Two In The Think Tank - 397 - "OURDEAS"

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

That Was My Ourdea, Brinestorming, Mental Mining, Roast YourSelf-Help, Train The Thomas Engine, How to Train You Thomas Engine, Hunting Wild Tank Engines, Steel Ball Sport, Throw the Bullet, Whipping a Custard Horse, Big PlatesGustav and Henri Volume 2 is now available to purchase in Australia here!You can support the pod by chipping in to our patreon here (thank you!)Join the other TITTT scholars on the TITTT discord server hereHey, why not listen to Al's meditation/comedy podcast ShusherDon't forget TITTT Merch is now available on Red Bubble. Head over here and grab yourselves some material objectsYou can find us on twitter at @twointankAndy Matthews: @stupidoldandyAlasdair Tremblay-Birchall: @alasdairtb and instaAnd you can find us on the Facebook right hereThe one true thanks to George for prodicing this podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Gold tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those, too.

Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hello and welcome to Two in the Think Tank. And this is the show where we come up with five sketch ideas.

And I am Andy. And I am Alistair Chamblay Birch Sketch. What about this? What about that we change the word ideas? We change it to us-dears. Yes. This is my new concept to improve brainstorming and collective decision making. We deers. Do you think us deers is better than we deers?

I think they're both pretty great. What about Andy, Andy? Our deers. Our Dears. Our Dears. You know what? That's the best one. I don't like this is a great thing for a boss character.

I don't think of them as being our Dears. I think of them as being our Dears. That's right. But then at some point later on he's yelling, that was my idea. You stole my idea. You stole my idea. Maybe somebody's taken the idea of calling ideas our ideas, and he's really upset about it.

Our idea was my our dear. Yeah, like the big boss walks in and then later on somebody says, you know, they mention well, we're calling them our dears and he goes, you know, Michael that was really, that was a really I like that term a lot. That's really good.

Well, I came up with that. That was my our dear. Well, I came up with that. That was my idea. This is the best thing we've ever come up with, and I think we should end the podcast now, not just the episode, the entire thing. And I'm not just saying that to get out of the 400th episode. Okay?

I'm also saying to get out of this episode. And the next three to five episodes before the 400th episode. And then all the other episodes after that. And then all the other ones. Okay? Yes. Brainstorming. Brianstorming.

Brianstorming. That's the people who decide what goes in the cans of tuna. It's time for another brine storm. That's what they have at the John West Corporation. That's what they call it. You know what? It's the ideas that John West rejects because there are bad ideas in brine storming. What about orange juice?

Brainstorming, it's a lot like brainstorming, but there are bad ideas. That's the only difference. Now, remember there are some bad ideas, so be careful what you say. Be very careful what you say. And hold back on speaking up. We only want good ideas that you could be sure will get a good response from the group. Well, I realised that the bad ideas were slowing us down. So I thought, I love brainstorming.

I think it's a great concept. But my one tweak to brainstorming is, what if you took out the bad ideas? Then surely, if you only had good ideas, why wouldn't you only want to have good ideas? You see? It just makes sense. We could get over it a lot faster.

It's going to be basically a brain typhoon. Just the idea that he's just like, he just said, I guess I love already just the idea of saying all the opposite stuff that you would say to like the whole reason brainstorming was invented to make everybody feel great and allow the flow of ideas and not to judge anything before you say it. I completely agree with you, Alistair. And when you were saying that before, I always thought this is self-evidently good. with you, Alistair. And when you were saying that before, I thought, this is self-evidently good. I don't need to reinforce

it or suggest or compliment Alistair on the idea or build on it or even mention it. I thought, I'll just breeze past it. You didn't need to. I mean, I liked your storm idea as well. I mean, the flurry of other cyclone.

Yes. The calm in the eye of the brainstorm. Do you think brainstorms on. Yes. You know? The calm in the eye of the brainstorm. Brainstorms on Yes. Do they rotate clockwise or anticlockwise? Are they different in the northern hemisphere? Are they like toilets? And also, would you have a bigger brainstorm on Jupiter? Wow. A brainstorm that's been going for thousands of years have a red brain storm could you have a red brain storm all right let's think about this using itself

could you have a red brainstorm? What about this? A brainstorm, but only for psychotic people. Everybody's... I'm just picturing a brainstorm scenario where everybody in the room is currently experiencing a complete mental break. A breakstorm. It tried to come up.

Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. That's not important. Yeah. But, I mean, it feels like you could use psychiatric facilities as a way of brainstorming ideas. Yes. And that are truly outside of the box and all you got to i mean a

lot of the people there are inside boxes but they're they're thinking isn't right yes they're all locked up um some of them are there willingly some of their you know are acknowledging um but um and then all you got to do is send one facilitator from your company and i guess you're paying them a little fee you get them yes one you get them all to sign suited up now you say and you have to start the whole thing with now a lot of you are going you may be thinking um these people are recording me and they're taking my thoughts they're trying to steal my thoughts now now i want to say that yes that is what i'm doing so i'm going to be up front just so in case i knew i want to get on top of that before because the last brain

we really got bogged down on that idea and so the people who run the facility here thought it would be best if we were open about that up front. And just a reminder that... I know what it looks like. It looks like what it is. We've all got you to sign things. And the nurses have, you know, have... and the nurses have, you know, have... Now, we didn't have a... Unfortunately, I didn't have a whiteboard,

but as luck would have it, Aaron here has agreed to write the ideas we come up with on the wall with a substance he's produced entirely on his own. Apparently, he's been practicing at his cell. And I'm very excited. Thank you very much, Aaron. He says it comes in four colors. Yellow, red, brown.

And that one's not really coming up on the white wall. So, maybe we'll just use the first. The brown instead. We'll just use the brown or the red i think the yellow it's a bit hard on the eye not enough contrast on the white wall and i notice it's washing off some of the brown we don't want to lose any of the good ideas okay so when you're driving a car what could make you more what do you think a car would have that would make you more comfortable i mean i think it's a i think that was all in very good taste, by the way, Alistair, and I think we're on the right side of history. Well, you know, instead of calling it a mental – you know, it's not – it's like, I mean, I think as long as everybody's there willingly and can make a little bit of money on the side, I imagine that while there's probably meetings and there's already things going on, there's probably also a lot of downtime and an opportunity to help pay for some, if not this treatment, hopefully it's covered by Medicare, but an opportunity to maybe pay for your life that continues on the outside.

Exactly. It's a down payment. Exactly It's a down payment You know, it's almost impossible to be on the wrong side of history On account of how history works Yes But I imagine if you had been a sentient being Present at the exact moment of the Big Bang

A hilarious comment you could have made to anybody else who was there Would have been, geez, I really feel like I'm on the wrong side of history. Let's see. No, I missed. Because time itself had not, or was only just beginning to pass in that instant. And so history had not yet taken place

and therefore you were on the wrong side of it by virtue of being before history occurs. The wrong side. The right side of history being after it has taken place. What do you think? I really like it a lot, Andy. I was writing down the other ideas, so I apologize. But I really liked how long you were taking to elaborate on it.

Well, I was just basically continuing until you said something. And it didn't seem like that was going to happen for a while. So I apologize. It was just the last idea, the good taste one we made. And I don't mean to say that your idea was in bad taste. Although it may have been. I wasn't listening. I was half listening.

But then when I half heard, were you talking about at the Big Bang or were you talking about going to the future? I was going to the Big Bang. I was going to the very moment bang i was going to the the very moment of the creation of time itself now when you pictured that were you picturing that the big bang was the very beginning or that it was part of some cycle um where you know there had already been i suppose i'm glad you i'm glad you're asking me to expound on this because I do have a lot more to say about it. Suggesting that something could be expressing that thought during the instant in which time begins to occur was itself silly. You know, it was, if not humorous, then at least potentially amusing. You know what occurred to me, Andy, just then?

Because you know how we've been talking about trying to make an audio album, a sketch album. Do you think it would be fun to make one and then release it exclusively on vinyl? Yeah, I think that would be really fun.

Do you think it would be a real jerk move? I mean, I don't think it would be a real jerk move? I mean, I don't think it would put anybody out because I don't – It might put us out. Maybe the printing costs will be substantially too high to make this a viable thing to do. Yes. Yes, well, maybe we would be auto-jerks then. Yes. Jerks who only harm themselves.

Yeah. jerks who only um who only harm themselves yeah um the auto jerkography no oh wait what about it's a roast i mean maybe this is just stand-up but it's a roast but it's only you and then you call it the roast of you and then you completely shit on you the whole time is that just stand-up i mean it could be stand-up but i mean but it's a good title for it you know i am here yeah you know you know the thing where they say such and such is here sorry i just got the most blunt and clunky way to introduce the next topic of your joke. Meryl Streep is here. Wow.

What roast? Who do you think? The roast of who Meryl Streep would attend? Lindy Chamberlain. Really? Oh, yeah. Of course. She'd be on stage, I suppose, because she's portrayed.

That would be a great one for for them to do after they did paul hogan and john cleese on those roasts that we were working on they should do lindy chamberlain next so i mean i reckon that would be appointment viewing i mean i don't love where i think the comedians would go with that. I mean, I think if really talented comedians wouldn't have to go there. You know, they'd find other things to joke about. They wouldn't even bring up the dingoes. Oh, I lost it. They would use all those other cultural touchstones that we all know about Lindy.

Exactly. She's no longer in prison. Try not to make it too one-note, guys. I guess she's gone to prison. She's no longer in prison. Try not to make it too one-note, guys. I guess she's gone to prison. She's no longer in prison. She seems like a genuinely quite, like, maybe grateful and kind of accepting, decent person after everything she's been through. Considering. Anyway, the jokes will just flow from there.

