Ep 217: Ross Noble (Christmas Special)

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

Yes.

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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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Playing the Orpheum Theater, October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.

Happy Christmas and welcome to the Off-Menu Podcast.

Taking the mincemeat of conversation, putting them into the pie cases of the internet, baking them in the oven, I guess.

Yeah, bake them in the oven of humor.

It's like a mince pie, but it's a podcast.

I'm just excited.

It's Christmas, James.

I've not thought it through.

Ho, ho, ho.

That's Ed Gamble.

My name is James A.

Caster.

Together we own a dream restaurant and every single week we invite in a guest that we ask in their favourite Everstar and Main Course dessert, side dish and drink, not in that order.

And this week, our Christmas guest is Ross Noble.

Ross Noble.

I mean, we're very excited to have Ross on.

We're both huge fans, huge fans from back in the day, right up until today.

Yes.

I mean, and moving forward.

In pretty much every interview you do as a comedian, you get asked what comedians you're a fan of that made you want to do comedy.

Ross Noble is one of my answers every single time.

He knows that.

Yeah.

I've told him that.

He already knows that on his way here at the moment.

Yeah.

So very excited to be interviewing Ross Noble.

There will probably be moments on the podcast where I just don't speak for a while because I'm just thinking thinking, like, this is cool.

This is cool.

Like, if I could tell

my 18-year-old self that this would happen to me, I'd be pretty chuffed with this life.

Yeah, really.

There'd be a lot of that.

I think Ross was that guy for a lot of our generation of comics.

Yes, very much so.

And as a result, you know, we know a lot about his routines from the past.

Yes.

We know if any food gets mentioned in the routines, if any shows are named after foods.

So it was quite easy to choose the secret ingredient for this episode.

An ingredient which, if Ross says it, we will kick him out of of the dream restaurant.

We will.

And the secret ingredient this week is

Noodles.

He did a tour show called Noodlemeister.

I believe it was called.

I believe it was called I Won't See It.

Yeah, yeah, you won't just see it.

Don't see it.

Don't say you believe it was called it.

Noodlemeister.

I believe it because it's true.

It's a pretty broad.

We spread the net a bit wide there.

Normally, secret ingredient might be something very specific.

This is a whole food stuff.

Yeah.

But this is Ross Noble.

So I've never seen Ross on anything talk for anything about for a short amount of time.

Yes, it's going to be a long episode.

So I think if Noodles does come up,

we'll have already got a whole episode.

Even if it's just we've done the water course, we've done popped observ bread.

That will most likely be.

If he has Noodles for starter, that's fine.

It'll be fine.

Yes.

We'll still get a full episode out of this.

So, you know, we're pretty confident we can do something as broad as Noodles for this.

Yes, Ross is on tour as well, we should say, doing his new show, Jibber Jabber Jamboree.

Jibber Jabba Jamboree.

Is on tour right through till 2024, 17th of March, 2024.

So he's going all over the place.

You must go and see him, including, if you're a London person, London Palladium, 14th and 15th of March.

Also, excitingly, Ross has recorded his last show, Humanoid, and that is available for purchase on his website, rossnoble.com.

Very exciting.

Yes.

I mean, yeah, I've got a lot of Ross Noble DVDs at home, so it would be nice to have something that doesn't

take up shelf space.

My DVDs, man.

I've got to sell them at some point.

Yeah.

I've got so many DVDs still.

It's mad.

Do people buy DVDs?

I bet some people.

I bet I can sell them to some people.

Yeah, Nish.

Nish, Nish will buy it.

Oh, yes, that's a good point.

Merry Christmas, Nish.

And this is a Christmas episode, of course.

Yes.

So we will be asking Ross what his dream Christmas meal is as well.

Yes, we will.

Very excited to speak to Ross Noble.

And this is the off-menu menu of Ross Noble.

Welcome Ross to the Dream Restaurant.

Thanks.

Welcome Ross Noble to the Dream Restaurant.

We've been expecting you for some time.

It's nice to be here.

Right, quick question before we start, right?

On the genie thing.

Yes.

Right?

Are you a genie with legs or are you a genie with, you know how the ones that have got the just the wispy bit yeah the wispy bit are you a wispy genie or a and i'm not going to accept i'm one of these genies that has a wispy bit and then has legs when it's convenient for the movie like the other yeah yeah yeah well disgusting all of the fan art that i've seen of me as a genie right i've got the wispy bit right

so i'm happy to accept that if that's what the listeners hear that I'm a wispy bit genie, then I guess that's what I'm saying.

A wispy genie's attached to the lamp though.

Does the wisp always need to be attached to the lamp?

Well, here's my next question.

Yeah, you've got a lamp here, right?

But because I'm a bit, I've got a slight obsession with genie logic.

Yeah.

And so this might be, we might not get to the food stuff.

I have a huge problem with Christina Aguilera

because she's the like she claims to be the number one world's genie expert, right?

And then she sings it, but she knows nothing about genies, right?

In that song, right, she sings,

if you want to get with me, baby, there's a price to pay.

I'm a genie in a bottle.

Yeah.

Got to rub me the right way, right?

Two things.

First thing, you don't rub the genie.

You rub the bottle.

She's saying, yeah.

Exactly.

You rub the lamp.

She says, I'm a genie in a bottle, right?

Genies do not live in bottles, right?

Yes, in I Dream of Genie, there was a bottle in that one larry hagman kept her in a bottle but that relationship was it was sex live basically you know what i'm saying like yeah there was something going on there that wasn't a an equal relationship he was he'd imprisoned that genie to work as his domestic slave right so that's genie slavery so i'm not accepting the bottle situation yeah so she claims you have to she's a genie in a bottle they live in lamps and if she is in a bottle you would rub the bottle not the genie itself yeah Yeah.

So I'm just saying.

And she shouldn't be singing that.

She knows bugger all about genie.

And then, so I always like to check if somebody's claiming to be a genie, I need to know wispy.

But you're saying that a wispy genie, is it because you've seen the pictures from Aladdin where the genie's emerging and you think that he is still a bit of an attack, like an umbilical cord almost, like almost like a genie bilical.

A genie bilical.

So he's attached to the lamp.

And almost if a genie detaches from the lamp, how long can they survive?

Are they getting getting

their nutrients from the lamp?

From in the

and you know, how like when you uh like say a cow is giving birth, yeah, and and the sort of the the the calf comes out first, yeah, and then or any other mammal for that matter, and then afterwards, there's like all of the the uh what did they call it afterbirth, the afterbirth, yeah, yeah, that all comes out, yeah.

And what's the name of the thing?

We placenta, the placenta, yes, of course, which some people eat, of course.

We could double back to that, that really.

Don't give away your starter.

Dessert.

Always a sweet placenta.

Is there like a sort of a genie placenta lamp-shaped that if you, yeah, when after the three wishes are granted, then a sort of wispy placenta flops out and you just see like a dead genie just with its kind of wispy bit down to thin, then like a sort of lamp shaped

placenta.

If that was the case, and I knew that was going to happen, a ladder two would never have been released.

And I would never do my third wish.

I'd just do the two wishes and I go, you know what, I don't want to see the genie placenta, so I'm going to leave it.

Or you could make the third wish.

I wish this isn't about to happen with the placenta.

And that's the, you know, you sort of, and that's how the genie.

That's freeing the genie, I guess.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You say, look, you're going to be.

you're just the lamp is no longer going to be dragged does he just drag the lamp yeah but just think if he is attached to the lamp, when a genie moves, do they just like drag the lamp behind them?

But that's probably, that's probably how they keep them, you know, like when they're in the cave.

What's it called?

The cave of the cave of wonders.

The cave of wonders.

That's the, they just drill the lamp to the shelf and that stops the genie.

It's not magic that's keeping them in there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's nails.

But yeah.

Yeah.

Or no more nails.

Yeah.

The glue.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, that it has the same effect.

Is that still the thing?

Do people still use no more nails?

I think so.

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, it's still going strong.

strong yeah that's good no more nails in the advert i remember there was like a chair halfway up a wall that someone had used no more nails to stick to and the guy was sitting on it talking about no more nails and i was like well that's the only thing i want to do with it now yeah i want to stick a chair halfway up a wall and be able to sit on the halfway up a wall yeah but was it was it araldite was that the you know where he stuck his he was in a jumpsuit and he stuck it to the and then he was lowered over uh sharks i really was that there was a lot of that going on yeah i think now because what do they call it they call it imitative behavior, don't they?

I think, like, nowadays, you're not allowed to just start sticking your shoes to the ceiling and going, I'm Brian Glue.

And with Brian's glue, you can put your shoes on the ceiling and hang upside down.

You can do that.

Yeah, because the kid's going to watch that.

I'm going to stick my shoes to the ceiling like Brian Glue.

I'm going to be like Brian Glue.

Who wants to be?

Who wants to be?

But so, Wispy Genie.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm a Wispy Genie.

I may thank you, by the way, on behalf of all genies for, you know, sticking up for us with the Christina Aguilera song.

It's good to have an ally.

You know, you know,

for years, I don't like the way that she's positioned herself.

She's positioned herself as the voice of genies.

That's interesting you say that because at what point in the song does she say, I'm the worldwide genie expert?

Well, she released it on all major platforms.

She was doing a whole, like, there was a whole tour where the reason people were going is to see her gyrating around saying, I'm a genie.

in a bottle i'm a genie in a bottle you've got to rub me the right way yeah and even if that is like a sexual thing i also think that because genie's are essentially they're not solid so if you try to rub a genie your hand goes through

through the genie so even that even if she actually was a genie and had the paperwork to prove it and then you she you go right i'm gonna

All right, Christina, if you're up for it, I will rub you the right way.

You can't because your hand has straight through.

Well, then that's the wrong way, isn't it?

Maybe there is a right way.

Oh, there is a right way.

I think we've run out of time for food, haven't I?

It's important.

I remember you did a.

Sorry, sorry to.

Sorry.

In the restaurant, right?

Because the

staff.

Obviously,

what would we call your staff?

I think the managed manager.

The waiter.

He's really more than a man.

He's the manager.

I'm just assuming.

But still valid.

Still valid.

valid is there a problem in the kitchen where all of the

because this lamp here if you were to take the lid off that gravy boat yes it is a yeah it comes with gravy boat it's so is there a problem in the kitchen you're hovering around there's a lot of you know obviously end of the day you're back in your lamp but is there a problem with employing genies that there's too many genie-like receptacles in the kitchen where you're tempted to think well i'll just nip in that gravy boat for a bit on me break.

Well, oh, so you're worried that the genie's going to try and have a nap in the gravy boat.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I thought you were worried about someone putting gravy into the lamp.

Yeah.

That's more.

I mean, that could be

a little center in there, so I guess it's there's not, there's no actual spear.

It still burns us.

It still doesn't feel nice when it happens.

Yeah.

And obviously things just go right through me, but it still feel it.

Yeah.

That scorches.

That kills.

It kills every time.

Yeah.

The screams of a genie coming from a gravy ball.

It's not nice.

Spoils every there's many a Toby Carvery I've been to.

That's why, in a Toby Carvery, they always present it in a large pan, heated pan with a label.

Because label?

Ladel.

You're a big Toby Carvery fan, aren't you?

I think.

Ross knows that I've got a lot of his DVDs, and I think there's one of them.

Is that you bow down to a man in the audience because he works at Toby Carvery?

