Perfect Day with Jessica Knappett - EP 50: Emma Kennedy

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

TV’s Emma Kennedy joins Jess on the podcast this week to talk about her perfect day. They discuss Emma’s incredible family history, lusting after rotisserie chicken, sexual fantasies, terrible spies, the mechanics of story telling, bunking off school and we find out why Emma thinks of Gillian Anderson every time she flips an egg. And, they talk about the extreme side of pimple popping. Yes, it’s gross.  Like and subscribe for brand-new episodes every Thursday. Follow us on Instagram @perfectdaycast. A Keep It Light Media ProductionSales and general enquiries: [e-mail]  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello Perfect Dayers, I'm Jessica Knappett and you are… waiting for a thing to happen that isn't going to happen because I've stopped doing it. This week on the podcast, we have Polymath, Emma Kennedy, screenwriter, author, Lego enthusiast, master chef winner and owner of A Celebrity, which you will find out about. We talk about playing games in bed. What do you mean? Lusting after rotisserie chicken. We talk about bad spies.

The mechanics of storytelling. Bunking off school. And... Sexy celebrities. Gillian Anderson, I'm going to say it is Gillian Anderson. We've got a great, it's a great, great chat. And also you get to hear about my ultimate sexual fantasy. And also trigger warning, pimple popping. If you're a bit queasy, maybe skip around the 53-55 minute mark. Soz about that. Not my fault, Emma Kennedy's fault. Here is Emma Kennedy's what a joy it is to have you on Perfect Day. I love everything that's going

on in your backdrop. We are recording this over. Okay. Do you want me to just talk you through it? Shall we talk? Let's talk the listeners through it. Okay. So, all right. we'll start on this side. So on this side, there is some, some office workout equipment by which I mean. There's a Peloton like thing. There's a, it's not a Peloton, but it is a little exercise bike because I have a torn meniscus in my left knee.

None, none of this is about, oh yes, I'm really into fitness. This is basically about not crumbling. I've reached that stage in my life now where everything is slightly breaking or getting a bit worn and torn. So this is on the order of my orthopedic surgeon. Right. So this is doctor's orders. This is doctor's orders. Exercise bike. And then the weights bench is on the order of my physiotherapist. So anyway, so that's that.

Then immediately behind we have, that's a wardrobe because this used to be a bedroom, but it's now my office. And you will see lots of multicoloured stickers up there. Post-it notes. And that is two books that I'm currently working on. One is a thriller and the other one is a YA fantasy book. So that's what's going up there. Then on this side you have a range of Lego. Because of the Lego YouTube channel. Yes. But this is just the spillover from my Lego workshop, which is in the garden, which is enormous. But sometimes I am allowed to bring some Lego into the house, but I have to sneak it in. But I'm allowed this Lego here because this is my part

of the office. There's a constant negotiation with the wife, constant negotiation about whether I'm allowed Lego in the house. Right. She very much says no, but I'm allowed this bit. It's quite an elaborate display. Oh, this is nothing. This is nothing. This is nothing. Absolutely nothing. So the house that we moved into, the guy who lived here before us, he had a workshop and it's in a big shed in the garden. He used to renovate old vintage cars and things and old vintage motorbikes. So it's

a big space. I moved in and I thought, what could I do with this? Now sort of a more, maybe a younger, more, more lusty sort of, you know, go getting tight might have thought, oh, this would be perfect for a home gym or something like that, but I went, no, no, no, I'm going to turn this into a Lego studio. Just to have a quick summary of events, Emma is an act, an extraordinary polymath. We're going to say a polymath. I'm a little bit good at a lot of things. I'm not brilliant at anything. No, you're very good at a lot of things. So an extraordinary career and life. Uh, screenwriter, author, actor, winner of Masterchef. Yes, that was good. That was good.

That was good. I will say, yes, I will admit that was good. Yeah. And also Lego obsessive and extreme, extremely successful Lego YouTuber. Can we say that? I would say so. Yes. Yes. So let's just get into Lego for a second. Is Lego going to come up on your perfect day? Yes, it will come up, but we can deal with this now. This will surprise you. I never

played with Lego as a child. Not once did I have a single brick of Lego as a child. I do so likely wonder whether this is where this has all come from deep in my psychology. I was spending a Christmas down at my in-laws and my wife has a brother who has two children and her nephew who was eight at the time came up to me. It was Christmas day, came up to me and he'd been given a Lego set and no one was prepared to help him make it. And he came to me and he said, will you help me make it? And I said, of course I will. And we sat down and started making it. I'm going to make a career out of it.

