Triforce! - Triforce! Mailbag Special #35: Mouse Stompers and Boomer Rage

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

Triforce Mailbag Special 35! We've got some home-made non-AI jingles to show off, we get a great quiz about the Triforce Podcast, Sips gets star struck when he saw the King, we give friendship advice and experience true boomer rage! Go to http://expressvpn.com/triforce today and get an extra 3 months free on a 1-year package! 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

Before we continue, this week's sponsor is Babbel, an app that I have been using in the last couple of weeks because I'm going on holiday this year. I'm going to France and Italy. Doing a little bit of time in each. And I'd like to be able to speak some French and or Italian depending on which of those two countries I'm in so I don't look like a complete bloody English tourist. No! I've got the Babbel app, and I'm trying to learn a little bit of extra, trying to polish up on my French and my Italian, just so I can walk in and say,

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triforce. Terms and conditions almost certainly apply but hey they got 16 million subscriptions sold worldwide and all 14 award-winning language courses are backed up by a 20-day money back guarantee. Give it a try! Give it a try! Get a huge discount money back guarantee. What have you got to lose? Learn a new language today with back now on with the show hello everybody and welcome to another Triforce mailbag. Yes, it's about time. I've been asking for one of these for weeks. I know.

When's the next mailbag gonna be? How come you don't do more mailbags? When are we gonna do another mailbag? Can we please do another mailbag? I know. I'm sorry. Even I've been asking for it. Even Lewis has been asking for it.

Even Lewis. Last week when we did the podcast. We can't get enough of the mailbag. I said, I Even I've been asking for it. Even Lewis has been asking for it. Even Lewis! Even Lewis! He can't get enough of the mailbag! I said, I've done nothing of interest this week, can we have a little mailbag, please? Aww. That's true, that's how he said it. I was playing some cyberpunk yesterday and I finally summoned up the courage to do a romance option with a Joy Toy.

At first I did a dude, and then I did a woman after. And I can say to you, those sequences are really awkward, especially on stream, when you're not in the privacy of your own home, in the comfort of your own company. What's a Joy Toy? It's a prostitute. Oh. Okay. I forgot, I...

Yeah, right. I don't know, I don't know how far I got through Cyberpunk. I must've done, like, forty hours or something? Maybe? I didn't do much, I wanna restart it. It is fun. Do you know what took me a little while to get into, but I'm really into it now, I'm kinda enjoying the story.

I find some of the dialogue a bit cringe. I think sometimes it tries to be too... JUSTIN. Gritty. ALICE. Gritty, or like, cool sometimes as well, you know, the things that they say. But sometimes it works, and sometimes not so much. But overall, it's good.

The combat's really fun. JUSTIN. You know what I've noticed? If there's a film, or a game, or something where the characters are meant to be cool, the key to it apparently is just to not care about anything. They're just like, I don't care. I don't give a fuck. That's not cool. I think that's just antisocial.

Anyway. I've got a song here. This is a song, it's the Triforce Bitches. It's not that long. Let me just figure out who this is from. These are, just for some context here, Flax is not playing us AI songs anymore. No AI! We've listened to enough of them, they were fun, but now we're listening to real music

by real people. Handcrafted. TM. This is from Dan Palucci, I did a real recording of the AI song I sent previously that used my lyrics. It was fun to make. It's been a weird collaboration with our AI overlords, but I think this one sounds a bit more human. Hope you enjoy it.

I've been a fan for years. Here we go. Three, two, one, play. I got a tiny penis I'm ready to sip So upbeat! Beggars, lewits, pimpin' and sips Oh they make me flick my lips I get my tiny penis I'm ready for the party I jump into the mail bags Swim around in all of the shit

And remember not to mention Australia I jumped into the mail bags Swim around in all of the ships But Elysis isn't the high child of all kinds Wow! That is so funny! Oh that is so good! Oh man, Okay, that is the best one we got. That is hilarious.

No, no, no, hold on. That is fantastic, but there is another real contender. Oh, I don't know if it can make me laugh multiple times the way this is. This is from Chris. Longtime listener, I might be a little late to the jingle train, but as a musician, hearing all these AI tunes gave me a little fright, and I thought I'd have a quick go at a little acoustic mailbag jingle just to balance things out. We only accept the real deal.

Yeah. Okay. Now. This is called an acoustic mailbag and this is from Chris. This is good. All right. We'll play it in three, two, one, play. Oh yeah.

That's some strumming. Oh, we've got some talented folks. It's a little podcast with three little men. They got all sorts of opinions and triangles for heads. You can send in your questions and they'll give you a mention. Send V-flags an email till the mail back gets read. That's nice. Nice and sweet, right? likes and email, till the mailbag gets robbed." Woo!

Nice and sweet, right? Nice and to the point. Yeah. That's good. That's from love, that one. The starting music would work so well in, like, Sid Meier's Colonization V. I would love to hear some beautiful strummed acoustic while I'm setting up my fur trade. While you're sailing across the Atlantic.

Absolutely. Oh my god. Totally. Dude. So how about that, I think that the AI ones, it's sort of like, ah, that's kind of funny, and it's like, I feel like the entertainment for me, listening to AI stuff and looking at AI stuff, is seeing the flaws in it. Not being blown away by how, oh, it's so amazing.

No, yeah. It sounds a bit weird, and it's like, it's funny to me to see whatever model it is come up with something and just kinda whiff it. Like, that's interesting. Yeah, I'm not looking to be blown away by AI stuff, I'm looking for jank. Right, I want it janky. I'm looking for sensational jank. Exactly.

Exactly. I love that one. That was really good. Both of these actually, excellent. Really good. Oh, honestly, P-Flex, the standard is really... It's like home cooking, you know? I know!

It's like home cooking. Yeah. As opposed to just getting a sandwich from Tesco, I'm talking about, this is someone's made you a sandwich. Yeah, especially when the bread goes all soggy, you know? Like some moisture builds up in the packaging. Exactly. Those AI ones are like petrol shop, petrol station sandwiches. They are

rough. You know, the thing is, they look like a sandwich, but you open them and inside it's just empty bread, and they just line the chicken and the sweet curd along the side of that sandwich to make it look like there was filling. But those AI stuff, it's empty. Empty. Soulless. Literally. Make by a robot. Yeah. Terrible. So, yes, what week? Do you wanna- No, we're doing a mailbag, Lulu. We're doing a mailbag. We're not gonna talk about the news. Don't start talking about the news.

We're ignoring all of that. Nothing happened anyway. It was literally the most boring week in history. We're talking about this email from Lawrence, which starts off- Except Trump got shot, but otherwise... Triforce, comma, I'm a farmer! Lawrence, hi. You've mentioned, this is from shot, but otherwise... SEAN Tryforce, comma, I'm a farmer! You mentioned... ALICE Lawrence, hi.

SEAN This is from Lawrence. You've mentioned farming on the podcast numerous times. ALICE I know. SEAN Sips his addiction to farming, Sim. ALICE Yeah. SEAN Most recently Clarkson's Farm. You even named farming best technology. I'm hoping to give something back.

I work on a three thousand acre farm. I don't know how big that is. ALICE Geez, that's huge. SEAN know how big that is. That's huge. That's 1214 hectares. That's three times the size of Clarkson's farm. Well, there you go. Which is massive. Yeah. Unfortunately, near the town of Northampton. And I am from Grimsby originally. Talk about

trading shit for shit. All right, calm down, Lawrence. I'm always curious whilst listening if instead of people filing, are there any other farmers who listen? If you're a farmer, email in, let us know. Some facts about the farm. There are three main employees, my manager, my colleague and myself. We are only arable. We used to rear 800 plus heifers for milk for M&S, but the vegan movement has been quite aggressive. My main tasks are spraying and combining. I'll sign off with hopefully something a little thought provoking. I didn't read this part of the email, so don't make out like I picked it. I just thought, cool, any mail about farming. Due to working on a farm for over ten years now, I always wondered how many people know

that billions of mice and rats are killed for sanitation and contamination reasons in regards to their food. Not alone wild pests like rabbits and deer. I'm not anti-vegan, just to let you know. So this guy works in a farm just doing vegetables, and a shitload of animals are killed every year to make those vegetables. Something to think about. Something to think about.

