Bella Ramsey

Actor, Emmy-nominee, ‘The Last of Us’ star and future ‘Celebrity Traitors’ contestant Bella Ramsey is this week’s Off Menu guest. And people who write those quirky things on food packaging; you have a fan. Bella Ramsey stars in ‘Sunny Dancer’ which is released in cinemas on Friday 14 August. Watch the video version of this episode on the Off Menu YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@offmenupodcast. Off Menu is now on YouTube: @offmenupodcast https://www.youtube.com/@offmenupodcast Follow Off Menu on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/offmenuofficial and TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@offmenuofficial: @offmenuofficial. And go to our website www.offmenupodcast.co.uk https://www.offmenupodcast.co.uk/ for a list of restaurants recommended on the show. Ed Gamble is on tour in 2027 with ‘Fresh Hell’. For dates and tickets go to edgamble.co.uk https://edgamble.co.uk/ Off Menu is a comedy podcast hosted by Ed Gamble and James Acaster. Produced, recorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive https://www.plosive.co.uk/. Video production by Ben Williams and Megan McCarthy for Plosive https://www.plosive.co.uk/. Artwork by Paul Gilbey https://www.instagram.com/pushgilbey/ (photography and design). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hello, it's Ed here from the Off Menu podcast that you are listening to right now. You'll know that I'm doing a brand new stand-up comedy show on tour next year, fresh hell. And we are delighted to announce that we are doing two more shows at the London Palladium, Friday the 19th of March, Saturday the 20th of March. You've got to come to these shows, they're going to be great. They're on sale now, edgamble.co.uk for ticket details.

• 0:26Speaker 01

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.

• 0:32Speaker 00

  Love the crown molding.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fibre internet.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  No FiOS? Yeah, no thank you.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye.

• 0:51Speaker 02

  Get Verizon FiOS, because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.

• 1:11Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Off Menu podcast, taking the peanuts of conversation, adding the caramel of friendship, drizzling on top of the nougat of humour and dipping it in the chocolate of the internet. What you got there, James?

• 1:26James Acaster?

  The stickers of a podcast?

• 1:27Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:28James Acaster?

  That's Ed Gamble, my name is James Acaster. Together we own a dream restaurant and every single week, we invite a guest, ask them a favour ever, start a main course, dessert, side dish and drink, not in that order. And this week, our guest is Bella Ramsey.

• 1:40Speaker 00

  Bella Ramsey is wonderful, James, they're a fantastic acting talent.

• 1:44James Acaster?

  So good, The Last of Us.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:46James Acaster?

  Game of Thrones.

• 1:47Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:48James Acaster?

  And Sunny Dancer.

• 1:50Speaker 00

  Sunny Dancer, brand new film starring Bella Ramsey and friend of the pod, James Norton.

• 1:56James Acaster?

  James Norton, friend of the pod, Neil Patrick Harris, future friend of the pod, maybe, I don't know.

• 2:00Speaker 00

  Jessica Gunning, future friend of the pod. Everyone who's not a current friend of the pod is a future friend of the pod.

• 2:05James Acaster?

  We'll get you.

• 2:06Speaker 00

  We'll get you one day.

• 2:07James Acaster?

  August 14th is in cinemas.

• 2:08Speaker 00

  Yes, that's this Friday, if you're listening to this episode when it comes out.

• 2:11James Acaster?

  Wonderful film that we will talk to Bella about.

• 2:14Speaker 00

  Indeed.

• 2:14James Acaster?

  So we won't do any, we won't waffle on about it.

• 2:17Speaker 00

  You've of course recently worked with Bella as well, but that might not come up because it's a secret.

• 2:21James Acaster?

  Well, it's not a secret, but it's in the public, people know.

• 2:25Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:26James Acaster?

  We have been in the castle together.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:28James Acaster?

  But yes, everything that happened in there is currently a secret.

• 2:31Speaker 00

  Currently a secret, thank you very much.

• 2:33James Acaster?

  I'll be in big trouble.

• 2:34Speaker 00

  Strung up.

• 2:35James Acaster?

  And worse. You don't know the things they threaten you with, Ed, when you come out of there.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  Oh man. Well, when you come out of there, the first thing you get threatened with is talking to me.

• 2:45James Acaster?

  Yeah, you've got to go and talk to Ed Gamble.

• 2:46Speaker 00

  Which is worse than being strung up.

• 2:47James Acaster?

  I'm like, are you kidding me?

• 2:49Speaker 00

  That guy.

• 2:50James Acaster?

  That guy, with his riddles at the top about, because he still does it on the Traitors podcast. He goes, welcome to the Traitors podcast, taking the nougat of conversation, what the hell? Not trusting the peanuts of the castle.

• 3:06Speaker 00

  But.

• 3:06James Acaster?

  But Bella says a secret ingredient, which we have deemed to be unacceptable, we will kick them out of the dream restaurant. And this week, the secret ingredient is Bella's pudding.

• 3:17Speaker 00

  Bella's pudding. And that might scratch the brains of some of you who've listened to many episodes of this, Bella's pudding was on Richard Herring's dream menu.

• 3:25James Acaster?

  Yes.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  It was a pudding he had once that he can't remember what it was, he can't find it, he can't find the recipe for it.

• 3:29James Acaster?

  A family friend called Bella made it. So he just knows it as Bella's pudding.

• 3:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:33James Acaster?

  Very unlikely that Bella Ramsey will choose Bella's pudding.

• 3:38James Acaster?

  One, because of their name, but also because like, probably they don't know Richard Herring's family friends.

• 3:45Speaker 00

  Unless Bella was Bella.

• 3:47James Acaster?

  That would be amazing.

• 3:49Speaker 00

  That would be huge for us and huge for Richard Herring to find out.

• 3:52James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 3:53Speaker 00

  I don't think the years and ages necessarily match up, so it feels unlikely. And I will say Bella will select a dessert as part of their menu, but that is not Bella's pudding.

• 4:05James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 4:06Speaker 00

  Bella's pudding is a specific dish, we're not saying that if Bella picks pudding, they get kicked out.

• 4:10James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah, we're not saying that.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  No.

• 4:12James Acaster?

  So don't go like complaining to Benito, although you know, you can if you want to.

• 4:15Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, you get a sign chopping board if you complain.

• 4:17James Acaster?

  Yeah, let's do this.

• 4:19Speaker 00

  This is the off-menu menu of Bella Ramsey.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  Welcome Bella to the dream restaurant.

• 4:32Speaker 04

  Thanks.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  Welcome Bella Ramsey to the dream restaurant, we've been expecting you for some time, the horns. Yeah, we're throwing up the horns.

• 4:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:40Speaker 04

  These are good horns?

• 4:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. They're the devil's horns. Yeah, yeah.

• 4:44Speaker 04

  I think it's rock and roll, or is that the same thing?

• 4:46Speaker 00

  That's where it comes from.

• 4:48Speaker 04

  Right, right, right, got it, glad we're learning this.

• 4:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:50James Acaster?

  I was raised a little Christian boy.

• 4:53Speaker 04

  Me too.

• 4:53James Acaster?

  Yeah, okay, great. So like, I've got a younger brother and we're both into like metal and rocking stuff in school. And probably when I was 14, he was 12, he threw the horns across the thing and then I went up to him and merely just like said, away from everyone else, you should know, that's the devil.

• 5:13Speaker 00

  You should know.

• 5:14Speaker 04

  And you looked at him like that, that was quite intense.

• 5:17James Acaster?

  I know we both like the music, but we need to keep away from it.

• 5:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:21James Acaster?

  So don't throw those up, because you don't know what you're getting involved in.

• 5:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's probably good that you warned him, to be honest.

• 5:27James Acaster?

  Yeah, and you just had that experience.

• 5:29Speaker 04

  I know, yeah.

• 5:29James Acaster?

  You didn't know that you'd.

• 5:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:30Speaker 04

  No, no, no.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  You've welcomed the devil into this podcast now.

• 5:32Speaker 04

  Oh dear.

• 5:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, but that's cool, I'm cool with that, I love the devil.

• 5:35Speaker 04

  You do?

• 5:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:36Speaker 04

  Okay, cool.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  He's sick.

• 5:38Speaker 04

  Like this.

• 5:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, me, I'm like that and I'm like that.

• 5:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:42Speaker 00

  Me and the devil, that's what I do at gigs.

• 5:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, there you go.

• 5:45Speaker 00

  Throw it up like that.

• 5:46James Acaster?

  See Ed's t-shirt, System of a Down.

• 5:48Speaker 04

  I was looking at this, I was thinking, sorry, I don't know what this is.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  System of a Down, really cool band, really cool hip happening band, very new.

• 5:56Speaker 04

  Super cool.

• 5:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:57Speaker 04

  The more you say they're cool, the more cool they sound.

• 6:00Speaker 00

  They're cool, they're funky.

• 6:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, we all went to, we all went to see them last week.

• 6:04Speaker 04

  Nice.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  At the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

• 6:06Speaker 04

  Nice.

• 6:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was good. It certainly wasn't a gathering of millennials all just washed away with nostalgia.

• 6:12Speaker 04

  No, no, no, of course not.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  No, it was very new, exciting music.

• 6:15James Acaster?

  And your t-shirt is food and drink based.

• 6:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 6:18James Acaster?

  On the Off Menu podcast and here you are with a Lipton Ice Tea t-shirt.

• 6:21Speaker 04

  Semi unintentional, but I do like this t-shirt a lot, it's been through a lot, it's had a lot of food and drink down it that I've managed to get out by like bleaching it in the sun.

• 6:29Speaker 00

  Congratulations.

• 6:30Speaker 04

  Over and over again, it's looking actually, it's looking quite clean right now.

• 6:34Speaker 00

  That's pretty cool, are you a fan of Ice Tea?

• 6:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, not like a hardcore consistent fan, that's not why I got the t-shirt, I sort of liked the t-shirt.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:42Speaker 04

  But I would drink an iced tea, yeah.

• 6:44James Acaster?

  Have you ever met Ice Tea, the rapper?

• 6:47Speaker 04

  No.

• 6:47James Acaster?

  And actor?

• 6:48Speaker 04

  No, I've yet to do so. Have you?

• 6:51James Acaster?

  No, but every time people bring up Ice Tea on the podcast, we ask them if they've met Ice Tea, has to be asked. And you're actually, I think, the first one who is associated with Ice Tea through your t-shirt, but has not met him. Everyone else, weirdly, has always met him.

• 7:04Speaker 00

  To be fair, Bella didn't bring up Ice Tea.

• 7:07James Acaster?

  Didn't bring it up?

• 7:07Speaker 00

  Or put Ice Tea on their menu, so I feel like, I feel like that's why it hasn't paid off this time.

• 7:13James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's not your fault, Bella.

• 7:15Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 7:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. If I have anything that I get food stains on.

• 7:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:19Speaker 00

  Even if I get the food stain out, I think about the food stain when I'm wearing it, even when it's clean, and it sort of ruins it for me.

• 7:25Speaker 04

  Oh really?

• 7:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:26Speaker 04

  So you've just got these t-shirts on just with the ghosts of food stains?

• 7:29Speaker 00

  Exactly, it's the ghosts of the food stains, I'm like, I feel dirty even though it's clean.

• 7:33Speaker 04

  Really?

• 7:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:34Speaker 04

  The Ghosts of the Food Stains is a great like band name or something.

• 7:36James Acaster?

  That is good, throw the horns up for that.

• 7:38Speaker 04

  Ghosts of the Food Stains, I feel dirty, I feel dirty even when it's clean.

• 7:43Speaker 04

  It's all working out.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  I don't know what that says about me, but it definitely, it permanently stains it for me spiritually, you know?

• 7:50James Acaster?

  Yeah, he's quite spiritual.

• 7:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, but only when it comes to like curry stains and stuff, that's my only spirituality, yeah.

• 7:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, nice.

• 7:57James Acaster?

  What about Sunny D?

• 7:58Speaker 04

  Sunny D, the orange juice?

• 8:00James Acaster?

  No, Sunny Dancer, the film.

• 8:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, really good.

• 8:03James Acaster?

  Bella has coming out, oh yeah, see, that's quite good, that bait and switch I did this thing.

• 8:08Speaker 04

  That was good.

• 8:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, is it about Sunny D, the drink?

• 8:11Speaker 04

  No.

• 8:11Speaker 00

  Any references?

• 8:12Speaker 04

  No, but I did get everyone.

• 8:14James Acaster?

  You know what it's about, a big chunk.

• 8:19Speaker 04

  I did get everyone Sunny D stickers at the end.

• 8:21James Acaster?

  Did you?

• 8:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, because yeah, I did do that, but it's not about Sunny D at all, I don't think there's any orange juice in it.

• 8:28James Acaster?

  No.

• 8:29Speaker 04

  Sunny D is orange juice, I'd just like to double check.

• 8:31Speaker 00

  I think it was purporting to be an orange-based juice, but the media would have you believe it was pure sugar.

• 8:37James Acaster?

  Yeah, it was like if orange juice got bitten by a radioactive spider.

• 8:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:41Speaker 04

  That happens.

• 8:42James Acaster?

  Kind of thing.

• 8:43Speaker 04

  Frequently, I think, for things.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  I wasn't allowed it when I was a kid.

• 8:48Speaker 04

  Oh, really?

• 8:48Speaker 00

  Because it was so like, it was really in the tabloids, it was like, don't give your kids Sunny Delight.

• 8:53Speaker 04

  Gosh.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  Because they're going to lose their minds. And my friend had it once and I smelt it and it smelt like piss.

• 8:59Speaker 04

  Really?

• 9:00James Acaster?

  It smelled like piss.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  It did smell like piss.

• 9:02James Acaster?

  Hmm, I don't know if it smelled like piss. We were allowed one every couple of months and when it was gone, it was gone.

• 9:08Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 9:09James Acaster?

  But it was great, it tasted so exciting.

• 9:11Speaker 04

  That's lovely, Sunny Dancer doesn't smell like piss, I think.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  No.

• 9:15James Acaster?

  No, Sunny Dancer, I saw the trailer for it in the cinema the other day.

• 9:18Speaker 04

  Oh yeah, it's cool.

• 9:19James Acaster?

  Very excited to see it, so many brilliant actors in it.

• 9:22Speaker 00

  Great cast.

• 9:23James Acaster?

  Bella Ramsey in the lead.

• 9:25Speaker 04

  Oh yeah, it was fun, we filmed it up in Glasgow where they do square sausages and potato scones, and I'd normally say scone, but in this instance, it has to be potato scone if you're from Glasgow. But no, it was very fun, it's at a summer camp, it's a comedy about kids with cancer.

• 9:43James Acaster?

  Yes.

