#474 - The Shusher, Donning Donnington and Content: The Movie

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Suffs, the new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We the man to be home.

Winner, best score.

We the man to be seen.

Winner, best book.

We the man to be quality.

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.

Hello, everyone.

As Ellis, Dave, and John traverse the country in a venture venture unrelated to the BBC, plaudits have rained down upon them from the regions.

After the show in Manchester, Dave was granted the freedom of the town of Withenshaw, which entitles him to do 10 handbrake turns a year in the car park between home bargains and KFC.

He also gets a 20% lifetime discount off non-meal deal items at any local co-op.

Ellis was welcomed into the city of Cardiff with enormous pomp and ceremony.

Druids from both Gwynedd and Powys put to rest a 20-year feud over over a disputed boundary fence to unveil a plaque in the Costa on St David's Way.

It was to commemorate the moment in 2019 when Ellis poured Cardiff's first ever flat white,

thus marking the drink's official introduction to Wales.

And John?

Well, despite not making bestofbristol.co's 29 most famous Bristolians, a list which, despite being put together just this month, contains a contestant from Big Brother 2010 and Justin Lee Collins,

John has been bestowed more distinguished honours.

After a ceremony at Bristol Town Hall, he is now Sheriff of the Mayor's Farthings, a title which gives him exclusive rights to interact with the city's historic coins.

He also has accepted a new role as Bristol's Laureate of Silence, a ceremonial role to raise awareness of noise pollution, where, after donning specially commissioned robes from a local tapestrist, he may shush street revellers, stop people talking after the trailers have finished in cinemas, and remind HGV drivers that reversing alerts must be silenced after 10 p.m.

Here to bring content in crown, cape, and kappa, it's Ellis James, John Robbins, and producer Dave.

Incredible that you've actually discovered your dream job.

Yes.

The laureate of silence.

Yeah, professional shusher.

Oh my god, you'd be so good at it as well.

Well, I only learned this week via Giles that you have to turn your reversing beeping sounds off if you're driving a van or an HGV after 10pm.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, because it's disturbing.

If you go beep, beep, beep, vehicle reversing beep at like 2 in the morning.

I didn't know he could turn them off though.

He's got a little button day.

Has he?

Yes.

Wow.

Okay.

This is good news though, because it's something to aim for.

Because when you retire in 2032, you could become Bristol's laureate of silence.

The Shush Patrol.

The Shush Patrol.

Yeah, like Neighbourhood Watch.

Yeah, but more annoying.

No, but it's not annoying, because if you're in the cinema and someone's talking, it might ruin your experience.

What you want is an usher.

A Shusher?

Yeah.

So I'm the Shusher.

I went to watch Griff Reese on Tuesday at Stanley Halls in

sort of in South London because Griff has got a new record out to improvs, which is great.

And he's doing a strange sort of...

He's doing a normal tour, but he's also doing a tour of like small village halls.

So he's playing in places like Crummich in Pembrokeshire.

And it's a really small gig.

And it hadn't been, I think he put it in quite late.

So the last time he was in London, he was at the Barbican in front of thousands of people, okay?

But there was only a couple of hundred of us there, so it was a really, really hot ticket.

Stanley Halls is a small, tiny little Edwardian theatre, and it's just him and an acoustic guitar, very intimate

event.

And there were two blocks at the back where I was sitting with my friend Lisa and Dan and Izzy.

and they were just talking.

They were like, Yeah, well, you would say that, wouldn't you?

Because it's ever since Andy Boy's new barbecue.

I thought,

What do you think you're attending?

Were they shushed?

No,

Dan moved because he couldn't handle it, and I just sat there clawing into my thighs with my fingers, thinking, What do these guys think is happening now?

A video went viral.

I can't remember what musician it is.

It's a guy who stops his gig and just says, Why are you here?

And it's such a good question.

He says, Because I'm here, yeah, and I'm connecting with people who've taken time out of their day to be here.

Yeah, why are you here?

Yeah, it was really, it was really strange.

And it was like

they'd been reunited after about 25 years.

So they were going through everything from like primary school through to secondary school through to what they were doing now.

You've had kids, that's unbelievable.

I've got two kids.

Like, me, come on.

He's doing his new single.

Yes.

So I'm now professional shusher

for Bristol.

I'm also sheriff of the farthings.

It does sound like one of those rules where you're paid in a case of port, though.

Could be a problem.

Yeah.

I'll have to give you the port, and you can sell it from your back door and give me the money.

And then I'll give you the money.

Okay.

However, in other news,

stop all the clocks.

Ye, it is finished.

Surrender unto Caesar all that is Caesar's.

Okay.

I thirst.

What?

I don't know.

I'm sort of mixing.

You've got a drink.

No.

I'm mixing in quotes from

Christ on the Cross with

them.

I don't quite know why.

And an Oasis best of album to actual was.

What was that?

Stop all the quotes.

All right, well, that's from an Auden poem.

It must have gone from Oasis and the Oasis album.

So I am where Oasis,

Christ on the Cross, and Auden meet because today

I got the Wordle in one.

Whoa.

For the first time.

Well, for the 14th time, but for the first time legit.

What does that mean legit?

You're not been cheating, have you?

If I get into it.

I'm actually holding my chest.

If I get into it, if I get into it, it will muddy the waters.

In the past,

we showed our grids.

So I could work out some people's sometimes.

Right.

I could reverse engineer it because

my brain should be put to better use.

Maybe in the aeronautics industry.

Could you explain to the layman what you did?

And by layman, I mean me.

For the first time ever in my life,

with no clues or hints or guessing other people's words, I got a genuine word Lynn one.

So the usual word you use just happens to be the word.

The word I've been using for nearly four years.

Right.

But how did that make you feel?

Because

there's no hard work or graft or skill in it.

Well, no, pure luck.