Yeah, I know, even on my friend's organic farm, where they do it by hand, they still have to deal with a lot of wildlife, and mice eating their stuff, they put out, they spend the whole day sowing out seedlings by hand, they come back the next day and they've always eaten by mice, and it's like, you have to. And as vegan as they are, they still stamp on them. Which is cruel. Really cruel. Yeah, that's how they kill us, the preferred way.

That's a prefer- it's very natural. But not on my mouse-stampin' boots, we got some- get out stamping! Some big concrete blocks on the bottom of your boots. It's stamping time. I love that, that you have like, dedicated mouse- and also the most unwieldy, slow concrete slam. Got the stoppers out plated. They're quite quick, you know, mice.

I think you have to... I think they have like a trap rather than a kill thing, but I don't think it always quite works. Some of them think they still die in the humane trap. If you trap them, you have to release them a long way away, because they will just come back. They'll come back and breed as well, yeah. We had, it looked like a family of mice living in our shed at one point, and we made the mistake of leaving a picnic blanket in the shed over the

winter. We forgot it in there. Well, we didn't really forget it in there, you know. It's something that you would put in a shed, you know. It's like an outdoor picnic blanket. JUSTIN Yeah. Sure. Why not? ALICE Spring rolls around, go in the shed. It's like, pretty much gone. There's like scraps, like, they ate the whole thing. I don't know why they ate, chose to eat a picnic blanket, maybe they just tore it to bits to make nests or something, I have no idea. I have not seen the rest of the picnic blanket, there's just a couple of corners of it left. Maybe they went for a picnic.

There'll be a couple of really colourful mouse nests lined with blue and red... Oh, I thought you were gonna say there'd be some really colourful mouse clothing. Like, they made clothes. Oh, shit. Yeah. They knitted some Cosby sweaters for themselves out of the picnic blanket. They've got Mouse Cosby. Cosby sweaters.

Yeah, stamp on Mouse Cosby. Get those concrete boots out. Yeah. I don't know, if I think he was the voice of Fat Albert, I could be wrong. Yeah, he might have been. I think he did quite a few things before he was found out for being very creepy. Okay, this is about burping. I've been listening since episode one. At the very end of Mailbag 33, amongst the boys scrambling to end the pod, you mentioned an email titled

I can't burp, which lit me up! I couldn't burp either! That is, until March of last year. I was 22, and had never burped in my entire life. I couldn't drink more than one beer, or really anything carbonated, lest my stomach be brought to its knees in a pressurized, bubbled Armageddon. And after another- ALICE Oh, like, your burp valve's not working.

KIDDING DEAR After another grueling evening routine of bloat and agonizing cramps, I yet again found myself googling bloated remedies. I need to stumble across a subreddit titled No Burp. The forum told me of R-CPD, the inability to burp, and that there were even procedures to fix this. Cut to me, a year later, in the middle of a private London medical centre laid down on a doctor's bed with a needle embedded in my throat, injecting botox into my... hmmm... crico-pharyngeal muscle.

This stimulated the muscle to help replicate the movements used in burping so that once the botox were off, my body would hopefully retain the ability to burp. This is in bold. It was a success! ALL Wow. You're a burper. You're a burper. Welcome to the burp crowd.

Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Oh, now a bloat-free lad, sinking beers to make up lost time. If there's any listeners out there struggling with a seemingly trivial issue, yeah. Please go and seek... He's burping wild. He's burping excess. He's burping all the time. Don't overburp yourself, though. He can't stop. That would be really painful not being able to burp. I mean, I burp like a million times

a day. Imagine that. You know when you travel on an airplane and you are unable to fart after a certain amount of time, because of, I dunno, the pressure or whatever? You get a big... I do too, but I still get a massive buildup of farts. That's true. You need to have a BPD in your bum. I find that uncomfortable enough, so not being able to burp, especially after you have something

carbonated, sounds like really painful. I wouldn't say that's trivial. Is a BPD big pink pink dick, dildo. Is that what BPD? BPD, yeah, they're, um, terrible. Well anyway, it cost him 800 quid, but it was worth every penny. Tom is also from Bournemouth, shoutout to Tom. That's pretty good, 800 pounds to get to fix your burping is pretty good, I think.

Well, do you know what, it probably is, like, how many burps have you done? You know, how much do you pay him per burp? Yeah. I'd pay to burp. 100%. I wonder what the lead time is with the NHS to get your burping fixed. Probably a couple of years. Maybe they don't even offer it, maybe that's why you had to go private.

Or maybe he just went private because he could. You know? They say that, if you can, you should. Right? They say that, if you can, you should. Because then you free up the sort of health service for it. You free up the system for the people who really need it, right? So maybe you just did that. Absolutely. This is from Harry.

In a previous episode you talked about Christmas traditions that you thought were commonplace, but actually only limited to where you're from. I think we were discussing the tendency in Germany to watch that old sort of sketch. ALICE Yeah, that show, yeah. ALICE Duck or whatever, yeah. SEAN No, no, no, it's like a guy serving... ALICE The more soup one, or whatever. SEAN Oh yeah, right, sorry.

SEAN I'm an Aussie, and growing up, every kid in school was taught how to do the nutbush, a line dance to Tina Turner's Nutbush City Limits. More or less everyone who grew up in Australia knows the dance and it will even be done at birthdays and weddings. I'd only realized recently that in fact, no one does this dance out of Australia and had a hard time explaining to some American friends. I'm curious on what some things you guys thought were normal in your country but turned out to be weird.

Cheers, Ari. Oh, there's probably tons. Like, I mean, I lived in a country and moved to another country. So I've had the experience of trying to explain to people something that we did in Canada that they'd never heard of, but also got to experience a whole bunch of stuff that I, you know, obviously they would do over here that they'd never done in Canada. And there's so much of it, I can't even pick it apart anymore. Like I've just become like a weird hybrid person, you know? Where my memories, I feel like, of stuff that we used to do, I can't distinguish them from

all the new stuff that I've learned about what we do, and I can't remember who knows what, you know? For me. What are you talking about? Have you just been possessed by... Have you been in too much Cyberpunk? You're not sure whose memories are whose? Yeah.

Too many brain dances. My brain is all corrupted now, I can't remember. Did I do that fun that field, or was that in a video game? I don't remember. One thing I remember having a lot of around Christmas when I was a kid though was eggnog, and I've never had eggnog in the UK. No, it'sog in the UK. I'm sure there's people in the UK who probably have eggnog, but it's not really commonplace. Like, around where I grew up, the grocery store in the dairy section would have tons

of eggnog. Like, it was not uncommon for you to have a couple of cartons of eggnog around Christmas. ALICE It's again, I've got a great... My nan, my god rest her soul, she loved a snowball. Which is a cocktail. With... JUSTIN Oh yeah! That's a granny cocktail right there.

ALICE Or, like, eggnog, you know, alcoholic eggnog. JUSTIN No no! Make granny another snowball! Yeah, she surrounded by empty cartons! ALICE That's like, straight off of Coronation Street, yeah. It was one of these things that... It's just Advocate, Lemonade, and Ice, and it would kind of be like a family thing, we'd have it around Christmas, like, we'd just, you know, we'd turn up at my nan's, and we'd have a snowball, and I would eat, and I even started

doing it on the J jammer. Zylis would bring me bottles of proper Dutch Advocates, and we'd drink it. And obviously since I became vegan I have had less, but I still have one every year in celebration of my Nana. ALICE Right before you stamp on mice. ALICE Before I get my concrete shoes out and do the jig. ALICE It's a Christmas tradition in Lulu's household. You have a load of snowballs and then you go mouse stamping.

It's just what we do. I bred five thousand mice just to stamp on them. Regarding mice stamping! That's the next email. No, I'm gonna get... It's probably a dark area of the incident that you can go to, and I would not advise it. There are those people that get turned on by hot women stamping on kittens with high

heels on and stuff like that. Yeah. That's a... Was it from the... Remember Steve Martin, the jerk with the kitten juggling? Remember they showed him the video and he was like outraged and he donated like most of his fortune to the... The Center for Anti-Kitten Juggling? He got sued for making those glasses with the grabby handle in the middle, didn't he?

