Triforce! - Aggressive Topic Whiplash | Triforce Mailbag #55

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

Triforce Mailbag Special 55! We're going on a rollercoaster of topics as we jump from musical intros, the art of reading kids bed-time stories, "finishing" into the sink and a whale's weighty load, a great 'Teacher Quiz' that Sips destroys and an EXCLUSIVE behind-the-scenes look at The Apprentice! Go to http://auraframes.com and use code AURA20 to get $20 off plus free shipping on their best-selling Carver Mat frame. Support your favourite podcast on Patreon: https://bit.ly/2SMnzk6 Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Your summer ritual is ready at Starbucks. Hello chums, listeners, well-wishers, haters, returning listeners, long time absentees and others. It's a mailbag episode and I'm joined by my buds Lulu. The mailbag. And Sips. The mailbag. The mailbag. The mailbag. Here.

Once again. Well, talking of mailbag theme music, let's begin with a couple of absolute corkers I've been sent in by some listeners. I will tell you who sent these mailbag themes. Thank you for forwarding TikTok to me about how to deal with my fungus net infestation. Oh yes, I've got more on that as well. I've got more on that as well. But yeah, nematodes is apparently the solution.

But anyway, this is from, we'll come back to that because I do have an email about the gnats as well. Ross has sent in this little jingle, which I will pop in the Discord. Let me know when you guys are ready and we'll count down and then we'll play it. Okay, I'm ready. Sweet. Okay. Three, two, one, play. I'm talking about steps.

Oh, I hear a story about a back plug. Don't know if Bradley of the US can't will not protect his copy right now. Here in flux, the hero of the hour. I should be all the way Wow, this is really funky I Don't get that outro. Mailbag. Mailbag. That's very usable though.

Like it is such a good jingle with like the, with the ending bit that would lead nicely into somebody saying, you know, good morning or, or hello again or whatever. Of course. Yeah. I guess I just wasn't also anticipating the very high voiced intro. Do you know what I mean? It was, and that got me, that tickled me straight away. You know, straight in with the... I guess I just wasn't also anticipating the very high voiced intro, do you know what I mean? And that got me, that tickled me straight away.

You know, straight in with the... Yes, it was a goodie. It was a goodie. Good job contributor, who will remain unnamed. Ross. Ross. Thank you Ross. Good job Ross.

This is from Will, and he said, here's my submission for a Triforce Mailbag theme song, been sitting on it for a month, because I thought it was too bad to send in. This version is actually called Remix, so I think he's had a few goes at this. Well then he heard some of the other ones. And he was like, I'm sending it. They're playing any old guff, for sure. These ones are au naturel as well, they're not AI generated. Yes, so I've popped it in the Discord, and we'll do a countdown and play.

You guys ready? They're pure. From the minds of babes. Three, two, one. Three, two, one, play. I've got a tiny tick. I've got a tiny tick. I've got a tiny tick.

I've got a tiny tick. I've got a tiny tick. I've got a tiny tick. I've got a tiny tick. I've got a tiny tick. I've got a tiny tick. I've got a tiny tick. I've got a tiny tick.

I've got a tiny tick. I've got a tiny tick. I've got a tiny tick. I've got a tiny tick. I've got a tiny tick. I've got a tiny tick. I've got a tiny tick. I've got a tiny tick. I see what you said Okay, so the drum beat, whatever that drum is, that little tappy drum, well, it's obviously him saying, I've got a tiny dick, but it sounds so nice. I love it. They're like, boxed. It's like ASMR. And then the whiny... That bit is the best, yeah. It's, uh, god, no, that is...

Thank you for sitting on that and saving it. Feels so good. Very good. See, the AI could not come up with this kind of shit. It just couldn't. There's no way, at the moment anyway, AI is creating, I've got a tiny dick as the drum beat. It's too real.

Too real. Too real. Too real. Too real. Too real. Too real. Too real. Too real. Too real. Too real. Too real. kind of shit. It just couldn't. There's no way that, at the moment anyway, AI is creating that, I've got a tiny dick, as the drum beat. It's too real. Too precious. Too special.

I also think that it doesn't understand comedy or irony or anything like that. It all just sounds like a mishmash, default version of everything else. Totally absent of humour or humanity. Speaking of absent of humour and humanity, here's an email from Stuart. I'm only kidding Stuart, I love you. I was listening to episode 53 and you guys were talking about anosmia. Remember people that can't smell? Yes. Oh Christ. I was born with an incredibly rare condition that affects one in two million people or so, called, now bear with me, nasal chondromycinimal hamatoma.

Wow. NCMH, which is basically a benign tumor which grows in your face where your nostrils should be and in Stuart's case, completely blocked his nostrils. It was only discovered when he was about 10 and until then he had no idea what smell even was. He has no functioning nostrils, couldn't breathe through his nose or smell anything. When he was 13, he had it removed and all the cartilage in his face remodelled so that he had a nose with two nostrils that worked. And after two weeks of hospital recovery, they took two foot of gores out of his face where they packed it in and he

was able to breathe through his nose for the first time. Wow. God, I thought you meant gores, I said G-O-R-E, and I was like, eww. No, gore. Two foot of gore. Gore. No, gores, sure. When I got home my mum cooked me a roast dinner and it was the first time I'd smelt food and

cried my eyes out at the table while shoveling mash and gravy into my face hole. Oh, that's a good one to go for. Hell yeah. Like the previous emailer, I also always have heavily used spicy or vinegar condiments to flavour my food. The upside to this is that I'm now able to smell, kind of. I have what's referred to as selective anosmia, where I can only smell certain things. Kind of like when people go deaf and lose specific frequencies. It's not that I can only smell strong smells, but it's sometimes a particular flour or food that I can suddenly smell and nothing else. Another weirdness is that the soft palate in my mouth above my tongue

at the back is now flexible and I'm able to manipulate it with my mind like a muscle. Anyway, this means that I'm able to control it to close off my nose and force breathing through my mouth rather than my nose, blocking all smells completely. Yeah, that I can do that. I think everyone can do that, right? Well, no. You've got to do that when you swim so that water doesn't gush up your nose sort of thing. Right, but he's like sealing it. It makes a seal.

All right, so try doing it now and then breathing through your nose. Yeah, I can't breathe through my nose when I do it. Anyway. I can only breathe through my mouth when I create the nose seal. Well there you go. He says his wife abuses this and tells him, shut up and close your flap and take the bin out. Wow. So if you can't smell anything, it must be, because it all links in with like with taste

and everything as well. It must be really weird to eat certain foods and then your taste buds or, you know, sometimes you get a sensation in your mouth if you eat something spicy or whatever, but the fact that you can't actually taste it, that must be really weird. But do you think that would be heightened because your sniffer is not working? Like I think you get that. You know, they sometimes say like, if one thing isn't working and the other thing is like, like ultra, like heightened or whatever. I wonder if that's the case. I wonder if like you ate something and your taste buds just went like crazy and you got

like that sensation in your mouth would be like 10 times the normal person's sensation who can actually taste the food or whatever. You know what I mean? I think it's even like, it's an element of consciousness there, right? You know how sometimes you get used to a smell very quickly, right? It's like smells bad somewhere and within a few minutes you don't notice anymore. And it's not until you leave that place and come back or until you consciously try and become aware of it. Yeah.

