#483 - Freezer Cupboards, Adrian’s Chipper and Not Feeling Like I’m On Fire

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Hello, everyone.

the stage is packed away, the tour van is back in the garage and the final rounds of applause have died down, leaving their echoes only in the memory.

Ellis and John's tour has come to an end.

The final show is at the London Palladium and it played host not to just 2,000 adoring fans, but also an assortment of industry movers and shakers, eager to snap up the hottest ticket in town and desperate for the next big hit to provide a much-needed boost to the nation's leading TV channels and streamers.

At the post-show party, Ellis and John mingled with commissioners and kingmakers, but something wasn't right.

The mood was subdued despite Ellis getting two standing evations during an historic 60-second quad connect.

He was trying to find common ground with a creative director at Amazon by talking about the Rumbelos Cup.

But he could sense interest waning and as a result, forgot who Chelsea lost to 5-1 on aggregate in the 1991 semi-final.

Things were going going even worse for John.

He could sense opportunity slipping through his fingers as he began a conversation with the head of BBC Sounds by grumbling about the length of time it took paperwork to get signed off by the BBC Legal Department.

He couldn't help but wonder if a simple thanks for coming would have sufficed.

Sorry, John O.

Ellis and John's agents, Sarah and Emily, looked tense and mouthed something to Ellis.

Wednesday.

Wednesday, Ellis cried.

It was Sheffield Wednesday.

And then they went on to win the Emily cut in.

Can I borrow Ellis for a moment?

Thanks, Emily.

I blanked on that.

How could I forget it was Wednesday?

John Sheridan went on to score the only goal in the final.

No, Ellis, where's Dave?

Oh, I don't know.

He's on the phone when I saw him.

And at that moment, the room erupted.

Everyone surged towards the door.

Dave had arrived.

All right, all right, former queue, okay.

Now let's tell her how it is for a second, right?

I've ripped the gig and you'll want a piece of mastamine and that's all well and good, right?

But it's going to cost you.

Who's first?

Hi, Dave Paula, Chief Commissioner at Netflix.

Dave, love the show tonight, you were fantastic.

Cheers, love.

I just wondered if you had any format ideas you'd like to develop.

Yeah, big time.

I got loads.

How about Inside Ram Raiders?

Oh, what's that?

A police documentary following local forces as they crack down on crime?

No, insider Amraiders.

My mate Zamo always takes his camera with him on a job.

He gets massive numbers on TikTok, and that's not including what he makes on the trainers and vapes.

Dave, Chris Ward, head of Fact Ents at Channel 4.

Do you have anything more prime time?

We'd love to work with you.

Yeah, three words.

Degsy's Midnight Ronners.

Okay, tell me more.

Is it a music panel show, kind of Buzzcocks, but for boomers?

No, no, no.

My mate Degsy, he's always moving gear from Dinsbury to Stretford on a moped.

He takes it around in a deliveroo bag.

There's about eight of them, right?

And you see who can turn over a kilo in the quickest time.

The excitement was fading.

People started to walk away.

Oi, where are you lot going?

I got loads of these.

One's called tramside snitches.

It's like Traitors, but if you grasp, you get bricked.

Emily and Sarah grimaced.

The bar was emptying fast.

What the f happened there?

It's okay, John said, lighting Dave's spliff for him.

When you've messed up as many of these things as we have, you get used to it.

Oh, yeah, said Ellis.

Even if the ideas are good, they turn them down.

No one's got any money anyway.

I tell you who's got money, Dave exclaimed, his face suddenly lighting up.

This guy.

He opened a hold all containing bundles of cash.

Look how much me and Shas took on the merch.

But Dave, the venue do the merch and the foyer.

Nah, nah, not before I've got to him on the street.

I reckon I've done five G's here.

How do you spell Ellis again?

Is it two L's and two S's?

Oh, by the way, you don't mind being on a beanie baby, do you?

Sorry, I asked.

Didn't ask, but they were dead cheap.

And with that, they all went home.

The reason it's funny is that it's so horribly accurate.

It's 100% accurate.

Oh, my God.

After the Reading show,

Dave and I left the venue together, and there was a guy who'd been at the show.

He was like, Oh, really

enjoyed it tonight, boys.

He was like, Oh, cheers, mates.

And he walked us back to the station.

And as soon as we got into town,

Dave was like, So, where's the strip then?

With it, all the bars.

And the guy went, There's a lizard lounge over there in a KFC.

Dave was like, Yeah, nice one.

It wasn't because I wanted to go to the strip, but I just, I think my teen years have left in me a curiosity of where the strip is in every town or city that i'm in you did say when he pointed out lizard lounge in the kfc you did say and i love this that you found it comforting to know that it was there lizard lounge in redding well not the lizard lounge specifically but i do find it comforting to know that somewhere in the city that i'm in There is a strip that people are having a fantastic time and will probably be there until 2 a.m.

And throwing up and being held back from fights and causing criminal damage.

And I never did that and I never will do that.

But it comforts you to know that people are

when we walk down St.

Mary's Street in Cardiff after

a new theatre.

Oh, goodness me.

Are you guys going on all these post-gig jaunts?

Well, we were, our hotel was at the bottom of St.

Mary's Street.

Like, I've always thought Swansea was more full on than Cardiff, but Cardiff is full on.

Do you just remember that woman?

She must have been 60 being 60.

She's a big plant pot.

And every other bar in Cardiff had its windows open.

And this was like late September, so it wasn't that, it wasn't like midsummer.

Yeah.

And they were all doing karaoke.

Yeah, yeah.

At every other bar.

Yeah.

Dave liked it.

It's comforting, John.

We didn't go anywhere.

I don't find that agitating and overwhelming.

He was so comforted by Dave.

It was a vicarious joy.

That's how Dave self-soothes.

He wants no natural light and no natural colours.

It's all got to be luminous neon that doesn't appear in nature.

