BudPod with Phil Wang & Pierre Novellie - Episode 145 - Chess-tity

Episode Date: January 5, 2022

Phil Wang and Pierre Novellie discuss chess addiction, productivity, New Year's resolutions, choosing the matrix, Sutton Hoo and the Frankish trader, correspondence: Sylvie's caveman sandwich, Rikki's Seattle tat (Setattle?). Sketch: Check Mate chess addiction. Get bonus BudPod on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's Budpod 145. 145. Time to thrive! And time to strive. Yes. For it is New Year. Ah! New Year, new pod. New Year, new pod. Budpod's slimming down.

Yes. How would we slim down down we use fewer fat words I don't know yeah fewer vowels we're only going to use consonants from now on hard firm consonants we're going on the consonant diet

for the podcast it should real slim the podcast right down should half the play times yep thin thin thin part thin part do you have any news resolution philippe yeah my news resolution is to be more organized less distracted distracted. And I'm getting there. I became too addicted to online chess. Too addicted. And I'm easing it out. I'm closing off all the games

that I've got going with people like yourself. I'm sending out the message on the chat function on the chess app saying, I'd just like to tell you that this will be my last game for a while. Just so people don't take it personally when I don't respond to that challenge afterwards. So I'm just finishing off, tying up the loose ends,

finishing off the games, and I'm just taking a break from it. I'm just trying to remove all the dopamine delivery systems that I've gotten addicted to. I've taken a couple of social media apps off my phone. Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah, I'm just trying to fucking focus, baby. I'm trying to stick to a task at a time. Because what I've started doing is

I've started like starting a job. Then when it starts to get tough, I drop it and start another job. And in the end, you just waste time. So I'm not trying to, I'm trying to focus on jobs and get jobs get one job done then move on to the next job one job at a time focus focus is my news resolution okay how about you well well i have first of all i have questions i have questions phil oh yeah i have inquiries um first of all i would like to say how amazingly sinister it would be if i was playing chess with someone who i didn't know and

they said this may be my last game for some time my first thought would be that you were dying and my second thought would be prison or like running away or something. Yeah. Yeah. I've got to go hide from the chess mafia. Yes. Yeah. They're a big puzzle, like a big Bishop.

They've got me in check and I need to keep moving before they made me. What? And, and, and second, so that was, that was a comment. and this is my question what what sign or signal did you receive from yourself the world that made you stop and think this is too much chess now what changed because you've been you've you've you've been uh uh um dallying

dancing dancing with chess for a while now i'm going to try and talk about it as if it's a drug yeah dabbling that's what i mean you've been dabbling you've been playing chess in alleyways with strangers things like that yeah yeah reusing dirty chess boards which you really shouldn't do buying street chess chess sets cut with checker pieces Pierre you know when you have to pretend

that flat checker piece is a rook no no no that's bad it's not good for your system that flat checker piece as a rook. Oh, no, no, no. It's a low moment. That's bad. That's not good for your system. I think it was just an accumulative realisation that it was using up a lot of my time.

The realisation was that how much my mood was affected by chess. Because I'm not a very competitive person person but i value my intellect very highly and so if i lose at something which has a bearing on my intellect that it sends me down a spiral of self-hatred which is just like a knock-on to the rest of my day yeah i feel like i why do i should i even bother writing a script if i'm dumb enough to get mated on the back rank there's nothing nothing worse to be mated on the bank being mated on the back rank you feel like a stupid little monkey when you get mated on the back rank basically for the people don't play chess that's essentially when you get mated

just simply with a rook because you've left your king unprotected at the back but also behind a wall of pawns you can't get past yeah and all you have to do is move a pawn and you have an escape route but so when you get to mated like that it feels like someone's opened up your asshole and put inside a toilet brush and it's just like in a bad a bad way....scrusting it up and down. In a bad way. In a bad way. It's like a dirty brush. Yeah.

And so then after losing Game of Chess, I'd be like, I'm stupid. I'm such a piece of shit. I should just lie down and die. Why should I even bother trying to do anything else? And then I'd have to go, well, I can continue with my day if i recover enough self-esteem by eventually winning a game of chess so then and this is like it's a

gambler's fantasy isn't it yes it's it's the same it's the same cognitive device that this thing is playing off of and so i did i would just then keep playing games until i would eventually win and by the time I eventually won, it could have been an hour, an hour and a half that I'd lost. Yeah, and you're just sort of thinking like, well, I lost that game of chess because I was only half concentrating on it or I was unlucky,

but now I'm going to put an enormous, the weight of my whole day on this next game, and so the stress of that and feeling kind of hot and upset that will make me play even better now that I feel hot and I feel like I'm in a rush I'll be even smarter

