Best of 2021: Part 2

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

Yes.

Ever heard of the Royal Albert Hall?

I have.

We've done live shows there.

And guess what?

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Sure, a lot of them are sold out already.

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

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

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

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

Those shows have been a lot of fun.

We cannot wait to do them live.

Who will we pull out of our little magic bag?

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

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

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

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

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

The day in between is for reflecting.

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

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Welcome back, everyone, to the off-menu best of 2021 episode.

This is part two.

Man, this is exciting.

Part one was so great.

I'm looking at the list of stuff we've got to play you in part two.

I'm so proud of our podcast, Ed.

What an absolute load of nonsense it is.

It truly is a big old pile of rubbish, and we're very excited to bring you the choice bits of that rubbish.

Right now, on this episode, it's the only episode James ever listens to.

I'm very excited for him to hear all of this stuff for the first time, because there's some pretty incredible clips in here.

Let's kick off, as we always do in the off-menu restaurant, with water, James.

A couple of water clips for you.

Always ask the guests, still or sparkling water to start off their meals.

And two guests had very strong opinions.

I'm talking, of course, about Big Zoo and Juliet Danuga.

We always start the podcast with still or sparkling water, Big Zoo.

I'm definitely still.

I definitely used to hate sparkling, but now I can appreciate the goodness behind it.

But nah, still the way.

You know what I like?

I like the Turkish water in the boss man shop.

You know the one in the shop that's looking like it's not one of the big boys, not Volvik, it's not Evyan, no them lot.

Yeah, and there you go.

You just know the pH level.

It's just there.

So is that based on taste?

You know, that the random water from the turkish shop is that based on taste or is that like because you know you're drinking like underground water you're not drinking the same water as everyone else you're not drinking that mate you're not drinking from the mainstream i'm basically a hipster ain't it hipster of water nah it is it's more time i can't lie i do love a volvic yeah but more time for the people then for the it's just the pH i don't know what it is the water just it just tastes cleaner i don't know what it is i think the big boys they just got like people tell me everyone has like the best pH balance whatever all that stuff but I think I like the Turkish Turkish boss man water.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, chance.

Oh, Nestle.

Nestle got a big boy water.

That's what I got right here, but I took off the tank.

But this one, see, the bottle is shaped like this.

It's very flimsy.

Yeah, that's like that goat water.

You would like Turkish bossman water, though.

Yeah, that's what you would like.

I like that you went from sort of like an obscure Turkish boss man water, the one where you don't really know what the name is, either that or Nestle.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, but you know what?

They're not really that known for water, innit?

Let's be real.

They're not that big in the water game.

So, like, that's why I kind of

still

respect them more than

you know what I'm saying, Volvet, Ivyan, X, Y, Z, like, all of that.

It's like saying you don't like Keanu Reeves' films, you just like his grunge band.

Yeah.

The thing is with Nestle Water, I've seen Nestle Water on the shelves before, and I've just thought, no, I can't even imagine it.

Because I'd look at it and go,

it just seems like it would be creamy.

You look at it and go, that's not going to be proper water.

That's going to to take real,

creamy,

like Nestle.

I don't want that.

I'd much rather have Turkish bossman water than Nestle water.

Listen, yeah.

After Turkish bossman water, it's definitely the Nestle water.

Then we go Vovik, yeah.

Nestle water over Vovik every day.

Trust me.

How do you get into Nestle water?

How did you cross that barrier in your mind of thinking that this is going to taste like a Yorkie?

At boom.

So my friend

loves water, doesn't drink other things.

He only drinks like a sprite once in a while.

Is that Tubsy?

No, not Tubsy, Heider.

I'm saying my friend, but you know them.

You know them.

I don't know what's going on.

Any of our listeners haven't seen Big Zoo's Big Eats before?

Yes.

Big Zoo is joined by his friend Tubsy and Haider.

Yes, that I went to secondary school with.

My little mates.

Haider is a big complainer.

Yeah.

And his family installed a tap that's a purified tap.

So, you know, it's like some people just have like tap water.

Some people like put the tap water in the fridge.

Some people have like a Brita filter, you know, with the drug.

This guy installed a tap just for filtered water, like in the house.

I don't know how much it costs, but it's like a fountain of heaven.

You go to the house, and I swear down, I go to the house with empty bottles just to get their water because it's like the perfect pH.

But obviously, the guy that sold it to them spun their brain, gave them like a lot of pH testers to like show them other water is basically shit.

Yeah,

so he would like make us go to the house, drink his water, test if he hates, then drink like a Volvik, an Ivian, then a Nestle, and be like, see, see what she's talking about.

And then he was basically trying to get us all to install these water things.

I felt like he's getting a commission or something because it's all he was talking about for like a year.

He's just telling us how life's changing.

Still sparkling water, Julie.

Stupid question.

Still, next question.

Pop knobs or bread.

Why did you not even add this in?

What was the point of this bit?

I fucking hate it.

Who wants sparkling water?

Sparkling water is an example of how human beings have ruined the earth, yeah?

Because there's so many things that just naturally exist.

And for some reason, we were just like, no, we're going to do extra things to supernatural, normal shit.

And someone said, let's make water bubbly.

It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of in my life.

It should be illegal.

Next question.

So is the whole of your menu and everything you eat, is that is it?

Do you only eat things that naturally occur without any man-made interference?

That's a brilliant question, Ed.

The answer is no.

No, but I think water is

the purest thing that exists on the planet.

Why would you change it?

What person was so bored that they thought, I'm going to change water?

It's like the fucking basis of all things.

And they said, I want to, I don't like like it.

It's arrogant, actually, if you ask me.

It's arrogant.

Fuck sparkling water.

Thanks, Julie.

I mean, that episode, me and Julie had a tension about custard later on.

I loved it.

Head to head, the two of you.

I was there just goading it on the whole time.

You love it when other people argue with me, don't you?

Really enjoy it.

It doesn't happen enough, actually, in my opinion.

But look, speaking of cold drinks, if iced tea is ever picked we always ask one question ed you know that right and the people who picked iced tea recently todd barry and jeff rosenstock let's hear from them now

i don't think you guys do this and where you're from is iced tea

yes we're familiar with iced tea are you we do have iced tea but not to the extent that you do iced tea over here yeah yes are we talking like

sweet tea?

I've seen people have sweet tea.

Sweet tea is.

Which is crazy.

It's unbelievably sweet.

Yeah.

Sometimes you can do a half and half.

Yeah.

You just

give me a hit of both of those.

I mean, sweet tea is delicious, but it's also like

you feel guilty as you're drinking it.

Sure.

But with this meal, with a bunch of lemon.

Oh, yeah.

Maybe.

Maybe I'd have like a moderately sweet iced tea.

I don't know how boring.

I sound like the most boring guy in the world.

Iced tea-ish.

I mean, eight beers.

I'll have eight beers.

beers.

What flavor would you like the iced tea?

What flavor?

Yeah, is it like lemon or peach or something?

Oh,

you know, I once got a pedicure in Dallas.

You know what, Todd?

I was not expecting that to be the next second.

No.

But I remember it was

staying at a fancy hotel.

And I was working with someone else, and

they gave us $100 credit at this fancy hotel.

So I said, I'm going to fucking go get a pedicure.

And I just remember this nice woman

talking to me, giving my pedicure.

She goes, you want some peach iced tea?

I was like, yes, I do.

It was fucking delicious.

But the peaches I don't eat.

That's the weird part.

Yeah, eat peaches, but the peach iced tea was

phenomenal.

Would you like the pedicure peach iced tea?

Yeah, we can give you that at this dream meal, the pedicure peach.

I don't know if I'd want the peach flavor overpowering those spicy fries I just ordered.

So I'm going to say a regular, like a black tea, whatever, standard southern style, half unsweetened, half sweet.

Right.

With a few lemons.

Maybe even a lime.

Maybe even put a lime in there with the lemon.

I just made a game time decision about that.

Now I'm imagining you as a character in To Kill a Mockingbird or something.

Oh, really?

Sitting on a porch drinking your iced tea.

Having a pedicure.

Eating Japanese curry.

Yeah, exactly.

That classic chapter.

That'd be good.

What about where do you stand on an Arnold Palmer?

Oh, those are good.

The thing about Arnold Palmer's, though, is like, I can drink one in, like, two seconds.

Right.

It just goes down, so it's great.

But then you just feel like, oh, do I get another one?

Then you're like, oh, it's all that sugar.

So is that lemonade and iced tea?

Yes.

Right.

Yeah.

Okay.

Very sweet.

Yeah.

I like them.

They're really good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you are right.

They go down very easily.

Yeah.

I mean, depending on the hot, the heat, the temperature of the weather.

The temperature of the weather.

Not the temperature of the iced tea.

How often do you drink iced tea?

You know, it's interesting.

Wait, I just realized it's not interesting.

I remember doing an interview about food, and I was like, it was years ago about like, well, I love going to coffee shop.

I love iced tea.

And then I realized I don't order iced tea.

I order coffee 99% of the time.

I go to, but iced tea is good instead of a second coffee.

Like in the morning, you have a coffee in the afternoon.

I don't know.

That second cup is fine, but it does, not even nearly as inside.

But a nice iced fucking tea.

Oh, my God.

Do you think iced tea drinks iced tea?

I have an iced tea story, if you want.

Yeah.

I did his podcast.

I had a publicist at the time.

She's like, iced tea wants you on his podcast.

I was like, really?

Okay.

And

so then I booked it and I took a bus to his house and went inside his house.

And he's very nice.

But I could tell he's like, he goes, what's your last name again?

I was like, okay.

I know he had like a 25-year-old comedy nerd, I think, booking it.

So he's like, he's asking for all his favorites.

But he was really nice.

But I remember he,

this is in ice.

It's kind of surreal, like I'm taking a bus to Ice T's actual house.

Coco's there.

But

he asked me if I want something to drink, and he gave me a glass of ice water.

And I was like, holy shit, iced tea.

He just gave me ice water.

It's one of the most surreal experiences in my career of show business.

Crushed ice?

No, he had cubes, I believe.

What was Icede's podcast?

It was a lot about hip-hop and rap.

And he had guests on who would just kind of meander in.

Oh, right, okay.

And I just felt like they would be talking about rap.

And I'd be like, I don't want to chime in.

But I feel like I'm not saying anything.

But I remember at one point he's like, I get you.

I get you.

But he was nice.

So now what you want, really, because now that iced tea is giving you some ice cubes,

you need ice cube to give you an iced tea.

Oh my God.

That's that's full.

That would be just complete this.

Because I bet no one's had that.

No, no one's had both experiences.

Yeah, I mean, I'm actually being able to get both experiences.

See, now you're making me feel inadequate because

I was pretty satisfied with the ice water from iced iced tea.

Where does vanilla ice stand in all this?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, I got a vanilla ice story as well.

Excellent.

Go for it.

It's not much of a story, but I was on a plane sitting in coach going to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

And this guy gets on.

I was like, sits in coach a few rows behind me and just sits down, puts his hat over his head and falls asleep.

I was like, who's that fucking guy?

I think that's vanilla ice.

So then I look at my phone and like he was just in town.

I was like, holy shit, I'm going to fly with him.

So then we ended up, we landed in Fort Lauderdale and we ended up washing our hands next to each other other in the bench.

And I just remembered that he washes his hands like he's about to do surgery.

I was like, all right, good for you.

Because I'm kind of a hand washer.

I was like, all right, yeah, scrub those hands, man.

But I thought it was cool.

He flew coach, and he was just flying by himself.

I didn't chat him up.

I think I saw someone ask for a picture, but

I left him alone.

You left it up for the, well, you just admired the hand washing.

I was just like, oh, this is a good story right here.

I mean, maybe it isn't, but it's a life experience.

I think it's good good that you shared that moment with him.

Yeah, that was that.

I think that made it, took it to the next level.

Now, if I ever meet Ice, no, vanilla ice, excuse me, I'll be very comfortable shaking his hand because I know he's clean.

Yeah, very clean.

But maybe that's why, maybe he met a fan and he just hates his fans, so that's why he's washing his hands.

Oh, that could be it.

Yeah, that could be it.

I do that kind of right when I get off stage.

Or after I do like a meet and greet situation.

Yeah,

sanitizing that.

Where's the first sink?

Are you well, because you're a bit of a germaphobe?

I am.

I mean, there's a bit of mine I'm sure you love

about how I'm a lazy germaphobe, but because I don't really clean my floors, but I wash my hands 800 times a day.

I am familiar with that bit, actually.

Thank you for doing it live.

What's the weather like?

Pouring rain.

You know, nice.

Just warm.

A little breeze, a little breeze going on.

You don't need a jacket or anything like that.

It's sunny, but it's not

too in your eyes or anything like that.

Just exactly what you want.

Great, like iced tea weather.

Oh,

whenever anyone brings up iced tea, we always ask them, first of all, have you met Iced T, the rapper?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Now,

here's what's been really interesting.

Here's what's been really interesting.

Every time someone brings up iced tea, we ask them, have you met Iced T?

And they always ask.

He's a cool guy, I guess.

Yeah, yeah.

Where did you meet him?

My wife was a

publicist assistant a long time ago in New York.

This is like 2006.

And they body count was one of their clients.

And her job one day, basically, because I wanted to go to the body count show that night, she worked on a Saturday

just going around with iced tea to like all of his interviews and stuff like that.

Then we went to the show and I met him for like a second.

And then we were up in the, it was at this venue in New York, the knitting factory, the old one.

uh and they have this like mezzanine where guests like of the band can sit and watch the show and stuff so all body counts girlfriends were there uh ice t's uh wife coco yes uh was there

every time

she always gets a shout out

so somebody is sitting in cocoa's seat and coco comes up is like hey um i'm sorry these are like you know bands like wives and girlfriends and partners and stuff sitting here and you're sitting in my seat and this like drunken frat bar was like, Fuck it, whatever.

I'm sitting in this office, and I'm sitting in the seat.

So, go fuck it.

She's like, I don't.

No, come on.

Look, you should really get up.

It's not your seat.

And he's like,

I'm looking up.

I'm seeing your, I don't see your name on it.

She's like, okay.

And then iced tea, like, this is in my memory, which is probably heightened.

Fucking iced tea.

Like, comes through the green room doors.

Like, who's sitting in my wife's seat?

Yeah, and this guy's like, oh, I'm sorry.

I said, get the fuck,

get the fuck out of here, get the fuck out of here.

And then, uh, and he's like, I'm sorry, Icy,

get fuck out of here, and then he was kicked out of the show.

Oh, God, always worth asking people about iced.

Coco tried so hard.

Yeah, he just

given the chance.

You know,

I get it.

We're all having a good time.

You're just, you're like sitting in my seat.

Yeah.

And he's just, you know, drunk and dipshit about it.

My husband, Icy, Iced is gonna be here soon.

And we also ask

second question we also ask is do you think that iced tea would drink iced tea?

Yeah, it's great.

Yeah,

it's not too sweet.

Yeah, it's not but it's not just water.

It's got a little kiss of caffeine in it.

Yeah.

Go on through the day or not, up to you.

Sure.

You know, I feel like if iced tea didn't like iced tea, that would be the sort of fact he'd bring out at a really boring dinner party.

He'd go, well, of course, the interesting thing about me is I don't even like iced tea.

No, stop saying that.

Stop saying that.

That's when Iced started.

Why are you telling that guy that's not?

What about those things that you do?

What about when you release Cop Killer?

I don't even like Iced T.

Whoa.

Hey, Ed.

Did either of those iced tea stories end up in the tabloids?

They didn't, but occasionally, James, things do end up in the tabloids from this podcast bafflingly i mean what the hell they pick up some really weird stuff from the podcast and then they run with it and then don't mention where the interview was so not only do our guests not trust us anymore we also get no publicity from it yeah we don't i mean it's not written on here because but like there was a point where i was i was in the gym so what

and uh loose women was on what were you working on huh what were you working on toes toes and

miriam margulies was on Loose Women and she was sitting there over Zoom eating a raw onion.

And they were like,

and they said to her, hello, Miriam, what are you eating there?

She said, a raw onion, because I heard that you don't believe that I eat raw onions.

And they said, yes, we heard you in an interview recently say that you eat raw onions and we didn't believe it.

And I was there going, go on then, say where you heard it.

And they didn't say it.

And I was like, I cannot believe this.

That would have really spurred you on to lift some pretty big weights with the toes.

You probably got a PB.

Oh, I did.

Absolutely.

beef my toes up.

