Two In The Think Tank - 485 - "I BEFORE E EXCEPT AFTER SEAFARING"

Episode Date: July 20, 2025

Sketch Spreadsheet by Will Runt: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1e2HYV7-VcnAV08wyHA7OFbqh_UCnVDUheiNFiqxPX_Y/edit?usp=sharingThink Tank Institute: https://lookerstudio.google.com/s/kH2int_ZkuICheck out our comics on instagram with Peader Thomas at Pants IllustratedOrder Gustav & Henri from Andy and Pete's very own online shopYou 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 objectsAlasdair Tremblay-Birchall: @alasdairtb and instaAnd you can find us on the Facebook right here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to 2 in the Think Tank, the show where we come up with 5 sketch ideas. And I am Andy. And I'm Alistair George William Trombley-Birtrell. How are you Andy? Oh you know what mate, I'm on the tail end of about of COVID. I got that COVID-19. About a COVID. So sort of something like the flu.

Uh, yeah, that approximate. Approximately a COVID? Uh, uh, boxes in about, uh, no, I want boxes in specific. Thank you very much. That's why I'm watching this game of boxing. I really struggled with that. How? That's okay, Andy.

Your, your brain is riddled with virus. It is riddled, riddled me this virus in my head. Denser, denser, uh, sort of, uh, you know, gray matter at the moment, because there's also sort of like, I assume like the outline, you know, like the cell walls of viruses, that's all gray. So it's all blending in. There's probably a lot of see-through. So you're just seeing a lot of the gray anyway.

You're really, you're putting a very physical interpretation on the concept of brain fog. You're saying your brain is basically turned into fog. It's a sort of a see-through gray. I think of it, Alastair, because I'm also a bit dehydrated. I prefer to think of it as me shredding and that my brain is sort of shrunk down and all those brain folds that are so crucial to critical thought are really popping out like, you know, like that sort of stress, what do you call it?

Like striated veins, throbbing veins on a, on a, on a bodybuilder on show day. That's what my brain, that's what I'm like right now. It's so tight, my brain is so tight. You know what I was thinking? That maybe, you know how like there's that thing where it's like, yeah, when you're, like when your muscles are bulging like that and you're looking essentially your best, right?

From an evolutionary point of view, right? And you're dehydrated and everything's bulging. Cause that's what we love. From an evolutionary point of view, do you think that it was so that if, let's say you're dying in the, you basically have died in the desert, but then some nomadic peoples walk by,

maybe some kind of, you know, like all women sort of camel-riding tribe come by and they see your hot body laying on the sand like that and they can't help themselves and because you're so hot because you know but the body does this so that if that does happen they come and have sex with you and your genes still get passed on. It's a yes it is it's a little extinction versus a little last gasp it's a little the last breath of your pedos coughing up its last, its last, last dusty morsel. Um, yeah, of course. I mean, it makes sense, right?

That's why, that's why we shit with ourselves when we're scared. It's to scare away predators. And it's why we look so hot when we're just about to die of dehydration. Yeah. Why we look so sexy. One last chance. Cause your body's already gonna be lying down, which is basically the most prepped you can be for sex. That's why, again, that's why your body does that.

That's why we lied out just before we die of dehydration. It's a, it's an, it's a response to thousands of years of evolution. You never, you never see somebody die and then get up and stand up really straight. That's not good for, for reproducing. It's for those. It's actually very hard. You tried it in the shower. It doesn't work. It's, it hard. You tried it in the shower.

It doesn't work. It's very difficult to get the angles right. All women desert tribes, those Amazonians of the desert. Those. That's right. It's like the opposite. It's the Nileans, the Nileans of the desert. Ah, yes.

Do you think that Amazon is based around the river or the forest? Sure it is. Of course. Yeah. Of course. Oh, maybe not actually. I think it might be the other way around to be honest, because I'm pretty sure the Amazonian concept goes back to sort of Greek mythology and they probably

went over there and were like, wow, look at this lush rainforest. Look at that. They, maybe they saw some women in the forest were like, they must be the tribes that we talked about, you know, the Greeks, you know, how the ancient Greeks discovered South America. Yes, yes, yes, yes, of course. And then they brought tacos back and that's how they came up with the idea for, um, for the souvlaki, which is essentially just a Greek taco.

That is correct. Wouldn't, would, would that they had discovered Elostair that the Greeks, the ancient Greeks, the Hellenistic philosophers had been the ones to sail the seas and land in South America, searching not for, for gold, your base metal of gold, that the man's folly and lust. No, searching for pearls, pearls of wisdom for the new ways of looking at the world that come back and they've thought, oh, they've had a new musing. They come back, they sail back with their hulls laden with thoughts.

Oh, absolutely. And then, and it's just different,'s just different, it's different, uh, crew members who've been told a pearl of wisdom and they just have to repeat it the whole journey back. Exactly right. So they don't lose it. That, that sure, maybe they are locked up in treasure. Oh, before E.