And I, something just really weird happened to me. And my brain goes at 100 miles an hour all the time. And it was like, I just experienced this extreme Zen while I was making this Lego. It was like everything just quietened down and it was delicious. It was like, I suppose, if you are susceptible to ASMR, it was my ASMR and I just like, I could feel my heartbeat just slowing down and I just felt fabulous. I couldn't stop thinking about how I had felt when I was making that Lego and I thought, well, you know, I can't, I can't, you know, Lego's for kids and blah, blah, blah. And then I saw another author post a picture of a Lego set, which is a VW camper van that she had just made. And I thought, oh, okay, adults are allowed to just do Lego and they don't have to have children in order to do it. Okay. And so I

bought the exact same set, the VW campervan, the first one, not the second one that Lego put out. And that was my gateway drug. That was it. Everything about it was delicious. the moving parts, the intricate interiors, the fact it came with curtains, the fact it came with a roof that lifted up and all of these things, the fact it had a reclining chair in it, a chair that actually physically reclined. And I just thought, oh my God, this is amazing. It was the detail, Exactly that. It was the detail. And at that point- And you could immerse yourself. Is it about immersing yourself in another world as well? Are you in the world of the campervan? It's not so much that. I remember when I was a child, I used to fantasize about being a watchmaker

because I think I like that small, intricate little thing of constructing things and making things. And I think that's what Lego does for that part of my brain. But I was then given, that was quickly followed on, I was given the Ghostbusters Fire Station set, which is widely considered to be the greatest Lego set that has ever been made. Really? Yes. Is it massive?

It's large, but it's not like some of the really massive sets that they've put out, but it is the best Lego set that has ever been made. If you like detail. I started posting little two-minute videos on Twitter as it was then, just to show my progress. People started saying, I could watch you do this for like half an hour or something. I would pay to watch you building Lego. Because I think for the people it connects to, there is something, it's ASMR. That's what it is basically. Yeah. And so I thought, do you know what?

Why not? I'll just start building sets on YouTube. And then lockdown happened. And throughout all of lockdown, I went from... Because I would just put a film up when I had a set. But in lockdown, I went to putting up a film every single day went to putting up a film every single day for people who are lonely. So that's basically what I did all through lockdown is I just built Lego every single day and that's how it began. I think there's something in it. Cause the, cause I, the actual making of Lego, I can get my head around easily.

Why that is fun. Cause I've made Lego, I get it. Watching other people make Lego makes less sense to me, but when you describe it as a sort of an antidote to loneliness, it makes more sense. Yeah. But I also wonder if there's something in, is there something in there was nothing and now there's something? I suppose it's a little bit of that, but I'm very different from other Lego YouTubers because

most Lego YouTubers will do a time lapse build. So they will build the whole set, but it's time lapse. So it's really, really quick. And then they will give a review of the set afterwards. I do not do that. I build the set in real time and I do one bag a day. And I do this Monday to Friday. But what has happened, the reason why I'm still going, it's not really now about the building of the Lego. It's about the community that has built up around the channel. They're all called Aflwack, so that's adult fans of Lego who are chums. What it boils down to basically now is that it is a group of adults who are playing and they are just having fun.

Wow. So it's a real community. Yeah. So it's sort of insane. It's sort of insane. Yeah, no, it sounds, it sounds, you know. But it works. It's absolutely fascinating that we've created the, like, it just is such an example of how anything is possible now via the internet. As in like, I would never have known that, I wouldn't even have known that existed. I wouldn't even have known that that could have been a thing. Isn't it amazing that all of these people with this very specific niche interest have got together and created

this community? Okay. Right. I feel like we could spend your whole episode talking about Lego. And probably it's going to be your whole perfect date, but we've got a perfect day to hear, Emma. Yes. Okay. And I mean, it's fine if it is, maybe it is all Lego related. It's not. Trust me, don't worry. Should we get cracking? 20-time savings as you make plans to cruise through Muskoka or down Toronto's bustling streets. From now until June 30th, lease the 2025 Volvo XC60 from 1.74% and save up to $4,000. Conditions apply. Visit your GTA Volvo retailer or go to VolvoCars.ca for full details. This episode is brought to you by DZONE. For the first time ever, the 32 best soccer clubs from across the world

are coming together to decide who the undisputed champions of the world are in the FIFA Club World Cup. The world's best players, Messi, Holland, Kane and more are all taking part. And you can watch every match for free on DZONE starting on June 14th and running until July 13th. Sign up now at dzone.com slash FIFA. That's d-a-z-n dot com slash FIFA. What's your perfect morning? Okay. So I'm going to start with, I'm quite regimented and I have to get my day off to the right start. And that means, that means getting wordle in two or three. Oh God.

That's a high bar. It's a high bar getting, but I'm talking about perfect. I'm not talking about good. I'm talking about perfect. Okay. So wordle in two or three. Connections, perfect. Strands, no hints.

Don't actually know strands. What is wrong with you? Okay. Just quickly, briefly, what strands? How can you do wordle and connections and not do strands? It's like word search. Oh, okay. It has a theme and you have to do it as a Word Search. And then I do an extra credit and I do Framed as well.

