The Rest Is Entertainment - Is Richard A Psychopath?

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

There is a storm brewing in the studio as Marina finds out how Richard arranges his bookshelves. Copyright in comedy. How often do people think of the same joke and who, if anyone, owns it? We also all enjoy a brand new quiz thanks to listener Rhys Durham. *** Final tickets have been released for The Rest Is Entertainment Live at the world famous Royal Albert Hall. Enjoy a live Q&A, podcast favourites and more surprises. Get your tickets at www.therestisentertainment.com *** Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club for ad free listening and access to bonus episodes: www.therestisentertainment.com Sign up to our newsletter: www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @‌restisents Instagram: @‌restisentertainment YouTube: @‌therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producer: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport As always we appreciate your feedback on The Rest Is Entertainment to help make the podcast better: https://forms.gle/GeDLCfbXwMSLHSUHA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit intac.ca or talk to your broker. Conditions apply. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Restors Entertainment Questions and Answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osmond. Hello Marina. Hello Richard. How are you? I'm alright, thank you. Lots of fun questions this week. I'm going to start with some many other business. We talked last week about BBC News, you know the backgrounds of people walking around and

you were pointing out that essentially it's footage on a loop. Dave writes in to say there is actually one BBC News studio, Studio E, where it's not on a loop and on that one there are signs everywhere saying please don't wear hi-vis jackets, please don't carry any branded goods, please don't eat anything branded, you know, and please don't do anything ridiculous. You are the news. You are the news exactly. Unfortunately it's not the one they use for the six o'clock news or the ten o'clock news but you know see if you can spot it, the actual real people in the background but unfortunately most of it is still on a loop. But thank you very much Dave.

Marina, I wonder if I could ask you this question, this feels like it would be up your street. Jess Reed asks, the speed at which well-written, sometimes even analytical, articles about how Trump's win was always going to happen were released shocked me. Did journalists prepare two versions of the same opinion about the same event so they can publish as soon as the event is concluded? The only person I know who has ever done the actual two articles is the Boris Johnson. Yeah, Brexit one. The Brexit one. But in general, no. And there's all sorts of different arenas of journalism where this happens. I remember actually speaking with Boris

Johnson when he did his speech just after Brexit and everyone thought he was going to announce his Tory leadership bid and he got to the very end and you're expected to file almost on, I'm going to say final whistle because I'm going to talk about the football version of this in a minute, you're expected to file right at the sort of very end and then in the last paragraph of his speech he said, I've decided it can't be me, and then it was like okay just delete the whole thing and write again. So journalists were watching that, they typed up things that he's about to announce, nothing in the speech gave him any reason to think he wouldn't. You're typing while he's doing it. So they're literally about to press send and then he says that and... And in the nature

of what I was writing in particular, which is supposed to be like it's got some jokes in and blah blah blah, I really like writing under that real pressure. And funnily enough, you come up with things and you think, oh my gosh, I've just done a joke and I didn't even realise. So you do that sort of thing to you sometimes, you sit at press conferences and have to file a major stuff. A television debate during an election, something like that, you have, because of the timings of it, they're always in the evening. In football, this is a real issue because they've got print editions and this was a huge issue, was because you've got the print edition, before everything was going online, you have print editions, different editions for the parts of the country. And

so they went what's called, you know, off stone, meaning that that was the last time you could change copy at different times, because you had to get them to Scotland. Yeah. So for football matches, this was often really, really difficult. And if you talk to anyone who worked, almost anyone who worked as a football journalist, biggest nightmare ever was 1999, the Champions League final. You have to file on final whistle, your first thing. You can change it a bit later, but there'll be not a very great version that might be

