Rural Concerns - Cleaning, snakes & puns

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Sunil has an update about an exciting new product in the dairy category, Chris has been cleaning and Producer James lives in a prison of puns. The lads also discuss the optimum time to moisturise. Chris is taking his Edinburgh Comedy Award nominated show on the road! His debut UK tour kicks off in London at the Soho theatre on the 19th and 20th of September. Get your tickets here. Want to support Rural Concerns? You can now support us via Patreon. For less than a five quids you can get bonus episodes and access to our Discord community, The Creamery. Read about it here. You can also email your Rural Concern to [e-mail]. The Rural Concerns music suite is by Sam O’Leary and our artwork is by Poppy Hillstead. Rural Concerns is edited by Joseph Burrows and produced by Egg Mountain for A Lovely Time Productions.

you're listening to rural concerns a podcast about the countryside the city and everything in between we're your hosts i'm sunil patel he's chris cantrell and the whole thing is held together under duress by our long suffering producer, James. Yeah, that'll do. Tell us what's first on the agenda, Mr. Ryder. Well, written down here is

Chris's big PC update. Yeah, it's fucked. It's still fucked. There we go, Dom. See? We tick it. We tick it. did you get the boy to fix it in edinburgh no because i didn't take my pc up during the free i'm going to a third computer repair shop probably tomorrow to drop it off and see what's what but i'm just it's going to be expensive i know it's i think like i say i i don't know what i'm talking about but i have my gut feeling because of the power surges

that it's a motherboard-related issue, which means the motherboard, it's just going to be expensive. And I'm just skint, but I would say to my wife, I need a computer. I need the tools to work properly. And to game with your friends. And to game. And to wield a warhammer and batter goblins.

I need these tools because I'm a modern trader. I'm a modern, like, who's the guy that works with shoes? A cobbler. I'm a modern cobbler. And a modern cobbler, I need... Thickie blades. No? Huh?

No. Sorry, carry on. Daniel Day-Lewis? Yeah, Daniel Day-Lewis between roles. That had one of those bloody... That had a whiff of one of those jokes that people in the Patreon are going to get. You know what I mean?

The Discord, James drops jokes that go right over my head. But then in the Discord group, someone's like, yeah, he's really, he was doing a really clever joke there. And you're like, well, not that clever, is it? Because me and Sunil had no idea what was going on. If you're not clever enough to communicate

to thick people, then you're not clever enough to communicate to thick people, then you're not clever. Thank you. This isn't free bean salad. Do you know what I mean? This isn't thinky stuff for clever people. This is slop for idiots. We're talking a slop for idiots.

I think this is my new segment every week. There's a dairy update. Slop for idiots. Slop for idiots slash think this is my new segment every week there's a dairy update slot for idiots slot for idiots slash dairy update okay let's i'll i'll turn that into a jingle that'd be great yeah if you could sort of milk slash dairy update milk slash dairy slash calm update this one slot for idiots right tiramisu gelato sainsbury's taste the difference tiramisu gelato, Sainsbury's. Taste the difference.

Tiramisu gelato. Initial thoughts, please. But isn't a gelato, oh no, I'm thinking of a salt bit. Something to do with the temperature. There is a slight difference with how it's made compared to ice cream. Is there more cream in it, perhaps? Maybe. Should I look it up?

Should we get Graham on the line? Should we be internet searching stuff? You know that it takes the fun out. I think it's? Should we get Graham on the line? Should we be, should we be internet searching stuff? You know, it takes the fun out. I think it's better if we guess what gelato is. I think it's, I think gelato's, I think it's like Italian soft serve ice cream.

It's more Italian, isn't it? You think it's a solid block of Mr. Whippy? No, that's very, that's ice cream. That is ice cream.

It's not even that, is it? It's emulsifier and Margaret Thatcher, isn't it? Yes. Maggie Thatcher invented Mr. Whippy. Also says Blind Boy Boat Club. The Blind Boy podcast. Do you listen to it?

Brilliant. Oh, yeah, sometimes. He did a big deep dive into the history of soft serve ice cream. And whether it was Margaret Thatcher who worked on the team at Cambridge. Yeah, I think legitimately it was. I think, legitimately, it was. ICI, I thought it was. ICI? Yeah.

And you don't think someone was lying to you? She did it at ICI? No, everybody lives in a world of prisoner puns that are on their kitchens. I have a friend that he's not a comedian.

