The Luke and Pete Show - Episode 28: Light, Ephemeral, Almost Fruity

Episode Date: December 11, 2017

On this week's offering to appease the podcast gods, our eponymous ne'er do wells take in such disparate subject as flat earth rocketmen, wombats and groundhogs, the insect sting pain scale and yet more post office employee tales to savour.Elsewhere Pete continues to bang the 'speciality video' drum and there is an emailer willing to indulge him, we hear a story about someone who actually won a car in an airport raffle and spend a good amount of time talking about Pete's upcoming trip to Kenya to do some charity work that he doesn't like to talk about.Send charity our way by emailing [e-mail]  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

All right, watcher, it's Luke and Pete Shaw. I'm the Pete Bits. There's a man in the room with me and he's the Luke Bits. What number is this episode? 28, and I was just writing some notes about groundhogs. More on that later. Okay, good. I think this is the earliest Luke and Pete Shaw we've we've ever done yeah i'm bleary-eyed you said you said to me earlier have you got a cold i was like no it's just very early yeah same here i'm like that i'm terrible after a hangover i get very sniffly but you also work quite late into the night don't you so you burn in the midnight i rarely see you pre-midday, I would say.

Which is fair enough because you keep different hours to the rest of us. It's not right, is it? It's not right. How have you been, Luke? You all right?

Good. I was just going to be mean to you then, but you stopped me by asking me how I am. I'll teach you. I was going to say, you operate at different hours

compared to the rest of us that are contributing to society. I'm a dread. But really good luck. I'm good. How are you? I'm all right. I'm off to Kenya this afternoon.

I know you're off to Kenya, so that'll be interesting. See you later. For next week. You planning on talking about it next week? Well, it depends on how harrowing the slums are. Oh, my goodness. It is a charity mission. I don't like to talk about it.

No. I've got to go to a hand-washing seminar where basically they teach townsfolk and youngsters and child carers, adolescent carers, how to wash their hands properly because obviously diarrhea and stuff kills out there. And I was thinking, I'm not sure how to wash hands. I think that's going to be a big stumbling block for me. In the hospital, though, if you go to a hospital, they'll give you, there's like a, I guess the combat MRSA and stuff like that.

There's always a sign on the wall showing how to do it properly. I mean, in combat, they're not winning anything. No. No. I think if you watch, I don't know if you've ever seen a reality show or a hospital documentary, if you see surgeons, the way they scrub up,

apparently, ideally, that's how you're supposed to wash your hands properly, but realistically, you're not going to do that. They go all the way up to the elbow. When I skip, I just, when I skip, I just do a little, and to be honest, in a lot of like bars

and restaurants and stuff, they don't even have any hot water, which is annoying. That says a lot about the types of restaurants you're eating, young man. So,

I just go, well, it'll make my constitution stronger, I think. Yeah, I think there is definitely research. Empirically incorrect. No,

there's research that supports kids who get outside and do stuff. Yeah. It, well, I think there is definite research. Empirically incorrect. No, there's research that supports kids who get outside and do stuff. Yeah. It means that they're much less likely to suffer infection as they get older. A study created by scientists with terrible fathering methods or mothering methods.

When you're talking about restaurants not having hot water, are you basically talking about McDonald's? There used to be a curry house used to go quite a lot and they had an outside toilet. You had to go and walk across the thing. Was that in Hartlepool?

No, it was in Leicester. Was it? All the best curry houses are. When I first moved to London about 15 years ago or so, I can remember going to McDonald's about a week or two after I moved there. And it was in Brixton, which is not far from where I live now. And Brixton wasn't the Brixton that we see now. Yeah, I used to be there quite a lot.

It's changed, let's say. Yeah, you know what I mean. They've got a new electric avenue sign, for example. They have, in neon. And the first, when I went to this McDonald's in Brixton, I went to use a toilet, and a man was smoking crack in the toilet. And it was the first time I'd ever seen someone

using drugs like that. I saw, one of my first visits to London and I've never really seen that sort of thing again my first visit to London Subway a man smoking crack

and that was like ten years ago in Subway in Subway in Subway really yeah in Subway which branch

it was the one right in the middle of Soho I think there's only one during the day yeah during the day that is brazen I remember sort of I can't remember why we were even down in London I think there's only one right in the middle of Soho. Yeah, during the day. That is brazen. I can't remember why we were even down in London.

I think we went to a punk festival at the arena. How old were you? I must have been about 22, something like that. Dreadful, dreadful. I remember I used to go home, I used to do overnights on XFM

and I would come home about six o'clock in the morning and I was on the bus once and there was a lad in front of me and he was smoking away like naughty lads just do everything all the time

anything they want to do and I was like alright that doesn't smell like weed doesn't smell like tobacco it's very metallic

isn't it oh dear crack didn't really sleep that much after that apple jog we'll see for the next three days

I saw a guy on the tube once, Eastern European guy, possibly Polish maybe, smoking a cigarette on the tube. Have you ever seen that before? Oh, what, like somebody just flouting the smoking ban? Just lit up, and the tube stopped.

And the driver's like, what are you doing? Some of the drivers are quite chippy, aren't they? What are you doing? Put that out. And the guy, I don't think the guy had great English so someone had to go over and explain to him that you've got to put that out he knew what he was doing

he knew what he was doing I saw a man actually I saw a man in a bar on Holloway Road about three months ago and they were and he just lit up a cigarette in a bar

and it was actually quite shocking yeah and the bloke went just get out he was pissed that was mind but he just lit one up

and it was actually quite a shocking surprising surprising scene, really. Yeah, the amount that the consciousness has been lifted re-smoking inside is very, very strange. And we think that these things can't be changed. We just think, well, that's an institution. What would you change? What do you mean?

