#565 - Clive The Unwell, 30 Dairy Farmers and The 17:02 to Faversham

Well, well, well, well, well. Elis has officially completed the best gig of his life, and that’s even without his routine about Black Bart the pirate. A mere five and a half hours away by train, we have discovered his emotional hinterland: the Eisteddfod in Pembrokeshire. But away from the crowds, the choirs and the clog dancers, away from the druids and the dairy farmers, can our Welsh Hero handle the pressure back in the studio and Cymru Connect away from the motherland? Plus, is Dave the captain of a sinking ship? John seems convinced, after a surprise reading of The Ballad of ‘Reading Jil’. But move over, Oscar Wilde. We have some literary legends of our own as we play a Made Up Game for the ages. Let’s just say you’ll be seeing The Adventures of Flogworth and Blimp on the shelves very soon...probably. If you're one of our cute rats with something to say, get in touch at [email protected] For lots of exclusive EJJR #content, join our Patreon at patreon.com/elisandjohn. For weekly visual highlights, head to youtube.com/@elisandjohn. For everything else, head to 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Before we start this episode, we want to invite you along to the adventures of Ellis and John.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  If you head over to patreon.com/ellisandjohn, you can join us on our monthly escapades, including

• 0:10Speaker 00

  mini-land pics.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  It's the strangest legal jump in the history of long jump.

• 0:14Speaker 00

  Bird watching. My two favourite things are birds and football.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  And you can watch our latest episode now, where we tackle an escape room.

• 0:22Speaker 02

  So John is absolutely flying here. Well, Ellis is there as well.

• 0:26Speaker 00

  Ellis is there as well, Dave.

• 0:27Speaker 02

  We did the first three, Dave, for complete chill.

• 0:32Speaker 00

  So for adventures and so much more, head over to patreon.com/ellisandjohn now.

• 0:40Speaker 03

  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.

• 1:10Speaker 04

  Guessing is for game shows, not your business. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance and IT, with AI grounded in your context to get work done and done right. It's a new workday.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  All hail Elis James. Or should I say, hen fich well, Elis James?

• 1:52Speaker 00

  Oh, thank you, dear.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  For today, we are in the company not just of a Welsh hero, but of a Welsh language superstar. Last week, Elis James was the star turn at the Istedford of Wales. In headlining the festival, he joined the ranks of over a millennia of the great Welsh language bards, druids and archdruids. A list that would have to include Guillaume the Strong, Emlin Irhet Fawr, Emlin of the Big Hat, and Clive the Unwell.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  The Istedford is an event suffused with mystery and tradition. And before his big performance, the question was not, is this man the Welsh language's greatest hope? Or even, is this the 21st century's most important Welsh speaker? But rather, is Elis James the Welsh Christ?

• 2:38Speaker 00

  Did feel like it.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  First, there's his wisdom. Before his scheduled arrival, he took time to speak to some teenagers from Pembrokeshire from atop a small hill, and he was heard offering them insights into a spiritual life. "Cover't not thy neighbour's coghul. Instead, cover't Liam's coghul, and to a lesser extent, Noel's."

• 3:01Speaker 00

  Or the bone-ned one, yeah.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Then there's his miracles. On his way to the falafel stand, a convicted criminal with a string of motoring convictions burst from the crowd to touch Ellis's trousers, the same ones the guy from the Beatle Band has. When he reached out his hand, the man was hurried away by armed officials. "Cece, "said Ellis. "Let him touch their hem and also play with the little drawstring, too."

• 3:28Speaker 01

  The man was allowed forward, and upon touching the garment, all points were wiped from his licence. And then there's just the look of the man. Most scholars put Jesus's age at death around 33 years old, and no one who has seen footage of Ellis being interviewed that day could deny that he didn't look a day over 34. The saviour of Swansea? The Holy Ghost of Haverford West? Only time will tell. But before the performance, he was treated with a customary mix of genuine reverence and ceremonial disdain, used for centuries to both elevate and humble the finest minstrels and bard folk of the land. Firstly, the mage of Anglesey anointed Ellis's hair with honey to ensure the sweetness of his thoughts and words would

• 4:13Speaker 01

  resonate through the 3,000-strong crowd. Then his bare feet were placed in ceremonial turnips, hollowed out by local children to ensure that his teachings were spread as far as his feet walked the earth. Then, as his tradition, Ellis was humiliated by a bugan bev.

• 4:31Speaker 00

  A bugan bev? Where did you get that from?

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Of the internet.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  What does it mean? A cemetery ghost? Or a grave ghost?

• 4:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, a ghoul-like apparition who inhabits the graves of the dead. This year is the turn of BBC's very own Keris Matthews to dress in sackcloth and horn talis by reminding him of his worst fears: cognitive decline, being hungry on a train without a buffet car, and his 10c Sky limited edition coghul catching on a nail. As Ellis sat backstage, local farmers doused him with insults and ewes' milk

• 5:04Speaker 00

  They did.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  to remind him of the importance of dairy herds in his success, before sitting down with him to smoke Carwyn's Pipe, an offering of peace where rough tobacco is smoked through an ancient ram's horn. Though, since a change in legislation in 2023, it's been replaced with a pewter-cased mango vape. From there on in, it was a hero's homecoming and a welcome fit for a king, as Ellis took to the stage to regale the assembled thousands. So hech fich well, Elis James.

• 5:34Speaker 00

  Oh, thank you. Long live, that means, Dave.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  And lony fachydau ar aik withi dant.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  Oh, what a... That is... That's my favourite intro you've ever written.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  Where is it?

• 5:46Speaker 00

  I'm absolutely delighted with that. Thank you so much.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Tell us, come one, come all.

• 5:54Speaker 00

  So the Istedford is a national Istedford, and it's the biggest Welsh language festival.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  On earth?

• 6:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. And it tours Wales, so it was in Pembrokeshire this year. It'll be in Merion Nif next year, I think. It tends to go from south to north. It's been going 850 years, big old deal.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Since like 1170-ish.

• 6:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. So then, there was definitely Istedfords happening back then, and then there was sort of time off. And then it was kind of, as a tradition, it was reinvented in the 1700s, I think, by a guy called Yolo Morgano.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Because he managed to get sponsorship.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  Nivia. Yeah, Budweiser did it for him.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  Nivia, Budweiser and Casio.

• 6:36Speaker 00

  He's got an amazing mullet, Yolo Morgano, if you Google him. He's got fantastic hair. And he used to smoke a lot of laudanum. But he kind of reimagined it. So it's the high point of Welsh language cultures, a big old deal, so the whole thing's televised on SPC for the week.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  And you used to go to a lot of these when you were a teenager, didn't you?

• 6:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. So I used to go to Myspi, which is the youth version. And I would just watch bands all week. I saw the Corkies, I saw Superferry Animals there. Superferry Animals played on Saturday. It was the first time they'd performed at the Istedford for 30 years.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Oh, did they?

• 7:10Speaker 00

  And I saw Catatonia. Some of my favourite groups ever, I saw the Istedford. Myspi was brilliant for young people. When I used to go as a young person, I never really went on to the main field, the Istedford meys, as you call it. And the pavilion is where all the big dog stuff happens. So that's where they will appoint, you know, the bard who wins the crown and who wins the chair, you know. And you'll get a prize. You'll get the literary prize, you get a prize for writing the best novel, all that kind of stuff. So some quite elite-level stuff. But then they'll get musicians to perform.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  So just to explain it to someone who's not familiar with the tradition, there's like a fringe at the same, in the same sort of area.

• 7:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, but they've kind of...

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Because in my head, I'm thinking, why isn't Superferry Animals on at the main stage every year? And why aren't the poets in a smaller one? Because that would be like, is it like an inverse Glastonbury?

• 8:04Speaker 00

  It is. And also...

• 8:05Speaker 01

  Tony Benz on the pyramids.

• 8:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, you kind of have... You've misjudged how important poets are.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:11Speaker 00

  And they're like big stars.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:13Speaker 00

  So it's a really big... So when they appoint the best poet and things, and when they win the bardic chair and the bardic crown, the pavilion would be absolutely rammed for that. But they did put the Superferry Animals outside, so they got... And so I was in the pavilion. I was headlined, or I was on blast, on the Wednesday night. I did an hour of stand-up, and I was supported by Calvin Blaney and Stefan Evans. I did nine work-in-progress gigs to get back up speaks. I've done a Welsh language gig for two years. And the first seven were quite sticky. I was very nervous. And then the last two went quite well. There's a listener to the show, actually. I can't remember her name. She's a documentary maker. She sort of took me to one side at the gig at the London Welsh

• 8:57Speaker 00

  Centre and said, "Ell, I listened to the show. I listened to Ellis and John. The pressure you're putting yourself under is insane."

• 9:02Speaker 01

  And I want to make a documentary about it. Until you fall apart.

• 9:06Speaker 00

  I love to make documentaries about suffering, and you're suffering. It meant an awful lot to me because they'd done an Instagram post earlier in the week saying this, and we expect a lot of people to be interested in this event, so you have to queue early. Because if you buy a field ticket, that gets you into everything. So it is a first-come, first-served basis.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  And they said that about your show.

• 9:29Speaker 00

  They said that about me and the Superferry Animals.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's great.

• 9:32Speaker 00

  And a lot of people were turned away because the queue was massive. So they had to...

• 9:39Speaker 01

  I saw footage of the queue.

• 9:41Speaker 00

  Well, not just that, the amount of people being turned away became an item on the news.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 9:47Speaker 00

  The chief exec had to give an interview about it.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Was it a 3,000-capacity pavilion?

• 9:52Speaker 00

  1,400 capacity. They'd got in extra seats.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 9:56Speaker 00

  So it was about 1,400 by the time I went on. But yeah, so Bettsan Moses, who was the chief exec of it, was like, well, yeah, we turned some people away, but that's the whole point. You know, if you buy a ticket for the day, which is, you know, 25 quid, I think, then that gets you into everything. We've always done a first-come, first-served basis. My guest list was hilarious. It was 35 people, 30 dairy farmers, a couple of friends, Griffries from the Superferry Animals and Rod Gilbert. And there's the neadam gan l, which is the sort of meeting area. So all my guests had to go there. And it was all my aunties and uncles and cousins and stuff, and my mum, and Griffries. I wish I'd taken a photo of that. I'm so... But the gig, thank God, went well. It's probably

• 10:40Speaker 00

  the best gig of my life, actually.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  To the extent that when I was wrapping up, I burst into tears.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Oh, on stage?

• 10:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. I wanted to say tanatronesar to finish, which means till next time, and I couldn't get my words out.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 10:55Speaker 00

  Tanatronesar.

• 10:57Speaker 00

  And everyone cheered and it was fine. So I walked off before I went on.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  So he's picked up something from watching my stand up finally.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  Bit of emotion.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  Cry at the end.

• 11:06Speaker 02

  Cry at the end.