I don't remember that.

Absolutely 100%.

I love Toby Carvery to the point, even to the point where it has been known for me to race motorcycles.

And I was trying to get Toby Carver Carvery to sponsor me because I just thought, you know, all these lads lining up on the start line with like Red Bull and all that.

And I want the big face of Toby on the like on the back of my helmet, you know, just so that if people are coming up behind me, they go, hang on.

Is that Toby Belch from the

Toby Belch?

Yeah, no, is he?

I think, isn't it?

Isn't it?

Is that what Toby Jugs are based on?

Yes, Sir Toby Belch from

12th Night, it's 12th Night, yeah.

So, so, Sir Toby Belch is a character in

Shakespeare, right?

And I believe that the Toby Jug is based on Sir Toby Belch.

That's where that's the origin.

I could be wrong, it might mean Toby Carvery.

And then Toby Carvery went, Let's base it on the Toby Jug.

Yeah, and then I think that's the

Satobe Belch.

Is the

Toby Carvery logo?

Yeah, I mean, let's not forget with the Toby Carvery, their dessert, they have the custard, you know, the endless custard.

Do you know about this?

Do you mean unlimited?

Yes, unlimited.

Endless custards.

No, no, no.

I just like asking for endless jokes.

I just like to say, we go, would you like the

endless jokes?

It's just a nice thing to say.

It's got a 70s thing to it.

Yeah, no, I do.

I absolutely love Twoby Covey.

Because the great thing about it is, you don't have to go for all the meats.

You can just...

Where else can you...

This is, I've inadvertently got on theme here, haven't I?

Where else can you go in and just get a massive plate of veg?

Yeah.

Because I love a Brussels sprout.

I love Brussels Sprouts.

And there's not many restaurants.

Oh, yeah, you can have them with like bits of bacon and some sort of truffle-infused oil.

But where can you, if you're on the outskirts of a large town, not a city, a large town, and you think, I'm on a roundabout and I want a large plate of veg.

So Toby's there for it.

How often do you find yourself thinking that, Ross?

I would say on an almost daily basis.

Yeah, but you're on tour a lot.

You've got to eat healthy.

Well, can you have a large plate of veg?

Yeah, we should talk.

We should talk about your tour.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, of course, we should.

Jibber, Jabber, Jamboree.

That's the one.

Yes, I'm on tour now, all around the country, playing mainly Toby Carveries.

Yeah, if you look at Ross's tour dates, every single one has a Toby Carver.

Not far off, actually.

Yeah, my ex, one of the guys who used to come on tour with me quite a lot, right?

We would alternate between who was going to buy the lunch, right?

Yeah.

right you can clear this up right as official restaurant types right so we go into a toby carvery and we previously we'd had like a quite an expensive meal and i'd paid for it and then it was his turn to pay for the meal and he said right well i'll pay for it but i really wanted the toby so i said look and i think he's getting a result here because he's was it like seven quid or something so we go in there we have the toby and then at the end of it the manager right the manager was chatting to the manager and you were what you were chatting to the manager the Toby Carver of course yeah

I

go who's on who's on who's on today I'll need to find out he look he come over look I'm not giving it the beginning right he came over I'm just seeing he said I'm pleased to have you here he approached me he approached me this sort of the this is sort of the crux of the story I'm not trying to yeah yeah I'm not trying to be the the big short business big man.

Like, hey, look at Noble.

So, he definitely recognized you because of your comedy rather than as someone who's been to every Toby Carver in the UK.

We don't know that for sure.

Let's not.

But

he was inquiring about the show in the town, right?

Yeah.

And then, right, and this is again, I'm not trying to be some sort of big shot Jay-Z type character, right?

He said, you know what?

Launch is on me.

Okay, interesting.

He literally said he said, you know what?

And now

that's 14.50, right?

At least, right?

Plus drinks.

Yeah.

Right.

And I'd had a lot of custom, right?

And he said, you know what?

It's on me.

Right.

I offered him tickets.

I didn't, I said, look, come to the show.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, that's 14.50 versus two.

Anyway, it doesn't matter.

Let's not get into that.

He's quids in there.

Exactly.

He's ahead.

Yeah.

But my mate, who's on tour with me, he then claims, right?

He then claims that strictly speaking, I have to pay for the next meal

because he would have paid for the Torbury.

The Torbury, that's what I call it.

It's a portmanteau.

I like to merge it together.

He reckons that because technically the manager said you can have a free Toby, right?

He reckons, well, that was my turn.

So I then have to pay for the next one.

Is that right?

No, definitely not.

No, I think it's

him who's got to pay for the next one.

But is it whoever pays, the other person picks?

Is that the rule?

No, it was just, it was just literally like

I did it the night before, and it was like, you know.

I think he's got to pay for it.

He's got to pay for the next one.

That's what I said.

But

that's why we no longer work together.

No, that's natural.

That's natural.

Five of the tour.

Yeah.

So, yeah, there you go.

But I do love it.

I love a Torby.

I really love a Torby.

Yeah, I mean, it's hilarious.

I've completely forgotten that.

I remember it because I tell you why I remember it as well.

It's because I, at the time, hadn't really left Ketron, so did not know what, I didn't know what Toby Carvery was at the time.

So I was like, I don't understand this bit.

But then the bit that helped me out understand the joke was that you said to the guy, the only way that you could be any more iconic to me would be if you were literally the little chef.

Right.

And I knew what little chef was.

So I was like, okay, I'm guessing it's

all gone now, of course, the little chef.

chef yeah i bet that must have been sad for you it was yeah i think the um you know when they tried to get heston blumenthal to to revamp it but it was that was doomed to failure wasn't it you know like little chef is look you got your pancakes jubilee you know it's a beautiful thing you've got your olympic breakfast they're standard it's motorway fare yeah you don't want heston coming in with his glitter cannons and he's you know what i mean you don't want to i don't want the cherry's jubilee fired in my face from some sort of exploding nitrous oxide thing you know what i mean just the heston heston's the wrong man for the for the and they didn't take on any of his ideas so

you know the little chef was a character in macbeth wasn't he he absolutely was yeah yeah don't shake your little chef head at me

i i only know uh don't shake your bloody locks at me or whatever it is i was trying to do that but then realized he doesn't have locks who got that chef hat on all the time we don't

was backed into a corner but we don't know though do we don't know what's under that

bloody locks and they just pulled it off there's just bloody locks

fair enough

well we always start with still a sparkling water ross yes do you have a preference oh blimey so oh

well I do like a sparkling water, but sometimes

I call it fizzy water.

Yes.

And if you're in a restaurant, they don't like that in the posh places.

They go, would you like some water?

I go, yeah, I'll have some fizzy water, please.

What did you say?

Oh, sorry, sparkling.

That's always a bit awkward.

And also, like, I've never really drank water for years, and it's a new thing for me.

And some of the waters, it's quite a, you'll get like a dense bubble.

And then others, you know, you say it's like it says like lightly sparkling.

So it's got to be the right sort of bubble.

So I will, and sometimes I don't know whether this slips into favorite drinks or not, but if it's a place that, a restaurant that has a bar selection, the ultimate for me would be a large bottle of densely sparkling water, just a little drop of lime cordial.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

So it's, is, is that still allowed?

Because

it's not pure.

But if somebody said, oh, would you like some water that's got a hint of lime in it?

No.

It has to be the mixture.

So yeah, I'll go for

densely sparkling.

Dense.

I don't like the high, you know, the high-frequency bubbles.

Yeah.

Don't like big, big old bubbles.

Big, thick bubbles.

Because in fact, if it could be just one bubble, that would be me.

Is that not an empty glass?

Well, it depends which way you're looking at it, doesn't it?

Some people say a glass is half full.

Some people say the glass is half empty.

I see the glass has just got one big bubble in the middle.

Like a lot of ice cubes for whiskey, like those big ice cubes for whiskey that basically fill the glass, but you want that like a bubble for water.

Yeah.

There was a period of time where I remember a lot of comedians having fizzy water with lime cordial in it before gigs.

Do you remember that?

Really?

It was a thing for a while.

What?

No.

Yeah.

Are we talking at the festivals here or are we talking about this in the clubs?

This feels like clubs.

This is in the clubs.

A lot of people were.

What sort of era are we talking about here?

Well, it's probably when I was starting.

So it's probably, I reckon we're talking 2010.

Comedians who started around the same time as me.

200.

So they've been going a few years at that point.

They just started to get paid gigs.

A few of them were just doing it.

And I was like, oh, this is like the drink of the.

Yeah, you're talking about comedians who've just started.

So all the old guard were probably sat in the corner.

Oh, yeah, they were hating.

Oh, no, no, they

hated it.

The old guard.

There was no water drinking.

That was just, yeah.

You know what I think it probably was, though?

I think, I don't know whether this coincides with the time of it, but there was a time where you had to be very careful ordering sparkling water because you didn't want to be like a young up-and-comer in a club saying, oh, I'd really like a Perrier, you know, because

that's, you know, that was the,

yeah, you know, yeah, well, I'm sure you would.

But with your act, no chance.

And then it, so when did it stop being the Perrier Comedy Award?

That's the question.

I reckon that's what it is.

I reckon it probably

stopped being the Perrier and comedians went, oh, thank God.

Oh, do you know what?

You're probably right because like, it was around that time it switched over, right?

The Perrier stopped.

Do you think they were all drinking sparkling water because they thought it would get them a Perrier?

No, no, no, because it stopped being the Perier.

So now they could order a sparkling water

and they wouldn't be on the receiving end of a slap

two seconds later.

Yeah, I reckon that's what it was.

So I reckon, yeah, around then.

Yeah, 2010, maybe.

Yeah, it's when they transitioned over.

2006.

Was it the Peri up until then, is it?

Yeah, so.

Around that time.

But it probably takes,

you know, it's like for things to take hold, isn't it?

Probably 2007, people went, oh, thank God.

And then it sort of filtered through and it became like

it was like an acceptable.

You leave it a few years.

Still, a few years after that, people are still going to be calling it the Perrier Laser League.

Absolutely.

It's like

between Twitter and X, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

You know, it's that thing of like...

Let's call it X, formerly known as Twitter.

All the time.

And it's going to, in 10 years' time, we'll be going, ooh, the birds are Xing outside.

You know, just that's how language develops, isn't it?

I was quite angry, actually, when I got nominated for the period because they sent me a load of champagne.

Don't drink.

I went, well, what's wrong with this picture?

Like, you're a fizzy water company.

Can I have a...

And talk about lots of small bubbles.

Oh, champagne.

Yeah, but you know what I did?

I asked for it.

They sent me, they'd send me some.

I said, I'll have, can I have some of your water?

And I think they were a bit like.

There's no real connection here.

They just give you the money and that.

And then they did.

So I opened them up, left the top off them, left them out overnight, came back.

Yeah,

I had a sweet, sweet still water.

Yeah, he won that one.

Look, I did, yeah.

Pop-ups or bread, pop-loves or bread.

Lost noble, pop-loves or bread.

I was

when you said popping up so bread, are you referring to the Carla Liam sitcom?

The what?

The Carla Lane sitcom.

The Carla Liam sitcom.

Do you remember the popular sitcom bread?

Oh, yes.

Okay, yes, yes.

Sorry, sir.

Yeah, I just don't know who.

Oh, Carla.

Have you noticed how Carla Lemon?

I've never watched Bread.

