 And it is insanely funny.
21:57 Speaker 03 And they all do, yes, they all go viral. It's great. Well, they are now a part of Significant Productions, and now that is a podcast that already exists.
22:04 Speaker 00 Yes, it's an acquisition, we've acquired it.
22:06 Speaker 03 Bringing them on board.
22:07 Speaker 00 Acquire it, Dave.
22:08 Speaker 01 I acquired it. It's like when Kraft bought Walkers.
22:12 Speaker 00 Yeah, you had to spoil it, didn't you? You were Kraft.
22:16 Speaker 01 Uh, an enormous international food conglomerate.
22:19 Speaker 03 Oh, are they? Yeah, I didn't know this.
22:21 Speaker 01 Basically, very few British companies still operate out of Britain, Dave, which means the tax is paid abroad.
22:26 Speaker 00 Thank you.
22:27 Speaker 03 Good, good.
22:28 Speaker 00 Great, anyway, really looking forward to.
22:30 Speaker 03 At Skinwigs Podcast, if you wanna follow them. Um, we've got a little clip of Skinwigs as well, here we go. I made a little.
22:36 Speaker 00 Intro thing, I already played it to you the other day.
22:38 Speaker 04 Oh yay.
22:38 Speaker 00 This is too crap to go in, but I just thought I'll stick it in anyway because I've made it now.
22:42 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good.
22:44 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the, the new intro for Skinwigs.
23:13 Speaker 00 That's it.
23:15 Speaker 01 Very good. It's good stuff. Very talented duo. Also, Sam's sketches, his comedy sketches are fantastic and Ash is in some of those as well. The one where she's doing a rude stand-up set with pretending she's got a willy is very, very, very funny.
23:34 Speaker 03 So it's all good news today. We've been busy, haven't we? Busy little beavers.
23:37 Speaker 00 Been dead, dead busy. We're Creation, we're Domino, we're Sub Pop, we're Rough Trade.
23:42 Speaker 01 We're Island.
23:43 Speaker 00 We're Island.
23:43 Speaker 03 Which one are?
23:44 Speaker 01 Are we Parlophone?
23:45 Speaker 00 No.
23:46 Speaker 01 Okay.
23:47 Speaker 00 Maybe Beggars.
23:48 Speaker 03 We're XL, we're, we're Beggars.
23:49 Speaker 01 We're secretly Canadian. We're Jack Jaguar.
23:52 Speaker 03 Yeah, can't be all of these.
23:54 Speaker 01 We're 4AD.
23:55 Speaker 03 Oh, yes. There we are, we're 4AD.
23:58 Speaker 01 Are we 4AD?
23:59 Speaker 03 Yeah, because 4AD have Matt Berninger, I think. So I'm happy to be 4AD.
24:04 Speaker 01 Okay. Well, I want to be Domino.
24:07 Speaker 03 We're all the same.
24:08 Speaker 00 Actually, I want to be a multimillionaire. Let's be Sony.
24:11 Speaker 03 Okay.
24:11 Speaker 00 So let's pay them less.
24:16 Speaker 01 Right, everyone. It's time for a little treat for Ellis and Dave because I... Do you ever suddenly realise when you're a grown up, you can buy as many sweets as you want?
24:27 Speaker 00 I used to fantasise about this when I was little. I remember thinking, if I, when I leave my dad's house, I can have a house of sweets.
24:33 Speaker 01 Yeah.
24:34 Speaker 00 Like a fairy tale. I could keep them under the bed.
24:36 Speaker 01 But life gets in the way.
24:37 Speaker 00 Yeah.
24:37 Speaker 01 Your kids drag you down. They take you through hell.
24:41 Speaker 00 Yeah.
24:41 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah.
24:42 Speaker 00 I mean, there are some positives as well.
24:46 Speaker 01 And I was, I, we filmed something the other day, which left me with a lot of sweets. And I, it just got me thinking, well, if I bought those sweets, I could buy more sweets. So I went to Tesco, bought loads of sweets.
25:02 Speaker 00 Yeah.
25:03 Speaker 01 And I had like a sort of sweet tasting party in my house.
25:06 Speaker 00 Who was there?
25:09 Speaker 01 Me and nausea.
25:11 Speaker 00 Yeah.
25:12 Speaker 01 Turns out there's a reason you don't eat like eight different bags of sweets.
25:16 Speaker 00 Oh.
25:17 Speaker 01 But I discovered a new sweet, which I thought you would both like to try.
25:22 Speaker 00 Okay.
25:22 Speaker 03 Okay.
25:23 Speaker 01 I'm excited.
25:23 Speaker 00 Brand new or one you think we might not have tried before?
25:25 Speaker 01 I don't think you'll have tried this before. And it was in the Japanese section. Tesco are obviously trialing some Japanese products.
25:33 Speaker 00 Japanese culture is big.
25:35 Speaker 01 It's big. It's huge in Japan.
25:37 Speaker 00 Yeah. No, but I mean, like a lot of my daughter's mates are obsessed with Japanese stuff.
25:42 Speaker 01 Yeah. It's very cool.
25:43 Speaker 00 It's very cool.
25:44 Speaker 01 And it also is very different, just the way that they illustrate things, the fonts and stuff.
25:49 Speaker 00 They've got green tea flavour Kit Kats.
25:51 Speaker 01 They've got green tea flavour Kit Kats, which we did actually try on Tick Off A Taste about 10 years ago. But we're going to bring back Tick Off A Taste for one day only.
25:59 Speaker 00 Are we?
26:00 Speaker 01 In the studio right now. We're not allowed to use the music because it's licensed.
26:04 Speaker 00 Yeah.
26:04 Speaker 01 So we'll have to sing it.
26:06 Speaker 00 God, the law, the legal laws.
26:08 Speaker 01 Imagine that being a job.
26:09 Speaker 00 Good fun.
26:10 Speaker 01 Diddly, diddly, diddly, diddly, Tick Off A Taste.
26:13 Speaker 00 Tick Off A Taste. Is this licensed?
26:15 Speaker 01 Tick Off A Taste, Tick Off A Taste, Tick Off A Taste, Tick Off A Taste, Tick Off A Taste. Tick Off A Taste.
26:23 Speaker 00 That's good.
26:24 Speaker 01 And is that okay?
26:25 Speaker 03 Well, it's such a generic thing we're doing.
26:28 Speaker 00 No, it was, yeah, but it was blankety blank.
26:30 Speaker 03 I know what it is, Alex.
