What It’s Like Starring On Take Me Out

Ex Take Me Out contestant Chris Williamson talks about what life is really like behind the scenes on the ITV Show. - Video & production by Dean Hindmarch https://www.deanhindmarch.com/ https://www.instagram.com/deanhindmarch - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/modern-wisdom/id1347973549 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0XrOqvxlqQI6bmdYHuIVnr?si=iUpczE97SJqe1kNdYBipnw Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - I want to hear from you!! Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Email: [email protected]

• 0:00Speaker 0

  Today we are going to do what it's really like to be on Take Me Out. The fear of every man that goes on Take Me Out is getting a blackout. Don't fall out of the love lift. Don't say anything overtly racist and don't shit yourself. As long as you don't do those three things. Honestly, man, the logistics behind it are fucking terrifying. The love lift looks like a well constructed, safe piece of equipment. But let me tell you, it is one of the most terrifying experiences I've ever had in my life.

• 0:26Speaker 2

  You're not allowed to have any more than one corona, and you have to sign a waiver saying that you've only had one drink.

• 0:31Speaker 0

  You get to ask these girls one question. That question is picked already for you by the producers and then get to prepped to the girls on my date on Take Me Out, I did not get arrested. But the police did arrive. Why? We'll get to that. I went into Arsenal Chris mode. I distinctly remember putting 40 euros down on the bar and saying to the barman, do as much damage to me as you can for that money there. The next thing that I remembered was waking up on the central reservation of Tenerife's largest motorway.

• 1:07Speaker 0

  Welcome back. I've been joined by Johnny and Yusuf from Propane Fitness. Some of you may have seen that we did a podcast, what it's really like living on Love Island. It did pretty well. It's had nearly two million watch minutes, so I thought, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Let's try another one. So today we are going to do what it's really like to be on Take Me Out. It's been six years since I was on. But the memory is burned. Etched into uh into my nostalgia, so I'm not gonna be able to get rid of it. So both of you actually seen the episode that I was on, right?

• 1:42Speaker 2

  I saw it on TV when it was on. Live. My

• 1:45Speaker 0

  only TV that Yusuf's ever seen. I think it's probably the only thing on TV I've ever watched, yeah. Did you watch it because I was on it? Was it just because you were on, yeah.

• 1:52Speaker 1

  He had to plug the TV in,

• 1:54Speaker 0

  adjust the aerial. To

• 1:57Speaker 2

  go and buy a TV from a charity shop, like plug it in. Free cycle.

• 2:01Speaker 0

  Yeah. Um so I was on season two. No, season three, season three, episode two. So quite early. I think it's on season ten or eleven now. Um for anyone who doesn't know, I mean, if you don't know what Take Me Out is where have you been living, because it's part of the main, it's like blind date, it's like the modern-day blind date now, isn't it? Although there is a blind date.

• 2:26Speaker 1

  Yeah.

• 2:27Speaker 0

  Not very good though, is it? No. Silver Black died

• 2:29Speaker 2

  or something.

• 2:30Speaker 0

  Yeah, Silver Black passed away, and now they've got Paul Paul O'Grady, I think. The only reason they got him is because he's also scouse. Right. Like, you know, there's other scouse people out there. But anyway, prejudiced. Um I said on the Love Island podcast that I would be able to create a framework for anybody who wanted to get onto reality TV, and that my appearance on Love Island was preceded and aided by my appearance on Take Me Out. And if you have a look at some of the guys who've been on Take Me Out, they've actually gone on to have fairly good careers in TV. Ashley Kane, who was on X on the Beach and is now like an MTV host in his own rights and other stuff like that. Like he cut his teeth, so to speak, on Take Me Out.

• 3:16Speaker 0

  Like that was his first foyer into uh foray into um TV. So this one I actually got picked up by my modelling agency, so Time T is put me forward for it, and you kind of you skip past the first couple of like are you a human? Can you use a keyboard? Like you get past those first few, like what's nine plus two. Yeah, it's literally just a capska code for the first whole thing. Yeah, that's it. Are

• 3:41Speaker 2

  you a robot? Tick the box.

• 3:43Speaker 0

  There you go. Ding past that. So um the casting process is quite interesting for take me out because you have to basically do a fake take me out, and they hold up cards of like different girls, and you have to choose different girls, and then they role-play what it would be like being on the show with you. Okay, which is pretty cool. So you pretend

• 4:04Speaker 1

  to be the girls that are on the cards.

• 4:05Speaker 0

  Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. No, they didn't, it's not that immersive, which actually makes it more difficult. Withinoculus wrist chance.

• 4:13Speaker 1

  That's actually casting. That would that would be great.

• 4:15Speaker 0

  So yeah. Um got selected to be on uh and a particular season. I actually found out on the way down to Maidstone in Kent, which is where it's filmed. I found out that two a pair of twins that are my really good mates, Henry and Will, were also going down and were on my episode. So I got down there and I knew both of these guys. One of them works for Voodoo in Leeds, and the other one worked for a competitor company in Newcastle where it was good mates with him. So it's basically like a lad's holiday for four days. So the setup, for anyone who doesn't know, the setup of Take Me Out is when you're filming, they film back to back to back. So it's aired, I think it's on a Saturday night, and it's aired weekly, but the girls that are there and the um audience and Paddy are just there for however many weeks it is, that's however many days they're there.

• 5:07Speaker 1

  Wow.

• 5:08Speaker 0

  So it gets filmed. The honesty, man, the logistics behind it are fucking terrifying. So day one, as a guy, day one, travel down, stay overnight. Day two, morning and daytime, uh go and see the set, meet Paddy, practice what's going to go on, like the walk down, the love lift and other bits and pieces, which we'll get on to shortly. The love lift. The love lift, man. Um evening of day two, presuming that you don't get a blackout, evening of day two, go to hotel near the airport, morning of day three, get on plane, evening of day three, land at wherever it is, the Isle of Fernandes, um, stay overnight, morning of day four, do date, evening of day four, do take me out the gossip, morning of morning of day five, fly back to the UK and fuck off.

• 5:53Speaker 0

  But what you have to remember is because it's back to back, what every day one is someone else's day two, it's someone else's day three, so they've just charged. Constantly, constantly moving. It must be a logistical nightmare.

• 6:07Speaker 1

  It's more how do they make sure that everyone seems fresh?

• 6:11Speaker 2

  You can't be late for anything, like it's relentless, isn't it? So if

• 6:14Speaker 1

  I'm if I'm a woman on Take Me Out, that means that I'm one of the girls.

• 6:19Speaker 0

  Yeah. So that so they they are on every episode. Yes, until they get picked or picked or the series finishes, yeah.

• 6:26Speaker 1

  So they could be on ten days in a row. Yeah. But then every single episode, they've got to be like, hey.

• 6:34Speaker 0

  The girls have got the roughest job of anybody because the amount of girls there are, which I think's 20, maybe 20. There's maybe 20. And they have to get their hair and makeup done. I think their hair and makeup team's only maybe two people, two or three people. The girls, remembering that we begin filming at five or six o'clock at night on that day two, the girls start getting their hair and makeup done at 9am, and they're on a rotation thing. So if you went first yesterday, you get to go like middle of the pack tomorrow. But there's some girls that have been sat with a full face of makeup and their hair done from like 10.30 in the morning until 5 pm just watching all of their mates, but they're all staying in the same hotel and they're all getting on and like having jokes and laughs and stuff like that.

• 7:22Speaker 0

  So it's I guess it's not too bad, but I don't envy the job of the girls. You just have to turn up once and you either don't go back on again or you go on a date. Yeah, that's it. The guy's very it's probably quite symbolic for how men deal with most of the relationship. Low investment, I'm either in or I'm out. Yeah. Um if you're out, you

• 7:42Speaker 2

  you you run away, curl up in a ball, don't speak to anyone again. That's it.

• 7:45Speaker 0

  Away you go. So, yeah, the um speaking of that, if if you're out, the fear of every man that goes on taking me out is getting a blackout. Like it is. You're

• 7:56Speaker 1

  just terrified. Should we explain the format of the show? Or we're just gonna assume.

• 8:01Speaker 0

  Let's go from start to finish.

• 8:02Speaker 1

  So you arrive on the morning,

• 8:04Speaker 0

  you go and meet Paddy McGuinness, who is the coolest guy on the planet, by the way. Like, he can break dance, he does karate, and he's got a Bolton accent. I mean, like he's the big three, isn't it? It is the big three, yeah. Uh and his missus is unbelievable. Does he get her through the take me out process? He didn't, I don't think, which is

• 8:23Speaker 2

  you'd have to host and be the he'd be running between the. But it would be the best audio for the show, wouldn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

• 8:28Speaker 0

  Well, Paddy McGuinness with an identity crisis. Look at multiple identities. Look at my

• 8:32Speaker 1

  wife. It's all as a result of this process, so you can just go along with it, believe in it. Exactly. And trust the trust the process. So you get to meet him on the morning. Quite

• 8:38Speaker 2

  a schizophrenic show to watch.