Do you do Framed? No, I don't know Framed. Okay. So Framed is you have to guess the film from six stills. You get six goes to get to guess the film. So a perfect day would be I get that in the first go. And this is before, are you doing this before you get out of bed? I've fed the dogs, I've come back to bed with a cup of coffee, and this is the routine.

So if that all goes off to a great start, then I'm thinking, yes, come on the day. We've, that is such a great, exactly. We're off to a flying start here. No, this is never, amazingly, this has never come up considering how many people I know do Wurdle. No one's incorporated it into their perfect day yet. You're the first. Have you done it in one yet?

I may have done it in one in lockdown. Yeah, I've done it in one. I think I did do it in one because I don't do it as much anymore, but I was just doing the same word every day as my first word. Do you do the same? Do you start with the same word every day? Yes, I start with the same word every day? Yes, I start with ideal. Ideal is good.

See, I think with the first one, you want as many vowels as possible. And then you sort of know where you're going. But if I don't get any joy with ideal, then I do mount. If I don't get any joy with ideal, then I do mount. Mounts good. I've refound it a few weeks ago and I thought, why did I ever put this down? It's so satisfying. But anyway, Emma, after you've satisfied yourself by completing all of these games, what's next? French. French. French lesson on Duolingo. That's next. Yeah. So is this, this sounds like it could be a normal day as well as your perfect

day. Well, you see, yes, to a certain extent, but there are elements of it that make it perfect. So EG, because I do it on Duolingo and that there is an option on every single lesson that you can make it perfect. So if you get through it without making a single mistake, then that makes it perfect. So hence, hence I've added it into my perfect. Sure. Yeah. Okay.

Cause you are striving for perfection. my perfect day. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Because you are striving for perfection academically. So this in many ways is like, this is like the admin section of my perfect day. But we've got to get it out of the way. We can dispatch it.

Yeah. Then we can enjoy ourselves. We haven't even got to breakfast yet. Can I just ask though, are you enjoying the French lesson? Yes, I am. Because you're doing so well at it. I've also just started doing Italian as well. Oh. But I'm very basic on that.

Yeah. I just feel really embarrassed when I go abroad and I can't speak with people fluently. It really hurts me to just go, oh, can you speak any language? No, no. I mean, this is why I'm learning French. Because I mean, even, and it isn't the same, but I do find that, like, my parents both speak fluent Spanish, but very rarely will anyone speak to them in Spanish, in Spain. I wonder if that's because though people just expect English people not to be able

to speak any language currently. They just think you can ask for a coffee and the bill please. And that's it. But I know what you mean. Having said that, you don't get that in France. French people will not speak to you in English. They won't, they just won't do it. I had a friend once who was dispatched to Paris for six months for work.

Dispatched is an interesting choice. Dispatched, yeah. Was it dispatched? You're trying to tell me you're friends with a spy. I've had my suspicions about her and I'll say no more. Does she use words like dispatched? She did actually. She said she was the French dispatch. Right.

Because there is that expression, the French dispatch. Okay. Well, she's not doing a very good job of giving things under cover if she's using words like dispatch and calling herself the French dispatch. I think my grandfather was a spy, by the way, but we can get to that if you're interested. Yes, absolutely, I do. Oh my God. So why do you think that? Well, he told us he worked for the post office, but he was never at work. He never went to work. Oh, that does add up to be fair.

And he kept going to China and Russia for some peculiar reason. He's got to post a letter. He's got to post a letter. And I found photos of him in China and he was being greeted by crowds of people like he was visiting dignitary. And he was just this normal guy who lived in Battersea. But at the end of the war, he was a dispatch rider. That was what he did at the end of the war in the army. And he was friends with people like Desmond Tutu. And he had all these really high up connected friends, which he shouldn't have done. He was proper cockney, Betsy, blah, blah, blah. But he was an extraordinary man. He was abandoned in a cardboard box when he was three.

Sorry, that's so dumb. Why not? And he was left with two Oxo cubes. What? Yes. And he was found by two Polish sisters called Mitzi and Poldi who just took him in and they brought him up. And then when he was 60, he discovered that his mother lived in the next street. Oh my God. Then did he reconnect with his mother? I have a very hazy memory of being taken to meet her and she didn't have any legs. That's

all I remember. She had no legs from the knee down and she was just lying on a bed. I'm pretty sure that was my great grandmother. But yeah, so he found her and reconnected with her, but he was well into his sixties. But what had happened was that he then discovered that his dad wasn't his dad and that she'd run off with the guy who was his dad, but his dad didn't want him. How did she run off? That's basically what happened. What war time. Well look, war time.

