Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin with Jessica Fostekew

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

This week's book guest is Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.Sara and Cariad are joined by the award winning comedian, actor and writer Jessica Fostekew to discuss platonic friendships, collaboration, book clubs and nuggets!Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Trigger warning: In this episode we discuss coercive relationships.Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin is available to buy here.You can find Jess on Instagram @jessicafostekewYou can listen to her podcast Contender Ready: An Unofficial Gladiators Podcast here.Tickets for Sara's tour show I Am A Strange Gloop are available to buy from sarapascoe.co.ukSara’s debut novel Weirdo is published by Faber & Faber and is available to buy here.Cariad’s book You Are Not Alone is published by Bloomsbury and is available to buy here.Cariad’s children's book The Christmas Wish-tastrophe is available to buy now.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclub Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Sarah Pasco. Hello, I'm Carriad Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read. We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. Which is why we've created the Weirdo's Book Club.

Join us. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. A place for the person who'd love to be in a real book club, but it doesn't like wine or nibbles. Or being around other people. Is that you? Join us. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriads Weirdo's Book Club for the upcoming books we're going to be discussing. You can read along and share your opinions.

Or just skulk around in your raincoat like the weirdo you are. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zeven. What's it about? Well, it follows two friends who become computer game designers and the highs and loads of their creative friendship. What qualifies it for the Weirdos Book Club?

Well, it's about computer game programmers. Weirdos. In this episode, we discuss Platonic friendships. Collaboration. Book clubs and nuggets. And joining us this week is Jessica Fosterkew. Jess is an award-winning comedian, actor and writer. Jess also has a brand new podcast called Contender Ready, all about the TV show Gladiators, which she hosts with Olympic weightlifter Emily Campbell. It's a hilarious chat about the TV show, old and new, and every week they speak to a celebrity guest about getting into PE and the joy of moving your body.

It's so good, it's as good as Gladiators is, which is amazing. And if you stick around at the end of this episode, we share a sneak preview of the Contender Ready podcast so you can hear it for yourselves. Trigger warning in this episode we discuss coercive relationships. Welcome, welcome, Jess, Fosukee. We're so excited you're here. Real life friend. Real life friend. Comedy friend.

Book friend. Some of the earliest conversations about comedy and books. Yeah. Met Jess. Food improv. Yeah. Her biggest love. Show that you wouldn't have seen.

World Mix nuts. graphic novels. I think this is a literary podcast. We need to point out that Mix Nuts where Carriada and I met was spelt with Zs, and SZZZZ. And no vowels.

We were at the assembly. Assembly rooms. No, Gilda Balloon. Gilder Balloon. We were at Gilda Balloon. The comedy pub? The comedy pub you were? We used to play the comedy pub.

I first met you by a comedy pub. It was a improv show and the selling point was that there was a completely diverse group of performers. I was there as the Welsh one just to advocate or just to explain how, quite

what the system was. I don't know what I was men of beer. I wasn't even gay then. Maybe they just knew Jess. Maybe they were like, yeah. Yeah, she can be, she can fulfill the gay quota. That's when we met doing short form improv mixed arts. And then we're very exciting to have you.

And then we all did Shakespeare for breakfast. My mum didn't understand that you were a plant and the audience, even though you had your face painted green, tried to stop you getting on stage. That's that when you were puck. My mum was going, stop it. To one of the actors, stop it.

You're heckling. With your green face. And your breeches. You were very good puck. Gemma Weillen was also in that one, wasn't she? We named drop Gemma Wheelan a lot. She's a star stud for us. Yeah.

Real star. So we've known Jess a long time. Yeah, and loved, loved Jess a long time. Love Jess. I still love Jess. It's an honour to be here. It does feel like, well, we're going to have to talk about. It's a brilliant book.

We have to talk about it. Well, we chose this book for you because Carriad and I had both read it probably over a year ago. Right. Sort of just of our own volition before we even had a book podcast. And when we were thinking of a book for you, the reason I did think of it for you was because of the computer game element of it, the storytelling. Is that what you thought? Oh, really? Yeah.

Why are you both surprised? Does Jess a gamer? No. I thought she'd appreciate. Oh, okay. I'm a board gamer. Yeah. Oh, yes.

I know that about you. And board games that have stories in. Do you like Settlers of Catan and stuff like that? Own it, never played it. Oh. Yeah, I'm assuming I like it. Assuming. But without cracking it open?

Yeah, without cracking it open. Haven't had time, I don't love to learn the rules of a game. I'm very loyal to games once they're open. Okay, what games do you play then? Actually, a lot more kind of putting bricks together in a nice order type games. Tegger, Jenga. There's a game called Azul. I really love, and I've got all the extension versions of that.

Is it a computer game? No, it's a board game, but it's sort of tile collection, but there's a bit of interpersonal politics, and you can play it in a friendly way and in-friendly way, etc. Are we learning? Sarah thought you were a gamer. You were not. I thought you'd appreciate gaming.

I did have a Sega Mega Drive as a child, and I spent a lot of time on that. It's an only child. Classic. Yeah, but no, I'm not a computer gamer, and I've tried to become one to spend meaningful, creative time with my son and partner,

And computer games, I am actually going to have to use the word hate. Oh, okay. Well, this is exciting. Yeah. Can we just say if you haven't even said, the book? The book is Tomorrow, Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin, the multi-million copy bestseller, New York Times bestseller, global bestseller. It's huge. Even if listeners haven't actually read it yet, they will know of this book.

You haven't seen it in bookshops. You've seen it on Instagram. The reason that computer games are relevant is the story is about two childhood friends who, after university, become the owner games company and create computer games. They become games designers. They've been designed games at the birth of the gaming industry when you could literally make a game from home. And so lots of people like myself who have no interest

or experience of computer games and the history of computer games can actually still really appreciate it because it's a great story. When I recommended this book, while after I read it, I would say to everyone, it's about video games, but... Exactly. And she quotes that in some of her interviews. She, Gabby has Evan, is a gamer.

Yes. Her parents met at IBM. Right. And so she is from that well, but she says she finds it, she wanted to write a book that, yeah, was about gaming that was accessible, I think it's fair to say. But something concerned me the other day, Jess, because what it was, on her Instagram,

I saw you put out Madeline Miller's book about Achilles and say that it was the best. I also was concerned about that. Yes, okay, great. Because you said it was the best book you'd read in such a long time. And I thought, oh, no. If you've suggested a book for someone to read for the book podcast and they're about to read it after the best book they've read for a long time,

you worry about the follow-up book. It's really hard. You've had one of those books. Who comes after? You've done a really great prediction there. This has suffered at the hands of me. Oh, no. It sounds with the hands of Adeline Miller.

So have you read that? I have and I didn't like it. So whereas I loved it? I just thought it's extraordinary and I loved the story. And I loved it. The one likeness to this was I loved the way that it drew in kind of hardcore classicists who thought they were going to hate it. I did read it as part of another book club.

Oh. What? Whoa. Sorry. Whoa. Excuse me. I'm an absolute ho for this. I'm in three.

I'm in three, including this one at the moment. Yeah. And there were people determined to hate it who loved it. So I loved that. And it also wooed a lot of people who had never read something that would have a centaur or mythical creatures in it. I just loved their relationship. I loved their naked floors. I loved how they changed as people as it went on.

