Life with Nat - EP240: Tony talks #23 - football, is it the beautiful or the disappointing game?

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

Nat and Tony are back in the underwear department. We open the post bag on what’s been dubbed Moonpiggate. And Tony’s childhood disappointments that never left him. Enjoy! Get in touch with Nat, buy tickets for upcoming live shows and link to Patreon, all the family's Instagrams, and more: ⁠lifewithnatpod.komi.io⁠ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to Life with Nat. I hope everybody is very, very well. 07728, 20, 19, 19 to get involved with our conversations. And I'm with my brother Tony. Hello. Hello. Hello there. All right?

Yeah, I'm good, yeah. Good. How's your week been? A bit tiring. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Physical week.

Yeah. You know, but not too bad. I've been wondering, though, something's come to me. Yeah. You know, I sort of been driving about and went around the M25 last week to see Sharon's mom and dad. That's a men in their toilet. Yeah. Which I did successfully, which was quite not.

Lovely. And I was thinking, there's all these cars on the road, you know, they're like really expensive, big cars, you know, electric and they're all fortunes, aren't they? 50, 60, 80,000 pounds. And none of their fucking indicators work. I think it's a new fad. I think it's a new driving fad. What, no one uses an indicator? No, they just drift.

They just drift out and they drift back. Right. And you're obviously supposed to know what they're doing. Mm. And it just struck me. I would say, I drove around there early last Saturday morning and sort of did what I had to do a quick cup of tea. Yeah.

Drove back. I'm not kidding. I'll reckon it on that journey. So it's 50 minutes there, 50 minutes back. when the traffic's right. 10 to 15 times I saw and had people just drift out and just drift back. I mean, we're laughing about it, but it's bloody dangerous. It's well dangerous.

Especially if you're, if you know what, my kids, they're young drivers. Yes. Evie and James, Dev, like, Evie's past. I can't remember now. James was this year. I think Evie was just before. So a yearish, Evie, James a little bit less. And for them, you know, they've not been doing.

They've been driving for 40 years like I have. Where I do anticipate. Oh, you're looking around. No, I look at wheels on motorways. Okay. I look at the wheels. If I'm overtaking somebody, I look at their wheels. And as soon as their wheels start to wander,

then I'll cover the brake or I'll hang back a little bit. Because they will just, yeah. So that was my observation about sort of being on the roads this week. I find could get in trouble really but I don't care I find the bigger the car sometimes the worse the driver

yeah possibly I mean lorries I've had lorries do it to me nearly kill me I've had that before literally I just don't even look and they'll just pull out get out my way

I've had that quite a lot sort of bullish behaviour isn't I'm the biggest on the road fuck you you know if you hit me I ain't even going to know Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've got 16 wheels and you've got four. It is a little bit of that, yeah.

Yeah. I said it to you before, I think, but I don't really like driving on the motorway anymore. No, I know what you mean. I don't know what it is, it's strange. I don't know. There seems to be, there was a day this week when I was driving. And it was, I thought, is there, you know, like on greatest hits, it's, um, Abaday, right, pizza day.

Right, okay. You know. and I honestly thought it was drive like a knob day Everywhere I went It was just people driving too fast And people bibbing each other And it was like it was Mayhem I think it was Wednesday

I drove to get Joni tonight from a party And it was only up the road But there's a, you know, dual carriageway And a bit or whatever And there was a car That was so ridiculous Boy racerish Yeah

But ridiculous Within five seconds Speeding up, braking speeding up And it was really bad Really, really bad. In a Merck, sort of blacked out, whatever. Anyway, I followed him into the industrial park that I was going to,

and I think he was working for Curries or something, because he parked up. And I held my stare because I'd followed him all the way there, and I thought, I can't believe how you've driven here. Yeah, yeah. Oh, there's loads of them, but the boy race of things massive. That's a completely different. I mean, I live at the bottom of a hill.

Yes. And it's, but it's my road from the, as you come out around, and you go up the hill to the green. Yeah. It narrows up, really narrows up. And I regularly, all we hear now are these soups up cars, whatever they are. You know, I don't know what they are, but they've got these, you know, they've got these big exhausts and they make that raucous noise or whatever, which is fine. If you're into it, I've got a problem, but don't do it driving up my hills.

You're going to kill somebody. Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I think we've had two cars, the time we've lived there, I think two or three cars have ended up in, people's garden. But the council won't do anything about it because no one died. Absolutely what I was about to say. Yeah. So I get it here.

Yeah. We get it. Yeah. There's no speed camera. Yeah. There isn't a zebra crossing. No. And you go, why is that? And they go, oh, we need five people to die before we do that. That's right.

Yeah. Which is, yeah. We wrote to them, like the, we wrote to the council as a small group of people. Yeah. Yeah. I basically said that. You know, there was this big long letter, all legalese and whatever about this. that, the timing of certain events and we've not had any basically road deaths where they call it something else.