She is so considerate. How considerate is she? Do we need to explain what we're talking about for overseas listeners if anyone's ever if anybody's ever seen the episode of seinfeld where uh elaine says a dingo took my baby took your baby maybe a dingo it's a referencing a lady in australia to which she claimed that people didn't believe her she She was then sent to jail. And then later on, somebody found evidence that it actually did happen and she was released.

And, but, um, she was, there was basically a trial by media and she was vilified and, uh, you know, yeah, it was a, it was a horrible situation, but we as a society learned our lesson and we've since then never done that to anybody ever again um it peached them in the media without knowing the fourth story exactly we're not currently doing that right now what are we doing right now oh no we're not doing it right now uh well are we doing right now? Oh, no, we're not doing it right now. I'm thinking about the woman with the mushroom situation. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It also kind of happened with, I guess, the Johnny Depp Amber Heard thing a little bit as well. That was all. It wasn't exactly the same thing, but you know what I mean. Oh, man, we were on such a run of sketch ideas before where everything we said was a sketch idea wait what were we saying about the self jerk off oh yeah i don't know is the is the is the self roast a sketch idea do you think maybe even as a form of therapy, and I know people say stand-up could be therapy,

but I'm not talking about it in that way. I'm talking about it in a way in which it's an official licensed therapeutic approach like electroshock or cognitive behavioral therapy. It's the roast principle. But are you suggesting that there could be a type of therapy like that where you go and it's either you do stand up for your therapist or your therapist does stand-up about you. That's a really good stand-up album, film stand-up album concept, right? Is that you do your set either just for your own therapist or maybe for a room full of therapists well i guess part of it part of it is dr cats was almost that was just i mean it you know the that wasn't the

premise like that they were coming and doing stand-up but but they were just telling their stories and it was kind of like stand up but the format but i still think that just actually doing it as standard it might be a really good way of you know revealing who you are to your to your uh therapist because you're saying these are the things that i think are funny and i think that that is almost deeper of a revelation about who you are or shallower oh yes well i hadn't thought of it like that you know when you think about it i suppose in many ways it could be revealing a lot less because then you don't have to say anything about yourself. You can just say like, you can just, you know, mention international tragedies and then laugh.

You know? That is my favorite form. I saw, because we're on Blue Sky now. We're Blue Sky guys. Blue Skies. And that's very good. That's very good. You should skip that.

I saw Martin Dunlop reposting something that you had originally put on Twitter, which was a screen grab of one of your tweets about trying to enjoy sketches with your offspring. Yeah, yeah. Is this a recent tweet of yours? Yeah, I tweeted this quite recently. Sorry, I'm still on Twitter a little bit. Maybe more than I –

And you're not cross-posting. Oh, I am cross-posting some and then some I'm not cross-posting, yeah. Yeah, right. Well, do you want to repeat it here because I thought it was very funny? Do you want to cross-post it onto the podcast? I could try and cross-post it, but I'll have to get it up because I don't remember lyrics even when we've practiced them a lot. So, who am I again?

I'm Alistair Trombley-Birchall. Yeah, you'll be playing the role of alistair in this thing okay and as i go by i i see that i have just recently appeared on the murph's tavern podcast oh right uh which is a podcast where uh we look at your your favorite simpsons episode and mine was the Radioactive Man movie one. And I get to appear on there with obviously Murphy McLaughlin who is the host, but then Ryan Thomas

who is our wonderful colleague from Mad as Hell and has worked on things with what's the, that bin show that has that guy behind the tv or the year that was or the tv the backside of television he's also been working on that anyway i'll keep going down scrolling scrolling scrolling i have children under eight

years old and i'm now editing it because I forgot to put the old in there. I have children under eight years and I want to show them the best comedy. But in order for them to get it, one moment I'm explaining some of the most devastating things humans have ever done.

And the next moment I'm explaining to them why what we're seeing is a fun twist on that. I mean, I love that. Yeah. I think that's so funny. And it's completely true. to be something like in um in the fifth element you know when uh when she's uh eating the the enormous roast chicken and watching that basically super cut of all of human history including all

the awful things that have occurred and she has a single tear running down her cheek um and then after that she should sit down and watch i don't know but you know what's interesting is that looking back on that adam sandler's 100 fresh and she would really love yeah so i guess i guess he would have mentioned the holocaust at least once in there i suppose surely um surely you know but when you think, though, seeing all of the horrible things that humans have done throughout all of history, a single tear almost doesn't seem like enough. Yeah. How much do you reckon would be the appropriate amount to cry for all tragedy, everything bad that's ever happened you know i was i was crying and just dripping listening to the uh the voice song in that voice ad um and i yeah really really

and so i you know and that's that's not even real. That's like the achievements. But it was just in an ad as well. It wasn't the full performance. It was just a clip. Yeah, have you seen the ad for The Voice that has the You're The Voice song in it? Oh, I thought you were talking about the TV show The Voice. No. Oh, God. Yeah, no, that probably actually would get me i haven't seen the ad no i'd like to though yeah i really um i'll brace myself you go brace you go brace um um as i've established i might have mentioned this on the podcast um the only thing that really makes me cry right now is reading The Man from Snowy River to my children.