I think it's like very, I think if you think something's going to be disgusting as well, your senses are definitely heightened as well. If you're looking for a bad smell... Yeah, if you can't taste anything or smell anything, and you eat shit, like your body must realise that you've eaten shit. And react to it, right? Maybe it's good for you. Because I think if you can smell, the minute the shit got even in the room with you, you'd be like, oh my god, there's a shit in here. And there's no way I'm eating it.

But if you couldn't smell it and you accidentally ate it, you know what I mean? Like your body would have to do something, right? Your body does not want to consume a shit. I don't think. Tips 2025. Yeah. Have no idea. Your body does not want to consume a shit.

No. It wants to push one out. It wants to get rid of it. It wants to... It's waste. to push one out, it wants to get rid of it. It's waste. Waste comes out, not in. You know how we just said, basically, the weirder the better, right? What, what do I say weirder the better?

Well, because with AI, everything's being homogenized. Anything that's default, like down the middle of the road, is probably AI. So, you wanna be a weirdo. A real fucking weirdo. You wanna like weird, crazy shit, come up with weird, crazy beats and weird, crazy things to say. No, no AI is saying your body probably doesn't want to eat your shit. Or whatever the fuck you say. I'm sure they'll get to the point where they recommend against it though.

I think if you asked like chat GPT and you said, is it safe for me to eat my own shit, it would come out with a doozy. You know what I mean? Like, I think the output will be in the spirit of the input, if you know what I mean. Oh yeah, I see what you mean. If you ask it, like, an absurd question, you'll probably get a really absurd response. I'd imagine. I don't know, I've never used any AI.

I think it's just a yes man. It's like all those sycophants surrounding Donald Trump telling him he's so fucking good. Giving him like, it'll just be like, you know, it'll say things like... I've seen a few clips and screenshots, it's like someone asks chat GPT, I think I'm gonna jump off a cliff. And chat GPT's like, oh, you know, I'm good on you for like taking control of, you know, making your own choices and stuff like this. It's like, what?

It's not, it's not, it's kind of just, I've never used, uh, I've never used any of the, uh, the AI things and I have like no interest in it really at all. Like I know that it's like, it can produce can produce... I think the only AI I ever used was in Planet Zoo, where chat were sending me AI generated posters for my zoo. Because there's these massive screens that you can install. And I made this huge parking lot and I wanted big theater-sized screens with posters, similar to the artwork for the cover of the Planet Zoo game, but you know, just with some like extras and whatever. And the AI was able to generate these, these beautiful images that we use that looked pretty

cool. I would have never been able to do that otherwise. I mean, I guess somebody could have drawn them or whatever, but it would have taken forever. You know, like, I don't know. I'm probably canceled now for saying that I liked one thing that AI did. have drawn them, or whatever, but it would have taken forever, you know? Like, I don't know. I'm probably cancelled now for saying that I liked one thing that AI did, but I stand by it. I thought it was cool. But that's my only real interaction with any AI, other than the songs that Flax gets occasionally. Here's the thing, you don't realise how much AI is already into... We played a bunch

of these games for SimSunday, I didn't realize half the fucking art was AI, half the stuff we were doing was AI, there's no mention of it on Steam, we didn't realize until people in the comments were like, guys you don't realize, and we're like, no! I think most of the games that I played, those stupid simulator games, they're all like assets in the... They're just made by one man. Yeah, but it's all like stock assets in the Unreal Engine or whatever they use. Because you just see the same shit over and over and over.

Yeah, it's either stock assets or it's AI. It's crazy. Anyway, Pflats, let's move on. Holy crap. Okay. Fungus, NATS. Okay, oh god, right. Well, listen, I have done a couple of things.

What did you do? ALICE I've applied... there's this thing you can get called nil-nat, or I think it's... nil-nat backwards is tannin. And you can just... it's like the stuff they use in garden centres, they basically put like one drip in ten litres or whatever, of the water that you water the plants with. And it forms these little weird crystals around the plant's roots to stop the lava from eating them. And it's apparently like a harmless organic thing, it doesn't make your plants toxic or anything. And I've tried and tried that, but this guy suggested nematodes, which are basically like little micro-skew worms.

Nematodes. Nematodes, yeah. So they're teeny tiny worms. And the idea is you put them in some water, water the plants. The nematodes are now in the soil. They crawl about the way worms do and they stumble upon the net. The fungus net lava, which is buried in the soil and eat them from the inside out. So if you want to torment these fuckers, that's one option. I did have an email from a Chloe, who signs off with Kiss Hug Kiss, and they say when I had fungus gnats, the yellow sticky shit things on the tablets didn't do shit. I got rid of them by every evening, hoovering up the adults!

I mean, standing on my partner's desk! The fucking shitty shit things on the yellow tablets didn't do shit. What a sentence that is. Hoovering up the adults, wow. Speaking of AI responses, that could be one for the books. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, didn't do shit. After a week I'd exterminate them.

Love you dads, thank you Chloe. Just keep hoovering. Just hoovering them up. Just hoovering them up. I wonder, I... So, I mowed my lawn on the weekend, and the weather's been glorious, so Terry has been outside every day. I put him outside yesterday.

Where's the story going? The lawn is pretty freshly mowed. It started growing back a little bit as the lawn does sort of thing. But because I cut it after I let it grow, like we basically had a meadow in the backyard for a while. It was really lovely. Yeah, it was nice. There was lots of bees and everything was great.

But you have to cut it every once in a while. Otherwise the grass underneath is just going to get all fucked up. So I cut, so I cut it. And so, you know, all of this grass that was underneath that's still really wet, because it just been growing, growing, growing, uh, was exposed all of a sudden. And I think there must've been a lot of bugs down there, whatever. Cause, uh, I went inside, looked outside the window. I was watching Terry for a minute. And I think there must have been a lot of bugs down there, whatever. Cause I went inside, looked outside the window.

I was watching Terry for a minute and then I'm not even kidding. There was like 30 birds that just all of a sudden, like a gang descended upon the backyard. Then a pigeon turned up and was like on Terry's little enclosure cage thing looking around. But these little birds were like pecking everywhere. Like there's nothing back there. Like I haven't spread any seed around or anything like that. So you haven't spread your seed.

No, not all over my backyard, funnily enough. But there must have just been loads of little bugs or worms or something that were exposed from the mo. But man, these birds were going crazy and they were there for a while, too. Like it was just, you know, and Terry was really looking at them too. Like he was like, what the fuck is going on? You know, like you could see his little head craning around. It was funny.

I'm so relieved with this story. Didn't end up with him being carried away. Oh no, they're little birds. He was, he's bigger than these are like tiny, tiny little black birds with a, with yellow beaks. Some of the big birds will. They look almost oily, like on their wings. Those seagulls would be trying to crack him open, honestly.

Seagulls would be, but it's fairly built up and confined where we live, so the seagulls don't tend to land in backyards unless there's like a diaper or something back there, then they're all over it. But otherwise they kind of stick to the roofs and stuff, y'know. Or someone's got like a Gregg's, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good one. So it's not so bad. But yeah, I just thought it was interesting, you know? Like, uh, like,

you know, if you had like an infestation of something, um, and you, and you mowed your grass, maybe the birds would come in and solve it for you, you know? Like it's like a natural remedy. You know, they'd probably- Maybe it knocked a lot of seeds off- Probably eat those actually. Yeah. So what I'm saying is if you've got fungus, fungal gnats, maybe just expose them to birds. Well, this is it. Yeah. Should I get like a series of geckos?