What would you bring in next? You said things can't be changed. They can be changed. OK. I'm offering you a chance to change something. What do you want to change? I can't think of one now. It's really annoying. I've always got

loads of ideas about how people can stop being dickheads. What about make it a criminal offence to try and get on the tube train before someone gets off? Yeah, I mean, that's a pain in the arse. You know what? Needlessly aggressive people on the tube

just anyway. Without making this too London century, one of the things, without making this too sort of London century, one of the things that you really understand about London's transport system, particularly the underground, is that there's so many people certainly, especially at certain times of the day, that the whole system succeeds or fails

on you, the individual, doing your bit. So, it can't move people can't move around the city unless you stand the right on the escalators you let people off before you get on you move down the train you give up your seat all that stuff these rules are one of the one of the best examples i think of a reason why rules exist yeah because otherwise the whole thing grows to grow into a standstill i wouldn't be surprised if incidents like someone taking ill on a train or being injured or it's basically because people can't sort themselves out properly.

I just think, yeah, I've got my life and what I'm going to do today is more important than everyone else's. Yeah, that's what they think, which is wrong. Which is wrong. Be a team player, people. Anyway, what's been floating on your boat this week, Peter? What has been floating on my boat this week? What have I been up to?

Well, I've mainly been packing for Kenya, to be honest. I've just been doing bits and bobs for that, really. You're a poor packer, aren't you? No, I'm actually quite good.

I'll tell you what. I'm going to give you a chance to tell people the passport story or I'm going to tell it for you. Well, I left my passport at home.

Yeah. That's one thing. That's the most important thing of packing. Yeah, but I take way more flights than anyone I know because I'm an international traveller.

Sure enough. What executive club member are you in BA? Blue, I think. I don't know. There isn't a blue. There is a blue. It's bronze, silver and gold. Oh, bronze then.

Yeah, same. Yeah. I'm sure there is blue below that. I'm sure I had to take out a credit card. The thing with the BA loyalty card system is that uh it doesn't really yeah i don't know what blue's offering if there's one below bronze i do not know what that's offering you yeah but the thing the thing is you uh i guess because i was on for a ba friends and family for quite a while which is my mate worked for ba yeah and so i was able to

get like a business class flight to tokyo for 400 quid yeah i mean that was living all right that was living all right that's living all right that was living all right. That was living all right. That's living all right. That's living all right. And, uh, but, uh, that doesn't happen anymore because you moved to the train line.

I know because I thought you were going to say, because we're no longer friends. Because I soiled that plane. Well, I, well, actually, uh, Rin, the guy who, uh, used to work for BA,

lovely, I love you, Rin. God, God, I love that lightly bonus. Um, uh, yeah, I've sent a tan leather briefcase to his house, which looks like something out of Pulp Fiction or something. It looks like a really dodgy kind of deal gone wrong. But I've sent it to his old house.

Basically, I bought something on eBay a little while ago, because it was in Arkansas. It took a long time to get to me, but I've put in the wrong address instead of putting my address I put my mate Rin's address in

why would you do that? because I'd bought him a record player to say thank you for the aforementioned British Airways and it saved the address and changing it

I asked to change it they didn't change it blah blah blah and so now there's a random briefcase going to my mate's ex-house

oh dear that's a bit suspect isn't it? that's a suspect package who sent me this tan random briefcase going to my mate's ex-house. Oh, dear. That's a bit suspect, isn't it? That's a suspect package. Who sent me this tan leather briefcase in the 70s? Quite literally a suspect package. It looks so... But on plane travel, you know, I was just saying, if there's something below bronze on BA,

then I don't know what it is, because bronze basically just gives you a chance to put a little bronze tag on your baggage, which means nothing. Do you actually do that? No, obviously not. A chance to check in, I tag on your baggage, which means nothing. Do you actually do that? No, obviously not. A chance to check in, I think, a week early or something, which again, given that you've already reserved your seat, is pointless.

And apparently it gives you special dispensation to get upgrades and stuff, which never happens. So anything below bronze can't offer you anything, in my contention. But have you ever seen those bloggers and those guys who essentially make a... A living out of reviewing airplanes. But they almost do these things. I hate the term sort of life hacks and travel hacks and hack this and hack that. But these travel hackers, as they call themselves, they manage to get into lounges, get up raids.

What do you think about the sort of veracity of their claims? Do you think that's actually possible? Well, I think it's possible, but I mean, I think they're men, and as is so often the case with men like that, and it is always just men because they've got the, you know, they've got this idiocy in their mind. The front. The front, to think they're getting one over on the system.

They just don't value their time enough. Like, that takes a long time. Travelling's about getting from one place to another. How you get there is kind of... So do you think then, for example, a blogger who would claim that he was able to get upgraded to say business on the fly may well have had to wait days to get it? Or he would have had to have played one business off another

and cashed in things here and stuff like that it's just all just like oh you get more points if you buy all your shopping in Ocado

like on Ocado and you're just spending more time just like you're making your life worse for three hours on a fucking flight

to you know I was going to say Zabruga but that is where the ferry terminal is so you wouldn't really be flying to Zabruga and it went like

three hours from London. Zurich. That's funny, because when I flew back from, as you know, I've been in the US recently, and for the first time ever, we got into the lounge. Right. Because- What do lounges allow you?

Because I used to go in when my other mate, Virgin, I got a cheeky upgrade, but she got me in the lounge there. That's the only time I've ever been in a lounge yes well what happened was we flew back with one of the things I don't agree with

is we booked flights to the US with Virgin right and they they said oh yeah cheers for booking all that kind of crap

by the way we're code sharing with Delta on the way back so you're flying back with Delta so I called up Delta to see if I could upgrade to premium. Because I always call to see, because sometimes if there's no demand,

you can get it really cheap and it's worth it. And Delta didn't have a premium section. So I'm thinking, well, I've booked with Virgin. And now they're giving me this other airline that I didn't want. And then there's no premium section. Anyway, they do this thing called Comfort Plus, which is about $50. And you get preferential stuff. You get more leg room and all called Comfort Plus, which is about $50. And you get preferential stuff. You get more leg room and all that kind of stuff,

which for me is important. Little slippers. Well, you don't get slippers, but it's an overnight flight and I'm 6'3", so it's important to get extra leg room if you can. And, but on the boarding pass, it said Sky Zone. Right.

