Two In The Think Tank - 443 - "DOME NOTEPAD"
Episode Date: September 24, 2024Champagne Cork Hat, The Spartan Shovel Urge, Spartan Scientists, Dawkins Brain Sliver for the Wrong, Foot Fetishist Bible Author, Former Arsonist Baker, Secret FireFighter Arsonist, Not Enough Priest..., Dome Notepad, Friendship Threesome.There's never been a better time to order Gustav & Henri from Andy and Pete's very own online shop.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 here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la Oh no, you go. No, no, no. Yours is something. Mine is nothing. Go. Well, okay, so this is um, you know how Australians, do you know how to tell if an Australian is rich?
How?
The corks on his hat are champagne corks.
Why? This lardy da guy, you know how we all have corks hanging off our hat on bits of string?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well if he's rich, oh those
Champagne corks on his hat. Oh, sorry when you said it. He's a sort of a ladi da. I thought you said how do you know he's
Australian and then I was like
He's rich
Yeah, how do you know if an Australian is rich?
If he's wealthy.
That is really good.
If he can afford to.
Yeah, thanks very much.
I mean, I thought of that earlier.
And then, well, I originally thought of it as about you as a French Australian.
And then I realized, of course, you're not really a French Australian, are you?
You're a French Canadian Australian. Yeah and even like if you were a French Australian you would have champagne corks. Yeah well
how do you know how do you know an Australian is poor? Well the corks are
all sparkling wine corks. Mmm they're those plastic ones with the ribbing. What's that?
They're... have you seen those kind of... it's like a champagne cork but it's
plastic and it's got this kind of weird ribbing. Oh I haven't seen the ribbing but I do remember
some like rubbery ones that I've got occasionally. Yeah, they might not make the ribbed ones anymore, although they were very pleasurable
to withdraw from the bottle.
I'm so sorry everybody.
I guess people say that there isn't really a class system in Australia, but you've proven
us wrong.
I have, yes.
With my knowledge of such things. but you've proven us wrong. Oh, I have, yes.
My knowledge of such things.
Is there anything more that can be done
with the cork on the hat,
the hat with the hanging corks
as a sort of an area of comedy
that I feel like we don't see explored that much anymore.
No, well I mean Andy, the idea that they would start as a hat with about 24 bottles of wine
before you can wear it. Or it was a bit heavier on the neck
when all the wine bottles were on there. But what do you do do they do they fall off in the
summer? Do they what the bottles of wine? Yeah the bottles of wine do you have them
yanked off by blokes in a crowd? You try and run through a group of... I suppose when you've got the strength to
finally get up and run around with the hat on, I suppose you know that you're an adult
and then you're allowed to start drinking them. That's right we put them on our children. We put the cork, the bottle, the full bottle, cork hat. We
encaged them in a little in a little pen of sparkling wine bottles, I mean
champagne bottles. This is like the rich, this is like the
Spartans. The Spartans would leave a child outside and if it had survived
And they'd leave a baby or something like that outside and if it survived on a mountain top
Yeah, if it was able to
Gum a wolf to death
Then it would be allowed to join the men
allowed to join the men. Yes and as it is in Australian culture when the baby is finally able to stand with the weight of all those bottles, those wine bottles
then he can as you say as you so rightly say one by one drink them and by the
time he's finished he's so physically strong and so mentally damaged that he is ready
to enter Australian society. Yeah, let's see. And what's that? That's the
coming of age ritual? Coming of drinking age ritual. Very good. But of
course drinking age is just being able to stand up whilst
wearing the hat. That's right and very very soon you're unable to stand again but for
entirely different reasons. I adore this Alastair. Do you think that the reason, no you go. I
was just gonna say this thing with the Spartans
Do you think that they because like that thing was it a baby that they would leave out on a mountain top?
Yes, like yes, they'd leave it out there overnight
Do you think that they were still alive in the morning? Do you think that they were genuinely stupid enough to believe?
That if a baby survived the night that they were like oh well then he will be a tough man
well I mean they might be right don't you think I I'm not sure there's a certain sort of they
could have had the toughest man there but he did like you know like a wolf did bite his face. Did get him. You're right. Yeah, that's true.
I mean, if there's the wolf...
There's disease. There's cold.
There's a cold. I think the variability in the weather is,
well, a truly strong man wouldn't have let it rain that heavily.
Yeah.
What his infant form.
You know, I think that there's...
I think there's very little that you could do with a baby that is telling of what to...
I mean, I'm sure that they didn't probably really test it very much.
You know, they haven't done any kind of like...
Regress.
Double bond.
I mean, they probably had some very tough scientists.
We've got the strongest scientists, oh the world's strongest scientists.
They had a team of only 13 scientists come up against the peer review group of...
Oh very good, yes. come up against the peer review group of 200,000 scientists.
They were able to disprove the peer reviews.
Well, I mean, I think ultimately they still failed in getting their paper accepted by
the journal, but they really did waste the time of that body of
their peers and that and by wasting the time of all of those other
scientists long enough they were actually able to I don't know what do
significant damage to the environment by continuing to dump toxic chemicals, something noble like that.
