Jamie Oliver On Flying at 51, Real Fast Food & School Dinners

What really happened with Jamie Oliver's school dinners? In this Monday episode of The Romesh Ranganathan Show, Romesh is joined by one of the UK’s best-known chefs, Jamie Oliver. Jamie talks about life after 50, his career in the kitchen and what keeps him motivated after decades in the food industry. He also reveals what it’s really like to work in a high-pressure kitchen, whether restaurant food has ruined the experience of eating out and the truth behind kitchen hazing. Elsewhere, Jamie critiques Shanthi's best dishes, we get into the neuroscience of food, England's eating habits and what we can learn from the Blue Zones. And, of course, Jamie opens up how his pioneering social enterprise Fifteen led him to campaign for healthier school dinners featuring the infamous Turkey Twizzler drama that rocked the nation. We also get a sneak peak into his new book, 20 Minute Meals: Real Fast Food, which is out now. A Ranga Bee Production in partnership with Platform Media. If therapy is something you've been thinking about, visit Counselling Directory and find a therapist that's right for you: https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=romesh_sponsorship Chapters 00:00 Intro 03:40 Vegan lasagna 06:07 Being in your 50s 08:38 Working in the food industry 11:37 A gift from Shanthi 12:27 Jamie talks through Shanthi’s curries 14:25 How do you cook a squirrel? 15:39 Another gift for Jamie 16:40 Dogs and their diets 18:50 Does being a chef ruin the restaurant experience? 22:00 The neuroscience of food 22:59 Ratatoullie & The Bear 24:45 Is the kitchen that high pressure? 26:14 Is kitchen hazing true? 30:38 What keeps Jamie in the game? 31:57 Where did campaign Jamie come from? 36:26 The Turkey Twizzler debacle 37:37 School Dinners 47:23 The nations eating habits 49:08 What are they doing in the blue zones? 50:50 20 Minute Meals 56:15 Why cook over buy? 59:35 A question from Shanthi on the sesh 01:04:22 Getting a pilots license 01:10:30 On being a bit more selfish 01:14:32 Misquoted 01:19:20 An exclusive 01:21:57 Outro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Jamie, what is this?

• 0:01Speaker 01

  Uh, I brought you your, you know, you've got your very own recipe. It's your vegan lasagna.

• 0:06Speaker 00

  Oh my god!

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:08Speaker 00

  Come on, man!

• 0:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be doing this while we're going, but um.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  That's so kind of you.

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's um.

• 0:16Speaker 00

  This lasagna made me, well, I don't know.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  Well, don't speak to you.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  It made me emotional.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Well, that was the.

• 0:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, I should finish the sentence "made me", shouldn't I?

• 0:27Speaker 00

  It made me vom.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  I, I, yeah, I, cause I kind of thought, I was saying to your team, like, um, this recipe, normally I, when I'm dreaming a recipe, typically I can get at least eighty-five percent there from a dream, right?

• 0:40Speaker 00

  Right.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  I can see it, I can imagine it, I can taste it, I can smell it, honestly, truly. And so normally on the first cook-up, I get ninety percent roughly.

• 0:47Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Um, and then I finesse it, right?

• 0:50Speaker 00

  Right.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  This one is probably, uh, this, of all the recipes of seven thousand in twenty-five years of writing.

• 0:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 0:55Speaker 01

  This is actually the, the toughest one.

• 0:58Speaker 00

  The biggest ball, like?

• 0:59Speaker 01

  Yep, just because I'd needed to keep going back to try and get that intensity of flavour back and the texture and stuff like that.

• 1:04Speaker 00

  It's so kind of you.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  It's a good dish now and, and, um, yeah, I, so I, I did one for you for today, but more importantly, I've made three that are in the fridge for you to put in the freezer. And of course, because it's vegan, there ain't much perishable, like, so, you know, don't worry about the meat hanging about.

• 1:19Speaker 00

  You can, you can, you can leave it out. Well, the good thing about this lasagna, you leave it out for about seven, eight years.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24Speaker 00

  And it'll still be absolutely fine.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  This is the upside, right?

• 1:27Speaker 00

  The main ingredient is prayer.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. A lot of love, a lot of love.

• 1:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so kind of you. Are we gonna?

• 1:33Speaker 01

  I'll put it down, but you can, I don't want you to feel the pressure to eat it.

• 1:35Speaker 00

  No, I do, um, no, I don't feel any pressure.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Do you want me to serve you a portion?

• 1:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, please, I'd love that.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Um, so yeah, anyway, how are you?

• 1:42Speaker 00

  I'm very good, thank you. We got the, the, are you having some?

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Uh, I've eaten already. I just had a big steak. Um.

• 1:49Speaker 00

  This is unbelievable, this is.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, sorry.

• 1:51Speaker 00

  Uh, I'm gonna have some, but, um, we have to, I'm gonna try some straight away, but we get a lot of complaints when we eat on this, um, podcast.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  I guess you can edit though, can't you?

• 1:59Speaker 00

  We can do, but it's still, people find it really upsetting. Put the music on, oh my god. Hi, I'm Jamie Oliver and I'm gonna be on The Rummage Show.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  Oh, shut up, Rummage.

• 2:25Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Counselling Directory. I've been very open about my mental health struggles over the years. I've tried everything from meditation to hypnotherapy. I like to keep an open mind. But something that's really helped me is therapy. I think it can be great if you struggle with anxiety, if you're going through something like a breakup or a loss. It can also be really good if you just need someone to talk to that isn't your partner or your dog. Sometimes it can though feel like even finding a therapist is an uphill struggle. Where do I look? Are they legit? How do I know who's gonna be right for me? So that's why I think Counselling Directory is so great. It helps you find a therapist that's right for you, whether you want to see someone face-to-face or online. They have over twenty-nine thousand therapists and counsellors across the UK.

• 3:08Speaker 00

  So even if you're picky, you should be able to find someone. And all of the therapists on the directory are verified. You can take the time to read their personal profiles, learn a bit about them and how they work, and then contact the ones that you like in your own time. And that, I think, makes the whole thing a little bit less scary. If you've been thinking about therapy, visit Counselling Directory and find a therapist that's right for you.

• 3:32Speaker 03

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• 4:04Speaker 00

  Because I, I came on your show and that was, the, the whole thing was, since I've been vegan, I haven't been able to have like a luxurious lasagna. It's all fresh and blah, blah, blah. So, and it wasn't creamy and sort of, it didn't feel like a treat.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 4:19Speaker 00

  And so you made this thing. I came in with my mum.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, bless.

• 4:22Speaker 00

  Uh, my mum got quite drunk. I don't know if you remember.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, batched cocktails. She was all over that. She's still drinking a lot?

• 4:28Speaker 00

  Um.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Love you. Shanty, I love you.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, that was when we first realised she had a problem. No, because she, she was heckling me. I don't know if you remember, because you said, right, I've shown you how to do it. Good luck.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:44Speaker 00

  And then I'm just sort of trying to make it. She's going, you're not as good as Jamie. And I go, yeah, obviously.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:49Speaker 00

  It's Jamie Oliver.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  It was so binary though. She just loved me and just like literally did verbal cauliflower at you, didn't she? Like, you weren't getting it.

• 4:56Speaker 00

  It was really horrible. You're shit and you know you are. It was awful.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  I love her for that.

• 5:02Speaker 00

  It was so bad. Um, right, that was delicious, but I've got to intro you now.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 5:06Speaker 00

  Okay. My guest today is a global force in the food world who's been cooking since he was eight years old at his parents' pub. He's a chef, restaurateur, TV presenter and writer, but he's also had a huge impact on the way we eat. From improving our kids' school dinners, latest turkey twistless, to changing the way we choose ingredients and cook with his pucker recipes. His vegan lasagna can bring a grown man to tears, so I've heard. Since the Naked Chef days, an estimated sixty-seven million people around the world have watched his programmes and he's sold over fifty million books.

• 5:39Speaker 00

  His latest twenty-minute meal's real fast food is out now. And he's reached that very special level of fame where you can be known by your first name alone, like Jesus, Oprah and Beyonce. It's Jamie, everybody! Jamie Oliver MBA on the podcast!

• 5:55Speaker 00

  What do you think? You like that?

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, I've never seen you scripted before. That's amazing.

• 5:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  That's, that's, do you write that?

• 6:02Speaker 00

  The team put it together. I have to approve it. I'll be honest with you. I wanted it to be a bit edgier.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:07Speaker 00

  Give you a couple of digs.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  But maybe the vegan lasagna.

• 6:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, I got, I got softened by the, if you, you know, if you start the podcast like that, it makes the rest of the interview a bit trickier.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm down. Go, go as tricky as you want.

• 6:21Speaker 00

  Um, notorious prick. Jamie Oliver MBA, everybody!

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Much, much better, because half your audience, like, I told you.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  Um, how are you? How's life?

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Good. Uh, do you know what? It was like, um, I'm fifty-one, I'm a year in.

• 6:38Speaker 00

  You're looking great, by the way.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  I have loved my fifties. I, I struggled a bit in my forties, if I'm honest.

• 6:43Speaker 00

  How come?

• 6:44Speaker 01

  It was a tough ten years.

• 6:46Speaker 00

  Right.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Uh, in every measurable way, like physically, mentally, um, work-wise, um, just, uh, uh, just people dying and just scenarios, just the pressures. Whatever, I weren't, I wasn't too into my forties. Loved my thirties. Thirties were great, because in your twenties, you're always trying to prove that you can, you could.

• 7:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  And I will. And no one really believes you, so you're fighting to prove. And then in your thirties, everyone believes you, but really shouldn't.

• 7:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  So the thirties were great, but now I'm sort of, so I was kind of wondering what the knocking on the door of fifty was gonna be like. So I thought I'd try and sleep a bit more, get a bit fitter, sort my teeth out and, um, uh, yeah, and have a bit more holidays.

• 7:29Speaker 00

  How bad were your teeth?

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Not too bad, but I just thought I'd make an effort. I saw a few old people and, and the teeth were everywhere, dancing around in the background. I thought, ah, come on, man.

• 7:38Speaker 00

  It's distracting, isn't it?

• 7:38Speaker 01

  We go, I keep looking at it. And it's like, so I just thought, well, as everything's falling apart, we should try and put together as much as what's possible and make a bit of effort. I've started, um, I don't think today's a very good, I feel like I let you down today, but I've started laying my clothes out on the floor and trying to be more fashionable.

• 7:56Speaker 00

  You look good. You look really good.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  It's partible today, but like, um, like belt.

• 8:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Trousers, socks, shoes. It's, it's not very masculine, but, um.

• 8:06Speaker 00

  Have you, have you, um, re, redone your wardrobe? Like, have you had like a wardrobe makeover?