Were more valuable. Oh, before E, but never before C or whatever. Oh, before E, except after C. Oh, before E but never before C or whatever. I before E except after C. I before E what is it? I before E, C don't fall on the sea. And then pirates, pirates who also they're pirate philosophers of course they see the ships there and they know they're coming back with all these tippets. They come back, they go and they get really close, they get their ship in the night and they just hear them repeating the things and they just start repeating it themselves and then they've pirated those ideas, that wisdom. They press their cannons up against the hull and put their ear near the end of them, so then they can listen through the cannon tube and get the knowledge that way.

I think the cannon would probably work quite well for that. Very, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, in the absence of having a cup, you know, let's say you're in a hotel room and you don't have a cup. But there's something going on next door you want to hear if you just roll your cannon up against the wall, you're sort of medieval. Do you think they, that guys with medieval people ever met cannons? Medieval people. I don't really know what the medieval period is. I don't know what the medieval is and I don't know what the dark ages are. I don't know if they overlap.

I don't know if they're alternative names for the same thing. Not a clue. Well, while you were talking about the ancient Greeks, I was thinking, you could imagine at this time when there was like, when people believed in just the four elements, you know, earth, wind, fire, and water, that they could travel the seven seas, you know, possibly ancient Greeks, really ancient, ancient Greeks.

And they would get to somewhere like Australia and then they would see a lot of fire and they'd be this is a great source of fire we could bring this back in a wooden box yeah and then they would go and they would try to bring it back and if they didn't if you didn't know how to make it you know that would yeah and traveling across the ocean feels like the craziest thing. It is, you know, the unobtanium of the day. You know, the... Fire.

The vacuum of... It's not a vacuum, but the vast wetness of the sea trying to take fire through that. It does seem impossible, doesn't it? Did you just get water? Did I do something? I wasn't talking for a little bit there. No, but you're still quieter right now. I don't think I've done anything else, Deb. But if it helps you to blame me,

then by all means, lay your blame upon me. Blame? You're just quiet in my ears. But you said, did you do something? Did you do something? You said, did you do something? What have you done? You said this, you said this was your tone. What have you done?

Are you further away from your phone or are you not speaking into your mind? What have you done? No, I'm just talking as I was with my headphones on. Okay. Um, my Bluetooth. Um, I mean, if you could, can you hear me well enough to continue the podcast or is it? Yes.

Yes. I can hear your whisper and I can continue with the podcast. Yeah. Well, then this will give it, actually give the podcast a beautiful new sort of sense of like, what if we were just whispering these thoughts to each other? Well, whisper. Yeah. Just a, just a whisper and the wind.

Alistair, I want to compliment you. Okay. Can I give you a compliment, which is I didn't stop and really celebrate earlier in the podcast when we were talking about traveling to South America and bringing back pearls of wisdom. And the example you came up with was I before E except after C. Which is objectively the funniest possible thing that it could be. In South America. could be. In South America, yeah.

Or just the idea that they constitute their ancient Greeks, the people of South America are Mayans and Incans. Or the idea that the thing that they bring back is a grammatical rule that doesn't even work for a language neither of them speak. It doesn't work in the language it's intended to, a language that you don't speak and does not exist at this point. But, oh, imagine if we looked deeper into the laws of the universe and we actually found I before E, except after C, somehow encoded into the very nature of reality. That if we found the first physical grammatical law.

Oh, what a flower that grows in that pattern. Oh, if you actually look at it, all the way that the petals are placed is actually follows the rule, I before E, except after C. Exactly right. It's like the Fibonacci sequence. Well, yeah, that thing where they say that with their, like the positioning of the, the leaves and all that kind of thing, they go follows the Fibonacci sequence. I have no idea what that means when it's, when it's got something to do with like

geometrical positioning. I don't, I don't have a, I don't have a clue either. And I don't think they do. And all I think Fibonacci has been given all this credit and I think it's bullshit. And then they're like, Oh, look at this paper nautilus follows the Fibonacci sequence. I'm like, does it? I don't see any numbers written on that. Doesn't look like it to me.

Where's the one? Where's the three? Where's the two ones? I mean, when Fibonacci first started telling people his secrets and he was like, one, one, when he got to the second one, do you reckon a lot of people switched off? They're like, yeah. Good girl. Oh, it's just going to be ones.

This does, this is, this does not bode well Look at it. There was two Jesus Christ It's really an archie Fibber lost it. Yep That's not good. Um, he, yeah, they committed. Do you think there's any Fibonacci's around these days?

Oh, the modern day Fibonacci. Yeah, there's one, one or two. This guy, oh, he's coming up with so many sequences. One or two, Alastair. Hey, there's one, one or two. Yeah. I'll I'll a latter day Fibonacci. I mean, who are the, who, who are the.

Who are the modern Fibonacci? The modern Fibonacci is coming the modern Fibonacci coming up with the sequences for the new generation. You know, for the kids will really want to know which number it is. I mean, we've talked about along these lines before, but maybe it is Yashonda Rimes' because they are truly the ones producing the series where we are on tenterhooks to see what comes next and trying to predict it ourselves. Absolutely. Your Grey's Anatomies. Your skin. Your Grey's Anatomies. You're Scandals. You're Grey's Anatomies. You're inventing annas. Yes. Yes. You're Gilded Lilies.

Are they all Shonda Rhimes? Shonda Lance? I think I, yeah, I think they are. Well done Alistair. What a beautiful little clutch. Do you think that I did that off the top of my head? Oh, I can't, I refuse to believe you could have Googled it that quickly. Andy, I have very incredibly quick fingers.