What happened to the Spartan people? Did they, after the sort of 300 died, did they, did
the Xerxes or whatever, did he go and just like kill them all?
Kill all the...
I think, yeah, I think they were all killed
So no no no that was the point wasn't it that they they held them off long enough
That the people were able to escape or flee or something like that and they were able to that was what made it meaningful
Okay
If it had been they died and then everybody else also died just a bit later
Yeah, probably wouldn't have been a story passed down.
I suppose, I guess yeah, you needed to leave at least one person.
But did they just kind of go and sort of infiltrate the regular Greek people and then
they were able to hide because of their sort of similarities of appearance?
to hide because of their sort of similarities of appearance.
Very possible. But then you would have been able to notice though
which ones they were because they would have,
you know, like in their houses,
they would have in the back patio,
they would have put those sort of like bottomless wells,
you know, that you can kick people into.
Oh, I'm sure. You know, and then you go, oh no, you know that you can kick people into. Oh sure. You know and then you go
oh no you know your neighbors you're like you're not a Spartan are you? And then
and then you go and tell your your you know you you've got to probably you know
your cousin knows Xerxes. Well they can't resist digging a bottomless pit. That's
the telltale sign of the Spartan.
You leave him alone in a room with a shovel.
Yeah.
And he just can't stop himself.
Your average Spartan.
That's right.
And then you go in there to just see how he's going and he kicks you into the bottomless
pit.
And as you're falling down you yell up I knew it.
He yells the name of the place that he's in of course at this point he would be like this is
where are we? That island where the houses are white and blue. Oh what is that island? Is that Mykonos? No, it's not Mykonos is it?
Could be. Crete? Crete? Oh I'm thinking about Crete. Look I can't find it with my little, wait,
Greek islands cleaning product called Lulaki. Elksis, or the Cycladic Islands.
This is the Cycladic Islands! Well the thing about kicking somebody down a
bottomless pit is they'll be falling for quite a while and you have time to get
out a lengthy place name like that. That's right. It's almost any number of syllables., I mean they'll be able to repeat it many times as they're falling and then as they're
falling down and then falling up and then out of the other bottomless pit on the other end and then the long journey back towards home to say what the fuck was that, mate?
What was that all about? What was that all about, you silly billy?
What was that all about? What was that all about?
You silly billy.
I bring you into my home, I lend you my shovel.
This is how you repay me?
My own shovel! Used against me in this way.
That's the real slap in the face. The fact that it was my own
shovel that was used to dig this bottomless pit. That's what really grates.
That's what I've had time to reflect on as I went to the other side of the earth
and then back again, pulled back by the earth's gravity in an endless oscillation I find. Until eventually I'm
sort of just hovering near the core. Is that what would happen? What would
happen once the oscillations stop? I think you would, your oscillations would
shrink right because there's still the effects of air resistance yeah so
you would slowly yes lose lose your momentum and and your range of your
oscillation would shrink so yeah and I think you would then end up sort of
wobbling about the very core of the earth but then just hanging out there
but that that thing that you mentioned about the air, that's a nice bit.
That's one of the few places you get to hover
with air,
although you probably would really wreck the earth and
all the oxygen that it requires because there would probably
be a lot of space that you would use up. Like that would be a big length of time.
I don't think it would be that much.
I don't think we'd notice it. No. I don't think we'd notice it.
No?
I don't think we'd notice it.
I don't know how to explain it.
It feels less.
I mean, I think, yeah.
No, I mean,
I don't know how wide this tunnel is,
but I think that the, if you,
the thing about volume is that
it's always more than you think.
When you talk about the volume of air that goes around the sphere that is the Earth,
there's so much of it.
There's so much of it.
And I think in a little tunnel through the centre of the Earth,
it'll be a drop in the ocean of air.
It'll be a puff in the sky, which is the drop in the ocean version,
the sky version of a drop in the ocean.
That's right.
A puff of fresh air in the sky.
A puff of fresh air?
Yeah, like a puff, like that.
Yeah, no, okay, great.
Yeah.
No, I thought that's what you said yeah
I I had something that's a part of the posses are supposed to be a puff oh boy
this is um no I think I think you're you're you're valid but nobody talks
about the story of the valiant you know you know when everyone talks about the story of the valiant, you know, you know,
when everyone talks about the 99% of scientific opinion
that believes in climate change and the very small percentage
that say that it's not happening, nobody talks about that as the David and Goliath Sparta
versus the Phoenician army style battle that it is. And I think that
it is a beautiful story of those few scientists who are willing
to delay action. Just as long as they can because because out
allowing the desperate multinational mining companies to to evacuate the
coal from the earth just in time before the hordes of overwhelming scientific
consensus of course and because when when course. Descend. Because when you are...
...and destroy their way of life. When you are the 1% against the 99%, you
actually think that you're even rarer than that because then you think, I am
in the rare company of the situations where people have been the 1%
against the 99% and have been correct. Right? So you know
you're thinking these are things like you know tectonic plate theory kind of people,
you know that tectonic plate theory guy. Evolution. Evolution. Things like that. You're like so
you're really, you're really getting like you're really thinking you're in the 0.01
kind of percent of the times.
