Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 184: Nick Mohammed

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

‘Ted Lasso’ star and superb character comic Nick Mohammed orders, err, his dream(?) meal this week.Nick Mohammed is on tour with ‘The Very Best and Worst of Mr Swallow’. For tour dates and tickets visit berksnest.com/nick Follow Nick on Twitter @nickmohammed 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 to the Off Menu podcast, taking the raw beef of friendship, chopping with the knife of humor, adding in the egg yolk of good times, throwing in the finely diced red onion of chuckles, adding in the capers of questions, mixing all up and serving with the toast of the internet. What's that? Steak tartar. That's a gamble. My name is James A. Castor. We own the Dream Restaurant. And when you buy it in, every week a guest, and we ask them their favorite ever start, a main course dessert, side dish, and drink, not

in that order. And this week, our guest is? Nick Muhammad. Nick Muhammad is one of the greats, a wonderful comedian. Wonderful character comic. Wonderful actor. Wonderful actor. You may know him from Ted Lasso, the great. Brilliant in that. Also highly recommend his series, Intelligence on Sky, with David Schwimmer. Nick wrote that, and is the lead in that. It's absolutely brilliant. It's properly funny. Fantastic. In the Martian? Yes, he's in the Martian. Let's not forget. He's the voice of Piglet. He's the voice of Piglet, of course. I'd like a word, my favorite place. Yeah, your favorite place in the world. But also, as we say, he's a brilliant character comic. He does a fantastic

character called Mr. Swallow, who I think I've seen every Mr. Swallow show. Yeah. And there's never been a bad one, Mr. Swallow. It's always hilarious. Always hilarious. And Nick is finally going on a proper big tour with Mr. Swallow. So you've got to go and see that. It starts this coming Sunday. If you're listening to this on the day it comes out, it starts this coming Sunday at London Duke of York's Theatre. I hope this ticket's left because you've got to go and see it. He's going all over the place, going to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Birmingham, Leeds again, Durham, Salford. I mean, look, all the details are on berksnes.com forward slash Nick. Go and check that out. Buy tickets. You've got to get a ticket.

Oxford, Brighton, Bristol. Thank you. Maconliffe, Exeter, Cardiff, Norwich, Salford, London again. Salford's a great swing at the old pronunciation there. Have you always said that? I say Salford, yeah. Do you? Salford, Lowey. Yeah, well done. You're the only person in the world who does? Yeah, Salford. Yeah, I would say Salford actually. Yeah. I don't know why I just said Salford. I've never said it like that before. No, no, no. My girlfriend's from there. Yeah, yeah, she's from Salford. Yeah, I never say. There we go. Go and see your family in Salford. Salford? Salford. Yeah. Jesus. I would ask for that to be edited out, but I think I deserve everything out again. No, no, no. Yeah, absolutely. Leave that in. We can't wait to speak to Nick

and hear about his dream menu, for this is what the podcast is. But we do have a secret ingredient and if it gets said by our guests, we do kick them out of the dream restaurant. And this week, our secret ingredient is bran flakes. Now, you chose this one, Ed. I did. Any cereal like that, I think, is like, what, are we at a war? Yeah, yeah. It feels like something you would have eaten in, you know, 19th century onwards until about 1948, and then you should stop eating it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's drab. It's drab. People eat that sort of thing to stay regular, I think, and as soon as you're eating food as medicine, I think it, no. Also, like, if you want to stay regular, I, you know, get some fruit and fiber or something. That's nice. It's got some little.

Yeah, it's still got the bran flake element of it, but it's got some other fun bits. And the thing is with bran flakes is they're boring. And then if you leave them in the milk too long, that texture is hell then. Horrible. No way. Stinks. Stinks. Absolutely stinks. Stinks. So, yeah, I mean, anyone choosing to eat bran flakes just like as their standard cereal? Yeah, yeah. That's a red flag. Get some ambition. Yeah. So, if Nick picks bran flakes, bye-bye, Nick. Bye-bye, Nick. If you pick bran flakes, hopefully you won't. No. I mean, we've had cereals on the podcast before. We have. So, you never know. You never know. If you're listening on Australia, I'm coming there soon. Go on the website at gamble.co.uk. You've got to go. You've

got to go and see it. You've got to go, man. And New Zealand. And New Zealand, to be fair. Not much on for me? No. No, was it March? Yeah. No. This is the off-menu menu of Nick Mohamed. Welcome, Nick, to the Dream Restaurant. Thank you very much for having me. Oh, God, he's here already. Welcome, Nick Mohamed, to the Dream Restaurant. I've been expecting you for some time. I know, and I'm a huge fan of the show. So, you know, you can start straight away if you want, because I've got it all lined up. No chat. Nothing about... We don't want us to plug the tour. We just get straight into the... The very best and worst of Mr Swallow. It is. It is, indeed. And the worst is true. It's just sort of been, you know, I've not done before and think,

just padding. Yeah. It's a best of and some new stuff that is less tried and tested. So, it might end up being the worst bits of that show. Or the best bits of the show. Or the best bits who can tell. But that'll be good, because if what you think is going to be the worst bits are the best bits of the show, then the other bits that you used to think were the best will become the worst. Yeah. I guess that's how material develops, isn't it? Like, it slowly becomes... Like, the best thing that you think you've done slowly becomes the worst thing you've done. Is that right? Only if you're heading in the right direction. Yeah, you'd hope that that's how it happens. Yeah. Of course, it could be that you just... You peek right at the start. Yeah. My mum

often says that a thing that I used to do called Conductor, which is like a skit where I play a conductor, and it's all time to sound effects, which I think is now almost 20 years old. She always sites that as the best thing I've ever done. Yes. Well, I saw... How's that make you? So, I saw you do that... You make me feel great. I saw you do that in a solo show that must have been 2005. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you'd probably been doing it for a couple of years. I think actually, I think it was new for 2005. I mean, it's now... I mean, I'll be honest, it possibly might pop up in this best and worst off, if you look at it. But even though it wasn't Mr. Swallow. No, it's not Mr. Swallow. I'm thinking of doing it,

coming on at the start, as me, doing it, and then introducing the support, and then going off, and then coming back on as Swallow. I think that that's... If it does make an appearance, that's when it will happen. Open with the ticket, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then people can leave after that if they want. I mean, it would be interesting. I mean, this is just getting far too specific now. Because look, Mr. Swallow is one of my favorite comedy characters of all time. Absolutely love Mr. Swallow. If you've not seen Mr. Swallow and you're listening, you need to go to this tour because it's absolutely fantastic. Incredible. A tour de force. A tour de force. Thank you. I would like to see the conductor sketch done by Mr. Swallow.

Well, I have considered it. Yeah. But I feel like it's... I think it's possibly too many things happening all at the same time, because Mr. Swallow is such a specific flavour, and so easily distracted. And I think it's cumulative. Like his constant distraction is sort of cumulative in terms of its effect, I would hope, on an audience. Whereas conductor is so specific in terms of you have to get it right. And I feel like if Mr. Swallow got it wrong, that'd be funny once. And then if it happens again and again for four and a half minutes, people would just switch off. Well, what if... Let's workshop this live. Okay. I've got the recording on my phone, if you want. As yourself doing the conductor support comes on. Then you do Mr. Swallow. Then during the

Mr. Swallow show, you do the conductor. Oh, and I have... Again, as Mr. Swallow, and anyway, you know how it's meant to go, and then they say it goes wrong. But again, isn't... I mean, I'd love to do that, and maybe I should try that. But again, after what I did as an uncle. Yeah. But just get it wrong every time. I feel like, yeah, perfect. End of the night. Yeah, finish where you started, but now you're Mr. Swallow doing the sketch. That's a really good idea. I'll try it. Try and redding. I'll try and redding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When your mum comes to see it. Yeah, they're not coming to see it.

They're not. No, no, no. Richard Nicholas, is it... What is it? Is it stuff we've seen before? I was like, well, you know, like, you've probably seen about 30 minutes. Well, we won't... No, we won't come. No. I mean, I'm literally going to leads. I'm staying with them. We're doing two shows. No, well, we won't come then. No, because we will have seen some of that. I mean, this is why you've turned evil. And spit on your reflection in the mirror. It's because of them. I've seen them. James is referencing Ted Lasso, by the way.

He is referencing Ted Lasso. A little fact for you, my mum and dad were offered to play my mum and dad in Ted Lasso. Amazing. Right. So, I mean, my mum and dad don't listen to this podcast, so I don't think that they'll... I mean, I don't think they'll listen to podcasts. I think so. I think I'm happy to sort of speak freely. They do listen to this podcast. Let's face it, they'll probably skip the episode you're on. They're not fans. Yeah, they know what I like to eat. They know what I like to eat.

We've had dinner with them. We won't listen to that one. No point. No, I don't need to know that, Nicholas. No, no. Just call me before you arrive and we'll put it in the fridge. I don't know why it made me love so much, your parents calling you Nicholas. Oh, always. Or Nicolagi, because my mum's great, so she called me Nicolagi sometimes. But yeah, so they were offered Theo Park, who cast Ted Lasso, brilliant cast and director, and always likes to kind of honour someone's heritage, authenticity. And this was the point when they obviously

didn't know that Nate's parents were necessarily going to be in it, so this was sort of... But when that became clear that they were going to pop up in it in season two, and I don't think this is a spoiler, but they do obviously pop up again in season three, suddenly we started having these conversations, and she was like, Nic, do your mum and dad like... Would they be up for it? And so I did put it to them. And like, so they're both retired now, but they're GP, my mum's a GP, my dad was a solicitor, so not actors or performers really in any sense. My mum got struck off. She didn't really. I just like... Oh God, I really... Obviously I'm joking.

