Hello Internet - H.I. #77: Woah, Dude

Episode Date: January 31, 2017

Grey and Brady discuss: Hello Internet listening party surprise, plane crash corner, elf on the shelf revisited, Rogue One and The Force Awakens revisited, mailing habits of Americans, Mastermind, some sports stuff or whatever, Sum, and Brady runs a brain-bending Limerick contest. Brought to You By: Hello Fresh: Delicious ingredients you'll love to eat. Simple recipes you'll live to cook. Harry's: Quality Men's Shaving Products. Squarespace: start bulding your website today with a free fifteen day trial Listeners like YOU on Patreon Show Notes: Grey wearing Apple AirPods (face spoiler) MH370: Malaysian Government says no decision on reward, as search for missing plane ends Elf of the Shelf The Easter Bunny Searching for the Easter bunny HI: Rogue One Star Wars Christmas Special H.I. #54: Star Wars Christmas Special Soft reboot Mastermind Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives Reading paper is terrible Limerick) Full list of Limericks

Okay Brady, I need an honest answer. How stupid do I look? Oh, you're wearing like the earbuds with no wires. The new Apple thingamies. Yeah, I got the new Apple AirPods. Yeah, I'm not cool with them. You're not cool with them? I wanted your opinion on this. Are you going to give them a thumbs down? Yep. Down. So the answer to how stupid do I look is very.

More stupid than you should. The lack of wires coming out of these devices now, I'm just realizing at every turn the problems it's eventually going to cause me if I stay in the Apple ecosystem. Do you know I went and looked at a Google Pixel in the shop? I went and asked to hold one. Oh, did you? I did. That's how serious I'm getting now. That's very serious. Did you check out what the wolf emoji looks like on the Pixel? Was that your number one thing that you asked the salesman? I didn't get to that stage. They had this huge security contraption bolted to it. So you couldn't really get a good feel of what it was like without this huge thing glued to the bottom of it and a big cord. And I was like,

this is ridiculous, man. I want to hold one without this stupid thing. So they had to go out the back and get one of their own and bring it out to me to hold. What, like the salesman's private phone? Yeah, his private phone, which had some skin on it as well. It was bloody amateur hour. So yes, I do think those pods look daft. They look so fragile in the ear too. They just look like they're going to fall out all the time. Do they stay in nicely? I have to say the AirPods do stay in remarkably well. I actually think that they stay in better than the wired headphones because you don't have the wire tugging on them all the time. I've seen a few people wearing them around London while I'm wearing my own headphones. And every time I see somebody else wearing the Apple AirPods, I think, wow, that looks really silly.

And then of course, realize that I too am one of these people walking around looks really silly. And then, of course, realize that I, too, am one of these people walking around looking really silly. I think this is like a perfect example of how fashion is accepted among people. It's a thing that looks strange because people haven't seen it. I don't know. I think people will get used to it, but it's very, very weird to have them. You know, Greg, you are an Apple watch, so in my eyes, you're shameless. Okay. I think clearly, as far as sticking out in a crowd, these, of course, white Apple AirPods stick out a thousand times more than an Apple Watch.

So I'm going to disagree with you on that one. I'm sure we'll all get used to them in no time and the world keeps turning. You know, it's Australia Day today, by the way, as we're recording. Is that Australian Independence Day? No, it's not Independence Day. It marks when the First Fleet arrived in Australia to sort of start colonising. So it's kind of controversial in some ways, I guess. It's Wipe Out the Aborigines Day?

Well, I hope the meaning of the day is changing a bit now. There's a bit more recognition of past wrongs, but the date does actually celebrate. The arrival of the First Fleet? The arrival of the First Fleet. The arrival of the First Fleet. Who's there because of all the reasons. Botany Bay and Sydney Harbour. Detailed in guns, germs and steel.

That's why the Aborigines didn't build the First Fleet. Well, happy Australia Day. Thank you. Now, Grey. Yeah. It's been such a long time since we spoke because you've been away having special grey time again when you sort of disappear into the mountains and meditate on the meaning

of life. That's what I do. That I have accumulated 36 items on my little document of things I'd like to talk about next time we do Hello Internet. And we can't possibly do them all. So I've done a bit of a cull, but I have to to warn you I'm overflowing with things I want to talk about luckily a lot of them when I read back through the list now I think I don't care about that as much as I thought I did but some of them are still on my mind so we might have to spill

this list out over a few episodes I think that works fine for me Brady I thoroughly welcome your 36 items of follow-up but probably the highlight of the last month or so while you've been off on Planet Grey has been that I went to a Hello Internet vinyl listening party. I am genuinely so envious of this. I'm really envious that this is a thing that you did. You didn't just go to a party though, Brady. I think the key element here is that you crashed a Hello Internet listening party. I did. I went unannounced. They didn't know I was coming. And I'm a bit reluctant to say this because I think it will make them feel like disappointed by my attendance in some ways. But I actually told you I was going to do it because the one I went to was in London. And I said, Grey, I've seen on Reddit that these people are getting together and they're

meeting in this pizza bar for a vinyl party. I'm thinking of going. Do you want to come with me? And you were totally up for it. You actually said, I'd love to do it. But unfortunately, you couldn't because you had just gone away like the day before. So I don't want those Tims who are at the party to think oh we could have had gray that would have been even better we got stuck with brady oh second rate brady could have had a first rate gray no i know so it was just me but uh it was very good fun and also though i have to say after what gray said in a previous episode about how I should

never contact him asking him to send a video because it's something like he wouldn't be willing to do the way that Dirk did to help me out. No, of course not. No, I would never do something like that. Gray did send a video unannounced. I was just sitting there at the table with the Tims, chewing the fat, having pizza, having a chat, and suddenly my phone pings and it was a video message from Gray, like to the Tims.

And I was like, guys, Gray, like to the Tims. And I was like, guys, Gray's just sent you all a message. Who wants to see it? And seriously, a few people considered leaving the room because they didn't want to see your face. Like they were going, oh, I don't know what to do. Those are the best kind of listeners as far as I'm concerned. They were really serious about their face spoilers. But in the end, everyone stayed and watched your little message as well. The idea of crashing the Hello Internet listening party, it really appealed to me. I really regretted that I couldn't be there. And so I felt, at least send a video, right? I can be there sort of remotely, kind of, in a little bit of a sad way. And I was wondering if anybody was going to stand

on the other side of the phone while the message was playing so they didn't have to actually get the face spoiled. I have to say to the people who attended the party, just to be clear, Brady is like 80% of the value of getting us to the party because Brady is the life of the party. I am not the life of the party. Well, whether that's true or not, that's what they got. So there you go. But so how was it from your perspective? We haven't discussed it at all. I'm dying to know, how did the logistics of this go down? Well, it was at some location in London, and I knew they were meeting in the basement of a pizza place, but I had no idea how many people were going to be there. I was thinking it would be two or three people. I thought it might feel a bit strange if just two people are sitting listening to a record and I turn up and they're

like, oh, hi. So I wanted to find out information without spoiling the fact I was thinking of going. And after spending way too long on a train with flaky 3G reception, trying to set up a fake Reddit account, which is much harder than you told me it would be. No, I don't know what you were doing with your caveman thumbs, but it takes two seconds to set up a sock puppet account on Reddit. Two seconds. I was having a few problems. So I set up an account and contacted the organizer and said, is it still on?

Hoping that he would like contact me back and say, yeah, there's how many ever many people coming. And he took ages to reply. And then eventually he didn't. He just said yes. And I didn't want to like seem too nosy because that would give it away so i just had to like leave it at that and think okay well i'm going i don't know who's gonna be there i like the idea that you didn't want to raise suspicions

that a brand new reddit account might be you trying to suss out information about crashing the party i don't think this would cross anybody's mind. They're wondering like, hey, this new guy, do you think it's Brady? I was probably overthinking it a little bit. Anyway. Yeah. Based on our text message conversations about this, you were definitely overthinking it and overcautious,

but it was delightful to me. Yeah. So then I got to the pizza place and I said, is there a group of people downstairs? And they were like, yep. Then just as I was getting to the pizza place and I said, is there a group of people downstairs? And they were like, yep. Then just as I was getting to the bottom of the stairs, I bumped into someone who turned out to be the organiser. And I didn't really know what kind of reaction to expect.

It's not like Elvis has turned up or something. It's just like some dude. So I wasn't expecting screams of joy or anything like that. And he just kind of went, oh, Brady. The best way I can describe it is it was like I had said I might come but I wasn't sure and it turns out I had. That was how I would describe the reaction. I tell you what, though, it was really great

and we had a brilliant, brilliant night. It was like really good fun. Everyone was really great. There was a brilliant, brilliant night. It was like really good fun. Everyone was really great. There was about 10 people there, I think, and we ordered pizzas and we had some beers and then put on side one and then put on side two. And I'll tell you what the most interesting thing for me was because I never think this about Hello Internet.

I never think of it as something that's funny. I totally understand. Like, I just think it's you and me talking. We joke around with each other because that's just what we do. But like, the thing that surprised me was how often people were laughing at the podcast, like it was a funny show. And I mean, I got great pleasure from that because it's always a nice thing, isn't it? When people are like laughing at things that are supposed to be entertaining. And, you know, we never get feedback from an audience. So we never know what people think. And seeing people smile and also seeing people like nod or shake their head or, oh, you know, typical grey.

Or seeing people look at each other and nod at all the in-jokes and stuff. It was like, oh, human beings do listen to this. I kind of forget that sometimes. It was a really nice experience just to be observing people listening to the podcast. And then afterwards, we hung out and we spoke and it was a really great evening. I totally agree with your description of this though, because when we're recording the show, and when I'm editing the show, I always very much think of it in the same way that it's you and me having a conversation. and the listener is just a silent member of that conversation. But yeah, I don't really think of it as a thing that would be funny. So it would

be very strange to sit in a room full of people and hear when they laugh. Like I think I would be surprised every time, like every once in a while when my wife listens to the show and she laughs at something, I'm always kind of surprised. And I think, what was the thing that was funny? But I'm also realizing that I think you and I would have had a bit of a logistic disagreement had I been able to attend that evening. Because I don't think I could actually have sat through listening to our own podcast in a room full of people also listening to the podcast. I think I would have waited upstairs in the pizza place until the show was over and then go downstairs and talk to everybody

because I think I would be too uncomfortable to be sitting in a room like, hey, everybody's listening to the thing that I've made. I think I would have to wait somewhere else. I'd be like, you go ahead, Brady. I'll come down later. I mean, I did offer to leave when they started listening. I did say, is this too weird for you guys to have me here?

Should I just go upstairs for a bit? And they were like, no, no, no. I mean, I understand that concern. And it was in the back of my head too. But it didn't feel like that at the time. They'd be looking and nodding and smiling. And there was a bit of when you would say something that would be typically grey, they would just look at me and go, I feel for you, Brady.

And I'd smile back. It was almost like you were, you know, having a little laugh behind your friend's back. Great, right. Everyone's in the room rolling their look at me and go, I feel for you, Brady, and I'd smile back. It was almost like you were, you know, having a little laugh behind your friend's back. Great, right. Everyone's in the room rolling their eyes at me. Perfect. Yeah, yeah. And enjoying things as well.

But it wasn't too weird like that. So I'm glad I did it. So there you go, Tims. If you are arranging listening parties around the world, you never know when one of us might show up. Well, Brady, it wouldn't be Hello Internet without playing Crash Corner. I see that one of your 36 items here is playing Crash Corner. Well, it's what the fans want.

