Suggestible - The thing about life is...

Episode Date: October 10, 2019

Suggestible things to watch, read and listen to hosted by James Clement @mrsundaymovies and Claire Tonti @clairetonti.Gary Gulman: The Great DepreshGarfield Minus GarfieldFleishman Is In TroubleHow Taffy Brodesser-Akner Thrives on StressTaffy's NY Times articlesThe Angry Birds Movie 2Xena: Warrior PrincessArctic DogsStay tuned for the 'Tim Tam Balls' RecipeNo Man's LandScott Pilgram the Complete SeriesFollow the show on Instagram and Twitter @suggestiblepod or visit www.planetbroadcasting.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. I'm fueled up. I'm ready to go. That's true. She drank a liter of kerosene and she's excited to podcast. Kerosene or just pistachios. How good are pistachio nuts, by the way? They're good.

Side note on that, the shells are annoying. I know it's part of it, but I'd just rather like dig into it, like a handful of them. Nah, I like the shell. It's probably for the best that I can't because I'd probably eat way too many. Correct. They're nice and salty. Anyway, hello. Welcome to Suggestible Pod. My name is Claire.

Your name is James. That's what we suggest, isn't it? And pistachios, together at last, the ultimate combo. So this show is all about recommendations, recommending things to watch, read, listen to, drink, eat, all of that. And normally it goes a little something like this. It's never gone like that. It's never ever gone like that. Suggestible pod, suggestible pod.

Time for some. You just let me head in. This is the kind of thing that if this is the first time I've listened to an episode and someone started doing that, I'd be like, you fucking blew it. And I'd never listen to it again. I know. I worry. I thought the kerosene was the real low bit.

No, what are you talking about? The kerosene was a great gag. Anyway, okay, so I guess I go first. Is that the rule still? That is. Gentlemen's first only because I get to choose. That's right. That's true.

Yes, you're very empowered, Claire. Okay, so the- God, the sarcasm. One of the things that I watched this week- When I've got you by the balls. I thoroughly enjoyed. It's on HBO. So if you're in a country like our country where you can't get HBO.

Australia. Yeah, you have to do it via a proxy. But it's a new comedy special by Gary Goldman called The Great Depresh. Right? So this guy. Sounds uplifting. Yeah. Well, it is.

And it's also about severe depression. So this guy. Can you sing a song? If they've come back, they're like, okay, I, it is. And it's also about severe depression. So this guy. Did he sing a song? Do, do, do, do, do. If they've come back, they're like, okay, I'll push through. And then now they've definitely gone, nah, they blew it. I love that kerosene opening joke they said. That classic gag.

And the pistachio reference, they could really relate. I said kerosene either because it's not traditionally like a, like you can use it to power certain things. Yeah. Anyway, you really got off topic. Anyway. So Gary Goldman disappeared for comedy for like four years with extreme, like can't get out of bed depression.

Right. But he's kind of being. Or depress as it's known in the biz. Yes, that's correct. Yeah. And so it's kind of the comedy special is about him dealing with that and how he came out of it. It's also about a lot about his childhood in the 70s and 80s and how it was a very different time.

The way he describes his childhood is, think Charlie Brown had Snoopy die. I think Garfield comic got shot in the face. Garfield is already a very depressing comic regardless because John isn't actually talking, like he's talking to his animals but he can't understand Garfield because Garfield is thinking the things that he says. He can't actually communicate.

It's a very lonely comic. Didn't you tell me there's a version of it where they delete Garfield? Yeah, there's Garfield minus Garfield, and it's just John, and it's hilarious. It's really funny. It's funnier than Garfield. Anyway, so this guy, the funny thing is this is the way he describes himself. First of all, he's 6'6", so he's enormous.