in the paper that sold it in, say, Scotland because it's further away. I remember talking to Ollie Holt about this and and he who's always brilliant, he said that's the one time I thought my brain has just been fried by that. You've got really late goals, everything has completely changed. So that's the Bayern Munich Manchester United won it in injury time. Yeah. Alex Ferguson used to taunt the journalists when they would write this saying, I've seen all your runners. I saw your runners from that night. because of course the original version of that story that they would be filing was Alex Ferguson's European dream letter laying tatters last night

after you know he made XYZ mistake. Lots of these things, awful things were read. I mean there were terrible columns about Princess Diana that people open their newspaper to on the morning that she died the night before. People slagging her off about something else. Yes, yeah. Back to your question though Jess, you do have data that you didn the night before. People slagging her off about something else. Yes, yeah. Back to your question though, Jess, you do have data that you didn't have before. You're able to write quite an informed piece. If you suddenly think, oh my gosh, that's so interesting, like one in three minority

ethnic voters have come out for Trump, then you're aware that something different has happened. But there are certain journalists who will write long after the event, well, I always thought this thing. And then he says, well, you should have written it at the time then, shouldn't you? But in general, you have to be quick and you have to do it. Some people prepare everything beforehand and then try and just sprinkle in a bit of what happened

because they don't respond well to have to write quickly under pressure. I have to say I personally quite like it. But also that's a reason why lots of people do go into that form of journalism is they are good at it. The first thing they write is usually the best thing they're gonna write and so actually it's a fun place for them to that form of journalism is they are good at it. The first thing they write is usually the best thing they're going to write and so actually

it's a fun place for them to be. That's why they are not novelists. They are reactive journalists because they just happen to be great at it. It might seem like witchcraft that someone could knock up. Some of the football reports you see are so brilliant and they clearly come just after the final whistle, but that's just some people are really, really good at it. To have the overview of the game, which you're having to write while the game is happening, and to write it in many ways in sort of, you know, really fun, there are lots of great jokes

in there. They're really sort of funny reflections. They're really, it's so thoughtful. I definitely think that in the case of the most recent election, everyone thought that it was so, that the polls were so sort of finely balanced in going into the final days, that a lot of people might have thought, well, I could be in the situation. I mean, like this time round, nobody wrote there, Rishi Sunak's pulled off a surprise victory in our election. No one bothered doing that. But when you've got polls that finely balanced, if you're not stupid, you will be thinking, by the way, it could go either way. Yeah and you and you also you spent the last six months covering the race so you have phrases in

your mind you have thought about the prospect of Kamala Harris winning and why it might be so you have ideas already you've thought about Trump winning and why that might be so you've got those ideas as well so it's all swimming around there it's not like someone's just throwing you in there and said oh there's this election tonight. Yeah you've been saturated with that and you actually kind of need to get it out. So in lots of ways, okay Here's one for you Richard quizzes on podcast Toby asks with quizzes being so popular on TV and on the radio Why do you think there aren't that many that have taken off as podcasts? Yeah, that is that that's a it's a really interesting because I've always felt that podcasts tend to be quite discursive and people like getting involved

In the world of it, but I've always been a format guy. So I always thought there must be a market for a great podcast. Because I briefly did the birthday game as a podcast, which I really, really enjoyed doing, which is just, I think, how old is Bruce Willis? And three people have to guess because it's great fun. But you talk about celebrities and what have you. There's a few good ones. Guestimators, which is Andy Bush, that's a good one. Lateral, I think, is really good, which Tom Scott hosts, and Tom really, really understands social media and he understands the way that people consume things and so is absolutely finely tooled for podcast listeners.

And David Boddycombe, who is one of the brains behind Only Connect, and lots of our great quizzes, does lots of the questions on that. So that's a really interesting, involved thing, but really, really understanding what the podcast is. I'm gonna listen to that. As a medium. And they do stuff on YouTube, they've done live stuff as well, I think they've got a book coming out. And so I think it's absolutely doable.

