Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - David Baddiel (Part Two)

Episode Date: July 4, 2024

Join Emily Dean, David Baddiel, Raymond and Frank Skinner’s dog Poppy for the second part of our walk on London’s Hampstead Heath. David tells us about his relationship with his parents, why Three Lions is such a powerful football song and he reveals how he actually feels about walking. We pop back to Frank’s to return Poppy - but did we manage to convert David to Team Dog? David’s new memoir - My Family is out now. You can buy your copy here!A Muslim & A Jew Go There - hosted by David Baddiel and Sayeeda Warsi - is available on all podcast platforms. Follow Emily: Instagram - @emilyrebeccadeanX - @divine_miss_emThis episode of Walking The Dog was produced by Faye Lawrence and Sarah Bishop Music: Rich Jarman Artwork: Alice LudlamPhotography: Karla Gowlett  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to part two of my chat with the fabulous David Badele. If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, get on it immediately, as I think you'll really love it. And also do yourself a favour and order yourself a copy of David's new memoir, My Family, because it's a thing of total genius and joy. Oh, and I'd also be thrilled if you subscribe to us at Walking the Dog. Here's David and Frank Skinner's dog, Poppy, and Ray Ray. So one of the things that I was really...

of in the book was, you know, this relationship you talk about with the truth. Yeah. And authenticity, I suppose. And you talk about your mum's funeral and it kind of kick-starts the book in the way. People keep coming up to you saying she was wonderful. She was a wonderful woman, your mum. And this just rings slightly hollow for you, doesn't it? Yes, more than hollow.

I would say it made me slightly angry at the time, although I actually envisage a scenario, which is example of what was happening. in inside me in terms of my anger which was I say imaginatively to these people okay so what was her name and they say well Sarah Sarah for deal and I say no her name her real name was from it and then they said oh I didn't know that and I said then how do you know she was wonderful and that's that's I say I think I don't do that as that would have been awkward and weird and odd thing to do at the funeral so instead I've written this book but but what I mean

is that saying someone is wonderful after they die or beautiful or whatever you might say about them, the idealisation that happens after people die and you've had a lot of people die on you. And so you'll know this is, I think, a second type of erasure that they die and that's an erasure and then you're at their funeral or their memorial. And if people are not being specific about who they were and telling the absolute truth about who they were, which people don't tend to do at funerals because they tend to just say nice things. I find that that wipes them out again because how much actual live-againness, real feeling of memory comes from just saying that someone is wonderful.

As opposed to saying, well, her real name was from it because the Nazis insisted in 1938 that all Jewish children had to choose, parents had to choose their names from a list. and that list had extraordinary horrible words on it, including the German word for slut. So that, not going to come up at her funeral, but incredibly real, or comic, such as the fact that she had an affair with a golfing memorabilia collector

and then became obsessed with golfing memorabilia. Again, not going to come up at her funeral, but it says who my mother was in a way that saying she was wonderful does not. And the whole book is powered by that energy. And you talk a lot about your life. your childhood, which I loved. And I found kind of, you know, hugely entertaining, but also I kind of find some bits of it a little bit heartbreaking as well.

Yeah. I don't know how that makes you feel. Does that make you feel uncomfortable that that was my response? No, no. Nothing makes you feel uncomfortable. It doesn't. I don't really, I can't really be offended and I can't really be made to feel uncomfortable. I don't think. Well, you say there was a lack of boundaries in.

your childhood. Yeah. And it was, it wasn't middle class your childhood. No. It was not working class either. It was sort of, that's the thing again, like generalisation, like middle class for me is a generalisation like wonderful. It's like it was sort of lower middle class but with strong weird elements of my mum being a refugee. A lot of this Jewishness but again that will, I mean the book makes this clear like it's not just Jewish, in whatever non-Jewish people have an idea of what that means because one half of it was this very sort of my mum being a refugee and her parents being around and being quite keen to keep the Jewish thing going and my dad mean what and me going to a Jewish primary school in which I had to

wear a yarmica and sit sit which are these kind of weird Mormon vest things and speak Hebrew and all that and meanwhile my dad's making me bacon sandwiches in the morning because he's an atheist and he doesn't give a fuck and he used to call it olly wolly Yeah, he called prayers Ollie Wani Bolly. I think I say of my dad at one point that he was a man, despite being a very clever man who liked food, football and shouting, he was the fucking hell is this now every time the phone rang. And he was just sort of angry and aggravated all the time.