What does he work for? He works for like an ombudsman or something like that. But he's just, he can't, he's so good at puns and I hate him for it. I can't do a pun. I can't get them. I can't make them. But he just churns them out.

Like he leaves the pun like, me and Sunil would know. We've had run-ins with professional punners, haven't we? They're just kind of exhausted to talk to. Because it's like, it's a trick, isn't it? It's like they're not, they live. It's maths. it's someone doing maths in front yeah yeah they live in a state of being they like they're always doing like it's like i think anyone can probably do it but it's like you have to live the life and commit your brain to punner to punning right tiramisu gelato taste the difference sainsbury's. Sounds amazing.

Light dusting of cocoa on the top. Very nice. Chocolate, cocoa, whatever it is. Sometimes that makes me cough. Yes. Very nice. Thank you for the input there. Well, try fucking chewing it, you pig.

We'll do it if you're inhaling it. I think that is actually why. Ladies, I'm describing the gelato. Ice cream all the way through. Soft layer of like chocolate why. Ladies, I'm describing the gelato. Ice cream all the way through, soft, layer of like chocolate syrupy stuff. Here's the kicker, no sponge. Not even like worked through. I think the sponge will add, I

think the logistics of adding sponge of a different texture like that will make what is something that is meant to be like long shelf life, easy travelling. I think it'll make it difficult. I think it'll, I think it could that will make what is something that is meant to be like long shelf life easy traveling i think it'll make it difficult i think it'll i think it could age in a different way i don't think it'd have the longevity you can't freeze a friend freeze a sponge i guess and make it edible exactly whereas ice cream just with flavored ice cream and i think that'll keep for a very long

time whereas i think as soon as you enter cake into the mix not in my house it won't but no if you're gonna buy it if anyone's listening you're gonna buy it just take it easy i had an absolutely enormous sugar high and you know correspondingly large crash straight after so yeah a good friend of mine said sugar should be illegal shouldn't it and he says he says if you have a skittle you can feel yourself coming up on it that should that shouldn't be legal that should be legal and you're like yeah ever since he said that i always do think yeah it's insane that we've taken this stuff and inserted it because like nature like the natural world, the sweet taste, this sweet taste was reserved as a reward, wasn't it? For transferring seeds.

Yeah. If you have like a loaf of bread, to get that out of nature, you'd have to grow like, you know, a field of wheat, grind that down and bake it. It's like, well, not a field. How much wheat would you have to grow? You'd have to wait a long time for that whereas now we just smash it out leave half of it to get mold on for a lot of the bonfire i i think i had so much sugar that yeah i was saying

some i was saying some mad stuff when i didn't realize i was high on sugar i was saying some stuff i don't want out there that's tough was it on Twitter? No, to my flatmate. Oh, right. Okay. I'd like to, I would like to see the apology YouTube video for, I'm sorry,

I tweeted those things. I had a taste of the difference tiramisu gelato. It's a combination of caffeine and sugar. No, I just said, I just said to her, like, what would you, what would you do if I woke up tomorrow

but I was a sausage? And they're just selling this in Sainsbury's, aren't they? They're just selling that in Sainsbury's. It's mad to me. That's unbelievable. Lock them up with the Sackler family. Are you good or bad at admitting faults slash apologising? I've got nothing to apologise for.

Ever? No. Everyone makes a mistake or something. Is that what they say? That's what they say. Okay, so you've told us. What about you, James? Do you apologise? Oh yeah, absolutely. No, but genuine apologies, like genuine ones. I'll say sorry a lot.

Yeah, yeah, you say sorry a lot. I'll say sorry a lot. I've figured out the path to an easy life is getting right out in front of it and being like, I'm so sorry. Do you know what I mean? And then piecing together what i've done apart from the people of darlington apart from the people no i think sometimes i always i won't it sometimes it takes a while to get round to an apology but i do take i do as an adult man i do think that this is a skill that is very very rare for people to admit fault.

I think it's one of the things that underpins why society is such a mess as it is. It's just because people cannot take things on the chin and just say, sorry, said something I wasn't thinking properly, hold my hands up, it was daft, and I wish I could take it back, but I can't. And I think if you have that sort of vulnerability, that ability to do that, then I don't think people would be out for blood so much to get people to see the mistake. Well, I thought it was more that people like to pile on with that sort of stuff and demand apologies when in fact they're not you know really necessary for

that person themselves maybe but that feels a little bit like we're venturing towards oh yeah yeah yeah towards what we say off mic no as in i don't think that like saying like people you would have people in positions of power and stuff rather than admit mistakes have been made live in a constant state of denial and i think i would i would always prefer to look at it from that top down view rather than well people are asking for apologies now and you're like they're not on there no i don't want to i don't have feuds i don't want that to be an ongoing thing although that said we are going after a guy who's littered in our village. Yeah, we haven't had an update on that for a bit.