Yeah. Do like ace Ventura, you know, and all the birds are flying towards you and you're, you're singing. Just open your arms right up and let the birds in. See what happens. Yeah. Okay. I'll think about it. You've been making friends with your pigeons on your windowsill, right? My pigeons? Yeah, they came this morning. They come at about 9.45, 10 every day. I put some seeds out for them.

It's a Mr and Mrs Pidgey. They eat the seeds, and then they fly away for a bit. Then they come back and they look at me through the window and make pigeon noises. I put more seeds out, they eat those, and then I see them again late in the afternoon. ALICE Wow, nice. ALICE Wow. GARETH I'm trying to get other birds. ALICE They're quite smart pigeons.

GARETH Oh yeah, I mean, you know, most of these birds are pretty clever when it comes to food. Their whole day is spent acquiring it, so I'm sure they know what they're doing. ALICE I think most animals are. It feels like, you know, the cats have their like roots through the neighbourhood. GARETH Oh yeah. Your sole focus, apart from staying alive, The cats have their, like, routes through the neighbourhood around all the places to feed them. Oh yeah. It's your sole focus apart from staying alive by avoiding danger, is acquiring food. And think about it, the pigeons are out there flying about all day.

Like, there's not like a cat. Cats sleep twenty hours out of twenty-four if necessary. Pigeon's gotta be on the go, he's gotta keep his head on a literal swivel like, ooo, ooo, looking out to see if there's any trouble. They do, but they take a lot of breaks too. Like you see them walking around train stations. Over here we got like the Royal square there, but sightseeing. Yeah. They're having an espresso or something on a plaza.

Don't worry. They're fine. They take lots of breaks. I'm not worried. I'm just saying you can understand. Animals have to eat a lot, you know? Oh yeah. I mean, we do.

We eat three meals a day plus snacks, maybe. And the point is, we're big. Pigeons are little. And so, but they have to eat the same volume, relatively speaking, I'd say, if not more. They're very active. Flying. Imagine fucking flying. That's got to be hard.

Anyway, this is Triforce. Vis-a- vis bullying Lewis. This is an email from Cyrus Castle on behalf of their partner Tilly. My partner has asked me to write in, we've both just listened to the latest mailbag, apparently that was number 53, and she wants you to stop bullying Lewis. There you go. Right. You're right.

Poor Lulu. He gets bullied apparently. Thank you, by the way, Mia, was it or something? Poor Lulu, he gets bullied apparently. Does he? Thank you by the way, Mia. Was it or something? No. I want some examples of this bullying. I don't actually think that we bully him that much.

No more than we would bully each other. Like I feel like there's a, you know, I think there's like a healthy balance of bullying going around between the three of us, possibly. I would just say, look, it's not bullying. Because it's like, when you have... This is certainly the way I see it as a bloke with my male friends, there's a lot of bullying. Not bullying, I should say, but a lot of sort of... A lot of ribbing.

A lot of ribbing and bants and teasing. I do that to my female friends as well and sometimes they take it seriously. It has to be done. Right? If someone is... you have to sometimes knock these guys down or else you end up with Andrew Tate. Do you know what I mean? Exactly. It's a bit of a good crack. You just have a lot. Everyone needs to be knocked a peg down or two. Not into the ground, obviously. No, no. Not like a tent peg. No atomic wedgies either.

And if I didn't have these guys around me to ground me, I would be an absolute unbearable asshole. Or even more. More than I am. He's bullying himself now. He's bullying himself! This is, let's move on, because that was just a show. We've been doing this podcast for nine, ten years or something.

Do you feel bullied, Lewis? And ever since I've known P-Flax and Sips, they have teased me, and I've tried my best to tease them. I think you do pretty good. Yeah, you do great. I think you get a couple of good ones in. Everyone gets as good as they get, I would say. Yeah.

I think so. So this is from Ben. When I was a child, I remember a Mr. Tickle book. Probably were not familiar with Mr. Tickle, he's one of the Mr. Men. You're not familiar with the Mr. Men? He's one of the ones that needs to be cancelled. Yeah, he's a problematic one, because there's... Basically every book that he features in is about people not wanting to be tickled, and

Mr. Tickle furiously trying to tickle them regardless. Yes, exactly. Which, I guess, doesn't stand up great these days. If anyone tried to do this in any situation, he would be in prison by the end of the day. Yeah. Can't even go around tickling people against your will anymore. I think, yeah. There's a lot of people that say you shouldn't tickle kids as well, you you know, like that's kind of a, you know, you tickle kids,

right? You, you, you. What your own kids? Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm not going out and tickling other people's kids. I take my own kids, but I like only a little, you know, like just like, you know, if we're just like, you know, if we're just like messing around or something, I'll just be like, like, just like a quick one, but like not like too long, you know, there's a, there's, there's, there's a line for sure. It's like my kids, they'll laugh, but you know, like if you did it too long, they'd

be like, okay, stop now. You know, like nobody wants to be tickled that long. If you've got no awareness whatsoever, I'm sure you could ruin someone's day. I've seen people stop tickling their kids and their kids are like, they can't breathe, they're laughing so much. And like, yeah, it looks great. It looks like it's probably really fun, but they're probably annoyed their kids and their kids are like, they can't breathe, they're laughing so much. And like, yeah, it looks great. It looks like it's probably really fun, but they're probably annoyed at the same time. It's too much.

Charlie Brooker says, there you go, critiquing the unequally applied justice in the realm of Mr. Men. He is, Mr. Tickler's a 1970s children's entertainer with wandering hands, he runs around town touching strangers inappropriately from dawn till dusk." It's true. Exactly. It is true. We gotta help Ben here.

Ben says that he read this book. In the book, Mr. Tickle goes around tickling people. Surprise, surprise. However, he tickles one time too many. A fairy gets involved and tells him he can only tickle one person per day. This is a very common occurrence in Mr. Men books. So I have never seen this once. Mr. Tickle reluctantly agrees, leaves all sad,

but then reaches back and tickles the fairy. It is such a good joke. It makes me laugh to this day. I've been looking for it for about six months and I cannot find it. If anybody knows about this Mr. Tickle book where he tickles a fairy? Let us know. It's not a fairy. I know the one. My kids have it.

It's not a fairy. It's Little Miss Magic. I think it's like Little Miss Magic that says you can't tickle. She basically makes it so that his extendable arms don't extend anymore. So he's unable to tickle. He's got to limit his tickling. He can do one tickle. Oh, it's another Mr. Man book. It's another Mr. Man book. He can do one tickle per day, under the new rules, so he leaves the house, and with his one tickle per day he reaches into her window and tickles her, and that's the last page

of the book. This is exactly it. Oh my god, you're absolutely right. I read it recently. I found a description of it. I actually read it recently, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's the eighth book.

Real mismatching. The weirdest thing about that is, they recently, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was the eighth book. Real mismatching. The weirdest thing about that is, they're the Mr. Men, and they're hanging around with all these little Mrs. What the fuck? It's like, non-cezare us, Mr. Men! You can't sexualise any of this, because they live in, like, Happy Town, and there's also like, Chilly Town, and Fun Town, and stuff. And they don't reproduce, or anything, you know, they're just there. They don't have any sexual organs.