And one of the things that made him aggravated was when we would have, yeah, festivals, a Hanukkah or Pesach, and his wife's parents, my grandparents would come and try and drive those. He would just get fucked off and say, when's the fucking Ollie Wolli Bolly going to be over so we can eat? So, you know, what is that? What class is that? Yeah.

Yeah, but I think people often make incorrect assumptions about you. They assume you came from the kind of background, you know. Yeah, sort of Hote, bourgeois, North London background. Yeah. You know, if we were to walk over there to Highgate, that's where they think I'm from. But I was from Dollis Hill, which isn't far away, but it's a much. it's a planet away in terms of, you know, the measong scene, the sort of fixtures and fittings and the world, you know, it was quite rough. It's much closer to sort of Halston and

Neesden and Wembley, which in the 1970s were, and still now, were quite rough areas. And it was, yeah, it was this sort of, I don't think I had a really rough childhood, but it was faintly deprived. My dad was made redundant when I was about 13 and then, because he was my dad. You know, he had a PhD in chemistry which had got him out of poverty in Swansea but then because he was my dad was too angry for anyone to employ him

in another job in science. So he ended up selling dinky toys in an antiques market opposite my mum's golf fiana stall for the rest of his life. And yeah, we, you know, I mainly grew up thinking I'll go to Dollis Hill Station and I'll hope not to get beaten up by skinheads

on the way. When you got into Cambridge, presumably your parents were so thrilled and proud, but then... No, they weren't. Well, I know, just can't. Sorry, sorry. I'm offering that up for you. But at most parents, I mean, that was a huge achievement, wasn't it, to get into Cambridge? I guess. I mean, that's funny you say that, because I can't feel it. I think this is to do with what's to my upbringing is that most of my achievements, I'm very happy that I've had them, very happy, it's given me a brilliant life. But I don't have this sense of like,

oh wow, this is amazing, partly maybe because I was not getting that from my parents, no one ever said that. And this is again, not because my parents were angry and didn't want to blow up, it's because they were off doing their weird shit. My mum, principally golf, my dad, just like in his own world of fury. So the fury, as I say, it's not to do with like,

some kind of really dysfunctional thing whereby a dad who's been made redundant might envy his child's achievements. It's not that. It's much more immediate than that with my dad, which is sort of where's my dinner? Who the fucking hell is this now? You've got it to wear. Oh yeah, whatever.

It's more that. Yeah. You know, I think there's a bit that I really like. in the book. There's a few bits in the book. One is I've already showed a picture of my graduation which includes my mum, me looking ridiculously 80s with a big mullet hairdo and a gown and my grandma Otty who was who she came over from Nazi Germany with and then I say you've seen this photo you may think oh that's nice where's the one with David's dad and there isn't one with my dad he just couldn't be bothered to come to my Cambridge graduation where I got a double first

but what I do love is I had another ticket and it went to Thelma Dom. It's my grandma's friend and there's a lovely picture of her and me with her hat. She's dressed up. But my dad thought, well, I have to put a suit on and drive from London to get off fucking doing that. But would your mum not have said, oh Colin, I think we should be there as a family for David? Would that conversation not have happened? I think not. I can't hear it happening. Because we just work that sort of family. That's a really good question. Like all that kind of stuff. Occasionally I do say in the book, you know, it's unimaginable that at my daughter's graduation, me and Molyner would not be there, no matter how boring and they fucking

are graduation ceremonies are. They're three hours long and most of the people you don't care about. You have four seconds where your child goes up and hooray, but the rest of it is really boring. But no, I would never have not gone because I couldn't be bothered. And there is a more extraordinary thing, which is I got arrested at a Stop the City demonstration in 1984. and was in a cell and then later on charged with obstructing the police in the course of their duty of instructing the highway. And I was tried for that and nearly went to prison. And then this was amazing actually because I'd forgotten this, right? I wasn't sure about including that.

