Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 110. Paul Sinha - S8 Ep.2

Episode Date: December 22, 2022

On this week's podcast Ed is joined by comedian, star of The Chase and Series 8 contestant, Paul Sinha! Paul talks about the challenges of Taskmaster and what it was like watching himself back. They discuss team tasks, pairs of things and what constitutes a constant noise (not beat boxing Mr Stirling!). Watch all of Taskmaster on All 4www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmasterVisit the Taskmaster Store for all your TM goodies!taskmasterstore.com Visit the Taskmaster YouTube Channelyoutube.com/taskmaster Get in touch with Ed and future guests:[e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to the Taskmaster podcast, it's me, Ed Gamble. Today we're going to be talking about Series 8, Episode 2, another great episode. There's a task in this one that i'd completely forgotten about it's an absolute classic um i'll probably bring it up during the record uh well i have to bring up the task but i mean the fact i love it um we're going to be talking today to paul sinner paul sinner of course is from series eight of taskmaster he's never been on the taskmaster podcast before really looking forward to chatting to him finding out about his experience uh i'm sure as you'll hear it was a sort of it was a mixed experience for him time wise the time that it came along there was a lot of stuff going on uh and i'm sure paul will be very uh very happy

to talk about that sort of stuff uh but you know more excitingly it's just good to get his angle on the tasks he didn't he didn't flourish points wise in the series but by chance we have picked on an episode where he is absolutely brilliant and does very well so looking forward to talking to Paul Sinner keep coming back and listening to these we're here every week catching up with a new episode but for now this is series eight of Taskmaster, Episode 2, as discussed by Paul Sinha. Welcome, Paul, to the Taskmaster podcast. Hello, Ed. How are you? Very well, thank you.

What a pleasure it is to have you on the Taskmaster podcast to chat about your series a little bit and this specific episode. Is this something that excites you as an idea, watching yourself back on Taskmaster and then chatting about it? No, but it's Christmas time and i need the money you're a very honest man paul and we we appreciate that um it's been it's been a while since your series has been on it was broadcast in 2019 uh do you have do you have lasting memories or fond memories or indeed not fond memories well i don't want to be bleak but i was going through an incredibly stressful time in my life and it was all i mean i did my penultimate

edinburgh show about mostly about the events of 2019 in which i managed to get engaged married win the british quiz championships and get diagnosed with parkinson's disease all in the same 12-month period. And in and amongst all this was my sort of physical and mental breakdown on one of television's most beloved comedy shows. But although I must stress that even when recording in the studio, I had no idea I had Parkinson's disease at the time. I just knew that something was up and I didn't really know what it was. In the studio, I was thinking quite slowly and not really getting involved as much as I usually do in these sort of scenarios. But also, it's also confused with the fact that I've never been good at tasks that require any kind of skilled or lateral thinking. So you don't necessarily

think that your poor performance and tasks is something suspicious of course however um i'm now i'm reliably informed the videos my tasks on uh taskmaster are being used in new zealand medical schools to illustrate the early symptoms of parkinson's so i've managed to help medical science indirectly but i must stress that having watched the video back, I'm not actually any clearer in thinking what would I have done differently had I had my time again. Lateral thinking has never been my forte.

And it was spectacularly displayed for 10 episodes. But I very kindly asked my mum and dad, can you please not watch it under any circumstances and did that work did they stay away from it they they stayed away from it yeah um it's always uh it's always a joy on taskmaster as well i think um when uh they sign up people like yourself or like david baddiel clearly uh very intelligent people who are academic and literate uh and yourself of course you're huge you're huge quizzing success and then make them make them do things that aren't within their

wheelhouse so well of course that's all in the brains of you that's all very much all in the brains of the audience because i know my weaknesses i've been aware of them all my life so i don't come into this going well i'm an intelligent man look how well i'm gonna do i come into it genuinely terrified going everyone's now gonna know my secret shame that I'm not clever at all. And so it proved. But you do have strengths within the series. They're not all disasters, Paul. I mean, you win two tasks in this episode alone, you know?

Yes, indeed. And I can't quite believe you managed to find an episode where I've won two tasks. But yes, it happened. But overall, my feeling was genuinely overwhelming. It all happened so quickly. And as you know yourself, the order in which the tasks come out on the show bear very little relation to the order in which you did the tasks. the order in which you did the tasks and i just remember being incredibly intense two months because i was recording a typical week for me was going gig chase chase gig taskmaster chase wow like that where i was working on on totally you know a comedy stand-up gig a chase and a day of doing weird uh lateral thinking tasks of the freezing cold and it was freezing freezing cold for all the outdoor tasks that i did it was a weird combination of things and my brain i don't feel ever got going do you think it being freezing cold was perhaps exacerbated by the outfit that you chose yep um when the people

say how would you have done things differently i must admit i'd have just taken the easy option out and worn a tracky and tracky and top and trackie bottoms because yeah as one of the tasks as one of the tasks that we're about to discuss it's very much reveals pragmatism should take priority over what you think you might be saying as a statement which was simply I'm a bit like that guy from hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy that was all I was going for with that. And it proved to be an absolute downfall. On last week's podcast, we had Margaret Caborn-Smith on

to discuss the first episode of this series. And she suggested that maybe because you were wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown, that might have put you in the mindset of being ready for bed. So everything was approached with a little bit more like you were ready for a nap at that might have put you in the mindset of being ready for bed perhaps this so everything was approached with a little bit more like you were ready for a nap at that point i think i was ready for a nap through most of the recordings to be honest with you but it wasn't what i was wearing i was just tired yeah and it's incredibly incredibly intense but um because it's it's only

done over about five days filming, isn't it? Yeah. And all these, five or six days filming, all these tasks. But I must be honest and go, I was relatively late booking, and I don't really know why that was. But it just meant that I didn't have that much time to prepare. Sure. And when people say, how had you done things beforehand,