I mean, there's a lot of hard work putting a quiz together, especially putting a quiz like Lateral together. There's a huge amount of work that goes into it, a huge amount of intelligence that goes into it as well. And so the combination of having the left-brained people who are very good at coming up with ridiculous quiz questions and the right-brained people who really understand how to connect with an audience, that Vendellic diagram is quite narrow. But when it does work, like on something like Lateral, it's absolutely worth doing.

I'm all for quizzes on podcasts. Funny enough, one of our listeners has come up with a little quiz which I'm going to try on you at the end of today's show as well. Smart little format. Is it easier than a top three? It is similar to a top three. I'm not going to say you're not going to struggle, but you never know. Because I see how you grow week by week. I get it. And now you've been exposed to Dominic Sandbrick and Rory and Alistair. Then it's just, you know, you've seen how the pros do it.

It's podcast is a personal growth medium, Richard. It is a personal growth medium. I think I said that at about 3.59am in America. So yeah, I would say that there are ones, I think there's definitely room for more, but yeah, you have to really understand the medium. You have to understand the medium of quiz and the medium of podcast. And certainly Tom Scott and David Boddy

can do exactly that on lateral. A question for you Marina from Eve Flaherty. I was wondering how much of an industry aesthetic books has become. Those ones that people buy to go on their coffee table. I see influencers buying them to enhance their aesthetic. Are there now authors catering for this? And how do authors feel about their book used simply for aesthetic purposes?

This is a very good question and interesting one because I think you're probably talking about those kind of monograph books about, I don't know, Ibiza and Monte Carlo or maybe Brooklyn Beckham's book of photography. That you always find at an art market Airbnb. Yeah, or yeah, you know, like the world's 100 most important infinity pools, that sort of stupid stuff like that. Oh my God, I would read that. Yeah, of course.

I mean, to some extent this has always existed and that thing where people do, you know, put the books in the colors, I think that is psychopathic. Really? Yeah. You knew when I would have this view about this particular thing. Do you know what?

It could go either way. Either you would absolutely put all of your books in colour order or you would think it's psychopathic. I'm a poor that you would think I'll put my books in colour. There used to be a joke though that people used to say about, it was a sort of snooty joke saying, oh yes, he bought his books by the yard, which was sort of people buying a big old house in the country. And sometimes, I mean, I've went to one once and you could slide the books out. They were just the spines, you know? Yeah.

Anyway, but that's sort of in the vein of Michael Jopping saying about Michael has the time that, you know, he, he looking down upon him because he had to buy his own furniture, you know, one inherits furniture, et cetera, et cetera, whatever. But it's interesting. They make a lot of money. These books, there are companies like Tashen, you know, who make, and some of them, my God, some of them are sell for such huge amounts of money. They say, this is limited edition.

It's a book about Manchester United. They can even be, and it's going to cost you five or six grand. And they were only doing this many of them. They sell really well. The fashion has produced them all the time. And that again, is that slight sort of thing that, you know, you might buy the scent of a fact, you might buy a deal or scent buy a dual perfume because it's really expensive buying dual clothes, like mega, mega, mega expensive. You can have that lower end thing and it's

a little, you know, or you might have a Ferrari baseball hat, you know, I don't have the car but I have the cap of the car. And Tashan do incredible art books as well, they're absolutely beautiful and they pay such attention to detail. They're not sort of cheap knockoffs, they're genuinely, I mean they're insanely expensive, but you can sort of see why when you look at them. Absolutely, I mean books are always like such a, you know, if you go into a house and there are no books, and especially now when lots of people, well I don't, but lots of people read on a Kindle, maybe it's not that odd, but a lot of people think I'm unsettled, what is unsettling about this house and it's that there are, I can't see any books anywhere

or something like that. In the pandemic, there was so little to do we all became completely obsessed with sort of freeze-framing people on shows and looking at the books that they'd put themselves you know that they put behind it and clearly people were curating a certain image of themselves. By the way when I was thinking about this there's this absolutely wonderful clip that we're going to put in the newsletter because it's brilliant and it's Umberto Eco looking for one book in his library and when you see his library and how he's arranged it and how he goes back and back into these other rooms and it's also like well okay I sometimes take a long time to find a book in my house but this is insane it's absolutely brilliant it's it's

