Ep 233: Frankie Boyle (Live in Glasgow)

James, huge news from the world of off-menu and indeed the world of the world.

Yes.

Ever heard of the Royal Albert Hall?

I have.

We've done live shows there.

And guess what?

We're doing more live shows there next year.

Sure, a lot of them are sold out already.

But we thought, hey, throw these guys a bone.

Let's put on one final Royal Albert Hall show in that run.

The show will be on Monday, the 16th of March.

It's going to be a tasting menu, a returning guest coming back, receiving the menu of another previous guest.

Those shows have been a lot of fun.

We cannot wait to do them live.

Who will we pull out of our little magic bag?

You'll have to come along on the 16th of March to find out.

If I'm correct in thinking, presale tickets go on pre-sale on the 10th of September.

Pre-sale tickets are 10th of September at 10 a.m.

And then the general sale is 12th of September at 10 a.m.

So if you miss out on the pre-sale, don't forget general sale is only two days later.

The day in between is for reflecting.

Get your tickets from royalalberthall.com Hall.com or offmenupodcast.co.uk.

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It's Saturday.

What does that mean, Jay?

Bonus.

It's a bonus live episode from the Off-Menu Live Tour 2023 as recorded on the 22nd of October.

But it's not that anymore.

We're deep into 2024 now, I would say.

Not right now.

15th of December now.

No, but when they're listening to this.

When they're listening to this.

15th of December 2023, we're recording all of these.

It's 16th of March 2024 or later.

Earliest it could be is 16th of March, mad.

Like this is recorded in the past.

Yeah.

And we're recording this bit now in the future past.

And then there's the future coming up when it actually goes out.

Mad.

And people can then listen to to it whenever they want.

It's Frankie Boyle as the special guest.

At the SEC Armadillo in Glasgow.

Yes.

Very excited to have Frankie on the show.

Much requested.

Yeah, much requested Frankie for a long time.

Much requested.

And I imagine now we'll get loads of messages saying, bring back Frankie.

Oh, I hope so.

Yeah.

I'd say out of all the live shows we recorded, Frankie is the guest who came out at the top, all guns blazing.

The most.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, we're laughing pretty much from the word go here.

Yeah, it's a brilliant episode.

Secret ingredient was hazelnut vodka.

I mean, there's no chance he's going to pick it.

He doesn't drink.

He doesn't drink.

So, but

we were glad of that.

Yes, we were glad that they suggested a secret ingredient in the audience that meant he would stay in.

I know Frankie doesn't drink.

I wonder if James will remember for the episode.

This is the off-menu menu live episode just remembered of Frankie for oil.

Welcome to the off-menu podcast, taking the wife of of humour.

Feeding her the morning rolls of the internet.

Smelling the farts of friendship.

Creating the Scottish oven of food podcasting.

That is Ed Gamble.

My name is James A.

Castle.

Together we own a dream restaurant and every single week we invite in the guests and ask them their favourite ever star and main course dessert, side dish and drink, not in that order and this week our guest is

frankie boyle

so excited to have frankie on the podcast in glasgow as soon as we knew we were doing the tour and we were coming to glasgow we were like dream is frankie boyle and he said yes so we're very very excited you already know the secret ingredient so let's bring out frankie without further ado this is the off menu menu of frankie

What are you doing, James?

Oh yeah, sorry.

We've got to do this properly, Frankie C, because James is a genie in this.

All right, yeah.

If you would like to rub the lamp, that's fine.

Otherwise, we can do it.

Oh, I'll rub it.

You rub the lamp?

Great.

Thank you.

welcome frankie boyle to the dream restaurant we've been expecting you for some time

perfect

thank you genie thank you frankie

lovely lamp rub very sensually rubbing the lamp there that was perfect That wasn't sexual.

I haven't got started yet.

You've given us diet iron brew, which is good.

It's like someone used Fanta to wash their car.

Did you really get knocked back at a Glasgow restaurant?

You got knocked back for brunch?

Glasgow restaurant.

Do you not know what that expression means?

You were refused service.

Sorry, he's been in the lamp for thousands of years.

Yes, yeah.

I can translate as I go along.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You were refused service, James.

Yes, we got knocked back, yes.

You got a KB, basically.

And I mean, that is not untypical, I would say, of Glasgow's attitude to service.

I've got a story that happened to me last Christmas that I always think is like: if you understand this story, you can understand Glasgow.

I went to get my eyes tested at the optician, and she said, Your eyesight has deteriorated quite a bit, but I wouldn't worry about it.

And I said, why not?

And she went, because I'm not you.

She just goes through her day not worrying about anyone's eyesight.

It's great.

I've had a great day.

Everyone's blind.

I couldn't give a fuck.

Are you a foodie, Frankie?

Do you like food?

I love food.

And I think about little else but food.

Yes.

But I wouldn't really call myself a foodie because I think to be a foodie, you have to enjoy finer delicacies.

I have quite plain tastes.

You know, I can't eat something like oysters, which is basically just licking cum off the back of a tortoise.

You know, somehow that doesn't put me off oysters.

If I went to a really fancy restaurant, if I went to like Noma in Copenhagen, like they're doing wild stuff, and they brought me out a tortoise,

and they went, there's a cum on the back of that, I'd go, give it a go.

Keep it, there will be soon.

I don't know why we've gone so low, swearly.

Oh, and I'd say we.

Is it

the tortoise's cum

or another animal taste it and see, Jeannie?

It'd be very impressive a tortoise could come on their own back.

It's also the texture of an oyster, isn't it?

You don't.

Unless your favourite texture is a corpse's clitoris.

