The Worst Idea Of All Time - Family Time 25

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

Today’s Family Time features an all-timer piece of correspondence from a nuclear physicist from NZ doing experiments at CERN that require a scientific treatment as repetitive and painful as the TWIOAT method. We learn definitively whether it’s possible to over-mash potatoes. Our sole libertarian listener also opines on the nature of ‘canon’ and Monty has coffee-flavoured gum. Coffee. Flavoured. Gum.Join us at twioat.substack.com to support the show and to see the boiz' beautiful Grown Ups 2 art Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's the worst idea, it's the worst idea of all time. It's the worst idea, it's the worst idea of all time. Hi everyone. Hi Tim. Welcome to family time. I brought you something. Did you really? Oh shit yeah.

Do you know what's interesting about this guy? Okay so guys just presented to me, if you're not on the sub stack twiowet.substack.com just five US dollars a month gives you the visuals, ad free and early episodes. We spent an extended amount of time creating a calendar to fundraise one of our trips to America to do some live shows. And we, I remember this so fondly sitting in that tiny little studio that I had and Grey Lynn, um, that kept flooding, uh, with some paints and some paper and creating... Each month would have a different work of art from Grown Ups 2, one of the characters.

We've got Wiley here. The guys have just held up with his two arms. This is the very inspiration for the Steve Buscemi mystery tour. We've got Tim Meadows and Kmart with his Kmart outfit on. Now is this, am I a root? No, who's that? Sherry O'Teary? That is Sherry O'Teary. The one and only.

Don't let the choice of skin color that I've used throw ya. That's Sherry O'Teary. Is that me? That looks like a bit of me. These are you, yeah. Now, what's interesting, I didn't know you were bringing these today, so that's quite crazy.

Because yesterday, I was at the Auckland Central Art Gallery, which has an exhibition at the moment, from masters of the last century, I think. A lot of impressionist painters. And there was a piece that I saw and took a photo of that I was like, that reminds me so much of the art style we pulled off from our grown ups to calendar. And I haven't actually read it, but I took a photo of the plaque. It's interesting to think,

cause what's the differences that ours is just the only thing that we have the option to do, but theirs is by choice. And that's what makes art, art. Yeah. And I mean, this is being exhibited. I think normally this whole exhibition, Zoe was telling me, I didn't read this, but is normally at a very swanky art gallery in New York and they were getting renovations done. So instead of paying for the storage for the art pieces, they decided to just

fang it round as a traveling exhibition for a little while. That's amazing. And this is in Auckland at the moment. It is, yeah. There's some incredible pieces there. There's like monets and stuff. This one is called Dancer Resting. 1940. Dancer Resting. Not Dancer Resting.

Sorry, Dancer Resting. That was for me. You did great. I was just clarifying. Henry Matisse. Oh Matisse. From France. A rival and friend of Pablo Picasso, Henry Matisse developed his own vivid and expressive painting style that contrasted with cubism. And in a lot of ways, Guy, so did we. Yeah. Actually, my-

We should exhibit this. My painting is somewhat cubic. If you look at the cars, they're quite cubic cars Not to be confused with Kubrick cars, which of course were the cars owned by Stanley Kubrick tour than the same cube which is a car that you can buy. How the bloody hell are you? I'm good, man I'm tired. I'm I'm quite hungry. Actually. Yeah, do you know what I've had today so far? It's about noon half of a waffle I'm quite hungry actually. Yeah. Do you know what I've had today so far? It's about noon. Half of a waffle. What if I told you, what if I raised you half a waffle with one banana?

Do you know what we need? I'll be right back. Oh, what have you got? I've got a little... I'm gonna bust out a previous gift that you've brought here, which I was trying to track down. Oh a little Matariki Star. Yeah I got a little Matariki Star. I also have brought along an alternative

sponsor. We will not eat that product until we are given money. We're gonna need it and not talk about it. But I do want to have some of this isn't really a meal but I thought we could maybe try to get sponsored by Lotte coffee chewing gum what is that chewing gum coffee chewing gum you want chewing gum is the podcast sponsor fuck you dude I want coffee chewing gum be always happy with excellent taste and flavor. I don't see a lot of products promising that. Not in this day and age. Man, when you pulled this out, I thought it was like Zin or whatever. Those like tobacco