Yeah.

Did you ever drink in flares?

Did you ever flares in Sheffield?

Yeah, there was a flares in Sheffield.

I used to drink in flares.

And lava lounge as well.

Was there a lava lounge in Sheffield?

No lava lounge.

Oh, God, I've just had a horrific flashback.

I got barred from flares in Bristol.

I got barred from flares in Cardiff for wearing flares.

Oh, right.

Oh, man.

Dancing aggressively was the reason I got barred from flares.

How?

That's not.

I've absolutely no idea.

But I know I drank 10 reefs.

God.

All that vitamin C.

You must have have felt on top of the world.

Yeah, I didn't have a cold for a year.

There's sugar in that.

Yeah.

And you wake up the next day and your tongue is just furry with sugar.

I went through a reef,

a reef era.

Oh, we all did.

Yeah.

Anyway, we've got to talk about the talk of the commissioners.

Are we?

Yeah, Netflix are in.

Netflix are in.

Was anyone there?

Yeah, there were.

And I did actually

talk to someone very high up about BBC and grumbled about.

Yeah, he chatted to me briefly afterwards yeah that's when I left

that's why you got to leave within five minutes because otherwise you'll say something you're that's why you've got to leave within five minutes

you've got to create a sense of enigma uh yeah by ripping the gig because the gig was a lot of fun yeah and then you leave like a ghost you rip the gig you relax in your dressing room you go into the after show party and it's hide the fact you're panicking hide the fact you're panicking hide the fact you're panicking and home yes that's true

talk to your friend bass yeah yeah but everyone's doing that everyone's faking it so they're making it i think some people are good at that stuff yeah i think some people john and i i would say are curiously bad

because because i i could do small talk with normal people i can't do it with the high ups

So I could, I actually knew it was Sheffield Wednesday.

I vividly remember the 1991 Rumble's League Cup final.

So if there'd been a Sheffield Wednesday fan there, oh my God, I'd have been all over it.

The John Sheridan scene.

But when they're high up for a big streamer, I fall to pieces.

Someone once asked me

a good question, which is what

personality trait of your partner, this is when I was with someone, what personality trait of hers would you most like for yourself?

And I said, not feeling like I'm on fire when I speak to people I don't know.

but

if I was a commissioner,

a decent one worth their salt,

you shouldn't be judging

you're looking for the people who feel like they're on fire.

No, they're the talented ones.

You shouldn't be, and I'm going to call you talent.

You shouldn't be judging the talent on the small talk in the green room afterwards.

You should be judging them on the

show they've just done and how good that was.

And I don't think they do actually, because I think they're just like us in a way.

They've got a babysitter they need to get home for.

They're sort of doing it to be polite.

You're a babysitter.

No, but they do.

Yes, yes, yes.

You know, they've got stuff.

They've got to get up early.

They've got a lot of work to do.

They work hard.

But that said,

you know, there are log jams in the paperwork process.

Of the BBC.

Yeah, and I made that clear.

Yeah.

And do you know what?

That person might never have had it pointed out to them before, but they have now.

They have.

And maybe.

And if you make changes

for the BBC's paperwork protocols, you're going to be doing people a favour in Cardiff, Sheffield, Swansea, Manchester, all of Scotland.

All of Scotland, Dave.

Yeah.

So then I went and chatted to the commission.

They could call it John's Law.

I.e.

the John's Gripe.

John's Gripe.

The Robins Rule.

The Robins Rule.

So I went up and chatted to the same commissioner.

yeah and i thought i was gonna get you know great show really thanks for the invite good to be here and immediately was really sorry about the paperwork dave john came over earlier and made sure he was pretty unhappy about it so is everything okay is it all i was like yeah it's fine it's fine sorry about john

anyway it's good so tour is done yeah uh

terra firma

i love the palladium yes what a venue what a Venue best show of the tour for me was it I loved it so and theatre in Brighton were the they were the big two.

Ellis slagged off the bar prices from the stage, first thing he said, so we won't be going back there.

Edgie Ellis.

Was Edgie Ellis, actually?

It was.

He's just so in touch with the person on the street.

Exactly.

That he can't not live their experience.

Seven pound 20 for a can of

it needed sales.

Well, don't do it again on here.

Cut that out.

Jesus wet.

You've got to make money somewhere.

Yes.

But also, it's not, they're not an outlier in this situation.

Every theatre and venue across the country is doing it.

I think John would really suit the palladium and he'd sell it out.

Thanks so much.

So I think that they should welcome him back with a welcome.

I'm sure they will.

And I'll pay for it, my ticket, when I go and see him.

Because some of us are aware of the cost of maintaining historic theatres.

And it is a historic theatre.

Bruce Forsyth's ashes are kept under the stage.

And Des O'Connors.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, come on.

I went down and communed with them.

Did you?

Is that what you were doing?

Well, yeah.

I thought you were having a nap.

No, I I did have a nap as well, and I went to see the plaques under the stage.

Oh, well,

they're actually there.

It's not a joke.

Yes, I knew they were there.

I didn't know whether there was any representation of them.

Yeah, there's two blue plaques.

I didn't see that.

One for Brucy, one for Des, and then an empty wooden plaque.

So they clearly

think someone's about to die.

They've got one ready, ready to go.

Or maybe someone has died and wants their ashes left there.

Yeah.

Because that was, I mean, it still is, but for years, more than the Apollo, that was the theatre in the public's imagination because it was Sunday night at the London Palladium and the Royal Variety was always at the palladium.

It's an incredible space to perform.

And I did connect with four Welsh people in 60 seconds and I got two standing ovations in a minute.

Well, actually,

you didn't connect with four in 60 seconds.

You connected four in 53 seconds.

It was the most incredible thing I've ever seen on stage.

And I once saw Phil Kay's

Why?

What?

The old story.

What was going on there?

It was late in live 2005.

I've actually got a photo of it.