But there are other foods I like.

What a way to find out that's my favourite texture.

It's probably the best way to find that out.

We always start with still and sparkling water.

Still of sparkling water, thank you.

What are you going to compare these to?

Are we really moving straight into still in sparkling water?

Are you now just terrified and you're going to huckle me off?

Huckle means to move someone.

I do actually need to be told this.

I've no idea what happened.

There's sort of like there are some Scottish expressions that there aren't any real translation for, other like let's let someone being at it.

Do you know what I mean?

You can't really explain to an English person what that is without like Captain Tom's family are at it.

No idea.

Obviously, you know who Captain Tom is.

Yeah, but you know his family are at it, right?

Never knew his family were at it.

Yeah.

If they were on now, we'd huckle them off, for sure.

Shall I try if I chuck those phrases into my Shrek impression?

Oh, yeah.

I'll love it.

And give me more respect.

Never heard Shrek talk about Captain Tom's family before.

Well, our next tour date is Brighton or somewhere like that.

Start doing buffing on Captain Tom's family.

Because at it, I would say at it is like

having sex.

Sure, that's what we are doing.

I mean, of all the things Captain Tom's family are up to, it can't be that.

I mean, it would.

Maybe that's why they needed them out of the house.

Once more round.

Once more round, Tom.

I've been huckled out into the garden again.

It's for the NHS or something.

Anyway, foods.

Lovely, innit?

I want to know what at it means.

It means you're taking a piss.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, that's cool.

Not quite, but...

Yeah, I know, but you know what I mean?

It's close to that.

Pushing it.

Yeah, pushing it.

You're fucking chancing your arm.

Mrs.

Captain Tom.

This will help me a lot, actually.

I think after the show, you should just tell me a lot of these because I'm quite addicted to watching the clips of Limmy on YouTube.

I really laugh at it, but I only understand half of it.

But I'd love to laugh at the full thing.

I think that would be the life goal

for me.

To laugh at a whole little bit.

Laugh at a whole, get the whole thing.

Do you want to tell us about the waterfront?

I can't really cook.

So I eat out a lot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I did try to learn to cook once.

Because I fell in love with this girl and she was like, can you cook?

And I was like, yeah.

Because start the relationship off on a lie.

And then I learned how to cook breakfast pretty well.

I'd cook her like

scrambled eggs on toast.

Lovely.

But really well.

Really well.

And then I tried to progress to

making Nokie, which is quite a big leap.

Yeah, I'd say so.

Yeah, so I bought something called a potato ricer because I thought if I just unleash my potential,

I could be anything.

Yeah.

But actually, if you unleash your whole potential, you can maybe tidy up your bedside cabinet.

And even then for how long?

Yeah.

So I made this Nokie and I sent her a picture of it and it really went downhill from there.

Sent her a picture of it first.

So you weren't making her the Nokia.

It was too disgusting to eat.

But I made it to a standard where it could be photographed.

I love that she I assumed she was coming over or something.

Nah, I was just like, hey, I'm just hanging out casually making Nokie.

And looking back, I should have used a stalk picture.

Yeah, don't worry about Getty images.

That's just something I put on all my photos.

So,

I think we all know what the next question's going to be.

I don't accept still water.

It's too full of contradictions.

You're paying for an expensive bottle of water to be brought to your table and poured over cubes of tap water.

And that to me is too much of a capitalist contradiction.

So I want to have sparkling water.

Please, Junine.

Let me tell you, that we've had a lot of answers to this question on the podcast.

None of them have genuinely made me think.

And I'd never thought it was a capitalist contradiction.

But the fact that the ice cubes are made out of tap water and are going to be melted into the bottled water has blown my mind.

And it doesn't matter so much in Scotland where our tap water is nice.

But

in England, that's basically cubes of sewage.

It is?

I mean, can't deny it.

There's a noticeable difference coming here and having some tap water.

London tap water is poison.

But I'm sort of proud of it.

We've talked about this before.

Like a shower in London, I know what my hair's going to do.

If I go any further north, it's too soft.

Come out all fluffy, Frankie.

The further north you go, the less interested people will be in your fluffy hair problems.

That'll be it.

Maybe that's why they didn't let us into that restaurant today.

Because I went in on apologies for my fluffy hair, guys.

Do you have a table for two?

I'd also like, could I have a little tiny bit of Ribena?

in my sparkling water.

Yes.

Yeah, a lot of respect to the room for that.

I always like

the we characters in the Ribena advert just for being so proudly cannibals.

Yeah.

The blackcurrant guys.

Yeah, they were so bloodthirsty.

They were just like, crush our friends into juice and let's drink it.

But they themselves also wanted to be crushed, right?

Yeah.

That's the whole death drive right there in Ribena.

Would you like them there at your meal?

Do you want to meet them?

Yes, please.

You can make that happen, Ginny.

Yeah,

I can conjure them up.

I can have them come on the tortoise's back, whatever you want.

And yet you can only bring me bread or poppadoes.

I don't make the rules.

I do.

We both do together.

Yeah.

Pop lobs off bread.

Pop logs off bed, thank you, boy.

A pop logs off bread.

He just mentioned it, so I couldn't shock him.

Yeah, but he was about to take a drink, so I thought it's now or never.

Maybe you'll be able to scare Frankie Boyle.

I don't see why I have to choose, but as I have to choose, obviously, it's bread.

No one's gonna give up all fucking bread for popadoms,

nice though they are, yeah.

You know, and also, I'm like genetically Irish, so my parents are both from Donegal.

Yeah,

they clearly are not from Donegal or they wouldn't be showing any enthusiasm.

