S2 EP20: Matthew Crosby

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Podcasts, there are millions of them. Some might say too many. I have one already.

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I don't have any, because there are enough. Politics, business, sport, you name it, there's a podcast about it, and they all ask the big questions and cover the hot topics of the day.

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But nobody is covering the most important topic of all. Why is that? Are they scared?

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Too afraid of being censored by the man? Possibly, but not us. We're here to ask the only question that matters.

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We try and say it at the same time, Max. What did you do yesterday?

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What did you do yesterday? That's it. All we're interested in is what the guests got up to yesterday.

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Nothing more. Day before yesterday, Max? Nope. The greatest and most interesting day of your life?

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Unless it was yesterday, we don't want to know about it. I'm Max Rushden. And I'm David O'Doherty.

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Welcome to What Did You Do Yesterday? Hello and welcome to today's episode of What Did You Do Yesterday?

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David O'Doherty is sitting in front of me. Welcome, David. I am very happy to have Matthew Crosby on the podcast today.

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So I met him originally from Pappies, which was like they swept the boards at the Edinburgh Fringe and in sort of live sketch comedy around the 2010s, something like that.

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And... And he's still doing the Pappies Flat Chair podcast, which is one of my favourite podcasts.

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And then he does the radio show with Ed Gamble on XFM on a Sunday morning that's also a podcast.

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So I am well, Max, and I'm also excited to have Gok Crosby on the podcast.

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Yeah, I mean, I call him Crosbox because we go back... We go back so, so long.

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I met him. In an hour and a half ago for the tape we have just recorded.

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But yes, he does a radio show on Radio X, which goes from 8 until 11. And the way to remember it is just before me and Barry Glendenning do a talk show at 11 till 1.

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I think at 1.30, sometimes 1.30. It's annoying. They gave us an extra half hour. I didn't really want that.

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Do you think it's like Oppenheimer and Barbie? People who just go through the full Crosby and Gamble right through to you and Barry then?

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I think so. I think there's a lot of people just switching going, click. At that exact moment.

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But look, we'll be back for the debrief. But it's a good day. There's a lot in it.

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It's a packed day. And here it is. Here's what Matthew Crosby did yesterday. Matthew Crosby, welcome to What Did You Do Yesterday?

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Hello. Thank you so much. What a delight. It's a delight to meet you, Max.

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It's a delight to see you, David. Thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure.

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Thanks for coming on the podcast. Crossbox. Now, I will be calling you Crossbox throughout this.

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Oh, is it one of those? No, it's a nickname that I gave him when I first met him in about 2007, 2008.

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And it's never caught on. I just thought if I just kept doing it, not a single person has ever called you Crossbox.

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My brother gave himself a nickname to the point where he has a tattoo of it.

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Yeah, he's called himself the Duke. And he's got a tattoo that says Duke. And I don't know what Duke Ellington feels about this.

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That's like a 90s footballer. That's really good. Well, that's his era, you know. And he's got a tattoo of it.

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But I've literally never heard anybody say, hey, Duke, what's going on later on? Where is it?

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I mean, it's not like that person had sort of like twats written on their forehead.

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It's not on his forehead, is it? No, he hasn't gone for the bold move of forehead tattoo.

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He soft launched, if anything, using the upper arm. I think at least one other person has to be calling you the Duke if you're going to go for the stamp on the forehead.

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All you need, though, is a gravestone, you know, with the Duke written on it.

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And then at least future generations, when they walk past that. I'm sorry to go so bleak with your brother now.

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No, no, that's fine. But I think the gravestone is the last opportunity to assert this nickname.

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You're forgetting about the great work of Gunter von Hagen. That's what he should really do.

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Do you remember Gunter von Hagen, the body works guy? No, what's that? He was the dead bodies guy.

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And he was big, I would say, in about sort of 2002. He was absolutely massive.

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And he would take your body and basically turn it into a big sort of plastic model of your body.

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It was kind of half arty, half educational. He was somebody who wanted to flay people and had found a loophole to do it.

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But every now and then you'd walk past somebody and you'd see they have a tattoo.

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And you're like, oh, that makes you seem more like a real person than it does just looking at like a skeleton or whatever.

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It was Edna's dying wish to be a cross section. At the Science Museum. She loved Damien Hirst.

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She was such a big fan of that shark in a tank. Of course, your brother could dedicate himself a bench in a nice park and say, you know, Billy Crosby to his friends, the Duke.