Also, the whole interview, I was watching the TV, really wanting her lodger to walk in and throw a sandwich at her, but it didn't happen.

But that is not in this little clips package because, I mean, quite frankly, this whole episode could just be Miriam Margalita again.

Here are some of the stranger tales the tabloids ran with from Sue Perkins, Martin Freeman, and Timothy Spawl.

These were actual news stories.

Would you ever, ever in your life, get into into a jacuzzi?

Oh, forget it.

But for different reasons.

So for me, it's not that it's going to leach calcium from my bones, but a slick of somebody else's bodily fluids.

Yeah, right.

Like, I once got into a hot tub with a shaman at about 5 a.m.

He said he was a shaman.

He was called John and he was wearing a grass skirt.

And

he

basically said he wanted to perform a ritual.

And the ritual, which was a cleansing ritual, involved blowing raspberry vodka at my asshole.

And I went with it because I'm very open and I don't wish to be in any way demeaning to other people's beliefs.

And

since then,

I have a very deep aversion to getting into a hot bubbling sort of arena with anybody, particularly someone in a grass coat.

So I'm going to put it out there.

I don't think that was the hot tub's fault.

That story.

No, that story took quite a few turns.

And at no point did I think it's the hot tub's issue here.

This is, I mean, for somebody who sort of looks quite square and and nerdy, like I do, I often sort of find myself, it's not an unusual situation that I would be in a hot tub with a shaman because I just accept and go with.

These are my, I live my whole life like it's an improvised country.

Yeah, I mean, for me, yes, and would stop at the Raspberry Vodka-up the arsehole.

No, it's yes, and, and it's never no, but it's always yes, and it's yes, but

yes, and oh.

Um,

but it's it was a very, it was, it was a very intense experience, I will say.

It was very well aimed and um

unforgettable yeah i'll tell you the experience of listening to it yeah the experience of listening to you telling it here's my experience uh i was there and at the beginning of it i was like right at some point during this anecdote i'm gonna have to interrupt su and shout popadoms or bread because we've got to get on to that next section

uh listening to it listening to it listening to it and then going It's the only time on this podcast, the whole time we've done it, I've gone, actually, I'm not going to shout popadoms or bread.

I'm going to ask more questions about this because this is ridiculous.

No, it's the kind of story where you don't want to, you almost don't want to ruin it by asking too many questions because the bullet points alone are funny.

It leaves a lot to the imagination.

But I think, I guess what I really want to know is

how John the Shaman

phrased...

phrased to you

this proposition and made it sound like it was a ritual when it clearly isn't.

Is that really the question you want to ask the most?

Well,

I guess there are other questions I would like to ask.

It's a complex buffet, isn't it?

I hadn't realised how complicated it was till I said it out loud.

Imagine being in the thing,

being in the hot tub, and John the Shaman in any way making this sound legit to Sue and being able to...

So, do you, there's a, now we're in the hot tub, there's a really great ritual we could do.

And

I've got some raspberry vodka, which is very convenient.

Do you have an asshole?

Like,

if you have that and we can combine that, maybe we could do the

the ritual that i like look this was this was um at mate's house there was a a a collection of really good eggs quite esoteric quite the shaman didn't stand out it was a it was a sort of cabal of quite out there people and i was

really into it and the hot tub came after a lot of vodka it's like oh let's just all settle down and get in the hot tub It was then he said, and

he said, you know,

I can sense you.

I can sense you're unresolved.

Everybody in the world is unresolved, but they always get you with that.

Since you're unresolved, and I said, yes, really hammered at this point.

Yes, John.

I am unresolved.

He said,

there's two things I can do in this situation.

And he genuinely said, but I don't have my eagle feather with me.

That's what he said.

So

in many ways, I've dotted a bullet.

That's all I can say.

I feel, although, had I been on dry land,

had the eagle's feather, this could be a, it could be the sort of anecdote that I would never say out loud.

We don't know.

But he said, I haven't got the eagle's feather.

Oh, I haven't got the eagle's feather with me.

But we can do a cleansing.

And I think the raspberry vodka was the nearest.

It just needed to be a spirit.

And that, so he didn't, I didn't feel I needed to challenge the nature of the alcohol.

So it wasn't the flavour.

It wasn't the raspberry flavour was not key to the...

Fuck, I didn't even challenge the asshole either.

It's awful.

I didn't even chat.

I just was like, oh, I've had a few.

You know, I was a bit younger.

You know,

I was better put together.

I was like, yeah, look at it, everyone.

And it was just bang.

And it was like an explosion from his mouth.

It was like a real.

And, you know, yes, there was an awakening.

So in many ways, he achieved the desired effect, which was I was not unresolved anymore.

I was very resolved and I was very resolved to never be in a foaming hot tub ever again.

This is the first time on off-menu that when we ask you for each course, we're going to have to ask you which end you want to consume it through.

Yes, I want it blown retiling, please.

A high-tensile.

I don't know what kind of mechanism.

What about the soda?

It needs to be in a soda siphon and then delivered.

Yeah.

I hate to ask more questions about this.

I'm in the story that I've got more questions.

And I wish I didn't.

But like, I'm just thinking about the listener.

That's blowing her nose, by the way.

Yeah, just so you know.

Not a meeting that.

I think the listener will be what because I was listening to that story and

okay, yeah, and then this happened.

And

I mean, this is going to sound too graphic a question, but I'm wondering if

John the Shaman

had a

like

a straw or something that he was blowing.

Just before we, thanks for asking this, mate.

Yeah.

Because obviously I wanted to as well, but I'm glad you were the one doing it.

Yeah.

Listen, I mean, if he'd not got his eagle feather, but had brought a straw, sort of weird in a way.

That's intent.

Straight from the mouth.

Oh, man.

So it was like...

Oh, God.

Yeah, so it was like, sort of like a massive slurp and then

like that.

And it was a shower.

Which subsequently I've had done a couple of times, admittedly, not rectally and admittedly clothed with camera crews and like, you know,

feeling a bit safer on dry land.

Yet just a big sp like a really high-pressured spit.

Yes.

It's a conundrum, isn't it?

That now I've unveiled it.

It's a conundrum because, like, I mean,

I want to know what he's up to now, if you've kept in touch, if you know what he's doing.

We didn't keep in touch, no.

He was an absolutely charming man.

You'd have to.

I think possibly still shamanizing on the wastewater on the west coast.

Possibly storming the capital building.

We don't know.

It could have been one or two ways.

It's.

I bet you had his eagle feather then.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, that's de rigueur.

De regur.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

I don't know how we got into that.

We just asked you if you like hot tubs because you don't like bubbles.

Yep, and I did not expect it to go that way.

It's intriguing that you won't drink fuzzy water because you think it's bad for you, but you'll let a man called John blow raspberry vodka up your ass.

What can I say?

You know, we're all made up of contradictions.

You contain multitudes, soup.

Yeah.

Have you seen the Jim Carrey documentary about him making man on the moon?

Oh, yeah.

All I could think when I was watching that is just imagine being anyone else working on that film.

Just like, oh, fucking Ellie's coming in again.

You can see their faces as well, Ed.

You know, you know, when he comes on the makeup bus and there's proper grown-up actors just going, oh, fuck Christ.

You know, like, he's not only doing this, he's brought a fucking camera with him, you know,

and music.

For me, and I'm sure, genuinely sure, Jim Carrey is a lovely and smart person, but it was the most self-aggrandizing, selfish, fucking narcissistic bollocks i've ever seen and the idea that anything in our culture would celebrate that or support it is um deranged i mean it's literally deranged i think you know i am a very lapsed catholic but the idea is it's like if you believe in transubstantiation right then then you're going somewhere along the line of i lost my i became the character no you didn't you're not supposed to become the fucking character because you're supposed to be open to stuff that happens in real life you know because someone at some point someone's going to say cut and it's no good going what does cut mean?

Because I'm Napoleon.

It's like, shut up, man.

You know, you need to keep grounded, I think, in reality.

And that's not to say that you don't lose yourself for the time between action and cut, but I think the rest of it is absolute pretentious nonsense.

And I think it's highly amateurish.

It's essentially an amateurish notion because it's not professional.

You know what I mean?

Like, it's not, for me, it's not a professional attitude.

You know, get the job done, man.

Do your work.

You know.

He should have got fired.

He should totally have got fired can you imagine if he had been anybody else under the line i mean he would have been sectioned never let alone fired he would have he would have been got rid of you know if it was one of the cameramen uh sort of getting into the character of a really famous cameraman yeah yeah you know i'm my hero always filmed with his trousers and pants off so can you just leave me to my process please yeah so no i think it is that yeah it's it's partly that um it's the ridiculous leeway that is given to some people and of course you know i'm i'm one of them you know like we all get cushedy gigs and we all,

you know, to a certain degree or another, we're all very fortunate in that we get a little pass in some situations where other people wouldn't.

I understand that.

But

Christ, I mean, there's such a thing as pushing it.

I just think when you are challenging, and that's what that Jim Carrey thing looks like to me.

At the very, very end,

I can't remember what he does.

He does or says something that is sort of pertaining to his Christ-like

self-grandeur.

And he does or says something that makes me think at the very last second, oh, is all this a wind-up?

Is this a joke?

Because he is clearly a very funny person.

He knows absolutely where funny is all the time.

But you sort of think, oh, God, is he lost himself in this delusion of thinking he's a guru or a fakir?

And because a fair few people do, you know, a fair few people do once you get to the top of the mountain.

And, you know, what are you going to do then?

You know, because what else gives your life meaning?

Because essentially, you could argue what we do is, it's, yes, it's not curing diseases or whatever, but I still think it's has a nobility to it and it's reasonably important but if it's not then you got to go with it you know jim you should have paid more attention at school if you wanted to do something more important you know i hope he was joking oh yeah we all we all hope he was joking although just keeping everything that we've said in mind uh

Welcome to the podcast where one of us pretends to be a genie for the whole thing.

Yeah, so James does lose himself in the genie role.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah, that's your saving grace, I think.

As long as you don't go too far in to the genie role, then I will still have respect for you.

If you really start thinking you're a genie for this hour, I'm going to think, nah, I didn't like that.

So you just see him slowly pushing a sort of pot of blue paint out of the way, going, no, don't worry, I'll be absolutely fine.

What are you drinking there out of your glass mug?

A cup of my favourite tea, which is Yorkshire and Earl Grey.

So a little bit of the old builder in me and also

the layers of sophistication that has happened to me ever since i've become an equator of the parish for many many years ago is it it's a mix of teas yeah well yeah two bags just stick them in always that's what we do we get the in the morning two yorkshire or whatever the equivalent builders is and then a bag of uh earl grey let it become uh so strong that you can stand your spoon up in it and then it's ready to go i've never met anyone who's double-bagged it let alone cross-bagged cross the bags old cross fertilizing your tea yeah well then it's what I see.

You're getting your old-fashioned transport calf tea, a basic tea that I was sort of brought up on, and then the Poncey kind of tea that one has introduced at the life of sophistication of a strolling buyer.

Do you feel like if you ever let the Yorkshire tea go, then you've sort of lost something?

You've abandoned your past.

Well, I think I'd lose it because it's good, isn't it?

Yeah, I think I would find myself entering into the sort of health shoe phase and then only ignoring all that, the great stuff, the really, you know, the deep fried, the fried bread and the deep fried shit of my youth and all them wonderful carcinogenic meals that were, you know,

were dished up and enjoyed and still do on a case, still love them.

You know, why not?

There's a mixture.

So I still have a little bit of that.

And I'll go into the sophisticated as well, or the Ponce, whatever you want to say, however you want to

couch it.

There we are.

I mean, incredible that as a journalist, you could listen to those and go, more people need to hear about this.

Yeah, also,

I mean, a lot of those occur at the very beginning of the episode.

I think what the old tabloid journals do, they clearly just listen to the beginning of the episodes and then run with that, which is mad because if they listen to what Timothy Spool actually said later on in his episode, which we've already covered in part one.

of this catch-up about him being a little skidded boy hyperchondriac thinking that he was going to turn into his cat a cactus and that his bum was going to be put on his nose and then he got bought in front of a whole university lecture fiat and they were all laughing at him because he was a little hyperchondriac skidhead boy who thought he was going to turn into a cactus that's a news story

that's a proper news story but it is weird it is weird to double bag tea double bag your tea it is weird yeah well speaking of weird head this is proper weird stuff we've had a lot of weird moments on this podcast haven't we yes that's it very much for some reason it brings it out of people and we've got a little package that highlights that that now from munyachiwawa asim chowdhury julia danuga nicola cochlund chaparat korsandi joel kim booster donald gleason and mary lynn rice carb let's hear from those guys what a bunch of weirdos

okay when i was at school in zimbabwe we used to play pokemon cards

But then one day somebody came into school and said that this kid had burnt down their parents' house because of a Pokemon had told him to do it.

So we were all then told that the Pokemons are demonic, so we had to all throw our cards in the bin.

Like our teachers made us throw our cards in the bin.

So anyway, the next day someone came in and they had

goes, okay.

Every single, this is the first time I've ever spoken to you.

Every single story has a throwaway detail

which could be a film in itself.

It's like, just to get to why I was a Marble champion, a kid in my class burned down his house because a Pokemon told him to do it and we weren't allowed to play Pokemon anymore

because they were demonic.

Anyway,

I keep putting like everything you say, I'm like, well, I'll put a pin in that and we'll have to come back to it.

And then basically this whole conversation is just pins that I've not gone back to.

But anyway, so one day, the next day,

someone came in and they just had marbles.

And they were like, we're going to start playing marbles.

Here's how you play.

You've got different, you can, it's a move at a time and your job is to hit the other person's marble so you can do like a high bomber which is when you throw it over the shoulder you can do like a roly where you you know roll it across the floor and so we started to build up this this community of marbles and there was different values so like you had the coal gate which is the one where it's like three stripes inside and then you had like the demon eye the the dolphin eye the demon eye i mean that is come on guys my mum actually banned me from having that and that in the house but i actually convinced her to allow me to keep it because i had another one called an angel eye so i said to her, it will balance out.

Anyway.

You, as a kid,

managed to convince a grown woman that that was fine.

Mum, I know you've confiscated my demon eye marble, but I also have the angel eye.

Therefore, it balances out and I won't go to hell.

Here's your marble.

Yeah, yeah.

She said, it wasn't like a hard stance.

Like, she wasn't like, throw it out.

She just said, I don't know how I feel about having the demon eye in the house.

And I went, mum, it's fine because I got an angel eye.

anyway listen to my point because um basically

you win these marbles by rolling them and whatnot but what i learned is when people are really arguing over marbles during you know the position of marble you could actually start to just pinch their marble from under their feet whatnot because they usually keep it between their legs and then roll it so i would go around collecting these really high value dolphin eye angelite i would you know i'll steal them and i actually got to the point of i had and i i only have 10 with me now because I wasn't able to bring all of them but at home in Zimbabwe I have 668 marbles all stolen some that some that I have won some that I have stolen now

Monia I just

that is what we would call burying the lead that story that story took so long to get to the fact you've got a lot of marbles and along the way There were lots of things that should be stories in their own right.

Also, it started off of you saying I was a marble champion.

And the reveal is you weren't.

You stole loads of marbles off of loads of other kids.

So when you're a kid, you weren't a marble champion.

As a champion marble stealer.

Yeah, you stole the other kids' marbles.

From what I can gather, you didn't play a single game of marbles.

You just stole them off the other kids and then convinced your mum it was okay to keep them because one of them was an angel.

You know, I was good sometimes.

I'm going to need to know more about the Pokemon Arsonist as well.

What Pokemon was it that told them to burn the building down?

It must have been a fire Pokemon.

Yeah, Charitard.

But I don't even know.

They just said, look, the Pokemon cards whispered to him to, you know, to burn the house.

Look, it's very easy to access fire in Zimbabwe.

Even me, I actually burnt down my neighbor's garden by mistake once.

Here we go.

Okay, well, again, there we go.

Okay, no, no.

I'm going to give you the short version because, you know, I push for time.

But anyway, my garden story very quickly is.

In Zimbabwe, your garden, it's not like an English garden where it's a nice, you know, neat lawn.

The grass is is very long, you know,

high grass.

And a lot of the time,

there's no wall around your house.

Your garden just goes on forever.

So people decide whose garden is which.

Anyway, you know, you don't have a lawnmower that can reach that far down the garden because we're talking acres and acres.

So I really fancied my neighbor's mum and she said to us one day, she said, look, this grass is really, it's untamed.

