#432 - Roast Goose, Intro Sequels and The Volkswagen Barrel of Paint

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Hello, listeners.

I'm going to take you back to Monday morning, 9am,

just after registration at BBC Radio 5 Live.

Nahal had been told off for chewing gum and the mood was sombre.

Nike Minchetti said that Nahal was actually just pretending to chew gum because he thought it looked cool and that Tim Davey should have checked the bin but Dot and Adabayo told her to leave it.

The lesson was about to begin.

Tim sat cross-legged on the front of the desk before jumping down to sit on a chair the wrong way round like Christine Keeler or AC Slater from Save by the Bell or Scott from Neighbours depending on your age.

Tim took a big performative slurp of his clipper to show the lesson had begun, because the Five Live bell had broken due to cuts to the licence fee.

Doing a big noisy slurp wasn't an ideal solution to not having a bell, but it worked for Tim.

He looked at all the presenters, who by now were fidgeting in their chairs.

The ones with shows beginning in less than eight hours were desperate to begin the twin-factor authentication process that would allow them to check their BBC emails.

Tim began by asking a general question.

What does having a programme on Five Live mean to you?

His words hung in the air.

Rick Edwards put his hand up like a shot.

I use it as an opportunity to take the pulse of the nation.

Damn, I was going to say that, muttered Chris Warburton.

Rachel Burden put her hand up more calmly, confident in the quality of her answer.

I believe the best radio speaks truth to power.

Tim smiled and nodded.

For God's sake, these are brilliant.

I should write these down, muttered Chris.

What about you, Adrian?

asked Tim.

Adrian looked up from his micro-machines.

I love my show, he said.

Next week, I'm going to try to shake hands with 60 Simons in 60 seconds.

For charity, said Tim.

No, said Adrian.

What a little shaking hands.

Next week, Adrian, said Rick Edwards, if Wes Brom were at home, you could try to hug 100 Henrys at the Hawthorne's.

Oh, that's a good idea.

Adrian hadn't realised that Rick was being sarcastic.

Rick had been jealous of Adrian ever since Adrian had been chosen ahead of him to play Danny Zucco in the Five Life production of Greece.

Colin Murray had played Teen Angel, Rick's second choice, so Rick had to make do with playing Eugene after getting nervous and burping during his audition.

Claire MacDonald had been superb as Sandy, but Ellie Aldright had really dazzled as Rizzo, and Regi One would have to really pull out all the stops with their production of Geysen dolls if they were going to stay as Tim's favourite station.

Listen, said Tim.

I just wanted to remind you of why you are here.

But this is the PHSE lesson, so in a second we'll discuss the dangers of sniffing glue.

Apart from Steve Crossman, who was dismissed because he needs to make a package about Jamie Vardy.

The presenter sighed.

Tim was absolutely obsessed with the dangers of sniffing glue.

Steve walked off, smiling.

He actually finished his Jamie Vardy package, but Tim wanted him out of the room because during last week's lesson on sex education, he'd done something absolutely horrendous with a cucumber to make Tony Libsy laugh.

There we go.

I need to get something off my chest.

Jarm.

What?

You stole a lot of your ideas from last week's intro that I did.

No.

No.

That was a follow-on.

It was a sequel.

It's a sequel.

It's a sequel to the character.

Because I had an absolute disaster last week.

Is that why you were doing it downstairs?

Yeah, two weeks ago.

It was the disaster.

Went on holiday.

So we're just moving straight on from the intro.

That's a good intro.

I don't say it's a...

It's a...

placekeeper day.

I don't remember your intro last week because I don't listen back.

It was quite...

What was it?

I mean, we did record it quite well.

It was sort of set as if Five Live was a school and there was an ice cream van.

That's where I got my idea from.

Sorry, I don't listen back.

And Adrian had a remote control car.

Yes, that's coming back to me now.

Okay, good intro.

I enjoyed it.

That's a good sequel.

No, but it's a good sequel.

It's a good sequel.

It's a good sequel.

It's like a sort of like when the Star Wars franchise sort of

sheers off.

and you get weird things you don't quite but it's in the world it was jar jar binks it was

Toy Story 2.

It's not hated.

It's not pillory.

Well, I've never known really, because I didn't watch the latest Star Wars because I lost interest

because I was 18.

Yeah, yeah.

But Jar Jar Binks was a sort of thing that was in the general.

In the Zeitgeist.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wasn't he sort of a crazy character?

Yeah.

Okay.

He's a bit wacky.

Go on.

We went on holiday last week.

To the Algave?

Yes.

And it rained every day, and I read Starziland cover to cover.

Superb.

Sounds like the

dream scenario.

Starziland, what a book.

Anyway.

We had our hall painted

whilst we were away.

I thought that would just be a little bit easier.

Our friend John did it because he's very good at painting, right?

I thought, great.

This is good planning.

Okay, this is good planning.

Because John's very thorough.

He could do with the job.

In the time we're away, it will be done and it will be ready and it will be fine and it would be good.

And we chose the colour and it was great.

We we had a babysitting issue a couple of days, um,

before we left, and so everything got very, very frantic.

And so, I hadn't bought the paint, right?

Okay, so this is this is something I was gonna do on the Wednesday, but we lost our babysitters, so I couldn't do it.

So, we're leaving very early on Saturday morning, so it's now Friday night, and I'd come back from recording this show when apparently you'd done an intro with Five Libraries of School, which I don't actually remember, but anyway, I'm sure it was very good.

It was Bruce, right?

Okay, Tim hide a hundred ice cream van right okay yeah and it was set up brilliantly for a sequel yes

you left it you left the door open job that was joey to my friends yeah

um it pays his mortgage so hang on let me just get my head around this you're going on holiday yeah how long have you known you needed this paint for uh oh ages but you know life is very busy Can you buy it online?

No.

You can't get paint online?

Well, I didn't think of getting it online, actually.

But also, is it a colour that you've

yeah, yeah, it is.

Anyway, that's irrelevant.

That's irrelevant.

So I said to his...

No, but I'm always in every story looking for your failings.

Because when you finish the anecdote, I want to apportion Blake.

Because I'd wanted to do it.

I'd wanted to do it on the Wednesday, and then the babysitter hadn't...

couldn't look after the kids, so I hadn't done anything.

And then 48 hours elapsed where...

Yeah, yeah, but I was very, very busy.

Pre-reading Starzieland.

Well, no, it's obviously I'm going on holiday, so I've got to do all the podcasts I do for that week.

It had to be done that week, the week before, so I was quite busy, right?

And Izzy was busy.

So on the Friday evening, when I'm coming back from this show, I said, Izzy, you need to buy this paint.

This is the paint we've chosen.

You can do it from this shop, right?

So she's like, yeah, fine, fine, fine.

I could do that.

So she goes to buy the paint.

Oh my God.

Buys it.

Great.

