Two In The Think Tank - 515 - "THE GUN FORK"

Episode Date: March 1, 2026

Too Sad for Sadness, Pre-Emptive Nobel Prize Strike, Gun Utensil, Noel: the Lone Elon Looney, Scrotal Wedgie, Wedgie/Dack Combo Move, Practical Poetry, The Shartening, The Bird White MysteryYou 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.

Hello, Andy. We're just plugging the hats. If you guys want a, a listener hat, contact us for an A listener hat. And we'll make it happen. Beedibidi, bip, bop, bop, bop, bipiddy, bipab, bip.

Bip Bip Bip Bip. Hello and welcome to two in the think tank, the show where we come up with five sketch ideas. I'm Andy. I'm an Alistair, George William, probably virtual. I think I almost said I'm Andy. I think.

You think that, do you? Well, I'm not 100% sure. I think I went, I'm like that. Anything could have happened. I don't like, I don't like to presume. I don't entirely love how 100% certain you were that I was trying to say, I'm Andy. Because I, you know. Definitely were.

And if this was a live episode, I would turn to the audience and obnoxiously ask them to agree with me. Yeah, I know. And they would. But they still wouldn't know. they wouldn't know what I was trying to do because I don't know do. Do you believe in free will? I believe that there is

a will and it probably is somewhat free and probably somewhat restricted. So I was listening to some weird old guy on Instagram right? He's this philosopher I see him very occasionally, right?

And he looks fucking, like he's just, he's just got one of those philosophers' beards where you're like, man, if you spent like 2% less of the time thinking about epistemology and redirected that to self-care, it would be so much easier to watch these videos of you, man. And he was saying that like, well, and I don't remember if he had a, German accent or like a Russian accent, but I feel like he did. His beard definitely did. He's like, well, if every action is a result, in the causal universe, every action is as a result of the previous state. Every state is a result of the previous state. And that state is a result of the state before that. And so how can there be free will? And you're just like, oh yeah. I mean,

that seems like almost trivial and meaningless. but then like, I'm like, yeah, I guess so. Like, everything is just a, everything is just matter. Everything is just interactions. Everything is just like a fucking state. But does that just like ignore the concept of life a little bit? Like, isn't the idea like, I mean, the whole point of... Interactions and, you know, and matter.

But isn't there just at least to a certain extent some moments of decision, right? Like, I think it's like when your brain gives you. something to say and then you choose not to say it, I feel like that's a perfect example of free will because the actions were, you know, like all the chemicals and everything like that resulted in you getting fed this line that made sense in that context, but you go, ah, happy fact. Yeah. No, but I think the, but isn't the decision making process, isn't the decision itself

simply just you being fed a bunch of like you know yeah i look i mean there's there is there is the evidence basically that says that if you can see that somebody makes a decision in their subconscious before they are aware of it right and that evidence basically for me makes it seem like you don't have free will but i am i am i am of the position that we there's you could probably just learn more about what's going on and come to a different result like you know I don't necessarily trust the the brain scanning thing as necessarily being the most definitive of evidence I'm not even going off the brain scanning but but I am like that's the one that convinces me for okay as in like they're like we can see that you make the

decision before you've made that this before you're aware that you make the decision Well, I got to turn the Alice down. I was very convinced by this short video I didn't understand of a man I've never heard of. Sounded like you made. Yeah. I still think it's like, look, I'm just going to take it. I'm just going to take it as I have free will because it doesn't help me to not. It makes me sad to think I don't.

I completely agree. And I still feel like I'm making decisions. So I'm just going to allow myself this one little treat. make me sad. I don't want it to make me sad. I want to be sad of what I choose to be sad. Exactly. I get to be sad.

Maybe I'll just sit with the sadness and then maybe it will find my presence so distasteful that it will leave. Yes. Oh, imagine that. Imagine if you could balm out sadness. Yeah. I mean, look, this is a good place. I had the black dog, but it just, we just. didn't get along and it left and I found that the black dog was going to another house

every day by another family yeah by another depressed family and are we writing that down well I think maybe being bumming out sadness you're so depressing but it's also just that yeah you're so unpleasant to be around that you're so unpleasant left Yeah, great. Do you think Alistair, you know how like they didn't give Donald Trump the Nobel Peace Prize and now he has attacked Iran? Yeah. Do you think that they should have also given him the, you know, maybe if they had given him the Nobel Peace Prize. And I think he's implied this kind of thing in the past that they should, you know, if they had given it to him, he,

he wouldn't have attacked her. I mean... He certainly implied he wouldn't have attacked Venezuela. I think... And so... And so I think that they... The best line I've seen on this topic, Andy, was somebody on Twitter saying,

this is... These are not the actions that we expect from the FIFA Peace Prize winner. Well, I'm not saying what I'm about to say is going to be funnier than that, Alistair. but I do think that they should, you know, if giving him the Nobel Peace Prize would have caused peace, which is a different way to look at the Peace Prize, right?

Like that it is a preemptive prize that sort of attempts to, you're supposed to win it after you get it, basically. You know, we'll give you the prize and now don't do any wars. Yeah. Otherwise you'll make the prize sad. Yeah. I reckon they should have also given him the, Nobel Prize for medicine so that he cured cancer.

Yeah. And maybe for literature as well. So he wrote the Great American novel. Yeah. Yeah. Imagine if it I had. Yeah. He could have written so much great stuff by now.