Yeah, right. Because I'm just so proud of the little pony. I didn't even know there was a pony in there. Well, the horse, they talk about him being a pony, I think. I think pony is a pretty loose term. Yeah, right. Yeah. They're referring, is it because it's like

it's a racehorse? No, it's just a, it's just a mountain horse. It's just a, don't get me going on it, Alistair. He's just a little horse who just tried his best. Is it,

is it essentially the book I think I can, I think I can? The little, the little train that could. Yeah, but for horses. I mean, in many ways it makes more sense that a horse would have conscious thoughts than a train. Exactly.

Makes a lot more sense. What about this, right? It's Train the thomas engine okay and it's a book it's a children's book entirely about people human beings but have the heads of locomotives or instead of faces they have the front end of a big boiler plate uh that you would have on the front of a big steam engine okay yeah and i guess as a result They can't see or communicate in any way All they can do is blunder around So it's like

It's quite awful It's kind of like a society of mimes That can't A blind mimes Blind mimes I guess they can't hear They can't They don't have any sensory organs

Let's see They have the sense of touch I suppose I guess they can't hear, they don't have any sensory organs. Let's see, they have the sense of touch, I suppose. So, all they know is how to feel each other's bodies. And so, they've built a society based on touch. Well, I don't... I mean... I mean, yeah, maybe. It's a freaking cultural phenomenon of, of,

of great interest to me. Um, I'm, I, I like it cause I think, I think being able to dig into how that they, they, they formed this society and I suppose they're walking around wearing clothes

and the clothes are tailored to, you know, fitting the boiler plate. So they stick out in some way. And, you know, yeah. Can we write it down? Yeah. Yes. The other version of Train the Thomas Engine is it's a kid, i suppose yeah who's been tasked this is kind of more in the

how to train my dragon kind of train right but it's a box and inside the box now the kid doesn't know this but this is the backstory for you and me this doesn't have to go into the thing the box essentially just produces uh babies called thomas right so the box is the thomas engine right yeah it's a it produces thomas's um but now inside are there people and they're making babies. Right? So, it's quite a big box. And does it only produce a Thomas every nine months? Well, no, because there's multiple.

You know, more realistically, every 18 months. There's multiple couples in there. but the interesting thing is that they don't breed until this kid says the right things outside of it to make it it's like a puzzle box you know and so this kid has to figure out how to make it do that and so there's a chance that sure and I think the first one was an accident. So let's say he encounters the box, right? And then he's saying things randomly around it, blah, blah, blah, right? And then he can't get the box to do anything. Then he leaves and he comes back nine months later and a baby comes out.

Or there is a baby already there. And so we're like, how long would it take him to discover the phrase, the key phrase to producing babies? That's right. And, you know, so it's a learning experience. Now, this is a very good sketch. This will go on the – this is vinyl. On the audio album.

This is going on the vinyl album. And look. I think we should start scratching it into – I've got a record here with me. I'll start scratching it into it right now. I don't know. I've got this horrible urge to scratch something out it could be my ears but i could just do this record um what about this alistair it's uh it's the guys who are tasked with going into the wild

probably riding on horses and hunting the wild tank engines, okay, because, you know, the Thomases, they're obviously some kind of beast, right? They couldn't – there's no way that you could make a tank engine like that in a factory. It must be a living thing that arises in nature. Okay? I think it's more plausible to believe that it could arise in nature than it is to believe that it could be made by man. I think that it's a genetic. So I think they exist in enormous herds.

It's through genetic experiments or something like that that the first one was made. Sure. Then there was a – wait, wait, one was made sure then there was a uh wait wait wait wait then there was a wait what okay wait what's oh that what's the name of the place where they all sleep fuck um uh a not a stable uh what is it a A shed. It's just the sheds, isn't it? I don't think so. But anyway. A station?

It's a station. No. All right. You go. Anyway, hang on. Wait. Where does Thomas think sleep? The yard?

Is it a shunting yard? I think. Sleep. Anyway. Because I had an idea and I was going somewhere with it. You're absolutely right. It's Tidmouth Sheds. Anyway.

So then there was a shed leak. Fuck in hell. Wasn't worth it. Was not worth it. You gotta be able to know what words are called before you try to interrupt somebody else's idea. I reckon that was flawless, Alistair. I think that was perfectly delivered. And again, all of this is going straight onto the bottle.

We're just going to copy and paste this on. Out in the sort of midwest of America, I think, instead of Buffalo, there are enormous herds of these, you know, 10-carriage locomotives just charging through the dust, right? And these guys have got to go and they've got to catch them. And then they have to break their spirits in order to make them able to run on the rails and serve the will of man. And it's horrible to watch. Oh, yeah.