I saw an interview with him where he said he's got the build of Gaston but the heart and soul of Belle. So he was a really gentle, kind of Belle. So he just, like, he was a really gentle kind of quiet child because he was built like. A brick shithouse. Yeah, like a brick shithouse, as we say in Australia. He was, like, constantly recruited into sports that he hated. And, like, he got signed by this, into a college football team

because of his size and his skill. But he's like, I don't want to do any of this. But he's like, I guess it's a- He became an NBA player against his will. Yeah, it was pretty much, he probably could have. But he was always kind of struggled with, he didn't feel like he fit into like the person that he looked like. When he was, it was, especially as he did the cut with like interviews

and like kind of glimpses into his real life. And he goes back and he's talking to his mother and she was like, I just always thought he was kind of happy-go-lucky because he covered it really well for years, you know, and put on this persona. But he found a book that he wrote and it's called The Lonely Tree. And he wrote it when he was a kid. And it's about a tree that gets bullied. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that really breaks my heart.

He was really sensitive and he put on this facade of this person that he thought he would be and he thought he was. And he talks about how he really wishes he grew up in the millennial generation because people are so accepting of other people. He talks about how if you ordered a – he once got mocked mercilessly because he ordered a Sprite and it was considered gay if you got a Sprite. There's just things like that. And it's just, it's just really funny and really heartwarming.

I'm going to spoil the very last line of it. Skip ahead. But I just think it's so funny and I just really want to share it. What I might do, I'll send Collings a clip and I want him to put like a clip of this show at the end because I really enjoyed it. But he says, what they don't tell you about life is uh life it's every single day and he says it like oh my god I'm like exactly that's what I'm talking about it doesn't fucking stop that reminds me so much of when I was teaching prep which is the first year of school so like five year olds and they got through the first day and this one little boy was so cute. He came up to me and he's like, thank you for school. I really

enjoyed it. Bye. And he got home and told his mom, he's like, well, I've done school now. And she's like, no, you've got 13 years. And he like, it was just like, ah, like inconsolable. Cause he like had thought that that was just it, me and him for one day. I completely understand that. Well, we were talking about this the other day, but one thing that I really hated as a child is that you've just got no autonomy. You're just at the whims of other people.

We just got to do what they say, dress what they say, dress how they want you to, eat how they want you to. And it's just a fucking nightmare. Anybody who's like, childhood is the best. I just, you know what? Your adulthood must be atrocious. You know why you feel like that too? Because every photo of you as a child is,

it just looks like you as a grown James Mann adult trapped in the body of a five-year-old. Yeah, that's what I felt like. And so your face is just, you're never smiling. You're always like doing these like big wide-eyed, like terrified look at everybody. I wasn't like a six foot six athlete by any stretch you had like but i what did some guy tell you once that you

had doors like a one of my friends ears like a taxi and i've never forgotten because i've got like pointed ears but my ears were enormous when i was a kid i don't know what happened because i didn't have surgery or anything like that my head well i guess my head grew so big. You were so lucky. I don't know what happened because I didn't have surgery or anything like that. My head, well, I guess my head grew so big that they, because now they're quite small. They are. And they're folded back. I mean, they're a little bit pixie-esque. But they definitely, like these were literally vertical. Horizontal, I mean.

Yeah. To your head. Taxi with the door open. Perfect to kill it or whatever. Guy said that. Turned out he was also a lunatic, that guy who said that. Because why would you say that to a kid? I know.

But, see, I don't know. I just related to a lot to this because I remember, like, particularly you get to high school and you do have to put on this facade of, like, because I went to an all-boys school, and it wasn't a terrible school. I went to stretch. It was, like, middle of the range. But, you know, I'd get into fights and whatever because I'm just, like,