Give him all the auspies. The poetry that seers lines across the human heart. So you think like a preemptive strike is this? Yes. It's exactly right. God, yeah, the Nobel Peace Prize, that was really what they would have been doing if they'd given him the Nobel Peace Prize. The preemptive strike. I think the Nobel Peace Committee should have their own military force, paramilitary organization.

The Nobel Army. The Nobel Peace Army. The Nobel Marines have gone in. Yes. And they go, you know, if they extract. award-winning research. Oh, great, yes. From Iran.

To kill the enemies of peace. I mean, this is, I think this is basically, I'm pretty sure Trump, no, not Trump, Bush might have at some point referred to the enemies of peace. Going to war against the enemies. The enemies of peace. I think when is the Nobel, like, imagine if the Nobel Peace Prize Committee got the bomb, you know? Yeah. Imagine the good they'd be able to do with that. I mean, they feel like they would be the best equipped to have a bomb, to, like, develop a bomb.

Since they've got access to all the physicists and stuff. Mm, all those laureates. Yeah. How many laureates could you? you reach a critical mass A laureate is somebody who's received a laurel? I guess so, yeah. What about somebody who rests on their laurels?

I guess they're a laureate because they've received a laurel. They've got those laurels from somewhere. They're a sleepy laurels. They're not resting on someone else's laurels. Do you say they're a sleepy laurels? Yeah, a sleepy laureate who's resting on his laurels. No, sorry, I was thinking of a slow Loris. Oh yeah.

The slow Loris? Oh yeah, the Slow Laureate. Yeah, give them the bomb. Have them raise an army. Maybe they could start conscripting people. It's exciting. I mean, it's really exciting. But, I mean, look, back to the Peace Prize thing, to be honest, like since he won the FIFA Peace

surprise. He has gone into two foreign countries and taken out their leaders illegally. I mean, if he was following the rules, obviously, I wouldn't be saying anything. I think it's time for them to give him a FIFA red card. You think throw him off the pitch? Throw him off the pitch. Is it a pitch? It doesn't sound right.

Cricket pitch, soccer pitch, soccer pitch, field, football pitch, soccer, football field. And you feel about people who call rugby, rugga. Rugga? I've never heard that. They call it Rugga. Some of the, I think it's, I think it's an English thing. I think it's British. I think if you went to like a boarding school or something, you might call rugby rugga. Okay, yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's such a big word to finish. And so you've got to shorten it by saying it with the same amount of syllables, but slightly different. But at least you don't have to use your lips. Use the ones that you've already used. Yeah. Raga. Raga, you don't have to go Raga B. Oh, it's almost three syllables.

It's like two and a half. Raga B. Yeah. I do think that the syllable system is not representative. You're right. Andy, you're goddamn right. What do you think? Should we go for something more simple?

I mean, the Japanese syllable system is flawless, I would say. What is the Japanese syllable system? Well, I think I... A syllable syllabus. I don't think that they do a lot of that fucking around stuff, right? Like, stuff that's like... That's like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. That's it.

It's a lot of that. It's just that. You're not like, they're not doing Schwartz. Right? They don't do Schwartz. There's no Schwartz's in Japanese language as far as, as I can tell. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. So Schwartz, you're like, okay, you are, you're telling me this is a one syllable word, but I'm making like 10 or maybe 15 different sounds in the course of that word. Yeah. I've just enunciated a paragraph. I feel like, you know, that's the most enunciating I've done in my fucking life. That's a week's worth.

Yeah. I mean, my mouth has. gone through so many positions. I've used every muscle in my face. Yeah. Whereas in Japan, you can like, Sakatani, Sakatani motherfucker,

like, I don't know, yeah. Sakatani motherfucker. They're just pure syllableists. Now how can we turn this into? a sketch idea. Is there a sketch in that, Andy? The Japanese and their syllables. A beautiful Japanese syllable, like

Sakha, Sakatas, you know? Are Sakatas, the rice cracker? Are they Japanese? Feels like that comes out of Japan. I mean, would, it's either that, or it's, you know, or it's, or it's, or it's, or it's, or it's, or it's, or it's, or it's, or it's, or it's, or it's, but they're Saganaki. Yeah, but that feels like it comes from Japan as well.

We've talked, I think we've talked about this before. So many times, Andy. It's one of my only observations. Yeah, I mean, the only thing that it comes to mind for a sketch idea would be that like, you know, an otherwise quite run-of-the-mill Australian politician who includes on their platform the fact that we are going to adopt the Japanese syllable, approach to syllables. Yeah.

And so like in amongst everything else, they just have that as part of their like, you know, sweet policies. And what are they doing with all the words that they don't think fit? Because that's all we talk about in Australia. Yeah. What are they doing with all the words that don't fit the syllable thing that were, the new syllable laws? It's a buyback scheme. Maybe they're going to be bought back and they're going to be put into that big machine that crushes them like all those guns. Yeah, with the fire.

Remember, whenever they're going to be brought back and they're going to be put into that, um, that big machine that crushes them. Whenever they show the footage of the gun buyback scheme, and they show guns being crushed in a big gun crusher. Yeah. I always think I'm seeing them getting shoveled into like a furnace. Yeah, furnace. Maybe, baby. I mean, fuck it hell.