• 9:44Speaker 04

  It feels like a juxtaposition, but it somehow works.

• 9:47James Acaster?

  And these summer camps exist, right?

• 9:48Speaker 04

  They do.

• 9:49James Acaster?

  People, young people diagnosed with cancer can go to this summer camp, all hang out together.

• 9:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, and just kind of be normal and it not be like a weird thing that people are being weird about, just being like, well, we all have this thing in common and we don't really have to talk about it, but also if we did talk about it, they wouldn't, you'd just get it, you know, which is nice. Yeah, the editor of the film, actually, she had, called Caitlin, she had cancer when she was younger and went to these summer camps and that was sort of why the idea of the film formed with George, the director, who like worked with her before, so it's pretty cool.

• 10:21James Acaster?

  That's cool for the editor to like have had that experience, because they are the people who then essentially like make the final film at the end.

• 10:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 10:29James Acaster?

  So to have that person's like eyes over it right until the end is pretty great.

• 10:33Speaker 04

  It's really cool, yeah, and we had a camcorder on set every day that was like filming behind the scenes, footage and stuff, and a lot of, some of that is in the film and we'd always do little messages to Caitlin, the editor, on the camcorder footage. Yeah, it was fun.

• 10:47James Acaster?

  We try and put in little messages for Benito into this podcast when he's editing it.

• 10:51Speaker 04

  Nice.

• 10:52James Acaster?

  He doesn't care.

• 10:52Speaker 04

  Really?

• 10:53James Acaster?

  He made it stone, like the guy doesn't fucking give a shit.

• 10:57Speaker 04

  Oh, Benito.

• 10:59James Acaster?

  Really hard.

• 11:01Speaker 00

  James really wants to be friends with Benito, but Benito is not interested.

• 11:04Speaker 04

  That's what happens.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  We went to this gig the other night, James turned up late. He was sat at the other end of the row to Benito. I don't think they exchanged one word.

• 11:12James Acaster?

  I kind of nodded to him on the way past on the row. At one point, they played a song that he liked and he was, he was singing along to that. But it wasn't like at me or anything. I wasn't involved in it.

• 11:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was sung a lot of songs at you. How did you feel about that?

• 11:25James Acaster?

  Yeah, that's fine. I kind of expected that. But like, I just kept my eyes on the stage and just thought it was a way that you were singing at me.

• 11:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. Did you and the cast get on better than I get on with Benito? Did you all like bond just like at a summer camp?

• 11:38Speaker 04

  I think so, yeah. Sounds like it from your description.

• 11:43Speaker 04

  Yes, we did get on very, very well, actually. We're all quite similar. We like go out to the pub after work for one drink and then all be tired and go to bed, which was exactly my pace, which was good. Yeah, it was good. Yeah, we got along very well.

• 11:56James Acaster?

  Do you have a preference with like when you're like working on something? Is it not, nice and refreshing to do something with a bunch of people who are like closer to your age than like all the old fuckers you have to do stuff with normally?

• 12:09Speaker 04

  Well, usually not like that. I was so intimidated coming into Sign Dancer because I'm not, I usually find people my age harder to relate to just because, well, that was more when I was younger. I think I was always around adults and so like going on set full of adults, I was way more comfortable than going on and doing something with like a bunch of kids the same age. Cause like, yeah. And so, but now I feel like now it's leveling out. Now everyone's getting older and is sort of leveling. It was like, yeah, it was fine. It was good. It was, it was actually refreshing. I spent a lot of time with, with older Canadians, basically, when I was filming the last one in Canada. And so it was nice to have young British people.

• 12:48James Acaster?

  But you did get to hang out with James Norton on this. He's old.

• 12:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  But like he. Younger than you. Huh? Younger than you.

• 12:55James Acaster?

  That doesn't look it.

• 12:56Speaker 04

  If he's younger than me, then you could have played my dad.

• 12:59James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 13:01Speaker 04

  On it. James is playing my dad and was very upset to be like playing a dad to a teenage child.

• 13:05James Acaster?

  Sure.

• 13:05Speaker 04

  So if you're older than him, then you could have been my dad.

• 13:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:08James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 13:09Speaker 00

  Not vibe wise though, I don't think.

• 13:10James Acaster?

  No, I think Norton is probably the right call on that.

• 13:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. I don't think me or James have dad vibes. I think we're cousins.

• 13:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, actually.

• 13:18Speaker 00

  We got cousin vibes, all right?

• 13:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, you definitely have cousin vibes.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a fun cousin who you're like, you look forward to seeing them at Christmas, maybe.

• 13:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 13:26Speaker 00

  But after a couple of days, you're like, that's a bit much.

• 13:28Speaker 04

  I was thinking about how to make fun cousin one word and I realised it just like fuck us.

• 13:32James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't end well. That's not good.

• 13:36Speaker 00

  Or cousin.

• 13:37James Acaster?

  Yeah. James Norton has sent you to your room for that kind of language.

• 13:43James Acaster?

  We'll start with still or sparkling water, Bella Ramsey. You have a preference?

• 13:45Speaker 04

  I'll, I'll take sparkling, please.

• 13:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. You surprised?

• 13:50James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 13:50Speaker 00

  You thought Bella would be still?

• 13:52James Acaster?

  Well, yeah, I mean, Bella and I have only like hung out once and it was in a castle in Inverness and there wasn't much sparkling water.

• 13:59Speaker 04

  There wasn't.

• 13:59James Acaster?

  Now I think about it.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  Was there not?

• 14:02Speaker 04

  There wasn't much water at all.

• 14:03James Acaster?

  No.

• 14:04Speaker 00

  Wowee.

• 14:05James Acaster?

  So, uh.

• 14:05Speaker 00

  I would have thought for the celebs, they would have been, they would have been cracking out the sparkling water, coming out the taps.

• 14:11Speaker 04

  No, no.

• 14:12James Acaster?

  No. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised really because I didn't see you have access to it.

• 14:16Speaker 04

  No, fair. I do, I could go here. I'd, um, when the, when asked normally, I look at the other person if I'm with someone else or with a group, I like go.

• 14:28Speaker 04

  Wait for someone else to like finish it because I really don't mind. But I like, I do like sparkling. I think it helps with, I think it's maybe a method. It helps with digestion, but it seems to help me.

• 14:37Speaker 00

  I think there's so many myths about sparkling water that so many people have heard and they can't like, that it's bad for your teeth.

• 14:42Speaker 04

  I've heard that.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  That it's good for digestion, that, I mean, all, all these things.

• 14:46Speaker 04

  Bad for your teeth? Come on. It's water that's carbonated.

• 14:49Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's, it's probably bad, it's probably bad for your teeth if you keep it in there and like swirl it around and stuff.

• 14:55Speaker 04

  Which I do.

• 14:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, which you do do. Yes.

• 14:56James Acaster?

  You've got to do it. Let's start a new myth about sparkling water right now.

• 15:00Speaker 00

  Good idea.

• 15:01James Acaster?

  We can start one that, see if we can, the listeners can spread it for us.

• 15:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:05James Acaster?

  And people won't know it came from this podcast.

• 15:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay, great.

• 15:08James Acaster?

  It's a new kind of like, it makes you more right wing. Hmm?

• 15:12Speaker 04

  I don't not like, I don't want to be associated with sparkling water.

• 15:15James Acaster?

  You, you have, you have attached your name to it now, so we can't really, we can't say that.

• 15:19Speaker 00

  So you're now, you're now changing your answer to still based on a rumor we've just made up about sparkling water. Yeah, okay.

• 15:26Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  Improves your eyesight?

• 15:30James Acaster?

  That's better. Improves your eyesight. We can start that.

• 15:32Speaker 04

  People think everything improves your eyesight.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  Go on.

• 15:34Speaker 04

  Frickin' carrots, but they probably do.

• 15:36James Acaster?

  Frickin' carrots.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  Frickin' carrots.

• 15:38Speaker 04

  Frickin' carrots. Fully believe that when I was a kid. I like ate carrots and, and then had like, they went upstairs and it was dark and I was like, I can see.

• 15:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  What's, so carrots make you see in the dark. I got that one a lot when I was a kid. What was it? The hairs on your chest? Did you get that one?

• 15:55James Acaster?

  Uh.

• 15:56Speaker 04

  Black coffee.

• 15:57James Acaster?

  I mean, most of.

• 15:58Speaker 00

  Black coffee?

• 15:58James Acaster?

  Most of us.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  Strong black coffee.

• 16:00James Acaster?

  Most of us meant to put hairs on your chest.

• 16:01Speaker 00

  Definitely not that. I drink a lot of that. That'll put hairs in your chest. I got, I got a lot of, but about specific vegetable. Spinach makes you strong like Popeye, of course.

• 16:10Speaker 04

  Oh, of course.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:11Speaker 04

  It does have quite a bit of protein in it.

• 16:13James Acaster?

  Hmm?

• 16:13Speaker 04

  It's just got iron in it. Iron, that's what it has.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, so it's the iron, yeah.

• 16:17Speaker 04

  It's all about the iron.

• 16:18James Acaster?

  Did you get told that if you eat your crusts when you're sandwiches, it makes your hair go curly?

• 16:22Speaker 04

  No.

• 16:23James Acaster?

  That's what I got told.

• 16:24Speaker 00

  That might be the hair and chest thing.

• 16:27Speaker 00

  Were you not, were you not eating your crusts?

• 16:29James Acaster?

  I was, but I still get, you still get told it. People still want to rush in to tell you that stuff. Oh, it was mainly in school when the kids who wouldn't eat their crust would get told it by the dinner ladies.

• 16:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:38James Acaster?

  You know, dinner ladies got nothing bad to do.

• 16:40Speaker 00

  And they've all got curly hair then, maybe.

• 16:42James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah, but it's in hair and that you can't tell.

• 16:44Speaker 04

  That's true.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  We got told that if you put toothpaste on your face, it gets rid of freckles.

• 16:49Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 16:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:50Speaker 04

  That's weird.

• 16:51Speaker 00

  So me and my friend Tom did it. It really hurt. Yeah. Like proper like Aqua Fresh on your face. It's so painful. We left it on overnight.

• 16:59Speaker 04

  That's gonna burn.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was burning all night.

• 17:01Speaker 04

  Did you get rid of freckles?

• 17:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:03Speaker 04

  Did you have freckles that you wanted to get rid of?

• 17:04Speaker 00

  I didn't really, but he's, he's ginger.

• 17:06Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:07Speaker 00

  He was a freckly ginger boy and he was like, I want to get rid of these. Tube of Aqua Fresh all over his face to sleep. Woke up in the morning like, sad.

• 17:16Speaker 04

  I don't know. Did he recover from that ever?

• 17:18Speaker 00

  Oh, no, no, no. I never saw him again.

• 17:19Speaker 04

  No, I bet. Probably still freckly too.

• 17:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. No plaque on his face though, to be fair to the kid. All gone. Yeah.

• 17:26James Acaster?

  Pop lobs or bread? Pop lobs or bread, Bella Ramsey? Pop lobs or bread?

• 17:29Speaker 04

  Bread.

• 17:30James Acaster?

  Nice. Uh, what kind of bread would you?

• 17:32Speaker 00

  Did you see Bella eat any bread in the castle?

• 17:34James Acaster?

  No. All of this is now very suspicious to me.

• 17:38Speaker 04

  I think he did eat some bread.

• 17:38Speaker 00

  You would have thought you'd got some bread. I mean.

• 17:41Speaker 04

  There's a stale loaf in the kitchen.

• 17:42James Acaster?

  Yeah, throw that, they'd throw that on the floor. We'd all scramble for it, fight in the corner.

• 17:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Like mice.

• 17:51James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 17:51Speaker 04

  Do mice eat bread? Yeah, they do now.

• 17:53James Acaster?

  Yeah, big time.

• 17:54Speaker 00

  They do now.

• 17:55Speaker 04

  They do now.

• 17:55Speaker 00

  They didn't used to, of course.

• 17:56Speaker 04

  Do mice eat chocolate? Rather than, if you're trying to, if you're trying to like catch a mouse, you have to put chocolate, not cheese.

• 18:01James Acaster?

  Really?

• 18:01Speaker 04

  I know that I grew up with cats.

• 18:03James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 18:03Speaker 04

  Would bring presents. But I, actually none of that ever worked. You just had to like coax them out and like squeak to them in their language and then.

• 18:11Speaker 00

  And that worked?

• 18:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:12James Acaster?

  Squeak to them in their language?

• 18:13Speaker 04

  Squeak to them in their language. It worked for me.

• 18:15James Acaster?

  You could play a mouse in a film?

• 18:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, I could. I was trying to think if I have ever played a mouse, but I haven't. I've played a chicken.

• 18:20James Acaster?

  I've played a mouse.

• 18:21Speaker 04

  Have you?

• 18:21Speaker 00

  I mean, most of James's anecdotes are clearly leaning towards him playing a mouse in a film. Everything he's asked up until now is tried, he's tried to build it into. He played a mouse in a film.

• 18:31Speaker 04

  What film?

• 18:32James Acaster?

  Cinderella. Twenty twenty one version, Camilla Cabello.

• 18:38Speaker 04

  I'll watch that on my journey home.

• 18:39James Acaster?

  I played John the Mouse.

• 18:41Speaker 00

  John the Mouse.

• 18:42Speaker 04

  Is there like a clipped version of you being John the Mouse that I can see?

• 18:45James Acaster?

  Someone's clipped it up on here, isn't it?

• 18:46Speaker 00

  Someone's probably done a fan cam on TikTok or something.

• 18:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, like the first rap edit.

• 18:50James Acaster?

  Me and Ramesh.

• 18:51Speaker 04

  And Ramesh, oh.

• 18:52James Acaster?

  Me and Ramesh.

• 18:53Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 18:53James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah. So there you go.

• 18:55Speaker 00

  Robbeck was in it as well. He played a pervert.

• 18:57James Acaster?

  Yeah, Robbeck is a pervert in it.

• 18:58Speaker 04

  Classic.

• 18:59James Acaster?

  So three people that you're in that castle with are in that film.

• 19:03Speaker 04

  Well.

• 19:03James Acaster?

  Two of them play mice and one of them plays a pervert.

• 19:06Speaker 04

  I have done something where I'm in a voice with something with Ramesh. Chicken Run. I think he was one of the, maybe, uh. What are the characters in Chicken Run?

• 19:20Speaker 00

  They're chickens mainly, I think.

• 19:21Speaker 04

  He was one of the uncles.

• 19:22Speaker 00

  He's one of the uncles? He's a chicken or a bloke?

• 19:26Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no. An animal.

• 19:27Speaker 00

  An animal.

• 19:28Speaker 04

  A rat? He's a rat?

• 19:29James Acaster?