I cannot let people push me around. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, and you're not a short guy, but you're, like, on the smaller end of the spectrum. And I'm pretty light. Like there's not, there's not much to me. My legs are very skinny in particular. Yeah. But you can't let people push you. Like, you feel like you can't let people push you around or show vulnerability because people will just tear you apart. Yeah. So I just thought this was really interesting and really funny and, and really, yeah, I don't know. I just, I thought it was great. And now I thought he,

like his understanding of the world and how he got through depression was not that I've ever experienced anything like remotely like that. Uh, but I think it's, you know, there's a lot of value in it and there's a lot of people like, Oh, you can't say anything these days and bloody whatever. But this felt like it was like a fresh take on something and, and it wasn't, you know, complaining about the millennial generation and how, oh, they're so woke and so like sensitive and all that stuff. And actually I know I was reading something recently, I think it was Richard Glover did a book about how all these people talk

about like their childhood in the 60s and 70s, right, with all this nostalgia about how they'd like ride their bike through the woods and carry buckets on their head and they could adventure wherever they liked and wasn't it glorious. And kids these days are wrapped in cotton wool. And he said they're looking back at it with rose-coloured glasses. What actually happened was kids got kidnapped and abused. Yeah. And left alone.

Kids would be left in cars while their parents were in the pub. And like there was obviously lots of great parents back then too. But I think it's very easy to look back at the past with nostalgia and think wasn't it amazing. But there's a lot of downsides. I think there's obviously like problems in our generation and generations coming up because of like social media and there's still bullying and there's still neglect

and there's still abuse and all this kind of thing. Of course there is, yeah. But I think people are more open about it. All that shit still happened. Because a lot of like boomers I meet, I'm like, there's something terrible happened to this person. Yeah. Like you scratch the surface and it's like there's just a bag of crazy

under this. Yeah. And a lot of issues that have never been addressed and talked about. And maybe the pendulum swung a bit too far the other way and we talk too much about how we feel and our emotions and all that stuff. But I do think that it's better to get that out in the open and address it and really look at our mental health in a really, you know, with a close lens and understand that what happens in our childhood really impacts us for the rest of our lives. I think that's a really deep understanding.

I guess we're educators, but I think that's much more commonly talked about now. You know, stuff that happens in your childhood really does shape who you are. 100%. Yeah. It's fantastic. I want to watch that. Just really quickly. He talks about how like when he just started to talk to people and when he was getting

better, that's what made him feel better. Like little interactions with people. Like you'd go to the store and you'd say hello to people and whatever. And, you know, and then he wasn't going to go to his school reunion because he felt like at this point he was a failure because he'd moved back home because he'd just come out of a mental institution. And so, and then he was like, oh God, I go to my 25 year school reunion and I've just moved back home and whatever. But he said it was really good for him and everybody to kind of catch up. And so, yeah, I just, it's

really, I thought it was just really interesting and really great. So check it out. Excellent. really, I thought it was just really interesting and really great. So check it out. Excellent. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats, but iced tea and ice cream. Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. That dovetails really well into my recommendation, actually. Yeah, it's an author. Her name is Taffy Brodessa-Akner, and I just finished her first novel, Fleshman is in Trouble. She writes for the New York Times. She was an American journalist before this. She also writes for GQ, and she's fantastic as an author in general. I've followed

her work. She does a lot of Hollywood exposés on, particularly a really famous one she did last year was for Gwyneth Paltrow on Goop. She did a great one and also Bradley Cooper. She did a really great kind of dry, because he was so difficult to interview that her article ends up being a bit meta, but it was great. So I'd highly recommend going back to read those because they're awesome. And the other one, my sister sent me this actually ages ago. It's called How Taffy Brodesser Acne Thrives on Stress. It's in Real Simple on the website. This article, I will get to the actual book,

but I just wanted to quickly give you a backstory. So this article really spoke to me. It does infuriate people who have very organized brains, but she is someone who is just scattered all over the place and she really writes in quite a humorous way about how her brain is all over the place and how everyone expects her to yoga her way and like mindful her way into life and everything should be lit and organised and beautiful and if it's not compartmentalised and, you know, perfectly shiny and beautiful, then you shouldn't be doing it.

