Best of 2024: Part 1

Hello, it's Ed Gamble here from the Off Menu Podcast.

Hello, it's James Acaster here from the Off Menu Podcast.

And before the episode starts, we'd like to talk to you about All Our Relations, a non-profit co-founded by your friend of mine, comedian Jen Brister, and Georgia Takax.

Yes, All Our Relations was originally started to support 15 families in Gaza when the genocide started, but now supports 21 families and funds several mutual aid projects, including two seven-day food kitchens and two mobile food parcel delivery schemes, as well, feeding hundreds of families in Gaza every single day.

They've created an absolutely amazing thing.

And we feel like, you know, it's the off-menu podcast.

We talk about food and we are very lucky to eat wonderful food and have access to absolutely brilliant food all of the time.

And I think we need to talk about people who have access to no food, James.

Absolutely.

So if people would like to donate, please go to allourrelations.co.uk or look at the links in Jen Brister's bio on Instagram.

Every penny raised goes to supporting people in Gaza.

Thank you so much and enjoy the episode.

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Well, hello and happy Boxing Day if you're listening to this on Boxing Day in any year.

Yes,

happy, I guess, any day you're listening to this on.

Yes, happy that day, even if it has a name.

Oh, they all have names, don't they?

Happy last day of the world.

Happy Monday.

Maybe some of you listen to it on Apocalypse Day.

It's time to wrap up another year's service at the Dream Restaurant.

2024 has been a big year for off-menu.

We released a whopping 57 episodes, discovered that Sebastian Sebastian Stan really loves pranks, and Danny Dyer swore more than all of our previous guests combined.

Benito wrote all this.

Yes, this is the script.

We're reading it verbatim.

It's what Benito wrote.

Yes.

Which is my favorite thing every year.

Yeah, it is.

Is reading what he's written.

Yeah.

On the best of.

Welcome to part one of our favorite clips from the last 12 months of off-menu episodes.

Expect sparkling in italics, he's put that conversation, delicious jokes, and breadloads, he's put brackets like shed loads, of food chat.

Actually, Benito didn't write that bit, that was all James.

That was Benito.

Now it's time for our first section of the best of.

It's national treasures.

Let's start this year's best of by digging for treasure.

It says treasure.

It says treasure.

By digging for treasure.

We've had national treasures of plenty in the dream restaurant this year.

Danny Dyer, Jessica Hines, Peter Capaldi, Natalie Cassidy, Darren Brown, Rick Asley, and Ray Winston.

That is mad.

Whoa.

I love a roast because we all sit around the table and blank each other.

But at least we've made the effort to sit around the table.

So I never, when I cook for the kids, they always have different things.

So I can never really cook them the same thing, which is the beauty of an air fryer.

So I ain't got to fuck about putting two things in an oven.

Yeah.

You know, like my boy who loves them little frozen pizzas.

If I was to make him one, like fresh, he wouldn't be going, oh, fuck that, I don't want it.

I go, my fucking motherfucker, I bought a pizza oven outside.

It's cost me five grand.

Right?

When you're not going to eat it.

No, I want the little frozen ones.

He's going, fucking hell.

What have I brought up here?

What have I dragged up?

Yeah.

The tip to the little frozen ones is you get your air fryer sort of squirt and you just squirt it on the top.

Yeah.

Just to give it a nice little bit of...

What are you squirting in there?

Well, the oil.

Right, okay.

A bit of oil on the top.

Yeah.

Just so it goes a little bit browner.

Yeah.

You know, so because they're horrible, them frozen pieces.

Not the Chicago town pieces.

You can never get them right.

Yeah.

Not yet.

Chicago anyway,

Chicago town,

and then just this fucking bland, fucking, especially the four cheese one that he likes.

Yeah, it's one cheese.

There's no way in the fucking world there's four cheeses on it.

So now and again, there's a catsu curry one, which fucking hell.

God.

But so

it will have a pepperoni.

Sometimes he'll have a cheese and a pepperoni.

Yeah.

You know, just to mix it up.

And I'll just do some fries in here, fry, and I see him done.

Chop up a bit of cucumber to make yourself feel better.

Yeah.

See him sort of gnaw around that that because he won't really eat veggies and stuff.

My daughter, she's 17.

She's

a little bit more open with food.

It has to be certain things, certain pastas.

You know, like pasta is the same thing, innit?

Not the nude pasta.

I'm talking about dried pasta.

No matter what fucking shape it is, it tastes the fucking sane, doesn't it?

But it has to be, if I do this, I do a vodka pasta, it has to be the little far felli.

Uh-huh.

The dicky bowls, yeah.

And I'm sorry to say this, Will, but it's that they're a cunt to get hold of.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

you know like pen a sweet rigatoni you can get hold of the

yeah yeah but the fucking far felly yeah it's got to be a certain gaff you got to get it as another one the shells it begins with a cucks of love now if you do them with a bologna's you know it's uh it's a beautiful thing but they're great because they catch loads of sauce

yeah little little pockets they're just you know it's beautiful but it's got to be far felly so um so i've done that for her yesterday anyway So, now for the rest of the week, I've got to try and come up with, I bought a fucking magnet for the fridge, right?

A menu magnet.

I thought, what we're going to do, you're going to write down what you want to eat all week so I can, you know, get it in all in order.

No one's fucking gone near it.

So, they're not interested in it.

So, every morning I go, right, what do you want with dinner tonight?

Just I can get it in order.

I don't know.

I go, but

I need a rough idea just because later when you're hungry, and I've got, because I've legally got feeders.

There's a few things I've I've got to do till you're 18, which is, you know, feed you, get you about.

You basically just become a cabby and a chef.

That's the fucking two main things.

The other thing is, every time they turn your hot water, tap one, there's got to be hot water.

When it gets cold, the radiators have to work.

That's the other thing.

And you've got to clothe them.

But when they're 18, that's it.

They can fuck off.

So up to that point, I need to know what the fuck do you want to eat?

Yeah.

So, you know,

so it's always, it's like four different things.

That's what it is.

So luckily by Friday, it's a takeaway.

let's get away with it so i don't know what's happening tonight we did there's not been no discussions when i left so that's gonna so i know it's on me when i get half what the fuck they're gonna be frozen oh that's not in the fridge oh why didn't you get that and because you didn't fucking tell me this morning but i do love them yeah yeah i love them very very much yeah yeah yeah but um if you if you haven't got kids there's no rush yeah yeah

dream main course

Okay.

Are you eating this with a spoon?

You could eat, probably eating with a spoon, but you might want to fork.

Yeah.

Because there's something that I,

we discovered, we did a lot of tempura during lockdown.

This was a thing that we did.

And so this main course is a sort of combo of things.

But one of the, I mean, maybe, I suppose I could call it a side, but it's on the main plate, but it could also be a side.

But when we were in lockdown, I had a card that let me go to shop in the cash and curry.

which I was registered for VAT.

I didn't think there was a problem with it.

I don't know.

know, just maybe I'm not running soups and dips yet.

Maybe I'm just in the kind of RD stage, but still, I had a cash and carry card.

So, those were the only circumstances which my husband would let me panic buy because, obviously, cash and carries, that's the point of cash and carry.

It's all panic buying.

You know, it's tins and tins and tins of everything, and they have big,

lots of everything.

So, it's kind of I've never been in one, but it's my dream to go.

Oh, my God, I can't believe that.

It is so fun.

Yeah, it's so fun.

I bet.

So, one of the things they had there was huge tubs of artichokes.

So artichokes, big, solid, lovely artichokes.

So you would buy it and it would seem like an expensive buy.

It would be quite a lot of your bill because obviously artichokes are expensive.

But when you kind of worked out how much you were paying for one tub of artichoke for literally three little slices, it worked out a bargain.

You may as well.

So we had quite a lot of artichokes knocking about in the house during lockdown and Tempura was kind of on the menu.

And then I was like, artichoke, tempura.

Let's go there.

let's go there and it was out of this world that sounds amazing it really was artichoke temporal why wouldn't why wouldn't you because it's like the way an artichoke is there's layers and so there's surface areas that sounds like the beginning of a the way it is the way an artichoke is

the way she is so there's layers exactly so that when you kind of you know cook it like that it kind of holds its shape obviously because they were really good proper they were kind of in brine so they weren't too slimy and squidgy they were still had a little bit of crunch they were good kind of cured artichokes, if you like.

And they work brilliantly temporarily.

So that would be a feature in my main course.

How big was the tub of artichokes?

I think we'd all make some.

Okay,

like, okay, let me just try to think of, like, how could I describe it in this context?

I mean,

I was going to say bucket, but that would be too big.

So not a bucket.

Not a bucket.

Not a bucket.

Look a small bucket.

A small bucket.

A small, kind of a lot, a very, very large jar.

So like what you can imagine, the largest jar, like an unreasonably large jar that you would never find in any vase?

It depends on the vase.

I mean, this is a vase.

Also, I think a few people might be listening to this and thinking that they've got a very different definition of panic buying than you have.

Right.

Because you panic bought a tup of artichokes.

We all remember that part of lockdown.

Yeah.

Where everyone went mad and bought up all the artichokes and you couldn't find money.

That's the cash and carry.

My husband was extremely like strict.

So we would go, we would go about not panic buying it was like absolutely so but he was almost so worried about it that we would go shopping and i would put two bags of muesley and he would say put that back put one back i was like i think it's normal to buy two bags of muesley yeah but he wouldn't allow it even outside of a pandemic outside the pandemic i would buy two bags of muesley but it was not allowed so i'd have to put one you're having muesley every morning you don't want to buy muesley every single week yeah buy two bags that makes sense yeah regardless of the global health situation if it wasn't for your uh wimp husband, how much

you could have it?

No, we edited it out.

No, no, I did not call him that.

He was

a good citizen, better than me.

Square?

No, good citizen.

So, it wasn't for your good citizen of a husband.

Yeah, thank you.

How much do you think you would have bought of some?

Do you think you would have panicked?

But we don't want to have gone.

No, I would have.

I mean, although in some cases,

when things eased, I did then buy.

Okay, we're still eating brown rice

and and in fact chickpeas and in fact lentils do you buy the big sacks of rice oh yeah it came in boxes so yeah so yes yeah yeah i had to buy buckets so it didn't go off but i felt like that was okay because it's not like i'm going to the shops and then clearing i was buying it from somewhere that all wanted to sell me lentils in bulk yeah does that quality does that count as panic buying not really not if you're still having it it's not like no yeah i guess everyone who's walking around cash and carry is probably not panicking.

But I will tell you this.

When it all arrived,

when it all arrived the first time,

my husband was like, what is this?

I said, I've bought some things in bulk from, you know, wholesaler, stuff that I think that would be useful.

And he sat down, he said, I've done the calculations.

If we eat this foodstuff for every meal,

we will still be eating it in seven years.

He said, you are going to have to send half of this back.

So I did.

I did.

I sent half of it back

because it was just completely.

Well, they probably thought you were like a survivalist or something.

And to a certain extent, in the moment, I felt like that's maybe what it was.

So, but anyway, so I did have to send half of it back.

Sure.

See, I've learned how to make lentil soup.

So

that explains the starter.

That explains why lentil soup is.

What guys

It's Lentil Superkin.

You're peeling chickpeas, making your own hubs.

Yeah, so far, every single dish has been things that you panicked for during the pandemic.

Toilet paper for dessert.

That was one thing we didn't panic for.

No, that was not.

I never understood that.

Never understood that.

Or hook.

Hook's the other big roller thing.

Hook.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I've been offered that.

Yeah, hook, because hook, you also play, but that's not panto, really.

It's pizza pan.

Yeah, but that's, you can do a panto, pizza pan, pizza Panto.

I guess so.

But when you play Hook, you also get to play Mr.

Darling.

Yes,

it's traditional that you play.

There's all these traditions in Panto that you have to follow.

It's also to do with how much money they've got, so they can't afford a Mr.

Darling.

Yeah.

So

they get Captain Hook to play Mr.

Darling also.

And of course, obviously, Captain Hook's hook is a measure of how good the pantomime is.

Oh, yeah, of course.

Same with the lamp.

Yeah, same with the lamp, because if you get just like a plastic Woolworths kind of hook, you know, like your Aladdin lamp,

it's not going to impress the audience very much.

No, no, you need a proper sharpened hook, don't you?

Yeah, and also you can always see the actor's.

Yeah.

There's always that kind of knob of metal

or grey plastic

on top of his hand.

Yeah.

And the hook comes out at the end of that.

Where obviously if his hand had been removed, there'd be space there, so the hook would be farther up.

So I don't know how you do that.

So the Palladium Panther, they actually remove the actor's hand for

me attaching it.

Who are are the stars of that this year i don't know who it is this year but certainly the years i've

big names and then also regulars as well so uh we're talking clary he's in it a lot love him yeah uh um havers is in it a lot as well is havers in it this year yeah i nigel havers i've never seen anyone have a better time than nigel havers doing the palladium panto yeah yeah he's having a scream that guy Yes, he seems to have a scream most of the time.

Yeah.

He seems a very happy fella.

Yeah.

Have you crossed paths with Havers?

I don't think I have.

have wow i don't think he's got his own theatre company now doing private lives with patricia orch oh yeah there you go marvelous i have literally crossed paths with uh havers before yeah near where i used to live i went for a run and i ran past nigel havers well that's ironic because of because he first came to fame via chariots of fire yes of course very famous scene yeah all the young men running on the beach yeah and i can see you there yeah well i don't i don't run as well as that he was probably looking at me was he running or did he have a croissant

It was quite some vibes.

He was strolling had a big scarf on that sort of thing

You can't run any I mean after you've been in charity Sapphire It's like you can't go running in public if you're Nigel Havers

Everybody starts singing that theme tune at you or whatever you can't do it.

I crossed paths with you once Peter.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah, asked you for directions.

Oh, was I fine if you don't remember Was I nice or not nice?

You were lovely.

You knew you knew where the place was.

You gave me successful directions.

I'll tell you what happened.

I was going for an audition.

This was many years ago and it was at the American Church on Tottenham Court Road.

Oh, yeah.

And I'd never been there before.

And I was a bit late, and I was really panicking because I didn't know where it was.

And then I saw you, and I thought, Peter Capella, you'll know where the American Church is.

All right.

And you directed me straight there.

That's fantastic.

Yeah.

It was the most successful bit of that day, I tell you.

Did you get the job?

No.

No.

No, no, no, no.

It was five lines to play Warren Beatty in a drama about Barbara Windsor's life.

I can see the Warren Beatty kind of

thing now.

That's what the casting director said.

And then I started doing the lines and she looked very disappointed.

She shouldn't have.

look I think you look like a ring a dead ringer.

I was on Graeme Norton with Warren Beatty.

Were you?

Yeah yeah and he was really really nice but he did that thing that big stars tend to do he said to me when you're in LA we must have dinner

and I said yeah of course that'd be great and that was it and I thought but but how do you do that?

Do I what happens?

Do I go to LA and try because you don't get you give me a card or a number or anything like that.

Who don't get in touch with Graham Norton and say have you got a contact number for Warren and do I call him and does he remember do I get through to his people?

How does that work?

Do you want to go for a meal with Ed instead and pretend he's one of the things?

Thank you for having me.

No worries.

Obviously, I would love to.

But at the moment, things are really sure.

You've got a criminal record got a lot of people.

I've got a lot of stuff to do

with the show and stuff.

Thank you anyway.

I quite like flat sparkling water, though.

What, like a soda water?

Like a soda water, but leaving it to go flat.

Because it tastes different.

I don't know.

We've mentioned it on the podcast before i don't know why that when you leave sparkling water to go flat it should just taste like still water shouldn't it but it doesn't it's got its own flavor yeah i don't like that what do you think of ed that he likes it what do you think of ed now

i'm wondering how you got there and i'm wondering if you had sparkling pint of sparkling water next to your bed that went flat and then had it and liked it do you remember how that happened or you know what it might have been maybe in a hotel or something on tour where you know you go into a hotel and there might be a bottle of still and a bottle of sparkling i'm drinking the still first of all

and then i might get back later and be like i'm going to have some water and it's sparkling a couple of sips oh i can't have sparkling before bed pop it on the bedside table wake up in the morning oh i need some water hello so yeah i think hello to the water

not to like the cleaner or someone who's coming yeah the hotel manager and i would i knowing me i would say hello to the water out loud if i was by myself yeah i say hello to inanimate objects quite a lot of the time yeah yeah can you remember some inanimate objects you said hello to I like to do it if I've got coats on the banister.

Yeah.

I'll talk to them.

I'll go right come on time to get you away.

Time to get you away.

Because they're on the banister.

So let's get out in the cupboard.

I go, come on now.

Let's get you away.

Stop hanging out on the banister.

You've had your phone.

Yep.

You've been out for long enough.

You've had your airing.

Get back in the cupboard.

That's good.

I'm trying to think if I speak to any inanimate objects.

Yeah, we do need to hear that.

I mean, I just...

You've got four cats, though, so I think you get a lot of your talking out.

You've got four cats.

So lovely.

I had a friend's day for five days recently and that made me realize how often i say hello to the cats it's every time i see them i say hello to them individually by name and i realize how much it was not annoying my friend but like how he must think i'm just bonkers yeah i'm just constantly saying hello to them that's what children do to parents

yeah so i won't really say hello eliza every time i see her or hello joni i don't do that but they go mum mum mum mum mum mum mum mum mummy mummy mummy and that's what you're doing to your cats sort of even in the course of one conversation so they'll get your attention with mum you'll say something back and then they'll say mum again and say something

I just um I don't like it when waiters point at your food I don't like it when they they get really close with their with their finger maybe this is just like a nicer restaurant thing but has anybody else brought this one up I no no no I'm not sure

we're not at the pointed yeah okay all right I'm gonna work alphabetically through my

so that yeah that that thing with the finger when they come in they go this is a carrot and this is and they're pointing and they're not actually touching the food because you can slide a sheet of paper between the fingers

let's prove it but that's a that's um that's an annoying habit that I don't like it's sort of like um it's like it's like um operation yeah it's like that um like where they hover it just just above yeah have you ever been tempted to get your plate and just move it up really quickly so their finger goes right into your food really good you have to grab the whole table you know no you could do the whole tape yeah no no you no you you'd grab the plate and lift them no i haven't done that but that would defeat the point because contamination is the risk yeah but then you'd get a new one right you'd simply

give you a new one if you just lifted the tape left into their finger i'll tell you who would struggle with that martin freeman he's very weak he can't even lift a plate oh he was on my show being weak i said i thought you were just being mean about him no no

darren brown got him to lift a plate he couldn't lift a plate you can just say darren when he's in the room james

put a phone on the back of his neck he told him all the stuff about crystals he said it's a bit really powerful he said this is god yeah he said martin this is really powerful phone and then you couldn't lift the things up he couldn't lift stuff up he couldn't lift a pencil up that's right he couldn't lift a plate up it was embarrassing it's a plate with like a sandwich on it that's right god yes isn't it we've watched all your stuff you have as well

we know it all but like yeah i mean when you're doing something like that with someone like martin freeman are you like man you're gonna i'm gonna make you look so weak on tv

you're loving it.

I don't think anyone remembers that.

Poppin' about, he is brilliant, but

I don't think anyone's ever mentioned the making Martin Freeman weak skit.

That's very, that's very niche.

It's a good one.

Yeah, it's a good one.

Maybe he mentions it.

Maybe he mentions it.

I think we had him on the podcast.

Maybe we did bring it up.

I don't know if we brought it up or not.

So he was very well dressed.

Yeah.

Very well dressed.

It was during lockdown.

He was on Zoom.

So we were on Zoom getting out of his outfit right now.

Aren't we surprised if he's still a little dicky over?

Still looks pretty good, I bet.

But I like that your interpretation of it is, wasn't Martin Freeman embarrassed when he came out and said he was weak?

But he probably just thought, oh, I'm on a Darren Brown show and Darren's done a trick on me.

No, because Derren,

when Darren told him all the stuff, when Devin was like, all that stuff I told you was nonsense, by the way, you could tell he was like, I'm just a weak man.

In his eyes, it was like, oh, no.

You give him a whole spiel about how the energy in crystals is the same as our energy in the crystal.

I'm really trying to remember what it was.

It was so long ago.

The vibrations in the phones are the same as the vibrations in the crystals.

I'm going to put it on the back of your neck now, Martin.

Now try and lift this.

He can't can't lift a plate or a foot he can't lift a pen ultimately i'm cleverer than you is the bottom line of anything i do that's the take home yeah yeah that's the take home especially for martin freeman stronger than so much stronger than martin freeman stronger man than you poplops hot bread poplars hot bread jaron brown poplops hot bread

jesus um the bread um i'm going for the uh there's a there's a group i used to live not far from dalston and there is a place there called the dusty knuckle and it's do you know it yeah yeah yeah uh and uh i found out many years later that they

employ, I think it's people, ex-prisoners, perhaps.

Which, given it's got a slightly charitable edge to it, you might expect that to sort of take the edge off the quality of the bread, if anything.

But it doesn't.

It's amazing.

It's a little bread-focused and charity-focused.

Yeah, exactly.

So I fell in love with that when I lived in London.

Haven't had it for a while, but they're sourdough.

Of late, I've

discovered, I've been in Bristol a lot recently, and Hart's bakery in Bristol also does a very good and also Reg the Veg, which is the world's greatest

groceries.

Yeah, Reg the Veg.

Is Hearts the one that's under like this temple metre?

Phenomenal price.

I love Bristol, as I often do.

That is definitely a really, really good.

Great sausage rolls.

Very good sausage rolls.

Yeah, I love that place.

It's brilliant.

Oh, there you go.

There you go.

So, yeah, I'd go for a really good sourdough.

A nice sourdough.

Yeah.

It's sort of the hipster of the bread bowl, isn't it?

I sort of hate myself saying it.

But it is tasty, though, isn't it?

That's the thing.

It is.

And Butter?

Warm butter, yeah, none of the oil nonsense.

Yeah, yeah, warm and butter.

A little bit of salt, crack salt, and that lovely.

I never know whether when it's warm, you feel they've just cooked it.

It probably isn't.

They probably just stick it in the microwave for a bit or warm it up.

But I, yeah.

For the dream, you want it out, you know, just cooked, right?

We won't microwave it in the dream restaurant.

No, you wouldn't do that.

There wouldn't be a microwave in the dream restaurant.

This is all bread is fresh out of the oven.

Yeah.

Wow.

Have you ever baked yourself?

No, not myself.

That's the next TV show?

Yeah, that's the finale.

You're still writing this show, this live show.

Finale.

You bake your bake myself.

You bake yourself.

I tried to...

I had the lockdown thing.

I tried it like I did like a lemon drizzle and a couple of things.

And then that was it.

Did you?

Did you embrace it?

Didn't do any baking.

