#471 - John’s Critical Path, Elis’s 0.0% Curry and Dave’s Not So Silent Alarm

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Ellis James and John Robbins Show.

And we are coming remote.

We are from our three digital islands this week due to train strikes in London, which Dave hates.

Ellis is a big fan of and I think is a complex picture.

I was happy to cycle in.

That's the thing, but obviously.

Yeah, were you happy to cycle in with your placard?

Yeah, but Dave can't cycle in from Manchester, unfortunately.

No,

you could cycle in Dave.

You could cycle in from Buckinghamshire.

No, I couldn't.

And I don't want to, and I don't have a bike.

Yeah, well, yeah, but you could have done.

It's not that much of a business.

I couldn't.

It's 28 miles.

Well, I've cycled from Swansea to Newport and I've cycled from London to Brighton.

That's awful.

Yeah, and

both of those things were a complete waste of everyone's time.

You could have got a cab.

I've told you again and again and again.

You could have cycled into the show for charity.

Well, John...

Yes, sir.

Only, just looking at Google Maps, it's a short 10 hours if you walk to it, you lazy bugger.

Yeah, and you love to walk.

I do love to walk.

Yeah, I'll just walk.

Shall I go now then?

I'll walk in.

I'll just go now.

I'll just walk and I won't stop until I get to the sea.

And we're broadcasting remotely, which is going to make the sources look bad because you wouldn't buy a bike because you'd refuse to think in advance and cycle into London from Buckinghamshire, which is a short 28 miles is a lovely distance and it's a nice day.

Yeah, it's a lovely just trip down the A40, isn't it?

Past all the VP garages in the fumes.

But you wouldn't do that.

Maybe you'll get knocked off and break my legs.

But you wouldn't do that.

Maybe I'll be in hospital and we can do our tour from a hospital.

But you wouldn't do that you'd you'd find a much better route there are so many forums it would be a lovely but on a day like today just looking at my watch 20 degrees perfect uv is moderate it's only four

oh think of your calves john think of your sexy calves you'd get from it and you can't do you well okay i'll go i'll go do you want me to go it's too late now isn't it

it's too late now it's too late now it's just a little bit of forward planning but it'd be nice

i'm just waiting to see how much Ellis can push me on my book Deadline Day until I tell people that he didn't raise any money for charity when he cycled to Brighton.

That's two grand.

I raised two and a half grand, more than that, and I doubled it and matched it and gave the rest to Dr.

M's in Carmarthen, which is an excellent youth project.

Not the first time.

Well, let's not discuss the first time.

I made a donation.

Anyway, a proportion of your income what does what does deadline day mean john because i oh it means i feel sick and i actually do want to just cycle into the sun okay that's harder than the sea yeah

it's further than the sea and you can't broadcast from the sun no

i mean you could broadcast from an oil rig if it's solided you want but i would imagine i would imagine it's very noisy I'm not sure I would suit the oil rig life.

No.

You're a strong swimmer, though, if you fall in.

That's true.

I made lots of changes to my manuscript late last night.

Is it someone else's life now?

It's your life.

It's Ellis's perfectly fine life.

Okay.

Told through 18 different cups of tea.

That changed me.

Yeah, and one sparkling water.

That's the epilogue.

Yeah.

No, I think I might have completely messed the whole thing up.

No, to be daff, no chance.

We just have to let go.

We just have to let go.

You told me

last week on the bus, on the tour bus, that you can still make changes past today.

Oh, today was the last day.

Okay.

Yeah, and I texted my editor three hours ago to say I was panicking, and he hasn't yet replied.

So that's just, that's where we are.

Yeah, but

you have been able over the last five years to prompt me to read about golf.

And I actually enjoy those golf columns.

You're a very good writer.

You've also had, I would say, a mixed life.

And

the thing with biographies or autobiographies or memoirs, you've got to have a little bit of roller coaster in there.

You've had that.

And

you're perfectly suited.

It's like you've been mechanically engineered to write this up.

You've got a degree from Oxford.

You're a great writer.

You've been at great Edinburgh shows in the past.

You've got the skills, John.

Yeah, but it's not, logic is not helpful in this scenario, Alice.

This is a physical sensation of discomfort.

Do you want me to cycle to Buckinghamshire and punch you in the stomach?

Would that help?

Yes, that's exactly what I want you to do.

There you go.

Think on!

Think on, think on.

But it'll be, I imagine, and I've never written a book, done a couple of pamphlets.

I would love to read your book.

It would be like one of those sort of 90s tie-in books, like Men Behaving Badly book.

Oh, yeah.

Like Dave's A to Z of Spice.

It would be like that, wouldn't it?

I don't know whether you could have an A to Z of Spice.

So many pictures in Dave's book, I reckon.

I did a newspaper, like

a newspaper during my media studies degree called Your Manchester.

And it was

just a guide to Manchester and the wonderful things you could do in Manchester.

Why-O-U-R?

Y-O-U-R?

Yeah.

As in

no, but that's nice, isn't it?

No, it was Your Manchester as in this is for you and you do with this information.

Just remembered I forgot to close off some speech marks.

Yeah, well, that will get spotted by the subs.

Yeah.

I've left open speech marks in the last chapter.

But also,

that means that

it's a speech that's carried on forever.

It never ends.

It never ends.

The audiobook will just be like, the end

forever.

It'll just have it on a loop.

No, it's a very subtle to be continued, isn't it?

Is it, Dave?

To be furthered.

Do you think John's life's going to continue?

I feel absolutely dreadful.

That's nice, isn't it?

Physically or mentally?

Both.

Okay.

Is that what all the great authors say?

I imagine on deadline day, they probably do, John, to be honest with you.

I actually don't think this is a you thing.

This is on deadline day when, in theory, there's nothing more that can be done.

I imagine most writers who give an S about what their writing feel like you today.

Jack and Shakespeare's editor got back to him.

Sorry, mate.

Didn't read a threat, Othello.

That's the thing, I suppose.

Like, if you took all of the extant Shakespeare text, there's probably mistakes all over the shop.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

But he doesn't get the scenes in the wrong order.

That's the concern.

But also,

there's little mistakes in every first edition.

Because even the subs miss things.

Oh, yeah.

I mean,

if I read through my copy of The Great Gatsby with a fine-tooth comb magnifying glass, I'm sure there are errors.

It's not that typos don't bother me, It's sort of structural stuff.

But then you just got to shove it up your haven't you?

Yes.

Sorry, I'm in a really, really bad mood.

Oh, John.

Do you want me to punch you in the stomach and then kiss you?

