Two In The Think Tank - 510 - "NOTWITHSTANDING"

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

24 Episode 25, Dog Ground Day, A Tip for A Tip, The Argumentative Method, Bucket of Shit V Bucket of Water, A Clanging Plastic, The Crabs that Nip at Your Soul, Toxic Toys, Hungry Metal Genre, Just Following Hors D'oeuvres, You can now purchase A Listener hats by emailing [e-mail] up on the 500th episode hereCheck out the sketch spreadsheet by Will Runt hereAnd visit the Think Tank Institute website:Check 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 ShusherAlasdair Tremblay-Birchall: @alasdairtb and instaAnd you can find us on the Facebook right here(Oh, and we love you) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lee, la, la, Lee, follow through on your dreams, they follow through on your... Lee, la, la, Lee, follow through on your love. Le,

Lee, la la, Lee. Follow through on everything. Oh, we were both doing... We were both doing... Don't follow through on your farts, my love. Wait, this...

Because I'll show you the door. Wait, are you singing a real song? No, I made it up. Oh. But I did. make it up in the park earlier. Good. And I forgot the tune.

Yeah. And most of the words, but I remembered the gist. It was a song about following through. Oh, like, like, sitting yourself. Don't follow through on Farts. Okay, right, right. Great. Yeah, that's the, that's the comic punch.

Hello and welcome to To In the Think Tank, the show where we come up. The show where we come up with five sketch ideas. I am A&A. And I'm Alistair George William Trombley, Virtual. Welcome to this. believe the 5010th episode officially. 512th. Is it?

I believe. I believe. But who's to say? Whomst to say? Whomst? I'm pretty sure it's 510th. Oh, you're probably right. How do you feel about the word here to four?

Oh my God. There's so many of these old things where you're like... What about not withstanding? Yeah. Hither, it's like, it's close to hither to. Not, wait, what's not two for? Here two four. Here two four.

Yeah, hither two. Hither too. Yeah. Let's see if there's another one. Oh, what's, no, no. Lazzania Thursday face? Yeah. No, that's not one.

Nether regions? Oh, a ne'er do well. How do you feel about a nairdue? do well. I think that's all one word. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. And does that one, because it sounds like it means someone who's almost doing well. No, it's not near do well, not near to do well.

It's ne'er. And neare is never. So it's never do well. They're like always do bad, I think. Or neutral. You know what I hate? I hate when they abbreviate something, right? or when they shorten something,

they contract something. But then they add an apostrophe and they remove one letter. And so it's the same amount of typing. Never do well. Yeah. Yeah. Completely right.

I mean, I guess you might save a little bit of wear and tear on your lips. Maybe. You're doing the work on the page, obviously. You're not making your economies there. But if you're not having to make the V sound and never do well. You know, that's got to like take a few lip miles off you until your next lip service.

V is not very lip heavy. It's like you're vibrating your teeth up against the back of you. No, you're vibrating your lips. Never. It's you feel it all through the lips. It's all lips. I mean, I, the teeth are in there. I got a very lippy V, but I don't think that the teeth aren't being eroded.

No, but the teeth are vibrating. And I think that as we age, we need a little bit more of that impact on, you know, to keep like osteoporosis away from your bones and teeth. At bay. Yeah. Keep it at bay. Keep it at bay. Keep it at bay is where I was trying to go. Okay.

So what's the first one? So nither two. What's that? Nether two. Nitherto. Hitherto. Is that what I said? Yeah.

No, I said here to four. Oh, yeah. What's here to for me? I think it's previously, basically. It's like, it's not here to four being used. I think that's right. Okay. But then what's hitherto?

Hitherto. That's the same thing. I know. It's not hitherto being used. I think that's the same. Here to four. Maybe here to four is not even a word. Imagine.

Imagine if all this, imagine if this whole conversation has been pointless, Alistair. Yeah. Instead of, instead of, instead of, Okay, wait, hitherto means until now or until the point in time under discussion. Yes, yes, yes. Then what about here to four? Okay, here to... I think it might be exactly the same as...

Before now. Before now. But like you wouldn't get that. If you just had those three words, right, here to four, right, separately given to you, right? And you had to try and construct the meaning. work out what the... The meaning of that word is an emergent phenomena. You would never predict it from the component parts.

And also, if you just heard it out in the wild and you'd never heard about, and it's got two numbers in it, two and four, right? Here, two four. On balance, statistically speaking, the majority of this word is a number. Yeah.

This is... It's 24. It's 24. Here 24. Oh, is this going to be some word that... is plied in the same amount of time as it takes to actually live out the events. He 24. It's a, it's a, it's a reference to the TV show, 24, where the time in 24 happened in real time.

You know, he, he, Jack Bauer would take a piss because he has to in 24 hours. You got to. He must, unless he's holding it all in. Or unless he's doing dialysis. And he's not eating. But imagine, oh. He's not drinking any water. Imagine the next season.

Or maybe they, you know, after each season, they release a web short, which is just 15 minutes of Jack Bauer pissing nonstop. He's been holding it in all day. It's the 25th episode. It's the 25th episode. It's 1 a.m. the next day or from midnight or whatever

when I am it's 25 extra features DVD Blu-ray like that and then it's just Jack doing a long piss the long piss

good night it's really good episode 25 so you know what I love about that yeah it's topical it's topical

24 based comedy is in. The kids are all talking about it. Actually, you know what? They probably are. I've heard that these new generations, they're watching a lot of older shows, maybe things that were on air,

even before they were aware of it. It's comforting to them. To them, too, to know that there was a world that existed before them. But then, I guess, where did the houses come from? Anyway. Andy, I was going to say. Notwithstanding, that word, if you were trying to guess with the meaning of that, notwithstanding, you'd think that describes how I perform lovemaking.