26:31 Speaker 00 Yeah, but was that a BBC or was it a BBC programme? It was Morgan.
26:35 Speaker 03 Yeah, but I could, you could argue we're just saying Tick Off A Taste together, couldn't we?
26:38 Speaker 01 In a copyrighted melody. Anyway, we'll see how that goes down.
26:42 Speaker 00 Oh, blankety blank has been on for years.
26:44 Speaker 01 So here are your tastes.
26:45 Speaker 00 It's fine, isn't it? Don't people just forget about contracts?
26:48 Speaker 03 No, that's the problem.
26:49 Speaker 01 First, I want you, when I hand them to you, I want you to close your eyes. I'll show them to the camera now, so close your eyes.
26:56 Speaker 00 Okay.
26:56 Speaker 01 Because I want you to describe the texture and what you think they are.
27:03 Speaker 00 You're not going to poison us?
27:04 Speaker 01 No, no, no, no, no. They just don't feel like tastes.
27:10 Speaker 01 So.
27:11 Speaker 03 They don't feel like taste.
27:12 Speaker 01 They don't feel like it's something you would put in your mouth.
27:15 Speaker 03 Oh goodness, what's happening?
27:18 Speaker 01 Okay, so Dave, there's your taste.
27:21 Speaker 03 Oh, what is it?
27:22 Speaker 01 Don't squeeze it too much.
27:23 Speaker 03 Oh, it feels like flattened, oh, I won't say in case Ellis has got.
27:27 Speaker 01 Oh.
27:29 Speaker 03 Can I say what it feels like?
27:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:30 Speaker 03 It feels like someone's flattened candy floss and turned it into a circle.
27:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's what it is.
27:41 Speaker 01 I thought you were gonna say like a dishcloth or foam or sponge, but no, you completely described.
27:46 Speaker 03 It feels a little bit like fun dim sum.
27:53 Speaker 01 Fun dim sum?
27:54 Speaker 03 Yeah. Yeah, start with Ellis's guess, then drop mine in afterwards. You know, there's the dim sum that feels, looks like a big sort of cloud.
28:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah, like a baobab.
28:01 Speaker 03 Yeah. Okay, shall I put it in my mouth? Can I open my eyes to the look?
28:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yes, exactly what I thought it was.
28:08 Speaker 03 Oh god. Okay, so it's, and I actually tasted this the other day.
28:13 Speaker 01 Did you?
28:14 Speaker 03 Because Lila had some.
28:15 Speaker 01 Okay, Dave, you're sacked and you can leave now and I'm gonna get Rachel, Stubings and Alistair Green to stand in for you.
28:22 Speaker 03 Okay. Ellis has gone in.
28:26 Speaker 00 Oh my god.
28:27 Speaker 03 He's not a fan, it's too sweet.
28:29 Speaker 00 It feels like, cool, the insulation you get in an attic.
28:33 Speaker 03 Yeah.
28:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah, rock wall.
28:34 Speaker 00 Yeah, if it hasn't been boarded down.
28:37 Speaker 03 Oh. Wow, oh, no.
28:43 Speaker 03 No.
28:43 Speaker 01 What do you mean no?
28:44 Speaker 03 I don't know, I don't know.
28:46 Speaker 01 It's got cookie bits in it as pics.
28:48 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's the bit that I was saying no about.
28:50 Speaker 00 Sweetest thing I've eaten in my life.
28:53 Speaker 01 Tastes like refreshers at your one, doesn't it Ellis?
28:55 Speaker 00 Yeah, it looks a bit like refreshers.
28:57 Speaker 03 Actually, I really like it.
28:59 Speaker 00 I know this is gonna sound insane, love hearts is the colour scheme of our house, I really like pastel colours.
29:04 Speaker 01 Is it?
29:05 Speaker 00 Yeah. And so does Izzy, which is good because she lives there as well, because we have to split up.
29:08 Speaker 01 Thank god.
29:11 Speaker 01 Um, Dave, you can try Ellis's and Ellis can try yours.
29:13 Speaker 03 Ah. Take a quick picture, put it there.
29:19 Speaker 00 You've got bits of black pepper in yours, Dave.
29:21 Speaker 03 I was thinking.
29:22 Speaker 01 They're bits of cookie to replicate seeds.
29:25 Speaker 03 Cool.
29:30 Speaker 03 Oh, this is mad. Ellis's is crazy. What is yours, Ellis?
29:35 Speaker 01 So imagine like a sort of disc made of candy floss.
29:40 Speaker 03 Yeah.
29:40 Speaker 01 And Dave's is blue on the outside, then yellow, then pink. And that's refresher's flavour. And then the one Ellis is now trying is like a watermelon with bits of cookie.
29:49 Speaker 00 It's the kind of stuff you'd eat at an amusement arcade.
29:51 Speaker 03 Yeah.
29:51 Speaker 01 Yes.
29:52 Speaker 03 Candy floss.
29:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:53 Speaker 00 Like if you were...
29:54 Speaker 03 The flavour is mad.
29:55 Speaker 00 If you're at Blackpool or Brighton or something, or... And you were on the pier. It's the kind of food that...
30:02 Speaker 01 But in a handy little packet. So anyway, I thought that was a bit of fun.
30:06 Speaker 03 Yeah.
30:08 Speaker 00 Very sugary sweet stuff makes the inside of my ears itch.
30:12 Speaker 01 It gives me like tongue injuries.
30:14 Speaker 00 And my throat will start to itch now.
30:16 Speaker 01 Like I feel like I've cut my tongue if I eat too many sweets.
30:21 Speaker 03 So when we were three, when Lila was three, I wasn't three, I was 38. We went to Blackpool and I nicked the tiniest bit of her candy floss. And she brings it up, but she hates it. Like it is a vendetta that is stuck with her.
30:36 Speaker 00 It's mad what kids remember.
30:36 Speaker 01 She still remembers that.
30:37 Speaker 03 Yeah. If we're talking about things in the past, she'll go, oh, is that the year where you went to Blackpool? And you nicked my candy floss?
30:42 Speaker 00 No, I had one little bit. She would have felt so aggrieved at that.
30:46 Speaker 03 Yes.
30:46 Speaker 00 And let down.
30:47 Speaker 03 I think I had quite a lot of it. Cause I thought she had finished it.
30:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:51 Speaker 03 Cause you know, when kids just stop eating. Because if you're an adult, you kind of stop it. It's usually because you're full and you're not going to return to it. But kids just take a lot of breaks.
30:59 Speaker 01 I've done that with adults' meals before though. Just sort of my fork coming across the table.