So I put it to them. My dad was up for it, my mum was not, and refused for him to do it, so I think it was a shame. It'd be weird if just your dad was in it, and they had to cast an actress to play his wife. All in all. All over kissing scenes. Okay, Nic. Okay, Nicholas, I'll do it. Between me and dad. Oh God, I'm really... I'm going to have to put them off. I assume that's where it's headed, the resolution with that carrot. Well, it's the only way in which you have to love.

It's the only place you can go. You snog your dad, and then you're fine again. Yeah, you're fine again. I mean, your hair all goes black again. Chopped head's head off. It's not for dad. I'm out of here. Join, I don't know, Liverpool. I don't know anything about football. That's part of the problem, really. There must be... I always think when there's a show created that has such dedication from fans, if I was in charge of a show like that, I'd definitely be tempted to do something like that and end it with someone's head getting chopped off. Well, I feel like the heel turn at the end of season two was sort of big enough for the fans.

That had an element of that, yeah. The fans were like, what the hell have you done? What are you doing? And I get a lot of flack on Twitter still. People not quite getting that it's fiction, and I don't engage. That moment where you spit in the mirror, so many people were like, God, that was so, that's so stomach wrenching, it's so horrible. And I was like, hmm, maybe laugh out loud. I'm not sure I should... You just knew it was me doing that. Yeah, that's really funny that Nick's spitting in the mirror. Nick did that to give the crew a laugh. They kept it in. He was sharing COVID. I thought, why not? That's the answer a bit.

I can't remember if it was... It certainly wasn't improvised as it wasn't my idea to spit, but I can't remember if it was just something that we just thought, like Jason was like, oh, and maybe do this. It definitely came from Jason that Jason and Joe Kelly, one of the other creators and writers saying that it was based on something that they had seen someone do, like a mutual friend, or they'd seen someone do something to kind of hype themselves up, and they always found it a bit weird that they would spit. I don't know if it was spitting on a mirror, or it was just spitting as a thing. And then I can't remember if it was scripted or whether they were like, oh, just try one way you sort of spit. And then it became

like a thing, which is sort of horrible, really. But yeah. I love it. Have people, has it gone off of Twitter and into real life, people coming up to you and being like... You should be nicer to Ted. No one being rude. A lot of people, if they do want to chat, they want to chat about it. And they're like, oh, you've been very naughty. There's a lot of that. But no. And to be fair, Twitter has been absolutely fine. It was just a bit when that end of season two dropped. It was quite full on. It was just a bit, because I never experienced anything like it. And I was thinking about it the other day, that you certainly doing... I didn't go to drama school, but I feel like drama school does instill this in

you from what I've heard, that kind of idea that, oh, you should just get used to being in stuff that is really bad. Or that when you go to Edinburgh, you should really approach it with the attitude that no one's really going to see it. Everyone else will do better than you, and you'll get bad reviews and you should approach like that. And you see, I've sort of approached a lot of work like that. And it is healthy, I think, to kind of not anticipate any kind of success. And no one did with TELASO even really, even at the start. But the main thing is no one teaches you how to deal with the fact that when something actually does kind of become a hit. And I'm still not really used to it. And because it's now, it's a global platform and social media and everything,

I mean, it's just, it's come at a time, and obviously it came at a time when the pandemic happened, so everyone was kind of watching it. So it was just very odd. And I still don't, I still don't quite, can't quite fathom it. But it's nice. And it's absolutely a once in a lifetime. I'm sure it will never, ever happen again. And you kind of try and ride away with it. But you kind of, it is very surreal, very odd. And it's just a casting, just a casting that, you know, happened to work out. Like, you know, it's nuts. But I mean, you know what happens in season three. Yeah. Do you think they're going to be after you even harder? I can't give anything. I nearly had it. And I've been, you know,

I promise I'll try and get you a spoiler. I feel like I think it's fair to say it's going to be another roller coaster for Nate or for everyone, really. I also genuinely don't know if it's the end or not. I think it could be. Ah, but I don't know snogging your dad. Well, that's the thing that puts me in prison. Do they up the ante and then you like fart on the mirror? Exactly. Exactly. Spread your cheeks, fart on the mirror. Oh, God. Something pops out and what's that? Yeah. Steams the mirror up. You're right. I don't believe on the mirror in the fart. Oh, God. I don't believe. I think you put your hand on it as you walk out. Like in Titanic. Yeah. Smear it across. Oh, this is horrible. It's all good ideas though.

Yeah. Get me an edit. Well, we all start with still a spark in water, Nick. Yes, you do. You've got some water with you right now that you bought in yourself. Oh, this is squash. Oh, it's squash. So I'm used to water being in those kind of containers. Yeah. This is still water. Is it a Ted Lasso bottle? It is actually a Ted Lasso bottle. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Nick's got a Ted Lasso bottle that says Nick on it. It says Nick on it. That is literally from like day one of like filming season three, the retnick in it. So, you know, the new who's who's who's. And weirdly, even though I have washed this every day, it still has, I mean, what kind of ink is that? That's a boring thing to say, isn't it?

That's boring. Okay. It's still water. Normally, I would try and put our guest at ease, but yes, that is a very boring thing to say. It's still water from the fridge. So we just moved to house in December and it's a fridge with one of those things on the front where you can get ice. Someone's getting American tally money. Here we go. We didn't buy it. It was left there by the previous owners, but it is nice, isn't it? Who's the previous owner? Elon Musk? So it's one of those fridges that can dispense. I mean, I assume it's pure water. It's not just coming out of the fridge. It's sort of like old sort of fridge water. It's all the stuff that's dropped off like chicken when you defrost again. It's sort of the back of the fridge,

the cinnamon in the back of the freezer. The cooling food. I've just been drinking cooling food. Coolant. No, it's water that comes out of the fridge. And then I just top it up with a bit of Robinson's orange and mango creations. I think the range is called. And I've drunk squash forever. And I'm sure it is bad for me. I've got good teeth. So I feel like it's not coming that bad. Do you drink it instead of water? No, I'll have water sometime. And I obviously won't bring squash to a restaurant. Oh, yeah. Well, then great. Then I absolutely will have that. Still water with ice, with a bit of orange squash. Is it orange squash or orange and mango? Oh, orange and mango. Yeah. Is that your go-to flavor? It is now. It used to just be normal

orange. The ones I don't like, I don't like high juice, which is the 50% what's it? They genuinely give me like, I think a headache and like just make me feel unwell. I don't know why because I'll drink fruit juice. I'll eat fruit. But there's something about high juice. There's something about, I don't know, the way it's processed or something that I want the full sugary squash. But I tell you what I don't like is the double concentrated stuff. Too much. It's too much because you know that something has happened. Why? What do you think's happened? Well, I mean, it's just boiled more, isn't it? Or whatever they do to it, I guess. Boiled? Thicker. What? I don't know how to make it. What are you imagining?

Well, I just can't imagine like someone sort of stirring a big vat over a big flame and they're sort of stirring it to kind of get it thicker and thicker. Yeah. And like the thicker it gets, the more sort of concentrated it gets. Obviously, none of this is true because it's same viscosity as the normal stuff, but same viscosity as water. But what's the point of the double concentrated stuff? It's just same time. Yeah. So you can use less. Right. So the bottle last long. Less plastic. But you can get them now in like seven centimeter diameter,

like little pouchy things, which you can then, I assume, just put in your pocket and put like four drops in and it feels like, you know, a vat. It turns, it turns like a bath of water, bright orange. You put it in your bath. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a Baraka. It kind of turns it bright orange. But you can get those, and I'm not into those. So you're asking if this shows about what I don't want. Yeah. So that's first and the rest of the things you don't want. Yeah. Yeah. It's a long list. Well, you've got more opinions on squash than anyone I've ever met before.

Oh, good. And I mean that as a compliment. Yeah. You used to have material about squash. I used to have some material about squash. Yeah. Yeah. It upsets some people. Yeah. And you really, it was my night turning evil. Yeah. A lot of people really like, what is this? You're a bad man for saying what you just said on stage.

Yeah. I'd make fun of adults who have squash in the house and make themselves a squash in the house. Well, I'm that person. Adults who don't have kids. So you've got kids. So you're okay. But I was drinking this way before I had kids. Yeah. Yeah. I do. I don't know what it is. Is it like, I just like it. I just really like it. And I really miss it. Like if we don't have any in and we don't have any like

Robinson's orange creations or orange mango. Like I'm like, oh, I need to go because, you know, you can't go to like, they won't stock it everywhere. Yeah. Like you can't get it in M&S. And I only say M&S just because it's down the road. So it's sort of the handiest one to sort of go and get stuff right. But M&S, it's high juice and double concentrate.