It's basically saying we're not going to spend any money until like four people have been or, you know, three school children on their way to school have been run over, then we might do something about it. And it's ridiculous really. Yeah. But it's fine. They can block off off the roads in the area and make them low traffic neighbourhoods so no one can drive anywhere.

but they don't want to deal with people doing 90 mile an hour up the hill outside my house. There we go. There we are. For legal reasons, I'm not sure the details of what we've said are correct. Okay. Just to cover us, tone. Yeah.

You never know. No, no. I hear it all the time on LBC. You know when people phone in with facts. Yeah. And then Nick Ferrari goes, well, for legal reasons, we're not sure if that's correct. Well, I don't know in the letter if it said,

or my counsel have said five people need to die. Or in your letter it said, three school children need to die. Do you see what I mean? I'm not being literal. We're hypothesising. Yeah, I'm just saying that's the, that was the gist. I agree.

No, I know. That was the general gist. It was basically if someone hasn't died a few times. I know. There's no speed camera. Yeah, we're not going to do any traffic calming. We're not going to try and stop people from driving at great speed up and down your hill. I mean, you can imagine.

Well, if there's no traffic, if there's no. Nothing. If there's no traffic cameras and stuff, then they're going to, They're just going to abuse it. Well, there you go. I went up to Birmingham yesterday. Oh, right. Went to the BBC Good Food Show.

Oh, I've heard of that. I like food. Well, I love food. What I really like, I've never been to an exhibition. You know, you get the angel business design set. They have exhibitions, don't they? Oh, it's cool. Yeah.

Fashion. Home. Home. The ideal home exhibitions are massive. Massively, isn't it? But this was Gardner's World, BBC food. I thought, why have I not come to this before? Brilliant it was.

Yeah, I bet. I did a little podcast, which was lovely, a little interview, but then I wandered around. I had a wonder. And do you know what struck me? And I know you'll appreciate this. They're there for four days, these people. I'm sure they've paid quite a lot of money to be there.

I would imagine so. I would imagine so. But they're all having a go. Yeah. So there was a lady there with her husband who, they're making olive oil. Right. There was a young couple, really young, from Liverpool,

and they did brownies. And I just thought, it's really important and really special that you haven't just spoke about what you want to do. You've got off your ass and you've done it. Well, it's entrepreneurship. It's true entrepreneurship, which is what a lot of this country is about,

should be about. And I just thought, how lovely, you're up here for four days, you're making a go of it, you're passionate about the product, you've brung. Yeah, and then hopefully they're going to be successful and they're going to generate jobs and all that sort of stuff.

And I just, it really, really touched me. Yeah. It was lovely having a walk and chatting to people. I've got some cracking olive oil. Lovely. Beautiful.

I bought some brownies of this young couple. I also bought some wine. Oh, okay. It was a smaller, you know, you get your virgin wine, you get your wine society.

They're massive places, aren't they? This was a more family-run thing. What a wine club type thing? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, no, actually. No, I didn't sign up to a wine club.

No, I just bought some wine. Oh, right, okay. But it was lovely. Little wine tasting. A few crackers, little chat. Nice. Got the train, I hope. I got a car up there.

Oh, you got a car. Oh, sorry. Oh, you did. We get cars. But no, it was. It was really not. I like a train. I don't mind a train.

Why don't you like the train? It's fine if you travel at certain. times when there's no one on them. I'll shower. But when there's people on them and... baking. Not even that. I mean, I used to travel with work a fair bit.

Leeds, Manchester. Yeah. Birmingham. Quite a lot. Yeah. We'd have reserved seats. So you paid to reserve seats. Yeah.

And you'd get on and someone's sitting in your seat. And you've got to have a row with them and they won't move. And it's just... again, it's just, we're just not Japanese in the way that the railways have run, are we? No, no. Because they've got it sussed, but we haven't. And I know when I've been to football before, that's just a free... Sorry, I need to go back.

I'm acting as if I know what you're talking about. What do the Japanese do? Well, their trains run to the split second. Yeah. Ultra clean, ultra-modern. Although they're... I've seen videos of them pushing people on the train. because they're so busy.

Yes. I do get the feeling that if someone sat in a reserve seat, they'd probably do something about it and not just go old bollocks, not on my job. Right, okay. Which I've had loads of times. I remember coming back from somewhere. We had a reserve seat,

and a lady had reserved a seat. Her and her daughter, I think it was. And she wasn't young and whatever. And these people wouldn't get out of the seat. and the guard wouldn't do anything about it, and then you think it's going to end up in a big old punch up in a minute. So me and a friend of mine, we just got up and we said, you sit there.

We went and we just stood up. Yeah. That's a drink. I think at one point we were sitting in the store, like the, where you know where you put your luggage. Yeah. I think we were sitting there at one point. But it was just pandemonium.

They overbooked the trains. But that's crazy, isn't it? Yeah, but that's what they do. They overbook them. And I don't know why they do it. I mean, I do know. They want loads and loads of people to. spend loads and loads of money on a shitty service that doesn't work a lot of the time.