now it's the emotional equivalent of like going all in putting your house on the next hand of cards like just putting your entire your house on the next hand of cards like just putting your entire self-worth onto the next game because you're saying to yourself i'm putting everything into this one i think i i remember it might have been norm mcdonald talking about gambling addiction because you know he lost everything several times and he was saying something about how someone asked him like well why why do you

go broke why don't you just lose half a million dollars and still have half a million dollars out of your million you know and he said there is something about reaching zero that's a huge relief because then it can't get any lower than that and you're done and you can finally stop and it's not a question anymore yeah and the decision's been made for you yeah stop now yeah exactly you literally can't keep going whereas i find that um uh i resign quite early in some chess games because i'm losing and i'm bored of the puzzle. I'm bored of it because it's been like days. Right. And it's not like a new board.

It's just like, oh, this old stuck bishop again. And you just go, I'm bored of this game in particular and it's not going well and I don't think I can summon the energy to keep playing at all. Nevermind so much energy that I can somehow turn this around like some sort of amazing coup. So I just kind of go and sort of if you imagine like if barney gumball was playing chess on his phone and he just kind of let it collapse out of his flopping hand like that like that rose and the gutter in his film yeah that's how i don't cry for me i'm already dead that's how

i give up on chess games i know what you mean though because i it's hard to explain because if you're listening to this and you think we sound ill, I mean, we might very well be ill. But in our defense, listeners, our jobs require us to have the optimistic creative energy to write a big long script or a big proposal or a load of jokes, hundreds of jokes, completely without payment in advance or any kind of promise that anything will ever happen with it. So we're not getting paid to do it. No one's asked us to do it. That's right. And most fatally, in private. Yes.

We have complete privacy. We don't have a boss or even a room of colleagues to be looking over our shoulder. We can watch fucking porn during our work time if you want. And no one's going to catch us. No one. And if they caught us, they wouldn't care. There would be no consequences and no one would care. Because no one inherently wants what we're making.

It would be like walking into the town square and just screaming suddenly at all the townsfolk who don't know who you are well there won't be any more rice pudding this weekend no one knew you were doing it no one wanted any you were on your own in your flat just stirring rice pudding and you got angry with it and the the lack of you producing it and putting it out into the world that changes nothing for anyone else doesn't matter whereas if at least if you're like an accountant or something you have clients there's companies you've got to file things taxes there's consequences you could go to prison if you fuck it up you know yeah exactly you and me are just sat in a room i think i think lockdown and everyone having to

work from home has given people an unprecedented level of empathy with freelance creatives like you and me yeah so long last finally a little understanding all these people suddenly going god it it's so hard to do anything when it doesn't matter when you get up and no one really checks in on you. And it's like, yes, yes, exactly. Thank you, yeah. Yes, that's why I haven't won an Oscar yet.

I've been trying to tell you guys how hard it is. That's why comedians go weird because it's just you're in this like, you're free floating in like a saltwater tank, you know, and you're not attached to anything. Yes, just occasionally twitching like some scientists are doing an experiment on you with tubes coming out of your mouth. Yeah, with a big mask with a tube coming out. Yeah. coming out yeah all just hundreds of comedians in a row in these lit up tubes and a guy in a lab coat saying you know take a look at my collection do you ever find yourself in the

mental or emotional state where you're watching a sci-fi movie like that like i don't know and all the matrix and they're just human beings hooked up in a jelly solution in a tank with tubes coming out of them and they're just floating there in suspended animation and you just think that would be lovely right now I'd love a bit of that, that looks

brilliant how do I sign up for the jelly tank, yeah how long can I be in the jelly tank for does anyone do any scientists need a guy to be in a jelly tank for a bit i'll sign the waivers i'll sign whatever you need so they can't arrest you if if it sweetens the deal if someone who's not supposed to be looking at my jelly tank taps on the lid i can suddenly open my eyes in a frightening way. Would that help you?

Let me in. Let me in the sweet tank. Let me in. Let me in the tank. Let me in. That would be... I really hope that that's the new Matrix film. It's just millions of those humans all dressed in, like, cyberpunk gear just hammering on the roof of those tanks going,

this is shit. Let me back in. Let me in the tank. I want to go back to bed. I don't want to have a rave in a cave anymore with Morpheus. I don't want it. It's cold. It's cold and I have to hand

weave all my clothes from some sort of Hessian. It's no good. It's fucking shit out here. There's no sun. There's literally no sun. Chess addiction is on the rise in the UK. This year, 17,000 men will lose their entire afternoon playing consecutive 5 minute blitz games on their phone standing up in the kitchen. Jebethy is one such man. We have distorted his voice to protect you from hearing his shit voice.