I really hate it. We know how you feel about high juice and double concentrate. We have got some in the fridge at the moment. And I just want to chuck it down the sink, but I won't because it'll be wasteful. But and the thing is, I will resort to high juice if there's nothing else in. And I definitely don't want water. If you put double concentrate down the sink, it'd be like that. Mr. Muscle stuff that cleans the pipes.

Yeah, clear you right out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what it does when you drink it. Yeah. No, it would, it would, it would, it would work wonders. I see those double concentrate things partly because the packaging is the same as that. Sorry. Sorry.

Sorry. Sorry. Like if you laugh like that. It's not really funny. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Don't keep talking about it. But I feel, you know, when you clean a dishwasher and you had to put one of those

things in upside down in a dishwasher, that's what they are basically. They've got the same nozzle, the same sort of thing to sort of only squeeze a very little amount out because you don't want to overdo it. On set when you're filming stuff, is that like your one sort of diva thing where you're like, I need the creations, not high juice? I'll, I'll, I'll just bring, I'll just bring my own in. I mean, I pretty much always will bring stuff in if I'm filming because otherwise you can just

eat and eat and eat and eat. I mean, all, I mean, acting it's so, I mean, basically all I do is sit down for about 12 hours and like talk like that, you know, just talk like that, which is really lethargic anyway. And you can then just, if you want to, you can eat all day. Yeah. I mean, that sounds very vulgar, but you can, I mean, but you can just eat a lot. The last thing anyone wants is for like an actor playing that role to have had like a, like at lunchtime to have like cottage pie, like loads of potato and like a hot pudding,

like a, like, you know, but that is literally, and it's mainly for the crew, the crew needed, the crew are working and it's physical and they've got the worst outs. But if you're an actor, you do not need that much, like there never has anybody needed that amount of food for like doing so little. And so I will bring in a sandwich often and have something small and not try to avoid anything hot. Because otherwise I'll just be asleep by two 30. And you can tell that from a performance. When the first take of you spitting in the mirror, was it orange colored?

Yeah, it's not enough orange. They're like, it just, it just feels a bit weird, but it's orange. We're just going to have to keep going until it's clear. Yeah, yeah, as part of the squash squash. Okay. I was imagining you'd had a cottage pie. Oh, we're like sort of sweet potato. We kind of finish. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is sort of brown in there. Yeah. Before we move on, I would like to know what your ratios are of concentrate to water when you make yourself a squash. Because you're such a connoisseur.

Oh, I like it weak. Like I do like it weak. I'm not a monster. Because I feel like you can, I mean, if it's too strong, because I'll often have like do a pint of it. And now we've got the ice thing. I mean, I will, you know, be generous on the ice, I guess what, if it's a pint glass, like possibly maximum two centimetres of squash.

And then the rest feels like a lot. No, I think it doesn't feel weak to me. That feels like it. No, well, for a pint, medium. Is it? Yeah. Yeah. It does.

And it just depends also what frame of mind it depends. Like if I, if I feel like, oh, I do, I do, I should be drinking water. I will make it really weak. Because I sort of feel like I should, I should get more water than the actual squash. But what if you're celebrating? Yeah, I'm celebrating. I'll sometimes pop it in lemonade. And my friend Lee used to call that summer cocktail.

He did. When we were growing up, I used to put grapes in it as well. In the summer cocktail. Pop a grape in a summer, well, if you pop a grape in any, any fizzy drink, but it will float up and then float down. Float, do you know this? Goes up and down. So it'll sink to the bottom.

Then all the, you know, the bubbles all cling onto it. And then it comes to the top, the bubbles pop, then it goes back to the bottom. How do you, so you never know if the grapes are which? Exactly. They should have, yeah, they should have cotton onto that. Yeah. Yeah. So you can do that.

And that is, that's, that's an official summer cocktail. Lemonade, orange squash, grape. One grape. One grape. Don't slice it. And I once had it in a lemonade and like friends and my mum and dad were around and they thought it was like a martini with an olive in it. But I was only about 12.

Talk about an addressing girl. Tell us more about Lee. Oh yeah, I would like to know about Lee. Okay. Lee is my best mate, best mate from home, best man at the wedding. He is absolutely brilliant. He lives in, oh he lives in Manchester now. He was living in Glasgow for a while.

He's an air traffic controller. He is, so we were at school together. This all sounds made up by the way though. Oh yeah, none of it's made up though. He, so he's best mate from school. So he, so we were, I mean, I've known him since I was like eight, nine years old. And weirdly, my mum was his family doctor. But that's not how we met.

We were just at school together and my mum sort of, you know, say represent, if you were a doctor and represented some of the kids. I think you've been in a show business for too long. Yeah, represent the kids. Clients, doctors and patients on clients are they? No, no. She, what, what would you say? She looked after, she looked after cared for.

They were under her watch wing. Watch wing. Yeah. Anyway, basic sense. So there's a bit of Mr Swallow is, is Lee. Like it was mostly based on this high school teacher who Lee was taught by as well. So we still laugh tons about some of like the lessons that we had, which were sort of became sort of Mr Swallow material, I guess,

but which were real legitimate stuff that this teacher used to sort of spout on about us in English. But when we got married, Lee did a toast to the teacher who I won't name, just because I won't name. But because he effectively believes that the only reason I have a career is because of this teacher, basically. But he is absolutely brilliant. He has got the thing that I feel,

I was trying to think about why he is a bit like Mr Swallow, because he's, I mean, he's from, he's from Leeds, like I am. But he has far more of an accent than I do. And, and you know, he has got a lot. I mean, he's sort of a little bit Mr Swallow ish, but he would do things like he'd sort of wind himself up in the way that Mr Swallow Swallow would. I remember when we once went on holiday together,

I think we were like in Italy or Sicily, maybe. And he kept on, we kept on passing this shop that had like these marzipan chocolates in or something like, oh, Nicholas, we're going to have the, all these are going to be grilled. Oh, we have these. These are going to be, oh, I can't wait to have one. He's winding himself up about having one of just one of these. But the shop was always closed.

Get me in there and going to have one of the, oh, I can't wait to have one of these. And he got one and he bought, he bought one. I'm only laughing because of a friend's of mine who were on that holiday. No, listen to this and they're all absolutely relate to it. But he, he bought one and it was massive. It was like the size of like a toffee. I feel like it was really thick, like a sphere of like marzipan basically. And he, and he like, he unwrapped it in the cellophane.

He's like, oh, and he used this race like, oh, Nicholas. And I would never say something like this, but he's like, oh, Nicholas, this is sex on legs. You just wait. Oh, look at it. And he, he took a massive bite out of it. Was literally almost like sick of that. Ugh, no, never again.

Absolutely not. And like threw it in the bin, made a huge kind of drama out of it. And it's just very Mr. Swallow to kind of like be very kind of into something and like go from like 0 to 100 in the space. And then be instantly switch like an opinion about it and then never have it again for his whole life. Like to have written it off that quickly. That's the banana.

That's Mr. Swallow with the banana. That's effectively what the banana came from. Was Lee doing that to some marzipan sweets? One of the things I've laughed at most in the end of the show. I've ever been sitting there. Yeah, Mr. Swallow and the banana. Mr. Swallow peeling the banana, throw out a whole set up for a bit. They're biting into it.

And then he realizes an audience member that Mr. Swallow's never had a banana before. We don't know what it is. And you go, oh, have you had one of them? I just really like asked this all the way. Have you had one of them? I've tried to do it. I've tried to do it since that show and can't quite get the rhythm of it right. And so I've stopped doing it weirdly because it was a fact.

I remember it being quite fun. But it was a bit that comics liked, definitely. But I can't quite get the rhythm of it right. So I've sort of thinking, oh, should I put it in something? And then I've never quite got it right. Yeah. And as a bit, if you can't get the rhythm right or it doesn't do well, you'd be insane. Oh, yeah.

It looks like it even looks real. Yeah. People think I'm genuinely mad. Or it just looks like a bad bit, like a bit of business, which hasn't quite worked out. Pop a Dom's Operette. Pop a Dom's Operette. Pop a Dom's Operette. Pop a Dom's Operette.

Pop a Dom's James. Pop a Dom's James. It has to be Pop a Dom's. I don't want to fill up on bread. I mean, I know everyone says it. And I'm also just, I love crisps. And Pop a Dom's are very close to crisps. And you can never fill up on Pop a Dom's.

I don't think it's possible to. So I would. I don't think anyone's had the chance. Because you only get, like, what? Maximum 2E. If you're eating out, sure. But you can buy a bag of those mini ones. We do that a lot.

My wife can devour literally one of those big bags. Less than five minutes. She did tell me, don't say that. Well, she didn't know that specifically. She said, don't talk about how much I eat. But it's not just her. It's both of us. We can eat so much food.

And we do value quantity over quality. It's very rare that people say that on this podcast. We absolutely eat so much. I mean, I've always, I mean, we've eaten out, Ed. We've eaten out. And I feel like, and we probably eat out more in our student days. So obviously.

I was very much a quantity guy back then. Yes, as was I. I would occasionally go to weather spoons and pretend there was someone else coming to join us so I could order another one. Because they just weren't big enough. And I wouldn't, like, legitimately just be like, oh, and they're having, and I put like a coat

or something over the seat to make it look like, not that I was ashamed. Would you then go to the toilet and come back as a different character? Is that how it started? But I should have done that. Then you're like, I'm quite good at this. Oh, I got into character companies.

