Oh What A Time... - #24 Your Correspondence 2

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

It’s time again for us to mine the OWaT mailbag and have another correspondence special (although we inevitably get sidetracked into Christmas chat). Now if this podcast is famous for one thing it��s: inventing many of the world's greatest podcasting features. ONE DAY TIME MACHINE, HOW WOULD YOU IMPRESS SOMEONE IN 500AD and of course DO YOU HAVE A RELATIVE OF NOTE? Want to contribute to any of our INCREDIBLE format points? Do let us know at: [e-mail] And seeing as it's Christmas, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 to support the show, you'll get: - the 4th part of every episode and ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - a bonus episode every month - And first dibs on any live show tickets Subscriptions are available via AnotherSlice, Apple and Spotify. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.com We’ll be taking a small break over Christmas and New Year during which time we’ll be putting out a couple of ‘best of’ episodes featuring some highlights from the show so far! Got a favourite bit you’d like to hear again? Let us know on Twitter at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). And thank you for listening! We’ll see you next week! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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What have you got planned? What are you doing right now? The kids in the living room unwrapping their presents. You've gone, no, sorry, there's a new one. I want a timeout. I've got to sack this off. I can't handle it. I bet you're having a turkey.

I bet you are. Are you having a turkey? Apart from those people who don't like white meat. They're in steak. Let me give a second option for the edit. I bet you're having a nut roast. I cooked the Christmas turkey for the first time in my life a couple of years ago, and I went to town.

And what I did is I read a Jamie Oliver recipe, and I was like, oh, I quite like this one about the turkey. And then I read another recipe on BBC Good Food, and I was like, what I'll try and do for my first ever Christmas turkey is combine all these different tips into one mega turkey. So I bathed it in a bucket of salt brine for 24 hours beforehand, which meant I'd keep the turkey hydrated. Salt brine?

Yeah, a bucket of salty water for 24 hours before. Salt brine is that guy who sprinkles salt on the turkey. He'll do the World Cup. And then another tip that Jamie Oliver gave me is that you make this paste, this fruity paste, and you get it under the skin of the turkey. You inject it in and then spread it between the breast and the skin. Oh, with a couple syringe.

Yeah, like a syringe. And you mould it all in, then you get it in, you cover it, and you're up at 5am. It was the driest thing I've ever eaten with my own mouth. With your own mouth. You've eaten drier things with other people's mouths, but not yours. It was horrific You're a lust for life Yeah

I would say I'm pretty chipper But you're a lust for life Are you on ecstasy all the time? I love Christmas I love it I love everything about it That's really sweet What are your top three things

About Christmas, Chris? Presents. Nice. The night before, I have always had a Chinese on Christmas Eve. It's drilled down into presents, by the way. Is it giving or receiving? Oh, giving. Oh.

That's nice, isn't it? Chinese on Christmas Eve? I love a Chinese meal. My family tradition is a Chinese on Christmas Eve. I always have bacon and eggs on Christmas morning. Oh, that's nice. Well, how? Like, scrambled?

I go to the bother of making myself a fry-up on Christmas morning. Oh, that's nice. What, how? Like scrambled? I just go to the bother of making myself a fry-up on Christmas morning. I do scrambled egg with smoked salmon and a, what's it called? What's the thing with champagne and orange juice? Or Prosecco and orange juice. Bucks Fizz!

What's the thing with champagne and orange juice? What's the deal with champagne and orange juice? I would, yeah, that's what I have. You have a Bucks Fizz, do you? I have a Bucks Fizz in the morning yeah it's lovely it's really nice in your dressing gown

in my I'm an early shower I'm dressed in my Christmas suit I'm dressed as Father Christmas well no I'm naked it's Christmas day

naked Christmas yeah I love it it gives you a little pep it's really really fun have you ever done have you ever cooked the Christmas dinner yes

cooked it last year as you go on okay i made some brussels sprouts with some bacon which was the worst thing anyone's ever made uh i tried it i said oh these are awful these are so bad i need to chuck these in the bin everyone no no don't they'll be lovely put them on the table and then one by one people try is awful. I've got enormous respect for my mum because I've done it twice now. And she did it every year with zero help. I never lost her temper, never got stressed, never seemed to get annoyed. And, you know, I make Sunday dinner, like a roast dinner.