The cans stopped for a bit. MOT had lapsed, but as far as I could tell, MOT now sorted and up to date. Cans have started up again. We have no recourse. Police won't touch it. We're going to contact the parish council, but I mean,

if the police aren't going to do anything, I don't know what, I don't want what, like a sort of collection of what civically minded pensioners are going to do. Do you know what I mean? I don't know. The powerful reach of the law. Do you know what I mean?

Do you want to talk about your big clean? I do want to talk about cleaning as a concept. As an idea, not a thing that I do. Well, we did a big clean yesterday. The boy is back at school tomorrow. He's playing out and stuff at the minute. He's got a rabble of kids running in and out of the house. But in advance of that, we've started out, we basically, you know,

like we've been working on rooms systematically. So the house is a very higgledy-piggledy house. But the middle room that will be in the 2026 to 2028 window, our dining room, has become a dumping ground ground and it's also where my office is where i'm recording this so yesterday you've got to wait two years until you get a dining room because we have no money so we need to wait as in i'm saying within that time it will be nice but right now it's not nice do you know i mean it's just we're making we we're gaffer taping the whole project together so we are so the plan is so we so we spent yesterday like largely sorting cleaning and trying to put some order

back into his lives do you have a cleaner so now that's i guess the question i'm trying to ask that doesn't seem like the question you were going to ask do you pay for do you pay for a cleaner no but to be fair to my flatmate she does the majority of the cleaning like an anxious cleaner like an anxious cleaner i did a bit of vacuuming yesterday and i'll do my washing up my path to being clean was a long one and i was scruffy but then with nicola and now i'm at the point where if she were to be dead tomorrow hit by a truck or a tractor or combine harvester i would maintain a cleanish household you're gonna say you clean it up like that yeah she's she's reprogrammed me over the years would you mean what couldn't you do before that you can do now no i just didn't have the

mentality for seeing the value in a clean space. You know, I was just scruffing. My mind's all scatty. So I find it very difficult to stay on top of. And I still have my moments. I have a blindness with cleanliness that Nicola finds personally challenging. As in, I do, we discuss, we work as a team.

Tasks would be agreed upon and allocated between us. But then occasionally I will leave trousers in the middle of the floor and I don't see them. It's hard to describe, but they're basically invisible to me. I tend not to leave trousers in the middle of the floor, but I do leave piles of stuff around the house. Post, boxes, bag, umbrella,

keys, stuff like that. And it's not really doable in a space as small as the one, the one I live in. So you've got to, I think the path to domestication is a long one, but a crucial journey. No,

you can't domesticate me. I'm a wild horse. As we talked about, uh, you know, before. Did we talk about that? I don't think we talked about you being a wild horse. I we did a wild horse with dynamite up my ass i i think that might have been a different podcast were you there at the battle of wembley because i'm pretty sure

that happened big horrible overgrown hoofs and then when that when when the local neighbors band together to get the vet down he's just like we're gonna need to put it down my ass explodes and i run off no i mean i am more domesticated now than obviously when i was 18 but you know mainly in the realm of sort of body care products yeah i think you need to you know like i've started you know like suddenly way too late moisturizing do you know i mean i i apply it like an australian cricketer you know now it's like it's too late it's too late where are you putting it everywhere suddenly no i'm just doing face really facing hands i'm not bothered the rest

of it don't show, does it? Yeah, no, fair enough. Yeah, especially not in the winter. I think, yeah, I think that aging and stuff, it's like a body horror, like a David Cronenberg style body horror, isn't it? Actually, maybe one of our listeners can write in with an answer.

But what's the point of like moisturising stuff you can't see? I think it's for the feeling of it, isn't it? And also it can get quite like, you know, painful if it's dry. Like of it, isn't it? And also it can get quite painful if it's dry. Like your feet, you moisturise your feet. Because if you don't... Yeah, in the shower they get wet. That's true.

But if you don't sort out your cracked heels... I don't have cracked heels. Well, that's because you moisturise your feet. You put your feet in... I don't moisturise anything. You did. You said on this very podcast, you said that more than you said that

you're a wild horse with a stick of dinoite up your ass you say you moisturize your feet first thing in the morning put some socks on no i've done in the past but i don't do it regularly well you should i've done my i've done my legs because they get quite dry i don't that that's a practical thing but people seem to do it for a laugh. And then they do it so it doesn't get dry. Is it? Yeah. Because if you do it when it doesn't get dry, then it gets too wet.

