#485 - Promoting Crispin, 1% Cats and We’ve Got Enough Sports

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Speaker 2 Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Ellis James and John Robbins Show and it's our yearly spooky show.

Speaker 2 Dave's come dressed as a rat. Ellis has come dressed as a ghost.
No, I'm a sexy cat. You're a sexy cat, sorry.
You look like a ghost. You look like the ghost of a sexy cat.

Speaker 2 And I've come dressed as a pumpkin. Yes.
You're looking good though. Yeah, looking great.
And I've swallowed a candle. and cut holes in my chest.
It's a horrific scene.

Speaker 2 But I've really committed to it. My son wants to go to Kotrita later on tonight as Rumi from K-pop Demon Hunters.
And we got in the outfit.

Speaker 2 And he looks like

Speaker 2 if Bradley Wiggins was a strip of cram.

Speaker 2 Sorry, who's he dressed as? Roomie from K-pop Demon Hunters. I think a lot of people listening might need more information.
Well, it's the most streaming you would imagine, John.

Speaker 2 It's the most streamed Netflix show of all time. Okay, to children and their parents.
What about the childless fraternity? The

Speaker 2 bangers john. Tell me what it is.

Speaker 2 It's bangers. Make me feel included.
It's bangers central. What do you mean?

Speaker 2 The tubers have great songs on it. Right.
Which are very, very, very popular. That's roomy.
That's roomy. Could I have a look? Yeah, question.

Speaker 2 Well, you should have probably had a look before you bought his costume.

Speaker 2 Shows how involved Alice is in this process.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 that's not what he looks like. He does look like Beth Bradley Wiggins.
What's a stripper gram? What's his hair like?

Speaker 2 He's got the big purple wig. Oh, that's nice.
He's been wearing it all day. He's been wearing it since 7.30am.

Speaker 2 Oh.

Speaker 2 He had his Whitabix this morning dressed like that. Yeah.
Kids love Halloween. And

Speaker 2 what sort of characterisation is Steph bringing to the role? Does he do stuff as Roomie? No, I'll say what he'll do, though, is

Speaker 2 he'll knock on the door with his friend and they'll say trick or treat and the person will go, oh go and then treat and he'll go, that's great, but I don't like sweets.

Speaker 2 It has to be chocolate.

Speaker 2 Because I don't. Yeah, he doesn't like sweets.
That's not bad. No, no, it's mad for a kid to not like any sweets at all.
He just likes chocolate. Yeah.
So when they're that age,

Speaker 2 it is very basic, the characterization. So what are you going dressed as?

Speaker 2 A podcaster. Okay.
A spooky podcaster who's lost interest in Halloween, never liked it. Are you wearing a little?

Speaker 2 No. Okay.
No, no, he was a skeleton last year, but this year he's got slightly more agency. And is Betty going trick-or-treating? Yes, I can't even remember.

Speaker 2 It's something else from K-pop Demon Hunters. Is it really? Demon Hunters is big.
It's nice that they're both into the same thing, even though there's an age gap.

Speaker 2 They sit and watch it together. Because my sister is quite a lot older than me, so we were never into the same things at the same time.

Speaker 2 No, I'm almost seven years older than my little sister, and it's the same. We never argued, because

Speaker 2 what would an 11-year-old girl have that an 18-year-old man wanted?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 We never sort of bickered because we wanted completely different stuff.

Speaker 2 I wanted more time to rise to my A-levels. She wanted to meet Baby Spice.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 Different. Different kind of

Speaker 2 stuff. They are really different.
They are very, very

Speaker 2 different. Yeah.
Are you going trick-or-treating, Dave? Well, Well, we're going off to Clement Crispin's house for our yearly house party.

Speaker 2 Where the townsfolk come and offer their tithes to Crispin for being a good landlord.

Speaker 2 He's a great landlord because I panicked that we've travelled.

Speaker 2 Just to be clear, he is a landlord. He is a property owner.
Yes. And rents that out.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 He's a homeless. So he's not a landlord.
No, he's not. No, he's just, he's...
When I said he's a, I just meant that.

Speaker 2 He's a lovely host. He's a lovely host.

Speaker 2 I panicked that our new electric car wouldn't get us home from where we've been this week. You've got range anxiety, Dave.
I think I have a little bit because I thought it was fine.

Speaker 2 And because Hannah and I and the kids have been away to a lovely Family Forest getaway for the past week. Luck what you did there.
And we now need to go from the Family Forest getaway to Crispin's.

Speaker 2 And he texted me this morning saying, don't worry, Dave. I've got the electrician around this morning to install you an electric vehicle charger.
Just for you. That's what I said.

Speaker 2 I was like, that's not just for me, is it? And he said, there's plans in the future to have electric vehicles, so it's for everyone. Wow.
That's wealth. But

Speaker 2 that's generosity as well. That's generosity.
That's very generous because I said to him, I'm a little bit worried here, Crispin, that we've got all the way to the Family Forest getaway.

Speaker 2 Is there no charger in the forest?

Speaker 2 Absolutely extortionate. And also, we missed our we should have booked a window.

Speaker 2 You're meant to book your car in on the day you get there. It's an absolute mess.

Speaker 2 It's a mess. The whole system is a complete mess.
it's not why didn't you just do it in a fast charger on a service

Speaker 2 book a diesel pump at esso it'd be absolute carnage what what what why don't you just do it in a service station dude just let the world burn no jonathan just give up

Speaker 2 here we go

Speaker 2 no

Speaker 2 because i'm on greta's side actually are you john is she booking a slot at the forest getaway to charge her tesla not sure how i'd describe this podcast anymore

Speaker 2 man who hates himself wants the world to burn i might

Speaker 2 man who's trying his best not to see the brand name centre parks

Speaker 2 or oasis

Speaker 2 a welshman who's lost interest in halloween

Speaker 2 there aren't any others really anymore that's the problem

Speaker 2 you could use to balance it out with oasis haven haven they still exist sure there's one in the cotswalls that my sister goes to great we need that name but i can't find yeah

Speaker 2 i'll find out because there's a there's a whole made-up game coming on yeah something i did in the family forest get off tuesdays i'll find out we could do with the name

Speaker 2 by tuesday's record if that's all right um anyway chrism's got my back um why shouldn't you do it

Speaker 2 he's got my bats why don't you do it in a fast at a fast charge in a server station there's loads of them i'm just convinced that's £200 for 10 minutes because people keep telling me it's so expensive.

Speaker 2 But I don't really know what so expensive means. Google it.
Yeah, I could do it. I could just get my mate to install the charger.
It's gone.

Speaker 2 So obviously he's not going to charge you, is he? I mean, I'd be amazed.

Speaker 2 Financially, sorry, it sounds like I was making a sort of joke, but financially, he's not going to ask, you're not going to fast charge at his house and then he's not going to say, right, could I have eight quid, please?

Speaker 2 I don't think so.

Speaker 2 So that's all being taken care of as far as I'm aware.

Speaker 2 Halloween, Halloween,

Speaker 2 what we do is we go around the.

Speaker 2 It's really hard because it's a big house, but I don't want to. You go around the house, and over the course of the evening, you get through at least 40% of the house.

Speaker 2 So the parents stand at different doorways

Speaker 2 around the house. Do you know how many doorways I've got in my house, Dave?

Speaker 2 Three.

Speaker 2 I've got three doorways in my house, and you can see them all from them all.

Speaker 2 I have a front door.

Speaker 2 Oh, I've got a front door. That's what we show off.
Back door. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Actually, I've got two back doors. Yeah, I've got two back doors.
And then I've got a side return. Have you? Jeez.
Louise.

Speaker 2 But you couldn't get into the house that way, but you could get into the garden. I'm doing all right.

Speaker 2 You lucky, lucky, lucky boys.

Speaker 2 You've got a front door. I've got a front door.
And a back door. And a back door.

Speaker 2 That's it. How do you get into it? Have you got a side return to the garden? Just walk in.
It's a side return. I've never heard it called a side return.
It's you lost your way.

Speaker 2 You're a lucky boy who's lost his way. It's like, um, it's like a passage between, because we live in on in a semi-detached house.