And I looked in the airport at Boston and it said Delta Sky Zone. And I thought, oh, we're in the lounge. So I went in there with my wife and said, oh, yeah, cheers. Can I come in? And he was like, no. He said, yeah, that doesn't actually mean that. That means you board from this area, but you can't go inside the lounge, which is weird.

But anyway, he did exactly what you've just mentioned. Well, listen, sir, if you want to purchase access to the lounge, if you use a Delta American Express credit card, you can get in for $20 or whatever. And obviously, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to take out a credit card for American Express just to get into the lounge for an hour. But my wife, my lovely wife, had some Delta points. Had a gun on her.

No, she'd forgotten about these points she had. Right. So she got us in the lounge. Right. So it's all free food, all free drink, everything. We're not messing about. We should have a cup of tea and giraffe

and everyone just calm down, yeah? There's not a giraffe at Boston Logan. No, there should be. Terminal A we're at at Boston Logan which isn't the greatest terminal but anyway.

This is getting very men who go to airports. Crap. You go to airports a lot more than I do though. Well. Listen, speaking of a man, listen, one of the things

that floats in my boat this week is a man called Mad Mike Hughes. Wow. And he doesn't use airports, Pete. Does he, heck? He sounds like a man who lives off-grid. I'm going to read the start of this article for you, the first couple of paras, and then I'm going to read you a brilliant quote. Is this like an early Men Carter entry? Is that what you're doing?

It's just something that I read earlier. No, I don't want to put him in Men Carter because he seems like a bit of a dickhead. And you'll see why. Mad Mike Hughes, a 61-year-old limo driver from California, has been building a rocket out of salvage parts for two years, costing him a reported $20,000, which he's planned to launch himself over the Mojave Desert at 500 miles an hour. Okay, that's fairly eccentric. I mean, it's about as eccentric as it gets, really.

But it gets more sinister than that. Right. His plan to disprove thousands of years' worth of scientific thought, well, hang on a minute, has been waylaid by the Bureau of Land Management, which has stopped him from making the launch on public land in Amboy, California. The reason this guy is doing it is because he wants to prove that the Earth is flat. And his rocket has been sponsored by a company or a pressure group called Research Flat Earth.

The fact that they've got their shit together. They've clambered from the message boards of like 4chan and all that crap. And they've managed to sort of find their way to making money to invest in... I mean... It's Darwinism as far as I'm concerned. If you've got enough money to sponsor a rocket, you've been on a fucking plane, mate. Yeah, exactly.

Listen to the quote from Mad Mike Hughes. I know about aerodynamics and fluid dynamics and how things move through the air, about the certain size of rocket nozzles and thrust, but that's not science, that's just a formula. There's no difference between science and science fiction. What?

I don't understand that. Look forward to an update in a couple of weeks when Mad Mike Hughes dies. I read about him and apparently he's done a rocket trip before and he hurt himself. He hasn't learned the lesson. He wants the sweet kiss.

Sweet, sweet AR drugs AR drugs AR drugs yeah but the thing is the thing about it Pete is that he presumably had the thought

I think the earth might be flat you know and his best way of testing it is to build his own rocket and launch himself into the sky at 500 miles an hour

I mean I'm struggling to see I mean you're not just going to be a dead man you're going to be a dead disappointed man aren't you I mean whatever it's not just going to be a dead man. You're going to be a dead, disappointed man, aren't you? I mean, whatever. It's not a glorious death, is it? No. So you go up,

you see that the Earth is round, and then you go, oh, balls. I mean, what's he... Presumably he's seen the photographs. Is this rocket just going up, I presume? He's going to have to go pretty high

to see the curvature of the Earth anyway. And I think that, I mean, if you're listening out there and you're a flat earther, do get in touch. Seriously, get in touch.

Give us your rationale. Let us know. Because the flat Earth thing, Pete, has had a resurgence recently. It's huge, yeah. There are quite famous people coming out now.

A lot of rappers. A lot of rappers get involved. Yeah, and basketball players, weirdly. But clearly, he's not going to prove or disprove it on those terms anyway. famous people a lot of rappers a lot of rappers yeah and basketball players so but clearly he's not going to prove or disprove it on those terms

anyway he's going to end up killing himself but also before we move on to like we're being lied to by our governments in a

million different reasons a myriad of different reasons but that's not one of them no it's not and I like about

the flat earth thing somebody was saying I think a scientist probably one of the big TV ones, basically a flat earther asked him a question. Oh, why do you think that, why does everyone buy this lie about the flat earth? And he mentioned Venus or something.

Right. And then they went, yeah, what about Venus? Like, do you think that Venus is flat as well? And they came back with, no, Venus has been proved to be spherical. It's like, what? So, no, it's just this specific one. This one. In the billions of stars.

That's the thing. Sometimes the arrogance of some facets of religion and flat earth belief and stuff like that, sometimes beliefs are so goddamn arrogant. It's like people who are obsessed with Muslim belief and stuff like that. Sometimes beliefs are so goddamn arrogant. It's like people who are obsessed with Muslim terrorists and stuff.

Like, don't be so arrogant to think you're going to be caught up in it. Don't think you're going to be so arrogant that you're going to get fucking killed by someone.

The chances are so fucking remote. Well, do you think it's an extension of people thinking that the world revolves around Yeah, massively, massively.

And it's, you know, it's unfortunate and stuff, but like, if you're going around walking around thinking the earth is flat you're an arrogant

pig yeah I mean we are both arrogant pigs in other ways yeah I know

yeah in every other way in every other conceivable way and just quickly before we move on to emails one more thing

I thought might be of interest to you P Don is if you give £10 to the Boston Logan

airport lounge man. But you know a while back you talked about a stadium roof collapsing. Yes, that was the Pontiac Silverdome. Something like that, yeah. Was that right? No, it was the Pontiac Silverdome. Okay.

Well, apparently the Hartford Civic Centre, which is now called the XL Centre, according to my father-in-law, who we spoke about last week, who lives down the road from Hartford in Connecticut, that also collapsed. The roof of that collapsed in the early morning of January 18th, 1978. The weight of snow from a heavy snowstorm

and a faulty roof design caused the Civic Centre roof to collapse, but there were no injuries and it opened again in a couple of years. Isn't that incredible? Yeah. Such huge structures. They try to... More so regularly than you think.