I thought that was really true. I felt really compelled by the story. And I thought it had one of the most sophisticated side swipe, beautiful last pages of a book. Well, I was destroyed by it. I was in Australia because it really was, you know, punching the guts. And then Rachel Hustin's much younger sister said,

all right, yeah, everyone says on TikTok. She's like, this is massive book. It's huge on TikTok, yeah. I had no idea that it was such a massive book. That's why it's kind of like come back around because of book talk. Yeah. So this suffered a bit then, did it, coming after that, tomorrow, tomorrow. Yeah.

Yeah. So, but not awfully, you know, it wasn't destroyed by it. Yeah, yeah. I could really, it still felt like a really rich, brilliant, lovely story. It wasn't grabbing you. Totally readable. Really readable. See, I picked this up in a book rut, and I read it on Kindle, first of all, this is my second read,

when my children were really not sleeping. And it was getting, I was having to, so one was in the cot, one was in the bed. And I had to hold both their hands and their beds. were separate so I was like this, well straight, and I could put the Kindle on the floor, not joking, use my nose. Oh God. This is what audio books are for.

Yeah, I don't like audiobooks. I can't get kids to sleep. I can't, I feel like what's happening. I'm not doing anything. Yeah. It must be an ADHD thing. I can't listen to audiobooks. My brain just doesn't take in any information.

Yeah. I have to be doing something else at the same time. I have to be doing something else. I can't get to go to sleep to them. What's the point of that? I can't listen to them when driving, too soporific. but something like cooking. Okay, I love you.

Yeah, cooking I could do, but I have to be doing something with my hands. Clean it, you know, just house admin. It's ideal. But that's it. I was having to hold both their hands, so I can't listen to an audio book. No.

Being crucified. No. So I read it tomorrow and tomorrow at that point, and I haven't really been reading. We weren't doing this. And for me, it came at that point where it was like, oh my God, books can be good. I forgot what it was like to just be like,

I'm a mum, mum, mum, I just want to eat this up so much. And that thing about another one, world which is so real. And being able to go somewhere when you're quite housebound, which is what it's like with very, very young children. It's like, and maybe you go to the park. But it's lots of kitchen. Kitchen and park.

Park is exciting. Take the bins out. Yeah. So something is where you're absorbed and then you can disappear somewhere else for a bit. Yeah. It's the only kind of holiday you get, isn't it? Going to the bins. No, read in a book.

Do you sometimes take your phone to the bins so you can have a little bit of sneaky phone time? Do you ever do you? No, I don't, but I know that when my husband's taking his phone to the toilet, it's a cheeky break he hasn't asked for. It's about Sam and Sadie, and they meet as children when Sam has had a horrific car accident. His foot is very deformed. That's not the way word. His foot is very damaged. 27 different pieces, yeah.

So he's in a hospital playing computer games, not talking. Sadie's sister has childhood leukemia, and so she's sort of being ignored and no one's paying attention to her. She wanders in, starts playing games with this kid, Sam. they develop this friendship based on playing games with each other and very comfortable just sitting next to each other. It's a very deep friendship but Sam finds out that she was kind of also doing this for community service and he stops talking to her and then years later

he's at Harvard, she's at MIT, she's doing computer program, he's doing maths, they pass each other in the subway and he like basically shouts like a computer game reference at her and it's a platonic friendship like they are in love with each other It's a love story. But it's not a love, love story in the way you'd expect.

And they start designing a computer game together, which becomes hugely successful. And then they have to work together creatively. And there's some other important characters that come in as well, Marks, who's Sam's friend and later becomes. And really kind friend as well. Kind, very kind friend. Because Sam is orphaned and in such a horrible way, he is sort of dependent on the people around him. And it doesn't have a winter coat. There are things that we learn about Sam really early on in the book.

He doesn't have, you know, proper clothes for the weather that he's living in. He doesn't have money to buy food. Has nowhere to go at Christmas. There's lots of online discussion that Sam is autistic as well. That's an autistic character that is dealt with in a positive way. He struggles with some things, but it's not to his detriment and that his friends help him cope in the... Can I ask you both a question then about that?

Yeah. So if an author hasn't diagnosed a character... I think she might have said in interviews. I think that's why there's... Yeah, but she doesn't say it in the book. Okay, so taking author out of it then, yeah, yeah. If the book doesn't diagnose a character, why do we have this human urge

to give someone a definition, a diagnosis? That happened to me with another book, actually. I who have never known men. Yeah. Have you read that? That's extraordinary. And it's not mentioned, and there's absolutely, there's no mention of autism in it at all.

It's a story of a woman in a very exceptional situation. Yeah. But by the end of it I thought it was one of the most beautiful poetic things about female adult autism I'd ever read But that's just totally my colouring On it because I was reading it at a time

Where lots of women in my family In their 40s, 60s and 70s Were getting diagnosis So I projected all of that onto it And I don't know if that's morally okay I don't actually not morally You know what I mean Maybe this is what it comes about

Just labels at all is it restrictive? Do you know what I find interesting? Having read this book when it came out and I would say 2022 was not big time of people talking about neurodiversity was smaller

that I did not recognise I would never have labelled Sam as anything. I just thought he was a particular character and he related a lot to someone I know a lot who I've worked with creatively and then when I was researching for this book

for this episode and I saw there was lots of discussion about like literally Google questions it comes up when you're talking about tomorrow. It's like, it's Sam autistic. And I was like, oh, oh, that's interesting. I've never thought of him as autistic. But in a way that we are living in the generation of lots of our friends are getting late diagnosis. So compared to someone 20 years who might have grown up with their friends knowing from teenagers. So I was like, I felt like Sam as a

character I know who someone was like, oh, maybe he's autistic. And for me, added another element of like, oh, that's interesting. I'd never thought. I just saw him as Sam in the way that lots of my friends who were getting diagnosis. We would have never labelled them 10 years ago. We been like, oh, you know what he's like. He's just like that. He forgot his things and he can't do this and you have to tell him where to be. And, you know, we would have just given that's their personality. So I found it just interesting sprinkle to the book.

I think it's interesting generally. It's as a broader question. It's interesting. It's like the usefulness of labelling and morphologising, etc. I wrote a novel and the central character in it doesn't have a diagnosis. And I didn't write them thinking, oh, I'm showing that they have symptoms of something. And so when it happens, and it's happening in book interview, or from readers

and it's a variety of things that they would diagnose it. It's not like everyone's diagnosing the character with the same thing. They're all giving it different things and as someone who wrote them I went, well, she's just a person. Yeah, yeah.

But do you think you're annoyed when people diagnose it? No, it's more I wonder why we have a human need to, but I know that we do have a human need to. When you have a president like Trump, people want to pathologize, they go narcissists, they use, you know,

we can't have. help, we can't help as human beings to want to go, that's a different. And we want there to be something that's normal and something that's different. I think that's the bit that tickles me about it. Well, so I think it's helpful language as well. We like to think of ourselves as, well, it's nice to explain. We want to explain ourselves and explain others and explain behaviour. But we also love this idea, the bit which I totally get, and I also want to.

But this idea that there's a typical group of people and a group of people with difference. It's like, well, it's complicated. Yeah, it is complicated. Well, neurotypical literally means the most common. Yeah. And I think the typical world is, the language is failing us because this is new. Because neurotypical doesn't mean normal. It means the most common group of brains look like this.