Not withstanding. Not withstanding. I don't have the upper body strength. I'll tell you this much. How do I do it? Notwithstanding. Anyway. Hith her to a little step.

Anyway. forget it I don't know what that means um okay Andy I think a 24 style show that is 24

episodes and do go for hours but for somebody going through something intense comedically it's probably not comedic to them falling downstairs that could be good you know what

I had an idea for a movie yeah and I don't think it would be funny. It would be really fucking sad. In fact, it made me almost cry thinking about it. Oh my gosh. I don't know if it's appropriate for this podcast. Yeah. But I was, okay, as one does, I was imagining awful things happening to my children. Okay. I was imagining, you know, something horrible happening. Basically, I was riding with my son. The power of attraction. And I forgot to warn him to stop before he got to the train tracks, right? Here we have a level crossing and there's no gates to

stop you going through the pedestrian bit. And I heard the bells going of the train. He was up ahead of me. I couldn't see him. And so the crossing was down, a train was coming through. And then I got, I came around the corner and he had stopped, obviously, and was waiting very well and not being run over by a train. But then I treated myself for the following 12 hours to just repeatedly imagining what

it would have been like if he hadn't. And then, you know, I was just playing it over and over again in my mind. And then I was thinking about Groundhog Day. And I was thinking how awful would it be if it was a Groundhog Day situation? But like in Groundhog Day, basically, it's the day before a bunch of awful things happen, right? And he's able to like perfect the day and stop all these bad things from happening, right? But imagine if it was the day after something awful had happened, right? And you just relived the first day after just an appalling trail.

tragedy again and again. And every morning you had to wake up again on the same day, realizing that just the day before this thing had happened. And you couldn't do anything to change it. Right? That's the thing. Like you've got a day. You've got this day where if it had happened 24 hours earlier,

you could have changed things. Now you can't change anything. And all you can do is just like grieve again and again. Like it's the first day. But then what becomes weird is the worst day of the rest of your life. is that you do get some distance from it over time. That's it as well. But then everybody around you...

Everybody around you. It just happened. Yeah. And so suddenly you're like, what's up with this guy who seems to be over it already? Yeah, or he's made peace with it very quickly. Yeah, and you'd have to be breaking the news to people. And, you know, after, I don't know how many thousands of times around,

you'd just be doing it by text. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think you, you know, it'd be fine. You'd just be texting him. Kid, dead. I think it'd probably would be fine if you just didn't tell people.

Because it's like, I don't think you need to be the person who reaches out to everybody. You're right. You probably, you could, maybe that's how you can, this would be an interesting comedy then. Yeah. Right. If, you know, if comedy is tragedy plus time. Yeah. Right.

And he's had the time. But nobody else has. Comedy is. tragedy plus time loop. A million years to get over this. Yeah. And everybody else. I mean, it's an interesting...

I'll tell you what this would do. This would win an award. Yeah. I'll tell you right now. Yeah. Andy, you're going through the regular... Stages of being excited about an idea. Oh, no, I couldn't possibly do this.

Oh, imagine if we get it. The stages of believing. Yeah. The seven stages of... Oh, you know what, this will get me an award. Celebration. So many awards. Anyway, do you want to write that down?

Day, we'll call it Day of Groundhog. Child death. And colon, child died. What a beautiful... Well, can you say day after Groundhog? Yes, day after. And that of was so easy to turn into an after. To change into an after.

You know what? I think I knew that. I think I knew that that was going to be. You're going to be able to reuse so many of the components. They're going to be entire. It's going to be a backwards compatible word. Alistair. From now what, I'm just writing sentences that can be easily converted into other sentences. Before I plunge you into...

You just didn't know what I said. I'm sorry. I just doesn't matter. I just want to hear what you say. before you plunge. No, before I plunged you into that tragedy, you were about to say something. And I knew that I was running a risk of like just you forgetting what it was going to be. I have no idea.

What were we talking about at the time? Do you remember? Something that inspired me to think about this day. Oh. And I was just saying the power of attraction because I was, I was a picture. you know, those people who do believe in kind of, or the law of attraction or whatever, the stuff that they believe in, you know,

vision boards and things like that. And so for them, believing in that kind of thing, like then when you worry about somebody dying, you're actually bringing it into the world. And I just thought what a nightmarish pair of beliefs that would be that I should worry about things. and I should continue to imagine of this thing that happened

and anything that I imagine will... I think that's basically OCD, isn't it? I think a lot of people sort of... Yeah, right. Yeah. I don't know. That is what they go through.

Yeah. But then those things don't actually happen. I mean, so... It's actually, I think so much of life is people hold beliefs that hurt them. You know? Like there's a lot of things where it's like, oh, I'm unhappy because I can't possibly do the kind. You know, like I'm stuck in this job that I don't like, but I can't possibly do something that I.

Anything else. Yeah, that I love or whatever because that's too risky or whatever. You go, okay. Well, that's the belief that you're holding on to so that you stay stuck in that. Yeah. You've well formed that little trap for yourself. what if you just go, oh, maybe I could just do the thing that I want to do? What if I believed that I could do the thing I want to do and it would be great?

Well, then you'd be an American and nobody wants that. No, I'm an American on cocaine. You know how like there's a whole process that you got to go to in order to become an American, right? There's, you know, you've got to immigrate there, you've got to do all the paperwork and things like that. What if America kind of continues to get worse and then they make you do all those documents and make that process super difficult, but for people who want to leave America? Yeah, you've got to get your brown card. You've got to go in the brown card lottery. Yeah. To try and get out. To try and get your.

shut out of America. And it's a similar thing with like getting a visa to be there. You can also just pay a huge amount of money if you just want to leave. Yeah, that's good. But at some point they're like, oh, we're just losing too many Americans, too much talent because of the horrible, you know, political situation. I think people overestimate talent. I think most jobs could be done by most people.

