The Frank Skinner Show - Easter Phone
Episode Date: April 25, 2025Frank and Pierre are joined by Sara Barron! This week Frank has been to an Easter vigil and been on a Starbucks mission with Buzz. Also a Takis-based incident, Hygge and King Kong. Learn more about yo...ur ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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It's Frank off the radio featuring him and that posh lady.
Oh, and the one with the French name from South Africa.
Can you hear the brackets?
All right. Close brackets today.
Hey, this is Frank of The Radio. I'm joined by Pierre Novella, yes, back from Melbourne,
Australia, and Sarah Barron is with us today. Hello. Remember her? Was that Elvis? Yeah. Cool. You can follow the podcast on X and
Instagram. You can email the podcast via Frank of the Radio at AvalonUK.com.
You can WhatsApp us on 07457417769. You might find I have a particular
abandon today. So I've got a strong suspicion after some early technical
hitches that this will never be recorded anyway.
So I can say anything I like.
I want you to have more faith.
Well, my faith was bulbous when I arrived.
It is now shrunken.
But this could be the best of both worlds if you feel
so loose and free and yet are nevertheless recorded.
Yes, but what I suspect...
And say all sorts of libelous and treasonous things.
What'll happen is I'll say the best things I've ever said,
and they will just disappear into the ether forever.
That's what happens when you rely on other people, generally, in life.
Is that what life has taught you?
Yep. Oh, Frank. has taught you? Yep.
Oh, Frank.
Why do you think I'm a stand-up comedian?
I was going to say, he's spoken like a true star.
He's a solo artist.
I wouldn't want to be in one of those motorcycle display teams where they form a human pyramid
with one side.
I just know where that's going to end up.
Oh, yeah, I'm sorry, but Jeff was having a bad day.
Oh, well, great for that.
Anyway, welcome, welcome, Sarah.
Welcome back, Pierre.
Thank you very much.
It's been a long time.
Has it been a month?
Yeah.
Since you two have seen each other?
Four weeks.
Yeah.
Did you hug Hello?
I'm trying to remember.
We did. We did.
We did.
I didn't quite get my arms all the way around him.
He's a big boy.
I've always said he's such a big boy.
I've only increased in size thanks to Melbourne's.
What I did, I managed to reach around him and grab both shoulder blades like I was reading
a broadsheet newspaper.
Have you ever felt very hugged by Pierre?
No, he's gentle with me.
He's gentle with me as well, but Pierre has hugged me.
And I've said to you before, you're like such a good hug.
I think life has taught you how to hug sweetly, but respectfully.
After I killed all those pets.
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. I think
it's... I feel like... All those burst cats. You know when Fai Rai is gently held by King Kong in the movie?
Yes, that's how you feel when he hugs you. It is like that, yeah. Little biplanes. But isn't that
bit where he pulls her top down with one of his claws? Is it?
Yeah, it's a dark moment.
In an old film? Surely to reveal only yet more underwear?
No, no, I think...
Boobies?
Full boob?
I can't remember now.
You can't remember boobies?
Well, black and white boobies are, and they stick less in the memory.
They get filed under art.
Exactly. And they've been superseded by things like, you know, absolute Superman, the new comic
series in the art section.
But yeah, he sort of, he blows on her and then he gently, what about if I've made this
up then?
This is very fascinating.
Thank God this isn't being recorded.
It definitely pulls FireEye's top down and there's a sort of interspecies moment
where Gorilla looks at human breasts.
Wow.
And presumably just thinks, weird.
Well, it's shot from the waist up, so we never really know.
Kong's fall reaction.
So do you just, do you?
I'm hoping that's one of them volcanoes going off.
Oh man.
The destruction of the skyscraper is not the worst part for the various emergency workers.
This is pre-New York Kong.
This is still Kong Island.
Oh, Island Kong.
Island Kong.
I don't know the distinction.
I'm not...
Before they bring him.
Kong O'Fey enough.
He's found on Kong Island and then they bring him to New York.
He falls into showbiz exploitation.
He goes to make his fortune in New York, like Dick Whittington.
I was thinking Operation Mincemeat.
Which is what it becomes.
Operation Minced Meat after he's been shot off the top of the Empire State Building
by small aeroplanes.
The people of New York would eat well for weeks on Kong burgers and Kong steaks.
Yeah.