chewing things. There's a lot of products out there at the moment, man. And it's so funny that only five at a time sponsor every podcast. You know what I mean? Casper mattresses there at the moment man and it's so funny that only five at a time sponsor every podcast you know what I mean Casper mattresses had a turn at sponsoring the entire medium of podcasts stamps.com had a phenomenal run what did they do blue chew depending on what shows you're listening to who stamps I guess everyone's fucking signed up to them now so they stopped advertising. They won. What's the product? Stamps.com? No I'm so glad

you asked. We are not sponsored by Stamps. They will send you scales for free and you print out your own postage and the postie will come and pick up the packages and deliver them for you. You can save upwards of 40% if the ads are to be believed. And that was a successful business. I don't even like them. No. Kills me man. People always-

How much would they have paid for stamps.com as a URL? That's what I'm interested in. The wrong people are always coming up with successful businesses. It's never the people I know. It's always strangers with bad agendas. That's right. They're too, um, yeah. It's never the people I know. It's always strangers with bad agendas. That's right. They're too, yeah.

There is a benefit to being a little bit foolish and a little bit foolhardy, I think. Especially in business. Just going nuts out. Smart people index too high for risk Wow Put it on the take that to the bank and put on a t-shirt and the bank will say I'm sorry You're too risky

The self-awareness is great, but the risk is too high Fucking swish. That's so nice How are you doing man? Pretty good, man. Pretty good. Spend the morning We got a We got a new we bought a sofa bed we've got some friends coming to stay for the school holidays and We were not equipped to host the volume of people we were taking in which is only four

but you know, so we got we our research, we selected a sofa bed and we've been prepping, just generally, people spring clean, we've been doing the winter clean, we've been going through everything, having a pretty deep rummage, which is why I've unearthed these treasures. And done some great rummaging, successful rummaging. And then this morning I was saying, look, I'm going to go to Tim's, we're going to do some work. And Chelsea's like, well, you know, what do you reckon she just got knocked up with her? It's like a flat pack sort of. Oh, the sofa bed. Yeah. You got to put it together, but it spits. And I was like, well, you know,

that the timelines, you know, we could do it without. Do you know, I could tell by the tonality and your voice message that you sent me when you're on the way here, guys up against it a bit. It's actually, it was actually the stuff go, I can hear context. It was actually all good, but it was, you know, so it was, it was the assembly of this flat pack furniture, which I'm like, you know, look, it's not that complicated. What you need, you need a little bit of time though. It's time. Yeah. You don't need a clock counting down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Every, yeah. Ah man. Everything I do in that regard, I do it at night so I can just do it until

Well, this was the thing. I have infinite time time So after we'd done a big rummage Last yesterday like it was a full day rummage. This is we were rummaging man we'd be rummaging not consummaging what nobody want to say and At the end of it we went for dinner and at dinner just like you know what we could do go home, you know you know what we could do? Go home, you know, put on some music, take glass of wine up there, just get it done. And I was like, I need this meal to be the end point of us collaborating for the day. I feel like in that moment, I'd relate a lot to Chelsea. Yeah, do it now.

It's not constantly, but it's so many times I've been like, Hey guy, you know what we could do? One more thing. You're like, nah, man, let's not do that. Yeah. We've got good boundaries around when the things need to stop. And I think Chelsea and I probably have both got bad boundaries. No, I'll only speak for myself. I've got bad boundaries around when the things need to stop.

Either of you have bad boundaries about this. But I'm like, if there's time, chuck one more thing in there. I'm like, we've made it through a great day of collaborating without incident. Okay, right. Why would we gamble, you know, the previous, how many hours on pushing the boat out? You know, and look, I think there's an argument to be made both ways. But so this explains why the sofa needed to be assembled this morning. Do you know what. Do you know what I've got? She acquiesced. We made plans this weekend to just do stuff together. I've cleared the whole life. It's just it's all I'm my

I'm walking into the afternoon like a little fucking Tim sized hole in their calendar plan though. That's right. It's carved out. Yeah, all right. I see. No, I see. It's like we're looking at the start of the week. We're going what's on this weekend? I'm going to well, I'll tell you, the one commitment I have is this. It's in bed. And then we're still cramming in the flat pack couch, you know, I don't know why I'm hearing this.