  He was a rat.

• 19:30Speaker 04

  So he's played mice and, mice and rats is Ramesh's speciality.

• 19:33Speaker 00

  What a CV that is. That's incredible. If you need a rodent, you get Ramesh.

• 19:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:38James Acaster?

  A list of absolute rodents.

• 19:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:40James Acaster?

  Ramesh Ratanathan.

• 19:42Speaker 00

  Ramesh Ratanathan.

• 19:43James Acaster?

  Huh?

• 19:43Speaker 00

  Ratanathan, yes. Ramesh Ratanathan, then that's the end of the record.

• 19:47James Acaster?

  Ramesh Ratanathan. We did it, everyone. The best pieces of podcasts in podcast history. Um, what kind of bread would you like?

• 19:54Speaker 04

  I'd like, oh, oh, I'd like either sourdough or focaccia. Oh, focaccia's good.

• 19:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:59Speaker 04

  With like little bits of actual tomato in it and like fresh basil with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

• 20:05James Acaster?

  I think it is better and I really miss that era, like which, I mean, this might even be before your time, Bella, but there was a big focaccia boom when we were, when we were kids.

• 20:15Speaker 04

  I think I was, I think I was alive for that.

• 20:17James Acaster?

  Were you?

• 20:17Speaker 04

  Yeah. I made my own focaccia once.

• 20:19Speaker 00

  You might have caught the tail end of the focaccia boom.

• 20:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:21Speaker 00

  But you weren't in the thick of the focaccia boom, Bella. No way.

• 20:24Speaker 04

  I can't possibly understand.

• 20:25Speaker 00

  No, you weren't, you weren't there.

• 20:27James Acaster?

  This is like turn of the century.

• 20:29Speaker 04

  But I wasn't born, yeah.

• 20:30James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah. It was, it was really exciting.

• 20:33Speaker 04

  Really?

• 20:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:34James Acaster?

  John Kearns came on the podcast once, comedian John Kearns, and talked about the focaccia you used to get from Sainsbury's.

• 20:40Speaker 00

  In the foil tray.

• 20:41James Acaster?

  Yeah, around that. And it was, it was next level stuff. It was so good and kind of doesn't exist anymore.

• 20:46Speaker 04

  No, I was gonna say, I don't.

• 20:48Speaker 00

  It was probably the sort of focaccia that an Italian would get really angry about.

• 20:51Speaker 04

  Okay, it's the best kind.

• 20:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. So not like, you know how like good focaccia is, like super airy and light and.

• 20:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:58Speaker 00

  But this was probably had far too much oil soaked into it, but I've made it so much better.

• 21:02Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. The, the foil tray, like tear and share focaccia boom, it's probably the.

• 21:07Speaker 04

  Should bring that back.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:08Speaker 04

  Get rid of, it doesn't matter about sparkling water rumors. We need to get back like focaccia.

• 21:13James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 21:13Speaker 04

  Focaccia, focaccia.

• 21:15Speaker 00

  Focaccia.

• 21:16James Acaster?

  Oh, I've never known.

• 21:17Speaker 00

  You've got to do the hand, otherwise it doesn't work. Yeah.

• 21:19Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 21:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:20Speaker 04

  Fill that with a lot of things.

• 21:21James Acaster?

  Yeah. You know what I don't like?

• 21:22Speaker 00

  Go on.

• 21:22James Acaster?

  When people go, when they do that and then say chef's kiss after. Fucking annoys me. They go, it was chef's kiss. No, fuck off. Either do the thing or say the thing.

• 21:33Speaker 04

  That's a really good point, James.

• 21:34James Acaster?

  Don't, don't do it and then say the thing afterwards. Also, it really annoys me. A lot of people do it.

• 21:39Speaker 00

  If I see a chef. Doing this in the kitchen.

• 21:42James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  I'm not fucking eating that food.

• 21:43Speaker 04

  No, of course not.

• 21:43Speaker 00

  Get your hands out your mouth before you touch my bread.

• 21:46James Acaster?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 21:47Speaker 04

  My focaccia.

• 21:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, my focaccia.

• 21:49James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 21:50Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 21:51James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 21:52Speaker 00

  I think I've said this on the pod before, but I am slightly put off by focaccia. Now I've seen loads of videos of people making it because they finger it so much.

• 21:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's a lot of fingering going into it.

• 21:59Speaker 00

  Not.

• 21:59Speaker 04

  I I made focaccia and did that very thing.

• 22:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:02Speaker 04

  It is like a bit, but I washed my hands, you know, quite well.

• 22:05Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 22:05Speaker 04

  But you can't trust people.

• 22:06Speaker 00

  You can't trust people. You can't trust these these chefs who are kissing kissing their fingers.

• 22:11James Acaster?

  Hmm.

• 22:11Speaker 00

  And then.

• 22:12Speaker 04

  Sticking them in.

• 22:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, and then massaging it.

• 22:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, but that's the same with all any handmade bread. It's like a lot of kneading involved.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:18Speaker 04

  Made bread quite a few times.

• 22:20James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 22:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, quite a lot, actually. One of the things I did for a while was make bread. I should do that more.

• 22:25Speaker 00

  Do you have a special tea? Is it focaccia?

• 22:27Speaker 04

  No, but I I would like to make it so. I've just just bread, really. I don't have as much, just it's like some flour and some yeast and some salt and just bread of any kind.

• 22:38Speaker 00

  I I love the idea of it.

• 22:39Speaker 04

  It's really good.

• 22:40Speaker 00

  Of making bread, yeah, but making bed, I mean.

• 22:42Speaker 04

  Making bed.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  I love the idea of making my bed. Um, but.

• 22:46Speaker 04

  Do that.

• 22:46Speaker 00

  But then I'm like, ah, just go buy it.

• 22:49Speaker 04

  I feel, see, I feel that way about most. Like I made croissants once for Christmas and there was so much effort and like store bought was just way better.

• 22:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:57Speaker 04

  And easier. But bread is homemade bread does taste, it has a different sort of taste to store bought bread.

• 23:04Speaker 00

  And it's satisfying when you're eating it. Do you think I I made?

• 23:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:07Speaker 04

  Tastes better because of it.

• 23:08James Acaster?

  Hmm, that's how I feel when I listen back to this podcast.

• 23:11Speaker 04

  Really?

• 23:12James Acaster?

  I made that.

• 23:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:14Speaker 00

  You'd never listen back to this podcast. You've never listened to an episode of it.

• 23:18James Acaster?

  I love it.

• 23:21Speaker 00

  Would you like your own homemade bread for this then? For your dream meal? Or would you like it to be bought from a shop?

• 23:28Speaker 04

  Oh, I'd like it to, I'd like it to be sourdough made by someone else.

• 23:32Speaker 00

  Yes, anyone specific that you want to make your sourdough?

• 23:35James Acaster?

  James Norton?

• 23:36Speaker 04

  I don't know if he can make a good sourdough.

• 23:38Speaker 00

  He's, he feels like he might be able to.

• 23:40Speaker 04

  Do you think?

• 23:41Speaker 00

  He can turn his hand to a lot of things, that that guy, I think.

• 23:43Speaker 04

  Do you think? Okay, this is a bit rogue, but there's a script supervisor on the last of us called Chris Rufus. And he would bring in sourdough just to give out. And like, that was really good.

• 23:54Speaker 00

  That he made?

• 23:55Speaker 04

  That he made.

• 23:56James Acaster?

  You can have Chris Rufus's sourdough if you like.

• 23:58Speaker 04

  I love Chris Rufus's sourdough.

• 24:00Speaker 00

  Shout out Chris Rufus.

• 24:01Speaker 04

  Go on, Chris Rufus.

• 24:05James Acaster?

  Your dream starter?

• 24:07Speaker 04

  My dream starter would be, I actually think I'm gonna do like butter and jam on toast. Like for real.

• 24:15Speaker 00

  Fantastic.

• 24:16Speaker 04

  Like really good toast with with really good butter, really good jam. And I'm gonna just like not be vegan for a day.

• 24:22James Acaster?

  Uh huh.

• 24:23Speaker 04

  I'm not even really vegan anymore, that's sort of a lie. But I have like proper butter and proper jam on toast.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  It's funny to say, I'm just not gonna be vegan for this. I'm not vegan anyway.

• 24:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was because I was for a long time and now I'm just sort of not anymore. But I actually, can I have one? Can I, can I have, can I change, can I alter my answer?

• 24:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:45Speaker 04

  I'd like one piece of toast with butter and jam. Really good butter and jam. One piece of toast that's just like bruschetta with with like chopped tomatoes and olive oil and that's.

• 24:56Speaker 00

  I love it. I love that we've not moved away from bread.

• 24:58Speaker 04

  No.

• 24:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:59Speaker 04

  You asked, you started it.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:01James Acaster?

  It's my fault. But you you could have had this as your bread course.

• 25:04Speaker 04

  There's a bread course?

• 25:05James Acaster?

  Well, we just did it.

• 25:06Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 25:07James Acaster?

  We just popped it up to bread and you got Rufus's bread.

• 25:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, you got Chris Rufus's bread.

• 25:11James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 25:11Speaker 00

  Chris Rufus's bread.

• 25:12James Acaster?

  And now we're carrying on with the bread, which is great.

• 25:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, double bread.

• 25:15Speaker 00

  The toast with the butter and jam.

• 25:17Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 25:18Speaker 00

  Do you wanna use Chris Rufus's bread for that as well? Or do you want a different type of bread for that?

• 25:22James Acaster?

  Rufus is getting a lot of airtime, yeah.

• 25:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, he is. I, yeah, I'd have the same bread for that, but it needs to be toasted. So it's like, and I hear a good color, like golden brown.

• 25:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:33Speaker 04

  Golden brown, something like that.

• 25:35Speaker 00

  You'll see that as you eat it.

• 25:36James Acaster?

  Wanna hear the crunch when you bite into it?

• 25:38Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, with sourdough, you'll definitely get a crunch.

• 25:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  It's difficult to find that point with sourdough. Where it goes from bread to nice toast is such a small window before it goes to glass.

• 25:49James Acaster?

  Sure.

• 25:49Speaker 00

  Don't you think?

• 25:50Speaker 04

  I fully agree.

• 25:51Speaker 00

  It just breaks off in shards, it'll cut your mouth.

• 25:53Speaker 04

  Do you ever like over toast toast and then just scrape off the bun?

• 25:58Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:58Speaker 04

  First layer, I don't know.

• 25:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. That's sad. Pop that straight in the butter.

• 26:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:02Speaker 00

  Leave that for next time.

• 26:04James Acaster?

  I ordered from a place called Crunch the other day. It was a sandwich place.

• 26:08Speaker 04

  Crunch.

• 26:09James Acaster?

  I just saw it on Deliveroo, never seen it before. I was very hungover, it was a very bad day after, after Ed's partner's birthday party.

• 26:16Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:17James Acaster?

  Fucking awful night. Um, and uh, the the next day I was not in a good way at all. I went on Deliveroo thinking like, I need like a burger or something. This is like, this is bad. And then there's this place called Crunch and I saw that these really pimped up sandwiches. I thought that looks good. It's like basically like a burger, but like a sandwich. So I ordered it, really excited about this crunch arriving. I bit into it, no crunch.

• 26:43Speaker 04

  What the hell?

• 26:44James Acaster?

  Didn't hear anything, just like, just I had a buffalo chicken.

• 26:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:48James Acaster?

  Sandwich, everything delicious.

• 26:50Speaker 00

  Were there crunchy things in it that should have crunched?

• 26:52James Acaster?

  Lettuce, the actual, the actual thing is toasted, it's like a toasted. So on the picture.

• 26:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:58James Acaster?

  It's this toasted sandwich that's like, you know, everything looked like a burger, but it had like toast instead of the bun.

• 27:04Speaker 00

  Okay, that's a nice idea.

• 27:06James Acaster?

  I thought this looks great.

• 27:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, but no crunch.

• 27:08James Acaster?

  No crunch.

• 27:09Speaker 04

  That's like when you go to Poundland and everything is not a pound.

• 27:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:12James Acaster?

  Yeah, that's how it felt. But absolute shout out, the deep fried lasagna bites.

• 27:20Speaker 00

  A crunch on those guys?

• 27:21James Acaster?

  No, no, not at all, but but like, they were a bit crispier, but like little cubes.

• 27:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:25James Acaster?

  Of like multi-layered lasagna, like quite a lot of layers.

• 27:29Speaker 04

  How do you make that?

• 27:30James Acaster?

  Or just smashed and I don't know. I don't know, it was absolutely good. Those were the stars of the show.

• 27:36Speaker 04

  Sounds rude.

• 27:36Speaker 00

  That's something you can make at home, I think.

• 27:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:39Speaker 00

  If if I found myself making deep fried lasagna bites at home, I'd be like, something's gone very wrong.

• 27:43James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 00

  Get halfway through that process and go, I need to have a look at my life here.

• 27:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:47Speaker 00

  What am I doing?

• 27:48Speaker 04

  And what will you see?

• 27:51Speaker 00

  I don't know if I should shudder to think. Whereas making bread, I'd be like, this is so wholesome.

• 27:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:56Speaker 00

  Deep fried lasagna bites, hungover, no. It was a great night, we had a great night.

• 28:00James Acaster?

  Awful night.

• 28:02James Acaster?

  Absolutely awful. We're all in our goddamn forties, what are we doing drinking Bakewell tart cocktails?

• 28:08Speaker 04

  Oh, sounds good.

• 28:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, they sound good and they absolutely took people's faces off.

• 28:13James Acaster?

  You're like 12 years old.

• 28:15James Acaster?

  We we we shouldn't be drinking those, we're like 50s.

• 28:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was fine though.

• 28:19Speaker 04

  Old cousins.

• 28:20James Acaster?

  Drinking like Bakewell tart slushies, like idiots, morons.

• 28:24Speaker 00

  How many did you have?

• 28:26James Acaster?

  Lost count.

• 28:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:27Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 28:28Speaker 00

  A lot of people were sick that night.

• 28:29James Acaster?

  What flavor jam?

• 28:31Speaker 04

  Raspberry, with seeds.

• 28:32Speaker 00

  With seeds?

• 28:33Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 28:34Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 28:35Speaker 04

  I like big bits of raspberry.

• 28:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:37Speaker 04

  I like jam that tastes like proper like fruity.

• 28:40James Acaster?

  Nice.

• 28:40Speaker 00

  I agree with that, I agree with the fruity taste, but surely the seeds, are they not getting in your teeth?

• 28:45Speaker 04

  Crunchy.

• 28:46James Acaster?

  You crunch the seeds.

• 28:47Speaker 04

  Like you know, when you get it right on, it's perfectly on your tooth, you crunch it. Yeah, I like, I like seeds. Also, I might have, I could put a bit of black pepper on it.