But looking back, he asked for it with his these you know he's unwanted sexual advances
yes he deserved to die King Kong I've never heard of a heterosexual man seeing
boobies but not being sure whether they saw the boobies like I always thought
the impression I've been given from your people is it's like if you see it you
know you see it but usually when you see it you know you see it.
But usually when you see it the only other things around are like a pillow, a bedside
lamp.
So you as a young man.
When there's a giant gorilla in the same shot.
It's like one of those tests.
Yeah it is.
At that age it was still a giant gorilla.
If they caught me three years later.
Oh okay.
And I'd say his name was Kong but I don't remember what he looked like. It was still Giant Gorilla if they caught me three years later. Yeah. Oh, okay.
His name was Kong, but I don't remember what he looked like.
Also, a foreign gentleman.
Exactly.
From an island?
Another land.
Yes, what other island?
Island of Man, maybe.
Yeah?
Ah.
The Isle of Kong.
Be ironic if he'd come from the Isle of Man, seen as he wasn't one.
Yeah.
Also, I think there's a tendency, if they've got you at the right age, to even if Kong
had revealed a brassiere of the era, you'd have gone and edited it back to be more vivid.
I think generally the female jungle explorer were so liberated, they didn't bother with brassias.
Yes, too hot.
It was that period in American film when things got quite raunchy.
You wouldn't expect it in like a 30s black and white period.
Cecil B. DeMille I think had some nudity and stuff. Yeah, that's true. A lot of the censorship came in during the war and white period. Cecil B. DeMille I think had some nudity and stuff.
Yeah that's true. A lot of the censorship came in during the war and just after.
Yeah yeah. So it was that. There was a window where Fae Rai didn't need a bra.
Yeah. A little smutty window.
Yeah and Kong climbed right through it.
And did you watch those films knowing that that's some of what you would get from it?
Or was that a happy discovery as you were like,
I'm going to be a cool guy who watches black and white films from the 30s.
I was happy. This is when I was a child.
Okay, yeah.
I was... It was all Kong for me.
I was watching it to see a giant gorilla.
Yeah.
And then, oh, maybe Booze, maybe...
And then, you know, I think what I should have done is, you know, bookmark that for
a later date.
But I don't think he had a later date.
It was Beauty killed the Beast.
This is what happens.
Or was it sexual harassment?
Looking back, it was sexual harassment killed the beast.
Even that's a bit.
What you mean, their cleavage?
Yeah, the cleavage bit.
You said a mouthful.
What do you think of the accent, Sarah?
That's why I almost talked over you.
That's a very strong American accent, Frank.
You know that.
Can I ask you an American question?
Go.
I think you're the first American we've had
on here. So, my son said to me on Friday, can we set the alarm to get up now? He's
on school holidays then. He never wants the alarm set. And said hold on wait you said well if if you go
into Starbucks and you buy an iced drink in the tall category yeah you get a free
Snoopy cup one day only until stocks run out. Sure. So we headed down there and he got like a strawberry frappuccino curl thing and I don't know where the curl came in.
I'll kill that typist. And on Snoopy's or Charlie's t-shirt, the name Joe Kind was there.
And the promotion referred to Joe Kind as if Joe Kind was like Linus or one of those
people you see a lot.
Now I watched the Snoopy TV show,
the Charlie Brown TV show a lot when I was a kid.
I don't remember any Joe Kind.
I have a faint memory.
If there was an adult appeared in
that neighborhood and said, I'm Joe Kind,
I would clear the area.
South Africa's media culture was
completely Americanized when I was a kid. There's nothing
from British television at all.
No, but that's an American show.
No, but hence why I think I have this in my head. I seem to remember that that was a sort
of nom de plume for Snoopy.
Really?
He would sign things Joe Kind or he wrote a letter or something.
Oh, that's great.
There's something very faintly tickling in the back of my head there that he would sign. So as not to be caught being a dog, that's literate. I don't
really know. So that's really just for people in the hyper no. That's hyper no category.
Who'd have thought that Starbucks would dig that dig? Yeah, it kind of makes me respect
them more. Yeah. Also, they'd-
So niche. Presumably you had to go to the filthy sailor-ridden Starbucks near your house.
I went to.
The Starbucks near Frank's house for clarity is an awful...
Yeah, we have a dystopian Starbucks at the bottom of our house.
There's not many of them in the country.