That's what I also think. Everyone talks about their, I mean, that's probably where I got this idea. Right. I probably copied it off you. And it's also not something I truly believe. But, you know, I do think that like, everyone's like, oh, our value is in our people. Our people are so important. Without the, you know, we'd be nothing without our people.

And we're like, yeah, sure, but anybody else would be fine as well, right? I think that maybe. Yeah. I think probably above talent is just. desire to do a thing. Like, like the reason why some, and desire to do it well.

Yeah. You know, so like somebody wanting to be there and then wanting to learn is essentially higher than any natural talent because somebody just wants to keep getting better and is willing to try anything to get there. Absolutely.

Try whatever it takes. Oh, whatever. Yeah. Who they got to hurt, you know? What's the most, what's the most petty skill that somebody could want to develop in order, wait, what's the most horrible thing that somebody could do for the most petty skill? Hmm. Oh, a petty skill. Like, what's a, like a petty skill.

Like, I mean, look, a skill that kind of, in the grand scheme of things. doesn't seem like it could be or it would necessarily be worth, let's say, killing a whole thing. I mean, I can tell you, I can tell you an ambition that I've had, but I don't know how it would fit into this. And it's something I've worked out, I would say, for almost all of my life. Yeah. Is that, you know how like you can press your tongue against the bottom of your, the inside, just below your teeth, right? and your mouth and then you can sort of use your tongue to sort of make a little bubble of saliva yeah right and then lift it up with your tongue and have it sitting there on the tip of your tongue

a tiny little saliva bubble i've always want to be able to blow that bubble off my tongue and i people in high school were able to do that i i think that's probably why i want to be able to do this yeah and i you know in it to this day in a quiet moment i will sit you know you I'll try again and see if I'm any closer. Yeah. And how about this? And I'm not. Right?

It's a guy who people call him the devil, but he's not the devil. But he does have one of those matrix style machines that gives you the ability to learn anything. Right? But he doesn't take money payments. reason they call him the devil is because you got to sell him a part of yourself and exchange for it. Wow. And so is it a physical part of yourself or like a skill? Like it's, is it like one in one out?

Like he'll, if you want a new skill, he has to take a skill in return. Well, you sell that onto somebody else. You barter with him, you know, so he'll decide. So let's say you could be like, I'll give you three fingers so I can blow bubbles off my tongue. Yeah, it's really good. It's a really funny idea. What's he doing with the body parts? I mean, you know, I guess if he can give people skills,

he can probably do stuff with him. You know, he's probably able to get himself to, you know, he's probably learned how to sew shit together. And, you know, maybe, like, if you cut the fingers off at the right angle, you can put it in a glass of water or whatever and have some roots start taking hold. Like a avocado seed. Yeah, or maybe you can graft it onto like an apple tree and just have a finger.

Is that how they get finger limes? That's how they get finger limes, might. I say I get finger limes, might. Where do you think we're bloody get finger limes? Cock. How lovely. I was talking to one of my boys about where rubber comes from. He couldn't believe it comes from a tree, right?

Yeah. And it is amazing that you can get, like, because he knows about maple syrup, but it's amazing that, you know, one tree, you can get the sap and you can get the most delicious liquid you can imagine. And then another one, you can get the most delicious solid you've ever driven a car upon.

Yeah. It's... Did you try to tell him about vulcanization? I did. And he said, Dad, you always tell me about vulcanization. Like, I don't... I don't think I do, but maybe I'm...

I want to talk about rubber and its origins one time without you bringing up vulcanization. please father yeah which I you know I couldn't believe how does it work how would I have talked to him

about vulcanization before and not mention that rubber comes from trees if I'm doing this I'm only telling a fraction of the story I don't think I'm doing my job as an educator as a dad who needs to teach his boy about how rubber

how Dunlop was able to increase the durability of rubber and turn it into the ubiquitous product that we have to this very day. I wonder if they do a maple rubber. Oh, yes. You know, like, I wonder if, like,

saps can kind of blend together. You know, could you make, because, like, did, was the rubber ever used to chew? I reckon they tried everything. Yeah. They tried everything. I mean, you add, you mix some of that maple syrup in

with that. That'd be a pretty good chewing gum. Oh, baby. Maybe we could get a tree, breed them together somehow. Get it to come straight out of the plug hole. You know what I was about to think. I thought that I'd come up with a really good idea, right? Where I was like, what about the sap of smaller plants where you just, let's say you just, what if you put a little pipe in like a smaller plant and just see, you know, the ooze that comes out of that? And then I was like, oh, I think that's how opium is made.

You just do the score of the poppies. And then that white ooze that comes out is the stuff, right? The ooze, the ooze and the aze. I think... That's what you get after you smoke that ooze. You get the ars. You get the ars. After the ooze, you get the ars.

Is that anything? Is that a sketch? Don't worry. Is this an old school? Wait, tell me. Reassure me first. No, I just said, don't worry. Don't worry, you don't have to write it down.

No, I know. Unless it's like... I wasn't being serious. Unless we're, you know, it's like an old... It's a new ad for somebody who's trying to bring back opium dens. Opium dens. Opium dens. Oh, yeah.

Are we're opium dens that bad? See, this is how it begins That's all you've got to do To like turn history Yeah, yeah, yeah Turn history around Was it really that bad? Are you, Bill Ma?