I think it's done.

I think it's done and dusted.

She's driving back

from BQ or wherever it was.

And because she's got the paint on the front seat.

The alarm is going because it thinks that there's someone sitting in the front seat and

without a seat, right?

Now she's extremely stressed because all this stuff we were going to do, we couldn't do because the babysitter wasn't there.

So now Friday has become extremely frantic.

We hadn't packed properly.

So now we're looking, we're staying down the battle of a very late night packing.

Okay.

So she's just, I can't believe she did this.

She's just like, oh my God, that alarm needs to get switched off.

So she just knocks the paint, the tin of paint off the seat.

Of course.

Of course.

Of course, you do that.

Could have popped the seatbelt in.

Could have popped the seatbelt.

That's what Betty said.

She's 10.

She's 10.

Or done what I had done, placed it down, maybe at a red light.

Pulled over.

It has a handle.

It has a handle.

I know the route because I know the shop she went to.

And I can name three traffic lights that would have been red.

And she could have used the handle.

Also, I could list 10 items that would make sense to do with.

Four pack of toilet roll.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Packet of sponges.

Tennis ball.

Tennis ball.

Yeah.

Even a punnet of mushrooms.

Yeah, because it's sealed.

Yeah, a crisps.

Crisps.

One of those tubs of penny sweets you used to get for the Scout tuck shop.

Yeah.

Yes, yes, yes.

Flumps.

Flumps.

Flumps.

A blazer.

A bottle of orange squash.

Yeah, if it's brand new.

Yeah, go ahead.

Well, even if the screw tops on.

Yeah, but anyway,

ten gloves.

Marigolds.

Marigolds.

Her thinking was,

you know, you.

It was chaotic.

Her thinking was, you often have to take a tin of paint, take the lid off a tin of paint with a screwdriver because it's sealed on so tight, right?

So that was her thinking.

I mean, in fairness, it's not the world's most insecure package.

No.

And I certainly wouldn't be throwing them around.

No.

Whenever I've opened tins of paint, I've had to use a screwdriver or similar.

Or throw it into a foot well.

She threw it into a foot well.

And that's when I got the phone call.

So she pulled over at this point

to make the phone call.

And she said, hell, you're going to be angry with me.

And I said, why?

And she said, I said, what have you done?

She said, oh, the paint fell off the seat.

I said, right, okay, I can see where this is going.

And she said, there's now, this is the phrase I will never forget, there's now a lake of paint in the foot well.

And I said, what do you mean a lake?

She said, oh, five litres.

I said, well, it's all come out.

Oh, five litres is a beast.

That's a biggie.

She said, it's all come out.

Yeah.

Now, I was on the way back from the show

and

she said, but I'm now late to pick up the kids, so I can't do anything about it.

So she went to pick up the children.

Now, obviously, John, who was painting her house, needed paint, so she needed to pick up the kids and then go back to BQ to buy more paint.

So this is all time when she's not dealing with it, right?

So she goes back to BQ.

with the kids.

There's a lake of paint in the foot well, in the Volkswagen barrel of eggs, as you always call my car.

She goes back to being queue to buy more paint and then goes back to the house, by which point I've arrived home.

I look at it,

it is quite the sight.

Some of it started to dry.

What colour?

Yeah, can you share it with me?

A sort of an electric blue.

Oh, paint in your hall, electric blue.

Wow.

I like primary colours.

Are you okay?

It's a bit bathroom-y.

It'll go with your neon sign, in there.

Yeah, yeah, I like it.

Anyway, but that is the least of my concerns.

So now I'm like, okay,

right, what are we going to do?

So obviously, she's picked up the children in the meantime.

And

the children, A,

they are enjoying, they're embracing the chaos.

And they're saying things like, can we help clean it up?

No.

No, thank you.

Right.

My argument.

I said, if they clean it up, we're all going to get covered in paint.

And that would be problematic because obviously our son is six.

He's in year one.

But Izzy was like, oh, but they really, really want to help.

I'm sorry.

No.

No.

Izzy,

you're now off the board of directors because you have brought the company into disrepute.

Yes.

You are no longer part of the decision-making process.

Anyway, they helped.

So there's now

paint on the door.

Well, none of you deserve to go on holiday.

Paint on the chair, on the seat.

What?

There's now paint on the pavement.

Oh, my God.

The council are getting involved.

So, So, and I mean my son, he was desperate to help, so he was bringing out Tupperware boxes of water, and he was like, You can use this, dad, you can use this, dad.

And I was like, Thank you, thank you.

So, there's no paint on me, it's paint on my shoes.

I mean, the car is irreparably damaged.

It's paint on the gear stick, etc.

How is there paint on the gear stick?

Because people are helping me.

Oh, good.

And then those people want to pretend they're driving the car, John.

This is why, when people spill things at my house, I shout freeze.

Freeze.

I said that.

I said that as soon as the kids had gone to bed.

I said, this is a John shouting freeze situation.

Now then, it's now getting dark, which is making.

It's not just the paint.

No, but it's making it much harder because we're now cleaning it.

And it's taken ages.

With the lights from our phones, there's no paint on the phones.

At this point, the cats get involved.

Oh, my good God.

It's like something out of some mothers do, Avam.

It's exactly that.

It's like something out of an ADHD document.

Let's be brutally honest here.

None of this would happen anywhere near my life.

Not even a cool sitcom.

It's some mothers do aren't

where he's roller skating over a bollard and the bollard's always getting him in the jaffers.

This is a searing panorama into cuts to Britain's mental health services.

This is

what happens.

So now

the cats are getting involved.

And I'm shouting at the cuts in the dark.

And cats don't know what paint is but they're essentially walking brushes.

Yes.

And they're walking,

they're not just walking brushes, they're agile.

So you're like, you've got to stop the cuts from getting in the paint.

It's like that gotcha, Oscar, where the, do you remember, I think, is it, was it

Annika Rice?

where they have a paint spraying machine in the center of a room.

This is off Noel's house party.

I don't remember this.

And they're demonstrating it, and they sort of hit the timer because it paints a blank room, this sort of robot.

And they hit the timer and they go to open the door, and the door doesn't open.

The paint thing explodes.

Noel pops out.

Gotcha, Oscar.

You know, it was wholesome.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, what?

People are coming in paint.

Yeah.

Okay, that will annoy me.

Have you got any photos of this?

I've got a photo of the footwell post-cleanup.

Actually, pre-cleanup as well.

Ah, yes, please.

Put it on the carousel, Darris.

There's all sorts of

Well, it's like a lunch box.

And I love it that it's electric blue.

Like a late team, sort of.

It's sort of like a reusable bottle that's covered in paint.

Does it soak in?

Or did it just sit?

What do you think, Dave?

I don't know.

It just soaks in.

So, right, so it went from a lake to just being.

I hate to be Ian Solutions.

Yeah.