Yeah, I know, but it's the luck you get.

If you keep the same word forever, it's the luck you are guaranteed.

Okay.

So, you know, every wordler will have this day.

Okay.

Eventually, yeah.

Eventually.

Well, only if the wordler has stuck with the same word ever.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So, the big question here, John,

it's gone.

It's out there.

It's out there.

It's public.

It's public.

Share the word.

The word

was

no longer is later.

Wow.

Okay, this is huge.

So

you're presumably not going to continue with later, even though you think later is excellent.

Later is consigned to

the retired cabinet of Wordle starter words.

I did use raise for a couple of weeks, very early on in my Wordle career.

You're still drinking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But

all of the people, like some people on social media today because I put up a very moving post

Like what do you mean?

That's a crazy word.

And you're like, no, it's not.

It's one of the best words.

It's not statistically the best word.

Adieu is a big one, isn't it?

Yeah, but it's not statistically of significance.

Adieu.

People just use it because they, yeah, let's not go down this road.

Okay, anyway.

But also.

It's not just about your starting word.

It's about your second word as well.

It's about your pairing.

Your elimination pairing.

yeah so i would always go later and sonic

and that was a very very strong um opening pairing i wouldn't always be sonic it's factor dependent where did you where did you get those two from did you work them out for yourselves yeah i worked them out in my mind okay well i have been on forums i've watched fifteen minute long youtube videos about how you can use coding to work out uh and um so what's it that that brand of maths called i can't remember anyway it's all above my head okay people talk about packets and buckets of information.

You're watching 15-minute-long YouTube videos about Wordle.

Well, now I've got makes me feel good.

Well, now I've got to do it again because I have to select a new starter word and a new second word.

Yes, but a problem is a lot of the words, because we're over halfway through the Wordle calendar, a lot of the words have been taken.

So, the statistically best ones are either so obscure they're never going to come up, or they've already been taken.

So, do I take a worse starter word to give me the chance of living the wordle in one again?

Or do I take a word such as soar, S-O-A-R-E, which is statistically the best?

Depending on whose blummin' code you go by.

Or do I go for something like slate, which is one of the best, or crane, but they've already been used.

These.

It's all up in the air, man.

These are the levels.

These are the questions.

These are the levels.

I occasionally watch football coaching training videos on Instagram, and it'll be very in-depth, deep dives into a player's shape, like physical body shape as they receive the ball.

They'll be like, that is why so-and-so is in the Premier League.

They are the levels.

Normal three times a year wordlers like myself are not working at this level.

God, no.

It happened in the van at eight minutes past midnight last night.

You make it sound like it's the death of a monarch.

It was announced across all radio stations.

Simultaneously, the BBC had to press a play that had to press play on a special cassette.

Yeah.

Well, I think every Wordlin Oneer will know this.

At the start, you're not quite sure what's happened because you've never seen it before.

So you think there's something gone wrong?

And then you're like, oh, wow, I got the Wordlin One.

Wow.

And how Giles?

No, he was listening to his audiobook about, what's his name?

Eddie Pepper.

Eddie Pillar.

Eddie Pillar.

At that point, he was probably talking about, I don't know, Bin collection days in Croydon.

No,

he's a very famous East London mod, Dave, and Giles likes that culture.

And

the parts of the book feel like they are, just to hit a word count.

That's John's particular review.

I would disagree with that review personally.

What's Eddie Pillar known for?

He was a famous East London.

He is a famous East London mod, so he used to CJ and stuff.

He's very incredibly well turned up.

Is he famous for doing a scuba diving course on holiday once?

Because he talks about that a lot.

No, I wouldn't say that's what I think of when I think of Eddie Pillar.

No, um, so I suppose you had nothing to do then because you've done the whirdling one.

I felt quite deflated, actually.

I stared out of the window for a bit,

then I lost a game of boggle,

and then I planned how I was going to commemorate the moment on social media.

I got all of my sort of story, I got this music together I wanted to play for Instagram, and then I thought, no, John, not

Hoppy Poppola, but it's the garosse.

Yeah, that'd be good.

Yeah, elbow

20 to 1 in the morning.

Save it for the morning with fresh eyes.

Yeah.

So there you go.

I then, I mean, here is the absolute nail in the coffin.

I shared on the Wordle Willy What's Up group

in the morning.

They awake.

Their results start to come in.

Phil only gets it in one.

No.

He switched to that starter word two weeks ago.

Did he know that that was your starter word?

Wow.

And that's when he was getting his two sevens in a row that we thought might warrant an investigation.

So it's just been a real roller coaster.

And all that with a mouth ulcer.

So here I am,

unaccommodated man without a word or starter word.

So you need to get it by midnight.

I'm basically like...

I'm being let go on a free.

Yeah,

I'm a player without a contract.

They tried to get me on loan at Galatasarai to work out.

What do I do now?

Do I go down to the championship?

Yeah, you've gone until midnight, haven't you?

I'm trying to get out to the States.

You're the Dali Alley of Wordle.

I'm the Dali Alley of Wordle, Dave.

Oh, John, it's sad that you felt slightly deflated.

Yeah, I did.

After about 20 minutes, I smiled and thought, yeah, you needed to do that.

Allow yourself a smile.

You've been playing this for over a thousand days.

Just remember that most of what you've thought about since the start of lockdown.

Allow yourself a smile, man.

Just remember, John, that there are so many facets of your life which mean that you're living your dream.

Yeah.

You're doing a rageous show with your friends.

You're on tour.

You've got a wordling one.

Yeah.

Try and enjoy it, man.

Yeah, you've got to enjoy it.

You've got to enjoy it.

Because when I'm lying on my deathbed, I'll be like, today's the last wordle you'll ever do.

Yeah, you might think that.

Imagine if you've got it in five on your deathbed.

That would be awful.

