Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 49. Desiree Burch - S12 Ep.3

Episode Date: October 7, 2021

This week on the podcast Ed is joined by one of the current Taskmaster contestants – the brilliant Desiree Burch. As well as discussing the latest episode the pair touch on some of Desiree’s high points from the series so far and some fresh takes on her fellow contestants. Enjoy! Watch Taskmaster every Thursday on Channel 4 at 9pm. Download the Taskmaster App at Taskmaster.tv Watch all of the Taskmaster on All 4https://www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmaster Order Bring me the head of the Taskmaster https://taskmasterstore.com/products/bring-me-the-head-of-the-taskmaster Get in touch with Ed and future guests:[e-mail]  Visit the Taskmaster Youtube channelwww.youtube.com/taskmaster  Taskmaster the Podcast is Produced by Daisy Knight for Avalon Television.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hello and welcome to the Taskmaster podcast. It's Ed Gamble here. I'm the host of said podcast, which is why I'm introducing it. We talk about Taskmaster every week and we break down a particular episode. We go through it task by task. We chat about it, etc. You know the score by now. At the moment, we're talking about Taskmaster Series 12, which is going out on television at the moment. So hopefully you have watched Taskmaster Series 12 Episode 3 because that is the one we'll be talking about today with the wonderful guest Desiree Birch who is on the series.

She's on the episode we're talking about. It all makes so much sense. What a wonderful coincidence. But before we get stuck into that episode I'm excited to tell you about the new official Taskmaster app. I have got it. It's a good app. It's jam-packed. It's a Taskmaster extravaganza. Basically, it's like a show companion. You can watch along and, you know, score along at home. You know, we like to do that here on the Taskmaster podcast. We like to say, maybe that should have got more points. Maybe that should have got less points. Basically, challenging Greg secretly and hoping he doesn't hear because he'll be very very angry if he does and there's quizzes there's tasks for you to do yourself you can do them alone you can do them with groups and there's all the music from

the show it's a definitive taskmaster app check it out at taskmaster.tv get involved you'll also know that series 12 of taskmaster is on channel 4 every thursday at 9 p.m'll also know that Series 12 of Taskmaster is on Channel 4 every Thursday at 9pm. You should know that because, yes, you've watched this episode that we're about to talk about. If you haven't, go and find it on All 4. But make sure, tune in live. Get involved in the conversation. Thursdays at 9pm on Channel 4. Okay, here we go.

Let's talk Taskmaster Series 12, Episode 3 with the wonderful Desiree Birch. Welcome Desiree to the Taskmaster podcast. Hello thank you so much for having me. Oh well thank you for coming on it's such a joy uh you are our first series 12 competitor uh to come on the Taskmaster podcast to chat about series 12. We're very excited to have you here. Yes, yes. Good choice. I think so. I think the only choice. I think you're the only choice for first, I think.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, you mainly, I think, potentially had some of my highlights from episode one. So it felt like we should get stuck into chatting about that fairly soon. Let's do it. But there's some other questions I want to ask you about your time on Taskmaster. Yeah. A a did you enjoy your time on taskmaster i had i utterly i had the

time of my life doing that show it was such a just dream of a gig particularly coming as it did in the um dark night of the soul of the pandemic to be able to leave my house and do like at least five or six totally new things when we were shooting those VTs I had no idea just show up and be was such a gift that I feel so fortunate to have had during that time for sure and just in general yeah I think what's interesting about all of that is that a lot of people talked about during lockdown and during the pandemic that we we were all having the same time. So we were all shut up in our houses. There's nothing for us to do.

You potentially had one of the most unique pandemics in the entire world. Yes. It was same day, same day, same day. Completely bonkers day. I don't know how to understand. Car ride home, same day, same day, same day, same day. I don't know how to understand car ride home same day same day same day same day so uh yeah I just I can't express enough if you have the chance if you're in the middle of a lockdown again because who knows what the future holds definitely go on I don't know the taskmaster app use the book

just give yourself a completely utterly random day it is possible to do outside without anyone or at least staying a broom handles length apart while you yeah i think i think it comes under the uh banner of key work uh i believe yes people going out there they were there were nurses and doctors obviously uh and delivery drivers working during the pandemic and then you were also allowed to go to a deconsecrated church and copy a man yes because the people needed that at the time. We need to applaud the NHS, but then the other 23 hours of the day,

what do we do with our hands? We applaud Taskmaster because people are out there doing stupidness. Well, look, I was out there clapping for carers, but then every other Thursday, I was clapping you doing your tasks. Secretly, that's who I was doing it for. You can feel it.

That's what happens to winners they get the task signal in the sky and they're like um were you were you a fan of the show beforehand or were you were you going in blind so to speak i went in pretty blind i was aware of the show and i was i was aware of the show in terms of being a comedian here where i was aware that it was a huge flipping deal deal and that you definitely want to be on it. And it was sort of like, and they give you tasks and you're like, OK, great. I mean, on one hand, it felt very sort of familiar because it harkened back to all of my experimental theater days, you know, of just sort of like task based theater. Like you go and you show up and somebody's created a thing

and you try to do the thing. So that to me felt very close to a fun place. However, I feel like in retrospect, I would love to have like boned up a lot more on like strategy. Do you know what I mean? Because there's definitely more, like now that I understand it, I was like, oh, I'm sure that there are millions of fans who are just like oh just give me one chance to do this i know exactly how to do it whereas i was just like la la la this is a good time

and later i was like oh some people really work out how to score those points in the studio you know like the guzzes and morganas of the world are really good at being like give me some more points i think you might be right about the studio element of it but i think there is no amount of revision you can do for the tasks in the house now that that will get over the fact that as soon as you're in front of alex and the cameras are on and then the timer starts everything just goes mad yeah you will lose every thought there's a moment later on which we will talk about in this episode episode three uh where you do the maddest thing i've ever i think i've ever seen anyone do in task ever at all it's one of them it's one of them of just you completely losing your mind and doing so i mean you did it in episode one as well this is why i was so excited

to see you on the show desiree because there's there's different sorts of people who are booked for taskmaster that i'm always excited to see and uh there's someone like victoria who you think oh she's very good at one thing and i'm really looking forward to seeing this other side of her personality uh where she's put in this situation but what i really like about you and your your act on stage as well is you really put it all out there like it feels like you're just like hello i'm desiree i'm going to talk about everything that's in my mind right now which is why i was looking forward to you throw yourself into these tasks which you absolutely have done every single

episode so far thank you so much that is an honor i feel like there's a certain amount of like uh you know like the achieving the zen of taskmaster is to really fully live in that present moment and put things in your mouth when they don't belong there. Let's talk briefly about episode one, first of all, and specifically the bursting the balloon task, which, I mean, you really hit the ground running. I'm so proud of myself, I have say you should be because i failed spectacularly at that but like you know when you go you show up to a place and they've made you wait for an hour

for to do the next task and you're like this must be big and it was just coming out and being like i immediately knew what the maths were i was like, the fastest way is to take the hit right up top, the eight minutes, take those scissors, pop it because you know yourself, you've never thrown anything accurately in your life. You know, like there's so many things that can go wrong. And I knew, I just like, I was like, just use the scissors. And I was like, but they took all this time setting it up.

