The Worst Idea Of All Time - Family Friends 02

Episode Date: August 1, 2026

In this incredible Family Friends episode, Guy spends 10 full minutes explaining a fascinating situation involving the English national test cricket team absolutely ruining themselves. On our way to this, we get Tim waxing lyric on the benefits of having a big ass kindle thing you can write on and what’s wrong with Philip K Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. And also Oppenheimer. But mainly this is about the cricket story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tim here, if you want to see me in the flesh and you're in New Zealand or Australia, good news. I'm coming to Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland and Wellington for the comedy festivals. Please buy some tickets now at timbat.com.com. He's sitting in. That marks the start. Okay. Hi. And so it begins another conversation between friends.

You forgot what we were. We're friends. Well, friends first. Do it in order. Friends first. Enemies, second. Colleagues third? Colleagues third.

Compatible Zodiac partners. What do you? Leo. Libra. I know your birthday. I will now know your birthday for time immemorial. Yeah. It's coming up.

It is. It's soon. I have seen a shocking lack of your daughter considering she's going to be one soon. I know. Been thinking it. I tell you what. If every time we said how we'd love to see you guys and the boys, we actually saw you, we'd be sick of each other.

So, you know, take that what is. If wishes and dreams were gumdrops and whatever the fuck that goes. No, yeah, she's getting older every day. Yeah. And, you know, what are you going to do about it? I'm going to let it happen. Absolutely nothing. That's my mission.

Celebrate it. What are the headlines? Top three headlines in Planet Bass. Top three? Top three? Yeah. Look. Nothing we need to get super into on the podcast.

It's election year and I feel like a lot of my time and mental energy is being consumed by helping the people I want to get into Parliament, get into Parliament. It's a great use of your time and energy. What else? I'd like to get some need to get some curtains for in here. Drapes. There were drapes in here. Yep, they took them away. Who's they?

Well, they, so Radio New Zealand recorded a show in here, and they provided the drapes. like, I could probably keep those, eh? And they're like, no, we will be keeping them. I'm like, what are you going to do with them? What are they going to do with them? Something. That's an outrage. People often, you know, people love to say, does the curtains, does the carpet match the drapes?

And I always say, well, that depends. Are the drapes made of a thick mat of pubic hair? Thick mat? Good Lord. too much too visual I think it's about right too descriptive you um

you've been gigging uh I've been doing a little bit of stand-up comedy anything funny stumbling into anything funny no I've not been doing anything new I've been doing jokes from my old show but it'd be delightful to

do you know what I've got guy you saw it before a Kindle that you can write on oh yeah you've got a new piece of technology it's e-paper but you can write on it the expensive version is called a remark It's a, have you seen those? No.

It's like that thing, but it looks a bit cooler and it costs about three times as much. And it's a bit better. I was actually saying to you, as I looked at it, I don't, I don't engage with any new technology, literally until I see you and you've bought something. I do a lot for many. This is something I do for you. The premise of that appeals to me, the Kindle and Pad self-contained, just because it's like if I am going to a cafe to go offline and get worked on, the things I'm going between often if I, is reading and writing. Exactly.

And so to have it contained in a one-stop shop is functionally helpful because you can't browse, you can't go on apps, you can't do it around. There is something good about that. And it's like, you know, if you're there to write, you can hand write, which is always quite good. You've got infinite pages. You're not going to run out of ink. And then if you're bored, you go to a book that you've got, not to fucking Instagram.

Quite nice. You've been, you're a reader now, would you sir? No. Aspiring. Aspiring reader. I mean, I'm listening to some books. I'm trying to read. It's all reading.

I'm reading. I'm still reading to Android's Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick. Quite enjoying it, really good. That's fun. There's bits to get through. It's also kind of one of those ones where there's two books in one book where you're like, all those other stuff that's going on with these guys, pretty ancillary. Yeah. So both the plot and my interest.

To be honest with you. It's a bummer. It's world building, but it's kind of like, I don't know, maybe it'll all connect up later. Is it satisfying that, you know, like you pick it up and then within a page, you're not in your house anymore? You're like, you're in whatever imagined universes. Well, it's interesting. It's unspooling in front of you. So this is the novel that is the basis of Blade Runner, right?