And then I'm writing about my parents kind of Olympian level of neglect. And I phoned my ex-girlfriend, Janine, because I wasn't sure about this because it's a long time ago. And I said, were my parents at about that? the trial that I had, you know, it was virtually the old, it wasn't at the old Bailey, but it was at some big court. And she said, no. And I said, isn't that amazing? And she said, are you sure? I said, you sure. And this is how she remembered. So I used to have very big hair, very big Robert Smith of the Cure hair. And the police showed a picture of me being arrested with that hair to say, oh, he's tried to make himself look nice and respectable today,

but this is what he looked like on the day. He looked like a ruffian. They passed it round, right? right and I hadn't actually cut my hair I was so committed to that hairstyle like an idiot I hadn't cut that hair I'd pinned it up because it was long at the back I had pinned it up at the back in order to try and look a bit more neat and Janine said heartbreakingly I know your parents weren't there because I was the one who pinned up your hair right she's my ex-girlfriend and that nearly made me think well it didn't make me cry it made me feel very tender towards her actually but I thought that's fucking amazing like what I might've got to prison for like and how old we're you then you were 20 yeah how do you think I was it wasn't 34 I wasn't a hardened criminal no but I just find it no I suppose I thought you know it was a student demonstration basically yeah yeah it's amazing but so the so I don't again I don't remember it turns your previous question I don't remember saying or having a conversation with my mum and dad where I said look look obviously you're coming to support me I'm on trial I might go down like most

Most people got about three months from those stop the city arrests. So I might be going to prison for about three months. At least you could kind of be there to wave at me as I go down. But I don't remember having that conversation. And I guess the weird thing about the book is, I should say, it's very important to say, is none of this in the book is about saying they were, well, it sort of is saying they were terrible parents, but the book is a celebration of how terrible my parents were. Because I think it led to a very, as I say, rich and strange, weird.

like not respectable, not proper upbringing, but a good one in its own way, by default, as it were. I think it's also, you know, it's unusual for people to be fully honest about their family set up. Your point is right, Emily. Like when I did the show, which included some of this material, what I noticed was so many people coming up to me and saying, being, oh, my family was just like yours. And the obvious thing to say is, what, your mum had an affair with a golfing memorabilia collector and then turned your life out.

And obviously, that's not true. But what they mean is, my family had weird eccentricities that we kind of thought were normal, but they weren't. And that's how I feel watching your show. Yeah. Another story I tell in the book, which I think is very key, which is I don't have any, as you know, I'm a stone cold atheist. So the notion of speaking ill of the dead,

whatever that is, is silly anyway, because they aren't able to hear what you're saying or read what you're saying. The people I might be concerned about, if I'm going to do something like this book, are my brothers, the living. Those are the people you might have to worry about. And when I was doing the show,

I did speak to both my brothers, and it didn't go well. My younger brother, who's slightly angrier than me about every other. just when you're not fucking doing it. And my older brother, who knows me very, very well, and who is quite a big figure in the book, Eiver, came round and said,

look, we could talk about this for two hours, but at the end of the day, you're going to do it. I know you, you're going to do it. And I said, yes, and you'll have to trust me, because I kind of know before I've done it, that it will be an act of love. But he doesn't know that, right? So he did trust me.

And then when I did the show, the first time, it was at the Chocolate Factory in Southwark. I did the show, and then I came out afterwards, for a Q&A with the audience, that was the encore. And there's all these people in the woods with our hands up, some very important people, Michael Billington, the drama critic of The Guardian is there, and all these people.

And I say, look, sorry, I'm not taking any questions until I've heard from my older brother, Iva. What did you think? And I either said, oh, I loved it. And then from the audit, I could hear him say, I loved it because it felt like she was in the room about my mum.