• 8:42Speaker 1

  No like it, no like it. Oh, no.

• 8:46Speaker 2

  Oh, that's right, there you go.

• 8:48Speaker 1

  Is that in your pop culture sayings folder in your laptop? Yeah, I wrote it down, took some

• 8:53Speaker 0

  notes. Loaded it in. So you go in during the day and you get to meet Paddy, and what's kind of cool is because you're the only person who's out on that stage in front of the girls, right? And if you've it's 20 on one. And if you if one of the girls has a a bit of a pop at you, it'll give you one or two seconds to say something, and if you don't come up with something, he'll just throw a zinger in.

• 9:16Speaker 2

  Oh, I remember you saying that he's he's got your back, like he's the

• 9:18Speaker 0

  It's two, it's actually two on 20, but Paddy's like the power of 20 women. So he's able to kind of battle. His stuff isn't scripted. No. It's just a witty mo. Unbelievably witty. Yeah. It's just I think because it's the goal of take me out is to be as cheesy as possible. That they want the most one line of like, ah, I'm a lover, not a fighter. Like if you can throw cliches in. Laughing. That's what they want. Literally laughing. So yeah, you go in during the day, and I remember on my one, there's an Southern Irish guy called Paul, and he was gonna have to shear a live sheep on camera. So you had to get they've got these like trained stage sheep in. Like they've got their own training. And it's like uh honestly I couldn't believe it. And they he there was a little square drawn in like spray paint, you know, they spray paint the sheep with to colour them, and he was like, that's what you're gonna shave.

• 10:11Speaker 0

  And he's in practicing shaving the sheep, doesn't like it at all, and it's like running away, and Paddy's just I was just this is the most thing. I'm

• 10:20Speaker 2

  fascinated by that. I've been yeah, really like stage train sheep TV sheets. So there's a guy who trains them, he keeps them, rents them out. You know, he's the handler as well. He's making a full-time income from renting. The sheep are making a full income. When he came in, when he came in, he was how much of a cut does he take from the sheep,

• 10:37Speaker 0

  like a lot of grain sheer. There was he came in and he was extolling the virtues of the the like discography, the filmography that they'd been on. He's like, it was on Emmerdale a couple of weeks ago. Uh was in the background of uh the most recent film with Sasha Baron Cohen in it, and I'm like Cena Royale, yeah. So they

• 10:58Speaker 1

  all got their own IMDB profile. Sheep one you won. What's a male sheep? Just a sheep. Ram. Ram. Ram. It's a Ram, bro.

• 11:10Speaker 2

  He's a man that knows his trade then. Yeah. Like he knows his shit. So

• 11:13Speaker 0

  anyway. Um you spend your day, and they're like, oh, so you're gonna come down and you're getting the love lift, and this is what's gonna happen. It's kind of a bit hurried because there's four of you, right? And there's loads of other shit. Like, you are not really the highest priorities, the guy it's like, don't fall out of the love lift, don't say anything overtly racist, and don't shit yourself. Like, as long as you don't do those three things, broadly gonna be okay. So here I'll get on to the main bit, right? So what was

• 11:40Speaker 1

  your

• 11:40Speaker 0

  love

• 11:40Speaker 1

  lift

• 11:41Speaker 0

  like?

• 11:42Speaker 1

  Uh what do you mean? Well, did you do anything bad in Love Lift?

• 11:46Speaker 0

  A little bit, it was yeah, we can see Chris in the Love Lift. Well, we can't get the footage. Video Man get the video many Video Man Dean will try and find the footage, we are gonna try and track it down. Um there will be photos of me appearing around with an afro.

• 12:01Speaker 1

  Yeah.

• 12:02Speaker 0

  Uh because I

• 12:02Speaker 1

  had

• 12:03Speaker 0

  an

• 12:03Speaker 1

  Afro

• 12:03Speaker 0

  on that. Anyway, so you start off on the night time, and the audience the la it's aired to about four million people, and you don't give a fuck about the four million people, but you're terrified of the two fifty that are live in the audience. 250 people watching a TV show, all excited by Paddy McGuinness is loud

• 12:23Speaker 1

  as fuck. They're behind you. So the way that you start, so you can imagine that the the studio's quite

• 12:28Speaker 0

  circular, and you come in from the back behind them, and then you walk around the edge all the way to the back of the love lift. So you're walking behind the girls basically, but there's a big wall, so you can't really see what's going on, but you can really fucking hear what's going on. And Paddy, there's a an entertainment, like a comedian that comes on in between. It's actually probably a pretty good evening out to go and see that. You get to watch a bit of TV and you get to see comedian, and there's Paddy McGuinness comes out and warms everyone up a little bit. And I was like third person, I think. So I've got to hear like and then the guy before me got a blackout, and I'm like, oh my god, right, it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen.

• 13:10Speaker 1

  Um you're not allowed to have any more than one corona, and

• 13:15Speaker 0

  you have to sign a waiver saying that you've only had one drink because some guy did something and got embarrassed and accused ITV of loading him up with booze. Uh this was only season three when I was on, and some guy within the first two seasons had already dragged him into some litigated nightmare in an effort to try and discount the fact that he was shit on camera. I don't know what what had gone on, but you're allowed a corona, and you really like the final the last drop, you're like desperately trying to get that all

• 13:42Speaker 1

  out. And um So you walk because it this sounds stupid now when I really think about it, but I I imagined that everyone's kind of waiting in this sort of upper studio and they all come down on the lift. But that's not what happens, right? No,

• 13:55Speaker 0

  so the first time that

• 13:56Speaker 1

  you walk in and come round

• 13:58Speaker 0

  So you walk in and go right round the back, and none of the girls see you, and the comedian, whatever will be on at this point because you're gonna be in between two, and then you'll get in and you walk up a spiral staircase. And I know that from the front, the love lift looks like a well constructed and safe piece of equipment, but let me tell you, it is one of the most terrifying experiences I've ever had in my life. Like it is just cables that are incredibly thin and very wobbly, and then you step on and you have to wait until the whole point of the love lift is that you have to wait until it hits the bottom, and then you take your first step, because otherwise you're basically just gonna step into midair.

• 14:41Speaker 2

  So that's the point one of don't fall out of the love lift, and then you don't poo yourself, don't say anything

• 14:46Speaker 0

  overtly racist. So it's not like that they're taking you

• 14:49Speaker 2

  through the full spectrum of fears, so like fear fear of death when you're in the love lift. Fear of rejection. You get art and the fear of rejection from the women, and then like the the instant like 250 people fear of intimidation, making a fool of yourself, intimidation. Yeah,

• 15:04Speaker 0

  it's it's a very very nerve-wracking environment to be in, and like so you don't think about the cameras because the cameras are just they're miles away from you.

• 15:13Speaker 1

  They're all on it's those guys like fat lads that sit down and swivel. Oh right, I see it's two people walking around with it. Not really, you

• 15:20Speaker 0

  don't notice that as much. But anyway, so you're at the top of the love lift, and they'll be counting you in, and then your music starts, and you had to choose a song, so you have to submit a song. And this was when I was 2. So I was right in the midst of being promoter wanker. So I was like, oh yeah, Jamie Jones, hungry for the power. Like, we can't have any techno or tech house. Uh, how about example love kick starts again? And I'm like, fine, okay. So like, and the love kick starts again. Completely not what you chose, but um, if we get popped on YouTube for me singing that was pitch perfect, I know it was. So anyway, you're coming down and you step off, and you've already been given the points that you walk to, you walk to the left and you wave at the girls, you walk to the right and you wave at the girls, and then you walk to the middle and you turn around and you go, Hello girls, my name's Chris, and I'm from Newcastle.

• 16:12Speaker 3

  Everybody waving Chris!

• 16:14Speaker 0

  So one, what do you think of Chris? And it goes on like that, and you're like, right, okay, once you once you've kind of said the first thing and you've got your first little forwards and backs, you're pretty sweet.

• 16:24Speaker 2

  Have they got a chance to black out during that?

• 16:27Speaker 0

  Yeah, yeah, so not during that, but basically they get they get first first impressions. And here's like one of the secrets of take me out that is kind of a shit bit of the show. All of the girls are really, really aware that the longer that they keep their light off, the more episodes they're going to be on. If they get taken on a date after one more episode on TV, that's them game over. So have a look early in the season, early in the season. The girls are

• 16:58Speaker 2

  boo, boo, boo.

