The Netmums Podcast - S1 Ep66: Adam Hills on long distance parenting and pissing off the Queen

Episode Date: February 8, 2022

Listen as Aussie comedian Adam Hills talks about getting locked out of his homeland during lockdown, plus an encounter with Her Majesty that proves nothing gets past her! Adam's first children’s book, Rockstar Detectives, is out now.  This page-turning mystery is perfect for fans of Murder Most Unladylike and readers of David Baddiel, was inspired to write the book by his own daughters, particularly his eldest who once said she wanted to be ‘a rockstar or a detective’ when she grows up. Adam’s main character George is a wheelchair user which is inspired by Adam’s own experiences of disability.

You're listening to Sweat, Snot and Tears brought to you by Netmums. I'm Annie O'Leary and I'm Wendy College and together we talk about all of this week's sweaty, snotty and tearful parenting moments with guests who are far more interesting than we are. On this week's show, I had a mate come down and stay with me while the wife and kids were in Australia. We hung out for the weekend, he came to the last leg, we got home that night and I went, you hungry? And he went, yeah, and I went, let me see what I've got. And I think we end up having fish fingers in hot dog rolls and some chicken nuggets. And he just went, you're a 10 year old, right? And I went, yep, absolutely. But before all of that, welcome to another episode of Sweats, Not in Tears. I hope you're all okay.

I think we should open this one up playing a game of who's had the shittest week because I'm pretty sure I will win and I'll tell you for why my husband had Covid oh yes but did he really have Covid? well he didn't have any symptoms but he tested positive

which meant that he had to self-isolate in our bedroom feeling completely fine lying on the bed eating Snickers which I had to run downstairs and get for him and drinking lots of cups of tea which again I had to run downstairs and get for him, and drinking lots of cups of tea, which again, I had to run downstairs and get for him. You tried doing that and working full time

and taking two kids from A to B to C to D to E to F to G all the way through to Z every single day, morning, noon and night. And then tell me whether you've had a rubbish week or not. Wendy. Oh God, I'm feeling the pressure. I thought I'd had a bit of a shit week, but I'm just going to get back in my box and be quiet

because I can't beat that. I've had ballet exams. Not me, personally. No one needs to see that. I would like to see that, Wendy. No, no, no, no, no. And general running around of children and bemoaning the fact that I'm the one doing it. But other than that, no, no. And general running around of children and bemoaning the fact that I'm the one doing it.

But other than that, no, you win. Where was Timothy? Why wasn't Timothy helping with the running around? Oh, he was here. It's just, there's more and more clubs. Too many clubs. The older they get, the more clubs. And someone's now told the big one

she's good enough to do swim school. Like, as in, you know, the competitions. And I'm like, no, you bloody not. I know, Flo's doing that whole swim thing as well. I counted. I do 14 non-school journeys to clubs and back every week. OK, well, introduce the guest and I'll count mine up and we'll see if you win. Let's see how many he does. Right. Welcome, Mr. Adam Hills.

Hello. Hello. Now, first of all, I want to know what country are you joining us from? Because I believe you're bi, well, I wouldn't say bi-coastal, but it's not bi-coastal. You're bi-country, are you? Bicontinental, perhaps. Oh, I like that. That's sophisticated.

I'm in England at the moment. You're with us. I am with you. I'm in the same time zone as you, the same weather system. A 34 degree difference between London and Melbourne yesterday. Ouch! Is it true that your wife and kids are in Australia, though? Yes. So when you were talking about the running around and the dropping off and all of that stuff, I was squirming because I'm not in Australia and able to do that.

So what happened with us was the end of 2019, my wife and kids were living here with me in London. And my daughter's got a little bit homesick. And they said, we want to go back to Australia. How old are your girls? So they are now eight and 11. Okay. So just at the point where they were missing their friends they'd been away for a while and we went well let's let's try you guys moving

back to australia me filming the last leg here for 10 weeks at a time uh and then when we're not filming i'll just go back home for a couple of months because we live in a world where you can easily flip between england and australia oh, I can see where this story's going. 2019. 2019. Let's skip forward to 2020, Adam. Tell us how that worked. So luckily, March 2020, the series of The Last League finished right as lockdown started here.