Why?
What makes it so dark?
It's filthy.
It's filthy and it's frequented by the low end of society.
But hold on, you've done well for yourself, it's not a secret.
You live in a nice neck of the woods, so why is the worst Starbucks near your nice neck of the woods?
I don't know, but I go in there to remind myself how well I've done compared to others.
It's like Victorian Bedlam.
It is. It is. We get a trip.
It is only a shilling to take a tour of the local Starbucks. Yeah, as people say, yeah, I'll have a flat white please.
Waaaaaah!
Yeah.
Can anyone confirm whether...
A milkshake made by a debtor.
Is that true for Starbucks?
Can anyone confirm whether or not that is just true of Starbucks in the UK more generally?
No, I don't think it is. I've never been in such a downhill Starbucks as the one near us.
I do know Starbucks has had to change.
They had a very idealistic policy for a long time,
certainly in the North American region.
The policy was, hey, you don't have to buy anything.
You can just come in and we can all hang out and jam together.
Oh no.
No, no, no, no.
We could jam together, right? About how much we love beans, roasting beans.
That started the laptop generation.
It did.
That toilet is going to be an abomination.
Yes. Well, they have stopped this.
Well, of course.
They have had to say, officially now, you do need to be a customer to essentially live
in our Starbucks. It was amazing that I didn't know they had that policy until they reversed it.
I couldn't believe a company would do that.
That's the good thing about our Starbucks is there's very few laptops.
You get people on a BlackBerry.
A Scion organizer.
Dragged a payphone in somehow.
So it's good for that.
So Jokekind is snoopy.
I think so.
I love that.
I think so.
That's really been nagging at me.
My hands feel like they're burning because I'm not looking it up.
Human Google.
Well, I should have Googled it, but I've got Easter Phone at the moment.
Go on.
My phone is very sticky.
Oh, Frank.
Because I've been eating, like, I've just been eating chocolate.
So you, but you went full Lent.
No sweets or no chocolate?
Nothing, no sugar in Lent.
And then when Lent ended, I, in fact,
I did quite well because I could have had sugar on Easter Saturday evening.
Because in the Catholic church, if you go to the Easter Vigil Mass, which is on Saturday evening,
the priest said at the end, go home now, drink alcohol, eat sweets, do all the things you've given up, you know. You obviously haven't
seen King Kong. So I went, are you aware of the East of Vigil? There's no other mass like
it.
I think as a team, Pierre, the vibe I've always felt is the answer is Pierre knows and I probably
don't.
He knows as a sort of philanthropist, not philanthropist, anthropologist.
Anthropologist, yes.
I had to know a lot about, especially the medieval church for my degree.
Which a lot of people think the Catholic church has held on to.
And if anything, I was disappointed. Do you mean there aren't any secular clergy here at the Abbey?
Well, there was a lot of candles at the Easter Vigil Mass.
So what is...
We were holding...
There's a fire blazes at the door.
Oh my God.
And we have to go and light our candles off the fire.
The family comes with you?
No, no, I went alone.
Okay.
I was in, I was in Alborough in Suffolk.
Ooh.
I know what you're thinking.
Yes, it is the home of the poet George Crabb.
Anyway, it was, he's not around anymore.
But so you all get your candle
and then you walk into a completely black, dark church holding your candle.
Beautiful.
It is beautiful. It made me think, you know, candles, are they still...
Where are they now on the arc of their popularity?
Because, look, 10 years ago, candles was the must-have thing.
Can I just say that if I let my partner have full reign,
it would be like living in a Buddhist monastery.
I love that for her.
The amount of candles we own, both real and fake.
That is a woman who is still young enough to have dreams for her future.
So many candles.
That is a hopeful person.
That is a person who is still excited about life.
Someone who's like, I'm going gonna go full throttle with my candles.
I'm going to text her, we're moving house.
So I've been packing up all the books off the bookshelf.
And the bookshelf at various points
has held a candle, a lit candle.
And you can tell which one,
because the underside of the shelf
is completely black with soot.
Oh, wow.
And I'm gonna text her-
That could have gone wrong. I know. I'm gonna text her a photo of that and say, guess which of these shelves is at
your candle?
Your candle's on it.
Does she ratchet up further when it's Christmas time or is she just at, would she just be
going full throttle all 12 months of the year left unchecked?
