Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Best of 2021: Part 2

Episode Date: December 30, 2021

It’s part two of our huge best of bonanza. We’ll be back for a new series in 2022. Happy new year! Recorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive.Artwork by Paul Gilbey (photography and design) and Amy Browne (illustrations).Follow Off Menu on Twitter and Instagram: @offmenuofficial.And go to our website www.offmenupodcast.co.uk for a list of restaurants recommended on the show.Watch Ed and James's YouTube series 'Just Puddings'. Watch here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, listeners of the Off Menu podcast. It is Ed Gamble here from the Off Menu podcast. I have a very exciting announcement. I have written my first ever book. I am absolutely over the moon to announce this. I'm very, very proud of it. Of course, what else could I write a book about? But food. My book is all about food. My life in food. How greedy I am. What a greedy little boy I was. What a greedy adult I am. I think it's very funny. I'm very proud of it. The book is called Glutton, the multi-course life of a very greedy boy. And it's coming out this October, but it is available to pre-order now, wherever you pre-order books from. And if you like my signature, I've done some signed copies,

which are exclusively available from Waterstones. But go and pre-order your copy of Glutton, the multi-course life of a very greedy boy, now. Please? Welcome back, everyone, to the Off Menu best of 2021 episode. This is part two. Man, this is exciting. Part one was so great. I'm looking at the list of stuff we've got to play you in part two. I'm so proud of our podcast, Ed. What an absolute load of nonsense it is. It truly is a big, old pile of rubbish, and we're very excited to bring you the choice bits of that rubbish. Right now, on this episode, it's the only episode James ever listens to. I'm very excited for him to hear all of this stuff for the first time, because there's

some pretty incredible clips in here. Let's kick off, as we always do in the Off Menu restaurant, with Water, James, a couple of water clips for you. Always ask the guests still of sparkling water to start off their meals. And two guests had very strong opinions. I'm talking, of course, about Big Zoo and Juliette Nougat. We always start the podcast with still of sparkling water, Big Zoo. I definitely still. I definitely used to hate sparkling, but now I can appreciate the goodness behind it. But now, still all the way. You know what I like? I like the Turkish water in the Bossman shop. You know the one in the shop that's looking like... It's not one

of the big boys. It's not Volvic. It's not Evyan. No them lot. And there you go. You know the pH level is just there. So is that based on taste? You know that the random water from the Turkish shop, is that based on taste or is that like, because you know you're drinking like underground water. You're not drinking the same water as everyone else. You're not drinking that main... You're not drinking from the mainstream. I'm basically a hipster, ain't it? A hipster of water. Nah. It's more time. I can't lie. I do love Volvic, yeah. But more time for the people then, for the... It's just the pH. I don't know what it is. It just tastes cleaner. I don't know what it is. I think the big boys,

people tell me Evyan has the best pH balance, whatever, all that stuff. I think the Turkish Bossman water, if you don't know what I'm talking about, trust me. Oh Nestle. Nestle got a big boy water. That's what I got right here, but I took off the tank. But this one, see the bottle is shaped like this. It's very flimsy. Yeah. That's goat water. You would like Turkish Bossman water, though? Yeah, that's what you would like. I like that you went from sort of like an obscure Turkish Bossman water, the one where you don't really know what the name is, either that or Nestle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but you know what? They're not really that known for water, ain't they? Let's be real. They're not picking the water game. So that's why I kind of

still respect them more than... Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Volvic, Evyan, X, Y, Z, like all of that. It's like saying, you don't like Keanu Reeves' films. You just like his grunge band. Yeah. The thing is with Nestle water, I've seen Nestle water on the shelves before. And I've just thought, no, I can't even imagine it, because I'd look at it and go, this seems like it would be creamy. What do you mean? You're looking at it and go, that's not going to be proper water. That's going to taste a Kit Kat. Yeah, weird, creamy. I don't want that. I much rather have Turkish Bossman water than Nestle water. Listen, yeah, after Turkish Bossman water, it's definitely the Nestle water. Then we go Volvic, yeah? Nestle water over Volvic every day.

Trust me. How do you get into Nestle water? How did you cross that barrier in your mind of thinking this is going to taste like a Yorkie? Boom. So my friend loves water. Doesn't drink other things. He only drinks like a Sprite once in a while. Is that Tubsy? No, not Tubsy, Hyda. I'm saying my friend, but you know them. You know them. I don't know what's going on. Any of our listeners haven't seen Big Zoo's Big Eats before? Yes. Big Zoo is joined by his friend Tubsy and Hyda. Yes, that I went second in school with my little mates. Hyda is a big complainer and his family installed a tap. That's a purified tap. So you know, some people just have tap water. Some people put the tap water in the fridge.

Some people have like a Brita filter, you know, with the jug. This guy installed a tap just for filtered water, like in the house. I don't know how much it costs, but it's like a fountain of heaven. You go to the house and I swear down, I go to the house with empty bottles just to get that water because it's like the perfect pH. Obviously the guy that sold it to them spun their brain, gave them like a lot of pH testers to like show them how the water is basically shit. Yeah. So he would like make us go to the house, drink his water, test the pH, then drink like a Volvic, an Evian, then a Nestle and be like, see, see what, see what, see what I'm just talking about. He was basically trying to get us all to install these water things.

I felt like he's getting a commission or something because he's all he was talking about for like a year. He's just telling us how his life's changing. Still sparked in water, Julie. Stupid question. Still. Next question. Why did you not even add this in? What was the point of this bit? I fucking hate it. Who wants sparkling water? Sparkling water is an example of how human beings have ruined the earth. Yeah. Because there's so many things that just naturally exist. Yeah. And for some reason we were just like, no, we're going to do extra things to supernatural normal shit. And someone said, let's make water bubbly. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of in my life.

It should be illegal. Next question. So is the whole of your menu and everything you eat, is that, do you only eat things that naturally occur without any man-made interference? That's a brilliant question, Ed. The answer is no. No, but I think water is the purest thing that exists on the planet. Why would you change it? What person was so bored that they thought, I'm going to change water? It's like the fucking basis of all things. And they said, I don't like it. It's arrogant, actually, if you ask me. It's arrogant. Fuck sparkling water. Thanks, Julie. I mean, that episode, me and Julie had a tension about custard later on. I loved it. Head to head, the two of you. I was there just goading it on the whole time.

You love it when other people argue with me, don't you? Really enjoy. It doesn't happen enough, actually, in my opinion. But look, speaking of cold drinks, if iced tea is ever picked, we always ask one question, Ed. You know that, right? And the people who picked iced tea recently, Todd Barry and Jeff Rosenstock. Let's hear from them now. I don't think you guys do this in where you're from is iced tea. Yes, we're familiar with iced tea. We do have iced tea, but not to the extent that you do iced tea over here. Yes. Are we talking like sweet tea? I've seen people have sweet tea. Sweet tea is, which is crazy. It's unbelievably sweet. Sometimes you can do a half and half.

Yeah. You just give me a little bit of both of those. I mean, sweet tea is delicious, but it's also like you feel guilty as you're drinking it. Sure. But with this meal, but with a bunch of lemon, oh yeah. Maybe I have carbs anyway. I'm going to have like a moderately sweet iced tea. I sound like the most boring guy in the world, but iced tea. I mean, eight beers, I'll have eight beers. What flavor would you like the iced tea? What flavor? Yeah. Is it like lemon or peach or something? Oh, you know, I once got a pedicure in Dallas. You know what, Todd, I was not expecting that. No. But I remember that it was standing at a fancy hotel and I was working with someone else and they had, they gave us

a hundred dollar credit at this fancy hotel. So I said, I'm going to fucking go get a pedicure. And I just remember the nice woman giving me, talking to me, giving me my pedicure. She goes, you want some peach iced tea? I was like, yes, I do. It was fucking delicious. But the peaches, I don't eat. That's the weird part. Yeah, it peaches, but you haven't eaten one. Peach iced tea, it was phenomenal. Would you like the pedicure peach iced tea? Yeah, we can give you that at this dream meal, the pedicure peach iced tea. I think, I don't know if I'd want the peach flavor overpowering those spicy fries I just ordered. So I'm going to say a regular, like a black tea, whatever standard Southern style, half

unsweetened, half sweet with a few lemons, maybe even a lime. Maybe even put a lime in there with the lemons. I just, I just, I just made a game time decision about that. So now I'm imagining you as a character in Tequila Mockingbird or something. Oh really? Sitting on a porch drinking your iced tea. Having a pedicure. Eating Japanese curry. Classic, that classic chapter. That'd be good. What about, where do you stand on an Arnold Palmer? Oh, those are good. Think about Arnold Palmer's though, is like, I can drink one in like two seconds. It just goes down. So it's great. But then you just feel like, oh, do I get another one?

Then you're like, oh, it's all that sugar. Because is that, is that lemonade and iced tea? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Very sweet. Yeah. I like them. They're really good. Yeah. Yeah. But you are like, they go down very easily. Yeah. I mean, depending on the hot, the heat, the temperature of the, the weather. The temperature of the weather. Not the temperature of the iced tea. How often do you drink iced tea? You know, it's interesting. Right. I just realized it's not interesting. I remember doing an interview about food and I was like, it was years ago about like, well, I love going to a coffee shop. I love iced tea. And then I realized, I don't order iced tea. I order coffee 99% of the time. I go, oh, iced tea is good.

Instead of a second coffee, like in the morning, you have a coffee in the afternoon. I don't know. The second cup is fine, but it does not even nearly as insane, but a nice iced fucking tea. Oh my God. Do you think iced tea drinks iced tea? I have an iced tea story, if you want. I did his podcast. Right. I got my, I had a publicist at the time. She's like, iced tea wants you on his podcast. I was like, really? Okay. And so then I, I booked it and I took a bus to his house and went inside his house and he's very nice. But I could tell he's like, he was like, what's your last name again? I was like, okay. I know he had like a 25-year-old comedy nerd, I think, booking it. So he's like, he's asking for all his favorites,

but he was really nice. But I remember he, he, this is an ice, it's kind of surreal, like I'm taking a bus to iced tea's actual house and cocoa's there. And, but he, he asked me if I want someone to drink and he gave me a glass of ice water and I was like, only shit, iced tea, just gave me ice water. It's one of the most surreal experiences in my career of show business. Crushed ice? No, he had cubes, I believe. What was iced tea's podcast? It was a lot about hip hop and rap. And I, you know, he had guests on who would just kind of meander in. Oh, right. Okay. And I just felt like they would be talking about rap. And I'd be like, I don't want to chime in. But I feel like I'm not saying anything. But I remember one point,

he's like, I get you, I get you. But he was nice. So now what you want really, because now that iced tea's giving you some ice cubes, you need ice cube to give you an iced tea. Oh my God. That's, that's false. That's, that would be just complete this. Because I bet, I bet no one's had that. No one's had both experiences. Yeah. I mean, I've actually been able to get both. See, now you make me feel inadequate because I was all excited. I was pretty satisfied with the ice water from iced tea. But where does vanilla ice stand in all this? Oh, yeah. I got a vanilla ice story as well. Excellent. There's not much of a story, but I was on a plane sitting in coach going to Fort Lauderdale,

Florida. And this guy gets on. I was like, sits in coach a few rows behind me and just sits down, puts his hat over his head and falls asleep. I was like, oh, what's that fucking guy? I think that's vanilla ice. So then I look at my phone and like, he was just in town. I was like, holy shit, I'm going to fly with. So then we ended up, we landed in Fort Lauderdale and we ended up washing our hands next to each other. And he, I just remembered that he washes his hands like he's about to do surgery. I was like, all right, good for you. Cause I'm kind of a hand washers. Like, all right, you scrubbed those hands, man. But I thought his goalie flew coach and he just flying by himself and I didn't chat him up. I think someone, I think I saw someone

ask for a picture, but I left him alone. You left him alone. You used to mind the hand washing. I was just like, oh, this is a good story right here. I mean, maybe it isn't, but it's a life experience. I think it's good that you shared that moment with him. Yeah. Yeah, that was that. I think that, that made it, took it to the next level. Now, if I ever meet ice, no, vanilla ice, excuse me, I'll be very comfortable shaking his hand cause I know he's clean. Yeah, very clean. But maybe that's why maybe he met a fan and he just hates his fans. So that's why he's washing Oh, that could be it. Yeah, that could be it. I do that kind of right when I get off stage or after I do like a meet and greet situation. Yeah. Sanitizing the first, where's the first sink?

Are you a bit of a germaphobe? I am. I mean, there's a bit of mine. I'm sure you love, but about how I'm a lazy germaphobe, but cause I don't really clean my floors, but I wash my hands 800 times steps. I'm familiar with that. But actually, thank you for doing it live. What's the weather like? Poring rain. Nice. Just warm little breeze, a little breeze going on. You don't need a jacket or anything like that. It's sunny, but it's not, not too in your eyes or anything like that. You know, just exactly what you want. Great, like iced tea weather. Oh, yeah. Whenever anyone brings surprise tea, we always ask them, first of all, have you met iced tea, the rapper? Yes. Yes. Now, here's what's been really

interesting. Here's what's been really interesting. Every time someone brings surprise iced tea, we ask them, have you met iced tea? And the answer is always yes. He's a cool guy, I guess. Why did you make it? My wife was a publicist assistant a long time ago in New York. This is like 2006 and the body count was one of their clients and her job one day, basically, because I wanted to go to the body count show that she worked on a Saturday, just going around with iced tea to like all of his interviews and stuff like that. Then we went to the show and I met him for like a second and then we were up in the, it was at this venue in New York, the knitting factory, the old one. And they have this like mezzanine where guests like of the band can sit and watch the

show and stuff. So all body counts, girlfriends were there, iced tea's wife, Coco was there. So somebody is sitting in Coco's seat and Coco comes up. It's like, hey, I'm sorry. These are like, you know, bands, like wives and girlfriends, partners and stuff sitting here and you're sitting in my seat and this like drunkard frappe bar was like, fuck it, whatever. I'm sitting in his office seat and I'm sitting in his seat. So go fuck it. She's like, no, come on. Look, you should really get up. It's not your seat. And he's like, you fuck, okay. And then iced tea, like this is in my memory, which is probably heightened. Fucking iced tea, like comes through the green room doors, like, who's sitting in my wife's

seat? Oh, sorry. I said, get the fuck out of here. Get the fuck out of here. And then he's like, I'm sorry. Get the fuck out of here. And then he was kicked out of the show. Always worth asking people about iced tea. Coco tried so hard. I get it. We're all having a good time. You're like sitting in my seat, but he's just, you know, drunk and dipshit about it. My husband iced tea is going to be here soon. We also ask, second question we also ask is, do you think that iced tea would drink iced tea? Yeah, it's great. It's not too sweet. It's not, but it's not just water. It's got a little kiss of caffeine in it going through the day or not up to you. I feel like if iced tea didn't like

iced tea, that would be the sort of fact he'd bring out at a really boring dinner party. Well, of course, the interesting thing about me is I don't even like iced tea. Go, go, go. No, stop saying that. That's what iced tea is talking about. Why are you telling that guy that story? What about those things that you do? What about when you release cop killer? I don't even like iced tea. Well, hey Ed, did either of those iced tea stories end up in the tabloids? They didn't, but occasionally, James, things do end up in the tabloids from this podcast. Bafflingly. I mean, what the hell? They pick up some really weird stuff from the podcast,

and then they run with it and then don't mention where the interview was. So, not only do I guess not trust us anymore, we also get no publicity from it. Yeah. I mean, it's not written on here, but there was a point where I was in the gym, so what? And loose women was on. What were you working on? What were you working on? Toes. Miriam Margolies was on loose women, and she was sitting there over Zoom eating a raw onion, and they were like, and they said to her, hello Miriam, what are you eating there? She said a raw onion, because I heard that you don't believe that I eat raw onions.