voice. It started off as just a fun little distraction, a quick game of chess between posting memes on the Doctor Who subreddit, but soon I became addicted, losing a hundred chess games in a day only to go to bed swearing into my pillow having not had a shower. All I thought about all day was chess Playing chess And losing chess And where the next chess game was going to come from It was the last thing I needed in my life I mean, my name's already Jebethy But with your help, we here at Checkmate Can help young men like Jebethy

With a donation of only £18,000 a month, we can find Jebathy a less addictive and more socially acceptable pastime than online chess, like crack cocaine or flashing strangers in the park. With Trackmate's help, I can finally live a normal life again, doing what I really love, painting small figurines of animorphs mid-transformation do you remember animorphs they were a book series about teenagers who could change into animals on the front was like a sort of like illustration of a teenage boy turning into a salamander or something i i paint figurines of the middle bit the half boy half salamander or something. I paint figurines of the middle bit, the half boy, half salamander point in the transformation. I literally can't stop painting these things. And it's all because

of Checkmate's help. And your help. Together, we can help men like Jebethy. Together, we can say Checkmate to chess addiction. Thank you. Thank you. Maybe you should do an immersion tank, you know, the saltwater... The floaty tanks? Yeah, that could be your dream. the floaty tanks yeah that could be

your dream I've had a couple of MRIs which are the closest experience to that I think and it's really scary going into an MRI because you're going in there for 45 minutes to an hour or an hour and a quarter

and and you can't come out and you have't come out. And you have to stay still. You can listen to the radio, but you mainly just have your thoughts. And you go through a lot, and you think about a lot of stuff,

and it's not bad. It's quite pleasant. Yeah, see, I've done... It's quite pleasant yeah see i i've done a little holiday i have i've done that but not not for as long but i i always find it odd when people are like oh it's so terrifying and and and i sort of think well yeah it's a nice little break that's what meditation is we should we should become um like jerry seinfeld and david lynch are transcendental meditation enthusiasts phil Did you know that? Yes, I think I did.

Maybe we can become weird like arts industry meditation hippies. That could be our way out of this chess hellhole we find ourselves in. What is the transcendental part of transcendental meditation? What are you transcending? I think you're trying to transcend your current plane of existence or something to be above it through it I'm not sure

and it's only when you're above it and through it that you can make observations about waiters at coffee shops to the degree to the level of Jerry Seinfeld

he can make the observations he has made because he's like he's lifted off the ground and looked down on the earth and his body he's literally able to he's observing what is the deal with ice cream and he his sort of mind spirits

flies down to an ice cream store and he just off floats there like ghost of christmas past and he looks around taking notes yeah maybe that's how he does it. That's how he writes his stand-up. Absolutely, yeah. And, you know, he suddenly he wakes up and he quickly writes down, it's ice cold but you have some people chew it. He quickly writes that down.

Who are these people who chew their ice cream? Who are these people? You're chewing! It's too cold! That's why he does a sort of slightly shouty bit because he's trying he still thinks he's in the meditation dimension and he has to shout through the membrane of consciousness yeah the people in the living world why do people do it he's trying to shoot he does sound a bit like a ghost maybe that's why yes yes i would love uh i would love to be offered a red or a blue pill to leave the matrix by jerry sure you could take the blue pill

it would all go away he's doing it like. Like you're an idiot for not taking it. God, he's so rich. I want to be that rich. Please make me that rich. He's richer than Mitt Romney and Mitt Romney's sinisterly rich. May I remind all the Podbosses, please join our Patreon. I think it should get us there eventually.

A couple more Tat Whisperers and i think we'll be there definitely yeah then we'll be able to meditate all we want we'll be so in touch with ourselves um i'm just trying to i just looked up the history of transcendental meditation and like so many interesting hippie things it just was invented or some guy kind of came up with it in the 50s. Yeah, all this shit is surprisingly young. Like yoga is very young. Yoga is maybe, is it like even a century old yoga? I don't know. Yeah, I mean.

It's really, it's not some ancient practice. It's a very recent invention, yoga, relatively speaking. Yes, modern yoga, early modern yoga. Yeah, 19th century? Oh, right, right, right. I don't really know. But it's like a spiritual practice, I think, rather than... Yeah, it's all the druid stuff.