I'd watched about four episodes, and i should have watched about 20 yeah and then i'd have been then i'd have been far more adequately prepared for the little the little uh quirks of the show that lou and ian in particular seem to be onto all right from the beginning yes and if you were tired already i think being on a team with those two would have only made things worse i've got nothing but good things to say about them. Of course. I think Ian in particular was unfairly treated in the edit. The prize task this week was

Best Pair of Things. It's a good category. It feels like sometimes they didn't people didn't really stick to it they were quite broad with their approach to the best pairs of things um let's talk about the thing you brought in first of all paul because i think it's absolutely outstanding uh the housewarming uh gift from your parents um the picture from china of two pandas who are clearly having sex but your parents didn't have any idea about that

yep and let's start with some fighting talk this should have been five points for me this was this was this was a an adoption of the task that was clearly better than uh pop socks that turned out to have nothing to do with shirley bassey whatsoever uh and credit where credit's due i don't think it helps my cause when if i'm going deliberately given nought nought or one points for the task that I flunk that I'm not being given five points for the task that I succeeded very well in and I feel this should have been

I've never had any argument that any of the zero or one points given out at all but this I feel should have been five because not everybody has got a gift of two pandas having sex that they cannot use under any other circumstances other than as a novelty on a gift of two pandas having sex that they cannot use under any other circumstances yeah other than as a novelty on a round of a tv show i can't take it around to my friends i can't

even show it when people come around here uh and i can't embarrass my parents by giving it back to them it actually still sits in my it actually just sits approximately 15 yards from where I'm standing at the moment, although it's quite a big picture, so I'm not going to take it down. And I think it was a very good task. I slaved for hours over most of the tasks. And I will say that I think that I put more commitment into it than some when it came to the tasks. Yeah, the prize tasks, certainly. I think yours are very strong throughout the series from memory.

And this one in particular is so funny. And it has exactly what you need from a prize task. It has that immediate impact. It got a really good reaction in the studio. Greg loved it. And, I mean, look, if we're putting it up against Shirley Bassey's Pop Sox, when they've done the research for Sian's prize task and emailed Shirley Bassey's assistant,

and she said they're probably not hers, we wouldn't have pop socks in the dressing room. And we can all bring a pair of socks that don't belong to Shirley Bassey. I mean, that's not difficult. I've got loads of them. Yes, so have I, funnily enough. So when I was watching that, I didn't realise I didn't pick up the five. I was a bit surprised to find out that that wasn't five points.

It's definitely between you and Ian, yeah. I will own up when I'm rubbish, but I will fight for the five points if I think they were mine. And I feel that was one of the... In ten weeks, I think there were two tasks that I felt that I deserved five and I didn't get the five points I think they were mine and I feel that was one of the top and in ten weeks I think there were two tasks I felt that I deserved five and I didn't get the five and that was one of them and the other one was my sand painting of Romesh Ranganathan. Do you see these as your highlights across the whole of Taskmaster? Do you have any particular tasks that you did not

necessarily from this episode that you're like yes I was so proud of that one I put hours and hours into the beach ball one there was a team of us going around the cut there was a team of us going around the country yeah but but genuinely if I want to bring with a pathos into it I think it was either the second last episode or the anti-penultimate episode. There was one where I was balancing plates on the final task at the end. Balancing plates on your head.

Given that I had Parkinson's to come second best in that task is the one that fills me with more pride than any of the other tasks. It's coming second in the one where you had to put the plates on your head and balance them that was the one that gives me the most pride watching watching this series back and knowing knowing that you had undiagnosed parkinson's at the time it is quite surprising i think this this series has probably some of the most physical tasks

ever in a series of taskmaster not least the one where we all had to be one person in the garden and eventually we had to try and put a banana in a bin. I mean, that could be charged under the Geneva Convention for what it was doing to a body that had recently come out of genuine surgery on my right shoulder. Yeah. And I feel I don't have enough credit for stoically going through that episode because there were no other filming dates

where they could have had all three of us in on the same day. Yeah. And so I said, oh, in for a penny. Why not? We'll go for it. And as you alluded to, to then be surrounded by two of the most competitive human beings that the show has ever seen,

I was like, what is... I mean, I was high on painkillers as much as anything else. And I was just wondering what on earth was going on. It's when they were arguing as well. But it was really good fun to watch back. Yeah. And the one on the hammock, I just didn't make myself clear

that all that mattered was what was on the hammock in the last 15 seconds of the task. Yeah. I'd actually worked that out, and the rest of it was irrelevant. You just had to have something on the hammock for the last 15 seconds of the task. But I didn't make myself clear

because I was exhausted by this stage. But you come out of that so well because that's when Ian and Lou have their sort of bickering session, and you're just in the background standing next to a barrel uh and i believe greg refers to you as the barrel dad and you just look you're not angry with them you're not annoyed you're just sort of just you we are watching them thinking let's just let this

play out and then we can get on with the task well exactly and i think i think that ian in particular has been harshly treated by the public in their assessment of those tasks. Ian and Lou were both unstoppable forces and I was whatever the opposite of an unstoppable force was. But I just think they were doing what they could to compensate for the fact that I wasn't particularly engaged with the task. Also, they're friends. You speak to your friends differently, especially in high-pressure situations like that. the fact that I wasn't particularly engaged with the task. Also, they're friends, you know.

Yeah, exactly. You speak to your friends differently, especially in sort of high-pressure situations like that. You know it doesn't mean anything. Yeah, exactly. Talking of Ian, he brought in, he specially commissioned a song from beloved double Dick and Dom. Yes. Now, I like the idea, and you can see,

Ian wears everything on his face, doesn't he? He's so eager. There's so much effort just oozing from him in every frame. But I think the fact that Dick and Dom decided to record it at London Bridge Tube Station let it down a bit. Also, there was a hint of overambition about the whole thing that Greg just didn't seem to take to at all. When Greg doesn't care for your effort, it's quite brutal.

