Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 269: Robert Popper

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

Comedy royalty Robert Popper – ‘Friday Night Dinner’ creator and author of ‘The Timewaster Letters’ – dines with us this week. And he’s brought a list. P.S. Can't remember if there’s any mention of signed chopping boards in this episode, but you ain’t getting one.Robert Popper’s new book ‘The Elsie Drake Letters (aged 104)’ is out now, published by Hachette. Buy it here. Follow Robert on Twitter @robertpopper and Instagram @itsrobertpopper Recorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive.Artwork by Paul Gilbey (photography and design).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.

It's Sarah and Kari O from Weirdos Book Club. Our live show is part of the London Literature Festival at the South Bank Centre this Saturday the 2nd of November. Please come and join us. Come and join us. Our special guest is the incredibly, absolutely brilliant actor Harriet Walter. Get your tickets from the South Bank Centre and join us. Welcome to the off menu podcast taking the minced beef of conversation putting in the bowl of the internet and eating it like a huge bowl of meat cereal.

Well, that's it. Yeah simple in mince beef out of a bowl carnivore diet That is a gamble. My name is James a castor together. We own a dream restaurant and every single week We invited a guest and we asked them their favorite ever start a main course dessert side dish and drink not in that order And this week our guest is Robert popper Robert popper one of the UK's finest comedy minds, James. Yes, I'd say I first became a fan of Robert's when I watched Look Around You. Yeah, what a show.

As a scamp and then got into the Time Waster Letters, his brilliant books. And of course, a lot of people know Friday Night Dinner and will be huge fans of Friday Night, and ran for a very long time Rare in this biz very rare, but Robert is well is I'm gonna say it National trash in terms of the stuff he's produced James. Yeah, he is absolutely national tres. He will have treas treas I said national treas. Mmm. That's like tres leches. Yeah, maybe puddings aren't far from the brain That's like tres leches. Yeah. Maybe.

Puddings aren't far from the brain. I'm always in that. Also, Robert's got a new book now. The Elsie Drake Letters, age 104. That's in brackets age 104. Elsie Drake is age 104. Elsie Drake is an alter ego of Robert's. He's written loads of real letters to real people and absolutely wasted their time in a hilarious

way. Some of these is absolutely mad. What is how people do and what people have been patient enough to converse with Elsie Drake about. It's so funny. If you're not read the time waster letters as well, you should absolutely read these. This I think is has taken it to the ultimate It's it's so good. You will laugh throughout and also I really hope Robert talks to us about some of the stories behind these letters But yes I just brief chat with him about what it was like writing these and he got himself in Quite the pickle on more than one occasion fantastic Well, hopefully he'll tell us about all the pickles and maybe he'll pick pickles You've not given him a quote for the book James. You do seem to like it, but he didn't ask me for a quote

I'm quite gutted to see that great Davis Ashley B Matt Lucas Simon Pegg Katie Wicks Richard Iowadi All of those people were asked for quotes and they've all been on off menu apart from Simon Pegg. Yes God, this is a good podcast, isn't it? What a good podcast, but I wasn't asked unfortunately if Robert popper picks What What has happened to you? What has happened to your voice? Benito knows what I wanted to do. Yes. Yeah Well, you could do that off. Yes, you definitely should do that. Yeah. Yeah. If Robert Popper picks a pot of pickled peppers. Yes

That should be the secret ingredient. Yeah. Yeah, so that should be it because we were gonna say jalapeno poppers because it is surname But actually we should say if Robert Popper picks a pot of pickled peppers, yeah, then he's out But he's out of the dream restaurant. Oh, no, it's the best one we've ever done. It's the best one we've ever done Uh, but hopefully Robert Popper will not pick a pot of pepper. Hopefully Robert Popper will not pick a pot of pickled peppers. Or he's out of the dream restaurant. Well let's find out if Robert Popper will pick a pot of pickled peppers. He might do it.

He might do it. He's got a funny sense of humor. He might be on his way here thinking that'll be funny. Well, let's find out. This is the off-menu menu of Robert Popper. Welcome Robert to the Dream Restaurant. Thank you! Welcome Robert Popper to the dream restaurant. We've been spending you for some time. Could you do that louder, please? Welcome Robert Popper to the dream restaurant.

We've been spending you for some time. Thank you so much. Did you want it louder just to get the full experience? Do you feel like you didn't get the full genie experience? I didn't quite get the shock. Normally when I listen to it, cause it just comes. But I can see you doing it. So I wanted a, I didn't quite get the shock I have normally when I listen to it. Yeah. Because it just comes. Yeah.

But I can see you doing it. Yeah. So I wanted a, I didn't get that shock, but I got the shock. I kind of got a shock, a residual shock the second time. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Thank you.

That's the loudest I've ever done it. Yeah, definitely. Wow. Like in person. That's a first. That's a first. And this is the last episode ever. Yeah.

On the podcast, you know. So it's going to be a podcast, an episode full of firsts, I think. We were planning to announce that, Robert, but you've done it now. Yeah. I mean, do you want to explain to the listeners why it's the last episode since you wrote the story? Well, they know what you guys said. You know, we all know what you said. Whether you agree or not, that's a different thing. I don't want to get involved in that, but some of the things you've said, particularly recently, yeah,

meant that this has been, you know, we just think all viewpoints should be aired regardless of whether we start behind the board. That's one of your attitudes. Have you seen Douglas's council? Yeah, no, still not seen it. Well, there we are. I haven't. I said, yeah, but I thought we were still making stuff up. I haven't seen it either. I'm just going meta now straight in. I thought it was something you'd made up and never heard of it before. So I thought, oh, we just making stuff up. Yeah, I thought I thought it was something you'd made up I never heard of it before so I thought oh we just make you go yeah I thought we're still making no no no it's actually it's an only TV show about a man being and I haven't Karen Gillan's in it oh shout out to Karen Gillan yeah yeah big

shout out any other celebs before we crack no no no I'm ready now you sure I'm ready now you can shout out a celeb if you want. I mean, what celeb should we do? Just say shout out and then the first celeb that comes into your mind. First celeb, um, Nigel Farage. Shout out. I can't even bring myself to say it. I mean, that's what you, that's linked to what you said recently. So yeah.

To be fair, when we talk about the controversial comments that we've made. And apart from this episode, of course we will be releasing our Christmas special with Nigel. I mean, it's going to be roast beef, isn't it? For every single course, yeah. Roast beef juice for the drink. Yeah, absolutely. Or have it all mashed up in a bucket or something, you know?

Yeah, horrible. Big old trough. Yeah, in a little horse bag, just found it on his nose. Totally. Just guzzling it. Are you a foodie, Robert? I am not a foodie. I mean, obviously, here we go.

Everyone says, I like food. Yeah. I eat food. I exist. But my problem is this. My problem is most food in the world, I don't like. Most food. Yeah.

And I've done a list. I'm not going to read the list because, I I mean you can have the list at the end because I know One of those foods because there's so many will be the the food that gets me evicted right okay Yeah, you're allowed to you would be allowed to mention it. It's just as long as it's not on your menu. Mm-hmm. Oh, okay Okay, well, I'll take it out later. Maybe yeah. Yeah. Yeah, okay Okay, there is a list because you made a list of food that you don't like well I I've always wanted to do this list because my wife said it's ridiculous There's nothing you like and I go I know there's nothing I like because when I go to a restaurant

I see people go I could have that and I'm like, right? Well, I can't have that can't have that What can I have? I can have that. Oh, it's got that in it. Oh, I can't have that Oh, I know of that then and that then so it's sort of, you know 40% pleasure But 60% stress but the sort of, you know, 40% pleasure, but 60% stress. But the list of things you don't like, they're sort of fairly common things that crop up in a lot of dishes. Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

But when you say can't have that, is it because diet, you know, like you're a nerd. No, no, no, no, I can eat anything. Yeah. You know, I mean, I'll eat wood. Yeah. Can't eat glass. No, yeah. But, you know, fish, anything, fish, anything in the sea. I can't do that

one. Don't like it. So that's quite a plain ordinary thing. Look to like, isn't it or not? I think a lot of people don't like fish. Yeah. I think that's fair. I've met people that like fish before or people who don't like fish if it's too fishy. Yeah. Any, any, any people go to you, what about smoked salmon? I go, that's fish. Yeah. No that's fully blanket. No, yeah nothing in the sea. Yeah. For taste and weirdness reasons. What's weird? They're just weird aren't they? Fish you know. Just see yeah. I remember the first time I went snorkeling. I mean I had a snorkel on. It was in Antigua and I couldn't when I went under I saw you know thousands of fish and it was fucking hell, this is going on.

All this shit's going on while we're up here. It's got a whole different universe. It's an outrage basically. And I just, that was one of the extra things that I can't eat. And they're too weird. They're just like, yeah, it's just like they're alien. They're kind of alien and weird. See, that's interesting that your reaction to realizing there's a whole other

universe going on down there. It wasn't, wow, that's amazing that your reaction to realizing there's a whole other universe going on down there wasn't, wow, that's amazing. It was amazing. But then no one told me this, this much was going on everywhere. Yeah. Fish everywhere, like jellyfish. Yeah. I don't know.