I went back to Australia and I was in Australia for seven months. Amazing. So I was able to do the homeschooling and Melbourne went into a ridiculous lockdown at that point they did like a hundred odd days um so i was there for seven months of 2020 it was lovely uh came back here went into lockdown went back to australia for christmas for two weeks of hotel quarantine two weeks of time with the kids and then back here into lockdown again and then I got stranded here for seven months oh man alive so um and the 2020 was seven months in Australia uh 2021 was seven months here

the reason I'm saying man alive is that means your wife had seven months of doing all the clubs and the running around yes and and the reason I paused is because a lot of that seven months also then ended up being lockdown. Oh, shit, she had seven months of homeschooling. No. No, no, no, no, no. Adam, how exactly are you ever going to be forgiven and dig yourself out of this hole?

Well, thankfully the first seven months. Oh, it's balancing out. It didn't balance. There is no way it made up for it, but it helped. It helped ever so slightly. What helped was at the beginning of this most recent lockdown in 2021, we bought a holiday shack down the coast about an hour and a half from Melbourne opposite my mother-in-law's house.

So when the lockdown hit, my wife took the kids down there, lived at my mother-in-law's house while renovating the shack and then moved into the shack and it was just it was it got her through I think she she loves renovating she loves decorating and just to be by the beach to be able to have walks on the beach and all of that kind of stuff in lockdown and to have your mother-in-law on hand exactly exactly so I'm not saying I facilitated that by any means, but it kind of just got her through. So, yeah, when you were talking about the running around and the clubs and all of that kind of stuff, I felt incredibly guilty.

He's actually squirming on the screen here. I swear. It wasn't designed to be having a pop at you. That must have been some reunion when you finally got back. I'm picturing the scene in Love Actually where they're all in the airport and everyone's running in slow-mo through the airport. Well, funnily enough, so the problem was when I flew back, which was I guess it was December 20 a few months ago or a month ago,

I still had to do 72 hours of home quarantine and if i did it with my wife and kids then they all had to do 72 hours of home quarantine as well which meant the kids would have missed their last day of school for the year um and of course the in australia the school year ends in december so it was the last the you know the last day of their entire school year so So thankfully, some people that lived a street down from us had gone away for the weekend. And my wife said, well, how about I take the girls down there? We'll stay at their place for three days. And you can at least self-isolate at home on your own for three days. But after the first day,

my eight-year-old did her last day of school and then she said, Daddy, I want to come quarantine with you. Because what happened was when I got home, they all came out onto the street to meet me, but we couldn't touch each other. God, that's so hard. So we kind of, I said to my daughters, right, because it's going to be sad, we'll do a bum dance. So we all did a bum wiggle dance on the street.

Why not? I went into the house to quarantine. But then, yeah, after a day, my eight-year-old said, Daddy, I want to come quarantine with you so I can cuddle you. And I said to her, well, look, that's fine, but you need to know we literally can't leave the house for 48 hours. We have to stay inside at all times. We can go out into the courtyard, but we can't go outside of the house.

And she just went, oh, no, daddy, does that mean we'll have to eat takeaway and watch movies for two days? She's not daft. She's not daft at all. So we, look, we had, we had five, we've just had five weeks at home where we did reconnect. And it was that thing, you could see it happening gradually. Like my eight-year-old is the kind of person just jumps straight into everything. And she was the one that wanted to quarantine with me and we had two lovely days at home of literally eating takeaway

and watching movies. My 11-year-old took a little longer to come round. Interesting. Playing harder to get. A little bit. Or just shifts are hard shifts in dynamics are hard to adjust to aren't they especially in pre-teens where they don't know what the hell's going on at the best of times bless them exactly and I've just missed you know when when you're 11 um seven months is quite a big a lot changes in seven months yeah it's true

um so how do you play catch up with the 11 year old I try and organize I just try and have time with her and she and it doesn't have to be anything special with the 11 year old it just has to be hanging out having a chat and reconnecting and it it happened slowly. It took two or three days. And I noticed after about two or three days, she would just kind of sidle over to me and sit on my lap. I do know what, I'll be honest. Here's what I think what really got her and it was towards the end of the trip. And I saw that little light of connection in her head go, oh yeah, you're all right. So for Christmas Christmas my wife's going

to kill me for this for Christmas I bought my daughter a thousand piece friends jigsaw puzzle because she loves friends and so and but she was quite like she wanted to do it she didn't she would maybe occasionally ask for help but most of it she did on her own and I know my wife's like that as well whenever we go on holidays she has a jigsaw puzzle that she does. No one else comes near. So, so my daughter did it and she put it out on the coffee table in, in the, in the kind of TV in the lounge room and we'd be watching TV and she'd do a little bit. Eventually, I don't know, it took her two weeks and she finished this thousand piece friends jigsaw puzzle. And it looked amazing. It looked incredible.