Or that just becomes easy?

Yes.

Or kiss your fist before you punch me in the stomach.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Bang.

But a lot of people have asked me why I'm even talking about finishing a book nine months before it comes out.

And they have requested, Dave, a deep dive episode, The Dance, about the publishing industry.

Yeah.

But I'm not sure people's patience will stretch for that.

I think broad brush strokes, though, people find it quite interesting.

When we wrote The Holy Bible, I was staggered that the book was published from what I remember on October the 21st, and the first draft had to be in by the April.

I remember thinking, why?

Surely you'd want the first draft on like the 15th of October.

Well,

I do actually talk about this in the book about how when we were growing up, when stuff arrived, it was just there.

You know, like if a new film was coming out, you found out watching the trailers at the cinema and then it was out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You didn't know what people were doing in six months, a year's time.

Yes, yes.

You didn't know what like bands or actors were doing sort of five years hence.

But there's a thing in publishing called the critical path.

okay well you've got that in your head constantly

the critical path is the ideal scenario okay

and

that begins with the submission of the manuscript and then the ideal critical path is about eight or nine months from then to the publishing date why

Because the book gets copy edited.

That takes like a few weeks.

So that's when the person goes through and says, John's made a terrible mistake.

They say this is going straight in the bin.

Yeah.

This straight to be pulped, please.

But we should stress this is a process for all books, isn't it?

This isn't specifically for yours.

This is.

So

it might vary depending on like, they do rush out books if it's like quite time-specific.

So, for example, Ellis, you know this because after the Euros.

Oh my god, yeah.

So the Euros would have ended in the mid-July.

So Werzo got to the semi-final of Euro 2016, which no one expected.

And I got home

after the game, and probably a day later, maybe even before the final, someone had said, Do you want to write a book about it?

And I was like, I'd love to.

And they said, Great, a Christmas book would be fantastic about Wares at the Euros.

And I said, Oh, amazing.

What's the deadline?

And they said, End of August.

And I was like, I cannot write a book in a month.

It's just no one can.

It's impossible.

And if I got offered, I was made that offer by two different publishers, but they wanted me to write it in a month, but I had stuff on.

So if you get stuff like that, it's a much quicker turnaround.

Or if suddenly,

you know, a musician becomes very famous and they want the unofficial guide to Charlie.

Yes.

That's a good example.

Yeah.

Yeah, and it's a really good example of someone that became a lot more famous over a summer.

So perfect.

I think when Leicester won the Premier League, I think there was a book about it published within six weeks of them winning the title.

And someone in publishing said, if it had been any longer than that, people would have lost interest and the book would have failed.

But evergreen topics or memoirs or novels or whatever, you know, it takes probably about a month to set to copy edit.

Then that gets set in a sort of a PDF.

So that takes another few weeks.

And then that PDF gets sent out to early readers like maybe you know top celebs yeah yeah yeah they then provide quotes so that takes another month those quotes then go on the preview copies

those preview copies are then sent out to more people to get even more kind of buzz I suppose yeah

And then you can make, if there's typos in there, you can change it again.

And then it gets properly printed a couple of months before it gets released.

So you can see how the and all the while things are happening with booksellers like different shops and different agencies like what discount are they going to have, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, yeah.

And then, and then people like me, I'm, I'm one of the team doing this.

It's my job to just walk into random bookshops and go, John Robbins has got a book out.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, John Robbins has got a book out.

John Robbins has got it.

John Robbins, John Robbins, John Robbins, John Robbins, John Robbins.

Doing it in different voices.

I can do various regional accents.

And that's a buzz creating thing.

Yeah, I've got a question.

Yes, um, so the quotes on the book: yes, sir.

So,

laugh out loud, funny,

but also very moving, James A.

Castor, or whatever.

That sort of thing.

How many, how many of these people are reading the book before they're offering up the quote, do you think?

Um, they talked about this on The Rest is Politics, actually.

Uh,

Maury Stewart says it's a scandal and a scam and a disgrace,

and Alistair Campbell seemed more chilled out about it.

Yeah.

I don't know to what extent they make a difference.

I mean,

Lou, bless her.

I said, Lou, can I get a quote

for the sort of first, and she was so nervous about providing one because she sort of lost confidence in her ability to sort of do that thing that she used AI.

The quotes she sent will sound absolutely like they could be for any book.

Right, yeah.

Rip roaring read from start to finish.

Yeah.

I couldn't put it down.

Gripping, funny, and wise.

Yeah.

Some of the best recipes I've ever cooked.

So, yeah, you've just got to let go.

You've got to let go.

I think, I know it doesn't sound, this isn't good for right now, but I think you'll feel after a good night's sleep, when you move, the further you move past the deadline, the more you'll just relax into knowing that it was a great book that you wrote and you'll know it was fantastic and you'll look forward to the release.

Have you not met John?

No, I haven't.

Yesterday, I was in front of my computer screen for eight hours, and then I realized I hadn't eaten.

And I think that led me into a very highly stressed brain space.

Yeah, and I perhaps lost sight of a few fundamentals of maintaining good bonce health.

Yeah, you've got to eat.

You've got to eat.

Got to eat.

I had two samosas samosas all day.

That's not enough.

Not enough.

Especially not for someone who's training like you.

Exactly.

And that's gone out of the window.

Also, I think they have, when dealing with comedians, built in a level of flexibility for lateness that I have not required.

Well,

one thing,

when we did the Holy Bible, the deadline was in April.

And you'd submitted all of your chapters by March.

And when you told me that, you emailed me and you ended the email by saying, my legacy is complete.

So do bear in mind that your legacy is already complete, John.

It's out there.

Yeah, yeah, big time.

But this is just an addendum to the legacy.

Maybe that could be the quote for the front cover.

He hit every deadline.

Not late.

Not late.

The John Robinson story.

Word count.

That should be part of the criteria for the New York Times bestseller.

Content, sure, whatever.

But were they punctual in the process of this book?

And that should be a part of whether it's a bestseller.

I think any publishers listening would absolutely love the criteria for the bestseller list to be met every deadline.

And

if you didn't, you're not eligible.

Well, I'm sure that Douglas Adams.

I think he gave in a book that was 15 years late, didn't he?

Or something like that?

I think he was quite notorious for missing deadlines.

A friend of mine, who I won't name, had a book deal, and they just didn't write it and ended up giving the advance back.

So you've written a book.

A friend of mine did that as well.

Yeah, so you've written your book.

You've met the deadlines.

Your legacy is complete anyway.

