EP.216 - JOE LYCETT

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin.

Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening.

I took my microphone and found some human folk.

Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke.

My name is Ad Buxton, I'm a man.

I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan.

Hey,

how you doing listeners?

It's Adam Buxton here, reporting to you from a non-clement farm track in Norfolk, UK, east of England, towards the beginning of December 2023.

Weather-wise, it's disgusting out here.

No disrespect to the mighty weather gods

Why would I disrespect them?

I don't want to get in a fight with the weather gods.

Weather gods saying, look, we were at COP24.

Don't put this all on us.

All right, weather gods.

I was just having a moan.

But it is too cold for dog legs.

I'll tell you that much.

She's back at home

on the sofa.

Nice and warm.

Thank you.

Actually, it's not even as bad as it was yesterday.

Over the last few days.

It's been in the minuses.

It's a cold snap.

Just at this moment, it's not raining, but it has been raining relentlessly, so it's just as cold as the rain can possibly get before turning into sleet or snow, plus wind.

Oh, okay, here's the rain.

Started now.

How are you doing, though, listeners?

I went in hard with the weather chat this morning.

I hope you're doing all right.

Not too stressed out.

I'm alright.

Got the tree yesterday.

Keeping it minimal decoration-wise this year.

Just the red cherry lights and the white fairy lights.

It used to be that my wife and whichever children were interested would festoon the tree with bore balls.

But last year they said, No, let's keep it minimal.

Don't know if they just couldn't be bothered or what.

Anyway, now

it's uh minimal the way I like it.

but there is a bit of me that

is a little sad that they're not so excited to festoon the tree with bore balls.

Oh, it's so cold.

All right, come on.

Let's jazz this intro up.

Right now, let me tell you a bit about podcast number 216,

which features a rambling conversation with British comedian, presenter, artist, political mischief maker, and returning friend of the podcast, Joe Lysett.

Lysett, Facts!

Joe Harry Lysett was born in 1988 in Hall Green, Birmingham.

He attended the University of Manchester, where he studied English and drama.

Joe began doing stand-up around about 2009.

but within a year was enjoying the delicious taste of the sweet biscuit of success.

Having won a raft of prestigious awards, For Joe, the next decade passed in a blur of appearances on bigger and bigger TV shows.

You know the ones live at the Apollo, the Taskmaster, the Nevermind the Buzzcocks, the 8 out of 10 cats, the QI, in between stand-up tours in larger and larger venues.

This is a very broad strokes bio here.

By the end of the 2010s, Joe was living the UK comedian's dream, having landed regular hosting jobs on TV shows The Great British Sewing Bee, being announced as Richard Iawade's successor on comedy travel show Travel Man,

and being given his own Channel 4 show, Joe Lysett's Got Your Back, in which he and co-presenters Mark Silcox, Sophie Duca and Rosie Jones investigated consumer issues raised by viewers and set out to resolve them with the aid of humour and pranks.

Oh, the wind is bitey.

The show, Joe Lysit's Got Your Back, which ran for three series, was, according to Joe, intended to be a sexy watchdog, like Rosie.

And it gave Joe an opportunity to express his talent for a kind of mischievous comedic activism that in recent years has become more central to his output.

On the 4th of September 2022, Joe was invited to be a panelist on the very first of a new BBC One current affairs programme, Sunday with Laura Kunsberg.

As well as Joe, politician Liz Truss was appearing on the programme.

She won the Conservative leadership election the next day.

But Laura Kunsberg and fellow panelists were surprised when Joe declared himself not only, quote, very right-wing, but also a big fan of Liz Truss.

The programme caused consternation among some higher-ups at the BBC who felt that having a guest saying the opposite of what they meant on a serious political program

constituted a debacle of the highest order.

A few months later, Joe was in the news again, this time for pretending to shred £10,000

in protest over David Beckham's lucrative deal to promote the World Cup in Qatar, despite that country's oppressive position on LGBTQ rights.

In fact, Joe had not shredded the money.

If you want the inside story on the whole David Beckham money shredding protest, I would recommend listening to Richard Herring's podcast where he talks to Joe, which came out earlier this year, 2023.

Anyway, Joe had not shredded the money.

He instead donated the full sum to LGBTQ plus charities.

According to the Sky News website, both Lysett's original money shredding stunt and his admission that the whole thing was a hoax divided opinion, with some labeling him attention-seeking, while others hailed him as a hero.

2023 saw the debut on Channel 4 of Joe's new comedy chat show, Late Night Lysett.

The shows featured an artfully chaotic mix of celebrity guests, games, and prank/slash sketch pieces, all broadcast live from a Birmingham Canalside studio decorated with Joe's trademark colourful flamboyance.

It's an aesthetic that I would characterize as part David Hockney and part five-year-old child's drawing.

My conversation with Joe was recorded at the beginning of November of this year, and we talked about, among other things, Joe's pranktivism,

whether X, formerly known as Twitter, is a real place, whether the BBC would get Thanos from Avengers Infinity War War on for the sake of balance.

Joe told me about the brief police investigation into one of his tasteless jokes.

We spoke about Werner Herzog's views on therapy.

And we talked about Joe's evolution as a fine artist.

Have you seen his art?

That's fine.

I'm joking.

He is one of the finest of the artists.

But we began by talking about why I took a break from the podcast in the first half of this year and how Joe is going to help take my live shows to the next level.

I'll be back at the end for a bit more waffle, but right now with Joe Lysett.

Here we go.

hope to find your talking hat.

I notice you've not been putting out episodes as frequently recently.

I took a break earlier this year for the first half of the year, hoping that I would make some headway with another book.

Ah.

And also an album, my first album of musical songs.

Oh, wow.

I have made some headway with the album.

It's nearly there.

Oh, great.

That's not to say it's going to be out anytime soon.

No.

But it's very nearly there after quite a long period of agonising over what should be in it and what kind of thing it should be.

I I do think this is a problem of work generated by

you as a solo individual.

I take sort of sporadic bits of time out here and there over the year most of the time and I think to myself, oh, I've got a week there.

By the end of that week I'll have a full novel, seven scripts of short films, 18 paintings and

a BAFTA.

And by the end of it I've had a lot of really nice lingering boozy lunches and naps.

And I don't produce because there's no deadline and none of it matters ultimately.

But that is the joy of it and also the peril of it.

What are some of your greatest unproduced masterpieces, concepts, ideas for shows, artworks, etc.?

The Adam Buxton O2 podcast for start.

Remind us how that works.

So, you know, following in the footsteps of the great podcasters like Chris Ramsey and his wife.

Which one do they do?

They do ask, shag, marry, kill, avoid, shag and kill.

I think they shag and kill each other each episode, I think is what happens.

And then they shagged and killed each other live on stage.

Yeah,

I think at the O2 or at Wembley.

And then Josh and Rob did their

parenting hell podcast live on stage as well.

Big venues?

Arenas.

Then there's the.

They changed the game.

I'm trying to remember what they're called now.

They keep talking about how they keep changing the game.

And I always think, I can't keep track of the game.

Have a word pod.

Yes, former guest, Michelle DeSwart.

Oh, of course.

Michelle, yes, yes.

Have a word podcast.

And I did listen to it, and I thought to myself, I don't think this is my speed.

I feel like I'm too old and not sufficiently manly.