And my wife was like, great, now we can take it apart and I can do my jigsaw puzzle. And my daughter was like, but no, I want to leave it here. It looks so good. Can't we leave it here for the holiday? And I was kind of like, I mean, it does look really good. Like, can we not leave it there for the holiday? And my wife was like, well, leave it there for a couple of weeks,

but then I want the coffee table and I want to do my jigsaw puzzle so the night before the jigsaw puzzle had to come apart it was pretty fraught because my wife was going well let's do it now let's do it now I want to start my jigsaw puzzle and my daughter was like no we said tomorrow we're keeping a puzzle wall in the hills yeah i think you're gonna have to buy another coffee table i think it's the only answer it was really getting i mean bearing in mind throughout all of this i was doing a beatles jigsaw puzzle out in the in the kind of shed because that was the only place i could find yeah but the shed in melbourne is a bit more hospitable than the shed in england in january let's be honest. That's a good point.

That's a good point. So eventually it got to the point where I said to my, I managed to talk my daughter down and I went, okay, look, I think it's time to take the puzzle apart. You've had a really good run. I'll help you with it. And she was getting quite stressed and my wife was, my wife had actually started her puzzle on top of my daughter's puzzle.

And she had done all the edges. So I took all the edges apart, each side, moved them, started, you know, pulling apart my daughter's jigsaw puzzle, put my wife's back together around the edges so that all the pieces were back there. Greater love hath no man. This is what got my daughter, I think. In the middle of her friends jigsaw puzzle, it said friends in quite big letters.

And I realised if you take the F, the R, the I off the beginning and the S off the end, it just says end. And I just looked at her and went, how about we just leave that in the middle of mummy's puzzle? We just leave all her edges and then the leave that in the middle of mummy's puzzle we just leave all her edges and then the word end in the middle just as a joke and my daughter kind of looked at me as if you're going to get in so much trouble for that and I go for a look that went come on let's do it and I think that was the moment after four weeks where she went yeah you're right. You became co-conspirators.

Did it worry you during, like, I imagine it was a worrying time when you were away from the kids, worrying about that connection and worrying about missing so much of, when they're little, seven months is a really long time, isn't it? And how did you manage that? It was weirdly a lot easier when they were in lockdown because I mean from a purely selfish point of view I wasn't missing anything yeah I mean there were there were no great and in fact what would happen with lockdown is I'd get up you know eight in the morning here uh while I was having breakfast they were dinner. So we would kind of eat together on

FaceTime. And then some nights it'd be like maybe nine o'clock, 10 o'clock at night here. And I'd get a text from my daughter saying, daddy, do you want to have a quick chat? I'm the first one awake. Oh, that's lovely. And so weirdly that lockdown period was when we connected the best because they were at home the whole time. They had no one else to distract them. Once they came out of lockdown, then the girls were like, well, we're off playing. I'd kind of go, is anyone around for a chat? And they're like, no, we're having a sleepover.

No, we've gone to Charlie's place or whatever. So, so during lockdown, I felt like we connected pretty well. We've always kind of, we've always had me away like for certain amounts of time. So the girls are kind of used to it they always they now say it feels normal like i'll come home after seven months and within three days they're like daddy this just feels like normal again so and i guess the other thing is for me my dad was qantas cabin crew my dad grew up i grew up with a dad who was qantas cabin crew so

he was away two weeks for every one week that he was home. And it didn't occur to me that that was anything out of the ordinary. It was only when I talked to other kids or even other adults later that they said, yeah, I would have a dad that would come home at 7 o'clock every night and then I'd go to bed at 8. I only saw him for an hour. And I was like, well, my dad would be gone for two weeks and then one day he'd come home from school and he'd be there in a beanbag at three in the afternoon and he'd be home for a week and he'd be there every day, all day. Yeah, there's advantages to both, aren't there, I guess. It's what you're used to.

I absolutely love that way of growing up. I mean, to come home from school, hang out with Dad, watch some TV, have a swim, play cricket in the backyard, you know, that would happen for a week and then maybe he'd be gone for two weeks. But when he was around, he was properly around. So that's what I try and do now. I try and make sure that when I'm around with the kids, I'm properly around.