This is an addendum to the legacy.

This is for the completists, John.

The legacy addendum.

The Legacy Addendum.

I mean, in my opinion, your golf columns are your legacy, really.

I think they're excellent.

Yeah, that's true.

That's true.

And I like the columns.

Especially the bit about the mental side of the game.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Some of your longer tweets were great before you came off the golf.

And don't forget D.I.

Robbins.

I know Robinson Mugs of Pigeons.

It's actually your third book.

It's turning into quite a digital archive.

Yeah.

Just got to keep going.

I'm a digital.

We go to Norwich and we do the same.

And we went to Norwich and we did the same.

And we went to Cardiff and Bristol.

We've been seeing a lot of each other.

I'm a Robins completist.

And you can have that sketch I did of me shooting myself in the head with tears rolling down my face.

Yeah.

Has that made the book?

And I'll free me up.

I'll put it in my son's bedroom.

That was from a long time ago.

Yeah.

What have you been doing?

Well, I mean, we just, we've been doing lots of gigs, so I think that we should get around to reading some correspondence because we've been lots in.

The first one I'm going to read,

I'm afraid, is sort of correcting you.

Oh, I know what's about to happen, and I've already got my defence, and my lawyers are already here.

Mentally, can you handle this?

Today?

Yeah, because

I've already been talking to my lawyers.

Right, okay.

Right.

Okay, well, I'll read the email anyway, and then we can make the case for John's defence.

Hello, young whippers.

My lawyers will speak on my behalf.

Right, okay.

Listening to the Bureau de Change of the Mine today after brushing teeth, I thought I'd put finger-to-phone and tap away to reassure Ellis that John is wrong about rinsing.

As well as your podcast, which make me laugh a lot, I also listened to No Such Thing as a Fish.

During the last one I listened to, the guys on there said using toothpaste was an utter waste of time, except for having nicer breath.

In all the research done, there is no evidence that toothpaste makes the slightest difference to your teeth.

I know, I was shocked as well.

It was the episode where they talked about fluoride and how it was discovered in America from some lake that had an excessive amount of it.

All the locals had teeth like rocks, apparently.

Not sure I'd want that.

But too much fluoride.

The downside was that they all had brown teeth, brown teeth that never fell out or had cavities.

So I just rinse away.

You can always check this fact with the no such thing as a fish team.

Love and kisses.

Juliet John.

Your defense, please.

Sorry, I just need to check with Dave.

Dave, are we cool just going against NHS advice for health on this podcast, Dave?

Is that okay?

Well, it depends what your defense is going to be.

If your defense is going to be that there is, I imagine your defense is going to be quite closely aligned with NHS advice, right?

Yeah,

I don't tend to listen to podcasts to get advice about my teeth.

I listen to every dentist I've ever spoken to.

Oh, yeah.

And the NHS.

Because

I can sum up the goals of this party in in three letters.

N, H, S.

It's the first and last time I'll quote David Cameron on this podcast.

That's good.

I was about to give you a lot of credit.

I thought that was great.

You've stopped using toothpaste immediately, have you, Ellis, on hearing that?

Yeah, so I've got brown teeth that are hard as rocks.

So, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stopped using the toothpaste.

Well, those people got brown teeth that were hard as rocks from too much fluoride, didn't they?

Well, I don't know.

I just,

it's the only email we've had in from this, but I love the um, I love it when you have a right to reply.

So, I'm just very curious to know what you had to say about that.

Because obviously, well, every dentist of the fish team are very clever,

they are very clever, they're not,

are they?

No, my brother-in-law is a dentist, I could text him actually, Dave.

Get Ellis's brother-in-law on the phone now.

Are we now in a podcast?

I suppose Ellis is just rinsing his mouth out with urine now, is he?

Are we now in a podcast beef with no such thing as a fish?

I mean, that could be quite good for me.

No, I'm just not going to go to them to get my teeth done.

I imagine no such thing as a fish are quite used to people

kind of drilling into the various theories that they mention on the podcast.

I'm sure they're quite bulletproof to people questioning some of the content on it.

Also, it's blurry weasis all over again, isn't it?

People love a bit of conflict.

This is going to drive everyone's numbers up.

We're all winners

My original point was that it is better on one occasion to eat six chunks of fruit and nut after you've brushed your teeth than it is to rinse the toothpaste out of your mouth for your entire life.

I stand by that.

Okay.

I'm surprised more people haven't kind of flagged the whole fruit and nut chocolate part of this thank you.

Well, they're clearly all under the iron fist of big fluoride, Dave.

Whereas actually we should just be chewing coconut husk and it's just as good as mouthwashing.

We do actually have a question about that.

Well, what I can do then,

I can phrase it in exactly that way.

I can text Imran, my brother-in-law, and say, is me rinsing my mouth out after brushing my teeth over the course of a lifetime

worse or better than John eating six cubes of fruit and nut in the tour bus after he'd brushed his teeth at the venue?

And I'll get Imran to respond.

Yes.

Can you you do it now so we can have it for Tuesdays at?

Okay.

I mean he'll be he'll be busy being a dentist.

Yeah yeah I mean he's probably conducting well no because we don't need dentists anymore do we Dave?

I think no such thing of a fish have established that.

I think I mean I'm assuming I mean he'll be very busy.

He's probably doing a filling on someone right now but I'll he doesn't have to reply if he's busy does he?

Yeah but Dave's thinking about content isn't he?

Always.

Yeah.

I'll give it give him the option.

He might be at a loose end.

You're texting.

Yeah.

Read out loud what you're writing, Alice.

Hi, Imran.

Here's an odd question for you.

Something has come up on the show.

John ate six segments of fruit and nuts after brushing his teeth the other night.

That's as far as I've got.

And I have spent a lifetime rinsing my mouth out after I brush, which is worse for the purpose of an argument.

P.S.

Is it okay to stop using toothpaste?

Yeah, no, no, he's very, very, very pro-toothpaste him, Ron.

Oh, why?

Is he a liar?

Also, ask him to.

Do you not understand teeth, this dentist brother-in-law of yours?

I'd like you to tell him, Ron, as well, that I've not got a single filling and I'm 41.

See how impressed he's.

That's amazing.

Do you really want me to do it as a PS?

By the way, my friend Dave's really proud of how he doesn't have any fillings and he's 41.

Well, no one knows, so no one ever tells me how great it is because no one's looking in my mouth.

Okay, Dave, you just need to walk around going, ah,

you could do them, you could do them at the end of my book

on the audio book, Dave.

Because it never ends.

It never ends.