And they said, yes, we heard you in an interview recently say that you eat raw onions, and we didn't believe it. And I was there going, go on then, say where you heard it. And they didn't say it, and I was like, I cannot believe this. That would have really spurred you on to lift some pretty big weights with the toes. You've probably got a PB. Oh, I did absolutely beef my toes up. Also, the whole interview I was watching the TV really wanting her lodger to walk in and throw a sandwich at her. But it didn't happen. But that is not in this little clips package, because I mean, quite frankly, this whole episode could just be Miriam Margolies again. Here are some of the

stranger tales the tabloids ran with from Sue Perkins, Martin Freeman, and Timothy Spall. These were actual news stories. Would you ever, ever in your life, get into a jacuzzi? Oh, forget it. But for different reasons. So for me, it's not that it's going to leech calcium from my bones, but a slick of somebody else's bodily fluids. I once got into a hot tub with a shaman at about five AM. He said he was a shaman. He was called John, and he was wearing a grass skirt. And he basically said he wanted to perform a ritual and ritual, which was a cleansing ritual involved blowing raspberry vodka at my asshole. And I went with it because I'm very open and I don't wish to be in any way demeaning to other people's beliefs. And I since then, I have a very

deeper version to getting into a hot, bubbling sort of arena with anybody, particularly someone in a grass skirt. So I'm going to put it out there. I don't think that was the hot tub's fault. That story took quite a few turns. And at no point did I think it's the hot tub's issue here. This is, for somebody who sort of looks quite square and nerdy like I do, I often sort of find myself, it's not an unusual situation that I would be in a hot tub with a shaman because I just accept and go with. I live my whole life like it's an improvised country. Yeah. I mean, for me, yes, and would stop raspberry vodka up the arsehole. No, it's yes and and it's never no buts. It's always yes and.

It's yes but. Yes and oh. But it was a very, it was a very intense experience, I will say. It was very well aimed and unforgettable. I tell you the experience of listening to it. Yeah. The experience of listening to you telling it. Here's my experience. I was there and at the beginning of it, I was like, right, at some point during this anecdote, I'm going to have to interrupt Sue and shout poppadobs or breads because we've got to get on to that next section. Listening to it, listening to it, listening to it and then going, it's the only time on this podcast, the whole time we've done it, I've gone, actually, I'm not going to shout poppadobs or breads. I'll just ask more questions about this because this is ridiculous. Now, it's the kind

of story where you don't want to, you almost don't want to ruin it by asking too many questions because the bullet points alone are funny. It leaves a lot to the imagination. But I think, I guess what I really want to know is how John the Shaman phrased, phrased to you this proposition and made it sound like it was a ritual when it clearly isn't. Is that really the question you want to ask the most? Well, I guess there are other questions I would like to ask. It's a complex buffet, isn't it? I hadn't realised how complicated it was until I said it out loud. Imagine being in the thing, you've been in the hot tub and John the Shaman in any way

making this sound legit to suit and being able to say, Joe, there's no way in the hot tub, there's a really great ritual we can do. And I've got some rars before, which is very convenient. Do you have an arsehole? If you had to combine them, we could do the ritual that I like. This was at Mate's house. There was a collection of really good eggs, quite esoteric, quite, the Shaman didn't stand out. It was a sort of cabal of quite out there people and I was really into it. And the hot tub came after a lot of vodka and it's like, oh, let's just all settle down and get in the hot tub. It was then he said, and I, oh, he said, you know, I can sense you, I can sense you're unresolved. Everybody in the world is unresolved, but they always get you

with that, sense you're unresolved. And I said, yes, really hammered at this point. Yes, John. I am unresolved. He said, there's two things I can do in this situation. But I, and he genuinely said, but I don't have my eagle feather with me. That's what I just said. In many ways, I'm dodged a bullet. That's all I can say. I feel, although had I been on dry land, had the Eagles feather, this could be a, it could be the sort of anecdote that I would never say out loud. We don't know. But he said, I haven't got the Eagles feather with me, but we can do a cleansing. And I think the raspberry vodka was the nearest for it just needed to be a spirit. And that, so he didn't, I didn't feel needed to challenge the nature of the alcohol.

So it wasn't the, it wasn't the raspberry flavor was not key to the I didn't even challenge the asshole either. It's awful. I didn't even try. I just was like, Oh, I've had a few. You know, I was a bit younger, you know, I was, you know, I was better put together. I was like, yeah, look at it, everyone. And it was just bang. And it was like an explosion from his mouth. It was like a real, and you know, I, yes, there wasn't awakening. So in many ways, he achieved the desired effect, which was, I was not unresolved anymore. I was very resolved. And I was very resolved to never be in a foaming hot tub ever again. This is the first time on off menu that when we ask you for each course, we're going to have to

ask you which end you want to consume it through. Yes. I want it blown readily, please. A high tensile. I don't know what kind of mechanism. It needs to be in a soda siphon and then delivered. Yeah. I hate to ask more questions about this. I'm really sorry that I've got more questions. I wish I didn't. But like, I'm just thinking about the listener here. That's who you're blowing your nose by the way. Yeah, just so you know. I think the listener will be, because I was listening to that story and you're like, okay, yeah, and then this happened. And I mean, this is going to sound too graphic a question, but I'm wondering if John the Shaman had a straw or something that he was blowing.

Just before, thanks for asking this, mate. Yeah. Because obviously I wanted to as well, but I'm glad you were the one doing it. Yeah. Listen, I mean, if he'd not got his eagle feather but had brought a straw, sort of weird in a way, that's intent. Straight from the mouth. Oh, man. So it was like. Oh God. Yeah. So it was like, it was sort of like a massive slurp and then like that. And it was a shower, which subsequently I've had done a couple of times, admittedly, not rectally and admittedly clothed with camera crews and like, you know, fairly feeling a bit safer on dry land. Sure.

Yeah. Just a big, like a really high pressure to spit. Yes. It's conundrum, isn't it? Now I've unveiled it. It's a conundrum because like, I mean, I want to know what he's up to now, if you've kept your touch, if you know what he's doing. We didn't keep in touch. No. He was an absolutely charming man. I think possibly still shamanizing on the West Coast. Possibly storming the Capitol building. We don't know. It could have been one or two ways. I thought he had his eagle feather then. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's Derugur. Derugur. Yeah.

So, yeah, I don't know how we got into that. We just asked you if you like hot tubs because you don't like bubbles. Yeah. And I did not expect it to go that way. No. It's intriguing that you won't drink fizzy water because you think it's bad for you, but you'll let a man called John Blow raspberry vodka up your arse. What can I say? You know, we're all made up of contradictions. You contain multitudes, so, yeah. Have you seen the Jim Carrey documentary about him making man on the moon?

Oh, yeah. And all I could think when I was watching that is just imagining anyone else working on that film, just like, oh, fucking Ellie's coming in again. You can see their faces as well. You know, when he comes on the makeup bus and there's proper grown-up actors just going, oh, Christ. Not only doing this, he's brought a fucking camera with him and music. For me, and I'm genuinely sure Jim Carrey is a lovely and smart person, but it was the most self-aggrandizing, selfish, fucking, narcissistic bollocks I've ever seen. And the idea that anything in our culture would celebrate that or support it is deranged.

I mean, it's literally deranged, I think. You know, I am a very lapsed Catholic, but the idea is, it's like, if you believe in transubstantiation, right, then you're going somewhere along the line, I lost my, I became the character. No, you didn't. You're not supposed to become the fucking character because you're supposed to be open to stuff that happens in real life, you know, because at some point someone's going to say cut and it's no good going, what does cut mean? Because I'm Napoleon. It's not for the show. You know, you need to keep grounded, I think, in reality. And that's not to say that you don't lose yourself at the time between action and cut, but I think the rest of it is absolute

pretentious nonsense. And I think it's highly amateurish. It's essentially an amateurish notion because it's not, you know what I mean? Like, it's not, for me, it's not a professional attitude, you know, get the job done, man. Fucking do your work, you know. He should have got fired. He's totally got fired. Can you imagine if he had been anybody else under the line? I mean, he would have been sectioned, never let alone fired. He would have been got rid of, you know. If it was one of the cameraman sort of getting into the character of a really famous cameraman. My hero always filmed with his trousers and pants off, so can you just leave

me to my process, please? Yeah, so now, I think it is that, yeah, it's partly that it's the ridiculous leeway that is given to some people. And of course, you know, I'm one of them, you know, like we all get cushy gigs and we all, you know, to a certain degree or another, we're all very fortunate in that we get a little pass in some situations where other people wouldn't. I understand that, but Christ, I mean, there's such a thing as pushing it. I just think when you are challenging, and that's what that Jim Carrey thing looks like to me, at the very, very end, he does or says something that is sort of pertaining to his Christ-like self grandeur. And he does or says

something that makes me think at the very last second, is all this a wind-up? Is this a joke? Because he is clearly a very funny person. He knows absolutely where funny is all the time. But you sort of think, oh, God, is he lost himself in this delusion of thinking he's a guru or a fakir? And because a fair few people do, you know, a fair few people do once you get to the top of the mountain. And, you know, what are you going to do then? You know, because what else gives your life meaning? Because essentially, you could argue what we do is it's yes, it's not curing diseases or whatever. But I still think it has a nobility to it. And it's reasonably important. But if it's not, then you've got to go with it. You know, Jim, you should have paid more attention at school

if you wanted to do something more important. You know, I hope he was joking. Oh, yeah, we all hope he was joking. Although, just keep him everything that we've said in mind. Welcome to the podcast where one of us pretends to be a genie for the whole thing. James does lose himself in the genie role. Yeah, that's your saving grace, I think, that as long as you don't go too far in to the genie role, then I will still have respect for you. If you really start thinking you're a genie for this hour, I'm going to think, no, I didn't I didn't like that. So you just see him slowly pushing a sort of pot of blue paint out of the way, going, no, don't worry, I'll be absolutely fine.

What are you drinking there, out of your glass mug? A cup of my favorite tea, which is Yorkshire and Earl Grey. So a little bit of the old builder in me and also the layers of sophistication has happened to me ever since I've become an actor of the parish from many, many years ago. It's a mix of teas? Well, yeah, two bags, just stick them in. Always that's what we do. We get in the morning, two Yorkshire or whatever the equivalent builders is, and then a bag of Earl Grey, let it become so strong that you can stand a spoon up in it, and then it's ready to go. I've never met anyone who's double-bagged it, let alone cross-bagged, cross the bags. I'll cross-fertilize in your tea. Yeah, well, then it's what I see. You're getting your old-fashioned

transport calf tea, a basic tea that I was sort of brought up on, and then the poncy kind of tea that one is introduced to the life and sophistication of a strolling player. Do you feel like if you ever let the Yorkshire tea go, then you've sort of lost something, you've abandoned your past? Well, I think I'd lose it because it's good, isn't it? Yeah, I think I would find myself entering into this sort of health-shoot phase and then only ignoring all that, the great stuff, the deep-fried bread and the deep-fried shit of my youth, and all them wonderful carcinogenic meals that were dished up and enjoyed, and still do want to go. Still love them. Why not? There's a mixture, so I still have a little bit of that, and I'll go into the sophistication as well,

or the poncy, whatever you want to say, however you want to couch it. There we are. I mean, incredible that as a journalist, you could listen to those and go, more people need to hear about this. Yeah, also, I mean, a lot of those occur at the very beginning of the episode. I think what the old tabloid journals do, they clearly just listen to the beginning of the episodes and then run with that, which is mad because if they listen to what Timothy Spool actually said later on in his episode, which we've already covered in part one of this catch-up about him being a little skinhead boy, hypercontract, thinking that he was going to turn into a cactus, and that his bum was going to be put on his nose, and then he got

bought in front of a whole university lecture theater, and they were all laughing at him because he was a little hypercontract skinhead boy who thought he was going to turn into a cactus. That's a news story. That's a proper news story. But it is weird to double-bag your tea. It is weird. Yeah. Well, speaking of weird, Ed, this is proper weird. We've had a lot of weird moments on this podcast, haven't we? Yes. That's it very much. For some reason, it brings it out of people, and we've got a little package that highlights that now from Munya Chihuahua, Asim Chowdhury, Julie Adanuga, Nicola Cochlan, Chapparat Korsandi, Joel Kimbooster, Donal Gleeson, and Mary Lynn Ricecarb. Let's hear from those guys. What a bunch of weirdos.

Okay. When I was at school in Zimbabwe, we used to play with Pokemon cards. But then one day, somebody came into school and said that this kid had burnt down their parents' house because of a Pokemoner told him to do it. So we were all then told that the Pokemons are demonic, so we had to all throw our cards in the bin, like our teachers made us throw our cards in the bin. So anyway, the next day, someone came in and they had my card. It goes okay. Every single, this is the first time I've ever spoke to you, and every single story has a throwaway detail, which could be a film in itself. Just to get to why I was a marble champion, a kid in my class burnt down his house because a Pokemon told

him to do it, and we weren't allowed to play Pokemon anymore, and because they were demonic. Anyway, I keep putting everything you say, I'm like, well, I'll put a pin in that, and we'll have to come back to it. Basically, this whole conversation is just pins that I've not gone back to. But anyway, so one day, the next day, someone came in and they just had marbles, and they were like, we're going to start playing marbles. Here's how you play. You've got different, it's a move at a time, and your job is to hit the other person's marble. So you can do a high bummer, which is when you throw it over the shoulder, you can do a rollie where you roll across the floor. So we started to build up this community of marbles, and there was different

values. You had the Colgate, which is the one where it's three stripes inside, and then you had the Demon Eye and the Dolphin Eye. The Demon Eye? That is come on, guys. My mum actually banned me from having that in the house, but I actually convinced her to allow me to keep it because I had another one called an Angel Eye. So I said to her, it will balance out. Anyway, you as a kid managed to convince a grown woman that that was fine. Mum, I know you've confiscated my Demon Eye marble, but I also have the Angel Eye. Therefore, it balances out, and I won't get a help. Here's your marble back. Yeah, yeah. She said it wasn't like a hard stance. She wasn't like throw it out. She just said, I don't know how I feel about having the Demon Eye in the house. And I went,

mum, it's fine because I've got an Angel Eye. Anyway, listen to my point because basically, you win these marbles by rolling them and whatnot, but what I learned is when people are really arguing over marbles during the position of marble, you could actually start to just pinch their marble from under their feet whatnot because they usually keep it between their legs and then roll it. So I would go around collecting these really high value Dolphin Eye Angel Eye. I would steal them, and I actually got to the point of I had, and I only have 10 with me now because I wasn't able to bring all of them, but at home in Zimbabwe, I have 668 marbles. All stolen. Some that I have won, some that I have stolen. Now, money, I just, that is what we would call burying the lead,

that story. That story took so long to get to the fact you've got a lot of marbles, and along the way, there were lots of things that should be stories in their own right. Also, it started off with you saying I was a marble champion, and the reveal is you weren't, you stole those of marbles off of a little kid. You weren't a marble champion. I was a champion marble stealer. Yeah, you stole the other kid's marbles, but from what I can gather, you didn't play a single game of marbles. You just stole them off the other kids and then convinced your mum it was okay to keep them because one of them was an angel. You know, I was good sometimes. I'm going to need to know more about the Pokémon Arsonist

as well. What Pokémon was it that told them to burn the building down? It must have been the Fire Pokémon. Probably Charizard. Yeah, Charizard, yeah, yeah. But I don't even know, they just said, look, the Pokémon cards whispered to him to, you know, to burn the house. Look, it's very easy to access fire and some barbed wire. Even me, I actually burned down my neighbour's garden by mistake once. Here we go. Okay, well, again, there we go. Okay, no, no, I'm just kidding. I'm going to give you the short version because you don't push for time, but anyway, my garden story very quickly is, in Zimbabwe, your garden, it's not like an English garden where it's a nice, you know, neat lawn. The grass is very long, you know, high grass. And a lot of the

time there's no, there's no wall around your house. Your garden just goes on forever. So people decide whose garden is which. Anyway, you know, you don't have a lawn mower that can reach that far down the garden because we're talking acres and acres. So I really fancied my neighbour's mum and she said to us one day, she said, look, this grass is really, it's untamed. You know, what can we do? And my, I had a cousin called Mike who would visit every summer holidays, like most, you know, most people, but he always would get us into trouble. And he said to me, we can burn the grass in a controlled fire. Anyway, what happened is we set light to the grass and then obviously, it just all went up in an absolute rage of flames and continue to spread through everyone's gardens.