31:05 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
31:06 Speaker 01 I'm not actually finished that yet.
31:07 Speaker 03 So I do that too much with my kids and I kind of then had a lot of the bag of the candy floss, the look she gave me. But whenever she references anything back to just previous years, she'll say, oh, is that the same year where you stole my candy floss?
31:19 Speaker 00 I'm not saying it's damaging, but that might be her earliest memory.
31:22 Speaker 03 I think it might be.
31:23 Speaker 01 But also you've brought them up as sort of sharp elbow Thatcherites.
31:28 Speaker 01 They believe that the markets will make sense of it all eventually.
31:32 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's a drip down effect, isn't it? We'll all benefit if there are some multi billionaires at the top.
31:40 Speaker 03 Yes.
31:41 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. Right, some correspondence. Ellis, has anything caught your eye?
31:48 Speaker 00 Yes, hang on.
31:51 Speaker 00 Hello my luscious lyrical lovelies. Recent fan of your fab content, though long-term fan of your comedic outings here. I was between meetings browsing the BBC news site. Well, okay, I was in a meeting and I was losing focus. And I came across an article about the Welsh team at the World Cup. The title of said article, 'Cymru Connections'. Surely this is plagiarism, not a mention of Ellis to be found. With love and appreciation for Ellis, John and Dave, Charlotte and Hove, Cymru Connections, who can Wales fans back at the World Cup? Because obviously Wales haven't qualified. It's my friend Chris Wathen who wrote that article.
32:21 Speaker 01 Ah, here we go.
32:22 Speaker 00 Who I know listens to the podcast. I saw Cymru Connection as a headline in the Observer Sports section a couple of weeks ago.
32:32 Speaker 01 Did you?
32:33 Speaker 00 It's now just, it's entered the lexicon.
32:35 Speaker 01 Wow, we're the virus you do want to catch.
32:38 Speaker 03 We are.
32:39 Speaker 00 So, yeah, Charlotte and Hove, I'm an influence. Although it's, I didn't actually come up with the phrase. It was Michael, our producer, who came up with the phrase, 'Cymru Connections'.
32:49 Speaker 03 Actually, I hate to hide my light under a bushel.
32:52 Speaker 00 Well, you're not. It feels like you're about to expose your light.
32:54 Speaker 03 Yeah.
32:55 Speaker 00 But I'm the genius. Oh, are you? What was Michael's idea?
32:58 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah. The idea was developed by the team. And I will not take much credit for that at all. But then we were floundering around for a name and it might have been me that nailed the name.
33:07 Speaker 00 Oh, well done. Okay.
33:08 Speaker 03 So, thanks.
33:09 Speaker 01 Is it not me at all?
33:10 Speaker 03 No, it wasn't you.
33:11 Speaker 01 Okay. It just usually is me.
33:13 Speaker 00 Get back into your bushel.
33:15 Speaker 03 Thanks.
33:16 Speaker 00 Oh, and this is from Mike the Posty in Nottingham. 'Pushback for my World Cup sticker idea. Hello, John, Ellis and Dave. I listened with interest to the sticker book idea Ellis had in the last episode. I do have reservations, though. For that reason, I'm also out. My main one would be that being part of the Panini World Cup sticker album and collecting stickers for the World Cup should be one of the perks of qualifying for the World Cup, a reward. For those other countries who do not, I have no issue with them having their own sticker book separate to the World Cup one. But if that was my team, I'd want to burn them all for not qualifying. Doesn't it hurt more for Ellis to collect stickers of a team that failed to make it? I think a lot of fans would feel the same. And John is right, no one would buy it. Best wishes. Love the show.' Mike the Posty. A couple of things. The sticker books for teams that haven't qualified already exist. That ship has sailed.
34:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:01 Speaker 00 So Wales have got one, I'm sure Northern Ireland have got one. I'm sure that, you know, the Republic of Ireland have got one as well. We didn't qualify, but that doesn't stop the sticker world from turning. However, I do feel aggrieved that we didn't qualify for certain tournaments in the past. I think some of the decisions, for instance, were unjust. It wasn't a penalty when Wales played Scotland in 1985 in Indian Park. And so I think we deserve a sticker book. And there are lots of people who think like me, so Mike, it's going to make me a million, billion, thousand grand and I'm not gonna send you any money.
34:35 Speaker 03 Well, it's kind of, so this week, there was a news story about Merlin are bringing back their 90s sticker books. So is that kind of?
34:44 Speaker 00 Yet again, I am one step ahead of the zeitgeist.
34:47 Speaker 03 You are, look. The magic of Merlin is back and they're bringing back, you know, that this was my era.
34:52 Speaker 00 That was the one I had, yeah.
34:53 Speaker 03 Yeah, so they're bringing it back kind of in a contemporary form, but from the players that play. It's similar, it's adjacent to your idea because.
35:00 Speaker 01 I know, right? Explain me something. If there's one thing football fans bang on about, it's having money squeezed out of them by corporate entities. And yet, oh my God, they've brought our stickers from the 90s. It's so magic.
35:13 Speaker 00 Yeah, but.
35:14 Speaker 01 Just backs a grand to the Premier League.
35:19 Speaker 01 Just do that.
35:20 Speaker 03 I understand why people, even I, I'm not going to get involved because.
35:26 Speaker 00 There's a fight in a pub. I'm not getting involved, Tanner.
35:30 Speaker 03 I took a backseat there.
35:31 Speaker 01 The amount of willing the suspension of disbelief that happens amongst football fans. And I know every sport where there's a lot of money, there is corruption, but it is insane.
35:40 Speaker 03 Yeah.
35:42 Speaker 01 The blind eye is being turned to so much stuff.
35:45 Speaker 00 I think that's true of all sport.
35:47 Speaker 01 I think more in football than anywhere else.
35:49 Speaker 00 The live tour?
35:50 Speaker 01 No, but that was hugely criticised and is dying as a result.
35:55 Speaker 00 Yeah, but I think all sports.
35:56 Speaker 01 And sanctioned.
35:57 Speaker 00 All sports have these, you know, all sports have got corrupt aspects.
36:03 Speaker 01 None more than FIFA.
36:05 Speaker 00 Yes, that's a good one, but I think that.
36:07 Speaker 01 Russia, Qatar, the USA spread across, basically three continents.
36:12 Speaker 00 I can, um, let's not get into this, but I will, I'll give you a book that was on the William Hill, um, shortlist last year that involves cricket and boxing, which is a bad one.
36:27 Speaker 01 Cycling?