It's a to be continued, John.

You could do the 12 curries that changed your life next.

Yeah.

They'd all be the same.

Oh, yeah.

Chapter one, Prawn Vindaloo.

Chapter two, Prawn Vindaloo.

No, but for instance, when you ate the fowl before getting a 24-hour flight to Adelaide, you must have 12 curry stories in you.

No, I don't think I do, actually.

Despite liking curry, I'm not addicted to curry, and it hasn't dominated my adult life.

Yeah, it's not caused you as many problems, has it?

And you're not constantly reminded of curry.

Yeah, you don't have to.

You don't have to go to meetings every week with other people who are obsessed with curry.

Vincentaloo Anonymous.

Yeah, what's the equivalent of a 0.0% curry?

Well, that's a very good point, actually.

Probably what they serve in like school canteens, the curries you get in Chinese restaurants.

They're like alcohol-free beer for curries.

Yeah.

Like korma.

Like, yeah, no, like

katsu.

Yeah.

Have you considered maybe twice a week going to Wagamama's and I've been a chicken katsu, the the one off the kids' menu?

That kind of thing.

That might kind of say.

And then you still get the social aspect of going out for a curry, but you don't, you're not going to get into the problems with your prone vindaloo addiction.

Right.

Shall I read out an email?

Go on then.

Yes.

Sorry, my

blooming, you should see the desktop of my computer at the minute.

It's an absolute disgrace.

I mean,

in a

moment.

Everything on there is absolutely fine.

Yes, yeah, you're legit.

It's just not enough things have been put into folders.

Yeah.

Yes, yes.

Do you know what, Ellis?

I'm not going to read out the email correcting you.

I'll go because I like you and I value you.

Oh, no, I don't mind that.

Actually, I actually want it to be corrected if it's the one I think it is.

So please do read it.

The charlatans are from Northwich, not Nantwich.

Yes, and

i actually thought that on on the train on the way home i checked my witches and i thought i think i did tim burgess a disservice there but i've performed in nantwich town hall i've done stand-up there and i've never performed yeah and i've never performed in northwich and i'm always i'm forever mixing those two up in fact i think my

i think my opening line when i did nantwich

town hall was i can't believe tim burgess is from here and somebody went he's not And I went, okay,

just do my noise.

Like when I opened by singing Salisbury Hill at a gig in Salisbury and it was the wrong Salisbury,

because there's like three Salisburys.

I got so excited coming at

nothing.

Got nothing.

Oh, dear.

Yeah, I was like, I died on my ass at Northampton Picture Drome at Christmas trying to get everyone to sing along to Fairy Tale of New York until it became clear that neither I nor anyone knows the lyrics to that song.

Apart from that one word.

Oh, yeah, they know the one bit of the song.

Yeah, I did the Marlow Theatre in Canterbury, and I thought that the entire audience would love to hear me talk about the late 60s, early 70s Canterbury folk scene.

And

no, absolutely no one.

One person she put her hand up and said, I think my dad likes that stuff, I think.

I was like, okay, well, then I've obviously massively misjudged this.

But we live to fight another day, John.

We do.

This is from Charlotte.

Charlotte says, hello, my cheeky little cherubs.

I was listening to John's excitement about the prospect of a new trifecta of supermarkets in his local town.

It will actually be

a quintector, a quintet, sorry.

Because

if everything goes to plan, we're going to have an MS, a waitrose, a Starbucks, not a Starbucks, a little,

an aldi under tesco is it an mns food it's yeah it's an ms it's a smallish mns supermarket a smallish waitress supermarket so i'm just never gonna i don't i think i can sell my house and just and just live between those five shops

in a camper van outside yeah you know like people who decide to just sell up and drive around the world until they die That'd be me, just where I live, going between the supermarkets.

Well, going to five supermarkets until until you die.

Yeah.

But isn't isn't your house already in between the five supermarkets?

Isn't that the point of where you live?

That's a good point.

You're selling your house to live in between the five supermarkets that you already have.

Well, it'll free up some capital for the shopping.

Oh, big time.

I was reminded of my mother's similar obsession with supermarket pricing when I was a child.

We also had the luxury of a large Tesco's and an Aldi opposite each other, offering different products at different prices, but also the same products at different prices.

Angered by this, Mum took to writing down the difference in same product prices to the pence and then presenting the intel to said supermarkets manager, demanding they price match.

Remarkably, they sometimes did agree to her demands, which is the only time I've ever heard of bartering working in UK supermarkets.

I'd like to think she initiated the ALDI price match scheme.

Some food for thought from Charlotte.

Thanks, Charlotte.

It is very annoying.

I see a big future for me in the bartering scene.

Yeah, it's very annoying, though, when you see stuff that's priced differently in the same shop.

I've noticed that in certain supermarkets.

Right, I'm going to read an email from, believe it or not, Australia.

Hello, my Fitbits, kissing emoji.

I'm a 21-year-old girl from Australia.

I'm here to say that your Gen Z representative, Izzy, and I are speaking the language of the future.

There have been linguistic studies that suggest that throughout history, young women and teenage girls have been approximately 20 years ahead in the way that they speak and the phrases and words that they use.

Sally Tagliamonte, professor of linguistics at the University of Toronto, says that if you're on a train or a bus, what you should do is position yourself as close as possible to a group of young women and then shut your eyes and listen.

What you hear is the future of language in your community.

Though I'd probably not as enthusiastically suggest as Sally does that you should try and sit as close as possible to a group of young women.

Yeah, good point.

Another theory I have about the language of the future is that honest and what is perhaps now preserved as unintellectual or casual writing will become the new academic style.

As we move into a world of formulaic AI-generated media drawn from the language of academic papers, people are going to crave the honesty and made-up words provided to us by the great thinkers and Shakespeare-esque words and phrase creators of our time are young women.

So chuck a little sleigh into the convo every now and then.

Use an emoji or five.

Listen to Izzy and I speak and understand our sitch.

Stop being floptina and enter our future post-ironic, major iconic arena.

Thanks, guys.

You're the opposite of chopped.

Bless up, love, Perry.

What's chopped?

Oh, I've heard of chopped.

Chopped,

I think it means that you look bad.

Does it?

Yeah, so I've been asking young people.

If I'd have had to kiss, I would say chopped meant really hunky.

Actually, no, no, like if I think it's when you look tired and haggard.

I looked, I asked Zoff, who works on the show, if I look chopped.

And after about five seconds of a pause, she said, no, you're fine, man.

Is it because you look like chops, like pork chops?

I don't.

Is it?