And then we just had to lie to my dad and say, you know, we don't know what happened. But, you know, she didn't have any grass left. It was all black. Yeah. And which Pokemon told Mike to do this? Yeah. But, you know, we generally thought that we could stop, we could just, you know, curb the fire when we felt it was right, but it just got away from us. It happened. Yes. Because as he said, we were going to burn the grass with a controlled fire. I think that is a thing you can do, but I don't think you then just throw a match at some grass. I think you have to do things beforehand to make sure it stops burning at a point.

Yeah. I know that now. I was just a kid at the time. I was not to know, you know. And for what I gather, it's because you fancied this lady. You fancied your friend's mom and you wanted to cut the grass so that she would maybe see you as a potential suitor. Just so that she would, just to get a point, yeah, just point scoring and being like, look, I can do macho things, even though, you know. Well, you did the most macho thing you burnt down all the garden. I'm quite an obsessive man, right? And when I get into something, I really geek out on it. And I was really, for some reason, I was really obsessed with that come down with me episode.

You know, the guy who's like, dear Lord, what a sad little life. You have all the grace over reversing dump truck that go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I'm not wearing boxes, but I'll show you in a minute. But yeah, sorry. No, no. But that sounded weird. But yeah. So I was really obsessed with like to a point where I knew I knew it was, I know I am wearing boxes. Sorry. I meant I'm only wearing boxes. And then I said, I'll show you in a minute. That's so creepy. But I'm sorry, guys. No, no, I am just only wearing boxes. I was about to stand up and show you something. Okay. I thought you were going to be our first guest to be Winnie the Poe in it during the record.

How's that? You're good. He got his dick out in the first five minutes. We're talking like come down with me. Yes. Anyway, I was really obsessed with that whole moment. And I don't know why like, and I know it was already, I knew about it before, but I really, really got into it. And then I was like, analyzing it. And I did like a YouTube breakdown video. And this was during lockdown as well. So I was like, I've started a vlog that I like quit after three apps. And I started a podcast that I quit. I started doing Twitch streaming that I fucking could be bothered with. I'm like that. Like I get into something that I just give up.

Anyway, so before this, I was on holiday before lockdown. And I was in the jacuzzi and I sprained my ankle. So basically for two days, I was just inside the hotel. And I just obviously was watching stuff. And then I, then I was on Photoshop and I just made a design of the come down with me guy, his face, and then the other people in the background. And it says like, you know, enjoy the money, Jane, or something like that. Oh, no, no, no, sorry. It says, I can't remember. It's enjoy the money, Jane. And it was just a really cool design. And I put it on Twitter, like as a joke, I was like, bored as fuck, wherever. And it went viral. And everyone was like, okay, where can we buy this? And I went, no, no, no, I'm not,

I don't sell t-shirts. Like I'm an actor. I don't, that's not my profession. I'm not in the fashion industry. But I had to make them. So I got them designed. And, you know, they went, they went mental. And then it then became this whole thing where like the actual Jane from the episode, she wanted one and she got into my DMs and she started like basically having a go at me being like, you got it all wrong. Because I analyzed it so deeply that I actually realized that Peter, the guy, the dear Lord guy, he was actually the victim. Really? 100% like. So for people who don't know about this moment, come down with me. It's when at the end, Jane has won and Peter, whose house the last episode was in, fought, he got it in the

bag, didn't, and he takes it very badly, doesn't he? Yeah, he's reading the results. He gets out the paper and he says, and in fourth place, it's me. And then he looks, he scrolls up and he sees that Jane's won. And then he goes, congratulations, Jane. You've won. And then it just starts the most. It's just the way he delivers it as well. They're kind of, dear Lord, what a sad little life. And then, you know, you have all the grace and decorum of a reversing dump truck without any tires on. It's so good. It's poetry. Like how the fuck can you come up with that? So anyway, I became obsessed with that. I made the t-shirts, they went viral. I even, okay, now I'm going to stand up. Hold on, let me pull my box. Here we go. Here it comes. And then during the vlog

thing I did, I even got my girlfriend to do a painting of... It's a brilliant painting. That's exactly like it. That's something that she made his eye and his eye red. Like some terminator kind of dude. So anyway, I had a really weird obsession with it, but then it came full circle. Like I said, when Jane from the actual episode attacked me, you came in my DMs, you don't know anything. He was a fucking nightmare. You don't know. And then we became friends and then I sent her a t-shirt. And then I've got a picture of the actual Jane wearing the t-shirt and then the voiceover guy won it one. So then I became full circle and now I'm over it. Now I'm done with it. You say that you get into stuff and then you give it up. It sounds like that ended

appropriately, right? You followed that through as far as you possibly could. I think so. Yeah, I'm very, I'm content with it now. Like I'm done with it. Like, you know, like, I mean, obviously if someone brings it up, I will have a chat about them. I'll talk about the, you know, the very complex politics of it all and the social dynamics because I found it fascinating. You know, I did a whole breakdown video on YouTube and not for like just for myself. Like it wasn't for, I wasn't going to be like, yeah, this is going to be great content. Fuck the content. This was therapy for myself to get over this obsession. And now I think I'm over it. But I was considering making a musical or something about it. Like, do you know what I mean? Like basing something on it

because I do think it's so brilliant. It doesn't sound like you're over it. If you're considering funded a musical. I'm like the cookie monster but my cookies are like come down with me. I've got three spreads that I like on my toast. No, this is mad. Wait, what are they? Butter on its own. Marmite and marmalade. And if I have three different slices, I do a butter slice, a marmite slice, a marmalade slice, and I eat them in that order and start a main course and pudding. No, okay. Here comes the question. What is the difference between butter and marmalade? Pardon me. Between butter and marmalade. Yeah. What's marmalade? Wait, what am I thinking? What is the difference between butter and marmalade? You're thinking of margarine.

Oh, yeah. I'm thinking of margarine. Okay, cool. Marmalade is what? Marmalade is like orange jam. Oh, yes. Marmalade is delicious. Now you're holding up the Google images of marmalade to us. Yeah, marmalade is delicious. Which one do you have, the baked one that everybody gets? Of course. You've got Robertson's with shreds in it. Yes, yes. Oh, you go with shreds. Yeah, that's hard. Yeah, that's hard. Okay. The marmite thing I'm not down with, but yeah. And also the three spread thing is very strange, but it's huge. It's a little mini meal, start a main course dessert. Butter, marmalade. So you don't do jam on top of butter? No, it's a little starter. It's just the toast with the butter on it. And then main course,

something really attacks the palate. Marmite. Oh, it's a real hefty main course. And then a lovely sweet dessert with the marmalade. With the shreds. I'd go marmite every slice. You're also going in the bin because that's disgusting. Thick butter, thicker marmite than you could ever imagine. Wait, you go butter and then marmite on top? Yes, yes, Julie. Whoa. Whoa. Honestly, you two are disgusting. I'm loving it though, but you're absolutely vile. Both of you. Wait, Ed, do you do odd slices? Yeah, I've only got a two-slot toaster. But have you ever done one slice of toast? No, one slice is never enough, is it?

So I'd always go two slices. And I'll rarely, if I want more toast, I'll rarely be able to bring myself to do more. Okay, fine. Because it's going through that action again, I'll be like, oh God, I can't do that. And plus I've put so much on the first two slices. I've gone absolutely mad. Sometimes, Julie, and get a load of this, I'll put marmite in a bacon sandwich. How do you feel about that? Has the bacon sandwich got bacon in it? No, no, no, no bacon in it. No, and no bread either. And I'm just sat in my room just thinking about it. Do you know what? We've asked some pretty dumb questions from the podcast.

Me and Ed are pretty guilty of it. But never before have we asked someone if a bacon sandwich has bacon in it. I was actually trying to help Ed out just now because the fact that you put marmite in a sandwich that has bacon in it makes you the most grim creature on the planet. So I was trying to help you out by saying, I call it a bacon sandwich, but I don't actually put bacon. I was trying to be stupid to help you. So that's just get out. It's that he can say to people, I like putting marmite in a bacon sandwich. And before they attack him, he goes, hold the bacon. Exactly. And then it was like, I was having a marmite sandwich. Exactly. Oh, thanks, Julie, actually. I thought you were being stupid, but thanks. You've been so

helpful. But what you like to do, Julie, is you like to get the toast out for your four slices of toast. And while you're eating those slices, you've got another four slices of bread toasted in the toaster already so that you can just do it on rotation. That is disgusting. Someone just buzzed my door. I'm sorry. Oh, no, it's not. Hang on. One moment. Go for it. See you later. Such nice weather today. It's amazing. I went for a little walk before this because I knew I probably wouldn't get a chance otherwise. A lady sort of recognised me. Oh, yeah. I got my name wrong. So I was walking along. Josh Whitaker. No, no, you'll love it. I looked up and she saw me across the road and she went, James Pendergast.

Yes. Hello. I went, what? She went, oh, nothing. I went away. James Pendergast. James Pendergast. So I got locked out of my apartment. Just now? Yeah. That's what just happened. Also, I went downstairs and I've only just gotten used to putting the latch on, but it turns out I'm not very good at it. And then the Addison Leemann courier, he came back with the thing that I sent away and then I came back upstairs and I was like, it's not. And then I couldn't shout in the door. To what? So I had to go into my neighbour's apartment and she wasn't there. And I don't know where my key was, so I had to search around her

apartment and find my key. And now I'm here. And that is the story of what happened to me for those five minutes and I disappeared. And Matt is all staying in, unfortunately. How did you get into her apartment? Well, she has a key. She has a cat. It's a whole... What? Yeah, I don't know. It's her choice to... I don't know. What do you mean she has a key in the door because she has a cat? She's afraid about the cat. I can't remember what the story... Yeah, but she's a very lovely lady, but she... I've lived here two years. I've never gotten locked out. I got locked out twice today. I've never done it before. It would be amazing if you just never came back to the recording,

though, if you were locked out for hours. Well, I did think about that. And my phone is here. So funny. But I was like, what are they going to think? They're going to think I got murdered. They're going to think I went down to the Anderson Lee man. She said, I couldn't find where to put this. So here it is back. A career to dress back. And he couldn't find us. He just said, no, I forgive, I give up. Here it is again. So that's not helpful. And then I was locked out. It was very dramatic. Are you feeling stressed? Ah, no. Why would you bother? But I also have... It's funny, my sister and I had this happen to us years ago where we went for a walk in the prom and go out right by the beach. And then we came back to where we thought her car was. And we were like, the car got stolen.

And she was like, okay, okay, we just have to deal with that. And then another car pulled away and it was just behind the other car. And we were like, but that was good, wasn't it? The way we just kind of dealt with it. Just went, well, the car is gone. The end. So it's good to know how you react in that situation. Yeah. But I just thought, can I sit in her house? She's got a big fright, when she comes in on the couch at 8 p.m. And I was like, I locked out. And I was doing a podcast and I got locked out. James, how long do you reckon we would have sat here waiting for Nicola to come back? Quite a while. I think after maybe 20 minutes, we would have phoned you and then we would have seen your phone ringing over the Zoom and gone, uh-oh, that's not good. And then I think

we would have, well, we could have phoned your PR and said, look, something has happened. Nicola's gone and she's not here. It would have been interesting. We never had someone go missing during the podcast before. Sort of a mystery element I thought I'd bring, you know? Suddenly become a true crime podcast out of nowhere. That would be such a good story to a true crime podcast. Yeah, really, would. We were asking her, bread her poppydums and then she died. Saying you feel maternal about young comics, if you woke up tomorrow and your actual children were now comedians and two comedians were your children and they've swapped places, so your children now have the career of two specific comics and those comics are now your

kids. What swap would you want to do? Okay, so I would like my son to have Bill Bailey's career and Bill Bailey be my boy. I didn't know. I didn't think, well, you're too much for the majority of my comics. I didn't think you were going to choose someone older than you. Because we, that's so funny. Bill Bailey's your little boy, okay? That's great. That's brilliant. I'm imagining him the size of a child but still looking exactly the same. Definitely and wearing dungarees. Okay, and I think that's because I've met Bill Bailey. He's extraordinarily nice. Now, when you say you've met him, do you mean you stood next to him at a sink? And I've met his wife and she's incredibly lovely and I would like my child to do as well

in their life partner. Just to let you know, obviously you've met his wife and she was lovely, but you are essentially breaking up their relationship with this choice because now, he's my child. Now he's your child, yeah. Can she also be my child? No, your son's going to be married to Bill Bailey's wife. Oh, that's bizarre. And my daughter, I think she would really enjoy Graham Norton's career. Wouldn't we all? Yeah, but I think it's a specific thing with Vivi is that if she met you two, she would find out everything about your lives from who you were dating, if you were married, what your favorite color was, what your favorite food was, and she wouldn't just ask you for the sake of it, it would matter to her. And

