Miss Me? - Listen Bitch! What Else Do You Do With a Cake?

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

Miquita Oliver and Jordan Stephens answer your questions about idioms.Next week, we want to hear your questions about FRENEMIES. Please send us a voice note on WhatsApp: [phone]. Or, if you like, send us an email: [e-mail] episode contains very strong language and adult themes. Credits: Producer: Natalie Jamieson Technical Producer: Oliver Geraghty Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid Production Coordinator: Rose Wilcox Executive Producer: Dino Sofos Commissioning Producer for BBC: Jake Williams Commissioners: Dylan Haskins & Lorraine Okuefuna Miss Me? is a Persephonica production for BBC Sounds

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It's called the Dark Web. Undercover in the furthest corners of the Dark Web. US Special Agents are on a mission to locate and rescue children from abuse. Move in now. From the BBC World Service, World of Secrets, the Darkest Web follows their shocking investigation. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get to your BBC podcasts. This episode of Miss Me contains very strong language and adult themes.

Guys, welcome to listen. No, no, no, not all right, guys. Fuck sake, Keith, I am into it. I am. I am who I am. I'm a new age presenter, brov. I'm a poddy, podcaster. I'm an influencer.

Eek, fuck off. I'm an influencer, brav. I'm an influencer podcaster. guys, welcome to listen, bitch. I bet you're excited to hear what we've got coming up today. Today's topic is idioms. Stop it. Stop it.

That's like an amalgamation of about seven things I hate. Well done. Well done. Can't we introduce it like it's gardener's question time? Here we're talking about idioms. If anything, this is like some sort of university course. And Makita's

desperation to be taken seriously and the greater world continues. It's not about desirms. to be thinking seriously, but I do love that we're talking about idioms today. I think it's really interesting. You said that if you looked into what an idiom means, that you might know more about it and you want to stay in that place of mystery. You want to stay in that place of the unknown. The beauty of idioms, from my perspective, Makita, is that not only have they mutated across time, right, and often, they've mutated to the point of, for me, making almost zero sense.

But we just say them every day like it's normal. But it's not like apples and pears. That's a Cockney-Rining slang. Yeah, that's Courtney rhyming slang. And it's not a proverb. A proverb is like because that's a short story. Like, you know, the child treated coldly by the village would burn it down just to feel its warmth. That's the kind of... Oh, that's the shit.

An idiom is like, Hair of the Dog. Oh, hair of the dog. Okay. All right. Like, what is that? Oh, I'm in this. Let's have our first idiom of the day. Hi, Makita.

Hi, Jarden. This is Lauren in Leeds. sending a voice note on the topic of idioms. And to help clarify for Jordan, you can't have your cake and eat it. Once you've eaten it, you no longer have it. So you either have it or you eat it. I remember being in school and being set some work by the teacher to say, okay, how many idioms do you know? And I went and sat with my great grandma at the time and came back to school with a list of probably 70 or more. And I always think that they should be, yes, treasured. My question is, which is your favourite? and I don't know if they're, I don't think I can pick a favourite,

but one that I really like is a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. This expression meaning keep what you have because you have that in your hand. Don't dismiss that over the potential of having two birds that you cannot see. They're in the bush. You don't have them. They're not yours. Thank you so much for the podcast. I absolutely love it.

Keep it coming. I cannot stand this. I can't stand this. Okay. So on my TikTok, hilariously, I didn't actually. you mean to tie that into my fake intro. But on TikTok, I've recently been having a breakdown because people think I don't understand the phrase, you can't have your cake and eat it.

I understand what they're trying to say, which is you can't have two things at the same time. So respectfully, I'm very thankful for the question. Thank you for leaving a voice note. But it's not that I misunderstand the meaning of the saying. What confuses me is who just has a cake? And doesn't eat it. When they say, like, you can't have your cake and eat it.

What else are you supposed to do with a cake? Well, I suppose it would be admire it and be thankful for it rather than have to devour it to understand what it means to you or what it can give you. Maybe that's it's it. I get the idea that you can't have two things at the same time. But just how we casually say it, like, listen, you can't have your cake and eat it, right?

