Ep. 190. *2025 New Years Treat*

Hello and welcome to the Taskmaster podcast.

It's 2025, baby.

Yes, it's time to chat about the New Year's treats.

Always a delight.

Every year a new, I mean, I say bizarre lineup, you know what I mean.

Just people you never expect to see together in a television television studio or indeed in the Taskmaster house all come together to compete in the myriad of bizarre things that Greg has set for them.

Even though we know it's Alex really, but I'm just sticking to Kfabe, which is a wrestling term.

Oh dear, I'm a nerd.

Let's talk about this because we have got such a fantastic lineup.

We have David James, we have Melanie Blatt, we have Martin Lewis, we have Sue Johnston, and we have Hannah Fry.

What an incredible lineup.

Cannot wait to get into chatting about this.

I hope you've seen the episode.

If you haven't seen it, go to channel4.com to watch it now.

But look, we, of course, have one of the contestants from this year's lineup to chat about this episode and their experience on Taskmaster.

And I am delighted to say that we have the fantastic Melanie Blatt to talk to.

Cannot wait to talk to Melanie.

Never met her before.

She seemed like she had an absolute blast on Taskmaster.

So I think we should just get into it.

This is Taskmaster New Year's Treat 2025, as discussed by the brilliant Melanie Blatt.

Welcome, Mel, to the Taskmaster podcast.

Hello.

An absolute delight to have you here.

Of course, you were a contestant, competitor, gladiator on Taskmaster New Year's Treat.

And what a lineup it was.

Did you have a good time doing Taskmaster, Mel?

I had a blast.

I absolutely loved it.

I really didn't know much about the show.

I think I'd watch like one episode, but

I'd worked with Greg before and I knew he was a laugh.

So that was one of my reasons.

And then I just wanted to test myself, test my brain, see where it's at.

I failed.

Look, no, this is great because quite often we'll, you know, we'll have the winner on, but I'm very excited that we have the

bottom place contestant on.

This is great.

We can see it from a new perspective.

what what had you worked with greg on before uh never mind the bus cocks oh cool yeah yeah yeah and it was well the thing is it was the last it was the last show of this that the season or whatever when i did it and so they had a little rap party afterwards which i got extremely drunk at

hence why i know he's a laugh that's good yeah that's that's how you find out greg's a laugh at rap parties i can completely agree um now uh obviously not necessarily a fan of taskmaster before the show, or, you know, didn't know what was going to go on.

What was that experience like when you first arrived at the house and they started asking you to do these things?

Yeah, I was super nervous, super nervous.

I mean, the thing is that the thing I try and do the most in life, or I have done, is not lose my dignity too much.

Yeah.

You know, so I was like, well, this is it.

This is, it's going today.

And it did, it did, it did.

It went.

But I was just nervous.

But, you know, I am also competitive.

I wanted to do well.

But I like the idea of not knowing really how well you've done until months later almost you know yeah that's that's interesting that you enjoyed that feeling i mean i i did the show a few years ago now and that's the thing i struggled with most is doing something and being like i feel like that went well but you don't know until you get into the studio Yeah, I mean, yeah, but you can, you can lie to yourself and think that you've done really well.

Is that what you did?

I mean, I was like, how badly could I have done really?

I mean, I finished the tasks.

I did them.

There is a moment later on in the episode, which we will get to, where you did say in the studio, I thought I'd won that one.

I mean, well, the thing is, it's all relative as well.

That's also what I learned.

Like, I feel I've won more, I should have got more points

for the various challenges that I did.

Well, that's good.

This is what this podcast is all about.

This is your opportunity to, you know, right some wrongs that you feel like have been have been done unto you.

Now, the thing about Taskmaster is a lot of people say that it brings out the truest version of a person, like it exposes people's true personalities.

Did you find that?

Did you think you learned anything about yourself while you were doing the tasks?

No,

I'm pretty solid with who I am.

I know my weaknesses and my strengths and a lot of weaknesses.

So yeah, no, there was no surprises there.

I behaved pretty much how I knew I would.

What weaknesses did you know that you had going in that you felt like reared their head during the filming?

Like panic.

Yeah.

Just like not really thinking things through, just doing stuff and then regretting it later.

But yeah, I still enjoyed it.

I enjoyed it.

I feel like the panic, though, is very specific to Taskmaster.

Like even people who don't think they panic and, you know, always think things through.

As soon as you get in front of the cameras in the Taskmaster house, it just, something about the pressure makes you do silly things that you shouldn't have done.

Yeah.

I mean, and also I'm not sort of that.

Well,

actually, that's a lie.

I thought I was quite a good like problem solver, like,

but then when I saw how other people attempted like different, like the same challenge, I was like, oh no, I've got absolutely no clue on how to be alive, actually.

Had you met any of the other contestants before?

No.

No, I hadn't.

So it was a joy to meet.

I mean, Martin Lewis legend.

Right.

I mean, it's kind of incredible.

I think the new street does something which not many other lineup shows do, where it brings together celebrities and people from entertainment from so many different corners.

Because most of the time, if you're doing a line-up show, you will have met someone, at least someone else on the lineup before.

Well, it depends how show-busy you are.

You are obviously very show-busy.