Graham does that thing as well, where he does that agony aunt thing on his radio show. People ring up with problems and he sort of does the agony aunt bit. And I think she would absolutely love that her greatest thing in life would be to talk to as many people as possible, intimately, and have a giggle. So if I could have Graham Norton as my child, please, and give his career to my daughter. Thank you. I'm now raising Bill Bailey and Graham Norton. Perfect. Yeah, that I can remember that. And I can remember the taste of my mom smoked all the time when I was growing up. And she would use old cans of like Coke or Pepsi as ashtrays. Yeah. And I remember this is heading to sell and I remember like picking up my can of Coke,

drinking it and realizing that it was a can that was my mom had accidentally ashtray into like a full like cigarette, worse of ash in that can. And I can remember the taste of that mixed with the Coke so clearly. Oh, God, it was so gross. And yet I still smoked for years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're starting to understand why you don't like food much. He's just destroyed my palate. As a child of mouthfuls of butter and fagash drink. Oh, cigarette ash, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. That was insane to hear. Isn't it bad? It's so bad. In America, it means something so different. And you say that,

it's like, I'm sorry. The fuck did you just say? That was insane to hear. That was so weird. I'll be leaving the restaurant early. Thank you. Goodbye, guys. That is okay. It's like, I just feel like I've said like the worst. I mean, obviously, you know what that means back home. But like, when you're in a country that doesn't mean that. Yeah. Oh my God. I know you suddenly realize what you've said. I feel awful. I'm going to enjoy watching you spiral for the rest of the episode. It's really great. I'm just smiling a bit, even though I'm sorry. He eats all the time like he's having sex that night. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bummer. Joel, thank you so much for coming to the dream restaurant. And I can only apologize again for

what James said earlier. Joel just said bummer. Is that? Yeah. In the UK. I think you're fine. That's the other way around. I think you'll fight in the UK. That is a homophobic slug. Really? Yeah. That is not true. That is true. I'm reclaiming it, actually. I actually can say it. Oh, okay. Yeah. Why is it you only ever hear about acting roles that are losing weight? I've never spoken to any actors like, oh, I had a role where I had to put on loads of weight. It was the best time of my life. Oh, there's loads of ones. Yeah, totally. There are. Well, Christian Bale is doing both, right? Like everyone wants to bail us, right? Everyone's like, I want to lose so much weight. I'm sick forever. And then I want to put

on so much weight. I'm sick forever. He's gone both ways. But I bumped into Tom Hollander while I was losing the weight and he was putting on weight. And he looked at me in a way that said, don't even imagine that you're the person in the most pain here. Because he was waking up at night time to like, I don't know if he was drinking ice cream or I don't know what he was doing. He was waking up. He was like, he was doing the goose thing. He's doing the force feeding thing, essentially, with himself. And he just said he was full. Like the way I feel now, he felt all the time. Is it more critically acclaimed to lose weight, though? Those are the ones that you hear about is like, oh, they put themselves through so much. They

lost so much weight. No one's going, what an amazing thing they had to get up in the middle of the night to goose feed themselves ice cream. Didn't hear, right? Yeah. Oh, of course. He did pretty well off that. People were pretty, people, people, lot of respect for Agent Bull. Some people even talk about that movie now. Yeah. I've heard of it guys. I would find that so easy. Oh God, I'd love to get a part where I have to put weight on. I would do it in a week. There's a story that Ryan Gosling was supposed to have a part in a Peter Jackson movie. And his idea was that his character would put on a lot. It would be very heavy. And that was not Peter Jackson's idea for the character. And I don't know if they disgusted

or not, but he turned up like whatever, 30 pence heavier. He'd been melting ice cream in his microwave and drinking it. Like that's how intensely he was doing it. It can't be healthy. And he turned up and Peter Jackson was like, no. And that was this. He didn't, he didn't play the more like Ryan Gosling. Huh? Am I right? Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Strong. Not bad. Good stuff. I've heard that a lot of them do it with the melted down ice cream. Rob McElaney did that for always studying for the Delphi. Yeah. But the thing is that everyone who does that, I think I just have less sympathy for the weight, the people who put weight on because they're all people who like two weeks later, they're ripped again. Yeah. Exactly. I want to see a natural fatty do it.

And I speak as a natural fatty, but yeah, natural fatty work. You know, I, I could do it in a couple of weeks quite easily, I think just by taking my eye off the ball. I did at the end of, I mean, I do think actually, I think weirdly, I do think losing the weight, losing weight once for, for a part really changed my relationship with food, I think genuinely. And the night that I finished that, the amount of food, they were like, they explained to me in detail, you got to be, you got to put weight back on carefully. You can mess yourself up with you. And I was like, I understand. I, I understand. I respect my body. There is no way I'll be that idiot. Oh my fucking God. It was horrific. Should I, I did end up getting sick. And then I did end up eating

more sweets afterwards. It was all sweets. I was seven again. What part was this for? It's great that you don't know about it. I'm trying to fit. It was worth it. It was, yeah, I wanted to look super slim for Peter Rabbit. No, I did, I did a film called Unbroken that Angelina Jolie directed. The part of the film that I was in was three soldiers end up stranded at sea. And it was, it happened in real life. And they lost like half their body weight or something. They lost an insane amount of weight. We were losing a couple of stone maybe at most, like it wasn't, and we're actors. There's, there's real food around. You're not actually starving. It's all absolutely fine. But man, I was an absolute dick while I was losing weight. I was an absolute

dick. And I, yeah, I just became a food pervert over that time. Not the phrase I thought, not the phrase I thought I'd use. No, but that's bang up. That is bang on. Whenever I'm like trying to eat healthier or lose a bit of weight or whatever, you do just, you look at the internet like you're searching out the most depraved possible stuff, like more cheese, more cheese. I wish I'd been able to restrict it to internet time. I was like standing outside restaurants and looking at people. I'm wandering around supermarkets and like nodding at somebody as they took a dessert from a fridge. Like, yeah, you fucking, yeah, you enjoy that. Respect. Respect. Tom Holland taking a pint of ice cream off the shelf. Weeping. Yeah, yeah. How did any mafia put all the weight on for nutty

professors? Who do you want to? It's sort of sloppy, you know. Who do you want to make it for you? An Italian grandmother. Your Italian grandmother? Yeah. Your nana? Or my hot, my nana, my hot Italian nephew. Pardon me? An Italian nephew. Well, that's not the full thing you said. You just changed it. He's hot. That doesn't mean I'm going to get with him. That means he's an attractive man who can make a good tiramisu. Yeah, he's pretty hot. Is he? Yeah. He's subservient to me. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we're related, but that doesn't mean I can't order him around. I'd say that he's hot. How old is he? He's 19. Okay. He's going to feed me tiramisu. A hot teenage boy that you're related to.

Turns out you're going to feed you. You were Guru Dave all along. Yeah. That one turns out, yeah. Yeah, this is exactly what Guru Dave would do. Guru Dave is disgusting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a tiramisu made by your grandmother and then fed to you by your nephew who is a teenager and you've already said it's hot. Yep. Yep. Okay. I'm just going to sit with that. Yeah, yeah. Now that it came out of my mouth, I can't take it back. Yeah, I guess you can't. I mean, we all know no. I mean, this isn't... Maybe I was thinking A nephew, someone's nephew. Would you like us to release this episode after all the legal stuff in your life is done so that this can't be used against you in court? That's probably a good idea. So I don't want this to be played.

Yeah, it's kind of a problem. Listen to this. This is how I'm going to represent myself. Got the hots for her nephew. Yeah. I don't know if this is going to really do you any favors. I want just A nephew. Someone's nephew. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Not your nephew. No. Someone's hot nephew. I mean, come on. Yeah. Yeah. What are you saying? I'll come. Yeah. Okay. He's someone's nephew, but he'll be mine. You know what I mean? I'll keep him close. And he does things for me because he doesn't know any better. He doesn't know about the world. So he's just in the kitchen making tiramisu. Oh, he's making it now. Perpetually. Yeah. No, he's always been making it. So the non is not his own. He's A nephew. I don't even know him. But he is yours. He's, yeah, he's in a shop in Italy. He's in a

shop. He's like in a bakery. Right. Okay. So someone's hot nephew in a bakery in Italy. That's better. Not related to you. This is good. Yeah. This is a nice scene. Yeah. And it's got like an industrial sized mixer to get that cream really whipped up. He's got a white apron on. Yeah. Okay. But and be honest, it's a little hazy sunlight coming in the windows late in the day. And I'm like, oh, you're making tiramisu this late in the day. And he's like, I never stop. Extremely. Yeah. Very industrious. He just loves making desserts. Oh, he does. Yeah, that's it. In the hazy sunlight. And even though you said that he's not related to, he's not your nephew now. But be honest, while you're imagining him in your head,

are you just imagining the face of your actual head? My nephews are very handsome. But no, I mean, come on, let's not. I don't know why you're trying to get me arrested. No. God, no. I don't know why you brought up. It had to be her. This podcast is influences people. We cannot promote incest. Thank you. That's the word. That's the word. We're not promoting that. It's not funny. No, it's not. It's not good. No. You know what? There is good and bad in the world, and that's not good. Benito, can you Google Italian for incest, please? Because I bet it sounds nice. He's googled it, and all that's come up is your website.

How dare you. Wow, James, I don't even know what's normal anymore. Those are some weird stories there, but I enjoyed every second. And you know what else? You know what else said? I would like to really point out at this point, I'd like to point out that no animals have ever been harmed in the making of off-menu podcast. Would you like to point that out? Why are you pointing that out now? Well, because sometimes we get letters in, and people are saying like, hey, you talked about animals in that podcast just now, and I hope that didn't really happen, what you said about that animal just then. No one was concerned about Tom Hollander,

but people are concerned about the animals. The bit specifically people are worried about, there's a couple of them coming up right now from Jack D and Bridget Christie. Animals. I think you could catch a duck, if you had to do something, like make your own coffee. Yeah, I might be able to catch a duck if it was in a small enough room. Yeah, yeah. How big of a talk is slightly bigger than a duck? Slightly bigger than a duck, probably, and then just get in there. Not in a squash court, I wouldn't have a chance. I would not have a chance,

because they can stay above you, can't they? You can do that. It would have to be a low ceiling, very small room where there's basically nowhere to go. A portaloo or something. A portaloo, possibly, but then that's not very appetizing. I suppose with a squash court, if I had a squash racket, I might be in more of a chance. You know, some squash courts have that viewing gallery. Yes. They could escape through there, so you'd need to have them. And then you're done for it. You're not ever going to get there. Really taunt you. The duck could get up to the viewing gallery and just watch you from the gallery.

Because when they quack as well, it sounds a bit like they're saying Jack, so that would be really... Yeah, I know, yeah. Now I can't believe we're all doing it now. What if you... Here's a question for you, Jack. What if you went down to the pond to catch a duck, looking at all the ducks, and you're thinking about Konfiduck and everything? Yeah, yeah. And one of the ducks went,

Jack, Jack, Dave! At you. Yeah. He said, Jack, Dave, said your full name. Yeah. How would that affect the rest of your day? Do you think you would go and tell people about it? Do you think you would worry that you were crazy and that maybe you just imagined the duck?

And would you enjoy Konfiduck as much the next time? Because people would say to you, Jack, it probably just said quack. Yeah, yeah. It's quack. Yeah, that's why I'd probably keep quiet about it. I think I'd just think what happens is... I would just file that under things that never happened and then just move on from that moment.

Would you even tell Jane? No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't tell Jane. I wouldn't tell anyone. I would keep that to myself. I'd go to the grave with that. But a duck said my name out once. So would it affect the next time you have Konfiduck?

Would you like it as much? If you... Because obviously you can still remember when the duck said your name. It's an interesting point, isn't it? And it might slightly haunt me, really, if I felt that what I'm eating had once actually wanted to start a conversation with me. Make it difficult for you. It would.

I wonder what else he would have said. Yeah, and I want to ask you different things that animals could do to you and whether you would tell Jane about it. So if a rabbit waved at you with its little paw and did a little nod as it was waved, would you tell Jane? I wouldn't because Jane takes those things too seriously. She'd want to know which rabbit, where was the rabbit, and I'd have to go into all the details.

And I'm not good at chatting, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. I said, look, that's all there is to it. There was a rabbit waved and nodded, and there's nothing more to say. I don't know any more about the rabbit than that. Right, and so that would find difficult. So that's why I don't say much because people always want to know a bit more. What if a horse opened your car door for you?

If that happened, I mean, well, no, I wouldn't. Because I think she would find, well, why was a horse opening your car door? And I'd say, well, I don't know why. I don't know why that happened, but it did happen. And then she'd want to get to the bottom of it and find out what actually happened. And I'm just not good at that. I'm not a detailed person. I'll just say, look, it happened.

Just take my word for it. You don't need to know any more. Neither do I. That's just as well because I don't. So you can't imagine a situation where an animal would do something out of the order between you and you ever told Jane about it? I don't think, I think I'd keep it all to myself. What if it was a pet that was in the house and you could even say to her,

it was that goldfish right there? I suppose if it was a pet, I might kind of tell Jane as an observation that the goldfish waved at me with its little paw and then nodded. And that was a nice moment. And she said, oh, did he? And that's nice. It's worth keeping the goldfish for that. My wife used to live in Paris.

Right. And I went out there to visit her quite a lot. And we ate in a lot of places like that. Some amazing restaurants. She used to live basically above a restaurant called Bulldog in the Marais in Paris, which is like that sort of place. It was probably like Bistro restaurant. They did an amazing confit duck.

But it was called Bulldog because the owners had a Bulldog that just used to walk around the restaurant. How would you feel about that? Lovely. Yeah, dogs are welcome. Dogs are welcome in any restaurant I go to. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's really nice.

It's civilized and it's more home from home. It means they're not taking themselves too seriously. The whole health and safety thing is in nonsense. Why are you allowed to bring your dog into one restaurant and not another one? It's health and safety. Well, why don't they have it? Well, they do because they know it's not true. It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. What if you got in and that dog pulled your chair out for you so you could sit down and then found a leafy and Jane didn't see it and then Jane sat down? If she was in the restaurant, she just didn't see that. She was sitting down. She was sort of stuck. She was calling the chef a cunt or whatever. And you're sitting down and the bulldog just pulls the seat out for you.

Or even better, you see the bulldog pull Jane's seat out for her and tuck her in and she doesn't notice. She doesn't realize it's a dog. That would be a harder thing. But then she'd think, I was just taking the piss. Is that the sort of thing you would do? She might think, why are you keep telling me that the dog did that? You're spoiling the meal now because you will come out for a meal and you're just lying to me. I don't think you're going to be able to get Jack in any situation where he lets Jane know when an

animal does something out of the ordinary. I will see. I saw this meme that was going on those videos on YouTube where the crocodile eats a drone. Did you see that one? No. There was a drone that was flying over some crocodiles and then the last thing you see is these big teeth come up and whack it and just take it out and that's the end of the drone. And I watched that and thought it was amazing but I didn't tell Jane.

She wouldn't know all about what happened to the crocodile. Who cares? Is it crocodile eating a drone? That's all we need to know. I once saw, well I only did it once and then I felt really mean, because there's little birds that I love coming in for their nuts and whatnot and their fat balls but the squirrels would always just get them. And I had this pole and I'd made this pole that was so high that they couldn't but they

still managed to get up it so I put a little bit of Vaseline on the pole and a squirrel sort of did like a, well it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Like a stripper move? Yeah. Great. Went all the way down. Twirled all the way down. Twirled all the way down and then I rubbed it off because I felt mean.

What? Rubbed the Vaseline. That is not my men and Paul's sex. I don't know why it's so funny. Have they got, I don't think they've got external genitals have they? Squirrels. I haven't seen any have you? I've not seen any school genitalia.

Yeah who knows, don't know how easy it would be to rub one off. Water, we've only done water. Well I think that squirrel moment might be up there with the most I've laughed, James. Yeah absolutely love the squirrel moment and you know I loved playing that little game with Jack D asking me if he would tell Jane about certain things. I love playing games on the podcast Ed. You do. Especially guessing games and Benito often cuts them out of the edit you know.

Yeah he does because you you line yourself up for a guessing game and sometimes they take 15 to 20 minutes and they are to be fair to Benito incredibly boring. But sometimes the guessing games sneak through into the edit as exemplified here from Jessica Foster Q, Tanya Moore and Nicola Cochlan. I love the thought of you as a teenager. Just you and your mates see that done me. I'm going to meet the gals going to get pissed behind a skip. He's like do you want some booze?

