#492 - Transit Guffs, Ania Magliano and Mr Big Boggle

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Speaker 2 I got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough.

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Speaker 1 Hello everyone, John Robbins here. I've recently returned from my my most ambitious eye climbing expedition yet.

Speaker 1 A trip that saw some peaks previously deemed unscalable conquered with a dedication to focus, iris manoeuvrance and lashmanship that left the European eye climbing community scrabbling around to rewrite the retina rulebook.

Speaker 1 My trip was cut short, however.

Speaker 1 Before I could complete the hallowed century of horns, having scaled with ease 80 of the most suggestive sounding horns, including Gross Biggerhorn, Laidback Horn and the Morgan Horn.

Speaker 1 I neared the summit of my 81st horn, the Breitzer Rotthorn, when a call from my satellite phone came in.

Speaker 1 I can't speak. I'm within 200 meters of the summit of one of the great horns.
This has to wait. A voice rang through, which I could never have expected.
This is Night Owl.

Speaker 1 Come in, Black Ops Force Delta Max 1A plus 100% Mega Infinite. Calippo has fallen.
I I repeat, Calippo has fallen.

Speaker 1 Am I reading you right, Night Owl? Has Calippo fallen?

Speaker 1 Melted, sir.

Speaker 1 Oh, whatever will we do?

Speaker 1 Adrian, pull yourself together. I will return immediately.
Yes, you must return. There is tumult across the capital and shares in walls of tanks.

Speaker 1 There was nothing for it. I hung up the call and halted my ascent on foot to complete the remaining 200 meters by eye alone, which took a matter of seconds.

Speaker 1 Then, to educate onlookers in what to do in an emergency, I feigned about a vertigo and descended for half a mile on my bum.

Speaker 1 At base camp, I called London on a secure line. Red kite, this is Black Ops Force Delta Max 1A plus 100% Mega Infinite.

Speaker 1 Get me 100 ice cream vans with drivers. Check their records and make sure each is as clean as a baby's whistle.
We need to do this right.

Speaker 1 The nation is crying out for leadership and we cannot allow rogue elements to fill the void. The very soul of the BBC hangs in the balance.

Speaker 1 Shall I prepare the regalias for your investiture, black ops?

Speaker 1 No, Red Kite. Not yet.
The king will want an audience and there's the PM to handle. Let me deal with this.

Speaker 1 24 hours later and I was stood at the front of a procession of almost 100 ice cream vans preparing for a parade through horse guards.

Speaker 1 One had been found to have worked for talksport so we rebranded our fleet as the 9999sman.

Speaker 1 Tim Davy cleared out his office, clutching half-melted fabs and feasts. A box of tango ice blasts was beginning to leak at his feet.

Speaker 1 In order to lift his spirits, I had arranged for him to live his one remaining dream, sliding down all six staircases of Broadcasting House on a carpet covered in Mr. Whippy.

Speaker 1 With a quick change of clothes and reception, he was on his way. But the general public's minds were very much on the present, and it wasn't long until the chants began.

Speaker 1 JR for DG or you don't get no license fee. We want Johnny J or four match of the day we will not pay.

Speaker 1 A girl approached me, tears streaming down her face. Please, sir, will you be director general? For mummy's sake, for my sake? For all our sakes?

Speaker 1 She handed me £10 for good luck and I...

Speaker 1 She handed me £10 for good luck and I pocketed it.

Speaker 1 Little girl, it's not for me to say right now. Enjoy your free Cornetto.
You never know what tomorrow might bring.

Speaker 1 You'd be a great great DG, John. Ah, well, many, many people share that view.
Yeah. It's whether we can get it past.
Hmm. How do I say this, Dave?

Speaker 1 The pen pushers and the woke brigade. It's weird.

Speaker 1 I read a piece in the Times discussing the current runners and riders, and you did make their list, but that doesn't mean that you're not on them. Well, that's the Times.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't rely on the Times to back my campaign. No, of course not.
I am going for the Queen Fan Club magazine. Yeah.
MySpace. MySpace.

Speaker 1 They've given me 100% backing from the Queen Fan Club magazine. And Smash Hits.
Yeah. And Sphinx Coins of the UK.

Speaker 1 They have done a full-page spread

Speaker 1 in between,

Speaker 1 I think it's George IV and George V Shillings. Nice.
Backing Robins for DG. Yeah, but it's an engaged audience.
Yeah. A very engaged audience of almost 40.
Yeah, and very intelligent people as well.

Speaker 1 We met a coin collector at one of our gigs, didn't we? Did we? Yes. Oh no, I met a coin collector and he said, please pass on my

Speaker 1 sincere best wishes to John. Yeah.
I can't remember what he collected, like

Speaker 1 shillings or something, but still.

Speaker 1 How was Switzerland, John? Ha!

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 sorry, my mind's just been sort of on other things since I've got this whole DG campaign. Yeah, of course.
The background hum of the DG campaign. The background hum of the DG campaign.

Speaker 1 I am going to ring in quite a few few changes. Oh, yeah.
Yes. Strictly, gone.
Match of the day, gone. You've got to kill your babies, that's what I say.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Take the 10 most popular things on the BBC and get rid of them. Celebrity traitors, gone.
Yeah. Merton, here's your P45.
Gone. You've been in the seat too long.

Speaker 1 Gone. Yeah, gone.

Speaker 1 And they will be replaced with sort of various cryptic crossword and Wordle-based prime time shows. Because

Speaker 1 in the age of AI, people want authentic human content. Absolutely, they do.
And that's what John's gonna say.

Speaker 1 There's too much slop at the BBC.

Speaker 1 Let's just be careful.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Radio 2, gone. All of it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just BBC Queen.
BBC Queen. Radio 1, keep that for young people.
Are you? BBC Queen. Radio 3 for the intellectuals.
Radio 3 for the intellectuals.

Speaker 1 Radio 4 for news and comedy. News and comedy, but with, you know, some big cutbacks.
Yeah, yeah. Big cutbacks.
Zoltzmann, gone. Gone.

Speaker 1 He's gone. Steve's gone.
He can't. But he's in luck because Radio 4 Long Wave becomes constant TMS.
Oh, yeah. Even when there's no cricket on.
Even when there's no cricket.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And then Five Life Stays, of course. Of course it does.
Of course it does.

Speaker 1 Six music? Six music? Very different lineup. Is it? Ellis and John.
One in the morning until midnight the next day. We get an hour off for a shower.
We're off for a shower and a sandwich.

Speaker 1 Then we're back on. Back in the Hotsy.
Wow. And it's like a telethon.
It's like a constance of children in need sort of event. Is that just geese?

Speaker 1 It's just geese. Geese and the gorkies.
Geese and Frank Zappa and the gorkies. And then, in a controversial maneuver, I'm bringing in BBC Radio 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, all the way up to 50.

Speaker 1 What's BBC 50?

Speaker 1 BBC 50 50 is gardening. Oh,

Speaker 1 it must be any of them. Yeah.
What's BBC 37? DIY.

Speaker 1 BBC 25? Cooking.

Speaker 1 Very specific stations. Well, this is the landscape we live in today.

Speaker 1 The algorithmed youth of today. They want their specific interests.
I mean, Radio X did Oasis.

Speaker 1 Forever. Exactly.
Yeah, it's fair enough.

Speaker 1 Radio 14 is Health Matters. Okay.
That'll suit you well. It's because of your health podcast.
Oh, of course, yeah, yeah. I've got a big health podcast.
You could get that on there. Radio 22 is films.

Speaker 1 I mean, I like all of these ideas. Well, exactly.

Speaker 1 We need.

Speaker 1 Without getting too boring about this, it is actually quite hard to get new stations past Ofcom,

Speaker 1 being the BBC. It's much easier.
It's just general. It doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 It's much easier to get new stations on the old dial if you're commercial, whereas if you're BBC, there's a lot of justification that needs to go into it.

Speaker 1 We need a big outside-the-box thinker in the room. Ofcom is gone.

Speaker 1 Okay?

Speaker 1 Because Radio 27, which is the Ronnie O'Sullivan channel,

Speaker 1 24 hours a day,

Speaker 1 playing audio. We don't have the rights to the commentary.
Just audio of all of his matches. What just clicks? Clicks of Paul's.

Speaker 1 All these ripples of applause. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's going to be. Imagine how relaxing that would, actually.
Sean Murphy sniffing in the background. Yeah.
It's just perfect to get to sleep.

Speaker 1 Spin his drink. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, this is all good stuff. BBC 43 is just sex topics.
How have you riffed a better BBC in 10 seconds?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 it's a different BBC. Is it because I'm perfect for the job? Yeah, maybe.

Speaker 1 But yes, I did go eye climbing in the Alps yet again,

Speaker 1 returning to some peaks from a great distance, but I was in Switzerland this time. I was in Italy last time.

Speaker 1 And it was phenomenal. It is beautiful.
So

Speaker 1 we both pre-recorded last week's show because I was also in Switzerland. I went to Liechtenstein to watch Wales play.

Speaker 1 Really nice to go all that way to watch Wales half and puff against a team of part-timers and eventually win one.

Speaker 1 Obviously, you won. Well, yeah, yeah.
Obviously, we won 7-1 on the Tuesday against North Macedonia. Yeah.
Which was fantastic. But

Speaker 1 they are part-time. We were in, a friend of mine, Fiona, was in McDonald's.
And this girl said, oh, you're Wales fans? And she said, yeah.

Speaker 1 And she went, oh, a boy in my class is playing for Liechtenstein tonight. Really?

Speaker 1 Wow. I mean, it's a tiny little country, isn't it? And I was having a drink after the game, and I met a Lichtenstein listener to Ellis and John.
No, you didn't. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He came up, he went up to my friend Emir and said, Is that Alice James from Ellis and John? He went, Yeah. He went, Yeah, my mum loves Ellis and John.
That's nice.

Speaker 1 I took a selfie with the Lichtenstein listener, which is

Speaker 1 a sizable portion of the Liechtenstein population. 4,000 of them, small than Cambran.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, do you want to shall we do a rundown of the highs and lows in John Wynns again? Because there's a lot of ground to cover, Dave. Is there? Yeah, I mean, literally, I was walking many miles a day.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 John wins again.

Speaker 1 Oh, John wins again.