No. But, um... Oh, my God. What's that? There's an amazing thing. I don't know if you have it. You know, Mark Wharton's character, Shirley Ghostman. Have you ever seen it?

I would encourage everyone to see it. It is so funny. High Spirits with Shirley Ghostman is one of the great TV shows. It's probably about 20 years old there, right? It's him playing a psychic sort of entertainer kind of guy. Shout out to Mark Wharton's kids, by the way. They listen to this.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I bumped into Mark Wharton and he told me off. And Babs Wiltshire as well. He's brilliant. Brilliant director, Babs. I bumped into both of them. But Babs was very nice about, you know,

that the kids listened to it. But Mark was like, don't just never listen to us now. We've got you in there. Fucking it is. Oh. So, uh... That's good.

Yeah, so shout out to the kids. They're listening to this. Shout out to the kids. Your dad's probably talking to you right now. Well, Mark Wharton's... That character, I mean, Mark in general, is just incredible. But that character in particular, so funny. And he did it.

He did the thing. And I think this is still on YouTube. Because there's quite a lot of kind of sort of candid camera stuff about it, wasn't it? It wasn't... It was, you know, it was... He was doing it for real on unsuspecting members of the public. But there's one bit where he goes for dinner.

And it's just a table for two. And he says he's going for dinner with Princess Diana. The spirit of Princess Diana. And he tells the waiter that, oh, Princess Diana's with me. And he's quite camera. And he orders. He orders for her.

And he's like, what are you having? And he orders for her. And eats both meals. And chat, like, just has a conversation. And it is absolutely priceless. Yeah. So funny. So funny. Yeah.

And my new best friend as well. Oh. We're putting that out there. La La Land. La La Land, brilliant as well. Absolutely brilliant. He's phenomenal. My nephews watched Nativity for the first time.

Yes. And one of my nephews really likes people to follow the rules and behave themselves. Yeah. And he was absolutely furious with Mr. Poppy. Yeah. Yeah, because he does not. He does not play by the rules.

He was like, Mr. Poppy should get fired. Because his behavior was irresponsible. He's supposed to be looking after these children. Yeah. And he does. And he makes the same mistakes for three films. Basically. Yeah.

He was furious at Mr. Poppy watching that film. Do you want dips of these poppadoms? Yeah. I'll have dips. I'll have all of them. You eat so many poppadoms. We should call you Mr. Poppy. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Great. Mr. Poppy Darm. How do you like that? Becca claimed that one of friends' friends came up with phrase, just poppadom down there. And I was like, no.

I mean, I think it was Ron Atkinson. If not, maybe somebody else. Come on. Oh, yeah. Oh, God, James. All right, yeah. Come on. I might even know who the fuck Becca is.

I'm guessing it's your wife. It's my wife. And she's absolutely brilliant. She is just phenomenal. Anyway, what are we saying? Poppadoms, dips. I would have the writer. I'd have the...

I quite like all the onion-y stuff. If you get a takeaway, I love opening like the cellophane bags of salad. I'll have all of that. It's sort of the only time I would probably have salad is with a curry. Yeah. And that's mainly onion, really, isn't it?

It's all. It's a hundred percent onion. I feel like calling it salad is a stretch. It's onion. There's usually a bit of lettuce in there, and I won't really have that. And there's not like half a tomato, usually, if you're lucky.

Yeah. Wouldn't ever put some salad in a summer cocktail. Watch it float up and down. No, no, not a summer cocktail. No, it's very much a sweet thing. I'm going to say everything. A summer cocktail. I do love it.

You got to just do it. Just try it. It'll be delicious. It's just sort of nicer than Fanta. That, I mean, that, yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's a big claim.

Yeah. Yeah. But you can, but the thing is, literally, the world's your oyster, because it can be any, choose any of those Robinson's flavours. Yeah. It's a different summer cocktail.

I mean, you say the world's your oyster. You are limited to the Robins. You're limited to the Rage. Yeah. And I guess two types of grape. Yeah. Two types of lemonade. Yeah.

Are we going the clear one of the cloudy? No, never cloudy. Always clear once you won't see your grape. Then the fun's ruined. And then the fun's ruined, because you don't know if it's going to fall down. I think that's more exciting. You just look at the surface.

You can see it timing it. And what's nice at the very end, you finish your summer cocktail. Usually there's a little bit of ice left and the grape, but the bottom. So you wait for the ice to dissolve. And then you have the grape at the very end, like you would, I guess, a martini.

Is that right? You'd have to olive at the end of a martini? No, I'd be. No, you'd have to start. Well, if there's like three. How long are you making it last? I'd have a sip, I'd have an olive. Then I maybe have a couple more sips,

then another olive. And I'd have one olive at the end. Oh, okay. Because you want the salt. But the fun thing that you can do at the grape at the end is that, or you can convince yourself that it has absorbed some of the lemonade. So you can convince yourself that the grape is fizzy.

But you know that's not true. But you know it's not true. It's just psychosomatic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's all fizzy, fizzy, fizzy. So then when you eat it, do you genuinely check your grape? Yeah, you feel like you need to kind of burp. Kind of like, oh, I've had a really sort of a big grape.

Like a grape that's full of gas. If we could, you know, for this menu, genuinely sauce you, you know, magic you up. Genie powers, a grape that's full of lemonade. Would you like that? Yeah, I'd pop one in the summer cocktail, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely pop one in.

And I'd have it as like a free, like I love the free refill sort of thing. I love it. So you got your orange and mango squash at the start, instead of the water. But now as the meal starts, do you want it to be refillable summer cocktails? No, actually, I'm already switching

because I'm having wine, aren't I? I don't know. Yeah, I am. Are we jumping ahead? Do you drink sort of stuff? Oh, well, I don't know. I don't want to. No, let's not jump ahead.

Let's not jump ahead. We should have a little clue there. We won't jump ahead, but I've got... I'm having wine, aren't I? Well, I am having wine, but I'll have something very specific with wine. And we'll get on to that later if you like. Your dream starter.

Right, okay. So we're eating at home. We're not eating out. If we were eating out, it would be deep fried mozzarella. It would be deep fried mozzarella. Again, and similar to the poppidoms, I don't think you can really fill up on it.

I mean, I know it's rich because it's deep fried cheese, but you can never... It's not... There's something about it, the squeakiness of it. I don't know. The fact that you never get tons of it, unless you're in, I don't know, like Budapest. I remember once going to Budapest,

and I ordered it as a starter, and it was like, I mean, it could feed a family of four. But you never... I mean, I know you're not on observational comic as such, Nick. No. Mainly because of sentences like, you never get tons of fried mozzarella unless you're in Budapest.

Yeah. It's like a weird line from a Marvel film. Black Widow would say that. Okay, that's good. It's so funny. But I would say... There should be Budapest or something. Well, it's the only place I've had it where I've just had

so much that I can't finish it. Or it's prevented me from finishing that. Is it a holiday? It was a stag do, but not... It wasn't the kind of guy who wanted like a lary sort of stag do-y kind of thing. So it was a very civilized European city brain. Yeah, the only person who chucked up was you

because you ate too much fried mozzarella. Yeah, I remember at the end, even though we were only there for three nights, really craving some sort of green sort of vegetables. But there's a lot of deep fried cheese and stuff, which I did eat a lot of. But I would have that from... With Lee there?

Lee wasn't there. No, there's different bunch of friends. This was friends from Durham. Oh, they were actually weirdly. Him and Lee did know each other, because they both were in Doncaster for a while. And so they have met. But didn't get invited?

No, not to the stag do. No, we don't know them that well. But they did know each other at our wedding. You know, I said our wedding and dressed it to Ed. Yeah, yeah. That's nice. Did you not know? I didn't.

That's nice. Needs to beck. What were we saying? So I would have had... I would have ordered deep fried cheese if I was eating out. And my rule for eating out is usually only order something that I would never make at home, which I think makes sense.

Or something I couldn't make at home or just wouldn't have the time for or wouldn't have the skills to. I think you can make deep fried mozzarella at home. But it's a psychological barrier for me. I'd have to get a load of care. I'd have to get it all lined up. I'd have to didn't know what I'm doing. I mean, I just don't have the time as...

That's cooking. I know. I know, and it is bad. And I should put aside more time for cooking, but we got two kitties and another one on the way. I mean, we... You don't want to be deep-frying with... We can't be deep-frying in that kitchen.

Kids in the house. Especially if you're doing Budapest quantities. Yeah, yeah. It is delicious though, and maybe we should just... And we don't have a deep-fried fryer. Could get one. I think this... I mean, I might be wrong.

You've got a better memory than me. I think this might be the first time in however many episodes that someone's chosen a dream restaurant just to be in their house. Yeah, I think it is. Is it? Actually, yeah, yeah. And also, not only have you chosen it to be in your house, so that's the location.

But you're also saying, from what I gather, that you want food that you could make at home. So you don't want to be in your home, but you'll have the deep-fried mozzarella because it's dream restaurant magical stuff. You're going, no, I still want the practical, like the restrictions that come with being at home. Oh, I see.