You are from Donegal.

Wow.

And you have a...

You have a...

You're from Litterkenny.

She gets higher every time I ask her a question.

They'd be talking on fast forward.

Basically, you won't know this part of Ireland, but she is essentially a time traveller.

These are people who eat purple seaweed as a snack.

Dulce.

Dulce.

Yes.

Yes, we had it.

Eat it out of bags like crisps.

But the other, as I get on to my bread issue here,

the other thing you have in Ireland, you've got a lot of celiac disease.

1% of Irish people are measured as having celiac disease, but I should reckon a lot more are like me and just thinking, I think I might have that, but I'm not going to get get tested

because if I'm going to die, of all the ways that you could die, if you got to see a playing card with how you're going to die, and it says crushed in machinery, jealous husband, whatever, you know, but you drew the card that said delicious bread.

That's the one I want to have.

I love bread.

What happens to you when you eat bread then?

Do you have an adverse reaction to it?

I feel unwell.

But then I do eat quite a lot of it.

So maybe it's just that.

It's just the amounts rather than the...

Let's just never find out.

That's my strategy.

Do you have a favourite type of bread that you'd like for your dream meal?

Oh, for the dream meal, I'd like little hot rolls with butter.

And what time of day will you be eating these rolls?

In the morning.

Are they crispy or soft?

There's some confusion here because there's two types of morton roll which is your standard morton roll and then clearly they have batches that just get damaged in the factory that they have decided to brand well-filed

by which they mean slightly burnt.

I'd go for the first one.

The first one, the proper one.

Yeah the normal one.

Can you clarify for us?

A morning roll, can you only eat it in the morning or is it the type of bread that it is makes it a morning roll?

The type of bread.

So you can't eat a morning roll in the afternoon and instead of morning roll.

You can eat it in the middle of the night.

No one's going to stop you.

There's very few bread patrols in Glasgow.

It's more, it's a slightly hard shelter roll, so you can stick a lot more in there than it's supposed to really be in there without getting grease on your hand.

That's the advantage of it.

What's the most amount of stuff you've ever stuck in the morning roll?

Good question, man.

Well, recently I had to move hotels because I stayed in this hotel in London on tour and the only

option on breakfast, they had one option on breakfast on a printed menu and it was called the humongous.

And it was a roll with a hard fried egg, like a well-fried egg, and a sausage and some sweet chili jam in it.

But if you said to them, I'd like that sausage and roll thing, they would go, what?

So you had to say, the humongous, please.

And it wasn't so much eating it as saying it.

And I just moved to hotel.

I'd like the humongous, please.

Every day for a week, the humongous, please.

Also, if there's only one option, you just go in and go, can I have breakfast?

Surely.

Well, some people weren't having the humongous because it was horrible.

So they they would just have coffee or whatever.

So you can't even just say, bring me breakfast.

Was it big?

It was too big.

It was disgusting.

Yeah, I guess it was humongous.

But how big was the roll then?

It was like half a baguette.

Size of a roll.

Like, I mean, they really delivered.

Something terrible.

Yeah.

But, you know, they put some effort in.

Wow.

Frankie, you're doing well, man.

Why are you staying in a hotel that only has the humongous on the menu?

Sounds like you're staying at a truck stop.

I ca I I came to my senses and left.

I thought you were gonna lay by.

I was trying to mix things up a bit.

Well let's get into your dream menu proper Frankie.

Your dream starter.

My dream starter, one ton soup

because I can say I'm having soup, sounds healthy.

I'm actually eating hot pork dumplings.

And for some reason, greasy water and one cabbage leaf that I can tell myself is maybe going to do me some good

and really I'm just eating hot dumplings and I'm not sure.

For a second I thought you said one ton soup and I thought that must be the dinner menu at that hotel.

I love one ton soup.

Absolutely delicious.

It's not soup though is it?

You're right.

It's more like I just get flooded with a feeling of well-being when I have it.

It's like an anesthetic.

Like when I have a bowl of one tonne soup I'm just like, ah, I could happily die now.

Would you happily like have an operation after, like if I if I gave you a big bowl of one tonne soup and then we was like, this guy's now going to come in and remove your pancreas or whatever.

A one tonne soup and 30 milligrams of valium and I'll give it a shot.

Don't give away a side dish.

Is there somewhere where you've had the best one ton soup you've ever had?

Where you'd like it for your dream meal?

Do you know the the other thing about it?

It's always good everywhere.

They all seem to be able to do one-ton soup.

You know what I mean?

If you're doing a Chinese menu, you can do it.

I think also when I first started to have it, I was starting to do gigs in London when I was a little young comic.

And in Scotland, in Glasgow, in particular, very hard to get food then after about 10 o'clock.

Right?

It's really still quite Presbyterian.

this country.

And when you go to London and you stay in Soho, you'd come back from your gig and it might be 11 o'clock, and you could still go and eat.

And that to me was amazing.

So you'd have done a really stressful gig because you were shit at the time.

And you'd be suddenly sitting in a Chinese restaurant having this beautiful sip in the middle of the night.

And I think it just kicks back all those memories.

That's lovely.

Also, where, so last time I was in Glasgow, which was like a couple of months ago, I met a friend for some Chinese food.

I think it was literally just called,

this can't be right.

Chinese restaurant.

Did someone say to you, do you want to go to the Chinese restaurant?

That's a funny name for a restaurant.

No, I feel like.

Oh, please.

Someone have a clue about what I'm on about.

No, there's volunteering in the street.

It was near one of the train stations.

Huh?

What's it called?