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I mean, he could do it now, couldn't he? Oh, that's cool. I mean, we're painting him to be a bigger saddo than he is.

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He does have friends. When he passes, he's got a partner. He's got kids. They'll probably commemorate him in some way, but I don't know if anybody's going to be.

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Using Duke. But yeah, get ahead of it. In Britain, can you become a Duke?

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Can you have Duke-ness bestowed upon you by the government or the royals or whoever?

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You know, MBEs and OBEs. If he married a Duchess. Oh, yeah. He could really get in with Prince Andrew and then.

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Yeah. Very rare. That's the piece of advice. Do you know who's gravy train you want to hop aboard?

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What time did you wake up? Yesterday. Oh, you're getting straight into it. Okay. I'm the one who's caused this problem.

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I've mentioned Prince Andrew. I'll get back to the format as quick as possible. Nice work, Max.

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You're a pro. You're an absolute pro. Listen, nobody knows the gear change. I just thought I'd subtly just get it in.

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You know, we all know the exact point the episode is going to start. No, no.

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It's going to be none of the pre-ampers. I insist that remains. I insist that remains.

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If this is the start of the episode, Matthew's just been listing nonces for the last 10 minutes.

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So it's a strange way to start. You're never going to know what side of the fence I fall on.

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I'm never going to tell you. I refuse to be drawn on the topic. Answer the question, Crossbox.

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What time did you wake up? Okay. So yesterday morning, I got up several times yesterday morning because I've got two little kids.

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I've got a three-year-old and a five-year-old, Cleo and Sylvie. Sylvie is the youngest. She's the three-year-old.

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She gets into the bed. And apparently this stops at a certain age. But when you are three, you rotate.

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You wait in the bed. That's what you do. So you start in one position and you rotate.

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I guess. Maybe they're telling the time. I've never looked to see if at three o'clock she's at three o'clock.

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Like a sundial. The rotation is top to toe as opposed to just tossing over a lot.

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Oh, yeah. It's not your conventional rolling over onto your side. No, it's you would start with your head on the pillow and you could wake up with your feet on the pillow.

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You basically do sort of a big, like a big fidget spinner. You know, the kids love those.

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Yeah, they do. Right. What? What time does she come in? When's that? The dream is that she will come in around sort of three or four.

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But some evenings it's as early. What a heady dream that is. But crucially, she'll come in and then she'll fall asleep.

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She'll just rotate. So she'll kick you in the back, you know, every 45 minutes or so.

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On the hour. On the hour, every hour. Like Trevor McDonald. She's got cookie o'clock feet.

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Yeah. Yesterday is all we care about. I don't, I'm not looking for an average here.

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I want to know when she came in yesterday morning. That's normal. It's probably a conversation my wife and I have.

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And we estimated it was about 2 a.m. So it was about 2 a.m. A 2 a.m. start for Sylvie.

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And then Cleo comes in a little bit later. Now, she's not getting into bed with us.

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She just comes in to say, hello, it's time to start the day. And she was ill two days ago.

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So I was hoping that was going to result in a nice long lie in.

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But it didn't. She came in and said, OK, it's time to wake up. I need my breakfast.

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And I said, OK, I'll get up. And then I got up and it was 6.03.

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And I was like, no, we're not having 6.03. We get up at 6.45. We're at 6.45 in this house.

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So your breakfast time is 6.45, 7 o'clock. It's like running like a hotel. You can arrive early for breakfast, but you ain't getting any porridge.

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It's a couple of interesting things here. One is, so my three-year-old, what happens is he will wake up.

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He won't come into our bed. One of us will get into his bed. And you'll rotate.

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Yeah, I will. And I'm six foot, just over six foot. It's very annoying. No, but like his bed is not, I can get into it.

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I can sort of click myself into it. Yeah. And then he'll fall asleep. And then eventually you might drift off.

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And then you wake up and you think, right, I've now got to sort of unfurl myself and silently maneuver myself out of the bed.

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And then I realize my knees are fucked because they've been bent at such an angle to squeeze myself into the bed.

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But then hopefully he will stay in there. And then he won't come out until, we've told him six o'clock is when the day can start.

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Because he was a five o'clock guy. We should have said seven. Yeah, you can't have that.

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But now he's got six in his mind. It's called peak performance. Yeah. Yeah. I think you should be encouraging him to get up earlier, to splash ice in his face,

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do whatever he does. I mean, in the case of Crossbox, it does seem like the five-year-old is the CEO of this sort of Duncan Bannatyne that's being sent to try and get this, like, let's get some breakfast going here.