That's it. So that doesn't mean right or wrong or better or normal. It just means there's more of them than that are of this type of brain. Yeah. And that's only what they know at the moment. I was going to say, yeah. But I think, we are, because this is a very new area, with language is failing us.

and we're looking for narratives and we're always looking for stories to make something that makes sense. And that's what I think with Sam, when I met this character, Sam in 2022, I just loved him for his quirks and his madness and his unusual way of his dogged determination. And also his absolute stubborn determination

to be her friend in a way that is, you know, sometimes quite destructive to Sadie and he is incapable of being emotional and I have definitely worked with people and so I found it very helpful to be, when I saw that, be like, oh, that's really interesting. That's why I think people want to do it

because it's helpful to understand people. It might not be right, but it gives you like an extra vocabulary about someone. So rather than like, they love me but they can never express it and we have an amazing friendship but they can never say it.

You're like, oh, perhaps they have this thing that means they can't do that. So you're given like an extra support for dealing with being friends with someone. one. I thought that was one of the things that was really lovely about this book and really clever about it was his, their complexity in that sense, like that he is so difficult, but that he ultimately brings out extraordinary things and other people that only he would have been able to draw out, like he's invaluable to others at the same time as being very difficult to be around.

And that platonic love. The platonic thing. I love deeply in love in a platonic way. It's rarely done that well in the sense that at no. no point did I want them to romantically get to be there was nothing missing from it. No, you're not working for them to kiss or make a move or anything. It wouldn't have worked. It was done so well in that respect. That's why I love this book because I don't think, I've never read a platonic creative relationship and I think like we've all worked with people creatively.

I always have sex with them. And I know do. And that's why I like this book. What I found interesting about this book We were all once in an improv group together called The Institute Was a group of friends Trying to work creatively

Bang them all Back them all Me and Jess Walked away unscated Just me and Jess I can't just be cheeky You are just cheeking I know but no

I think if I'm sensible You'll have room space Yes that's it You are so cheeky There's no room I'm taking up all the cheeky Yeah, yeah, yeah, I definitely agree with that. There's no room for me to be cheeky.

But I don't mind. But from now, but from that. I'm used to it. No, don't change. Just be yourself. It's going to be weird. Also, someone cheeky trying not to be cheeky is actually cheeky. I think so.

Yeah. We were in an improved group together. We were working creatively. You two used to run a night together as well. House of Merth. Oh, my God, it just came back to him. And what I loved about this is like, I feel like I've never read a book which explores what it's like to be friends with the people you're also trying to make something.

Did that element speak to you, Jess? Yeah, it did. Yeah, it was brilliant. And the fall out of that and that kind of, there's lots of really intense coming apart and coming back together is something slightly different. I think I really love that people changing thing in this as well. that's, you know, growing up and then regressing and growing up and dealing with the stuff that life throws at you. And the things that matter so much when you're younger, you know, like that Sadie gets so annoyed that everyone thinks Sam made the game

and then she starts twisting that to like he wanted that. Like he made the characters look like him. Almost too, like so many things that could happen in a creative plus also friendship situation are covered in this. It's like a Bible for that. There's moments where also people's class background and the choices they make. based on how much money they've got, how dependent they are,

whether they've got a disability or not. So, Sadie's background is rich. She's able-bodied. And while she had this childhood because of her sister's illness, she, yeah, in lots of ways with her sister's privages. The sister survived, the sister recovered, the sister's training to be a doctor.

But computer programming and her course at MIT were both heavily male rather than female. And then Sam has the opposite. Yeah, I mean, from a very... Disability, poor background, very poor. Like tons of trauma in his childhood. Yeah. Yeah.

Massive stuff. but because his male. And also I loved for the age we're at, so it's set at the birth of computer games, is kind of like 90s. Are they roughly our age? I think they were all the reference points, although they're all very American,

felt pretty spot on in terms of... Gabrielle's Evan is 46. Okay. And I also enjoyed that, yeah, she's talking about things in a way when we didn't have, we didn't have labels, we didn't understand that Sadie is privileged.

And we didn't understand that it's hard for Sam, that Sam is disabled. and no one is dealing with that and he doesn't know how to deal with it. Like I thought, and I also, I grew up with a brother obsessed with video games. So like we played, and we played Oregon Trail at school. Whoa. Yeah.

Okay. So some of the games she's talking about I played. So that was also like very, like, nostalgic for me to be playing at the birth of stuff. But I can't play now. Because it's talking about creativity and what it is to make things, it made computer games and the people who make them so fascinating to me. And, you know, obviously the chase of beauty and game theory and art. You're making beautiful things that is like a piece of music.

Someone is going to listen to this. They're going to watch it over and over and over again. So it has to have levels. That's not a pun. And how you all look at it as you get older as well, like with fondness, sometimes with hatred, sometimes with shame. I love that. When she says, so this is when he calls out to her in the subway station,

and he says this joke, this old joke, which is the Oregon Trail joke, Sam could be ignored, but the child's shared reference could not be. It was an invitation to play. I loved that line. She turned. I love that. I was like, oh, that's how it feels when you creatively connect with someone. Like you might not get on with them and lots of other ways, but creatively they spark something in you.

Like you said about Sam, that you're like, I want to play with you. I can't ignore that I want to play with you. That's what happens in the best green rooms as a stand-off. You don't have to have the same politics. You can actually not even sometimes. Yeah. Necessarily love their actual stand-up. But there are so many comedians who you can have just excellent conversations with for the 20 minutes you'll be together before one of you goes on stage.

It's so lovely that. And isn't that part of, like for me, that was always part of what I actually liked about gigging? Yes. Was that chat beforehand with people who just sparked off you in a way that nowhere else do? Things like the Edinburgh Festival go wrong is you're expected to, you feel like you're trying to recreate that for the entire months. Because everywhere you go, you're surrounded by colleagues. And so you're always on in that way. But actually the gig starts way before the gig.

Yeah. And a healthy amount of time to do it for it feels like, or a sustainable amount is that, you know, maximum hour you might spend in a room with comedians before you're all doing your... Yeah. They really captured that. Yeah. And I think that bit, if you are a creative person, whatever, you know, if you write music or you do art or you do comedy, you do improv. Like, that's what we're all searching for is someone who sees us. Like, it's your, who sees you in that childlike way of, like, running, grabbing you in the playground and being like, I want to play with you.

Like, we're going to play it together because me and you have. fun together. Like that is, like that's what drew me into improv, definitely, maybe less into character stuff. And this book reminds me, like, for me, it reminds me of an improv team, like the way that they are, the fighting, the egos, but also the love and also when you get on that stage, when they get together to do a game, it's magic. What also could have a parallel with our industry is the maleness of it, or the presumption of maleness or the under-representation of women. And I wanted to ask you both actually

what you thought about because I thought it's so well done the relationship with the tutor. Oh, Dove Dove at the beginning who's already made a game, very respected, now he's teaching at MIT. I find that that's my least favourite aspect of the book.

Yeah. That she remains, spoiler, remains friends with him. Yeah. And on the first read, it didn't bother me, but second read, I was like, why is that man still in her fucking life? Like, what is he doing there?

Especially the relationship they develop. I think he's written the sadomasochistic relationship. I thought it was real. I'm going to argue. I thought it was really, really brave to keep her in touch with him. I agree with you. I just annoyed with him. That she can not necessarily completely forgive,

but understand and not place herself as a victim forever in, that relationship. I think there's something potentially quite empowering about actually being in a point in her life where he poses whatever the opposite of a threat is and is nothing but, you know, a proper support. A work colleague. A support creature of a friend.