You'll have bigger fish to fry, i think i don't think i will i'll have fried all those fish years ago okay and eaten them and eaten them you'd have eaten your friends i'll have eaten my fish and i'll be just frying my tiny fish okay yeah

if that is how it happens and i'm still around

i will put that in the orbit oh thanks manal wordle was a five yeah no that's fine and he died as he lived doing the wordle but because of his illness he did it quite badly the end oh that's quite a sad thought that the wordle whatsapp group when one of us dies

their scores will just stop yes i mean that is the sadness of

the end of life in general really there's all sorts of things that people are doing that does just your last council tax direct debit yeah yeah all the big stuff have you considered microdosing ecstasy

No, but I was watching a Ram Das lecture on psilocybin this morning.

Okay.

And he talks about it sort of opening

the true consciousness that we're all currently like in self and you get to step behind self and just see our forms.

Yeah.

Like limitless with Bradley Cooper.

To an extent.

But I'm not going to start taking psilocybin.

Okay.

No.

Yet.

All right, then.

We'll see.

Maybe the last gig in Portsmouth.

Yes.

Anyway, speaking of the van, Wordle in the van, staring sadly out of the window, we're now going to take a little trip into Ellis and John's Road to Nowhere.

well it's high drama here in the sad van

there was a long discussion about motorway service choices on the M1 which as everyone knows are poor

The ideal scenario in terms of distance and timing was Watford Gap, but I'm not going to let that happen on my watch.

Despite being a historic services with brutalist architecture features, the standard is so poor.

That's been admitted by RoadChef.

They've laid their cards on the table and said Watford Gap needs work.

It needs a redesign.

It's not happened yet.

So

we opted for a choice of between Newport Pagnell and Leicester Forest East.

I opted LFE.

We've entered with a bladder emergency rating of I'm gonna say 65%

unfortunately

the signposting for coach parking in Leicester Forest East is so poor

being that it runs out before you get there so you end up in a drive-through Starbucks

which has height restrictions too low for our vehicle no ability to turn around and retrace your your steps, that we went back out onto the motorway.

Everyone's done it.

It's not a reflection on Giles.

It's not something he needs to go away and work on.

Perhaps familiarising himself with the car park layouts of all services in the UK.

That's not what needs to happen.

What needs to happen is Leicester Forest East needs to buck up their ideas.

Think about the consumer experience for those with vehicles in excess of six foot four.

However, as so often is the case, it's Donington to the rescue.

It's only, I think, a further eight to ten miles.

So we will don Donington.

We will wrap ourselves in its warm, comforting surrounds.

And I get to experience, well, who knows?

Is it an M ⁇ S?

Is it a Waitrose?

If it's neither...

Okay, the whole day's a write-off.

It's going to be one of the worst days of my life.

But I'm not even going to check.

I'm not even going to go on motorway services online.

I am going to roll the dice.

I'm going to play Russian roulette with services.

Maybe I'll be eating a subway.

Maybe I'll be eating a chopsticks noodle.

I just don't know.

So we've got a bit of spice in the sad van where I am alone because Alice and Dave are making their own way to the venue because of what great company I am.

Wow, well, you join us backstage at the Leeds Grand Theatre, which is one of the most beautiful theatres I've ever seen in my life.

Unfortunately, today the Leeds Grand Theatre is host to disaster.

Crisis.

After the debacle of Leicester Forest East and Donington, I thought my day might improve.

Unfortunately, that's not been the case.

I think we're seeing an enormous change or difference here in mentality.

So I'm actually buzzing after what's happened.

John, on the other hand, is at crisis point because he's actually had to step in and solve a crisis.

So our banner stand, or more specifically my banner stand, the one that says E,

about an hour ago broke.

Giles, I think it's fair to say, went into free fall.

He collapsed.

The staff, all the staff here, I'm not criticising anyone, also collapsed.

They say they froze, actually, more than collapsed.

Completely dumbfounded.

Silence.

I went on my phone.

And Dave went on his phone.

I went, well, let's just do it without the banner stand.

John was thinking, he went completely silent, total concentration.

And then he said, I need some white gaffer and a bit of cardboard, please.

Do you have white gaffer and maybe a sharp knife?

The guy, the tech guy, was like, Yeah, I've got that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can get you white gaffer.

Within 15 minutes, it was fixed.

Yeah.

He used stage weights, he made a kind of

just a basic sort of pulley system using cardboard.

It was very, very similar to you at your best/slash worst on Taskmaster.

You were given a problem, you solved it with maximum efficiency, there was zero humour.

It was reminiscent as Giles enters the dressing room after his mental collapse.

Complete mental collapse.

Looks like there's a bit of colour in his cheeks.

Because his job's safe.

His job's safe.

His job was on the line, but it's safe.

He's unseckable.

It was reminiscent of a scene from A Beautiful Mind.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you could imagine

in the film of our lives,

when they do make content the movie,

it will be like a time-lapse of me sat in front of the banner.

It'll definitely be in the trailer.

There'll be chalk sort of equations that I'll be just drawing on the stage, on the floor.

People will be rushing around me, and I'll go into like a Zen space.

It was really quite something to watch.

There was about, I think it took John

three minutes of deep concentration, concentration, at which point, if you said anything, you were reprimanded, and that was fine.

Let me concentrate, he said.

Dave checked them on city score.

They kept their way up.

Dave froze, John.

I sensed a little bit of stepdad energy around me.

People wanting to chip in,

but aware that they're interrupting a train of thought which is the equal of some of the great Nobel Prize winners of our age.

So can I hold anything?

No, you can't.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

In fact, you can, but in four stages, time.

Yeah.

I will tell you when.

Yeah, there was a bit.

A bit of that.

Yeah,

it was a barbecue that hasn't been taken out of the box on the first hot day of summer.

Yes,

three guys

stood around.