• 8:11Speaker 01

  I haven't got a very, I haven't really, I've got like a kind of makeshift wardrobe, but I've tried to sort of pantone colour it. And, you know, and I've got to a point now where I've got different types of belts and, um, handkerchiefs.

• 8:24Speaker 00

  Handkerchiefs?

• 8:24Speaker 01

  I don't even wear handkerchiefs, what's going on?

• 8:26Speaker 00

  Well, well, how would you?

• 8:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, for a suit, like you put a little colourful thing.

• 8:29Speaker 00

  In the pocket, yeah.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sure there's a correct knuckle. It's not a knuckle, is it? Whatever it is.

• 8:33Speaker 00

  No. Ben? Ben does that, yeah. Ben, some, you sometimes go in just the handkerchief, don't you?

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Correct, yeah.

• 8:38Speaker 00

  It's like a little thing he does at parties.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  Just the handkerchief.

• 8:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's all a little bit, it's a little bit camp, but I'm, I'm down for that. And, um, yeah, I think the, what I'm trying to say is make a bit more effort.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Put myself first a bit more.

• 8:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Be a bit more selfish. I'm not getting the violin out, I'm just saying, like, it, like, self, self-love has been something I've had to sort of, uh, learn a little bit.

• 8:59Speaker 00

  Well, the nature of being in the kitchen, the hours are antisocial, you're working your arse off. And, and if you wanna make it, you know, and by the way, I'm saying this as an outsider, but what I've seen of the, you know, and what, what's kind of, uh, put across to us is that you're just hammering yourself to make your way in a very, very cutthroat, competitive industry. And, and, and so you're kind of, um, it feels like you really have to go all out, right? And I guess if you've done that for a really long time, you then got a choice of either I carry on doing this. And I really fall apart, or I I make a decision to take a different path. Is that kind of what you've done?

• 9:37Speaker 01

  Kind of, yeah. I mean, I think, I I guess, yes, it is, but also at the same time. I don't really know anyone that's gone my path in my industry. I mean, Gordon's, the shape of his business.

• 9:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  It looks most similar to mine, although he's much more successful. He's smashed America, but like.

• 9:55Speaker 00

  You're enemies, aren't you?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 9:56Speaker 00

  You're like P. Didion Shugnait.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  No, we're all friends now. We're we're back together.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Um, but it was, yeah, it was, you know, it was a colourful ten years back in the day. But, um, no, I I think it's, it, but it's like, there's, there's, I haven't got like a playbook to look at and go, oh. Cause um, when the Naked Chef kicked off, uh, for some reason, I thought it would be a great idea. It was, but I don't know why I was, I I set up my own production company. So I've always made my own stuff. So it's sort of like production, publishing, you know, uh, the restaurants, you know. When I had all of my restaurants, like, I think I had seven hundred chefs at one stage to be responsible for. So it's like, you know. It's it's been a mad twenty five years, but like, it's, uh, and it continues to be mad, to be fair.

• 10:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Uh, and it's changing a lot right now. But, um, I just think fifty, like, I wanna try and be the best version of myself. Um, have a good conversation with myself. My wife's been amazing. Like, she's, she's like my best teacher at the moment. So she's, uh, it's, yeah, I feel like I've got to know her more in the last two years than the last, well, I I've been going out of her since I was eighteen. So that's interesting, like, how is that, how is that possible? But I feel like I'm just finally getting to know her properly, which is quite exciting. Um, so she's a bit like Yoda. She's very wide.

• 11:15Speaker 00

  Absolutely tiny.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  She's so tall. Oh, my God. I just came on holiday. My wife's legs are so long.

• 11:21Speaker 00

  Saying it like.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  They're so long.

• 11:23Speaker 00

  You've just realised.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  I can show you pictures. They're like literally miles long.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  See some pictures of your wife's legs.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  They're so good.

• 11:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  And she goes, stop talking about my legs. I said, they're just so long.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  But they're actually longer than my legs. So when she gets on a bike, I have to change the setting. But I'm taller than her. So something's wrong with my body. I'm all out of proportion, or maybe she's just got long legs.

• 11:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, look, congrats on that.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  Sorry about that. That's quite uncomfortable.

• 11:47Speaker 00

  No, there's no need to apologise. Congrats, man, on that discovery. Um, I wish I could say the same, but as Lisa knows, I call her Stumpy.

• 11:58Speaker 00

  Um, now, you made something for us.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  I've actually got, we've got you a gift. Uh, this is, the first one's for my mum, because I don't wanna, I I could have made something for you, but it would have been shit.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 12:09Speaker 00

  So my mum has made you two curries, uh, one mutton and one aubergine.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  So this is, and I know you've just had a steak.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  No, that's okay.

• 12:18Speaker 00

  You can just try, I'd love you to try it and slag it off.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  No, I, I, I actually wondered, ah.

• 12:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:26Speaker 00

  And this is super healthy, by the way.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 12:30Speaker 00

  So, what do you, so there's your, there's the mu, is that, oh, is that the mutton there, yeah? And there's some rice if you want it, but anyway. Smash through that. If we could play some music.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  What's that over there?

• 12:39Speaker 00

  This is mutton curry, and you've got aubergine there. And there's some rice that you can eat separately. That's how we do it. We eat the curries and then separately eat the rice afterwards, like a dessert. No, I don't.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  I love it. I mean, aubergine is deeply understood, misunderstood in Britain. Like, I mean, most people cook it wrong.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  But this is like, it's almost like meat. It's like silky, it's curdy, it's, and then the the spices just deep. And I'm I'm presuming from heritage, this is Sri Lankan.

• 13:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Um, the use of spices is delicious.

• 13:11Speaker 00

  Oh, my God, mum is gonna love this. Yeah, no worries.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  So for for your listeners, um, they might not care, but, um, mutton is. Uh, lamb is one, up to one years old.

• 13:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Mutton is up to two, uh, sorry, hoggit is up to two.

• 13:29Speaker 00

  Hoggit? I don't even have heard of that.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  Lamb is one years old.

• 13:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Um, hoggit is two years old.

• 13:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  And then mutton is thereafter. So it has, it has to be over two years old, which means like, obviously they're more mature.

• 13:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  And.

• 13:43Speaker 00

  I could have mutton curry if the, if the sheep had died of natural causes.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Is that true?

• 13:48Speaker 00

  I don't know. I sort of think morally, do you know what I mean? If I found a sheep. I I I'm not, I'm not causing it any harm, do you know what I mean?

• 13:55Speaker 01

  What about roadkill?

• 13:56Speaker 00

  Pardon?

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Fresh roadkill.

• 13:57Speaker 00

  Roadkill, I'd love a roadkill masala or gel fraise or something like that.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Dude, like, you could be fully meat eating, unethical.

• 14:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Just do.

• 14:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, you could do.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Rummish's V, uh, Roadkill Cafe.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. Have you tried Rummish's squirrel and mutton?

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Squirrel's amazing.

• 14:09Speaker 00

  Is it?

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Oh, wait. Listen, everyone goes mad about wagyu beef and like, like.

• 14:13Speaker 00

  Wagyu squirrel?

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Like, wa, well, if you, if you look at the diet of a squirrel, it's like those really expensive, like, avarico, um, uh, pigs that just eat walnuts and nuts. Squirrels are like, have you seen them? They're feisty little fuckers. They they they just nick nuts and they're happy as Larry.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  I was gonna go and pick a load of nuts. They'd stolen them all. The only ones that left were rancid. They even know what ones are rancid. They shake it, sniff it, bastards.

• 14:39Speaker 00

  I'm gonna be honest with you, I.

• 14:42Speaker 00

  I reckon you've been watching them a while.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  I wanna shoot them and eat them.

• 14:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, oh, yeah. How would you, how do you prepare a squirrel, then?

• 14:49Speaker 01

  Just like a rabbit. Um, and and your, if your listeners think this is weird.

• 14:56Speaker 00

  Really?

• 14:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like, something that has like, an, an delicious natural life and diet. Like, you know, soup, the most nutritious form of meat. Um, and just by luck, something happened, or they, that someone shot them. So then you skin them and you can marinate them.

• 15:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  And like with, uh, for my, like, you can like, almost cook a squirrel like a spatchcock if you want. But I like to break it down into saddle, which is more tender, and then the legs, uh, uh, I can kind of do some nice things to make that like pot roast or stew or something like that. And the shoulders, I just turn into a lovely, um, like pasta sauce or something like that. But rabbit's great as well.

• 15:36Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  But, you know, everyone's really happy, like, getting chickens that have never seen light and sort of never had the litter changed in like twenty eight days from chick to cull. And it's sort of like, you know.

• 15:46Speaker 00

  I do, I, look, I, I, I find it a bit weird.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Mum, mum, this is delicious, by the way.

• 15:51Speaker 00

  Well done, Shanti. Well done, Shanti. Well done. Great work. And listen, mum, stay off the booze. All right?

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:00Speaker 00

  Um, we've, we've got another present for you. Um, this is not edible. Um, we've got you some toys for your dog.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, Conker. Conker's so.

• 16:12Speaker 00

  That's a lasagna.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Is that a lasagna? I love it. With a bit of basil on the top.

• 16:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, there you go. You have to garnish it.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  That's very kind of you. So what made you think about my dog?

• 16:24Speaker 00

  Well, I've got two dogs.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  What's that, boy?

• 16:27Speaker 00

  That's a cabbage.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  With a, what's inside it? It looks, is that, there's a hole.

• 16:31Speaker 00

  I don't know what your dog's supposed to do with that.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Are you sure? That's for Conker?

• 16:36Speaker 01

  It's got. Look, that's, you can even clean that.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Rummish.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  Look, I, I, look, Jamie, all I'm gonna say is.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  That ain't for Conker. But I'll accept that.

• 16:52Speaker 00

  All I'm gonna say is, I've got one. I love it. I thought your dog might like one as well.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  Uh, holy shit. It does look really sexual, that. Anyway, um, does your dog get, uh, does Conker get your leftovers?

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Uh, not supposed to, but like, um, he was started off on a certain brand of dog food that was dry. And I just like, the nutritionist, the nutritionist in me just can't, apparently it's like perfect nutrition, but I just like, he looks at it. And I look at it, and then we look at each other, and it's like, nah, it can't be really. So I think, um, I try and like mix up, yeah. Like, we try and give him more natural foods now, but, um, it's amazing what the, it's, it's a bit like kind of, uh, nutrition and and the medical profession. Like, they, they're not connected.

• 17:42Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  So, um, do you know what I mean? Like, since when is a dog supposed to be happy with a load of biscuits? Even if.

• 17:48Speaker 00

  I know, I know.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Even if it's nutritionally profound. It's like, so I'm not, I'm not convinced. Um, but, uh, but I do like to, I mean. Basically, Conker is Buddy and Jules's dog. And, um, the reason that he's more loyal to me than anyone else is patanegra. I get a hundred grams of patanegra every Saturday.