Wow. That's really crap. Because I'd forgotten what Ashonda Rhimes was. But I like to think that generations upon generations of Fibononacci have continued to create sequences. Let's go find out. Each less, each less popular than the last. But they're still beavering away in their little sequence. What about this?

It's a, it starts at zero and you minus the NIS number. That first one probably is just the Fibonacci sequence but just with a negative in the front of it. Well if it it starts at zero, you're not gonna get very far, Alastair. I think that the, oh yeah, I mean, I guess you're right. Sorry, I hadn't realized how stupid that, but because the regular Fibonacci sequence implies zero with that first one, right? Because it's like one, and then you just have to assume

that the second number that's being added to it is the zero before it. Yeah. So the zero is in there. This thing doesn't work without zero. You're, you're, you're absolutely right. Yeah. There isn't, there isn't, but I mean, but then like it like once you go to the zero, you're like, well then what...

What was before that, you know? Yeah, well then it would be minus one. So then wait. I don't know. I don't know that it would. I don't know that it would. Right? No, because nobody would be like... So it'd be minus one plus zero. And so then that would be... Still minus one. Minus one, and then you would go from there, and then you'd go minus one.

Then it would be zero. I don't think it works. I don't think it works. And then so then it would be minus one plus. Is that what it is? Yeah. Uh, no, cause well, yeah. Each time it would just be minus one plus zero, right? No, cause the first one starts on minus.

The first one starts on zero. It's not going to work Al, it's not going to work. I'm just going to have to write this down. Okay. So let's say start on zero. This is how it happens. On is one. Somebody. And then that next one goes to.

Is somebody you love trying to extend the Fibonacci sequence backwards? Call our hotline now on one, two three four. No I think it goes zero minus one minus one minus one minus one minus one. No it doesn't Alistair because you've got to be able to add two numbers next to each other to get the next number so you can't add minus one and minus one. Why? Because minus one plus minus one is minus two, right? So it just doesn't work in the negative numbers. Yeah. Yeah, all right. Look, I'll just do it later. I don't think I can do basic math on the part. I'll just do it later. This is, this is your Fermat's last theorem of, uh, of backwards Fibonacci.

I, but I would like to say. Do we know Fermat's first theorem? Yeah, that's, that's true. Maybe it's his first and last theorem. Fermat's first theorem. Uh, I theorize that if he has a last theorem, he must have a first theorem. That's my theorem. That's my theorem. That's my first theorem. I theorize that if he has a last theorem, he must have a first theorem. That's my theorem. That's my theorem. That's my first theorem. Yes.

That's my first theorem. Penultimate. What about Fermat's penultimate theorem? Yeah. I know that one feels like it would be, I mean, is that the one that he wrote the last theorem in the margins of. Ah, oh that would be good. The theorems are all, each subsequent theorem is written in the margins of the previous theorem. That is why they get smaller and smaller. So that no wonder we didn't have room to write the last one down because it was smaller than

an atom. Uh, Alastair, what about this ancient, an ancient Greek version of America's Got Talent, it's called Ancient Greek America's Got Talent. And it is just guys up there presenting, uh, series and blowing Simon Kale's mind with whatever the next number is. Ancient Greek Simon Kale. Yes. No, it's the same one. He's just had more facial surgery to make himself look more Greek. Yes, and less ancient.

And less ancient? Well, I mean, I guess, you know, most surgery is to make you look less ancient. Is anybody getting surgery to make themselves look more old? Yeah, get like wrinkles put in. Yes. I'm trying to get a face lowering. I'm just trying to loosen some of the tautness on my face. And I want to get, you know, getting those folds like that foldy dog.

Oh yes. The Basset Hound. Is that the one? No, you're thinking of that, um, that sort of really super wrinkly like pug thing. That's not the best. Yeah. But it's like, but it seems like it's healthier than a pug. What's that wrinkly thing?

What is that wrinkly dog? Does it start with an S? Not Sharpay. Sharpay? It seems like it's healthier than a pug. What's that wrinkly thing? What is that wrinkly dog? It's does it start with an S? Not Sharpay. Sharpay? Oh, it could be a Sharpay. I'm not too far away. Sharpay.

Yeah, it is a Sharpay. Not too far away. Yeah. I think, cause you know, like, you know, like the back of Marcellus Wallace's head. Hmm. Oh, we talk about it a lot on the podcast. Yeah, he has those folds.

And so to just try and go and get those, we say, I want some Sharpay extra folds added to my thing. And cause it'll make sense when everybody's face is smooth and their lips are big and puffy. Oh, of course. Like that to go the absolute other way. Yeah. Probably kids will start doing it at a very, you know, in high school or whatever. Yeah.

