#576 - Be Brilliant, Every Negative Face and 6 Music Pension Damage

Hosting on 6 Music has long been Elis’s back up for if John ever retires at Project 2032. Sadly Dave reveals some news which could cause deep damage to this long term strategy. Some surprises cause more anguish than others. Plus Dave and Elis are officially tired of the titling of the Sir Right Honourable Sir Dr John Robins MBE Esq, and Adrian has too much chard. What on earth is he to do? Know what to do with too much veg? Well send it to [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. And do get yourself on the Patreon, as, despite the remarkably convoluted plug the boys try to do, Dave is keen to stress that it’s dead good and ad free. 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 Alice and John.

• 0:04Speaker 01

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

• 0:10Speaker 00

  mini golf and picks.

• 0:11Speaker 01

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

• 0:14Speaker 00

  Bird watching.

• 0:15Speaker 02

  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 03

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

• 0:26Speaker 02

  Alice is there as well, Dave.

• 0:27Speaker 03

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

• 0:32Speaker 00

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

• 0:40Speaker 04

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• 2:31Speaker 00

  Oh dear. It doesn't happen very often.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:36Speaker 00

  It doesn't happen very often at all, but occasionally, John, because of the creative whirlpool that is his mind, he becomes distracted and he doesn't put his earphones in. So he doesn't know that the show has begun.

• 2:48Speaker 03

  We could say whatever we wanted about now, I mean.

• 2:50Speaker 00

  He doesn't realise that Zoff has played our intro music. He hasn't checked his levels. It could be too loud. It could be too quiet.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Sorry. Um, John? I, who's John?

• 3:02Speaker 03

  You're John, remember?

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Hmm. I think I'm the right sir venerable, sir lord, sir captain, sir dame, sir high knight of the garter, John Robins, MBE, KBE.

• 3:16Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Of this fair kingdom.

• 3:18Speaker 00

  Slash Open University.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  I don't know if Britain means anything to you two anymore.

• 3:23Speaker 00

  No.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  But

• 3:24Speaker 03

  What does that mean?

• 3:25Speaker 01

  But to some of us, uh, it means

• 3:27Speaker 00

  Struggling with this mic stand. All this should have been done. I would have known what to do.

• 3:31Speaker 03

  This guy's got an honorary doctorate. You wouldn't think that today.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  I'm used to having my courtiers deal with this.

• 3:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's so clever. He doesn't actually know how to use a mic stand. And he's got to get someone else to wipe his bums. He's working on his latest thesis.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Well, very true, actually. And, you know, anyone who knows anything about Isaac Newton will know that he needed a great deal of day to day care because he was so focused on

• 3:55Speaker 00

  Apples.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Apples, orchards, how to make cider.

• 3:59Speaker 03

  Oh, let's lash on cider constantly.

• 4:01Speaker 00

  Isaac Newton's second great discovery was cider. Magnus. Gravity and cider. Yeah, that's me. That's another one of mine. Yeah, apple juice. That's another one of mine. It's all apple stuff.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Did I, I did tell you that the order of service for the, um, the doctorate did have me listed as John Robins MBE.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So from now, so that's now, so you know, when a word is used in print, it, it becomes, it goes in the dictionary.

• 4:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  So that's now been printed by an official institution.

• 4:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  So it counts as an MBE because it's in common parlance.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  A friend of mine just decided to change his name, but he didn't go via the official channels on Deedpole.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  He just told everyone and then when he got a new bank account, just put a different name in and then kind of, kind of did it sort of by proxy.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's gonna be in a hell of a lot of trouble.

• 4:55Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yeah. He's had a terrible twenties and thirties, but it is what he did. And I suppose that's what you're doing with your MBE. I used to put Esquire on the, on the end of my name as a joke when I was about 13. But I only grew out of that, John.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  I wonder if Esquire is an official term. Dave, look into it, please.

• 5:12Speaker 00

  Well, I got, I got that from Bill and Ted.

• 5:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I got it from Bill and Ted.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Ted Theodore Logan Esquire. Sir Les Preston.

• 5:20Speaker 03

  It's a courtesy title placed after a person's name. It me, its meaning depends heavily on whether you are in the United States or the United Kingdom.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  Kingdom, please.

• 5:28Speaker 03

  Okay, kingdom. It's an old fashioned, mostly unused courtesy title placed after a man's surname on official letters or envelopes when he has no other specific title. So it's a bit of a

• 5:38Speaker 01

  It's not for me then, because I am drowning in titles.

• 5:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're an MBE.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  I am an MBE, yes. Um, so what was everyone talking about while I didn't have my headphones on?

• 5:49Speaker 00

  Uh, well, we were just waiting for you.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Ah, okay.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  It's classic Alice and Dave, waiting on John.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  That's not true. That's a lie.

• 5:57Speaker 00

  What John wants, John gets.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  That is true.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  How are your levels, John? Are they okay? Cause we've not had a chance to test them.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're good. Thank you very much, Dave. I'm pleased with my levels.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  Good, good.

• 6:07Speaker 00

  Do you know what I did yesterday?

• 6:08Speaker 03

  Go on.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  You, hang on, Dave, um, went blackberry picking?

• 6:14Speaker 00

  No, although I have done that.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  You read about, uh, the Battle of the Bulge?

• 6:21Speaker 00

  Uh, no, although I am reading, uh, A Short History of France at the moment. And we did, I did read about Agincourt last night before bed.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  You

• 6:28Speaker 00

  Absolutely battered.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  You burned your bum and learned a valuable lesson about grilling in the nude.

• 6:36Speaker 00

  No, but I'd be backing into the grill.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, because, because you know what you always do? You always close the door of the oven with your bum.

• 6:44Speaker 00

  Oh, with my bum. Yeah, yeah.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  But you didn't have any trousers or pants on. So you've got a big line across your bum. It looks like you've been caned.

• 6:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, but, but obviously with the, the sort of the crevice of the bum and it goes across that. So it looks like I'm advertising Switzerland or the Red Cross.

• 7:00Speaker 03

  An odd flag, wouldn't it?

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. It'd look, it'd look like I hated my country if my flag was a

• 7:07Speaker 01

  Or loved my country.

• 7:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:10Speaker 00

  It's a burnt bum on the flag. Uh, no, I went to Christie's.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Ah, okay.

• 7:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  What was, uh, what, did you have your eye on? Uh, John Charles's, um, boots?

• 7:23Speaker 00

  Uh, no, his laces. I couldn't afford the boots. So I just bought some John Charles laces. No, there was, um, there was an auction of Johnny Marr's guitars.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 7:33Speaker 00

  He sold all of the guitars from his past, basically. All at auction. 111 lots. The money from 31 of those lots went to charity. He's just gone, he's, it's, it's incredible. So the Black Rick and Barker that he's associated with, that he wrote this charming man on, sold, gone, bang, wallop, bye bye. The, the Gibson Cherry Red 355 that everyone, there's a famous photo of him leaning over the guitar and it's in his case, he's got a fag hanging up his mouth. Have you seen it at Norwich? That's sold.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  If they'd have teamed up with another musician, they could have named the auction Johnny Marr and Yama. So let's do it again.

• 8:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:12Speaker 03

  Go on, I know. We all know where this is going.

• 8:15Speaker 00

  We let it, we let it all this out. Don't worry. And then you could just do your zinger.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  If they had teamed up with some other musicians.

• 8:22Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  It could have been Johnny Marr.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  And

• 8:27Speaker 00

  Ha.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  Ha Ma Superstar and Yo Yo Ma's Guitar Bazaar.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:35Speaker 00

  And they were session musicians for Aha.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, he could have. Yeah, he could have. It would have been a bit odd, wouldn't it?

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Well, no, because you get more lots, because then you get the Yo-Yo Ma fans in.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  And you get the Ha Ma Superstar.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, and Aha's fans, and you're increasing interest in the lots.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:53Speaker 03

  Why isn't Bruno Mars getting a look in?

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Get him involved!

• 8:58Speaker 03

  So how much was raised in the end?

• 8:59Speaker 00

  Rory Gallagher.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  Noel Gallagher.

• 9:02Speaker 03

  No.

• 9:03Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, that staff, sorry.

• 9:05Speaker 03

  Don't be silly.

• 9:06Speaker 00

  Sorry, I've ruined it.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  I met Ha Ma Superstar.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  When and how, and how did I not know this, and why?

• 9:13Speaker 01

  So they-

• 9:14Speaker 00

  Ha Ma Superstar.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:16Speaker 00

  And John Robbins.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:18Speaker 00

  When?

• 9:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, odd bedfellows.

• 9:20Speaker 00

  Were you drinking at the time?

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:22Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  I think he was quite a big boozer.

• 9:24Speaker 00

  So he saw you at your best.

• 9:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  So let me get this straight.

• 9:29Speaker 03

  These two.

• 9:30Speaker 00

  I really hope it is Ha Ma.

• 9:32Speaker 03

  Was he topless? Because he was topless a lot, wasn't he?

• 9:34Speaker 00

  He tended to be topless, yeah.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Actually, yeah, at the time.

• 9:36Speaker 00

  He was topless at the time.

• 9:38Speaker 03

  He was on the front of an NME cover with him on.

• 9:41Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. I just, I don't know how John inhabits this world.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Okay, here we go. Ha Ma Superstar played at the, on Cowley Road

• 9:53Speaker 00

  In Bristol?

• 9:54Speaker 01

  in Oxford in 2003, and here is the gig preview. Who said Wednesdays are boring? This week, the Cowley Road place hosts an entertainer who would look more at home in a seedy bar in Tijuana than in the city of the dreaming spires, Ha Ma Superstar.

• 10:11Speaker 03

  Did you write this?

• 10:12Speaker 01

  No, but I did write a review of the gig for the student newspaper.

• 10:15Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 10:16Speaker 00

  And what did you make of it?

• 10:18Speaker 01

  I can't remember, but I-

• 10:20Speaker 00

  With John's poison pen and acid tongue.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  I remember asking him if he liked Frank Zappa.

• 10:25Speaker 00

  Oh, you interviewed him?

• 10:26Speaker 01

  I just met him afterwards.

• 10:28Speaker 00

  And did he like Frank Zappa?

• 10:29Speaker 01

  He wasn't particularly effusive about Frank Zappa.

• 10:33Speaker 00

  Oh, fussed.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  So who is Ha Ma Superstar?

• 10:36Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Was he a sort of novelty musician?

• 10:38Speaker 03

  I feel like you will know more about him than we do.

• 10:40Speaker 00

  I mean, he's your best friend, John.

• 10:42Speaker 03

  He kind of had a three-month period where he was the future of rock and roll somehow.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Really?

• 10:47Speaker 03

  Because it was at the time of Andrew WK.

• 10:49Speaker 00

  He was very hairy as well, from what I remember.

• 10:51Speaker 03

  Was he?

• 10:52Speaker 00

  Andrew WK, the NME said he was the future of music, which is such a big claim. And they loved the one single he made so much that they put him on the cover twice.

• 11:03Speaker 03

  It's a great track.