• 11:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. Do you know what? You're, you're right. Right. Because I did, I was laughing to myself all day because of this. Because the previews had been quite a mixed bag. And usually when I write a show for S4C, it kind of follows an Edinburgh show format in that the ending, the final routine wraps everything up and it feels like a conclusion. So they're not like these sort of American stand up specials where you just end on your best joke.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  Hey, where do you guys go to get some decent weed around?

• 11:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I didn't want to end on that.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  So it felt, the, the gigs felt a bit weird because I couldn't work out, because they were so unpredictable. As I was doing them everywhere, I couldn't work out what my best routine was. And I always thought it would be kids in the eighties weren't allowed to drink water.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Of course. I mean, anyone would.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  Because it was my best routine in my 2019 show. So I went back and watched them all. But kids in the eighties weren't allowed to drink water. Didn't really work at Stanley Hall's in South Norwood. It didn't really work at the London Welsh Centre, but it's a big, long routine. But if they're not laughing at kids in the eighties not being allowed water.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Is it that they weren't allowed water or they just didn't think to drink it?

• 12:21Speaker 00

  It's a bit of both. And the fact that now if you have kids, you're made to, you'll know this from your children, Dave, you're made to send them with bottles of water. You get in trouble if you don't. Whereas we weren't allowed to drink water in school because I talked to my old head teacher about this. I asked her. Cause she came to see the show and I said, why won't we allow to drink? And she said, oh, we were worried that you'd all want to leave the classroom to go to the toilet.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  She's absolutely right. Cause we brought into the hydration myth. Carry on.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  Yeah. But that wasn't working. Sometimes, sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn't. I thought, God, it's a bit of a risk to end. So I couldn't work out what the best routine to end on was. So I did, I, I did point out that my first gig in Welsh was in Ponte Beirham and I only actually sold one ticket. And suddenly there were 1400 people there and they were turning people away. So, but thankfully, kids in the eighties not being allowed water did work. So I could have just gone bang, wallop. Thank you very much. Good night. So I had a John Robbins style emotional heft ending. And it got to me and I, I did burst into tears on stage. And before I went on.

• 13:30Speaker 00

  When Stephen Evans was emceeing, when he walked on, the cheer was so massive that I got this massive lump in my throat. To the extent that it was painful.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:42Speaker 00

  I thought, I can't talk.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  I got that doing Robbins best man's speech.

• 13:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Cause in your mind, you're thinking, hey, we're okay. We've done, we've got this. Everyone's on side, but your body's going, no, we're panicking and emotional.

• 13:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. And it felt like I was, it felt like I was being strangled. And I was like, great. Never, this has never happened to me before. And I was, I was just sitting in the wings next to, next to Carwyn, who was the first act, Carwyn Blaney. And I was like, oh, nice one. So I was trying to swallow and I just couldn't. And then just before Stefan, about two minutes before Stefan introduced me, I suddenly felt this weird sense of calm because I'd, I'd worked hard in the previews and I'd done a lot of previews. So, and then I just felt ready and then I walked on and I really enjoyed it and it was, it was great. But what was funny was it was overrunning.

• 14:34Speaker 00

  And the thing with the Stedford is it doesn't really make sense for a comedian because on the pavilion main stage, if you'd been there all day, you'd have seen like a bass baritone solo. You'd, there would have been a judging for a choir, an award for the best novel, a musician, a guy called Hugh Chiswell, who was on before me. And clog dancing. So when you're backstage, there'll be like a clog dancer doing calf stretches. There'll be a guy playing scales on a tuba. There'll be 50 Druids. It's a really weird sort of event in that region. And there's nothing really quite like it. And just before I was going on, I was re-listening to my kids in the eighties weren't allowed water routine.

• 15:17Speaker 00

  But there were two choirs in the dressing room next to me. They got their judge, their sort of, they were told who'd won. It was choir limbs. I jumped out my skin because I didn't know what was going to happen. So I was just listening to this routine on my headphones and then suddenly there's a hundred choristers. They're like, yeah, punching, punching, yeah. It's a really weird day.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  Wow. Yeah.

• 15:41Speaker 00

  But it was, yeah, amazing, amazing experience.

• 15:44Speaker 01

  We finally found Ellis's emotional hinterland.

• 15:47Speaker 00

  Oh my God.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  And it's only five and a half hours by train.

• 15:50Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. Cause I was born in Pembrokeshire. So it was a Pembrokeshire Stedford. So I'd been in Pembrokeshire for a long time.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  So will that be the biggest ever Welsh language show you'll do, do you think? Is that, is that the peak?

• 16:01Speaker 00

  Yeah. I've always fancied doing a Welsh language show at the New Theatre in Cardiff. Cause I think I could sell that. I don't know if I could do the Millennium Centre. Cause that's about 1800 seats. I think that's a bit big. But I think I could do the New Theatre, but that's fewer people than, than the Stedford.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 16:17Speaker 00

  But I didn't sleep until 6am.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 16:20Speaker 00

  What, the night before? No, no, on the night of the show.

• 16:23Speaker 02

  Oh, right.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Oh, great. Because of the adrenaline.

• 16:25Speaker 00

  Because of the adrenaline. Although in a classic Stedford style, me and mum, me and mum couldn't find the car and we walked around fields in the dark for an hour. So what did you do afterwards? What did you do with that adrenaline and where'd you go?

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. What car is it?

• 16:39Speaker 00

  My mother's car.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Does it?

• 16:40Speaker 00

  Which is a Vauxhall Corsa.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Do the hazards come on when you unlock it?

• 16:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, but we were like two miles away.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  There's car parks two miles long.

• 16:49Speaker 00

  The car park is huge.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:51Speaker 00

  But we'd parked right next to the sign for gate eight. And I said to mum, I said, this is perfect. We just need to find gate eight. You can't miss it. We're literally next to the sign. I kept saying, ma'am, this is perfect. But gate eight wasn't sign posted and all the stewards had gone to bed.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  Oh no.

• 17:07Speaker 00

  So you're just walking around fields. And that, that, for the Stedford, that would be like a hack routine that you can't find your car. Like that had been a conversation I'd had on the mice all day.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  Was it dark?

• 17:17Speaker 00

  Yes, it was pitch black. So you're just walking around with, using your phone for like.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Dave, the hazards would have shown up.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  No, but she was, not, not from that distance.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, light travels pretty well in the dark.

• 17:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, but it's not gonna, no, no, no, no.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  You've got to be in the signal area of the car.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  How far is your signal travelling?

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Million miles.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  No, 50 metres max.

• 17:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Really, really?

• 17:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's good. I think.

• 17:41Speaker 00

  On a 2014 Vauxhall Corsa, I think you've got 50 metres max.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:46Speaker 00

  But I'd done an event with Helen Wych and the Minister for Culture and Sport about the Tour de France coming to Wales at 4pm. We come reconnected. Thanks to my friend Gary Pritchard, North Wales's most connected man.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  Good.

• 17:57Speaker 00

  I met Rhian Wilkinson as the manager of the Welsh Women's Team. I bumped into an ex-girlfriend on Lots of Girls I used to fancy when I was at school.

• 18:05Speaker 02

  It's quite satisfying though.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  You also had a thousand messages saying how handsome you are.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. Good day to bump into the exes, Ellis.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is actually. With your hair's like that.

• 18:13Speaker 00

  I didn't expect that.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  And you've got to queue out the pavilion two miles long.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Sorry, I'm looking so handsome in these clothes with my great hair, but I've just got to go and headline the pavilion at the Istedford. Yeah, it's funny choices we make and how things turn out, isn't it? Anyway, catch you around.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Eight hours later, Ellis, why are you wandering under a field at 11pm? I can't, we were by gate eight.

• 18:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. We can't find the car. And then I downloaded the Stedford map, but the gates weren't on the map.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  Right. So there's, so there's feedback.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  There's feedback.

• 18:46Speaker 00

  I think I might text the big dog and say, why didn't you signpost the gates? It would be really helpful.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:54Speaker 00

  But it was, yeah. And also because I'd done so many interviews and stuff, I didn't have time to think about the gig at all. I really, I wanted to sit and, and go over my stuff, but then you turn a backstage and there's somebody playing piano and there's somebody doing calf stretches and, you know, there's 40 arch Druids and all that kind of stuff. It's a really, it's a very full on event.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:17Speaker 00

  It was quite overwhelming.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  So that's now done.

• 19:21Speaker 00

  The relief is profound.

• 19:24Speaker 02

  Is it still with you?

• 19:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, I got the train back yesterday and I just didn't do anything. I just stared out of a window. I hadn't realised how much strain I'd put myself actually.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:34Speaker 00

  But I didn't, I, when you do a big gig like that, you can't let people down. And I wasn't, prior to July, I wasn't match fit at all. I'd not done a gig since November 2024 in Welsh. So I'd forgotten all the stuff.

• 19:55Speaker 03

  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.

• 20:26Speaker 04

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• 21:14Speaker 01

  So now that that's done, Izzy's filming is all almost done.

• 21:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  Are we staring at a holiday on Elis James's plate?

• 21:22Speaker 00

  Yes, the end of August. Oh, I forgot my routine about Black Bart the Pirate because I'd been sweating on stage and it had come off my hand.

• 21:32Speaker 00

  And that's a good routine and he's a local pirate.

• 21:34Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 21:36Speaker 00

  He was the best one.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  But were you short then? Was the routine short?

• 21:40Speaker 00

  No, I actually overrun by 10 minutes.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  Oh, right. So you couldn't have squeezed in anyway.

• 21:44Speaker 00

  No, I would have liked to have done it, but then I talked to Sean, the organizer, and he said, well, you can just do that next time. So I'm now kind of locked in.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  How are you?

• 21:52Speaker 00

  I think, not next year, definitely not next year, but I would love to do it again at some point.

• 22:00Speaker 00

  But yeah, just the relief. I can't, I don't know. I can't compare it to anything else. And it was weird because I sort of, on the day, I'm much funnier Welsh and I sort of, I'm more myself, I think.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  You're being very chilled in the sort of main arena chatting to people on the news and things.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, holding court.

• 22:23Speaker 00

  Hold, don't say holding court. That's a very arrogant phrase.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  And that's okay to hold court.

• 22:28Speaker 00

  Well, I don't know about that. But no, what, yeah, what an honour.

• 22:34Speaker 02

  Great. How many weeks do we leave until we start to get him in the headspace for Royal Albert Hall? Do we give him a few weeks?

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:40Speaker 00

  Give me a few weeks, Dave.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  He gets a few weeks.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  Let me stare out of a window on a train for a few weeks.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Let him go to Portugal for a few weeks.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay, good.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  That would be nice. I've never had a sort of, like, one of those holidays.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  What do you mean?

• 22:54Speaker 00

  Well, obviously we would take the children. So I've never had one of those holidays where you like, oh, I suppose after Edinburgh before we had kids, I would not do very much.

• 23:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you're taking the kids this time, aren't you?