What I would have done, and I'm not saying this would have worked, but it would have saved you from a lot of the problems you encountered yeah is leave it for the whole holiday and then you come back and try it solid I can just remove the carpets I considered that

it just felt wrong but it saves you any hassle yeah

I considered it but then I I don't know it just felt weird bizarre um

I mean thankfully it doesn't smell very strongly of paint because otherwise the car would be undrivable.

But anyway, I'm scooping it out with a bit of Tupperware.

There's no paint on the floor.

We went on holiday with one of our daughter's friends.

They've got a very nice car, and they were saying that's a worst, that's a nightmare scenario.

Izzy's now making the argument: it gives character to the car, it doesn't stop us from getting A to B, from getting to A to B.

I was saying, this is why we don't have a new one.

This is why we don't buy a nicer, better car.

This is why we've got a 15-year-old car because stuff like this keeps happening to the car.

So you may as well just drive it into the ground.

Because if I had a nice car that I cared about, this would be an absolute disaster.

But once I got used to the idea that my car, pavement, and house, and are blue, and the cats are blue, and the kids are blue, and I'm blue.

You sort of have to learn to live with it.

Like an Atlas 65 song, isn't it?

Yeah, and she was like, oh, mate.

I said, but if we bought, I don't know, a Mercedes for argument's sake, or a Porsche or Ferrari or whatever.

I said,

would you treat the car differently?

She said, no, I would just be tense all the time.

I was like, well, I don't want you to be tense.

Yeah, I mean, if you're not going to change your behavior, you can't change your car.

Slash can't change your behaviour.

Well,

you could argue about that.

Not before a holiday, you wouldn't.

No.

No.

But anyway, the whole thing.

What you need is a sign in every room.

You know, Dave's sign, which says no one gives an S about you.

Yeah.

Stop, think.

No, this sign going think,

think,

think.

Yeah, yeah.

This is the thinking.

Like impact font in every room.

So if anything happens, you just take a minute,

stop,

assess your surroundings.

Take a minute, stop, and assess.

Take a minute, stop, and assess.

Pause.

Pause when agitated.

Come up with a solution.

Ideally, call me.

Yeah.

Oh, there we go.

So, did you get it?

Um, did you get the hallway painted?

Yes, that's great.

We're really pleased with that.

Oh, man, it's good.

Oh, wow.

Oh, good grief.

That's not electric blue, that's lilac.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a

little bit colour.

It's nice.

Yeah, that's not great, is it?

But it is, the thing is, that's neat.

Yeah,

it's quite

artistic.

I would have left it.

I've got a Pollock.

Pollock?

Well, no, that's pre-Pollock.

That's Pollock's paint.

Yes.

Yes.

Whatever they would use.

I mean, it looks, in fact,

they could have driven the car up to the front door and used a roller because that's essentially in the shape of one of those roller pots.

Yes, just a big one, isn't it?

Yeah.

Wow, that does sound very stressful.

So then when were you packing?

Oh, we were just packing it very, very late at night because obviously we hadn't started.

And then the kids were wound up so we couldn't get them to sleep.

Late packing.

There's nothing worse.

It's horrible late packing.

That looks the same.

I'm looking at the post-cleanup picture and that looks the same.

Yeah, yeah.

That's not been.

cleaned up.

That's the post-cleanup div.

Is it?

How do you get cleaner than that?

I mean, you can't clean paint out on carpet like that.

No, you can't.

So what do you do?

What is the solution?

No, it's just whenever I give anyone a lift, it looks like I've gone insane.

You could get a little foot well carved.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I'll have to do that.

But just get a new car.

What and have that happen to a nice car?

Well, they'll get a 10-year-old golf.

Yes, yes.

So it'll be the same, but it'll have, I don't know, better Bluetooth.

Yeah.

Anyway, good.

Wow,

what a disaster.

Sorry for Nick and your school idea.

I was wondering where I'd got that from.

I thought this seems very neatly.

Look, you've had other things on your mind.

Toy Story 2.

It's absolutely fine.

Toy Story 2 is better than Toy Story 1.

I know, this is what I'm saying.

This is the Buzz Lightyear film.

He needs a pick-me-up.

No, I don't.

I'm fine.

I'm always fine.

You're always fine.

That's what I love about it.

The Buzz Lightyear film is that a bad one.

I've never even heard of it.

Well, exactly.

God.

So there we go.

Good.

You can see Pickies on the Carousel on social media, no doubt, at some point.

At some point.

At some point, there's always a fine.

We're just looking at it now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did you laugh quite soon afterwards?

How quickly was it humorous?

I.

If I'd decided to do a John and leave it and wait for it to dry because we were going on a holiday,

I would have laughed far sooner.

But the cleanup operation was more stressful than the accident.

And then the cleanup of the cleanup.

Yeah.

The backlash to the backlash.

The cleanup of the cleanup, yeah, because the paint wouldn't come off my hands for ages.

And I'm like, I can't even put clothes in a suitcase because I'm covered in paint.

Yeah.

The kids are covered in paint, and the cats have got paint on them.

If one of the cats had brought in a mouse at that point,

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure what I would have done.

Lovely.

Very good.

Listen, we've got a little surprise for one of our favourite presenters.

Oh, which one is it?

Is it Ellis or is it John?

Because I know we're both your favourite.

You're both my favourites.

Is it White Spirit or Terps?

I love you equally.

But one of you has recently been successful in winning the first set.

Feels like me.

Successful and winning.

Feels like I need to be paying attention.

You should.

You should both pay attention because I actually think.

I can't even help then.

No, you can't, because I think both of you will enjoy the surprise in different ways.

And I think both of you will have questions and you'll both want to be involved.

So don't go on your phone, Ellis.

John, I've already got your attention because it's about you.

So you're ready.

So, of course, you won the first set of made-up games.

Amia,

a year and a bit later after we started the scoring system for made-up games,

you won set one

last week.

And of course, we did say we would love to actually maybe have a little treat for the winner of the first set.

I did suggest five grand as a suitable recompense.

You did.

I am trying to move away from the money aspect of prizes.

I think it's a little bit crass, maybe.

Oh, no, I disagree with that.

John would be great on commercial radio.

Oh, no, because you can't win the prize if you work for the company.

No, no, no, if you're the presenter, no.

No, imagine if he won a quarter of a million quid on a rollover on his own show.

Just stops broadcasting.

Dead.

Stop.

Gone.

So, of course,

there's a little surprise, a little treat.

Now, John,

what is one of your favorite things in the world?

Let's see how quickly we get there.

What's one of your favourite things to do?

Therapy.

Therapy.

Solitude.

Smashing session this week.

Well, we've got your therapist on the line now.

Right, right.

Several boundaries being crossed.

Journaling.

Sitting in my bed doing crosswords, listening to Kora music.

Keep down that path.

What else similar to that?