And the more you put into the effort, the more brutal it feels. And I thought that Greg was fairly brutal on that front. Yeah. But I'm kind of with Ian in that I was putting a lot of effort into the prize toss. And I'm kind of with Ian if you if you got a a trump card that you can use why not yeah yeah absolutely and I yeah I loved I loved the song I think it was great I mean it was certainly it felt like a bit more effort than

perhaps Lou put into hers but it's a very Lou prize the pair of breast shaped slippers with radios attached to them using rubber bands yes odd very funny and she couldn't even sell it because she was just laughing at how bad it was she couldn't even it's all it's such an on-brand for lou that she could always have presented that as the task for any one of the 10 uh it didn't really matter what category it was it was pretty much covered by what she'd done there. But no, I just think I did that task best. Yeah, I think you did. It wouldn't have made any difference at all to the scores, but I just feel that, as I said,

if I deserve the zeros, if I deserve the brickbats, if I deserve the one-pointers, then credit where credit's due, I deserve the fiver on that one. For sure. And it certainly wasn't Joe's day I think Joe, Greg spotted weakness

in Joe immediately so is relishing giving him the one points in prize tasks Joe brought in a pair of fake diamond earrings and tried to pass them off as real diamonds I don't know what's going on in Joe's life he might have been just as busy as I was

at the time. Maybe he'd been on a Caribbean holiday or something, just didn't have the time to put any effort in. I would say that of the other contestants, he was the one that perhaps had made the least amount of preparation for the show and what the show was going to involve. But at the same time, his brain is just so unique that it didn't really matter. He's always thinking along a slightly more offbeat line than other people.

And so it didn't really matter, whereas my brain is not as lateral. And it came across. So it was one point for Joe, three points for Lou, four points for you and Ian. And it was five points for Sian Gibson for the Pop Sox, which is outrageous, I think we can all agree. Yep. What pair of things did you bring in? A pair of diamond earrings. Here we go.

There they are. There they are. As a prize, a pair of earrings is fairly route one, but if they're sufficiently valuable... Yeah. ..then you could be looking at a pretty sweet position here I hope so because they are valuable Well, how much were they I think they were they were there

2700 okay. Well, I know for a fact that Alex knows how much they were how much were they Alex? Well, it says the description weirdly a hundred percent brand-new weirdly 100% brand new. So you know they're good. High quality alloy. £2.21. That's for the pair. Well, that's rubbish.

That's place. Task one. Put something on your face which looks like a moustache from a long distance away but when you get up close you realise it's something completely different to what you thought. You have ten minutes to plan your moustache and ten further minutes to make your moustache from a long distance away but when you get up close you realise it's something completely different to what you thought you have 10 minutes to plan your moustache and 10

further minutes to make your moustache most unexpected moustache wins your time starts now this is a great task that i had forgotten about i think this is a really really funny task just the way they've decided to shoot it the long zoom in on what the moustache is i think it i think it's absolutely fantastic now what's interesting when i watch this back is i recognize the emotions on my face in the studio yeah where the realization that i was going to be last meant that i had no idea whether i was going to be absolutely humiliated or whether it was going to be a triumph uh i knew that it was either one point or five points but i had actually no idea what because i don't know what it looked like.

And I know what day of the week this was. It was a Tuesday. And the reason I know it was a Tuesday is I spent the evening at a quiz match at the Quiz League of London in a pub near King's Cross, most of it on the toilet, in a deeply unpleasant experience.

The reason was I kept imbibing glue um the the caviar kept falling into my mouth and when the caviar was falling into my mouth it was covered in glue and so i got an acute incident from from this but i had no idea whether i'd done it well it was all i could think of that was genuinely tiny yeah is uh and i knew that no one else would think of that as an idea but it was it was brilliant it was so good and you can you can tell surely you must have been able to tell when you saw everyone else's that you're yes there was a realization as i was watching everyone else i thought oh my god mine's the best yeah this was not this was this was most this was most unexpected not how

seeing but seeing the whole thing and so yeah you can see me visibly relax in the studio because i realized this is not going to be one of those disasters because the others really lose may lose is pretty good but the others don't really look like mustaches from a distance at all which is the first key part of the task you have to think that might be i don't really look like moustaches from a distance at all, which is the first key part of the task. You have to think that might be a moustache. I don't know what stage people did this task, but I think this might have been my first day. It might have been either my first day's recording or the second day's recording.

And it may be that other people were further down the line and just a bit more tired, but at least two of the efforts seemed a bit half half-hearted um and was i really like the spider one was that loo yeah loo did the fake flies and real meal worms um again a very loo a very loo reaction to the task it's sort of gross but very funny and yeah i loved that it was the only one that came close to yours i think because it's sort of i could have done that if i could tolerate the idea of actual even fake insects let alone real insects on my upper lip it had crossed my mind and maggots had crossed my mind oh no there's no way there's no

way i'm going to do that i feel like the diarrhea might have been even worse it would be maggots and yes yeah so this this i mean i honestly apart from the tasks that go horrifically wrong, of which there were many, you don't really know how you've done. Yeah. I mean, the one where I was blindfolded in the mobility scooter, mobility bike, I didn't come last. No. Everyone remembers that I crashed into a tree or whatever it was, but I didn't actually come last to the task. And that was really my main ambition through most of them. There were some tasks where I thought you have to win,

like memorising the playing cards. It's like, this is what you've, you know, you are the king of mnemonics. You have to work out a way to win. If you don't win this, this is horrific. And the one that hurt the most that I didn't win was the one where Alex Horne was dressed as a, hurt the most that I didn't win was the one where Alex Horne was dressed

as a, was it an emu or an ostrich in a train carriage? Yes. And you had to play yes or no questions to guess what he was dressed as. I got beaten by that and that should be

the sort of thing that I don't lose. Sure, sure. So, but for most of the tasks that didn't involve pure brain work, I just didn't want to come last. That was my main ambition. And so realising fairly early on in this moustache task

that I wasn't going to come anywhere near last was just a massive sense of relief. Also, four points in the first round, five points in the second round, you start to dream. Yeah. You second round. You start to dream. Yeah. You know you'd be stupid to dream, but you do start to dream.