• 17:00Speaker 0

  Oh, didn't like the way that you crossed the road there. Woo! Oh, he doesn't double noise laces,

• 17:05Speaker 2

  boo.

• 17:06Speaker 0

  Like any excuse to turn off because they want to so the producers actually had to push the girls, look, like you've been too you're making it too difficult for the guys. So early on in the season, pretty much

• 17:16Speaker 2

  dilemma. It's a what? It's a prisoner's dilemma, because they're the incentives aren't aligned there. And as you said, they can they for them to prolong their thing, they can forego the chance of

• 17:28Speaker 0

  being on a date. Yeah, which completely just ruins the point of the show. Wrecks the show, yeah, exactly. So they had to say, look, you need to you need to keep your light on more. And we're like, right, okay. So you you're aware of that as a guy as well. You go on and you've heard this, oh I'm on episode two or episode three, like no one's gonna difficult. So anyway, you come down and they they get to

• 17:49Speaker 3

  boo boo,

• 17:50Speaker 0

  and uh I think I lost like one light or two lights at the very start, which is kind of good considering I had to do it. You don't want to

• 17:55Speaker 1

  go and ask why

• 17:56Speaker 0

  like Paddy goes over and he goes, So Gemma, you've turned your light off. What oh well, you know,

• 18:03Speaker 2

  I just I don't like someone that's got bigger hair than me, or whatever it is that they say, I

• 18:07Speaker 1

  don't know. Just anything. I don't like someone wearing

• 18:08Speaker 0

  it. Something arbitrary,

• 18:09Speaker 2

  yeah,

• 18:10Speaker 0

  like something completely arbitrary. But anyway, so they do that, and you start moving through, and then it's

• 18:14Speaker 2

  not like I don't like a black man or you can't. That's what you're doing.

• 18:20Speaker 0

  And then they have to get all 250 people in the crowd to sign an NDA waiver.

• 18:28Speaker 2

  Right, start again, yeah. No racism, something normal. Yeah,

• 18:31Speaker 0

  exactly. Um so yeah, and you'd start back and forth, and you have your VT, I'm Chris, and I do this, that, and the other, and whatever, in there. VT. Videotape

• 18:43Speaker 2

  will you tell us about Darren refusing to

• 18:46Speaker 1

  take you through that? I thought VT was gonna be like uh a sort of an

• 18:49Speaker 0

  industry term uh video tape. Videotape. Videotape, mate, yeah. So you do your VT, you've already filmed this like four weeks in advance, so they come up and they just try and follow you around. And

• 19:00Speaker 2

  let me try and recall some of this. It was like, my name's Chris, on the face of it, I'm a club promoter, I do all this stuff, but actually deep down, I'm a bit of a nerd, and I like to read Game of Thrones with my mates, and there's like a cut to like picture of you reading books with mates, yeah. Um on an L-shaped sofa, and then there's a couple of boom, boom

• 19:20Speaker 0

  booms. It wasn't so do you know what it was? They what they want to do, they don't want anyone to have too polished of a um like a person out or a persona that they put across. You won't have a chink in the armor. Exactly. So for me, they were like, I was like, I was reading Game of Thrones, and they're like, right, okay, so you need to come in and sit down and say to the people in the room that you're really excited because the dragons have started fighting. And I was like, I don't want to be pedantic here, but this is the second book in Game of Thrones and the dragons haven't hatched yet.

• 19:46Speaker 2

  So that's gonna be even worse. It's not even like uh I wouldn't do that. Yeah, I'm not that lame. It's like it's just never

• 19:54Speaker 0

  technically uh so that but they you they have to throw something in at that to just give it a little bit of levels. Didn't lose a single light for dragons, didn't lose a single one. So yeah, anyway, and then um they do that and lights sometimes go off. For me, they didn't. Um and they go back around and they talk to more of the girls, and all the time you're watching your VT for the first time on this huge so the big screen that you see above the thing that's uh videoed from above the crowd is actually what you're watching it on. That's not superimposed. So you're stood there like an idiot watching an IMAX video of yourself whilst trying not to like crumble. Right. Um and then it cuts back and they ask you some more questions and there's back and forth with the girls and stuff, and all this time you're thinking, like, first off, fuck please don't press the button because I don't want to blackout.

• 20:48Speaker 0

  But that overarching fear is so comprehensive that it doesn't permit you to really use any judgment. So you you know, like rabbit in the head, you've been in a car crash and you can't remember what happened in the the finer points, yeah. The fight or flight is kicked in to such a degree that your ability to fine-tune your vision goes out the window, so all you see is like global things. It's like blonde, brunette, like Paddy McGuinness, like cameraman. Like you just make decisions. That's that's the thing. So

• 21:18Speaker 2

  you just see the Lego version of each person and you just exactly what it

• 21:21Speaker 0

  is, it's just global features. You're like, hello.

• 21:26Speaker 1

  Or it's only that, isn't it? Legos can't do that.

• 21:28Speaker 0

  Yeah. No,

• 21:30Speaker 2

  oh yeah, you're right. Up

• 21:31Speaker 0

  and down. So and then they keep on keep on going from there, and you have a little bit more back and forth, and Paddy'll come in and out and stuff. But what you have to remember is that although you may see in between each round, you'll get to see maybe one or two answers from the girls. They'll go to ten, and then they'll pick the top few. Uh see. So there's even uh

• 21:52Speaker 2

  I do remember watching it thinking everyone's really like quick on the mark and with it. When someone when

• 21:56Speaker 0

  someone bumbles it, they're yeah, they'll just they'll they'll just go to someone else and until they get a couple of goods. So

• 22:03Speaker 1

  you're uh they're the subject of it for a lot longer than it seems. Yeah, because it it seems so like production line, like Chris, right? If I go off you go, someone else's turn, but you're there for quite a while. And then when it goes uh

• 22:15Speaker 0

  Paddy'll come over and he'll say, So, like, what do you what do you think? Or something like that, and I'll go, Chris has told me what he thinks, but first, back to the break, and he'll cut to the break. And then you just stood there, like a lemon deserve. Adverts don't get shot.

• 22:33Speaker 1

  They should do, that would be

• 22:35Speaker 0

  good.

• 22:35Speaker 3

  Charge to the city. What happens during the

• 22:37Speaker 0

  break? Like, they just sort of reset stuff and they'll get ready for like double check with camera angles, it's live. Yes. Right. It the whole thing is live. And the problem is you not realise that. No, I didn't realise that either. Well, no, it's not live, it's not broadcasted live.

• 22:51Speaker 2

  Well, how do you what do you think I meant? That's like saying, are these vegetables

• 22:54Speaker 0

  fresh?

• 22:55Speaker 2

  Well,

• 22:55Speaker 0

  yeah, they were

• 22:55Speaker 2

  they were freshmen that were frozen. Like

• 22:58Speaker 0

  they were fresh originally. Sorry, I don't know what I thought you meant. It's not live, no. But they cut to the brake so that it is chopped up, ready for it to be broad as you should say. So I'll cut away and you stood there, and then there'll be a little bit of back and forth, and that's when you turn around and you see the crowd, and you're like, sorry, of

• 23:16Speaker 1

  course it's not live.

• 23:18Speaker 2

  Why?

• 23:19Speaker 0

  Because I've already just said four by the three. Like if they did four day thing,

• 23:22Speaker 1

  ten answers, and they they snip out the best ones. Oh, I see, yeah. And also if they're doing that live, I want to know what software they're using.

• 23:28Speaker 2

  They've got the guy with the Oculus Rift and the I think he's just controlling. They've got video man dean. They do, yeah.

• 23:36Speaker 0

  Who's in this room now?

• 23:37Speaker 2

  No, I feel like Video Man Dean's listening to this, thinking like

• 23:40Speaker 0

  we're like, oh my god, they cut out the best bits.

• 23:42Speaker 2

  He's probably like, guys, you say exactly.

• 23:46Speaker 0

  God, I do that with my penis. So that's what he's doing now. Yeah, yes. You you've done your next bit, and then yeah, my business partner came on, Darren, and he told four million people that my mum still does my washing. But as a part of that, anyone who's met Darren. Did you

• 24:03Speaker 2

  guys agree on the the thing that he would say to like rip you?

• 24:07Speaker 0

  No, so you have to agree that basically in advance, so you have to you have to give them a bunch of information and then they're gonna come in with something. So you're like, oh like I I really like feet, or I've never clean my room, or I do whatever, whatever, and they try and come up with a bunch of stuff.

