BudPod with Phil Wang & Pierre Novellie - Episode 190 - Pholk Horror

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

Phil has seen the Wicker Man and Pierre has seen The Menu. The lads talk Qatar, folk horror, spicy jokes TOO HOT FOR TV from Phil, local libraries, Joe Lycett's excellent stuntCorrespondence: astute observations from Andrew, posh idiot dating tips from Maz Get bonus BudPod on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors, like when our estrogen levels drop during menopause, causing the risk of heart disease to go up. Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca. It's Budpod 190. 190. Yeah. I'm feeling feisty.

I'm feeling feisty for the big 200. We're only 10 away from 200. There's a chance that... Double century. Double century, not out. There's a chance that 200 will be occurring around the time of the first ever live Bud Pod. Oh, that'll be nice. I imagine the live Budpod just happens

to be the 200th. Spooky. Spooky-pooky. The sweet 200, yeah. Listeners, we're looking into another live Budpod date, because the first one sold out to Patreons only in three hours, which is

positively terrifying. terrifying yes terrifying in a good way like a good horror movie oh god speaking of which speaking of which yesterday oh god speaking of which yesterday last night i watched for the first time pierre the wicker man the original wicker man from 1973 very Very nice. What did you think? I loved it. I loved it. It's good, isn't it? I thought it was so good.

Have you seen it? Yeah, I really like the masks and I like the sort of naked lady dancing. Yeah, the naked lady dancing, the fucking on the beach. It's so truly weird, but captivating. And the soundtrack slaps. The soundtrack is like, it's weirdly great. It's all these creepy folk songs. Yeah, yeah.

And anything with lots of sort of lutes and people go la la la, like weird choruses. It's really good. i hadn't realized just how much mitsumar took from it yeah it's it's it's the classic piece of folk horror i suppose cinematically yeah yeah um it's so great i thought it was so so good and they and i'm becoming like a sort of boring film snob uh anti anti-effect anti-special effect person yeah because there isn't a single special effect in the whole movie it's just people doing weird shit in weird clothes in a remote place and it's really effective it's all you need it's all you need. It's all you need.

There's not like some sort of CGI kind of magic thing happening. It's just human unsettlingness. Yeah. And not a mobile phone in sight. And there's a young Christopher Lee, a young Saruman and not a mobile phone in sight. It's true.

But it's so much of horror. So many horror premises are now ruined by the existence of mobile phones. Because you can just, you know, you can just look up where you are. You can just go and Google maps. All horror movies set in modern times now have to have at least, they have to have a beat. Yeah. Where they show the character has no signal. Yeah.

Or like the creepy dude showing you around it's like oh you'll find it quite impossible to access the internet here every movie has to have this disclaimer now yeah every every yeah it's every movie has to stop in the middle of the atmosphere creation process and go and there's no mobile signal anyway so this guy it's such a tedious little interruption i mean they have one in midsumma don't they what do they do in midsumma they have to the creepy beardy guy says something like along those lines he does doesn't he right right yeah oh it's very far from in the mobile phone must see heeeheehee and they all go, ooh, this is real. And then, you know.

Ah, digital detox. Wow. That's very good to hear and I think you're right about the effects. I mean, have you seen Terry Gilliam's Brazil? No. I recommend watching it purely because of how amazingly it is its visuals are amazing and it's it's all like models like the original star wars oh okay not like just not really hot

people just not lots of really hot people no no like like physical models um although you know the cast are still celebrities so i guess they're inherently going to be pretty hot. That's true. It's also just a very good film, but generally speaking, like watching it, you go, wow, this does just look so much better without bad 3D, like PlayStation 2 cutscene fuckery. Like bad, bad real effects are better than good computer effects, I swear to God.

Like in the original Jurassic Park, where it's just like, it's good, I guess, but sort of animatronic head of a dinosaur doing the same movement again and again. It's still better than having it in 3D. Yeah, I mean, I caught a bit of the first Harry Potter movie the other day,

and bits of it look wank. That's it. That's it. Sort of, yeah, computer graphics age as well. They age in a way that practical effects don't age. That's the thing. That's the crazy thing about Brazil. I think Brazil is from the 80s, and it looks great.

Same as the original Star Wars, because it's like an incredible oil painting on a sheet of glass is the scenery behind them. Yeah. Very cool. And the Wicker Man. The actual Wicker Man in the Wicker Man is a proper actual Wicker Man. They made a Wicker Man. They made a Wicker Man and they burnt the Wicker Man.