That's true.
They did talk about that, that within the 1% there still is like a sort of a 99 to 1 thing going on in there where the 99% of the 1% are wrong as well.
Yeah.
It's only 1% of the 1% that turn out
that are ever vindicated.
That's right.
And so, but these, you know, these Spartan scientists,
as I guess we could call them, they, I mean, I just,
it's just that thing where it's like the injustice
I mean, I just, it's just that thing where it's like the injustice of them dying and thinking that they were right.
Yeah.
Well, it's the second sketch we ever made, Alastair.
Yeah.
The one where there's a guy who set up a little booth after death just to explain to Christians
that they were wrong about
their being an afterlife and yeah.
Oh, my little deal. Yeah, I know. But it's crazy that the world has set up a system of justice, right? And it is there to fix horrible imbalances
in terms of if somebody commits a crime
or whatever like that, so that we don't have to feel
that yuckiness as much, you know, to think that just,
and then, but yet, but yet all these people
who get to be wrong and confident.
Yes, and there's nothing you can do about that right there's no you can't get inside their
brain right and make them feel bad yeah about being wrong you can't force people
to feel to realize they're wrong so how would we do So how would we do that? How would we do that? Would we change
their brain chemistry in some way? Would we perform some kind of surgery? Or would we
have parts of our brains transplanted into their brains so that we can argue with them
inside their own heads? That's a really good idea.
Oh yes, you have them restrained and they have to listen to us.
Yeah, finally we've got them where they want them.
So, you know, who would it be?
Richard Dawkins, right, is having his brain chopped up into little pieces
and ejected into the minds of Christians and
the faithful of other faiths so that he could argue with them inside their own
heads. I think that's a really good idea.
And okay, it's Dawkins.
He's not donating his brain to science. He's donating his brain to religion.
So he had to relate to the religious.
Yes, to the religious brain chopped up.
I mean, I don't know how you get the force, the religious to have the brain.
Well, the justice system system either you have police
come and arrest them open up their skulls take a little chunk of their
brides out and then put a little sliver of Richard Dawkins is in there and oh
gosh and then and then also he's kind of a bit of a jerk in the way that he is as well. Yes. And that's part of the justice.
Needlessly contrarian, weird.
And he has the memory in there of the time that he went into a comedy festival show in
the row behind my friend Spencer and accidentally kneed my friend Spencer right in the back.
And Spencer went, oh!
And he turned around and it was Richard Dawkins.
Turned around and it was Richard Dawkins.
Um, I, Alistair, has anybody ever done a taxonomy of dorks?
I'm not sure.
I think we should do one because I think that we have so many words for dork.
I think we have way more words for dork than we do for like a cool person.
Right. Because you think about it, we've got dweeb, doofus,
poindexter, dork, loser.
Well, but I think it's part of the taxonomy.
I think it's on the, I think when we break this down,
and work out where everybody lies,
because I think, well there's nerd, obviously, right?
But I think I'm a dork.
I don't think I'm a dweeb, and I'm not a nerd, but I'm pretty sure I've come
to realize I reckon I'm a dork. Do you have a thought about where you fall on the spectrum?
I probably fit into dork myself, but let's see. I guess you can't self-identify in this
way. It's really up to somebody else to yell it at you.
It's got to be a jock.
The jocks are the scientists of the nerd taxonomy.
Do I come across as a poindexter?
I'm not sure.
Like am I more of a...
You're a bit poindextrous.
Let's see, poindextrous.
I don't think anyone wants to be a dweeb.
But maybe I am, so maybe that's why I shouldn't be able to say I'm not a dweeb.
Do I have a strong poindexterity? Poindextros is a fibrous...
Bookworms?
Bookworms, sure, sure, sure.
Did I tell you this the other day I was talking to...
Geek is on there as well.
What about a wonk?
Wonk for sure, for sure, part of the spectrum.
Brainiacs?
You don't think Brainiacs are in there?
I don't know if Brainiacs are, because is that an insult?
I guess it is a little bit isn't it?
Yeah I mean what about um, Four Eyes?
Yeah oh yeah for sure.
I mean you'd fit into the Four Eyes.
Yeah, maybe I'm, maybe it's like with Pokemon where you can be a you know a ground type
and an electric type.
Maybe I'm a Four Eyes and a dork.
Yeah, Four Eye dork.
Yeah, Four Eye dork.
It's more like it's like skateboard tricks, you can just combine them.
You know? Yeah. I've been getting a lot of skateboard trick stuff in my algorithm recently.
Right, I've been getting a lot of Pokemon stuff in my, whatever the seven year old boy version of algorithm is.
My son algorithm, my-
Your son-garrhythm.
My son-garrhythm.
My family algorithm.