But it really does... It's Premier League to Champions League, isn't it? I would actually say League Two to Champions League. It is a big step up. We used to, when I was younger, on Christmas Day, eat dinner and you wouldn't do the presents under the tree until everything had been washed up, which is quite a sort of...

I hate that. I hate that as an eight-year-old, desperately. It's funny when you meet other families and you understand their traditions. I never understand families who the kids will wait, like go to bed on Christmas Day and having not opened all their presents. Like save a few for Boxing Day. It's insane.

All open by 10am. By 6am, everything done. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh no, the family presents were given after lunch. So Christmas dinner, which was at about 1pm, rather than in the evening, so lunchtime. And then presents from your relatives that aren't Santa-based or Father Christmas-based, they were after Christmas dinner.

We did used to do that. So you do Santa presents when you first wake up, then you have dinner, then you do the tree presents. I never opened anything on Christmas Eve I refuse to allow that Not the one present No, you shouldn't be allowed I've never saved anything for Boxing Day

I think if you even think about opening one on Christmas Eve They should all be taken away You're Cromwellian I think you should go to jail I do think that, yeah Even if it's moving and it's clearly a pet that's been raptured I think it still should be left I went for a few years of being allowed to open

The Guinness Book of World Records on Christmas Eve In the morning You looked up the record for the earliest anyone's opened a Christmas present And it was you I would spend Christmas Eve every year Reading about the world's longest fingernails The world's longest hair The oldest man, the tallest man, etc. I loved it.

I might even do it this year just for myself. Nice thing to do, but you should be doing that on Christmas Day. I do sincerely believe that. Because on Christmas Day you've got a game boy. What's that? You might be lucky enough to have a game boy playing Tetris. One thing I think that's quite sad is the best thing for Christmas for me, one of the top three things other than the presents obviously christmas day 1985 to probably 2000 was the telly but because

of streaming my children now expect to have the best programs or their favorite programs at the touch of a button instantly yeah and so i and also they so they've they've got no concept of waiting for a program they like absolutely and so they refuse to watch stuff they don't want to watch and so the idea of flicking through the channels on christmas days is out of the question i couldn't agree more yeah absolutely i think that that choice it choice talking to Acaster about it actually that choice paralysis that you can feel sometimes

as an adult even where there's just overwhelming never ending range of things you can watch but for a child it is that they can just constantly

change and move and whatever whereas previously it was like this is what was on the snowman was on on Christmas Eve so that's what you'd watch

but if I said to my especially my son who's four oh it's Christmas Day so we'll so we'll just flick through the channels and there'll be lots of good stuff on there we can watch. I'd be like, why? Grizzly and the Lemmings is on Netflix, so I'm going to watch that like I do every day.

Whereas in 1991, it's, do you want to watch Noel Edmonds dropping off presents in a hospital or are you watching the Brookside Christmas special? Make a decision now. My nephew reminded me of a gift I got. My dad used to give awful, Ellis knows about this, terrible Christmas gifts.

I've completely forgotten this Christmas gift. My nephew came to our house last week. When I was about 22, my dad bought me, as my main present on Christmas day, the biggest container of bubble bath you've ever seen in your life. Like 15 gallons worth of bubble bath you've ever seen in your life like 15 gallons worth of bubble bath

from a supermarket and as my reply to him was you've been to my house dad i don't have a bath that's true all i had was a shower but it was like the size of my torso it was massive actually ginormous thing of bubble bar i've just blocked that out but that's what the gifts were like in my house i remember once from my mother getting four individually wrapped cans of budweiser individually wrapped by the third one are you thinking oh here we go again I think I know what this is I remember my friend I remember his mother gave His dad

A can of shaving foam And he luffed his head off Not a very imaginative present mum And she went oh And the next present he opened was a can of Gillette shaving foam Had your cans of, was it Budweiser?