And that's so much what I was trying to do. It's like, she died very quickly in my mum, very abruptly, very horribly. And so I did feel, I think, that I didn't have a chance to mourn her or to, you know, say goodbye in the way that's saying goodbye. And so psychologically, I think, this thing of like being utterly detailed, you know, not editing out the stuff that people edit out when people die so that they have a rosy picture of their life. If you don't do that, you might be saying some things that you feel like, oh my God, they've said, but what you do is you really bring them back to life. You obviously describe, I think really vividly, your mum just kind of comes out of the pages of that book. Yeah.

You know, I mean, I met her. Yeah. And she is what would be described as a colourful character. She really is a colourful character. Would she have described herself in that way? Yeah, she's a colourful character, but I don't know if she's a self, Frank Skinner once said correctly, that some of the worst people in the world are self-starled colourful characters. I would say my mother is not exactly a self-style colourful character because I think the urges that drove her to be as strange as she was were not ones under her control

You know she she was not a woman who was ever in therapy and blimey there was a candidate who should have been So I don't think she was thinking at the front of her head. Oh, I think this is it this is a good way for me to be This will make me a colourful character. She just was a really unbelievably strange person in many ways and number one in that she overnight virtually became obsessed with golf having never had any interest in any sport for it and then that being obviously a red or white flag to the fact that she was having an affair with this golfing memorabilia collector who was always at her house it was really fucking obvious but some or other she just went ahead and did that I mean in an extraordinary way I think I'd describe it as like

species drift in the book that initially it might have been just to show this bloke that she was interested in what he was interested in, but next thing you know, she's written five books about golfing memorabilia and started a business also called Golfiana and become like a major figure in the golfing memorabilia world, much to his annoyance. So, yeah, so that's weird.

But I don't think she did it in any kind of way that a self-star, colourful character would think, oh, this will make me interesting. She wasn't in control of that urge to be like that. Come on. Poppy. Hello, Poppy. Come here.

Oh, no. Poppy doesn't want to be picked up by me. Do you want to be picked up by me? Or do you want this? Do you want to have it on? I can't quite work it out. No, do you know what it is? What?

Poppy. She thinks that means you're going to need to put the leader at some point. I know, but don't say that to me. Like, look, you create a... Frank didn't explain this bit how you put it back on again. What? He didn't say if she runs away, how you get the lead back on again. Poppy...

Popie, come to Emmy. You're a good girl. Yeah, no, she knows you. She knows you. Yeah. And so your mum, this affair that she had with David White. Yeah, we have actually mentioned him by name. Are we allowed to name him? You do in the book. I constantly have in the book and you'd notice, I'd never call him David. I always call him David White.

So David White, I had some contact with him when my mum died and then after that I didn't really have any contact with him and when I was doing the show, the Daily Mail, found him where he lived in Slovenia and tried to get him to come and see the show and all sorts of and he didn't. But the publishers were a bit worried because they thought, oh, we're not absolutely sure about the legality of some of this. Even though it's all true, like is the intrusion of privacy or whatever. It's a brilliant moment I have to say when the lawyer said to me on a Zoom meeting, you know, I'll be honest with you, I'm not sure about some of this, but it's so funny that I, A, want to let it pass and B, think he will have problems suing because no one will take him seriously. Anyway, he died two days ago, or three days ago.

Two or three days ago. It's kind of extraordinary thing. I feel a bit sad about it, but basically his half-sister, a very nice woman, Sue, who came to see the show a few times, was in touch with me. I had this slightly awkward thing where I was sort of emailing her to say, what's happening? Have you heard from David? With a slight sense of like, I don't want to ask if he's dead. and I sort of like don't want him to be dead because I kind of like the fact that a main player

in this drama is still alive. Anyway, either way, she wrote to me the other day it's actually about a week ago to say, oh he rolled over, sorry, he shouldn't laugh. He rolled over at breakfast today and died. So, yeah, so he won't be suing but also I do feel quite sad even though, well, you've read the book

and as you know he's not really fainted as the villain of the story. because there is no judgmentalism in the book. I just write without judgment. But for me, he's just the other main leading man in the story and I feel quite sad that he's now gone, so all three of them are now gone. What impact do you think it had on you, though,

because you're not the only person whose parents have had an affair, but most parents go to some pains to conceal it, certainly from their kids. I feel your mum didn't really... Not really do that. She was fucking telling everyone about it. including her children. She's very keen to tell her children and everyone else because she was proud of the affair. It's a very key thing. I mean it's an interesting thing, Emily. You who have quite a kind of aware, a very high awareness of like the moors of the generation that I'm talking about, the 1970s or whatever, is I talk quite a lot in the book about how proud my mum was of having an affair with a bloke who she thought was quite glamorous and, you know, quite smooth and well-to-do and whatever, even though actually he was a bit of a kind of

