BudPod with Phil Wang & Pierre Novellie - Episode 80 - In Person Pod!

Episode Date: September 16, 2020

The boys are back in person! They discuss the worst possible picnic foods, Pierre's new mysterious Taste X, Phil's coffee fear and cockroach knowledge, Arabic, subscriptions, thirsty dolphins, scary Japan flag, orange milk dippers getting thrown onto the nonce wing Get bonus BudPod on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's BudPod80, PersonPod, InPersonPod? That's right, 80, it's been long but not too latey. Phil and Pierre are finally in the same room together, at last! We're finally face to face. Phil has grown a three foot beard. Yes. I am grey and wizened. Yeah. I'm mostly not, I'm not grey and wizened.

I'm mostly just pouring sweat. I've made a mistake. Went to the gym. Good for me. Had a hot shower without turning it cold at the end. Yeah, that's just sort of encouraging the flow of sweat. Yeah. Through the gym experience, through the washing experience,

and now just into everyday life. Yes, yes, yes yes yes yes as if saying to my body hey do you remember how hot you were during the exercise when you were really sweating yeah well now you're enveloped by heat i'm watching your face get shiny in real time like i can see it just get glistening and glisteny. I can see the water coming out of the pores in real time. It's like a screensaver. Yeah. It's like a magic eye picture. Yeah, yeah. I'm sweating into a dolphin.

Do dolphins sweat? It'd be hard to tell, wouldn't it? They don't look very porous. You don't really... I know from doing, like, serious... You know, like, proper swimming. Not, like, paddling around, but, like, racing or, like, or like water polo you don't realize how much you sweat and it's quite dangerous because you're in the water so you have to hydrate a lot right more than you'd say yes

you sort of think but i'm in water i'm not sweating that's why dolphins are always thirsty that's right that's why they're always going ah yeah yeah that's a dry throat All you have to do Is give a dolphin Some volvic And they'll go Thank you I will now carry you to safety I've been asking for that for a long time

At last Something to wet my whistle My whistle It's nice to be back in person. Nice to be back in the office, Pierre. Yes. A lot of people are not returning to the office, but we've decided that although the WFH experience

does cover most of the ground of modern work life, it's just something about being in person that inspires Those unexpected moments Of genius Those unscheduled Meets, those impromptu Eureka moments And that's why Pierre and I have returned to the

Budpod office Yes, Budpod Towers Reoccupied at last It's banter by the plastic plants. And having a chat with the receptionist. And office life, you know? Just having a chat with your boss. Yes.

Christmas parties. Pierre's bought a water cooler for his flat that we stand next to. Yeah, and we gossip. Yeah, we're currently next to it now, because otherwise we'd have nothing to say to each other. Yeah, that's it. And we've got, like, I've put lipstick on a bucket. And that's going to be the secretary that Phil and I will sexually harass in a non-physical but still deplorable way.

Because it's a 1980s office, we've decided. A lot of pinstripe. A lot of economic optimism. Big shoulders. Big shoulders. Big dreams. Big dreams, big problems. A lot of economic optimism. Big shoulders. Big shoulders. Big dreams. Big dreams. Big problems.

Unscheduled meets is a funny way for a lady to talk about one night stands. Unscheduled meets, yes. It's also what I've called my new butcher shop that I just opened. Your last minute butcher shop. Delivery service. Yeah, that's right. we never really know what's going to come in it's got a moped with a pannier full of rapidly defrosting beef i did um the other day i i went to go meet a friend with the legally correct number of people

and legally distanced of course in the park for their birthday and i made the mistake it was on hamster heath in london where we live and i remember thinking well i don't want to carry all the sort of park stuff all the way there phil i don't want to have a rucksack a groan and a burston with two liter bottles of soft drink, for example. Yeah. Or White Lightning as you like. Yes, or indeed White Lightning and sacks of fags. So I thought, I'll buy them when I'm there. I'll buy them when I'm there.

At the park? Well, like at the rim of the park. On the perimeter of the park. Yes, the PP. The PP. I'll buy it at the PP, I thought to myself. But I didn't know just how upscale Hampstead Heath was. I'd misunderstood that. Yeah, okay.

So it's not really a plastic bag kind of... Not a lot of offies around. No, no, no. Not at the usual London park density. The PPE is normally dense with offies. Yeah. Off licenses for our American listeners. Liquor stores, I guess.

Yeah. And so I thought, oh, balls. And I was laughing to myself because the only shops on the street that I got off the bus on, I got off the bus and I thought, great, the bus stop I have to get off at for Hampstead Heath Park,

it's got shops on. And I got off the bus and looked at the shops and there was like fancy dry cleaners and estate agents. And like the only shops that sold anything consumable by the human mouth was a Costa Coffee and a very fancy Butcher's. And I really like the idea of showing up. Unscheduled Meats. Well, that's it.

Unscheduled Meats branch number two was there. And I love the idea of showing up at at someone's birthday picnic in the park with a six pack of boiling hot espressos and a load of raw beef. Happy birthday! A raw tomahawk chop. Yes, yes. And expecting them just to chew on it

in between gulps of boiling hot coffee on a hot summer's day. It was just the least good combo of things you could bring. I thought that was great. So there wasn't even like a sort of independent bottle shop or a craft ale store. There was stuff like that, I think, on the other... The park perimeter of Hampstead Heath, for people who don't know, is enormous. The PP, it's a big PP.

Right. If I'd travelled further down the PP... The PP of HH? If I'd traveled further down the HH's PP, I would have hit Hampstead Heath Overground Station, where there is a lot more stuff like that. There's like a Tesco or whatever. Yeah.

But this was along the side, near the residential area, where the oligarchs live. Okay. So it was very much artisanal butcher costa coffee presumably for the guy who works at the butchers exclusively that's it yeah it's for people who who go into the estate agents with the same casual feeling the rest of us go into costa that's why the next yeah yeah they they they point over the counter at full houses in London, the way that we sort of vaguely look at, like,

sandwiches that, for some reason, aren't just freely available to touch. Oh, is that... Has that got ham in? That kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely. They buy white flats, we buy flat whites. That's very Seinfeld. Thank you. Thank you.

He likes a bit of wordplay, Seinfeld. Yeah, he does. People underestimate... He likes an old switcheroo. He likes a switcheroo. He goes, hey, you gotta get up, up, up, when you're a kid. Up. Yeah, that's good. Up and down, yeah. That could be good. You get in the car, but you get on the train.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Seinfeld must be very grateful to the small but multifarious quirks of the English language. Oh, my God. Can you imagine trying to figure out Seinfeld in German? Just go, that is the only word for this.

You have to go, okay, well. There'll be no joke then, I suppose. Yeah, we're very lucky in early English that has so many synonyms. It has some of them. Is it the most synonymic? It's the most synonymic, whatever the word is. Language. Language, yeah, definitely. Yeah, it has the most synonymic synonymic whatever the word is language yeah definitely yeah it has synonyms see i was under the impression and i still do believe this

that english has the largest vocabulary yeah it i've seen measurements that give english a vocabulary almost twice as large as second place which is french right because of what a pirate the english language is, just taking words. Yeah, because English has all the French plus. Exactly, yeah. German plus. Yeah, you could say, well, joie de vivre.

That's already three we've nicked. Yeah. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, je ne sais quoi, blam. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We got them in a bag, run down the road. So that's why you can do a lot more sort of interesting stuff with language.

It's more flexible, and you can put the verb wherever you want in the sentence, and it doesn't matter really, which is not true in French or German. However, I got extremely bored and tried to learn the Arabic alphabet months ago. That is bored. That is bored, because I don't need to know it. Pierre is now the special envoy to the Saudi family, which is pretty good as far as lockdown achievements go. It's impressive.

You know, you get bored. You just fall down these rabbit holes. Basically, have you ever had that thing where you see a sign written in Arabic or sometimes in Russian script, Cyrillic, and you go, your mind kind of feels annoyed because your mind is used to being able to read signs. So your brain kind of goes, oh, what was that?

What does that mean? You know it just means exit, or whatever. But still, you kind of go, I have that a lot. So I thought, oh, if I learn the alphabet, I won't know what any of the words mean, but I can go like, ah, whatever. Right.

Clever boy. When I went to Japan, I learned to the Hiragana alphabet, which is basically their base phonetic alphabet. Yes. And I looked like a dumb child reading signs. It's like, Kyoto. We're in Kyoto. But it's so empowering

It's so empowering Yeah it makes you feel like you're joining in You're part of it And there's enough shops in London Which have extra signage in Arabic Or whatever So I thought oh yeah I'll do that And then I ended up

Apparently the way that you make a word in Arabic Is there's like a root We, listen to him No you Apparently the way that you make a word in Arabic is there's like a root. We. Listen to him. No, you. Huh? Apparently the way you make a word in Arabic. Me?

No, that's what I said. Where did we come from? You said the way we make a word in Arabic. No, I said you, didn't I? You said we. This is how much you identify with the Arabic language. Well, I'm an Arab now. I want to be the new Lawrence of Arabia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A patronizing Aryan with blue eyes who sort of funds military expeditions.

You know, Lawrence of Arabia. Anyway, apparently, like, whenever you see the Arabic script, those are the consonants. Okay. The vowel sounds come from the dots. You know, the dots and the additions. So, and you don't actually have to use the dots. As in, you don't have to write the dots?

No. It should be contextually clear if you're fluent in Arabic that it doesn't... It's not... It's mum-tez and not mam-teez. Right, right, right.

Which to me is insane and immediately put me off from doing any more work on learning any Arabic because I was like, that's too hard. Bonjour. I'm going to go back

to my schoolboy French. This seems impossible and I hate it. But... And the only... The only bit of Arabic that needs to be written with the dots always is the Quran. Like you're not allowed to write out the Quran without using it. I see, yes. Because it has to be clear. Right. And it's very important.

But apparently that means that like a collection of consonants can be like fucking 40,000 different combos of root words depending on the combination of vowels you use. So the word for office can also mean library, can mean book desk, or can mean bookshelf. If you don't write the vowel dots. Yeah, depending on how you mutate the sounds. But the base sounds, like the base three consonant sounds are the same. Right.

So then I saw this guy was explaining this on this website, and he's like, so actually it's Arabic that has the biggest vocabulary because of the number of variables, which I kind of think doesn't... But are there actual words? Well, see, this is my question. So I think it's still English because I think a lot of them aren't actual words yet. Yeah.

Someone would go, oh, right, genitive object past tense book. That, I guess, could be this. Right. I think they might just be making it up, but I don't know, because I stopped reading, because it seemed too complicated. And I'm lazy, and I was bored. Well, I don't think you're lazy. I mean, a lazy person wouldn't have started.

Yeah, maybe. I'm less lazy than someone who wouldn't have started, but I'm lazier than someone who would have finished. That's true. Yeah, I think that is an honest appraisal of the situation. I'm the Lib Dems of laziness. I'm right there in the middle. But talking of

coming back to the office, Phil, something that I filled you in on before we started recording is the new Pret thing. Yeah. Which you couldn't believe. I couldn't believe this. Apparently... Well, this is not an advert for Pret. No.

But apparently they need it right now. Pierre told me that they've got a subscription now, which Pierre's calling Coffee Netflix, which is the most insane idea to me. You pay £20 a month, and you can get as much coffee as you like. You basically get five coffees a day, if you want five coffees a day. But what I like is that if you look at the terms and conditions, because you and I thought, well, it has to be one a day if you want five coffees a day but what i like is that if you look at the terms and conditions because you and i thought well it has to be one a day yeah and it said no no you can do

this five times a day but there has to be a 30 minute gap and i just love the idea of someone going you have to have a cool down period you have to chill the fuck out yeah with your goddamn coffees and i just like the idea of someone sat there tapping they're watching like like pouring sweat just like 20 29 oh god please and then the pret guy just shaking his head like come on man you can do it 30 it's got to be 30 but i mean this just goes to show just how huge the profit margins are on takeaway coffee on coffee yeah it's they are huge i think they're like like starbucks has the largest profit margin of almost any shop, retailer, restaurant. Yeah. Because a cup of coffee costs like half of a pence.

Yeah, nothing. And they can sell it for two pounds. Just nothing. Apparently the food with the largest profit margin is popcorn. That makes sense too. Of course, because it's sold in cinemas where everything's already hiked up anyway. Yes, exactly. But also it's just like a sack of raw grains.

Like it couldn't get any. And they're dried so they don't go off. Yeah, low-grade inedible grains. Yeah, exactly. And you have to heat them up with a kind of magical machine to even get them to burst into air. Yeah, that's right. You can get the microwave bags at home, but it's not the same.

Not the same. You can't make it at home, really. Not really. Not really. But isn't it, yeah, it is amazing that, let's say you took, they are guessing that no one wants five fucking coffees a day, apart from clearly me.

Yeah. Because I love feeling like a sniper is out to get me i can't get any writing done until i feel like there's a bomb in my chest and if i don't get the word count up it goes off yeah but most people are not like me like like yeah like if a jigsaw from saw started a a motivation app He's trying to branch out from the torturing to motivation apps. That little puppet is the barista. You like having an elevated heart rate, but you never consider the working conditions of the people who made the coffee.

That kind of thing. Hipster Jigsaw. I really like Saw when the moralizations just get really tenuous. His moral reasoning is what he's talking about. Where the puppet is like, and did you know that? So the car you drive, is it about fossil fuels? Let me finish. No.

The battery, lithium ion batteries are only efficient because of their nickel content. And nickel is only mined. It's this long pamphlet he's found you seem to enjoy having a carbon footprint what if i replaced your foot with a diamond um no no what how are you gonna do that i'll figure it out i'm gonna drug you so i have enough time to think about exactly yeah so most people only want like two coffees right that's enough to make people i have i've now restricted myself to one a day yeah if i'm if i'm like exhausted or hungover i might have another

in the afternoon but like it's one a day otherwise i my my my my shit gets runny i i get i get tired it makes me the second one will make me tired that's the weird thing isn't it it's like a it's like a toggle it's like an on you know it's a switch on off on off a cup of coffee is a toggle switch so if you had a third one uh yeah this is where the theory breaks down yeah i think i think i'm just i'm just sleepy again it's weird that it makes people sleepy it's definitely a response that people have to it I did Google it the other day to figure out why Maybe it's like an adrenaline

Or stress response Because I used to get really really sleepy Two minutes before we had to go and do a rugby game At school I was in the changing room and I felt like I could have Passed out immediately and slept for like 10 hours It's interesting that that Quirk or dream in you has survived

because surely that would have killed you back on the savannah. Oh no! Cheaters! Maybe it's when you can anticipate it. So you were thinking like oh god I've got to go out there and fight those cheaters. Yeah. And then you just have a nice sleep and they go away.

They get bored. They get bored. They're like where where is he we've been prowling this mouth of this cave tapping at their grass watches yeah those cheater voices so most people probably only want two a day right coffee so let's say two coffees a day yeah for month, let's say 30 days. So that's 60 coffees for £20. I mean, bloody hell, 33p a coffee, and they're still expecting to turn a profit. That must mean that a coffee is, what, like 4p? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and they're laying off people, so they're boosting their margins.

And everyone wants a subscription service. This is the new Surefire business model. Yes. Like Microsoft Office. When I had to renew Microsoft Office to finish it, and now they're like, get a Microsoft Office subscription. Yeah. And it's like, why do I need to?

Because you'll get instant Exclusive updates I've never used my word and gone Oh, I want a new X You know, it's Oh, if only there was a new header footer Adjustment tool Yeah, yeah, yeah, I want more

Fine tunes on the side margin It's like, I've never wanted that So you can choose to just buy it outright, but then they warn you, you won't get our golden package. You'll lose out on Steve's diary. Steve is the head Microsoft Office guy. It's absolute nonsense.

It's a complete waste of money. But they want people to start Netflixing them as well. Because that means that they can say to their shareholders, this is guaranteed stuff flowing in every year. Yeah, exactly. And that is more stable, I suppose. But it really fucked me off when Adobe Photoshop did that. It used to be that you just buy Photoshop and you just have it.

Yeah. And now it is like a yearly subscription, monthly subscription thing for access to a program that is downloaded onto your computer. Exactly. It just seems insane to me. But it lives in this box I own. Isn't that mine? And they go, no. This is what they can claim with

cloud computing. It's like, we'll look after it for you. Pay for us to rent out our little hard drive here. It just seems like everyone's dream is for the population to be constantly renting homeless people. mean fucking comedians are doing it yeah even patreons and shit and yeah you know i you can you can rent you can rent comedians and yeah well we'll not rent

yeah we'll rent yeah yeah pay subscription to it uh this is gonna come back to bite me in the ass when uh i have one but well we'll we'll never put bud pod behind a paywall no we're we know better than that we know better than that yeah we might put other stuff behind paywalls not bud pod in the same way that if you saw a man shitting in the street you take a glance but if there was a low wall obscuring him you wouldn't peer over you wouldn't go i gotta see what's he doing what's he doing? What's he doing over there? Like a curious dog. What's that?

Would you sign up to the... Are you going to be a coffee subscriber? Absolutely. No. I'm not either. I've coffee at home. Coffee at home. That's how you can afford a home. Exactly. Yeah. All those coffees All those avocado toasts

That you don't have I don't like Pret Coffee anymore I didn't mind it before But now it has the weird new taste Taste X Does it have a new taste? To me because of my nerve damage from the old Corona Oh of course

I have to call it Taste X Because it's not actually a taste. It's nerve damage. But Taste X is a bit like the smell of burning plastic, a petrily smell. Oh, no. It's very chemically. Is there a running theme with what has Taste X?

Kind of, yeah. It's sort of, so, almost all chocolate. Oh, no. Not Chockeys. Not Choc Oh, no. Yeah, yeah. Not Chockeys. Not Chockeys, mate. Don't tell me Prosecco's one as well. Well, maybe it's tat.

I haven't had Prosecco since. Maybe it's tat food. I've got a tat allergy. Prosecco attacks the tat part of the nerve. Beer. Beer tastes weird to you now, maybe? Some beer smells a bit like the taste. Interesting.

And doesn't taste like it. It is tat food. A can of San Miguel. Yeah. If I sniff the... Crack it open, right to bare cans. Have a little sniff.

I go, oh, there's a whiff of taste X there. Yeah. Sip it, fine. So, dark chocolate digestives. Yeah. Tried to eat one,

had to spit it out in the sink. Really? That disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. So, darker chocolate seems worse Peanuts, gross Peanut butter, gross Most bacon

And pork, gross Some chicken Which of these is the most tragic to you? God Some coffee as well Darker types of coffee Right so it's like Bitter taste

It's like rich dark Bitter Yeah I don't know maybe Maybe the Kind of chocolate But I wasn't really A sweets guy

Probably bacon The meat Yeah Some meat has just got A funny aftertaste now Some people on BBC News Are saying like All meat tastes like petrol

To me now Like they have to go vegetarian Because they don't Not only because they want to Because it tastes like petrol It me now. Like, they have to go vegetarian, knowing because they want to, because it tastes like petrol. Oh, fuck. It's fucked up. It has to do with proteins or something, doesn't it? Yeah, like sort of lipids, kind of complex animal fats, maybe.

Yeah, saturates. Oh, no. It's very strange. Also, preservatives. So, if I made a chicken sandwich with mayonnaise at home. Perish the thought. Perish the thought. But imagine a terrible world where, if it came to it. He has a chicken sandwich subscription, fortunately, so heish the thought. Perish the thought. But imagine a terrible world where,

if it came to it. Per has a chicken sandwich subscription, fortunately, so he doesn't have to do this. Yes. A Somalian man on a bicycle brings me, for pennies,

a series of chicken mayonnaise sandwiches from his home that he's made. So, I don't have to do that. But God forbid, if I ever did, like I did the other day,

when the man got hit by a truck, I have to make did the other day, when the man got hit by a truck, I have to make one of my own. When the man got hit by a truck? The Somalian man with my chicken mayonnaise sandwiches. He got obviously run down by a truck. Very sad. He's been replaced. So I had to make my own chicken mayonnaise sandwich. Tasted fine. Tasted like it should taste.

The equivalent type of sandwich from Tesco or Pret tastes X. So it's something like preservatives or something they do to foods in shops. Pret sandwiches, very badly affected. Have they cooked the chicken in a way that you haven't that affects it? I don't know, but how could they? I just cooked it in a standard way. Interesting.

I think it's like preservatives. Well, I'm having you over for dinner this week. Yeah. I wonder if any of my food will taste like petrol. Well, that's it. I mean, Phil is making peanut butter and bacon dark chocolate stew. So it's going to be a tough evening. Yeah, yeah.

I'll be eating a big bowl of petrol. It's an old Aztec stew. Yeah, jungle boar, ground nut, and dark chocolate. Dark cocoa. Cacao. Cacao. Cacao. Cacao. That sucks.

Yeah, it's very strange though. I think it's getting better, but here's the kicker. And this is where it becomes relevant to Budpod. Taste X or smell X is not only across all of those foods, but it's very powerfully in all my piss. So you find your

piss particularly gruesome right now? As in, like, off-putting? My piss doesn't smell like piss, it smells like taste X. Like petrol? Yeah, chemically. When you were at school, did anyone ever use a lighter to burn? You know those little plastic sleeves you put documents in?

Very light, thin plastic sleeves, and they've got the holes down the side so you put them in a folder. Right. No, because I didn't go to school in the film Train Spotting. Unlike you apparently. So basically if you burn one of those it's like this very

because it's that very soft plastic that's not supposed to be heated up. It's very like acrid smoke. That's kind of like taste X. It's very chemically plasticky. Gross. So my piss smells like the piss of a man who works in a Chernobyl-style disaster.

Which is bad, because when your piss smells weird, that's your body saying, you're really sick, by the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your piss is wrong. Or you've had asparagus, and everything's fine. Exactly. How dare you? You're very sick.

That's what I said. But then it means that because everything now has this new aura to it, at the same time as I piss and i go my piss has the same weird taste as dark chocolate not taste of smell i'm not haven't got to the point yet where i'm oh hang on a minute it tastes horrible hang on a minute i'll just keep doing it like finger to bell and to mouth hang on wait a wait a minute oh a few more tries Wait a minute This isn't the usual delicious piss Fresh from the tap, that is my penis No

So if I'm doing a piss and I smell it I go, it smells like the new horrible taste of bacon New horrible taste of bacon Bacon, now with a new horrible taste New horrible taste of bacon Bacon, now with a new horrible taste Try the new horrible taste of bacon See if you can think what it is What is it? We don't know

But that means when I eat bacon The opposite happens And I think, this bacon tastes like how piss smells So it's even more gross Because your brain always tries to teach you like however your piss smells, don't eat things that smell like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You'll get sick. Of course. So it's a negative, what's it? Loop. Feedback. Negative reinforcement. Yeah, attachment, association. Yeah, negative association.

Exactly. Right, yeah, yeah. So now there's a new smell. Like maybe I could kind of get over it if it was just food, but because of the crucially filled P.E. I have a taste X

Which is unfortunately not as common But I think I've told you this After I had cockroaches in China I know what cockroach tastes like And I can, let's call it taste C And taste C Taste C comes up From time to time.

Yeah. I had in Brixen, there's a place that does curry goat ramen, which is a delicious sounding dish. And for the most part, it is delicious, but it's got taste C in it, which is interesting. But anyone else would not notice. Because they don't know. Because they don't know that is what cockroach tastes like. And up to the point where you've had it, you could eat that and go, what an interesting taste. That's kind of just at the edge of the main taste.

It's just in there somewhere. That's right. Yes, exactly. So for me, smoked bacon is pure taste X. It's horrific. So is the dark chocolate, excuse me, digestives. When it comes to like chicken or other stuff, it's like lingers there. It's a whiff. It's just there So is the dark chocolate, excuse me, digestives. When it comes to like chicken or other stuff, it's like lingers there.

It's a whiff. It's just there a little bit. Like taste C in the curry goat ramen. If we have any chemist pod buds who know the chemical that is in dark chocolate, bacon, smoky bacon, because that's... More chemically, yeah. I think it might be like nitrates.

Yeah, something like this. Some sort of salty preservative that's not normal salt. Could be. And Pierre's piss. And inside my piss. If you've had access to my piss, and some of you may have. Yeah. Yeah, that's it.

So where else have you detected a hint of roach? Because, like you say, now you know that that's the taste of cockroaches. You can find it. There are only so many tastes. The curry good ramen is the only one I can remember right now, but there have been others. This tastes a bit like cockroach. You can't

untaste. You can't untaste what you've tasted. It's true. The olfactory memory is very strong. Once tasted, twice shy. A moment on the God, once tasted, twice shy. Never wasted. Yeah, right. A moment on the lips, a lifetime in your brain. That's what they say about cockroaches.

That's crazy. I wonder where you'd find it more. Yes, you can't untaste things. It feels like quite a puritanical metaphor for sin or something isn't it like you'll always know that's right it's kind of

there's a Greek tragedy about it yes absolutely what's the worst thing you remember ever tasting or the worst taste you've ever had in your mouth the worst taste I've ever had in my mouth how much are we including smells as taste because I didn't realize how much taste was smell until I lost smell The worst taste I've ever had in my mouth. How much are we including smells as taste? Because I didn't realize how much taste was smell until I lost smell.

I think something that you put in your mouth. Okay, something I put in my mouth. Because otherwise it is, as it always is, particularly rancid dog shit. Yeah, that's pretty bad stuff. I mean, just being near that, if it's the wrong type of dog shit. It's not all dog shit, but sometimes, oh my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whole neighborhoods can smell. That's right.

Wow. And it lingers. It's acrid. But unless, I'm afraid to say, unless you put some dog shit in your mouth. Unless I gave it a little lick. Let's, oh, I don't know. Is it cockroach for you? No, it isn't.

Ooh. I didn't actually mind. I ate a lot of them. I didn't actually mind, I ate a lot of them I didn't really mind By the 17th cockroach, Phil was Coming around actually I kind of had too much by the end But at first, they were fine

All the cockroach chefs were going No! They were waving their hands Trying to shout at you in Mandarin Trying to get you to stop And you were like, what? And they were like, you're not supposed to Too many! They were trying to get you to stop and you what are you just thumbing they're like you're not supposed to no one's ever eaten this too many they were trying to say too many and you were going to what just legs coming out your mouth um ah horrible taste it's probably if i like ate

something that was off right really like rancid milk like if you glug a bunch of that without realizing yes yesterday um i i took a tortilla chip and i i scooped up a whole load of salsa and i put in my mouth and i was just like i don't remember salsa being fizzy yeah and i looked at the box and it was a month ago that no but i mean fizzy hummus is pretty bad yeah that's pretty bad when it's when it's become carbonated i've never put it in my mouth the worst thing I've ever put in my mouth, I can't remember, was fish fat. I don't know if you've ever had fish fat, like a thick vein of fish fat. And it's like, if you can imagine the fishy taste, but bad fishy taste, concentrated like an espresso, and then jellied into a little globule i like it was

literally in my mouth i want to vomit i have to vomit now i want to vomit like it was in it was disc i felt sick really yeah instant sick time yeah wow and the other thing is cooked salmon which i cannot eat it makes me want to vomit but it vomit. But it wasn't as instant as a little bit of fish fat. I like cooked salmon, and I still know what you mean. I know what you mean. I can't finish it. If someone gives it to me, I have a couple of bites, and I just leave it. It's the only food I will leave.

I can't eat it. When did you encounter the fish fat megaglobul? It was in Malaysia. I don't know if it was supposed to be in there. I don't know. Around teenagers supposed to be in there. I don't know. Around teenagers? Yeah. Teenage years?

I will say, because I don't know if this counts, because it's not like a bad taste technically, but because of my thing where I fucking hate baked beans. Like, I hate them so much. I don't know why I find it so funny that you hate baked beans. I can detect them from smell alone. I think it's very much like a mouse and an elephant kind of energy, why I find it so funny that I hate baked beans. I can detect them from smell alone. I think it's very much like a mouse and an elephant kind of energy, which I find funny.

This huge man, undone by these tiny little beans. Little bean, don't you like the bean? And also it's like such a child food. Yeah, exactly. It's like someone throwing up if they see a fish finger. And it's so bright and sort of cheerful in a sort a sort of way and it's always but that always made it worse as a kid when it was like and the idea that for charity someone would just cheerfully get in a cold bath full of them which for me was like something from hell so in a way i always thought comic

relief was a much braver thing than anyone else. Yeah. Because I would rather... Swim across the channel, then. That would be easier. I would rather watch myself be injected by a million needles than to go anywhere fucking near a bath full of baked beans. But I think this was in the Edinburgh Fringe RIP last year or the year before. I was in a calfinburgh fringe r.i.p last last year or the year before i was in a calf a greasy spoon um which for i guess for american listeners is like a closest thing we have to a diner it's where builders go to have full english breakfasts yeah yeah yeah yeah a diner without the charm yeah no charm in the diner yeah it's it's where working men go to have tremendous hot breakfasts.

Yeah. Before they go do lots of work. And a few hours after that, people like me go with a hangover. Yeah. So I was in one with a great comedian and friend of the podcast, Ben Pope. Mm-hmm. And I'd ordered a bowl of fries To go with everything Well I don't know what time it was

It was like hangover days You know what the fringe is like as well Time has become immaterial And I got a bowl of fries and there was like They hadn't cleaned the bowl properly From it having beans in And it was the top layer of fries Were fine and then

Greasy spoon greasy bowl That's right And then I hadasy spoon, greasy bowl. That's right. That's right. And then I had a fry that had the smallest taint of bean jus. Of bean sauce on it. And I ate it. And I had to... I immediately just went...

I like froze. Ben thought something disastrous had occurred to me. But like froze, like your eyes just kind of reset to neutral, just staring, like, lids halfway down. It was like in Full Metal Jacket when he's just staring. Gomer Pyle is just staring down the bathroom. Yeah. And Ben was like, oh my god, what's happened?

Like, I'd remembered that I was supposed to be somewhere astonishingly important. And I just went, they haven't cleaned the bowl. They haven't cleaned the bowl. That is bad. That is bad from them. I was so disgusted. That is gross.

That is gross. I'd find that gross. Yes. I'd find that gross. So it was like base level very gross. And then on top of that, the bean factor. Yeah.

Which is the name of my new show. Taste B. Taste B was there exactly exactly taste b which i abhor i abhor beyond all things that's a little sauce they put on those things awful thin sweet stop it pierre you're making me hungry. Absolutely repulsive stuff. Taste beef. But it's the glue that holds the breakfast together. That's what God made yolk for. It's like the friend who introduced everyone.

Ah, sausage. How do you know bean? Ah, he's slathered all over me. Me too, says the bacon. Here comes egg. You guys talking about how we're covered in bean? Yeah, and they make friends. Absolutely repulsive. It's a party.

It's a party on a plate. Terrible. And bean is the host. I have no idea who came up with it. A genius. A fool and a madman. The English breakfast you're saying was quite recent though, right? It's a wartime invention, isn't it?

The full English? I suppose it must be i mean loads of foods that are national dishes are recent because most people in most countries have just eaten like bread and vegetables and tried not to die for most of human history like whenever anyone is like it's a traditional dish and you go right so it's from the 1800s because if it was from the 1300s it would be stew try not to die yes. We've boiled these bones. Let's hope the nutrients are still in them. We found them.

I mean, that is broth. That's tonkotsu, basically. Yeah. Boiled bones. Which is why no country can claim broth, because it is a universal food of the desperate. Yeah. And then now that we're all eating lots globally, on average average they found clever things to do with it like adlers of meat and noodles

that's right but it's all on the basis of desperate peasants I think the ramen thing is actually from the second world war because they just invented this way of drying and preserving noodles in a pack that you could actually do it

apparently that's true of carbonara. I heard some sort of urban myth that carbonara was a way to appeal to the Americans who were occupying Italy. I thought it was a Roman dish for carbonara. I mean, the Romans ate stuffed dormice. There's no accounting for... Also snails, apparently.

I was reading up on escargot. I mean, that's a poor person's food surely But trust the French to make that An onion soup classy Oysters used to be poor people food Of course yeah Lobsters were served to prisoners Because they were like

Look at these horrible sea bugs You have to boil them and you're going to eat them And they're creepy I think some prisoners sued the government of Maine or somewhere because it was prisoner food and it violates our human rights to feed us these disgusting spiders. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You make us eat spiders. I'm already in jail. I shit in a bucket. And now what's for breakfast? A spider. This is absolutely outrageous. A spider with claws. A scorpion spider.

You've boiled a spider. And now I have to eat it. In this prison cell. I've also eaten a spider. It's like a dusty, powdery... It felt like you were eating

the stuffing of a cheap sofa. Yeah, apparently they are mostly just like dust yeah really dusty I have a lot of questions for countries where they're like spiders are a delicacy and I want to say are they or have you only just recently left the jungle? That's right it's always somewhere in the South America where they go

this tribe prizes the tarantula above all foods and you go okay but have they had yeah have they had a burger, have they had a burger? Have they had any bread? I don't think if they could have bread, they would always go for the tarantula. Maybe on birthdays.

I've never looked at a tarantula and thought, ooh. I have. Yeah? They're meaty little fuckers. If you look at them... It's all hair. There's no weight to that. It's all hair.

But you look at a chicken, you can go, that's all feathers. But we know better now I know what lies beneath That's what I say to myself when I look at a chicken I say, ah I know what lies beneath that coat I lick I lick my lips

And I side-eye the chicken We all know what's under there Don't we? What's under the hood. What's under the hood of that bird? And then I'm asked to leave the petting zoo for creeping everyone out. Oh, yeah, that's it. I was researching escargot for a thing recently.

And they say archaeologists have found shells from dig sites that suggest ancient Romans, like that people have been eating snails for millennia. Yeah. But then I thought, couldn't those just be the leftover of snails? We found some snails. So people have definitely been eating them. You also found like chairs and bowls.

Did they eat those? I guess, I mean, archaeology has lots of problems that annoyed me when I did a bit of it at university and I found some bits of it really annoying for exactly that reason. But I suppose they must have found a midden, which is essentially a garbage dump. Right.

So it would be like hundreds of shells. It would be like way too many snail shells. Sure, sure, sure. That's certainly how they found out about how much more seafood cavemen ate than we thought. Oh, really? Yeah, you'll find a cave site or whatever,

and there'll just be thousands of little shells from the sea. And you'll be like, wow. What's amazing is when you find cavemen, like Stone Age sites, and it'll be a bit inland. Not loads inland, but, you know, a few miles. And they'll have fish bones from deep sea fish. Oh, maybe like after a tsunami. Well, but there'll be two.

It won't just be like one or two. It'll be like they consistently ate, you know, whatever, this type of trout that you have to go fishing on a boat to get. So from that you can go, well, they must have had boats. Right, right, right. This type of fish just doesn't live above depths of whatever good old cavemen always underestimated

they'll surprise you there's something mad about how long they were in caves for it was like 80,000 years yeah 80,000 think about us how much has happened in the last 2,000 years they were in caves doing the same thing for 80,000 years

do you think that for all those 80,000 years the guy in charge of the tribe was always like the poo-pooing guy what do you mean the guy who's always a pessimist where you always go perhaps a wall from wood and then no no it would never work

there's already walls here it's a cave what do you want well it's gonna we just have to rebuild them every year when the wood rots just sit down and eat this fish would you what's wrong with a deer yeah what do you want to capture the deer and make them fuck for yeah you weirdo it's meant to i mean it must have been pretty good yeah it must have been all right maybe it? It must have been all right. Maybe it was really fun. Well, they always try and assess it with the closest thing we have to Stone Age people. So like the Koi or the San in Southern Africa or some of the tribes in Papua New Guinea.

Because they lead what they think is pretty close to Stone Age existence. Yeah. And they are really healthy in some ways and really unhealthy in others. They have a lot of strokes because of all the meat they eat well that's certainly true of the Inuit very little RSI I'm guessing

very little RSI they don't need a treadmill desk no they do they don't have to wear little glasses for screen glare they're all pretty good shape They don't get out of breath easily Lots of murder though

In Papua New Guinea I think it's the only society Or like the largest society on earth Where murder is the number one cause of death Yeah, constant murder Or like they've extrapolated the murder rate From like medieval records. And in medieval times, it was fucking Gotham.

What, like everywhere? Yeah. Like medieval England. They're like, ah, old nanny gubbins found in a ditch with a rock in her fucking head. Well, the devil did it. I don't know. There's no police. Write it down in the church and we'll hope it doesn't happen again.

Constant murder. Everyone's getting shivved all the time. It's like the fucking lunatics who are like anarchists. Or they get rid of the police and we'll be fine. It's like, we've been there before. That's why we had to get here. Yeah.

Basically, you end up with Shakespeare where it's like, well, of course, everyone had a sword. Everyone had a sword. He died in a sword fight. And the slightest insult required, required that you try and kill them. His life would have been over if he didn't murder that man with the enormous sword he had.

Unfortunately, that man also had an enormous sword. And 17 people died in the bar. Everyone was just trying to have a pint of weird ale of bad beer bad beer that all they their one joy in their lives where people empty their feces into the road a bad beer and it got ruined by all the swords it's shit also i really like anarchists because they're almost always the type of person who'd be the first to get beaten to death in a kind of

brawl. It's very rare that the guy recommending anarchy looks like Dwayne the Rock Johnson. It's so rare. It's always like quite a malnourished looking guy with a black hoodie. And you sort of go if it wasn't for guns, I don't think you'd recommend

Anarchy. Yeah. If it was just down to like physical strength instead of firearms, I don't know how much you'd be in favour of. I never, I can never drill down into how they get there. They just go, things would be better if it was absolute chaos.

And you go, are you the Joker? I think your life has to be in such a hopeless state. Yeah. At worst case, everyone is brought down to your level of suffering. Yeah. Best case scenario, by some fluke of chance, a society emerges that benefits you.

A new version of life where whatever is your thing is more highly regarded yeah so they go thank god actually in this new version of society guys who jerk off in their basements is our main source of energy we rig your wrist up to a kind of pump they're the doctors of this society they're the shamans. What do you see in the jizz? In the stains on your hoodie from Cheetos and jizz, we see the very future of life itself.

You're like the Oracle now, yeah? Hidden in the dark underground. Yeah, I just... Or maybe they're bored? Just people in the suburbs? Bored? I just... Or maybe they're bored. People in the suburbs, bored. Yeah, a lot of it is boredom. Yeah.

They've watched too many movies starring sort of Jason Statham or... Who's the Scottish guy who's always American? Oh. 300 guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What the fuck's his name? Clive. Butler.

George Butler. Gerard Butler. Gerard Butler. Gerard Butler and also Clive. Clive Anderson. Anderson. Yeah. Jason Statham, Gerard Butler, Clive Anderson.

He's the host. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Clive Anderson. He's the host. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Clive Anderson. He sort of improvises it. Yeah. They watch too many of those kind of movies and they've gone, well, I'd be like a ninja. It's kind of like zombie survival.

It's people who learn the katana at home from YouTube videos. Men who know a lot about Japan. Yeah. As discussed on possibly even the first or second episode of this podcast. It's the running theme of this podcast. Men who can speak fluent Japanese with no tangible reason to. They're of concern.

That's a red flag. That's a red spot on white flag. It's a big red circle in our book. it's a big red circle in our book i like that um the japanese flag when it was like the japanese empire is still a red sun on a white flag but it's got all beams coming out that's right the sunburst it's the burst yeah but i like the fact that you know that it's the scary japan because the sun is going like it's shooting out lasers it's powering up it's like something from an anime yeah it's shooting out lasers. It's powering up. It's like something from an anime. Yeah, it's like something from...

It's glowing. They're going to start colonizing Manchuria again. Yeah, it's like the flag is from Ultraman. It's taken its next form. This is not even my final form of Japan. Yeah, then the whole flag is red. It's just a complete red flag. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then a white one starts. That's funny. I never noticed that. Yeah, then the current peaceful Japan flag is just a red circle, like the beans are coming. Yeah. Back in.

Yeah. Like the eye of Sauron's been extinguished. Yeah, and then you'll start noticing the Japanese flag's got these little... It starts to grow. You go, oh, oh! Like you've caught them powering up. Oh!

Watch out! Here they come. Yeah, scary Japan flag is very... Like a boss battle in a game. You know when the attack's coming because, like, and you have to dodge. Yeah, every day, every other country in Asia looks at the flag above the Japanese embassy in their capital city.

It's another day of peace from Japan. Oh, phew. One morning they'll look and it'll look a bit stumpy and they go, oh, fuck. Shit. The Japanese ambassador is just a little taller Starting to get one of those little samurai moustaches Yeah Uh oh

Uh oh What To By the way if you hear gurgling in the background Listener It's the dishwasher The dishwasher has been mistimed I would hate for you to think that me and Phil are sat here gurgling.

Bud Pod's effect on us is profound, but it's entirely psychological. What do you think, to return to a much earlier question that I meant to ask and forgot, when I was talking about turning up at a birthday party with a load of raw beef and hot coffee, what's the worst thing to show up with at a picnic in the park for someone's birthday? The best thing to show up with is probably

enough beanbags for everyone and a load of ice-cold cans. Beanbags, yes. Wow, you'd be the hero of the park. What a day. That'd be great. What would be bad? What would be...

Hot water bottles. Freshly filled hot water bottles. Boiling hot water bottles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I guess you like hot stuff Blankets Blankets will come in handy

I think if you turned up like In a full Trench coat If you turned up in like really Warm clothing It would really put people off Yeah like a big leather school shooter trench coat yeah yeah and you brought food but and i reckon this would be

really bad um like uh competition level spicy wings like like thousands of whatever they are Kelvins or however they measure Scoville like millions on the Scoville scale like ghost pepper fucking wings guys tuck in

ghost pepper wings and loads and loads of 2 litre bottles from other drinks that you've reused for just tap water. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just plain tap water that you've filled it up from a big tap. Or like strong ginger ale. Like that very gingery one.

The really spicy sort of... It looks refreshing, but it's really spicy. There is no sugar in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just pure ginger. Yeah, they've gone, what people want is fizz and ginger. Yeah, it's like is this is this an old medicine is this a medicine this is from back when level of ginger yeah this is from back when this drink was presented as a cure for polio

yeah not for fun how about a big tub of uh peanut butter and just loads of spoons sticking out. Oh, God. And you're like, tuck in. But also, it's that really, really oily peanut butter. Like cheap peanut butter. You look at the back and it's like 80% palm oil. And you go, ooh. You can feel it really coat your mouth. Really hard to get.