It's sick. It's so good and so weird and creepy. I loved it. i loved it absolutely loved it one of my maybe one of my fave movies ever i loved it yeah i'm becoming i'm becoming i'm slightly becoming a horror boy okay interesting an interesting life change an interesting arc for you. Yeah. Yeah, I'm getting into my horrors. Other men as they get older, they buy a sports car or date someone of

dubious age appropriateness. But I get into horror movies from the 70s. You get really into folk horror specifically. Folk horror. You get really into like woodcuts

and sort of 1600s exorcism testimony. Yeah. Yeah. There is one bit though in it where the protagonist, Sergeant Howie, he's trying to figure out what the hell is going on in this weird village and he goes to the village library and he opens he just finds a book about like folk ceremonies which describes what they do to the letter and it's like why would you have that book in your own library i guess it's for the

i guess they teach the locals about their their ways don't they but i feel like there's always a bit in these horror movies where the the protagonist will go to a library and find out everything they need to know yes about the the horror monster it happens in it as well doesn't it the the kid they go to the library and they learn the entire town's history and a history of some everyone else in the town seemed weirdly not to know it's all in the library easily found and it explains everything i think the realistic part of that is people's desultory knowledge about their own environment i I think that's true. Yeah, and also no one goes to their own libraries. It's all about the

death of the library. That's a true horror story here, Pierre. It's the death of local libraries. That's it. I mean, I once... There's a sort of library down the road from me, and I sort of thought, maybe it's better, you know, if I sort of thought oh maybe i could maybe it's maybe it's better you know if i

sort of go with my little laptop and i work in the library not just in a cafe where i have to buy coffee you know and so i thought yeah yeah because when i was a kid i made great use of the my local library on the isle of man shout out to port erin library next to the dry cleaners. I imagine that place has a Wicker Man vibe to it. It's a bit more like sort of a pebble-dashed northern town. But then like there would be like a wicker, I don't know, a wicker angel of the north. Right. Maybe? Something like that

But then you also have the slightly sort of weird accent That you can kind of place but can't I didn't realise the Wicca man was set in the Hebrides Yeah, they didn't lean too heavily into I'm not sure how authentic the accents were But I guess they were comprehensible They sounded a lot like The accents I've heard from the Outer Isles.

They have this weird Scottish accent with the R's roll a bit shorter. A lot more gala-sized, that's for sure. Yeah. I had a photograph taken for the Guardian once by

this photographer. He's quite well known, I think. He's from the Isle of Harris or Isle of Lewis or one of those. And he sounded like they do in The Wicker Man. Oh, good. It's authentic. Phil and listeners, if you like good folk horror, highly recommend Ben Wheatley's

A Field in England. Okay. Is that a movie? Yeah, with Michael Smiley and Rhys Shearsmith and some other guy. It's really fucking good. It's one of the... I just think it's one of the best films I've seen and it's really good

folk horror. It's all in black and white. Lovely. It's really really good. Yeah. It is nice. But Phil, my library quest failed because everyone in there was sort of you know libraries suit the needs of their community and in my community the need is for um to cater or half the library and two-thirds of the library entirely to children the children of the borough rightly so and one third of the library to people who need to learn english or figure out how to fill in quite a lot of official forms yeah that's

it that's it my my sister is a librarian in bristol and and you know we're all very uh impressed and proud of her because it's a very difficult thing to do now to become a librarian because there are just so few jobs yeah so it's highly highly competitive thing to do now to become a librarian because there are just so few jobs. Yeah. So it's highly, highly competitive. And she, yeah, but it sounds like the work of a modern day librarian in the UK is mainly helping people file applications for, I don't know, right to stay or, you know, asylum or learning English or,

it's a lot of filling government forms and help with computers. It's English or a lot of filling government forms and help with computers. Because for a lot of people, it's the only place they can get a computer with an internet connection and someone can guide. Yeah, yeah. So that's the main,

and as you say, children. So that is the main work of a library now. So then I thought, I should probably not sit in a chair here with my MacBook. I'm writing jokes about my bum what are you guys doing i thought i'll make space i'll go i'll go back to the cafe the cafe is fine i'll sit there was it that level was it that level busy that you were sort of taking

up space um it was fairly busy it was just more than the whole thing felt like this is not what this space is for so yeah yeah fair enough yeah the vibe is yeah the vibe isn't right the vibe was off um the vibe was off i can also everyone the vibe's off that's what you do that's what you say really loudly when you get up at the library and i uh i tip over a massive massive spiraling shelf of kids' books. Sorry, everyone, the vibe's off. Clang. I point at it on the floor. Vibe's off. I point from all the kids' books on the floor.

You knock over one of those ladders on the wheels that a librarian's on the top of. Oh, vibe's off. Vibe's off. I'm pointing at all the scattered kids' books and the librarian on the floor going, oh, oh, oh. Pointing from them, one, two, then back at me.

Vibes off. Vibes off. Vibes off. And weirdly, everyone using the library is just nodding really slowly like, no, he's right. Peter, you've also recently seen a suspenseful film using the library is just nodding really slowly like, no, he's right. P, you've also recently seen a suspenseful

film that you quite liked. I've seen two. Which one are we talking about? Oh, the one about the restaurant. Yes, the menu. Yeah, is it good? I really liked it. It's a bit silly. It's a comedy. It's a horror comedy. Ah, horrorcom.