And Blade Runner is such a visual thing. It's got such a, you know, incredible visual language. But, like, I'm not getting that in the book. The book's just like, hey, here's this guy and he's doing these things. But it's not describing, unless I've missed a whole bunch of stuff and I've just forgotten, like the outside world being neon and, you know, neo-tokio risk. That's creative license. That's like, that's fucking sick. I mean.

No, it's good, but it's coloring the way I read it. Of course. You know? Because, yeah. It must be like how everyone talks about Harry Potter. Is that JK? No, this is okay. It's my mom.

The opposite of JK. more jk k simmons than jk rowling yeah and that she's awesome yeah yeah and she's an incredibly terse and intense drum teacher uh i need to watch that again man i haven't seen whiplash in a while when i first saw it so good i really loved it what happened to miles teller is he about did they did they put them in a superhero movie or something oh they mean they're trying everyone in the superhero movies it's funny yeah yeah they before it was kind of like we've got this incredible machine that we can make stars out of and now they're like we're trying to plug the biggest stars into this broken machine because it doesn't work anymore it's going to keep going

i felt bad for supergirl apparently it's doing poorly i'd quite like to see it i thought it i thought it would i thought it would suck shit when i saw a massive poster for it and i was dropping all of at school what was that based on just your normal uh sort of hatred of women or i i'd like to think not but obviously everything might be colored by everything else but i just saw it and i was like well i don't think anyone asked for this IP is a comic book in the first place. I don't know how successful or unsuccessful it was, but it was like the death rattle of the superhero franchise. It's like you are very visibly milking everything that you have access to before the entire thing goes down. If you take the premise that we're living in a culture which is just so fucking like saturated

by the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which we are, it's nice to have female protagonist projects so that, you know, a 12 year old girl can be like me on screen. undoubtedly. Is Supergirl young? No. Well, she is young. Yeah, she is. She's like younger than Superman. I think it's Superman's younger cousin. This is another thing that sort of caught me is, why is it Superman and Supergirl? Well, that's because of the patriarchy guy, and that's because the comic books have written in the 50s. That was a massive deterrent to what I'm like, what do you mean, super girl?

You know, and I guess it's funny because the inverse is true. You know the band, the Irish old pop band, Boy Zone. I think that that's maybe where, no, he came out of Westlife running kidding, but Boyzone were around for a while. And I was like, but they had to be called Boyzone. Because if you call the band Manzone, it's completely different. But these, like, you know, these pro-gen's fucking lead-set cover band. These, you know, like the random application of these gendered pronouns as it pertains to, like,

intellectual property or bands or whatever, it's kind of like, you can really change the whole superwoman, you know, like Supernanny was a thing. Superwoman suddenly feels a lot more adjacent to the realm of Supernanny Maybe I'm just connecting The few things I know exist in the world In my head together But like Super Girl

I was like you can't have the guy be a man And the lady be a girl It seems mad Yeah And I can't remember what the tagline was It wasn't very good And I... Yeah, the tagline was bad

And I also can't remember And I just looked at it And I thought You know I don't go to any of the movies Anyway with the fellas on the front Sure Not that that would make it more

or less appealing, but I was like, this is crazy. Is there anything you're looking forward to at the cinema? Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. What do you think about that? I don't know. I think I'll be bored in it. Yeah. I didn't see the last one, I didn't see Oppenheimer.

It's Nolan, right? Yeah. Yeah. I told you my thoughts on Oppenheimer and I'll tell you them again. Too much talking. Just in that, it's a long movie where there's no breaths. There's one breath in the movie where everyone's, everyone's Shuts the fuck up for 10 seconds. To watch the bomb.

For a bomb to go off. But it's just, like, I don't know if it's the editing or the scripting, but it's just so much block text spoken aloud. And I'm like, could we fucking, just give me a breather, can't? Good Lord. Watched Kramer versus Kramer the other day. Tell me about that. It's a documentary about Michael Richards post a laugh factory gig.