And just to have the home-cooked meal as well. Yeah, yes. Yes, I'm thinking as well, slight ease, because I'm assuming I'm cooking it, or all family members are cooking it. You're asking us this like we've decided it. This is all on you. Yeah, that's pretty true, yeah.

No, but... So if you want to be cooking this meal... No, I'm not deviating. Why should I? No, you stick to your guns. Yeah. So really, what I'm saying is so deep-fried mozzarella aside, it's what I call tortilla lasagna.

So it's basically, it's Doritos, so nice big sort of white dish. No, it don't have to be a white dish. It could be any dish. Like a glass. What are they called? Perspect... You know, there's Pyrex.

Pyrex dish. Big Pyrex dish, a layer of Doritos, cheese, layer of Doritos. This is nachos, Nick. Cheese. Say again. This is nachos. No, carry on, because it's good.

Yeah, but like tortilla lasagna. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, sorry. And then obviously jalapeños, and then all the different sort of sauces. And this is the, I think the surprise, is that if you put the sour cream in the oven, it doesn't melt.

Like you'd think it'd melt or something, but it doesn't. It's sort of hot sour cream, which is very nice. So you put the sour cream on before you put the tortilla lasagna in there. Well, no. I pop the layers of the cheese and the tortillas sort of, you know, they'll go in for however long they go in for, five minutes.

And then bring it out, add the sauces on, a bit more cheese and the jalapeños, and then pop it back in again for another five minutes, and then, and then dive in. Love it. Yeah, tortilla lasagna. And if you want to go fancy, you can put a bit of chorizo in it and stuff.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Do you want to go fancy? Are you going to go fancy for your dream, maybe? Yeah, go on then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, what layer is the chorizo? Oh, it's not its own layer.

It's just sprinkled on top. Well, I'll say I guess it's top layer. It's the top layer. Yeah. Is this a hit with the whole family? The tortilla lasagna? Becca and I love it. Yeah.

Absolutely love it. Kids, they wouldn't touch it. No. No, they're too young. And we won't let them eat things like that. So the image I'm getting of your home life now is them, you know, they get something else. They're quite plain.

They do eat quite plain food, actually. Watch you and your wife eat for, I'd say upwards of three hours at a time. Oh, yeah. It takes us a while. And what's good about it is that it can take you a long, like you said, it can take a long time to eat it, partly because of the sheer quantity.

Yeah. The kids have finished their little bag of baby carrots. Yeah. I think they're called nachos. Because it's one of those. Because you can't make a small quantity either, really. You can only make a big quantity of that. I'm sure that's not true.

Yeah, yeah, it's not true at all. No, I'm saying it's true. Yeah, it's up to you, isn't it? I'll pick the quantities. Yeah. But I feel like you can eat it over a nice long period of time. It's just nice that the cheese just glues everything together. Cheddar?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to think. We will occasion, and again, it is just laziness, and I do apologise to this, but we will, and because it's packaging as well, but we will occasion you by those bags of already grated bad cheddar and mozzarella.

I know just great at home, Ed. This is ridiculous. I know. We will buy and we'll be, you know, very heavy-handed with it. Talking a couple of bags. What flavour Doritos are you using in the tortilla lasagna? Cool flavour. Cool original.

Cool flavour. Cool flavour. There's a very nice brand that Beco loved, and then I think fell out of love with it. I can't remember why. Which were like a Manchego and Olive. Manamasa. Yes, exactly.

A thicker, squareer, cheesier. They taste healthier as well, I think. They taste healthier. Are they healthier? Don't know. No idea, probably not. No, probably not. And you probably get less in the packet than your normal pack of Doritos.

And so you could use those, and it would feel quite luxury, but then it's a lot of cheese then, I think. Yes, a lot of cheese. I don't know why I'm finding every single detail so funny. Yes. Oh, God. It's great.

Really laughing. I don't know why. For me, it's just the fact the kids don't touch it. No, but if we presented that to the kids, that to be fair, they're very good at trying stuff, but they would have, they would have, they would like everything separated.

So they would probably try every aspect of it, but they wouldn't want it together. All together. So if they have baked beans or something, they always want them separate in a little part on the side. And like, if they want cheese or something, it'll be like a slice of cheese separate, but rather than say grated and melted into stuff.

And they all like this. Even though they like pizza, it's weird. All of your kids do. Both of us. Both of them are like, we want it all separated. Yeah, but then they're individually quite fussy. So they are, you know, half of all want grated with his pasta.

Finn would like a slice of cheese on the side. And like, Finn will have like tomatoes, his pasta, Finn will have sweet corn. So it's kind of like, you know, yeah, they mix up a bit. It's a lot of cooking. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting that cheese and beans have come up, Nick. I love cheese and beans.

Yeah. I really associate cheese and beans with you. Do you? Well, because every time we would go back to Durham to do a show or something, Nick would be so excited about... I always bring my own cheese and beans. Fine. The show's going to happen, whatever. It's like, yeah, we'll do the show. Just so excited to go and get sausage, chips, cheese and beans.

Afterwards, always. And it's still one of my favourites. We were, at one point, we were going to have that as our meal at the wedding, just sausage, chips and beans. Because I absolutely love it. Still love it. Would eat it. If it could be, you know, the one meal you had to eat forever,

that, beans on toast with cheese on it, obviously, or pesto pasta, that, I mean, that's different. Are any of those yours dream main course? No. No. Do you remember? For some reason? No, I just put them right at the top.

They're the three that you would eat. They're the only things that I would ever eat forever. And they're not even at the top. So, a distinct memory of going out for lunch with you once and you wanted sausage, chips and beans. Did it come in a dog bowl? It came in a dog bowl. It came in a dog bowl.

Now, listen, I thought... I thought this might come up. I still sometimes eat out of a dog bowl. Now, when we say no, when we say dog bowl, let's be honest, Ed, it was a gimmick, like that plate. Was it a membo? What was it called? Varsity.

Varsity, that's it. It was a gimmick. They were like, oh, and it's whatever. It's a full English breakfast and it served in a dog bowl. Like, the idea of a dog bowl obviously puts in people's minds a big slabbery dog's eating out of it. And then they just put in your food in it and you've got to eat it like a dog.

Like, it's just a way of serving it. And you can fit a bit more into it. You don't know what happened. Well, I assume it was clean. Anyway, I probably cleaned it after dog eating out of it, but it doesn't mean that, like, that hadn't happened in the past. And you say people are going, oh, you're assuming you have to eat it like a dog. I think you did.

Oh, I think I did for, like, for the photos, sure. We literally have photos of it. Anyway, so we've got a big silver bowl at home and occasionally I'm sort of like mixing sort of like pasta. And this is like, you've got to remember, like, we're very tired. Like, we've cleaned the house. The kids are down finally and we're like, we're catching up Becca and I and we're about to watch,

like, Happy Valley or something. And I'm sort of like putting pasta in a bowl and sort of stirring it all up and mixing. And I just think, I'm just going to eat it out of this because we're at home. There's no point in putting it in another bowl, which is what I would eat. This is a dog bowl. Well, it's a silver bowl.

I think it's a bit too deep to be called a dog bowl, really. It's got a pour on it. It's got ball prints on it. We bought it from Pets. We're calling it dog bowl. And I just think, and again, it's possibly a quantity thing. You can fit a bit more in there than your average bowl. And I only say that because I just don't want to get up again

once I've sat down. I don't want to put it in another bowl, then actually have that and go back to the original bowl and put more. It's just too many spoons. It's too many bowls. Also, you're kidding yourself. I do that.

If my wife's out, I'll make a meal. It's clearly two servings. Put one serving in a little bowl, go through to the sitting room, sit down, eat that one serving immediately back to the table. Why do I even bother doing that? I need a big dog bowl. Absolutely no point.

Eat it like an animal. If there's any left that's a bonus. Put that in a bowl if you've not eaten it. Put that in a bowl. Put it in the fridge before I go to bed. Yeah, lovely. But anyway, I can't remember how we got to that. But cheese and beans are absolutely bliss.

Yes. Absolutely bliss. From Dirty Jains. Dirty Jains. Well, that was the name of the, I want to call it, that's not a tuck shot. What do you call it? Take away.

Take away. How does that matter with you? I don't know. Very tired, James. Doctors representing people? Dirty Jains was the one outside Clute, wasn't the one just up from Clute where you'd come out of the club.

You'd be very hungry because of all that dancing. And you'd order sausage, chips and beans. It's the only way to end a night. And we would just walk home and eat and chat. And it's great. And you could cover it in that garlic sauce. I remember, Ed, the last time we probably went to Durham together and we're gigging and we were sharing a travel lodge.

I remember we both woke up in that travel lodge and we're like, what's that smell? And it was the smell of our takeaways. Because they were just so garlicky and smelly. And the garlic sauce went on the sausage, chips and beans. I never had it. You always had it. I always had it.

Yeah. Not on the sausage, chips and beans. No. What were you? Were you kidnapped? Well, no. Here we go. You were present when this happened

because you came to a show and I've talked about it on the podcast before, so we weren't going to details. The day that I accidentally ate four pizzas and didn't realise. And I finished off by going to Dirty Jains and having the Don't Get Bad Pizza. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, that's too much in it. Yeah. That's too much for anyone. Your dream main course? Dream main course roast. The full works. And I'm not talking like, okay,

there are different levels of roast in our house. There's a mini roast. Now, a mini roast is something that we'll do for the kids. This fucking house, man. This house is making me laugh. It's like a farm. I love it. A mini roast.