It's a comma. It's a comedy it's a horror comedy ah horror com it's a it's a comma um it's a comma but it's got ray fines is in it being unsettling which is one of my favorite ray fines he's good at unsettling yeah for sure he's in there being unsettling with his little blue peepers um yeah and guy who i can never remember who he plays but always plays a sort of little american worm what's his name uh is this who is this the the boyfriend character yeah oh i don't know i always think of him as like cornelius or something but he's not he's in like cornelius i was oh nicholas holt yeah nicholas holt there you go yeah he's always like a little dweeb yeah yeah there's something sort

of unsettling about him again blue peeper blue peepers he has blue peepers and also he his upper lip is very close to his nose. Yes. That can often... Yes. That creates a sort of constant smile that can be quite unsettling. Oh, my God. He was in Mad Max Fury Road. Was he the bald gremlin man?

He's the guy who says, what a lovely day. That's him. Oh, my God. All right. Yeah, I didn't realize't realize well he's very transformative then and like every uh uh popular british actor around our age phil he was in skins i'm seeing yeah yeah that's his big break skins never ever had any interest in watching skins i must be honest i was just about to say you skins was not made for you and me No

There's a great bit that Stuart Lee made for I think an early Charlie Brooker's Screen wipe Stuart Lee talks about Skins And compares it to The coming of age TV That he had when he was a young teenager

Or tween or whatever And his stuff his TV show was about a girl who had to find herself in a post nuclear apocalyptic England and had to find her way to survival and he said he said he found that less

alienating than Skins Skins makes him feel more lonely than that show about the girl in the apocalyptic wasteland and i'm and i agree skins made me as a sort of gawky kind of awkward not particularly cool not socially active teenager skins made me feel worse it made me feel yeah more lonely and more more weird and more unappealing oh god yeah i mean because it's basically just like these 14 year old dipshits are having some kind of weed jacuzzi fuck party

why aren't you yeah yeah exactly yeah and um i've never understood the appeal of shows like that any even in a show like that when they have by by necessity, a few characters who are outcasts, they're always chiseled, handsome outcasts or beautiful, take-off-her-glasses outcasts. They're never just slightly dumpy obsessives. And that was us, dumpy obsessives. Yeah, that's right. That was the name of our two-man band

we were Dumpy Obsessives we were the schlubby anoraks Dumpy Obsessives and a couple of anoraks and we both played the drums, that was it drums only band yeah man, but Nicholas Holt is a good actor yeah, but yeah, it wasn wasn't yeah it wasn't for me you watch that and as you say yeah you just think i'm already not really going to parties

when i'm so 40 15 tv show made for popular kids yeah it was odd because the popular kids were probably only watching it when on catch up when they got home from all the cool parties yeah exactly they weren't watching it live um also like speaking of yeah oh yeah go on well just um just as you say like it it felt almost like cctv footage of what you and I thought we were missing out on. Exactly, exactly. It seemed to be sort of confirming all my worst anxieties about my place in the social firmament of teenagehood. Yeah.

Speaking of shit shows, as it were, Pierre, the Qatar World Cup, I'm transfixed by all the shitness of it. Yeah. Social media is alive with the sound of people in inadequate accommodation and confused administration. So funny. People are living... The accommodation looks like a fire festival, but in the desert. Yeah.

They're turning up and it's these thick plastic-lined tents, essentially, in the desert yeah they're saying they've turned they're turning up and it's these thick plastic lined tents essentially in the desert it's like apparently it's intolerable to be inside during the day yes that makes sense and they have a single fan to keep cool inside the tent it's hilarious it's um you know what it is phil it's what happens when you shame the host nation out of providing the cooling system it wanted to which was a load of trafficked people from south asia swatting an enormous palm leaves yes i saw um a video of some Everton fan, some guy in an Everton shirt being taken by some Qatari local to his sort of desert villa and being introduced to his pet lion.

Yeah, I saw this. This guy just has a chained up lion cub by his swimming pool, and this scouse is just like, oh my god, wow. He's so comfortable with it like if i was not that close to the line the line is like like play biting him and stuff like this guy's this guy's got balls oh i was i thought yeah i was watching it going uh-oh because eventually he's he's confident because he doesn't i don't think he fully understands what that lion, even at a young age, could do if it wanted to. Right, yeah.

So it's just like, he thinks it's like a big fun dog. It's not. Yeah. Its paws are already the size of this guy's face. Exactly. It's like getting just old enough that it's starting to look quite dangerous. Yeah. Very common from what I read and hear,

the ultra-wealth uh in the middle east seem to do a lot of dodgy uh exotic animal imports from africa yep it's an important part of football it's a big part of the beautiful game they should bring on like they should bring on the lions All the locally kept lions on at halftime And have like an actual Gladiator style fight Yeah Yes

The lions and the Christians They just throw a bunch of Christians in there And have to fight the lions Yeah Just completely Abandon all pretense and go, this is what we like! Just really go for it.

