Rural Concerns - Airbnb, legends of poker & black Viagra

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

It’s a birthday special for the lads! Sunil’s wearing a little scarf, perhaps because he’s been hanging at BAFTA to promote Channel 4’s Alice and Jack. Meanwhile, Chris reveals the secret to getting a nice house for a reasonable amount of money. Plus there’s also a peek into what it’s like to be in the Rural Concerns WhatsApp Group.   Question! What age is too old for a man to get a fade? Drop us an email; [e-mail]. Rural Concerns is produced by Egg Mountain for A Lovely Time Productions. Our artwork is Poppy Hillstead and the music is courtesy of Sam O’Leary.   Who are Chris and Sunil? Check out their digital domains… - Sunil Patel: www.sunilpatelcomedy.com (you can also watch Alice and Jack on Channel 4 online!) - Chris Cantrill: www.christopher-cantrill.com    

Hello and welcome to Rural Concerns. I'm Sunil Patel. Hello, I'm Chris... Okay, he's lost it immediately. That was Chris Cantrell. Okay, he's lost it immediately. That was Chris Cantrell. I'm Chris Cantrell. And in the year 2020, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to swap the city for the countryside. A decision which was, with the benefit of hindsight, very, very locked down. I'm Sunil Patel.

I live in the mega city of London and enjoy easy access to world leadingleading cultural events, little artisan coffees and M&M's World. And along with our producer, James, who's also here, we attempt to process terrible decisions. I got COVID over Christmas. So, along with our producer, James, we attempt to process terrible life decisions and maintain our long-distance friendship in spite of countryside-caliber internet speeds and, in Sunil's case, staggering apathy.

I wish I wasn't here. Okay, let's dive into the episode. All right, do you want to do that is that all right that one yeah i'll i'll i can go i think this i think this is making a strong case for not having written uh for not having written intros or outros at all you're not stressing anyone out. You're just stressing

yourself out. No, but it's, I don't, I'm aware, I just, I put a lot of work into things and I will,

I just, I'm at the point in life where I'm just not going to apologise for that, for working very hard. I just work subtle. But I do like, I try to constrain

how much I'm messaging people because I know I'm stressing people. I know I'm'm messaging people because I know I'm stressing people out. Too much going on. But what do we think about the music? I just want the internet connections to be stable, first of all. Yeah. I think just to counterpoint the stressing people out thing, if you've got ideas about what you want to talk about,

for me as my role as a producer, it's very useful to know those things and then I can keep you on track. Okay. All right. I've got them in my head. I'll just find them over. Oh, don't give me access to that. I thought as well,

it might be interesting to compare and contrast your Friday slash Saturday nights as this is a Sunday recording. Yeah, I've had a very London weekend, actually. You're wearing a little scarf. I wear scarves indoors now. Because it's winter or because of pretension? I get cold neck. Have you thought of a bigger beard? Just growing it, just letting it merge between the chest and the neck.

Yeah. No, I just got it trimmed, actually. This is one of the things you can do in London. You can just pop out and get your hair cut or trimmed very easily by a lad from, well, the disputed territory of Kurdistan. They're good lads, then, as well, because they don't talk to you at all, do they? Like, keep it pure silence. No, but they try and sell you black Viagra.

Like I said, my barber keeps it close to his chest. Don't really. We have two minutes of mandatory sort of small talk, and then it's silence all the way through that's good yeah but last time he told me that at my age maybe getting a fade isn't cool um so now i'm like eyeing up potential replacements in the area because that felt like a that felt like a big overstep you've got to turn down a fade chris ch. Chris, you can't be getting fades. Come on, just get a short back and sides, normal.

I know, but I've got old lady hair now, and I just wanted a bit of a fade. It keeps me looking a bit tasty. Why don't you get on the hair loss pills like everyone who's in London? I don't want to. I can't be doing it. I've got like hair. It's just like,

it's getting to the point where I think my only options are this, or if I could bunch it all together, one dreadlock. But I don't know. I can't be doing, I can't be doing pill. I don't know if I can be doing pills. I don't know if I can be doing,

uh, I can't be going to Turkey. Do you know what I mean? And it's just like, I would love to, I said to my wife, I said, it's my job to be really young

and cool and beautiful. And she said, it's your job to be funny. I went, well, yeah, so which one do you think is more achievable?

I'd love to see you coming back on a flight from Turkey bandaged over the head. I'd take a photo of you from like six rows behind. Well, you you get a flight out there for a weekend just uh just to track me back because they send you back before you're like completely recovered they're just like get the fuck out now and then the flights are just full of lads with bandages on their heads half a kidney gone yeah but you read the stories don't you and it's cheaper but if some it's like to me going to turkey for plastic surgery

or whatever feels like booking from airbnb it is fine until it isn't and then you are fucked do you know what i mean like every airbnb is brilliant like oh showing up but if something's wrong you cannot get like i stayed in a flat in lond was disgusting. Then we were like, this is not acceptable. Trying to get hold of someone up the chain. And Airbnb basically pitch you. It says, well, sort it out with the person that vented it to you. And you're like, no, no, no, no. Like Airbnb removes itself from the conversation. It's like, well, if you two are going mad, you two sort it out.