Is it? I'm always so uncertain with the corner that makes me the most uncomfortable. The corner where I feel like I'm most likely to be blindsided by something horrible that I don't know about. And I'm always streamed out about whether or not the fans do like Playing Crash Corner. But here we are. Oh, no. Anecdotally, it's probably the favorite of all the corners. Of course, yes.

All of the fans who love the corner contact you about it. So we have Playing Crash corner. What is this? I still think after all this time, you don't fully grasp plane crash corner as well. It's not like every horrible crash that happens I talk about. The thing I just wanted to note was that back in the early, early days of Hello Internet, we had the MH370, the Malaysian Airlines plane that just vanished and just flew out to sea and no one ever knew what happened. And there were all these searches for it. And back then, I was just so confident that they'd find it eventually. They have all this technology and they're looking for

it out in the Indian Ocean somewhere where they think it went. And just as time went by, I began to have my doubts. And now they've called the search off. The search is over and they haven't found it. And I just never thought that would happen. A whole plane full of people never to be found, which I find extraordinary. I mean, the ocean's a big place, right? It must have disappeared in the ocean. Yeah, but technology's moved on. The Titanic went missing in deep water and for a long time it wasn't found. But then technology came along and it was like, oh, yeah,

we can find it now. And I know they knew roughly where the Titanic sank because they rescued people and stuff. But I'm just amazed they can't find it. And I know how big the Indian Ocean is. I'm just amazed they couldn't find it. And there was talk, this minister from the Malaysian government said they were going to offer a reward to private searchers.

Like if someone could find it, they'd get a reward. And that quite excited me. Ooh, yeah. It's like treasure hunting. I know. I even wondered if those two legends that went to South America and found that plane up the mountain might say, all right, we're doing it.

But then a couple of days later, there was another story from someone more senior in the Malaysian government saying that that guy probably was just shooting his mouth off and there might not be a reward. So I don't know if there's a reward or not. If there was a reward, would you be tempted to try and claim it? This seems like a Brady project. I don't think I have the technical capabilities. I think taking a piece of paper with pie printed on it and rolling it on a runway is one thing. Searching for a missing plane in the Indian Ocean,

that's another kettle of fish. I don't know. Don't you want to progress in the difficulty of your projects? You're a man who's been on Everest. It seems like finding a missing plane in the Indian Ocean. How cool would that be? And listen, I think you also have quite an audience here. I think if you really wanted to, you could draw on the right people to help make this happen. Just saying, Brady. Are you talking like Kickstarter or something? Patreon as Brady goes out in his dinghy out to sea. I don't know. I'm just the ideas guy here, right? You're the executor, right? You make things happen. You get vinyl records shipped across the world. I'm sure that

you can find MH370. I think you could do it. It would make a great YouTube video. It would make quite a video. It'd get freebooted very quickly. That's the main reason I don't want to do it is because I know it'll just get freebooted straight away anyway. You know what? Fair enough. Do you know what? I was going to sort of clarify, correct you when you referred to me as the man that's been on Everest, but I quite like you saying that. So I'm just going to let that one slide. Wait a second. Are you telling me that's not true? Well, I wouldn't say I'd been on Everest. Here's the thing. I specifically phrased that not

in like you've climbed Everest because I don't think that's entirely true, but you've been on at base camp, right? That counts. I don't know where you would technically say being on Everest starts. I'm not sure base camp would count, but I think you've got to get through the Khumbu icefall before you can say you're on Everest. Khumbu Shmoomboo. I think base camp, that counts. As far as I'm concerned, 80% of the danger of getting to Everest is getting on the plane that gets you there. So if you're on the other end of that plane, you make it to base camp, that counts as on Everest.

Well, like I say, I could correct you on this stuff, but you're just making me sound awesome. So why would I? We'll let that stand. Now, Gray, we talk about not really thinking about who's listening to the podcast. And one thing I often forget is that one person who uses the podcast is my sister for helping my nephew go to sleep. It's like his thing, like he goes to bed and sometimes instead of a bedtime story, he can have like 20 minutes of Uncle Brady. Oh, that's so sweet.

I know, which sounds sweet, but she's just being lazy, isn't she? Playing a bit of Hello Internet. So he listens to Hello Internet. I think it's way above his head. I love the idea that not only are we putting grown adults to sleep with the podcast, there are also children being put to sleep. Well, it sounds to me like maybe we're putting my sister to sleep but not my nephew because what happened in our pre-Christmas episode

was when we started talking about Elf on the Shelf and I mentioned how it was this toy, like my sister had zoned out and wasn't listening and my little nephew who has an Elf on the Shelf was like, what's Uncle Brady talking about? And can I just say for the record and to my little nephew who has an elf on the shelf like was what's uncle brady talking about and can i just say for the record and to my little nephew who'll be listening right now your elf on the shelf is definitely not a toy nestle is a real elf and you be a good boy because nestle is watching and what uncle brady said about toys was confusing and not right but

nestle is a real elf and you be a good boy and i look forward to seeing you again soon believe your uncle brady yeah there's no reason to doubt uncle brady exactly and but it also did get me thinking about the easter bunny and i just want to ask you a quick question gray oh okay yeah shut your eyes. Okay. What does the Easter bunny look like? Big and pink. Okay. Because that's what I wanted to find out. Is the Easter bunny to you like a rabbit?

No. Or is the Easter bunny to you like a man in a rabbit suit? It's totally a man in a rabbit suit. That's what the Easter bunny is like. To me, the Easter bunny is like a six foot man in this ill-fitting suit carrying a basket full of chocolate eggs. Yeah. He might be white for me. I don't know if he's pink.

He's definitely bipedal for a start. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Let me send you a picture of the Easter bunny. I'm waiting. I've still got that gormless picture of you looking at me with your earbuds in. Don't look gormless at all. That's the Easter bunny.

You've got a meme for everything haven't you look all i did was i went into google i typed in easter bunny and that's what came up that was the first of several terrifying easter bunny photos right here's another one you're googling scary easter bunny you're not googling just easter bunny no i am not i typed in easter bunny this is what i found the easter bunny is a friendly man in a pink suit not the ones that gray has just been posting yeah i'm sending brady nightmare versions of the easter bunny the kind of easter bunny that you would have in a horror movie but no in my head it's a smiling happy bunny that is human-sized. No, not smiling.

The bunny face can't smile, but it looks friendly. It's like in a cartoon, you know? Rabbits in a cartoon can smile. It doesn't have to be accurately rabbit-faced. It's like cartoony rabbit-faced. The thing that I'm confused about here, is there anybody who thinks that the Easter bunny is like a rabbit?

Yeah, I think there are some people who grow up with the Easter Bunny mythology being a small rabbit on all fours, but with magic powers, obviously, to deliver chocolate eggs, but not a standing up person. But is this version of the Easter Bunny, I mean, is he laying the eggs like the Cadbury Bunny? Well, rabbits don't lay eggs. But they don't deliver magic chocolate eggs either.

I'm just, I don't understand. I don't know how the all four small rabbit actually delivers the eggs. If you grew up believing the Easter bunny was an actual rabbit, tell us and tell us how it negotiated the mechanics of delivering the eggs. Because we'd like to know. Because in my head, the man-sized Easter bunny has a magic basket from which he can draw an infinite number of eggs. Yeah.

Like Santa Claus and his magic sack. It's the same idea. Yeah. But an actual magic Easter bunny laying eggs for all the children on Easter. That's horrible. All right. Sounds like torment. But like a man in a suit with a magic basket that has infinite eggs in it.

You're cool with that? Yeah, that's fine. That's a-okay. Great. I just want to check. I just wanted to know question for you then tooth fairy human sized fairy sized small like audrey size oh okay maybe smaller even same for you i don't know i don't really have a good idea of the tooth fairy

in my mind no i think the tooth fairy was less of a ever real fixture in my childhood and more of a transparent money delivery mechanism. I mean, I believed, but I think the problem is you see less depictions of the Tooth Fairy. I mean, you see the most depictions of Santa, and that's why we all agree on what he looks like. The Easter Bunny, there does seem to be a bit of a range, and that's why we can discuss it.

But you hardly ever see depictions of the tooth fairy because it's not like there's you know tooth fairy cards and tooth fairy branding because we all lose our teeth at different times so we don't really know what the tooth fairy looks like it's a great unknown great unknown maybe there'll be some fan art of tooth fairies hello well the tooth fairies i'm sure there will be. makes it easier, tastier, and healthier than ever to enjoy the experience of cooking new recipes and eating together at home. From creating the recipes and planning the meals to grocery shopping and even delivering all of the pre-measured ingredients, HelloFresh delivers right to your door so you can skip the trip. I'm not a man who ever wants to go to the grocery store if I can possibly

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If you want healthy, delicious food delivered to your door, no fuss, no muss. Give HelloFresh a try. Thanks to HelloFresh for supporting the show. So under the broad category of follow-up, I guess we should talk a little bit about Star Wars. I went and saw Rogue One for the second time. Oh, did you? I did.

When did you see it for the second time? I was with some friends and they wanted to go and see it. And I wanted to see it a second time as well because for people who don't remember, you had seen it twice when we did our review, our Christmas Day review, and I had seen it once. And we're not going to review it again because we've done our review and also we're not going to do spoilers.

But I have all my notes for the scenes on the planet that I didn't like that we were going to finish up. Now you don't want to do that. No, no. But can I just say, watching it a second time, I hope it came across that I did like the film because I gave it like a partial thumbs up. People will remember, whereas I would say you were quite negative about it.

Watching it a second time, my thumb has moved a little bit. Oh. And it has moved more towards 12 o'clock, the upright position. And if we were doing that episode again, I would call you out on more things that you said. And I think you were overly harsh. I still agree with a lot of things you said, but I think you were overly harsh and that film was even better than I said it was the first time around.

Still not like, you know, an all-time amazing film. But for people who said we gave it a bit of a hard time, I kind of agree. I think we could have been a bit more positive about it. That was my second viewing opinion when we walked out. Okay. So on the 180 degree scale, that is your thumbs up and thumbs down, what is the final resting place?

I would say 1048, which is even more fine tuned than stars. It's like pointlessly precise. You've got four significant digits here. How much did you like the Star Wars movie? 1048 and 38 seconds. Oh my God, it's crazy making. So anyway, I just wanted to put that out there. I think that's very interesting.

I think it's very interesting you liked it more the second time around than the first time around. Yeah. And things that you criticized it for, I think if it didn't do, you would have criticized it for. Like it couldn't win on some things. Like things that you said where things were getting too complex and there was unnecessary detail, if that stuff had been left out, would have been plot holes. I'll give one example if you want. When they go to desert planet and they've got to go and find Che Guevara, he says, oh, I know a guy who can tell me where he is. And you thought, oh God, you know a guy who knows a guy. We don't need to know a guy to know a guy. But if he hadn't, and they just landed on the planet and gone to Che Guevara's house,

we would have all been saying, oh, Che Guevara, this big hidden guy, but anyone can just turn up on the planet and walk straight to his front door. That's ridiculous. That's completely implausible. So like little things like that, that seem like unnecessary complications. I think you have got to drop a little bit of that in. Otherwise we'd be complaining the other way. And I paid a lot of attention to that stuff. And I didn't think it made things overly complicated. Here's the thing. I want to just totally agree with you that the movie was in a no-win situation with that kind of stuff.