You know, what can we do?

And I had a cousin called Mike who would visit every summer holidays like most, you know, most people.

But he always would get us into trouble.

And he said to me, we can burn the grass in a controlled fire.

Anyway, what happened is we set light to the grass and then obviously it just all went up in an absolute rage of flames and continued to spread through everyone's gardens.

And then we just had to lie to my dad and say, you know, we don't know what happened.

But, you know, she didn't have any grass left.

It was all black.

And which Pokemon told Mike to do this?

But, you know, we genuinely thought that we could stop, we could just, you know, curb the fire when we felt it was right, but it just got away from us.

It happened.

Yes.

Because, as he said, we could burn the grass with a controlled fire.

I think that is a thing you can do, but I don't think you then just throw a match at some grass.

I think you have to do things beforehand to make sure it stops burning

the point, right?

I know that now.

I was just a kid at the time.

I was not to know, you know.

And from what I gather, it's because you fancied this lady, you fancied your friend's mum, and you wanted to cut the grass so that she would maybe see you as a potential suitor just so that she would just to get a points yeah just point scoring and be like look i can do macho things even though you know well you did the most macho thing you burned down all the gardens

I'm quite an obsessive man, right?

And when I get into something, I really geek out on it.

And I was really, for some reason, I was really obsessed with that come down with me episode.

You know, the guy who's like, dear lord, what a sad little life.

And I was just like,

you have all the grace of a reversing dump truck, that guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

I'm not wearing boxes, but I'll show you in a minute.

But

yeah, sorry, no, no, um, but that sounded weird, but yeah, so I was really obsessed with it, like to a point,

like I knew, I knew it was here, I know, I am wearing boxes, sorry, I meant I'm only wearing boxes,

and then I said, I'll show you in a minute, fucking, yeah, that sounded so creepy, but I'm sorry, guys, no, no, I am just only wearing boxes.

I was about to stand up and show you something, okay.

I thought you were going to be our first guest to be Winnie the Poohing it during the report.

How's that?

You're good.

You got his dick out in the first five minutes.

We're talking about some diamond me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So anyway, I was really obsessed with that whole moment.

And I don't know why.

Like, and I know it was already, I knew about it before, but I really, really got into it.

And then I was like analyzing it.

And I did like a YouTube breakdown video.

And this was during lockdown as well.

So I was like, I've started a vlog that I like quit after three F's.

And I started a podcast that I quit.

I started doing Twitch streaming that I fucking couldn't be bothered with.

I'm like that.

Like I get into something and I just give up.

Anyway, so before this, I was on holiday before lockdown and I was in the jacuzzi and I sprained my ankle.

So basically for two days, I was just inside the hotel and then I just obviously was watching stuff.

And then I, then I was on Photoshop and I just made a design of the come dine with me guy, his face and then the other people in the background.

And it says like, you know, enjoy the money, Jane, or something like that.

Oh, no, no, no, no, sorry.

It says.

I can't remember what it says.

Enjoy the money, Jane.

And it was just a really cool design.

And I put it on Twitter like as a joke.

I was like, bored as fuck, whatever and it went viral and everyone was like okay where can we buy this and i went no no no i'm not i don't sell t-shirts like i'm an actor i don't that's that's not my profession i'm not in the fashion industry but i had to make them so i got them designed and you know they went it went mental and then it then became this whole thing where like the actual jane from the episode she wanted one and she got into my dms and she started like basically having a go at me being like you got it all wrong because i analyzed it so deeply that i actually realized that um peter the guy, the dear Lord guy, he was actually the victim, really, a hundred percent.

Like, so for people who don't know about this moment on Come Dynamic Me, it's when at the end, Jane has won, and Peter, whose house the last episode was in, yeah, thought he'd got it in the bag, yeah, didn't, and he takes it very badly, doesn't he?

Yeah, he's reading the results, he gets out the paper, and he says, and in fourth place, it's

me.

And then he looks, he scrolls up, and he sees that Jane's won.

And then he goes, Congratulations, Jane, you've won.

Yeah.

And then it just starts the most, it's just the way he delivers it as well.

They're kind of, dear Lord.

Sad little life.

It was just, and then you know, you have all the grace and decorum of a reversing dump truck without any tires on.

It's so poetry.

Like, how the fuck do you come up with that?

So, anyway, I became obsessed with that.

I made the t-shirts.

They went viral.

I even, okay, now I'm going to stand up.

Hold on, let me put my box.

Here we go.

Oh, you know what I'm going to see?

You know what I'm saying?

Here it comes.

And then during the vlog thing I did, I even got my girlfriend to do a painting of

him.

That's so exciting.

That's exactly.

And she made his eye and his eye red.

Yeah.

Like some Terminator kind of dude.

So anyway, I had a really weird obsession with it.

But then it came full circle, like I said, when the Jane from the actual episode attacked me and came in my DMs.

You don't know anything.

He was a fucking nightmare.

You don't know.

And then we became friends.

And then I sent her a t-shirt.

And then I've got a picture of the actual Jane wearing the t-shirt.

And then the voiceover guy wanted one.

So then I became like it came full circle and now I'm over it.

Yeah.

Now I'm done with it.

You say that you get into stuff and then you give it up.

It sounds like that ended appropriately, right?

You followed that through as far as you possibly could.

I think so.

Yeah.

I'm very, I'm content with it now.

Like I'm done with it.

Like, you know, like, I mean, obviously, if someone brings it up, I will have a chat about them.

I'll talk about the, you know, the very complex politics of it all and the social dynamics because I found it fascinating.

You know, I did a whole breakdown video on YouTube and not for, like, just for myself.

Like, it it wasn't for, I wasn't being like, yeah, this is going to be great content.

Fuck the content.

This was therapy for myself to get over this obsession.

And now I think I'm over it.

But I was considering making a musical or something about it.

Like, uh, yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

Like basing something on it because I do think it's so brilliant.

It doesn't sound like you're over it to be honest if you're considering funding a musical.

I'm like the cookie monster, but my cookies are like, come dine with me.

Yeah, yeah.

I've got three spreads that I like on my toast.

Oh, this is mad.

Wait, what are they?

Butter on its own.

Okay.

Marmite and marmalade.

And if I have three different slices, I do a butter slice, a marmite slice, a marmalade slice, and I eat them in that order, I start a main course and put them in.

No.

Okay, here comes the question.

What is the difference between butter and marmalade?

Pardon me.

Between butter and marmalade?

Yeah, what's marmalade?

Wait, what am I thinking of?

What is the difference between butter and...

You're thinking of margarine?

Oh yeah, I'm thinking of margarine.

Okay, cool.

Marmalade is what?

Marmalade is like orange gel.

Oh!

oh, yes.

Marmalade is delicious.

You just googled it.

Now you're holding up the Google images of marmalade to us.

Yeah, marmalade's delicious.

Which one do you have?

The bait one that everybody gets.

I've come.

You got Robertson's.

Yeah.

With shreds in it.

Yeah.

Yes, yes.

Or you go with shreds.

Oh, yeah.

I'm a shred.

Yeah, that's hard.

That's hard.

Yeah, that's hard.

Okay.

The Marmite thing, I'm not down with, but.

Yeah.

And also the three spread thing is very strange, but it's used.

It's a little mini meal.

Start a main course dessert.

Butter.

Strange.

Marmite, marmalade.

So you don't do jam on top of butter?

Nope, because it's a little starter.

It's just the toast with the butter on it.

And then main course, something merely attacks the palate.

Marmite.

Oh, it's a little hefty main course.

And then a lovely sweet dessert with the marmalade.

Yeah.

With the shreds.

I'd go Marmite every slice.

You're also going in the bin because that's disgusting.

Thick butter, thicker Marmite than you could ever imagine.

Wait, you go marm, you go butter and and then marmite on top?

Yes, yes, Julie.

Whoa.

Whoa.

Honestly, you two are disgusting.

I'm loving it.

You're absolutely vital, both of you.

Wait, Ed, do you do odd slices?

I've only got a two-slop toaster.

But have you ever done one slice of toast?

No,

one slice is never enough, is it?

So I'd always go two slices.

And I'll rarely, if I want more toast, I'll rarely be able to bring myself to do more.

Okay, fine.

Because it's going through that action again.

I'll be like, oh, God, I can't do that.

And plus, I've put so much on the first two slices.

I've gone absolutely mad.

Sometimes, Julie, and get a load of this.

I'll put marmite in a bacon sandwich.

How do you feel about that?

Has the bacon sandwich got bacon in it?

What?

No, no, no, no.

No bacon in it.

No, and no bread either.

And

I'm sat in my room just thinking about it.

Do you know what?

We've asked some pretty dumb questions.

Me and Ed are pretty guilty of it.

But never before have we asked someone if a bacon sandwich has bacon in it.

I was actually trying to help Ed out just now now because the fact that you put Marmite in a sandwich that has bacon in it makes you the most grim creature on the planet.

So I was trying to help you out by saying, I call it a bacon sandwich, but I didn't actually put bacon in it.

I was trying to be stupid to help you.

That's his get-out.

Is that he can say to people, I like putting Marmite in a bacon sandwich.

And before they attack him, he goes, hold the bacon.

Exactly.

And then it was like, I was having a Marmite sandwich.

Yeah, Julie.

Oh, thanks, Julie, actually.

I thought you were being stupid, but thanks.

You've been so helpful.

But what you like to do, Julie, is you like to get the toaster for your four slices of toast, and while you're eating those slices, you've got another four slices of bread toasted in the toaster already so that you can just do it on rotation.

That is disgusting.

Someone just buzzed my door.

I'm sorry.

Oh, no, it's an adventure.

Hang on, one moment.

I'm sorry.

See you later.

Such nice weather today.

It's amazing, isn't it?

I went for a little walk before this because I knew I probably wouldn't get a chance otherwise.

A lady saw recognized me.

Oh, yeah.

But got my name wrong.

So I was walking along.

Josh Whitdicum?

Oh, no.

You'll love it.

I looked up and she saw me across the road and she went,

James Pendergast.

Yes?

Hello?

I went, what?

She went, oh, no, nothing.

I went away.

James Pendergast.

James Pendergast.

So I got knocked out of my apartment.

Just now.

Yeah, that's what just happened.

Also, I went downstairs and I've only just gotten used to putting the latch on, but it turns out I'm not very good at it.

And then the Addison Lehman, the courier, he came back with a thing that I sent away.

And then I came back upstairs and I was like, it's locked.

And then I couldn't shout in in the door.

To us.

So I had to go into my neighbor's apartment and she wasn't there and I don't know where my key was.

So I had to search around her apartment and found my key.

And now I'm here.

And that is the story of what happened to me for those five minutes that I disappeared.

And Matt is all staying in, unfortunately.

How did you get into her apartment?

Well, she has a key.

She has a cat.

It's a whole lot.

What?

Yeah, I don't know.

It's her choice to...

I don't know.

What do you mean she has a key in the door because she has a cat?

She's afraid about the cat.

I can't remember what the story, but I yeah, but she's a very lovely lady, but she wouldn't remember, but yeah, I've never been locked.

I've lived here two years.

I've never gotten locked out.

Got locked out twice today.

I've never done it before.

It would be amazing if you just never came back to the recording, though.

If you were locked out for hours.

Well, I did think about that.

And my phone is here.

So funny.

But I was like, they're gonna, what are they gonna think?

They're gonna think I got murdered.

They're gonna think I went down to the Addison Lee man.

He literally said,

I couldn't find where to put this.

So here it is back.

A courier to a dress back.

And he couldn't find it.

So he just said, no, I forgive.

I give up.

Here it is again.

I thought, that's not helpful.

And then I was locked out.

It was very dramatic.

Are you feeling stressed?

Ah, no.

Why would you bother?

But I also have, it's funny, my sister and I had this happen to us years ago where we went for a walk in the prom and go out right by the beach.

And then we came back to where we thought her car was.

And we were like, the car got stolen.

And it was like, oh, okay.

Okay.

We just have to deal with that.

And then another car pulled away and it was just behind the other car.

And we were like, but that was good, wasn't it?

The way we just kind of dealt with it just went well the car's gone the end so it's good to know how you react in that situation yeah but i just thought can i sit in her now she's got a big fright when she comes sitting on the couch at 8 p.m and i was like i locked out and i was doing a podcast and i got locked out james how long do you reckon we would have sat here waiting for nicola to come back quite a while i think

I think we after maybe 20 minutes, we would have phoned you and then we would have seen your phone ringing over the camera over the zoom and gone, uh-oh, that's not good.

Yeah, um, and then I think we would have, well, we could have phoned your PR and said, Look, something has happened, Nicola's gone, and she's not here.

It would have been interesting.

We've never had someone go missing during the podcast before.

Sort of a mystery element I thought I'd bring, you know.

Suddenly become a true crime podcast out of nowhere.

That would be such a good start to a true crime podcast.

It really would.

We were asking her bread or poppadums and then she died.

Saying you feel maternal about young comics.

If you woke up tomorrow and your actual children were now comedians and two comedians were your children and they've swapped places, so your children now have the career of two s specific comics and those comics are now your kids, what swap would you want to do?

Okay, so I would like my son to have Bill Bailey's career and Bill Bailey be my boy.

I didn't know.

I didn't think

maternal over comics.

I didn't think you were gonna choose someone older than you.

That's so funny.

Bill Bailey's your little boy, okay?

That's great.

That's brilliant.

And I'm imagining him the size of a child, but still looking exactly the same.

Definitely, and wearing dungarees.

Okay, and I think that's because I've met Bill Bailey.

He's extraordinarily nice.

Now, when you say you've met him, do you mean

stood next to him at a sink?

And I've met his wife, and she's incredibly lovely.

lovely and I and I would like my child to do as well in their life partner.

Just to let you know, obviously you've met his wife and she was lovely, but you are essentially breaking up their relationship with this choice because now...

He's my child.

Now he's your child, yeah.

Can she also be my child?

No, your son's going to be married to Bill Bailey's wife.

Oh, that's bizarre.

And my daughter, I think she would really enjoy Graeme Norton's career.

Wouldn't we all?

Yeah, but I think it's a specific thing with Vivi is that she, if she met you two, she would find out everything about your lives from who you were dating, if you were married, what your favourite colour was uh what your favorite food was and she wouldn't just ask you for the sake of it it would matter to her and and graham does that thing as well where he does that uh agony aunt thing on his radio show people ring up with problems and and he sort of does the agony aunt bit and i think she would absolutely love that her her greatest thing in life would be to talk to as many people as possible intimately and have a giggle.

So if I could have Graham Norton as my child, please, and give his career to my daughter.

Thank you.

I'm now raising Bill Bailey and Graham Norton.

Perfect.

Yeah.

That, I can remember that, and I can remember the taste of my mom smoked all the time when I was growing up, and she would use old cans of like Coke or Pepsi as ashtrays.

Yeah, and I remember this is heading this out.

And I remember like picking up my can of Coke, drinking it, and realizing that it was a can that was my mom had accidentally ashed into like a full like cigarette

worth of ash in that can.

And I can remember the taste of that mixed with the Coke so clearly.

Oh god, it was so gross.

And yet I still smoked for years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm starting to understand why you don't like food much.

This just destroyed my palate again.

Awful memories as a child of mouthfuls of butter and fag ash drink.

Oh,

cigarette ash sorry.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

That was

insane to hear.

Isn't it bad?

It's so bad.

In America, it means something so different.

And then you say that it's like, I'm sorry.

The fuck did you just say?

That was insane to hear.

That was so.

It's so weird.

I'll be leaving the restaurant early.

Thank you.

Goodbye, guys.

That is, okay.

It's like, I just feel like I've said like the worst words.

I mean, obviously you know what that means back home, but like when you're in a country that doesn't mean that.

Yeah.

Oh my god.

And know you suddenly realise what you've said.

I feel awful.

Oh, I'm gonna enjoy watching you scratch.

Spiral for the rest of this.

It's really great.

I'm just fine.

Oh, God.

He eats all the time like he's having sex that night.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a bummer.

Joel, thank you so much for coming to the dream restaurant.

And I can only apologise again for what James said earlier.

Well, Joel just said bummer.

Is that?

Yeah, in the UK.

That's true.

I think you'll find the other way around.

I'll figure you'll find in the UK.

That is a homophobic slug.

Wait, really?

Yeah.

That is not true.

I'm reclaiming it, actually.

I actually can say it.

Oh, okay.

Why is it you only ever hear about acting roles that are losing weight?