No, we didn't.

I know about Bread because of Nathaniel Metcalf, our friend who knows everything about everything.

So I know about Bread through him.

I only know about it because I saw...

Is it Jonathan Morris was in Bread?

Johnny Morris, he did the voices of the animals on Animal Magic.

No, there was another guy.

I saw him in Panto anyway.

Oh.

So I know about him from that.

Oh, hang on.

Which one was he?

Did he play the

second brother?

Because, of course, Adrian Williams.

For people who don't know what Bread, of course, Bread is, sorry, do you want to explain to the listener what Bread is?

What this show was?

It was a sitcom about a scouse family who,

I mean, it's a bit like how Only Fools and Horses was basically about somebody who, you know, parked in disabled parking spaces and didn't pay tax.

And everyone went, yeah, it's a different time, you know.

And I think, yeah, Bread was a scouse family who

used to

fiddle the doll.

That's a different time, you know?

And yeah, so it was uh, Gene Boat, who was like Mama Boswell, the main one, yeah, and uh, yeah, and then she had all these scouse sons, I believe, originally written for the McGahn brothers, yeah,

and then they passed on it.

I think Carl Elliot was like, Oh, this was me, so they cast them all, and then the guy that played Joey, the eldest one, went on to direct the Hollywood movie Sliding Doors.

Wow, so there you go, there you go.

So, Popadoms,

yeah, yeah, I think, I think i do love bread i have to say the yeah the wheat base yes snack or meal depending on you where you are

but but then the papadoms are uh

the thing about popadoms for me is they're only really the means of transporting the saucers into your mouth So if I could have bread and say like a syringe, not with a needle on it, obviously.

Yeah.

I don't want it pulp fiction style jabbed into my heart.

But if I could have bread, but like, say, like the mint stuff in a syringe, that I could have a bit of bread and then just squirt a bit into my mouth.

Yeah.

Or spoon it in.

I would go with poppadums, but I just think...

You want the poppadum sauces is the main thing you would want if you ordered poppadums?

I think so, yeah.

Yeah.

So we can, I mean, if you want to do bread and

some syringes full of poppadums.

Do you just want the syringes and no bread or poppadums?

And just want the syringes with the sauces in?

Yeah, but I think that's disrespecting the that's disrespecting the papadoms, isn't it?

Because that's here's the problem, right?

I won't, I won't eat mango, right?

It's too tropical, right?

It's it's it's just too it's too tropical.

So what's the issue with it being too tropical for you?

You don't want to get ideas above your stage.

I don't want to be transported to the to the mangrove.

No, towards the towards the end of his life, my father developed uh i would say an unhealthy obsession with mango eating it not you know i didn't just have him around the place and he had uh yeah like mango chutneys and a dried mango and he a lot of mangoes and then and there's never been a thing in his life before you've never seen him eat a mango no no he'd never especially i mean he was finding it difficult to eat and i think the mango

mango might that's going to be dark innov

it might just be that mango is the thing that is mixed into food that's easy to eat.

But I opened the fridge and he had an unhealthy amount of mango-flavored yogurt.

Yeah.

And I just thought, it's too, it's too.

I'd never really thought about mango before that.

And I went, it's too much mango.

And I just, and then I, when I thought about it, I thought, I don't,

it's too tropical for me.

But.

I do like the mango chutney on a popadom.

So interesting.

I mean, I mean, you'd have to ask a psychiatrist about that.

I think a psychiatrist, if they just,

if I may, listen to that clip, would go, I think it's more that it reminds them of the end of his father's life.

Yeah, maybe.

I don't think the tropical thing is an issue.

But you did look at the mango and you went, it is too tropical.

You separately then thought, do I like mango this much?

No, it's too tough.

No, but he wasn't dead at that point, though.

But you said towards the end of his life, he suddenly started eating loads of mangoes all the time.

So what you're saying that like, what, so you mean like I opened the fridge and went, there's too much mango in this?

Obviously that now you would associate the mango.

Yeah, but at the time,

by the time you decided

I'm off board with mangoes because you opened the fridge and there was too many mango yogurts.

Yeah.

But then equally, some might say, if I was to eat mango now, it would transport me back to a time when my father was alive.

Yeah.

So

I don't think that makes it less.

Does that make it less tropical then?

Because it's not transporting you to

tropical climates, it's transporting you back to when your father was alive.

It's a difficult situation, isn't it?

What else is too tropical for you, Ross?

Oh, blimey.

I would say, like, Lilt is fine.

Right.

Even though that's their brand.

Well, that's totally tropical.

That's their whole brand, Ross.

But hang on.

Totally tropical.

No, no.

But it's not too tropical, is it?

Right.

It's totally tropical.

It's completely tropical.

If they released, you know, like, say, like a diet beverage, would be like a less sugary version.

Yeah, they don't do well, say, like Red Bull.

You've got Red Bull, then you've got sugar-free Red Bull, and then you've got lower caffeine Red Bull.

So, Lilt is totally tropical.

That's the right amount of tropical.

But if somebody said, Do you want to Lilt?

And I think, I'm feeling a little bit tropical.

I feel tropical, right?

I just want the right amount of tropical.

But then some idiot comes out of the kitchen, they've hollowed out a pineapple Absolutely.

And they've poured the lilt into it.

Yeah, yeah.

Whoa.

Yeah, yeah.

It's too tropical.

That is too tropical.

So you never drink out of a pineapple.

Nah.

Or a coconut.

Or a coconut.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I don't know if you were to pour lilt into a coconut, is that too tropical?

Well, the liquid itself is still totally tropical, right?

Yes.

But then combined with the vessel, it's too tropical.

Yeah, it's too tropical.

It's too tropical.

Yeah.

Are you aware that Corston Press have released a, basically their own kind of lilt.

What?

So that they've

yes, so for the listener, you already know if you listen to enough episodes that I've obsessed with Causton Press and love Rhubarb Corston Press.

The nice people at Causton Press sent us a lot of cans of it recently as a result.

Ross came here today, opened the fridge to get a soft drink out, was not prepared to see that much Causton Press.

Oh my God.

And punched the air and said yes with many S's on the end of yes.

And then told us that you're addicted to it at the moment.

I'm absolutely addicted to it.

But you know what?

I'm ashamed to say it that I did not know the brand because I've just been buying it at the Marks and Spencer's motorway services and I saw the rhubarb.

You know, I've started the tour and you know, I've been in Australia and I've come back and I've seen, hang on, a rhubarb beverage.

What?

Which is not tropical at all.

You know what?

If anything, it has the taste of the allotment about it.

If anything, it's the opposite.

If you were to pour Lilt and it's like if you know, like equalizing acidity, if you were to pour the rhubarb press into, you know, like mix that with Lilt, it would just taste like water.

The tropical, the totally tropical taste and the total, you know, rhubarb grown indoors in the dark,

the opposite of the the opposite of tropical, they're going to cancel each other out.

What would happen if you poured rhubarb corst and press into a coconut?

I think that would be a neutral vessel.

That would be a tropical vessel.

Yeah.

Tropical vessel,

allotment drink, pour them together.

I think if you're the sort of person who wanted to drink from a coconut and was thinking to themselves, like,

oh,

I want to drink from a coconut.

I like the look of it, but I don't want people to think that I'm some sort of tropical lardie da.

Yeah.

Then pour a bit of that rhubarb in and people go, oh, look at you, all tropical.

Have a sip of that.

Oh, all right, I'll give you that.

And then you win that one, yeah, yeah, exactly.

In your face, and I love it.

I'm obsessed, I'm absolutely, I had five cans yesterday.

Yeah, five cans of this drink, and it's just my only criticism of it is it only comes in the can, and I'm all for you know, better for the environment.

But when you're in a higher car

and the, you know, know you need i'm i mean i'm not fine if you're in an suv but you can't when you're knocking it back yeah it's a bit dangerous to finish the whole you know to drink a whole can yeah you have to tilt the head has to be tilted unless you've put the seat lower and the sunroof down and the so but you've still got to yeah you've got to knock it back fully yeah and you don't want to be pouring it into a glass or coconut

take a swig yeah yeah so um so that's my only criticism but um i mean, that's more of a criticism of cans in general, though.

True, I could get a straw, I could get a straw, you know, for a drive, but I love it.

I'm properly and because I don't drink uh hot drinks ever.

Well, every now and again, if there's a nice bit of scenery, I'll often have a I might have a hot chocolate if it's a but only if there's nice scenery, like a winter anything that could be deemed uh fodder for a Christmas card, yeah, yeah, I'll have a hot chocolate, but it has to be uh Rosie Face Children or Robins.

Maybe if I'm watching an episode of like Winter Watch or something like that, I'll have a hot chocolate.

If Packham's within, if Packham's within the vicinity, even if we were on a tropical beach, I would have a, you know, I would have a lovely hot chocolate.

And I'm, every now and again, I'll treat myself to a peppermint tea.

But for the most part, i don't i never drink i don't drink tea or coffee so so yeah so beverages for me are um yeah they're quite a quite an integral part of my liquid intake you know uh cordials i know you're uh yeah you've talked about cordial in the past i've stuck it to them yeah i um

oh god that's caused a problem in the studio the mention of cordial no holy precious bonito just threw his notebook across the room just threw it on the floor the mention of

Maybe he's had an incident with one of the Robinson's family.

I once bought every flavour of Robinson's cordial and had it in my dressing room so that it started that I had it on the shelf and it started with the deep, rich forest fruits there, the black currants right down that end.

And then it came up, the barley, you know, the summer barley with it, maybe he hit it for raspberry.

And then I think raspberry.

And I did the full colours right the way through you know into the oranges and then whoa right up to lemon right up to the end

and you'd look and people come into my dressing room and go whoa what's happening yeah i go full colour chart like a gin you know you walk into a bar sometimes they've got an amazing selection of gins you you did that but with just the full range of do the gins or the i don't know because i don't they don't tend to i don't drink alcohol so no they

wouldn't be colour organized but i just mean the the selection oh yeah yeah yeah yeah but this this was uh, it was like a wonderful, like, colour chart.

Like a sunset.

So I love the cordials.

Was this when you were doing a long run at a venue?

Yes.

Yeah.

You're not taking this everywhere you go.

How many bottles is that?

For the full range?

It's quite a lot.

And I had to go to several different supermarkets.

Also, I'm imagining quite a long wall.

I think it was,

I would say, 10 to 12, maybe.

It's not massive.

But I do like,

I'm very much.

There's a brand called Bickford's, Bickford's Cordial.

They're an Australian brand, and I do like a Bickford's.

I like the lemon, but they've got one flavor of it.

Do you know what the flavour's called?

Tropical.

It's just Bickford's, just tropical, doesn't describe general tropical, just general tropical.

Yeah, you can't trust that.

Yeah, yeah, so I'm loving this.

I'm loving this.

Well, there's a tropical caust and press that's that's like pineapple and grapefruit, I think, like like Lil's, but like also.

Because Lil isn't a thing anymore, right?

right lilt's not a thing anymore what sorry sorry do you know that

it's now

fan what is it fanta they basically might have replaced fanta fanta pineapple and yeah yeah i don't want to be one of these old bastards that's just

marathon become schnickers and awful fruits a star but shut up it's progress right but i'm not sure how i feel about that yeah lilt actually is lilts are not a thing i feel like it's the opposite of progress yeah you know with Lilt, and just merging it into Fanta, because it was its own thing.