36:28 Speaker 00 Oh yes, cycling, David. I love them all.
36:32 Speaker 01 But do enjoy your Merlin stickers.
36:36 Speaker 03 It's a bit, yes, I suppose.
36:38 Speaker 01 You were about to say it's a bit of fun.
36:40 Speaker 03 It's a bit of fun, John!
36:42 Speaker 01 But it's sort of, it, yeah, it's wearing fun's clothing.
36:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, but also I think we're not, we're not saying Merlin are corrupt and the brands that...
36:51 Speaker 01 Who knows how deep this goes, Dave?
36:52 Speaker 03 But they're just releasing merch that was big in 1996 for sados like...
36:57 Speaker 01 Sure. I collected them.
36:59 Speaker 03 Yeah, I did, yeah.
37:00 Speaker 01 I still, I think I've still got my completed Premier, first Premier League album.
37:03 Speaker 03 That's the era, wasn't it?
37:05 Speaker 01 Oh, it was the blue one.
37:06 Speaker 00 I had the blue one. I never completed it, but I did have it because it was too hard to complete.
37:11 Speaker 03 It was David, oh, was it Dave Batty or David Batty?
37:14 Speaker 01 Now, I can't, I can't believe this. Alex Wilson in Macclesfield emails. Dear my little rosy-cheeked little smashers, in relation to last week's made-up games, specifically the discussion on how long a game of keepy-uppies would take to decide the World Cup winner instead of penalties, I want to draw your attention to John Farnworth. To name just a few of his achievements, he has crossed the Sahara in seven days, crossed the world's largest frozen lake, ran the London Marathon, and climbed 6,000 metres up Everest. Wait for it.
37:45 Speaker 00 Yeah.
37:46 Speaker 01 All whilst continually keeping the ball in the air with keepy-uppies.
37:49 Speaker 03 Ah, okay, I was about to say, the frozen lake one felt quite manageable.
37:53 Speaker 01 Yeah.
37:53 Speaker 03 How big can it be?
37:54 Speaker 01 And we've done the London Marathon.
37:55 Speaker 03 And we've done the London Marathon.
37:56 Speaker 00 We had a keepy-uppy freestyler to close the show on Fantasy League.
38:01 Speaker 03 Yeah.
38:01 Speaker 00 Every week in the second or third series. And it was mad, the stuff he could do. And he was dressed as a football, so he was blind. So he couldn't see what he was doing and he was still able to do keepy-uppies.
38:12 Speaker 01 So go on.
38:13 Speaker 00 It was crazy.
38:14 Speaker 01 I've been lucky enough to meet him a couple of times and he's a lovely bloke as well as being extraordinarily talented. I genuinely think he could keep the ball in the air permanently, given the opportunity. If FIFA do decide to implement John's changes to the game, in the event of a draw, I think it has to be 100% certainty for a spot in the squad and can guarantee a long overdue World Cup for England. How the heck do you climb 6,000 metres up Mount Everest whilst doing keepy-uppies?
38:37 Speaker 00 Curiously, it doesn't necessarily mean they're good at football.
38:41 Speaker 01 No, of course. And also I think being...
38:43 Speaker 00 I asked our guy, I can't remember his name, which is awful. But I remember asking him, I said, "Do you play much?" And he went, "No." No way.
38:51 Speaker 01 But also, being a footballer doesn't necessarily mean you're that good at keepy ups. Obviously, you're good, but no footballer would practise doing keepy ups for more than, I don't know, a few minutes.
39:01 Speaker 00 Well, they do, it is part of drills now. I remember watching the Wales team train and they had to have a race and do keepy uppies and sort of kick the ball into a bin and then run back. And they were all divided into teams, it was very competitive. And the good players can do it for ages, but it's just they tend not to do it. And when would you do it in a game?
39:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. Are you even allowed to do that?
39:22 Speaker 03 It's not good form.
39:25 Speaker 01 To just keepy up all the way to the other end and score a goal?
39:28 Speaker 03 So Chirkie did it for City.
39:29 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah. Casemiro used to do it as well.
39:31 Speaker 03 And if you do it and your team are 3-0 up, 4-0 up, it looks like you're taking, it's disrespectful. So there's no rule to stop you doing it.
39:38 Speaker 00 I remember Ryan Giggs doing it in a Wales game.
39:40 Speaker 03 Yeah. Ronaldo did it as well.
39:43 Speaker 01 But how do you, like, climb Mount Everest? And obviously not to the top, that would be impossible.
39:49 Speaker 00 But they're all huge on YouTube, the best ones. They all have loads of subscribers. And also, they do tricks that are completely irrelevant to an in-game situation.
39:59 Speaker 01 Like catching it in your neck?
40:00 Speaker 00 Yeah, or they'll be, they'll be sitting down and they'll be, and they'll turn into a goose and then they'll chuckle it on the soles of their feet.
40:08 Speaker 01 Are you wearing running trainers?
40:09 Speaker 00 I am, yeah.
40:10 Speaker 01 Did you run here?
40:11 Speaker 00 No, I'm going to visit my mum and dad and I'd like to do a Carmarthen Park run tomorrow.
40:15 Speaker 01 So you put your shoes on now?
40:19 Speaker 00 There's enough room in my bag for another pair of shoes. I'm just wearing my running trainers. So I'm ready.
40:26 Speaker 01 You're going to sleep in them as well?
40:27 Speaker 00 Because I'm trying to travel light.
40:29 Speaker 03 It's like when you buy your first pair of football boots, you put them on like Wednesday ahead of the match.
40:34 Speaker 00 When I was in the cafe before the show started, a man came up to me and said, "Love your trainers, mate." And I misheard him. I thought he was actually taking the mick. I was like, "What?" And he went, "I love your trainers." I was like, "Thank you."
40:43 Speaker 03 Yeah.
40:43 Speaker 00 Do you know what? You're pulling them off because I've seen you wear those a few times.
40:46 Speaker 01 He's not pulling them off, David. That's the last thing he's doing. He's got them on 24 hours early. Well, best of luck in the park run.
40:54 Speaker 00 I haven't done Carmarthen run before. I'm looking forward to that.
40:56 Speaker 01 Hmm. Let's chat to Adrian.
41:04 Speaker 06 Let's move away from football now, as Ellis can't bear talking about it. So Ellis and John, talk about something else. Take this conversation wherever you want it to go. How are you both?
41:15 Speaker 01 I'm good. I just played a very rude word in Scrabble.
41:18 Speaker 06 Did you?
41:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
41:19 Speaker 06 How many points?
41:20 Speaker 01 62.
41:22 Speaker 06 Really? Are there extra points for rudeness?
41:25 Speaker 01 No, but I guess you could play a fun sort of adult Scrabble for an evening game.
41:32 Speaker 00 Yeah.
41:32 Speaker 01 Where you get bonus 10 points for rudeness.
41:34 Speaker 00 If your relationship was on the rocks, to try and spice things up, you could play sort of rude Scrabble.
41:40 Speaker 06 When I was, when I was working in football, Lee Dixon and I spent a lot of time travelling, travelling around the world, sitting next to each other on planes, we played Scrabble relentlessly.
41:50 Speaker 01 Really?
41:51 Speaker 00 Did you?
41:51 Speaker 06 Invariably beat me. He just seemed untroubled by the meaning of words and was just better at finding things that were.
41:59 Speaker 01 It's not about word meanings, Adrian, it's about word combinations.
42:02 Speaker 00 And he's also very used to working under pressure.
42:05 Speaker 06 Hmm. Yes, that, that is true.
42:08 Speaker 00 You know, when you've, when you've won the league at Anfield, you can handle playing Scrabble against Adrian Shiles on a plane.
42:13 Speaker 06 Well, yes, you'd think so. And in fact, that did, that did prove to be, prove to be right. I think the scoring system's wrong in that you should, there should, there should be more of a bonus for getting, using longer words.
42:25 Speaker 01 There is. There's 50 points for using all your letters. That's massive.
42:28 Speaker 06 Okay, but six points should, six letters should earn you, you know, there should be some value in six letters over, over three letters.
42:36 Speaker 01 Okay, so maybe an extra bonus for each letter you use.
42:41 Speaker 06 Hmm, five points per letter or something.
42:43 Speaker 01 Which does encourage a more open board, whereas I'm guessing Dixon's very defensive. Lots of three-letter words overlapping each other.
42:50 Speaker 06 Yeah. What about Utah? Who wins out of Utah?
42:53 Speaker 00 John, I've never actually played Scrabble, and John is obsessed with it.
42:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
42:56 Speaker 00 We were working on Tuesday, we spent the day filming, and any downtime, John was playing Scrabble on his phone. The man's obsessed.
43:05 Speaker 01 I'm great company.
43:06 Speaker 06 Okay, so if I give you, I'm going to give you a list of sports and pastimes and just tell me who'd win at each of these. Chess?
43:15 Speaker 00 Uh, John?
43:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
43:17 Speaker 06 Contract bridge?
43:19 Speaker 01 I'd have to learn the rules, but I would win.
43:22 Speaker 00 Never played it, but John would win. Conkers?
43:25 Speaker 01 Huh.
43:26 Speaker 00 Uh, conkers? I think that's fifty fifty.
43:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, very much. I bet Ellis has got some traditional Welsh hardening techniques.
43:33 Speaker 00 Yeah.
43:34 Speaker 01 For his conkers.
43:35 Speaker 00 Vinegar and cow urine.
43:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
43:37 Speaker 06 Yeah. Mixed martial arts?
43:40 Speaker 01 Ellis got low centre of gravity, but I'm a bit like Dal Sim in Street Fighter. I've got long limbs, but I can't throw fireballs.
43:48 Speaker 06 Okay. What about the crossbar challenge in football?
43:51 Speaker 01 Oh, Ellis, I can't get the ball off the ground. It's so embarrassing. I'm a keeper, but I have to get defenders to take the goal kicks.
43:58 Speaker 00 I hit the crossbar twice in two attempts in front of Mickey Thomas once, the ex-Man United Chelsea and Breton and Wales player, and he offered to sign me there and then.
44:07 Speaker 01 Did he?
44:08 Speaker 00 He said, I can be your agent.
44:09 Speaker 06 That is quite something. Do you think about that every night when you're just trying to get yourself off to sleep?
44:15 Speaker 00 Um, it's certainly in the top ten of my ever-present thoughts, yeah. He was so, he was, he was delighted on my behalf.
44:22 Speaker 06 Oh.
44:23 Speaker 00 It was a really lovely moment.
44:25 Speaker 06 Oh, that's absolutely beautiful. That's sending me off into the weekend with a smile, that is, I must say.
44:37 Speaker 02 Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithGemini.
45:10 Speaker 04 I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh, anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody, listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade-in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.
45:43 Speaker 01 Well, now it's time for our regular feature where I try to introduce Ellis, kicking and screaming to the world of mindfulness and acceptance and enlightenment.
45:54 Speaker 03 Yeah.
45:56 Speaker 01 I'm slightly concerned that Ellis is already enlightened. He just doesn't know it yet.
46:00 Speaker 03 Well, isn't this the perfect feature for him?
46:02 Speaker 00 I got there by mistake.
46:03 Speaker 01 Well, you can become enlightened by mistake, by nature, I think. No, maybe you can't, actually. I'll check that out. I'll Google it.
46:09 Speaker 03 Okay. Are you enlightened?
46:11 Speaker 01 Ah.
46:12 Speaker 03 Hmm. Yes or no?
46:14 Speaker 00 He's done all the background reading.
46:17 Speaker 01 Ah.
46:18 Speaker 03 Or is it always a joke? Is anyone ever fully enlightened? I suppose that's the question, isn't it?
46:23 Speaker 01 That's a very good question, Dave.
46:25 Speaker 00 Who is the most enlightened person on earth?
46:28 Speaker 03 Yes, I suppose it's Bono.
46:31 Speaker 03 I suppose.
46:32 Speaker 01 No, Bono's still grasping. Have you seen him in that big sphere in LA?
46:35 Speaker 03 Well, he still hasn't found what he's looking for, so.
46:38 Speaker 00 Very good.
46:38 Speaker 01 Oh, very good, Dave.
46:41 Speaker 03 Cheers, I appreciate that. Appreciate that.
46:44 Speaker 01 Did you set that up?
46:45 Speaker 03 Didn't. I didn't.
46:46 Speaker 01 Did you set yourself up for a half folly?
46:48 Speaker 03 No, I am good with song titles and that did honestly pop into my head after we were in it.
46:54 Speaker 01 Well, they say before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. So in some senses, you would.
47:02 Speaker 00 I've got gas central heating.
47:06 Speaker 01 In some senses, you wouldn't know.
47:08 Speaker 00 I haven't got a wood, but no, because it's not allowed in my borough. So what's the point in that?
47:13 Speaker 01 Do you know why that is?