Speaker 2 So there's the semi-detached house to our right that's actually part of the same building. There are people on GeoGuesser who now know exactly where you live from that information.

Speaker 2 And then there's a semi-detached house to our left, and there's a sort of passage between those houses. But you can't.
Like a secret one, like in Five Go to Smuggler's Top.

Speaker 2 No, but that's a great book. But then

Speaker 2 there's a door to that, and then you can get into our garden that way. And how'd you get to the stables? We haven't got any stables.
Straight out the back. We've got a back garden.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So parents will stand at the various doors. Yeah.
About eight different doors. What does Crispin do?

Speaker 2 He moves around.

Speaker 2 He sounds like a drug dealer, too.

Speaker 2 Where is he now?

Speaker 2 I would imagine he works in a lot of places for 18 months. No, no, he's done very well.
So he's been chief exec of the New York Times. He's been chief exec of the BBC.
He's now with the UN.

Speaker 2 He's in basically David Milliband. He's high up in AI these days.
Right. But he's been in.
So he's about to be replaced. He's been in tech.
He's been in tech for a long time.

Speaker 2 But what small world, actually, when Hannah worked at the Hanna-Forth Dean Tesco's for seven years,

Speaker 2 he worked there as one of the managers whilst Hannah was there, but she just never knew Crispin worked there as a manager of Tesco back in the day. How old is Crispin?

Speaker 2 We'd be fascinated by this man.

Speaker 2 i was at his 50th about four years ago how'd you know someone who's 54 because i'm cool and i'm i age doesn't define me or my friends actually john no just unusual i've got friends in their 50s yeah so have i actually yeah good well one of my eight friends is in their 50s yeah i've got friends in my in their 50s they're how did you meet he's married to a friend of mine who is our age ah that's the money again

Speaker 2 wealth power generosity i wanted to say that but i couldn't think of a way of doing it kindly but joan just got in there

Speaker 2 no they're very very very generous family and we always have such a nice

Speaker 2 halloween slash you know how you're not allowed to promote products on this podcast in order to get sent them

Speaker 2 you're promoting crispy in order to ensure you get invited back and continue to be in his orbit dave is he is his house very handsome is his house close enough to yours yours that you could just charge it his house sort of permanently with an extension lead well no no that's that wouldn't work um

Speaker 2 no that's enough that's enough on chris fiddle but he's terrific he's great isn't he dave terrific and that's 10 more years of you going around on halloween and getting your car charged for free and you can't put a price on that and tim davey can't touch you there's nothing he can do he's not a brand it's not a brand he's not a brand he's a man He's a man.

Speaker 2 He's a generous man. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. God, I've had a lot of nature in my week.
Yes, Ellis has had a bit of a disastrous time, Dave. Have you? Went bird watching on Sunday with friend of the show, comedian Joe Neary.
Great.

Speaker 2 Saw a grebe. My son loved it.

Speaker 2 Took my son bird watching. Yesterday, I'd been given misinformation, turned up at a nature reserve that hadn't been built yet.

Speaker 2 And I got told by a man in IFIS that I needed to come back in two years' time. How did that happen? Someone had told Izzy, oh,

Speaker 2 there's a really good place down near in Croydon, in Beddington. And I was like, Oh, well,

Speaker 2 I've got the afternoon off, and

Speaker 2 that's not too far. We can, I can take in there.
You didn't Google it. Well,

Speaker 2 it shows up on Google Maps. Permanently closed.
No, you just said that, well,

Speaker 2 it just said Beddington Nature Reserve. So I thought, Billy is only 25 minutes.
Well, I'll drive there.

Speaker 2 As we got there, I thought, this doesn't look like a nature reserve.

Speaker 2 This looks like a building site and that's what it is but were birds there yeah but we we you know you could you weren't allowed to park in the car park that they're building for all of the bird watches in two years time okay so i drove back um

Speaker 2 however the day before that my cats brought in not one not two not three but four mice that's four mice four mice no so in the morning i heard a scream from my daughter's bedroom she said they've brought a mouse in.

Speaker 2 I went in armed with Tupperware. I am like a ninja when it comes to catching mice and ratis.

Speaker 2 I am very, very good at it. So I took the Tupperware in.
Have you got good? Because you've had to do it so much. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I wouldn't have thought it was possible in Telight Cat. And now I do it probably.

Speaker 2 What's weird is it tends to happen a lot

Speaker 2 in a day and then it won't happen again for months. So our day was Thursday, it was Wednesday.
Anyway.

Speaker 2 So I get the mouse under the Tupperware because he's

Speaker 2 that's no small feet, though it does have small feet. Yeah, yeah.
So I got him under the paperwork. Because they usually go behind cupboards and stuff.
Yeah, it's true. I find it very odd.

Speaker 2 It's so time-consuming. Anyway, so I pushed under a copy of the new statesman, and always the new statesman.
This is separate instant from the one that happened last week with the camera.

Speaker 2 I've got a lot of new statesmans hanging around the house. Yeah.
And they're the perfect size for the Tupperware. Yeah.
And that's not a reflection on the writing. No.

Speaker 2 But I do chuck them out once I've used them because, obviously, germs. Anyway.

Speaker 2 So I've got him under there and then I dropped him. And then he's run around behind Betty's bunk bed.
Now, it had taken so long to get him under the Tupperware.

Speaker 2 And it's so awkward because you've got to get the cats out of the house because obviously they're desperate to find it. As I dropped him,

Speaker 2 you know the bad swear word that no, you never say in front of children, the Man City of swear words. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, there's one. I don't use Man City as

Speaker 2 the comparison. You know, there's one above the Real Madrid of swear words, the really bad one.
Champions.

Speaker 2 The main swear.

Speaker 2 The biggest swear. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 But there's one above the biggest.

Speaker 2 Oh, right. No, that's not the biggest.
That's the biggest. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But F is the one you don't see in front of Kate. Got it.
Got it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It would never even, because

Speaker 2 the F has slipped out. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It would never even cross my mind to go for the other one. Have you ever caught a mouse when you're wearing a dressing gown, John Dick? Dick?

Speaker 2 Because I have. No, I was.

Speaker 2 And also it was a big mouse and I was not sure at that point if it was a rat, but I've seen a photo of it. It's sizable.
Yes, sizable. You saw mouse number three.
Ah.

Speaker 2 This one was the biggest one. Anyway, as I dropped him, I thought the whole process had got to start again.
That word slipped out. Izzy said, okay, who heard the bad word?

Speaker 2 Like I'd said Macbeth instead of the Scottish kitty.

Speaker 2 My son is too young to know what it means, and obviously he hasn't heard it before. And he said, not me.
Betty said, I certainly did. I was like, nice one.

Speaker 2 Good. Now there's going to be an inquest into my language.
Nice one. Anyway, I got him back.
So were you calling the mouse the swirl? Yes, I was. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 And myself. Yeah.
For being

Speaker 2 there. Anyway, I got him back, released him.
Wallop. Job done.

Speaker 2 I then went,

Speaker 2 I was like, right, okay.

Speaker 2 That had taken a long time. I said, said, right, I'm going to put a scroll on.
Let's go for lunch. We're not going to cook in the house.
That's taken too long. We went for lunch.

Speaker 2 I had a doctor's appointment.

Speaker 2 Went for lunch. As I'm on the way back from the doctor, Izzy called me and said, you'll never guess what.
They've brought in another one, right? Could be the same one. I don't think it was.

Speaker 2 I don't think it was the same one. Anyway, I got him

Speaker 2 in a pint glass. Again, another copy of the new statesman, right?

Speaker 2 It's not a reflection on the writing.

Speaker 2 I managed to release him.

Speaker 2 That took ages. The third one,

Speaker 2 I was downstairs and they dealt with him.

Speaker 2 Interesting. Okay.
How did they deal with him? They killed him. Okay, right.
So the cats. Yeah, the cats did.

Speaker 2 So then I had to sort of dispose of the body in the death bin because there's a bin next to

Speaker 2 on a main road that I deposit dead bodies in. Of mice and yeah, et cetera.