Because it made everyone cross-eyed. It's so stupid. What movie is this? The Jerk. The Jerk. 1979. It's so good, dude. It is good.

Such a typical thing to talk about on our podcast. This jerk! He's going after the Cairns! Drip on that bed in a 1979 movie, The Jerk, by Steve Monahan. You gotta get on it. Oh, dude,'s... You guys just have a grabby hand. Oh, dude, it's a classic. You gotta get on it. What the fuck?

Alright, good, now I'll check it out. You guys, so funny. You know, when it comes to traditions, I know that, um, my mum, uh, this is when she was, I don't remember when this was, but she was talking to an American friend of hers, and she was like, what are you guys doing for Thanksgiving? Not understanding that people in the UK don't celebrate Thanksgiving any more than, y'know, people celebrate the Queen's Jubilee outside the UK. I feel like a lot of countries don't understand that their traditions are not universal.

Every country's got its own little traditions and stuff like that. And that's good! That's the variety of life in all these countries. Yeah, it's definitely one of these things that is like the Christmas cracker joke, okay? The Christmas cracker jokes are not supposed to be complicated or actually funny, they're supposed to be universally groaned about, right? But you know, Christmas crackers are not an American thing. Like, they don't have Christmas crackers over there. We only have them. Sorry, in Britain we have this. But I think that's a lot of what these traditions are.

Like that Tina Turner dance thing, or that thing in Germany, right? Like, everyone in the family, even the young kid, can kind of share in this sort of shared confusion of why are we watching this. Well, when did Tina Turner... This is not fun. Tina Turner... Not Bush City, it's like 1978 or something. Not Bush City, no. watching this is not fire. When did Tina Turner... Tina Turner? Tina Turner? Nutbush City is like, 1978?

Nutbush City limits. It's a very country, it's a very Aussie dance. Like, I'm watching a video of a guy doing this Tina Turner dance and it is just like... 1973. 1973. So that's been a tradition since 1970. That's not a very old tradition. Well, that's... 1973. What are you talking about? It's for 50 years!

Yeah, now it is, but like, when they were doing it... Charles Dickens didn't write about it, it's not all. No, okay, but like, say in 1980, when they'd only been doing it for like six years or whatever, it seems a bit like, y'know. So, the Nutbush dance took off in Australia as it spread in schools during the 70s and 80s in the disco era. The dance has continued to be implemented in some Australian state's curricula, and this has been attributed as the reason behind its enduring popularity in the country.

In 2019 and 20 the dance saw widespread international attention when it was subject to various viral TikTok videos. So there you go. Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. Alright, let's move on to the next one. This is from Pierre, and this email is- Hi Pierre. This is a Triforce quiz for you guys, I know Lewis loves these.

I love a quiz. I fucking love them. It's taken over a year and a half to listen to every episode, from the start to the latest. Mostly listen to the podcast as I drive to work. As we're approaching episode 300, he's put together a quiz. There are six questions, okay? And I'm the moderator. Question one.

How many episodes are there of the Triforce podcast, including mailbags, specials, bonuses, etc.? Oh. There's gotta be like 400 or something. Well, no. Do you want the multiple choices? Yes. 341, 315, 288. 341.

It is 341, correct. Well done. How many running hours of Triforce are there? How many mailbags are there? I don't know. Only 30? Something? 30?

35? I don't know. Maybe? 34? 35? I mean, bearing in mind, yeah, I don't know How many mailbags are there? I don't know. Only 30? Something? 30? 35? I don't know. Maybe? 34? 35?

I mean, bearing in mind, yeah, I don't know how many mailbags we've got, either way. So hang on, we aren't at 300, and we've not done 34 mailbags. No, we are over. I mean, bear in mind also, we did, when we count down to 100, we did 99.1, 99.2, so, like, we definitely... Oh, I see, I forgot about that. Yeah. How many running hours?

Of course we do, we don't care. How many running hours? 342 hours and 53 minutes, 321 hours and 19 minutes, 289 hours and 54 minutes. ALICE We're mostly over an hour, I feel like. ALICE I think we're at an hour on average, so, probably whatever's closest to... ALICE Maybe we're under, maybe we're a little under. LIAM What was the first choice? JUSTIN 342.

LIAM I'm gonna say 342. JUSTIN You're correct, it's 342. If you watched the episodes back to back, non-stop, you'd be listening for 14 days, 5 hours, 53 minutes, and 13 seconds. That's a lot of Lewis. It's the note 2-4. LIAM That is a heck of a lot of Lewis, yeah. ALICE It's too long.

JUSTIN When did the first episode come out? March 23rd, 2016? April 6th, 2016? May 4th, come out? March 23rd 2016? April 6th 2016? May 4th 2016? ALICE March 23rd. RILEY It was March 23rd 2016, that's eight years. ALICE How did you know that? I just guessed.

RILEY It was just before my birthday. Yeah, good guess. ALICE So what prompted us to start the podcast? RILEY We stopped doing Double Dragon videos. ALICE We were doing, we, me and you were doing Double Dragon, Lewis, and then we roped Peerion in to do Grand Strategy stuff and thought, we should just do a podcast. JUSTIN Oh, and we were doing Hearts of Iron, were we? ALICE Because the gaming was just like...

JUSTIN Frustrating. ALICE It got frustrating, or it just went on too long, and schedule- I think, I think mostly we were at the point where it was like, we couldn't really record every day, so we were like, if we're just the point where it was like we couldn't really record every day. So we were like, if we're just going to record once a week, we should just do a podcast instead of play a game because we're never going to be able to pick up where we left off. And from that was born... The Triforce. The Triforce. That would be a good time to put the music in, Tom, if you're...

Here's a good one. From the first episode, Tom. If you're... Here's a good one. From the first episode, how long did it take Lewis to make a joke about Perion? Five minutes, one minute and twenty-three seconds, twelve seconds. I'm gonna say one minute and twenty-three seconds. What kind of joke about Perion are we talking about? An insult joke about me. Insult, yeah. You're making fun of how big his wiener is.

What do you think you would have said to Pirian? I don't know. What did you reckon? What was it, a bald joke? The quote was, with me, Lewis, sips, and Pirian Flax, Ted, aka the old man. That was it. That was what you said. That's not a joke.

Yeah, you were twelve seconds in. Twelve seconds in. I was not even forty when we recorded that first episode, but I was the old man. I was thirty. Wait, I was 30. ALICE How old are you now? SEAN 48. ALICE I just turned 44. SEAN There you go, baby.

ALICE Ah man, we're getting old. SEAN When did Bodega Part Uno first air? November 14th, 2016, September 22nd, 2016, or May 18th, 2016? ALICE I'm gonna say May 18th. Right at the start. SEAN It was September 22nd, 2016. So, you know, like, what is that, six months in. Yeah.

I think they should have given me, like, way broader timescales. They should have given me, like, 2016, 2017. Yeah, if somebody would have said 2017, I would have gone with that. I felt like we'd done a bit of PCasting before Bodega came out. Yeah, me too. Well, it was three years before the book came out. Well, even so, how long has it been since the book came out? 2019.

Holy crap. Remember the highlight of the Triforce when we did Triforce Live at YoggCon, on stage? That was amazing. Oh yeah. And you read, and we... I mean, there's that funny video of you guys practically nodding off while I'm reading those. It was so funny.

It was a busy weekend, though. And it was so hot in that venue. It looks like you guys are like, why the fuck do we agree to read this? That's literally the reaction, was like, the worst audience. If you pans over an audience, you guys are like, arms folded, nodding off. It's so bad. Sorry, what are we supposed to be doing? I saw a picture the other day of, somebody posted it on Reddit, saying, oh, I met Sips and Duncan at YoggCon.

I hadn't looked at the pictures. I asked Sips to take a picture of me and Duncan, but he just took a picture of himself. Like I just inverted it, took a picture of myself. But I just, the minute I saw the picture, I was like, oh my God, I remember how incredibly warm it was in that venue. Like, it was just, there was no air. Like, it was so hot. I was just sweating profusely from the moment I stepped in. Like, there was just no breeze, there was nothing to cool you down. It was awful. Oh man.

And it was really hot that weekend too. Yeah, it was. It was fun. It was fun, yeah. I'd love to do another. Questions, there's a final question. How long did it actually take to read the first email in the first mailbag special? You guys can just guess this one.