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Let's do this thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's team leader. She's definitely got an agenda.

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She wants, you know, she would probably sleep as much as like Thatcher did in the 80s in her dream.

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What a reference. What a reference. She'd be getting a cool three hours. She'd be the last one to bed, but it wouldn't be because she was a high achievement.

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It's because you'd want to watch people playing with Paw Patrol toys on YouTube. I must admit, at 6.03, I gave her her tablet.

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I'm talking about like a little Kindle Fire, not a tablet. I dosed her up.

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I roofied her at 6.03. We didn't see her again until 6pm. Amazing. Amazing. Because the thing you say about when your kid is ill, you're obviously sad, but there is a chance they might do a 14-hour night and you're like, on balance, it was worth it.

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R.S.V. for a couple of days, they could barely breathe, but you get one night where they're like, oof, 9am and you're like, this is what it used to be like.

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My kids, illness gives them power. I don't know why. They thrive on being ill.

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So if they have been up all night puking, then that day they're going to be absolutely full of energy.

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They're going to be really running around the place and this was the problem. She was kind of full of energy, but she was still ill.

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She had a temperature. My wife and I obviously work, so we had to give her to my parents, who would have taken Sylvie anyway, but Cleo had to go with that, to miss a day of school and go off with her.

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But I think she sensed that in the air. That's why she got up so early.

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She was like, today's going to be a good day. I'm not going to have to go to school.

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I'm going to have to go off with granny and daddo and have a nice time.

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Sidebar, what's the relationship between the five-year-old and the three-year-old? Is five-year-old very much the boss?

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Because even though Max's are only three and whatever, 16 weeks, it does seem there's a

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mobster and henchman relationship with the two of them, where one is very much the boss of the other.

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One is saying welcome to the family and making the other kiss the ring and all that kind of stuff.

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I think that the 16-week-old is committing all the murders and the three-year-old is sitting at home telling him to do it, basically.

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And he's too thick at this stage to realize he shouldn't be doing it. Can you not say too thick?

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Just from a teacher point of view, you don't. Anyone of first class be like, no, you are all thick as mints at the moment, but I'm going to try and just shake you out a little bit over the next 12 years.

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I mean, I think it's fair to say that the 16-month-old is underdeveloped. 16-week. Oh, my God.

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In which case, 16 weeks. He's not got a lot going on at this stage. Nothing going on.

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But I mean, smart enough to already know that, to understand the language of violence, because that's the thing that our three-year-old is probably, when she's a bit tired or when she's not quite getting her way, she's not going to be able to do it.

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She's not averse to getting a wooden toy and clocking her sister over the head with it, because crucially, she hasn't got...

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Cleo's been talking since she was just over one. She's been jabbering away. Sylvie is later to the game.

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She hasn't quite got the gift of the gab. It'll come. You know, she comes from a house of talkers.

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I mean, she can chat away. She can certainly do that. But she knows that the most expedient journey to getting your way is often just to take something that someone is playing with and fuck it against the wall.

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What you don't realise is that we didn't... I did this podcast with her yesterday.

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So she's pretending that she's not further along the thing. But yeah, she's doing a lot of...

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She's three times a week at the moment with the podcast. And I think that's too many.

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No, it's true. Yeah. Only Patreon listeners get those episodes. And we don't give her any money, which is probably rude, isn't it?

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Oh, yeah. Don't worry. There's going to be a period when she turns 18 where she'll sue you like Macaulay Culkin did.

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She'll go, hang on. Hang on a sec. I've done all this work in the entertainment world.

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I should be living in a mansion. That's the thing, Crossbox. It's not even in the entertainment world.

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They're pure factual. You know, it'll be like the history of volcanoes. And it's just an hour straight through of just monologue.

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And it all has to be fact checked. She's doing great work. OK, so it's 6.45.

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Well, hang on. 6.03. Have you just gone back to bed? Have you? Yeah, I've just gone back to being kicked in the back by Sylvie.

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Yeah. Cleo's got the tab. And I make a plan to go back at 6.30. 6.45, I action that plan.

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Great. So, yeah, I'm not the CEO, really. I've woken up. I'm already behind on my day.

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I'm already 15 minutes behind. OK. So you've got some heavy parenting now for, you know, until certainly you've shipped off the elder one to your parents.