Speaker 2 so I took him down to the deathbin.

Speaker 2 Then

Speaker 2 I was bathing the kids, and Betty kept saying, I can hear squeaking. And I was like, no, you can't.

Speaker 2 And she said, I can't, I can. I said, you'd imagine it because we've had three mice in the house today.
She said, I can't, I can.

Speaker 2 Anyway, I went to bed. Izzy woke me up at about half past one in the morning.
So I'd entered deep sleep according to my watch. I was in a foul mode.
She said it's in the study.

Speaker 2 It had S' on my documents.

Speaker 2 Oh, Oh no.

Speaker 2 What documents? What documents?

Speaker 2 What docs were those?

Speaker 2 And why weren't they filed?

Speaker 2 Because every day is a party in my house, so sometimes you don't find any documents. It had S next to the, out of fear,

Speaker 2 it had S next to the box where the birth certificates are kept.

Speaker 2 And then it had S next to some banking stuff. And it had S

Speaker 2 next to, but not on my VAT certificate. Oh, dear.
What your VAT certificate is just out.

Speaker 2 Why is that out? Because I'd been

Speaker 2 at a party. A VAT party.

Speaker 2 A VAT party, and I'd had people round.

Speaker 2 That's the first thing in your VAT folder. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But

Speaker 2 I'd taken it out and I'd had a look at it. But to show it to somebody, to show it to a friend and left them in their hand.

Speaker 2 So we looked for it. I couldn't find it.

Speaker 2 It had hidden. And I said to Isa, I said, I cannot, it's 1.39am.
I cannot do with this now. And it's got your bank details.

Speaker 2 It's halfway to

Speaker 2 stealing your identity and buying lots of things online. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I said, I'm not doing with this now. So I went back to sleep.

Speaker 2 In the morning, then, it had had an Sing party. Yeah.
Set up a shell company. It had set up a shell company.
It's diluted your shirt holding.

Speaker 2 And then

Speaker 2 I was tidying up awesome. And then I just saw it.
And I was like, right, everyone freeze. So I got another pint glass, this time fancying about German football.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm very embarrassed to say, right?

Speaker 2 I have a cleaner. That you fell in love with it.

Speaker 2 You have a cleaner. Why are you embarrassed? You should be embarrassed.
Because my grandmother was was a cleaner and she would turn in her grave if she thought I'd a cleaner. Why?

Speaker 2 Because she was like, You should be doing it yourself. Oh, even though she did it for a living.
Exactly.

Speaker 2 So she was thinking that every second of her working life of all the people she was working for, she was thinking, you should be doing this.

Speaker 2 She did.

Speaker 2 She did it on a psychiatric unit. Fair enough.

Speaker 2 No, they can't necessarily do it themselves. Yeah, exactly.
Anyway, so the cleaner said, I shouldn't laugh, but listening to you trying trying to catch a mouse is hilarious.

Speaker 2 It is the funniest thing I've heard for months.

Speaker 2 Anyway,

Speaker 2 all four of us, because, you know, I'm trying to trap it.

Speaker 2 There was, I trapped it eventually between the order of service from a funeral I'd been to about three months ago. Not of a mouse.
Not of a mouse. They go straight in the deathbed.

Speaker 2 The instructions for a microphone I use for the social distance sports bar. And eventually, with the aid of some peanut butter, I got him in a pint glass

Speaker 2 and I rescued him as well. But

Speaker 2 I think I was 50 minutes late for something

Speaker 2 because I cannot bear the idea of them dying.

Speaker 2 And the cats will just play with them,

Speaker 2 which is horrible.

Speaker 2 So anyway, I got him in the end and I rescued him. I released him.
Well, Izzy released him.

Speaker 2 We have now bought an AI cat flap that can tell if the cats have got something in their mouths and then it won't let them in because we used to they used to be worse at school this is a tech bro day

Speaker 2 because I googled these and on the website the the cat flap sends you videos of the cat to your watch I'm hoping you can disable that well you need to check whether it's working yeah yeah yeah but um yeah but they do look very chilling yes it's not great yeah one of them was a cat with a big frog Dave

Speaker 2 cats have never brought in a frog my when I was growing up up, my cats used to, it was frogs was the problem, and frogs scream.

Speaker 2 Oh my god, which you don't know until a cat brings a frog into your life. They scream, it's outrageous the sound they make.
So, you'll know if one of your cats brings another cat home.

Speaker 2 It was like a romantic date. Yes, if they want to do that, best of luck to them.
Yeah, yeah, happy with that. I sincerely hope my cat gets his leg over.

Speaker 2 So I'm aware that having heard this,

Speaker 2 a listener may well bombard you with solutions. Yes.
So let's just go through the things you've tried. The bell.
You've tried the bell.

Speaker 2 It sounds like you're recording a Christmas single and a snuff movie at the same time. So that doesn't work.

Speaker 2 Whoever is spreading the bell propaganda. Yeah.
That is miserable. I think it's more for birds because birds have much quicker reactions and just fly as soon as they hit the skin.

Speaker 2 Birds are slow and thick. Okay.

Speaker 2 Birds are initially. They brought in a pigeon on the day of the funeral, funeral, and I was about to leave the house, and I had to pick up a pigeon in my suit.
Yeah, so you've tried the bell. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Have you tried keeping them in at dawn and dusk? Right.

Speaker 2 Okay. We have got a special microchipped cat flap.

Speaker 2 So it's got four settings. They can come in, but they can't go out.
They can go out, but they can't come in, etc. etc.
They can't, neither in or out. Anyway.

Speaker 2 According to the website, 1% of cats are clever enough to override these.

Speaker 2 Our cats are immense, sir. Okay.
They are in the 1%.

Speaker 2 It took them about six months. But if you push it down and then, or if you push down the mechanism and then, I don't know how they're doing it, but they can do it.
Yeah. So it's extremely annoying.

Speaker 2 So you can't. That had solved the issue because they tend to do it most at night.
So you would wake up in the morning and they'd be in the kitchen.

Speaker 2 But you can't lock the cat flap totally, keep them in in the evening. No, they can override it.
I don't know how I can't override it. Can you not just put some wood in front of it?

Speaker 2 That's what we started doing now. Okay.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So you tried that. Yes.

Speaker 2 Have you thought of just keeping the mice in like a cage for the kids to have as pets?

Speaker 2 I don't want mice in my house. I think that encourages more.
Because there's not a fine.

Speaker 2 Because then the cats would just be staring at the mice all day in the mouse hutch. No, they'll just go, this is great.
Let's go and get some more to add to the party.

Speaker 2 They think that they think they're bringing you a gift. Yeah.
I've read a book about cat psychology. They're worried that we're bad at catching mice.

Speaker 2 A cat will look at a human and be like, he is rubbish. I've not seen him with a mouse in his mouth once.

Speaker 2 What if he is bad? What if you get lots and lots of mini

Speaker 2 toy mice and stitch them onto a cloak of mice that you wear around the house? Then the cats will look at you and think, finally, he's got the idea.

Speaker 2 Yes, they've got toy mice, but there's, you know, if you're going to have outdoor cats, which we have,

Speaker 2 it is an issue. I never had cats growing up.
I didn't know this was part of the deal. Oh, big time.
My, when I was... The frogs has never happened yet.

Speaker 2 When I was a teenager, our cat, who we always called Kitty, found a vole hole entrance.

Speaker 2 And she would just sit all day.

Speaker 2 And as soon as they came out, she'd bat it. And there'd be like 20 a day.
I know.

Speaker 2 So she just found the source. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 There was was a mouse nest in our back garden about six months ago, and it was.

Speaker 2 So when does the AI cat flap arrive? Frustratingly, one to two weeks. Ah.
But Andy, my friend, is ready. He's primed.

Speaker 2 He is going to drop. I think he's installing a kitchen or something.
He will drop everything. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But yeah, it's wood at the moment. at night.
The problem is, every time they come in, I'm nervous.

Speaker 2 It's like it's having an unruly teenager as a kid. You're like, oh God,

Speaker 2 what have they brought back now?