• 24:21Speaker 2

  Because I suppose the risk is they say something really savage, and like I've been mates with Chris for a while, and he's actually um a pedophile, but no, and you like oh darn it. I think that's not savage, that's that's damning. Yeah, yeah,

• 24:33Speaker 1

  Operation U Tree.

• 24:35Speaker 2

  We have one light left off. I think it's just

• 24:37Speaker 0

  like I think it's more wee think it's that sound.

• 24:41Speaker 1

  Handcuffs, yeah. Then Chris gets taken away very quickly. Then we go. So it's not that, and yeah, Darren got

• 24:46Speaker 0

  asked to say the words, but Chris's mum always does his washing, so he always stays box fresh, and it took them 15 takes I'm not saying that. It was he kept on saying different things. No, no, Darren, Darren, it's the line is so he always stays box fresh. I wouldn't say that. No, Darren, Darren, we need we need you to say so he always stays Okay, okay, go again, go again. So he always stays fresh.

• 25:16Speaker 2

  No, Darren, Darren,

• 25:17Speaker 0

  Darren, can we go? And he eventually stays fresh.

• 25:20Speaker 2

  It's like

• 25:21Speaker 1

  the the buttery biscuit bass video. You seen that? No. Yeah. The old couple, the guy has to say buttery biscuit base, and he gets it wrong ten times. That's Darren, but Darren elected

• 25:31Speaker 0

  to get it wrong. Right.

• 25:31Speaker 1

  He was just like, I'm just not saying it. Yeah, that's fucking shit. Darren, from my perception, from my perspective, just seems zero bullshit. Like he's just got no time for fluff or fanfare and he's being made to say all these things by a bunch of by a bunch of TV. TV studio

• 25:48Speaker 2

  intimidating people, he's like, no, no, no, come on. It doesn't sound

• 25:51Speaker 0

  like me. So anyway, um, and he said that, and more lights go off or whatever, and then you get

• 25:56Speaker 1

  you've got yourself a date, once

• 26:00Speaker 0

  you realize as a guy that you've got yourself a date, once you've got past all of those things, because the girls will still get to say things to you after you've done so. Why did you turn your light off? But you know that you've got yourself a date. And they can't

• 26:12Speaker 2

  is that because once there's a certain number of stages, they have to they're locked in, they have to stay in the city. Yeah, exactly. So they've

• 26:18Speaker 0

  committed to the purchase, they've pressed add to cart, and they've committed to me potentially being in their cart. Oh, okay. And they're in

• 26:25Speaker 2

  their car details, and it's like

• 26:26Speaker 0

  yeah, they've pressed it, they've pressed pay securely, they've gone through all the authorisation. I'm just upselling them now. Right, and then the auto form doesn't work. That's what some of them experience. Yeah. It isn't so the one of the things is once you've got to that stage and any guys who are going on to take me out, once you get to that stage, you are allowed to completely unload because inevitably some of the girls that turn the lights are,

• 26:48Speaker 2

  oh well, I just really don't think it is whatever. This, that, and

• 26:52Speaker 0

  the other. You can say whatever you want to them now. And it won't be on TV. No, it will be on TV, but no one else can turn the lights on. Oh right, gloves are off.

• 27:00Speaker 2

  No one else can. Well, that's what you can do. Sit down.

• 27:04Speaker 0

  So the the main bit, the main thing that I want to get across to everybody that's watching that's ever seen take me out is the sheer distance from you to all of the girls that are there. Physical distance. Yes. Like just I know that it looks, especially the ones that are in the front. So you're like, okay, maybe ten yards, ten yards away. As you start panning round towards the edges there, you're talking like 20, 25 yards away. I didn't

• 27:31Speaker 2

  think that when I watched it, actually. Are you running over to the girl and you're like, fucking hell? It was an interval work, but it was an interesting. It's not like

• 27:40Speaker 0

  Do you remember the bleep test at school? Turning off the lights of the girls is akin to the bleep test. You get a Lucas Aid halfway through, and there's a massuse that gives you a rub down. Or those segments. Yeah. So the it is so far from where you're stood to where the girls are. And trying to decipher the granular elements of a girl's look and personality from the ten seconds that she's got to speak at twenty yards distance is plus

• 28:07Speaker 2

  rubber in headlights mode. It's just

• 28:11Speaker 0

  it is a perfect

• 28:12Speaker 1

  storm of error making. So can you remember the because what I'm most interested in is this the sequence of what happens. So like there's rounds. How many rounds? Three. Like three, yeah. So they so like how many lights went off in each round, and then you're left with a choice. I was left with eleven at the end, I know that much. So how did you make the decision? Because I

• 28:33Speaker 2

  suppose during the show, you're not really assessing the women, you're thinking of like how can I not have a

• 28:39Speaker 0

  blackout? Yeah, that's the that's the thing that it's like a false positive or whatever, it's it's like a you you're searching for the wrong thing. You're just hoping that the wrong thing doesn't happen, not that the right thing does.

• 28:48Speaker 1

  You're limiting your damage rather than maximising. Yeah, because you're just terrified and fear pervades like everything else. Yeah, yeah. Don't like a dick on TV. Don't look like a dick on TV. It's all these oh shit. I looked like a dick on TV, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

• 29:02Speaker 0

  So um yeah, turned off and then had the choice between two girls, and one of them was so hold on. So there's eleven. Yeah. So in

• 29:12Speaker 1

  how long? Like 20 seconds? Twenty seconds, probably. It's just pure instinct. Yeah, like yeah,

• 29:18Speaker 0

  just press them, press them, press some of the ones that said weird things, press another ones.

• 29:22Speaker 2

  I remember that as well, because you just ran around, it looked like you were just thoughtlessly

• 29:26Speaker 1

  turning people up. Mostly was. I see. But you've got to so to make a choice out of eleven, because once you've turned someone's light on, you can't go like that. And do you draw it? So like you can't if you go from left to right, uh you might go like off off off off. Yeah. So like you've had do you go like you have a scan first, but that's the thing

• 29:43Speaker 0

  you know that the eyes are on you. So you're like, fuck I've got to. So you don't want to be too judgmental. Yeah, because you're like Can you just rotate? Bring yourself down in to the left for me, please. Uh

• 29:54Speaker 1

  can you do

• 29:54Speaker 0

  saddened? Off do saddened, no, happy but wistful,

• 29:58Speaker 1

  anxious. Yeah.

• 30:00Speaker 0

  No, yeah. Yeah, no, no, not for me. And you just think, right, okay, you can't get them to say anything anymore because all the crowds going,

• 30:05Speaker 3

  oh no, left, left,

• 30:07Speaker 1

  right, right,

• 30:08Speaker 0

  no, really, right. Well, because there's the family

• 30:11Speaker 1

  of a lot of

• 30:12Speaker 0

  girls that are there. So it's like it's basically saying your daughter's pig ugly or boring in front of

• 30:19Speaker 1

  everyone she's ever carried. I suppose that the girls got themselves to that stage, haven't they? Like, you've not allowed them to get there. Like this is the only time where you exercise any level of decision. So like this is the chance for them to look stupid. Yeah. It's payback. In fact, it's worse because you're like, if they say no, you're like, fair enough, like I came on the show, that's a risk. If I put myself out there as a girl and let myself get to the last round, I've still got my light on and you turn me off. Yeah. That's how you feel shit. Big fat middle finger. Do you

• 30:48Speaker 2

  have to leave one on, or has anyone just gone and turned them all off and be like that? Oh fuck this. Yeah. That's a good point, actually. So for me, that would have

• 30:54Speaker 0

  been that would have been the best option. Wow. Wow. That would have been the safest option. The safest. Well, just the for my sanity. Chris, what happened? Uh I managed to pick. I'm gonna be as diplomatic as possible here. I managed to pick a girl who she wasn't the most interesting. I'm gonna remain diplomatic until later on. Um I I have a fantastic my dating history is a wash with girls, me picking girls that are really bad for me. And take me out was no different.

• 31:30Speaker 1

  Bad for like you gain a bit of weight. Like, what do you mean by bad for me?

• 31:34Speaker 0

  Developed a cocaine habit. Yeah, no,

• 31:36Speaker 1

  no, it was just that she was broadly, she was really dull. Right. And so you want to talk about like anything what's

• 31:43Speaker 0

  gonna happen when AI takes over the world. No, no, no, this was this was Chris at 24. I was perfectly happy just talking about like what she did for fun or what her favourite cocktail was. Right. And there was one point where the conversation had got down to how her dad once took her crabbing. And I'm like, she's gonna see this. She is, she's gonna see, or

• 32:02Speaker 2

  maybe she's not, I don't know.