Yeah, I would agree with that analysis, actually,

on both of those fronts.

Anyway, so podcasts have arena previous.

Yeah.

But you are one of the OGs, I would say.

You might be the goat.

Are you the goat?

Oh, yeah.

Well, let's say yes.

I mean, the goat, I think you're going to have to say it's.

That guy's not the best.

I'm so sorry.

That's.

I just had a lunch.

Is that your bowls?

I actually do sound like that when I'm...

Doing my fast.

Yeah, mine do as well.

They go on for ages.

I have to wait for my wife to get out of bed in the morning.

And when she goes through into the bathroom, I lie on my front, and that's what it sounds like.

I'd like to rub your belly while that's happening and feel like I'm part of it.

Anytime.

Yeah.

Let me know.

Let me know.

I'll pop around.

So the podcast, the Adam Buxton

O2 podcast, which I came up with when I think we were together doing Travel Man, maybe.

Yeah.

And it stuck with me, and I still believe is the perfect way of doing your podcast within a live environment is that you go into

via some sort of underground tunnel or something.

So you don't interact at any point with

your audience.

You don't see anyone.

But essentially, once you're in the booth, which I imagine to be in the middle of the O2 and lit incredibly well.

So it's in the round.

Yeah.

But it's so soundproof, you don't hear the 15,000 people of the O2 applauding and excited and all that.

I think maybe, well, you should have a guest because you have a guest every time, but I think there should be an O2.

Rosie's there.

Rosie's there.

Yeah, you walk Rosie up there.

She doesn't know what's going on.

She does a shit in the corner of the glass box.

There's a thought.

So it's glass, so people can see through.

See, in my head, it was filmed, but actually, I hadn't thought.

It's like a two-way glass, so you can't see out.

They can see out, they can see in what about that yeah yeah perfect great i think you'd enjoy it but it definitely doesn't fit with

your vibe to do an arena it feels very commercial and very um

uh successful in a way that you refuse to accept

refuse to countenance it would be a different level of energy obviously

and but that's why i think it would be very cool it would be a very cool way to do do it where you accept your

the success of this podcast is the opposite of that.

I mean, there's a bigness to it, but it's not

the have a word pod.

No,

I feel leaning into that, but within a big space.

So you're acknowledging the success of the thing and the fact that you are the goat,

but doing it in a way that maintains the smallness of this and the intimacy of this could be very interesting.

So that's a project I really want to go for.

And then you could do it.

And then, what about any of your other projects?

Are there things, though, have you shown that?

It's not time to think about anything but the box, but the box.

Did you ever start writing a film or anything like that?

Yeah, so I'm currently in pre-production for my next short film, which we're going to film in a few weeks, actually.

It's all,

it takes ages to get to the point of pre-production, and then once you're in, you're kind of going for it.

And it's the most involved I've done, but they've not previous ones haven't been that involved, they've been sort of two location-based, whereas this one's just a few more locations and involves a bit more kind of camera work and

a bit more logistics of how things will actually work on shoot days.

Just have to be a bit more efficient about things.

But I'm really enjoying that, and I'm trying to do one short a year to build up my skill in

that field.

How long is the short film going to be?

Last one was eight minutes.

I think this one will probably end up more in the 15 region.

But yeah, we're talking.

The thing is that all films should be that length.

Anything over 90 minutes, I think.

What are you doing?

I agree with you and I want to find those people and make them stop.

Just the idea of anything over two hours is so.

How have we got here?

How is that the standard now that every Hollywood film is that long?

Well, I mean, I'm going to blame the internet, internet first of all in streaming terms longer is better because it keeps people on the platform

on the platform yeah

in cinema terms it used to be the opposite like you would want a short film because you could play that 12 times 12 times in a night yeah in a day and then now you got you know if you've got a the new martin scorsese joint you're lucky if you can play that once a day yeah people come back and watch part two tomorrow cause what is it like uh nearly four hours?

The new Martin Scorsese?

I think so.

It's definitely over three, isn't it?

Yeah.

And I'm sure, you know, I'm sure it's Triff,

but

I bet you there's a few bits that could come out.

Honey P.

Yeah.

I feel like that.

I saw Jerusalem in the West End.

I can't remember which theatre it was.

This is the play, the live play.

The play, and it's in three acts, and there's two intervals.

There's like a kind of mini interval.

And I watched it, and I loved it.

And it was, the performances were brilliant and i get why people said this is excellent but i watched it and i thought i could have edited that i could i could have put you don't need that second mini interval i could have done it for you it wouldn't have taken me long yeah

there's a few things in there i just think that's exposition that doesn't need to be there we don't need to know that about that character

do you think that there is anything that they're trying to do with the length that affects the kind of mood of the audience.

Is there some way in which the director is deliberately trying to induce an altered state that you might call boredom?

They must have justified it to themselves.

Like, I remember going to see that Quentin Tarantino double bill.

What was it called?

Grindhouse

and Death Something Death.

And it was like his tribute to the Grindhouse sort of horror genre.

And in the second one, Death Proof, I think it was called, and it was about like the first hour at least was they were just in a calf, in a roadside calf, having a chat somewhere out in America.

And then it turns into a big long car chase for the last section of the film.

You know, this is after you've watched a whole other film that is part of this bigger creation that you know that the whole thing is supposed to be watched as a package.

A film, then some made-up trailers, then another film.

And the whole first hour of the second film that you're watching is just in the calf.

And I was so bored.

I was dying.

I was in pain.

Then you start this car chase thing.

And the car chase is suddenly incredibly exciting.

Yeah.

Because the contrast to the state you've been in for the previous hour, at least,

is so extreme.

I was just just kind of jangling.

It was like I'd just been shot full of adrenaline.

That's interesting.

So, you think that it might be a deliberate?

Well, he's a film geek, isn't he?

So,

there's a lot of hidden references and pastiches of things.

I believe so.

And I

admire that because I would never do that in anything I do.

I deliberately try and not watch stand-up when I'm coming up with new stand-up because I'm scared of the influence of other things.

Really?

So

film is the same.

I could sit and watch film.

You should watch Dave Gorman.

He's really good.

He does a lot of the same things that you do.

That's what people say to me.

They say, oh, yeah, you do that presentation.

You should watch Dave Gorman.

He's got a laptop.

Yeah.

I'm sure he does lots of things that I do, probably a lot better, but that's why I don't want to watch him.

Yeah, he's legit an influence of mine, actually, because I watched some of his stuff when I was at uni's.

No, every time I have accidentally strayed across his stuff, it's made me angry because I thought, ah, bugger, he's doing what I do, but way better.

No, no, no, no.

He's doing it differently.

Yeah.

I'm doing it better than both of you.

At least from a commercial perspective.

But

what neither of us are doing, actually, I can't speak for Dave Gorman, but what I'm not doing is raising £50,000 for the homeless, which you've just been doing the last couple of days.

Right?

It sounds so

like you're uh noel edmonds yeah he's not see a good example of someone who raises money i mean i'll take it i'm the new noel edmonds fine lovely um no you're the new um

i'm also sure that dave gorman's raised a lot of money for charity i'm sure he has i said you know i can't speak for i'm sure you have we're all very charitable we're all very charitable very nice people yeah yeah that is more and i realized it today when i was searching my own name on google where i thought actually this has become a vanity project now.

So, explain what has happened.