There's sort of always a fairly good chance of there being a kind of enormous crackling
mad candle.
I think that's so sweet natured.
I said to her like the only people who buy matches are you and old sailors for their pipes
like an old sea dog.
And the people that go to my Starbucks.
I think...
If only to flick at each other.
Do you guys remember a couple years ago like that Hig...
I can't say it right but that Danish word Hig Huger?
Huger.
Huger.
Huger.
H-Y-G-E.
No, no, that means nothing to me.
Okay, it means like the Danish art of cozy.
And Danish art of cozy, I wanna say in 2018, 2019,
was like, everyone was like, how do we get more hygge?
And then that, so that to me, Frank, was peak candle.
And to answer your question, I believe we're coming down,
but I'm on Pierre's partner side, fiance, I beg your pardon,
that I think we're, I would like us to be all candle
all the time, but look at you,
your face is already saying to me, you hate the candle.
Where's your love for life?
My partner is the flip side of your fiance,
in that she says it will emerge within the next 10 years that
scented candles have given people terrible illnesses.
You know, people will die from sandalwood and rose.
Okay.
That's what she has there.
I don't think the science of that is correct, but what I have identified in her,
is she doesn't like cheap smelling shit.
So if she's got an Aesop candle, or like one of those, Sarah what are the other really,
I'm looking at you because I know you know, other really expensive, like this stuff that you buy.
There's an Aesop candle.
Duh! Aesop candle, diptyque, right?
Like if she is getting herself, there's another one in Liberty Sales.
Those kind of candles, I promise you, if you lit one of those for Kath,
she'd go, wait a second, everything I said about candles...
No, she wouldn't. She thinks they're killers.
She wouldn't if she smelled a really expensive one.
Aesop worked on those fables.
And his legacies to have candles.
And hand soap.
You may not know this, but I stayed in, this is, I'm telling Sarah because Pierre is aware
of this, I stayed in George Michael's pool house on holiday
with Katham and Boz, our kid.
And I went into a shop in the village
and I said to the woman, I'll be staying at George Michael.
And she said, oh, George Michael
was my number one candle customer.
And we debated what that meant.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Was this when he was still alive? Like, were you his guest? And we debated what that meant. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Was this when he was still alive?
Were you his guest?
No, no, no.
He was long gone.
He had been snuffed, as they say, in the candle.
Of course he bought a lot of candles.
Yeah, he easily did.
So there's still...
There's not been a stinguished, but I don't think they're at peak right now.
They're a bit like prime, is that they were massive and now they're having to come up
with very random flavors.
Yeah.
Yeah, okay.
I like candles in a church.
They're very good. This is a bit of a light review,
but they're very good for illumination. It struck me because I was thinking, are they
bad for the planet, you know, that we're all in here with candles?
They're as good as the fires are, but candles aren't in the same way, are they?
They're generally made out of soy wax or beeswax, if they're any good.
That's like paraffin ones, probably quite bad.
Those are the ones you shouldn't have indoors if they've got a bunch of paraffin in.
I love that moment when they're put out, the smell after they've gone out.
See that feeling that you feel right now is the hygge.
That's the Danish.
You feel the coziness right now, Frank.
I think the church ones must often be beeswax, right?
Like the painted, those big long ones.
He spoke.
There's a prayer when he says,
and so we hold these candles, the product of the bee.
He says, they've got one bee that works on it all year.
Catholic Church doesn't have the money we used to.
The Vatican hives.
I know.
I've.
I've.
As a Catholic, have you felt sad about the pope?
Oh God, yeah.
I'm sorry.
I was got in.
I met the pope.
Oh my God.
I got photos with the pope.
He was a good pope, right?
Oh, he was.
He was a good one.
He was, yeah.
He was a good pope, right? Oh, he was... He was a good one. He was, yeah, he was a good one.
Because usually popes are about rules,
and he was more about love.
I love being about love, but are you also, Frank,
are you a bit, you're a rule guy.
I like rules.
You like a rule, yeah?
Yeah.
And do you feel that you, with your Catholicism,
a lot of the rules, like you get to follow
so many rules and that must feel really nice?
Yeah.
Structures of the year.
Yep, structure to the year.
There was no chocolate, then there was all the chocolate, but you were following the
rules both times.
Yeah, well, Kath bought me, she knows my favorite chocolate.