That would be great. You see Saudi Arabia beat Argentina today. I was just trying to look up what happened with that. Did they win? Yeah, they won. 2-1. Oh my god. Which is not good.

That is gross. You hate to see a country that has a sabre on its flag happy. It's not pleasant. You hate to see a country that beheads wizards win at anything, really.

Yeah, it's a real bummer. So everyone's quite annoyed with Argentina. I'm quite annoyed with Argentina. Messi scores, they get a penalty in the first half. And from what it sounds like, Saudi Arabia are really good at what's known as the offside trap, which just means that their back four or back three, if how many defenders have

stay in a very straight line so that's very hard to for the opposition strikers to get through without being offside i mean fundamentally i probably misunderstood that a little but so the so the argentina scored three goals that were disallowed for offside oh fuck yeah and then saudi arabia won two very good goals Arabia won two very good goals they scored two very good goals in the second half oh wow oh okay

so that was like a sneaky little a little sneaky tactic yeah yeah I mean it looks like they're good well they're very motivated because if they don't win they're probably gonna one of their relatives

is probably gonna have a bit of them chopped off it's good motivation If they don't win, one of their relatives is probably going to have a bit of them chopped off. It's good motivation. When you know that you live in a country where people are regularly beheaded for... I'm just looking up. I'm checking my sources. I say they didn't behead a guy for being a wizard. It was on charges of sorcery and witchcraft.

It's not the same thing. Yeah, so be fair, Pierre. Don't mischaracterize them, please. In Saudi Arabia, football is actually named after the two pieces they cut off first, if you lose. And you don't want to know what they call arm wrestling. That really is.

It's just wrestling, but if you you lose you lose your fucking arms uh i i was on i was on um the last leg pierre on speaking of um feet i was on the last leg on friday on channel four It was a lot of fun. Pussied a couple of clips. I wrote a bunch of jokes about the Qatar World Cup. I didn't manage to say them all. May I read out the ones I wasn't able to do? Please.

Okay. I mean some... Okay. You might be able to tell why I didn't tell a couple of these. Okay. Okay. Qatar started building the infrastructure for this World Cup in 2010. They're actually making a movie about it.

12 Years a Million Slaves. What else yet that's great performing because the Black Eyed Peas and Robbie Williams performing in Qatar it's a tough gig, Qatar, you don't want to do too well because

if you steal the show in Qatar, they cut your hands off. I thought I had... Oh, no, I had another really... Oh, yeah. The logo, I don't know if you've seen the... The mascot. The mascot, yeah. The mascot for the Qatar World Cup looks like a ghost,

which makes sense. It makes sense that Qatar is a very haunted place. It is, after all, built on an Indian burial ground. Oh, perfect. Very good. But you can understand why I didn't do that joke on the last leg, which is overall quite an upbeat. Yeah, they like to do a big smile and to do a very sincere appeal.

Yes. Whereas you're channeling more some classic dark, cynical vibes there, which I think are more effective overall. I mean, the Indian burial ground joke is really an homage to a Frankie Boyle joke about America, where he said, America seems cursed while it is built on an Indian burial ground.

Yes, indeed. A classic Boyle joke. Yeah, I mean it's it's odd isn't it because there's some people have been saying uh oh you're being meaner to qatar than russia and it's like well yeah we were nice to russia about the world cup because we thought it would bring them into the fold well look how well that's fucking turned out yeah yeah i mean the apologists for qatar yeah embarrassing the the kind of things people are saying like oh you judge qatar for the migrant workers don't you know that we had slaves 200 years ago and it's like they're how thick do you have to be not to appreciate the difference between having slaves two centuries ago and having slaves now?

One is clearly worse than the other. This whataboutery is pathetic. And I don't understand what people are trying to achieve. Well, the main thing some of them are trying to achieve is that their entire personality and belief system is structured crucially around the idea that the west is always wrong and worse than everywhere else so if there's ever an instance where somewhere else is worse than the west that's just not permitted unless they are an ally of the west right because then they are part of the west and then they are bad. So Saudi Arabia is bad because it's friends with America too much. Whereas if America switched alliances from Saudi Arabia to Iran, say,

then Iran would then become bad and Saudi Arabia would become noble desert traditionalists. Yep. Yeah, and Qatar, they're not dumb dumb they know how to play into this the same things like you know everyone is welcome here but we do ask that people respect our culture which is a clever way of putting it because i mean but it's not but it looks like their culture is um homophobia and uh slavery because yeah because that's what that's the things they apparently don't want people criticizing yeah they they don't want anyone to mention the truly evil things they do um and they are very clever because they've invested hundreds of

millions of bajillions in to the west in order to precisely limit this kind of thing yeah and the backtracking has been the one thing i wonder about this is who's going to come out of this a debacle of a world cup more embarrassed qatar or the west qatar or i mean fifa is already you know morally bankrupt and everyone knew that but who's going to come out this this worse? Qatar or say England, who made a big proclamation about wearing this rainbow armband in support of LGBT people. And then when FIFA said, you'll get a yellow card, England went, oh, all right, we won't wear it then.