There might be a shark here. I don't know. There's just so much going on. Meanwhile, we're just out of the water. We're living and they've got their stuff there. Yeah. Like properly intense living. Yeah. And yeah, that kind of blew my mind. But then, but then it got me a little bit angry. Yeah, it was a bit

of an outrage. And that meant you didn't want to eat them. It definitely cemented my iconic, these because of how much is going on. Yeah. And that's fairly like, if you're snorkeling, that's just there right there. Yeah. Right. That's what I mean. Right there. But what do you think about those bits of the ocean that humans have never even explored and no one really knows what's going on Down there. Well, you mean the ones with David Attenborough pretends to be in the thing going to the bottom. Yeah Those alien fish ones with the lights the ones with the lights on their Yeah, what do I think about I thought that's an outrageous it's all an outrage the ocean Yeah, it's just not outrage the ocean yeah it's

just an outrage isn't it really i think we'd all agree with that well i mean i mean that i don't know i think if fish found out what we were up to yeah i don't know i think they'd up on dry land they'd be more outraged than us when we find out what they're up to i think they wouldn't get much time to process it because as soon as they're on dry land that's it. Yeah maybe that's why maybe they could breathe but they're just so shocked they may die. Yeah we'll never know. And they just die of shock a lot of the time they're just gasping. Yeah maybe it's that maybe it's shock. Yeah yeah they can't believe all the stuff we're doing. And they saw a podcast that would be just too much. Well also that sounds a bit like a fishing thing doesn't it? A cod cast. What about that?

That's a good one. A cod cast. That's a good one, eh? A cod cast. Have you ever thought about doing one about them, like a spin-off off menu? About that? That's not bad. A cod cast.

Yeah, yeah. Think about it. Just talk about fish every time and what's going on down there. Yeah, and the meals you could make, you know. You wouldn't be a guest on that one because you famously don't like fare. I'd be a bad guest. Also, before we get into your proper menu and to-amount food, we must talk about the Elsie Drake letters because this is very exciting. For those who don't know, you've been writing books for quite a while.

Absolute, I'd say every comedian in my generation has read and loved your Time Waster letters. Thank you. And they look like a big part of the comedy furniture. Furniture? Furniture? Furniture. Let's all have a go. Book of Medians of our age.

Do you want to talk about, let listeners know what the Elsie Drake Letters is? What the idea is? Thank you, James. Yeah, it's, well, I did these stupid books, The Time Waster Letters, years ago, pretending to be a man called Robin Cooper. And I wrote to stupid British hobby groups, I don't know, the National Table Tennis Association or whatever. And when I finished doing them, I loved it so much, I wanted to do more. And I thought of a different character years ago and I started piddling around with her for a bit. Her name is Elsie Drake. She's 104,

and the sixth oldest woman in Britain. And she's just been given a computer so it's sort of chaos. She doesn't really know how to use it. And I started doing them for fun. I wrote to Tony Blair, got signed to Elsie wishing you better. I think she broke her ankle or something. And then I put it away and I kept doing it for a bit over the years. And then last year I suddenly thought, you know what, I'm going to write this, finish this book. So I wrote hundreds of letters. I always put a five pound note in all the letters of Customs and Fortune. So they write back out of guilt. And I wrote to, you know, lots and lots of different people. I did quite a lot of food-based things. So she'd write to Greg Shee, me, and making pies. So I did a pie, which was, I think,

can't remember what it was, but I think it had tuna, suet, right? Tuna, I had to handle tuna, suet, and I think it has kidney and a piece of banana in it. And I made these pies, they're called priest's fingers, so that was my great grandma used to make them. My wife would come in and go, what is that smell? Oh, I'm making these pies. Okay. And then I'd package them up. I'd write to Greg, say, would you stock these? They're delicious. And I go to the post office. They always say, what's in the envelope? I just have to say socks or something. You know, for a cousin, they don't know there's like a disgusting stinking pie. And they'd write that we don't want that. And then I'd do another

pie. And then for wimpy I made like burgers She loves wimpy burgers so much that we had a wimpy party to raise money for wimpy. My wife didn't know, she came home to find out what I'd done was I'd put a little table in the garden and adorned it with Union Jack flags with signs saying wimpy burgers, one pound each. And I made wimpy burgers out of these old mints we had in the fridge. I used that. I bulked it out with spaghetti, carrots, big pieces of carrots, cooked that in the oven, and then with two pieces of white bread, buttered on top, and I laid them out on dishes. And she said, you know, the neighbours can see it. So there's a lot of meat and food. Yeah. And

it's all about her life. And she lives with this this mad woman called Mrs. Hale, who they clearly hate each other. There's a lot of tip for tat. Like there's a lot of like when she wasn't looking, I poured ink in her bed and stuff like this. But people write back probably a bit through guilt. But yeah. And that's the book. Did you find it easier to get responses when you're a 104 year old woman? Do you feel like people- I found it really hard because people just don't write letters. So I had to write, I wrote 644 letters for the book.

I was like, that's mad. My exercise was walking to the post box with like 20 letters and dropping them in with five pounds. Sometimes, sometimes though, just occasionally I put 35 pounds in. And I said, I mean, it's closing 35 pounds. Is that enough? Please don't send us any more money. Okay. The sort of the maddest one was, I wrote to Theresa May when she was prime minister in 2018. My dad did a big block of these and I said, I want to be your made in waiting. I don't know, whatever that is, you know, I'll do the made stuff. I'm your made in waiting. And talks about how her and her friend Bessie Bates used to

his 99 and used to clear up these um this old house and it was full of rats and maggots it's foul and she gets abscesses and things like that anyway and I send money and they write back thank you very much we don't need a made in waiting for Theresa May and um please you know don't send any money and I write again I think I wrote three Anyway, I was out at a meeting and my wife phoned, sorry to interrupt me, can I talk to you a second? She said, just had to, knock at the door, I opened the door, there's two police officers. And I went and sent my 10 Downing Street,

Theresa May's office. Yes, so a lady had called Mrs. Elsie. This is the first of quite a lot of visits by the way. And she said, sort of why? I said, oh, they're concerned there's a very old, maybe confused lady who's been sending money wanting to be her maid and keeping him. My wife had to say, oh, that's my husband, he's a comedy writer. Oh, okay, okay then.

All right, so he's a comedy writer, okay. And then they left. And then we had another visit from the police after I wrote to, I can't remember where it was. It's somewhere like Blenham Palace, saying, I'm 104. I'm planning a very big party to celebrate my 110th birthday in six years time. 110. And we had the police around for that. No, in fact, that wasn't the police. This is the worst one. That was social services. Social services turn up our house.

And they said, hello, I'm here from social services assessment team. We just saw the kids and go, why? We reason to believe there's a 104 year old woman in this house and we need to check her safety. And I had to go, I'm a comedy writer. My name's Robert Popper. She said, can I see your ID?

I got ID'd in my own house. And I said, do you want to come in? She goes, yes, can I see your ID? I got ID'd in my own house. And I said, do you want to come in? She goes, yes, because I need to check every single room and cupboard in the house for this old lady. Okay. So I let her around the whole house and I opened every cupboard and she said, at the end, you proved to me that you do not have a lady called Elsie Jokers, 104 Living House. And I said, do you want to copy the book? And she said, no, thank you. That was just loads of visits. Yeah. I mean, it's reassuring that they are doing their jobs. That's what I mean. Yeah. People were very kind. Yeah. That's why I say they were, they were

kind. I got a lot of gifts, which I go to charity. Yeah. Yeah. It was, you know, flowers, lots of flowers. Yeah. It all leads up to our wedding. She meets a man called Mr. Ralph Groberts, who's a hundred, a younger man. And people get invited to a wedding and he got flowers. Penny Mordent sent loads of food. The head of Land Rover wanted to pay for all the transport to the wedding. And I got flowers from him. It's insane. It was insane. You'd be an amazing fraudster if you ever want to stop doing books. Maybe I shall be. You can be as lud fraudster if you ever want to stop doing books. Maybe I shall be.

You can be as ludicrous as you like and people will. Exactly. Maybe I should do it for bad rather than almost good. We always start with still a sparkling water. Oh really? I don't know. I haven't heard this. How does it work?

Well, I'm not the first to say sparkling is awful. You sure? I mean, it's just ridiculous. It's not, that shouldn't be, that's not the first to say sparkling is awful. Sure. I mean, it's just ridiculous. It's not that shouldn't be. That's not a drink, is it? Really? I think it is a drink.