And to try and look very aged, you know, like an old witch look, wizard look will be very in. Can they get a big, a big hook nose, big crooked nose with a large wart put in? I think, um, I think it makes sense, you know, and I think it'll be the, you know, beauty trends change and I wouldn't be at all surprised with that, you know, with our, our worship of, of wealth, um, of, uh, of, of, of, of, uh, wealth that we, you know, we don't start to look at icons like your Rupert Murdoch's with their beautiful young wives and start to think that he

must be the sexy one, you know, and we, and we're like, no wonder she's, she's wants to get so close to him. She wants to know what his skincare secrets are. She wants to get so close to him, she wants to know what his skincare secrets are. And so the two things being so closely associated in our minds, the transferable content of desirable beauty shifts instantly from her to him. Suddenly we are wanting to know the skin care regimes of 94 year old moguls and kids try and look like that. Oh man, I would love a generation of kids that are trying to look like Rupert Murdoch now.

Yeah. And, and, and I think that that's, that could be a great dating tip is always make it seem like you have a skincare secret. Oh, yes. So they, they for a long time for my skincare secrets. You, you, you, you, you know, you, you whisper one more letter of it each night at bedtime into the ear of your beloved. And it's a whole book.

I T is it vitamin? Is it going to be a vitamin? Hey, and then, then the third letter is backspice. Oh, that's how you keep them on the hook. You can write out full words that seem like they're an ingredient of your face, your face secret, skin secret, and then you backspace the whole word

That is in your right. Sorry Backspace backspace backspace backspace backspace You can use up so many days But they want that secret they want that secret And by the remote by the way remember that this is the secret of you looking very old or is this, or is this, are we no longer in that world? We're back in the world. I can still look old. Yeah. I could still be looking very old and have a skincare secret that they want. Because that's what's in fashion at the moment. Or it could be that you're, you know,

if you truly know the secret, maybe you're not even using it on yourself, right? Cause that's how well you're keeping this secret. You're even keeping it from yourself. Yeah. Maybe keeping it in the safe in your mind. I wonder if there are any official skincare secrets, you know, skincare secrets that have been classified by the CIA. Uh, been classified by the CIA.

I did see a lady on Instagram and this was a, this feels like the greatest, like I have a feeling she's joking. She's just a content creator, you know, person talking to camera. Um, and she was just doing these things. She goes, okay, here's a secret from the CIA. she goes, okay, here's a secret from the CIA. Now, if ever you're wanting money to come into your life, okay, just think about this number, right? And then she goes like, so it's 827-4684-3821, right? seven, four, six, eight, four, three, eight, two, one.

Right, and you can't, don't ask me how it works, I don't know about that, but I just know that that's what the CIA uses. When they, when they want, you know, their agents to have money come to them. Just about that number, you know, what the fuck, you know, and then it's like 50,000 likes on that thing Wow, I Mean we're in a really interesting place as a species. We're in a really interesting. Yes It's We've just like, just, we've just disconnected people's brains from any

sense of real agency and any real understanding of how the world works. And, and now we're just like, go free. You know, you, you, you just be yourselves. Now, now that you are completely disconnected from fucking reality, let you, it's, it's, it's, it's a beautiful thing to just see what humans can be. What we're capable of becoming when we don't have this sort of dead weight of reality dragging us down. Absolutely.

And, you know, I think that in many ways, everybody, everybody has the potential to be a shaman these days, you know, instead of a person dispensing wisdom and the secrets of the universe, because we all have our own subjective universe that has its own secrets. Yes. Its own magic and things like that. And so you're essentially lending people some of the magic from your one because your universe in many ways doesn't resemble theirs. Just because of how insane you are. But it's also lovely that the CIA is in there in some way. Still saying that something comes from the CIA,

an organization that flat out tortures people and doesn't even do it well by all accounts. But we're now using them as like this sort of, oh, this comes from the CIA. Like it's a little stamp of authority. That's like a little royal seal. It's essentially that God thing where it's like, there's, he's the God of the gaps or whatever.

There's still a few gaps where we don't have knowledge of what really happens at the CIA. And so we can say that anything happens and that they are magic. And that's why they're able to overthrow governments and things like that. It's not the full military might of the US that's kind of the real force here.

It's that they know magic numbers that bring money to you. Well, yeah, when it's their very nature of their organization is to be secret, to keep things hush, hush, hush. What a beautiful thing to project our desires and our hopes and our dreams onto. You know, I think I want to, I'm going to make a brand of pasta that's going to be low carb, low carb pasta. And I'm going to say it's the CIA's secret low carb pasta that they use when they, they want their agents to shed a few pounds in a hurry and you know, it was that.

This is what they have in the safe houses. This is always what they serve. This is what the sacred chefs will make for the spine. Body transformation, when they need to assume a new identity, they feed them this body transformation pasta and it's cheaper than plastic surgery. You need to look different within a couple of days. You need to be a completely different shape.

Or you know, you gotta, you know, if you're being followed, you need to just go around the corner, take out of your pocket this bowl of pasta like a big bowl. Stand behind a pole. bowl of pasta, like a big bowl. I mean, it's dead behind a pole. Stand behind a pole eating it. No. And then, and then you will look different and then they will, they won't even recognize your gate. Yeah.

Yeah. Uh, but also you, you stand behind a pole, Alastair, because you're so skinny now from eating the pasta. That's right. That you can hide behind it. So you could probably even hide behind the bowl. Oh, lady. Bowl and the pole.

Get under the bowl. Get under the bowl. Curl up. I mean, the bowl and the pole does feel like a... Sorry, I'll write down CIA. No, write down the bowl and the pole. I think that's a beautiful children's book or maybe it's a, yeah, the pole and the pole.