I don't know.

I think Perry's got a point, though.

Because

everyone changes the way they speak over time.

And it tends to be driven by youngsters.

Yeah, I know.

In 20 years' time, we'll all sound like Izzy.

That's it.

There's an alarm going off outside my house.

Yeah, I thought I could hear something.

I could hear like ticking.

God, I wish my...

This is a horrible thing to say.

I wish my hearing wasn't as good as it is.

It's mad.

I can hear like digital noises just going through the air in the night.

Yeah.

It's bad timing.

Because it really isn't going off.

Isn't it funny how with alarms no one ever goes out to check if it's their car?

Yeah, no, that's

alarms.

Never saved a single car.

And

there was a house alarm going off on our street the other night, and people are like, whose house alarm is that?

Like, I didn't get my baseball bat and go and sort of fend off some criminals.

It annoys people.

It doesn't alert people.

No.

But I am just going to go outside and have a look.

I'm going to look to see what it is.

Hi, Dave.

Dave's in the neighbourhood.

Watch.

He's getting his kosh.

He's getting his kosh from under the pillow.

He's going to put on the bar.

He's putting on his Spider-Man top.

He's going to put on his hardman voice in a second.

Oh, you.

You baked into my gaff.

But the first time I heard a car alarm, I was a little kid, I remember thinking, right, we need to call the police.

Yes, what team are coming?

Yeah, yeah.

It's my house.

Just give me a couple of minutes.

I don't know how.

Wow.

This is

huge.

Oh, dear.

He doesn't even know it's his own house.

How is that possible for a house alarm not to alert the owner who's in the property?

I think Dave might be deaf.

That's wild.

We've got a security alarm in our house and it went off the other day and it didn't wake up the children.

And it was...

To protect all your whale shirts.

Yeah, it was the loudest thing I've ever heard in my life.

Yeah,

as it should be.

What are our theories on how Dave's house alarm has been triggered?

I think it will be one of the cats.

I think someone's popped out and not put the number on.

Dave, what's happened, Dave?

This has never happened before.

And I can't seem to turn it off because the code doesn't seem to be turning it off.

So

I'm going to have to try and find a phone number to turn off my alarm.

You can't turn off your own house alarm.

I've just typed in the code and literally nothing's happened.

It's still going have you got the manual dave

i've got the manual that's got the code on it which i press to turn off the alarm if the front door gets jarred

but i don't actually know why it's going off because there are no doors that have been jarred i don't i didn't even think it works are you being burgled live

i got burgled live when we did a podcast you remember no In lockdown, I thought a tile had come off my roof and someone had jumped my fence.

You're joking.

I don't remember that.

Yeah.

They didn't nick anything because there's nothing to nick unless you want some turf.

I need to get a phone number.

Just give me two minutes

because this can't continue.

It's very undissocial for the neighbours.

It's not loud.

It's not very loud, is it?

It's really loud in the road.

Okay, Dave.

It is blaring in the road, and I cannot figure out why.

I'm trying to think what I've done today that's different.

Just give me a minute.

I think that if I was broken into,

I think I would just freeze.

I don't think I'd run away or fight off my assailant.

I think I'd just lie there.

Yeah, I yeah, definitely.

And I am more thinking that if someone did break into my house, they'd actually become fascinated by me.

Because they'd be looking through all my stuff thinking, how does this guy not own anything I can sell?

Yeah, and they'd want to study you.

No TV, no hi-fi, no games console.

I remember my car got broken into

and they left all the CDs.

They were like, Dinosaur Jr.

and Gorky's icotic monkey.

We cannot sell this.

It's never actually gone off externally on the house before, but it's going off externally, not just in the

car.

Someone's tried to ram raid Dave's living room.

It's very rare that Dave gets stressed.

I've seen Dave stress maybe one and a half times in my life, but I think.

But he's actually not that stressed.

But I think this might push him.

I don't know.

I think this might...

If he can't stop it, I think it might push him.

I think he might go.

We might see Redface Dave.

I wonder if people saw like 20 pallets of Red Bull in his living room and thought he was not surprised.

He's saying Actor False,

Daniel's World, Super Vanna Sting.

Let's see what's on the box.

It's not even letting me put in digits at the moment.

We've had a reply from Imran, by the way.

Oh, great.

That is interesting.

Yeah.

Is he on the same team as no such thing as a fish?

Well, I can read.

Shall I wait for Dave to sort out his alarm before reading it out to you?

I don't think that's going to happen in the next hour.

Okay, here we go.

Here's Imran's response.

John.

Buckle up.

Brushing before food is fine.

Brushing immediately after food, less than an hour, can be detrimental to teeth.

You should not rinse your mouth out after brushing.

A coating of toothpaste should remain to help to continue to protect your teeth.

Ideally, you should also dry brush.

That is the brush and paste rather than adding any water to the brush.

In this case, what John is doing is fine as long as he is brushing before food.

You should not rinse out after brushing.

Hope that helps.

That helps.

Ah, I didn't point out that you went straight to bed.

I just said

John ate six segments of fruit and nut before brushing his teeth.

Yeah, but it was the last thing you did before you went to bed.

I mean, it's not.

I didn't give him the answer.

I feel good.

This has got you out of your funk.

Okay.

It's got me 20% out of the old funk.

Just that we get to the bottom of this.

I'm about to send Imran a follow-up text message to say that John ate his fruit and nut just before he went to bed.

Do download tomorrow's Burrow de Change of the Mind to see if he sends us an updated answer.

Sorry, can you hear that?

My son.

Can you hear that?

Yes, is it a bird sound?

My son loves birds so much.

He's got a bird clock and we get different bird song every hour of the hour, but I'm afraid I don't know how to turn it off.

Well, also, his bird clock is four minutes early.

Yes, it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sorry, that's my fault as well.

Oh, how are you doing, Dave?

So, So, yeah, the alarm won't stop going off.

The thing is, the neighborhood WhatsApp group's going to start kicking off in a second because of this.

Because

they're quite active.

And they won't be happy because they weren't happy with someone drumming late into the evening last night.

So what they're going to do.

You've got an electric kit, Dave.

No, it wasn't me.

It was

down the road.

Sorry, I've just got to send my address to the alarm guy who's not got his car, so he's not got his ladders, so he can't get up to the bell thing to turn it off.

So, this is never your neighbour's got a ladder.

Well, my neighbor, everyone's at work, it's Monday, it's two o'clock on a Monday.