You want to make sure they're all empty before you go shoveling those guns onto that fire. Yeah. Standing there. Standing a big gun shovel. It's, what do you use? Because it's like a shovel doesn't seem appropriate. does it? Pitchfork?

No, maybe a rake? A pitchfork, I think so. There might be special gun shoveling elements that we don't know about. A gun utensil. Yeah. What about... But it always makes me a bit sad when I see those guns being crushed like that. Like, I'm very anti-gun.

Until I see them sort of being ground up in a machine. And then I go, oh, those guns. I see someone actually, like, my below. of it, right? There's been a few times where it's like, we, we are talking about somebody in the news, usually a man, like an older guy who has done something quite bad, you know, usually it might involve like essay or, you know, something real bad, right? And then she goes, like, she goes, oh my God, like, I don't know why, but as soon as I hear about that, I suddenly feel really sad for them because they just look like this sad old man.

Yeah. Who's like, yeah. I've been thinking about this recently. I don't know if it's connected, but I also feel like when a billionaire, right, loses a bunch of money, right, or gets humiliated or something publicly, you know, one of their business ventures collapses. I feel a bit sad as well. Like, you know, I'm gleeful when Elon Musk loses lots of money.

Yeah. A little bit of me is sad. I'm like, oh, no. And I reckon what it is is like this evolutionary thing from like when we were a tribe of fucking monkeys. Yeah. And the top monkey, okay, you know, the great silver back or whatever. Has his finger bitten off or he like shits himself, really runny shits himself in front. front of the rest of the tribe of monkeys.

Yeah. Shits pouring down his legs. Okay. There's like, there must be something in us that goes like, our leader is weak, you know? Yeah. And that puts, that makes me, makes our tribe and makes me vulnerable. Like something, you know, the system, even though it might not work for me, there's, as an individual, the system that keeps us safe or keeps everything working is failing.

And I reckon it's that same instinct. And I think it's, I reckon it's a fucking dangerous. I reckon it is. But I feel that same stuff. I mean, all the, all the weird psychological stuff that's going on that make people fawn over Elon and shit like that, it's psychopathic. It's like, it just, we're all so weak mentally. I mean, yeah, I haven't seen anything about like, you know, these billionaire, like, fanboys things, like, done in media as far as, you know, this is without having watched that much media.

But, yeah, just that weird obsessiveness. Like, who are these people who might be online defending Elon? and I realize now that there's just like endless bots but then there's real people as well in there the one guy who is not a bot who's still out there defending Elon Musk yeah

I think it's the last one yeah because I mean I guess you feel it sometimes when you see Musk get interviewed by somebody who's like a tech YouTuber or something like that and you kind of go oh yeah there's still people out there who are just like impressed by the achievement.

Yeah, like he's a regular guy who isn't publicly just like we're all watching his brain melt. Yeah, like he's just a regular genius, you know. Yeah, run of the mill genius. Yeah, I don't know how to turn that into a sketch right now. But. Yeah. But I mean, what about it's just like this guy at home, right? and this might be too sad or too much like something that would just happen.

But it's this guy at home, he's an Elon Musk fan. And he's just his everyday life. And he's defending Elon Musk to his kids and his wife. You know, this is just how they communicate around the home. And bringing Elon Musk up in regular conversations. And then he goes, I mean, is it too much to just steal the idea from, that the funniest thing that's ever happened to the guy who is being talking to Nigel Farage on the on that fucking talkback channel and he's like I something happened and now

I believe in all your balls is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm kicked in the head by a powerful horse. And yeah, I was just kicked in the head by a horse. Yeah, and then he goes to the, goes to the fucking doctor or whatever and he's got, we reveal later on in the episode that he's got like a massive steel spike. through his brain or something like, you know, those people who, like, fall on a railing, and then they just have a huge metal spike in their head for the rest of their lives. And for some reason, they're like, it would be more dangerous to remove the metal spike now,

and so he just lives with it. I mean, I do like the guy has a huge spike in his head, yeah. Great, yes, excellent. Oh, thank God. Yes, all that talking was. for anything. Somebody liked it. And it was the guy who's writing things down. Yes. I've won his, approval. Or I've worn him down. And what's the difference, really? In a relationship of any kind, there are two paths to success. Yeah. Success and never giving up. Success. Failing, but not stopping.

You know, when you, when you've, when you've, A guy called Seth. It's always a suck Seth. That's so good, isn't it? Did I tell you that the Latin for, well, philat comes from Latin, the Latin word to suck, right? Yeah.

And the root of that verb is fellow. Oh. Fellow. So when you sing, for he is a job. Dolly good fellow. Yeah. You're actually seeing, man, he's a good suck. Wait.

Oh, wait, wait, wait. So fellow comes from folate? No. No. No. No. Okay. No.

I'm saying, for late comes from fellow. Okay. And what about cunner? Is it linked to cunner? Oh, it's got to be, right? It's got to be. I had never made that connection before in my fucking life. but wouldn't it be great if if cunt did come from latin and and you're speaking you know the language of the

of latin mass of the official language of vatican city when you drop a sea bomb sorry i started reading about it and i didn't i didn't hear you but i didn't say anything okay well the term cunnelingus is from Latin, from combining canis, meaning Volvo or female piadenda. Pudenda, that's the most, Pudenda is the most disgusting word. Piedenda.