• 18:08Speaker 00

  Right.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Off Danny.

• 18:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Right? Tarves it, delicious. All they eat is nuts. We've talked about nuts.

• 18:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  All the time. Delicious meat. Oh, it's just like heaven. I get a hundred grams, fifty for me, fifty for Conker.

• 18:21Speaker 00

  Same bowl?

• 18:22Speaker 01

  No, no, it's just free hand.

• 18:23Speaker 00

  Okay, man.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  And that loyalty.

• 18:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  If you're after loyalty from a dog, patanegra, right, it's just great. And, um, then I do association. So patanegra with.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  I know, look at your face. See? Like, that's what Conker does.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  So like, I could be anywhere and I go.

• 18:47Speaker 00

  Really?

• 18:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, cause he thinks he's getting Pat and Negra. Now, you can, you know, you, you kind of, if you make the noise, you've got to deliver.

• 18:54Speaker 00

  Sure. Cause there's only a couple of times you can do that without it.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then he's like, you're taking the piss.

• 18:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Uh, so, um, but he's a great dog. I'm very lucky, but thank you for that. We'll both enjoy those.

• 19:07Speaker 00

  I'd love to see that on like a YouTube thing, whatever, how you really get into that. Obviously, we're in very different fields, but when you start doing comedy, it, it slightly ruins a lot of comedy because you kind of, it's like seeing behind the mechanics of it a little bit. And then you, and then you see really great stuff. Does being a top chef ruin eating at restaurants and stuff like that for you?

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Not really. I don't think so. Cause I think it can, I think like comedy or entertainment, it can express itself in many different ways.

• 19:36Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  And, you know, if you've got Gervais and a handful of others that will fill Wembley, down to a little club in a pub, like you can't, they're not the same product really. I mean, I know it's comedy, but it's different feelings. So, um, like if I go into a tatty little place in a, in, in a cheaper part of a city or town, and there's just a, just a piece of talent in the kitchen in front of the house, and they're just knocking out incredible food and all the values on the plate. And it's just that. It's like, I, I, I find it's really emotional, really exciting. And I get so excited just to see that, you know, being bothered.

• 20:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  Caring, twenty covers, love. And then of course, at the other extreme, you know, you could have somewhere that's six hundred covers or five hundred covers or a hundred covers. So it's like, they're all slightly different products, but I think you get, and I, and you also get to, even if I, I just, we just came via Neil's Yard and, and just had one slice of home slice pizza. And it's just like, it's just good pizza.

• 20:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  And it's just like, just one slice. And it's just like, just things done well. Like, and do you know what I mean? So I think like horses for courses and, and like, like a giggle and a laugh, you know, you don't laugh about everything in the same way. Is it like, there's, there's little silent ones and there's growers and there's something that your mum says or you, you, and I, I always, weirdly, like going back to the early days of The Naked Chef, I, I remember sitting next to Julian Clary and just thinking, it must, when you're famous for being funny, like everyone's like, be funny then. It's like, it's like a hu, it's, it's massive pressure.

• 21:13Speaker 00

  I hear it so much when I'm doing a tour show.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  What?

• 21:16Speaker 00

  The crowd.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  It's just, yeah, be funny. But it's, it's, you know, it is, it's hard, I think.

• 21:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. But then I guess you have that, like, if, if you're making any food for somebody, somebody's expecting it to not.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, and god.

• 21:27Speaker 00

  Blow their head off.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, like your audience, you just want them to laugh and I just want them to enjoy the dish and get it for what it is. And, um, but I mean, like, the power of laughter is just, you know, from a, ah, it can fix a lot of things, like food, a good, a good laugh and a good plate of food.

• 21:44Speaker 00

  A good plate of food is, I, I mean, I think that's why, you know, the show that I came in with you, that's why that show worked. Because you, you, what you would say to the guests is you'd go, remember a really good meal and I'm going to try and recreate it for you, something you had, right? And what would happen is, I think loads of everybody has like a meal that really has stayed with them for the rest of their lives. And then as soon as you think of that meal, you think of the setting, you think of where your life was at that time. Like it is, those things are hardwired into us. Like we, we have a really special relationship with food, don't we?

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Definitely. And, and, and if you look at the neuroscience of food, like where, where taste and smell is associated, it, like it's rubbing up next to memories. And that's why food and music and nostalgia can be so, so powerful. Like a smell can take you back. And right back, you know, like in that film, Ratatouille, like, like, like back and you're there. And I, I, it happened to me once and I remember, um, uh, I was, I was in New York in, and this Egyptian guy gave me a tea and it was hibiscus. And it took me right back to probably being two years old.

• 22:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  On the Norfolk Broads, having a teated bottle of like, cause I wasn't feeling very well. And like, it's like, I just, he was there and like, well, that's weird. Where did that come from? It's like, pink, just, um. And I think like, you know, and like nan's cooking, mum's cooking. And I think like, especially if it's associations of love.

• 23:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  You know, um, and I'm sure like, I mean, your mum's a good cook, right?

• 23:17Speaker 00

  That aubergine curry is supercharged. You know, like for me, in terms of my memories and nostalgia and everything, it's incredible. You mentioned Ratatouille. Can I just ask you one question? Is the scene, how, how well do you know that film?

• 23:26Speaker 01

  I was in it.

• 23:28Speaker 00

  So you know it pretty well. Although, listen, I've been in stuff I've never watched. No fucking chance. Right? But,

• 23:34Speaker 00

  but, but, um, there's a bit where Remy, he's running, the first time he goes in the kitchen and he sees this like, I think it's a soup or something. It's red. He starts dicking around with it. When he gets served, it's white. Bullshit, right?

• 23:51Speaker 01

  Hmm. So what's, so what's the question?

• 23:53Speaker 00

  I'm saying, is that possible? The, the volume hadn't increased that much for him to completely change the colour of the soup. Do you know what I'm saying?

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it's a cartoon though, right? And, and fiction.

• 24:03Speaker 00

  Valid point. I'm just, listen, I know, Jamie.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  So what you're saying is continuity?

• 24:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm, no, but what I'm saying is apparently he changed it, but I didn't see, I didn't see enough addition of ingredients to make such a significant change in the, do you know what I mean?

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean.

• 24:17Speaker 00

  That must have stopped your enjoyment of it. I'm amazed that you were still allowing yourself to be attached to the project. Knowing that that kind of bullshit was flying around.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  I mean, it's an interesting one. Cause like, in The Bear, that I, I, I know it's genius and I know it's brilliant, but in the first two or three shows, I had to stop watching it because they kept jump cutting it to make it look like they could chop. In that time, they couldn't. So, cause it's my trade. I'm like, none of them can cook, man. It's like, it's like, um, but obviously by the end of the series, they'd all done quite a lot of time in kitchens and they really could.

• 24:48Speaker 00

  So you, could you tell the difference as they sort of got on?

• 24:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, like totally. Cause they put the time in, but it's like, like, I think like some art directors sort of see the bigger picture, but obviously people that work as pilots can see what pilots are not doing. And, and same for chefs and, and surgeons on hospital programmes. Um, but yeah, um.

• 25:09Speaker 04

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• 25:39Speaker 03

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• 25:43Speaker 05

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• 26:00Speaker 05

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• 26:05Speaker 00

  Do, do, do they, do they manage to capture like the, um, for you, do they manage to capture the powder kit, like the, the pressure of like in a, is that real? In The Bear and things that I'm seeing boiling point on?

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think some of them, um, yes. And I think obviously sometimes things get dramatized, but the, the thing about kitchens is that, um, depending on the nuance of where you are, they really can be, um, they're, they're very, uh, how can I say? They're very electric places. Um, they can be wild, they can be the wild west, they can be very fastidious and well managed. They can also be very precise and very quiet. It all depends on the conductor, the head chef, right? And, and their personality. Technology's helped to quieten kitchens down. Um, uh, um, human rights has made them behave a little bit better, you know, like, like things that happened when I was.

• 26:49Speaker 00

  There's been, there's, there's been a cultural change then in terms of.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  I think generally, I think like when, when I started in cooking at say eighteen, like some of the norms socially, like the hours normally were eighty to a hundred hours. So like try saying that to, to a young chef now that's happy with forty two hours.

• 27:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  You know, so, um, that's like, I mean, so, so from a human rights point of view, um, that's better. But from a working, learning progression point of view, you're basically learning at half speed because you're doing half the hours. So you could look at it good or bad, depending on how you want to look at it. Um, but, um, yeah, the things you could get away with. Um, sexism, sort of like what, like the whipping and sort of like the, the stories you hear, like they are often true. And, and then your job as a chef is to not working those places.

• 27:34Speaker 00

  Sorry, was the whipping figurative? Was that literal?

• 27:36Speaker 01

  No, literal.

• 27:37Speaker 00

  What?

• 27:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was sort of done for fun, partly. Um, well, like.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  Did you just, everyone else know about it? Well, you, you used to do it on Asian, we did Asian Vlogatour.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  You, you get your, you get your tea towel, you whip it up so it's sharp. You can even dip it in water. So it's even like got more density. And then you learn to like, and that would be done potentially for fun, but, or it could be done to sort of like, to tell you off.

• 27:59Speaker 00

  Is it a bit like a hazing thing? Is it like a welcome to the?

• 28:02Speaker 01

  It was just a, like getting wrapped with a spoon or, or, or a spatula or, uh, you know, I mean, like.

• 28:08Speaker 00

  Did that happen to you? Did that happen to you?

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, loads. I mean, yeah, plenty. Um, I used to finish a sh, like when you're young and in the kitchen, like, I used to, cause I was cooking professionally from twelve, you know, ten probably, if that's, if professional means getting paid. And from ten, I was in commercial kitchens and you, you know, you, you know, in the early days, like they kind of, there's, they have to kind of initiations and stuff like that. So from being put in chest freezers for sort of ten, fifteen minutes. I think they forgot that the seals are actually airtight. So it's like, I'm suffocating and it's freezing. Uh, that's happened quite a few times. But the, um, no, I, I think, um, it's generally done with, um, not with evil, it's normally done with laughter in their eyes. Um, you could debate whether it's both.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  But certainly, um, I, I, my, my, um, experiences were normally with lots of laughter, but, um, you'd finish a shift and you'd have I think up to two hundred clothes pegs on your back, you know? And, um, you know, this is always just, there's like, typically chefs are very funny, like, cause a lot of their jobs are very repetitive.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Like it's, it looks glamorous, but like, you know, one case of cleaning mushrooms is one thing, but ten is another. So you, you have to pass the time with some pretty basic talking. You've got to make something out of nothing.