And then the minute I use the scissors, I'm gonna turn back around and then wait another hour for the next task to be set up so like that's not fun like it's not fun so like yeah even at that one point when I like groaned about the scissors I was like about to like give up and I was like no you use anything but those scissors till you are done you have to throw your own eye but rip your nails out of your fingers and throw them at the balloon. You do that first. So, yeah, even though it was like it got stupid and obviously what it's all edited.

Like it start. I was 30 minutes in and then it started to rain. Like it does that quite quickly on the show. But like, yeah, I know I had been stood out there for at least 20 or so minutes and then it started to rain and i was like oh of course you know like this is my shush moment it was truly incredible and that moment where you saw you saw the switch flip where you're like right well i can't do this quickly and with flair anymore which is one way to be remembered in a task so i'm going to do this absolutely terribly in the most ridiculous way possible. It was the bucket of forks was that switch flipping.

Just going, there were no more forks in the shop and you're just like, you're going to have to find me some more forks. I want a bucket of forks that cost you an hour. Yep. Best hour of my life spent trying to throw Poundland forks poorly, mostly at the ground and then throwing a bucket like at a wall and just, you know, if I can do that three days a week in a gym,

it would be so fun. Also, to my credit, had those been like proper like for like John Lewis forks or something? I don't know if we can say that, but just forks with some weight. You know how you get those Poundland forks and they're made out of like pretty much like aluminum foil. We've gotten a little bit of like, you know, welly on those forks. I think I could have done some damage. That's the problem. Alex cheaped out on the forks. That was the main issue with that, Desiree. If Alex had fought John Lewis forks, you would have won the task, wouldn't you? Yes. I mean, other forks are available, but yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's get involved.

Let's start chatting about the prize task from Series 12, Episode 3. And as we go along, Desiree, feel free to throw in some of your thoughts about your fellow contestants. That would be great. So the prize task for this week is the most old fashioned thing that you still use. How did you feel about the prize task, Desiree?

Is that something you enjoyed? That, yes. I mean, that one, yes. Because I was kind of like, oh, okay, I think I could do fairly well at this. Now, I had hoped that, basically, when I moved into my flat, I went to an antique shop and I picked up a couple of things, that Cheslong being one of them. The other one was an old school rotary phone that I wish that I could still use, but there is no modality to plug it into the walls of any modern home. Like I even looked online deep internet for a converter

from old school to anything digital. I still have not found it because that, like in my heart of hearts, I would love to have one, a landline, you know, and two with a rotary phone that like two people have the phone number two, which is kind akin to guz khan's uh you know prize yeah similar yeah which i was like actually i was like that's a pretty good contender right there because if you just have a regular old ass phone which is kind of what i wanted but like you know that a few people have a phone number two

brilliant um tip x i like let's well let's let's go let's go through them one by one let's talk Few people have a phone number two. Brilliant. Tip X, like... Well, let's go through them one by one. Let's talk about yours first of all. Okay. Let's talk about the Cheslong. The most old-fashioned thing that you still use. I think this was an excellent prize and it was five points for good reason.

Because you say you hadn't swatted up and revised how to do well in the studio to get the points. You got the five points here. And I don't know if you knew this you say you hadn't swatted up and revised how to do well in the studio to get the points yeah you got the five points here and i don't know if you knew this or whether it was just instinct the quickest way to greg's heart is any prize that involves sitting down or having a rest i didn't know that but i kind of i think when you say that something goes warm in my heart if this is true yes anything based on having a lovely rest or um or like i brought in something once where it was had it was just full

of mini eggs and he was like oh yeah brilliant i love that just any sort of snacks or sitting down he is all over that stuff um and also it's just very old-fashioned and you do use it so at no point was i suspicious that you didn't use that because it's a practical item. Yeah. You talked about guzzies. It's a good idea. It looked good.

It instilled quite a lot of sort of nostalgia from the audience and from Greg. Does he actually use it? That's definitely a lie. There is no way Guz Khan uses a 2010 Nokia. That he cares around a totally separate phone that never goes off except for like three times a year. Absolutely no way that Guz uses that.

He's very active on social media. He's a very modern man. Yes, yes. That is, he's rooted through a drawer or ordered one off eBay. There's absolutely no way he still uses that. I'm calling him on that. And he's very easy to catch out in a lie. If Greg had said to him,

do you use this? He would have smiled like a seven-year-old boy and said, no, I don't. He's very easy to catch out in a lie because he tells you. Yeah, exactly. He just tells you straight away. Either in words or just his face. Yes. So it was four points for that, amazingly. Yes, Victoria, the Tippex. What did you think of the Tippex?

Now, I mean, I... Interestingly, now that you've brought up the thing about Guz's phone, Victoria Coren Mitchell definitely uses Tippex. Yeah, 100%. So I feel like now I'm going, should she have gotten more points for that? Because the idea of Guz's phone is phenomenal, but the reality is that like he got half of the sort of,

like studio prizes out of a junk drawer in his house. And was just like, this thing is obviously the best thing for that, as you can see going on. The other half were paintings that were sent to him. Yeah. So now I'm going thinking, you know, she does use that and it is quite old fashioned.

Although I don't know, to me, the VCR is a little bit sexier as far as an old fashioned thing because I only recently in the past couple of years of my life got rid of my VCR, even though I still currently have VHS tapes that I won't get rid of because I don't know. All of those films are available on the internet, like on so many different platforms. And yet I'm just like, oh, I want my copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with the messed up part. And I don't know why I haven't been to these things. But

there was something about that that just spoke to my heart because I kept a VCR for so long because I was like damn it I've bought these movies I'm not buying them again you know so yeah I when he brought that in I was like obviously if you have one that's the first thing you go yep because he plays all of his old Jonathan Creeks on them you know and just I again I sincerely doubt that I don't think Alan watched Jonathan Creek when it was out the first time I don't yeah he absolutely doesn't smack of a comedian who loves watching himself on on TV so yeah I how can you tell do you like watching yourself on TV depends what it is it honestly depends what it is I've watched Task Master back yeah um but I don't know if I was in John I'd be very happy to be in Jonathan Creek Depends what it is. It honestly depends what it is. I've watched Taskmaster back. Yeah. But that feels...

I don't know. If I was in... I'd be very happy to be in Jonathan Creek. I'd probably watch myself back. I'd be quite excited about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that'd be... But I guess, yeah.