We are talking.

Today is Tuesday, the 7th of November, 2023.

Suella Braverman, who is currently the Home Secretary, is I've not met her and I don't know everything about her, but my prediction is not a good person.

And she said in a tweet, supposedly it's the King's speech today.

I don't know if it went into the King's speech.

Supposedly, it was going to go into it about how one of the things they're going to crack down on is the scourge of homelessness and people sleeping in tents.

They're not fussed about people outside of tents, that's fine.

But people putting tents up on roadsides sort of looks bad or whatever, so they want to get rid of them.

And she described homelessness as a lifestyle choice.

That is her exact words, lifestyle choice.

But I did think that a lifestyle choice was things like...

I suspect you might be wearing them.

What is it that you're wearing?

It's a short of some sort?

Is it a.

It's like a hiking short?

Yeah, that's a lifestyle choice.

North face, that is.

A North Face hiking short is a lifestyle choice.

Yes.

We're both dripping with lifestyle choices.

I've got a jumper on of my own artwork.

Yeah, it's good, man.

I'm also...

I like your hair lifestyle choice.

I've got my hair bleach blonde as an experiment.

It's good, man.

It's a lifestyle choice.

Love it.

And I also said, I'm looking now, my eyes are darting around the room to see if you've got anything.

I don't think you do.

Potpourri,

I thought, was a lifestyle choice.

I have some potpourri.

Do you?

I have some.

Well, it's kind of like potpourri.

It's this incredibly pungent stuff that we got in Morocco.

Ah, yeah.

And it's you can sort of give it a sniff and it clears out all the sinuses and all the passages in about two seconds.

Well, I'll have a little go on that, maybe post-record.

Or maybe during record if you think it'll be a good listen.

So what I said was, I feel like potpourri is a lifestyle choice.

Let's see if this bowl of potpourri, a picture of this bowl of potpourri that I found on Google, which I posted to Instagram with, you kind of link it to a fundraising thing, can raise 50 grand for crisis.

And

it did it in three days, which it has, and I think we're now up to 60 grand.

Which I thought was really ambitious, but let's have a go and to do it in three days has been very exciting, but also shows I think the sentiment at least from my followers and the people that kind of are in my sphere how they feel about that sort of thing so metropolitan elite the metropolitan media um

uh powerful elite yeah but yes i was drunk on a train and came up with that idea

with my friend Lucy and we sort of came up with what's the most sort of lifestyle choicey thing and we were thrashing out different lifestyle choices and we were talking about it.

And potpourri was the thing we landed on as

the thing.

And then, obviously, once you drop something like that, then a bit of ego clicks in, and you go, well, if we don't raise 50 grand, I look like a prick now.

Yeah, then you have to start supplementing it from your income.

Yeah, and I was donating

something you want to do.

Well, exactly.

And I have spent far too much on these homeless pricks.

So I did start to get a little bit invested personally as me, as a human, and thinking.

So

it became less about my

what I care about in terms of homelessness or whatever, and more about protecting my own ego, which I think happens a lot when you, you know, charity sort of stuff, that's, I think, very common across any sort of charitable thing, is that there's a little bit of, is it fully altruistic or is there sort of a sense of being seen to do the right thing?

Sure, but I think at the end of the day.

I toy with this a lot anyway, anyway, because I sort of think I get a lot of praise off the back of loads of things that I do like that.

Yeah, all your virtue signaling.

All my virtue signaling work.

And I do go, Am I just doing it for that?

And actually, if I could get away with not doing that, I don't know.

I'm interested in that as motivation, I suppose.

And then I noticed a comment on your Instagram page.

in amongst all the people congratulating you and saying how what a nice guy I am yeah saying you're a pm all that stuff yeah yeah when are you gonna run for office

Another comment that said, please speak out about Palestine, Joe.

Yeah, yeah.

There's a lot of that.

Obviously, listeners, in case there's anyone daft listening, I don't suppose there is, I don't think I have any daft listeners.

Obviously, I'm not laughing in any way at anything to do with the situation in the Middle East.

But I suppose I'm laughing at the idea that anyone would think it was a good idea to just...

I tell you what would be great is to add another opinion to all the incredibly helpful opinions there are swimming around on social media when it comes to the middle east and ideally tack it onto a post about a bowl of potpourri yeah that's the best platform for that i would say i was watching a youtube essay yesterday

and the person on there was talking about when dave chappelle said

I don't give a fuck about Twitter because Twitter isn't a real place.

He was talking about the criticism criticism that he got after one of his

specials.

And he said,

yeah, I don't care what people are saying on Twitter because Twitter's not a real place.

And this person in the YouTube essay I was watching, she was outraged by it.

I haven't really thought through what I'm trying to say to you at this point.

I've just realized, as I was speaking, this is only a half-formed thought.

But I thought I'd float it and see where it went.

We might jump off the thought quite soon because it's sinking.

But I'm excited.

A bit horny.

Yeah.

So you're sat on the side of the thought and you're kind of surreptitiously nudging your trousers down.

Meanwhile,

I'm standing on the edge of the thought and I'm a bit pissed and I'm going, all right.

So I was watching this YouTube essay

and she was saying

that she was outraged by the idea that Chappelle could be so entitled and privileged as to suggest that Twitter was not a real place.

She said, I understand what he means,

but like it or not, it is a real place.

And social media is where the bulk of important public discourse takes place nowadays.

It's the town square.

It's the town square.

Well, she was all, it was slightly confusing, the YouTube essay I found.

Maybe I was a little worse for wear, but

I've never had any sort of edifying conversation in a town square.

Do you know?

We had a good conversation in Prague town square.

Wasn't edifying.

Okay.

Anyway, I just thought, I don't buy the idea that

all important

dialogue now takes place in social media and that it's become a valuable I mean, you know, she had a lot of criticisms about social media herself, but she was sort of saying, whether you like it or not, this is where all important conversations happen.

I mean, I don't think that's supported by the actual numbers at this point, anyway.

Like, the majority of people are not on Twitter X.

Yeah.

X formally Twitter is what we have to call it now.

How long is that going to go on for?

Oh, God.

Yeah.

So, how are you feeling on my half-formed conversational iceberg?

I think I generally agree with you.

I think that the problem with social media is that the numbers start to skew your perception of the thing and you can start to see a retweet as a form of endorsement, which it so often isn't.

And I think a lot of conversations happen outside of it that have influence.

And I imagine for a lot of the discussions going on in very high profile, very high-powered things as well, that Twitter is, you know,

who cares?

You know, that Suella's probably not making her policy decisions by, you know, testing them on X.

I think she probably has decided that she's doing it well before it's then announced on X amongst high-powered people within the cabinet, whatever.

So I think I agree.

I suppose you could argue that social media plays a large part in setting an agenda, at least for the kind of conversations that people are having.

But yeah, I really doubt that the useful part of the conversation is happening on social media.

It just seems evident that it isn't because

it's so counterproductive.

It's so, it's, I'm trying to avoid using the word toxic, but I mean, is it's binary in such an unhelpful way.

If you, in any way, start wavering from

one point of view that seems to be the right one on a subject and going, yeah, but then it's like, oh my god, you're equivocating, you're worse than the people on the other side.

You know what I mean?

Like, I don't see it as a binary, actually.