She bought me a blonde Easter egg.
Shut up.
It's the only blonde she allows me anywhere near.
What does that mean? White chocolate? No, no. It's blonde is uh... It's caramel infused normal
chocolate. What? Yeah it's a sort of pale... Oh no it's lighter isn't it? It used to be
caramac. Yes. Oh okay I've heard of caramac before. It's sort of gold colored it? It used to be Caramac. Yes. It used to be a thing. Oh, okay.
I've heard of Caramac before.
Sort of gold-colored.
Gold.
And is there a purveyor of the blonde chocolate that you want that is your preference?
No, I don't care.
Any blonde?
If it's blonde, it'll do me.
Fascinating detail.
What if we just use that as a trailer?
It's great.
You've got to try it.
It's better.
I haven't tried the Dubai chocolate because
we tried it on the show. Emily had some, but it was during my Lent and...
We've got a vibrating.
I'm so sorry. I thought it was off. I apologize about that.
We've got a vibrating.
Okay. I hate it when that happens.
Apologies.
Who went most chocolate heavy?
Yourself, Buzz?
I think probably, no, Kath doesn't have chocolate.
Kath will only have a hundred percent chocolate.
Cacao.
Which for me, I would rather wear a Solis, which is, in case you don't know, is a sort
of barbed wire garter.
My God. Favored by the more extreme end
of the church.
Yeah, anyone, any Dan Brown fans should know what a Selyse is.
The Albino Monk wore one.
He did.
Do you, to enjoy what you're eating food like.
The Albino Monk is another kind of chocolate.
I am very partial to it.
It's inrobed.
And the top of the egg, there's a hole at the top of the egg, like a tonsure.
Oh, I don't even...
That would be nice.
Wait, that's the monk haircut.
The monk haircut, of course.
To be able to have the most heightened available enjoyment of your foodstuffs,
do you need to have a shared experience?
Like, if Kath or Buzz will like something with you,
or if Joe likes something with you,
do you then like it more?
Mm, Kath really lives on vegetables and boiled chicken.
So we don't have that kind of a relationship.
But me and Buzz, we'll discover something we really like. And then, like he's into nerds at the moment.
Oh, yeah.
I was amazed that they came back.
Yeah. I don't mean nerds as in...
Poindexters.
Yeah. I don't mean like, you know, girls in glasses. I mean, there's a type of suite.
Yeah, there's an American suite. And there's like different, there's like two bright colors
per package.
Yes.
Yes, that's right.
And you two are sharing in the love of the nerd.
Well, I get the odd one, but of course it's been lent, so I haven't had my full whack.
I haven't had my full whack out. Anyway, it was, it was, the mass that I went to was two
and a quarter hours in length.
Gosh, that's serious business.
You get bored or you like being pushed to your limit?
No, you get to a point where you fight it for a bit and then the duration means you
start to go deeper.
Wow, so meditative.
Yeah, you really go deeper. Wow. So meditative. Yeah, you really go deeper. And there was a blessing with water
when the priest goes up and down and splashes water and he was a generous water. I've never
got that wet. Really? It's a blessing. I think he might was like, I think he might, he might have been one of
those guys who worked quelling student riots in the 60s with powerhouses.
Did you feel like-
We're all soaked. He really-
Wow.
You go person by person?
He goes up the aisle and then he's, but most priests just give a general, they're zonal,
they just zonal water.
They're flicking it with, is it a chance?
He went man to man.
They're flicking with a chanceable?
Is that what it's called?
I don't know what the name of it is.
But did you feel like you were sort of, you've been framed, you've been blessed, sort of
prank level of water?
Well, it was, I mean, like it was a real, I mean, he put a few candles out. Did you go, this is the level of service that I now look back on?
I think probably we all needed after, this was about an hour and 40, we probably needed
splashing a bit just to revive us.
Yes, that's good.
How much variation do you think you see in the quality of the performance from a priest?
How many guys and gals are you going, can women be priests now?
No.
No.
How many guys are you seeing go, that guy's got the gift versus this guy, what are you
doing, man?
You don't know how to own the stage or are they all much of a muchness?
You see some people who are particularly on the preaching front, there's quite a big gap.
Some people like have really got it.
And what people will do is they'll travel if they find there's a good priest around,
they'll go to that priest and the church And the church, 100 yards down the road, is empty.