It's just crazy. There's so much to talk about. On that note, what's the rest of your perfect morning? Sorry, because I could talk about that for an hour. Then of course we will bring Lego into the mix. Okay. We're in. We're in. Just a bag of Lego. the mix. Okay. We're in. We're in.

Just a bag of Lego. A bag of Lego. And that's all I need to do. And it takes about half an hour and it sets me up beautifully for the day, mentally speaking, because it relaxes me and it's just great fun to do. So it's just a really lovely light, brilliant beginning to the day. How wonderful. Yeah. Are we coming up to lunchtime? We're almost at lunchtime. If this was a perfect day, I would come out of my Lego shed and I would be so emblazoned with inspiration that I would immediately

write the 1000 words that I'm required to write every day on my work schedule, like immediately before lunch and then that's it and have the rest of the day off. So then I can indulge my perfect day. Is that how you do it then? So you set yourself a thousand a day. What happens if you feel like going over that? I won't. Does that ever happen? I won't do it.

You mean you won't, you mean you'll refuse to do it? Yeah, I just down tools at a thousand words. Yeah. But I mean, when I say a thousand words, that's not just sort of, I could probably bang that out in half an hour, thousand words. But that thousand words will be, have gone over and over and over and over and over again. And sometimes it doesn't come. You just have to sit and wait or go for a walk or you just have to sit and wait or go for a walk or go and do something else or go and see what Fantafura is getting up to in America or whatever it is. Do you, so, but how do you feel when you're in that state of, come on, give me some inspiration? Do you, does it sort of pain you or are you experienced enough now to know

that this is just the process? It can be frustrating. It's like sweating blood. But the way out of it is you just have to think yourself out of it. And what I do is I try and think practically because you have to imagine that your characters are real people. You think, okay, if I was in this situation, what would I be doing in this situation? You just try and think your way out of it. You also have to think about what little seeds you have to drop for the reader and how other characters can help your character in that situation. So it's just about the mechanics of a story really. Telling a story is actually very simple. Your main character has a want and a need and those two things are different.

So when you're writing, do you think about it in the mechanics of it? Yes, I do. Are you an outliner? Do you outline or do you feel your way through it? What I do is I think of stories like shapes. So I will always begin with my central character and what they want. And then I think about, okay, what's stopping them from getting that want? That's either a person or a thing or an institution or a place or themselves because it could be an internal flaw that's stopping them from getting their wants. Then once you've got that tension between those two things, then

I work out how I can tell the story in a way that reflects that tension. Really, you're looking for markers to stick in the sand. Your first thing you have to tell your audience is, what does this character want? Why can't they get it? And what is he going to do to try and get it? So that's your journey. That's basically it. Then how does it go really badly wrong? Yeah. And then how does he come out of that? Yeah. And that's it. That's your story. That's always my favourite thing to do in comedy is just the backfire and the backfire on top of a backfire and then by the end of it, we're in a disaster. We're worse off than we were or the alternative is where you can sort of repair it at the

end and make everyone feel. There's feel good and feel bad, isn't there? Yeah. Okay. So anyway, we digress. Yes. Very much so. Let's get to lunch, shall we? Yes. So I want lunch to be the most magnificent picnic that you have ever picnicked in your life of picnics. Yes. And I want that picnic to be next to a lake. And I want there to be some sort of delightful classical concert happening, just sort of off in the distance. And I want there to be bucolic images of like delightful songbirds and maybe some deer just off on the other side of the lake

and wildlife and all these things. I want the picnic to be absolutely magnificent. I think I want one of the elements of the picnic to be a rotisserie chicken. Oh yeah. Yes, because I have had an obsession with rotisserie chickens ever since I was about nine years old. We went on holiday to France and we were staying on a camps shop and they had rotisserie chickens in that camp shop. And my dad went and asked for one. He sort of attempted a bit of French and said, he was Welsh. So he said, un poulet, un si vous plait. And she just went, not, not. And they were sitting in a cabinet behind her. And he said again, Poulet, s'il vous plait. It went, not, not, not. And this happened every single day to the point that we were just dying to have this rotisserie chicken. And then this woman came in behind us

and went, Poulet, s'il vous plait. And she's went, we, I just took one out and put it in a bag and gave it to her. And we were, my mother was incensed. She actually, she actually thought it was because we were English that she wasn't, they weren't giving us the rotisserie chickens, but it was because you had to pre-order them. You have to reserve, you have to reserve the chicken. The same thing has happened to me in a taxi, I knew this was going to happen because it's happened to me in a taxi queue when some people pushed to the front and I went up to them and I said, what the hell do you think you're doing? There's a queue here. And they just went, we've booked.

It's so funny, isn't it? How touch how, how touchy we are about queuing for things. Oh my God, how dare you. But that is, I mean, yeah. What a, what a terrible transgression to be, no, you will not have the, the item that is right there, but, but to not be able to communicate because it's because you've got to reserve them. But anyway, so this obviously created a minor trauma for you. Yes, a minor trauma. Yes. And so whenever I see rotisserie chicken now, I have to have the rotisserie chicken.