But, yeah, I've had loads of times where I've, you know, got on a train and there's people on there that are sitting in the wrong place and stuff. I just think there are a lot of people with a lot of balls. It happens sometimes when you go to a concert. Yeah, they just don't give a shit. And they just sort of sit down and you go, I've had that a few times. I don't go to loads of concerts, but when I do, I'd say more often than not you have the, oh, sorry, that's my seat. And they go, oh, sorry, yeah, you think you were trying to style it out because you've got a six-foot man in front of you. But that's my seat, so if no one's going to sit down.

And that's a weird, I think, very contradictory thing with English people. Because we say British people are very polite and they're very good. But you've got another side, which are mad. Yeah. Yeah, you've got another side where they sort of take the piss a little bit, don't they? Yeah. Funny old thing. We're good at queuing, but that's about it, I think.

Very good at queuing. You and your pants? Yeah. Come up a bit. I think people would like you to wear some pants. How's it going? Well, we had a couple of messages of suggestions. Yeah.

I think they were 20 quid a pair. Well, cooler men's underwear here. He needs these. Does he struggle with suits too? If so, my husband has just discovered next, do a muscle-fit suit, which his chunky thighs fit in. Few, ordered two colours. Don't know who that's from, I'm sorry.

Okay. I haven't got any muscles, so that probably wouldn't work. Well. And, yeah, the pant thing, I'm still struggling. I'll be honest with you. I need some free samples really It's a lot of money in it It's a spend

It is a lot of money Yeah 20 30 quid a pair It is yeah Yeah and you can't just buy one pair Because you've got to wear them You know You've got to have a week's worth of wearing them

See whether you get on with them Yeah It's when the express wash Every night bang Yeah Yeah I know Well that sounds good But you know

You've got dry em I mean it's all right When it's warm But then I know It's true So I'm jury's out really I'm still

Mando. Fine. But it's working for you at the moment. Well, not really. Not in the very hot weather, no. Chafing? Yeah, it gets a little bit, it gets a little bit sore and chafy if I'm honest.

But I need to just take the plunge and have a bash at some of these modern. I think so. We had cooler, as I just said. Step one was another one. That's it. Step one. As I say, you know, unless you want to do a mump shopping,

money on pants, I'm not really inclined to do that to be caught. No. Comfort is key though. It is. Makes a day better. Yeah, and I am getting to the point now where it's not really working what I'm doing. It was quite, at first it was quite, you know, it was quite, what's the, what's the word I'm looking for? It was a novelty.

Yes. It was a novelty. Going to work with no pants. Yeah. You know, feeling a bit freer. But now it's got a bit to the point where I don't really like this. Well, listen. Kirstie from Livingston said

Hi Nat and Tony Just listening to the Pants Talk on today's pod And I would highly recommend step one for both of you They are one of the bamboo ones But honestly so comfortable And they keep me cool during the hot weather There are several different styles So you can get one that suits you

But I prefer the body shorts P.S, absolutely love the documentary Having been through dementia with my father-in-law That episode was especially enlightening Love you guys, Kirsty and Livingston So thank you, Kersey and Livingston. So thank you, Kirsty. Thanks, Kirsty.

But my question there is, you see. Yeah. They do four different types. I know. Right? Yes. So choose the ones that suit. How do you know what one suit you?

I know. Do they say on there, this one's for fat ass? No. This one's for skinny legs. This one's for beer belly. Well, I don't. I don't think they do. No, they don't.

They say, oh, this one's a slightly different. It's a trunk and it's a slightly different cut for a... Well, you'd have to get four, wouldn't you? I mean, It's a waste of money. I know. You're doing $120. On a, what if, maybe.

No, I understand that. I do understand it. But imagine if you did, and you've got the perfect pair. Yeah, well, that... And it changed your life. It could change my life, actually. Yeah.

It could. I might have to buy you a more. No, you can't. No. And we do a Patreon episode. We do a Patreon. No, no, definitely not a video. God on my way.

But we could do a microphone one where you're behind the door. Trying the pants on. I like the idea of that. All right, maybe I'll have a look into it. We'll have a look into it. We'll have a pants, try on Patreon episode. Whatever that is. Yeah, I'm up for it.

Fantastic. Give it a go. For anyone listening, Patreon, we are now live. I hope you're all enjoying it. Who's joined? It's www. patreon.com forward slash life of nap pod. It's six quid.

And I am going to talk about this because it drives me mad. And you know I'm honest. It's £6. I said five, six pound. We've gone for six pound because there's live shows on there and it's quite a lot to give and I'm doing more work

so we've gone for six quid a month which is a cup of coffee and a croissant or whatever it is it's not a lot really but people are messaging saying is there an admin fee and I don't know I don't know

but I think if you go through Patreon they could be a little pound or Apple there might be £1.50 I'm not sure but that's not my fault Yeah. So it could end up being 7 pound, 50. I hope we're worth it.

I don't know what to say. No. But, you know, it is what it is. It's 6 for the month. I hope you join. There'll be some fun on there. Oh, you get to listen to me to try pants on. What mortgage do you want?