It's vastly, it's vastly more upsetting to hear than any of the bad swears or euphemisms. I mean, I don't know. For genitalia. Pudenda is repulsive. Oh. Yeah.

Oh, it's Pudendum is the singular. Show us your Pudendum. But it says show us, it's the external genitals. So it's not like, it's actually nicer than like show us like, you know, like when people are like opening up. I don't want that. I don't want that bit. Yeah. Just the outer stuff.

Just let me see the outer stuff. I just want the tip of the iceberg if you don't mind. Yeah. Same thing. It's like, but it can also mean it's like a person's external genitals and it says especially a woman's, but it can mean, so we all have pia denda.

Andy, it's actually non-gender specific except for in the way that it gets used mostly for women. Actually, Andy, I love pia dendia. Everyone's got a pudenda. You know, you've got one underneath your shorts. That's good. And if you're not wearing shorts

and probably underpants, And if you're not wearing those, that's probably in your skirt. If it's under your shirt, then you're not wearing any pants. And geez, that's weird like Winnie the Pooh. But that's something you can do. Really good. Yeah. Not only does he not wear pants.

He's one of those guys who, like, bought his shirts before he put on a fair bit of weight. And now they don't even properly cover his belly. Like there is absolutely no chance that that shirt is covering his, his poudenda. Yeah. You know how in the United Kingdom, they call underpants pants? Yes. Do you think that that means that underpants in the United Kingdom is just a word for pudenda? I think it might be.

Do you think it just means genitals, your underpants? Your underpants? Yeah, which feels like it is like a, like a, like a, what's the term there, a euphemism for undercarriage. I mean, I'm just thinking then like, you know, if you tried to describe a wedgy to a British person, you say, where you grab someone's underpants and yank them up, would they think that you are reaching into their pants, grabbing their dick and balls and ripping it upwards, which is not a move I've ever seen done. Wait, are you describing a, like a scrotal wedgy?

A scrotal wedgey? Like, could you grab the scrot? Pull it up through the back and wedge the ass with the scrot? Isn't that incredible? I think so. You know, because then you're not just getting the pain. I think it's nature's wedgey, you know? Wedgie, it's how they would do it back in the olden days.

Or natural. Yeah. You know, low technology. You don't need this created, this artificial system. Yeah, multi-species, fibers and things like that. We're using the material that the body provides to Wedgie itself, you know? I mean, you could probably you could probably just grab the perineum.

It's not a very flexible skin, but I think that, you know, a good tug, you could pull that up into the crack a little bit. I really don't think you could. No, you're right. I think it's,

I think that's insane to suggest when you've got the balls rubbing up against the anus. You know, so then you probably really need that scrot just to keep your hand at least a little bit clean. Exactly.

You know, We're looking for a more traditional and hopefully still hygienic approach. And I think it would be a really interesting experience for both the people doing that, for both of you. Oh, which one? The grabber and the grub or the wedger and the wedgee. The wedgier and the wedgi. They should do a movie that's a bit like blackberry or. or that one about the Nike Air, you know, shoes.

Or the one about Ford versus Ferrari. Yes. Yes. But it's about the development of the scrotal wedgy. Or, you know, or maybe they develop it and they think they're onto something and then they realize that it's actually a very old technique and that they're in touch with, you know, their ancestors. they all have a real spiritual experience, maybe.

Maybe they use it as like a, you know, maybe it's like a mind-altering thing once you get it done. Maybe you do get in touch with your ancestor spirits, you know? Maybe it's like an Amish kind of thing because they reject modern technology. Maybe that's what we could call it. We call it the Amish Wedgy. I think we can, but they do wear clothes the Arish. Amish. You know, you could definitely

wedgy an Amish person depending on the quality of their underpants. They're undergarments. I mean, you could make an un-wedgeable outfit, which is like a material that is so weak that once you pull it up, it just tears on impact. You know, like...

That is a really good idea. That's a really good idea. So they just dack you. They just rip your... The wedgie really is the opposite of dacking, right? In where dacking is yanking your clothes. It's a reverse deck. Lower garbant stand.

Yeah. It's a cad. A cacad. The anti-dac. The anti-dacca. Yeah. And they're both, you know, forms of childhood humiliation. Removing the underpants from.

their position of equilibrium, from their neutral state. It would be an upward DAC by pulling it up and having it sort of essentially disintegrate as all the holes get torn open, but not the ones on your body. This way, the only hole that gets torn open is on your clothing. But, you know, one is a, one's a more. a form of like psychological humiliation, pulling the pants down. Yeah. And psychological damage meant, you know, it's an assault on them.

The psyche, the ego. And one is more of an assault on the body, the pulling pants. I mean, what's great about the DAC is that you're still leaving them with the tools required to recover themselves. pull themselves up by their own sort of underpants straps if you will. I wonder if anybody's combined the two where you... Wedging and DAC. And then the DAC, you know, like a speedball. It's like the burpee of humiliation.

Yeah. You know, what would you go first? Would you go the DAC to humiliate them? Because I mean there's two types. First, the wedgy then DAC, right? So you wedge them and you lift them up in the air. And then as you drop them, you keep going after they hit the ground. And then you reveal their sack, shaft.

And depending on the angle, ass to the people in the room. But then there's the DAC, but then you come back up. Yeah. And you've got some. momentum, you've got a bit of a run-up. You're like a rocket. But then the DAC lasts less time. That's right.