Oh, heart-breaking, but they should know, they need to get the memo.
That's the deal.
I didn't know there was quite that level of shopping about.
Yeah, because also, I mean, there used to be a priest that was near to us
who would reprimand us quite vehemently.
And he would, he said, I remember him saying, now I have heard that St Mary's, which was one down oh God, I told you not to tell him.
Great.
And he said, I remember he went on about there are guitars, was one thing.
And the children, I believe, are called to the altar.
And we were all like, oh no, and at the end he said,
there will be no fun masses here.
And he drove people away, you know,
he did drive people away.
But there is something appealing in him doubling down
on what he knows he's got on offer.
Yeah, I suppose there was.
It's a bit like going to a dominatrix.
Yeah.
No, fun.
Did you keep seeing him or did you also go to?
Well, I went there a few times.
Reverend Perry, I know who it was.
I went.
I did the odd fond masse.
But then again, I went to the more formal church again and I met a guy who was a regular
at the fond masse.
And I said, Oh, you've rejected
the Fond Mass. And he said to me, I was there six weeks ago and there was a piano accordion.
We've all got our hand in it.
I would, yeah.
I love the details of the, you know, whatever it is that breaks someone, pushes them over
there is always a good detail.
Yeah.
I wonder if, trying to be a bit professional, if we should consider something from the listeners,
the outside world. Regarding your and Buzz's adventures
in the realm of novelty food and drink,
you were both big fans of Takis,
the aggressively spiced crisp.
Do you know that, Sarah?
Oh, no, I think I was gonna pretend like I know,
but I don't know.
It's a hot snack.
You like hot and Buzz now also is enjoying hot.
Yeah.
That was one of our shared experiences.
You know every now and then in a packet of ordinary crisps, there'll be one which was
sort of like, it's face, the face of the crisp was sort of an inch from the flavor gun when
it went off.
And you like see God.
And you think, oh my, that's every single Takis.
They've designed a, they've answered the question, what if every crisp was insanely overly flavored
and also with lime and chili?
It's a real sinus clearer.
It's not like the soap Brazil, which is like a bit like a Russian roulette.
Do you know the soap Brazil?
Even when you're saying the soap Brazil, I don't know if you're talking about a bar
of soap that I would use to clean my bar or if you're talking about a soap opera.
I'm talking about a Brazil nut which tastes like soap. You know, you occasionally when
you're eating Brazil nuts, you'll get one which you just have to spit out.
Frank, I have never met someone that familiar with Brazil, that you were even just calling
them a Brazil.
A Brazil.
That's so, like you're eating Brazil nuts, the way the rest of us plebes eat peanuts.
I eat them just for that, the terror.
Just for the Russian relettas.
Yeah, it's the closest I get to being an adrenaline junkie is eating Brazil nuts.
Beautiful.
Thinking the soapy one could be just around the corner.
Well, someone has decided to have an adrenaline-filled experience with tacos, but not by eating them.
This is from James.
Uh-oh.
Evening, all.
Oh, okay.
Hello.
Nice.
A policeman.
In case you don't get that, you people, both of you being from overseas, there used to
be a popular police drama, but it was very cozy.
What was the Norwegian word for cozy?
Higa.
Higa.
It was like that.
It's called Dixon of Doc Green.
Yes.
And he would come on at the beginning and say, evening all, George Dixon.
Love it. And he would come on at the beginning and say, evening all, George Dixon. He was about 68, but still a Bobby on the beat
at an Aquaria happen.
God knows the level of misconduct
he had to have committed to be busted down to Bobby level
and sent to a remote village.
So he would come on, talk to camera,
talk to camera initially and say something like,
evening all, you know, there's nothing worse than a bent copper.
Ah.
And then he would go on about some terrible story.
But he was formerly a musical comedian, Jack Warner.
Was he?
And his catchphrase was, mind my bike.
All those catchphrases.
I know.
Almost random word generated catchphrases.
Exactly, it was early AI.
That's so great.
Just a catchphrase where it's like,
watch out for the nostril or something.
Okay.
What does that mean?
And they go, oh, it was a whole thing to do
with living by a dock.
That feels like something that'd be like
a Frank Willard catchphrase from a Christopher
Guest film.
Yes, exactly.
That's what that is.
Frank Willard would be reminiscing about that.
I've got a real red wagon.
I've got, I did it.