And she kind of rallies against that and is just like, I am a giant cluster fuck of a mess of a human, but somehow I've managed to write really great stuff and still manage to work and do all these things. And I almost do it because my brain is all over the place. Yes. And I thought that was really an interesting take. There are some moments in there where she's a parent as well and she talks about how she's

driven her kids to the wrong soccer match or whatever and can be a very shambolic and difficult person to be around. Yeah. What's your take on that? Do you think that it's okay to be messy and creative like that? 100%. Those are the people like, I'm probably somewhere in the middle, I'd say. You've got quite an organized brain with your creativity. My brain

is, but I'm not saying like, I'm not organized in life. I don't have spreadsheets and stuff, but I know, I always kind of know what I'm doing in my head. Like you and my mom said the same thing about me is like, I've got a plan that I generally just don't talk about it. I've just kind of like, I know what I'm doing and I know what I'm going to do, but I don't. Not always. No, you never talk about it and then it comes out later. It's like your elaborate pranks that you have going over years and years. And you have this like I always call it your mind palace of things in there,

but it's always very specific. Your mind palace, and I used to think it was useless, and now it's become a job and I love it. But at the time it was a very specific mind palace of terrible film and comic book movies and video games and really specific like theme songs of like, you know, 1980s TV shows and stuff that I thought was so cute. Like, why do you know all of that?

But actually it turns out to be very useful. You know what? That's organized. You know, it's funny. Cause like I I've, I've never considered myself an intelligent person whenever I've had to like do a test or whatever, I always have to study. But stuff like movies and that,

I'm just generally pretty good at remembering trivia. I can read a bunch of trivia and then decide that. It's like Rayman. Yeah. But the thing about it is I realize that's what it must be like to be smart about something useful. So if you're like your brother who's a doctor can like read a tech medical journal and then understand it.

But for me, you may as well just hit me in the head with a hammer. Like it's because that's about as useful as me reading that. So for me, I'm smart about this very specific thing, which 10 years ago could not have existed. No, I know. Absolutely worthless. I remember one time, because it's weird because you are not like this about any, and school you like did okay, but like it wasn't your jam. You like, you know, did not do very well at your uni course.

I mean, you're teaching when you did. Did you know I did well, yeah. You like couldn't have cared less. And so it is quite funny, but when you hit, it's like hitting on a vein of gold in the gold rush. You hit on the vein of gold of James's knowledge, and it just goes and goes and goes and goes and it's so in-depth.

It's kind of crazy. I don't often tell people how much I know about movies and comics and stuff because I'm just like, you don't want to scratch the surface of this because you don't care about any of the stuff that I know. It's like a knowledge bomb goes off. I remember someone says to you something or they're wearing an obscure Star Wars T-shirt and you just suddenly whisper out of your breath something like,

this is from like, I don't know, this is Carla Renner, this is not a scene from 74, blah, blah, blah. And I'm just like, where the hell is that coming from? And I have zero idea what you're talking about, but my son has the same thing. He's got it. He's got the same thing. And so around the dinner table, you guys end up talking in this language and I have zero idea. And I wonder if anyone listening to this, who's listening, because some people listen to this with their partner who might be a Weekly Planet fan. Yeah. I wonder if they can relate that their husband or girlfriend or whoever they're with talks in a language that they don't really understand because they just

absolutely love this particular. You're more like conventional intelligent, I would say, because you could like write an essay and you understand like maths and shit, you know. I'm just boring and regular. I think that'd be, that's incredible. Like that, because that's something that, you know, that I've never, like I'm okay at a bunch of stuff, but I think you're more, you're way more intelligent than you give yourself.

In different ways. And you're really good at learning a new thing as well. Like you're good at languages and stuff like that and I'm terrible at all that stuff. Well, I don't know. But anyway, going back to – Yeah, sorry. What book did you read? Yeah, so I guess the reason I liked her article was because with creativity,

I'm quite organized in other parts of my life but I'm shambolic with laundry and other kinds of bits and particularly with creativity, I'm so not organized. Paul Collings is always having to deal with like filing things away for me. He's crushing it. My laptop is terrifying. I have 15,000 unread emails in my inbox. That's not a joke. So I found that article comforting.