I can say that now. But she was proud of it and she's you know even as late as her appearance on Badiel and Skinner unplanned where she does an extraordinary thing of there's a reference to me and my brothers that she makes and I make a joke about all this means is you've had sex with my dad three times he's in the audience and she says how do you know they were all from your father on television? Oh thank you very much oh thank you what's your name? I love it Paddy. Patti lovely to meet you apparently. I'm doing another podcast here with Emily. It makes so much sense. Oh, well thank you so

much. That's very kind of you. You're a brilliant podcast. Oh, thank you. That's very kind of you. Thank you. Definitely include that bit. Thank you. Saida. Saida Vasi. Thank you. Thank you so much. We should. That was so lovely, David.

Lovely, yes. People do love that podcast. I don't know if it's all right. It's not really in the same ballpark as your one. So I think it's probably I don't think it's a competitor is what I mean. Puppies going in the water, David. No, she's decided not to do that. Let me just say what that was. Yes, I do a podcast called a Muslim and a Jew go there with Baroness Ayadavasi, which is, we were put together by Jemima Khan, who produces it, to sort of try and find some way of talking about what it's like being Muslim or Jewish and all Jewish at the present moment.

And we sort of talk about stuff that's in the news often sparked off by stuff happening in Israel and Palestine. And it's actually very challenging and difficult to do, I would say. I can't honestly put my hand on my heart saying I enjoy doing it. But people think it's a useful thing to do. Why do you say you don't... Because it's a socio-political thing, which is that for years, once I did, Jews don't count, I said, look, don't make my Jewish identity all about Israel. And yet we end up always talking about Israel on that show.

And I'm putting in the invidious position often, of sort of defending Israel. And I don't want to do that, not for lots of reasons, not because I don't think it is always indefensible, but because that's just not my shtick. I don't like the association of like, oh, you're the Jews, so you're here to defend Israel. And it sometimes feels to me that I have to do that. Also, we talk about, you know, different, we were to sometimes very difficult stuff. This week was about sexual violence in the conflict and about denialism of it and whatever. So that's like, that's another reason why, you know, it's not as much fun as say doing this podcast.

Poppy, treat, treat. That's a lie, it's a lie though. I don't like lying. You see, even that I don't like doing. Poppy. Okay, so I'm worried about saying treats. Why? Well, because it's a lie.

We're not giving her a treat, and I'm worried that she will eventually become cynical about that and just think, well, they're not giving me treats. Why are they saying treats? It's obviously just to get me to, you know, be there for a photograph, and she'll lose all faith in human beings. That's my worry. Ladies and gentlemen, David Bedeel.

What I wanted to tell you, having read your book, which I really urge everyone to do, because it's brilliant, but also it's such an honest portrait of your family. And I think what it illustrates is what we were saying earlier, how because it's so honest, I love those characters even more by the end of it, you know, because they were real people.

And so when you said, I suppose it's that thing that, you know, when you praised them or pointed out lovely moments between you, those felt authentic. Yes, yes, yes. You know, because I trusted you at that point. I knew you were a reliable narrator. Right, right. That's really interesting. Yes, that's probably true.