It embraced the tropicality, you know, and this is just going completely.

No, no, it's not that anymore.

It's just another flavor of Fanta.

And I also, I mentioned this to you before as well, but I have drunk too much of this.

But I got to the point I had to go and see a hypnotherapist

because I became addicted to diet Coca-Cola.

And can you see yourself heading down that path with Courston Press at the moment?

Same hypnotherapy.

Hello.

It's Corston Press robot.

It's me again.

I think it was the

caffeine and I don't go well together.

And I'd have a can in the morning, especially on tour.

You know, you have a can in the morning, you maybe have a bottle in the car on the way to the gig.

And then you'd have one before the gig, have one in the interval, maybe it's a couple afterwards, go back to the hotel bar, maybe it's a pint there.

And I was drinking, I would say, close to five to six liters of Diet Coke a day.

Well, that's a shock because the day you described on Diet Coke does not add up to five or six litres, so you're even keeping some secret Diet Coke.

Well, hang on, 33, uh, 330 mil.

Yeah, is that

330 mil?

Oh, yeah, 330 mil, yeah, standard can.

Yeah, pretending you didn't know, yes.

Yeah,

I'm just checking.

Let me just check.

Just pop the number out the air.

Let me check on the can if that's real.

Yep.

I don't want people at home just thinking.

Sure.

Yeah.

Nobody doesn't know.

Yeah, he doesn't know.

But double checking.

Yeah, so there would be, what's that?

So three,

so three cans are there.

That's a litre for three cans.

Yeah.

So what did I say I had?

Five or six litres.

I had, yeah, so that's

you're right.

But it's.

But that is, that's a lot.

You're probably having, like, I can find pre-show, if I'm in the dressing room and there's diet coats, which there is.

Yeah, always.

There's always Diet Coats in the dressing room.

Yep.

I can get through more than one can pre-show because I'm a bit, I'm pacing around.

Right.

And that's when I realize, like, I have to, in the daytime, because I'm big into Diet Coke.

I might have to get that number of your hypnotherapists.

Yeah, but in the daytime, if I know I've got a gig in the evening, I have to stop myself from having Diet Coats because I know that pre-show in that dressing room, I'm going to go nuts.

I'm going to have two or three pre-show.

Yeah, easy.

And

sometimes, sometimes the caffeine caffeine doesn't like it's fine if it hits during the show and you get a bit of a lift but if you time that wrong and it happens good night everybody

that's that's not good you know and i wasn't sleeping in fact especially if you're going back to your room and having another diet coke oh god you're sitting in a room wired all alone and that's when that's when you start like pulling the hangers out of the cupboard and say oh i wonder what i can do with these you know

emailing toby carfree up to sponsor you on your book.

Exactly.

Toby really got if he's on my helmet.

I'm really fast, not even on the bike.

Well, I did it

not yesterday, day before, I did this run.

So I got up really early.

I was down in the new forest and I was, I got really early and then I had a red straight away.

I woke up, boom, smashed a red bull.

So I thought, because it's early.

So smashed a red bull.

And then I had, and

I stay off the caffeine completely.

And then I had a bagel with some Nutella on it.

And that's got, that's got quite a lot of sugar in it.

So I'm not sure.

Oh, the absolute last person who needs any of this shit.

And then I, uh, over the course of the run, I had these, um,

you know, these gel things that you have.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I got like these, uh, they've got uh caffeine in them.

Yeah, okay.

And I got the larger ones, uh,

yeah.

Mortine, I think, the mortine, mortine.

Anyway, they've got a lot of caffeine in them.

And I did those, I had one of them every sort of half an hour for like two hours.

And yeah, so I did four of them.

And then,

and they all kicked in.

I'd already finished the run and they kicked in in the car.

And

I was literally, I thought I was at a rave.

I don't remember.

I don't remember any of the drive to Leamington Spa.

But I do know that I listened to, I think, at least two Taylor Swift albums.

So, yeah, so I got, I did go to the hypnotherapist, and

I haven't drunk a Diet Coke for

five years now.

What happens when you, like, look, does something happen when you look at Diet Coke now, where something kicks in in your body?

Like, I stopped doing a chicken.

Like I steer chips.

Or do you just not want it?

Do you just not want it anymore?

Just don't want it.

It just doesn't even...

I just look at it and I think,

I think he's put something in my head that's made me go, oh, not for me.

You know?

Yeah.

Which is you know it's it's good i i some people uh the first time he said people react to hypnosis in different ways and he said some people are really sort of in the moment and the first time he the first session that we had i thought i was inside a flaming cave of dragons like you know when you look at your you know when you close your eyes and you see the like close your eyes and and look at the because often people don't look at the they just close their eyes and think oh it's dark.

But if you close your eyes and look, there's a lot of stuff, there's a lot going on.

Like, and it's sort of dependent on how dark the room is.

So I was like in that, and it felt like it was all flames swirling around.

And then I started, and as I got more relaxed, unless he did just go, there's a dragon.

I was like, oh, yeah, it's messing around.

So, um, yeah.

So, if anything, if I look at a diet cook, I sort of something thinks, oh, I must read some Tolkien.

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Dream starter.

Well, here's the thing.

So essentially, I eat like a child, right?

I love fancy food.

You know,

I like going to fancy places.

I don't like cooking.

I don't like hearing about cooking.

And I don't like cooking shows, right?

I don't want to know where it's come from.

I don't want to know how it's happened.

And I don't like mixed food, right?

So here's the thing, right?

If you were to give me a little bowl of mints, what I'm saying is I like eating ingredients, right?

And I think that's because that's why I can't cook, because I go, oh, they're nice, you're going to just eat them.

So if you give me, if you give me a little bowl of mints,

a little bowl of cheese, right?

Maybe some bit of pasta, something like that, I go, oh, that's a nice dinner.

You make that into a lasagna.

I'll chuck you out of the house.

I'm not a fan of stuff being mixed together, right?

That is all cooking.

That is all cooking.

Hold up.

Yes.

Because when you said I don't like mixed foods, I was thinking, okay, like maybe like, you know, you've got a fried breakfast and stuff mixes in with each other.

You don't like the food to be touching or whatever.

You don't like a meal

that has multiple ingredients that are touching.

You don't want the ingredients touching each other.

It's not about touching.

No, I can mix them together.

So like if you were to say you brought me a breakfast, right?

Like sausage, I'll make an exception with the sausage because obviously that's that's different bits of pork.

It's made into one.

It's yeah, it's one.

It's one ingredient.

It's one.

It's yeah.

That's hard to describe.

I'm just like, like shepherd's pie, nightmare.

Yes.

Like absolute nightmare.

There's like, there's too much going on there, right?

So

I'll just say the phrase shepherd's pie, there's too much going on there.

Right.

It's possibly one of the simplest dishes

anyone could ever make.

Yeah, I don't think anyone's ever said that before of us.

Shepherd's pie, there's too much going on there.

Right.

Potatoes.

Yeah.

Right?

Correct.

Not just.

If you give me like some, what's it, mince?

Is it inside?

Are they all going to be in little bowls again?

Yeah.

You give me some mince.

Mints, mince in a bowl has been the example twice.

Well, yeah, that's true, actually.

Right.

So we start out.

It's mince in a bowl.

Shepherd's pie is lamb, right?

Is it lamb?

Yes.

Yeah.

Because it's shepherd.

Right.

Shepherd's pie.

Lamb.

Yeah.

Mashed potato on top.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

disgusting, wouldn't eat it, right?

Lamb shank next to some mashed potatoes.

Yes, please.

Okay, now you see what I'm saying.

Yeah, what about sauce, though?

If they're what about if there's a gravy going on top, yeah, yeah, that's fine.

That doesn't count as mixed.

But also, do you have to pour it on?

I think so.

Yeah,

I think it might be a control issue.

Yeah, now I get what you mean by mixed foods.

You see what I mean?

Yeah, yeah.

I think, yeah, when it's been fannied about with,

no, no, no, yeah, I think prepared is the thing.

I think it's, I'm fine for cooking, but even then, which brings me to my starter, steak tartar.

Am I perfect?

That's mixed with stuff, though, Ross.

Sometimes you watch them, they come table side and mix it.

I will not have that.

I will

not have that.

That is, yeah.

No, I don't mind.

Yeah, just stick a few chives in, stick a few.

Mustard, egg yolk.

I like it when I like the egg sits on the top.

And then you don't do it.

I don't want that mixed in.

I'll mix it, mate.

Don't kick it.

Just step away.

The worst steak tart I ever had was at, you know, Sardis.

No.

Sardis.

It's in New York City on Broadway.

Is this when you were doing a musical?

No, no, this was me.

Just, I was,

no, I was doing stand-up and I'd never been to, I'd never been to Sardis before, but Sardis is the place, you know, where, I mean, it's faded now.

And it's, but, you know, back in the day, it's got all the pictures, all the pictures, all the stars, all the stars there on the walls.

And you go in there, and it's like lunch at Sardis, right?

That's the thing, you know, it's the place.

All the big broader past.

I thought, oh, yeah, I'm going to go to.

So I went in there.

Oh, what's this?

Steak tartare.

It was not steak tartare.

What it was.

That Corson's press coming back on me.

I should have only had the seven cans.

And it was mince.

It was just...

But you love mince in a bowl.

Mints in a bowl.

You love it.

You love mint.

It was uncooked mints.

Literally, it was mince, like it had come out of a mincer.

Yeah.

But they make a big deal of mixing it up at the table and then putting the stuff in.

Nah, I'm not having

a really, really nice, like high cooked, like really high quality.

I was vegetarian for years.

I was vegetarian.

And then I just remembered that meat was really nice and I just went I went back to it but a lovely just a really good quality bit of steak because it needs to be hand hand chopped as well right it was it the the thing it been through a mince it just felt like it was weird isn't it yeah yeah that is weird like you're in a raw burger exactly and no i'm not having that yeah that's like uh so yeah so i think nice steak tartare there like an egg on the top yeah for me to mix at my discretion

i love steak tartare this is a great choice you do i'll normally if like it normally appears on like menus at like classic restaurants right where like it's like all the favorites are there and i'll normally go for steak tartare but also it appears in the sort of it's one of those ones where it can so easily go wrong it's not the sort of thing where there has to be a certain quality of restaurant because if you were to go to you know insert name of the generic in here toby carvery no never disrespect toby but if you go to toby carvery and they go we've got a new special on today.

Let's say weatherspoons.

Let's say weatherspoons.

What if Toby Carvery said they had a steak tartare on?

Are you getting that?

I'd have to have a look at who was working.

I'd have to.

Yeah, really nice, really nice steak tartare, you know, with the little bits of bread and stuff.

And I can, you know, I can put it together myself.

There's never enough, I think.

Steak tartare.

It's always too small a portion.

Some places I order them in as a starter.

Oh, nice.

Yeah.

But you have to do this.

Well, there's two things I do.

The first thing is I order the the steak tartare and I always go, This is just for my own amusement.

I don't think that the waiter or waitress is going to find this funny.

This is purely for my own amusement.

I always go, and could I have the steak tartare, please?

Medium rare.

And I always, I always say it, I was going to medium rare.

And then I just pause and I just look out the corner of my eye and I see the look of panic on the face of the server going, oh, he's an idiot.

Oh, God, I'm going to have to explain that steak tartare is a raw dish.