• 11:04Speaker 00

  And there were two covers to that edition, that sort of week's edition. But, yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  He's not, he's not been doing much recently.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  Has he not?

• 11:12Speaker 01

  No.

• 11:14Speaker 00

  Well, let's get him on the show. Imagine if we could reboot his career.

• 11:18Speaker 03

  Is this, no, no.

• 11:20Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Don't scroll down too far the Wikipedia page, or you get your answers.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  Okay, cool. Well, we didn't, we didn't, we didn't pin our colours too.

• 11:28Speaker 00

  Is there a controversy section?

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, just sexual assault accusations.

• 11:33Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  So.

• 11:34Speaker 03

  We leave it there, don't we?

• 11:35Speaker 00

  We leave it there.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Yes, we do. And we, and I'm glad I didn't like him.

• 11:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  I, I think I knew.

• 11:46Speaker 00

  I'm glad you gave him such a rotten review now.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  I could probably find the review, actually.

• 11:51Speaker 00

  Because he didn't sound like the four bands you like.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Oh, dear.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  It's a shame.

• 11:57Speaker 00

  But, um.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  Well, it is, it's, it's, it is, I mean, it's not a shame that, it's, it's a shame that people behave like that allegedly.

• 12:05Speaker 00

  Well, back to my musical icon, there was an exhibition of all of his guitars, so the general public could go and see them.

• 12:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:11Speaker 00

  And that had been running for about a week at Christie's. But because of work, and I went back to Wales to visit my parents, the only time I could go was about an hour before the exhibition finished, before the auction began. So I was there at one o'clock, just looking at all these guitars that I've seen in the NME and in magazines and in interviews for the last 35 years. So I assumed they'd, they'd chuck us all out, but they didn't. Because suddenly they were, they were removing guitars from the wall, and I was like, oh, they're bound to chuck us out in a second. Because all, what was funny was full of sort of indie music fans who just wanted to see them, and then the serious guitar buyers, who were about to spend, you know, 358 grand on a Rickenbacker.

• 12:51Speaker 03

  Could you distinguish between the two crowds?

• 12:54Speaker 00

  A little bit, yeah. It was quite sweet. I met a few people who were like, oh, maybe, you know, maybe people run out of money by the end.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  Hang on. So you went to the exhibition, do you go to the auction?

• 13:05Speaker 00

  Well, so, so I assumed they'd chuck us out before the auction began, but they didn't, so I just stayed and watched the auction.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Did you get your wallet out?

• 13:12Speaker 00

  I didn't get my wallet out.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Oh, come on.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  So it must have been like a guitar pick that he sold.

• 13:16Speaker 00

  You had to register beforehand. And also, the one-

• 13:21Speaker 01

  You know, famous musician auction 101.

• 13:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  You've got to register.

• 13:25Speaker 00

  The one I really liked did go for, I think, for a hundred and 4,000 pounds.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  What was it?

• 13:29Speaker 00

  It was an Epiphone Casino, the one that he does the rhythm part for How Soon Is Now One.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  But are there any clothes?

• 13:37Speaker 00

  There were posters, gig posters.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  What about one of those?

• 13:40Speaker 00

  Um, I just, oh no, I just wanted, I should, I should have bought a gig, although they went for a lot of money as well. There was a lot of amps.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:48Speaker 00

  Um, quite a few acoustic guitars, guitars that he'd either bought or been given by John Entwistle. It was, but I'd never seen an auction before. Well, that's not actually true. My auntie used to take me to livestock markets for something to do when I was a teenager.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 14:05Speaker 00

  So I remember my auntie Elsie took me to Carmarthen Mark, me and my little sister.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  So were you expecting people to go up to the-

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Were you expecting people to go up to the guitars and slap them and sort of stroke them?

• 14:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, with loads of-

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Feel their haunches.

• 14:19Speaker 00

  With loads of iodine on their hands.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:21Speaker 00

  I remember going to Carmarthen Mark to watch a livestock auction, and with my little sister, she was about five. My auntie Elsie said, don't blow your nose, you'll end up buying some lambs.

• 14:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's true.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  I did once accidentally buy the wrong coins at a coin auction.

• 14:36Speaker 00

  Oh, no.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, got confused about the numbering in the, it was about 13.

• 14:41Speaker 00

  What did you end up with?

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Some fake, uh, some fake pennies.

• 14:47Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  It was like a lot of fake pennies. They listed that, and it was before the farthings that I wanted to bid for.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  Oh, no.

• 14:54Speaker 03

  I've been to a second-hand used car auction.

• 14:57Speaker 00

  Have you?

• 14:58Speaker 03

  They fly through cars. But what's funny is that, me and my dad went with my mate and his dad. And his dad, who was an old head teacher, but just one of the nicest guys in the world, so just like a really, really agreeable guy and like, you know, we'll just get on with anyone. So every time the, what would you call the person that's doing the auction?

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Auctioneer.

• 15:14Speaker 03

  Auctioneer, of course. Every time they glanced at Dave, his dad, he's like nodding back at him because he's just, he's too polite to not kind of engage with whoever's looking at him. So my dad had to nudge him and go, you realise you're putting bids in here without realising? Because he's just, he kind of smiles and nods back because this guy's looking at him like that with his hands up.

• 15:32Speaker 00

  That's fantastic. It was the same thing with my little sister and the lambs.

• 15:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  She didn't want to, you know, she didn't want to buy two calves, or whatever it was.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  I also went to an auction, a coin auction, or an antiques auction with a coin section in Bristol that was being filmed for Bargain Hunt.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  Oh, nice.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  So Tim Wonnecott was there.

• 15:51Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Chatting to a sort of, a retired couple who were about to make a 10 pound loss on a plate.

• 15:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  And that would go out on the BBC. But that was quite fun. I bought a sovereign.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  Did you?

• 16:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:06Speaker 00

  Ring?

• 16:07Speaker 01

  No, just a sovereign.

• 16:09Speaker 00

  You're a bouncer.

• 16:11Speaker 03

  So you didn't buy anything?

• 16:12Speaker 00

  No, it was, it was really interesting though, because I'd, I'd never seen an auction before, other than for livestock. And they don't say going once, going twice.

• 16:20Speaker 03

  That's a shame.

• 16:21Speaker 00

  Which I'd been led to believe they did on sort of TV dramas and things. But it was, so, yeah, when they bought the 355 out, which was my, is still my dream guitar, but obviously, you know, I'm not going to spend 20 grand.

• 16:37Speaker 00

  They were like, okay, there's an awful lot of interest in this bit. It's an iconic guitar that Johnny Marr wrote, Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now and Girl Afraid, and the same afternoon on it, we've got 40,000 pounds in the room, 50,000 pounds in the room, 60,000 pounds on the phone. Oh, someone from Florida's entered. Thank you very much. 70,000 pounds. Someone from Paris, Merci beaucoup. 80,000 pounds.

• 16:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:56Speaker 00

  Let's go up in fives. 105, 110. It was, it was-

• 16:59Speaker 03

  When were they putting that? How, how did they know?

• 17:02Speaker 00

  There were people on the phones, there were people online.

• 17:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, but in the room, what was the signal that someone was wanting to bid?

• 17:07Speaker 00

  You had to register, so you had a little sort of, you had a, you got given a card, they were putting that up, and-

• 17:12Speaker 01

  I can do an impression of how the phone people work, Dave.

• 17:15Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  They go like this.

• 17:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's, yes, that's exactly it.

• 17:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Now do it. We're an audio medium.

• 17:23Speaker 03

  We are an audio medium.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  So they say to the person on the phone, the bid's gone up to 160,000, the next bid will be 165. They wait, they pause the response, they put their hand over the receiver, and they nod.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  No nod.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Or, they go like that.

• 17:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. And also, even on the phones, they had much longer to discuss it than I realised.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:43Speaker 00

  I thought you had to make very quick decisions. I thought you had to go in with a figure in mind, and then that was that. But for, I think the Rickenbacker, that the lady was on the phone, and she was, she, she turned her back and was on the phone for probably, it felt like about a minute, and then the auctioneer said, I love seeing people's backs, and big laugh. Very, very much like a sort of compare. There was a lot of stuff going on in the room.

• 18:07Speaker 03

  Wow, maybe that's Future Adventures app, getting you two being auctioneers for the day. I think you're doing it with a real glint in the eye.

• 18:13Speaker 00

  I was thinking this. John, I think, would be a great auctioneer. I think I would mess it up.

• 18:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  But there was a bit of him seeing.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Well, there's lots of charity auctions knocking around, Dave.

• 18:23Speaker 03

  Ever?

• 18:24Speaker 01

  You know, sell a wine tasting in Provence for 1,200 quid to a corporate CEO, so he can feel better about himself. But also gets a wine tasting out of it.

• 18:35Speaker 00

  I think, I was, I was watching The Lady at Christie's, and I did think, I actually think, if comedy goes wrong for John, and he has a complete personality change, I think he'd be a good auctioneer at Sir Bees at Christie's.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  The bid is with you, sir. Two and a half thousand pounds. Do I see 2,700, sir? If you don't bid 2,700, I will soil myself. Do you want that on your conscience? Well, look at all these people having a lovely day. Do you want it ruined by me soiling myself? 2,700. Come on!

• 19:16Speaker 00

  Can you imagine that at Christie's?

• 19:18Speaker 01

  No, that would be at a charity auction.

• 19:20Speaker 00

  Oh, right. Not at Christie's or Sotheby's, or any of the other big ones.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  But it's not up to you, the auctioneer, to be persuading people to go up in price, is it?

• 19:26Speaker 00

  I think it is at a charity auction.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  Oh, is it? Right.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's this, yeah, at a charity auction.

• 19:30Speaker 00

  At a charity auction, you are trying to get as much money out of people as possible. And so you are trying to be persuasive.

• 19:35Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. No, yeah.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  Good time.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  But yeah, it was lovely. It was lots of listeners to this show at the exhibition.

• 19:41Speaker 03

  Really?

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Were they?

• 19:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I met, it's been a big, big old deal.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  I've not seen anything about it.

• 19:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's really sad. That's all my, that's all my algorithm has fed me for about a week.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  This is the problem.

• 19:51Speaker 00

  I thought the world was talking about this.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  Six music were.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  This is why stand-up comedy is so hard now. Not that I do it that much. There's no monoculture.

• 20:01Speaker 00

  No.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  You can't talk about stuff that's in the public eye because it's, unless it's like something huge and horrific.

• 20:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  You could, you could not do stand-up about an advert anymore.

• 20:13Speaker 00

  No, no, no, no. And yet.

• 20:14Speaker 03

  That's a good observation.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  You can't do stand-up about a TV programme.

• 20:17Speaker 00

  No.

• 20:18Speaker 03

  Really?

• 20:18Speaker 00

  You can do adverts about platforms. Sorry, you can do stand-up about platforms. Like you could do sort of generic stand-up about Instagram or Netflix.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  But it all becomes very beige, so you have to therefore do stand-up about yourself.

• 20:33Speaker 03

  But you're good at that.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it is quite like, it would be nice to say, did you see that bloody programme?