Oh, I'm so sure-I don't know anyone.

I think you're probably more show-busy than me, secretly.

You've met way more famous people than I am.

All the celebrities I have known, probably dead now.

Well, not as many as Sue Johnston.

So we'll get to her prize.

She was amazing.

I loved her.

I mean, what a hero.

I mean,

to have Sue on the show and clearly,

you know, Sue doesn't need to do it.

None of you need to do it.

You're just there because it's fun.

And this is the joy.

Let's start talking about the episode then, Mel.

It's the prize task, the source of the greatest pride.

Now,

you have had a wonderful career, many, many hit singles,

yet you chose to bring in your MasterChef apron, the source of your greatest pride.

Is that true?

Do you hold MasterChef above all of the other things that you've done?

100%, yes.

Absolutely.

Well, the thing is, I'm obsessed.

I'm obsessed with cooking shows, celebrity chefs, like, and Master Chef, I've literally watched from the beginning.

Yeah.

So I was just like, even just be on the show would have been one of my proudest

things in life,

let alone come in the fight, like, you know, get to the final.

Yeah.

And just being in that environment and then having an apron, you know,

it was a big deal.

Like, I'm a TV addict and cooking shows, especially.

So that really was like a big deal.

Yeah, I mean, that is huge.

I mean, I was very impressed that you got to the final of Master Chef.

And you said in the studio in Taskmaster that you don't have a special, your speciality is everything.

Well, I mean, yeah.

I mean, look, I didn't really know what to say at the time, actually.

But obviously, I do things better than others.

But I just, I like, I like the challenge.

I like when someone, you know, just go what you fancy eating.

I fancy eating that.

Okay, let's get the recipe.

Let's go.

Let's try it.

So I like to do that.

But I do like making tacos.

actually.

Tacos.

Yeah, that's good.

Yeah.

What would you, what are you putting in the tacos?

What's the, what's the male tacos?

Well, I've got this thing called,

my friends call it male's cracked chicken because you want a lot of it all the time

so my cracked chicken tacos basically nice that sounds fantastic um we should talk about what the other contestants brought in david james brought in a painting that he did of alex in front of the taskmaster house now um it blew my mind who well i didn't know he was

me neither me neither i mean incredible i was so impressed when that when that came up on the screen are you thinking uh-oh someone someone's really brought the thunder here?

Yes.

Definitely.

Oh, I've lost already.

Okay.

I've lost just even in the prizes bit.

Is that when competitive males

started to come alive there?

Yes, yes.

Slowly trying to keep a brave face, dying inside.

It is that thing, though, because I was so surprised by how good it was.

Quite often, like people from different walks of entertainment or sport or, you know, anywhere in the celebrity realm will say, I'm an artist now.

I've been painting.

And you think, yeah, what's happened is you've got a little bit too much time on your hands now.

You don't have to do anything else.

You're trying to fill your time.

Oh, it's going to be rubbish, especially a footballer with big hands.

And there it was.

It was a thing of beauty.

So impressive.

So impressive.

I thought David James as well, when

sports people are on things, sometimes you think.

They've been so dedicated to sport, they've not necessarily sharpened up their

skills in anything else.

But he was so funny.

I mean, and we should have guessed by his dungarees as well.

That was a giveaway.

Very minion-coded, I thought, his outfit.

But yeah, he looked great in a pair of dungarees.

And I texted Alex last night.

I watched this episode last night and texted him saying,

How exciting was it for you to meet David James?

Because Alex is a big Liverpool fan.

Oh, no way.

Okay.

And he said it was great.

He loves David James.

And now Alex has the painting.

Alex has the painting at home.

Good, good, which is

so nice.

That is a very nice thing for him.

Martin Lewis, of course, the money-saving expert, who I think in this episode absolutely hit every single thing that I thought Martin Lewis would be like.

He lives this stuff.

He brought in a House of Games Richard Osmond deck chair,

which look, have you done House of Games, Mel?

No.

This feels like the next step for you.

I think House of Games next because if you want to get competitive, if you want to throw down.

Well, if I want to keep losing

House of Games, basically.

Okay.

I might try something easy that I might actually maybe come third in.

But the deck chair is one of the prizes you can win.

There's many prizes you can win on House of Games.

I've got a Richard Osmond dull back there somewhere.

But my favorite bit about this was Alex trying to get Martin on the T's and C's, trying to catch him out on the T's and C's, and Martin slammed him.

Yeah,

don't mess with Martin.

He knows everything.

Yeah.

He reads it all.

He does.

He reads all the T's and C's.

He's the only person in the country to fully read the T's and C's.

He's got really good eyesight as well.

Really tiny, tiny round.

So you were excited to meet Martin Lewis, I gather.

Yeah.

Big fan, big fan of the money-saving tips.

Do you?

I mean,

he's just a joy and he's so helpful.

I love it.

He's just helping the world, isn't he?

He is.

I love it.

Thank you, Martin.

Thank you, Martin.

And I really feel like he's doing it because he wants to help as well.

This is not Martin just trying to get a show on TV.

This is Martin genuinely

helping people stay.

I feel like if he wasn't on TV, he would be doing it in his, like, down the like in his for his neighbours.