I feel like there's points upon which he becomes, you know, she can really use him as a friend. There is no, he's the vulnerable one. I feel like it sort of goes tips on its head a little bit there. And I found him ridiculous from the off. I was never... He's wearing a bit worried about her. You know, and see the way the rest of the world looks like.

But I think there's also being from... I mean, she has a few years older than me. But from the same generation, really, as the author, I had experiences like that in my 20th. You know, I'd fallen in love with guys like that. And then you do, you get 20 years on. You're like, ha. Well, that's it.

I think she's written him so well because she lets us know what, you know, a pig he is, while being believable that a 20 year old who just thinks he's amazing because he's so talented so the way she finds out he's married four months after sleeping with him. So she's sort of

been having an affair, but she didn't know she was having an affair. She didn't find out he was married until four months in, as her sophomore year was ending. He said he needed to tell her something before this got any more serious. So that's already hilarious. The idea of sleeping with someone for four months and then going, before this becomes serious, they had been planning for Sadie to spend the summer in his apartment. He said that his wife was back in Israel. They were separated. That's why he'd come to MIT. They both needed a break from the marriage.

So she knows about me, Sadie asked. Not in so many words, but she knows about the possibility of someone like you. Don't worry, there's nothing shady about it. So it's such a good drawing of that kind of character. Yeah. Because we get to hate him. I think. Yeah, no, no. And I completely agree with everything you're saying. And the first time I read it, it didn't bother me. I have to say the second time, the sex scenes really, like, jutted out a lot more. And I found them a lot more upsetting. And I found myself thinking, you know, I put the book down, enjoyed it very much the second time and thought, oh, it's hard.

You annoyed that she never hates him? No, just that he doesn't quite ever get his comeuppance. No, he doesn't get a come up. Maybe that's real life. It's hard when you know everything that happens about her full story to then go back and see her being treated so terribly. That's what I, like, it's really hard. What stuck with me this time was the image handcuffed to the bed, trying to reach the phone

and it happened to repeatedly, but there's one she goes back to in detail where her and Sam decide on this next game and I could just see her stuck in such an uncomfortable position fucking handcuffed and he's just, dog would leave her for an hour while she plots this with her best friend

who loves her so much creatively and my heart broke in a different way that it didn't do the first time. I thought, if Sam had known what was going on, like if he'd known what pain you were in. I just, I think I felt so angry with the dog. moments where they were seeing what was happening.

And actually, I think what's clever about a book that spans, not, you know, a full life. But quite a lot of people's lives. How sentiments have changed. I think there's a lot of acknowledgement of how hard that's going to be to read. And there's a big acknowledgement that where it's happened now, those friends are certainly Marx would have intervened, I think, based on how she's portrayed his temperament. You wouldn't have a friend in your life covered in bruises all the time and leave it like they left it. Yeah.

It's kind of on everyone that. But it's hard because when people are in those relationships, there's only so much you can do while maintaining a friendship with them. Yeah. And a working relationship. When they don't want to leave, because what happens is they then ostracize you when they go back because they don't want you to know.

And then they're even more vulnerable. Yeah. And they are at this point, like 21, I think she's 23 or something at this point. And I do remember having university friends and not really understanding what they were going through. But you might know. Nor did they at the time. So I think it's, I thought she wrote it brilliantly.

I just put the book down. It's hard going. I went to Lou and I thought, I'm fucking annoyed with that Dove actually. I know. He's hateful. He's hateful. I don't know. He's hateful.

Always in the beginning. It was about Neil Gayne. Yes, yes. Yes. It really. Carriott has listened to it. It hasn't listened to it. Okay.

It's screamed to me as that as well and it's only going to make how you felt about Dove worse. Oh, yeah. Oh. I mean. Oh. Oh. Oh.

But that's what I felt like I start, because also being her generation, this maybe this is where annoyed it to me so much. I was like, I see it. we just shit like that happened all the time and we just let things pass because we didn't have language to say you're in a dominating relationship, your self-esteem is low.

Like we didn't have any of it. Right in the very beginning, there's a power dynamic that's really hugely skewed because you are a teacher and you are a student and that's why people have a problem with it. No, no, no.

There is no one to ask because something that Sadie, well, the narrator tells us quite early on in the relationship between Hannah and Sadie Hannah is... Is the girl who complains about Sadie's solution game. Oh, sorry, she's another student and she complained about Sadie's game about the Nazis.

So Sadie didn't know why she'd bothered. You would think women would want to stick together when they weren't that many of them, but they never did. It was as if being a woman was a disease that you didn't wish to catch. As long as you didn't associate with the other women, you could imply to the majority the men, I'm not like those other ones. And so I was going to ask about that. Is that something you think you've ever experienced in comedy? Yeah. Yeah. Really? You don't think so. I feel like in my lifetime, 17 years of stand-up, that's exactly the trajectory. That's how it began. Yeah.

And it's not like that now. Yes, it's not like that now, yeah. There were an older generation of women in stand-up who've had to be trained not to behave like that by younger ones or more successful ones. Because as more women were in those environments, the need to not be friendly or the opposite. There was a competition for the few spaces there. Because there were so few spaces, yeah. Yeah, if you speak to older female. comedy performers, they will say to you there was one space. And if you didn't fight for it,

it wasn't yours. And the only way to get it was to be one of the boys. Musical chairs, who are you going to push? Whereas who wants it? When we were coming up, there was like, there's two chairs. And then you're like, oh, well, there may be two of us. So I don't know which other person it's going to be. Or even though they weren't, they might not have even been two chairs when we first started. But we were coming in going, oh my God, I think your work's amazing. And they were like, get away from my chair. And you're like, oh no, look, that's so. many of us, I think they might get some more chairs out. If we're all, maybe if we like, let's 30 of us now.

Let's build one out of our time. I think they might get a second chair. Get away from my fucking chair. We could ask for one more chair if we asked at the same time. Like, we sort of came in with the, you know, making our generation of stand-ups sound like angelic and heroic. The change makers. We came in great numbers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can't argue with that. Well, it's power. There's power in great numbers. There's not five of you for one chair. Like you said, there's like 30 or 40. There's a whole class. So you need to build a new classroom.

Here's an example. When I started stand up, the advice from older stand-ups, females in stand-up was to dress dowdy. You don't want women in the audience getting jealous of you. They'll be jealous of you if you're attracted. They'll think their male partner wants to sleep.

What a sea of shit that was as advice. That was probably true in 1989. I don't think it was ever true of women in the audience. I think it might have been. Yeah, because if they're not seeing women, if they're only seeing one woman at a time, and it's seen as an unusual thing to do for women. women see women who wear nice clothes, I would say always, they go, they're nice clothes.

She's not going to be funny then. I would question, why did all those women stand-ups think that? There must have been a grain of truth. Guys, it's a patriarchal idea that we're all in this constant shacking competition. But do you think that though, you know, we live in a patriarchy, so, yeah, do you know what I'm saying? Like, they're like in 1989 or whatever. Like, perhaps that's what some women living in the patriarchy in the audience,

would have thought, oh, she's after my man. I think it was a very lazy explanation for, because actually I think it felt to me like the male gatekeepers were saying, this is why I can't book you for my club. And they were projecting something onto an audience, which isn't what human beings were thinking. But they told us that's the reason. I know what you're saying. I just wonder as well, like sometimes we're applying our version of history, but if we had been in 1980s, perhaps there was enough women thinking that.