They tried to blow up the Pontiac Silverdome a couple of years ago. They tried to demolish it, but the explosions didn't work. Oh, really? Like, you just saw the puff of dust and cement as it went around the stadium. Right.

And then you're just like nothing it didn't collapse that's surprising because there's quite a lot of scientific detail in the art of demolition isn't there oh yeah

they know exactly where to put the different charges and stuff that's fascinating I think they'll just take one wrecking ball and it'll all come down

but have you ever seen the footage of a building wired for demolition loads of trip wires everywhere yeah well not trip There's loads of trip wires everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, not trip wires.

They look like trip wires, but they're higher up. Incredible, really. Yeah, imagine trying to get out. It's just full of trip wires. I'm not ready yet. There we go. Anyway, do you want to give us an it's been, even though we missed it again?

It's been. That's not bad. An early morning one. You're getting better at it, I think. One day. One day. One day. What have you got? I've got a couple.

Hello to John Rudge. John Rudge, who's big in the Nan Grand super heavy duty game, apparently. Right, and what we're now doing is the It's Been jingle for the emails. Yeah. Because we forgot to do it beforehand. Yes. Okay, cool. Oh, sorry, It's Been as in...

Because you normally have a different jingle for the emails, don't we? Oh, do you want to go to a break, do you mean? All right, yeah. If you give me a... Say break rather than email. No, but I want you to know what I mean. All right, then. Okay, Luke.

Hang on. Okay, Luke, don't gunge me, mate. Pipe down, Pete. I told you never to argue with the customers. Never argue with the customers, Luke. No. We haven't heard that one for a little while. Do you think the shambolic nature of this show is part of its charm?

I mean... Or do you think people just think we're really lazy? What I would say is that talking about airline lounges probably isn't part of our charm. The fact that we've only been in one once ever between us, it's not like we're flying high, is it? It's like we're living it up, lording it over the peasants. I do watch a lot of those videos where the man's just in upper class and he's explaining what you get in upper class flight in different places.

Yeah, and that's the thing, isn't it? If people do for any reason mistake the fact that we're lording it up, most of our knowledge comes from watching other people do it on YouTube. Anyway, what's John Rudge saying? John Rudge. Hello? John Rudge. Hello, John Rudge. He's big in the non-grand super heavy-duty batteries. He's 28.

In regards to your postman urination-related question. Oh, yeah, from last week. Yeah, the old man is a postie of several decades, and he advised me the protocol that a delivery operative, when he feels the call of nature, is that they are to break off their round and return to the depot but quite often will locate an accessible toilet at one of the places they deliver to a community center is my dad's choice and will come to some sort of agreement

with the owners that they can utilize their facilities if a postman turned up on your door would you let him do away in your toilet well Well, I've had delivery drivers and... A special delivery, if you will. Yeah, delivering their own type of delivery into my toilet. I've had people who come in to... I mean, there was a couple of guys who came in to put up a bed in my spare room a while back, and they used the bathroom. Well, that's allowed. I mean, they're in your house. I mean, their workspace is literally your house, but a postman...

Yeah, but if a postman came to the door and said, look, I'm very, very sorry, here's your delivery. I've got a really bad indigestion problem at the moment. No, don't say that, because you know you're getting pooey poo. No, I'd probably let them. Oh, and speaking of that. I'd let them, if they were wearing a uniform. But you're so polite, you'd let people do all that stuff.

Yeah, I'd let them do it with my mouth. But you are one of those people... I'm not doing it with my mouth. But you are one of those people who would rather help someone out to the detriment of your own well-being, if you know what I mean. I just think, you're not here for a long time, are you? What do you want?

What, you're here to bend them backwards for everyone else? Yeah. But I was speaking to my mum this morning, and I told her about this postman thing, and she said that her grandfather, so my great-grandfather, a postman in rural scotland just outside aberdeen till a very old age she didn't know how old exactly pissing a boffy but she said yeah we could do and she said that um apparently used to deliver in like all types of weather it's like a matter

of pride and he was only five foot three and he would sometimes go out and deliver in like three feet of snow which sounds like a pretty hardcore job oh and my great uncle was also the oldest amateur referee in Scotland at one point as well

football referee oldest amateur referee right okay there's a lot of tech in there isn't there I imagine he was terrible towards the end yeah

cataract yeah oh dear do you want a quick one from Tom Carpenter Tom Carpenter yeah alright it's a Christmas story

oh yeah go on we are rapidly approaching Christmas alright lads I've just been listening to Egg Security and Pete's stories of the kid pissing in a drawer

and him drunkenly sleepily ending up in the wrong bed at a house party made me think about the following story about myself as right up your alley

plus it happened on Christmas Eve slash morning so it's timely for the festive period here we go after a big Christmas Eve night out, so it's timely for the festive period. Here we go. After a big Christmas Eve night out drinking, did you ever do Christmas Eve drinking when you were a kid?

I did, and a lot of my friends would tie one on and go out literally to nightclubs and stuff until like 3 a.m. I always used to go out drinking, but I would always come home when the pubs closed. My mum would get so annoyed with me if I was badly hungover on Christmas Day. I don't think my mum

really cared but I would occasionally run home to get there before midnight. Oh really? Like a right little dweeb. Would your mum be annoyed

if you couldn't contribute to Christmas Day? She doesn't let me contribute to Christmas Day. She won't listen to this. She does terrible roasties for Christmas Day. Oh Pete, you can't say that about your own mother. They are dreadful. She won't listen to this. She does terrible roasties for Christmas Day. Oh, Pete, you can't say that about your own mother.

They are dreadful. Oh, you've told me this before. Doesn't she do them the night before? She does them the night before, and every year I have this argument. I go, Mum, I can do this. I make very good roasties. And, yeah, she has none of it.