Oh, for sure.

For sure.

He's doing it for all his neighbours just to get his steps in.

He'd be going around to everyone's house.

Sue Johnston, another total legend, very excited that Sue was on the show.

Sort of halfway through announcing her prize, realizes it's slightly too serious for a show.

A photo of her mum,

deceased, as she says, her friend deceased, and Paul McCartney.

Very heartwarming.

But, you know, I've seen a lot of Taskmaster Mel.

I've never heard the word deceased so much in a prize task.

It was a somber moment there for a minute.

But you know what?

She's such a beautiful, genuine, lovely person.

She actually brought in something that actually, you know, had a lot of emotion attached to it and was like an actual, really, a real prize possession.

It really was.

And I felt it.

I felt how important that photo was.

She put her all into it.

I mean, you know, two people in that photo deceased.

Fingers crossed for Paul McCartney into the new year.

Yeah.

Otherwise, you know, if I was Sue, I'd be feeling guilty that I'd done it.

He seems to be on good form now.

He's just done the the O2.

Yeah.

I think, because Greg scored this highly, Greg gave this five points and said that he had to score it highly because it was such a heartwarming thing with such a story attached to it.

I think in a series with comedians, he would have scored this low to get on their nerves.

Right, yes.

You can't score Sue low anyway, just because she's Sue.

Yeah, she's a national treasure.

You can't score a low for whatever she brings in.

And Hannah Fry, of course, the professor.

So lovely again amazing lady yeah so brilliant so intelligent really funny and yeah this this i think is a very very clever taskmaster prize the lions overex did she what did she oh yes it was the lion's ovary with the following clever

stop being so clever you know you're clever you know you're clever you have to be clever all the time

but she's really thought about this i think you know i think clearly a taskmaster fan from from this prize because it's you know she's thought outside the box the source of the greatest pride it's it's bursting with eggs yeah bursting with pride eggs bursting with eggs um

see i didn't understand the prize clearly um

do you think that was real do you think she she located a real lion's ovary to bring in i don't know i lost interest because it was just too much

I wasn't listening after a while.

I was just like, okay.

Is that what you were like in science at school?

That's when I realized what I was going to do on this show.

Zoning out halfway through.

Boring science.

But very, very impressive.

A very good range of prize tasks there.

Martin gets the one point, I think, because of some sort of rivalry between, you know, the House of Games and Taskmaster.

Yes.

Greg made it clear it wasn't supposed to be a beef with Osman,

but yes, he gets the one point.

You get the two points, Mel.

How are you feeling about that?

Is this one of of the ones you think should have been scored higher?

Not necessarily.

Well, I didn't use my brain for a start to think of something clever.

And I knew nobody was going to believe me.

That was my greatest source of pride.

I mean, I wasn't going to bring my daughter in.

So what am I doing?

You can't risk that.

You can't.

I don't want to lose her.

You can't bring your daughter in when you know how you've done in the film tasks as well.

So yeah, a bit of a risk.

Then a jump up to four points, which is even more gutting for you.

Someone didn't even get the three points.

You got the two.

Hannah gets the four for the Lions ovary.

And David and Sue both get the five points, which are the two most earnest prizes.

I'll agree with that.

I'll agree with them two getting the big points.

You know, I agree with David.

I think Sue could have had a couple of points knocked off, to be honest, but I didn't know.

In a very harsh way to start 2025.

Martin, what did you bring in?

So what I thought, I love games.

That's one of the the reasons I'm here.

I absolutely love and adore games, and I was privileged to be on what I had thought until now was one of the best game shows on television, House of Games.

I brought in one of the prizes, which is the House of Games Richard Osman Face Deck Chair.

There we go.

Of course,

I am aware.

I am aware.

Do you ever go into theatres and shout Macbeth as well?

I am aware that I am risking this prize.

So I'm putting that up in return for hopefully getting a better prize, which would be winning Taskmaster.

There is also a slight small print issue with this.

If you win a BBC quiz show, you're not allowed to give that prize to it's illegal.

Is it genuinely illegal?

Actually, interestingly, though, because I gave away prizes in a charity auction, I had written permission to do it in advance to give away my prizes because I read the terms and conditions.

I didn't know.

Wow.

Who would have thought that the king of the nerds would be open outed?

Thank you, Mark.

Let's talk about task one.

Don as many gloves as possible.

You have five minutes.

Your time starts now.

But on the back of the task, it says, this is not the task.

The actual task is behind the hand.

And it says, remove all your gloves and put them back in the glove box.

You may not put the glasses down.

Fastest wins.

For every gram of sand spilled, a second will be added to your time.

Your time starts now.

This felt like a very cruel task, mel

i mean

yes this is again a realization of what was to come but i really would i just i really enjoyed like making a mistake like it just made me laugh i just thought it was hilarious i was like oh i i can see where this is going like the whole day where it was kind of

was this the first task that you filmed on the day No, we did like a testy one first.

Oh, just like the like the words.

I did really badly on that slide.

What was it?

I can't even remember what it was now.

He says a word, I say a word.

Oh, it's got to start with the last letter of gotcha.

Okay, anyway, I repeated the word like instantly.