But if a woman had walked on stage, yeah, I find it really. difficult to imagine that if I was in an audience and a woman walked to the stage, I'd put my hand on my husband's leg like, no, we're not at a strip club. Don't jump up, don't jump up. Restrain yourself. I don't think you would, but I think... So you think, I just think women are less fragile than that. Yeah, but I don't mean it's, you know, I mean, it's like, it's very hard for us to, like, you know, you'll get a Gen Z now who we will say something that we might think, oh, what? Especially, you know what? When women were doing stand-ups, slagging off men, men don't tend to find that arousing. Yeah, that's true. That's true. They're like, you have a lot.

I haven't seen my small penis. Yeah. And there were ones who were being glamorous as well. I just, you know what I mean? I just think it's dangerous to say the past was wrong because you just don't know what it's like to have lived in that past. Yeah.

That's what I mean. On that note of like the way that, you know, sentiments have changed and what our value systems have changed and how it's all got better, I thought there was really, also really clever, and these are rare, but a very clever kind of not all wokeness has, been good point in it when they were talking about the game that they made and set in Japan.

And the appropriation. Yes, it's brought up in quite a clever way. And it's sort of, it's a shame, it sort of left that. It's a shame that they wouldn't have been able to make that now because neither of them are Japanese. Yeah, it felt very clever where an author is getting to really sort of have lots of space to make that argument. So they made, when it's not them being accused.

They thought them being accused of culture of appropriation. one of them has some Korean. Sam is half Korean, half American. So he would have been able to set it in Korea if he made it now. But they chose to set it in kind of Japanese aesthetic and they use the Hokka Sai Wave. And the child looks Japanese people think, whereas actually they sort of think it looks like Sam, who is Korean-American. I thought that was really interesting.

Yeah, that point. Really well done. Yeah. Should we read that? Because that is a really great. She's, the he's interviewed much later, isn't she? And I also love that Gabrielle puts in like these. amazing, like, quotes from magazines

as if Sam has been interviewed, like, 25 years later. And they're asked about the culture appropriation because it's very clearly Japanese-inspired. Computer came that becomes very successful, and everyone assumes one of them must be Japanese. So the interviewer asks, in terms of its obvious Japanese references, I mean, Ichigo looks like a character,

Yoshitomo Nara would have painted. The world design looks like Hokusai, except for the undead level. He asks about it being Japanese. and Sam, who likes to be called Mesa, his surname, I won't apologise for the game that Sadie and I made. We had many references, Dickens, Shakespeare, Homer, the Bible, Philip Glass, Chuck Close, Escher, and what is the alternative to appropriation? I don't know. The alternative to appropriation is a world in which artists only reference their own cultures. That's an oversimplification of the issue. The alternative to appropriation is a world where white European people make art about white European.

people with only white European references in it. Swap African or Asian or Latin or whatever culture you want for European. A world where everyone is blind and deaf to any culture or experience that is not their own. I hate that world, don't you? I'm terrified of that world. And I don't want to live in that world as a mixed race person. I literally don't exist in it. My dad, who I barely knew was Jewish.

My mum was an American-born Korean. I was raised by Korean immigrant grandparents in Korea town, Los Angeles. and as any mixed race person will tell you, to be half of two things, is to be whole of nothing. And by the way, I don't own or have a particularly rich understanding of the references of Jewishness or Koreanness

because I happen to be those things. But if Itchigo had been fucking Korean, it wouldn't have been a problem for you, I guess. It's amazing, isn't it? It's so beautifully part that. It's an argument. You're like, oh, I mean, yeah, yeah, yep, yep, you're right. Even just that question of, like,

what is the alternative to appropriation? I guess, I mean, I guess that there's an argument for when someone is stealing from a culture without credit, but if it's, you know, references or influences. Well, it's when it's when someone's profiting, when a majority culture is profiting from a minority culture. Obviously, it's deeply problematic. But then it's the black and whiteness of applying that rule to everything. And like, Mazur has a good point of like, well, if it had been Korean, because I'm, half Korean, that would have been fine.

But because it's another Asian country, the time he's now living in, the time that we are living in, it's suddenly questioned. I think, I mean, she's, I'm pretty sure Gabrielle Zeven is Korean-American. It's really important for people to explore those things. I'm so glad that she did.

That point about being a mixed race person, then feeling like the whole of nothing, that's sort of like hugely, hugely sad and difficult. And if that's the truth of someone's experience, Yeah, I mean, if you read a lot of mixed race experience, that's what they say, of like each culture, you're not enough for each culture. So you're living in a third place

where, yes, someone can say to you, oh, you're not allowed to have done the thing you've done. Which again, that's why I love this book, because it's like it's talking about massive, huge things. Creativity, art, worthiness, wokeness, like, but done with this, like, driving story to, like, make you patient. I think she's like, I mean, her 10th book.

Yeah. So she's it. Yeah. Five novels for adults. Yeah. And she's done sort of of YA fiction. I was reading

interviews with her. It took a long time to write this. And every single time she sat down to write she would read it from the beginning so that she would be

in the same position as the reader was. That's what's her style of writing. She said, I wanted to be not like just a novelist in it. I wanted to be

in the same place that a reader would be that day when coming to that piece of information. So things like that, just realizing there aren't as many

shortcuts. except that all you could do is throw tons of time at something and you can improve it that way, that maybe again my fear of criticism, my fear of going back in and really grappling with the text in an aggressive way previously she's talking about, had prevented me from writing as well. I could be writing and unlearning all the things you've learned

because you think I'm a professional at this stage in my life. So she was saying like the books that she'd written previously to this, this was a very different experience for her that she decided to like throw everything at it. Wow. And this book sounds so much better, isn't it? It's been turned into a film as well. Yeah.

Of course. Oh, really? Of course. Oh, I wonder how they'll do the... I know. Oh, yeah, yeah. They're swimming for something quite good. Oh, yeah.

Did you not want to play the Shakespeare game? Because I did. Master of the Rebels. When she designs that game, I was like, that's the computer games I want to play. Why does no one tell you... It's just that. I like the more kind of Westworldy stuff that they're doing by the end. Oh, yeah.

Mears Landing and all of that. No, I wanted to play Master Rebels. We have to go and solve. Who killed me. Marlowe. I was like, and the fact that it's called Tomorrow and Tomorrow, which is the Shakespeare quote. And they get fucking, she just weave Shakespeare into it. Well, the Marx is

in 12th night at the beginning. Much was the idea for that Chicove. And he's constantly quoting Macbeth at them and he wants to be an actor as well and sort of gave it up to become their producer. What do we think about the character of Marx? I loved Marks. I loved Marks. So much. Maybe a bit unreadistically

good. Second, second read. He had a touch of Mary Potter. Yeah. Touch of Harry Potter. You know what I mean, a bit of golden bollocks. But, yeah. I'd also like to kiss him. Oh my God, he's so handsome.