You know what I mean? And then they evacuate. Also, a lot of Airbnbs um they put like hidden cameras everywhere for to stop what well just have a look at what you're up to make sure you're not having like 20 people around for a party or just to see you wanking yourself yeah but that's that it must be illegal to privately surveil people just a heads up our producer is currently in an airbnb and he's got no trousers or pants on. Feeling pretty shifty. Yeah, he's looking around now

to see the cameras. You're like that Anton Deck thing. Am I being pranked right now? Am I on the other side of Michael McIntyre's stage? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The door's going to fall down and it's Michael McIntyre

and a million people at Apollo. Right, so... Lots to report, actually, yeah. The dollar's going to fall down and it's Michael McIntyre and a million people at Apollo. Right, so. Lots to report, actually, Chris. Yeah, sorry, go on. I said lots to report, Chris. You kick it off. I've got a feeling I'm not totally happy about. James, should I talk about just one at my birthday?

Why don't you both tell me what you've done this week in a sort of just like a headline and I'll say which one I want to hear first um okay I went to Nosferatu

with a live musical accompaniment uh and and then I went then I went to uh BAFTA

for a screening and a Q&A which he's in what of? of a show I'm in wait a minute you were in Nosferatu? no I'm in a show called

Alice and Jack. No, they couldn't fit him in the coffin. Yeah. No, I'm in a show called Alice and Jack, which they did a screening and a Q&A for on Friday night. So you were providing the A's rather than the Q's? Yeah, and I fucking choked on stage. Oh, did you? Wow, okay. As in physically. That's good. This is good. I'm very interested. yeah and I I fucking I choked on stage oh wow

okay that's good this is good I'm very interested physically choked on stage everyone was a bit concerned and then everyone was a bit panicky

I was sitting next to Aisling B Donald Gleeson stood up tried to pour me a glass of water and then realised I wasn't dying

and then just necked to the water himself Andrea Risborough couldn't really do anything. She was terrified. And the interviewer was laughing so much she couldn't help. Yeah, this sounds like my... Yeah, go on, Chris. What have you been up to?

Don't make a decision immediately. I've moved house and I've moved lots of boxes. Yeah, nice. There's drama within that. Is there one box just of DVDs? One? No, I've largely been forced to ensue physical media by my wife. But I'm bringing it back because I've got all these, you know,

like I've bought little cheapy films on Amazon and stuff. And then it's like, if they just turn that off. That is the concern of the middle-aged man these days. What if Amazon turn us off? Yeah, you don't own that anymore. I think it's like a general, you don't own that anymore. I think it's like a general, I want to own media.

So James, so you there have two very different paths to take. Which do you think might be the most interesting to kick off with?

I think I've got everything I need from your move, Chris, so I want to hear more about it. I want to know how he's going to fill all those bedrooms

he can afford out there. I've had a big birthday and I've done a big move. And I'm in the middle of the move now and it's tough. And I've got a nice house. It's a grand old house built in 1895. Stone, quite big, quite sizable, which we were only able to afford because on every conceivable level,

it is fucked. It is leaking from the top and the bottom. It has no floors. There's black mold. The entire middle floor is cordoned off to black mold. You don't have to justify why you've got a massive house, Chris. No, no.

I'm just saying. Just say you're a very successful man. Just tell us. It's good to look around the house that my wife's graft has built. But we haven't got anything now, right? We haven't got the floor. We haven't got, like I say, the middle floor. There's just so much to do, which is fine.

And I'm not handy, really, but I'm, the middle floor, there's just so much to do, which is fine. And I'm not handy really, but I'm desperate to like get my head around it. But every time my dad tries to show me, my dad always tries to show me DIY. And I really, and I love doing stuff like that with him because we have a laugh. But every time he shows me, you know, he'll catch me on my phone and stuff

and he gets like pissed off with me, you know? It's just not your thing. If you're not drawn to it naturally, don't try and get involved. You just get angry. No, but my father-in-law is a bit more like pay like can you like what is it that you do and i'm like soft skills marketing and he went do you think it'd be easier to get somebody pay somebody to go in and do that yeah of course it would you'd earn more money in the time you spent you know actually i don't know you know i mean yeah you could spend

two days doing a job that someone could do in. You know what I mean? You could spend two days doing a job that someone could do in an hour and that's two days you could spend working on what you're actually good at. Well, that's it.