• 20:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Have you seen the advert? So it becomes quite, quite self-obsessed because there aren't shared.

• 20:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  But there aren't like shared experiences anymore.

• 20:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's funny. I went in, because I went into a guitar shop afterwards and they were watching it online because it lasted ages because there were 111 lots. So I stayed for the first like 15 or 20 and then I went and bought some plectrums.

• 21:06Speaker 03

  Did you?

• 21:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:06Speaker 03

  What, Johnny Marr's plectrum?

• 21:08Speaker 00

  No, my own plectrums.

• 21:11Speaker 03

  Alice James's plectrum?

• 21:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:12Speaker 03

  Were they up for auction?

• 21:13Speaker 00

  I saw plectrums. I actually think they'd reduce in price if I auctioned my own.

• 21:17Speaker 03

  What did Johnny Marr plectrum go for? Were any of those up for grabs?

• 21:21Speaker 00

  I don't know what the cheapest thing was, actually.

• 21:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:23Speaker 00

  Because.

• 21:23Speaker 03

  Assigned plectrum.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  Thirty-one of the lots went to charity, raised money for National, the sort of Guide Dogs Trust and the Autistic, National Autistic Society, I think it was, but the two charities. Guide Dogs for Blind and, yeah, the Autism Society. But I don't know what the cheapest thing was.

• 21:41Speaker 03

  No.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Well, the Freddie Mercury auction was a nightmare for that because the, because the headline lots had gone so insane.

• 21:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  The, the end of it was like literally a sort of ashtray and they were going for three or four grand. Because the people who had a little bit of money to spend.

• 21:59Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  Were expecting to get the sort of mid-line items.

• 22:02Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  So they were all fighting for like a sort of, like a two quid China cat that he probably had in a drawer, not even seen.

• 22:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  And they're spending £1,200 on it.

• 22:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, because I was talking to a listener to their show, actually, and what was funny was there's, there were three or four really iconic guitars in the Smiths era. And then there were acoustic guitars that he bought like three years ago.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 22:27Speaker 00

  And the guide, the estimated price wasn't much more than they would be if you're buying them in the shop. But obviously it always goes way more than that.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  Because it's been in his lounge for a bit.

• 22:40Speaker 00

  But I did think, God, imagine if I, you know, if I had bought one, I think I'd have found it quite overwhelming to have one of Johnny Marr's guitars in the house.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Would you have played it or framed it?

• 22:50Speaker 00

  Played it, played it, played. That's what he wanted. He said, I love the, because he said, they're all in storage. I don't play them anymore.

• 22:55Speaker 03

  It's nice.

• 22:55Speaker 00

  I play, I play my newer ones and I like the idea of someone in Glasgow or Dundee just sort of sitting in their living room and playing songs of my old guitars.

• 23:12Speaker 04

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• 24:44Speaker 01

  Right then. Sorry for mentioning Harmar Superstar earlier.

• 24:48Speaker 00

  Don't worry about it.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  It's hard to keep track of who's allegedly awful these days.

• 24:51Speaker 00

  Do you know what? It would be great if there was a list.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  I think there probably is.

• 24:56Speaker 00

  Well, we should frame it then.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  But I think it would be thousands of names long.

• 25:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's part of the job. You've got to learn the list.

• 25:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:05Speaker 00

  And then when anyone's acquitted, you just cross them off.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Well, or do you?

• 25:09Speaker 00

  Okay, fine.

• 25:10Speaker 03

  It is, it's nuanced. Um, but.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  It's tricky in its new.

• 25:14Speaker 00

  Dave's gone red.

• 25:17Speaker 03

  John, what are the emails like this week?

• 25:22Speaker 01

  Well, the first is from someone who certainly hasn't been accused of sexual assault. It's Mandy Masterson, your father, Dave.

• 25:28Speaker 03

  Oh, that's, that's a lovely segue. What a segue.

• 25:33Speaker 00

  My God. Oh, my God.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Hi, Ellis and John.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  He's not wrong. Go on.

• 25:39Speaker 00

  He's not wrong and we cannot emphasise that enough. It's just, yeah.

• 25:44Speaker 03

  You just go on the, yeah, that, yes.

• 25:46Speaker 00

  The problem with podcasts is that they're improvised and sometimes you say things like you reference Harmar Superstar. And sometimes you say that about someone who's raised an awful lot of money for charity.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  It's a nice thing to say.

• 25:55Speaker 00

  It is.

• 25:55Speaker 03

  It's a lovely thing to say, weirdly.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  I just like it to be, I would like it to be implicit rather than explicit.

• 26:01Speaker 03

  Exactly. Go on, John.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Hi, Ellis, John and producer Dave Brackett's son.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  We felt that we'd like to thank you and the wonderful listeners.

• 26:16Speaker 03

  Has he written it badly?

• 26:17Speaker 01

  It's sort of an odd way of phrasing it.

• 26:18Speaker 03

  He does write weirdly.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Does he?

• 26:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's, some of the WhatsApps we get, we've got to go, Dad, just stop speaking in riddles. Can you tell us what you mean?

• 26:26Speaker 01

  You would say, we'd like to thank you. We felt that we'd like to thank you and the wonderful listeners.

• 26:32Speaker 03

  This is what makes you big in the timber game, John. Confuse them.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:36Speaker 00

  And then suddenly they've bought on a huge amount of balsa wood.

• 26:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, a load of MDF.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  We felt that we'd like to thank you and the wonderful listeners for the incredible response to our small jaunt across Europe.

• 26:47Speaker 00

  And it's more than that, isn't it, Dave?

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Explain the jaunt, Dave. I feel that I'd like you to explain the jaunt.

• 26:52Speaker 03

  So the jaunt is, I covered it briefly on Tuesday's episode. They've signed up with 24 other teams. It's amazing. And they're currently doing it at this very second. It's a race across Europe. So they start in Amsterdam and they've got to get across three days. They've got to get to Prague. It's all for Prevent Breast Cancer.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  And they can't just get a flight to Prague from Amsterdam because they are direct.

• 27:11Speaker 03

  You can't fly. It's, it's, it's a scaled down version that Prevent Breast Cancer have put on, which is basically akin to Race Across the World that's on the BBC. So.

• 27:20Speaker 00

  Are they winning?

• 27:21Speaker 03

  Well, I was just having a look at the map. They were about half, what, they're about, because there's 25 teams. Look, they're all over the place. Now, look at them all scattered around Europe now.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Well, let me see. Where's Andy and Mal?

• 27:31Speaker 03

  So they're called the Bouncing Checks. Oh, I've just got that play on words. It's good. Sorry. It's the first time I've said it out loud. Didn't get it.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  Goodness.

• 27:40Speaker 03

  Every time I looked at it written down, I was like, I don't know, what's, what's Dad done here? He's gone all funny again with his writing.

• 27:46Speaker 00

  No, that's good.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:47Speaker 00

  Checks, Check Public, Checks Bounce. We haven't got enough money to count.

• 27:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's good stuff.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  I mean, obviously it is, I would say, play on words for the over 40s.

• 27:56Speaker 03

  Okay, so.

• 27:56Speaker 00

  Checks aren't as big as they used to be.

• 27:58Speaker 03

  They're in Frankfurt.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 28:00Speaker 03

  And they are with currently, and I've, I get, get rid of the, the hangers-on as quickly as possible, but they are with Simply The Breast.

• 28:08Speaker 00

  Good.

• 28:08Speaker 03

  Team Tits and Giggles.

• 28:12Speaker 03

  Boob Vai, Boob Voyage.

• 28:14Speaker 00

  Boob Voyage.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  Boob Olympics, Titsnade Zoo and Wet Christmas.

• 28:20Speaker 03

  Simply, I know I said that one. What's this one here? Prevent on Peg Legs. I don't understand that one. But yeah, there's, anyway, loads of teams and they're trying to race to Prague. They're all going to get to Prague probably on Sunday. And thanks to a lot of people who listen to this part, well, I'm sure Dad will get to this in a second.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  We will rejoin the email.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  They are currently racing and they are having the time of their lives.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  And we have shared on socials some links.

• 28:43Speaker 03

  It's Andy at Darlo, all spelt, if you wanted to check out his Instagram, which does have a link in his bio, which he now knows what that is.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Andy at Darlo?

• 28:50Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  He's got an at in the middle of his Instagram name?

• 28:52Speaker 03

  He writes funny.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  But you can't do that, can you?

• 28:55Speaker 00

  No, no, A T, not the at sign.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Oh, that's so confusing.

• 28:59Speaker 00

  No, no, no, it's because he supports Darlington.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you don't put at in the middle of a name that starts with an at symbol.

• 29:07Speaker 00

  But he's always at Darlo.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  At Andy at Darlo. But that makes you just think of two at symbols.

• 29:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, it makes it sound like Andy is the platform. It's like, that's the social platform. Andy at Darlo. But no, it's, it's on Instagram, at.

• 29:23Speaker 00

  At with an A T.

• 29:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. You know what I mean?

• 29:26Speaker 01

  It'd be like having your email address ellis.james.google at google dot com.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Anyway, we go on. Sorry, Andy, we're giving you an awful lot of stick here. The amount raised is unbelievable and we are humbled by the outpouring of generosity and love to us, supporting our efforts on the fundraising. Thank you also to the generous gift from the distant podders.

• 29:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, distant pod gave a very generous amount, donated a very generous amount.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  The listeners.

• 29:59Speaker 03

  I think it was Steph.

• 30:01Speaker 00

  I think it was Steph.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I've donated.

• 30:03Speaker 03

  You have, John?

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Dave, have you donated?

• 30:05Speaker 00

  Yes, I have, yes.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  And Ellis?

• 30:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'll do it right now.

• 30:09Speaker 01

  Oh, that's...

• 30:10Speaker 03

  That's all right, plenty of time, they're still racing.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  There's plenty of time, Dave.

• 30:13Speaker 00

  The race is still... I'm doing it right now, I just don't want to go on my phone during the show.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  Right, now that's kind of you not to go on your phone during the show.

• 30:20Speaker 03

  Yes. It's respectful to the medium.

• 30:21Speaker 00

  Yes, but I'll do it now. No, I'm gonna do it now.

• 30:24Speaker 03

  Okay, 2,000 please.

• 30:26Speaker 00

  Fine.

• 30:26Speaker 03

  Grand.

• 30:27Speaker 00

  Grand. 2,000 million grand.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Your fan fraternity is unique, they are special, and we've met a fair few on our travels.

• 30:35Speaker 03

  They have.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's fans of the pod who are racing with them.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  Should we get the chance whilst doing the Berlin Wall, spoiler alert, it ain't there, the Black Forest or the red light area in Amsterdam?

• 30:47Speaker 03

  Little joke.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  What's the joke?

• 30:49Speaker 03

  The red light district, they're gonna go through the red light district in Amsterdam.

• 30:53Speaker 00

  He's not actually gonna do that, hence your intro.

• 30:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're not going to actually hire ladies of the night.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  No.

• 30:59Speaker 03

  It's a little joke from a little, you know, he's playful.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  Good stuff.