They're just there and they're just really helpful to each other and sometimes not very helpful to each other. But well, in the case where somebody's not being overly helpful, cancel, then a very common thing for Mr. Men or Little Miss Books is for a fairy or a magician or a wise old wizard that appears out of nowhere or some goblin community that lives in the stump of a tree or something. They call that a cop out.

They will perform some sort of magic that limits the person to try to teach them a lesson to say, you know, you're too grumpy, so don't be so grumpy or else every time you're grumpy, I'm, you know, I'm going to make your dick explode or whatever, you know, there's a downside there and they learn quickly not to fuck around, you know? So that is a very common theme in the Mr. Men books. They're okay. I don't find them overly problematic and my kids love them. Like, they really like them a lot.

You know what? If you look at the original Mr. Men books, there is a lot of fucking text on each of the pages. Yeah. Like, that's the thing you don't realize. It's good value. No, it's terrible value. I'll tell you what, there's two measurements for bedtime, okay?

If it's a quick bedtime, i.e. we're both tired and we need to move things along. The go-to is like, uh, is spot. You ever seen spot books? The spot the dog, lift the flaps and they're so quick. There's like two words on each page and there's like five pages total. So life hacks for rushing through your kid's bedtime. In a pinch. But then, you know, on a normal night where we're not in a rush, or we're not that tired yet or whatever, it'll be like a Mr. Men book.

Sometimes like a Peppa book or something. Yeah. But, I mean, you've just gotta balance the fact that if this becomes your kid's favourite book, this is like a fucking 30 minute bedtime every night. It's like, Christ. can we finish this tomorrow? No, I want to know who happens. Mr. Tickle assaults a range of people. That's the sort of like, I don't need me to read it again.

If you're reading a book every night, luckily, the Mr. Men's series, there's loads of them. So you are, you know, before you're coming back onto one that you've already read before, you're talking once, you know, before you're coming back onto one that you've already read before, you're talking months, you know, like there's, there's like 60, 70, 80 books in the series. Like, can you guys not learn to paraphrase? Yeah. Do you know what I mean? They know.

You have to read everything. No, no, no, they know because they remember the words that you read the previous 400 times and the voices that you did. And now you've got to commit to that performance every time. My youngest. What you're doing when you read a book is like you're performing a greatest hits tour, and if you veer off, people are going to be like, play the greatest hits songs, like we love, we want this new material. So you just have to do the same thing.

Yeah. Oh no, you have to play the same fucking hits for four years. My youngest has a Gabby's dollhouse book she got. We didn't get it for her. She got it for Christmas from someone or... It appeared in our house, but it is... Every time she picks it up and she's like, let's have this one. My heart sinks because there is so many words, but also it's a fucking nightmare to read

because I'm not familiar with any of the characters. I've never watched the show or anything and all of their names are like a sminkily, pinkily magic bunny and stuff. And it just goes on and on and on like that. And it takes like an hour to read. It's so long. So that one I'll read like, I just read like two sentences per page and just try to like TLDR the whole thing. Sometimes she notices other times I get away with it.

So smickly-pinkly, he's doing the spinkled. And then they went to the tree. You just like try to get through it really quick. But that, I mean, of all the books they have, there's like one book that, and sometimes she'll get it and I'll be like, oh, let's have this one. Let's read Spot tonight. Oh shit. Oh God. That's got, that is what things to do. Can't be sitting here with doing all this candycats. Man, bilateral achievements aren't gonna achieve themselves, you know?

Like, I need a little bit of time. Gabby's dollhouse. ALICE Oh my god. That's an anti-shoutout for this podcast. RILEY Mmhm. ALICE Yeah. RILEY This is from, uh, Stephen. ALICE Stephen?

RILEY So, I'll cut straight to the chase. ALICE Uh oh. RILEY I, 21 male, have a good friend called Alex and yes that is his fucking real name. And a few months ago had a conversation and god knows how this came up but most of the time he said when he's masturbating he will finish into the toilet. Directly into the toilet. Directly into the bowl. Yeah. Which struck me in quite a weird way because like how is that comfortable? Bro is wasting good wanks.

He could be in bed, light a candle, place in Barry Manilow. It's about quality, not quantity. But that's not it. That's not the worst part. More recently, he casually came off that sometimes he will do it in the sink. Now, Alex still lives with his mum. So, like, yes, you can wash it. But his mum is washing her face in that sink. So this house is blasted in residual cum.

Just everywhere. There's no way you're getting all of it off. We have done such a hard turn on this podcast and so has the topics. The topics have been like, fuck. This guy's place is plastered in cum basically, because it'll be getting into all the hard to reach areas for cleaning and stuff that. Oh, absolutely. I would assume that most people just do it into a Kleenex, or some toilet paper or something.

Or a handkerchief if you're really posh, I guess. Directly into a sock, or right into your boxer shorts, maybe. Even. So, Stephen has subsequently followed up with a screenshot of a message that he exchanged with Alex. He sent him a meme where the meme is a guy saying, this is from r slash sink pissers. And the lad has said, this is the guy talking with his wife. It makes me sick. This is her. I wash my face with that sink, you cunt.

You need therapy. You need to go to therapy. Get therapy or I'm fucking done. And he sent that to his friend, Alex. Alex responds, told you I'm not the only one. And Stephen replies, I wasn't trying to provide some sort of camaraderie, dude. Yes, exactly. He's trying to shame you. He's not saying lots of people do it. That's terrible. Stop coming in the sink. Stop coming in directly in the toilet as well. That's

weird. You know, do it on to like, lift your couch cushion and do it there. Put the cushion back down or something. I don't know. So believe it or not, what you were talking about, there's jizz everywhere. Steven, who I think Steven might be obsessed with cum, he actually sent a subsequent email. Right. He said that we were talking about the ocean and some guy on Reddit worked out how much whale cum is in the ocean. Oh, there must be tons. 1.35 billion cubic kilometers of water in the world's oceans.

The average whale, when it nuts, it's 1,500 liters of cum per load. Jeez. Average whale breeds once every two years, lives between 40 and 100 years. Currently, there are around 1.3 million whales, and a whale on average breeds 13 to 43 times in their life. Only 10% of the whale's cum makes it into the partner, so each time, 1,350 litres is dumped

in the ocean. With 1.3 million whales breeding on average 28 times 1,350 litres getting into the ocean, 50 billion litres of jizz. Or 0.0038% of the ocean is whale cum per cubic metre, there's 3 litres of jizz. Kind of weird to think that the guy who wrote in his friend Alex, if he was a whale, would be the type of whale who would swim directly down to the wreckage of the Titanic and come on it. He'd not on the beach.

Don't go on the beach. People are trying to use the beach. That's so interesting, P-Flex, because I was wondering why the sea was so salty. Exactly. It's all a whale nut. That's what's doing it. That's it. Exactly. It's all a whale nut. That's what's there. That's it. Yeah. Leaders and leaders of this stuff. Look, you know when people get like infections and stuff from going in the sea, which can

happen if you've got a cut and you get salt water on it, you can get quite nasty infection. The fucking sea is not just water. We've got this idea which is water. It's brimming with life. It's like the most filthy pond you can imagine. Teeming with God knows what. Well, it wasn't until all the sunscreen and plastic went in, killed it all. True. True. Oh my God.

