Ed and James and Willie and Joe’s Perfect Chocolate Christmas

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Speaker 1 Merry Christmas everyone out there. Welcome to Off Menu.
We are the burning brandy on top of the podcast pudding. It's lovely to be here with a little surprise Christmas episode, James.

Speaker 1 Tidings of comfort and joy. Welcome to Willie and Joe and Ed's and James's and Benito's Perfect Chocolate Christmas.
Yes, indeed. It's a very special perfect perfect chocolate Christmas episode.

Speaker 1 It all ties back to the Joe Thomas episode.

Speaker 1 So what I would possibly say, actually, is if you're listening to this now and you haven't heard the Joe Thomas episode, I would recommend listening to that for the full backstory and context.

Speaker 1 And if you want to go hardcore, listen to that and then listen to the Andy Oliver episode. Yeah, for the full story.
To know how this came about properly.

Speaker 1 It's as dense and complicated as the Marvel Cinematic Universe at this point. It is absolutely.
So do your research. But if you don't want to do that, quick explanation.
Joe Thomas buried a lamb.

Speaker 1 It didn't go well. He did it because he saw it on a TV show called Willie's Perfect Chocolate Christmas, which is presented by a man called Willie Harkor Coos.

Speaker 1 This episode is us talking to both of them. Yes, Andy Oliver put us in touch with Willie.
We sorted it out.

Speaker 1 It's a Christmas miracle and hopefully we can get Joe to discover where he went wrong and learn from his mistakes so that one day he will be able to achieve his dream of becoming Willie.

Speaker 1 But if either of them mention the secret ingredient, they are out of here and the secret ingredient this week is lamb. Chocolate.

Speaker 1 No, no secret ingredient this week. It's a special chat episode.
And we just hope you're having a lovely Christmas. Yeah, hope you're having a nice day.
Obviously, 2020, very weird.

Speaker 1 The Joe Thomas episode was actually probably in the first week of lockdown, I think it went out. So here we are now at the end of

Speaker 1 the first week of lockdown.

Speaker 1 A lot of us didn't think we'd still be doing all this stuff at Christmas time, so I know it's a bit difficult, everybody, but listen, this episode is going to change your life, and you don't have to worry about COVID anymore.

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly. So you might be having some different sorts of Christmases.

Speaker 1 You might not be seeing the people you want to see, but we hope that you now realise the only people you want to hear from on Christmas Day are Willie Harkor Coos, Joe Thomas, Ed Gamble, James A.

Speaker 1 Castor, and the Great Benito. You don't hear the Great Benito in this episode.
You never will. He's got no voice.

Speaker 1 All those sound effects that you hear in between the edit points, that's the Great Benito does them with his his voice.

Speaker 1 He plays them live with his voice. He does.
He does it all with his voice. He's got an amazing beatboxer, as well as a good magician and roller coaster fan.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And we're looking at the Great Benito now,

Speaker 1 and he was just brought a bowl of something, and he looked surprised that he was brought it, and he looked at it like Kenneth Williams looks at a boobs or a bum in Carry On.

Speaker 1 He did. Oh,

Speaker 1 very exciting. What, show us what's in the bowl, Benito? Oh, no, it's soup, soup, soup.
He's got a bowl of soup that he he nearly poured out while showing it to us. Anyway, Merry Christmas, everyone.

Speaker 1 Please enjoy this episode. We're very happy we managed to get this team together.

Speaker 1 So enjoy. Merry Christmas and Merry Christmas in a bit.
Bye. Bye.

Speaker 1 Hello and welcome to a very special episode of Off Menu. The episode that people have been crying out for for months, for years, for for decades.

Speaker 1 I'm Ed Gamble sitting over there in his flat as James Acasta. Shello.

Speaker 1 Oh, we're sticking with this, are we? We're maintaining the genie. Welcome, Ed Gamble.
We've been expecting you for some time. Yes, hello.

Speaker 1 So we should probably explain, Genie, what's going on with today's episode. So normally, of course, off-menu would be speaking to a special guest about their dream meal.