We always used to do decorating and then we paid a decorator from the village and the, it didn't take him a week to do a room. Do you know what I mean? Like it was,

it was dazzling. It was a professional. So, but I probably can't afford him now. So I've got to do it. So there's that. And all my family, like my in-laws helped me move in, which was amazing.

But they've all got like, there's been a diagnosis in the family in the last year. My brother-in-law's got ADHD. Which one have you got? I don't know. I think I've been diagnosed with ADHD. Someone put their hand up to stop a show to tell me I had ADHD. They do that to everyone.

Yeah. I think that's because, well, I mean, there's some warnings. I leave my car keys on. I leave my car running with my keys in a bit. And I keep forgetting to do things to the point where my wife doesn't get upset with me anymore. She's just like what about this and i'm like i forgot she's like okay like that well you've been your your uh thought patterns have been described to me by a third party as uh just a head full of bees

i don't know if that's in the dsm5 but you that's what you've got yeah and i don't know what the prescription is i don't want but my in-laws all of the doers there's a good split between like how my family does things and how my wife's family does things my family's a bit more like hand wringing weighing stuff up really deliberating of it was which is good but slow procrastination and you know yeah whereas my in-laws are like let's just do it all now and my father-in-law is just like let's just do everything now he took my tv remote two of them yeah put them in two different boxes which have now gone missing so i've had two so i was that and he does stuff like him and there's some flooring that's you know i had to look away because I could just say my family,

my brother-in-law, like chainsawing up the floor and like, you know, like pulling it all up, all the old floorboards and stuff. Immediately. We're already working on the house. The house is bare.

There's no floors. But basically because the owner, but one, it's been unoccupied for a year. But before that, it was owned by a lady that allegedly illegally bred dogs. So the place stinks of dog piss. That's another thing.

As an adult, be jealous of my granddad. You're living in a dog farm. It's a black mold full of piss. What kind of dogs though? I don't know, like poodles or something like that. It's not poodles, man. All I'm saying is you wouldn't be getting the papers do you know what i mean like the official kennel club purpose nobody wants an illegal poodle though do they they want an illegal people want fancy people want like a black labrador and rather than pay thousands of pounds or whatever it is they would rather pay 800 pounds or something like that. I don't know. People would rather do that.

But there's one point where my father-in-law just went, he had a screwdriver and I was like looking at it and he just went, I could take this door off. And I went,

yeah, you could. But you wouldn't be able to get it back on. But why are we doing that? Just for something to be doing. I admire it. It's very hard to put a door back on by yourself. Hanging a door.

It's a tough game. Just out of interest, because the two sides of the family are so different in their approach. If they were both let loose in a CEX with £5 each, which family would come out first with a DVD? Because if they're buzzing around

trying to decide the best one, or the other side's wringing their hands about which one's the best one, like which one actually gets something done? I think maybe my family would edge it because they'd stop and like look at the, I think mine was, would be zipping around in an ADHD frenzy and they wouldn't even be at the DVDs. They'd be looking at the PS4 games. Oh, they get distracted.

Yeah. Yeah. Get distracted and they're like, this is Mario Kart Deluxe. And you're like, yeah, yeah, it is. It's not a DVD, no. Yeah, but it's out of your budget. My dad just methodically picking up every single

copy of Saving Private Ryan. I won't lie, it's been a huge week I'm suddenly thrust into there's so many jobs to do and a limited amount

of money so we're like budgeting and having to like look at like when electrician in but we need a guy

to look at the roof but we need you know so it's like a bit it's a bit and I'm just spending like I blink and we spent 500 pounds like just spending, like I blink and we spent £500.

Like we got a skip, I blinked, £500 to get this skip on the road. Blinked again, £600 for a new fridge freezer built in. Do you know what I mean? And you're just like, I just have to surrender to that. Yeah, I mean, you obviously need these things. They're not an extravagance, are they? No, that's it. and I mean you obviously need these things they're not in extravagance are they you need a fridge freezer but we're juggling

an amount of you know like we're going to run out of money before way before we get and it's going to be a job

so it's like which is the focus bit so we're living in the attic all three of us in the eaves of the house what we're living in one

we're living in one room on a wooden floors at the top of the house. Where there were no dogs. Where there were no dogs. That's going to be our office in two years, maybe. But our son's up there with us, which is good. This is all very exciting, Chris. This sounds like a lovely way to live if you're a kid.