Yeah. Had that present been left in the fridge? No, no, no. Cooling or they weren't room temperature.

So to enjoy them you then have to put the transfer your gift to the fridge and wait for four hours. Yeah. I don't drink

during the day on Christmas Day because with the kids I get very sleepy if I've had a drink. Yeah. So just me sitting

to think like Christmas dinner wouldn't get done. If I had had a drink so just me sitting to think like Christmas dinner wouldn't get done if I had a Bucks first thing I'd be like oh sod it let's just have chips

let's have chips he wants one delivery he's delivering one yeah it must be surely can I get a Christmas dinner delivery can you drink a glass

of wine during your Christmas dinner yeah okay fine but that is otherwise just I'm just like oh god

I need to call that bloody wrapping off. Fuck, piss off. Can't be arsed. What do you mean I need to look at it? Can they just do it themselves? Right. Shall we explain what this episode is today?

Yes. Today is a correspondence special. Basically, we get so much good correspondence from you guys that we think it's nice every so often to do an episode dedicated to your brilliant emails. And today, we've reached that day again. Shall I kick off with some correspondence? Should we get straight into it?

Yes, please. Yeah, let's do that. Some people get hammered on Christmas Day. Yeah. I've never been. I can't. I think there's something in me that physically I can't get drunk on Christmas Day. Yeah. I've never been. I can't. I think there's something in me that physically I can't get drunk on Christmas Day.

We were never one of those families. But some families, they're absolutely shit-faced by like 2pm. I find that quite weird. My grandma was raised Methodist. So she would refuse to eat the Christmas pudding because it had alcohol in it.

That's how far we were the other way. I'd never been drunk in her life, and she would have one sherry on Christmas Day. And get really hammered. No, but her face would go red, and then she'd go quiet for two hours. Because she was pissed. I used to get a glass of port and lemonade on Christmas Day. Do you remember that when you were a kid, when I was like 10 years old? Really?

Yeah, young, yeah. But they'd have a little glass of port and lemonade. No when I was like 10 years old? Really? Yeah, young, yeah. About to have a little glass of port and lemonade. No, I was allowed to taste my parents' wine. Okay. But I was never drinking port as a 10-year-old.

You weren't a pirate. Yeah. I'm going to buy some port this Christmas. That sounds like a good idea. Port's great. We leave some out for Santa. It's a new day.

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From football to basketball and hockey to baseball, whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet365. Must be 19 or older, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you or someone you know has concerns about gambling, visit connectsontario.ca. So before we get into the correspondence, we should say there will be an extended version of this episode for subscribers. Probably another 10 minutes or so of great correspondence. Can you give us a little teaser, Tom, what might be in that extra bit of correspondence? Well, we've got, of course, emails about

one day time machine and no doubt, I mean, I haven't flicked through them all properly, we've probably got quite a few mistakes that we've made in the past to point out. And probably more references to Tom's absolute obsession with kissing people in the past. Which has been pointed out and flagged up by so many of our listeners.

Yeah. Yeah. If you want to get that, become an Oh What A Time full-timer, support the podcast, get ad-free listening, a bonus episode every month, extended versions of every episode, and episodes a week early, plus early pre-sale access to any future live shows. Why not support the show? It's Christmas. Don't be a Scrooge.

Oh, what a time.com. So, first email this week is from Chris. Not this Chris. Did I? I actually think Chris Scott is the best one. Yeah. Tom and Ellis make mistakes too, and maybe they need a corrections corner at some point.