I think it's like 12 minutes. It's like immediately, I would have thought. Pretty much straight off the bat. It was 21 minutes and 22 seconds. Woah! I stand corrected. Oh my god, 21 minutes. What the heck were we talking about?

Oh, before you do another one, can I just say, I saw the king the other day. The actual king! He came to Jersey with Camilla and on his way from the airport to People's Park, he drove along the avenue, which is like two minutes away from my house. We went there, we stood on the avenue, we were like hanging out in the road and he he drove by and we waved at him, and he looked right at us and waved at us. And my kids were like, going crazy, they were so excited. This is it. This has come full circle.

That's what happened, y'know, that happened to my dad. Prince Charles waved at him twenty years ago, a fellow dad. And then your son, twenty years from now... I'm the new Lich King, yeah. I got waved at by... The next king. King Charles. ...William's gonna waive at your son, and then he'll have his son with him holding his

hand, and the cycle will continue. Do you know what, it was weird, because I didn't really think much of it, I was like, whatever, my kids want to go and see... it's kind of like a, like a historical event. Like no Royals have been here for like 20 years or whatever. So we got a bank holiday for it. Like everything was just like, all the roads were closed. It was a really, really big deal over here. So I was like, fine, you know, take the kids. It's like two minutes up the road. We just get to the avenue and just wait for him to drive by and wave and then, you'know, go home. But I was actually really starstruck, I couldn't believe it.

Because it's crazy to see somebody that you only ever see on TV right there, like, with your own eyes. Like, I've never had that before. It just felt so weird and surreal. But it was cool. It was good. I've had, I've been starstruck a few times when I've met famous people. With Kyle Walker. Not with Kyle Walker, no. Right, okay. I was cool. It was good. I've been starstruck a few times when I've met famous people. With Kyle Walker.

Not with Kyle Walker, no. Right, okay. I was the opposite. I could have done with being a bit starstruck, I think, with Kyle Walker, because, you know, maybe I wouldn't have angered him so much. Maybe he would have appreciated that. Yeah, maybe. But no, definitely with a few people, you know.

But that's... It's weird when it happens, because you don't think it'll happen, and then sometimes someone just turns to you with, like, the most fucking charisma in the world, or something, as well. You meet someone and you're just like, oh my god, this guy's got so much fucking... this guy's so cool. Like Jeff Goldblum, or someone, you know. ALICE I think I've only really ever met other YouTubers and stuff, which is different because you don't, it's not really the same.

Like you do see them a lot, but the context is different, right? So it's like, you don't really feel like superstars starstruck, whereas like somebody that you've seen on the news and in stuff before, I probably feel pretty starstruck if I met Jeff Goldblum and even just waving at the king, I felt like pretty starstruck, but I can't remember ever really feeling like that any other time, y'know? Like it was kind of weird. No, I know. And you don't think it'll happen either.

And it really, like, kind of makes your brain go foggy, right? It does, yeah. It really does, like, knock you out. Yeah, time just, like, dilates, or, it's weird, right? Like, it's hard to explain. But, it was cool. I'm glad I've experienced it a few times, because sometimes, not everyone, I'd say like one in five fans that I meet are a little bit boggled to meet me. You know what I mean? They say, oh, you Lewis. And I'm like, oh yeah, nice to meet you, and I shake their

hand or whatever. And then they're just like, wow. That's all they saw. I guess they realised that they actually didn't have something they wanted to ask me, because they just bumped into me in the road and they wanted to stop me. But I think, like, I think when, if somebody stops us in the road or whatever, I feel like if I saw a YouTuber or whatever, I would probably go up and just say, oh, hi, thanks, like, I watch your videos, I'm like, how are you doing? Sort of thing. There wouldn't be like a big barrier, but like if I saw like, uh, if I saw like Dave Grohl walking down the street, I would never go up to him and say anything.

I'd just be like, Oh, holy shit, that's Dave Grohl. Yeah. I would never, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go out. Like I just wouldn't, I know I would not know what to say and make a total boob of myself. I wouldn't really want to meet people that stand right up at the barriers and shake the king's hand and greet him and stuff. I wouldn't really want to do that either, actually. I think I'd feel really weird.

ALICE You don't want to be a boob. KM I just wouldn't want to feel... ALICE So you'd rather not meet them than acquire the potential to be a boob. KM Yeah, yeah. I'd rather just see them from afar. ALICE A boob! KM We went to Disneyland Paris years and years and years ago, just me and my wife, we were in Paris and we went to Disneyland for the day, because we didn't have kids or anything,

we just thought, whatever, let's go. We went, and we saw Keri Katona and Brian McFadden in one of the gift shops with their kids, and we were just like, oh, hey, look, I think people probably went up to them and maybe not so much in Paris because I don't know if they were known, but this is, this is back when they were really known, you know, like, I don't know if they were actually popular or famous, but they were known like maybe in the media or whatever. Well, we didn't, we didn't feel like we wanted to go up to them or say anything or whatever, we just sort of stood back and glanced at them and said, oh hey look, it's Kerry Katona and Brian McFadden, and then just carried on.

You know? What are you gonna say to them? Well, I don't think I would, I'm not really a fan, though. No, I'm not either, to be fair. And that's different, right? If I saw Nigel Farage in a gift shop, I wouldn't go after him. Oh my god, you'd be like, AHHHH! Hello Nigel!

Nigel! Love what you're doing! Oh my god, congratulations, I watch all of your TikToks, what the fuck. Oh god. But I mean, Keri Katona was like a fucking Page Three model, wasn't she? I mean, what are you gonna say about a Page Three model? I've seen your TikToks, you burbzoo.

Keri Katona was in, uh, was in Atomic Kitten for like two weeks, and then they replaced her. Like, I then they replaced her. Like I think that was it. And then... She was definitely like a glamour model. No, I think... Of course she was dead! No, that's...

Isn't she dead? That's, what's her face, Jade Goody is dead. Oh yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Let's do, this is a mailbag special, let's do a mailbag. Oh, sorry, yeah. Let's do an email. I just thought you guys would want to hear that I met the King.

I worked at him in his car. I loved hearing that. Yeah, I could Let's do it. Let's do it. I just thought you guys would want to hear that I met the king. I could have touched his car. It was going quite fast. I thought you were going to say touched his cock. I'd love to touch his cock. Please don't do that. It's not the form of greeting. It's not the form of greeting. Oh, God. Before we continue, I listened to a podcast called A Better Paradise, volume 1, an aftermath.

It's written by the team behind Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto. Wow. Oh wow. And it's really nice near future sci-fi. I love near future sci-fi. It's 12 episodes long, very very cool, like set in 2041, and it sort of talks about the ill-fated development of an ambitious but addictive digital game world. I won't do any spoilers, but it's really cool and I really, really liked it.

It's got an all-star cast, including Andrew Lincoln from The Walking Dead, Shamir Anderson, Rain Spencer, Patterson Joseph, who you may have heard of. Alright, I'm gonna listen to this for sure. It's called A Better Paradise. A Better Paradise. I'm downloading it on Spotify as we speak. Wow. It hit number one on Apple's Fiction Charts at launch.

So you might have already seen it. Wow. But yeah, check it out. It's, I love the idea of free audiobooks in podcast form. Hell yeah. So yeah, A Better Paradise, it's called. It's out now, it's available everywhere where you get your podcasts.

So go and have a listen today and don't forget to follow A Better Paradise, it's called. It's out now. It's available everywhere where you get your podcasts. So go and have a listen today and don't forget to follow A Better Paradise on your platform of choice to make sure you never miss an episode. Go and check it out. On with the show. On with the show. Before we continue, have you ever browsed in incognito mode? Yes, many times, thanks for asking. It's probably not as incognito as you think. Google recently settled a $5 billion lawsuit after being accused of tracking users in incognito mode.

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Is there some sort of promo code that I could use to maybe get some kind of discount off of this thrilling product? Indeed there is, Sibs. You can protect your online privacy today by visiting expressvpn.com slash triforce. That's the name of our podcast. Oh my god, what a coincidence! vpn.com slash Triforce and you can get an extra three months for free. So thank you very much. On with the show. Protect yourselves out there, lads and ladies. Look out for each other. This is from Wilf. This is interesting.