Is that Bill Ma? Was it really that bad? No, I can't quite find him, no. Those guys who are really good at doing a Bill Maher The thing with my... It's amazing that that's a genre. Yeah. I mean,

Bill Maher is an interesting phenomenon. A fucking horrible. seeming man. Doesn't he seem I mean that once upon a time we would have been probably been like

oh I love the comedy of Bill Maher or he's really I don't know I don't know if we would have there was a time when I think that he was aligned with the world a little bit

when it was like when he did like religious and it was sort of at the time that being an atheist was kind of popular yeah Yeah, right.

Imagine being aligned with the world. We really fucked it up, didn't we? We, the atheists. We really turned everyone off. Yeah. Such a bummer. Yeah, but I mean, we don't have to take responsibility for that. I think, I think, you know, it was just people were just being annoying.

It was mostly Dawkins. Yeah. It's mostly Dawkins. A little bit of the other guy there. The one. Yeah. That one. A little bit of, who's the other one?

The Sam guy? Yeah, he's pretty annoying. Yeah, he's mostly annoying. I mean, I like that he's like, yeah, Sam Harris. I like that he's into like the meditation and stuff. But then he's just kind of like, he just gets very high in my. These people who are like, people who just have debates or whatever for a living. it's not great.

I don't know. I've lost belief in arguments. Oh, I know, Alice. Because you know that, you know that joke, maybe I'm just completely repeating myself here, but that joke that Stuart Lee has, where he's, I think he's talking to a taxi driver,

and the taxi driver says, yeah, well, you can prove anything with arguments, can't you? Like that, right? And it's a very hilarious joke. but also there's an element in which that's really true and there's

there's innocent people being put in jail every day because of that very thing yeah you know it's like I don't know I think maybe there needs to be a slightly higher bar than convincing people it's true yes what I mean you've convinced me yeah I know saying that. And look, and I might be entirely full of shit. I don't know if that's... Either we do that and we implement a higher bar for convincing people, or we just shift, we just redefine truth.

And we really do just accept that, like, it is just like who has the most persuasive argument. And we sort of retire the scientific method or whatever it is, you know. So easily corrupted, you know, and we just move completely towards a debate. I know, but it's achieved. so much. It's achieved a lot, but... It's no longer fit for purpose, you know? It's had its day.

Well, I guess it's like, is it as energy efficient as just making people think that you've achieved a lot? Exactly. Exactly. I think there's something there, right? Giving up... There's got to be. I mean, and then we can have a museum

for for fact-based reality. But then we just go back into just like argument-based. And I think that's where we're more comfortable as a species. You know, we did it for a long time. And it worked. You know, it worked for thousands of years. And it was good for everyone.

At least that's my... that's what I'll be saying. That's what I'll be claiming. Thank you, Andy. Thank you for filling that space while I had to write down a lot. Oh, and boy, did I fill it. No. Andy, even a bucket filled with shit is filled. Even, even a bucket filled with shit. I mean, what do you think is worse?

Would you go up to that bucket and say that bucket is empty? Like, that bucket is, that bucket full of shit is empty. It's basically empty. There's just shit in there. I mean, yeah, it's a weird thing in terms of, like, like, what do you think is more valuable, by the way? A bucket of shit or a bucket of water? You know? Yeah.

There's like, there's sort of, in a way, there's more stuff in the bucket of shit. And it's probably a big bucket of water as well. Mad, this is... You know, you know what I mean? Like, shit is probably mostly got a lot of water in there. You're going to do so well in this argument-based future. Yeah. No, but think about that.

Shit is a lot of water in there. Now, so you're basically getting a bucket of water and all that other stuff for free. Getting water and bug on it. Now, I just got to find out how to do stuff with that other stuff. This is a really, this is a really good... Is this a TV ad? Yeah. Is it, is it, are you, are you, or are you a door-to-door bucket of shit sales?

I'm selling buckets of shit. I'm, what I'm like, but what I'm selling? You gotta see this guy. He could sell a bucket of shit, door-to-door. He was incredible. He was the best. He would go to one house, say, hey, can you all shit in this bucket for me? He goes, yeah.

And they would. He'd go to the house next door. He would sell them that bucket of shit for $50. That's how he got his start He'd show up He had two buckets with him He had nothing He'd had a bucket of water

And a bucket of shit From the guy next door Right The guy he gets Right And he says now I could either give you This bucket of water for free

Or you could give me 50 bucks for this bucket of shit And every time Every time you would walk away with 50 bucks And with that He could buy 10 buckets and then he would go and he would find

10 other saps to shit in the buckets how much how much of life and of the world economy what percentage do you reckon is actually money laundering at this point um it feels like I mean maybe it's not so much now

now that you can do it all with crypto yeah I think that a lot of it is I just saw a thing yesterday that was like the big boom and Pokemon cards. I was thinking this exact thing. Yeah, it was a big part of it was like,

or they were saying that's one aspect of it is that it's one way for people to get money out of China. Fucking hell. Yeah. And that they can

buy stuff, like buy Pokemon cards in China and then go and then sell them for cash or whatever. outside of China. Oh yeah, if you can inflate the value of another small little bit of paper, right? And you're not able to take a money out, but you can take this. Yeah, that's a great idea. Even if you take it like a 30% head.