It was made up in the 50s really all that Alistair Crowley Stonehenge shit oh right yeah well something about the 50s everyone just sort of went but the druids really existed all that stuff the druids did exist but like when people are like oh the druids were like this

and that's why the Celts were like this they're like describing events that were like 900 years apart or more. Speaking of, Pierre, for Christmas I got a copy of the book The English and the History. Ooh, this is the one you sent me that photo of. Yes, by Robert Toombs. And it's a thick boy. T-H-I-C-C-B-O-I a thick boy of a book

it's so long I think all in all with indexes and everything it's like a thousand pages but I'm slowly getting through the first chapter and it's great I love English history I'm learning so much

I'm plugging so much of the gaps in my knowledge like just a basic shit that i never learned because i didn't do history here what was the best study history here what was the best plugs you found so far anything the best plugs are is like it was romans and then anglo-saxons yes which doesn't really compute in my you always think of romans were quite recent because of how modern they were. But they were before the Anglo-Saxons. The Anglo-Saxons came after them, which I didn't know. That's the thing that people leave out because everyone just goes,

Rome, Rome, Rome, boop-de-doo, William the Conqueror. Yeah. That's why I was interested to do the degree i did because they would just go like um and the romans conquered the british and they kind of became romano-british a bit of a synergy there and then the romans had to leave and then 900 years later well 700 years later uh some normans conquered some ang-Saxons. You go, well, what the... Neither of those people were mentioned just now. Yeah, and I've just got to William the Conqueror in 1066

and all that I didn't know anything about. And now I've plugged that very large gap in my knowledge. It's good stuff. And like Harold II, who lost to william the conqueror was a last ever anglo-saxon king and all that sort of stuff i just i didn't know i just i there were just sort of load of white guy names floating about that i so william is different from harold he's from a different place where is he from yeah just how much like flitting flitting between france and here they were people just jumping between here and france all the time and everyone just

kind of get got all mixed up together yeah that's yeah it's good stuff that's the thing soon you'll be able to tell a norman name from an anglo-saxon name yes yes yes yes well harold is a harold's a danish name i think um you know the vikings that during the entire over the entire period of the vikings the the influx of population to england was possibly the largest influx of a population until the 20th century. Yeah. It was like the largest change of population until the 20th century. That sounds about right, because, I mean, after all the sort of Norse settlements and stuff and the Dane law and so on,

all that really happened was a few Huguenots flemish weavers kind of got stuck in london and south wales phlegm will get stuck phlegm will get stuck phlegm will get stuck phlegm will get stuck that's how i remember that's how i remember that the famous got stuck in london is that the phlegm phlegms the phlegm gets stuck that's because you've always thought of london as england throat, isn't it, Phil? Yeah, it is. You've always said that. It's the bit that sort of spits on the rest of the world.

And eats everything. And swallows up all the goodies. Yum, yum, yum, yum. All the Chinese and Russian investment. Yum, yum, yum, yum. That's not a bad metaphor. London is this horrible old big mouth. that's not a bad metaphor london is this horrible big mouth um well i had a you know i've just had quite an english history couple of days on new year's day me and my girlfriend on a whim went to a national trust property because that's the age

i'm at now that's the kind of thing i do on a whim. But it wasn't just any National Trust property, Pierre. It was Sutton Hoo in Suffolk. You went to Sutton Hoo? Sutton Hoo went to Sutton Hoo? I did. I went to Sutton Hoo. The spiritual home of the study of the Anglo-Saxons. Yeah, and made famous by the recent Netflix movie The Dig. Yes, yes, yes.

It's a very fun movie. Yeah, so the Poisson Who is where this incredible discovery was made in the 30s. Yeah, right before the start of the Second World War. They discovered Ray Dwald, Anglo-Saxon king of East Anglia, buried with his enormous ship Just in the middle of a field in Suffolk And all these incredible gold artefacts And beautiful things

That the Anglo-Saxons had And it changed how we thought about Anglo-Saxons We realised they were a civilisation With rituals and artefacts and craftspeople And trade There were things they found there from byzantine there were a couple of things there from sri lanka originally it's it's it was it's a man it's fucking crazy isn't it how everyone everyone sort of says like oh well the world's

become more globalized and it's like well stuff always traveled a long way it's just that it's faster now yeah you also always think about and i guess it's a kind of thing that modern nationalists especially white english nationalists you know they like to think of the anglo-saxons and the old english race as this insular self-dependent race that didn't have anything to do with the rest of the world but they were trading with sri lanka you know they were going all the way down to the Middle East. Oh, yeah. We've always been a global nation.

Beliefly. And there was no concept of nation. You were just a guy who can talk to some other guys more easily than some other guys. There were peoples, but this whole nation. I mean, it's such a shame because so much of the study of that period is marred by that kind of nonsense politics and then you end up with like the anglo-saxon journal which is just like a purely academic journal having to like you know release a statement saying please don't please don't post on our fucking facebook wall about a bunch of fucking Nazi conspiracy theory stuff.