He sounded so gorgeous, didn't he? Women who write men. They do, they write these incredible fantasy men, and then women who read men fall for it. It's still a good character. Yeah. And there's three, they're the sort of trios dynamics. And how it changes, I also love that,

that it starts as like university kids, making mistakes, being stupid, just being ambitious. Sleeping on sofas, staying up all night, to try and get something done. The obsession. Obsession. Like is that, can you relate guys to the house of mirth?

Getting it ready, getting the gig. You know what I mean? When we started. Yeah. And it was, well, you can relate to like how much

you both gigged and gigged and gigged. Yeah. You were working full time when you were like still traveling the country doing gigs coming back, having two hours sleep,

getting up to go out, saving up for Edinburgh, like that kind of commitment. Borrowing money. Yeah. Yeah, it was all in. Yeah. Yeah.

You can't think anything worse. But do you remember that? But she captures it. When you get older and you're like, I just want something to be easy in Edinburgh. When you got nominated in Edinburgh, have you had these moments in your career where like, okay, that's what I did it for? Like that's what my eye on this. Yeah, do you know what?

That's interesting. I have, when good things have happened, I've had a nice feeling of like, oh, God, I work bloody hard for that. And it's a lovely feeling when good things happen. and they feel really earned. Yeah. But equally, and you've been a big part in helping me. But like early on, you know, you and others really help me to enjoy the journey.

And actually, if you live in a place where actually you're enjoying the process of making work and that's what you're doing it for rather than those goals. I don't even got goals like that. I've got many things I'd like to do. But none of them are the one thing I want or the one pride or the one. If you're just existing in the state of always now, what's the next? thing, not in a bad way, then also no.

You also stops you holding on to those moments and going, finally, I got my special nuggets. I got my treasure of affirmation. I know. I can prove I am good at this. Yes, I need you to win something in natural speech. I got my nuggets. All the nuggets.

I knew I was the best. That best BAFTA speech ever. The whole audience is like, wow. mean you'd be like, she didn't, she ain't got her back yet! And everyone else got it. No, that's great. I think that's such a healthy attitude. And I do think it has to be the journey.

They are obsessed with the work for the works sake. Yes, they love it. It keeps you saying. Trying to be good, trying to fix a problem, try to make something the best that it could be or to make your vision real. That is creativity and that is the thing that keeps you up all night. And that I think you have that bond with people. Like, that's what Sam and Sadie have.

They care about the work before they care about themselves. like they will not eat, not shower, avoid operations they desperately need if the work could be pushed one inch further. And I think that if you are creative in any industry, whatever way, games, comedy, writing, you know, whatever you do, that need for it to be better somehow. And that to be all that matters, I think this book just captures so well of like how friendships form from that

because you're looking at someone who cares as much as you do about the baby. And like, it's like parenting. Isn't it? As long as they care as much as you, you're going to be okay about the project. That's something that I don't have in my life because I do everything by myself pretty much. So have you two found that kind of created thing with other people? Yeah. I think I only work with other people.

Like I don't like working by myself. I think I like being able to look at someone and then go, I care as much as you do. It is worth it. I just love that. I have been flowing with that. I've had patches where it's. been really insular and that's the point of it actually and like you know a solo version of what they're doing in the book like clawing back overwork forcing yourself to edit and re-edit either on

stage or you know in a writing capacity but then actually i've had patches especially when my son was very young of realizing it needed to be more collaborative for it to happen it just wasn't happening alone and that can mean a lot more writing on stage than a lot more writing with a pen as in just taking, I still might the way I make stand up has changed. I much rather take a story that has no, you know, I don't even know what the comedy driver is in it particularly. I just know that I had this interesting time and start with a story that over the telling, thank God for people turning up to new material. And using them as your collaborators to turn it from a story into something that's stand up. Great book club book.

Like there's a lot in there. It's a great novel. but it's not, it's also really readable. And also we have skirted and I wanted to do this a lot of what happens. Yeah, because I think it's too good. Yeah, exactly. I didn't want us to say and then this person, because this happens right, and we haven't done that.

So if you're listening, there's no spoilers. There's no spoilers. There's no spoilers. You can still completely enjoy this. Yeah, absolutely because I think it's one of those books second time round. I did enjoy it a smidge less because I knew what's happening. Yeah, same. Whereas the first time you're like, oh my God, how are they going to get out of this?

Yeah. And it's just so, you're just with them on that journey of their careers taking off. And also it's a sad book. There's some sad things that happen there. And because you care about the characters, it's really sad. I really cared about these characters. I think she has an exceptional insight into human behaviour. Yeah, definitely.

It's not, that's what raises it above a generic three-star easy read. Yes. Yes. So many moments of really intricate understanding. And everyone will find different ones. I kept finding bits. Can I say one? Yeah, yeah.

It was one that really made me think that something that happened with us, Sarah, once, where they've been for dinner with Marx's dad. When Sam had described the relationship between Marx and his father, he had said it was fraught that Watanabe San was demanding and sometimes even demanding to Marx. Sadie saw no evidence of that. She found Marx's father to be bright, interesting and engaged.

Other people's parents often are a delight. I just remember. I remember having, for many years before you met my dad, having been honest about my relationship with him and difficulties I've had with him. And then I remember you meeting him and he was so funny and so charming. And I remember, and we were really young. You know, we were in our 20s. I remember you being like, he's bloody lovely. And we'd be like, yeah. Yeah. But also it's a great. And I was like, that's, that really, I've had several moments with him with friends like that. And I was like, oh, God, you're on the money there. But there'll be hundreds of other ones that other people will see. When you meet a friend's parents, you do have to be polite about them. You're never going to go like, what a wanker.

That's true. You just say the parents are putting on a show because they want them to go away and say, your dad's not that bad. They're doing performative parenting. You're being performative friend. Talking about two friends and hanging out. Sam sat down next to Sadie. She turned on the TV and they watched Letterman for a while.

When stupid petricks came on, Sadie pressed mute and Sam turned to her waiting for her to speak. she studied Sam's moon face which was so familiar to her it was almost like looking at herself but through a magical mirror that allowed her to see her whole life when she looked at him she saw Sam

but she also saw Ichigo and Alice and Frida and Marx and Dove and all the mistakes she had made and all her secret shames and fears and all the best things she had done too sometimes she didn't even like him but the truth was she didn't know of an idea was worth pursuing

until it had made through Sam's brain too wow it's really beautiful I thought that description of what someone can become almost family that you see everything in them but also they are they are what's inspiring your whole entire life I was like

oh yeah that for me really beautiful stunning as close as two people can get yeah and it's so nice to have a book that isn't and then they fuck it's like great they're not fucking a family but yeah do have a sub-tac fang fiction

if you want that version yes thank you so much Thanks for having me. I am happy Sue every episode. Yes. I love this. You've got too many book clubs. We have to cut you off. Yeah. You're going to have to leave the other ones if you want to come to this film. I'm not prepared to do that. Thank you for listening to The Weirdoest Book Club. If you want to keep up with Jess and where she's gigging, head to her Instagram or Twitter where she's at Jessica Foster Q.

Don't forget you can listen to Jess's amazing podcast, contenders, ready. And her radio four show, The Sturdy Girls Club, is available on BBC Sounds. If you can find out all about the upcoming books we're going to be discussing on our Instagram at Sarah and Carriads Weirdo's Book Club. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. I've got a lot of perfume on because I haven't...