• 31:02Speaker 03

  It's what gets you far in the timber industry, John.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  So, should we get the chance whilst doing the Berlin Wall, the Black Forest or the red light area in Amsterdam, we'll pick up some more PCDs, you can never get enough. Love you all, Andy and Val.

• 31:15Speaker 03

  Legends.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  Legends, one and all, well done.

• 31:19Speaker 03

  They're having a good time. Yeah, so we on Tuesday, a podcast app went out and they're currently on, thanks to a lot of donations from PCDs, 7,757 pounds, which is about to go to 9,757 pounds, which is very generous.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  Well, it'd be nice if they could get to an even 500 grand, wouldn't it, Dave, by the end of the show?

• 31:41Speaker 03

  You all right, Al?

• 31:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm too.

• 31:43Speaker 03

  He's doing it.

• 31:43Speaker 00

  He's doing it. I'm doing it right now, I just can't broadcast and donate at the same time, which is why I've been absolutely rubbish on Telethon.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 31:53Speaker 00

  That's why my Glasgow got the gig. See, that's a reference you can't talk about anymore, because it hasn't been on since 1988.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  And Wogan used to do it, didn't he?

• 32:01Speaker 00

  He did Children in Need.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:03Speaker 00

  Which was the BBC sort of version. Telethon was the ITV version of Comic Leaf and Children in Need back in the late 80s.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  This is from Martin. Hello, Ellis, John, Dave and team. PCD, retro wanna, live vibe taster, oh, and principal of the Open University in Scotland here. What on earth could this be about? It was brilliant to hear so much about the good Sir Lord, Sir High, Sir Dame, Sir Captain, Sir Knight, Sir John's...

• 32:33Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  I've added that.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  Oh, right, I thought they'd written it. That's fine then.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  It was brilliant to hear so much about John's doctorate in the week's intro. I'm absolutely thrilled about John's honorary degree with us. I hope he had an amazing day and really hope that Dave now knows way more about us, don't you, Dave?

• 32:50Speaker 03

  I do. Well, I wasn't the only one, I think there was a bit of vagueness going around from all of us, but it's good to know what it is. What is it again?

• 32:56Speaker 01

  To give you a bit more insight into Ellis and John's love at the OU, I nominated John for the honorary degree, only to discover that another member of staff had beaten me to it.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  Wow, they're queuing up.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Shout out to Anne. I was gutted that I wasn't able to be there yesterday, but probably the best, as I'm sure John didn't mean overly excited member of the senior team introducing himself. If John ever wants to be involved in any... all the best, Martin.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  No, I am committed.

• 33:26Speaker 03

  It doesn't sound like it.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  I am committed.

• 33:28Speaker 03

  As long as you...

• 33:29Speaker 01

  And I have said, if ever you need me to inspire some students.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  On a remote Zoom.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Then contact my agent and, you know, if, if there's a fee, I might hear about that.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  I mean, you're quite quiet work wise at the moment, so you could do that. You could do a tour of the Open University in the different areas.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  But, Dave...

• 33:50Speaker 00

  You could do a lecture on Philip Larkin, you like him.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  The Open University is exactly that, it's open, so it exists in our minds.

• 33:56Speaker 03

  It exists in Edinburgh there, doesn't it, or Glasgow?

• 33:58Speaker 01

  I'll do a tour a bit in my mind, Dave.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  It exists in Scotland, clearly.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  But it's remote working.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  So what better way...

• 34:05Speaker 00

  You could do the tour from your house.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  What better way to inspire than a pre-recorded video filmed in my living room?

• 34:11Speaker 03

  Or go to Stornaway.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  I would love to go to Stornaway and never come back.

• 34:15Speaker 00

  That's what it is, Stornaway.

• 34:16Speaker 03

  No, it's everywhere, Ellis, that's the point, it's everywhere.

• 34:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, I knew that.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  I could go to the most remote Open University learning locations. It was, I must say, a very inspiring day.

• 34:29Speaker 00

  You change your tune.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  And I wasn't expecting it, I wasn't expecting to be so inspired by people, because I think you go into, anything you have to make a speech, you can't enjoy until you've made the speech.

• 34:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  That's my new rule. Well, it's not a rule, it's just a fact. If you are making a speech, up until the point of the speech, it's, it's too stressful.

• 34:50Speaker 00

  And then the feeling of relief can be amazing, unless the speech has gone badly, in which case you go home.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  But also, I, so I was sat on the stage, it's at the Royal Festival Hall.

• 35:07Speaker 00

  Oh, lovely.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  It's a big, two and a half thousand seats.

• 35:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, nice.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  And there are probably about 400 students, graduates, come up one by one.

• 35:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  And each one is named individually, they shake hands, round of applause. So I'm doing a little speech in the middle.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  They tend to be applauded at the end, don't they?

• 35:26Speaker 01

  Not this one, each individual person gets a round of applause.

• 35:29Speaker 03

  So where did you go up?

• 35:31Speaker 01

  So I'm sat, I'm sat literally at the point they're shaking hands.

• 35:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  I'm two feet away from the handshake action.

• 35:37Speaker 00

  I was, I was at the Cardiff graduation ceremony when I got my honorary fellowship and you're just sitting, you're the guy. And when I, when I, when I graduated, it was Neil Kinnock.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  My sister graduated, it was Peter Houstonoff.

• 35:51Speaker 03

  Was it?

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:52Speaker 00

  I can't remember who mine was, that's bad.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  I think mine was someone from the Met.

• 35:56Speaker 03

  Was it Paul Condon?

• 35:58Speaker 01

  No, it might have been Cresta Dick.

• 36:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, it might have been.

• 36:01Speaker 00

  Cresta Dick.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  So you were on stage?

• 36:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:07Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  In your silly outfit.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  For two hours. It's not silly.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  It is.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  No, it's, it's nice, it's sort of silken robes.

• 36:14Speaker 00

  And I felt, I mean, people said, welcome to silly hat club when I put mine on.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I didn't have a hat.

• 36:21Speaker 00

  Oh, did you have a hat?

• 36:22Speaker 01

  No, you looked like Renoir or something.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  You looked like you're in Les Misérables, just trying to sell stale bread and painting a picture of the sand.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  Trying to treat your gout with absinthe.

• 36:41Speaker 00

  It was a great honour.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  And a silly hat.

• 36:43Speaker 00

  And a silly hat. I mean, it was, I was absolutely stunned when they asked me, but it is a silly hat.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  But the thing about the Open University is, it's for everyone.

• 36:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  That's its whole, like, vibe.

• 36:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  So the diversity of people, whether it was age, ethnicity, religion, you know, there was sort of very equal gender balance, there were people with disabilities.

• 37:10Speaker 00

  It's an amazing institution.

• 37:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was clearly people who either had not had the chance to go to university when they were younger, or not been able to follow the path they want to and want to do something later in life, or people for whom the university system hadn't sort of catered for their specific needs or hadn't encouraged them.

• 37:30Speaker 00

  Well, when I did my degree 25 years ago, when I did my Mon Welsh history module, there was, there was a woman who'd always loved history but had just never had the chance, and she was, she was probably 80, who had just decided to do a degree in later life because she'd, you know, she had the opportunity when she was younger. And this is before fees went crazy, so obviously it was more accessible. And there was a guy who'd been made redundant from the steelworks in, either in Llanwen or in Ebbaville. And again, he'd loved, he'd always loved history, but because he'd grown up in Ebbaville, had just gone to work in the local steelworks, and he was in his mid 50s, was like, I'd love a degree, actually. And I used to find that really...

• 38:11Speaker 03

  That's amazing.

• 38:12Speaker 00

  Inspiring, and they worked hard.

• 38:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:14Speaker 00

  Because they really, really appreciated every second, and they weren't going to a nightclub on a Wednesday that was called Jive Hive, which I was doing.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  But the only, the downside was that from clapping for like, an hour before I did my speech.

• 38:32Speaker 00

  Oh, you can't do that.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  You, you then stand up, they did a very kind, like, introduction, sort of summary of my career, which is quite odd, because you stood up and it, and I said, it does feel like you're being told off, but you're not. Everything they're saying is really nice.

• 38:47Speaker 03

  Did beat the internet, make it in.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  I, do you know what? It did in the draft and I asked for it to be removed.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  I said, I think we can...

• 38:56Speaker 00

  It's best to have three good things as opposed to five things, where, where two of them are like, oh, yeah, he did that, great.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 39:07Speaker 00

  Okay, cool.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  You often see it on Edinburgh posters, or like where people have tried to just ram it with all of their credits, and you're like, get rid of those two.

• 39:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. And Ellis, his show with John Robbins, Sushi Distance Sports Bar, oh, what a time, and the VO for Help Clean It, Fix It, and Honey, I Bought The House.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. But then, so I would get, I get the degree, I sign the little thing, I go to the lectern to begin my speech.

• 39:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  And I open my mouth to say something, I haven't spoken in 75 minutes.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  Like when I met Johnny Marr.

• 39:40Speaker 02

  Hello, everyone.

• 39:41Speaker 00

  Like when I, you marred it, like when I met Johnny Marr.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  No, it didn't go high, it was just almost like my entire vocal system had closed down to thought I wasn't speaking again for the rest of the day. So, oh, I just, oh, I'm gonna drink water. But that's.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm so, but I was really inspired.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  It sounds really bad if you start by going, I just need a drink of water. It's like Theresa May when she's got that cough.

• 40:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, oh god blimey. And then the signs started to fall off.

• 40:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, it did.

• 40:12Speaker 00

  Remember letters, letters from the Conservative Art, the Conservative arty.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  However, it was a wonderful day. I was fascinated to speak to all of the people who work for the Open University to learn more about it, and I will be getting involved in future Open University things. I am going to be, I actually, Dave, gonna be.

• 40:33Speaker 03

  Let's pin it, let's pin down the actual thing you're doing.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  I'm gonna be writing a module in Brilliance.

• 40:38Speaker 03

  Oh, good.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  And it's called Be Brilliant with John Robbins, A New PhD.

• 40:44Speaker 03

  There should be a humility test before these things are dished out.

• 40:47Speaker 00

  There should, because this has gone right to his head. You sound like the kind of person who'd be taken on like a British Lions tour, and then, and then, and then the Lions lose the test series 3-0, and you're the person that everyone talks about in the sort of post-mortem.

• 41:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, who was Glenn Hoddle's sidekick for the 90s?

• 41:06Speaker 00

  Eileen Drury.

• 41:07Speaker 03

  You'd be the Eileen Drury for 2026.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  Because when the Lions toured, was it 2005, they took Alistair Campbell.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  Yes, and they stole his phone.

• 41:16Speaker 00

  They stole his phone and they texted Tony Blair from his phone saying, I love you.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  And Blair texts back going, Alistair, honestly, every day I get this text. Well, yeah, so.

• 41:29Speaker 00

  If you could do, or if you had to do another degree, what would it be in?

• 41:36Speaker 03

  Science.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  I was gonna say silence. It would, might be in meditation, Buddhism and psychology.