My name is Wilf. I'll try to keep this as brief as possible, but would love to hear what you guys think about my story and if you would ever consider doing anything like it. I'm 24 from East Sussex. In the last year of COVID, me and my three mates came up with a plan to buy a cheap sailboat, do all the necessary repairs ourselves, and then set sail and see how far we could get before we ran out of money or sank, which is a bold, bold mission.

In July 2022, we bought our boat. It's a 32 foot sailboat called Morning Sky. We spent a year working on it pretty much full time. Then August the 12th, 2023, we set off from Falmouth, England. We had next to no experience about boat maintenance or sailing in general. This is incredibly foolish. We learned as we went by reading books, YouTube and asking people around the boat yard. After leaving, we sailed down the Western European coast until southern Spain, then headed to Madeira, the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, then across the Atlantic to Trinidad and Tobago. Whoa. From there, we headed north doing all the Caribbean islands, leaving the Caribbean and San

Martin, we sailed to Bermuda. Whilst I write this, we're currently sailing back across the Atlantic to the Azores. But the past year has been a crazy adventure. I know you don't want photos in the email, so I won't send any, but if you want to see the boat we have on Instagram and on YouTube. That's at theboatboys.uk. I'm gonna go look at this right now. I love hearing stories, I could never do this myself, but I love hearing stories of other people that have done this stuff. I just think it's such a, the experience that you get from that is just insane.

Right? I feel like it's such a good way to round out your whole life with an experience like that. There's so many people that will live from the day they're born to the day they die and not do much of anything. They'll live a life but they won't really take advantage of everything like the world has to offer. I feel when you do something like that, you're going for it, you know, like you're tuning

yourself to the to the globe. Like it's not something I could ever do, but I love hearing about it. Well, I'm just looking at their Instagram and it's a they've got they've got 800 followers. I'm following them now. These lads is really incredible, the journey that they took. I'm absolutely flabbergasted. I would definitely not have the courage to, without having experienced Sailor, I think it's so dangerous, but fair play.

They learned how to do it and they literally went out and crossed the Atlantic. Something that eluded us the longest time. You're never gonna learn better than actually just doing it, right? Like, the... Well yeah, but you could also die, Sims. I know, but the skills they must have picked up, they haven't died, they've been out at sea for like, you know, a year. They must be like, crazy experienced by now.

Like, knowing what to do when things happen, and keeping a cool head. I would be just crappin' myself all the time. Like, every port I stayed over in, every storm I got stuck in, every time I'd just be like, oh this is it, we're done. Man, that's crazy. Good luck with the rest of it, holy crap. ALICE Wow, that is super interesting. People, our listeners have got flippin' interesting lives.

JUSTIN I know, amazing. This is a moral quandary. So we wanna, this guy is looking for help. So, keep you, I'm gonna keep this line anonymous. So, I'm gonna try and sum this up because it's quite a long email, but I said, I'll sum it up as best I can. There's a, we'll call this guy Bill, alright, they've been friends for a long time. They sort of, they try to keep in contact, meet up a few times a year. Bill is a creative type, studied music, plays a bunch of instruments, does like painting and stuff like that.

He has a little website where he sells some of his art pieces for about £100-£200. Now here's the problem. Our emailer met up with Bill a few months ago, as they hadn't seen each other in a while, and Bill mentioned his painting and how much the materials cost, and he'd love to make money from it, but it's very tough, it doesn't sell many. Basically, this lad texted him and said, oh, I'll buy a painting. And Bill was delighted and he made some new paintings, sent pictures over, but he's now asking for around 800 quid for these pictures. He thought, this lad thought it would be about 100, 300, definitely under 500. Now this lad's asking for 800. Now, our emailer is not strapped for cash, but he's not bawling. All right. So he's like a junior doctor or something like that. So

he's making, no, he's just finished being a junior doctor. So he's a doctor. He's making good money, but he doesn't want to spend 800 quid on a painting that he sort of, you know, kind of doing a favor for someone. He doesn't think this lad Bill is trying to swindle him. No. And he thinks this is a fair price. I'm gonna answer. I'm gonna say, first things first, I don't think money and friends mix at all. Agreed. I don't think that you should have a friend who is going to provide a service for you

and charge you for it, right? Like, I think if you're painting stuff or whatever and you want to give your friend a gift of your painting, that is fine. You just say, here, I made this for you because I appreciate our friendship or whatever. Here you go. Or on the other side, the one who is not strapped for cash says, listen, I know that you really want this to work and I know that we have a good friendship or whatever, here is X amount of money that I'm willing to part with, can you make me something with this? Like, just to throw some... Well, it's past that point. It is past that point now, yeah.

Unfortunately. But... This is a really awkward situation, because you've got two options. One, you could bring it up with him and say, look, dude, when you told me this, you said it was like, a couple hundred now, it's eight hundred, that's not okay. I know it took you a lot of time and it's unexpected, but you can't give me one number and then change it to four times that number, right? So that's your first option, is to confront them about it. Your second option is just to pay, and then resent them for the rest

of your life. ALICE Yeah. It's awkward, but also, for me, I'm not saying do this, but for me I would really question the value of the friendship, because we need some models painted or something like this, and it's hard to find miniature painters. And also, all these miniature painters pretty much work for way, way under the amount of time it takes them to do something. If I wanted an artist in the office to work on something, and they spent a week on it, I'm effectively paying them like, you'know, over a thousand pounds in salary, right, to do that. So, to

get one piece of art, like maybe for like Tiny Teams, a Steam Festival, if Jack's working on something for two weeks, we're spending effectively like, over two grand on that piece of art, right? So actually, when you think about it, someone making something custom for you that's taken a week of their time, getting eight hundred pounds for it, that's actually a really fair rate. But I think we're conditioned because you go to Ikea and buy a painting and it's 30 quid, right? Or, and people always, like with Minichess as well, they sell their stuff on eBay or on Etsy or whatever, some painted thing that's taken them weeks to make sometimes.

Like custom. And they sell it for way undervalued. I get it, but I think the point of this is that I would feel like my friend was trying to take advantage of me, knowing that I have a good job or something like that. JUSTIN I suppose it's always gonna be lurking in the back of your mind. ALICE You would be, yeah. Because they said, I sell these for two hundred, but I'm gonna sell it to you for eight hundred. I would just be like, well, sorry, I'm not buying that for eight hundred. You said two hundred, and now you've created awkwardness here

for no reason. ALICE I think there's a simple way out of this. All you do is you say to your friend, oh, buy me, those are fantastic, but I wasn't looking to spend that much. You just say, I think I was looking to get something for maybe 200 or 300, because this guy painted a batch, and then was like, here's my latest batch, tell me which one you like. And you could just say, oh, no, I not looking for anything like that big or that costs that much.

If you could just, next time you do a batch, just do a little one that's like 200 quid, I'll happily buy that. Rather than be offered this brochure and expect it to pick one, it's an easy out, you just say, oh no, I can't afford to spend that much on it. If you could convince yourself around to not being resentful of paying it, then that's what I would advise you to do. But I think that it might be difficult. Like, for example, I did commission some miniatures to be painted by this guy, who I really like and I'd used before, but I didn't ask him

how much it was gonna cost, and when it came back it was like over a grand or something, and I was like, holy crap. And I was kinda like, it was almost like three times what I was expecting. And I just was like, it was almost like three times what I was expecting. And I just was like, well I'm just gonna pay this, because there's no way I can quit or haggle at this point. You could argue that that's your fault for not agreeing a price. Yeah, exactly. That's me just making... And then somebody just having to spend their time under the assumption that you are willing

to pay whatever that rate was, but you didn't agree it. And it's great, d'ya know what I mean, I'm happy with it, I've squared it, but it definitely left like a sour taste in my mouth for a while, because I was like, ugh, I don't know if I wanna use this guy again, or if I wanna like him. You know, because it felt like it was kind of a bit of a mistake. But so I think, yeah, like... You gotta agree some prices. It's so important. In love and relationships and friendships, you just... We are never, as Brits as well, we are never upfront.