Speaker 1 Favourite ever, starter, main course, dessert, side dish, and drink, but not today, Ed. Not today.

Speaker 1 Today is a special Christmas episode because because we take you back to an episode we recorded with Joe Thomas, where he gave his dream main course as a lamb dish that he buried in a field.

Speaker 1 And it went very, very wrong, but he got the inspiration for that dish from a television program called Willie's Perfect Chocolate Christmas. Willie's Perfect Chocolate Christmas.

Speaker 1 So it's with great pleasure that we welcome back Joe Thomas, of course, and we also welcome Willie from Willie's Perfect Chocolate Christmas. Hello, how are you both? I'm great.

Speaker 9 I'm I'm good too.

Speaker 1 Just so the listeners know, say your names. I'm Joe.
That's Joe's voice. I'm Willie.
That's Willie's voice. Willie, for the listener, could you, I mean, you seem like a man for all seasons.

Speaker 1 You've got a lot of stuff going on, but could you sum up what your vibe is, what you do on a day-to-day basis for our lovely listener?

Speaker 9 Oh, well, I make chocolate.

Speaker 1 There we go. Bang, straight up.

Speaker 9 I rise at 5.30. I have, you know, toast and avocado and fried duc with 100% cacao grated all over it with hot sauce.
Then I head to the factory and I make chocolate all day.

Speaker 1 Do you really put chocolate on your breakfast, Willie? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 9 If you grate 100% or avocados, you know, like I don't use butter, but, and duck eggs because the yolk is bigger. And 100% cacao, once you've done it, you will never have another breakfast.

Speaker 9 And the chili, the chili lifts it. So I've got a hot chili selection, which, you know, I've traveled around the world doing trade shows and stuff.
And I buy hot sauces, different hot sauces.

Speaker 9 And, you know, and that gives the cacao a lift.

Speaker 9 And then, you know, I go to the factory, and then about 11 o'clock, I'll have a hot chocolate made with hot water and a tiny little bit of chili and a little bit of sugar.

Speaker 9 So I say hot chocolate, half a cylinder, so about 90 grams.

Speaker 9 We worked out that on a year, 90 grams is equivalent to about 130 with sugar. So, and that competes to a kilo a week.
So that's 50 kilos a year just in hot chocolate.

Speaker 9 Uh, you know, so people talk about the average 10-kilo European, and actually, I'm not fat, congratulations, you know, and obviously I'm proof that the right chocolate, yeah, I have got a speedy something.

Speaker 9 I don't know, all my family suffer from underactive thyroids.

Speaker 9 I think I've definitely got an overactive one, and you know, then I'll do the lunch, which is salad out of the garden, as tinner fish or whatever, tinner sardines.

Speaker 1 No chocolate with lunch, yeah. You probably put a topovone in that.

Speaker 1 I'm just genuinely, I'm very, very relieved that you, Willie, actually exists because I thought I might have dreamt this program. And then, after we,

Speaker 1 and also, it was a program that I sort of

Speaker 1 turned it on halfway through, and then I enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 And I was left with this sense that this lamb thing was, it seemed to be very easy, like, because you did it, and then all your friends came around, then you dug it up, and it was brilliant.

Speaker 1 And then I then had to try and explain this to my sort of group of chumps who I'd enlisted

Speaker 1 bury this lamb. Can we

Speaker 1 just go over old ground, I'm sure? And could you tell Willie who the group of chumps were that you buried the lamb with? Because saying group of chumps makes you sound cooler than you are.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's fair enough. Okay.

Speaker 1 Let Willie know who this gang is who you used to hang out with.

Speaker 1 Oh, you're onto my

Speaker 1 making myself so

Speaker 1 you're onto that tactic, are you? So the gang I used to hang out with was my mate's dad.