It is a drink. Yeah. It is a drink. Yeah. But it shouldn't be served as a drink because to me, first of all, it tastes like, uh, like if you've left a 2p in the water for a few days and the bubbles are just oxidizing, like the metal oxidizing and they're like, this is science now, oxidizing bubble, that's what it tastes like. So when you drink it, it almost hurts your mouth. I'm going to say it's just,

you know, that's all. It's like an elastic band hitting the top of your roof of your mouth. Do you ever have that? I had an elastic band hit the roof of my mouth. Never before. No,? I had a last of ban hit the roof of my mouth never before. No, I don't think I have. No, I haven't, but I imagine it's just nasty. Wondering if it's school, you know, when people fire rubber bands around the classroom, whether I ever open my mouth and one went in. Oh, that would be proper bingo. That would be perfect. That would be proper bingo. Proper bores even. They say bingo now in darts. No, that'd be proper bingo. I think it is bingo now definitely. They change it, they modernize the game.

They have a, they read out numbers that in all the darts players have a card. And if they hit all of their numbers, then it's proper bingo. One hundred and eight, one eight zero, whatever that is. Whatever that is. Whatever that is. It seems like you don't like things where there's too much going on under the surface. Yeah. So the ocean, sparkling water.

Well, I suddenly remember talking about sparkling water when I was about 12. And when I said the sentence out to my wife, I realized there's something weird in it. But we, our neighbors, lent us a soda stream. That's weird, isn't it? And it was in our lounge on the like cabinet, like pride my mom said don't touch that. That's Roy and Anne's. Yeah She passed the driving test on her 13th time and crashed into our wall So you're not to play with that. Obviously I play with that. Yeah, Coca-Cola syrup foul. Yeah But my dad used it to make fizzy water when they had like guests around

because it was kind of suburban, isn't it? That's what they did. It's cheaper. I don't know what they traded it in for or when they gave it, what the agreement was. You can have it for a month or we have to come around and use it. But I made, I wanted to know what fizzy milk tastes like. Of course. Have you done that? That's what everyone wants to know. I think when I was a kid, I thought what would fizzy milk taste like. You think about that, right? What would fizzy milk tastes like. Of course. Have you done that? That's what everyone wants to know. When I was a kid I thought what would fizzy milk taste like. Do you remember? Well I don't think I ever did it. Oh well I did it. Yeah. Yeah and it is bad. Yeah. It's bad and it bubbles up quite thick and my mum found me and I got in like a lot of trouble for that. She's got you. She clogged it up and she says Roy and I are not going to be living.

Yeah Roy and I are not going to be. Yeah, he did have a temper. Yeah. Yeah. Because someone, one of my parents friends commented on his wife's driving once. Which she was bad. She was really bad. She passed on the 13th time and crushed into your wall. 13th time. And he said something to her like, probably learn to drive. So it was my parents friend who was coming around and then got knocked on the door and it was Roy and he had like Clearly had some anger issue and he was like fucking mad Yeah, it was gonna be a fight. It wasn't a fight, but it was almost a fight. Yeah, he had a temper Yeah again something bubbling beneath the surface. Exactly. Yeah, it's just like The ocean and yeah almost sparkling water. Roy's the ocean. So you're having still water. I'm having still water

Yeah, anything in it? Salt maybe Robert? Like in that program. I'm going to have tap water. Seriously though you did that as a kid? Yeah. You and your brother? Yeah we did yeah. Yeah yeah yeah yeah it was water was used a lot. You can ruin a meal easily. Yeah. Just a glass of water in the plate. It's gone. Yeah. You know it's dead. That's what Johnny's, my brother Johnny's, that's what he used to do. Just pour your water on your meal. We used to do the weird thing. When I had a bit more hair, we used to pull bits of our hair out and we would put them in my dad's glass of water sometimes.

Yeah. From when we had a Friday night dinner. It was just our weird horrible joke. And we never told him what we're doing. And you would see him like halfway through the meal just going, picking his tongue like what, what is, what is in my mouth? And that was our private joke for a long time. Yeah, that's disgusting. That's a good trick is what I thought. It is a good trick. You'd like that.

Yeah, yeah. You should try it. I will try that. Yeah, do that. You could do it on James. Yeah. He wouldn't like that. Popped up some bread, popped up some bread, Robert Popper? Pop-a-dums or bread?

Okay, I Pop-a-dums for Italian, bread for curry. I will have bread actually. I want a specific type of bread Yeah, I'm gonna take a step back. Right, because I don't like mulched food. Much food. Mulched food I said. Because I don't like mulched food It's really hard to choose like your dream, dream meal. So I think the feel of my meal should feel more like a meal I'd enjoy if I was in a dream. I think it's a bit like that. Okay. You know, like, cause I, you see people to go, I had the most beautiful, my brother, the most amazing meal. Oh, it was amazing. Shows me pictures of his food.

I'm never like, yeah, I had a really nice, it was nice, but I can't even remember what the best meal I ever had is. So I'm just going to go on. I would enjoy that and I'd probably enjoy the weirdness of the meal as well. So that's going to be my dream restaurant. Is this less of a dream meal, more of a meal dream? It's both. It's like a meal I could have in a dream and go, oh, I had the best dream ever.

And the meal was amazing. Listen to what I had and where it was. And then the person I'm telling you to, cause dreams aren't interesting, go, Oh, wow, amazing. But I would feel like that was the best meal I ever had. Cause you couldn't go into a restaurant and have like this setting and these choices. So what first of all, I'm going to have a toaster on my, on my first, I want a toaster on my, on my, on my, on my table. It's called a table, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a table. It's your dream.

Yeah. Call it what you like. But they have them in dreams as well. Yeah, they do. It could be a table. Yeah, you've dreamt about table. Yeah, yeah. We all dream about tables in dreams.

If in a dream, a table would never stay a table, I don't think. You're right. Because you look down and then it's something completely different. You're right. That's the thing about dreams, isn't it? Yeah. They're not consistent. They change. Yeah. They do. They do all the time. What are we on? We're on bread, aren't we? Yeah. There's a Jewish bread called Chola. Don't know if you've ever had it. Platted bread.

Yeah. That's my favorite bread. It's beautiful. Toasted. Best thing in the world. So I'm gonna have, I want my own toast. I'll tell you why. Because people don't know how to toast it because it's got sugar in it and it burns. Right. And I know how to do it. Low setting. I want my own toast. I want the loaf and I'll cut it and I'll have, I'll eat half a loaf toasted butter. Beautiful. What's the secret to toasting it? Just cut the bread, put it in the toaster, turn the toast low, the toaster low. Yeah. It's done.

Are you, are you good at it to the extent that you can just put it on the low setting and one and done or are you checking? Lots of checking. Yeah. And also turning it off at the mains, putting spoons in and pulling them out when you, it's all fucked up. Yes. Of course. Thank you for being safe and turning it off at the mains.

You do that thing with the spoons and you just think it is off, isn't it? The toaster. Yeah. Yeah. If I want to check the toast, I'll probably just hit the cancel button. But I mean, if it gets stuck in the toaster, I don't normally just put it on and then totally off and stick the spoons in. I do know the lever works. It gets stuck in like bent because it's quite a floppy bread. I'll just tip the toaster upside down and just sort of bash it on the side. So what's the dream aspect of this one then?

Dream aspect probably hasn't started yet. No, no, no. Because this is just a bit, this is sort of the pre-meal bit, isn't it? Just a bit of toast, a bit of toast, just, you know, a bit of bread, toast. I mean, I'm allowed toast on it. Yeah. I'm allowed. That's bread. You are allowed. Yeah. It's just easing me into the meal. Yeah. I guess, you know, you get the roll, like bring around the rolls and things. Yeah. And they have seeds on it. Don't want those. They have nuts in, don't eat nuts. Or they'll say, um, this is our tomato bread. It's maybe a tomato. Yeah. It's That's just, that's not food is it? Tomato bread. That's just words isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Tomato bread. You don't like seeds on the bread? Not really, no.

No. And nuts? No, I don't like nuts. Any nuts. Coconuts? That's not a nut. Or is it a nut? Is it a natural thing? I don't think it is. You wouldn't get a bag of coconuts, would you? A sack of coconuts, please, from Tesco's. From one of those things behind the bar in the pub, clipped up. Yeah, I'll follow them. 199, sir. Try a rest of the coconuts, please.

But you like coconut, but you don't like nuts. Oh, I like coconut, yeah. No, I don't like nuts. They always say, I asked if it has nuts in, and they always say, you allergic, every time I say, no, I just don't like nuts. Do you ever get any like attitude back? Yeah, you don't like nuts.

Why don't you like nuts? I don't like the taste. I really like your list of, your list of things you don't like is, it's whole categories as well. So you're not, you're not specific about it. So it's like fish, nuts, they're just all gone. Yeah, they're gone. It's sad because I could be enjoying life more. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. We'll get into your menu

proper now then. So now we're entering the dream. I'd say the toaster on the table has a, it has a dolly s quality to it. One would say slightly off beat. Isn't it? Yeah. I mean, we can have it. That's not even plugged in at the main. So you can, it's still works. You can pick the whatever you like in there. I love you can. But it still works. It still works. I like that. You can put whatever you like in there. I love that. And you'll be fine. Yeah.

No mains. Just dream power. It kind of gallops along the table like a little horse. Yeah. Lovely. Yeah. We'll do that. Great.