• 29:24Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Um, that, that you're kind of drumming yourself up for a live show every day, which is service, which is sort of two, three hours potentially. And that's like a giant game of like Tetris on steroids. And, and then you've got like, often like a workforce that, um, wear their heart on their sleeve and they come from all sorts of backgrounds and there's booze and alcohol and all sorts of, so I'm, I'm, it sounds like I'm exaggerating, but it's, it's, uh, it's probably like a lot of industries. Um, uh, but, um, I've been blessed. I've chosen to work with largely very, very good people and, and, um. But you knew it was the industry, so there's not, not much would surprise me. Um, I've seen quite a lot and, um, but also I think it's an amazing industry and, and good leaders, good head chefs run

• 30:10Speaker 01

  kind-hearted tight ships and good people wanna be kept. So you tend to not whip them these days. Um, but, um.

• 30:17Speaker 00

  Have you ever been in a place where you've gone, fuck this, I'm not, I'm not doing it?

• 30:21Speaker 01

  No, because normally some of the behaviour that frightens people, it's, it's a bit like, um, some, and I'm not, I'm not saying this is okay, by the way, um, but a, a lot of what offends the general public is very normal to me. It's just like, it's like rain. Oh yeah, it's rain. You know, it's like, you don't, that's just normal because like, like, and I'm sure there's other trades where at certain points, certain dynamics happened and that's just part of drumming up for that. So that can offend a lot of people. And, and there's obviously a line where it's too much and it's called bullying. So we don't definitely, we don't wanna be taking any part of that, but, um. Building up for service has, you know, on a busy day, short staff, someone's called in sick and you've got, you know,

• 31:03Speaker 01

  some tricky, uh, scenarios in, in balancing too many people turning up at one time, you know, that, that you've got to like charge up for that.

• 31:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  Um, but at the same time, um, yeah, I think, uh, I've been very, very lucky. I've been in some hard kitchens, uh, but it's always been worth it cause there, it's always about doing something special on the plate. So you, it's always a balance. Like if it's just loads of grief and the product's rubbish, then that ain't worth it. But if the grief is because of perfection and the aspiration for perfection. But at the same time, this conversation can go off because it will go into bullying and there is a line, like anything in life. But, um, and I'm not in that world and I haven't been in that world and, and I've never allowed myself to be in that world. And because there's always a job in the next restaurant, cause everyone's underemployed, like you can move.

• 31:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  And, um, but I, I still believe in the industry. It's a very hard time at the moment.

• 31:57Speaker 00

  Well, I was gonna ask you, cause like restaurants, running a restaurant is tough, being in a kitchen is tough, all of that. You are uh, fortunate and, and all, well, not just fortunate, you're, because of your talent and your charisma and all of the, the other skills you bring to it. You've got other things that you've been doing, you know, we just talked about your book sales, the TV shows and all that. You could very happily leave that all completely alone, right? What, what, what do you think makes you continue to wanna be in that side of it?

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Um, well, I guess like probably most people, you wonder what on earth, what am I, what am I supposed to do?

• 32:33Speaker 00

  Right.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  In life, you know, um, I feel like I've been very lucky and, and part of that luck is working hard. Part of that luck is being in the right place at the right time. And part of that luck is just like trying to keep learning and, and importantly, listening. And, and then like very unusually to sort of make maybe my life or yours more complicated is really if we're really good at our jobs, we listen to the public and really they are the boss. So your direct boss isn't really your boss. The public is your boss and they always get to vote with their feet.

• 33:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  And, um, yeah, I think, um, so I've, I've, I'm the kind of campaigny Jamie that, that you've seen over the years. It's not, that's not really me. You know, I was never that kid. I never grew up with that. I never had that inkling in my body.

• 33:17Speaker 00

  So where did campaigny Jamie come from then?

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Well, when I set up fifteen, which was just being young, wild, deeply passionate and, and quite capable. I, I, at twenty-four, I set up my first restaurant and I just decided it was gonna be a charity. And I just decided that we were gonna take kids from really rough backgrounds and prison. And I, I wanted to and I, and I just happened to have, from being completely skinned the year before, a million quid in the bank where I could do it. And clearly I was a fucking idiot. And, um, and, but, but that's twenty-four years old, right?

• 33:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, but being an idiot.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  My poor dad was like, what are you doing?

• 33:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, but being an idiot is helpful, right? Like, do you know what I mean?

• 33:53Speaker 01

  Being naive is really interesting.

• 33:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  And so I think that's why older people must, I mean, and I mean this in a polite way, you've got to look at the young people because the, cause there, there is obviously, um, there is being an idiot or stupid or, or, but there's also kind of like unadulterated passion and, um, want or aspiration, you know, like that, that green passion.

• 34:18Speaker 00

  That's when it's exciting.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Fifteen's the best thing I've ever done.

• 34:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Ever.

• 34:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  And, and I saw it bring out the best people in, of all levels, uh, team. Uh, it's brought out the best in everyone because it was the purest, it was, there was no conflict of interest. I didn't have a wage. Like the whole restaurant, it was madness which creates an energy. It was, it was, it was the ultimate tale of rehabilitation. Like the concept, like can you take, my, my dad was worried about it cause he said you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Conceptually.

• 34:51Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  And I disagreed as his young son. And, um, and it was a bit of a thing. And it took me to send one of my graduates to work for him for a summer for him to go.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  Like, okay. And then like for me, like to have those kids that had had trouble with the law, spent time in prison. And then the concept, I mean, to see the, the consistencies around that. And there were many, whether it was drugs, crime, aunties, uncles, lack of father figures, positive role models. Um, you know, uh, or a mixture of all of them to see, to create a safe place where there's second and third chances and then see the silk purse be made.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Literally from the sow's ear. And, and so what does that mean in my context? It means that I've got about a quarter of my students are better than me at cooking. Like that's, that's truth.

• 35:45Speaker 00

  Right.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  Um, I've got like three that have got Michelin stars, right? And run very, I can't do that. You know, and, and there's nothing, you know, to, um, to take someone that was in gang culture, drug culture and used to, and, and, and, uh, body image and violence was a tool. To see those same hands produce the most beautiful tortellini capillacci, like caramelli, you know, like

• 36:12Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  That, just, just as a kind of metaphor visually, like

• 36:17Speaker 01

  it's just, it's just, it, it like taught me a lot. And, and then from that, cause ultimately that story of Jamie's Kitchen in Fifteen was like second chances. From that came school dinners.

• 36:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so, so did you get an appetite for it from the way that fifteen went?

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:33Speaker 00

  Cause like that.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Cause the only thing I had in common with them is being shit at school.

• 36:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  And struggling at school. Like I was, I was a white, middle-class kid. But I came from a working-class family, grew up as a middle-class kid in a pub in Essex.

• 36:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  In a lovely little village where apparently nothing went wrong.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  Right? So the only thing I had to relate to them was school. But that was enough, right? But also like, uh, that was, it was the biggest education. And then

• 36:59Speaker 01

  then the public, because they reacted to that so strongly, took me to school dinners. Actually, my dad did again. He's, I, I think I'd quoted in a couple of newspaper articles about school dinners being not very good. And dad just said like, actions speak louder than words. Get on with it then. So then I thought, oh shit, better. So then, cause I'd started up a production company, I had the stupid ability to film it. And then go into the school and spend eighteen months in Greenwich and, and, and then that, then as you kind of do your research, you realise that the scenario, you know, the fact that there was robust, um, standards for dog food, which if you broke them, would send you to jail and there were none for kids food.

• 37:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  You know, five and a half million kids, a hundred and ninety days of the year, breakfast and lunch, Wild West, no standards.

• 37:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  And, and, and it's also what's hilarious, cause I, I kinda laugh about it now, but the grief I get for turkey Twizzlers, right?

• 37:49Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  So, so.

• 37:50Speaker 00

  A lot of people, you know, still pissed about it, man.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  But, but here's the truth of it, right? If you look at actually what I did.

• 37:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  And I'm not, I, I couldn't like, I did what I did and I had good reason to. If you've got half a brain, you'd do the same, like, but, but I never took away them. What I did was create the first standards in British history that meant if you wanted to sell a meat product, it had to have at least sixty-five percent meat in it. And I like, and not.

• 38:13Speaker 00

  Turkey Twizzlers went, fuck that.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  Exactly. They were asked to, they were asked to. There were lawyers everywhere. They were, you know, they were trying to sue. But it wasn't just them. It was like a myriad of products.

• 38:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  And it was basically saying, don't mug off the schools, don't mug off the parents, don't mug off the kids.

• 38:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  The hilarious, you know, the, the, the thing that's hilarious about it is the kids think that I took their turkey Twizzlers away. They just reformulated them with some meat in it like a year and a half later.

• 38:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  But the, the, like, if I'd had like been a drug dealer and we'd gone like, you know, we're sixty-five percent pure guys instead of ten. They'd have been like, ah, you, you, high five. But, um, but basically, cause I made their food have more meat in it. They're like, you bastard.

• 38:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  But, um, I still, I mean.

• 38:53Speaker 00

  There's not enough shit in this.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  Yes. That's exactly.

• 38:56Speaker 00

  But what, but did it, was it, cause like, cause those two things alone, fifteen, like what, what you've just said, right, is amazing. Okay. It, it, the legacy of fifteen and those, and those people coming from those backgrounds and going on to do amazing stuff. And then to take on school dinners. You know, we all watch the shows. It looked like a, a nightmare, right? For, for you. Do you know what I mean? And, and like getting all of that across. You are trying to do something that is so well-intentioned and people, it was just, you got so much pushback, it was unbelievable. Did, did that, do you feel, do you feel a sense of pride in the fact that, cause now? Things that kids eat having an effect on their academics and their level of concentration

• 39:40Speaker 00

  and all of that, that's like common, that feels like common sense now. When you were saying it, it felt like you got so much opposition. I mean, what was it like to go through that?

• 39:50Speaker 01

  It was the hardest eighteen months. And, and I'm not exaggerating, it was quite dark. And what does that mean? It meant, what dark means is that I, especially in food, in the world of food, if you're into it, like you just magnetise towards amazing, like, like-minded people, producers, farmers, like, it's just gold, gold, gold. It's, everything's just beautiful. And, and that's, that's why we do what we do, right? Because it ain't an easy job. But, but going to, to Greenwich, into those fifty-six schools, like, most of them didn't want me there. So every day had a heaviness of like, ah. And I, and although my job was to be strong and to sort of like tell stories and to like smash through and to sort of like pick it and kind of, yeah, that's not, honestly, truly, that's not really

• 40:35Speaker 01

  me. Like, I've got an element of confidence when I'm talking about what I know I'm talking about. But, but I, I still, and people never, I like, I still feel quite shy in lots of ways. And, and so it wasn't, going into Greenwich, it wasn't a pleasure. But probably half, half the head teachers, because that's where the power comes from, really, like that power that goes down through the, the teachers and empowers them to have a culture of teaching in that school around the syllabus, like, half of them were brilliant and extraordinary, and half weren't. So no one ever really wanted to talk about that, and I couldn't talk about that. But basically, that just meant that there was no, no, a computer says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And, and there'd be, there'd be reasons that weren't true.