Um, but yeah, so, but so this was this was my proper first word, and like

just

when I saw again, I was like, I don't feel I took that long to do it all.

And maybe I lost quite a bit of time with the sand that I dropped.

I think the sand was this.

I was putting all the gloves, the gloves, gloves, I was doing well there.

And obviously didn't read the back of the card.

But then I thought, okay, but then when I saw you didn't even have to put the gloves on and you could just stuff them in,

I was like, oh, brains.

That's what happens when you have brains.

No, but I think I understand it, especially if it's your first task of the day and you've seen one episode of Taskmaster beforehand.

You're not thinking, oh, I need to think outside the box.

I need to try and sort of, you know, get around things.

And you do just, you know, you've got to put the gloves on.

So that's what you do.

I mean, and also, can I just stipulate it as well?

I did watch one episode, but I was on my phone at the same time.

So I wasn't really looking.

I wasn't really looking.

I think you were destined to come bottom mail.

That's brilliant.

And you're wearing so many rings.

You've got to take all the rings off as well.

And, you know, you put all the gloves on.

And then even on the way to the next task,

you drop, you dropped all the sand.

You hadn't even read the next task and you spilled all the sand before you got there.

Correct.

So it was a huge amount of time added.

Your total time was 10 minutes, six seconds.

And we do have to mention this, Mel.

I'm so sorry.

How long did you spend trying to open the case?

Oh,

about

a good 15 to 20 minutes.

That wasn't the task.

As you were trying to do that, were you thinking, oh, this is part of it.

It must be part of it.

Yes.

I was hoping that it was.

You didn't put all the gloves back in, which was the actual task.

I mean, it was a disaster all round.

I didn't even realize I didn't do that.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, frankly, Mel, you could have been disqualified.

You got.

Oh, yeah.

Well, there you go.

You got a pity point for the New Year's treat, which is fine, I think.

I did.

I think just for turning up.

Yeah, get a point for turning up.

Martin, of course, does pretty well.

Of course, he does.

Realises he, you know, he doesn't have to put them in his hands.

He's stuffing them down his trousers.

How did you feel about that?

Do you think he donned them when he started stuffing them all over his body?

You see, I don't register that as donning.

No, me neither.

I don't think so.

Donning is putting on.

Yes.

You don't

David, David put them on his ears, which I think counts as donning.

That's on.

Yeah.

That is on.

But I don't think

stuffing down the crotch is donning.

I agree.

I agree.

Disqualification.

Should we do this?

Should we do this again?

Let's go back to the studio.

Let's start again.

And you can come and be the judge.

I'll come and be the taskmaster.

I'm sure Greg.

Come Come with the facts.

Come with the facts.

To be fair, that wasn't the task.

So I don't think you can disqualify him.

Remember, it wasn't the task metal.

Even now, you don't realize.

Yeah, David puts them on his ears, takes them off, but he does spill a lot.

He spills 473 grams.

Now, Hannah has an absolute disaster here.

I think Greg's right in that her name in the scientific community is going to be mud.

Finds the second part of the task first, saying remove all the gloves and put them back in the box, but still puts the gloves on because she thinks she's supposed to, and then struggles to take them off and spills some sand.

Does very well, one minute 46, but that's taskmaster brain mel.

That's even finding the second part of that task and carrying on with the first part, even though it's not relevant.

I mean, I imagine.

I think, you know, you do lose your mind, though, when you're in these rooms.

Like, you don't, you're not thinking like, you know, it's like with anything, you know, you watch on the TV, you're like, oh, why didn't you do do that?

Why didn't you, you know, I would do that.

And when you're there, it's a different story.

There's something about that room in particular as well, the lab, the completely white room with plastic all over the walls that is quite spooky.

Very murdery.

Very murdery.

And Alex is very murdery as well.

So, well, I think that's also throws you as well.

Just him in the corner watching you.

It's like, what is going on?

Did you find him?

Did you find him quite creepy?

Yes.

Sue looks at the back of the task, which is something that Martin knew he had to do.

He was given advice to look at the back of the task and he didn't do it.

So Sue knows.

Sue is the only one to find out that's not the actual task, but takes all the gloves out of the box, looking for the other task, says bugger multiple times and worries that she can't say it, but then remembers it's channel four.

And only spills 34 grams of sand.

She finds the task eventually.

Total time, two minutes, 39.

I thought great performance from both Hannah and Sue in terms of getting the points in there.

But you know what?

I enjoyed watching you have fun the most, Mel.

Thanks, Pete.

That's exactly what people say to people.

They're not quite there, are they?

They're not all there, should I say.

As long as you had a nice time, Mel.

There you go.

There you go.

That's what I say to myself.

Hannah gets the five points.

Sue gets the four points.

Martin gets the three points.

Two points for David and one point for you Mel so

for turning up exactly

this is not the task

I'm thinking that like actually because that's bigger than my actual hand

aha

okay I found part two

all right just gonna put some gloves on

This is not the task.

So these.

Oh, God, must be a task.

So you've discovered the second half of the task.

And still put these on.

Yeah, I did do that, didn't I?

Bugger.

Sorry, I shouldn't have said Bugger.

It's channel four.

But it must have something to do with this thing.