Realized very quickly that shops were still open and stuff.

You could go and get a...

loaf of bread.

You could buy your own discons.

You mainly did barbecuing.

I did a little barbecue.

Oh, that's nice.

I'm making rotisserie chicken quite a lot at the moment i've got rotisserie in my new oven nice that's nice that is fun do you find i would find it very easy to just watch it yeah yeah you do you put the light on you just sit and sit and watch it grab a stool or a cushion and listen i don't want to be keep on chipping in ideas for you

but you've got to find new ways of hypnotizing people

watch your watch a rotisserie chicken you go into a trance that way

yeah yeah yeah that's yeah yeah that's not a toy is it that kind of stuff

yeah okay brilliant brilliant idea.

Yeah.

A giant, giant chicken, clearly fake, but a giant chicken on stage rotating.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

And they get hypnotised, and then when they're hypnotised, you swap them with the chicken, and then they wake up and they're spinning on the spit, and you're like...

And it's little chickens in the audience now.

And the audience is full of chicken.

But the chicken's headless because

how are they watching?

You haven't thought this through?

No, I haven't thought it through.

They're headless at first, then you restore the heads with magic.

I love as we're talking, Ben's just like making noise.

Ben's writing stuff down.

Every time Ben writes stuff down, you know it's

a shorthand for something.

Well no, Ben's probably writing down the idea for the trick and then he's going to do it himself.

Ben used to be a magician

when he was a little boy.

It's why his nickname is the Great Benito because he called himself the Great Benito.

He had a waistcoat and a magic box and everything and would put on magic tricks in the living room, calling himself the Great Benito.

So he probably is writing down ideas for his magic show.

Silently.

Do you ever have that in your shows?

Can you ever look out and spot a magician in the audience, like a fellow, and go, oh, they're watching this differently?

And I'm not sure.

They'll make notes like Ben does.

Yeah.

Yeah,

gags and things.

And they write them down.

It's a little bit, a little bit annoying.

Yeah.

A little bit here.

Oh, your dream drink then?

So we got that nice salad?

It's a Chardonnay.

It's an Italian Chardonnay.

It's

antenori, basically.

And the reason I'm sort of like stumbling over saying that and everything is because of how expensive it is.

It's ludicrously expensive.

And it wouldn't be an everyday, you know, but I'm in my favorite restaurant, Dream Restaurant, you know, all the rest of it.

Why not?

Again, you don't see it everywhere, but when you see it, and I had a very weird experience in Italy recently, and that was that it's a long story, but I was picking, I don't fly that often.

So I drive everywhere.

Like, you know, I've driven to Budapest a few times.

southern Portugal, outer northern Norway and everywhere.

I've driven across America a few times and round Australia because I don't like flying that much.

I do do it, obviously, but I'm saying I cut it down.

And I like doing the drive as well.

And also, I think I've done an awful lot of traveling, especially when I was younger, where I was on planes all the freaking time.

And you arrive somewhere and you go, oh, okay, I'm in the back of a car and I saw this and I saw that.

And then I've been to Rome, but I've got no freaking clue.

about Italy or what it's like or anything.

And driving there, you get a sense of it because you just stay in places and do stuff.

Anyway, on with the story.

So I'm going to pick my wife and a friend up in the airport in Rome.

So the night before, I just stayed outside of Rome on the coast, actually, funnily enough, in a little place, not a fancy place at all.

It was just me.

And very often I'll just think, I'm not going to spend a fortune.

I'm only going to be there to sleep.

So da-da-da.

And I go downstairs and I went into the little restaurant they had.

And it was, it was like, there was nothing, it was lovely, but there's nothing amazing about this place, not what you're expecting.

I'm looking on the wine list and I see this wine.

I sort of think, no, no, no, hang on a second.

And it has got a younger brother, by the way, which is about half the price.

Yeah.

But I kept reading it, going, I think what they've done is here, they've, it's the younger brother, but they've written it like it's the big brother.

Yeah, right.

So I said, can I have a look at that wine?

And he said, yeah.

So over he goes, or I think maybe I went to their wine cabinet and had a look at it.

They had like a glass, you know.

I thought, no, that's pretty much, that's, you know.

And it was literally...

The big brother.

It was stupid, the price of it.

It was like, so much so that when I told my wife and her friend the day after, they said, well, perhaps we should just go back and buy everything they've got.

It was too cheap.

I know, and I felt guilty about it.

Actually, I kept thinking, no, no, I should have told them, should have told them.

And anyway, whatever.

It's been a dilemma ever since.

But it is phenomenal, this wine.

And my favourite wine anyway is Chardonnay.

And Chardonnay's got a bit of a bad repper thing over the last 15 years.

I was like, oh, Chardonnay, I don't want to drink that.

Footballers call their kids Chardonnay.

I don't want to drink that nonsense.

Which is absolute bollocks because the finest white burgundy you can possibly have is Chardonnay.

People just don't call it that necessarily up front because it's sort of frightened everyone into thinking it's like, you know, do you know what I mean?

Chardonnay is...

well there was that abc thing for a long time is it yeah

yeah yeah and it's sort of got a bit of a bad rep and it sort of annoys me when i go into a restaurant and they don't have a chardonnay by the glass it really annoys me because i'm like you're reacting to that you're not reacting to whether it's good or not

and and we've traveled a lot in america and got a lot of american friends and Some of their Chardonnays are just unbelievable.

My daughter and quite a few of her friends and family friends have this thing about me liking buttery Chardonnay.

Yeah.

So much so that it's almost become ridiculous.

So that, like, if we're having a glass of wine, like in Copenhagen and stuff, they're all looking at me, waiting for me to go,

that's buttery.

Is it buttery, Rick?

You know what I mean?

It's become like this sort of thing.

But anyway, that is such a classic dad-bullying thing.

Yeah.

You find the thing.

You find the one bit of happiness your dad has.

Yeah.

And then destroy it.

And then you make it a thing of mop.

Oh, it's buttery

you always start with still a sparkling water do you have a preference sparkling yeah yeah

straight away yeah always sparkling yeah

it's a bit more interesting isn't it there's always something

you get a big half a lemon and squeeze it in there you got a half a lemon squeezed in yeah yeah bang if you're gonna have a drink have a proper drink you know yeah yeah you know don't mess around you know water's water that's all it is yeah it's very good we need it to live yeah it's you know you can fancy it up a little bit yeah nice do you have a particular sparkling water that you like?

No, they're all the same, believe me.

You know, some are more sparkling than others, I know, but yeah, yeah, it's it's a load of cobblers, really.

Someone's getting a lot of money out of bottling water.

It should be free.

It's natural, you know.

You sound like for what I'm getting so far, you

trust people.

But like, like, like the especially in I'm in South London, I've got to be very careful over here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Are there a lot of sort of sparkling water gangsters over there?

Yeah, Millwall.

Yeah.

i didn't know millwall had got into the sparkling water

i'm glad that you're squeezing the lemon in there as well some people just put the lemon wedge in or it depends how much lemon you like yeah if you just want a a little bit of an aroma going on then you just drop it in yeah but if you like a lot of lemon yeah

you've got to squeeze it in yeah yeah yeah especially with ice got ice yeah Are you doing the crushed ice?

I imagine you would, because you're talking

about it.

Yeah, yeah.

A crushed ice ice is lovely but it melts very quick yeah with uh sparkling water you want chunks chunks yeah big chunky ice yeah i agree with the squeezing the lemon one when people put a wedge in or like if i have a gin and tonic or something and there's like a wedge of lime in there some people just leave it to bob around it's not doing anything well i usually leave the lemon in there if i'm having a vocal coat or something like that leave it in every time so i know how many i've had

So when you're making another one, you put a fresh one.

You put a freeze one in and a fresh one in, and you know how many drinks you've had, you see.

That is genius.

And then, how many lemons would have to be in there for you to say, I'm not going to have another one?

When you can't get no more drinking,

where's a glass of lemons?

Yeah, what is a big glass of lemon

man?

What a lot of treasures we had.

A big load of trash from National Treasure Zed to celebrity stories.

Our guests have dished the dirt on their famous encounters.

Let's hear from Rhys Nicholson, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Finn Wolfhard.

We went to this restaurant Gimlet in Melbourne and Gordon Ramsey was there.

Yes.

Was he?

Yeah.

And he walked through the kitchen to go to the toilet.

Yeah.

It's like you walking around the bar.

Yeah.

That's a power move.

Yeah.

And I don't think he even, because in my head, it was like, oh, he must be walking through going, great job, guys.

Great job, guys.

Nap, just walked through.

Sorry, got a shit.

Yeah.

It was exciting, though, wasn't it?

Yeah.

To see Ramsey.

Well, and a few weeks before, the Obamas had been there.

And classic hospitality.

I found this out.

This is all.

We were having dinner at Ben's house and there were some chefs there.

And we found out it was one of the chefs from Gimlet.

And he said, oh, yeah, halfway through the dinner, he mentioned that the Obamas are at his restaurant tonight.

And the dinner stopped.

We were like, excuse me?

What are you doing here?

And he was like, oh, but I kind of understand.

He was a little bit like, why, you know.

It's like a hospitality mindset.

I love chefs and people that their whole lives are about hospitality because...

I said, oh, are they in the private dining room?

and he went oh no it was booked

but you know I mean it's like I can't I respect it so much more because it was about no it's I don't care who you are it's booked yeah yeah and so that was very impressive and apparently yeah they uh they sat like the Obamas just sitting out with Secret Service at tables around them eating a good time great I would have I would have wanted to work that night if I was I mean yeah that's that's self-paid

to be there it would have been a buzz to be there but what do you actually I think I prefer the story that I didn't go you didn't go I think there's more satisfaction.

The payoff you get to meet a president.

Yeah.

I think to decide not to meet a president is pretty fun.

If you were working there, James, say you were a waiter there and you were assigned to the apartment's table.

Yes.

How are you playing it?

Full erection whole time?

Napkins going on.

Are you saying anything specific?

Or are you just treating them like normal customers?

Or are you trying any little jokes?

Are you asking them any questions?

it's a very good question actually um i think uh i'd try and play it cool to begin with yeah definitely but then like i think probably pretty quickly i'd go into like asking them questions yeah confess you're drunk within two seconds yeah yeah

i mean actually to be honest if i'm gonna go by a recent experience when i met i met andrew garfield the other day oh my god and uh i did not he hates mandos i did not

i did not play that cool no and he's not the obamas No.

So I think.

He's not.

And that's not an insult to Andrew Garfield.

I'm sure he'd agree with that.

He's the happiest film he's ever been in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was, I was, it was at a festival and I was drunk.

Yeah.

My open line to him.

I'd never met him before.

And he was chatting to Nish Kuma gets another shout out.

Yeah.

Everyone loves Nish.

He's chatting to Nish.

I couldn't see who it was.

Nisha was just chatting to someone at Glastonbury.

I walk up, if I realise who it is, I go, Garfield, you motherfucker.

Right.

Another person we can't have on the podcast.

Oh, boy.

Oh, no.

Well, he just got a little van, yeah.

His response was pretty good.

He goes, hey, Castor, you cunt.

I was like, that sounds pretty good.

But then

me and Nick proceeded to just tell him about all of his films for like a very long time.

Yeah, and that, so that's ruined.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now we've ruined it.

Do you make excuses and leave?

Yeah, eventually.

But like, we had him there for quite a while.

Had him there.

had him there you know he was he couldn't get away for a bit yeah he was in a corner yeah i've never understood the concept of just walking up to someone you admire just to meet them yeah like it's like similar like but you met him in the right way like you met him in like let's say

no no you did go field you motherfucker you didn't handle it well but you're in the right circumstance yeah you could have we've got mutual friends yeah well so that's how nisha started talking to him yeah but also i just watched silence the scource aisy film had done it for the first time i'd never seen it before So that's what I said.

So I said, I called him a motherfucker.

And then I sat down and it was like, I saw Silence the other week.

Man, you're telling people to trample all the way through that film?

You keep telling them to trample because you're telling people to trample on the Bible.

And he was like, yeah, you like the trampling stuff?

I was like, yeah, you just tell them to trample all the time.

Like,

oh, my God.

So not, it wasn't even, I loved it.

Great performance.

It's more, these were some of your lines, Andrew.

Yeah, but that was my favourite bit was how much he kept telling people to trample.

So I was like, that's great.

I told him that seeing Spider-Man 2 in the cinema was the worst experience I've ever had in the cinema.

Oh, mate.

It's like

not because of him.

It's because of the people in the cinema.

When you go to Cafe Gratitude, do you order in the way they want you to?

You know, you have to say, I am the name of the dish.

No.

No, don't do that.

I am humbled.

I am

worthy.

Yeah, exactly.

No, I just go, oh, man, can I have the gratitude bowl?

We're not mad.

And then they go, oh, I am.

Yeah.

I am.

And then they

give you like, you know, the word of the day or what have you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'd say, yeah, if you're going there regularly, you probably lose patience with that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I bet there is a dish on there called Worthy.

I'm trying to remember I am Worthy.

I think there is something on there about Worthy.

I have to ask.

I think there is.

Imagine if we Google it now and it turns out it's the green salad.

Imagine that.

It would be crazy.

That's the David Blaine trick.

That would would be crazy.

He's done a trick for you, David Blaine.

Yes, David has.

Very jealous of that.

He's done several.

That's the only reason I want to be in this biz.

He's done several.

So that one day David Blaine will do a trick for you.

Oh, he did something so crazy with Will and I.

Really?

Oh, he touched Will's shoulder and I felt it, but Will didn't.

You cried.

I cried.

You saw it.

I saw that.

You cried.

I cried.

Yeah, it was emotional because I was like, no way.

How did you do that?

So he touched Will's shoulder, but I felt it.

And Will did your eyes closed.

And I had my eyes closed.

And he said something like, you know, do you feel that?

And I'm like, yes.

And he's like, I'm not touching your shoulder.

So he was like showing the connection between us.

And I haven't been able to get away from Will since because of the connection.

Like, I blame it on David.

We are really connected.

Through David Blaine.

Through David Blaine.

But yeah, it was a crazy experience.

He's on a whole nother level.

I can't believe you saw him do the spike through the hand stuff.

I was obsessed with that for a brief period of time.

Yeah,

he was showing everyone that where he genuinely just puts a spike through his hand.

Yeah.

I don't think he genuinely.

Yo, the things that you slam receipts on.

Yeah.

He just put one of it's an ice pick, wasn't it?

He put an ice pick through his hand.

Jada saw it and Jada touched it.

Yeah, I don't even know.

I don't.

Well, look.

I don't even mess with David because I'm just like, you're otherworldly, man.

I don't even know if you can call this magic.

Well, he came to London and he suspended himself in a see-through box above Trafalgar Square or above the Thames, wasn't it?

And everyone just came and shouted at him and stuff.

They threw McDonald's at the box.

Yeah,

they weren't as impressed as...

No!

How long did he stay up there?

Ages.

Like days and days and days, and people just threw their McDonald's at it in the box.

Really?

Yeah,

we didn't represent ourselves very well, isn't it?

Oh my gosh.

It went bad.

Yeah, I love, like, yes, like, alcoholic slush drinks.

Yeah.

Absolutely great.

And you don't see them on a.

The Blue Crew.

The Blue Crew.

I don't know if you told them about that.

No, I haven't told them about the Blue Crew.

What's the Blue Crew?

See, don't tell, James, don't tell them.

I'll tell them about the Blue Crew.

I have to, though.

A bunch of us went for a meal before going to see ABBA Voyage.

Obviously.

As all great stories do.

Obviously, I knew you were going to ABBA Voyage.

Yes.

And I spent all night while you're at Abba Voyage laughing about you going to Abba Voyage.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ed did a gig with Kamale.

Kamale told him we were all going to see Abba Voyage.

Made him laugh.

Immediately get texts from Ed and Nish asked me about you are going to Abba Voyage.

Immediate text back, yes, that's the first time I'm meeting Paul Rudd.

Yeah.

And it was.

Yeah.

Guess what?

It was awesome.

Yeah, it was just terrifying.

I walked in.

So first of all, I got to the restaurant, Smoke and Goat.

Great George, great restaurant.

Very good.

Got there, and I was like, I wonder if we'll be the first here.

As soon as we walk in, there's a girl freaking out to her mum that Ant-Man's in the restaurant.

So he's here.

So we're not the first here.

Go over to table and Finn, Finn's friend, Fred and Paul are there.

Kamal joins us and my girlfriend and I.

And then I see on the menu is a a cocktail.

Yes.

It's called Something Blue.

I can't remember what the first word is.

Blue something.

Look it up.

Benito's Good.

We did have it.

You get it.

We've been there.

Yeah, I know.

We've been there.

Do we have the blue?

I think we had.

We might, or I definitely, I don't think I had it, maybe.

I don't know if I've had it before because I wasn't.

I jumped on it.

I jumped on the bandwagon immediately.

So I ordered it just because it had tequila.

If it turns out you've had it before,

it's the perfect James A.

Caster story.

Yeah, of course it is.

Yeah, yeah.

It's absolutely perfect.

I forgot I had it before.

Cosmic.

blues.

I wanted the cosmic blues because it had tequila in.

And then everyone jumped on me.

I immediately went because sometimes I like copying people.

This is a restaurant I also didn't know.

So sometimes I'll get the locals

favorite.

The locals favourite.

So locals' favourite.

Everyone apart from Kamale orders it.

That's a stance.

He took a stance.

Yeah, I am not getting the blue drip.

But he didn't know it was going to be blue.

Oh, is it actually blue?

Yeah.

So this is the thing.

I didn't know it was going to be blue.

So

that's the way it went.

went, but I did.

This is where it like.

That's why I already went.

This is where it went bad for me.

Because everyone's copied me.

Camal's like, no, I'm having something else.

Yeah.

And I was like, oh, you don't want to be in the blue crew with a blue because it called that.

Yeah.

But then they come along and they literally are like neon blue, ridiculous.

And I was like, oh, no, I don't know these people well enough.

And I've made them all get this blue drink.

Yeah.

And started calling yourself the blue crew.

Called us the blue crew.

Runs there drinking the blue drink.

He doesn't, he's not happy with it.

Delighted about it.

No.

You know, he's trying to keep a low profile yeah he's there with a neon blue drink if he wants to get around

waving around this neon blue drinks he's fucking holding the tesser right yeah

you were the thana snap to his real life

everything disappeared after he drank that drink yeah we all were bummed i would say yeah no one was happy about however it was

so funny yeah it's such a funny as a bit we kept

we just kept i finished the whole thing i was like a i was like i don't like this but i'm gonna yeah

also we we were committed to being the blue crew at that point.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

At least I was.

I don't know if there's any fake motherfuckers at the table.

I was the only one that was in the city.

It doesn't sound like Rudd was fully in.

No, he was in.

He fell in to me.

Maybe one foot out at the least.

Yeah.

Also, I mean, for a full,

if the listener wants a full kind of like image of who's at the table, I said like, just like, you know, Finn's friend Fred.

Fred plays the

guy in the first series of White Lotus who goes canoeing, the kid who's doing that so that's who that is yeah so that's funnier to me as well i've made him do it yeah he loved it yeah yeah you know you know he loved it yeah

and then you all bought matching jackets we did no we didn't buy them we were given oh wait that that makes more sense it would have been hilarious if we bought them though the abajackets because i bet they're really expensive because if if you really do if if you hadn't uh been given them you know james would have tried to make you all buy them yeah if you did and by the way i would have yeah yeah yeah because you told me you in the blue crew i definitely would have committed convinced you.

You and Fred definitely would have bought a blue.

Everyone else, I feel like I've lost their trust by then.

But you two were still.

No, no, no, no, no.

It's all in your head.

It's all in your head, Bluey.

Is he bluey?

Not bluey though.

Yeah,

he named it the blue crew.

Shirts purple, right?

Bluey, blue boy, blue balls.

Who's blue balls?

Blue balls is the Fed.

And this guy is very blue boys.

Blue boy, Fred.

Yeah.

My girlfriend is

Blue Z McKeezy.

And Paul Vad is Blow Blood.

Blowblood?

Blowblood.

Blowblood.

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That was all great stuff.

Yeah.

Well, I love the blue crew, man.

Blue crew till the day.

Now, one guest has definitely been taking advantage of his celebrity status.

Have you had a DM from Lisa Fox?

Let's hear from Joe Locke.

Is that something that you would do for a restaurant?

Would you queue to get a table?

No.

Normally it would just DM them and then they'd give me a table.

Yes, finally.

Someone using the celebrity status.

Sometimes it doesn't work, but it works quite a lot.

I respect this honesty.

Oh, I also have, this is a,

I have a fake email that I use as my assistant, which is actually me on a different email.

And I use that to get like restaurant things because I've realized that if you are pretending to be official,

there's more of a chance that people will take you seriously.

Yeah, if it feels like you've got a celebrity.

My assistant's called Lisa Fox.

I wanted a name that was slightly maybe porn star, but like still could be a real name.

And she got me a free holiday.

So that was that was a great one.

That's a great assistant.

Yeah.

Lisa Fox.

Lisa Fox is great.

And you don't have to pay her anything.

No, I know.

It's great.

How does Lisa Fox's like email manner differ from your own?

It's she says the things that I couldn't say.

Like, oh, Joe is unable to do that, unfortunately.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, we need healing the new one Instagram story or like really harsh.

And I'll come in like, oh, thanks so much, Lisa.

Does Lisa ever take over?

Does Lisa ever say anything about you?

Like, oh, Joe can be a bit temperamental.

No, but maybe I should start doing it.

Yeah, yeah, that's more authentic.

Yeah, I think.

Eye-roll emoji and stuff like that.

She's been a really hard week with Joe this week.

Sorry, Joe's not getting back in contact at the moment.

Yeah.

Are you worried now, though, that people might hear this and be like, well, we know who Lisa Fox is.

We're not responding to that.

I'll just change it up.

I'll just change her name.

Think of another slightly porno name.

It's not Lisa Fox with three X's, is it?

No, but it should be i was going to change it to yeah it's not the same person yeah

well i mean look what we're very excited about is well there's a number of things actually but agatha all along we're all excited about that has lisa fox has got

she's been using that to get me some restaurants yeah did she like email kevin feige you know what she didn't but she maybe should yeah for the future i think her and feigge should talk or feige's assistant or is it feiguy pretending to be someone yeah maybe i feel feel like Feige probably does have an assistant.

I know he has an assistant.

He does.

Have you met them?

I have.

Is it Feige with his cap off so you can't recognise him?

I have actually seen Feige without his cap.

That's one of my big things in life.

I've seen him without his cap on.

Why did he take it off?

I don't know.

I think because you were at dinner.

Maybe it was a, you know.

Got to be respectful.

Yeah.

He's got a really nice head.

Has he?

Yeah.

Why does he hide it all the time?