Yeah. There was a guy who was like selling PEZ, right? Yeah. He was going to Europe and he was buying all these exotic PEZ dispenses. I don't know why Europe has exotic PEZ dispenses. Going back to America and selling them for all this money. there was a this story he had this brief period of baking all this money and it was crazy talking about like the millions of dollars he was turning over every year and i think they made a more

a movie about this guy's story or they were going to or whatever and and i was thinking about it was like are they going to cover the bit of the movie where it's obviously money laundering of some kind i just don't believe that that was really what was happening yeah okay you know you just you just need a business where you convince everybody like is anybody actually going to these kebab shops in service station car parks that are open 24 hours a day I mean look I don't know if that's if that's what it is if that's like I mean if if there's one if there's one business that I think could be a real business that probably maybe that's the only one yeah I mean like somebody who's like I can't possibly afford rent on a regular on a

regular thing to run my business, but I could set up, put it like a shipping container on this thing and, you know, pay 200 bucks a month or whatever like that. I mean, that I could actually believe. But, I mean, the 24-hour florist, that one I never really believed. That was in... I think they actually were busted for some kind of drug. Yeah. I'm pretty sure. But, yeah, I mean, my mom's talk talks about a few cafes where she's never seen anybody go in and then she's gone in and everybody looks at them weird when she goes she like you know i think montreal's a pretty big you know uh organized crime town and then like i think she's had people say like all right you're done you can go now like after they have their coffee really move you

on get out of here um wow but look i found it and i think i think that movie's called the pez outlaw yeah oh right oh well if it says it has outlaw in the name maybe Maybe he was actually. Yeah. It was all magical until his arch nemesis, the president decided to destroy him. Look, I don't know. I guess as soon as you find weirdos

who are willing to pay an amount for something. Yeah. For some bit of crap. Yeah. What was that loud noise in my house? I heard a little brushing or a hushing or a scraping. It was a scraping. It was a loud clanging.

Hmm. Yeah. A clang. That's not how it sounded to me. Well, it probably wasn't a clang, but it was like a plasticy clang. Even though clang suggests metal, I think. It does. It suggests that one, at least one of the clangies is metallic. I don't think you're getting a clang out of plastic. I mean, if they ever invent a plastic that can clang, I'll take my head off to them. They've done it.

I think that you... crazy sons of bitches. Yeah. I mean, I would love that. I mean, oh, look. I mean, I'd write that down because you could make a symbol. You could make a drum kit symbol out of plastic. Yeah.

Like Batman said, you know, you need a symbol. Or maybe it was old money bags or whatever he's... What was his... What was his... Petty, petty bag? No, what was his... is it is pennyworth Pennyworth

that was his assistant his butler Pennyworth Batman Batman was it what's his um

like that old man who's got a different name to that Albert Alfred yeah but I think it's Alfred Pennyworth okay look

it doesn't matter we may or may not have got there and boy was it not worth it that we did no but Andy I've written down a plastic that can clang They said it couldn't be done. I'm not even sure they...

I tell you who's gone mad. They didn't even say that it couldn't be done. That's how little they thought it could be done. I didn't even think it was worth saying. I didn't even bother. I didn't even bother. I tell you who's gone completely insane. Yeah.

The people who make Post-it notes. Oh, yeah? I was in Big W yesterday. looking at buying some post-it notes. How much do you think you pay for a single square, that standard single square of fucking yellow post-it notes?

What are they charging for one of those? $3.50. $8.50. For a single square? Yep. And this is like... A little... How thick are we talking?

Thumb-thick? No, nowhere near thumb-thick. I mean, if your thumbs this thick, see a doctor. You know? What kind of doctor? I also can't see. My thumb is that thick and I can't see.

Let's see. What kind of doctor? You've heard of the, you know, the sci-fi horror movie. I have no mouth and I must scream. And I must scream. Yeah. My thumb is this thick and I can't see. How do you know how thick your thumb is?

I'm still trying to think of a funny name for one of those doctors. Sorry, Andy, I'll be quiet so that you can think of your thing. Sorry about talking before. Yeah, yeah. Look, I'm willing to move on. Did you get your psoriasis audition, Alistair? I got a call back for my psoriasisus ad. But then they were really zooming through.

They must have had a lot of people to see. And I don't think I had a much chance to adapt. And there was a lot of people on the Zoom. I don't think I'll get it. But I mean, it would change my life, making that kind of money. But, you know, maybe I'm not the Sorrius' spokesperson that I thought I was. Yeah. You know, maybe I'm not the face of plaques, plaques, orices.

Well, fingers crossed, Alistair. I hope you, hope you can do it. Flaky fingers crossed. That's hopefully all. Yeah, no, I would say that the stack of Post-it notes was about, like, about, like, you know, five-mill thick or something like that. You know, like, we are not talking, you know, like, we're talking like a half-mill. Like a hefty graphic novel, maybe. But like...

Wait, a hefty graphic novel. That's pretty big. You know, like a graph... Maybe I shouldn't have said hefty. Yeah. I mean, that's... A hefty graphic novel will be at least... At least as thick as a pocket dictionary.

You know? We're talking at least 25 birthday cards. No, I'm thinking more like a basic... Introductory Spanish phrase. book. Okay. Okay. I've, I've misled you. Yeah, okay. Just, just something you, you, you, you, you, you, you put it a, in a, in a, in a, in a money pouch or something, you know, as you, as you visit Madrid. Yeah. Okay. No thicker than that. What money pouches you wear under your shirt there? I don't know why they're thinking they can charge this much for post-it notes. Yeah, it's not that good. Like, they're like, they're like, they're like, this is like, oh, at this point, this is like legacy IP or something. Like, they're thinking. Like, they're thinking. that post-it notes have got like fans like yeah like fucking like star wars or something yeah what are

you doing you know it would be really useful for post-it notes if they were sticky all the way around it's actually a really good idea yeah all stick all stick all stick i mean they could have a little bit at the bottom that's not in stick right yeah i guess they could yeah you're right why do they why because they they sort of pull off and they curl up and they're not actually that good. Yeah. Post-it notes. I mean, look, they're good if you got like a little thing, like a very thin layer,

like the top of a computer screen or whatever that you want to stick them to. But if you want to like stick them to the wall and shit like that. Alistair, this is such a good idea that I wish I'd bought that stack of post-it notes so that I could write it down. Oh, no. I've got a pad right here. Is there a way? No, no. I mean, look, what if you was just sticky on the top and on the bottom?