And maybe it's a meditation on longing, you know, about, uh, about a, uh, a woman whose family is killed in a horrible accident. She goes to, beautiful kids book. Yeah. She goes... Josephine's family was killed in a horrible accident. When one day she was eating a bowl behind a pole. Accidents.

Nothing bad happened. Incidents. Eh? Oh, just thinking of just accidents, incidents, accident, accident, co-incident. Existential? No. I wonder if the CIA at all in their training, if they give any time at all to teaching people to hide behind poles. Because it seems to be a big part of, from my viewing, it seems to be a big part of spycraft, hiding behind poles. But I wonder if it's one of those ones where like, you assume it's elementary, but actually the way that-

Whole work. Whole work. Yeah. We've got to keep the whole work. but actually the way that poll work, yeah. They do a couple of weeks. If there's a way that CIA people hide behind polls, that if we saw it, probably we would be able to because they're so good, would sort of completely change the way we think about

hiding behind polls. And they would hide behind a poll and it wouldn't even look like they're hiding. Let's say you're on the other side. Yeah. They would look like they're just on their phone or, you know, maybe they can make themselves ... Yeah. Already, that's a great insight, Alastair, because I think that the way that most people

hide behind a pole... God, you're smart. The way most people hide behind a pole is sort of like, is very much with their mind on the person on the other side of the pole, the person they're hiding from. But you've got to always assume in spy craft that there's someone following you, I presume. So you've got to try and make it look like you're not hiding behind a pole while you're hiding behind a pole. I'm just restating what you said. That's right.

But because I think it's such a, I mean, if they brought that back from South America, the ancient Greeks, that, you know, um, in their stone ships, I imagine their ships are made from stone with a stone column for a mast. Because, you know, you, you, you stick to what you're good at. Um, that would have been a real game changer, I imagine, especially because with the columns, they had so many poles. Oh my god.

Really. And, and, and really easy to hide behind because they're so big. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I can't, I can't, I kind of can't believe we called the people from Poland, the Poles. Um, and we called Poland, Poland. We really should have called Greece, Poland. Because if ever there was a pole land It's that bloody all those, you know, all and Acropolis stuff

they Is or is Poland like one of those countries that used to be Greece or something like that, you know Did the Greece and Greek Empire ever extend to Poland the Greek Empire? I don't know. I guess there was a Greek Empire, wasn't there? I never, you never think about them going out and conquering. Well, except for Alexander the Greek. Except for him, obviously, except he was Macedonian. Yeah. But, um, apart from him, apart from him, apart from the most famous conqueror of all time, Alastair, you don't think of the Greeks conquering, do you? Apart from the one who wept for there were no more worlds to conquer. And obviously his father, who apparently also had conquered a lot of the world.

But apart from those two, those two and conquerors, however many generations back, they can, they were doing that for us. Yes. Um, you know, cause he was a Pharaoh as well. Yeah. How good's that? He unified the belts. Yeah.

Um, that's right. He, he got, he managed to get, and he started like just a Greek lineage of, of heroes and Cleopatra's and Ptolemies. Yeah. Yeah. That's wild, isn't it? That they were Greek. Yeah.

I mean, I guess after like one or two generations, really, they were just being born in Egypt and you know, and they were essentially Egyptian. Yeah. But, you know, they were probably separate from the regular population. So they were probably maintaining a lot of their Greekness. Hmm. Hmm. But it is, you know, I mean, what a maneuver to just sort of slip in there and just

sort of replace the top, right? Right. Yeah. and just sort of replace the top rung, become the new, whatever, new rulers. Yes. Yeah, it's actually, I guess, one of the few ways in which the Greek Empire kind of continued to exist into the Roman Empire, right? Like...

Well, what I wanna know is how Prince Philip, Prince Philip was Greek. He was Greek, wasn't he? He was somehow Greek. Yeah, that's what people were saying. I never saw it. I've never saw him speak Greek or like having a Spaniacopita or anything like that.

Particularly Greek. But, you know, good on him. Like in what way? I gotta look into that. In what sense was he Greek? Yeah, because they would say he's Greek. Yeah. I like, yeah.

I mean, I like how there's that period of English royalty where it was the French guys, those French people, the Normans. The Normans. And so then they were just ruling it and then they just dropped a whole bunch of French words into the English language. Pork, beef, lamb. Ham. Venison. Ham, did you say ham? Ham, I said ham. Bacon. In French it's jambon.

Yes. There's the... I think that's... Yamon. Yamon. I think that's what they use in the... Yamon. Yeah. Alastair. I think that's a great thing. What do they call, what do they call ham in Spanish? Ya mon, please don't do Jamaican accents here. What's... Let's dip in. And there we go, Fox sketch ideas. Andy, how do you know that? How do you, how can you be so bold? Yeah, we do.

Okay. I mean, some, some, one of them I wrote down the ball in the poll and we didn't, we didn't come up with what it is. Except for as it's a kid's book, the news of woman's family undergoes an incredible tragedy. Those are two, you've combined two different things in your mind, Alistair, but well done. Well done. I think that's what it was. No, the listeners know I'm right.