• 41:43Speaker 00

  Okay, sadly, I actually think I'd do another history degree.

• 41:46Speaker 03

  Would you?

• 41:47Speaker 01

  That's bad, that's lame.

• 41:48Speaker 00

  I loved it.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  So you'd just have two history degrees?

• 41:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I'd be studying different stuff, wouldn't I?

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Well, then do a PhD.

• 41:55Speaker 00

  But I'm not good enough.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, you are.

• 41:57Speaker 00

  No, also, that's, no, I've.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  You're a bit of a last minute Leon, aren't you?

• 42:02Speaker 00

  And you cannot blag a hundred thousand words.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  You can't be a last minute Leon.

• 42:07Speaker 00

  You can't blag a hundred grand.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  You can have a last minute Leon at Norton Keynes.

• 42:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  But you can't be.

• 42:13Speaker 00

  Or in Covent Garden.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  But you can't be a last minute Leon.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  No.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  When you're doing a PhD.

• 42:17Speaker 00

  But also, there was loads of stuff I didn't study, whereas a PhD would be, it would be very specialised, wouldn't it? So like, I didn't do very much in the Roman Empire, so I'd go back and do that. So stop criticising, you know?

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Um, okay.

• 42:28Speaker 00

  And have a word with the Open University on my behalf.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  So, because I'm being humble, I'm not gonna read the email about how good my Haggis in Paris song was and how it deserved to win?

• 42:35Speaker 03

  We probably should read that, should we, Michael?

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Should we?

• 42:38Speaker 03

  I think we probably should.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Oh, that's embarrassing.

• 42:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  Oh, sorry.

• 42:42Speaker 03

  Come on then.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  Well, I'm sorry, Dave, I'm doing my dissertation in humility.

• 42:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, why should we read it?

• 42:47Speaker 00

  It just makes him look good.

• 42:48Speaker 03

  Let's read the email, you never know where it might take us.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  This means that Dave and Michael have got something planned.

• 42:54Speaker 03

  No, no, tut tut, absolutely not.

• 42:56Speaker 00

  They're gonna get Johnny Marr to play it.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Um, this is from Paul in Cardiff, Ellis.

• 43:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, I saw that, felt, felt very let down by one of my fellow countrymen.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  This is nice. To the Right Honourable Sir Doctor Captain Dame.

• 43:11Speaker 00

  Right, we need to stop this.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  We need to stop this. All started every day.

• 43:15Speaker 00

  That has to end by decree of this show.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  No, to the Right Honourable Doctor Sir Captain Dame, John Robbins, MP, Esquire, BAons and Ellis.

• 43:26Speaker 03

  Have they written that?

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:28Speaker 03

  Right, that's, right, stop writing in with it, please.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Keep doing it.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  No.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  And make them longer.

• 43:33Speaker 03

  I like it when it's just hello, my cheeky tubs of yogurt, they were better, as the intros.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  I'm writing to formally register what I believe can only be described as the biggest travesty of justice since Diego Maradona's Hand of God in 1986.

• 43:46Speaker 00

  Paul, what's, come on, mate.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  I can only be referring to Tuesday's made up games, specifically the first round Haggis in Paris.

• 43:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  John's version has been playing on a continuous loop in my mind ever since I heard it. I've attempted to move on, I've tried matching with other music on dating apps, I've reached out to loved ones, nothing has worked, the man brings Bob Dylan to the mix for Pete's sake, I now live a life where Haggis in Paris is rattling around my skull continuously. And yet, despite this being etched in my mind, it did not win the round. Now, I'm not saying the result should be investigated by HMRC or the Ombudsman, we need a made up games ombudsman, Dave. M U G O.

• 44:29Speaker 00

  Because Pierre Naveli's sort of one for comedy connection.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  I'm merely saying that I would not be surprised if it were, we have actually, I have acted as the made up games ombudsman in the past where mistakes have been made by the team.

• 44:41Speaker 00

  That's the kind of thing that gets discussed in Parliament because of conflicts of interest.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  Take nothing away from Ellis's version, however, rhyming Paris with Yaris was nothing short of exceptional.

• 44:52Speaker 00

  Oh dear, Paul.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  There are moments in life where you have to accept that the system has failed you.

• 44:57Speaker 03

  Oh, come on.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  That, that life moves in different directions, this is one of those moments. My children will look back at this episode and ask, how did John lose this round?

• 45:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, where were you when?

• 45:08Speaker 01

  I'm starting to wonder if Paul from Cardiff exists. I hope John knows that, whatever the official record books may say, there is at least one listener who considers his version the true champion.

• 45:19Speaker 03

  Well, for starters.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Diocin Vary, Yuen.

• 45:24Speaker 00

  Yuen.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  Yuen, Paul from Cardiff.

• 45:26Speaker 03

  I think Ash from Skinwigs, who were on as part of this made up game, did a fantastic job of judging. I thought she was very fair, I thought she took everything into account, so we're not, we're not laying this at Ash's door.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  I genuinely didn't mind.

• 45:39Speaker 03

  No, I didn't, I thought it was a fairly fair assessment.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  I did think it was my best song.

• 45:42Speaker 00

  I think mine was quite a lot longer.

• 45:44Speaker 03

  They were all so good.

• 45:46Speaker 00

  I think that's one of the reasons that Ash might have given it to me.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  I think also, there was a lot of pre-chat about how Ellis was the underdog and he hadn't won and the scores were low, and I think Ash looked at him like a sort of stray dog.

• 45:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, with pity, yeah.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  With three legs and a bad eye.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  But it was good fun, wasn't it, the made up game?

• 46:03Speaker 01

  It was good fun.

• 46:04Speaker 03

  It was good fun, there's more good news as well from the made up game.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  Oh, so here we go, this is why we had to read the email. Go on, Dave.

• 46:09Speaker 03

  Well, it's amazing because it got picked up elsewhere in the media, like some of the tracks that you wrote, so.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  What?

• 46:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, it did, so Six Music do this, do this feature on a Thursday night called The Round Table.

• 46:20Speaker 00

  Don't be daft.

• 46:21Speaker 03

  And I think it featured, was it Tom Ogden from Blossoms, Izzy Sutty and Future Utopia were on there.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  I've heard of Izzy Sutty.

• 46:31Speaker 03

  Have you?

• 46:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, I remember Izzy going off to do that.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  She's the pant woman, right?

• 46:34Speaker 03

  Yes, Izzy's the pant woman on that comedy TV show. And each week they have to review that week's releases, and your versions of the tracks got into the Round Table, let's, I think.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Hang on, our versions of what?

• 46:46Speaker 03

  Of the tracks that you wrote.

• 46:47Speaker 00

  Of Haggis in Paris. It's been on Six Music.

• 46:50Speaker 03

  Well, let's have a listen to it.

• 46:51Speaker 00

  Dave, Dave, Dave.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  Do I get PRS? I've not registered with PRS, Dave, why don't you tell me in advance?

• 46:56Speaker 00

  Dave, Dave, Dave, Dave, Dave.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  I would have got paid.

• 46:58Speaker 00

  Dave, Dave, Dave, Dave, Six Music was kind of my pension.

• 47:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:02Speaker 00

  And now you've ruined my chance of being a DJ on it, because they're gonna think that that was my musical career, I had a musical career, Dave.

• 47:08Speaker 03

  Well, let's have a listen to this week's Round Table, so I think first of all, they, I think they reviewed Orcs.

• 47:12Speaker 00

  Is this a joke?

• 47:13Speaker 01

  You've been played on Six Music, how many Heck were played, weren't they?

• 47:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, more than once.

• 47:17Speaker 03

  So this is Orcs in Love by Alice James, let's see what the, let's see what the team made of it, here we go.

• 47:21Speaker 06

  And welcome, if you've just joined us, here's Round Table, Thursday nights on Six Music on BBC Sounds, with Izzy Sutty, Fraser T Smith and Tom from Blossoms, all with us.

• 47:33Speaker 00

  Me and my orc wife going to Ikea, let's get it taken away, what a good idea, what's in the box, mm, is it a pizza? Anyway, man, it's human guts or smeared, you're the one for me, give me a kiss, orc and orc action sounds like bliss, that's right.

• 47:52Speaker 06

  Fraser, if you'd be so kind as to kick us off. I love that tune, um, he can be very eclectic, he can go garagey, he can go basslinie, but I'm loving this, which I love, but I love this sort of progressive, deeper style that he's, he's going with.

• 48:09Speaker 00

  Gave me flowers, but I didn't understand, gave me chocolates, but I smashed them at your hand, cause I'm an orc and I don't get the language of love, I'm an orc, I'll eat your brains and your body I'll dispose of.

• 48:31Speaker 06

  Is that slightly beliric, that one? Fills it, I'm going to Ibiza next week, so I'm gonna put that on my headphones when I go for a run along the beach. So you've been a fan from a little while, you've never worked with him, Fraser? Never worked with him, but he is to be massively applauded. Uh, Tom?

• 48:49Speaker 07

  Yeah, I was having it. I'm more, I would say I would normally listen to like more song, you know, like something with more of a song, but that's not what this is coming to the table with.

• 48:58Speaker 00

  Married life is a bad communication, don't tell me you need to tell the whole nation.

• 49:09Speaker 06

  Izzy Sutty, did you like it? I did, I liked it a lot. I, for me, it would be something you would put on, like, as you were driving home.

• 49:19Speaker 07

  From a club or at the end of the night, or in the club, but maybe like latterly.

• 49:23Speaker 06

  So Izzy, taking all that in, what's your mark out of 10 for that song?

• 49:28Speaker 07

  10.

• 49:29Speaker 06

  Whoa.

• 49:29Speaker 07

  I've done it.

• 49:30Speaker 06

  Fraser?

• 49:31Speaker 00

  I'll give it 10.

• 49:31Speaker 06

  Wow. And Tom?

• 49:33Speaker 07

  It's an eight for me.

• 49:34Speaker 06

  Thank you very much.

• 49:35Speaker 03

  Orcan or action sounds like bliss, that's right. Peace.

• 49:42Speaker 03

  Wow. So Six Music there reviewing, reviewing Orcs in Love. That was nice to hear.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  Izzy didn't tell me about that.

• 49:47Speaker 03

  What?

• 49:48Speaker 00

  Izzy didn't tell me about that.

• 49:49Speaker 03

  No, wow.

• 49:50Speaker 00

  Oh my god.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Over the course of that clip, Dave, Ellis made every negative face. You, there's got to be a carousel put out next week with 12 slides. All of them are just different faces that Ellis makes.

• 50:05Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  Because it's every, all the bad emotions are there. You could have a textbook of like body language.

• 50:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  This is a man with his head in his hands. This is a man with his T-shirt over his eyes.

• 50:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, that Robinelli.

• 50:16Speaker 01

  Clenching his jaw. This is a man in complete white shock.

• 50:21Speaker 00

  Oh, dear, dear, dear.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  And so mine wasn't played.

• 50:24Speaker 03

  Haggis in Paris was reviewed.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  Okay, I think it was my best.