• 23:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, we're going to France. Yeah, it's gonna be good.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Great. You deserve it. Well done. I bet your mum was so proud.

• 23:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was lovely seeing all my family, like all.

• 23:15Speaker 02

  That's it. That's why you cried, I bet.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  There were two minibuses.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  That's so good.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  It was really nice. Yeah. So I had a big thought to it. What's funny as well is because there was, again, it sounds arrogant because there was a lot of demand for the show. They did a choir, the judges, you know, what's bernardeth in English? So the judging or the judgment was just before me, but it doesn't tend to be a full pavilion for the choir judging. So the judges were like, yeah.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, great. Yeah, nice.

• 23:43Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:45Speaker 00

  Come on.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Translation's a funny thing because choir judging sounds very different to choir judgment.

• 23:51Speaker 00

  Yes, it does. Yeah. I saw the choir that won beforehand and they were like, go on, Al. But obviously in four-part harmony.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  Very nice. Very nice. So you come reconnected on the day, didn't you?

• 24:06Speaker 00

  With Helid Vahan, yeah.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Shall we see if he can carry that form away from the Istedford to the podcast?

• 24:13Speaker 02

  It'd be lovely, wouldn't it? To wrap up this week with a podcast-focused come reconnection.

• 24:17Speaker 00

  You should have seen people come reconnection. People just coming up and saying, please do it.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  Age me, school me.

• 24:26Speaker 00

  Ellis, do it.

• 24:28Speaker 02

  That's good stuff.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  So let's get him while he's up. One man, 60 seconds, 3.2 million opportunities. Let's connect.

• 24:37Speaker 06

  It's another come reconnection. Ellis thinks his tactics are sheer perfection. But his questions have one direction. Where did you go to school? Do you know Daffodil Evans? No. Come on, mate, you must do. No, we've never met at all.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Last week was huge for our connector-in-chief Elis James as a link was made with listener Fion in dramatic fashion.

• 25:13Speaker 00

  Oh, my God, yeah.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  Edinburgh University brought nothing. Ellis's friend Dan Thomas was fruitless. Hope was fading. Defeat was being grasped from the jaws of victory. If we were connecting at Wembley Stadium, crowds are already heading for the Bakerloo line.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  I think it might be the Jubilee.

• 25:33Speaker 00

  No, there's different ways of doing it. There's different ways of doing it. I got the Bakerloo line back from Moises. So don't you ever question Dave again.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Thank you, John. I mean, thank you, Ellis. Carry on, John.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  But then out of nowhere, Stefan Allen's brother leads to Stefan Allen's mum and wallop. We have limbs, we have ecstasy, we have a euphoric Ellis putting his head inside his t-shirt like a shy turtle. Or the Metropolitan line. Watch it. Drink it in.

• 26:00Speaker 00

  Or Avonelli, the footballer. He used to do that. Do you remember him?

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Well, he used to get the Bakerloo line to Wembley Stadium.

• 26:07Speaker 00

  No, he used to put his head in his t-shirt. Do you remember when he used to play for Juventus at Middlesbrough?

• 26:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I remember the guy, grey hair.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Lots of footballers do that, don't they?

• 26:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, but he was the expert. He was the, he was numero one at putting his head in his t-shirt.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Oh, right, yes. Do you get a yellow card for that technically now?

• 26:25Speaker 02

  I think you would because you're covering the sponsor and that'll be the main thing in this cynical 2020.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Yellow card for covering the sponsor?

• 26:32Speaker 02

  I bet you would. I bet that because half the point of you taking your shirt off is because that the big sponsors who pay, that's the biggest opportunity for them to show their brand. Because after you've scored a goal.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  No, I thought it was because people were putting like political messages on t-shirts underneath their shirts.

• 26:47Speaker 00

  It's probably a bit bad. Robbie Fowler did that in support of the Liverpool Dockers, didn't he? But it doesn't happen very often.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Well, it doesn't happen anymore because they banned taking your shirt off.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Ellis now has 46 successful connections out of 97 attempts. We've almost coming up to our 100th connect. Giving him a 47.42% hit rate. The dream of 50 remains. Before we get to this week's attempt, an email is coming from Judith. Hello and indeed Shumai. I'm currently enjoying a short break in beautiful North Wales, staying about five miles from Harlech. And of course.

• 27:24Speaker 00

  I connected with a guy from Harlech on Sunday.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Did you?

• 27:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  And of course, Men of Harlech, the Come Ru Connection remix, has been living in my head for the past week or so. When I mentioned it to my mum, she remembered that in her youth, she sang a song to the tune that was about the ancient Britons.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  What's the tune to?

• 27:42Speaker 02

  I could do this.

• 27:42Speaker 00

  Men of Harlech.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:47Speaker 02

  So it's, yes, there's bits there.

• 27:49Speaker 00

  Is that real? Have you written that?

• 27:50Speaker 02

  This is, this is what.

• 27:52Speaker 00

  Oh, right, okay.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  These lyrics.

• 27:55Speaker 00

  Woad's the stuff to show them. Woad to scare the foeman, foeman. Tramp of Snowden with your woad or never mind if you get ruined on.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  What, what?

• 28:08Speaker 01

  We used to sing this in school.

• 28:10Speaker 00

  Did you?

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:11Speaker 00

  I've never, I've never heard that version.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  That bit is.

• 28:14Speaker 00

  Men of Harlech.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  I've just remembered. We sang a song that went.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  It's went something, something, vests and pants and boots and laces.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  It's the same song.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Spats or hats you buy in places. Better chances woad.

• 28:35Speaker 00

  Yes. What is that? I've never heard that.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Woad is like a blue paint, isn't it?

• 28:40Speaker 00

  But what version is this?

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Well, Judith goes on. I thought for a moment she might be qualifying for Mad Dad status, mother subsection. But according to Google, it's an excerpt from the National Anthem of the Ancient Britons, first published in 1921. I'm wondering if Ellis needs to take inspiration from our ancestors and in order to push past the elusive 50%, do his connections clad in nothing but some bright blue dye?

• 29:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  If nothing else, it would provide interesting content for the carousel. Keep on providing proper content and show the upstarts and whippersnappers how it should be done. Judith. Thanks, Judith. So Ellis, strip naked, cover yourself in woad and that's going to get you over the 50%.

• 29:22Speaker 00

  And an animal hide.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, but just on my head.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  So we have a caller on the line from Wales. Hello, are you there?

• 29:31Speaker 04

  I am here.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  What's your name, please?

• 29:34Speaker 04

  My name is Jude.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Ellis, you have 60 seconds to connect with Jude. Your time starts now.

• 29:41Speaker 00

  Age of school?

• 29:43Speaker 04

  52, FitzAlan.

• 29:44Speaker 00

  FitzAlan Cardiff?

• 29:46Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 29:46Speaker 00

  Okay. What do you do for a living?

• 29:49Speaker 04

  I'm a Welsh teacher.

• 29:50Speaker 00

  Where?

• 29:52Speaker 04

  In Penarth.

• 29:53Speaker 00

  In Penarth? Which school in Penarth?

• 29:55Speaker 04

  Stanwell.

• 29:56Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 29:58Speaker 00

  If you went to university, where did you go?

• 30:00Speaker 04

  Swansea.

• 30:01Speaker 00

  When? And what did you study? Welsh?

• 30:03Speaker 04

  I studied Welsh between 92 and 96.

• 30:06Speaker 00

  Oh, okay, Welsh. I mean, Martin Johns is the obvious one.

• 30:10Speaker 04

  No.

• 30:11Speaker 00

  Okay, you don't know Anne England, who taught, who teaches Welsh in Sarabban?

• 30:15Speaker 04

  No.

• 30:16Speaker 00

  Okay, that's fine. Stanwell, Penarth. You don't know Dean Tanny Gray Thompson, do you?

• 30:21Speaker 04

  No.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  Okay, that's fine. Jude, 52, Swansea.

• 30:26Speaker 00

  Do you know my friend Phil Stead, who knows everyone?

• 30:29Speaker 04

  No.

• 30:30Speaker 00

  Okay. Do you know my friend Eddie, who's a musician? No, he's younger than you, FitzAlan. What part of Cardiff did you grow up in?

• 30:37Speaker 04

  Pontcanna.

• 30:37Speaker 00

  Pontcanna, do you?

• 30:42Speaker 00

  The eyes have it, the eyes.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  The eyes, the eyes.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  The eyes, the eyes, the eyes have it. Hmm, the eyes. You grew up in Poncana itself.

• 30:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, do you know where the co-op is on King's Road?

• 30:57Speaker 00

  Yes, I know exactly where that co-op is. Opposite there, that's where you grew up. So did you drink in the halfway in places like that?

• 31:04Speaker 04

  I did at times.

• 31:07Speaker 00

  It feels close, doesn't it?

• 31:08Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 31:11Speaker 00

  Did you ever dr- so did you drink in what the pub that used to be known as the Machindhi, which is now The Cricketers?

• 31:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:17Speaker 00

  By Saffire Gardens when you were 52 and you were a cricketer. I worked in both, I worked in The Cricketers and I worked in the Caio. I can't remember what the Caio's called now.

• 31:26Speaker 04

  My parents had their wedding reception in the Beverley.

• 31:28Speaker 00

  Oh, in the Beverley, my friend's grandparents had their wedding reception in the Beverley. I was in the Beverley about a month ago, but it was full of Cardiff City fans who were left.

• 31:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:36Speaker 00

  It's a nice chat. Shut up, Dave.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's good, I'm enjoying it, it's very relaxing.

• 31:40Speaker 04

  I can't believe it, I think there's loads of links.

• 31:43Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, he's not very good at this.

• 31:45Speaker 04

  No, can't he? I'm devoted.

• 31:48Speaker 00

  No, he is, it's a, it's a hard, it's a hard thing to do.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:52Speaker 00

  Stanwell. Sorry, what's, what's the name of the school in Penarth?

• 31:57Speaker 04

  Stanwell.

• 31:58Speaker 00

  I've got one Penarthian link and I'm trying to remember. Wow. Do you, what's the name of the art gallery in Penarth?

• 32:08Speaker 04

  Um.

• 32:08Speaker 00

  Oh, my, my friend used to work there. Pardon?

• 32:12Speaker 04

  I think it's the Turner Gallery.

• 32:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:17Speaker 00

  Oh, I want you to string me up and punch me in the stomach, Dave.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  I wouldn't do that to you.

• 32:22Speaker 00

  What's your name, sorry?

• 32:23Speaker 04

  Jude.

• 32:26Speaker 04

  Do you not know Jason Mohammed?

• 32:27Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  You need to leave him with this, Jude.

• 32:34Speaker 04

  We were at university together for four years.

• 32:38Speaker 00

  I've only met Jason once or twice. I used to work quite a lot with his nephew, Adilah Mohammed. He edited a podcast I did for a long time.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  So Jason wouldn't have counted, or would he?

• 32:49Speaker 04

  No.