• 32:04Speaker 1

  Like the internet's a big place. That's true. The internet is a big place. Massive. Just

• 32:07Speaker 2

  because if I was in the opposition, I'd I'd be thinking, like, I'm gonna spare her feelings. We didn't have a if if we would do a picture of Venn diagram, if anyone says, but if anyone, if

• 32:17Speaker 0

  anyone's seen the episode, what I say in the episode's damning enough as it is. Okay. And then when I went on taking out, she sold a story about me too. Um to like reveal magazine. What the fuck? Video Mandine will make it appear here.

• 32:29Speaker 1

  I think

• 32:29Speaker 0

  Video Mandine should go hunt her down, and that's horrendous. So she got sold

• 32:33Speaker 1

  a story. Sold a story. The police got called boring. Yeah, so

• 32:37Speaker 0

  don't

• 32:38Speaker 1

  you worry, I'm gonna

• 32:38Speaker 0

  come

• 32:38Speaker 1

  back. We'll loop back to this. She's so this on Facebook, so you've got impressed the fucking pounds. 10 whole pounds. Um we'll pay for it, don't we?

• 32:46Speaker 0

  So just so you know, the the story headline that was revealed in reveal was the police got called on my date with Chris. Jesus. Um broadly true. But she

• 32:58Speaker 2

  But like that's because like there was there was something going on. No, no, the police got called for me. The police got called for me and

• 33:05Speaker 1

  Fernando's. For you or by you. For me. To get you? To get me. So when you say the police were called, that's broadly true. To me, that's very much like either the police were there or the police weren't there.

• 33:18Speaker 0

  Police were there. Who called the police? The police got called to my date with Chris. The reason that's not true is because she wasn't there, but I was. So I'd left her. And then you got arrested. And I didn't get arrested. Didn't get arrested. On my date on Take Me Out, I did not get arrested. But the police did arrive. Why? We'll get to that.

• 33:40Speaker 2

  You're

• 33:40Speaker 0

  gonna

• 33:41Speaker 1

  After the break. After a message from our sponsor. Yeah. So it's just gonna be you said dancing.

• 33:47Speaker 0

  That's not a sponsor. Anyway, so you find you you go down to the last two, and then what they've done, so you'll remember on take me out, they have the question, and they're like, um you get to ask these girls one question. Right. That question is picked already for you by the producers, and then gets prepped to the girls. They don't know which guy's gonna deliver the request. I've always wondered that. Because they've got zingers, right? Yeah. They've got absolute like belters. I can't remember what my question was.

• 34:15Speaker 1

  So maybe like, what's your best feature or something like that? It's gotta be horse-sized duck, duck-sized horse. Anyone finds myself in this position, horse would you rather be a horse-sized duck or a duck-sized horse? Or

• 34:26Speaker 2

  the dad dog question.

• 34:28Speaker 1

  No. No. Do you know about this person? Yes.

• 34:31Speaker 0

  No. Because we asked him. No. Did we stop? You can't say that on top of the. This is a PG episode. This is a PG episode, okay? Right. So anyway. Dark and horse. You've got to you've got to choose one of the girls at the end, and you kind of have to do the like faint and pretend that you're doing one and then you say pick the other. And within five seconds of pressing the button of the other girl, I realised they'd make a mistake. Oh

• 34:56Speaker 1

  what just instinct that she didn't like do anything. She didn't like start girning when you press the button as a big thing. No,

• 35:02Speaker 0

  no. Right. It was

• 35:04Speaker 2

  Oh thank God.

• 35:06Speaker 0

  It was just but it was it was an error. And as I walked up the stairs, some of the mates of one of the other lads that was on there was going were looking at me going. Oh man.

• 35:15Speaker 1

  And I

• 35:15Speaker 0

  was like,

• 35:16Speaker 1

  yeah, this is maybe an error. So And then they ask you at the end, who was the person you you were going to pick. Love at first light.

• 35:22Speaker 0

  They don't have that anymore. Sorry, they didn't have that when I was on.

• 35:25Speaker 1

  Love at first light wasn't a thing when I was on.

• 35:28Speaker 2

  What a shame. I've never heard of that.

• 35:29Speaker 1

  It's like when they they see the lineup and they have to pick someone before it all happens. And then it plays out.

• 35:41Speaker 0

  So no, that that didn't happen. Um had they have done that, that would have been I would have been able to say, but later on I had sex with that girl in any case, so it didn't matter. So how did you get her information? Um so I found that girl on Facebook the night that I arrived in the hotel in Fernando's before I'd even been on the date with the main girl. So the girl that you turn you just turned a light. No, no, she turned her light off for me. Uh found her on Facebook, messaged her, started having a back and forth before I that's a big fuck you, isn't it? Like she turned a light off, but you got her anyway. Yeah, damn right I did. Well she would just dropped

• 36:18Speaker 2

  into

• 36:19Speaker 0

  the top of the Chris panel. Out the front. So what now it gets onto the fun stuff, right? So this is the this is the best, like most interesting bits about the production as far as I'm concerned. So you meet Paddy, oh meet

• 36:33Speaker 3

  your date

• 36:33Speaker 2

  for the thing, and you're thinking fuck.

• 36:36Speaker 0

  And then they get you to walk off, you're off to the Isle of Fernandes and you woke up and you get to the top and you turn around and you wave, and then you go down the steps, and as you're going down, there's always a camera backstage as you start curling down, and you kiss her on the cheek and say she looks lovely or whatever, and then at the bottom of that set of steps, there are two runners that are like, right, don't look at her, go that way. You don't look at him, go that way. And that is the last time that you see that girl until when you are in the island on the Isle of Fernando's and they appear from behind you and go, Oh yeah, we're ready to go June buggy in, you look lovely. And then you walk away, that's the next time that you see them.

• 37:16Speaker 2

  So there's no prep then, it's it's that's a fresh reaction when she's like So from

• 37:22Speaker 0

  that moment where you get to the bottom of the steps and you part ways, you go to separate hotels next to different airports. So I went to Luton, she went to like Stansted or Gatwick or something. You then got on different flights, stay in different hotels in Fernando's, which the year that I was on it was Tenerife. So

• 37:42Speaker 2

  hats off to like the project manager for issues.

• 37:46Speaker 0

  Unbelievable. There must

• 37:48Speaker 1

  be a reason why they do that. That's it.

• 37:50Speaker 0

  So the reason that they don't allow you and your date to look at each other or ever interact off camera is because if you say something that's offensive or funny or cute, her reaction to you is going to change, but the justification for that hasn't been captured on camera, so there's a break in the storyline. Does that make

• 38:09Speaker 2

  sense? So just for continuity that they're

• 38:12Speaker 0

  pretty much so they just don't want you or her to get anything to know anything about each other without them being without them being without it being completely constructed. And I think considering I said that Love Islands are very holistic kind of natural manifestation of people's emotions, and it's not really fiddled with all that much. Take me out, they don't ever script what you're saying, they allow you to have natural reactions, but it's a lot more highly produced, and they because of this really alien nature of it just being two of you and a f fucking film crew of people around you, and you've got these runners. So yeah, you get down to the bottom of the stairs and they're like, don't look at her, go the other way, and then you part ways. Go to a hotel on the night with the other guys that have potentially got a date if they got a date, and then stay overnight, get up the next morning, get on the plane, fly out, spend the afternoon in Tenerife getting a tan and chilling out, go to sleep, and then the call time still not with the date.

• 39:12Speaker 0

  No, she's in a different hotel out there as well. Um different call time in the morning, so you get up in the morning and it's like one of the guys, I was the last date and I was up at half six. The first date was up at five in the morning. Crazy. So there's a film crew out there that are just receiving these parcels that have you know, like a t-shirt firing gun, like

• 39:33Speaker 1

  boom,

• 39:34Speaker 0

  boom, just being shot out of a studio in Maidstone, and then these guys are just like catching couples, and then going, okay, so we're gonna go. So anyway, got out there and you have the setup thing where you're gonna meet them on the morning and they come, oh hi uh and it turned out that our date was going to be deep sea fishing, um, which is naturally not. Tremendously exciting date to be on. And unfortunately, that wasn't aided by the girl that I was on it with. So

• 40:07Speaker 1

  when you say deep sea fishing, that's not you. That's like that's with a that's off the back of a boat. Yeah, on a big kind of wooden a Spanish wooden boat

• 40:15Speaker 0

  thing with a full crew and this, that and the other. And anyway, yeah, the um the crews circling around in a a speed boat and you know, cutting in between and after you've done stuff. So I got really bored. Like the conversation that I had with her was about as dull as it could have been. And I'd already known that I'd make it made a mistake. So I was like, right, fuck it. This was the final day before Freshers Week, right? So Freshest Week for me was beginning the next day, which is just the beginning of me being very, very slowly fisted by 8,000 students. And I was like, right, I am going to fucking enjoy this one-day holiday in Tenerife, no matter what. So I was just on the boat and was so bored that took my top off, took my shorts off, jumped in the sea, guys were on the boat going around filming, shit themselves, and started getting on the radio saying getting back in the boat because they didn't have public liability insurance for me to be in the sea.