I do his cap.

No.

It's a power play, clearly.

He takes the cap off for, you know, his most valued cast members.

I would hope so.

Yeah.

let's just say he goes this is the real me did he did he stare at you really intensely go and say this is the real me Joe he didn't he didn't know I'm gonna be really careful because I really would like him to give me more jobs

oh yeah

you might be in trouble now just for the feeling that he's got a head maybe

I probably will be yeah everyone will know

feel the marvel brain like he's got a top of the head yeah

well we will start with still a sparkling water Joe do you have a preference sparkling which I feel like I'm the only person under 25 who likes sparkling water.

But I find water boring.

So the sparkling water gives it like, I don't know, some energy, some fizz.

Yeah.

Well, you know, young people today, you got a shorter attention span.

Yeah, exactly.

So you need the water to be doing something.

Exactly.

I need you to keep me hooked.

But you were saying that you think you're the only person under 25 who likes sparkling water.

I think that...

Is it not big with the kids these days?

No.

Oh, man.

I feel like flavoured sparkling water is...

Yeah.

Seltzer.

Seltzer.

Because everyone loves a white claw but not like normal like a bottle of san pellegrino so does it make you feel like older when you drink a sample

i do i am an old soul in general though so yeah it feels very fitting yeah that's why you're able to pretend to be lisa fox exactly i presume she's over 25.

well yeah she's in my head she's like mid 30s and a bit too much filler

like

yeah no this is what i embody this is what i am inside really yeah it's aspirational let's pitch the movie it's uh it's mrs doubtfire for the tick tock generation Yeah, you get yourself in a situation where you have to dress up as a Lisa Fox.

Yeah, so what if that happens?

What if they want to meet her?

You're emailing and they fall in love with Lisa Fox.

I have had people ask me how she is when I've like, oh, how's Lisa?

It's really great to email her.

I'm like, oh, she's great.

She's really good.

Yeah, you know, she works really hard.

Bit too much fellow again.

But there you go.

She'll get the balance right one day.

She will.

Poor Lisa Fox.

What a sneaky guy.

We've had some strange people saying strange things in the dream restaurant this year.

Just listen to this slot.

Believe it has put in brackets, this section's not for the squeamish.

But it is for fans of Huge Davies, Katie Wicks, Stuart Laws, Rick Asley, and Robert Popper.

Are you a foodie huge?

Yeah, I love food.

I make, I do, I got quite foodie during lockdown because I lived alone for like a long time.

And then basically, as a comedian, all I was doing, I was basically every day I would get up and I would sort of delete the things out of my calendar.

And then I'd get the check my emails, see what they'd cancelled inevitably, then I'd delete them off my calendar and then I'd have the whole day.

Yeah, basically.

So I ended up making like so much like food, like a ridge.

Like I tried to make so much food.

So then the next day I'd have something to clean up.

Oh, so you were basically giving yourself a chore for yourself.

Yeah, so a job.

Yeah.

So clean, clean,

yesterday.

No dishwasher.

I had a dishwasher.

I'm not doing that because then it's just deleting events off your calendar.

Even more.

Yeah.

I've never, I don't think we've ever had anyone on the podcast who cooks in order to clean.

No, but also I'm worried about the next day.

So you're cooking one day, eating the food, and then you've got the cleaning up the next day.

Are you then cooking on the same day as the cleaning or were you only eating every other day?

Yeah, so I'll take, what I'll do is I'll clean in the morning, have a nice long four-hour break,

start cooking again

in order to then clean the next day.

What sort of food were you making?

Was it specifically dirty food or things that crusted?

No, stuff that I thought I couldn't do.

I think

I made dumplings from scratch, which was like, I don't know if I could do that, but it was really, it was really good.

I did it.

And also each time I'm obviously making way too much because you can't just cook for a portion for one person.

No, no.

Actually, interestingly, I would have lunch every, so that was, I'd have

my meals with a spider, actually.

Interestingly.

So like, there was a spider that started making making a web on the on the table yeah and i initially it was like let's get rid of that yeah but i was like if the spider goes then there won't there won't be anyone else

so i had lunch with a spider every day simon no sorry sorry dennis simon was a different thing what was simon what was

the button that squashed he drew a face no that was lloyd hang on what huge uh in lockdown got so lonely that he drew a face on a button that squashed like wilson and he called it lloyd and he hung out with it all the time and he shushed it around with a in a pram yeah in a pram yeah in a pram what outside outside of your house yeah we can get away with it well I was saying you know you can get away with anything if you put it in a pram

I really don't think that's true no you can go to the pram I think you're less likely to get away with it if you see someone with the pram walk around the pram yeah look at it yeah right it could be anything if the dog if like a dog's in there you're like that's fine yeah fine if you saw someone with a squasher there you'd be like that's like that's fine leave leave that person alone don't worry about

it yeah I would oh

there's something very different between saying saying you're getting away with it and no one wants to talk to you because you look mad.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Also, you'll say they're going, that's fine.

Leave that person alone.

I believe they will definitely leave that person alone.

I don't think they're thinking, that's fine.

I think they're thinking, I'm going nowhere near that person, leave them alone.

They're pushing a button at squash around in a pram.

I'm asking a lot of questions about this.

It helped you.

It did help me through, man.

Yeah.

And now we say, where's Lloyd now?

And obviously we're out and about again now.

I buried him in the park.

You are joking.

No.

I took my niece to to learn about death.

I can show you photos of it, yeah.

It took your niece to learn about death.

Yeah, she

was she was loving it, though.

Yeah, she was digging that hole like it was Christmas morning.

How old is your niece?

She was at the time, she was about two and a half years old, right?

So livid that someone else is in the pram, but I live.

You gotta walk,

you gotta walk because Lloyd's going in the pram, but you can have a lift back.

Get out of the pram, it's a goddamn funeral.

Use your legs.

Lloyd is dead as well.

Yeah, getting to ride in the pram.

Yeah, we all was Lloyd dead when you buried him.

Yeah, he had a sort of what we called was at the time he was rotting.

He was rotting.

Medically, what's what you say?

If you keep a squash for three months, it rots.

Yeah,

I couldn't do that, man.

If I'd drawn a face on something, I couldn't bury it.

Well, so that's the thing.

I didn't draw on the face.

I initially didn't draw the face on for a friend.

Yeah.

I drew it on because it was so big, I thought it would be comical to.

And when you're living alone, you've got to drew the face on it.

For a laugh?

Yeah, put nappy on it for a laugh.

I forgot that detail.

So you were living alone.

Yeah.

Why you got a pram and nappies in your house

such a good question such a good question that i hadn't even thought to ask because the rest of it is so weird anyway so i was staying at my my brother's house who has who has children yeah he he he like moved to his like uh his mother-in-law's house because they have a bigger house and they have a dog and two kids yeah he was like i need someone to water the plants i said i'd live there yeah i i did kill all the plants every like every single one including the ones they kept from their marriage.

They were like furious.

They were absolutely furious.

And then even more furious when they're like, I can't believe you spent so much time.

Because the squash was there when they were there too.

Yeah.

That's why we went to the park.

Because

I don't want to go alone.

Yeah.

You know?

So your responsibility was to water the plants.

You didn't do it.

No, I killed all every single one of them.

Every single one.

I have like, honestly, I have like over 50.

Instead, you were hanging out with a button at squash.

Raising a squash, I'd say.

I wouldn't say hanging out with a squash.

I'm not.

And the spider was at in the same house.

Spider, yeah.

Yeah, we all lunched.

We got dinner together.

We had dinner together, eating dumplings.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The dumplings are easy.

You sit around dumplings on three separate plates.

I have no, I'm such a Philistine.

I have, I have no, I've been to really posh restaurants and I thought it was a bit weird.

Yeah.

Stuff I was eating like worm salad.

I've had stuff like that.

Worm salad.

Yeah.

What's the name of the place?

But I went to a very posh place for my birthday and there was two, I went with, the other person with me was vegan.

So you got an email before sort of saying you know do you want the vegan menu or the non-vegan menu that was the two choices so I I'm planning on being vegan eventually I think we all have to be won't we basically but so I'm sort of groping towards being vegan but doing it really badly anyway so at this point I was I took non-vegan and I don't know why I had to take a breath then it was a really emotional story and then the food came and I ate this salad and the woman took it away and she said how was your salad and I said oh yeah fine thank you then she looked looked down at the plate and she said oh you've still got some worms left

and i thought i was uh hallucinating i thought i'd left my body you know what i mean i thought oh this is

this is like trippy now like what's just happened there and um i looked down and i saw like three or four worms in in the plate not like garden worms like

kind of shrub territory little little worms yeah they were little but they were they were moving they were dead yeah and i looked at them and i just um it just took me a long time to take take it in, you know, to process what was happening.

And I just said, oh, no, I'm done.

Thank you.

And handed her the plate.

And I just remember being really pale and shocked.

And then the person I was with was a bit sort of, well, that's what happens when you tick, you know, non-vegan.

In a way, like morally, you're saying, I'm up for anything.

If you're.

It's not what happens if you tick non-vegan.

You get worm salad.

But I took their point that they were sort of saying, well, you know, be a vegan.

That's the solution.

If you don't want secret worms, you know, to them, it's just protein, it's meat.

So, um, but I felt, I felt a bit violated that I hadn't been told and just a bit sick.

So, is it like a tasting menu thing where they were just bringing you out?

Is that a tasting menu?

I don't even know the tasting.

At least explain it up,

dish down in front of you and go, and this is a worm salad?

No, definitely.

There was no prior warning.

Yeah, there was no chat about it.

You've still got some worms left.

Yeah.

And then she saw my reaction.

She came back and she said, I won't do her accent, but she said this.

she said, is the problem that you didn't like it or do you object?

Like she was trying to understand what my reaction was.

She was really concerned by my and confused by my reaction.

And I sort of said, no, it's fine.

It's just

the shock.

The shock of eating worms.

I was a bit hungover.

I was a bit tearful.

I just wanted to have a nice birthday and not be fed worms.

That's all I wanted.

You were tearful?

Because I was hungover.

You were crying as well.

That'll be why she came back to check.

I thought the tears would bring the worms back to life and it would all be amazing.

I do want to know the name of that place though, because I'd like to try worm salad.

I'll tell you after.

Also, at the end, they served for pudding.

It was tobacco-flavoured chocolate, which went really well with a cigarette, I have to say.

So that was lovely.

The joy about that is when you're in a hotel or a BB, they say, Do you want white or brown bread?

I'm always back with mixed.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

You can have a mixed rack.

You can have the Aquadrome white, yeah, and then the BB wholemeal.

Actually, go with the

the seeded sourdough, which is slightly wholemealy.

Okay.

Yeah.

So not to pick you up on that at all in any way.

It's fine.

It's your dream B ⁇ B.

Thank you.

It's just a new podcast.

What is it?

It's the rack.

It's toast.

But it's sourdough toast.

But it's not the Vickmansworth Aquadrome Cafe toast that you have.

Yeah.

Is that the secret ingredient?

No.

No.

Although that would be very damn bad if we knew that.

Yeah.

Hand you an envelope and it says from Eggman's World Angler Cafe Toast.

Just checking under my chair for an envelope.

And is the owner of the BNB talking to you throughout all of this?

No, they've left me.

I've put my earpods in.

AirPods in.

So they might still be.

Okay, but I'm listening to case files because I'm in town to solve a case.

What's the case?

Someone's disappeared.

One of you has disappeared and I'm there to solve it.

No.

Who?

James has.

James has disappeared.

James has disappeared.

In the town.

Yeah.

So what town is it?

It's up in North Oregon.

I was never there anyway.

No, you were.

No.

You were.

You were.

James, you need to work on your improv, man.

Yeah.

Just on stage.

I'm not there.

No, you are.

I don't know.

I've never been there.

That's why I'm missing.

Never been there.

That's where you've been tracked to anyway.

Yeah.

So I'm there to solve the case and Ed can't do it because he's doing Great British menu or something.

And it's like, I can't.

So I'm not there at all.

Yeah, you're in the gravy train.

Yeah, okay.

So your dream meal is spending the day in a town where I've gone missing.

I love that.

Yeah, you've got to solve it.

Yeah.

So

this isn't going to be a meal as such so much as a day of eating while you try and solve a missing person's case.

Yeah, but it will fit your format perfectly.

Kind of.

Unless what you've ordered out.

I like the solving the case thing.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

You're the one who's one missing.

Or will you be the one who's been missing?

Do you know

the only evidence we have at the moment is DNA evidence of where you've been?

What sort of DNA?

Come.

I knew it before you did it.

Yeah, why did the guy ask?

Where did you find it?

You don't want to know where it is, but some of it's on the ceiling.

Some of it's on the ceiling.

Yeah, and that's magnetic where it ends up.

Yeah.

Like a rocket.

Have you guys been to Japan?

Yes.

I'm the first one.

I've just got back.

James is going next time.

Oh, amazing.

Fantastic.

Well, I'm sure you're going to love it.

You must have loved it, I'm sure.

Incredible.

Yeah.

So I've been a few times and back in the day in the 80s and stuff.

And I remember the second time we went, first time was just promo and stuff.

Second time we went for gigs.

And the promoter took us to this amazing restaurant in a town I think called Nagoya.

So, you know, still a massive city, but one of the smaller cities, as it were.

We went to this restaurant.

And I basically think he was just taking the piss because

we were given these bowls like a soup, like a clear soup, but something was still alive.

swimming around in it.

Wow.

But didn't have the whole of its body to do so.

Yeah.

Like tentacles have been cut away and things

and that was like a bit of a shock so i didn't and again i was 22 23 do you know what i mean i wasn't i'd traveled a bit by then and i'd eaten in a lot of places and stuff but it was still nothing supposed to be

but that's that's

that's nothing compared to what happened next so they brought out these huge fish that were skewered so they were in like a curve an arc you know tail up and head up

And the meat of the fish had been cut away from its body while it was alive and placed back on the fish so you were meant to eat it while it looks at you.

Oh my god.

I mean, look, I am not squeamish, but I think that would put me off.

I couldn't do that.

I mean, like your theory about if the olive oil is good, you know the rest of the meal is going to be nice.

When they brought you the little thing swimming around in the bowl,

let alone when you have to make eye contact with the thing you're eating.

Get out of bloody Marquis Dessard's restaurant.

Now, I don't know whether that might even be a thing anymore and whether the legal allowed to do it.

You know, I'm going to be 35 years, you know, so it's a while ago or more even, you know.

But I remember just thinking this is ridiculous yes yeah and i was kind of looking at all the other japanese people thinking are you going to eat this or is this crazy prank on the yeah and i've seen prawns cooked on the on like a tepanyaki a hot you know yeah where they're still alive yeah they just put them on the thing in front of you you know and i know lobsters go in the thing when you're not looking and they just put them in the you know oh i don't like all that listen don't get me wrong i love eating food i'm not vegetarian i think about it sometimes and i do think there's an issue like i said with us,

the way we are living at the moment can't really be sustained and all the rest of it.

But yeah, it's a-there's a step too far, isn't there?

A little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think we definitely have to at least stop making eye contact with the fish while we're eating it alive.

Yeah.

Let's at least take that step.

Having said that,

this is just reminding me of something else.

And please,

this is not about, right, here we go.

So

one of my passions in life has been skiing over the years.

And so I was on holiday skiing with some friends and it was a bit of an occasion and we needed to celebrate something so we went to this restaurant which again I don't think is open anymore not because of what I'm about to describe I just think it's not open anymore and it was called my father's farm on termed one pear whatever and massive reputation you know Michelin stars all the rest of it so we went it's like a 15 course blah di da whatever but you you the building is a farm and animals i'm not saying those animals necessarily but in other words pigs ducks

you know geese cows are on the other side of glass beneath you and on the side of you

as you walk into the restaurant so it's basically like saying but there's but I don't think on the one hand there's nothing wrong with actually explaining especially to kids because if kids just think that a slab of meat in a is just something yeah you know they don't connect it to being an animal that's a whole other issue again so that was pretty that was a bit you know i mean they weren't dragging animals out and butchering them and you you know, but it was still very

much, you've just ordered this and that's one of those over there behind that glass.

It was a bit weird.

Yeah, it's quite confronting, isn't it?

It's good.

I mean, yeah, I'm all for it, but I think I wouldn't be able to hack it at the same time.

And maybe I should reflect on that.

Yeah, well, I'm not, I don't cook a lot.

My wife's an amazing cook, an incredible cook.

And it's one of the main ways that she relaxes.

And I don't really love it.

Does it stress you out?

Yeah, if it's for anybody else, yes.

You know, I'm not averse to making an omelette or making something for myself, cobbling something together.

But the reason I was mentioning this is that if someone said, right, there's a joint, there's an actual big piece of an animal, make it.

Or even a chicken.

Getting a chicken out of its packaging from the supermarket and putting it in the oven is a bit like, wow.

Do you know what I mean?

Whereas when it's cooked and it's on your plate, it's just very different.

It is, yeah.

And don't get those mixed up, Rick.

Otherwise, you're gonna have another one of those incidents you're gonna be cancelling more gigs yeah

i'm gonna start with a seamauer and then i'm gonna finish with a laros

wines no i'll tell you what these are so this is another one for my youth when me and my brother johnny were younger and we used to get invited to parents like someone was getting married in the family or burmitzva and i was like 11 and he was eight We've invented this game, which we do to this day, which is the best game.

Yeah.

And I think maybe my brother's there for this bit, just for when I drink.

He appears and then he's eviscerated, but comes back.

Yeah.

So what we would do, we would go, we would, we would be quite, we're quite, you know, we're 12.

We didn't know anyone often.

It's boring.

And we didn't want to talk to girls.

It's embarrassing.

There's the family.

So we would just go and sit by the bar and just drink Coca-Cola.

And we would, this is our plan.

So we would...

Sitting by the bar.

That's what we would do, just by the bar, near the bar.

Is that a thing kids do normally, sitting up at the bar?

Not at the bar.

Like, it wouldn't be at the bar.

Imagine you sat having a Coca-Cola like this is a long night cigar yeah but this is we'd hang around we'd hang around the bar hiding basically and have a coke and then it would be right it's time it's time so they go oh two more coats please no one coke and one seam out

they go seam out yeah one coke one seam out what's seam out coca-cola and lemonade what mixed together that's a seam hour yeah oh okay so this is pre-internet so you couldn't check yeah yeah okay

oh okay and then you see him wander off pouring out and then another bartender would see him mixing lemonade and coats you'd see him mouthing sea mouth sea male oh it could be a drink so we'd have a coke and a sea mouth and then it would be later on we'd have two sea mowers please and once they got used to that the bit when they go two seamowers we go one sea mal one la rose

So you have to wait for them to.

What's a La Ross?

Ginger ale and a lemonade.

And I've heard of that before.

Maybe one Seymour and that would be our thing.

So a seamal.

And we did that our whole life.

And if we ever go out, it'll be like, what do you want one seam hour please so that i would i would be want to be drinking them they taste nice as well yes and um my brother can be there and we can do that and they there's no internet reception so they can't check yeah yeah they're not allowed me i don't know if they would even check now would they they wouldn't check now surely they'd be like whatever if they were to call it two seam hours if they were to call it a seam hour

but they would say two seam hours boys two seam hours no no one seem hour and ros that would be

two and you end on two la roses yeah

it's just when they think they've got the the hang of it, right?

Yeah, and then my dad would tell me, you're ordering your stupid drinks.

Don't say anything about that.

So I like those drinks.

I mean, they're good drinks as well.

There's nothing more exciting as a kid than realizing you can mix different soft drinks.

Do you ever mix drinks?

Nice mixy.

Oh, the freestyle machine.

The freestyle machine and the soda fountain at

some fast food places now in London have a freestyle machine.

Excellent.

Where you can

pick loads of other stuff.

I mean, there's stuff that you don't even know, you can't buy commercially by itself, like, you know, peach lilt and stuff like that.

Yeah,

but.

Every flavour of Fanta you can imagine.

Every sort of different food.

Raspberry Fanta, all that sort of stuff.

Can you mix some of those together?

Although...

I don't want to mix them.

If I've not had, I just want to try Raspberry Fanta.

That sounds good.

Yeah.

I mean, when you were a kid, that's called a Lombard.

Like a Lombard.

A Lombard.

A Raspberry Fanta.

Raspberry Fanta would be a Lombard.

Would your brother sign off on this?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We do this all the time.

Yeah.

Still do it now?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We haven't done it for a while, but we're going to do it again soon.

We talked about it recently.

I was telling him, we've got to do this again.

So, yeah, yeah, we've got to do that.

We've got to do that.

Two seam hours on Leroy.

I mean, we always talk about it in the restaurant.

What do you want to drink?

He was going to see Mahours.

He always does that to me.

I mean, we should start this as a thing.

Yeah.

People ordering seam hours on La Royal.

I think it almost certainly will happen.

And see if people please go out there and try it.

You've got to start, you don't go straight into seam hours.

No.

You've got to lull them into getting

a lot of stuff.

of

a nice thing.

Have the Coca-Cola.

Coca-Colas.

Yeah.

Coca-Colas as opposed to Coke.

Two Coca-Colas, please.

Yeah.

And then eventually Chuka C Mauras.

That's my drink.

And then the high point is when they say two C Ma Has.

Two C Mauas.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No.

And then it ends on two La Ross's, please.

Good night.

Now, you know, a guest went.

wild when they have their own section.

One guest was not only...

Oh, see, this is what happens when I actually go off of Benito's script

Absolutely tripped myself up there.

Yeah, I should have stuck to the script Benito.

I'm so sorry.

You're a good writer.

One guest not only put an end to the Jollof wars, but they really put us in our place.

It's the beer Abdul Rashid.

Your dream side dish.

Cheeru.

Has anyone here mentioned Muimoy to you before?

No.

No.

Really?

No, I don't think so.

You've had Nigerians on you.

They haven't mentioned Muimoy?

But I don't think they have.

A bunch of plastic Nigerians.

What the hell, man?

They came here and then they would somehow talk about Jolof.

I'm not even gonna talk about Jolo.

We often get bogged down in the uh in the Jollof war, the Ghanaian versus Nigerian Jollof rice.

Silly, this that's the kind of Nigerians that argue, and the kind of Ghanaians argue about that stuff would need Google Maps to find their way around if they went back home, is what I'm saying.

That is the most basic aspect of our cuisine, the most basic, like it's it's bloody rice, bro.

It's right, I mean yeah and the thing is neither of us invented it senegal did but like

you know how stupid we must look to senegalese people i'm a version of this senegalese dishes but shut up man

honestly i love jalof rice right but it's like african food one-on-one like if i had the friend that i'm not sure of that he's invited to the cookout but i'm still not quite sure I would give him Jaloff.

Like, that's the most basic African dish right next to white rice and stew, right?

It's just basic.