So your mum makes roast potatoes for Christmas Day the day before. One year she's going to break her wrist before we do Christmas. And you're going to have to get involved. And she'll go, Pete, you did very well there, Pete. That's all I want is her respect. Out of all my friends, though, I think,

and I don't take this the wrong way, you are the least, you're the person I'd least like to cook for me on Christmas Day. Beef Wellington. No, do a turkey. That's one of my specialities. What, from scratch? Fish pie, beef Wellington from scratch. Wow. I'm actually of my specialities. What, from scratch? Fish pie, beef welling from scratch.

Wow. I'm actually quite an accomplished chef. Chef, in that I go out and buy, it costs me like 60 quid for one meal. Because I don't have any of the things that I need. And the better kitchen is a bombsite. I use every pan. Yeah.

I go next door and ask to use theirs. Terrible. But would your mum be annoyed with you if you had a bad hangover on Christmas Day? Not really, I don't think.

And to be honest, I mean, what does cause you a bad hangover? Isn't Christmas all about drinking anyway? But I once was genuinely ill.

I had like a stomach upset on Christmas Day and my mum wouldn't believe me that I wasn't hungover. And she was like, people have made a lot of effort on Christmas Day. This is disgraceful and all this other stuff. And then when it got to about 3pm Boxing Day

and I was still like vomiting, she was like, okay, yeah, fair enough. You might actually be off. My dad, we don't have a very conventional family, but there's always these little stories. My dad came, I don't know all my presents and stuff. I mean, mum and dad, I don't know theirs. My sister, I don't know theirs.

How old were you? This was last year. Oh, last year. And my dad had got me, like, what was it? It was like a build-your-own-car or something. It was kind of like a second-hand kind of air-fixed car. Right. That he bought in a charity shop.

It was in pretty good nick, but I mean... Oh, no, that's what it was. It was a two-stroke engine. It was a little kind of plastic engine that you could make run with probably a candle or some oil or something like that. All right. You'd build it yourself.

And he'd clearly bought it from a charity shop because in the middle of the engine, somebody had put a wrap of resin. Cannabis resin? Cannabis resin. That's a bonus. Yeah, I know, right? But I was just looking at it going,

oh, this is just... A bit tawdry. A bit tawdry, isn't it, for Christmas Day? So well done, Stewie Donaldson, for that. Right, back to Tom Carpenter's email. After a big Christmas Eve night out drinking, I was rudely, I thought at the time, walking by my mom

downstairs on christmas morning uh with the words get up you've ruined christmas i just a brilliant line you imagine that though yeah i've been in bed and the door opens first thing in the morning your mom comes in get up you've ruined christmas i think sometimes christmas um christmas is like one of those days where perspective doesn't matter. Like, nobody will ever go with... Oh, we'll laugh about this one, yeah? No. We'll laugh about this one, because people just... Oh, my God, it's Christmas.

Yeah. Get up, you've ruined Christmas. I generally got out of bed and went downstairs to see both my sisters, mum and dad looking at me with a mixture of sadness and disgust. When they could bring themselves to talk to me again, I found out why I was being made to feel like a social leper. Turns out I had stumbled home, fallen asleep in my room. A bit later, got up to go to the toilet,

but taken the wrong turn in my drunken sleep and ended up in my younger sister's room. I then opened her wardrobe and pissed all over the contents while she watched in horror. Oh, dear. Once finished, I had wandered back to what I thought was my room, but was actually my other sister's room, got in bed and kicked her out.

She joined the first sister in going to get my parents and they came in to make me go back to my own room. In the meantime, I had removed all my clothes in bed, so when they grabbed the two of me off me, I was completely naked in front of my whole family and had to be led back to my room in the nude. I then passed out, leaving them to scrub

and wash my sister's clothes and wardrobe and console each other. I haven't been out drinking on Christmas Eve since that fateful night. I think with hindsight, they probably had

a good reason to say I ruined Christmas. Tom Carpenter. I like the way that they, bless you, I like the way that they basically just let him go back to sleep

while they do all the cleaning. My parents probably would have kept me up. No, I mean, what were you going to get out of him at that point? I think that you just got to kind of, you know, punishment comes later, I think. And I think realising... A dish best served cold. Yeah, okay.

It's a horrible thing to wake up to, though. That's nice. I've got one here from mark which i like and not just because he says um hello chaps loving the show it's easily one of my favorite podcasts to listen to geez um if that is the case do leave us a review on itunes luke and pete show on itunes mark says in answer to your question in episode 25 about our airport car raffles i like that you thought it was a scam and that nobody would ever win one until i heard the following story i don't know if we said it was a scam

no i just said and actually it was it was borrowed by a lot of people emailing in about it apparently yes my uh hypothesis was true uh there is only one car but it's shared every airport in the world every airport in the world but the car you see is just a version of the car you can win right well Mark says he has a friend who is a mechanic for Land Rover and he told him that a couple of years ago a young guy about 18 came into

the compound in a gleaming white Range Rover Sport it attracted quite a bit of attention with a guy so young and he said my friend not massively being into football assumed it was a footballer or some sort of sportsman. Turns out he had won the car from one of these airport raffles for £50, which he bought on the way to a lad's holiday.

He had driven it to Land Rover to sell it because he couldn't afford to run it, tax it, insure it, or do anything with it while still being a full-time student. Wouldn't Land Rover be the worst place to go for it? Because they'd know how much the cost price was, they'd know what the... I don't know. He said he enjoyed a tank of petrol in it

before not being able to afford to fill it up again so he drove it to sell it on nearly brand new. Wow. That's remarkable. I'd sell it privately. You'd get loads of money for it doing that. But fantastic work. It just sort of got... I've got a mate who's obsessed with the fact

that he never wants to be bequeathed a boat. Right. Because he doesn't want to pay mooring charges. He doesn't know... He'd need a licence. Is he likely to be left a boat? That's the thing. He wouldn't even...

Like, who's going to leave someone a boat anyway? My friends. But he's gone... He's genuinely, on more than one occasion, said, just don't leave me a boat. If anyone's listening, don't leave me a boat. Don't bequeath me a boat. I don't want it.