Speaker 1 John wins again. John wins again.
wins again,

Speaker 1 wins again

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 before we head off to Switzerland

Speaker 1 Dave,

Speaker 1 I fancied butternut squash for my dinner. Okay.
Okay.

Speaker 1 This is Switzerland now. No, this is before the night before we go.
All right.

Speaker 1 Before I go, me and my mind.

Speaker 1 I went to... Two different people, important distinction.
Yes, big time. I went to the supermarket to buy a butternut squash.
Yeah. They did not have them.

Speaker 1 What did they have?

Speaker 1 I'll tell you what they had. Munchkin pumpkins from Halloween.
You know, there's little mini ones

Speaker 1 that people sort of buy as just to decorate their front door. Yeah.

Speaker 1 On offer.

Speaker 1 Because you can technically cook them because they're just a gourd.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 How much, Dave and Ellis, did I pay pay for that many Munchkin pumpkins? Well,

Speaker 1 you look really angry.

Speaker 1 So it's going to be something daft, is it? No, I think he's won. I think this is a win.

Speaker 1 He looks annoyed at me. No, he doesn't.
He just looks concentrated. I think.
How many are there? One, two, three, four, five. Seven, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Eight Munchkin Pumpkins.

Speaker 1 They are cute.

Speaker 1 I would say they were all on offer because it was past Halloween. It was past Halloween.
Eight Munchkin Pumpkins for a total of 72 pence. Whoa! Okay.
They were 9p each. Oh, that's a massive win.

Speaker 1 So how do you look so angry? I'm just so

Speaker 1 happy.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Confident in my. I'm not getting any of that from your face.
You looked furious.

Speaker 1 They'd been reduced to 50p, which is like 25%, and then they've been further reduced, but it wasn't going through the till. So I had to call a guy over.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he tried to do it manually. He couldn't.
So he had to change all the. It took like 10 minutes.
How much does it go?

Speaker 1 72p for eight munchkin pumpkins. 22 pence.
Yeah. Yeah.
I could not believe it. And they taste just as good as butternut squash.
Do they? Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's their amazing. I suppose you only ever see that kind of stuff sold in October or in the very beginning of October.

Speaker 1 But all of this stuff's just rotting away on landfill because people buy them as decoration. Anyway, on to the holiday.
We have to deal with my flight out there. Okay.

Speaker 1 I was on a flight with probably the most renowned living philosopher, Slavoj Zizak.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 I don't know who that is. Slavoj Zizak is the rock and roll philosopher.
Is he? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And he's written a lot on films, on various elements of philosophy. You may want to Google him, Dave.
Well, I need to make sure I get the spelling right is what I'm concerned about.

Speaker 1 Well, it's S-L-A-V-O-J-Z-I-Z-E-K.

Speaker 1 We get to the little transfer to the airport when we land in Zurich. Had anyone else recognised him? I don't think so.
Look, he looks quite grumpy. He's, yeah, he's pretty full.

Speaker 1 He's just bought some 72 pence much.

Speaker 1 So we get into the transfer little bus to take us to the airport. You didn't recognise him.
Did you recognise him? I recognised him. Did you? Fair play.
I was like, that's Slap Voice, is that?

Speaker 1 He's cultured isn't he john in a in a very narrow but deep way yes

Speaker 1 on the transfer to the airport there is no escaping the fact that someone did the worst fart i've ever smelt in my entire life

Speaker 1 i was worried people might die

Speaker 1 it was that bad oh that's that's it's grew and it grew

Speaker 1 and it grew like a like a wildfire or COVID. Yeah, like someone's lit a little fire in the woods and thought this is night.
The next thing they know, they're causing a billion pounds worth of damage.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 A man said out loud, disgusting!

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 People were having to make reference to it. Now.
And it was you. No.
No, you wouldn't.

Speaker 1 The... It wasn't Slavoy, was it? Well,

Speaker 1 fading to the Philosopher.

Speaker 1 The bus pulls up outside the terminal. Everyone legs it out.
Like, honestly.

Speaker 1 Leaving

Speaker 1 Zizak

Speaker 1 sat on the seat at the back, just completely oblivious to everything.

Speaker 1 I don't think you sit there if it's you.

Speaker 1 I mean, everyone legged it off. Zizak there.

Speaker 1 Thinking about

Speaker 1 whatever it is he thinks about. Dave,

Speaker 1 you are the arbiter of the pluses and the the minuses that has to be a loss doesn't it well the guff is a loss

Speaker 1 everyone was transferred

Speaker 1 it was it was

Speaker 1 it was like the last book of the bible

Speaker 1 however having slavoy zisek on the flight was a bit of a spring in my step Zisek being on the flight is a win absolutely I think we put him in the win column just to avoid and I think I think it counteracts the guff that may or may not have been his own it wasn't him

Speaker 1 He doesn't. You don't stay sad.
You do not stay sad. Dave,

Speaker 1 he has transcended shame

Speaker 1 through a thought exercise alone. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I haven't. No, God, me neither.
No. Okay.

Speaker 1 Let's talk

Speaker 1 quirky Airbnbs, shall we? Lots of messages written on sort of bits of driftwood. Yeah.
No. Today's powered by coffee.
Very different vibe. Okay.
Okay. It was entirely stocked.
Today's powered by hate.

Speaker 1 No, there was nothing like that. It was entirely stocked with kitchen items from the 80s.
It's like I was stepping back into my childhood. Like Breville toasty makers and things like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I reckon that the toaster predated the fall of the Berlin Wall. Wow, okay.
There was like a pressure cooker. Oh.

Speaker 1 You know, those sort of that

Speaker 1 brown earthenware style with then slightly lighter brown

Speaker 1 flowers on it. Yes, I know exactly.
Arts and crafts. Is that what I'm looking for? I can't remember.
There's a certain style.

Speaker 1 Yeah, my grandmother had that kind of stuff. 20 cups,

Speaker 1 but none bigger than the size you would see espresso poured in after dinner in an episode of Poirot. So that's the biggest you can have.
Yes. So a cup of tea is two sips in a cup of tea.

Speaker 1 Oh, completely. You could not make a cup of tea in any of these mugs.
Easily 30 plates, but all

Speaker 1 of the

Speaker 1 gold-rimmed plates that like your grandma would have had.

Speaker 1 For like when people were around, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Luckily, brought my own mug because I saw this coming. Did you? I always take my own mug abroad.
Do you? Yeah. Because it's big enough for a big cup of tea.

Speaker 1 You're not worried about getting smashed in.

Speaker 1 No, I put it in my carry-on. Okay.
Your carry-on's got a big Sports Direct mug in it. It's slightly smaller than a Sports Direct.

Speaker 1 Slightly bigger than a classic 320mm. Okay.
This is a huge win, then, right? Yeah, it is a huge win. It's a huge win.
It's a huge win. Imagine

Speaker 1 what comes next.

Speaker 1 So I took my bag of condiments, which I've got in my bag here, Dave. I'd already stopped

Speaker 1 30 sachets of Tabasco for

Speaker 1 London City. For Josh, how do you feel? But at Zurich Airport, you've got to have...
It's the old-fashioned way of doing it with the bag and the 100mm stuff.

Speaker 4 So, what's happening to your condiments then?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 they went in my hold luggage on the way back. Thank God for that.
Because I got to London City Airport so early for my flight out that check-in hadn't opened yet.

Speaker 1 He's a cool traveller. I was there three and a half hours early.
Why? Because I'm mad, Dave, and it's not ideal. You're not even going to Mexico.

Speaker 1 I got a hotel the night before at the airport to give me more time. And I got to the airport at the time I needed to have left my house.
Yeah. It's mad.
It is mad. But that's just the lived.

Speaker 1 He didn't miss the flight, though. Didn't miss the flight? Couldn't have missed the flight.

Speaker 1 But I used my time to get 30 sachets of Tabasco from the Prat. Anyway, that's a side issue.
Did you do that all in one go? No, you've got to keep going back. So the different prets, of course.

Speaker 1 Different outfits. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 It's not great, John. So I get there, Dave.

Speaker 1 They're free. Sachetes are free, Dave.
They are free, but play the game, man. I am playing the game.
I'll maybe play the game better than anyone else, mate. And maybe I'm not playing the game.

Speaker 1 You just won the game. So, um...
Like an idiot, all I do is just put it on the food that I've just bought from Prince. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Oh, my God, Dave.

Speaker 1 Who are you, little Lord Fauntleoy?

Speaker 1 So I make my morning tea with my mug on the first day. In your big mug? A regular bag of tea that they've provided and a bag of Earl Grey from my condiments packet.
I taste the tea.

Speaker 1 I think this tastes mad.

Speaker 1 And the tea they've provided is Earl Grey. Oh, so you've dropped Grey? I'm double grey! You idiot!

Speaker 1 Luckily, Dave, because I am me and I have a brain disease, I've also brought my own individual regular teas. Did you have enough to last you the week? Yes, I did.

Speaker 1 Because, well... Well, it's just win after win after win in an empty life, isn't it? Apart from transit guts.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Hold on, what's that? What's this? What's that? It's

Speaker 1 tea.

Speaker 1 Well, it's a win because my madness worked on two counts because I brought my own mug and I brought my own two different types of my own tea.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's just a shame that they didn't provide you with normal English breakfast tea. Yes, I'm going to call it tea solutions.
Tea solutions. Dave, Ellis knows the answer to this question.

Speaker 1 I will give you five grand

Speaker 1 if you can tell me in three guesses what flavor the shampoo was in the holiday rental. I will also give you five grand on top.

Speaker 1 Sadly, Rikaos, I know the answer. I think this is the unwinnable guessing game.
Yeah. Licorice.

Speaker 1 No, good guess.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to go for Aniseed, because I feel like...

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, this could be any mud. God.

Speaker 1 Well, mud's probably the most likely to get that sort of like mud. You get mud facial products and stuff.
What would you not want your shower gels to smell of?

Speaker 1 Your hair to smell of your hair to smell of?

Speaker 1 Burnt plastic.

Speaker 1 That's a bad guess. Tire fire.

Speaker 1 Okay, Timothy, tirefire. Timothy.

Speaker 1 Dave, I'm going to show you the photo. Oh, yes, thank you.

Speaker 1 We'll get the photo on the camera, can we?