They both have, this is the problem. They both have so much to recommend them, but then they also come with their own compromises. It's a micro-dacking when you do it with a follow-up with a veggie. You're giving them a taste of what it would be like to be decked. Just a flicker. Yeah, just a sliver. Just a morsel. Just a dacket.

A little dacket, yeah. Wedgy and the dackettes. And then there's, of course, the choice of whether you do the deck from behind or you do it from the front and get yourself a faceful of genital. Oh, yeah, while you're down there. Yeah. Oh, my God. Imagine that as a method, as a method of them putting them.

Like, like as a method of seduction to use the DACA, Because I guess pulling Pulling somebody's pants down slowly That's romantic But to go a full speed death My goodness You're absolutely right Yeah

It's always romantic It's always romantic You know? I mean I guess If you do it slowly enough That they have a chance If they want to get away Right

To stop you That's the romantic part Yeah You give them You give them enough time to leave even to slap your hand away. Slap the hand away. Slap the hand away.

Do you know? Oh, baby, slap my hand away. Do you know what that's the reference, what the rhythm is supposed to be? It's a link to peaches. Peeches. I think Fuck the Pain Away, where she has that in her song.

Fuckin all my titties because you want to me, calling me all the time. Like that, right? And then the song kind of goes into fuck the pain away or whatever. But this is slap. the hand away, which...

Right. I mean, both are kind of pretty intense. I didn't know that was a real song. I only know that lyric because in, I think, the Mighty Bush live DVD, Bolow the Gorilla sings it briefly. Oh. They seemed like a nice...

But I didn't know it was a real... Yeah. Didn't know it was a real song. I thought that that was just something... Bolo the Guerrilla. I would have said that was a Bolo the Guerrilla. Song. I didn't know Peaches existed in the Mighty Boosh universe.

There you go. It's a crossover. It's a shared cinematic universe. Is that guy, the guy from Mighty Boosh, not like, not Noel? Noll? No, the other one. Julian Barrett. Yeah.

Is he doing anything else these days? I think he does a bit of like, you know, he pops up occasionally in like a, you know, in another comedy series, playing a sort of like an agitated man. Yeah. He, what did I see him in? I saw him in a couple of years ago. We watched like this paranormal Nick Frost TV series where he played like a sort of a weird cult leader. And I think I saw him in a, oh, I watched a movie where he was the star called Mindhorn.

Yeah, right. Where he played a sort of a former TV star from a show like Nightroids. where his character was a guy who could like see oh yeah could he see and you could see something not not dead people and no no but oh man i got to tell you just from looking at his his uh i mdb the man is working love that he was in 16 episodes of bloods he was in 13 episodes of the great which i've heard is actually really good i think it's like Yeah. Three episodes of Summer Camp Island?

I love him. I obviously haven't kept up that much with his uvra, but I think he's brilliant, and I'm so glad he got success. Yeah. Because I've seen some clips of his very early stuff, and you're like, oh, you're just like a weird, uncomfortable guy. Yeah, right.

Like his early like solo stand-up was just like so strange and alienating. And it looked like he was sort of hating it and hating himself but didn't have a choice but to do stuff this way because that was just what he was doing. Yeah. And maybe that was his schick. But it was also like just like some of those people that you see when you're starting out doing stand-up and you're like, oh, this isn't working. But boy, you're committing to the bit. And I know you couldn't do anything else.

Yeah. And I, and I, and there is. something there, you know. Yeah, and that's the thing is that that's such a weird feeling is to be like, you're not getting laughs, but I 100% know that there's something there. You know, it's like the same thing that, the same reflex that makes you know that there's a joke. You know, there's a joke in an idea. You're seeing that in them.

And you're like, but your sense of, of it is more sensitive than the audience, which is why you find it funny, but the audience doesn't. or maybe you don't even funny, you know? Yeah, that's true. You're like, I can't sense the joke, but I can sense that you sense the joke,

you know, and I just like, and then eventually those people, like, I can imagine Paul Foote was one of those people, right? Where like eventually you, they just, if they stick at it long enough,

they find a way to translate what they think is funny into a way that some of the people in the audience connect with. Yeah. And then, great, then you're off. But, yeah, it can be painful in the intermediate time.

And I've seen so many of those people who probably could have been incredible, so funny, but like probably didn't make it through because it was just a bit too painful to go through that process. It's a tough process. We were talking about something. Wedgies and dacking. Oh, before the episode. Before the episode.

Before the episode. And we were talking about something. that made me think about the Beaufort scale. Okay, what's the Boffat scale? Which is the Boffat scale is the wind scale, right? Oh no, no, maybe it was the Moes scale of hardness, which we've talked about on the podcast before. Well, like, everything's compared to something else.

It's one of those very, like, not quantitative scales. It's very vibes-based. It's very, like, but Boffat scale is the same. You're like, fucking hell, you did well to get a scale named after you. Beaufort, he's the one who did the scale of wind, wind strength. And it's like, at Beaufort scale nine, leaves start to rustle or something like that. You're like, oh, this is, this is not science. Whatever you're doing here, this is like, you fucking took a poem somehow,

you put some numbers next to a poem, and then hundreds of years later, we're still using this fucking scale. That's great. Oh, maybe this was it. Did we, no, this wasn't it. But did we talk about snug as a bug in a rug on the podcast recently? I don't think so. No, but I did, I think I did say something that was a little bit poetic on the,

but pre-episode. I can't remember. But snug as a bug in the rug. Yeah. I, I love that phrase. And I love that that was just some, I said that one time. And like everybody,

everybody since then, every single person who's heard it has been like, fuck, that's good. I'm going to use that. Yeah, but then... What's the bug doing in a rug? I don't know. I don't know.