Well, I think people would pay money for that. Seven pound? Yeah. I'd pay double that. Do you reckon? Yeah. Absolutely. Could you give me 14 pound later then?

I'll get you Turkish. Food again. Food. Food. Right. We've got to go on to Moonpig Gate. Oh my God. Tony, you were...

I've been slaughtered. Absolutely slaughtered. Slotted. Really slaughtered. But, you know, we can all have opinions, but we have to call out people are not happy. I know. They're not happy. I know.

I understand it. I understand they're not happy. Mourning that, just listening to podcast with Tony. Not often I disagree, but debate of them. about Moon Pig. One, doing a card online takes ages to download nice memory photos. Two, I always choose my own words. Three, they aren't cheap and they're very personal.

Sorry, Tony, you're wrong. Love you. You've got to love you at the end, though. That's nice, I suppose, yeah. Let's have a listen to the others because we actually did message, didn't we? I said, fuck me, it's Moon Pig game. I liked it. Hi, Nat and Tony, it's Lucy here from Horsham.

just messaging in on the back of your chat about Moon Pig. I am sort of similarly along the lines as Tony with this one, but isn't it ironic that Moon Pig is actually designed to make the experience more personalised because you can choose the name, the photo, etc. But it actually makes it feel less personalised because it's easier to go on there and just do that. I actually like the challenge of going into a shop to find the correct spelling of Nana, for example, because we spell it with two ends in the middle rather than one. And I feel that that is a bit more personal because I've made the effort to try and find a card that

somebody has designed with the correct spelling, rather than just going on to Moon Pig and typing it in for myself. I don't know if that makes sense, but yeah, I really only would use Moon Pig, well, I wouldn't use it for a special occasion. I was going to say, well, you put a photo on it or something. I think, oh no, I just want to find one in the shop that meets all my requirements. Yeah, interesting one. She agreed with you. If I was going to have a card consultant, it would be that lady. Yeah.

So here's the thing, right? And I'm going to get myself in trouble again. No, no. We ain't finished yet. Oh, God. Sorry. Go on. We've got to have more. Go on. Go on. Hang on.

Hi, Nat. Just listen to your episode with Tony where you talk about moon pig cards. It tends to be the only cards I send nowadays. and you're very lucky to get one if you get one. I do take my time to choose the perfect card, and I do make it personal while writing something nice in it. The other thing is my in-laws live in Australia, so when I want to send pictures of their granddaughter to them, moon pig card is actually a really good way to do it.

They get a card, and they get some photos in it as well, in it on it, and they go on their fridge. They absolutely love them. They think I'm a genius. I don't know. They're in their... Nearly 70, so they think it's absolutely amazing that these cards just turn up with pictures of their granddaughter on.

That's it really. That's all I wanted to say. It's Tammy from Stam's Debuts. Thank you, Tammy. You're only down the road. And it was pissing a rain at the time. Absolutely pissing it down. Yeah, because we could hear the windscreen wipers.

Thank you, Tammy. So, sorry, I've got two things. Oh, I'm going to get myself in trouble here, big time. No, I love it, though. Well, first and foremost, so everyone's going, well, because it's Moon Pig, we can download pictures and, you know, and we do all these personalised cards. Which do take time. Which do, but, sorry, before Moon Pig, so did anyone make their own card? Did anyone take a picture of their kids and make a card and stick it in the card with a bit of prit stick and write on it to them and granddad love it?

Possibly. The reason I was saying that, sorry, I'm going to go back because it's a great conversation. You know, you said you get the yearly... The year of you. The year of you. I feel like they might have done that. No, the year review, they use desktop publisher to come up with a booklet with all that stuff in it. I'm saying that people, they're saying that the reason that Moon Pig is so brilliant.

Yeah. Is that they can personalise the card with the right, you know, the right names and, the right message is. Yes. But if that was so important, 15 years ago, people would have made their own cards. I think you'll find that it's going to be a very small percentage.

The same percentage as perhaps people make their own jumpers. Yeah. But crafty people, I would imagine, have done that, but not in a mainstream way, is what I would say to you. I'm just trying to defend my position.

And also, you were talking about someone. I'm going online, picking a card that said happy birthday and sending it. You weren't really... I wasn't talking about the... Personalisation. No. But unfortunately, Moon Pig...

It sort of lends itself to the personalisation. I understand that now. However, going back to the Year of You, I've got a playlist here. Go on. Good morning, Nat. Kirstie here. I'm laughing about the Year of You. There is a family that's like...

a family friend and they send us a year of you every year and you know most years it's like have they retired yet are they not retiring because they both finish their jobs their main jobs retired from those and then they've gone back into work and doing something else and then it's like how many holidays have they gone on what have they had done new to the house this year you know if they've got another grandchild or the grandchild's a genius the grandchild can do this really early and all of that kind of stuff and you're just like oh that's great chuck it in the bin after us like lovely but we like we don't know these people really like now like you know family did but we don't see them anymore and there's no other interest in us personally and for the yesterday year from them and not us to them

either because we're not their friends as such do you know i mean they're just like family friends so we get on the Christmas card and everybody gets a double-sided A-4 with pictures of failure. There you go. That's exactly what I was talking about. Incredible. Yeah. Never heard of it before.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I find it absolutely brilliant. Yeah. I wish I've had some. No, you don't. I do. I would have liked to. No, you get a Christmas card.