Yeah. That's pretty embarrassing. Apparently Denmark's still going to do it. They just said, well, we're going to do it. Fuck you then. Really? That'll be impressive. It's so embarrassing for for england i mean this is the most thing right so england's first match was against iran and there were there was talk before this of like you know not only should we be boycotting qatar but should we should we be allowing our players to play iran considering what's going on over there you know should we make

a stand by refusing to play Iran and then England have this U-turn about the armband meanwhile the Iranian captain says out loud on record that he stands with the protesters in Iran when they play the Iranian national anthem in the stadium the Iranian players don't sing it and all the iranian fans have flags saying um women uh was it women peace freedom or the slogan for the revolution so england ended up getting shown up by iran in the um activism aspect yeah it's iran show more of a moral backbone than england it was very very embarrassing it's deeply embarrassing and i think the only thing the only the only people who should be more embarrassed than um than the england football team or english football in that sense are the people who um when when old uh old joe lysett didett did his good old stunt with Beckham.

Yeah, which I want to say on the record, I knew it was fake money. I texted this to our WhatsApp group, Pierre. I said, I'm locking this in. It's fake money. He's going to reveal he actually did donate it. And wang, was right. I'm impossible to trick, Pierre. I'm impossible to trick.

Okay, sorry, go on. I thought he was going to go, because he does these cool awareness-raising stunts quite a lot. I thought he was going to go full punk with this one, but I was wrong. It was still good, but the people who should be the most embarrassed, Phil, are all the people who tweeted about it going,

oh, it's a disgrace. What about the cost of living? And all the right-wing pundits who are like, oh, what an outrageous waste. He could have given it to the poor. And you go, oh, really? You think the poor should have free money? And they go, well, no, obviously not.

Like, if Lycett had tweeted a picture of him wearing a used Rolex, no one would have said anything. What do you mean? As in, if he'd spent that money on a rolex yeah yeah a used rolex you go look at my new rolex the same i doubt all the right-wing pundits would have quote tweeted him going outrageous they should give the rolex money to the poor or even if he destroyed a rolex on people probably would have cheered him destroying a ro even if it had cost 10,000 pounds also Phil you and I unlike a lot of um the the public or perhaps even like some of the but unlike some of the right-wing commentators although I don't think so you and I know how much PR for anything

costs so awareness raising selling tickets whatever just trying to get headlines um is basically impossible and I mean like the if you if you think you could get a front page in various newspapers for 10 grand you're a fucking idiot that's an incredible in incredibly efficient um per pound yes cheap oh yeah for for that level of pr to get on bbc news like to get on bbc news what three times front page of the mirror for for 10k is very it's very cheap it's true it's true also i read and this might just be twitter nonsense but i read a comment saying that the bank of england will actually just replace destroyed cash i think that's true i don't think it's in this true in the sense that they keep track somehow of destroyed cash don't think it's true in the sense that they keep track somehow of destroyed cash,

but it's true in the sense that if the money's no longer in circulation, it sort of invisibly floats back to the Bank of England. Right. Okay. I'm not sure, but it doesn't matter, because we don't have any money anyway. Yeah, that's true. By the way, quick recommendation on um on radio 4 on bbc sounds there's uh

tim harford who i who's very good i've learned a lot from he's done this little mini series about explaining the economy basically going like back to basics and explaining things like inflation and what banks do and all this sort of thing and it's really good i think it's called explaining the economy on okay on bbcly recommended. These are the only 15-minute episodes, and you kind of just learn the basics. It's very good. So that's what I've been doing. Anyway, Pierre, I think we should probably get to some correspondence.

Yes. To letters, emails, phone calligraphies, to reject your sister's message, to who you are, to who you are, to ring letters, correspondence. Jacking your sister's domestic art field. That's what I'm hearing, Bertels. Correspondence. I need to find the right folder. Yeah, I thought Lyset played it very well. I mean, if you want to raise awareness of all this stuff.

And you know what? To be fair, I also like, I hadn't quite, his demands were pretty thin. All he wanted was a statement. He didn't want him to give away all the money. No, I thought he wanted Beckham to renounce the deal completely. I thought he wanted him not to do it. Well, obviously that's what he wants. But on the Richard Herring podcast, Lysette was saying...