It's very hard to... You need to look very quiet and nice and nerdy to get away with being a scholar of runes, Phil. Yeah, yeah. If a muscly guy said he's really into runes I'd rune the other way Pierre that's where I'd rune I'd rune in the opposite direction he's got some Nazi thing

for sure I'd rune away and then you'd hit a big drum on stage blow a little horn I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd run away! And then you'd hit a big drum on stage. Blur a little horn. Yeah, you can't look at anything like a biker. You'd have to look the opposite way. Highly recommend the Sutton Hoo National Trust

property. It's great. There's a great little museum nearby where they have a couple of the artefacts and really cool bits and pieces. And they have the a couple of the artifacts and really cool bits and pieces. And they have the best bit of the whole museum, a self-produced historical video from the time of an old Anglo-Saxon lady talking to a young Anglo-Saxon girl who are cleaning up King Reydwald's jewels for his burial. up king raidwald's jewels for his burial and and sort of the is the equivalent of uh an intergenerational fight but in anglo-saxon days and the young girls going the frankish trade trader told me about a new christ god when i die i will go to the christ god and the older woman goes you shame your true gods!

It's great stuff. It's real kitchen sink drama, but over King Reidwald's silver helmet. It's always difficult to make something informative when all the dialogue has to be like, you know, well, let's hope that that Mr. Hitler who was recently elected in germany will as if like that's how we all talk all the time like just standing around going like well now that covid's over and the taliban have taken kabul

then perhaps we shall you know yeah yes yes. Everyone talking like fucking NPCs standing on street corners talking to anyone who walks by. Also, the way the younger girl kept talking about the Frankish trader made me think, she's definitely fucking the Frankish trader. I felt like that was a subtext

of the whole five minute long film. Yeah, at one point, Frankish trader this and Frankestrade of that. Why don't you just marry the Frankestrade and his Christ God if you love him so much? I do like that of anything which is supposed to be like pagan times. They always have to call him the Christ God

or like the Nazarene or like Christ Jesus yeah yeah I guess yeah that would have been the only yeah the single just the one God

how sparse, how Spartan just the one God the one God with all the powers so it's like no more Justice League, just Superman. Yeah. They're trying to consolidate all your religion into one guy. Streamline. It's the original bit of streamlining technology.

Yeah, they just go, look, you're going to have to have a big debate about who to dedicate the temple to. Just put it all in a one guy. It was the cloud, basically, for the Anglo-Saxon period. Just put it all in the cloud. Don't save it on thumb disks and worship hard drives.

Just put it all in one cloud. Well, that's why I was just thinking about in the end you still have to have like the trinity right you still have to have three um but that's three in one phil and that is why the symbol of saint patrick is the shamrock is the clover ah because he convinced a pagan irish king of how the trinity he was like, how can you have three in one? And he showed him a clover where there were three leaves on one stalk,

and he was saying, you know, like this, basically. Oh, I see. That's a very Irish story. That's, I mean, the most Irish story I've ever heard. And then they drank a glass of Guinness to celebrate. Yeah, and this king basically went, Oh, right. We're all Christian then.

Done. Done deal. What's next? Next on the agenda, please. People were quite up for becoming Christian back then. They were a lot keener than they are now, I'd say. For sure. How the hell... I'd say Patrick was was english which i i didn't realize he was

romano-english uh romano romano-british so he was probably romano-british probably a romanized briton so a sort of a cosmopolitan uh welshman kind of yes yes but don't tell amer that. They also, they say, because the Americans often pronounce their T's as D's, they often write St. Patrick's Day as St. Patty's Day, as in a patty of beef. And that has always really irritated me. Patty.

St. Patty's Day. Yeah, but because then patty and patty are just the same sound you know yeah yeah sort it out if any americans listening tell your fellow countrymen to stop with the whole patty's day thing just cut it out

cut it out okay cut it out this is an educational podcast now about the early medieval period so get on So get on board. Get on board. And shall we do some correspondence, Phil? The Frankish trader might have gotten in touch. He might have.

Have we listened to your New Year's resolution yet? I feel like we've just done mine. That's true. That's true, actually. To be honest, my New Year's resolutions are sort of the same as my goals were before it just sort of generally keep keep trying to reduce my sheer girth um that's a big goal of mine um and uh oh i well, I mean, a reason that where I was empathizing with your need for focus, Phil, is that, um, I'm going to be releasing my special soon.

My special that we recorded in early September. It's taken a little while, but it's coming. It's a coming. And I'm just trying to cut out little, little clips, trailers clips trailers things like that so that's something i need to focus on and it's uh it's anyone listening who's ever had to listen to their own voice will know that that's bad enough but why not try listening to your own voice and watching your own jokes oh again and again and again oh and looking at your own face. Oh. And noticing the many, many things you did wrong,

both aurally and visually. Yeah. Yeah. So that's been my private hell for the last couple of days slash this morning. So keep an eye out, Podbuds. And when the time comes, I expect you to share that special as widely as a Frankish trader

spreads the word of Christ with his big old Frankish peen yeah, reduce the girth increase the work rate, Phil yeah survive just generally survive survive another bloody year

another bloody year mate yes that's pretty much it really just try and get something done for goodness sake yeah it would be lovely to get something done imagine getting something finished that'd be so nice. What would you do afterwards?