Speaker 1 Okay, shampoo. What does it say?

Speaker 1 Well, it says mitt A. Yep.
I don't know what that means. Orcs

Speaker 1 Sifs.

Speaker 1 Ufs. Ah, ooh.
What? what? Egg shampoo. Eggs.

Speaker 1 Egg yolk shampoo.

Speaker 1 Shampoo with eggs.

Speaker 1 Even if you've got egg in it, you don't shout about it. Smells of eggs.
And you know when I noticed, Dave?

Speaker 1 When I smelt it and when I used it, because it smells like sweat. Oh, there's an egg on the front.
Is that an egg on the front? Yes, that's an egg yolk on the front. So they're really leading into it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they're really telling you.

Speaker 1 I mean, I'd be angry if they didn't tell you there was egg yolk in your shampoo, but to make it the selling point

Speaker 1 is insane. That is.
Shampooing oof.

Speaker 1 But also,

Speaker 1 the egg is splash is...

Speaker 1 It's in a kind of splash. It's like, hey, man, this shampoo is a little bit more.
Oh, absolutely. They're making a thing of it.
Okay, so egg shampoo is a loss.

Speaker 1 Egg shampoo is a loss for everyone involved. So then you have to buy your own shampoo.

Speaker 1 No, I used the complimentary... I had brought my own shampoo.

Speaker 1 Major misjudgment first day. I had had a sports massage on the Monday.
On the Tuesday, I walked 3,500 feet up a mountain and then ran 5k downhill. I was too excited.
It was a 15% incline. That's it.

Speaker 1 All downhill. My calves, hips, and thighs were completely shot for the rest of the trip.

Speaker 1 What's this then? Stiffness, muscle misstep. It's Icarian approach to running.
I thought I'm never going to get a chance to run 5k downhill. Yeah.
Because it's, how often am I up mountains?

Speaker 1 Turns out running downhill is incredibly difficult and really hammers you. Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, it gets

Speaker 1 so steep that I was basically sort of stuttering and trying to stop myself. Gets your calves, doesn't it? That ah, big time.

Speaker 1 My calves were absolutely done, but I did climb up a mountain and run down it. That

Speaker 1 feels good. So, bad running decisions.
Bad running decisions.

Speaker 1 Well, I then compounded the bad running decisions by going for a shakeout run the next morning where I was chased by youths.

Speaker 1 Swiss youths? I was chased by Swiss youths. Alpine youths.
Alpine youths. What was their problem?

Speaker 1 The Junger Frauden, or whatever they're called. What was their problem? So I went running around the lake.

Speaker 1 I was in Briance.

Speaker 1 It's a constant deuce.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 they had a market on.

Speaker 1 And on the, I think on the like

Speaker 1 Wednesday, it was the booze-up night. And on Tuesday, on Thursday, it was the like nice market.

Speaker 1 So these youths got out of a van at 8 a.m.

Speaker 1 Looking like bleary-eyed, like they hadn't slept and they'd just been drinking. How old were they?

Speaker 1 I'm going to say early 20s.

Speaker 1 And I was running on my run, wearing all my running gear. I don't know whether it was aggressive or not.
But as soon as they saw someone running, they were like,

Speaker 1 oh, I know the type. Sort of like, alle, alley, vie tv! Running alongside you.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But one of them was really running behind me, shouting at me in German. And I didn't know what he was saying because I don't speak very good German.
So I just had to rely on my natural pace.

Speaker 1 And he was very heavy set. So I thought if he does catch me and he has bad intentions.
I was surprised because Swiss are known for being mega-polite, quite reserved,

Speaker 1 not very forward, which I love.

Speaker 1 However, there was a moment where I thought, I'm going to get my head kicked in next to the most beautiful lake I've ever been in by a representative of a traditionally reserved people.

Speaker 1 And then he shouted at something and I just carried on running. Do you know what? They wouldn't have been, they weren't trying to batter you.
They were doing that thing, and you've had this

Speaker 1 before, where they're kind of, they think they're being funny because they're showing off to their mates, but they're just going to try try and run alongside you well the thing was dave he couldn't keep up with me of course he does because you you've got a lot of pace about you these days so the place i was staying in briance

Speaker 1 i'm going to say it's the most beautiful place i've ever been in my life wow

Speaker 1 the big mountain to the right is called the breintzer rotthorn and it's very famous for a railway that actually goes to the top of the mountain it's a cog mechanism railway like a funicular railway kind of thing yeah i don't know what funicular means but it's that sort of Well, they're the ones that are just stuck to the side of the...

Speaker 1 Yeah, I...

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But that was closed for the winter, okay?

Speaker 1 Because I go off-season to avoid the skiing set.

Speaker 1 And so I thought, well, I'll climb this mountain. On the Tuesday, I couldn't get to the top because I just didn't give myself enough time.
It was getting dark early. On the Thursday...

Speaker 1 I decided to summit. So I left at nine in the morning and I walked up for,

Speaker 1 I don't know, it's like, it's a lot uphill. And I got to 200 meters from the top.
And there'd been a bit of snow. So the lady at the tourist office told me not to go above like halfway.

Speaker 1 And I was walking with this other guy who was, I'd met him on route and he was very experienced and he sort of scampered up and scrambled up.

Speaker 1 But I got really, really, really scared because I was scrambling up and I realised I... If I get to the top, I can't come back down this way.
Yeah. Because there's too much snow on the path.

Speaker 1 I can't scramble down. I don't know if there's another way down.
So I might get trapped on the mountain for the rest of my life. Yeah, yeah.
Or until

Speaker 1 the train opens in the new year and I've got podcasts to make.

Speaker 1 And I had a moment of intense fear where I looked down for the first time and was like, oh wow, I'm along a very steep drop. And my whole body went into a kind of weird panic vertigo.

Speaker 1 My eyesight went pink did it oh my gosh yeah like it was like a pink filter been put on my eyes yeah yeah yeah

Speaker 1 and but it was really interesting sort of spiritual exercise because i was so annoyed at myself for not getting to the top i decided to go back down sounds like a right decision though but then there were other people going up a very few but this girl maybe 18 sort of scrambled up past me the death wish

Speaker 1 But then I was chatting to myself on the way down because even getting down from where I got to was quite sketchy. Well, then there you go.
And I was like,

Speaker 1 I was like, John, your body was telling you something.

Speaker 1 And if it's a spider or something you know that you shouldn't be afraid of, then your brain goes, why are you so afraid of something? It doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 But I was like, no, your body's trying to stop you from dying. Yeah.
And it only takes one slip to not even die, but just even break your ankle up here as a nightmare. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 So by the time I got to the mountain, I was quite pleased with myself for not having let sort of ego take over. I think you made the right decision there.
Yeah, but

Speaker 1 it was weird. It was weirdly sort of self.
It was sort of an embarrassment,

Speaker 1 but then definitely 100% the right decision. The adrenaline must have been crazy.
It was. It was unpleasant.
And it makes you a little bit kind of, you're shaking. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And I could tell, he kept looking back because I'd sort of gone away from the path because I didn't want to go on the snow. But then I looked.

Speaker 1 The only way down, if I'd got to the top, would be to go along this ridge. There's some steps.
It was this ridge.

Speaker 1 And the the ridge you're literally walking on a sort of maybe a two and a half foot wide path at the top of this alpine ridge which was all covered in snow and I was only wearing trail running shoes So they've got this little hand hold sort of rail, but it's wire So it's like the thickness of a coat hanger.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, and you're holding onto that and I was like no way Jose would I've gone anywhere near that. So I would have been trapped in a a little waiting area next to the railway.

Speaker 1 Waiting for the snow to thaw. Waiting for the snow to thaw.
So didn't die on mountain. Didn't die on mountain.
But that's a big one.

Speaker 1 Adrenaline, boxers and people involved in combat sports often talk about being addicted to that feeling. They love it.

Speaker 1 Well, there's a really good interview with Justin Rose when he hold like a 33-foot putt in the Ryder Cup that was crucial, like a really difficult putt.

Speaker 1 He walks across the green and he's going like this.

Speaker 1 And everyone else is going nuts in the crowd. In the interview, he said he's actually doing that so that the adrenaline doesn't build up too much.

Speaker 1 He doesn't want to lose his mind because he's got to get a top fix. He's now got to walk to the next tea and hit a tea shop.
And it's not worth it. It's not.

Speaker 1 And I did feel like a bit of an idiot. No.
No, not at all. Because I, also, your threshold...

Speaker 1 is fairly high for that anyway because we did Arthur's seats and he stormed off and I got scared because there was one bit where we went on which was quite marshy and again there was a flat bit but then jumped the charred branches.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah, which I got quite scared by because I thought if I slip here, I'm kind of down the side of this hill. Yeah, he was flying off.

Speaker 1 So for you to be scared by a similar thing, that must have been like even worse than what that was. And I was scared at that.

Speaker 1 It's so hard to scramble down stuff when you're when it's so vertical that you're... I mean, I'm not a climber.
I mean, what was I thinking? You climbed up.

Speaker 1 I'm a hiker. I'm not a climber.

Speaker 1 Are you ready for some wins? Because I had that down as a loss. I think that's a win.
I think that dying is fairly winnable.

Speaker 1 Come on, come on. Let's go, go, go.
When I walk in the Alps, I feel I transcend everything that is negative about the human experience. Transcend.
Is that a win or a loss? A huge win.

Speaker 1 I can't explain it, but I have found my place.

Speaker 1 I saw ibexes,

Speaker 1 bats, a snowy owl, goats, cows, peacocks, sheep, four pussycats, and a chamois jumped in the road in front of me and looked into my eyes and then jumped off the other side of the road.

Speaker 1 A chamois leather. A chamois.
I think it's pronounced chamois.

Speaker 1 Wow. It's amazing.

Speaker 1 I went to Switzerland to watch the women's Euros, to watch Wheels play. And I was in the Alps.
And obviously, I was in Liechtenstein. And it's Alpine because we flew into Zurich and we went to St.

Speaker 1 Gallen.

Speaker 1 It is a remarkable place.

Speaker 1 Like it is audaciously beautiful.

Speaker 1 I'm glad you found your place.

Speaker 1 I think that's great. I had a pizza for breakfast.

Speaker 1 10 a.m. pizza.
I think that's a loss.