Oh, for God's sake.

Yep, that's your time up.

So Hannah, I'm going to give you these to hold.

Thank you so much.

Remove all your gloves and put them back in the glove box.

You may not put the glasses down.

You should have read that better, shouldn't I?

Your time's out.

Now.

Oh, fuck her, fuck her.

Oh, sorry, sorry.

It's fine, you've come before.

That's good.

It's better, isn't it?

Yeah, it's a shame you took all the gloves out.

Oh, no!

They're in.

Stop!

Shall I stop the clock?

Shut up the box.

Shall I stop the clock?

Yeah.

Stop the clock.

Task two.

Do something you regret.

Biggest regret wins.

You have 20 minutes.

Your time starts now.

This is a good task.

I'm surprised I've never done this.

I thought I won that one.

I was convinced I'd won it actually.

So obviously what you do is you get Alex to close his eyes and then you kiss him for, may I say, quite a long time.

Well, the regret had to be real.

If it was a peg, I wouldn't have regretted it so much.

It would have been a quick regret.

It had to be a true, real regret.

I thought it was fantastic.

And I think Greg's issue with it was that he says that you didn't regret it.

Well, I looked happy, but what I mean, I don't know if it made it into this onto the actual show, because I didn't quite think of it straight away, which was the reason why I was smiling so much.

Because I thought I'd won.

I thought there's no one going to do anything more regrettable than that.

So I was like, regret.

Not like, oh, I haven't really regretted it because I really enjoyed it.

Yeah.

How do you think

Alex felt with you just being like, of course I regretted it.

Look what I did.

Used.

Like he'd used me in the entire day.

That's fine.

Yeah, exactly.

He needs to get a taste of his own medicine now and again, doesn't he?

But Alex's face after you kissed him and then him saying he didn't regret it was

an absolute picture.

I loved it.

Initially, you thought you'd go and do a shot of tequila.

That was your first thought.

Yeah, but I didn't want to vomit on the telly.

You did something even worse.

You kissed Alex Horn.

Worse than vomiting.

You didn't go and do a quick shot of tequila off-camera to give yourself the boost before you kissed Alex Horn.

Well, I mean, then it would definitely be more regretful for him because I would have had a vomit.

He would have got a vomit kiss.

That's not so nice.

Poor Alex.

The biggest regret you could possibly have was kissing Alex.

You say a shot of tequila.

Hannah thinks about having a shot of toilet water.

I'm glad she didn't do that, to be honest.

I think

that would have been absolutely awful um instead she gets alex's leftover birthday cake from the fridge covers it in hot sauce and radishes and makes her and alex eat it i think the the worst thing about this is finding out he was taking it home for his kids

but you see that's not a real that's not the her that's not why she would have regretted it so that disqualified as a regrettable

so you're disqualifying anna from this task completely yeah great this is good this is an insight into what you would do if you were Taskmaster, Mal.

And disqualified Anna.

Well, only if I was part of the competition.

I might see it differently if I wasn't.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I think that this is a good new format point.

We get one of the contestants to also be Taskmaster.

The loser.

The loser, yeah.

The person doing worst gets the rule on what happens.

Yeah, I think, yeah, only in the studio she found out he was taking it home for his kids.

I think if she knew that in the house and still did that, I think that would be the biggest regret for me.

Yes.

I think it was pretty stunning.

Martin, now, for anyone else, this would not be a regret, but you can see it in his eyes.

He took his fitness tracker off and ignored the fact that he was doing steps and they weren't counted.

Could you see how much he cares about this, Mel?

I mean, yes.

I still don't.

I'm not having that is his biggest like regret.

I mean, he could, he could just like do extra laps when he got home or, you know, 20 minutes of walk.

I mean, I, because he would have thought about that for a while first.

I don't know how much time had gone by while he was thinking about doing that.

So, whatever the amount of steps he did, it's not enough to sort of, you know,

I see what you mean, but I do know I had heard before about this step thing with Martin.

So, I do know this is something he really cares about.

He was very convincing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think he genuinely minimum of 25,000 steps a day, which is mad.

If I get over 8,000, I am delighted and slapping myself on the back and I'm having a takeaway.

Yeah.

Well,

I am a big believer of a 289-step day.

I fluctuate.

I can't do a lot.

And then I don't do any.

Yes.

I think if you do a lot one day, I think you deserve to have a 289-step day the next day.

The worst are hangover days when you look at your phone at the end of the day and you've done seven steps.

Those are the worst.

Oh, no, because it's more than seven steps to get my takeaway

from the front door.

I just set up my bed next to the front door so I can just open the door.

It's impressive.

Yeah, it's impressive.

Yeah, he measures his heart rate, exercise, food, sleep.

It's all part of his personality.

I mean, it doesn't sound like a life to me, but all power to Martin.

I think I'd be panicking all of the time if that's what I decided to do.

Uh, but yes, he uh he takes his fitness tracker off, and I think within Martin's world, I think that genuinely seems like a regret.

So, good job to Martin.

Now, we should talk about this stuffed bird, the egret, of course.

I only realized maybe about five minutes afterwards why there was an egret there.

Um, oh, yeah, I just realized

there we go.

That is amazing.