You're putting down reservations all over every aldy in town. On a subsequent holiday, we did manage to get a rotisserie chicken. I think it was one of those things where it was just the most delicious thing I'd ever tasted in my life. I was born in 1967, but primarily my childhood memories are from the 70s. Food in the UK in the 1970s, it was pretty bland. No one had heard of spicing. An avocado was something so exotic. I remember my mother brought home an avocado once and we ate it. My friend Paula Berriman was at the house when it was happening and she was just staring at it like it had

landed from a UFO from outer space. Oh, that's so lovely. What an image. It was just like, what is this incredible thing? We couldn't get over it. But whenever we went camping to France, my dad would pack a cardboard box full of spam, corned beef, silver skin onions, and tins of tomatoes. It's like they thought there weren't shops in France. And we would be on the campsite and these smells, these glorious smells would be coming from all the French families who were just making these incredible meals. And it really drove home to me that feeling of experiencing things

that tasted of things. So that rotisserie chicken, it really impacted me. And that was the same first time I ever had a croissant. That was like, wow. This is incredible. So we're having a feast, a picnic. We're having an incredible feast. And there must be a rotisserie chicken. And who's there? I think for the picnic, I'm keeping it simple. It's just my wife and my two dogs. And I might let Susan Perkins comes as well. Susan Perkins?

Yeah, she's my best friend. She's my best mate. Because you started on Late Lunch, didn't you? I did. Yes. Yes. Yeah. That was my first job. So they're your friends, Mel and Sue, your friends from uni, is that right? No, no, they're not. The first time I met Sue Perkins, I was standing near Putney Bridge and I'd gone down there to meet some mates. I think it was the boat race or something and we'd just gone down to get pissed on beer. I was standing by an ice cream van and this woman came up to me and asked if I had a light for a cigarette and I genuinely thought it was a tramp and it wasn't, it was Sue.

No. Yes. What do you mean you thought she was a tramp? I thought she was a homeless person coming to ask me for a cigarette. I thought that's what she was. By the look of her? No, she didn't look like a homeless person, but it was just the manner in which she approached and asked if I had a cigarette in the way that a homeless person might do.

That just doesn't strike me as very Sue Perkins. Well this is before she's famous of course. She wasn't even remotely famous at this point. I met Mel first, I think, at Edinburgh. We went to a party and I met her at a party and we got on really well, but then I didn't see her again for years and years. That's how my friendship with Perk started. You just got chatting on the bridge. friendship with Perk started was in front of an ice cream van by Putney Bridge. Yeah. And then we were like, that was it for life.

Oh, but do you ever have that? Do you ever have that where you meet someone for the first time and just something happens, it's like, can be just a little moment and you just know that you are going to know that person for the rest of your life. Soulmates. I actually do. Yeah. I had it with, um, with Sophie Grubble. Do you remember the killing? Do you remember her? Okay. Yeah. Oh, right. Yeah.

Vaguely. Yeah. Yeah. With the jumper. Do you remember with the jumper? Of course. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. So I have it with her. Like I'm friends with life for her as well. And the very first time I met her, I went to meet her in a hotel for breakfast because I was going to be interviewing her. And she gave me Sarah Lun's business card and I was staring at it. It was like it was treasure. And I looked up at her and she looked at me and we just had this moment where we just smiled at each other and we didn't say anything. And in that moment, I swear to God, I absolutely knew, oh, we're going to be friends. And we are still now to this day. And I go and visit her in Copenhagen and she comes to see me and yeah, yep, yep.

We just got on like a house on fire. Wow. That's quite amazing. I love that though. I love it when you meet someone new and you think, oh my God, we were going to be friends. I love that. Yeah. I, I, I, Do you have a lot of friends? I wouldn't. I mean, I have a lot of acquaintances and I have probably have a handful of people who I really, really love. Really love them. Okay. Let's move on. Let's move on. What's your perfect afternoon? So perfect afternoon, obviously would be the picnic will go on for several hours. I mean, this is not just lunchtime. It's going to drag on into the afternoon.

We've got a concert to watch. Yeah. The sun is out. Is there a particular piece of classical music? We'll walk the dogs. Not to get to desert island discs about this, but is there a particular piece? No, I don't think there is. I don't think there is.

Generic classical music. Just generic classical music that's just tinkling away. Yeah. Just tinkling. Just tinkling. Yeah. Just tinkling, just tinkling. I think it, my perfect afternoon might be taking in a cheeky, and I really do think it's cheeky, a cheeky afternoon trip to the cinema.