Candles.

Candles, good.

How else do you pass your time?

I

Google running

paraphernalia

that I don't buy.

So I buy someone from Decathlon on the line.

I

do CrossFit, Dave.

You do?

You do.

Closer to the crossword type of thing, I'd say.

Wordle.

So you like your Wordle, don't you?

You do like Wordle.

This morning's was difficult, Dave.

Was it now?

I got it in five.

Oh, that's not good for you.

Not good for me, but I'm still beating the New York Times average and I'm still beating the bots.

I got inboxed the other day.

Well done.

Yeah, I've got inbox.

And how many guesses?

I can't remember three, maybe.

Yeah.

Okay.

So Wordle is a big part of John's life.

I've talked about it a lot on the podcast.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So who better to treat you to a little conversation, ask as many questions as you want than the creator of Wordle himself?

Josh.

Go to hell.

Wardle.

Here he is.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

I can see you.

Hi there.

Hang on.

Hang on.

Hang on.

Hang on.

I remember when Wordle was sorted in the New York Times.

Is it Joshua Abergoveni?

Josh is Welsh.

Where are you from?

I would say, well, Ellis, I want your opinion on this.

I'd say I'm from Wales.

I'd say I'm Welsh.

Got it.

Wow.

Yes.

Grew up in Abergoveny.

You've confused.

Alice has never met someone born in Wales who doesn't describe himself as Welsh.

Oh, so I wasn't born in Wales.

But you grew up in Abergavenny.

Correct.

Yes, since I was five years old.

Good enough.

All right.

Happy to be a part of it.

You've been to the Borough Theatre in Abergavenny.

Yeah, I have been to the Borough Theatre in Abergveny.

I performed in student theatre on the stage at the Borough Theatre.

So have I.

So did the Beatles.

The Beatles performed at the Borough Theatre.

Do you know that?

I did know that vaguely, somewhere in my head.

Yeah, fantastic.

Well, John, it was, I did notice, well, it was a tough lee-in from Dave, but asking you your favourite things took a while to get to Wordle.

We were going to always get there.

We were always going to get there, Josh.

I was confident.

I wouldn't have gone down that route if I didn't think Wordle would have made an appearance at some point.

Yes, cross words cross-fit Wordle.

What's your street?

Don't you ever ask me that again?

So, I thought I was you have to say something nice.

I did.

There was a difficult moment about

10 weeks ago now.

So my streak, which doesn't matter, is not as long as I would like it to be.

It's not about the streak.

Okay.

It's about winning the Wordle Willy World Cup.

Yes.

Explain to Josh what that is because it sounds terrible.

Josh, myself, and six other wordlists compete in a long-standing competition where we split the Wordles into game weeks.

So, 10 wordles is one game week.

The points scoring system is based on the Formula One scoring system from the 80s and 90s when Formula One meant something.

So, if you get the Wordle in one, it's 10 points.

In two, seven points.

Three, five, four, three, two.

No, three, two, one.

Sorry, no, four.

Anyway,

Josh, over the course of, I think, 127 game weeks, which is 1,270 Wordles.

I have won the record game weeks with 47.

I've got the second most twos.

Phil's got the most twos.

I've also got other records, which I could tell you about if I had my laptop.

You're still there, Josh.

Josh, I average about 3.3 steps, which is interesting.

That is very good.

Thank you, Tindistry Leader.

Are you a tell me about it?

Are you a same word every day as your opener yes i am uh until the day that that word comes up in which case i will change it um i don't what are you what are you rocking at the moment what's your opener if you'd care to disclose

you'd like to know that wouldn't you josh well you like the key to the king is it is it a word that you would use in day-to-day life yes i don't use soir okay do you like adroit

josh i believe what's that a droit

that's six letters.

Adieu was popular.

Adieu was mine.

Adieu was mine.

Adieu was mine.

Big game with Adieu.

I wouldn't use adieu.

I wouldn't want a U in my starting

word, and I wouldn't want an A at the start.

Okay?

I also wouldn't want a D in there.

Sometimes

if two of the letters in the word that I won't reveal are yellow, I may use a word with a D.

John.

In the second word, yes, Dave.

You've got the creator of Word along the line.

Telling you bloody stuff.

I will text him.

I will

make an exception.

I will text him, and he'll be the only person on earth who knows my starter.

He's not going to want to share his number with you.

Josh.

Hello, John.

We all know the Wordle creation myth.

It was

a game you designed, and the word list was based on words I believe your partner could sort of recognize.

Yeah.

So some obscure words are not in there, which I think is a good idea, Josh.

I'm glad.

Yeah.

In an ideal world, Josh, it would be English spellings, not American spellings.

Yeah.

Well, so this is that she's American.

I'm British.

Yeah.

There's a little, I think fibre, F-I-B-R.

Fiber is a problem.

Fiber was in there, not E-R.

But yeah, there's some American spellings.

When favor came up, F-A-E-S-O-R.

Do you know what caused the biggest problem in the Wordle WhatsApp group?

In fact, this led to an argument which saw one of our members leave for two weeks.

Excommunicated or they voluntarily left.

They voluntarily left because I made accusations of cheating and may or may not have arranged a kangaroo court.

This was when

good luck is.

This is when the word cork was in there.

C-A-U-L-K.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My friend got it in three.

I said he must be cheating.

No one's even heard of that word.

That was the early days of the word.

I remember, yeah.

It was early days of the word boom.

Yes, absolutely.

Does that cork exist in the UK?

Cork is not common usage in the UK.

If you went to BQ and said, I want some cork, they would know what you were talking about.

Yeah, this is a

sealing term.

Yeah, but I've never heard someone.

So is it just you've never done DIY?

No.

You've got a sealant here.

I've heard of cork.

Yeah, you've heard of it, but you know,

I've heard of obscure words.

But it was the first wordal word I'd come across that I felt was obscure.

However, in America, it's very common.

Yeah.

And it's very funny.

I've been here for a while, so I've kind of.

Yeah, because on American DIY videos, they talk about cuck.

You've got to get plenty of cuck

so you can seal up your drywall.

So you put your cuck on the drywall.

Yes.

And it's funny, Dave, because I'm saying cork in an American accent.

Yes, yes.

um

josh

i love you um

second question

and this will have enormous ramifications for my mental health for the rest of my life oh

as far as you understand it

Do the New York Times intend, when they get to the end of the wordle list, to re-scramble the list and start again?

Thoughts, feelings, or reflections.

I'll preface this.

New York Times can do what they want.

I'm not associated with Wordle in any way.

I would answer your question with a question, John.

What would you do in their situation?

Like, what's the alternative?

Making up five-letter words?

I would want to see Wordle continue for as long as humankind grace this earth.

So I would get to the end, I would randomize,

we would start again.

We we go again.

This

means more.

My plan, I think, so there are about, I think, I'm sure you know this, John, but I'm just gonna get it out there.