it's good too because then you would kind of have that side that you could just that would probably curl a little bit but you could and then you could really get your finger underneath there then if you wanted to

you could sort of stick it down like with them a bit closer together and make a little hump like the back of a caterpillar that's crawling along exactly you could make a little obstacle course for all the bugs

that crawl through your house they are and they are traipsing and throw absolutely it is it is that breeding time on the on Easter Island or whatever and all you've got hundreds of thousands of Christmas Island Christmas Island crawling through your house.

It's an amazing place to put a detention center on somewhere that is such a icon of migration you know that it is synonymous with Australia for those who don't know has is as a famously welcoming immigration policy, very kind to refugees who come here across the seas and one of the places we lock them all up

without trial is on Christmas Island. A beautiful sounding place that is home to a mass migration of red crabs. They're like a like a carpet, a crunchy carpet, which is the thing I'm trying to get off the ground.

ironically and put it on the wall. But nobody is, nobody's, nobody's investing in my crunchy carpet idea. I thought I could get the Magi Noodles people to make it. Oh, that would be so good.

I mean, because then you would also get to sell refills every maybe six days. Refill the whole, the whole carpet. You got to re, Yeah, totally redo. Unless there's like a re-crunching,

like a re-bunching kind of material. Oh, that's a good. Like a self-healing, like a self-healing, aluminium they're trying to make for aeroplanes. But a self-recrunching pasta-based carpet product. Yeah. Or like, you know, maybe like a slightly more brittle gravel.

I reckon the people who make that kinetic sand You can sort of work this out somehow Get them on it They think they think outside the box those guys Yeah not the same box though No no although some of it does get out Wasn't there like a kinetic sand thing with With

What's the bad one to breathe in there Asbestos? Yeah wasn't there? that a big thing in Australia in the last year? There was something about play sand at schools, but I don't know. I didn't actually look into whether or not it was kinetic sand that was happening. Yeah. Yeah, could very well be.

I mean, you don't get that kind of mildly satisfying novelty product without a bit of asbestos in there. Yeah, you've got to ask, what's the, what's the, you know, you don't get a product as incredible as life-changing as kinetic sand without being willing to sacrifice the breathing of a few generations of children. That's the price you pay and it's a price I'm willing to pay again and again. Oh, I just rubbed some sunscreen into my eye and let me tell you it is a horrible feeling. Alastair. You disappeared for a second, I feel.

No, you disappeared. I was right here the whole time. Alistair, I dare to believe that we have five sketch ideas written down. You know what? One, two, three, four, five, six. The last one, I just want to like put a button on it because I think it's that, look, it's the people in the immigration center who, obviously that's already bad enough. But then they have all these crabs come through the immigration center. And that's pretty bad. But then when the realization sinks in that they are freely migrating, that's when philosophically it gets pretty difficult. Yeah, yeah. These crabs, they don't just nip at your ankles.

They also... They nip at your soul. They nip at your soul. Oh, that's a good idea. They should make a crab that can nip at your soul. They should, not the soul of your feet. Again, I know we were talking about ankles before. Yeah.

This is the soul of your heart. S-O-L-E. Alistair, I also think that we should have a sketch where it's, because, you know, remember they had those bindies that it turned out they had the same effect on the digestive system as ingesting MDMA? Remember that? What's a bindi? were, bindi are these little beads that you can like put water on and they stick together.

So you could make patterns and then spray them with water and then they sort of fuse together and make it like a, you know, a little sculpture or whatever. Yeah. But they found that they, whatever they were using to make them dissolve and join back together was causing kids to trip balls if the kids ate them. And I think what that tells us between that and the asbestos in the sand thing is that probably developing new novelty kids toys is mostly a process of combining toxic or dangerous things with existing. It's basically the process of making something extremely psychoactive and incredibly good or bad feeling

and then just pulling back a little bit. Just a little bit. And then slap a cute name on it and sell as many units as you can before the recall. I mean, they probably hide on the bindies when they're like, we could probably sell this stuff as necklaces, something to make necklaces out of. You know what, Crackhouse. Crackhouse would be a great name for a chiropractors. that's absolutely true yeah um okay wait let me just write addicted to crack you were you were a bit addicted to crack weren't you cracking your knuckles

or your neck or something a lot for a while maybe my back a bit your back yeah um step brocci used to used to um like people to crack her back i mean i'm i'm i'm cracking i'm cracking my wife's back um yeah actually yeah because like you know we we we know each other's spots in the back to push and then we're like ah i got a good one that kind of thing and then the other day without thinking i was hugging my kid odis and and i and i looked for that same spot and then i squeeze and it went like like oh oh oh what was that it was like oh oh what was that oh yeah i forgot that you that's like an adult thing where you you're like oh yeah that's the stuff Like as a kid, you're like, oh my God, what did you do to me?

No, you can't get him on it that early. No, yeah, yeah. It's not healthy. Yeah, although I do remember a kid when I was in primary school who had a bad back. And I was like, I've never heard of this. A kid with a bad back, it's crazy. Yeah, yeah. Oh, good on him.