It's a horse duster. It's your dream starter. Okay. You won't be surprised. I don't want a starter. Okay. I'm going to have a starter, but I don't like starters. You don't have to have one. I will eat food. There is going to be a meal in this episode. Oh, yeah, but I don't like starters. I will eat food. This is there is gonna be a meal in this

Yeah, but I don't like starters. I don't I don't see the point I think a meal is you have your main you get that done and then you get your reward which is dessert Yes, and you do yes You don't have a starter at home when you sit down another start of a starter and then I'll have a main Uh-huh. I just don't if I sit down and have a starter, I have a starter and then I have a main. I just don't. If I have a takeaway, I have a starter. What starters do you have? Well, depends what takeaway I get. So I've got to have. Do you have it if you have a curry? Do you have a starter?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Onion Bhaji. Yeah, get an onion Bhaji or a prawn puri. And I'll, this does a normal, normal wife because she puts everything all on the same plate. Oh, I like that. And I'll, we'll put it all out in the kitchen. Say we're having a curry and I've got onion, bargees, maybe a prawn puri. I'll put that on a plate, go through to the other room, eat it. They'll be like, Oh, I've had my starter now. Then I go back to the kitchen and serve myself. Oh, I can. Yeah. That's pretty good. Yeah. That's pretty good. Yeah. I do have a starter at home. Yeah. You seem to find every bit of that amusing Robert. When you were listening to that. Yeah. Yeah. Look, can you tell me

that again? Take you a picture of my home life. I'll do it with a different. So if I get Turkish food, yeah, I'll get halloumi. I'll get put that on the plate. I'll go through to the other room. I'll eat the halloumi. Yeah. Like I'm in a restaurant. Separate the thing. Yeah. And you go, you actually move location. Yes. Right. Yeah. So you won't bring the main in with what what rooms are you going from to? Kitchen. So your food is in the bathroom. Food's in the kitchen. Okay.

And then I'll go through to the sitting room. Really? And I'll eat the food there. But you've got a dining table in your kitchen though. Is this where you watch in front of the TV? TV. Oh, okay. TV.

He loves the TV. He likes the TV. Well, I'm not going to sit in the kitchen. So you go in and watch your soaps that you love. Yeah, yeah. I love soaps. Two curries on a Wednesday. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Back to back. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll eat my starter. And then you'll walk in and go and have a nice meal. And then I'll go to the kitchen and I'll get myself the best of it. Would you do that, James?

Yeah. Yeah. You would do that. Yeah, my kitchen, you can't sit and eat anything anyway. It's a small kitchen. Why don't you take it all in then into the TV room and then just dish it out yeah just take it all into the TV room because we've got a little table in there so let's put it all on there i don't want to dish out and go to town what you mean is well it's a hard one that yeah just don't have a starter no start don't need a starter problem solved but i

if i had a starter okay if i had a start you don't have to have one no no no i've been thinking it through i would have soup i like soup i soup. I like vegetable soup, but it's weird. I can't really have soup in a restaurant. I feel it's kind of, it makes you look quite vulnerable. You know, just like ages you 30 years, first of all, just a hot soup and everyone's looking at you with your soup. So that's more like something you have at home with your partner and it's cold and you go, well, nice soup. And it was lovely soup. Let your guard down. Yeah. And you just having lovely, you just talk and you go, nice soup and it was lovely soup. Yeah. You just talk about the soup, lovely soup. I'd have that.

But in a restaurant, I don't want to have soup. What about it makes you feel vulnerable, do you think? And why do you think everyone's looking at you while you have your soup? I just always feel when I have a soup in a restaurant that I just look, you know, I just look older. I look, you know, what am I now, 26? I just feel like it just makes you look like an old person having soup in a restaurant. It's not a good look. I think people pity the soup drinker. That's why I think. That's what I'd say. I think it's pity.

But I could choose if no one's there then, couldn't I? I could have no one there. Or you could eat, you know, like the, the autolain thing, that French dish where they eat it under a blanket because they're so ashamed by how disgusting it looks. What is that? It's this tiny little bird. Yeah, they don't, they don't want God to see them eating this tiny little bird. Yeah. What's wrong with the bird? Well, it's just so small and beautiful that it's like

considered a shameful thing to eat because it's delicious, but it's like a whole little bird. They're eating it whole. They're eating it whole. So they put a blanket over the head so God can't see them eat it. And it's cooked, it's a cooked bird. Yeah. I think, well, I've never seen it. But they eat it whole. They eat- I think the beak and everything. Yeah. And this is a thing now, this happens now.

I think it's more of a thing in the past, but it was on succession, right? Yeah, they did it on succession. Oh, not that one. I saw that. It's an episode of succession where Tom Wamsgan's does it. But you could do that with soup. So yeah, no, I think people look at me even more. I know they would it on the succession. Oh, not that one. It's an episode of succession where Tom Wamsgan's does it. But you could do that with soup. Yeah, no, I think people would look at me even more. I know they would be looking at me. Yeah.

Do you tuck a napkin into your collar? I can't do that. Yeah, that's too. Do you put a napkin? It's demeaning. It is demeaning, but yeah, I do do it. But I know what I'd have. Okay.

Before dinner at home, around six, I always get a bit peckish, hungry, know that word and I will have a bowl of cereal This is my dream. This is what I want. Yeah I'm gonna have a bowl of cereal. I'm gonna have a bowl right with 50% corn flakes They go in first 50% rice Krispies. Yeah, it's fucking mad. I'm gonna have this what you do. Yeah, honey Yeah, I don't want it served with a thing that's shaped the wooden thing with the thing that looks like, you know, bees on the end and it drips everywhere. Squeezy honey on it. Told oat milk. Yeah. And I want

that. Now in terms of soup ages. I would really enjoy that. Soup ages you 30 years. Yeah. Does cereal have the opposite effect? That's a good point. Yeah, for if I'm young. It would knock a month off. Yeah. But no one's gonna be looking. But I could choose who's there if not, could I have a button, like you know, you see sometimes it says call for champagne,

and I can have a button and it changes the people. Yeah, yeah, sure. So who do you want watching? Well, I know who I want, yes, yeah, yeah. Because I saw these people in a restaurant. I had a meal about five years ago with Tom Rosenthal and Simon Berg from Friday night dinner. We had a disgusting meal somewhere. All the food was awful. It's brilliant. And sitting at a table about four away from us was Alistair Campbell, you know, the labor with Mick Hucknall.

Wow. Yeah. They were together. They were together having dinner. with Mick Hucknall. Wow. Yeah. They were together. They were together having dinner. So I want them, but like every table has them, like 20 tables. Yeah. All there, eating, having different conversations. But they're all- I can't quite hear them. I don't know if they're talking about politics or music and it's quite annoying, but interesting. And I'll have them there and they can watch me eat. So 20 tables of Mick Hucknall and Alastair Campbell. Yeah. Yeah. I want that. While I'm having my cereal, just so I can tell people afterwards, I had the freakiest meal. I had cereal and 20 replica Mick Hucknall's and Alastair Campbell's were watching me eat.

Are they moving in sync? Are they all? No, they're not moving in sync. So they all have their own? Yeah, they don't even know. They don't see themselves and go, that's me. They're just in like their own little void. Having different conversations. Yeah, I can never quite hear me. Yeah. They're just in like their own little void. Having different conversations.

Yeah. I can never quite hear them. Yeah. I wonder what they were doing together. I don't know. Maybe Mick Huckman was the original instead, he was supposed to do the rest as politics instead of Rory Stewart. Yeah. That was the original meeting.

Yeah. Could have been. Yeah. It could have been that, couldn't it? Could have been that, yeah. Would it be more successful or less successful? I feel like it's the opposing Labour conservative that makes that show work and you can't have both of them being Simply Read. Oh beautiful. I mean beautiful. That was, I mean come on, if this was live

that would be it. And then someone would heckle something about 15 seconds later that's not quite as funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone would try and do it again. A simply read song that doesn't quite work. Yeah. The name. Yeah. I can't think what that is.

Fairground. Yeah. Yeah. That definitely doesn't work. Fairground! That joke was fairground. Yeah. The bowl of cereal, you say 50-50.

Mm. Because it's a dream. Yeah. We can make anything happen. Do you want the divide to happen horizontally or vertically? Do you want it? No, I'm gonna go horizontal. Yeah. I would want a vertical How do you do that? What's the dream? We may as well just have two. We can make this happen for you that you've got like half and half like from the top I'm saying that when me and Peter Sarah Finowich used to write look around you

I'll treat at the end of the day was we buy Mars bar Mars bar, right? And we'd cut it in half vertically and call it a Vars bar. And that was our treat. So maybe in honour of that, I should do this, you know, have it vertical. I love the insanity that people go through when they're writing stuff. Come on, you know what it's like. It was our Vars bar. We'd have it one a day. He did a thing which was something like, all the fun of a Mars in a mist. It's like a Mars spray that you spray into your mouth. What does it, if a Mars a day helps you work rest and play, right? Work rest and pray.