And it doesn't matter. That's the thing. There's no logic to it. It's like, this is just such a good, a good sentence. A great triple rhyme. I would argue it's had,

an equal cultural impact to like one of Shakespeare's sonnets. Whoever came up with Snugg as a Bug and a Rugg, and it is a poem. It's probably a, it's probably, I would say, the world's most quoted poem and the world's most widely known poem. Yeah, even like more than like you're a poet and you didn't even know. I reckon even more than that. Wow. Which is crazy that like that one's very high on the list.

Yeah. And like it's this, that one I kind of fucking hate, right? Sure, sure. But snug as a bug in a rug. Because it's only got two, it's only got one rhyme in it. Exactly right. Yeah, whereas, Snugg is a bug in a rug is useful.

It's a poem you can use. It's like practical, one of those practical philosophers. Oh, practical. No, I'm a poet and I'm going out there and I'm writing poems that, that are, that have, an end user in line. A use case. When you are comfortable.

For example, can we need something for when I'm comfortable? Yeah. I need three rhyming words or a paragraph that feels nice to say. Because I mean, I guess when you're like you sort of a snug as a bug and a rug, it's like when you're in bed and you're warm and you're cozy like that. And then you get to say that and you feel even a little bit better.

I think it, I think you're right. I think it makes you feel warm just hearing it. Yeah. And as such, it enhances the experience, which is more than I can say for a lot of other poetry. So, I mean, I guess to be a practical poet is somebody who comes up with a little expression to describe a moment. And the poem not only describes it, but then also basically makes you feel more, yeah, enhances it, makes you feel a bit more of that feeling.

It's like a garnish. It's like a bit of salt and pepper. Parsley. The meal. The lemusg. It's a little MSG. It's a flavor enhancer. Mm-hmm.

You know? It is. Yeah. Yeah. It makes them pop. Because then, because also then you get to picture yourself as a bug for a second in between the threads of a rug. You're like that.

You're like, I don't know how I did this, but I feel safe, even though I'm on one of the most walkable surfaces. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do think that... I do sometimes think that, you know, a carpet so tightly weaved, you know, a lot of the time. That I think that as a bug, you probably could hide within its fibers, get trot on, and the weight distribution would may stop you from crushing all your exoskeletal.

I reckon you're probably right. And maybe that's part of it as well. Maybe. Let's just try to think of one practical poem that this guy could come up with. Oh, Jesus. Let's say. Okay, what about needing to shit? Okay, yeah.

So something that, then you would say something that kind of really adds to the feeling of needing to shit. Yeah. it almost motivates you to get to the toilet I think the word bust yeah right could be in there because bust to me it does have that kind of like conceptual an anatopoeia

where it's like the the B like sort of busts out like in a and then the t is almost like the shit hitting the water like bust yeah

is and then I mean you could use two versions of the word bus, because in a way, you know, you are busing out all your, you know, all your waste products is kind of in a sort of a long bus as well. But I'm about to bust my crust. I'm about to, yeah, I think something like that could be right. What about, you know, I must, I must bust. Bust some rust. Some rust. Some rust. I'm about to thrust. Oh, okay. Trust that I will thrust rust upon this bust.

I must bust some rust. Yeah. Oh, it's really good. Bust a gust of rust. Oh, bust a gust. Bust a gust, though. That's like, that is doing a far. Yeah.

Yeah. Just bust a gust. I must bust a gust It's It needs a bit more filler you know Like connective tissue to just give it a bit more rhythm Yeah

I must bust a gust But I think that's as close as we're going to get I mean that could we could almost say you know Working to a deadline Working on is Yeah I mean it doesn't give you an imagery It just describes what you're going to do Whereas the snug as a bug and a rug

Of course it contains metaphor Yeah. You're right. That's what we're missing. This is why we're not poets, and we do know that. Yeah. But look, I'll just write bust trust I need to bust a gust. Yeah.

What was it? I must bust a gust. I must bust a gust. I mean, I feel, you know, I think the poet's listening. And I know we have a few. I think they're not going to be thrilled with that. They're not going to be thrilled. I thought you're going to say their ears are tingling,

but it could be because we've made their ears sort of dead in some way. And it's maybe only a little... Now that we've stopped talking about it, some blood is returning to their extremities. And they stop tensing their head so much that... Yeah, I think... Yeah. ...intrust.

But Alistair, I don't know if you know this, but we have listeners. Do you know that? Do you know that? And I said, I don't know if you know that. I know, but do you know that we have them? No. Okay. Yeah, okay, and?

Well, they can support us on Patreon. They can send us three words. If they do so. Yeah, the king's ear. That's amazing. Three words from a listener. Ah, yes, the king's ear. Well, Andy, do you know who we have as a listener today?

Um, uh, Karen Oliego. It's funny that you should say that because that's wrong. Oh. Um, it is funny to be wrong. It is funny to be wrong. Um, wait, let's just see. Okay, no, I can't do that one. Sorry.