Yeah, god damn it. I hate when you take sides with the listeners and then suddenly it's like both of you against me. I feel like I'm being bullied by the audience. They all know you're an idiot. Don't worry. Now continue with the show. Have fun.

Yeah. Loosen up. Oh boy. I'm, I'm, my brain is getting so, uh, dehydrated. Yeah. Yeah, it's okay. I'm so good. You don't want me to. Why don't need. Desperate for water.

Why don't you go get a little bit of water and I'll talk to her. Can I go get a little bit of water? Yeah. All right, you keep talking. Yeah, I'll just talk about the bowl and the pole. I suppose you could, I mean, I don't think this is the idea,

but I think you could make, if you knock down a pole and you cut it along the length of it and make a bunch of sort of cylinders, sort of short cylinders, you could carve those out into bowls. If it was like a light pole, you could probably bang out the bottom of the thing and seal it together into a bunch of bowls.

I mean, isn't that what steel drums are essentially? They're essentially a, the bottom of the thing and seal it together into a bunch of bowls. I mean, isn't that what steel drums are essentially? They're essentially a... I mean, a drum is basically just a thick pole, like a steel drum. And so then they just bang it out into a bowl. So, you know, maybe the pole becomes the bowl, or several bowls, but then I guess it would be the pole and the bowls.

Which doesn't have, sounds quite as good. And the part that, but I mean, maybe it's just a kid's book where there's a pole and a bowl and they're both characters. Maybe the... And the bowl is sort of... You know, somewhere laying in the grass. And the bowl is sort of, you know, somewhere laying in the grass and the pole, the pole is also outside, but it belongs there because it was made for that. But the bowl, this is the first time it's time, you know, it thinks it's, you know,

it's been abandoned. It's not where it belongs. I mean, you often see a dog bowl at the base of a pole. Like it's a, you know, if somebody's, um, put some water out for dogs out in public, they'll often put it at the base of a bowl because, you know, then the, the pole is relying on the, the bowl is relying on the pole so that people don't kick it over, you know? And so they, they, they sort of have this sort of relationship.

I think the pole also, you know, attracts dogs because dogs like to go and sniff a pole. So that's true. You know, it makes sense. They love to sniff a pole, love to drink from a bowl. Andy. The pole and the bowl are probably two like very big features of a dog's life.

And I think you could, uh, yeah, you could, you could, you could do a, yeah, that sort of story about the pole and the bowl and that they think they have nothing in common. Maybe, maybe they, maybe they really, you know, they, cause they look so different. They seem so different. They, um, they really get on each other's nerves. And then they realized that they both have a role to play a role for a pole and a role for a bowl in service of dogs. And they find new meaning and sort of a shared humanity.

Yeah. And they both involve liquids. In a way they do. Yes. You know, one is a liquid going in. They're a different part of the water system of a dog. The other part has the liquid coming out. The liquid cycle.

Yeah. The water cycle of the, the, the dog water cycle. So there's some beautiful there. Oh, Andy can't believe we're rolling. We bloody did it. We bloody did it. We bloody did and did and will did. Now Andy, three words from a listener.

I don't know if you know this, we have listeners. Uh, yes. Sometimes can support us on Patreon. And if you give us three bucks, they, they can, they can suggest three words for us to come up with three words from a listener, often them. A trio of bucks. A trio of bucks. Um, and today's listener is Soam Other Guy.

Soam. Wow. Soam. Wow. Soam other guy. Soam. How is, how is soam spelled? S O E M. Okay. Soam other guy. Oh, soam.

I'm pronouncing that correctly, soam. And um, soam other guy has sent in three words from a listener. I don't think they've mentioned which listener. And you know what? I don't care to know. No, I do care. But I, they haven't mentioned it. I would remember. So, Andy, would you like to try to guess what the first word is? Without further adid I will. Okay the first word is Galifianakis. Galifianakis. Big swing, big swing from me. Big swing. I like it. I like it. I'm sorry. It's curious. Oh, you know what? Curious.

I mean, they both sound like they're from, they both have great Greek origins. Hmm. Um, curious, second word, furious, furious. Good attempt to Andy, but is that one is really a swing and a miss. It is goop. Curious goop. Yeah. Now, do I go with another rhyme?

Like scoop? Like curious goop scoop? You went for a rhyme in the first round. I know. I know and it didn't pay off. It was one of your biggest misses in ages. Yeah. Okay. Cur curious goop.

Oh, but like what else have I got to go on? Almost nothing. So then I'm back into the random territory. Curious goop. Hmm. I'll just go probe. It's kind of close. It's debate.

Oh, okay. You know, I think both, both were trying to figure out something about this curious boop. I mean, a curious goop debate was pretty much what they had when they impeached Bill Clinton, you know? That's right. Cause they brought up, uh, on it to Lewinsky's dress to see the serious goop and show everyone the curious. Everyone had to give it a sniff. Is that right?

That they all sniffed it in the, in the chamber. From what I recall, Andy. Yeah. I certainly in our dramatization, they will, uh, they'll pass it around. They'll. I mean, that's very fun to just, that'll be the analysis. Famous moments in history. Stuff that you can't see.

