BudPod with Phil Wang & Pierre Novellie - Episode 33 - Midlife Christis

Episode Date: October 16, 2019

33! It’s the Jesus Episode! Midlife Christis! Phil Wang and Pierre Novellie discuss the different stages of life crisis, monks trapped in statues, what would you burn yourself to death for? Lemsip or crusty rolls? Deadline news! Gregory P Mango! (We now think he is some kind of journalist!) Novellie talks dice collections and shiny shiny rocks for fish tanks. We talk about Pierre’s pogs and Phil’s obsession with Detective Barbie. Correspondence! It turns out we are VILE AND ABSURD, Billy’s dad shat on a runway, walking like a testicle duck and Phil is off to do Roast Battle with our very own Fern Brady! Get in touch [e-mail] or @thebudpod on Twitter!  Get bonus BudPod on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh, it's the Jesus episode. Oh, I hadn't realized you'd started that. I thought you were just screaming from the inside of your body. Life! Yes, it's the Jesus episode. Episode 33. Or 33, as an Irish person might say. As they definitely would say

I've been there, they're all at it 33 a dirty tree are you feeling Jesus-y now? no because I I mean I feel like I've been bloody crucified

on social media you can't say anything these days without getting nails literally put through your hands. Well, I'm not speaking metaphorically. I've had nails put through my hands by the BBC. It's a good age to be 33. Is it? I don't know. Neither of us are that age no but we can imagine if you're 33 do send in um if you think you're jesus because of it do you think um do you think that's a marker for people who are especially religious like uh there's there's

there's all your quarter life crisis yeah the 27 the 27 Club for our generation. There's 27 Club. When you get to 27, you go, oh, if I died now, would it be culturally significant? And obviously there's 30, the big 30 that people talk about. And then it's kind of plain sailing until 60. Well, I wouldn't say plain sailing. There's probably a lot of like... Deceptitude. Yeah, and sort of family stuff and having

your children and your first divorce but but at least you know some know where you stand we're really talking like comedians they go well then obviously there's a divorce i mean we work in comedy gonna write about something do you ever think about that do you ever think about how much of like signing up to be a comedian is like a self-fulfilling prophecy where you think will i be the alcoholic kind or the divorced kind or the like do you go through the stereo i do that sometimes yeah i'm now settled on sort of um a decent comedian but not fucked up enough to be a great comedian oh okay that's interesting because i think my life is so too comfortable and i'm sort of too sensible and fine to ever be like a great. You think you're too much like, you're like an aristocratic artist.

Sure, yes. Like your paintings are great. Yes. But they're lacking a certain horror or depth. Yes, I'm a gentleman inventor. Your shed's too nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you're tinkering.

You need to tinker somewhere with an edge of, if I don't invent this, I'm going to have no food. Maybe that's it. But yeah, do you think religious people get to 33 and go, oh, Jesus was dead by now. And they're not. Yeah, and they're not. And three days later they go, he was alive by now.

Because I have not done any miracles. I haven't healed a single leper. Thing is, he had a pretty uneventful 20s, didn't he, Jesus? Well, we don't know, do we? He went to uni. I think he went to uni. I think he studied carpentry. He did a BTEC in carpentry, and then he did uni.

Yeah. He wanted to do theology, of course, but his parents wouldn't let him. Yeah, even though he got annoyed because he should have just always got full marks yeah but it wasn't true yet he's like no there is a godhead in the in the tripartite that's indivisible and they're just like what are you there's only one god what are you talking about and he's like oh you'll see you'll see and he talked like he was about he's like, oh, you'll see. You'll see. And he talked like he was going to bring a gun into school one day. You'll all see.

Or he's like Marty McFly. Oh, you're not ready for that, but your kids are going to love it. They're going to kill over it. Yeah, repeatedly. Many times. I think maybe if you're religious enough, you have a Jesus crisis. A Christus. Your midlife Christus.

I'm having a real midlife Christus right now that I'm 33. 27 Club, midlife Christus. Fun 40. Yeah, that's the thing. No one in biblical times really lived old enough. Well, I mean, they did. They lived to about 200 years old. Apparently, yeah.

In Abrahamic times. Turns out all you needed to live to 200 was zero nutrition and... Live in the desert. Live in the arid desert. Maybe that's why old people always retire to places like Spain or Florida. They like the dry heat. It's good for their joints. And where's drier and hotter than the deserts of jordan yeah so maybe that's the ultimate way to

preserve or maybe they just thought moses or whoever it was who lived that long was alive but just quiet but actually he was a mom he was a mummy because the desert's perfect for preserving bodies right so you think he wasn't actually alive, Moses They were just like, Moses is off his food For a hundred years When was the last time he ate? Oh, gotta be 70 years He hasn't eaten since I was born

And I'm the oldest other person What a miracle Truly, he is the chosen one Have you seen that thing of the statue With the monk inside it Oh Yeah There was a Buddha A statue of Buddha

Yeah And they x-rayed it And there was a skeleton In there And Oh What had happened was Where was this statue

I My gut says Burma But that might just be Because that's where I thought you were going to say Birmingham That's Birmingham It's definitely Birmingham Someone put a skeleton On a Burmese...