47:15 Speaker 00 Smoke and air pollution.
47:17 Speaker 01 Yes. And, you know, the event that brought that about.
47:20 Speaker 00 The Great London Smog of 1953-ish?
47:23 Speaker 01 Yes, the most ever people who died in a natural disaster in the UK.
47:27 Speaker 03 Really?
47:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, over a thousand people died as a result of that smog.
47:32 Speaker 01 Anyway, that's not about enlightenment.
47:34 Speaker 03 No.
47:35 Speaker 01 Though the council became enlightened to the dangers of particulates and smoke.
47:40 Speaker 03 Yes. So wood and water.
47:42 Speaker 01 I guess, I guess enlight-
47:45 Speaker 00 Water I get from the tap.
47:46 Speaker 01 Well, maybe the parable will help explain enlightenment.
47:50 Speaker 03 Right.
47:50 Speaker 01 Okay, so let me begin this week's lesson in our feature Common Sense.
48:01 Speaker 01 Ellis.
48:07 Speaker 01 A drunken man visits his friend's house. He stays. They talk, he eats, he drinks, he becomes drunk, he passes out. His friend has to leave in the morning on a business trip and sews a rare jewel into his clothes.
48:30 Speaker 01 Why are you laughing at that?
48:31 Speaker 00 Can you imagine how confusing that would be? If you were hungover and you're like, oh, I've slept on something. What's on this bed? Where's there a, where's there a rare jewel in my t-shirt?
48:41 Speaker 01 Ah.
48:43 Speaker 00 I don't think he's, I don't think he's on board with this one yet, John.
48:46 Speaker 01 The, the businessman leaves to go off and do his work. And the drunken man wakes up hungover. Also leaves the house and travels from one place to another begging for basic necessities.
49:00 Speaker 00 Okay.
49:01 Speaker 01 Later, the drunken man returns to his friend's house. And his friend tells him that all along, there was a priceless jewel sewn into his clothes. Ah.
49:14 Speaker 00 Ah.
49:15 Speaker 01 There you go.
49:16 Speaker 00 Is that it?
49:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
49:17 Speaker 00 Well, I said, could you not have just given it to me, mate? And then I could have sold it. And then I could have deposited in the bank.
49:27 Speaker 01 Well.
49:28 Speaker 00 What am I meant to learn from this?
49:30 Speaker 01 Well, the jewel represents.
49:31 Speaker 00 It feels like a sort of a mean spirited practical joke. The businessman's like, I'm so rich, I can sew jewels into your clothes and not tell you.
49:40 Speaker 01 No.
49:40 Speaker 00 Imagine if I'd done that to you when you were pissed.
49:42 Speaker 01 But it's not, but it's.
49:43 Speaker 00 If I put a grand in your back pocket and you got the train back to Buckinghamshire.
49:49 Speaker 01 But the jewel doesn't represent.
49:50 Speaker 00 Have you looked in your pocket, Al, uh, John? No.
49:52 Speaker 01 The jewel doesn't represent wealth.
49:55 Speaker 00 Of course it does. It's a jewel.
49:57 Speaker 01 It represents spiritual enlightenment.
50:00 Speaker 01 The drunken man represents people who are trapped in self, in sort of self fulfillment.
50:06 Speaker 00 Yeah.
50:07 Speaker 01 And the businessman represents the Buddha and the clothes represent ignorance that hides us from the knowledge. So the what the parable is saying is that we all have the ingredients necessary for enlightenment within us, on our person.
50:24 Speaker 00 Sewn in our clothes by a friend.
50:27 Speaker 01 Within, around us.
50:29 Speaker 00 But he didn't though, did he?
50:31 Speaker 01 Well, they.
50:31 Speaker 00 If he didn't have anything in his clothes, he'd gone to his mate's house, got pissed, fallen asleep and then he'd woken up. Had a jewel sewn into his trousers, which he didn't know about. That's not, that's not the same as being, as having the tools to enlightenment.
50:46 Speaker 01 Let me tell it a different way.
50:48 Speaker 00 Okay.
50:49 Speaker 01 Uh, there are three wise men.
50:52 Speaker 00 Yep.
50:52 Speaker 01 And between them, they have the crown of life.
50:55 Speaker 00 Okay.
50:56 Speaker 01 The crown of understanding.
50:57 Speaker 00 He's making, he's up there.
51:00 Speaker 01 And they say, where shall we hide this?
51:02 Speaker 00 What the business, what the drunk would have needed was a fry up.
51:07 Speaker 00 And he had the means to pay for it, but he didn't realise.
51:11 Speaker 01 They say, where will we hide the crown of of life so that no one finds it? And one of them says, why don't we hide it at the top of the highest mountain?
51:20 Speaker 00 Let's do keepy up, he's on the way up.
51:23 Speaker 01 And the other two go, ah, I'm not sure about that. You know what they're like. They're always, they're always searching. They're always climbing. They're always exploring. They'll find it. And the other one says, well, why don't we hide it at the bottom of the deepest crack in the ocean?
51:35 Speaker 00 Okay.
51:36 Speaker 01 And the guy says, that's not a bad idea, but you know what they're like. One of them is eventually going to get down there and find it. And then the third one says, why don't we hide it within them?
51:47 Speaker 01 Because that's the one place people never look.
51:49 Speaker 00 Have you tried swallowing a crown?
51:52 Speaker 00 Absolutely horrible.
51:54 Speaker 01 Within who? Human, humanity, within each human.
52:01 Speaker 00 I just don't feel like Dave's got the crown of life in him.
52:04 Speaker 01 No, we all do. We all have that jewel of understanding and enlightenment.
52:08 Speaker 00 Well, I'm full of candy floss at the moment.
52:12 Speaker 01 So to wit the answer, Dave, your question, am I enlightened? I would say I have a growing awareness that I have everything I need to be content and unattached to the world within me.
52:28 Speaker 00 Okay.
52:28 Speaker 01 But like it's.
52:29 Speaker 00 I didn't see any of this when you were filming the bonus content in a service station on Tuesday. I would say you were content for the first hour.
52:39 Speaker 01 But it's not that you don't feel lack and emptiness and longing, but that you're able to manage it within, within yourself.
52:49 Speaker 00 Yes.
52:49 Speaker 01 You don't need other things to sort of make you feel better.
52:54 Speaker 00 Yeah, to snap you up to things.
52:55 Speaker 01 Yeah. But sometimes you, you, I mean, everyone slips back into it, but it's like doing reps in a gym. You go, come on, John, it's not going to make you happy if that thing happens. It's just, you know, just if it's meant for you, it will come. And if it's not, it will pass.