This long process of basically destroying the beautiful wild heart of a tank engine to turn it into a docile beast of burden and nothing more. I feel like their version of bucking would be to like… Plunge off a cliff. Well, I think, you know, let's say you're chasing it, right? And you're running around with your lasso or whatever and then you're chasing it and then it would go really hard on its back wheels and then lift up and then toot or whatever and steam would scald you from you know so it would go up on it yeah like you know be so that is basically vertical and then i mean that

would look impressive wouldn't it it'd be really daunting to the inexperienced rider. And there's a chance also it will keep falling backwards and then just you'll be crushed by what seems to be the most amount of tonnage anything could have. Why would you make a vehicle so heavy? But I think it also has to be so heavy to grip onto the road. But maybe if the, onto the rails, but maybe if the rails weren't just like metal on metal. I guess it's because there's no treads, right? Maybe you make it something a bit grippier. Make them like a cog, right? Make the wheels like cogs.

Make the tracks like, you know, like those tracky cog bit things like you have in a in a rack and pinion steering system ever have a race train you know you know like there was there's race cars but i love that like a formula i think they'd have to have the full all the carriages and stuff behind them as well it's like drag like drag racing for steam locomotives that's great you know there are shinkansen but that's you know they're not drag racing they're just they're fast yeah we want them going head to head i think i mean you got the problem of would they have to race in just in a straight? You couldn't really have them on a curved track because then who is on the outside has to go further. Yeah, that's true. Unless you could have some way for them to…

Where they intersect at some points. Well, you know, you can have those, what are they called? Where they switch, right? You could also have one go above and one go below. You could have one go above and one go below. That's true. low you could have one go above and one go below it's going real no but i want that i want them to be um them to have those oh those things now i'm forgetting words but those things where they can switch from one track to another so there there's all these tracks next to each other right in a in

a big basically a racetrack style that big oval with those curves at either end okay but then all the way along it there are heaps of different um track switching things where you can switch from one track to another but in order to do that you've got to be able to get in ahead of the train that's coming along behind to switch onto their track so So it would be really brutal. Someone is going to tell us, racing trains is a very common thing. Don't you know anything about rail? They should invent a ball that you can bounce, right? It's a bouncing ball.

Yes. Not just for throwing up in the air, right, but one where you can throw it down and then it comes back up again. And they should make a cube that you can count, you know, like a cube that's just for counting. You'll have it in schools, things like that. Stick some of the cubes together. Imagine coming up with that idea, the guy who came up with those wooden blocks.

Oh, it's a cube. It's just for counting. It's just for counting. You can't do anything else with it. Couldn't you just use any object at all? Any ten things? No, these ones are better for it. No, these ones will have ten things on each.

Oh, we'll have some that'll have ten things on them. You go, okay. We'll have some that'll have a hundred. That seems like too many. You go, okay. We'll have some that are 100. That seems like too many. I like this guy. And I like that thing. This, cars, but they're just for counting. Educational cars.

Have you ever seen a ball bearing bouncing off a very hard steel surface i'm i'm not sure but i already like it it's very cool to watch like if you watch somebody bouncing a ball bearing off off an anvil or something like that a very flat anvil it has this it's a fantastic um you know it it bounces smaller and smaller and smaller and the the little clicks get closer and closer and closer together. But it bounces quite well. There should be a sport that's played with enormous steel balls that you bounce off and you play it on a steel court. Yes. On an enormous anvil what if it was just with a tiny with a ball bearing style

size ball and you played on a steel wow yeah i really like it i mean i really like it but it's just like as soon as you throw that thing it's just yes it's just skull-crushingly powerful. Well, but no, if it's quite small, you're saying it's a regular ball bearing, so it doesn't have to be huge, right? So it probably couldn't crush somebody's head, but I do love the idea of, like, piffing really hard. See, we'll use swords, you see, because the sword comes to a very thin edge, so it won't hurt anyone because it's only small.

It would only hit such a... How could you be hurt with something so tiny? So small. But you know what I mean, Alistair. You wouldn't be able to throw it, right? It can't... It won't be able to have that much momentum that it can actually do that kind of damage, right?

Of course it could. Like if people were in a… It's a steel ball. We're in a… Okay. All right. Think about bullets, right? People throwing bullets at each other, okay?

That's never going to hurt anybody that much. No, they're made of lead. Yeah. That's never going to hurt anybody that much. No, they're made of lead. Yeah. That's heavier. But they're not filled. They're hollow, right? Bullets aren't hollow. Some are.

Hollow tip bullets are. That's the ones I was thinking of. Most bullets are. Oh, okay. Well, then you're 100% correct for the subset. Okay, but wait. Very specific subset. Let's just say, like, I don't know what size steel ball you were picturing, but I was picturing one at least that you'll be able to see flying through the air. But anyway, what would you try to do?

Because now this is our chance right we've come up with with a new medium but now we got to figure out like where's where's that other skill go go to like where we're trying to get it into a net we're trying to get into like a little mouse hole we're trying to well i think um the maybe you have um sticks everyone has a stick a magnetic stick right which you can use not only to sort of try and grab the ball out of the air but also to deflect the path of the ball right so if somebody throws you won't be able to deflect it much but if one of your teammates throws it really hard right you can sort of deflect it off its course and steer it towards the goal as it shoots past you at top speed. Could you have an electromagnet that also somehow repels it?