Speaker 2 Is there a point where

Speaker 2 the cats just need to go and live somewhere else?

Speaker 2 Because

Speaker 2 there's a continuous problem here. There's a kind of a there's a constant.

Speaker 2 Have you got outdoor cats? Yeah, big time. So do they do this? Nope.

Speaker 2 So what's wrong with your cats? They just wimp. Well, they don't.
They don't live in one of the most rat and mouse infested cities on earth. Well, they live in Manchester.
No, they live in Cheshire,

Speaker 2 actually.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 They would be far fewer around where you are than where Ellis is. Well we're back onto fields.
So

Speaker 2 I think maybe field mice are slightly less. Yeah I back onto cafes and restaurants.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah okay I lived next door to a rat. I lived

Speaker 2 next door to a cafe when I was a student in Cardiff.

Speaker 2 And there was a rat there. Cafe was on Woodfield Roads no longer there.
It was called the Peppermint Lounge about 25 years ago. And I saw a rat around the back of the

Speaker 2 Peppermint Lounge. It had shoulders like a rugby player.
It was massive. Like Ratagun.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 It used to shoulder barge our back door to trying to get it to try and get in. It was an awful thing.
No, there's none of that going on in Cheetah.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah.

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 I'm very fortunate. I think maybe, I don't know, they're 12 now, maybe four times over their whole life.
That's where he's at in a day. I know it's mad, and I'm very happy because I know.

Speaker 2 There might be a mouse nest in your garden. I think that's what's happened.
Yeah, because what happened, and they seem to do it more in the rain, right?

Speaker 2 When the little mice come out because they hear the pitter-patter, yeah. But like it will, they will do it for three months and then they'll do it loads.

Speaker 2 But I am incredible at catching mice in Tumbaway. Well done, good stuff, good skill, right?

Speaker 2 Now it's time to dive into your correspondence. And what a lot of different topics we have to cover today.

Speaker 2 First off, this was from Valerie on inappropriate film viewing, which we're talking about some time ago now. Valerie says, listening to your chat about parental controls and what

Speaker 2 you let your children watch, I wanted to share a childhood trauma that still haunts me today, 50 years later.

Speaker 2 In 1975, Jaws was released in the UK with an A certificate, which was equivalent to a PG today. That seems mad.

Speaker 2 Arachnophobia was a PG, as we've mentioned. I'd say Jaws is worse than Arachnobia.
Jaws is an 18, surely.

Speaker 2 What's an A? I've never heard of an A. Well, that's how they used to do.
This used to be done by letters. But by the time we were kids, it was age groups.
Meaning children under 14 could see it.

Speaker 2 My parents took me and my older brother, who was 12. I was five.

Speaker 2 And even though I screamed most of the way through it, we watched it right to the end. At the time, my brother and I shared a bedroom.
That night in bed, I had my first Jaws nightmare.

Speaker 2 I was in the water far out to sea.

Speaker 2 My brother was passing nearby in his luxury yacht. He was still 12 in the dream, so by rights he shouldn't have been skippering a luxury yacht.
And then the Finn appeared.

Speaker 2 The massive killer shark was heading straight for me. I panicked and started screaming, Craig, Craig, let me on your yacht.
He ignored me.

Speaker 2 I swam towards him and started to climb the ladder onto the yacht, still screaming, Craig, let me onto your yacht.

Speaker 2 At this point, my darling brother started to kick me back off the ladder, shouting, get off my yacht.

Speaker 2 And just at the point where the shark opened its massive jaws, I woke up.

Speaker 2 I was on the floor next to my brother's bed, clinging onto the covers while my brother kicked me, shouting at me to get out of his bed. My mum now claims she never took me to sea jaws at that age.

Speaker 2 It did happen. Parents are hilarious like that.
They will often have a completely whitewash history.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of parental revisionism where they will have done something terrible. You're like, Do you remember when you did that, man? They're like, no, that wasn't, that wasn't me.

Speaker 2 It is still a PG in the US. It's a 12A in the UK now, but still feels

Speaker 2 fairly

Speaker 2 jumped in a heart. The final scene is awful.
It's a horrible bit of business.

Speaker 2 I should say as well, I really do apologise. And I'm not proud of the word I said when I was trying to catch a battle to wear.
I'm really not proud of it.

Speaker 2 No, it's not great, but it's in the heat of the moment. It's in the heat of pairman will start to be aware of it.
You're in a dressing gown. Yeah.
And there's a rat loose in your house.

Speaker 2 I think you'll have solidarity from most parents on that front.

Speaker 2 Not from Izzy.

Speaker 2 Okay, this is from Sarah Allen. Dear Dear lovely lads, I feel compelled to write in of your programme last Friday in the discussion regarding large thighs.

Speaker 2 My son-in-law, a lovely short Welshman, already long-suffering, having married into an English family, who over six footers, was asked by his wife, my daughter, to sit back on the sofa.

Speaker 2 I am, he replied.

Speaker 2 No, just sit back, she replied. And then the revelation, his shortness was due to the length of his thighs.

Speaker 2 This was then repeatedly tested and repeatedly tested and demonstrated, sat next to each other, knees lined up like circus freaks, to various groups of friends and relatives to peals of laughter.

Speaker 2 His short thighs became the butt of many jokes and then on with anything and every misgiving being blamed on his short thighs. Poor bloke, yeah.
It's a shame.

Speaker 2 As a fellow short thighs sufferer, I really do empathise. So I think one of the main things about Welsh thighs is their shortness.
Not the circumference as much, but the length.

Speaker 2 My son-in-laws blamed it on competitive skiing for many years, or as my husband suggests, evolution of generations generations of mining in inadequately sized tunnels.

Speaker 2 Kindra girl's been over the show for many years. Sarah Allen.

Speaker 2 But Welsh people are now much taller than they used to be. That is true.

Speaker 2 Isn't that the same for everyone? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But I think we.
Do you remember Ellis claims that everyone's a foot taller than they were in the 80s? No, not a foot taller. Taller.

Speaker 2 Not a foot taller. Like

Speaker 2 my grandfather was like.

Speaker 2 He worked underground. He was only two foot tall.
Then he was like five foot three or five foot four. All his mates were the same, apart from Ivan Paulin, which means

Speaker 2 Ivan, who's as tall as a pole.

Speaker 2 And he was five foot eleven.

Speaker 2 And they were like, wow. And my uncle also worked underground.
Once looked at my cousin who's six foot and said, Teensalodal, which means you're so tall, it's actually ugly.

Speaker 2 And he's

Speaker 2 six foot. Jesus,

Speaker 2 no, it was a joke.

Speaker 2 This doesn't sound like a joke.

Speaker 2 You've got a body shaving going on. No, no, but it's like light.

Speaker 2 It's awful. It must be awful being that tall.
It's like light-hearted humour.

Speaker 2 You can take a short John. Imagine if I said you're so short, it's ugly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But

Speaker 2 people don't want to be short. But six foot's a nice height.
Six foot is a nice height. Well, I don't know.
My sister's quite tall, and she gets people going, oh, you're tall.

Speaker 2 As if it's like you wouldn't go up to someone and say, you know, you're fat.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, you know, you might do, and that would be awful.
I was once in a pub with Humphrey Carr, who a lot of our listeners will recognise. Welcome to Wrexham.
And he's six foot seven. Big man.

Speaker 2 And we've done a gig together and we were having a drink and a guy came up to me came up to him and said I've got to say this you're tall

Speaker 2 and Humphrey said yeah thanks and he went no but you are I've just got to say it

Speaker 2 but it's also nothing that he's done to no Richard Osman gets it he's been tall for ages yeah he knows that Osman gets it and Stephen Merchant gets it as well but this guy was just like he couldn't get over how tall Humphrey was and he just kept saying sorry I just had to come over and say you didn't though did you mate no because there's no real response to that it's not a thank you because you've you were just born to be that tall yeah yeah it's like a lot of people so if I ever kind of offer my information because mastermind's quite a unique surname and the amount of people that go oh masterman that's a that's a great surname and I don't I don't want to say thank you because I've done nothing to you

Speaker 2 but you also want to be like yes I know it's yeah yeah yeah it's an odd thing where you've there's through no kind of actions people are just kind of stating things about you but like there were lots of lunky lads in my year at school.