53:08 Speaker 00 Just the Dalai Lama, like, I don't know. If he'd opened a really important letter and spilled coffee on it or something.
53:18 Speaker 00 What did he put on? For God's sake.
53:20 Speaker 01 Well, he would say the coffee is already spilt on the letter.
53:24 Speaker 00 His wife would say, you're mad.
53:28 Speaker 01 I think he might be celibate.
53:29 Speaker 00 We needed that. There's a QR code on it and now we.
53:35 Speaker 01 But he would say the QR code has already passed into insignificance. The QR code has already gone.
53:40 Speaker 00 You can't live like that. And she'd say, no, it hasn't. You've been caught speeding. You've got to do, we've got to declare who the driver was. You've only got 28 days.
53:50 Speaker 03 With that particular, what is it, parable? Yeah. With that particular one about the whole, you know, glass is already broken. You've got to be a bit responsible, a bit careful with how you use that, haven't you?
53:59 Speaker 01 Well, no, because I guess what you would say is that freeing yourself from the anxiety of actually makes you more able to like prioritize, to get things done, to decide what's important and what's not. So it's not saying that you suddenly don't care about anything. It's saying that that, that non-attachment means you're much more able to have balanced judgments.
54:24 Speaker 00 When you used to live in Lewisham and you were drinking a lot.
54:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
54:28 Speaker 00 If I'd gone to your house and you'd been asleep and I'd sewn a rare priceless jewel into your clothes, but hadn't told you, I, I, I'm trying to, I'm trying to wonder, I'm trying to work out.
54:40 Speaker 01 Of course, I'd have been a nightmare because I was unenlightened.
54:42 Speaker 03 Yeah.
54:42 Speaker 00 Yes.
54:43 Speaker 03 This is it.
54:43 Speaker 01 I was not on the road to enlightenment.
54:46 Speaker 03 He's on the road now.
54:47 Speaker 01 But also.
54:48 Speaker 00 You're on the road to Lewisham High Street.
54:49 Speaker 01 There is a school of thought, uh, which says, do not differentiate enlightenment from unenlightenment.
54:58 Speaker 01 Just be part of the cosmos. Like, don't see teachers and pupils as separate things. We are all one. Ah.
55:07 Speaker 03 That's nice. You don't always have to do that at the end of these.
55:10 Speaker 00 Oh no, I think it adds something. Also, it's, it's punctuation. I know he's finished his thought when he goes, ah.
55:15 Speaker 03 No.
55:17 Speaker 03 When John does the.
55:18 Speaker 00 We should start doing that on the podcast, really. Now it's after a made up game. Ah.
55:22 Speaker 03 I think it's almost like he's lost faith that he's quite landed the message. So he's got to throw that on the end. It's like after a spooky story, you've got to go, woo.
55:30 Speaker 01 You could say, even though I am trying to pass on this wisdom to Ellis.
55:35 Speaker 00 Yeah.
55:36 Speaker 01 I am neither wise nor unwise. Ellis is neither wise nor unwise. We are the same. I am Ellis and Ellis is me.
55:41 Speaker 00 Cuckoo cackoo.
55:43 Speaker 01 Yeah. And I'm you, Dave. So you will need to get an extra pizza in for tonight. Cause I'll be there.
55:50 Speaker 03 We're on current, really.
55:51 Speaker 01 Yeah. You're eating for two now.
55:54 Speaker 00 Well, thank you. Very, again, very interesting stuff.
55:58 Speaker 01 It's good stuff.
55:59 Speaker 03 It is. I genuinely think we are learning a bit here.
56:01 Speaker 00 Yeah.
56:02 Speaker 03 This guy's pretty smart.
56:04 Speaker 01 I'm neither smart nor not smart.
56:06 Speaker 03 Oh, here it is. Good God, it is. It's sometimes quite infuriating though.
56:09 Speaker 00 Yeah. I think, I think, I think in a minute though, he'll go, but I am smart.
56:14 Speaker 03 And the mics go down.
56:15 Speaker 00 I've got, I've got three really good A levels.
56:17 Speaker 01 No, but as soon as I get attached to the idea of me being clever.
56:20 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah.
56:20 Speaker 01 I'm now looking for sort of validation by going, oh, I'm a clever person. I know stuff. It's not, no. I am nothing. I'm no one.
56:28 Speaker 03 That, that, that thought of insignificance does, does me well in life.
56:31 Speaker 01 Oh, so good.
56:31 Speaker 03 That's quite a good thing to have in your back pocket.
56:34 Speaker 01 Imagine what you look like from Pluto, Dave.
56:35 Speaker 00 Yeah.
56:36 Speaker 03 Da, da, da, da, tiny.
56:38 Speaker 00 That's why I love the sea.
56:41 Speaker 01 But imagine the sea from Pluto.
56:43 Speaker 00 Yep.
56:45 Speaker 01 Imagine Pluto from Alpha Centauri.
56:48 Speaker 00 What are you looking at, mate? Pluto's dead, dead, tiny. It's not even a planet anymore.
56:53 Speaker 01 So, you know, enjoy your Cortina's gig, enjoy your Kegul by all means. But they will, they will flow into the sea of life and become molecules.
57:02 Speaker 00 And my Kegul is tiny.
57:04 Speaker 01 I was thinking today, like.
57:06 Speaker 00 Isn't it from Pluto?
57:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, it is.
57:08 Speaker 00 No one cares.
57:08 Speaker 01 Cortines are still massive in Pluto. Like I, I just, whenever my email inbox gets to 400 emails, I start to get stressed.
57:16 Speaker 00 Yeah.
57:17 Speaker 01 So what I do is I bring it down, get it down to about 50, and that then becomes my to do list. Cause they're all the things that haven't been done or filed.
57:24 Speaker 00 Yeah.
57:25 Speaker 01 And then I was doing it yesterday and I thought, what the hell are you doing this for? We're all gonna die.
57:31 Speaker 00 No, cause that's irresponsible though, isn't it?
57:33 Speaker 01 I know, but it, it, and that's what you have to guard against with this kind of thinking. It's like, well, I don't need to, but I did think like, what, what's gonna happen? Like an hour before you die, you're gonna think, oh, you've got 450 emails. You should get them down to 50 before, and all the photos I've got. Never look at them, apart from yesterday when I had to find a photo of a rare vacuum. It took me so long to find it. But you know, now you can search in photos and AI scans all your pictures.