I sort of see it as a polyerry, whatever that is, because essentially all opinions are there, particularly on big issues.

If you scroll through, there'll be someone saying they're pro-it, they're anti-it, and then there'll be someone saying the question shouldn't even be asked, and then there's someone saying I'm somewhere in the middle, and everything in between.

So I say all this having not been on social media since the beginning of 2020, so I can stick it right up my stupid middle-aged ass.

Yeah, exactly.

And you're pushing the conversation with your GOAT, very successful

podcast,

which has nothing to do with social media.

So I am inclined to feel that it is part of the discourse, but

it's very much not the discourse.

It plays a role and it definitely pushes stuff up.

I mean, I'm interested to know how you know about the Potpourri thing.

I suppose you did research on me before I got here, but the Potpourri thing was entirely social media driven.

Yeah, I wouldn't have known about that, but I did put your name into Google and that's the first thing that came up.

And I thought, oh, blimey.

He's always doing something.

Yeah.

But that's the thing.

It was one post, drunkenly on a train that has now spiraled into something.

So it often is that.

You know, it's just something.

that's one silly idea that suddenly spirals and people get behind.

It's great, man.

And I think that it's really good that you remain engaged in that way and that you're not ground down by

some of the problems with it and some of the complicated responses to it.

Your heart is always in the right place, as far as I can see, and you're not someone who is trying to score points with people that don't agree with you in that way, which is one of the things that I do see happening on social media.

I mean, I am scoring points.

I mean,

I try and be diplomatic about a lot of it, but I've lost and entirely lost patience with the government and don't respect them and want reared.

I don't know what my ideal alternative looks like.

I have absolutely no idea actually.

But

the government, in a way that I refrained for my entire career talking about politics and telling people how to vote, whatever, I'm really struggling to not constantly tell people we've got to get rid of these inept, callous people.

But

I think we should keep them for the sake of balance.

Yeah.

I'm pushing back against Joe.

I think they're doing a terrific job.

I was talking about this yesterday: that the BBC balance thing, when you, if you actually implement that, they should have someone pro the death of children on children in need.

And I would happily do that.

I might pitch that to the BBC, say,

I feel this is an unbalanced

I've contacted Ofcom,

and actually, nobody's talking about the value of the death of children.

Oh my God.

There's probably some people who think that.

Well, there are.

Of course, there are.

Because there's people that think all things.

All sorts of things.

But that's where the balance thing goes wrong, isn't it?

Because Emily Maitlis put this a lot more astutely than I could ever, but it's an illusion of balance and it's an illusion of seeing a cross-section of viewpoints because most

people agree that killing kids or kids dying is a bad thing.

Yeah, I mean, that's a very extreme example.

And of course, I mean, I think we can agree, most human beings

who aren't committed to nihilism

can agree that it is a bad thing and that there's nothing really to be gained from entertaining the alternative.

No.

But obviously, most political conversations aren't like that.

And there are elements of value to opposing points of view on most things.

I remember having a conversation with an old school friend actually of mine, and we were talking about cancer, and we were talking about curing of cancer.

And I just took it as a given that that would be a good thing if we cured cancer.

I think it's probably

I didn't even think about it.

And he then presented the problems that that would create if you start to have the uh a vast amount of people surviving beyond when they have thus far and the pressures that were put elsewhere.

And he was a bit more nuanced about he said, obviously the suffering of cancer is a terrible thing, but if people live forever, that creates all sorts of problems.

And

I then started to go, oh God, like it's everything's so complicated when you really kind of there's no the good and bad is really hard to nail down ultimately.

But that's a bit

in a bit of a spiral of going like, maybe we should all just have cancer.

I don't know how to say that.

That's like Thanos in Avengers Infinity War.

He's the big baddie.

And

once he assembles his Infinity Stones and makes the special glove, have you seen the film?

No.

Well, the next time.

He wants really grown up and

it's dealing with some pretty heavy themes.

He gets his glove.

The magic glove.

He gets his magic glove.

And he clicks his fingers, and half the

people

in the world, maybe it's even half the living creatures, it might even include all the animals and stuff, vanish.

And so, obviously, everyone's against Thanos because they don't want half the living creatures in the universe to vanish.

But Thanos says, actually, guys, the reason I'm doing it is because ultimately it's going to be good for everybody.

Because we're going to have more resources.

At the moment, there's too many living creatures.

And it's a little bit like your mate mate saying, People are living too long.

Yeah, sure.

I mean, it does become complicated.

If you click your fingers and get rid of half the living creatures in the universe, then yes, there is more space to go around, and you can pay yourself more wages, and there's more mangoes and all that kind of thing.

But on the downside, you just got rid of half the living creatures in the world that everyone cares about.

Also, in the modern world, if Thanos was to get their glove together, then

it would be a disaster, not least because we rely on each other so much.

You know, it's a weird thing that in a world where we are increasingly separated from each other by technology and we are very individualistic in lots of ways, actually we are reliant on each other more than we ever have been for services and

for all the technology that needs to be maintained.

Is this all sex?

Is that how you refer to it?

For services and technology that needs to be maintained

yeah for my special rub downs yeah yeah with the magic glove with the magic glove when

to be careful when he's losing the magic glove that's a different magic taking another half of the population out when he assembles the sexy stones that's for friday nights but yeah it's a big philosophical conversation yeah

But I think on the whole, what are you going to do?

It's a bit bleak to just say, nah, let's not treat cancer anymore let's not look into any let's just let nature take its course i mean i suppose there are but i don't think that's what my friend was saying i think my friend was saying it's not as simple as it would be good to cure cancer i think he was saying what does that actually mean and have we thought that through and what

how would that look could we sustain that and would that cause other problems elsewhere

Okay, he wasn't like, no, I don't donate to stand up for cancer because I think exactly, yeah, no, it wasn't that.

It was more, I don't know, just presenting the alternative

as a thought experiment.

Yes,

and I suppose we were talking about the idea of balance and BBC balance.

We were.

And that we're not on the BBC currently, so we can talk about that.

But I wouldn't want to see on the BBC a big discussion about how bad it would be to cure cancer because it's a niche bit of philosophical conversation, essentially.

And I think what can happen at the BBC is, and I think they're getting a lot better at it, but I I think why they've lost people like Emily Maitlis and a lot of the journalists is that they spend a lot of time

seeing the other side needlessly

when having that conversation which we had in a wine bar that could have just happened in a wine bar and not on Newsnight, essentially.

They should just get Thanos on.

Or get Thanos on.

If Thanos was just hired by the BBC, he could deal with all of that stuff.

And then everyone would see his big, ridged, purple face and go, ah, that's just Thanos, though.

That's classic Thanos.

All right.

Loose ends, do we have any loose ends to tie up from that first convo chunk?

Fucking how.

I don't, I mean, yeah.

We're halfway through the podcast.

I think it's going really great.

The conversation's flowing like it would between a geezer and his mate.

Alright, mate.

Hello, geezer.

I'm pleased to see you.

Ooh, there's so much chemistry.

It's like a science lab of talking.

I'm interested in what you said.

Thank you.

There's fun chat and there's deep chat.

It's like Chris Evans is meeting Stephen Hawking.

I was going to ask you, what was the donkey joke?

The donkey joke.

Oh!

So this was the gag that was in my stand-up show that inspired a short police investigation when a police officer, an off-duty police officer, came to the show in Belfast, saw this, and then basically said that I'd committed a crime.