And when's optimum time to moisturise? I don't know. So James can't be telling you when he's right to moisturise your personal body. That's outside of his remit. Just looking for guidance. I'll text you. Face I'll do every day, don't worry about that.

What I've noticed are you clean yeah i think i've got a fear of being a smelly man so i do kind of keep my clothes on quite a tight tight rain but i've had to relinquish that that tight rain on my denim trousers because i realized now i was ending them too early by washing them and stuff too, too regularly. You're speaking directly to me now. I keep my Levi's jeans separate and I tend to, I've got clothes that I keep sort of out of general rotation for work really. But what I've noticed about the countryside community i haven't been in somebody's house

up here that isn't messy like i don't mean it like mucky what i mean is like everyone's always got countryside business going on so there's just a lot of stuff everywhere you know like you mean do you mean like wellies and stuff or do you just mean i mean like yeah like piles you know like piles of clothes that need to be sorted like everyone's always got projects on the go you know like a part of a bi by the table or something like that someone's make someone's brewing up a load of jam do you like this sort of stuff their houses are like used houses and it's my favourite bit of living up here

because it's like, everyone, I don't know, everyone's disorderly minds. And you've got the space to do it and you know, you can,

if I dismantled a beehive in my house, the beehive would be in all three of the rooms. And you would be in none of them. Yeah. I'd be outside.

Imagine that. I'd love it if your bedroom had a big beehive in it and all the bees, you had to open the window all the time and the bees kept going in and out. You'd love that. I think that'd be great. What if I was a wild horse with a beehive up my arse? With a stick of dye on the right half of your arse

and a beehive on your head when i first moved up here i really one of my things was that i wanted to own a beehive and become a beekeeper but my mother-in-law sort of destroyed those dreams because she was like do you like things flying at you and i was like i was like not really do know what I mean? If a fly lands on me, I really don't like it. So she was like, imagine loads of them and they're bigger.

And I was like, yeah, so it did sort of, she told me that and apparently it was too cold up here to have a tortoise, but I really want a tortoise.

I thought, aren't they illegal? Why? Can't you not legally buy tortoises or is this just the late 80s on Blue Peter?

You can't buy, you can't, I don't, it's legal to smoke them. And the other thing is. Once you dry them. Once you dry, that's when it becomes illegal. No, but tortoise, I think it was, you can't buy, they have to have papers in. Oh God, imagine the time it takes for them to sign it. You're still reading it?

No, they need to be registered, these tortoises. Who's registering tortoises? Tortoise dealers. But they over the road had a tortoise, and they thought it was hibernating, and then they checked up on it, and its eyes had sunk in from its head. It had been dead for ages.

It just died. And they don't know whether they didn't quite feed it enough or whatever, but yeah, just this rotted out dead tart.

They were like waiting for it to come out of hibernation. Oh God. I mean, it's a long haul, isn't it? Because normally

they last a couple of hundred years. Even the little ones? I don't know, actually, maybe 35 years. I thought it was like 60 years or something

like that. It's definitely like, it's definitely like 60, 70, 80, somewhere in that. Your classic little, not your big Galapagos ones. Oh, right. I mean, like your sort of, you know, your pocket size. My mate got snakes and he said he's 28 or 9 now. And he was like, he had them since he was 12.

And he was like, he really wishes that an adult would have taken more of a direct role in vetting the decision to buy the snakes because they just haven't the snakes that he had had a lifespan as time has gone on increasingly it was clearly a lifespan for the snake in the wild do do you know? And basically, these snakes have by far outlived what should be the lifespan because they're in safe comfort of a carefully calibrated tank.

But this poor idiot, he has to take these snakes, and he lives in rented accommodation. He's moved at least three or four times since I've known him. And now he has to take these giant snake cases.

Does he like them? He does love them, I think. And I've known him. And now he has to take these giant snake cases. Does he like them? He does love them, I think. And I've seen him eating mice and it's really cool. What is a giant snake case? Is that like? It's like a glass. It's like a terranium, like a fish tank thing. Oh, I thought you meant like for transporting them,

like for fishing rods. He's got one of those TVs that projects colours for the TV thing on the back wall behind almost. Yeah. Two snakes on either side. He's got one of those TVs that projects colours for the TV thing on the back wall behind almost. Two snakes on either side. He's pretty cool. What does he watch on that telly? Is it just MTV? It's just MTV. Samurai swords gleaming.