If you are very, very true about the flaws and the madness and stuff that shouldn't have happened, then when stuff happens that is, you know, nice, which there is elements of, often in us quite twilight, like very late on when my dad has dementia and we're filming a documentary about his dementia for Channel 4 and the director says to me did your dad ever tell you that he loved you and I said no of course not and then he says why not and I say because he didn't and that's a joke but then he says to my dad who isn't doesn't understand what's happening because he's got dementia he says to him your son saying that you never loved him and my dad says that's absolute bollocks

and it's very moving because it's close as I'll ever get to my dad saying that, saying I love you, but he would never say that. What he will say is that's absolute bollocks when someone says that he didn't, which is just so entirely my dad, if you want authenticity, there it is. So you're right. I think that talking about the stuff that is not such good parenting or not such nice moments, make those moments more authentic. But I think another thing, which is to do with comedy, you know,

in terms of me being the... the type of comedian I am, it was always about I'm going to talk about all the fucked up, ridiculous stuff in my life in a confessional way. And obviously I'm not at all the first comedian to do that, but I would say I went to take it quite far, but it's based on a premise, which is that comedy, that sort of comedy, which is you can tell people the shit stuff about yourself and what it will do is not make them think, oh he or she is shit, it will make them think, oh, I like this person more. because they are prepared to share their flaws,

and so therefore I, the audience member, feel happy about my own flaws. Do you see, that's surely what confessional comedy is. And I think that's true as well about how you memorialise the dead. If you say, no, they weren't wonderful. They were a very flawed person. At the end of it, what you get is people saying, I loved your mum. People who didn't know her, they say, I loved your mum.

So why are you going to get Poppy? Because you need to put the lead on. Oh, okay. Poppy, can I put the lead on? This is going to be difficult. Just so you know she won't answer to do. I still don't understand how you're meant to put the lead on. I'm using my thumbnail.

Is that right? Okay, Emily's doing it. Come to him. In case you're wondering. It hasn't really worked out. What hasn't? I mean, it has. She's fine, but you're the one who's had to do the basic practicalities.

I love you. I love you. Poppy's been great. Poppy, I love you. You're such a good girl. Come here then. Also, the basic thing, right, about this podcast, about generally the idea of dogs are walking is that they really love it, don't they? Walking. They're like crazy for walking. I'm not that fast with walking myself. During COVID when that was a thing that you were supposed to do every day. I thought, but I didn't like walking anyway. Why do I suddenly have to like walking now?

But dogs love it, don't they? Oh. Well, that's why dogs are very good. mental health companions. Yeah. Because they sort of are pretty uncomplicated. Yeah. You know, they don't, they're not the great overthrinkers. I mean although very lovely is, I've always thought he is quite complicated. There's a darkness, yeah. No, no, no, you don't have to be dark to be complicated. I think he's, I think he's just an interesting, insightful, complex thinking dog. Yeah.

In a way that maybe Poppy isn't. Sorry Poppy, but, well, no, I think Poppy's nice. Bobby's nice. Are I wrong? I don't. But I don't know that raise an intellectual, you know, Poppy's more of a, how can I put this? Well, good luck. Yeah, I'm too worried about upsetting Frank by saying his dog's not an intellectual. Come in. I mean, they're getting on, right? They seem to get on, whereas one of the problems in my parents' marriage was that my dad was an intellectual and my mum wasn't and my dad was always fucked off that, you know, he hadn't married someone who he felt was quite up to his intellectual level. Right. That's interesting. Yeah, there's a bit I talk about, which is we were coming back from Swansea,

where we used to go every year, and crossing the seven bridge, and it's in the 80s, and I think we've just pound coins had just appeared, and you were supposed to pay a pound to get over the bridge, and my mum asked, why do we have to pay a pound? And my dad just went mental, I was shouting her the whole way back about how stupid she was, because she didn't know. that and I think I say in the book you know he was angry because he'd realise he hadn't married an intellectual but the thing is I am an intellectual I have no fucking idea why you have to pay a pound to get across the seven bridge and that's my point I think Ray is an intellectual so he's my dad and Poppy is not an intellectual

so that's my mum but without all the complications without the golf and everything else you know what I occurred to me as well was that just to go back to you were talking about your mum's funeral and, you know, this theme of the platitudes. She was wonderful. She was a wonderful woman. Irritating you, making you angry in some ways. Yes.

And I thought it was so interesting thinking about three lions, bear with, because I see how that song is different to any other football song because football songs are about generalisations and platitudes generally. It's about we're going to win, everything's great. And in that song, you've sort of let the darkness in. And you said, but actually it's more complicated than that. Yeah. And I loved that connection.