Speaker 1 That is a huge win. I'm running out of room on the win list.
I've always wanted to have a pizza for breakfast. The Swiss are a nation of Robins.
Everything is done on time. They're quiet.

Speaker 1 You can't make noise after 9pm.

Speaker 1 You can't keep social animals alone. That's illegal.

Speaker 1 They hate litter, and you're not allowed to put your recycling out on a Sunday because it's too noisy. Oh, wow.
Yeah. A nation.
Oh, I'm out of room. The 9 p.m.
thing is they're a nation of dweebs.

Speaker 1 They're a nation of me in bed doing crosswords.

Speaker 1 It's so quiet. That's what happens to the nightclubs, the pubs, the things where people

Speaker 1 are in the commune and buttons. Like bars on high streets are still open, but in sort of urban, suburban areas, you can't.

Speaker 1 You're going to have to move to the other side, but make it clear and not a loss, because Ellis put the Frank Zappa Tribute Band on the losses, and that caused a lot of fallout in the Frank Zappa Tribute World scene.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I went to the Reichenbach Falls.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow. Yeah.
Because my failed attempt at summiting the Brinzer Rothorn meant I had an afternoon to kill.

Speaker 1 So I went to the Reichenbach Falls, where Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty met their demise, or did they?

Speaker 1 How am I spelling that, John?

Speaker 1 That must be beautiful, is it?

Speaker 1 I-C-H-E-N-B-A-C-H.

Speaker 1 R-E-I-C-H-E-I-N-B-A-C-H. Reichenbach.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was incredible. Very low water at this time of year, though, so it was more.
There was a lot of Reichenbach and not a lot of falls. Reichenbach Falls.

Speaker 1 Now, Dave, we might have two little losses. Oh,

Speaker 1 I've just ruined the space for the losses. Nama problem.

Speaker 1 Put it on your loss list. Okay,

Speaker 1 we are waiting for Anya to turn up. We need to maybe wrap this soon-ish.

Speaker 1 I think I got done for speeding.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Done for speeding. In Switzerland.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And fines are quite excessive in Switzerland. I say.

Speaker 1 All right, if you agree with clamping down on people who speed. I do.
I was in a hot day of Ellis. Don't tell anyone this.
I was in a hire car with which I was unfamiliar. It has quite a convoluted...

Speaker 1 So you thought I just got as fast as I could.

Speaker 1 How fast does this cougar go?

Speaker 1 It has quite a convoluted

Speaker 1 pedal? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Cruise control setting. Okay.
Oh, yeah. So you can set it to either not go above the speed you set it, or you can set it to

Speaker 1 always go to the speed limit that it senses somehow. Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 So if you drive from an 80 to 100, it just sort of goes,

Speaker 1 that's dangerous. Well, I found this very annoying and also slightly weird that a car would just accelerate, but it's also sensing the car in front and all that mad stuff.

Speaker 1 so i just thought hell with this i don't want it off what it off

Speaker 1 the speed now i am guilty if i've been flashed as i believe i have it's my fault i take 100 of the responsibility however in switzerland they change the speed limit for every junction so imagine driving along the m4 and every time

Speaker 1 There's a roundabout or a junction, you've got to go down by 20 miles an hour. Oh.
Now it makes sense, like in a way, to slow down for people joining the motorway. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But it's a ball-like, if you're not familiar with allows. Yeah, I understand that, yeah.
So it's going like 60, 80, 60, 80, 180, 160, 80, 160, 80 over the course of a 30-mile journey.

Speaker 1 But hold my hands up. I've got a big fine on the way.

Speaker 1 Then I drank a herbal tea for women on their periods, and I think it might have had drugs in.

Speaker 1 So is that a win? I don't know. I got very sleepy and had nightmares.
That's a loss. Yeah.
Nightmare tea.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So there we go. Any questions? Yeah, I bet your oestrogen is nice and balanced now, though.
Eestrogen's nice and balanced. Yes.
Samey, John.

Speaker 1 What a couple of weeks. Busy week.
It's one of the best trips of my entire life. And we were...

Speaker 1 And I met Ellis in the airport. We found it back together.
We've not even talked about that. Bumped into Ellis.
Yeah. In the Blimbiner Airport.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's the win. I mean, that's the win.
We weren't on the same flight, though. No, he was going back to Ethrow.
We were going back to Gatwick.

Speaker 1 I was texting our WhatsApp group of comics saying about how I was refusing to pay 40 euros to go into a lounge. So I was spending it on two puddings.
And Ellis said, where are you?

Speaker 1 I said, Zurich Airport. Five minutes later, he sat next to me.

Speaker 1 Can you believe it, Dave? That is crazy. I saw the pictures right now.
When I was in Liechtenstein, obviously, Wales Away, 3,000 Wales fans there. It was a Cumry Connecting Bonanza.
Yes.

Speaker 1 And one block came up to me me and said, I'm so glad I saw you. I've wanted to say this for ages.

Speaker 1 I'm from Carmarthen, but I'm a bit younger than you, desperate to look for a Cymry connection, and I've got one. I went, oh, yeah.
He said, yeah, your grandfather sold my dad his first tractor.

Speaker 1 1980. Whoa, really?

Speaker 1 I didn't know your grandfather was a tractor salesman. He was a tractor mechanic, and then he lost an eye in a Weldon accident.
Oh, my God. So they got him.

Speaker 1 They got him a job in the office and then he ended up sort of

Speaker 1 like on the on the tractor forecourt, forecourt.

Speaker 1 I think be honest, in that setting where you've got 3,000 Welsh people who the majority probably know who you are, does the whole come reconnecting thing get a bit much for you?

Speaker 1 Like, is there a point where I'd kind of just like maybe no one to actually ask me about that at this time? I, or do you absolutely genuinely love to come reconnecting? I know you do.

Speaker 1 Dave, I was getting recognised by whale fans in Zurich

Speaker 1 because I went for a walk around the old town because I was eight hours early to the that's not an exaggeration, eight hours early to Zurich

Speaker 1 for my flight back. So I was walking around the old town, and I was like, why is there so many people in Wales kits here? Yeah, the bucket hats.

Speaker 1 So I was walking past groups of Welsh fans going, Shamai. And they were looking at me and doing the maddest double take you've ever seen.

Speaker 1 Because some of them have just come back from Lichtenstein where they've seen Ellis. Yeah, of course.

Speaker 1 The last thing they're expecting is they're killing two hours before going to the airport is to see Johnny J or John Robbins in his hiking gear. It was a lot of fun, though.

Speaker 1 All right, here we go, John.

Speaker 1 One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine wins. Nine wins, that feels good

Speaker 1 against what? Nightmare tea, transit guffs, egg shampoo, bad run decisions, chased by youths, done for speeding. One, two, three, four, five, six.
It's nine, six in favor of winning, John.

Speaker 1 That I will take that for a solo holiday. I feel very like a big win week to me.
Emotionally. It's a big win week.
The win I feel emotionally in the Alps is so all-encompassing.

Speaker 1 It's like taking drugs. It's like taking ecstasy, I imagine, being in that landscape for me.
I think it's something I can see why the romantics got very into it, because

Speaker 1 it's the contrast of calm with sort of enormous scale magnificence.

Speaker 1 And yet you can engage with those mountains. You can actually walk up them.

Speaker 1 You know, you can't necessarily get right to the top unless you're an experienced climber and they are very dangerous and you can get some of the world's most difficult climbing in the Alps.

Speaker 1 But if you just want to wander around them,

Speaker 1 you can sort of circle them. Whereas, if you go to the Himalayas, say,

Speaker 1 you can't just sort of wander around a bit of Everest on a day. Yeah, yeah, it's a big undertaking.
And I'm not really, I don't have an interest in going anywhere near Everest. It's also there will be

Speaker 1 some views that are genuinely majestic. I'm breathtaking.
Each thing, oh my God. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I can't imagine this being topped. So I go on a lad's walking holiday each year.
Yeah. Would this be a good spot to go to? Oh, unbelievable.
100%.

Speaker 1 Okay. The thing I would say is

Speaker 1 the flights are very cheap. Yeah.
It's like 100 quid, 90 quid to get to most of the countries in the Alps.

Speaker 1 Depending on where you're flying from and what time of year, like if it's outside of the peak season. If you go outside of ski season and summer, but there's a sort of window around April, May,

Speaker 1 and September, October, where it's not mad busy, but the temperature and the conditions are still right for walking. I mean, perfect conditions.
It's like 12 degrees. I was in a t-shirt.

Speaker 1 November. It was like 18 degrees on the day of the game, but there was still snow on top of the mountains.

Speaker 1 The accommodation is cheaper than it is. So my rental place was big enough for me.
It was big enough for like a couple and a couple of kids. Oh, wow.
That was like 100 quid a night.

Speaker 1 The only thing I would say is Switzerland, especially, but any the places are expensive

Speaker 1 for food and drinks.

Speaker 1 So if you're able to bring stuff, EGT bags,

Speaker 1 with you in your whole luggage, then it will make it cheaper. Yeah.
A bag of spinach was six quid. Yeah, we went for a burger before the flight and they were like £27 each.

Speaker 1 And you're like, this is crazy. It's one of the most expensive cities in the world, Zurich.
I think, yeah, Zurich is the most expensive city in the world. However,

Speaker 1 the other places around aren't as expensive as Zurich. But it is just a burst of extra.
And if you go to St.

Speaker 1 Gallen, you might end up in a pub with a guy who'd been in the French Foreign Legion who got you absolutely hummoured and then you were in the sleep in the hotel reception at 6 p.m.

Speaker 1 He fell asleep in reception at 6 p.m. Did I send you the video? I've seen the video.
Play the video into the microphone, please, Alice. Then we'll get Anya Magliano on.
Oh, great stuff.

Speaker 1 Is the video going on the carrot? No, no way.

Speaker 1 Go on.

Speaker 1 You can have a photo of me asleep, but not the video. The video is so embarrassing.
So

Speaker 1 you're allowing a photo, and you're going to play the audio now into a microphone. What's the combination of that? I look 150 years old.
Just, you know, on Instagram, you can put music. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Just register the audio as a song on Spotify. You do that.

Speaker 1 Oh, God, it looks good. The weirdest song.
Six Pete.