In Dim Sum Place.

Yeah, what was it called?

I was just called Dim Sum.

It's like massive letters outside it.

That was a good place, man.

Like, we over-ordered, but everything on the menu was incredible.

Last time I was in Glasgow,

we were getting late-night food.

We went and got drunk, and then obviously I was like, first thought, I want a munchie box right now.

Let's go and get a munchie box.

It's probably the, like, I looked, it was the bleakest tableau I've ever been in in my life because we're just sat on a bench eating massive munchie box like slamming it in.

And someone walked past me and went, pointed at me for ages and went, Ed Gamble.

I was like, oh no.

Can I have a selfie?

I went, yes.

So somewhere there's a photo of me sat on a bench with a munchie box open with like fucking grease around my mouth and there stood up like hey.

So if anyone has that photo, please delete it immediately because

I love munchies.

Delicious.

What are you talking about, mate?

You're lucky you got a whole box of them.

I'm lucky if I can find a bag.

After a gig.

You got a whole box of the munchies?

Don't rise to it.

No, we're just going to leave them.

Biscuit in the middle and a camouflage and then the chocolate on the outside and it's all in that little clug.

They fucking would just throw those in there though.

It's wild what's going on in that box.

Also, just going in and ordering a box of stuff.

That's so exciting.

It's the food equivalent of a car boot sale.

Because it's not like a set thing.

There's not like set things that will be in every munchie box, right?

People add their own little twists to it.

Is that fair to say?

Yeah.

There's always like pakoras and stuff and some chips in there or whatever, but they go fucking crazy with their

I think we're talking about different things.

Your dream main course, Fanky?

No, I was very torn here.

I love chicken, and I think it has psychological roots, right?

In that when you were a kid,

like your dad always got the big bit of chicken, leg of chicken, right?

And you got some fucking scraggy bits of chicken.

And as a kid, I often thought to myself, when I'm an adult, I will eat chicken every day.

And I've lived up to that dream.

It's rarely,

I mean, chicken, we all love it.

I love to get it in a Vietnamese place in Glasgow, do a caramelised ginger chicken that I really like.

Okay, a chicken has to die, but

it's just a fucking chicken.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And

I'm very tempted to say chicken or like a really good fried chicken or something like that, but

I want to be honest and say what my actual dream meal would be.

I'd like to eat all of the icing off a wedding cake.

Frankie.

Main course.

Main course.

Last night.

Last night we had Ian fucking Sterling on.

He chose a cheese board as his dessert.

Oh, God.

I cried myself to sleep.

You have no idea how good this feels right now

to hear that you want to eat all the ice and offer wedding cake as your main course.

Surely in Scotland if you ordered the cheese board they'd be blowing fucking dust off it before they handed it to you.

Yeah, well that's what what you get if you invite on a prick from Edinburgh!

Whose wedding have you had the best icing off their entire cake?

You know when I was a kid I guess my parents got invited to a few weddings and they'd bring back cake like almost apologetically and go, oh we got given some cake and I'd be like give me that shit.

I love that fucking white ice, that hard, it's just basically just sugar.

Yeah.

They've put it into some kind of form that I can shove it in my face.

And I often say to the kids, my daughter's in tonight somewhere.

I often say to the kids,

I love that wedding cake icing.

Why don't we get one of those cakes for my birthday or something?

And they always go, oh, yeah, we'll get that.

And they get like marzipan cake.

And I pretend to be happy.

I'm sorry, this is how you find out about it, darling.

But what I really want is that hard wedding cake stuff.

Yeah.

I love the idea of you at someone's wedding.

Oh yeah, I'm not an asset at a wedding at all.

And they're getting on with the meal and people are doing speeches and like, where did Frankie go during the speeches?

And then they go out and the wedding cakes butt naked.

Perfectly shaved.

Yeah.

You've got the little bride and groom figure just sticking out your nose.

You've got face first into it.

Do you reckon anyone's ever done voodoo with those bride and groom things

because you could do yeah you're asking for trouble really yeah putting those on top of a cake yeah

so is it royal icing is that what you is or is it fondant icing because i've i've been to different weddings have different cakes Ed had many cakes at his wedding.

Yeah, we didn't have that icing unfortunately, Frankie, so you wouldn't have enjoyed my wedding.

Would have been.

That's one reason, yes.

I feel like

it's like every now and again we forget who we're talking to and we're viciously reminding.

It's like,

well, he's got more left-leaned over the years, more socially aware.

Oh no, he's still a fucking grizzly.

He's still a bear.

He'll rip your fucking face off.

Your wedding was shit, mate.

I was there.

You would have had a lovely time, actually, Frankie.

Thank you.

I introduced the cakes at Ed's wedding.

You introduced the cake?

Yes.

Who to?

To all of the guests.

He made everyone gather round the cake.

All of the guests, because he said, this is my job.

I'm going to introduce the cakes.

He invented a fucking job.

It's never been a job at anyone's wedding before.

Wait, were you passed over for best man?

Yes.

But

James said, well, I'd like to introduce the cakes.

And after the meal, we all had to gather around the cakes, about 100 people.

And James stood on the stairs next to the cake and he introduced all the different layers.

I memorised what each cake was.

Yes.

So I could say it perfectly to everyone.

I knew what each sponge was, what the filling was, and what the icing on the top was.

Well, you put me on the spot now.

I think

there was a lemon sponge and

like a lemon curd.

There was like a carrot cake with an orange kind of curd.

He was better on the day, Frank.

I remember that the top one had like peanut butter, brittle, and salted caramel on it, but it was also the smallest cake, so it was the one that everyone wanted.