Flipping love, a cheeky afternoon trip to the cinema. There's, there's a, there's an everyman that's about half an hour from where we live in Egham. And we think it is the height of naughtiness to go during the workday. It is a bit, isn't it? It's quite the sky. It is. It's like skiving off of school. Except it's not because you're a screenwriter. It's true, but it feels like a sky. It's about that feeling of feeling like you're skiving. It's that that you're chasing. Yeah. Were you naughty at school?

No, I was an absolute model student. I loved school. But I think I loved school because I had a very complicated relationship with my mother who is probably the person I loved most in the world. She was the best person I've ever known, but she's also the worst person I've ever known. Long story short, we discovered after she died that she was probably schizophrenic. I wrote a book about it called Letters from Brenda. I had always wondered through all of her life what the thing was that she had that was undiagnosed in her lifetime. So I wrote a book about it after she died. And I sent the book off to a clinical psychologist just for a welfare read to make sure that I hadn't said anything that was wrong or I was irresponsible. We weren't expecting this and then he wrote me a three-page letter back and he basically said she was schizophrenic.

Oh my God. Yeah. So that book came about because after she died and my dad moved out of the house, the new owner found two suitcases full of 75 letters and they were all addressed to me from her. And that's what the book is about. It's called Letters from Brenda. But yeah, so anyway, she was like- Sorry, 75 letters that she never sent to you. Well, here's the weird thing. Some of them I had seen. So she'd clearly gone to my house and stolen them back. seen. So she'd clearly gone to my house and stolen them back.

Why do you think those letters were in that suitcase? I think she always wanted to be a writer. I think that would have been her dream. And I think she could have done it as well. But obviously that generation, But obviously, that generation, she was dirt poor. She was proper, proper, proper dirt poor. And so I think when you come from that background, it doesn't even occur to you that you can have a creative job or do something like that. That's for other people. So I think what she was doing was that was her body of work. I think that's what she thought of it. And so that's why she took the letters back that I had seen. There were others that I hadn't seen. But I think that's-

And now it's been published. And now it's been published. So she's a published author. Wow. Yes. So I was explaining about that feeling of skiving. Yes, yes, yes. And I loved school and I loved school because it took

me into an environment that was very safe. Especially during my childhood, my mother was a very unpredictable person. It was like being in a field with a wild horse. If that wild horse came up to you and wanted to engage with you, that was the most magical feeling you could ever imagine. But also that wild horse could rear up and smash you in the brains at any given moment. There was always that tension. I was always on eggshells. If you met my mother and good Brenda was in the room, you would absolutely love her. You would never forget her and you would think she was the most amazing person you'd ever met. She was incredibly charismatic, incredibly so. But if bad Brenda was in the room, dear God, run for the hills.

Oh, wow. So that's why I love school. Yeah, so I really, really, really loved school. So you love school. So on your perfect afternoon, you've got this feeling of skiving. I've skived off, yeah. And you're watching and you're in the cinema. Are you on your own?

Do you need to be on your own? No, I don't need to. I generally go with someone to the cinema. So it'll just be whoever wants to come skiving with me that day. Great. Popcorn? No, I don't do popcorn. At The Everyman, I always get hummus and pita bread because it's so good. I have become a bread maker in my 50s. I've seen your Instagram.

I am obsessed with making bread. And whenever I go somewhere that has exceptional bread, I remember it. I remember the bread more than I remember the food. Or the people. But they do incredible pitter-pats at the Everyman Theatre in Egham. Well, there you go. Probably some of the best pitter-pats I've Everyman Theatre in Hegham. Well, there you go. Probably some of the best pitter-breads I've ever eaten.

It's quite a surprise. Come for the movie, stay for the pitter-breads. That should be their slogan. Stay for the hummus. Yep. Right. So is the afternoon spent? The afternoon is spent in the cinema.

The afternoon has now been spent. Yes. Yep. Okay. So we're moving on to perfect night. Yes. So for a perfect night, I am now taken to a surprise party. What? Your own surprise party? Yes.

I love a surprise party. Yes. I love a surprise party. I can't get enough of them. I've only had two surprise parties in my life thrown for me and they were the greatest, they were the greatest, they were just the greatest thing. It was, it was just incredible. But- Because for some people it's a horror. No, it was, I couldn't have been happier. Okay, so tell us about one of your surprise parties.

Why was it so- Oh, well, I mean, the most memorable one, of course, when I was given Gillian Anderson for my birthday. What? Well, yes. Do you mean the Gillian Anderson? We're all going to remember that one. I mean the Gillian Anderson, yes. Do you mean the Gillian Anderson? We're all going to remember that one. I mean the Gillian Anderson, yes.

Do you know her? No, I didn't before my birthday. I do now, but I didn't then. So have you ever gone through life? What's your marital status? Are you married or you're in a relationship? I'm married. I'm married to a man. Okay. So do you have that thing whereby you both say if it ever came about that, you know, I met this person, then obviously it's a free pass. Yeah. Do you have that arrangement?