One of them needs to be in charge.

Yes.

I will tell you when the John Robbins story.

So you should have called the book.

But, you know, here we go.

I will tell you when, ten problems that changed my life.

But if you give me a problem and I will solve it, if it's like a sort of brain quiz.

Yeah, yeah.

Give me a day of nothing to do and I will fall to pieces in my living room in silence, just with my own memories.

I loved the detail of asking for white guffa.

It had to be white.

I reckon

if this was an Ellis James solo show, well actually I know what I would have done, I'd have done it without the banner stand.

But if someone had said you've got to do it without the banner stand or we set the venue on fire, I would have used black gaffer.

It was that little detail of making it white.

Let me give you an insight into the thought process.

Okay.

I'm thinking.

Sakalis.

No, I'm thinking we've lost the clip.

where the pole attaches to the top of the banner stand.

I need to create a false top.

Yeah.

I need to protect that false top from puncture.

Yeah.

Gaffer is going to be involved, but gaffer's going to look bad.

Yeah.

This sign is orange and beige.

Yeah.

Gaffer comes in different

colours.

I then wheel through the different gaffer colours.

Green, that's not orange or beige.

Blue, that's not orange or beige.

Red, okay.

It's on the bench.

I stumble on white, the perfect solution.

You're going to be able to see it's been fixed, but you're not going to see it from a distance.

No, no, no, definitely not.

The, I would say, circle upper circle balcony are in the clear.

Yeah.

The stalls are going to see it.

I then assess my options.

Do I ask Giles White Gaffer?

No, he's fallen apart.

And he had.

Do I ask Ellis White Gaffer?

No, he's having his 43rd sip of water of the afternoon.

Do I ask Dave for Gaffer?

No, he's googling Kagouls.

Yeah, I was looking at the city score.

I asked the stagehand, I get gaffer.

I asked the head of tech, she gets me scissors.

Now we begin, step by step.

We take off, we cut, we stick, we turn, we stick, we measure, we stick, we erect.

Putting it on its back, the main erection, I loved.

Yeah.

And using the stage weights just to flatten it out.

And here's the spiritual change in me.

Right.

Because after completing, after erecting, after solving,

Ellis then said, what should we have for dinner?

We've had a lot of Thai.

Old John, himself,

in egoic mind,

would have said, I have solved the problem.

I choose to

get me Thai.

Ellis says, I want a Pizza Express.

I really enjoyed the Pizza Express we had the other day.

Old John, in egoic self, says, I actually had pizza at Celia's birthday two days ago.

Yeah.

And

I haven't run today.

And I've somehow put put on three kilos since I started running which is bizarre I need to dig into that

new John

radical acceptance yeah

old egoic John would have never got to that stage the way you disengaged from your ego when I when I asked if we could have pizza and you said yes it was just it was pretty absolutely it was amazing to watch brave considering you saved the show No, yeah.

Well, because

I mean, this is the thing about crises being opportunities.

Because Giles missed the car park at Leicester Forest East,

because I therefore ate 20 minutes later at Donington, I'm now in a better position to accept different foodstuffs because I'm not hungry when I'm making the decision.

Oh yeah, yeah.

And Donington had an M ⁇ S.

Leicester Forest East didn't.

So is my life a mistake or is my life a miracle that's yet to happen?

these are the questions which i set myself

yeah it's the big questions isn't it yes big stuff it's never small stuff it's never small stuff i've never had a small chat with john in my life

it's true

the big stuff

i mean with the greatest of respect dave It's only small chats I have with you.

King of the small talk.

Me too.

King of the small talk.

Oh, are you?

Yeah, it was wet yesterday.

The three minutes where John was solving the problem,

I felt so privileged to see that.

Oh, people will ask you where you were.

Yeah.

Well, at Leeds.

Yeah, you were there.

Next, you stood next to him.

I was in Leeds.

Well, it's all go.

This was the latest installment of Ellison John's Road to Norway.

Let's go back to the studio, I think.

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Right, it's time for a made-up game, Dave.

It is time for a made-up game.

Good news, we have a new jingle.

Okay.

And I genuinely get very excited when I know we have a new jingle because I haven't heard them either.

It's from Dave and Kat with with a little note as well.

Hello, I had a lovely afternoon putting this together for the Made Up Games intro.

I even collared my wife when she got in from work for some BVs backing vocals.

Oh, nice.

Hope it gives you a giggle and you don't find the mang accent too offensive.

I never do, if I'm honest.

Okay, so Dave and Kat with a brand new Made Up Games jingle.

It's a game, it's a game, it's a made-up game.

Here we go again with a made-up game.

Made up by you, for you the listener.

Dave is Quiz Masterman, he's the mastermind with the master plan.

Hey, Dave, you wanna make me far?

John has got a massive brain.

Don't tell him it's just a game, Ellis.

Remember, your name is the buzzer.

How much is this called or a trader?

Which US day is my neighbour Scotland, Notland?

Where's the forklift?

This man's face, horse or play, dragon's day, H2O.

It's a made-up game.

Wow, that was horrible.

I loved that.

I absolutely loved that.

Elements of half man, half biscuit there, I felt.

It reminded me of those

films set in the 1930s about the sort of importance of baseball to America's national story.

and it'll be like a blow

films are there.

Oh, there's like a Robert Redford film from the mid-80s, but nights, what's that one called?

You've got to remember, I've watched an awful lot of sports films for another project.

So, lots of there'll be like a pitcher chewing corn, and then he'll be getting the bust.

So, about Field of Dreams.

We have watched that for this other film.

The Kevin Chelster film.

Yes, it's actually Mike Bubbins' favourite film of all time.

He needs help.

What?

He finds it very emotional.

That and Rollerball, rollerball, I think, are his two films at the time.

It's so strange that you've ended up doing your two podcasts with the two most different people on earth.