Well, fascinatingly enough, all the latest data from research studies about spending time with your kids and the amount of time you need to spend with them to have good outcomes in terms of their mental health as adults shows it's actually not about the amount of time you spend with them. It's about the intensity of the time that you do spend with them. So you're getting something right, Mr. Hills. Do you know what? I used to get annoyed at this, but I've recently started to realize it's a bit of a compliment. If my youngest in particular, if she has someone over for a play date, she will always try and incorporate me or often try and incorporate me into what they're doing.

Sweet. Daddy, come and play jails or come and play horsies with us. Jails? That's a bold one. We have jails and my son loves playing jails. What is it about jails? The bars. They just love those bars.

But it's you, it's me that's being put into jail. Yeah. I'm assuming it's the same with you. Yeah. And there's often a rope involved because we need to escape. Right. I wonder if it's a, if they enjoy, firstly, the shift in power dynamic of you're the one that's normally telling them what to do and now they can order you around i i hate jails because i always get

offended at the ridiculous excuse they come up with to send me to jail oh what have you been sent down for oh just anything sometimes there's not even an explanation right you're going to jail why because i said so because you exist i mean what are we in the real world now but recently recently my youngest has started doing wanting to do makeovers on me with her friends oh lovely I bet you look beautiful when she does that I always um the other one recently had a friend over and decided she was going to use whiteboard markers to draw tattoos all over my body. Oh, that's a, yeah. God, playing in your house is very different to mine.

I just have to be a Harry Potter character permanently and I always get given the shit one. I'm always like, what's the caretaker? I'm always given the caretaker. And occasionally I'm allowed to be the headless ghost. That's about as much as I get. They're 10 and 6, Adam, so same kind of ballpark. And they both love Harry Potter, so I am often seen riding a pretend boom

around my downstairs. Lovely. The tattoos that they did recently, they kind of did my arms and then they did the other arm and then said can we do your back and i went yeah sure and they went around and wrote old and gray on my back you can always rely on your kids for confidence well you may be old and gray according to your children but you have also just written a book am i right so you've got some something going But you have also just written a book, am I right? I have. So you've got something going for you somewhere.

Tell us about your book. What are you up to? Well, I think as a comedian, as a performer of any sort, you want your kids' approval. And it occurs to you one day that actually what you do for a living isn't enough. And it turns out hosting a satirical Friday night comedy show about the news doesn't really interest my kids that much.

No, it doesn't cut it. I know. They're really not fussed by what Rishi Sunak has to say about the COVID help for people. Maybe they should put him in jail. Maybe that's the way forward. I mean, there probably is. I love the idea that somewhere there's like a prison's minister whose kids are putting them in jail and they're like, you know I do this for a living, right?

It's kind of the same thing. So I think every comedian wants to, and every performer, I've heard stories of, I had a TV show in Australia once and we had Jarvis Cocker on from Pulp and he was talking about how he would sing his children to sleep and eventually they just went, no, no more. And he's like, you know people pay for this, right? You know I'm quite good at this.

We had Paloma Faith on and she said the same. Really? Her daughter's like, shush, mummy. And she's like, people pay good money to hear my voice. So the first idea for a book came about in, oh, 2018, 2017. And my wife and I took the kids to Paris for a few days. And my youngest at that point, who was probably in for a meeting with some um uh with publishers and they said have you got any ideas for a kid's book and I went well Mousy Boku and they went oh great and I kind of told them all about that and they said what about for your older daughter

because that's you know they're the real readers the kind of like 8 to 12 year olds and I said well she said yes to me yesterday that when she grows up she wants to be a rock star and a detective and she can't decide which one she wants to be. I said, so maybe there's a book about a rock star detective who's 12 and they went, oh, that sounds good. Maybe go away and write a few chapters on that one. So I kind of came up with this idea about a 12-year-old rock star detective who goes viral uh over the internet because one of her classmates her best mate george films her singing and together they

put it up online and suddenly she's a viral sensation so she ends up doing her first ever tour and she takes george with her because he knows how to work the social media because kids you know at 12 are all over tiktok and Facebook and Instagram and all that kind of stuff. So these two 12-year-olds are doing their first ever tour of Europe, but everywhere they go a priceless piece of art is stolen from a local museum. And when the police look into it, all the evidence make it look like Charlie and George are the ones doing it.