Burmese? Birmingham? Brummie. Brummie! Oh, God. Basically, this monk... They knew he was out there somewhere or something? Or, like, it tallied with some records?

Or... This monk... This monk never died. He just... He just became in this trance. He just became a Skellington. He just became a Skellington. He just became... It happens to be that this trance took the form of him

being very... seeming like he was absolutely dead. Yeah. But he wasn't, like, rotting or anything. Okay. So it was a bit like in Christian sainthood, where they go, and his flesh was untouched by decay.

So this guy was, like, a little shriveled up. Like, he was an ancient monk when he died anyway. He died while meditating. And they were like, wow, he's still going in this trance slash dead. So they kind of made the statue around him. Like it's in that meditation pose with its legs crossed.

Was he dead when they made it around him? Yeah. Well, he was in a trance. Oh, I see. Yeah. And then now he's inside a statue and you x-ray it and there's a skeleton in there. Wow. Yeah. And they were like, gah. And then he gives them a wink.

Wink. When they look in. He's miming for like thirsty. Like, oh, please. If I could just have a little break. Goes to the toilet. Goes back in the statue. Back to sleep.

Do you think you could set yourself on fire like one of those monks? What would you set yourself on fire for? What would I set myself on fire for? Yeah. For me, it would be to make blackcurrant the default lemsip flavor. Because everywhere has lemon. Some places have blackcurrant which is inarguably superior it is better it is so much better it's better although i'm always disappointed by how much not like ribena it is because it is still medicine yeah sure it's got that little uh

paracetamol uh kick in the back of your mouth uh-huh but like it's a grown-up taste i i think i would i would set myself on fire to replace all brioche buns with those like crusty rolls hard what i believe the scouts call a morning roll okay because brioche is just cake yes and i'm against the cakeification of of savory breads oh yeah i think this is good. Because that's very American. Let's not allow confectionaries into savory spaces. That's right. Look, I need a savory space. I need a savory space.

It's a thing. Europeans, when they go to America, they go, why is all of your bread so sweet? Even the white bread. In America. Their natural base level of bread is so close to brioche because that's what's more american than that if everything was cake whereas i like those rolls that are like you know like that you you crunch them and like they flake off a bit yeah like hard crunchy rolls if if i if you could sell if i would be so happy i i'm in

favor of the burger revolution That has happened Meat liquor and all that Big tender burgers They make them all juicy And it's rare in the middle But that's The thing with those burgers Is that they're really soft and tender

So the bun should have some contrast For fuck's sake Not just like Hey now this thing is It's like just eating mush Like a big foam Softy gloopy thing It's like a McDonald's burger That patty is You know it's pretty It's like, hey, now this thing is just eating mush, like a big foam, softy, gloopy thing. It's like a McDonald's burger.

That patty is pretty... It's pretty structurally sound. So you can have this sort of sweet candy bread on either side. It's all right. And you can feel the patty through the bread when you press down. Yeah, this foam. This kind of memory foam bun. But people still love McDonald's because you've got that contrast.

And it's contrast. And they've chucked a pickle in there. They've chucked a pickle, never forget. There's a crunch. There's a crunch and a sour. Whereas brioche and then like sweet relish and then this gloopy. Sweet relish! This is brioche!

Oh, but yeah, so that's what I would set myself on fire for. Okay. In fact, I listened to a podcast where it's like the last interview that Gary Shandling, the American comedian. Yeah. He was a big Buddhist. Oh, okay. And he met this Vietnamese monk who burned off two of his fingers. Okay.

He like dipped his fingers in oil and just burned them off and watched them burn as like a thing of of the temporariness of it right and he remembers saying to him well did it hurt and he went yeah yeah like it wasn't even about it not hurting it was about him ignoring it goodness me yeah it was a meditation on the temporary nature of life. Of your body, specifically. Well, I mean, it's extra temporary if you burn bits off.

No one's under the illusion they're going to live forever. You break the warranty if you burn bits off. But that's pretty hardcore. You'd never fuck with that guy. Not because he'd beat you, but because how can you beat him?

He's willing to burn his fucking fingers off he'll fight himself for you yeah he'll beat the shit out of him for you he'll learn from it too he'll come out wiser and you'll be standing there with nothing he'll be just a head but he'll be the smartest the wisest head in the world he'll know everything what's it like being a head he'll be be like, it's bad. I don't like it. And you go, wow, that is wise. But at least now I understand why I don't like it. At least now I know. For sure. For sure that my body

is temporary. I, uh, what was I going to say about the old brioche? The cake bread. Oh, yes, that was it. You said sweet relish. Yeah, sweet relish. My flatmate sent me a photograph of a newspaper article about a heist, Phil, in New York.

Hot scoop. Yeah, hot scoop. Hot scoop. Deadline news. Deadline news. Which, if listeners don't know, I was reviewed by, or was supposed to be reviewed during the Fringe,

by Deadline News. The Edinburgh Fringe has a plethora of maybe but probably not real publications. Yes. Deadline News is kind of our favourite one to say out loud.