Speaker 1 Actually, no it was my brother my brother's mate's dad who who um was a local man from my parents village he was like my i guess my best friend in some ways yeah um then

Speaker 1 then it was um another one of my brother's mates mums she was in the gang soft touch soft touch i think that was what we we christened her so

Speaker 1 um and um

Speaker 1 it was

Speaker 1 It was her garden that we buried the lamb in. Then

Speaker 1 the other group were a boy called giles he's the son of of the lady of soft touch he's the son of his mum he he he dug the pit he dug the pit

Speaker 1 and um my my brother and i think i think that's those are the those are the main players um yeah so that that was the gang the chumps the chumps basically and i guess also if people didn't listen to the to the first episode where where we went through this basically i saw this program that i guess in hindsight, I just wondered whether I'd literally just dreamed because

Speaker 1 the lamb went so wrong. But in it, a lamb was buried, a whole lamb.
Yes. By Willie.
By Willie. You think you've dreamt it, etc.?

Speaker 1 But we should probably throw to Willie now and just work out whether this was the recipe that you remembered.

Speaker 1 Willie, do you remember burying a whole lamb for the show Willie's Perfect Chocolate Christmas?

Speaker 9 I actually did it twice.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 9 Yeah,

Speaker 9 because the first time when I came, when they said they wanted to do something interesting, what was the most interesting thing I did? I said, well, it was burying a lamb.

Speaker 9 And they actually didn't believe me. So they said, okay, so could you do it so we can see it, you know?

Speaker 9 So being sort of TV, I suppose,

Speaker 9 they bought a really big lamb.

Speaker 9 And my last memory.

Speaker 9 I mean, I dug a hole so deep, I remember thinking,

Speaker 9 as am I heading to China? It was up to my chest. The hole was, I thought, there's no way I'm going to mess this up.
And so I dug this hole, huge hole, and built this massive fire.

Speaker 9 My last memory was the TV producer and director at 10 o'clock at night in the pouring rain abandoning me while I was holding this lamb wrapped in calco,

Speaker 9 you know, like a dead body.

Speaker 9 And that was the, that was the, that was my last, That was my last memory.

Speaker 1 Then you blacked out? I felt really abandoned. You woke up in the pit? You had to dig yourself out? The BBC had buried you?

Speaker 9 No pets.

Speaker 9 I mean, it was funny. You dig a massive hole.
I put lots of rocks inside the bottom. Yeah.

Speaker 9 And then built a ma when I say big fire, it was six foot wide, the pit, six foot long at least, and up to my chest, filled it with rocks, built a massive fire, got it going.

Speaker 9 It was pure embers, almost level to the ground and then i had to pull out with a spade on a on a shovel on a long stick a lot of the coals yeah and then i stuck inside uh the the lamb i had branches of rosemary and big bunches of garlic which i smashed up and then i wrapped it in calco which is a kind of canvasy white material and and i was i was worried it was going to burn so i wet it all wet the calco very important to wet it all and then i whacked in the lamb and then i pushed in all the embers over it.

Speaker 9 So I had a good,

Speaker 9 I suppose, a couple of feet of embers on top. And then I put the earth on top and it looked like I buried somebody.

Speaker 1 Now, Joe, yours didn't go as well as that, did it? Can you hit from Willie's description there? Can you work out what went wrong with yours?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I can, I was, yeah, but little, little bits and pieces were jumping out of me there. Do you want to tell Willie how you did it?

Speaker 1 Did you do the stage, Willie, where this was a stage that we added to your method as a slight improvement, where after you've lit the entire fire, you and your brother and your brother's mates

Speaker 1 basically just pour so much water on the fire that the fire just goes out. And therefore, when you bury the lamb, there's not actually any heat at all.

Speaker 1 Because that was a stage that we that was a stage that we did.

Speaker 9 Were you drinking?

Speaker 1 We weren't drinking. No, because he was hanging out with his mate's dad.
If they were responsible,

Speaker 9 I've realized you were younger.

Speaker 1 I was younger.

Speaker 1 How old were you?

Speaker 1 No, I'm 37 now, so I was 27.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. And just a quick reminder, how old was your best friend?

Speaker 1 He's about, he was in his into his 50s.

Speaker 1 But, you know,

Speaker 1 an absolute lad. I mean, that's not, you know,

Speaker 1 as much of a lad as I am. And we're talking.
Top lad. Top lad.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 yeah, it's interesting just hearing that description back, Woody, because actually I've already realised that I'd remembered quite a lot of details wrong from watching your programme.