Speaker 2 Yeah. We're definitely getting taller.
I'm like a throwback.

Speaker 2 I think my

Speaker 2 pretty much average bit. Yeah.
I think were you five seven? Yeah, but I think my body shape should be at St. Falcon's.
On this, M says, hello, babe bacitos.

Speaker 2 59 centimetre thighs at 1.7 meters height is nothing. Try being 1.48 meters.
What's that in feet? Come on, man. That's about 4 foot 10, I think.
Try being 4'10 ten with 66 centimeter thighs.

Speaker 2 So bigger than mine? Yeah. Bigger than mine by four and a half centimeters.
Okay. Tell me how should one react when the doctor says, I've never seen legs like it.
They look like chicken drumsticks.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. The doctor can't say that.
And then they continue their email by lying about how good they are at Wordle.

Speaker 2 Come on, read it out, John. Also, a quick boast about Wordle because my competitive streak is forcing me to share.

Speaker 2 Recently, my average solving score was 2.8, beat that i don't believe you or it wasn't over 14 days

Speaker 2 okay

Speaker 2 i only accept 14 day stats okay as per the new york times uh uh app if you send me a screen grab of for your 14 days score and they average 2.8 i will send you a

Speaker 2 uh pound a pound a pound coin

Speaker 2 so you'll be getting you'll be getting an official apology But you'll be getting some in two if your average is 2.7. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But you'd have to be getting like

Speaker 2 you'd have to be getting 10 in, what would that be? 10 in three and four in two over the course of two weeks. That's pretty.

Speaker 2 Someone's got to have done it because that's how extremes work. But I would be delighted to see the screenshot, please.
No, you wouldn't.

Speaker 2 I'd be devastated if you saw that. That was true.
But it's something to work towards. Now, this is from Will, because I, you you know you're a tech bro.
Yeah. And Dave, you know, you're a

Speaker 2 technophobe.

Speaker 2 Technophobe. I have.
No, I think you're tech broadgists and

Speaker 2 that's what Crispin's job is. Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm in bed with tech bros. I have become a cliche.
Go on. Oh.
But I'm going to read Will's email and then talk about it. Will says to our heroes of the airwaves.

Speaker 2 I, like John and many others, have been thoroughly enjoying the new geese album. And John's ticket chat a few weeks ago brought back to to the surface some personal geese-related shame.

Speaker 2 I've loved the band since their first album and have seen them in 2022 at a festival in France, so I immediately bought tickets their 2023 tour, seeing them at a 200-capacity venue in Nottingham, where I was studying at the time.

Speaker 2 After the gig, the band were milling about in the smoking area, so I seized the moment and said a quick hello.

Speaker 2 I met up with my pals from the support band back in the venue's bar who had tried to convince Geese to come out with us after the show. Ah, yes.
They had politely declined.

Speaker 2 At this point, an acquaintance who worked at the venue said, they've already gone, mate.

Speaker 2 I was disappointed not to have more of a conversation with these very talented lads, but was more intrigued by her next statement. And they've not touched their rider.
You're welcome to it.

Speaker 2 As a student living in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, my eyes lit up. We piled in.
to the dressing room, hands darting for two 24-can crates of lager.

Speaker 2 Our pockets were filled and we sat down with two Cronenbergs and a can of red stripe in the pocket. We all felt very pleased with ourselves.

Speaker 2 I'd seen a band I loved and now we were drinking free beard courtesy of Cameron Winter. The night couldn't get any better.
It was then that I saw Mr.

Speaker 2 Winter and his band members walk towards their dressing room. My stomach dropped.
An irritated Mr.

Speaker 2 Winter enters, deep in conversation with a member of the venue staff as I slowly rested my cans underneath his table. It turns out geese did want their rider.

Speaker 2 Friend and I slipped out of the venue unnoticed by the band or staff and have had many great nights there since, but I do hope our indiscretion didn't ruin the band's experience of Nottingham.

Speaker 2 I would love to have seen them in that venue and at that festival.

Speaker 2 But I have become a geese cliché, Dave, because they're now the sort of go-to internet meme about men who want to appear cool in middle age by saying they listen to geese. And I have seen memes

Speaker 2 of guys saying I listen to geese repeatedly.

Speaker 2 they've entered the mainstream but no they haven't but they kind of have well it's because i think a lot of their hype has been online i've heard a lot more about geese and not just from you just in general i hear the name of the band

Speaker 2 well i didn't used to know who they were until nine months ago and i hear about them a lot now well i think it's interesting because they're very very cool

Speaker 2 But that coolness has expressed itself on social media through other people. Not the band.
The band who just made an amazing album. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 In fact, I would say Cameron Winter, in the past year, has released two of the best albums ever made, and he's 24. Is he 24? Oh, that's pathetic.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. Hang on.
So he was born in 2001.

Speaker 2 He was

Speaker 2 people weren't being born. After familiar to millions, I'm pretty sure he was.
He was like, he might have been born after 9/11.

Speaker 2 No one was.

Speaker 2 Let me Google it. Oh, dear.

Speaker 2 So off, were you born after 9-11?

Speaker 3 I was born in 98.

Speaker 2 98 is fine. 98 is fine, right? Yeah, he was born October the 13th, 2001.

Speaker 2 He changed. And he released an album last year,

Speaker 2 which I think there's an argument for saying

Speaker 2 might be the best album ever made. Can't be.
He's 24.

Speaker 2 Well, Van Morrison was 24 when he made Astral Weeks. And the Beatles were all young.
I know. Van Morrison was 24 when he made Austral Weeks.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think it spanned his 23rd and 24th year recording that album.

Speaker 2 And there's something about... I was tempting when I was 24.

Speaker 2 But I think there's something about

Speaker 2 being young. You're not sort of weighed down with influence.
Absolutely. And, but it was.
Precisely what I was tempting.

Speaker 2 But I find it interesting that

Speaker 2 you sort of got maybe like a six-week period where you could say, oh, this geese album's really amazing without becoming part of a sort of

Speaker 2 a joke.

Speaker 2 Because it takes away from what they've done to be like, oh, now they're the new band that people say they like if they want to be cool.

Speaker 2 I would just.

Speaker 2 A, I wouldn't be bothered by that if I was as into geese as you are.

Speaker 2 I think you just need to see it as a compliment that their music's good and it is entering the wider conscious of the music, of music aficionados. There's nothing wrong with that.
It's just good.

Speaker 2 There's good. So when you're good, you get bigger and more...

Speaker 2 It made me think if the next thing they do or he does is of any value, that's an enormous achievement. Because once you've become the zeitgeist,

Speaker 2 if you're able to sort of somehow keep your creativity away from that and not get... sort of caught up in everyone telling you how amazing you are.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Then you've done something many people fail to do.

Speaker 2 And it's interesting that you mentioned the Beatles because that's one, I'm not a big Beatles head, but I think that's one thing that they were exceptional at, was continuing to make incredible music, regardless of the fact they'd become debilitatingly popular.

Speaker 2 Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. It would have been very easy.
Oh, yeah. One thing

Speaker 2 people want, let's do more of it. Yeah.
But they did the opposite, amazingly.

Speaker 2 But that takes a lot of discipline. I think to be able to not just become rubbish.
So like Van Morrison,

Speaker 2 I think it's really useful for him that Astral Weeks, and think about the Velvet Underground, that they weren't actually that popular at the time. Yeah, of course, yeah.

Speaker 2 So you don't suddenly go mad, even though he did go mad, but he sort of went mad in the early 90s for some reason about contracts.

Speaker 2 So how would you relate? Because I'm curious about

Speaker 2 your take

Speaker 2 on your perception of the band geese, right, who you love at the minute. What if their next album is so popular that all of a sudden they're on Radio 1 and Radio X are playing them? I'd love them.

Speaker 2 Would you actually would genuinely

Speaker 2 as soon as possible? Because it will bring people to... But

Speaker 2 my concern is it's just not very good. I don't care how popular it is.
I don't think they're good because they're sort of underground.