There are about 13,000 five-letter words in the English language or in the dictionary I use.

But of those, as you alluded to, I filtered them down.

The wordle on any given day is going to be a word that my partner likely knows.

And that comes to about two and a half thousand, I think.

So one word a day, two and a half thousand words, that's like six years around that.

So

and Wordle's been, well, I was playing Wordle for about a year before with just my partner and I before.

Yeah, we're over halfway through the word list, right?

Right.

And so, in my it was also six years was a long enough way where I didn't, I was, I'll just solve that in the future.

I won't have to deal with it.

But, yeah, the only reasonable solve I can think of is scrambling the word list.

But I think they've maybe even the concept of the list has gone away, right?

They have an editor now who picks the Wordle in advance.

So, maybe that list that was baked in when I made the game, who knows?

There could be a repeat before they reach the end of the word list.

Are you saying that it's now sort of not random or it's not the original order?

That is my understanding, yes.

But I don't know.

I don't know.

But yeah, there is an editor now for Wordle, whereas before they were just, because I wanted to play every day, I just had to shuffle a big list of words and not look at it and put it in the code.

And that would select the word each day.

But now they have, you know, it's the New York Times, they have someone who thinks about the word.

But they're still going from the same list.

Well,

I know they removed a few words.

Yeah, I think the 13,000 words, they're the same, right?

They're not inventing new words.

But of the 2,500 words, maybe there are some that they would not choose to include for the reasons we've discussed, whereas I was okay.

So the New York Times and I have we have different agendas here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's interesting.

But

okay, okay, so you one would hope.

How's this landing, John?

Is this all right?

Yeah, I mean, you're saying you we are singing from the same hymn sheet.

We're saying New York Times, if you're listening, when you get to the end of whatever the list is,

whatever you have curated,

please don't let Wordle end.

That's not going to happen.

Okay.

Were there any

words your partner didn't know that you went, that's going in because you're mad if you don't know that word?

Ah, yeah.

I think they were, but I think they were weird.

They're not, I don't have them on the top of my head, but they were like weird Britishisms a lot of the time where I was like, everybody knows what that is.

The cork equivalent.

Well, like bloke.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

She would be like, what are you talking about?

Like, she's very, she plays a lot of

American crosswords, which have a specific language that they use, which I don't always get along with.

There was one that definitely put it in.

I'd got one down to a 50-50 the other day, and I was and it was something like bloke.

It might have been Matey.

And I just thought, there's no way that's going.

There's no way that's going to be in Wordle.

So you have to sort of put an American hat on

and then

take your American hat.

Especially post New York Times.

Yeah.

Get your American hat on, definitely.

I took an hour on the Wordle yesterday.

An hour?

Yeah.

Is that just looking at your phone for one hour?

Or

The rules of the Wordle WhatsApp group are you can use a dictionary and a pen and paper.

So

I am like, once I've got sort of a word, a letter pattern, which I'm pretty sure it's going to be, I will sort of rifle through and it just wasn't coming to me.

What was it in the end?

Because I can check in with Wordlebot, of course.

Gosh.

What's your background?

So you're from Abu Kaveni.

Yeah.

And then, so you're obviously a lover of word games since you were very young, presumably.

Yeah, yeah.

And also an inventor of games.

Yeah.

So how did it come about?

Because I remember when you sold it to the New York Times, because obviously it was such a big news story.

But what had you been doing prior to that?

So I worked, so I came to America in 2008 to do an art degree.

And

I ended up working in Silicon Valley.

Very bizarrely, I started a company called Reddit, working as an office artist so it was very yeah what the reddit yeah yeah the reddit well you started the company reddit no no i didn't start i start the company i started working at oh right very hard very early sorry i thought you were the most successful person in history then you started reddit and wordle oh right about no not i but yeah but so i ended up in silicon valley and with a non-technical background but being exposed to programmers and all that i decided to teach myself uh programming and then yeah just ended up.

I've always been interested in games, love words.

That's how I ended up.

Is there a,

do you still play every day, Josh, just whilst John's looking through it through?

Oh, I found out.

I'm trying to work out which one it was that took me an hour.

It was 1403.

Do you play every day, Josh, still?

So sadly, no, I haven't actually played since I sold it to the New York Times.

That was the day I stopped playing.

Yeah.

Wow.

Well, so here, I had been playing, like I said, before it went viral, I had been playing, I made it for my partner, and it was just she and and i playing it for a year so i played a lot of wordle up until the point it went viral and then i will also say the experience of wordle going viral whilst very

i like i love seeing how much people love the game it was like pretty hard thing for me to go through

individually like i i'd done some projects at reddit that had gone viral and people wanted to come and talk about them but i had like a pr team between me and them so i didn't really have to talk with that many press but now with wordle it was just me And it felt kind of unpleasant, if I'm honest.

Like, I found it very, very stressful.

I have about 25,000 emails unread that I'm never going to get to.

And also, it's not just coming from one area, it's coming from the English-speaking world, and I'm guessing beyond.

So it's like every hour of the day,

you've got people like us at the time going, hey, let's get on the Wordle guy.

And it was a lockdown thing as well.

And it was a lockdown thing.

It was the word artsy.

I got it in two, which I thought was.

You got it in two.

I got it in two, yeah.

But it took me an hour.

So, I mean, the smarter among us could maybe derive your starter word from that information alone.

I'm surprised no one in your group has been able to...

through consistent play and knowing where well how many guesses you get the word in i feel like i could i think derive your starter i think alex knows we had well we had to stop sharing grids

so we did

yeah we delete the grids because we used to play

we used to have do you want to hear the game variants that we invented how many are there we no longer play the game variants um because it became too it got too ridiculous so grid mode is one of them which is where you share your grids so we do that for a game week but i just kept getting them in one because i i could reverse engineer the words

Changers was where you had to change your starter word every day, which was quite a nice variant yeah hard mode obviously is when we would use hard mode which is i no disrespect to you i like that it exists but it's for me not real wordle it's just guessing well i have some thoughts on this but yeah oh well after i've done taking you through all the variants we can hear your thoughts on this

um

the uh then there was roast goose

which is where you which is where you had to everyone had to start with the word roast

And if you forgot to start with the word roast,

you got roast goose.

It's good fun.

Everyone likes fun, Josh.

And

I think that was it, actually.

That was the four different games.

I'm very keen to hear Josh's thoughts because I hear your thoughts on Woodle literally every day.

Oh, week.

No, and there was another one where the person who'd won the previous week's game week got to choose the starter word every day.

And that's nice.

That's nice.

What are your thoughts on hard, Josh?

Well, just for that, Ellis, to your point, when someone reached out to me from your show, I wondered if this was like some sort of Wordle intervention where we'd like, if we get the Wordle guy on, he comes and tells John how smart he is and that he's a very good boy.