mesmerizing and beautiful. See it's so easy to find a book if you color code that's the thing. You tell me what colors the spine yellow. Well, how do you know what color the spine is? That's the one floor in your plan, isn't it? Move on, move on. Well, you make a key code menu and you think it would be in the blue section. You make a key code menu. Okay. I noticed that books in interior decoration, that's perhaps one of the things you're talking about. Those are one of the things that Nikki Haslam has put this year on his drying up

cloth about things that people find common, things that are common. I think he's put books on decoration on this year's. Books on decoration. Do you mean books that you use as decoration or books about? No, I think he means books on interior design. But that's a lot of what Eva's, I think, is talking about, those kind of books that people put down and say, I'm into, I don't know. Yes, but I was wondering as well if she's talking about influencers you see who do have

curated bookshelves, either A, to look clever or B, to look beautiful. And that's, and she's saying to authors' mind, and obviously no one minds, you're like, I couldn't care less why you buy a book. If you buy a book. Well, you like to see your book on somebody else's shelf. I know, that's terrible.

No, I don't think it's bad at all, it's lovely. If there ever is a picture of a bookshelf or anything, you know, even on Rightmove or something, just have a little zoom in, just to make sure it's there. One lovely gift my publishers buy me for each book is they buy me a proper old-fashioned leather-bound version of the book. So I've got all five books like they're in a kind of 18th century library, which is really, really beautiful. But I like it, you know, I like buying old kind of crime books from the 1930s with those incredible

kind of front covers and you know, Golanx books that sort of look beautiful. Yeah, I love all that stuff. You know, I think it's sort of a fairly cheap way of making a house look great, books. Yes. Because you can buy these amazing books, you can fit a shelf and everyone just looks at that wall because there's all this incredible stuff, all these stories there, all these, all these amazing things and you get to read them as well. But yeah, so I would never buy anything because of books have the side effect of they make a wall of your house look amazing.

But I love like a monograph of an artist I love, you know, I'm trying to, I was looking at one that weekend and I've got one of Giorgio DiSciarico. If I go, I can go and look up his pictures online, but it's nothing compared to, you know, quite, it probably costs, it's definitely second hand and I got it on eBay and it's still probably cost quite lots of money. Giorgio De Chirico. Oh, I love his things. Anyway, and it's like an Italian surrealist. It's really, yeah. An Italian surrealist? Tell me more. But you it's much better than looking at, you know, if you just think, oh, I love that picture. It's much better than looking online. And unless you're going to, it happens to be in the gallery and you're maybe not going to go to the gallery.

I like those sort of things. I am probably against the sliding in slots of vintage spines. But also the interesting thing is, but you know, books, by and large, if you've got a series of books as well, they do try and publish them in a way that they look good next to each other. With the Thursday Motor Club, if the first one you bought was a paperback, you're going to buy all the paperbacks because you can put good next to each other. With the Thursday Motor Club, if the first one you bought was a paperback, you're gonna buy all the paperbacks because you can put them next to each other. The spines are different colors deliberately,

but on a similar design, so they'll look nice next to each other, but if you bought the first one in hardback, you sort of, a bit of you has to go for the hardbacks. And publishers and designers take that incredibly seriously when they're publishing the same authors' books. Will they look good next to each other on a bookshelf is something they think about a lot. So how do you lay out your books? Oh my god, my husband, I mean I don't like to break glass on the phrase gaslighting too

often. What my husband's done with arranging our books, there are sometimes different authors in different rooms for like really, I mean, reasons that I can't possibly penetrate. So is he doing it by theme? What's he trying to do to me? It's the, the larger question here is, are you trying to send me insane because A, it's working. Yeah, there's some sort of theme idea.