Speaker 2 I think they're good because their album doesn't sound like anything else I've ever heard. But it also sounds like a lot of stuff I've ever heard.

Speaker 2 It's like they've listened to all the music I like, then forgotten it and recorded an album. Yeah, yeah.
So it's like there.

Speaker 2 There's a song on on that album called Half Real, which I think might be the best song ever written. It's insane how good it is.

Speaker 2 You're 43, thanks.

Speaker 2 But isn't it great that you've discovered your favorite song ever now? Yeah, because I'm from someone who's 24. That's not true.

Speaker 2 But most people, but most people become stuck in a loop of listening to the music they liked when they were teenagers or in their early 20s.

Speaker 2 Well, a lot of the sort of naysayers are like older audiophile dweebs.

Speaker 2 I wouldn't worry about it. No, no, no.
I'm not worried, but I just find it interesting when I saw this meme. Yeah.
And it's a guy in a field shouting to a girl, I listen to geese. I listen to geese.

Speaker 2 I listen to geese to try and impress her. And he gets increasingly more angry.
But it's like, oh, they've already become that thing. But the National had a bit of that.

Speaker 2 Like, they were the six music dad band.

Speaker 2 It's dad rock. The national kind of almost invented dad rock because everyone was saying it's that midlife crisis band.

Speaker 2 And then and all those descriptions of a band that I thought were pretty cool.

Speaker 2 For and I still think are cool because I still think they're fantastic, but they've definitely shifted from this quite cool underground band to being a bit of a not a joke band because they're still massive as well and they're massive, but it is very much middle-aged dads still trying to grasp onto their musical kind of passions.

Speaker 2 It's how they're perceived, which I think is a bit unfair. Because I think a lot of people, as they get older, they discover new stuff that they like, but that it might be very old.

Speaker 2 So, you get people who've liked indie music from, then they get into their 40s and they discover jazz or something. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But to like something that's been released very recently at your great age, John. Well, I don't think that's

Speaker 2 I felt a bit like this with Carse Eat Headrest when they were out because they were very cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, but their sort of coolness was quite

Speaker 2 present in they clearly thought they were cool as well. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Um, but I think this might be the first time i've worshipped someone younger than me creatively and oh that's a good question because all of my other heroes are older than me

Speaker 2 non-taker

Speaker 2 but like imagine if you were john to evolve and like evo

Speaker 2 so the footballers say when i was into football when i was a kid were all older than me And then I guess my last era of being into football, they were like my age.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Gerard's six months older than I am yeah Michael Owen is like sort of 11 months older than me yeah the musicians I like are either dead or mad or or my age and older in their 50s um

Speaker 2 but what about golfers you must like some I don't like I don't worship them I don't I don't like admired them I suppose don't you if Rory McElroy walked into this room and he's about my age anyway but I wouldn't go like weak kneed you're younger than Ronnie or something younger than Ronnie Luke Littler

Speaker 2 I don't really watch darts. But you love darts.

Speaker 2 Did you love darts in 2000?

Speaker 2 Eric Brister.

Speaker 2 But it's weird to sort of think I would put his poster on my wall. Would you? Yeah, I would put a gig poster.
Oh, yeah. I will put a gig poster on my wall when I go to see them.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I don't think there's anyone younger than me whose poster would ever be on my wall. Interesting.

Speaker 2 That's a very interesting point, actually. I'm trying to think of all the people I admire.
Can you imagine if you were 70? A lot of sports people

Speaker 2 who are younger than me are you. But would you put their poster on your wall? What would Izzy say?

Speaker 2 If you put a sort of 18-year-old footballer's poster on your bedroom.

Speaker 2 Who's the exciting new talent at Swansea City?

Speaker 2 Yeah, if I had Liam Cullen's poster on my wall, it'd be a bit odd. I guess.
As much as I like Liam Cullen.

Speaker 2 I guess if you have kids, it's different because their heroes become part of the fabric of the house. So you might, you know, like Betty might have a Olivia Rodrigo poster.
Do you know what?

Speaker 2 I really, really, really admire Olivia Rodrigo. But would you have? I think she's genuinely brilliant.
Would you have a framed poster of her? No, no.

Speaker 2 You wouldn't, but they might be knocking about the house. Oh, they're knocking on the house.
But you don't want to be her, do you?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 No. I'd love to be Mark Cavendish.
I sort of want to be Olivia. I'd like to be Cameron Winter a bit, I think.
That's fine. I don't want to be Olivia Rotrico.
She's too famous.

Speaker 2 Yeah. It would do my head in being that famous.

Speaker 2 Well, there you go. Anyway, interesting bit of chat.

Speaker 2 What girl? Her brother

Speaker 2 homeschooled girl is such a great lyric. Was she homeschooled? I'm assuming so.
She's been famous since she was little young.

Speaker 2 Because what's interesting with getting into the younger younger acts and younger music is the live experience then.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, I mentioned Royal Otis, who I love at the minute, but I can already tell the music that they play.

Speaker 2 If I went to one of their gigs, I would feel quite old there because they will be 20-year-olds or going to that. They're a great band who are actually going on hiatus, apparently.

Speaker 2 Their last London gig was last night, but

Speaker 2 they're young.

Speaker 2 And what was interesting with that was because they make such great. I went to see Adwyth in Hackney with The Lovely Robin, actually.
There was people, it was a real range of ages. Oh, that's good.

Speaker 2 From, you know, I would say teenagers to

Speaker 2 people in their fifties and sixties.

Speaker 2 When I saw Carsey Headrest at the Roundhouse, I was the youngest. I was the oldest person there.
Well, you were there. Were you surprised? I'm quite surprised at that.

Speaker 2 I was the only person who knew they opened with the Lou Reed song. Right.
And I knew it from the first chord. I've told this story before, but it's one of my favourite moments of my life.

Speaker 2 They played one chord as they walked downstage. Everyone was silent.
I lost my mind because I knew it was Waves of Fear by Lou Reed. And then they played it, and I was the only one who knew the song.

Speaker 2 And I felt good. And then at the end of the song, they just go, I knew what that was.
I knew what that was. I knew.
Does anyone want to hang out with me?

Speaker 2 Because I know stuff like that. I knew what that was.

Speaker 2 And I like it. And I own it in its original form.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So it'd be interesting. Bail is younger than me.
Bail. Yeah.
Not by much, though, surely. 10 years.

Speaker 2 What? How old is he?

Speaker 2 he retired young he did feel

Speaker 2 is i'm gonna i can whip this out he's not 34 he is 35 i think is he july 89 he was born flippity because ramsey's is boxing day 90.

Speaker 2 he's 36 but still surprising what year is it now what year is it now 2025 yeah yes he's 36 a little bit um right so there you go i will report back from the gigs because i'm going to i'm going to see him in december are you yes where at the roundhouse You can say it with a normal mouth.

Speaker 2 But I think so.

Speaker 2 I think I'm on the guest list, but I'm not 100% sure. I'm fine as well, John.

Speaker 2 I'm not 100% sure. Oh, no, you need to work that out.
I know. You can't turn up and your

Speaker 2 name's not down. Okay.
Okay. Right.

Speaker 2 Let's take a break from the emails to have a little chitter-chatter pitter-patter

Speaker 2 with Dr. Adrian Child's PhD.

Speaker 2 Okay, so to be clear, they got a home game and they win that tonight. It's 4-2, so they take the World Series.
And if they don't, they get another crack at it tomorrow again in Toronto.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so everything crossed for tonight. Midnight's the start.
Well, listen, you've got my juices going, but then again, I love baseball anyway.

Speaker 2 Let's see if it works with Ellis and John.

Speaker 2 Have we got buy-in from you, Ellis, John?

Speaker 4 I wish

Speaker 4 I

Speaker 4 cared more about baseball because when I hear people talk about it, I think it sounds great. I love

Speaker 2 the hours in films, you've got to put the hours in, and suddenly you've got to put the hours in, I'm afraid.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that's the same thing. You just need a Welsh player.
Colin did that, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you just need a Welsh player. If there was a Welsh baseball player, Ellis would know everything about it, and it would be like he would travel tens of thousands of miles.