In fact, the photo is in his autobiography.

Well, that's one for the Caradiff.

Yeah.

Which?

Which is called The Holy Viable.

Yes.

Is it?

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

When was that released?

Oh, years ago.

Because

he was a big fan of Phil Kay and and still is a big fan of Phil Kay.

It was while we were at XFM.

So what came first?

The Holy Viable.

Oh, really?

Interesting.

He was amazing.

I used to love Kiki with Phil.

Yeah.

Anyway, it was obviously not going to spend the whole episode just banging on about the tour.

But if you did come, thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

And we are aware, the reason we do talk about it is because so many listeners to the show did come.

30,000 of them.

Well, actually, no, probably 29,500 and then 500 baffled partners.

Yes.

My friend Andy, who I saw this morning, because he's doing some work on our house.

Good friend Andy, who's at the wedding.

His lovely wife Maria was there.

She's never listened.

She enjoyed all of it apart from Dave Standup at the end.

She was like, what's happening now?

Well, yeah, I don't agree with the sexual politics of Dave Standup.

Yeah, it was a misstep.

Yeah, he's got to express himself.

Yeah.

Actually, when you think about it,

it might just be 15,000 fans and 15,000 baffled partners.

Oh, John.

There weren't that many because we would often ask.

Yeah, that's true.

Although I did try to come and reconnect with a man from Tleneti who'd never listened to the show.

Lovely bloke.

In Portsmouth, lovely bloke.

But when, under sort of time pressure, I shouted Age and School at him, he had no idea what was going on.

No.

Why are you asking me that?

Come on, mate.

Highlights.

What were your highlights?

Running up Arthur's seat with you, John.

That was my highlight.

That was good fun.

That was really nice.

And Oxford.

I had a lovely Oxford script, which was nice.

But genuinely,

because people, I think, were a lot of people asked me, you must have just been terrified and petrified the whole time.

Because this isn't my night.

I think you're a psycho, Dave.

Well, no, but the reason I'm not is because I was in very, very safe hands with you two.

And you two were fantastic.

And it was a pleasure to actually be on the stage with two utter professionals in that space.

Well, that's why I didn't ever feel too on edge because I knew that you two were always there doing what you did very well at the front of the stage with me doing my little bits of bobs in between.

Yeah, but still.

Well, the only reason we don't feel terrified is because we're in very capable hands with the audience.

Yeah.

Yes.

So there you go.

The audience on Giles.

The audience and Giles.

What was your highlight, Ellis?

Was it the Kugel you bought?

No, it was turning up at venues.

Late.

And seeing not late.

And seeing the people who'd performed there before.

Oh, yeah.

I get a massive buzz out of that.

We had a lot of queen venues.

A lot of queen, a lot of Beatles venues, a lot of Rolling Stones and David Bowie venues.

And Max Miller.

Well,

the Palladium, it is

crazy who's performed there.

Yeah.

Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole.

It's like Gracie Field.

Like going back sort of over a hundred years, some of the all-time global greats have performed in the palladium.

It's quite weird to think.

And Lee Francis had played a lot of them.

Did you notice that?

No.

Because, you know, there's often a signing wall.

He often did quite a creative picture of his various characters.

Oh, did he?

Yeah.

I'm surprised neither of you spoiled that.

He gets really mardy when people call him Keith on

social media.

Really?

Yeah.

And you think, yeah.

Come on, mate.

It's all part of the game.

Yeah.

Do you reckon

Jim Moyer gets mardy when people call him Vic?

I don't think so.

I don't think so.

No.

Yeah, it was Lee Francis and George Lewis who was either followed before us or a day after us.

Do you game a squash with George soon?

And three bean salad.

We're basically doing the same talk because I advised them.

Oh, well done.

Routing and venues.

Yes, you did, yeah.

So is it time to talk about some mad dads?

I think so, because there's a good bunch of mad dads.

Okay.

So it's probably worth delving into them.

My dad, when he brought his first non-stick frying pan, kept the instructions and stuck them on the wall next to it.

Actual real wooden clogs.

And set about eating what must have been north of 24 egg canopes.

He then proceeded 20, 40 litres or so

onto the timber and strike a match.

Dance a man.

Dance a mad.

Dance a mad.

Okay, this first one is from Jodi and Leroy and it is superb.

It is unreal, this one.

This is from.

Hello, my little pastises.

A few years ago my partner Leroy's parents went to visit his brother in Australia.

Fearing burglary and as a final security measure, his dad carried all their valuables into the spare bedroom upstairs.

TV, games, consoles and his extensive model car collection, which he insists will one day make him a fortune, if only he could figure out how eBay works.

He closed the door and got to work.

He's been around for 20 years.

I know five years.

He closed the door and got to work.

Bear in mind this was a rented house they lived in at the time.

He proceeded to remove the architrave, put up plasterboard, plaster over this before wallpapering over everything, woodchip style, then hung a family photo on a nail to fully complete the effect.

Perfect.

Any intruder would be oblivious to the veritable Aladdin's cave of treasures behind the seemingly innocuous stretch of hallway wall.

When they returned to a predictably unburgled house, he of course had to strip the wallpaper, knock through the plaster, remove the plasterboard, install a new architrave and re-hang the door so as not to incur the landlord's wrath before they could access their belongings again.

Love the pod.

Jodie and Leroy from Norwich.

I cannot get over that.

No.

That's just a dad who wants a job.

Yes.

He just wants a project.

Totally.

Do you know what, though?

Every time I'm away for more than 24 hours, if we're away

as a family, say we go to visit my mum and dad or something.

Every time I pull up outside my house, I assume it's going to be, it will have been burgled.

Oh, yeah.

Lock the door.

And then I always gingerly open the door, realise that it hasn't been burgled, touch wood, and I feel this enormous sense of relief.

And it's just that times 100 and he's done something about it.

Yeah.