And yes, that if they hadn't added in a bunch of those details, they would be plot holes. I think it's the same thing like with putting the labels for the places that they're going to in the movie. Yeah. Like as we discussed at the time, I think they had had to leaving those out would have made things more complicated but i think my problem is a bit more fundamental that it's like the structure of the movie has put you in this no-win situation that's more how i feel about it is like the whole thing was slightly disorganized and kind of a mess but i'm very interested to hear that you liked it more the second time. And I feel

happy for you that you liked it more the second time. And I liked it the first time. As I said, I thought it was a good film. Not as good as some others. And many of the criticisms that were made by both you and I, I stand by. But some of them, I think I gave you a bit of an easy ride on. Maybe because I'd seen it once and there's no point bickering over everything. But I do feel like if we did that review again, I'd probably go in a bit harder against you. Anyway, we've done our review. We've played our game. Win or lose, you can't replay the Super Bowl. So the review stands. But you want to talk about Star Wars. You've been mulling over Star Wars while you've been in the mountains meditating the meaning of life. Well, there's just an interesting thing. There's two interesting things that I

have noticed. One of which is the name for the new Star Wars movie has been recently announced. Yes. What is the name, Brady? It is The Last Jedi. What do you think of that name? Disappointing is my first impression. It's the first time I've been asked to comment on it because i don't have many star wars fans around me in my day-to-day movements it sounds like it should be the end of a trilogy it doesn't sound like the middle it's okay it's not as bad as some others maybe it's not even disappointing it just is what it is it just sounds a bit final

and it seems weird to be using a name of such finality on this series of films that blatantly is now going to become endless for the rest of our lives until we die and beyond. I think and beyond there is quite fair, right? I am willing to bet that Disney will be making Star Wars movies long after you and I are dead. Does that disappoint you in any way that things are going to happen in Star Wars that you never know about? Well, this is the reason I brought it up is I saw some headlines about, oh, the title for the next Star Wars movie has been released. And the thing that I noticed was not any particular thoughts

about the title, but I noticed my own internal emotional barometer towards this news. And I suddenly had a feeling of kind of like dread at the rest of my life. There always being news about the next Star Wars that this is just going to go on forever. And the feeling that I had was it's a bit like election cycles in the US where it feels like you get like this very brief break. And then it's like, we've got 100 days, and then we're going to start talking about the midterm elections, right? And then, you know, when you have a little bit of time, and then we're going to start talking about the next general. And I thought, oh, no, is between Christmas and mid January, the only time for the rest of our lives, we will be free of Star Wars news. I think that might be the case that it's always going to be like mid to late January,

we're going to start hyping up the next movie. Try being a football fan in England, man. The off-season lasts 20 minutes. Oh, yeah? They play the last game of the season and you're like, well, that was a rollercoaster ride. And then the new season seems to be starting minutes later and it's like crazy.

I guess this happens with everything. It's just like the rumors about the next iPhone start before the current one is even out, you know, like everything has these same cycles. But I just had this feeling of suddenly realizing this is going to occur forever with Star Wars. So what do you think of the title of The Last Jedi then, aside from that feeling you had? Yeah, I just thought it was kind of a strange title. I agree with you. Something about it feels a little bit off.

But I also recognize that I am much less emotionally invested in the future of Star Wars, and I feel relieved at that. The other thing that I've just been thinking about, which I have found interesting, is when, I guess two been thinking about, which I have found interesting is when I guess two years ago now, you and I did the first Star Wars Christmas special where we talked about the Force Awakens, and we both liked it very much. I have been really aware that I liked that movie. I saw it a bunch of times in the theater. And then later in the year, I saw it was available for pre-sale on iTunes. I was like, boom, sold immediately. Like I never buy pre-sale stuff. I always hate that. But I was like, I know

I'm buying it immediately. Right. So I'll be able to watch it. It's interesting. I have no desire to watch it again. Yeah. Okay. But so this is what happened, right? It's like I pre-ordered it and I have never touched it. And I only just realized this recently, that it has never crossed my mind to even watch that film another time. I feel like I have no draw to watch that movie again. Like, I'm very interested to hear you say the same thing. Why do you think that is? Because you didn't imprint with it like you imprinted with the Star Wars films as a kid. And you imprint with fewer films as an adult.

So you liked it, but you haven you imprint with fewer films as an adult. So you liked it, but you haven't like bonded with it at that deep level. I think this is, again, like the age old question of are Star Wars movies great movies? Or did we imprint upon them as children? A bit of both. It is a bit of both. But I've just been really aware of that sensation.

I feel no need to rewatch The Force Awakens. And also being much more aware in retrospect that The Force Awakens is this phenomenon in Hollywood movie making called the soft reboot. I feel like I wasn't aware of this so much when watching the movie, and I think I would be more painfully aware of it on a rewatch, that there are a whole bunch of movies that are not just being remade by Hollywood, but are being done as these like kind of quasi sequels, but that also start the whole story over again. I can't totally agree with that about Force Awakens. Yeah, I don't think it's a perfect soft reboot, but it feels like a soft, soft reboot. No. It's like a shot in the arm,

sort of glass of water in the face to the series saying, wake up, wake up, we've got to get our act together. What are you doing? Or it's like a big halftime talk by the coach saying, you've just played terribly. Come on, let's get out there and have a great second half. But it's not a reboot because, like, the story is a continuation and, like, they're constantly referring to what happened before

and it's got the same people in it, same characters are in it. You know, Luke Skywalker's still in it and everyone knows what he did before and the legend of him. I know what you're saying. You're not being crazy. But if you're going to call that a reboot, it's the softest of softest versions of it. I think it is a very soft, soft reboot, though, because even though there are new characters, they're all like explained anew.

And Luke is just in the Obi-Wan role. All of the characters are the same thing again. We have new Vader, there's new young Luke, we have new Han Solo. It does feel very much like a soft reboot. I just wonder if that will also not age the movie well going forward in the future. But it's just a thing that I'm aware of. And I found interesting that I was wrong that future me would really be interested in watching this movie again and it turns out that that is not the case yeah I could have told you that I could have saved you a few bucks there well when I go to pre-order Rogue One I'll ask you if you put Rogue One and Force Awakens in front of me right now and said you

have to watch one of those two I choose Rogue One Rogue One at the moment. That's astounding to me. I can't believe that. And I've seen it more recently. I've seen it twice since I saw Force Awakens. Rogue One was more grown up. Rogue One was an adult's movie and I'm a grown up now. I still think Force Awakens is probably better. I think if you were like weighing and measuring everything and you had to do a big analysis, I would still say Force Awakens is probably better. I think if you were like weighing and measuring everything

and you had to do a big analysis, I would still say Force Awakens is better than Rogue One. But Rogue One felt more like my movie at my time of life and my interests. And it's got a lot more weaknesses than Force Awakens, but it just felt like it was talking on my level a bit more. The hardest nails movie for a hardest nails man. Maybe that's it. Maybe that's it. that's it i don't know maybe five years is when we can really put them side by side

and by then there will be another five star wars movies what do we have here brady's paper cut you asked for it did i ask for it i'm not sure i quite asked for it i have many paper cuts you know i always have many paper cuts. You know, I always have many paper cuts. I have one. It doesn't make me angry. So I don't want the people who I'm about to criticize to feel like I'm angry at them. But it does kind of get my goat a little bit. So I did something a couple of weeks ago. I've been playing around with my email list. And one of the things I have decided to do is occasionally send like treats to people on my email list to like thank them for

putting up with my emails. So you're sending them emails, thanking them for putting up with your emails. Okay. Got it. Right. Well, no, it wasn't quite, it was a bit more subtle than that, but it feels like why I'm not subscribed to your email list yeah thank you go sign up to brady's email list everybody yeah right yeah you've sold it so well now so what i did was and i didn't just send an email just for this purpose it was just a ps on the end of a normal email i said if you send me your address i put everyone who sends me their address in like a lottery and a hundred of them I sent postcards, like personal postcards and I signed and I got nice stamps made for them and it was all a bit of fun.

It was like a perk, like a reward, but randomly chosen. Nice thing to do. And I'll get sent all these addresses and then I used a random number generator to choose a hundred of them. And these are the addresses for people who I was writing postcards to. And because people were sending their address to me in an email and not using some kind of form or proforma or commerce site, they just had to write their address, how they choose to write it. Fair enough. And this is when I realised something. Everybody in the world, when they're writing their address to me,

I imagine most of them know I'm probably in England, write their address and include their country, except Americans. I reckon by a ratio of 600 to 3, Americans write their address and never put United States, USA at the end of it. I think they just assume it's a given that you're from America. So when I was like pasting and making all these forms to send, because it was mostly Americans who I was sending these things to, I always had to write United States or USA and that sort of thing

because Americans never write their country. Everyone else does, no matter where you're from. Ah, Sweden, Italy, all over the world, Israel, Australia. Even most of the UK people did it. And they know that I'm in the UK. Americans never write their country and their address. And I think it's like, you know, I don't know, maybe it's a little bit arrogant, dare I say. I think the two letter state abbreviation is all you need. Yeah, obviously. That's what they think.

Yeah. You see MO on an address. And obviously, you know where that is. You know where that's going. America. That's where it's going. America. I'm not telling you where I am. You should know where I am. And it began to frustrate me a bit.

I was like, oh, another American not putting their country on their address. Surprise, surprise. So many of these Amerocentric complaints, they're obviously just a side effect of, for most Americans, for 99% of everything they ever do, it's all economically within the borders of the United States. Like how many times does an American ever have to send a letter anywhere else in the world? Almost never.

Like unless you're sending it to Santa Claus, you know, you don't have to send it out of the country. And even then, you know, some Alaskans will try to tell you that, you know, he should be sending it up to Alaska. What do you mean the North Pole's not in America? If I can't remember off the top of my head, like the reasoning for why Santa's in Alaska, it seems a bit dubious, right? But there's some reason why. I mean, you know, I understand that that's a paper cut of yours, but I think this is what's going to happen when you have some gigantic economic block that supplies for itself all of yours, but I think this is what's going to happen when you have some gigantic economic block

that supplies for itself all of the needs that it has. But these people are Hello Internet listeners, most of them. I don't know. Maybe they're not. Maybe lots of them were subscribed for videos and don't know that I'm British. Well, Australian in Britain.

They're all objectivity fans. I don't know what's going on. I don't think it should matter. I think you should just put your country there, like, unless you know for a fact that the person's in the same country as you. The thing is, I am thinking back to when I was a little boy in school,

and I'm pretty sure it never even came up about how to address international letters. Like, I remember doing the how do you write a letter to somebody in Arkansas lesson, but there was never any reason to put United States on the bottom. I'm pretty sure I never came across the notion of putting the country name underneath until I was in the UK. But we live in the world of eBay now and we're pretty globalized. Well, obviously we're not, obviously we're not that globalized because people don't do it. I'm a little bit surprised, but not that surprised.

You should know where America is. A couple of times I was thinking, where is this? Like, is this in America? It must be, because if it wasn't, they would have written their country. So I just put United States. So great. There's a quiz show in the UK, which I'm sure you've never watched, called Mastermind. Have you heard of this? I don't think so. Right. I think there are usually four contestants

and they each take a turn sitting in like the hot seat and under the spotlight. And there are two rounds. They're asked a series of questions on a specialist subject of their choosing. Uh-oh. And then they're asked a bunch of questions on general specialist subject of their choosing. And then they're asked a bunch of questions on general knowledge and your two scores are added together and whoever

does the best wins. And you'll see someone, okay, here's John Smith from Somerset and his specialist subject is fighter planes of World War II. And the quiz makers will have come up with a whole bunch of questions on this specialist subject. And usually you're just kind of flabbergasted and you might get one or two if you're lucky. And it's kind of weird that people can know so much about a subject. And then the quiz master will say afterwards, so tell us why you're into World War II planes or whatever and they'll have a little chat.