Like, one piece of advice I was given with running a business early on was like, be super upfront about how much money everyone's making at any point, d'ya know what I mean? Just get it done. I know we're all polite and we all trust each other and we're all friends, but like, you know, you gotta say how much everyone's getting, of what, and think up what would happen in the future. You know, you've gotta say how much everyone's getting, of what, and think up what would happen in the future. You know, we split this podcast three ways. We agreed that at the start.

You know, it's not like I'm getting extra, or anything. Do you want to revisit that? Is that what you're getting at? You just bring it out, you want to revisit it? Well, you know, I think... Well, actually, I think if anyone's doing extra effort, P-Flex, it's you with the mailbag sifting through all this garbage. You're wading knee deep for crap every week.

Alright, I demand 80% go into it. I always imagine, Flac, you know that scene in American Beauty where the girl is laying in the bed of roses and she's all covered with the rose petals? I imagine Flac's laying in a mailbag with just, with envelopes covering all of his privates and stuff. Like sticky envelopes. Oh, god. All stuck. I'm crying.

I'm crying. Some of them are like leaking, like... Oh, god. Well, alright, this is from Rob. This is about pub tipping. We spoke about this in a previous episode. Pub tipping. Yeah.

Tipping in pubs. This guy's a bartender in a pub. And this is why I said that I bought some drinks and on the cash point thing that they give you, the paying thing, it offered up a selection of tips that you could give. And I was like, what the fuck, why am I tipping you for pulling a pint? This wasn't table service or anything, this is a pub. This is frustrating from the barman's point of view, this is the bartender's point of

view. I believe that if you go and order anything yourself, you should never have to pay service. If you're sitting down and getting seven rounds of drinks brought to you and you never have to move your ass, as well as being properly advised on how something tastes, et cetera, there's an argument to be had about tipping, but I can still understand not doing so. The annoying thing about the tipping feature on card machines is that quite often you get no choice. It slows down the process when it's busy, and I'd much rather be moving on to serve the next customer than faffing around

trying to skip any tipping features. I like to think and would hope that any bartender who knows this is coming up will just automatically press the red button to skip it for you, but obviously that isn't the case. The option of cash back on card readers is perhaps even worse, as elderly people with poorer eyesight think it's time to put their pin in and get very confused. I feel like the issue has gotten worse since the massive spread of Ingenico card readers a few years ago. These things are utterly shit. On a separate note, surely with where you live in London, £6 is almost less than the average price for a pint. And I also agree with most of what you say about Pepsi, but would argue that there is quite a large market for Pepsi Max. Interestingly, I had another

email too long to read out. Pepsi Max, very popular in Norway, just putting that out there. But six pound a pint in London, it depends where you go. A lot of those locals and stuff like that, six pounds for a pint is pretty much normal. But you can get cheaper pints, you gotta go to a Sam Smiths for really cheap pints, but the guy who owns Sam Smiths is a cunt, apparently. Oh right. Whatever. There you go, thank you. God, I can't remember the last time I went to a pub can't, apparently. So, whatever. Yeah. ALICE There you go.

Thank you. ALICE God, I can't remember the last time I went to a pub, it's been such a long time. JUSTIN What the fuck? ALICE Yeah. It's not something that I do very often. Well, I mean, I used to go when I would go to Bristol, but I haven't been to Bristol in like, five years, so...

JUSTIN We need to get you over here. ALICE Yeah. JUSTIN Shit, we still need to plan this blip it 300 episode. ALICE Are we taking the train to Paris? No? I thought we were gonna be on a boat in Jersey! We were trying to go to Jersey and go on a boat, weren't we?

Well, I mean, the King's been here now, so... I think he's opened the door for you guys to come over. Jersey, as used by the King. He checked it out. The one. Right, this is someone looking for some advice from Lewis, and possibly Sips. I've got a guest coming to stay with me for a couple of weeks and I need help with what to put in my fridge.

Feeding her has never been an issue before, because when we've eaten together in the past it's been at a restaurant or an infamous sort of picky bits meal after a night out. The issue is, she's a vegan and I, like Pyrrhon, am basically a carnivore. I'm not basically a carnivore, but I'll take that. She has no issues with me eating meat around her, but I have no idea what to stock my home with for when she comes to stay. I simply cannot think of a single vegan food other than a potato, some plain pasta, and bread, but I can't even use butter.

And to be extra difficult, she doesn't like the idea of meat substitute stuff like corn and stuff like that. So he wants to know, what the fuck do I do to help my vegan friend who's coming to stay? ALICE Get a whole bunch of peppers. Get a whole bunch of carrots. Get a whole bunch of cucumber. Get stuff that is nice to just, like, put like a platter and dip it into hummus.

Yeah, stock your fridge with that snacky stuff. RILEY For two weeks? ALICE I mean, this is a great suggestion. So here's my suggestion, when she gets here, drive to a fucking supermarket together, and take half an hour wandering around, because she will know what she wants, and let her fill her fridge and do that. And if she wants to cook for you, and you want to cook for her, just swap out meat for tofu in the curry, right?

Just swap out fucking, y'know, the meat bit, and you'll have no problems. So most foods you can just swap out the meat for tofu. You can get those big blocks of tofu... Wait to eat meat when you go to a restaurant or something. If you guys go to a restaurant together and have a meal, then get something with meat or whatever, but don't store a bunch of meat in your fridge, because it's kind of gross anyway. Yeah, don't have like a fucking whole naked chicken like sack there. Don't have like ten rotisserie chickens in your fridge, and there's no space to put anything

else. Or like loads of open bacon and stuff. Like, I think just, you know, if you're good, you can have it, but like, maybe just have it on a different shelf, or something. Maybe like clear a shelf. That's very generous, if you clear a shelf for her. That's a very gentlemanly thing to do these days. You know, this is your fridge shelf, and you can put your crisps in here, your snacks in here.

Stacks! Who's putting crisps in the fridge? Well, in the fridge. Like a shelf in the cupboard as well, you know? I get lots of breadsticks and get lots of like, you know, like tortilla wraps are pretty good, but also you can get, um... Man, what is the word I'm looking for right now? I cannot even think. You'd be surprised by the stuff that you... I'm sure there's some stuff that you like that is already... Like flatbreads and stuff?

Like crisp and stuff, yeah. Get some naan breads. Just get that for you, and then she can just eat it or get whatever she wants. Take this opportunity to cut meat out of your diet entirely. I've got a tiny bit of experience with this. We had my sister's ex-boyfriend, but they came up here, both of them, when they were job hunting in London. They stayed with us for a month.

Oh my god. And he's a vegetarian, so we had to cook vegetarian for a month. And Yotam Otelengi is a chef and he does a lot of vegetarian recipes, combining a lot of cuisines from all over the world, a lot of Middle Eastern and sort of, you know, North African foods, but a lot of just general vegetarian cooking. Let me tell you something, this was some of the best food I've ever cooked, because these recipes are excellent. I would just say, read that, a lot of them are probably not vegan, but you could leave out the non-vegan portion, because a lot of it is just vegetables and Middle Eastern spices

and seasoning. Believe me, you won't regret it. It's really good food. It sounds like your mouth is watering already. Yeah, it is. I'm just remembering some of it. You're gonna need some lunch now. It's so, so, so good.

So yeah, Yotam Otolengi was our best friend while we had a vegetarian stay with us for a month. Vegan will be slightly harder, but just look at the recipes and leave out, you know, if there's yoghurt or whatever. Obviously you can't eat stuff. And don't be scared, because she could probably look after herself, cook on her own, like, just... Yeah, but you want to be a good host, and I understand that.

But I think going to a supermarket with her would be a great idea. But also, if you want to cook together those recipes, I'm just saying, as a jumping off point, give it a go. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's a piece of piss. Just have fun. Have fun with it.