Speaker 1 The main one actually was that I told all my friends that

Speaker 1 you put the fire out before you put the or you damped it down, whereas actually you

Speaker 1 wet the calico, was it calico?

Speaker 9 I wet the lamb because

Speaker 9 if you wet it,

Speaker 9 then

Speaker 9 the heat just gets transferred, doesn't burn, it just gets transferred.

Speaker 9 But once you've got it in the fire, you cover it with the embers, and then you very quickly cover it with earth, which puts the fire out. Yes, that's

Speaker 9 all the embers are

Speaker 1 all the heat. You've got the heat.
Yeah. So basically, Joe, just to recap, will he wet the lamb and you thought, oh, I should wet the fire.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 9 But if it makes you feel better. So the TV people came back and it was nighttime and dug up the lamb and it was perfectly cooked.
I remember.

Speaker 9 No, it was perfectly cooked. That was the pre-cooking.

Speaker 9 Actually, then they said, now we want you to do it on the front lawn.

Speaker 9 And on the front lawn, the hole was in beautiful black, loamy earth.

Speaker 9 And they got even a bigger lamb.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 9 There was a lamb out the back a couple of a week before the real lamb. And then on the night of the real lamb,

Speaker 1 you know, when we dug that hole, it didn't cook that well.

Speaker 9 A, because they bought such a big fucking lamb, and two,

Speaker 9 because that the soil was black and loamy. And whereas in the back garden, not in the front, it was really clay-like, which obviously the big fire had been helped by the clay holding the heat.

Speaker 1 Nice. Yeah.

Speaker 9 But I think a lot of it was the size of the lamb. So, but you know, TV.
So once they discovered it wasn't perfectly cooked, we whipped it out, we put it in the oven and cooked it.

Speaker 1 Oh, hold on a second. Hang on, hold on a second, Joe.
Yeah. The lamb that you saw on Willie's Perfect Chocolate Christmas was cooked in an oven in a kitchen.

Speaker 9 No past.

Speaker 1 I cannot believe that things I've seen on television are not completely true.

Speaker 1 I should know this. I mean,

Speaker 1 I have worked in television. Not recently, but

Speaker 1 no, you're doing a play recently. How did it go, by the way? Well, it got cancelled because of coronavirus.
Yes.

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I've been missing it everywhere. On me, on the street, on my pillow.

Speaker 8 It's a whole vibe. I'm obsessed with the Tarte Tarte Kindness Cafe collector set.
It's packed with everyday makeup must-haves, and it's honestly too cute to wrap.

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Speaker 1 The program is what we should dig into as well, because we asked Joe when Joe was on off-menu what Willie's Perfect Chocolate Christmas was.

Speaker 1 And considering it was a show that changed his life, he did not remember it very well or what happens in it.

Speaker 1 It was more like a sort of biblical vision, which I sort of vaguely remembered and then tried to transcribe down as much as I could afterwards. And did a terrible job, as we've established.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, Willie, what was the show Willie's Perfect Chocolate Christmas? Because, of course,

Speaker 1 it's a remiss of us to not also mention Andy Oliver, who we had on the show, who said that she knew knew you as well. And we had a chat about you on Andy Oliver's episode.

Speaker 1 So, can what happened in the show Willie's Perfect Chocolate Christmas? Because Lamb is not a part of a chocolate Christmas, as far as I can work out.

Speaker 9 Was it? I thought it was that. I don't think that was in The Perfect Chocolate Christmas.

Speaker 1 Oh, Joe. Was it?

Speaker 1 It's possible that that's not the name of the show as well. I should say.

Speaker 9 I think it was.

Speaker 9 I think it was Willie's Chocolate Revolution.

Speaker 9 So that was a lot. Come on, Joe.

Speaker 1 So many.

Speaker 1 Joe. Is your name Willie? Have I got that?

Speaker 1 I've got that.