It sounds like reverse psychology. That's just reminding me. He is wearing a captain's hat at the same time, though. A few friends of mine who may or may not be listening, Lewis, Chris, and Rob, when we were about 18 or 19, they had one of these sort of, I don't know how you would describe it,

sort of weed-inspired ideas. Right. To buy it, because obviously I'm from the South Coast. We all grew up a stone's throw from the Solent on the South Coast. Where all da best weed come in. No, it's nothing to do with that.

It's to do with the boat. And they said, do you know what we're going to do? We're going to get a boat. What we'll do is we're going to buy a boat. We're going to go out fishing and all this other stuff. None of them had ever done before. So they bought a boat for about 500 pounds between them,

painted it, called it the Clubber Lang after Mr. T's character in Rocky and did a nice little design on the side with Clubber Lang and a boxing glove i imagine they spent more time on the design of the boat than the uh actual you know learning how to sail would it be helpful if i was to say to you the only memory two memories i have of the boat one is of one of my mates rob trying to fill the petrol the tank up with petrol with a cigarette

in his mouth and everyone's saying don't do that and and secondly uh the fact that they didn't realize that you had to pay mooring fees and uh one day they went to go and find the boat and uh it had gone and no one ever seen it again so it wasn't as successful i think at some point it was used um by one or two of them to stay overnight in when they had nowhere to stay or something like that but i think it got about two voyages in total and if you are listening out there and that story's inaccurate you can email in and tell us different or just call me i do sort of wonder uh yeah i do sort of wonder where that boat went then yeah did it get impounded they probably would have been sent letters or something they didn't see and then uh and then

probably use it for fucking rizzlers, mate, yeah? Yeah. Well, like, I think I told you this. I might have said this on the podcast. Like, I used to go up to the girl from Jersey. The dad was a budding boat man. And he got... Sailor? Yeah, so he owned half a boat. It was, you know, a nice boat.

I'd like, you know, GPS and all that stuff. Fishing boat. Did he make hip hop video and yeah and he was he was like a corner of that

and he got his sailing badges or whatever and we went out one day and it was like one of the first trips he'd done alone and so he's been

the big dad of the house with you with me my ex-girlfriend her two sisters you know everyone he cared about apart from me obviously

everyone he basically cared about he took out on this boat on this trip and he's messing around with the fishing lines and I'm messing around with the fishing lines

and one of the girls has got the wheel and we're just heading out to sea and it gets a bit it gets a bit fucking rough and he turns around

and I've never seen a man go so white in my goddamn life because honestly the waves were about two times that height of the boat we were rolling into them and out of them and i was like i mean this is thrilling but there's this very british thing of going i mean not really british because you know really close to the cost of france but like really british thing, right, what point is this a disaster? What point do we have to press the emergency fucking button? Because it was very close, very close.

What happened in the end? We managed to kind of get in control and the seas calmed quite quickly, thank God, but we were in all kinds of trouble. Did you get seasick? No, I'm all right. We suffer that sort of thing. Your dad was in the Navy, in the jeans.

He always says that. He always says when he cuts um salt water comes out when he cuts himself so you you you're able to literally weather the storm i was literally we were literally able to weather the storm but um how scared were people he shat himself uh were you scared as well i was like no i think you know what the lasses the lasses weren't because they were like oh dad's dad knows what he's doing and I was going fucking I'm outside this family

dad doesn't always swim I've got no little teeth here would you rate yourself as a strong swimmer no I'm terrible doggy paddle doggy paddle maximum jeez okay

so you were in big I was in big danger I was in big D's what about this email from Simon I like this because it's a follow up to the Convergent Evolution

chat we had last week. Simon says, Hi both. The hummingbird hawkmoth is an incredible example of convergent evolution. It looks and flies in the same way as a hummingbird. It's amazing. I looked it up on YouTube. It is amazing.

It's even got the sort of, what would you call it, the sort of proboscis. Oh, right. Okay. I didn't give it a Google. And it only exists, I think, in certain parts of the world where the hummingbird doesn't also exist. Ah, because if you saw your own doppelganger, you wouldn't recognise yourself.

Yeah, it'd be like a Versace version of you. It'd be odd. And I did some further research and learnt the following about convergent evolution. Koala bears, koalas, I don't know if they're actually bears. They're not bears.

That's what everyone says, isn't it? They're not bears. Koalas have evolved fingerprints independently of human beings, which is weird. River dolphins have evolved independently in three different parts of the world at least. The Amazon, the Ganges

and the Yangtze River in China. And according to DNA studies, they aren't related but have evolved to live in fresh water. And wombats and groundhogs, two animals that would never meet naturally, one in the continental United States and one in Australia,

have also got very, very similar traits. That's why I was looking at groundhogs earlier. And it's just like they live in similar kind of, they have the same needs. Well, I guess the environment. So they have all the same things. But the environments have in some way been similar, which means they've evolved sort of certain traits

that they need. Isn't that wonderful? It's great, I love it. Isn't that wonderful? The world around us is fascinating. And it's flat. And it's flat as hell. Yeah.

Flat as a two. Bob, no. I want to say hello to Liam, another Postman story. Oh, yeah. As a postie who listens to your show while trailing the mean streets of Bradford, West Yorkshire, I can confirm that postie pissing hot spots

are usually pubs and doctor surgeries. Doctor surgeries? That's interesting, isn't it? I have, however, known colleagues who use any shrubbery or wall above waist height to do their thing uh something you might enjoy on a slightly related topic a colleague of mine recently tried to deliver a parcel to a house after a couple of minutes a man leaned out of the downstairs bathroom window and took receipt of the parcel expressing his thanks it later turned out that a burglary was actually taking place and this

cheeky chappy was taking the opportunity to add to his swag. That is front. That's ballsy, isn't it? That is ballsy. Imagine that. Oh, there's someone coming up the path. Oh yeah, I'll take it.

I'll take it. Thank you, Liam. I'll sign for it. Did he sign for it with his real name? Brilliant. Gotcha. I like this one from Brad

from Sydney. He says, I was listening to the podcast as you talked about the sting of the bullet ant. Do you remember that? Right, okay, yeah, yeah. How long ago was that?