• 28:56Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 28:57Speaker 04

  On all of the toast.

• 28:58James Acaster?

  Massively respect this.

• 29:00Speaker 04

  And on the bruschetta.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 29:03Speaker 04

  Black pepper goes with everything.

• 29:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, I I, you're right, I haven't thought.

• 29:07Speaker 04

  Crunch, like it's it's the same crunch thing, like proper pepper goes with it, like raspberry seeds, crunch.

• 29:12Speaker 00

  I mean, if and if people from Crunch the Sandwich shop are listening.

• 29:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, get some more black pepper and raspberry seeds in your fricking.

• 29:18James Acaster?

  Get your game, get your fucking act together, guys.

• 29:21Speaker 04

  Crunch game together.

• 29:22James Acaster?

  You're called Crunch, for Christ's sake. I got the thousand layer potatoes, they were nice but not crunchy. They should be. That's great that you're putting the black pepper on the raspberry jam.

• 29:31Speaker 04

  I think so.

• 29:32Speaker 00

  There was a big, you wouldn't have been alive for this, Bella, big boom in putting black pepper on strawberries back in our day. Do you remember that?

• 29:38James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 29:38Speaker 04

  I know about all of these things, I've done this.

• 29:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, you probably learned about it in school in in history lessons. There was a big, it was balsamic vinegar and black pepper on strawberries.

• 29:47Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:48Speaker 04

  I've done that.

• 29:49Speaker 00

  No, you weren't there for it.

• 29:49Speaker 04

  Sure, sure, sure, sorry, sorry, sorry, I know nothing. I'm an ignorant gen, see, said.

• 29:56James Acaster?

  Yeah, we we we're just old, man.

• 29:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:59Speaker 04

  Are you technically millennials?

• 30:00James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 30:01Speaker 00

  Yes, we're definitely millennials, we're in the thick of it, I think.

• 30:04James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah, classic millennials.

• 30:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:07Speaker 00

  Just cool guys.

• 30:08James Acaster?

  Benito's a boomer.

• 30:09Speaker 00

  Benito's.

• 30:10Speaker 04

  Gosh, sorry.

• 30:11Speaker 00

  Today's episode of the Off Menu Podcast is sponsored by Cozy, the home of possibilities, James.

• 30:18James Acaster?

  Ah, man, Ed, Cozy has everything you need to make your home feel like it has a plan, do you know what I mean?

• 30:23Speaker 00

  I know what you mean. Cozy is a wonderful furniture company. It makes furnishing your whole home easy. Sofers, dining, storage, rugs, bedroom, even outdoor, all designed to make your space feel put together without the usual furniture stress. And James, we talk about dream meals on this podcast. But you know what? We very rarely talk about where we wanna eat this dream meal.

• 30:43James Acaster?

  Sure, yeah, I like it when it does come up. It is very important. It changes the whole meal, the setting, the vibe. And Cozy's modular customizable furniture for the whole home does just that.

• 30:53Speaker 00

  And the meal, James, doesn't necessarily end at dessert. We've often talked about wanting to take our maybe final course through to a comfy room. And I think this is where Cozy can really come in handy. Go and relax on the sofa, maybe even eat your meal at a lovely, beautiful cozy table. Linger a little bit, move through with coffees and dessert to a lovely couch. But I know what you're like, James, you're a mucky pup.

• 31:15James Acaster?

  I'm gonna spill stuff everywhere. Is that gonna ruin the Cozy furniture?

• 31:18Speaker 00

  No, don't worry about that, James, because it's highly washable, James. It's sauce, wine, sparkling water, dessert crumbs, you telling one of your big stories and sloshing a coffee everywhere. Don't worry, you can pop it in the wash.

• 31:30James Acaster?

  Oh, so you're saying Cozy makes every day at home feel like my best day?

• 31:34Speaker 00

  Absolutely, that's exactly what I'm saying. And with Cozy, your home can grow with you, adapting to new spaces, new styles and every era of your life, James. I think it's so hard, especially when you move somewhere new, to immediately make that place feel like yours, that it's been put together well. And that's where Cozy comes in.

• 31:50James Acaster?

  And because it's cozy, the furniture isn't just good looking, but actually practical. Modular pieces, easy assembly, washable and interchangeable covers and free design consultations if you want help making the whole room work.

• 32:02Speaker 00

  And it's easy to order, ship and assemble and maintain, James. The only way is the cozy way.

• 32:08James Acaster?

  Visit Cozy today, that's C O Z E Y dot com and make yourself at home.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.

• 32:24Speaker 05

  Love the crown molding.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

• 32:29Speaker 05

  Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

• 32:36Speaker 05

  No FiOS? Yeah, no, thank you.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Don't you wanna see the rest? Okay, bye bye.

• 32:43Speaker 02

  Get Verizon FiOS because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.

• 32:49James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 32:56Speaker 00

  Main course.

• 32:57Speaker 04

  Main course is pasta salad that my mum used to make for me when I used to go to school back in the day. It was past, like cold pasta.

• 33:09Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 33:09Speaker 04

  With mayonnaise and chopped up bits of cucumber and pepper and black pepper.

• 33:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:15Speaker 04

  Lots of black pepper and that in a tupperware with a spork.

• 33:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:21Speaker 04

  That is my main course.

• 33:22Speaker 00

  It has to be a spork.

• 33:23Speaker 04

  It has to be a spork. I had a red spork that I used to eat this with at school.

• 33:27Speaker 00

  Great.

• 33:27Speaker 04

  Oh my gosh. And I used to, like, she'd sometimes make it in the morning and like before I even got to school, I was like, I would have to like have a bit. It was so, like, mayonnaise on pasta. No one does that.

• 33:36Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's good. That's a nostalgic taste.

• 33:39Speaker 04

  Oh, so good.

• 33:40Speaker 00

  Yeah. Freezing cold.

• 33:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:42Speaker 00

  Straight out of the fridge.

• 33:43Speaker 04

  Straight out of the fridge. Well, been, been in my lunchbox all day, but I've had an ice pack in there.

• 33:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:47James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 33:48Speaker 04

  So it's fine.

• 33:49Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 33:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's my, that's my main course.

• 33:51James Acaster?

  And you'd look forward to it, would you? You're sitting in your lessons, dreaming of it.

• 33:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'd be thinking about it.

• 33:56James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 33:56Speaker 04

  My Bart Simpson lunchbox.

• 33:58James Acaster?

  Yeah, the Bart Simpson lunchbox.

• 33:59Speaker 04

  I had several. I did have a Bart Simpson for a while. That's my main one.

• 34:02James Acaster?

  Was he saying anything on the lunchbox?

• 34:04Speaker 04

  No, no, he was just there with his cool yellow hair.

• 34:06James Acaster?

  Hmm.

• 34:07Speaker 04

  I mean, yellow face.

• 34:08James Acaster?

  Shorts or something.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, I mean, the, the hair is yellow, right?

• 34:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:12Speaker 00

  But so is his whole body and head.

• 34:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think so.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:15James Acaster?

  Yeah, it's unclear.

• 34:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:16James Acaster?

  Where his head's hair starts.

• 34:17Speaker 00

  Well, it's, it's part of his skull. You can see on that tattoo.

• 34:20Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 34:20James Acaster?

  Yeah, so he has a Bart Simpson skull as a tattoo.

• 34:23Speaker 00

  It's all part of his skull, you see.

• 34:26Speaker 04

  Okay, cool.

• 34:26Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 34:27Speaker 04

  Thanks.

• 34:29Speaker 00

  No problem. I love this as a main course. So it's not, there's no like, there's no like meat or like tuna in it or anything. It's just, it's just the veggies and the pasta and the mayonnaise.

• 34:39James Acaster?

  Arms are folded.

• 34:40Speaker 00

  Why are the arms folded? I'm clarifying.

• 34:42Speaker 04

  The arms are folded because my also other favorite thing in, was tuna pasta.

• 34:48Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 34:48Speaker 04

  So I, I could put tuna in it, absolutely. But also it would be top completely fine if it didn't have tuna. It depends on whether I'm being vegan or vegetarian this day or not.

• 34:56Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, there's mayonnaise in it.

• 34:59Speaker 04

  You get good vegan mayonnaise these days.

• 35:00James Acaster?

  True.

• 35:01Speaker 04

  Also, mayonnaise has, even regular mayonnaise has the tiniest amount of egg in it. Again, all these lies, crunch, pound land.

• 35:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:08Speaker 04

  Mayonnaise being egg based. It's not true.

• 35:11James Acaster?

  Would you ever trade your lunch with other kids?

• 35:14Speaker 04

  Absolutely not.

• 35:15James Acaster?

  No.

• 35:16Speaker 04

  No. The kids in my school were having like marmite and banana sandwiches and like.

• 35:19Speaker 00

  What?

• 35:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, no, no. I went to a small village primary school. There was like eighty kids there, like the lunch and there was like chocolate sandwich. I could, I can, I, I would like to have experimented more with the chocolate sandwich, but no, I really, I was keeping my pasta that was not going anywhere.

• 35:36Speaker 00

  Sounds like you had the best thing there.

• 35:37Speaker 04

  Hundred percent.

• 35:38Speaker 00

  Where was this small village where kids were eating banana and marmite sandwiches?

• 35:42James Acaster?

  I want to try that.

• 35:43Speaker 04

  In the heart of Leicestershire.

• 35:44Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 35:45Speaker 04

  Yeah. I don't know where those kids are now.

• 35:47Speaker 00

  No.

• 35:48Speaker 04

  But it was like proper soggy and manky and it was, yeah.

• 35:51Speaker 00

  Yeah. Oh.

• 35:53Speaker 04

  Bit grim.

• 35:54James Acaster?

  I still want to try marmite and banana though.

• 35:56Speaker 04

  It's not, I have tried. It's not that bad.

• 35:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:59Speaker 04

  It's really not. Also, you can get marmite and peanut butter mixed together now in a jar.

• 36:04Speaker 00

  Yes, you can. That's good stuff.

• 36:05Speaker 04

  That with banana on toast. Chris Rees does that.

• 36:10James Acaster?

  You like that?

• 36:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, I just really love toast, I think.

• 36:13Speaker 00

  I just can't imagine being a parent, being like, I'm making my lunchbox for my kid. It's marmite and banana sandwiches. What do you think, like nutrition wise? What's going on there?

• 36:24Speaker 04

  You've got some B vitamins in there. You've got some, some, some slow release carb energy in the banana. I don't know, it's slow release, it feels.

• 36:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, I suppose so.

• 36:33Speaker 04

  That's more oats, I think.

• 36:34Speaker 00

  Banana just feels like it should be separate in a lunchbox, right? Even though it's the most annoying shaped thing to pack in a lunchbox.

• 36:40Speaker 04

  It's true. It gets like battered about and then it brews.

• 36:43James Acaster?

  It's a good observation. We haven't ever hit upon my old menu is how hard a banana, how awkward a banana is to put in a lunchbox.

• 36:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. We had a banana, you can get like a banana tupperware. It's like a, it's not even, like a banana holder.

• 36:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 04

  But it was really stupid because it only fits like a very specific shape and size of banana. Like, what if you have a tiny banana? Like it's massive.

• 37:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:03Speaker 04

  One, it's just not going to fit in the case, is it?

• 37:05James Acaster?

  Yeah, you need a lot of different sized cases, but then your life's out of control.

• 37:08Speaker 04

  It really is.

• 37:10James Acaster?

  If you're doing that.

• 37:10Speaker 04

  I think so.

• 37:11Speaker 00

  Also, I think I'd prefer a case for my banana that isn't the same shape and color as a banana.

• 37:16Speaker 04

  Really? Why?

• 37:18Speaker 00

  Just because it just feels pointless. Do you know what I mean?

• 37:20James Acaster?

  I might as well carry, might as well carry the banana.

• 37:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, you may as well just carry the banana around. Like, I'd prefer, like, you know, like a sort of assassin or something to have a little case with a, with, with the foam perfectly cut out with a banana in there.

• 37:32James Acaster?

  Yep.

• 37:33Speaker 00

  And that maybe she'll call at school.

• 37:34James Acaster?

  You know, open it up like that.

• 37:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:36James Acaster?

  That's what, in Pulp Fiction, that's what's in that suit. That's what's in the case.

• 37:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:40James Acaster?

  When it's glowing, it's like, whoa.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  This is mid morning banana.

• 37:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:43James Acaster?

  Yeah, you can't believe it.

• 37:44Speaker 00

  I used to take packed lunch to school, um, and eat it all in morning break.

• 37:49Speaker 04

  Ah, good for you. I, that's great.

• 37:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:52James Acaster?

  Big sandwich. Face full of colgate.

• 37:54Speaker 00

  Big sandwich, banana down there. But I didn't have a lunchbox later on when I was older at school. I just, I used to have it in a plastic bag.

• 38:01Speaker 04

  And still, it was all gone by lunch.

• 38:02Speaker 00

  All gone. Banana bashed up to fuck in there, just rattling around.

• 38:06Speaker 04

  No banana kiss.

• 38:07Speaker 00

  Straight out my locker at eleven AM. Roll down, pretty normally a ham and cheese roll, one of those ones with cheese on the top. Remember like soft white rolls with like cheese melted on the top. Straight in there, probably like a cereal bar, a banana. That's all at eleven AM. And then go into school lunch and take school dinners, steal school dinners.

• 38:26Speaker 04

  That's great. You hacked the system there.

• 38:28Speaker 00

  I hacked the system. Unfortunately, I didn't hack my own health.

• 38:32James Acaster?

  But you kind of did.

• 38:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:34James Acaster?

  I didn't do it.

• 38:36Speaker 00

  Hacked it to hell.

• 38:36James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah. Um, I, I, I like this pasta. This is, this, um.

• 38:42Speaker 04

  It's good.

• 38:42James Acaster?

  It's nice and nostalgic. So I thought you genuinely loved it and maybe where your love of black pepper started.

• 38:47Speaker 04

  I think so.

• 38:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:48Speaker 04

  There have to be a lot of it. It used to be one of my things I'd say to make people like, I think, try and make people laugh or make people think I was slightly strange, which I probably was as a kid, which was like, I would have black pepper with everything. I also used to tell this. I had this weird lie that I used to tell. It's like the one specific lie that for some reason I thought was like this huge thing that I'd said to people, that I would like sneak downstairs in the middle of the night and get butter out of the fridge and just like eat it, just butter. And I would tell people the story as if it was like the, like the most crazy thing to ever happen. And then I'd like put it back in the fridge and I'd, and I'd clean the knife and there'd be no evidence. And I'd creep back upstairs and no one would know. People believe me every time.