That's what I lost.

David tells a very weird anecdote about having a stuffed puffing

given to him by Herman Horierson.

And then his biggest regret is smashing the hell out of the egret, ripping the head off,

bashing it all up.

How did you feel about this one, Mel?

He was lying.

That's not true.

He did not regret that.

He seemed to enjoy it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It just sort of went, he probably just did it and then went, oh, that's a good regret.

He probably just did it anyway, just for fun.

He just did it for a love.

Yeah, he loves smashing up stuffed birds.

Yes, I agree with you, actually.

I think he enjoyed it.

Who doesn't love smashing something up, you know?

Well, it wasn't his.

Yeah.

So why is he regretting it?

Yeah.

You can't regret that.

Yeah, he tried to be convincing and say that he regretted it, but he definitely didn't.

I think Greg absolutely had him nailed on that one.

Sue comes in and says she's done things she's regretted before, but they're too personal, mostly to do with sex.

I mean, that's the autobiography we're all looking forward to.

Sue Johnston's sex book.

Now,

this is amazing because she genuinely seems vulnerable about this, about showing her feet on television.

She was very brave.

She was very brave, right?

And shows it to the egret and calls it Eric, which I think is a way of calming her down and making it not seem like she's putting them on TV.

She seems genuinely embarrassed.

To me, the shot we got the feet,

normal feet.

I don't think they were weird feet in any way.

Do you know what?

It's weird.

I went through years and years of hating feet.

I'm okay with them now.

You hated anyone's feet, not yours.

The feet or the feet of the world.

Just hate this just disgusting.

Feet, yuck.

But now I'm all right with feet.

So now it's like, it was just a foot.

It wasn't like she didn't have like extra toes or like, yeah.

So

it was a foot, but I get it.

I understand.

Like, there's no part of my body that I would have shown on television

for regret.

Like, yeah.

I think, yeah, I think she did a really good job because you could see she was genuinely embarrassed by her feet.

And I think her feet don't need to be beautiful, do they?

What sort of society we're living in?

As long as they carry you places, that's the job, right?

Listen, yes.

There's only two of them, and you can stand on him.

You're all right.

Yeah, I should be happy with them.

Yes.

I mean, it was sort of

feet are weird things anyway.

They are.

If you think about them too much, they're odd.

You know, some people hate them, some people are okay with them, and some people like them far too much.

Yes.

At least

Sue can, you know, take solace in the fact that there was definitely at least 20 people in the world watching that and really enjoying seeing her feet.

Yes, yes.

Lucky them.

I don't know if Quentin Tarantino's a Taskmaster fan, but I'm sure he'd be happy to cast Sue in his next feature film.

So it was one point for David, two points for you again, Mel.

The two points and the one point is very much where you've taken up residence.

Three points for Hannah, four points for Martin, and five points for Sue, of course, because she was genuinely horrified by that.

She could just bend down slightly.

Bend down slightly?

Yeah.

Okay.

Those rise.

Done.

Well, there's real mixed messages there now.

I regret that instantly.

I don't.

Task three.

Try to get the most water from the bucket to the bottle using only the contents of one of these bins.

You may open one bin every minute, and you must use the contents of the bin you open last.

You may not touch the bucket or move the bottle.

Most water in the bottle after five minutes wins.

Your time starts now.

Did you enjoy this one, Mel?

I don't know if the word enjoy comes to mind.

I mean,

I was happy with my

tactic of

just get the most time.

So, what I was planning, whatever the first bin that I opened, I was just going to do it with that.

Oh, that's good.

That's good.

Because I wanted the most time.

Yeah.

So, I was happy that I went that way.

And luckily, I got the big straw thing.

Yes.

And I knew there was a way to do this that I'd seen

somewhere

on the telly somewhere, but I didn't exactly know what that was.

So I knew there was a sucking and a thingy

technique.

Didn't quite get the hang of it.

But luckily for me, due to Hannah's cheating,

I think, did I win this one?

Yes, you did.

You did win this one.

Yes.

That was like, that was enough for me.

I beat Hannah at something kind of vaguely scientific.

Yes.

I mean,

I think it's one of those things, isn't it?

siphoning.

Does it count as siphoning, I think?

You know, making gravity carry liquid from one thing to another.

It's one of those things that we all know there's something you can do, but I don't think many people actually know what it is or what you'd have to do.

Because you, Hannah, and Sue all get the pipe.

You get the pipe on the first go, which is, yeah, obviously very lucky because you were going to use whatever.

But how were you doing it?

You were sort of...

sucking in the water, then carrying the pipe over with some water in it and then letting it go in.

Did you try multiple ways?

No, that was just my

thing was just to get as get as much into the into the tube as possible Then bring it over there put that end of the tube in and just sort of lift so it would fall out.

But then obviously it was a very windy tube.

I wasn't really blowing the tube.

So I mean, it was it was

it was exhausting actually.

It was exhausting.

And then when I only got like half the thing, I was like, oh, I haven't done very well.

But

there you go.

This is the thing about Taskmaster, as long as you complete the task, you know, there's a chance you might win because everyone else might mess up.

So you did the exact right thing.

And 480 milliliters, you can't argue with that.