Well, even him just admitting, oh yes, Qatar's not good for gay people, would be something. But he said literally nothing. Yeah. It wasn't like he was even meeting them in the middle, you know. Right. Like, it's not insane to go,

I don't like these laws or whatever. And, you know, once you're already worth 400 million pounds, do you really need to film a lot of adverts where you go, oh, wow, brilliant, while someone sort of gestures vaguely at the desert yeah it is peculiar i think if you are first people said he was getting is a deal worth 10 million pounds what beckham was doing but then there i've also heard there's 150 million actually it's actually much much more i'm sure it's i mean they basically have infinite money from what i can tell so i'm sure it's uh as much as possible i don't know if i'm being stupid here but what are the gulf arab states so rich from is it just oil oil and gas yeah right that is it yeah and right yeah okay

pre-oil and gas discoveries they were mostly famous i think for pearls so when what when did this the gulf arab states become very rich what the early 20th century well no because they were still basically colonies at that point it was the when was the oil post-war when was the oil found i think the oil was found around then but they weren't getting the money buddy right right right right right yeah okay um it was when they're independent and stuff and there was a whole gulf of aden thing yeah gulf of aden yeah in the 50s so i'm gonna guess that they started really breaking in the cash mid to late 50s saudi arabia in the 40s had that big

deal with the americans okay i get you i get you and then by the 70s i guess that's why like stuff in the like films in the 70s and stuff, you start seeing sort of Arab-dressed guys as a sort of new character on the scene, the very rich Arab guy. Yeah, that's true. It starts to become a thing around the 70s and 80s. Yes, that's true, yeah.

That's always a good way of tracking social change. Right, and then there was the oil... What's it? The oil... OPEC. Yeah, the OPEC crisis, right? In the 70s? Yeah. Is that when the Arab states got together? That was 78, yeah. The oil-producing economies

and countries, something like that. The Arab states, but also... I think Venezuela was in that as well. Mm-hmm. Is Russia in OPEC? No. No, Russia's not an OPEC. No, I don't think so. But they basically held everyone hostage, yeah, and the Americans.

Yeah. It kind of helped Reagan get elected. Ooh. Luckily, these days, rising fuel prices will never make Americans vote for a lunatic. Okay. Do-do-do. Andrew gets in touch Andrew

What's the plan, Drew? What's the plan, Drew? Dear Pierre and Phil Apparently I meant to do something with your names here But I haven't quite figured out what Fair enough It's nice to reset from time to time Go back to basics

Today I listened to the What? Fair enough. No, it's nice to reset from time to time, go back to basics. Today I listened to the email from your correspondent in Budpod number 137. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Where they said they felt compelled to binge Budpod from the start in order not to miss any in-jokes. Hmm. I, alas, feel no such compulsion. Doctors do not recommend. What? Doctors do not recommend. Doctors do not recommend. doctors do not catchphrase when this comes up yeah i alas feel no such compulsion slash have been cheating on

you with other podcasts look we're this is an open relationship don't worry about it and he said he says as long as you never meet each other it's fine open relationship don't worry about it and he said he says as long as you never meet each other it's fine that's funny it's probably true i mean we probably have that's yeah depending on the podcast yeah that's true yeah but we don't want to know their names um and i've only heard the episodes as they have been released since edinburgh this I saw Pierre and liked him so much I decided to research him further I think this is a year ago now because we're so out of date that's funny the way to put it like he likes you

so much he researched you like he tried to figure out how you work why he likes you yeah like an unusual dish what is this yeah he goes like in those American movies, he goes to the library and he goes to one of those computers that just has old newspapers on it.

And he's like scrolling through old stories. The microfiche, yeah. And the colors are inverted so the text is white and everything else is black. Yeah, that's it, that's it. Find old stories of you. Yeah. Oh my God.

And just young comedian chortle student final list or whatever yeah new comedian does well in middle spot yeah yeah it's just like my god it's just like a younger photo of you just doing quite well at the gig yeah yeah yeah but because it's all fake for a movie they've had to sort of smush my face onto just like someone else's head i always like it in films where they do that where they've just somehow failed to get pictures of the actor as a younger person or oh do you know what i saw yesterday was um just the opening bit of this new documentary about hong kong and the various uprisings and protests.

And for the first time I've ever seen in a documentary of this type, they're hiding the identity of the people speaking with AI, with deepfakes. So they're not blurring the faces. They're deepfaking the faces. They're just changing the faces.

Oh, wow. Yeah, it's pretty cool. That's amazing and spooky. Yeah. Yeah, very spooky. Anyway. Well, Andrew says, as a casual interloper on the Bud Pod friend group,

I can safely say that you have just the right level of in-jokes. Very nice. Yeah, yeah. There's always a danger with in-jokes that the podcast just becomes incomprehensible after a certain point. Yes, yeah. He says they are there for...

The other thing is, we don't have, I at least, don't have the memory to remember more than three in-jokes. Yes, it's true. They do fade. Yeah.

Andrew says they are, just the right level of in-jokes, they're there for those who appreciate them, but not the main event. And in a way, it's actually quite nice to not know everything. It's kind of like when a sci-fi or fantasy series hints at the fantastic world you never actually see.

It gives depth. That's it. That's it. Sometimes the unseen is better than the seen. That's good, yeah. You can kind of piece together. You can piece together what an in-joke is. Yeah, you can.