Anyway, I then got recommended Fleshman is in Trouble, which is her first novel. And by golly, I could not put it down, could I? I just spent all day yesterday reading. You really wasted your week, Claire. No, I read it in two days because I could not put it down. It's a blisteringly honest, naked look at the breakdown of a marriage and the state of divorcees or, you know,

people who are just going through a separation. Through the eyes of a husband whose wife just disappears and is suddenly uncontactable, leaving him to deal with his own neuroses, his Tinder-like apps on his phone because he's just kind of newly single and exploring all this kind of sexual side of himself and dating in the new millennium and all that stuff, and also to care for his two kids. So his wife is a high powered agent and through his eyes, you kind of get this picture of her being like a work driven monster who treats everybody terribly. He does the bulk of the parenting. He's a doctor, but he sacrificed his career so that she could get ahead and just

work late and always be on calls and always be working, blah, blah, blah. And so for the two thirds of the novel, probably even three-quarters, you're just wondering where the hell she is. Yeah, right. Because she drops the kids off at like 4 a.m. while he's still asleep in his apartment. Then she goes to this yoga retreat and then he just can't contact her again. He texts her.

He emails her. He calls her. She just doesn't get back, doesn't get back. And that's so unlike her because she's so diligent and just no one knows where she is. And you just, as the, it just builds and builds and builds because you're trying to figure out why the hell would she do this? She was such an involved parent, even though she was busy all the time, she orchestrated their whole lives.

And so her kids like adored her, even though she wasn't there all the time for them, she obviously organized everything for them and he has them on the weekend so she actually has them full time during the week but they have a nanny and it's just like where is she? Where is this woman? And you just have to get through it to try and find out what the hell is going on. Did they check behind the couch? No, they didn't.

I should have told them to. Foolish, under the bed, always a good spot for things that you lose. Yeah. And so you just want to know what's happened to her. And then, so there's kind of a twist and I won't spoil it, but there's a twist that happens kind of three quarters of the way through. And then you suddenly bump into her as the, as a character. Right. And you're, you, at that point, you're so infuriated. You're like, what the hell have you been? And then you kind of find out what's happened and it's just so good. But the characters are quite unlikable.

Right. They're very flawed. He as a lead character is also like Toby Fleishman is so flawed. Like you like him but you're also like, God, you're so whingy. And, yes, I know like she's so high powered and like you had to do a lot of the child minding. But if you were a woman, it wouldn't have, you know, mattered. And so there's a lot of talk about that, about A, what it's like to be, you know, in the midst of a marriage breakdown, but also what it's like to be a parent.

And the reason why I thought it was a good segue to what you were talking about, a lot of it addresses aging and what it's like to be middle-aged because the characters are kind of in their early 40s. And so they're all kind of, his other characters on the periphery of the story are his uni friends and people he used to drink with and smoke pot with before they all got married and had kids. Cool. And it's actually written through the eyes of one of his friends who is ostensibly a 41-year-old stay-at-home mum. Right.

And she was an author and a writer and she gave up her career because it became too difficult to raise her kids and stay at home. And so you find out more about her as well as the book goes on. But what I found so fascinating, A, just because it's a patient, you just want to get to the end to find out what happens to his wife. But B. But B, it's a real exploration of women's roles, I guess, too, and how when you're a high-powered woman who has worked really hard

in her career but also a mother. Like you've got like a magic sword or the ability to fly. Or to fly or like rocket boots because who doesn't want rocket boots or a hoverboard. I'd definitely die. Yeah. No, I believe in fly or like rocket boots because he doesn't want rocket boots or a hoverboard. I'd definitely die. No, I believe in you. With rocket boots. Anyway, it's just, it looks at what it's like to be a woman and the dawning realization