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Yes, that's right. Heavy parenting. So the jobs that have to be done, the immediate jobs are you've got to feed the cat.

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You've got to empty and put away everything that's in the dishwasher. You've got to feed the cat.

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You try and make one thing for the kids. Yes, go on. Is there anything sadder than opening the dishwasher and it being full and clean?

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What do you mean? I mean, you open the dishwasher in the hope that it's not finished because if it's finished, you have to action that thing and you can't just close it and walk away from it.

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You can go, I can't just face this right now. If it's halfway through and it's dirty, then it's not your problem.

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No, the sadder thing is because we put it on just before we go to bed.

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So we know it's going to be, we don't have it on time or anything.

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We just put it on before we go to bed. So we know it's going to be ready for the morning.

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The saddest thing is opening it up and one of us has forgotten to put it on.

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That's the sad thing. The little disc is still in there. You can see all the kind of crud all over the plates.

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And you think, well, now I'm going to have to not only put the dishwasher on and then do it in 90 minutes time or whatever.

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I'm also going to now take out all the things I need immediately and wash those up manually.

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No, thank you very much. Not at 6.45 a.m. But luckily this was not one of those days.

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Ocarhythm is absolutely wrecked. And it's serving up a lot of videos at the moment of people who, you know, you put chicken in a Ziploc bag and leave it in the dishwasher.

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And it cooks. So I'm just saying that's another option. You could be happy if you opened it and then it's batch cooked a week.

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A Waitrose chicken is there. Really good. Full Christmas dinner. And you just individually put the carrots into where the cutlery goes.

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Just every single day. I'm just coming up with ideas here, guys. I'm trying to make it easier.

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It's a strong idea. And, you know, my kids struggle with cereal and porridge. If I said to them, by the way, kids, I've got a real treat for you this morning.

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Full Christmas dinner. How would you feel about turkey with all the trimmings? Considering that you balk at the idea of eating a blueberry.

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And it's coming out of the dishwasher as well. I mean, you'd have to. Turkey's got to be in the middle bottom shelf.

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That hasn't it? And probably the spuds are around. Yeah. You know, some of them have like the cutlery drawer at the top.

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Yeah. Like a posh dishwasher. You could put the chipolatas in that bit. Or the little pigs in blankets.

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They could go in the top drawer. I would say everything's going to be a bit wet.

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You want your turkey to be moist, but you don't necessarily want your chipolatas to be dripping, do you?

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And would you use a Finnish quantum or a lemon? You'd have to use a lemon.

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Oh, you've got to use the lemon. You've got to use the lemon. Of course.

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You know, until they bring out a cranberry sauce quantum, then it's going to be a bit wet.

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It's going to be the lemon. My father revealed, I'd say 20 years into doing it, he was putting washing powder into the dishwasher.

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Back in the powder era. He's very much, it's all the same. Like, we're just being scammed.

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And occasionally he'd just say something about, Procter & Gamble are taking you for a ride.

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You know, that was kind of his way of kicking back against the system. And your teacups all just tasted of Lenore.

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They're really soft. They're soft to the touch. In my 20s, I lived with a couple.

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Always good when you're like the single guy, but you're living with two sort of functioning out.

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It's basically like, I lived with couples all the way through university as well. And after university, it's basically like, I can't leave mum and dad.

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I need to find proxy mum and dad. So they were very, very together. They were very, very switched on.

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But we're talking about in our 20s, they were getting the Abel & Cole vegetable boxes.

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And all of their prods were e-cover. You know, the sort of the good for the environment.

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Yeah, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't wash anything. It doesn't wash anything. It was only when Helen spotted me doing my washing that she said, you know what you're washing your clothes in?

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And I presumably have been forever. It was floor cleaner. So A, bad for the washing machine, bad for their washing machine that they paid for.

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But B, I was walking around stinking like a linoleum floor. You and Jim should hang out.

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It's all the same. He's in the shower, just like squishing Jif all over himself.

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It's all the same. It's all the same. Yeah, the fact that as I walk down the street and start to sweat, soap bubbles pop out my armpits.

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It's just all part of the, if anything, the jumper is now self-cleaning. I have to clean it once and that's it.

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I interrupted you, Matthew, for the dishwasher conversation. I felt it was important, but you had a list of the jobs that you had to do.

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So the jobs are, the order you do it in is you feed the cat, first of all.