58:00 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
58:02 Speaker 01 Still took ages. So there you go. Ah.
58:06 Speaker 00 I love it. I'm enjoying common sense.
58:08 Speaker 01 We'll tune in next week for more para, parabulation, para, parabuli.
58:13 Speaker 00 Parabuli, yeah. We hope that you feel enlightened by common sense. We'll be back with you tomorrow on BBC Sounds for the Bureau of Showings of the Mind.
58:24 Speaker 01 Ah, then just a heads up, a little mouse came into the studio while we were away.
58:34 Speaker 00 Yeah.
58:34 Speaker 01 And I think it got into some of the posts of the Bureau of Showings of the Mind. And you know what mice are like? They might have eaten someone.
58:41 Speaker 00 What, mice or 44 year old adult humans?
58:43 Speaker 01 Mice, Dave. Within each of us are two mice. That's true.
58:48 Speaker 00 A good mouse and a bad mouse.
58:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
58:50 Speaker 03 Crank up the Zen music again, Zoff.
58:51 Speaker 01 Which one, which one do you feed?
58:55 Speaker 00 So what are all the options?
58:57 Speaker 01 Within each of us are two mice, thank you, Zoff.
58:59 Speaker 00 Thank you, Zoff.
59:00 Speaker 01 A hungry mouse and a full mouse.
59:02 Speaker 00 Yeah.
59:03 Speaker 01 And, and the survival of items sent into the Bureau de Change of the Mind.
59:08 Speaker 00 So before.
59:09 Speaker 01 Depend on which mouse you feed, the full one or the hungry one.
59:11 Speaker 00 Before you record, you know, you're extremely successful trauma pod, you're a real greedy gutsy.
59:19 Speaker 01 Um, wow, okay.
59:21 Speaker 00 So when you talk to people how they've coped with, you know, some of life's challenges, you're absolutely full of biscuits.
59:30 Speaker 01 I.
59:31 Speaker 00 That puts such a different slant on the interview.
59:33 Speaker 01 Ellis.
59:34 Speaker 00 Like John's got his trauma specs on, he's like, tell me, um, your book makes for quite harrowing reading. And inside it's all the churn of all the custard creams and bor- bor bombs and digestive. He's been eating all the Haribo and he loves it. There's Alistair Campbell, fucks him up on Iraq and depression. And the whole job, he's like, he's been to a child's birthday party. He's full of Colin the Caterpillar or whatever.
1:00:06 Speaker 01 Chocolate on my mouth.
1:00:08 Speaker 03 Doing little silent burps, hoping no one hears.
1:00:11 Speaker 00 Oh, sorry, been eating pussy pigs, Alistair.
1:00:14 Speaker 01 Ellis, holding space for people.
1:00:16 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
1:00:16 Speaker 01 Witnessing, uh, difficult accounts.
1:00:20 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:00:21 Speaker 01 Of trying situations. You need high blood sugar.
1:00:26 Speaker 00 Yeah, people have sugary tea, don't they, when they're in shock?
1:00:29 Speaker 01 Yes, so that's exactly what I'm doing. Essentially, I'm acting like the highways agency.
1:00:34 Speaker 00 Yes.
1:00:34 Speaker 01 I'm putting a foil blanket around myself. Telling myself to sit on the barrier.
1:00:40 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:00:41 Speaker 03 Away from the vehicle.
1:00:42 Speaker 01 Away from the vehicle, take a few moments, we'll make you a sweet cup of tea. But all of those things are chocolate.
1:00:48 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:00:48 Speaker 01 So the, the foil blanket is chocolate, the barrier is chocolate.
1:00:52 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:00:53 Speaker 01 Sweet cup of tea is chocolate.
1:00:54 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:00:54 Speaker 01 The highways agency is made of chocolate.
1:00:56 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:00:57 Speaker 01 It's a chocolate motorway and I drive a chocolate car.
1:01:03 Speaker 00 About as much use as a chocolate teapot. Sounds great. Where can I get one?
1:01:06 Speaker 01 Yeah, I want one.
1:01:08 Speaker 03 But how'd you cope is good. It's good.
1:01:10 Speaker 01 It is good pod.
1:01:11 Speaker 03 It's good pod.
1:01:12 Speaker 01 Fantastic episodes coming out hither and thither.
1:01:15 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
1:01:16 Speaker 01 The next is with Kelsey Waghorn.
1:01:18 Speaker 03 Oh, my lord, yeah.
1:01:19 Speaker 01 Who survived the volcano eruption on White Island. And she is incredible. And her book is incredible. It's called Surviving White Island.
1:01:27 Speaker 00 Yeah. And you interviewed her full of miniature heroes.
1:01:32 Speaker 01 She's the only miniature hero around here.
1:01:34 Speaker 00 Nice.
1:01:34 Speaker 01 She's not even miniature. She's normal sized. That's not part of her story.
1:01:40 Speaker 01 So there you go. Just remember to follow us on all platforms.
1:01:45 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah. Blue sky.
1:01:47 Speaker 01 What's that?
1:01:48 Speaker 03 We're not on that.
1:01:49 Speaker 01 What happened to threads?
1:01:51 Speaker 03 Threads are still knocking about.
1:01:52 Speaker 01 Is it?
1:01:53 Speaker 03 Yeah, we're not on that, though.
1:01:53 Speaker 00 I think Threads is doing all right.
1:01:55 Speaker 01 Is it?
1:01:55 Speaker 00 I think it's because Instagram's always telling me to get on Threads. And I am on Threads by virtue of being on Instagram somehow.
1:02:01 Speaker 03 By default, yeah, I'm on Threads by default. Yeah.
1:02:05 Speaker 01 Good stuff. Right. Bye bye.
1:02:08 Speaker 03 Bye.
1:02:21 Speaker 04 I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh. Anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody, listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.
1:02:51 Speaker 02 Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the Headline Hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work.
1:03:10 Speaker 05 That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about.
1:03:15 Speaker 02 Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithGemini.
1:03:21 Speaker 05 That's goo.gle/workspacewithGemini.
1:03:27 Speaker 01 Thanks for listening to the show and you can follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Ellis and John for more content.
1:03:32 Speaker 00 And you can watch highlights of every episode over on our YouTube page at Ellis and John.
1:03:37 Speaker 01 Plus, you can find all things E J J R, including links to our Patreon, our merch and much more by heading to ellisonjohn.com. See you next time.
Previous #547 - Pressure is a Privilege Next #549 - Creativitine, Daily Life Stings and Ossification & Death Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated