Dig It with Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball - DIG IN: Sexy Reindeer, Steel Pants & Tooth Fairy inflation

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

Jo and Zoe toast the arrival of baby Phoebe and discover the only acceptable use for fridge space — chocolate, cheese and nail polish, obviously. There’s pet drama, favourite childhood toys and Christmas traditions that may or may not involve a sexy reindeer. GET IN TOUCH 📧 Email us: [e-mail] 📱 Text or Voice Note: 07477 038795 💬 Or tap here to send a voice note or message on WhatsApp: https://wa.me/447477038795 GET EARLY AND AD-FREE EPISODES Become a member of The Potting Shed for early and ad-free episodes and bonus content 👉 https://digit.supportingcast.fm/ SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep and Airbnb. 🛏 Eight Sleep — Meet the Pod 5 (and Pod Blanket): cool or warm each side, track sleep, and help reduce snoring. Up to £350 off with code DIGIT: https://eightsleep.com/digit  🌍 Airbnb — Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at https://www.airbnb.co.uk/host/  CREDITS Exec Producer: Jonathan O’Sullivan Assistant Producer: Eve Jones Technical Producers: Will Gibson and Oliver Geraghty Video Editors: Danny Pape and Connor Berry Dig It is a Persephonica production

Coming up on Dig It, and Father Christmas just appears. And then there's always a sexy reindeer, Richard Point. They will start going, ah, sexy reindeer. There you go, steel pants. What a tremendous thing for her to have done to have that made for you. I know, isn't it great? I looked inside the bag and there was this bottle of pomegranate juice that she haven't put the lid off properly. And it wasn't Brody's blood.

It was pomegranate juice. You can't write this stuff. All of that right after this. Hi, gang. Hi, Joe. Hey. Welcome to our Bank Holiday episode of Digit. Joe, we must start off with some incredible news. Our lovely little pod baby has been born.

Baby Phoebe is here. Array, finally. Congratulations to Dino and Fee work on the podcast. I mean, they pretty much set it up, actually. And Big Sister Seffy, because gorgeous baby Phoebe finally came into the world. and she's a gorgeous squidglet. Yeah, we've been waiting for her for so long, haven't we? It's felt like the longest pregnancy, and now she's here,

and she's part of our squad, which is just so gorgeous. We just got a little sneaky preview, didn't we? We got a little sneaky preview. I mean, she's too young to sign the release form, so she won't be appearing just yet, but she probably will be working on the show by the time she's three. So welcome to the world, Phoebe. Now, recently we asked you to send in pictures of your shit drawer,

the one crammed with random stuff that you just can't. throw out but often useful things that you need. What have we got, Joe? First up, we've got Carina. So let's have a look at Carinas. That's an organised shit drawer. So in there we can see there's a tom-tom. I think we all did tom-toms, which is like a GPS tracker. What else is in there? We've got five travel adapters in there. Can I just say, having recently come back from holiday, why do I never take the right travel adapters and you can never have enough? Claire has also sent in a draw pick, but this is the draw of draw. And we've got a voice note from Claire to explain.

Hi, Joe and Zoe. I'm absolutely loving the podcast. I have a shit drawer. I have random things in it. However, I do have the drawer of dreams. It's in my fridge. It's a drawer full of cheese, chocolate and nail polish. It's all perfectly chilled for any crisis, whether that be edible or cosmetic.

There is nothing else allowed in this drawer. everybody uses it and somehow and I'm not quite sure how but it's always stocked it's never empty and yet everybody's in and out of it all the time but I tell you what it is the drawer that everybody

needs to have in their house cheese, chocolate and nail polish I love that oh my gosh that's inspiring yeah of course you see this is why I go wrong with my nail polish because it goes all gooey and gunky doesn't it you need to keep it cold in the fridge

We've got mini eggs, we've got cream eggs. This is genius, Claire, I think you're going to inspire an entire generation with the drawer of dreams. I guess my fridge has the rack of ruin. I've got a mini gin from Scott Mills wedding when he married Sam. That's still in the rack of ruin. And then there's some chocolate tucked behind. I try to hide from myself and from everyone else, but everyone knows it's there. But I love that, the drawer of dreams.

Claire, thank you. If you're loving Digit, make sure you hit follow on Apple or Spotify. It means you'll never miss an episode. They'll download to your phone as soon as they're out. Right. Should we have a question now? We've got a question and it's from Jules. Let's hear what Jules has to say. Hi, Zo Joe or Joe Zoh.

Loving the show, I listen on my way home from work when I'm walking for my job as a nurse. I actually have a question for Zoe. What is that underpants trophy slash award slash memento that sits? behind you in your living room, hoping it was given to you for something quite funny and hilarious, perhaps rear of the year, not sure. Loving the show and I can't wait to hear what your answer is. Oh, Jill's really lovely to hear that we keep your company on your way home from, what I imagine, it's a pretty tough day working as a nurse, and thank you for everything that you do,

keeping us all well and safe and healthy. So there is quite a story for this. My gorgeous mum would always say to us, whenever I've got a bit tough, put your steel pants on. And there are so many times that this comes on. And lots of my friends have adopted it as well. And, you know, it's when you've got to be brave, when you've got tough stuff. And life can be so tough. So she had me my very own steel pants made in a little trophy.

And they are unisex. So you've got white fronts on the front and then you've got girl pants on the back. So you can want people have attempted to get their legs into this after a few whines. That has not gone so well. There you go. Steel pants. What a tremendous thing for her to have done to have that made for you. That's so brilliant.

Yeah, absolutely. What a wise woman as well. What a real wise woman, clever woman, I know. And she's very much with me with all of that. Somewhere I've also got a strong back. Because she always used to say, look, lean on mama's strong back when things got tough as well. And she bought me this beautiful strong back. I don't know who it was modelled on, but it was a bit of a dish.

I can't believe I've just said he was a bit of a dish. Let's get another question. This is from Wendy. Hi, Joe and Zoe. I noticed that you have got pets. I just wanted to know, have you ever had any disasters with them or dramas or taking them to the vet?

Something that turned out to be way expensive or something that you thought was serious and it wasn't. We took Ron because he fell from a banister from our loft, which is about 12, 14 feet. So I scooped them. up and we rang the out of ours vets the costs over £200.

I wouldn't let him move. I had more wrapped up in a blanket. Gave him X-rays because I wouldn't move and he was meowing and meowing. Absolutely nothing. Probably because he's so fast and he did land on his feet. Anyway, enjoy listening to you for many years to come. Take care. Bye.

Oh. Oh, a lovely voice, Wendy. Lovely Wendy. What is it with cats that they are just... Honestly, they're like superheroes. aren't they? Yeah. The fact that they can fall from great heights.

We had a cat many moons ago and what was he called mushroom? And he had a bit of an incident and his leg was damaged and he ended up being absolutely fine. But he was at the vets in Belsos Park in London for quite a long time and we'd worked out that it probably would have been cheaper to put him up at the Ritz for a week because it costs so much money. I tell you what, if you're trade, if you're, if you're, You're doing exams and you're thinking about what to do in life.

Be a vet. Vets do all right for themselves, don't they, I think? We were discussing this yesterday and Disco Steve. He was like, do you remember when we used to live in London? We used to live quite close to each other. And our cat got run over. And we took him to the vet in Belsize Park, the same vet that you went to. And we took him to the vet.

And the bill at the end of it was literally eye-watering. We were like, oh, my God. How can we afford this? You know, we just started out. We didn't really have very much. money at all, but we did, of course, pay the bill. And then Steve bumped into you somewhere, and he was like, oh my God, my cat got run over, it broke its leg, he's had surgery, blah, blah, and said it cost X amount of money. And you went, and yours was like quadruple the amount of

hours was. So we felt a lot better after that. It was ridiculous. They were very lovely vets in Belsais Park, but if your cat gets sick, perhaps don't go to that vet. But you've got to get pet insurance, haven't you? Because this is the thing I always think, you know, um, You know, especially when you're a bit older and you're on your own, and you perhaps have got family to help support. It's, yeah, pets can cost a fortune. We decided to let it lapse. We were like, we don't need pet insurance.

I mean, we've got four animals. How stupid can we be? And then one of them had an accident and we didn't have pet insurance. And we were kicking ourselves, literally. And then we had to pay the bill for that. And now they've all got pet insurance because it was just so astronomical. But if you want, Wendy was asking about pet dramas, can I just tell this story, which was fairly, you.

It was fairly recent, so it was a few, maybe two months ago. And I've talked about Brodie before, and Brody's our sprudle. So he's the older dog in the family. He's the black one with slightly graying now, came to Chelsea Flower Show. Now, we knew that there was something wrong with Brody. Something had happened to Brody, and we didn't know what it was. Just before Chelsea Flower Show, we took him to the vet. He ended up having an MRI, and we had this awful phone call where they told us that he's got a tumour,

a massive tumour, and it's right behind his eye and behind his nose. That's why he can't breathe very well. He's coughing all the time. And the prognosis is not great. He's still here with us at the moment. But obviously we were devastated as a family, told all the kids, which is the hardest thing to do. Yeah.

And so he sneezes a lot. And when he sneezes, bits of blood come out. And we're just loving him and we're keeping him. We're enjoying him for every moment that we can. There was one morning he sleeps at the bottom of the stairs. And I came down early in the morning. And there, on the floor, like this rich, deep red liquid, just oozing all over the floor, all on the stones.

And Brody was laying there and he wasn't looking very well at all. And I called Steve and I was like, oh my God, I think the time's come. This is awful. And we were looking at his liquid going, oh, no, what do we do? He took him out for a walk because Brody actually seemed quite perky. Took him out for a walk. He was crying. I was in the kitchen crying.

We were just like, oh, we've got to tell the kids it's today's a day. And then I went to pick up my daughter's bag that was just by where Brody had been lying. And I picked it up. And so this liquid carried on dripping from Coco's bag. No. And I looked inside the bag and there was this bottle of pomegranate juice that she hadn't put the lid up properly. And it wasn't Brody's blood. It was pomegranate juice. You can't write this stuff? You can't make this stuff up, can you? And he, you know, he's still here, like I say, and we're still enjoying every second that we've got with him. But oh my God. How we laughed, how we laughed. That is fantastic. How do these things happen?

Pomegranate juice. Yeah. It's very rich, very bloodlike. Any scary pet moments do share with us that turned out to be, yeah, few, it's all okay. We're going to take a quick break for some ads. Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast, you can become a subscriber to the Potting Shed. You'll get longer episodes, bonus content and access to our members chat room where we can share tips. And when we eventually do live shows, you'll get early access to tickets. But most importantly, you'll be sporting the show to subscribe. head to digitpod.com.uk or tap the link in the show notes.

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can go from chaos to total silence. I know. It's also made me think, actually, there must be quite a lot of spare bedrooms out there. I bet there is. And people could put them to good use by hosting on Airbnb. A lot of people think you have to host your whole place. Well, some people host their spare room now and again. Yeah, I mean, it's really flexible. And also, it can work to your schedule. You can choose to host when it suits you and pick up a bit of extra money along the way to put towards a trip of your own. I never say no to a trip away. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com.com. OK, host. Right. Next question is from Hannah.

Hi, Joe and Zoe. Hannah here in London. Thank you for Digget. As a hormonal working mum of a certain age, an allotment here and a Glastonbury going music lover, you've pretty much ticked all my podcast needs and having me both giggling and in tears listening to your chats. So thank you. My question for you both comes from having had my very stubborn and monstrous wisdom tooth taken out last week, and then going on to develop something called dry socket, which yes, it really is as bad as it sounds. Anyway, I brought the brute of a tooth home from the hospital, and my six-year-old boys wanted to know if the tooth fairy would still come to visit me.

Now, my immediate response after going through such an ordeal was a huge yes, but I'm curious to know what you think the going rate is these days for such an enormous, middle-aged and dramatically removed tooth. And finally, any other childhood traditions like the tooth fairy that you've continued with way beyond their normal lifespan? Many thanks again and love to you both. Oh, Hannah. I think a really nice pair of shoes is what the tooth fairy would like you to have right now, or maybe a dress. Or maybe some amazing secateurs. I mean, I think the tooth fairy understands the transitions that we go through and rewards you accordingly.

That's what I would say. What a brave girl to have a wisdom tooth out. I know. I've had dry socket. Have you ever had it? It sounds horrific. It really is horrific. It's so painful. I had one pulled out. Was it?

No, I had three pulled out in the surgery with the dentist with his knee on my chest. And they were hooked under. They're disgusting. Weirdly, though, I have kept them upstairs. Because when my kids were a certain age, when they were really big and grown up, the tooth fairy returned all their baby teeth to me. Ah. Being very careful how I tell this story in case.