• 41:08Speaker 0

  I was only allowed to be on the boat. No, pants. Okay. Um so anyway, that happened. Um yeah, and then you cut him backwards and forwards. So anyway, we had I basically hadn't had any food all day, and it got to the evening time, and it was running quite late, and I was quite hungry, and I said, Oh, can I get a case of desperados, please? And so like four case of four. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can get a kiss, like got four desperados, and I'm sat and I was ready in five minutes, still had the huge head, so I didn't even have to do my hair. And I'm sat like just sipping these desperados, and you're allowed on your phone and stuff like that. So I'd had my phone out texting my mates,

• 41:46Speaker 2

  uh take me out,

• 41:48Speaker 0

  and um beer down, two beers down, three beers down. I'm like, fucking

• 41:53Speaker 2

  no,

• 41:53Speaker 0

  where's this bird? And she was taking ages to get ready. So by the time I'd finished four desperados, I'm like, and I have barely eaten that day as well. I'm incredibly merry and feeling lucid to say the least, and I'm like, right, okay, so we're gonna have this first off, it was gonna be a dinner on a rooftop. It ended up being a glass of champagne on the top of someone's garage.

• 42:18Speaker 0

  Why? Because the first location that they tried to use, they couldn't get hold of, and then the sun was going down because she'd taken so long to get ready, and blah blah blah blah. So there's no makeup, there's no like she does her

• 42:31Speaker 1

  own. But did you have makeup? No. Interesting. You don't have makeup on most reality TV shows. Oh

• 42:40Speaker 0

  anyway, so we were there, and they brought out this bottle of Fernando's champagne, popped it on the middle of the table, and they were like, there you go. By the time that she'd had one glass, I'd finished the remainder of the bottle. They brought out another one, and I did the same thing again.

• 42:55Speaker 1

  Oh my god. So

• 42:56Speaker 0

  by this time, I'm fucked. Like, there's a it cuts to a scene of me talking into the camera, and my eyes are all bleary and red, because obviously you haven't no idea what's going on, leathered, absolutely battered by this stage. And I was like, and they'd start talking to you about all of your bits, and you know that all of your all of the people that you're with are also on dates. So you're like, I wonder how such and such is getting on, and I wonder how this is going on, blah blah blah. And um, yeah, there was definitely a residual feeling of bitterness that I could have chosen any girl that was even civil, but she didn't, she the one that I chose was barely even that. And I was like,

• 43:34Speaker 2

  So you're like, I'm gonna enjoy the holiday, I'm just gonna get leathered. I don't care. She wasn't even

• 43:38Speaker 0

  like chatting to you or speaking to you, it was just barely at all. Like it was like getting I said, my one of the things that didn't make the edit is probably one of the best lines I've ever said in my life. I'm gutted that it never made it, was um so it was a club promoter, you know. I am used to early mornings and late nights, uh I work hard, but that girl there is the hardest day's graft I have ever had to do in my entire life, and they're like still swinging on the dregs of this champagne. So anyway, you drive back and you go meet the guys, and then what happens from there is you go to taking out the gossip, which used to be hosted by Mark Wright and someone else, and basically there they're trying to get you to either shag or fight whoever it is that you're with, and I was like, I have no interest in doing it either at all. I just want to be away from her and I just want to be with my mates because I had two buddies that were there, and we'd connected to this Paul guy who shoot a sheep, and I'm like, look, I'm just good to chill out with the boys, and obviously they kind of had because they were getting on with their girls, they kind of had that in the back of their minds a bit.

• 44:42Speaker 0

  But so yeah, you can't it's uh oddly quite a nicely community-based thing towards the end, and you kind of get back together, and especially if you've had a bit of an awkward date or whatever, you're like, fuck, some respite. Um so you go out on the night time, and this is where the police story begins to one degree or

• 44:58Speaker 2

  another. So I can't believe I've never told you this before. Before we do the police story, did this girl just not take a liking to you specifically, or do you think it wasn't personal, it was just like I think it was a combination.

• 45:10Speaker 0

  So it was a combination of things. First off, she wasn't she wasn't making a massive effort, and she used this line of treat and mean, keeping keen, and I was like, No, like just even back then, even ten years ago-ish, six years, seven years ago, I had in the back of my mind you should just be being yourself, like you should just be being truthful and virtuous because that's the best way to operate. And it came across, she came across terribly on TV.

• 45:37Speaker 2

  Anyone I've heard who sparks the treat and mean line is a fundamental dick. Just a minute, it's just a

• 45:44Speaker 0

  manipulative cow, right? It's like

• 45:45Speaker 2

  well, because it it it's the same kind of people that think they're really sassy, and it's like, no, no, you you just uh knob.

• 45:52Speaker 0

  Yeah, so it went down really badly. She deleted her uh Twitter account because she got a little bit of she got slated a little bit because of the way that she'd gone on.

• 46:01Speaker 1

  Anyway,

• 46:02Speaker 0

  so went on the date, went on the night out. Later on in the evening, the one you have sex or fight with the person you're with, and I'm like, not bothered. They give you a 50 Euros allowance, and they basically put you in a bar and allow it to be as natural as possible, and it kind of is also what's really funny is to see the difference between the crew and the kit that ITV have and the crew and the kit that ITV2 have. It's like going from the most polished, like there's a security guy, and there's a huge van and this, that, and the other, and it's just some dude with like a his iPhone out, just hoping to desperately hoping to catch like picking up change off the floor trying to

• 46:44Speaker 2

  you can tell with the production quality as well when you like when you see those like after the show. It's

• 46:49Speaker 0

  just it's complete trying to dredge up any of the last harm's budget, yeah. I've got to

• 46:57Speaker 1

  go plug my

• 46:57Speaker 0

  phone in over there for a bit, but I'll be back in a moment. So

• 47:01Speaker 1

  shit, I've run out of data.

• 47:02Speaker 2

  I've run

• 47:02Speaker 0

  out of data. So anyway, you're on the night, and she'd been doing this thing, and she'd handed me a purse to like look after as if it, you know, like that sassy key, and I'm like, so I just couldn't purse and just went, just put it down on the bar and walked off. That didn't go down very well anyway, back and forth, back and forth. What happened next was I went into Arsenal Chris mode, and I remember distinctly remember putting 40 euros down, which is what I had left, 40 euros down on the bar, and saying to the barman, do as much damage to me as you can for that money there. This

• 47:37Speaker 2

  is the Pokemon that you evolve into when things are in the world. When you reach

• 47:42Speaker 0

  when you reach the required amount of alcohol, that's the person I think only Gyroido Shiny, yeah, right, which is and this is exactly why I don't drink

• 47:48Speaker 1

  anymore. So I've never seen that side of you. It's a sight to behold. But I really think we should engineer that and then put that on the side. Oh, he's he's

• 47:55Speaker 2

  he's he's bloody tea turtle now after our terrible alcohol podcast, so we've scupped it.

• 48:02Speaker 0

  So four euros down, and that's kind of the last thing that I remember clearly. I remember going to an after-party with the barman and a bunch of his friends, and then the next thing that I remembered was waking up on the central reservation of Tenerife's largest motorway. Really? At about the sun's in the sky, and it's pretty warm, and I'd lost my phone, and I didn't have any money, and because I'd been looked after by the film crew for the entire time I was there, I didn't know where I was staying, and I didn't know where I was.

• 48:38Speaker 2

  There's not many worse places to wake up than the central reservations roundabouts. So I'm guessing she wasn't at the after party, you just based on the city. She

• 48:47Speaker 1

  also wasn't on the central reservation, nope. So otherwise it's quite romantic. Uh yeah.

• 48:52Speaker 2

  And we ended up

• 48:52Speaker 1

  on the

• 48:53Speaker 0

  central reservation together. Uh no, yeah, I was on the central reservation of Tenerife's largest motorway, and you know, in Spain, they've got those signs that come up and go over the top of the motorways, and it's got the time and then the temperature. Neither of them were good. It was like 7 30am. 25 degrees. My head's absolutely ringing. I've got no idea. So I've lost my phone. Remembering this is the first day of Freshers Week, which means my phone number was on every flyer we'd given out and every Facebook event. So I'm just getting pounded with guestless texts. No way I can tell my business partner that he needs to change the number that's on the Facebook event. Oh, god. No way I can contact the film crew. So I'm walking down the central reservation, this dishevelled-looking British tourist covered in that red dust you get from like Spanish islands, like all down the back of a white shirt, massive afro, just looking fucked.