I don't even know. I would think I would just ascend. You'd just float up into the sky like Jerry Seinfeld meditating. That's right. Like Jerry when he's on one of his trips. I would just fly into the sky. Like Jerry when he's on one of his trips. I would just fly into the sky.

Fucking hell. Alright, well, there is something that we can do, Phil. And that is read some emails. Yes, please! Let's find them. To letters, emails, phone calls, to your sister, to your father, to yourigraphies, your sister's, your best friend,

your best friend, correspondence. Let's find him. Some New Year's correspondence. The first correspondence of 2022. That is right. That is right. And it's from Sylvie. Old school. Sylvie. I And it's from Sylvie. Old school.

Sylvie. I like Sylvie. Sylvie. Sylvie. Kill me! That's all I could think of. Sylvie, please kill me. So Sylvie says, dear pudbods, that's good.

Pudbods, ah, because of our girth. Our bodies are like pudding, Phil. Yeah, pudbods. I like pudbods. Too much pudding. Yeah, and very Christmassy. Very Christmassy. I like it.

Yes. Dear pudbods, please see the attached photo of my hospital canteen egg and cress sandwich packaging. Is Grandma Caveman at it again? I only hope I ate it hard enough. Yours heartburnily, Sylvie. Oh, I mean, a hospital cafeteria's packaging is ground zero for Grandma Caveman. Ground zero for Grandma Caveman. Yeah. It's like classic hospital canteen, like cheap motel.

Yeah. Student bar, maybe? Must have a lot of Grandma Caveman. Well, so this egg and cress sandwich is called um there's a lot going on it's a busy package um but not so busy that it would cost too much to make that would be mad yeah so sideways on the package at one point it just says ready set eat which is um which is interesting i don't know if by the way if at any point any of this is supposed to be like the name of the brand or a motto or if it's just no they've just

they're just trying to throw on as many words as possible to make their packaging like appropriate and relevant to as many eating settings as they can so presumably ready set eat is if they ever want to cater like a sandwich eating competition in texas yes yes or the olympics got ready set eat on there or the olympics i've been petitioning for the event to be added to the olympics for years now i think i'm getting there well it's in the commonwealth game so that's a good step yes you know yeah that's a promising development for sure ready set eat and then it says um in big letters it just says slice of life and then sideways next to that it just says love at first bite. Slice of life, love at first bite.

Ready, set, eat! Are they in different fonts? Yes, they are, Phil. Yes, they are. Different colours? It's all in a variation between, I would say, forest green and lime green lovely lovely clashy stuff clashy clashy stuff uh slice of life is in a sort of cowboy sign font um the rest you don't see too many of those yeah so the comic sands of of the of the wild west that's right that's right whenever a cowboy would see

a sign written in that font he'd go oh come on now it's a tarnation he'd be furious what are you a basic bitch and he'd shoot the sign painter and then the thing that Sylvie was referring to

underneath says, play hard, eat harder. Wow. Okay. I mean, it's all very pro-eating, isn't it? It's all very pro. It's all very much eat whatever is in this. Look, I don't want to pretend to you, Phil,

that it's some sort of coincidence that this sandwich company is pretty pro-eating. Yeah. Oh, they're in the pocket of big eat. Yeah. Something tells me they might not quite be neutral on this matter. Play hard, eat harder. There might be a vested interest in them

promoting an eating lifestyle or I think there might be yeah and if I was to eat I wonder what they'd like me to eat me thinks the sandwich it reminds me also of those you know those pizza boxes all like chicken boxes you get from a chicken shop

where it's Also, you know those pizza boxes or chicken boxes you get from a chicken shop where they've got boxes, but they're not successful enough to have their own brand boxes yet. Yeah, some mysterious... It's just boxes that just says, tasty hot chicken! Or just your favorite pizza, just written on the front, and there's a clip art Italian chef on it. Yes, exactly. From some mysterious central box depot yeah that caters to everyone um your favorite what pizza company what pizza brand is this why it's your favorite pizza brand of course

what do you mean what more do you need to know this is your favorite pizza like someone trying to trick someone and which and which pizza is this you're feeding me it's your favorite right but which one the one you prefer of course just open it open the box play hard eat harder phil i don't know how you eat harder i don't know how you eat hard much less how you eat even harder than that just with really big bites like biting down really hard yeah

yeah rage with fury yeah I don't I don't know I really don't know in talking of just you reminded me with the whole thing of like your favourite

wonderful chicken funniest takeaway name I laugh every time I walk past on the way to the gig in bristol uh at the hen and chicken um shout out to that gig it's an excellent gig if you live in bristol there's a chinese takeaway on the road from the station to that gig and the chinese takeaway is Red Hot Goodies. There's nothing even Chinese about the name. It's just Red Hot Goodies. I like that. I like that.