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Cosmo, our lovely cat, our sort of practice child that we got a few months before we had, our first kid, and we were like, yeah, this is, we could do this.

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We can keep a thing alive. Great. Let's have some kids. Where's that cat shitting?

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That cat is shitting in a litter tray in the utility room. Okay, fine. We have had a robotic litter tray.

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Yeah, Nadia Shireen, children's author, had this robotic litter tray whereby you go in and like, do you remember the pod in the Star Wars film where I think Darth Vader sleeps,

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that the cat goes in and this door shuts behind the cat. Because the cat seems to enjoy the privacy.

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Anyway, Nadia at once got stuck or almost stuck in it. I don't think she did get stuck in it.

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I think we just said that would be a bad way to die. I was going to say, how big's her cat?

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Unless she's got a Bengal tiger. And in which case I wouldn't make it shit in a cage.

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But otherwise, I don't think there's anyone getting caught in a... I don't think she ever went into the litter tray.

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I think we were speculating on the worst way you could die. Are you telling me...

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Maybe I mix up reality and flights of fancy that we've been on. It's possible.

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It's possible. Let's say, for the record, she did once get stuck in it. Is yours just a basic litter tray, Matthew Crosby, is the question.

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It's just a basic litter tray, yeah. When I say it's a basic litter tray, it's two-tiered.

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There's a little sort of... The idea is you're supposed to be able to shake the litter tray a little bit.

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A mezzanine. No, not like, do you want to shit on the upper floor or the lower floor today, Cosmo?

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No, it's got two trays. And one tray you can lift out and shake it so that all the litter goes down into the next tray and you can just take out the turds.

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But I don't bother with that. I just grab the turds out with a bit of toilet paper.

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In fact, actually, if they're like a day and a half old, two days old, I'll just put them out with my hands.

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I've not got a problem with that. Idea. And this is mixing Crossbox's current system with what we were talking about before.

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Could you train the cat to shit in an empty dishwasher and then just run the dishwasher off?

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You know what I mean? I would say it would probably melt the turd and send it away.

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I mean, that is not a bad system. Well, you can train a cat to use a human style toilet.

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You're a jazz man, aren't you, David? You know, Charles Mingus did that with his cat and it's in his autobiography.

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One of the bits of his autobiography is him explaining how he toilet trained his cat.

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And the way you do it is you swap their litter box with a cardboard litter box.

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That's the first thing you do. Same litter, but a cardboard litter box. And then you slowly move it closer and closer to the room.

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Where your toilet is until eventually you start placing on top of the toilet. So it's on top of the toilet seat with the seat down.

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And then you cut a little hole in it and then you make the hole bigger and bigger.

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This is happening over months. Make the hole bigger and bigger and bigger until eventually you take the entire litter tray away.

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And the cat just gets onto the toilet, goes in the toilet. And the next thing you've got to do is teach it to use the flush.

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But I think that's sort of quite intuitive anyway. Cats like a little toy. You can leap up, splash, makes a nice noise.

21:55 - 22:01

It takes so long that your cat shits once in the toilet just before it dies.

22:01 - 22:11

Before it dies of embarrassment. I would also like to raise a possible mix up here because Charles Mingus, I do love jazz.

22:11 - 22:17

I am a jazz man. And Charles Mingus called everyone a cat because that's what you do in jazz.

22:17 - 22:24

So when he taught the cat how to shit, is it possible he was just referring to his son?

22:24 - 22:29

It was his saxophonist. It was a member of his band. Now I think about it.

22:29 - 22:34

Who had been going in a litter tray. And we're like, why do all saxophonists go in the litter tray?

22:34 - 22:38

My dad, Matthew, was a doctor. Two things he would always talk to us about.

22:38 - 22:46

One was if we ever touched cat poo to wash our hands a lot because we could get toxoplasmosis and go blind.

22:46 - 22:53

Obsessed with that. And the other thing is we weren't allowed to eat beef burgers out because of mad cow disease for a few years.

22:53 - 22:57

Because he wasn't, the research hadn't. It hadn't been done to see sort of where that would lead.

22:57 - 23:00

And he thought maybe in 20 years everyone will have it. And he didn't want us to have it.

23:00 - 23:09

So my dad would say, if you are picking up the dried cat poo, do give your hands a wash with floor cleaner or whatever you like afterwards.

23:09 - 23:15

Max, is your advice to me, can I just check this right? Is your advice to me that if I handle cat shit, I should wash my hands?