• 39:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course they did. It's perfectly believable.

• 39:31James Acaster?

  It doesn't sound not believable. It's like, why would someone lie about that?

• 39:34Speaker 04

  I don't know. I didn't kind of lie about anything. And I just had this one specific lie that I like, this story that I told people.

• 39:40Speaker 00

  Did you think, how did you think that made you appear to them?

• 39:44Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 39:45Speaker 00

  Like cool? Was that like?

• 39:46Speaker 04

  I think it was cool. I think it was to be cool. Like, guess what I do? I go and eat butter in the middle of the night and I don't know anything about it. And I'd also, like, I think was, it's what reminded me of that was the black pepper thing. Cause I'd also say to people that I like put black pepper on everything. I'd make a point of putting it on everything. And then whenever, if I'd said that to someone, if I was in with that person, I'd like just put black pepper on things that black pepper made no sense on because, to prove my point.

• 40:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. So do you think, so did you actually want to put black pepper on it? Or were you doing it because you're black, you're the black pepper student?

• 40:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think that most likely, but I do think that.

• 40:19Speaker 00

  You've convinced yourself into it.

• 40:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. I do love black pepper.

• 40:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:22Speaker 04

  And I don't love like, you know, and sometimes you go to, and it's like mixed peppercorns. It's not good. It tastes weird.

• 40:28Speaker 00

  Those red ones.

• 40:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, the, the green ones.

• 40:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, no, no, no.

• 40:32Speaker 04

  Sometimes they put nutmeg in it.

• 40:33Speaker 00

  It's, it's a violent flavour, nutmeg.

• 40:36Speaker 04

  Sure is.

• 40:36Speaker 00

  You don't need much nutmeg to really make an impact.

• 40:39Speaker 04

  No, I don't want that on my jam and butter on toast. I only want black peppercorns.

• 40:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. I, I like a bit, I like a bit of nutmeg, but I'm not having that on toast.

• 40:47Speaker 04

  Nah.

• 40:47Speaker 00

  It's an impact cameo nutmeg.

• 40:49James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:50Speaker 00

  It, to return to Pulp Fiction, it's Christopher Walken.

• 40:53Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 40:54Speaker 00

  You don't need much, but it leaves a lasting taste.

• 40:57James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah. Good old Walken.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:59Speaker 04

  Do we have him in here?

• 41:00James Acaster?

  Not yet.

• 41:01Speaker 00

  No.

• 41:01James Acaster?

  I mean, sorry, in the spirit of lying, yes, we have.

• 41:05James Acaster?

  And he ate loads of butter. He ate a whole fucking butter.

• 41:08Speaker 00

  Did you tell any lies at your school, James?

• 41:11James Acaster?

  No, I, I saved all my lies for Inverness.

• 41:18Speaker 00

  We had a kid at our school who lied all the time. We only found out after like a year or so.

• 41:22Speaker 04

  Really?

• 41:23Speaker 00

  He was like a new kid, came like probably when we were like fourteen, fifteen. So he's trying to make, he's trying to make an impression, just started talking out his ass. And, but like things that he definitely couldn't back up. He said he'd been to every country in the world apart from Luxembourg. Which is a crazy lie to tell.

• 41:40James Acaster?

  Such an easy country to visit if you've done all the other countries.

• 41:44James Acaster?

  Landlocked.

• 41:45Speaker 00

  He said at his house, he had a garage that was full of like shrunken down versions of supercars.

• 41:51Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 41:52Speaker 00

  And that is, and then someone obviously went to his house and like, no, it's just the normal house.

• 41:56Speaker 04

  Gosh, I wonder where he is now. Maybe in Luxembourg.

• 41:59Speaker 00

  I did actually look it up the other day. He's a very successful businessman.

• 42:02Speaker 04

  Is he?

• 42:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:03Speaker 04

  That makes sense.

• 42:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. Lied his way to the top. Now he's got the big versions of the supercars probably.

• 42:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:08Speaker 04

  Wow. I'd also tell people some, like during the, you know, the golden time. Do you remember it being called golden time? Was it called golden time when you guys were alive?

• 42:16Speaker 00

  And, yeah. When we were alive.

• 42:18James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 42:19Speaker 04

  No, no, golden time was like the time on a Friday where you'd like get to play. Oh, that was fun.

• 42:23Speaker 00

  Oh, great.

• 42:23Speaker 04

  But during golden time, I used to like tell people also, I don't know, maybe this is where the acting began.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:30Speaker 04

  Cause it, I used to see if I could convince people that I was Canadian as well, that I was half Canadian. But I'd say that like I spoke Canadian. And I'd be like, make up words being like, yeah, and, and I'd like look at the things around me and like make them a bit funky and like make up this Canadian language. And one time a kid said to me, I think they speak English in Canada. And I went, not the part of Canada I'm from.

• 42:54Speaker 04

  People believe me again every time and then, but then I felt bad if people actually believed it. And I'd have to tell them like, by the way, I'm not, I'm actually not half Canadian. And I think they were always very confused as, and same with the butter lie. I'd always tell people eventually. And I think they, I think that's how I lost friends because they'd be very confused as to why I would, why that was an important thing.

• 43:13Speaker 00

  But it's such a funny, it's a funny lie to tell. And obviously people believed it, but it's also really funny that then that really weighed heavy on you.

• 43:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

• 43:21Speaker 00

  I've got to let you know.

• 43:23James Acaster?

  There was a.

• 43:23Speaker 00

  I need butter.

• 43:24James Acaster?

  I, I was a classroom assistant at school for a while. When I was like in my mid twenties and there was a kid there who was Canadian. And I found out.

• 43:34Speaker 00

  So you think.

• 43:35James Acaster?

  Huh?

• 43:35Speaker 04

  So you think.

• 43:36James Acaster?

  Well, that's, well, he wasn't.

• 43:37Speaker 04

  Why been me?

• 43:37Speaker 00

  What?

• 43:37Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 43:39James Acaster?

  So that's what I found out later on is that someone had to tell me, you know, he's not Canadian. He's just obsessed with Canada. He's learned everything about it. And that they, his parents took him to a, like a, a speech and language therapist who's, who was Canadian. And she said his Canadian accent was more authentic than hers was.

• 43:54Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 43:55James Acaster?

  And she just couldn't believe how good his accent was.

• 43:57Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 43:57James Acaster?

  And how's how authentic it sounded.

• 43:59Speaker 04

  Gosh.

• 43:59James Acaster?

  Yeah. But I, it was, it was months before I learned that he wasn't Canadian.

• 44:02Speaker 00

  That's amazing.

• 44:03James Acaster?

  He knew, he knew everything about Canada. And like, he really loved to talk about Canada. So I'd always just ask him like favorite hockey teams and all of this stuff. He knew everything about everything, but yeah.

• 44:11Speaker 00

  I mean, this is, the, the Canadian tourist board should start promoting Canada by saying loads of English kids pretend to be from here.

• 44:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:20Speaker 00

  I think that's the best advert for Canada I've ever done.

• 44:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, probably.

• 44:23James Acaster?

  He also, I was doing stand up at the time and he, he Googled me. He, he Googled all the staff online to try and find out stuff about them. And he came in next morning and was like, you're a comedian. And I had a split second decision to make. Went, no, I'm not. And he was like, showing me on his phone, like, that's you. And I was like, that's not me. And he was like, he knew it was me.

• 44:44Speaker 00

  So much worse at lying than he is.

• 44:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:46James Acaster?

  The rest of the time he kept, kept it up every day going, that is you. That's not me.

• 44:50Speaker 00

  That's your name.

• 44:51James Acaster?

  I don't know what you're talking about. And then I'd go, wait, we're talking about you being from Canada. Go, okay, fine. I'll leave it. I'll leave it.

• 45:04James Acaster?

  Your dream side dish, Bella.

• 45:05Speaker 04

  My dream side dish is crispy rice with avocado.

• 45:11James Acaster?

  Great.

• 45:11Speaker 00

  Talk us through this. When, when did you first have this?

• 45:14Speaker 04

  Well, I think I only had it once. I had crispy, because you can get like crispy rice with tuna. But at the time I wasn't eating tuna, I wasn't eating fish. And so I could never have the tuna. So I'd just have the like crispy rice and it was delicious. And then once they did it with avocado in one random place. It's not consistently on every like.

• 45:33James Acaster?

  I've not seen it.

• 45:33Speaker 04

  Menu. No, no, no.

• 45:35Speaker 00

  Is it, are we, is it like, like sushi sites? So like the, like.

• 45:39Speaker 04

  It's like a little square.

• 45:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:41Speaker 04

  Of rice that's like deep fried.

• 45:42Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 45:43Speaker 04

  And so it's like, but soft and like squishy in the middle.

• 45:45Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 45:45Speaker 04

  Crispy rice with avocado.

• 45:47James Acaster?

  Is this in Canada as well?

• 45:48Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's all over the shop.

• 45:50James Acaster?

  Vancouver?

• 45:50Speaker 04

  Vancouver.

• 45:51James Acaster?

  I think I, I had something similar in Vancouver once. I went, I had some good sushi in Vancouver.

• 45:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:56James Acaster?

  Uh, from a place, can't remember its name, but it was really good and it felt very spoiled.

• 46:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:01James Acaster?

  And wouldn't, it wouldn't surprise me if this is the, is it, is that where, is Vancouver where you film?

• 46:06Speaker 04

  It is, yeah.

• 46:06James Acaster?

  So you spent a lot of time in Vancouver?

• 46:07Speaker 04

  Lots of time in Vancouver. They do do good sushi indeed. And lots of other things. They have good mountains. Get good mountain water probably from Canada.

• 46:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, the mountains are crazy in Vancouver. Like you've been in the middle of the city and then just look over and there's incredible mountains.

• 46:22Speaker 04

  There's, yeah, you're looking at like giant high rises and then you've got like the ocean and then you've got mountains.

• 46:27James Acaster?

  You been to Rain or Shine in Vancouver?

• 46:28Speaker 04

  Sure have.

• 46:29James Acaster?

  Great ice cream place.

• 46:31Speaker 04

  It's really good. They do pop ups on the beach often.

• 46:33James Acaster?

  Do they?

• 46:34Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 46:34James Acaster?

  I didn't know that. That's exciting.

• 46:35Speaker 00

  What's, I didn't go there, but you, there's one specific.

• 46:39James Acaster?

  Kind of ties into what we were talking about earlier, the blueberry balsamic.

• 46:43Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 46:44Speaker 04

  With black pepper in it?

• 46:45James Acaster?

  No, but I bet that would work.

• 46:46Speaker 04

  It would.

• 46:47James Acaster?

  And I wouldn't be surprised if Rain or Shine do a black pepper ice cream.

• 46:50Speaker 04

  I'm sure they do.

• 46:51James Acaster?

  Um, yeah, that blueberry balsamic, you can get it with hot fudge sauce. They kind of push that.

• 46:56Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 46:56James Acaster?

  And that's good, but I actually prefer it on its, I think it's such a unique scoop.

• 47:00Speaker 04

  Sounds good.

• 47:01James Acaster?

  You should get it on its own.

• 47:02Speaker 04

  I think the.

• 47:04Speaker 04

  You like unique scoop.

• 47:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I really like unique scoop because I could tell James really enjoyed saying it.

• 47:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:10James Acaster?

  It shows that I'm like, I probably know what I'm on about with ice cream and it's part of my kind of culture.

• 47:15Speaker 00

  Because people who don't know much about ice cream don't know that it comes in scoops.

• 47:18Speaker 04

  No, no, no. And that a scoop could be unique.

• 47:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:21Speaker 04

  As to have.

• 47:22James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 47:22Speaker 04

  Yeah. What was the flavour in blueberry?

• 47:24James Acaster?

  Balsamic. It's such a good, such a good scoop.

• 47:28Speaker 04

  Really good.

• 47:28James Acaster?

  You've got to go and get it. I mean, they've got a lot of good scoops there. Rain or Shine is one of the all time great ice cream places.

• 47:34Speaker 04

  It's really good. There's also a really good Chinese restaurant in Vancouver called Mott Thirty Two. Which then they do crisp, uh, cashew chili crispy tofu.

• 47:44James Acaster?

  Hmm.

• 47:44Speaker 04

  Tofu, that's, that's another rogue thing. I say tofu, apparently it's tofu.

• 47:49James Acaster?

  Yeah. I've never heard someone say tofu, but like.

• 47:51Speaker 04

  I think it's a Midlands thing. I order tofu in restaurants. They're like, what do you mean toffee? I'm sorry, tofu.

• 47:57James Acaster?

  I'm Midlands.

• 47:58Speaker 04

  You say tofu?

• 47:59James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 47:59Speaker 04

  Get a grip.

• 48:01Speaker 00

  You're the only person from Kettering to ever say tofu though, aren't you?

• 48:04James Acaster?

  Yeah, that, yeah, nobody, nobody else in Kettering's ever said it. Yeah. Yeah, they've never said, hasn't reached Kettering yet.

• 48:10Speaker 04

  No.

• 48:11James Acaster?

  Sorry, Kettering, if you're listening. You, you know I'm only playing.

• 48:14Speaker 00

  I had, um, great Korean fried chicken in Vancouver actually, in a really nice, like little bar. Uh, it was before I went on stage about an hour before. And I wanted to try lots of different types of the Korean, because they had loads of different coatings. So I ordered like three portions and they were like 24 wings of thing.

• 48:31Speaker 04

  Wow. Were you very full?

• 48:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was just me and one other person. We, we absolutely decimated it.

• 48:35Speaker 04

  You smashed it? Yeah.

• 48:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, smashed it. Yeah. Not the gig. The gig was awful.

• 48:39Speaker 04

  Because you were so full.

• 48:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I basically had to crawl on stage and yeah, just eating 24 garlic parmesan fried chicken wings.

• 48:45James Acaster?

  But Ed's audience know what they're getting into.

• 48:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:47James Acaster?

  They know that when they buy a ticket to Ed Gamble, they're rolling the dice that he might be full.

• 48:51Speaker 00

  Yeah. Especially if it's not in London, you know, especially if I'm out and about because I've got to go and try all the places.

• 48:57Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 48:58Speaker 00

  So I travel for work. The work is always dreadful because I, I've eaten too much food. Yeah, yeah.

• 49:03James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 49:03Speaker 04

  Sounds like you're making the most of it. Again, like hacking the system.

• 49:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. Hacking, totally hacking the system. Uh, again, not to my own, not to my own benefit in any way.

• 49:12James Acaster?

  Have you ever eaten too close to shooting a scene and you can feel it?

• 49:16Speaker 04

  All the time.

• 49:17James Acaster?

  All the time.