Could you do that? I think every 30 seconds. It switches. Everybody's running with a huge battery on their back. There's a huge electromagnetic pulse that shoots through the entire stadium. I mean, like a magnetism-based sport is pretty hot. I think that would be cool. I mean, then it makes you think, well, what if our shoes also had metal on them?

And then they can run up the walls oh my gosh i think this is really good so the first i mean 3d it's played in a sphere i mean if it was slightly oh yeah sphere is very interesting yeah i was gonna say if it kind of had that like a velodrome kind of tilt to it so then you know having that magnetism even if it's just light it means it's more difficult to run but it also means that it's easier to keep hold grip on the on the incline how wonderful is the word velodrome it's a really good one i feel like it's wasted on bicycle racing i don't think there is enough bicycle racing that anyone cares about in the world for them to justify holding onto the rights to the word velodrome. I think you're right.

Yeah. Did I tell you I went to a velodrome? This is… Because there's one nearby. What about this? The Velcro drone. Yes. Right?

And the bicycles have Velcro, have the fluffy side of Velcro on the wheels, right? And the entire structure is a huge sphere, as I earlier suggested, made of the sticky side of Velcro. And you can ride across the roof on the Velcro drone. Somebody should build this. Somebody should build it. Oh, man, imagine holding on to your bike i know how tight you gotta like i guess you'd have your feet strapped in but you know yeah have your feet in those especially when you're not going fast at all because of the velcro

but i mean that's a fun idea like a thing where let's say you had to kind of crawl on all fours with Velcro hands and like, you know, to get to the top because the ball is stuck at the roof. And the only way to get up there is you probably need to be like launched by your friends, by your teammates. That'd be a great tactic. Yeah, because that would be a much more direct and faster way to get thrown up to the roof right then it would be to crawl all the way around the side um yeah velcro ball um i mean i guess if the goals were up near the the roof and you could only access them from the top i don't know how that would work yeah okay um it's really good though like i love the idea of some when people are upside down and they try and throw the ball to each other like they're hanging from

the roof and they're passing to each other but you throw it and it falls away but it's actually falling down with gravity it's really good you could have a roof that's only like a meter off the ground that's covered in velcro okay and then your whole body's covered in velcro and then and in order to score you have to be like you know hanging from the roof right and so then and then you kind of crawl the roof you have to really like have a lot of you still stuck to the roof in order to. That's so horrible. It's hard. It would be really hard.

Really awful bad time. I think they're getting the hit in the head with the steel ball bearing. I would rather that. It's preferable. What about my idea about throwing bullets at people, though, right? Can we have some sort of scene set in a war somewhere where they don't have the guns, they've only got the bullets, and so they run out and they're throwing bullets at each other?

Maybe this has afflicted both sides of the conflict, so it's not totally grim, people running they're stuck in the room and there's just a box of bullets or there's like a bunch of yeah great yeah and like i feel like you would like first you would try throwing it and then you would try throwing it, and then you would really try and sprint and throw. Yeah. Oh, of course. You know? And then when that doesn't work, then you would probably try to throw it at the wall in the hope that it hits the wall hard enough at the back to activate the gunpowder.

Yeah, but that's not as fun to me. You know, then you're actually just shooting people. Well, I mean, you have no control over the direction. Okay, sure. Well, that is a bit fun again, isn't it? Anybody could get shocked. I mean, other than just have a couple of chucks, apart from that, then somebody would crawl up on the top, like going from the third floor and try to drop them

onto somebody down below. What would you try and do? Try and force somebody to eat them? Like hold their nose and try and put them in their mouth? So, get them with the lead poison? Or you just hold them over their heart and start trying to thumb it in. And just for clarity, I want you to know that I'm picturing little rounded off bullets, not some of those like big long pointy ones that probably

would be really unpleasant to see being pushed into someone's chest. Yeah. We're on the same page here. And I think we can trust the listeners to be imagining the same friendly fun bullets. Friendly fun bullets that we are.

Throne. Bullet. I don't know if you know this, but we have listeners. And if those listeners support us on Patreon, then they can elect to send us three words every... Well, could. Whenever. They can send them as many times as they want, I think,

is one of the flaws in the system. And can any listener who donates that money, supports us, do it? Such as like even listeners, say like Jim Little? I'd say Jim Little is the perfect example of the kind of listener who could do this. That is great because Jim Little has sent in three words. Three words from a listener. So the system works. So would you want to try to guess what those words are?

The first word is contretemps. It started so good, Andy. But unfortunately, it's custard. Okay, well, I mean, this is already myhouse house um so is the second word wheelhouse no it's not it's horse which is so close it's the opposite of a wheelhouse it's it's a legged house that you sit on top of like snoopy yeah and horse and house is almost exactly the same word. Leg horse. Wheelhouse.