We used to broadcast live on Five Live from home during the lockdown, and I remember um, Nikki next door, um,

conducting a saxophone lesson,

yeah, and uh

and some bloke who I didn't know from the street behind uh just deciding to do loads and loads of drilling

and in his back garden.

And there was nothing we could do about it.

And to be honest, the listeners accepted it.

They thought it was very real.

So Dave, I think you're going to be fine.

This is authentic broadcasting on the BBC.

It's what the license fee is all about.

It's just the WhatsApp group that I'm nervous about, if I'm honest, Alice.

Just leave.

Sorry about the alarm, guys.

They just sell up and go and live in a van next to a supermarket.

Cycle into the sun like John.

Yeah.

I feel like doing that at the moment.

This is, this isn't, this is, this has stressed me out, actually.

How did it happen, Dave?

No idea.

It's never gone off in its life and it's decided mid-pod record to go.

What it usually does is I've got a sensitive front door and that usually means that the understairs box will sometimes go off.

And that's fine.

It's not the time, John.

And that's fine because I type in the code, the sensitivity, the sensitive front door stops everyone's happy and no one would have even heard it outside because it wouldn't have happened outside somehow today it's circumnavigated the inside box under the stairs no codes are turning it off and it's just blaring into the road can you just turn your fuse off at the fuse box I very much doubt it's fuse related

an alarm

cut the electricity to the alarm that's what I would do

But what about this?

What about the content we're creating?

Well, you'd have to check.

You have to find out what circuit it's on.

Have you not got a big diagram of your fuse box on your living room wall, Dave?

You're upstairs.

I'm downstairs.

Oh, are you?

Okay.

I think we just need to pretend it's not happening.

Luckily, I mean, we're on remote mics, so my...

We're broadcasting from the 1992 LA riots.

It's cool.

Can you still hear it?

No, I can't hear it.

But I don't have John's incredible hearing.

Because I'm not one of the fantastic four.

I assume one of them's got good hearing.

I'm part of the marvel eating efforts.

Yeah, they're all, so one of them's like a big robot.

One of them can turn himself into ice.

The other one can fly and be invisible.

And then there's just a normal bloke called Nigel who gets really annoyed when people eat.

And

he's able to sort of hear an owl's call from slightly further away than the other fantastic fours.

Yeah, and sort of engines idling really getting his nerves.

Yes.

Well, Dave, Michael's got an exciting edit on his hands.

We did get most of your conversation on the phone.

Oh, well, you heard the conversation to the alarm guy.

Yeah.

Dave, you were very, very pleasant, very polite.

Yeah, that's quite measured.

Yeah, quite measured.

He was not his fault.

It's not your fault.

He was actually quite flappy as the alarm guy.

Was he?

Was he?

Yeah, because he was like, oh,

oh, well, I've not got my car on me today.

The usual car that I've got has the ladders on.

And I've only got my wife's car, but I've got a friend.

Do you let me text a friend?

I'll see if the the friend can come around.

So he's texting his mate.

Yeah, what alarm company is this, Dave?

See, I live next door to a decorator.

He would have actually given me his ladders.

That's a shame.

Anyway, I'll see what this guy's mate's up to.

And then maybe

my next door neighbor involved.

It just makes you think differently when there's just a blair.

Oh, he's calling.

Hold on.

Hello.

Oh, hello, Craig.

John, okay.

Oh, thank you.

Tell them about your friend.

Oh, there's someone at the front door now.

Hold on.

It's like an episode of Someone's Do Avum.

Might as well make a coffee.

Dave's going to come back with his foot in a tin of paint

and somehow a bra on

and have to meet the mayor.

Oh, my wife's boss is coming around for dinner.

Brilliant.

All right, thanks a lot.

Cheers.

Thank you.

Bye.

Oh,

it's all go.

My cold play.

Jesus, what?

Dave, I've got to ask, I've got to ask,

why in the last...

what's happened in the last two minutes you've got a brawn?

Why are you ordering cold play vinyl?

That is the most depressing thing I've ever heard.

And I've read my book 25 times.

No, it's the cardinal.

You've got vinyl of parachutes.

Dave,

what is wrong with you?

Oh my goodness, Greece, that is so sad.

I feel sad.

I'm going to cry.

It's on eco vinyl, John.

It's on eco vinyl.

That's a classic.

Do bear in mind that ColdPlay have got an awful lot of fans and a large proportion of our listeners, I'm sure, are big ColdPlay fans, John, before you.

It's not anti-Coldplay.

I don't have a problem with ColdPlay.

What it is...

is a 41-year-old man getting into vinyl.

What do you mean getting into vinyl?

Getting parachutes.

what do you mean getting into vinyl

dave you're a parody of yourself

i want to have

get that foot out of a tin of paint dave i want to have all the albums that over the my kind of 25 years of being into music meant something to me hugely at the time so about once a year i buy a classic from when i when i was when i kind of first got into music one of those albums which i think is a fantastic album is parachutes by codeplay

And I will actually not apologise for that.

It's a great album.

You don't, but it's just, there is a certain

flavour of man

who was made to do that in his 40s.

The idea that you would purchase Parachutes by Coldplay on vinyl.

John, I was on a train for six hours yesterday trying to get back from Cardiff.

I had to.

I know, and you've clearly lost touch with reality.

I mean, why not go into a vinyl shop and get it secondhand?

It's a lot of fafa.

Do you know what?

It's the cellophane rap.

There's something about brand new vinyl and very average albums.

Not an average album, John.

Okay, above average album.

I'm not slagging off Coldplay.

It's a great album.

Whatever floats your boat.

It's a great album, sold loads of copies.

So about twice a year,

I'll get an album that, like, is this it by strokes?

I only got it like two years ago on vinyl, even though it's been out for 20, 25 years.

And every year I'll get like another classic from that period of my life.

So I'm not apologizing for getting a cold play vinyl, not at all.

I've got nothing wrong with that.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all.

I think you're the problem here, John, actually.

No, well, I think you're the problem, Dave.

Honestly, your alarm is the problem.

I honestly don't.

Anyway.

So you're just going to chill out tonight with a glass of red wine and listen to yellow

on your couch.

Well, that's one of the songs.

I mean, Everything's Not Lost is a classic.

Trouble.

Trouble is a beautiful song.

Sparks, they still play to this day.

Don't know what high speed is.

That passed me by.

And Shiver.

Shiver's the best cold play song that was ever released.

And yes, Yellow's on it as well.

It's a good song.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't think Dave needs this now.

Can I just

need this now, but I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

So I'm just going to sit back and let John continue.

John's coming round.

Where's John coming around?

He's a booking himself.