Just wondering what Avars did. Yeah, what does Avars do? Oh God. Work vest and vape. I don't know what it is. I'm trying to, I'm not, I could do a workout on what it rhymes with. You've got to leave this in. This is no way coming out. You've got to leave this. I just don't know James. I don't have a funny answer to that. So, guys, do you know what? I think it takes a grown-up to admit that. It's very mature of you. Thank you very much. Yeah, I wish more comedy writer. Yeah, but you've admitted failure. I'm stumped

Your dream main course, yeah my dream main course so my dream main course is it's like It's a it's something I like and it's not this is normal. Mm-hmm So again, we're still not really in this, this dream that you're talking about is mainly applying to the guests. Well, now I'm, the restaurant is the set up of my grandma's old tiny flat. Okay. Okay. So you press the button.

I press the button. Yeah. The big hug noise, they're like, and come, they're like eviscerate. They vanish. They're either eviscerate, I don't know if they're eviscerated, but they're gone. Maybe they're eviscerated. Maybe they are, maybe we don't know. But they're gone.

And now it's my grandma, who I loved, she was great. And in her tiny flat, I'm in a tiny flat now, and my grandma was insane. And I can do a voice, so like, I mean I could phone my mum up and she would have long chats with me and it's perfect. I would even phone my grandma sometimes and talk back to her and her voice and to her brain would go, what? So she escaped from the Nazis base and came over here. So, and she spoke, she spoke like this, it's wonderful to be here. Wonderful. This isn't strange that I'm talking like this now. That's my grandma. So I'm going to be in her flat and she's going to serve

me my favorite comfort meal when I went there. It was either meatballs, which are on the list. Don't like them. That was bad because they were big. Don't like them. No. Do you like meatballs? Yeah, yeah. Because they were big. Is that why? There's more of them. So there's meatballs or you get the good one, which was so she had this tiny, tiny um kitchen tiny and if you

took one step in there she'd go no go away go away leave me go inside she didn't want you in the kitchen yeah it was tiny no it's not nice now sit down go go so you sit down and then she'd wheel the trolley through, there'd be a trolley. And she used to make, she'd have this like cast iron sauce pan and she'd make these like square steaks and she'd cook them in, I don't know, it must be an issue of being like loads of paprika and flour, there'd be like a crust. And she'd make these little potatoes, she'd boil them and then she'd cook them in with the steak and I'd have them and green beans. That was my meal. Yeah. And while I'd eat them, she'd say to me, why are you

not eating the meat? So while I'm saving it to the end, no, you should eat a good thing first. What if a bomb or if you have to escape? Okay. Hopefully there won't be a bomb. I have to escape. So it was kind of like a sort of third generation Holocaust trauma meal dream. That's what it is. Yeah, yeah, that's what I want. Okay. First of all, that's very nice memory Yeah, but also she would sometimes and she did this regularly to me and my brother Johnny she go she be in the Kitchen she come out and she'd have an onion in her hand peeled. You know, do you like an onion? So sorry, would you like an onion What to eat raw? Yes. No, thank you. Why? You don't like some? To me, it is like a juicy apple. And then she would eat the onion in front of us. And me and my brother would be watching this very elderly,

short, quite tan lady with dyed blonde hair, eats an onion from beginning to end in front of us. That's a power move is what that is. I'm telling you, it's a power move. It that is. I'm telling you it's a power move. It's intimidating, would she maintain eye contact as well for the whole thing? There was poor full eye contact while the horse racing was playing on the TV behind.

Maybe Margulies does that. What's that? Eats a full onion. Does she really? Yeah, yeah. She mentioned it on this podcast and every time she's been to the sex it made her do it. That would be a real twist.

That would be a twist. Margulies could be your grandmother. Even though my grandma's not alive. And you know what your grandma looked like. Yeah, so it's definitely not her, is it? Would you ask? You must have a... You can ask her.

You've got her contact details, haven't you, Ben? Yeah, we'll ask her. Do you want to ask her now? You could do it. You went on the phone before. Yeah, I could just text Margulies, are you Robert Popper's grandmother? Yeah, she'd probably grandmother yeah is it just a cut of steak is it like square a square cut of square I don't know what meat I

mean I know what meat it was it was beef yeah I wasn't horse and it's just a square juicy piece of meat with loads of paprika yeah it's quite sort of spicy is had this crust on it oh it's delicious yeah you really love the crust yeah the crust the crust I mean I can cook a nice steak and it doesn, had this crust on it. Oh, it's delicious. Yeah. You really love the crust. Yeah. The crust. I mean, I can cook an ice steak and it doesn't have a crust on it, but this was the only one I had that you ever had a steak that has a crust on it with flour. No. It's nice. Yeah. It was really nice. Yeah. I've never had it, but like, I haven't even heard of it before, but both times you've mentioned the crust and you've been like, yeah, because I haven't thought about it.

I was thinking, what will I eat? What food food I eat so much chicken. I can't need chicken Oh this yeah, I'll have this yeah with her watching me telling me to hurry up before the bomb Yeah, that's a real generational way of thinking about the order. You should eat your food Yeah, have you heard that one before? Have the good stuff first? Yeah, cuz I was told save the best stuff till last I was told but my mom always used to do that She said when she was a kid save the best stuff till last. But I was told. But my mum always used to do that. She said when she was a kid, save the good stuff till last. But then there were like loads of other kids at the table. So they just lean over and nick it when she was saving it.

That doesn't feel fair, does it? It's not fair. It's a cruel world. It is a cruel world. But I still did it. I still stuck to it. Grandma was, she was like obsessed with, when I was little, like three, because I didn't eat anything like today.

So she would try to make me eat. And she used to give me, I remember this, I haven't had it since, it's foul already, Ribena and milk. That is what I'd be given. And she would try and make me drink that because she thought it's got sugar in and milk and it's good for you. And if I was really unlucky, she makes an egg in it. So it'd be Ribena, milk and an egg. That's what I got. You've had more weird milk experiments than most people I've that's what I got. You've had more weird milk experiments than most people I've met. You're right yeah. You've had milk every which way. I have. Yeah. Ribena and milk it also it curdles. Yeah oh my god. It's foul. It's interesting that

it curdles but you don't want to then drink it. No you don't want to then drink it. I imagine the egg binds it some way. But tastes even worse. Yeah it's sort of browny purple drink. Yeah. Which is not never a good color really Oh gosh, do you like milk these days? No, that's on the list. You got the oat milk in the cereal? Oat milk, I'm an oat milk man. I'm a media milk man. You know, it's a media drink, isn't it? Oat milk. Yeah, Earl Grey with oat milk. That's what I have. That's not good, is it? That's my tea of choice.

I think it's good. I would say for someone who's very picky about food, Earl Grey is quite surprising. Quite jazzy. I think I've gone off normal tea now. It's not on the list. We used to do a shot when we were teenagers which curdled. You do a shot of Baileys into your mouth, hold it in your mouth, then a quarter shot of lime juice in there and then shake your head around and it curdles in your mouth. It's called a cement mixer. How would you see it? You'd feel the bits it curdled in your mouth. Oh, that's foul. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did it when he was a teenager. Yeah.

The cement mixer. Well, me and my friends, we invented a drink that I think is worse. It's called a Tominto and it's tomato juice and creme de menthe and that curdles and that is foul. And we were writing something years ago and we came up with that's the drink of their choice. And then we went after about five years later, we met up, we've never had one. We went to a pub in Soho, the John Snow. We went to a normal pub, went in there. Come on, you say hello, a pint of lager please, and a Tuminto. The guy was just laying there chatting with people. Sorry, what was that? Tum tomato. What's that? Um, tomato juice and Cren de Mol. Okay. He just poured the tomato juice and let over did the shot of Cren de Mol at 160, please. Years ago. And it was this Brownie red curdle drink and it's

like a tomato mint alcoholic taste and it's found. Yeah. I mean, you've got to try it. Yeah. It's worth it. Green. It's gotta be green. Yeah. Yeah, it's worth it agrees. Gotta be creepy. Yeah, John Snow. Yeah I think it's still 160. Yeah. Yeah, that does the best one you've ever had right? Yeah. Yeah Oh, I still naive for directions to the John Snow. Did you? Yeah. Well, he was in here. No Direct me from here. Yeah, and what did he say? He didn't know I was it's quite a specific thing to ask I'm well, how did he say it? You know, do your Bill Nye. I'm, I'm afraid I don't. That's not bad.

I'm afraid I don't. It's a bit Ronnie Corbett. I think he actually said, I can't say that I do. Yeah, that's good. That's why it got better, didn't it? That would be the line they give him. Yeah.

He probably saves it like, if the line said, I'm afraid I don't, he would say, I prefer to say it like that. Yeah, very good. Yeah. Yeah, I believe you now Now you get to press a button now your grandmother's gonna disappear, how do you feel about that? That's fine She's had our use, you know, she can be eviscerated. Yeah

I've got to get eviscerated. Well, we weren't sure. We weren't sure, were we? Yeah. And there's like a, you know, 10% chance that they are, but I'll take that risk. Yeah. So I press the button and she's gone. And where are you now? Have a look around because it's side dish time. I'm back in the restaurant.