So someone's framing them by the look of it, but they have to work out who it is in order to save their careers and prove their innocence. But I'd like to have a read of that. Yeah. When is this out? It's out on the 3rd of February. I'm going to email your publisher. Awesome. That's the response you want. And it's a funny, I had dinner recently with a few friends one of

whom is Guy Garvey from Elbow oh just a bit of name dropping there he is like my savior that man his voice is my saving grace you can't just drop that into conversation I love Guy he's such a lovely man in fact on on a side note so my wife's a singer my wife's an opera singer um trying and she's got a beautiful voice and she used to sing to my well she sings to my daughters to put them to bed every night and a few years ago my youngest said daddy can you sing a song for me tonight and I was like I cannot match mummy she went go on and so I'm an okay singer so I sang a I sang two songs for her that became her regulars one was um a song called

new new girl which is an an Australian song with Aboriginal language in it and it's a it's written about the songwriter's um daughter um that's new new girl you're the one I love um you're from you're the only one I love and it's it's just gorgeous um so I sang that to my daughter and then I sang One Day Like This by Elbow so those became our two songs and then recently they've released a new song called What Am I Without You which is actually about Guy's son so now I've got two Elbow songs that I sing to my daughter anyway so we were out at dinner and I was saying I've got this book out and Guy said oh what's it about and I said I told him the story of the rock star detectives and he went can I read it oh yeah that's how I'm feeling right now would you know what here's how I think it might be a good book my wife told me it was a good book

when she read it she went this is really good this is really good indeed thank you that's high praise but more higher praise and I hope she never listens to this podcast, a few days later she really raved about it when she was drunk. Oh, in vino veritas. Exactly. That's how I know. And raved about it more. She was like, I mean, that is such a good book.

And I was like, wow, this might be something here. Ladies and gents, get your other half drunk if you want to know what they really think yeah do you know what we were looking around for quotes from the front and David O'Doherty who's also a friend and a comedian and a children's author um provided a quote but I should have just written this is a really good book and then in brackets Adam's wife while drunk everyone would believe it then now there's been other stuff you've been up to you've got a bloody mbe yes how did you get one you're Australian Wendy and I are English and we haven't even got one that's a really I didn't so Alex Brooker and I would play

a game whenever we came back every year at the beginning of a new series of The Last Leg and it would be can't believe we didn't get an MBE can't believe we didn't get an MBE and I would always joke and go I don't think I'm allowed to I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to so December of last year I got a letter with on her majesty's service written on the front of it I was going to say how do you find out like do they phone you phone you, email you? But it's an actual letter. It's an actual letter. And my first thought was, I think I might be the new James Bond. Oh, I'm going to jail again. One or the other. Yeah, my daughter has taken this next level.

So I opened it up and it said, you know, the Prime Minister's putting you forward to the Queen to be recommended for an MBE. But then you have to do a, you know, do you accept and just check all your details and everything. Well, considering all the stuff you talk about on The Last Leg, it's amazing the Prime Minister put you forward for anything, quite honestly. So that was the beginning of December. I didn't tell my family about it. I didn't tell my mum. I didn't tell my mum.

Because, well, for two reasons. One, part of me thought it might be a prank, like a very small part of me. It looked pretty official. But part of me thought, I mean, there's a month here where we've still got to do the last leg. And I didn't say anything. During that month, we did award boris johnson the dick of the

year and i'm pretty sure we made several jokes about prince andrew and i think you were proved right but i just figured i thought i'd hate to have to call my mom and go do you know i told you i was getting an mbe i'm really sorry they've taken it away because i said the prime minister was a dick i just i couldn't break it what I really want to happen now I can see the Queen there with her sword doinking you on both shoulders and whispering in your ear I agree he was a dick so when do you get to meet her Madge yeah when's it happening so that it said in the letter that there's been a backlog there's there's a backlog because people weren't able to collect, you know, their rewards and the like.