I was, I realized that I hadn't collected the three words from a listener for today. Um, let's go with one of these, I reckon. Oh, no, these are side tank ideas. So weird when I'm looking for side tank ideas. You can never find them. I can't find them, but then suddenly, wait, but I will go, I will go running. Did I say well, renting out loud? You did, well, you just said, I will go runting.

Okay, yeah. Okay, wait, now these are all sides. I'm hunting for a runtin. I don't, I don't have any runting words. So unfortunately, I'm just going to go, I'll just search for words in that way that will. Oh, look, you know what? I'm going to go for a Nathan Graber. Graber?

Back from May 2025. I wonder if we've had a Nathan Graber before. Do you think this could be a debut? I think we have had a, no, yeah, we have had one because in his message, he says, loved what you did with the sketch. and appreciated the name kisses. So I think we might have said that we wanted to kiss his name. And I agree.

Do you think that you could call your first love your day-boo-boo? Your day-boo-boo-boo? Yeah. Yeah, your day-boo. What about your day-boo and your night boo? Oh, that's good. Day-boo in the streets. night boo in the sheets

I you can't you can't sleep with your your day girl okay Andy do you want to try and guess the three words well how about let's start with the first word um the first word

previous previous oh close global okay yeah sort of an adjective um oh okay

it's gonna be global something shortage. So I think the third word might be shortage. I'd like to lock that in now. Okay. Do you want me to tell you whether or not it's correct now? No, no, no. Shart. Global shart shortage. You know what? You could be way further away. You could be further away. This kind of looks like a shart. It's a slug. Oh, okay. Global slug. You still. going with your locked-in one? I mean, imagine if it's glut. Because slug glut is a really great pair of words.

And I've gone with shortage. Global slug shortage. Global slug is a bug in a rug. I'll go, yep, I'll go, I'll go a shortage. Glob slug shortage. The answer is event, global slug event. I mean, I wasn't, you know, again, I could have been, I guess I could have been further away. I mean, a slug does really feel like nature's shart.

Yeah, you're right, you're right, Andy. I mean, a global sharding event is an interesting, like the shartening or something like that, you know, the. It's really good. It's a good Stephen King novel. Yeah. Like, you know, there is a, everybody sharts themselves globally, simultaneously. And it's about how people recover, you know. Trying to figure out five years after the global chart.

What if it's Avengers end game? But when Thanos gets the thing and he clicks his fingers, it's killing half the people at the university makes everybody shards. REM re-release their song. Everybody shards one time. Right. one time and it is only one time

and then you find out that the person like you know as we get deeper into the story the person who caused it let's say it is

some evil scientist engineer type thing do you think the shart started in a lab but do you think it was a lab leak I think that it was purposeful like it was some kind of like

flesh EMP or whatever like that. You know, he he discovered the code to making the brain do things and he blasted Earth with this thing, this wave.

But I think after it, it blew his machine out. And so while they're searching for with a cause, he's trying to repair it and he's getting closer to being able to like I think he, you know, to doing another one.

with the hope of like he was trying to blow out everybody's bowels. You know, he was trying to reduce the population of the earth. Oh, wow. You think it's a killer, killer, kind of thing. I think, yeah, it's a great right chart. Yeah.

Oh, my God, imagine that. That would, because that might happen with the birds. It would be the great white shark. You know. The birds or like all the birds shit in one time. That would be the great white shart. I wonder if all the birds, the birds chat at the same time.

Except for ducks. They have, like, they shit like a mammal. Yeah. It's a bit more Mr. Whippy, but they, it is, um, it is like a mammal. You're right. But I think there is some white in there sometimes. Mammal shit in motherfuckers. Is there white in there?

Maybe it's, I'm thinking seagulls. There might be a tiny little tinge of white in there with ducks. It's amazing that you can get whites. Essentially because they're a grazing bird, you know. They're like, how are they getting whites in, blacks in there and they're not making gray. Like, are they coming from two separate places? It could be a cloacal situation.

They could be like, you know, it could be a post-mix kind of... But it's like a prostate thing? They're getting like prosthetic fluid in there? I think it might be. Yeah. It might be. How are they getting... I think the white might be the piss and the black might be the poop.

And I think the cloaca combines the two. At the point of delivery. They're doing white out piss. Maybe. I don't know. What do you reckon? Yeah, I mean, I guess it's possible, Andy. I think, you know what I think?

Where are they getting white stuff from? Yeah. Where are these birds getting white stuff? Yeah, that's what I want to know. How are they? They're like up there eating bugs and stuff. Yeah. They're not white.

I mean, bugs are like black. How does the body produce white? And it's like, like, why are all my white waste products so, dark and their waste products are so white. I know. I mean, let's get a bird guy on the phone. Make some bird calls. We, I think if we could, you know, at the moment we're doing genetic engineering to like make tomatoes purple and stuff.

Yeah. But I would love it if they could genetically engineer humans so we could sort of just do nice, clean, white bird sheds. Yeah. I think to make beautiful white shits would be an actual, like, same color as the bowl. Oh my God, we'd have to change the color of toilet paper. Interesting. Yeah.

You're right. Yeah. So that when you look at it, you know. Yeah. You'd have to go with a brown of piper. Although, I guess, you know, the budget stuff would be perfect because it's a bit browner. I mean, but maybe you want it even black, you know. Maybe you want to go to like a.