And it's like a padded. And you open it and you think, what on earth is in here? I've got another one in the sec and it turns out it's got one of these things in it so the harshest comment I had about Moon Pig was that someone wrote in and said Yep Is it do you not like Moon Pig

Because you know there's no money or vouchers in it I did they? They did which I thought was an absolute shocker Where is it? It's there Shut up Honestly unless I've imagined it I'm sure you haven't.

Honestly. But you could... I thought that's well harsh. You can post it to a recipient or you can get it delivered to you and then you post it. That's not what I'm talking about. This person was saying

that I'm so shallow, basically. Shallow bastard. And so money driven. I don't like internet generated cards because there's no fucking money in them. Or there's no vouchers for restaurants or vouchers for restaurants.

Or vouchers for. shopping buy new pants. I thought that was the harshest one. I mean, one saying, give your head a wobble and what you want about and da-da-da-da, which is all fair enough. I mean, it's just my viewpoint. Moon-pig gate.

Moon-pig gate. I liked it. I like that you ruffled some feathers. No one really ruffles any feathers. Not around it. I think it's good. Do you know what in two years? It's the first time I've had an opinion.

Yeah, and it's nice to have an opinion. Yeah. And people enjoy an opinion. It's good. But you have to remember where mine came from. Mine wasn't about, oh, It's a wonderful thing where, you know, people can go and personalise a big card of all their kids. I wasn't thinking about that.

I was thinking about, like, like, if you had a family member you didn't like, and you just could not be bothered to buy a card and stand on it. You'd go, thank. You just go, happy birthday, fuck you, go and get on with it. You know, we've done out what we've got to do, but we don't really like you. That's the point. That's where I was coming from. Yeah, not photos.

Yeah, text and all that, you know. Chocolate bars and balloons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And to prove it, your next birthday card. I'm going to make it by hand. I'm going to do a handmade card. I actually want, I don't want a photo. Right, okay.

I want you to do some kind of Pissarro. I want you to get loads and loads of magazines and I want you to make a collage of me. Of you? Like just in tiny squares of different shades. Really? Yeah. I want you to make me some sort of art.

It hasn't got to be of me, sorry, but some sort of, a proper collage that takes shape. from really now till next May. Okay. I'll start working on it tomorrow. Yeah. And I'll let you know how I'm getting on.

Okay. And I will do this. I'm going to make you a card that you wouldn't believe it. Oh, don't. So now, right, we're having a card off. A card off? Yeah. Right, okay.

If anyone wants to join in. No, please don't. There's much more important things in your life and this. Please don't join in, no. It's just not worth it. It's just a complete waste of your time. Moon Pig, Ending, I've got to play this Welsh lady.

Go on, okay. God. Oh, come on, Tony. I've got to disagree with you on this one, love. Have you ever done a personalised card on Moon Pig? No. Obviously. Me and my best friends all turned 50 recently,

and I did a personalised card for each of them, and the fun I had doing them. Old photos from years and years and years back, and it took me ages, like hours to do, it would have been much easier to just pop down the shop and get a card. Trust me. Anyway, like Nat said, each to their own. But no, those moon pink cards, yeah, they are good for personalising things, photos, stuff like that.

If you're going to bog standard, happy birthday card, yeah. I'm with you on that one, but we've had some belly laughs over the cards I've done. Love you. And that's what you were talking about. So she's with you on the... Yeah. The box standard card. Yeah.

There you go. Um, you sent me a message. Sorry. I'm on the Watson. It's so funny. Go on. I said you're getting fucking annihilating for the moon pig. You put...

I wasn't talking about people that spend three days uploading photos and designing shit. I'm talking about lazy bastards. But that is the truth. That is it? That's where I was coming from. Oh, it's brilliant. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed Moon Pig Gate.

Yeah, I did as well. I really, really enjoyed it. Yeah, it's the first time I've been sort of public, a public pariah, if you like. It's the first time I've been called out by people. I didn't like it very much. So I'm not going to be doing that again. I think it's nice to have an opinion.

No, I've got no opinions on anything anymore. Not after Moon Pig Gate. I can't do it. I didn't sleep for three nights Shut that About we're moving on Okay Good morning, Nat

Just listen to your latest pub with Tony on parenting You touched on the subjects Of children leaving home And travelling abroad My boy has done exactly that To Australia Could he have gone any further

And plans to stay and make his life there To say I'm heartbroken Is an understatement My husband and I are planning To go and see him in January incorporating our annual holiday so first to Thailand and then onwards to Oz. It will be a one-off, as will cost a small fortune,

and don't see me being able to afford to travel there on a yearly basis, not even a two- or three-year basis. It causes me to think just how many more times I'll actually see my son again. I'm 58 now. I'm happy for him, but selfishly want him to come back. It makes me so incredibly sad and depressed at times. I miss him so, so much, it's almost like I'm grieving. Yes, we're lucky to have FaceTime and social media,

but it really doesn't cut the mustard in terms of contact and connection. For me, no matter how old my boys are, they will always be my children and my babies. This son is my firstborn. It might be a good topic. I'd be interested to know how other people feel or cope or what they do to keep in touch and the difficulties with the time difference and things costing a fortune.