Listen. Oh, I'm listening. About this come, come, come, how do we help? Come. Come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come,

come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come,

come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, body. Or your future relationship. What is it? Well, I don't think that... It's like, I think, okay, this is how fetishes get going. This is gonna be a very coherent vlog. Who is lighting a candle to jack off, like, alongside? It's like Pavlov's bell, do you know what I mean? If you continually jack off into the toilet, you're gonna start getting a boner whenever you see a toilet. That's not what you want.

You're not. You don't want that. You wouldn't get a boner at halftime. What are you talking about? You think that if I just... Oh no. Well, by that token then I should get a boner every time I see a computer screen. It doesn't make sense, does it?

Let's go with a nice follow up email. Let's refresh the palette with a sorbet. This is from Meredith and Paul in Montana. I wrote in last year to tell you about vetoing my husband's insane plan to name our child Pimpus Von Gontard. Right. That was what he was going to call it. Pimpus Von Gontard.

Pimpus Von Gontard. In December, via C-section, a massive waste of a good gaping vagina, says Meredith. They had a little boy. We took none of your name suggestions and went with Calvin. And then I will show you guys a photo of Calvin. I think Calvin is a great name, actually. You don't hear a lot of Calvin's these days. It's like an older name that's sort of died off, you know? Yeah. Semi-presidential, but then again, it's also the underpants. Calvin's cute. Look at him. He's a cute little bubba. Look at him.

Calvin Klein. He could go into politics or fashion design. Yeah, true. True. Good name. Strong name. So, I've had loads of emails where people have sent me shopping lists that they found, after I talked about shopping lists on the podcast, and how I used to collect them. I realise now I shouldn't have done this, because there's no way to show them on the

podcast. So what I might do instead is do a little Instagram album and pop them all on there. You can be the shopping list guy. I could be shopping list guy, but, um, so the thing is we don't have a Triforce Instagram. No, do you want to make one? But other podcasts do. Um, and if there's pictures or images, they will say, we'll pop it on the Instagram feed and

they put it on there. And that way listeners can see the thing that we're talking about. I just wondered if we wanted to do that. Well, yours is just pictures of you looking grumpy anyway. Yeah, I have one with three pictures of bird shit on my shorts on the clothesline. That's it. Nice. I wanted to that to be my thing.

I don't need more social media platforms. Awkward spots that birds have shit on my stuff, or my house, or whatever. Like, one time a bird shit on my front window, and it looked like a bear took a shit on the window. Like, it was this massive massive shit. It was crazy. I hope Terry was safe. He was safe, yeah, he's fine.

He's armoured. Terry's fine. Yeah, he is. Alright. Yeah. All right. This is from Michael. Should I move to Great Yarmouth? I don't know anything about Great Yarmouth. I haven't been there. Hoping some listeners can help out. I'm currently debating taking a job with my current company that requires me to move to Great Yarmouth. Go for it, man. Been with the company for eight years. Yo, dude. Fucking- Managed it for four and a half years. Both me and my girlfriend have been wanting to move away from some time.

They live in Maidenhead, but he's working in Hayes in West London. So it's a big move. So should he move to Great Yarmouth? I looked it up on Google Maps. Looks all right. It's on the East Coast, just east of Norwich. Yeah. I don't know how bad it is.

Probably all right. Yarmouthites, Yarmothians, great and small. Email in and tell us what Great Yarmouth is like. Lesser Yarmouth. Great Yarmouth was, what am I thinking of? What's the one in Isle of Wight that's nice? There is nothing nice on the Isle of Wight. I don't think it is.

No, no, trust me. It's a fucking duck. Isn't there a festival on the Isle of Wight every once in a while, every year? I don't know. Yeah? I dunno, yeah. I mean, there used to be, I dunno if there still is. I think there might be. But if you go to the Isle of Wight, it's quite magical, really. Because the magic is, it takes you back to the 1970s.

It's quite remarkable, really. Well, if you wanna go back to the 1870s, visit Sark, I would say. Another trip back in time. Not a pleasant one, either. There's a regular Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight. That's what I mean. ALICE Right. You've only been to regular Yarmouth.

I can rate it. I can rate it. RILEY Not great Yarmouth. Ventnor is on the Isle of Wight, isn't it? I think that's the big city on the Isle of Wight. It's a blasted hellscape with no people, no culture, and no future. That's all I can say. ALICE It's one of Grim's hidden gems.

It's shit-o. ALICE We know what the topic of next week's mailbag is going to be, primarily now. How dare you! I think we should go. To the Isle of Wight. We've been planning a fucking trip for years and never done it. Let's do our first one, let's go to the Isle of Wight then. Let's- Oh, let's not.

I don't want to go to the Isle of Wight. Why is shit? Where do you want to go? I thought we were going to go to Jersey! or we were going to take the train to Paris or some shit. Yeah, we can do that. We can do all those things. If we comment on somewhere and say that it's shit, we should at least visit there.

And then so that we can turn around and be like, yeah, you know what, it was actually kind of... I'm not going to Australia or Wisconsin. Wisconsin we can't go to, probably for a while. Australia maybe, but it's too far. But Isle of Wight is doable. I mean, we could do that in a day, easy. What do you mean for a while?

Why not? What's going on? Well, there's like, you know, there's an administration that is potentially rounding people up and deporting them and stuff. I don't really want to go to the US and day while all this stuff is happening. Yeah, I don't want to take a chance. I don't want to take the chance. No shot.

Yeah. Especially because I'd be traveling on a Canadian passport. I think there's a bit of tension between those two nations. I think you mean the 51st state, don't you? Well, could be. You never know. Bozos. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most?

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All right, this is an email from a teacher. He says trainee teacher slash pub quiz. Nice. Firstly, thank you so much for the podcast. It provides me and other trainee teachers much comfort on our commute to school. Some funny stories from teaching before we get to the quiz. We have to do daily uniform checks on students. For my first one, I politely asked a student, could you just take your coat off for me? To which he replied, could you just fuck off? I haven't done uniform checks since. Fair enough.

Recently, the year 11s have gone on study leave. And of course, that means end of year pranks, including my entire classroom chairs, desks, and even the whiteboard being moved outside. Jokes on them. It was a lovely day and we taught the lesson outside. Finally, I've been helping year 10s with CVs for mock interviews. I was surprised how many put their toe to MMR and disappointed that it was so much higher than mine. Gosh, I'm sorry to hear that. So we can do this little pub quiz if you want. It's kind of a teacher-themed pub quiz.

Right, okay. So let's do the GCSE questions. How many prime numbers are there between one and a hundred? Oh God. 50. Wow. That seems like a lot. I'm going to say. 60. I'm going to say nine. 25.

Wow. What? Wow. What does the population have to be over to class a city as a mega city? 12 million. Five million. 10 million. Oh, Sips is bleeding. Which American president delivered the Gettysburg Address?

It was Abraham Lincoln. I'm gonna guess also Abraham Lincoln. Yes it was. What is, and this is something Mike is, the powerhouse of the cell. Cell meaning like a single cell, you know. The nucleus. The first last time. The mitochondria.

Correct. In Buddhism, what is the ultimate goal of life where one achieves freedom from suffering? Zen. Any advance on Zen? It's probably... It is, it's something to do with removing all material things from your life. It's a single word. They're trying to reach...

Trans... Nirvana. Nirvana. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nirvana. Exactly. What is the spirit used in the cocktails, Mai Tai and Dakiri? Jin?