You know what, so I've been struggling
to get my youngest child into school
because we just moved to this place
and we don't have enough proofs of address. We too, anyway we've we had
I had one and then I had the thing from my parents saying that they had
bought the house and then they'd given us a letter and I managed to use this
and get it and get one kid into school. And the letter basically said that we were living with my parents and that my,
you know, my mom's says,
assigns it and so it can be under the her name go to the other school.
And the, the, the ladies like, well, no, you this, I can't just accept this.
I don't know this. Um, and therefore,
and you need to have it stamped by police, you know,
it needs to be like a justice of the peace
or something like that.
And so then of course, my parents were away at the time.
So then I have to wait.
Meanwhile, I try to send like a printout of like
in my details in the bank website.
Cause it's like bank statements only come out
at a certain time.
Anyway, and so then that doesn't work.
I go to the police when my parents get back. They're like, well, we can't stamp this because
we need proofs of address from you. Right? And so then yesterday I get real frustrated
after it's been like two weeks of this.
And I go out onto the street and I take a video of myself
with the street name.
And then I'm like, I'm just showing you this.
And as I'm walking, because I just would love to get
my kid into school and I'm running out of ways to do it.
And so then I walk to the house and I go,
see there's the house,
and you see there's the address there.
And let's try the door.
Oh my God, it works.
And I go in.
And I go, look, here's a room.
Oh, look, that's a bed.
And I lay down in the bed and I go,
does this feel like this is enough proof that I live here?
I know.
I just love it.
Yeah. You know what I love about this
it's fucking stupid. You're the first person in the history of ever that has done this shit
we're all we're all having to prove our address constantly throughout our lives. You're the only one who's made
a little video of him walking down the street from the street side counting off the numbers
of the houses and then going in and lying down in the bed as a forward proof. But you
know, unfortunately, I'm sorry you could have done all of that with AI.
So nowadays that doesn't, you've missed your window of opportunity.
No one would believe that now.
Yeah.
So when did you say it was?
Sorry, that's just a bit of noise.
I'm just saying that you could not believe that now because anyone could have done that
with AI. Oh of course and so there was just such
a small window between when you know in geological time there's such a small
window in terms of when video was created and when AI was created there
really is though it's like it's such a blip the idea that like we came up with this thing whereas like
it's crazy you can film what is actually happening watch it back later on and be able to prove that
that's what actually happened and then we were like and now we've found a way to make that
meaningless yeah we're the first in the billions of years that this planet has
existed. We're the first people who can actually re-watch events from the past.
And now we can't trust any of them. With the blink of an eye we're like now what
if that meant nothing? How could we destroy this?
It was already getting pretty close I guess with just with just you know the
Just great, you know computer graphics and stuff like that, but we were all still very good at picking them out, you know
Yeah, those of us. I was just gonna say that like what was the
What was the oral tradition version of that? But then I realized I was just reinventing the invention of lying.
But honestly, there is an element of the oral tradition in which it genuinely is like, well,
people pass this down and then therefore it's true.
And that's almost the whole justification for the Bible and why it's true and that's like almost the whole justification for the Bible and
why it's true and things like that. Well people have been talking about this for thousands of years,
why would they pass it down if it wasn't true? Yeah, but it's almost like the opposite is the
case. It's like why would you pass this down if this was true?
You know, like true stuff,
people don't talk about that for ages and ages and ages.
People don't just repeat things that actually happened
because things that actually happened are boring.
What you need is a story.
That's what people would repeat.
You know?
You need something with a bit of pizzazz.
Yeah, some- What are the chances?
Where a guy washes someone's feet.
Do you think that that was like-
Now that's a story.
No.
I mean, I think it must be that in that culture,
feet were just considered really off.
Yeah, or whoever inserted that little bit into the,
into the story of Jesus was a foot fetishist.
Right?
I mean, that's true.
Was the Quentin Tarantino of the oral tradition.
That's right.
And he was like, you know what this Bible needs?
It needs some foot stuff.
It needs a real foot scene.
That's right.
He's like, now, the only thing I can't decide
is whether or not we get to see
Jesus' foot or Jesus gets to see a couple other people's feet.
Ideally Jesus would wash their feet with his feet.
That was the original version.
And then someone was like, no that's overboard. Let's just make it that cleaning people's feet is his thing, is one of his things.
It's like a character trait.
Yeah, and then people will think that's a really normal thing to do.
And then we'll get to see it out in the world.
We'll be able to go out and do it.
And we'll be, I would be like, look, oh, it's in the Bible.
Would it be, could it, would a weird thing be in the Bible?
Um, I'm for some reason I've, I've tried to Google Arabic version of Quentin.
For some reason I've tried to Google Arabic version of Quentin and I found Quodera or Kudra.
It's amazing that you're able to Google that and that there is such a thing.
Look, I don't think that they actually are good versions.
I think that this is not good quality results but you know
you don't think you're getting the yeah the true one-to-one conversion from
Quentin? Kutratula. Kudwa. Yeah I don't know but it's it's QU and then
other letters you know in the same way I think is the Quran Q you yeah yeah
yeah I'd be happy with that I don't know I'm not gonna try Tarantino you know
what you don't dare you don't dare I don't I don't have the I don't think I have the the Guglin chops to find even a something
that would even resemble an answer.