And you can see them.

There's a beautiful moment where they're going, oh, shit, should I see it now?

Or should I just bring it?

And then, and you can just see the panic look.

And I go, I know it's raw, but I just wanted to see.

I just want to just, yeah, just for my own amusement, you know.

So it's probably, the eggs probably got human saliva in it, to be fair.

After I do that, but that's why it's safe to keep all the ingredients separate.

Absolutely.

I want to see what, yeah, yeah.

Hang on,

there's a little bit of toothpaste in that one, a little bowl of spit.

And a jug of piss for

the point.

No, I'll pour that on myself.

Thanks.

Toby jug, Toby jug full of piss.

Exactly.

Piss pouring out of Sir Toby's face.

Well, that's a great starter, Ross.

That's delicious.

Would you like a main course serving of that as your starter?

Yes, please.

Yes.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Immediately.

But this is the thing.

So I was going to go for because my favorite food is chicken wings, right?

But not fried chicken wings.

I have no time for that.

I like, you know, a really nice oven-cooked chicken wing.

And often chicken wings come as a starter.

It's perfect as a starter or a main, you know, for me.

Am I allowed to have, like, when we get into the main course?

Would you say chicken wings would be classed as a side?

Even though I don't think they're aside, could you get away with that maybe?

I'd get away with.

Yeah.

Chicken wings are a side on a lot of menus yeah i love chicken wings so much that i was in dublin right are you aware of the chicken wing the dublin chicken wing wars we might have mentioned i don't know

tell us about the dublin chicken wings and then have you had the uh popular comedian and television personality jason manford on there no we've not okay myself and uh mr manford were in dublin we were working in dublin for a week and it turns out that somebody, now the Irish aren't known for their, it's not chicken wings, you always associate that with the Americans, don't you?

They say

somebody put on best chicken wings in Dublin, this one restaurant.

And then another place opened up and they were like claiming they, so there was these two restaurants competing for the chicken wing crown.

And then another one popped up and then it became this thing of like, cause there was queues around the block for the two places.

And then there was no sign of the the chicken wing mania was growing so all these people started jumping on board thinking well if there's queues around the block no need to queue so there's like 10 restaurants in dublin who all claim to be the best chicken wings all in the same the same area yeah yeah in central dublin so i said because i love chicken wings and so i said to jason i said well there because he'd heard about this and um he'd been to one of them he said oh this place is definitely the best so i said why we're here for a week right

We're here for a week.

I said, why don't we eat nothing but chicken wings?

Such an unnecessary part of the plan.

Like, like, I thought, oh, it's going to be, you know, that you try all of them.

You try all of them, but yours is, why don't we eat nothing but yeah, but there's 10 restaurants.

I'm not, I'm not gluttonous.

I'm going to have,

you know, lunch and dinner for five days.

Yeah.

That's not a big stretch.

I mean, look, I do sometimes, when I get a food that I like, like this drink,

sometimes I can go for weeks where I only eat that one thing.

If you like something, stick with it, right?

Until you don't like it anymore.

That very rarely happens.

Do you not burn out on that?

It's more than straight to the hypnotist.

Down there,

the pocket watch comes out.

It's chicken wings this time.

Okay, here we go.

You're in the film.

I went to Dublin.

I tried to decide which one.

Do you know what chicken wing was?

Oh,

he made the chicken noise to stop him drinking the diet cook.

That's triggered a chicken wing addiction.

You're hanging out with Mankell again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, so I sometimes I will,

I'll go through phases where I just eat like, you know, what, one thing.

Anyway, on this, like, for example, me and a friend of mine, we spent a week in Devon where we just went wild camping, like...

sleeping in farmers fields, not official, and we ate nothing but ambrosia rice pudding for a week.

And I'll tell you what, I mean, I love rice pudding, but Jesus, after a week of eating that, there was some that

when is when was this?

Probably five or six years ago.

Fuck it, Ross.

And we rode our motorcycles.

We decided to ride around Devon.

We made a little film about it.

In fact, it's on the internet.

You can see we got some of that.

You know, you get the rice pudding where you can, it's got the milk in it.

And then there's, you can also,

that Ambrosia company, they brought out the,

it's rice pudding, but it's got a custard piece instead of a.

And we wanted to see which one was the most appetizing to miniature horses.

So we went to a

well, because there's that down in Devon, there's a like a Shetland pony uh rescue center.

So we we went down into the field with all the Shetland ponies, like we put it on because we thought we'd get the ponies to lick us, right?

So he rubbed the custardy one on his face, and I rubbed the regular one on my face.

And then we got on all all fours to us not to scare the Shetland ponies.

And then we crawled up to the ponies in the field.

But then we re-what we realized was we should have had half of each

because I might have had a more lickable face than him and it had nothing to do with it.

There's no control there, yeah.

But then also, ponies don't like dairy, it's not a thing.

Horses, they're not interested in dairy, they don't get it in the wild, even Shetland ponies because they can get under a cow, but you know, they can't

suckle.

But what happened was is we're on all fours and the shetland ponies were coming up but they were more interested because i were on all fours so that like the trousers were a bit lower so the arse crack

they were more interested in and we've been sleeping rough for a couple of years yeah yeah they were more interested in the musty smell of the arse crack than they were from the

so it was an experiment it didn't work out but still a result to the experiment though yeah yeah yeah shetland ponies prefer the smell of sweaty asses to ambrosia rice pudding yeah but that's that's no advert for the ambrosia people is it and then um ants calling leather face oh

it was i mean we were sticky for it because we had no way to you know we were just washing in puddles and that so uh yeah anyways we did that for a week hold on did you do Did you put the rice pudding on your face every day for a week?

No, that was just one day of it.

No, I had pannas on my bike and we just packed it full of we had cans that we would we would heat it on the fire.

You just put it straight on the fire, and then there was the yoghurt style carton so you could eat it.

But by the end of it, if you eat nothing but rice pudding for a whole week, I mean, I don't want to be vulgar about it, but we're talking, we're talking Arancini by the time you pass, you know, after

three days, you're doing Aranchini shits.

That's not good, but anyway, so the point is, so let's, we're gonna have to zoom out on this story.

So, oh, so I just chicken wings was how we got into that.

So, yeah, so yeah, so the chicken wings, so Manford and I, we spent a week.

So Manford and I spent a week eating nothing but chicken wings.

And he had to bail out on the Thursday because he couldn't take it anymore.

And I pressed on.

And that was when I first

suffered

a crippling gout.

And it's that level of sympathy that people have

when you tell them you've got gout's one of those things where, because it's essentially it's like a crippling arthritis where you've got walked awfully painful apparently yeah horrifically painful and but the way that you laughed there yeah is exactly how i can't be turning up in the media trying to raise awareness for gout no people because people just think of sir toby belch with his red face

also i would say when people really find out that you ate nothing but chicken wings for a week and nothing but ambrosia rice pudding for a week, the sympathy drains away slightly, Ross.

A a little bit yeah yes especially

when you put it like that especially i don't you know i don't

people don't necessarily want to come on podcasts and discuss their finances but i would say you're making enough from touring that you don't need to be sleeping in the field eating nothing but rice pudding for a week

that was fun

it was fun yeah exactly so no which is fine but it just means that then when you're like oh got gout because i ate uh chicken wings nothing but chicken wings for a week everyone's like well it's not like he

you you had a number of choices.

But

did that trigger the gout, or was it always in the background and then it was inflamed by the chicken?

First time I had the gout.

The second time I had it was when I bought a juicer.

I bought a juicer and

gotta juice your wings.

Well, yeah, yeah, because

the bones are wasted.

And I don't like the fruits better when it's just, I don't like it mixed.

But then everyone's, oh, juicing's really healthy and all the rest of it.

And I just had some juice and then that's the fructose triggers the uric acid bang you're walking with a stick so it's it's um yeah look gout's not it's not to be laughed at but in this case it is you're right yeah but i feel i still feel fine about laughing it's okay

yeah yeah it's funny i think that's all right

so where do we get so I think we've got your side dish.

The chicken wings is your side dish.

Is that so?

Yeah, sorry.

That was the question I was asking.

I can have chicken wings as a side dish for my main yes yeah right because if you said no i would strike the steak tartar and i would have chicken wings as a starter no you can have the chicken wings as a side yeah you find out by the way thank that where's the best place in dublin for chicken wings to be honest i was oh no

to be honest he doesn't know i should should have kept a note of it really yeah i found what i found was after two or three days i couldn't feel my mouth anymore the hot sauce of the wings yeah and the gout was kicking in the gout was kicking in I couldn't walk, and I was slurring my speech.

You on your own?

Because Manford's tapped out,

yeah.

Manford's gone off with his vegetables.

So, your dream main course, dream main course would be crispy duck, you know, with the pancakes, yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Spring onions, cucumber.

I'll have the spring onions, not so bothered about the cucumber, but you know, you can put them there to make up the numbers.

But, but I like the whole duck, you know, when they bring the duck out, oh, yeah, and then you

I think I just like that it's like chicken, you know, the chicken with something to do, isn't it?

Yeah, it's like you feel like yeah, and it's you mixing your own food again, exactly.

As I say, it's perfect, yeah, yeah, they're bringing it out for you, little pot of hoisting sauce in a pot of it sometimes,

they part

gravy, but ideally, gravy.

I don't, cause that's that's because when you get a spoon and you spoon, and then it's, you've got your pancake and you have to do that thing where you sort of smear it around.

Yeah.

Come on, lads, give us a gravy butt.

Would you then just do the duck and stuff first and then pour the hoist in on top of the duck?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We can do that for you.

And then, you know, sometimes you think, oh, I'll have a little bit, a little bit of the leg, oh, a bit of the skin.

Put that in there.

different textures roll it up sometimes just rolled up so it's you know long long and thin, cigar-like.

Sometimes I fold the ends in what's more of a parcel.

Like a burrito style, yeah.

Twist it, pull the thing through.

Oh, it's a duck croissant.

You know,

it's just it's perfect.

The duck, crispy duck.

And you can't eat it.

I know you can get the, you can get the waitrose and that do a one that you can cook yourself.

It's not the same, is it?

Just like they just got big, big plate of duck and they just go, there it is.

All the duck.

Get involved.

yeah has there been a week in your life where you've eaten nothing but crispy duck um

no i don't no i don't think so i mean i went to china once and that would have been the perfect yeah opportunity i once had pigeon i ate a pigeon in china yeah yeah yeah on purpose as well

yeah you weren't just on your motorbike with your mouth

how was it prepared was it prepared like was it fried it was fried and it was sitting in the full pigeon it was just a whole pigeon wow Because I just pointed at stuff on the menu.

Yeah.

Because he, he, you know, he brought the menu out and it was all in Chinese.

And he sort of handed it, like, go on then.

Like, yeah, good luck.

And I just went, one of those, one of those, and one of those, please.

And he obviously went, get that pigeon from out the box.

And it was in the full seated.

It was posed like that.

And yes.

In a posed like it was running away.

Yeah.

And they got it.

They just throwing hot oil at it.

Yeah.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Yeah, like part of its neck had been hit by a brick.

Was it tasty?

Not really.

Not really.

No.

So, yeah, Krispy Duck.

Main course.

I think this is the first main course Krispy Duck we've had.

We've really chosen it as a starter, but not as a main yet.

But if you have it as a starter, you want the whole.