It's like, for me, the motivation of a cake being there is to eat it. Yeah. I don't need to just have a cake. The space in which I just have a cake that doesn't exist in my memory. mental realm. Like, I don't know why I would have a cake and just simply have it. I feel like any other like you to like, if the former I wanted, if the original position made sense to me, then the fact that it disappears would obviously hit home. Because people often use that with like the idea of like being in a relationship. It's usually about men. Wanting too many partners. Sure. That's like one thing.

Yeah. Which again, in that context, it's even more mental to me because it's just like, so what your partner is a stationary cake. Like, you. you want to just a cake you can't eat. You got to eat that shit. Surely you got to eat that cake. Cake, cake, cake. Maybe that's the issue is that you can't eat the first cake. People looking for more pre-made cakes, bro.

Because like that, why am I in front of an inedible cake, bro? The fuck. If anything, you see that cake, you better eat it. Yeah, you better have your cake and eat it, bro. You better have your cake and eat it. That's good. Yeah, you better have your cake and eat it. You better have the cake to eat it.

Stop looking at cakes. What was the lady's question though? Do we have any favourite? I quite like, well, it kind of fucks me. Is this an idiom? The grass is always greener? Yeah, that's a great choice. That's a great choice.

I really like that, yeah. That, again, makes immediate sense to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty straightforward. You're always going to want more. Yeah, the grass is always greener on the other side. But then that fucks with me somewhat in the idea of dreaming big and believing you can have anything you want

and do anything you want. But then that's it, that's it. But be satisfied with where you are and what you have. Even if you dream of greener pastures, still be satisfied where you are right now. The only reason why the grass is greener is because you're literally not there. Yes. Yes.

So really it's an idea of it being greener and it's like your grass is probably very green underneath your feet. Yes, the fantasy and the reality are often at odds. This is good. Yeah. I often talk about it. about that in the context of being multiple things at once. Like people in interviews will often start by going, wow, you do many different things.

And I think that's really cool. And that's also Jack of Alltrade is a really interesting idiom. But anyway. Ah, yeah. But they'll say that. And then I'll say it's funny because I'll look at a person, say like my friend Emma Bruin who just makes furry hats. And I'll be like, for her life looks fascinating and enticing to me because there's

a singular focus and she's incredible at it, whereas I feel maybe I'm split. Anyway, but she would maybe say the same thing about me. But the interesting thing about Jack of All Trades is one must finish it. And if it's not said fully, it could mean something completely different. If you went, oh, Jack of All Trade, someone would be like, yeah, I'm skillful. But if they finish it and say Master of None, then you're like, oh, that's actually the idiom. Whoa. What's funny about Jack of All Trades is that's a generational rap battle, that one.

Because the first one was Jack of All Trades. The comeback to that someone added on going, yeah, master of none. And then the further accentuation of the idiom is, is surely better than a master of one. Oh, later. Is it? What? They're just beefing each other. Oh, interesting.

People are just constantly beefing. Multi-hyphenates have been beefing singular professionals for generations. It's like a 16th century rap battle. Yes. No, literally, I'm not even kidding. I love that. It's an intergenerational idiom-based rap battle. What's better?

Doing one thing or loads of things. Who knows? Wow. Oh, let me think about that. Who knows? I'm trying to think because I might want to do a few less things. Yeah, fair. Same.

I think it might be good. All right, let's get another one. I want to know I'm literally in my favourite school of all time. Let's have another idiom. Hi, Makita and Jordan. It's Kate, calling from a little village called Akworth in Yorkshire. My father moved over to the kind of rural island about 10 years ago. And what that has opened up for our family, who were all raised in England, is an entire new set of idioms

that are completely normal and everyday use in Ireland, but make absolutely no sense to us. So one of my favorite ones is in a situation where you don't know which way to turn, like being at sixes and sevens, it's a good Yorkshire Fraser, he will say, I didn't know whether to shit or go blind. Now, I don't know what situation ends with the two life choices being to either shit yourself or go blind. Never understood it. Just wondered if you guys can make. either head nor tail of that one.