Certainly, the other moustaches, I mean, Sian actually used fake hair from a Barbie doll. Somehow got hair for her moustache and made it look less like a moustache than everyone else's. Well, I'm not here to have a go at the others, but mine was the best. Yes, I completely agree. That's not here to have a go at the others but mine was the best yes oh i completely agree that's my job to have a go at the others paul don't you worry um i think ian was i think ian was badly treated by greg again here um because

i quite liked his little his joke of having lip hook uh in hampshire on on the moustache and using the map i thought it was nice all that effort and all that imagination just for one second grunting yeah he looks so upset as well oh bless him um and joe's picture pictures and moustaches was great but obviously his reaction to everything as soon as he's done it is i've done so terribly this is the worst day of my life and he just collapses in on himself a little bit at one level i did kind of want to see what i was doing to the show's budget but we're asking for caviar but they didn't blink they they didn't flinch in any way when i asked for caviar well that's nice that's nice they didn't have any in then they had to pop out no no alex's personal supplier had run out the previous day

i suppose they're in chiswick aren't they So it's probably quite easy to lay your hands on some caviar within 10 minutes. Shh, no one's meant to know. It's on Google Maps. So it was one point for Sian, two points for Ian, three points for Joe, four points for Lou, and a very well-deserved five for you, Paul. At which point I'm starting to dream. Here we go, The dreams are happening.

And then we have Ian's. Yep. So it's a map of a large village in Hampshire called Liphook. Liphook, cos it's on his lip. Yep, and a little picture of Ian as well. That's me on the map. Yeah, go on, who's next? Oh, you could have discussed it i bet it's the lip hook things annoyed me read something online that really hits a nerve it could be disinformation

specifically targeted for that exact reason. Stop and question the source before you share. Learn more at Canada.ca slash disinformation. A message from the Government of Canada. We can wait for clean water solutions. Or we can engineer access to clean water. We can acknowledge Indigenous cultures. Or we can learn from Indigenous voices. We can demand more from the earth. Or we can demand more from ourselves. At York University, we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future. Task two, get this rice into the bottle in the living room.

You may only use the shopping basket and its contents to transport and deliver the rice you may not touch the rice with anything other than the shopping basket and its contents you may not take the bottle out of the living room most grains in the bottle wins you have 10 minutes your time starts now well what could i say because i don't remember i don't remember obviously i don't remember reading out the words you may not take the bottle in the living room i do remember that very very late on that i decided that this was the magic trick of the whole task that i was going to be the only one that worked out that the the all you had to do was take the bottle out of the living room easy i remember floundering for quite a while.

But what I also remember is this was either my first task or my second task of the lot. Wow. And so I just hadn't adjusted. And the other one that was either the first or the second was the baby monitor. Yeah. And I can't remember whether this task came first and then the baby monitor or the baby monitor task came first and then this task. whether this task came first and then the baby monitor or the baby monitor task came first and then this task but it's fair to say that i um i was adjusting to the mental tempo of the game by having two such big failures in the first two tasks yeah that's that's a big that's a big first

day for you baby baby monitor and this i just hadn't adjusted and looking back it just seemed so easy that to take the marmalade or whatever it was out of the jar empty the jar and that's all you had to do yeah to save to save any kind of faith as you can see i hadn't taken in any details of the instructions at all by the time i realised that all I had to do was take the bottles from the living room and take it to the lab, I'd broken pretty much every single rule that was laid out on there.

And I don't know why. Other than it was early on and I just wasn't paying enough attention. Yeah, you've got to pay attention with these things. I hadn't adjusted to what was required on the show. Because that loophole of getting the it was not a loophole because it's in the rules, but getting

the bottle out of the living room An alleged loophole. Yeah, an alleged loophole. That's the sort of thing you might in Taskmaster Series 1 or 2 that might have been the sort of thing that you could do or people would do. But then they started getting wise to it and started adding more caveats to the rules. Because then everyone's looking for that loophole.

So they just don't want five people going and getting the bottle. I think the genius of this task as well, however, is how many red herrings they placed in front of you. Because you're actually thinking in your head, right, there's got to be a reason that all of these are here. And then when you watch the task again, you go, they only needed about two of them.

You empty the jar and use the sticks to get the rice into the jar and you're done. You don't need a mango, which is absolutely delicious, it has to be said. You do not need a mango. You do not need a mango. You do not need that balloon. I decided somehow that if I'd inflated the balloon,

then I'd be able to get the rice into an inflated balloon. I love that bit. Just the calm way that you looked down at the balloon and it blew rice back into your face was absolutely fantastic. Yeah, that's definitely one of the disasters I quite enjoy watching for its sheer madness. Yeah. For sure.