So I don't know when it's going to happen. I have met her before, though. I've met her a couple of times. Oh, check you out. Where, when, how? We're in the wrong game, Wend. We want to hang out with Adam a bit more. So I performed at the Royal Variety Performance,

I think in 2009 in Blackpool, and the Queen and Prince Philip were the royal guests there. And then afterwards when they do the walk around on stage and kind of meet everyone, that's when the Queen. So what happened was the producers had said, you know, what are you going to talk about? And I said, I'll talk about having a prosthetic foot and blah blah blah and they said uh can you do a joke about Australia at Christmas time and I said why and they said because it's hot at Christmas isn't it I said

well yes and they went oh that's hilarious do that I was like okay I'm not sure what the joke is so I opened my set by saying it's a pleasure to be here I'm flying back to Australia tomorrow so that I can have a real Christmas you know where get santa and a suntan and like no one laughed nothing so okay let's talk about my foot so when when you know the queen came around and shook my hand and her first words were the audience were very helpful weren't they which i felt was her way of saying, you were a bit shit, but we got you over the line. Ouch!

But I kind of went, yes, well, my answer was, I said, well, yes, Your Majesty, I think when one makes the effort to go to Blackpool, I think the audience appreciate the effort one has gone to. And I was like, why am I saying one? What is wrong with you? That's a little bit tit for tat, you took on the Queen. I know. Maybe she liked you for it, though, and that's why she's giving you the prize.

Oh, maybe. Forget, he's going to end up in the tower. Forget anything else. My God. But then she was going to walk away, and then she stopped and she said, did you fly here just for this show? And I said, no, Your Majesty, I've been here for a few months, but I am flying back to Australia tomorrow. And said ah yes so you can have a real Christmas

oh my yes I just got burnt by the queen oh wow well I'm kind of glad she has that kind of feist in her absolutely I always think as a performer it must be you know you get offered the Royal Variety and you say yes and you probably don't know at the time which Royal you're going to get. So if you get the Queen, you've lucked out. If you get William, you're doing alright. But what if you get one of the others? You're like, oh God, this is...

They're running a bit short now, aren't they? They are, aren't they? I think I'm technically, I've technically got more titles than Prince Andrew at the moment. Yeah, I think we all do. I think I'm technically, I've technically got more titles than Prince Andrew at the moment. Yeah, I think we all do. I think we all do. I think my dog does. Funnily enough, actually, I've been to a couple of Royal Garden parties,

not that I'm trying to go tit for tat with you, Adam, but at the last one it was Andrew. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, it was. And I, yeah, but I obviously didn't know what i know now no i think i know now what i think i know now is that i've not been to a royal garden party or met the queen so we need to do something about this please well i tell you what you're lagging behind wendell i am if my if my wife and kids aren't here when i when i will you take us please I'll take you yeah we'll pretend to be related to

you in some way oh Wendy we can do Australian accents pretend no we can't no no no no no no no all right that's a deal you're coming you're coming to Dallas with deal now the most ridiculous question and it's usually aimed at people who have got their kids around but i'll be interested here what's for tea adam and who's cooking okay the reason i'm laughing is because okay so i've i've been taught i talk about my kids and stand up and there's one one joke that i came up with which is based it's in truth, which is I'm a massive kid, which is why I love being a parent. I think it's good when you're a comedian because comedians are massive children and you're just hanging out with your children the whole time. So when my daughters say to me, like if my wife's out for the night, if she's singing, if she's got a gig or whatever, if my daughters say, Daddy, can we eat fish fingers

and watch Hotel Transylvania tonight? My answer will be, yeah, I was kind of going to do that anyway. So I don't know what's for tea tonight, but I'll tell you what I had for tea last night. Go on. Meat balls, mashed potato and coleslaw. Oh, filthy. But what? No, wait, we need and coleslaw. Oh, filthy. But what?

No, wait, we need to talk about this. Cold and hot on the same plate? I know, that's just... Coleslaw with meatballs and mash? I'm confused. It's like a 10-year-old just going, I want that, that and that. That'll do me. Perfect.

I'm going to have to try it now. I had a mate a couple of years ago, pre-covid come down and stay with me uh while the wife and kids were in Australia we hung out for the weekend he came to the last leg we got home that night and I went we got home at like one o'clock or two o'clock in the morning and I went are you hungry and he went yeah and I went let me see what I've got and I think we end up having fish finger uh fish fingers in hot dog rolls and some chicken nuggets. And he just went, you're a 10-year-old, right? And I went, yep, absolutely.