• 41:14Speaker 00

  What sort of reasons were they giving you?

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Okay, so you've got a school, for instance, that was designed to feed seven hundred people, and fast forward like thirty years, and you've got sixteen hundred people, you have to feed them breakfast and lunch every single day, like seventy percent of the kids are on free school lunches, which means they're probably not going to go home to a hot meal. There's no standards for the fucking food, so they're not getting, they're nutritionally sort of, they're not optimal. So all of this is going to affect them visually, nutritionally, but also productivity and their exam results, right? So I'm trying to fix all of that. So I'm going, right, okay, the, the, the, the architecture of this place cannot handle any ideas that I've got. So we need satellite kitchens. So we'll prep them here, and at eleven forty-five, we'll do that, that, that there, and we'll have sat, and it's like, no, there'd be too much mess. It's like, yeah, but I'm trying to fix your problems.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Look, no, no. Well, you've got that shed there, and if I do this, that, and that, and I can get that in there, I can do four hundred people from there, and we've got that offer. And the kids have loved it. They've developed the menu. It's delicious. No, too much mess. And you go to another school that has less resource, and the head teacher will go, brilliant, I'll get the kids on detention to pick up the mess. And I'm like, brilliant, he sounds like my dad. Hey. But like, you know, even getting kids in detention to pick up litter, you know, like, there'll probably be something that says you can't do that now. Get them doing it, I say, brilliant. I mean, it's just like happy days. Like, like, if you go to Japan, like, every child contributes to the functionality of that school. And that includes, like, ev- every class contributes to the school dinners every single day. And,

• 42:46Speaker 01

  and if you saw what they ate, and the balance of what they ate, and, and the productivity of all children in Japan, for a like-for-like, ten-year-old to ten-year-old, cohort by cohort, it's, it's incomparable. So culturally, it's obviously just different. But, yeah, that was, that was hard. And I thought the parents would be on side. And, and it was really weird. And I thought the grandparents particularly would be on side, because they'd remember the old days. But it was largely not, no one wanted me there at all. And I remember a day, I think it was The Sun did a review of the documentary, and it was a good one. And I think it deserved to be a good one, because it was a good show. And the day it went in black and white in the newspaper, everything changed. All the naysayers of

• 43:27Speaker 01

  eighteen months dissipated. And even the people that were, all, all of a sudden, I wasn't the posh wanker that was just like, because I, I put spaghetti bolognese on the menu, they call, call me a posh wanker. Yeah, you coming in here with your posh food, you know, you know, I'll be like spaghetti bolognese and chili con carne. What's the matter? It's like, just because it's not like, you know, like reformulated hands and sort of like space invaders and like Twizzlers and stuff, like, like.

• 43:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's, when you say it now, that sounds insane, doesn't it? But like, that's, but, and do, but do you feel, you, you must feel vindicated now? You must have been vindicated then, but now?

• 44:04Speaker 01

  I feel vindicated. I think, I think vindicated, like, we, much has been achieved. And like, better school lunches are much more common, excellent is much more common. We do the Jamie Love School Food Awards every year to shine a light on what good looks like, and it's extraordinary. But probably, in reality, tw- forty percent of the twenty-four thousand schools in Britain are not up to the old standards, let alone the new ones that we're about to put in place in the next week. So Britain has, basically, we're not very good at running operations in the UK. You might not have noticed, but like, it's a bit fucked, isn't it? So we're not, like, it's a shame, really, because the taxpayers' money does go into schools, and it's an amazing institution. And although I struggled in

• 44:47Speaker 01

  school, like, I do see it. Like, God, like, the opportunity of school and, and how it, it needs to bend and mould to suit whatever. The job of school is to make kids fit for whatever is out there now. I mean, what's going to happen the next five years with AI and jobs and this, that and the other? I mean, I, I'm sure everyone's thinking about it. So feeding kids right, a hun, I mean, if you think about it, breakfast, lunch, a hundred and ninety days a year, that's half a kid's nutrition for their whole life, responsible by the state. So I guess, I, I, I mean, I'll probably be doing it until I die.

• 45:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  I'd like to think that we can, I mean, like, there's still no national procurement of produce off of farmers, British farmers. I'm sure AI has got a better chance of fixing it than humans.

• 45:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  We've just proved in twenty years since school dinner documentary that we, we, we don't even know who's complying with the old standards in twenty years.

• 45:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  So, I think, what was the expression? You can't run a piss-up in a brewery. Like, we've definitely proved that. So we've, we've done better, and I'm grateful for that. But I don't, I don't feel like I've delivered.

• 45:53Speaker 00

  Nowhere near.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  I haven't delivered the parents the promise that I promised that I could try and deliver. It's not my job, but like.

• 45:59Speaker 00

  No, I mean, you're not taking sole responsibility for that.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  No, but I mean, I'd happily take it if they gave it, but it's, but it's not my job.

• 46:06Speaker 00

  And you want to halve childhood obesity by twenty thirty?

• 46:10Speaker 01

  It's an interesting one. If you think, like, to halve childhood obesity now, by twenty thirty, is just going back to the normal health statistics of millennia.

• 46:17Speaker 00

  Right, right, right, right.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  So it's not, I mean, we, everyone says it's hard. No, we're talking about millennium, you know?

• 46:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  So for, for most of us, we remember that, and it's not that far away. So.

• 46:29Speaker 00

  You must, but I mean, look, you must feel a bit, fifteen school dinners, you must feel, there must be a sense of pride.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love it, I love it.

• 46:37Speaker 00

  It's like amazing. It's amazing. And like, I know you said it's really hard and, and all of that. And it must have been, I, I, I can't even imagine what it was like to go through that level of, you know, the backlash, and everybody was coming for you and all of that. And it wasn't like you were, you know, it wasn't, you were not trying to harm kids. You were trying to do the opposite of like, really help. I can't even imagine what that must have been like to go through. But now you must be thinking, that's a cool thing. When you come to the end of your career, whenever you decide to stop, that's a cool thing to look back on as like a difference made, right?

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. Like, I, I feel like I've got more to offer. And I think, just like where we started the conversation off with, like, fifty-one, I think, like, you know, probably, like, ultimately, one of the questions I ask myself every day is like, how can I be useful? Whether it's to my wife or to my, my work. How can I be useful? But I think.

• 47:29Speaker 00

  I say, can I?

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, can I, anything?

• 47:31Speaker 00

  Can I be useful?

• 47:32Speaker 01

  Please.

• 47:33Speaker 00

  And she often answers with silence.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  Go to work.

• 47:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Go out. Yeah. So I think, like, it changes. So I'd like to be more useful. And I, and like, I think, like, when you're a bit of an, I feel like I'm getting to be a bit more of an old dog. When you've seen it, smelled it, felt it, and you can, you can smell lies and, like, and I did this, a similar job in America. And, and, and I'm sure we have forms of it in Britain, but I haven't found it yet. But there's, you know, when, when you're doing civic food like that, there's, in, in America, there's money and envelopes and stuff going missing. Do you know what I mean? There's loads of controversy and sort of, you know. So it's like, people forget that the food industry is still the biggest on the planet. It's the biggest employer on the planet, bigger than banking, bigger than

• 48:20Speaker 01

  arms, bigger than anything. It's like, so food, I'm quite well positioned in a, I'm, I mean, a mad industry.

• 48:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  But it's a big industry. So from feeding people on aeroplanes, thirty-six thousand feet up, to hospitals, to schools, to, you know, twenty-minute meals, which is what I'm doing now. I mean, I didn't just come up with twenty-minute meals. That's basically what the public in Britain now are prepared to spend cooking. When I started.

• 48:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, so let's talk about, so, so you're, the, the, this is the new book, Twenty Minute Meals. And that has inspired, because that's inspired by the fact that we're not, we're cooking less at home? Is that, is that what the reason is?

• 48:59Speaker 01

  When The Naked Chef started, it was forty-six minutes average family spent cooking, right? Now, before Covid, it was twenty-one minutes. And now, post-Covid, Britain has never cooked less than now. So as much as you're generously trying to pat me on the back, I don't think twenty-five years of hard service is like, and people cook less than ever. Well done, mate. But.

• 49:22Speaker 00

  You've really put them off.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd like, yeah, yeah.

• 49:26Speaker 00

  And you just keep reducing the time. I'm looking forward, hopefully this podcast carries on. So Jamie, one minute meals.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I think the latest survey done, 25% of the population have said that they prefer to have their meals in like a kind of capsule form. So, so not even chewing, you know, so, and so it's really, it's really interesting. The amount of science coming in now about the multifaceted power of sitting for lunch and having a lunch.

• 49:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  For 10 or 15, 20 minutes and dinner, right? So nearly 50% of Brits don't sit at a table for dinner. It will be here, there and everywhere or on the go.

• 50:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  So the power of the table from a neuroscience and a biological point of view is amazing. So the ability to metabolize food better, like anti-inflammatory, you know? So we're seeing this research come in which links in with the blue zones. They're the places on earth where people live the longest, most productive lives.

• 50:26Speaker 00

  Right. So what are they doing in the blue zones?

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Well, many, many things, but one of them that is a consistency is they, they, they have, they come together and they have like, like proper lunches and dinners and they don't, they're not eating on the go. They're not eating at the desk, which is very much part of British culture and American culture now.

• 50:44Speaker 00

  In Europe, they've got it better than, they do it better, don't they?

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Well, if you think about it, like 45 minutes, you know, 20 miles across the channel in France. It's not religious or, or any kind of ethnic kind of reason. Like culturally, French people stop for lunch anywhere.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  Bus drivers, you know, airport workers, like they stop for lunch. So, and actually you can read that in their national statistics of health. You can, you can see like that they're kind of consuming more sat fats here, which normally would have like more heart disease, but they're not showing that. So they, they call it the French paradox, right? It's just like, hmm. So we know that it's more than just one thing. But so at a time when we're learning that convening and spending time together and, and the concept of anti-inflammatory being very powerful across all diseases. We've never cooked less and we've never been sort of not at a table more. So do you know what I mean? That kind of, as we get knowledge, I think it's like weird. It's like knowledge, like your average person now has so much general knowledge on food

• 51:45Speaker 01

  and what it looks like from different cultures around the world, from sort of TikTok and social media. And it's like, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. But then they're cooking less than ever. It doesn't quite.

• 51:52Speaker 00

  No, I know. And also like a lot of the things that you're seeing, a lot of the things that were being suggested are the things that used to be done. Do you know what I mean? Like you're talking about, you're talking about people used to do all that. I remember like when I was growing up, we used to sit around and have dinner. Do you know what I mean? And like, that's difficult. But, um, so what sort of stuff, let's have, let's have a proper, what sort of stuff is in this?