And it's the most like a news outfit you'd make up for an early Batman comic. Yeah. Deadline news. Gotham is overrun by a plague of seagulls. Deadline news. Will no one send us a caped crusader? This is deadline news.

In this heist story, there are two good names. Okay. Good names. Yeah. The guy doing the heist or something, or involved in some way, Quincy Thorpe. Wow. Yeah. Is this a contemporary heist?

Yeah, yeah. Some robbery, yeah. Recently. Yeah, yeah. Quincy? Quincy Thorpe. Quincy Thorpe. What a name.

Now, for legal reasons, I have to admit, I don't remember. That could be their detective. I don't know. Butpe what a name now I for legal reasons I have to admit I don't remember that could be their detective I don't know but that's a name in the article Quincy Thorpe

but within the body of the article you know when they kind of the words go around a cut out of a photo of a dude yeah

and they kind of go around him yeah in silhouette I think it's very cute yeah it's nice there was a

there was a dude in there and he's got like a hoodie on and a big old beard and he looks like a tough gangster dude and the name captioned underneath for like oh who this is was gregory p mango no way and here's the kicker gregory p mango was not named anywhere in the body of the article. It was like they thought, well, let's put a photo of Gregory P. Mango in the article. Is it anything to do with it? It sounded like it was getting a little dry.

Have you thought about putting Gregory P. Mango in there? Just to liven things up before they get to the end. It's got nothing to do with it, but we just know this guy is Gregory P. Mango, and we think people need to know that that's a real name. I think Gregory P. Mango could turn around the fortunes of the printed work. He'll reverse the decline of press, of the news press. Because sure, a Kindle is convenient, but does it have a Gregory P. Mango in it? Not yet.

I don't think so. I don't think so. This is Gregory P. Mango for Deadline News. Unconfirmed rumours that the P stands for pineapple. Gregory Pineapple Mango. He's the fruitiest man in town.

They call him the tropical thug. Gregory P. Mango. But that was a release. He leaves sort of smoothies at all times He's tangy and refreshing But that's a good thing This looks like the work of Mango

Mango! Deadline news Gregory P. Mango strikes again. Well, sure have been in this statue a long time. I know I'm supposed to be meditating, but

I can't concentrate because somebody built a statue around me. I mean, I'm still in the lotus pose. That's something. I'm getting kind of hungry. Feels like it's been maybe 50 years? I don't know.

You need to track your time here. Inside a statue. No daylight or anything. I hope they don't... I hope they haven't forgotten I'm in here. I hope they don't just think that I'm just... a statue. What about... What about the guy who put me in the statue?

Because I back then I must have been about shit, I don't know 90? 80? So how old was that guy? That guy maybe well let's say he was 30. It's been at least

50 years. He's 80. Fuck, maybe he's dead years I mean he's 80 fuck maybe he's dead even if he's not dead even 80 year olds you know they're forgetful he wouldn't even remember

where he's put his keys never mind that there's a fucking a guy in a statue shit what if I moved away I moved around a lot I could hear I was in a van. Have I been sold?

Am I an antique? Huh. Well. I hope this counts as enlightenment so I don't have to come back. Wasted. Maybe, you know what, maybe I do want to come back. Wasted. Maybe I do want to come back. Waste my fucking time being a statue again, I'll tell you that. Get out there and...

I don't know. Burn my whole fucking hand off and then... go to Vegas? Yeah. Yeah, Vegas. I wish they'd left some room in the statue for me to scratch my balls. Now, Philem, it's been a while since we did a feature

which new listeners might not even know about if they haven't been good boys and girls and other and gone back and listened from the start. Dirty little boys and dirty little girls. That's right, of the Church of Dirty... How did that come up? Oh, I don't know. When did we come up with that? 2003? Yeah, I don't know.

Sometimes my brother-in-law texts me and goes, I can't believe that he texted me the other day saying he had to put down weights in the gym because he was laughing about quote the instant vomiting bit and i was like you're gonna have to really narrow this down man there's three or four episodes where this could be relevant um so the feature uh coolest uncool and least cool cool yes what is what is the uh coolest lame thing you can think of and what is the lamest cool thing you can think of i guess that's how you just do it yeah that's good yeah that's nice that's nice see yeah uh so i thought of some yeah so this is this i might be i might be off on this one but coolest uncool thing i'm gonna say

having a collection of dice because i know some dungeons and dragons types and they've got oh like different side different number side of dice so many different sides they've got green triangles like pyramids and they're all that translucent shiny material and like plastic and i don't know about you but i have a thing from when i was a kid i think may martin has this as well i think me and her talked about it once ages ago and uh do you remember you could get those translucent things for like fish tanks they were like little pebbles made of plastic or glass oh yeah and they were like little pebbles made of plastic or glass and they were like see-through shiny green, red, yellow, blue whatever

when I saw those I can't tell you what it did to my soul Phil when I was little, when I was like five seeing the fish tank pebbles yeah you could buy them in bags and I'd say to my mum I need those I need them we don't have fish

and I'd be like it's not about that I need those. I need them. And we don't have fish. And I'd be like, it's not about that. You just put your finger on the bridge of your nose. Just pinching the bridge of your nose. It's not about the fish. I really angrily light a cigarette. It's not about the fish. It's about sending a message.