And then they'll come back later and do their general knowledge section. But it's always a really good fun thing to think to yourself when you're watching Mastermind. If I was on Mastermind, what would my specialist subject be? What's something I know a lot about and I'd be really happy to be quizzed about in depth, like at a deep level. Now, I always thought that my specialist subject would be the Apollo moon landing missions. Oh, yes, of course.

And anyway, amazingly, a couple of years ago, I was watching Mastermind and some guy came on and he chose that as his specialist subject. So this was like my moment to put myself to the test. It was no longer hypothetical for me. I could do it and see how good I was. And I'm not ashamed to say I did pretty well. I think maybe I got one wrong out of like about 20, 25 questions.

Oh, wow. So I was like, yep, I know my stuff. I know my stuff. I felt pretty good. So I always thought that would be my ultimate subject. I was watching Mastermind the other day and admittedly it was a celebrity version when the questions are a little bit easier

when they do celebrity Mastermind.mind but anyway this cricket player came on and he chose as his specialist subject the original three star wars movies and they asked him all these questions and i now think that is my specialist mastermind subject because the first four words of the question would come out and I would give this really obscure answer. And my wife, who was sitting in the room at the time, looked at me half impressed and in awe and half ashamed at what a nerd her husband was.

Exactly. Half horrified that you know all of this stuff. We all know that feeling. But I tell you what, so I now know if I was a mastermind, they would be my two options because they seem to be two things I know quite a lot about. Not cricket? Cricket would be one of my guesses for you. Cricket maybe, but cricket can be quite broad.

Normally the broader your subject, the easier the questions, funnily enough. But how specific could you get? Could you be like, oh, my specialist subject is Jeff Dujon? Could you do that? Well, I think the more specialized you get, the more they throw incredibly hard questions at you that's my experience of watching is that the more you zoom down the more obscure they get on you so you should be like my specialist subject is general knowledge yeah but it did get me and i'm getting to my point here after it's not just an excuse to tell you how much i know about moon landings and star wars are we sure i think it was well we can stop now if you want but the thing i wanted to know was if cgp gray was on mastermind what would his specialist subject be

if you had to go on this quiz show and be quizzed in front of a national audience in depth what's the subject you would choose as one that you think when the researchers pulled their questions together you'd hold your own i gotta go with current events in pop culture. That would be my specialist subject. Sportsball between the year 1980 and 2000. Yeah, I would crush that. I would absolutely crush that. Besides that, I mean, that's a given. I've got a theory. I'll put one too that I thought you'd say. Okay. You guess first here, then we'll talk about this. My guess is that you're going to choose Lord of the Rings.

That is not an unreasonable guess. Yeah. But I think I'd be pretty terrible at that. Okay. For anyone who was really pulling out a Lord of the Rings quiz. Now don't go crazy hard. But yeah, but Lord of the Rings is an unusually deep well to pull from right that has a large number of names and i am really bad with names yeah yeah especially when all those names are

also similar to each other yeah exactly yeah that's not a bad guess from your perspective but okay here's the thing i always think that it is important to understand and know yourself. And one of the lessons that I learned about myself a long time ago is that I am not a specialist in anything. I kind of want to be the person who knows a ton about the Apollo missions, or I want to be the person who has a ton of Lord of the Rings knowledge, but I am much more like a serial specialist. Like I will for a narrow period of time, get incredibly interested in the thing and read up on everything that I can possibly read about it. And then suddenly one day I will I will wake up, and I will just have no more interest in that thing. It's just that phase is over. And so there's a ton of stuff that

I have done this with, but I really don't have a single topic over a long period of time that I can say, Oh, you know, I really love and know everything about x. I kind of accept that as part of my personality. It's part of the reason why I turned down doing a PhD program a long time ago because the whole idea of having to focus on one specialist topic for a long period of time, I just came to the realization and just faced it straight on.

I can't be that person. There's no way I can actually do that. So I genuinely don't think I have any meaningful specialist area that I could offer up on a game show like that. Well, Gray, that's a fascinating insight into you as a person, as always. And I commend you for entering into the spirit of the question. But obviously, your answer is completely unacceptable to me. And I want you to choose a subject just for the sake of it with that huge qualification attached to it.

I wouldn't want to go on a TV show and be tested on Apollo or Star Wars. The nerves of the lights and the cameras, I'm sure I'd choke and make a complete fool of myself. What if you had to do it? Like you had to do it to save your family's life. Like I appreciate that theoretical question. I really do. Like, I'm trying to be strategic about this, but I...

Yeah, I get what you're saying about you not being someone who... You know, it's like, I'm not a person who has hobbies. Like, I can never maintain interests like that for any length of time. There are very, very few interests in anything that last a very long time with me. Yeah. Maybe voting systems. But even then, I feel like it'd be trivial to design specialist questions

that I couldn't get right on something like that. I mean, the quiz masters aren't trying to embarrass you, but you're right, that might be a hard one because they'll probably feel quite limited in what they could ask. This is why I'm trying to be somewhat strategic about this. It's not like Lord of the Rings, where the well is infinite. With voting systems, it's a much more bounded area. And I think I could probably do okay with something like that. But even that, I feel incredibly tentative with that as an answer.

Well, you named something. So thank you for giving me one. You're going to let me slide with that one, Brady? I'll let you slide with that because you relented. Thank you. I appreciate that. Can I just say one other thing that infuriates me about that show, Mastermind? The way the show works is you answer the questions in the time limit. I always think it's unfair because it seems to me like people get an uneven number of questions. Like someone seems to get more questions in their time slot than someone else.

But the makers of the show always say that's not an issue. What kind of Banana Republic show is this? They don't have a set number of questions and time? Yeah, I know. But the other thing that drives me crazy is that the way it works is if there's a tie, the way they break the tie is the person who passed on the least questions. Because if you don't know an answer, you can just say pass.

And at the end they tell you the answers to all the ones you got wrong. I don't know why anyone ever says pass. Because if you don't know the answer, you should just have like a thing in the back of your head that I'm going to say, John Smith. So at least you'll have no passes. People saying pass in that show drives me crazy. Because there's no strategic advantage.

I mean, if you get one wrong, the quiz master then tells you the correct answer. So that might take up one or two seconds of your time. But you're not getting docked points. It feels like you should just burn through as many questions as possible. Yeah, that's just me getting something off my chest. Drives my wife crazy because I complain about it every time I watch the show. But I complain more about the uneven number of questions, to be honest. But it seems incredibly unfair, but it also seems like the stakes can't possibly be high here if nobody's figured out the strategy when they're like, who created the orcs?

And you go, potato, right? And they just say, oh, no, sorry, right? And you're like, keep moving, keep moving, right? Yeah, yeah. Is there no reward on the show? Is this just for funsies? True that there isn't a big prize. It's not high stakes.

But anyway, I take quiz shows quite seriously sometimes. So I don't want to get too bogged down by all this. You are very serious about the rules of games. That is true. That is true. I am. So serious we can essentially never play games. We played games at Christmas, didn't we? No, that didn't even count. What we did was not even a game. It was a conversation starter, which is the only reason we were able to play. We had a great night. We did. It was fun. We had a very good night over Christmas, but it seems like it's impossible to play Settlers of Catan with you. You won't deal with it? No, probably not. We'll see. If we were doing it for like a podcast, I would, because I'd have to pretend. You have to pretend to be a normal person who's not totally losing his cool.

Something else, just quickly, there was new information to me and i feel silly for not knowing this i don't know if you know this but i'm often surprised by things in shops that have security tags on them to stop you shoplifting in particular underwear like when you shop for oh you wouldn't know this because you don't shop for underwear in the shops but i'm already trying to spin up a theoretical scenario under which i'm shopping for clothing in a physical store expensive like you know like a thousand pound leather jacket i can understand them putting a security tag on so you can't just walk out of the shop but the thing i'm always surprised is there's really really high security on like underwear like boxes of calvin klein underwear or whatever like or whatever like the trendy brand is.

They've always got security to the hilt like it's Fort Knox and they've got all these huge tags on them because they're obviously a very stolen item. Maybe because people who shoplift want nice underwear and maybe because they're a good size to steal. I don't know. But it always baffles me a little bit. But I've learned to accept it over the last 10 to 15 years

that it's a thing. What I didn't realise was the other day, because I don't eat steak very much. I know everyone loves steak and thinks it's like the best thing in the world to eat, but I think it's really overrated. Really? But the other day I decided to buy a steak in my local supermarket and I wanted to get a posh one because I'm posh as cushions,

so I want to get like, you know, the tasty choice special deluxe version. Of course. It wasn't like a posh one because I'm posh as cushions so I want to get like you know the tasty choice special deluxe version of course it wasn't like a posh one from a butcher it was still like a pre-packaged one it was sealed in packaging it cost like 10 pounds or something like that and it had security tags all over it at the checkout they had to take the security tags off and deactivate it so that shoplifters couldn't leave with a piece of steak in sealed plastic. This was new information to me. I said to the woman, is this like new? Why is there security on a piece of steak? And she's like, oh, I think they just get stolen a lot. People steal them. We had a whole conversation about it and I brought up the underwear with her. And she was like

saying she thinks steak is an easy thing to resell. Like you could go down to the pub and sell it that night. What? So it's got a good resale value. There's like a steak gray market out there. Yeah. I don't understand how this can possibly be. Did you know this? I mean, have you ever bought a steak?

Do you ever shop for food? I assume you shop for food. Shop for food. No, of course not. I'm not going to a supermarket and shopping for food. No, I haven't done that in years if I can possibly avoid it. Every once in a while, I will get sent on errands like a semi-autonomous drone to just pick up items that have been photographed so I can visually identify them without having to think about it very much and bring them back. I'm never roaming up and down a supermarket with a supermarket cart looking at things, wondering why there's security tags on the steak.

This is not an activity that I would ever participate in if I can possibly avoid it. I'm going to have the Uber guy bring me some food or I'm going to have food delivered to my door. I'm not going to go to the supermarket and deal with security on the steak. Sounds like a real hassle. It's the first time I've ever bought food

that's had security on it. It was new to me. I've obviously moved up in the world. Are you sure that steak was $10? Are you sure you weren't buying a much more expensive steak? Yeah. I didn't eat it either. Wasteful, Brady.

No, no. I gave it to someone else to eat because I knew I wasn't going to eat it. Did you resell it? Yeah, I took it down the pub. Made a tidy profit. But here's the thing, Brady. I feel like I have to actually ask you if you did resell it because I could totally see that happening.

I could see you reselling your stuff. Really? You think I'm someone who would resell stuff? I don't understand why you do anything sometimes. I've got a drawer here full of every iPhone I've ever owned. Most people I know sell their iPhones when they get rid of them. I never sell stuff. Soon you're going to be filled with pixels that you own.

Well, no. It was a bit plasticky, to be honest. I wasn't very impressed by the feel of it. It felt cheap. I was disappointed. I was up for it too, but it felt cheap. I'm sorry to hear that, Brady. I'm sorry to hear there's security on your steak.

But I'm going to guess that as security technology gets cheaper, there's going to be security on more food in the supermarket. Soon there's going to be security on $10 bananas. This episode of Hello Internet has been brought to you in part by Harry's. Now we've been talking about these guys for a while, but today they've got a really special offer. And I'm talking to you as a regular and happy Harry's user.

It's not easy saying happy Harry's user, but I am one. And I've said this before and I'll say it again, how much I love both their products, but also just their general attitude to design and marketing. This is a business started by two guys called Jeff and Andy, who were somewhat disillusioned by the shaving industry. In particular, some of the pricing practices.