Speaker 9 We did do the perfect chocolate Christmas, but I don't think, I think we did the lamb in Willie's chocolate revolution.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. I mean, it's becoming increasingly clear that I took almost nothing from this programme.
And I'm

Speaker 1 you've misremembered a lot, for sure. Yes.
Whilst we're here as well, it is Christmas, so I feel like we should get your dream Christmas meals from both of you.

Speaker 1 We'll go with Joe first, just because I feel like Willie puts a lot into his cooking and I feel like there's going to be a great, a great description coming up.

Speaker 1 But, Joe, I don't know what you're doing. Are you burying a turkey? What's going on? What's happening?

Speaker 1 I don't actually know where I'm going to be for Christmas because of all the sort of lockdown stuff and whether I'm going to be with my parents.

Speaker 1 I've been told that they are doing

Speaker 1 venison, which I've sort of against, really, but apparently because it's kind of of ethical, because like deers are cunts or something.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 That'll be it. That sounds right.
That sounds right. That worries me a bit because I think it throws the whole rest of the meal out of kilter.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 I can't really imagine having the have it happening.

Speaker 1 I can't really. I guess that means they won't be having the trimmings that would go with turkey, which seems like to some extent the best part of the meal.

Speaker 1 I assume they're not going to have the pigs in bacon because pigs in blankets, because that defeats the point of having the ethical venison.

Speaker 1 I'd imagine if you tried to make pigs in blankets, you'd misunderstand and actually put a pig in a blanket. Yeah,

Speaker 1 the driest blanket ever. I'd be like,

Speaker 1 they're called duvet pigs. You get.

Speaker 1 No, they are. They are.
I saw half a program once.

Speaker 1 So I suppose I'm quite.

Speaker 1 I mean, I do still eat meat. That's probably

Speaker 1 wrongly, but but um i am joe sorry yeah has anyone ever asked you this question before and have you been able to answer it because we asked you what you would like for christmas dinner and you're currently in an existential crisis wondering if you could even eat meat

Speaker 1 i can't believe i asked you first because i thought willie's answer would be longer no you well yeah how long have we got i mean i suppose i i i guess my it would be pretty much um i don't want to say bog standard because that doesn't seem very christian but i mean i just

Speaker 1 a bog standard Christian feast, please.

Speaker 1 A bog standard Christian feast. I do sometimes think that there is a tendency to overcook turkey.
That would be my sort of my after that turkey breast just seems dry as hell. And

Speaker 1 I would like to do a Christmas dinner this year and cook it myself. If I do a turkey myself, my main, I suppose my answer is a moist turkey.

Speaker 1 A moist turkey with all the traditional trimmings well we know i like my food moist because i pour water onto you like it's soaked and raw now willie you must be cooking christmas dinner right yeah yeah yeah i'm gonna just have it with my kids actually we're not moving anywhere oh lovely 80 year old parents so when they're everyone meets in wales normally but we're staying at devon do you know what you're gonna cook have you planned it out already Well, you know,

Speaker 9 traditional turkey, to be honest with you. You know, it's so big, the turkey, I will definitely be making molly poblano afterwards.
Yeah, so I'll do the traditional.

Speaker 9 And then moly poblano is a chocolate sauce. It's a very well-known Mexican dish.
And so I've actually got discs which I've made with all the ingredients, which I put into small stone mellingers.

Speaker 9 And so you literally do, you know, normally that takes a whole day to prepare. I'll just melt it in a cup with some hot water and a can of tomatoes and it's done.

Speaker 1 How are you going to make sure the turkey is moist? Little tip for Joe Tommy.

Speaker 9 God, if the fucking turkey isn't moist,

Speaker 9 I'll feed it to the ducks.

Speaker 9 Well, you know, it's very easy, to be honest with you.

Speaker 9 If you really, I mean, you calculate your pounds and your what's it, but to be really honest with you, you just really want a thermometer and you stick it up the arse of the turkey and you know how hot it is inside.

Speaker 9 That is the easiest way, you know.