And I'd be like, it's treasure It's delicious It's food treasure Because it would look like sweet Yeah yeah yeah But also it's treasure It's jewels And I just I knew I needed it

It was the most ape-like reaction I've ever had to anything The most like a chimp I've ever felt I need I need There can never be too many And I want to run my hands through them

Like treasure rocks. Did she buy them for you? I don't, maybe once. Yeah, I think, I don't think a responsible parent would buy, would count out that more than once. No. I think after a point you have to draw boundaries. You already have a bag of translucent red fish pebbles. Fish gems.

That's all you're having. You haven't eaten your last translucent red fish pebbles. Fish gems. That's all you're having. You haven't eaten your last translucent red fish gems. Some of them had sparkles in, Phil. They were white see-through ones but they'd made them look a bit like there's glitter maybe. Oh, it was nice. And anyway, I think the dice tap into that part of me

because they're useful. They're dice. They're for something. And they've got all the numbers on but there's like big, like 20- that are like purple like a giant ruby in your fist and there's little normal dice and they're all shiny and clacky and they're in a little box i have a memory of a like a fat die like a fat red translucent die yeah and it just felt good in your fingers that's it and it's chunky bastard yeah and you go it was chunky bastard you went back to being even more malaysian with that memory and and they're they're very useful pieces of tech because um randomizing numbers are something computers still can't really do this is that's it that's the thing is that i um i only that blew my mind when i found

that out because my dad who like you was once an engineering man he he showed me he had an old random numbers table yeah like a little book thing okay and he still had one from his well they look up random numbers in a book you'd like there'd just be lists of numbers and numbers and numbers like a phone book of random gibberish numbers so you flip to a page and you pick a number yeah right and you and you would roll a dice or similar yeah so you'd go like okay page 31 number number wow yeah and that would be a random number string ah and it was as close as you could get when they didn't even have pocket calculators yeah really old school so that's my cool cool... It's very uncool.

It's a box of dice for fuck's sake. It's definitely for tabletop gaming. Do you reckon... I think having a collection of anything is a little bit cool. Because it's a demonstration of commitment and consistency of

thought and value. And like planning. Yeah. And interest. Interest in something. Interest is now quite cool in and of itself. I mean, what the interest is for can add or detract from that coolness. But I think just having a real interest in something is kind of cool.

I think that's true. And that seemed to change in what, like the noughties? But maybe even in the nineties, if it was pogs. I think it came about with the whole sort of hipster movement for material things. Yeah. You know, when people started collecting vinyls and hard copies of CDs and, you know,

when things started going digital, people reacted by saying we should start collecting more material things. Yeah. And maybe that's when it started happening. Because no one can see what's in your hard drive. I collected coins. Did you? Yeah, for a bit I collected coins. My prize piece was an American trade dollar from 18 something something.

What? An American trade dollar. A trade dollar? Yeah. Like a sort of weird international dollar. 18 something something. What? An American trade dollar. A trade dollar? Yeah. Like a sort of weird international dollar. I guess so. It's like a big old silver coin. Yeah.

And it had Lady Liberty on one side and the other had a guy's face and it said, one trade dollar. That's pretty cool. Yeah. That's pretty good. I had pogs. What is a pog? Pogs were like big plastic discs like about this big that I'm holding up for Phil

and I would say what's that the size of? It's like double the size of a 50p? More. Yeah. I'd say an egg. Sure, it's the width of an egg and it's like a flat disc and you would play... It's the width of the length

of an egg. The width of the length of an egg. It's the width of the length of an egg and it's like a flat disc. And you would play. It's the width of the length of an egg. The width of the length of an egg. Yeah. It's the width of the length of an egg. That old song. And you would play. You could collect pogs.

And like loads of places had pogs. Like you could get Warner Brothers characters pogs. Like Tweety Bird. Were these just like little discs? Just little discs. This is insane. But there was a game you could play. And it was like Tiddlywinks, I think. You could click pogs, and you had to throw them and hit each other's pogs,

and you would play to win. Like bulls? Yeah, or like marbles. If you actually play marbles properly and hit them out of the circle, you win the marbles. But it was like a version with these plastic discs, and you could get shiny, reflective ones, and those were better, and the usual scam for children's collectibles.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Pogs were everywhere, man. You could get Warner Brothers, cartoons, Pogs, like, what was the name? Sylvester the Cat and Tweety Bird. And this was a brand, Pogs? I think Pogs was a brand, but then you could also get, like,