Yeah, exactly. Andrew says, like most people, I love a good in-joke when I'm an insider, but I always feel it's somewhat the fast food of comedy. Irresistible in the moment, but you know it's not really as nutritious as the healthy diet of original material. That's very good. Yes, that's exactly it. That's really good. I feel the same way about callbacks. Callbacks are the fast food of stand-up as well.

Yeah, you said that last week. They feel good, but they're nutritionally empty. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. callbacks are the fast food of stand-up as well they feel good but they're nutritionally empty ow that's the callback theme very good it ends with a fart yes I feel your show is a perfectly balanced food pyramid of the two and long may it be thus

anyway poo and pee and so on. Am I doing it right? Yeah, pretty good. You are. You're nailing it, Andrew, I think. I think you're absolutely nailing it. That's a really nice email. It's a nice sort of piece of, like, very sort of astute critique. I liked it. Very good, yeah. Sort of dispatches from the new front line, the sort of the new recruits. Yeah. It's good to hear.

It's a fresh pair of eyes, isn't it? That is a very useful thing to have. Yeah, I think that's right. And it's reassuring. Yes, yes, it is. It's reassuring to know that we make sense to someone who hasn't necessarily listened to us from the start.

Yeah. Yeah, well... Because we're about to hit 200, Pierre. There's going to be a point at which it just becomes just physically unsafe to listen to the entire back catalogue. Yeah, it's the kind of thing you can only do if you're trapped on some sort of space station. Hmm.

You know. Yeah. Yeah, you need to be Matt Damon in the Martian really yeah he has the time to catch up while he's desperately planting potatoes in the frozen earth in his shit innit he's planting potatoes in his shit in everyone's shit

it's a good movie the Martian we have an email from Maz Maz and all that jazz nice nice

she says derriere fier nice she says I don't know. I thought about it for too long. Fier is a combination of our two names. Yeah. Derriere instead of deer. It's good stuff.

Oh, I get it. Yeah, I get it. That's good. Ma says, I've been binging your excellent podcast. Physicians do not recommend. I've been binging your excellent podcast physicians do not recommend um i've been binging your excellent podcast being a 40 something south asian mom with graying hair a very grown-up job and a love of watercolor and crochet wow what a full life very full life very good wow rich crochet and watercolors yeah so being a 40 something south asian mom with

graying hair for a very grown-up job and a love of watercolor and crochet an excellent candidate for coolest uncool by the way everyone thinks it's lame but you can make some incredible things with a little hook and sometimes crochet is called hookers oh that's nice that's fun yeah so yeah crochet for coolest uncool yeah right crochet and sort of yeah crocheting sort of became kind of hip at least for our

generation which probably just means we're getting old about two years ago two three years ago yeah yeah

something like that so given all this Maz says I must fall at the very edge of your listener demographic but this hasn't stopped me achieving

full Pistorian status oh well done Maz Glad to hear that And we don't know We've not really done a census Of the ages of our listeners No But from the correspondence

I think we capture Quite a nice diverse cross section Of society I think so Maz says I started in the latter half Of 2021 And listening to you Through a couple of the

Maddest years in recent history Has made for a fascinating And entertaining time capsule Yes Mmm Yeah Um Recently

My eight year old daughter Made a bit of a fuss When I accidentally Scratched her leg With my fingernail I rubbed it better Only for her to exclaim That really hurt actually

Which caused my which caused my husband also a pod bud and me to break into laughter she was somewhat amused and i had to explain we weren't just laughing at her pain but how do you explain this podcast to a child But how do you explain this podcast to a child? It's true. A week later, she heard Phil exclaim, it's all about the cunnilingus. Oh, no.

When my phone accidentally connected to the smart speaker in the lounge instead of my earbuds in the kitchen. Oh, no. Oh, no. I managed to hit stop pretty quickly, and she was more alarmed by the sudden noise than the words which she thankfully ignored anyway well exactly that that's it in it when when the young child they don't know what words mean they can only read on the faces of the adults around them that this that they weren't meant to hear that yeah as much as i would love an

eight-year-old to start saying phrases like it's all about the cunnilingus with like real confidence so maz says anyway here's what i actually wanted to tell you about many years ago i dated a posh idiot yeah we've met a few we know a couple yeah he had some awful views and did some moronic things. Hmm. Yeah. To give you an example, I was not expecting this. To give you an example, he once injected his testicles with saline. What? Because he'd heard it makes them swell up and

become comically large for a few hours. No! I was like, I was generally thinking, what posh thing has this guy done Has he gone fox hunting Or said something about immigrants But he's injected his balls with saline

It would be very funny for a very posh person to Excuse me Do you have any saline for my balls Like after a dinner That's mad I mean that's like for my balls. Like after a dinner. That's mad. I mean, that's like... That's fucking Marilyn Manson shit to do. Yeah.