Because I will not, if they bring it to the table and they've already made them up and there's like four on the, I won't have that.

I won't.

No, I wouldn't share.

To be fair, I wouldn't have that.

Sharing with other people.

There's two.

Oh, my God.

Like, I'm all for, like, I think just sharing's caring, and it's important to teach our.

Sharing is a thing, is all right, but not when it comes to food.

Oh, my God.

It just, you know, this, there's two things that I will not stand for at a restaurant.

When you know, when somebody goes, Shall I order, shall I order some, you know, for the table?

No,

absolutely not.

Yeah.

And, and this happens quite a lot, if I order a nice dessert, you know, say a cheesecake or something like that, which is, that's not a sharing dish, a cheesecake.

If it was like, you know, several or anything with

anything with ice cream involved,

possibly with a lover, but if you're with a,

with

a friend,

so,

you know, me and my tour manager, right, we were sitting there just the other night, actually.

And I ordered a cheesecake.

Cheesecake come out.

Two spoons.

Two spoons, mate.

I'm like, you know, I don't want to cause a fuss, but I feel like, oi, get back here.

Do I look like a cockney musician?

Do I look like I'm going to play these for the entertainment of the other patrons?

No.

Well,

take one of them spoons away.

I'm not Sylvester McCoy.

Play spoons for people.

One spoon.

That's it.

End of.

That's what I'm interested in.

I would say the cheesecake might be the shepherd's pie of desserts.

It's got the layers there.

And I would imagine that would be an an issue for you.

It's interesting.

I think if the

biscuit was on the top and the cheese was underneath, I wouldn't have it.

Yeah.

So if I think, you know what?

But by that logic, if someone flipped a shepherd's pie over and it was mash on the bottom.

You know,

I think when it comes to dessert, that's why some people would think that I know all the amateur psychiatrists now are going, like, he's a control freak.

He doesn't like people touching his food.

he has to be like I know that's what you're thinking but it's not it really isn't that because I think when it comes to dessert I'll be the first in the queue for an eat and mess

and that's probably the most mixed food yeah yeah yeah you know what I mean that's probably better than the title exactly yeah yeah yeah and you know in those like really posh like restaurants where it's all like no smudge no smudge and all that sort of stuff is it the other way around when they go to eat and messes yeah chef and it comes out that's not messy enough

and they send it back you know what i mean like it's too yeah yeah well they'd often do like deconstructed things as well oh yeah was that really i think this is the first episode of um chef's table the netflix series right it's an italian restaurant really and their dessert is called some like oops i'll drop the lemon tub or something and it's meant to look like you know it's all the it's all deconstructed but they've splattered it on the plate like it's all over the place but it's deliberate i can't remember the guy's name now

massimo is yeah massimo but

yeah yeah maybe maybe unless he's called toby i'm not interested

you see you've you've brought up a very important point there i forgot that that was a that was a term deconstructed so is there anyone that specializes purely in deconstructed dishes because you you would i would literally go in there and everything's deconstructed just you go in there with a builder's hat on just stand in the kitchen help yourself to whatever's in there

i mean there's got to be

Do you reckon you've got a recommendation?

Those fancy places all have at least one dish on there.

I mean,

it's less in fashion now, though, I think.

Yeah.

People sneer at it a bit now.

But I think that's a great idea.

A restaurant where there's tables out there, but when it's your turn to eat, you just get to go into the kitchen with all the ingredients and just like eat what you want.

Hot pot places?

Yeah.

Where you can go and you can just pick.

all your ingredients and get it in the hot pot and then but then they put it together they mix it

There's Chinese hot pot places with the boiling vat of oil on the table, basically.

Yeah.

And you get whatever you want and you cook it yourself and eat it.

You know, like sushi train.

If they had sushi train,

so it's like a Tobi's, right?

But instead of you going up with a plate and being given, you know, oh, right, I'll have some of the, there's the meat.

You pick your own veg.

If it was a restaurant where the stuff came round, sushi train style when the sushi comes around yeah instead of sushi it's just oh it's a that's a little bowl of mint lovely i have some of that but we keep coming back to this little bowl of mints little bowl of mints coma would you love it's your favorite thing

yeah mysteriously not on your menu

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Well, this is a Christmas episode, Ross.

Yes.

So that means we are also going to ask you your dream Christmas dinner or what you'd normally have

on Christmas Day.

And I presume it's changed about over the years.

You used to be a veggie, you're not now.

Yep, that's right.

It must have been different back for a while.

Well, back

as a child,

actually, now I come to see this.

I'll tell you this and see if you can, as amateur, as amateur.

You've got some psychology to do.

This might have affected me, the man I am now.

Had a Christmas dinner.

Yeah.

My mum, we had a lot of very elderly relatives and nanas and lots of aunties, and they would all come around.

And my mum used to do a massive, like huge Christmas,

all of the, in many ways, like a sort of domestic Toby.

And she used to dress as a jug.

So I don't know what happened to her.

She used to stand with one hand and made it up like that.

She'd say, the meal's on us.

Yeah.

Well, she was on us.

And then uh i would say endless jugs and then it got

she so she would do all the cabbages and and and all manner of vegetables right and then uh we'd serve served it all up and then uh my sister and i love the cranberry sauce right and there's a big thing of cranberry sauce there and it's i mean a large thing of cranberry sauce we're going to get in quick because we want lots of cranberry sauce before the elderly relatives so we put all this cranberries in there and not just on the side, like all over the thing like that.

And then we sat down there.

We're thinking, cranberries, we got the bulk of the cranberry sauce here, feeling pretty good.

And then we start, everyone sits down, we start eating.

And then we realize that that wasn't cranberry sauce, that was strawberry jam.

And later on, she's got some scones and stuff for later on in the day.

Yeah, we had put strawberry jam all over our Christmas dinner.

So I went to my man, I said,

we've uh we've put strawberry jam all over our Christmas dinner.

dinner but here's the thing right one of the elderly relatives she was like in our like late is probably early 90s at the time and she had also put strawberry jammed she'd say oh yeah give me some of that cranberry sauce and then we realized and we said to my mum um we've put cranberry sauce uh what we thought was cranberry sauce strawberry jam and so auntie hand's done the same thing right but she's tucking she couldn't taste anything so she's tucking in going oh this is lovely right eating a full christmas dinner with strawberry jam on it.

And my mum, who's she's

a no-nonsense woman, although she did allow mango in the house, but she

said, I'm not redoing it.

Like, eat it.

Yeah.

And we went, well, because Annie has eaten.

She went,

you've messed up.

You're going to have to eat it.

Yep.

So we had to sit there and eat a full Christmas lunch.

covered in strawberry jam.

I'm not going to lie to you, it was nice.

I would say, I can't, like, I'd happily do that if I'd made that mistake.

So, the main thing would be, as I said, love the Brussels sprouts, heavy Brussel

sprout, you know, ingredients in there.

Pigs in blankets, I find that

sometimes too short.

I'd like a longer sausage with more of a wrap.

Full length sausage, yeah.

Full-length sausage, and instead of the bacon going sort of horizontally, I'd like it no,

yeah, that way, long ways.

Yeah, I'd like a full, almost like a bacon taco with a sausage

center.

Yeah.

That's what I'd like there.

And then

turkey, don't really like the quite a dry meat, quite flaky.

I like the turkey legs.

The brown meat.

So, yeah, so I think,

but full selection, a chicken.

You know what's really nice?

Have you done that thing where you take

you in fact?

I'm going to try it with this.

Have you done that thing?

You can do it with a can of lager

or coca-cola yeah and you shove it up the chicken's arse yeah and then you put it on a barbecue and then you you roast the chicken and the can goes up there i'm going to do it with this rhubarb stuff yeah you're going to do a cost and press beer canned chicken absolutely yeah i'm like the new heston

yeah

yeah caustin that's that's yeah they should do a slightly larger can with a spike on it for the chickens

if you're listening yeah yeah

or maybe it's just a widened, like a wider base.

Yeah, I think if uh little chef did reopen and their whole marketing was that we've let Ross Noble

uh decide what our menu is, and he's invented a bunch of stuff, yeah, I think he might actually do quite well.

Yeah, I think so for a week, people are going after Colston Press Chicken, yeah, and mincing a bowl, oh, mincing a bowl

the little starter at Little Chef.

Well, what do they call him now?

The uh

pork, pork poke,

yeah, like that's the same, isn't it?

Well, you think poke is the same as mints in a bowl, yeah,

it's in a bowl, though.

It's in a bowl,

yeah,

imagine that, right?

Because you know, how like Ramsey is always banging on about you know, the kitchen nightmares and stuff.

I'll only watch the first 10 minutes, I don't want to see them, I just want to, you know,

see him just get angry, and then uh, you know, but he always does the same thing, he always goes, right, we're going to do these dishes, they're going to be simple dishes.

This is what you know people are on a lunch break you want a sandwich they want a soup it's always that it's like you know i reckon if you opened a an establishment you know it doesn't have to have my name on it but you know mincing a bowl yeah just call it mince in a bowl mincing a bowl uh what sides do you have read the sign mate

mincing a bowl it's it got sauce or stew read the signs in a bowl it's mincing a bowl

yeah well i think you know i would like to see you open that chain.

And I'd like to see it like a chain.

Are we going straight in with the chain, are we?

Yeah, it's a meat of the chain, isn't it?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

You bought a lot of mints.

That's not what you're doing.

Funny enough, funny you should say that, actually, about buying too much mints.

I got reprimanded by Sir Alan Sugar because of my...

It's a long story, but I basically, there was this pandemic, right?

It was on the news and that.

And

all the theatres closed.

And so I appeared on the Celebrity Apprentice, Australia, right?

We had to run a restaurant.

Now,

I've never had a job.

I've only ever done stand-up.

I've never had a job.

I've certainly never worked in a restaurant before.

Now, this didn't go out on the TV.

So what happened was we had to run a dumpling restaurant.

It was a Chinese restaurant, right?

We had to run this Chinese restaurant.

Now, I don't cook.

We've established that, right?

But one of my jobs as part of the the project, right?

I wasn't project manager, but as part of the thing was your team called we were called the fundraisers, yeah, yeah.

And we got the menu and it said,

this is how much mince you're going to need to make 100 dumplings, right?

Then the chef turned up and I said, it says here, we need this much mince for the dumplings.

Now, I'm not saying that the program makers deliberately gave us the wrong information, but this fella said, no, no, no, that's that's not 10 grams.

that's like a hundred grams.

And and anyway, the upshot was I went to the market and I bought a hundred times more mints than was required, right?

So I knew it was going wrong when I had a full carrier bag of mint, like the mint started coming out, but we'd committed to it.

Yeah, and so I had this giant carrier bag full of mints.

So we get back and we come up with this idea of selling a golden lucky basket, right?

So basically, all it was was just some mints

in some like dumplings, right?

In a basket,

but we had some sparklers, and when somebody ordered it, we charged them like five times the price.

It was the same dish, yeah.

But I would come to the table and go golden lucky basket, the golden lucky basket, and I would sing and dance, right?

And I'd come up, but it's very hot in the kitchen, and I was sweating a lot.

So, we're basically a sweaty man with that stank of mints with with sparklers golden lucky basket and and i would present it and i'd be like hey singing to them like that high fiving and it wasn't till later that they'd go we've been robbed here yeah but

what they didn't show on the television was when i went to the supermarket to get all the mints and everything I went into this Chinese supermarket and there was like there was all of these like bars of gold made out of cardboard right And it looked like, oh, look at all these riches.