Sounds fun. Yeah, well, we really wanted to make where he would be sleeping beautiful and nice and like i said to nick said get him them new furry bedclothes because that will be the highlight of his day and he was like he went in he went and he's new bedclothes for me this is the best day ever i went yeah this guy's we don't need to worry about him he's all right and i bought him um i went to see x and i bought him mario kart so he's like absolutely caning that while dad's moving tons of rubble um it was your birthday this week isn't it it's a big week for both of us we both have the same similar birthday i am so sorry we always forget each other's birthdays when we spoke

last time i sure sure I heard April. I'm so sorry that I missed it. I mean, your birthday is my birthday. I mean, yeah, no presents have been exchanged. My birthday was a big birthday. Yours is betwixt two birthdays. But I'm going to go on eBay and get out. I'm going to sort you something out off eBay.

I already bought my birthday present for myself off eBay. What was your birthday present? It's a leather jacket that says Legends of Poker on it. Yeah, yeah, that sounds good. And how much did that cost? It cost, what are we talking, dollars or pounds? Let's start. GBP?

Yeah, it was all right. It wasn't much. It's fine. Do you want to give the specific figure so that we know 90 pound 90 pounds yeah i saw it on ebay last april and i was like why hasn't it sold it's an absolute bargain so i got it but i've seen a picture of it and it's like one of those things do you know when you go to chat well you were yeah charity shop charity shops yeah when you're going to charity shops and it's like mad there's there's you'll often find promotional t-shirts yeah in there do you know i mean for some sales

conference in 2002 like a polo neck i'm just saying that stuff in london is now pretty cool so you're out of the loop yeah i know it is but it's just you know if you're currently the coolest man in london oh if you'd have charted a van up to scotland you would have got that same thing for a pound i bet you swayed i'm i'm i'm telling everyone it belonged to a champion poker player and you can only get it if you have a have a have a actually someone said if you have a first round exit in the tournament you get that jacket so you created a deep law you created deep law and immediately had it undermined by my friends. But that was my birthday present to myself.

What did you get? Well, I mean, I think we'll have all noticed from the pilot episodes that the quality of this audio has gone up. It's weird that you've got a microphone for your birthday when your wife has a professional-grade audio set up for her work in a different room. Yeah. But then I have to have access to like, we're all between access to it.

Cause I keep saving the files wrong and stuff and deleting. Do you know what I mean? Like she's on an Apple and I'm just like pressing buttons and she always has to come in, but I do my own bits and pieces. Do you know what I mean? And I'm going to get on a little arm, like eventually,

like I've seen on the podcasters. Like on Rogan. Yeah. I'm going to go Rogan with it. I think that's the next step. So we got, um, we got this,

I got a princess Diana memorial plate. Nice. Get your hand off your heart, James. And a cape. Sorry, a cape. My friend bought me a cape,

you know, like a little Hobbit style. Is that what you're wearing now? No, this is, I mean, I don't want to be gross, but this is a Warhammer hoodie. It's an Icklewick FM hoodie that was made for me

by the show's producers. And the font of Icklewick FM is the same as Magic the Gathering. It's got a red, the inside of the hood is red. It's actually high end. That's great. No, it's nice it's so but on top of this now i've got a full cape um i was gonna wear it today but didn't um so i'll save that for a future episode but it's just one of the things i'm doing to feel more like

me in 2020 yeah it's been a tough week that's's nice. But, so now, that's enough about my DIY mundanity. What have you been up to? Well, I had my birthday this week as well. As you know, Chris,

he texted me the day after. I went, and for my birthday in the morning, I had, I had a coffee. Yeah, it was good. For lunch lunch i got taken to a local bakery for lunch my friend and then in the evening i went to pizza express uh had pizza express and then i went to see a um screening of nosferatu the vampire film uh with a live musical

accompaniment pianist and violinist. Was it brilliant? It was really good. I really wasn't expecting it to be that good. It was amazing. Yeah, you live in London, there's all this stuff going on and you never do it. And when you do do it, you're like, oh, this is great.

I'll never do it again though. Do you think Nosferatu stands up? Yeah, I thought it was really good. I don't know. Yeah. It's all right. i've never seen it but i think it's a good film but it's so old and now we've got much better effects and writing and stuff and you can speak in film so imagine that experience of a live orchestra accompaniment but it's the meg yeah yeah yeah that'd be sick actually just turn everything

else down just music yeah yeah also it's it's in a cinema full of absolute film nerds so they're all just like laughing as if they find it really funny at points which aren't really that funny just to show that they know the film and what it's trying to achieve yeah my mother-in-law really did a hard sell apparently not that far away from us in scotland there's like a weekend once a year when they go see Withnail and I, the house where they go to in Withnail and I. Oh yeah, it was supposed to be in Penrith, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. And they make a little weekend of it, you know,

like a film festival and it's all, and my mother-in-law, like we know somebody who's gone and my mother-in-law was like, Chris, you would love that. And I'm like, I've seen it and i enjoy it but just nowhere near the level that will be the people that are at that weekend no no but i think i think now that you i realize that you live near there i would like to go there when it's on please well let's go we can. We could do that. And then a live edition of the Creamery after. I don't know what the Creamery is. I'm sorry.