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Have a flick through. I mean, generally.

• 52:15Speaker 04

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• 52:45Speaker 04

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• 52:46Speaker 05

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• 53:02Speaker 05

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• 53:12Speaker 01

  So when we did our research, 20 minutes was the magic number.

• 53:15Speaker 00

  Right.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  So that dictated the book. And then I sit in a room with stickies and I look at the most common bought things in Britain. So what I'm trying to do is write recipes for things that you've already bought.

• 53:27Speaker 00

  Right.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Most people don't change their shop. They only change their shop 5% every week.

• 53:32Speaker 00

  Right.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  So ba- basically basket data is the only truth in the whole industry. Everything else is lie, lies, give or take, right? So if I can write a book that is a time frequency that you want, right? Keep the washing up to a minimal, right? And, and then don't have too, not over 10 ingredients, which is not too many.

• 53:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:50Speaker 01

  And then try and dictate the chapters by things that most, what most people buy most of the time.

• 53:57Speaker 00

  So you've got them sectioned by, by kind of ingredient groups, have you or something?

• 54:01Speaker 01

  Well, have a, have a look at the front. I mean, what, what I've tried to do is sort of break it down into sort of chit chat that makes you feel empowered to have a, have a go. So you've got the contents there.

• 54:12Speaker 00

  So you've got 20 minute, uh, fun ways with chicken, go to pasta and gnocchi, next level eggs, veggie heroes, meat in minutes. It's peppered with lots of lovely photos of you. You are looking, you're looking the fittest you've ever, like when I say fit, I mean fuckable.

• 54:31Speaker 00

  I think you look the most fuckable you've ever looked. And I've always thought you look pretty, pretty hot. Do you not think, do you not feel that?

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Well, I'm trying my best.

• 54:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  And, you know, you know, from every angle. But I think when you're starting to fall apart, you've got to like try hard, haven't you?

• 54:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't know, mate. I'm just letting it all go. Just throw me in the ocean eventually.

• 54:54Speaker 00

  And so this, and, and when you're, when you're putting a book together like this.

• 54:57Speaker 01

  Before I start writing a recipe, I'm looking at giving them sort of the things that I know they want. Anglo, French, Italian things. And then trying to like hang things that they don't, you know, what's the next hot thing? Like, you know, if they're starting to flog, you know, years ago it was miso. But miso is an amazing ingredient that can be anglicized. You can use it and you just do your roast carrots with it. And it's like, whoa, what just happened there? It's like a very powerful ingredient. And especially for your people, like vegans appreciate miso, um, cause it's got umami and stuff like that. And then, you know, gotchi chang is the latest kind of coriander thing that you get. Yeah. And it's like, but it's a fermented product that's got some oomph. So like part of the job is giving them what they want. And then the other part of the job is giving them what they don't know they want yet.

• 55:38Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and how good do you have to be at cooking to, to do that?

• 55:41Speaker 01

  Oh, we, we make sure that we take quite simple people and test them, you know?

• 55:45Speaker 00

  I never got an email. Did you?

• 55:50Speaker 01

  No, we, we.

• 55:51Speaker 00

  You were too simple.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  One of, um, we, we test, uh, four times inside the office and then we send it out to strangers. And, um, and then we have like all the kind of comments come back in and I do the master edit. And, um, and I can choose or not choose to take in thoughts or, you know, comments.

• 56:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 56:11Speaker 01

  And I have to decipher why that might have been. And of course, the idea of a perfect recipe is, is cause your oven's different, everyone's got a different oven, your, you know, the thickness of your pan is different. So, you know, so, you know, you have to not just use time and temperature as a guide, but also like visual cues, like, you know, until golden and crisp and blipping at the side. So I think very much as a sort of like a dyslexic as well, I've always been like, cause words have been tricky with me. I've tried to sort of use step-by-step pictures and, and design and descriptive words to sort of help you. My best friend when I was a kid was Lego. Just Lego, like just saved me. Like, do you know what I mean? Like when stuff was not great at school, like I'd go back at the end of the day

• 56:53Speaker 01

  and I'd sit down in a weird position and my legs would all sort of splay out and have a big bucket of Lego.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  And that idea that you could follow, you could end up with like, you know, like the X-wing fighter or something like that. Wow. And then you make it and then you destroy it and you make up your own version.

• 57:08Speaker 00

  For me, I'd always try and make a friend.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  I would have been your friend.

• 57:14Speaker 00

  Thanks, man.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  Where were you, where were you in the eighties?

• 57:16Speaker 00

  Uh, on my own.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 57:20Speaker 00

  Just sat next to this.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  Were you, where, where were you living at that time?

• 57:23Speaker 00

  I was in Crawley, I was in Crawley.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  So you've always been in Crawley?

• 57:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And why would you leave?

• 57:29Speaker 01

  Well.

• 57:29Speaker 00

  It's one of the worst five places to live in the UK.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  Is that true?

• 57:33Speaker 00

  According to most polls, yeah.

• 57:35Speaker 01

  I'm sure it's not.

• 57:38Speaker 01

  When you go down the high street, are you going to get loads of grief for that?

• 57:41Speaker 00

  Well, no, I did get some trouble. I did get into trouble actually because we did, I did my Netflix special at the Horf. And I said, I was doing, I was doing a bit, it wasn't a bit, I mean, it's sort of based in truth. I just said, I can't believe that Crawley's not making a big deal out of this. I'm like doing a Netflix special here. I said, the Horf looks like a disused leisure centre. I said, like, they've not had a camera crew before. It's mad that they're not making a big deal of it. Anyway, the Netflix special comes out, I don't think anything of it. About six months later, I'm taking my, Lisa and, Lisa and me and the kids are going to watch a show. I go up to just get a drink and, and I'd go, can I have one of these please? And he went, disused leisure centre.

• 58:22Speaker 00

  I was like, oh God, Lisa, we can't go back.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  But Lisa said, I was only joking.

• 58:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, I did say that. He didn't really take, it was, it didn't go well. What's your favourite thing to make when you can't, you really can't be asked? Will you always cook?

• 58:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:35Speaker 00

  Always?

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Cause the thing is if you can cook. It's just like riding a bike or dancing or like it's it's like, why would you go and get a takeaway? Like in the book, I did like, like actually doing a perfect pizza is like a whole deep thing. But like, if you, have you seen the price of very well-known franchised pizza makers? These, it's like a fortune.

• 59:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  Like, and it's like shit flour, it's crap ingredients. You, I mean, they probably don't even need a fridge. They're so like ambiently okay. It's like, you can take them up like an assault course and it'll still turn up looking like it should. It's like, how is that possible? So like, you know, we, we've got like a quick, like one pound pizza that you can rattle out at a tenth of the price.

• 59:21Speaker 00

  Right.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  And I think that's the spirit. I think like, learning to cook, being, my job is to sort of translate it into a language that might give me a chance of inspiring you.

• 59:30Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  But then the real gift is that you might do it to, we're not fighting for seven days a week, we're fighting for two or three.

• 59:36Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  But that's like two or three grand a year you can save, like over the course of a year. If you look at two of those pizzas a week and you do your maths over a year, it's a holiday.

• 59:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:46Speaker 01

  It's a holiday, well, it depends on what, how expensive your holiday is, but it's like you're getting into the fifteen hundred, sixteen hundred quid. But if you start looking at three coffees from like a typical, you know, franchise coffee place, that ain't, that ain't too bad either. So I just, I just think that when you can cook and you've got that confidence, apart from it being more delicious, more nutritious, but you can save a lot of money. But really, the empowering things it gives you choices. So whether you're rich or poor, you've got choices. And as I, as I've travelled around the world, and I went to all the blue zones apart from one, like people that didn't have much money ate really, really well and they had that table. And I, I know it sounds romantic, but it's true and I believe it. And I think it's a gift.

• 1:00:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  Like the next job I do next week is like money-saving meals, right? So yes, it's got more expensive, no shit, Sherlock, because things have got more expensive. But like, you, you can cook good food for fractional, the, the only proviso is you have to actually cook.

• 1:00:42Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  Like typically when you got a pound fifty a portion.

• 1:00:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  Like, I did one pound wonders, right?

• 1:00:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  It's not a casual, we know that people will be trying to catch us out, catch him out, oh, it's one pound, three pence. It's like, we have like a newsroom of people, honestly like a newsroom, like we have to resource better. We take the average cost of all the ingredients across four major supermarkets up until a month before broadcast. Just to be able to say, you can.

• 1:01:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  And because I couldn't do it for a quid last year, it was Feed Your Family for a fiver.

• 1:01:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  Right? So you've got an extra twenty five p, right? And then so, but, but the truth is you can cook very well, very, very cheaply, even in this climate, but you do have to cook.

• 1:01:21Speaker 00

  Got it.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  And, and, and that is where the truth is. It's like, there's a bit of effort. Um, so like literally the next week will be all money-saving meals. And we do that in January because everyone's skinned in January and, um, smashed the old credit card a little bit. So it, it normally goes down really well. And to be fair, the, the public are really grateful that they've got some choices.

• 1:01:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  Um, but yeah, it's, uh, but I keep saying, I'm trying to be useful.

• 1:01:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, it's, it's great, man. It's great. Um, speaking of useful, we've got a question for my mother now. Um, I don't know what this is.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  Love her.

• 1:01:58Speaker 00

  It could be offensive. Let's find out.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  No, actually, won't you be lovely?

• 1:02:01Speaker 02

  Hi Jamie.

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  Bless you.

• 1:02:02Speaker 02

  Do you remember the day in Southend Pier? I thought it's Southamton Pier, all because I had so many cocktails.

• 1:02:11Speaker 00

  Buttered.

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  Got drunk. Romesh and me loved the vegan lasagna you made for us. It was absolutely beautiful. I just want to know, when was the last time you let your hair down? Love to see you again to learn some of your recipes. Have a blessed day. Take care. Bye.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  Love you.

• 1:02:35Speaker 00

  It's, it, she was, it was really good, really good. I would say she was talking quite a long time for that question. When do you let your hair down? I mean, that feels like you could punch in and punch out on that.

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, but in her head, she was contextualising her question.

• 1:02:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, I loved it. I loved it. When's the last time you let your hair down?

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  Oh, probably a real let hair down was about a year and a half ago. And a buddy does pretty serious rugby.

• 1:03:04Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  And the Bishop's Talk for Rugby Club, um, uh, have like these kind of fates, these sort of like sleepovers. And it's a good bunch of parents to be fair. And, uh, I turned up like half an hour late because I was working. And, um, the dads had already decided that that wasn't acceptable. So for the whole night, they just kept topping up my drink. And I just got really, because I, I'm at the stage now where I like to have a few bevoirs.