To me, I get... You're right. It does depend what it is. Something like Taskmaster, I'm absolutely going to watch back. I think mostly because I know between all of us, there's really no pretense aside from the, like, you know, someone's personality shining through,

you know, guzz-lying. But from the like you know someone's personality shining through you know guzz lying um but like you know there isn't it's not like when you do a panel show where you go oh i could have done better on that joke or i could have done more of this and that and you start second guessing yourself it's just literally like yep that's me and like like i will say aloud the response that i'm about to say in the thing in real time again, because there's no other response that I would have in doing or watching the thing. So yeah, a lot easier that way. But this all builds to the fact that I think Alan's lying and he doesn't use

that VCR. At all. Does he make his kids go, Hey, remember what's paying the mortgage on the house over your head. And they're like, we don't care about this dad. I'm just trying to think of like what,

how he has a wife and a family surely someone would have made him throw that vcr out unless yeah it had like one use yeah i mean maybe the old sex tape is on there and that's the only reason it can't be ditched is because like there's only one copy on vhs that they want jonathan crack yeah because like there's only one copy on VHS that they want. Jonathan Crack. Yeah. You know, you were laughing. Somebody already made that. Yeah, definitely. Someone already made that back when that show was out.

Yeah, for sure. Morgana's, her nun is Wizzah. Yeah, now I, God bless Morganaa because that is a real deal Holyfield little hand mixer. It is old as time. I grew up with one of those in my house. I use a hand mixer, although it's from like, you know, this century when I'm baking stuff at home. But like, so I think that she just was like, oh, you know what? The story about my nan's gonna sell it because you

know i'm so far away from my nan because we all forget that i'm from australia and everybody's so far away and greg was having none of it he was like nope it's bad like sometimes sometimes greg likes sentimentality but mainly it's best to steer clear of it because the thing he likes more than sentimentality is giving sentimentality very low points like i think while sitting on something else and eating cream eggs exactly so if there's a shes long on offer versus someone else's nan's wizard it's always going to be the shes long i since you have said this i want nothing more than to see greg davis splayed out on that shes long eating cream eggs with just like

a smile you could not slap off of his face because it comes so deeply from within his heart I feel like the world needs to see that although I mean I'm sure we'll get some emails in yes I know that Greg uh hated Guz's uh prize of a chair in bag. But I think you could tell that was lazy. It was lazy, but also lazy genius. Lazy and genius meet up at the other side of the circle. And if it had been a more comfortable chair, I think he would have gotten it. Maybe.

Maybe if they'd actually brought a chair in rather than just one from his dressing room, I think. Yep. Yeah, that one smacked of, just did this five minutes before we went on the record. So it was one point for Victoria, two points for Morgana, three points for Alan, four points for Guz, and five points for you, Desiree. Still feels good. Well, I have brought in my chaise longue, but now that I've moved to the UK, I've come to understand that there are various names. So I think this might actually be

a fainting couch. That's nice. That is nice. Yeah, I want to say it's from the 1920s-ish, at least that's what they told me when they charged me several hundred pounds for it. And, you know, it's the kind of thing I can come home, unwind, just relax and think about how fabulous

my life was that day and how even more fabulous it will be the next day. Yeah, it's lovely. It's a lovely item, and before it goes to its owner, but all back to you, I hope I get to have a little drape on it. I hope so too. I would like to personally see that and keep that in the old memory file.

Whenever you want. Task one, copy Alex. Alex will demonstrate his actions twice, then you will have one attempt to copy alex closest copy wins scores based on timing number of moves order and possible bang on bonuses maximum of 142 points to be won i i loved this task i thought that was a great task that was a very stressful to do it would stress me out to be involved in but it's it's a really neat simple idea but so beautifully edited and the whole team did a brilliant job on that i loved watching it back gosh that was i mean it

was really well yeah that was just really well orchestrated conceived executed like put together by the team who make the show to like because, I mean, the dynamic in that room is obviously we're facing each other in this long, ominous corridor of deconsecrated, but still very imposing church doing a dance move. And like, you know, I mean, Taskmaster elicits how many curse words, but then you're like, I'm in a church. You're like, so I, you know, I don't know, like his little anagram of like things being taskmaster, I wish I had remembered in doing half of these tasks because it comes up. But like just trying to like find a way for you to write down and remember like the timing and the whatever, because it's only two times.

Like if this were choreography, I get up and copy what was happening. So I'd get like a kinesthetic memory of doing it. But when someone's like, I'm going to do it once, I'm going to do it twice. And then you're going to do it perfectly or suffer the consequences. Then you're just like, go back to like, you're sort of like, how do I study for a thing? And I was just like making furious notes that did not help in the end. Because I was like, what does it say to do? And it's like, this is not how you study

for a dance test, Desiree. But I was amazed at how, like, I was just like, Victoria Corden Mitchell just really nailed a dance task. Wow, yeah.

And that's not something that I was gonna, that I was gonna put money on beforehand. Yeah. But I guess, I guess part of her huge intelligence is having amazing recall. Like I think, Yes, yes. I guess that's all part of it.

And being able to work with sort of systems and work with sequences as well. Only Connect, a huge thing about Only Connect is sequences. So yeah, it is very exciting to see Victoria in her element doing something well, because so far in the series that's not happened a lot I think from episode one it was just like okay so okay you miss you know everything let's see about that and so like that's just the dynamic that it's just like you know you know who your arch nemesis is in the first five minutes of the film and it just plays out um so yeah i mean god bless her because she was uh

strong enough to handle that role i think the the ebb and the flow of that throughout because obviously so far she's just been like i don't you know what i don't recognize your authority but i think she's like i do a little bit this is kind of painful but you did very very well uh as well des ray um you you smashed it and you did what i would do uh at the start which is start to panic out loud that you've missed some something and then as opposed to doing it as opposed to doing just going oh no oh god oh no and then like commentating oh i missed that one i missed that just commentating on how badly it's going as you went went along but still throwing yourself into it you didn't let it drop and you you shagged the hell out of that church yes i did i let god know

how grateful i was for the ability to thrust i know when we get to that part i'm going to nail it yeah you remember that part and you went for it. What I loved about it as well is earlier, before they even showed your VT, Gus was talking about air shagging the church and how he didn't want to air shag the church. And Greg was saying, yeah, that's a bit disrespectful. You shouldn't air shag the church.

And you came in and went, well, no, you know, it was deconsecrated. So it's actually showing respect to God by doing that. And as soon as you did that, I thought, oh man, she air shagged the church so much. I can't wait to see it. Really defending the notion. This is my pre-defense for what we're about to say.

Because I almost got like air on that air shag. Like I levitated. And your face lights up. It's amazing. You just really go for it. I mean, okay. So there's in my head, I know my own history And your face lights up. It's amazing. You just really go for it. Okay. So there's in my, in my head, I know my own history and I know doing theater in high school, how many Shakespeare competitions I went to and double entendres were like,

you know, heavily physically referenced when guys would be like, the heads of their maidens or their maiden heads. Just say the joke. We don't like, we don't needens or their maiden heads. And you're like, just say the joke. We don't need to see the thrusting. I have a clip show of teenage boys thrusting to show a thing. And I'm just like, the adult in me is like, you've never had sex in your life. So I was so excited to be like,

I feel like a 15 year old boy doing Shakespeare. Thank you for elevating your air shagging to the level of Shakespeare. That's right, that's what we needed. No, you did a really great job on that. And Morgana also sort of, I think the key with this a lot of the time was just confidence of just doing it and not going, oh God, am I doing the wrong thing?