• 32:50Speaker 00

  Jason was, I don't think he would remember this actually, but I once, I wrote a radio sitcom for Radio Wales. Uh, called Social Club FM, we got Jason to play himself in that. So we, I met him.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  I think that would count as a sort of professional connection.

• 33:07Speaker 00

  You know, I'm not sure if he'd remember it because it was quite a long time ago.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Are there any other connections, Jude?

• 33:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, a few. I've got links to Llanstefan.

• 33:16Speaker 00

  Have you now? My auntie, you know, because I've got a caravan there. What's your link to Llanstefan?

• 33:23Speaker 04

  Um, my cousins live there, they are Stefan and Yesdin, Dutch.

• 33:30Speaker 00

  Hmm, no.

• 33:32Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 33:33Speaker 00

  Uh. No, and I've, I mean, I've got, I've got quite a few friends from Llanstefan.

• 33:39Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 33:40Speaker 00

  But they're not the Duchess.

• 33:42Speaker 04

  And do you remember Dan Owen from primary school?

• 33:44Speaker 00

  Daniel Owen? How tha- sorry, I almost swore then. Um, how do you know Daniel Owen? He was my best friend. How do you know, how do you know Daniel?

• 33:52Speaker 04

  Um, his Sarah, his sister Sarah is one of my best friends and she's actually, um, our deputy head. And he does a lot of work with us.

• 34:02Speaker 00

  I moved schools. I went from, we moved from Hafthrest to Carmarthen. He was my best friend.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 34:09Speaker 00

  I love, oh my God, I'd, I, he was such a great guy. And then I didn't see him for about 30 years and then he contacted me on Facebook and we went for a drink just before lockdown.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 34:20Speaker 00

  What was really weird was, um, we'd done the same degree. And we had, had quite similar sort of lives, even though I'd not seen him since 1992. And, um, yeah, but I didn't, I wouldn't have got Daniel Owen from there. His brother was very strong and his brother could pull a coke cup can apart.

• 34:41Speaker 00

  What was his brother called? I can't remember his brother, but yeah. Pardon? Yes, David Owen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He could just, he used to do, he was the first person I met who'd ever done weights. And he could just pull a coke can apart. But Dan, I, yeah, I wouldn't have got there from Penarth, I'm afraid. But how is he? I've not seen him for ages.

• 34:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, Diane.

• 35:00Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 35:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:02Speaker 00

  I've got a hand, Diane.

• 35:03Speaker 04

  He's a great guy.

• 35:05Speaker 00

  He's a top bloke, yeah. He, he, when he was about six or seven, he had a leather jacket.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  When we were in like year one or year two, he'd looked, he had a brown leather jacket, a kind of Bergerac style leather jacket. And I remember asking him, and he had, and very short hair. And I remember saying to mum, I said, could I have like a crew cut and a leather jacket like Daniel? And she said, I don't think it would suit you. But he used to walk around in his leather jacket and he just looked the, the bee's knees.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Well, thank you very much for calling in, Jude. Unfortunately, there was no connection, but there was a lot of love.

• 35:38Speaker 00

  Great, yeah, it was, it was lovely.

• 35:40Speaker 04

  Uh.

• 35:41Speaker 00

  I've had a good nod, didn't problem you, but do you know what? I've had a good week and I'm not gonna let this define me.

• 35:47Speaker 04

  No, I'm, I'm sorry, I, I know I've let you down.

• 35:50Speaker 00

  Don't you worry, it's not your fault, Jude. I've let, this is the game. This is the game.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  This is the game we have chosen.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  This is the game. Yeah, anyway, nice to, nice to speak to Jude.

• 36:00Speaker 04

  All right, there.

• 36:00Speaker 00

  Ta-da.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Dear.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Now then.

• 36:05Speaker 00

  I won't let it define me.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  You won't let it define you.

• 36:08Speaker 00

  You can't, not the week that you've had, you're bulletproof this week.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  You are not your percentage, you're bigger than your percent. You're a hundred percent Elis James.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, you are. Yes, I am.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  You're a hundred percent Elis James.

• 36:20Speaker 00

  I am, I am.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  Hundred percent pure beefcake.

• 36:23Speaker 00

  I am, yeah. So help me God.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Dave.

• 36:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  I've got some bad news for you.

• 36:31Speaker 00

  Oh, sugarplums, why?

• 36:33Speaker 01

  I have killed the thing I loved and I have not died.

• 36:39Speaker 00

  Right, what does, okay. Let me see what this means. Hmm, in John's poetic mind, what does that mean?

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Are you familiar with the Ballad of Reading jail?

• 36:50Speaker 00

  What, by Oscar Wilde?

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:51Speaker 00

  Spelt G-A-L.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:53Speaker 00

  Spell it J-I-L, Oscar, for God's sake.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Spell it what?

• 36:58Speaker 00

  J-I-L.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  That's not how you spell jail?

• 37:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, it is.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  J-I-L.

• 37:03Speaker 00

  J-A-I-L, but I'm not the Ballad of Reading jail.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  There it is. That's just a woman who works in Reading.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  But she's entitled to a ballad.

• 37:13Speaker 00

  I thought you meant you'd quit vaping then for a second.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Oh, never, never, never, never, never, never.

• 37:19Speaker 00

  The Ballad of Reading jail.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Dave, are you familiar with the following stanzas? Don't, don't worry, they're copyright free.

• 37:28Speaker 00

  Okay, good.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Yet each man kills the thing he loves. By each, let this be heard. Some do it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword. Some kill their love when they are young and some when they are old. Some strangle with the hands of lust, some with the hands of gold. The kindest use a knife because the dead so soon grow cold. Some love too little, some too long, some sell, some others buy. Some do the deed with many tears and some without a sigh. For each man kills the thing he loves, yet each man does not die.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  I received troubling reports this week, Dave.

• 38:15Speaker 00

  So that was Oscar Wilde.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  That was Oscar Wilde.

• 38:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, obviously the celebrated wit. It's not laugh a minute, is it?

• 38:21Speaker 01

  It's certainly not. He was in prison.

• 38:24Speaker 00

  But like, I can't.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  He was in jail, doing hard labour.

• 38:28Speaker 00

  He was in Reading jail, but it's not, everyone's, he's like the wittiest man who's ever lived. It's not like hilarious stuff.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  It's insightful though, and I am also nervous. Dave, what Oscar Wilde failed to foresee.

• 38:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Is that some people kill the things they love with, with a podcast production company.

• 38:47Speaker 00

  And that jokes needed punchlines.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Dave.

• 38:50Speaker 00

  What is this?

• 38:51Speaker 01

  What have you done, John? Play the clip, please, Rodrigo.

• 38:54Speaker 00

  What is?

• 38:55Speaker 04

  I don't know if this is a typo or whether it's real, but it says, I've binned off Elis James and Tim Robbins. Because like most people, I only have time available.

• 39:05Speaker 00

  Didn't even know his name.

• 39:07Speaker 04

  I only have time available for one audio entertainment segment in my week.

• 39:11Speaker 00

  Oh, Tim will be fuming.

• 39:13Speaker 04

  Tim's gonna be f***ing nervous. People don't.

• 39:17Speaker 05

  Know that about him, but he's got a hell of a temper.

• 39:20Speaker 02

  Interesting. Okay.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Not only, Dave, do I have a hell of a temper, which you're about to feel my wrath, Dave. I have some professional pride.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  We set up a podcast production company to make great podcasts to bring to the UK.

• 39:34Speaker 02

  And I believe we're doing that.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. And in the process, Dave, we're bleeding ourselves dry. We are hemorrhaging listeners to other podcasts.

• 39:44Speaker 02

  Well, that's the game, John.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  Did you not know that was the game?

• 39:48Speaker 01

  Is the game to starve ourselves to death, Dave?

• 39:51Speaker 02

  Were you unaware of the game when we went into this venture together?

• 39:54Speaker 01

  Is the game to funnel off our energy and our life source?

• 40:00Speaker 02

  In Jill.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  In Jill. We're going to end up in Jill, Dave.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Because we'll have to commit fraud in order to survive. Because Don't Think So Somehow, the podcast, are getting all our listeners.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  Well, you got one. Who knows?

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Okay, so times that by a million.

• 40:17Speaker 00

  Jill is full of listeners.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  That's a million listeners, Dave.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:22Speaker 00

  Good math. You can't fault the maths.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  What are we going to do? Because either we've got to get a little bit better, or they've got to get a little bit worse.

• 40:32Speaker 00

  Or we've got to be more like them.

• 40:35Speaker 02

  I mean, maybe it's a different podcast, because you're not called Tim Robbins.

• 40:38Speaker 01

  People prefer it.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  No, no, you're not called, maybe there is now this James and Tim Robbins podcast.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  Well, what concerns me even further is people are listening to this podcast and not knowing who I am.

• 40:48Speaker 00

  They think that you're called Tim and that I refer to you for some reason as John.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  No, it's a typo. I think it's a typo, probably, I imagine. Listen, I think, do you know what? I think we shake them by the hand and say, fair play, because it's a bloody, bloody good podcast.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  You think I'm saying fair play? You think those are the words I'm saying as I shake their hand?

• 41:07Speaker 02

  I think that's a real compliment to how good Don't Think So Somehow is, because this is a great pod. I will stand by this pod until the day I die. This is a fantastic podcast.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Dave, you're the captain of a sinking ship.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  I'm not.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  And the rats are all off to the SS Don't Think So Somehow.

• 41:21Speaker 00

  And the gliss.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  And the, and the gliss.

• 41:25Speaker 00

  I feel like we're on a sinking ship now.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  No, I'm all right with that.

• 41:28Speaker 00

  I failed to connect with Jude.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  Look, and, and by the way.

• 41:31Speaker 00

  All of our listeners have moved over to Don't Think So Somehow.

• 41:34Speaker 02

  Hands across the audio ocean to Audio Always. We love a bit of sexted. But if that was on Help I Sexted My Boss.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  What are you talking about, Dave?

• 41:43Speaker 02

  Well, if that was, if, if listeners were going to Help I Sexted My Boss, or another podcast that wasn't within the significant universe, I would, I would have probably bigger grievances to bear, but this is all right.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  What you're saying is it's the same ship.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  It's the same ship.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  They're just getting on the lifeboats in advance of the disaster.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, no.

• 42:02Speaker 00

  The ship is the same. They're eating in a different canteen that's better stocked.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  No, we're a load of yachts, all right? We're a mega yacht, and there's a load of really decent yachts alongside us. We're all having a great time. We're waving. We're all topless because the sun's out. Hey, hello, Alistair.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Alistair's covered in woad.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  Alistair's covered in woad. You've got Skinwigs over there. Hey, guys. And we're all just sailing through the Met, having a fantastic time of it. Every now and then, a rat, we're calling listeners rats in this analogy, a rat will hop across.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  We call them cute rats.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, a little cute rat, a little loyal cute rat.

• 42:34Speaker 00

  Non-plague carrying cute rats.