And me and Oliver, my husband, we watched it last night and we did laugh quite a lot. Yeah. At just how it's hard to fail a task on every single level. And some people... I've read some discussion about whether I wasn't taking it seriously

or whether I was trying to subvert the show. This was the best I could come up with. It genuinely was. And this is a type of task where I don't use Parkinson's as an excuse. Yeah. Parkinson's is not an excuse for how much i i um you know it can be used for some of the outdoor tasks as an excuse but it cannot be used as an excuse for the fact that i couldn't think of any lateral way that i could get that rice from that room my brain sees things and sees them as they are not as they might be yes um and looking back on

it i just go i could have done that task a hundred times yeah and i wouldn't have seen what lou saw when she saw that task yeah which is if she just emptied the jar then washed it out washed it out then that's the task done yeah brilliant she did very very well um it's just the way i mean it's the cruel edit really sometimes in taskmaster where they cut back to you reading the rules of the task out loud and then later on later on saying fantastic it certainly doesn't say anything about not taking the bottle out of the living room the way the way they weigh the way that wouldn't be a task would it'd just be putting some rice in a bottle. Who do we have next?

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Oh, very, very good. And of course, I didn't know until then how much I'd failed the task by. That's the other thing to say. When I'm sat in the studio and I hear the words, you can't take the bottle out of the room, I'm sat there going, oh. you can't take the bottle out of the room I was sat there going oh and I'm having to hide I'm having to hide my emotions from everyone else yeah I

realized that I'm gonna be the guy at the end who's failed the task at every level it's a horrible horrible feeling and to keep it in as well yeah I can't remember I can't remember whether I kept it in or whether I let it out and they just edited it out. But that was when I... It was early on when they were describing the task that I realised what I'd done. Because as you well know, being a former contestant, Alex plays the most incredible poker face in the world of entertainment.

He really does. He will not laugh if you say something ridiculously stupid and he will not let on if you've done something ridiculously stupid. He's got the most incredible poker face you can imagine. And he'll always come back to the dressing room after a task's finished and stick his head around the door and go, that was good, thank you, no matter how well you've done. Yeah.

Sian, I think, has as disastrous a time with the rice as you do she just doesn't she just doesn't take the bottle out of the uh out of the living room the straw choosing to use the straw to try and suck the rice up and then it immediately goes down the back of her throat is absolutely hilarious well it occurred to me and you don't know until you try whether something's genuinely possible or not i think that's the thing you had to it occurred to me as well you have to give it a go. Rather like the balloon thing. You don't know whether the balloon is the key to the task

or not until you try and you realise it's not. But you must know that you can't siphon rice, right? You're not going to try. Yeah, whatever. It's not an ancient Bengali proverb. I know a lot about US state capitals and prime ministers and presidents and less so about the inability or ability of a human being to siphon rice.

Come on, I would know about the water. It makes sense, it's a liquid, right? But rice isn't going to suddenly start dancing down a tube. make a good point solid liquid yeah yeah um this is this is the one this is one of the tasks that causes me no pain at all i look at it and i go that was fun to watch number one but number two i i with hand on heart you could have put me in that situation a hundred times in a row and I'd still have failed the task. At least that time I had the good thinking to think of something that turned out to be illegal, but at least was a solution of sorts, just not one that was in the rules. But I have no sadness looking at that task, it's just me. Couldn't think that should. The others others tried tried their best

uh ian poured the honey all over the floor because he's a big a big child it's exactly what i would have done um whereas lou goes and washes it out uh in the sink which is the smarter thing to do and the tidier thing to do um and get 79 of the rice in and ian gets 74 very good uses the sticks messes around a bit, it looks like a disaster afterwards but he does pretty well Joe decides to make a mango skin bowl which feels like quite a roundabout way

of doing things Yeah and what I would have done if I hadn't got hungry and eaten most of the mango I think in my head a mango skin bowl is the answer I was most likely to get to. Yes. But at this stage my brain is misfiring really, really badly.

I don't think it's a bad idea. And he did get a fair amount in, didn't he? He did. He got 85%. Here's my question, Paul. I'm probably wrong on this. But it says you may only use the shopping basket and its contents to transport and deliver the rice. Joe goes to get a knife is that not him using something else to help with the transport and

delivery of the rice yes i think it might be but it's three years on now and i'm not going to be bitter i mean perhaps he should have joined me at the bottom of the table and perhaps i should have got two points rather than one. Although I was very generously given one, but I'd broken the rules, so fair enough. Do you feel like that makes up for the prize task? I suppose it does, really. Yeah. I also

by this stage, this is episode two, isn't it? Yeah. By this stage, I've started to realise that Ian and Lou are operating on a far higher level than I am, and I'm started to realise that Ian and Lou are operating on a far higher level than I am and I'm starting to get quite morose about the fact that they seem to have really, really

really nailed so many of the tasks that I've been left absolutely floundering at. By about episode 3, Lou appeared to be some sort of magic wizardess. Yeah, she does streak ahead.

She was just doing so well at everything. And, you know, there were one or two tasks later on where I managed to beat her, but she was just incredible. Yeah, yeah, she really attacked her. Again and again and again. So it was one point for you, Paul. You managed to claw that point back. A very generous one point.

Very generous one point. I thank Greg for his largesse. Two points for Sian, three points for Ian, four points for Lou and five points for Joe. Well, there's certainly some bad news for the residents of the Orkney Isles, isn't there? I mean, Sian, we all know if you suck water through a hose, I don't know what the scientific reason for the water will keep flowing on its own. I think it's just lucky. I mean, Sean, we all know that if you suck water through a hose,

I don't know what the scientific reason for the water will keep flowing on its own. I think it's just lucky. It's just lucky, yeah. Yeah. I mean, did you really think you could get the same effect with rice? Yes. You suck a bit of rice, the rest will follow. It's madness.

I think we can safely say I failed that, didn't we? Oh, God, yeah. Task three, it's our first team task. Tell your teammates what is in the chest. Your teammates must not see what is in the chest. After reading the task out, you may not speak again until the task is over. In the first minute, you may only use facial expressions. In the second minute, you may only make noises.