• 49:18Speaker 04

  All the time. I bought, they, there's crafty service on Last of Us in particular that is like, in, I, I can't tell you how good it is. It's unbelievable. It's dangerous. It's dangerously good. And it's like, it's the whole day. You don't have to like wait for lunch or wait for breakfast. It's like a constant stream of like incredible food.

• 49:38James Acaster?

  Mm hmm.

• 49:38Speaker 04

  And so, yeah, all the time. I'm consistently full. It's terrible.

• 49:41James Acaster?

  Yeah. There was this guy on the, uh, uh, on Ghostbusters who did this like amazing like.

• 49:46Speaker 04

  Ghostbusters.

• 49:47James Acaster?

  I think Ghostbusters, not, not, not the original one, not that old. Um, they, um. There's this guy who did this like, uh, strawberry yogurt with, uh, granola and like loads of bananas and stuff like that. Doesn't sound great. The way that he did it, this guy, there was something that he put in it. Was so addictive.

• 50:08Speaker 00

  Ectoplasm.

• 50:09James Acaster?

  Oh man, it might, I, I hate ectoplasm. It might have been ectoplasm.

• 50:13Speaker 04

  Makes sense.

• 50:14Speaker 00

  I tell you what, and now you've properly put this in my mind now, Bella. You said that strawberry granola thing.

• 50:19James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 50:19Speaker 00

  My first thought was a bit of black pepper, go lovely on that.

• 50:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, I agree.

• 50:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:23James Acaster?

  I think it would.

• 50:24Speaker 04

  Really.

• 50:24James Acaster?

  Maybe that was the secret ingredient I didn't know about.

• 50:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, probably was.

• 50:27Speaker 00

  BP.

• 50:28James Acaster?

  Oh, BP. It was so good. I'd, I'd think about it all day because he wouldn't do it straight away weirdly.

• 50:33Speaker 04

  That's weird.

• 50:34James Acaster?

  To wait until the afternoon. So I think it's like, that's on his shift side.

• 50:36Speaker 04

  Oh, sure, sure, sure.

• 50:38James Acaster?

  I'd be like, is there, is the yogurt man here yet? I just want to eat that yogurt.

• 50:43Speaker 04

  Yeah. I like an overnight oat and a yogurt like thing.

• 50:46James Acaster?

  Mm hmm.

• 50:47Speaker 04

  They did banana boats on Last of Us, which was basically just like a whole bit of banana, a whole bit of banana, a whole banana not beaten up and not encased.

• 50:55Speaker 00

  It's been in the case.

• 50:56Speaker 04

  It's like, uh, cut down the middle with like so much peanut butter and berries and granola in a little, on a little cardboard tray.

• 51:05James Acaster?

  Wow.

• 51:06Speaker 04

  So good. But again, afternoon, it only come out in the afternoon.

• 51:08James Acaster?

  Pascal wolfing that down?

• 51:10Speaker 04

  I don't know if he liked a banana boat. He went, what did he eat? He ate a lot of carrot sticks.

• 51:15James Acaster?

  Be careful because we will, you know, we've had it on the podcast before where people have come on, told us what co-stars have had.

• 51:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:21James Acaster?

  And then we fact checked it when that co-star eventually does come on the podcast. And then they've been exposed as a liar. And we know you've got previous of your butter talk.

• 51:29Speaker 00

  He had to, but he had to eat a lot of carrot sticks because he had to spot the scary mushroom men in the dark.

• 51:34Speaker 04

  It has been a long time since I've eaten, since I've seen him eat food on set. So I, I, I, that might be incorrect. But he, he really liked, you get like bags of vegetables that he would eat a lot.

• 51:46James Acaster?

  I bet he's got those in the Mando helmet.

• 51:49Speaker 04

  Probably.

• 51:49James Acaster?

  But he's just crunching carrot sticks in that helmet all the time. He can get away with it.

• 51:53Speaker 00

  Like a nose bag.

• 51:54James Acaster?

  Yeah, we'll see him. Yeah.

• 51:57James Acaster?

  That's why he looks so disheveled every time he takes the helmet off.

• 51:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:00James Acaster?

  This has been sweaty eating carrot sticks in there. Would you ever do a role like that where like for the whole thing, people can't see your face, but like you're in every scene, you're having to still act in the scene, but people can't see it's you?

• 52:14Speaker 04

  I don't think so.

• 52:15James Acaster?

  You wouldn't do it?

• 52:16Speaker 04

  I don't think I'd be hired for such a thing.

• 52:17James Acaster?

  What?

• 52:18Speaker 04

  I think that, because I don't know. I just, no, I think I rely on my face to do the acting.

• 52:24James Acaster?

  Hmm. I don't know. Fun challenge though.

• 52:27Speaker 04

  Fun cha, yeah, but what, so it's just your voice and your movement? Maybe it would be cool.

• 52:31James Acaster?

  Well, that's, I mean, that, that's why it's actually quite good to come on this. You can listen to this when you get home, just your voice. And you can go, maybe I could do that.

• 52:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:39Speaker 04

  I don't know. I'm going to listen to this back.

• 52:41James Acaster?

  Huh?

• 52:42Speaker 04

  I think I've spoken too much about Brett to listen back. I think I'm going to leave here and just like.

• 52:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:48Speaker 04

  Trust that I've left everything on the floor, you know?

• 52:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:50Speaker 04

  Left everything in the off menu studio.

• 52:52Speaker 00

  There's nothing, there's nothing, there's nothing you can do now, right?

• 52:55Speaker 04

  I don't need to, I don't need to re.

• 52:58Speaker 00

  That's what we like to hear from our guests.

• 53:00James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 53:00Speaker 04

  I hear that you, you, you clearly watch a listening back every time. So.

• 53:04James Acaster?

  I listen back multiple times for every episode just to like really get a feel for it.

• 53:07Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 53:08James Acaster?

  I'd like to play Mando one day.

• 53:10Speaker 00

  I think if I did something with a mask on.

• 53:12James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 53:12Speaker 00

  Doing acting.

• 53:13James Acaster?

  Yes.

• 53:14Speaker 00

  I'd be tempted to like, do like serious scenes, but like with, like with cross eyes and stuff.

• 53:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:19Speaker 00

  Do like silly stuff under the mask.

• 53:21Speaker 04

  That's insane. You're so bored. You're bored.

• 53:23James Acaster?

  Yeah. Whenever a person's talking to you, just be pulling funny faces and they don't even know it.

• 53:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:28James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 53:28Speaker 00

  They don't even know it.

• 53:29Speaker 04

  That was, that was me during COVID, wearing masks. I would just be consistent, like I swore so much during COVID. Cause I would, because I realized how much I was suppressing all the time. And then suddenly I was like saying everything that I'd normally say out loud because no one could see my mouth.

• 53:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:43Speaker 04

  Walking down the street, just like saying whatever the hell I wanted.

• 53:46Speaker 00

  They could hear you though, right?

• 53:49James Acaster?

  Bella, you, you've got to know they can hear you.

• 53:54Speaker 04

  I don't know. That mask was protection for me. Took it a bit too far. I really liked, I really liked that part.

• 54:03Speaker 00

  The mask part?

• 54:04Speaker 04

  I loved it and hated it. I loved it for the, for the, for the literal mask that it provided.

• 54:10Speaker 00

  I loved, the element of it I enjoyed and obviously horrible time for so many people. The masks, all of that stuff. I love there being rules and I loved following the rules. And I love noticing when other people weren't following the rules and getting really angry about it. That's what I liked.

• 54:24Speaker 04

  Were you like looking out your window checking that your neighbours were only going on like one walk a day?

• 54:27Speaker 00

  Big time, yeah, yeah. I was phoning the police.

• 54:30Speaker 04

  Sure they loved hearing from you.

• 54:33Speaker 00

  I'm a Covid Karen.

• 54:34James Acaster?

  Ed's a Covid Karen.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  A lot of people know that about Ed.

• 54:38Speaker 04

  Ed's a Covid Karen.

• 54:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's me.

• 54:40James Acaster?

  What do you do now when you're in, sometimes like going to a cafe, coffee shop, whatever? And I'm queuing up and like, um, while I'm waiting for my coffee and I just like idly look down and realise they've still got the things on the floor from Covid times.

• 54:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:53James Acaster?

  As a Covid Karen, do you sometimes want to follow that still because it's on the floor?

• 54:58Speaker 00

  I definitely want to, yeah, but I now can't get annoyed that other people aren't, but yeah.

• 55:02James Acaster?

  Can't snitch anymore.

• 55:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:03Speaker 04

  Can't politely chew me to stick.

• 55:05Speaker 00

  Yeah. Also, like, I don't, it puts me off a place if they've still got all the Covid stickers.

• 55:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:10Speaker 00

  Because I'm like, if that's your attention to detail, what are you doing to the food, you know?

• 55:14Speaker 04

  Probably doing this.

• 55:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:15James Acaster?

  Yeah, kiss of the hand, say chef's kiss.

• 55:18Speaker 00

  That stopped in Covid, didn't it? I'm glad that's back. Chef's kiss.

• 55:21James Acaster?

  That's why people started saying it out loud.

• 55:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's true.

• 55:24James Acaster?

  And then they forgot, when we came out of the pandemic, they forgot that you don't have to say it out loud anymore. You can just do the mime.

• 55:30Speaker 04

  Yeah. So now we're understanding and so maybe you'll be less pissed off now.

• 55:34James Acaster?

  Yeah, I will. Oh, I, I, look, there's still a lot of residual trauma from the pandemic. And if that is one of the things that's still hanging over is that people say chef's kiss out loud, I'll let it go.

• 55:43Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 55:43Speaker 00

  I miss elbows as well, that's the other thing I miss.

• 55:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:46James Acaster?

  Yeah. So it'd be, yeah, you can't really initiate that now with people.

• 55:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:50James Acaster?

  Got to do the elbow bump. They don't.

• 55:52Speaker 00

  That would be crazy now if you tried to initiate the elbow bump.

• 55:56James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 55:57Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 55:57James Acaster?

  That's good.

• 55:58Speaker 00

  That feels good.

• 55:58Speaker 04

  It just feels good, actually.

• 56:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, much better, much better than a handshake.

• 56:02Speaker 04

  I agree, less sweaty.

• 56:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:04James Acaster?

  There's a lot, there's a lot that I miss, actually.

• 56:11Speaker 01

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.

• 56:17Speaker 05

  Love the crown moulding.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

• 56:22Speaker 05

  Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fibre internet.

• 56:26Speaker 01

  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

• 56:29Speaker 05

  No FiOS? Yeah, no thank you.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye.

• 56:35Speaker 02

  Get Verizon FiOS because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.

• 56:47James Acaster?

  Your dream drink, Bella.

• 56:49Speaker 04

  Fresh orange juice, freshly squeezed. And this is also, I'm doing this menu is like pretending that I don't have stomach issues. So like I can eat whatever I like and drink whatever I like without getting a brutal stomach ache. It's like maybe like a litre of fresh orange juice, freshly squeezed.

• 57:05Speaker 00

  And that would give you, that would give you stomach problems.

• 57:07Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 57:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:09Speaker 04

  Probably. Everything does.

• 57:11James Acaster?

  If you got sent to a summer camp with other people with stomach issues, would you enjoy that?

• 57:16Speaker 04

  I'd love it, yeah.

• 57:17Speaker 00

  What a summer camp that'd be though.

• 57:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, would be like, they'd need probably like the half of the summer camp would be toilets.

• 57:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:24Speaker 04

  And queues.

• 57:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:26Speaker 04

  But they'd have to have enough that there wasn't queues. That would have to be one of the.

• 57:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, everyone would need their own personal, private toilet.

• 57:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, and like a, like a, like a free Rennie dispenser.

• 57:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:36James Acaster?

  Oh, she's quite, I love that.

• 57:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, you'd love a Rennie dispenser.

• 57:39James Acaster?

  And have, she own personal, private toilet.

• 57:42Speaker 00

  You've got one.

• 57:43James Acaster?

  No, I'm not allowed to use it.

• 57:47James Acaster?

  My partner says it's not for me.

• 57:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:50James Acaster?

  I have to go and queue at the shops.

• 57:54James Acaster?

  Freshly squeezed orange juice. Do you want one of those, uh, machines that you get in some? Yeah, sometimes you go in some places and they've got the Wallace and Gromit machine.

• 58:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:02Speaker 00

  Sends the orange on a journey.

• 58:03Speaker 04

  Sometimes. Yeah. Oh, it's like, it's just bang, bang, whether the egg.

• 58:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:08Speaker 04

  The egg, I loved that freaking invention.

• 58:10Speaker 00

  Do you ever watch, watch the orange go around? You know, is it going to be part of your juice?

• 58:14Speaker 04

  No.

• 58:15Speaker 00

  That's my orange.

• 58:15Speaker 04

  Should do that next time.

• 58:17Speaker 00

  They send it on too much of a journey. It's just, it's fun for the orange, really.

• 58:21James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 58:21Speaker 04

  It's good to give it a final little bit of fun before it's brutally squeezed and ingested by a human enjoyment and consumption.

• 58:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. I love watching the orange go around.

• 58:30James Acaster?

  That's your orange.

• 58:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:31Speaker 00

  That's my orange, I say.

• 58:34James Acaster?

  Would you ever bring your own orange along to the shop and ask them, can you juice this, please?

• 58:38Speaker 04

  I don't think so.

• 58:40James Acaster?

  I don't know, it might be good to go, you said you're, just your one that you know is good, you know, it's your orange.

• 58:44Speaker 04

  Your special orange that you've like grown on a tree.

• 58:46James Acaster?

  Yeah. Juice this for me.

• 58:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:49Speaker 00

  There are more and more places popping up, like takeaway places where you can, you take something in and they cook it for you.

• 58:55Speaker 04

  Really?

• 58:55Speaker 00

  Or like, I get a lot on Instagram, I'll get like this, like food truck where they, someone brings like them a bag of crisps and they put a load of crap on top of it.

• 59:05Speaker 04

  That's cool.

• 59:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:06Speaker 04

  That's really cool.

• 59:07Speaker 00

  So you'd be like, here's my Doritos chili heatwave or whatever, and they put like meat and cheese sauce on it and stuff.

• 59:12Speaker 04

  That's excellent.

• 59:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. So that, but that with oranges, basically.

• 59:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, nice.

• 59:17James Acaster?

  Yeah. I think, I mean, you just have to pay.

• 59:21Speaker 04

  For the squeezing.

• 59:21James Acaster?

  Full price for it, yeah. I guess you're just paying for the squeezing.

• 59:24Speaker 04

  Then you could do that at home.

• 59:26James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 59:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, but not in that machine. You can't send the orange on a journey and you, also they're paying overheads and, you know.

• 59:32James Acaster?