Well, fans of episode one. I had some notes on episode one. Yeah. Which sort of sent me into a spiral. I sent it to like my wife and a friend. It's a bit late now. Yeah, I know. It's a good episode. I'm very happy with it.

But it's about my personal, you know, like I spoke to James because basically I was on another podcast. I was on producer James's podcast and I've been on it a few times and he did a thing which I think was sort of nice. But they have a Discord for their listeners. They all talk about the episodes and producer James thought it'd be a brilliant idea to screen grab that chat about my episode. And it's just a lot of very nice people saying,

really great episode, but I really do struggle to understand what he's saying. And then I was like saying to James, I went, God, do I have to think about my diction and James said I'll tell you what you need to think about

you need to think about finishing some of these fucking sentences that you start because I've been editing it all week and just sort of getting through a thought

and then stopping and then going on yeah yeah yeah and then on Friday I went to BAFTA to do a Q&A for a show I was in. This show that you're in, this is a big, this is a little cameo in somebody's BBC.

No, I actually had to answer questions about the character and stuff like that. And I didn't, I still, I don't like watching myself. So, and it turns out none of the other three actors wanted to watch it either. So all four of us left during the hour and a half screening. So yeah, I haven't seen it. I haven't seen any of it yet. But then I came back, did some questions on stage about it.

I, I got one out of the way. I got a question done, you know, and then the second question came around to me and I, you know, when you swallow water around down the wrong hole and then you choke, I did that, but I just froze solid and they were waiting for me to answer the question, but my face was just frozen. And then the interviewer went just, are you all right? And I tried to say yes, but it just came out as a little squeak. And then everyone realized I was possibly choking on stage. The interviewer didn't know what to do. She started laughing.

I just kept trying to talk, but nothing kept coming out because I was still choking and I started coughing a bit. Aisling B was next to me. She tried to help out by saying, I think he's choking. And then Donald Gleeson got up, poured out a glass of water for me. And then I started talking because I'd stopped choking. So he necked the water himself instead, standing up. Legit.

And then Andrea Risborough was there. And I don't think she could really do much. She was absolutely terrified. And then I had to answer a question about the motivation behind my role. So to an audience member, it looked like Doral Gleeson just showed you how to drink a glass of water. Like, this is how it's done. Yeah, he was like, this is how you do it.

This is what you need to learn at the A-list, mate. But that is like, what an interesting way for you to drop how big this TV show is by an absolutely humiliating... I mean, so this show's got... What channel's it going out on? It's going out on Channel 4, but I didn't realise how... I mean, I knew it was big, but I didn't realise... You don't realise the scale of it until you see afterwards like so it's a screening at bafta and it's obviously open to bafta members and then some members of the

general public so it's just it's basically like journalists and film professionals and stuff watching it oh that's amazing questions afterwards it's um what's it about what's it called what's it about it's called alice and jack and it's And it's basically the story of, it's a love story over the course of about 15 years between Alice and Jack, who are played by Donald Gleeson and Andrea Risborough. Did they have to age you down? They de-aged me. I don't know if you,

I mean, if you remember when I was filming it, no one really noticed, but they de-aged me by about 15 years. No one said anything. Like in the Irish one? No, they basically just, they dyed my hair and painted my beard every day. No one said anything. Like in the Irish one. No, they basically just, they dyed my hair and painted my beard every day

I was on set. And then slowly undyed it as we got closer to, you know, our actual ages. But yeah, it's been at least a year since it was filmed. So sort of not forgotten about it,

but you know, I've had other stuff to do, but I had no idea when it was coming out and then it got announced last August that channel four had bought it. And yeah, but yeah, so it's going to be out in America.

I think roughly the same, same time, but on, on PBS masterpiece, I think, which is a channel that shows a lot of British dramas. Well, that's very exciting.

And it's, so this show's got Andrea Rysborough. Yeah. Domino Gleeson, Aisling B. These are proper

famous people. What's that like? Because I've done a few stuff, but it's normally like, hang about, is this, is this mate that we'd be

equally, we're on set together, but really we'd equally expect to meet each other above a pub yeah in the midlands or something like that you know doing it doing a weird comedy gig but these are like proper famous people yeah i mean they're very good like it's weird working with them because they're just like it this isn't to disparage people i've worked with before but

they they take it seriously on a level i've never seen before. I mean, they were exec producers on it as well, so they had to worry about the whole production. I mean, most of my scenes are with Donald, so, yeah, I was mostly with him. But, yeah, he's great fun. He seems like a top lad, yeah. But you've met mega famous people before, haven't you? Because we had a weird thing where I took my son