Wheelhouse is a little bit of RV. I guess so, yeah. Custard horse. Custard horse. Bonanza. Bonanza. You know, the horse definitely makes bonanza. Bonanza. You know, the horse definitely makes you think of bonanza.

And I suppose the custard could make you think that you're at some kind of fair and they could make a really big deal about the custard in some way. It's implying a bonanza. But unfortunately, Andy, the – So is this your way of saying yes? You're correct? No, unfortunately, the... So is this your way of saying yes? You're correct? No, unfortunately, the third word is mistake. Custard horse mistake.

I don't know. The first thought that it makes me think of, and I don't have the exact details on what this is, but let's say it is at a fair or it is at some public event, and either there's a horse standing in a big container of custard. Absolutely, yeah. Or there is a horse made out of custard or... Anyway, something like this.

And there's a guy there who is saying he is really like imploring everyone no he's saying I did this on purpose I promise you I did this on purpose right so if it is a mistake he's not admitting it yeah I mean if you made a horse entirely

out of custard you know what that would be great for you would need to because we're a big fan of non-Newtonian a horse entirely out of custard. You know what that would be great for? You would need to, because we're a big fan of non-Newtonian solids on this. Is it non-Newtonian fluids or non-Newtonian solids? Fluids. Temporarily solids under pressure. We even know what it's called, right? Yeah.

If you made a horse entirely out of custard, you would have to whip the horse, right? The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, they wouldn't have anything on you because you have to continue to hit that horse a lot, all over its body, in order for it to maintain its solidity and its state of hoarseness. What doesn't... If you stop whipping it, it will die. What doesn't kill this horse only makes it harder. Exactly. So, obviously, there's that, right? So, you're saying that this horse wants to fall apart and it needs

to be constantly whipped almost like you've put it into like one of those automatic car washes and turned it on really hard like triple fast so that it's constantly being whipped so it keeps its structure it's almost like You're flogging a living horse. It's kind of like, you know, when they make new atoms, but they can, you know, like heavier and heavier atoms, but they can only stay together for like half a microsecond or something like that. It's trying to figure out... It's theoretical horse assists trying to figure out other types of materials horses could be made

out of and they've well this is why they built that um enormous uh horse track uh car a horse horse wash at cern under switzerland it's because they wanted to answer some of scientists's biggest equestrians um yeah you know of course the questions yeah and so um and so there is the other one is no goes the other one of course is running a horse race on a track made out of custard. But I feel like because the pounding of the hooves might render it temporarily solid so that you could run along the custard, right? But I wonder if the hooves are too narrow,

whether you'd have to put some big flat plates on the bottom of the horse's feet to allow it to take place. I'm not sure. I'm writing and so I'm not getting everything. I heard big plates. Yeah. You've got the main points, I think. So if you just write down the words Big Plates, Alistair,

then I think we're done here. Big Plates, this episode's actually called Big Plates. Oh God, I'm going to write down Big Plates. I have no idea what Big Plates is. Oh man. You don't need to. If the episode's called Big Plates, I think it's fun.

Thank you. This can be a sketch about how this episode got titled. Really good. It's not really good, Andy. How this episode got titled. That's going to be the subtitle. I've never put a subtitle on an episode before, but there is that capacity on

ACAST and I'm going to use it this time. In many ways, each episode of this podcast is a making of this episode. Yeah, that's true. Anyway, here's the sketch ideas for today. We've got,

we've got coming up with our dear, and then, you know, and that's, it's a wave. So there's, you know, and then there's a guy who goes,

Hey, that was my idea. Still, still the best idea I've ever come up with, Alastair. You're right. And then we've got brine storming. This is at a fish canning

headquarters and they have this brine storm every couple of years to figure out other things that you could... Every couple of years. Wow. To figure out other things that you could you could every couple of years wow you know let's figure out the new things that you could you could keep your your sort of canned fish in fishing and so they've you know they've done tomato sauce and they've done oil and they've

done salt water and uh they've done you know oil but with a squeeze of lemon and things like that but this one but the difference is that with brainstorming you can have you can, it's a place where you can have bad ideas so think very carefully before you speak up then we have mining the mentally ill for their out of the box thinking

idea generating at the mental facility I think we're all across that. We're all very comfortable with it and we all stand by it 100%. Look, I yes, I think I would do it in a tasteful way if I was to ever. Yeah, why can't the rest of us have padded walls? Exactly. I'd love that.

I am always bashing into things these days. Why not? Why are not the outside of cars covered in soft blankets? So that when we run into each other, we don't damage the car. That's actually really... I thought you were going to say when you run into pedestrians or something but you know but if you do run into a pedestrian and he and he he gets knocked out well the blankets are perfect for a sleeping person oh it's ideal um then we've got uh a roast of thyself. This is the self roast. Then we've got. Train the Thomas engine.

And these are. Train faced. Men and women. In a society where. They don't have any hearing or smell. Or taste. Or mouths. And they just.