Okay, three words from a listener. Is that what you mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, can I just give a big hi to Steph Brocci since she's been mentioned. Hmm. You know, Steph Bruchy, I hope you're out there getting all the back cracks that you deserve, which is a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, yeah. I was going to say, like, you know, not philosophically, but, you know, it almost, like, she deserves so many good back cracks. She almost deserves like a full on broken back. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. I mean, it would be bad. obviously it's bad long time but a term but I imagine there's a moment there where it feels real oh yeah when your back breaks just for a second it'll be like oh yeah that's it oh that's got it

it's got it oh and then I mean then you lay down forever which is the most comfortable position which is all so good notwithstanding not um standing all right three words from a listener Andy we got Three listeners. No, we got listeners, and they can send in three words by joining our Patreon. And today's listener, Andy, is Hungry Metal Gobler. The very Hungry Metal Gobler. The very Hungry Metal Gobler. The titular Hungry Metal Gobler.

Yes. Thank you so much, Hungary. Thank you. For all that you do. And all that you represent. Yes. Which is, to me, the whole world. those who gobbled

and I want you to know that when I hear hungry metal gobbler I don't think of someone who's eating metal because they're hungry is I think of someone who eats metal

hungry metal that might be one of the new metals you know how there's so many different genres of metal yeah You know, death metal, Oh, yeah. Thrash metal. Yeah.

There might be hungry metal. I do. I would like to hear that. I'm going to write down hungry metal. Not many. People sing about lots of different forms of yearning. There's very few songs about being hungry. I want a sandwich.

Because a lot of the time, if you're hungry, you probably should just go do it instead of writing a song about it. Go get the food. That's true. There's an easy solution. Okay. Now, hungry. You know what?

I actually did. right, and now that I think about it, um, uh, I think when I was a kid, I did write a song about being thirsty. Oh, really? Oh, how did it go?

Uh, oh no, yeah, what was it? Um, uh, there was a lyric, lyric, uh, my bladder is bursting and though I'm not thirsty, my throat is as dry as a desert. So it's a song really about not being thirsty.

Oh. And needing to piss. It was about 12 when I wrote that. And needing to piss. to piss. Yeah, you wrote a song about being filled with piss. I didn't think about that. Yeah.

You're so filled with liquid. And I'm not thirsty, but you're, yeah. I'm filled with piss and my throat is dry. Wet down below. All the liquid dry up high. Yeah. I'm filled with piss. My throat is dry.

Went down below, but dry up high. Maybe it should be parched up high. Yeah. And that's a poem. That is a poem, Andy. A hungry metal poem. It's not. Now, Andy, Hungry Metal Gobbler sent in three words from a listener.

I believe that listener is Hungry Metal Gobbler. Would you like to try to guess what the first word is? Al-A-Cazam Oh, you missed by a long mile Cruton Cruton Have we had these words before? Cruton, that rings a bell

Cruton, but there you go, what a crispy thing That'd be another one we could make the crispy carpet out of, for sure. Oh, yeah. Okay, a second word Four, F-O-R. F-O-R. Cruton four? No, the second word is crudete.

I feel like we've had these words before. Yeah? Cruton, crudete, crucette, the French cooking cookware. No, Andy. The third word is coup d'etat. Oh, we've definitely had these words. Surely we've had these words, but I don't know. I can't be sure.

Cudetta. I don't, I know no more. Alistair. Yeah. What is a crudette? Again, is that like a little, like a little, is that a little, is that a little, hors d'oe, hors d'oe? I think it's a, you know, finger food, a crudete.

A crudetee is just like raw vegetables that you serve. Really? Yeah, crudite. A coup d'etat. It's like a, like a, you know, a seizing power. Yeah, yeah. A sudden illegal seizure of power from a government by a small group. And, yeah, crudite is like if you just like have vegetables with dip at a party or whatever,

you're making crudete. And croutons are basically just fried or baked bread so it becomes crunchy. But crudite, it sounds like crudity, right? It sounds like swearing. It sounds like working blue. Yeah. Look, I don't know what the origin is of it is. That's probably what it is because people swear when they see that you're only serving little vegetable sticks at your party. They're like, come on.

Give me a mini-kish. A traditional appetizer. It comes from the French word crudete meaning raw thing or rawness. Well, you know what? There's a crudity. There's a crude. I imagine those, they share an origin. I don't think we have to go that far back. Yeah. I guess, yes.

And like also something that's raw, but it's like meat or something like that, that could be swearworthy. Alistair. Could there be a sketch that involves, like, you know, the situation at a party where the waiters are bringing around those trays of food, right? and somehow, you know, obviously, like, I watch those people. I watch them like a hawk. I try to charm them. I want to be the first place, the first person they come to,

and the last person they think of when they've been around everyone and there's still like six or seven things on the try, they're all cold. They're all the ones that look shit. I want them to come to me and know that these things will find. a home. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. They will be safe.

They don't have to return to the kitchen a failure. As a failure. Yeah, still a few food units of food on there. Absolutely. I try to be so nice to them that at the next gathering when I'm not there, they even stopped by my house first. Yeah. And they go, spring roll.

And I go, yes, please, can I take three? Would that be crazy? They go, it wouldn't be. I mean, you know what? They've got to carry that thing around the whole room in that sort of elevated position. That's hard. That's hard on your arm.

I reckon you come into a room. You want to go to a guy who you know is going to relieve you by like 25, 30% of that weight all in one go. Yeah. Or in two visits, you know. And that's me. Yeah. And two visits, you swing by him twice in your first pass.