• 1:03:32Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  But I know my ceiling and, and I, and I know the repercussions of not playing the game right. Because I've got to get up early the next day. These boys were not having that. They were like, they literally, they just, they, they got me so drunk.

• 1:03:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  And, um, but I'd, in typical Oliver form, I had pre-presumed like barbecue. Like I'd done all my mise en place. I'd got steaks and pork chops and pickles and like, I got things into like, like Russian dolls style bowls and I had like everything wrapped up and ready to go because that's what we do in shoots. But then I know, now we're going out for dinner. So we went out for dinner. It's all in the back of the car. And it got me completely blind drunk. And then like two in the morning, it's just like Oliver's restaurant finally opened up in a tent that could have gone up in flames like that. And there's just a load of.

• 1:04:21Speaker 00

  Can you imagine going on the piss, you're absolutely starving late at night and you're with Jamie Oliver? I mean, what a result.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  That's the dream.

• 1:04:31Speaker 00

  I, I've got a car full of stuff I've prepared. Holy shit. What a session partner you are.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  It was very funny. What was really, um, I don't know how to look at it, maybe like a sign of the times.

• 1:04:44Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  All, all good dads, good crack and, and, but they were not like, I weren't getting away with nothing. As I was cooking and I was kind of, and I just kept telling everyone, I just love pickles. I just love pickles. There's pickles, there's everything. And it's like, and I'm, at the time, I'm, I'm cooking, by the way, drunk, blind drunk. Perfect steaks coming out.

• 1:05:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  Like, like, there's clearly a bit of the brain that's still wired for like the, the bark crust and the resting. And I had the board and the carving knife and, and then I looked around me and all the dads were misbehaving. Like they were fighting, like it's a nice wrestle fighting, you know, quite erotic and, and sort of like cuts on their heads. And there's one just asleep and there's one just giggling about nothing. One, one geezer, I still don't know who he was. I was telling how much I love pickles.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  In the next tent.

• 1:05:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  Were all the children of those men and they were all perfectly behaved, all normal, just going next.

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  Dads. It was all nice, like we got let out on a leash.

• 1:05:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  Um, good times.

• 1:05:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  Good times, but yet the food was still there. I'll give you one last bit of the story.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  I was out early in the morning when you feel so drunk and you're just, I was outside getting some fresh air. And, um, the, um, one of the managers of the rugby club was, didn't look happy at all. And he came back and I said, what, you all right? He, he goes, ah, some wankers parked his car right in front of there and put the thing. I said, oh, that was me. I was sort of going in my car trying to get stuff out like, I'm so sorry.

• 1:06:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:06:19Speaker 01

  He goes, and someone else shat right outside my tent. I said, no, that wasn't me. That wasn't me. But a proper human shite right outside his tent. And, uh, we still don't know who that was.

• 1:06:33Speaker 00

  But to be fair, you were churning out a lot of protein, that's to be expected. Um, now you are, you recently, we're talking about changes you've made, you, you, you turned fifty, you've got your pilot's licence.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:44Speaker 00

  Congratulations.

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  Thank you very much. It was an emotional thing.

• 1:06:47Speaker 00

  What, um, what made you do it and how was it?

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  Uh, well, my wife bought me a discovery flight about five years ago.

• 1:06:53Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  It's on the way to dropping the kids off from school. I was a bit nervous to go in. I just thought, because it said members only. And I thought, ah, probably that's a present that I probably won't use. And then one day I just thought, I'll, I'll go in there and ask.

• 1:07:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  So I went in there and I just said, look, it ain't going to be valid, but my missus bought me this thing like three years ago. And it was a discovery flight and he just went, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, I can see it. Yeah. Do you want to go up? I went, um, uh, and then someone said, oh, I just had a cancellation. I'll take you now. And I went, um. I literally phoned up George and said, uh, do you remember that thing you got me? Um, they're saying they'll take me up now. And she goes, well, I don't want you to die. And I'm like, and I said, well, I think.

• 1:07:28Speaker 00

  I would assume that's always the case.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  I asked permission to go. And, um, anyway, I went up and I just loved it. And it just opened up something inside me that, uh, you know, I just, I'm like, woo. Um, so I've done it for a year and a half and, uh, ten exams.

• 1:07:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  And one of the coolest, funnest, most adventurous, mind-blowing things I've ever done. Um, really just a beautiful, beautiful freedom, but it's, and it's not what you think. And the people have been amazing, old and young, just like, it's a sort of odd thing to do, a tiny proportion of people on the planet have ever been able to do it. And the minute that they go, okay, so you're going to go and do solo now. And you're like, what? If you, if you just contextualise it, right? So when you learn to drive, at what point halfway through, halfway through your training, do they get off and say, right, I'm going to go and have a cup of tea for an hour? If you pop off the Harlow and, um, go around the roundabouts and if you get back in one piece, like we'll crack on with the next bit.

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  Uh, you good for that? Like it's, but it's like an old, it's like an old thing from the war, right? So it's very much like a very military style of training. And it, you have to have, no matter who you are in your, whatever flavour of person you are, the moment that door goes kink chink and your trainer walks off.

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  You you can throw the towel in.

• 1:08:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  Right, so it's very much like having a conversation, a deep conversation with yourself. But the exhilaration, the excitement, and to to master the landing. And to be able to navigate, but it's like, it's it's it's it's blown my mind. And like, you know, I've always been like the kind of kid that loved treehouses and we did, I had a a properly old school childhood of like streams and lakes and rivers and swallows and Amazons. It really was like that BMXs and friends and little fires and picnics and, you know, Jimmy, my best mate, who was always into animals and had a mini farm, Jimmy from Jimmy.

• 1:09:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, like he has a farm now. He has the second biggest polar bear sanctuary on the planet and has lions and tigers and like, you know, that was him at four.

• 1:09:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  When I met him and like for me, the cooking exactly the same. And then now I'm like, I had a moment on my test. When I flew over Jimmy's farm, not not planned, by the way, I just kind of looked out and I went and then it was just sort of like, yeah, it's just, it's just an amazing thing to do. And then going over water, I went, I went to a stag night the other day and, you know, just to be out, they all spent five and a half hours getting there to the Isle of Wight and I'm like fifty minutes, rent a plane. It's just brilliant.

• 1:10:12Speaker 00

  That is.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  It's brilliant.

• 1:10:14Speaker 00

  That's good.

• 1:10:14Speaker 01

  And the geezer, the geezer at Sandown is is like, it's, he is the most interesting sort of like version of a kind of something out of a film. He called me the C word about so many times, a posh Essex C word about a million times. And he's like, you just look like that. Who is that C word? Oh, how can that C word, Jamie Oliver, do you know? Has anyone ever said, you look just like that?

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  It's like mad, but everywhere you go, there's these really unique characters.

• 1:10:45Speaker 00

  When you, so you you go in and you do your discovery flight amazing and then you start flying, you start learning for yourself. Was that, and it was literally just because you enjoyed it. There's no other reason. You didn't have like an ambition or I'm gonna do. And obviously like going to the Isle of Wight, that sounds good, but.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  I don't know if it was just me as a person or me as Jamie Oliver, like Jamie Oliver's an interesting one to be uh stuck to, cause like the just simple things like going down the pub. Yeah, it's possible, but not on a Friday night or a Saturday night, cause it's just gonna get lary unless I've got security or, you know, so there's sort of basic things that you love or grew up with that you maybe can't have anymore. So like, part of my slightly neurodiverse brain is like multitasking and then my personality has always had a kind of casualness to it. Um even my cooking, like, oh, do you wanna be Michelin star? I I I could if I wanted to, but I don't want to. Like, I'm kind of down with, this is my vibe.

• 1:11:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  And um so that, but then when it came to this, the only way, you know, good airmanship is fastidious and it's more sort of like of the Japanese sushi chef. It's like, I'm really enjoying seeing a different side of me.

• 1:11:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  And surprising myself that I can be that if I want to be that. And so this is why I love doing it, cause I feel like I've used a different part of my brain and challenged myself. Con conversely, my kids and my family don't believe that. They say that's all bullshit. None of them, none of them. You've never seen a family so far away from me taking them up. So um it's like, they're like, no, he's still a complete wanker. There's no way. So um but look, it's, I but I also think at fifty one, it's like, you know, I wish I'd done it when I was twenty. I just saw an eighteen year old girl pass a week after me and um and you just think, wow.

• 1:12:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:28Speaker 01

  And then there's, we have quite a lot of young girls come through uh the airfield. They do a lot of scholarships to get more women into the industry, cause there's not enough. And um and that was just like, cause I know how hard I tried and you think, wow. So and and of course, they got, there's lots of things you can do with it, right?

• 1:12:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. So is that, is that part of the, you know, you talked about.

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  It was never part of the plan. It's a total curve.

• 1:12:50Speaker 00

  But you, you know, you sort of talk about you're, you're trying to stand top of your fitness, you're reflecting on your work life balance, I guess, you know, uh is is is, and you sort of, the words you use were, I'm I'm being a bit more selfish, right?

• 1:13:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:04Speaker 00

  Was this part, is this part of that of like, I really just wanna do this thing, so I'm gonna do this thing?

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  I think it's really okay. I mean, like, I'll always put like my wife and kids first, but like I think it's really important to, if you're gonna love other people, you've got to love yourself. And I think that's a really deep conversation, but and it comes in different shapes and forms and like, I I have been doing versions of eighty to a hundred hour weeks, the days for too long.

• 1:13:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:13:29Speaker 01

  And, you know, and like, you know, four, five and a half hours of sleep a night, like, no, no, no, no, no. So I think like, I think it's, and I'm not saying I'll get it all right. I mean, I think there is selfish is is an interesting word, isn't it? Cause it's primarily ne- negative.

• 1:13:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, people, it's got, people see it as a, as a negative thing, but.

• 1:13:48Speaker 01

  I I think you have to, if I'm supposed to look after my family and my teams correctly.

• 1:13:56Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  Then one of the gifts I can give is try and look after myself properly. And I can't expect everyone to do that for me. I have to do it for myself. So I think whether that's, you know, I'm going out tonight to a little theatre show to see a friend who is an actor do his thing, like, that's my way of saying, I love you, I respect you, your craft is hard, but also I'm gonna just absorb myself. Not into a screen, but see theatre, like, you know, it's a little gift to myself, you know what I mean? And I, and I think whether it's going out with the lads, I don't go out with the lads loads, but like enough, it's important. Um I went out on a boy's little trip last year and there were like eight lads and we took a couple of days. Honestly, like from a sort of forty, fifty year old men's point of view, every man cried on that trip.

• 1:14:42Speaker 01

  At a little moment, there was like stuff that they weren't talking to anyone about.