Absolutely. Is your whole life like a 10-year-old when you're not with your wife and kids? Oh, my God, yes. Yeah. Like embarrassingly so. Like I've got, I mean, but also partly because of my kids. So they've sent me um they've sent me I don't know if you know the tv show Bluey you must do everyone seems to at the moment we do

okay so they've sent me a a furry bandit doll so I've got that on my bed and I've also got a pickle from Rick and Morty on my bed and so every now and then i have a cleaner come in and i'm sure they look at my bed and go are you how old are you so you know i think i think i'm totally just like a big kid and my kids will say that to me and i love that but um maisie my youngest will just go daddy you're pretty much 10 right and i'm like yeah yeah okay well tell them we can very much vouch for that now that we've heard what you have for your tea. Honestly, I think I was shopping. I used to live in Sweden. I lived in Sweden for a couple of years,

and I quite liked that meatballs is a meal in Sweden, and especially with lingonberry jam, which I couldn't find the other night. IKEA, you need to go to IKEA. Annie and I, when we both had very young babies, they were like our babies were born within eight hours of each other by some freak of nature. And we used to meet in Ikea in Croydon to weep at the traumas of having young babies, buy dime bars and eat meatballs.

That's what we did. We'd cry, eat meatballs, buy dime bars, go home. There you go. Every single month. There you go. Also, month. There you go. Also, I think it was my comfort food last night. I just had, it was mashed sweet potato, meatballs, and then I had some leftover coleslaw from lunch,

so I thought, you know what, I'm just going to chuck some of that in as well. I'll tell you why I put the coleslaw on the plate, because it looked so depressing. It's just brown meatballs and orange mashed sweet potato. I was like, my god I look like I live in Soviet Soviet Russia I'm gonna put some coleslaw on there I thought you were gonna say it was an attempt at your five a day like my kids look at me really hopefully and I'm like guys how many fruit and veggies you have today after school and they'll be like uh none

and then we'll get home and I'll look well well, do you need something healthy? And they'll look at me and be like, jam? No, no, jam is not the answer. Well, do you know what? That elbow song I was telling you about, so the what am I without you, there's a line in the second verse, it's what am I on the earth for? If not to put you to bed,

if not to remind you to eat sometimes, if not to remind you to eat sometimes if if not to cradle your head what am i without you so i was singing that to my daughter and she went you don't need to remind me to eat sometimes daddy but you you need to remind me to eat some fruit so whenever i sing that song i sing what am i you know if not to remind you to eat some fruit if well the last question is usually sing us your lullaby but I think you've just done it oh yeah do you know what I'll sing well then I'll sing new new girl for you because that oh yes come on I like the sound of this what I love about new new so new new is the kind of area I think or the tribe that the girl

is from um there's aboriginal words throughout it birad scrub is um also just like some bushland but there's a line your goombi nose which means your snotty nose uh but the the um there's a line in i i love you until there's arijan jarajan hills which means there's a line in, I'll love you until there's Arjun Jarajan Hills, which means there's no more Jarajan Hills because that's the name of the mountain range that way. So it's a guy that lives on the coast. I love you until there's no more Jarajan Hills and there's Arjun Angurbin Gurulil, which means there's no more little green frogs.

So it's I love you so far that way that there's no more hills and I love you so far that way that there's no more little green frogs. That's the one that I sing. I'm settling down. Me too. I'm going to do it justice now. Also I'm not a great singer. I'm sure you are. My daughter doesn't mind when my voice cracks. You haven't heard us. We don't mind at all. You were right.

Okay. Nyo Nyo girl, you're the one I love. You're from Beardrod Scrub and you're the only one I love. Nyo Nyo girl, walking late at night, Teeth shining white. There ain't nothing else inside. Cause I love you. Yeah, I love you until. There's origin, jargon, hills.

Origin on gurubin, gurulil. Nil nil girl. I love you from your toes to your gombe nose. That's just the way it goes. Cause I love you. Yeah, I love you until there's Arjun, Jarujun heels out of gin and good have been good so that's that's what i sing to my eight-year-old every night i love that is super lovely thank you so much adam hills you've been a lovely lovely guest and i wish that you're back with your girls

soon when are you going back to Australia? I've got nine weeks here this time. And then I'm home for three months. Oh, that's nice. Let me know when we're going to see the Queen. Okay. Yeah. We'll go.

Wendy, should we go shopping for hats later? Yeah. Yeah. Good plan. Absolutely. And you know what? Just to be safe, practice your Australian accent. Okay.

We will. Right. Thank you, Adam. Have a we will. Right, thank you, Adam. Have a good weekend. Bye, Adam. I really enjoyed that. Thank you. Thank you.