Yeah. I actually think chris brings something to the podcast and the very few of the i just think he's the best one rarely do i use the word hunky but i think it would be the perfect thing to apply to mr skull so chris has emailed the show to say hello first time i've been tempted to email email a podcast that's good isn't it oh that's good oh it might just turn into an absolute barracks we'll see um i love the show by the way yes whilst listening to the most recent episode coasts which no longer the most recent but we did do an episode quite recently on the coast you reference examples of animals predicting future events weather um tsunami etc uh my wife

and i have had experience with this and can validate it albeit a very small sample size back in March 2011 we were visiting my best friend from school who had moved

to Tokyo quite a sweet best friend do you still have a best friend when you're an adult I'm the age of 30 you're my best friend do you know

who my best friends are who the subscribers lovely stuff. But also the non-subscribers as well, because they are listening at this point. No. Okay. For £4.99 you could be my best friend.

Quite hurtful when people now don't take you up on that. Yeah, that's true. I hadn't really thought of that, but yes. The £4.99 best friend option. Is there if you want it. On March 11th, we were killing time in waino zoo and as we were walking past one of the bird enclosures all of a sudden and for no apparent reason they all started squawking and and i quote started going absolutely mental this lasted a

minute or so and then they stopped so although this was odd we just thought nothing too much about it and carried on and then the ground started shaking a lot and you could see buildings in the distant visibly swaying and the ground continued shaking for what felt like an eternity six minutes according to wikipedia and we'd had experiences before of this of a few earthquakes but nothing too serious in the week leading up to it we found out hours later that we just experienced the great tohoku earthquake which is the fourth most powerful of all time. The earthquake of Fukushima Meltdome fame. So, yeah, it's a very small sample,

but the birds definitely knew something was about to happen. Kind regards, Chris. Oh, that is spooky, isn't it? Yeah. Why is that, do you reckon? Why are the animals off? I don't like the idea that animals are more tuned in to the world than we are. They're a spiritual being.

I don't like that. Plugged into the universe, perhaps. Yeah, but maybe they are. They're living in the moment, aren't they? They're looking about. They're taking in their surroundings. I just find that weird that a sort of, I don't know, a vole is more in tune with the world than I am. Because I'm on my phone too much.

But a vole, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, they're not wasting their time on their iPhone. Yeah, yeah, they don't get those really depressing screen time updates of first thing on a Monday morning. That vole is like, yeah, actually, I was just noticing things. I was being present in the moment, actually. Yeah, same for that starling over there.

We've got more in common than any any and that i have with any people actually you do get the odd animal who's sort of forced onto instagram by their proud parents the ones who like no people who set up instagram account for mr cuddles that really sad cat that's all over instagram exactly they've been forced into it and he doesn't look that present, that sad cat, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that sad cat has got no idea when an earthquake's going to happen. That sad cat would never tell you if there's going to be an earthquake. No.

Too busy on Instagram. Absolutely. Yeah, checking his feed. Can I tell you something about magpies? I've mentioned this before, that they'll steal jewels. But what won't they steal? What will a magpie never steal? I don't know.

An iPhone. Exactly. Because it knows the dangers because it knows that screen time's bad for the brain and it affects attention spans and it can't swipe with its claws but that's a side point it's mainly that it doesn't

doesn't want to eat but if you're walking down a sunny beach in the UK with an ice cream or a sausage roll in your hand a seagull will have that exactly so it does it understands the

certain parts of our lifestyle which are worth embracing. Mr. Wispy Ice Cream and Fish and Chips. Whenever I meet a farmer I always think yeah, you're more in tune with the seasons aren't you?

Very quickly in the rankings of the three of us who do you think is more in tune with the planet? Who do you think is feeling its reverberations?