And then when I think your levels, then I might introduce some like pounded yam and a goosey soup or, you know, something like that.

But jaloff,

that's like arguing about who makes fish and chips better.

The most black is the most basic dish.

I mean, it's good.

It's better than all other rice dishes.

You know, even Garnier and Jolof rice is better than 90% of rice dishes.

Ghani and Jolof rice is brilliant.

It tastes almost like the real thing.

But now, in all seriousness, it's down to who cooks it, yeah, yeah.

You know, and plus, Nigeria, we've got 300 tribes, everybody makes it different.

Yeah, I will say ours is the best because we are the closest to the originators, the Senegalese culturally, we're very similar to them, but then there's people from my tribe in Ghana, too.

So, right, so yeah, I don't have, I don't really, I make fun of Ghana because it's a national requirement, but honestly, I have no

foodie?

The bill would just say that you like you could see me.

What do you think?

Let's just be real here.

You know that if I did something wrong right now and you didn't know me, there's only two ways you would describe me.

So

you asking me whether I'm a foodie.

What's a foodie?

A person that likes food.

Do you think this happened by accident?

Do you think that's what this is?

Did you really

like you know, I just had an extra donut a couple hundred thousand times.

By the way, way i don't i don't actually eat donuts no because of toxic masculinity oh yeah yeah

why why why is that so

i'm from northern nigeria and um

allah jazz i'm in aliwah sorry that's for my people yeah you're safe now when the revolution comes we're giving a head start

at a stick um also i'm from northern nigeria and we we are like most of the army for the majority of nigeria's inceptions come from my part of nigeria most people don't know much about us.

In fact, sadly, currently we're only known for two things, which is Boko Haram and me.

You know, as you can imagine, Boko Haram is a very tough axe to follow.

Yeah, yeah.

Very, very tough act.

You know, they always bomb

cheap.

So our culture, probably, we're farmers and soldiers and that sort of stuff.

So everything around our culture, like as a growing up as a young boy, like you give, you get given food, eat it, it will make you strong yeah what

it will make you strong why are you opening your eyes why you say that because i'm strong

i don't want you know and if you eat anything sweet you were told as a boy that sweet things were for girls

and like people will say it with so much conviction like it was scientifically proven what why are you gonna why you why do you want that sweet what are you a girl i'm not a girl yeah then why do you want something sweet because everyone knows the sweets are for girls right yeah you give it to them on their birthday when they're angry with you That's how it works.

And I thought, yeah, that makes perfect sense.

So growing up, like, we just didn't have a lot of sweet stuff.

Right.

So now, even now, because like my wife is South Asian and they have like a big culture of desserts, I kind of hear my uncle in my head, what are you doing?

What is it?

It's a trap.

It's for her.

So, yeah, I'm working through that.

But unfortunately, I struggle with sweet stuff.

I do like sweet stuff, but I feel bad,

even though I shouldn't.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's interesting.

Yeah.

It's been drilled into you.

I mean,

it's a tense episode for me then.

I'm a big dessert boy.

Yeah.

I love it when people, you know, make a good.

No such thing as a big dessert boy in northern Nigeria.

Yeah.

There you go.

It's not.

I get turned away.

That's a big dessert boy.

I'm trying to think how I would even translate that in my language.

Actually, yeah, probably I won't say it, but yeah.

Probably not words for that.

Incidentally, the video of Nabil's answer to that question is our most viewed clip ever.

I didn't know that.

No, me neither.

It wouldn't be a food podcast without delicious descriptions of dishes.

Most of these are edible.

Sophie Willand.

Oh, yeah, okay.

Cool.

But who doesn't write who says what?

And we have to sort it out in real time.

Yeah.

Sophie Willand, Joshua.

Josh Willicom, Amy Annette, Sergeant Monica Jackson, Kim Gaccani, Danny Dyer, Robert Popper, Ruckmini Iyer, Jessica Hines, Stuart Lord, Rose Matafeo and Jason Manzukas.

Either that or Yeld pasta shop.

Yeld pasty.

Yep.

Which again do the best pastas in the world.

Right.

I really feel strongly about this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's been going this business for hundreds of years.

You'd hope so if it's called Ye Old Pasty, right?

Ye old, yeah.

Well, it's in an old Tudor building, it's a listed building in Bolton.

Yeah, so obviously that's been there a long time.

And then this pastry business has been going like 200 and something years.

It's called a Ye Old Pasty Shop.

The queue goes round the road.

It's run at the moment by a woman in her 80s called Mary.

She's fabulous.

And she's actually got a sculpture of Alma in the in the window of her.

She tried to give me and I was like, oh no, it's great here.

Because what do you do with the sculpture of yourself?

It's weird.

Anyway, she's brilliant, Mary.

She's been there years.

She's had all sorts.

Every time you go in, she goes, Oh, Ringo Starr's daughter has been ordering pastas.

That's true.

She gets them shipped over to Paris, I think.

She's in.

Wow.

PTK obviously comes in.

He parks outside.

He won't come out.

She comes out for him and brings him loads of pastas.

Every time I go, she makes me a pasta with my name on it.

It says Sophie on it.

It's a really big one.

But then she insists that we do a photo shoot.

So she gets out this little red carpet and the banner, and I have to hold the pasta like I would would have BAFTA.

Yeah.

Which

means the pasta is more impressive.

It's really unfortunate.

But I say you're qualified to say that it's like winning a BAFTA.

Yeah, exactly.

Do you have to queue now?

I always queue anyway, but even though there's a sculpture of you in the front window.

No, but then she rushes you around.

If you don't queue, you end up stuck chatting to her for like 50 minutes.

She's like, Sophie, come around the back, come round the back.

And then I sit there with a cup of tea and we go through every ailment.

Yeah.

Yours, by the sound of it.

Yeah.

What food underneath each one?

But she's quite wild.

We went to this charity gig together.

She was the first one up to suggest a conga.

You know, last one on the dance floor.

But anyway, the pastry is a bit brilliant.

Yeah.

I'll just tell you about the cheese one.

Yes.

Very thin pastry.

You've never known anything like it.

Soft and thin.

Yeah.

And then the middle is pureed, is it?

When you

potato, onion and cheese.

And then it's just, it's a delicacy.

There's no pasties like it.

I really want a pasty now.

I've not eaten.

Yeah,

I'm not eating today.

That's what I'm realising.

Every food that you describe, I'm like, I'm going to have that after the

record.

I'm going to have a cup of it now.

Well, I'll have to send you some down, yields.

Oh, my God.

No, we'll make the trip.

I'll walk there.

I'll walk there.

I won't pollute Peter Kay and stay in my car.

Yeah.

Hopefully not.

Yeah.

Probably not in Bolton, though.

He's probably more popular in Bolton than you are.

Peter K?

Yeah, yeah, probably.

Possibly.

He ain't been on Task Market.

so all that sounds great as well but you want the potato cake from there or from a different from the other place well do you know what i think i'd just say in general we'd go to ye old pasta shop we'd get a potato cake and a pasta look you could have a little a potato cake and a and a pasty for the starter i think yeah if you want a ye old pasta shop it's going to be very carby this isn't it we're going to be knackered actually

we're eating it as well yeah are we with you at the dream meal well yeah yeah well look we're going to be knackered very very happy to come with you But sometimes people don't want us to be there.

Some people want to be alone.

Some people want to have family members there, loved ones.

No, you've just said two things I don't want.

Alone or with fabrics, as you would say.

All right, we'll come along because I do want to try that pastity desperately.

It's always nice to take people who've not had one.

Yeah.

So on Alma, when we were filming the second series, I know that at 11 o'clock I get hungry

because

you set up at 5 a.m.

They feed you at like, what, 8 a.m.

And then often you don't get food till like 3 p.m.

And you don't want to be the difficult diva asking when lunch is, but you can feel that you just.

So I thought, what I'm going to do is I'm going to make sure I've got me 11ses.

So I have my driver Chris, who I got, I had him specific one, so he's my one.

And I gave him a

kitty for the two months we were filming.

And every day in his little bag, he had a special warming bag for me.

He would bring me two pastas, a meat and potato and and a cheese potato from your pasta shop.

But then all the crew were like, oh, that looks good.

So I was like, oh, do you want one next?

Before I knew it, I was getting 60 pastas a day, costing an absolute fortune.

We'd stop at 11 and go, cheese and cheese and potato this side, meat and potato.

It was just mad, you know, chaos.

Everyone had a pasta by the end.

We were all put on loads of weight together.

I absolutely love that you're like, well, you don't want to seem like a diva.

So I send my driver with a special warming bag.

Yeah.

I know he's mixed messages, but then if you're buying them for everyone else, then as well, you've nailed it.

You bring it back around, then, don't you?

But then, surely, just surely that's taken up so much time sorting all the pasties out that you may as well just move lunch early.

Well, no, because Chris is on it.

Chris

Chris fucking knocked it by the end of it, dragging sacks of pasties behind us as he drives.

Is he filling the car with them?

Well, he's not just, he came on as, what did they call him?

Because

he got a good fee, don't we?

Chris, he got a really good fee.

In fact, I sent a lot of emails making sure he got paid for going above and beyond.

You know, he's not just a driver, he's more like my therapist.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's lovely.

And he got a new kitchen.

So he did all right.

He did all right.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, you can't use it because it's just full of fucking pasties.

This toast in the dream restaurant.

White bread.

Granary, I think.

Yeah.

Granary.

I respect that.

And I want to cut it myself.

I've had enough of going to somewhere.

I'll name my shame, Gales, and them saying, do you want it sliced?

Because I just don't.

It's too thin.

And if I'm going to spend more than I should on bread,

I at least want to slice it.

I don't want to get sliced bread.

So, but you're annoyed at Gails for offering you the option.

Yeah.

Even though they're not doing it and then giving it to you and you're like, I didn't want to sliced it.

It doesn't need to even be an option.

I always get my bread sliced.

Why?

Because it means that I can have a couple of slices of it and I don't feel awful afterwards.

Whereas if I'm cutting it myself, I'm cutting doorstep thick slices.

Yeah, I'm not very good at doing them uniform.

Yeah.

You don't need to do them uniform.

Live a little.

You'll be able to have a wedge shape.

Just enjoy the difference of life.

Look, you two are different.

We're still like you.

We're different slices.

Yeah, you're different slices.

There's a doorstep and there's a wedge.

I'll take that.

I was the doorstep and the doorstep.

The doorstep and the wedge.

The wedge gambles.

So you want to slice it.

How thick are you slicing it then?

I thought we were about to move on from this, but actually, there's a lot more to take.

Yeah, we actually haven't gotten the nitty-gritty light.

How many centimetres are we talking?

Oh, well, what?

It's got to fit in the toaster.

It's got to fit in the toaster.

What?

You don't know what a centimetre is?

Right, sorry, that buried the lead there.

Yeah, yeah.

George Money couldn't even know what a centimetre is.

All right.

What's a sliced piece of toast?

One centimetre?

No.

It'd be less than a centimetre, a slice of toast.

Yeah, maybe slightly less.

Okay, then probably 1.3 centimetres.

Okay.

So you're not going big, like it's got to fit in the toast there.

But I do, with sandwiches, I have a big thing about ratios.

Uh-huh.

I think the filling has come to dominate sandwiches in a way that I think is unhealthy.

So you're hanging, you don't like the filling.

No.

I like

it.

It's more like you'd imagine me, isn't it?

This is absolutely perfect.

Yeah.

In my head, I'm just seeing us climbing the chairs.

We got him.

We absolutely got him.

Just let him talk.

Yeah.

You don't like the filling of the sandwich.

I don't like the filling of the sandwich.

The bread's the best bit.

I hate it when there's too much filling,

when there's a thick, gelatinous cheese.

Delicious.

It's awful.

Like, it just sticks into your mouth.

And the bread, it's all about the bread for me.

Yeah.

Look, bread is, of course, important in a sandwich.

Yeah, I'm glad you've...

Yeah.

Of course.

I'm willing to admit that, but I love just big of you.

So, would you so your dream sandwich is just like butter and marmite or whatever?

My dream sandwich would probably be that's that's a different podcast, that's a different podcast,

off sandwich, yeah, that's off sandwich

part of our franchise.

I'd love you to start franchising it.

My dream sandwich is uh butter and tombing squares.

I'm glad I asked that question.

Had it to go, I didn't even have to think about it.

Knew what it was.

Sort of vigilant squares with a sandwich.

Are you doing it with Salt and Vinger Squares?

Because you can fit them perfectly into the sandwich.

Sandwich,

but that is a bonus.

I imagine also they're not overlapping these sort of squares.

No, actually, I don't mind a little bit of overlap.

Like when I do my,

I take that over the fear that there'll be a bit where they're not overlapping.

Like when you do cheese on cheese on toast.

Yeah, you don't want a gap.

You don't want a gap.

I'd rather a bit of overlap than a gap.

Yeah, yeah.

You'd rather an overlap on cheese on toast where one bit hasn't necessarily melted as much as the others.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because there's an overlap.

Don't get me started on people who grate cheese on toast.

I think we're good.

If we get you started on every single issue,

we are going to be here for eight hours.

I think a real theme of this is going to be me realizing I'm not well.

That happens to some people.

Yeah.

I was looking through my photos on my phone to remind myself myself of meals I've enjoyed.

Oh no, I'm not well.

I eat so much mortadella.

So much smoked ham of various kinds.

Okay, so what I want to investigate is every time you eat mortadella or smoked ham, are you taking a photo?

It seems like it.

It's not necessarily what you eat all the time.

That's what's terrifying.

Those are the photos I took.

We must assume those times I just enjoyed a mortadella, no pics.

Sure.

And even if you are, why are you taking a photo of mortadella?

Because I wouldn't say...

Who am I I sending that to?

Yeah.

I wouldn't say it's the most picturesque.

It's ugly looking thing.

Disgusting.

Yeah.

Delicious.

Mortadella is great.

Oh, it's so nice.

I had some the other day, actually, from Dalesford.

Oh, wow.

It had pistachios in it.

Oh, I actually don't need a pistachio, but I'm happy if it's there.

It was more a textural thing than a flavor thing.

And I ordered some, like, it was on Deliveroo, I think.

Dalesford on Deliveroo.

Yeah, it was on like a grocery app.

And I got it.

And my wife, Charlie, was away.

and i was on tour so i was getting back quite late and i'd just be getting back from gigs and um having a little uh a little uh antipasty oh that is chic going straight to bed mortadella bedtime bye-bye mortadella in bed

i think i draw the line there i have a very um greasy high self-awareness for bleak moments sure and mortadella in bed might be crossing the line for me it sounds lovely yeah but you'd have to get up you'd have to have wipes nearby you'd have to have wipes nearby there'd definitely be a bit where if i'm lying on my back eating mortadella where I dropped some on my chest and that would feel weird.

Yeah, yeah.

Also, sometimes there's stringy bits like around the edge.

If that goes in your tooth and you woke up the next morning, that's sad.

And I wake up in the next morning and there's a bit of mortadella next to me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like you killed an eight Charlie.

I'm so sorry.

Just because she's quite pink.

Yeah, she's quite pink.

She's colour pustachios.

Yeah, for the pink.

She's a pink lady with green flecks.

Yeah.

She does like lime green clothes.

Oh, but mortadella pre-bed.

That's nice.

So you have done mortadella pre-bed.

Oh, yeah.

In the the house?

In the house?

In the bed?

Not in the bed, but only because my longtime lover, Nish, is weirdly a clean freak, despite every

aspect of his personality that you are all aware of.

You know, because he's just like a sort of a jovial,

big energy, hairy, handsome man.

You've made him sound like Santa.

That's the only thing in my head, I'm thinking of the Muppet playing the drums.

Animal.

Animal.

Okay, yeah.

I would.

man

it it's so he would be very furious with food in bed yeah okay yeah if i had my own bed which i'm pushing for absolutely one day absolutely i can have food in that bed crumb bed love bed

two separate rooms two separate rooms crumb bed and love bed yeah and nish is never going in the crumb bed he wouldn't want to so he's setting up residence in the love bed yeah you're flitting between crumb and love he can't be in the love bed on his own that's sad that's sad he's got to have another bed you have a good bed well what's his what does he need a bed alone for uh what does what you you would know more than

you two would know more than me well when we lived in a flat together like just like maybe worrying

for worrying

little worry bed yeah a little worry bed love bed is the one on its own yeah don't you dare bring the worrying or crumbs into the love bed yeah yeah yeah and also i don't want worrying in my crumb bed either especially worrying about that that's actually a place of pure bliss.

That's the best bed.

That's the best bed.

My crumb bed.

And in my mind, it's a divan, divan, you know, like a sort of sofa bed situation, a day bed.

Yeah.

You know, so it's, it's kind of a reclining energy.

Is this where you want to have your dream male in the love bed or the crumb bed?

Do you remember in Sex in the City or any New York representation of the 90s?

And they would always take them to a club called Bed.

And there'd be like a big room with lots of beds in it.

And if I've made this up, wow, that Mortadella has gone to my head now.

And it would be like the cool nightclub thing to do, sit in a bed, a white bed.

And I always thought, I actually don't know if I like reclining when food is around when there are other people there.

So am I alone in the dream restaurant or is there a blue genie looking at me?

Whatever you want to do.

I don't have to be there.

I can magic it into the restaurant for you.

Magic in and out.

Yeah, you need never deal with another person in the restaurant.

Then who am I going to talk to about how nice the food is?

Yeah, that's true.

Who am I going to make the noises to?

You've got to make the noises at someone.

I mean, I've had some fantastic meals alone, but you are missing something if you're not making the noises at people.

And then you find yourself, for example, taking photos of everything and sending it to people.

Yeah, and I'm with Nish when he's sending those photos to you, so that is bleak.

So, I know I don't want to be in a bed, but I wouldn't mind a bed being nearby for after.

Straight after.

Straight after.

Yeah.

My favorite dips are Franks.

I like Frank's because it's very vaniery and it makes you sweat from here.

I always think that's a good thing.

Franks.

Frank's buffalo sauce.

Yeah, I wouldn't buffalo sauce.

I wouldn't even describe that as a dip.

So this is the level you're operating on now.

What do you know how to describe it as a dip?

A hot sauce.

It's a sauce?

A sauce.

A hot sauce.

A ju, whatever you

No, a dip.

I'm thinking you could get a pot of it and then she's dipping it in.

I'm sorry, yeah, she's done you that.

No, a sauce you're putting on top of it.

You're absolutely done.

You're not even listening to me.

You know the difference between a dip and a sauce.

I think anything you could eat with your tongue classified as a duck.

Right, okay.

The tongue is the ultimate spoon.

The tongue's the ultimate spoon.

Okay, now I fully believe that that is a dip.

Listen, Cincha has chosen categorically

a hot sauce.

So you are correct, but she'd done you with the the shoe thing.

Absolutely done you.

Okay, so we're going for buffalo sauce.

Buffalo sauce.

I like that green dip that you get from an Andean, you know, the wee here be one.

Yeah.

It's sort of like an Andean pesto.

Yeah.

It doesn't taste anything like pesto.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love that.

Quite fresh, quite sort of zingy.

Quite fresh.

And green chili in there as well.

Butter green chili, a lot of spice.

A lot of the lime pickle also from the Andean.

Yes.

I wouldn't know about women for salsa or

Sawyer Cream or anything like that.

Sawyer Cream, I think, to me is fucking gross.

Every time I meet a new person from Ireland who I've not met before, I learn a new phrase that I didn't know existed.

And I didn't know I wouldn't be a big woman for...

I've never heard that before.

And every time I'm like, I love that phrase.

I would like to steal it.

Yeah.

I feel like you could bring that into your lexicon.

There were certain things I could get away with saying on stage.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think because you've got a bun of a ginger jean and boy cheek, you could say in an Irish phase and it would be believable.

I've been like, oh, man, I must be Irish.

Yeah, yeah.

That's good.

I can get away with that.

That's good to know.

I get to decide how Ed eats your food.

Yes, there you go.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

So how am I eating the biryani?

Well, you've got the biryani.

Oh, yeah.

How many

price?

I guess I'd like you eat it one grain at a time.

Oh, no.

You've got a banana leaf to play with.

Oh yeah.

You can use that.

You have to lick the banana leaf clean.

Lick the banana leaf at the end.

Yeah, but you have to eat one grain of rice at a time and then just lick everything else off the banana leaf.

That genuinely sounds like torture to me.

That's awful.

That's given the idea of eating, having an amazing, like, flavorsome meal and I'm hungry and I've got to eat one grain of rice at a time.

Yeah.

That's like when you were a kid and they were saying chew everything 32 times.

Did you guys have that?

Yeah.

There's always this thing like chew your food 32 times.

I'm in the opposite position.

My elder son, who hates eating for some reason, it's really upsetting.

He's his five-year-old.

And, you know, I just finished battles at breakfast with him.

And you give him a bite.

And he's got this really good way of hiding food in his cheek.

Like a hamster.

Like a hamster.

And, you know, it just fills up.

And like, there are days I've caught him with a slice of pizza there about an hour and a half later.

Like, he's gone off to play something.

He's gone to a class and he's come back.

And he's like, he's been eating.

And the teacher's like, oh, was he chewing gum?

I said, no, it's like, what's in his mouth?

And he's like, oh, I've got pizza.

It's now become too dry.

Can I spit it out?

I was like, you should just ask me earlier.

But it's a bit like him.

Like, I tell him, eat fast, because we always grew up saying

32 bites.

And that was really frustrating.

Yeah, you've got to chew everything so many times.

I was told that as well.

There was no chance I was listening to that.

Four or five times at most.

Yeah, yeah.

Just enough to make sure it sort of doesn't kill you on the way.

Yeah, just to get it down.

Yeah.

Also, I can't be counting and eating.

Like, that's

fallen asleep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Forget it, man.

Just changes forever.

After one, after like five, six bites, it tastes nothing.

That's it.

Yeah.

yeah, no, no, thank you.

No, you can have as many bites as you like in the dream restaurant.

Yeah, okay, we've got one of them.

Ed has to

slamming a pancake into my face with all the filling on my hand.

Yeah, pancake first.

I think that's pancake last, huh?

Pancake last.

Pancake goes on last and goes in your mouth first.

Right, okay.

It's very important.

Yes, thank you.

Actually, maybe the banana leaf.

Do you want me to wear it like balloon?

Yeah, I was going to say.

Do you want me to wear it like balloo?

Yes.

yes can i leave the restaurant in the discussion

are you much of a foodie danny do you

i eat a lot of shit yeah so i i don't know much about food but i realize how you know like i i do eat a lot of shit and i always have don't know why i don't know why that is i just you know that quick fix of just flavor yeah you know that's the game i'm in really i can uh i can quite easily uh just just fly through a pack of uh you you know them sort of uh the processed cheese

but the Dairy Lee ones, you know, so you know, it's better than a triangle because it's hard getting it out of the triangle.