And there was like sort of money and that sort of thing.

I said, you know, sell the cow.

And I think, well, if we get this stuff, right?

Yeah.

Every time somebody orders the golden lucky basket, right?

We'll give them.

It's only a piece of fake gold, right?

But it's like part of the experience because that's what, because that's how you've got to think when you're in business.

This is what I learned doing the apprentice.

You've got to, you've got to give them a experience, right?

You've got to make bill.

So what can we do?

Uh, could I have the golden lucky basket?

A golden lucky basket, the golden lucky basket.

And we're lighting the sparklers.

And me and one of the other lads, we come out and we present them with the just dumplings, but with sparklers, and we give them this gold, and it's like it's the golden lucky basket.

Yes, we were anyway.

They edited this out of the show.

I handed the gold bars over,

and a lady sort of took me as she said, Oh, can I just have a word?

Yeah, she says, Um, you um you don't speak cantonese do you right that's fair assumption right yeah they said you don't read cantonese she did and uh i said no she said oh um so you don't like this gold that you've given us um you don't i don't know why they didn't leave this in the show because it's honest i said uh do you know do you know what this is that you've bought from the supermarket i said it was a lovely bit of gold isn't it's part of the as part of the gold and lucky bath and she said no no she said what this is is she said, at a Chinese funeral.

And as soon as she said that words, Chinese funeral, I thought, this might get edited.

And she said,

she said, what will happen is you go to the supermarket and you buy these representations of wealth that you place on the grave or on the memorial, what do you call it, on the

shrine,

the shrine to the dead person.

And that represents, they take that with them into the afterlife.

So basically, what you've done is you've served us food and some Chinese death gold.

And you brought that and some gold and lucky basket at the top of your voice.

Yes, it would be like serving, like in a traditional British restaurant, it would be like serving up, say, a shepherd's pie with a wreath that said mom

or in oh, no, a wreath that said enjoy.

And you go, Isn't that from meant to be on a grave?

So, yeah, so just normal Christmas did it, yeah, normal Christmas.

Your dream drink cross.

Well, it's got to be this, hasn't it?

It's got to be, you know what?

It's a two-horse race between this and there's a brand Bundaberg.

Yeah.

Bundaberg up there in Queensland.

They do the Bundaberg rum, but they also do a selection of soft drinks.

And they do.

Have you tried lemon lime bitters?

Yes.

Yeah.

No, I've not tried it.

Brilliant.

Bundaberg lemon lime bitters, I would say it is

is on a par with this, but I'm gonna say this edges it because uh less sugar in this.

And it's you can't you're currently in the pocket.

I'm just

I'm living the rhubarb dream.

Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah.

Do they sell that Bundaberg here?

Yes.

You can get it at some places, right?

Yeah, you might have to get it at like at

an expat supermart, an Aussie expat supermarket in the Earl's Court area.

Yeah, very much available.

I do like that.

And I'm very fond, actually, of I don't mind a non-alcoholic mojito.

Oh, yeah, lovely.

Yeah, there's a place near me that I've discovered does that.

Right.

And I find it impossible to go into that shop and not buy a full bottle of the non-alcoholic mojito.

I just like things that are refreshing, you know.

Fentimans, I do like Fentimans.

I do like the,

I like a rose lemon in it.

It's quite a tart, regular, you know, the

Victorian style.

Fever tree as well.

You know, they do, they do a very nice ginger beer.

But I don't, the Victor, I don't like it being described as Victorian lemonade.

I don't, I like old style, I don't mind that, traditional.

But the word Victorian conjures up

small children getting trapped in looms, going up chimneys, you know what I mean?

Ricketts, that sort of thing.

Yeah.

And I'm trying to, you know, it's sitting in a lovely beer garden, trying to, trying to have a lovely, oh, it's a lovely summer's day.

And in the back of your back of your head, you're thinking about a Victorian urchin, you know, getting

trapped in a spinning jenny.

That's just market, that's just basics of marketing.

You thought about those sort of or the um,

you know, the uh wheel that they used to have in prisons, you know, when they like, I think Oscar Wilde was put on, you know, it was like the early treadmill.

They used to, I've had so much of this stuff,

you can hear my stomach actually rumbling now.

It's the creak of rhubarb floss.

Does this happen all the time?

People just talking about food.

Just go, oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, their stomach rumbled.

No, it's definitely

someone's stomach rumbling.

Are you able to enjoy a Victoria sponge?

I know that it's not Victorian sponge, but like

I mean, it's a delicious dish.

But I can't help, it puts me in mind of a period of mourning.

You know?

It's like, sure,

you can think about all of the the advances that were made in the victorian era but the fact that it's a victorious but i just think you know it's just sort of uh yeah that all those all those dark days and yeah well here's what i'd say uh as well So you go to the Toby Carvery a lot, which you say is, you know, that's named after a character from Shakespeare.

It's not remind you of Shakespeare times and all the stuff that went on then.

I mean, that wasn't a great time for Tunes Eve.

But it's 12th night, isn't it?

Which is more of a laugh, innit?

It's yeah, it's mostly the play, not the period, yeah, exactly.

I think

I think if there was one named after, say,

if there was a chain of Carvery-style restaurants that were

based on the Tempest, yeah, I don't think that would be, yeah, yeah, I mean, of course, Hamlet, the mild cigar, yeah, that was uh, he was they were riding on the cut deals of uh of the bard,

so I mean, he's had quite an influence, yeah, oh, yeah, Shakespeare, yeah,

but and it's about time someone said it, yeah, exactly.

I don't think it's a controversial thing, is it?

We arrive at your dream dessert, Ross.

Yes, exciting times.

Will we send him one spoon over for this dessert?

One spoon, absolutely.

I will not share.

I'm telling you that now.

Like I say, if my wife wants to have it, I'm, you know, fine, but still annoying, though, isn't it?

Oh, like, in fact, going back to Manford, right?

He, where were we?

I'm going to say Southampton.

How much time have you spent with Jason Manford?

We've holidayed together on a regular basis.

No, we were in a showing together.

We were traveling around.

So we spent a lot of dined together.

Well, both of you like straddle, you know, the world of musical.

Oh, God, you said that.

Oh, that could have gone

with us.

You know, we were in the producers together.

Right.

Yeah, so we were on tour.

So we'd go around the various different and he likes it.

This is making me recontextualize the Dublin story.

So you were performing a musical every day.

Yes.

And you were still eating chicken wings for lunch and dinner.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

You're going gout.

Yeah, but don't forget.

Don't forget.

It's like eight shows a week.

There's a lot of dancing.

You have to, before every...

Before every show, you have to do a physical warm-up, like a dance warm-up.

This is my point, though.

Yeah.

You're dancing around, you're doing a physical warm-up, and you're only eating chicken wings.

You must have felt like shit.

What

jumping around and dancing and with only chicken wings in your stomach?

Did you not feel awful?

Only chicken wings.

Do you know how many chicken wings I eat?

I was like, I thought you meant, oh, God, if I had too much chicken wings.

How am I going to, how am I going to arabesque with this?

That is sort of what I mean.

Did it not make you feel sick?

No, no, here's the thing, right?

I have like a...

Hello, you can't even compute what I'm saying.

No, I know.

I know.

There's uh

um there's on two occasions two occasions it's been pointed out to me certainly doing stand-up there's one time i ate a full pizza and then went straight on stage didn't even paul tomkinson i was doing a gig with uh paul tokinson and he just went how is that even possible

and another time i was doing a gig with sean lock and uh Sean said he couldn't eat before he went on and he watched me eat a full platter.

It wasn't TGI Fridays, but it was a Churchill's, Churchill's, it was.

It was like a TGI Fridays style place.

And I ate like a full TGI Fridays dinner.

And Sean said that he literally couldn't believe that a human being could eat that much food.

And he said, I literally, they went, you're on.

And I wiped the, I wiped away the residue of the dinner.

I just wiped it away and walked straight on stage.

I couldn't concentrate going that's so no, it's protein, isn't it?

Yeah.

Protein, fill yourself up with it and then just go on stage and dance it off.

Sorry to interrupt, so you're in Southampton with Manford, yes.

And I ordered a dessert, and you know, when they do that thing where they um, they'll get the chocolate and they'll do the up-and-downy,

you know, it's that up-and-downy thing.

And I'd eaten, you know, I'd eaten whatever it was, the chocolate bombs here, and I'd eaten that.

And Manford literally reached across, wiped his thumb through the chocolate, licked it, did it again.

Oh, he double-dipped like 100%.

Like, he literally

just

seen that I'd left that chocolate to the end, so I could, and he just went like that.

And you know what?

Normally, I'd be furious, but I just thought I was such a ballsy.

It was such a ballsy thing.

Such a power player.

Like,

the biggest power player you could possibly imagine.

Even like, short of somebody's cake saying happy birthday, short of taking the happy off and eating that in front of the celebrated person it's like something from goodfellas oh it was i was i just went yeah i'll give you that

break eye contact the whole time he was doing it

yeah yeah yeah didn't even put his thumb in his mouth and like we know that held the thumb up and licked it like that in fact my wife uh it was her birthday recently and i got her a birthday cake and you know how they do that where they get the the hot sugar yeah yeah and they make it into sugar work yeah

yeah that's the sugar work yeah is that what it's yeah sugar work yeah yeah um

having a bit of string for the winner

are you looking for some sugar work

you've come to the right place

um yeah sugar work and i thought oh that looks that looks nice

and i had the the h and the a

and uh put crunchy crunchy it's plastic

it was absolutely plastic and i just and you know, once it's in, and it was all crunched up,

I've done it.

It's too late.

Soiled it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You still heard your mum's voice been like, eating that now?

Yes.

You put it on there, you've eaten it.

Yeah.

And my kids were just like, have you just

eaten plastic, Dad?

Have you just...

And I went, yep, yeah.

Golden lucky bad.

That's good.

So, have I picked it as well?

No, you're not.

Of course I haven't.

No.

Kind of the man for putting his thumb in you, doesn't it?

That was an erotic treat

for Christmas time.

Hey, ladies, some of you fellas out there.

I'm

glad we've stuck with the four hours it's taken to get to this point.

I know it's absolutely killed him there.

It's some of you fellas out there.

I've absolutely taken him out.

Have you not?

It's modern times, isn't it?

Yes, it is modern times.

It's funny seeing

that thought process in your head.

But that's modern modern times.

I better say fellas as well.

Again, not all of the ladies.

Not all of the ladies, boss.

Now, am I right in thinking from the episodes that I've listened to?

Yeah.

Am I right in thinking, James, that you love a sweet trolley?

A dessert trolley.

Well, I do love dessert trolley, but I love desserts to be sweet.

When people choose a cheese board, that's when I go through the roof.

I like sweet and savory mixed together.

That's delicious.

But, you know, would you say that so that?

Because I would say with the cheese board situation, because I do like a cheeseboard.

Okay.

In fact, I'll sometimes, I would happily have a plowman's lunch, right?

What's special about a plowman's lunch?

It's not mixed.

Oh, yeah, of course.

Very separate meal.

Very separate meal.

I would happily have a plowman's lunch and then a cheese board.

What the fuck?

Yeah.

Wow.

I respect that.

I respect the hell out of that.

I don't respect that.