No, it was. it's like a it's sort of it's it's Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep a builder's double leads but Meryl is given less to do

what she is given she does fantastically it's like there's a couple Dustin Hoffman plays it's like a classic right you must have heard of it yeah yeah definitely

I'm feeling 80s yeah and Dustin Hoffman's like some high flying ad executive and he comes home one day gets a promotion and Meryl Streep's like

I can't do this I'm not happy I have to leave and leaves literally just leaves and doesn't come back and then you're just watching Dustin Hoffman learn to parent his son. Wow. And like get lose out on, you know, like become worse at his job and he gets no sympathy from his boss and stuff. And then you just watch like him learn to love his child and let go of his life a bit. And then on and on it go. Then there's a pretty nice sort of twist and it gets a bit sort of interesting. And it was nice. It was really, I can see why it's a classic it's a very beautifully realized, beautifully acted, shot restrained piece of filmmaking.

And I was like Oppenheimer. And you know what? It was the biggest movie. It was the biggest blockbuster movie of the year. It was like an adult drama. You know, it was a real testament to the fact that they used to treat us like fucking grownups at the cinema instead of overgrown children. Do you know what?

That's such a great point and a great articulation of it. You know what I'm so fucking thirsty to watch, which I've always like meant to sit down and watch and I've never done it, is it called Dinner with Andre? My Dinner With Andre? Oh, yeah. My Dinner with Andre. Desperate to watch that. Premise?

Two guys talk. Yeah. Two guys are at a table talking. Fun. And apparently it is like phenomenal. Yeah. It's, it's, um, Wally Shaw. Is that his name?

I want to say that's his name. Wallace Sean? Yeah. He's got a great face and a unique voice. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. It's him and some other guy. Andre the Giant?

No, I don't think so. Maybe I'm just... But you might think that. Again, no, I've just got like probably 10 things in my head, and if it's not one of the things in my head, I can't conceive of it. Desperate to watch it. But that's very...

It sounds similar in that, Kramer versus Kramer, sort of... I don't know, movies used to be more like plays, and I think there's a thirst for that at the moment, because now they're more like fucking commercials for water guns that got turned into a 90-minute thing. It's just all gone wrong. It's everything has gone to shit

The oldest sounding person on earth right now But go off It's just You say like a commercial for a fucking water gun It's like I can't keep banging on these drums But I go out We're on Instagram

You also need to realise we're old now I can't emphasise Enough that the thing that is broken May in fact be the ruler Yeah That's fine But I don't mind being old And I don't mind that things aren't for me

That's kind of as it's meant to be but I guess because and I think Instagram is old and it's going to die eventually but as it stands it's like everything was we're replacing the old models you know there's no more ads on TV or whatever I got offered the chance

to pay $299 to the Amazon Prime subscription I was already paying for to have it without ads and I was like you've got to be kidding me and then Instagram I'm like they have literally turned Instagram into the bit that used to exist between the TV

show you're watching on TV. It's literally just a customized ad platform. And I was like, yeah, you're right. This is making me feel crazy. We were promised everything. And there was a brief period while they were harvesting our data and making us relying on it, that it was good. It's still in between, okay, it's majority ads with a bit of content now, which is how the slot machine's supposed to work. It's that sort of intermittent, randomized bits of reward. I did get served up a great little speech by, is it Charlie Kaufman, the screen writer and and I'm going to fucking butcher you know his point but he was like you you just got it you got to give people what is true to you and you got to you got to desperately try to

not be selling something everyone is selling something don't do that express yourself stop selling everyone's trying to sell something to everyone else don't do that just say what's in i couldn't agree more i actually had it i did the gig you put on recently um talk about it well you put on it It was actually a fundraiser for... It was two gigs. Yeah. Which guy generously gave his time to. So, well, no, for the opportunity to, A, hopefully help get close Warwick back in, you know, as the Auckland Central MP.

And B, the chance to perform stand-up comedy, which is something I'm enjoying doing again. And the first gig was harder. The audience were harder. It was earlier, whatever. The second gig was electric. Hey, let's get into that a little bit, though. Sorry, I'm derailing you from making a point. But honestly, the first gig was harder.

Fing Shui was not nothing. So in between the early and the late show, we had a very short amount of time to get everyone out. Both shows sold out. God bless. Thank you for coming everyone. So we had to get everyone out immediately as soon as the early show ended so we could clear the room to get the late show seat up. And Chris Parker and I, towards the end of the show, we were just talking to each other. And we were going, this fucking rooms all right.

It's yuck. It's long been one of the worst comedy rooms in Auckland. But it doesn't have to be. Like, it's in a great location and it's, you know, it's big. enough that it seats a lot of people and stuff and it looks the way it was set up, it looks out and they've got exposed brick on a different wall

and Chris and I were just like, it should be there the stage shouldn't be over here, it should be fucking there so with the sort of 15 minutes we had I just said all right everyone we're moving the entire room 90 degrees it was so good and do you know what the best thing was I was privy to the conversations

during the first gig and then I hadn't eaten since breakfast You left and I was like at the end of the first day I was like okay I've got to go and get some dinner. I'll see you in like 50 minutes. I go out, buy three tacos, eat them, come back, and the entire configuration of the room has changed. And I was, I was like, this is unbelievable. Second gig, fucking electric, better feng shui, better audience. But, you know, I guess this is connected to you talking about the Charlie Kaufman thing if you just have to

communicate yourself or your essence or you have to give some of your, you know, like you don't want to be selling, you just have to be. And boy did you. And I, yeah, and I completely lost control. And I felt like I was base jumping. It was amazing. And I was like, wow, this is what it feels. And I guess it's, you know, new material, new to performing stand-up again. But I was just absolutely unmoored and kind of petrified of what I was going to say next, but also really loving it and could feel like the lineup was hot and everyone gave fantastic. Like the spots before me were unbelievable.

But as I was doing it, I didn't think I was doing better than them, but I was like, I am connected to an audience in a way that you do not get when you are. performing like wrote jokes or you're doing material. It's like we are all doing this together and that is like the essence of good performance is like you don't need to do it perfect you need to be in the room and the gig is what happens in the room

and I was like I was at the gig you definitely were you got tapped in you were locked in as the kids are. It's not always accessible and it's not always safe and it's the sort of stuff you can't replicate but I was really like wow that's what it feels like

that is something you can only, I think, like get to when you've built years on the foundation of the crap. Like, I think there's a lot of people who get into stand up and sprint towards there early. And like, I've got a story to tell. And I haven't written it down and I don't know what it's going to sound like, but I'm going to be amazing. And they go out there and they tell their story. And you just, there's some, you know, principles that it's good to know.

I started, I was the person you described at the very start of my career. We all were. I've been both. But yeah, you're right. Because there's a bit, there's like a foundation of technical ability and also trust that, you know, like uncommunicable, non-visible, but trust that exists between a performer and an audience that it's going to be okay or I don't know if it's going to be okay. How do you feel about podcasting as a medium right now? It's done. Wrap it up.

It's interesting. I mean, in many ways, yes, there's not much more space for, like, because the easiest route to a podcast is like a very famous person sitting down with a fellow, a rotating second share of famous people. A circle jerk, if you were. Same. But I would say at the same time, I've probably never been listening to, I've not been a big podcast listening before. and I've never probably been listening to more, not necessarily a wide tranche, but like I've been listening to podcasts.

I've been finding series I'm interested in and listening to those. You're such a sports guy. It would strike me that you'd have a couple sports podcasts that you'd be real into. There's one, I mean, like, I've, I guess it's a reflection of how we consume everything. I've been enjoying, you'd call it content, like, you know,

cut out clips of an Australian sports podcast called the Grey Cricketer. It's two guys who played grade cricket, which is like between school and professional little cricket. And it's their sort of sardonic take on the state of world cricket. They're very Australian and they're very like sort of one-eyed in their, you know,

like the lens to which they view global cricket. But I listened to a full episode of theirs recently because there was some really, New Zealand, like just had a historic test victory in England. And basically England self-destructed the whole time I can't get into the full weeds of what made it. Yes, you can. This is your podcast.

There was a guy, there's the English cricket captain, a guy called Ben Stokes, who's like this kind of, you know, is painted as this lionhearted, fearless leader who always gets his troops to follow him into battle, but also beneath that is kind of like a attention obsessed, kind of like fucking can't get his head out of his own asshole kind of guy. And English test cricket more broadly, has been going through this four-year reinvention.

It's called Bazball, was the nickname that they came out with. They were just like, they play non-traditional test cricket. They try to win games within three days. They're about entertainment,

not outcomes. And over four years, it's gone from this really exciting kind of new thing to like clearly being non-sustainable and making all the wheels come off the infrastructure of the English cricket board, to the point that they're like one of the worst test teams in English cricket history.

Wow. And anyway, the like, the final, the culmination of this four-year failed experiment and the captain and the coach who's a former New Zealand called Brendan McCullum and like that it's all come apart while New Zealand have been there touring and winning and all of the media coverage has kind of been focused on just the self-immolation of British cricket and on

the final test so we haven't won a test series in England I think since a three test series in England since the 90s so only the fourth time we've won a test series in England we're like on the precipice of making history as a New Zealand cricket team and the New Zealand cricket team's pilot persona is so selfless and team focused and like, you know, our greatest ever player, Kane Williamson, retired, like in between test matches. So after the first test at Lords, like in the middle of a series, he's like, look, I can't keep playing, my heart's not in it, I'm out. And it was sort of like really quite a jaw-dropping moment, but also very quietly handled, like kind of slipped in midweek, slipped out, no one really noticed it. We then

went and won the second match. Anyway, this English captain, Ben Stokes, after the first the english team has had historic discipline issues like on the tour of new zealand last year their vice cabinet young guy called harry brook went out to a nightclub punched a bouncer in the face the english cricket board covered it up for the entire ashes series like it came out five months later and they're like why did you cover this up and we're like because we thought you guys would be annoyed at us and we're like yeah and what you've done is worse so they now have to put on this ridiculous like fucking you know principal and pupils relationship with the english cricket board during the new zealand tour like there's a team wide curfew These grown men aren't allowed to go past a certain hour. Anyway, after the first year's when they won, Ben Stokes, the English cricket captain, gets busted out after curfew because a professional rugby player came up to him and a teammate and tried to punch them and accidentally punched their bouncer.

So anyway, it becomes a big global news story. Because they're hoisted on their own batat. They now have to stand down the captain because they've made a big public show of discipline. So Ben Stokes, they win the first test match. He gets stood down for the second test match because he broke a kid. which exists because of like public fucking image issues that are entirely self-created comes back to

the third test. New Zealand are playing a blinder like they're playing a really great match of test cricket. They're kind of like shitting the bed but it's not beyond reach. They could still enter the equation and possibly win and like defend their record of they haven't lost a home series I think in 12 years this English cricket team. So it's like you know there's a lot of pride still even though they've been collapsing. It's like there's still this unyielding belief that A, they're better than us and B, they could pull it out of their ass. Sure. So we're like three days into the test match.

No, it was day four. We're on the fourth day of the test match. It's like 3.25 in the afternoon. So it's sort of a nothing session. New Zealand are kind of trying to bat England out of the match. So we're building an unassailable lead that they won't be able to chase down because the pitch has been deteriorating. It was a road the first day.

We put up like our Ogden Partnership was over 300. Anyway, England is slowly losing the match in the fourth day of the test. and I think the time was 325pm, a scheduled fucking Instagram post goes out on behalf of the English cricket board, which is footage of Ben Stokes, the captain, that morning in the locker room, being like, lads, I've got to tell you something,

we're going to retire. I'm retiring. This is my last test match. I'm retiring today. So they've organized a scheduled post to be released in the middle of the game happening. What the fuck? This fucking, like, just,

it's so mental what's happening. So they release a video, on Instagram, it spreads around the stadium, everyone watches and knows what's happening. This captain, who's supposed to be selflessly leading his troops, has entirely hijacked like a new cycle, a test match

for everyone to find out in the middle of him playing a game that it's going to be his last game. So anyway, he gets a big standing ovation, he gets a wicket, he gets another standing ovation. Anyway, New Zealand keep batting, just playing normal cricket, like being just completely normal, which stands in such stark

contrast with everything that's happening. Anyway, he goes off the field. Like, England has set 300-something to chase. It's impossible. But again, this is like, it's just, it's so mental. And I hope I've given you enough detail for it to be an engrossing story. But basically, he bats numbers, like, he bats down the order, Ben Stokes. But he's like, all right, my last match, I'm opening the batting.

Oh, did you say New Zealand's put 300 on? New Zealand are leading by 300. Right. So England eventually get us, or we declare, with a lead of 374-ish. I can't remember the exact number. Anyway, this guy, Ben Stokes, and his retirement match. you know, there have been... That we've just found out

that he's retiring in real time. Runs off the field which is what the opening batters do. He's not an opening batter like it's the opening batter for their team is playing his third test match so they've got a brand new guys

coming two matches ago he's in his third test Ben's like, no no no, don't worry about that young blood I'm opening the batting today. Comes out, test matches like

meant to be about application and technique you absorb as many as much pressure as you can you put away the babel. He comes out he's just fucking swing at his bat as hard as he can at everything.

like completely just it's like I don't know if it's a protest against what's happening but anyway fucks it completely he scores 30 off 20 which is like ostensibly impressive and maybe a t20 match if you're betting six if you're opening a match as the captain trying to defend a nation's cricket record it's a mental behaviour anyway all of his other players beneath them come out and start doing exactly the same thing England start collapsing one of our players when they're vice captain and the guy who punched the bouncer, who's their vice captain, who they are nervous to appoint a captain because he's obviously got, he's got, like, disciplinary issues,

and he's kind of an odd, you know, like, full credit to him. He's a young guy who really gives a fuck. But also it's like, anyway, he comes out. He does even worse. When he gets out, our players are like, you can hear them on stump mic. There are mics in the stumps being like laughing, being like, what are they doing?

Anyway, we win the match. It's like this historic, beautiful moment in New Zealand test cricket. And I love reading the post-mortem on any test. fit. Like I love it when my sports team wins. I love pouring over all the coverage and seeing how it's written about. All, like, it's a satisfying route, but literally all of it is like, what just happened?

It's like, what the fuck just happened? And so, for the first time, I went from consuming just clips of the grey cricket, I was like, they did an episode zooming in on this, and I was like, I'm going to listen to that, and I listen to it. And I was like, that's great. And so, to answer the initial question of what I think of the state of podcasting, it's like, while I think it's tired

and it's running out, I mean, like, I finally am getting the appeal of the niche window of it and like consume you know there are certain podcasts I listen to weekly now and this is the bit that's always been there that's weird like been stokes in the middle of uh the third match we're retiring that's great hey guys what a gift thank you for that hey man i i don't think i've ever i think i've spoken about that i've messaged with friends about it i haven't spoken about that with anyone and to someone also who's got no prior knowledge really or reading conference you gave me everything i needed and i enjoyed it immensely

Well, I hope if there's not in America that they could enjoy the ride as well. It was fun to talk about. It was crazy. What happened is crazy. You can watch, if you go to the English cricket board, you can look at the, and go back a bit. You can look at the video of him retiring. And it's like, he's meant to be this inspirational talismanic figure. And he's nervous.

Obviously, it's a big decision he's making. And also the way he's doing it is mental. It's got like a piece of tape and he keeps banging on his hand. And it's like the least inspirational thing I've ever said. It's interesting, I guess, because the idea of captaincy and spirit. sports. It's like it's kind of hard to pin down. It's quite ethereal and it's like,

you want a Richie McCorffig. You want a quiet, brave, strong, stoic, unmovable. Vives based and unknowable to the broader public. Even without access to players and behind the scene footage and stuff,

it's like they're still so media trained that you don't really often get a glimpse at what is actually this sort of quality that they have, which unites the players behind them. what is it that elevates them to a position where it's like people believe in the spirit that they're communicating enough that they'll follow them anywhere. Right. And you're watching this purported like heroic all-time English great captain. And he's giving the most diluted, like devastating fucking bottom of a bottle of cordial speech. His retirement speech is like so uninspiring and weird.

He's not making an eye contact with anyone. He's playing with something in his hand the whole time. And he's like, please will you just go back to the world with me? We're going to go back. and it's just like, I just couldn't believe what I was watching. Anyway, so that's what I've been listening to. If anyone's after a recommendation, the great cricketer. The great cricketer.

And I think the title of the episode, if you want to hear that writ much larger and much funnier, the title of the episodes like Burn It All Downbent or something. But yeah, what do you think about the state of podcasting? Last thought. Doesn't matter. See you, everybody. Okay, bye.