that it's a little bit fucked. Excuse my French. Especially once you become a mother and what childbirth does to your body. And it's kind of this secret that we're told we can do anything until you suddenly become a mother and you realise that not only is it that your body, particularly because you find out in the story one of the characters had a really, really difficult childbirth and what that does to her psyche and then what the culture kind of does

to women when they become mothers, which is often to kind of make them smooshy. And his wife was not a smooshy character. She was like the CEO of a really successful company. But they smooshed her. You know, they made her like a daughtery mum and they gave her like fluffy things and she didn't fit into that box. And I think sometimes, for me anyway, and I know for some of my friends who like, like to think really deeply about things and like to think cerebrally

and work hard in their careers. Yeah, like intelligent people, people that are better than other people. I get what you're saying. No, but I just think everybody's different and everyone finds motherhood different. But for some women, it's so frigging challenging because you have to reframe your entire identity and the way people treat you changes completely. And we often don't talk about that to women in their 20s. We say they just say they can do everything and that parenthood shouldn't change them. And I think it changes men, but nowhere near in the same way. I agree with that.

Yeah. That's my rant. All right. What's that called again? Sorry. Okay. So the book's called Fleshman is in Trouble. And the author I talked about is called Taffy Brodesser-Akner.

I'll get Colleen to link all those articles I talked about by her below as well as that book. Fantastic. That sounds really good. Yeah, it's really good. I know that's one of those things that you're often, you get furious about like the way that, I mean, it's not like your life in particular, but other women as well, the way you have to change and the expectations on you and the way that, you know, that you're

expected to start exercising again and get straight back into shape, but also you have to give up your career. And we've talked about this before. It's, it's kind of. And in like, you know, it just doesn't happen for men in the same way. No. And even if men did want to be more involved, it just, the expectation from society is as the woman, regardless of how much you earn or whatever, you will just want to be mother earth and go straight back to just like giving up all your career and ambition. And now everything is about your child.

Boo. Which obviously as a parent, you love your child and want the best for them. Nah, boo. But you also are a person too. not just someone who's growing a human. I think it's good for kids to see that like their parents are people that were not just like slaves essentially. Yeah, and I think too for relationships and like marriages, every marriage is different.

Obviously everybody's relationship is different. But being able to have both parents involved and capable and raising kids, regardless of how many hours that looks like with work situations and stuff, but having both parents as a team on board, I think is better for everybody already. For mental health, for mom and dad, for everybody. It doesn't mean that like, obviously everyone's situation is different. Everyone's work situations are different. But I think, you know, to have both parents able to help and be involved. Yeah, it's not, things aren't always structured that way though for either workplace. No, they're not.

I think we talked about that. We did. We addressed this last time. So anyway, we can move on because I could talk about this forever. But Fleshman is in trouble. They're calling it the novel of the summer. Of the summer? Yeah.

Well, it's not summer here or in the northern hemisphere. It's the end of or close to the end of summer. It is the end of summer. It's like, what is it? Autumn. Yeah, autumn. So in the US. So yeah, apparently it was the novel of summer.

And for us in Australia, we're just heading into summer. Now this next recommendation, I'll keep it short, but this has the highest praise of any adaptation of a video game movie because that's the highest critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes. No, I actually don't mind that new Tomb Raider. But I'm talking about Angry Birds. It's not a Zelda. No, no.

You've confused things. I did love Zelda. Angry, we all know. Angry Birds. The book, but also I meant Lucy Lawless's character, Zelda. Her name's Xena. Oh, yeah, Xena. I didn't love her as much as I thought.

I did love her, though. I know. Everyone loves Xena. Yeah, she's great. Freaking hot. Anyway, Angry Birds 2. I went and saw it. It's a direct sequel to Angry Birds 1.