Speaker 2 Sport doesn't exist outside of Wales for Ellis, that's why we love him.

Speaker 4 He's got me banged to rights there, Adrian.

Speaker 2 What about you, John?

Speaker 2 You're You're more of a romantic, I think, John

Speaker 2 Brain. Yeah, kind of views.

Speaker 5 I used to watch the baseball when I was a kid and try and understand it because there was baseball where my dad was, but it was sort of an odd way of trying to connect with him as a child when he was a lot of miles away, so I'd stay up late watching baseball.

Speaker 5 So that is quite a sort of melancholic reflection. But I guess more broadly, I don't feel the need to import sports.
I think we've got enough.

Speaker 2 Yes. I think we have to be able to do that.
I sort of agree with that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I lived there. Therefore, I have that connection.

Speaker 5 So you have like a vested interest in the family.

Speaker 2 I've been family as well. Yeah.

Speaker 5 It's hard to fully lose yourself in a sport you don't have any sort of

Speaker 5 connection with, but that's not to say

Speaker 5 it's not very exciting. I watched the women's semifinal, the cricket yesterday, and that was one of the best sporting occasions I've ever seen.

Speaker 5 It was absolutely incredible.

Speaker 5 So I'm sort of full of the sports I know at the minute. So it's hard to then wrap your head around a completely

Speaker 5 foreign sport. Alice,

Speaker 2 I've just asked a well-known AI tool.

Speaker 2 So have there been,

Speaker 2 have there been, has a Welshman ever played Major League Baseball? And it's happened thrice.

Speaker 2 Jimmy Austin from Swansea played in the MLB from 1909 to 1929.

Speaker 2 And there's, I mean, who, I mean, how can anyone forget Peter Morris, born in Ruthland, played one game in 1884 in what is now recognised as a major league?

Speaker 2 And then there was Ted Lewis from Honcleth, also made it to the major.

Speaker 2 There you go.

Speaker 4 The Welsh, the working-class summer sport in Cardiff and Newborough and in Liverpool for decades was baseball, but it was a specific kind of Welsh baseball with slightly different rules.

Speaker 2 Are you making this up?

Speaker 4 No, no, no, and it was um, it was televised.

Speaker 4 Mark Ring, the rugby player, the Welsh and Touch rugby player, was a very good Welsh baseball player.

Speaker 5 What were the rules of Welsh baseball?

Speaker 4 They were slightly different. I don't, it was a very Cardiff and Newport thing, so I didn't play it because I grew up in the world.

Speaker 2 From Carmarthen, had no such truck with these things.

Speaker 4 No, but and then, and then there'd be a combined Cardiff and Newport team, they'd play Liverpool, and it would be called England versus Wales.

Speaker 4 But it was a docks, it was a docks kind of baseball that was played in Cardiff, Newport.

Speaker 2 Amazing. The The conversation has taken an unusual turn.

Speaker 2 We'll be looking at this. I'm sure you've dreamt this.

Speaker 2 You've been on tour for so long, you're tired. That comedy collection business.

Speaker 2 A particular kind of baseball

Speaker 2 only played in Swansea, in Cardiff and Newport.

Speaker 5 It was a dox thing.

Speaker 4 When I did my Welsh, also a very Catholic thing.

Speaker 5 Because they were coming off ships and they'd seen it in America.

Speaker 4 Well, I don't know.

Speaker 2 But when I did my... Welsh Catholic baseball, only in Southeast Wales.

Speaker 5 When I did,

Speaker 4 it's sadly in Cardiff. You still see it played a little bit, but it's gone out of fashion.
It used to be massive in the sort of 60s, 70s, and 80s. It was very, very popular.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 but,

Speaker 4 yeah, there was, it was, it was

Speaker 5 a lot of the top Welsh rugby players played.

Speaker 4 So, Terry Holmes and Mark Ring and David Bishop were all Welsh internationals, and also players like John Toshak and Terry Yoloff played it because it was that specific play.

Speaker 5 That's right.

Speaker 2 Look, we're going to go into this in greater depth.

Speaker 5 Blake Dean played it.

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They'll bring your new tires to your home or office and install them on site.

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Speaker 2 Ah, Adrian, a soothing balm on the irritated skin of Britain.

Speaker 2 I recently got some...

Speaker 2 I got sold a crock by Instagram. For your face.

Speaker 2 No, for my. I've got a tiny patch of eczema on my chest, the size of a ten pence coin.

Speaker 2 And it's the only part of my body it occurs on.

Speaker 2 And I saw this thing saying,

Speaker 2 Us group of mums got sick of not being able to find a cure for our children's skin conditions.

Speaker 2 And I was like, well, of course, if mums have taken matters into their own hands, they will have solved this problem that medicine has not been able to get rid of. So I bought this tin of green.

Speaker 2 Oh, lovely.

Speaker 2 Green putty.

Speaker 2 It doesn't bloody work, does it? No.

Speaker 2 Soy E45 aqueous cream.

Speaker 2 I need our old friend Humavate.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 the mums got together and worked out how to get 18 quid out of Johnny J. That's what they did.
And I don't hold high hopes for the soap bar for your hair.

Speaker 2 Soap for your hair.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you've been... They saw you coming, I think.

Speaker 2 They did. Are there any...
do we want to reference any

Speaker 2 vague maths emails in this episode? Oh, yeah. Oh, God.

Speaker 2 Dave, you take these. No, I don't.
I want you to understand them. We've had lots of emails in and around Anna's email from last week, which I poured quite a lot of scorn on.
I enjoyed it.

Speaker 2 Ellis enjoyed it. I

Speaker 2 scorned it. I disliked maths at school and I'm willing to hold my hands up and accept other people's better judgment when it comes to maths.
And I was

Speaker 2 BHG SSC, Div. Me too.
I'm all done. But I disliked every second.

Speaker 2 I was keen to stress, and I'll stress again, Anna did make clear in and amongst the email that there were a few assumptions knocking about. And I poured a lot of scorn on those assumptions.
You did.

Speaker 2 So this is to do with Ellis's cum reconnection percentages and Anna's thoughts that

Speaker 2 in general, percentages would be around about 22% success rates. So the fact that Ellis is knocking on the door of 50% is sensational.
No, I like Anna. I like Anna.
I like Anna. You hate Anna.

Speaker 2 I don't hate Anna. I don't hate anyone.

Speaker 2 I just hate someone. I don't hate anyone.

Speaker 2 I don't think I hate anyone. Not that I know.
No. Oh, yeah.
I hate sort of despots. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And lots of sort of big figures. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I don't hate anyone who emails into this show about Cymru connection.

Speaker 2 I think that would suggest a slightly petty mind. Yeah.
So we've had responses.

Speaker 2 You need to up your therapy to three times a day if you hate it.

Speaker 2 Some of them are very long and quite technical.

Speaker 2 So I'm not going to read them all out. I read them all quite hard to follow.
I've understood very little of them, but except that I am great and John is bad. No, not true.

Speaker 2 Most of them are sort of halfway between.

Speaker 2 But this is from. I'm quite good and John's also quite good.
This is from Ahmed.

Speaker 2 Ahmed says, after hearing the earlier statistical attempt from a previous emailer, I found found myself agreeing with John's assessment that some of the assumptions behind those numbers were a little wide of the mark.

Speaker 2 Which Aned was clear on. While a few of the points were absolutely on the right track, others needed tightening up.
I'm not a qualified statistician, but I do work with numbers.

Speaker 2 Have you cherry-picked the email you're reading out? Oh, I'm reading the first one, you've got flower pots.

Speaker 2 I'm not a qualified statistician, but I do work with numbers. And in recent years, I've become rather handy at prompt engineering.

Speaker 2 So I've used an AI-assisted number cruncher to arrive at what I think is a more robust estimate.

Speaker 2 I've included the prompts at the end of the email so John or the producers can replicate this.

Speaker 2 Headline assumptions used in the calculation. Welsh population of 3.2 million.
ONS, mid-2004. It's interesting that you've chosen this one because this is.
I'm going to read the rest, you f ⁇ ing.