  It's not legal to own those machines yet.

• 59:34Speaker 04

  Probably not. And the oranges probably taste better, the oranges taste better if the oranges have had like a good life before, like a good journey and a bit of fun before that.

• 59:41Speaker 00

  Massage and stuff.

• 59:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 59:44James Acaster?

  Um, you have a, uh, juice oranges at home? Have you, have you own orange juice at home?

• 59:48Speaker 04

  Sure, should do.

• 59:49Speaker 00

  What's your setup? What's your juicing setup?

• 59:51Speaker 04

  Well, at home, home, where I no longer live, there's like a old, from an, I don't know, I think my dad found this thing that, it's a manual squeezer. It's like a big.

• 1:00:02James Acaster?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:02Speaker 04

  Intraption where you like pull the handle down and it goes like, yeah, that's good. Just getting a bit excited there.

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  That's good.

• 1:00:09Speaker 04

  All the manual like squeezer things and it, and it collects in the little rim around the outside and you pour it into the.

• 1:00:15Speaker 00

  That's very labour intensive.

• 1:00:16Speaker 04

  It is, but it tastes better because of it.

• 1:00:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. How many oranges are you doing though for one glass?

• 1:00:21Speaker 04

  If we're going to do a litre, I'm going to need a lot of oranges.

• 1:00:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:24Speaker 04

  We need a whole tree.

• 1:00:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:25Speaker 04

  You know, I once planted an apple seed when I was a kid and it's now an apple tree.

• 1:00:30Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:00:31James Acaster?

  Hmm.

• 1:00:31Speaker 04

  With actual apples on it.

• 1:00:33James Acaster?

  Believe this just yet, carry on.

• 1:00:36Speaker 00

  This actually really smacks of a school liar, doesn't it?

• 1:00:39James Acaster?

  So quick. Wow.

• 1:00:43Speaker 04

  It's actually true. I'm actually quite a bad liar.

• 1:00:46James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:47Speaker 04

  I can like, I can act, I can't lie. Like I'll just laugh and I'll eventually have to tell you that it's a lie. Like I'm not.

• 1:00:53Speaker 00

  But the apple thing is.

• 1:00:53James Acaster?

  I've heard this song and dance before in a castle.

• 1:00:57Speaker 04

  I mean, yeah. You know me well.

• 1:01:01Speaker 00

  Where's the, where's the apple tree at?

• 1:01:03Speaker 04

  Home, home.

• 1:01:03Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 1:01:04James Acaster?

  Wow, so you planted in your garden?

• 1:01:07Speaker 04

  Well, I planted in a pot to start with and then it grew into a thing and then I planted, or maybe I did just plant it straight in it. I think I might have planted it straight in the ground, you know? Can't remember. I was seven or something. And it's, and this year, for the first time, it's got actual apples on it.

• 1:01:20James Acaster?

  Hold on, you planted one seed?

• 1:01:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:22James Acaster?

  You didn't plant a load of apple seeds and one tree grew. You planted a single seed and that is now an apple tree?

• 1:01:27Speaker 04

  I ate an apple, got down to the core. Extracted the seed, put it in the ground, prayed to the lords, the lords, multiple lords. Prayed for the rain, prayed for the sun. The apple tree grew. Yeah, so that's how much faith I have in, in, you know, seeds. I love doing that. It's called like germinating a broad bean, you know, singing it, right? I think I was going through that phase of my life and it was like, what will happen if I plant an apple seed and now there's an apple tree?

• 1:01:53Speaker 00

  We all remember the germinating broad bean phases of our life.

• 1:01:56Speaker 04

  So fun. And the cress.

• 1:01:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:58Speaker 04

  Cress and broad, I love germinating those broad beans. And you'd have to do it in different environments to see what like worked best.

• 1:02:05James Acaster?

  Try and get a sunflower on Blue Peter?

• 1:02:07Speaker 04

  Sunflower? No.

• 1:02:08James Acaster?

  Yeah, they loved it. If you planted a sunflower in your garden, if you've got real tools, take a photo of it, send it into Blue Peter. They'll do a little roundup of everyone's sunflowers in the country. This one's really big.

• 1:02:17Speaker 04

  Did you do that?

• 1:02:18James Acaster?

  Didn't even bother. Couldn't get it that big. I planted it, grew it. I was like, yeah, well, I think it isn't big enough. There's no point sending it in. They, like Connie Hudson would be like, look at this one, it's all right. And then cut to another kid who's made a massive sunflower. I'm going to look like an idiot on TV. I'm not doing that.

• 1:02:34Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:02:34Speaker 00

  You've always been yourself, haven't you?

• 1:02:36James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:36Speaker 00

  Yeah. Going, what's the point? What's the point? You look like an idiot.

• 1:02:40James Acaster?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:02:41Speaker 00

  We've got a chia pet at home.

• 1:02:42Speaker 04

  Have you?

• 1:02:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:43James Acaster?

  What?

• 1:02:44Speaker 04

  Chia pet.

• 1:02:45Speaker 00

  Chia pet.

• 1:02:46James Acaster?

  Don't even know what that is. Oh, that's the Pinocchio's dad.

• 1:02:51Speaker 04

  That went straight over my head.

• 1:02:55Speaker 00

  It's, it doesn't even really work as a joke.

• 1:02:57James Acaster?

  Doesn't work that well.

• 1:02:57Speaker 00

  Geppetto.

• 1:02:58James Acaster?

  Geppetto is Pinocchio's father.

• 1:03:02Speaker 00

  The chia pet is like, I think ours is like supposed to look like a llama or something, or I can't remember exactly what. A capoeira maybe or something like that. Capoeira is a dance, capybara.

• 1:03:12Speaker 04

  Capybara.

• 1:03:13Speaker 00

  It's just like a little model of an animal, but then you put chia seeds on it, you stick chia seeds on it and then it grows, the chia grows and it looks like it's, it's wool or fur or something.

• 1:03:22Speaker 04

  And you eat it?

• 1:03:23Speaker 00

  No, you can't eat it.

• 1:03:24Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:03:24James Acaster?

  What?

• 1:03:25Speaker 00

  You just look at it. But it did go.

• 1:03:26Speaker 04

  Better off planting cress.

• 1:03:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, look.

• 1:03:29James Acaster?

  That sounds like it stinks.

• 1:03:30Speaker 00

  James will not be, um, surprised to hear it. I didn't buy the chia pet. It was, it was my wife that bought the chia pet.

• 1:03:35Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:03:36Speaker 00

  She loves the chia pet. It got all big and it looked great. And then it started dying, all the chia started dying. And then I had to deal with it because she got too sad.

• 1:03:46Speaker 04

  It's always the way, isn't it?

• 1:03:47Speaker 00

  So I had to strip off all the dead chia and put it in the bin and then wash up the chia pet. But then you can put more chia on it, but we haven't done that yet because I think there's the whole.

• 1:03:55Speaker 04

  Residual trauma.

• 1:03:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, the cycle of trauma is not, is not good to enter into again.

• 1:03:59Speaker 04

  That's, that's what happens when you like get a pet of any kind. It's like the risk of that, you're like, I'm going to love you so much and you're going to die soon.

• 1:04:06James Acaster?

  But that's not mine.

• 1:04:07Speaker 00

  No, James's, James's won't.

• 1:04:08Speaker 04

  Immortal chia pets.

• 1:04:10Speaker 00

  James got five cats.

• 1:04:11Speaker 04

  Have you?

• 1:04:12James Acaster?

  Got five cats and they're all going to live forever.

• 1:04:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:16James Acaster?

  Your dream dessert.

• 1:04:18Speaker 04

  My dream dessert is coffee ice cream on coffee cake.

• 1:04:23James Acaster?

  Wow.

• 1:04:24Speaker 04

  With a short espresso, sort of like affogato.

• 1:04:26James Acaster?

  Hmm.

• 1:04:27Speaker 04

  With coffee ice cream on coffee cake with chocolate covered coffee beans on top. And this is also assuming that I don't have to sleep that night.

• 1:04:35James Acaster?

  Ever.

• 1:04:35Speaker 04

  Ever.

• 1:04:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, because, yeah, that just sounds so good to me. I love coffee flavored drinks. I've had all of those things separately, but never together. I don't know why no one's done it yet.

• 1:04:47James Acaster?

  I mean, it sounds perfect. It sounds ideal.

• 1:04:49Speaker 04

  I know.

• 1:04:49James Acaster?

  Yeah. I like with the, the addition of the chocolate covered coffee beans as well.

• 1:04:53Speaker 04

  Get them cafe Nero. That was my instruction to those. You get little like, little like cigarette boxes of, um, chocolate covered coffee beans.

• 1:05:02James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:02Speaker 04

  They were somewhere between a cigarette box and a matchstick box. It was like the size.

• 1:05:05James Acaster?

  Were they tins, like little tins?

• 1:05:06Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no. There was paper and it was blue.

• 1:05:08James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:09Speaker 04

  And you get, oh, they were so good. Chocolate covered coffee beans.

• 1:05:11James Acaster?

  I love a chocolate covered coffee bean.

• 1:05:13Speaker 04

  Me too. But I eat them thinking like that it's not, exactly. The crunch should put them in their sandwiches. I eat them thinking that they're not caffeinated and then I like get a bit wild. I've once had like a real ca-, I think I'm quite sensitive to caffeine and I've once had coffee cake that's been so caffeinated that, I made it myself. It was so rich in coffee that I like felt, really felt it.

• 1:05:35James Acaster?

  Got a buzz off it.

• 1:05:35Speaker 04

  Yeah. In Italy, they do these pocket coffee things. You ever had them?

• 1:05:39James Acaster?

  No.

• 1:05:39Speaker 04

  It's chocolate and inside it's like liquid, uh, sugary like coffee.

• 1:05:46James Acaster?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:05:46Speaker 04

  Gloop. It's amazing.

• 1:05:48James Acaster?

  Like a chocolate bar, like little blocks of chocolate.

• 1:05:50Speaker 04

  It's a tiny little, it's like a chocolate thing, like a celebrations size.

• 1:05:54James Acaster?

  Yes.

• 1:05:56Speaker 04

  With, yeah, with a liquid sugary coffee inside. It's so good.

• 1:05:59James Acaster?

  Oh, nice. Have you, um, speaking of chocolate now?

• 1:06:02Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:06:03James Acaster?

  Have you had the new M and S choc range?

• 1:06:06Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:06:07Speaker 00

  Listen to this man. He knows what he's talking about.

• 1:06:09James Acaster?

  You gotta, you gotta, you gotta go in there and try this. So like, they're basically doing their own version of Tony's Chocolate Only. So big, thick, chunky bars of chocolate, bit wonkified. And one of them is like this blonde chocolate. So it's like a caramac, but chunky.

• 1:06:30James Acaster?

  And it's full of pistachios, cornflakes and shortbread.

• 1:06:35Speaker 04

  My gosh.

• 1:06:36James Acaster?

  I think it's my favorite chocolate bar.

• 1:06:38Speaker 04

  That's unbelievable. That sounds unbelievable.

• 1:06:39James Acaster?

  Yeah. I think about it all the time. I had it once. I, I bought it from a train station on the overground in London. And it was quite late and this guy got on, who was, uh, probably, I don't know, over 10 years older than me, but like a bed's type. Clearly on, clearly on something, but having a good time. He sat down next to me. And he was running his mouth off a bit at people as they walked past and like a lady walked past at one point, it was pretty old. And he, he said something to her and she stopped and told him that he needs Jesus. And then she flyer'd him with a flyer for her church. And then he said, Jesus, you're look, you're looking at him. And then pointed at himself. And then she, like, they had a bit of a back and forth.

• 1:07:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. She wouldn't have liked that.

• 1:07:24James Acaster?

  She wouldn't like that. It wasn't up her street. And she walked away and he's like, da, da, da, da, da. I, I like, he's like leaning forwards on, on his legs like that, just looking at everyone. And I was eating this chocolate bar. So I just broke off some squares and I offered it to him wordlessly. And, uh, instead of taking him out my hand, he just with his mouth just ate out my hand. He just turned around and went, and just like, like, like it was a thing that we do all the time, like, like we were together.

• 1:07:51Speaker 04

  That's true love.

• 1:07:52James Acaster?

  And there was these guys opposite who had already clocked me and knew who I was, who absolutely loved it. They couldn't believe that they'd seen it.

• 1:07:58Speaker 04

  That's brilliant.

• 1:08:00Speaker 00

  It is the most, if, if you saw you and you were like, I know who that is, and then saw that happen and be like, that's the perfect experience of James Acaster.

• 1:08:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's brilliant.

• 1:08:09Speaker 00

  Wordlessly feeding a drunk man chocolate.

• 1:08:12Speaker 04

  Pistachio chocolate. I wish I could have seen that.

• 1:08:14Speaker 00

  It'd be mad. What if he is Jesus? Cause we don't know.

• 1:08:17James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:17Speaker 00

  That lady's gonna be so pissed off.

• 1:08:19Speaker 04

  I know if he is.

• 1:08:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. Flyering Jesus for his own show, basically.

• 1:08:24James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:24Speaker 00

  And then not believing him.

• 1:08:25James Acaster?

  He says, you're looking at me. She's like, as if.

• 1:08:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. See you later. You're not Jesus mate.

• 1:08:29James Acaster?

  You're a druggie.

• 1:08:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:30James Acaster?

  I speak to druggies. Goodbye. Oh.

• 1:08:33Speaker 04

  Sounds like you, your little Christian boy with the devil horns again, being like, don't do that. You're inviting the devil.

• 1:08:37James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah. I was trying to help him.

• 1:08:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:39James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:40Speaker 00

  If he is Jesus, you've, you've done really well.

• 1:08:42James Acaster?

  I've really landed on my feet.

• 1:08:44Speaker 04

  You fed Jesus chocolate, like if he is, because it's like those who feed me and like give me shelter will like enter the kingdom of heaven. So.

• 1:08:52Speaker 00

  Those, I think it's those who thou give me the M and S choc range.

• 1:08:57James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:58Speaker 00

  Yeah. Will sit at the right hand of my father or something, isn't it?

• 1:09:01Speaker 04

  Is that Luke or John?

• 1:09:02Speaker 00

  I think, yeah, I think that's, I think it's in both.

• 1:09:04James Acaster?

  It's Mark or Spencer. Yeah, I can't remember which one. I, uh, and I did give him the rest as I was leaving.

• 1:09:11Speaker 04

  Did you?

• 1:09:11Speaker 00

  Did you?

• 1:09:12James Acaster?

  Yeah. Cause with that, I've got to be careful. It's like, I, I'm getting it every time I'm at most train stations and then looking for a way to offload it. Cause I can't eat the whole thing every time.