• 49:46Speaker 0

  Like I God knows what anyone must have thought that were walking down, tried to hail a taxi, didn't have any money. So I had to tail hail a taxi in a language I didn't speak, then convinced them that despite looking like someone who's homeless with no money. That I could give them money, but then realised that the only money I had in the hotel was pounds. So I'm like, would you be able to drive me essentially for free to this hotel for me to give you some money in a currency you don't use? Unsurprisingly it was difficult. So no, a man in an underground car park gave me a coffee and felt bad for me. I kind of

• 50:21Speaker 2

  TV be able to I suppose like if you say that take me to the the studio or something. But I just needed to convince What's the man with the iPhone? I needed to convince it. I needed to convince this

• 50:30Speaker 0

  Spanish taxi driver of anything. Even just something. A man in an

• 50:34Speaker 1

  underground car park. Man and an underground car

• 50:36Speaker 0

  parking.

• 50:37Speaker 1

  That's where I found myself.

• 50:38Speaker 0

  Fourself in an underground car park. This man gave me a coffee. Kinda helped. Latte. Yeah, I think so. Flat white. It was a latte,

• 50:45Speaker 1

  caramel latte. No, no. It's one of those ones that comes.

• 50:51Speaker 0

  But Beggus found the choosers, yeah. Literally looked like one as well. So my head's absolutely killing me at this point. And I knew because of the tight production schedule, I knew that my flight was at 10 30. So I was like, right, I have now two and a half hours to get from wherever I am to wherever the fuck I'm supposed to be, and then to the airport. No idea. So anyway, walking down the side of the motorway again, because I'm just on this motorway. And the Guardia Seville pull-up, which is like the military Spanish police. So the Guardia Seville pull up, like,

• 51:22Speaker 2

  hola,

• 51:22Speaker 3

  my friend,

• 51:23Speaker 0

  you okay? And I'm like, oh mate. You know, Patty McGuinness.

• 51:27Speaker 2

  Really fucked me over. And uh they they've been on this terrible date with your boring girl, honestly.

• 51:34Speaker 0

  And they took me back to the hotel. And they were like the armed police did. Basically, the Guardia Seville took me, well, they were the taxi people home. So the army took you home. Took me home from my date and take me out. The army took me home from my date on Take Me Out, yeah.

• 51:50Speaker 2

  How did she know about that? Well, how did she know enough? So I

• 51:53Speaker 0

  told everyone the story as soon as I got back to the hotel. And then you

• 51:56Speaker 2

  including

• 51:56Speaker 0

  her. You fly back as a group of couples. Uh so you all fly back together. So what they'd thought was when they when the film crew got back to the hotel, where's Chris? Chris isn't in his room, brilliant, must be with his bird, wasn't with his bird, fuck where's Chris? He must be with the army. He must be with the army, yeah, exactly. That's where you were. He must be on the central reservation of Ten Reef's Largest Motorway. It's alright, the army again. This happens all the time. So they came and collected me, took me back to the dropping up at the hotel, and I was just like, looked at the looked at my watch, I was like, it's like nine o'clock or something. Don't know what I'm supposed to do.

• 52:42Speaker 0

  I was fucked, so just head in the pillow. Ten minutes later, big bang on the door, and I opened it, and someone little runner was in front of me, and shh, we've got him, he's here, he's here. Obviously, he'd been running around trying to find me, and it just thought as a last ditch attempt. Well, just knock on the door and see if he's there. Got me, bundle all my stuff into the taxi, had to run, like the worst hangover ever. You know, when you've had like two hours' sleep and you were blind drunk, everything hurts, everything's terrible, you're just tired and ratty. Managed to make it onto the plane just about. So that was 10am, 9 30, 10am. Four hour plane back to the UK. This is 2012, which is when the London Olympics run.

• 53:30Speaker 0

  The uh the taxi from the airport to King's Cross was three and a half hours. Then the train from King's Cross to Newcastle, it's three and a half hours. I got my suitcase out of the train, put it into a taxi, got a taxi down to the quayside to Riverside, pulled it out of the taxi, put it into the booth of my business partner's car, closed the boot, and then stood outside and worked, and that was the beginning of Freshers Week. So that was like a 21 hour day with the worst hangover that I've ever, ever, ever had. And one of the good things about that experience is that I now feel broadly indestructible.

• 54:11Speaker 2

  It was like hangover, sunstroke, sleep deprivation, and long flight.

• 54:16Speaker 1

  It's way it's waking up without money, phone, knowing where you are, knowing where you're staying. In a

• 54:20Speaker 2

  central reservation.

• 54:21Speaker 0

  Yeah, there is not like I honestly think like dropping in the middle of the Antarctic now, like sorted,

• 54:26Speaker 1

  laughing. Bear grills it.

• 54:27Speaker 0

  Because compared to that day. Yeah. I mean, it can't be worse than that. It can't be.

• 54:39Speaker 1

  That was extreme temperatures.

• 54:42Speaker 0

  Probably

• 54:42Speaker 1

  the Arctic.

• 54:44Speaker 0

  Might be a bit cooler. The problem

• 54:46Speaker 2

  with that story is that because the the temperature on paper was so tame, yeah. It sounds like we're just being a bunch of absolute pussies. Well,

• 54:53Speaker 1

  so the lesson is pay attention to the feels like temperature,

• 54:56Speaker 0

  not

• 54:56Speaker 2

  the

• 54:56Speaker 1

  temperature.

• 54:57Speaker 0

  If you were ever going out in Iceland as a little bit of advice for you, do not do what me and Johnny did, which is be northern lads and just wear a shirt. Just wear shirts, because although the temperature says it's only minus two, the feels like is minus twelve, and minus twelve is really, really fucking cold. Yeah. You thought you had pneumonia, and you got you actually had meningitis. When he

• 55:23Speaker 1

  arrived with meningitis, he brought it into the country cheating.

• 55:26Speaker 0

  Yeah.

• 55:26Speaker 1

  So styling the taxi queue with him. You know, you know when you it's the end of the night out and you stood in a taxi queue and the taxi queue just you just think this is gonna last for eternity. Like there's so many people in front of me. The rate that taxis are coming, I'm gonna die here. Like one person trying to

• 55:43Speaker 2

  jump yeah, but still freezing to the bone. One person trying to jump the queue, and everyone absolutely launched on them and it's like. I was

• 55:50Speaker 1

  ready to just body check that person.

• 55:53Speaker 0

  You are not pushing in this cube. This man this man in a wheelchair was just ready to body.

• 55:59Speaker 2

  The only other thing, advice if you're in Iceland, is just make sure you've brought nine and a half thousand pounds with you. So you'd be

• 56:07Speaker 1

  able to buy one thing. You'd be

• 56:08Speaker 2

  able to buy one thing, yeah. It's expensive. Every item is it you know, when you go to a paund shop and you're like, excuse me, sir, how much is this? And they're like, um, that's a pound. And you're like, oh, what about this? And they're that's a pound, you know. What if I got this and this? Yeah, look, sir. So it's like that, but with nine and a half thousand. That's all linked from

• 56:24Speaker 1

  an Alan Partridge sketch that we came up with that. Yeah. Oh yeah.

• 56:27Speaker 2

  So have you got any questions

• 56:28Speaker 1

  about taking me up? That was a massive detail. Um what I wanted to ask you was how you went through the selection, but you covered that. Selection process.

• 56:38Speaker 0

  I am if enough people keep on telling me to do a video of how to get on reality TV, I'm going to do it. You'll cover it. Yeah. Uh sorry, I meant selection on the like how to pick the girl. How you went just terribly. Just like you can't do it. Like yeah, you just randomly,

• 56:55Speaker 2

  you look, you try and remember what they've said. Um I suppose he's not the man to ask because he ended up with uh a bad selection that speaks to you. You do not want to take my advice and

• 57:05Speaker 1

  successes necessarily.

• 57:06Speaker 2

  Um has anybody got a blackout as soon as they arrive? No. In the history of the show. Is that because they're instructed to say like, but then how how do you enforce that? I guess I have to do it.

• 57:16Speaker 0

  No, girls do it again. Well, I think that most of the girls know it's uh the cost benefit of them every single one of them turning off when someone goes out, like what you what's costing you to keep your light on, especially at the start.

• 57:31Speaker 2

  Well, because you said that um if they turn it off.