He's pretty cool. He is pretty cool. But that's the consideration of having a lizard. Or bees. I think it's the same set of considerations. I think bees are a little... Well, yeah. You've got to have a lot of kit, haven't you, for bees?

Yeah, you need a little smoke, a little teapot-type thing that's full of smoke. And ideally, you don't want them knowing where you live either. You want to go somewhere else. What do you mean? As in they'll kick your address? No, but you don't want them following you around. The bees? Yeah. You No, but you know, you don't want them like following you around. The bees?

Yeah. You want it away from your house, don't you? You want it not near some open windows. Have you seen that video? Have you seen that video a while back of a woman going in and like some bees had got into a shed and they called her and she goes in, she doesn't wear any equipment or anything like that. She just goes in and sits with them and texts the queen out

and puts it in an elastic band type bit of cardboard or something like that and transports it. She was totally at ease around these bees. I bought some honey from a man. You do it online and he drops it off at your house. But he also sells queens. Really? By post, yeah. By post house. But he also sells queens. Really? By post.

Yeah. By post? Yeah, he posts out queens. Do they just have like, when you've got one in the van, does the postman have just like a big load of bees following him around? He has one bee strapped to him. What's going on? What's going on today?

Yeah, it's weird sending animals by post, but it does happen. As long as they're carefully looked after. That sounds like the opposite, sending them by post. Yeah. They'd most definitely not be carefully looked after. They'd be in an envelope. Bees aren't built for sorting offices, are they? Yeah.

Every fucking... Every... God, not Yoda. Drop kicking it onto the doorstep. Taking a picture. Do we have any letters, Chris? The sender is Gareth. Thank you, Gareth.

And Gareth has written, Hi, please can I have a copy of the photo of that fella knocking out the bear? Many thanks, Gareth. What? It's, yeah, it feels like something we talk about. Let me just double check one thing as well, just to make sure it's in. It's in the Christopher at alovelytime.co.uk email account, which is the email account we use for this podcast.

So it's not like this is another bit of my life. This is a dedicated email inbox, which you can email. Email us your global concerns and we'll discuss them christopher at a lovely time.co.uk we keep forgetting to do that we keep forgetting about that well it's because we get stuff like this it's just confusing gareth you're gonna have to clarify Thank you for listening to Rural Concerns. If you're enjoying listening to this show, why not consider supporting us on that there Patreon?

And for less than the cost of hair plugs in Turkey, you can get fortnightly bonus episodes and access to our discord community, the creamery. Of course it's less than the price of hair plugs in Turkey. They're like thousands. You can say less than our price of a big Mac. Less than the price of a McDonald's big Mac. Unless you've done the survey where you get it for two quid.

Unless you've done a survey that you get for two quid. What, the hair plugs? No, the big Mac. Listen, if turkish and you are listening to this please sponsor we will you can have all of us heads we will all we will all have air plugs but we want each other's hair plugs one in six thousand people that get butt implants die alternatively you can drop us a five-star review on spotify or apple podcast it has to be a five star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It has to be a five star review or and then there is simply nothing written in the script

because we can't conceive of it. Don't do it. Don't leave less than a five. Why would you do that? We're just trying to just be, sometimes you might think this isn't worthy of a five, but you just have to leave it. Rural Concerns was edited by joseph

tiramisu gelato and it was produced by egg mountain for lovely time productions and our artwork is by poppy hilstead our music is by sam o'leary and here's another inspirational quote from 50 cent he says in ho Hollywood, they say there's no business like show business. In the hood, they say there's no business like hoe business. I don't get it. Could you explain it?

Because they've got gardens, I guess. Gardening. Yeah, it's a gardening thing. It's a gardening thing from 50 Cent. Gotta till the earth. Mm-hmm. Mine's just a patio, so I wouldn't understand i've got a hard out of two as well because i've eaten too much pasta i've got i've got a hard out

no don't lie chris i've got uh 158 i gotta be out of here i gotta be out i'd like to go now it's hard parameters and i. Yeah. It's hard parameters. And I think we do well with hard parameters. Otherwise, it just ambles on, doesn't it? Just sprawling, isn't it? Just sprawling at a gentlemanly pace. I'll keep a tight ship. I mean, I'll keep a tight rein. I'll keep a rein.

A tight hand on the reins of these two wild horses bong like that