Squawk, squawk. Yeah, pretty much. It picks up after the events of Angry Birds 1 probably. I haven't seen that movie, but I took my son to see Angry Birds earlier this week. And it's just about a ragtag group of birds have to stop a bunch of eagles from throwing ice balls at their island. It's like slapstick and there's some pretty good jokes for adults as well. It's pretty like, yeah, this is alright. And the reason I'm kind of, I, I, well, he, first of all, he loved it. He came out afterwards.

I'm like, what'd you think? And he goes, that was so cool. Which is so cute. Cause he's only like three and a half. Yeah. He bloody loved it. But, uh, yeah, I don't know. I've been, how much am I going to talk about Angry Birds too?

But I think if, you know, you've got kids and you're looking for something to take them to that's not, that won't make you want to shoot yourself. This is, this might be one of them. Because just quickly, I watched some trailers beforehand for some other kids' movies, and just there's some atrocious stuff that I'm just not even aware of. There's one called Arctic Dogs, which is about a fox who wants to pull a sled. And I'm like, this looks like the most generic movie I've ever seen. And I couldn't recognize the voice of the lead Arctic dog.

And then they're like starring Jeremy Renner. And I'm like, yeah, that sounds about right. I like Jeremy Renner, but he is the most bog-standard human being of all time. I'm too harsh on Jeremy Renner, but I like it. Does Jeremy Renner have like a voice where you go, oh my God, that's Jeremy Renner. I had no idea. I could have watched that trailer a thousand times. Yeah, it's no Eddie Murphy in Donkey and Shrek, is it really?

No, even like Jason Sudeikis does the voice of Red in the Angry Birds movie and he's like a comedic actor and he's quite good. And there's a lot of like talented comedians in that. But God, Arctic Dogs, no good. Anyway, I'm done with the Angry Birds. All right. Cool. Yeah, go see it, I guess.

Excellent. Well, we're nearly out of time, so I've got a very short recommendation. This was a friend of ours, Jane, who is another friend of ours, Adrian. Her brother gave her this recipe for the most delicious Tim Tam balls. Oh, yeah, they were delicious. Oh, my God, that was so good. They came over for a barbecue at our place for the AFL Grand Final Australian Football League. The Tam balls. Oh, yeah, they were delicious. Oh, my God, that was so good. They came over for a barbecue at our place for the AFL Grand Final, Australian Football League.

The granny made. The AFL. They are. Correct. For anyone not in Australia and don't know, Tim Tams are one of those iconic things other than Vegemite, which is apparently a national food. Basically, it's a chocolate biscuit with, like,

a chocolate cream in the centre. Tim Tams are incredible. A lot of people actually do know about them. They are so good. Okay, cool. Because you can do the thing called the Tim Tam Slam where you bite each end and then you slurp like a hot drink through it. Yeah, don't do that.

It's no good. Well, James doesn't like soggy things. No. But I think it was delicious. Anyway, these Tim Tam balls, I will put the recipe up online on our Instagram at suggestiblepod and Colleen's will link it below. So there are two different types. The white chocolate balls.

Who doesn't love some white chocolate salty balls? Gross. They're not salty. What do you even do? You put in, I don't know, two packets of white Tim Tams, coconut, which is like just half a cup of like the shredded coconut, half a tin of condensed milk, which is such a great ingredient. And then you just kind of mush them up all together and then you roll them in coconut

once they're into little balls and then you put them in the fridge. And then you throw them a passing card. And my favorite though, like the white chocolate ones are pretty good, but these were stellar. I hope if you're out there, you've also done my chocolate shell recipe from a little while ago on your ice cream. I have. That was delish. These choc mint balls are so good.

So it's one packet of chocolate ripple biscuits, which are like a dry chocolate biscuit. One packet of mint Tim Tams. Right, right. One packet of mint slice biscuits, which are like chocolate coated. One packet of mint flavoured toothpaste. Mint in the centre. One tin of condensed milk. One packet of mint's meat.oured toothpaste. Mint in the centre. One tin of condensed milk. One packet of mint's meat.