And so we allow our minds to fill in the gaps. How far we've come, uh, since, since that, uh, that scandal was enough to impeach a president. Yeah. I mean, imagine what impeaching a president was enough to get rid of a president. Did they get rid of him at the time? No, they didn't. No.

Okay. Um, uh, and was he even impeached? Was he, did he actually, did it actually happen? Did the vote go through? I don't know either. Probably not. I think, uh, I think Trump had been the only president that had actually, or in modern history, I can't remember.

I can't remember either. But I guess, you know, curious group debate, I guess if a big pile of sort of slime, you know, slime appeared in a big major city. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, okay. And, um, and we didn't know where it came from. Mm. I guess, you know, the city's instinct would be to clean it away and take it away. Yeah. But then, of course, the scientists...

But there are people who would say, don't do that. Leave it there. Leave it. We gotta study this. We gotta figure out where this came from. Yeah. How long would you leave it there. Leave it. We got to study this. We got to figure out where this came from. Yeah. How long would you leave it there? Hmm. The goop?

You know, oh, yeah. Gosh. Um, does it smell? No. Oh, odorless goop. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

And how big is it? I'm imagining it engulfing a couple of city blocks. Yeah. I think it's, it's as tall as some like, you know, like 11 story apartment buildings. But is it delicious? And are people trying to come down and eat it? Yeah. I think people are sort of trying to sneak down and like get a couple of scoops of it

every night, right. Take it home and feeding it to their families. They're trying to bake with it. A lot of vegans are like, I feel like I could make something good with this. Like this is a, this would be a good egg replacement. Using it as an egg replacer. That's the thing about the vegans. As soon as a new goop comes on the scene, all they want to do is see if they

could use it as an egg replacer. All they want to do is see if they could use it as an egg replacer. I think that there are probably egg, vegan, vegan space programs, hundreds of vegan space programs worldwide currently, are looking at building probes to explore major bodies in the solar system to look for egg replacer. The truth is there is not a slimy substance in this world that they will not mix with flour. Whisk up. Whisk up and see if it'll hold. Yeah, see if they can make a chewy biscuit that doesn't have that sort of residual fart smell from ... See if it'll hold. See if they can whip it into a stiff peak. See if they can make

a meringue. A meringue is exactly where I was going as well. I think the vegans have their obsession with egg replacer. I mean, you're at a crime scene. You're there, they've got those tapes up, right? There's all these liquids sort of all over the crime scene that are as yet unidentified. The tape is mostly there to keep the vegans out because as soon as there's an unidentified liquid, they want to come in. They've got their tiny crime scene whisk. They're trying to whisk it into a little bowl, like a little bowl, like a little pole. And they are trying to.

Yeah, they've got it. They're like putting it in a bowl, whisking it up and they're like, my God, we're going to be swarming in vegans in the pot by the end of today. We've got to cover this. Look at how stiff that peak is. Oh my God. Look at how it holds. Squeeze some lemon over it. Oh my God, this is going to work so well. We've got to get to the bottom of where this stuff comes from before, before we have 10,000 vegans.

We need to shut this place down. I want five city blocks cordoned off. No one in, no one out, especially no one in. The mayor. I think that's funny, Alastair, I think we did it. Curious coop debate. Hey, alien liquid. I mean, you look at, you look at that, that ectoplasm that drips off the fangs

of say, uh, a, uh, a Z an alien xenomorph that to me, that looks like classic egg great replacement. I mean, it's, is it, is it vegan? If it comes from an alien, that might be a loophole, but if it, if it drips off anyway, you know, and they're not suffering as it drips off, I mean, always it's a, it's a shadow or you paramilitary or government organization that is trying to train the alien and use it as a weapon. It's always the military industrial complex that is responsible for bringing back these

alien creatures and putting humanity's future at risk. But if we're realistic about it, it's going to be the vegans. It's going to be the vegans. It's going to be the vegans. They're going to have cloned a xenomorph. They're going to be keeping it in some kind of bamboo cage that they've woven because they think that's more ethical and they're trying to capture its goop and use it as an egg replacer and then it all goes wrong because the alien escapes. Ask yourself, what's, what's more plausible?

It's the vegan industrial complex every time. Absolutely, Andy. Absolutely. Should I take us to the sketch ideas? Yeah, yes. Now we have, uh, the death from dehydrated from being dehydrated and looking hot is evolution's way of giving you one last chance at reproducing to get out your death sprog. One last rattle of the tackle. It's a pillage wisdom.

One last what? Rackle? Rattle of the tackle. Oh yeah.. One last one. Rackle. Rattle of the tackle. Oh yeah. One. Is that, is that a common expression? No. That's really good.