And you have to wash it down with ginger beer. Warm ginger beer. Or just like pints and pints of milk. Not with the peanut butter because that's quite a good combo. But also milk is good. Isn't milk good if you've had spicy wings? Yeah. So the milk would have to be in concert with something

like... Milk is actually very refreshing, isn't it? It's actually very hydrating. Milk and loads of... Something with a lot of citrus in. So there's a lot of curdling that's going on. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like orange juice and milk or something.

Yeah, but it's this very citrusy food, which is oranges. Yeah. Oranges and milk. Like oranges dipped in milk. At the party. Like the cookies, just dipping orange slices in milk. We have conjured a nightmarish picnic.

They'd call the police. I think they would. The police would go, oh, they're more than six people. And they'd go, no, but just look. Just come and look. And they'd say, we're not going to come if you don't tell us there's a problem. And you go, just trust me. You need to see what these people are doing here in the park. Is it public obscenity?

Yes. Yeah. Let's say it is. And if you disagree, arrest me for wasting police time. It's the kind of thing that if other prisoners in jail found out that's what you're in for, they would beat you up. You'd have to go to your own wing. Yeah.

You'd have to go to the nonce wing. It's just for nonces and orange milk dippers That's right OMDs The pedos and the OMDs They're all in wing B We had too many killings in this prison Even the pedos would start to gang up on you After a while

You did what? Oh man you after a while you did what oh man well i thought hot wings you're trying to justify it you just have to live in solitary i'm sorry jesus christ do you know that there's a thing a whole life sentence from the the home secretary themselves uh-huh so there's a few prisoners in the uk where you know how like a life sentence in the uk generally means like 30 years if that yeah yeah it's never like a bunch of paroles yeah you're never till you're dead yeah there are some prisoners that have that but the home secretary themselves has to personally sign the order saying you're never fucking coming out really yeah so like rose west uh-huh from fred and rose west uh-huh whole life order right the home secretary saying, you're never fucking coming out. Really? Yeah. So like Rose West from Fred and Rose West,

whole life order. The Home Secretary stepped in and was like, yeah, you're not fucking coming out. Yorkshire Ripper, people like that. So if you're like properly, crazily bad, and it's not even like all the child murderers get it, it's like some. Right, yeah.

The actual Home Secretary will have to be like, yeah, no, I'm stepping in to make sure that you literally can never come out of prison. Gosh. I think it gets sued a lot. It gets questioned a lot by the EU. Is it unique to British law? Yeah.

Right. It's just the UK where they've gone. We're going to invent a thing where the Home Secretary can go, but come on. This person We were going to invent a thing where the Home Secretary can go But come on This person is never going to be like And now they run an ice cream shop Like it's never Right, right, right

We can't I suppose it also comes down to how much you Trust the parole process Yeah, or if people can be reformed If you are like a psychosexual sadist That can't be like art therapy it out of you yeah your brain is wrong and that may be a shame and also there are people who like you know know know exactly what to say and how to say it like i know someone

it's almost as if psychopaths are inherently charming. A friend of mine studied psychiatry. Yeah. And as like a group trip, they went to a prison to talk to a bunch of psychopaths. Yes. And she sat down with one and spoke to him. And she was just like, he was the most intelligent, charming man I've ever met. Yeah. And I just wanted to stay there and talk to him some more.

Yeah. And the next week, he just threw some acid in the face of someone. I'd work in the prison, just went, pfft. Acid in the face off. Acid in the face off. Yeah. And so there's a point where it's like, oh, we really can never turn our back on you, can we, Stephen? And so you have to live in this box forever because you're insane and we're not willing to execute you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's useful to send people to you to scare them when they're studying psychiatry. Yeah. And that's what would happen to you if you dipped oranges in milk. That's what I'm saying. So don't do it, guys. You know now. Your friend would go, and later, of course, I found out he'd been dipping oranges in milk.

And it really cast my chat with him in a new light. Just like a rookie cop throwing up, rushing out of the room. I watched a movie last night where they had, I think, three of those. You're kidding. A guy, a policeman rushing off to vomit. It turned out he was pregnant. That's the big reveal. Now, we've we gotta stop letting pregnant cops come and see there's different it was different murders is um is what is one of bun jong-ho's early ones you know the parasite director oh yeah yeah yeah um called memories

of murder it's always funny when like these titles are translated from the original i'm sure in korean it's a better title They sound like cheesy soap operas. It's a really good film. Even Murder Memories would be a better... Murder Memories. But then it's a bit Hallmark. Murder Memories. Murders aren't like they used to be when I was a boy. But there are a couple of murders and

numerous times in slow motion a young, a green cop runs off and... But a couple of the bodies aren't even that gross. By the third one people must just be using it as a way to do a drinking game in the cinema. Yeah. You go, hooray! And sip of your beer.

It's a good film though. Recommended. Let's go watch it now. Yes. Well, let's not go watch it now. We're going to go grab a bite to eat, listeners. Yes, for the first time in ages, we're going to our traditional Xi'an lunch. That's right. Down the road from Piers. It's so nice to be back in

Holloway. Do you know about, I learned about this recently, the Holloway brooch? I only... Someone mentioned it on Radio 4 the other day. Yes yes we must have listened to the same both synchronicity it was start the week it's like yes start the week it was like a special medal for suffragettes yeah yeah it's called the holloway brooch and it's the the gate was that

gate called it was like the portcullis of the prison right and if you it was if you were a female suffragette who'd been force-fed or gone on hunger strike in holloway women's prison yeah you then you got this brooch from the Suffragettes as a sort of medal. It was designed by Sylvia Pankhurst. Yeah. It was like a graphic designer artist person. Very good artist, apparently.

Very cool. Yeah, very cool. I think you can buy them on eBay or whatever. We should start our own Bud Pod brooch. A Bud Pod brooch. People who've, I don't know, shat themselves. Yeah, there's a lot of contenders for what that brooch should be. Yes, we'll figure it out. Requirements for the brooch people who've i don't know if you shat themselves yeah there's a lot there's a lot contenders for what that brooch would be yes we'll figure it out requirements for the brooch

i think it would be the poo emoji holding a gun a bullet that is a turd a gun that fires poos we'll discuss it over lunch um thanks for tuning in, guys. We're back in person. Yeah, person pod. It's great to be back in person pod. And we'll see you next week. The office lives! Yeah, bye. Keep jacking in. Got you.