loads of brands got in on the Pogs, if that makes sense. Was it like when Tim berners-lee invented the world wide web and said this is for the world the inventor of the park said this is for everyone everyone went what the world went hmm what was that he invented a small plastic disc and went this is too great invention for one man to hold this is for everyone maybe he thought he invented the circle imagine if his argument was technically these are the only perfect circles every other circle in history has been a little off ah yes a little off yeah these are the only perfect ones and they're mine and i'm sharing them and you should all say thank you maybe that maybe that was it but like childhood culture in south africa when i was there as a

little baby boy was very americanized so i had pogs i had spider-man comics you know we didn't get comics we we had marbles we had yo-yos those were the big thing for a bit yeah yeah yeah yo yo yo um we had um these japanese uh japanese spinning blade uh spinning tops called Beyblades. Beyblades were a thing in the UK. Oh, were they? Yeah, yeah, yeah. At least a little bit. Because I think the Beyblade cartoon was only on Cartoon Network.

So if you didn't have Sky. How good are the Japanese at making cartoons about toys? They're incredible. There must have been a challenge someone put up. It was like, hey, Hiro, I bet you can't make a cartoon about spinning tops. You know, like a traditional Indonesian spinning top. The most boring toy in the world.

A dreidel. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think the only time that the west has truly offered up a cartoon that was only about toys is gi joe okay because it's always like gi joe quickly get into your new armored fight truck and you go all right another vehicle i think oh you know what i remember yesterday was um for a while when I was a kid I was obsessed With the PC game

Detective Barbie I beg your pardon? Barbie Detective, Detective Barbie It was Barbie And she was at a beach resort And someone had gone missing There'd been a murder-suicide And Barbie was on the case

Barbie was going, I hate this city Another body washed up on the shore today Smoking on a lollipop So hang on It's Malibu, presumably Oh yeah, it must have been the Malibu There was a fairground Nearby

Please write in if anyone played this game I want to know I've not gone insane But it was Quite It was compelling It was quite kind of spooky You'd walk around these places on your own as Barbie That's already scary like a

point and click oh right yeah so she'd go and if you'd see a clue you go hmm i discard a lipstick this is not really like the ones i like but uh this one is missing it's and then they pull off wax and there's like there's a blade in here or whatever you know or like this heroin in this lipstick oh my god a gun but like it had this real dark feel feel to it it's like it had a proper noir feel but like it was barbie walking through hotel rooms and an abandoned fairground. I like the idea. An old beach. An old beach.

An old beach. Down at the old beach. Like the sand's all grey. The old beach. The abandoned beach. The abandoned beach. Because it's full of ghosts. The sand is full of ghosts

i i like the idea of um well first of all i can absolutely understand what you mean by the spookiness because when you're a kid as well anything mysterious is already scary and weird to you yeah and and especially video games where you're on your own you're on your own in the game probably what's mainly to do with the fact that it can be bothered programming other characters but the effect was that you felt very alone oh it was so it was like um fucking 28 days later a little bit yeah there's no one around like you wake up and all other humans on earth are gone but also when you're a kid you don't know enough about how games work to know that there are not infinite possibilities. In your head, anything could happen.

Right, yes. Whereas when you're an adult, you go, right, so I'm reading heavy signals to go down this road. Yes, and if you do that, that will happen. Yeah, whereas when you're a kid, you don't quite understand that not all the doors can be opened and stuff is painted on. This game was actually quite sophisticated

because a different person done it every time you played the game. So every time you played the game it would be a bit different. And I feel like the clues are in different places and stuff. I'm amazed that someone bothered. I guess it's a big brand? I guess so.

But they could have got away with... Do you know what this sounds to me like this sounds to me like Barbie Incorporated or whatever accidentally hired a real passionate game designer and they went you know what fuck Barbie

but I'm going to make this good I've actually been waiting for this IP for years I've wanted to do something interesting with barbie it's about time yeah before alan moore gets it and does a disturbing comic about detective barbie a sick comic a dark barbie like an alan moore barbie alan moore barbie would be incredible because it would be like la confidential plastic surgery and like malibu setting you know divorces and things and the racial tension of where black barbie's gone and all that stuff all is not as it appears on

the surface i like the idea that detective barbie means that her name is like jane barbie she's got the same surname as the famous nazi war criminal klaus barbie she's of german descent this this lady this barbie klaus barbie klaus barbie i think so it's about the same way spelled the same way yeah he got smuggled to the states by the cia i think or maybe he fled to argentina in a bright pink convertible His legs couldn't bend Yeah, yeah, yeah That's why the Nazis marched like that Because they had straight, unbendable legs

Huge tits, Klaus Barbie as well To the point where he couldn't stand Have you seen that where they've tried to model What a human woman would look like? Yeah, like a spineless snap or something Yeah, it would be an absolute human centipede sort of nightmare. Yeah.

Yeah. But also, boys got those action figures that were half shark, so, you know. That's true. There's a lot of pressure on us to be more shark-like in life. Yeah, some real unrealistic body standards for boys there.