He's his book deadline.

John's on his way, apparently.

That's good stuff.

I think he's Craig's mate.

So

Craig couldn't make it.

But John's on his way.

He's going to bring you.

Is he going to come around and bring you away from me?

Keen, yeah, but hopes and fears?

I was going to go Joshua Tree, Dave.

Oh, let me write.

I've not got Joshua Tree.

That's a good one.

It's a great art.

Write that down.

Anyway, as long as we can't hear it on the recording and it's not just completely bled through the last 50 minutes.

No, it'd be fine.

It'll be fine.

I think we're all right.

Anyway, your sex is on fire seven inches,

and bought Maccabee's second album last week, so I'm also cool.

Yeah.

Have we done everything?

I mean, we've not done much, have we?

We can't expect people to listen to this

without doing something else.

It's 20 minutes of us waiting for Dave to find some ladders.

Okay, well, should we do

tracking his copy of Hot Fuss?

I've got Hot Fuss.

I've already got that.

I like early naughties indie.

Cuff me.

Sorry.

In which case, then, I think we should.

The alarm has changed.

Yeah, I've just noticed that.

What does that mean?

It means the police are coming, Dave.

Oh, no.

Why is it gone to like Morse code as if it's trying to send a mess?

Oh,

has it stopped?

It stopped.

Oh, that's nice.

Let me just make sure John's not here because John might have done that.

I just might not have met John yet.

Hold on.

Okay.

No.

Well, it's nice to know that if your house gets burgled, they don't want to disturb the neighbours for more than 25 minutes.

It's just gone off.

Also, the perfect time for it to go off.

You know, most people on your streets are at work.

So very few people

will have been bothered by that.

I thought you haven't been bothered by that.

Who?

John, who's on his way around to not fix an alarm.

Well, he can work out what went wrong with it, Dave.

Yeah.

You can't just hope that...

What if that happened at two in the morning, Dave?

Yeah.

You need answers.

You need to also get rid of your alarm.

Yes.

Sorry, everyone.

The WhatsApp neighborhood group are fine about it as well.

That's good.

That's good.

They're good.

That's reasonable people, for God's sake.

Okay.

Right.

I think we should do a new feature, which is called Ask Me Anything.

Does it have a jingle?

I've forgotten.

It's called Ask Us Anything.

Yes, I've recorded a jingle.

Right, okay.

I don't know if I'm in the right headspace to introduce a new jingle that's going to be absolutely appalling, but we'll keep it.

No, no, no, no, no, it'll be fine.

We'll have fun, right?

Okay.

So there is a bit of a backstory to the jingle.

If you remember, I sung an ad hoc jingle for this the first time we did it.

Oh, yes.

Ask of and Ask Us Anything came in from Listener Rosie as a little feature that she suggested we could do.

And actually, we got quite an informative feature out of it.

But we'd also,

yeah, I'd freestyled a jingle.

So maybe we can just hear the origins of the jingle first.

Perhaps call it Ask Us Anything, Q New Jingle.

Dave, hit it.

The jingle?

Yeah.

Ask us anything.

Anything you want to know?

Is it going to rain?

Is it sunny?

Or is it going to snow?

Oh, I love it, Dave.

That's great.

Well,

we've realised the jingle.

The jingle is now in full form

with proper music.

Oh, great.

So, shall we introduce Ask Us Anything?

And we can.

Let's hear it.

Yes, absolutely.

We can have the feature accompanied by the new jingle.

Here's Ask Us Anything.

Ask Us Anything, anything you wanna know?

Is it sunny, is it rainy, or is it gonna snow?

Send your questions in, answers you will surely get.

What's your shoe size?

What's the name of your very first pet?

Yeah, there's what one of the one up

if you're curious, get in touch and ask away.

Are you roll-on?

Are you natural?

Or are you spray?

Okay, well, my first question.

Where can I buy that on vinyl?

Dave, I'm going to have it ambassador to you for buying a special edition 180-gram vinyl copy of Coldplay's parachutes at age 41.

Eco-friendly.

I'm now going to pay you a compliment.

That jingle would not be out of place on Lou Reed's Transformer.

I mean, it's missing Bowie.

It's missing Bowie's production influence.

But I'm going to say, as a 19 early 70s, late 60s Lou Reed dismissed.

It's just a Monster Conversation.

Yes, it is.

Yeah.

Well, Michael, producer Michael, has done a wonderful job of matching the origins of the melody that I came up with on the hoof and has actually gone away and figured out what it actually should sound like.

So well done to Michael.

Michael is your David Bowie.

You are Lou Reed.

I don't know who I am anymore.

I think I'm...

Who was...

Oh, this is John Cale.

I'm Sterling Morrison.

I'm

I'd like Michael to be Guy Chambers to my Robbie Williams is the duo that I'd like it to be, if that's okay.

Okay.

It does remind me of New York telephone conversation from Transformer.

Yeah, yeah.

You've done a great job, Dave, and you should be very proud of it.

Right.

Well, people have asked, we are us.

Let's answer their questions.

Dave, do you want to read out the first one?

What was Ellis's favourite football of the 90s?

Actually,

the Adidas Etrusco that was used at Italian 90, I would say.

In 1990, 91, they were still using

the classic tango in the old English first division.

But I do love the mitre balls of that period as well.

And that Yule Sport ball, I think, was used in Serie A, and I've often coveted it, but I've never seen one.

Yeah, Mark's favourite ball was the Yule Sport Ball.

What about the Questra?

The 94 World Cup.

I thought by the Questra era, some of the shine had gone.

Okay.

We've done a lot on teeth whitening.

Do we want to do more teeth whitening, chat?

We've done anything on teeth whitening, Dave.

No, we've not.

But we've done stuff in the mouth today, haven't we?

So, John, do you want more?

Good grief, Dave.

Sorry,

my head has gone, I'm afraid.

Your head has gone.

But your alarm is off.

The alarm's off, but the damage has been done mentally.

All I can hear in my head now is the alarm.

John's on his way round.

It's not ideal environs for a podcast record.

I can't lie.

Wenda asks, I'd love to hear more about the teeth whitening process.

Is it painful, uncomfortable?

Exactly how do you do it?

Do you do it at a dentist's?

And how long does it take?

Yeah, so you can do it.

There's little strips you can get in a chemist, but they're not as good.

And they're a bit...

I've tried them them and they're they're just a bit more faffy.

There are places in London that advertise it cheaper than I

got it for, but I didn't want to have to keep going in and out of London.

So basically you go to a dentist, they take an impression of your teeth in that weird sort of hard putty.