Yeah I'd love some booze. Hold on a second. And then he gets like a bottle of champagne and holds it like a weight as properly hold it with his arm like behind the butt. Well will this do? Will this suffice? Cut to you and your friends they're going hmm very biscuity. Are you getting those notes?

Jemima. Not Jemima, Foster you wouldn't hang out with a Jemima. No not one Jemima in my life. Can we try and guess your friends' names? Yes please. My Dorset ones yeah. When you were growing up. Yeah.

Well you've already said Sally. Yep sorry I gave that one away. So that's one. I think you would have been friends with a Natalie. No Natalie bullied me. Okay well I thought man I could not have misfired more there. Just amazing how quickly I've forgotten all girls' names apart from Jess and Sally. It was you kick yourself because they're like the names that every girl was called.

Steph. No that's my girlfriend's name. So you're not friends with your girlfriend? Yes. So competitive he gets it with that right away. I'll guess you're not friends with your girlfriend then. I'll guess that's a point then for me is it? Rebecca.

Becky. Close but no. Jane. No. Jane. I'm not that old. Jane's the only girl's name I can think of. Rachel.

You need friend called that. You can have that. Sarah. No. How we not got one yet? Violet. No. Violet Beauregard.

Uh, Caff, Caffee Burke. I wish. Look we did really well there. All we had to do was guess some ladies names and we came up with Violet Beauregard and Caffee Burke. You were so close. How many guests are there your personal friends? Three guests.

Yeah. Three girlfriends. Name them. Tasha. Joanna. Antonit. How long you known Tasha for? What's she like?

How did you meet her? I met Tasha when I used to teach dancing and I've known her or when I met her daughter was three. She's now 22. She's about to be 23. So, oh yeah, 20 years almost. Interesting. Why she made the cut?

What she liked? What she put into the dinner party? Herself. And she's always late so she'll be late. So she'll miss probably the starter. Her starter will be cold. She'll still want it though. So it'll be cold.

And so you always have to make time for Tasha being late. Yep. I'd never be friends with her. She would never be invited to anything I did after the first time she was late. Unacceptable stuff, Tasha. No. No, but you've got to weigh up like this. When you have a friend, if they've got like two bad things but 1000 good things,

then you just have to deal with two bad things. It depends what the bad things are. Being late ain't that bad. It is awful, Tanya. She gets there eventually. Yeah, but if I've cooked for someone and they're late and then it ruins the quality of the food, absolutely not. You're off.

I didn't like it at first, but I just don't wait for any more. So whoever's a right, it will start. Joanna, was that one of them? Yes. What's she like? How did you make the cut? Joanna is actually Tasha's best friend, so I met her at the same time. And we became friends separately, so now we have our own relationship.

And Joanna will definitely be there on time. In fact, she'll be there a little bit early. And she will probably bring a bottle of wine. Actually, I don't like that she's early. No, she's not coming around to mine either. Not that early. She's only like 10, 15 minutes early. Then she can wait outside until the agreed time.

There's a lot hanging on this. I've turned up to Eccles early every time I think I visit, to be fair. I prefer it to lateness. But still, I'm making the finishing touches to everything. Can I say, all of them will always ask, do you need anything? That's nice. But Tasha just doesn't bring anything turns up late. So she asks, but then she just turns up late.

Doesn't bring anything. Whereas Joanna turns up early with a bottle of wine. Because you know she's coming late. There's no need to ask her for anything. Because you'll already be happy for that. No point saying, yeah, could you bring around some boiling water and some ice cubes, please? I hate you as well now.

Yeah, could you buy yourself a watch on the way over? That would be great. Who was the third person at the dinner party? Antoinette. Who is she? How do you meet her? What's she like? Why she made the cut?

You're definitely back to Norbert again. Antoinette, I met at work with my last nine to five when I was doing reception and she works there as well. What's she like? She's wonderful. She's very given. Antoinette will definitely ask me if I need anything and then probably bring a couple of bottles

and maybe a dessert as well and possibly some snacks. This is James's favourite person so far. So obviously I love her. But she will turn up early because she will want to help you set up and get things ready and she's that person. You're going to allow that? You're okay with that? If you've pre-arranged getting there earlier than everyone else

to help set up so you know Antoinette's coming at a certain time, that's fine. I think she's my favourite out of all of your friends. You said that very strongly, all of your friends. All of your friends because it's like I think you've got a Goldilocks situation in that you've got late, early and then pre-arranged early which is very much to the Mummy Bear porridge. So I like Mummy Bear Antoinette.

She can be my friend. She's my favourite as well so congratulations to Antoinette there. Easily the winner and I think we all agree. It goes then Joanna and then way, way down at the bottom. Yeah, yeah. It's like Tashu doesn't bring anything, it doesn't help. Yeah, not happy with Tashu. No, no, don't say that.

Not a fan. She's not that. No, don't say that. Only good thing she's ever done is introduced you to Joanna in my opinion. I remember in the 90s seeing Robbie Williams on a take that VHS. Went stoke on train and he was eating a thing that was like in a wrap and he was like this is a special thing you get in stoke on trains and I've always wanted it and I don't know what it is and it's annoyed me since the 90s.

Okay, again, we're not, again, we're not moving on from that. I'd like to know more about what you've just said. What was the take that thing that you were watching? Okay, so my sister was a big fan of take that therefore I was a big fan of take that. I was only about seven and we watched the video of them all going to where they were from and he went to the local football stadium and he was eating the thing that looked like a pancake or a wrap and it was savory and I was like that's delicious but I mean I'd have to go back and re-watch it to find out what it was but at that age I was like I want to eat that.

So he just says this is a special thing you can only get in stoke on train? Yeah, but I can't remember, he did definitely put a name in it. Imagine if it was just like a fajita and all these years I've been like what was the magical Robbie Williams food? The likelihood is that it was just a wrap. Yeah, but we didn't have wraps in the early 90s really. Yeah, that's true. It was more of a 2000s thing.

How often would you say you think about the Robbie Williams wrap? By the way, when I say the Robbie Williams wrap I don't mean the one on Rudebox. I would say I think about it every three months. Yeah, it's one of those things but the problem is now I'm going to think about it every three months and I didn't even see the video. I've googled stoke on trend wrap because this is places that sell wraps. Wizards wraps, stoke wrap, U5 wraps, spectrum signs and graphics, sign makers. By that point, I think that's for all the wraps.

Weirdly, so spectrum signs and graphic sign makers, choice graphics, stoke and then it goes prepare the infusion barita and wrap bars and then we get back into wraps. So I don't know what those two were open there for. FD wraps, then there's some packaging supplies. I'm going to have to go back and re-watch the take that video. I'm going to get it out of my mom's garage and watch it on the VHS and I'll find out what Robbie Williams wrap was. It was a weird tweet. What was that thing you ate 22 years ago? I reckon he'd answer. Don't you think? Oh my God.

Yeah, he'd answer. Don't you think now? He's probably seen Bridgerton. Everyone's seen Bridgerton, right? I feel like that's a really weird question to ask him. It's a weird question to open with, I suppose. But I think about it all the time. Sometimes when people, I can ask friends if they put a food on their Instagram and I haven't seen it and then I want to go, what was that thing that you ate then? Because I cannot know. But I think when this podcast comes out, we're going to get a lot of hate around this question and I think it's going to get to Robbie Williams and I think Robbie seems like a

sound guy. He's up for a laugh. I reckon he's going to tell you exactly what that wrap was. What do you think is going to happen when you find out what the wrap is? Do you think you're going to suddenly have a really good night's sleep and you're like, I've not been sleeping well all these years? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It will just solve all of the questions that I could just hung over me all this time. Oh my God. I mean, I'm Googling everything here. I've Googled food. You can only get in stoke on Trent. There's nothing. I got, if I put in into YouTube, Robbie, take that stoke on Trent.

I don't think I've ever vocalized that I've thought about this before, but it has been a huge thing all of my life. Hey, guys, if any of you know the answer to Nicola Cochlan's query there, no, you really should tweet her and tell her because I think she could really do with knowing. I genuinely got a message yesterday of someone saying, I don't know if anyone's told you yet, but here's what the wrap is. I don't know if anyone's told you yet. It was months ago. Good point. You should also tweet Ed.

Just don't. I can't even bother to say anything funny to that. We've not had Robbie Williams himself on the podcast, James, which is a shame because if he did come on, he'd probably sing us a lovely song. Oh, I love songs being sung on the podcast. It's so great. Impromptu a lot of the time to be fair to them. So here's some beautiful songs from Ainsley Harriet, Sarah Kendall, Harry Hill, Ainsley Harriet again, and James A. Caster as Shrek. Now, famously, you always refer to salt as Susie Salt.

But when it's rock salt, does the first name change? Is it Robbie Rock? Robbie Rock Salt, Reginald Rock Salt? Robbie Rock. It doesn't feel good to call rock salt Susie Salt. That doesn't feel right to me. Susie sling your hook. Oh, yeah. Susie go away.

Been a while to know more. Me already with Robbie. Them rocking some more rock and salt. It make you feel so good. Woo, woo, woo. I said rock and salt. Susie, you ain't no good. Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

Oh, poor Susie. Great answer. Poor old Susie. Poor, poor Susie Salt. He's had his time, it's all about moving around. Yeah, but what goes on top of Susie Salt? Perky to Susie Salt. Yeah, you boys have been a good education. We know.

Good education, that's all right. Every afternoon when I got home from school, ready to steady cook straight on the TV. We need to specify the meats. Are you going beef carpaccio? Yeah, I will go beef carpaccio. With the parmesan. Yes, please.

Add some capers and maybe a little bit of rocket around the... A little bit of rocket around the... Maybe just on the circumference of the dish. Yeah. We don't want it around the Christmas tree because it's Christmas every year. What? It doesn't matter. It's a little pun.

It's a song. It's a what? You said maybe a bit of rocket around. And you said rocket around the Christmas tree. Yeah. Rocket around the Christmas tree. I don't think it was one that we shouldn't hang around on that. Is that a song? Rocking around the Christmas tree is a song.

I didn't know that. Never heard it. Never heard it? Never heard it. What Australian Christmas songs are they? Koala, Bears and Prawns. No, I don't... I did that purely for you. Yeah.

You know what? I would have believed that. You'd start with it. Yeah. Koala, Bears and Prawns. Koala, Bears and Prawns. Koala, Bears and Prawns. It's a lovely sunny day.

Scooner in the back. Merbent. Yeah. Oh, that's a little beautiful. You can fucking get your shit. And I would believe that an Australian Christmas song just finishes with someone trailing off saying fucking. Yeah.

You can fucking... You stupid fucking. Come on, everybody. I'm not a bear, but a paw. Scooner in your head. You stupid fucking. Oh, good. I did have an idea for a character very briefly,

which was Clarey Nett, which was me. Notionally, me dressed as a Clarey Nett. So you can imagine it's got like a top, like a hat that goes into a tapered top. In a sort of Clarey Nett suit. Which incident, you can't get from Smiffy's, because I checked. And then I would come on and I would make...

I can do a Clarey Nett noise, and I would just do tunes. Go on. We're going to need to hear this. Hang on. Sorry. Please. Yes. Hang on. Hang on.

Hang on. Did I get into it after a while? I'm going to be honest. Real liberal use of the phrase, I can do a Clarey Nett noise. You try it. I mean, it's not... No. See, there's a timbre to it.

Yeah. Sound anything like woodwind? What did we do? Anyone listening to this will know that. There'll be people listening to this and go, is Harry playing a Clarey Nett? We must have played a Clarey Nett. And they pretended that he's...

You did the first time ever I saw your face. Yeah. See? Yeah. Yeah, it draws you in. Great. What was the act? What was the Calypso Twins act? The Calypso Twins act was a great act. We'd used to sing.

He was from... He was Greek. And, of course, I was Jamaican. And so we'd write... We both used to say... Where's my mango? Where's my moussaka? I like a licoram and mirizina. Bob Marley. Nana Muscoorie.

Complications and a constant fury. Well, here we are. Oh, it's great you still remember. I can see you click into muscle memory there. I know, I know. I did a Gilman. Yeah, yeah. Full Gilman. You're absolutely Gilman.

Call your mum straight after this and ask her about podcast apps. We'll do, man. The rest of you, don't go hungry and always eat your food. Is that what you think the theme tune sounds like? I'm pretty sure that is, but he has nodded at me and he looks like he thinks that's what it smells like.

It's sort of that through a sign. What would you do? Well, I wouldn't do that through a Seinfeld filter. Well, let me hear your one. Yeah, but it's not in that aspect. Wow, the end. The end wasn't as good. The overall sound was good but maybe in post-binito you could layer them both up on top of each other.

And then have Shrek singing the lyrics to the off-menu-sime tune. Yeah... I think I was expecting the lyrics to the off-menu theme, she's got something to do with off-menu. It's tracks, I get that. Yeah, I know, occasional references to tracks, I'm sure, but he'd been hired to sing the off-menu lyrics. It seems weird, you've hired Trek to sing about off-menu, and then he starts talking about his girlfriend saying Princess Fiona is my baby.

He likes what he likes. He's not going to suddenly start knowing about the podcast, he's Shrek, isn't he? There'll be about three films in Shrek, and he's very clear what he was into. Well, there we go, wonderful song there to close out that section, and I'm very excited to say we're actually joined in the studio now by Shrek to help introduce the next section. Hello, Shrek. Oi Ed, yes, I'm Shrek. I'm here to introduce the next section, Family Dynamics.

I know all about family, me and that donkey, and Princess Fiona. We're one big happy family, the gingerbread man and his gumdrop buttons, and Lord Farqua. Lord Farqua's in your family, is he? He is in the family now. He's in the Shrek family. So, tell us what this section's going to be about. Is it about the fact that we've... Family Dynamics.

We've hosted some parent-child combos this year, because we've had Rafe Spall, we've had Timothy Spall, we've had Makita Oliver having previously interviewed Andy Oliver, and we've had Donal Gleason talking about his dad as well. Yes, it is the off-menu podcast aim that in the future, if we have on a celebrity and they have a celebrity relative, we will get that person on as well. And it comes full circle, a circle of life. Thank you, Shrek. Thank you, Ed Gamble.

And it has been a pleasure being on off-menu. See you soon. Bye. Do you remember the first time you had a cloudy lemonade and just thought, well, I've been bothering with that other shit? I can't remember the exact time. My dad, he guzzles it two litre bottle every day, cloudy lemonade, diet cloudy lemonade. Does he know?

Yeah, he murders it, yeah. Absolutely destroys it. Brilliant. We've got some goss on Timothy Spall. Timothy Spall, bloody loves his cloudy lemonade. Quite often when like little bits of this podcast still sneak into the tabloids, which is always a very funny little celebrity fact. And I really hope that Daily Mirror goes with Timothy Spall guzzles cloudy lemonade.

TV Tim guzzles cloudy lemonade. They'll do some sort of pun headline for it. I'm trying to think of one, but I can't. All I can think of is Alfie the same wet. Now, we have talked a lot about drink. However, when I asked you what your favourite drink was earlier, you did get the question wrong, Timothy. Oh, did I?

I obviously don't know myself. Go on. What is it? Your favourite drink is diet cloudy lemonade. That's your favourite drink. You drink it all the time. Now, I know where you got that. And somebody lived with me quite a long time.