A mini roast is the kind of roast that I can cook a mini roast in probably about 35 minutes. And it's something that I would have on a weekday. And we're kind of cutting a lot of corners on the mini roast. It's sort of like, do your stuffing in the microwave kind of territory. 35 minutes, you must be cutting a hell of a lot of corners.

Oh, no potatoes. So that's the key thing, which I'm fine with. Now, the other main thing you have to know about all the roasts, whether they're mini, I would say mini, Sunday roast, Christmas dinner. And the Christmas dinner is a fancy one, and that's probably the one we're talking about. But all of those share one thing in common,

which I think is quite unique, is I have all of them with rice. No, but it's completely... What? It's the emphatic way you said that. It's completely true. And, you know, I mean, we've always established that my mum doesn't listen to this.

But so my dad's from Trinidad. So we all, pretty much every meal, was always served with rice when I was growing up. And I love rice. Like, I mean, I probably have it at least once a day. Not at least once a day, that can't be that. No, I don't mean that. I mean, at least every other day.

Most days. Most days. Yeah. But a roast, the carbs of a roast for me, and don't get me wrong, I love roast places, but the carb of a roast is just like a massive mountain of rice. So a mini roast, do you want me to go through all of them? Yes, yes.

So, okay, so a mini roast for me, it's an already cooked chicken that I'll then pop in the oven. And if I get the timings right, I'll try and really quickly make some stuffing. And when I say stuffing, I like something that's called sloppy stuffing, which is basically where you overwater it, put butter in it, and it still comes, it just comes out as like a really viscous liquid,

like tar or something. And you almost pour it over the chicken like a sauce. I just really, really like, how mad it all sounds. But it is just true. Obviously, you've got to ask about sloppy stuffing. Is that, you've called it that? Or is it just a pre-existing thing? Becker calls it, and I...

They're not a thing that people just know about. No. Oh, I don't know. Well, you said, what is called sloppy stuffing? Oh, well, no, I mean, in our household. In your house. And I need to say that Becker came up with that term. Summer cocktail.

Becker came up with that term, and Becker doesn't eat it, I should say. She likes stiff, well, traditional stuffing. She likes stiff, yeah. But I don't like it in the book. The reason it came about is because I would always pop a bit of butter in the stuffing, right, when you're making it up. And then you just really like butter.

So I think I sort of started adding more and more butter. Realize that's unhealthy so far while I just add more water. And then the stuffing balls are always just dry. I've never had a stuffing ball wherever I've eaten, whether we're eating at home or out or anywhere. Like, that's not just been dry. Are they meant to be dry? No, they're not.

But I guess there's just not much meat content in those, right? No, there's no meat in the ones that I make. So these are like the veggie ones. So this is like the Paxo, you know, pour it in a whatever. And I'm using, and we make it in this, we've got this one Pyrex jug, measuring jug. It's a bit chipped at the side. I mean, I've had it, I think, for 25 years.

That's what we do porridge in. It's what we do stuffing in. It's what we do beans in. It's very good in the microwave. Yeah, put your feet the dog out of. And it's the extra details that I've added in. Yeah, the chip. It's just got a chip on the side.

I mean, what? No, no, no, no, I know. I love it. I think a lot of it is just tiredness. It's such a vivid picture of your life. Well, so let me finish the... So the mini roast, it's a chicken that goes in the oven. No, sorry, the chicken breast.

Usually you can get Paxo two chicken breasts already roasted, but I'll pop it in the oven. So do some stuffing, like really liquidy, pop it in the thing. It's never going to solidify. And I know that in half an hour. And then I'll do, I'll have lots of, and then rice, greens. So it's either going to be broccoli,

runner beans or green beans or something like that. Just one of them. Sprouts. No, no, no, no, a lot. I'll eat a lot of greens. Oh, so for mini roast is getting like a lot of greens, three types of greens. Tons of greens.

Possibly a tin of sweet corn. Okay, this is a mini roast. How are you cooking the greens? Oh, just boiling them or steaming them. That's fine. And then obviously cheese on top of those. Yeah, yeah. What kind of cheese?

Any. Cheddar. That's great. That great cheddar. That great cheddar is back out of the fridge. Cheddar, I will occasionally just buy a big old cheese sauce that you meant to put on pasta and just pop that on top. How does that go with the sloppy stuffing?

Absolutely great. And you put a gravy, hot pepper sauce on all of it. That's again from my dad. So we just- This mini roast sounds massive, Nick. Oh yeah, and I think the mini isn't sort of in terms of the amount of food. I think mini almost just suggests the time of day

that you'd have, not the time of day, but the time in the week you'd have it. So it's not a Sunday and it's not Christmas day. It's not an event. It's not an event. It's a midweek roast. I would also. So mini doesn't really describe it very well.

I would also argue with the term roast. Well, the chicken's roasted. No, it's pre-cooked and then you warm it up. But it was pre-cooked, it was roasted. Someone roasted it. Yeah, someone roasted it. You boil it in the veg. I did.

You microwave it with everything else. Yeah. And by the way, occasionally I'll switch out the chicken for a corner scallop. And, but that's it. That's everything. But I don't eat much red meat. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't like, you know,

try and do topside a beef or something in 30 minutes. In 30 minutes. No, no, no, no. So that's the mini roast. That's the mini roast. So on a Sunday. So the only thing that is really you're adding to a Sunday is then it becomes a bit more of an event

because it's then it's us with the kids and everything. So then you might add Yorkshire puddings to it and probably a bit more veg, like a carrot and sweet. Well, hang on. Everything else is the same. Oh, pretty much, yeah. I thought you were going to say you roasted a chicken. No. Oh, well, no.

Like, I mean, it's still warming. It's still warming. I think if I'm honest, well, God, it does sound bad. But yeah, I think so. And we'll occasionally do sausages with it, though, because well, because we love sausages and the kids like sausages. And there's sort of the pigs in blanket feel about it.

And, you know, that makes it a bit more of an event. But we'll add like carrot and sweet mash. Yorkshire puddings. And there's something else that we would add if it was like a Sunday. Oh, roast potatoes. So yeah, so we would then properly do roast potatoes. Yeah. And do you still have rice?

I will always have rice. So roast potatoes are there, but you will have rice as well? Yeah. I'll have like a few roast potatoes, but they're always like the favorite of like, you know, the kids and Beco. And so they will I'll let them polish those off. And I can just always just have more rice. What kind of rice are you having?

Oh, God, Uncle always Uncle Ben's pretty much. It's the best. It is the best. Is it plain rice? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But we have got we have got into the habit of getting pouches every so often because it is quick and easy until the doodoo a huge range. And they're nice as little, you know, little not pick me up.

You'd never describe it as pick me up, but they're nice. They're nice. They're just nice to kind of have in the thing. Oh, you know what? I just want something really quick and easy to pick me up. A little rice. What do you mean? I just have a pouch of rice.

I just have a big pouch of rice. It's for two people and it's got a weird flavour to it. I shouldn't say that. I love Tilda. Tilda Swinton. We call it at home. Yeah. Call it Tilda Swinton.

You call it Tilda Swinton. I think if I occasionally sorry to interrupt, but I would occasionally have a basmati one of those when you were saying American Long Rain is a go to, but I would have a basmati Tilda Swinton. Oh, sorry to interrupt. I do think if I if I knit around your house, I wouldn't understand a word that you and your wife

were saying to each other. No, there's so much code. And that's just like food. There's so much code. I love it, though. Mini roast, sloppy stuffing, Tilda Swinton, summer cocktail. Oh, God. So that's what's special about Sunday roast,

but then what we're having today in the Dream Restaurant is basically Christmas dinner. But the thing about Christmas dinner is I'm probably really referring to the Christmas dinner that I got served at home in Leeds, which because my mum's great. My mum and dad are actually very good cooks. So dad cooks a lot of Caribbean food. My mum cooked a lot of Greek food.

And because of the nature of whatever Christmas Eve was, now Christmas Eve would sometimes be like my mum would cook meatballs and stuff fine leaves. And my dad would always do like a spicy rice with everything. There would often be some of that left. So Christmas dinner was everything I basically described, not sloppy stuffing, because they weren't into that. But we would add like meatballs and stuff fine leaves to this.

But then the weirdest, the weirdest one was when we then got into a habit of because the Chinese, the local Chinese takeaway at home in Leeds, when I would go to Leeds for Christmas, like now we have it as a, Becca and I would have it a family with the kids in London and then would visit my parents in the week between Christmas and New Year. So it's not as elaborate anymore,

but we would always have a Chinese takeaway on Christmas Eve because it always was open on Christmas Eve. And my mum was like, oh, we don't want, you know, we want everything kind of clean and ready for Christmas day. We set the table. But then I would sometimes have the leftover Chinese takeaway as part of Christmas dinner. Wow.

And that sounding, I mean, that's, that is a step too far. And I'm not suggesting that for the dream restaurant. I just thought I'd mention it. But you're not suggesting it because you think it's a step too far? I'm thinking, if you would like it. I think it's a, I think it's quite a nice little bit of it then. Yeah. So that's basically a little bit of beef sate.