The foot fetishist, fetishist Bible author.
I mean that thing where this it's it is Jesus washing another man's feet with his
feet is really good. Do you think he would start by washing his feet? Imagine that. He
goes, oh, a sick man. Look, this man is poor and he's sick and nobody else will touch him.
And then he grabs a big bucket he shows up with a bucket,
and it's like soapy water in it, like that.
And then he sits down next to him,
and everybody's watching,
and then Jesus starts to wash his own feet,
and everyone's like, what?
What is he doing?
Like, dad, this is so strange.
I thought he was gonna do an act of kindness,
but he's actually washing his own feet.
And then Jesus then grabs the big sponge with his toes.
Dunks it back into the bucket, rings it out with both of his feet.
And then...
This is impressive.
I love his point-deck territory I love his all balancing butt bones
and
And then he
You know reaches for the other man's foot with his toes
Carefully holds it and then brings over the sponge and begins washing
up and down and up and down
begins washing up and down and up and down up around the back and then uses the dexterity of toes to separate the other man's toes and then he goes in with the sponge.
Oh goes in between.
Yes.
Wow.
He's using it like floss and he's holding the two ends of the sponge with his two feet he spins
soaring it backward and forward spins it so taught the sponge so that it becomes
thin like that and then he goes back and forth like that like a saw in between
each toe and and he does it all while staring into the whole time in the man's eyes, lovingly.
God, that's good. Lovingly. Yeah, well, he would, wouldn't he?
Was it a podcast idea about, sorry to bring this up, about Jesus offering to pick up dog poo with his mouth.
Yes.
Podcast idea and then did you try and do that on stage?
I don't think I have.
I have a vague memory that you were gonna try that.
Oh yeah I think I did think that that would be really good to do.
And then did you chicken out did you Alastair?
Or maybe they let Jesus, Jesus lets
himself be used as the doggy poo bag. Yeah, I think that's what happens. Yeah. Yeah, let
me be your doggy poo bag. I don't have any. It's gorgeous. Yeah, that is really good. Because,
I mean, I think it was because of the dying thing.
The dying thing doesn't seem like it's enough of a sacrifice if you're technically immortal.
Ah, yes, that's true.
I don't think being on Earth is that good.
That for an immortal demigod...
Who then gets to go to heaven and be...
Yeah, and still be in charge.
The second in command.
Yes.
You know, is that big of a sacrifice?
Yeah, it's a promotion, isn't it?
It does sound, yeah.
Look, I'm doing what you're doing.
It's like a CEO who's like,
goes and pretends to be homeless for three days.
You know, to be like, yes, we know what it's like.
It's a real undercover
boss yeah situation isn't it yeah except he goes around saying oh I'm actually
the boss a lot. Yeah because I'm the boss's son. He's the boss who goes
undercover as his own son. Yeah.
People don't talk about enough about the fact that Jesus was a nepo baby. He never would have got to that position if he hadn't been the son of God.
That's true.
He never would have got to be Christ if he wasn't the son of God.
I think we can all acknowledge that.
I mean, what about...
And I'd just like him to acknowledge it.
Think about, yeah, think about all the people that have claimed to be Christ throughout
history and none of them have had the opportunity, no one has had the
opportunity other than the Son of God. Yes, exactly. The one true Messiah turns out
to be the Son of God, that seems awfully convenient. It's even more difficult to become the son of God. Who's going to get it, do you think?
I just said the son of God.
I am the son of God.
No, it's even more difficult to become the son of God
than it is to become a firefighter, which
has a lot of competition.
Yeah. firefighter which has a lot of competition. Is there a lot of trouble with nepotism in
the firefighter industry? I don't know, I wouldn't be surprised Andy. I know you're
saying that in a humorous way. Well it wasn't that funny, it wasn't that humorous, not that
many people laughed.
I really think that firefighters should, the job of firefighters should go to
whoever is the least flammable and I think... So you think you should, you
should put maybe a new recruit, a possible new recruit, a new applique
out, maybe out into the forest overnight a burning forest but the forest is on
fire the forest is on fire and whoever comes back you leave them in a fire
overnight and in the morning if they're fine they get to be a firefighter this is
the Spartan version of every job you leave a baby in a bunch of
dough overnight yeah leave him you bake him in an oven overnight it's quite close
to the being in a fire one really and a a lot of, not a ton of bakers
are actually in the oven,
get to actually be in the oven.
That's the one thing they're jealous of.
Jealous of the bread.
How come you get to be in the oven?
That's true.
That is the biggest hazard for bakers.
Over time, they're sort of driven mad
by their jealousy for the bread envy
But what you know like how there's in firefighters these guys who love
They love to starting fires. This is are they're actually
Yeah arsonists. They're actually arsonists. Are there people who join bakers?
Yes. Who become bakers.
Because they just, they love making people hungry for bread.