Thanks very much. Love the show. Bye. She's dropping idioms in the question. I'm loving it. She's just casually throwing it out. Sixes and sevens, by the way, you were aware of what that means now? Yeah, tell me about that.

Unfortunately, at the moment, if you say six and seven near each other to children or young people, they go, six, seven. Surely you don't know this. No, I don't know this at all. But hang on a minute. I thought she lived in Yorkshire. moved to Ireland. But she was talking about Irish idioms. Yeah.

Right. Being at 60s and 7s, I would say as an English idiom in the same way as head nor tales about it. What does it mean? 607s is like being confused. I love that. It's being confused. God, you're at your 6 and 7s. Okay.

I'll try and use that in a sentence today. Yeah. So she's saying the Irish one is like, I don't know whether to shit myself or go blind, which is phenomenal. Right. Well, yeah, it's good. That's good. That's good. What would you rather?

I'll ship myself. Yeah. I think shit myself. I'm into that. I think shit myself. Yeah. I think that one pertains to that idea of like, hell is on both sides kind of thing.

And that is kind of how one can feel when truly confuses. Like, oh shit, they're both bad. They're both bad outcomes. Yeah. God, this is good. I like you, deems. Thanks, Jay. I also relate to Kate's thing of going to a place

and having to understand. Because I've had that with South Shields, Newcastle. Right. Like Jade's family say things and I'm like, what on earth are you talking about? Well, I'm just thinking about like when we go to Antigua and shit. Like, what's some like fucking Antiguan? Yeah.

I'd have to call my cousin Silliman. Well, the Caribbean have brought over like words. Warguan. Yeah, yeah. Like, exactly. Completely patois. Yeah, patois. But these are more.

It's not an idiom. Yeah, that's not an idiom. It's a colloquialism because it's like a phrase abbreviated and made in collaboration with the dialect. Oh, ooh. In Costa Rica, sometimes they say Twanis as an expression of joy because that was their interpretation of American saying that's too nice. That's nice.

Jordy's call me a working ticket or a working ticket a lot because I'm a wind-up and I'm like, what on earth is a working ticket? Like what... That's good. That's good. I like that. Jade's mum's full of idioms. I should really have got normal on this episode.

You should have... I mean, yeah, because in my research here in Caribbean, Ones, here they're saying, IRI, which is not an idiom. Thank you very much. It's colloquialism, yeah, feeling good, baby. That's actually colloquialism, which we'll do on another listen, bitch. I'm so into this. Language. Everything, Iri. Ayri. Let's have another, one of yours for the next.

Yeah, next question. Next idiom question, please. Hi, John and Mikita. My name is Fanny. I'm calling you from South of France. So I lived in England, in London for about 10 years, and I discovered say, that left me quite baffled, which is Bob's your uncle and obviously Fanny's your aunt. It took me a long time to understand what it exactly meant

and also it tickled me a bit because obviously my name. But yeah, it just didn't really make any sense still doesn't, to be fair. But it's one that I like to use now after all those years. Yeah, that's about it.

Love the podcast. and love you guys. You're great. Bye. Yo, my favourite thing on the internet is foreign people learning English and being like, what the fuck you? You're not talking about it. No, because I don't usually like that, actually. I usually don't like that.

But I really liked what she was saying. Because even as an English person, I'm like, what the fuck did it? Where did that come from? So a French woman called Fanny came to Britain and they'll be like, well, you know, Bob's your uncle, Fanny's your aunt. She'd be like, what? And she's like, what? And she's like, the fuck are you talking about?

Who's aunt am I? Who's my nephew and niece? As we know, these idioms, Bob's your uncle, Fanny's your aunt basically. There you have it. It's done. Yeah. They have it. It's done.