Am I doing the right thing? And taking your time over it. So Morgana had a little bit of that. But then when she got to, you know, doing the arm snake and stuff, she looks great doing it. She's absolutely hilarious. Did some incredible faces. Yeah. She really got lost in her own spell. Yeah. I think that, I mean, the tasks that require

confidence to master, as opposed to just sort of like trying to fulfill the assignment, those confidence ones are ones that I would just in life love to improve upon because the ones that just require you to go out and be like, I know what I'm doing. Cause you just automatically do 30% better than you would normally do when you walk into something go i know what i'm doing even if you have absolutely no idea what you're doing so like that was you know i mean you know morgana got is amazing but let's be honest she was hung over that day yeah she's like i totally know what I'm doing. What am I doing? I think this is what Guz suffered from is he was not confident about it. So it really didn't go for it enough.

Like he was stood up. He was standing there at the top for quite a long time. Didn't quite know what he should have been doing. So he really held back even on the bits he did know about. Yeah, I had a feeling in his head. He was just like, why am I in this church? Like, what am I? Yeah.

Like, this is, I don't even know. Is this allowed? What's happening? Yeah, he really got in his own head about the religious thing, didn't he? I mean, I don't know if I were in a mosque, I might be like, am I supposed to be doing this here? Are there rules? Should I even, you know, like, so yeah, deconsecrated or whatever you do to a mosque you're not using anymore and you've turned into a disco or something like i don't know i want i okay i wonder if there are any tweets this week if people go would you air shag a mosque alex horn yes i mean oh my gosh yeah and the only way to balance this is to have the task location. Yep. Task location for the next series being a mosque.

And they've got to do every single possible religious place of worship. Yep. Yep. Yep. A Buddhist temple. We've got to now go to Tibet to shoot one episode of the show. Amazing. And Alan just couldn't give a shit.

I mean, he checked it. He was like, yeah, no. You know what I mean? He's like, I don't, I'm Alan Davis. I don't need to do all of this. But he is in the great tradition of Taskmaster contestants who don't care how that they do,

but in a very, very entertaining way. Yes, absolutely. He's very relaxed. He's coming across so well, I think, in this series. Like even the music was over. He could hear that the music was over. So he knew he should be sat back down. He knew he'd gone completely wrong.

And he so slowly pinged the elastic band into the bell, walked back to the chair, no rush whatsoever. Yeah. And the rush whatsoever. Yeah. And the dismount. Yeah, exactly. It was the same with the balloon in episode one. He knew he had the scissors. He knew that it had to be quick and he just tried the scissors out, just tried the mechanism

out for ages before he cut the rope. He's just in no, he's in no rush. I love it. He had a good book to get back to. He was like, oh, this is it? Great. I'll see you guys in another hour. When you got the thing with Taskmaster written down the side, Desiree, was there any inkling that that might be the order of moves?

No. Not at all. I mean, if I think back, perhaps, because it was there on the page, but like, I don't, taking the time to try to figure out what the anagram meant, meant that I would lose at least a full try of writing down things. So I think I immediately made a choice in my head of like, that doesn't mean anything to me because I'm going to have to come up with my own sort of verbiage for what i gotta do anyway so yeah whatever but then later i don't know if that would have helped or not i just i would have needed like twice as many tries i felt like this was just alex doing a smart thing that he could reveal to he had no intention of anyone spotting this he was just he was being he was being smug because some of them are so obscure yeah yes yes arty snake arty snake no magic trick sexy moves yeah yeah no no way right so again this is one of those um this is one of those

things where it's like you know i see why greg really laces into this guy yeah i love alex horde with all my heart but sometimes a little bit too clever. I'm going to get kicked in the shins. Because there are some things that sort of present themselves as a hack for a task, but in reality don't help in the slightest. Yeah. No, not at all.

So it was one point for Alan deservedly, two points for Guz, three points for Morgana, four points for you, Desiree, and five points for Victoria. Yeah. Thank God she got five points because let's not forget

she's come bottom every single episode. Yeah, so I feel like this was a well deserved win for her and a good victory lap to take. There was an easy way of remembering all the moves because there were ten moves and each of them starts with a letter that spelled out Taskmaster. And also there's an easy rhyme which they should have remembered. So it's tiptoe

ankle slap, stop and shake karate chops, magic trick, arty snake. Sexy easy rhyme which they should have remembered so it's tiptoe ankle slap stop and shake karate chops magic trick arty snake sexy moves toss up a treat elastic band return to seat yeah i thought when i saw you before the show you looked all excited about something now we know what, don't we? A lot of people will find that charming. Not this guy. 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. 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 to make the highest sandbridge across the river you may not leave the lab your sandbridge must support the egg and the egg must be able to pass under the sandbridge there are two bonus

points for the most extravagant sandbridge you have 15 minutes your time starts now i would have hated this i'll say this for a kickoff yeah yeah so totally not my sort of thing um how did you feel about this as soon as you well okay you before you open the task desirate let's let's talk about this so before you looked at the task which classically describes everything that's in front of you yeah and tell you what you have to do you walked into the room first thing you did dipped your finger in the sand ate some of the sand yep just checking oh i don't okay so i don't i don't know what to say for myself i have i have many explanations that will never come near the truth i think the truth is that uh i am uh i will i will say with all grace and love to myself that

i am a fat kid at heart that will discover the world through my mouth before anything else. So I saw a bucket and I was just like, I mean, there was all kinds of things going on. It looked like a big bucket of brown sugar, but it was also like that loosely compacted sand. It isn't like beach sand. It's like that construction sand that's sort of like loose and fluffy. And I could make an excuse about like, well, the chemical composition would be important because if I add water to sugar, I'm just going to get like, you know, sweet water and that's not going to build anything. So I need to know what this substance is. But underneath that is a real truth of like, I just want to put things in my mouth in order to know them with my heart. And so I saw that and it looked like a big bucket of sand or sugar.

And I was like, sure, shot way of figuring this out. Like Desiree, just pick up the thing with the task. But open the task. Yeah. Yeah. But also sometimes you like to think like, oh, if I can figure things out before I pick up the task, then I get some kind of leg up, then I'm ahead. But what I figured out is that sand tastes dirty. Even though it was clean sand,

I just was like, oh, for like the rest of the task because it was still in my mouth. Yeah, of course, mouthful of sand. The thing is, okay, what I would have, interestingly, you made a point there that is quite fascinating. I think you always read the task first and then when it says sand, then have a look at that, realize fascinating. I think you always read the task first.