• 42:36Speaker 02

  Paddles across to another yacht, jumps on there for it. You know what? It might come back in a few weeks, who knows? Because the yacht scene is quite fluid and quite agile, so it's fine.

• 42:48Speaker 00

  So when I read about billionaires on their super yachts in Monaco, that are all worth £150 million quid, they're, they're covered in rats, they're these super yachts.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  They're covered in rats.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  It's when Elon Musk is on a super rat, on a super yacht.

• 43:03Speaker 00

  There are rats going over his feet and all that kind of stuff with his 21 kids.

• 43:07Speaker 02

  Because, well, yeah, and John, I know that John likes this analogy, so I'll fire this at him and this will appease him. John, all boats rise with the tide, and that's what's happening here. All boats are rising with the same tide of rats.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just get a much smaller percentage of that boat.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, there is that.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  But anyway, it is a very good podcast and a very funny podcast.

• 43:30Speaker 00

  Congratulations.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  I just wanted to make you aware, Dave.

• 43:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:34Speaker 00

  I not listened to this week's, so I didn't know that. Congratulations to Rachel and Anister for stealing one of our cute, non-plague carrying rats.

• 43:43Speaker 02

  This week, Skinwigs was reviewed in The Guardian.

• 43:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:48Speaker 02

  And Sam, who's on the podcast, didn't realise that it was going to be in the physical copy. And I didn't realise either until the day after it happened. So I put it on my WhatsApp group, just to say, has anyone got yesterday's copy of The Guardian? And an elderly gentleman did have the copy, and he thought, and I.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  What WhatsApp group is this, Dave? You're dropping central, you're Methodist church dropping central WhatsApp group.

• 44:12Speaker 02

  You want to see the neighbourhood WhatsApp group, John.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  There's all sorts. There's all, you know, all demographics are welcome in the, in the neighbourhood WhatsApp group. But I popped round to his house because he invited me around to get The Guardian.

• 44:24Speaker 00

  And you got off with him?

• 44:26Speaker 02

  His daughter does listen to the podcast, though. That was nice. That was nice.

• 44:29Speaker 00

  Sigh. And he's not a rat, you dad. Neither are you.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  But I convinced him it'd be in the culture section. He's like, great, I don't need that. All I need is the TV guide section. I got around there, we flicked through it, turned out it was in the TV guide section. And the reluctance as he ripped out the one page that had the review in it, and he's like.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  You could have taken a photo, Dave.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  No, I wanted the physical copy for Sam and the Skinwigs guys. He was, he was all right with it, but he wasn't over the moon with it.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Can you not get back orders of newspapers for this exact thing?

• 44:56Speaker 02

  There is a website that does it for £25, which is quite a lot.

• 45:00Speaker 00

  £25 for a newspaper?

• 45:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:04Speaker 00

  That was the, the topic of Betty's first ever Sunday scramble.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:10Speaker 00

  Was that, oh, what time my history podcast was reviewed in the Sunday Times and I bought a copy. But the section it was in had fallen out. And I didn't realise until about nine o'clock at night. And so Izzy was away, so I made, I got the kids to jump in the car. We drove around looking for newsagents that still had a copy.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  I think we read that out on the show, didn't we?

• 45:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, and she was disgusted. She said, this is bad stuff.

• 45:32Speaker 02

  And whilst we're on the newspaper tip, I was in the blooming eye paper on the 4th of August. If anyone's got that, I missed that by a day as well, and I put that on the ram, on the neighbourhood WhatsApp group.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  They're thinking, who's this bloody lefty, lefty who can't remember when he's in the blooming newspaper?

• 45:48Speaker 02

  So, hi, guys, me again with my silly newspaper requests.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  What amazing humble brag you've got going with the WhatsApp group.

• 45:56Speaker 02

  I'm not explaining why I need them.

• 45:58Speaker 00

  If we were still doing the humble brag of the week feature, that's gold plated stuff. You've got a podium, please.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  No, because I didn't say on the group, I didn't say, oh, blooming Muggins over here has been reviewed in the eye paper because he talks about Andy Burnham's club night.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  Has anyone got a copy of my two star review?

• 46:16Speaker 02

  Anyway, if any listeners do have the 4th of August eye paper, do send it in, because I would quite like, my, my parents would quite like that, I think. They'd be quite proud of.

• 46:24Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, free in that.

• 46:25Speaker 02

  Being in the paper. So, yeah, it's all go.

• 46:34Speaker 03

  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. 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.

• 47:04Speaker 05

  Network freedom and flexibility. That's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals, no kidding. Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to build Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organisation with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Okay, then, let's play a made up game.

• 47:40Speaker 02

  Okay, made up game time. Jingle is once again from Steve, who sent this in a few weeks ago. It's in the style of Cas McCombs. Hit it.

• 47:53Speaker 06

  Let's play a made up game.

• 47:57Speaker 06

  A lost memory be claimed.

• 48:01Speaker 06

  Though the auditorium is full, all play it anyway.

• 48:09Speaker 06

  Festival after festival, we collect and remember reminisce. It all leaves me restless, running circles in the fairgrounds.

• 48:49Speaker 02

  Oh, it's good stuff.

• 48:51Speaker 00

  I really, really loved that.

• 48:53Speaker 02

  How close is that to Cass, John?

• 48:54Speaker 01

  Very close.

• 48:55Speaker 02

  Is it?

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you should, uh, Robin's been creating a lot of content about Cass's work recently, but check out the albums Catacombs, Wit's End, and, um, Mangy Love.

• 49:10Speaker 00

  We had him on the show, didn't we?

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Yes, and he did not wanna be there.

• 49:15Speaker 02

  He was in it now.

• 49:16Speaker 00

  That's what I remember.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  I don't think it been explained to him what was happening. He didn't want to talk at all.

• 49:24Speaker 00

  No?

• 49:25Speaker 02

  On a, on a speech radio show.

• 49:27Speaker 00

  On a speech, yes.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  Cass, I know you ain't heard of Five Live. There's two million people now listening to you say yes or no to open questions.

• 49:35Speaker 00

  Yes, and it was in Iceland and it was part of an event.

• 49:39Speaker 02

  It was at Tobacco Dock.

• 49:40Speaker 00

  No one turned up to see us, so it was just me, John, you and Cass McCooms and so.

• 49:45Speaker 02

  No.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  No, it was in the studio.

• 49:47Speaker 02

  That's a misconception, if that's the right phrase, with no one was invited to turn up and see us.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Just we invited Robin to come and interview his hero, and his hero didn't wanna say anything.

• 49:59Speaker 02

  No, we're not live on Five Live.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, people texted in saying, why are they talking to a guy that don't wanna talk?

• 50:07Speaker 01

  He should get back on plane. He don't wanna talk to us over here in, in England.

• 50:13Speaker 00

  At Tobacco Dock.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  Is he hungover, ill or dead?

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Maybe he had jet lag or his PR wasn't not very good at prioritising.

• 50:27Speaker 02

  It was only like our 20th show into the road.

• 50:29Speaker 00

  Yes, it was.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  His, the music he played.

• 50:31Speaker 00

  Was great. I remember playing.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Mate, we're giving you a bit of an opportunity. Yes, I do. What's up, five, five? I want you to question.

• 50:38Speaker 00

  I wonder what he thought it was.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  Don't know. You never know. When you're doing like, especially like you get off a plane from America and you're suddenly like turning up in a studio, you don't know if there's 10 people listening or a hundred billion.

• 50:51Speaker 00

  But also, but I don't know. I mean, you would, you would, you would, one would think, trust your PR that it's a decent opportunity.

• 50:59Speaker 02

  But is that just how he is? He's not like, he's fairly quiet, isn't he?

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's certainly not a, I think this is true, the artwork for one of his albums, he was so reluctant to do a photo shoot that he, he hired a private investigator to take photos of him when he wasn't aware.

• 51:19Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  He used those for the artwork for the album.

• 51:22Speaker 02

  That, that is crazy.

• 51:24Speaker 00

  Is. The best thing I've heard in 12 years of doing this show. That is so funny.

• 51:31Speaker 02

  I hope that's true.

• 51:32Speaker 00

  That is on my deathbed, I'll be thinking about that. When all of my other memories have been erased, that is so, it's gonna be so baked in.

• 51:43Speaker 02

  I hope this is true now for Ellis and John.

• 51:45Speaker 00

  I hope it's true. I, I know a few people who work for record labels and I do, obviously some comics can be difficult. In my experience, I don't know what you think of this, comedians tend to be a bit better at playing the game than some musicians.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  And I think they're less shy.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  As a comedian, you're saying, I'm gonna talk to people for a living, whereas a musician may well be perfectly happy making their music in their studio and then releasing it to the world and even performing live, but to say, oh, you actually gotta like talk to people in front of a camera.

• 52:16Speaker 00

  And do all of the other stuff, yeah. But that is sensational.

• 52:21Speaker 02

  You're not gonna get good pictures out of that though, are you?

• 52:22Speaker 01

  But it gave, it gave the album a certain aesthetic.

• 52:27Speaker 00

  That is fantastic. I wonder, obviously this is one for our American listeners, hello at ellisonjohn.com. Is there an American version of this?

• 52:36Speaker 02

  What do you mean?

• 52:37Speaker 00

  Like when he was on our show, which was back then we were live on Radio Five Live, which is a talk radio station.

• 52:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:44Speaker 00

  Is there a US equivalent?

• 52:47Speaker 02

  A Five Live?

• 52:47Speaker 00

  Of, of, of our show on Five Live, that, you know, that his PR, that is, that his PR has said, listen, you're doing this and it's got too many listeners.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  Oh, they absolutely will have that. They've got, there's radio all over the place in America.

• 53:00Speaker 00

  I'd like to listen to that. I'd like to, I'd like to know what it is.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  It's all quite regional in America though, isn't it?

• 53:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, they don't have big national overarching radio stations, which is why bands, when they would come, American bands, when they'd come to the UK.

• 53:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:11Speaker 00

  If you got on Radio 1 on Top of the Pops, you'd broken, you'd broken Britain, which is much harder for the British groups.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  I'm just Googling that fact.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  Oh, you're gonna break little Ellis's heart.

• 53:22Speaker 00

  Please don't tell me it's a misremembered thing, cause that's so funny.

• 53:28Speaker 00

  I remember Belle and Sebastian though for years.

• 53:30Speaker 01

  His record label did.

• 53:33Speaker 02

  That's great.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  Oh, he's notoriously shy and didn't like photo shoots. So this label took this extreme measure in 2010. The private detective tracked him down from distance to snap paparazzi style shots.

• 53:49Speaker 00

  Of him like in coffee shops and stuff?

• 53:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:52Speaker 00

  Because, um, that's so funny.

• 53:55Speaker 01

  And he used it for the promotional campaign for Wit's End, which is one of the best albums ever made.

• 54:00Speaker 00

  Because Belle and Sebastian for years, they weren't in their press shots. So there'd be press shots of a dog or of church gates and things.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  That would annoy your agent slash manager too.