It is funny, isn't it? I mean, I grew up with Conan the Barbarian and He-Man and stuff. And I mean, I never felt that much pressure to look like young Schwarzenegger. No. I think it's so interesting that when young men saw these like mega shredded dudes. Yeah, they just go, I'm that already. Or they just go, well, clearly yeah or they just go well clearly that would be insane to aspire to because it's not it's it's presented as exceptional right not the norm like

he's a hero yeah that's why he looks like this interesting a god turned his parents to stone and now he's got to fight them and you're like well that's got that's got nothing to do with me but then is that because then barbie's, she has a car and a purse. Yeah, she's a normal person. She's not a hero. Yeah, that must be it. She's just a normal everyday person. This is normal, by the way.

Yeah, that's interesting. Hey, do you want a house and a car? That's really interesting. You've got to get like this, walk on your tippy toes. Yeah, but I just want a normal, decent life with a loving partner and some possessions. And a Malibu villa. That's true.

You're going to have, to be fair, that's probably- By modern standards, she is a superhero. Yeah, by millennial standards, it's as ridiculous as a moon base. To own a house. Under the age of 30, I presume. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know how old Barbie is meant to be.

Barbie's got to be. Well, I guess... Mid-20s. Different Barbies are different ages, right? Because I guess there was college Barbie and... Yeah. Was there retired Barbie? Was there grandma Barbie? And there was...

Menopause Barbie. Jewel of the Ocean Barbie, where she's an ancient old woman with her regrets. Mid-50s Barbie. got comes with a cigarette and wine oh do you know one of the most sinister things i ever saw was i was at a toys rs somewhere and there were two baby dolls for sale next to each other they're identical except that one was a white baby one was a black baby. And the white baby was called

Beautiful Princess Baby. And the black baby was just called Brenda. And the black baby was cheaper. That's the most horrible thing I've ever seen. That is horrific. This is Brenda. She's five pounds less.

This is beautiful princess Jennifer. This is Brenda. And Brenda. Featuring Brenda. If you can't afford beautiful princess Jane. Who comes with a unicorn And a Ferrari Then Brenda Brenda's over there

Pretty bleak That is bleak Good riddance to Toys R Us That's what I say Gone the way of the dodo Gone the way of the dodo That giant racist giraffe That used to try and sell us toys

It was a giraffe, wasn't it? Yeah, well it's backwards R. Learn to speak the language. This is the hour, the darkest place My name is Detective Bobby. I worked the streets around these parts for about 20 years, and I ain't never seen anything as fucked up as this. Down in Malibu, we got a call about a 274 and a dream house just off the beach.

And I got to tell you, it was ugly. It was just legs, heads, torsos with the kind of, you know, the underpants are like on the body. It was sick. Sick. No blood anywhere in the dream car. No sign of the doll who lives there. Not a clue. Nothing.

I gotta tell you, the neighborhood's taken a real sharp turn ever since the turf war started with those Bratz dolls. Ugly fucking giant heads. Anyway, that's off the record. Like I said, pretty grisly scene. We think they were using Ken's dream boat to take the body parts out into the bay and drop them there. But I don't have the evidence I need. Yet.

Let's just say I'm gonna have to twist a lot of poseable limbs to get what I want. Just another day in Malibu, Bobby. Just another day in Malibu. Correspondence Correspondence Correct, it is correspondence time And in a Bud Pod first I am going to read a piece of correspondence The world turneth upside down

Pierre's going to look at me like A sort of An aged gardener At a palace watching A syphilitic prince give it a go And get it wrong. Incompetently dig up a load of flowers. Yes, very good, sir.

Yes, sir, that's just gently, more gentle than that, please. So this message is from Mari. Mari? How do you say? Mari, yeah. Mari. Mari. This message from, I've already fucked this up. This is a message from Mari. Mari Mari how do you it's Mari Mari this message from I've already fucked this up

this is a message from Mari she's got in touch saying thought you'd like to know that I went on a date with someone last night who when bragging about a rugby injury

explained I messed it up exclaimed oh fuck this I want to start again I really thought you were joking about how much you thought you'd fuck it up

come on Phil you can do it I'm so bad at reading things out loud which is terrible because it should be my job okay here we go this is from Mari and I presume Pierre has cut out all the mistakes I just made so I didn't come across too badly I thought you'd like to know that I went on a date with someone last night

who when bragging about a rugby injury, exclaimed, That really hurt! This made me laugh too hard because of your podcast, so I recommended he also listen. He's just messaged me to say that my sense of humour is vile and absurd if I like your comedy, so we will not be seeing each other anymore. Essentially, you helped me dodge a massive ship covered bullet koji that's incredible vile and absurd vile and absurd what an old-fashioned criticism for a young man to have

what's funny to me about that is even those words are old-fashioned yeah vile and absurd but also what i love is that Absurd humour is a kind of humour That's not a critique It's like going This is vile and observational This is vile slapstick People slipping in it You have to commend the technical mastery

It's still vile It's still disgusting Vile and absurd I just like the image of him Going home after rugby practice Listening to an episode of Bud Pod And his life, a monocle dropping into his champagne This is vile