I've never spoken to any actor who's like, oh, I had a role where I had to put on loads of weight.

It was the best time I've ever had.

Oh, there's loads of ones.

Yeah, totally.

There are.

Like, well, Christian Bale is doing both, right?

Like, everyone wants to bail it, right?

Everyone's like, I want to lose lose so much weight I'm sick forever and then I want to put on so much weight I'm sick forever He's he's gone both ways, but I bumped into Tom Hollander while I was losing the weight and he was putting on weight and He looked at me in a way that said don't even imagine that you're the person in the most pain here

Because he was he was waking up at night time To like, I don't know if he was drinking ice cream or I don't know what he was doing.

He was waking up.

He was like he was doing the goose thing.

He was doing the force feeding thing essentially with himself.

And he just said he was full, like the way I feel now

he felt all the time is it more critically acclaimed to lose weight though those are the ones that you hear about as like oh they put themselves through so much they lost so much weight no no one's going what an amazing thing they had to get up in the middle of the night to goose feed themselves ice cream de near yeah oh of course

he did pretty well off that people were pretty they were people people

a lot of respect for raging bull some people even talk about that movie now yeah yeah

i've heard of it i've heard of it guys yeah i would find that so easy.

Oh, God, I'd love to get a part where I have to put weight on.

I would do it in a week.

There's a story that Ryan Gosling was supposed to have a part in a Peter Jackson movie, and his idea was that his character would put on a lot of it, would be very heavy.

And that was not Peter Jackson's idea for the character.

And I don't know if they discussed it or not, but he turned up like whatever, 30 pounds heavier.

He'd been melting ice cream in his microwave and drinking it.

Like, that's how intensely he was doing it.

It can't be healthy.

And he turned up, and Peter Jackson was like, no.

And that was it.

He didn't play the bat.

More like Ryan Guslin.

Huh?

Am I right?

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

Strong.

Not bad.

I've heard that a lot of them do it with the melted down ice cream.

Rob McElhaney did that for Always Study in Philadelphia.

Melted down.

But the thing is, everyone who does that, I think I just have less sympathy for

the people who put weight on because they're all people who, like, two weeks later, they're ripped again.

Yeah.

Exactly.

I want to see a natural do it

and i speak as a natural fatty but yeah natural fatty well you know i i could do it in a couple of weeks quite easily i think just by taking my eye off the ball i did at the end of i mean and i do think actually i think weirdly i do think losing the weight like losing weight once for for a part

really changed my relationship with food i think genuinely and the night that i finished that the amount of food they were like they explained to me in detail you got to be you got to put weight back on carefully you can mess yourself up if you and i was like i understand

I understand.

I respect my body.

There is no way I'll be that idiot.

Oh my fucking God.

It was horrific.

Should I say, I did end up getting sick.

And then I did end up eating more sweets afterwards.

It was all sweets.

It was when I was seven again.

What part was this for?

It's great that you don't know about it.

I'm trying to think.

It was worth it.

It was, yeah, I wanted to look super slim for Peter Rabbit.

No, I did a film called Unbroken that Angelina Jolie directed.

The part of the film that I was in was three soldiers end up stranded at sea.

And was it happened in real life and they lost like half their body weight or something.

They lost an insane amount of weight.

We were losing a couple of stone maybe at most.

Like it wasn't.

And we're actors.

There's real food around.

You're not actually starving.

It's all absolutely fine.

But man, I was an absolute dick while I was losing weight.

I was an absolute dick.

And I, yeah, I just became a food pervert over that time.

Not the phrase I thought, not the phrase I thought I'd use.

No, but that's bang on.

That is bang on.

Whenever I'm like trying to eat healthier or lose a bit of of weight or whatever, you do just you look at the internet like you're searching out the most depraved possible stuff.

Like going, more cheese, more cheese.

I wish I'd been able to restrict it to internet time.

I was like standing outside restaurants and looking in at people

and wandering around supermarkets and like nodding at somebody as they took a dessert from a fridge like yeah you fucking yeah you enjoy that.

Respect, respect.

Tom Hollander taking a pint of ice cream off the shelf.

Weeping.

Yeah, yeah.

How did Eddie Murphy put all the weight on for Natty Professor?

Who do you want to make it?

And it's sort of sloppy.

Who do you want to make it for you?

An Italian grandmother.

Your Italian grandmother?

Yeah.

Your nana?

Or my hot, my nana, my hot Italian nephew.

Pardon me?

Huh?

An Italian nephew.

Well, that's not the full thing you said.

You just chased it.

He's hot.

That doesn't mean I'm going to get with him.

It means he's he's an attractive man who can make a good Tiramisu.

Yeah.

He's pretty hot.

Is he?

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's subservient to me.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, we're related, but that doesn't mean I can't order him around.

I'd say that he's hot.

How old is he?

He's 19.

Okay.

He's going to feed me, Tiramisu.

A hot teenage boy that you're related to.

Turns out he's going to feed you.

You were Guru Dave all along.

Yeah.

It turns out, yeah.

This is exactly what Guru Dave would do.

Guru Dave is disgusting.

Guru Dave.

Tiramisu made by your grandmother and then fed to you by

your nephew who is a teenager and you've already said it's hot.

Yep.

Yep.

Okay.

I'm just going to sit with that.

Yeah, yeah.

Now that it came out of my mouth, I can't take it back.

Yeah, I guess you cut to me.

We all know now.

I mean, this isn't.

But yeah, I was thinking a nephew, someone's nephew.

Would you like us to release this episode after all the legal stuff in your life is done?

Yeah, probably.

This can't be used against you.

That's probably a good idea.

But I don't want this to be played.

Yeah, it's kind of a problem.

Listen to this.

She's representing her.

She's got the hots for her nephew.

Yeah.

I don't know if this is going to really do you any favours.

How about just a nephew?

Someone's nephew.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Not your nephew.

No.

Someone's nephew.

I mean, come on.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What you're saying, oh, come on.

Yeah.

Okay.

He's someone's nephew, but he'll be mine.

You know what I mean?

I'll keep him close.

And he does things for me because he doesn't know any better.

He doesn't know about the world.

So he's just in the kitchen making Tirmy's.

Oh, he's making it.

Perpetually.

Yeah, no, he's always been making it.

So the non-ashief.

He's a nephew.

I don't even know him.

But he is yours.

He's, yeah, he's in a shop in Italy.

He's in a shop.

He's like in a bakery.

Right, okay.

Making his hot nephew in a bakery in Italy.

That's better.

Not related to you.

This is good.

This is a nice scene.

Yeah.

And it's got like an industrial-sized mixture to get that cream really whipped up.

He's got a white apron on.

Yeah.

Okay.

But, and be honest.

It's a little hazy sunlight coming in the windows.

You know what I mean?

It's late in the day.

And I'm like, oh, you're making Tirmisu this late in the day.

And he's like, I never stop.

Yep.

I just.

Extremely

very industrious.

He just loves making desserts.

He does.

Yeah, that's it.

In the hazy sunlight.

And even though you said that he's not related to you, he's not your nephew.

No, come on, you guys.

Be honest, while you're imagining him in your head, are you just imagining the face of your actual nephew?

My nephews are very handsome.

But no, I mean, come on, let's not.

I don't know why you're trying to get me arrested.

No, God, no.

I don't know why you

brought up.

It had to be her.

You guys, this is a good idea.

You don't know why I brought that up.

This

podcast influences people.

We cannot promote

incest.

Thank you.

That's the word.

Yeah.

That's the word.

That's the word.

We're not promoting that.

It's not funny.

No.

It's not good.

No.

You know what?

There is good and bad in the world, and that's not good.

Bonito, can you Google Italian for incest, please?

Because I bet it sounds nice.

He's Googled it, and all that's come up is your website.

How dare you.

Wow, James, I don't even know what's normal anymore.

Those are some weird stories there, but I enjoyed every second.

And you know what else?

You know what I'll said?

I would like to really point out at this point.

I'd like to point out that no animals have ever been harmed in the making of off menu podcast.

Would you like to point that out?

Why are you pointing that out now?

Well, because sometimes we get letters in and people are saying, like, hey,

you talked about animals in that podcast just now.

And I hope that didn't really happen.

What you said about that animal just then.

No one was concerned about Tom Hollander, but people are concerned about the animals.

The bits specifically people are worried about.

There's a couple of them coming up right now from Jack D and Bridget Christie.

Animals.

But you could catch a duck?

Yeah.

Like make your own duck coffee?

I'm not sure about it.

Yeah,

I might be able to to catch a duck if it was in a small enough room.

Yeah yeah.

How big a room would talk?

Slightly bigger than a duck.

Slightly bigger than a duck probably.

A squash court?

Yeah, not in a squash court.

I wouldn't have a chance.

I would not have a chance.

Because they can stay above you can't they?

Yeah.

You can do that.

It would have to be a low ceilinged, very small room.

Yeah.

where there's basically nowhere to go.

A portaloo or something.

A portaloo possibly, but then that's not very appetizing.

But yeah.

I suppose with a squash court, if I had a squash racket, I might be in with a more of a chance.

Yeah.

You know, some squash courts have that viewing gallery.

Yes.

They could escape through there, so you'd need to unlock that.

And then you're done for.

You're not ever going to get there.

They'd taunt you.

The duck could get up to the viewing gallery and just watch you from the gallery because they're down at you, though.

Yeah, yeah.

Because when they quack as well, it sounds a bit like they're saying Jack.

So that would be rude to me, I know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, I can't believe we're all doing it now.

D!

What if you, here's a question for you, Jack.

What if you went down to the pond to catch a duck or whatever, or you're looking at all the ducks and you're thinking about comfy duck and amateur.

Yeah.

And one of the ducks went

at you and said, Jack D, said your full name.

Yeah.

How would that affect the rest of your day?

Do you think you'd go and tell people about it?

Do you think you would worry that you were crazy and that maybe you just imagined the duck?

Would you enjoy Comfy Duck as much the next time?

If people would say to you, Jack, it probably just said quack.

Probably Yes, quack.

Yeah, nothing.

That's why I'd probably keep quiet about it.

I think I'd just think my atoms says,

I would just file that under things that never happened and then just

move on from that moment.

You wouldn't even tell Jane?

No, I wouldn't.

I wouldn't tell Jane.

I wouldn't tell anyone.

I would keep that to myself.

If I go to the grove with that,

that a duck...

said my name out once.

So would it affect the next time you have comfy duck, would you like it as much?

Because obviously you can still remember when the duck said your name.

It's an interesting point, isn't it?

And

it might slightly haunt me, really, if I felt that

what I'm eating had once actually wanted to start a conversation with me.

It made it difficult for you.

It would.

I wonder what else he would have said.

Yeah, I now want to ask you

different things that animals could do to you and whether you would tell Jane about it.

So if a rabbit waved at you with its little paw

and did a little nod as it was waving, would you tell Jane?

I wouldn't because

Jane takes those things too seriously.

She'd want to know which rabbit, where was the rabbit?

And I'd have to go into all the details.

And

I'm not good at chatting, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah.

I said, look, that's all there is to it.

There was a rabbit waved and nodded.

There's nothing more to say.

I don't know any more about the rabbit than that.

Right.

And so that that that I would find difficult.

so that's why i don't say much yeah because people always want to know a bit more what if a horse opened your car door for you uh if if if that happened i mean

well no i wouldn't because i don't i think she would find well

why did the why was a horse opening your car door and i'd say well i don't know why i don't know why that happened but it did happen and then but she'd want to go she'd want to get to the bottom of it

and find out what actually happened and uh and i'm i'm just not good at I'm just not good at that.

I'm not a detail person.

I'll just say, look, it happened.

Just take my word for it.

You don't need to know anymore.

Neither do I.

That's just as well because I don't.

So you can't imagine a situation where an animal would do something out of the ordinary to you and you'd ever tell Jane about it.

I think I'd keep it all to myself.

What if it was a pet that was in the house?

You could even say to her, it was that goldfish right there.

I suppose if it was if it was if it was a pet,

I might kind of giggle tell Jane Jane as an observation that

the goldfish waved at me

with its little paw and then nodded.

And that was a nice moment.

And she said, oh, did he?

That's nice.

It's, you know, worth keeping the goldfish for that.

My wife used to live in Paris, and I went out there to visit her quite a lot.

And we ate in a lot of places like that, some amazing restaurants.

She used to live basically above a restaurant called Bulldog

in the Marais in Paris, which is like that sort of place.

It was a bistro restaurant.

They did amazing confided duck, but it was called Bulldog because the owners had a bulldog that just used to walk around the restaurant.

How would you feel about that?

Lovely.

Yeah,

dogs are welcome in any restaurant I go to.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think it's really nice.

It's civilized and

it's more home from home.

It means they're not taking themselves too seriously.

You know, the whole health and safety thing is a nonsense.

Why are you allowed to bring your dog into one restaurant and not another one?

It's, you know, it's health and safety.

well why don't they have it well they do because they know it's not true doesn't matter it doesn't matter what if uh you got in and that dog pulled your chair out for you so you could sit down and then burn to do and jane didn't see it and then jane sat down um if she was in in the restaurant and she just didn't see that she didn't see it she was sitting down she was sort of she was calling the shepherd cunt or whatever she was doing

and

you're sitting down and the bulldog just pulls the seat out for you or even better you see the the bulldog pull Jane's seat out for her and tuck her in and she doesn't notice it.

She doesn't realise it's a dog.

That would be a harder thing.

But then she'd think, I was just, you know,

just taking the piss.

Is that the sort of thing you would do?

She might think,

why are you keep telling me that the dog did that?

You know,

you're spoiling the meal now, because

you come out for a meal and you're just lying to me.

That would be bad.

Yeah.

I don't think you're going to be able to get Jack in any situation where he lets Jane know when an animal does something out of the ordinary to him.

Well, we'll see.

Let me see.

I saw this meme that was going around, you know, one of those videos on YouTube where the

crocodile eats a drone.

Did you see that one?

No, no.

There was a drone being that was flying over some crocodiles,

and then the last thing you see is these big teeth come out and whack it and just take it out of the way.

And that's the end of the drone.

And I watched that and thought it was amazing, but I didn't tell Jane.

Does she want to know all about what happened to the crocodile?

Who cares?

Is the crocodile eating a drone?

That's all we need to know.

I once saw this is, well, I only did it once, and then I felt really mean.

I could, because there's little birds that I love coming in for their nuts and whatnot and their fat bowls, but the squirrels would always just get them.

So, and I had this pole, and I'd made this pole that was so high that they couldn't, but they still managed to get up it.

So, I put a little bit of Vaseline on the pole,

and a squirrel sort of did like a

it, it well, it was one of the funniest things.

Like a stripper move, yeah, great, went all the way down, swirled all the way down, swirled all the way down, and then I then rubbed it off because I felt mean.

What

rubbed the Vaseline

is not my menopause.

Oh god,

I don't know why.

That is so funny.

Have they got, I don't think they've got external genitals, have they?

Squirrels.

I haven't seen any, have you?

I've not seen any school genitalia.

Yeah, who knows?

I don't know how easy it would be to rub one off.

Water, we've only done water.

Well, I think that squirrel moment might be up there with the most.

I've laughed, James.

Yeah, absolutely.

Love the scroll moment.

And, you know, I loved playing that little game of Jack D asking if he would tell Jane about certain things.

I love playing games on the podcast, Ed.

You do, especially guessing games.

And Benito often cuts them out of the edit, you know?

Yeah, he does because you line yourself up for a guessing game, and sometimes they take 15 to 20 minutes.

And they are, to be fair to Benito, incredibly boring.

But sometimes the guessing games sneak through into the edit, as

exemplified here from Jessica Fostercue, Tanya Moore, and Nicola Cochlan.

I love the thought of you as a teenager.

Just you and your mates.

See that, Daniel?

I'm going to meet the gals.

Going to get pissed behind a skip.

He's like, do you have some booze?

Yeah, I'd love some booze.

Hold on a second.

And then he gets like a bottle of champagne and holds it like a waiter's properly hold it with his arm behind the button.

Will this do?

And then

we cut to you and your friends.

They're going, hmm, very biscuity.

Are you getting those notes?

Jemima.

Jemima.

Not Jemima.

Foss, you wouldn't hang out with a Jemima.

No.

Not one Jemima in mine.

Can we try and guess your friends' names?

Yes, please.

My Dorset ones, yeah.

When you were growing up.

Yeah.

Well, you've already said Sally.

Yep, sorry.

sorry, I gave that one away.