I can tell you who is. My mother-in-law will go outside and she'll go, it's going to rain in about an hour, and she'll be right. She'll know every time. And she is using AccuWeather on her iPhone. She's checking her phone, then going outside,

and then smelling a bit of a formative sniffing. One of the New York Times apps of the year. I mean, Crocodile Dundee did that trick in the first movie. He's like, I think it's going to rain and then he's yeah he's just asked like Wally

what the weather forecast is that's an old Tom yeah she's done she's stitched up like a kipper there do you know what

I went on a scout trip to Belgium right and one of the old scout leaders we were walking we were doing like a little ramble through the forest

and one of the old scout leaders like turned to and went, we need to seek shelter right now. And we ran into a little hut and the heavens opened about 60 seconds later. And we were like, how did you know that? Even now I don't really know. Did he hear it coming, like the rain in the distance or the barometric pressure change or something? He knew. He ran. He was like, we need to get shelter right now. It's going to pour down.

I cycled to Poundington and I left my house in South London and it was fine and I got to Central London and it was a downpour that I would class as biblical. And I

left the bike outside Next or something. Yeah. Didn't even lock it up. And I had to go in and buy a complete outfit change. Pants, socks, jeans and jumper. I was soaked through. Because obviously at that point, what am I going to do?

I've still got to get a panting set. I've got a train to catch. I bought all of my outfit within about 15 seconds so i i didn't look like me on the train right yeah um and i thought and i didn't have your scout leaders skill for predicting the weather but it was 2020 that was an avoidable mistake weather forecasting by that point it'd been i'd been pretty much sort of mastered and it's yeah but i just remember um my uh the pants i bought i've got lots of pictures of cars on them right how old are you how small are you is it true you don't pay vat on your pants? You buy children's pants I'm 40 right

I would have been 40 But like my I've still got them And they were drying on the radius of the day And the babysitter came round And she saw my car pants They're obviously mine Not my son's

What kind of cars are we talking about? Lamborghinis Or like little toy ones You can tell they're car pants Because they've got skid marks They're like From what I remember They're like Model T Ford A little toy one. You can tell they're car pants because they've got skid marks. Yay! They're like, from what I remember, they're like Model T Ford, like, Edwardian cars. Oh, right, they're quite cool cars. I was imagining, like, little cartoon cars.

Model T Ford! So it's more age-appropriate for a 40-year-old man. I wanted to say to her, no, they're my only pair of car pants. No, they're my only pair of car pants. I bought them because I hadn't checked the weather forecast before cycling to Paddington. These are misleading pants. The rest of my pants are plain. They just happen, my car pants.

I don't like cars so much that my pants are car-based. Yeah. Car pants suggest that they are a particularly comfortable pair that you wear when you're driving. My driving gloves. Yeah, exactly. My driving gloves and my car pants. Let's go on a road trip. Next stop, Route 66.

I looked like such a tosser on the train. The jeans didn't fit properly. Well, let's see what our next email brings. Good afternoon. I hope this email finds you surviving Monday. It must have been sent on a Monday. It's not a Monday now. I was quite confused there.

Because we've done an episode on calendars, I thought, has something changed? Firstly, thanks for a great podcast. I consider myself a connoisseur in the consumption of podcasts, and I think Oh What A Time is up there with the very best of them. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyway, I've had a great idea for an episode walls walls okay walls says i know this sounds like ice cream and the sausages i know this is dull but hear me out the berlin wall so much more than that a wall a death trap

of monumental proportions the great wall of china yes and you really see it from space also why would that be useful to the majority of us who will never make it into space yes good point very point hadrian's wall yes the hadrian's wall to be honest other than the recent uh tree drama i actually don't know much about this one but i can't do all the legwork it's what she's written the wailing wall probably known as the western wall yes so much history i think we can agree that walls has a lot of potential or will it be like hitting your head against one that is a good show keep up the great work it really brightens my week please do a live recording so we can all get together and laugh with no sound now that's the thing about the fact that some of us occasionally i laugh without um making a noise um all the best lucy um yeah

that's a really good shout for a subject, walls. Yeah, but you know the greatest wall of all? What? The paywall of friendship, which is coming right up. I know what a time full-timer's going to get an extra long version of this episode. But sadly, if you're not subscribed, then we have to say goodbye now. So, until next time. Bye. Bye. not subscribed then we have to say goodbye now so until next time bye Thank you.