Now, we're not naming names here, of course, but I can think of one company in particular that I think they would suggest has been a little bit, well, naughty in its treatment of us, the shaving public. So Harry's was born and these guys took it so seriously, they even bought a shaving blade factory in Germany, I believe. Now, that's serious business. That'd be like Grey and I buying a record-producing factory

when we made our vinyl edition. We didn't do that, by the way, but that's kind of the analogy I'm using here. But back to shaving, by being less greedy with profits and by selling over the internet, Harry's is getting great blades to people at about half the price you'd usually find in drugstores. The way it works or the way it's worked for me is you get yourself a starter kit, which includes that brilliant Harry's handle, plus your first bunch of blades, and you also get shave gel and a travel blade cover. Then, as you go through your blades, you can get your replacements online. Now, Harry's is so confident in the quality of their blades, they want to give you their shave set for free. That's right, for free. You've just got to cover the shipping when

you sign up. Plus, as a special offer to fans of the show, if you go to harrys.com right now and enter the code HI at checkout, you will also get a post-shave balm you can use. And that's also free. I mean, that's a lot of stuff for free. It's well worth checking out. At the very least, go to the site because they've got a really good website and it gives you a really good feel for what these guys and what the company is about. That address again, harrys.com and the offer code HI. And our thanks to them for supporting the show.

You know how I said there were 36 things on my list for us to talk about? A lot of them were about sport. No, no, no. I've had a lot of sport on my list for us to talk about. A lot of them were about sport. No, no, no. I've had a lot of sport on my mind lately, and I've just got no one to talk sport with. You know what, Brady? That is correct. You do have no one to talk sport with.

I want to be really clear and put that card on the table right now, which is that you really don't have anyone to talk sport with. I'm calling it now, Gray. It's unofficially official. Sports Bowl Corner. It's new. It's a new corner. I never feel more like your tolerant wife than when you're talking to me about sports. I always feel like I am being the best of friend that I possibly can be. I don't know if this can be a regular thing. I don't know if I can handle this. Do you know that being a nice friend and tolerant is all undone the minute you say you're doing it?

I know, but I feel like I have sunk so many hours of my life into listening to you talk about sports. I'll tell you what, there are four items here. Oh, no. Let me just deal with two of them. Those bottom two can wait for another day because those bottom two are going to take me a while. But let me deal with those two top ones because they'll be a bit quicker. And they're also a little bit more up your alley. And you don't actually have to understand either of these sports to appreciate the point I'm wanting to raise. You're so bad at estimating what I'm interested in with the sports.

No, no, no, no, no. I don't think you'll be interested as such. But at least you won't have to talk about like the rules of a game or how the sport is played. But the rules of the game are the most interesting thing. You just literally proved my point. You're going to talk about people, which I couldn't care about less, but like the abstract rules of how the game works,

that's the only thing I'm interested in. I've been listening to Moneyball all day and every time they talk about the people in the sport, I'm like, ah, who cares? I can't keep track of any of these people. As soon as they get back to the statistics, it's like, now I'm interested. All right. Gray, do you know who Andy Murray is? No. All right. Andy Murray is a Scottish tennis player. And he has recently just become the number one tennis player in the world. He's won at the last two Olympics. He's won two Wimbledon titles. And after many, many, many years of a lack of British success, he has finally become a great British tennis player.

Okay. And this has caused much happiness in the UK. It's funny. He was always considered very Scottish until he started winning lots of stuff. And then everyone in England started referring to him more often as British. He kind of got adopted as a lot more British once he was a champion. Anyway, that's by the by. Very good tennis player.

And he is at the height of his game. He's the world number one at the moment, right? In the New Year's honours list, he was knighted. I actually have issues with people being knighted during their sports career. I think this should happen afterwards. But because the government likes to use knighthoods as an excuse to increase their popularity, they've knighted this guy while he's still playing.

All right, I have no control over that. Obviously, I don't think they should be doing it now, but they've done it. The two problems I have with it is, one, I think it sounds silly calling someone Sir Andy Murray when his name is Andrew, but he's still called Sir Andy Murray. And the other thing that really annoys me is because of weird protocol or whatever reasons, all of the media outlets in the UK, especially the BBC, now feel like they have to call him Sir Andy Murray at every reference. So you'll be listening to like the sports update on the radio

or the TV to find out the latest results and they'll be saying, oh, and Sir Andy Murray beat Jeff Smith in a game of tennis. Sir Andy Murray has pulled his hamstring. Sir Andy Murray will be playing in the US Open tomorrow. And I think it sounds silly when you're just running through sports results and a guy who was just called Murray or Andy Murray a week ago is now being called Sir Andy Murray at every reference. I mean, isn't that the whole point of the knighting

is that everybody has to do this little acknowledgement thing? No, I don't think that's the point of it. And a lot of people don't like it. He has said like in a column just just, you know, call me Andy. He doesn't want to be like Sir Andy Murray all the time. I mean, I know lots of people who are knighted. Ooh, Mr. Fancy Pants. All of Brady's friends are knighted.

Some of my best friends are knights. Anyway. I mean, look, I'm not quite sure what you're saying here, but if the dude has written some article saying just call him andy then i think that's that supersedes things like if someone wants to be called andy instead of andrew it's like yeah go along with that and if he's been knighted and he says in when you're doing the sports rundowns you don't have to call me sir it's like great okay now we're done with this we don't have to actually call him sir i think they should just drop it then if he's okay with dropping it yeah what could be the

possible objection well it's probably there's probably some protocol written in like some bbc style guide where anyone who is knighted has to be referred to as sir in the first reference and they're unwilling to let it go or something like that doesn't sound like a problem with andy doesn't sound like a problem with the knighthood system. Sounds like it's a problem with the BBC. All right. I wasn't apportioning blame. I was just saying it annoys me.

Well, I think the BBC needs to change that style guide that we are referring to a surprising amount of time. All right. Now, let me give you my other conundrum, which I want you to solve for me. Saying you've solved the Andy Murray problem. Okay, you have a conundrum that you want me to solve this is the wayne rooney problem do you know who wayne rooney is no i don't know who wayne rooney is he's a footballer he's a soccer player for manchester united okay for many many years the record number of goals scored by

a manchester united player was by a guy called bobby Bobby Charlton who you won't have heard of but it's a big deal in England. He scored 249 goals for Manchester United and Wayne Rooney has been closing in on this record. And what happened was about two weeks ago he finally scored the goal to equal the record and he was lauded as a hero and he was all over the newspapers and there were specials on TV and it was, isn't it brilliant, he was lauded as a hero and is on all over the newspapers and there were specials on TV and it was, isn't it brilliant? He's equaled this record at last. And then I feel like we were kind of painted into a corner because is it a bigger deal to equal the

record or break the record? Because two weeks later he scored another goal and he became the highest scorer out on his own on 250. And then he was in all the newspapers and we had all these TV specials and we had all these tributes again. And he was lauded as this great hero for breaking the record. When records are broken, when should we be celebrating? When the record is equaled or when the record is surpassed? Well, obviously it's when the record is surpassed. Equaling the record, who cares?

Because the person who did it first, that's way more impressive. Right. Right? Yep. Like doing something first and most, very impressive. Doing the same thing somebody else did before you, the same amount, not impressive at all. So it's obviously after. But again, I think this is actually the BBC's problem, again, because they want to just talk about a thing twice, right?

Because they have to fill the airwaves with stuff to talk about. So you go, ooh, how can we turn one news story into two? We can talk about it twice. That's how. It made them look silly. It became a little bit of water on Mars because it was like, didn't we celebrate this two weeks ago? Wasn't he the great hero two weeks ago?

Why is this happening again? So my version of this that I come across every once in a while in the non-sports world, which I always find confusing, is news stories that talk about the contents of a speech that have not happened yet. Something about those things always feel like they fell out of a parallel universe. In a speech that will happen later today,

the prime minister will lay out a policy that has these three points. It's like, wait, what? That always happens with budgets as well. In the budget to be released tomorrow, there will be tax cuts. And the other time it always happens is on Christmas day when we're told what the queen or the archbishop

is going to say in their message to the world of peace. Later today, the queen will deliver a dress urging all Britons to hold hands and like, oh, well, hang on. She hadn't said it yet. Yeah, I find that so strange. I remember a number of years ago, there was an example of a newsreader in America literally reading a speech that the president was going to give before the speech was given. It feels so wrong. I feel like if I was president, no, I'm not giving you a copy of my speech ahead of time. You'll hear it when I give it. I'm with you there. I'm with you there. I mean, I guess the reason they probably do it is because this is something that everybody

really totally hates. They want a little opportunity to be able to change at the last second, which is kind of what I presume is the reason that they do it. It's about hitting the peak news cycles and stuff, isn't it? You think that's what it is? And it's about the same thing that happened with the wayne rooney go it's about having two bites of the cherry you get a new cycle the day before and a new cycle when they've got the footage of you actually saying it so you get twice the coverage i guess in my mind i was always thinking of it like when you put a video up on patreon just for the patrons so they could see it like it gives you a chance

if you really mess something up it's like oh it's not really public like take the temperature yeah exactly like oh shoot i didn't realize that mistake was there let me fix this or like when cgp gray if you've really messed something up. It's like, oh, it's not really public yet. Like take the temperature. Yeah, exactly. Like, oh, shoot, I didn't realize that mistake was there. Let me fix this. Or like when CGP Grey releases a script a few days before a video asking for people to check his grammar. The grammar Nazi sneak peek. That's exactly right.

Like, oh, hey, look at all these words in my video. I hope they're all spelled right. Yeah, yeah. That's what I always thought it was. But I think you're right. Yeah, it's the exact same thing. They want to be talked about twice. Going back to Wayne Rooney, you would have a bit of a conundrum

because the day he scores goal 249 and he's equaled this famous record, you can't say nothing about it because it's a bit of an elephant in the room. Sure you can. Of course you can say nothing about it. Why do you have to say something about it? Okay, you're right. I live in a world of sports hype where the idea of saying nothing is completely foreign to me. You're quite right. Okay, you're right. I'm just, I live in a world of sports hype where the idea of saying nothing is completely foreign to me.

You're quite right. Sorry, Wayne Rooney. I don't really care about your score until it's bigger. End of story. Good, you sorted it out for me. That's how I'd run a sports news network. That's all for Sports Bowl Corner.

Until next time when we deal with a few meatier subjects I want to tell you about. I look forward to it, Brady. I look forward to it. Okay, Brady. I look forward to it. Okay, Brady. Many months ago now, I think, you got me a little present. I did?

You got me a present. A present that I have with me right now. Listeners can hear it. There's some Foley work for you. Hear the dead trees. Hear the dead trees. Does it Foley work if i'm using the actual thing i don't know whatever i'm flipping the pages of a book this is what you got

me a book called some 40 tales from the afterlives by david eagleman and i think this actually came up when we were doing the vote counting you mentioned this book as an interesting book to read. It's made up of a very large number of very short stories about what might happen to you in the afterlife. Like only two or three pages each one. Yeah, they're very, very short. And you sold it to me on like, oh, I might be interested in this book as a nice little book that you could put by your bedside. Just read a couple of pages. And I accepted it graciously. And it sat next to my bed for months, untouched by human hands. Can I just clarify before you tell me what you did next? Well, you've still got it,

so you haven't burned it. It's not like a religious book. It's not about what really happens in the afterlife, just in case people think that's what it's about yeah it's like a fictional book right just some fun speculations it's like thought experiments it's just things to get you thinking about life more than death actually but yeah it's not like you know this is what will happen in heaven or stuff it's not touched by an angel people it's fiction right that's yeah that's excellent clarification and i was interested in the book because you gave me an interesting description of it. You told me some of the basic premises.