I can't, I don't know where I am now, but I'm in some restaurant. Yeah. Maybe a French restaurant. Yeah. And France. Yeah. You like France? Yeah.

I like France. Yeah. How often do you go to France? Once a year. Same place. Yeah. Three years running. Yeah, you like France? Yeah, I like France. Yeah. How often do you go to France? Once a year Same place, three years running. Yeah, maybe this will be the last time we go there. It's probably going You know what? We've been here enough now. Yeah, but South France. Lovely. Very nice. Do you like France lads? Yeah He's gonna be using the travel one you do as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah off road. Yeah off road. Very good Yeah, very good. There's some ideas here, isn't it? Off the beaten path. For Plosiv the well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Off road. Off road. Very good. Very good. There's some

ideas here, isn't it? Off the beaten path. For Plosive, the company. What do you think Ben? It's good, isn't it? Off road. Yeah. Off road. Yeah. I like it. Yeah, it's good. You and Bill Nye walking the streets of Soho. Me seeing if he can find his way around. Yeah, he doesn't know any way. He doesn't know they're anywhere. Do you know where? Yeah. Anywhere. He doesn't know where anywhere is. Can't say that he does. Can't say that I do. That's a good format. Isn't it taking Bill Nye to places that he's never been before and asking him if he knows his way around.

Yeah, he has to find it. There's no GPS. Well, you've got to find it. That's good. Yeah, it's good. I mean, it genuinely probably is quite good. Yeah, it is. Yeah.

Bill, you're in tight. I mean, it get greenlit for sure. Yeah, I don't think it feel like he does have a smartphone anyway No, I don't think he does because he just walks around singing all day. Have you read about that? No, I didn't know he loves learning a new song every day and he just walks around singing out loud. Yeah Was he singing? No, he's not at all. But he was learning a song called. I don't think I do or something. Yeah. Yeah Silent night Yeah, this is gold isn't it He was practicing silent night. Did you get it? Cause it was silent.

Yeah. Yeah. This is gold, isn't it? Silent night. Silent night. I said silent night. You, you win. Dream side dish, Robert. Ball of carrots, raw carrots.

Wow. Yeah. My favorite thing. Yeah. Yeah. Raw carrot in a bowl. It's your favorite thing. I think it's like the tastiest food in the world, raw carrot. I thought you said ball of carrots.

Not a ball of carrots, no. A ball of carrots wouldn't be the tastiest, that would be, that's impossible, isn't it? A ball of carrots. Is it a dream restaurant? It's possible then, but I want a bowl of carrots, raw carrots. And nothing, no dip with them?

No, just raw carrots. I eat them all the time, don't peel them, wash them, cut the ends off, give the bits to my dog. I eat the carrots. They're beautiful. Crunchy, sweet if you get a good one. They're delicious. It's really funny that you give the bits to your dog. Yeah, he loves carrots. Does he? She, yeah. Lolly, that's her name. Labrador. All it wants is food. It follows me around

Sort of loves me. It's more like the animal that lives in the house. Really, you know, that's all you've got don't you? I've got a cat. Oh nice. Yeah, love cats. Yeah, he's very precious about what he eats. What's your cat called? Pig. Oh great name Do you know about James's cats? How many cats you got? four Do you know about James's cats? How many cats you got? Four. Okay, four. Sorry. I'm allergic to cats and I like cats. I would have 40 cats. Yeah. Yeah, I love them. Four cats. What's that like? Brilliant. Love it. We had this, we had this decorator in recently and he was very nice. He wouldn't stop talking and a bit like me. And he said, like, yeah, you got a dog. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. talking and, um, a bit like me. And, uh, he said like, yeah, you've got a dog. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, I've got cats. So how many cats you got?

20. Wow. Wow. 21. I bought a white cat yesterday. I've always wanted a white cat. 21 cats. Wow.

Imagine having 20 cats and you've not got a white one. Yeah. I know it's like, it's collecting. I want a white, I wanted a white one. That is unmanageable. 21 cats. So does your house smell of cats? Yes it will do. Mine doesn't. Not yours. 21 cats there's no way it won't. Yeah 21 cats. It's not your house anymore is it really? It's the cat's house. I've got four

cats and I have to you know, be mindful each day to not let things slip in. Luckily they're pretty chill all four of them. They all get on? They all get on. Their little gang. Names? Terry. Terry good. Alex. Also good. Roo. Roo. And Spider-Man. I mean they're four classic names that go together. Yeah. Alex also goes by cheeseburger Jones. It depends on the vibe. Alex is often called that on there. Alex is short for cheeseburger Jones. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

I know you like it. Yeah. Yeah. So you're just walking around the house quite often, just nibbling on a carrot. Yeah. yeah. That's why this is the last episode. So you're just walking around the house quite often just nibbling on a carrot. Yeah, carrots. Yeah, if I'm writing or some other little bowl of carrots, you know, it's a nibble on. I don't have nuts, can I? I don't like nuts. No, well, you can have it. You use the word can't quite liberally. I could. I could. You don't want to. I don't want them.

Yeah, yeah. Hate them. You hate nuts. Yeah. So you have to have. I have to. I must have carrots. And these are full sized carrots? When you say bowl of carrots. I think I'll cut them in, I'll do the vertical, I'll do a vertical cut. A varat. A varat. I'll have a varat. Yeah. I'll varat them. Yeah. Are you just varating because often when you get... I might do other varat. I mean, it depends on the

thing. I might do two more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, yeah. I kind of, you know what, when you said a bowl of carrots, I was like, oh man oh man That's a bowl though isn't it? It's better than a plate. But Whenever I have carrots like carrot batons or something like that. Yeah, I do think carrots are good Yeah, but if you buy them in packs, some of those quite watery and nasty. Yeah, they can turn I mean, I have my favorite thing to buy from Marks and Spencer's service stations is the carrot batons with a hummus dip Hummus is on my list, I'm afraid. Oh no.

It doesn't like it. I mean, I throw that away. That goes away and I'll have the buttons. You know, when you're driving, you have them on your lap and then the carrots fall over, you know, on your feet and all the pedals. Have you had that one? While you're driving on the motorway, I have. That was bad.

They're quite moist. Yeah. I had a bag of carrots and they're just all over the pedals. Slippery. Yeah. Are you then bending down to try and get the car? Yeah trying to move them out the way while driving safely I'll drive you safe. Yeah Doesn't happen a lot, but that has happened. Yeah, do you abide by this five-second rule? Would you pick up a carrot from the five second carat? Yeah, the five second carrot rule and I might not from the foot well

Yeah, but if it's in my house, which is spotless. Yes. If it's in my house, I would. Yeah. But not from the foot well of my, you know, the manky foot well in my car. Definitely not. Although I might.

Yeah. Because if no one's watching. If no one's watching. It's not like, and then you look in the rear view mirror and Mick Huckman sat in the back. Oh. But I can't quite hear him. Yeah.

So it doesn't matter what he said. When you said, uh, bowl of carrots, It's not like, and then you look in the rearview mirror and mick huck and sit in the back. Oh, but I can't quite hear him. Yeah. So it doesn't matter what he said. When you said, uh, bowl of carrots, I too imagined the batons and thought, come on. But then when you said the full ones, I did make me go, Oh, that is nicer. And I hadn't thought about that before. They're quite refreshed. You know what I mean? In the fridge. Yeah.

Refreshing. Like nature's lollipop. Nature's lollipop, like the stick, but a tasty lollipop fridge. Yeah, refreshing. Mm-hmm like nature's lollipop nature's lolly, but like the stick but a tasty lollipop stick Yeah, Jeff a bite into one and say what's up, doc? Oh my heaven actually, but I will I will from now on yeah I mean you do a good impression of your grandmother. Did you ever do a good impression of Bugs Bunny? No, I can't do but can you do I could do my grandma saying Yeah, how do you feel about cooked carrots? Yeah, they're not bad. Yeah. I've got, I've got to,

yeah, they're fine. You know, if they're not too soft. Yeah. People can overdo it. They can, can't they? And the punishments aren't severe enough, are they really for that these days? Who knows where this new government, of course, but yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, I think it's in their manifesto. I haven't seen it. Yeah, yeah. They're always so long aren't they? Yeah, yeah. And involved. It's quite deep in the carrot stuff. Yeah, it's not near the top really. Yeah, yeah. You know. Your dream drink Robert. You like this one? Yeah. I'm gonna have two drinks. I'm allowed two drinks, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to have because it will just make me laugh Okay, who's in the restaurant when you're having the carrots by the way? No one's in the rest. No one's in that. Okay. That's with my grandma. No the car is my dish side dish

Yeah, but I thought you'd press you'd press the button Yeah, you're gonna be a Kitchen with the dog. Yeah, it'll be yeah what it's gonna be with the dog. Yeah. And I can chuck the bits. Yeah. That's not this, now I'm back in the restaurant. I'm gonna be in a white bear restaurant now for no reason. Yeah.