And then when it says sand, then have a look at that, realise that's probably sand. You didn't need to eat it. But there was a task in the last series where it was, you were supposed to, I think you're supposed to move the salt. You're supposed to get salt around. But it turns out that everyone was picking up the one in front of them, which was actually sugar.

One of the teams discovered it was sugar by tasting it i don't i don't think they would do that two series in a row and they certainly no no no but there was something in my head that was just like figure out what this is right now because you know you just get into that house and you go everything is a trick like Like everything's a lie. Everything you know is wrong. Like, you know, and it's not. And part of doing Taskmaster is knowing when it's a trick and when it's just like, just do the flipping thing. You know, like that's all, just do the task. So, because sometimes like I've now having watched it,

I see how far ahead some people get it but just by being like, I'm not gonna do what any of this says, I'm gonna do my own thing and then make it that thing and then greg goes haha clever and i'm like wait a second those aren't the rules you know that's the problem when you have like head girl trying to play this game following the rules so i thought i was going to get a little ahead by being like like i'm a cop in the 80s what's this substance oh it's saying, it's sand. Yeah. So I didn't. Yeah.

You were just a policeman rubbing it on your gums. That's good sand. That's good sand actually. This is pure uncut Colombian sand. Amazing. But, you know, pretty decent sand bridge, I thought. I thought you did a good job um in the end we got there in the end in the end you got there in the end i still wonder is there a right answer to this even though in some ways morgana got quite close see that's the thing about

i didn't had i been away like that table that table is a total lie and that table has all kinds of things in it under it yeah and that was one of those things that if i had probably watched previous series i could have been hip to like oh the table i don't know if they've they must have used that table before for well like hidden things you know this this reminded me of a task in series two um where they had to build a bridge i believe it was quite similar um and there And there was stuff under the table, I think. Yes. So, yeah, it's always worth looking in that scenario,

but it just does something to your brain. I don't think I would have looked. Yeah, with all that stuff on the table, you're just like, okay, well, this is it. I felt Guz was very harshly treated by Greg here. Yeah. Because he... I would agree with that.

Look, I enjoyed Greg's analogy about going to the fourth bridge, covering it in jam. Would you say it's a jam bridge? But then Morgana finds all that stuff and gets four points. And there's less sand on her bridge than there is on Guz's.

That's actually true. Now, correct me if I'm, wait a second. We got the egg underneath Guz's bridge, right? Yeah, because he pushed, he pushed the egg through. He pushed the egg through. So, so it is a bridge. If the egg can go under it and on top of it, it is a bridge. And it did have more sand on it.

I, you know, sometimes one wonders how much Greg's just gotten tired of one of his waiver children and has decided to like offload on them that day. And I think that's what happened here, that he was just like, you know, Guz Khan, like, I'm so sick of you being so charming and cunning. All of your ex, you know what? Today's just not your day. It's just not your day. And then the next day will be your day, but not today. And I think that's what happened. I think that's what happened. There were some lovely touches happened. And there were some lovely touches from Guz. You know, there was a raven for the blood clart egg, he said. Yes, for that blood clart egg. He went, and there's a raven for your blood clart egg.

So it was some lovely little flourishes from him. Yes. But they were mostly linguistic flourishes that would not be there should someone choose to pass over said bridge later that evening. Yeah. Yeah, you wouldn't go, there's the blood clot egg oh yes the blood clot egg um it was exciting that someone discovered the secret stash uh of materials though but i do i do wonder whether morgana might have been the last one to do the task as no one had discovered it so far.

Yeah. Cause there was a, there was a little bit of guidance from Alex. What about Helen? Troy, what happened there? This is just, just,

just open the table up. Yeah. Troy, do you remember the, the myth of Troy where there's a lot of stuff in a table they pull the side off the table just do that and inside it's a bunch of surgeon warriors that make a bridge clearly um i this is one of those tasks though that i still go you know um because i i'm so new i'm still new to this world relatively. And I just go, was there a correct answer for this?

Like, I know part of the answer was open the table up. But like, what could Morgana have done to her bridge to make it sandy enough to fulfill the requirement? Because it was certainly like elaborate and sort of ostentatious. It was definitely like, oh, if I went to a city in the middle of america that was good for nothing except for it had this huge bridge that looked like this like clown bridge

i would go and see the clown bridge in you know oklahoma or wherever right so what could she have done to that bridge to make it sandy enough to get five points is what i wonder well i i think the materials in the table were actually a bit of a red herring. I don't think she should have been, she should have been scored as highly as that. I think Alan, Alan absolutely deserve the five points. He didn't necessarily deserve the extravagance points. I think that should have gone to Morgana.

No, I think if he had used some of those little rainbow bits coming out, if he had put a rainbow on top of what he made, he have gotten like six points yeah um well he did get six so they get they both got an extravagance point but i don't think he deserves that whatever he would have gotten 12 what's a high enough number to still be in the world of the show but he did he just went for it was very straightforward and built a good sand bridge. And you know what? I was very proud of him.

Yes. Well, you know, it's important to know when to give up on your initial plan to not have that cognitive dissonance of like, I need to stick with this plan. But to go, you know what? Let's smush it together. Let's just go, let's just start all over

and just make one big smush and then drill through the smush, you know? And the thing is, he wasn't doing that out of anger. So that's something I do out of anger and panic. He's just so chilled out. Yeah. He was like discovery. Yeah.

I guess. I don't know. I would love to get to a certain Alan Davis level of Zen in my life about doing things where it's like, there's no need to rush. You know, it all ends in the same dirt nap for everybody so i'm going to take a sweet time do it how i'm going to do it stand in a bathtub you know um i would have i mean i think she changed her mind about the plan but victoria's bridge when she initially was going to just build it out of paper and try and argue

that the locals refer to it as sand bridge would have been a point. I would have loved to see her argue properly with Greg. I really liked that idea. Yeah. If she had put it up and also like, you know, she had maybe just taken the time she could have ripped off a corner, written sand bridge and put that just next to the bridge.

Yeah. And, and I would have loved to have seen the um legal precedent uh argument take place on twitter after the show about legally would this be referred to as the sand bridge or not yeah despite its components i mean i i think you can do it right i think you can do it because you can say that the town is called sand you could put up a sign saying welcome to sand and then that would be the sand bridge because waterloo right it's named after the place it's not made of waters and loos loos yeah just just really clogged loos yeah overflowing everywhere um yeah i mean i i guess i was just sometimes

when victoria and i are in the same company on a task, I just go, phew, because I didn't know what I was doing. But as long as I'm there with someone I know is demonstrably brilliant, then I go, well, we both thought we had an idea. Like, I guess I thought in my head before I started that, I was like, I'm going to make all these little sand houses and I'm going to connect them using architecture, knowing about bridge support and the structure needing to come together at the center and then i was like no i'm not it's flipping wet sand and it's going to fall immediately upon contact with any other solid object it's very interesting the thing you say about is there a right answer and you're still thinking is there one right answer and i don't

think there is for this one um i i would have panicked and tried to find a hack and my only thought was to crack the egg and mix it with the sand. Oh my gosh, that's genius. The bridge itself is always supporting the egg because the egg is within the bridge. The bridge. Does the egg support the bridge? Does the bridge support the egg? Bridge support the egg.