And so I accepted the gift graciously and then I proceeded not to touch it for forever. And sort of half forgot about it, even though it was literally the only thing on the dresser that was mine. It was more of a prop than a... Yeah, exactly. Well, one of the reasons I gave it to you,

besides thinking that you would like the contents and I wanted to talk to you about the contents of the book, I mean, I know you don't like paper books, but I actually thought you wouldn't mind this book as an object. It's actually quite an attractive book. It's small and thin and it's sort of black. And I thought if there was ever a book you were going to like the look of and accept into your object

light house it might be this book i love that this is something that crosses your mind you're looking at the book and trying to think will this be accepted into the gray household it's got it's quite modest you know it's not gaudy or colorful and not big and fat it looks cool it looks like something you would carry around with you i mean it, it looks like a Kindle. It actually is not much bigger than a Kindle itself. Yes, that is correct. But so it went untouched for a long time. And then finally last night, for some reason, I felt motivated to give it a shot.

And I've read through perhaps the first 25%, maybe a third of this book. I have some thoughts, Freddie. I can't wait. Okay, first of all, we have to talk about the physical paperness of this book. Mm-hmm. Because... I've got my copy here too, by the way.

Okay, good. There you go. There's your sound. There we go. Very nice. I was trying to think. It has been maybe five years since I have read a physical book made of paper. It might possibly be longer than that, but I'm pretty confident that it has been five years. And I have to say, when I decided like, oh, let me pick this up. Let me give this a try. I was kind of thinking like, this is going to be a charming experience to read a book. You know, it's like going to ye old medieval town and you're like, oh, look how charming this is. But I gotta say, I find the experience of reading a paper book after years

of reading digital books, extremely subpar. I did not like it at all. I didn't find it charming in the least. I didn't like the physicalness of the book. And I found it super annoying. This little book, like I'm trying to open up the pages and the pages are all bent. And so now like I have to try to break the spine of this book to make it all nice and even to look at. Like I'm breaking the physical spine of this thing. But even when I do that, the pages are still bent. So the words are all getting wrapped around. As dumb as it sounds like the lighting is all uneven on the page. I can't just put it down on the table and read it. I have to have a hand on it all the time, keeping the thing open. I don't like paper books. I don't like them at all. I don't think it's charming. I know people are always like, oh, it's nicer to read a paper book if you can, but I'm coming down very hard on digital books are way better.

It's so funny you should say that. And I know this is almost playing to cliche here, but I've actually been really disappointed lately with the low number of books I've been consuming for the last sort of year or two. I mean, I've done a few audio books that I've enjoyed, but I haven't been using my Kindle. And it was beginning to irk me.

And we were at the shops a few days ago. And my wife was feeling the same way. She reads a lot more than me, but she was like, I want some books. And we went into a bookstore and like filled our boots with paper books because we felt like that was the thing to do. And I bought three or four books and came out with them. And I've been reading one of them for the last three or four days. And I feel like I've been reborn and it's like wonderful and I'm like deliberately carving out time to read and I'm thinking oh I'm gonna run a bath and read a book in the bath for the next hour because I'm enjoying and like I'm obsessed with the book and I'm reading it at every opportunity and it's the paper that's re-engaged me it's having it as a physical object that's

re-engaged me and I know it's a bit of a laugh because we're different and stuff, but I've had the exact opposite experience. I've got back into paper books for the first time in ages and I'm absolutely loving it. I totally understand that. I completely understand that feeling. I do keep a book list of the books that I read and I don't think that audio books count as reading a book in the same way. And I am really aware of the number of books that I have sat down and physically read as opposed to listen to is smaller than I would like it over the past years. And this is something I've been working on since the summer to try to increase the number of books that I read. There's a few things that I've been doing towards that. I can say like,

paper is not the answer. But what I think paper does do is it it's the isolation of the thing you have a physical book this is the only thing in your hand it's not going to beep at you it's not going to distract you with something else it's not even that you're sitting there and you have the option of doing something else it's that. And so I do think it is quite reasonable to get paper books if you want to try to read more books. I'm glad that that's working for you. But I have to say, I felt totally repulsed by the physicalness of this book. There you go. That aside, the information did communicate to your brain nonetheless. That's true. I was able to read it.

That is entirely true. What have you thought of what you've read? Okay, so you sold me on this book with two interesting stories that I do want to talk about. But for the most part, reading through this book, I feel like I need to be high while I'm reading this book. I think just sitting down and reading this book, each of these one, two page little stories, I wrote down my summary of the first seven or so that I read. And each of them, here are the summaries. It's, whoa, dude, what if we're like bacteria living on a giant creature that doesn't know we exist? Whoa, dude, what if we're just background characters in somebody else's dream?

Whoa, dude, what if heaven is really boring? Whoa, dude, what if our creators are really dumb like you sold me on some great ideas but man i have never read anything that i feel like i need to be high and a sophomore in college and i will love this book like if you're listening to my voice right now and you are a sophomore in college and you are high you should get this book like buy it immediately you will love it i mean that in a genuine way like i think the book can be fun, but most of these little stories I found uninteresting. Anything sounds stupid, by the way,

when you say, whoa, dude, in front of it. Like what was Rogue One like? Whoa, dude, what if the plans to the Death Star was stolen by like a girl who was the daughter of the guy who designed the Death Star? Whoa. Like I can make anything that sounds stupid by talking like a girl who was the daughter of the guy who designed the Death Star. Whoa. Like I can make anything that sounds stupid by talking like a stoner. Oh, yeah.

No, no. I totally understand, right? But I am conveying with the whoa dude the tone that it felt like some of these stories were written. They're all supposed to blow your mind a little bit because the idea is each story makes you look at things in a different way. some of them I can't remember them it's so long ago since I read but most of them I was like oh I really want to tell someone about that idea the book reminds me of like true when you're younger and you sit around thinking imagine this is an idea and you

don't have to like pursue the idea much further and that's what this book is it's like imagine if the afterlife was like this but the thing about them is a lot of them make me look at my life differently. You know, it's not like life changing or like getting things done or something. It's like, oh, yeah, I never thought about things that way. I don't know. It didn't change my life.

I'd forgotten most of the stories. But reading a couple of them again today, I had the same feeling. It excited me and it's very easy to get through because it's so short. It's like digestible. It's like intellectual bubble gum. I would say I think they're a little bit too short because I do think that they can't quite follow entirely through on some of their interesting premises. That's what it is. It's a book of interesting premises. Yeah, that is totally fair. That's totally fair. But that said, so I'm like a third of the way through the book. It's such a fast read, because it only took me about a half an

hour to get a third of the way through. Yeah, it's not even like, oh, this one isn't interesting. I don't like it. You know, you're not like investing a whole bunch of time. Yeah. Of the ones I did read, I did think that there were two that were interesting. The first one, which I think does hit that bullet point of making you think about your own life a little bit differently. The first one is actually the very first one in the book, which is called Some. Yeah, so the one that gave the book its name as well. Yes. And the premise of this one is that in the afterlife, you live your whole life again but you are living all of the similar experiences in order so you spend 18 months waiting in line right two years staring out a bus window you spend a third of your life

just to sleep all at once all the pain as well all your pain is concentrated into like eight or nine hours of just incredible pain and breaking your arm and all that stuff. But then after that, there's no pain at all. Like everything is just concentrated together. Yeah. The personal one that I like the best, I think related most to Hello Internet is three days calculating restaurant tips, which would be a particular kind of hell. I like that as a premise because you see these lists of how much time do you spend in your life doing various activities. But I think it hits home under this framing of what if you had to live your whole life again, but you're living all of these moments, all these similar moments together. That makes it a much

more visceral and interesting thing to think about. What does your life look like? You spend two days tying your shoelaces, days calculating restaurant tips like you said 51 days deciding what to wear nine days pretending you know what is being talked about two weeks counting money things like that yeah i like that i think it's an interesting way and like it just makes you think for a moment a little bit differently about how you are living your life. It's interesting though because the end of the story I think sort of, like it's only a page and a half long, but at the end it sort of says something along the lines of this experience makes you really appreciate how your lives are broken up into pieces

and all shuffled around and you don't have to do all these things together and the variety and the change. But that's not what I took from the story. I didn't take from the story an appreciation for that i took from it gosh you know am i spending that much time doing things that i shouldn't be doing if i'm spending eight days staring into a refrigerator like i need to spend less time staring into refrigerators and you're spending all this time i'd hate to have to spend all the time I spend faffing around with designing websites or doing some animation and that if that was all concentrated into like, you know,

two and a half years of sitting there animating text on videos, I'd be like, should I really be spending that much of my life? Like, when I come to the end, am I going to be glad I spent nine years animating videos? I don't know. It sounds like it's throwing your whole life into doubt, Brady. Well, that's what this book does, like loads of them. And then you read the next one, you forget the one that came before. But like after each story, I'd put the book down and go, whoa, dude. And I'd like to turn to my wife or something and say, oh man, imagine this.

And then it's like, oh, I'm going to read another one. I think it's really good. I really like it. What's the other one you liked? Yeah, I mean, just to be clear, I'm going to finish the book. I'm going to keep reading through it because it's so short. Yeah. And they're all so easy.

Like for me personally, the hit rate was quite low of the ones that I was reading of which ones do I like and which ones do I not like. I can't remember what my hit rate was like. I thought it was better than 50% for me. But here's the thing. Making it short, huge advantage. And so it's it's like oh if there's an interesting idea there's a thing that i'll think about for a while and if it's one that i find uninteresting i can just move right on past it yeah but the one that i like the best so far is one called metamorphosis i think this is a really interesting idea. The premise of this afterlife is that when people die, they don't immediately go to the real afterlife.

They have to sit around in a lobby waiting. And what they're waiting for is for the last person on Earth who remembers them to also die. Yeah. And when they are no longer remembered on Earth, they are allowed to leave this lobby and move on to the next unspecified phase of what the afterlife is. And this is a perfect example of like, I find that a really interesting premise because it brings up this notion of how interesting it is that

some people are remembered such an incredibly long time. And you can imagine that there are people who are remembered now who may well be remembered for as long as the human species exists in any form. And then on the flip side, there are, of course, people who are forgotten essentially as soon as they're dead. People who are known by almost nobody in the world. And I like that this premise sort of reverses that. The humans who are of great acclaim or are noteworthy on Earth have to spend this interminable amount of time in purgatory begging crying waiting to be forgotten whereas the nobodies get to just pass right on through the lobby and move on to the next phase immediately

just to clarify that further though it's not just like sort of remembered by people who knew you it could just be spoken of in this short story for example there's like there's some nobody old farmer who was unlucky to drown in a river which then became like a famous place and like tour guides go there all the time and tell the story of the farmer that drowned in the river. Right, right. So even though he died hundreds and hundreds of years ago and he was quite an obscure farmer, he's forever stuck in this purgatory because his story's being told forever and ever

and it's always been changed as well and in many ways the story doesn't represent who he is or what he was but because of it he's still stuck in this terrible place. Yeah. as well. And in many ways, the story doesn't represent who he is or what he was. But because of it, he's still stuck in this, this terrible place. Yeah. There's a line that's related to that, which I really quite liked, where it says like, and that's the curse of this lobby. We live in the heads of those who remember us, and we lose control of our lives and become who they think we are yeah it's a great little line even just in a very small way being a person on the internet who says things like you just become so aware of how like the version of you that is in other people's heads has almost nothing to do with the real you oh yeah

it's very funny to see people like arguing about like, what you think and writing a thing that's like, I don't agree with that at all. Right. But you're just laying it out there. Like, this is a thing that I agree with. And I think it's also just an interesting thing to think about, you know, people throughout history, obviously, they just become ideas that are totally unrelated to the actual person. Yeah. When you think about Abraham Lincoln, the idea of what you think Lincoln is in your head, probably the real Abraham Lincoln would find almost entirely unrelated to his experience of his actual life. Yeah. And the book talks about this purgatory waiting room place, having like saints and people in there who are revered and the saints are there

who actually were really complicated people who had really complicated lives and they're just being remembered in a different way. We're making it sound like an epic story. Again, it was only like a page or two, wasn't it? But the thing that I found really bittersweet and interesting about it as well was the idea that in many cases, the moment you're summoned away and taken away is when some family member dies back on earth

and they arrive in like this waiting room as you leave so you never get to see them because it's the tragedy that you don't get to spend time with them because the minute they die that's the last person who remembers you you're off through the door and they walk in the other door a few seconds later and people they're observing it sort of remark on the tragedy of that like oh he didn't get to see his grandson because the grandson was the last person who remembered him so so of course the question that this begs brady how long do you think we would have to spend in that lobby how long do you think the hello internet podcast will be remembered in human history. I mean, I don't think very long and the same with the YouTube videos.