That was not a legitimate style. You made those people hungry for bread. I mean, this is whatever you're doing here, Alastair, this is so subtle.
Which I am trying to grasp with my mind's fingers and it is slipping away
with every grasp.
But the, okay, the original thought that I had was there, it's somebody who
loves watching bread burn
And so so he's like a more than you thought that's too close to what the yeah
Because I thought you changed it because I thought that won't the reason why I didn't say that one was because I thought well that
that won't
That won't transfer to other jobs.
And so I was already thinking to the third idea.
Wow, yeah, that's how far ahead you're playing.
Yes, I had to.
Game of eight dimensional chess, yes.
It might not be funny now,
but two or three ideas down the line.
This riff is gonna get so good.
And when history tells the story of this,
they're gonna point to this moment.
This is the moment that laid the groundwork
for that riff becoming incredible.
Yeah, well that's right.
You gotta set a good foundation.
And so I'm rewiring the idea in real time.
But like, I guess, okay, a firefighter
is somebody who solves a problem, right? And so, and then, and then an arsonist is somebody
who creates that problem in order to be able to solve it. Right?
I see what you're doing. It's beautiful to watch.
And so it makes more sense when it's like a problem, like, you know, let's say it's
bridge repair. And so this is a guy who loves making bridges collapse
so that then he can repair them.
But what about if the problem that he describes
is they solve the hunger of people who are hungry for bread?
Yes.
I guess, okay, it would work maybe in a sketch
where the guy was a former arsonist who was
a firefighter and then you get to follow him and see the ways in which he can't help but
create business for himself by causing problems out in the world.
Yes, or it's a group of arsonists and it turns out that one of them is secretly a firefighter.
It turns out he gets off on putting out fires.
He's only been rolling with this crew of arsonists so that he can be the first on the scene to
put these fires out when they're lit.
They're all really disappointed in him no no I think wait
wait no he puts out fires so that they have to start new ones he'll see him
he'll go he'll put out fires that don't need I mean this is kind of close to our
vigilante firefighter idea. Okay.
He puts out fires that don't even need putting out.
Yeah.
Puts out the pilot light.
So that people, so that he gets the opportunity to light a new one.
Mmm.
Mmm.
Beautiful.
Wow.
I've really made this idea make even less sense than it did before, haven't I?
Wait, arsonist who's secretly a firefighter.
Yes, turns out that a worryingly high percentage of arsonists.
I mean, it really is just another way to look at the same statistic, isn't it? That, that a high percentage of firefighters are actually arsonists.
Well, what does that tell you? That tells you that a high percentage of arsonists are
actually firefighters. Maybe that's a positive story.
That's right.
You know, you got to just look at it the right way.
Everybody's always looking for the negative.
Yeah, I guess the glass is half full of accelerant used to light a fire in dry bushland.
Like, I guess it's like a priest who makes people sin.
Let's not think of the worst example of that.
Let's just think of something that's like during church or something like that, he gets people up
on stage and he puts them in a situation where they may accidentally do something wrong or
he's talking to them. Or he gets them into confession and then he tells them that's nothing.
That they're wasting his time with his confessions.
That's... that's shit.
Yeah, that's funny.
That's, you know...
Yeah, that is...
Is this a joke to you?
Do something good.
Yeah, that's good.
Mate...
Mate, don't you come to me and confess this kind of crap again.
That was not, that was not worth my time.
Yeah. If you want to come and confess, you better start sinning.
Proper. Yeah.
I want to really, next time you want to, you want to, you want to make this worth my while.
I'm getting nothing out of this. I'm getting nothing.
A confession.
Well, something there I think.
Even though we're not laughing enough at it, but I think that once we find the exact right
line Andy, that's one of those right line ideas.
Some ideas are just funny in themselves. The right line that's gonna be so funny. The right line!
Well wait till you hear it delivered though. Yes. Then it's really gonna come off the
page. Andy do you think it would be okay if I took us to the next part of this podcast? Yes indeed the culmination of everything we're
here for today. Yes well Andy the next part of the podcast. We've not reached some any crazy
peaks today. Andy I was actually thinking this was a very fun episode. Really? Yeah.
Alastair okay well then I'll allow you to think episode. Really? Yeah.
Alastair, okay, well then I'll allow you to think that.
I think that-
And I'm gonna start thinking it too, if you don't mind.
I just thought that there was a lot of,
we went to a, we've been to a lot of places, I think.
That's true.
Sparta.
Traveled.
Um.
Church.
The, the, the, the, the medical place where Richard Dawkins gets his brain chopped up.
Oh that's true, that was a good idea.
The foot, the guy washing Jesus's foot with his foot. Come on Andy, there's some fun things in there.
There's some beautiful images, beautiful imagery.
I was thinking, God Alistair's good at remembering all these
ideas we've had. I remembered you've got that piece of paper in front of you. How dare you.
It's not that impressive at all. I was doing it all off the dome. It was all from the dome.
I write the ideas on a dome now.
I've run out of paper. I'm on the roof of the house.
I'm going to start using domes.
Let's bring back the dome.
Yeah.