Well, I take the opposite approaches of having nothing valuable in my house.

Unless you really like books about wellness.

And Queen.

And t-shirts from the 90s, which may have a certain value.

Yeah.

And audio accolades.

Yeah, and trophies.

If you like Perspex, if you want to melt down Perspex and sell it on the black market.

It was a point of strange personal pride for me that

I had a couple of cars stolen when I lived in Cardiff.

But one time the car got broken into, but they didn't steal it because I had a crook rock on.

And they went through my CDs.

And I was going through an enormous, like, post-punk phase.

So there was a lot of gang of four on television.

And they rifled through them and thought, no one wants this.

yeah and they just left them and so yeah it's the same sort of it's the same um principle John's got in his house no one wants John's stuff apart from John

it's the unstealable property but they're saying that burglars don't they're not after T Vs on walls anymore because

T V's aren't as valuable as they used to be yeah no one wants C D's anymore that was a big thing the car kick car keys oh right that's pretty well and this is just anecdotal by the way I've not got stats on this off me mate off me mate but uh yeah, in general, they're after the stuff that then can get you to the bigger stuff rather than a TV off a wall.

Which they're just not as bothered about anymore, I think.

Okay.

That's good.

All right, I'm going to buy a mega telly then.

Well, at least that's why you should put your

car key fob in a

secure unit.

Yes.

So that they can't be boosted because you can boost them from outside the door.

Yes.

Absolutely.

That's...

That has to be.

That's one of those things where technology's made things worse.

Because the old mechanical key that we remembered when we were kids, you couldn't boost one of those.

No, but you could just drill through the lock.

Yeah, alright, we're just done for it, are we?

Yeah, we are done for it.

We're done for.

We're done for.

That is it.

Stealing Ford Mundeers with a tennis ball.

That was the big thing in South Wales in the 90s.

Takes me back.

What's next, Ellis?

Okay,

this is

from

Danny.

That's quite a long one, actually.

It It is good.

It is good.

Okay, I think it's worth it.

Hello, my little pickles.

I've been debating whether to send this in for a while now.

It was shared with me with the understanding that I would take it to the grave.

But I feel like I'm among friends here.

Awesome, nice thing to say.

And hopefully, enough time has passed that the shame of the act can now make way for the more light-hearted hilarity that I think it deserves.

Historically, my dad has not been known for his natural DIY abilities.

That's a great start to a map that

bright enough more than I can chew.

He's a man of many talents, but they are primarily of a creative nature.

However, since retiring a few years ago and discovering the world of YouTube instructional videos, he's taken much more of an interest and has, over time, developed some pretty impressive skills.

Relatively early into his retirement and toe-dipping into the DIY world, he was tasked with the universally dreaded job of defrosting the freezer.

Does this count as DIY?

I hear you cry.

I think more sane people would ask the same question.

However, being the innovator he now is, my dad, faced with this laborious task, took it upon himself to think outside the box.

Can I just pause at this juncture?

Because I'm thinking that's probably the only DIY job where there is no I

because there's nothing to do.

Do yourself.

All you have to do yourself is turn off the freezer.

Yeah, it's DY.

It's DY.

It's a DY.

It's a DY job.

This is another classic mad dad trope.

He was now immersed in a world of life hacking.

Okay.

And saw it as an opportunity to cheat the system and cracked out his new power drill.

To him, this was foolproof.

He could quickly and efficiently remove all excess ice, making light work of the task in hand.

On his first squeeze of the trigger, you overestimated the pressure needed to drill straight through the back of the freezer,

rendering it not only useless, but a potential health outlet.

Instead of recognising the error of his ways, he swore my mum to secrecy.

The dark secret of his incompetence would need to be taken to her grave, so now she's in on it.

Not wanting to bruise his delicate male ego or dampen his enthusiasm, she agreed, then immediately ran to the bathroom to call me.

Unable to breathe or speak for a good 10 minutes due to hysterical laughter, eventually she told the tale.

The burden of the secret was now mine.

I shared the tale with everyone I knew.

A few weeks later, my parents were hosting a barbecue.

Everyone in attendance knew the secret and question

and question between whispers and sniggers why the once freezer was now being utilized as a cupboard and was filled with dried pasta and tins of beans.

The freezer cupboard remained in place for two years before being replaced due to a kitchen reno project and to this day not a word has been said.

Until now, that is.

I hope this tale raises a smile but also provides an important life lesson for all amateur DIYers or DYers, and some closure for those who continue to relive this moment every night before they close their eyes.

Love the podcast, and thank you to my husband, whose chuckles in the kitchen drew me in and away from the misery that is my usual politics-based listening.

All the best, Danny.

That's a good one.

That's a good one.

So let's talk freezer defrosting.

Okay.

What are your methods?

Turn it off towels on the floor.

Have you ever gone down the hair dryer route?

No.

No, I've never tried to speed it up.

It's just one of the things.

I mean, it is more than, despite what I said earlier, there is more than just turning it off.

How often are you defrosting your freezer?

Well, whenever it needs it.

Yeah, because

we've never done it.

But you may have a frost-free freezer.

I think we do.

Yeah, so do you get build-up of.

Okay, well, then you're all right.

It's fine.

You're not going to be able to do it.

You're living the dream, Dave.

Oh, great.

All right.

But for those of us with either slightly older freezers or slightly d um

knackered seals,

it can be an issue.

What's your tactic then?

So draws out.

Yeah.

Then bottom draw back in

to catch all the drips.

Of course, yes.

And I put, so in my freezer there are two ice packs.

which came with a delivery of some fresh food.

Oh, yeah.

So those are frozen.

So I put them in the bottom of a Back for Life

and I wrap them and everything in the freezer in kitchen towels.

Okay.

And that will stay frozen for two days.

Wow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's amazing.

What you just with a little?

Yeah.

It's amazing how long stuff will stay frozen.