It was actually, it went great. And Chelsea's been amazing. Do you want to know why you're hearing it? Ask you how it's going. You've given me an answer. It's family time. And it's good. I like that.

But no, it's great. It's assembled. We are pumped. Like, it feels, fuck, I will tell you, it feels good if you've done the deep rummage. Yeah. And you've taken it all out and you've put it back in where it goes. You might notice the studio looks a little bit different. I got rid of that arm chair in here. The cuck chair. It's gone. Yeah. The configuration. You've got the... It's just slightly different. The workstations in a different part of it.

All the invisible bit. There's a lot of oxygen over here which it didn't used to be as nice. I'm gonna clear out the garage at some point soon to take it all to the tip. We got a new oven this week. Gotta take the old stove away. Oven looks amazing. We were just legit poisoning the boys. Who fixed the oven in? Me and my dad. Dang dog. Well Sparky had to, an electrician had to connect it up. Cause we got an induction one, it's all high wattage shit. You're off gas. Gotta get rid of it man. We're on gas.

Are you gas mains? Cause they're turning that off at some point. I don't think we're gas mains. You've got a bottle. You've got a bottle, you've got a swap. Apparently it's pretty bad for you. This is what people say, but. In Oscar, our one year old, he's got, you know, a track record with his lungs so far.

Not fantastic. Three trips to the hospital last year. He's fine. He's absolutely fine. Yeah. But it doesn't bode well for like the best strongest lungs. Family fun. We've pulled the curtain back.

We're just talking now. Good. Can I offer you some of our week's the lotty coffee gun think of a more disgusting act on a podcast than consuming coffee chewing gum on mic. I ate a cookie before on mic because I had to because I was so hungry. But I was trying to be respectful while you read an email try our our product. Sounds good to me. I mean, I just don't understand why this product would exist. I do not chew gum for more coffee tastes.

Like after I've had a coffee, I'm not like, do you know what I need? A stick of gum with the same mouthfeel. Yeah. Oh, do you know what? We got a message that I had skim reamed it. It's skim red. It smells strong. Fuck it. It's skim red. It smells strong. Fuck it.

I love the smell of that. It's not like just coffee strong. It smells like milky coffee. Toffee coffee. Yeah. A little bit of sweetness. Yeah, you're right. A little bit of milky coffee-ness.

There was a message that came through that I could like preview a little bit, which I have been so excited to rip into the whole week dude so excited it's long we might take turns at reading it and from memory there's pictures in there okay I just did a quick little skim I don't want to get into it you know ahead of our actual record initial review on the gum Initial review on the gum? It tastes like it smells. That's good.

Yeah, but it's not really a gum thing, is it? This is a drink I'm chewing. Picture this, boys in the boardroom. You've got a coffee that you've made with full cream milk. You've left it for three weeks. What you come back to is a rubbery mass. That's our product. Chew on that. It's not coffee. It's not nothing. Yeah, but it's not. Get on mic fella. I don't want to chew on that. Oh yeah, fair enough. It's not um... It's interesting. Out of 10? Coffee gum.

Coffee gum. It's interesting. Um... Oh no, I can't find this... Hold on. Like 6? I've gotta find this. Oh no, I can't find... Dude! Dude! I can't find the message hold on I will look up some search streams that I remember off the top of my head because

can I tell you what I'm gonna fucking search for soon soon does that mean anything to you soon see E R in the back half of the word concern. Received one week ago. Subject line. Finally my time to shine. I'm gonna fucking open this bad boy up because I think we'll take turns reading this. G'day cunts. It opens. It's okay I'm a Kiwi I'm allowed to say it. First the facts. Tim is correct in saying that bananas are moderately radioactive but incorrect in implying that this means eating them is bad for you in any way. I don't think I implied that but I'll let you go on. Bananas, like many other foods,

are slightly radioactive primarily due to containing appreciable amounts of potassium. A small fraction of natural potassium, 0.012%, is the slightly radioactive isotope potassium-40, each atom of which has a 50% chance of radioactively decaying every 1.25 billion years, which adds up because there are about 10 billion billion atoms in one milligram of potassium-40, and about 20 milligrams of potassium-40 in each person's body. However, the principle known as homeostasis, the properly functioning human body maintains a constant amount of potassium in it by excreting the excess in urine. Because the potassium in bananas is the same as potassium

you get from anywhere else, this means that when you eat a banana you do not increase the amount of radioactive potassium that is in your body Even if you did one bananas worth of potassium will contribute about 1% of your daily Typical dose of radiation you receive from a bunch Hmm. I didn't mean to do that of other sources naturally Paragraph 2 and now for story time Which you might want to truncate even more than the above paragraph. Absolutely not. We will read every syllable you have written. I first started listening to the

pod in 2015 or 16 when I did not believe in such things as a podcast app and was using Google Reader RIP to follow RSS feeds and manually download episodes to my phone parentheses or maybe I was even still using an mp3 player I think Tim Bate wrote this email you can tell I got excited I didn't even read any of that shit I had moved directly out of my parents place to the outskirts of Dunedin to Toronto to study physics grad school in 2014 and then in 2015 to the outskirts of Geneva to do my PhD research. I believe this is unprecedented among your listeners. At CERN. This was part of a collaboration which was attempting to create and trap atoms of anti-hydrogen

which is made of an anti-proton and positron, parentheses anti-electron. I was in charge of the positron part of the picture, and to bring it back to radioactivity, we got our positrons from one particular radioactive isotope of sodium. I was personally responsible for our radioactive sodium source, and had to bike across CERN's campus every month to take an air filter to be tested and make sure that our source hadn't started leaking tiny amounts of radioactive sodium into the air. First off, do you know what CERN is? It's like the European, I think CERN is the organization and like the Large Hadron Collider is one of their projects. So like the world's biggest

particle accelerator, they made that. They're like a bunch of European scientists trying to get into Adam's shit. Email is clearly written by someone more intelligent than I am. We also had a more crude detector next to it, which was supposed to detect any large leaks, but this sometimes triggered its alarm for spurious reasons, which was always fun to check on. The only place on the planet that you could get low-energy antiprotons is in one particular building at CERN. So that's where all of the anti-hydrogen experiments are. This meant that we were working within

spitting distance of our direct competitors but thankfully our stuff was above theirs so it was way easier for us to spit on them than vice versa. The bad thing is that they were making incredible progress while we were stuck spinning in the mud. Parentheses, well, I guess that was a good thing for science, but not for my career. Footnote, here to explain that the main problem, which I think is kind of interesting and adds context, but maybe not for a comedy podcast, to bring it back to the podcast instead of my blathering, as we were dealing with this lack of forward progress

and having to repeat the same procedure over and over to try and fix it, I listened to you guys going through an oddly parallel experience as I commuted by bike. I don't think it's at all a coincidence that there seems to be a disproportionate number of current and former grad students among your listenership. The experience of research, especially in science, bears a lot of similarity to the Twyot experience registered trademark. You are often repeating the

same task over and over again, spending a huge amount of effort to wring all of the meaning that you can out of the results of it. And, oh, sorry, you can exert some control over the process. For example, taking drugs before you watch the movie, you're adjusting your experimental procedures slightly. But to a large extent, the results are out of your hands. And one of your vacuum pumps could break overnight or the actors could put on a particularly lackluster performance that week. It definitely has an effect on your mental health and makes you go at

least a little bit crazy, but somehow listening to you two inflict a similar flavour of misery on yourselves made it much easier to bear. I finally defended my PhD on a completely different project in late 2023 and graduated after an Olympic level of procrastination on actually writing it. On that note, is there still a PayPal account or the like floating around to hashtag pay the boys and a large sum rather than a sub-stack subscription? Perhaps at the same email I'm sending this to. Apologies if this is unreasonably long.

Hopefully at least some of it was interesting. Say my name if you must, not my employers unless it's really funny Um, there's a lot of footnotes And I think you should read them because this was a bit that I kind of scrubbed through and there was a bit in There that caught my attention. Holy moly Okay footnote the first We were dealing with what's known as a cold leak in our vacuum system because antimatter annihilates whenever it comes into contact with matter you

need to have a very very good vacuum to store it in and a combination of electric and magnetic fields to keep it in the right place. One way to get a really really good vacuum is to cool everything down below liquid helium temperatures a couple degrees above absolute zero where almost everything freezes solid and you have next to no gas floating around. A problem with this, is that when you cool things down that much, they shrink by a significant amount. Am I right, fellas?

To stop this shrinkage from breaking anything, you have to cool things down slowly. And in our case, it took a bit less than a week to cool down safely. The problem was that when we cooled down far enough, a leak would open up in our vacuum system. We would then have to spend almost another week warming up again using the crane to lift several hundred kilograms of delicate scientific equipment out of the large superconducting magnet, moving it over to our workshop area, trying to guess where the leak was, doing something that might fix the leak and then repeating the whole crane and cool down process again to see if it worked and doing this over and over until we eventually figured out where it was.

This was, in a word, miserable. Oh yeah. I was also here when the fake human sacrifice video in front of the statue of Shiva was made. That was really funny. A lot of conspiracy theorists still think that's real. The PR department sent out an email that was like, Hey guys, I know we all like to joke around but fucking come on, don't do this shit.

It's already hard enough for us to try and convince mouth breathing morons that we're not destroying the world with black holes or opening a portal to hell here. Don't make it harder. Another fun story that may or may not be true. The block of toilets next to the building was on top of a concrete platform about one to one and a half meters above the ground. Someone once told me that this did not used to be there, but all underneath CERN is a network of different particle accelerators feeding into each other. And apparently the one that feeds the anti-Ometa building ran

directly under the toilets. The legend is that one, that the one that feeds the anti-Ometa, the legend is that one day someone calculated what would happen if something failed and the beam hit the wall of the accelerator directly under the toilets and realized that if you're sitting on one, you would receive a lethal dose of radiation. This was an extremely unlikely event, but just in case the toilets were placed on that extra meter or so of concrete to provide sufficient radiation shielding. And because Tim might be enough of a nerd to get a kick out of it, some pictures from my time there. Hell yeah. I then say those because I haven't look at those pictures. So that um human sacrifice mock human sacrifice to Shiva I have like encountered there online people talking about that as if

it is real and The occult scientists at soon are trying to kill us all in some sort of sacrificial act. This is so cool. That's a very bright person. Great to have an atomic physicist phoning in. Always good. The photos are fantastic. The last one is a cigarette vending machine that's at CERN.

I'm a very happy camper for getting this Taylor Thank you so much for seeing this in I'm happy to hear it. I've got some um I got something here it came through on our Instagram And it's pertaining to the can on it II of the sex in the city films Oh I was having a think about the concept of Canon and pop culture the other day and how pervasive and mainstream it is now I was having a think about the concept of canon and pop culture the other day and how pervasive and mainstream it is now. But as a Gen Xer, I feel like this concept has only come to prominence in the post-internet

millennial Reddit world. That's not to say the idea of canon didn't exist pre-internet, but it was very much confined to geek culture, i.e. sci-fi and comic books. So in response to your questions around whether fans of Sex and the City consider the film's canon, I would say the correct answer is that they most likely couldn't give a fuck. Nice. Does Canon come from the Bible? I actually don't know. I always sort of thought it was a Bible thing, like which, you know, which books are canon according to which branch

of Christianity or something like that. It sounds believable to me. There's a lot of messages in here, Tim on the Instagram account telling you how to remove Oh, the lipstick. I actually got quite a few DMs on that as well. So I appreciate that. Appreciate you. An oil based something something.

Me sell a water. My sell a water. That you know what I did? My sell a water, that's coming up a lot. M-I-C-E-L-L-A-R. As everyone's saying it. Good to know. I've got another one for you here. Okay.

Hey boys, good stuff on the pod. By the pod, I can only speak on growing up two season, which I recently binge listened on a trip back to New Zealand over summer, currently living in Amsterdam. Nothing makes 30 hours on a plane feel slightly as painful knowing you too, watch grownups to every week for a year. I hadn't watched the film before listening to the pods of the anticipation grew episode on episode.

And to be honest, I actually enjoyed the film. If you laugh out loud moments, to be honest, I'd just come back from a three day music festival. So my brain was probably operating at 30%. Maybe the goat of post festival cinematic pleasure. Cheers. George. Are we going to watch, we are your friends again sometime. Maybe the goat of post festival cinematic pleasure shares George Are we gonna watch we are your friends again sometime you and I has been discussed

What do you reckon? Look I'm interested to see it. I can't deny it. Mm-hmm. I want to know You know Eliana Smarra Z told me I ought to know and who might argue with her? I ought to know what it's like for those people in that movie right now. He's about to have a thought. If it was anyone else, I'd say you're about to sneeze, but I know that guy doesn't sneeze. I had a horrible feeling that Squirrel was dead, but then I realized he just dies in the movie. I know what you mean. I think maybe you're crossing the streams of the

fantastic young actor who passed away from grown ups 2 because I think it was like an anniversary of his death recently. Yeah. I was floating around. Let's see if we've got another email here to maybe end on. Yeah. God damn Taylor. that was so good though. Holy smokes. I can't believe you're a physicist at CERN. Hi Tim, hi guy, been a fan forever. Oh the subject matter, a couple of questions, a tip and a betrayal. Been a fan forever, oh wait I've read this. I want you to know. Yes, that was about the, the betrayal was about the mosh bars being on other podcasts.

Tim and Guy and Tim and Guy and you can over mash potatoes. I didn't know about this either, but I asked my sister who just earned her diploma from Le Cordon Bleu. Perhaps you've heard of it. Here is our exchange. Um, Herbert Wexley has been vindicated, overbearing husbands, stay winning, you'll be FF Jared. The screenshot is a little back and forth. Leah, there's some discourse regarding the latest in just like that episode. These are the overmeshing potatoes. Is it possible to over mesh potatoes?

Leah answers. Yes. i like to literate i so like i literally did this last time i made potatoes for you when we made the roast chicken i used an immersion blender but waxy potatoes which makes them gummy reply huge intel i'll be emailing the twy web guys promptly and jared did Well there you go. I suppose this is the thing is once you enter the actual level of knowledge beyond just your mashing potatoes for your family, if you're mashing potatoes for the outside world there are different rules and regulations. If you're mashing potatoes

for your family. So just to recap what we've learned in this family time, number one, Gionizer art style is not so dissimilar from a contemporary of Pablo Picasso's. Henry Matisse! Also if you're building your own particle accelerator at home, ensure that you've got an extra meter of concrete if you're putting the shitter above it, just in case. Above it, around it. And also that you can have mashed potatoes so that's that's fucking news you can use bolted on okay that's information hey stay classy out there and the same to you Tim it will see you

as soon as mattress pikelet king frees another episode of interest like that season 3 I like the visual that he's guarding the vault one at a time between one a week I wonder what the talkability is I still haven't looked into the culture if it's coming up won't even know till it's entered I bought you another thing oh okay man I've tried to in this about three times but go on what's the thing? Well I mean it's all of it they're all I thought they're all good studio paraphernalia. Okay Tim's chosen he's got a print copy of an article written about us by Duncan Grieve.

Who is New Zealand media royalty and went on after that to start his own media company. It's a really good darling of the left here in New Zealand, the spinoff. And then he's taken out a heavily bubble wrapped and framed piece of art. He's going to get a knife for it. He's also pulled out a genuine grown-ups to, what are these called? Like inflatable ring for a pool. That's from a famous photo of us that you can see if you google we're starting over time or from a famous photo of us that you can see if you Google we're starting over time or Tim Bant and Guy Montgomery, whatever on Google image search, which I've used a lot.

It's a great photo of us outside Cinefamily, I think, after the last year. You're blowing it up. And I don't know what the framed picture is yet. I just got. I'm just getting rid of some layers of bubble wrap here. Oh, look at this. It is a framed copy of the poster we had for the Sex and the City 2 season live show we did in New York City at the Bauhaus.

And you know what? Let's go straight to the pool room, buddy. Absolutely beautiful. Well, as they say, one man's trash is another man's treasure. And as Guy Montgomery clears out his house, he gets rid of all his worst ideas. That's no trash. That is genuinely beautiful. It's just not allowed to hang. I don't have a studio in my house, so I'm not allowed to hang it. Oh well thank you so much man, that's very beautiful. I'm gonna put the pictures up that we did. I'll find a home for the magazine. The ring I'm quite curious about. It's a pool toy. This poster's gonna get pride of place. I don't want to break it,

it's too precious It's too important to me's the worst idea all time