• 54:13Speaker 00

  But it's like.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  But didn't the Smiths do the same though?

• 54:17Speaker 00

  No, I think the band were in their press shots. Obviously they weren't on the covers of, of the records. You know, they'd have people like Sheila Delaney and, um, oh, what was that woman who won the pools and said she was gonna spend, spend, spend? Viv Nicholson and people like that.

• 54:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:32Speaker 00

  But like, you know, I think if you work for press for a band, I think you have to accept that some of the groups are gonna have quite idiosyncratic opinions.

• 54:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:42Speaker 01

  Right then, Dave.

• 54:43Speaker 02

  Oh, made up game, of course. Um, right, scores on the doors. John's victory in Hugh Knows What Hugh I'm Referring To from a couple of weeks ago. That was the paint game. Uh, Ellis was his seventh win in a row.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Okay, what, I mean, what equivalents are we looking at?

• 54:59Speaker 02

  Well, do you want some equiv?

• 55:00Speaker 01

  Yes, please.

• 55:01Speaker 02

  Do you want some sporting equiv?

• 55:02Speaker 00

  Nadal at the French.

• 55:03Speaker 02

  You know us so well.

• 55:04Speaker 00

  Nadal at the French Open, Pete Sampras in Wimbledon.

• 55:07Speaker 02

  That's not what I've got here.

• 55:08Speaker 01

  Lance Armstrong before. Am I doping?

• 55:12Speaker 00

  I'd love it if you were.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Would you?

• 55:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, it would take the pressure off me a bit, going out, it's like losing to a drugs cheat.

• 55:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true. Oh, I mean, you'd, you'd take all those points forever.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  That's true, yeah.

• 55:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. It took the scores to 40 love to John in the third game of the third set. It's 1-1 in games, so he's still in this set, but John is two sets to love up overall.

• 55:33Speaker 00

  Well done.

• 55:34Speaker 02

  John has now equaled Lyon's streak of winning seven League One titles in a row from 2002 to 2008. Can he match Juventus' nine in a row or even Bayern Munich's 11?

• 55:46Speaker 01

  So what did, what was the most Arsenal one in a row in their unbeatable's campaign?

• 55:50Speaker 00

  Well, that was games, so they, they didn't lose in a 42 game season.

• 55:55Speaker 02

  I don't think they did many in a row, but.

• 55:57Speaker 00

  Lyon historically were quite a small club in France, but they used the Moneyball technique. And suddenly they were unbeatable for seven years, yeah.

• 56:05Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 56:06Speaker 00

  There's a very good book called Soconomics, which discusses Lyon's success in the early 2000s.

• 56:11Speaker 02

  Well, this week's game comes in from Scarlett in Bea in Devon.

• 56:16Speaker 00

  Oh, let's hope it's the St. Odd Beast.

• 56:19Speaker 00

  Oh, what is it? Is it word games?

• 56:21Speaker 01

  Is it translate these League Two football grounds into Welsh?

• 56:24Speaker 02

  No, I wish, I wish. Um, hello, my literary lovelies. I'm a big fan of two things, books and your podcast. So when John recently recommended Neville Shute's Trusty from the Toolroom.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Great book.

• 56:37Speaker 02

  A couple of other people said thank you for that.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Recommended to me by Richard Osman.

• 56:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, really, yes, of course.

• 56:41Speaker 00

  I bought that yesterday.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  Did you? You'll love it and you'll, you'll read it when, on, you'll put it on your plate for your holiday or your time off.

• 56:47Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 56:48Speaker 02

  A book I also love, I thought I should finally send it a made up game I've been sitting on for a while. It's called On Your Marks, Get Set Pros. The premise is as follows. Each round, Dave will give you a genre and a title of a, of a potential novel. It's all quite fitting after Richard Osman's appearance on Friday's pod as well. All you have to do is write the best opening sentence for that novel. To spice things up, each round will also contain a mystery word chosen at random from Dave's big bowl of random words that I've got here. This mystery word must be included in your sentence, which does, it's, it's curveball city.

• 57:24Speaker 00

  One question, can I use AI?

• 57:26Speaker 02

  No, you can't, and we never can for this podcast. Thank you very much. Dave will assume the role of Booker Prize judge and assess who has written the most eye catching, most compelling, most literary prize worthy sentence.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Gwendolyn Riley nominated for the Booker Prize this year.

• 57:39Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  Author of one of my favourite books of all time, My Phantoms, and her new book, The Palm House, is nominated. And Robin got it for me for my birthday and I'm going to read it.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  When's your birthday?

• 57:52Speaker 00

  November.

• 57:52Speaker 01

  Last May.

• 57:53Speaker 00

  Right, sorry, I thought I made a terrible edit there.

• 57:56Speaker 02

  You're November, aren't you?

• 57:57Speaker 01

  I just take a long time to get around to reading books.

• 57:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, I'm November. That's fine.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:05Speaker 02

  What's Trusty from the Toolroom about? I might get that for my Hollybobs.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  Oh, it's about a, I'll say this without spoilers. It's about a, a sort of lower middle class engineer who lives in Ealing in the late 50s who has to go on an adventure in order to secure his niece's inheritance.

• 58:31Speaker 00

  And you're sacked for saying Hollybobs.

• 58:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I threw that in there just as a, just to see.

• 58:35Speaker 02

  Just to see him.

• 58:37Speaker 00

  Just to see him.

• 58:38Speaker 02

  Hannah loves using Hollybobs.

• 58:39Speaker 00

  Bye.

• 58:40Speaker 02

  Right, uh, three rounds, most points in the end of the game wins. So a bit of writing.

• 58:45Speaker 00

  I've got my computer. Could I, may I type on my computer?

• 58:48Speaker 02

  Of course, you can type as well, John, if you like. Are you happy to scribble?

• 58:50Speaker 01

  I'm happy to scribble.

• 58:51Speaker 02

  Okay, so whilst Ellis gets his computer, can I, can I read out what it is, Ellis, or do you want me to wait?

• 58:58Speaker 02

  Oh, he's literally gone out of the room. He's not gone home, has he? There he is, he's back.

• 59:05Speaker 02

  These are the, these are the random words.

• 59:11Speaker 02

  And a mug that says, "My brain has too many tabs open. Four of them are frozen and I have no idea where the music is coming from."

• 59:17Speaker 00

  Oh, mugs are funny these days, aren't they?

• 59:20Speaker 02

  That's good stuff.

• 59:22Speaker 00

  Good old mugs.

• 59:23Speaker 02

  It's long, isn't it, Dave? Where did that mug come from?

• 59:27Speaker 00

  I don't know. Good old mugs.

• 59:29Speaker 02

  Did a listener send that? I think so, yeah. Well, it'll come into the bureau at some point. Yeah, love it. All right.

• 59:35Speaker 00

  Good mugs these days.

• 59:36Speaker 02

  So, genre and title first, then one of you can rifle through the random word mug.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's just one sentence.

• 59:43Speaker 02

  It's just one sentence, otherwise we'll be here all day. So it's got to be, yeah, that first sentence is basically from, I say, the capital letter to the first full stop.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 59:51Speaker 02

  So you can have a few commas in there.

• 59:53Speaker 00

  I tend to work better when I am able to stretch my legs though, so can I sort of do forty thousand?

• 59:58Speaker 01

  Don't worry, Ellis, this is going to be two all. You know how these games work.

• 1:00:00Speaker 02

  No. What do you mean, two all?

• 1:00:03Speaker 00

  No. And your special word is cynic.

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  Well, it's out of three, so it'll be one all and then there'll be a winner.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:00:09Speaker 00

  Well done, Dave. Thanks for being transparent.

• 1:00:11Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no. Let's play properly. Round one. Genre: thriller. Title: The Night He Returned. And the mystery word. Who wants to pick the mystery? Ellis, do you want to pick the mystery word?

• 1:00:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:00:28Speaker 02

  Go on, pick just one folded piece of paper out. What's the, what's the random word?

• 1:00:38Speaker 00

  Ford Mondeo.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  Is it? Okay.

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  That's quite, that's actually-

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  Playing into my hand this all day.

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, more fitting than, you know, that one.

• 1:00:47Speaker 00

  Ford Mondeo.

• 1:00:48Speaker 02

  That would have been funny for a further round, but still, it works. It works! Unless you want another word. Are you happy with Ford Mondeo? We'll go with the random nature of it.

• 1:01:00Speaker 02

  So yes, yeah, get scribbling your, get scribbling your opening sentence to your novel.

• 1:01:17Speaker 00

  Some long old sentences. I think there's no full stops in the middle of these.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  It's quite a long sentence.

• 1:01:28Speaker 02

  I know. How many commas have you? The commas doing a lot. Have you lifted it, John?

• 1:01:31Speaker 01

  A lot of commas.

• 1:01:35Speaker 00

  Any hyphens?

• 1:01:40Speaker 02

  Okay, how are we getting on?

• 1:01:42Speaker 00

  I'm ready.

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  I'm ready, Dave.

• 1:01:46Speaker 02

  Okay, good stuff. So what do we have here? We have thriller. The Night He Returned. The surprise, uh, random word was Ford Mondeo.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  Which isn't a word, that's a phrase.

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, come on, all right, all right. Um, we have some thriller music to take us into. Ellis's opening to his thriller. Let's go.

• 1:02:12Speaker 00

  Beckett struggled with the ignition, eyes stinging with sweat, ignoring the blood dripping from his temple as the mob battered the windows of his Ford Mondeo to an unsettling steady rhythm.

• 1:02:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:27Speaker 00

  But I'm scared.

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  I'm scared.

• 1:02:29Speaker 00

  I'm thrilled.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  There's blood, there's ignitions, there's steady rhythm.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  Was it Beckett?

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  Oh, that is scary.

• 1:02:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:38Speaker 00

  Not Rob Beckett.

• 1:02:39Speaker 02

  No, no, no, that's fine. It could be, but yeah.

• 1:02:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, it could be. Yeah, Rob Beckett's in my thriller.

• 1:02:43Speaker 02

  What's he done?

• 1:02:44Speaker 00

  The Night He Returned, exactly.

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  What's going on?

• 1:02:46Speaker 00

  You forgot to record a podcast with Josh.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:02:50Speaker 00

  I'm the mob of parenting hell fans.

• 1:02:52Speaker 02

  Ellis, that's safe and that's good.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  John with his seven comma intro. Here we go.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  Not bad for a rookie, Mitch thought. Sure, he'd taken a bullet as they broke down the door, but it was to the shoulder. He'd be all healed up in a week or two. Not bad at all. The guy had a future. What was his name again? That's right, Ford. Mondeo opened her eyes and lifted the silk sheets. Come to bed, honey, it's late.

• 1:03:24Speaker 02

  I think there could have been a few full stops that should have gone in. What, after Ford?

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  It's just a sentence, it's a speech on a separate line.