Good luck. Just do what you're gonna do, you know. Just have fun. Alright. This is, I like this one. This is, I found a unicorn office job, okay? This is like a unicorn, one of a kind office job. Alright, this is from The Unicorn Rider. Right. After mismanagement, and many personnel getting sick or leaving due to stress, I came in during their hiring frenzy, and got accepted for my skills to troubleshoot,

fix, and get things to work. Well, arriving- What kind of things are we talking about here? Computers? You'll find out. You'll find out. When arriving, the guy from the other location that should do my orientation never showed up, not even on the planned video calls. The manager whose department I'm placed at assumes I report to upper management. The upper manager seems to assume the local manager assigns me work. When people ask me what I do, I say I'm doing a systems analysis to

see what needs fixing. I eventually did check what systems and apps they use. I also started strategically listening in on water cooler talks. When people complained about their work, I made a list of who works on what. If anyone ever asks something specific, I suggest talking to so-and-so, the person I heard complaining. So, they're basically existing, nobody gives them work, because they're not sure who's assigning them work. ALICE They're like a stealth employee.

RILEY Yeah. I fucking love that. ALICE You just go between the cracks somehow. RILEY Yeah. No one knows who they report to, or what they do, and if they're ever asked, they know enough about the other employees to say, I think you should talk to Steve down in accounting about that. Off they go to Steve, you never hear from them again.

Oh yeah, no, he works for upper management. Upper management's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, regular management's got that guy under control. Brilliant. I love the degree at which this guy doesn't give a shit, and honestly, I think that's what most companies deserve to have as an employee. What I really want to know is will there ever be a day of reckoning where somebody's like who's this Paul guy? Why do we employ Paul Stevenson? Do you know what? There's gonna be so much red tape involved in even questioning it,

it's just not gonna happen. Like I think that is a job that you could probably hang on to till the day you retire. And... Can you imagine if there's the... You will not have to do any work. The cake and the clock, when he's finally retiring after 30 years, and like, we'd love to thank you so much for everything you did here, you just smiled and... Yeah, it'll be one of those. The person with the cake will be like, does anybody... Do you know what his job is? No, I don't know either. Oh well, okay, let's light the candle.

You know what I mean? Like they'll just... Something with computers. Way over my head. They will just go along with it. Because for them it's like, oh well, we don't have to do work now because we're gonna be singing and eating cake, so... Who cares?

Who cares that this guy has worked here for 40 years and probably hasn't done an ounce of work the whole time he's been here? I just think it's so funny. It is so funny. ALICE That is mad. ALICE Alright, this next email, you guys, I don't know how you feel about this, alright? Once I've read it, you can decide whether you want this in the podcast or not, and we'll

cut this whole section, I'll do another one. ALICE Right. ALICE Alright, this is so bizarre, I've been thinking about it for several days. ALICE Okay. Is it a murder mystery? ALICE No, are you ready for this it for several days. Okay. Is it a murder mystery? No. Are you ready, Fizz?

Yes. The title is, and I think you guys can make the decision based on the title alone, whether you wanna hear more or whether you wanna stop. I am my grandfather's romantic rival. Oh god. That is the email. Now, do you wanna hear the rest of it or not? Alright, listeners, if you don't wanna hear this, this is not as weird as you think it

is. Okay, this does sound like... But it's pretty weird. It sounds like something has been written for... like an AI, or fake. No, no, no, no. I see a lot of this shit on Reddit. No, no, no. As per the subject line, I am my grandfather's romantic rival, or at the very least he believes

me to be. Right. Oh! This all began a few months back, where he visited me at my business and told me he had something important that he wanted to talk with me about. A lot of things were racing through my mind regarding what could be important enough for him to come visit me during the day, but this was the last thing I could have possibly thought of.

He begins a conversation by telling me that he is a jealous husband and he doesn't like seeing other men hug his wife. That is, this person's grandmother. Immediately confused by this statement, I ask what he means. He then tells me that he's seen his grandchildren grow up from boys to men, he doesn't like seeing us hug his wife. Now, by this point, I'm already stunned by having my grandfather, who I've always had a decent relationship with, essentially accuse me of having romantic feelings towards my own grandmother and intentions to steal her from him.

Yeah, that's weird. He goes on to say that he sees her wilt in my arms as we hug. And then sometimes when I'm saying goodbye to them, I hug her up to three times. Scandalous I know. He continues the conversation by saying he wants me to avoid seeing her whenever I'm able and to no longer hug her. Now in the months following this conversation, I remain the only grandchild who's had this restriction placed upon them.

And my grandfather is still taking steps to make sure my grandmother has as little contact with me as possible. Now my grandmother is fully aware of the situation and agrees it's insane, but is willing to abide by her husband's wishes to maintain peace. Of course, yes. And as a result, whenever we see each other we have resorted to fist bumping in place of hugs, which feels as weird as it sounds. As far as I'm concerned, there are several insurmountable barriers that keep me and every other dec human being, from entering a romantic relationship with their grandmother. Age, genetics, legality, and social norms, to name a few.

What would you guys do in my place?" Fuck! Well, you can't. You can't. There's old people like this. You can't change it. Like, he is old, mad, and jealous, and his brain's gone. Like, you can't change it, genuinely. Like,

unless you... There's no way out. You know? It's like trying to... If he's a Christian, how do you convince him not to be? You know, it's too late. You know, he's made up his mind on this. There's nothing in the Bible about hugging your grandmother. I don't think that has anything to do with religion. This guy's just a cranky old fart who's decided that he doesn't like seeing his wife hug one of his own family members. It is, there is no definition of this situation where your grandfather is on the road. He is insane.

But equally, don't mess with this person, just do what they want, no offence to your grandfather, but he's not gonna be around for that much longer, and if you do what he asks, maybe you get a little bit more in the inheritance. I say, fuck this old bastard, and I don't like him. Just hearing about him. I don't like him. In fact, I hate him. ALICE There's people in life who-

RILEY I hate your grandfather! ALICE It's difficult to deal with somebody who is so difficult to deal with. You can't, like,'t, so unreasonable, right? You can't reason with them. But when that happens, I think you have to ignore the person who's being unreasonable and follow the wishes of the other person who is involved and is reasonable. So, whatever... At 100%! You have to take the lead from your grandma, unfortunately. I think to me... He's not gonna live forever, and then, you know, you can get back to hugging your grandma, I'm sure, at some point, but...

If you... yeah. Like, exactly. We're not psychologists, I'm not... this isn't Dr Phil. He obviously, he loves her, and he's protective of her, doesn't want to lose her to a younger man. No, that's insane. But as a result, that's kind of become what it sounds like it's become, like, something a bit too excessive if he's actually scared of, y'know, family members, like, actual relations, that he actually genuinely thinks she's gonna run off with you. Like, what does he genuinely think's... y'know, does he think your intentions are some sort of incestual?

Like, where is this coming from? So like, yeah, it kinda doesn't sound good, right? And, obviously... Next time you have a family gathering, turn up in bondage gear. Maybe, yeah, maybe it's coming from a place of something that he thinks this is... y'know, he's trying to keep himself, or his wife safe in some way from the corruption of young, different people. I think it's very simple. This guy sees his wife as a possession, and seeing her happy in the, quote, the arms of another man... This is not the arms of another man, this

is the fucking grandson. This guy's a cranky old fucker, and you should just basically ignore him, do what he wants, because it's gonna make your grandmother's life easier, but I would have zero contact with this person going forward if I could help it, in all honesty. Because I'm sick to fucking death, of us having to put up with the shitty behaviours of old people, and just be like, oh well, they're all fucking fuck off! The way you're acting is cunt behaviour, fuck off! No, I agree. I completely agree. My, my, don't, wow, this has really touched a nerve with you. My final bit of advice is,

don't like go on a secret date to like, hug her in a t-shirt or whatever, right? No, I'm not suggesting any of that! No, because he's gonna then set like a private eye to like, follow her, then get pictures together, and then you know, you're gonna end up in trouble, so be careful. Just have nothing to do with it. Why should we put up with this shit? If anybody else in your life behaved like this, you would drop them like a stone. Just because they're a fucking relative and they're old, and suddenly we got to tip to around and do it. Fuck off. Yeah, I don't know where-

Fuck off. You're still a human being. Have some answer for your actions. Don't be a prick. I don't know where they get off having all of these fucking rules that nobody else seems to have, and that everybody must follow. Like, you're not the chosen one, you're not a special snowflake, you don't get to just invent rules that everybody has to... that's just being a bully.

It's just being an arsehole for the sake of being an arsehole. In my experience, interacting with old folks, there are certain things you just have to dodge. There's certain conversation topics, there's certain... You learn, even the loveliest old person, they will have some weird fucking opinion, or some weird take, or some... that makes you be like, ugh. And then you just... But as long as you just slalom around those things, it's quite pleasant.