I'm going to see if I can find it.

I'm sure I've got it here.

The premise is, and I do think it's the funniest thing I've produced, it's a visual gag in which I talk about how I'm camp, but I've always been camp since I was a little boy.

And I found this old footage of me as a little boy, and I'm very camp in it, and and I wanted to show that to the audience.

But unfortunately, I'm naked in it, and I'm about, I know, five or six.

And I asked a lawyer if it was possible to show this footage to an audience, and they said that it was not possible because you can't show a child's penis in your show.

And I said, but it's my penis, and I don't mind.

And they said, it doesn't matter, you just can't show it.

And so I said, can you show an adult's penis?

And he said, yes.

So I paid an animator to put a

pixelated giant adult penis onto my child's body.

And this is the resulting footage, which

I'd be interested to know how you feel about it.

So yes, I don't know what age I am there, but.

So this is young Joe dancing around in the front room, wearing a little pair of red pants, and then he pulls his pants down.

And there's a huge grey ball hanger there.

Is that your mum sitting on the sofa?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So he's sort of dancing around innocently with his great big knob swinging around.

Yeah.

And so the cop said, actually, I think that's illegal.

Yes.

So what happened is I found that obviously very funny.

And they said, oh, we need to see, we're going to come to the show tonight.

I had a show, it wasn't in Petal Fast, it was in Derry.

And they said, oh, we're going to come to the show in Dairy.

And I said, oh, great, can I film you watching the footage?

And they went quiet.

And then they said, Oh, no, if you could just send us the footage, we'll just go over it internally.

So I sat over lunch

in Belfast waiting for this, I think it was a detective to go through it.

And he eventually came back and said that no crime had been committed.

And

have a good day, essentially.

By the way, I didn't ever speak to a lawyer about this, and I'm fairly sure it would have been fine.

Okay.

So it's a construct in order to.

I just had, I thought it would be funny to put, I can't remember why

it came into my head, but I just thought it'd be funny to put an adult's penis onto my child's body.

I just thought that would be funny.

Well, you're cancelled.

Yeah, there it is.

I've just had a text from Alan Davies because before I saw you, I was with Alan Davies, went for lunch.

It's a very sort of show-busy day for me, actually.

I love it.

And I had four glasses of Sanser, and he had four glasses of Prosecco.

And he's just messaged me to say, not sure how you managed to do Adam Button's thing.

I'm feeling responsible.

Good to see you.

He's drunk out of his mind.

Adam Button.

Adam Button.

Right, let's go again.

What don't you fucking understand?

Kick your fucking ass.

Let's go again.

What the fuck is it with you?

I want you off the fucking set, you prick.

No!

You're a nice guy!

What the fuck are you doing?

No!

Don't shut me up!

No!

No!

Ah, da-da-da-da, like this!

No!

No!

Don't shut me up!

Like this!

Fuck's sake, man, you're amateur.

Seriously, man, you and me, we're fucking done professionally.

I've been immersing myself in the world of Werner Herzog recently.

Yeah.

Because I started reading his book, his memoir, Every Man for Himself and God Against All,

it's called.

You did a very good impression of him.

It's not that hard to do a Werner Herzog impression.

You just have to.

You thought you go all raspy and then you do an Arnold Schwarzenegger impression.

I'll be back.

Anyway, it turns out that I kind of am fascinated by Werner Herzog.

He was always a figure that was floating around in the periphery of my, you know, cinematic vision but yeah I don't think I'd ever actually seen no I've seen a few of his documentaries I saw Grizzlyman and the volcano one and I see I think I saw one many many years ago and I know when you do the voice it's very recognizable to me and I've definitely seen some stuff and I sort of see him as a sort of

para not parallel but in a similar category as Adam Curtis something like that sort of very autered documentarian but I couldn't tell you I haven't seen Grizzly Man, so I couldn't tell you what entirely he does.

But he just seems like a cool guy.

He's a very interesting guy and you know, magnetic, I suppose, because he's got this quite strong personality.

He's now in his 80s, he was a darling of the German film scene in the 70s of new German cinema.

He made a few films with Kinski, Aguire,

Wrath of God,

and Wojciech and Nosferatu.

I have seen something.

I just don't know what I've seen.

Cobra Verde.

And he's done lots of really interesting documentaries.

Famously, he got shot during an interview with Mark Comode out in Los Angeles.

Someone was using an air rifle and an air rifle pellet hit him in the stomach.

Wow.

And he said, it's not significant.

Mark Comode is going, oh my god, someone shot you.

We've got to take you to hospital.

No, it's not significant.

Because

do you want to phone the police and then spend the rest of the night in the police station filling out forms?

I don't want that.

So I think we should ignore it.

Anyway, one of the things, one of the interesting things that Werner Herzog talks about in his book is his disdain for therapy.

Psychoanalysis, in his opinion, is responsible for most of the bad things in the 20th century.

Wow.

Most evil century, according to Werner.

But obviously, that is so counter to, I think, the modern conversation about mental health and the prevalence of people being comfortable with the idea of therapy and things like that.

When did he say that?

He thought.

I think he's always said it, but he restated it as part of this autobiography.

And his line on it is that he says, if the rooms of the mind are overlit, I'm obviously paraphrasing here, then they become uninhabitable.

I.e., it's not good to be too introspective.

You should just leave some things alone.

Because the danger, obviously, is that you tip over into self-regard, forms of narcissism.

overanalysing, overthinking.

So, you know, like almost everything in the world, I'm conflicted because I do think, like, yeah, I know what he means.

Well, it's a bit of imagery, isn't it, really?

Because, you know, I could argue, yeah, you don't want the lights on in all of the rooms in the house, but you would like the room to be tidy when you go in.

So, by all means, be frugal.

Get some Phillips Hue bulbs.

You can choose exactly how light or dark you want each room.

But ideally, try if you go into a room to leave it as you you found it.

And if it's in a real state, just dedicate a bit of time to wiping it down, putting stuff in a nice, organized way, so that when you go in there, it's a pleasure to go in there and you don't go, oh, my childhood was a mess.

The body of my dead father's in the corner.

Yeah,

if your dead father's in the corner,

ideally, you want to sort of

just turn off the light.

That's exactly.

So I feel like

his analogy goes as far as you want it to and I just think it's total bollocks basically ultimately

I think it's interesting I because I know where he's coming from maybe it's true for an artist

that you shouldn't necessarily spend too much time analysing what you do and raking over every aspect of the way your mind works because there is a danger that you will sort of short circuit the very thing that powers your creativity.

What about that, John?

Or is that a hoary old cliché as well?

Well I think it just depends on the artist in question.

I think you'll have some people that want to be very very self-reflective and spend years on one project and get very obsessed about it and get it really right and overthink it and potentially end up with something really good at the end of it.

And you might have some artists like me who just look at a canvas and go, I need to cover it in something within 30 minutes, and that's the finished thing.

And write the word shit on it.

And write the word shit or piss or slag on it.

And then that's, you know, sell it for a grand and move on.

Well, that's a good segue into me wanting to ask you about your art life.

Oh.

Like, have you always been someone who paints and makes things, or has this started since you've been a public figure?

I've always made things, and when I was at school, I used to make things on Adobe Flash, so I would do quite a lot of silly animations and try and emulate websites that I liked.