No Golden Dragon or Lotus Palace here. No. Red Hot Goodies. Too hot to be them. They want to assimilate. Yeah. They want to become British exactly this is why this isn't

Chinese food these are red hot goodies these are just goodies they could be from anywhere they're just goodies from the red hot army they're red hot oh we've got a

email from Ricky from Seattle wow Ricky from Seattle Ricky from Seattle I Wow! Ricky from Seattle. Ricky from Seattle. I hear the blues are calling to salads and scrambled eggs. Frasier was in Seattle.

Yes, it was. That's all I know about Seattle. And it's also where Starbucks is from. That's all I know about Seattle. Starbucks, Frasier, the rain. Rains a lot. It rains a Seattle. Starbucks, Frasier, the rain. Rains a lot. It rains a lot. Oh, okay.

And the Seattle Sounders. Is that a basketball team? It's a sports team. Don't remember what sport because I'm cool. Go Sounders? Go Sounders. Go Sounders. So Ricky says, hi, pill hip and pee hair.

Interesting. Pill hip and pee hair. Must be a Seattle thing. My neighbor now thinks that I'm deranged and it's entirely your fault. Good. Good. Good. We want people to come around because they're worried about you.

Yes. Let me explain, he says. That would be funny if it just ended there. Every morning, I go for a run around my neighborhood while listening to Bud Pod. Very healthy, very good. Oh, we're being played on the streets of Seattle, Pierre. How exciting. Yes.

And he's American, so he's running in a grey jumper. In a grey jumper, in a grid. Yes. He's running around the block. Yes, everything is in blocks. It's neat. Grabbing a smart water at the bodega on the corner. Oh, now we're talking.

Getting some diarrhea pills from the CVS. Yes, the CVS and being harassed by the police. Saying that in a sort of wow-y kind of way is funny. Yeah, yeah.

Being harassed by the police. So he says, normally I'm out just after sunrise, and there is nobody around to hear my insane cackling. Wow, what a go-getter Ricky is. Ricky is hoping for that big promotion i'm always so impressed and heartened by people who listen to our podcast earlier in the day than either of us have ever been awake at times that you and i wouldn't recognize on a clock is the only way you can actually hear our voices at that time of the day yeah today however early morning plans forced me to run at lunchtime instead this guy's got

plans clashing with his early mornings but he still has time to run if i had one plan in the day i'd use that as an excuse not to run again yeah um so he says instead the streets were filled with judgmental onlookers throughout the run it took all my effort to keep from choking on stifled laughter i had managed to pass off my massive grin as a general friendliness and optimism that's funny just running like a big smile that would would work in America only, I think. Yeah, for sure. Here, you're just increasing your chances of being stopped by the police. Ironically, yeah.

That'd be the one thing they'd stop you for. They'd say, hey, don't enjoy this as much, sir. And you'd go, sorry. You're arousing suspicion being so happy. It's public disorder. Have a pint, for goodness sake so he's passing it off as general friendliness and optimism and I was almost home and then I heard barking like Phil I do not like

dogs especially not loud ones that'll be Eddie from Frazier's flat if I know my Seattle and I think I do by now, that will be the dog from Frasier. That sounds like Eddie. That sounds like Eddie. Especially not loud ones running at full speed towards me.

I found myself running backwards, hands out, to defend against my attacker. Now facing the dog's unsympathetic owner, an old lady who I did not know, despite her just living a block away. That's Seattle life for you, man. None of us know each other in Seattle. We're neighbors, but we're not a community.

At precisely this moment, Pierre's voice said something hilarious about Greek oracles. I do not know what that was. What an on-brand sentence in some ways yeah maybe it was the one we were talking about oracles being like the var and refereeing oh man i don't remember anything it was the idea that you could use the oracle to see if it was a penalty or not and you'd go to this like swirling naked girl and smoke like in 300 yeah yeah yeah um maybe that was it sadly or maybe fortunately

this was not the i fucked a dog episode um and distracted as i was by the ensuing attack i broke into a howl of my own my neighbor said so he's being a mid dog attack he's laughing howling howling werewolf my neighbor stared at me with a look of utter confusion as i laughed my head off all the while being pursued by a still barking dog so he's being chased around by a dog just going like phil don't make me say it like who i i was just about to say the joker oh it's a trap and we walk into it with our arms open smiling every time so once she had grudgingly recalled her dog i stopped laughing long enough to apologize to

the lady for what i do not know um and slowly run off up a steep hill and out of sight. I blame the whole incident on the quality of your podcast and I have included some tat for your enjoyment from my recent stay in an Airbnb which by the way are brimming with the stuff Koji, Ricky from Seattle Thank you Ricky from Seattle Airbnb's

are awash with tat tat warehouses. Zero. So, Phil, this piece of tat is called Recipe for Love. Okay. Recipe for Love. And then it's a list of the ingredients.