• 1:03:31Speaker 02

  Read it, read, read into Ford and out of Mondeo again, please.

• 1:03:35Speaker 00

  I think it's a very, it's an arresting image and it's an arresting beginning to an awful, the guy can write.

• 1:03:41Speaker 02

  The guy can write.

• 1:03:41Speaker 00

  John can write. I loved thirst. Okay, I also love contact. I would say it does feel like there should be a few full stops in there.

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  Tell me where they're coming then.

• 1:03:54Speaker 02

  Right, go on. Roll, roll through it.

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  Not bad for a rookie, Mitch thought.

• 1:03:58Speaker 00

  Full stop.

• 1:03:59Speaker 01

  No. Sure, he'd taken a bullet as they broke down the door, but it was only to the shoulder. He'd be all healed up in a week or two.

• 1:04:08Speaker 00

  Full stop.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  No, because you can't then start, but not bad at all.

• 1:04:12Speaker 02

  What happens after two, after a week or two?

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  Comma. Not bad, but not bad at all. The guy had a future, following on the train of thought. What was his name again? That's right, Ford. Mondeo opened her eyes and lifted the silk-

• 1:04:25Speaker 02

  That's the full stop there. That's the full stop.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  It's speech, it just goes to a new paragraph.

• 1:04:29Speaker 02

  That's right, Ford. Mondeo opened her eyes. That's a full stop.

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  Sorry for being inventive. Sorry, I have actually written this book in a slightly different way than you might be used to.

• 1:04:39Speaker 00

  It feels like Tom Wolfe, Bonfide the Vanities.

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  You're reading your shoe annuals.

• 1:04:43Speaker 00

  Do what it feels like. Do what it feels like, Dave.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  Playing modernism, playing with the form?

• 1:04:47Speaker 00

  No, it feels like a sickening technicality.

• 1:04:52Speaker 00

  The John Drop-In Story.

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  I like them both. I like them both. The one, even-

• 1:05:01Speaker 00

  This is better, but I would say I stuck to the brief one.

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  Well, I would say, I would say the one that actually grabbed me, I wanted to know what happened next a little bit more from the instant impact of what I heard, was Ellis's. It was yours.

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  They have full sex on the first page.

• 1:05:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the, yeah, and I've got the romance.

• 1:05:14Speaker 00

  Yes, so then it'd been the book.

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  Yes, that's going to sell, though.

• 1:05:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, save that for the romance genre, which is coming in round two.

• 1:05:22Speaker 00

  Oh, do I get to say milky breast?

• 1:05:26Speaker 00

  Milky white breast.

• 1:05:27Speaker 02

  Oh, Ellis.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  Oh, good God.

• 1:05:29Speaker 00

  I've never read a, I don't think I've ever read a romance. Like a part of Barbara Cartland or like Mills and Boone?

• 1:05:35Speaker 02

  No, what did I, I think I, I think I started Fifty Shades of Grey.

• 1:05:39Speaker 00

  Did you?

• 1:05:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, just because it was such a huge thing at the time.

• 1:05:43Speaker 00

  My mother read it and said it was boring, which actually poses more questions than you would think.

• 1:05:50Speaker 02

  It's 1-0 to Ellis.

• 1:05:53Speaker 02

  Round two.

• 1:05:57Speaker 02

  Romance. Title.

• 1:06:00Speaker 00

  All aboard the 502 to Faversham.

• 1:06:06Speaker 02

  Do you want to pick the random word, John?

• 1:06:10Speaker 00

  Careful with your commas this time.

• 1:06:14Speaker 02

  What have we got?

• 1:06:15Speaker 01

  It's not a word again, it's a phrase.

• 1:06:17Speaker 02

  All right, phrase.

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  A fox.

• 1:06:18Speaker 02

  A fox, great, okay. So a fox.

• 1:06:26Speaker 02

  Romance.

• 1:06:29Speaker 00

  All aboard the 502 to Faversham.

• 1:06:32Speaker 02

  Faversham, Faversham.

• 1:06:53Speaker 00

  Am I allowed one full stop?

• 1:06:56Speaker 02

  No! Absolutely not, not after we've just absolutely hauled John across the coals for it.

• 1:07:03Speaker 00

  It's funny that Fifty Shades of Grey was written by E.L. James, isn't it, Elis James? It is, and, um, quite a lot of, I used to occasionally get her tweets.

• 1:07:12Speaker 02

  Did you?

• 1:07:16Speaker 00

  Sex tweets.

• 1:07:21Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:07:22Speaker 02

  He's got it. Uh, are you happy, Ellis?

• 1:07:26Speaker 00

  Not really.

• 1:07:27Speaker 02

  No?

• 1:07:27Speaker 00

  I've, I've, I've followed the brief, but it's not as good as my thriller one.

• 1:07:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:07:33Speaker 00

  I need one full stop to make it sing, but obviously I'm not allowed that.

• 1:07:37Speaker 02

  So will I spot something here that's clear?

• 1:07:39Speaker 00

  No, no, no.

• 1:07:40Speaker 02

  You've changed it.

• 1:07:41Speaker 01

  I've got a dash in there. I've got a couple of M dashes.

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  That's all right. He didn't think about the M dash. Right, uh, round two is romance. Title: All aboard the 502 to Faversham. A fox needs to be in there. Let's have some lovely romantic music. And John.

• 1:07:58Speaker 01

  Blinded by the setting sun, he checked his ticket again. He'd been right the first time. Carriage A. Fox looked down at where he was meant to be sat and would never forget the hazelnut brown eyes that stared up at him. Turning back to the sunset, it disappointed him so.

• 1:08:18Speaker 02

  Ooh. Say that end bit again, that was nice. What, what disappointed him?

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  Sunset.

• 1:08:24Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  Because he'd seen her eyes.

• 1:08:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's nice.

• 1:08:32Speaker 02

  Ellis.

• 1:08:34Speaker 02

  Take it away.

• 1:08:37Speaker 00

  Molly couldn't help but notice the handsome commuter's smile on the 502 from Faversham.

• 1:08:43Speaker 01

  Always good to get the title of the book on the first sentence.

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  James Joyce, Ulysses. Ulysses walks down the stairs.

• 1:08:53Speaker 02

  Just so everyone goes, oh, that's the book I'm reading. Yeah, I forgot. I forgot the title.

• 1:09:01Speaker 00

  It also, it also feels like we're staring down the barrel of a full stop already at the end of that sentence.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  The couple were having sex in the paint shop. Just their luck to be having sex near the Fifty Shades of Grey.

• 1:09:16Speaker 02

  I can't.

• 1:09:22Speaker 01

  1984 had turned out to be quite a year.

• 1:09:38Speaker 02

  Right, come on, come on.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  Right, start again. Start from the top.

• 1:09:45Speaker 02

  From the top.

• 1:09:50Speaker 00

  Compose yourself.

• 1:09:54Speaker 00

  Molly couldn't help but notice the handsome commuter's smile on the 502 from Faversham. His eyes drawn to her fa- For a blouse.

• 1:10:20Speaker 02

  You've got a nice, quite a nice idea for a blouse.

• 1:10:25Speaker 00

  Okay. Well, it's, it's a full stop after fox. No. Yeah. I'm blazing with a picture of a fox. If I'd thought to use "dash", I would have gone on about how he felt alluring but strangely familiar.

• 1:10:40Speaker 02

  Was that it? Start again.

• 1:10:41Speaker 00

  But yeah. Molly couldn't help but notice the handsome commuter's smile on the 502 from Fabulous. His eyes drawn to her favourite blouse and blazing with a picture of a fox. Anything after picture with a fox, it just felt like the sentence was way too long.

• 1:10:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:58Speaker 00

  Chuck another, chuck another comma in there, it would have felt, it would have felt like bad writing. So I decided to follow the brief.

• 1:11:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:09Speaker 00

  I mean, I suppose I could have used a hyphen, but again, it's not really, you don't see them in.

• 1:11:14Speaker 02

  Awesome brackets. Emblazoned with a picture of a fox, curly tail, orange hair, big eyes.

• 1:11:24Speaker 00

  It's rare that you think of a, a fox on a blouse as sexy. Yeah, but she's fit.

• 1:11:31Speaker 00

  Molly's beautiful.

• 1:11:32Speaker 02

  Um, and this isn't just for gameplay, it's one all, and I believe that is correct.

• 1:11:38Speaker 00

  I'd like to see, John's managing to get very long sentences and he's able to.

• 1:11:43Speaker 02

  That one fell a little bit closer to, to, to commas being used in the right spot, I think.

• 1:11:49Speaker 00

  Because the first one felt like a paragraph.

• 1:11:51Speaker 02

  That's right, you won the first one, so it's fine. Round three. The winning round. And actually, this, this is all to play for here, because this might be a round that I think both of you will be good at. Uh, children's books.

• 1:12:05Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:12:06Speaker 02

  Title. It'd be the first time two comedians have written their own children's books.

• 1:12:12Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 1:12:14Speaker 02

  Title. The Adventures of Flogworth and Blimp. Oh, good.

• 1:12:20Speaker 00

  What are they?

• 1:12:20Speaker 02

  That was Michael's A, not for me to say.

• 1:12:24Speaker 00

  Flogworth.

• 1:12:24Speaker 02

  The Adventures of Flogworth and Blimp.

• 1:12:27Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:12:28Speaker 02

  Al, do you want to pick the random word?

• 1:12:33Speaker 00

  Flogworth.

• 1:12:36Speaker 00

  Michael deserves either a pay rise or a pay cut, but I can't look at which one it is.

• 1:12:40Speaker 02

  When I read that, I laughed about it, it was such a good title.

• 1:12:43Speaker 00

  Cagool.

• 1:12:44Speaker 02

  Cagool, okay.

• 1:12:47Speaker 00

  The old kids' books that are aimed, aimed at the cagool buyers.

• 1:12:53Speaker 02

  To the traditionalist, it's only kids, kids and hikers that wear cagools.

• 1:12:56Speaker 00

  That's true. Cagool.

• 1:12:58Speaker 02

  And it's this juxtaposition that I was hoping to get a bit more of from these words. The whole point is that the words were challenging to get into the genre. Um, right, crack on. John's already scribbling.

• 1:13:20Speaker 02

  Right, I'm ready.

• 1:13:28Speaker 00

  I'm glad I'm not the only person that's still typed just with my index fingers.

• 1:13:33Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 1:13:35Speaker 00

  I do that, Al.

• 1:13:40Speaker 00

  I bet you're a multi-fingered man, aren't you?

• 1:13:43Speaker 02

  Very much so, Dave.

• 1:13:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:13:46Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 1:13:51Speaker 00

  Maybe sometimes the middle comes into play, actually.

• 1:13:54Speaker 02

  I think most people nowadays could probably touch type if they just looked at the screen, just automatically.

• 1:14:00Speaker 00

  I do touch type, but I've never quite grasped, you know, when you've got all four fingers knocking about. Admirable skill.