I was talking to Dave about this last night.

We had a lovely chat about this.

Did you?

Yeah, yeah.

And Alice is kind of in the middle of these

Venn diagram that's about half a mile away from it.

You know, each point is about half a mile away from each other.

Yeah.

It's very odd.

Extraordinary.

Field of Dreamer dreams of an unroller ball.

There's another one.

I can't remember what it is.

But yeah.

He likes likes different stuff to you and that's fine yeah

most extroverted man i've ever met in my life bobbins yeah really he once bought a round of drinks for 80 people i wouldn't be able to do that even if he gave me a year's notice i wouldn't be able to get enough people to get that

I would have to do it over the course of a day traveling around the country and even then I'd be 50 short

You were doing the gig in, was it in Cambridge?

And you asked that guy and in the sort of quite near the front, you said, oh, are you my friend Dave?

And he went, yeah, I'm one of your eight friends.

Yeah, that was Chris.

Right, Dave, what's the game, please?

Oh, quick point of order.

I mentioned a film where a flower blossomed and then wilted and everyone missed it because they were distracted by something else.

It was Dennis the Menace.

Yeah.

Of course.

From the Beano.

Well, there was a Dennis the Menace.

That was in like three episodes ago in a Bureau de Change of the Mind.

It was whilst we were at the remote recordings.

Yeah.

So last week.

Okay.

Dennis the Menace, in case you're wondering.

Right.

Each week we play a made-up game that has been sent in by you, the listener.

Scores on the doors.

John has an advantage over Alice in our first ever Juice.

So it's Advantage John.

Oh, is it Advantage?

Great.

So it's Advantage, John.

Yeah, so if you win, it just brings it back to juice.

Okay, this could be fun.

John, you're leading two loving games, one loving sets.

Cool.

So I think it's our first advantage.

And this week's game is from Rosie.

Hello, team.

I've always been a fan of all things Japanese.

The food, the culture, the wildlife.

And specifically, I've always had a soft spot for haikus.

Oh, lovely.

Come on, Rosie.

Do you know what?

Is she a listener?

It doesn't sound like it.

If you weren't on on 45 minutes sleep, I think you'd be fine with this.

No one could have predicted you couldn't sleep all night.

So it's a tricky one.

If I knew that, I would have probably given you a little heads up, but here we are.

I find it amazing.

She's been in poetry groups.

Yeah, but you were really good with the Tim Key poetry game last year.

Yeah, I was given a lot of notes, Dave.

Complete mouth.

Are you having a go at

Rosie here?

Yes.

Because it's Rosie's game.

I know it.

I know it.

Well done, Rosie.

I find it amazing that haikus can say so much in three short lines.

Pen stop working as well.

That's all there ego.

Get on your notes, on your

haiku.

I've also always been a fan of your good selves.

So last week I got to thinking, I'm sure Ellis and John, the great writers that they are, will be able to write some great things.

I write moving prose about football for The Guardian, Dave.

They're not haikus.

They're thousand-word essays about Craig Bellamy.

So I present to you a very simple game.

Hey, you two, write me a haiku.

If you don't know what a haiku is, it's a traditional Japanese form of poetry.

In English, a haiku consists of 17 syllables across three lines of 5, 7, 5.

To give you an example, here's a classic from the poet.

Matsuo Basho, an old silent pond.

A frog jumps into the pond.

Splash, silence again.

Can it deviate from 575?

I think the traditional...

So it couldn't go 5-5-7 for instance.

So the Japanese masters have written them.

Ezra Pound has written them.

And now Ellison John will write them.

So I'll give you a subject.

So I'll give you a subject.

You then have 57.5 seconds to write a stick in the mick.

Why 50?

Oh, no.

575.

A haiku in a minute.

Yeah.

What if it doesn't

match the syllables?

It has to, otherwise it's not haiku.

And then what do you do for fits if you can't get it to match?

You just make it match.

Okay, in 57 hours.

It's not that difficult.

We can give you a little bit longer if need be.

He's on 45 minutes.

Dave, it's 57.5 seconds.

That's the game.

Oh, no.

I'm so sorry.

That's all he's got.

My name is Erlis James.

I

am a pain in thee.

Are sometimes on low, and then you just don't put sleep in there.

Okay.

I think that was 7.55, wasn't it?

That you did.

Yeah, John.

Anyway, yeah,

it's 575.

Can't be clear on that.

I I will judge which one is the best.

And there's three rounds in total.

Simple as that.

Enjoy.

Ellis, best of luck.

Well, John, best of luck as well.

I think

there should be some interesting answers.

Why is he writing?

He doesn't even know the topic yet.

He's that good.

He's that good.

He can guess topics to icons.

Okay.

Round number one.

I think John's just practicing.

Do you want a quick practice, Ellis?

Do you think you would have been in a different frame of mind on more sleep?

Or would this always been a trick?

Well, actually, no, it's part of this stuff.

Yeah, and I'm fine with that, actually.

I've made my piece on it.

Yeah, it's all right, isn't it?

It's just a bit of fun.

You've got a lot to offer.

You have.

You are fantastic as a person.

My name is Ellis.

On little sleep, I struggle to broadcast my best.

That's good.

Yeah, well, we're not doing it on that.

Okay.

But that's the type of thing we're after.

And they sort of historically have a

sort of sense of wisdom or stillness or movement or some suggestion that you join the dots in your own head.

I think we're at our limits here.

And so I need to come up with wisdom in 57 and a half seconds.

Well, it's something to sort of reflect on, almost like a sort of mantra of...

I've never done that in 44 years.

I've never said anything wise.

Apart from my point that some...

that some dramas,

period dramas that are set in sort of the 80s, often have too much 80s furniture.

Yeah, yes, you've made that point a few times.

I listen to you.