Yeah.

But, you know, I can sit there on my own, just opening them, just smashing them down.

No bread, no crackers.

Like the slices.

Like the slices, yeah, yeah.

The dairy leaf slices.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, I mean, the thing is, if you're sort of on your, on your set,

you're just smothered with all the little wrappers around you, which is no good.

And interestingly,

it was hot last night, and I had a fan on.

So every time I sort of took the cheese out of its thing, the wrappers were flying all over the gaffe and

it was a

like crystal waves yeah

so so yeah I do eat a lot of processed stuff hence why I've got a pair of tits

I think that's it isn't it's the style actor

yeah again yeah but I think that's the reason for tits in men I think it's processed food you know processed cheese straight petilly but you think if it's dairy lee yeah you know he's not had half a chance I mean it's better than the other sort of just the Morrison's one you know what I mean just the sort of really yellowy one you know what I mean at least it's dairyly so so so in answer to your question no, I'm not a foodie.

I wish I was.

I think as you get older in life, maybe you learn more about grub.

And it's all about the gut health, isn't it?

Now, I know about that probiotic,

but

I just can't be fucked at the moment, you know.

I think that's bad.

It's a science, isn't it?

It's a science.

It sort of takes the joy out of food, though, if you're thinking about the science.

I think eventually I would like to maybe learn about the gut health more.

I don't know when.

Maybe like in between cheese slices, you can Google it and look up.

You couldn't.

You couldn't have a cheese slicer, see, you know, because it all starts with a gut.

So I can't imagine what my gut's down for.

And I do apologise.

If I had a starter, okay, if I had a starter.

You don't have to have one.

No, no, no.

I've been thinking it through.

I would have soup.

I like soup.

I like chicken soup.

I like vegetable soup.

But it's weird.

I can't really have soup in a restaurant.

I feel it's kind of, it makes you look quite vulnerable.

You know, just like it ages you 30 years, first of all.

Just a hot soup and everyone's looking at you with your soup.

So that's more like something you have at home with your partner, and it's cold, and you go with nice soup, and it was lovely soup.

Yeah, just let your guard down, yeah, and you just having lovely, you just talk about the soups, lovely soup, that was lovely.

I'd have that, yeah.

But in a restaurant, I don't want to have soup.

What about it makes you feel vulnerable, do you think?

And why do you think everyone's looking at you while you have your soup?

I just always feel when I have a soup in a restaurant that I just look, you know,

I just look older.

I look, you know, what am I now?

26?

I just feel like it just makes you look like an old person having a soup in a restaurant.

Yeah.

It's not a good look.

I think people pity the soup drinker.

That's what I think.

Yeah, yeah.

That's what I'd say.

I think it's pity.

Do you have the natural drink?

Well, I could choose if no one's there then, couldn't I?

You could have no one there.

Or you could eat, you know, like the autolines thing, that French dish where they eat it under a blanket because they're so ashamed by how disgusting it looks.

What is that?

It's a tiny little bird.

Yeah, they don't want God to see them eating this tiny little bird, yeah.

What's wrong with the bird?

Well, it's just so small and beautiful that it's like considered considered a shameful thing to eat because it's delicious, but it's like a whole little bird.

And they're eating it whole.

They're eating it whole, so they put a blanket over the head so God can't see them eat it.

And it's cooked.

It's a cooked bird.

Yeah, I think I've never seen it.

But they eat it whole.

They eat.

I think the beak and everything, yeah.

And this is a thing now?

This happens now.

I think it's more of a thing in the past.

It was on succession, right?

As well.

Yeah, they did it on succession.

Oh, not that one.

It's a succession where Tom Wombscans does it.

But you could do that with soup.

Yeah, no, I think people would look at me even more.

I know they would be looking at me.

Yeah.

Do you cut a napkin into your collar?

I can't do that.

Yeah, that's too.

Do you put a napkin?

It's demeaning.

It is demeaning, but yeah, I do do it.

But I know what I'd have.

Okay.

Before dinner at home, around six, I can always get a bit peckish, hungry, you know, that word.

And I will have a bowl of cereal.

This is my drink.

This is what I want.

Yeah,

you allowed it.

Okay.

I'm going to have it.

I'm going to have a bowl of cereal.

I'm going to have a bowl, right?

With 50% corn flakes, they go in first.

50% rice krispies.

No, it's fucking mad, but I'm going to have this.

Is what you do?

Yeah.

Honey.

Yeah.

I don't want it served with the thing that shaped the wooden thing with the thing that looks like, you know, like bees on the end and they it drips everywhere.

Squeezy honey on it.

Cold oat milk.

Yeah.

And I want that.

Now, in terms of soup.

I really enjoy that.

Soup age as you say he is.

Yeah.

Does cereal have the opposite effect?

That's a good point.

Yeah, for every young.

It would knock a month off.

Yeah.

But no one's going to be looking.

Yeah.

But I could choose who's there, if not.

Could I have a button?

Like, you know, when you see sometimes it says call for champagne.

Can I have a button on it?

And it changes the people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So who do you want with the people?

Well, I know who I want.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I saw these people in a restaurant and I had a meal about five years ago with Tom Rosenthal and Simon Burr on Friday night dinner.

We had a disgusting meal somewhere.

All the food was awful.

It was brilliant.

And sitting at a table about four away from us was Alastair Campbell, you know, the labour with Mick Hucknell.

Wow.

Yeah.

They were together.

They were together having dinner.

So I want them, but like every table has them, like 20 tables

all there eating, having different conversations.

I can't quite hear them.

I don't know if they're talking about politics or music.

And it's quite annoying, but interesting.

And I'll have them there and they can watch me eat.

So 20 tables of Mick Hucknell and Alistair Campbell.

Yeah, I want that.

While I'm having my cereal, just so I can tell people afterwards, I had the freakiest meal.

I had cereal and 20 replica Mick Hucknells and Alistair Campbells were watching me eat are they moving in are they all no they're not moving in they're all having their own yeah they don't even know they don't see themselves and go that's me yeah they're just in like their own little void having different conversations yeah I can never quite hear them yeah wonder what they were doing together I don't know maybe Mick Hucknell was the original instead he was supposed to do the rest as politics instead of Rory Stewart

the original meeting yeah could have been yeah it could have been that couldn't it could have been that yeah would it it be more successful or less successful?

I feel like it's the opposing Labour conservative that makes that show work.

And you can't have both of them being simply read.

Oh!

Beautiful.

I mean, beautiful.

That was.

I mean, come on.

If this was live,

that would be it, wouldn't it?

That would go mad.

And then someone would heckle something about 15 seconds later that's not quite as funny.

Yeah, explaining your Chinese.

Yeah, a simply red song

that doesn't quite work.

The name.

Yeah.

I can't think what that is.

Fairground.

Yeah.

Yeah, that definitely doesn't work.

Fairground.

That joke was.

Fairground.

The bowl of cereal, you say 50-50.

Because it's a dream.

We can make anything happen.

Do you want the divide to happen horizontally or vertically?

Do you want it?

No, I'm going to go horizontal.

Yeah.

I would want a vertical.

But how do you do that?

Well, it's a dream.

We'll just have two miles.

We can make this happen for you that you've got like half and half from the top.

Well, saying that, when me and Peter, Sarah Finnewich, used to write Look Around You, our treat at the end of the day was we'd buy a Mars bar, right?

And we'd cut it in half vertically and call it a Vase bar.

And that was our treat.

So maybe in honor of that, I should do this, you know, have it vertical.

I love the insanity that people go through when they're on.

Come on, you know, you know what it's like.

It was our vase bar.

We'd have it one a day.

He did a thing which was something like, all the fun of a Mars in a mist.

It's like a Mars spray that you spray into your mouth.

What does it, if a Mars a day helps you work, rest and play, right?

Work, rest and pray.

Just wondering what a vase did.

Yeah, what does a vase do?

Oh god.

Berke, fest and fay.

I don't know what it is.

I could do work out on what it rhymes with.

You've got to leave this in.

This is no way coming out.

You've got to leave this.

I just don't know, James.

No.

I don't know how the answer to that.

I don't have a funny answer to that.

Yeah.

It's okay.

Joey what?

I think it's, you know, it takes a grown-up to admit that.

It's very much a good idea.

Thank you very much.

I wish I'm a good comedy writer.

Yeah, but you've admitted.

Failure.

I'm stumped.

Pop dumbs on bread.

Poploves on bread, Vaginier.

Pop loves on bread.

It's definitely bread.

I hate poppadoms.

They're grim.

Hate them?

Rare to get hatred for one of them.

I really hate them.

They're so nothing.

It's like biting into just, just, just, it doesn't taste of anything.

It was your, you wanted a flavoured breadstick.

I don't want a flavoured popadom.

I just don't want a pop-dom.

They're just no very, very shops fired.

They can go in the bin.

So what are you doing then?

Because obviously you're saying you love a breadstick at the beginning of the meal.

It's nice to

get it going with it if it's there.

If it's there.

When the poppadoms are there and there's no other food knocking around,

are you dipping into the poppadom?

I'm going to say, I'm going to avoid the curry house as well.

Are you?

Just completely.

I'm good, yes.

If the poppadom's there, it's like, God, I know I'm in here now and now I'm going to have to eat.

a restaurant curry and you probably get this with any like Indian uh heritage chef who comes on but you know restaurant curry is just like not what you eat at home.

It's always like one sauce.

It's very gloopy.

Like my entire life, one friends, oh, I should go and get a curry.

And it's like, absolutely fucking not.

Yeah.

Or if we have to, then I just, you know, sadly disappointed the entire meal.

And I don't drink beer either.

And I think that goes well with a curry.

You can see that they go together.

It's a whole ritual of it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah, Poppy Dumb is like they will herald like a poor evening's dining for me.

So that's probably why.

Whereas bread, on the other hand, is great.

And then you get to have all the butter.

And again, I kind of keep on thinking about European holidays, probably because I'm so desperate to get out of the house and maybe the country on holiday.

But you go on holiday with your mates when you're a teenager and you sit down and they bring bread.

And then everyone's like, oh, there's a really nice extra virgin olive oil.

I'm just like, no, butter,

British on butter.

Yeah, I don't want my bread to kind of taste of, you know, like kind of olive oil grassy notes, you know, I don't want my bread to taste like grass.

I just want it to taste like butter, please.

Ideally salted.

Yeah, I'm all I'm always butter over olive oil, but if there is nice olive oil, I would still think, you know.

Is it the and the really green olive oil as well?

Are you against against that?

I'm not against it.

I think I don't have a specific.

Yeah, I know.

Just

not grass.

I'm not like a cat.

I don't think I'd want to add it on.

I get putting it in a salad dressing, but my palate is not sophisticated enough.

Let's put it on the side.

I don't think that's

the reason at all.

Yeah.

I like being sort of like smacked around the face with that flavor, but not kind of just not grass.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Your dream side dish.

Dream side dish

would probably be fried halloumi just comes off the top of my head.

Yeah.

Halloo me to introduce myself.

Let it come off.

Let it come off the top of your head.

Halloo me to introduce myself.

I've heard a lot of halloumi puns.

I've never heard that one.

Yeah.

Enjoy.

Because hello me, I hear quite a lot.

It's funny how

there are certain things, the words that people hear, and you just can't help but so obviously when you hear halloumi, you can't help but hear in your head.

Someone told me the other day that they can't look at Eliam Broadway without thinking about feeling horny.

And unfortunately, because of the way podcasts work, there will be a large amount of people listening to this now who then will have the same thing.

Yeah, that will happen.

They'll just go in there.

Yeah, with both Halloween to introduce.

Halloween is something that I, I think that's why I could never not, like, I could never, like, I could never not eat fried tulumi when it's really delicious and juicy and like crispy on the outside.

And it's got a little bit of whatever dip, but obviously, essentially, it would be the sweet chili sauce.

That would be the main thing that you'd want.

I mean, I think so, right?

We've been very anti-sweet chili sauce.

I'm still anti-sweet chili sauce.

Wow.

Okay, let's go there because I need to catch up.

Because that's how they serve it.

Nando's as well with sweet chili sauce.

Okay, and you don't like that?

No, I don't touch it.

I just like halloumi.

Okay, why, ed i can just go straight just straight halloumi yeah but why sweet chili sauce you may as well have a tub of jam i think it's too sweet wow i feel like there's almost nothing chilly in it it's just pure sweetness wow i kind of feel the same halloumi to introduce myself what would you have with that What would you prefer?

I could go normal, just straight halloumi.

If I'm having Nando's, I can do like hot sauce with it maybe, but I could just eat the fried halloumi.

So here's the situation, okay?

Like, just for example, just hypothetically, there's a lovely big plate of fried alumi, the perfectly crispy, little ones that are a little bit joined, the cheeky ones that you'll go for.

It's a little bit bigger, delicious, fresh, still a bit squidgy, glistening, they're glistening.

There's a lovely big tub of sweet chili sauce in the middle.

You're telling me,

you're telling me,

you're going to go up to that plate of alumi.

You're going to pick up a piece of that sweet, juicy, salty cheese and you're not going to dip it in the chili sauce.

I'm not going near it.

What planet are you from?

What is going on there?

Why?

Why?

I just don't like sweet chili sauce.

I think it takes away from me.

Take us back.

Talk us through it.

When did this happen?

Well, when did sweet chili sauce first become big?

Probably the 90s?

Yes.

Yeah.

So it's probably back in the 90s.

Yes.

A lot of kids were really into it.

Yes.

And it just wasn't my, it wasn't my scene.

I thought I'm a bit more grown up than this, you know?

Okay.

Is it because it was sweet?

Did something happen?

Well, it's just like, to me, like having melted down Haribos and sweeties aren't my thing.

I'm not into sweeties.

I don't have a really sweeties.

You are because you like sweet jelly sauce.

Wow.

Oh, hello me to apologize on S behalf.

You should not have said that.

You're a guest on this podcast.

So when did you stop liking sweet things?

Oh, so I'm type one diabetic.

Okay.

I don't think it has anything to do with that.

I like sweet things.

I eat desserts.

I enjoy sweet things.

But I don't like pure sugar sweet things.

I don't know if that's connected to my type one diagnosis, but also I just think it's a shame.

I like spice and I feel like the sweetness in the sweet chili sauce outweighs the spice too much.

Do you think it's a bit patronising to the chili?

I think it's patronising to the chili.

I think that people eat it.

They're like, ooh, I'm having chili.

You're not.

You think that's what people are thinking?

You think you lot

are eating the sweet chili sauce and going, I like spicy things.

You don't.

You're eating jam.

Maybe they're just eating.

Maybe they're just not thinking, I like spicy things.

They're just enjoying the sweet chili sauce.

That could be happening.

But he does not.

Yeah.

Because the thing is, is I wouldn't normally have sweet chili sauce on much else.

But when it comes to

a fried halloumi side with sweet chili sauce, there's no way I'm not going to dip that halloumi in there.

There's just no way.

Yeah, see, I'm not, I'm not even going to dip it.

I had some halloumi fries recently at a festival.

How were they?

They were really good.

Do you know what?

I dip, I got a dip.

Okay.

Yeah.

What was it?

Garlic mayo.

Okay.

How do you feel about that?

I feel that is a fantastic idea.

Yeah.

It was.

That was good.

I didn't know what that okay signified.

And it was double dairy, which felt weird.

I double dairy you.

It does allow me to.

I loom me to double dare you.

So that was good.

But there was sweet chili available and I didn't dip.

Do you know what is delicious is real mayonnaise, like homemade mayonnaise, like actual mayonnaise that isn't.

And I feel.

Someone panned it bought eggs in the pandemic.

That was Hollandaise.

That was a hollandaise.

That wasn't the Hollandaise months, exactly.

But yeah, no, I can see that.

Yeah.

Like, oh, lovely.

I mean, a lovely, good mayo.

I mean, who's not, what, what is not to love that?

I'm going to counteract what I said a little bit here.

Isn't that a bit cloying, though?

Sorry.

It was a bit.

It was a bit claggy.

Wow.

Okay.

Thank you for, thank you for admitting that.

Thank you for being honest about that.

Hello, me very much.

Well, then I'll just try my own one.

Hello me very much.

And hello to you too.

Yeah.

I think it's closed now.

The Ginger Man in Boston.

They had buttermilk chicken sliders with hot sauce and pickles, and then like a roasted Brussels with a balsamic reduction and bacon.

So that's

one dish.

That's one.

Yes.

I'll let them have that.

Yeah.

Of course you would.

You're the ginger man.

But case, case closed.

Yeah, chicken sliders with hot sauce and pickles.

Perfect.

More and more in my life now, all I want my food to do is just tear my mouth apart.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

And then the next day, tear.

Yeah, oh, dear.

The other side apart.

Yeah.

Dick.

I want my food to tear my dick apart.

Having a piss the next morning.

Oh, fucking, I had a curry last night.

Oh, Christ.

Jesus Christ, the pickles coming out of it.

I've really got into just having a big jar of pickles at home lately.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Have you?

Yeah.

Just started, started doing it.

My dad was obsessed with pickles as a kid.

It sort of put me off them a little bit.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

You'll love this.

I worked with someone recently who's so obsessed with picklebacks that if she goes into a pub with her friends and

they don't have the pickle juice to do picklebacks, she'll go to a supermarket and buy a jar of pickles so she can use the brine.

And someone texted her and said, you've been in this pub recently.

And she was like, yeah, how do you know?

She went, I've just found half a jar of pickles in the toilet.

That's why the backs of toilets are often covered so you can't put your pickles down.

Yeah.

That's a deleted scene from Godfather as well.

But there's a pickleback who goes in.

They got it taped to the back of the system.

Don't worry.

Are you just dunking in your fork trying to spear one?

If I'm eating something already and I've got a fork handy, but otherwise I'll just put my fingers in.

Really?

Yeah, no one else is eating those pickles in the house.

I'm the only one who's into it.

Probably with pickles.

Yeah.

Is he on the case as well?

Yeah, yeah, he's

actually didn't get accepted by the army, so he's staying nearby and he keeps doing the tests to get in,

but he can't get in.

No, he can't get in.

It's a shame.

For Halloween, would you do that big bowl of pickle brine and then pickles in it and then dunking in to try and get a pickle?

Well, that's a complicated question.

It's a yes, no.

It's a yes, no.

Well, if I walked into a Halloween party and that was already set up,

but you're not setting up, I'm not,

I'm not doing that.

No, I'm not, I don't want to do it enough that I'm going to do it.

Because it's a statement.

If people turn up at yours and you've set it up, they're like, fucking.

Well, you're not having anyone over for a start.

No, having anyone over, I don't wouldn't want to.

But like, if someone was like, yeah, you got to do this.

Yeah.

Like, forget it.

But if I walked in and it was just there and people were like, we're all doing this.

Do you want to bob for pickles?

Before they even look back at you, your head fully submerged.

Yeah, I'm audien.

And I'm definitely getting one.

Yeah.

I'm definitely going to get one.

I'm not going to not get a pickle.

Yeah.

It would have to be different size pickles as well to make it harder for some people.

Those little tiny ones.

Cornichons.

Corniche's.

Tiny little corn chans.

Yeah, yeah.

Those big ones you get in petrol stations where you get one pickle in the packet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I bought a couple of them for my sister's birthday the other day.

She loves them.

Don't understand.

One of them is called a sour sis.

I don't know why you're both looking at me like this.

Did you buy her anything else?

Yeah, I got her tickets to Groundhog Day.

No one's ever bought that present.

Tickets to Groundhog Day and two big pickles.

I, as my starter, I choose a Japanese wax figure of food.

Oh, my gosh.

So I'm choosing wax.

No.

I can't answer any more questions.

No, you have been into these things for a long time.

Yeah.

Wax or resin.

When did you get into the wax foods and watching videos of them on youtube so

probably

from a long time ago i think werner herzog actually did a straight like a did a documentary clip about this that was on early youtube since then a lot more content is on youtube about jap the japanese art of making fake fake food you guys will know this you've both been to japan this year

also i'm also i'm married to my wife

this is true that i i've seen it happen And also, we have a big melting wax ice cream on our mantelpiece from Japan.

Well, they have,

that's a wax is sort of an old school version of it.

I think this is a resin, maybe.

This is resin, yeah.

So the most popular YouTube video is watching people make lettuce in wax.

But it's just, it's honestly one of the most beautiful things to watch.

It brings a tear to the eye.

Are these the same things that, so there's a video that

my wife Charlie watches a lot and is like, I'll come watch this video again.

Amy Sedaris is obsessed with fake food, yeah, and has a whole house

has a whole house full of fake food.

Yeah, and Charlie shows that to me as if like, oh, this is what I want to be.

I want to be this lady.

I'm like, I don't see anyone else living with that lady.

I would live with Charlie.

I think we've got that in common massively.

But it's fake food is so, so, oh, it's so exciting.

I mean, for those who don't know what I'm talking about, it's in Japan, right?

Instead of like menus, sometimes in the windows, you'll make fake versions of the meals and they're just so accurate it's insane and they used to do it out of wax now they do it out of plastic but um but yeah the pro the process is absolutely incredible there's whole like there's districts in tokyo where all of the shops just sell those things yeah and it is fun to look around at them yeah i do like it and i really like the i like the pint glasses with the beer pouring into it i really like that one yeah can we can we talk about for one second the damn bowl of ramen noodles with the chopstick going up and down outside of the restaurants yeah there's one in london I think there's one in London.

West London.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Outside.

I love that.

The Japan store.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you like the?

I can't remember where it is now.

You two might remember.

There's a statue of a boy running away from a dog and the dog's pulling his trousers down.

You can see his butt.

No.

There's a statue outside the restaurant.

Yeah, yeah.

You can see that statue.

That was great.

We went back there.

Did you guys go to the cup noodle museum in Osaka?

No.

You've been there.

That's cool.

You can make your own cup noodle.

Yeah.

What did you put in yours?

Corn.

Yeah.

Spring onions.

Mushrooms, maybe?

I didn't.

I never ate it, though.

No, no.

You prefer a fake one?

I get a candle.

I did get a candle that looked like a cup noodle.

Well, there you go.

Another wax food.

100%.

So yeah, if someone brought out a cup noodle looking candle, wax candle for my starter, I'd be like...

So hang on.

So we've discussed it now.

So now I need to wrap my head around this.

Yeah.

You don't want a starter to the extent you'd rather just look at something that looks like food that you can't eat.

I want a novelty.

You want a novelty?

I want it.

Yeah, a favor.

A petty favour.

So you're taking taking this home with you, yeah, yeah, okay.

And what is the food again?

The wax,

yeah, that's a really good, that's a good question.

Um, maybe just a lettuce, yeah, a head of lettuce, so, not even something that would be a good starter.

I think, though, it works.