I mean, there's just so much content in the world now that I think everything is just going to get buried. The danger is that some researcher in 300 years is going through some archive of something and stumbles over your name, which is around the place if any internet-iness survives, and they might go, oh, CGP Grey, why is someone on this website talking about someone called CGP Grey? I must look at who he is.

And if that's hundreds of years ahead for some reason, that sticks you in the waiting room for a pretty unlucky reason. So I guess because we're a bit splattered around the place online, there is a risk that we could come up in a few hundred years on some random search. But I don't think we're going to be particularly remembered or talked about. So it depends on that.

That would be our problem. I guess we'll find out when we're hanging out in that lobby. Yeah. Yeah. Just to emphasize again, this book is not suggesting this is what the afterlife is like. It's just a whole bunch of thoughts, like interesting made-up stories. Yeah, it's just a bunch of thought experiments yeah they're

conversation starters i'd have a look just two of them we could we could talk about this for hours i love it well this is as far as i have gotten but i just wanted to thank you on the podcast for giving me this gift of a physically inconvenient book but i will meander my way through the rest of it eventually. And maybe perhaps we'll talk about some of them in the future. All right. Well, we've spoiled two of them, but I don't really think this is a spoiler type book.

So it doesn't really matter. Yeah. I would categorize this as not spoilers. They're just ideas. The idea is the whole thing. Exactly. And telling a few of these stories is actually how you sell the book to people.

Yeah. You told me about the lobby one and that was, I was like, oh, okay. Yeah. Give me a copy of this. And I was just as happy to read the lobby one when I actually got to it. The premise is in the first sentence of all of them. Yeah. Do you want me to tell you the one that was sold to me by a friend of both of ours actually called Jake and he sold it to me with a different story. He sold it to me with one, I don't know if you've got to this one yet, that basically there are these like beings, I'm going to make up these numbers because I read the story so long ago. There's like these 2000 mile tall beings and their job over thousands and thousands of years, which is this incredibly important high stakes

job is to hold the fabric of the universe together like it's this really labor intensive mentally intensive job keeping the universe held together in the depths of space or you know some crap like that but they get a holiday they get a vacation from it every you know 500 years or thousand years and that holiday is to spend 80 years on earth as a human so what we are is just the vacation of these beings that have this incredible job. And we think like our lives are really important and we stress about all these things. But for them, just coming and having our little concerns

and of our life and worrying about taxes and our jobs and going to the beach and having families is like the ultimate luxury to them. It's like just this flippant little fun holiday they get to go on before they have to go back to their serious job of holding the universe together. So we're just vacationing mega aliens. I love it.

I love it. I have a bit of a visceral reaction to that one because I have known people who believe something sort of similar to that. Okay, yeah. I mean, it's silly. Yeah, it's silly. If you follow that one to its logical conclusion,

it ends in anger. I mean, it's written just to be fun. But I like the idea that our lives are unimportant because we think our lives are so important. Of course our lives are unimportant, yeah. Your life is important, Grey. But I don't think my life is important. You've got two or three really important videos

to make this year. It's true, true. This episode of Hello Internet is also brought to you by Squarespace. If you are launching any kind of creative project, starting a business or doing anything online, your next move is to go to Squarespace to create a website. Squarespace gives you a beautiful and powerful online platform with which to launch your next project. Squarespace is always my go-to recommendation for people when they want to make a website because it is good for anything. If you want to show off a simple portfolio of your work,

you just need to be able to have a contact page and some images, that's a thing that they can do for you so easily. If you want to run a business and sell products online, there's a whole store integration that you can use. If you just want to set up a website for your local organization or club or anything like that, Squarespace is also the easiest thing to do. You can just use their beautiful built-in templates and never have to think of it again. It will just run solidly. It doesn't requiring the kind of tinkering and monkeying around that many other services do. It's a beautiful and simple all in one platform with nothing to install, patch or ever upgrade. And Squarespace has award-winning 24-7 customer support. So if you need help with anything, Squarespace is there for you. So listen, I know there's something in your head right now

that you're thinking, I'd like to make a website for that. You've probably been thinking about it all last year. Well, if that's you, just get started right now. Go to squarespace.com slash hello to make your next website today and get a free trial, no credit card required. That's squarespace.com slash hello. Squarespace is what I use to host the Hello Internet podcast and it's what you should use to make your next project. So make your next move with a beautiful website from Squarespace. So I did something a bit silly last night. What did you do last night, Brady? You know what I did, because I told you I was going to do it,

because I felt like it was something I couldn't do without telling you I was doing it. You've been very silly lately, Brady. I've been silly. I invited listeners to the podcast using various outlets such as Twitter and Patreon and emails and stuff to write limericks, hello internet themed limericks and send them to me for us to muse over

and perhaps even award if they were creative enough. This is such a you project, Brady. Everything about this is you. I expected to get 50 or 100 maybe if they were creative enough. This is such a you project, Brady. Everything about this is you. I expected to get 50 or 100 maybe if we were lucky. We got lots. We got lots. Yeah. You don't look at the back end of the podcast.

I don't think you realize how big this podcast is. And if you ask for Hello Internet limericks, you're going to get a lot of them. He did get a lot of them. I assume everyone knows what a limericks you're gonna get a lot of them we do he did get a lot of them i assume everyone knows what a limerick is but that is a false assumption isn't it because not everyone knows what a limerick is well or do you think everyone does know what a limerick is i feel on the spot because like a limerick is a like a rhyming poem yeah it's a poem of a very set style and i to me there's a very set

way of reading it when you read about the rules of a limerick, there is a little bit of latitude. And certainly the ones we got sent used some of that latitude. It has to be five lines and it has this A, A, B, B, A rhyming pattern. So to give you an example, in my email, I sent out to people inviting them to submit. I even wrote my own limerick. I wrote the invitation as a limerick.

Would you like to hear it? Let's hear it, Brady. I can't believe you do this stuff. Whether you're home or you're out for a drink, I hope that you can take pause and think, because if you have time, you'll send me a rhyme and win vinyl by using this link. Suggesting that people might win a vinyl record if they're the winner

do you like that one i like that you do this kind of stuff brady i like that you opened yourself up to sorting through however many limericks you got you said we received a bunch of limericks but like the vinyl like with many other Hello Internet projects, I was not really involved. You were the unspoken hero of this. So I like that you do these things, Brady. Let me give you one more limerick example, which is a bit of a favorite.

You know, Professor Polyakov, who I mentioned before, he's a chemist who I spend lots of time with, so his favorite limerick, and a bit like a dad or a grandpa who tells you the same joke over and over again. I've heard him say this limerick many, many times because it's his favourite. And it's about the insecticide chemical DDT because, of course, that's what chemists say limericks about.

Let me see if I can say it because it's not easy. A mosquito was heard to complain that a chemist had poisoned his brain. The cause of his sorrow was para-do diphenyl trichloro ethane that is a chemistry limerick i will grant that martin says it better there you go so lots and lots of people sent limericks lots okay and they were a mixed batch as you would expect but i would like appreciated everyone who did it some people like went all out some people like sent like 10 some people sent more than 10 and each limerick followed on the one before and it was like a narrative like a whole story told in limerick it's like you're getting the iliad and the odyssey yeah some people wrote limericks about our regular sponsors, which I found interesting.

There was one guy called Chris, and I think Chris must have fallen out of his seat when he saw the alerts about this, because this was his moment. Because he emailed me straight away and he said, hi, Brady. I started writing limericks about each episode of the podcast about a year ago. He goes on to say though, I stopped after about 13 of them when I realized some of them were crap. I hope he means his limericks and not the podcast. But anyway, he's not entirely clear which were crap, but I think he means his limericks. But a couple of them were good. I'm sorry. So he sent all those limericks. So for me, there's good news and bad news about that for Chris. The good news is that he didn't miss the short window of opportunity to send me the lyrics because there was only like a 24 hour opportunity. And if he missed this window,

he would have been devastated. The bad news is I don't think any of his limericks made my short list. Sorry, Chris. I could be wrong about that. I'm not sure. But one of my favorite experiences of this was when I showed you the webpage I'd written that explained the rules and how people could submit, I said, oh, what do you think about this? And your reply was, and I'll read it verbatim. You wrote, I can't think of any problems with that, but I'm sure the internet will find them. And I did find out what the problem was because when I wrote like the description of what I wanted people to do, I gave them like the email address

and I said in the rules, I said, put limerick in the subject field. And I wrote limerick in uppercase, put limerick in the subject field for obvious reasons. Yeah, reasonable. What do you think happened? I don't know. It seems so straightforward to me.

I'm trying to think how would this get messed up? At least two people, I think more, thought that meant they should write the entire limerick in the subject field. Some people sent the whole limerick in the subject field of the email, which was quite an interesting interpretation of the instruction. But I completely understand why they did it. Completely understandable. Totally understandable. They're just following your instructions. Exactly. So it makes me realize how hard it is to write instructions.

Yeah. We went through that with the voting process. I try to think really hard about how this could be messed up. How will people stuff it up? So I've come up with a short list, which isn't particularly short of the ones that I think are probably the best I've seen so far. I thought maybe we should share some of them. All right. So we're going to go read through some limericks now. Yeah.

What's your limerick reading skills like? Well, I didn't really realize what a limerick was until we're just recording right now. I didn't realize there was a specific rhyming pattern that we had to do. Yeah, it goes... Okay. I will try to remember that and we will see how this goes all right apologies to people for us reading them not the way you intended but that's just part of poetry isn't it and it sounds like it could be a disaster if gray doesn't know how illimit goes but we'll see i'm sure i can pull this off no i can pull this off well i'll

go first i'll read i'll read one first you ready there once was a caveman named brady who said maryland's flag drives me crazy i think it's okay said the robot called gray it's so bad that it might just amaze me i like it that's cute that's nice, isn't it? Marilyn flag. Yeah. I'll send you your ones. So hang on. Let me send you the first one for you to read. All right. Here we go.

Okay. There once was a doctor called Brady. This one was a man, not a lady. He may be the cleverest to have visited Everest, though Gray finds that claim rather shady. Poor Red. I like that one. I believe I just claimed that you visited Everest

on this very podcast. I don't find that claim shady at all. No, but it's shady that I'm the cleverest to visit Everest. Oh, okay. I think that's what they mean. I don't know. Who knows? Okay, here we go.

Hello Internet held an election for a flag worthy of our affection. We chose nail and gear, the loyal Tim's cheer, flaggy flag rebels cry, insurrection. I think the problem with limericks is my brain is expecting something naughty when you say it. I know. Well, traditionally limericks are a bit naughty and most of these aren't naughty.