Maybe he can quit.

Yeah, maybe.

Well, I was considering a daily Wordle podcast, right?

I heard, yeah.

Daily Jondle.

And I looked into it and there are no, no such thing exists apart from two Wordle podcasts, which ceased to exist.

And I'm guessing that's after some kind of legal intervention from the New York Times.

Well, if you call it jondal,

what are they going to do?

I think there was probably a phrase in the email to you, Josh, that was something on the lines of draw a line under this, I imagine.

So as much as

it's not an official intervention, we do think this is probably where it peaks, isn't it, John?

Fortunately, Dave, there's a PS in that email, which is reignite the fire.

Blow on those embers.

Pour on a can of petrol day.

Yeah, well, let's see what happens.

Have you got any more questions, John?

I want to hear Josh's thoughts on hard mode.

Well, yeah, because so I feel like hard mode was added at a, like I said, I made the game for my partner, shared it with a few friends, and one friend was like, ah, it seems too easy if I can just guess, you know, I can do the old, I don't know what, you know, add you, and then if I have a two-word opener that covers most of my bases and I can use that every time, he felt that that made the game seem too easy he obviously wasn't playing strategic he doesn't like thinking yeah so but the the thought with hard mode is that you can if you don't think ahead you can get trapped in quite bad you know if you get blank a n blank d yeah there are like quite a lot of words that fit in that but you've locked in the A N and D.

And so the thinking with hard mode was that maybe it would encourage players to, you would have to use more foresight and not end up in one of those situations.

Like I never played hard mode.

Thinking a few shots ahead.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, but say your starting word was slate.

That's a classic trap where you're going to be blank, A,

no, blank, blank, A, blank, E.

Yeah.

Right.

You could not get that Wordle.

But essentially, from that point onwards, it's just complete sort of guessing and luck.

Whereas it's nice with the regular Wordle to be able to have

what I like to call a fluid strategy.

Yeah,

and I agree with you to some extent.

Like, I didn't play hard mode, but I would say what hard mode does is it prevents you from using the bangers as openers, right?

You can't use slate because of the very situation that we're describing, that slate might land you in a sticky situation.

There is an argument to say then that the luck component of Wordle, which always exists, is maybe accentuated by hard mode.

But yes, I agree.

I 100% agree that hard mode is more about luck, and that's the final word on it from the inventor of Wordle himself.

Good thing Josh lives in the US.

John will go to his.

Because if John had access, it could be awful, couldn't it?

Oh, here's a good cue.

This came up on the Wordle WhatsApp group, and actually, a listener asked me this

recently.

Do you allow reference to the list of words already played?

So I'm very, you know,

follow your own bliss.

You know, it's a game.

Gosh, I love it.

It's a game that I invented for my partner.

I don't want to tell people how to play or not.

I do.

You cannot access the list of words already played.

But you can access the list in your mind.

Yes, you can.

That is okay.

You can learn the list.

And you can access it in your mind.

Because the

play

list.

If you start playing today, you're at an inherent disadvantage because you don't have access to that list.

Maybe you're allowed 30 minutes to review the list.

That's nice.

Does the list exist?

Yeah.

It's on my well, it's on the app.

Of all the words played on Word lever.

Yeah.

Oh, I didn't.

Because you think, oh, have we had Drown?

Have we had Drown?

It's Brown or Drown?

Have we had Brown?

Have we had Brown?

Is it grown?

It was grown.

And then if you use your two ones, say.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

you've been playing.

Like, would you say you have a

please don't interrupt, Josh, please, Ellis?

Sorry.

Josh.

Would you say you have a grasp of what words have been used or not?

It feels like the numbers got to be massive now.

What words are they on?

So we used to, when we started, we used to be allowed to reference the list, but it just got so silly.

People were getting, starting to get a lot of twos.

Because you often find yourself in a 50-50.

You know?

Today, for example, I found myself in a 50-50 was it knock or known

okay

i went knock

it was known

now i don't know if knock has already been used but in that situation i i feel i've we all felt collectively as a word or community

that um

uh it was just sort of

it was it was queering the pitch yeah

so knack nave need kneel knacknave need nil.

Josh, thank you so much.

This has been great.

Josh, it's the best thing I've ever done.

This is the best thing John's ever done.

What do you do now, Josh, with your time and your life?

Well, so in a post-word or work world, it turns out everyone is trying to create daily games, as I'm sure you know, have become a big thing.

So I spend some time consulting, like I chat with other people about I would love to be a daily game consultant.

Well, it turns out most of what people are trying to do is very bad.

So it's like telling them not not to do the things they're trying to do, which, you know, sometimes they receive well, sometimes they don't.

And do you think sometimes because the best ideas are organic or accidental and not sort of done by committee?

Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts about this, but yes.

And I think a lot of the things that were successful about Wordle was I had worked in Silicon Valley.

I didn't like a lot of the things that you're meant to do to try and make your thing go viral or in terms of growth.

So I deliberately didn't do them with Wordle.

And I think that's what people actually responded to.

It felt quite human and genuine.

That's a lovely angle for a corporate speech.

It's the anti-AI model.

Someone's getting the big bucks, Josh.

My seven-point plan to success.

What everybody else does, I didn't do.

Yes.

Exactly.

You got a Zag.

Mic drop.

Authenticity.

Josh, it's a pleasure to chat to you.

Thank you so much for joining us.

And I wish you all the best in all of your endeavors.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me on.

Pleasure to chat with you.

Yes, thank you so much for coming on, Josh.

You've made a little boy's dreams come true.

You've made a little grumpy little boy very, very happy.

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Well,

that was a very special interview.

That was a very special treat for a very special boy, wasn't it, Dave?

You're welcome.

I loved that.

Yeah, I thought you would.

I wanted to go and live in his house.

He seemed like a very nice, decent young man.

I would agree with that, but also the game he invented is hugely popular.

That's not what you were saying a few weeks ago.

Does anyone still play this?

No, he's never questioned the popularity,

isn't it?

I mean, it's one of those things that will be around forever.

Well, this is the thing.

We hope it will be around forever.

I think El Scramble.

They better scramble.

They'll scramble.

Of course they'll scramble.

Thank you, Josh.

Lovely treat.

Lovely, lovely treat.

And the game resets.

Well, because we play games, daily games in a way, don't we?

Weekly games.

So maybe we should be talking to Josh about making millions of pounds from our made-up games.

I'd like to...

I'd like to have access to Josh's mind because he's clearly a very methodical person.

He works in Silicon Valley.

Yeah.

And also he's an outside-the-box outside-the-box thinker in Silicon Valley, yeah, yeah, renegade, maverick, probably goes to work on a skateboard, he probably does, a hoverboard, a hoverboard.

Um, should we play a made-up game then?

Yes, please, Dave, because it's love all in the second set now, of course.