So that's one.

I think you would have been friends with a Natalie.

No, Natalie bullied me.

Okay, well,

man, I could not have misfired more there.

Just amazing how quickly I've forgotten all girls' names apart from Jess and Sally.

You'll kick yourself because they're like the names that every girl was called.

Steph.

No, that's my girlfriend's name.

So you're not friends with your girlfriend?

Yes.

So competitive.

He gets in with that straight away.

I'll get you off a new girlfriend.

I guess that's a point then for me, is it?

Rebecca, Becky.

Oh, close, but no.

Jane.

No.

Jane?

I'm not that.

Jane's the only girl's name I can think of.

Rachel.

A uni friend called that.

You can have that.

Sarah.

No.

How have we not got one yet?

Violet.

No.

Violet Beauregard.

Kathy Burke.

I wish.

Look, we did really well there.

All we had to do was guess some ladies' names and we came up with Violet Beauregard and Kathy Bird.

You were so close.

How many guests?

Are they your personal friends?

Three guests.

Yeah.

Three girlfriends.

Name them.

Tasha, Joanna, Antonique.

How long have you known Tasha for?

What's she like?

How did you meet her?

I met Tasha when I used to teach dancing and I've known her for...

Well, when I met her, her daughter was three.

She's now 22.

She's about to be 23.

So, oh, yeah, 20 years almost.

Interesting.

Why has she made the cut?

What's she like?

What's she bringing to the dinner party?

Herself.

And she's always late.

So she'll be late.

So she'll miss probably the starter.

Her starter will be cold.

She'll still want it, though.

So it'll be cold.

And so you always have to make time for Tasha being late.

Yep.

I'd never be friends with her.

She would never be invited to anything I did after the first time she was late.

Unacceptable stuff, Tasha.

No,

no, but you've got got to wait up like this.

When you have a friend, if they've got like two bad things, but 1,000 good things, then you just have to deal with the two bad things.

It depends what the bad things are.

Being late ain't that bad.

It is awful, Tanya.

She gets there eventually.

Yeah, but if I've cooked to someone and they're late and then it ruins the quality of the food, absolutely not.

You're off.

I didn't like it at first, but I just don't wait for anymore.

So whoever's arrived, we'll start.

Fair enough.

Joanna, was that one of them?

Yes.

What you like?

How did you meet her?

What'd you make the cut?

Joanna is

actually Tasha's best friend, so I met her at the same time.

And we became friends separately.

So now we have our own relationship.

And Joanna will definitely be there on time.

In fact, she'll be there a little bit early.

And she will probably bring a bottle of wine.

Actually, I don't like that she's early.

No, she's not coming around to mine either.

Not that early.

She's only like 10-15 minutes early.

Then she can wait outside until the agreed time.

There's a lot hanging on this.

I've turned up to Ed's house early every time I think I I visited him, to be fair.

I prefer it to lateness.

Yeah.

But still, you know, I'm making the finishing touches to everything.

Can I say, all of them will always ask, do you need anything?

That's nice.

But Tasha just doesn't bring anything, turns up late.

So she asks, but then she just turns up late, doesn't bring anything.

Whereas Joanna turns up early with a bottle of water.

But because you know she's coming late, there's no need to ask her for anything because you'll already have it hit by that.

Exactly.

No point saying, yeah, could you bring round some boiling water and some ice creams, please?

I hate you as as well now.

Yeah,

could you buy yourself a watch on the way over?

That would be great.

Who was the third person at the dinner party?

Antoninette.

Who is she?

How'd you meet her?

What's she like?

My wife's baby cut.

You're definitely back to Nobbit.

Okay.

Antoninette, I met at work when my last nine to five when I was doing reception and she works there as well.

What she likes, she's wonderful she's very giving antonette will definitely ask me if i need anything and then probably bring a couple of bottles um and maybe a dessert as well and possibly some snacks this is james's favorite person so far so obviously i love her but she will turn up early because she will want to help you set up and get things ready and she's that person

you're gonna allow that you okay with that if you've pre-arranged getting there earlier than everyone else to help set up so you know antonette's coming at a certain time.

That's fine.

I think she's my favorite out of all of your friends.

You said that very strong, all of your friends.

All of your friends.

Because it's like, I think you've got a Goldilocks situation in that you've got late, early, and then pre-arranged early, which is very much to the mummy bear porridge.

So I like, I like mummy bear Antoninette.

She can be my friend.

Okay.

Well, she's my favorite as well.

So

congratulations to Antonette there.

Easily the winner.

Yeah.

And I think we all agree.

It goes then Joanna and then way, way down at the bottom.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like Tasha doesn't bring anything.

It doesn't help.

Yeah, not happy with that.

No, hey, don't say that.

Not a fat and she's not that.

No, don't say that.

Only good thing she's ever done is introduce you to Joanna, in my opinion.

Remember in the 90s seeing Robbie Williams on a take that VHS he was it went stoke on train and he was eating a thing that was like in a wrap and he was like this is a special thing you get in stoke on trains and I've always wanted it and I don't know what it is

and it's annoyed me since the 90s.

Okay again we're not again though Nicola we're not moving on from that.

I've got to know before about what you've just said.

Okay.

What was the take that thing that you were watching?

Okay so my sister is a big fan of take that therefore I was a big fan of take that.

I was only about seven and we watched the video of them all going to where they were from.

He went to the local football stadium and he was eating a thing that looked like a pancake or a wrap, and it was savoury.

I was like, That's delicious.

But I, I mean, I'd have to go back and re-watch it to find out what it was.

But at that age, I was like, I want to eat that.

So, he just says, This is a special thing you can only get in Stoke-on-Trent.

Yeah, but I can't remember.

He did, he definitely did put a name in it.

Imagine if it was just like a fajita, and all these years I've been like, What was the magical Robbie Williams food?

The likelihood is that it was just a wrap, yeah.

But we didn't have raps in the early 90s, really.

Yeah, that's true.

It was more of a 2000s thing.

How often would you say you think about the Robbie Williams rap?

And by the way, when I say the Robbie Williams rap, I don't mean the one on Roodebox.

I would say I think about it every three months.

Yeah, it's one of those things.

But the problem is, now I'm going to think about it every three months, and I didn't even see the video.

I've googled Stoke on Trent rap.

These are places that sell raps.

Wizards wraps, Stoke Rap, U5 wraps, Spectrum signs and graphics sign makers.

I think they've

all the wraps.

So weirdly, so it goes spectrum signs and graphics sign makers, choice graphics, stoke, and then it goes Pavilion Fusion Burrito and Rap Bars.

And now we get back into wraps.

So I don't know what those two were on there for.

FD wraps.

Then there's some packaging supplies.

I'm going to have to go back and re-watch the take that video.

I'm going to get it out of my mum's garage and watch it on the VHS and I'll find out what Robbie Williams' rap was.

Or it was a weird to tweet of what what was that thing you ate 22 years ago?

But I reckon he'd answer, don't you think?

Oh my god.

Yeah, he'd answer.

Don't you think now?

Like he's probably, look, he's, he's probably seen Bridgerton.

Everyone's seen Bridgerton, right?

So I think it's...

I feel like that's a really weird, that's like, that's a weird question to ask him.

It's a weird question to open with, I suppose.

But I think about it all the time.

Sometimes when people, I can ask friends if they put a food on their Instagram and I haven't seen it in the line.

I go, what was that thing that you ate then?

Because I can't not know.

But I think when this podcast comes out, we're going to get a lot of of heat around this question.

And I think it's going to get to Robbie Williams.

And I think Robbie seems like a sound guy, he's up for a laugh.

I reckon he's going to tell you exactly what that rap was.

What do you think is going to happen when you find out what the rap is?

Do you think you're going to suddenly have a really good night's sleep?

And you're like, I've not been sleeping well all these years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It will just solve all of the questions that I could

have just hung over me all this time.

Oh my gosh.

I mean, I'm googling everything here.

I've googled food you can only get in stoke on trent.

There's nothing.

I put in, it's YouTube.

Robbie, take that.

Stoke on Trent.

I don't think I've ever vocalized that I've thought about this before, but it has been a huge thing all of my life.

Hey, guys.

If any of you know the answer to Nicola Coughlin's query there, you really should tweet her and tell her because I think she could really do with knowing.

I genuinely got a message yesterday of someone saying, I don't know if anyone's told you yet, but here's what the rap is.

I don't know if anyone's told you yet.

It was months ago.

Good point.

You should also tweet Ed.

I just don't.

I can't even bother to say anything funny to that.

We've not had Robbie Williams himself on the podcast, James, which is a shame because if he did come on, he'd probably sing us a lovely song.

Oh, I love songs being sung on the podcast.

It's so great.

Impromptu a lot of the time, to be fair to them.

So here's some beautiful songs from Ainsley Harriot, Sarah Kendall, Harry Hill, Ainsley Harriet again,

and James A.

Castor as Shrek.

Now, famously, you always refer to salt as Susie Salt,

but when it's rock salt, does the first name change?

Is it Robbie Rock?

Robbie Rock Salt, Reginald Rock Salt,

it doesn't feel good to call Rock Salt Susie Salt.

That doesn't feel right to me.

Rock, rock, rock, robin, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, robin, rock, rock, rock, rock, robin, rock, rock, rock, rock, robin.

Susie, sling your hook.

Woo, yeah.

Susie, go away.

We don't want you no more.

Me already, we're robbing.

Then we're rocking some more.

Oh, rock and salt.

They make you feel so good.

Woo, woo, woo.

I said, rock and salt.

Susie, you ain't no good.

Perfect.

Absolutely perfect.

Great answer.

Poor old Susie.

Poor poor poor Susie salt.

It's all about.

Well, yeah, but what goes on top of Susie's salt?

Perfect.

Susie pepper.

Yeah, you boys have been there.

I need to test it.

Good education, that's all right.

Every afternoon when I got home from school, Ready Steady Cooks right on the TV.

We need to specify the meats.

Are you going beef carpache?

Yeah, I will go beef carpaccio.

With the parmesan.

Yes, please.

And some papers, maybe a little bit of rocket around the...

A little bit of rocket around the dish.

Maybe just on the circumference of the dish.

Yeah.

Rocket around the Christmas tree?

Because it's Christmas ever.

Yeah.

What?

It doesn't matter.

It's a song.

It's what?

You said maybe a bit of rocket around.

And you said rocket around the Christmas tree.

Yeah.

Rocket Around the Christmas tree.

I don't think it was one that we should.

We shouldn't hang around on that.

Is that a song?

Yeah.

Rocking Around the Christmas Tree is a song.

I didn't know that.

Never heard it.

Never heard it?

Never heard it.

What Australian Christmas songs are there?

Koala, bears and prawns.

No, I don't.

I did that purely for you.

Yeah.

You know what?

I would have believed that if you'd stuck with it.

Koala Bears.

Koala Bears and Prawns.

Koala Bears and Prawns.

It's a lovely sunny day.

Schooner in the bay.

Bourbon.

Yeah.

Fucking fucking.

Yeah, shit.

And I would believe that an Australian Christmas song just finishes with someone trailing off saying fucking.

Yeah.

You can fucking...

You stupid fucking.

Come on, everybody.

That's good.

You're stupid fucking.

I did have an idea for a character, very briefly, which was

Clary Net,

which was me

notionally me dressed as a clarinet, so you can imagine it's got like a top, like a hat that goes into a tapered top in a sort of clarinet suit,

which incidentally you can't get from Smithy's because I checked.

And then I would come on and I'd go, I would make so I can do a clarinet noise and I would just do tunes.

Go on, we're gonna need to hear this.

Hang on, sorry,

please.

Yes,

hang on.

Hang on, sorry.

So get into it after a while.

Yeah.

I mean,

I'm gonna be honest.

Real liberal use of the phrase.

I could do a clarinet voice.

You try it.

I mean, it's not...

No.

See, there's a timbre to it.

Doesn't sound anything like woodwind.

Anyone listening to this will know that.

They'll be able to tell straight away.

There'll be people listening to this and go is Harry playing a clarinet.

Yeah, he must have played a clarinet.

And they're pretending that he's over.

you didn't the first time ever i saw your face yeah yeah

yeah yeah it draws you in

right

what what was the act what was the calypso twins act uh the calypso twins act was a great act we'd uh we'd used to sing he was from he was greek and of course i was jamaican and uh so we'd write um

well, here we are again.

Whoa,

we come to sing and we don't really know why.

I lost the time again.

No, whoa.

The rhythm music will have made you feel so fine.

I am a Greek man, he's Jamaican.

Cultural differences stood in our way.

I can remember when we both used to say,

Where's my mango?

Where's my moussaka?

I like a liquor, rum and mead rich scene.

Bab Marley, nana maskuri, complications and a constant fury.

Well, here we are again.

Oh, it's great that you still remember it.

I can see you click into muscle memory there.

I know, I know.

I did a Gelman.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Full Gelman.

Yeah,

you're absolutely Gelman.

Call your mum straight after this and ask her about podcast apps.

Well do, man.

The rest of you, don't go hungry and always eat your food.

Is that what you think the theme tune sounds like?

I'm pretty sure that is.

Bodito's nodding at me, and he looks like he thinks that's what he's saying.

Sort of that through a Seinfeld.

What would you do?

Well, I wouldn't do that through a Seinfeld filter.

Let me hear your one.

Yeah, Barito.

not in that.

Well, the end.

The end wasn't as good.

The overall sound was good, but then maybe in post-Benito you could layer them both up on top of each other.

And then have Shrek singing the lyrics to the off-menu theme tune.

Yeah.

My name is Shrek, but

I am green.

I think I was expecting the lyrics to the off-menu theme cheese to have something to do with off-menu.

What is Trek singing it?

What's the girl singing?

Yeah, no,

occasional references to Shreklin, I'm sure, but he'd been hired to sing the off-menu lyrics.

It seems weird you've hired Trek to sing about Off-Menu, and then he starts talking about his girlfriend, saying Princess Fianna is my baby.

He likes what he likes.

He loves that they start knowing about the podcast.

He's a Shrek, isn't he?

There'll be about three

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Well, there we go.

Wonderful song there to close out that section.

And I'm very excited to say we're actually joined in the studio now by Shrek to help introduce the next section.

Hello, Shrek.

Oh, hey, Ed.

Yes, I am Shrek.

I'm here to introduce the next section.

Family Dynamics.

I know all about family.

Me and that donkey and Princess Fiona.

We're one big happy family.

The gingerbread man and his gum drop buttons

and Lord Farquhar.

Lord Farquhar's in your family, is he?

He is in the family now.

He's in the Shrek family.

So tell us what this section is going to be about.

Is it about the family dynamics?

We've hosted pets and parent-child combos this year because we've had Rave Spool, we've had Timothy Spool, we've had Makita Oliver having previously interviewed Andy Oliver, and we've had Donald Gleason talking about his dad as well.

Yes, it is the off-menu podcast aim that in the future, if we have on a celebrity and they have a celebrity relative, we will get that person on as well.

And it comes full circle, the circle of life.

Thank you, Shrek.

Thank you, Ed Gamble.

And it has been a pleasure being on on Off Menu.

See you soon.

Bye.

You remember the first time you had had a cloudy lemonade and you just thought, why have I been bothering it with that other shit?

I can't remember the exact time, but my dad, my dad, he guzzles it two-litre bottle every day, Cloudy Lemonade.

Diet Cloudy Lemonade.

Does he, though?

Yeah, he murders it.

Yeah.

Absolutely destroys it.

Brilliant.

We've got some goss on Timothy Spool.

Yeah.

Timothy Spool bloody loves his cloudy lemonade.

Quite often, when like little bits of this podcast will sneak into the tabloids, which is always very funny, little celebrity fact.

Yeah.

And I really hope that Daily Mirror goes with Timothy Spool guzzles Cloudy Lemonade.

TV Tim Guzzle's Cloudy Lemonade.

They'll do some sort of pun headline for it.

I'm trying to think of one, but all I can think of is Alfida saying wet.

Now, we have talked a lot about drink.

However, when I asked you what your favourite drink was earlier, you did get the question wrong, Timothy.

Oh, did I?

I obviously don't know myself.

Yeah, go on.

What is it?

Your favourite drink is Diet Cloudy Lemonade.

That's your favourite drink.

You drink it all the time.

Now, I know what you got there.

And I, uh, somebody lived with me quite a long time.

Yeah, no, that is true.

That is true.

I do like that very much, but I have graduated towards this big, I think it's pink grapefruit or Marks and Spencer's Fizzy Cranberry Lemonade.