23:15 - 23:19

And not just you, the listeners as well. You know, it's important. Well, I'm going to blow your mind here.

23:19 - 23:23

I'm one step ahead of you. I've been doing that already. Stop it. Stop it.

23:23 - 23:28

Could I now? Could I now be a doctor? I think you could. Have you been sticking your hands in a load of shit?

23:28 - 23:38

Wash your hands, mate. Anyway, where's my PhD? I don't think you can go straight into being a consultant physician, but you now are a senior house officer at the John Ratcliffe.

23:38 - 23:50

That's all I wanted. Look, this podcast doesn't need more shitting tales, but I was out last night with my friend Martin, and Martin related this very briefly.

23:50 - 24:04

He did, in an awful pub toilet, he had to go, and he did a big old deuce, an awful one, and as he left the cubicle, there were two fellas standing there.

24:04 - 24:16

So he's like, oh God, because they've heard through the point, all of that, but the two of them go in together, and as he is washing his hands, he hears the unmistakable sound

24:16 - 24:29

of two men taking cocaine, and then following it with like, oh God, because they have all so breathed in the terrible shit smells.

24:29 - 24:35

I'm so sorry. I honestly think that could be the lowest point we've ever had on this podcast.

24:35 - 24:42

That's bad news. I should also say, the next thing I do is I grind up two lines of cat litter and I snort that, just to set me up for the day.

24:42 - 24:50

Get out a couple of credit cards on a mirror, there we go. You'll have to ask your dad about this.

24:50 - 24:55

Is that a problem? I'd just like to go back to that. I just think you should maybe stick with the toilet paper.

24:55 - 25:00

Yes, you're right. Listen, I don't always have the luxury of time, so sometimes it needs to be done.

25:00 - 25:05

But yes, my preference is to do it with toilet paper. I'm pleased to hear it.

25:05 - 25:08

But I would say on balance, you were right to call me out on that.

25:08 - 25:16

Perhaps slightly obvious. No, by the way, I wash my hands constantly because we've got little kids, we're a household, we're just getting over threadworms in the house.

25:16 - 25:25

Listen, I know about washing my hands. So, stop the podcast. We've got two fellow little wormy guys.

25:25 - 25:33

Oh, God. So, Max has been on the chocolate, the worm-killing chocolate. I'm popping the Ovex.

25:33 - 25:39

I'm eating the Ovex. No, the Ovex is orange-flavoured and the kids love them, which is a good thing because they've got to eat them quite a lot.

25:39 - 25:47

I know, because this is just a two-week... In fact, we need to eat our second square, David, because we got rid of the worms in Ian Rushden's bottom.

25:47 - 25:52

But the family, we all had a square of chocolate each, but we need to go in for batch two.

25:52 - 25:58

We'd probably delay because we haven't... We'd kill the worms. We'd kill the worms, but not the eggs, the way we like to get rid of these worms.

25:58 - 26:09

We've got it in the diary as well. Tony was right to get rid of the Tony's Choco Lonely, or whatever it's called, slogan was kills all known worms.

26:09 - 26:17

I just feel that's when they really moved the company to the next level. They played down the worm-killing aspect of it.

26:17 - 26:25

Okay, so we've done the... With your shitty, cat-shitty hands, you now empty the dishwasher.

26:25 - 26:32

Rubbing cat feces onto everything. I'm not clearing out the litter tray. That's not one of the jobs in my three jobs this morning.

26:32 - 26:36

Clearing out the litter tray is an evening job. We're leaping way ahead to that.

26:36 - 26:43

Listen, we'll talk more about cat litter. This was very much a teaser for around 9.30, 10pm later on tonight.

26:43 - 26:47

Listen, I work in radio. I know the throw forward. I know how to clickbait people.

26:47 - 26:53

Guys, listen to the end. He really is. Doctors do not want you to know what happens at 9.30 tonight.

26:55 - 26:59

Yeah, doctors say here's one thing you should be doing after you handle cat shit.

26:59 - 27:05

The answer will surprise you. I'm assuming it's licking your fingers. It's got to be licking your fingers, right?

27:05 - 27:12

Isn't it? Click. Oh, it's wash your hands. This is not connected. This is not connected.

27:12 - 27:20

But we were listening to some really gentle commercial radio in the afternoon, you know, where they can't say anything apart from the breakfast show is going to be good tomorrow.

27:20 - 27:26

It's not me. Yeah, I'm not allowed to do that. And he was just saying, oh, it's a lovely day tomorrow.