And obviously, just you and Charlie were going to eat it because it was small.

Everyone was like, I want that one.

I was like, yeah, good luck.

James took about 10 minutes to announce all the layers, and I looked around at my family, who were, to be fair, baffled.

And my mum came up to me and said, oh, James is really like that, isn't he?

So, what size wedding cake are we talking?

Because this is your main call.

How do you want to present it to you?

Oh, I'd like about three pounds of it just lists on the plate.

So you don't want to strip it off the cake.

That's not part of the dream meal.

You want it off the cake already.

Yeah, like what about this meal choice makes me look like I enjoy manual labour.

I'd like you to introduce the remnants of the cake if you can.

I'll introduce it to you.

Yeah, so these are the layers of icing that I've cut off.

A revolving wedding cake.

Let's take a bab.

Yeah.

I can do that in front of you if you like.

Donner icing.

That's a good idea.

I mean, like emptying it in.

Yeah.

That would be good, actually.

Little bride and groom on the top.

Just still spinning.

Where are your bride and groom slash voodoo horror

now?

Have you got them safe?

We've got them safe.

We, much to, again, my mother-in-law and my mother's chagrin, we bought these ridiculous, like, ceramic ones where they're beautifully moulded, like, the bodies are, like, perfect.

And then the faces are just, the potter has smudged them with their thumb and it's like smiley faces drawn in.

So they've been voodooed to fuck already, basically.

I like that the bodies are perfect.

Yes.

When you said the bodies are perfect, it sounded

sexual.

Do you think anyone is sexually attracted to the figures on top of one?

Of course.

Even if you fancied your own figure on the wedding day.

And then that's on the wedding day, you're conflicted.

Where you want to go through with the wedding because you fancied your own ceramic figure.

And then when they say, does anyone object?

You have to get it out.

I'd love to be at that wedding yeah well thank you that sounds delicious or do you want cutnery with it do you want a knife and fork a spoon

yeah why not fucking spoon it in

this is perfect Is there anyone else with you at your dream meal or is it just going to be you eating a plate of wedding cake icing?

Oh, I didn't know that was a possibility.

Oh, of course.

It's your dream.

Yeah, it's your dream, man.

Whatever you want.

Oh, great.

I'll have

both my kids and the philosopher Slazov Žižek.

Forgive me, I'm not aware of Slazlov's work.

You're not?

No.

He's a kind of neo-Hegelian who...

has done some very interesting stuff explaining philosophy through cinema.

So he's done a thing called the Perverts Guide to Cinema, the Perverts Guide to Ideology.

He sniffs a lot and makes a lot of

good points.

So

you're there, we're eating a mountain of wedding cake icing with a spoon.

He would love that.

Slazov would be like, yeah, I can see how this is the decay of Western society.

And your daughter's going to enjoy that?

She'll be amused.

Yeah.

And, you know,

my son kind of, I think he'll kind of get into it.

Yeah.

He'd probably rather there was some food.

Are they having their own wedding cake icing or are they going to share yours?

I mean, ideally.

Kids ain't getting married, Ed.

Ideally, they'd need some other food.

You know, this would be a kind of disgusting

disgusting family gathering.

Sorry, I'm just reading from the fact that that joke didn't land you.

Yeah.

I said it too late.

Yeah, I know.

Are they going to have their own wedding cake?

I said they're not going to get married.

And everyone reacted like, well, they might do.

It's a play on words.

Deliberately misunderstood.

I don't think your kids are getting married.

I know there's a possibility we're going to meet them after the show.

I'm now absolutely mortified.

This is why James stopped doing Mark the Week.

Yeah, yeah.

It was.

Even Dara was saying, bring back Frankie after all my life.

Those are the stuff that come up at the edit.

Well, that sounds like a delicious main course.

It doesn't, but we'll move on.

It does.

That's one of the best main courses we've ever had.

Dream side dish.

I'd just like to have some brown toast and marmalade.

I can think of nothing that goes better with wedding cake icing.

Actually, that would be better.

It actually does go quite well.

Quite nice.

Because tell me, Frankie, are you going to be taking a strip of the icing, popping it in between two slices of toast, and having a marmalade and icing sandwich?

No.

That would be ridiculous.

But I do like to sometimes, when I've been in this hotel where they only serve the humongous, I find you can get by on toasted marmalades pretty well and avoid the humongous.

I might be allergic to bread.

I don't know.

I am allergic to marmalades.

highly allergic to oranges, but I don't care because it's delicious.

Well, I can make you unallergic with my genie powers.

Or do do you want to remain allergic?

If you could clear that up, that would be nice because that's going to give me crippling stomach pains.

Yeah, happy to.

Is that what happens?

If you eat marmalade, you get crippling stomach pains.

Yeah, it's not great, but I don't care.

Life is pain.

Slazov Žižek would tell you this if he was here.

Slazlov's going to love your thing about

the ice cubes, isn't he?

The capitalist contradiction.

He'll have already thought of that.

There's a whole bunch of us out there.

Yeah.

Yeah, so that would be great for me.

I really enjoy to listen marmalade.

Anytime anyone's bought up marmalade on the podcast, I've always made sure that we ask them, are you a shredhead or a shredless wonder?

Oh, fucking hell.

Shredless?

I've not even considered that.

Do they do that?

They do shredless, yeah.

That's the most fucking disgusting thing I've ever heard.

Thick cut marmalade.

I don't trust people with thin cut, which is, to me, me, if someone goes missing, just round up everybody who buys thin cut marmalades.

Because he's fucking in there somewhere.

But shredless.