But I'd like to know where that's start origin. Here we go. Well, it's obviously from Bob and Fanny. The expression arose off to Conservative Prime Minister, Robert Blah Blah, appointed his nephew. Oh, an act of nepotism. Wow. He's the third Marquist of Salisbury, and he appointed his nephew as the chief

Secretary for Ireland in 1887, which was apparently both surprising and unpopular. Whatever other qualifications Balfa might have had, Bob's Your Uncle was seen as the conclusive one. Right. So it's like, yeah, I'm the blah blah. I'm the chief administrator. It's like, yeah, but Bob's your uncle. Oh, love that.

Love that. Woo! Love that. So we just do a whole new podcast about idioms. You literally could. And also I find it funny just as a side note of people learning the English language and realizing how much of our words have multiple uses that I also find funny. Like the word piss I saw on a podcast recently.

Like we have like maybe 18 different ways of using the word piss, for example, in like totally different contexts. Piss off. How else? Taking the piss. Piss take. Out on the piss. Pissed off.

Fuck. You're right. You're right. Can you imagine learning that word as someone like learning English and being like, why are you saying this all the time? Yes. Yes. Why are you always talking about Yorin?

Or we'll say the opposite. The other funny one is allow it. I think allow it is more of a cultural, particularly black colloquial term. Yeah, yeah, no. I'm not saying it's idiom. I'm saying, but can you imagine learning that? Allow it.

Because it's the opposite. Yeah, exactly. Low it. When you see allow it, leave it out enough. Yeah, leave it. Exactly. So why is saying allow it? Oh, right.

Exactly. Good point. Wow. Oh, my God. Yeah. Do we do that quite often? I'm assuming so. I haven't, I've just learned English from walking around.

I'm not like come to it as a foreigner. But I have been victim of it too because I, for example, the other day, commented on a football post saying about like a Man United player. And I said, and I'm saying this as a gooner, right? And a gooner. Oh, come on. Goonah is gooner. Right.

Well, now, I'm not making this up now. Guna, I mean somebody who like wanks all day. Oh my God. That's really a difficult situation. So I got loads of Gen Z. People messaging me being like, oh, you're disgusting. Why would you say this?

And then like... Every other Arsenal fan going, bro. So I'm afraid that's a term for an Arsenal fan that's been around before you were born. There's got to be some things that are just fucking sacred, bro. Yeah, but they've been shifted, bro. Can't say you're a Guna now. No.

Do you can't to Gen Z? can't say you're a gooner. Literally, they'll literally think you're talking about sex. That might be quite problematic in Highbrina-Slington on a Wednesday night.

Mental. Let's have another idiom. I wanted to ask you guys if you knew that the rest of the saying Great Minds Think Alike is though fools seldom differ.

Like Jordan mentioned at the end of the last episode, it actually means the complete opposite thing. And funnily enough, my ex-boss is the one that told me that because, you know, we had the same idea and I said, oh, great minds whilst, you know, tapping my temple. And he started laughing. And I was like, why is he laughing at me? And he was like, no, no, nothing. It's just that that actually doesn't mean what you think it means. So I just thought I'd tell you that little story. And now I also do the same

thing. So, yeah, have you ever used a phrase that actually doesn't mean what you thought it meant? Love the podcast. Thank you so much, guys. Bye. Wow. I didn't know that. So this goes back to what we were talking about earlier. You really must know the full idiom before saying it. And also some idioms have been shortened to almost mean something else. And then you find out what it means at the end. So what does that one mean? It's great minds think alike. But then it says, but seldom fools differ. So they're saying,

Great minds think alike, but you could both be idiots. I mean, that's what I say. I love that. That's quite good. I really like that. They had a sense of humour in the 14th century, didn't I?

I wonder when that did come alive. Great minds think. And also, as you said with the sparring thing earlier, it's all a bit like saying something nice and then kind of attacking at the end or like a little twist at the end. We said that before on this blood's thick of the water. We spoke about that and missed me, right?

Bloods thick in the water. But... Blood's thick in the water. People think that saying you should stick with your family over friends, right? Hmm. But the actual phrase is, the blood of the conventant is thicker than the water of the womb, which is the actual opposite.