They just somehow survive through the sense of touch and they've created a society. Yeah, I'm going to put this out there. I don't think it works or helps in any way, but just this word, Braille way. Yes. Braille way. That's very good, Andy. They were a Braille, what's that, like a society that would pass down through where they had a Braille what's that like a society that would pass down

through it they had a braille tradition a braille bull braille bull tradition we would just write it down in braille of course they're not saying that.

They've written that down in braille. Of course they're not. I mean, they're going, maybe, but nobody's hearing it. Then we've got the how to train the Thomas engine, which is the box that produces Thomas babies that a child has to figure out

how to train it. Which, of course, you're so happy I wrote that. But you've got to understand, Andy, these are my one contribution. These are my ideas. These are my ideas. Then we've got hunting wild tank engines. You know, and then we we got the steel ball sport i think if it was also in a metal a steel metal sphere i think that that because i think there's nothing more satisfying

than rolling a small ball around the walls of a sphere oh it would be awesome the ways you could in which you could pass the ball to your teammates by throwing it, right, and having it roll all the way around the perimeter of the sphere and then they grab it on the other side. I mean, that's television. I don't know how you get the cameras in there yet. Doing that roll where you just go, that's it, I'm going the full, like, what's the other one? Not the equator, but the other one? What would you call that? The international date uh what would you call that the international date line i'm going the full international date line i'm going the full greenwich meridian and you're

going like that but that was one of those and then we got the uh then we got the throne bullet battle it's a great scene i mean that you know, that's when we do our parody of you know, Saving Private Ryan. And Band of Brothers. Well, we will do it,

but there'll actually be a band. And a brother. And it'll be the Sex is on five guys right kings of leon are they brothers yeah maybe there's a cousin in there or two and then we got

theoretical horse assists whipping a custard horse to keep it together but they try to make horses out of different kinds of things and see how. But have you ever thought about this? A non-Newtonian gas. Let's say you started boiling custard.

I'd love that. Started boiling. I think I've had dreams about that in the past. Instead of having dreams about flying, I used to have dreams where if I just ran really quickly, I could run up into the air. And it would become... I think that's basically a non-Newtonian gas. Oh, yeah, that would be cool. I've definitely had that kind of stuff. But imagine being able to run so fast that the air becomes a soft cushion that slows you down and that you could land in. Like if you run so fast that you go and jump and then it just kind of catches you and then,

and then drops you on the ground real soft. And then we got big plates. And so, and that's the final sketch idea. So here we go. I used, I used to have great dreams like that, right?

About flying and shit. And even the ones about monsters and stuff, I just don't have them anymore. It's just anxiety. It's just I'm unprepared for either this lesson I've been tricked into teaching at a high school or this sketch show that I have failed to prepare for. Let's see how you're doing when you don't have four children under six or whatever. Maybe I'll get it back.

Maybe they'll be just a tiny bit more relaxedness. Zest. Yeah, zest in your dreams. But also just try eating the zest of a lemon and just see. Zest implants. All right, let's go. Just like a little slice of your skin and then just slide like a, just a bit of zest under there and just see what that does.

Yeah. All right. Exactly. All right. Thank you so much for listening to it on Think Tank. It's great that you do it. It's great that you keep doing it. Murph's Tavern, M-U-R-P-H apostrophe S.

And can I plug the show What the FAQ on the ABC on Wednesday nights? I got to write some stuff on it. I had two bits in the first episode. Yeah, I did. Do you want to tell me what one of them is? Hopefully, I had one about mobile phones on aeroplanes. Is it safe to use them? What happens if you don't turn them off?

And I had one other one about tomato sauce. Should you keep it in the fridge? Right. Good stuff. Can I get a little sneak peek? What do you think? Well, the results will surprise you. Tomato sauce, it made absolutely no difference.

In fact, the one that was kept just in the cupboard with no refrigeration had the least bacterial growth of all, the tomato sauces. When it comes to mobile phones, there's absolutely no risk to using them on planes. There's never ever been any incident of any kind anywhere in the world in the billion flights that have

taken place since the invention of commercial air travel. What about MH370? That can be attributed to mobile phones. Well, that we know of. That's good. There have been some where pilots have used –

I'm just giving away all the stuff, but I guess this is in the episode that's already gone out. What a taster. But there have been some very bad incidents where pilots have left their phones on and have been distracted by either receiving text messages or making a phone call. That's very exciting. If you're a pilot, turn your phone off.

Okay, okay. I am and I might. There was a day where they, you know, like, oh, it must have been today or yesterday when Alan Joyce from the head of Qantas quit the job. But then I saw some tweets where somebody said, I was on a plane and the pilot said, Alan Joyce has just quit as CEO. And that's all I'm going to say about that. Like that. And you go, wait, were you on your phone? The plane started falling out of the air.

Wouldn't you hate to think that like, oh, I just saw a tweet. Yeah. What are you doing up there? I just saw a TikTok. Anyway. And we love you. Ta-da. Bye.

Thank you. Love you. Ta-da. Bye. It's winter and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls?

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