Oh, because eating all the stuff before you do it is part of the fun, I think, because you end up with those crazy meals.

Ice cream and peas.

Yeah, yeah, ice cream, peas, yeah.

And then you switch it off.

What you can do if you want, though I don't think it makes much difference, is put in like a sort of tray of boiling water or boiled water in the middle of the colour.

Yeah, that's what my mum does.

It doesn't make a great deal of difference.

And then just wait for those chunks.

Wait for those chunks.

When you hear the crack of the first big chunk.

It's working!

Yeah.

Wow, okay.

This is great.

I feel like I'm missing out on the defrost.

John should do some sort of, you know, home help life hack programme, and I should get 50% of the profits because it was my idea.

But I don't want to to be involved.

What would you call it?

Here we are again.

Back in the old days.

Why don't you come up with an idea, Dave?

I love it.

This is now.

I enjoy this part of it as well.

What's it called?

I don't know.

John's Home Improvements.

Yeah.

Great.

Okay, can I just say I don't want to be involved in this project?

What?

He's just giving you one of his best ideas, John.

It's an old idea.

It's an old, bad idea.

Oh, they get made by a a new person every couple of years or so.

That's true.

But there's also a really...

There's a good voiceover and one.

There's a really good YouTube channel, not YouTube channel,

Instagram account from Witch that do all this stuff for free.

Well,

not everyone has Instagram, do they?

Most people have got a telly.

I don't.

Oh, so much.

Which is why my house isn't getting burglar.

But you've got access to our e-play, yeah.

I do, yeah.

But you're giving it the comedic angle.

Yeah.

Which

I probably aren't.

I don't want to.

It would be hilarious.

I just want to go home.

But you can do it from your house.

I don't want to.

All right, we'll just do it from next door.

I think we need to leave it at this point, Alex.

He's quite clearly not interested.

But

it's a potential revenue stream into old age when he runs out of comedy ideas.

He'll never run out of comedy ideas.

Okay.

I'll tell you who would be a good foil for a life hack show

is someone with a hackable house.

And I reckon Adrian Chiles has got a freezer that needs defrosting.

He's got an inefficient dishwasher.

He's got his heating on wrong.

Is he into gadgets?

Yes, but he doesn't know how to use them.

Well, we should ask him.

So he's just set his hive to like 30 degrees constantly throughout the year.

And he just sits in Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt drinking cocktails because he can't work out how to get his heating efficient.

Costs him an absolute fortune.

Yeah.

So I could go in and put kitchen foil behind his radiators.

Okay.

Which is another hack.

So let's find out by asking him about none of this as we chat to Adrian Chiles.

Let's hear from Ellis and John.

Now I went on stage with Ellis and John at the London Palladium this week.

And the evas you two got when you come out literally, I filled up.

I found it emotional.

I mean, you are loved.

I mean, I knew that anyway, but to see it was a beautiful thing.

Oh, thank you, Adrian.

And it meant a great deal to have you there and to have you on stage, stealing the show, of course.

Yeah.

I thought Ellis was milking the applause rather more than you.

Ellis was

really good.

You've always got to bear that in mind.

He cannot enjoy it because he loathes himself more than people love him.

And so that's he's always in the mind.

I'd be a bit more apologetic.

He's in the red.

Yeah.

But I mean, you said to me a few weeks ago that, Ellis, your

general technique was like going to take a corner in front of

your own home fans and sort of geeing the crowd up.

But it was more than that.

It was more like a victory lap after you'd won the 100 metres in the Olympics.

Well, I always think it's more generist on Bull.

I was just thinking that after the first goal.

Yeah,

the arms up towards the Liverpool end.

Come on.

Shouting at Sonny Hippia.

Very good.

But

did I do all right?

You did brilliantly, and everyone absolutely loved you.

And Lou, who joined us on stage,

she was sat near you for the show.

She did mention to me on the phone that you didn't laugh during the show.

No,

I don't often laugh.

I smile.

I was just, if she could have seen my face, she would have seen me smiling.

Can't hear your face, Adrian.

No, no, okay.

I'm

noted.

So I was better on stage than I was watching the stage.

Noted?

I will work on that.

Ellis and John.

Sorry, go on.

Did you enjoy it, Adrian?

I did.

I'll tell you what threw me.

When I got on stage, I realized I couldn't hear anybody else on stage.

Well, I could hear you because I was right next to you.

But I was just hoping that John didn't ask me something.

I'll do that thing.

What?

Yeah, what?

It's not a good look on stage, that.

I tell you what, I think most audience members would be very surprised what the experience of being on stage is like sensorially.

You can't see the audience.

You can't really hear each other that well unless you've got good monitors.

And we didn't have to do that.

All you can see is your past flash before you.

If you're not so used to me,

okay.

Any other business?

Anything else you'd like to discuss?

Do you want any gadgets in your house?

Are you a gadget man, Nidrian?

Oh, yes.

Are you?

Oh, my word, yes.

Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times.

Are you a life hack man?

Yes.

I mean, I've found very few successful ones.

What sort of gadgets are you into?

Big ones, small ones, motorised ones, chargeable ones, plug-in ones, battery ones.

Really?

Have you got a little drone that follows you around the house?

No, no, I don't like that.

It's more sort of industrial.

It's something fiddly.

My favourite gadget is quite a big one.

It's a chipper.

So in the gardening, when I'm gathering stuff,

I just...

You've got a chipper?

Yeah, I've got a chipper.

How big is your garden?

It's very overgrown, and I've got sick of paying people to take stuff away.

I did

a state, Adrian.

Yeah, I haven't, I haven't.

I've just got it.

I've just got a

chipper and my mulch is award-winning.

Is it?

Oh, they come from far and wide.

It's beautiful.

It's rotting.

It rots.

That's something that's

you can't have that one because obviously that means something else.

I have to think of a better one.

Do market my mulch.

That's your

market my mulch.