27:26 - 27:29

I might go down to the beach. That got me thinking, what do you like to bring to the beach?

27:29 - 27:35

I like to bring a towel. Let me know. What are you going to get?

27:35 - 27:40

It's all about engagement, though. Here's the thing about that. On our radio show, I do a radio show with Ed Gamble.

27:40 - 27:45

Procter & Gamble, it's called. Your dad hates it. I do a radio show with Ed Gamble.

27:45 - 28:00

And ours are always so insanely specific that no one gets in touch. And our producer had to say, look, yes, you may have seen Richard and Judy on holiday, 1997, but doing a texture as to whether anyone else saw them on holiday in 1997 is not going

28:00 - 28:10

to get the engagement we need. Whereas if you say, can you name things from the beach, you're going to get loads of people sending in messages going, beach ball, sun cream, my nice big hat.

28:10 - 28:21

I'm with you. I think it's either got to be everyone can get involved, like what are you looking at right now, or literally as niche as one person has to have done this.

28:21 - 28:27

And then I think you're absolutely right. I would carry on listening to see if, if one person had also been on holiday with Richard and Judy.

28:27 - 28:34

I'd want to know. Totally. And you know what? Somebody eventually, after about seven or eight weeks, got in touch and it was an amazing moment.

28:34 - 28:39

Because I'd seen them on holiday in Las Vegas and they'd spotted them on holiday like somewhere else.

28:39 - 28:47

So we found out they were actually doing a road trip. We were trying to piece together the entirety of Richard and Judy's holiday based on listeners, but we've only managed to find me and one other person.

28:47 - 28:53

But when it happens, it's magical. Max did manage to stretch out to four months.

28:53 - 28:59

Our listener is trying to guess the five cheeses that the O'Doherty family had at Christmas.

28:59 - 29:06

And it took finally four months for someone to get the last one. Breberus de Argental.

29:06 - 29:12

So I think that's coming under, they're just normal cheeses, under the very specific rubric there.

29:12 - 29:16

That's my kind of podcasting. I love it. Breakfast. Is that what we've got now?

29:16 - 29:22

Do we have to make breakfast for the ladies? The dream is that you make one thing and everybody eats it.

29:22 - 29:32

That's always the dream in a household. You make one thing, everybody eats it. The reality is nothing like that because you make porridge and they can see you making porridge.

29:32 - 29:39

By the way, they said, yes, I'd like to eat porridge. But as soon as the porridge is getting ladled into the bowl, they go, oh, what I actually meant was I want to have,

29:39 - 29:47

the classics are cereal. We're talking about Cheerios, dry, basically just sweeties. I want to eat something sweet.

29:47 - 29:55

They'll sit there watching CBeebies eating dry Cheerios. We've got these sort of slightly off-brand Cheerios that are meant to be better for you.

29:55 - 29:58

They're healthier for you. They'll just about eat those. I mean, they still taste insanely sweet.

29:58 - 30:03

I'm sure they're still pretty bad for you. So they're eating those. Greek yogurt and honey is very, very popular.

30:03 - 30:08

That's something that my daughter eats a lot. But you're always trying to sort of get stuff into that.

30:08 - 30:11

Like the porridge is good because you can hide stuff in it. You can hide fruit in it.

30:11 - 30:16

You can hide flaxseed in it. You know, you can, it's basically just like a delivery service for healthy things.

30:16 - 30:21

But there isn't a fruit salad or something like that that would furnish all needs?

30:21 - 30:26

Right, here's the thing. You could serve a fruit salad to the kids, but the kids, the kids don't like the same fruits.

30:26 - 30:35

So you'd be making basically two different fruit salads. Sylvie insists that strawberries are not only disgusting to taste, but disgusting to smell.

30:35 - 30:40

She won't sit at the same table as Cleo if Cleo is, I can't sit at the table, she's eating a strawberry.

30:40 - 30:46

What, the nicest thing of all time? Oh, she's eating a strawberry, it's disgusting. I can't, oh, I've got to sit at a different table.

30:46 - 30:50

Well, we've only got one table, all right? Crossbox, I have heard- Daddy works in radio.

30:50 - 30:58

Crossbox, I have heard the people who work in jam factories eat something of a gas that comes off the strawberries.

30:58 - 31:04

You never like strawberries again. So did you have her working at any point in a jam factory?