And you mush that all together so you really have to, like, you know, get it all so it's like fine crumb. Then you roll them into balls. Then you roll them in coconut, put them in the fridge, take them to your next barbecue and whoop-de-loo. Throw them in the car. You will be so popular. Gotta be popular.

That's from the musical The Wizard of Oz. What's that? No. What's it called? Gravity. Wizard of Oz. What's that? No. What's it called? Gravity. She sings Gravity. Les Mis. No.

What's it? Oz the Great and Powerful. No. Jesus Christ. What's that musical? Phantom of the Opera. Okay, you know it because we saw it twice. Did we?

Yes. Wicked. Hamilton. Wicked. The musical. I did know what it was. You're the worst. I know you did.

Yeah. Listen, if you like things that are popular. With you and I. So good. I'll stop it. If you like things that are popular, we'd love this podcast to be more popular. One of those ways you can do that is by giving us a bloody five-star review. Write an app.

You can do it if you've got to buy the iTunes app or a different app or whatever. Don't take an app. No. Review us in the app. Not until we do this. This is from Zed I. Is it? Zed I Dobrin. It says in the app. Not until we do this. This is from Zed I, is it Zed I Dobrin? It says, absolutely lovely.

I've never written a review for a podcast before, and I listen to a lot of pods, but this lovely couple influences my decisions on a weekly basis. I've been listening to Lizzo for weeks since Claire, brackets Greg, suggested it. So good. And on my day off, I chose to watch yesterday after James, Mr. Sunday's, suggestion.

The wonderful wholesomeness and occasional deep life-meaning conversations between life partners fuels my weekly drive to strive to be a better human being while consuming recommendations that might attribute to my own identity. So yeah, that's a very nice review and thank you very much. Oh, who was that, mate? That's from Zed I. Dobrin. Oh, thanks, mate. Really appreciate it.

Yes. So you can also send us recommendations at SuggestiblePod on Twitter and on Facebook and on Instagram. We would love to hear them. This one, and I feel like I've already done this, Maisie X, but anyway, I'll just recommend it again just in case. It's Frank Turner's album No Man's Land. Every song is about an historical female figure that has been

somewhat overlooked and each song is very different in style and genre. So hopefully'll like at least one of them great thank you Maisie I much appreciate and I hope I haven't done that one before I don't think I have I don't know no um and the second one this is from Gerst Face um hey Mr and Mrs Sunday Movies what up dogs you guys are doing a great job on the podcast I have a suggestion, which is Scott Pilgrim. The book's not the movie. Oh, yeah. Or maybe the movie if you feel like it, but rather the book. It is good, yeah.

It's probably something James is more interested in, but you never know, Ghostface. I've never read it and I've been meaning to read it for years, but it's an excellent graphic novel series. All right, cool. Awesome. All right, I really need to give some graphic novels a go. Some people on this show have recommended them to me,

including you over there, Sonny Jim, and I really need to do it. Okay, that's it. Thanks as always to Rock Hollings who edits this episode. How does he do it? Who knows? Stick around for the bloody Gary Gullman clip at the end, I guess. It's either that or we'll put in a clip of the new Angry Birds movie. Or me singing Popular again.

Oh, no. I'm sorry. No, that's fine. You're an excellent singer, Claire. All right, goodbye, everybody's fine. You're an excellent singer, Claire. All right, goodbye, everybody. Bye. I grew up in the 70s and 80s as a sensitive boy. Not a very accommodating time for sensitive boys.

I really admire and envy millennials. They're so much nicer to each other than we were. Bullies were rampant when I was growing up. And millennials, your stance on bullying is to be commended. I have a theory on why millennials are so much nicer to each other than we were, and it's that millennials grew up much better hydrated than we did. Water just was not a consideration when I was growing up.

And I'm not one of these middle-aged men who will come up here and say, we didn't even need water. We needed it desperately. We walked around the decade dizzy and listless. Claire, stop that. Claire, stop singing again. again I'm not that's you This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network

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