It's chicken fried rice over long grain rice, if there's enough left. But then I can always top it up with long grain rice. And like a bit of chow mein, usually like chicken chow mein or something like that. And then you just have your full roast. Are you? Pigs in black.

So chicken fried rice, chicken chow mein. Beef sate. Oh, are you talking about wild order from a Chinese now? No, no, no. We're talking about what the Christmas dinner roast is. So what you've got on the plate. Okay. I'll tell you absolutely everything.

And I'm not making it up. So it's a roast now. No, we don't think you should make any of this up. Okay. So my, again, don't eat tons of red meat, but we would usually have lamb. But I think it's a generation thing of thinking that lamb sundae, like if it pink means you can't eat it basically.

So it was always, and still is, and no one's had the heart to tell them, but it's always hideously overcooked. So it's really dry. But you're letting it all in there. Dream meal. So you want that. You want that.

You want them ready dry now. So yeah, well for nostalgic reasons. So really overcooked lamb. Disgusting. So lamb, then we've got just your normal bistro gravy, which nowadays actually gives me the runs, if I'm honest. Okay. But I don't know why, but we've since had it.

And we're like, we can't hack it. I think it's because we're used to veggie gravy now and stuff. So I think this meat gravy is a bit too heavy. But you want this. You want. But I'd like it for this meal. So you're dying me. Yeah, okay.

Straight after. You've got this. Okay, so we've got that. Great. So Yorkshire puddings, which I would make myself. Now, the thing again, is I sort of half followed a recipe probably when I was 15, and then I thought I knew it. So there would always be very doughy, very eggy, like over-egged.

They would rise, but I would add things to them. I'd add like herbs to them, like and stuff like that. Mint, I do sometimes put stir mint sauce through it. It's quite a good thing. And then they have a slight mint flavour to them. They're very nice. But they're quite doughy. But they're really doughy and quite heavy.

But my family got used to them. And everyone was like, oh, Nicholas, does make really nice Yorkshire puddings. And then it became like this. This is, I think, the thing of my child. I was always sort of told that it was fire. And actually, it was mad. Yeah.

Yeah. What did you make? Big doughy mint to Yorkshire puddings. Mint to Yorkshire puddings. Yeah. So then rice we've talked about, maybe those Chinese things. Pigs in blankets. There might be like a meatball on there.

There might be stuff I leave on there. And then in terms of veg, so roast potatoes, obviously. In terms of veg, carrots, parsnips, peas, sweet corn, broccoli, green beans. I'd always then put a little bit of like French mustard on like the green beans. Put a bit of salt on the Yorkshire puddings,

er, the roast potatoes. Put a bit of black pepper on the rice, weirdly. Still do that now. Bit of lemon on the chicken. That's a Greek thing. Squeezing lemon. And there's chicken on this as well. Yeah, there's a roast chicken.

Yes. Oh, no, no, there's not. If we had chicken, we'd put lemon. I wouldn't put lemon on the lamb. And then the weird, and then hot pepper sauce. And then the weirdest thing that I think my mum still does now, unless it's an IBS thing, is, as in, she wouldn't possibly have it now.

Okay. Because she's got a roast. Try and guess, try and guess what she would then, would have, she would have with it and it got me into it. And then I only have had it now if I go home and have a roast. But I would never, but guess what she then has with it? A massive pot of coffee. No, it's a solid and it's a vegetable.

Sorry, I'm still thinking about just the glossing over the IBS thing. They do love so much. There's a lot of glossing over that's happening here. Cauliflower. No. I mean, if it, clearly it's going to be something that's very, you say it's very weird. Marrow.

No, no, you're kind of edging sort of closer. I'll just try to take one. No, no, no. It's just a big piece of raw onion. She just, just a nice big piece of raw onion that you just have with it. White onion, yeah. Yeah. And it's really not, it is really not, you chop,

you just chop off little bits of it during the meal and have it with it. But it is really weird. But we've like, we've been so kind of accustomed to it. Like, yeah, that's, that's what you, that's it. That's normal. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you've got the big bit of raw.

So you've had like the chopped up raw onion on your poppinons. And my dad would always get really annoyed because he'd just sit down and my mum was like, Maggi, the onion. And so then he'd have to go and peel an onion and like chop it into four. Yeah. So that's what I'm having. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely insane. Yeah. What are the worst? And also, what are the worst we've ever had?

And also when you see, oh God, I hit the mic. When you see it, and I actually got the giggles the other day because we did have a roast on Sunday. And I just looked at it and I was starving because I'd been jogging. And that's the worst time to then cook because then you just cook too much. And I just looked at it on the plate. I sort of halfway through it and then just looked at it and was like, oh my God, what is it? It was so messy.

It was so, it was just so sloppy. Like it was just because there's gravy and there's rice floating around. Cheese sauce, hot pepper, everything. And oh God, what are we teaching the kids? Is there a dream side dish to go with that monstrosity? I think I've got all the side dishes on the plate. I think I've got them all. If I was eating out, and it was a roast, I would order cauliflower cheese on the side.

Or macaroni. Now that's one good thing about having kids. You can always add a side of like, oh, let's get some macaroni cheese because the kids will eat it and then I can just eat it. And you can have it. Yeah. So that's good. Do you like the pimped up macaroni cheese when you have other things in there? Yeah. Yeah, I do.

And remember actually at the end of Ted Lasso, they had like a wrap party thing. They had like street food. Because when it was kind of still COVID, so we had to do it outside, but they got a load of street food around. So one was a fancy mac and cheese thing and it was great. You could add like bacon and all sorts. It's very nice. Brett going nowhere near that van, I imagine.

No, Brett's too stacked for that. Yeah, yeah. Isn't like carbs. Not touching carbs. Good old Brett. Yeah. I love Brett. Yeah?

Yeah. Feels good. We like him. Yeah, I love him, Brett. Dream drink then. Now you've already hinted at the wine earlier because you asked me if you were having it. Nice. Yes.

Nice glass of very cold riesling. Yeah. Very nice. Talking my language. Yeah. Absolutely delicious. Just perfect. But with it, I would have just a glass of Coke.

And I now have got into a habit of in a restaurant ordering a glass of riesling and a glass of Coke. And I sort of go between the two. That's weird, isn't it? Calamacho. Don't mix them. Calamacho. Don't mix them. But um...

Calamacho, if you mix them. Calamacho. Um... I think it has to be red one to be calamacho. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Fair enough.

But yeah, but I love it. But because I just love a Coca-Cola, it's delicious. But you know, you can't have too much of it. But it is delicious. How sweet a riesling are we talking? I think quite sweet. I mean, the really sweet ones give me a headache. Yeah.

Um... Right, yeah. And you're kind of edging into dessert wine territory. Yes, absolutely. That definitely gives me a headache. But no, it's quite sweet, but not too much. But oh, absolute... I love riesling.

...less. My wife and I just love it. Yeah, I know you're obsessed with riesling. Oh, my God. Yeah. Obsessed. We went to wine tasting. Just before Becca fell pregnant.

Um... I say fell pregnant as if I had nothing to do. Yeah, sort of the 19th century. Yeah, she fell. She's been cursed. Living in a Thomas Hardy book. Yeah. She fell pregnant.

We went for wine tasting at the good wine shop. They do like sort of pop up things in their shops. And it was great. We know nothing about wine, but we like wine. And, um... I mean, if I'm honest, we just got very... We're meant to be taking it quite seriously. We just got very, very drunk and progressively

through the wine tasting. All our notes became just rude. And, you know, our conversation with the people, we didn't know that. It just became weird. Wider and weirder and weirder. But it was lots of fun. Do you have a specific riesling that you like,

that you drink at home, or if you saw it on a menu, you'd order it? No, we'll sort of try anything. Now, there was one from the... I'm going to find it in my phone. I'll find it from the phone, because we... Can I just check for you how you're pacing your mouthfuls back and forth between the two drinks?

I think it's literally one... Not one in one out. What's it? I'll... I'll... Um... It's just alternating. When do we go for this wine tasting?

Pissing yourself while you're drinking. Hang on. Oh, do you imagine spitting? I was imagining it coming out of the deck. Yeah, coming out of the deck. Where is it? Oh, there we go. Oh, there.

That's Finn's report. It is similar vibes as well of like a guest who... You know, you've got to pick a history with the me. So, like with Joe Thomas, when I was like, oh, this is what this person's like. Yes. And obviously, I've met Nick over the years, and I had nice chats and everything,

but now I feel like, oh, OK. Oh, no, he's mad. It's this guy. I've listened to it. I mean, I was at University with Joe. I mean, I know that Joe. Yeah, yeah. That was Joe.

That was just one of the purest, most magnificent episodes ever. So, this is from the Good Wine Shop. So, these were all Wieslings, but the one that we gave 111 out of 10... Yeah. This guy. You and your wife just absolutely wasted. And look at that.

Look at the doodles. Oh, my God. It looks like the joke has done it. I know. But it looks like it's on the wall of Arkham Asylum. No, we went mad. Because it's like one of the few nights we're out with not the kids, so we just went for it.

What does it say under 111 out of 10? What you've started, I mean... So, number one is an Austrian 2019 Wiesling. Yeah. And you've written Citrus. And then I think... I don't think you've done this at the time, because I think you get drunker and drunker as you go through.