I thought, oh yeah. That's definitely true. I mean, you know, when me and Frank wrote that song, I think we wanted to tell the truth about what life is like, what the experience, what the long-term experience of being an England fan had felt like. And interestingly, you know, whether we knew we were doing this or not, we were, the way to do that is to really focus. on something specific. And the specific thing that we are focusing on is we actually think we're going to lose.

Oh, God, have you... I can just be clear I didn't punch Emily in the head. She just banged herself on her, what is it? I wouldn't know what that was. It's a pillar. It's a pillar. It's not just a pillar. It's a pillar with a sort of, what's the top of the thing? I think it's Doric rather than I owe it. I could think you know that. She's been hit by the Doric hat on the pillar. Oh God, Poppy knows that like home is coming. You forgot about my injury quite quickly. Sorry, well, it's a dog podcast. I'm sorry, are you okay? Are you okay? Sorry about being dragged away, look, by the dog.

Oh, Puffy knows were going home. What do you think, David? Hang on, I need to finish that thought, which is your thought, which is the specific thing, if we think we're going to lose, in fact. We don't think we're going to win, and lots of people create this, which is really happening right at the moment, this sort of mass sense that England is a shit and going to... And so against that,

what do we have, which is this shoring ourselves up against the fragments of our ruins with magical thinking, with the sort of seven times that England have done well, and think, like, that's why it goes, but I remember. And it's poignant, you know, it's poignant and people chimed with it in an incredible way, even though as we speak, the FA are trying to erase that out of history by saying, sweet Caroline simpler. And, you know, people won't say it's got complicated things in it about England owning football. So let's get them all to sing sweet Caroline. I love that you still say, don't you? That's the best day of your life was at Wembley with 90,000 people singing three lions. Yeah, well it was actually. Eighty-seven thousand. And then about

5,000 Scottish fans not singing it. So about 82,000. But yes, yeah, I mean it was, it was. I mean, certainly it was the best single moment of my life because partly because of the you know whenever you do anything that's successful afterwards people say did you know it was going to be a success and the truth is of course you don't what you do is you write something hoping that it will chime with people but if you wanted to have a most extreme summation of like oh this has been a success it has chite with people it would be that moment because three lines had in fact dropped from number one it got to number one when it came out and like all England songs did

and then it got knocked off by the Fugis. And we kind of thought it was over. And then when England beat Scotland, as they came off the pitch, and the DJ put it on against the wishes of the FA, even back then the FA didn't like it, the whole crowd joined in. And the whole crowd joined in, and me and Frank didn't know that they all knew the words.

They'd all somehow osmosed the words from when it had come out like a month before. It's the most incredible thing. That sort of grassroots embracing of something that you've done. Well, so there we are as we as poppy leads us back to Frankskin's house. Hello! I just said hello to the building. Why did that make you laugh?

I think it was the incredible sing-songness of it. The incredible sing-songness of it. We've got to keep going. Hello. What the listeners can't see is that he was not a hello guy. He was not a sing-song hello guy, that builder, I would say. But you know what? His face did not from Frank back, hello.

But I see that's such a challenge. Don't you? How do you want to try and make him more of a hello guy? Yeah. Right. We are at Frank Skinner's house. Yeah, here we are back. Pocky, do you think Pappy had a nice time? I think Poppy did have a nice time. Poppy, what do you think?

I mean, she looks like she really wants to come back home, having said that. Oh, you think so. Well, look at her. She's like really, like, can't wait to see Frank and Kath. But I think none of that. Nonetheless she had a nice time. It's Cass that she's really all over. Frank won't mind me saying that. Did you know that?

That's the primary relationship. I talked about Zelda and Pitt being all over more weather. I think female animals prefer female humans. Yeah. Generally. Hello. Shall I let go now? That's probably all right now.

Do you know, she's been, David report? Poppy was great. She was lovely, very friendly. Lovely dog. Do you know she had a great time. She was really well, and I think she and Ray really bonded. I just assumed they've already great friends but... No, they don't really... They're not really friends but they...