But

on a menu, where it'll say dessert,

but then the cheese.

Like, I don't like it when the cheese board is mixed in with the.

Well, if it's mixed in with the dessert, I don't even like the menu mix.

You know what I mean?

Like, if that's what it's listed as a dessert.

It's listed as a dessert.

We go, no, that's a cheeseboard.

That's a separate course.

You have your starter, you have your main, you have your dessert.

Can I get you any coffee and some cheese?

Coffee, you want cheese to be with the coffee?

I don't drink coffee, but

instead of coffee,

I'll have one of these wonderful rhubarb drinks and then I'll have cheese.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's yeah.

So that's love a dessert.

Right now, dream restaurant.

So

the first thing, and you might think, oh, that's a bit, this is the ice cream version of lasagna.

This can't work, right?

In posh restaurants, they never serve a full Wall's Vienetta.

They never do it.

And yet the Wall's Vienetta is, you know, as an ice cream creation.

I mean, it's a bit special.

No one's ever done anything else like that since the Wall's Vienetta.

It stands alone, doesn't it?

I went to a place recently in Brighton called The Windmill.

Right.

And you would not necessarily order this.

But they did a Vienetta affogato.

I don't know what that is.

When you pour an espresso over ice cream.

Oh.

But they did it with Vienetta.

Why haven't you told me about this?

Because we do a food podcast together and I'll try and save it

you should be texting me about it i'd like to see your live live live expression when you when you learn about it that's the best idea i've ever heard in my life it was brilliant did they pour it on or did they let you pour it on i think they poured it on

but i'm sure you could ask yeah i'd ask because for me that's i do like that one you know where you get the the ice cream and then maybe some honeycomb you know you have the honeycomb in there and then they give you the jug of the of the the molten chocolate, and you get to pour that on, then it hardens up.

But the problem is, is that I really like crumble in all its forms.

Like, I really like a crumble.

So, again, mixed, but I'll overlook that.

I would say if I could have, I like a summer fruits crumble, I like the, you know, the apple, I like all the rhubarb, the crumb.

Of course.

So, if I could have, say, several bowls, right, get rid of the mince, wash the mince out of it.

I want...

Yeah, I want new bowls in your dream.

Yeah.

They did have mints.

You want the hint of mints?

I just want a whiff of it.

Yeah, yeah.

Just a slight, just a slight reminiscence.

Yeah, yeah.

They go, we'll be served today.

You know, when you go to them restaurants, today we'll be serving you an apple crumble with a reminiscence of mince.

Lovely.

So I want several bowls

with a selection of crumbles.

Do you want them organized by colour, like the Robinson's bottles?

Oh, yeah.

I want them all to be perfect that he's done it again.

He just smashes the mention of Robinson's.

Every time Robinson gets

that a coincidence.

His lapse.

He's so funny every time Robinson gets mentioned.

He's the smash.

He's got the same hypnotist as me.

That was

unbelievable.

That's how you should finish this episode.

Just start chanting the word Robinson's again and again and watching.

It was crazy.

Smooth the entire studio.

Good lord, that's

paging Mr.

Pavlovs.

No, what I'd like is I'd like all the crumbles to have the same topping on them.

Don't know which crumbles which.

It's like

a crumble roulette.

So yeah, you definitely don't want it in the Robinsons.

No, you can't.

So you want it crumble roulette.

Crumble roulette.

But you'd have to

roulette.

What's that?

Roulette?

That's the thing.

What's a roulette?

Roulard?

Roulard?

Roulard roulette?

Oh, yes, roulard.

Yeah, not roulette.

That's where they keep bringing the dishes back.

Four waiters deliver it to the table.

Could I have the roulette?

What's a roulard?

Roulard's another dessert, right?

It's like a Swiss roll.

Is it?

Yeah, yeah, it looks good.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

Well, we've got to make sure that we don't get a crumble roulard.

Yeah.

Right?

It's got to be a crumble roulette.

Okay.

Growing a Swiss roll full of crumble.

Yeah,

I think I do.

Actually, not a bad idea.

Nice, actually.

Actually, yeah, can we have that?

We'll have that in the centre.

Yeah, yeah.

We'll have a crumble roulard

surrounded by a crumble roulette.

Yeah.

But here's the thing.

For it to be a roulette, I would say one of them needs to be

bad.

Well,

that's only if you follow the rules of Russian roulette.

right

yes because roulette it's not like when you go to

all it is is just a wheel Yeah.

Right.

It's just a roulette wheel.

You go don't go to a casino and there's one square where if it lands on it, you get shot.

Sure.

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

So it doesn't need to have something bad on it unless you think it might be fun.

Yeah, you're right.

It's just as you can lose, sure.

But

I want 32 different crumbles.

Right.

Served on a roulette wheel.

No, I don't.

I want 31 crumbles.

and the green thing you know the zero for the house that can just be a little bit of cream yeah it'll have to be quite a big roulette table of wheel, and then I sit there, and the table, the whole tier.

Now we're talking, this is this is what I want in my dream restaurant.

And then all the diners sit around the outside.

You get dessert chips, right?

You put your chip down, I think, gambling chips, no, gambling chips, they could be chips if you like.

Each number represents a different crumble.

You spin the you spin the wheel, you sit back.

34.

34.

No more crumble bets, please.

The thing lands cherry and apricot, and then everybody gets served.

Everyone gets everyone gets that one.

Yeah, and then you know, you can have just one crumble.

Or if you want to, do you want to double down?

Anyone, anyone?

And then some people will get up and leave the table, obviously.

Some people will be like Manfred's out after three.

Oh, God.

Yeah, well, he'd probably wipe his fingers in mine, wouldn't he?

He'd be like, you know, yeah, and then you lose it, and then it's down to then it's down just like a bond film it's just you and a fella spin the wheel what is it now you know forest fruits and something else yeah and then so selection of crumbles walls vianetta in the middle yeah the roulette roulard roulard the crumble roulette crumble roulard selection of crumbles on the roulette wheel then a um a large jug of hot chocolate sauce okay

but it will need to have like one of those

heater things because I don't want it going hard in the jug.

Yeah, yeah.

So, metal jug, ceramic handle, heated up.

And you know, those taps you get in posh kitchens that give you hot water.

What?

A cooker?

Is that what they're called?

Yeah, isn't that K-O-O-K-E-T-T of a bird, isn't it?

Isn't that a cook's arse?

Don't get those confused.

I want one of those hot taps.

What is it?

A cooker tap.

It's Q.

Cooker, but

the Q.

I want one of them with custard.

Yeah.

So I can just.

Yeah.

Like constant hot custard just dispensed.

Yeah.

Amazing.

That sounds delicious.

I mean, I'll be well up for that.

Yeah.

Is there going to be a crumble in particular you've got your fingers crossed for?

I like the rhubarb.

I like the apple.

I like rhubarb and apple.

I want three.

Gonna read your menu back to you now.

See how you feel about it, boss?

Yeah.

You would like sparkling water with one big bubble.

I've changed my mind.

I wanted Reader.

Yes.

With a drop of lime cordial.

Yes, please.

Poppadoms with the sauces maybe syringed into your mouth.

It's up to you.

Starter, steak tartare with the egg on top, main size portion.

Medium rare.

Medium rare.

Main course, crispy duck pancakes.

Yep.

Christmas dinner, you want turkey, chicken, Brussels sprouts, long pigs and blankets like they're in tacos.

Side dish, chicken wings.

Yep.

Drink, rhubarb caust and press yes please dessert a crumble roulette a crumble roulard

cream

a a jug of molten chocolate and a tap that dispenses custard yeah you've got to say for all the stuff we've talked about apart from the dessert you listen back to that menu you've gone it's quite a normal menu yeah we've really been round round the houses on stuff we haven't got a cheese board yet we haven't got a cheeseboard yet

by the fire

by the fire it's delicious though yeah i think that would start i think if you I think if you went to a restaurant, I mean, like, the journey to the choices, you know, I think I've justified that.

A lot of fun.

But I think that, I think, yeah, if you went to, I think if you went to a restaurant, you'd go, no, I think

that's a nice, respectable meal.

And then, oh, hey, it's red custard roulette.

I think it's got.

If anything, I mean, look, I've been with my wife for many 23 years now, but I think if I was a single man, I reckon I don't think there was any ladies or fellas who would

be disappointed with that.

I mean, it depends what date it is, I guess.

A first date, I think, suddenly doing crumble roulette at the end and having a custard tap.

I think that's when you know that you found someone good.

Yeah, that's when you, yeah, that's when you're if they're like, yes, crumble roulette.

If they're like, oh, I don't know about this crumble roulette.

Oh, I thought you meant like, like, on a first date, on a first date, you could stuff yourself full of crumble.

You could be drinking from the tap because, you know, it's a first date.

Right, yeah.

You don't need to.

Nothing's going to happen.

Nothing's going to happen tonight.

It's just, you know.

I'm a respectful guy.

I'm just going to fill myself full of crumble.

Yeah.

It's just, it'll be a beck on the tube, you know.

Yeah.

See you safely into a taxi, right?

On the Craig David scale.

Right.

On the Craig David scale.

Yeah.

Once we're starting to push towards the weekend, there'd be no custard tap.

No, custard tap.

No.

No.

So wise advice there for any young young lads entering the dating scene.

Do you want to kind of like turn that into a Christmas message for people?

Well, you know what?

I think we should ring Craig David right now, get him to re-record that song, put some slayer bells on it.

You know, Craig David's seven days of Christmas.

Yeah, instead of the 12 days where he got his true love, it was just some lass he met in a subway.

Merry Christmas, Ross.

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, Ross.

Well, there we are, James.

An absolutely epic episode with Ross Noble.

What a menu.

What a guy.

And he didn't say noodles.

He did not say noodles, to be fair to him.

You know, it would have been weird if he'd said it on the Christmas bit.

Yeah.

But he had strawberry jam.

He had strawberry jam.

So who used to say?

Yeah.

Who knows?

Who knows?

Thank you very much for Ross coming in.

Don't forget you can see him on tour.

His new show, Jibber Jabber Jamboree, is touring now.

Go on to rosnoble.com for tickets.

And also, while you're at rosnoble.com, his last show, Humanoid, is available as a special there as well.

So do go and buy that for all of your Ross Noble needs.

And I should say, before we carry on, yard sale have sent us their Christmas pizza to the studio today.

I forgot that it was being delivered and ate a big lunch.

I did not forget.

I ate two big slices.

It was delicious.

Always like their Christmas pizza.

Ever since they asked us to collaborate with them on a Christmas pizza, I've made sure that I've not missed it every year.

This one's delicious.

So do get yourself along to yard sale.

uh we'll be back um you know pretty soon with some best of episodes of the year the only episode you need to listen to all year of off menu no um it's the only episode you listen to all year while you clean your house uh there'll probably be two of them uh they'll probably be topping three hours yeah it's a good podcast so there's a lot of best of a lot of best ofs a lot of the guests a lot of highlights yes it's all you need absolutely and also we need to include bits from every guest so they don't feel left out yes uh the new series will be here next year new New series of off-menu?

New series of off-menu, James?

Do you know what number series it is?

21.

It's 11.

11.

Yeah.

Merry Christmas to you all.

Hope you have a lovely festive period.

Thank you very much.

Bye-bye.

Goodbye.

Popsicles, sprinklers, a cool breeze.

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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 7 p.m., 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.