Nobody's going to, it's not going to look suspicious. but your job is going to be so much easier and I want to like maybe maybe the sketches about like somebody who like drops they got they know there's going to be a party somewhere beforehand they drop by before the party and they word up the waiters they try it maybe they bribe them they get on their good side they try and mount this argument they explain why they should come to them first I mean I would love to be able to do this to be honest yeah because sometimes you're watching and whatever the brownian motion of the people in the room they don't you get missed again and again and and sometimes you like you take you take whatever the first thing is that comes out and then

you see your your hands are full somebody comes by with another tray of a much better uh appetizer yeah and and you you they don't even stop at you because they see that you're like oh you're already loaded up so like laden yeah you're fully loaded it should be it should be okay to do that thing that people do when they're picking apples where you're like you pull up the bottom of your t-shirt like that and make a little basket and scrape a few in yeah you i mean it'd be great like so you you show up at the party early while they're just setting up in the kitchen doing prep and i say can i help you and i go and you'll say you've never met i need a map of the venue you've never met somebody like me i am going to be your best friend tonight yeah

Yeah, you should be able to also get that little rope that they use to like section off the VIP area and just like create a little funnel so next to the kitchen. So they have to. You start rearranging the furniture to create a path going towards where you're planning on standing. Like a like a prehistoric caveman would have done when trying to like herd a family of woolly mammoths into a ravine. I'm using the exact same techniques. And he's, yeah, he's like, okay, now tonight, I just want a nice, clean night. Yeah. What the flows to be, you know, to be smooth.

I want us to work as a team. I don't want you to struggle, okay? I don't want to have to overpower anybody. Now, when you walk by me, I'm going to look like I'm deep in conversation, but I want you to know, I can feel your presence. I know you're there. And I, yes, I always do want one. You can count on me.

I'm a member of this team. I am here to help you. We should be working as one organism. Yeah. Okay, that's what it's like. I want you to sit down. We're going to watch this video of the Lakers in 93, okay? Okay.

You see how those guys work. Josephine, you'll be Kobe, right? Now, you'll be, you know, Bruno, you're going to be Shaq, okay? Now, I'm going to be the ball. I want you on me at all times. Not the goal, not the goal. The goal is the empty platter, you see? That's right, because a lot of times people miss the goal,

but they don't miss the ball. They never miss the ball. Yeah. Everybody's always on the ball, and that's how I want you to think about me. We're both teams in this case. The guy who's incredible at getting orders.

Just following hors d'oeuvres. We were just following all- hors d'oeuvres. That's my... That's my... That's your... That's your... ...and explaining why they are in the kitchen at...

In the kitchen... ...of the function centre. Why did the Nazis at the function centre end up in the kitchen? They were just following hors d'oeuvres. Yeah. Andy should I take us through the sketch ideas for today? Yeah, and I want to say at the outset, I'm proud of us. Okay, great.

We've got episode 25 of 24, the long piss good night. See? We've got day after groundhog, child died. That's the, that's the, sorry, so the first one. Unspeakable tragedy, comedy. But the day after the unspeakable tragedy that a person has to keep reliving. We've got the, sorry, and the long piss is after the big day where he does his whole 24 episode. He has to do a big piss.

And then we've got the devil dude who you give him a part of yourself in exchange for learning something. Yes. We've got giving up scientific methods that gets, sorry you. He has a policy. It's a tip for a tip. Tip for a tip, might. Um, we got, yeah. He doesn't even teach you how to do it. He just gives you tips.

He just gives you a couple of life hacks. Yeah. Five bucks for a live hack. Hmm. I could watch a video at home of a hundred in 15 minutes. Wow, not these ones. We're giving up a scientific method that gets a lot done, but it's not as efficient as convincing people that it, did achieve a lot.

Correct. It's a reason why we're giving up the scientific method. We've got a bucket of shit, bucket of water, the salesman, door-to-door salesman. We've got a plastic that can clang. They didn't even say it couldn't be done. We got the Christmas Island Detention Center in a place of mass migration,

of red crabs that, that nip at your soul nip at your soul that's a that's a bloody toddle idea nip at your soul

um we got togs on a toy new toys need toxic stuff I didn't quite capture the full idea there

um we've got the hungry metal genre and we've got the guy who's incredible at getting hors d'oeuvres um pre-party

strategy to gizing uh... uh... uh... da uh... uh... uh... da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da

thank you so much for listening to in think tank the show where we would come up with five sketch ideas yeah i am suddenly so tired it's the middle of the day It's the middle of the day. Andy, it's, I'm so glad that you are now getting to be tired. You know what I did recently? I started taking a little bit of vitamin D because I realize I'm not getting almost any sunshine during this winter.

Yeah. And some of my daytime tiredness has gone away. Whoa! Yeah. Okay. I think that maybe. That's great. I mean, but I guess you're going to the lake and shit.

So that's different. We live in different. lives, you know. I was getting so much sun. You're in a heat wave. I'm in a cold wave. I'm getting Arctic blasts. I've mostly not been tired.

Since I've been on this new diet, Alastair. Oh yeah, what are you doing? I'm basically just not eating carbs. Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. The fact that you're like, oh, yeah, you lost it? That's, yeah, it's a, that is the thing that works. Yeah.

It's unsurprising. But it's, it's been so good. Yeah. So good. and good. I'm not tired. That's great. In the afternoon, it used to be like at three o'clock, at mad as hell, I'd be like, I went and slept in that prayer room a couple of times to tell you, tell you that much.

Oh, really? I don't think I've ever been to the prayer. Yeah, the ABC. I mean... I don't know if it was a prayer room. It was a reflection room or something like that, but yeah, I was always looking for a little nook where I could do. I mean, we were once on a podcast, Andy, live podcast that we were recording and you were trying to have a little sleep. And I was yelling.

No, no, no, no. Yeah, on the 400th episode. No, no, no. Yes, yes. I don't think so. That doesn't sound like me. Thank you, and we love you. Bye.