And I'm going to have, what was the question? Drink. Drink, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Well, no, this is throughout the meal, isn't it? So we can have these anyway. Well, I want, I'm gonna be served, you know, by waiters, obviously, and I want to, I'm gonna start with a Seamour, and then I'm gonna finish with the La Ross.

Are those wines? Nope. I'll tell you what these are. So this is another one from my youth. When my brother, Johnny, we're younger and we used to get invited to parents, like someone was getting married in the family or Bermitsva. And when I was like 11 and he was eight, we've invented this game, which we do to this day, which is the best game. And I think maybe my brother's there for this bit, just for when I drink he appears and then he's eviscerated, but comes back. So what we would do, we would be quite, you

know, we're 12. We didn't know anyone often. It's boring. And we didn't want to talk to girls. It's embarrassing. There's a family. So we would just go and sit by the bar and just drink Coca-Cola. And we would, this is our plan, we said we would sit by the bar. That's what we would do, just by the bar or near the bar. Is that a thing kids do normally, sitting up at the bar? Not at the bar, like we wouldn't be at the bar, we'd be on the chair. Imagine you sat having a Coca-Cola like, this is a long night. Cigar.

Yeah. We'd hang around the bar hiding basically another coke and then it would be right. It's time. It's time. So they go, Oh, two more coats, please. No, one coke, one seam hour. They go seam out. Yeah. One coke, one seam out. What's the seam out? Coca-Cola and lemonade. Mixed together. That's the seam out. Yeah. Oh, okay. So this is pre internet. So you couldn't check. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. And then you see him wander off pouring out another bartender would see him mixing lemonade and coats and see him mouthing. Oh, could be a drink. So we'd have a Coke and a semaul and

then it will be later on. We'd have two seam hours, please. And once they got used to that, the bit when they go to see mouse, we go one sea mouth, one La Ross. So you have to wait for them to. Yeah. What's a La Ross? Ginger ale and a lemonade. I've never heard of that before. Maybe one sea mouth and that would be your thing. So sea mouth. We did that our whole life. And if we ever go out, he'll be like, what do you want? One sea mouth, please. So that I would want to be drinking them. They taste nice as well. Yes. And my brother can be there and we can do that. And there's no internet reception, so they can't check. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if they would even check now, would they?

They wouldn't check now. Surely they'd be like, whatever. If they want to call them that. Two seam hours. If they want to call it a seam hour. Just when they come over, they would say two seam hours? Boys, two seam hours? No, no, one seam hour, La Ross, that would be. That's the high point. Then you end on two La Rosses.

Yeah. It's just when they think they've got the hang of it, right? Yeah. And then my dad would come and you're ordering your stupid drinks. So I would, I like those drinks. I mean, they're good drinks as well. There's nothing more exciting as a kid than realizing you can mix different soft drinks. Yeah. Yeah. Do you ever mix drinks? Nice mixing. Oh, the, uh, the freestyle machine, the freestyle machine,

or the soda fountain at, you know, or whatever. Um, some, uh, fast food places now in London have a freestyle machine. Excellent. Where you can just pick loads of other stuff. I mean, there's stuff that you don't even know. You can't buy commercially by itself. Like, you know, peach lilt and stuff like that. Yeah.

I made that one up, but every flavor of Fanta, you can imagine every sort of different fruit. Raspberry Fanta. All that sort of stuff. Yeah. Mix some of those together. Although I don't want to mix them if I've not had it. Like I just want to try raspberry Fanta.

That sounds good. Yeah. I mean when you're a kid you mix all of it. A Lombard. A Lombard. A Lombard. Raspberry Fanta. Raspberry Fanta would be a Lombard.

Would you ever sign off on this? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We do this all the time. Still do it now? Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. We haven't done it for a while, but we're going to do it again soon. We talked about it recently. I was telling him, we've got to do this again. He said, yeah, yeah, we've got to do that. We've got to do that. We do seam hours in one of the Roses. I mean, we was talking about it in the restaurant.

What do you want to drink? It was two seam hours. He always does that to me. So yeah. I mean, we should start this as a thing restaurant. What do you want to drink? It was going to two seam hours. He was just like to me. So yeah. I mean, we should start this as a thing. Yeah. People ordering seam hours on the Rosses. I think it almost certainly will happen now. And see if people, please go out there and try it. You got to start, you don't go straight in two seam hours. No.

You got to lull them in to get you know. A coke and a seam hour first. Yeah, yeah. And then have the Coca-Cola's. Coca-Cola's. Yeah. Coca-Cola's as opposed to Coke's. Two Coca-Cola's please. Yeah, that's what we did. And then eventually took a seam-hour and then the high point is when they say two seam-hours

yeah yeah and then it ends on two Larosses please yeah good night We arrive at your dream dessert now I'm excited about this because you said that the whole meal really is just so you can get the reward which, which is the pudding which is great. Yeah, great to hear. Yeah, I'm gonna have a trolley Charlie trolley puddings. Right? Yeah. Here we go. So the mains come on a trolley as well, isn't it? Yeah, my yeah, my grandma's not gonna be pushed. She's been Inviscerated no Somewhere else. Yeah. So this is just some back in a restaurant and I can choose who I want Yeah, I thought about this. Yeah, this back in a restaurant and I can choose who I want. Yeah, I thought about this

Yeah, this would be freaky. Yeah. Yeah full of people Yeah, you haven't met yet, but you're all gonna get to know in the future, right? That would be weird That's good. That's good. Yeah, I'm sure he's there as well. Oh my god, we get friends with storms. That's good Yeah, I was you know that at some point you're gonna get to know them. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good idea for like a TV show Robert You're not worried that you just I mean, you know, this is your bread and butter here right in are you not worried? You're just giving away quite a good idea for a TV show which is I'm man eating quite a horrible food People it doesn't know yet. I'm not well, I don't sound like a Find out how he knows the people

I'm copywriting it now. Yeah Yeah, but we get storms you on board. I think it's gonna be a really good show. Yeah Yeah, we do a copra. Yeah, it's company. Yeah, it'd be good if those like maybe it's a film or something But like if like it starts with the main character wakes up Yeah in a strange room and there's other people sat around, no one's talking to each other and then learns that these are people that he's going to meet in his life. It's not a bad idea, actually, is it?

And then the rest of the story is meeting those people. So he kind of wakes up as if from a dream and then encounters all those people. I think we've got the beginning nailed. We've got the beginning. We've got the beginning, we got the idea. But it's the rest of it, isn't it? Yes, we've learned details about... Or he gets eviscerated. I mean, this is, you're a bit obsessed with...

Yeah. I'm just trying to tie it in. People get eviscerated. It's an ending. Maybe he makes, sort of weirdly makes friends with him in the room and then he goes back to his life. But they don't remember what he needs to remember. A table you don't want a like sort of floppy head, late middle-aged men in bow ties that are

probably like surgeons that might end up operating when you're very old. Or it's someone he might murder or something. You know like people that might be like, oh them, that's the medical stuff. Yeah, yeah, because it's not all people you're going to meet and be friends with because it's like, yeah, that's the person who's going to, you know, take your liver out. I'm the one that gave you the heart transplant that didn't go right. And it's in a world where no one can lie. Even.

I mean, we're gonna pitch this guys. Yeah, so that's what I want in the background. And I want a trolley and I want a pyramid of profiteroles. As soon as you say pyramid on the it was coming. Nothing else comes in a pyramid. My favourite dessert made by my mum with hot chocolate sauce. I want cream in them not ice cream. Yeah ice cream is not proper It's too cold with the hot chocolate. Yeah, ice cream is not on the list though. I love ice cream Yeah, that is top of nice light list. So I want fit to add loads of them ice list nice list

So I want them then I want there's a French rice talk We go to like France every couple of months Me my wife is a treat on how to treat a lady We have they have this dessert. That's the nicest sort of ever had in the restaurant. It is warm blueberry tart Yeah, here's the genius lavender ice cream. Wow, it's adventurous for me. Yeah, it's very big amazing and they nearly always have it and Yeah, it's very interesting. It's amazing. And they nearly always have it and basically I go for that really. I get the main down, I get that.

And occasionally they don't have it, it's off the menu. And I literally want to destroy the whole restaurant. So angry. I just moan to my wife, I don't have the lavender thing. Oh, they've got other things. I know, but I wanted that. Yeah. It's heartbreaking.

You've been looking forward to it all day, all week maybe? Yeah. Is the dessert menu attached to the main menu? So you know as soon as you go in or does it come separately at the end? It's a work of art, the dessert menu. It's all amazing. Right. They've got tart, tart, tart, tart, you've got homemade ice creams. My wife often has chocolate and raspberry together. And when we were kids, there used to be this ice lolly called Dracula That was chocolate and raspberry. So when she has it I go Dracula and she quite likes that joke

But also finds it quite annoying because I do quite a lot Yeah, like the lolly, yep So she'll have that and I'll have the lavender thing and I'll have the top of Tatan if they don't have that They just got beautiful, you know, beautiful dessert. What's it called this place? It's called Bistro X and it's in Crouch End. And it is nice. It is. But it's quite romantic. Also, the people in it generally quite old, but it doesn't matter.