Yes,

I need a brand name for my mulch.

I'll leave that one with you.

Listen,

I better move on.

Ellison John, coming up at

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Right, that's our chat with Adrian.

Now it's time to read your emails.

I would like to read this one first.

It's from Joe.

Dear Ellis, John and Dave, a few weeks back, John talked about the utterly terrifying book that is Roll Dahl's The Witches.

This prompted me to email in with a story from when my two children were little.

At the time, they were aged six and three.

My then-husband worked away, so evenings out for me were quite a rare thing.

A childhood friend was visiting from Australia, so my sister happily agreed to babysit, and I really looked forward to the evening having dinner with an old friend.

My sister had looked after the children before and knew the bedtime routine, including reading a bedtime story.

There were shelves full of much-loved books that they could have chosen and gone off to sleep happily.

But that evening, my six-year-old decided to go rogue and selected the witches from the rolled old box set that at that point had not been given the parental check.

This is okay before reading once over.

Do you guys have a parental check?

What are your parental checks out of interest?

Films, books,

YouTube channels, YouTube channels.

Internet use brackets general.

We've got quite a big no-go on YouTube, even YouTube Kids, because we find it can just, it's one of those platforms that even if you're within the world of YouTube kids, it can just take you in all sorts of odd directions.

Then you're watching some girl talk about how she cuts her friend's hair.

Well, also, it's like, I don't want my kids watching that because it's still bad.

It's bad content.

Well, also, the very software of Instagram, YouTube, et cetera, et cetera.

The whole point of it is designed to addict you to the platform.

Yes.

So we only let our kids watch.

So Lila's 8's like actual tele.

Telly, or

even something that doesn't quite send you in such a kind of haphazard algorithm.

So Netflix, for instance, would only take you to another episode of that series.

If you want something that sort of has a bit of

a wall around it in some way.

And none of it's great, I suppose, but there are, I do think there are some platforms that are better than others at just keeping you in the area that you're watching.

Have you seen that thing that

Meta

are fighting a case about the damage of social media by claiming they're not a social, Facebook isn't social media because only 17% of activity on it is social media.

The rest is just watching content and adverts.

Oh, God.

Isn't that mad?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sad.

So if

Betty was in a shop and said, I want this book.

She wants to read.

God, what is it?

It's something.

It's not this, but it's something like the Hunger Games.

Yeah.

And she's a very good reader.

I'm not sure it's suitable, but I haven't read it, so I would have to read it first.

All of it, or would you skim through it?

And what are you looking for?

Sex and gratuitous violence, which I've not seen the Hunger Games, but I'm assuming there's a fair bit of it in it.

It's sort of aimed at Betty's age, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

So I'd have to look into it.

She asked to read it the other day, and it was the first time I thought, oh, because at the moment she's big into

Lottie Brooks and Harry Potter.

They're the big two at the moment.

Obviously, I'm fine with that.

What about you, Dave?

Books-wise, films.

Funnily enough, today, Hannah is taking all three of them to watch How to Stone.

Oliver Stone's Platoon.

They've got to learn about the Vietnam War at some point.

We all do.

I mean, I would have watched Platoon when I was about 12.

Yeah, it was shown on the telly when I was about 12.

That's disturbing.

They're off to watch How to Train Your Dragon, the remake, and that's a PG.

The remake?

I think it was...

Isn't that quite new?

Yeah, I was trying to get my head on this.

Was it a cartoon?

Yeah, I've got a feeling it's actually a

lot.

It's not that old, but yeah, it's not.

I don't think it's far off.

So we were Googling this last night because we had the exact same conversation.

This is now a kind of film film, proper film.

But Hannah saw the trailer and she did think, I'm not sure.

I'm wary.

So they're going to go and watch it, but it might be tricky.

It could be a bit of peril.

Yeah, and

kids do have a lot of nightmares when they watch even a little morsel of something that's not quite right for them.

Yes, I remember film.

I remember my first film based like meh.

Yeah.

It was they were

castaways and they had to kill a goat to survive.

And I remember waking up and

I was in charge of killing the goat.

I remember being very upset when I was.

What was this film that you'd watch?

I don't know.

I'd just seen about 20 minutes of it somehow.

Because my parents were extremely hot on this stuff, so I don't know how it slips with net.

But, you know.

Tricky old business.

So anyway,

Joe goes on.

I have to admit to a parenting fail here.

Of course, when I went out, I said to my sister, any problems, just call.

But I was so wrapped up in the evening that my phone stayed in my bag on silent.

When I glanced at it later, there are approximately 10 missed calls and an equal number of texts.

Huge panic about what on earth could have happened.

I called to see if the house had exploded.

No, it was the witches.

My sister had only made it halfway through the introduction and my six-year-old was so terrified he would not go to bed or go anywhere unaccompanied.

Literally clinging onto my sister with a vice-like grip.

Eventually she put him into my bed and stayed with him until he went to sleep.

I had a few nights of that and then decided that I had to get him back in his own bed.

Lots of reassurance and promises that I would keep coming into the room every five minutes until he went to sleep.

It's important to note that at this point the children were in bunk beds.

The plan was going okay and I thought I'd cracked it until on leaving the room for what I thought was going to be the final time, I heard the small voice of my three-year-old piping up from the bottom bunk.

Remember the witches.

Back to square one.

For anyone who does not know the book and might be thinking this sounds ridiculous, here is a section of the introduction that completely wrecked any kind of bedroom routine for quite some time.

I want you two to imagine your kids are six and three.

Well, I loved The Witches as a kid, but I read it myself when I was older than six.

And do we need a little warning here if little ears are listening?

Because we don't want to kind of perpetuate the terror.

No, because it is a children's book.

Just making a point about how children's books have changed.

Okay, also, this is a little bit of a chance for me to

get some voiceover.

In fairy tales, witches always wear silly black hats and black cloaks, and they ride on broomsticks.