• 57:33Speaker 0

  Yeah, but usually they'll they'll at least play the game, they'll allow it to go through for a little bit. But I mean, the the main thing that everyone should take away from this is nothing to do with the show, it's the sheer power of whoever is in charge of operations and logistics for ITV because that person really needs to be working at Tesla or SpaceX. Because they have the most difficult job in all of television.

• 57:58Speaker 2

  They've just got a really big gant chart or like a Trello board or something. Unbelievable, yeah.

• 58:02Speaker 0

  Could you imagine how optimised it? It's gonna be like minority report.

• 58:05Speaker 2

  Oh, about they've got six screens and yeah, yeah. Laptops up on a rise.

• 58:10Speaker 1

  Anytime you see something, you see the polished result of something, like the processes behind it. Like even a magazine. So the thing is the

• 58:18Speaker 0

  thing is with that, like looking at Take Me Out, it looks polished, but it could look polished without having to have this incredibly difficult and nuanced sell. The

• 58:29Speaker 2

  fact is that they are able to create 14 weeks of programming in

• 58:33Speaker 0

  16 days. Yeah, that's

• 58:34Speaker 2

  impressive.

• 58:35Speaker 0

  Incredible for like

• 58:36Speaker 1

  flying people out

• 58:37Speaker 0

  to a different thing. Yeah, you're passing on people's years in like eight

• 58:42Speaker 1

  across the unbelievable. And they're probably that that person's probably sat there thinking, like, this is a really tight schedule. It'll it'll work as long as no one goes and gets like stuck on a central reservation somewhere and tries to fuck up the timing. So but it all worked anyway. It did all work and I survived.

• 58:59Speaker 2

  And you still had sex with the girl who you who black out blacked out you blacked you out. Turned the light off. Turned the light off. Turned the light off. Turned me off. Because I blackout everyone, so

• 59:09Speaker 0

  yeah. Yeah, so that was um redemption. So would you do it again?

• 59:14Speaker 1

  Take me out, or would you do something similar again?

• 59:19Speaker 2

  I imagine but you weren't doing it to find a date though, from the sound. Not

• 59:23Speaker 1

  not at that, it was just YOLO. Actually, that's a question for you. So Love Island and Take Me Out both have this outcome associated with it, or like uh they're both like trying to couple you up for someone. Was that what you actually wanted out of any of this? So that's just that what anyone wants out of it. Strategist, isn't he though?

• 59:44Speaker 0

  Some people, some

• 59:45Speaker 1

  people do,

• 59:45Speaker 0

  but

• 59:45Speaker 1

  some people just want the exposure. Because people on the most recent uh series of of Love Island where people were like, I've come on here to find love. I

• 59:54Speaker 3

  just think

• 59:55Speaker 1

  bollocks. Bullshit. Like no, no, it's much easier to find love. Like at the local pub, you couldn't.

• 1:00:07Speaker 0

  That I think will highlight exactly how little Love Island is actually searching for love or how little the people in Love Island are searching for love. They're not looking for love on Love Island. They're definitely not looking for it on Take Me Out. The amount of failed dates that occur on Take Me Out, I think is a good identifier of the fact that we are a lot more incompatible than we think. You think if take a random girl of the right age who broadly looks attractive and take a random guy that she has verified is attractive by not turning a light off and he's verified is attractive by not turning hers off, and you think, well, how hard can it be? Look at the outcomes, watch the dates on Take Me Out.

• 1:00:53Speaker 0

  I would argue if you did an analysis, and if anyone would like to, please do so. More than 50% of the dates on Take Me Out will be disasters. Like it'll finish up with one of them saying that they're

• 1:01:06Speaker 1

  not interested in the other one. I suppose the only commonality with the people on Take Me Out is that they at least don't mind the idea of being on TV. But then there's a

• 1:01:17Speaker 0

  lot of them. Another good thing about Take Me Out is because it's quite highly produced, it is, and it's so intense. It's a really good on-ramp for being on TV. So how does not fire, isn't it? Had I not been on Take Me Out, my capacity on Love Island would have been severely reduced. With

• 1:01:35Speaker 2

  the very like fear-provoking entrance into the show as well.

• 1:01:39Speaker 0

  The main thing that's weird about being on TV is that you need to put during interviews with the camera, either down the pipe or to an interviewer, you need to put the question in your answer, and that's such an alien thing to do. So someone will say to you, so Chris, tell us what you think about your date. Go, so my date today was blah blah blah blah blah blah. After we went it was. Yes. So you have to put that in, and that just feels so fucking alien. Why is that? Because they don't want the interviewer's voice to come in. They need to just have you speaking. So you need to frame the question within your answer. So they want to prop they want to stage and prompt the content without someone going, so Chris,

• 1:02:16Speaker 1

  tell me.

• 1:02:17Speaker 0

  Yeah. So Chris.

• 1:02:18Speaker 1

  Yeah.

• 1:02:19Speaker 0

  And they wouldn't have it written or whatever it might be. So yeah, that's that's part of it. But yeah, there's um there's a show that's going to be coming on within the next year or so, which will highlight, I think, a big difference or a big issue with existing dating shows. Like Love Island is not people looking for love. It's like at the very best, it's next year's relationship island. Like who the fuck? Like, I don't think there's well, I know for a fact, no one off season one's still together. There's one or two couples off season two that are still together, one or two couples off season three that are still together, and season four is like dropping like flies. Right. So the it's not people that are looking for love. It's people that are looking for a relationship that can be a springboard for their

• 1:03:04Speaker 1

  want they want the generation. Everyone just wants fucking traffic.

• 1:03:07Speaker 0

  Yeah. By the way, uh propandfitness.com for all of your training and transformation needs. Traffic.

• 1:03:12Speaker 1

  I had very similar experiences when I was on pointless. It was almost exactly the same. But it was

• 1:03:18Speaker 0

  nearly as pointless as the yeah. We're gonna have

• 1:03:21Speaker 2

  to do what it's like to be on the

• 1:03:23Speaker 0

  pointless. I forget that you've

• 1:03:24Speaker 2

  you've both

• 1:03:25Speaker 0

  been on TV. We need to get you on TV. Fine. If anyone would like to feature Yusuf on a TV programme,

• 1:03:32Speaker 2

  as long as it's not a documentary about Arabs or something like that. You know

• 1:03:36Speaker 1

  what I think would be most fun, the three of us being on TV together. Fine. But we kind of are.

• 1:03:42Speaker 0

  We've got the remotely on camera TV. Video Guideen has brought more cameras in this room than there was in the entirety of Take Me Out. Thank you very much for watching. If you've got any more questions about Take Me Out, uh, there will be a new season coming on soon. This is not in association as you may have guessed, this is not in association with ITV or Take Me Out. Don't think I've got very many friends left there now. Um but if you want to find out about the application process, I've actually had emails from people asking me to guide them through the application process to Love Island, thinking about just doing a coaching course or Chris.coach. Fine.

• 1:04:14Speaker 2

  Bet that's taken. Bet. Just because you've got a problem with dot co and dot biz and those kind of things.

• 1:04:22Speaker 0

  You you you seem to think that people want to write in like Tim dot blog.

• 1:04:28Speaker 1

  It's because no one, who types the URL in? Nobody. Okay.

• 1:04:32Speaker 0

  So

• 1:04:33Speaker 1

  why is your URL not

• 1:04:34Speaker 0

  miles longer than it already is?

• 1:04:36Speaker 1

  What do you mean?

• 1:04:37Speaker 0

  Just like propane fitness, fitness, fitness, properly.

• 1:04:42Speaker 2

  We have propane dot fitness. We've got all of them, Chris. Propane dot fitness reading. Have

• 1:04:47Speaker 0

  you got P dot ropain fitness? Probably. You'll be in negotiations with some guys. Someone who in Yemen is going to be a good idea. You emailed you like hi,

• 1:04:57Speaker 1

  we want to buy propanepodcast.com. And the guy replied saying, if it's a six-figure offer, I'll I'll entertain it. Oh yeah.

• 1:05:05Speaker 3

  Fuck you.

• 1:05:06Speaker 1

  Who are you? Who who are you expecting is going to set up propane podcast?

• 1:05:10Speaker 0

  Yeah. Yeah, like

• 1:05:12Speaker 2

  the only other person that could possibly do that, someone's like reselling fuel for barbecues. It's propane. Yeah,

• 1:05:20Speaker 0

  it's

• 1:05:20Speaker 2

  it's

• 1:05:20Speaker 1

  a very

• 1:05:20Speaker 0

  good thing. People run their barbecues on it. That's about it. Butane podcast.com. Anyway, okay bye then. Thank you for watching. Bye bye.

• 1:05:34Speaker 3

  Yeah. Oh well! Yeah! Oh good.