Wow, I've climbed up to my um the box with all my family.

No, you haven't,

why because I've thought he's worth celebrating the first set.

I've had a banana and a bit of pink clothes.

I was drinking squash as he was doing his pack cash.

Yeah, and you were shouting at the umpire because you thought he made a couple of terrible calls.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so Ellis is angry.

Good time.

You're enjoying your Robinsons.

Yeah, if they're still involved, I don't know.

Great, should we carry on playing?

Yes, please.

Okay, here we are.

Here we have a here.

We have a made up of it.

Here we go.

But of course, a jingle.

And we're sticking with a firm favorite at the minute.

Ellis, get your pen out.

Get ready to write down its name.

It's Sids.

In the car, on the train, delve inside your massive brain.

Make a game, start to play.

How tall is Brian May?

If you are having fun, Miriam, Ellison Joggy, you could be the latest round of made-up games on BBC Sounds.

That's great.

So good.

Six foot one and a half, apparently.

Hey?

How tall is Brian May?

Okay.

I love the harmony on that as well.

It's really nice.

Scores on the doors.

It's the first point of a new set, of course.

John leads one set to love.

We're playing for points.

Well, it's the first...

It's the first.

Yeah, well, it's past a point.

Just once the game's up and running, it doesn't sound as crazy, doesn't it?

To just win a point in tightness.

Yeah, you'd be 15 love up if you win this game.

Yeah, in the first game.

First game.

Second set.

Okay.

So we have another year and a half to find a treat for either of you again.

So plenty of time.

Good luck, Ellis.

And good luck, John.

This game comes in from Priya.

I heard Ellis talking a week ago about how he was given a grand total of 15 minutes to see the highlights of London Zoo after his son just wanted to spend all day in the playground.

Now's the time for Ellis to have a proper tour around the animal kingdom.

My two children, Olivia and Jack, love to try and do their best possible impressions of animals.

So that's exactly what I'd like you guys to do today.

Dave will give you two options for a part of the world or animal kingdom we can head to.

Pick one, and he'll then play you an animal sound.

You simply have to guess what the animal is uh you'll then also and this is a firm favourite from previous rounds of made-up games be tasked with doing your best possible impression of the animal for an extra point

after we've heard it yeah okay yeah so it's uh it's repeating the sound yes yeah john was very good at this we played a similar game about a year ago birds wasn't it and john's bird impression

ability was

way above what I would have expected.

Birds was good.

We also did like chainsaw once, did we?

Tree falling?

No, we did a series of sound effects.

Yeah.

So here we go.

Round one, you can either head towards, and we'll, John, you can pick on this round and we'll flip-flop in terms of who picks which area we go to.

So the round one, you can pick between the African Plains or the British Isles.

Where do we want to head, John?

I will go to our old friend, the African Plains these days.

I was hoping for African.

African Plains.

You happy with that as well, Ellis?

Absolutely.

Are we both doing African Plains.

Yeah, okay.

Both are African Plains.

So you're both having a guess of the same one.

So here is the animal clip.

Oh,

if you are both up for a replay, I don't mind.

Yeah, I would like a replay, please.

I think some of these are going to be hard.

Obviously, take into account where we've headed.

Hmm.

That is tricky.

Hmm.

Ellis has scribbled something.

Hmm.

Yeah, okay, I've got it.

It depends on what that animal is doing.

We'll come back to that thought.

Okay.

Because I don't really know what that means, but.

Yeah, it doesn't depend on that.

Have you written yourself?

No, because I think I've got...

There are two animals, I think it could be.

Yeah.

One of them's hanging a picture and the other one is reading a paper.

One of them would be eating.

Okay,

different.

Oh, that's decent knowledge if you know the difference of an animal sound between.

Yeah, they're eating soup.

They're eating soup.

Good.

Have you written yours down, John, because can't be influenced.

Okay, John, what come to you first?

Hippo.

Hippo.

I've written hippo.

And you've written hippo as well.

It's, I mean, it's close.

Rhino.

It's a rhino.

Ah!

So, both very difficult words to wordle.

Between hippo and rhino, and I got it wrong.

But hey, excitingly, there is still a point up for grabs here as to who I decide does the best impression.

So we can hear the clip again, of course, and we would like a version of your rhinos, please.

Let's hear it again, please, Ophia.

And me first.

No practicing.

No practicing.

Better.

Yeah, it took me a while.

The bit at the end was better.

He's taking his glasses off.

Let's hear it.

Tell you what.

That's Ellis.

£9,500.

It's Ellis.

That's Ellis.

It's £10 to Ellis.

It's £10 to Ellis because neither of you are correct with

the type of animal.

Fair enough.

Round two, Ellis.

Where do you want to head?

Exotic Asia or small mammals?

Exotic Asia.

He's gone straight for Asia.

Good stuff.

Okay.

Whoa.

Okay, here we go.

So, exotic Asia is in.

Get your pens at the ready to guess the animal.

And here's the animal.

That sounded like wind.

Yeah.

Maybe they're going very fast.

Let's hear that again, Dave.

I don't think that's a great example of an animal sound, Dave.

Sounded like a rockfall.

Yeah, can I put rockfall?

You can, you can.

I don't think you're going to get this.

Oh, really?

That vague sound that could have been anything from the natural world.

Could be rockfall or paper being torn.

Yeah.

It's exotic Asia, of course.

That narrows it down.

Exotic Asia, do you want to guess, or should we just move straight to the impressions?

You might as well guess.

You may as well guess.

Can I hear it one more time?

Go on.

That sounded like a sort of stone giant from a fantasy film.

Write it down, John.

Write down stone giant.

It sounds like the character's name is Grok.

Okay.

I'd love it if one of you get it.

Ellis, we'll come to you first.

Kimodo Dragon.

John?

Tiger.

John's gone to Tiger.

Ellis has gone Komodo dragon.

It's correct.

What?

That's incredible.

That's incredible.

Is that?

I don't want to know you're working.

I'm just impressed.

That's incredible.

I mean, I was reading about Komodo Dragons to my son last night.

Yeah, he likes them, yeah.

So Ellis gets the point.

Wow.

But of course,

we have to impersonate the animal.

So let's hear it one more time.

Is off, and then we'll, Ellis, have yours first.

Gone out.

Was that disgusting?

John nicks it.

There's a bit of air in the end of John's, which just got it.

It's two one.

Round three.

John, where do you want to head?

Large animals or North America?

I think we're going large animals, Dave.

Are we?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because you need headlines in this game.

Yeah, you need something someone's heard before.

Yeah.

Let's hear it.

Can't wait for the impressions.

I want to hear that again.

I think it's a faithful rendition of the animal in question.

And it's large animals, you said?

Yeah.

Large mammals or animals.

Okay.

I've never heard that before in my life, Dave.

Let's hear that again.

Tricky, innit?