But this is not a fairy tale.

This is about real witches.

Yeah, okay, I'm scared to hit it.

The most important thing you should know about real witches is this.

Listen very carefully.

Never forget what is coming next.

Real witches dress in ordinary clothes.

I'm going to be sick.

Stop it.

And they look very much like ordinary women.

They live in ordinary houses and they work in ordinary jobs.

That is why they are so hard to catch.

A real witch hates children with a red-hot sizzling hatred that is more sizzling and red-hot than any hatred you could possibly imagine.

A real witch spends her time plotting to get rid of the children in her particular territory.

Her passion is to do away with them one by one.

It is all she thinks about all day long.

I'm scared, Dave.

I don't love it.

I don't love it.

But it's, of course, it's not real.

Or is it, Dave?

No, because they look

just like ordinary women.

Hannah could be a witch, Dave.

Does she always wear gloves?

I'll see you in the morning.

Oh,

does she wear gloves, Dave?

She could have done that at the pallium at any point between 1910 and.

Well, probably still could, actually.

There's an audience for it.

No, she doesn't wear gloves.

Alice,

does Izzy wear gloves?

No.

Okay.

Well, actually,

from November through to February.

Okay, that's okay, okay, as long as they come home in summer.

Does she wear flat-toed shoes?

Yes.

Okay, potential witch on a hands-on day.

Is she always itching her scalp?

Big time.

Okay, Izzy's a witch.

Oh.

Yeah.

Oh, dear.

But would your kids have been scared of that?

Yeah, absolutely.

And would be now.

And the things they do to the kids.

One of them traps a child in a painting, Dave.

Dave, John.

In a painting.

That's dark, Dave.

Yes, yes, yes.

I loved it, though.

Oh, yeah.

I read it multiple times, The Witches, as a kid.

I don't think I ever saw the film.

I might have done, I can't remember, but

yeah, kids.

If you're at the right age for it, absolutely.

Superb.

Which I would say is nine.

Yeah.

Maybe not for mine.

I'm not sure.

I don't think Lila's only one year away from being nine.

I think she's still got quite freaked out.

Okay, Dave.

I hate to break it to you, but your children are molly-coddled.

They need to start watching YouTube without any limits.

They need to start driving your car alone.

Dave,

they'll just work it out.

They need to watch the killing fields.

They need to watch some difficult cinema, Dave.

Yeah, the tin drum.

Yeah.

Are you familiar with Dogma 95, Dave?

No.

Okay.

It's time they went through their Lars Vontria phase.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think it is, once you're in the right headspace to enjoy the imagination there, but not be scared by it.

It's fantastic writing and it's fantastic.

Oh, yeah.

It's fantastic narrative.

I thought it was totally understand.

Yeah.

It's not scary, though, is it?

Well, Miss Trunchbull's quite scary.

I was scared of Miss Chunchbull.

I mean, she makes.

Is it Boris Bogtrotter eat all the cake?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Good stuff.

I was jealous.

Little question here about crosswords, Dave, that I want to read out because I'm described as alluring in it.

Oh, yeah.

This is from Tim.

Hello, my lovely little turkey Twizzlers.

I found John solving the cryptic crossword clue recently so alluring that I've been able to think of little else.

Thanks, Tim.

Yeah, it is alluring.

I've decided the cryptic train is one whose vibe I'd like to experience.

Any tips on how to get started?

Love you all, Tim.

Great question, Tim.

Yeah.

Took me years.

I don't think there's any doubt that you will need some kind of how-to

learn cryptic crosswords book.

There are a couple of good ones and they sort of talk you through the different types of clues.

What I don't understand though is these books all seem to be published after cryptic crosswords were invented.

So for the first few years of cryptic crosswords no one no one was able to solve them.

Yes, but um cryptic crosswords have evolved a lot since they first started.

There's a good book actually called 100 Years of the Times Crossword where you can see that evolution.

But also the language that they're using and a lot of the

sort of synonyms and initialisms and

acronyms were far more common in the 40s and 50s and 60s.

So it's stuff that would have been more common knowledge, like military ranks, cricket terms,

church terms.

Well, language develops, isn't it?

It still does.

I told Izzyoff, who works in the show, for hiding her light under a bushel.

And she said, what are you talking about?

I'm Gen Z.

But cryptic crosswords are making a bit of a comeback.

There's some good

Instagram channels and YouTube channels.

I would recommend Cracking the Cryptic, which is a really good guide to the Friday Times crossword.

Okay.

Where they talk you through it.

And they're very hard.

The Times on a Friday is hard.

I love that bit in Morse when Lewis walks in and he's doing this.

It's the first scene of an episode of Inspector Morse

and he's doing the Friday Times crossword to a timer to a stopwatch.

And then Lewis interrupts him and he like fails to beat his record by about three seconds or something.

And then he has a big go at him.

Do you time yours?

No.

No.

But

Colin Dexter, who wrote Morse, used to set cryptic crosswords.

In fact, he's written quite a few books about cryptic crosswords.

I would also recommend there's a daily cryptic clue

Instagram channel, which is really good, hosted by an Australian chap.

And what I do is I have the copy of the Times crossword sort of jumbo book, and I just do as many clues as I can on my own.

And then the ones I can't get, I go to the end, I work them out, I reverse engineer them, I make notes, and then I get a bit better and a bit better and a bit better.

Because it is big on social media.

It's basically the new hinge now.

It's the news.

It's just how everyone's meeting and, you know.

Yeah.

So there we go.

So that's what I would recommend, Tim.

Great.

Oh, start with quick cryptics because they're quicker and easier.

Okay.

Right, just a little bit of time left to ask us anything.

And Ask Us Anything introduced by, because we're not stopping this after one week, the house remix version of Ask Us Anything, which is, I've listened to probably five times.

It's a banger.

It's a banger.

So here we go.