So I've veered off.

I mean, I'm not, I haven't abandoned the cloudy lemonade.

I do love that.

And that would be on the desert island.

I think I'd have to have that.

I'd have to have that in a well.

But how often, if you had a cloudy lemonade well, would you be going back to the well?

Well, quite a lot.

I do like to drink.

I am, I think I might have gills.

I keep sometimes ridiculously check, but I haven't.

Because I don't understand why I can drink so much.

I don't know where it.

And I think, and I don't know whether I believe it or not.

It's probably nonsense.

It might be absolutely true.

It might be ruled by the stars.

But I am a Pisces, as are lots lots of actors.

And I think I could quite easily just float about in a sea of cloudy lemonade, just constantly consuming it.

I presume far better than the constant consumption of Brunello and Barolo, which would have,

I think I might have been, that might have done me work.

You know, I don't know, but there's probably all sorts of horrible carcinogenics and things inside cloudy lemonade, but probably not as bad for you as liters and liters of wine.

I'm a Pisces as well, Timothy, and I think I agree with you.

I think that's the thing because as James will tell you, I'm a glugger.

I glug things down.

I'll get a pint of water and straight down.

Oh, absolutely.

And same with food.

I eat it very quick.

I don't know what it is.

Maybe it's because of having three brothers and you were always worried if you didn't eat it quick, they'd eat it before you even got it in your mouth, you know.

But I just, I can eat, I eat so fast that it's gone.

I've done.

I've eaten the starter and I was a mango before my wife's even got the bread.

And will you confirm that you drink cloudy lemonade so much that it comes out of your eyes?

It probably does.

I don't know.

I'll have to try by drinking my tears.

I don't know whether that's sad, means you're ill, or whether that's poetry.

I'm not sure.

When Rafe was on, he said about how much cloudy lemonade you drank.

And we said about it spilling out of your eyes because you drank so much and covering you.

And I made a joke.

Timothy, I said, Alfida Zane, wet.

How do you like that?

I don't know how to contain myself.

I've actually

soiled myself with laughter.

I'm going to have to call my wife to bring me some pants because they're so funny.

My socks are full.

Yeah, interesting use of humour.

Yes, like the deeply unfunny kind.

That's the way I'd sum up, James.

If anyone said, can describe James Acaston's comedy, I'd say, well, it's an interesting use of humour.

Yeah, I'll take that.

What did you think of your mum's episode?

You said you listened to it.

Did you think she made good choices?

Listen, we don't enjoy the same food.

Really?

No, no, no.

Actually, to be fair, something on my menu is exactly the same, but we don't actually enjoy the same food because

she's so chefy.

I like everything really plain.

I feel that she just, it's always a bit too rich.

Few too many ingredients.

I'm like, can't we just have a gravy?

I like plain food.

But

I think it's the Scottish in me.

So you feel like the Scottish is winning out in this in this battle of food cultures?

Because I grew up with her and not my dad.

So it's like I was yearning for mints and tatties and she was just taking it to different levels.

It's terrible.

Having a chef as a parent for me isn't as like wonderful as people would think because

I'd rather my mum was someone who owned a calf.

I'd be into that.

But then do you think you might be like wanting more extravagant things if your mum owned a calf and and you're getting given calf food all the time?

I love calf food.

I would say it's probably one of my greatest restaurants because I just love that you can get hot dinners.

breakfasts and then like puddings.

That's my kind of menu.

So in do you like the decor of a cafe?

Because obviously we're creating your dream restaurant.

Do you want it to have the look of a cafe?

Yeah, absolutely.

There was a cafe called the Shepherdess on Old Street on the corner and it was like sort of green and white tiled.

So you know really good old school cafe almost looks like a pie and mash shop.

So I'd like a cafe to look like a calf, but not like one of those dirty ones where you think the kitchen is actually disgusting.

Just like, you know, those ones are like...

Like an old school calf.

Yeah.

Like I used to like school dinners as well.

I'm into that plain shit.

You want the plastic calf chairs?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, bad to be in a calf in a comfortable chair.

That would be completely wrong, wouldn't it?

I think it's such a horrible waste that you grew up with a chef parent and you like plain stuff.

I'm so jealous that you got to grow up with Andy.

What a wonderful chef.

And you're just there going, I want mints and tatties.

It's absolutely disgraceful, Mikita.

I know.

I know.

She hates it.

She actually hates it.

But I have to say, in my childhood, my mum did, you know, adhere to my tastes more because there was less chefing to be done.

There was more cooking for the child to be done.

She would make a banging meatloaf, great meatloaf, she kept it quite plain, not too spicy or anything.

Good mushroom gravy.

My mum makes the most amazing gravy when she just keeps it simple.

Am I really cussing my mum out?

No, no, not at all.

Is that so?

Do you really hope for the meatloaf and gravy when you ask the question, what's for dinner, mummy?

Oh yeah.

What's for dinner, mummy?

God, you really

shattle over what's for dinner, mummy and what mom said this way.

I was like, how have they turned into this weird, creepy thing?

Well, because it sounds creepy.

It does sound quite creepy.

Is it the mummy, not mum?

I agree.

And that's why I was like, let's not call it this.

And she was like, no, I like it.

Ed was a very little, is a precocious little boy when it came to food.

So I imagine Ed, when he was little, would have loved Andy Oliver as his mum.

Like maybe the two of you were switched at birth, maybe.

Yeah, because I bet your mum made great pies and sort of shepherd's pie.

I love shepherd's pie.

She does.

Yeah, she does make a really good shepherd's pie, actually.

Bangers and mash.

See what I'm talking about?

I know your life and I want it.

And you can have this.

Yeah, fine deal.

I would also like to say that I enjoy my mum's food very much as well, but I'd happily maybe come over every other night to ask what's for dinner, mummy, yeah, at the Oliver's house.

Do you know what?

I really should say the same.

I would also like to say I really like my mum's food.

I just

like it simple, I like it plain.

It's an interesting thing to say up top in a food podcast that you like plain food.

So now we're staring down the barrel of a very long episode.

Before we hear your favorite drink, though, donor, we do need to ask, what's your dad's favourite soft drink?

Oh yeah, that's important.

And the reason why we're asking you that is because, and the episode hasn't gone out yet.

It won't even make sense to the listener.

We have had another actor on recently whose father is also a well-known actor.

And we found out what his father's favourite soft drink was.

And now that we have another actor with an actor for a father, we want to continue this tradition, even though it hasn't even started yet for the listener because that episode hasn't gone out yet so we would like to know what soft drink your dad drinks the most of

he's he's he's pretty good he doesn't drink a lot of soft drinks but i would say there's three that come to mind immediately i mean there's only so many soft drinks but the sweet

which would be coke coca-cola not pepsi um club orange and cidona do you have cidona over there no what's cidona it's a muse song it's like it's like cider

it just gets like a muse song yeah nights of cidona oh that's yeah

That's what I was thinking.

I bet you do have it over there and it's under a different brand name or something like that.

But it's like it's like cider but no alcohol sort of thing.

But really sweet.

Like a kid's kids drink.

Apple ties.

That kind of thing, maybe.

A little bit tart, but also like crazily sweet.

Oh no, red lemonade.

Sorry.

Red lemonade.

That's what it would be.

Because, yeah, on New Year's Eve, we have like...

What are they called?

Are they called snowballs?

They're like tea cakes, but like coconutty things.

Yeah.

That's a tradition.

And red red lemonade.

Red lemonade would be it.

It's like a once-a-year thing.

You have it once a year and then you don't push it.

Thanks very much, Donald Gleason.

He was a wonderful guest, wasn't he?

Oh, lovely boy.

Donald, if you're listening, you're a lovely boy.

And if we, hey, we'd love to complete.

your family tree on this podcast.

Get your bro on, your pops on.

Anyone actually, anyone that Donald Gleason knows who's related to him can come on the podcast until we've got the whole Gleason family tree.

We had a lot of chat, not only about family, but also about love and dating this year, James.

Yes, love was in the air, and we were

sucking up the air as much as we could because much love in our bodies.

Josh Gondelman got wholesome, and chaparrot Corsandi told us about some strange dates.

So,

I'm torn.

My one thing is my fan, we have a great family recipe for apple pie, which is great, warm with vanilla ice cream.

And I have a real nostalgia for it.

When I was a child, I didn't like the soft apples.

And so my uncle, who had celiac,

couldn't eat the crust.

So he would eat the apples and I would eat the crust, which is a very warm childhood memory.

And so that's one thing.

The other one, and I don't generally like other apple pies.

It's just the family recipe is my favorite.

But the other one is if my wife is here, if I'm eating solo, that's what I'll

indulge your, I'll ask your genie powers to indulge me this family recipe for apple pie.

If my wife is with me, we didn't talk about the rest of her meal, but I know the ideal would be for dessert.

One of the two ideals, this is what we would get, is one of those molten chocolate lava cakes that's like a cake with the warm chocolate on the inside.

And like two times a year, she will have that.

Like on our anniversary and her birthday, she'll have take extra insulin and have that.

And

the look on her face when she eats like their twice yearly molten chocolate lava cake is one of my favorite times of the whole year.

So that is, that's where, that's where I'll go with dessert.

That's a very sweet.

Thank you.

That's so nice.

Pick your dessert.

Very nice.

For the look on your wife's face.

It's my favorite.

I think about it.

often and I make sure that when we order it, I go, I gotta watch her eat.

I try not to be a creep.

This is like,

yeah, eat the cake.

But I do,

i do kind of out of the corner i'll be eating but like really looking yeah what she's doing

so nice yeah figure to yourself this cake tastes disgusting but look look at how happy she is she doesn't know she only eats cake twice a year yeah she has no idea this cake is dog

i can't believe i've let her eat that cake

all i wanted was my apple pie crust

That was my dream.

Just wanted an empty pie crust.

She never looks at my face when I ate my empty pie crust.

She can't even make eye contact.

She's so ashamed of me.

See, this isn't the Great Depression.

You can eat the whole slice.

You don't have to save the apples in a bag for later to feed to a starving horse.

Thank God I've found that sacred room in my house so I can eat the pie crust in baseload.

And then, who knows?

She made a whole film about it.

That's very nice.

I mean,

that's very nice that you get to see your wife enjoying the chocolate motto and love cake.

Also, this morning on our way here, we were talking about how we think that's probably been the most chosen dessert on the birthday.

The multi-jacket

everyone else hasn't said the same reason.

Yeah.

They like to watch my wife eating these motherfuckers.

Nobody watches my wife eating.

Everyone just be like, so first of all, chocolate molten love cake.

And I know this guy's what I'm saying, but bring Godman's wife in.

Get his wife in.

He's so nice, he won't mind.

Yeah, if it's her birthday.

I've been to one hen night in my entire life.

I was 21.

Okay, this is how old I am.

There were no mobile phones and there was a restaurant where you had a telephone on each table.

My children tell me off for saying telephone.

It's like saying wireless, apparently, instead of the radio.

There's a telephone on each table and each table has a number and you can phone a table.

You can go, hi, this is table number 14.

And you phone a bunch of people and you have a chat and it's a flirty thing.

Every single girl at that hen night got a phone call from a boy at another table, except for me.

I became the receptionist.

I just went, I'll be the receptionist.

And I said, Oh, hello, this table.

And I said, It's for you.

And no one.

So I just find dinners with people I don't know so stressful.

Because can I have my meal in the dream restaurant just utterly alone?

Absolutely.

You can be utterly alone.

I'll have some more questions about this

situation that I've never heard of before.

When there's a phone on every table and people are allowed to leave the tables and you were the only person who didn't get a phone call does that mean that when the guys rang the table they were like hello can I speak to the lady in the yellow dress please hello can I speak to the lady with the brown hair and they were specifically asking for

individuals yeah no one said can I speak to the pudgy frizzy haired woman that's crying oh it's very stressful I didn't realize how stressed I'd get talking about my past restaurant traumas now I'm really worried that anyone listening will go well I'm never inviting her her to a dinner i do like to be a guest it just has to be small and with people who are friendly and fancy me

and everyone else in the restaurant has to fancy you and they have to call you to tell you oh my god do you know what happened to me once i won't tell you his name because you'll know him well then i'd like to know his name please i'll tell you later this comedian took me out to dinner once on a date and he took me to this really lush fancy french restaurant on the king's road and i went to the loo and when I came back from the loo the waiter came over with a glass of champagne and the waiter said this has been sent to you by a secret admirer right any normal human being would guess that my date had arranged this while I was in the loo

I thought oh dear another man in the restaurant

so I've got to make sure I don't make my date feel bad so I just enjoyed the champagne I said oh you know that's sweet isn't it That's something it's probably a perv.

And then on the way out, he goes, Shabby, you do realize that that was me that sent you the champagne.

And I felt so stupid.

I think that's a weird thing to do, though.

Do you think that's a that feels like a move they've done on other dates for a start?

Yeah, he was quite a bit older than me, he knew what he was doing.

Okay, now we're narrowing it down.

And what happens when people date, James?

Well, things get pretty sexy.

So, we've got a sexy package now.

Cover your your ears if you're easily embarrassed.

Tell your mum to get out of the room.

Yeah, tell your mum to get out of the room.

Get your dad in the room because it's time to hear

from Mae Martin, Miriam Margulies, of course, and Bimney Bomboolash.

There's something that I should have said at the beginning of the podcast, and now we don't have time to go into it, nor should we.

There's nothing to say except that my dad wrote a cookbook in the 70s called The Seducer's Cookbook,

Cooking for Sex S.

And it it was spelt sex and it was about how to seduce women with food it's very problematic like if it came out

you say we don't have time to go into this cancel whatever plans you have we're gonna need to hear more about the seducer's cookbook cooking for success

yeah

i think that he probably sold like 20 copies but and he was in his 20s when he wrote it um but it was published properly and it was absolutely panned by critics because they were like not even at the time they were like this is weird because it's like how do you get in the woman's fans by cooking and and secondly all the recipes are like not sexy like they're they're very very like pungent and like wrong I just like hippers and stuff

yeah I think you just I think you just kind of got a maybe had a good meeting and got the book deal and then just panicked yeah

yeah but it's it is a real gem within the recipe does it say why it's like a seductive recipe do you have to like present it in the shape of a knob or something?

Yeah, it's yeah, everything's shaped like a knob.

No, it was like a sort of comic book, so it would give you examples of things you could say while you served it and like interesting music you could play, things like that.

I absolutely love that.

The seducer's cookbook.

Seduced.

Yeah.

Had he met your mother by this point?

No.

No, he had not.

When they met, did she know about the seducer's cookbook or did he keep that a secret?

Yeah, I wonder if it was something he was proud of or um well it obviously worked worked for your mum right so

did she enjoy the keppers

it's about my life and my parents and how I became who I am and the people I've slept with and the people I haven't slept with and some of the work I've done and the people who have mattered to me in my life and my love and how the world is according to Miriam.

Is it all the people you've slept with?

Did I leave out any?

I probably did leave out some

because I haven't actually slept with that many actually.

Right.

I've sucked off a lot

and that

I don't know why you're laughing.

It was very serious.

Yes, that is serious.

It was.

That's what Jewish girls do.

That's what I have to explain.

It's not that, you know, that everybody sucks off, but every Jewish girl does.

Right.

I'm telling you something you know, actually.

No, no, no, no, we don't.

Like, we weren't aware of that.

That was that was part of the culture.

What's the ratio to like people you've sucked off to people you've slept with?

You mean in numbers or size?

Yeah, numbers.

Oh, yeah, numbers.

Let's do numbers first, Miriam, and then we can move on to the next one.

Yeah, well, numbers, gosh.

Well, I should think

about 30 to about 20 probably something like that i can't oh wow i can't really remember everybody i've slept with that's why i didn't name everybody because i thought if somebody was left out they might be offended and indeed if somebody was left in they might be offended so

it was you know i just gave a general a general picture but i hope we're not going to just keep it below the waist because that's very boring oh don't worry We won't.

Pamela Anderson is the original babe.

Yep.

She was a 90s bombshell.

I love Pammy.

In my life, the first person that other kids at school told me was sexy.

Yeah, same.

And

was a babe was Pamela Manderson.

So for my whole life, just because, you know, I was born in 1985.

So the age I was when the other kids in my class started talking about people being sexy and people being babes, Pamela Manderson was the one that everyone was talking about.

So for the rest of my life, whenever anyone mentions babes, I'll always think, original babe, Pamela Randerson.