I don't know. No, it's... I don't... It's..., it's... I don't... Um, it's, uh... I'm gonna go with rum. RILEY It's rum. What is Stinking Bishop? ALICE It's a cheese.

RILEY It is a cheese. What is the name of the US band formed by Debbie Harry and Chris Stein in 1974? ALICE Blondie. RILEY It is blondie. What is the currency of Egypt? ALICE The Egyptian pound. RILEY Correct! ALICE No fucking way. ALICE Fuck you, alright? I'm in! RILEY Author J.M. Barry... What is the currency of Egypt? The Egyptian pound. Correct!

No fucking way. Fuck you, alright I'm in! Author J.M. Barry bequeathed the rights to which children's book to the Great Ormond Street Hospital in 1929? Paddington. Oh. Pita Pan.

It was Pita Pan. Holy shit. What connects these answers? The answers we gave were rum, cheese, blondie, pound and pan. Oh, fuck. Rum, cheese, rum, blondie, cheese, blondie, pound and pan. There is a connection between those answers. Cheese, blondie, pound and pan.

Well, it's it's going to. This is like I'm not. This is like only connects like something to do with bacon cakes. It is cake. No way. That's all the things that I put in a cake or just all kinds of cake. A pound cake. Yeah. A pancake. Rum cake. Yeah. Badly described movie plots.

All right. So you have to guess the movie from the bad description. OK. Bloke punches himself and encourages others to punch him. Fight club. Correct. Hamlet but with lions. Gladiator. Lion King.

Lion King. An old man abducts a young boy scout after his wife dies. Up. It is up. A boy learns to dance with no effect on pit closures. Billy Elliot. Oh, that's Billy Elliot. Correct.

An office worker joins a cult in order to dismantle the government. The Matrix. It is the Matrix. Oh, well done. And do you, this is student slang, if you want to hear this. If someone were to have Riz, what would they have lots of charisma? It is. Did someone send you this? I'm just fucking smart, man. I don't know what that.

No, I'm just lucky. Fine. Yeah, but no, but you've hit them like the exact phrasing as well. I'm just saying. I don't know. Define let him cook. It's like it's like, you know, you say that to, you know, like leave him do his thing, like, you know, it'll be good if you just let him do it sort of thing. Give him the opportunity to do their thing. What does it mean if something be bussin'? This got a big ass. No.

I think it's like a, it's good. It's a good thing. It tastes good. If something is chuggy, what is it? This I have no idea. It's, uh, dirty. It's outdated or cringy. Right.

Oh. Um, so yeah. With like, R to me. Do you wanna do any more of these? Sure, yeah, they're the arms. With the arms. Yes. That's it. Do you want to do any more of these? Sure, yeah. They're fun. Yeah, fucking keep it going. Alright.

Taylor Swift or Shakespeare. Simple round. You drew stars around my scars, but now I'm bleeding. Taylor Swift. That is Taylor Swift. Correct. Did I close my fist around something delicate? Did I shatter you?

Uh. That is Taylor Swift. Yeah, sure. Taylor Swift. My tongue will tell the anger of my heart or else my heart concealing it will break. Shakespeare. That is Shakespeare. That is Shakespeare. Pass the curses and cries beyond the terror in the nightfall. Shakespeare. Sure. Yeah, Shakespeare. It's Taylor Swift.

Oh my God. Oh. Love is merely a madness. Shakespeare. That is, that is sounds like Shakespeare, right? That is Shakespeare, well done. And then these are teacher quotes, and you have to guess the famous teacher from the quote. Okay. You were born into a family that doesn't always appreciate you, but one day things are going

to be very different. Wait, it has to be a teacher that said this? Yeah, they're teachers. Oh, god. I have no idea. What, like, from movies or just generally? From movies and literature and all the rest of it. So these are... Repeat the quote?

...sational teachers. You were born into a family that doesn't always appreciate you, but one day things are going to be very different. It's a motivational speech for a little child, and I don't know, it could be from literally anything. It is from Matilda. Oh man, I was going to say Matilda, but I don't know. It could be from literally anything. It is from Matilda. Oh man, I was gonna say Matilda, but I wasn't sure what the teacher is. Is it from like, Miss Sugar or whatever?

Miss Honey. Miss Honey. Miss Honey. Fuck this. Fuck this. Carpe Diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary. The teacher from Dead Poets Society. Correct. Oh wow. Mr. Keating, Robin Williams. Now, you could be a regular student or you could be a rock star.

Jack Black in School of Rock. And for a bonus point, what was the name of his character? No, Jack Black. Edward Van Halen. I don't know. So he was pretending to be Mr. Schneebly. That's right. Mr. Schneebly. And then Glee is about opening up yourself to joy. Okay. Glee is about opening yourself

up to joy. This is a bit silly because the name of the program is in the question. It's Glee. It's Mr. Schuster from Glee. Oh, so they wanted you to name the teacher, but we're just going for it. Any of these teachers. And then this one is Bart. The only reason I'm here today is because I'm contractually obligated. Let's both not try to cry today. Just name the character.

Miss Krabapple. Mrs. Krabapple. Exactly right. Very good. Good little quiz. Thank you for that name. Yeah. Let's say let's move on to this one.

This was great. This is this has been I want to talk about the way things come back around. And I assume it's because people are young and they miss it the first time around and it comes back around and they think it's new. Currently it's the every podcast has the same three people. And it's the picture of three Disney dads or Disney characters. Please stop sending me that. Do they actually though?

How many podcasts out there are this format? Lots. Exactly. It's gibberish. All of them. It's just three blokes in a podcast. Any of the ones that I've listened to have always just had like one dude or... You listen to solo podcasts only.

Well no, I don't listen to that many podcasts. There's that podcast with What's Her Face and The Other Girl. That's a good one. Yeah, love that podcast with What's Her Face, and the other girl... Mmm, that's a good one. Yeah, I like that. What's the face of the other girl? I've never listened to a full episode of it, I just know that it exists. It's a...

So you listen to half of a podcast by What's Her Face? She's married to the guy from Stranger Things. Lily Allen, and... Fuck me. Lily Allen and another woman. They had, I think it's done now though, or they're taking a break. They had a podcast.

That's two. That's two. Wamen's doing. Well, I've listened to before. That's just one guy with guests. No, it's not. He has a guest on the knee. Yeah.

It's like every time. Yeah. But it's still like, you know, I think the dynamic is better with three. I'm just saying I like three. I like three. I like three. I like threes. Threes company, as they famously say. This is from James and he says basically the one gorilla versus 100 men thing.

Now, I don't want to give an answer to whether who we think would win because it's a ridiculous question, but it's interesting that this has come back around and people are it's all over fucking tick tock and all the rest of it as if it's some new thing. are, it's all over fucking TikTok and all the rest of it, as if it's some new thing. It's not. But the point is, I feel like most of the content that is people saying, yeah, 100 people can easily beat a gorilla, are just rage baiting. And it's just engagement bait and they just want you to comment.