Sure. You know, sort of a charcoal-infused toilet paper. I'm amazed they haven't made a charcoal toilet paper, by the way. They were putting charcoal in everything for a while. Yeah. I mean, you know, I bet you if I googled it right now, Andy, there'd be a charcoal toilet paper. But why would you want that? Wait.

Toilet paper. Black toilet paper. I mean, I'm not seeing any black toilet paper out there. Not out there, but you see 12 rolls of black reusable toilet paper. does exist, Andy. It does exist. That's exciting. That's exciting.

That, you know what? The world, anything is possible. Rule 32 of the internet, if you can think of it, there's a toilet paper made out of it. Yeah, coloured the same as that thing. Even one colored the same as the color black. Alistair. One last thing. We come up with a sketch idea.

Just one last thing, Andy. I think that, you know, in a. In a world where eating slugs and escargo would be a little bit more acceptable or a little bit more normal, I think that they'd be great to slurp up. I mean, they would be incredible to slurp up. Like, they were built to be slurped. I think given that slurping is basically how they get around.

Like, their whole life is slurped. They slurp the earth? They're in a state of slurp. They do. But I think there's other issues that have to be resolved before they're actually enjoyable to slurp up. Sure. Sure, sure, sure, yeah, yeah. They'd be flavor barriers.

I mean, the French make the escargo in garlic butter, essentially, which is how we eat all of our bugs, right? like we eat we eat shrimp like that or prawns we eat like lobster and stuff like that like that garlic butter is how you tolerate insects yeah it's very much the um I can't say that what were you going to say the grease that allows the no no I was going to say it's very much the Jolaine Maxwell To the Jeffrey Epstein. Oh, my God. It's perfect, Andy.

Perfect analogy. Allow me to take us through the sketches ideas. We've got sitting with sadness, and I'm so unpleasant to be around that it leaves. Sitting with my sadness, yeah. The preemptive strike of Nobel Peace Prizes to stop people like Trump from committing wars, the pitching,

oh, this is, we didn't go into this, but I thought, you know, it's somebody who's pitching a gun utensil so that people don't have to use shovels

for putting them into furnaces, something that's great for picking up a lot of guns. Yeah. Last guy who still defends, who's not a bot that still defends Elon Musk. Yes.

And he's got a huge spike in his head. We've got the scrotal wedgy. We've got the unwegiable outfit. We've got the wedgy deck combinations and all the beauty that goes with that. We've got the practical poets who find a little line that can complement an experience. We've got the Great Sharkening, the global event. and we got a mini documentary on how birds are making white in their body. Where's it coming from?

Where's the white coming from? How are you getting it then? It's a great conspiracy theory. It doesn't make sense. What was that one that guy sent me recently? The guy sitting there saying like where's all the leather going from all these cows we're eating? Yeah, for killing. Because I'm finding a hard time finding a leather shop.

but we're supposedly killing 15 million cows a day. Yeah, like that. And he's just talking about, where are all these hides? And he's like, that's like a 10 foot square, 10 square foot hide per beast. You know, where's it all going? Yeah, and then he's like, so that tells me either they're getting rid of these hides, which I don't know how or what we're eating isn't cow. Yeah.

That's a great place to get to because I completely agree with him at the start. And he took me on a journey. I was like, yeah, right. Where is all the leather? Then he's like, maybe we're not really eating cow. I'm like, okay. Yeah, the one step before that was maybe they're breeding a skinless cow. Oh, yeah, that's crazy.

But not as crazy, perhaps. Maybe we're not eating cow. Yeah, it was like, what, they created some mythical beast. I think he's suggesting we're eating human. That was my feeling. Yeah, right. that we're eating. But then where's all the human skin?

You know, you're back to, like, even if we're eating something else, I don't think he's solved his problem. Yeah. Because, yeah, it's still the same volume of stuff that is encased in naturally and something else. Andy, do you think, you know how, like, like, leather is just tanned cowhide?

Yeah, yeah. Do you think that, like, when a cowhide sees, like, a leather jacket? it goes, you've been on a trip recently? Been to Bali. You're in Bali? Why do you ask? All right, Andy, let me go through the song. A bit, be it, beard it, be it.

Thank you so much for listening to in the think tank. Alastair, I feel like I talked over you too much this episode. remember a single occurrence of that. Okay. Well, sounds like you weren't listening. No, I wasn't listening. I don't listen to you, Andy.

We both fucked up. Oh, that, come on, don't pull me into you. Don't drag me down to your level, mate. You fucked up, but I didn't notice.

That's all it is. That's all it is. I'm a good guy. You're a fuck up. Yeah. That's all it is. But thank you for listening to in the think tank.

The show where we come up for the first get to do. And if you would like to, do anything with or to us. The links are in the show notes. If you want to order a hat, the link is down below, the email address.

If you want to review us on iTunes, boy, it really helps people find the podcast. It really, man, get the word out there. Andy's still using the term iTunes, something that hasn't existed for maybe at least 10 years. So we're good. But you can like us.

You can give a little review, I think, on Spotify and on whatever podcast thing you're using. Often they have their own little thing. And who knows? Who knows if it'll help. But thank you so much. And we love you. Oh, my God. Bye, bye.

Bye.