Yeah, no, that is true. That is true. I do like that very much, but I have graduated towards this big, I think it's pink grapefruit or Mark Spence's fizzy cranberry lemonade. Oh, so I've veered off. I mean, I'm not, I haven't abandoned the cloudy lemonade. I do love that. And that would be on the desert island.

I think I'd have to add that. I'd have to add that in a well. How often, if you had a cloudy lemonade well, would you be going back to the well? Well, quite a lot. I do like to drink. I think I might have gills. I keep, sometimes, a ridiculously check, but I haven't. Because I don't understand why I can drink so much.

I don't know where it, and I think, and I don't know whether I believe it or not. It's probably nonsense. It might be absolutely true. It might be ruled by the stars, but I am at high seas. Yeah. There are lots of axes. And I think I could quite easily just float about in a sea of cloudy lemonade, just constantly consuming it.

I presume my far better than the constant consumption of Brunello and Barolo, which would have, I think that might have done me well. I don't know, but there's probably all sorts of horrible carcinogenics and things inside cloudy lemonade, but probably not as bad for you as liters and liters of wine. I'm at Pisces as well, Timothy, and I think I agree with you. I think that's a thing, because, as James will tell you, I'm a glugger. I glug things down. I'll get a pint of water and straight down.

Oh, absolutely. Same with food. I eat it very quick. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's because I'm having three brothers, and you're always worried if you didn't eat it, but they'd eat it before you even got it in your mouth. But I can eat so fast that it's gone. I've done.

I've eaten the starter, and there's a main course. My wife's even got the bread. And will you confirm that you drink cloudy lemonade so much that it comes out of your eyes? It probably does. I left a try by drinking my tears. I don't know whether that's sad, means you're ill, or whether that's poetry. I'm not sure. When Wraith was on, he said about how much cloudy lemonade you drank, and we said about

it spilling out of your eyes because you drank so much and covering you. And I made a joke to Miffy. I said, Alveda Zayn, wet. How do you like that? I don't know how to contain myself. I soiled myself and laughed. I'm going to have to call my wife and bring me some pants because that is so fun. My socks are full.

Interesting use of humour. The deeply unfunny kind. That's the way I'd sum up James. If anyone can describe James A. Kaster's comedy, I'd say it's an interesting use of humour. What did you think of your mum's episode? You said you listened to it. Did you think she made good choices? Listen, we don't enjoy the same food.

Really? No, no, no. Actually, to be fair, something on my menu is exactly the same, but we don't actually enjoy the same food. Because she's so chef-y, I like everything really plain. I feel that she's always a bit too rich for you to many ingredients. I'm like, can't we just have a gravy? I like plain food, but I think it's the Scottish in me. So you feel like the Scottish is winning out in this battle of food cultures?

Because I grew up with her and not my dad. So it's like, I was yearning for Mints and Tatties and she was just taking it to different levels. It's so terrible. Having a chef as a parent, for me, isn't as wonderful as people would think. I'd rather my mum was someone who owned a calf, I'd be into that. But then do you think you might be wanting more extravagant things? If you're my mum owned a calf, you're getting given calf food all the time? I love calf food.

I would say it's probably one of my greatest restaurants because I just love that you can get hot dinners, breakfast and then puddings. That's my kind of menu. So do you like the decor of a calf? Because obviously we're creating your dream restaurant. Do you want it to have the look of a calf? Yeah, absolutely. There was a calf called the Shepardess on Old Street on the corner

and it was sort of green and white-tiled. So a really good old school calf almost looks like a pyromash shop. So I'd like a calf to look like a calf. But not like one of those dirty ones where you think the kitchen is actually disgusting. Just like, you know those ones. Like an old school calf. Yeah.

Like I used to like school dinners as well. I'm into that plain shit. You want the plastic calf chairs? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'd better be in a calf in a comfortable chair. That would be completely wrong, wouldn't it? I think it's such a horrible waste that you grew up with a chef parent

and you like plain stuff. I'm so jealous that you got to grow up with Andy. What a wonderful chef. And you're just there going, I want Mints and Tatties. It's absolutely a disgrace to Makita. Yeah, I know. I know. She hates it.

She absolutely hates it. But I have to say in my childhood, my mum did, you know, adhere to my tastes more because there was less sheffing to be done. There was more cooking for the child to be done. She would make a banging meatloaf, great meatloaf. She kept it quite plain, not too spicy or anything. Good, great mushroom gravy. My mum makes the most amazing gravy when she just keeps it simple.

Am I really cussing my mum out? No, no, not at all. Is that so? So you really hope for the meatloaf and gravy when you ask the question, what's for dinner, Mummy? Oh, yeah. What's for dinner, Mummy? God, you really, uh,

shat all over what's for dinner, Mummy, in my mum's head. I was like, how have they turned into this weird, creepy thing? Well, well, it sounds creepy. It does sound quite creepy. Is it the mummy, not mum? I agree. And that's why I was like, let's not call it this. And she was like, no, I like it.

Ed was a very little, is a precocious little boy. It came to food. So I imagine Ed, when he was little, would have loved Andy Oliver. Maybe the two of you were switched at birth, maybe? Yes, I bet your mum made great pies and sort of shepherd's pie. I love shepherd's pie. She did. Yeah, she does make a really good shepherd's pie, actually.

I cook the pies and mash, see what I'm talking about. I know your life and I want it. And you can have this. Yeah, okay, fine deal. I would also like to say that I enjoy my mum's food very much as well, but I'd happily maybe come over every other night to ask what's for dinner, Mummy at the Oliver's house? Do you know what I really should say the same,

I would also like to say I really like my mum's food. I just, um, I like it simple. I like it plain. It's an interesting thing to say up top in a food podcast that you like plain food. food. So now we're staring down the barrel of a very long episode. Before we hear your favorite drink though, Donal, we do need to ask her, what's your dad's favorite soft drink? Oh yeah, that's important. And the reason why we're asking you that is because, and the episode

hasn't gone out yet, it won't even make sense to the listener. We have had another actor on recently whose father is also a well-known actor and we found out what his father's favorite soft drink was. And now that we have another actor for a father, we want to continue this tradition, even though it hasn't even started yet for the listener because that episode hasn't gone out yet. So we would like to know what soft drink your dad drinks the most of? He's pretty good. He doesn't drink a lot of soft drinks, but I would say there's three that come to mind immediately. I mean, there's only so many soft drinks. But the sweetest one would be Coke, Coca-Cola, not Pepsi. Club Orange and Cidona. Do you have Cidona over there?

No. Well, Cidona. It's a muse song. It's like Cider. It's just like a muse song. Yeah. It's a Cidona. Oh, that's what I was thinking. I bet you do have it over there, it's under a different brand name or something like that. But it's like Cider, but no alcohol sort of thing, but really sweet. Like Appletizer. That kind of thing, maybe a little bit tart, but also like crazily sweet. Oh no, Red Lemonade. Sorry, Red Lemonade. That's what it would be. Because yeah, on New Year's Eve, we have like, what are they called? They're called snowballs. They're like tea cakes, but like coconut-y things. That's a tradition. And Red Lemonade. Red Lemonade would be it. It's like a once a year thing. You have it once a year and then you don't

push it. Thanks very much, Donald Gleason. He was a wonderful guest, wasn't he? Oh, lovely boy. Donald, if you're listening, you're a lovely boy. And if we, hey, we'd love to complete your family tree on this podcast. Get your bro on, your pops on. Anyone actually, anyone that Donald Gleason knows who's related to him can come on the podcast until we've got the whole Gleason family tree. We had a lot of chat, not only about family, but also about love and dating this year, James. Yes, love was in the air and we were sucking up the air as much as we could, because it's much love in our bodies. Josh Gondelman got wholesome and Chapparat Korsan, he told us about some strange dates. So I'm torn. My one thing is my fan. We have a great family

recipe for apple pie, which is great warm with vanilla ice cream. And I have a real nostalgia for it. When I was a child, I didn't like the soft apples. And so my uncle who had celiac couldn't eat the crust. So he would eat the apples and I would eat the crust, which is a very warm childhood memory. And so that's one thing. The other one, and I don't generally like other apple pies. It's just the family recipe is my favorite. But the other one is if my wife is here, if I'm eating solo, that's what I'll indulge your, I'll ask your genie powers to indulge me this family recipe for apple pie. If my wife is with me, we didn't talk about her the rest of her meal. But I know the ideal would be for dessert. One of the two ideas,

this is what we would get is one of those molten chocolate lava cakes. That's like a cake with the warm chocolate on the inside. And like two times a year, she will have that like on our anniversary and her birthday. She'll take extra insulin and have that. And the look on her face when she eats like their twice yearly molten chocolate lava cake is one of my favorite times of the whole year. So that is, that's where that's where I'll go with dessert. That's a very sweet. Thank you. That's so nice. A picture dessert for the look on your wife's face. It's my favorite. I think about it often and I make sure that when we order it, I go, I got to watch her. I try not to be a creep. This is like, huh? Yeah, it's a cake. But I do, I do kind of out of the corner,

I'll be eating, but like really looking at what she's doing. That's so nice. Yeah, forget it to yourself. This cake tastes disgusted, but look at how happy she is. She doesn't, she only eats cake twice a year. Yeah, she does that all day. It's cake is dog shit. I can't believe I've let her eat that cake. All I wanted was my apple pie crust. That was my dream. She just wanted an empty pie crust. She never looks at my face when I eat my empty pie crust. She can't even make eye contact. She's so ashamed of me. See, this isn't the great depression. You can eat the whole slice. You don't have to save the apples in a bag for later to feed to a starving horse. Thank God I found that sacred room in my house so I can eat the pie crust in

pace. A man who knows? You made a whole film about it. That's very nice. I mean, that's very nice that you get to see your wife enjoying the chocolate molten love cake. Also this morning on our way here, we were talking about how we think that's probably been the most chosen dessert on the book. Everyone else hasn't said the same reason. Yeah. They like to watch my wife eating these motherfuckers. Nobody watches my wife eating cake. Everyone has to be like, so first of all, chocolate molten love cake, and I know this guy's about to say him, but bring Godwin's wife in. Get his wife in. He's so nice. He won't mind. Yeah, it's her birthday. I've been to one hen night in my entire life. I was 21. Okay, this is how old I am. There were no

mobile phones and there was a restaurant where you had a telephone on each table. My children tell me off for saying telephone. It's like saying wireless apparently instead of the radio. There's a telephone on each table and each table has a number and you can phone a table. You can go, hi, this is table number 14 and you phone a bunch of people and you have a chat and it's a flirty thing. Every single girl at that hen night got a phone call from a boy at another table, except for me. I became the receptionist. I just went, I'll be the receptionist and I said, oh, hello, this table and I said, it's for you and no one. So I just find dinners with people I don't know so stressful because so can I have my meal in the dream restaurant just utterly alone?

Absolutely. You can be utterly alone. I have some more questions about this telephone situation that I've never heard of before when there's a phone on every table and people are allowed to read the tables. Are you the only person who didn't get a phone call? Does that mean that when the guys rang the table, they were like, hello, can I speak to the lady in the yellow dress please? Hello, can I speak to the lady with the brown hair? And they were specifically asking for individual stuff. Yeah, no one said, can I speak to the pudgy frizzy-haired woman that's crying. Oh, it's very stressful. I didn't realize how stressed I'd get talking about my past restaurant traumas. Now I'm really worried that anyone listening will go, well,

I'm never inviting her to a dinner. I do like to be a guest. It just has to be small and with people who are friendly and fancy me. And everyone else in the restaurant has to fancy you and they have to call you to tell you. Oh my God, do you know what happened to me once? I won't tell you his name because you'll know him. Well, then I'd like to know his name please. I'll tell you later. This comedian took me out to dinner once on a date and he took me to this really lush, fancy French restaurant on the King's Road. And I went to the Lou and when I came back from the Lou, the waiter came over with a glass of champagne and the waiter said, this has been sent to you by a secret admirer, right? Any normal human being would guess that my date had arranged this while

I was in the Lou. I thought, oh dear, another man in the restaurant. So I've got to make sure I don't make my date feel bad. So I just enjoyed the champagne. I said, oh, you know, that's sweet, isn't it? That's something that is probably a perv. And then on the way out, he goes, Shopee, you do realize that that was me that sent through the champagne. And I felt so stupid. I think that's a weird thing to do though. Do you think that's a, that feels like a move they've done on other dates for a start? Yeah. He was quite a bit older than me. He knew what he was doing. Okay. Now we're narrowing it down. And what happens when people date James? Well, things get pretty sexy. So we've got a sexy package now. Cover your ears if you're easily

embarrassed. Tell your mum to get out of the room. Yeah. Tell your mum to get out of the room. Get your dad in the room because it's time to hear from Maymartin, Miriam Margolies, of course, Bimdi Bomboolash. This is something that I should have said at the beginning of the podcast. And now we don't have time to go into it, nor should we. There's no, nothing to say except that my dad wrote a cookbook in the seventies called the seducers cookbook, cooking force, cooking force success. And it was spelled S-E-X. And it was about how to seduce women with food. Very problematic. You say we don't have time to go into this. Cancel whatever plans you have. We're going to need to hear more about the seducers cookbook,

cooking force success. Yeah. I think that he probably sold like 20 copies, and he was in his twenties when he wrote it, but it was published properly. And it was absolutely panned by critics because they were like, not even at the time they were like, this is weird. Because it's like, how do you get in the woman's fans by cooking? And secondly, all the recipes are like not sexy. Like they're, they're very like pungent and like wrong. I just like hippers and stuff. Yeah. I think he just, I think he just kind of got a, maybe had a good meeting and got the book deal and then just panicked. Yeah. But it's, it is a real gem. Within the recipe, does it say why it's like a seductive recipe? Do you have to like present it in like the shape of a novel

or something? Yeah, it's, yeah, everything's shaped like a novel. No, it was like a sort of comic book. So it would give you examples of things you could say while you served it and like interesting music you could play, things like that. I absolutely love that. The seducers cookbook. Had he met your mother by this point? No, no, he had not. When they met, did she know about the seducers cookbook? Would he keep that a secret? Yeah, I wonder if it was something he was proud of. Well, it obviously works, worked for your mum, right? So did she, did she enjoy the Keppers? It's about my life and my parents and how I became who I am and the people I've slept with and the people I haven't slept with and some of the work I've done and the people who have

mattered to me in my life and my love and how the world is according to Miriam. Is it all the people you've slept with? Did I leave without any? Probably did leave out some because I haven't actually slept with that many, actually. Right. I've sucked off a lot and that, I don't know why you're laughing, it was very serious. Yes, that is serious. It was, that's what Jewish girls do, that's what I have to explain. It's not that, you know, that everybody sucks off, but every Jewish girl does. Right. I'm telling you something you know, actually. No, no, no, no, we don't. We weren't aware of that. That was part of the culture. What's the ratio to people you've sucked off to people you've slept with?