Okay, let's try and squeeze that.

Let's do it.

We might speed up the 57.5 in the edit just to get to the answers quicker.

So

that's just an edit point.

Okay, round one.

The medium of email.

Okay.

Have a think about what a reflective haiku might be around everyone's favorite method of communication: email.

Ellis is counting on his digits.

Alice is finished.

It's bad.

This is like where you leave an exam room early because you're that confident.

Yeah, I'm a friend, she's a se and I live to regret the tale.

And we're there.

57.5.

Great.

Okay.

We've locked him in.

It's on the magic of email.

I think broad enough to go in different directions.

Ellis.

We'll come to you first.

575 in terms of syllables for haikus.

What is yours?

What do you got?

I want to send my

finish.

Love some messages to read.

I choose email, please.

i mean it's i like that i don't know in terms of the rules of haikus are you almost kind of meant to conclude at the end of each sentence no you can finish on like halfway through a sentence okay but in a way that is like so in the frog example yeah if you read the first line of that what was the first line of the frog one yeah you're right and yeah it's slightly different ellis is clear he's just ending a sentence curly there's no double meaning do i want to send my yeah there is I want to send my, what does he mean?

You actually don't know.

Yeah, go for it.

His infinite meaning.

Give it again, Alice.

I don't want to read it again.

No, I just want to.

I want to send my

love some messages to read.

I choose email, please.

I like i choose email, please.

Yeah, it's really nice.

It's positive.

John.

Lightning flashes words.

For God's sake, come on.

To you, my friend, in seconds.

Open.

Read.

feel our love.

Did you get that from a forum?

No way did he come up with that.

I got that from the forum of my mind.

God's sake, well,

I think we might be out on the old syllable counts here, John.

Why?

What was your final line?

Open, read, feel our love.

That's selling that six.

How is that six?

Open.

Oh,

read.

You're joking.

Surely that's a fourth thing.

I think by default.

Oh,

he wins.

Oh my god.

Huge news.

Huge.

Huge if true.

This is rocking the poetry world.

Because it's good.

It was really good.

Oh, it was tough.

I should have gone open read feel love.

Huge news.

I shook up.

Ah, and that would also sound better.

What should you have done?

Open read, feel love.

Yes.

That's massive.

Because the other two lines were bang on.

You think that sounds better than iTunes Emo, please?

You're mad.

You're mad.

Well, in a sh.

1-0.

In a sh, in an upset, in a cup-up.

Don't say cup upset, Dave.

You're meant to be impartial.

Ellis is 1-0 up.

Right, round two.

Adrian Chiles.

57.5 seconds to write a haiku about everyone's favourite man of the people, Chiles.

Were you just taking my first line?

Start the clock again.

And time.

Adrian Childs.

John will come to you first.

A word.

A thousand.

No matter the length or breadth.

He spans worlds

speaking.

Well, you're in play for this round.

Thank you.

John's in play.

Which is a bonus.

It's good.

It's good.

Ellis.

I think it would be a different competition if I had

five minutes.

Yeah.

Yeah, we won we couldn't record.

Yeah.

But

we would

record it in a stadium.

And as we were working on our wordles, the big screen could show, I don't know.

But the time limit gives peril.

It meant I didn't check the first one.

Yeah, it gave you a point.

And with five minutes, John would have probably come up with something different, although it was very good.

Okay, Ellis.

He tells me the news.

He tells me my feelings.

And.

What is it with you?

Dave, I wrote it in about 30 seconds.

I need his show now.

I like that.

That's better than his first one.

He tells me the news.

He tells me my feelings.

And.

I need his show now.

It's yes, because I don't know what I feel

unless Adrian's telling me.

I don't know what I know because I don't know what the news is.

Because Adrian tells me, yeah, I don't know how I'm meant to respond to anything because Adrian tells me, so I need his show now.

I'm giving it to John.

What?

I'm giving it to John.

Come on, mate.

But, but, but both, you both have a style which I like.

Yeah, the style is trying to 575 in under a minute.

Yeah.

Right.

Final round.

Coffee.

Hmm.

You have to.

He's got his little fingers out again.

Well, how do you do it?

Don't I would as well.

It's just funny to watch.

I just wonder if all the great Japanese poets are there going,

probably.

And time, 57.5.

We might have abridged abridged for the edit, but here we are, 57.5 seconds later.

The final theme or subject was coffee.

Ellis hit us with your haiku.

Hot liquid awakes.

I don't mind that at all.

I don't mind that.

Black drink stains my teeth, and so

to the hygienist.

That's very clever.

That's good.

Because I have to have more scale and polish

points

than usual because I drink a lot of black coffee.

Hot liquid awakes.

Yeah.

Black drink stains my teeth and so.

Yeah.

To the hygienist.

I wanted to go, I go, but that would have been seven.

So to the hygienist, I'm just dangling that there for the reader to work out.

That's the best, yeah.

I think in terms of what is now clearly one of your traits of haikuism.

my tropes, yeah, your tropes and traits is just cutting off sentence to go to the next line.

That's the one that's felt the most natural with and so.

It does, there's a bit of fluidity there.

Hygienist.

A bit of cohesion.

I get told off for drinking black coffee and I say, sorry.

John, coffee, what you got?

Dark chestnut, hear me.

Spring in my step.

Move me now

to vast scapes of day.

Wow.

Yeah.

You could put that on a tea towel.

You could put that on a tea towel.

I mean, that to me.

And it is about coffee, I suppose.

To me, it feels like a meme.

It's close, though.

I think that would go viral.

Hot liquid awakes.

It's a shame because you both close.

Trying to unduly influence you, John.

A div.

I actually think that's John's weakest when the first two were better i'll tell that to the vast scapes of day

genuine tension genuine tension

to the hygiene

dark chestnut hearing me i'm giving it to ellis i thought you might and giving it to ellis

which is hugely massive they do very different jobs john's is a thinker it's it's there are layers there i think mine's a warning

Yeah.