For love. Okay, great. Recipe for Love. Ingredients. One cup of... one cup of listening uh a dash of smile and a sprinkling of fuck is that right i that would be a more honest reflection i think if there was a fucksrickle. What are they? One cup of romance.

One pinch of humour, Phil. Only a pinch. Just a pinch. Don't take the piss. Don't take the fucking piss. We've fucked this up, haven't we? I'd like to think that you and I both bring more than a pinch of humour, so maybe that's why it's such an overwhelming flavour. It like a grab yeah it's like a fondle of humor at least two spoonfuls of joy okay yeah yeah yeah can't have too they haven't specified tea or table

that's true spoons that's a recipe for trouble too much joy it really is yeah one because you can always add joy you can't take it out that's just you'd be careful yeah just add joy to taste one one pound of compatibility that's a lot That's a lot of compatibility, but I guess, yeah, that's your starch. That's your rice, the compatibility. That's what you need the most of. Yeah, that's true. They're acknowledging that with a whole pound. It'll soak up the joy.

It'll soak up the joy if you cook it for long enough. Yeah. Now it gets specific. Three tablespoons of trust. Three tablespoons of trust Three tablespoons of trust Okay so we must assume the previous spoons Were teaspoons then Teaspoons of joy Just little teaspoons

A lot more trust than joy then Yeah Wow But trust does burn off So that might be it That's true Trust does burn off with enough heat Yeah

That's true One cup of respect Yeah, they're really mixing up the measurements here But yeah, one cup of respect That's like a That's Yeah, that's a good amount of respect That's like the amount of wine I'd put in a Bolognese

That's um That's like a Rodney Dangerfield album isn't it I don't get no cups of respect All I want is one cup of respect And a pinch of humour Half a pound of sharing. Half a pound of sharing. Okay, I guess you shared the pound with someone else

by the sounds of it. Yeah, so there's two recipes that maybe... Half a pound of sharing. One zest of tenderness. Oof, this is getting ridiculous. So you don't want real tenderness, just a skin. Yes. Also, it feels inappropriate to take something called tenderness

and shave the skin off it. That seems insane. That seems insane. And then a three-quarter cup of patience. A three-quarter cup of patience. Yeah. Which is hard to provide after you've already used up all of your patience reading through this stupid fucking sign. And now you're going to have to wash out the respect from that cup first.

I mean, you better have a lot of cups. I don't know why Americans use cups for everything. As if there's one mega cup. It's so dumb. It's so dumb. Reading an American recipe makes me want to cut my thumbs off. Oh, and then, well, you know, you'd have to cut your thumb off to create a thumb-sized piece of thumb. I really like that recipe.

It's a good recipe, Ricky. It's a good recipe. It's classic. That's BBC Good Food recipe for love. It's just reliable. Nothing too exciting or out there, but it works. It's also, I mean, I don't want to be a pedant about this film but it's not really a recipe is it it's just the ingredients there's no direction it's just ingredients you're right you're right it is two ingredients maybe it's like

just a cocktail maybe it's just you pour it into a big bucket and you're done i wouldn't um i wouldn't want to point out the lack of direction to the... I'm imagining that all tat is written onto signs by one very stressed, balding, older man with a paintbrush. And he's just working in a frenzy. And you'd just be saying, this is just the ingredients, there's no recipe. And he'd just be like, I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. Whisk it up with a whisk of love. I don't know. Just get it out. I got 50 more of these to do today come on just sell them for me just stick them on airbnb go on there post about it i don't know where do you buy this stuff actually garden centers yeah garden centers and Pinterest.

Homeware stores. Places where you buy a big slow-cooking pot, perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps. Well, we need to go. We do need to go. I'm still zest of tenderness is that's really i really didn't like that pleasant i really didn't like it it's it's kind of hurt my brain a bit but we do need to go phil we need to go because uh in order to

fulfill our new year's resolution it's time to go to the members-only gymnasium of the Patreon. Yep, that's right. So get yourself a membership and join us, won't you, to build a better you for 2022. See you in the steam room. See you there. Have a cold shower first, though. Yeah, please do.

All right. See you in the bonus pod. See you in the bonus pod, guys. Or next week. Bye.