Speaker 1 It's like BBC Radiophonic Workshop snoring.

Speaker 1 Wow. The bags under my eyes.

Speaker 1 That's 6 p.m. in a hotel reception.
6 p.m. out.
In my defence. Did they go out afterwards?

Speaker 1 Yes, they did. Did you? No, no.
In my defence, I'd been up since 3:30 a.m. They'd been up since 1:30 a.m.
They'd left Cardiff at half past two

Speaker 1 because we were on the

Speaker 1 25 past seven flight from Gatwick. So you went to bed after that.
I mean, that's where you want a Robins approach to travel. Because they got a half-seven flight from Gatwick, commuting from Cardiff.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I can't imagine. I'm not going to blame.

Speaker 1 The man who booked it because he is one of my dearest friends. But when we were booking the flights, all five of us gave it the thumbs up on the Whales Away WhatsApp group.

Speaker 1 But Guion Logistics, who is now a a celebrity in his own rights, and has to do selfies because people can't believe they've got to meet Guion Agistics. Guion Agistics was in a big meeting.
Right.

Speaker 1 So he hadn't looked at. And yeah,

Speaker 1 there probably were slightly more manageable flights.

Speaker 1 Also, that is when spending 60 quid on a room at the airport is the best money you will ever spend in your entire life. Yeah, it was an early start.
1:30 a.m. is an early start.

Speaker 1 Yes, I'll need to drive

Speaker 1 to go

Speaker 1 No, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 Lovely. Good to have you back.
Don't go and live in the Alps just yet, please. I am going to live in the Alps.

Speaker 1 Unfinished podcast business. It is amazing.
Just do him on Zoom. Let him go and live in the Alps.
Oh, come on.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. Unless we all go with a video editor and four Sony cameras.
Oh, I'd love that. And it's

Speaker 1 in Bright's. Yeah, I don't know.
Yes, please. Don't know how to get that past Hannah.
Blimey, it's a long app today because we're about to welcome Anya on.

Speaker 1 We are indeed, but hey, the apps can be as long as we want, Dave. Oh, yeah, no one tells us what to do.

Speaker 1 Unless there's problems with the scripted intro, but we'll find out after this.

Speaker 2 Hello, it's Ray Winstone. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4.
History's toughest heroes. I got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough.

Speaker 3 And that was the first time that anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are going to come out of your head.

Speaker 2 Tough enough for you. Subscribe to history's toughest heroes wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 1 Well, we're delighted to say we are joined by Anya Magliano. Hello.
Anya, are you related to Enya?

Speaker 4 That can't be how this begins.

Speaker 1 Are you joking?

Speaker 4 Am I related to Enya?

Speaker 1 I've been on this podcast so many times, and you've managed to avoid that.

Speaker 4 Enya's her first name.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 my first name. It just made me laugh when I said your name in my head and then I thought of Enya.
And then I read the personal life page of Enya's Wikipedia page.

Speaker 1 Anya says related to comedian Anya Magliano. No, it doesn't, but it does detail how she's managed to maintain her private life, which I was very very interested in.

Speaker 1 But it did involve buying a castle and reinforcing. She bought a castle.
She bought it in 1997. She was huge at one point, and yeah.
She's one of the biggest selling artists of all time.

Speaker 4 Is she

Speaker 1 Louis?

Speaker 4 Yes, she is. Not in that accent, but

Speaker 1 I sort of made her glad. And she's got a safe room from which she watched her housemaid get tied up and items get stolen.
Oh, from the castle. Yes, in the castle.

Speaker 4 She bought a castle to be more safe.

Speaker 1 She got a safe room in the castle.

Speaker 4 And then her maid got tied up.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 4 In a non-sexual way.

Speaker 1 In a break-in way. Oh, God.
And items were stolen. And Anya alerted the police from the safe room.
Anyway, Anya, tell us about your tour.

Speaker 4 I'm telling that story from the perspective of her cousin.

Speaker 1 Yes, of course.

Speaker 4 Which is me, her cousin. Wow.

Speaker 4 That is, I would say it's quite hard to follow that. That's quite an electric story.

Speaker 1 It's a little bit hard to follow it with. Well, speaking of electric stories, I watched your Taskmaster finale the other night

Speaker 1 as a previous taskmastrist

Speaker 1 and it came down to a tie break

Speaker 1 had what happened to you happened to me i would have left the euro and britain yeah yeah yeah yeah and gone to live in i think chile yeah in the andes with a small community of other people who've had bad things happen to them on taskmaster yeah yes how did you feel because i think you're dealing with it better than I would have dealt with it.

Speaker 4 Oh, I'm on my way to Chile now.

Speaker 1 I'm just stuck in the middle of the morning. Okay, the Chile of the mind.
Don't explain. Well, I don't, some people watch, I guess everyone's seen it by now, but it was a tie, a three-way tie.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 they sort of had a tie break that no one could have prepared for.

Speaker 4 It was a guessing game. And

Speaker 4 what some people said

Speaker 4 angrily in the comments was it's essentially flipping a coin, which it kind of is.

Speaker 1 Three-sided coin.

Speaker 4 Three-sided coin. It's spinning a three-sided coin and it definitely

Speaker 4 I think it was so surprising that it was a three-way tie that everyone was kind of quite flabbergasted with that and then for it to be guess the number of t's in this portrait we're all thinking what what does that mean yeah and then i didn't win And I took that well

Speaker 4 for the cameras. But at the after party, I was saying, I did corner Alex, and I was like, well, technically, every brick has a T in it because it's a junction where the two bricks meet.
And I think

Speaker 4 I was ruining the vibe.

Speaker 1 Sounds cool, man.

Speaker 1 Sounds like you nailed the party. Yeah, I think.

Speaker 4 Don't worry, I said it to the directors as well.

Speaker 1 Oh, God, yeah. And the producer.

Speaker 4 And I'm

Speaker 1 Greg.

Speaker 1 And this is my, I'm going public with it now.

Speaker 1 I'm ready to go public and say there were more T's in that painting.

Speaker 1 I don't want to betray any confidences, but I am going to have an educated guess that during that tie break, due to the four previous champions, they were pretty desperate for Phil not to win

Speaker 1 in order to add even a hint to diversity in the Champion of Champions episode. Yeah.

Speaker 4 But they didn't give us any hints.

Speaker 1 They let it be. It could have been seven white guys.
on the champion of champions yeah

Speaker 1 and that would have been kind of something to behold it would have been extraordinary Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a museum piece.

Speaker 4 Would you think you would have, because you would have been in that lineup? Would you have made a comment? Would you have sort of protested it?

Speaker 1 We've already filmed it.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Last week.

Speaker 4 But if it was all men, what would you have done?

Speaker 1 They'll probably cut it out of the film, but I did say, because it was Maisie, me,

Speaker 1 Saltzman, Matthew Bainton, and

Speaker 1 Sam Campbell and Greg and Alex. And I did say it was like being on the first series of Mock the the Week.

Speaker 1 Which I'm pretty sure they will cut out.

Speaker 4 They can't cut that out because that's a fact.

Speaker 4 That's not actually a joke. That's just a true observational fact.

Speaker 1 But I loved watching you throughout the series. I thought you were all fantastic.
I thought you were marked slightly harshly at times. Thank you.
Especially for the prize tasks.

Speaker 4 My prize tasks, I really, I went. I don't know whether this is the thing with Taskmaster, but I went into every one of them thinking this is five points.
It's got to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 With everything I did, I thought, how can this possibly be less than that?

Speaker 1 I think I was going with everyone thinking this is one point. Really? I'm rubbish.
Yeah. I quite admire your confidence.

Speaker 4 I think I just,

Speaker 4 I wouldn't say it was confidence as much as narrow-mindedness in thinking there's no possible other way you could answer this question.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 And then, and then the horror on my face as other people are coming up with really, really good answers and I didn't think about.

Speaker 1 Oh, try doing an episode with Sam campbell yeah because you you think you've covered every angle yeah and then suddenly a man comes who doesn't actually believe in angles

Speaker 1 and is is is part of a completely different geometry yeah a different universe a different universe yeah and makes you i mean

Speaker 1 so funny but does make you feel somewhat pedestrian god oh yeah imagine yeah absolutely boring john oh yeah a boring old man john who's taken a linear approach to the problem yeah

Speaker 1 and sam Campbell has done something which probably should get government funding.

Speaker 1 Old Orthodox Robins.

Speaker 4 Sam Campbell should be meeting the Prime Minister, let's say it.

Speaker 1 I don't think they would allow that.

Speaker 4 Yeah, they wouldn't trust him through those gates, I don't think.

Speaker 1 I reckon they should zoom him first.

Speaker 1 Anya, having paid you some compliments there,

Speaker 1 we need to come on to the rather more depressing territory of your boggle record.

Speaker 1 Some months ago, you approached me. You said, John, you know how to play boggle.
Yeah. You're big on the boggle scene.
Yeah. You've got a reputation.
I want to play against you.

Speaker 4 I think I, well, God, yes, I entered the lion's den.

Speaker 1 Why would you ask for that?

Speaker 4 Because I wanted to know if that, because I got the app, and I wanted to know if the app I was using was the one John was using. So I knew John.
I knew he was Mr.

Speaker 1 Big Boggle.

Speaker 1 Hey, he is.

Speaker 4 I knew he was Mr.

Speaker 1 Big Boggle. He's Mr.
Big Boggle. So I thought, I thought this can't be the right app because it has so many ads in it.

Speaker 1 Oh man, it's almost unplayable. Almost unplayable.
Yeah, it's a real wonderful thing.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like playing a game on the independent

Speaker 1 PLC. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Also,

Speaker 1 you would, any other app on earth, you pay $6.99 a year to not have ads. The ad-free for sure.
On Boggle, $5.99 a month. What? So you you have to be paying like 62 quid a year.

Speaker 1 No, 72 quid a year just to not have to watch weird AI apps

Speaker 1 of

Speaker 1 a generated sort of old man in a car going, you know, how I like to take notes at my meetings. But because it's AI generated and no one's ever seen it, there's a car driving towards him.

Speaker 1 It's like he's about to have a crash.

Speaker 1 It's so weird.