to post, etc. Okay, thanks for reading. Massively love the pod and Hartford Live was cracking. Keep going. Thank you, Sue. Sue, thank you for that message. And all I can say,

firstly, you're being really honest. And I think that's really good. For your mental health, it's really good. You're not pretending that you're fine about it. Oh, yeah, no, my son's living a great... You really miss your son. No, I don't think so for mine. Sof listens.

My best friend is in Australia. I've spoken about it on the pod. she's in Perth it's really hard Australia is really the time difference is a fucking nightmare you can't sit on FaceTime

of an evening and have a little drink together I know that sounds ridiculous but you connect in certain ways you know there are friends you think right you haven't seen them for ages kids are in bed

you can have an hour on FaceTime you can have a glass of wine and have a chat it's so spirit it's so different that I'll be ringing her at 8 o'clock in the morning

and for her it's the afternoon and then when it's the evening for her I'm not free it's really hard to have that connection we have got the connection but I find halfway around the world is really really hard

so Sue I'm sorry to hear it it's an impossible situation I mean Sue's been very honest and being very honest back it's an impossible situation unless she says to him you're breaking my heart, I need you to move home. But that's selfish as well.

Well, exactly. So you can't win. You can't win. You can't win. She's got to just somehow try and make the best of it. Somehow, I don't know. Can I be really honest? Yeah.

I think it's really shocking what I'm going to say. Go on. I think I would say that to my kids. That's really bad though, because you don't want to put that on them. But I genuinely don't know how I'd cope. if they live there. And I don't, I think I, maybe once it happens, it's very different. And I've got years ahead of me before that happens.

But as I stand now, Sue, telling you, I think I would say, I can't cope with this. I need you nearer to me. Which is really needy and unnecessary because they're human beings and you've got to bring them up to fly and they've got over their life. Yeah, and that's it. So it's really hard. But then unfortunately it's just going to be the grieving process and getting used to the fact that they're on the other side of the world. Yeah.

She's a killer, absolute killer. What can she do? Like you said, she's not going to put that on him. She's not going to say, I need you. That's the only option she's got. Yeah. Or she moves to Australia. Yes, so what do you do?

Do you think you get the points? Yeah, yeah. So I can teach you some electrics. Cracking. A little apprenticeship. Yeah. Carpentry? No, no.

I can teach you out why some electrics and stuff. No, we're making light of it. But that's your options, aren't they? Yes. If she goes there or he comes here. Yes. Otherwise, you're in that, you're just stuck in that limbo. A bit of a limbo.

Yeah. But I think, make my, it is hard that time difference, but you've just got to try and make the most of it. Saturday afternoons, one o'clock. I've done it before. Well, you think, right, I've got nothing on. It's their evening. So I'm going to make it my evening.

you have an hour at one. Yeah, yeah. If you're at home or... Yeah. It's not easy. No, it's tough. It's shit. But you're going to see him and that's lovely.

So just make the most of that, really have a great time and see how you all feel after that, maybe. Yeah. When you've spent some time together, you might really get on your fucking nerves. I think that's a car outside. It is a car outside. Probably Eliza's Deliveroo. Oh, you think so? Possibly.

Could be Mark? Too early. I think so. Yeah, too early. Unless he's had a change of heart. Yeah. Possibly. But I think so.

I had a funny message from Katie Suta. Oh, right. Souter or Sata. Sorry, Katie. Not sure. But I really liked it. It was really random, so I wanted to say it. Can I just say, thank goodness for your YouTube videos of the podcast.

I finally found something to watch. Nothing on TV. It's shite. I just really liked it. Yeah. It was just quite random. So thanks, Katie. It was random.

Thanks for watching the video. I'm not sure the TV actually is that bad that you'd want to watch us. Well, but I'm glad she is. She does. Yeah. Yeah, it's good. I mean, the World Cup's on at the moment. Watched any?

Yeah, bits and pieces. Late low, isn't it? Yeah, all funny times, isn't it? Great when I don't sleep. You're sort of... Pop it on? Yeah, it's Costa Rica versus somewhere. Well, at least it's sort of relevant.

It must be quite nice, actually, in the middle of the night. Yeah, yeah, it sort of is. I really enjoyed the England game. Yes. I have to say. It was a good game of football, isn't it? I'll be honest. I'm not going to go overboard, but I've watched a lot of World Cups.

Yes. And that's the best opening game of a World Cup I've ever seen England play. There you go. There you go. And I've watched a lot of games. Some old. So Harry Rednap came out today, or maybe another day. I saw an interviewer clip.