I did say in the rules that a little bit of naughtiness was allowed, but we have got a couple of naughty ones coming. Okay. But, yeah, you're right. A bit of naughtiness is good. So I cannot tell you how many limericks I've read today, Gray. It's ridiculous. I think my head's going to explode.

I was going to say, I don't know how many limericks you've read either, but I feel like this is a crazy-making thing to do. All right. Well, there's's next one for you okay on a quest for a great pseudonym dr harron went out on a limb made of metal and wheels his friend also feels the best listeners should all be called tim it's nice isn't it pseudonym and limb and limb don't rhyme. I can't accept that. No, that one works for me. That doesn't work at all. That works for me.

I was pretty harsh on ones where I thought the rhyming wasn't up to scratch, but I thought that one was all right. Pseudonym does not rhyme with limb. Disagree. Disagree. All right. Well, what do you think of this? There once was a robot called Gray, and you might find it odd when I say,

though he loved automation, flags, and education, he always led Brady astray. I never lead you astray. May you be. No, no, that's slanderous. That limerick is slanderous. I have never led you astray, Brady. All right.

Never. Not once, not ever. All right. Here's another one for you then. I don't know how you've been doing this all day because I have read two limericks and I feel like I'm already losing my mind. Okay. My day had been fairly mundane

when HI started up in my brain. So I jumped to my feet, thought I must send a tweet. At Brady Heron, I'm not on a plane. Oh my God. I love that. That is amazing. That is a good one that is absolutely fantastic

here we go they may both have a passion for flagging and some freebooting had their hearts sagging but when they asked around they surprisingly found that they're best known for the term humble bragging. That's not bad. It's not bad. Not bad. A little bit of a dig at us for our problems with humble bragging. Don't mind a bit of a dig. Here's one that might appeal to you.

Okay. Brady was brushing his teeth with a toothbrush with bristles of heath. A crack interrupted and splinters erupted and his mouth did resemble a wreath. I got to give that one a vote too. That's pretty good. I'm sorry I've been such a grump. To be honest, I feel like a chump.

But I hope you can see that it's not you, it's me. I'm in love with the mighty black stump. The black stump was used in a lot of limericks. People got really into the black stump. Does stump rhyme with very many things? You'd be surprised. And you'd be surprised how many people notice the fact that Brady rhymes with both shady and lady. The lady one feels like a gimme, right?

Brady and lady. That had to have been a prominent feature. Yeah. Here's another one for you. Okay. Brady takes this ridiculous show to places it never should go. From small pens to rice rats and cricketers' nice bats, Grey is always the last one to know.

I feel like this limerick speaks to me, Brady. It does. That's why it's on the one list for you to read whoever wrote that i genuinely feel like that limerick speaks to me all right this one's got an element of truth to it as well you ready i have a message for gray i want him to see what i say but i know he won't read it he He'll simply delete it. But Brady might send it his way. Perfect. Perfect. All right. Here we go. This one's for you. Brady's biggest fan is a

duck who finds himself bang out of luck. You're reading this, Gray, as Brady can't say, the limerick ending with fuck. There's a bit of naughty. I like it. I like it. You might like this one too, then. Okay. Grey, we hope you will never be parted from your co-host, an imp but kind-hearted, and we know you don't like Brady touching his mic,

but at least he has never yet farted. It goes along with your strict policy of not licking yourself on the podcast. Here's another topic that came up quite a lot. Hot stoppers are fun, don't you see? They're more than just plastic to me. A man quickly learns from his third degree burns that it's no fun to wait in A&E. Good, good. I like it.

You like that one? Mm-hmm. All right, here we go. Freebooted contents for jerks. It sucks to steal people's hard work. It bums YouTubers each day, like Brady and Gray and Henry and Michael and Dirk. Okay, I've got to give bonus points for cleverness for rhyming Dirk.

Yeah, it's very good. All right. Here we go. Bit meta this one. With all these limericks, I feel like if I can get past the first two lines, it's fine. It's hard to read them, isn't it? It's hard to read limericks.

It is surprisingly hard to read these. It is really interesting. Okay. There once was an Adelaide man who came up with the naughtiest plan. Through the protests of Grey, limericks hooray! And then with this concept, he ran. Another one that does feel like my experience. Because you messaged me about this stuff

you mentioned this to me ahead of time and let's just say i am very slow at ever responding to messages of any kind from everyone yes i always feel like by the time i even respond to your messages about limericks you've already gotten a page written like you're already moving forward with this plan so i do definitely feel like you're always half running with these things before I even wake up and see that there's a message and go, oh, Brady's got an idea. Let me chip in with my thoughts on this. It's like, nope, it's already done.

Action now, permission later. Exactly. Yep, that's what you do. Ask for forgiveness. There once was a fellow named Tim who downloaded HI on a whim. As he sat on his flight, he received quite a fright. Plane Crash Corner was mentioning him. That's right.

All right. Here we go. I could get this one wrong. This is going to take some concentration. Okay. This is a bit concept art so but i thought we've got to have it we've got to have a few different ones in there zero one zero zero one zero zero zero zero one zero zero one zero zero one but gray what does that mean my mind is not

a machine zero zero one one one one one one one it's a little too meta for me yeah it's a little too clever for its own good, that one. It has meaning. It would have been better if the numbers rhymed, but I like that they were trying to be different. People can read that one later and figure out what the things mean, because the numbers do actually mean something. Oh, I would be disappointed if they didn't. This is a nice one for you. Here we go. Sadly, I'm filled with regret that my needs just haven't been met. I'm a tactical shopper who wants a hot stopper. So now I get coffee from Pret.

I feel like that one has a really nice flow. That's very nice. Yeah. Very smooth. Very smooth. Over an endless horizon, a plane flies. It's been diverted to Dulles, Gray cries. An airport so boring, Gray's already snoring,

dreaming of Brady as he closes his eyes. I never dream of you, Brady. No, and if you did, you wouldn't tell me because you don't like talking about dreams. That's true, but I think I have literally never dreamed of you once. So you say. Does that make you sad? No. I don't dream about modern people. I always dream about things from my childhood. It does not surprise me at all for some reason. Okay. For a linguist, I tend to bumble. Over English, I often tumble.

But despite the nice term, even I can confirm, you'll never advance the brag humble. Taking a bit of a dig there. Bit of a dig. That's all right. That's allowed. And it is true. That brag humble has gone nowhere, Brady.

Like you're good at the word creation, but that was terrible. Do you know what? Something happened the other day that was a really good example of a Brag Humble. I wish I'd written it down now.

I wish I could remember whatever convoluted thing even meant by the Brag Humble. I don't even remember anymore. We'll come back to it because I heard a good Brag Humble the other day. I don't even remember what it was.

Well, there once was a teacher called Gray who decided to quit one day he packed up his chalk and he took a short walk to his auto which drove him away two things on that i wish i had used chalk as a teacher and i wish i had an auto i believe the second part not the first part. What do you mean? I never had chalk. Yeah, but I don't believe you wish you did either. No, I always liked chalk.

I used chalk in university all the time when I was doing physics problems. I would have thought you wouldn't like like the dusty dirtiness of it. It is dusty and it is dirty and it is a pain in the butt in many ways. But I think there's something nice about working through problems

with chalk as opposed to with markers. I'm a mathematician, swear by it. They'll use nothing else. Yeah, you should believe me. All right. Now this one starts with a butt because it's part of one of those ones where someone has written a big narrative and I've just extracted one of the limericks from this greater story.

Okay. But within that strange microwave lay a twist set to ruin his day his plans were defeated the brew superheated and made quite the greyhands saute that has a very much like the night before christmas feel to it i don't quite know why okay brady i i am wondering yeah you've been doing this all day and i am wondering if you have lost your mind slightly because how many of these things do you have we're nearly done with this shortlist and how do you possibly expect us to select a winner but maybe we'll find out about that later you can talk about that in a minute because i've got no idea here's another one for

any would-be ballot stuffer, referendum by postcard is tougher. But a quick offline poll spiraled out of control, and for this postal workers did suffer. I like that. I'm not so sure she suffered. Mainly, she seemed totally indifferent to our internet poll that we were running. Yeah, but that was just one worker. There were postal workers all around the world

that were having to transport these postcards for us. We made no one suffer. All right. The county flags of Liberia were so bad they gave me listeria. I had my last meal, read Guns, Germs and Steel, and died from plane crash hysteria. Oh man, I really like that one, but I feel like it falls down at the last rhyme that last

rhyme doesn't quite work for me hysteria at liberia that's pretty good i didn't read it that well to be fair but anyway now you won't get the end of this one but the cricket fans will so this is my little nod for someone being clever oh okay this is one for the cricket fans yeah brady surprised gray with a ticket to see a test match of cricket but when he tried to explain the rules of the game he was dismissed leg before wicket yeah it means nothing to me it means nothing to you here's a final one 4209 is the number of videos you'll find that gray needs to release by the end of next week to only be slightly behind. I like that.

That's not bad. I like that one. That's pretty good. Yeah. That's pretty good. That's just a few of what we were sent. We'll give a few prizes out to ones that are the best. I don't know how to really decide that.

Have you got any ideas? I have no ideas. And I really do feel like just reading through whatever it was, 10 limericks, I feel like it has warped my brain somehow. Dude, I totally understand. I was going crazy earlier. Yeah, but this is what I mean. I don't know how you have made it through today, but holy cow, reading through them,

it's harder than you think it's going to be and there's something about the rhythm which just stirs your brain into craziness it's very it's weird i mean yeah i think i really only read 10 but holy cow i could not imagine reading all of them at once well we'll go back through them and you and I can have a talk about how to pick winners and get some prizes out to people. But everyone who sent one, we really appreciate. And I'll try and find a way to share more of them. I don't know if I'll share all of them.

We'll see. I've copy and pasted most of them. So I have got them on a document. But I have to say, though, I really like his limerick format. And I feel like the guy who wrote in before, Chris, who was doing a limerick format. And I feel like the guy who wrote in before, Chris, who was doing a limerick for each show, I love the idea of there being a limerick for each show. It feels like this is the opposite of when people leave a first comment. They're like, oh, I saw a video. Let me just leave some low quality comments immediately within seconds of it going up. Right?

No, no. Let me craft a piece of poetry about this literally crafting a poem to describe the episode that you have just listened to four episodes of hello internet that feels like the anti-first comment in the reddit i swear to god that's what i want to see like i want to see episodes every time someone's written a limer Yeah, it is totally the anti-first comment, is writing a poem about our podcast to help cement forever the legacy of the Hello Internet podcast so that we never leave that lobby. I mean, if I was going to have an official poem of Hello Internet, it definitely would be the limerick over, say, the haiku,

which I think is super pretentious. The limerick is funnier than the haiku. Yeah. Haiku's full of itself someone did send a haiku thinking they've been a smile like i didn't put them on the list well they weren't following the rules exactly no haikus people limericks yeah limericks limericks is where would you have the limerick as the official poem of hello internet i am not interested in expanding the official things of this podcast. I will not grant these things.

Unofficial official? Look, you know, you do what you need to do. If you're asking for my blessing that the limerick is the official form of poetry of the Hello Internet podcast, I am not granting that. No. Will you ever grant an official status

to anything ever again? We'll have to find out. We'll have to find out, Brady. I've got that Easter bunny in front of me looking at me. I've got to take it off my screen. I've literally been doing this whole conversation with a full screen of Easter bunnies in front of me the whole time. I don't know, like I'm hypnotized. I'mized by all these easter bunnies that are just staring at me that second one you said was horrifying they're all kind of horrifying