In the third minute, you may only shout adjectives. From then on, you may only make noises in the third minute you may only shout adjectives from then on you may only whisper verbs fastest correct communication wins your time starts now this is tricky when you've just you've just got together as a team i think it is tricky but what i was unaware of at the time is how much more intelligent uh joe was than lou and ian when it came to this sort of task. Because I didn't realise at the time that I wasn't actually any worse than Sian. It's just that Joe understood what Sian was doing and they didn't understand what I was doing.

I was pointing at a barometer because it's an instrument. So I was basically able to say it's something like that. It's... And then we both did a north north yeah and we both made no difference in expressions whatsoever i'm not entirely sure what what expressions would have given a clue to accomplish that yeah that is tricky because

yeah because you were both made fun of for not changing your facial expressions and i do i do think that the only thing to do really is to do the north, south, east, west thing unless you sort of mind being lost maybe and then seeing what direction you need to go in I've just done this yeah, that might have worked

sorry for those of you that can't see what I'm doing I'm wandering around confused with something missing from my hand that I'm looking at this is the first time I've actually thought of something I could have done differently that's what this

podcast is all about Paul you're not going to be able to sleep now you're going to have to go back through the whole series and try and work out new techniques not knowing how they'd done, you were just kind of satisfied that they'd worked it out. Yes. Well, Lou didn't help, I don't think,

because a lot of her suggestions were not things that could go in a box. It wasn't going to go Moon Cup, was it? No, it wasn't going to be Moon Cup, and it wasn't going to be The View. I don't know. Or Hope. And Ian was... I think Ian guessed. I would give my performance of this task

two and a half, three stars adequate, but could have done better. Yeah, I've had a few of those. I think I was on the right lines. Yes. But maybe if there was just one person focusing on me, like Sian had, then it might have been better than two people getting

in each other's way i don't know yeah well i think joe is a lot more focused and quiet than ian and lou they they were throwing out a lot of guesses that they must have known weren't right just to get things out there which sometimes i think you need the the i mean the weird face and focus of joe thomas who it made some of the most bizarre facial expressions. And that wasn't part of his job. He didn't need to do that. What didn't make the cut was what I thought was an idea of using the mumbled expressions

to hum the tune of A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Yeah. Stop at the right letter. So I went, da, da, da. Oh, that's good I don't know how it ended up disappearing maybe it was just a complete failure I can't remember whether there was any

success in it at all that's a great idea perhaps Ian and Lou didn't count the second letter was O you've got to count do do do do it's a bit complicated but I can't remember how they actually ended up with the answer but uh as i said i had no idea how i'd done yeah i think

yeah i think you just managed to do it with with the one word i think you said directional oh that's right yeah they immediately got it based on that, which is great. My knowledge of the definition and adjective is pretty sound. Yeah, solid. That's solid stuff. We should quickly mention the... Well, I think it goes down in history as the most awkward meeting of a team ever between Joe and Sean. When no-one knows what to say or do, he's baffled. He thinks he's interrupted someone else,

and she physically moves backwards away from him when he walks into the room. And you'd think both being actors, they knew each other or they would have crossed paths. It was, but that is very much Joe, isn't it? Yes. He's shuffly and he's awkward and he's even more lovable for it, in my opinion.

He is what i call an isolate somebody who seems to have no real firm connection with anyone else you know or living in his own little world uh and i find him absolutely adorable just for that that you know i've never met anyone quite like joe yeah uh and i think that that that awkwardness is not put on yeah no it's not at all it's just oh here's a person I've never met before in my life I might be on telly but I'm just going to be just as awkward as I was

if I wasn't on telly it was incredibly awkward yeah but then to smash their ass like that was great the fact that it was so I'm not sure they're going to get on or it's going to take them a while to warm up and then they just something just seemed to click. Sian gave a lot of very very good and sensible

clues. Yeah. The same ones that I did. Yeah. See really if it's based on your clues and your performance are you saying this should be another one that you should have you know No I'm not arguing with the scores they were quicker they won

one more point less I'm not about to argue the. They were quicker. They won one more point than us. I'm not about to argue the toss over that. It's a team game. Team game. It was three points for Joe and Sian and two points for you, Lou and Ian. Superman. The sun. It's like the sun.

A torch. Your faces seem very the same. Oh, morning. Morning. Stare out. Focus. Glasses. It's something to do with... Oh, the view, the view. A picture of the view. Ho! Just noises now, please. Poor noises.

Mm. Mm, mm, mm. A gag. A ball gag. Pill. Yes. Mm. Mm. Sunrise, sunset. Sunrise, sunset. Mm. Mm. Sunrise, sunset. Mm. Sunrise, sunset. It's a bit like sunrise, sunset. Just noises, please. The moon cup. No more guesses. Any other noises apart from...

Mm? Daybreak. Hormones. BEEP What is it for? Mm. BEEP Please shout some adjectives. Er, directional. Compass. Yes. Well done. Stop the clock. Well done team. I was pointing at that thing on the wall, looking at that thing.

Task four. It's a four task episode. Travel the furthest distance while making a constant noise with your mouth. You must start traveling in 30 seconds from now. Furthest wins. Tricky one. I think this is a fitness test. And as somebody with low vital capacity at the age of 52, wearing the wrong gear, and fighting a mysterious shoulder illness, I don't think this task was for me.