Speaker 2 Me, I can't read two emails at once. That's too.
It's interesting that you've cherry-picked. I'm reading them from stage.
He's going from Ash

Speaker 2 to S.

Speaker 2 He's going from S to S. Did you wait to read a word of each? Yes.

Speaker 2 Go on, John. Average acquaintances per adult, 611 based on social network studies.
Great. Bang on.

Speaker 2 Ellis's acquaintances, estimated at 3,000, reflects his public profile and career in broadcasting, comedy, and football. Now, that's interesting.
That's a new detail.

Speaker 2 Because Ellis will have have more friends and acquaintances than most people. Yes, because he's a popular man, and he works in various media.
And, you know, I just glow.

Speaker 2 And he will not end the conversation. No, no.

Speaker 2 He's done of a good adventure. That's good.
That's a lovely thing.

Speaker 2 Seeing your stage door was amazing. Welsh share of acquaintances.

Speaker 2 What does that mean? 70% for the average Welsh person, 60% for Ellis, and

Speaker 2 with the rest UK-wise. Yeah, okay.
Okay. So they're skewing you slightly more non-Welsh connections because

Speaker 2 you've left your hometown. Yeah.
So you've gone out into the big wide world. Yes.
You will have more connections from, let's say, London than anyone who still lives in Wales.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but I've got a lot of Welsh connections. I know.
I know.

Speaker 2 Now a word I've never seen before, homophily slash clustering uplift. Homophily.

Speaker 2 Plighted Cymru won that by-election.

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 2 Kaffili.

Speaker 2 Oh, dear.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, Michael's loving it.

Speaker 2 Well, is there an opposite to the good radio bell, though? It's not at this stage. Model used simple, simple Poisson overlap approximation.
Fish.

Speaker 2 Anyway, I don't understand any of this. Here's what the robots suggest.
The average Welsh person has roughly a 16% chance of knowing a random Welsh caller through one mutual acquaintance. Ellis James,

Speaker 2 broadcaster comedian Kagul enthusiast, should statistically have a 46 to 52% hit rate. That means Ellis is about three times more connected than your average die on the street.

Speaker 2 But, and this is my key point, his results are also spectacularly,

Speaker 2 perfectly, gloriously average. Oh.
In other words, Ellis isn't smashing the numbers, he is the numbers. Statistically, he's doing exactly what Ellis James is expected to do.

Speaker 2 If he were a football club, he'd be Swansea finishing 12th.

Speaker 2 And all of that remains gloriously mathematically true until you factor in the Novelli Protocol.

Speaker 2 Oh no.

Speaker 2 With this factored in for the average Welsh person, the probability of a Cymru connection drops from around 16% to around 2.2 to 3% because the Novelli Protocol cuts their effective network size from roughly 600 down to 200 or fewer meaningful contacts.

Speaker 2 Smaller network equals lower overlap probability. For Ellis, the probability falls from 46 to 52% to roughly 10 to 15%,

Speaker 2 because while his total network is much larger, around 3,000, the pool of people shrinks dramatically too, down to about 1,500.

Speaker 2 That still gives him a clear advantage versus the average, but the mathematics of overlap means that when both sets are smaller, the chances of a shared connection fall steeply.

Speaker 2 And honestly, that makes the 46% he actually achieves even more impressive. Thank you.
It isn't just about mathematical odds.

Speaker 2 It reflects years of real connections, conversations, and moments people actually remember. So, yes, the numbers are fun.
But the real story is that Ellis is genuinely good at this.

Speaker 2 Yours in probability, prompt engineering, and playful precision, Ahmed. Thank you, Ahmed.
I don't think that was a million miles away from Anna's, if I'm being honest. I think it bought a rough.

Speaker 2 I don't understand any of it. No, but

Speaker 2 read them. No, no, I know.
What I'm saying is, Anna just presented that email to us in the layman's terms, I think.

Speaker 2 With a little smoother edge here and there.

Speaker 2 My email proceeds in three parts. First, I correct a conceptual misunderstanding of John's about proportional versus uniform distributions.

Speaker 2 Second, I refute the nature of John's criticism of Anna's modelling assumptions. Third, I reflect on what statistics may deepen our understanding of Ellis's Cumberry Connection performance.

Speaker 2 And this is a long email. That's from Nicholas, who is doing a PhD in economics, and it's four pages

Speaker 2 long. And I understood so little of it.
Yes, very good. You're not going to read that email.
It's so long, but basically. Is he just going to

Speaker 2 cherry-pick that? Yeah, basically. If you can do it, I'm going to do it.
I didn't do it. I read an email that was positive to you

Speaker 2 that you clearly hadn't read. We haven't got time for a four-pager at this stage.

Speaker 2 I'm just going to take a little. I'm just going to lift a little bit out of this email, Dave.
Just be quick. This This is from Roland.
Roland says,

Speaker 2 yeah, I'm not sure about Roland. It's interesting that you didn't want to read Roland.
I read Roland's last night. Instead, let's address the issue everyone's been avoiding.
Roland's

Speaker 2 Ellis's ongoing cognitive decline. Week after week, Ellis fails to connect again and again and again.
That's not true. That's not true.
Or more accurately, again, then not again, then again.

Speaker 2 This is a man who invented a game he cannot play.

Speaker 2 A man who refuses to take advice on tactics, refuses to take notes, and insists on relying on instincts that appear to have retired several years ago. The land is my enemy.
One has to ask why.

Speaker 2 Oh, it's funny that you didn't read this one.

Speaker 2 Why subject yourself to this bi-monthly humiliation? Is it pride? Is it delusion? Or has Ellis simply forgotten why he's doing it at all?

Speaker 2 Like a modern-day Daedalus as he is trapped by his own creation. Given his recent performances, all three are possible.
My analysis then is simple. The statistics don't lie.

Speaker 2 Ellis is terrible at this game. He misses open goals.
He falls at the first hurdle. He double faults.
Do we admire him for his tenacity?

Speaker 2 His raw Welsh grit driving him to go on and go on and keep trying to connect? Do we believe in him? Believe he can do better and achieve more and reach the dizzying heights of Cymry Connecting Glory.

Speaker 2 No. As I said, the stats don't lie and he's bad at this game.
Kind regards Roland.

Speaker 2 Ending with kind regards feels like a bit of a

Speaker 2 kick in the teeth. Oh, Roland.

Speaker 2 Well, there's a broad spectrum of interpretations. Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. Let's say goodbye.
Right, then. Bye, everyone.
Bureau. Back tomorrow on Saturday morning.
And is it a special one? No.

Speaker 2 But there's a special one coming up. There is a special bureau on the way.
Much. Is there? Yeah, I'm weeks and weeks away.

Speaker 2 But we're just getting it in the bag early. Yeah, we're recording it today, so I'm looking forward to that.
Yeah. we need to wrap.
Ellis, join us. Yes, thank you very much for listening.
Goodbye.

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Speaker 1 From less than a dollar a week for your first year, read, watch, and listen to trusted independent journalism and storytelling. It all starts with a subscription to bbc.com.

Speaker 1 Find out more at bbc.com slash unlimited.

Speaker 3 Tires matter. They're the only part of your vehicle that touches the road, and they're responsible for so much.
Acceleration, braking, steering and handling.

Speaker 3 Tread confidently with new tires from Tire Rack. Whether you're looking for expert recommendations or know exactly what you want, Tire Rack makes it easy.

Speaker 3 You'll get fast, free shipping, free road hazard protection, and convenient installation options. Try mobile installation.
They'll bring your new tires to your home or office and install them on site.

Speaker 3 Tire Rack has the best selection of tires from world-class brands, and they don't just sell tires, they test them on the road and on their test track.

Speaker 3 Learn how the tires you want tackle evasive maneuvers, drive and stop in the rain, or just handle your everyday commute.

Speaker 3 Go to tireraack.com to see their tire test results, tire ratings, and consumer reviews. And be sure to check out all the current special offers.

Speaker 3 That's tirerack.com, tirerack.com, the way tire buying should be.