You still got some water in there.

There was some in there.

And it was enough.

You got the five points.

Hannah was trying to be fancy.

I think she was trying to show off her science.

She was doing a grand piping idea.

And it was impressive when we saw it.

Initially, you could see all the water using gravity.

And she's saying, isn't gravity a wonderful thing?

Like she's doing a video for schools.

And then the edit shows that she knocked over the bottle two or three times.

She was touching it all of the time.

She didn't seem to realize she'd messed up either.

Well,

I was about to say, because she kept very quiet on the first show of that VT.

She didn't say a word, did she?

She was there.

She knew what had really happened.

So I think we have to question her morals, actually.

Yeah, I think we should, actually.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think so.

This is the last time I believe scientists.

You know, I stuck with him through COVID, Mel, but now, absolutely not.

If there's another pandemic, I'm not believing him.

Sue cleverly ignores the spoon.

She knows that it's a bad idea.

She then gets the pipe.

Did we ever think we'd see Sue Johnston trying to suck water through and then just gobbing it into a bottle?

Did we ever think that she is a dignified national treasure?

She's a real one.

That's what she is.

She's a real one.

She is.

But I think, you know, you can use your hands with the object.

So why can't you use your mouth with the object?

Maybe getting as much water into your mouth and just spitting it in would have been a good system overall.

I mean, listen, that's why the show is so interesting.

That's how the human, different humans work differently and see things so differently.

I would not even have thought about doing that.

It didn't even cross my mind.

But then also, remember, forefront of your mind was keep your dignity.

So maybe

sucking up those.

that that was out the window by that time there was just sucking and blowing on television

and you'd already kissed alex for ages as well so dignity was gone not gone martin was an interesting one because he got a ramekin which you would have thought would be quite good

decides to not use it and then he goes for the gloves which seemed like a terrible idea to me Yeah, again, interesting, isn't it?

Yeah.

He's a money, like, you know, the money guy.

He's got a brain.

He reads really tiny writing.

Yet uses a glove to move water around.

I don't know.

He's a money guy,

not a glove or water guy.

But he gets 412 steps.

So I think he's happy with whatever points he gets.

David, I mean, he gets this massively wrong, sees the gloves, picks them up, as you do if you're a goalie,

uses them straight away.

And then thinks he can use something else.

But he's completely messed that up.

And then picks up the table and moves it over to the bucket.

Yeah, he'd lost his mind at that point.

I think he had.

And tries to claim, you can hear him telling himself as he goes back to the dressing room, you didn't move the bottle, you moved the table, you didn't move the bottle, like he's practicing.

I know, he was convincing the wrong person.

He was convincing himself.

He does it with two and a half minutes to spare.

Of course he does because he's cheated.

Yeah.

And

I'm very glad that Greg did not give him that.

He should have had minus points, actually.

Yeah, that's for you too.

If you you were in charge in this new scenario, minus points for David, would it?

Definitely.

Damn right.

I agree with you.

But he gets naught points, to be fair, as Hannah does, naught points.

Three points for Martin, four points for Sue.

And there we are.

Finally, Mel, the big five points for you.

You must have been delighted.

I was.

I was.

But it was, it was, it really wasn't because of my amazing brain and skills.

It was because somebody else cheated.

So it was still a little bit of like a kick in the dip, but it was fine.

I'll take, I'll take those points.

I'll take them.

But you still would have got four points, I think.

So, you know,

it was a very good showing.

Okay, true, true, true.

Thanks for that.

Yeah, yeah.

Thanks.

If Hannah had been allowed, if they'd also allowed David, you would have got three points.

But let's not hang around on that.

What have you found?

Small ice cup.

It does not look an efficient transportation method for me.

The ramekin's been discarded.

This one.

Okay.

Well, I've got a minute, so I might as well.

So wait, so oh, so you're only using gloves?

Oh, shit.

This was a bad move, wasn't it?

You may look at another bin.

Well, that's much better.

That should soak up the water.

This was a really bad move, wasn't it?

Okay, that's really tough to get in.

I would have been better with the ramekin.

And he definitely said no touching the bottle.

No touching or moving the bucket or bottle.

Oh, the ramekin would have been so good.

I think I might do this.

You're losing so much each time you go through it.

I can see that.

Right, well, you've got time to spare.

You've got enough minutes to go away if you want, David.

Cup of coffee.

Coffee, right.

That one almost missed entirely.

It's not empty.

Their armor can have been so much better.

I haven't moved the bottle.

I only moved the table.

Can I just say that got me 412 steps?

Thanks.

Live task.

Draw the most accurate picture of the contents of the box.

If you answer Greg's question correctly, you may look at the box for 0.1 seconds.

If you answer Greg's question incorrectly, you must start your picture again.

You may only answer Greg's question if you are the first to shout your surname.

You have 20 seconds after Greg runs out of questions.

This was a fun task.

The main thing I want to talk to you about is the fact Sue could not answer the questions quick enough to get a look at what was going on.

And you

got in there before her so many times, even when the atmosphere was, Mel's had a lot of looks at that.

She's seen that many, many times.

And we should probably give Sue a go there.

You were not having it, were you?

Excuse me, I had no points at this point.