And he was really honest, and I love Harry. I know. I like him. I love him. And I love his honesty, but he said, nothing against Thomas Tuchel. Nothing against him.

I just feel it should be an English man as a manager. And I just wonder what you thought about that. Because actually, I don't know if I agree with that, really. I'm not sure. I think you've got to have the best manager at the time. I don't think anyone will give us stuff if we win the World Cup.

No, no one will care. They could have eight heads, couldn't they? They could be an alien, octopus. Honestly, nobody would give us stuff. Yeah. I think the problem we've got as a country is that we haven't won it for so long. Yeah. And we had a golden generation of world-class footballers

that didn't get anywhere close to it. And at that time, you had foreign managers. You had Svengar and Erickson, who was Swedish. You had Capello that was Italian. You had a couple of English managers sprinkled in there or whatever. but I think it was more the fact that he's German. Yes. If I'm brutally honest.

Oh, do you think so? Yeah, because no one really batted an eyelid at Sven Gore and Erickson. He was Swedish. That's true. So do you think it's that age-old England German thing? It is, but then what people don't know about Thomas Tuchel is that he's a massive Anglophile, he's basically English. But also, from the other night after the second half, something happened. I don't know what was said.

He put a rocket up there, definitely. It was fantastic. I mean, Bellingham come out. Like I thought it was a different person Yeah, that's right I thought it was being cloned Yes right It's billbelling

It was mad I thought hang on Yeah I genuinely couldn't believe it And I haven't watched loads of football lately I watched a bit When Arsenal were doing well

And I watched a few matches I don't watch loads of football I'm not sitting here saying I know But I did I found it really interesting I got right into it But there's something else I've got to talk about

With the football What's that? Fucking hydration breaks No, I'm not having it. What's going on? No, I'm really, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe my eyes. Sorry, 25 minutes in, they're getting a break and a chance to talk to the managers.

It's only 21 degrees over there. It's not only, not in some of the games it's not. That game, I heard. Yeah, it was 21 degrees. It would be 35 degrees somewhere else. And that's not happen. of time in one cup? No, it hasn't.

It hasn't. I don't know why they brought it in. I don't know if in certain countries it's for adverts. I don't know. It may well be that certain countries will put on adverts during the hydration break. That could be a thing. I don't know. I think it's completely ridiculous.

Well, I'll be honest. I'm in sort of, I'm on the fence on it because I know if you're a European player and you've had a long, hard season and you're being asked to play in 80 degrees of heat, I think being able to take some water on halfway through a half is quite a good idea that's me personally okay

I'm up for a bit of water it's about seven minutes yeah yeah true sorry yeah but that's the way the game's going there isn't it they're looking for it's all gimmicks I don't I really I didn't like it no sorry fair enough

I'm being honest people can't go out me I don't care enough about it's going to rate me but I thought hang on, why is my first half being interrupted? What the fuck is this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then there was talking and then I thought,

well, surely now a game of football, it's long enough, now there's an extra 12 minutes now. Because there's more extra time. Yeah, yeah. I just thought of. It's been going for a long, long time without a hydration break. If I know what I'm saying. It's all to do with generating money.

That's what it would be bored. Do you think so? Yeah, definitely. There'll be money generation behind it somewhere. Mm. Yeah, I didn't like it. No. On a serious note, though, talking about football.

Yeah. We had a lovely listener. Yes, we did. Not going to go into it, but I thought it would be really interesting and really important to share. Because we can all love watching the football. There are some brilliant things about it. I do. I think it brings a country together.

Yeah. I think it's really optimistic. It gives everybody something to talk about and that little bit of hope, and I love it. And it's a joint, and everyone's got something in common for once, haven't they? Everybody, and it's lovely. And I do, I love watching it. But I thought I must mention this. And a lot of the time, if there is domestic abuse going on,

those England games that happen aren't a joyful experience. They become a really real worry, a real, real worry for women. It doesn't matter if they win, lose. When that whistle goes, people dread their partner coming home. So for everybody, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline is 0808-200247. You can also go to www.w.nationaldaehelpline.org.com. And this is the one I loved. Because in my past, and I have gone into it and I will go into it more, I don't need to do it tonight,

there have been times where you really want to reach out to someone but you can't because it would be dangerous to, be that calling a friend or a family member and it's just not possible because maybe someone's within your reach and they'll be able to hear you. If you are in danger and you cannot speak, you call 999, you stay on the line

and you wait for the operator to speak. If prompted, you press 5-5 on your mobile keypad. This transfers your call to the police and lets them know your request is a genuine emergency. And I think that's fantastic. So how it works, when you call 999, you're connected to a BT operator who will ask you which service you need.

If you are unable to speak, the call is filtered through the silent solution system to distinguish between genuine emergencies or not. So if you press that 5-5, they know it's genuine. And I just think that's brilliant. And I think there's some fantastic. Fantastic things I've seen in bars.