When we move house again, which we might do soon, I am going to take back control. So I'm going to have to bother to get into some form of, you know, version of the Dewey Decimal. But so you wouldn't do them alphabetically? Yeah, alphabetically, he's done them within genres. And I'm like, why are these Hollywood books in a completely separate room to these? And why are the TV books? And like, basically, if it's on a screen, it should be, I I mean I can't get too deeply into this because we could have a type four as on this it should be in one area right and this is very very obvious TV and film yeah yeah maybe music together you know that but your husband is saying no TV and film are different

mediums it's so unclear to me what he's saying it's so unclear but I think what he's trying to say is I can control you via the mean by me just being less lazy than you and I'm the one who's put these books here. And that's why I've done it in this order. And if you want to do it differently Marina, by all means have a go. But what about the fiction stuff? Alphabetical pre 1945 is alphabetical and post 1945 is alphabetical, but it's divided like that. So you're not mixing up. So he's looking at the date on the book? And then there's poetry and an Arian plays. This sounds very... Philosophy. Wow. Reference. I mean there's a lot of sections here. I do mind... You can tell there's no mind, body, spirit. We don't have anything

now. Don't have anything in the app department. I do mind absolutely by size. Big books, I'd like books the same size as each other. Well, like, so you've got hard bats because they're the same size. So they're the same height. Oh my god, I want to apologise to my husband. They're much madder people than you out there. How is that mad? What? You do it on size?

Of course you do it on size. Why don't they do it like that in the library, then, Richard? Why don't the professionals do it like that? Yeah, I don't know. But, because I tell you why, because I'm not a library. I don't have people coming in and looking at my... I don't need people coming and borrowing stuff. Next time around at yours, I'm 100% looking and I'm not going to try and borrow, but I'm

going to look at exactly what you've done. Some paperbacks are a certain size, you put them together. Some certain paperbacks for various reasons are small, you put them together. And so you do, why would you? That's a war crime. Okay. So if I were to look at your bookshelf, I'm looking at like the Alps essentially, there's like woo-ah up and down, there's like a tiny little paperback next to an enormous heart like

thick hardback is that how you're doing it? Yes I mean I'm not measuring I'm not doing my surface area of pages this is so insane I can't believe he can't near himself. But how could... Write in, let's have a vote. So you so you could have Winston Churchill's history of the Western world's like a kind of 15 volume massive thing and next to it would be by Sapiens or something like that and next to each other even though it looked tiny it looked dwarfed and I'm like all I can see is the Winston Churchill thing and I'm trying to look at your other books but it's impossible because they are not regulated they are not a regular size

like if you look along my books you are not, shall I tell you what you'll do when you get a headache it's like watching tennis but up and down whereas you look on like here's how you look at it. People watch tennis. People watch tennis it's like watching tennis but up and down. Whereas you look on like, here's how you look at it. People watch tennis. People watch tennis. It's quite popular as a thing to watch. Here's how you look along my bookshelves like RoboCop. Easy.

It's so easy to look. Oh believe me, I will be looking at him like RoboCop when the nets come round. 100%. That's crazy. But also, you haven't got like, I'm not like in Berto Echo. I've got like a thousand books or something. So I can, I know where stuff is. I'm going like in Berto Echo, I've got like a thousand books or something, so I know where stuff is.

I'm going to pull out of this. There's a lot for me to unpack there, there's a lot for me to take in and I will retrospectively apologise to my husband because I had no idea the way other people, perhaps you, did it. I would be interested to hear what our listeners do, how they organise their books. Send us your maddest ways that you genuinely organize your books. I would be fascinated to find out. Because I think it's a big deal. We don't like to throw around the term gaslighting.

We don't like to do it. But certainly I feel attacked for doing something that I think is utterly rational and works as an interior design statement as well, which is important. Literature is important, but so is interior design. Shall we go to a break and let the air clear a bit? We have to. There's no choice. Interior Chinatown is an all-new series based on the best-selling novel by Charles Yu about a struggling Asian actor who gets a bigger part than he expected when he witnesses a

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Come. Walk with us. Indigenous tourism Alberta. Welcome back everybody. During that break one of our producers Joey tells Marina that he has his books in colour coded order. So Marina's whole world has literally collapsed. It's like everyone who does it wrong apart from Marina. That's how it's looking, isn't it? Yeah, no, listen, I'll take the lesson. But I would like to hear from listeners, as I said, before I fully commit to the Mayor Culper and the on-air apology. One on copyright in comedy from Tim Rook. OK, he says, Richard, it must happen regularly that comedians develop the same joke. So how does copyright work in comedy? If that's the case, how do you prove it's yours?

Yes, it happens all the time. I say, by the way, my chair is quite squeaky today. So if you're hearing squeaky noises, that's me. All the time. There's a yours? Yes, it happens all the time. I say, by the way, my chair is quite squeaky today, so if you're hearing squeaky noises, that's me. All the time. There's a lot of comedians around a certain amount of things happen in the world. There are a certain number of joke constructions in the world as well. So often people will stumble upon the same version of the same joke. It happens probably less with stage comedians because they tend to have different personas, so they tend to go to things at slightly different angles. But certainly in

writers' rooms, the same joke will come up time and time and time again because you're looking at every different version of stuff that's happened. By and large it is sort of a slightly unregulated industry. I think comedians understand that jokes are similar and so if two people have the same joke and they're high profile and they're both touring or they're doing the same show you know they might sit down and say how do we get through this one? But by and large jokes are usually different enough or slightly different versions of the same thing. You see it on Twitter all the time. Very funny people on Twitter would do jokes

and then someone would go, that's so-and-so's joke and they're going... It doesn't work like that. Yeah, I'm saying, I did this joke and you think, yeah, with the best one in the world, you have 43 followers and they probably didn't see your tweet because it didn't get... If it's been a tweet that has been viewed a million times, then you've probably got more of a claim. But in general, it's like, I'm so sorry, they probably didn't notice. And there are certain sites, certain banter sites, who will just take someone's tweet and pass it off as their own.

So that's definite theft. But by and large, I used to do a joke. I had a joke that I love, which was... I went on a really good date last night with a woman who works at the zoo. I think she's a keeper, I had a joke that I love, which was, I went on a really good date last night with a woman who works at the zoo, I think she's a keeper, which I always loved it and then I think the joke of the fringe, I think it was Alan Cochran did, my girlfriend wears a green top and massive gloves, she's a keeper. And I was like, oh, that's the book, you know, it's the same gag and then, God, who got in

touch with me? Someone said, oh, I did that joke kind of two years before you, it's, you know, once you think of the phrase, she's a keeper, there's lots of different versions of that. I also did the joke. I went on a date with a dentist last night. It went so well she doesn't need to see me again for six months. That happens absolutely all the time, especially on Twitter where you don't even particularly need a context for a joke. You can just take any phrase from the English language and you do a joke about it. So copyright is absolutely unregulated. You will find certain acts who will steal material.

They get a reputation for doing that. And by and large, they are asked to cease and desist. There have always been those people on the circuit who other people will ban. And it's by the way, this is like one of the most bitchy and gossipy circuits you can possibly imagine for anything. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. It's got a lot better. The comedy circuit, this generation, are much more collegiate. My generation, oh my god. That was grim. Wow.

I will say, if you want to have fun, go and talk to a comic of my generation and ask them about another comic of my generation. You will be there for a long time in the 60s, 70s. The real tradition in music hall and in the working men's clubs was, you know, you do use other people's material. Actually it's the act and you can take jokes from over the years and you just put it together in a way that would make people laugh. And that wasn't looked down on particularly and there would be your own jokes and stuff. But by and large, you could get away with just using other people's jokes.

But you know, since the rise of alternative comedy, the idea was you write your own material. And there are definitely issues with it. People tell the same jokes. To my mind, I think it's remarkable how in the same way that people keep bringing out songs and there aren't that many chords, people keep doing these incredible comedy sets and it's jokes you haven't heard before. It's the exact version of it. You have not heard before the way they put it. I think it's remarkable how few times jokes are repeated is the truth. I remember thinking something quite odd. There was a John Oliver episode, really right at the very start of John Oliver, and I had written this column about FIFA, and I can't quite

remember in the World Cup in South Africa in 2010 where they had these kind of FIFA approved courts. And I'd used some quote from, there's a quote that's attributed to Bismarck, you know, those who like sausages and believe in justice should never see either being made. He did a big thing on FIFA and how awful they were, but it had this Bismarck creation in it. But thinking, hmm, that's quite, that is quite an odd place to have gone in that thing. But then, you know, you don't know. And sometimes it's just that someone has said something to one of the people in the writers room, someone who, you know, who'd read my column or something and had said it, and you never know.

It's like Chinese whispers, how things are being passed on. Not everything is kind of like citation given, like Wikipedia, so you can just click through anything. Oh, hang on, that friend of mine got that offer thing. Yeah, sometimes you literally forget, because you hear a lot, if you read a lot of comedy, see a lot of comedy, an idea would occur to you. It's like when Paul McCartney wrote yesterday,

I'm not comparing what we do to that, and for a while he just forgot it, because he assumed he had stolen it. And that's the thing, sometimes stuff is just in your head, and you will write a joke, you'll realize quite quickly that someone else wrote you go oh no I have heard that before and at that point you've scratched it out but it's yeah. Comedians do this all the time they literally can't remember and you know because I'm not by

the way I wasn't saying they stole my stuff it would have been done in unintentionally and comedians do this all the time and then are sort of horrified to watch sometimes people end up sort of you know watching a sketch and thinking oh my, that's where I got the idea from. I'd actually seen this. Yeah, a show from like kind of 20 years ago, you go, oh, I thought that was my joke. And actually it's from an episode. And now I remember that I definitely have seen this episode. I have seen that episode of A Touch of Fry and Laurie. And I mean, it's awful when you sort of end up self plagiarizing. I remember coming up,

in the mad years of just writing, sort of trying to write jokes constantly about the government when we were all in the kind of convulsions post-Brexit. And I remember thinking, oh, that's quite good. And then Googling it, I think I better check and thinking, oh no, you've actually already done that one before. You know, you can, you're just on the treadmill and you consume so much stuff, I suppose. All these people who write jokes consume like everything. And it's quite hard to remember sometimes, whether you thought it up or whether you had a dream about it or whether, no, you just literally watched something else.

100%. If I've got a tweet that I'm thinking, oh, that's a nice joke about that, always search it. And a lot of the time someone else has got there. When they haven't, you're like, oh my God, I can't believe no one's thought of that. And then I'll put it up. It's that witchcraft thing of people can't believe that people can think of jokes. I think

so they think the only thing they can possibly have done is stolen them because they can't imagine a mind that works in such a way that's able to formulate a joke. In the same way that they can't believe unusual things happen, which is why they have to constantly just say didn't happen. Yes, didn't have another year awards much accidental partridge much. Uh, but yeah, so if, if, if you can write jokes, you, you, you can write lots and lots and lots and lots of jokes. Okay. Talking of quizzes on podcasts, uh, I have a new format for you from Reese Durham. Thank you very much, Reese Reese.

This belongs to you. 100%. I can say on behalf of Goalhanger, uh, if you need to exploit this on any other media, it is entirely yours. Uh, but, uh, it is in the realm of snog, marry, if you need to exploit this on any other media, it is entirely yours. But it is in the realm of snog, marry, avoid, but it is cast, co-star, cancel. So cast, just work with someone as a one-off, you cast them in one thing. Co-star, you collaborate with someone on a long-term project or program.

Council, unfortunately, you never ever want to work with them again. So cast, co-star, cancel and Reece says I'll start you off can we tell if Reece listens to the podcast or not? His three suggestions are Glenn Powell, Sydney Sweeney, Steven Seagal. Okay Reece first of all thanks because I hadn't mentioned Glenn Powell for a week and I need to. Okay just give me the rule of cancel, is it that they get cancelled? Well actually Reese's unfortunately they can never work again so it's not just with you it is it is I guess like Snog Mary Avoid actually is

really it's called Snog Mary Kill but they couldn't call the TV series that so I think yeah cancel is they are they are they are never working on screen again. Okay I'm gonna say cancel Steven Seagal I mean is he working on... he's working on some form of pixel, right? But he's kind of already been canceled and it means I don't have to lose him because he's post-cancelled now. So he's yeah, so he's existing in this kind of liminal space. Yeah, Reese has given you an absolute gimme there. Yeah, an absolute gimme. And by the way people who haven't signed up to our Restlers entertainment club, which you're absolutely allowed not to, but the the two Steven Seagal bonus episodes are an absolute treat. I very much enjoy

listening to you go through this career. What I'm enjoying about the club is that we are getting to do things that are out of time as it was. It's very much out of time. Or is he perhaps a man greatly of his time, Steven Seagal? Steven Seagal. We're about to do do it's a royal knockout as well as a probably two bonus episodes. Oh my god I can't believe we've got to go down to two but that is a fascinating story and we will we will cover that perhaps not as deep a dive as I was like but probably deep enough for you. Oh it'll be deep. And okay so Stephen Seguin is cancelled so you got cast you just work with them once or co-star you work with them like a like a podcast team essentially. Yeah right okay that's easy. Cast I love her and I've got a huge amount of time

for what she does and I'd love to see her sort of up close once is Sydney Sweeney. Okay, so that leaves of course as my long-term collaborator Glenn Powell. Okay, what can't he do? Don't answer that question because I think the answer is actually longer than you think, but I think there's lots more to come out with Glenn Power, and I'm interested in where he goes, and I'm interested with his idea to try and tunnel back to an era of movie stardom that no longer exists. But as I say, I'm definitely interested in the fact that he's not going to be one of those people

making political statements. He's one of those people who wants to be... So you could tie your wagon to him for quite a long time, and he'd be a real cash crowd for you. I'd like to see where he took me with that wagon. You know, I think he contains multitudes, Richard. That's quite obvious. Otherwise, why would I be talking about him every week on the podcast?

How do you think he organizes his books? What books? Okay. I hear you. And what show would you come up with for him? How are we making money? Well, we're making money in the movies. Glenn Powell wants to be in theatrical release. So we're making money in theatrical release. He wants to be a sort of a thinking action man, doesn't he? So I think that, yes, I would have a number of franchises in that department. Yeah. Well, let's remake the Thomas Crown affair again. Reese, thank you very much. Cast, co-star, council. Feel free to send us three people that you want us to put in one of those categories. That is a good game. I enjoyed that a lot.

You'd love talking about Glenn Powell. You know that above all, above all other things, I'm a professional. And I would not be doing my duty as an entertainment podcaster if I didn't talk about Glenn Powell every week. There you go. And that everybody is why quizzes don't really work on podcasts. Finally, we found out. Marina, thank you so much. Well, thank you so much. Don't forget the rest of Entertainment Live on the 4th of December at the Royal Albert Hall. I say those nice slightly cheaper choir

tickets are available at the back. And we are putting on a show. We're going to put on a 360 degree show. If you buy those tickets I promise we will turn and look at you. We are putting on a show. But everything else sold out so we're really, really looking forward to that. And also looking forward to seeing everybody next Tuesday for another episode. See you next Tuesday. See you next Tuesday.