• 50:27Speaker 03

  Okay, so here's how, here's how the Round Table on Six Music reviewed Haggis in Paris.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  The guts of my heart with oats and lungs and awful seasoning spices too.

• 50:45Speaker 06

  Uh, let's go straight to Fraser T. Smith on the chords.

• 50:49Speaker 07

  I think that's a beaut. I absolutely love that.

• 50:51Speaker 06

  Into it.

• 50:52Speaker 07

  No idea who it is.

• 50:53Speaker 00

  No, I have no idea.

• 50:54Speaker 07

  I mean, the Stone Roses, Carter U S N. I have no idea who it is, but I really liked it.

• 51:00Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 51:00Speaker 07

  And to me, it was, it was, sorry, it was like a, a cake where you saw all the individual ingredients and then you heard them all together, if that makes sense.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  Yes, I agree. It needs a little gravy. Bon appétit, mon cher.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Look in my bag, you lucky, lucky lady. There's a thermos of Balmoral there.

• 51:28Speaker 07

  I'd love to see the video for this. It felt a bit like Feist, maybe the music from The Wicker Man, probably a 70s thing.

• 51:34Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 51:35Speaker 07

  Just really loved it.

• 51:36Speaker 06

  Okay, that's good. Fraser, what did you like about it?

• 51:38Speaker 00

  Um, I love the early New York hip hop vibes. Absolutely love that. Um, and then as, as you said, I love the way that then you get this switch where you're like, whoa, what's going on? And it just, it's very bold, very brave.

• 51:51Speaker 07

  It's quite fun, isn't it?

• 51:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:52Speaker 07

  It's kind of quite cheeky.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  Wiping our chins outside the Champs-Elysees. It's Haggis in Paris with you.

• 52:04Speaker 06

  Uh, Tom, did you like that song?

• 52:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. I loved the, the hip hop influence and the kind of, it was holding something back at the start and then Have you just played clips of our songs over the conversation there about some other songs? The attitude in the vocals was mega, great chorus.

• 52:19Speaker 06

  Max out of 10 for it then for Izzy first, please.

• 52:22Speaker 07

  Uh, nine.

• 52:24Speaker 06

  Thank you. Fraser?

• 52:25Speaker 00

  Just thinking back to the great Elliott Smith, I was listening to that.

• 52:29Speaker 07

  Eight.

• 52:30Speaker 06

  And Tom?

• 52:30Speaker 07

  Nine.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  Haggis in Paris.

• 52:33Speaker 03

  Haggis in Paris, Trey B. Anne. Wow, there we go. Both tracks reviewed on Six Music's Round Table. Incredible.

• 52:40Speaker 01

  So that didn't happen, did it?

• 52:41Speaker 03

  No, it's clips from, it's clips from.

• 52:44Speaker 00

  Oh my god, dude.

• 52:45Speaker 03

  I thought that would be obvious earlier on, but I thought that was really quite clear.

• 52:50Speaker 00

  No, but like.

• 52:52Speaker 03

  But maybe it was just too.

• 52:54Speaker 00

  You know, you did too good a job. You know, you know who.

• 52:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know. Well, initially the plan was we were gonna get.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  Of course, it makes sense.

• 53:02Speaker 03

  Well, Ellis, you should have clocked because Izzy was on that last week before you had written any of the music. So she was on the round table.

• 53:09Speaker 00

  I couldn't, I couldn't work out the chronology.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  His calendar's too busy for that.

• 53:13Speaker 00

  I remembered it, I remembered her doing it, but I didn't remember when.

• 53:16Speaker 03

  It's a bit of fun. Um, initially we thought.

• 53:21Speaker 03

  But no, your reputation isn't.

• 53:23Speaker 00

  Oh my god, I thought they'd played Haggis in Paggis on Paris and Six Music.

• 53:28Speaker 03

  None of that happened. What we did was, we just chopped out in the most generic way possible, uh, what they thought of other tracks.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  Very good.

• 53:35Speaker 00

  Sadly, I was very pleased with my score. And now you've actually taken that away from me.

• 53:40Speaker 03

  Sorry.

• 53:41Speaker 00

  I think I got 28 out of a possible 30.

• 53:43Speaker 03

  You did do well. Congrats.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  But we do get the sort of 12 howls of man of Ellis, don't we?

• 53:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh yeah, we do that. We can do all that.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  Do-deca-diptych.

• 53:54Speaker 03

  What's that?

• 53:55Speaker 01

  I'm guessing at that.

• 53:57Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 53:57Speaker 01

  Is do-deca 12? Because a triptych is three.

• 54:02Speaker 03

  Right.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Um.

• 54:04Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  So we could make a do-deca-diptych. If that's 12 of Ellis's face.

• 54:11Speaker 03

  Anyway, there we go.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 54:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's fun.

• 54:14Speaker 01

  Good stuff.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  Okay. Sorry, I should have made it choppy. I should have made it more clippy.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  Really good.

• 54:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  Really good.

• 54:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, you, you can edit it. You know what you're doing. Yeah.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Well, it's time to chat to Adrian, of course, uh, who we're so grateful to have in our lives.

• 54:35Speaker 06

  John Murray, thanks very much, uh, football correspondent there. We've got Ellis and John here. How are you doing, fellas?

• 54:43Speaker 00

  Very well, thanks. How are you?

• 54:45Speaker 06

  Yes, good. I, I've got some chard. I've got more chard than I can possibly eat or any of my neighbours can eat.

• 54:51Speaker 00

  I like chard.

• 54:52Speaker 06

  Can, can I send you some chard? I do a postal service. It can be cooked or uncooked.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Well, this is the prob, this is why I don't grow my, grow my own veg, Adrian, because everyone I know who does ends up with such an enormous quantity of veg that you end up chucking it away.

• 55:09Speaker 06

  Or it's free store famine. I mean.

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Well, I don't, I don't need 30 tomatoes a week.

• 55:13Speaker 06

  This time last year, this year, no radishes. What I'd give for a small peppery radish now, just to, just to, just to, just to some relief, some relief from the, from, from the battle with chard.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Surely they can, uh, the boffins in the horticultural world can invent a plant that gives you four tomatoes, a courgette, six radishes.

• 55:37Speaker 00

  A meal, the meal deal plant.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  The meal deal plant and a spring onion. Because then you can make a meal. You can't make a meal out of two kilos of chard.

• 55:47Speaker 00

  150 apples.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, you could, you could make cider out of that.

• 55:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm not going to do that.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  No.

• 55:54Speaker 00

  What's the legality of making your own cider?

• 55:57Speaker 01

  Perfectly legal.

• 55:58Speaker 00

  I suppose you just can't sell it.

• 55:59Speaker 06

  You just can't sell it, I don't think.

• 56:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:00Speaker 06

  Um, have you ever, have you ever grown anything edible, Ellis?

• 56:06Speaker 00

  We've got an apple tree in our back garden. I've, you know, you're looking at someone who's grown cress a couple of times on a bit of kitchen roll.

• 56:13Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 56:14Speaker 00

  But other than that.

• 56:15Speaker 06

  That's a bad idea.

• 56:16Speaker 00

  The apples, we get apples every summer, but no, although my son is very into growing things, so that's, that's the plan for the garden.

• 56:23Speaker 06

  I've got, I've got some chard seeds if you want. I'll.

• 56:26Speaker 00

  Is it, is it easy to grow chard? I've never done it.

• 56:29Speaker 06

  Well, it must be if I'm growing it in proliferation. Yeah, and it carries on going into the winter, but just don't plant too, too much of it. Um, John, anything, you, you must have grown something.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  Um, I, well, you know, every so often I'll buy a basil plant from the supermarket that somehow dies before the pre-cut basil that you buy from the supermarkets. You think, well, that was another waste of time.

• 56:53Speaker 00

  By the way, his mentality's gone, Adrian.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  Adrian, speaking of having a surfeit of low value items, I keep getting sent a photo of a signed picture of you in a charity shop.

• 57:05Speaker 06

  Right.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Has this, has this come across your, uh, front door? Cause I must have been sent it about 50 times.

• 57:13Speaker 06

  No. Um, I, okay. I don't know what, I don't know what to say really. I mean, is it, is it, what's the, what's the bidding like for it?

• 57:21Speaker 01

  I think it's about £4.50. It's pretty decent.

• 57:24Speaker 06

  That's too much, that is. I, I, I could knock one out for you for four quid.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 57:32Speaker 06

  Two for a fiver. Two for a fiver. You can't say fiver than that.

• 57:35Speaker 01

  I've got your doodles, um, from when we had an interview. I've still got those and you signed them for me very kindly, which I'm hoping will appreciate in value. But is the age of the, the signed photo gone is my question? Because it used to be the big thing. You'd write to a celeb and you'd get sort of like a press shot back with a little sort of best wishes and people get them from starlets.

• 57:58Speaker 00

  Izzy does about two a year.

• 58:00Speaker 01

  Really?

• 58:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  I never, I don't think I've ever done one.

• 58:02Speaker 00

  Been asked for one, but Izzy, about twice a year she would have to sign the photo for someone. It is, it is quite old fashioned.

• 58:09Speaker 06

  We should, we should revive that. I would certainly have one of you two together.

• 58:15Speaker 01

  Dave, we'll have to get an official press shot.

• 58:17Speaker 06

  And Dave, and Dave sort of in the lurking in the background.

• 58:20Speaker 00

  Thanks, Adrian.

• 58:21Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  And Dave can sign it on the back.

• 58:24Speaker 01

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• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  Hello, everyone.

• 1:00:09Speaker 03

  We're not saying hello to people.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  Why not?

• 1:00:11Speaker 00

  It's the ring fenced zone.

• 1:00:12Speaker 03

  Because they've been listening to you for the past probably half an hour.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  Well, don't they? That's how they know we're in the ring fenced zone, because someone refuses to make a jingle for it.

• 1:00:21Speaker 00

  We are in the ring fenced zone.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  We should get Ringo Starr to say, peace and love, peace and love.

• 1:00:26Speaker 00

  Peace and love, peace and love.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  The Ringo fenced zone.

• 1:00:30Speaker 03

  It's a good idea. I mean, he doesn't really respond to correspondence, does he?

• 1:00:34Speaker 00

  No, not after, not after November the 10th, 2008.

• 1:00:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  Fair enough.

• 1:00:39Speaker 00

  I mean, he must have had a lot of correspondence over the years. Hence that brilliant bit in The Simpsons when he's still replying to Fan Matt from the 60s. Yes, we do have fries in England, but in England, we tend to call them chips.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  So, welcome to the ring fenced zone. This is where we tell you about all the magic, all of the bonus joy, all of the saucy secrets.

• 1:01:08Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 1:01:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, we're starting an OnlyFans.

• 1:01:10Speaker 01

  We are. We should make more money.

• 1:01:14Speaker 03

  What would you, what would yours be about, John?

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  Big willies.

• 1:01:16Speaker 03

  Okay, fine. I always thought we were going to be a bit playful with that. No, straight in.

• 1:01:21Speaker 00

  I'd oil myself.