to the cinema in Carlisle, like a rundown multiplex. And we were watching a film and in the advert before it, there was an advert on which he were in. The Swiss tourism. It was for the country of Switzerland. Yeah. And I must have sounded mental because it was on screen,

you and half away Roger Federer. And I turned to my son and probably louder than I should have done said, that's daddy's friend. So I think they'd have been sat there thinking, oh God, that poor child just being lied to. That man doesn't know roger federer yeah yeah i mean i barely know him he just we just shook hands and said hello i had more like interaction with anne hathaway just because we we had just a very quick short chat chat while seeing well

one scene was being done but um with those guys they don't come in for rehearsal they don't come in for rehearsal. They don't come in. They come in for three hours of the two-day shoot. And the rest of the time, they've got stand-ins that look a bit like them. So you act to them to... So they can film the other angles without seeing people's faces until they get in. That is mad. Yeah, and then when they're in, you're not allowed anywhere near them. I got asked for my autograph outside BAFTA and they knew who I was, which was weird.

Wow. I got laughed at by one of the producers when I told him I had a flatmate. Really? Like just the concept of you having a flatmate? I just mentioned it and he went, oh, you've got a roommate? I was like, yeah. All changed now in front of all those American, like it's mad that you've done this over a year ago, isn't it?

And now it's like a big thing and stuff. A lot of people will see this thing, hopefully. And you've got a film coming out this year. Yeah,

that's in the aid. So keep that in James. They're not doing it anymore. As in, I wasn't supposed to announce I was in it it's still not out no and the director doesn't know when it's out either so what should we talk about now oh i went to the zoo oh right there's a lot of um photos of it on social media making

me look like a sort of eight-year-old who's into animals but again one of those things i've never done i've lived in london all these, never went to the zoo. It's brilliant. I was always happy because I used to cycle past Regent's Park to go to work. I was always happy with that 20 odd quid. This is 10 years ago to get into there. And I was like, I'm happy with half, two and a half foot of a giraffe's head. That'll do. Yeah. Well, it's 30 quid now.

30 quid. I mean, they do good work with it and stuff, don't they but um what did you get to see did you get to go in and look at any of them and well the good thing was there was a new gorilla born on the 17th of January and we wanted to have a look at that basically yeah and we did see it we saw the mother like cradling it that was pretty cool just this tiny little gorilla um and that, that was the best bit of it really. I mean, the other was, other stuff was great,

but like that was, that was the highlight, I think. Yeah. You've got to work your way around. I remember seeing her, I went to New York Zoo and saw a polar bear

and it was the scale of the thing. Oh, right. It was like seven foot tall. It's like James. I've seen that polar bear. Yeah. I went to Prague Zoo once and there was a little kid looking

at the polar bears really excited and there were these little sparrows flying in and the polar bear was like on the rock and it dived into the water and came up and caught the sparrow from the air with its paw and smashed it sm smushed it against the, like the sort of see-through protective glass right by this seven-year-old's head who just instantly started crying. Fuck, I'd pay 30 quid for that. Yeah, that sounds like the best. That is impressive as fuck, man.

If that was, you know, if that was a video that you managed to record and put out in the early days of YouTube, you'd be I'd still be watching that now. Yeah. You'd be retiring off that. You'd be retiring off that video though. I'd be the host of You've Been Framed. Yeah. So Nils Bafta Week

Chris's big birthday. Chris's big move. What are the trends that are afoot and stuff like that? Do you know of that? Is everyone wearing a little earring? Well, the trends currently afoot in London are secondhand leather jackets off eBay for promotional events. But you guys wouldn't know it. Stop trying to manufacture that into a good purchase.

I'm not manufacturing it. I'm just saying you are so out of touch. You mock the things that are very popular in the greatest city on earth. You're like one of those farmh farm hands in um out in the middle of nowhere going look at these idiots out there wearing perfume it's disgusting because i'm in there because i'm in the process of the move i've become what i hate i'm just a sort of middle-aged guy wearing uh jogging bottoms and a hoodie i would you would i'm telling you now chris if i ever wear jogging bottoms you can shoot me in the back of the head and that's at home or outside i would never i wouldn't be seen

dead in them disgusting i'm gonna finish this podcast and go and move rubble in my back garden i'm not wearing corduroy wear some nice slacks be uncomfortable be uncomfortable while you do stuff so you can stand up a bit straighter that's what i'm saying i wore some smart trousers and shoes the other night and it really does make a difference to your attitude didn't you nearly die yeah i did nearly die but that's different the front that top half nearly died bottom half looked great yeah that when you were choking and the humiliation was palpable it really probably helped people to be able to look at the socks here and be like, oh God, I'm just going to focus on this because the rest of it's too cringy to watch. He's soiled some very nice trousers.