Yeah, that's pink, yeah.

They then send it off and get, you then end up with like two gum shields, which are a perfect impression of your teeth, and they give you some gel, which you put a tiny, tiny amount on each little tooth bit, and you wear them overnight.

And then you do that for sort of six nights in a row.

And the first time you do it, you'll put too much of the gel in, it will smear over your gums, and you'll be up all night panicking that all your gums are going to burn off.

That's what happens to me.

Yeah, that happened to me as well.

And you do it for about six nights in a row.

You're not meant to drink any tea or coffee in that period.

Yeah, and I failed at that.

Yeah, I drank mine through a straw.

And then basically you keep the shield because they're the expensive bit because they've been sent off to a lab to make the impression.

And you buy the gel separately.

Now

I don't want to be mean about my dentist because they're brilliant.

I love my dentist.

But you do pay quite a premium for buying the gel via the dentist.

And you should keep the gel in the fridge.

And it costs quite a

that it turns out is not tax deductible.

I think it costs for

taking the impressions, making the shield and the sort of like six or seven

things of gel, it costs about 600 quid.

But I've seen places in London advertise it for 200, where you go in and they basically paint your teeth with very strong

bleach and zap them with blue light.

But that's a sort of, you know, pop-in, pop-out.

You what is that cool they're legit yeah okay all right

you can zap anything these days can't you yeah well i also know people that get that little um

you can get you can do it yourself from these kits but they're not shaped to your teeth and i think when you're dealing with peroxide

it's best to have everything as sort of bespoke as possible because you don't want it on your gums for any period of time because it does burn.

Yeah.

But you get used to it.

After the second time, I've only done it once, you sort of think you get used to it a little bit.

Right, the next one.

This is from Paul.

If stand-up didn't work out, what were your backup plans or what do you both think you would actually be doing?

That question terrifies me because I was bad at everything and this is the only thing I can do.

And occasionally I worry that I used to have this fantasy very, very often.

I probably once a day for years and years, where all of the promoters, venue owners, and people who had employed me all met up in a sort of 1970s trade union meeting style room where everyone smoked cigarettes and drank pints of beer and ate cheese and tomato sandwiches.

And they all decided en masse that I was no longer employable.

And then they sent me an email and said, sorry, Ellis, you need to do something else now.

You've got a black one.

I used to imagine that all the time on the way to gigs

because

I would say psychologically, I'm not suited to very many other things, which I've discovered over a lifetime.

So that's good.

So I didn't.

Are you a good sports journalist?

Yeah.

No.

Well, you are essentially a sports journalist.

Not like full-time, I don't think.

You'd love it following the tour round.

Yeah, it's the, it's the...

Do you know what I've noticed?

Because I've worked with proper sports journalists.

I've been in a room watching Jonathan Wilson, who is an amazing sports journalist, file an on-the-whistle,

not quite an on-the-whistle match report, but file something to a deadline.

They're so quick.

Yeah.

When I write my pieces for The Guardian, I'm so slow.

Yeah, you'd have to agree with your editor that you could file in match reports sort of after the season

later.

Pass my mind back to February.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's

been a drizzly day at the February Target Stadium.

But

it's amazing how quick they are.

And it's always really great.

It's a skill I don't have.

And I'm very, very impressed by people who do actual on-the-whistle match reports.

You would have Peter principled it, Ellis.

Thank you.

Yeah,

you'd be in an office environment.

You would wear a dressing gown way too late on a Sunday.

You'd have like bowls of cereal around your house from like the last week.

And you would drink UHT orange juice out of the carton.

Yeah.

And it would be next to you on the sofa and you'd be watching like spaced and stuff.

I think you'd be quite happy when Barry Glendenning did his first ever on the whistle match report,

uh, full-time match report, which has got to be filed like within five minutes of the game ending, if not even closer to the ending than that.

In the last two minutes, they were like it went from being 1-0 to the home team to 2-1 to the away team, and there was a red card.

So, everything he'd written up to that point was then useless.

Journalist nightmare, that's the journalist nightmare, yeah.

Well, what was your plan b john i didn't have one i didn't have a plan a

um i'd be so unhappy

yeah i'd be very bitter i'd be very stressed is what i would be i would be because i would be constantly terrified of getting sacked you're good at listening john as cope has demonstrated could you have kind of gone into the listening the listening world Like

well, like, you know, a therapist or, you know, you're good at offering solutions to other people's lives after taking on board what their challenges might have been.

Is that a kind way of saying I tell people what to do?

No.

I, yeah, I did consider that years and years and years and years ago.

You told me in your flat in Bristol when you were unhappy with how your stand-up career was going, you told me that you were going to quit stand-up to become a counsellor.

or a therapist.

And I said, oh, wow, you'd be so good at that.

You'd be really brilliant, brilliant, I think, thinking I was helping.

And he went a bit quiet and you said, you were meant to say, please don't quit standing.

Oh, man.

Yeah,

I might have done that.

I might have done,

I would have, it would probably be something adjacent to the arts, and I would be very unfulfilled.

Yeah.

But then, you know, it's not not really about what you do, it's how you feel.

I think.

I think we get quite hung up on what we're doing, where, you know, where our five-year plan or whatever is, but I think it's more about what you feel.

And I think

I don't know whether I would have ever got to a place where I felt okay without Stand Up, even though it's been a rocky journey.

I wanted to be a poet and then I wanted to be a music journalist, but it's very hard to make a living from either of those things.

And also I laugh when people show me a copy of Parachutes by Coldplay, so I'm not sure how good a music journalist I would have been.

Oh, you'd have fitted writing at Vice with that attitude.

Yeah.

Also, they used to do it.

Oh, yeah, I'd have probably written for Vice and written really snipy

articles about things I didn't like.

Oh, yeah.

Do you know what?

That's exactly what I would have done, Dave.

Not that they don't do good journalism, but I would have found a place where I could be really sneering about absolutely everything.

But also, music journalists in the 90s, they used to do real hatchet jobs on very popular bands and albums.

Yeah.

I used to love it.

I must admit, I used to love reading it because it was like they were so poisonous.

God, imagine if comedy critics did real hatchet jobs on us.

Oh, God.

Yes.

Not making me feel good.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, that's lovely.

What a roller coaster it's been.

It's a long one.

It's a reminder of those isolation tapes days.

And Dave's alarm has gone off.

and what a lot of fun it's going to be to listen back to this.

We'll see you very soon.

Bye-bye.

Sucks.

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

We demand to be heard.

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.

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