And absolutely absurd And absurd What do you mean you're a pilot? Also he plays hey hey also he plays um he plays rugby so it's like i mean this is not all rugby clubs and rugby players but it's like well i i was on my way home from um well i'd had to down a pint that had my friend's balls in because of course i i dropped the ball on the try line and that made me the wooden spoon player of the match and once i'd finished the testicle pint i went home and um i listened to the and it was vile and absurd what it surely this should be right up your alley with

a bit of you know i'd love to know what the final straw was with oh yes like what was the point at which you went no No Do you think it was maybe Fern broke him Maybe it was the baby The adult baby How can you not like that story I know And it's not absurd if it actually happened

Yeah Then life is absurd Exactly that's the lesson And vile And occasionally vile Yeah I to teach and vile and occasionally vile and occasionally vile yeah i i want to track that guy's listen i wish we had the data we could go and here's where he press pause and here's where he sent that angry text this is but imagine okay it's already insane that he thought that yeah and that's what he

thought about the podcast. Imagine then saying it and saying to someone who you've been on a date with, you are vile and absurd. After one date. And we shan't be seeing each other anymore thanks to this humorous podcast. I like to think that he was really into it. And I was like, I think she's the one. Oh, she sent me a recommendation.

Let me just listen to it. Bud pot, that sounds fun and clean. Clean, just a couple of buds. What? This is, oh my God. You put it where? Oh. Maybe he. Oh.

Oh. Just clattering his headphones onto the floor. This is vile and absurd. And then I like to think he ran to his bed. He ran. He ran and jumped on and cried. Like hands folded, you know, crossed in front of him,

crying into the crook of his elbow. I thought it was meant to be. He runs down to the living room where the only telephone in the house is and it's got a rotary dial One of those ones where The speaking bit is separate from the hearing bit It's got a whole booth

Hello operator Patch me through to my boo Send a textual message Read as follows Begin, begin message You are vile and absurd, stop We will no longer be seeing each other. Stop.

We will not be continuing our correspondence. Stop. Amazing. I'd like to think, yeah, we should put it on a poster somehow, that we're vile and absurd. Yeah. You can aim for a double act. Vile and absurd.

I'm vile. He's absurd. I'm Stephen Vile, and this is Terrence Absurd. I think that's great. What have you got, Pierre? What do I have? Well, let's have a look. Doopie-doo. Ooh.

Oh. Hang on. Oh. Oh. Pierre's ears have perked up Like an excited Jackrabbit Billy Billy gets in touch Billy Billy

Let's be silly Hello pod buds He says I was pleased to hear The correspondence From a fellow Poobag Bud pod

Pod pod pod bud Oh yes This is from our friend With the stoma Yes Yes Yes And he had an

Iliostomy I think As opposed had an ileostomy, I think. As opposed to a colostomy. I guess maybe our friend here has got a biliostomy. I don't, well, yeah. Yes, a biliostomy. He says, the difference between colostomy and ileostomy is which part of your guts are brought up through the skin. There's a clue in the Latin.

Stoma is a mouth or opening, so you get colon stoma, colostomy, and ileum stoma iliostomy Very nice Fern's tale about puking on the airport runway Reminded me of a friend Who was at one point a fairly high up civil servant I wonder what happened

With a lot of responsibility But not my dad, for whom that is also true Alright Billy Okay Billy He's going alright for me Billy's dad He, this friend,. Billy's dad. He, this friend, not Billy's dad,

had flown to America in the time when 9-11 was less of a distant memory. The past, he means. Yes. While making his way off the plane and onto the runway, nature called. Nature called, texted, tweeted, and emailed. This was an emergency. But when asking the airport staff

If he could return to the plane to use the loo They obviously said no So he scurried off, squatted behind a wheel of the plane No! And let loose Before sheepishly heading to customs and arrivals How did he even get let under there? It's more dangerous that he got let under the plane

To have a dump than back on the plane That is crazy That's nuts isn't it but also aren't there loos like maybe in america they make you go through all the queue where it's like aliens this way and they're really aggressive yeah horrible my my my washington dc airport was and it felt like being in a prison yeah they're not nice to arrivals that's for damn sure what is wrong with Americans? Just calm down! Fucking hell. Everyone's trying to...

Jesus. My dad once got singled out for lots of security checks in a queue because he was very ill with a stomach bug and as a result he was standing in the queue fidgeting and sweating profusely. Which are the two most suspicious things you can do in a security queue so they were like this guy's hiding something he was hiding they need

to go to the toilet well he was harboring a chemical attack yes he was yes he was and he wanted to do it on foreign soil he wanted to soil and foreign. I foreign soiled myself. Okay, so this is a good, a nice one from Liam. Liam, Liam, love to see him. Nice. Thank you. Well, that will work for this because testicles come up. Oh, okay.

Let's see him, Liam. Let's see him, Liam. Dear Jack Masters. I don't know about master, but I got the job done. Thank you so much for the captivating pod show. It is now a firm favorite. Ah. I have a new suggestion for a category on the show.