I was trying to like that last little bit.

Come on.

And it's not my fault.

I know the answers to things.

You did very well.

You got

until you flew too close to the sun.

And towards the end, question nine out of 11, you answered something wrongly and had your drawing torn up.

So you didn't have long to

gutted.

How was the drawing looking up until that point?

I had so much in there.

Yeah.

Colors, like everything.

And obviously, I had, I was pretty much staring at it at this point.

But yeah, absolutely gutted.

And I was just trying to remember what I'd

drawn, and I couldn't.

Yeah, I mean, I, you know, my memory is not good.

It's not, I mean, there's not much going on up there anyway.

The memory's gone.

Come on, you're a pop star in the 90s.

No one expects you to remember.

No one expects you to be able to remember things.

No.

It was that last one, though.

Because I was thinking, Mel, please don't go for it again.

You know what's in there by now.

I think you were just doing what I would do, which is basically competing in a quiz and forgetting that there was another bit to it.

Correct.

That's exactly how I was going.

I just like saying black, black.

It's just like, yeah, I'd lost my mind at that point.

And it's such a good surname to shout out over and over again, as well, isn't it?

It is quite.

That's all it's good for.

Sue finally gets one.

The final question.

She gets one right.

So she only has 20 seconds to draw it.

She's been drawing Greg anyway the whole time because she's just bored.

She knows she's not going to get an answer over blat being shouted at top volume.

So she does her best.

And of course, in the box is

a lady boxer wearing goggles standing on a microwave with a chicken next to her.

I specified the gender of the boxer simply because Martin draws...

a very beefy man which i mean he's had a look at it he could he could see what's going on there um But I thought yours was quite good, Mel.

You got the tats in, at least.

And different coloureds.

I used different colours.

You spent a long time on the tats.

I think that's where I've got a little bit wrong.

But Sue gets the one point.

Of course, she does.

She's only had 20 seconds after a 0.1 second look to do it.

Two points for you, which, you know, I feel like the tats, you should have got an extra point for the tats, really.

I agree.

Because even Martin got more points than you.

He got three points and he drew a big beefy man.

There There you go.

Hannah gets the four points.

She does, yeah, it does pretty well at this, I have to say.

And of course, it's an art task.

David's obviously going to get the five points.

But he actually didn't really have much

of what was in the box.

He didn't get the chicken.

He had the page.

He just drew it well.

Yeah,

he drew the boxer well.

He didn't have the chicken in there.

He had a disco ball instead of a chicken, as if you can, you know, when was the the last time you saw a chicken and thought it was a disco ball?

Funny you say that.

Yeah.

He did draw the boxer very well.

So I can see why he got high marks, but maybe not the full five points for me.

But it doesn't matter anyway, because this is only one episode.

There is no opportunity to redeem yourselves at all.

The final scores.

It's bottom place for you, Mel, with a respectable 12 points, I think.

Is that a respectable number?

I don't know.

Compared to others, others, what's the what is the David got 13, so he only beat you by one.

Martin got 14, so you only got two less than

Martin, the money-saving expert.

Hannah gets 16 points, and Sue is the winner with 19 points.

God bless her.

We're all happy for Sue, aren't we?

Even if we're competitive.

She is one of the nicest people I've ever met.

Well, look at that.

She deserved to win.

So happy for her to win.

Yeah, happy for Sue to win.

Mel, thank you so much for coming on the taskmaster podcast we've loved chatting to you um and we always ask our guests to rate their experience on the podcast and indeed as you you only did one episode of taskmaster rate your experience on taskmaster between one and five points in the style of the taskmaster please mel well what is the style of the taskmaster what well the scoring system the scoring system or you can do an impression of greg if you want to give that a go I'm just going to score it five.

Okay, cool.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's perfect.

That's how I'm going to score it.

I I don't know what that is, but the title, how he would say it.

Oh, I'm so sorry that this podcast isn't video or visualized because Mel's body positioning for Greg there was absolutely brilliant.

You can imagine.

Thank you very much.

We hope you have a fantastic new year and 2025.

Anything we should look out for in 2025 from the Mel Black World?

Hopefully, yes.

I'm not talking about it.

Okay.

Just keep an eye out.

Keep an eye out for stuff coming up from Mel.

Yes.

Thank you so much, Mel.

Thank you, darling.

Lovely to talk to you.

You too.

Thank you so much to Mel for coming on the show.

What a delight.

She seemed like she had such a good time.

Bottom place, of course, but that does not matter.

It is all about the experience when it comes to the New Year's treat.

Of course, it matters in the main series.

If you don't win, you are a fool.

Apart from Champion of Champions, where it's dignified to lose.

Thank you so much to Mel for coming on.

She's got plenty coming up in 2025.

We're not allowed to talk about it, but keep an eye out.

And thank you to all of the brilliant contestants.

Not that I had anything to do with the main show, but you're all great.

Thanks.

And thank you to you for listening.

We will see you again down the road.

I mean, who knows what this next episode of this podcast is going to be.

We're talking about so many iterations of Taskmaster.

Quite frankly, if they keep making it, I think I'm going to have an aneurysm.

Have a lovely 2025.

We will see you soon.

Bye-bye.