So maybe just slalom around this one, and hope for the best. So my only problem with that is, we're the ones doing the slaloming. Oh, of course. It's all on us. To tiptoe around these old fucking boomers. Reasonable people walking around on eggshells. Don't upset the boomers! Fuck them.

The worst generation of all time. I fucking hate them all. Anyway. Talking of boomers. This is an email. This is the last email. We'll finish on a high note, because I get so angry. They're like, they are, it's like a generation

of fucking toddlers that have not progressed past being a toddler. They're in their 70s, 60s, late 60s, 70s now, and they're still fucking children, it's insane. RILEY They're just such big babies. ALICE I just am fascinated where it comes from, that weirdness. RILEY Because they had it all. ALICE Yeah, they literally had it all. Yeah, they literally had it all. They could work, they could dig a ditch all day and still afford to buy a five bedroom family house with only one person working.

They had the best of everything. They literally had the moon on a stick, and now they're fucking jealously guarding it. I hate that entire generation. I think they were the worst generation this planet ever saw. Possibly worse even than the Nazis. ALICE AND LIAM LAUGH ALICE Well, they were technically the greatest generation, P-Flax.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's not the greatest generation. The greatest generation was the ones that fought the Nazis. ALICE Yes. Yeah. Yeah, but they were the same generation. No, but they sacrificed a heck of a lot. It was a different group. That was a great generation. Look at their fucking state of their kids.

Their kids are boomers. The worst of the fucking worst. Alright, anyway, before I get any angrier, here we go. My dad used to play RuneScape at work. Later he really got into World of Tanks. Now he listens to podcasts while playing that bubble popping browser game. We have to shoot the ball into a cluster of its color to clear it. I think that's like puzzle bubble.

So these are the games that his parents that are like about 60. This is the games they watch and they play. This is this. This is interesting. They both enjoyed mini motorways. Yeah, that's a good one. There you go. And they got competitive with each other. My dad tried Hades and Hollow Knight, and didn't get into either of them. Okay, I can understand why.

They're hard. He likes Pegling and Loop Hero. Big fan of those. Loop Hero's great, yeah. The only 3D game that we can play is Mario Kart 8, because it has baby mode and a fully automatic camera, so they can play that. Their mum got dizzy after 30 minutes of Minecraft, and almost fell over after standing up.

She can't play first person games. I can relate to that. Oh my god. I get that shit so bad from some, it depends on the engine. I know you do. This happened to my friend as well, so I've got this friend who, um, I've got these weird friend groups now, but I've got this friend who works on the farm and has never played a video game before.

Right. And we were showing them a first person video game and they didn't really even understand like WASD, I think they've played games with a controller before but never on a keyboard, right? And so they didn't really understand the way to move around, and we were just showing them around and within like a minute they were like, I feel so queasy. Just playing a game where you're like, mouse and keyboard, they could not do it at all, and you're the same, right? You get super queasy and insane engines.

Specifically, the Half-Life 2 engine gives me emotional signals. Really? What about Minecraft? Minecraft doesn't. Minecraft never has. There are a bunch of games that don't. Tarkov didn't, CS2 doesn't, the Doom, the new Doom game didn't, but for some reason Half Life 2 does. But CSGO didn't as well. CSGO did not. Weird.

Remember that's the Half Life 2 engine thing. I know, really really weird. But yeah, it's that, the Garry's mod and all that kinda TTT stuff, I feel sick after half an hour. Well maybe they changed, well maybe CS Source I guess was the original Half Life engine. One did not make me feel ill, Subnautica 2, motion sickness within twenty minutes. I couldn't, I got twenty minutes in, I had to stop playing it. Anyway.

Dad can't operate the Stanley Parable. He's an IT administrator, but he literally cannot get the Stanley Parable. Really? They didn't get Breath of the Wild, and they either move, fight, or control the camera. They can't do anything at the same time. Right. My mum played Zelda, she really enjoyed it. She really enjoyed the Breath of the Wild.

She actually said, like, y'know, she found it was too addictive. She found she was playing it instead of not doing other things. She's quite aware of that. Yeah. They see a really good game as, oh no, I'm too addicted to this. I hear that quite a lot. My dad only plays Civ. And only Civ 2 at that. He doesn't play any other games.

Oh my fucking- so me and Duncan just finished a recording of Civ 2 Test of Time. Yeah. That's all he plays. Which honestly, it's like Abandonware. It's from 1999. And we don't fucking understand it at all. He's a monster. He's an absolute monster in it. Crazy. He's so good. I'd love some tips. You know what, I will try to get him to send me a save file, and you can see how he's done

I guess, but he is nutty good at that game. He sends me screenshots sometimes, of how he's done in Civ 2. He played a lot of Civ 1, and his whole thing was to get catapults and just take all the enemies. There's no peace, never takes up, he just rushes with catapults and crushes the AI. He plays some modded version, there's all these mods he's got and stuff like that. Oh really? Oh my god.

Yeah. So this is interesting, because the parents are motivated by simple goals, like a high score, or the competition with another person, has to be instantly gratifying and have a good game feel. They don't care, at all, about narrative, characters, progression systems, they don't like anything more complex or abstract, goals like the Hades, you know, the get out thing or like save the princess. Anything involving a game pad or a 3D camera that you need to swing around, they're out. The discomfort of the controllers just, they can't get into

it. They don't want to learn it. They're just out. I think that's quite interesting. Little kids, you give them a game, no matter how complicated, they are all over it. They're absolutely all over it, and they will dive into it and learn it, but older people, they're just like, no, I don't get this, I'm out. I find that interesting. ALICE My dad plays only Scrabble. He plays Scrabble against old neighbours, his brothers and sisters, anyone who will play Scrabble with him, and he's like Bobby Fischer, because he plays it across time zones and stuff, so he's got like 20 games on at a time.

Oh yeah, I like that, that's great. He'll be like, he'll make a move, and then sometimes if he doesn't have time he'll make a move the following morning or whatever, and then it's one of those where you just come back to the game when you can, and then you just get a notification to say that somebody else made their move or whatever, but he's got like, tons. Because it was over one time, look at his phone, I'm not even kidding, like 20 active games of Scrabble, it was insane.

ALICE That's funny, I love seeing different people, like, well obviously we all play huge range of games. ALICE He used to play when I was a kid too, though, I remember if he had time off in the summer, my neighbors would come over and they would just have these huge games of Scrabble out on the deck and stuff. Yeah. Just always page Scrabble. My parents used to play Uno for fucking hours.

Uno and Gin were the two that they played with the neighbours, but so much Uno. I was like, jeez, you can't play Uno that much. They fucking loved it. It was kinda new in the 80s, I guess. I guess, yeah. Right, that's an hour and ten of a mailbag for you. Oh, it's so much fun though, I love this. I wish we could do this every day.

Well, if I don't get enough quality emails to do a mailbag every day. Oh, that's tragic. We might have to go back to talking about stuff that's happened in the news for the next one. If you've got some quality stories, why not send them in to... Yeah. PyrionFlaxx at gmail.com. A lot of people not getting the email address, I don't actually give it out as often as I

should. Right. PyrionFlaxx at gmail.com, that's it. Just send them over. It's a real super word, yeah. Thank you so much. I'm still happy to contact you. Yeah, there you go. Thank you so much for the emails today.

Thank you so much, yeah, those are really good ones. I think the big up for today is those lads on the boat. Man, that was awesome. Oh my god. Good job. That's so good. I love that. Was that Boat Boys UK?

Boat Boys. Look at those lads. Yeah. Yeah. Good job the guy thought the mice squashing guy with the concrete or the No, not not so much of a big up for the mice squasher. No, I Don't know. I mean big ups big up to that guy who's hoping to cook for his vegan friend What about the guy who's selling paintings for 800 pounds painting guy? Good luck big up to him No, not a big up to him. Let me know. If you want a painting of me, let me know. I'll get you one.

Much cheaper. 200 quid for charity? Easy, I'll send you one. Job done. He's pissed. Oh my jeez. Alright, thanks everyone. Goodbye! Bye bye bye!