Because, I mean, loads of large animals out there, aren't there?

So many.

God, I didn't know you were on television to nature.

You should do like a Mancunian

life on earth.

Absolutely, loads of massive animals, bear animals, and they're dead, they're dead, they're colourful, dead, dead, scare there.

Uh, okay, yeah, I've got one, okay.

Uh, Ellis, what comes to you first?

Uh, elk, elk, I've gone for bear, you've gone for bear, camel.

Oh, I did think of a camel, actually.

Did you?

Uh, so both wrong, no points up for grabs.

Of course, there will be a points up for grabs

if the impression impresses me.

I very rarely complain about the rules of a made-up game.

But considering that it could be any animal on earth, the fact that I correctly guessed a Komoda dragon should surely be worth more than the same as being able to do a passable impression of a hippo.

No!

You've got the point.

John hasn't got the point.

It's fine.

But we now need an impression of the camel.

Do you want to hear it again?

Yes, please.

That flourish.

Go on, John.

Go on, that's off.

Alice makes the point.

Yeah,

it was a chewbackery type of thing.

It's the chewy, yeah.

I can't do that because I'm 42.

Great.

Round four.

What's the scores?

Ellis is hammering me.

I wouldn't say it's a 3-1.

I shouldn't have walked all the way up to my family and my coach.

No, you shouldn't.

You got

a terrible error.

Jenlin's gone.

Yeah.

We're heading towards an Ellis you can pick, I think, Feathered Friends or Cold Climates.

Oh, Feathered Friend, they're all gonna sound pretty much the same, aren't they?

There you go.

There's probably about a hundred thousand different birds on earth.

Exactly, they all basically make that noise.

You mean birdies?

There's your bird.

So I'm gonna go cold climate, please.

Cold climate.

Okay, here we go.

Ooh.

Ooh.

I've got an answer

You both got an answer

Yeah, okay Ellis Polar bear polar bear John Walrus Walrus Moose

Okay,

but of course we we must do the moose.

Uh do you want to hear it one more time?

Yes, please.

Okay.

Who's going first?

Alice.

Sorry, guys.

Can I give that another go?

I'm sorry,

that's it, I'm afraid.

That's locked in.

That's safe, unfortunately.

John.

Let's hear it's off.

Yeah, John.

John gets it.

It's 3-2 going into the fifth.

Let's see how we get on with water lovers or grazers, John.

Water lovers or grazers?

Water lovers, please, Dave.

Water lovers for John.

Because I do a great mollusk.

I do some good grazing animals.

Okay.

That's kind of my thing.

Well, unfortunately, we're at water lovers.

That's a shame.

Here's your animal.

Whoa.

Can I hear that again, please?

Two little sections going on there, isn't there?

Two little bits.

He's already working on his impression.

I am.

Oh, you need to answer it first, though.

We need to know the answer.

I mean, John, you'd need a clean sweep here to nick the game.

You've got it in you.

Okay.

You got an answer, John?

Yep, yeah, Ellis, you got an answer?

Yeah, okay, John, what do you got?

We're going Walrus again.

You're going Walrus again?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hippo.

Hippo again.

It's hippo.

Oh,

fair play.

Um,

of course, I mean, it's a victory lap at this stage, um, but let's hear the impressions off.

Let's hear it one more time.

Uh, John first.

Sort of camp noise at the end.

Like a sort of Frankie Howward hip-hop.

Can I hear again, please off?

I think his head's gone.

His head's gone.

Just for the just because I loved it, I'll give John the point there.

So it's 4-3 to Alice.

Well done, Ellis.

First Blood in the second set.

First Blood.

The game is called Zoo Do You Think You Are?

It was from Priya.

Good name.

I like the name Priya as well.

I like impression-based games when they rear the head.

It's good.

It's good for.

Also, people don't tend not to practice the impressions of animals.

No, no.

Whereas I'm often practicing my, you know, my Michael Parkinson.

Yeah.

Do you do your kids do impressions yet?

Because that was a big phase for me.

Yes.

Doing my Prince Charles for my mum's friends.

My son does a hilarious impression of Izzy because she's in a a s a kids sitcom on CBBC on my play called High Hoops.

Which our kids love.

Yes, yeah, and our kids love it as well.

Annie does impressions of her on that

she's got a sort of very northern accent in it how do how do your kids take that that they're seeing their mum on a tv programme that they love uh

so cool he just my daughter in particular loves it he is quite he doesn't seem to be that bothered strangely yeah does it give them cachet at school uh i think for betty it does a little bit yeah yeah

hey everyone want the inside scoop on uh high hoops sure whatever yeah yeah yeah yeah

my mum's in High Hoops.

Yeah, yeah.

So, oh, did you catch last night's app?

Yeah.

Yeah, that was my mum.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, the girl who plays Ioifa is really nice.

Yeah.

Yeah,

if you need any more Goss, come to me.

I've got it.

Yeah.

Yeah, the food was really nice on set.

Well, actually, it's not done on a per-episode basis.

You just get paid for the whole series in advance.

And often with modern contracts, they'll lock you in for three or four series.

Yeah, yeah.

Especially kids' stuff.

Yeah.

You know, because obviously they need stuff that's very, very repeatable because children love to binge watch.

Yeah.

What do you think about that?

Yeah.

Sorry, miss.

Yeah, yeah.

I'll concentrate.

Fine, whatever.

Great.

Fun episode today.

Lots of surprises.

I just can't believe you've got the inventor of Wordle on.

Nice guy.

Nice guy.

I'm just absolutely amazed at that.

I can't believe that John, the adrenaline of meeting the inventor of Wordle, has basically turned him off.

He's like a robot that needs charging.

He's sleepy.

He's sleepy now.

It's been a big day for little Johnny.

It has been a big day.

It's been a big day.

But anyway, thank you very much for downloading.

We'll be back with you.

Do leave a review.

Oh, we never say that.

No.

We don't.

And they are usually nice.

Yeah.

Yes.

Do you know what?

Do leave a nice review.

If you want to say something mean, tweet me.

Oh, yeah.

Don't leave it on the review section.

That's not the place to wear your grievances.

For God's sake,

send me a DM.

Yeah.

Just make it vile if you want.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It doesn't bother me.

Includes daubings.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I don't mind bad language.

No.

And bear in mind: if you've liked 600 episodes and disliked one, that would still average as a five-star review.

Yeah, don't let that colour your review.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're going to have off days where John eats cakes too early and is tired in the last 30 minutes after being inspired by meeting the inventor of Wood.

That's going to happen.

That's going to happen.

But yeah, so

try and take a broad view.

But anyway, thank you very much for listening.

We'll be back on Friday.

Goodbye.

Bye-bye.

Sucks!

The new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We demand to be home!

Winner, best score!

We demand to be seen!

Winner, best book!

It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

Suffs!

Playing the Orpheum Theater, October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.