Ask us anything, anything you wanna know.

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

Send your questions and answers you will surely surely get.

It's it's superb.

It's uh by a chap called Sean Ross.

Yeah,

you could play that at Lizard Lounge in Redding.

He also did,

and I can't recall this, but I bet it was a banger.

He did the 90s Gladiator style made-up games games jingle oh yeah maybe we dig that out as a classic made-up games jingle in future weeks so sure

yeah incredible incredible

good stuff all right ask us anything uh

parody isn't he's like um he's like fragile

yeah

uh dear ellis john and dave there have been many references to ellis's thighs over the years Below are a few questions that I have.

What is the circumference of Ellis's thighs?

Oh, great

What's the tape measure knocking about?

It's more to do with the

I've seen one before, but there is one.

It's more to do with the proportion to the rest of my body.

Well, there is a follow-up question.

So, as we look for the tape measure, let's ask you a few more questions.

Let's measure all our thighs.

Does Ellis's father and his father before him also have large thighs?

Does it really mean that?

They're all

that classic, and my son has this, and I feel a bit sorry for him actually.

They're built to lift sheep over their backs, yeah.

It's a classic sort of collier shape in that

short legs, big um

longer torso.

Yeah,

so yeah, and it's now the calves as well, I would say, are up there.

But the skinny jeans era, sometimes I couldn't trousers that fitted my waist, I couldn't pull them over my calves.

Yeah, good stuff.

Um, is Ellis an explosive sprinter?

Yes.

He is.

He's got pace about it.

But I'm also not.

Yeah, it's more that if the rest of my body was in proportion, I'd look here we go.

Blue-ish.

Yes.

It's a pal fabric.

It's like a sort of builder's tape.

It's a builder's tape measure.

What you could do is get a...

I could bring one in.

Well, no, we can get a piece of string.

Exactly.

And then do that.

Why are you doing a life hacks program, John?

I did task Master Champion and Champions yesterday.

Oh, did you?

Yeah.

You got a string.

Great.

We've got a string as well.

Here we go.

Thighs are plenty.

There's one more question before we then measure thighs.

Do his thighs make his genitalia appear smaller?

Yeah, big time.

A huge issue.

Thank you.

All right, we have string.

Thank you, Rodrigo.

Oh, it's an absolute mess.

So give me the string.

There you go.

Ellis, stand up.

And we can tense those thighs.

I am now curious about my own thigh size.

Alice is is wearing quartz.

That'll give you a couple of extra mils.

That's the thickest area, isn't it?

Right.

Dave?

Yeah.

Circumference of thigh.

This is huge.

Ellis's thighs have a circumference of 59 centimetres.

Well, I'm only one metre 70.

Okay.

So let's

put this down on a bit of paper.

There used to be a sort of...

The one metre 70.

Yeah, in height.

There's proportion, there's the old Greek proportions of body butter.

Do we do carves as well?

I actually think the carves are good.

Ellis is quite keen for us to do carves.

He's touting out various parts of his body now.

He is invested.

Could do the bit of moisturizing, Ellis.

A bit of body butter.

Yeah, but no one sees them really.

What's his carbs?

I reckon he's got 41.

Whoa, hello.

Okay.

Someone cycles.

Dave.

I can't put the trousers.

Thie, please, Dave.

All right.

Thie, me.

Cheshire's fastest ever runner.

58 and a half, Dave.

Oh, wow.

What was mine?

58.

59.

How tall are you, Dave?

Six foot.

188.

I'm back on six foot.

What's that?

182?

Something like that?

183.

183.

No one ever believes me when I say I'm six foot.

Do I not carry off

Dave?

Please.

Okay.

Okay, Dave, you're very sleek again.

Little bit of cocoa butter.

Yeah, you're right.

You're right.

Sorry, Cal.

I wish we could do bums.

My bum is world class, so I don't know how you'd measure bum.

Dave is 40 and a half.

I'm always half a centimetre behind you.

Yeah, in life.

Okay.

And in body size.

It's time for Johnny J.

Johnny's going to measure him.

John's measuring himself.

Let's get a quick pick for the carrot, of course.

So now what John's doing is...

He's he three!

it's all right because i'm such a long man

but that's what you know long distance runners don't have big thighs no so you're the mofar of the group you are it's quite cool

man my calves are going to be appalling as well well it'd be weird if they weren't do you body butter your calves john of course it does i don't really body butter my calves I was probably tiny.

Yeah, 38 and a half.

It's okay.

What were mine?

41.

And I was 40.5.

Always 50.

Always 50 millimeters behind you.

Thighs.

Pardon?

Yeah, I'm going to remeasure my thighs.

Yeah, do it.

Yeah.

Because I'm a long boy.

You are a long boy.

I was telling Betty about your arms the other day.

I just, I think I made a mistake.

Well, what are you doing?

200.

We do have to wrap.

Oh, he's getting right up there.

Should you draw our penises next?

He's right to

shape some.

I think I'll be half a centimeter behind you there as well, Al.

60 and a half.

Oh!

I went way too long.

Low.

Oh, so he's.

Oh, great.

Oh, chunky.

Big boy.

So, Ellis has got the biggest calves.

Yeah.

I've got the biggest thigh.

Yeah.

Dave's tallest, but I don't believe.

John doesn't believe how tall I am.

We'll measure next week the heights of each other.

Great.

Lovely.

What a way to end.

Yeah, naked, an absolute cart crack.

Ratio-wise, Dave.

Yeah.

Ellis's calves and thighs are ridiculous.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

It's all relative.

I look my best in five-aside kit.

If I could have got married in a football kit, that's when I would have looked my best.

I actually look like a bit of a goon in a suit, but never mind.

What a way to end.

Thank you for a fantastic Ask as Anything.

Thanks, everyone.

See you for the Bureau tomorrow, only on BBC Sounds, and we'll be back on Tuesday for another full ep of fun.

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