And did graphic design before I was a stand-up, so definitely like visuals, but illustration and painting and all of that came a bit later, really.

I always wanted to be a graphic designer.

Well, you can.

Yeah, let's have a little play with things.

Xavier Bowie did a lot of graphic design in his younger days.

Yeah.

I love a font and I love favorite font.

Oh, I mean it is Helvetica really.

I mean it is so basic but over Ariel you prefer it to Ariel.

Oh Arial can get fucked.

Oh my god.

Helvetica is there's a film about Helvetica where a designer is asked why do people like Helvetica and he goes why do people like shit?

Why do people eat shit?

I don't know

great.

That's my kind of answer.

Yeah, really good.

No, it's great stuff, isn't it?

Helvetica Bold.

Oh, my lord.

Right, so you were doing that.

And then when did you start painting

proper?

And when did you arrive at your, I hope you are not annoyed by the comparison, your David Shrigli-esque sort of imagery?

No, I'm thrilled with that.

I actually had a very nice phone conversation with him recently because I wanted to to ask him some advice and he was very nice about my artwork and I found that very

because I was a bit scared that he thought I might be on his turf but obviously he's selling his works for way more than I could ever expect to so he's fine and I was very touched that he liked what I do and has been very supportive.

But

I think it was through my friendship with Mr.

Bingo.

Do you know Mr.

Bingo?

Yes, he does the postcards.

He did the postcard book, the hate mail thing.

So explain for people who don't know about Mr.

Bingo, give them a little so he was an illustrator that was for hire and he did lots of stuff for magazines and but very funny line drawings essentially and he's got a real life or a gag and he made he started doing this thing called hate mail where you could pay him to send a kind of randomized uh offensive postcard and it would be a sort of british seaside town postcard that he would then

write, you know, if it was you, he would just say, dear Adam, and then it would just be a random insult.

One of my favourite is this, um, it was a drawing of someone's sort of lower legs, and it just said, You've got shit shins, and that's that was it.

And love Mr.

Bingo, but beautifully done, but very funny.

And he realised that was popular, and so he decided he would do a book of it and crowdfund it.

I think he did it as a Kickstarter, and he made the money to Kickstarter it, so just decided that he'd spend his year making the book and going for it.

And then, after that, that was successful.

So, he just decided he would stop doing any commercial work or work for hire and he'd just do whatever he wanted and sell it and see if he could live as an artist.

And he's done that successfully for over a decade now, if not two decades.

And

his stuff is brilliant.

And what I love about him is he just has these sort of grand ideas that he does.

And some of the things he sells on his website, you can buy his phone number.

And it's just written very beautifully, but it's his phone number.

He also sold a pint with him in five years' time, I think it was, or in three years' time at a specific date.

And he booked it in, and everyone turned up and he had a pint with all these people that had bought the thing.

That's a good idea.

Just really loved it.

Doesn't the phone thing work though?

Because don't people, isn't his phone just like not usable anymore because people are phoning it up?

Well, I think he's the sort of guy that would answer and engage with it really.

I always liked them.

Quentin Crisp, who's an influence of mine, he left, even though he became massively successful and famous, left his phone number in the phone book and always said that if the phone rang, he would answer it.

And so we'd sometimes spend hours on the phone just chatting to whoever had called because he saw that as a celebrity as his sort of civic duty to sort of give back and always speak to people.

Wow, so that was his version of social media, I guess.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

And engaging with the people that...

watched him on TV and all that.

So I bought some art from Bingo

years ago and became friends with him and saw how he interacted with the art world and was inspired by the fact that he was very directly in conversation with his audience and the people that bought his art.

And, you know, he taught me about prints and the way of doing prints in a nice way and inspired me to sort of do more of that sort of things, really.

So I've and I'm now I'm mad into prints.

Yes.

And did my first series of screen prints recently.

Oh mate.

And that was really addictive and you've got a 3d printer thing right i've got a 3d printer uh i've got a kiln so i make pottery

i am making a small ceramic run that will probably won't come out until next year now but i've been working with a pottery in stoke-on-trent proper old school pottery to sort of make it some really shit pottery that I've made they're recreating in the way that they would and they the pottery I'm working with make stuff for the Royals and for like Fortnum and Mace and people like that.

And they're making, and they seem to be really enjoying getting their teeth into essentially what is like a child's first

pottery project that they're trying to recreate en masse.

That's great.

So yeah, so

he's more than anyone else, Bingo has inspired me to just have a go at stuff and see how it comes out.

And most of the time, it's resulted in me really loving it and finding that very inspiring and fun.

Like it's really fun to make stuff.

But it is, you know, it's playtime and I'm spoilt by it and I'm aware that it's total nonsense really.

But then everything I do is essentially useless, really.

Yeah, but of course it serves a higher purpose of bringing us joy.

Yeah, and that is the ultimate commodity.

That's what it's all about at the end of the day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And pounds or dollars are quite good commodities as well, I find.

But they exist in the service of joy and acquiring joy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

What do you spend most of your money on, would you say?

That's a good question.

Well, recently doing up the roof.

They're expensive roofs, aren't they?

Oh my God.

Yeah.

It's like we've been living in the same place in Norfolk now for 12 years or something.

And so now it's come round to the first set of quite significant repairs that we've had to do.

Yep, yep, yep.

And it's like, oh, this isn't fun.

No.

Everything just all at once is needed doing.

So there's been that.

So that's quite a boring answer for you.

But what else do I spend on that?

If the roof was...

Over the years, I've spent a lot of money on technology.

Yeah.

On sort of

computer camera equipment.

These things don't come cheat these little furry lads, are they?

Joe is pointing at the

mic covers.

And you've got

a very high-tech setup here where you've got a backup recorder, I'm guessing.

Yeah, that's rumbling away there.

How about you?

What do you spend most of your money on?

Love tech.

Yeah.

Try to get it.

What's the best thing you ever bought?

The best bit of tech that has been, that has worked so well for you, that has brought you so much joy that doesn't go wrong too often.

Big question.

Welcome to the Tech Pod Joe.

I mean, what your best bit of tech is.

It could end up being like boring like the iPad, and I love the pencil with the the iPad.

I use that a lot.

But I think the Nintendo Switch from a kind of hours of actual joy

is probably the thing that's got me the most

like consistent happiness.

What are you playing on there?

Well, the New Zealand is a masterpiece.

There's a game about to be released on the Switch.

I think it's imminent actually, because I put it in my diary because I'm excited about it called Teardown.

And it's only currently available on PC, I believe.

It's a destruction mechanic game, so you have to smash things to bits.

And I've watched a lot of videos of people smashing things to bits on it, and it's really satisfying to me.

I don't know what it is.

I love destruction, so I'm really excited to play Teardown because I don't have a PC or whatever, so I've not been able to play it.

And I can't wait to just smash some stuff to bits.

That sounds good.

It's a big genre.

I mean, it's a bit like ASMR, isn't it?

On YouTube, there's a lot of destruction vids.

Yeah.

And people shredding things, putting things through industrial shredders.

Stunning.

I watched one and it's called This Machine Destroys Everything.

I'll post a link in the description for

listeners.

And by everything, what are we talking?

What's an example thing?

Blankets and leather belts and shoes.

and tins of paint which pop very satisfyingly.