No. I don't think there was any approach that I could have done that would have... what I did was I managed to get two points rather than one by correctly assuming that somebody would get it wrong. Yeah. That's exactly what happened. Yeah. So by just doing the task to what I felt was an adequate degree, I managed to guarantee myself two points because Ian failed on a technicality. But we were given 30 seconds. Yeah. 30 seconds when you're having a climate where every task has a clue

or a trick or a little thing. Have I missed a thing? Because for me, this task is who can run the furthest and hold their breath. And there's nothing more than that. I don't think there's a trick here really um because they cover all bases they say making a constant noise with your mouth you can't sort of play anything off your phone or you know you can't i i guess yeah i guess you're not going to be able to walk it there were two tasks in the whole 10 weeks where I felt I never stood a chance because of the sheer biology of me

compared to the other four. This one and the beautiful, beautiful hiding from Alex in the train station. I felt that I had no chance because I'm not fit and I'm not fit and I was even less fit there than I am now and I've never had good lungs and I've not been never been an athlete I've never been able to run fast

and therefore those are the two tasks I just thought I've got to do my best but I don't think my dress is going to get me anything more than one point I think there's less there's less and less of those now in most in more recent series. I think they're even better now at maybe cutting out those ones that do prioritise people who could do it easily more physically. I think now, because if there is a task that you could attack physically, I think they leave ways open to do it in a completely different way so people can think around it, but something like this,

you're right. I mean, I guess the only way to do it would be to make a very small constant noise and try and walk it and see if you can, you can get further just by pacing it a little bit. You've only got one. The only problem is you've only got one go at it. Yes.

Yeah. You only got one go and you got 30 seconds. You just don't know what's required. So I just, I never, I never got to grips with this task at all. And I've watched it back trying to think, and I've asked my husband, and we couldn't think of anything. You're the first person that's suggested a different way.

Yeah. Because as Ian proved, you don't necessarily know in 30 seconds what's the definition of a constant noise. Yeah. All you're being told is you the definition of a constant noise yeah all you're being told is you have to make a constant noise but there's no time to ask for an explanation or ask questions you just got to make a constant noise so this I did well to get two points yeah I think you did great

the odds were very much odds on and I can can't deny, I mean, I think it was the last task of the day in that park. And I was knackered. Yeah. I was knackered. And I just thought to myself, if I can be accused of not giving everything to every task, I think this is probably the one where I just thought, I'm just going to run for a bit and hold my breath

and see whether that gets me two points rather than one. I think that's fair enough. That's fair enough. You got the two points. I got the two. Thank you, Ian, and you're showboating. That was it. He was showing off with his boots and cats.

Didn't realise that it wasn't a constant noise. And this is why I love Taskmaster, that they knew that Ian was going to complain about it or Ian was going to try and say it was a constant noise so alex immediately managed to pull up the wave pattern unbelievable isn't it genuinely unbelievable and then in going oh you can no you can see it's there's noise in between and alex was like no it's just atmospheric noise and he's got all that highlighted just there's no way out but for a show whose invention never fails to dazzle i feel there wasn't a lot to this task it was just sure it was just a physical vital capacity test yeah that and the one person who took it to something else ian was punished for it

because sean i mean sean's it's just sometimes it's just all about people making silly noises right and this is what this task allows for and sean's voice in this is so high it is impossibly high i don't know how she managed to make that sound last so long but it's just a constant squeal it's very impressive very very impressive not one that i can do but no uh yeah i i don't think i don't think i'll approach the task any other way to be honest with you. Yeah. I mean, I think you're right.

I think it's just how long you can shout and run for. And it's Joe's day in the end, just like it was his day with the running towards Alex at the train station. He was incredible on that one. Yeah. I think that one and Lou Sanders destroying Alex's life I think that one and Lou Sanders destroying Alex's life by signing him up to all these things. Those are the two best executions of Tarsus, I thought.

Yes, very, very strong. But yeah, Joe runs around screaming in the way that we imagine he does in day-to-day life. Because in the first episode, he goes, ah, when he's trying to find the baby monitor. we in the first episode he makes he goes ah when he's trying to find the baby monitor and then this one he makes a very similar noise and you just imagine just panicking the whole time um it was one point for ian two points for you paul three points for sean four points for lou and five points for joe uh very poor vital capacity. Yeah. But how lovely to see one of the deleted scenes

from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Played out for eight seconds. Ian, you know, pretty funky attempt, but that was not a continuous sound. Yeah? No, it wasn't. The beat in between, the beat. Oh, the silence between those beats. There wasn't any. If it was a beat, it wasn't. The beat in between the beats. Oh, the silence

between those beats. There wasn't any. If it was a beat, it sounded to me like you were saying Butter Gather over it. I was saying Boots and Cats.

Boots and Cats. That's how you do beatboxing. Is it? Boots and Cats. Boots and Cats. Boots and Cats. Boots and Cats.

Boots and Cats. Boots and Cats. Boots and Cats. Boots and Cats. Then you've got rewind That's so good There's no gaps in it though There's definitely gaps

I've represented it as a waveform Of course you have Live task Say a species of bird, eat a grape and then shout a competitor's name within 5 seconds of hearing your own name If you fail to say a different species of bird pop a grape in your mouth or shout a competitor's name within five seconds of hearing your own name if you fail to say a different species of bird pop a grape in your mouth and or shout a competitor's name within five seconds of

hearing your own name you will be eliminated you must not say any bird which has previously been said during the task last remaining player wins now i feel like paul this is where this is where your tv quiz experience and composure really comes really comes into play I think if I played this game a hundred times against every single competitor in the history of Taskmaster I would win a hundred times

this was this was as easy as eating grapes for me because as far as this task goes all I had to do was eat the grape. I find eating grapes more difficult than naming a random bird. I could have

gone on forever. And in fact, it's pretty clear that Joe knows the names of more species of birds than any of the other three. Even he gave up relatively early. This was a you know it was a relief uh yeah how many how many of the other uh live tasks had flummoxed me

um it was a relief to find one that absolutely played into my hands and i'm very grateful for the team for that but i i could sit here and name you know know, if I sat here and named every bird I'd ever heard of, we could be here for a very long time indeed. I love that. Because a Quisit doesn't just know common birds, but knows the national bird of Guatemala is the Quetzal. There's the Bulbul and the Motmot and the Hoatzin and the Curacao. There's all sorts of birds. Yeah. And if, you know, I knew that I had gears,

I was just giving off the easy birds at first because I knew that it shouldn't be somebody... I mean, I expected them to last longer, I'll be honest with you. They came in... Nobody said flamingo, for instance, or kiwi or some relatively famous birds, condor, vulture, some relatively famous birds that never got mentioned. But I knew that I was going to win the task.