So I've kept them because obviously the tooth fairy can only keep them for so long and then the kids grow bigger and they've got a stack and what do they do with them. So if you write to the tooth fairy and ask, they'll return them to you. So I was showing Nelly recently. I was found some treasures that's like, oh, do you want to see your baby teeth? She was like, no, I don't. That's disgusting. And why have you kept them all this time?

since the tooth fairy, you know, return them. And I am thinking, why, I don't know why I've kept my wisdom teeth. They've now gone in the bin. But what do I do with those? I don't know what the going rate is, though. Do you know what you do? Zoe, you find your shit drawer and you put them in a little envelope and you put them right at the back. And I love the idea that one day my kids will find them and be like,

oh, God, Mom's so weird. No, no, they'll go, oh, it's a piece of Mum that I can keep forever. They'll put it in their own shit drawer. One tradition that I have not given up is when Father Christmas comes on Christmas Eve, sometimes I add a little bit of extra magic by using some. It's usually icing sugar and I walk backwards from the fireplace in Wellington boots and I use a sieve with icing sugar. And so there are little snowy prints to the pile of presents in the land.

And yeah, I still do that to this day. And then, of course, I come down and it gets really sticky because you have to hoover it up quite quickly. But I love it. And my kids still, Nell still writes, we have a plate where the mince pie goes and the little drink, whatever that happens to be. Whoever leaves the drink. It depends who's leaving the drink, what Father Christmas gets from us a lot. And Nell will still write on that what she would like for Christmas. And I think last year it was something like, you know,

Asterio and Timothy Shalamee. In my stocking. Thank you. Yeah, in a stocking. She got one of those things, I think. Funnily enough. We do exactly the same. We've got the stockings which hung up across the fireplace,

but they come down on Christmas Eve and they're all laid out on the floor. And then it's Jack Daniels, I think, that Father Christmas likes at our house. Of course. And a mince pie, which obviously the dogs help him to eat. Of course. That happens. Of course. The kids are always sent to bed.

And then Father Christmas and the sexy reindeer normally come and do a midnight visitation, which makes the kids die. But they wait in bed and they'll get in bed together. I'm just saying my oldest is 33 now. My youngest is 16, but they all get into bed together. And then Father Christmas just appears. And then there's always a sexy reindeer, which point they will start going, oh. Sexy reindeer. Yeah, yeah.

This is, I feel like I might need to see a video of sexy reindeer. And then Junior Choice, we always listen to Junior Choice on when we're cooking the Christmas meal because my mum and my dad and my sister, my mother-in-law, they will come around with cooking Christmas dinner and it used to be Ed Stoop-pot doing Junior Choice. Yeah. But now it's the lovely Annika Rice and we just sing all those songs that make you cry, Ernie the fastest milk cart on the West and puff the magic dragon and the runaway train. And my sister just goes crazy dancing and it's just that's a major tradition.

Yeah, share, gang. Share with us some of your great family traditions. Please do because they are wonderful. And they might be Christmas time and there might be other traditions that you do when you go on holiday or when you get together or whatever. Maybe you have a sexy reindeer equivalent. I think she might be retiring sexy reindeer soon. Okay. Do we have any more questions? Yes. Any more questions? Hi, Joe and Zoe, really enjoying the podcast and the conversations you're having and the memories you bring back a fab. I was just wondering on that point, are there any toys? from your childhood that you wish you'd held on to, or maybe ones that you still have that you just can't bring yourself to part with. Thanks, Bev. Good question. I'm more annoyed with the things that I didn't have when... Well, you felt cheated, robbed as a kid.

I still have never forgiven my parents for the fact that I never had a chopper bike. I had a bike with a basket and a bell. And actually, I have a really lovely memory of my dad teaching me to ride that. Such a gorgeous memory. It's a real strong one. of him holding the back of the saddle going round and round and round.

And that's joyous. But I was still livid that I never had a chopper bike because everyone around me had chopper bikes. I had a girl's world. Do you remember with the hair that came down? Yeah. I don't know if you ever had one of those. And you couldn't actually put, you were supposed to put makeup on it, but you couldn't draw on it because it was plastics.