But I, what did I do? What was I going to say? Anyway, so I think we've covered Sunil's NDE at BAFTA and Chris's dog piss paradise Chris's dog piss paradise yeah I'm coming to London this week for the day on Tuesday so then

I will leave my jogging bottoms I will shed the jogging bottoms get on the train in my sort of black Levi's, if I can say specific brands. I would say your black Levi's probably have 2% elastane, which is a cop-out to me.

What do you mean? It needs to be 100% denim so it's uncomfortable. I think these are really tight. A man's trousers should be uncomfortable chris otherwise he'll what happens otherwise he'll get a bad posture i think the ship has sailed on that one i thought i always had good posture but now yeah now things are catching up with me and do you you know what I mean? It's been tough. I've suddenly got a lot older in a week.

I've aged about 15 years in a week, one single week. It's been a humbling, tough experience. I think there's a distressing amount of people getting the train now for long journeys, deciding to put on jogging bottoms. I do think that's wrong. So I'm glad at least you're putting on some jeans. I do that, but it's because I'm a professional traveler now. I feel like I've hacked some businessman going to China to sell a lot of balloons. Yeah, but they don't wear jogging bottoms, do they?

Frequent flyers don't wear jogging bottoms. People going on holiday wear jogging bottoms. Are you going on holiday when you come to london half half chris i'm meeting my friends i'm having doing some business i'm like oh i've got half hour to spare what's this patisserie valerie i'm having a nata i'm having a nata tart it's a close like it's hard to get a nata tart up here that's what i'm saying so when are you going to start wearing blazers why am i wearing blazers for because you just hit 40 don't james edit now bleep that out okay when are you going to start wearing blazers just cleanly can we get you saying

32 can we just get that james can you okay all right i'll start from the top when are you going to start wearing blazers um why would i wear blazers? Because you've just hit 32. That's when a man starts wearing blazers. I'll tell you what, you come down to London, we'll get you a blazer. I think we should do a makeover, shouldn't we? Well, there's lots of shops down here for the older man that doesn't want to dress too old nor too young,

so he dresses like a victorian workman i'm going i know where my next style adventure is going to be once i get the other side of this move yeah peaky blinders what's three-piece suits three-piece like tweedy big collars uh flat cap i think razor blade inside the razor blade inside the heart i think that's it yeah i think that's cool isn't it that's cool i think you should i think yeah i think that'd be a good move i think hoodie i bought my first hoodie that i wear around the house um this week it is comfortable but i i do feel guilty wearing it so i'm going to wear it sparingly i think in case it brings my mood down tell you what comfort we've started um this is bad, but we've now got a sofa duvet.

Oh, no. Yeah, it's bad. It's really bad. I refuse to put the blanket on myself on the sofa. I know, but we did it. My friend had a sofa duvet and it was deepest winter. I said, let's try this sofa duvet. Now we've got a hidden sofa duvet and it sits on the sofa folded up.

But if a guest comes around, it gets ferreted away out of sight because we're not ready to admit that we're sofa duvet people. But there is like, oh, get under the duvet. Our blankets on the sofas are either used by my flatmate or by the various middle-aged comedians that end up sleeping there because they don't want to get a hotel for their gigs so should we do you think we've done enough on cultural highlight oh my god i've just been sent a great link about what chris cantrell's net worth what is it 306 000 millions of dollars yeah well how much is the

house worth it might be i mean bleep it out but 220 well the house is worth 220 well that's what we bought it for that's mental yeah yeah yeah but like there's downsides it's full of poison it's in the middle of nowhere yeah but okay yeah how many beds four shut your fucking mouth and it's got three in the middle floor but the fourth the top floor will be our office but is technically would be a fourth bedroom so that's it there's only three of us it will do us forever more and we could have a guest room and stuff like that so what if you get rich will you get a big castle no just i'll be happy to pay that off and be happy with do you know i mean i think my wife will have an opinion if we hit it big on one of these.

As I look now, I was looking for the Village Magazine email and I've won £30 on the lotto. Whoa. Yeah, so things are looking up. I had to do a voiceover audition for the lotto. And? I had to say Chip Butty, and that's when I realised they wanted someone Northern.

Oh, and they just threw you... Well, it's good to get through the door for these parts, because if they're not being given to southern men in little scarves, then what's going on? It's a scarf, so I don't have to pay for the heating. You are? I'm wearing a scarf, so I don't have to pay for heating heating. You are. I'm wearing a scarf so I don't have to pay for heating. Yeah.

I'm more like you than you think. Yeah. Right. Cultural concerns. Cultural events. None of these are previously discussed. Sorry, James. It's rural concerns and cultural highlights.

Those are the segments we agreed on. So, Sun so no do you think you could just riff about like right as if you're like a weather person doing a report or something like that on on cultural highlights in london cultural highlights in london london is currently abuzz with news of my new leather jacket uh lots of people have mentioned it saying it's one of the cultural highlights of this city in 2024. It's actually quite quiet at the moment. There's not much going on in town.