Yeah, I think it was an easy victory. You can see it on my face. You can see that I'm not stepping out of second gear, really. I'm just having a great naming a bird, having a nice time, getting some much-needed vitamin C into my diet. But also, I think it's not only that you have that extensive knowledge, having a nice time getting some much needed vitamin c into my diet but also i think i think it's not only that you have that extensive knowledge but it's the ability to deliver it under pressure because i'm sure ian knows more birds than uh the two he delivered and then panicked

and said bella flu i think yeah i it's that pressure isn't it i think the thing is this is not pressure for me yeah exactly even even the most moderately difficult tasks that involve lateral thought or physical strength are very difficult for me. Whereas one like this was not pressure. I just had to name a bird and you spent your time, while other people are thinking, you spent your time naming the bird you're going to say next and that's it. Once you've got that, the only thing you can do to not win the task is to forget to eat the grape and all the

excitement about naming a bird it was nice and it did mean that I finished very respectably for that episode you did, Ian got one point there Sian got two points, Joe got three points Lou got four points and it was an easy five for you and then you came third in this episode with 19 points,

very close to coming second. Yeah, if I'd just done slightly better on one task, I could have come second. I'm trying to think maybe if I'd just actually made an effort on the holding a voice one. You don't know how it's going to pan out. Yeah, who knows? If I'd made a bit more of an effort and what popped into third place who knows yeah it was um it was a great performance from you in this

episode i thought it was another victory for lou but like you say she's a bit of a runaway train already at this point well yes um you can't really take anything away from lou and i said by the end of episode three she was coming across something of a wizard yes and and you know my brain is very one-dimensional in in many many ways it doesn't see colors it doesn't see shapes particularly I've never been good at that that side of IQ I don't know how things necessarily fit in but somebody with my IQ should be much better at lateral thinking than I am. I'm just very bad at lateral thinking. And it's embarrassing because you know that every one of your quiz friends

is watching you going, I could have done that better than you. Because we're not all the same and a lot of us have decent lateral thinking. But if I could be a little bit controversial um the track record of posh public school educated asians is not great on the show

um and i do think i i do blame my parents for pampering me too much and not allow me to do things if they taught me to wire plugs and do physical things, the brain in traditional Asian communities, the brain is so revered that sometimes you're not allowed to, you're not encouraged to flourish in other aspects. Interesting. And I do think there is a thing where brainy people aren't encouraged to flourish in non-intellectual pursuits um and i feel that i knew i knew this was coming nothing about the show surprised me other than how other than how absolutely relentless my failure to laterally think was

one after another after another i i didn't surprise myself i know i surprised a lot i know i surprised surprised a lot of people um but i look back on it as a as a if there is a lesson to be taught is don't necessarily put anybody on a pedestal because you can do things that they can't yes and you and everybody's brilliant and stuff that other people aren't brilliant at that's a lovely that's why i't brilliant at. That's a lovely lesson. That's why I've never put myself on a pedestal. I hope that that has helped illustrate that the chasers,

when people say, oh, the chasers are geniuses, it's like, no, we're not. We're just people who've learnt a lot of facts and are able to replay that fact back to you. That is one skill, and lots of other people have loads of other skills. So none of it surprised me. I took on the show because I've always enjoyed Greg and Alex

and I've always enjoyed the show, and Alex has been very good to me in the past. I took it on not knowing really what to expect in terms of success or failure until the first afternoon was finished, and I realised this was going to be a very very very long record well we absolutely loved you on the series, Paul. Fantastic. I'm really enjoying watching this series back. Before we go, can I quickly give you the line-up

that's coming up in Series 15 and you can give me a little prediction as to who you think might win? Okay. We've got Frankie Boyle, Ivo Graham, May Martin, Jenny Eclair and Kyle Smith-Baino. Do you have any inklings as to who you think might come out on top? It's got to

be Ivo, hasn't it? He's just one of these people that just seems to effortlessly conquer little obstacles here, there and everywhere. I think Ivo would definitely be my favourite to win this. Do you not think that perhaps, like you were saying earlier,

do you think perhaps the public school education and maybe being... Might prove a hindrance. Yeah, might prove a hindrance. But Ivo's never struck me as being like that. Yeah. He's always been a bit more rounded. Well, there we go. That's the prediction from Paul Sinner.

Looking forward to Frankie Paul taking on the more slapstick physical task. Yes, absolutely. I think we all are we always ask our guests Paul to rate their experience on the Taskmaster podcast between one and five points in the style of the Taskmaster we hope you've had a nice time recording it but could you rate it in a points way please yeah five it's been a while since I've had a chance to talk about it in an honest and frank manner and you've been listening to me very very patiently so yes it's it's a good it's a strong five thank you very much Paul you've been absolutely brilliant cheers man take care mate thank you so much to Paul for coming on the Taskmaster podcast we absolutely loved talking

to him as I always love talking to Paul he's welcome back anytime. Thank you very much for listening. The Taskmaster podcast will be back on New Year's Day, straight after the New Year's Treat airs on Channel 4. That airs 9pm on Channel 4. Make sure you go and watch that. Absolutely brilliant lineup. And we will be here at 10pm straight after the episode on Channel 4. We're dropping the podcast, dropping it like it's hot, chatting about the episode and having a lovely

old new year's time i hope everyone's doing well see you next time bye