That was about four weeks ago. Yeah, and the stupidity of those who choose to get voluntarily stung by such creatures. As such, I thought you might like to know about the Schmidt Pain Index, developed by Justin O. Schmidt, an entomologist at the Carl Hayden Bee Research Centre in Arizona.

He's a guy who sort of reviews stings and bites. Well, that's what you were talking about. We were talking about the pointless of it. And he said the Schmidt Index is like the official pain index. Is this not the same guy who's endured? Is this the guy you were talking about? No, no. Okay.

Apparently, he's endured over 1,000 stings and ranks the most painful stings in the insect world from level one to level four. stings and ranks the most painful stings in the insect world from level one to level four but it comes with the added each each level comes with the added bonus of his descriptions of the pain um so examples include the sting of the sweat bee which he says is light ephemeral almost fruity a tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm he describes the yellow jacket as level two and it's hot and smoky and almost irreverent imagine wc feels extinguishing a cigar on your tongue and it goes up to three or four at three and four and the three most painful stings in the animal kingdom belong to the tarantula hawk wasp

which is described as blinding fierce and shockingly electric and the warrior wasp which is described as torture you are chained in the flow of an active volcano why did i start this list and the bullet ant is raised the bullet ant is actually ranked at four plus and pure intense brilliant pain like walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail embedded in your heel brad says um interestingly though none of the stings experienced are actually dangerous to humans unless they're allergic.

They're just an excruciatingly painful defence mechanism. Well, what I like about that is that man who does the, well, Schmidt,

Mr Schmidt, I mean, that is an origin story for a superhero, isn't it? It is, definitely. Instead of getting stung

by one animal, he's got stung by all of them. Because there was talk, I remember a while back, of a guy who, you know when just get stung by all of them. Because there was talk, I remember, a while back of a guy who... You know when you get those sort of mad eccentric guys? Sometimes they tend to live on the subcontinent

and they just live with snakes. And snakes bite them all the time. They never die or anything. There was a story a while back about a guy like that. Some sort of snake enthusiast. And it got to the point where apparently at one point he he was bitten by a snake and the snake died no i don't know that's because he had so much venom running through his veins the thing is like but venom's like is it the viper or um what's the one

that um basically just coagulates your blood like have you seen the one where they mix venom with blood and the blood just kind of solidifies into a jelly? Yeah. Oh, God. Isn't that what snake venom does anyway? Yeah, but I think it's a specific kind of one. I don't know whether you've heard of it. Oh, it's the Russell's Viper, isn't it?

Right, okay. Yeah. But it just turns... Oh, God, it turns blood into jelly. Yeah, that's horrible. And you're right, they are different because I think the venom of a black mamba is a neurotoxin, which means it shuts down all the muscles in your body.

And I don't think there's any anti-venom for it. I think your best chance is just to get to a hospital, get on a breathing machine until it wears off. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, so I think you're right. They do behave in different ways depending on the snake in question. Fascinating. You're right, they do behave in different ways depending on the snake in question.

Fascinating. They all sort of talk about using venom and bites on creatures and stuff and the poison they use in treating cancers and stuff. But no one's ever went, right, this is a direct correlation with stuff we learnt from a spider or a snake. Please don't confuse venom with poison ever again.

Shut up. You know what I mean. Right, hello, chaps. We're sort of running to the end of the show, but we'll squeeze in a couple more. Oliver, Merry Christmas, he ends the email with. So I'll put that out now just to put you in a nice mood. Thanks, Oliver.

Hello, chaps. Gratified to hear you talk about Millennium Eve on Monday evening, as that was the night I lost something very significant to me, my virginity. The funny thing is, I can't remember whether it happened before or after midnight, which means I don't know which century I lost my cherry in. Wow. Isn't that cool? That is, I suppose, quite cool, yeah.

I've used this personal fact many times over the years and various tell us an interesting fact about yourself scenarios it means he doesn't know what millennia he lost of years yeah it was a millennium

by the very definition isn't that incredible yeah could have been that thousand years could have been the other one the place was at Alderley Edge Parker

he doesn't really go into this sort of detail but the guy in question was the sister of someone I was at school with a big hard nut called paddy i was really worried on the first day back at school because i didn't know whether he'd found out in any way that i'd had sex with his sister oh god uh whichever millennium it was

that was last millennium years ago paddy that was a last millennium mate um as i went through the school gates i saw him marching towards me with his entourage. Nervously, I said, what's up, Paddy? He did not return my friendly smile and replied, what's up, my sister? You're cock. Yeah. Can that be true? Can that be true? That leap. That fucking leap. That sort of line that only

really happens in scripted movies. What's that French word they use for a stairwell fort? Something you think use for a stairwell fort? Like something you think about on a stairwell. Yeah, and the sort of thing that there's probably a word for something you think about two days afterwards that you should have said as a comeback to someone who insulted you as well. Yeah, that's what it is.

They call it a stairwell fort. That's quite nice. Descalier something. Is it Lesprey? What's Lesprey? I don't know. Lesprey board? Yeah, I got it. That's quite nice. Descalier something. Is it Lesprey? What's Lesprey? I don't know. Lesprey Descalier, I think. Descalier's stairs, I think.

I was just, I'm reading the latest, the most recent John le Carre at the moment, A Legacy of Spires. In that, he references a Russian, no, he's German, an East German lady. I'm trying not to spoil her German, East German lady, I'm trying not to spoiler it, an East German lady who, and he describes her getting dressed

and taking a bag out to, to, for a walk or whatever. And he says that, and he says that apparently that certain type of bag that she takes out is for,

if she buys groceries or she wants to grab something and keep it in there. And apparently in the Russian parlance, it's known as a perhaps bag. That's quite nice. That's nice. Yeah, I might need it, perhaps. One of the few...

My perhaps bag. One of the few Lakari women who are all right. Yeah. He's not very good at dealing with female characters. I don't know why. I think he's a fantastic writer. He is my favourite writer because I love spy novels. But yeah, just poor.