It pops a sofa in there.

Oh, it's just reminding me of the carpet cleaning Instagram as well.

I've heard about this.

I haven't seen it.

What's the deal with that one?

The way they thrive is the fact that they use a lot of good sound effects.

And almost certainly not the original noises from the cleaning.

There's a very heightened

like that with the brush when they brush over it and they cover it in all sorts of different liquids and whatever.

And some of those carpets come in in a disgraceful fashion.

and they go out gleaming.

I think that could.

If I disappear from the face of show business, there's a good chance I've just gone off-grid to open my own carpet cleaning industry.

I wouldn't mind.

Well, I was talking to Bridget Christie about our respective mopping techniques,

and that got quite a significant amount of.

I imagine she's ferocious in a way that's troubling actually to watch.

Well, I think I sort of muscled in on the conversation by sharing with her my technique, which is to more or less soak everything, spray everything down, and then just use a towel, put the towel down on the floor, and then shuffle around on the towel with both feet, kind of mopping everything up.

It's not mopping, though, is it?

Why is it not mopping?

It's towel shuffling.

What is the definition of mopping then?

First off, a mop

needs to be involved.

Yeah, but the towel is being the mop.

But a mop isn't a towel.

To mop.

So you're toweling down the floor.

You're not mopping the floor.

I think of mopping as a.

If you used a mop head to dry yourself when you got out of the shower, you wouldn't go, oh, I toweled myself down then.

You'd go, I mopped myself.

Yeah, but to mop is a verb.

You don't necessarily need a...

Like when you're mop, as you say, when you're mopping your brow.

Oh, well, if we don't die,

anything could be a mop, can you?

You don't get the violida out of the style of, you know, Fleetwood Mac is mopping up the.

Actually, that does work.

That does work.

Oh, God, okay, you got me.

Yes.

Shit.

Well, at some point, there needs to be mop parameters.

Otherwise, there's just no...

Life becomes full chaos.

Well, the problem is that to mop is a verb.

I suppose you also, people say they mop up,

you know, you mop up the last of the hummus with a bit of bread.

Exactly, Joe.

I mean, so the bread is the.

I can't believe you're still going on about this when you're so clearly wrong.

No, I don't.

I just, I'm playing it out because I don't think everything can be a mop.

I think maybe a key thing is that if it's not absorbent or if it's more liquid than the thing you're mopping,

because what I was thinking is, can you mop, you know, when you've spilt some red wine and then you pour white on it to sort of counter it, are you sort of mopping up the red with the white?

No.

So white wine can't be a mop.

So there is, there is parameter.

There is a parameter.

No one ever suggested that white wine could be a mop.

That's not mopping at all.

Okay.

But putting a towel down on a wet floor to absorb sliding around on it with your feet, that is mopping.

I understand that you are

mopping, but the towel is not.

To me,

you and the towel do not constitute a mop.

You thought this bit of conversation had finished, didn't you, listeners?

You're more than that.

I think you're putting yourself down to think of yourself as a mop.

I'm a human mop.

I'm like the rod.

My whole body becomes the handle.

Don't just giggle at that.

It's just I got a bit sort of fizzy when you said, I'm a rod.

Made me feel excited and confused a bit.

Good.

Our episode of Travelman hasn't gone out yet, has it?

No.

No.

Is it ever likely to?

Or is it going to get canned?

Well, it depends who you speak to.

Channel 4 put a thing out a few months ago saying that they weren't commissioning anything really until next year because

of some unique circumstances that have created a sort of fiscal issue.

But basically, there's lots of shows that

episodes have been filmed, they've been done.

I mean, I think we did ours

March, March 2023.

But there's episodes that I filmed a year ago.

Really?

That still haven't been out?

Still haven't been out.

So, yeah, hopefully it'll go out early next year.

That was a fun time, man.

Whether it goes out or not, I loved that time in Prague.

I love doing that show, and you're a fabulous guest.

I was so thrilled that you'd said yes to it, because to me, I feel like you're a coup of a booking, because you are clearly very

selective over what you do.

Yeah, that's what's happening.

Or someone's selective about what you do.

But I was delighted, and we had a brilliant time.

But, yeah,

what was it about it?

I'm curious about the kind of booking process.

When you heard about it, did you think, oh, that'd be fun?

Or did you think, oh, I need that money?

Or

how did you decide on it?

Yeah, that was a no-brainer.

I'd been on the show before.

I went to Lisbon when Richard Ayawadi was hosting.

Richard Iowadi.

Oh, how do you spell that?

He's a great comedian.

He's no Joe Lysip, though.

Right.

I'd like to make that clear.

Okay.

Anyway, I'd been there with Richard and it was good fun.

Really liked the crew.

The director, Nicola, I got on very well with.

She's fantastic.

And it just seemed like a happy gang.

You know what I mean?

And so when they got back in touch, I thought, oh, well, this is finally, they've got a decent presenter as well now.

Is this what you want me to say?

Yes.

And Prague, never been to Prague.

I just thought, well, look at me.

This is pretty sweet.

This is kind of what I always imagined/slash-wished that it would be like if I had any kind of success in my life.

I would get to go on these kinds of shows.

So, yeah, it's brilliant.

And it was exactly how I imagined it would be.

Plus, you and I had met a few times before

and only briefly though.

And I just thought, oh, yeah, that'll be fun.

And it was.

It was great.

It was great fun.

Yeah, because I'd done this before, and then we'd done gigs.

Yeah, we sort of came across each other at a few festivals and things like that that we talked about when you first came on the podcast back in 2019, I think.

But I do remember when you came on.

You were right sort of on the cusp of a new phase of your career.

You were sort of doing Joe Lysit's Got Your Back and things like that.

When we were in Prague though, you were a few weeks away from doing the first late-night Lysett show.

Oh yeah.

You were preparing.

And you were quite stressed out, right?

Because that was sort of a big deal.

This is like your own

chat show vehicle.

Yeah, I'd be interested to.

I feel like that was a watershed career-wise.

Maybe.

Truly, I'd sort of got to a bit of a point where I was a bit over telly and was sort of trying to think of my exit plan.

And I'm not over tele,

but it definitely reinvigorated my career from my own perspective and that I was enjoying doing it again.

So when I started, I was just excited to be on tele.

Couldn't believe I had my own show and couldn't believe that I could, you know, experiment with formats, whatever.

And then realised that some of the limitations of studio were really difficult for me and just didn't feel like I was good at it.

And still don't feel like pre-recorded studio stuff is for for me.

I feel like it's really hard work, and then suddenly doing live, something clicks in my head where it goes,

it has to be the show, it has to be good, and it's like doing live stand-up again.

And if something goes wrong, I kind of love it because I get excited that I worked around it.

And certain things in late night licit where the auto queue went down at one point, or a prop that I was expecting to be there wasn't there.

And I found the fact that I could deal with that really invigorating and exciting.

And I think, well, definitely of all the TV experiences I've had, it's the most fun I've had, and really excited to do the next series.

But I did go into it with that headspace of going, my career is over, I'm not going to do any telly again.

What a nice experience it was to be on telly and to be a bit famous, but it's all done.

And so let's just, you know, this is the last hurrah.

And that headspace allowed me to enjoy it and to go into it and actually be alright at it and not overthink the thing and not kill the thing.