Speaker 1 I haven't seen that one. Or.
Is advertising critical illness, Governor? Or there's these, there's now like this industry in getting sort of 20 somethings to pretend to be excited about games.

Speaker 1 So it'll be a guy in a really kind of weird, not very tidy apartment going, are you telling me I can get 10 different treasure chests on Royal Mads? Yeah. Yeah.
And you're like, who, what's his job?

Speaker 4 Well, I think that I would say that if you can't picture this, the setting in which they're filming these ads, it feels like they're sharing the office space with the pornographic set. Yes.

Speaker 4 Like it feels like the same actors, they're sort of, they're doing both.

Speaker 1 Is that guy an actor, the treasure chest guy, do you think? I don't know what it is. There was a long read written about these games that actually don't exist.

Speaker 1 I might have mentioned it on this program. No, I've not.
The games exist, but they're nothing like the little adverts for the games. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 So you download them and it's a completely different thing. But it seems just make the game you're advertising.
Anyway.

Speaker 1 yeah, what's the point of that? Uh, but Anya, I do think we need to sort of dig into some of the figures.

Speaker 4 I didn't bring my phone, but I have my own.

Speaker 1 Don't worry, I've got um, I've got a record here, so I don't worry, Anya, he's got his dossier. Yeah,

Speaker 1 that's not what I have on my phone, I have my own evidence to show to the jury. Go on, John.
So, currently, it's 24 nil. Oh, you did ask for this, Anya.
You literally asked to buy women on the radio.

Speaker 1 John Wart bullies women on the radio, young women. Young women.

Speaker 1 Young women who are new in comedy.

Speaker 1 I'll just say. John is a headliner.

Speaker 4 I'm a 10-minute unpaid spot.

Speaker 1 Just to take you through some more detailed statistics. I'm not sure I should sanction this.

Speaker 1 On the 12th of November, in the third round of our game. Anya was doing array levels.

Speaker 1 You scored 279 points. I scored 1,484 points.

Speaker 1 So it was 2,787 to 944. Anya, you are improving.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I got over a thousand the other day.

Speaker 1 You got over a thousand.

Speaker 4 No text from John about that. Absolute silence on WhatsApp.

Speaker 1 Absolutely, because he's now threatened by you.

Speaker 1 I don't like it. That's why this is happening.

Speaker 1 I don't like it when my boggle wives

Speaker 1 begin to.

Speaker 1 What, when the apprentice becomes the master? Yes.

Speaker 1 That concerns me.

Speaker 4 You're quite like Henry VIII, aren't you?

Speaker 1 In that room. Jesse Long is bad.
Josie Long, I didn't hear anything ugly. I know.
Divorced, beheaded.

Speaker 1 That's me.

Speaker 4 That's a nightmare. Can I say, though, for you guys haven't played John at Boggle?

Speaker 1 No. The words he is playing are weird.
Yeah. No way.

Speaker 1 Are they medieval English words? Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 4 He's playing like Chaucer. It's like Chaucer's been given the boggle board.
There was one the other day, zitties.

Speaker 4 What does that mean? Z-I-T-I-S.

Speaker 1 Plural of Zitty. What does Zitti mean? Don't matter.

Speaker 1 So how did you know it was a word? Because I'll play a lot of Scrabble in the early 2000s.

Speaker 4 In the early 2000s, I was reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's where I've gone wrong.

Speaker 4 Can you cheat?

Speaker 1 Could you just Google...

Speaker 1 I don't really know how to play online boggle, to be honest. I've not played in years.
Could you just go straight to the internet and that could help you? Or is it quite timely? Time's up, Dave.

Speaker 1 Time's up. Wow.

Speaker 4 And any time you leave, it puts a thing blocking the board. So what you have to do, if you wanted to cheat, you would have to get a second phone to take a photo of the board and then in your own time.

Speaker 4 I haven't done that. You know I haven't done that because you've seen my score.

Speaker 1 What's that word again?

Speaker 1 Zitti. Zitti.

Speaker 4 Zaitai. Z-I.
Z-I-T-I-S.

Speaker 1 Z-I-T-I-S.

Speaker 4 And you did queen the other day, Q-U-E-A-N.

Speaker 1 Zitti refers to a type of medium-sized tubular pasta from Italy.

Speaker 1 Most of the dishes made with it. Most famously the baked zitty.
He does like food. I do like food.

Speaker 4 That doesn't make it okay.

Speaker 1 The pasta comes in long tubes that are often broken into smaller pieces for sauce or sold as cut zitti.

Speaker 4 There you go. You won the match the other day with Queen, Q-U-E-A-N.

Speaker 1 So what does that mean? Just to reiterate again,

Speaker 1 it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 Unless I think Google that one. Q-U-E-A-N.
I would imagine it's an archaic way of spelling queen. Oh, no.

Speaker 4 It's much, the truth is much darker.

Speaker 1 A saucy girl.

Speaker 1 No wonder John knows.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't play that girl because I respect women. Yeah, you knew the word.

Speaker 4 I don't play slurs.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I might, John.

Speaker 1 It is the same derivation of queen, Q-U-E-E-N. And when you messaged me to say, how on earth do you know that spelling of queen?

Speaker 1 I was like, of all the people on earth, who's going to know there's a way of spelling queen with an A? Yeah.

Speaker 1 But,

Speaker 1 you know, go to Boggle Camp. I've said I'm going to fund it for you.

Speaker 1 Then you'll come back up with perhaps slightly more in your locker.

Speaker 4 I have been

Speaker 4 asking ChatGPT for help. Have you? And Chat GPT.

Speaker 1 I'm trying my best, John.

Speaker 4 I don't think you believe me, but I am trying so hard. It says, like, you have to learn, you have to look for shapes, not for words.

Speaker 1 Is that what you do?

Speaker 1 You just, speed, it's all about speed. Hammer, hammer, hammer.
Hammer the special tiles.

Speaker 1 You're so, so quick.

Speaker 4 He's on like 80 words a game. I'm getting like 20.

Speaker 1 Also, you've got to. Well, you should

Speaker 1 maybe one day you should come face to face with one of my other boggle wives.

Speaker 4 Josie Long.

Speaker 1 No, my third boggle wife who's got Gen Z fingers. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 99 words in a minute. What? Yeah.
That's more than one a second. That's...

Speaker 1 No!

Speaker 1 It's Gen Z fingers.

Speaker 4 But I've got Gen Z fingers, but I've got Rayners, they're quite cold. Have you? Yeah, so maybe that's why I've actually, I should be given extra time, Ellis.

Speaker 1 You've got Gen Z fingers with a boomer disease.

Speaker 4 I'm cusp.

Speaker 1 That's why I'm on the cusp.

Speaker 1 Now, Anya, also, just last word on boggle. You've got to make sure that John wins

Speaker 1 or he'll cry. The boggle environment is perfect.

Speaker 4 Toilet.

Speaker 1 Toilet. Yeah.
Ideally bed, not on trains. Anya's going to be.
Not while Ellis is talking to you with the sound off.

Speaker 1 You've got to make sure you're in the perfect Zen state. Also,

Speaker 1 what I've now had to do in order to compete with Gen Z Fingers, who will

Speaker 1 remain anonymous, is have warm-up games with bots because she's so and me, probably. I bet I'm a warm-up guest.

Speaker 1 Oh, no, John, don't. You're not.
What we to treat our guests. You're nobody's warm-up games.

Speaker 4 Tom Rosenthal got compliments coming out of his ears. I've just been told I'm a thicko.

Speaker 1 Anya, you're touring touring your latest show, Peach Fuzz. John thinks it could be improved.

Speaker 4 John thinks I'm not getting enough words in every joke.

Speaker 1 Starting with a sold-out show in Leeds at the beginning of Feb and then across the country until June. Yes.
What's it all a blooming about?

Speaker 4 Well, what is it about? It's kind of about that. I need to figure out a PR

Speaker 4 way to say this and not make it sound quite boring, but I haven't got that yet.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 PR sits oppositely.

Speaker 4 slouched in her chair do you need a tagline is that what you need so it's kind of about yeah maybe you could maybe you could PR ify it for me um it's about learning that I was quite disconnected from my body and trying to get more connected to my body turn the brain off a bit and learn about okay what's going on downstairs but with a couple of laughs along the way oh that's good two to three Two to three laughs so you could say peach fuzz an out-of-body experience whoa

Speaker 4 that's actually so good. Is it?

Speaker 1 And then just say freedom you can trust at the end. And people will be like, that is good, actually.
What I found out,

Speaker 1 you just tell people it's great.

Speaker 1 Very few people actually go to see stand-up.

Speaker 1 You just have a really good poster. I've just got a sold-out lead.

Speaker 1 Tell them it's great.

Speaker 4 So, what at the beginning of the show up top?

Speaker 1 No, no, no, no. By the way, this is great.
The people who are in the audience, there's nothing we can do about them. We've lost them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 You just put up a few good questions.

Speaker 1 Right, right, right, right. So it's sort of era defining emotional heft i do think it's good of course it is i think it's good i think it's my

Speaker 4 i start fully crying yeah yeah yeah i think it's good yeah well it's definitely the longest time i've had to work on a show because i did a work in progress in edinburgh so in edinburgh i was like this is i'm enjoying this and then i've had six extra months to sort of play around with it and there's a lot of stuff about the body lots of stuff some stuff about sabrina carpenter do you know who she is yes big time.

Speaker 1 She's a pop star. Yes.

Speaker 1 And I agree with Ellis.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 you had an observation in your last show, which I saw, which I think about all the time.

Speaker 1 When you're having conversations and in your head, you think to yourself, am I turn next? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 You think about that probably twice a week

Speaker 1 because I think that I think I want you to set on a show. That's very funny.
I think

Speaker 1 all the time. My turn next, here we go.
Here it comes. Here it comes.
And now I'm talking.

Speaker 1 So could you tell us about, because I'm very into the mind and the body, separating the two. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What sort of ground do you cover on that?

Speaker 4 I'm covering quite a few different grounds.

Speaker 4 I guess some of it is starting because I see a lot of women online who seem the opposite, who seem very connected to their body, very confident in themselves, confident in their essence and their sensuality.

Speaker 1 You don't trust them. You don't trust them.

Speaker 4 Well, I believe everything I see on the internet.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but if someone's too confident, I think, what are you hiding?