You mean in numbers or size? Yeah, numbers. Let's do numbers first, Miriam, and then we can move on. Well, numbers, gosh. Well, I should think about 30 to about 20 probably, something like that. I can't really remember everybody I've slept with. And that's why I didn't name everybody because I thought if somebody was left out, they might be offended. And indeed, if somebody was left in, they might be offended. So it was, you know, I just gave a general, a general picture. But I hope we're not going to just keep it below the waist because that's very boring. Oh, don't worry, we won't. Pamela Anderson is the original babe. Yeah, she was a 90s bombshell. I love Pamela. In my life, the first person that other kids at school

told me was sexy. Yeah, same. And was a babe, was Pamela Anderson. So for my whole life, just because, you know, I've born in 1985. So the age I was when the other kids in my class started talking about people being sexy and people being babes, Pamela Anderson was one that everyone's talking about. So for the rest of my life, whenever anyone mentions babes, I'll always think original babe, Pamela Anderson. OG babe, totally. And because of Bob Wyatt, the film that she was in, and the catchphrase of that film was don't call me babe. Yeah, don't call me babe. So if anything, you should stop now because she did ask you to stop calling her babe in that film. Also, I think for me, similar, similar experience, but maybe different, is that I knew I was gay

because I wanted to be Pamela Anderson. I didn't fancy Pamela Anderson. So I remember thinking, okay, well, these feelings are maybe not normal. And then I grew up and became a drag artist and used Pamela as a lot of sources of inspiration. So there we go, full circle again. I think that would have been more fun than my experience. My experience was just all the other kids telling me that Pamela Anderson was a babe and was sexy. And then I just agreed with them all because I didn't even know what was going on. And that was it. And when they released that, do you remember they released the Virgin Cola Pammy bottles that were supposed to be in the shape of Pamela Anderson? And I went out and bought one of those. And I thought the bottle was

sexy. And that's how I realized I was straight and disgusting. I love that. But I mean, I wonder if that would, I wonder if that would fly today. Oh, I don't, I'm not sure it would. I feel like that the bottles wouldn't be modeled after curvaceous women anymore. No, it's absolutely mad. Then you bought one as well, your little purse. Yeah, me and my friend went to the petrol station to buy one because we'd heard they were releasing bottles in the shape of Pamela Anderson. I think we were hoping for like actual tits on the bottle rather than just the shape of it. But absolutely disgusting little boys. Well, I think the fact that you fancied a bottle is quite, is quite the, maybe it links, maybe Freud would go crazy over this. Yes. You said that's how you

knew you were straight, but let's be very clear. You fancied a bottle. That's just admitted the theory that sexuality is fluid. Yes. Oh, I love it. Absolutely. Probably the best joke that's ever been done on the podcast. Yeah. Thank you, Bimini. Wise words. Wise words from Bimini Bonbulash there. Now, this is what I was talking about earlier. We're now talking about me getting angry because we both got angry this year with our guests and what they chose. Yes, you did. You're at the package after and you're much, much longer than me. What? I don't think so. Because me getting wound up is only one clip and it's from Julia Danuga. I don't believe in starters. Yes. This is unbelievable. I think she's unbelievable.

You think they're stupid. Well, you're one posting stuff in the bedroom. Hey, hey, don't do that. You can't, you can't bring up my past. It's not fair. Right. I just, I don't believe in them. I think they're stupid. If you're hungry, why are you giving me the beginning of the meal? Yeah. Just give me the food that I would like to eat. I'm very much a, hey, can I have the prawns and whatever the main is and just bring them all as soon as they're ready, please, sir. Right. So you are having a starter. You're just having it all at the same time. No, but I'm having it as the meal. Like I'm not picking it because I want to eat it separately. I'm picking it because it goes well with all the food that I'd like to consume in this one sitting. Starters like glorified

side dishes really are. They're not really completely. They're so stupid. Ed, should we look up the definition of what the fucking hell the point is of a starter in a meal? Yeah. Make sure you word it like that when you Google it. Ethan, if you Google what the fucking hell is the point of a starter in a meal, you're going to get something back that solves this, right? I'm actually going to do it because I can't. What is the actual point? Julie, your Google is not going to explain anything to you. The last thing you Google is marmalade. It's not even going to let you log on. There's no point telling this lady anything. Marmalade, straight to images. An adult woman who's looked up pictures of marmalade. I love that you said adult woman.

Yeah, the results aren't very, they're not very good, are they? What did you Google? I Googled what the fucking hell is the point of a starter in a meal? Yeah. The first result is a Reddit result and it says, I live with roommates. Interested. And one of them toasts in the bedroom. What do I do? Yeah. That's a fire hazard, isn't it? Definitely. Yes. Yeah. Don't try toasting at home unless you are with a supervised adult is what we should say. Yeah. I don't even know what to search to find the reason for a starter. Well, it's because everyone knows what the point to a starter is. Probably start by taking the expletives out. Ed, what is the point? Tell us. An extra little meal, a mini meal at the beginning, like we're talking about. A mini meal at the

end fires up the palate. That's what he thinks it is. Isn't that sad? It doesn't make any sense. It's stupid. No. What do you mean? It doesn't make any sense. What if you want something from the starter menu that doesn't necessarily go together with the main? You get the starter first, eat it, delicious, wait a little bit and then have the main. It's like you're getting two meals in one. So then I just have two mains. How do you feel about the part of that sentence, Julie, where Ed said, wait a minute. Yeah. Eat something, wait a minute, then get your actual meal. Does wait a minute feel good? No, it definitely doesn't. It's stupid. Here's how I think about it. I only go and eat when I'm hungry. So if I'm hungry, my body isn't going, oh, I'm excited about this little thing first and

then there aren't compartments of my stomach. The food is going to go down. At what point, Julie, did I accuse you of having compartments of your stomach? But this is why in my head, if there's a starter, I'm assuming that it's going to go into a different part of, you know, there's like a bit of my body that needs a starter and then my stomach needs the mains and then, well, actually, all of the food just goes down the same tube into the same place. I know. So wherever it was a starter, main, whatever, it doesn't matter. It's just all food. So why are you giving it to me at a separate time? Then why are we giving you any other sort of food? Why don't we just give you powder because it all turns into shit in the end. That's what you're saying.

No, I'm saying that when I want to eat, I want to eat now. So give me all the food that I'd like to consume. Give you a starter? No, because this is the other thing that annoys me, Ed. Yeah? Aggressive Julie's back. Yeah, she never went anywhere. That's true. When I order my starter on my main, yeah, how do you know when I'm ready for my main? Well, after you've had your starter. Right. So that means that I've got to eat my starter, then you've got to see that I've finished, then you've got to come over, take the plate, then you've got to go back into the kitchen, then you've got to get the food and then bring my... It's the waiter. It's long. It's just what a waiter has to do. No, because if they're now serving someone else, I've got to wait for

them to finish serving someone else to then say, oh, she's finished her starter, then come... And then if someone else at the table hasn't finished her starter, do you know what they do? They make me wait for my main until the rest of my table is finished. What is... I'm hungry. Bring me the food. No starters. No starters. Yeah, but what I'm saying to you, Julie, is yes, okay, fine, pass on the starter, but you can't then have what you would have had as a starter with your main course, okay? Yes, I can. No, you can't. That's not how it works. Absolutely. Julie's dream meal, Ed. It's her dream meal. Yeah, you're in a Nigerian restaurant. There are no rules. Yeah. Exactly. Well, it's a Nigerian restaurant that's run by two white men

and they don't understand what goes on. Yeah. I'm teaching you now. This is you learning. This is you learning. Whoa, Ed. That was really embarrassing how wound up you got there. You're really sure to bad side yourself on the podcast. I'm sorry, man. Well, now it's time for the package called Winding James Up, and it's a lot longer than that package. Several guests irritated you, James, Mirisael, Sarah Keyworth and Michelle Keegan. And it was just great to play someone who you never knew what side of the law she was on, because she's a lawyer that comes from a criminal family, so she knows both worlds really intimately. And I got to eyeball Stephen Graham in a very dead-eye, sharky way, which is very exciting.

He won, obviously. Oh, did he? That's got to be one of the dreams to dead-eye Stephen Graham, just to have the opportunity to do that within a part, because you know, in real life, that's never going to happen for any of us, right? You just wouldn't dare, would you? No. Absolutely not. I would. You would. Would you dare? Yeah, I do. I saw him on Jonathan Ross once having a go at Romesh, and I was like, if I see him, if I ever see that guy, I'm going to dead-eye him minimum. What's your maximum with him, though? Punch him in the head. I would do it. You wouldn't ask the second, mate.

You wouldn't. Let's see. Let's see. Can I just tell you, he's completely ripped as well. Yeah. Well, he's going to be ripped. He's really ripped. We had to do a bit of a stunt, which involved running and jumping and guns and helicopters. It's very exciting. He sprinted from one end of a runway to the other in about three seconds flat, without barely breathing. I was like, my God. He'll have to run quicker than that when I see him. It's not sounding very convincing, to tell you. We'll see. We'll see. I don't think we will. I'll pass the message on, shall I say.

Yeah, do. I mean, if you send him an email, please mirror him. That would be great. If you decide, James Acaster says he can tell you to pieces, I believe. Yeah, I will do that. You'll be hearing from him, I'm sure. And you'll have to run first when you see him. That's what he said as well. Make sure to pass that on. So I'm not much of a sweet toothed person, to be honest. Here we go. What about the fruit? What about the buckets of fruit? Pastels, you've been guzzling your entire life.

I was a child, James. I was a child, and I was being trained into being a lesbian. The moment I became a lesbian, I lost my sweet tooth. That's how it works. That's not how it works. We love to hear it here on the off-menu podcast when someone says they don't really have a sweet tooth because they're not a child anymore. That's correct. We don't love to hear it. I knew this would get you riled up, so I don't want a dessert. Are you fucking kidding me?

He was so lulled. You've lulled him into the perfect sense of false sense of security. I can see that James has sat up on his seat. It's not like a normal sit-up. It's close to a fetal position. Yeah, he's proper golluming it. Yeah. I don't want a dessert. Thanks. I'd have a mouthful of someone else's. What are you on about? That's great. That's the first time we've had a mouthful of someone else's dessert.

Does it matter what it is? No, not really. I'd have a mouthful of someone else's. I'm genuinely upset. I'm upset. I'm not even angry with this. I agree with you. I'm the worst kind of person because somebody, I'm set with someone, they order a dessert, they're excited to have it, and then suddenly my eyes get a bit beady. And I don't, I didn't want a full dessert. I've had it before where people are going,

why don't we get two and we'll share them? Leave me alone. I've just had five chip cobs. Yeah, you are full. To be fair to you, you are full. Are you going to ask, do you ask the waiter for another spoon when you have a mouthful, or is it, is it like more of an instinctive thing? No, I just go, I go in with two fingers. That's a grab bag of pasta. So that's what I like about this is it doesn't matter what it is.

It just has to be someone else's and you only want a mouthful of it. Yeah. And that's the thing about dessert more than any other dish that you have during a meal is that if somebody has a dessert and you don't, they will always feel obliged to say, do you want to try it? Well, you've never had dinner with James A. Castor. We know that. Yeah, not on my watch. We know. I'm not offering you any of mine. Forget about it. I'm going to trap you into a meal one day, James.

If I've got a lovely dessert. I don't know how I'm going to do it. I'm going to be trapped into a meal. I don't know. Absolutely no way you're getting anywhere near my dessert. I'm going to do it. James, how are you feeling, mate? Bad. This feels bad. I haven't had anyone completely pass on it before.

I've had awful people say cheese and biscuits or pizza buffet or more poutine. I've never had someone go. Sorry, wait. That was a dessert more because I would have more poutine. Yeah. Yes. I would have had that. That's potatoes, isn't it? No, I don't want to put that in your head. I do not want to put that in your head. But yeah, you would absolutely love that.

I'd be all over that. I don't have a second round of potatos bravas, to be honest. What I really like about this dessert as well, if we look back at your main course, which was you'd stolen mac and cheese, and you said it was stolen because someone else gave you a recipe, and this is you're literally taking it off someone else's plate, and you've not called it stolen. No. I don't think this is stolen. They offered.

This doesn't feel good. I don't understand. I don't understand how you would rather have nothing than dessert. Like you wouldn't just want something. There's not like a dessert that is like your favorite dessert you've ever had. There's not one. I'll tell you what I would have, James. If everyone else is having a dessert and they're looking at me like, oh, it's uncomfortable that you're not having anything, what are you going to do?

I would have an espresso martini. It's better than nothing. Yeah. No, that's not your answer. Your answer is a mouthful of someone else's dessert. No, it's not. I stand by what I said. I'm just saying. Yeah.

If I was pushed, I'd have an espresso martini. Feels like a bit of a dessert because it comes in one of those nice little dessert glasses, otherwise known as martini glass. You would have a cocktail, but there's no ice creams, cakes, gatos. James. There's nothing. You're not going to break me, James.

You're not going to break me. But think about what Sarah's done is, yes, there are ice creams. There are gatos. There are trifles. There's all of that available if someone else orders it and she can have a mouthful of it. It feels like a waste to get a whole thing because I won't eat it all. There we go. I think it's a great answer.

Well done, you. It's not a great answer. You don't think it's a great answer. I do think it's a great answer. Well done, you. Thank you. I'm proud of myself. Let's read the order back, please.

The thing is, it's weird because at the minute, I didn't get much sleep last night because I ate too much chocolate brownie bites before I went to bed. My heart was going like a jackrabbit and I couldn't fall asleep. And so it's a bit difficult to now defend, really try and put my case forward against key worth on this because not only do I not have the energy because I was up all night, but also I don't want something raising my heart rate, which is why I'll stick with my espresso martini. Thank you.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm with that. Well, I mean, it is heartbreaking. How does someone just not, I don't understand it. I like that we're ending this because we started it with you saying I've never seen you eat. Yes. And I like that actually we've ended it with you not ever wanting to see me eat. No, I don't know how good I had it.

What is for your dessert? So this is a difficult one for me because I'm not a dessert kind of gal. Feel free though, Michelle. If you don't like anything sweet, you can probably have something savory for dessert if you want. Shut up. I feel like I would always say I have a cheese board. But listen, listen, listen to me. If I was beat on Bake Off by a cheese board motherfucker, I am going to absolutely flip the

fuck out. Michelle, Michelle, if you want a cheese board and just imagine what you can have with a cheese board, a little bit of extra bread. If I was beat on Bake Off by Sony doesn't even like desserts and sweets and made a bunch of bakes that they would rather, if I swear to high Christ, if you choose a cheese board right now, this is going to be the most I've ever flipped out on this podcast. Michelle, Michelle, just don't be guided by James. If you want a cheese board, you can have a bit of bread with it.

You can add the wine. You're having wine. Wine is so lovely with cheese board. That's what I mean. Like wine and lovely cheese board. And that is something. If I was in a restaurant and I had to order a dessert, it would be a cheese board. So this is your dream meal, Michelle.

So you should have what you want, really. You've just eaten a fucking bakery's worth of bread. What the fuck are you going to have a cheese board at the end of it? You have what you want, Michelle, you know? Michelle. Very hard. Very hard. But I'm going to have good instincts.

Have I ever had a cheese board? Yes. Oh, you absolute piece of shit, Michelle. Yes. You, you suck. You suck. You suck. You suck, though.

This is the worst day of my life. This is the worst day of my life. Are you fucking joking me? Beat me up. I'm going to, I'm going to say. I'm going to say. You cover my fucking podcast. You've got to go on instinct.

It took a lot for me to agree to have you on this shit. I opposed it many times over. Every fucking time I suggested having you on, I said, there's no way I'm letting her in the dream restaurant. She beat me. I'm making fun. I'm pretty sure she cheated. But you come in here and you choose a cheese board as your dessert.