It actually came up the other day. Yeah. Okay. Who's yours? Well, it's because I had a dream about Mick Jagger, but Mick Jagger is quite old now. So that's a problem. But I had a dream about the young Mick Jagger. Okay. Yeah. Fair enough. But I literally had a dream where that was happening and my husband was there and I was recounting it to him. And I said, I think you probably would be all right

with that. Wouldn't you? Yeah. In that context. Who's, yes. Who's his? That's a very good question. I don't think I know. I don't think I know. I just must have just talked about myself as usual. Anyway, so yours was Gillian Anderson, obviously. I was told I had to come to, I think it was Pizza East in Notting Hill. And, and the usual suspects were there that I thought I was going to be having this, this, this, you know, fun birthday pizza with, and no one was sitting next to me and I thought, why is no one sitting next to me? And then suddenly this sort of presence just, just wafted in and sat down and went, hello. And I turned and I went, you're Gillian Anderson. It was Gillian Anderson.

And Emma Freud had brought her for me. Oh my God. It was all, well, it was like amazing, but it was also awful because I am a very chatty person. I can talk to anyone I pride myself on. I can have a conversation with pretty much anyone in the world. I so loved Gillian Anderson and was so overwhelmed by her incredible beauty. Let me say to you, you know like Gillianson is beautiful on screen, times by a hundred in real life. Yeah, I know, I know. I've seen it. I've seen it with my own eyes.

It's like staring at the most beautiful painting you've ever seen in your life. And the only way I could cope with this was just getting absolutely blind drunk. Yeah. Yeah. I get it. I get it. What happened? Did you have anything? I did not equip myself well that evening. I just was- It was sprung on you. It was sprung on me. I was tongue-tied. I had to get drunk to deal with it. It wasn't good, Jess. It wasn't good. But it's fine because I was forgiven and she gave me a spatula for Christmas.

Wow. Yes, she did. I've still got the Julian Anderson spatula in my kitchen and every time I flip an egg, I think of her. Have you had a little look through her book? Oh, yes, the sex book. No, I haven't seen that. I haven't read that yet. Have you read it? It's a, I haven't read all of it, but it's an anonymous interviews with women about what,

about their sexual fantasies. Yes. It's fascinating. The thing is, you get past menopause and your greatest fantasy is going to bed and going to sleep. Bath and bed. Bath and bed. Yeah. That's in there too.

Is it? Is that fantasy? No, no, that one didn't make the cut, Emily. That one didn't make the cut, Emma. I just go to bed and go to sleep. Um, no, my, I joked for a long time that my sexual fantasy was Jamie Oliver making me a roast chicken and then running me a bath and then leaving. That is a good fantasy. I have dedicated, I have actually put that on paper and it is in a book.

It is genuinely in a book. That is a really good fantasy. He doesn't ask for anything. He just makes me a roast chicken and he tidies up afterwards. He does all the washing up, puts everything away and then he says, Jess, I say Jamie and he says, I've run you a bath. I'm going now. You look tired.

You look tired. I'm going to run you a bath. I'll leave your pajamas on the radiator and then I'll let myself out. So anyway, we are, oh, that's fantastic. A fantastic story about Gillian Anderson. Of course, everyone's going to crumble in that situation. I crumbled. Yeah, I really, I choked. I think that's the expression we're looking at. I choked That's the expression we're looking at. I choked when I was presented with my greatest desire. I choked. I choked.

Did she know she was there because she was the object of your desire? I think Emma Freud had told her that I loved her intensely. So good honour for coming. Gosh. And she was there because she just was doing, she was- Although I will say, we then had a period where we were quite chummy actually. Well, your friends said that she said it was bad. And we hung out with each other a bit. So you obviously didn't choke, did you?

Well, I suppose I redeemed myself. I think that's probably what we're looking at here. Well, anyway, this is a great, so, so you want there to be a surprise, a surprise along those lines. So no, well, sort of ish, but not quite. So at the surprise party, this would be my perfect, perfect party. So obviously I want all the people that I really love and I really love spending time with. So that would have to be obviously the wife that goes without saying. So that would be Perks, Mel, Sophie, Miranda, Sarah Hadland, lots of fun people from like Comedyland, who I adore enough. Emma Freud, obviously. Loads of people like that. But then on top, this is what would make it perfect. I would like the entire Liverpool football team.

Oh. And I would also like Dr. Sandra Lee from Pimple Popper. Oh no. Yes, yes. I'm obsessed with that. Oh no. I'm obsessed with Pimple Popper. And I would like all the sister wives from sister wives.

Sorry. My wife for my birthday, my wife was away for my birthday. She was in New Zealand because she's a music manager and she, she arranged a cameo from Janelle from sister Wives for my birthday. And I, honest to God, it was the best thing I've ever been given on my birthday. I just laughed and laughed. And you've been given Gillian Anderson.