Speaker 9 Once it reaches a certain temperature inside, you know it's cooked and take it out most people screw up their turkey they either don't have one of those gizmos or they're unlucky and it's just in there too long i have actually got a meat thermometer but i've only ever used it to take my own temperature which i did during um

Speaker 1 because you couldn't get a thermometer so i was like

Speaker 1 so what so in turn yeah in terms of covert are you are you looking to be below medium is that essentially the yeah i think you want um yeah yeah i guess you want blue don't you with with COVID?

Speaker 1 No, I think blue is dead, right? Oh, right. Yeah, you probably want media, medium, rare, and you don't have COVID.
The lamb I cooked didn't have COVID. That's that's

Speaker 1 that's that's more or less all that can be said in its favor. And what about desserts? Are you both traditional Christmas pud people?

Speaker 1 I love brandy butter, and just that's something that goes with brandy butter. And I think we've we've been through this that my favourite food is butter.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And Willie, what are we talking for pudding on Christmas? Chocolate cake?

Speaker 9 Because I've got my kids,

Speaker 9 they will go. I mean, you know, they're not all into eating everything.

Speaker 9 So you tend to slide the way what they all, they all like chocolate gooey puddings, to be honest with you, with their favorite jam. So everyone gets to have where they want strawberry jam.

Speaker 9 They take two seconds to make. My daughter loves making them, you know,

Speaker 9 and they're like little volcanoes as it's cooked. Up comes the jam and they smother it in cream.
And it's not too big after you've had all that.

Speaker 9 You know, it's like a little, it's a ramekin-size thing, isn't it? I've got a duck in the freezer as well, because my neighbor knocked on the door on Saturday and said, There's been an accident.

Speaker 1 Because I bought a couple, I bought four or five ducks

Speaker 1 locked down.

Speaker 9 It's been an accident. And I looked at him, and I was actually just about to have a nap.
So I was a bit kind of, I was literally going under.

Speaker 9 And I thought, fuck, what's he's going to say to me? And he said, I've killed, I've killed one of you, I've run over one of your ducks. And then he paused.
I thought he was joking.

Speaker 9 And then he paused and he said, and I've i've killed one of mine too and so i came out and there was carnage on the on the duck oh my god and and incredibly he had run over his duck and it was completely flat but he'd only run over the neck of mine so i said well hang on a second that's not an accident i i i can eat that so i picked up my duck and I plucked it and I've got it in the freezer.

Speaker 9 My kids love crispy duck with pancake. So that is, that is a boxing day.
That is what we're having.

Speaker 9 Now it's very difficult because the neighbours have only got one duck left because they were like pets. And they want me to have their duck.
And

Speaker 9 basically their duck's got bad habits, doesn't like to go to bed. So I said, look, I'm really sorry.

Speaker 1 I'll try it.

Speaker 9 I'll let their duck in my duck house. And then they didn't fucking go to bed every night.
And I said to the lady, she's very, they're a lovely family.

Speaker 9 I said, look, your duck's naughty and I can't have it sleeping with my ducks. And so, well, I said,

Speaker 9 so she said, well, what do you expect me to do? And she said, well, I can't have it. I'm really sorry.
Can I not sleep with you?

Speaker 9 Anyway, so that night she took it away. But I felt a bit bad because I wanted, she only had two ducks, and one was dead, and I wanted to be helpful.

Speaker 1 That sounds like they've accidentally run over your duck and then killed their own duck as a sort of penance. Yeah.

Speaker 9 I don't know. We've had some duck stuff going on because first, Mr.
Drake, Mr. Drake disappeared.
So I bought three females and a male.

Speaker 1 Hang on,

Speaker 1 is Mr. Drake a duck or is that someone else?

Speaker 9 Yeah, Indian runner duck. So we called him Mr.
Drake because he had a big neck. Mr.
Drake mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the day. And so then there were no Drake's.

Speaker 9 But then

Speaker 9 his offspring grew up. So then I had eight.
So I think there was a certain amount of,

Speaker 9 you know, I've now got too many ducks, perhaps, you know.

Speaker 9 But well, the numbers are going down because the neighbours are culling them.

Speaker 1 Yes, they're gradually running them over.