But there was just, there's an immediacy about that final one from Alice.

I am ruining the extra syllable in round one.

You probably should be.

I really am.

That's what's going to be on my mind tonight.

As well as my new word or starter word.

Yeah, of course.

Of course.

That's enormous.

Rosie, I'd like to take back everything I said.

If that stayed in the edit, sorry.

Well done.

It's staying in the edge.

At least little sleep is your key to avoiding cognitive decline.

Yeah.

Maybe you need to be a 45-minute a-night guy.

That's not what the doctors are saying.

But this is lived experience.

This is lived experience.

And that's real science.

The go's done his own research, Steve.

Yes, and that's what everyone says you should do.

So we're...

What is it?

Advance to juice?

Back to juice.

Back to juice.

Wow.

Good game.

Thank you, Rosie.

Love that game.

That was fun.

And you were afraid of the game.

I think we did a haiku game before on XFM.

Did we?

Yeah.

I've got memories of that very familiar counting of syllables.

I'm not sure if it's going to be a good one.

Which we would have been doing live.

Yeah.

That's true.

Deuce.

Strong game.

And that's today's made-up game.

Right then, everyone.

After that thrilling, poetic made-up game, we now move to more human quarters.

The quarters of connection.

the quarters of brotherhood, sisterhood, patronhood, Dave?

If I could be so bold.

You can.

Can our Welsh hero Ellis James connect with a fellow country person in 60 seconds?

Good question.

We've been trying to answer it for over a year now.

And the answer is yes and no.

Yeah.

It's time to find out in the Cymru connection.

It's another Cymru connection.

Ellis thinks his tactics are sheer perfection.

But his questions have one direction.

Where did you go to school?

Do you know Daffy Evans?

No.

Come on, mate, you must do.

And then often he will just list a name or three.

Ignoring John's imploring think like us to

listeners all are hoping if he can elevate his strategy to nifty,

he'll achieve the magic 50

Ellis go

connect.

I always forget we play the more uplifting one now.

Well, we play that because it's lucky for you, because we played it last time and you got the connection.

The minute you lose, we will return back to the audience.

Oh, right, so this is one book.

Listener, Craig, again, thank you for doing the longer one.

It's fantastic.

And we've had an email from Ben.

Ben says, Hi, Ellis, John, and Dave.

Thought it might be worth suggesting, in light of having had an American on Cymru connection, that you look to the sport of baseball when considering whether or not Ellis's stats are acceptable.

Hitting a baseball is so hard that even the best batters fail on two out of three attempts.

The Yanks measure this, getting a hit without making an out, as a batting average.

And the player with the highest ever batting averages for his career is Josh Gibson with 0.371.

By comparison, Ellis with a Cymru batting average of around 0.4 is hitting better, relatively, than every baseball player who ever lives.

One in the major leagues.

And should therefore regard himself as a great success.

Yeah.

Also, we could take another lesson from baseball where they refer to the American Baseball League as the World League, the World Series, and say that Ellis, this is global.

This is the World Series of Cymru Connection.

And you're up against every other person in the world, even though it's just you.

Well, the World Series was named after a newspaper called The Chicago World, I think, or The World.

So that's it's not

like a World Cup, like in football, which is what I thought it was.

But still, I'd like to think that I'm connecting across the world as long as it's in Wales with Welsh people.

Yeah,

okay.

A few weeks ago, Ellis managed to connect with caller Tim via the official Ellison John voice of Lenethle.

Scott Quinnell, that success brought Ellis's connection rate up to 45% or his batting average up to 0.450,

which is huge.

Yeah.

No baseball player can boast about.

Can he build on his success?

Let's find out.

We have a caller on the line from Wales.

Hello.

Hello.

The next voice you hear will be of Ellis James.

He will be trying to connect with you.

Your time starts now.

Agent School?

36 and Stanwell School in Pernath.

In Pernath?

Do you live in Cardiff?

No, I live in Pernath.

Okay, well, I want to say Tony Gray Thompson.

Do you know Tony Gray?

I don't know Tony Gray Thompson.

Okay.

Do you follow Cardiff City?

Yeah.

Do you know Hanson Dantite who works in marketing?

No, I don't.

I don't know anyone at the club.

Okay, well, no, I mean, he's just a supporter.

Okay, so do you have nights out in Cardiff?

Yep.

Do you go to Crubby Verbach?

Occasionally, yeah.

Okay, do you know Chill who works there, Richard Hawkins?

No, I wouldn't know the staff there.

Okay, do you go to gigs there?

Again, occasionally, yeah.

Occasionally, okay, do you like playing football?

Yes.

Oh, okay.

Do you go to goal?

Do you know Gwylen Bohr, who runs Gaul in Cardiff?

Probably.

I've been to Gaul a lot.

Okay,

what about John Rostron who puts gigs on in Cardiff?

Yes, I do know John Rostron.

No!

Wow.

I've got to say,

it felt like you got that connection against the caller's wishes.

There was a lot of shutting down there, but Ellis didn't keep walking into a closed door.

Panath's a blind.

My friend Simon's from Penarth, but he's older.

So I was trying to get Simon out of my mind, which is difficult because I associate him so strongly with Penarth.

He dominates your mind, he completely dominates my Penarth mind map.

But I think what you did well there was you knew that you spotted quite early doors that Cardiff was the place to to be.

And that's where you stayed.

You're going to have most of your nights out there.

Yeah.

So I was doing some mental maths.

I thought, what's your name?

Sorry, Cola.

Sam.

I assumed Sam probably broadly likes the kind of music I like.

Yeah,

and Cardiff City was a blind alley because I know too many Cardiff fans.