So actually trust your church more than your family? Yes. Deep. It's the actual opposite. All righty, all right. Bloody out we've got a lot to say today. Isn't it getting spicy? Let's have a break so Jordan can cool the fuck down.

We focus on the part of the internet that most people don't know about. It's called the dark web. Undercover in the furthest corners of the dark web, US special agents are on a mission to locate and rescue children from abuse. Move in now. From the BBC World Service, World of Secrets, the darkest web follows their shocking investigations. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your BBC.

podcast. Welcome back. Everyone's had a little bit of tea, a little bit of time. Let's have another idiom. Let's have another idiom on this episode of ListenBitch, which I'm greatly, greatly enjoying. Hey, Jordan and Makita. It's Francis and I'm based in Plymouth. I really love. Miss me. I have been listening since the start and think you're doing an amazing job, Jordan. Mine is like not necessarily about phrases, like well-known phrases, but more, there's phrases that I thought were well-known phrases that were used in my family that I then weren't as I got older. So, for example, having a fit with your leg up, I would then use that normally with people and they would look at me like I was absolutely insane. And so my question

to you both is, do you have phrases that you thought were well-known phrases that were used with like your friends and your family? And then you went out into the real world and realized that they weren't at all and were completely random. Okay, thanks both. Bye. What was her one? It was you can't have a fit with your leg up. You can't have a fit with your leg up. Having a fit of your leg up, which I'm assuming is firstly we have to clarify that you can't say that anymore.

You can't refer to a seizure as a fit. Quite. The epilepsy community would not be happy with that. But obviously this is a generational thing. I might be wrong here, but I'm assuming it's like you're not really having one if your legs up. Okay, so maybe stop over. Like stop faking it. dramatizing, stop faking it.

That really is problematic. Maybe, is it? I wish she had clarified that, though. I don't know if that's true. Can you search it? Yeah, I'll search it. If that's specific to her family, that is wild. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Leg up. I mean, I've never heard that. I've never heard that. That's so wild. Can you just, as a family, make them up? Cool, we should have done that in Sri Lanka. We can always make up an idiom. Yeah, I think Phoebe would be very good at it.

Okay. No, we don't have one. My mum used to use the word minty a lot for perverts, and then I realised that was quite a family thing. But that's a word, not an idiom. Minty bastard. And then I said it, so I was like, would you mean minty? Yeah, there's loads of words I've had.

Like in Brighton there were words that didn't make sense in London, like Koch or Nause. Excuse me? Yeah. You think you lot own Koch? Come on. Well, this is just the response I got when I went to London. Is that generational thing then?

Please. Please. What is, okay, what did you think clutch was? A place to hang out. To chill, yeah, yeah, yeah, you want to clutch? Yeah, yeah. All right, maybe, Nors, Nors? Yeah, that is a bit more Brighton.

What about roll through? Yeah, yeah. What, I'm on my. Is that normal? Is that just Brighton? Yeah, I used to be part of roll through crew. A roll through crew, okay, yeah, fair enough. These definitely are not, they're really popular ones,

but I remember in my childhood, cat's mother would come up a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, who's she, the cat's mother? That is a weird. one. That is a weird one. Can you look it up, please? Cat's mother. And then the other one is, which is one of my favorites, this is so fucking wild, is you can't teach your grandmother to suck eggs. Yeah, no, that is. That's a really popular historical one, cocky, and it means. Is it just means she got no teeth, right? She'd be the best egg sucker. I think it means.

Yeah, go on. Oh yeah, the grandmother that suck eggs is actually kind of deep. It's, It's to give advice to someone who is more experienced or knowledgeable than you in a particular subject. Right, but why is sucking... Yes. But no, I knew that, Mekita. I knew why they were saying it, but why are they sucking eggs? No, but I don't.

Why is it sucking eggs? Because she got no teeth, so she's really good at it. Oh, really? Is that it? I don't know. I'm making that. I mean, that's my guess. Right. Now you're actually making up. So here we go.