If I found shredless marmalade fingerprints on a computer, check that hard drive.

Marmalade is supposed to have peel in it.

That's what it is.

Yeah.

So you're thick-cut shred head.

Yes.

Is there any whiskey in this marmalade?

What?

Have you not ever had that before?

I've had marmalade with whiskey in it.

Thick-cut marmalade with whiskey is delicious.

I'm an alcoholic.

I just remembered as I was seeing it.

Can you cure that, Genie?

Because otherwise.

This meal is going to go on for a long time.

Very irresponsible, Genie.

They go, oh by the way, you can have a drink today.

Day four of the meal.

All three lads have ordered the humongous.

Butter on the toast before you put the marmalade on or something.

Oh my god, no, I hate that.

I can't believe people do that.

It's so fucking disgusting.

I know about half of people do that.

Yeah.

But it is...

horrific that you would put butter, which is fine on toast,

and marmalade, which is a totally different texture and consistency.

So you're just like, I want my marmalade toast to taste of slime.

Basically, I want it to be greasy and I want the marmalade to kind of fall off.

And

those are not good argies, and I don't trust those people.

Do you think you would have made a good Paddington?

I'd have probably taken the queen away a bit quicker.

I would have fucking loved that drawing

if Paddington was turning around and it was your face on Paddington.

Yeah.

Paddington, Peruvian demon of the underworld.

Time to go, ma'am.

Ma'am Elaine.

A very different sketch that they

shared on social media after

Paddington ripping her face off.

I forgot you were a bear.

Would you ever keep a marmalade sandwich under your hat?

You were wearing a hat when you arrived here tonight.

Would you ever keep a marmalade sandwich under there?

A bunny?

A bunnet sandwich?

Yeah, why not?

Yeah.

Why not?

Your dream drink, Frankie.

My dream drink would be a very peculiar drink that you can only really get in Donegal in Ireland where I used to always go

I Used to I used to go on my summer holidays there every year my parents are from there It's the middle of nowhere and what entertainment there was involved your uncle would say do you want to go out for a run

by which he meant I will will drive you in my car to the nearest pub, and I will drink for several hours and play cards.

And you're kind of stuck in this pub in the middle of nowhere.

And what we would drink is this drink called Football Special,

which

they made to kind of look like beer for a kid.

So it's a kind of fruity pop, but it has a thick head of chemical scum.

And it settles like a pint.

So we were like, yeah, we are drinking too.

And

obviously, we'd be absolutely out of our minds on sugar.

And I think they changed the recipe because probably like too many people mutated or something.

But it was amazing when I was a kid, football special.

So you could feel like you were a kid and you were

joining in.

So why do you think you are an alcoholic, Frank?

You've been able to trace it back to anything.

What is in football special?

Yeah, what's the flavour of football special, which is a great name?

It's so funny that it's called football special.

I have no idea how much it's up mining edge street, that kind of name.

It's very funny.

We can't explain why to you.

If you don't find a drink being called football special funny,

then we can't help you

and lead you to why it's funny.

And there's no logic in,

it's just a silly name, and we find it funny.

But like, football special is a funny name.

We thought, what would kids like?

Football.

They all like football and it's special.

There you go.

Get that down.

You shut the fuck up while we play cards.

It's another good accent.

We've all done good accent.

Everyone's done well.

I like that thing, you know, there was a big phase in Britain for maybe about 15 years of having Irish pubs in Britain, and they were like, not like any Irish pub I'd ever been to in childhood.

So they had lots of little drawers.

Like Irish people had didn't have, you know, oh, anytime you go to a pub, there's like a hundred drawers in the wall and a bike hanging off the ceiling and all that kind of stuff.

Whereas in the actual Irish pub that we would go to, it'd be like more a cement floor, a dog that begged for crisps,

and an alcoholic asleep with his head on the bar who would be served if he woke up.

How often was that dog barking?

It got a lot of tato crisps, but it was never satisfied.

Tato Crisp is another mascot who's clearly got sort of masochistic tendencies, right?

Because he's a big potato.

Yeah.

But he's more of a sadist.

He's just overseeing his potato brothers being he's a kind of West Brit Irishman.

Do you know what I mean?

Who's like decided to have all his other potatoes fed to folk?

And he's actually doing quite well.

He's got a nice hat and a coat.

So you think he's got no designs on being eaten himself?

He's just...

Oh, no, that's how he stays out of it.

Yeah.

He persuades his friends.

He's a judascote of a potato to be executed in his stead.

Have you been to the Tato theme park?

No, but I want to go.

Yeah, me too.

I'm desperate to go.

I can't offer anything more for this conversation, so neither of us been.

I was hoping you have.

I've never been.

I've heard about it.

I'm not desperate to go.

Why?

Because it's a theme park based around a packet of crisps.

If it was a theme park based

on wedding cake icing, I'd go immediately.

There's that Mr.

Blobby theme park that's all kind of overgrown and haunted looking.

I'd like to go there and pick acid or something.

Yeah.

Do you think Blobby's still knocking about there?

Still lives there?

On like two tabs of acid, he'll come back.

He's straight back.

That'd be a great horror film, wouldn't it?

Yeah.

Like a group of young people visit the overgrown Mr.

Blobby theme park and then

the killer is Mr.

Tato.

Yeah.

They take Blobby's mask off at the end and there's a massive potato under there.

Horrific.

Have you met Noel Edmonds?

Good question, man.

The honest answer is I don't know.

He's a master of disguise, Edmonds,

as you know.

Yeah, yeah.

But no, I've not met him.

I would like to meet him.