Not normal things you thought were normal. Don't we already have this? I think we have weirdest normal thing. Weirdest normal thing, okay. And most normal weird thing. Well, so here's a story. So here's my example. Many years ago, I visited a GP for a full medical check

that was required for my application to the Royal Navy. Ooh. I never joined in the end, he says. Okay. I was going to say, don't mess with Liam. Yeah. But it turns out you can mess with Liam.

You can mess with Liam all day long. Mess with him all you want. The old landlubber. The doctor conducted a full battery of tests. These included a check of the testicles. Doink, doink, doink. A chest squeeze. That's right.

Turn your head to the left and cough, baby. That's right. I had been anticipating this point nervously and knew it was approaching, as each test I was undertaking required less and less clothes. Fewer and fewer clothes. It's interesting, isn't it? Less and less clothes. Fewer and fewer items of clothing.

I suppose so. Maybe it could be less clothes. Maybe. Cl, isn't it? Less and less clothes. Fewer and fewer items of clothing. I suppose so. Maybe it could be less clothes. Maybe. Clothes are pretty abstract. They are quite abstract. But you can't have... Anyway. The kind doctor grasped my plums.

That's like a sentence from Duolingo. The kind doctor grasped my plums. Say it. Le docteur gentil grasper mes plumes. Oh, God. Je plume. Grasp my plumes, ask me to cough,

and it was done. Phew. I stood there naked, but relieved. I was expecting to put my clothes back on immediately, but before I could, the doctor asked me

to hold myself in a crouch. Wow. I did so. Then he instructed me to walk across the room. I paused. Yeah, I paused, confused. While still crouching, I asked him.

Yes, you know, like a duck. So I set off waddling naked across the doctor's office. Halfway across the room, plums swinging as they struggled to keep up with my sweeping waddle, I noticed several watercolors of ducks on the surgery wall this struck me as odd

once I had finished I popped my clothes on okay thank you and left is this guy a doctor anymore? I don't know. Yeah, this is it. I mean, Dr. Duck. Did he learn anything else about Dr. Duck? It would already be super weird

even without the duck watercolors. That's so funny. How many, Liam? Like a wall, like a full wall, like a memorial. Like a hundred framed ducks or like a few. Years later, he says, this struck me as not normal. Do you have any similar not normal, normal stories? Okay, thank you, Liam.

So what's normal about that is that it was just a checkup, but something abnormal happened to it. I mean, that's a very funny and very disturbing story. Yes, and it does raise questions, especially with the watercolours and his immediate choice of duck. Unless he Darren Browned himself and just went, yeah, like a duck.

But then he saw his own duck pictures. Because what medical reason does he possibly have to... To crouch and walk around? Is that a Navy thing? So much flexibility. Flexibility, yeah. I guess, yeah yeah how compact you can

get how much of a tight space you can squeeze yourself into and move because okay let's say the doctor is is a pervo and we're saying doctor in very broad terms here by the sounds of it yeah this man in an alleyway with a shiny circle on a headband um let's say he's a big perv he's already got his hands on the plums yeah he's already had a jingle jangle of the old jewels Is that not enough for this man? Must he see them hang and dangle While a man does a duck walk around the room? Sure, I mean

It takes all sorts And maybe Feeling the testicles was just a test To go, yeah, those will Duck dangle nicely Those will be good I will ask him to do the duck i'll like these he thought yeah these will swing real nice what would you do if you were like the medical advisory board and you'd be like then this guy right you found out he'd been making all the men do duck duck walks with

with their dingle dangles and been really like not photographing them because that would that would be illegal but he's just like there's no reason for it he just loves it but he's like the best doctor like he caught he keeps catching people's like cancer early his rates are incredible i'd have like a quiet word with him in the hallway outside before the hearing saying just make up some research just make up some research. Just make up some research. Yeah, just say you've noticed that men who can't do the waddle without their nuts retracting are more at risk of, you know, filling the gaps here, man.

Yeah. Just try to. Help me help you. Help me help you Help me help you We can't lose another duck Not duck We can't lose your duck duck We can't

Look duck duck We can't lose you Well Pierre I think whatever you think about this doctor I think we can all agree that he was a bit Of a quack Thank you And with that i have to go because i'm going to roast our friend fern brady ladies and gentlemen phil's going to go to

do comedy central roast battle with fern goddamn brady fern bud pod guest brady fern bra ping off diarrhea whirlpool brady i want to say some horrible, embarrassing things about her, and I'm not even bringing up those episodes. Yeah. That's how much of a fucking mess Fern Brady is. I can't wait. Okay, thank you, everyone. Thank you for listening, and do share it on Twitter.

Tell your friends. Spread the word. Oh, yeah, give us some five-star reviews. We haven't asked for those in a while. Of course, yeah. We're almost on a five, apart from that one guy who gave us three on the condition we cut all the sketches because maybe he was

because they were absurd vile and absurd vile and absurd yeah give us some nice reviews and subscribe obviously you can just listen ad hoc but if you subscribe

it makes us look like cooler boys and girls yeah okay thank you bye bye