So Gwynnen Bohr and the Bohr brothers run Gaul, which is the fiberside center.

Maybe actually, in a way, Sam was trying to help Ellis by saying, I don't know the staff.

I don't know anyone who works for the club.

He was actually steering Ellis with a firm hand.

That's five, Ellis.

John puts so many gigs on.

Oh, really?

Right.

If you like, it has done for so long in Cardiff.

I thought it's a matter of time.

But I actually know John from Five Aside, though, at Garl.

Oh, do you?

Yeah, I used to play with John for about five years in the same...

in the same group of people at Garl every week.

I was with John and his wife on Tuesday night, in fact.

Are you sure you want to be saying this?

No, no, no.

I mean,

I went to the wedding, like, we're friends.

Not by moment.

No, no, no.

Our friends are John and Lisa.

Yeah.

Okay.

John trusts you with Lisa.

Yes,

he trusts you and Lisa too.

The wedding.

There were more five of us.

Izzy was there.

Here's the perfect story.

Riding in plain sight.

I was at the wedding.

I was at the wedding.

It's the first time I ever attended a Kaylee.

And I didn't like it, but I didn't say that on the day.

I didn't want to ruin the fight.

of course and then we had a kaylee at our wedding which i don't like but izzy wanted one so i just like accepted that yeah because wedding is about to compromise um

sam are there any other connections uh yeah there's a few that i know of um so one of my good friends is jack egglestone the uh the drummer in mcclesky and future of the left who you might know as jack from music box yes so do you know bernie from music box and mark no i only know jack our uh our daughters are very good friends so i know him through uh through our daughters yeah um i was at uni with Nick Cudd.

Were you?

I was, yeah.

He is my cousin's husband.

I know you've mentioned him before.

Yeah.

Who used to play rugby for the Ospreys?

Dragons.

Dragons, I said, Zoe Coach for Tumble.

I wouldn't have got Nick Cudd from you.

No, it's tricky.

Sam?

It's tricky.

That's from David Princip as well, you might know.

It's from the BBC Will Sports Gen list.

Sports Jane list, yeah.

It's an absolute field of connections.

David,

in long enough, if you'd given me two minutes, I think I would have got to David.

I saw him at the last wheels away.

I did.

I can't remember which one it was.

Where was I?

That's cognitive decline again.

It rained.

I saw David at the airport.

On a Belgium.

Great God.

There you go.

It didn't rain.

It didn't rain.

This is okay.

It's in the summer.

It was in what?

It was in the summer.

So I think it rained in the summer.

Because I went to one quite recently in the rain.

Right.

And that's in the same way that I'm always going down a Simon Blind Alley when I'm thinking of Pennath.

Who's Simon from Penath, Ellis?

He used to be the bassist in a band called King Alexander.

And I can't remember his surname with my friend Laura.

A lovely, lovely bloke, but he was from Penarth.

But I'm afraid I can't do any more than that.

Sam,

we got there in the end.

We got there quite quickly, I would say.

No, no, how many seconds were left on the clock?

59!

59!

Oh, my God!

John was a bit.

It was.

Because of your age, I went John rather than Mike Bubbins, who is my cardist stab in the dark.

Do you know Mike Bubbins?

I don't.

I'm one of the few people who doesn't know Mike Bubbins.

Okay, well, thank you so much for your call, Sam.

That was one for the ages.

Can I give a quick shout out to my niece?

Absolutely.

She's 15 and she's been a PCD since she's about 11.

So she'd be

happy to get her name on the show.

What's her name?

Esther Clark.

Hello, Esther.

Hello, Esther Clark.

You are now, Esther, by degrees, a Cymru connection.

That's because Ellis has chatted to your uncle.

Yeah, and Ellis is, sorry, Esther's mum knows John Roster as well, funnily enough.

They used to work together.

This is massive.

Strong.

Massive.

This is massive.

All flies in the spider web.

Yeah, sorry, Ellis.

That's quite a sinister metaphor.

No, all happy flies in a spider that likes them and is putting them up for the night.

And then we'll let them

set them free.

Yeah, and isn't it evil or anything?

The web that sets them free.

Yes.

That's Panaf.

That non-sticky web.

Great.

Thank you, Sam.

Thank you very much, Sam.

Well, on that high,

what a day it's been.

We've had Wordles, we've had ulcers, we've had

Poetra,

LS1 Poetra,

and LS1 Connectors.

It's a big app for Al.

He needed that on 45 minutes sleep.

He did.

I was just thinking during that, while Ellis was chatting, I was thinking, God, I'm tired.

And I've got to go out shopping and I've got to go to a birthday party tonight.

And I thought, come on, John, you had eight hours' sleep.

So you're going to get me through the day.

Thank you.

That felt...

Today has been a day of positives.

And it started off badly, actually.

Did it?

With me at the breakfast party.

Oh, no, but you know, I can feel the night time.

I know you do.

You were in Sheffield this morning, isn't that, Ma'am?

It is, mad.

He had steak for breakfast.

That's because I've never seen it offered a breakfast before.

Did I okay this hotel?

It came.

It was an odd.

No, not odd.

It's just a part of a restaurant.

So you walk in and you think, Am I just in a restaurant or is this going to be a hotel?

Next thing you know, he's got 24 oysters.

Yeah, and on the breakfast menu, there was a steak offering.

Yeah.

Did you enjoy it?

It was nice.

It's a bit weird at 20 past eight in the morning.

On 45 minutes.

45 minutes.

That's not on them.

No.

That's on you.

It was a bit weird, but yeah, you know, that's why I'm still blaming buff because I eat steak in Sheffield at 8 a.m.

Great.

Well, keep sending your Shane Wells and your made-up games and your mad dads to ellisonjohn at bbc.co.uk and we bid you adieu.

Goodbye.

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We the man to be seen.

Winner, best book.

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

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.