• 1:14:06Speaker 02

  And thumbs on the old space.

• 1:14:08Speaker 00

  Incredible, absolute witchcraft.

• 1:14:10Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:14:13Speaker 02

  Are we ready? Yep. Uh, okay, so it's children's book. So I don't read many modern children's books.

• 1:14:20Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:14:21Speaker 02

  Or any, in fact, so mine is based on my, my understanding. I mean, I, I listen to Danny Champion of the World every night, but that was written in the seventies. Different vibes, different vibes. Okay, so the adventures of Flogworth and Blimp. The random word is cagool. Uh, we will start with Elis James. Let's hit the kids' music.

• 1:14:45Speaker 00

  "I won't stand for it," said Flogworth. "Come on, Blimp, my old friend, a little bit of rain never hurt anybody. Now zip up your cagool and we'll have climbed up Elvenor Mountain by sunset."

• 1:14:57Speaker 02

  I do like that. What mountain?

• 1:15:00Speaker 00

  Elvenor.

• 1:15:01Speaker 02

  Oh, that's nice. Yours isn't a go, takes me back to my childhood, actually.

• 1:15:05Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:15:05Speaker 02

  I like that because there's an adventure to go on.

• 1:15:08Speaker 00

  And Flogworth, he does sound like somebody's a little bit haughty.

• 1:15:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:15:13Speaker 00

  Blimp, of course, is, uh.

• 1:15:14Speaker 02

  All over the place.

• 1:15:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, he is.

• 1:15:17Speaker 00

  "I won't stand for that, Blimp."

• 1:15:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. "Stop jumping in puddles."

• 1:15:21Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:15:22Speaker 02

  "And put on your neckerchief."

• 1:15:23Speaker 00

  Yes, absolutely.

• 1:15:24Speaker 02

  It's like a less, if it sounds like it, it's going to be a less annoying bing.

• 1:15:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all you've got for this adventure is a small slice of lemon drizzle cake. Blimp, what's wrong with you, my old friend? [bleep] Flogworth.

• 1:15:39Speaker 02

  That's a shame. That's a shame.

• 1:15:40Speaker 00

  That was a shame. Do I dock points for that? Come on, it's not, it's not on my sentence.

• 1:15:44Speaker 02

  Also, bear in mind the world expanding, just, we've got to keep the sentence in mind.

• 1:15:50Speaker 00

  Thank you, pardon.

• 1:15:50Speaker 02

  Ellis is expanding the world there.

• 1:15:52Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:15:53Speaker 02

  So now we have, I've already fallen in love with Flogworth and Blimp.

• 1:15:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:57Speaker 02

  Because of the drizzle cake.

• 1:15:59Speaker 00

  I see what you mean. So you reset. I'd love to draw Flogworth and Blimp. Get Henry Packer involved to draw Flogworth and Blimp.

• 1:16:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:08Speaker 00

  Um, John?

• 1:16:10Speaker 02

  Okay, the adventures of Flogworth and Blimp. "I've done a hundred farts today," said Flogworth, "and I've got a million bogies in my cagool," Blimp replied. "Let's go and trap Mr. Meaney, the maths teacher, in a bogey fart prison of pants and knickers."

• 1:16:30Speaker 00

  Gee whiz.

• 1:16:32Speaker 02

  That's what kids' books are like today.

• 1:16:34Speaker 00

  A prison of.

• 1:16:35Speaker 02

  Bogey fart prison of pants and knickers.

• 1:16:39Speaker 00

  It's a bit odd.

• 1:16:40Speaker 02

  That's what all kids' books are, the bogey fart prison of pants and knickers.

• 1:16:45Speaker 00

  Two, two, two quest, uh, two points, two observations.

• 1:16:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:50Speaker 00

  There are certain celebrity authors who've gone down the bogey pants and farts route.

• 1:16:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:16:56Speaker 00

  When it comes to kids' books. As an observation, John is 100% spot on there. He's right, okay? However, as a parent, if one of my kids got given that book for their birthday or for Christmas, and they were like, "Oh, dad, dad, dad, can you read this?", and that was the opening line.

• 1:17:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:16Speaker 00

  My, A, my heart would sink.

• 1:17:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:17:20Speaker 00

  And B, I would dispose of the book.

• 1:17:22Speaker 02

  Would you, even if the kids were into it?

• 1:17:24Speaker 00

  I wouldn't, I don't think I'd let them be into it.

• 1:17:27Speaker 02

  Because it just encouraged bad behaviour, do you think?

• 1:17:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I think what I would do is I'd tell you what I would do, I know exactly what I would do. I would do a bad job of reading it.

• 1:17:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, just monosyllabic.

• 1:17:37Speaker 00

  Monosyllabic, I'd undersell Flogworth and Blimp's fart prison.

• 1:17:42Speaker 02

  Of pants and knickers.

• 1:17:43Speaker 00

  Of pants and knickers. And undersell it, probably skip a few pages so that narratively it didn't make sense.

• 1:17:51Speaker 02

  To the sick bloom.

• 1:17:54Speaker 00

  And then I would say, "Oh, why don't we have..." and then I would, uh, the gruffalo. And then I would really sell the gruffalo.

• 1:18:01Speaker 02

  That's good.

• 1:18:02Speaker 00

  Lights off, wallet there in bed.

• 1:18:04Speaker 02

  Good parenting.

• 1:18:04Speaker 00

  Then I would dispose of the book and, oh, fingers crossed, hope that they didn't remember Flogworth and Blimp. And then you just give it to a charity shop.

• 1:18:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:13Speaker 00

  That's what I would do personally.

• 1:18:15Speaker 02

  It's good.

• 1:18:16Speaker 00

  I was demoralised when he read his sentence.

• 1:18:19Speaker 02

  Well, no, no, I think the, but you're both very good at it. It's both, it's great writing.

• 1:18:25Speaker 00

  It is, it is. I love it when he lies, John.

• 1:18:28Speaker 02

  I'm not lying, they were, they were both better than I could do, I guarantee that. The thing that I'm putting in my head as almost a criteria point is which one is intriguing me and interesting me to actually want to know more about what's to come. Because that's what you want from an opening sentence, as Richard Osman attested to. You want to catch them in and then create intrigue.

• 1:18:48Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:18:49Speaker 02

  And for me, Ellis's sets up the adventure that they're about to go on, that I would want to read about more than John's.

• 1:18:56Speaker 00

  And their dynamic, because Blimp is complaining that it's raining.

• 1:19:00Speaker 02

  We've all walked up a hill before, I know what that's like, I don't need to read a book about it. "Have I ever put a maths teacher in a bogey fart prison of pants and knickers?" No, what does that look like?

• 1:19:09Speaker 00

  What does it look like? Get Packer involved.

• 1:19:12Speaker 02

  I don't want bogies in knickers, I don't think.

• 1:19:14Speaker 00

  No, nor me.

• 1:19:16Speaker 02

  I've never even seen that. It'd be an odd move.

• 1:19:19Speaker 00

  I could imagine it.

• 1:19:20Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:19:21Speaker 00

  I mean, I'd rather not.

• 1:19:22Speaker 02

  Actually, blowing your nose with pants, but again, you don't want to do that. That's book two, is Flogworth and Blimp blow their nose in their pants.

• 1:19:30Speaker 00

  For an hour.

• 1:19:32Speaker 02

  I'm giving that, both very good.

• 1:19:36Speaker 00

  Do you like a pub lunch?

• 1:19:38Speaker 01

  And on the audiobook, every time you hear the sneezing sound, you turn the page.

• 1:19:42Speaker 00

  The audiobook would be disgusting.

• 1:19:44Speaker 02

  It would, it would. It's horrible. But it's, it's very, it's good observational writing of what some kids books are about. The one that interests me and heartens me more is the lovely Stomp Up a Blumming Hill with Flogworth and Blimp.

• 1:19:57Speaker 00

  With Flogworth and Blimp.

• 1:19:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's good. It's very good. So it's two on to Ellis. Ellis wins the game.

• 1:20:02Speaker 01

  Well done.

• 1:20:03Speaker 02

  But good game and well done to both of you because that's not, I didn't, that's an, we, we kind of went back and forth. Is this a bit too challenging to be coming up with starts of books for three rounds? But you're both very good.

• 1:20:12Speaker 00

  I don't think many modern romance novels use the word blouses anymore.

• 1:20:18Speaker 02

  No, that's why it was funny.

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  You'd be surprised if you went to like, there's, there's.

• 1:20:22Speaker 00

  The ones that are newly published.

• 1:20:23Speaker 01

  You know, the biggest market for books is, is romance fiction, thriller fiction. And there will, there will be blouses knocking about.

• 1:20:31Speaker 00

  There used to be, there probably still is, a secondhand bookshop in Cardiff Market, the big cupboard market. And they used to sell those Mills and Booney style sixties and seventies novels for about 30 pence.

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:45Speaker 00

  Really? And I bought loads of them because I found them so funny because their writing's so dodgy and also the, um.

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  He found them really funny. That's why he did most of them. Little Ellis in the anonymous sex years found Mills and Booney really funny. And he was, he was reading them for a joke, actually.

• 1:21:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, a big joke.

• 1:21:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:02Speaker 00

  And he's also, he's always a handsome dashing man with his arm around a blonde woman on the cupboard. I just find it funny.

• 1:21:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really funny.

• 1:21:10Speaker 00

  Just really funny.

• 1:21:11Speaker 02

  Ellis wins. The other words that didn't get used were Cortina's, Stapler.

• 1:21:15Speaker 00

  And Adrian Childs.

• 1:21:17Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:21:17Speaker 00

  Cortina's the Ford car from the seventies or the band.

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  That's what I'd have done with it.

• 1:21:22Speaker 02

  That's what you'd have done with it, not spelt the same though.

• 1:21:24Speaker 01

  Um, it was the band, but it's fine either way.

• 1:21:27Speaker 00

  So how would we, what?

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  A fleet of Cortina's approached the police tank.

• 1:21:31Speaker 02

  No, not allowed. Wow.

• 1:21:32Speaker 01

  Special branch were getting involved.

• 1:21:34Speaker 00

  Flogworth and Blimp gone on adventure to watch the Cortina's live. That's a kid's book.

• 1:21:40Speaker 02

  That's the challenge. The challenge is to try and make it feel kid, even when the word, um, is surprisingly not. Uh, great. That's the made up game. That's a long old app. Two long old apps because Friday's was chunky as well. It was Chunky Monkey.

• 1:21:53Speaker 00

  Anyway, thank you very much listening. Um, we will be back with you on Friday. Goodbye.

• 1:21:58Speaker 01

  Bye bye.

• 1:22:07Speaker 03

  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.

• 1:22:37Speaker 05

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone. And including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage, HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 1:23:09Speaker 01

  Thanks for listening to the show. And you can follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Ellis and John for more content.

• 1:23:15Speaker 00

  And you can watch highlights of every episode over on our YouTube page, at Ellis and John.

• 1:23:20Speaker 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.