Like those videos where it says- It's just stuff going on forever. Like the would you rather and the ice bucket challenge and the reply girls and it's all- Exactly. And the problem with all this shit is, and the ice bucket challenge, and the reply girls, and it's all... The problem with all this shit is, and the main reason with this shit is that it's unclear what the rules are. And so as a result, you always have people arguing both sides. Because there's a lot of fucking idiots out there as well. And also it's kind of also a fairly gruesome image as well. You can imagine a gorilla... Everyone I think is a little bit terrified of being torn apart by a gorilla. And so, y'know. I don't think a hundred people would know what to do with one out of control ballistic

gorilla. Like, I think... Like a fully grown male alpha gorilla, I think a hundred people are... You might as well just, like, get your wills ready, you're done. I don't think people understand how strong these things are. Yeah. Like I really just please just stop asking this stupid question. It's ridiculous. This is from Sonny, a 23 year old cleaner from Edinburgh. On Mailbag 29, you were talking about a kid at your school who was a massive bully. And his second name was a root vegetable before you were rudely interrupted by Lewis muttering James Potato, Tony Carrot. And I

had an interesting story I was going to tell and then I abandoned the story because you kept interrupting me. I've listened to the whole Backload podcast three times and whenever this one comes up, I always want to know the story you're about to tell. Well, uh- We don't, we shouldn't name people from our lives. No, of course. But I'm not naming him. Call them out for being bullies. Even though they ruined your charter and shaked you. Imagine the life you would have had if you hadn't been bullied.

His name could be James Potato or Tony Carrot. I'm giving no more detail than his last name was a root vegetable, that's all I'm saying. I was right. And I'm just, the whole thing was, he was new at the school. Jonathan horse radish. He was new at the school. Jonathan horse radish. He was new at the school. Michael mooly radish. Right, that's it, the story's going in the bin.

Sorry sonny, you'll never know. Hey Tony Turner, fancy seeing you here. Hey Baldi! Hey Baldi! What are you playing dota again? You having a nice time feeding your pigeons, Baldy? I was born of school! This is from Graham.

We gotta talk about this, actually. Did we mention it yesterday? That Billy's Very Cyrus is dating Elizabeth Hurley? We mentioned it yesterday. We did mention it. We will cry to tear of sadness. Yeah. This is one that you might like, Sips. This is, I'm gonna, in fact, I'm gonna say this should be one of your favourite emails

that I've had in recent months. Is it very nice to me? Like, complimentary of me? Not at all. Here it goes. I know Sips is into The Apprentice. Yes! So this is about the fact that I was the designer

on the apprentice episode making the piggy bank dog from series 19, episode seven. The piggy bank dog. Yes. So I was filmed for four and four to five hours sketching, cadding and producing logos and managed to make it on the screen for about four seconds. Yes. So he was the designer. So here are some odd things that went down on the broadcast.

If you like a little bit of behind the scenes. I would love it. Yeah. Okay. The producers often forced the candidates to say specific lines and pin them into boxes to make them look a certain way. A lot of manipulation. You can tell that though that this that that kind of stuff happens. There's definitely times where they say something and you can tell that they've rehearsed saying it. And it's just so awkward. You know, they'll be like, well, guys, guess what is coming tomorrow? And you know what I mean? Like, there's loads of stuff that they have to say, for sure. You can tell. The producers give them time penalties stating that they must decide this element or that

element within five minutes in order to create some excitement, which is why most of their ideas are fucking awful, I guess. The designers and other people will get advice from, are not allowed to offer any advice. We were told we can only sit there and produce exactly what they tell us to. So you just have to sit there and draw those stupid things. Some of it is dreadful, but you know it's not the designer's fault. It's because what they're being told to do is so idiotic. So bad. But they just have to put up with it. Yeah. As the designer, I have 12 to 15 hours to produce the whole product, which can be challenging.

I need to do the CAD, the 3D printing, the electronics in time for the following day. Yeah. Tim and Karen do not sit with the candidates during most of the shots filming, just coming at the end for some cameo shots. The producers are the ones who dictate the story of the show. So this is the one in this series you had. They made these piggy banks that would then link to an app. So the idea was that if you got some allowance, you know, if you got like coins or whatever, you put it in the piggy bank

and then the app could keep track of how much money was in your piggy bank. And then you could like, you know, manage your money or whatever it was like. It was to teach kids like how to, you know, um, manage your money or whatever. It was like, uh, it was to teach kids, like, how to, you know, save money and whatever. I mean, kids don't use cash anymore. I'll just say that, uh, like very, very rarely do my kids have cash. Um, so yeah, we just, I electronically transfer the money and they pay for shit on their phones.

Like, like everybody else. Alan sugar also has barely any involvement during the process flies over from the US just for the boardroom meetings. Wow. Yeah. The runners that they have at the BBC are the real heroes. Amen. I used to be a run. Does he actually live in the US now? Apparently. They work ridiculous hours all day. The runners were constantly caught napping and catching sleep in taxis in between sets. That's exactly it. You literally expected to be there start to finish.

And all you're doing is getting people cups of tea and carrying things and sending messages and blah, blah, blah. It's a fucking nightmare. And for the final episode, they film it twice with the last two candidates, one episode with one winner and another with the other winner. So the results cannot be leaked until the end. Wow. So there you go. But anyway, two of the three candidates I had got fired. So I'm pretty proud. What a strange old show. Apparently the next season will be the last season. Oh, right. Okay. It's been, it's been better. Like they, they went through a period where I think they're the contestants that they had on were not great and they have a better process for vetting them. And it's, it's made the show a lot more enjoyable to watch.

But that's only in the last two seasons or so. Yes, they have to make sure they're incompetent in order for it to be fun to watch. No, well the thing is, they were getting people who were clearly just trying to get Instagram famous or whatever, but imagine every contestant is like that. So it is a nightmare. None of them knew what they were doing and they were all pretty, pretty difficult to watch and stuff. But recently, maybe in the past, like I said, two seasons, there've been people who already have functioning businesses that are just interested in, you know, the, the process and, and potentially winning and

stuff and, and some of them are actually quite competent, but then you still get a good mix of absolutely incompetent people as well. But I mean, it's fine. It's a fun one to watch. I can't believe it'll be the last season next year. That's crazy. 20 seasons of the Apprentice. Yeah, it's been going for a long time.

And so we have a couple of weird eating habit emails. Oh no. On the rare occasions, this is Aladdin and his partner of eight years, on the rare occasions we venture into McDonald's, she will order a Big Mac and then eat it in a way that she swears is not weird. She will separate the Big Mac into two smaller meals by lifting the middle bun and everything above it off the base to create a small Mac, leaving just a bun, cheese, lettuce and one patty remaining,

which she then eats after like some kind of circular beefy bruschetta. Every time I see it, it weirds me the flov out. Right. Yeah, that is a bit odd. That is a bit of an odd one. I think with with something like that, you know, you're either you get the little container that it comes in, in you sit down, you open the container and then you just eat it like anybody would eat a burger. Or you know, you take it home and put it on a plate instead. But like, nobody really does that right with McDonald's? I mean, you are dealing with... But those are the two ways that you...

Both of them involve just eating the burger normally. Anything different to that, to me, is a little bit weird, I would say. ALICE I quite frankly was horrified the first time I saw inside a Big Mac. Do you know what I mean? It's like, sad, wilty, cheap meat. Do you know what I mean? Like, it is. That's the whole point of it, is to be as cheap as possible. That's their whole business model. And quite frankly, disassembling it, and succulently enjoying the different ways... Each element of the Big Mac.