Have you ever seen Rose watch these videos?

No, I'm not sure.

I've seen Rose watch these videos, yeah,

and I'd say it's as much pleasure as people get from having a starter because

I know I only saw it once, yeah, you were sitting there with your

hands folded across your chest.

And every time they made a different food, Rose would go, lettuce.

Yeah.

Cucumber.

Pickle.

I like, I just would say it to herself, and it was calming and really to see that she was in a very happy place watching it.

So do you want them to bring it out and it's made, or do you want someone to come out and make it in front of you?

That's a great question.

Yeah, that's that's actually true.

I want to see it.

Yeah.

To be honest, maybe I just want a YouTube video.

I want an iPad.

No, this is a dream restaurant.

We can

bring you out an expert on it.

I can get the guy.

Yeah, you can get the guy to make it in front of you and then you can sit there and silently go, ladies?

You know what I've upgraded to?

I've upgraded to a YouTube account called Dancing Bacons, who's a man who goes around and goes to the most interesting vending machines all around the world.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's all point of view.

And he has not one negative review of any of the foods that he eats.

So like my favorite ones are when he goes on like a Japanese overnight ferry and he only can eat from the vending machines.

And it's very silent.

And it's just so, it's the most calm.

It's like a brain, it's like the washing of my brain to watch a man order things from a vending machine, just eat it and enjoy it.

Oh, man.

Yeah.

So, um, but I think for the purposes of the restaurant, I want to see a man come out, give me a full, a full lettuce, chop it in half.

Yeah.

I want to see the cross section.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then I want everyone to clap.

Everyone.

Yeah.

Who else is there?

I don't know.

Around 10.

A crowd.

A crowd.

A crowd has gathered.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Of course crowds gathered.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then we see you make the knife hot.

Put through the lettuce.

There you go.

And that's your starter.

Hard to beat.

I don't want to say it early, but hard to beat.

Your dream main course.

Now, I'm looking forward to hearing out of the shadow.

But we're out of the shadows with that now.

Wait, so my question is this, gentlemen, and here's my question.

Yeah.

I think there needs to be an option for a middle course, like a pasta course.

Yeah, a secundi.

You can do that.

Okay.

Yeah.

I would like the pasta that Steve Coogan's daughter makes

because listening to the episode where he described the pasta that she makes that he wanted, I was like, oh, I want that too.

That sounds fantastic and like light and clean, perfect for like a mid-meal plate.

I want Steve Coogan's daughter's pasta, and I don't mean that in any gross way.

So don't come at me for this.

It's the pasta from the episode.

I want that pasta.

Is this the first time a guest has

directly taken something from another guest stream menu that they haven't had?

I'm very happy that I've got a lot of money.

Okay, I'm glad.

I hadn't even considered this as a menu hack, but quite exciting.

I'm delighted.

I can't even remember what the pasta was.

It was like a, it was like a very,

like I said, it was like a very light, simple pasta that had like, I think he said broccoli or it was like with greens in it.

It had like a, it was like a, almost like an agliolio, but with greens.

It was not a heavy sauced pasta or anything like that.

So I was like, oh, that sounds great and perfect for, cause I would like my main to be a steak.

You know, my main is going to be a steak.

I want something light.

I don't want like a heavy meat sauce or a, you know, some sort of like real beefy pasta.

I want something light.

So that's, I thought that was a great pasta when he said it.

So I'll take it.

Do you have the shadow secundi?

Such Such a good question.

Of course I do, Ed.

I feel like my shadow sekundi would be like, because the other thing that I'm missing, which I would love that is a little bit more of an appetizer, is a charcuterie plate.

Yeah.

The shadow meal is little bites, is more like pita, hummus, Greek salad, like to me, charcuterie with some pickles and some, you know, all that kind of stuff.

That kind of a plate, I love, but not so much cheese.

I'm not a big cheese person.

Makes me quite gassy.

So is it too close to egg in your mind, maybe?

No, because I used to be able to eat cheese, but now it just upsets my stomach.

So I just have to steer clear of it.

But I love cheese.

It's great, but it really is.

The older I get, the more my stomach is like, we'd really rather not.

You know, this is not for us anymore.

We don't do, can't do dairy anymore.

Can't really do anything that really challenges my stomach very much.

Yeah.

So the charcuterie shadows secundi?

I think so.

Can you say that really quick?

The charcuterie shadows Sukundi?

Yeah.

Yeah, that was a good.

You can tell this guy.

He's acted with the best of them.

Yeah.

You give him a line.

Oh, I can do it.

I can do it.

Sukundi Shadow.

Wait, what was this?

Charcuterie Shadows Sukundi.

Yeah.

Sharkuteri Shadows Sukundi.

Oh, yeah.

You got the full range.

Oh, yeah.

I'm really excited that you've taken something from another guest's menu,

especially because I know that steve daughter will hear this podcast yes oh great and it'll be a nice surprise oh i hope so and it sounds like you're making a wonderful pasta so congrats yeah congrats

lovely stuff james's diet coke story hasn't had much airtime this year but he did get a chance to tell it to kill a mike

and he didn't give a shit what a cruel thing to write

What he just is absolutely delighted with himself sitting in his little chair right now that he's written that.

Yeah, he didn't give a shit though, But it made me laugh that we had Killer Mike on.

Yeah, that was funny.

Yeah.

Funny that we did that.

I've definitely felt one of those big, but you can't have a big, those big whiskey cubes.

If I saw that in any other drink, I wouldn't be able to take it seriously.

Someone gave me like a Coke and it's got that in it.

Are you kidding me?

I can't think of it.

Cokes, I've broken an addiction to.

I literally just loved Coca-Cola.

And I'm from Atlanta, home of Coca-Cola.

So I haven't had a Coke since when?

Since December 31st last year.

Wow.

Yeah, I haven't had a Coca-Cola.

So it was a New Year's resolution, was it?

Well, I just was like, man, you got to break the Coke.

You know, you got to break the Coke addiction.

So not even a resolution.

It's just like, let me see how long I can go.

I did, I did cheat once.

I had a float.

So I do like vanilla ice cream.

So I did do that.

Well, that's difficult to resist.

Yeah.

So the fact that you just have glasses together.

Yeah, that's real.

Also, then it's a dessert, right?

Yeah, I did it as a dessert.

I did.

That's the equivalent of like one big ice cube.

Yeah, it is.

It's a scoop of ice cream.

That's as close as you're getting.

That's it.

That's it.

That's fine.

I don't think that even counts as cheating on.

Yeah, I did that.

I did.

I felt my stomach hadn't had a Coke or ice cream in a minute, so I spent the rest of the day in the bathroom.

Worth it.

Yeah, I was literally just looking like this, like, damn, it was worth it, though.

Smoking a joint on the toilet in a hotel, hoping I don't get charged for the

same guy from the lakes.

Hey, I go to the front.

I know Bonito.

You want problems with me and Benito?

I once

didn't have a Coke for five years

and then I started drinking diet coke and now Diet Coke tastes exactly like Coke I don't I won't do Coke Diet Coke or Coke Zero

Coke Zero I will say got the taste of Coke better but but when it's like us like okay Coke is sugar fructose is not but then you'll you'll you'll be on the internet and they'll say diet coke even worse than coke it makes your balls fall off and I'm just like what like why does diet soda kill us quicker than regular soda but you know people get weird about sweet artificial sweeteners yeah they do yeah i've never heard the theory that it makes your balls fall off yeah well i mean that you know basically that's what this one said now just like well i want my balls so i'll probably i'll probably just drink more water eat watermelon you know your balls fall off and then rich people use them as ice cubes yeah that's that's usually how i would imagine i would imagine evil bastards

but listen there's one thing i love and it's puddings

read it out read it stick to the script sorry stick to the script but if there's one thing james loves it's puddings and he loved the idea of a dessert hype man with Carrie Brownstein.

But I think there should be a rule that once you've ordered the desserts and then between ordering them and the desserts coming, don't talk about desserts in anything other than a positive way.

Don't sit there talking to each other.

Because then it's almost like the guilt sets in as soon as everyone's ordered the desserts.

They all think, oh man, we shouldn't have done that.

we had a massive meal we shouldn't be eating this much more and when people start doing anecdotes about like oh yeah because i had this once and but i'm trying not to now and like now i found that if you just have a little bit of something and then you just put it back in the food and then you start talking about those kind of things with one another so you're already like basically making yourself feel bad about eating the desserts of it yeah and then the desserts turn up and you're like well i already hate myself for having this now whereas we should have all just gone you know what i love i love ice cream so much i can't wait for this that would be a much better chat but instead you have this like diplomatic conversation about desserts, which just ruins it, ruins the fun.

So you want those five minutes in between ordering and the arrival of the dessert to be more hype-oriented.

Yeah.

Like really just getting everyone extra excited about what's about to happen.

I also get annoyed by the person or people who claim that they don't want the dessert.

They're just going to have a bite.

And then they eat half of it.

Even having a bite is annoying, isn't it?

I think, yeah.

If you're opting out, opt out fully.

I need you to commit to this hatred of dessert because now I feel like the dynamic, there's something just really complicated there.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And then they're bringing their issues.

And you've got that in the back of your mind of like, how much are they going to have?

And then that stresses you out and then you can't enjoy the dessert.

Yeah.

I love the idea of hyping the dessert.

Is it possible, do you think, to have a restaurant where there's a dessert hype man?

And that's his only job.

Maybe not if he's...

Someone's ordered dessert.

Maybe he comes to see the doctor again.

No, it's not the doctor.

He's a dessert hype man.

He's very specific.

He's learned his craft.

I love that he sort of shows up in a cape.

Like the second you order dessert, it's almost like he magically appears and he's just like leading you in little cheers.

I'm imagining Paul Scheer for some reason.

Oh, yes, I can.

I was thinking about Paul Scheer earlier in this episode.

Were you?

Yes, because I think Hammy mentioned

sushi.

Yeah.

Every time people mention sushi on the podcast, it reminds me of Paul Scheer.

And I think about Paul Scheer, because I remember him telling us that he would go to a place and get this sushi that he loved.

And this man, he was such a regular, and the man loved him so much that he gave him a sake cup that he had written Paul's name on it in, I think it was Japanese.

And Paul was like, that means a lot to me that cup.

And we said, do you know that it says Paul Scheer?

It might say, Paul Sheare drinks piss.

And Paul Scheer was a wonderful guest.

And we had a lot of fun with Paul.

But when we made fun of his sake cup, he did not like it.

It ruined his dad.

We spoiled a nice thing.

I'm so proud of that sake cup.

We spoiled a nice thing in his life.

And

so it always reminds me of him a bit with True Sushi.

I was thinking, Paul Shearer drinks piss.

But like, I like him.

Nice man.

But definitely, yeah, he'd be a great dessert hype, man.

He'd be great.

You're ready for dessert.

Yeah, yeah.

Also, like, because what you don't want, Paul Shearer, I'd say,

looks like someone who I'd be like, yeah, that guy, believably, does like dessert, but also it's not taken any toll on him.

He looks healthy.

Right.

But he doesn't look too healthy.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

I wouldn't want friggin Mario Lopez coming out and telling me this dessert's gonna be great.

Like, how the fuck do you know?

I'd love Mario Lopez.

Yeah, he desserts.

I would love if that's what Mario Lopez was doing these days.

Yeah, yeah.

What a joy to go to a restaurant.

Maybe Maybe you go specifically for their dessert hype person.

You know, it becomes like, oh, well, this restaurant has a great dessert.

It's got Mario Lopez.

Yeah, it's got the Mario Lopez hype.

Becomes that machine.

Flips his chair the other way around, sits in it.

Oh, yeah.

A little massage to get you ready for the eating.

Give it a hand massage so that you're ready to really use that spoon.

Well, yeah, maybe that'd be nice.

Ready to be preppy?

Yeah, yeah.

You call me Preppy.

That'd be cool.

Oh, yeah.

You have a nickname.

Yeah.

Come on, Brownstein.

You got it.

I guess that is

a different kind of hyping you up for it.

He's getting you physically.

I was thinking someone coming up going, this dessert's going to be so great.

We all love dessert.

It's brilliant, which I wouldn't believe from him.

Because I'd be like,

yeah, Lopez hasn't eaten enough desserts.

I don't think.

But if he was training me up like he's a boxing coach, then fair enough, I'd be like, yeah, this is going to be great.

Well, I think we're each imagining something slightly different, but I feel like each hype person would have a different technique.

So yeah, you'd go to a restaurant and you would would know that this one was more like a coach.

Another one was just more like singing the praises of the dessert portion of the meal.

Yeah.

I guess I want someone who's like, we all made a great decision here today.

This is so great.

Like you guys rule for making this decision to order the dessert.

You want a life coach, basically.

Yeah, this is so great.

I want Paul Scheer to be like, whose idea was it to get desserts?

This guy?

Fucking round of applause for this guy.

This is so great.

You just want to be popular.

But you want to be that guy, clearly.

You basically want to be validated in your decision.

You should just bring Paul's share with you to every restaurant.

Yeah, but he hates us because we said he drinks piss.

We ruined that.

Yeah, but after he's had a few shots of piss, he's good.

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Dad, que teng una buana noticia, si nos cambiamos a horizen nos dan cuatro lines por expressio de 3.

Es comos ya cuarta linea pora gratis, ok una para mí otra para tú mama, a una paratí y la cuarta para.

Para minovio?

Excuse me?

Dad, Mira, who are in contact with the toddler time?

Vamos established the country.

No important.

Well, no violence with Verizon your telephone también loss and imaginate.

Puede sance madas, textiar así yo esto y contenta.

Yo también.

¿Epiezo las vacación y los ahoros con my plan de Verizon?

Camiette yoy y ya voita una cuerta lina para quien two quieros por el peso dres por 2s por lina almes en alms welcom europe más in puestos y cargos.

Ademos uso tú telephon en el extranjero contrabo

Another thing we love on the off-menu podcast is games.

James specifically loves games.

But Benito hates them.

Yeah, guessing games you like.

Yeah.

And if there's one guest who likes games more than James, it's Ella Purnell.

My worst thing is imagining someone soaring through some polystyrene.

Oh, that is bad.

That is bad, isn't it?

Oh, no, no, I don't like that.

I've done it before.

What?

I've sawed through a massive block of polystyrene with a saw.

Why?

I had to get a giant polystyrene W into a car boot and I couldn't, so I had to saw it into two V's.

So what are you talking about?

I've got questions.

Yeah.

I was collecting giant yellow polystyrene W's at the time.

I was going for a phase.

How many did you have?

I think we got like five or six in the end.

I can't remember exactly how many but like yeah we got a fair few.

So when you saw that you stick it back together again on the other side.

We actually didn't end up sticking it back together again.

It was knocked around in my friend's sister's garage for a few years.

I don't know if it's even they had I bet they were thrilled that friend.

Yeah yeah She ended up with, yeah, the one that was in half and another one, that sister.

So, like, she had those.

You need to find someone that collects polystyrene V's.

V's, yeah, yeah, and

she's delighted.

Yeah, oh, that would be the greatest collab of all time.

Make that person's day.

Now, Ben seems like he has more questions.

Oh, he can't ask.

You can't talk.

Ella said she had questions and then didn't ask any of the questions that I thought you were going to ask.

I had lots of questions because they weren't the ones that you wanted.

Those are your questions.

Yeah.

My question.

I've asked my questions like very much.

What are your questions?

Why, Why, why?

Why do you think that?

Why?

Why is my main question?

Why?

Why were you collecting polystyrene W?

Oh, right.

That is the obvious question.

Yeah, of course.

I was in a band called the Wow scenario.

The WOW scenario.

Oh, right.

Oh, it does make sense.

Someone told us, hey, I know someone who's got a giant polystyrene W.

You can have it on stage when you do your gigs.

So went to pick it up, and then we went to get it, and it was like huge.

And we had to like try and put it on the roof of the car, but it was like going to fly off.

And it was very, it was and then i bought it home it's quite light it's quite light it was just flown in the air yeah what that was what we were worried about in the dual carriage way if it flies off you know yeah it really

and then like take someone out yeah but we got it home and my dad was like that's not coming in the house like there's no you've got no choice

they're saying this old man we're having to do this and uh then we talking to a guy local photographer and we're like here's an idea for our photo shoot we're going to do with you got this giant yellow w we're going to bring it along to your studio and he went i've already got one i don't need

we're like what are you talking about you've already got one and he showed us a picture we're like that's identical to our one and he was like yeah well this connections that i've got them in their windows they've got this whole thing for people leaving school about what next it's this whole campaign they're doing they've all been given these giant yellow w they all hate them they don't want them in their shops they're taking up too much room so they just gave me one for free they all just want rid of them so then at the time me and my friend were like let's get loads and fill the whole stage with them

and we'll do that how many did you need though because you're called the wow so

i mean it's it's unbelievable that you've managed to acquire five of these yeah we got quite a few of them and then um and then we kind of ran out of steam and just forgot about it

the band broke up the band broke up and then like my friend ben who like kept at least one of them for us in his garage moved house and forgot about it so the people who came in after him would have opened that garage door and been like what the hell who's this guy i mean look there's worse letters to collect isn't there i feel like w of all the letters is probably the most versatile well you know what i'm going to ask what is the worst letter that you could collect well an s can only be two c's a w can be an i an n a z or two v's yeah an r is pretty shit uh an r could be an i could be two i's or an l i suppose an up could be an l as well yeah um an i an i is probably well no there's got to be others come on b b what can b be two c's i suppose a um

sorry this is my podcast now

we're gonna clip this up this is the rantings of a madman like I've never had a guest do such

an introductory monologue.

It sounds so insane.

Go through all the letters and what they could be if you chopped them up.

And not in order.

Not in order.

Just all over the place.

And just for the listener, we haven't sped it up.

That is the speed that Ella was talking about.

That was amazing.

I'm so, so sorry.

I got kind of...

Got kind of excited.

But it's interesting.

All the letters could be chopped up to be other letters.

Yeah.

It is interesting.

That's why I got so excited, but because I've never thought of it.

Yeah, C is, I think, C is the worst.

C is the worst.

That's very smart.

Yeah, C can't be anything else.

Yeah, C's, C is terrible.

No, C can't be anything.

C is the worst.

C's useless.

Yeah, sorry.

And that'd be the worst one.

Like, if I was taking that, like on top of the car, yeah.

If that blows away, it'll boom around back to you.

You're in big trouble.

This is my favorite conversation I've ever had

From games to pranks.

You knew this was coming.

Sebastian Stan absolutely is the original prankster.

I don't know if the listeners connected with this as much as we did.

We found it so funny that Sebastian Stan loved pranks so much.

All we've talked about is how much Sebastian Stan loves pranks.

You guys have got to get on board with that being funny because it is funny.

But you are a superhero as well.

So you get to experience that.

You've experienced a taste of that.

Oh, yeah,

for sure.

I mean, it's the most gratifying thing in the world like when you you know when when you have like a kid that comes up to you and just like is that our metal you know and you're like yes

of course but you know it's just uh camouflage now that's good um and they're like oh interesting that's good because like recently uh as of

i don't know when this podcast actually gonna go out but we lost maggie smith and someone told me a story about her when

a kid who was a fan of Harry Potter went up to her and said, is it true that you can turn into a cat and she told the kid to pull himself together

i've got more respect for that to be said pull yourself together that's so funny i would have i would have i still think of her as wendy oh yeah remember that movie yeah hook yeah that movie i was obsessed with when i was a kid

because i really i couldn't you know i'm like the whole concept of peter pan and yeah this guy going back it was just so great well that's come up on this podcast a few times because because of bangerang yeah

when they're eating especially when there's nothing it looks looks delicious.

No, no, no, for sure.

As a kid, all the colors and everything in there, you're like, what is that made of?

Yeah.

Did you ever want to eat Play-Doh when you were a kid?

Yeah, big time.

Me too.

Yeah.

I would have loved to have eaten it.

It looked delicious.

Yeah, when I still see it, I'm like, oh, you can squeeze it.

Because

it smells kind of nice as well, right?

It smells like sort of clean.

You do want to see what it tastes like.

We did a live tour of this.

podcast around the UK and we would ask the audiences their menus and read them out.

They'd write them before we went on stage we'd pick them out and read out the best ones and one person for their dream drink said they would like the fruit shampoo they use but it has to taste as good as it smells and that got an applause from the entire room yeah yeah the entire room was like yeah I'm gonna drink my shampoo if it didn't that might say more about our listeners than than the sort of UK populace as a whole but yeah we a lot of shampoo drinkers listening I hope it would pair nicely with some play-doh

the only thing I can think about with shampoo is that prank I've seen on a lot on YouTube at one point where

they go around, there's a guy kind of washing his hair.

He doesn't know that there's someone above him that keeps squeezing shampoo.

He keeps trying to get the shampoo out.

It's like a nightmare.

You can't get it out.

You know what I mean?

It just keeps going.

I'm not saying that.

I'm going to watch it as soon as this is finished.

You have to.

Shampoo prank.

You have to do that.

I mean, it's just so.

I feel like you guys would be great at pranks.

Would we be good at pranks?

We love Jackass.

We love Jackass.

Steve-O was sitting in that seat.

We've watched it since.

Steve-O, we had Steve-O in here.

What a voice, right?

Such a specific

character.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Every time I'm watching anything with a men or whatever,

my,

fucking hell, what a Freudian slip.

I was going to say my girlfriend, but I went to say my sister.

What do you think about that?

Don't ask James about his cheat days.

Yeah,

yeah.

Anyway, my girlfriend always, if I'm watching the Steve-O thing, says for the other room, is that Whoopi Goldberg?

When Steve-O was on the podcast, we had loads of people saying he sounds exactly like whoopi goldberg i never ever thought i never made that connection in in my head until now but maybe that's what i'll be doing after this going to see how that works get someone to send you and not label them properly clips of whoopi and clips of steve and you can see if you can work out the difference yeah i mean probably from what they're saying you're better work out

once when you you when you know before we started recording today you were saying like coming and working here and when you arrive you're a bit jet lagged i arrived in canada once i had a gig that night i was meant to do a show that night but i missed the show because i'd gone out got a tub of ben and jerry's that you can't get here and halfway through just passed out on my

because of the sugar high i was just i was jet lagged but also was just so into eating this ben and jerries it put me into this like hibernation state and i just i just that was it and i woke up the gig had already been and gone yeah i had multiple texts on my phone for the promoters and everyone and just a ben and jerry's tub in my hand and a spoon in the other just on my bed that's one of the most terrifying things is like when you wake up and like you see your phone's just been going or something and people have been trying to get, you know, reach you for whatever reason.

But I

speaking of pranks, it's so silly.

There's another one I saw recently

on YouTube.

And it's like, it's really bad.

Like these guys clearly have known each other for a long time.