Speaker 4 Something dark, there must be a dark

Speaker 4 darkness beneath. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You've got to have a little bit of insecurity, I think.

Speaker 4 I think so. I just think they, the way they prioritise their life and

Speaker 4 what they think they sort of deserve and the way they embody their own sort of confidence is very different to how I live my life. So I've kind of been on this journey.

Speaker 4 So there's the stuff about that.

Speaker 4 I would say some of it isn't radio-friendly. I did a work in progress last night and I had a family on the front row and it was a connecting experience for them.

Speaker 1 Was it? That's good.

Speaker 1 but i think they had to push through some initial awkwardness yeah i was well i once had a routine about vajazzling and a family were in my edinburgh show and the and the dad walked out and took his daughter with him he said we need to get her one

Speaker 1 come on we can't waste any more time he just got up and went no

Speaker 1 and then walked out and left his cashmere sweater behind draped on the chair but i always feel i remember feeling really bad a because you know it's someone walking out your show is never a nice feeling but also because like it was the sort of routine I would like young people to hear.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Boys and girls and anyone in the Twitter.

Speaker 1 But unfortunately, I think he heard some key phrases and thought, no.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I would say that's in my mind when I'm kind of making a show, especially if it's something about like the body or whatever, I'm always thinking like, what would I have needed to hear like two years ago about this?

Speaker 1 Amazing. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Because I remember I saw Desiree Birch when I was really young. And it was like, she's, you know, she's so, she's so funny.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 She's so confident and saying so much stuff about no one cares how your body like all this stuff and it genuinely made such a difference to me oh have you told her that yeah that's fun that's that's an amazing thing she looked quite nervous

Speaker 4 with the back of a gig before about to go on stage i'm like you changed my life

Speaker 4 that's really nice thing to hear so hopefully i'm gonna someone will be cornering me one day saying yes that sort of thing i bet they will i hope so absolutely and and but it will be funny as well i keep forgetting to to say that it's definitely got oh it's funny that's interesting cupper bottom

Speaker 1 difficult when you're when you're advertising a tour because you sort of have to assume that's a given because it's hard to walk onto a show and like this and without giving any of the jokes away yeah just say and and fact alert it's funny but of course it is uh and it gets the ellison john seal of approval actually oh does it really official so you can put that on the poster

Speaker 1 dave remaining silent no rubber stamps absolutely yes we're all in thank you so you brought a made-up game for us i've brought a made-up game i'm excited excited.

Speaker 4 I can't believe I finally am contributing a made-up game. I feel very, very thrilled.

Speaker 1 Well, it's a privilege to have one brought to us because it's very rare that guests bring in made-up games.

Speaker 1 So it's great.

Speaker 4 Literally, as I was making this up, I was like,

Speaker 4 I've got to bring it in. It's perfect.

Speaker 1 I can't think of another guest that's done this, Steve.

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 it's Adrian Childs. Yes, that's true.

Speaker 4 That's me and Adrian.

Speaker 1 It's you and Adrian.

Speaker 4 Holding hands at the top.

Speaker 1 So, Anya, you will take it away in a second.

Speaker 1 First of all, we do have a jingle, and it is the same jingle as last week, but just as a little teaser for you, John, to give you a pep in your step over the next week or so, there might be a jingle coming,

Speaker 1 which is written by Brian May and performed by Brian May, and he's moving to my house.

Speaker 1 It makes this sound less good now.

Speaker 1 No, not Brian May, but a band. Keys.
There might

Speaker 1 be a made-up game.

Speaker 1 A bomb I could imagine.

Speaker 1 But a version of maybe a band that you're into at the minute. It might be.

Speaker 1 There's a bomb in my car.

Speaker 1 Not that one. Not that one.
A more melodic one from that. Anyway, that's in the future.
That's the future.

Speaker 1 Because last week's jingle was so good, we've got to give it a couple more spins. It would be unfair on Andrew, who penned this made-up game jingle, to only give him one week's worth of coverage.

Speaker 1 So here is Andrew's Made-Up Games Jingle.

Speaker 5 It's time to settle scores again, so come on, y'all, and tuck on in the podcaster that keeps me on my toes.

Speaker 5 A skittish feller hits his faith and takes a bye to chop a cake, but he's distracted, looking at his phone.

Speaker 5 One of the other fellers shakes his head, you've lost the plot, my friend he said. But connecting folks have proven a fit.

Speaker 5 And the sheriff in this crazy mess that puts them all up to the test is flexing in this new man city kit.

Speaker 5 And they do get out for ROZ and games as wild as they can be. With tennis scores that I don't understand.

Speaker 5 And the name of K2 Eastern A will all put them to the test today so look alive the points are in your hand

Speaker 5 and the man up came to use the fail put unto the test today in Ellison John's Wonderland

Speaker 1 rock and roll that makes me feel like I'm in the rolling stones yeah it reminds me of the theme team to King of the Hill remember that oh yeah yeah oh does it it was a sort of cartoon set in the steep south of America yeah I remember.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So thank you, Andrew. Scores on the doors.
John was victorious in last week's game called Blind Rate.

Speaker 1 So the score goes back to juice, doesn't it?

Speaker 1 John is leading to love in the second set and leading one set to love. We're at juice.

Speaker 1 Anya. Mm-hmm.
Take it away.

Speaker 4 Okay, so this game is called Walk This Way.

Speaker 4 Which I also I will say as a long time listener to this podcast it feels i feel like getting to do the made-up game i feel like i'm paying for like like two thousand pounds a month to patreon to be allowed onto the episode and do this that's a great idea and that's what we could charge

Speaker 1 that down yeah i'll be back um

Speaker 4 ellison john you will be given a starting point in central london

Speaker 1 They're excited. They're in.
They're engaged. I feel.
I've never had that.

Speaker 4 I will then present to you an amount of time. All you have to do is work out a destination that you think you would reach on foot.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 4 You score points for every minute you are off with the lowest cumulative score winning.

Speaker 1 This is a good

Speaker 1 idea. Questions, questions, questions, excitement, confidence, questions is always Questington's.

Speaker 1 What does that mean? They make board games. Wastington's make board games.

Speaker 1 Are we going based on Google Maps walking speed because I do beat it by 40%?

Speaker 4 The online map of choice uses an average walking speed of five kilometers per hour.

Speaker 1 Interesting, interesting.

Speaker 1 I can use the Fibonacci scale to approximate that.

Speaker 1 I'm scared.

Speaker 1 I'm really scared now, David, because I might need you to take over. I'm always here.

Speaker 1 Just so you know, I'm always here.

Speaker 4 I'll ask for Angela if I need help with John.

Speaker 4 And if multiple route options are given, we will take the quickest quickest route.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because

Speaker 1 so Google Maps will say that a two-mile walk is 40 minutes, and I could do that in 30 minutes. I can walk a mile in about quarter of nowhere.
Okay.

Speaker 1 But at least you know what Google Maps is, so you know where you are compared to Google Maps.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You got to imagine that you are a ditherer.

Speaker 1 You do a little bit. It's ditherer's pace.
Yes. Yeah.
It's annoying. Yeah.
It is annoying. Okay, good.

Speaker 4 So, are you ready for round one?

Speaker 1 I am, but yes. I feel nervous.
A few little fun scenarios. Come on, get it deuce again.
It is jeuce.

Speaker 4 So it's important. It's taskmaster finale sort of stuff.

Speaker 1 Okay, here we go.

Speaker 4 Could bottle it at the last minute. It's good stuff.
Round one.

Speaker 4 Ellis and John have just finished recording their award-winning podcast in Farringdon. To counteract all that sitting down, they want to go for a four-hour walk.

Speaker 4 Where could they reach in four hours on foot from Farringdon station?

Speaker 1 Can I do some maths with my phone, but not obviously use Google? No, it's the mind is our phone. What maths are you going to do?

Speaker 4 What do you think? He's looking at the basket of eggs now.

Speaker 1 That was a feature that we never actually brought to the podcast.

Speaker 1 Eggs sat in the corner of the studio. Oh, do those were...

Speaker 4 Oh, for the eggs!

Speaker 1 We're going to do good eggs. Good eggs.
Yeah, we're going to do a physical version of good eggs that we've noticed.

Speaker 4 But now it just sort of looks like your protein blowers could need your

Speaker 1 exit. That is interesting.

Speaker 1 So can you go what if you go over four hours? Are you disqualified? No, so it's cute. So the further away you are, the more points you accrue.
Yes. So you want to keep your points.

Speaker 1 So if you got bang on, you get zero points. That's huge.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's huge.
That is huge. That's enormous days.
And it's accumulative across the rounds that we will play today.

Speaker 1 This is one of the best days of my life.

Speaker 4 It's a four-hour walk. You're holding hands.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 4 Ellis has just gone fully glazed over.

Speaker 1 No, that's his thinking face. You see that a lot during the Cymru connection.

Speaker 4 It looks like he's been put on standby mode.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 I hope you weren't like this in front of Sakia.

Speaker 1 I was. Were you? You weren't out of standby mode.
I'm not going to be in the cabinet, dude.

Speaker 4 Does it matter who I go to first?

Speaker 1 I would just kind of flip-flop.

Speaker 1 So start with one. But it doesn't really matter.
But what I would say is make sure both of them them have locked in an answer.

Speaker 4 Have you both locked in an answer?

Speaker 1 Yes, I have a destination.

Speaker 4 A destination.

Speaker 1 John's re-scribbling. Are you changing your answer, John? John, I am, Dave.
Whoa, which is fine.

Speaker 1 Now, of course,

Speaker 1 there's not a right or wrong answer. You might.

Speaker 1 Well, there is. Yes, it'd be amazing.

Speaker 1 There's loads of right answers. There is.
This is what I mean.

Speaker 4 This is a game where

Speaker 4 you could say something like, This is a game where it's actually about the destination, not the journey.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 yes, this is the tagline. That's the tagline.

Speaker 4 That would be my tour tagline.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 4 Ellis, let me come to you first. What have you got?

Speaker 1 Oxygen on Pearly Way in Croydon.

Speaker 1 Oh my god, I think I've been. I love that.
I think I got a black eye there on my 21st birthday.

Speaker 1 I got trapped in the bottom. I like the specificity of that.
Yeah, that's good. Not just John's the town.
He's using cycling speeds to reverse engineer walking pace, and I don't mind it.