But it was really fun watching the first episode, having spent a few days with you in Prague and talked about the show.

And I just thought, oh, yeah, he's nailed it.

Oh, wow.

It was great.

You looked so comfortable and it was really funny.

And it had such a good generosity of spirit.

And it was like all the things that I liked most about a show like TFI Friday or

things like that.

Plus other, plus Vic and Bob and

all those things that I liked most about their shows were in there.

Oh, well, that means a lot.

Is it the sort of thing that

you would go on, or would you find that...

Oh my god, I've just seen a man's penis.

Is there a naked man across the way?

He's looking at himself in the mirror.

Oh, he's just clocked.

He's just clocked us.

I'm leaning back.

You're still looking at him.

Is he still looking at you?

Well, I think he's he definitely looked over, and now

he's putting some clothes on.

He's quite good looking, guys.

He's a handsome guy.

Wow.

I've never seen anyone nude like that.

It's, listeners, it is nighttime outside.

We're recording in London and across the way from the flat where we're recording is, it's like Rear Window, the Hitchcock movie.

Yeah.

And so there's some apartments facing out towards us.

Load of windows.

That's done something to me that.

And in one of them, there's a guy totally

getting changed.

I was watching him about half an hour or so ago, yeah, because he was on the phone and he was wearing a black t-shirt.

I thought he's handsome.

I didn't really see his features, but I just thought he looks like a nice guy.

Did not think I would get you know the full cock and bollies.

Did you see him taking his clothes off?

No, he just emerged fully naked and then just put some pants on.

Just then stunning.

When do you want me back on the podcast?

I'll be here whenever you want.

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Continue.

Hey, excuse me, can I use your dictaphone?

No, yes.

What do I say?

No, use your finger like everyone else.

Keeping it squelchy.

Hey, welcome back, podcasts.

That was Joe Lysett talking to me there, and I'm very grateful to Joe for making the time.

in his extremely ludicrously busy life to come and waffle with me.

We only spoke just less than a month ago

and even in the few weeks since then he has been making the news with other pranky protests

this time about the water companies dumping sewage and he's been making a documentary about that which is going to go out next year I think.

On Channel 4, always good to see Joe though.

And I hope at some point our episode of Travelman

will go out with us pratting about in Prague.

But we had some good fun.

We went to a restaurant where there was about 24 courses.

We saw some great weird art.

We went kayaking

on quite a cold day on the river.

Vlatava.

I had to look that up.

I couldn't remember what the river was called.

I have to look everything up these days.

And I don't know whether it's just a side effect of getting older and the old hard drive getting full or if it's um

just because I've become too reliant on looking things up rather than reaching for the answer in the memory banks itself.

You know what I mean?

So now my brain, it just goes, oh well you're just gonna google it, so I'm not gonna bother.

You know, if the brain wanted to do the work, it probably could.

Tell me that the Blue Peter presenter on the Ronnie O'Sullivan documentary that I was watching last night was Simon Groom.

But instead it just said that, just google it.

So that's what I had to do.

And then my wife said, who's the other Blue Peter presenter?

And I confidently said, oh, it's Roy Castle.

And she said, oh, gosh,

your brain's better than mine.

Mine's going.

Of course it wasn't Roy Castle, it was John Noakes.

Anyway,

why did I get there?

Oh, yeah, because of the Vladava.

So, yes, I don't know when that Travelman episode will go out.

Maybe never.

Who knows?

Yeah, it's good that Ronnie O'Sullivan documentary, The Edge of Everything.

It was another one of those sport docks for people who don't necessarily think they care about sport docks.

It's a good, very well-filmed portrait of a tortured soul, like incredibly skilled sportsperson, and yet not able to relax and enjoy it at all, like

to get himself as good as he needs to be to win these big tournaments.

He is in total mental anguish.

And

I just

feel so strongly like there's got to be a way that he can bypass that

It doesn't need need to be like that.

There's just something that his mind is doing that is making success concompetent on

mental turmoil and unhappiness.

But my wife was saying, that's just what some people are like.

Maybe.

Anyway, recommend it.

So, where was I, Joe Lysett?

Yes.

Few links in the description.

There's the link to the last few tickets for the London Palladium live podcast show.

I won't be in a glass box with Rosie doing poos in the corner.

I'll just be on a stage talking to a guest, a previous friend of the podcast with possible musical guest

as well.

Other links in today's show notes.

You got Joe Lyset's official website.

Lots of interesting stuff on there, not only details of whatever pranktivism he is engaging in but also his live shows and you can download previous live shows that he's done

and there's his art on there as well

it's a fun place to visit there's also a link to mr.

bingo's website the artist that Joe was talking about being inspired by

and he's got some very funny artwork there as well available for sale in various forms.

Link to a couple of satisfying YouTube videos.

This machine destroys everything.

That is the tip of the iceberg for machines destroying everything videos, though.

There's loads on YouTube.

That was quite an old one, I think.

Oh, machines destroying everything technology has come a long way since then.

And satisfying carpet cleaning videos as well.

That is another

big genre.

I've put one of those in the links of today's description.

Oh, cold, cold, cold.

Phone away.

I washed my phone last week, listeners.

Speaking of the old hard drive getting full slash corrupted.

After years and years having an occasional panicked moment after loading the washing machine and setting the cycle running, thinking, where's my phone?

Oh no, I put my phone in the washing machine.

Oh no,

but realizing, like, no, no, it's just on the side.

I wouldn't put my phone in the washing machine.

The buckles mental safety protocols are too rigid for that.

But last week, protocol failure.

I was trying to find my phone to

make a call to a delivery company to ask where the hell my package was

after being assured it would arrive three weeks ago and

no phone.

Where's the phone?

I'm retracing my steps.

Did I put it there?

Did I put it in some weird place when I was in the kitchen?

What?

And then finally I thought I'll just check the washing machine even though you know we got the protocols they will have kicked in

and there

on the ledge

of the window of the washing machine

sits my phone.

well it was the wallet

the phone wallet

paper driver's license

peeking out all disintegrated it was a long cycle as well

and the phone had been in there for a couple of hours when I got it out it was good and smashed even then I gamely googled Can a phone survive going in a washing machine for two hours?

No,

no it can't.

You've got your modern waterproof phones.

You can immerse those for up to half an hour

in a washing machine apparently.

You might get lucky.

But two hours

for Garabar.

It was very sad.

But I think maybe the most distraughtening aspect was the mental protocol failure.

I just thought, oh no,

we're in that zone now, are we?

Phone in the washing machine.

Oh, well.

Apparently, worse things happen at sea.

That sea water is very corrosive for electronics.

Thanks very much to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his invaluable production support and conversation editing on this episode.

Cheers, Seamus.

Thanks to Helen Green.

She does the artwork for the podcast.

Thank you very much to all at ACAST for their sponsor liaison help.

But thank you most most of all to you.

Thank you so much for listening right the way to the end.

I appreciate it.

And for that reason,

I think it's time we had a hug.

I'm wearing my fluorescent yellow padded ski jacket today,

which I'm very grateful for and is keeping the worst of the bitey cold out.

So I hope you're well padded as well.

But if you're not, hey, come here and get warm.

Good to see you.

Until next time, we are together in waffle space.

Go carefully, be soft,

and for what it's worth, remember, I love you.

Bye.

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like and subscribe, please like and subscribe.

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