I don't even know what it's called, but like they, they like got together and like they had like a celebration night, you know, taking shots and hanging out and all the stuff.

The next day,

the guy, one of them wakes up and he's strapped to a hospital bed and he doesn't know where, how he got there.

And they're like, you've been in a coma for 10 years.

And his friend comes in in prosthetics, having gained weight.

And he's like, you have a son and I've been taking care of him.

And he's just, it's, it's terrifying, honestly, but it's horrifically funny.

Yeah.

And he,

you know, it's like he just doesn't know what to do with it.

Like, yeah.

Yeah.

I didn't know you like pranks so much.

They are.

I think, yeah, I mean, I mean, you have to, you know, you want to be safe.

I'm not like, but like, it is funny sometimes.

You got to keep surprising.

yourself and your friends.

It's fun to do that.

Have you ever played a prank on anyone that's like that you're particularly proud of?

It's so stupid.

But But I have a friend who

like he always manages.

He can fall asleep anytime.

I saw him fall asleep in the middle of a nightclub.

Like he took a nap and like came back and was like right back as if he got reinvigorated.

And I would be so jealous of him because I'd be like, how do you do it?

How do you just fall asleep?

Falls asleep.

very easily all the time.

So one time he was staying over.

He lives in LA, came to New York and he was crashing over my house and he fell asleep and I took headphones and I put it over his head over his ears and i plugged it into like the fucking speakers and i went and researched um t-rex like

you know the dinosaur in jurassic park when like at the very end when he's like dun dun dun dun da and he's like

and the thing falls or whatever and i crank that up and i just press play just trying to wake him up and all i got was just this one quick like little kido I was like,

what's almost more satisfying than him completely

being terrified, just very lazily, just going, hey, man, I'm like, wow, the team exclusive.

Yeah, you're in the house.

We'll never make it.

That's what he'd be like after the blip, though.

If he got snapped by Thanos, he'd just be like, right back in, hey, okay, cool.

Okay, so it was a different battlefield, but I've pretty much got my bearings.

Yeah, I've just been napping again.

I feel like we should like plan a prank to do on

one of your like maybe we could get Anthony Mackey and uh

we could assist you in pranking him.

No, absolutely.

Um, what if we do have him on this podcast?

Because he said he'd be really good.

If we do manage to book him for this podcast, we're happy to prank him on your behalf.

Um, if you do, yes, I mean, then maybe you need to email me and I'll have to figure out how to how to do it.

But we could just keep pouring shampoo on him.

Does that work if it's not in the shell

and he can see see us?

Does that work?

No, maybe not.

We got to think.

We got to think somehow.

But it's possible.

I mean,

he'll get me back or he'll try to get me back.

If he gets angry at the prank, you have to admit that you were involved in it.

Because if we go, oh, no, it was Sebastian and then you deny all knowledge of it.

It would be like

imagine if to do this podcast, he has to drive like 45 minutes to a warehouse somewhere in like South London.

like and and it's just in the dark and you guys are sitting there with by candlelight

but it should be i i if it's in a warehouse you should open the door and it should be full of people and then he realizes it's the rat battle from eight mile

you've got to do it again and he's got to go up he's going to go up there we could get eminem then you could join in as well your surname's stan yeah you could get up you've written eminem loads of letters actually that's when you and mackey would join forces surely because you both hate eminem you're stan and the guy that he beat at the rap battle by the way what a do you remember that movie how good that was yeah it's incredible and and also i i thank you for reminding me he is in that film and he's great in it he's great in it he's in so many good movies actually yeah but like that doesn't matter we're gonna prank the outpank him so hard but that would be uh it would be funny like he's just he thinks he's going to a podcast but it's a rave yeah yeah yeah

waiting for him he's got i mean hopefully because like today and and uh you know this is a trick of the trade that i didn't know happened, but like, someone arrived before you who's called a go-ahead, right?

Who kind of turns up here first.

Oh, interesting.

Which is, this happens sometimes if people are like, you know, have busy schedules and they're going from one place to the other.

So with Mackie, I would worry that a go-ahead had arrive there and text him and go, this is a fucking race.

This is not a podcast.

They're setting you up for a prank.

I think Sebastian stands behind it.

Do not come here, Anthony.

It just goes to, it's like, I'm just recreating that movie, The Game, on him.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's involved in high-speed chase all the way to Mexico.

It just goes on and off.

I always thought it'd be funny to do like a movie about actors that take their roles to like

the next level.

You'd go really extreme.

I still think there's like maybe you and him should join forces and prank Eminem.

I think that is, you know, as much as I'd like.

Why do I feel like that would fail?

Yeah, I don't think that would go well.

You can get him.

You never know what mood Eminem's going to be in.

But you know,

get him.

The two of you join join forces.

I could also see him just unfazed.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Like the same stoic face,

no emotion

and just walk out.

I've never seen him

giggling in an interview.

I don't feel like he would chuckle at a practice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Me neither.

Yeah, to be fair.

We've had extra surprise guests on the podcast over the years.

Rylan's mum, Amy Gladhill's parents.

And this time, it was Sophie Willen's turn to call a relative.

Gee Dog!

Well I'd go bread and butter pudding

because I'm sticking with a very carb-heavy theme here.

Yeah.

Love a bread and butter pudding.

My granddad, he's a really good cook and he used to make bread and butter puddings when I was little.

Yeah.

So it's a nice memory there with that.

That's nice.

And it's just lovely.

Did he have any particular like way of doing it?

Was it because it was a little signature twist?

A lot of different ones.

Well, some of you have with liqueuring, don't you?

Or something?

He did it like that.

But you weren't allowed to go near him in the kitchen.

He's still like that now.

If you go near, get out, get out.

He's quite...

Gordon Ramsey with the Bolton accent and the neck, you know, he's just quite an intense person.

So much respect for that, though.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like that when I'm cooking.

Are you?

Yeah, don't come near me.

I'm cooking so I don't have to talk to people.

Yeah, I think it's that as well.

And then also if you try and help, oh my God, everything you're doing is wrong.

Yeah, yeah.

You've never felt more that you're a bad human being.

So I just have to leave the vicinity.

And then at the end, I'll say, like, do you want me involved in plates?

And he's like, get out.

So I'm like, fine.

But I think, especially if it's like, that's like his signature dish, right?

And that's what he's really good at.

He's made it so many times before.

He doesn't need help.

Doesn't need help.

Well, he's good at everything, my granite.

He's a really, really good cook.

Oh, fantastic.

He did cooking.

He went down to London for six months and cooked in a restaurant in London.

And then they moved back to Bolton.

But, you know, for that six months, he was a saucier.

Oh, lovely.

I know.

Was he?

Just took the sauces.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

So he's very talented,

but very grumpy.

So just leave him to it.

We get all this lovely food, you know, if you go visit him.

But the price you pay is sometimes you might get shouted at if you go into the kitchen.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah.

I feel like we've had quite a few really good bread and butter pudding recipes on this podcast.

Yeah.

And

now I want a bread and butter pudding as well.

Here's what's going on in my head: is that I remember that last time someone came on and they said their own bread and butter pudding recipe and it sounded easy and delicious and I thought to myself I'm gonna do that and then I didn't do it and now I've forgotten what the recipe was was it the one with croissants in it yeah it must have been yeah croissants that's really good another one you mean they do a really good one in Cumbria with leftover croissants and different things and it's like and raisins and that's delicious and you know what occurred to me when you said bread and butter pudding Imagine making bread and butter pudding with the crumpet bread oh wow

buddy.

That would be very good.

Because that's soaking up anything you pour on it, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Whoa.

Mama.

Yeah.

You throw it some worth a go?

Fabulous.

That would be good.

I think I'd do that then.

Yeah.

A bread and butter pudding, obviously, but with a crumpet bread.

Made by your granddad.

Made by granddad, but not in his vicinity.

How's he going to react, though, if you say, I want your bread and butter pudding, but can you replace it with crumpet bread?

What's he going to say to that?

God only knows.

I could do.

I could get him in FaceTime.

FaceTime him now and pitch it to him.

Yeah, I don't think he'd be going for it.

No,

do you want me to fool him?

You can do it.

Yeah, you can do.

You can do it.

Just

see what he thinks of the suggestions.

I don't want.

He might be dead confused.

Like, what?

Where are you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, he almost certainly will be.

He was quite shocked to see himself pop up on Taskmaster.

Maggie, he never answers the calls, but let's give him a call, G-Dog.

Is that what he is in your phone?

G-Dog.

G-Dog.

Yeah, cool.

He won't answer.

Huh?

Come on, G-Dog.

Come on, G-Dog.

It's worth it just to find out that your granddad saved us G-Dog in your phone, to be fair.

I could try Maggie May, his wife.

G-Dog and Maggie May.

And they live in Majorca, right?

They live in Mallorca.

They've been there years, like 25 years now.

Maggie May, try Maggie May now.

Come on, Maggie.

Because Maggie might know if you've been off doing the crumbit bread.

Bread and butter pudding.

See if they remember Mallet and Mallorca.

Yeah, I'll ask.

Not gonna happen.

What time is it in Mallorca?

Oh, hello.

Maggie?

Oh, you're there?

Listen, I'm...

I'm live on the podcast.

I need to speak to Grandad.

No, but not Mike.

It's him he is.

Hello, Grandad.

Hi there.

I just want to ask you about bread and butter pudding.

Best way to make it.

Bread and butter pudding?

Yeah.

Let's think.

Bread.

Sliced white bread.

Butter.

Butter.

Yeah.

Black white bread.

Butter.

Full cream milk.

Yeah.

Well, how would you feel if I put crumpet bread in it?

Not very, it won't work.

It won't work.

Why would it not work?

Because it's too spongy, that.

You want sliced white bread.

Right.

All right.

Thanks, Grandad.

I love you.

Don't forget the currants and the raisins.

I won't forget the currants and the raisins.

This is why I couldn't cook cook with him because he'd be over your shoulder.

Dude, I like all of this detail.

This is good.

This is James.

This is Ed.

This is Dan.

Hi.

I was on a food podcast, and I was telling them about your culinary skills, but how you're also quite

in the kitchen.

I'm just doing it now, culinary skills.

What are you doing?

Jointed rush chicken

on peppers, potatoes, red onions, garlic.

Delicious.

That sounds absolutely delicious.

Yeah, they're a lot more impressed with your recipes than i've done for the past hour

small potatoes

beautiful yeah he's very good right i better go grandad love you love you too see you soon speak to you soon adios asaluego right love that love him he definitely did a lot better on this than i did yeah we'll have him on another

episode yeah so i think we've got to not do the crumbit bread then yeah

expert gee dogs told us it's not a good idea yeah it won't work he did seem quite already a bit pissed off.

He was like, Well, you don't do that.

Yeah.

Well, my favourite bit was you say, How do you make your bread and butter pudding?

What do you need?

And he went, Well, bread.

Yeah,

he went, Let's see.

Let's say bread.

Butter.

But that was before he knew you were on a podcast.

He was absolutely trashing you.

James loves cats.

No, James loves cats.

James love cats.

And their names are Terry Rue, Alex Spider-Man and Cat Dealy.

Here's Helen Skelton, C-Matt and Rachel Stevens learning all about my love.

I've got a little barbecue you can turn on with your phone.

What?

See, I'll try equipment.

He wants it.

Immediately he wants it.

I want it because I could be on my way home and turn the barbecue on so it's ready when I get back.

That's the point.

You can turn it on from like wherever you are.

Hang on, is it a gas barbecue?

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not messing with that.

Oh, okay.

You know, turn up and the whole house is burned down.

But you leave it outside.

It's outside, it's a barbecue.

I'd worry.

Really good.

I'd worry that I'll turn it on on my phone and then it like makes the whole thing like judder towards the house or something.

You know?

It's not a robot.

Yeah, it's not a rumba.

It's a robot.

You've turned it on on your phone.

Oh, valid valid.

It's a robot.

I could go crazy.

So you think it's jiggling, it's jiggling all the way to the house?

Juddering towards the house.

It's opening the door.

No, it's smashing through your window.

Yeah.

And then what's the issue?

And then it sets your whole house on fire.

Right.

Because it's a turned-on barbecue.

Yeah.

Also, you've got a cat, so you might turn it on, and then the cat's like, whoa, what's going on here?

And then jumps on the barbecue.

But the cat can't go outside.

What kind of cat is that?

Yeah, what kind of cat?

It's a Siberian cat.

That stays inside.

It's a house cat.

Where does it poo?

Yeah, where's it poo?

In a litter box.

That blew your mind, didn't it?

You've never heard of a house cat before.

Well, it never ever goes outside.

No.

Gross.

You've got four cats that never go outside.

So imagine what his house is like.

They never go outside ever.

No.

Also, we live in London.

People knit cats.

Yeah.

Especially handsome cats like ours.

Yeah.

Stunners.

We've got real stunners.

We've got real stunners, Helen.

I mean, I'm so happy that the gender stereotypes are just been shot in, aren't they?

Yeah.

Cat guys.

Yeah, we're cat boys.

We're cat boys.

I'm proud.

Okay.

I've got four.

They all stay in the house.

my whole life stinks of

i just that's unusual isn't it yeah no well we're getting uh i think the guy doing the catio is coming this week i can't wait you've enjoyed that my dog's called spider-man what i knew you'd enjoy that no wait till you hear this cat is called spider-man we were destined to be friends this is amazing this is that's that's that's and check this out as well the cat that's called spider-man he's got eyes like yours what he's got cross-eyes.

They go a bit cross-eyed.

And do you love that about him?

Yeah.

Well, we got him.

It's only when you take his lenses.

Only when you take his lenses.

He's like, you know.

That on its own is a really nice compliment.

Yeah.

Slightly creepy.

With the context, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, guess what?

My cat has got eyes like Paul Hollywood.

Yeah,

he does, actually.

And he looks at you like he knows it as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He definitely knows it.

So you can't look him in the eye.

I can't look in the eye.

I just cat in the eye.

Fizzy water, it just does, it feels counterintuitive.

And it doesn't feel neutral.

It's supposed to be a neutral, delicious substance that brings health and vitality.

And fizzy water is like eating TV static or something.

It's just, it's, it's wrong.

I know a lot of people use that comparison, but it's right.

Yeah, yeah.

Or white noise,

you know, not good.

Sorry, I've made a lot of noises.

No, it's great.

We love it.

It's a podcast.

It's an audio medium.

Yeah.

The more noises, the better.

Is that a noise?

You could be that little clown horn.

You could be Jim Carrey.

Although you did it with two hands there.

No, yeah.

But yeah.

That's another noise.

Another horn.

I think the mask does that noise.

Yeah.

Does the mask age well?

Oh, I don't know, but Cameron Diaz is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen on

the screen in that movie.

I think that's the best a person has ever looked in a film is Cameron Diaz in that movie.

Walking into the bank.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When she walks to the bank.

Yeah, first appearance.

I love her.

She's married to a good Charlotte.

Do you know that?

She is.

I didn't know she was married to one of the good Charlotte.

She's married to.

It's standing the test of time that they've been together for like 15 years, which is like 70 years.

I think she's married to Benji.

Yeah.

Benji or Joel.

You've stumbled into Ed's area of expertise.

Really?

Well, no, also, I did know that because I've just started watching the new series of Inkmaster, and Joel Madden is the new host of Inkmaster.

And is that the Cameron Diaz one?

No, I think that's the other one.

That's the Nicole Ritchie one.

Because the other one's married to Nicole Ritchie.

Yeah, that's the Nicole Ritchie one.

the good charlotte boys have you know i bet they're charming as hell yeah you got to be funny and charming as hell to keep up with the wondrous master that is cameron diaz but also they you know they're known for believing that girls don't like boys girls like cars and money so they must feel on edge every day

and they've both married women who are definitely infinitely wealthier than them so it just gets to show you what's going on yeah yeah yeah love them

actually love them they seem like such good vibes yeah i went to a cd UK special recording of Good Charlotte.

Whoa.

They only did three songs.

I had to go ahead and have a look.

Dealy.

Yeah, Dealy.

Cat Dealy UK.

Right?

Isn't that what that was?

I don't think it...

Did it stand for Cat Dealy UK?

That's going to blow my mind if it was.

Because she was on it now.

She was the host, yeah.

I thought that's why it was called CD UK.

It was Cat Dealy UK.

I thought it was just CD because C D's had music on them.

Yeah, but

it works on two levels.

Wow.

There you go.

Love her.

Queen of Ireland.

I wrote a poem for it once, sent it into SM TV.

Hang on, what?

Hang on.

Did you?

Yeah.

James, why have you never told me this?

I thought you knew.

I thought you knew that.

No.

Can you remember any of the poem and I need to know?

Remember the whole thing, but I'm not going to recite it.

Recite it.

To embarrass.

James.

Recite it.

You've already told us that you wrote a poem to Cat Dealy.

Was it like, was it like very, was it giving William Wordsworth or was it giving like Andrew Diceman Clay or something?

Come in.

Dicker read, Dicker Reader.

A little bit of a crossover, I guess.

I thought it was going to be like a funny poem, but I think it came off.

Was it horny?

Quite horny.

Well, just very earnest.

Like I was in, you know, it was, I was in, I was 11.

The poem sent it in.

Benito, can we book Capdealy for this podcast, please?

I've met her before.

She's great.

Let's talk about booking of a guest in front of

midway through.

I think we're going to Capdeal for a while.

You're just going to have to bring me back when she's here.

What was the most fun show to go on when you were starting out as S-Club?

Because now, you know, they're with you around these podcasts.

We apologise.

Probably not as fun as live and kicking and stuff.

But what was the one you'd look forward to the most when S-Club was starting out?

I mean, the Saturday morning TV was so fun.

SM TV, CDUK.

I mean, it was such a exciting moment in time.

All the big party, like party in the park, all those big, massive like shows in the park, all the road shows.

We were just always on, always go.

And it's so different now yeah with everything being on social we didn't social media we didn't have all of that back then so we were literally if we were going on a radio tour we would go to every place we would you know so we were all over the place you couldn't get rid of us for a while i enjoyed a tv show you did so that's like nowadays if you were literally on social media trended every day

if you had a tv show back then that's absolutely huge whereas now there's so many tv shows yeah

now if a band was told you got a tv show they'd be like oh we're dead

that would be

That's it.

Our career's over.

No one's going to watch that.

That's how it started.

Yeah, you were on that as well.

Yeah.

Did you do sketch?

When you went on SM TV, did you ever do the sketches?

Because I imagine you would have more skills in that department,

your TV show.

Yeah, we did all the, what was it called?

The front, your property.

Chum chums.

Chums.

Chums.

We're not too young.

We're not too young.

That's absolutely our

sweet spot.

Oh, yeah, of course.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How old would you have been then?

Secondary school.

I remember like, that's when I wrote the Cat Dealy poem.

I said secondary school the cat dealy poem yeah yeah

i sent it in but they did you're crushed didn't read it out yeah of course she was

not gorgeous yeah i was a red-blooded teen

not made of stone not made of stone yeah she was gorgeous wasn't she she is gorgeous yeah do you remember the poem james yes oh share share with the group

rager stevens is asking you to share the poem about cat deal now i know you've refused to do it share a line just one line just give us a little taster yeah that's that's great a little taster well i tell you what there's a food line so that's relevant to the podcast.

I want the most embarrassing line.

It's all embarrassing.

And while eating my bowl full of pasta, looking at you, my heart would beat faster.

That's not embarrassing.

That's really sweet.

What is it?

Eat my bowl of pasta.

And while eating my bowl and while and while eating my bowl full of pasta.

Looking at you, my heart would beat faster.

They didn't read it out.

No, sent it in.

I'm pretty sure they'd read it out.

No, they'd probably put you on a watch list.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Probably not off that list.

Love that.

Would you like that if someone wrote you a poem that said when they were eating pasta, their heart beats?

I would love that so much.

I would really love that.

I was just thinking it wouldn't work if, because you're from up north, right?

If you were saying

faster, it wouldn't work.

Yeah, faster.

Faster.

If you drink my bowl of pasta, you'd make my heart beat.

Go faster.

Yeah.

That's what I would have said.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'll never do more than one line an episode anytime SM TV gets bought up.

Right.

Well, I'll bring up SM TV every single episode.

Yes.

You'll finally get the full poem.

But I'm not giving you it in order.

So it's like Mr.

Chips.

Did she ever hear this poem and didn't get to sell it?

I don't know.

I mean,

I hope so.

I hope someone.

I think you need to send it to her now if you'll do it again.

I think that's weirder, maybe.

That I send it to her now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it probably would be a good idea.

Did you say weird?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wonderful.

Weird and wonderful.

That's weird.

Yeah, that's weird.

I have to get her on.

She'd be very flattered.

Yeah.

Then I'll recite the whole thing.

Well, if that's a guarantee.

Oh, of course it's a guarantee.

If we get Cat Dealy on the podcast, I'll recite the whole poem.

But like, listen, I'm not here to think about Cat Dealy.

We've got Rachel Stevenson for this.

Before we were going to start recording this, Rachel, I was going to ask you a question, and Benito made me save it for the podcast.

So I'll do this.

I asked you about Sweet Dreams by LAX, your solo song.

I've had this bit of trivia in my head about it for years, ever since it came out, to the point where I don't even know if it's true.

Was it written by the same person who wrote Toxic Toxic by Britney Spears?

Yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

Catherine Dennis.

Save it for the pod.

Yeah, well, I told you it was boring.

But that's what I've always had in my head.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But that feels like information that you could have found out for sure.

And Can't Get You Out of My Head.

Wow.

Yeah.

She had a good weekend.

You couldn't get it out of your head.

And she wrote, Can't Get Me Out of Your Head.

I mean, that is incredible.

Yeah.

It's incredible.

And you couldn't get Cat Digley out of your head.

No, never will be able to.

I wouldn't want to, Rachel.

Yeah, we've still not had Cat Deleon, but I feel like next series, we're going to make that happen, and you're going to read that poem finally.

I'll read the poem if she comes on, I swear to you.

And finally, it wouldn't be a best-off episode without an annual dose of toilet humor.

Let's hear from Michelle DeSwart, Nisha Katona, Johannes Radabay, Nabil Abdul Rashid, Jason Manzoukas, and of course, Patty Harrison.

Of course, Patty Harrison.

I want you to have the LucasAid more than the wine because we've never had LucasAid chose before.

Can I have LucasAid, please?

So it's quite exciting that someone's chose it.

Even though I just tried to piss on my chips.

I didn't piss on your chips.

They did change the recipe.

I was asking a follow-up question.

I've got to say something, Michelle.

It can't just be you listing things you want and then we go.

You know, if I've got a question, I'm going to ask the question.

As much as we would like that to be the, you have no idea how much we would love it if every episode was the guest just bangs off the here's what I want and then we go.

Yeah.

That's only happened once.