It's actually, Jordan. It referred to the practice of piercing raw eggs and sucking out the contents, a skill older, more experienced people like grandmothers would have mastered. Why? Didn't you ever paint an egg for Easter? I didn't get my grand to suck it out first.

Correct. I just boiled it. You weren't quite living in the idiom for sure. Just boiled it, bro. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't call my nan first. Nan, do you want to come over and suck these eggs? Shall we?

Shall we wipe our hands of this one and have a final question? Let's have a final idiom question, please. Hey gang, this is Georgia calling in from Sydney, Australia, and you all looked mega at the Brits, I have to say. Idioms, what's the funniest idiom that you know? I know that there are so many funny ones, like, it's raining cats and dogs, like who created that? What's some really funny idioms you guys think that, though?

which is so silly. All right. Love y'all. Big kisses. Bye. That's got to be cotany rhyming slang. Cats and Dogs has got to be Courtney rhyming slang. Raining cats and dogs is Courtney.

Is it? What's it for? What's it rhyming with? Cats and Dogs. It's raining what's? What's the rhyme? Yeah. What's the rhyme?

Logs? It's raining cats and dogs. No, I'm going to look it up. I'm looking at up. Can you look it up? Can you look it up? Have you been caused by first? Oh, it's not what I thought it was at all.

That's actually kind of deep. Come on. Come on. The phrase may have originated from 17th century England when heavy rain caused flooded streets to carry away dead animals. Oh my God. Right. Okay.

So actually this city would have been rivers of cats and dogs from the flooding. Yes. Other suggest it stems from mythology. Odin Storm, Dogs slash Cats or the obsolete word, Cata Dupé. which is waterfall. So I don't know. Oh, Nat's also saying

that cats were representative of rain and dogs were representative of wind. In some kind of, it seems like like Norwegian folklore or Scandy folklore. Nordic culture. Yeah, Nordic folklore.

I mean, have we met? This is like where I get my kicks. Nordic folklore. Yeah, mad. Matt. I'm like, I had a really good time today. So if you had a good time today, not only we could do colloquial lives,

We could even just do etymology. Yeah, no, I wanted to do etymology, and Dino said no once. Wow, peak. It wasn't a good day for us. Well, etymology would be cool because, again, we say words and just don't eat. Like, where... Definitely. But I think what we should do is bank those and do frenemies, and then come back with some of those later.

Frenemies. Or chicken, or chicken. What? Frenomies or chicken. Are you all right? What's happening? Yeah, I'm good. I'm really, really focused.

Those are the two listen bitch options is frenemies or chicken. They're both on the list. Can we do frenemies? Okay, frenemies. We'll do chicken another time. Frenemies, it is. Next week's listen bitch is... Frenemes.

Contact 08,000, 30, 40, 90. You should have it saved in your phone under Miss Me. Come on, don't be silly. It's on WhatsApp. Leave a voice note. See ya. It's a frenemie. What's that cool when two words come together to make a word?

You know, like Brangelinea. Hortmando. That's what it's called. We will see you next week for Listen, bitch. Bye, Jonathan. Bye. Thanks for listening to Miss Me. This is a Persefonica production for BBC Sounds.

Hi, I'm Graham Norton. And I'm Maria McCurlaine. And we're back to dish out our average advice and so-so solutions to your everyday dilemmas in a brand-new podcast called Wanging On. with Graham and Maria. Dear Graham and Maria, I've been happily married for 30 years, but my wife has just started to smell.

Who's going to tell him? We're still not experts. On anything, really, but we are here to help. Oh, it's good to be back, isn't it? It is good to be back. Look out for wanging on with Graham and Maria. Maria, isn't it is, Maria? Yes, yes, with an A.

It's in the title. Listen now on BBC Sounds. We focus on the part of the... of the internet that most people don't know about, it's called the dark web. Undercover in the furthest corners of the dark web, U.S. Special Agents are on a mission to locate and rescue children from abuse. Move in now. From the BBC World Service, World of Secrets, the darkest web follows their shocking investigations.

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get to your BBC podcasts. I mean,