I read a funny story once where, you know, he's into this universal ordering.

No, yes.

What's that?

It's this kind of self-help thing where you're like, if you write a letter to the universe, saying I want this, that, and the other, it'll all happen for you.

It's all in belief, right?

And he says, and this is a great great system.

In fact, my friend just came around the other day and said, I'm a bit behind on my mortgage or whatever.

And I explained this whole system to him.

And you're like, he just wanted you to lend him some money.

You monster.

How

dare you tell your friend to beg the universe?

Also, in my head, his friend is Mr.

Blobby.

Blobby, blobby, blobby.

Blob

You've got to write a letter to the universe, Blobby.

The universe just can't understand the letter.

It's blobby, blobby.

Blobby, blubby, blobby.

Is he happy or sad?

I can't quite write this out.

Now, I hate to come back to a question, but what is in the

football special?

Did you ever find out?

I think the chemicals changed at some point because it started to not taste as good, but it might just be like nostalgia.

I don't know.

But I think it was supposed to be fruit-flavoured, but like of what alien chemical fruit?

I don't know.

But it did, it had a kick to it.

Well, look, I'm feeling very excited as we get to the dessert now because you've already had.

So even if you did choose a savory here, which I don't think you're gonna,

everything has been sweet so far.

Put with special muffler.

Yeah, fuck

Yeah, we're looking good.

What's your drink dessert, Frankie?

Hagen-Das chalk chalk chip ice cream, which has been discontinued.

And I don't know why I have to live in this timeline.

Hagen Dash used to do a chocolate, chalk chip.

ice cream so it's like the hagen dash Belgian chocolate ice cream but with chips of chocolate in it and it was amazing amazing.

And I did notice there used to be quite a lot left in the freezer, and I was like, Why aren't

people buying that?

Must have not done so well.

Then they discontinued it, and I was like shaken.

And I was doing Mock the Week at a time, so it would have been around 2008, something like that.

And one day I was walking around London trying to write the show, and I saw a lid of chalk, chalk chip ice cream.

And I was like, oh man,

they must have got it near here.

There must be some

near here, yeah?

And so I looked in all the shops around, I couldn't find it.

And I was supposed to be, you remember in that show that on the Friday or whatever, they give you the scenes we'd like to see.

So you had to spend all weekend writing these jokes kind of thing.

And I was like,

I've got to find this ice cream.

That's more important.

So I went home and I looked up how do you find something?

And there's like this,

yeah

what's this what's a search pattern if you're looking for something and there's a guide on there there was a thing of like how the SES search for someone right

and you go out in a spiral from the last place they were seen

so I had the lid

And I worked my way out for like three days while I was supposed to be writing this show,

going to every shop shop and bar for like miles, and I never found it.

You never found it.

No.

It's the saddest story that's ever been told on this podcast.

I love it so much.

You saw a lid on the ground

of an ice cream that had been discontinued that you missed.

You were meant to be working.

Googled how to find something.

You followed the rules of the SAS, which is go out and a spy upon where it was last seen.

You spent three days doing it, and you didn't find it.

I didn't find it, but I did write quite a good joke about ice cream.

We find that episode of Mock the Week.

If you see that, that's what was going through my mind at the time.

And you looked knackered on that episode as well, didn't you?

Yeah,

man, it was some great ice cream.

Chalk, chalk, chip.

Wow.

Little tiny chocolate chips.

Yeah.

They were sort of too small.

And I guess that's why it was a commercial failure.

But it was great.

Well, I believe it was great because I've never seen, like, you know, I've watched a lot of you.

It's the first time we've met today, but I've watched you on various programmes.

I've never seen you look so happy

as when you

came along.

Hangana's double chopped, chop, chip ice cream, and then described it.

Your eyes lit up, you looked really like a giddy little kid.

You were so excited about it.

Yeah.

There are forums about it on Reddit, I remember at the time.

like there are other people who like it's sort of like a kind of

you know like the mandela effect yeah so some people are like oh i think i lived in a world where mandela died in prison and people like no that didn't really happen and people people sometimes go maybe i fell through from a different timeline yeah and maybe i came from that good chalk chalk chip

timeline and I'm doomed to be here.

Do you know what I mean?

And if I could just get back there to the chalk, chalk chip.

I mean,

would you like Nelson Mandela to join you for dessert in the dream restaurant?

I think he'd like that, wouldn't he?

Yeah.

Yeah, Mandela would love it, yeah.

Be an awkward first five, ten minutes, but then we'd settle into it.

Yeah, I think so, yeah.

Passing it back and forward.

Well, you've had a bit much there, Mandela.

I've been looking for this for quite a while, actually, Nelson.

If you could just slide the pot over to me, that would be great.

So, I mean, the thing is that must still, and you must still think about this, is that if you saw the lid there on the floor, then

it must have come from the like, it can't be that someone dropped that on the floor when it was still in circulation and it's just never been swept up.

Wow.

So, like, did you check the cinemas or the theatres?

There was one cinema boat there, I did check it, yes.

I also, and this is where I think the evidence leans towards, someone was eating a tub of chalk chalk chip ice cream in a van and threw it out the window.

Oh, God.

Did you check the splatter pattern?

It was too late for that.

But it seems to me, yeah, so maybe someone had some in a freezer somewhere, dug it out, ate it in their van,

had some shredless marmalade, abducted someone.

I'd love it if they'd abducted someone and everyone was out looking for that person and they were going on the opposite spiral

and you bumped into them and thanks so much for helping us try and find this missing person.

You're like, not quite.