Right. Someone's drawn some lemons, I think. That'll be back here. Yeah. Crushed stone for the next one. Six out of 10. You didn't like that. Crushed stone?

Yeah. Is that what we described it as? Yeah. Crushed stone. I think that's a good reason. That's all right. Like, Slate has used it. Yeah, yeah, that's true, yeah.

Fresh and then sugar with some lines drawn around it. There's a German one here, and it's five out of 10. Becker versus Rachel. Gone off and cheese with a tick next to it. What? I don't know what any of that means. Oh, God.

10 out of 10 for the New Zealand. Off dry. That's the one we got. It was the New Zealand one we got. 1983. Yeah, because then we went and got a bottle of it from that year, I think, from the shop. Right. I mean, there's some, yeah, there's some...

10 out of 10 for the South African. And the only note, mad wine maker. Oh, I think he was mad. Yeah, the Oregon one. You've just written 13.8% and 30 pounds and circled it. Then we were asking how much it cost. And then the bottom, number nine, you've just written left to rot.

Arthur asleep, 7.15, fin drawing. That's what it says at the bottom. Oh, that would have been the update from Becker's dad. And that got written down on the thing. Yeah, just so we didn't forget. So which Riesling do you want from there? Oh, that one that I said. The Oregon one.

Yeah, the Oregon one. Yeah, that was the one that we bought, I think. But then I think it was that thing if we bought it, and then we're like, oh, it didn't taste as nice as we remember it. Okay, so another thing on the menu. Did you buy a different vintage? No, no, we specifically bought the right vintage.

So yeah, I don't know what happened there. Well, you were absolutely blast. Yeah, I think that was the thing. I think we were just getting more and more. I don't think I've ever had Riesling from Oregon. I'm going to stop talking now because I can feel my boring self coming bubbling into the surface. No, I love that you like wine, Ed.

We should go for some wine. Yes, absolutely. I actually bought quite a lot of Riesling recently. And put it in my members reserves at the Wine Society. So in 20 years' time, we can have a great party. We've got wine fridge. No, no, no. I keep it all in a warehouse in Stevenage.

Do you? We went to a wine tasting at the bottom of Big Yellow Storage in like Wimbledon somewhere. What? Underneath, underneath. Because they kind of... That wasn't a wine tasting thing. What were you drinking?

White Lightning. Yeah, we broke in. No, it was a proper wine. They had a massive wine cellar down there because it's got a certain temperature. Yeah, yeah. So we did the wine tasting in a Big Yellow Storage. Oh, wow.

It's really good. Yes, James. What? I don't know. I thought you looked like you were going to say something. No, I didn't say anything. I was just enjoying it. We arrived at your dream dessert.

Yes. It's very straightforward. Yes. It's a melt-in-the-middle chocolate pudding, but I'm going to pop it in the middle of it. You see, pop it in the microwave, obviously. Piss the watsits. Pop it in the microwave upside down.

Peel it all over. Whatever. So you want the microwave all over? It has to be microwavable, yeah. And I'm not going to steam it. Yeah, well, we're made by a nice chef. No, no, no, no. Like a microwaveable shit one.

Not a shit one. Oh, yeah, well, they're always a treat. If you're always a treat. They are delicious. They always have the red juice. You know, this whole thing. This is one of the worst menus that you've ever had. Yeah.

I love it, though. Oh, yeah. That's what's important. A melt-in-the-middle chocolate pudding. Now, distinctly not the ones that it's the sponge and then the sauce is on the top. Proper the things in the middle. Yeah, so what's they called?

Chocolate fondant. Yeah. So that. But then, a couple of slices of chocolate orange. Shove it in the middle so it melts in the middle of it because it's still really red hot. And then it becomes nice. So post-microwave, you're shoving in the chocolate.

Post-microwave, you shove them in. Leave it for a minute because they're literally red hot. And then eat it. It's delicious. Yeah, that's nice. You could eat chocolate orange. No cream or anything or ice cream with it. No, no, no.

Straight out the pot. No, I pop it in a bowl, actually. Well, because it's upside down in a bowl sometimes, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cat bowl. Oh, do you say cat bowl? Cat bowl. Oh, yeah, all right.

Cat bowl for dessert. I was going to say with dog bowls, metal, so you wouldn't put it in the microwave. No, no, no. Nip that riff in the bud. Yeah. It would be the cat bowl. Nick, this menu, man.

I know, I'm sorry. No, don't you ever be sorry. I love it. I absolutely love it. I just vowed that I would always tell the truth on this show. We make everyone take that vow before they come on. Yeah, and I feel like I've got a lot of good friends. Shout out to Vicks and Paul who listened to this show.

And my wife loves the show. A lot of friends listen to it. And they know. They know why I'm not going to pretend to be. They'll call you out. They'd call me out. Nick, this has all been a wonderful insight into your home life. Thank you.

That's fantastic. I'm going to read you your menu back to you now, Nick. See how you feel about it? Yeah, I don't know if I'm going to feel great, actually. Water. You'll want still water with ice and orange and mango. Robinson's creations. Pop it on with bread, pop it on with dips and the onion salad.

Starter, tortilla lasagna. Made at home. Main course, Christmas dinner roast, which includes dry lamb, gravy, mint to Yorkshire's, rice, leftover Chinese takeaway, pigs in blankets, a meatball, a stuffed fine leaf, carrots, parsnips, peas, sweet corn, green beans, roast potatoes, hot pepper sauce, sloppy stuffing and half a raw onion. It ends well.

And just to specify, the gravy gives me the runs. Yeah, yeah. And on the green beans, a tiny little bit of French mustard, the brown one. Is that the brown one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brown one. Drink, the 111 out of 10 very cold reasoning,

and a Coca-Cola, up and forth. Dessert, microwaves chocolate fondant with two segments of Terry's chocolate orange stuck in the middle. It is a mad one, isn't it? I quite like it reading it back. Obviously, the main course is disgusting. I wouldn't want to go anywhere near it. Yeah, the main course is sort of like a buffet, isn't it?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Of all, texturally, I'd say all pretty much the same. Everything is just sort of a big old slop. Yeah, similar vibes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

But the dessert, the dessert's fine. The dessert's nice. I think pimping up a dessert at home, I'm always in favor of that. Yes. And it feels like you're doing a science experiment as well. Yes. Nick, thank you so much for coming to the Dream Restaurant. Thank you for having me.

Do bear in mind if you thought the Twitter backlash after Ted Lasso season two was bad, wait for what's going to happen after this. Yeah, you're dead, Nick. Oh, God, I literally don't know what to do. Absolutely dead, Nick. I'm going to tear you to shreds. But good luck to you.

I mean, it's just absolutely horrible. Thank you, Nick. Thank you. Thank you, Nick. There we are. I mean, I love seeing Nick and I love chatting to Nick. He is genuinely one of the loveliest men that I know. But that menu was shocking.

What a shocking menu. That main course is a nightmare disaster. Also, when he was talking about things he has in his house, like sloppy stuffing, you saw him realize live how weird that sounds. Yeah, especially when he wouldn't... Sometimes he would say we call it sloppy stuffing, but sometimes he would say it's known as this.

Known as sloppy stuffing, yeah. As if it's a thing that exists out in the world. And it isn't. It doesn't exist out in the world. It's just a Nick's house. Yeah. What an experience that was for me. That whole, you know,

how I've had many conversations with Nick over the years, never won that long and that revealing. Yes. Yeah, we loved it. That's why off menus, the greatest podcast in the world. Yes, that's why we are number one. Wow. Huh?

Huh? I don't check the charts. Okay. Yes, that's why we're number one. Thank you very much to Nick for coming in. Please go and see Nick on tour. Nick Mohammed, the very best and worst of Mr Swallow. Go to berksnes.com forward slash Nick for details.

You got to go. And thank you, Nick, for not saying Bran Flakes, by the way. Oh yeah, bless you, Nick. We'll happily plug your tour if you did not say Bran Flakes. Yes. But, you know, I wouldn't have been surprised if that had turned up on that roast. No, I mean, yeah, sprinkled over the top.

A liberal handful of Bran Flakes, all over the sloppy stuffing. At least it would have been a change in texture. In fact, you know, when he said, you know, my mum probably doesn't do this now because of IBS, but here's what she has on the plate. Yeah. I could have been a handful of Bran Flakes.

I could have been a handful of Bran Flakes. She's having a raw onion. She might have had a handful of Bran Flakes. Not many in miles away. Come and see me in Australia if you are that way, geographically inclined. And New Zealand, edgambler.co.uk for details on that. That's when Ed's the funniest.

You're the funniest when you're in the Antipodes. We will see you next week for another episode of Off Menu. Hello, it's me, Amy Glendale. You might remember me from the best ever episode of Off Menu, where I spoke to my mum and asked her about seaweed on mashed potato, and our relationship's never been the same since. And I am joined by... Me, Ian Smith.

I would probably go bread, I'm not going to spoil in case. Get him on, James and Ed. But we're here to see you. We're here to see you. We're here to see you. We're here to see you. We're here to see you. We're here to see you.

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. And 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 Northern News. When's it out, Ian? It's already out now, Amy.

Is it? Yeah, get listening. There's probably a backlog. You've left it so late.