Ray tolerates her really well and she tolerates him. Yeah, well they... And I think that's friendship in the dog world. Yeah. Yeah. Do they get to be friends? No. What cats do, cats, or certainly sort of if you bring them up together they sort of love each other. Shaturing the old elusiness. Yeah, well they're a leased to...

And sort of endless love from the dog. Well, it's kind of a loof because it has to be a very specific thing. You basically have to bring them up together and then they'll like each other. But I don't know. Is that true of dogs? I don't know, but I'm quite loving Umbudil and Skinner on dogs and cats. I'm all over this. Yeah, I'm getting allergic to talking about cats. Oh yeah, Frank came around yesterday and I didn't remember.

To watch England games, I'm assuming. I've always had cats. We had a cat when we live together, Chairman Miao. Named by. Yeah, Frank basically. We worked on it together but it was Franks. Oh, the workshop. Yeah.

But, but. That's all credit that he gave me for three lines. Yeah. But nonetheless, I don't remember you being allergic in the old days. I wasn't an allergic. I didn't become allergic till I was 50 years of age. Oh. It was part of my celebration.

It was a lovely gift. It was. I did what, I was in our dent. I don't know if you're still going to Simon, but I was in the dentist's waiting room and he got a cat. And I sat there and I sneezed probably 50 times and my eyes felt like someone had thrown gravel into them. I couldn't work it out and then it just became apparent. Yeah, I had to give him an anti-estamine yesterday so we could watch the...

Frank? So I could watch the England game. I mean I was on the verge of tears anyway from watching the England game but the cats weren't helping. We all felt ill. Yeah. Oh, Frank, thank you so much for the loan of poppy. It's so sweet of you. Do you know, I think it did have a lot.

had something extra. That it was Frank's dog, yeah. Frank, we love to see you. No, I'm glad you took the dog. I like the fact that the dog got more media work today than I have. Hi, Frank, we love you. Did you hug? Frank, goodbye, David?

We hugged yesterday. We could hug again, I suppose. We sign up to our consecutive day. See ya. I love men. Bye bye. Come on. Come on.

See you, guys. Bye. There are so many funny stories there. I know one of your favour. You know, I'd like people to read the book. So even though I am an incontinent fountain of my life, I think I haven't covered everything in the book. I know one that you'd like me to talk about

is when trying to describe the Jewishness of my school, of my primary school, I began my showbiz career. This, I think, sums it up. I began my showbiz career with one line in the school play at Northwest London Jewish Day School, which was well, Rabbi, you certainly do drive a hard bargain, which remains the most, Jewish line ever written.

One day I will go back and find the original text to find out what bargain it was, because I'm not sure. I'm not sure what it was. Well, it's so well, Rabbi. I sometimes wake up in the night and laugh about that. It's honestly, I was reading the book thinking, please, I'm hard bargain as I call it now. In the manner of the Levi's ads, the way that they used to refer to them like Creek Laundrette. I refer to your body of work as hard bargain. David.

What a joy, Emily, as ever. I've absolutely loved our walk. Have you enjoyed it? Of course I've enjoyed it. Yeah, it was really lovely. And you liked Poppy? I liked Poppy. I liked Poppy, and I don't have to say that I like Ray.

Do you genuinely, don't you? It's an ongoing, in the present tense thing that I love Ray. As you know, Ray, I've always felt is the nearest thing to a cat that a dog can be. And so that's high praise indeed for me. me. Well, he loves you and you know the great thing, I know that you're being entirely honest. Yeah, I am being entirely honest. David, congratulations on your book. I urge everyone to go and buy it because it's honestly brilliant and I'm not contractually obliged to say that. It really is. Thank you. David, we love you. Bye. Bye. Bye. He doesn't actually make any noise, does he?

It's one of the things about Ray. He doesn't really like to bark or growl or all that kind of stuff. No, we're still not doing that. All right. Bye-bye, Ray. Bye. Look after Emily. Love you, David. You're laughing because that was a bit shit.

I loved it. I loved the shittness of it. I really hope you enjoyed that episode of Walking the Dog. We'd love it if you subscribed. And do join us next time on Walking the Dog wherever you get your podcasts.