Yeah, I was sort of easy about it. Yeah. There's a name. Angela, is it, or something? Again, I'll have to, that's another whole pod. But yes, there's a name you can say, is Angela around, and the bar staff, no. No, there's a problem, yeah. You know, there's some fantastic things about, but just because the football's on,

and we all love the football and it's great, but for some people, you know, it's really our work. So I just think that it was really important. No, it is, yeah. I hope you don't mind me sharing. No, not all. Thank you. you. Massively important.

You were saying earlier about what we should do next for next pod. Yeah. And you said it was something to do with the World Cup? Just because I've spoke about the World Cup, I can't remember what you said. I was, I had a conversation with someone the other day and it was basically, what came to me was

we should do a thing about childhood disappointment, not in a nasty way. No, I like that. Not in a, I don't mean, you know, my mum died when I was two. I don't mean that, but I mean, you know, you were in a situation and it shaped you in some way. Yes. That disappointment. But it could be very like that also.

Yeah. Couldn't it? Yeah, it could. So I've got two, but I'm only going to do one tonight. Okay. That's all right. Yeah. So because the World Cup's on.

Yes. It always brings back this memory. And the memory is my first proper World Cup that I remember properly. was Argentina, 1978. So I remember 74, but I was only six. Yes. So I wasn't, I know David wanted to watch it and staff, but 78. But 78, I remember Mario Kemper's and the ticker tape.

You were 10. Yeah, and the unbelievable, fantastic Dutch team that never won the World Cup. I think they probably got robbed anyway. And I was 10. Yeah. And I was just going. into secondary school. And I used to play a lot of football.

And I remember, we lived in Islington, and in the Angel Islington was a sports shop called Jack Hobbs. So Jack Hobbs was a cricketer. And when he retired, he opened his sports shop in Islington. And I'll never forget it. So when the World Cup was on and for a few months after, they had a pair of World Cup 78 Adidas boots, right? Now, these were the Crem de la Crem.

They were kangaroo skin. They were probably back then 60 pounds a pair, which is a lot of money. Like 500 quid? A lot of money. Yeah, they was a lot of money. And they were actually in a glass display case. Yes.

And of a night, of an evening, all the lights were turned off. And there was just, there was just spotlight shining on this, and the boot went round. All night it went round in this display case, this World Cup 78 boot. and I remember I'd gone shopping with mum and for some reason we were there and I walked past and I said

I'd really love a pair of him and she went to me look if you get into the district team so I was playing for the school and there was about probably about 200 kids tried for Islington the district team which was quite a big thing

This is football This is football sorry This is football sorry And so you went on these trials and all of it And they basically picked about 16 kids from all the schools in Islington and to play for the district.

Yeah. And she said to me, if you get into the district team, I'm going to buy a petting him. I went, wow. That is like the ultimate, isn't it? They're massive. Right.

It's the ultimate goal. So, worked hard, got into the district team, got picked for Islington, played for the district out of probably two or three hundred kids that went for it. Never got the football boots.

Never got them. And that, That has stayed with you. Stayed with me for all this time. Yeah. So we are asking, we are asking. So when I say sorry, so when we say child of disappointment, I'm talking about that.

Yes. I'm not talking about the cat died, you know, or that time. No. It is something that. A realisation or a real disappointment. Or a massive disappointment to you. I've got another one which I'll talk about. And I've got one, but I'm going to do it next time as well.

So, childhood disappointment. Yes. It could be about friendships. Do you know what? It could be. Things at school. It could be anything. Something you believed in.

Yeah. There's so many different possibilities. I like it. But hopefully it strikes a call to people. I like it. Every World Cup. And it's funny, Stephen works for me. I told him this story and he told me to do it on the pod.

That's where it's come from. I'm not, I didn't make this up myself. I'm giving credit where credit's due. And I told him about this story probably. I mean, Steve's been working for me for 20. 20 or years. And I told him the story ages ago, and every World Cup he brings it up,

and he starts laughing. And then the other day, he actually found a picture. Of the Boat. Of the World Cup 78, and it's in a glass case with the Adidas Tango football. I don't know where he found it from,

but I've got it, I can send it to you. And he just said it to me. Please do, I'll pop it up when this step comes out. Yeah, please. And I just, and he just said to me, do you remember this? And I just, he does it every, every time the World Cup comes around.

So that's my... Did you ever question it? I didn't because as a child, if you're made a promise, you expect it to be kept. Yeah. And unfortunately... Maybe they just forgot? Do you think Dad know about it? No.

No, no, not Dad, no. Because he would have... No, he wouldn't have known. No. Maybe she just forgot. Yeah, I just ended up playing in the shitty Asad Adidas Santiago that were crap. They were sort of PVC, were blue stripes, they were rubbish. They were not World Cup 78s.

So anyway. childhood disappointments 07-8-8 2019-19 I've loved tonight's episode thank you I hope everyone has enjoyed it yeah please enjoy it

yeah send all your messages to me follow the Patreon why don't you get involved become a member of the family there's a family group chat on there we're going to have a bit of a laugh it's a real intimate space

with lots of bonus stuff on it thanks ever so much and I'll talk to you next time. Tom, thanks so much. Pleasure. See you soon. See you soon. See ya.

Bye.