Oh, but I mean, think about this.
A dome notepad.
It's nothing.
It's nothing.
But I'm just picturing having to manufacture it. Oh people apparently want dome notepads.
It's the world's first dome notepad.
Such a bad idea.
Like writing on the inside
and it's like the paper lifts up.
Oh it is like the Sistine Chapel. It's like the paper lifts up. Oh it is it is it's like the Sistine Chapel
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel you have to write underneath it's the first
bed you have to hold it up above your head and write upside down. The only way
it works. It would be really good for your arm muscles though to do that. This is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel of notepads.
Dime, I've actually written it down that's how bad an idea was. Andy,
today's we have three words from a listener and today's three words come
from a listener Andy and it's it's a listener who hasn't, we haven't
seen words from for a while.
Do you want to try and guess who it is?
Is it Yannick Rausch?
It's not Yannick Rausch, no.
I'll give you two more guesses.
I feel like I guess that every time you ask me to guess.
I don't think, I'm not sure Yannick Roush still listens.
It's one of the most fun things to say.
Um, okay, um, is it Tempest Marauder?
No, it's not the Tempest Marauder.
Ah, okay, well I don't know.
I'll give you a hint, it's not Curious Cash.
You can't beat Emily Aubrey.
It's not Emily Aubrey, no. I feel like we've had one recently from Emily Aubrey.
No, it's John Dooley.
John Dooley. John Dooley, eh? Yeah. Old John Dooley.
Hang down your head John Dooley. That's right. I was waiting for you to say that.
That's why I was leaving a bit of a few gaps there for you to say your thing
that you normally say. Thank you for giving me a moment to get my head back in the game.
Yeah that's how long it's been since I don't John Dooley you forgot your line.
Long time between Dools. Yeah well the Dools has sent in three words from a listener,
and I believe that listener is John Dooley, Andy,
and three of those words are ripe for the guessing.
So would you like to try to guess what the first word is?
And don't forget to think about it.
Well, yeah, but I don't wanna overthink it as well,
honestly, I think this is how you've been getting
into my head by saying this.
No, I think you've been under-thinking it a tremendous amount.
OK, the first word is blade.
Blade.
No, it's not blade. It's and.
And? Yeah.
Second word is... That's four.
That's three quarters of your name.
I can see this already.
The second word is but.
No, Andy, no.
It's not but.
It's I'm.
And I'm.
It's beautiful silence. And I'm Alastair.
Is the second word Alastair?
Is the third word Alastair.
And the third word Andy is and I'm Gary.
It's more of a Matt Stewart name.
It is really?
Maybe John Dooley sent in words from Matt Stewart.
Maybe the listener was Matt Stewart.
And I'm Gary.
And I'm Gary.
Do you think Gary like that could also be like a, it's an adverb for something that
is like a, you know, a gar, like a, the French word for train station.
Oh, a la gar, eh? Yeah. Yeah. Are you thinking about these French words a lot more? What it
makes me think of, Alastair, is the idea of opening up a friendship to a third person,
you know? Like a lot of the time people in a in a
relationship a sexual loving relationship might decide they want to
open it up and get a third person into the yeah but in the French very trendy
these days what about a friendship so you and me I'll stay what if I said I'm
I'm looking to open up this friendship and I bring home another guy yeah I think it was this is
a thing that happens isn't it yeah this does happen sometimes you'll try and get
another person into the friendship group and it just won't work yeah you know
throws off the dynamic yeah we did have a guy try and do that once but that's
not as nice to think about there was is true. That was not, yeah,
it didn't work out great. We killed that man. Unfortunately. But the, I was thinking it would
really make sense in a situation where it's like you're doing a two-person thing like let's say, playing Guess Who? That's a really good idea.
I was thinking that we could try
and bring a third guy in to play.
And then he kind of like,
and he sits on one side of the table for a bit.
Alastair, this is such a funny sketch
because firstly, we have to imagine two adult men
who are friends at home playing guess who?
Which I adore, I adore it as a concept.
I'm so invested in their friendship immediately.
But then.
But they're a little bit like,
this is not enough these days for me.
While I love it, I do feel like we could
Why are they having to tell the other that they want something more
And then the new guy comes in to play guess who with them and the
person who invited them into the friendship group is obviously having a much better time
playing guess who with that person and spending a lot more time talking to them and directing
their guesses towards the new invitee.
Yeah and then this is Gary by the way. towards the new invitee.
Yeah, and then...
And this is Gary, by the way, the new person is Gary.
But then there's moments where they're like, he goes,
is your character and they look at each other,
like, you know, the two guys on the one side,
and then they go in unison, Simon.
Yeah, wow.
And then the old friend who used to play guess who with them.
And then he goes, now you two guess.
And then he goes over to the other side and they look at each other.
And then they look at the board. They don't really want to guess those two.
Yeah and then they kind of like go is your guy and then they look at each other then they say two different things like one says blonde and goes have glasses.
Blonde with glasses and they look at each other and they start to get it a little bit.
Oh okay.