What the fuck? I hope your bits table catches on fire next time you have her. Next time you all sit down and have bits together. I hope it all explodes in your face. No, because my cheese board will be on it though, James. My cheese board will be on that shit's table. What is, what is a cheese board if not a lovely little bits table? Fucking God.

Jesus. Again, again. It's what's not to like, salty, savory. Love cheese and it's got bits. There's bits. There's bits. It's a little bits table. Why don't you just make a cheese board when you're on bake off

if you love it so much? Why don't you just present them with some cheese and crackers at the end and say that was your happy place. What sort of cheeses do you want, Michelle? Let's talk through the cheese. Oh, Jesus. Oh, God. Fuck it.

Oh, I'm angry. I'm burping. I'm so angry. I've never burped out of anger before. I'm crying. That makes two of us. I literally was just going to go with another option, but I was like, I have to be, I have to be true to myself.

I have to be true to the listeners. What is the matter with you? I don't need to be true to you guys. It would be a cheese board. Just eating bread for every single course and then you have some crackers at the end. But I said at the beginning, I am a savory gal. I like my savory, salty foods.

And at the end of the meal, I like to have a nice sip of wine with some camembert. Yes, absolutely. A lovely camembert. This is horrible. It feels horrible. I'm getting beat on bake off by a savory gal. You're not going to get over this, are you, James?

There's never going to get over this. Bake off was bad enough as it was. It was scar enough and traumatic enough I had to live with it, rattling around in my head all the time, somewhere in the background. And now I know a savory gal came out of the mixer, making cakes and pastries.

And I wear that apron with pride. When I'm eating my cheese, I'm wearing that apron with pride. What's even better about this is you started with a pina colada. So you obviously don't mind. Just to really rub it in. Really sweet drink at the beginning

that I love. I love pina coladas. When I went on Drunk History, I drank loads of pina coladas. Delicious. That's a sweet boy drink. That is starting with a pina colada. Looks like we're okay.

Oh my, I did not see this coming. It feels horrible. Look, I know I've got to let you chat about the cheese board with Ed now. But I'm so, I'm absolutely furious about this. You're raging, James. All the signs were there. Michelle likes to end her day

with some ham on toast. See? Some crisps. She's a savory, that's how she likes to finish off her day. She has to drink water in the night because she's had so much salt before bed. Well done, Ed.

See? You know me already. I knew this was going to happen. You knew it was going to happen. It was always going to be a cheese board. Always. Seated from the beginning. Michelle, what cheese, what cheese is?

Oh, God, okay. Would you like? Here we go. Here we go. I'm going to check my emails while you do this. I love it. I love it. Right.

What cheese is? I like camembert. Lovely. I like, I tried this one the other day. It was gorgeous. It was a truffle brie. Oh, yes. Love the truffle brie.

With the little, the like, the layer of truffle in the middle of it. Oh, yes. That's delicious. So good. And you don't put it in the fridge. That's a trick. Just let it sit out.

You don't put brie or camembert in the fridge. Obviously you've got to be knocking it. No, you put it in the fucking bin. So bitter. I love it. I love it. For someone who loves sweet stuff so much, he is rather bitter, isn't he?

Yeah, he's so bitter. But yeah, you leave it to room temperature. That's how I like my brie and camembert. And then I do really like, you know, that smoky cheese. Is it apple wood or something? Yeah, apple wood smoked cheese. Yes, delicious. Simple.

Yeah. So nice and full of smoke. Even more savory, if anything. Yeah, exactly. Ed, you know me so well now. I love it. Getting on like a house on fire too, are you? Really creamy, Gorgonzola.

Oh, lovely. Really sort of punchy, punchy blue situation, yeah. Yeah. And on the side, I'd like some quints. Oh, so there is a little bit of sweetness there. That's probably enough sweetness for a dessert. That's enough. Absolutely.

Yeah, it's disgusting. Quints really. I love quints. It's a traitor. It's a traitor to the sweet world. A little bit of chutney. Is that a traitor? Oh, lovely.

That, yeah. Nice and sweet. And then some rosemary sprigs. Now, what are you doing with the sprigs? I sprinkle them on top of it. If I have a cracker, I put a bit of camembert. Sprinkle like two or three sprigs and eat it that way. Can't believe my...

If you haven't tried it, Ed, you need to try it. Role rosemary. Really? Role, honestly. Role rosemary, yeah. I'm going to do it. Just two or three. That's absolutely delicious.

And some cheese. Oh, so good. There's a question for you, Michelle. You a fan of visiting Trafalgar Square? Yeah, I've been there a few times, yes. Yeah. Well, good news. Come on.

I'm about to throw you into Trafalgar Square. Like a piece of bread. What I do to anybody on this podcast... The good thing about Michelle is she can link anything with bread. God. Look, he can't even look at it. He's really upset today. Anyone who comes on this podcast who chooses cheese board,

I throw them into Trafalgar Square, no matter where they are geographically. I have mine throwing you from Chulkin. The thing is, now, you've thrown so many people into Trafalgar Square, we're having such a nice old cheese party in Trafalgar Square now, mate. I know. It's just all the cheese people. And winners as well.

Cheese people and winners, which James, you are not. I'll be climbing over Barbara and Barry's fence. I'll be gorging myself on 99s that they've given me. Brenda and Barry. Whatever their names are, I'm getting all their ice cream. I'm going to go over and they're going to go, what does it, Michelle, come around here anymore? So I'll tell you why, because she likes cheese boards now,

and they're going to go, I hope she fucking dies. That's what they will say. Bit much from Brenda and Barry, I think. Yeah, actually, even I think that's over the line from them. They're the old Brenda and Barry. I apologize for that, Michelle. I was out of order for Brenda and Barry. Oh, I may be so angry.

Stephen Graham, if you're listening, I'm going to beat you up. That's it, James. There we are. We thought we'd end on you getting angry. I think that's the perfect way to send us into 2022. We'll be back, won't we? We will be back again. In fact, listen, on the next series,

I'm making my mission to get Stephen Graham on, and I'll do what I set out to do. Thank you very much for listening. We'll be back next year for series seven, and to end, it's the annual Popped Arms or Bread compilation. Yes, Uncle James and Ed. Uncle James and Ed. Well, that's what my nephews say.

My nephews sent me a video of them singing a song, and there we go in Popped Arms or Bread, Bread or Popped Arms. Popped Arms or Bread, Uncle James and Ed. Right, that's really good. But I forgot that the listeners and you don't even know about that video. Yes, so saying Uncle James and Ed sounds like

you're trying to get a new nickname going for yourself. I don't mind the listeners start calling me Uncle James. Yeah, you don't have uncle vibes. To your nephews, you do, but broadly to the nation. You're not the nation's uncle. My nephews have a very, like, probably a different perspective of what an uncle is to everyone else. Everyone else is like an uncle.

It's like an old, wise, you know, someone you look up to. They're like, yeah, our uncle is basically our age. The same as us. Popped Arms or Bread, Bread or Popped Arms. Popped Arms or Bread, Uncle James and Ed. See you next year. See you next year.

I'm going to say it in a calm manner, because I've got two baskets as I come over. That's just the situation. They're attached to me. They're attached to my hair. I've created plaques, and then they go into two large baskets. One has bread in it. Lovely.

Different assortment, your choice. The other one has got Popped Arms. So you're quite weighed down on one side today. Popped Arms or Bread. Popped Arms or Bread, Donald Gleason. Popped Arms or Bread. How long have you been thinking of saying that? Oh, it squeezes the slice.

It's messy. Popped Arms or Bread. Popped Arms or Bread, Asim Chowdhury. Popped Arms or Bread. Yeah. God, I feel like the Popped Arms or Bread is quite random as well. Popped Arms or Bread. Emily Atack.

Popped Arms or Bread. Popped Arms or Bread. Popped Arms or Bread. Harry Hill. Popped Arms or Bread. Bread. Popped Arms or Bread. Popped Arms or Bread.

Anne-Marie. Popped Arms or Bread. Just figuring out what you've said. Okay. Anyway, but it's all past history now. But it doesn't. Yeah. Popped Arms or Bread.

Popped Arms or Bread. Jack D. Popped Arms or Bread. I think it would probably be bread. How do we get on to tip-backs? Popped Arms or Bread. Popped Arms or Bread, Big Zoo. Popped Arms or Bread.

It's a bread thing, man. Popped Arms or Bread. Popped Arms or Bread. Josh, Popped Arms or Bread. Um, oh, bread please. They've made it. Popped Arms or Bread. Oh, okay.

All right then. Popped Arms or Bread. Key what? It's bread in here. It's always going to be bread. Popped Arms or Bread. Popped Arms or Bread. Jeff Rosenstock.

Popped Arms or Bread. Popped Arms or Bread. Uh, Bread. But yeah, bottled water. Still water. Popped Arms or Bread. Popped Arms or Bread. Popped Arms or Bread I would take bread, please.

Popped Arms or Bread. Popped Arms or Bread, Mackita or Oliver. Popped Arms or Bread. Oh my god. Popped Arms. Yeah. Popped Arms or Bread. Popped Arms or Bread Michelle Keegan.

Popped Arms or Bread. Bread, 100%. Popped Arms or Bread. Popped Arms or Bread. Uh... Julie Hananuga! Ah! This is...

Ah! Neva! Fuck both of those motherfuckers! Oh, sorry, sorry. Sorry, Julie. We made you sound aggressive again there. Sorry. Actually, I apologise for the racket.

Pop it up, it's all bread! Pop it up, it's all bread, Ed Sheeran! Pop it up, it's all bread! Right, man, it's fucking 9... Oh, no, it's 10. It's 9.55. I never married his sister, and I definitely didn't marry the girlfriend

when I got home either. Pop it up, it's all bread! Pop it up, it's all bread! R economically, pop it up! Pop it up, it's all bread! Yeah, it's gonna be, sort of, like, afghan... flat bread.

Pop it up, it's all bread! Pop it up, it's all bread, maybe a boggolese Pop it up, it's all bread! Bread! Pop it up, it's all bread! Oh, fuck. Bread. Bread.

Pop it up, it's all bread! Jesus Christ! Pop it up, it's all bread, Bridget Christie! Pop it up, it's all bread! Pop it up, it's all bread! Pop it up. Pop it up, sort of bread. Pop it up, sort of bread, Martin Freeman.

Pop it up, sort of bread. Oh, this is any sort of restaurant, isn't it? It's a whatever restaurant. It's not themed. It's whatever restaurant you can dream up, yeah. Bread. Like, I think it's quite profound, actually. It felt pretty profound at the time, Bimini.

Thank you. Pop it up, sort of bread. Oh. Pop it up, sort of bread. Bimini bombolash. Let's go with... Bread. Pop it up, sort of bread.

Pop it up, sort of bread, Rosie Jones. Pop it up, sort of bread. Pop it up, sort of bread. I know this. I'm waiting your day after I work. Give me that pop it up. Pop it up, sort of bread. Bread.

Pop it up, sort of bread. Nicola Coughlin. Pop it up, sort of bread. Bread. Bread. Bread. Bread. Bread.

Bread. Bread. Every day I love bread so much. It's so delicious. Pop it up, sort of bread. Marilyn Russell. Pop it up, sort of bread. Um...

So angry. Uh, bread. Bread, please. Perfect. Pop it up, sort of bread. Pop it up, sort of bread, Merasile. Pop it up, sort of bread. Pop non-ょ…

Pop non-ょ. Popit up, sort of bread. Pop it down, sort of bread. Bread. Bread. Pop it up, sort of bread. Pop it up, sort of bread, Joey Wicks. Pop it up, sort of bread.

Nan bread. Nan bread. Oh, pop it up. Do you mean any bread? Any bread. Any bread. Pop it up, sort of bread. Pop it up, sort of bread, Mayon kidney watching.

Pop it up, sort of bread. Pop it up, sort of bread. You know what? bread yeah pop it up so bread pop it up so bread oh you know um pop it up so bread pop it up so bread tot what a pop it up so bread pop it up so what is that pop it up so bread is that like biscuits or bread or rolls or bread pop it pop it up so what do i know are they like popovers no in an indian restaurant all the all the none bread no the big crispy things that bring at the beginning oh wow oh yeah huge pop it up so bread pop it up so bread jaką or pop it up

so bread non-bred i'll just spread any bread you like any bread in the whole world o that's hot pop it up so bread pop it up so bread Ralph's bowl pop, it up so bread bread pop it up so bread pop it up so bread timon sp sair Pop it up some bread. I do like a pop it up Pop it up some bread. Pop it up some bread Sarah Kendall. Pop it up some bread bread bread. What kind of bread you got? Pop it up some bread bread Bread always bread. What are you thinking of it? That's like saying a toad or a kitten. Yeah, what was the choice?

Yeah, pop it up some bread pop it up some bread Jason pop it up some bread. I Don't know what you're asking. Pop it up some bread as as has happened with every American guest we've had James has shouted pop it up some bread at the top of his voice and they've looked to me for a translation Pop it up some bread. Pop it up some bread superkins pop it up some bread Right, I thought about this Pop it up some giant one giant crisp right who's not gonna want to begin a meal with a giant crisp Pop it up some bread pop it up some bread Simon Amstel pop it up some bread pop it up some bread Pop it up some bread Jamie Oliver pop it up some bread pop it up some bread from food. Yeah

What? What was the first one pop it up some bread what the fuck is a pop it up pop it up some bread Pop it up And don't worry Joe. We've been in America for a while and it's normally gets this reaction pop it up some like a crispy Indian Yes, okay. I have had those Indian chips. Got it. Yeah Yeah, yeah crisps I guess anything that you'd normally have at the breadcourt in any kind of restaurant You can have it doesn't have to be even pop it up. No, no, I love a mixed basket of bread This seems like a real witch hunt pop it up some bread

But water for me is yeah, that's the that's how things start off and then we move on to the pop it up some bread Pop it up some bread. I think Harriet pop it up some bread Yeah Pop it up some bread egg the right pop it up some bread And can it go bread There we go some booze some booze locked in what locked in pop it up some bread Pop it up some bread as you say. I know pop it up some bread, you know, if you don't have quality You don't have a business. Nobody's gonna come back and drink it. They're gonna say, oh, that's nice. I'll put that on my shelf

I'm not gonna crack another one. I thank you, but that's not what happening We're in 78 countries with multiple awards and medals and I I'm proud to go around the world and say hey It's Canadian pop it up some bread. What's that pop it up some bread, Dan? Oh pop it down. Oh, yeah pop it up for sure I actually, you know, I would astute and just kiss goodbye to all Western cooking even this meal I've showed you if I could eat Indian every night. Hmm. Well, you can change it if you want well, well, okay, so that would be pop a dome that would be saga saga Lou and sagosh and a great Mile vegetarian curry and lots of basmati rice

And Hello, it's me Amy Glendale You might remember me from the best ever episode of off-menu where spoke to my mum and asked her about seaweed on mashed potato and Our relationships never been the same since and I am joined by me Ian Smith. I would probably go bread I'm not gonna I'm not gonna spoil in case get him on James and Ed But we're here sneaking in to your podcast experience to tell you about a new podcast that we're doing it's called northern news It's about all the new stories that we've missed out from the north because look we're two Northerners sure

But we've been living in London for a long time. The new stories are funny quite a lot of them crimes It's all kicking off. That's a new podcast called northern news. We'd love you to listen to maybe we'll get my mum on Get Glendale's mum on every episode. That's not the news. When's it out Ian? It's already out now Amy Yeah get listening there's probably a backlog you've left it so late