• 1:09:19Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:09:20James Acaster?

  But I'm, I'm just thinking about it so much these days that I just need to get some in, in me at some point.

• 1:09:25Speaker 00

  We've got one in the cupboard at home for when you come over.

• 1:09:27James Acaster?

  Great. Brilliant.

• 1:09:28Speaker 04

  I went through that phase with Tony's Chocolate Only, the almond sea salt, like I was going through, doing music sessions with my friends and like literally going through a bar. In four hours. It felt so unwell.

• 1:09:38Speaker 00

  Yeah. Like we've all, we've all had days where we do a whole Tony's.

• 1:09:41Speaker 04

  It's so good.

• 1:09:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:42James Acaster?

  This coffee dessert, I don't want to gloss over this, cause it does sound fantastic.

• 1:09:46Speaker 04

  Thanks.

• 1:09:47James Acaster?

  Do you have a favorite place to get coffee?

• 1:09:49Speaker 04

  No, I don't. I'll take, I'll go anywhere. And, uh, yes, but I do, I do like the, like proper, good, independent coffee shops. And my favorite oat milk that they do is the minor figures.

• 1:10:05James Acaster?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:10:05Speaker 04

  Reese's oat milk. Oh, it's so good.

• 1:10:07James Acaster?

  A little character on the front.

• 1:10:08Speaker 04

  Yeah. I also like the oatly like jokes on the side of the cartons. Always, I always read cartons of everything. So like for people who are making cartons, like I just want to reassure them, like people do read them. Like I read, all of the packaging on everything ever. And you know, like sometimes on the bottom of things, it will say like, hello, nice to see you. Like, why are you looking at my butt and stuff on like, bottoms of like packages. Like I see all that shit and I really.

• 1:10:31Speaker 00

  I didn't know that.

• 1:10:31Speaker 04

  It's so good. You have to like really look at packaging. Cause there's so many little hidden things there. Naked bars. You ever had naked bars?

• 1:10:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:37Speaker 04

  They always put little fun things.

• 1:10:38Speaker 00

  Do they?

• 1:10:39Speaker 04

  Naked butt. Yeah.

• 1:10:39James Acaster?

  I'm just swallowing them down.

• 1:10:40Speaker 04

  No, no. You need to pay more attention to packaging. People really.

• 1:10:44Speaker 00

  What packaging says hello? You're looking at my butt on the bottom.

• 1:10:46Speaker 04

  Something. I don't remember. I don't remember. It's been so long.

• 1:10:51Speaker 00

  I love, I loved speaking directly to the people who write the packaging, just to reassure them that someone's reading it.

• 1:10:56Speaker 04

  Yeah. Cause it always says on the side of the oat milk cartons, it's like, but no one's, like, it's, I've seen things before, people like, you're probably not reading this, probably don't care. I'm like, I do. And on the back of the oatly cartons, it said, it says the boring side. I'm like, it's not boring to me. I'm, I'm really, really invested in.

• 1:11:12Speaker 00

  So like there's sad messages from the people who write it being like, no one's fucking reading it. It was an absolute waste of my life.

• 1:11:16Speaker 04

  Sometimes, because they can like do whatever they want, you know, like they're making packaging, thinking that no one's reading it. And I am.

• 1:11:21James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:22Speaker 04

  I'm sure I'm not the only one, but coffee, and there's no way specifically that I like to take coffee, you know, anywhere.

• 1:11:27Speaker 00

  If anyone writes the packaging for like oat milk and stuff and they're listening now.

• 1:11:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:11:32Speaker 00

  They should put a message to you directly on it.

• 1:11:34James Acaster?

  Bella, hello.

• 1:11:35Speaker 04

  That would probably make my life.

• 1:11:37Speaker 00

  Hello Bella, Rosie.

• 1:11:37Speaker 04

  I would, I think, I don't think I'd, I, that would be so exciting to me. If I read a package and there was a little message.

• 1:11:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:43Speaker 04

  That said, I would absolutely.

• 1:11:44James Acaster?

  But on a package of butter saying, hello Bella, you, why did you lie about me?

• 1:11:50Speaker 04

  That would make my, it would make my life.

• 1:11:52Speaker 00

  Yeah. Or black pepper would be the dream, right? On some black pepper.

• 1:11:55Speaker 04

  Or imagine it like engraved into the peppercorns.

• 1:11:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:57Speaker 04

  A little secret message. I would do that for someone. If it's someone I really loved and they really loved black pepper, I would engrave the peppercorns for them.

• 1:12:04James Acaster?

  Wow. Be up, up for a long time, but that would be, I mean, that, that person would never leave you.

• 1:12:09Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:12:10Speaker 00

  Or, or they'd immediately leave.

• 1:12:11James Acaster?

  Or immediately. Yeah, yeah. It's one or the other.

• 1:12:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:14Speaker 04

  I'll take my chance.

• 1:12:15James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:17Speaker 00

  Depends how long I think you'd, you'd been involved with them.

• 1:12:20Speaker 04

  True.

• 1:12:21Speaker 00

  As to when to pick to do the peppercorns.

• 1:12:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, sure, sure. I don't know if I could put black pepper on this coffee, this coffee dessert.

• 1:12:27James Acaster?

  No, I think it's so like coffee heavy that that's what you want to lean into. If I saw that on the menu, I would just be like, I want to have the most coffee-y thing ever.

• 1:12:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:12:39James Acaster?

  So let's, let's just lean into that and just have loads of coffee.

• 1:12:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:12:42James Acaster?

  Uh, maybe if they bought along like a pepper grinder, but it was just full of more coffee.

• 1:12:45Speaker 04

  Coffee.

• 1:12:46James Acaster?

  That would be fun.

• 1:12:47Speaker 04

  Ground. Yeah.

• 1:12:47James Acaster?

  We want one of those massive grinders.

• 1:12:49Speaker 04

  That's really good. So say, say when.

• 1:12:51James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:53James Acaster?

  Yeah, never. Cause I was.

• 1:12:54Speaker 00

  The poor guy, like, please say when. My god damn it.

• 1:13:01James Acaster?

  Um, shout out to Faculty Coffee in Birmingham where I went yesterday. So it's the freshest one in my head.

• 1:13:06Speaker 04

  Nice.

• 1:13:06James Acaster?

  Um, really great coffee and they did, when I was about to leave, the guy said, look, you've got to try this. Um, almond croissant bread pudding that we do. He knew the pod.

• 1:13:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:13:18James Acaster?

  I was like, great. I was on my way to see Joe Lycett.

• 1:13:21Speaker 04

  As, as you do.

• 1:13:22James Acaster?

  Hadn't seen him since the castle either. Nice to see you alive and well, Joe. Um, but like, uh, I, uh, I bought it to Joe because Joan lives around there, but hadn't tried this bread pudding. And we both lost our minds over it. The almond croissant bread pudding at Faculty. Woo. Really, really good.

• 1:13:41Speaker 04

  Sounds really 10 out of 10.

• 1:13:42James Acaster?

  Yeah, like, like disgraceful, absolutely disgraceful.

• 1:13:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, but that sounds so good.

• 1:13:49Speaker 00

  I know people like have always used like, things like, like dirty and filthy for like nice food. Yeah.

• 1:13:56James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:56Speaker 00

  I've never heard anyone use disgraceful.

• 1:13:58Speaker 04

  Disgraceful.

• 1:13:59James Acaster?

  You've never sat down for dessert with Diane A. Castor.

• 1:14:03Speaker 00

  What, for good stuff? She says disgraceful?

• 1:14:05James Acaster?

  No, just stuff that we're enjoying.

• 1:14:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:07James Acaster?

  Stuff that her kids and, um, pick up her husband are eating.

• 1:14:10Speaker 00

  Oh, but she means it bad. She means it in a bad way.

• 1:14:13James Acaster?

  So it's disgraceful.

• 1:14:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:14James Acaster?

  She enjoys saying it's disgraceful. And we have now adopted it as a good thing, but if it's disgraceful.

• 1:14:20Speaker 04

  You should get her on the pod.

• 1:14:21James Acaster?

  We should. Mum, if you're listening, I'll promise to never call you Diane again, though. She doesn't like that.

• 1:14:25Speaker 00

  Oh, she doesn't like being called Diane. She's dying. She's dying.

• 1:14:28James Acaster?

  She's dying.

• 1:14:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:29James Acaster?

  But, uh, yeah, you know, one day, who knows? Maybe get Diane Castor on the pod, but I think she'd have a few bones to pick with me. I've shouted out a few times. Ed's been very rude to her a number of times on the podcast.

• 1:14:39Speaker 00

  I've been honest.

• 1:14:40Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:14:41James Acaster?

  Yeah. Yeah. So, you know.

• 1:14:43Speaker 00

  She's fantastic woman, but a lot of her recipes are wrong.

• 1:14:47Speaker 04

  Oh dear. Diane, I have no feel, I don't know you, I have no feelings towards you, and so I'll reserve my judgment until we meet.

• 1:14:56James Acaster?

  Very nice.

• 1:14:56Speaker 00

  Smart. I did. She'll love that.

• 1:14:58Speaker 04

  I hope so.

• 1:14:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:59James Acaster?

  She knows beneath it because they grew up in the same generation.

• 1:15:04James Acaster?

  Um, I'm going to read you your menu back now. See how you feel about it.

• 1:15:07Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:15:07James Acaster?

  Um, you would like still a sparkling water sparkling, or still if sparkling makes you more right wing.

• 1:15:14Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:15:14James Acaster?

  You would like sourdough made by Chris Ruthus.

• 1:15:17Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:15:17James Acaster?

  You would like toast with butter and raspberry jam with seeds and black pepper, and you'd like prosciutto with black pepper as well. Main course, your mum's pasta salad, mayonnaise, cucumber, black pepper in topware with a spork. Side dish, crispy rice with avocado. Drink one litre of freshly squeezed orange juice. And for dessert, you would like coffee ice cream on coffee cake with an espresso shot and chocolate covered coffee beans.

• 1:15:39Speaker 04

  Yeah. 10 out of 10.

• 1:15:41Speaker 00

  Smash that.

• 1:15:42James Acaster?

  That is pretty great, yeah.

• 1:15:43Speaker 04

  Pleased with that. I might do that. I might do this today.

• 1:15:47James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:48Speaker 04

  All of this.

• 1:15:49Speaker 00

  What, do you make it yourself or to try and find it?

• 1:15:51Speaker 04

  No, I make it myself.

• 1:15:53Speaker 00

  Amazing.

• 1:15:53James Acaster?

  I, I really want to see how that dessert turns out.

• 1:15:56Speaker 00

  Huge stomach rumble from Bella there.

• 1:15:58James Acaster?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:15:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:59James Acaster?

  That's usually how this podcast ends.

• 1:16:04Speaker 00

  Thank you so much for coming to the dream restaurant, Bella.

• 1:16:06Speaker 04

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:16:07Speaker 00

  Bye bye.

• 1:16:08Speaker 04

  For being lovely, uh, waiters.

• 1:16:16Speaker 00

  There we are, James. A wonderful menu.

• 1:16:18James Acaster?

  Really tasty menu, actually. The nostalgia, um, was great, but also the invention.

• 1:16:25Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:16:26James Acaster?

  You know, the, the old and the new.

• 1:16:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:28James Acaster?

  In the.

• 1:16:29Speaker 00

  I got a very specific feeling during that episode that I only get when we have a guest on who's much younger than us.

• 1:16:35James Acaster?

  Hmm.

• 1:16:35Speaker 00

  When we're just like being idiots.

• 1:16:37James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:38Speaker 00

  And they're way more sort of grown up than us.

• 1:16:41James Acaster?

  Yeah. It's a bit embarrassing.

• 1:16:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's sort of pride as well, I think.

• 1:16:45James Acaster?

  Proud that we're young at heart?

• 1:16:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, and stupid guys.

• 1:16:49James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:50James Acaster?

  I don't know if I felt proud of that. Good to see Bella in this context, though, you know? Previously, me and Bella just been in quite a high pressure.

• 1:16:59Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:16:59James Acaster?

  Intense situation. So quite nice to be here where only one of us has to.

• 1:17:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:17:04James Acaster?

  Make decisions and.

• 1:17:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:17:06James Acaster?

  You know, maybe Bella was feeling the stress. I'm not going to talk on.

• 1:17:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:17:10James Acaster?

  Their behalf. I think that I was much more relaxed than the last time I saw Bella.

• 1:17:14Speaker 00

  Fair enough.

• 1:17:15James Acaster?

  But maybe Bella was sitting there going, I can't believe I have to choose what my dream side dish is. This is really stressful.

• 1:17:20Speaker 00

  I know. I think, I think they enjoyed the process.

• 1:17:21James Acaster?

  I don't know what it's like for people coming on this podcast.

• 1:17:23Speaker 00

  You don't. No idea.

• 1:17:24James Acaster?

  Yeah. I can't, I can't imagine it.

• 1:17:26Speaker 00

  Go and see Sunny Dancer. It is out on the 14th of August, as in this Friday, if you're listening to this or watching this when it comes out. Because of course, if you're watching it, the YouTube episode comes out on the same day as the audio episode now.

• 1:17:37James Acaster?

  Thank you Bella for coming on and not choosing Bella's pudding.

• 1:17:40Speaker 00

  Yes, thank you.

• 1:17:41James Acaster?

  Um, so, uh, commiserations to Richard Herring. You still don't know what Bella's pudding is.

• 1:17:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:17:47James Acaster?

  Not got you any closer to that, but we will endeavour to get more Bella's on the podcast to try and find out.

• 1:17:53Speaker 00

  Is there a Bella in Fireman Sam? Or is that just the name of the?

• 1:17:56James Acaster?

  I think you're right.

• 1:17:57Speaker 00

  That's just the name of the.

• 1:17:58James Acaster?

  We'll get Bella from Fireman Sam.

• 1:18:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:01James Acaster?

  Definitely.

• 1:18:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. I'm on tour. Ed Gamble, Fresh Hell starts in January 2027. Tickets on sale now. edgamble.co.uk.

• 1:18:09James Acaster?

  Wonderful stuff.

• 1:18:10Speaker 00

  Thank you very much for watching and listening. Goodbye.

• 1:18:12James Acaster?

  Goodbye.

• 1:18:29Speaker 01

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.

• 1:18:35Speaker 05

  Love the crown moulding.

• 1:18:37Speaker 01

  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

• 1:18:40Speaker 05

  Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fibre internet?

• 1:18:44Speaker 01

  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

• 1:18:48Speaker 05

  No FiOS? Yeah. No, thank you.

• 1:18:51Speaker 01

  Don't you want to see the rest? Okay. Bye bye.

• 1:18:54Speaker 02

  Get Verizon FiOS because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.