The food's so nice. Yeah. And I have that. And then I'll also have meringues, which I can make really good meringues. Yeah. Yeah. What kind of meringues? I've got some here. I'm going to give you them in a minute. Have you actually? Oh, my goodness. You know, meringues. So, yeah. Do you want. Yeah? Yeah. What kind of meringues? I've got them some here, I'm going to give you them in a minute. Have you actually? Oh my goodness. You know meringues. So yeah, do you want a meringue? Yeah. Yeah. Robert Popper is getting up to get his meringues out of his bag. I made meringues. Now bearing in mind we've heard what Elsie Drake makes and what food you've been making through that.

Is this going to be a box of carrots? These are, oh they've all crumbled of course. Oh my goodness. These are nice. These are absolutely legit. It's got your brother's hair in it. I want you to have them. Yeah. It's got my grandma's hair in it. Well, I'm going to obviously try one of these chocolatey looking ones. Yeah.

That's why I like chocolate dusted on the top. It'll make you really like dry mouth and it'll be awful for the... Mmm. What do you reckon? Delicious. Oh, look at that. What do you reckon?

Today I thought... That's exactly what I was hoping, my man. I made a note, make meringues, and then this morning I thought, fucking, I've got to make meringues for this. And then I left it to the last moment. I did. We wouldn't have known. What do you reckon lads?

Really delicious and exactly what you want from a meringue is like not hard all the way through. It's soft. Chewy as well a bit. A bit chewy, a bit soft in the middle. They've got the shell on the outside. Go on lads. That's legit mate. So meringue, I want the meringues with a lot of cream. Yeah. And you know I'm done. I mean that is a good meal. It's a strange meal. Yeah but you've definitely saved yourself for the dessert I think. Yeah.

Like you're having a bowl of carrots as a side that's like almost cleansing the palette ready for the dessert trolley isn't it? Yeah. I've been a good little boy so you get your big reward at the end. Yes it is. Oh do you want to hear the list then? Yeah. Let's see the list. It's a proper list. Down on paper. Yeah. Over the last days. It's a big list. All seafood, olives, nuts, mayonnaise, mustard, asparagus, cabbage, apricots, liver, light cheese, pesto, coffee, blue cheese, truffles, Cucumbers, Venison? Who has venison? That's a weird thing to say. Artichoke, grapefruit, Brussels sprouts, rhubarb, meatballs, red wine, nearly done, milk, red peppers, sweet corn, but not, I like corn on the cob and not on its own. Liquorice, goat's cheese, marmalade, feta cheese, quiche, falafel, date sprunes, hummus, parsnips, cheesecake, doughnuts, baked beans and peas.

Wow. I mean, some absolute rogue things in there. Yeah garlic bread and doughnuts Really yeah, and I love sweet things Greasy greasy. Yeah doughnuts taste greasy in the traditional ones with the sugar and the jam in the sugar is annoying So I've like great short lips. Mm-hmm and just raw jam your lips and just raw jam. Raw jam? Just jam in a donut. It's just like, you don't get jam in a spoon. Raw jam and the sugar grates your lips.

You don't get jam, put your spoon, and just spoon jam into your mouth. You put jam on stuff though, don't you? You do, that's true. You jam in the donut. You do put jam, and I have jam on toast. Yeah. Yeah, I'm the one with the problem.

A jam sandwich. Yeah, jam sandwich is really nice. So I'm the one with the problem. Yeah. And a bit milk, obviously, well, I know where you don't like milk. So I'm the one with the problem. Yeah. Yeah, and a bit milk obviously Well, we know where you don't like milk. Yeah, you have fizzy milk and milk with Ribena. Yeah I think I was probably traumatized. Yeah Yeah, yeah, I read your menu back to you now see how you feel about it Robert exciting you want tap water you would like

Hello bread. Mm-hmm toasted by yourself on it with a toast on the table. Start, you want 50 50 cereal cornflakes and rice crispies with honey, not with one of those twizzly things and cold oat milk. Your main course, you want a square steak made by your grandmother with paprika, potatoes and green beans all made in like a metal. Don't forget the crust flower crust and the flower crust yeah delicious side dish bowl of raw carrots drink seamour another Ross yeah does a pyramid of profiteroles with cream not ice cream

warm blueberry tart with lavender from an ice cream Bistro X that lavender ice cream and Moran's made by yourself, which we won't discuss if they were in a pyramid or not. We didn't know I think Dotted around the room. That's around the room. Yeah, yeah. How do you feel about that? I think that sounds good. Yeah, I like that This sounds good. Yeah, I mean it also sounds terrible. Yes, but it also sounds good. Yeah Yeah, it sounds good. Yeah, I think each individual thing sounds good to you. Yeah, it sounds good to me If you said that sounds disgusting then you've done it all wrong Good. I just think the bowl of carrots is the only thing that throws it. Yeah. Why? It's just really out of nowhere like I can't see a place for it in a meal I understand that you have a snack around the house that makes sense to me

But at any point during a meal that would confuse me. It's a palate cleanser. I don't mind it. I mean, you can have cooked carrots that are sort of crunchy. So it's just one step away from that. They're still crunchy and that goes with your meal. Yeah. I mean, I guess. Does it win the greatest meal anyone has ever?

It's, it's under consideration. It's just the carrots that might. Roll it out. Yeah. Right. Right. Thank you for submitting it. Right.

And we got to eat the meringues. Yeah. So like we've, we've eaten the meringues and they were really nice. Yeah. But he hasn't done a meringue. He's not allowed one. He says he's busy eating meringue now. But he just have one now before the cause.

I hate meringue. You can edit yourself eating it out, but you can keep in Robert's reaction to you eating it. I think the listener would like to know how Robert feels about you eating meringue. No, I don't want him to have it. You're not allowed one. There we are. He doesn't like meringues and that's fair enough. He likes meringues. He's gonna love it. He's gonna have one on the tube on the way back. Just open a big box of meringues. That would be strange.

I've never seen anyone eat meringue on the tube. That would be strange. I've never seen anyone eating meringue on the tube. That would be good. I once saw on the tube a Boy must have been about nine who was dressed like do you know do you ever remember this spoiled bastard little boy? Dressed like a spoiled kid and his mom sat opposite him as a busy train and I saw this and this boy Just was just looked in like trouble and spoiled boy and the mum looked exhausted and he had a massive bag of cherries, which is quite a spoiled thing for a child to have, like holding it there on his lap. And he was biting into the cherries and he spat the cherry stone across at his mum.

It was like that on her face or on her top. She had a side dress on and she was really embarrassed. Everyone was looking and he was laughing, roaring and stuffing another cherry in. And he kept spitting them at his mum and hit her on the face and the hair on her drone. And that was five minutes of my driving. Then I got off and it was just carrying on.

Well, I love that kid. Yeah. Cherries is such a spoiled kid. Isn't it? Cherries. No, mother, I can't get on the train without my cherries. Where's my bag? My bag of cherries for the tube journey.

The tube journey. Cherries. When you see kids like that, it's mind blowing, isn't it? Yeah. Get away with that stuff. Kids these days, eh? If I spat a cherry stone at either of my parents, game over. Yeah, oh my god. Yeah, game over. Game over. Forget it. I'm never having a cherry again as long as I

live. Because you might do that if you're around your parents. Yeah, they'll be like, we're not giving you any of them, but also we're gonna tell you off so bad that you don't even want to eat cherries as an adult because you're just gonna think I'm a bad boy. Kids, don't eat cherries basically. Yeah, that's one thing you can take away from this. It's a lovely way to end the podcast I think. It is. Kids, please don't eat cherries. Yep. Thank you very much for coming to the Dream Restaurant Robert. Cherry Popper Daddy. Thank you. Well there we are James. What a wild ride. What a fun chat with Robert Popper. Lovely chat with Robert Popper. We learnt so much about him. We did. The wacky world of Robert Popper. The wacky world of Robert Popper. The wacky world of Elsie Drake of course.

The Elsie Drake letters. That's not the name of the book. That's not the name of the book just in case you go searching for that. It's not called the wacky world of Elsie Drake. Don't look for that. The Elsie Drake letters, brackets, aged 104 is what the book is called. It's out now. So go and buy that from wherever you buy your books. Absolutely. And Robert didn't say, Robert didn't pick a pot of pickled peppers. Robert Popper did not pick a pot of pickled peppers.

Robert Popper did not pick a pot of pickled peppers. No, that's true. You're good at that, man. I don't know. I felt like I was missing out. No, no. You did it. But when you do it, it always feels like you're on the edge, right? You're always like you're riding a wave of words. I feel like my eyes go into the top of my head and my eyelids start fluttering. Yes, they did. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to a trance. Yeah.

We know what's going on. Yeah. It was scary. Don't do that again. Okay. Scary. I know it'd be scary, but he did not do that. Thank you so much to Robert Popper for coming on. We will see you next week. We will see you next week. We've got to pop a offer. We've got to pop a offer.