It was rubbish. But it did become, because it had this weird ponytail at the top. It became in war games with my brothers, Nick and Dan. it became like a it would be held around as a victim of various war crimes This is like a head and shoulders Yes, head and shoulders

No arms legs or anything Just literally the head and shoulders It also became a weapon It would become a weapon in big fights I'm going to get you But my brothers They had amazing toys They'd have like the whole collection of the Star Wars

Things like Millennium Falcons Oh yeah The one with the legs I can't remember the name of them all And I don't think they still have them and I often think that they probably are worth an absolute mint now. And I guess your parents hang on to stuff

for as long as they humanly can and then it, you know, it goes somewhere, doesn't it? Until, you know, you have your own kids and think, why didn't we keep all that stuff? Because it gets trashed and lost, doesn't it? Like you say, Girls will just get scribbled on in pen in the end, you just get a byroar out because you'd be so frustrated, the lipstick didn't work,

or whatever, and you just scrawl to my eyebrows on. And then, yeah, so it was a bit of it. parent, you look at it and you're like, oh God, I really don't want this around my house anymore. So I guess that's what happens. Cass is really into Lego. So we argue about the Lego starships that are on display because he wants them in the living room. And I'm like, I do not want the Millennium Falcon in my living room. I give you very much indeed. I'd like a bit of art. And he's like, it is art. But I'm as a kid, the one thing that I remember, because my mum used to run a toy library for people with, with the kids, with learning disabilities. And it was very radical. It was very revolutionary.

Yeah, so we used to go to these amazing toy fairs in London. It was a huge deal and get brilliant things for the toy library. And I had these Sasha dolls. So I don't know if anybody watching that, I can remember the Sasha doll. They were the best dressed, the most beautiful, iconic doll you will ever see in your life. I had Sasha with a long blonde hair. She was, oh my God, I just wanted to be her. She was beautiful. And she had a really lovely blue and white gingham dress. I think she had a ribbon in her hair, like soft, butter, soft shoes. And then my sister had her. had Gregor, I think, and Gregor was the boy with the black hair. We had the baby Sasha dolls as well. And they were really tactile. They were nothing like tiny tears. They were the most stylish, the coolest doll you can ever have. And a couple of years ago, I went into this very, very trendy designer shop in London in Notting Hill. And I walked in and they had them all for sale in there. And I nearly died. I didn't buy one because they were like £500 now. Wow. But obviously, for some reason, my mum just lucked out and bought me super cool. Oh, But if I ever saw one in a shop now, I would buy it because I think they are works of art.

I'm sure lots of other people will, well, maybe, maybe it was too niche. Maybe people won't remember them. I've never heard of this sash adult. They're way classy. I just remember my Cindy, because we were more Cindy than Barbie at that time. Same. Cindy, again, being, you know, sort of kidnapped by Action Man quite a lot. And, of course, I would try and make Action Man and Cindy get it on, and my brothers would be like,

and stop that and she'd be strapped to a tree or something or have things thrown at her. Oh. And obviously always the crazy haircuts. I remember and also people, if you're watching, let's know what you remember, your childhood memories, your toys, those amazing things. But PIPA dolls, did you ever get into PIPA dolls? No, never. They were like diminutive. So they were like, a bit like Barbie dolls, but again, really big on fashion. I've obviously always liked fashion because they had super cool shoes And they were tiny. There was Pippa and there was Brits.

I can't remember what the other ones were, but they had the best wardrobe, but like really super tiny. And, oh, I loved, I loved them. I think the thing was I was such a tomboy. So all the girly toys went quite quickly. And then it was bikes and climbing trees and trial. I just wanted to be a boy for quite a long time.

And, yeah, it was always like bruised legs from clambering and climbing. And yeah. Loved my childhood playing with my dolls and toys. We'll be on to Sylvania families now and the multipositions they've been put in by people making YouTube videos. Oh, you always bring it down. You always lower the tone.

Sorry. Do you know what? My dad messaged me actually. My dad emailed and said, yes, congratulations on the podcast and we've listened to a couple but is a bit rude for us, oldies, which is rich coming from my dad

who loves a filthy joke, to be honest with you. Yeah. I was like, oh God, what have we talked about? I think it might have been the Harry-style sex toy that put him off, possibly. Probably, yeah. So sorry, Dad. We won't bring that up again. My mum told me off for talking about swearing with Paul Weller on the radio.

I think I might have mentioned this before. But I was like, oh, my God, I'm the age I am, and my mum is telling me still not to say that I swear on the radio. Our parents are still telling us off. I was like, oh, sorry, mum. Oh, I think we've taught loads, haven't we? We have. We've taught loads.

Yeah, it's nice. It's nice to see you again. Oh, thanks for all your questions. people. And if you've got any comments on any of the stuff we've discussed today or anything you'd like to share with us, to find out how to get in touch with us, just check the show notes. And I'll see you Wednesday, Joe. Yeah, see Wednesday. Digit is a Persephonica production.