• 1:14:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:46Speaker 01

  And some pretty serious stuff as well around mental health and that, that. And it was like, like, we all agreed, like, no matter what, no matter what our jobs are, no matter what. If there's ever a three o'clock in the morning call, straight in the car.

• 1:14:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:58Speaker 01

  We're there, like, it's not that important. And it's just like, it was like a bit of a moment. So it's like, you know, it's, I feel like I'm from the silly and the light and the friendly to sort of like quite important and, you know, what, you know. There's like a pyramid, isn't it, of who is important in your life? But actually, everyone's important, but you just need to sort of get, try and dice and splice it.

• 1:15:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, but also, and also the other thing is, is by sort of doing those things that kind of recharge you a little bit. It does make you better for your family, right? If you're, if you're doing these things that you really love or whatever.

• 1:15:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think also, like, at this stage, at fifty, like, it's lovely to have people say nice things about you, but like, you know, when you're, you still think, well, I'm a bit shit at that. Or like, ah, you know, like, there's a bit of creaking going on. So I think like, it's quite nice to sort of find, find pleasure in some new things. Um and, you know, whether that's have some different conversations, not the same old conversation, you know, is, I think, I I'm look, so far, Romesh, one year in to my fifties, I I I think it's some of the happiest I've ever been, honestly. And and um and I've never loved my wife more than now. And um I'm so proud of my kids.

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  And then like my team at work, I'm so grateful for, like, I've got, I've, I've had some real ups and downs in work, some extraordinary and some really tough things. And I think like, like, I I kind of don't want the next ten years to be quite as feisty as the last ten. So uh I can blame as many people as I want, but it's got like, none of us here has got to just make a few more better decisions and and like navigate stuff.

• 1:16:42Speaker 00

  No, I mean, it's good. It's like loving the kids, loving your wife, loving the team at work. I hope that happens to me at fifty. Um okay, we're gonna play, we're gonna play a little game with you. This is called misquoted, right? So I'm gonna say some things.

• 1:16:55Speaker 01

  No shit.

• 1:16:55Speaker 00

  Some of them you said, some of them you didn't. Some of them are kind of like something you said, but we slightly adjusted it. Um all right, here's your first one. Whatever size lemon you get in life, you go with it.

• 1:17:08Speaker 01

  I mean, it could be true. I mean, I think whatever size lemon you get in life, you should go with it.

• 1:17:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, you said that in, you should say that in making a Malphi lemon cake, which in our, so there you go. Are you a, are you a big fan of lemons, right? Of course, we ask the hard hitting questions.

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  Well, I know.

• 1:17:25Speaker 00

  On the Romesh.

• 1:17:25Speaker 01

  In a Malphi, they're quite big. And they have a chedro lemon that's that big, like, it's huge. It's like the size of a head, but just whatever lemon you get.

• 1:17:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, your, your team said I wasn't allowed to ask you that lemon question, but I just, I don't give a fuck. Do you know what I mean? No, I'm joking.

• 1:17:39Speaker 01

  Cause it's very controversial.

• 1:17:42Speaker 00

  All right, here's your next one. Well done, you're one for one. Um.

• 1:17:47Speaker 00

  Did you or did you not say this? I'm basically the pestle and mortar of the food world. I'm crushing it.

• 1:17:52Speaker 01

  Never, I'd never say that. Cause I, cause I try not to.

• 1:17:57Speaker 00

  Say stuff like that.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  Did I say that?

• 1:17:58Speaker 00

  No, you didn't. How embarrassing, mate, if you'd have said that after the way you led into that. That would have been bad. But no, you didn't say it. Here's the real quote. I've got a really amazing job in that I live on your shelf in your kitchen.

• 1:18:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:11Speaker 00

  Uh Guardian twenty nineteen, in case you wanna look that up. Uh what's your favourite kitchen item? Another hard hitting one.

• 1:18:18Speaker 01

  Pestle and mortar.

• 1:18:19Speaker 00

  Pestle and mortar?

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:20Speaker 00

  Oh, there you go. Okay, great. Pestle and mortar?

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  Pestle and, mm, mm.

• 1:18:24Speaker 00

  Pestle and.

• 1:18:25Speaker 01

  Or mortar and pestle.

• 1:18:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, however you wanna say it. And we respect all cultures, have a whichever order you wanna say. Okay, here's your next one, you're two for two. Um if I had a boy, I'd like to call him Elvis.

• 1:18:36Speaker 01

  Oh, that could be true. But Jules would edit the name to Buddy.

• 1:18:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, so, well, this is before Buddy was born, you said this.

• 1:18:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:44Speaker 00

  Uh the full quote is, what's wrong with Elvis Oliver? You'd want to shag him and you'd wanna be his mate.

• 1:18:51Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:18:53Speaker 00

  It's true though, isn't it? Imagine that. Now I'm going out with Elvis tonight. Mum, you never guess who I'm going out with. Elvis Oliver.

• 1:19:05Speaker 00

  Um, okay. Who's your next one? Now I'm fifty, I refuse to vacuum.

• 1:19:10Speaker 01

  No, didn't say that.

• 1:19:12Speaker 00

  No, you didn't say that. You said, I'm avoiding negative people, mood hoovers.

• 1:19:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:19:17Speaker 00

  And getting better at saying no.

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:19:20Speaker 00

  Um, saying no is difficult, isn't it? Have you, have you actually got any better at it?

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  Getting better.

• 1:19:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:19:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, but we, we spoke about this. I think in, in the world that we work in, we know deep down that the average normally lasts two or three years if you're lucky. So we've done, in dog years, we're like a hundred years old, aren't we, into this game? So, um, yeah, I think you kind of always have to say yes, because you think you're not going to get another offer, but, um, uh, saying no, I'm doing more of that recently.

• 1:19:50Speaker 00

  No, it is, it is good, but it is hard. When you do do it, this is always a bit awkward afterwards, isn't it? But Lisa doesn't seem to have any problem with it. Um, okay, here's you, here's your last one. I want my kids to struggle as much as possible in a safe and controlled way. If it's too easy, it's really vanilla.

• 1:20:08Speaker 01

  That sounds so like me.

• 1:20:10Speaker 00

  You did say that.

• 1:20:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, um. I- is this like, you want them to have a bit of fire in their bellies? Is that basically what it is?

• 1:20:17Speaker 01

  I think it's my attempt of, uh, not making it look like I've let them grow up in a very, very safe, comfortable environment.

• 1:20:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:26Speaker 01

  Um, so, you know, uh, but yeah, I think, um, um, we want them to grow up in a safe, comfortable environment, but at the same time, we want them to struggle.

• 1:20:38Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  But the interesting thing is like, the, my kids do school six days a week and like, you know, their school day is like eight until six. So where I would normally have like a paper round and go and do a bit of work in the wash up and sort of have a weekend job.

• 1:20:52Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:20:53Speaker 01

  It's like, so all my sort of analogies of what I think struggle looks like.

• 1:20:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  It's not the same, it's, you know.

• 1:20:59Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:21:00Speaker 01

  They do their homework because they want to do well at school. I was just, I was just a bit of an idiot and, uh, you know, and so the, my kids have, um.

• 1:21:09Speaker 00

  I've had the opposite. I, I've had the thing where they work too hard and I'm going to them, do you want to just chill out a little bit?

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:14Speaker 00

  It's not as important. Like you don't need to get this stressed about it. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:21:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think what I meant was like,

• 1:21:21Speaker 01

  yeah, it's, I think the struggles in life definitely define you as a person. And, uh, obviously it's, it's, there's a grey area, right? So you don't want to go, ideally don't go too far, but, um, but yeah, I think you find out who you are when you've, you've had to really.

• 1:21:39Speaker 00

  When you've been up against it a bit, yeah. Uh, well, look, Jamie, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you.

• 1:21:45Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:21:45Speaker 00

  Uh, we've got one final question for you. We like to try and end the podcast with like an exclusive or something, so something ideally that, um, would go viral really. We're trying to push revenues. It's all about pushing, it's, it's about chats, it's about connecting with people, but it's mainly about getting those Instagram views up. Uh, no, in all seriousness, it could be like, uh, the best piece of advice you've ever had, something you've never said publicly, uh, some aspiration you've never expressed before, anything like that. Is there anything that springs to mind?

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  Um, I can tell you one thing, but I've never told anyone before.

• 1:22:21Speaker 00

  Why are you telling this? Can I have a bit more of this, Daniel?

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, sorry. Uh, on the last day of school, um, I didn't tell anyone, really. Didn't tell anyone, but I kind of, I had prepared for it for about two or three months. And, um, I'd set aside hundreds of eggs to go off over like months. And I had made like kilos of, uh, essentially a porridge with all the most hideous off ingredients and a whole load of green food colouring and made them into wraps like bombs. Um, do you ever remember the film Bugsy Malone, the kids one?

• 1:22:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  It was like that, the splurge guns. And I took it in a suitcase to school and I hid it. And I never said that I did it, but I just happened to be involved in distributing it. And basically the last day of school was this giant sort of Bugsy Malone style. Like, like there were kids going around with like luminous green off stuff everywhere. There were kids crying. Like one of the dudes that got kicked out of school came up on his motorbike, um, like on the last day of school, even though he'd been kicked out. And like everyone just surrounded him and the bike was green and like he got doused and like, and the teachers came out en masse and basically got

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  half of the year that were all involved in this, but I had never told anyone that it was me that organised the whole thing. Eggs, mingin' eggs everywhere. Like, and I was sitting on top of like the, um, cricket pavilion, just watching it all play out and, um, giggling like a gremlin. And I never got, because it, because the bike got done over, like he called the police, so the police were involved. And I just wandered off back to the school bus, got on the school bus. Most of my year was still at school, getting detentions, even though there was a last day of school. And, um, I'm really sorry, it was me. Um, and, um, but that was the trick. Don't tell anyone.

• 1:24:19Speaker 00

  That is amazing. What a story. Please, can you give it up for Jamie Oliver, everybody?

• 1:24:27Speaker 00

  Thank you so much for watching and listening to this episode. Before you go, if you've enjoyed this episode and you've not subscribed, that's a bold decision, crazy behaviour. Follow and subscribe to the Romesh Rang and Ethan Show wherever you listen. It helps me, really, like really helps me. It helps the team and it costs you absolutely nothing. We drop episodes every Monday and Thursday. Mondays, I'm joined by great guests. Thursdays, my mum Shadi joins me to answer your questions and family dilemmas. I'll see you Thursday with mum who, let's face it, is who you're actually here for. If you've got a problem you want to solve or a story you want to share, send it to [email protected], voice note or text us on 07731 623355.

• 1:25:08Speaker 00

  We can't promise good advice, but you might end up on the show. See you soon.

• 1:25:13Speaker 02

  Oh, shut up, Romesh.

• 1:25:17Speaker 03

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