• 1:01:22Speaker 03

  Okay. Both closer to what, both closer to what OnlyFans actually is than I thought you were going to go.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  But I'd tell jokes at the same time.

• 1:01:31Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:01:32Speaker 00

  One liners. I'd tell Tim Vine and Milton Jones and Gary Delaney's one liners. And I'd oil myself, Dave.

• 1:01:39Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:01:43Speaker 00

  That's interesting.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  To avoid that having to happen.

• 1:01:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  We have started making bonus audio for our Patreon listeners.

• 1:01:53Speaker 03

  We have.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  Which goes out on Patreon, but also, and this is a strong message here, all of this is available on your podcast feed of choice.

• 1:02:04Speaker 03

  It is, yeah.

• 1:02:05Speaker 01

  Just by linking it to the Patreon feed.

• 1:02:07Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  So you don't have to change.

• 1:02:09Speaker 00

  No. So if you listen on Apple, for instance, you can listen to the bonus stuff on Apple.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  It's like saying, uh, did you know there's a local museum here about your village? And it costs £5 for an annual membership. And you go, yeah, but I don't really want to walk down to the.

• 1:02:28Speaker 00

  I don't want to walk to Reading.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  Don't want to walk to the local museum of my village. Well, guys, the museum will come to you and they'll fit out your house with black and white photos of the high street. They'll show you an old cobler's hammer and they will fill your house with smells of the Middle Ages.

• 1:02:48Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:02:49Speaker 00

  Like at the Orvick Viking Museum.

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:02:51Speaker 00

  I love that.

• 1:02:52Speaker 03

  But this is a lot more contemporary than a museum, I'd say. This is red hot content.

• 1:02:56Speaker 00

  It's not as good as the Orvick Viking Museum. And if you think it is, you've lost your mind. Because the Orvick Viking Museum is great. Shout out to the Orvick Viking Museum.

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  But for those of you who, for whatever reason, can't make the Patreon website, you know, onto your top eight. Ellis, what are your top eight websites?

• 1:03:15Speaker 00

  Wikipedia.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:17Speaker 00

  BBC Sport. The Guardian.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  It's three.

• 1:03:24Speaker 00

  Top eight.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  And this, you have to be 100% honest by most visited.

• 1:03:29Speaker 03

  elisandjohn.com.

• 1:03:31Speaker 00

  elisandjohn.com.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  That's the first lie.

• 1:03:34Speaker 03

  Dancingwithdave.com.

• 1:03:35Speaker 00

  Dancingwithdave.com, the New York Times, the Swansea City Forests that still exist.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:44Speaker 00

  Welsh Footy Apostle.

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  Okay, that's it, but with two lies.

• 1:03:49Speaker 03

  He's always checking elisandjohn.com, see what's going on.

• 1:03:52Speaker 01

  It's like.

• 1:03:53Speaker 00

  Well, I've got alerts.

• 1:03:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:56Speaker 00

  Yeah. And the website for my AI cat flap, which I have actually been on quite a lot.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  Okay. So if you don't, if Patreon isn't getting into the top eight, you know, if it's being kicked out by Nord VPN's homepage.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  It doesn't matter.

• 1:04:17Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:04:17Speaker 01

  Well, unless you want to watch all of the great films that we make, because we are filmmakers.

• 1:04:22Speaker 03

  I'll, I'll cover the scripted roundup at the end of what John's doing, just so everyone, just so everyone's aware. I will make clear what John's banging on about in a second.

• 1:04:30Speaker 00

  It's a really curious habit of John's.

• 1:04:32Speaker 03

  But I will let him continue because he enjoys himself.

• 1:04:35Speaker 00

  Our producer, Dave, asks us to explain, and yet it becomes more confusing after the explanation. No one else is doing that.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  Right, I've got all the points, but that's not entertaining, is it?

• 1:04:46Speaker 03

  No, it's not. I understand.

• 1:04:48Speaker 00

  But what you did wasn't informative.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, but by melding the two.

• 1:04:53Speaker 03

  You've not, crucially, you've not. You've got rid of one of the two and you're having fun.

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  I've got, no, all I'm saying is that the content comes to you.

• 1:05:03Speaker 03

  As a museum?

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, that's the metaphor, isn't it? It's not an actual museum.

• 1:05:07Speaker 03

  No, it's not.

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  So if you listen to your podcasts on Apple or on Spotify.

• 1:05:13Speaker 00

  Amazon Music. Or Podbean, whatever that is.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  Or Podbean, whatever that is. You use a technique involving technology and links, and the Patreon version of the podcast, without any ads, and with this, comes to you live. And also now, it'll be including bonus content.

• 1:05:32Speaker 00

  Yes, because we started making bonus audio content.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  Though there, Dave, on this sheet, it says bonus potent, which is more along the lines of the OnlyFans stuff.

• 1:05:42Speaker 00

  So if you're a Patreon subscriber, you'd have noticed the first bonus content drop in your feed on Wednesday and asked us anything, how the show gets made special. Next week, we're oiling ourselves.

• 1:05:54Speaker 03

  No, we're not. No, we don't need to decide what we do next week.

• 1:05:56Speaker 00

  All right, fine. Remember that if you sign up to the Patreon, you can still listen to the podcast in your podcast player of choice. It all links up and it just means that you don't have the adverts.

• 1:06:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I listen on Spotify, and if I flick through my Ellis and John feed on Spotify, because I've integrated it to the Patreon ad free feed, I'm getting everything. I've got the bonus content from Wednesday, I've got Tuesday's up, I've got Friday's up before that. So it just looks like your usual feed. You're getting everything that a usual, that you'd usually get on the feed, but it's ad free and you're getting all the bonus stuff.

• 1:06:25Speaker 01

  Well, I listen to the Three Bean Salad Patreon on my Apple Music.

• 1:06:30Speaker 00

  Yes, me too.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  Not Apple Music, my Apple Podcast app.

• 1:06:33Speaker 00

  Big news, or big reminder, we're on YouTube, at Ellis and John, at Andy, at Darlo.

• 1:06:42Speaker 00

  We put up two clips a week from our Tuesday and Friday episodes.

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  That's such a dad move.

• 1:06:50Speaker 03

  It is, bless.

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

  Brilliant.

• 1:06:52Speaker 00

  And we put up shorts, also go on Instagram. Recent YouTube highlights from at Ellis and John, at Andy, at Darlo include our made up game with Skinwigs, where we had to sing, obviously, which I thought had gone out in six music, but thankfully hadn't. I ate a prune for the first time.

• 1:07:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:11Speaker 00

  The 100th Company Connection, Lou Seuss again, and Richard Oldsmen surprising us with a chapter of Contact.

• 1:07:17Speaker 03

  They're well made. As I'm sometimes on YouTube.

• 1:07:20Speaker 00

  It's well made. You didn't say good, then. Curious.

• 1:07:22Speaker 03

  No, they are good. I know, that's a given. That's a given, but the production values are high. Because sometimes our highlights pop up just as I'm on YouTube. And I go, oh, yeah, it's us. And it's, it's good stuff.

• 1:07:32Speaker 00

  Yes, they're very well made. A little bonus ring fenced zone special for me. On October the 6th, I am doing an hour of new Welsh material, Welsh language material, not just material about Wales, Welsh language material.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  But it is all about Wales, isn't it?

• 1:07:48Speaker 00

  No, no, some of it's about me, some of it's about London. Some at ABC in Kennington, and I mentioned it on the ring fenced zone last time, and there were lots of people, a lot of people came, and I was very grateful to them. It would be different stuff. And this is exciting bit, I haven't thought about it very hard, so who knows what it'll be like.

• 1:08:07Speaker 03

  That is exciting.

• 1:08:08Speaker 00

  I actually couldn't tell you. It's currently an iPhone note.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Good stuff.

• 1:08:12Speaker 00

  October the 6th in Kennington. There you go.

• 1:08:14Speaker 03

  And one final bit of business.

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  Well, this is nice because the pottery pot winners have been chosen. What did people have to do to enter, Dave?

• 1:08:22Speaker 03

  They had to get involved with the comments on Patreon, or also get involved with the comments on the Instagram trailer. So there was two routes to win the pottery that was revealed in our last adventure.

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  Two routes to market. I love that phrase, routes to market.

• 1:08:37Speaker 03

  Routes to market, because we gave both pieces of pottery away that you two made at the end of the last adventure that we did.

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  And I'm looking at the pots now.

• 1:08:43Speaker 00

  I'm looking at them now. Actually, I'm going to look at mine up close because I'm genuinely extremely proud of mine, I'll be honest.

• 1:08:49Speaker 01

  You're proud, are you?

• 1:08:50Speaker 03

  You can't look at them for much longer.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  You're proud of what you did, are you?

• 1:08:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, you'd be cheap.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  Wow. I'd be ashamed every time.

• 1:08:56Speaker 00

  I'm proud of the outcome. I'm not proud of how I reached the outcome.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  What an appalling, what an appalling moral centre you have.

• 1:09:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. So basically, it's hand of God, isn't it? I cheated, but I won the World Cup quarter final.

• 1:09:07Speaker 03

  It's your 115.

• 1:09:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, sorry. But I do love it.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  So the winner of Ellis's pot is Katie Bailey.

• 1:09:16Speaker 00

  Hey, KB.

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  It was suggested by their husband, fellow PCD, that they need the bowl as somewhere to keep their dignity as they were on viewing number 977 of this reel somehow within the last five minutes. What does that sentence mean, Dave?

• 1:09:33Speaker 00

  Well, because you're to say what you're going to keep in the pot.

• 1:09:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that would have been the comment off the reel, which was the trailer of the pottery episode, which is you two basically doing ghost. So she's watched your ghost scene 977 times.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  Don't believe that. And if they have, I don't want to encourage them.

• 1:09:49Speaker 03

  Oh, it was good stuff.

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  They've just left it on in the background, surely.

• 1:09:54Speaker 03

  I think he's probably joking about the 977.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  Oh, I see. Right. Could you make that clear?

• 1:09:59Speaker 00

  I mean, I got that it was a joke. So did Dave.

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  Because in the information, because this sheet is information, Dave, so I need a little emoticon.

• 1:10:06Speaker 03

  A little laughing emoji.

• 1:10:08Speaker 01

  To say that it's a joke.

• 1:10:09Speaker 03

  Joke alert.

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  The winner of John's pot is Fleur Giles, who will keep Cocoa Pops and hummus in it. It's a very small amount of Cocoa Pops or a very big amount of hummus. I would say enough Cocoa Pops for a toddler's first experience of Cocoa Pops.

• 1:10:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, you've got to introduce them to Cocoa Pops slowly.

• 1:10:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, congrats to Fleur.

• 1:10:33Speaker 01

  Congrats to Fleur.

• 1:10:34Speaker 03

  And more giveaways to come for future adventures, because the next adventure, which we haven't announced yet.

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  Haven't we?

• 1:10:39Speaker 03

  Is another humdinger, which will, yeah, it'll be announcing in the next couple of weeks.

• 1:10:43Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:10:43Speaker 03

  It'll get released at the start of October.

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  What is it?