Speaker 1 When Joe was last on the podcast, he said on more than one occasion that he wanted to be you and he wanted to be Willie. Do you have any advice for Joe if he wants to?

Speaker 1 I mean, maybe you want to get a bit of a feel of what Joe's life is like now and then how he can change that to become more like you.

Speaker 9 Well, get a lawn with clay.

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 9 Buy some ducks

Speaker 9 and make sure you've got neighbours.

Speaker 1 At the moment, Joe, what's your setup like at the moment? Is it possible for you to buy ducks right now?

Speaker 1 They could live in the window boxes outside my flat, I suppose.

Speaker 1 I do have neighbours, but I don't think they're going to be able to run over the ducks, which seems to be an important part of the setup. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I suppose what's standing in the way of my dream of becoming Willie at the moment is I live in central London in a flat without any outside space.

Speaker 1 And I don't think I'm allowed pets,

Speaker 1 But other than that, it's fine.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 I'm getting there. Well, let's not draw a line under this then.
Your quest to become Willie is still there. We're going to put a pin in it.

Speaker 1 And then hopefully one day we can all meet up and bury a lamb in Soft Touch's back garden. Well, quite.
Yeah. So on that note, Merry Christmas, everyone.
I hope you're having a wonderful festive time.

Speaker 1 This has been absolutely brilliant fun. Anything else to say, James?

Speaker 1 I really liked watching you meet each other for the first time. Do you have any final words you'd like to say to each other? And maybe, Joe, you'd like to tell Willie how much he means to you?

Speaker 1 Willie, watching that programme really put me in mind of a potential future for me. And

Speaker 1 though our experiment in Soft Touches Backgarden completely failed,

Speaker 1 it was a beautiful dream. And also, I'm glad that you're a real person and not a figment of my imagination.

Speaker 1 That would be what I would say. And that must be reassuring, I hope.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I'm glad I'm real.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 What a treat this has been.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much to Joe and thank you so much to Willie. We hope you have a very Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas, everybody.

Speaker 1 Well, there we have it. I mean, I absolutely loved that, James.
It was, it was, it warmed the heart to see the two of them connecting over food and animals and crazy capers. I loved it, Ed.

Speaker 1 Not a lot of animals came out of that unscathed, though, did they? No, it was a massacre. And

Speaker 1 after the phone call, Willie told us that he likes to eat roadkill and recently got a deer off the side of the road and put it in his car and took it home and ate it. So

Speaker 1 it didn't stop there. It didn't stop after the record.
The carnage continued. Now, I know that we went into this knowing that Joe Thomas wanted to be Willie.
Having met Willie, I want to be Willie.

Speaker 1 He is living your life. He's, I mean, what we didn't get to talk about in the episode, behind him was loads of like pickled stuff.
He was pickling

Speaker 1 garlic, which goes down into this amazing kind of, what was he saying?

Speaker 1 Like a relish. He said it's like a relish.

Speaker 1 And he was surrounded by pumpkins, genuinely surrounded by pumpkins. He'd grown in his garden all through lockdown.
Yeah, he was living your life. What a guy.
And one day I will live that life.

Speaker 1 But for now, I will have to put up with living in London, not surrounded by pumpkins,

Speaker 1 and googling Willie's Chocolate and checking out willyscacao.com. And I think, as we all know, one day I will live Joe Thomas's life.
So, you know, it's all good.

Speaker 1 Indeed. Thank you very much, James.
Merry Christmas to you. Merry Christmas, Ed.
It's been a pleasure. I mean, thank you so much for doing this podcast with me this year, Ed.

Speaker 1 It's really, it's got me through.

Speaker 1 You're welcome, James. And if you're a good boy,

Speaker 1 it's been fine.

Speaker 1 If you're a good boy, I'll carry on doing it with you next next year. Oh, thank you so much.
And that will be good. That's your Christmas present.
I think it's the best Christmas present ever.

Speaker 1 You're welcome. Merry Christmas to you, Merry Christmas to the great Benito, and Merry Christmas to all the listeners out there.
Goodbye. Merry Christmas, everyone.
Goodbye.

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