How? Classic philosophical question. Yeah. Yeah, that would have taken up a lot of good studio time. Fun little argument for everyone. So that's brilliant. Now, do you think that would have taken up a lot of good studio time fun little argument for everyone so that's brilliant now do you think that would have worked on sand i know that like egg makes things like it works on meatloaf but yeah it does bind it together i mean obviously i would have tried the sand to check to see if it was mince beforehand um but then i guess but if

you crack the egg as well and crush up the shell you can have a smaller hole at the bottom for it to pass through because it wouldn't take much for that to pass through it would look i would have panicked i would have cracked the egg and then tried to argue it in the studio that's always the most fun thing to do yeah wow you really know the game that you're playing it's gonna make yeah but i still that would have one point. You say that would have been a big argument in the studio and taken up loads of time. It would have done on the night, and then the edit would have been,

well, I cracked the egg and mixed it with the sand. One point to you, Ed. That's what it would have been. But there was a whole dynamic struggle. There was a three-arc process to the whole story of doing this. Yep, one point. My film, which is sort of just, that's very sandy strengthen the foundations with some rainbows and i think he's gonna be quite welcoming you've got 40 seconds yeah yeah i'd live here yeah right

oh the highest oh no, no, no. You've got two seconds. You have to let go of your bridge. I don't. Well, you do. I'm going to propose this to the council and see if I can get some funding. Task three.

Film the most thrilling 30-second sequence wearing the welly cam. You have 30 minutes. Your time starts now. Presumably Desiree, they edited out the bit where you walked into the room, licked the welly to check that it wasn't chocolate. I thought it was a shoe. Licked the bottom of it just to make sure that it was new for me. Yes, they definitely licked the camera and then they had to clean that as well.

Yeah. Now, okay. This one, I actually didn't you know i mean this is one of those that you don't know how well you're going to do obviously until you're in the studio but um i realized after immediately after given my explanation for the making of my film that that was not indeed the explanation it had to do with something a lot more subliminal. Like, you know, when he was like, oh yeah, those ducks are genuinely scary. I was like, I think what I'm drawing from

are recurring nightmares. Because, you know, I do have like recurring nightmares of my home, my childhood home, being invaded by whatever baddie of the day it is. It used to be vampires, now it's zombies because we're more in a zombie era of time. But like, I have a very, like, I'm like, oh, I'm having this dream.

And it's just like, I always get waylaid on locking all the windows and all the doors. And I always get to the garage. I don't know why it does where you just go to the garage first. I always get to the garage and that's the last door.

And they're already starting to come in that door. And that's when it's like, you know, oh no, and I have to start fighting and then that door. And that's when it's like, you know, Oh no. And I have to start fighting and then blackout, like I immediately wake up afterwards because I'm just like, I don't know how to deal with this. I lose this every time. So I think in the making of that,

it was just about having, just feeling encroached upon, you know, and like using the stop motion to do that, actually, uh, harnessing the reality of my inner childhood turmoil uh yes proved to be a good point for that i didn't i i'm very into guz's version have you this dream this

dream these dreams yes since you did the task have you had another one of those dreams or have you fully exercised that now the dream because of having done the task you're right i haven't had i mean i haven't so you know you never know if a recurring dream is gone forever do you yeah you know you just until you're dead until you're dead i guess yeah yeah until the vampires finally get in and they're like this is the end and they're vampire ducks which this could have definitely been um i thought yours was great i think it was so good i think it totally deserved the five points i really liked it genuinely quite scary at times as opposed to morgana's who's i also loved morgana's but it didn't have that edge of being quite scary it was more it was it was silly it was a silly by the time a ghost is taking a dump i'm suddenly like wait a second

this is the downstairs loo no poos you know i was just no it was something about seeing the um the the ghost on the loo and i was just like okay this is now a children's story that's very cute yeah um i am not it was thrilling maybe i don't know no i don't know if it was thrilling for i would say um victoria's which was a little bit more action like you're gonna get to victoria's he did say sort of action-packed right so in some ways she did fulfill that when we all kind of went more horror thriller direction um so well it was most most thrilling most thrilling was the um Well, it was most thrilling. Most thrilling was the,

was the, on the task. So yeah, I guess an action movie being retold in stop motion, not even animation, but just stop motion drawing isn't as thrilling as an actual Bond film. Right. Yeah. Quickly want to say about yours and Morgana's,

the only thing that spoiled the tension for me was the fact that because you were walking wearing the whirly cow. Yes, yes. You both had to limp like a pirate. The only thing that spoiled the tension for me was the fact that because you were walking wearing the welly cam. Yes. Yes. You both had to limp like a pirate. Yeah. Pretty much.

That's the thing. You don't like, I mean, unless you hop like a bunny down the hallway. I don't know how to get. Yeah. I was like, I was watching Morgana. I was like, yeah, you know, this like peg leg motion isn't really good. And then we got to the point where I was like, oh yeah, it's going to be the exact same thing, Desiree, because the cam is on one welly. Oh man.

I don't think it took away from it too much. I think they were both great and deserved to be at the top of the table. Now, Victoria's was, I'm sorry, how did she get three points for this? It was dreadful. Because there were bombs, explosives, and diamonds inside of that cat. Because the baddie showed up with a cat on a lead.

And people were like, you know what? I think that that is a twist that a Bond film has not taken yet. Yeah, and another twist a Bond film hasn't taken is doing it all through the medium of shit drawings. You'd like to think that if she's gonna do that she's great at drawing yeah some effort some it's not even that she's bad at drawing she's made no effort with the drawing she's literally just scribbled them on there and then even the way she was commentating on it she was like yeah all right that and then that happens and then that happens and that happens, and then that's the end of my film. It was so lazy. It was so bad.

It showed a bit of disdain for the task itself. Just a little bit, yeah. It was just like, really? I don't have time for this. Do you understand who I am and what I do? And that's fair. Look, that's fair. She's a national treasure.

So, you know, why should she be doing this? Well, he can't nonsense, but I felt bad for Gus that he got the same amount of points as her because yes, his was inventive. He did it. He had a story.

I'd never seen anything like it before. You know, a wild West movie in the West country. It was a wild West country. I didn't even know that was, I mean, that was a bit of genius and I think actually deserves some recognition for what it was.