And laughed and laughed and laughed. Yes, I've watched all 19 series of Sister Wives. Everyone has to have a guilty pleasure televisually, I think. And mine are Pimple Popper, Sister Wives. I can't believe the Pimple Popper thing. I love Pimple Popper. We play a game now, me and my wife, is we have to work out whether it's a lipoma or a cyst. We have to guess if it's a lipoma or a cyst.

No! Yep. Sorry, I haven't watched it so I don't know. Is one not poppable and one is poppable? A lipoma is basically fat. It's not a spot, it's like a lump of fat that has to be removed from your body. So there'll be people who come in with like great big humps on their back and things, or like a weird lump on their leg. And we will immediately go, yeah, lipoma, not cysts, but the cysts are amazing. I've always had a thing about popping spots. Ever since, well, I What do you think it is?

Well, I'll tell you what it is. It's because I accidentally stabbed myself in the chin with an ink pen when I was revising for my History A level. And I woke up the next day and my chin was going, and I went to look in the mirror and it was like I had a tangerine on my chin. And my dad quickly sort of whisked me to the doctor and I had a boil on my chin, like a proper, proper old fashioned witchy boil from having stabbed myself in the chin with my ink pen. And I didn't have to squeeze it. All I had to do was just ever so slightly smile like that, just ever so slightly.

No, no, and it exploded. Stuff like toothpaste would come out of it. What? It was incredible. But I still had to go and do my A levels. So I had this great big plaster stuck over it and I went to do, and I had to do my last exam and I finished the exam and then we all went to the pub and obviously spent the afternoon laughing our heads off. Can you imagine? So I come home and the plaster is creaking at the seams. And I took it off and there was just this massive pus. And then I stood looking at the chin like that in the mirror. And then it

was like my chin vomited of its own accord. No! Yes, it just went like that. Just ka-poom! Ka-poom! Ka-poom! Ka-poom, ka-poom, ka-poom. How is this? And then this is, but you, but then you love this. This didn't create- Yes, I, because I think I was so fascinated by it. And now I have a real thing, like any- Happy memories, such happy memories.

Any TikTok video about someone squeezing a spot, I am, I am in like Flynn. I will watch that to the bitter end. There's no scrolling through that one. So yeah, so I would like Dr. Sandra Lee to be there from Pimple Popper. I would mostly want the Liverpool football team to be there. Of course that goes without saying. Huge fan.

I huge fan. Um, I, because I don't live anywhere near Liverpool. I haven't got a season ticket or anything. And, um, from age seven when I loved Simon Harwood and we both near Liverpool. I haven't got a season ticket or anything. Where did it come from? From age seven when I loved Simon Harwood and we both loved Kevin Keegan. Right. That's where it came from. Right. So Simon Harwood, he was my boyfriend at school, my junior school boyfriend.

I loved him. I loved him real hard. Do you still know him? No, I don't know where he is now. He gave me a plastic ring. Well, one Valentine's Day, he handed me an after eight box and I thought, oh my God, he's bought me a box of after eights. We must have been eight. After eights were my favorite chocolates and I opened the after eight box and it was empty, but it had a plastic ring inside it and that was the real present to me on Valentine's Day. I remember, I'm afraid, quite cheerlessly being really disappointed that it wasn't after eights.

Oh yeah. Was that when you knew? And that was sort of when I thought, men aren't for me. That's it. Oh, Emma! That's what turned me gay. Oh my God. Emma, we've come to the end. Surely not. Thank you so, so much. We haven't even scratched the surface, Jess.

We haven't scratched the surface. We've popped the boil of the surface and quite a lot of pus has come out. Delicious. Delicious. Which is nice for you. The rest of us, it makes us feel quite nauseous. Emma, thank you so much for coming on Perfect Day. I've loved it. Thank you for having me. I've loved it. Thank you for having me. Really sorry about the pimple, Biz. That wasn't me. That was her. It really gets you at the back of the throat, doesn't it? Well, it does for me. You know what they say though, don't you? One

woman's perfect day is another woman's hellish nightmare or something like that. I think that's the phrase. Anyway, thank you so much to Emma who is so smart and interesting and funny and good at Lego. Right, I'm off. Thanks for listening, lads. Like and subscribe, send us an email and give us a follow at Perfect Daycast and I will see you next week. Bye! So So Music How do you know if you're worrying too much? How can you mend a broken heart? Does peeking at school ruin you for life? I'm Susie Ruffall, a stand-up comedian and someone who has always experienced anxiety. And I've written a book, Am I Having Fun Now? Considering some of life's big questions. Featuring bonus insights from the likes of Charlene Douglas,

Sarah Pascoe, Elizabeth Day and Dolly Auderton. Am I Having Fun Now? is out now in hardback, ebook and audio.