You've come straight from PE, haven't you? Yeah. I was meant to shower, but I forgot to bring fresh pants or trousers. Yeah. It's kind of pointless then, isn't it, if you don't bring fresh pants? Beyond pointless, if anything, like the idea of washing your body and then putting on trousers and pants back on, the...

Swaming in that. It's surprising that that doesn't come up in more like reality TV it is a gross thing to make people do as a challenge. Put your own sweaty thong as well. Back on. After you've done PE. Yeah. No, it's rough for that.

Yeah, sorry for bringing it up so early on, actually. I've been giving myself. I just think the biggest problem you'd have on reality TV is actually getting them to do PE. No, remind putting the sweaties on after. Yeah, that's true. You've got to get sweaty first, mate. Absolutely. Yeah.

Right. Episode two. It was very excited, actually. I was like, oh, it's not going to be able to top last week. Last week was pretty epic. Yeah. But no, this one was pretty good as two. I know.

I was giddy for it. I've got, wow, a lot going on, I think. Yeah. It was very exciting. It was also, I'm going to say, I think probably the most, what's the right word for this? Fierce episode of Gladiators. Absolutely. Lots of twists and turns.

Yeah. And, like, lots of, like, I feel like the gladiators were out to, destroy them. It's like they had a team talk, like a little prep talk before they came out, aren't they? Like,

no mercy, just destroy them all. We don't care the consequences. It's like they'd all been given some kind of like, oh, maybe a bit, is it pre-workout?

Or some kind of, like they'd all been fired up. Yeah, there's little caffeine shots or whatever they are. Yeah, exactly. Maybe we've all had one of those.

Yeah. I mean, we've got to introduce it at some point, haven't we? Miss Cyclone. Oh my gosh. Cyclone,

power lifter, Irish, intense. Yeah. That's it. And you sum that up, that's her talked about. No, I don't think so. Well, I think we need to talk about the special effects when she came on because that was out of this world. And I was like, is she going to do a full dance routine?

Is she going to do some flips? What's going on here? And then she just kind of swore her arms around her a little bit. And then, yeah, stood there looking very hench. She looks incredible. She is incredible. She can squat her 245 kilos. Yes, she's insane.

Yeah, I thought all her moves are very cool. But then the thing with the arm is quite pizza spinning. Oh, yeah. Not everything you do can be perfect and cool. It's a family show. Spin a few pizzas at some point during that. Do you actually choreographed it? Or that was just like full freestyle or one of the day?

I wouldn't want to be her choreographer. I think she's done all of that by herself. Can you imagine her being a choreographer if she didn't like what you'd designed for her? Yeah, she's about to say she's not very happy with anybody, is she? No, she's pretty grumpy, actually, a pretty grumpy lady. But, you know, I think what's interesting about her introduction for me is I had a real moment of going, well, you're not very nice. I would very much like a kiss.

I think this terrible realization of like, gosh, so I'm really bisexual and I was like, well, I think I just fancy lovely men and horrible women. This is not. I don't know. He's had a real real realisation moment. Oh my gosh. This is my type.

Yeah, and just to be clear, my real life partner is a lovely woman. But it was just that thing of like, you know when you're like a teenager in your 20s, you just fancy horrible people. You know, they're never going to do you dirty. They're just going to be, you know, they're not going to treat you well.

And you're like, oh, yeah, it's like a bad boy. Yeah. And then you grow out of that, you know, I hit my 30s. It was like, do you know what? It might be nice to be treated respectfully, actually. And then someone like Cyclone enters your life. And he goes, no, I'm back to square one. Back to square one again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And can we talk about the fact that she did both the contenders as well? Yeah, and that was sick. What a way to introduce it? At first I was like, oh, she's just not coming down. Does she want to have a bit of a show? And then I was like, oh, no, no, she's staying up there because she's going to smash the other one too.

Yeah. Oh, okay, cool. And the way that that went down. I mean, I know we're going to talk about it event by event, but the fact that she just sort of stood still and laughed in their face while they tried. It was disrespectful. That's exactly what it was. Disrespectful.

Yeah. Cool. So before we get into it, shall we speak to our special guest? We have Zoe Lions today. Oh, my God, yes, please. You will go on my 14th whistle. Gladiators. How do you feel about it?

Gladiators? Yeah. Now that it's back on the telly. I realize how much I missed a foam finger. Yeah. It's a bunch of my little. The phone finger. The phone finger is what I think what really

sort of got me on board in the first place watching. Oh. Because I think in the 90s, telly was pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My favourite show,

probably late 80s, early 90s would have been bullseye. That was as exciting as British telly got. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And athletics. Don't knock it though, Emily,

because it was pretty, you could have a tease made. All right, yeah. You could win a tease made. Or a speedboat. She doesn't even know what tease made is. She doesn't even know what's a tease made.

So a tea's made, it's like an alarm clock, but it's much more advanced than that. It's like the sort of, I don't know, AI version of an alarm clock. Now it's, it would be an alarm clock, but it also had two little tea cups on either side of it. And when the alarm went off, it made you a cup of tea. No, that's kind of cool. Yeah. We've gone back in life now. I'm getting Wallace and Gromit energy off that, the way you described it.

Yeah. That's good, that. Really nice. Wow. We've got to be wanted. Yeah. There you go. Lovely.

So the windladies. Came along with the fun fingers. I was just all over. I'm going to break it to you. You can still get them. From my fingers. Yeah. I know.

Yeah, I just haven't thought about them since the original one. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, fantastic. And have you been watching the new one? Yes. Oh, great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, fantastic. So have you got any particular gladiators you love or hate? Old or new? In this new one, yeah. I've got a little bit of a thing for giant. Hmm. It's just not what I thought you were going to say. I know.

Yes, I know. It's very smoking hot. women on it. I'll get to them. Okay. Let her build. But Giant, just the width of the man. He's remarkable.

It makes you want to don a pair of very sensible shoes and climb him. You could picnic on his shoulders, couldn't you? I mean... I mean... That's a day out. Sensible shoes. He is a day out. He is a day.

Take a blanket, settle down. We're having sandwiches on his shoulders. What a man. Every now and again, I like to sort of become the damsel in distress. And I would just sort of pound his chest with my little fists. Yeah. Save me, giant. And I like the idea of you being like that big.

Yeah, like a doll. Yeah, like a doll that's crawled up giant. Yeah. Just sort of tapping on his chest and he's like, is it a flight passing? Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Is that irritating mosquito sound I can hear?

Oh, fantastic. Yeah. Oh God, I've got Gulliver's travels. Yeah, all of that. I was, I just forgot where I was from him. I just got to talk on a journey. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's really nice. Sorry about that.

It's quite a strong image. Yeah, he's quite a strong image. He is a very, very big humans, be fair. I went to a sports charity dinner once and he was there, and he had a queue of people taking photos with him. And, like, literally, when people, normal size humans were still next to him, they looked very, very small. So, yeah, he is in real life, very big as well.

Oh, gosh. Love it. jealous of your encounter. Yeah, I did have waiting the queue for a photo with him, but, you know, I just push the queue out of the way. I can't wait for a photo, can I have to be cool. No, yeah, you have to do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hi, mate, nice to see you. Yeah, yeah. You'd have bought one of those fold-out stools to sit and wait in the queue. Yeah, yeah, with my box brown. You'd be ready for the queue. Yeah, yeah, with your picnic and your rucksack, ready to climb up when you got there. That's it. Lovely.