I don't, like, I guess I'm the only person watching it who doesn't know about the west country accent and the, you are. I still to this day, I'm just like, I don't even understand what that is. But he, you know, taking in what westerns were, which were, you know, started as spaghetti Westerns made by Italian directors,

you know, about this fantasy about the American West and like him being from Coventry and having a fantasy about the West country and it's a new version of a Western. But like, didn't he say you are and then like blood clot again

or something like that? Who are you blood? Who are you? Yeah, who are you blood who are you yeah who are you blood that's what it was like that that to me is i don't know like that's gonna be i feel like if when he's sitting on like the tonight show like i want them to show that clip of his work rather than rather than the hollywood. Whatever film he's promoting at the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Imagine if he goes for an interview about, I think he's in a Zack Snyder film

that's coming out quite soon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He goes on The Tonight Show and they show, who are you, blood? Who are you, blood? And everyone's like, well, some of your early experimental film work is actually quite inventive.

I think we have a clip and then and then on the tonight show they should show victoria's one and go that's and that's the same amount of points how do you feel about that that that yeah you say this but we're gonna see a bomb film with an exploding cat on the lead in like three years they be like, yeah, nobody remembers that. Yoink. Just the three points for Guz. And then, look, I feel like Guz deserves three. I think three points was good. The three, four, five, I agree with.

Victoria should have been one. And then Alan's happily at two. Because this is not a man who's focused on the task. This is a man having a breakdown. This is a man who has had to spend a lot of time fully clothed in a bad bathtub entertaining young people and went with that um just want you to clarify you mean his children right yeah yes sorry you know when you're a dirty person in general as a comedian you don't realize how many dirty things you say that you thought were innocent because your mouth doesn't know how to wrap itself around any other

ideas or thoughts yeah so that i in my head i was just like yes he's entertaining children and now oh we've got to have to call in the local authorities kind of situation um so yeah so what exactly how like so it it was him and Victoria. Cthulhu showed up at some point, I think, to, like, save the day. I felt like he started doing it and didn't know what the story was or where it was going. And just, it was like a kid playing with action figures.

Yes. Where, oh, no, no, an octopus comes in. Oh, no. Oh, I'm dead. I'm dead. Yeah. And poor Victoria only finding out in the studio that she was part of this, that there was like a voodoo doll of herself that had been drowned in a bath. And I'm dead now.

Yes, you've died of drowning. Yeah, he had an absolute meltdown. No idea what he was doing. But again, very chilled out about it. Yeah, do we feel like had we only seen what the welly cam was filming and not what the crew were snickering at, that we would have thought differently about his film?

Because the wide angle does do a lot to discredit anyone. It totally does. But you had to show that there. It was him splashing around around yes yes he was in a bathtub playing with action figures like he was five only he's like i get to be in my jeans this time because mom never let me do that no shoes in the tub i'll show you um lovely lovely stuff uh from alan um but absolutely deserve the two points so it was two points

for Alan, three points for Cousin Victoria four points for Morgana and five points for you Desiree, extremely strong episode great, throws up that age old quandary, was it creative or was it lazy lazy the creative process is in here yeah not stomp stomp stomp through the garden mmm it's the first time your authorities not worked on me I enjoy the

idea in a Bond film that the villain might store nuclear weapons inside a cat. What's the sort of thing they do? It's not the sort of thing they do. And I think if they did do that, honestly, I think it would be the end of the franchise. Live task. Correctly guess your team-mate's object. Your team-mate will represent their objects

through the medium of shadows on the screen. Fastest correct guess wins two actual points per round. So this is a lovely use of a shadow screen. Yeah, I mean, and I, this is a brilliant, beautiful use of a shadow screen, a gorgeous shadow screen. And I do have to give Guz Khan a lot of credit for his diligence and patience. He like, you know, Victoria was screaming out things

and he was just like, nope, I'm going to accurately cut out this tank with all its wheels and its long little pokey thing because all we will need is one look at this to know exactly what it is, you know? It was very good yeah that was brilliant because yeah he just he spent all the time and it was worth it absolutely yeah that was certainly the strongest one i think um and victoria really does just keep shouting guesses

when and now in retrospect looking at you know because i was focusing on guz and then i was like is he going to turn around at any point because i got to be ready um i mean obviously that's a dragon the bird of peace the bird of peace is vomiting on every yeah like this is you're making this so much harder but what you had a similar vibe in that game desiree uh which i really liked you could tell how competitive you are in this game um because at because at one point you got the right answer. You got worm. Yeah. Morgana signaled that you got the right answer.

Alex said you'd got the right answer and you kept guessing like it was catchphrase. You were going worm. Someone went, you got the right answer. You go, the only bird catches the worm. Just in case. This is the eating the sand version of deploying this game there's no extra credit unless you you know i don't know i denigrate alex clearly but i was

just kind of like you it can't just be as easy as a worm i is it already snake what are we doing this time around yeah so you got the right answer and then gave what you thought should have been the right answer. If they did. Yeah, I was like, that was clearly way too, it can't just be worm. Also, if we're ever playing charades

or anything remotely close to this game, always have me guessing. I'm way better at guessing than I am at doing the thing. Just have me guess. I will throw the kitchen sink at this job. Well, you did that in every task in this episode and i do think you've struck upon a new phrase there uh so now on the taskmaster

podcast whenever uh any contestant really throws himself enthusiastically into a task too much immediately we're gonna say that they've really eaten the sand on that one we're gonna say they've really eaten the sand on this task. I really did eat the sand. Is that like biting the dust? No, it's entirely different. You may indeed bite the dust at the end, but if you start by eating the sand,

I mean. So Victoria and Alan got two points. You, Morgana and Gaz got four points. So, Morgana and Guz got four points. So final points, 21 points for you, 18 points for Morgana. Guz got 14, Alan got 14, Victoria got 13,

her third last place in a row, every episode. And a brilliant victory for you. So you're out in front in the series at the moment by five points, but it's still early days and Morgana's's quite close behind you there yeah and then everyone else lagging a little bit yeah she's uh she she eats up points she really gets in there i i know yeah and i love her with all my heart but i'm like oh you are you're an assassin i see you're coming for me yeah

yeah yeah she eats the sand on a few tasks as well. We have a few emails from listeners, Desiree. We get a lot of emails on the Taskmaster podcast from the States anyway. Oh, good. Which is, you know, I'm very happy to receive them. It's always quite weird it seems to have really uh really connected with people on there and i don't understand because there

are people who are ravenously devouring it there and at the same time everyone is on my instagram feed going where do i watch this in america and i'm like i don't know talk to the other fans go on the internet and ask them they will tell you because they're all watching it i have no idea where they're finding it but yeah well we um we got a few emails in on the same on the same note really but let's read this one uh uh hello ed and desiree huge fan of you both i have a question for desiree for the podcast what's it like being the only american in the group taskmaster has such strong strong British energy and I just wondered what it must be like. That's from Corey in Connecticut.

Oh, hi, Corey in Connecticut. Well, I will say that I, because I've been doing so much just sort of like comedy TV, other things here, being like, I have grown accustomed to being the only American in the group. What it means is that you are often laughing at things that you have no idea have any form of reality.