I really liked that. Thank you. That could go in our kids book. Um, then we've got the ancient Greeks traveling to South America in order to pillage wisdom from there, such as I before E, except after C. And we've got traveling to find fire in other countries, where people, from when people only believed in the four elements or whatever. Not that they travel there to find fire, but they realize they found a beautiful source of fire Yes, and they go and try to mine the fire and bring it back

Their wood chips Yeah, yeah, no, we've got the face old nings surgery getting a face a Face lowering or whatever to get that old witch look something the young people are starting to do because I mean after after face tattoos, it's hard to find a, you know, a way to make your face look worse. Then we got the CIA magic pasta that they go around the corner, hide behind a pole and eat, and then they look a bit different. Then we've got the, obviously, CIA poll craft and all the, it's probably a week long course

where they're just doing a poll work. Yeah. We've got the bowl and the pole kids book about these two things that don't think that they belong together and then realize how connected they are yeah through dog mm-hmm and we of course have the goop appears and vegans try to use it as egg replacement. Of course. Oh, I'm happy. So that's not a bad episode. That's not a bad episode, Alastair. That's not a bad episode for a sick guy and just a guy who's generally inadequate.

I have type two inadequacy acquired late in life. Um, but you have type one inadequacy where you were inadequate as a baby. I fell into a, a big vat of inadequate. And I've remained inadequate, powerfully inadequate, inadequate my whole life. Alistair, I want you to know that I don't think that's true. I mean, I don't think anybody thinks that's true. No, but I have a quiet confidence. Yeah, see.

I am, I am, I have a quiet confidence that is weak, but, but very quiet. So. Um, uh, no, No, you know what? Well done us. Alastair, all that remains is for us to discover that one of us wasn't recording this entire time and we can call it a day. Yeah well so far I'm still recording so I will go into the song now Thank you so much for listening to turn the think tank We are gonna be doing in all likelihood the 500th episode, recording it at, um... Stupido... Oh, Humdinger! Humdinger!

Humdinger Studios, which is the Stilwell Studios' new name. Yes. There's been a big name change on the 18th of October 2025. Yeah, right there in the Hum-Hull. I think it's right there in the humhole. Yeah. And I'm excited. I'm excited to die.

I'm ready. Yeah. I gotta ask Tom if he's gonna, if he's still up for doing something. Oh, being our private chef. Private chef. Now, did we establish, is he gonna be there on site cooking through the duration of the record? Or is he just setting some food along?

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'll have a chat with him. Because if it could be like a morning show where there's like a little kitchen section off to the side where we can wander over and talk to him about what he's cooking and then come back to the main body of the show. I think that'd be great. Even if he just appears every now and then when we need food and we talk to him in between

guests and he brings us food and then we try to come up with an idea with him. Yeah, even if that's all it is. Even if that's all it is. This huge thing. No, great. I think this is going to be a good one. Alright everybody. See you everybody.

I was peeled for Alastair on the Just For Laughs socials. Socials. We're putting up some clips of our boy. Yeah. We've been putting up some clips of our boy. Yeah. And also, all the hats are being manufactured now. I got the sample. And so I'm not sure how to do this.

Should I do it as like a fundraiser thing, but then people just can donate the amount for the hat? And then maybe I'll have like an amount with delivery an amount without delivery and then I'll be in Melbourne at certain times and I can be at a place and people can come and meet me and and then they say don't want to get sued through this do the delivery or I can just send it to them. This sounds like such a good system. It's giving you our best system yet. Oh Andy I love a system mate. I wasn't I was best system yet. Oh, Andy, I love a system, mate.

I wasn't, I was, you know what I was almost thinking, Andy, that we, because we have this, this side 10 hundreds episode that we need to do. I was wondering if we could just also do it while I'm there, maybe a week before we do the other one. I know that you don't really have time in your life for that kind of thing. Um, that might be possible.

Yeah, but we could maybe just do it in the regular podcast room. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool, man. I don't know if that's something you would want to do. I mean, I was thinking we should just bank a whole lot of episodes when you're here.

Just be, just be just constant potting. Oh, that could be a good idea. You know, whole lot of in-person, imagine that, imagine a little bit of in-person podcast. Oh, yeah, do you think we could do 10 episodes? Mm, I'd love that, how good would that be? Just do one day where we just do all podcast. I think maybe we'll do it before we do the big 20, no, not 30 hour.

Definitely not before, no, I think we've got to keep our powder dry, Alastair. Okay, yeah. Come into that 500 with really dry powder. Okay. Your powder is so wet, it's turning into powder. I'm gonna show up wet powder. Now, all right, I'll just drop this. Just before we go, just drop this, right?

I thought of a really great joke, um, about, uh, about the Australian musical artist, uh, Paul Kelly, right? Yeah. And, uh, and you know, he's got that famous song, how to make gravy. Right. Yep. Uh, and you know, for the joke to work, you'd need to know about that song. You'd also need to know that he's got another song called Firewooden Candles,

right? Firewooden Candles. And it's all about basically getting things ready to fuck. It's the whole song is about like, I'm going to get everything just right. You know, Firewooden Candles. And my great joke, I don't know how I'd set this up and I also don't know how I deliver it, but basically I'd be talking about Firewood and Candles, that song. I say, or as I like to call it, how to make baby gravy.

Uh, because, because the whole song is like, it's, it's, it's that it's a real, it's a really good observation on theair and, uh, I couldn't think of anywhere else to put it. So Andy, it's a perfect place for it. Thank you very much for that. People, people in the discord appreciate a Australian reference that, uh, that they also have a bit of inside knowledge with. This is going to pop off in the discord.

I bet popping off. All right, everybody. You guys pop off in the discord. If you were popping off in the discord about that joke. That's right. And we love you. Bye.