Matt says, I was spared having to witness this, so I can't confirm how successful the experiment was, but he told me it was great fun. No. You got away with it. Jolly was fun.

Having massive knackers. And pickled sperm I don't know if Surely the injection is into the bag Not the nut Surely Fuck I hate this Yeah I knew you wouldn't like it

None of my friends liked him And if you asked him what he did for a living He'd say he was in property He was an estate agent Yuck of my friends liked him and if you asked him what he did for a living he'd say he was in property he was an estate agent you are probably wondering what i saw in him yes saline with an x right you just love you just low in salt um you're probably wondering what i saw in him well he was incredibly good looking and lived cheaply in a flat his parents owned just off Oxford Street.

Yeah, love is a complex thing. He didn't actually need to work, but his mum made him. Yeah. I lived a fair way out of London then, so it was like having a hotel to stumble back to after every night out. That is handy. That is handy. is handy yeah no i

completely understand she says uh we were watching a film one sunday morning and he paused it to go to the loo he was gone for so long i started reading a book did he take a syringe in with him for chance and a big thing of table salt just Just a pack of Maldon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll be back in a bit. Eventually, he came back looking very upset and asked me if I knew what the symptoms were of serious intestinal conditions.

He also wanted me to look at something coming out of his anus. Yeah. I did not want to look at his anus and I was quite certain that whatever was going on he had caused it yes I was of course correct and figured it out

after a minor investigation and without having to examine his anus okay so that's impressive that's like Columbo doesn't even need to see the scene of the crime he can tell you from behind the door what's gone on and what is it? the previous day he had gone to a fancy scene of the crime. He can tell you from behind the door what's gone on. And what is it?

Well, the previous day he had gone to a fancy deli and brought several slices of prosciutto. He arrived home and standing in his kitchen with no plate or accompaniment, he just ripped the slices apart and gobbled half the pack down like a big dog, hardly chewing the meat at all. Oh, God.

I have a feeling where this is going, and I really hope I'm not correct. He hadn't noticed the layer of cling film between each slice. Oh, fuck. Okay, that was not what I was expecting. Later, halfway through pooing, he realized something was stuck hanging out of him. He reached down and pulled out a long bit of poopy cling film from his bum,

believing his insides were painlessly but shockingly falling out. Just sheets of intestine. Perfectly rectangular. Oh my god, no! No!

What? No! my god no what no that's so funny i like to imagine him saying no in that weird rounded london way no oh no no no he pooed a bit more and then another strip began to emerge with every centimeter he pulled Oh no! No! He pooed a bit more and then another strip began to emerge. With every centimetre he pulled out, he became increasingly convinced he was going to die. So he tucked the dangling bumworm into his pants and decided to come out and ask for help. Fucking hell.

I mean, well done figuring out, man. Because without the context of what he'd been eating the day before, it's a surprise. It's very homely. It'd be hot. What have you eaten? Yes, yes, yes. Wait a minute.

Maz says, once I'd Columbo'd... Oh, there we go, Columbo, yeah. Once I'd Columbo'd the situation out, he went back to the bathroom to clean up, and I got back to my book. Very cool. Koji Maz. P.Ss in case you're wondering how it ended he dumped me a few weeks later assuring me unprompted that it was nothing to do with my skin color for quote his for his uh quote grandfather had once taken an indian lover fucking hell and he didn't think there was anything wrong with it. I'm not Indian, although I didn't

respond with an okay thank you. I was completely dumbfounded. Taken an Indian lover. Taken an Indian lover. Bold of him to dump someone who was willing to help him with his bum cling film. Yeah, I mean good luck finding someone else who's

that kind. Or is that committed. And clever. Yeah. Well, that's a great email, Matt. Thank you so much. Thank you, Matt. That had sort of everything, that email. It was all in there.

It really was all in there. That's great. I think maybe one of my favorite of the many, many Pooh stories we've received, that one. I really like that one. Yeah. It was high on farce and low on trauma. That's it. That's it. That's it. Everyone comes out of it fine.

But the second act, as it were, is really astonishing. Really good. Yeah. Great stuff. Well, that's all the time we have. Thank you for your correspondence. All really great, as ever.

Oh, if you want to watch me on anything currently, I'm currently on the current series of Outsiders on Dave, which is on every Wednesday night on Dave. It's a really great cast. It's a great fun show. We do a bunch of tricky challenges in the forest, in a campsite. It's really fun.

In the woods the scary woods so do watch it Outsiders do watch it please for the love of God and do if you're still wanting to come see my

Soho Sheer oh god Soho Theatre Show Soho Theatre Show January the 30th to February the 4th Certain Popular evenings are very close to selling out Bye bye bye

Go go go Go go go Alright cheers guys We're going to go now into Where is it this week Into the bonus area The Patreon The secret Patreon Area this week into the bonus area the Patreon the secret

Patreon area we'll figure it out what it is but do sign up to the Patreon otherwise we'll see you next week

see you next week bye bye bye