I think the big cultural events are currently going to Waxy O'Connor's Irish pub in Soho and then getting the bus home. Am I right in hearing that for your birthday you went to Pizza Express? One of the other cultural highlights of being in London is that there's lots and lots of pizza expresses. And if you get the app, then you get like free dough balls, free drink, free dessert. Sometimes you get up to gold level. And on your birthday, you get free pizza. So you really, and what did you have? I'd say he was a Casa Romana type guy.

Bosco da Funghi. Do you have the one with a hole in the middle? A hole in the middle with salad? Yeah. No, absolutely not. What an absolute waste of time. If you could shove that up your arse, Pizza Express. Good effort, but not for me.

Did you go to the Pizza Express in London that has the ancient brilliant jazz bar beneath it? I have been there, but I went, I ate in a different room because the jazz was too loud. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Jazz, always finding a way to ruin things. Pizza Express is just, it's just like, there's so much choice. You're just like, thank God there's a Pizza Express about.

You just go there. Yeah, I've had very good times in pizza express you know i thought it was one of these ones that went bust yeah but it's still sort of limping along while also giving you loads of free food every time you go in yeah still going still going strong so yeah fair fair play it's just when i'm in london it's like i've got i can't go to some big chain i have to go to somewhere authentic and tasty, you know, somewhere where you can't really get it in the rest of the country. Like Five Guys or something.

When will I learn Ari peri-peri chips? What, you don't like them? No, like they're too dusty. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, they're too dusty. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, they're too dusty. It's like, do you want this peri-peri dusty? Do you want this peri-peri seasoning? And you're like, yeah, go on then.

And then, like, cough it up like a Victorian chimney sweep. Yeah, I know. Pure paprika and salt. I did go to Nando's after my zoo visit, actually. Oh, nice. Because it's, again, it's convenient. It'll sit all your mates. You don't need to book anything.

But don't get the peri-peri chips. I had broccoli. Imagine that. Yeah, yeah. I can't get my head around it in this. We've got to make better decisions, haven't we, at our age? Fibre is very necessary as you get older, Chris. Yeah.

I think my wife's on a mission to get me to consume more vegetables well we've got an air fryer that's really helpful you've got an air fryer too it's all right and it's just a someone said it's just a tiny little oven real fast oven yeah um so that was good what sort of music's in the charts down there what sort of music is in the chat in the in the london chart in london what sort of if if you're a young person hitting the clubs yeah oh right if you're in the clubs you'll be hearing you'll currently be hearing a lot of um mumford and sons yeah yeah yeah uh their new hot hot new band kind of elbow uh i saw the other day they're they and coming i think they're back with a new album i tell you i've got a random this is really mad but my wife is good friends with a lady

who is married to i think the bassist from elbow and they're so nice and they came around to what when we lived in manchester they came around to our house for tea. And I remember I'm talking to this guy about how hard touring is. You know, like, I was talking to him, I was going, yeah, it's tough touring. I don't like being away from my family. But at that, my tour at that point was doing four dates, you know, like four nights spread out with your mate, spread out with my mate,

spread out over like three weeks or something like that. And then I said, Oh, what do you, where are you Tor? And he's basically like away for, away for over half a year. And he included like a big stint in Japan and stuff like that.

And I was like, yeah, yeah. Kind of similar. I get it. I get it. No. Hold on.

Oh, did you not know he was an elbow before you talked to him about your tour schedule? No, I sort of did, but I just didn't quite realise the scale of, I mean, I should have done. And I think I was just trying to pretend just to be normal. But yeah, it's normal talking about your tour. It's annoying because he's obviously much, like a creative person, his own boss,

much busier than I am. And there was a kids' festival in Manchester that my wife took my son to. And I was like, I need to get some stuff done that weekend. You know, I used the opportunity to work, but he was there. And he was like, I need to get some stuff done that weekend. You know, I used the opportunity to work, but he was there. He was like, Where's Chris? And I'm like, mate, because if the bassist from Elbow can be at this kids festival, then I definitely can't anyway. So it really dropped me in it there.

I was thinking it's over Christmas when it wasn't well. I think we should outlaw walls so that boundaries don't happen anymore and everyone can be mates. How does that sound? That means we can come into your house. Yeah, yeah. It's really windy today. Yeah. Not what you can have, a rag.

It sounds all right, doesn't it? It sounds, do you know what I mean? Why can't everyone just get on? There you go. That's my hot take, my hot political take. But thank you for listening. It means a lot that you've given us your time. If you want to go the extra mile,

give us a review on Apple Podcasts, five stars, obviously, or recommend us to a friend or something like that. That's it. Rural Concerns was produced by producer James for A Lovely Time.