Speaker 1 I don't think I've gone far enough actually.

Speaker 1 Okay, John. I've gone Ealing Broadway station.
Ealing

Speaker 4 Broadway. Okay, well, I don't know anything.

Speaker 4 This is where the computers come in.

Speaker 1 I'll be your scorer. Anya.

Speaker 4 Do you want me to say what you could have had?

Speaker 1 We'll come to that after. I think let's get their answers and then here are some other details.

Speaker 4 Your job is hard, Dave.

Speaker 1 It is hard running this. Thank you.

Speaker 4 Running this ship. I'm feeling quite flustered.

Speaker 1 No, you're doing brilliantly. Thank you.
Is it Ealing Broadway? Yeah. Ealing Broadway.
The answers are just being totted up from our statistician. Which is mentioned in a Patrick Cabiner poem.
Is it?

Speaker 1 In Ealing Broadway, London Town.

Speaker 4 What about oxygen trampoline?

Speaker 1 Is that in there? That was more modern stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh!

Speaker 1 Whoa!

Speaker 1 Okay. Come on, Dave.
This is interesting.

Speaker 1 It's interesting, John. Ellis.

Speaker 1 Oxygen, Purleyway, Croydon. Now, of course, the answer that we were looking for.
Four hours. Four hours.
Your

Speaker 1 smirk at me, Dave. No, I'm not answering.

Speaker 1 All right, well, do you know what? For that attitude, no,

Speaker 1 I can only give you what you've done here, which is actually decent. Four hours, 37 minutes.
That's good, I'd say. Very good.
That's not bad. 277 minutes in total in minutes.

Speaker 1 That I would be happy with that. John, on the other side of the coin, you're coming in.
Three hours, 27 minutes for Ealing Broadway. so you're

Speaker 1 won by three four minutes but it's not one yeah it's cumulative so you're both still absolutely in the game is what i would say

Speaker 1 was a bit near you're on 37 john you're on 37

Speaker 1 isn't it it's for the titherers but we're just finding our eye so uh what was some of the what were some of the other good answers and ya you could have you could have gone to bromley four hours four minutes

Speaker 4 richmond three hours 53 minutes where my therapist is and chingford four hour one minute okay but i mean what i loved with you two was it was a a real pinpoint accuracy.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Because I suppose if you went for a Chingford, you kind of.
There'll be a central point.

Speaker 1 There'll be a central point on the map, but it's obviously the more specific in terms of location.

Speaker 4 Round two.

Speaker 4 Ellis has just finished playing Five Aside in Crystal Palace. Yes.
Okay. John meets him afterwards, and they both fancy walking for 32 hours.

Speaker 4 Where could they walk to in 32 hours?

Speaker 4 It's a long stroll.

Speaker 1 It is.

Speaker 4 It's interesting watching Ellis do his maths.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because I'm very good at maths.

Speaker 1 Sorry, I'll look away.

Speaker 4 I'll give you some privacy.

Speaker 1 That is interesting.

Speaker 1 That is interesting. I'm interested.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 They should make Google Maps adjust to your speed.

Speaker 1 It should get to know you.

Speaker 1 Always. This is from Crystal Palace.
Oh, God.

Speaker 1 Yes. Okay.

Speaker 4 Oh, this is from Crystal Palace.

Speaker 1 So even I missed that.

Speaker 1 Yes. I'm ready to rock.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Ellis, are you ready?

Speaker 1 Yes, I

Speaker 1 am

Speaker 1 ready. Oh my god, that's terrifying.

Speaker 1 So he can flip-flop it now, I need to.

Speaker 4 Okay, so now I'll start with John.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because you want him to feel left out. No, I don't.

Speaker 4 I wouldn't dream.

Speaker 1 Come on, Ellis. He's still thinking, Dave.
No, I'm trying to think of a town that's

Speaker 1 the town I want.

Speaker 4 Okay, I can see pen is taken to paper. John, what is your destination?

Speaker 1 Burford. Burford? B-U-R-F-O-R-D.
Samsung. It's near Oxford.

Speaker 4 Never heard of it.

Speaker 1 Ellis?

Speaker 1 The Bath Comedia. Oh, straight for a gig.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Ready to crush.

Speaker 4 Yes. So we've got the Bath Comedia versus Burford in a battle as old as time.

Speaker 1 Maybe Ellis has got it right. This is a three-round game, by the way.
And it's tight at the minute. That's fine.
It's going to be 112 miles.

Speaker 1 Oh, actually, it's a bit too far because I walk four miles an hour. Yeah, but also 128 miles.
Yeah, but it's not in a straight line to Bath, is it? It's not like walking through London.

Speaker 1 Yes. When I put in a town onto Google Maps I'm driving to, I look at the walking and it's always quite funny.
I mean, we have done one from Ellis's where he lives.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but you know where Crystal Palace is, John. You've been to his house.
Yeah, but he drives everywhere from Crystal Palace, so he knows every distance to every town in the Clark.

Speaker 4 The next one is closer to where you live, though.

Speaker 1 And you've got a sick mind. What are the results, Dave?

Speaker 1 Right. I think I've gone too far.
Let me work this out.

Speaker 1 The desired time was 32 hours that we were looking for from Crystal Palace. John,

Speaker 1 you

Speaker 1 are going to get to Burford in...

Speaker 1 29 hours. That's good.
Bang on. Bang on 29.
Is that right, Michael? Bang on.

Speaker 1 well.

Speaker 1 29.

Speaker 1 So that gives you an extra score of 180.

Speaker 1 Minutes, yeah. Minutes.
So in terms of score and point scoring. Not bad within 10%.

Speaker 1 So your score at this stage is 213. Okay.
Okay. Ellis, Bath Comedia, 40 hours.
And eight hours out. I'm afraid.
Which is a score of 480. Add that to your 37.

Speaker 1 You're now at 517 points. Okay, this is huge.
I'd like the records to state that I can walk to the Bath Community faster than that. But we are aware that that's not the game, aren't we, Ellis? No.

Speaker 1 Yes, we are. It's Dawdler's pace, as well, we know.

Speaker 1 So, the scores at this stage, before we head into the final round, are John's on 213. Ellis is on 517.

Speaker 1 So, you're after a huge misstep from John at this next one.

Speaker 1 Anya, final round. What do we got?

Speaker 4 Final round. Ellis and John have met at Stratford Station to do one of their

Speaker 4 ellis and John have met at Stratford Station to do one of their yearly 11-hour hikes. But where could they walk to in those 11 hours? Oh,

Speaker 1 11 hours from Stratford. Yeah, yeah.
Okay, very interesting. Very interesting.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It's his interest.
I'm interested. John's interested, which usually means he's got quite a decent answer if he's this buoyant about something.

Speaker 1 Ellis is staring again. He's powered down again.
That's a shame.

Speaker 1 Okay, I've got an answer.

Speaker 4 He said that, like, but you're not going to like it.

Speaker 1 I'm now, in the last 10 seconds, decide to change direction. Whoa.
So I'm going west as opposed to south.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 okay.

Speaker 1 I was going down towards Brighton.

Speaker 4 So you've got your answer.

Speaker 1 But I'm not going there anymore. Hell no.

Speaker 4 John, have you got your answer?

Speaker 1 Yes. Hang on.
Yes, I

Speaker 1 have.

Speaker 1 Yes. Thank you, Madam Z.
Monsieurs.

Speaker 1 Not sure what that was about.

Speaker 4 Ellis, I'll come to you first. What is your destination?

Speaker 1 Heston services. Oh.

Speaker 1 Heston services. Crossed my mind.
It is. Crossed my mind.

Speaker 1 It's always crossing my mind.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 I think it's probably a bit short.

Speaker 1 But I'm trying to think as a dithra. As a D.

Speaker 1 John? I'm going to Slough Station. Slough station.
Interesting. So you've also gone west.

Speaker 1 Points are just wowsers just getting totted up from our supercomputer. Producer Michael.

Speaker 1 Ellis.

Speaker 1 We were looking for 11 hours, weren't we?

Speaker 1 6 hours 58 to walk to Heston services. His mind has fallen off.
It's a shame that's a shame.

Speaker 1 I was looking for about 30 miles.

Speaker 1 So you're out by 242 minutes. So that's going to be added to the 517, I'm afraid.
I'm going to Google my first choice out of curiosity. Okay, John.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't think I'm that much further than Heston. You are.
Am I? You are. You are.
You are. By just under four hours.
10 hours, 12 minutes. Sensation.
Yeah. Crown me as a charming prince.

Speaker 1 Slau station. And have me as thy lord.

Speaker 1 That's a

Speaker 1 difference of 48 minutes, which if we're looking at the final scores here, Ellis, you end on 759 points across the cumulative rounds. John, you end on 261 minutes slash points.

Speaker 1 Which, if we were to categorise mega genius, Dave.

Speaker 1 Well, it's in the conversation. It's in the conversation.
I think mega genius, you've got to be getting under 200 out. Do you reckon? I think.

Speaker 1 Okay, well, I will revise and we'll play again every week for the rest of our lives because that, Anya, is a superb game. It's a great game.

Speaker 1 It's a great

Speaker 1 game. Anya, it's been an absolute delight to have you on.
Thank you so much for that game. Thank you for having me.
Thank you for your company.

Speaker 1 And do check out Anya's tour, Peach Fuzz, an Outer Body Experience,

Speaker 1 which starts next February. Grab a ticket with a cast iron Ellis and John guarantee.
Yes. Thank you so much.
It's copper buttoned. Yeah.
Thank you. Copper-bottomed.
Oh, lovely. Like a good Pam.

Speaker 1 Well, absolute pleasure having Anya Magliano on the show. Do go out and check out her tour.
Yes. It will be absolutely brilliant.
We all know that. It's a bumper-packed episode.

Speaker 1 It's bumper to bumper to bumper. B2B to be.
It's content cubed. Yes.
And it's been an absolute pleasure to have your time. Thank you very much for listening.
We'll be back with you soon. Bye-bye.

Speaker 1 Goodbye.

Speaker 2 Hello, it's Ray Winstone. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4, History's Toughest Heroes.
I got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough.

Speaker 3 And that was the first time that anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are going to come out of your head.

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