But then afterwards one of them cries a lot.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's really, yeah, yeah, the other, just the friend who didn't introduce the guy.
Yeah, yeah.
You see him curled up.
That's, I mean that's so good and John Dooley, thank you for that.
John Dooley, I can't believe what you've done for us.
Really happy with where that went. You come out of the... John Dooley, maybe you are the third person in this friendship at the moment. That's right. And let me tell you, I think it's working. I think it's working.
We think it's working.
King.
We think it's-
John was probably saying working.
Sentences.
Working.
Oh yeah, okay, John let's do it.
Oh no.
We think it's working.
And so that would have been really good for John.
Hang on, here's one for all the other listeners. Okay. This one is for you listener. We think it's
Working and I hope you said it out loud just then with me
I'll do one more in case you didn't realize that's what you were supposed to do
Okay, this is for you listeners. We think it's
working sentences.
Oh no.
Oh, Andy.
No.
Um, so I guess I don't think this is working sentences.
Oh, no.
Um, Andy, let us take us through this.
Let us take us through this sketches ideas.
Um, we got champagne cork hat for rich Aussies and of course that
leads into directly into, I've got it in the same idea, but you know where the coming of age, the coming of drinking age ritual to put a cork hat but with the bottle still attached onto a
baby. And when he's strong enough to lift it up carrying all the bottles then he
has reached drinking age and then he can drink and when he's drunk all the bottles he can die
he has reached australian maturity then he just has to get a new head and just get another 12 pack then the then
you got the Spartans who can't help digging bottomless pits to kick people
into I'm getting my hat I'm getting my hat recorked I'm taking my hat to be
recorked I mean genuinely a cork hat would be a
great thing for when you're in a place where there's lots of flies although you
know what would be really annoying is all those corks flying around your face
maybe that's the reason we haven't seen it so much as a comedic device recently is because of the insect the collapsing insect populations oh my gosh Andy don't remind me don't remind me
saw did you see that headline yesterday which is like seven out of nine
planetary boundaries may have been crossed and you go yeah that's true but
then I saw one
You know about a year and a half ago that said eight out of nine have been crossed and so see that one about seven
Actually made me feel really good
Yeah, I actually breathe the side of relief I think fuck it's only
What about that report that came out a few years ago by someone that was like
that all society will have collapsed by 2035?
It was something like that, like
I'll have to go back and find it and then just do a whole podcast on just that report.
Yeah, just like it Just like a podcast series.
I'm just going to say, he goes, what the fuck are they talking about?
They could be right, Alastair.
They could be right.
Let's do it in 2036.
We'll do that podcast.
Well, okay, great.
And then laugh about it.
Whatever real-time technology is available.
And then laugh about it.
Oh, yeah.
We'll talk to a rock.
Then the next idea is the Spartans who can't help digging bottomless pits to kick people into while yelling the place that they're in.
Then of course there's the Spartan scientists who stand against all the others. And we've got the Richard Dawkins having his brain chopped up and put into the brains of those who are wrong.
So that they get to find out, truly find out and not die without knowing.
Then we have the foot fetishist Bible author who puts in the scene Jesus washing the man's feet with his own feet and
then has to get it edited down to just Jesus has a feet washing thing.
We have the first person, wait, oh the, I know we've got former arsonists who is a firefighter
who does something in order to create so it's
like this is the Baker type thing then we or you know cause the problem wait
we got the first the arsonist who's secretly a firefighter I think we've got
the priest who says that that wasn't enough of a confession
and to encourage people to sin harder. Sin hard. Then we've got the dome notepad.
Then of course we've got the dome notepad that all podcasts eventually come up with
this idea.
And I guess it's just our time.
Yeah.
And then we have a friendship guess who's threesome.
I don't know why I said guess who with an Australian accent, but we don't need to have
reasons at this stage.
I think we're well on that Alastair. I'm
really excited about that sketch about bringing a third person into the
friendship. Yeah great. And thank you John Dooley and thank you all listeners.
Let's make a song. Okay. Ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, ujah, true to finally get the opportunity to get my parents to take Otis to school
instead of me and I'm sure it was as exciting for them as it was for for all
of us. You know all these moments are precious and we'll remember them. I hope
to yeah I hope to. Andy I guess we'll say thank you to everybody for listening.
You know what? Write us up a review if you feel like it.
Also, just letting you know that the guy who had written a review
saying that the sound was edited too quietly,
wrote another review apologizing and writing a very nice review.
And that was very nice. So thank you to you. Yeah, it was actually a really lovely interaction.
I think I wish more of you would leave reviews
criticizing elements of the podcast
so that we can try and do better
and then we can, you know, we can bond more genuinely
because I think just this sort of one way praise is not.
Yeah, it allows us to gel more as a community.
And that's what I think together they too in the think tank community which you can join
on the discord if you want which is in the show notes all right we're gonna
be another good format for that that final sketch with a two-person podcast
in duo one of them wants to introduce another podcast host. Oh, yeah. Oh, that would look.
I'm sure it's happened many times before.
And we love you.
Bye bye.