Remarkable. Anybody else? Diamond's got her qualities, hasn't she? Yeah. Again, I think it's just the physical size of the woman. She's, as a gay lady, I always look at my partners. The first thing I ask myself is, could they carry me out of a burning building? Oh, that's what you're looking for in a partner?

Yeah. Well, I mean, I live in a basement flat, so it doesn't take much to get me out of the flat. But I reckon she could carry me up those stairs. Yeah, she could. She could probably pick you up and throw you up out of the window. Chuck me up the stairs. Yeah, she wouldn't even need to come with you, really. No, that's it.

Yeah. So I've thought about all of these sides. Lovely. I think diamonds are a lot of people's favour. Yes. Sorted, right. Really nice. Well, talking of gladiators,

what would your gladiator name be? What I'd like to do maybe is combines a retro name with something useful. Because if I was a gladiator, I'm going to be honest, I know my limits and I wouldn't be the strongest, so I'd have to have a secondary skill.

Yeah. So I think my gladiator name would be Jet Wash. Jet Wash. It just makes it sound so much like a pelvic floor give way accident. Jet wash. Generation 2.

Generation 2. We've had jet. I'm an aspiring gladiator, but I'd also really do a good job on your grouting. So if I didn't do well

at the actual, you know, events, get me on your deck in. I'll have that in no time. Jet Wash. It isn't played atmosphere, but she is fixing the broken one over there.

Yeah. Yeah. Very helpful. Lovely. That or Blizzard? I thought, Oh, I like that. Now we're talking.

God, you know what? I'm actually a bit sidest wiped by how good that is. Yeah, that's really good. Why haven't I'm so used to having silly ones? I've done, Elm, this is Vera. Hi. Yeah. Blizzard, that's fantastic.

Actually, no message. Yeah. That is brilliant. Either Blizzard or brain fog. Either one of those. I mean, it feels like the cool weaponised version. I was about to see it. You can use, like, whichever way you're feeling on each day.

You see what I mean. You can get the brain fog version of you or the Blizzard version of you. Yeah. Because I think weather fronts are quite, because you've got cyclone on now. Yeah, we're quite intimidating. You're not going to mess with cyclone, aren't we?

Yeah, so Blizzard. Blizzard would counter fire. Oh, yeah. To steam, you'd have one called steam. It would be amazing. You know, do you ever Captain Planet? Yeah. Captain Planet, who's the hero?

No. Get pollution down to zero. I'm ready showing my age in this episode, I don't know what's going on right now. He was the power of lots. of things combined. He was like an eco superhero. He was like a 90s cartoon.

We did eco back in the 90s. Yeah. That's not long we've needed someone to do anything about it. And actually, the character was the combination of love, wind, earth, fire. And that's what you've got there with your idea for steam. Steam. Yeah. You've got fire and water and like, yeah, and you get them all together.

I think Blizzard's winning for me. Blizzard is quite good, isn't it? I didn't mess with Blizzard. No. No. But you've brought me back to thinking about Cyclone. and my warrior if Cyclone was your partner you've chosen because she could rescue you out of a burning building,

I think she'd choose to leave you in it. Yeah, I think she might. She's quite intimidated. She'd make the fire worse, wouldn't she? Yes, she would find a way making the fire worse. She'd found that. Oh, gosh. Oh, my God, lovely business.

I hope to see you on it at some point. As a gladiator called Blizzard or tease me. Lizard. Yeah, that's... Blizzard is a good one in there? That's top tier name of that. Yeah, you know that. I can see the facial makeup for that one.

Yeah. A little bit silver glittery. That's it. I'm about I say you get some silver glitter in your hair. Yeah. I think. That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That would look really cool. And what would your move be? Because obviously... That's the problem. Blizzard! Bit nippy, isn't it? Ooh. Bit nippy in it.

Oh, that's true. Perfect. Hey, come on all like nails. I'm like, oh, should put the heat in on? God, you'd be a mess if you went on glad the age. We need a chair of her back for you. Yeah. We need a cheer of her back for you.

you as well. Who needs a blankie over their knees? Get one of those heated blankets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see a red popping out of it. I just, a snood.

Oh yeah. An electric snood. That would be my outfit. Very little except for a snood and og boots. Other brands available. Oh, can you imagine? They'll be like, on behalf, see that? Yeah.

That would be it. Got it all sorted. Got it all sorted. Celebrity special. Yeah. She's ready. Finish them. Would you like to go on it?

I mean, yeah. I mean, bear in mind you've been on S-A-S. Who Dairs wins. Wow. That's got to be harder than Gladdy is, surely. I don't know. I don't know. Gladia is like their tag line.

They're not saying it as much as series, but throughout Series 1, Barney and Bradley would regularly say the toughest game show. What? S-A-S- Who-E dares is, come on. I mean, this is less sexier show, S-A-S-S-Hu-S who does. It's less like a more severe chaffing.

Chaffing that I still haven't fully recovered from. Wow. I lost all of the skin off my feet. Oh, God. Yeah. I had a leech in my knickers. Oh, God. Yeah, not a euphemism.

Oh, that actually happened. I've seen Matt Hancock in his underpants. Some of this I will never recover from. I brought the rough ten leeches in my knickers. I was not saying if you could get worse than the leash in the shirt. She said that. Yeah. Only like a minute's silence after that, I think.

Let's just think about what I just said. Oh, gosh. Yeah. But physically really hard. That was physically very hard. Yeah. And also really genuinely dangerous. I'm really surprised nobody's properly come a cropper on that show.

Yeah. I mean, people came. Yeah, as he died. Just for the views at home. Yeah, yeah. I mean, because there were quite a few injuries of mine. somebody dislocated their knee. That, I can tell you, it's painful just to see.

A hamstring was torn. Three people medically evacuated out because of extreme heat stroke. Maybe you found yourself inside a job, like in a job, and within the first 30 seconds going, God, I've made a horrific miscalculation here. Yeah, that was me. That's how Emily feels about this podcast. Every day.

I keep turning up. Keep turning up. I was one of the oldest. I thought I don't want to be the, literally the old bird that drops out in the first episode. They just, oh, this is harder than I thought. So I just really doubled down and went for it. Yeah, you did. You were extraordinary on it, which makes me think you would just be a breeze through.

You'd blizzard your way through Gladiators. It'd been nothing. Very poor hand-to-eye coordination I've got, and I really hate heights. So a lot of those, like, you know, the jewel thing where they have to fight each other with a giant earbud, that I'd be gone in seconds. What about the edge where you've got to run around up the sort of wholly a hexagons up the sky? It'd be horrific. I'm trying to think of an event that I would excel out actually.

I think you'd be amazing at The Eliminator. Oh yes, that bit, yeah, possibly. As long as you can keep your body in one piece for the other bits, you know, you can be like, you know, Joe has got 27 points, and Andy has got one point. That's earned Joe at 2.5 second lead. Yeah, the only bit that counts or anything. Like, you work so hard.

And you give your whole soul and quite often a flipping finger and a knee. And then you get, and you're like, oh, thanks for my three-second lead. So it really is all about how you can just keep your body in one piece. In that, that's like, I don't know, you're, you're into your P.E. But the travel aids would be the thing where I would absolutely faceplant and then just the skin would just come off.

Like you'd hear my face on that, like a sort of trainer on a basketball court. Yee!