• 1:10:49Speaker 03

  You know what it is. Ellis wore a Wales kit, you wore a pulp top.

• 1:10:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yes. Oh, wow.

• 1:10:55Speaker 00

  A good day that I think speaks volumes about how different we are.

• 1:11:02Speaker 03

  Yeah. And that's the next adventure. Say no more. Say no more.

• 1:11:05Speaker 01

  Say no more.

• 1:11:07Speaker 00

  Ask me no secrets. I'll tell you no lies. Is that what?

• 1:11:10Speaker 03

  Do you want to say bye bye to everyone?

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  Shall we do the announcement of that during the filming of the next?

• 1:11:15Speaker 03

  That's what we keep me, that's been our plan for the last four of them, but then we all, we keep running out of time. But that is how we're meant to be doing it.

• 1:11:21Speaker 01

  But we could do it on the mics.

• 1:11:25Speaker 03

  What, at the, at the location of the previous one?

• 1:11:27Speaker 01

  No, we could film the announcement.

• 1:11:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  On location when we're filming the next adventure.

• 1:11:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11:36Speaker 01

  Which is in September, October.

• 1:11:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11:40Speaker 00

  As in, when we're on the mics, we announce it.

• 1:11:43Speaker 03

  Oh, I see what you mean. As a little no.

• 1:11:48Speaker 00

  No, they've already gone out.

• 1:11:51Speaker 00

  It was a possible yes that turned into a definite no.

• 1:11:54Speaker 03

  You would be announcing something that's been on Patreon for two weeks if you did that.

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  Well, then we'd just have to reverse do it then, don't we?

• 1:12:03Speaker 03

  You could.

• 1:12:04Speaker 01

  Announce the next one on the previous one.

• 1:12:06Speaker 03

  Which would be the one that everyone's at, anyway.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  Does having that guy in LA help us out in any way? Because he's, he's five hours behind or something.

• 1:12:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, we've, we've now got an American man editing everything because he's, Ian Fish, because he's hours behind.

• 1:12:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's editing this.

• 1:12:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:25Speaker 03

  And we'll speak more about that next week. Goodness me.

• 1:12:28Speaker 00

  That makes me feel like the planet's top businessman, even though I didn't know about it until an hour ago and it was, it wasn't my idea.

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  And your company's hemorrhaging money.

• 1:12:38Speaker 00

  And my company's hemorrhaging money, but I'm still employing someone from LA.

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  Because you've solved the problem of having too many employees by employing someone else.

• 1:12:46Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 1:12:48Speaker 00

  I am a top businessman who's not motivated by profit, it seems.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  Like the guy in the cafe downstairs is always talking really loud about sums of money.

• 1:12:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know who you mean.

• 1:13:00Speaker 01

  Isn't he, I want to know so much about what goes on in his life. He's evilly, evilly. He's either wealthy beyond my wildest dreams or nothing he's ever done in 40 years has been successful and I cannot work it out.

• 1:13:15Speaker 00

  Or he's a congenital liar.

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:19Speaker 03

  Maybe there's no one on the Zoom.

• 1:13:21Speaker 00

  Imagine, imagine if, imagine if he was on the phone and then talking about sums of money and then his phone rang. He's like, oh yeah, sorry. Hi, what, one million?

• 1:13:31Speaker 00

  10, 10 million and then I'll, and I'll add another five million when I'm ready.

• 1:13:36Speaker 03

  Yeah. So it's clear, it's, that's as simple as that, all the stuff that we're doing.

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  This morning, he was like, I mean, we could go to £10. I mean, you look at all these people charging five or six pounds, but it's only an extra few pounds to get to £10. You times £10 by a few thousand, you go yourself tens of thousands of pounds.

• 1:13:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, and you know what?

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  He's not wrong.

• 1:13:54Speaker 00

  It's fine. Yeah. I think people will buy a £10 flapjack.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  Do you know that, that flapjack, yeah, it's only three quid, which I thought was quite reasonable.

• 1:14:04Speaker 00

  And he wants to charge a tenner and sell a hundred thousand to them and they'll make lots of money.

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  Oh, dear.

• 1:14:09Speaker 03

  There we go. And if you are already on Patreon, we love you and we love you so much.

• 1:14:13Speaker 00

  Yes, if you're a speaker, do come to the gig.

• 1:14:15Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 1:14:16Speaker 01

  Well, there's a nice email from Andy from Montpellier, en France. Says, hi guys, nice to see prunes getting the recognition they deserve. They helped me through a decade of tummy problems until I finally had a life-changing operation. So in commemoration, I got their name forever etched into my body. And Andy, on the back of his knee, has just got the word prunes in capitals, which I think is a great tattoo. It's just, it's just the word prunes.

• 1:14:46Speaker 03

  And there's no other tattoos on the leg.

• 1:14:48Speaker 01

  And it's not stylized in any way.

• 1:14:50Speaker 00

  And it's on a slight slant.

• 1:14:52Speaker 01

  It looks like he's got someone to draw it in biro for him.

• 1:14:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. And if, if his leg was, if his legs were covered in tattoos, it would be just a funny addition to all of his tattoos.

• 1:15:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:02Speaker 00

  But they, if there is anything, it's just the word prunes. That's funny.

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  Uh, PPS, I'm the designer for Off Menu and we've met.

• 1:15:11Speaker 00

  Oh, hello, Andy.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  Oh, hello, Andy.

• 1:15:13Speaker 03

  Hello, Andy.

• 1:15:15Speaker 01

  Good stuff. There's also, maybe this is a future adventure, Ellis, that me and Ellis go to this event with you.

• 1:15:23Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:15:23Speaker 01

  Hello, gents. Just listened to Tuesday's historic episode where Ellis tried a prune. This reminded me of the week's work experience I spent in Argen in the south of France back in 2007. I spent my week working with the Argen Tourist Board. One of my tasks was to help with organising Argen's biggest event of the year, the Grand Prunoo, or the big prune show to you and me. This is a festival held every year that celebrates the local prune harvest. According to the internet.

• 1:15:52Speaker 00

  What a country. I love it.

• 1:15:54Speaker 01

  It now attracts tens of thousands of visitors.

• 1:15:57Speaker 00

  Well, prune fans.

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  With large-scale concerts, street performers and family activities. The year I helped on the show, the organisers were very excited that the headline act was a British South African musician called Johnny Clegg. I'd never heard of Johnny Clegg, Dave. Check his Wikipedia page. And with the greatest respect to Johnny, neither had the people of Argen. It made me think, if Johnny Clegg can headline such a significant cultural event, then why can't Johnny JR and Elis James? It strikes me as the perfect opportunity to launch the JREJ prune brand in the south of France whilst also delving deeper into the world of the prune. All the best, Rodri, originally from Chichester, but now living in London.

• 1:16:40Speaker 00

  Oh, dear Rodri.

• 1:16:41Speaker 01

  Dear.

• 1:16:42Speaker 00

  I don't know what we'd do. What would the show be?

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  Prune dance?

• 1:16:47Speaker 00

  Haggis.

• 1:16:48Speaker 01

  Prune eating competition?

• 1:16:49Speaker 00

  Haggis in Paris.

• 1:16:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, we'd play haggis in Paris.

• 1:16:51Speaker 00

  Box in love.

• 1:16:54Speaker 01

  They'd have to be, we'd do a prune bake judging.

• 1:16:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:57Speaker 01

  So you've got to make a prune-based dessert.

• 1:16:59Speaker 00

  A lot of people criticised you for giving me prunes and syrup and said it should have been dried prunes straight from a packet so I could try one of those.

• 1:17:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:06Speaker 00

  We could be pelted with prunes.

• 1:17:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Why? What's wrong with giving prunes and syrup?

• 1:17:10Speaker 00

  Because the syrup is overpowering, so I didn't get, it was.

• 1:17:14Speaker 01

  You didn't get pure prune?

• 1:17:15Speaker 00

  I didn't get pure prune, yeah.

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  Your prune was adulterated.

• 1:17:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:17:19Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, there's that. Because, you know, we, I know we come up with so much content, week after week, but we can keep you having a prune that isn't in syrup in the locker. But should the well ever run dry, which it's never done so far?

• 1:17:34Speaker 03

  No, it's not. No.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  It's nice to know it's there. New chapter of contact coming up.

• 1:17:37Speaker 03

  Got it. The final chapter, is it?

• 1:17:39Speaker 01

  I don't know. TBC.

• 1:17:40Speaker 03

  I think, I think wrap it.

• 1:17:42Speaker 01

  TBD.

• 1:17:42Speaker 03

  Wrap it up, see what happens.

• 1:17:44Speaker 00

  What's TBD stand for?

• 1:17:45Speaker 01

  To be decided.

• 1:17:46Speaker 03

  All right. Johnny Clegg's clear.

• 1:17:48Speaker 01

  Johnny Clegg's clear.

• 1:17:49Speaker 00

  Great.

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  As far as we know.

• 1:17:51Speaker 00

  It's a shame he's not called Johnny Clag, because prunes are quite claggy. Yeah.

• 1:17:56Speaker 01

  I don't think he's much to do with prunes.

• 1:17:59Speaker 00

  No, he's headline, well, no, but he's headlining a prune festival.

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, but he wouldn't, the Rolling Stones, if they had, I wouldn't change their name to the Rolling Prunestones or the Rolling Pips.

• 1:18:09Speaker 00

  What, what, what does he do, Johnny Clegg?

• 1:18:13Speaker 03

  Johnny, Johnny, well, he's a musician. He passed away sadly in 2019.

• 1:18:16Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:18:18Speaker 01

  R.I.P. Johnny.

• 1:18:19Speaker 03

  Colourful career, actually.

• 1:18:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:21Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well done, Johnny.

• 1:18:23Speaker 01

  Well done, Johnny.

• 1:18:23Speaker 00

  He did, he did Date Stock Fake Fest.

• 1:18:27Speaker 03

  Fake Fest.

• 1:18:30Speaker 01

  I don't like dates.

• 1:18:32Speaker 00

  Apricot apalooza.

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  That's very good.

• 1:18:36Speaker 03

  Where are all these coming from?

• 1:18:37Speaker 01

  Bloody hell.

• 1:18:38Speaker 03

  Menorah.

• 1:18:40Speaker 00

  Glaston, Glaston Raspberry.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  Dave, put him back on equal pay with me. I think that's, he's been working.

• 1:18:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:49Speaker 03

  Good stuff. Well, we should end it there.

• 1:18:53Speaker 01

  Yes, we should. Haven't we got something else to do, Dave?

• 1:18:56Speaker 03

  We have. We've got the ring fence, but we can drop that back in after Charles because that can just get dropped since that's easy enough. Is that it, Michael?

• 1:19:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. So that's that. Thank you very much for listening to this Friday. We'll be back with you tomorrow with the Bureau d'Enjeu of the Mind. And then of course, on Tuesday, goodbye.

• 1:19:13Speaker 01

  Bye bye.

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• 1:20:55Speaker 01

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

• 1:21:00Speaker 00

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

• 1:21:05Speaker 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.