Everyone's like, oh, it's kind of like when so-and-so did such-and-such on this show from a decade ago. And everyone's like, hilarious, amazing reference. And you're like, ha, ha, ha, ha, what? So that happened quite frequently of like, there's a lot of me. I mean, I laugh a lot anyway, but there's a lot of me i mean i laugh a lot anyway but there's a lot of me laughing extra loud to be like that was probably an important thing from the 90s that i should have known and i don't so just to let any british comic who's listening to this know if you've ever made desiree laugh she's probably not doing it because she finds you funny

yeah she's probably just like i have to later. Yeah, she's assimilating. She's like, ha ha ha, furiously typing in her notes app what she's got to find out for the future. So that is,

I think, the only thing that makes me feel like a little bit sort of out. Other than that, it's still the same thing of like,

you're still doing the task, you know, you're still being judged and you're like, I mean, like the episode two one, I think that was a distinctly, only in watching it back did I realize how American I was on this show

because everybody was like, yeah, I'm gonna have Bovril and like, you know, whatever else and that's fine. This is acceptable. You know, this is, why wouldn't you ask me to identify this? And I was like like what the hell is wrong with you people how does any of this count as food like well i mean you you guessed

and i've eaten the sand the sand was better than most of those things that i put in my mouth um we also we had a similar email from David in Pennsylvania who, who asked another question really. Does the difference in perspective give you any competitive advantages or disadvantages? I think that there might be a bit of an advantage in that sometimes my cultural references may be a little left field. And so they might appear novel.

You know, I'm trying to think if there's like a good example of that. I mean, there's so many times when people are like, oh, that's really clever. Like not even on the show, just in life. And I'm just like, that's just like a saying. Like I've just said a thing that Americans say, but it sounds clever to you. Just like many British sayings are like, oh, I've never heard that. And that sounds really funny. It's like, yeah, I've been saying that for a thousand years.

So that might I haven't noticed that it's given me any particular advantage or disadvantage aside from being just sort of a bit novel. And like people are have a tendency to be like, oh, OK, well, you don't know what's going on. So, you know, you're having a good time. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know what's going on. So, you know, you're just having a good time. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know what's going on, which is half true. But also I should use that to my advantage a lot more and just be like, I have no idea. I have studied this intently. Those turns of phrase, I've definitely noticed adding something distinctly different to Taskmaster and it's being really exciting when like you you exclaim something that is so natural to you being american yeah and then it's so different

to everything we're all like this has been like 11 series of people going oh no i've dropped my trilby in the pudding and and then there's there's some of the phrases that you come out with is really stand out and are absolutely brilliant um we all remember the trilby do i need to go into my notes right now and just like yes trilby in the pudding yes ed what thank you thank you for laughing at that as you proved your own point i mean the general idea is that it's a thing I don't understand. That is very true. This is from Meg. She's from New York.

These are all American emails this week. Dear Ed and Desiree, in the balloon pop task, it says you may buy things from Alex's store. Do you think it would be within the rules to use other items? My first thought was untying the string or cutting it with something sharp uh on the day on the danish taskmaster there was a contestant that used his pocket knife in a live task uh by series 12 i would expect at least one person to carry a multi-tool it might not be in the spirit of the task but i always enjoy uh when people skate around the rules um that's from meg now what i would say meg is i think i mean this is just me dredging my

memory i think there was something within the tart the balloon task that you weren't allowed to touch the string with anything else other than the scissors so i think alex might have thought ahead with that potentially okay good that was smart because when meg said that i was like why wasn't i gnawing on that were my two little beaver teeth like, ah, it's going to be so worth it. It was too late by then, Desiree. You bought a bucket of forks. There was no point. A whole bucket. I mean, and what a deal.

It's interesting, yeah, carrying a multi-tool. I feel like they might dissuade you from doing that because then you would just use it for every task. It might be so boring. It's like, well, let's see

what Desiree did with her Swiss army knife now. Post-apocalyptic version of Taskmaster. People just walk in, stab the task, and leave the room. And they're like, how many points is that, Greg? Desiree, thank you so much for coming on the Taskmaster podcast. You've been brilliant, of course.

Now, I just ask you, as I ask all of our guests, to rate your experience on the podcast between one and five points in the style of the Taskmaster. Don't feel pressured to give it five. You give it however you feel. Here's what I'll say. So as far as rating podcasts, five out of five, four and a half out of five for preparation.

I did have to watch the episode, but then I was going to do it anyway because I love not having to prepare for a task. I would give the fact that I've had to close all of my windows and i'm sweating uh inside of the room i'm recording in a one um i will give the sort of dynamic uh of you uh as a great host i would definitely give that a five um i would um i would give uh twiddle in the pudding what is that a thing uh trilby in the pudding yeah a trilby in the pudding um or twiddle if you like neither of them do i understand i would definitely give that a four

um so i i feel like i haven't done the math on this that one on me sweating is going to really draw things down but i'm gonna i'm gonna go ahead and say that we're gonna come to a round of four total on the podcast, simply because you could not be in control of the humidity today. Yes. And that was an issue. So it would have been a five, but you're warm. Bonus point though for coming up with a, wait, say that again.

It would have been a five, but you're warm. But I'm warm and I hate being warm. So that goes down. However, I did say it was a floor, but bonus point for allowing me to have come up with a catchphrase, which is eating the sand. Yeah. So yeah, now that I'm part of the lexicon,

we're back up at a five. Totally. Well, that's good to hear. That catchphrase will genuinely last. I will use that every time. Every time I need to. Will you also use Trilby and the pudding, please? I will try at some point i

feel like that might have less practical application desiree thank you so much for coming on the podcast we look forward to seeing what you do on the rest of the series same same thank you so much for having me thank you bye there we are thank you very much to desiree for coming on absolutely wonderful as Desiree always is she's brilliant on the show she was brilliant on the podcast hopefully we'll we'll get her back back on one day I'd love to chat to Desiree again um so remember keep watching Taskmaster series 12 channel 4 every Thursday at 9 p.m catch up on all four if you miss it but you shouldn't be missing it really should you call yourself a fan? It's disgusting.

And keep listening to the podcast. We drop an episode straight after the episodes go out on Channel 4, so at 10pm, check your podcast apps and we'll be there, ready to chat about what we've just seen. Next week's special guest is Victoria Corrin-Mitchell. Yes, Victoria Corrin-Mitchell

from the show and from everything. You know Victoria Corrin-Mitchell. Yes, Victoria Corrin-Mitchell from the show and from everything. You know Victoria Corrin-Mitchell. She's brilliant on this series of Taskmaster. I can't wait to chat to her. I say that. I've actually already talked to her. We've already recorded it. So there's no point emailing any more questions in for Victoria. But if you have any more general questions for future possible guests, I'd say it's probably good to get your questions in now. Taskmasterpodcast.gmail.com. You can get in your questions for maybe some guests we haven't had yet, some people on this series who we haven't spoken to yet, or general questions about Taskmaster. We will do our best

to answer them. For now, thank you blood who are you blood who are 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 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.