OG babe, totally.

And because of Barbed Wire, the film that she was in, and the catchphrase of that film was, don't call me babe.

Yeah.

Don't call me babe.

So if anything, you should stop now because she did ask you to stop calling her babe in that film, Jack.

Uh-oh.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

Also, I think for me, similar, similar experience, but maybe different is that I knew I was gay

because I wanted to be pamela anderson i didn't fancy pamela anderson so i remember thinking okay well these feelings are maybe not normal and then i grew up and became a drag artist and used pamela as a lot of sources of inspiration so there we go full circle again i think that would have been more fun than my experience my experience was just all the other kids telling me that pamela anderson was a babe and was sexy and then i just agreed with them all because i didn't really know what was going on that was it and when they released that do you remember they released the virgin cola pammy bottles that were supposed to be in the shape of Pamela Anderson?

And I went out and bought one of those and I thought the bottle was sexy.

And that's how I realized I was straight and disgusting.

I love that.

But I mean, I wonder if that would, I wonder if that would fly today.

Oh, I don't, I'm not sure it would.

I feel like the bottles wouldn't be modelled after covacious women anymore.

No, it's absolutely mad.

And then you bought one as well, your little perv.

Yeah, me and my friend went to the petrol station to buy one because we'd heard they were releasing bottles in the shape of Pamela Anderson.

I think we were hoping for like actual tits on the bottle rather than just the shape of it, but absolutely disgusting, little boys.

Well, I think the fact that you fancied a bottle is quite the um maybe it links, maybe Freud would go crazy over this.

Yeah, yes,

you said that's how you knew you were straight, but let's let's be very clear.

You fancied a bottle

that's just admitted the theory that sexuality is fluid.

Yes,

Oh, I love it.

Absolutely.

Probably the best joke that's ever been done on the podcast.

Thank you, Bimini.

Wise words.

Wise words from Bimini Bon Boulash there.

Now, this is what I was talking about earlier.

We're now talking about me getting angry.

Because we both got angry this year with our guests for what they chose.

Yes, you did.

You're at the package after, and you're much longer than me.

What?

I don't think so.

Because me getting wound up is only one clip, and it's from Julia Danuga.

i don't believe in starters yeah

this is unbelievable

i think they're stupid you don't believe you think they're stupid you're the one posting stuff in the bedroom

hey hey don't do that you can't you can't bring up my past it's not fair i just i don't believe in them i think they're stupid if you're hungry

why are you giving me the beginning of the meal yeah just give me the food that i would like to eat eat.

I'm very much a, hey, can I have the prawns and the whatever the main is and just bring them all as soon as they're ready, please, sir?

Right, so you are having a starter.

You're just having a sticker.

No, but I'm having it as the meal.

Like, I'm not picking it because I want to eat it separately.

I'm picking it because it goes well with all the food that I'd like to consume in this one sitting.

Starters are like glorified side ditches, really, aren't they?

They're not really.

Yeah, they're unrecorded.

They're so stupid.

Ed, should we look up the definition of what the fucking hell the point is of a starter in a meal?

Yeah, make sure you word it like that when you Google it.

You think if you Google what the fucking hell is the point of a starter in a meal, you're gonna get something back that solves this, right?

I'm actually gonna do it.

Because I can

what is the actual point?

Julie, your Google is not gonna explain anything to you.

The last thing you Googled was marmalade.

It's not even gonna let you log on.

It's gonna be like there's no point telling this lady anything.

Marmalade, straight to images.

An adult woman who's looked up pictures of marmalade.

I love that you said adult woman.

Like, my Google knows this.

Yeah, the results aren't very, they're not very good, are they?

What did you Google?

I googled what the fucking hell was the point of a starter in a meal.

Yeah.

The first result is a Reddit result and it says, I live with roommates.

Interesting.

And one of them toasts in the bedroom.

What do I do?

Yeah.

That's a fire hazard, isn't it?

Definitely.

Yes.

Yeah.

Don't try toasting at home unless you are with a supervised adult.

is what we should say.

Yeah.

I don't even know what to search to find the reason for a starter.

Well, Well, it's because everyone knows what the point to a star is.

Probably start by taking the expletives out.

Ed, what is the point?

Tell us.

An extra little meal.

A mini meal at the beginning.

Like we're talking about.

A mini meal at the beginning.

Fires up the palate.

That's what he thinks it is.

Isn't that sad?

It doesn't make any sense.

It's stupid.

No.

It doesn't make any sense.

What if you want something from the starter menu that doesn't necessarily go together with the main?

You get the starter first, eat it, delicious, wait a little bit, and then have the main.

It's like you're getting two meals in one.

So then I just have two mains.

How do you feel about the part of that sentence, Julie, where Ed said, wait a minute?

Yeah.

Eat something, wait a minute, then get your actual meal.

Does wait a minute feel good?

No, it definitely doesn't.

It's a stupid thing.

I just,

here's how I think about it.

I only go and eat when I'm hungry.

So if I'm hungry, my body isn't going, oh, I'm excited about this little thing.

first and then

there is there aren't compartments of my stomach it's just the food is gonna go down.

But at what point, Julie, did I accuse you of having compartments of your stomach?

But this, but this is why, in my head, if there's a starter, I'm assuming that it's like go into a different part of, you know, there's like a bit of my body that needs a starter, and then my stomach needs the mains.

Well, actually, all of the food just goes down the same tube into the same place.

So whether it was a starter, main, whatever, it doesn't matter.

It's just all food.

So why are you giving it to me at a separate time?

Then why were we giving you any other sort of food?

Why don't we just give you powder?

Because it all turns into shit in the end.

That's what what you're saying.

No, I'm saying that when I want to eat, I want to eat now.

So give me all the food that I'd like to consume.

Give me your starter.

No, because this is the other thing that annoys me, Ed.

Yeah?

Aggressive Julie's back.

Yeah, she never went anywhere.

That's true.

When I order my starter and my main, yeah?

How do you know when I'm ready for my main?

Well, after you've had your starter.

Right.

So that means that I've got to eat my starter, then you've got to see that I've finished.

Then you've got to come over, take the plate, then you've got to go back into the kitchen.

Then you've got to get the food and then bring my music.

This waiter is long.

This is what a waiter has to do.

No, because if they're now serving someone else, I've got to wait for them to finish serving someone else to then say, oh, she's finished her starter.

And then if someone else at the table hasn't finished their starter, do you know what they do?

They make me wait for my main until the rest of my table's finished.

What is going on?

I'm hungry.

Bring me the food.

No starters.

No starters.

Yeah, but what I'm saying to you, Julie, is yes, okay, fine.

Pass on the starter, but you can't then have what you would have had as a starter with your main course, okay?

That's not how this.

No, you can't.

That's not how it works.

I absolutely don't know.

Julia's dream meal, Ed.

It's her dream meal.

Yeah, you're in a Nigerian restaurant.

There are no rules.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Well, it's a Nigerian restaurant that's run by two white men and they don't understand what goes on.

Yeah.

I'm teaching you now.

This is you learning.

This is you learning.

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Whoa, Ed.

That was really embarrassing how wound up you got there.

You really showed a bad side of yourself on the podcast.

I'm sorry, man.

Well, now it's time for the package called Winding James Up, and it's a lot longer than that package.

Several guests irritated you, James.

Mira Sael, Sarah Keyworth, and Michelle Keegan.

And it was just great to play someone who you never knew what side of the law she was on because she's a lawyer that comes from a criminal family, so she knows both worlds really intimately.

And I got to eyeball Stephen Graham in a very dead-eye sharky way, which is very exciting.

He won, obviously.

Oh, did he?

That's got to be one of the dreams to deade Stephen Graham, just to have the opportunity to do that within a park, because you know, in real life, that's that's never going to happen for any of us, right?

You just wouldn't dare, would you?

No, absolutely.

I would.

You wouldn't.

Would you dare?

Yeah, I do.

I saw him on Jonathan Ross once, having a go at Romesh, and I was like, if I see him, if I ever see that guy,

I'm going to dead eye him minimum.

What's your maximum with him though?

Punch him in the head?

You wouldn't ask the second mate.

You wouldn't.

Let's see.

Let's see.

Can I just tell you, he's completely ripped as well?

Yeah.

Well,

is it going to be ripped to pieces?

He's really ripped.

We had to do a bit of a stunt which involved running and jumping and guns and helicopters.

Very exciting.

And

he sprinted from one end of a runway to the other in about three seconds flat without barely breathing.

I was like, my God.

You'll have to run quicker quicker than that when I see him.

It's not sounding very convincing.

No, I tell you.

We'll see.

We'll see.

I don't think we will.

I'll pass the message on.

Yeah, do.

I mean, if you know, send him an email, please, Mira.

That would be great.

If you just say, James A.

Caster says he can tear you to pieces, I believe.

I will do that.

You'll be hearing from him, I'm sure.

And you'll have to run fast when you see him.

That's what he said as well.

I'll make sure to pass that on.

So I'm not much of a sweet-toothed person, to be honest.

Here Here we go.

What do you know

about the buckets of fruit pastels?

You've been guzzling your entire life.

I was a child, James.

I was a child, and I was being trained into being a lesbian.

The moment I became a lesbian, I lost my sweet tooth.

That's how it works.

That's not how it works.

We love to hear it here on the off-menu podcast when someone says they don't really have a sweet tooth because they're not a child anymore.

That's correct.

We don't.

I knew this would get you riled up.

So I don't want a dessert.

Are you fucking kidding me?

He was so lulled.

You've lulled him into the perfect sense of

false sense of security.

I can see that James is actually.

James has sat up on his seat.

He's actually, it's actually, it's not like a normal sit-up.

It's almost close to a fetal position.

Yeah, he's proper goleming it.

Yeah.

I don't want to dessert, thanks.

I am.

I'd have a mouthful of someone else's.

What the fuck are you on about?

That's great.

That's the first time we've had a mouthful of someone else's dessert.

Does it matter what it is?

No, not really.

I'll have a mouthful of someone else's.

I'm genuinely upset.

I'm upset.

I'm not even angry.

I agree with you.

I'm the worst kind of person because

I'm sat with someone, they order a dessert, they're excited to have it, and then suddenly my eyes get a bit beady.

Yeah.

And I don't, but I didn't want a full dessert.

I've had it before where people have gone, oh, why don't we get two and we'll share them?

Leave me alone.

I've just had five chip cobs, you know.

Yeah, you are full.

To be fair to you, you are full.

Are you going to ask, do you ask the waiter for another spoon when you have a mouthful or is it like more of an instinctive thing?

No, I just go, I go in with two fingers.

That's a grab bag of pastas there.

Yeah, there you go.

So that's what I like about this is it doesn't matter what it is.

It just has to be someone else's and you only want a mouthful of it.

Yeah, and that's the thing about dessert more than any other dish that you have during a meal is that if somebody has a dessert and you don't, they will always feel obliged to say, Do you want to try it?

Well, you've never had dinner with James Acaster.

We know that.

You're not on my watch.

We know.

I'm not offering you any of mine.

Forget about it.

I'm going to trap you into a meal one day, James.

If I've got a lovely dessert.

I don't know how I'm going to do it.

I'd probably be trapped into a meal.

There's absolutely no way you're getting anywhere near my dessert.

I'm going to do it.

James, how are you feeling, mate?

Bad.

This This feels bad.

I haven't had anyone completely pass on it before.

I've had awful people say cheese and biscuits or pizza hut buffet or more poutine.

I've never had someone go...

Sorry, wait, that was a dessert.

More

because I would have...

More poutine,

I would have had that.

That's potatoes, isn't it?

No, I don't want to put that in your head.

I do not want to put that in your head, but yeah, you would absolutely love that.

I'd be all over that.

I'd have a second round of Patathas Bravas, to be honest.

What I really like about this dessert as well, if we look back at your main course,

which was you stolen mac and cheese, and you said it was stolen because someone else gave you a recipe, and this is you're literally taking it off someone else's plate, and you've not called it stolen.

No, I don't think this is stolen.

They offered.

This doesn't feel good.

I don't understand.

I don't understand how you would rather have nothing.

than dessert.

Like, you wouldn't just want some...

There's not like a dessert that is like your favorite dessert you've ever had There's not one I'll tell you what I would have James if everyone else is having a dessert and they're they're looking at me like oh, it's you it's uncomfortable that you're not having anything.

What are you gonna do?

I would have an espresso martini.

It's better than nothing.

Yeah, no, do you that's not your answer?

Your answer is a mouthful of someone else's dessert.

No, it's not.

I stand by what I said.

I'm just saying.

Yeah.

If I was pushed, I'd have an espresso martini.

Feels like a bit of a dessert because it comes in one of those nice little dessert glasses, otherwise known as martini glass.

You would have a cocktail, but you wouldn't.

There's no ice creams, cakes, gattos.

There's nothing.

You're not going to break me, James.

You're not going to break me.

But think, think about what Sarah's done is: yes, there are ice creams, there are gatos, there are trifles, there's all of that available if someone else orders it and she can have a mouthful of it.

It feels like a waste to get a whole thing because I won't eat it all.

There we go.

I think it's a great answer.

Well done, you.

It's not a great answer.

You don't think it's a great answer?

I do think it's a great answer.

Well done, you.

Thank you.

I'm proud of myself.

Let's read the order back please.

The thing is is that I

it's weird I really

it's weird because at the minute I'm in a little bit of a like I didn't get much sleep last night because I ate too much chocolate brownie bites before I went to bed and my heart was going like a jackrabbit and I couldn't I couldn't fall asleep and so it's a bit difficult to now defend to you know really try and put my case forward.

Yeah.

against Keyworth on this because like not only do I not have the energy because I was up all night but also

I don't want something raising my heart rate, which is why I'll stick with my espresso martini.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're fine with that.

Well, I mean, it is heartbreaking.

How does someone just not?

I don't understand it.

I like that we're ending this because we started it with you saying, I've never seen you eat.

Yes.

And I like that actually we've ended it with you not ever wanting to see me eat.

No,

I don't know how good I had it.

What is for your dessert?

See, this is a a difficult one for me because I'm not a dessert kind of gal.

Feel free, though, Michelle, if you don't like anything sweet.

You can probably have something savoury for dessert if you want.

Shut up.

Ed.

I feel like I'm like this.

I feel like

I would always say I have a cheese board, but...

Listen, listen, listen to me.

If I was beat on Bake Off by a cheeseboard motherfucker, I am going to absolutely flip the fuck out of it.

Michelle, Michelle, if you want a cheeseboard, and just imagine what you have with the cheese board, a little bit of extra bread.

If I was on bake off by someone who doesn't even like desserts and sweets and made a bunch of bakes that they would rather if I swear to high Christ, if you choose a cheese board right now, this is going to be the most I've ever flipped out on this podcast.

Michelle, Michelle, just don't be guided by James.

If you want a cheese board, you can have a bit of bread with it.

You can't wine.

Wine is so lovely.

That's what I mean.

Like, yeah, wine and

lovely cheese board.

God, and that is something.

If I was in a restaurant and I had to order a dessert, it would be a cheese board.

So, this is your dream meal, Michelle.

So, if you, you should, you should have what you want, really.

You've just eaten a fucking bakery's worth of bread.

Why's the fucking gonna have a cheese board at the end of it?

You have what you want, Michelle, you know,

Michelle.

Very hard.

Very hard.

But I'm gonna have good instincts.

I'm gonna have to have a cheese board.

Yes!

Oh, you absolute piece of shit, Michelle.

you s suck!

You suck!

You s suck!

You suck!

That was the worst day of my life!

That was the worst day of my life.

Are you fucking joking me?

Beat me on bake!

You gotta go on instinct.

It took a lot for me to agree to have you on this shit.

I opposed it many times over.

Every fucking time they suggested having you on.

I said, there's no way I'm letting her in the dream restaurant.

She beats me on bake off.

I'm pretty sure she cheated.

You come in here and you choose a cheese board as your dessert.

What the fuck it?

I hope your bits table catches on fire next time you have a next time you all sit down and have bits together.

I hope you're not.

No, because my cheese board will be on it though, James.

My cheese board will be on that bits table.

What is a cheese board if not a lovely little bits table?

Fucking God.

Jesus.

Again, again, it's what's not to like.

Salty, savoury.

Love it.

I love cheese and a bit of a...

Dessert?

Bits.

There's bits.

I like my cheese.

Bits is a little bit table.

Why don't you just make a cheese board when you were on bake-off if you love it so much?

Why don't you just present them with some cheese and crackers at the end and say that was your happy place?