Obviously, now I'm imagining that in your basement there was like a massive board, cork board,

loads of like pins and like all the pieces matter written on it, and like you just figuring out where this ice cream was.

The fact that you've even considered that it must have been someone who had it in their house before it continued, went out in a van and threw the lid out of the window.

That wasn't even something that you had to improvise on the spot just now when I asked you about it.

That was already one of the things you considered.

There's also the possibility that someone is taunting me.

They know about my love for chalk, chalk, chip, and they have

placed clues

in my path.

Maybe it's you from a different timeline.

Yes.

Savory, Frankie.

I mean, obviously, 2000, that's like, that's the height of like you on mock.

So maybe it was one of the other mock the week panelists trying to slow you down where you wouldn't be right in that week.

Maybe it was Andy Parsons.

Wouldn't put it past him.

Wouldn't put it past any of them.

We'll never know.

Thing is, though,

I really want to know.

So, in my head, this is another bit of a true crime podcast that spin-off of off-menu.

Yeah, that would be good, wouldn't it?

Where we try and find

we might need to get someone a bit better at solving things,

yeah, yeah.

We need a fourth person to do quite a lot of the work.

Yeah, who's the best at solving things?

Borderman?

Borderman?

Martin Lewis?

Martin Lewis may be up front.

We don't know.

It's going to be

tricky approaching him with this idea, really.

Are we trying to track down who threw the lid out of the van or are we tracking down the ice cream?

Actually.

The ice cream.

Well, we just want to know what happened.

We need closure.

We want to know how that lid ended up there.

We want to know where Frankie could could have got the ice cream from around that point, if it was possible.

We'd also like to find anywhere that still serves the ice cream.

So there's multiple goals in this.

I'd want to find an actual tub of it for Frankie.

I'd want to find how that lid ended up there and find out where they'd sell it around that time

near that location.

I'm always surprised by how few people have heard of it.

Does anyone remember chalk, chalk, chip?

Yeah, like five

and not really that enthusiastic.

Like, yeah, that shit's gone.

That delicious chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips in it.

Fuck it.

You know?

Well, look, sometimes if we talk about food on the podcast, it gets sent to us.

Maybe if someone from Hagen Dars is listening, this might be the impetus they need to bring back the flavor as a limited edition and call it Frankie Boyle's chocolate chocolate ice cream.

Yeah.

That's an outside bet, isn't it?

Now, because we're talking about ice cream, what consistency do you like the ice do you like it to melt a bit do you like it

pretty solid pretty solid frozen you like it completely just straight straight out the freezer straight out of the freezer sort of burnt almost from the freezer yeah yeah wow yeah so you you don't you don't like it this often at all so i lived with someone like this for a while like one of my housemates i couldn't believe it they just get it out the freezer and just start chipping away rather than let it melt a bit first that it gets soft.

Yeah.

No, I'm in that camp.

And also there's a lot of strategy there, isn't there?

If you're sharing ice cream, you're like, if you're chipping away that top layer,

you're doing a lot of hard work for little reward.

And then the other person is getting all the ice cream.

So you want to strategise, really.

If you're Slazov Žižek is third on that ice cream,

he's going to get a lot more than you.

Because you've got to break the surface frost.

So what are you saying you're letting someone else chip the top layer off so you get more ice cream for less work, or are you willing to put the work in?

You could do that, but yeah, no, I'm willing to put that work in, man.

Why not?

But yeah, I like it frozen.

Wow.

I still respect it.

I'm still glad that you chose that.

And this is one of the most beautiful menus we've ever had on the podcast.

Let's read your menu back to you now, see what you feel about it, Frankie.

You would like,

oh, Coin would like access to the microphone.

Oh, shit.

I pressed OK instead of cancel.

And now that's coming up on the screen as I'm saying it.

It's weird what can happen with a magical menu, James.

It's magic paper in there, isn't it?

Certainly not a few.

Google iPad.

I've googled that phrase by mistake.

Ironically, on a food podcast, I need to reject the cookies.

And it's come up with Benito's put up a YouTube music video for Louis Capaldi, how I'm feeling now.

That's what happens if you use the internet in Scotland.

It just immediately gives you a Louis Capaldi video.

I can remember the menu.

It's my menu.

Yes.

This is a format point.

You would like.

Are you going to try and remember it now?

Yes.

Yes.

You would like sparkling water yes please with the little ribino you would like a warm

don't help him frankie because this is going to be fantastic it's a little ribino and it's

a warm morning roll with butter no warm warm morning roll with butter as your bread course you would like

one wonton soup as your starter you would like

all the icing from a wedding cake as your main course.

Yeah, not forgetting that one.

Yes.

Brown bread toast with marmalade for your side dish.

You would like football special as your drink.

And for dessert, you would like the chocolate, chocolate chip, ice cream, Hagen Dars discontinued.

The off-menu menu of Frankie Bile.

Once more for Frankie Bile!

Frankie Bile, everybody.

Thank you so much for coming, Darling.

Frankie Bile, you've been absolutely brilliant.

Thank you very much.

Good night.

Good night.

There we are.

Thank you so much to Frankie for coming on the podcast.

Thank you, Frankie.

And Frankie is now on tour with Lap of Shame.

Go to frankieboyle.com for tickets, please.

We will see you next week for another

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Hello, I'm Carrie Add.

I'm Sarah.

And we are the Weirdos Book Club podcast.

We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival.

The date is Thursday, 11th of September, the time is 7pm, and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies.

Tickets from kingsplace.co.uk.

Single ladies is coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September.

At the London Podcast Festival.

The rumours are true Saturday, the 13th of September at King's Place.

Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet.