The Worst Idea Of All Time - HOSTING 3: 05 Lady Liberty

Episode Date: March 11, 2020

A trip to visit Lady Liberty herself. Carlo believes the New York City ports are an approximation of Sydney harbour because the boys took a ferry to visit the Statue of Liberty. It is clearly not modelled on York - perhaps instead it should be called Harbour Town or New Harbour Town. Guy and Carlo discuss possible new names for New York and Carlo is blown away by the size of the Statue “Very tall”.Support us on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/TWIOATCatch up on Hosting on its own stream here: (iTunes) (RSS) (Web Player) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hiya, welcome along to another episode of Hosting, a podcast all about hosting and guesting friends, family. And doing it right. That's right. I'm Guy Montgomery. And I'm Carlo Ritchie. And we're broadcasting to you from New York, where I'm currently hosting Carlo in my humble home. And we have had quite a fun day. humble home uh and we have had quite a fun day we have just got back from a brisk yet sun-kissed trip to uh to visit well the lady liberty herself the statue of liberty yeah i mean i'm actually pretty exhausted it's it's a lot longer trip than i imagined you know it's no sydney harbour but

they've done they've done well trying to replicate it. I don't really see the ways in which they've tried to replicate that. There's a big body of water at the edge of the city. I understand, I suppose, in some respects, the confusion you've carried with you in terms of city planning or even cultural parts of the city, like Broadway, for instance. But surely you can't believe in all of your intelligence that Australia has a license to describing ports

or bodies of water as their own or their own idea. No, Guy, I never want you to assume that that's what I'm trying to suggest here. What I'm saying is this particular port and this particular body of water seems to me to be conveniently designed to be an approximation of Sydney Harbour. And what part stuck out to you

as being an approximation of Sydney Harbour? That we took a ferry to the island and that in the middle of the harbour is an island which in Sydney Harbour is a tiny island called Garden Island that has no statue at all. And they've done that same thing here, but they've put a massive statue on it. So, need I say more?

And do you think the statue is an attempt to refresh or reinvigorate the idea of the island in Sydney? Or do you think perhaps it's an effort to distract from the fact that they have been influenced in some way? I think it's a distraction. Yeah, I think it's meant to throw us off the scent that this is clearly just Sydney Mark 2, 2.0. Okay, well... Because it's certainly not york guy it's certainly not york you know york a famously landlocked city you know i don't see you know you can't come into a ship into york tell you where you can come into a ship into a place called sydney guy so well in all of your infinite uh intelligence what what do you think would be a more apropos name for New York

in that it does not represent a New York but something else entirely? I would say Harbour Town. Okay. Or New Harbour Town. Hmm? Is there already a Harbour Town? Well, who am I to say? I don't have an atlas.

But I would say New Harbour Town has a nice ring to it and they won't have to change as much when it comes into effect. In this hypothetical. In this hypothetical, I also imagine that a lot of the government institutions and businesses would be under a lot of stress to change the name after something's been established for several hundred years and i think if we can keep the new in it'll make everybody's day that much brighter when they're scrubbing york out of documents and replacing it with harbour town at that point, you've got to wonder, you know, why bother? Well, you know, NYC, New York City. NHC, New Harbour Town City.

You're just changing one letter. If it's just HC, okay, where are we? You know, Harbour Town. But you somehow think that NHC represents New Harbour Town City. Yes. Well, what did you make of the statue itself? I mean, it's certainly impressive in scope. It's very tall.

That was one of your big impressions? Yes. I couldn't reach the top of it. No, yeah. Not with a rock, nor my own hand. Well, that is surely to be expected. I mean, this is a statue, you know, famous for myriad reasons, but none less than its scope.

It's very tall. You know, most statues, you know, your garden variety statue, and I think garden variety is the key words there. Most of those statues, you know, they're kind of lifelike size or just like the above lifelike. Whereas this, it's easily four or five times the size of a human being. Even the tallest human being wouldn't even come up to the top of the ankles of this statue.

I'd say at least four or five times bigger. And we sort of latched onto the back end of a tour group and picked up some free bits of trivia. And you weren't afraid to chip in with some of your own? No, I said, this statue,

you couldn't put an upper on in there. And I thought that that would be pretty fun. A little joke, I said, this statue, you couldn't put an opera on in there. And I thought that that would be pretty fun, a little joke. Because obviously we have the opera house in Sydney and it's sort of iconic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is as iconic for New York, but you couldn't put an opera on in there. Well, I guess it's because different people carry with them their own unique experiences. And so for a lot of the people, they wouldn't have had the knowledge that you,

the place from which you're making that joke, which is that you were measuring it against Sydney. To them, they're just in New York. Yeah, it would certainly seem that way. But it didn't hold you back. No, no. You made the same joke several times i you know if you keep hitting the nail the joke gets funnier you know um it's a classic of comedy you dig you

dig you dig you mine the gold vein you mine the gold vein you mine it out but you know these guys they didn't they just don't get comedy here. Yeah, they are different people. I mean, these were largely tourists, and while they didn't quite sort of have the same level of hostility as your ordinary garden variety, to use a phrase of yours, American, they certainly didn't sort of catch on to the antipathy and comic sensibility with the same vim and vigour that we might have hoped.

It is what it is guy you know you're going out to see a big lady statue you know you're gonna have a great time or you're gonna have you're gonna have a you can't you have a run-of-the-mill boring day and that's what they got i had a great time would you recommend this to anyone else who decided to visit new york oh yeah you gotta go and see it i mean you've never seen a statue this big in your life is what i'm kind of that's i was awed by this is truly the time on the trip the most guy where i've just gone wow you know this is a big thing you didn't really have that with the empire state building no i mean that's a big building guy you know like i've seen big buildings if it were if it would just say if the empire state but here's it's a big building guy, you know, like I've seen big buildings. If it were, if it would just say, if the Empire State, here's a hypothetical guy that I think you'll enjoy.

If the Empire State Building was just a house, stay with me, just a house as tall as the Empire State Building, but just the normal dimensions of a house. So maybe two floors, one kitchen, one bathroom, a couple of bedrooms at the top and a staircase. But it was huge. You know, the height of an Empire State Building, that would fascinate me. But I've seen buildings before, Guy. I've seen skyscrapers.

What I haven't seen is a statue this tall. The house you're describing. Mm-hmm. So it's two floors. Two floors. So you're talking massive door. You couldn't even reach the handle. It'd be so vastly higher than yourself.

So not to scale for a person, but to a hypothetical person who would be equivalent size to the house. Yes, and not only giant giant but also very thin and narrow because you're imagining the the base of the empire state building is not very wide so it would be much taller than it was wide so you know it'd be very stretchy a very stretchy building like that far side comic with everyone's thin. Far Side light. If it was a domestic house, though,

they wouldn't be able to get any zeppelins landing up there. Well, that's the tragedy. That's what would have been hard with the design. They probably had to toy with that when they were designing the building. And they've opted in for zeppelins. Because as we discussed before, the world went all in for zeppelins because as we discussed before the world went all in for zeppelins guy and we know which one paid off which one giant buildings guy giant houses you don't see any giant houses anywhere they're catering to a market that doesn't exist a very thin giant people guy how many times have you heard someone come back and say,

oh, we went to a city and we saw all of the incredible skyscrapers? You know, maybe one in five times you hear that, you know? But imagine if one of the skyscrapers was a very tall, very narrow house. This is what I've been imagining for the last, you know... Okay, well, you've got it in your mind. You're going to notice that guy. You're going to tell your friends. People are going to go and see it.

The first thing you wanted to do when you came here was the Empire State Building. Yes, yes. Because I wanted to see what man could have achieved, what humanity could have achieved in a building, and it never really reached its full potential, neither as a Zeppelin landing platform or as a potential outline of a very narrow house where the chairs themselves are

uncomfortably high why you'd need a grappling hook or a ladder to get to this the chair and even when you were there you'd be sitting with a precipitous fall right beside you you know and this is a two-story house you're describing two stories max the stairs would be ordinary size or they'd be altogether too large to climb? They'd be too large to climb, yeah. They would be not functional for human beings. Who is the house for? All of us, Guy.

It's a house for humanity. It's a house for you. It's a house for me. It's a house for the down-on-his-luck guy on the street through to the loftiest mayor. It's a house for humanity. But we can only imagine. Well, we can, but we've done a pretty good job of that.

So we had a great time checking out the Statue of Liberty. You know, originally a gift to the US from France. Is that right? Yeah. Huh. That is funny. Why? Well, I've never received a gift from France.

So clearly there was a point where they were just giving them away. Well, no, I think I'm not super clear on the particulars, but it would have been something to do with international relations. And as you are just one man, it's unlikely that the nation... I've travelled, Guy. I've been to Europe. You've been to Europe? Oh, yes. Yes, I've been to Europe so many times, Guy.

If you were to draw it as sort of a mural, it would be vast the the in content i mean this mural would cover at least one one whole wall of your house with a series of experiences and times if it was smaller it could well be a postage stamp that's how many times i've been to europe that's an interesting way of presenting that that idea and uh well i hope you don't feel any animosity towards the french for this sort of does feel like a snub yeah i understand that but again i just don't see how they would have known to give you a gift i mean you know you had the gift of experiencing their culture that's true i guess isn't it

you're right guy you're right i am being too precious about this that means france given you a gift oh it's besides the point have they though well yeah i mean they give a lot of people gifts but you don't need so you've been given a gift from france yeah just a just a small statue how, well, small relative to the Statue of Liberty, it's pretty small. Well, that could be it. Everything is small. I mean, Guy, I think we've covered that this is quite a large statue. So everything would be relative to this.

If there was a house that, say, spanned two floors, the Statue of Liberty would probably be the exact right height to live in that house. That's how tall the Statue of Liberty is. That a house that was the dimensions of the Empire State Building. Would you like to think of the Empire State Building as the Statue of Liberty's home? It's comforting to me. It's nice to know that she's got somewhere to lay her head

when she's tired of welcoming the hungry and the cold. Yeah, that's a lovely thought. Well, yeah, I mean, anyway, mine's not as big as the Statue of Liberty, so you've got nothing to worry about there. This incenses me, actually, Guy. This is exactly what I feel. I do feel snubbed by the nation of France.

Wow. Maybe the nation of France would like to be on the receiving end of one of your trademark japes. Well, maybe they will. Certainly, it's gone down a few points on my list of places I'd like to visit. For the second or third time? Yes. Because as previously described by you, you have been to France. Never been to France. No, I have been to France never never been to France

no I've been to Europe never been to France though so well we had quite a meal last night now didn't we mmm yes actually

now that is a good I almost had forgotten about what our little meal last night it wound up being a French bistro called Lucien

and we we ordered the I can't remember what it's called you know What happened to our little meal last night? It wound up being a French bistro called Lucien. And we ordered the, I can't remember what it's called. You know, I mean, the way they treat the goose is abhorrent. But, I mean, the product is delicious. Foie gras. Foie gras. And, I mean, it was rich. This was a very delicious pate. And a real flavor sensation.

Oh, yeah. Delicious pate and a real flavor sensation. Oh, yeah. I had an amazing little, I want to say a boule basse, sort of little soup dish. Amazing kind of rich, creamy soup. Absolutely delicious thing to eat. Yeah, and we paired that with some sort of wine from the Bordeaux region. Exactly.

Red. It was honestly one of the most delicious and enjoyable meals in terms of pure food consumption of my life. Each course was sort of, you know. Well, we went out on our own a little bit, but in some ways we were mirroring the orders of, you know. Well, we were sort of, we went out on our own a little bit, but in some ways we were mirroring the orders of, you know, you can't call them quite co-diners, but certainly co-conspirators, I suppose,

who were sitting at two tables from us. And, you know, I feel certainly early, we went by largely undetected. That's right, yeah. And I think we could have got away with it if it wasn't for the laughing. You know, that really did give us... And we sort of played off the choice of restaurant

as a total coincidence, and quite convincingly. I think so. But the laughs certainly did draw undue attention to us. I suppose because we're so inside these jokes and pranks that um you know it's impossible for us not to see all the moving parts whereas a lot of the other people at the restaurant they would have just seen you know uh four couples and no three couples and you know what one one member of the dining party you know in a full body cast body cast yeah uh and that wouldn't seem a lot of funny in that but you, it just goes to show the more information you have,

the more you can enjoy the joke. Oh, absolutely, Guy. I mean, comedy really is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? And from the moment I came in and saw Mark sort of, you know, bundled up in that chair as he was, you know, barely, not really able to sit, you know, but sort of just leant back upon the chair and desperately trying to enjoy it.

Flanked on either side by June and Murtag. Yes. Just the faces, the grief, the kind of general energy of the room. I just could not stop laughing. I just had a great time. Yeah, well, and I suppose we should tell you that the proposal, it depends from whose perspective you're talking about it, but I would say it went off without a hitch.

Yes. From the perspective of the prank, though, that you're coming from. Yeah, yeah, certainly. I mean, if I was Mark, I would have been pretty upset by the outcome. And Fiona certainly was. Well, and understandably so. No one wants to be called, you know. You get so G'd up for one thing

where you see the box and you think, oh my God, it's happening. The love of my life is proposing to me. And to instead read a small scrap of paper on which the words are written, fuck off, bitch. Yeah. That would be devastating for anyone. That would be devastating for anyone, especially in the kind of context where Murtagh's rigged up a kind of amazing device

that allows... What are the chances they didn't test that once to see whether or not the ring was in there beforehand? It is funny, isn't it? A stroke of luck for us. For the prank, yes. I mean, I would say if I was to grade the level of humour derived from this prank,

I would say you and I were probably at the very top of the tree enjoying it the most. It's really hard to say who would come next. You know, Mark and Terry didn't seem to see the funny side immediately. Yes. And even when we kind of tried to explain it by gesticulating, it's hard to say whether or not they totally came around.

Yeah. I would say, like, Michael maybe got a chuckle out of it, but... He stifled it pretty deep. Yeah, he didn't show it on his face or any... He didn't give any indication of laughter. Yeah, and, I mean, pretty much what wound up happening is we set up the bill, not just our bill, but their table's bill as well.

I mean, of course, it's not our money, so it makes not one jot of difference to us. But it was a very generous gesture, I thought. And they seemed to begrudgingly accept it. And the thing is, you know, there's eight of us there. That's two Ubers. Yet, you know, all parties travelled back. You know, like Mark and his family and Fiona and her family. We were left to travel, just us two and our driver.

It was kind of frustrating, I guess. Well, especially, you've paid for a very sad family's meal. No one's happy. Least of all mark and fiona mark seemed genuinely pretty upset and shaken by it from what we we could tell his face was not betraying too much emotion it's hard to make out yeah all you can see are the eyes and the lips and he's not allowed to cry, the doctor said. So I feel like he wanted to, but... It's impossible for us to say. Yeah.

All that to say that the cocktails we wound up mixing were not quite as celebratory in tone as we might have hoped. No, they weren't really in the mood to drink cocktails at that time. We were mixing them up anyway. I mean, we spent good money on those liqueurs, those spirits, those poisons. Poisons a lot more than you think. You know, because your garden variety, cyanide, you know, much more expensive. Yeah, for how much those corner stores have.

They're not afraid to jack the prices up. And that's the price of convenience, I guess, isn't it? It shows you what the difference in taxation is. When we can buy a bottle of vodka for $12 US, but we have to buy a jar of cyanide, ostensibly as a pest killer, for nearly $80 a bottle. It kind of makes sense.

Stay light robbery. And so we mixed up some Negroni, some whiskey sours, some dry martinis, all your classics. And we mixed them well, Guy. Can I take this point in the podcast, Guy? Just point out, you could be a mixologist. I mean, the flair, the panache that you brought to each drink the signature was well i i thank you um and again it did sort of feel like not a wasted effort but

i'm glad i'll just say i'm glad someone noticed yeah well you weren't you certainly weren't getting any compliments from that dour crowd, were you? No. Some people are hard to please. And especially they weren't making it easy for you. Fiona was getting her things packed up. Yeah. And then obviously when she sort of found a few of the cameras, she became pretty upset.

And Mark, as he is currently in his position, it's sort of, I mean, to put cameras around the place is indefensible in the first place. But, you know, to defend something that's indefensible when you're so limited in your ability to communicate it. I mean, while I certainly found it hilarious. Oh, we were falling about ourselves, yeah. But, yeah, you really get the feeling that a lot of this stuff has been wasted on these sort of, I don't know,

is it a different sense of humour? Is that what it is? I feel that. I feel like there's a cultural thing here because the aha moment to me was the moment where Mark, after unveiling the proposal to fiona you know he gets out the ring he's there it's empty you know she involuntarily slaps him across the face he falls into terry and michael's lap pouring hot soup all over himself you know it was a mess i mean that's the aha moment for me in this prank

what's the one as the first of many and when you know you're sitting there mixing up a couple of drinks and you've got mark's parents they're sadly dabbing this soup out of his cast to try and stop it from sitting in and becoming just a horrible, filthy mess. While that's happening, and in the background, Fiona is berating Mark with just a string of abuse and firing the camera. That's the denouement of this joke,

you know, and no one's getting it, you know. You set up all these sort of, you know, these fireworks displays of comedy. The cameras, you know, the clothes swaps, the missing valuables you know accusations are flying left right and center you know people are sort of aware that we're in the room but for the first time i don't know that i felt like i was part of it but certainly you know it was it was nice to be present in these

moments of because i feel like they've been talking about us behind our back so it was really nice to to be there while people are letting rip. Oh, to acknowledge that we exist is incredible, you know, and no amount of us trying to, you know, offer drinks seem to keep them in check. They were not holding back on what they thought of us. I do wonder whether or not our refusal to take ownership of the pranks and say, gotcha uh might have caused

part of the confusion and frustration because there were accusations flying around the room and it's just a lot of confused people yeah mark yeah he he confessed to me later as i was pouring a um heavily laced cocktail into his mouth. And he couldn't really do much to stop me from doing that. And as I was pouring it into his mouth, he confessed to me that he had really, really lost it. I'm sorry, this prank is just too enjoyable for me. He confessed to me he'd really lost his faith in humanity. And what I'm saying is that's comedy, guy.

Yeah, well, so you'd think. I'm just worried that it's a wasted effort. I mean, obviously, you know, Mark, he's still in the house, and June and Murtaugh aren't going anywhere for, well, I suppose the six weeks he'll be in that cast. But Mark and Terry and Fiona, they've scattered off to a hotel, and thankfully we picked up the booking details because we've wired all of their phones.

So, you know, we at least know where they are. We do have eyes on them. So all is not lost just yet, but it really feels like we've constructed this incredible sort of Rube Goldberg machine of comedy, and a lot of the levers and the bells and whistles are working, and we've just got an audience who are stunned. Yeah, yeah.

Or even worse, oblivious. Yeah. stunned yeah yeah or even worse oblivious you know yeah i mean the the good news is that um you know murtagh and the like they're all i mean as asleep as i've seen anyone i don't know exactly the the the mix ratio i had on the arsenic and cyanide in those cocktails but i would imagine we could put on a full show in here and they wouldn't wake for 24, 36 hours. No, they're out. That's not for nothing. No. And, you know, that's not a pleasant way to fall asleep either, you know,

just convulsing. Convulsing. Yeah, it's not how I like to do it myself. No, but it is funny. Well, funny's funny. And I suppose, you know, I'm pretty knackered. It's been a big day and there was a big dinner. I'm tired out.

That statue really just took it out of me. Why? You know, you try and fit everything in when you visit a city like New York. And, you know, your step count just explodes. It's incredible. I've walked more kilometers today than I've walked in the last month. That will take it out. And you don't really account for it.

But when you get home at the end of the day, you know, you really do feel it. So I'd say an early night for us, a fresh start in the morning. And, yeah, let's just hope that we can, you know, we can see this prank kind of have its hurrah, you know. We can see it come together. Well, yeah, I mean, certainly there was the threat of legal action on account of the cameras and... Yeah.

I mean, there's a lot of confusion as to who's taken what from who. Yes. I hope someone packed their scuba diving gear because if they want to recover any of those valuables, they're going to have to go for a pretty deep swim. Yeah, it's... Look, it's...

I'm having fun, Guy. You're having fun. I've never felt so connected to another person in all my life. Yeah, I mean, hopefully, I just hope that somewhere in this kind of cultural melting pot that is your very humble flat, we can get a resolution on this. We can find some common ground with our American friends. Yeah.

So I guess good night to you, old chap. Yeah, and sleep tight, guy. And I'll see you in the morning.