What sort of cheeses do you want, Michelle?

Let's talk through the cheese.

Cheeses.

Oh, fuck.

I'm angry.

I'm burping.

I'm so angry.

I've never burped out of anger before.

I'm crying.

That makes two of us.

I'll literally was just going to go with another option, but I was like, I have to be

true to myself.

I have to be true to the listeners.

What is the matter with you?

And I need to be true to you guys.

It would be a cheeseboard.

Yeah.

Eating bread for every single course, and then you have some crackers at the end.

But I said at the beginning, I am a savoury gal.

I like my savory, salty foods.

And at the end of the meal, I like to have a nice sip of wine with some camembert.

Yes, absolutely.

I love the camembert.

This is horrible.

It feels horrible.

I'm getting beat on Bake Off by a savory gal.

You're not going to get over this are you James?

Never gonna get over this.

Bake Off was bad enough as it was.

It was bescar enough and traumatic enough.

I had to live with it rattling around in my head all the time somewhere in the background and now I know a savoury gal came out with the mixer making cakes and pastries.

And I wear that apron with pride.

When I'm eating my cheese, I'm wearing that apron with pride.

What's even better about this is you started with with a pina colada.

So you obviously don't mind

just to really rub it in.

Really sweet drink at the beginning.

I love other pina coladas.

When I went on drunk history, I drank loads of pina coladas.

Delicious.

That's a sweet boy drink, that is.

It is.

Started with a pina colada.

Looks like we're okay.

Oh my, I did not see this coming.

It feels horrible.

Look, I'm.

Oh, I know I've got to let you chat about the cheese board with Ed now.

Yeah.

But I am so, I'm absolutely absolutely furious about you're raging, James.

All the signs were there.

Michelle likes to end her day with some ham on toast,

some crisps.

She's a savory, that's how she likes to finish off her day.

She likes to drink water in the night because she's had so much salt.

Well done, Eddie.

See, you know me already.

You knew this was going to happen.

You knew it was going to happen.

It was always going to be a cheese board.

Always.

Seated down the beginning.

Michelle, what cheese?

What cheeses?

Oh, God.

Would you like on it?

Here we go.

I'm going to check my emails while you do this.

I love it.

I love it.

Right.

What cheeses?

I like camembert.

Lovely.

I like, I tried this one the other day.

It was gorgeous.

It was a truffle brie.

Oh, yes.

Love the truffle brie.

With the little, like, the layer of truffle in the middle of it.

That's delicious.

So good.

And you don't put it in the fridge.

That's a trick.

Just

sit out.

Brie or camembert in the fridge.

No, you put it in the fucking bin.

So bitter.

I love it.

I love it.

For someone who loves sweet stuff so much, he is rather bitter.

Yeah, he's so bitter.

But yeah, you leave it to room temperature.

That's how I like my brie and camembert.

And then I do really like, you know, that smoky cheese.

Is it Applewood or something?

Yeah, Applewood smoked cheese.

Yes, delicious.

Simple.

Yeah.

So nice.

So nice.

Simple smoke even more savoury if anything yeah ex exactly and you know me so well now i love it getting on like a house on fire too are you

like

a really creamy gorgonzola oh lovely really sort of punchy punchy blue situation yeah yeah and on the side i'd like some um quince Oh so there is a little bit of sweetness there.

That's probably enough sweetness for a dessert.

That's enough.

Absolutely.

That's disgusting quince jelly.

I love quince.

It's a traitor.

It's a traitor to the sweet world.

A little bit of chutney.

Is that a traitor?

Yeah, nice and sweet.

And then some rosemary sprigs.

Now, what are you doing with the sprigs?

I sprinkle them on top.

If I have a cracker, put a bit of camber, sprinkle like two or three sprigs and eat it that way.

Can't believe my eyes.

If you haven't tried it, you need to try it.

Rosemary.

Really?

Raw, honestly.

Raw rosemary.

Yeah.

I'm going to do it.

Just two or three.

Absolutely delicious.

Oh, so good.

Here's a question for you, Michelle.

Are you a fan of visiting Trafalgar Square?

Yeah, I've been there a few times, yes.

Well, good news.

Come on.

I'm about to throw you into Trafalgar Square.

Like a piece of bread.

What I do to anybody on this podcast.

The good thing about Michelle is she can link anything with bread.

Oh, God.

Look, he can't even look at it.

He's really upset.

Anyone who comes on this podcast who chooses cheeseboard, I'll throw them into Trafalgar Square, no matter where they are geographically.

I don't mind throwing you from Chalton.

The The thing is, now, you're throwing so many people in Trafalgar Square.

We're having such a nice old cheese party in Trafalgar Square now, mate.

I know.

It's just all the cheese people.

And winners as well.

Cheese people and winners, which James, you are not.

I'll be climbing over Barbara and Barry's fence.

I'll be gorging myself on 99s that they've given me.

Brenda and Barry.

Whatever their names are.

I'm getting all their ice cream.

I'm going to go over and they're going to go, why doesn't Michelle come out of here anymore?

I was like, I'll tell you why, because she likes cheese boards now.

And they're going to go, I hope she fucking dies

Bit much from Brenda and Barry I think yeah actually

even I think that's over the line from them

I apologise for that Michelle

for Brenda and Barry

oh that made me so angry Stephen Graham if you're listening I'm gonna beat you up That's it, James.

There we are.

We thought we'd end on you getting angry.

I think that's the perfect way to send us into 2022.

We'll be back, won't we?

We will be back again.

Listen, on the next series, I'm making my mission to get Stephen Graham on, and I'll do what I set out to do.

Thank you very much for listening.

We'll be back next year for series seven.

And to end, it's the annual Poppin' Arms or Bread compilation.

Yes, Uncle James and Ed.

Uncle James and Ed?

Well, that's what my nephews say.

My nephews sent me a video

of them singing a song.

And they were going, Poppin' Arms or Bread.

Bread or poppin' arms pop at arms or bread uncle james and ed

all right right that's really good but i forgot that the listeners and you don't even know about that video yeah so saying uncle james and ed sounds like you're trying to get a new nickname going for yourself i don't mind the listeners start calling me uncle james yeah you don't have uncle vibes to your nephews you do but broadly to the nation you're not you're not you're not the nation's uncle my nephews have a very like

probably a different perspective of what an uncle is to everyone else everyone else is like an uncle uncle is like a old wise, you know, somebody you look up to.

They're like, yeah, our uncle is basically our age.

It may as well be the same as us.

Papa dumbs or bread.

Bread or poppadum.

Uncle Jeffrey.

James Eddie.

See you next year.

See you next year.

I'm going to say it in a calm manner because I've got two baskets.

as I come over.

That's just the situation.

They're attached to me.

They're attached to my hair.

I've created plaits.

And then they go into two large baskets.

One has bread in it.

Lovely.

Different assortment.

Your choice.

The other one has got poppadums.

So you're quite weighed down on one side, wouldn't you say?

Pop and absorb bread.

Popped up some bread, Donald Cleveson.

Pop and absorb bread.

How long have you been thinking of saying that?

Oh, it squeezes a slice.

It's messy.

Pop and dumbs or bread.

Pop and absorb bread, Assam Chowder.

Popped up's or bread.

Yeah.

God, I feel like the poppin' ums or bread is quite random as well.

Pop and absorb bread.

Poppin' obsorp bread, Emily Atac.

Pop and Umsor bread.

Pop it up's or bread.

Pop it ups or bread, Harry Hill.

Poppin' obsorb bread.

Pop it up so bread.

Pop it ups or bread.

Anne-Marie.

Pop it up's or bread.

Just figured out what you've said.

Okay.

Anyway, but it was all

past history now, but it doesn't.

Yeah.

Pop and absorb bread.

Pop an ups or bread, Jack Diddy.

Poppin' ups or bread.

I think it would probably be bread.

How did we get on the certificates?

Pop it up so bread.

Pop it ups or bread, big zoo.

Ah.

Pop it ups or bread.

It's a bread thing, man.

Pop it ups or bread.

Pop an observable bread, Josh.

Pop it up somewhere bread.

Um, oh, bread, please.

They've made it.

Pop it ups or bread.

Oh, okay.

Alright then.

Poppin' ups or bread, keyword?

It's bread, isn't it?

It's always gonna be bread.

Pop and dumbs or bread.

Pop a dumbs or bread, Jeff Rosenstuck.

Pop a dumbs or bread.

Pop a dumbs or bread.

Uh bread.

But yeah, got bottled water.

Still water.

Pop a dumbs or bread.

Popped up some bread, Bob Mortimer.

Pop-dums or bread.

I will take bread, please.

Pop a dumbs or bread.

Popped up some bread, Makita Oliver.

Popped ups or bread.

Oh my god.

Uh

popped up.

Yeah.

Pop a dumbs or bread.

Pop dumbs or bread, Michelle Pagan.

Pop dums or bread.

Bread, 100%.

Pop and dumbs or bread.

Pop nubs or bread.

Ah.

Julie Hananooga.

Ah!

This is...

Ah!

Neither!

Fuck both of those motherfuckers!

Oh, sorry, sorry.

Sorry, Julie.

We made you sound aggressive again there.

Sorry.

Ashley, I apologise for the ragging.

Pop nubs or bread.

Pop nobs or bread, Ed Chairman.

Pop and obs or bread.

Christ, man, it's fucking nine.

No, no, it's ten.

It's nine fifty-five.

I never married his sister, and I definitely didn't marry the girlfriend when I got home either.

Pop and absorb bread.

Pop and obsorb bread.

Ross Kemp, pop and obsorb bread.

Yeah, it's gonna be sort of like Afghan flat bread.

Pop and obsorb bread.

Pop and obsorb bread, maybe a margalis.

Pop and obsorb bread.

Bread.

Pop and obsorb bread.

Oh, fuck.

Bread.

Bread.

Pop and obsorb bread.

Jesus Christ.

Pop and absorb or bread, Bridget Christie.

Poppin' ups or bread.

Poppadums.

Pop a dumbs.

Poppin' arms or bread.

Popped up's or bread, Martin Freeman.

Poppin' ums or bread.

Well, what sort of.

Oh, this is any sort of restaurant, isn't it?

It's a whatever.

It's a whatever restaurant.

It's not fiend.

It's whatever restaurant you can dream up, yeah.

Bread.

Like, I think it's quite profound, actually.

Felt pretty profound at the time, Bimbly.

Thank you.

Poppin' arms or bread.

Oh, pop it ups or bread, Bimbly bomb boulash.

Let's go with

bread.

Poppin' arms or bread.

Poppin' ups or bread, Rosie Jones.

Pop it up so bread.

You know that.

I'm waiting your day after I work.

Give me that pop-up.

Pop it up so bread.

Pop it up soap bread, Nicola Coughlin.

Pop it up soft bread.

Break bread, Jamie.

That's your bread, bread, bread.

Every day.

I love bread so much.

It's so delicious.

Pop it up soft bread.

Mary Lynn Russell.

Pop it up so bread.

Um.

So angry.

Uh, bread.

Bread, please.

Herb it.

Pop-dubs or bread.

Pop-dubs or bread, Mary Sile.

Pop-a-dubs or bread.

Pop-nobs.

Pop-nums.

Pop-a-dubs or bread.

A poppetums or bread.

Bread.

Bread.

Pop it ups or bread.

Poppinums or bread, Joey Wicks.

Popped ups or bread.

Narn bread.

Narn bread, yo.

Pop a dumb.

Do you mean any bread?

Any bread.

Any bread.

Pop it ups or bread.

Poppinums or bread, Mayo Chihuahua.

Pop it ups or bread.

Do you know what?

I'm gonna say bread.

Pop-a-dums or bread.

Pop-a-dums or bread.

Oh, you know.

Um.

Pop-a-dums or bread.

Pop-a-dums or bread, Todd.

What are pop-a-dums or bread?

Pop-a-dums.

What is that?

Pop-a-dumbs or bread.

Is that like biscuits or bread or rolls or bread?

Pop-a-pop-a-dums.

Why do I not...

Are they like pop-overs?

No, in an Indian restaurant?

Oh,

the naan bread.

No, the big crispy things I bring at the beginning.

So they're like

huge.

Pop-a-dumbs or bread.

Pop-a-dums up's or bread, Tanya Moore.

Poppin' ups or bread.

Non-bread or just bread.

Any bread you like.

Any bread in the whole world.

Oh, that's hard.

Pop and absorb bread.

Pop and obsorb bread.

Rafe spall.

Pop and obsorb bread.

Bread.

Yeah, hash pie.

Pop and absorb bread.

Pop an obsorb bread, Timothy Spall.

Pop and obsorb bread.

I do like a pop-a-dump.

Pop and obsorb bread.

Pop it up soft bread, Sailor Kendall.

Pop and obsorb bread.

Bread.

Uh, what kind of bread do you got?

Pop and ums or bread.

Bread.

Bread.

Always bread.

What are you thinking of?

It's that's like saying a toad or a kitten.

Bulk and water was the choice.

Yeah.

Pop and dumbs or bread.

Pop and dumbs or bread, Jason.

Pop a dumbs or bread.

I don't know what you're asking.

Pop-doms or bread.

As has happened with every American guest we've had, James has shouted Popadums or bread at the top of his voice, and they've looked to me for a translation.

Popadums or bread!

Pop-doms or bread, Sue Perkins.

Pop-a-dums or bread.

Right.

I've thought about this.

Popadums are a giant, one giant crisp, right?

Who's not gonna want to begin a meal with a giant crisp?

Popadums or bread!

Oh!

Poppadums or bread, Simon Amstell!

Pop a dumbs or bread!

Pop a dumbs.

Popped ups or bread!

Popadums or bread, Jamie Oliver!

Pop a dumbs or bread!

Poppadums hot fruit and fruit.

Yeah.

Poppadums or bread.

What?

What was the first one?

Poppa dumbs or bread.

What the fuck is a pop-a-dum?

Pop-a-dums or bread.

Pop-a-dums are...

And don't worry, Joel, we've been in America for a while and it normally gets this reaction.

Poppadums are like a crispy Indian.

Yes, okay.

I have had those.

Indian chips.

Got it.

Indian chips, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Also, you can have any crisps.

I guess yeah.

Anything that you'd normally have at the bread course in any kind of restaurant you can have.

It doesn't have to be even poppadums.

No, no, no.

I love a mixed basket of bread.

This seems like a real witch hunt.

Pop a dumb assault bread.

Pop a dumb saw bread, yes.

But water for me is, yeah, that's the, that's how things start off.

And then we move on to the uh pop an absorb bread.

Pop an obsorb bread, Ainsley Harriet.

Pop an obsorb bread.

Pop it up,

pop it up, pop, blow, bump, pop an obsorb bread.

Yeah.

Pop an obsorb bread.

Pop an obsorb bread, Edgar, right?

Pop it absorb bread.

And gonna go

bread.

All right.

There we go.

Oh, some booze.

Some booze.

Locked in.

Huh?

Locked in.

Pop a dumbs or bread.

Pop a dumbs or bread, easy sister.

I know.

I popped up's our bread.

You know, if you don't have quality, you don't have a business.

Nobody's going to come back and drink it.

They're going to say, oh, that's nice.

We'll put that on my shelf.

I'm not going to crack another one.

I thank you.

But that's not what's happening.

We're in 78 countries with multiple awards and medals.

And I'm proud to go around the world and say, hey, it's Canadian.

Papadoms or bread?

What's that?

Papadoms or bread, Dan?

Oh, papadum.

Oh, yeah, papadums for sure.

Actually, you know, I would eschew and just cast kiss goodbye to all Western cooking, even this meal I've showed you.

If I could eat Indian every night,

well, we can change it if you want.

Uh, well, uh, well, wow, okay, so that would be papadum, that would be uh

saga, sagaloo, and sagosht, and uh, a great uh, mild vegetarian curry, and lots of basmati rice.

And let's see.

And I've got to wrap the lama after that.

Hey, GG,

let's go.

Sucks.

The new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We demand to be home.

Winner, best score.

We demand to be seen.

Winner, best book.

We demand to be quality.

It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

Suffs.

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

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.

Hello, I'm Carrie Add.

I'm Sarah.

And we are the Weirdos Book Club Podcast.

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

The date is Thursday, 11th of September.

The time is 7pm.

And our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies.

Tickets from kingsplace.co.uk.

Single ladies is coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September.

At the London Podcast Festival.

The rumours are true.

Saturday, the 13th of September.

At King's Place.

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