That's only happened once with Dan Aykroyd and it was the best day of my life.

Yeah.

And people still come up to me and ask me about that episode.

But um, what do you think of all the other LucasAid flavours?

Not fast.

No, not in the original.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I do the original like maybe once a year just to remind myself that I really like the orange one.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Gotta gotta keep the orange one in perspective.

Yeah, exactly.

All I remember is that it shouldn't be used to replace the fluids lost du when you have diarrhea.

What?

It says it on the bottle.

I remember as a kid reading it and me and my friends thinking it was the funniest thing in the world.

Well they had to warn you that it was.

Was there a rumor that it helped you rehydrate after diarrhea?

As kids, none of us like even like that they had no concept of any of that anyway.

It's just hilarious to us.

You didn't know what diarrhea was.

We knew diarrhea, but we didn't know that people were trying to replace fluids lost.

We didn't know any of that.

So we just thought every now and again, you get the shits and it's the funniest thing in the world.

That's all we knew.

Yeah, man.

Diarrhea song.

Yeah, yeah.

When you're sitting on the grass, it comes out your ass.

Diarrhea.

Diarrhea.

No.

Do you not remember the diarrhea song?

Comes at your bum like a bullet from a gun.

Diarrhea.

Diarrhea.

What?

We've never spoken about this before.

We genuinely have a bad thing.

And we grew up in different bums.

Yeah.

What?

No.

Yeah, that must.

I assumed that was UK-wide, the diarrhea song.

No, I feel cheated.

Maybe I've forgotten it.

Maybe this is.

You don't forget the diarrhea song.

You don't forget it.

If you've heard the diarrhea song, you do not forget it.

That sticks in your head.

Yeah.

I remember that.

Bubbling hot.

And then...

They're not dissimilar.

They're very similar songs.

Like a soup in a pot.

We are what?

Bubbling hot.

Diarrhea.

Diarrhea.

Like a soup in a pot.

It's bubbling hot.

Diarrhea.

Diarrhea.

Always ends up back here.

That's amazing.

I didn't know you were a barrister.

And then did this complete pivot.

That's pretty...

It's mad.

Did you recognise that's pretty impressive?

I'll tell you what's impressive.

Honestly, what's impressive is that I think I've lived this long and retained continence.

That I think is impressive because I'm old.

You know, that I think is impressive.

Honestly.

Do you want me to tell the story?

I find it very hard to keep continents when I'm with Ed and Tom.

We were in the reception of a hotel, and I can't remember what Nisha was laughing at.

We probably didn't even know.

She absolutely lost it laughing.

And then she wet herself in the reception of a hotel.

That was such an inspiring story.

Being a barrister and then

realizing the free spice rule and you know, it completely changed your entire life.

And Ed's just responded with the fact you want to piss yourself to the hotel.

Do you know, James, do you know what it was?

It was simply Ed saying, Nisha, where's your room?

Sending me to my room because I've died a late night.

It got to the point, and it still does at GBM, that he just, even if I'm in the same room as him, I find it very hard to control my

continents.

It's so, it's just the way he does.

How many times has this happened?

Do you ever find him this far?

I find him so.

How many times has this happened?

Honestly, I think I struggle with a lot when I'm with Ed.

But all he has to do, I remember he just

walked into a room and pushed the door open in his kind of Ed gangly way.

And I really lost continence again.

Pissed yourself again.

Yeah, a little bit.

A little bit.

Do you know what I mean?

Because he walked into a room.

Just because he walks into a room, that's a gift, isn't it?

That's like an Eric Morcombe thing.

Surely that was what it was like being Ernie Wise.

You are the only person who reacts like that to me, Nisha.

Yeah, I think Ed's found the person he wants to write his obituary.

All he had to do was walk into a room.

Real Eric Morcombe.

Funny as John.

It's so bad, because every time we get a comedian on or anyone on as a guest, I do spend a lot of time saying, don't you think Ed's dead funny?

Don't you?

She tried to get me in the new series of Inside Number Nine when we had Steve Pemberton on.

I did.

You should put Ed in your show.

I did.

Steve, please don't

your response.

When you said, what room are you in?

You should have said number nine.

You should.

I could have made the episode.

No, but obviously, I'm so sorry to interrupt the inspiring story of someone who's doing fantastic work as a barrister and then is now doing fantastic work within the world of food.

But you you did once piss yourself in the room of a hotel.

It wasn't a fully fledged, you know what I mean?

It wasn't a deluge.

But I did need the loo.

I did have to then run to the loo.

Yeah.

Obviously, it was enough that they knew it.

They knew it had happened.

We've got, haven't we got good chemistry on that?

Yes.

I think we've got good chemistry on that programme.

We're a very good team together, I think.

Just some tips.

I'm trying to get some chemistry going with this fucking

wet yourself a little bit.

I'll chip my pants pants in front of him

in order for him to get on board.

But it was weird because I'm sort of sitting there like this kind of dowager aunt between the two of you.

I don't know where you're at.

I am, just Alan and someone talking about that.

I am talking about that, honestly, being.

I can't imagine that.

Honestly.

So, first of all, I think it's really amazing that they chose me.

Honestly, I was really honored by that because this is, I'll tell you the thing about it is it's always been very Michelin starred kind of food.

It's very haught cuisine, very, very Western classical, hasn't it?

Yeah, I mean, that's what you think of it.

And the truth is, that's not the way this nation eats anymore.

So it's pretty broad-minded of them to get someone in whose expertise is more world, you know.

So I go around the world.

I mean, I mean, literally around the world learning how to cook because I'm obsessed with it.

So, first of all, I was very appreciative of that.

And then it's

really kind of them to get you on because it's like, by the time it means you're overly qualified for the job.

I'm overly qualified

for family law.

It's a bit different.

I think they would say they're lucky to have it.

before you.

There was like those two old dead guys,

they were amazing, and they are such nice guys, and they were amazing.

And you look at that and you think, okay, that's what it is to be a true foodie, you know.

But then the dynamics, and then it took a didn't it take a little while for us to just work out

how we

always say this.

I thought we hit the ground running, we didn't, we completely didn't.

Because basically, I thought, first of all, I've just got to say whatever Tom says.

What, copy Tom?

Cobby Tom, really.

Okay, and then making fun of my investor.

I just get Ed to like me more by I just ask him about tattoos as I did 10 minutes ago.

Yeah, yeah, I did notice you did it.

And you say tattoos.

Yeah,

anyone who says tattoos, I know, isn't really interested.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What are you meant to say?

No, that I think everyone else in the world says tattoos.

Tattoos.

Not tattoos.

Have you any new tattoos, Ed?

Have you any new tattoos?

Have you seen anything on the films recently

to get him to like me?

Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure he likes you.

Yeah, I like you instantly, though, Sha.

Yeah.

What would Mozzie choose, Benito?

Sparkling.

Sparkling.

Yeah, you do.

There you go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Straight away.

Sparkling.

She strikes me as somebody that would drink sparkling water.

Well, I think, especially if you're a dancer, you're drinking still water all the time when you're training, because you can't drink sparkling water while you're training, obviously.

Well, you'd be burping all the time, wouldn't you?

Imagine doing a backflip.

You do a burp doing it.

You might do an ultra backflip.

Go through the feed.

True, it's fine.

But I mean,

if you're in the competition a couple of weeks i can burp it's fine yeah

well if you did a very saw that once on strictly well i was going to say if you did a during strictly if you did a very obvious and need i say more stinky burp that wafted towards the judges where's this on the dance floor on the dance floor you're done you're dancing you're dancing with a celeb you're hoping you're hoping the burp lands in debec's face because that's a tent anyway

fingers crossed they smell the burp they know you've done the burp They've seen you do the burp.

How many points do you think they'd take off for the burp?

Each judge?

No, I mean, you question.

How far off would you have to be from?

That's true, yeah.

For them to stand up.

Do you never go right up to the judge's table and do a shimmy?

Sometimes you laugh at the job.

Sometimes you do.

And that's true.

I'm just going to think about it now.

Let me see.

Oh, goodness.

So you're in their face shimmying and you burp.

Ew.

Obviously, Craig is the worst person to burp in front of or burp on or Shirley.

Because I think Mozie would laugh.

Yeah,

standard.

She'd laugh.

Mozzie would take a switch to sparkle and burp right back at you.

I mean, it would be sweet if you burped in Craig's face.

I mean, it's always for his.

It's so serious.

I think it will make him laugh.

Do you know what I mean?

I don't know how that will go down.

No, I've never.

I've never.

You never thought about that?

Never thought about that.

We bring the tough questions on us, money.

Yeah, we ask them.

But I don't don't think points should be deducted for something as natural as burping.

But if it's a really big one, though, massive, I'm still talking massive.

As long as you are not out of timing

and you didn't mess up your choreography, I say burp a lot.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

As long as it doesn't affect your choreography, I shouldn't be taking off points.

Yeah, you would argue that on live television.

Oh, definitely.

And what if it was just an artistic choice?

I met Craig recently.

I stopped.

I was doing, well, wait till you hear this.

I was doing Live at the Apollo.

I was hosting an episode of Live at the Apollo.

Very nerve-wracking moment for a comedian.

You want it to all go well.

We were the first one they were filming that night.

And then just before they said, oh, we're filming something for 100 years of the BBC where Craig and some strictly people like invade the stage at loads of different TV shows.

So they're going out there first to do their thing.

And I was like, right?

And the audience know this.

They went, no, we're just going to do it.

So they went out and did a dance.

The audience just sat there baffled because they thought it was Live at the Apollo.

They come off and like, right, okay, just get your head in the game.

You've got to get this right now.

You probably have a bit of work to do at the top because they're a bit confused.

And I just heard someone go, yeah, we'll just do it one more time.

Yeah.

Three times they did that dance.

That was probably Med Flint, yeah.

And then

I had to go out and sort of not mention it.

Where was this?

This was at the Hammersmith Apollo.

Congratulations on that.

Thanks, Pinky, very much.

One of the biggest gigs of Kamedan's career, hosting Live at the Apollo.

And I had to work really hard at the top because everyone was initially baffled and then just absolutely wowed by the dancing.

And then I come out in, you know, t-shirt and jeans.

And then to watch the same dance for eight times.

I'm sorry about that.

Oh, no, it was, it was lovely to watch.

Oh, strictly must be everywhere, isn't it?

Yeah,

even even infiltrating the comedy shows, no.

So again, you could boil it in a mold or if you want to be super traditional, banana leaves.

And you boil them on the side.

Thing is, if you eat all these things in combination, you're going to fart yourself into orbit.

I mean,

you have a fight anyway.

No, I don't want to.

If you're eating this meal, you want to make sure you're not doing anything for the rest of the day, right?

You can't.

Okay, I'm going to ask a question, right?

Just

I don't do toilet humor.

Sure, but I just want to know if it's only me.

Yeah.

Have you ever farted so hard that it pushed your balls?

Pushed a balls.

Like you were sitting down and like.

Because you were sitting down, your balls kind of like pushed your balls to get.

I mean, I've not noticed that.

You've never done the ball tickler fart.

I've probably done the tickler, but I've not pushed.

I've not pushed my ball.

I don't.

No, like...

I didn't bush the fucking mountain.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, yeah.

So much power.

But that's what I mean.

So much Dragon Ball Z.

I've not seen much Dragon Ball Z.

No.

You know about a spirit bomb.

I don't know.

I don't, but I think I know where you're going with it.

But

I think I've probably felt the fart on my balls.

But it didn't push.

It didn't move the balls.

If you see what I mean.

Is that what happens in Dragon Ball Z?

No.

As they fart and push each other's balls around.

I mean, maybe off camera, but you have like these

massive fireball things that they do.

Yeah.

It was like that of farts.

Like, I had to stop what I was doing and take a few minutes to just

collect myself.

And you've been eating more and more.

Is that what I said?

Yeah, yeah.

I think it's amazing.

Like, you're talking about hydrating.

A lot of people I know live in LA that talk about making sure they hydrate.

But that combined with a sitting where you're going to be able to do it.

When you say it like that,

it sounds like I'm an insufferable

Angelino.

And Ed, the point is taking.

You've really, right here at the end, you've really rocked me to my quarters.

That's what I didn't say at the beginning, man.

Just Mazaka's tricks pets.

The secret ingredient.

But do you not just need the toilet all the time in your car?

I do.

Yeah.

All the time.

And have had some very close calls.

Yeah, yeah.

Very close calls.

So much so that I've now had to a number of times pull up into side streets to surreptitiously try and piss without somebody being like, hey,

Adrian Pimento from Brooklyn IM, big fan, man, while I'm just like, don't look at me.

You know, while they're walking their dog in their neighborhood while a semi-known person is just pissing.

Or one of those like celebrity tour buses.

Oh, my God.

And there he is, once again, unable to make it all the way home from lunch.

Jason Manzouk is pissing on the side of the road.

And if we turn down here, we might see, oh, there he is.

Jason Manzouk is once again pissing mere moments from his house because it's always like four minutes from home.

My body's like, and now,

go.

Because something about like turning up my street makes me feel like i'm there yeah yeah and then it's just game over so that's the other thing is i'm pissing in my own neighborhood like so my neighbor it's only a matter of time it's not like i'm it's not like i'm on the other side of time being like whatever no it's whatever i'm gonna i'm just like crouching in some bushes like an absolute maniac no i'm in the neighborhood that i live in where my neighbors might walk by and be like hey jason how are you and i'm gonna have to be like hey what's going on couldn't make it home i'm in my 50s who knew they're gonna think you don't have a a toilet.

Like, you've not paid to put a toilet in your house as well.

Well, I also have a bunch of smashed toilets out front of my house.

I am very vocally anti-toilet.

I think big toilet's trying to take us over.

I will say, I just got one of those Japanese toilet seats.

Oh, wow.

Just the thing you put on, and it does all the same stuff.

You know, holy cow.

You look like Nish, but you know you're living

like good timeline Nish where you're living his dreams.

Oh, yes.

Oh, please.

Me and Nish, I'd say, you know, we talk most days.

I'd say 50% of our conversations are about imagine if we had a Japanese toilet.

Oh, I thought you were going to say 50% of your conversations are Nish saying, what if I could lead Jason Manzoukas's life?

Does the Japanese toilet have writing on the side that says Jason Manzukis?

Yep, yep.

Shit's here.

Pisses down the road.

Pisses down the road, shit's here.

This is Jason Manzukas' sake cup.

The way the Rock Johnson's bushes or whatever.

I will say this is the thing is a game changer.

The toilet itself, I think, is insanely expensive, but the bidet seat,

very affordable and incredible.

I mean, like, really good.

Like, being here for a couple of weeks, I'm like, oh, man, I really miss it.

Yeah, yeah, that's the main thing.

You can look at photos of it on your phone.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, I'm texting it.

It's not texting me back.

Do you feel really dirty?

I feel filthy right now.

I feel like I'm sitting in my own filth.

You know, it's disgusting.

It's disgusting.

You don't, you, you feel clean afterwards in a way that you just cannot from mashing paper around.

Think about it.

It's crazy.

Why would we do this like this?

This should be, we should all just shoot water at our assholes and be done with it.

It's absolutely absurd that we mush paper around and just smear the shit around.

You wouldn't do it to your plates.

You wouldn't, exactly.

You wouldn't do it to your plates.

Imagine if someone, you went to someone's house for dinner and they popped a plate down.

It was clearly like

last night's dinner.

We wiped it, we dry wiped it.

We dry wiped last night's dinner off of the plates.

It's fine.

That's what you're doing.

You're dry wiping your own shit.

Yeah.

All over.

Is that what you people came to this podcast for?

They know that happened.

They

were

disappointed it's taking us this long to get there.

I think because of the way that I feel now in my second go, the final course would just be like a big fucking hot wad of shit filled with tampons.

Piece of shit.

ada beata

it would be shit and tampons tampons prepared like a fusili or whatever yeah

soaked in the shit

a bolognese yeah a shit bolognese human and other whatever's around so just to be clear A human shit bolognese is that just like someone's made a bolognese out of human shit or someone eating bolognese and then shit yeah

very good question from James.

Well, let's see, James, this is just like a very simple kind of science question.

Yeah.

If you eat bolognese, if you go home after this, you eat bolognese.

Yeah.

And then

10 hours later, right?

That's the normal digestive cycle.

You shit.

Do you look into the toilet and say, that's bolognese?

I'm going to eat it again.

Well, I wouldn't say I'm going to eat it again.

I wouldn't say, I mean, you say shit mixed with bolognese or bolognese shit.

I wouldn't say I'm going going to eat it again, but I might be like, I've got the bolognese shits.

Not after 10 hours, though.

That would have to be like within an hour or two, I think, for you to look in and go, that's bolognese.

I've got the bolognese.

It's not even a visual thing for me.

It's like, sometimes you just feel it.

You know what it is that you ate that's making you shit.

But usually if you're getting shits that fast after eating something irritating, you're not shitting that thing.

You're shitting the other stuff that was in there that's getting...

Yeah.

Which I was once told by a goddamn hotel receptionist.

What?

I tried to complain that the breakfast I'd eaten had given me the shits.

And

she was like, that couldn't have been.

When did you have the breakfast?

And I was like, like an hour ago, I'd have shat everywhere.

And

she was like, that couldn't have been the breakfast.

I'm like, it would definitely.

I ate the breakfast, and then I went to my hotel room and I just did shits everywhere.

And it's all covered in shit.

And she was like...

She googled it in front of me on the computer and then she said to me, there you go.

That shows it couldn't have been the breakfast.

It takes takes this long to to affect you if you get food poisoned from something it couldn't have been that breakfast that we gave you we're not we're not apologizing for nothing then i had to go to the next leg of my tour

and when you say you shit there was shit everywhere was that did you like diarrhea and it ended up on the floor or something ended up on the robe that i was wearing what oh i was relaxing i i ate the breakfast went back to my hotel had a shower put a robe on sat down to do emails shat the robe, big time.

After your shower.

Yeah, after the shower is the worst.

Yeah.

I just soaked the robe in the sink.

Apologies to that.

The fact that you then, the level of confidence you must have had to shit in a hotel robe.

Yes.

And then call reception and say, your breakfast just made me do a shit in your robe.

Well, listen.

Oh, yeah.

I knew they were going to see that.

I tried to clear up the evidence.

I tried to, I was like, no.

So I was like, and I was angry about it.

Right.

What I would do is I would take that robe with me and then I'd pay them I'd pay for the robe yeah yeah I wouldn't I I wouldn't call reception and admit I just done a shit in the robe that I didn't call reception I'd said it to their face when I was leaving sometimes the robes though are like $300

and then it's like you're gonna it's like I would want to then because I wouldn't want just because there's shit on it I wouldn't want to throw it away if I was really gonna take that hit but then be like okay I'm gonna keep the robe but I gotta wash it yeah but then if you put a shit robe in your luggage,

the smell will get into the rest.

And I say this as someone who has shit in underwear and been like, I was like, I guess I'm going to travel with it.

And I put it in a bag.

Guess what?

It gets through the bag.

It gets through the bag.

And it makes your other clothes smell like poop.

This was, this was a really long time ago.

Yeah, yeah.

This is recent.

This was maybe like months ago.

I just got.

Yeah, mine was about a month

from today i would just say even if

the road was 300

i think i'm willing to spend that so i don't get into a situation where a hotel receptionist is googling how long does it take for something to make you shit yourself well and then showing me the results and also the kind of like the I don't know, that's kind of like litigation or something.

Like the skill to be like, actually,

science says here on the screen, like

she's probably had people do that before.

Yeah, that can't have been the first time that the breakfast has made someone shit.

That's what it felt like.

It felt like she was like, I've been here many times before.

You're not going to win this.

It feels like maybe the bacteria was just like sitting in your gut.

And as soon as food touched it, it inflamed it.

So it probably was the food, but maybe it was the food from the night before.

That's just like

how sometimes you'll like not, if you're sick in with like a stomach flu or something and you won't have to puke or like get you don't get that like weird nauseous feeling until you actually try and eat something yeah that's what it felt did you did you tell them about the robe no no i was like they'll find out and was there any blow was there any blowback from that no they didn't follow up and go hey found that robe in the sink soaking in the in the sink don't you think we don't know what you did i didn't do that I don't know exactly what hotel it was.

I'd know the hotel if I saw it.

Yes, of course.

And they'd know you if they saw you.

I think actually I was already at the point in my career where she did know me.

Unfortunately.

And you went down and you were like, ah, shit.

And what did you want to, what did you, in your head, what did you do?

Yeah, you know, at the time, I guess I thought they might take the breakfast off the bill.

But

I don't know why I wanted that.

I don't know why I thought that was a fair trade.

That was worth my dignity.

Was this when you were going through a tricky time?

When I'm not.

You know,

yeah.

I was definitely on tour.

So yeah, I was at my wit's end.

You know, it really, it's a tour, I think, is destabilizing.

A lot of stuff.

It throws your whole body out of whack, mind, body, soul.

It's, it's okay.

And maybe she saw that.

Yeah.

Maybe she was like, it's not the breakfast.

It's your, it's the tour.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She could have googled my tour dates and just shown me those and gone.

Yeah.

These are too close together.

Yeah.

this kind of geographically doesn't make sense yeah

you should go through that list and tick every time you've done a horrible shit

every day

That's it for part one.

We'll be back with part two tomorrow.

Perhaps you've listened to this whilst traveling to see family over the festive period.

Maybe you've been cooking a Boxing Day feast.

Or maybe, like James, you've been cleaning your flat.

Hi, James.

See you tomorrow.

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Oh, hi, James.

Have you heard the news?

Oh, yeah.

Go on.

You and I are modern boys because the Off Menu podcast is now on YouTube.

This is embarrassing.

Why is it embarrassing, man?

You love YouTube.

I love watching clips on YouTube.

Sure.

Now people can watch clips of Off Menu on YouTube and full episodes, but it's embarrassing, man.

It's not embarrassing at all.

It's really cool.

We're on YouTube with the great and good.

The coolest people in the world are on YouTube.

Me, you, Logan Paul.

Who's Logan Paul, the dad from Succession?

At Off Menu Podcast.

That's what Benito's calling us now.

And we're on TikTok.

This is embarrassing, man.

It's not embarrassing, man.

We're cool.

We're like Olivia Rodrigo.

And Ed.

People have been asking us, badgering us, bothering us, actually.

They want to watch the Stephen Graham supercut from the Stephen Graham episodes.

They can see all of his reactions to us, everything that he did.

Oh, Benito has bent to their whims and he's going to put it on YouTube.

He's going to do it.

Follow us at Off Menu Official on TikTok, at Off Menu Podcast, on YouTube.

You can watch clips from the podcast.

And on YouTube, you can watch full video episodes.

People have been asking for it, and you're finally getting it.

Full video episodes.

So you can see every single nuance on our little faces.