Do my work.
And everyone would lose their mind.
Best catchphrase ever.
Hello, I'm Johnny Cash.
So James says, evening all.
I hope this email finds you well.
Long time lurker, first time writer.
I just wondered if Frank had seen the below news story.
So it's a news story from Missouri, which feels right for this.
And the title of it is Hot Chips, Hot Water.
Oh my God.
A Missouri woman was sentenced to 12 years in prison for using Taki's tortilla chips to start a house fire.
What?
Deliberately choosing the spicy snacks for their high grease content.
Oh.
I'm going to read this.
I thought she meant she just left them on the floor and the place ignited.
The sun hit them through the window.
I'm going to read this in the voice I associate with true crime American documentaries that
my parents used to watch.
Patricia Williams, 44, entered the house, combined the chips with $2 worth of gasoline
and a soda bottle, poured it on the laundry and lit a fire.
The three people inside the house all escaped uninjured.
It's good.
Is that how they're talking?
I've never watched real crime.
I always, it would like Discovery Channel or something.
I remember as a kid, I'm like, but there was another problem, murder.
There would always be some sort of insanely dramatic.
It's that shift between true crime being quite silly and 50s noir and now where it's very
sort of podcast friendly.
The only true crime I watch is when a homeless man suddenly runs out of prep with a sandwich.
Yes. I saw quite a sort of something that should have been like on a Georgian engraving
or something like a Hogarth or something. A lady sprinted out of my local Tesco Express
with a raw chicken under each arm.
Oh, that's not great.
Was she anticipating flight?
Now you hold up your end of the bargain, she said to the birds.
I like the idea that as she ran, the wind went through like the neck hole.
Oh, ffff.
Laughing. Oh man.
She looked like a very good, she would have been a great rugby player.
Yeah, well.
Speed with one of those under the arm.
Exactly.
Yeah, she went for it.
Did she escape with them?
She did.
Good.
There was a sort of, kind of slight fish shaking, sort of, from an exhausted security guard.
Headline in local paper?
Foul play.
Yes.
It's really good.
Chicken jockey!
Do you get that?
Chicken jockey?
No.
It's what they show at the Minecraft movie.
Oh, God.
All the riots.
All the riots.
That's where they start.
The chicken jockey appears.
Jack Black, the chicken jockey. they show it to the Minecraft movie. Oh, God. All that, all the riots.
All the riots, that's where they start.
The chicken jockey appears.
Jack Black says, chicken jockey, and the whole audience throw popcorn and go insane.
Why?
Because it's a meme.
Oh, okay.
It's an American thing.
Do you hate American things a little bit?
No, I love American things.
I wouldn't be offended.
I'm genuinely interested.
No, I love American things a little bit. No, I love American things. I wouldn't be offended. I'm genuinely interested. No, I love American things.
I think, you know, Superman, Muhammad Ali, Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, how much
American love do you need, Sarah?
Okay, that's fine.
I mean, anything, I don't need it.
I don't need it.
I'm just asking.
Anything in this century?
And the answer might be no.
Severance.
Yeah, you're really into Severance.
Yeah. There you go.
Have you met Ben Stiller?
No. Have you?
No, but I would like I'd want to know your Ben Stiller story if you had one.
And I wonder if one is coming one day.
I'd like to.
He seems like a nice man.
I'm told that
he watches every second that is shot of Severance, which is unusual for a producer.
So the point where he will have a link, a live link at his home and watch it from there.
Gosh. Yeah.
In case he has to get up early to get a Joe Kind cop.
Sure.
We're all busy men.
Anyway, we're going to end it there and we'll be back in a couple of days with more Baron.
Thank you.
I always feel so cool when I'm called by my last name.
Yeah.
I feel like I'm in the club.
I think you did the radio show once,
and I played the theme from The Barron, the old UK TV show.
Well, as an American and a girlish,
a youngish, girlish 45, I don't know the reference,
but thank you.
But those were the days when I had a board with jingles I could play.
This is the cool new frontier, Frank.
You're on the cool new frontier.
It's the Frank Skinner podcast.
The new winter change is blowing.
It's the Frank Skinner podcast.
I'm not totally sure how it's going.
Thanks for listening to the podcast. Make sure to like and follow so you never
miss an episode and if you want to get in touch you can email the podcast via
frankofftheradio at avalonuk.com