Honestly, at least if you're eating it normally, it's disguising it somewhat. How much does a Big Mac cost these days? It turns my stomach so much thinking about a Big Mac. Aren't they like eight bucks or something for a Big Mac? Eight now. Probably. But, you know, they've charged what they can charge. Surely not. I'm gonna look. Average price.

Average price. I mean, whatever the price is in the UK is the price, right? It doesn't vary by region. I guess it is a double burger, right? So you can break it into two. Five dollars and sixty nine cents in 2024. It's pretty nuts. I guess you can make, to enjoy it twice.

Maybe she just has a difficulty getting her mouth around the sides. She can't fit her mouth around Big Mac. You know? Yeah. Indeed. And that's okay. Let's finish on this one. You guys might not want to reveal this, it's up to you.

But essentially, Dan has emailed in, and he wants to know how much we've spent on Steam over the years. How do I check? I didn't know. So I didn't know that this was possible. But if you open up the Steam client, not the website, but the actual Steam client, which I'm sure you've got running on your computer right now. Yeah, I have.

You go to help. Yeah. And click on Steam support at the top. Yeah, I have done. And then at the bottom, there's like all these different options and you want to go to My Account, which is the third one down. Then at the bottom, Data related to your Steam account. And then scroll down and one of the options is, where is it, External funds used. It's about halfway down. Click on that and it will show you the total spend that you've had over the

lifetime of your Steam account. So do I want total spend? Total spend is the one at the top there, yeah. 20,000 US dollars. Jeez. I'm on 17,000 US dollars. But that's lifetime. I mean, I've had Steam for fucking so long and this is what I do for a living, to be fair. And I'm not sure if it counts total spend as the value of games in my account, or whether that's, you know, if I'm gifted a game. The amount of total amount of external funds applied to the account. Yeah. I think I mean, but would that also be,

are they you that have been applied to your steam account? Yeah. So, yeah, I don't know if it's if someone gifts me a game. Does that count? Either way, it's that account onto their spend. You see, yeah, it's a hell of a lot of money. That's a lot of money. Jesus Christ. Yeah, I'm interested in sips. Yeah, I can't find my password. You don't have the steam app on your phone to log in with the QR code and everything? Oh yeah, I do. I do. I'm going to sign in with my QR code.

That's a good idea. It's all right, bud. We'll help you. Thank you for reminding me that that is a thing. I usually have to, I do have to do a lot of gifts though. We are like, well, for play a game, I'll have to end up gifting like six copies out to people and then I'm playing some back on the company. Of course.

But you know, it's, I usually just forget. I'm terrible. Like last year I claimed no expenses. I claim expenses when I do something like buy a new PC. Do you know what I mean? Like if I buy a new PC, I claim that as like equipment that I bought for my job, which is true. But I don't, I mean mean I'm being self employed. I can't I can't claim things like mileage because I don't drive for work.

I can't claim internet or electricity in my house because you need to have certain percentages of your house has to be given over to your business. And it's like I can't know what the percentage is, but I'm just in a tiny box room. So I can't claim there's a whole bunch of things I can't claim. But if I'm buying equipment, I will I will claim that external funds use $14,379.31. Wow. I wonder how much of mine is buying fucking shit off a Dota. Probably the. Yeah, I don't.

I don't I don't spend that much on like in game purchases. And another thing I'd say is I get given a lot of keys. Yeah, we do get a lot of kids. I wonder if I hadn't been given keys. Lulu, you gave me a key just the other day. Yeah, and you didn't need it. Was it for need it? Blueprints, blueprints.

You bought me blueprints, which is incredibly getting on with blueprints. I am love. That's a great. Absolutely. And I've solved so many puzzles. Which is incredibly generous. How are you getting on with Blueprints? I am loving it. It's a great game. Absolutely. I've solved so many puzzles, but every time I solve a puzzle, there's like two or three new ones to solve. It's crazy.

Yeah, it's really, it's really something. I think it's probably one of my favorite games for years. I feel like I'm bad at it and I'm going slow, but I have not looked at the chat once while I play it because I don't want... This has to be my indie game of the year. If I get super hard stuck, I'll turn around and be like, all right, Chuck, just give me like a vague clue and they will. Okay.

He is, there is, what did it for me was a puzzle. And I talked to Pedgrin about this yesterday. Once you got to, once you got to room 46, which is the goal of the game, that's a good place to end. No, no, no. I'm not spoilers. No! But once you, oh, no, this isn't a spoiler. Once

you've gotten to the room 46, you can pretty much say, put the game down. Because after that the puzzles are all so cryptic, so weird, so impossible that yes, maybe if you're a real hardcore puzzler and you love these games, then you love figuring stuff out. But honestly, period. Some of them are impossible And I will say that right now. So I think it actually, it did take away the experience for me a little bit because you thought you had to go on and do it all. I felt like I'd had the rug pulled out of me a little bit. Like the game was really fun and a good level of difficulty. And then some of these puzzles were just, just what, why, why are they so hardcore puzzlers? And Maybe it's just not for you. You're not an immortal puzzler.

But again, I feel like it's right at the end of a game that I really, really enjoyed, and was really approachable and acceptable. And so I think, like, yeah. Just, I think, once you get to the end, don't feel bad about stuff. By the way, you sent me two codes the other day. Were they both for the same thing? I thought one of them might not work. Well, no. Thank you. A copy of of war sim the realm of Ars Lona. Oh yeah there's a fan a fan made this game it looks like one of these dwarf fortresses and he's like he's a Welsh guy who has like a metal band he's just a cool guy.

Awesome. Shout out to Hugh his name is. Hugh. Hugh. Thank you Hugh. Thank you Hugh. Thank you Hugh. Thank you Hugh. A shout out. That's a shout out.

We did a shout out today. Shout out to Hugh for making Warsim. To Warsim. It's like an ASCII Dwarf Fortress vibe thing. And he just made it in his spare time. Didn't even think he was nice. What a fucking ad. And then it did well on Steam.

And then it's done well. Yeah. And he made like a collect edition and sent me the DVD, which is kind of cool. Very cool. Yeah. Might not even have a DVD in it. It's just a case. I don't know. It's like a collect edition and sent me the DVD, which is very cool. Yeah. Well, I don't even have a DVD in it. It's just a case. I don't know. It's like a prop.

It's nice. It's nice. Yeah. That's a, that's all the cast. I think that's our mail. Yeah, we're done. Thank you. Holy crap.

It was a really good one. I loved it. Yeah. Thank you for all the letters. Not, not so much. Louis bullying this time as well. You'll be pleased to know. I don't think we bullied him once.

So maybe we'll bully him more next time. Yeah. Next. We'll get back him more next time. Do a quick one now. Do it. Do a quick now. Yeah. Bully me now. It was really nice to see you. And once I've gone away for work this month, I'll try and come down again in June or July. Oh, that's, that's very kind of you. We'll try and do a games night. We sat at the pub by the way, me and period the other night and it was a really hot day, but we were by the water, and I was wearing this mustard yellow jumper, and it was like, attracting every little bug in the entire region of Bristol. Nice.

They loved you. They fucking loved you. At one point I had like, 12 on me, I picked them all off, and as I was picking them off, more were landing on me. It was unbearable. You should have eaten them. It was genuinely bonkers. I think all the extra protein you could have gotten there. Just get a spoon and I would have been ham.

Nice. Anyway, yes, I'll see you soon and I'll see you. Yeah. Right. Thank you everyone. Bye! Goodbye! Bye bye!