Cold War, the spy game, was a man's world. That's my first... It was a man's world. He was very much a part of that, wasn't he? Yeah, I think so. Him and Roald Dahl as well. Roald Dahl, a lot of actors of the day were out there. I know that Roald Dahl, apparently, one of his assignments,

because he was some sort of counterintelligence or some sort of intelligence officer before he became a novelist, one of his assignments was to,

in the 40s, essentially, rabble-rouse in the US to try and propaganda and persuade the Americans

to join the war. That was like his job. Yeah, but wasn't he allowed to just sleep with whoever he wanted and stuff? He was like his job. Yeah. Amazing. But wasn't he like kind of like allowed to just sleep with whoever he wanted and stuff? He was like one of these

kind of breed of sexy men. Right. So I went over and wasn't he, he had some views, didn't he? Did he? Yeah, Dahl had some views.

I think he might have been anti-Semitic. What, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? It's all one big metaphor, mate. What, James and the Giant Peach? All one big metaphor. George's Marvelous Medicine, one big metaphor. George's Marvelous Medicine.

One big metaphor. One big metaphor. And for me to make that leap and figure out what that metaphor is would make me a bigger nasty.

We'll take another week. So, let's finish off with something I sort of dealt with, I sort of mentioned and to be honest, it is quite fascinating.

You're probably not going to like this. I'm going to say this and you're going to go, oh, gross. But Wilco, oh, no, wait. Yeah, Wilco Ferhuere in Guelph in Canada. Hello, Guelph, Canada. Hello, Luca Piccio. Let me start off by saying my batteries in the closet remote are end top. We've had a few end tops.

Have we? We've had. And both times we've been sent pictures, they've both been encased in plastic. We've had a few end tops. Have we? We've had, and both times we've been sent pictures, they've both been encased in plastic. I got a, fresh, box fresh. I got a new Sky remote yesterday,

or maybe the day before. Obviously, the first thing I did, popped it open. Duracell. Duracell, nice. But Duracell,

not for, not for, not for public sale, not for retail sale. Oh, well, Sky must have done a deal. Done a deal.

It's all part of making Sky a great place to work. Believe him better. So several weeks ago, I forget how you ended up discussing it, but the two of you were discussing the large increase of step-family member porn. Do we have to do an email about this? We get so many good emails, and these are the ones you pick out. It's a phenomenon. And this is

basically how it happened, I think. So this is pornography in which it's portrayed a man or a boy sleeping with his stepmother. Yes. It's ridiculous. As a workaround to get to incest porn, which is actually illegal. Of course it is. Well, I don't know.

And you didn't understand the large increase of step-family porn. I can give some clarity to this. The reason why this is increasingly due to porn companies struggling to gain a profit, due to streaming presumably, and partly due to a certain demographic that does buy pornographic material. This demographic

is anime slash hentai watchers. Hentai is Japanese pornography. So why would they be more predisposed to buying pornography than anyone else? I guess because nobody has organised streaming services for all of them, I guess.

And also Japan's quite good at IP and protecting IP and selling things. They still sell a lot of pornography off the shelf, for example, I think, Japan. So it'll become clear to me why you visit there three times a year. With a big old carrier bag full of it. My perhaps bag. Perhaps I can bring three tons of pornography back with me.

Is there a limit on customs, quite honestly? No, to be honest. I've never liked anime I certainly don't like bloody hentai you know like cartoons yeah I know

what it is this may seem strange but this demographic buys a lot of what is known as doujinshi which is a comic

book style porn at conventions and often the theme is incest or something more grotesque. The porn industry has not been blind to this, and therefore has taken the one thing that they can legally do, since the rest of the themes are rightfully

banned or frowned upon, in a bid to get these people to buy porn subscriptions slash DVDs. Now, you might know why I asked this, and all I can say is that I heard another podcast, an anime one though, discussing this, and it made sense to me, and it also horrified me. So there we go. And also my second subject,

I wish to discuss the new species of orangutan. Better. Might not be a new species. I'm currently working on a Masters in Evolutionary Biology, so let me explain why. The reason for this is that for living multicellular organisms to be considered different species, their offspring can

also produce offspring. So they have to be able to produce offspring. To help illustrate this point, despite the fact a horse and a donkey can produce a mule, mules cannot produce offspring. I didn't know that. Therefore, horses and donkeys are different species. Did you know that? That a mule can produce

another? Oh yeah, they're completely fascinating. So in terms of the orangutan there are yet to be studies checking if the new species

can still breed with other Sumatran orangutans all they did say is that there are enough morphological

and genetic differences between the two species which for most biologists is enough to prove different species but could indicate that

so it's not enough at the moment but they need to do further study but I mean right now they're basically saying ah it's a year one give me funding

give me funding we've talked about that before the old what we're talking about with Ricky Gervais and the 400 species of penguin or whatever there we go

I'd sort of he's rescued that email there for me because that's very very interesting I think it's something that nobody talks about

I always sort of say that the relationship between a boy and his father's pornography... Oh, for goodness sake. What? Oh, carry on, carry on. The relationship between a man and his father's pornography is something... Sacred. Something sacred. Because you both know you've seen it.

You both know you've both watched it. And you've both got some idea about what you do while you're watching it. But you never talk about it. But you're going back to thinking about what you do while you're watching it, but you never talk about it. But you're going back to thinking about porno mags and stuff, aren't you? Yeah. Mostly. Mostly.

But like, you know, a vast proportion of people consume pornography, and that's something I've noticed on site. Everybody seems to be having sex with members of their family, or extended family. Are you trying to self-sabotage this show? It's interesting.

You can't ignore it. Well, hopefully next week, because we're out of time, but hopefully next week we'll hear a lot about Kenya, Pete. Yeah. And we'll avoid pornography entirely. Well, for one thing, the Wi-Fi won't be very good. But knowing our emailers, we probably won't. Let's get out of here.

Thank you for joining us this afternoon, this morning, this evening, wherever you might be listening to it. Let's get out of here. Thank you for joining us this afternoon, this morning, this evening, wherever you might be listening to it. Let's get out of town, yeah? Let's get out of town. Enjoy Kenya. See you next time. I think everyone should enjoy Kenya. Agree. Outro Music