31:04 - 31:11

You've got to start them young, David, you know that. Listen, there used to be a time you could live in London on a two-income household.

31:11 - 31:16

No, that's not the case anymore. We're not monsters, we're not sending them down the mines or up the chimneys.

31:16 - 31:24

Yes, the jam factory. What kid doesn't love a jam sandwich? I've sent my kids out to be contract killers, so in many ways, a jam factory is not as bad.

31:24 - 31:35

Okay, so what happened yesterday, what panned out? Yesterday, it was porridge, but there was also, when I went up to go and have a shower and Charlie came down, I brought Charlie up a coffee because she was still in bed,

31:35 - 31:42

she had her coffee, she came down, she took over, I went up to have a shower and then by the time she came down, four other breakfasts were also going on.

31:42 - 31:50

So I sort of let, I made a breakfast and I served a breakfast. And also, you got up first, so really, you've, you know, when you go upstairs, that handover,

31:50 - 32:00

what a moment that is, right? I don't know how long you've got because I'm, when I'm in the shower, I'm never in the shower without Jamie saying, you know, are you finished?

32:00 - 32:04

Or like generally, I'm never in the bathroom without Jamie saying, are you finished? I'm never doing anything.

32:04 - 32:11

I'm never like in the living room or just in my bedroom picking out some pants because I might just get on my phone for one minute because, you know, it's some free time.

32:11 - 32:21

So like, are you left upstairs? Have you got no time limit? What's the... Well, I've got the time limit of having to leave the house and sort of get out to work.

32:21 - 32:24

So I've got that time limit and also so has Charlie. So you're sort of...

32:24 - 32:30

Got it. Basically, I'm allotted, I would say, about 20 minutes to get myself ready. Charlie is a little bit longer, but that's fine.

32:30 - 32:33

Look at me. I mean, what do you need to do? No, 20 minutes is amazing.

32:33 - 32:43

Yeah, so I've got that. But the thing is, we have slightly glossed over a crucial detail, which is the who gets the lie in is predicated on who was up with the kids in the night.

32:43 - 32:48

Right. But if you're up with the kids in the night, the reason you're up is because you're the one who's woken up.

32:48 - 33:01

So the other person doesn't know. It's a real game of trust here that if Charlie says I was up four times in the night, I have to go, well, I must have slept very heavily because I didn't hear any of that.

33:01 - 33:04

I mean, not to say that I'm not a very heavy sleeper. I am. Right.

33:04 - 33:08

But equally, when I say it to Charlie, I was up once with Sylvie, twice with Cleo.

33:08 - 33:12

There's always a moment of her kind of looking in my eyes going, oh, really?

33:12 - 33:17

What sort of time are we talking about? I wonder what Cleo want? Did she have a nightmare or did she want some water?

33:17 - 33:23

What was going on there? Yeah, I definitely have the, I was in bed with Ian for, it must have been hours and Jamie's like, 21 minutes.

33:23 - 33:34

I'm like, okay. I'm like, ah, yes. Damn it, damn it. It's why you guys have installed all those ring doorbells with little cameras everywhere that are watching everything.

33:34 - 33:40

You get AI to compile exactly who moved where. Can we get a synopsis of these conversations?

33:40 - 33:47

This is where AI will be useful going forward. Yeah, solving internal disputes. Proving my innocence.

33:47 - 33:53

So you've got your 20 minutes. Talk us through everything you do upstairs. How dare you?

33:55 - 34:03

The usual ablutions. I'm hopping in the shower. We've got ourselves a little speaker so I can listen to...

34:03 - 34:09

It's all going to be podcasts of two old men talking about Sweeney Dan. It's that kind of stuff.

34:09 - 34:13

It's the stuff that I can't be playing in the kitchen because it's going to bore my family to death.

34:13 - 34:18

It's going to bore them off their porridge. That goes on. I get myself washed, get myself dressed.

34:18 - 34:27

I've started trying to apply SPF every day. That's crucial because I've got to an age where things have started appearing all over my skin.

34:27 - 34:31

I've been to the doctor and gone, is this a problem? They're like, no, but keep an eye on it.

34:31 - 34:34

Every bit of my body isn't a problem yet, but keep an eye on it.

34:34 - 34:40

I went there recently with a thing dangling off the side of my neck and they were like, no, that's fine.

34:40 - 34:45

You can just pull that off. And I literally, in front of a doctor, pulled the thing off my neck and went, oh yeah, so I can, and walked out the doctors.

34:45 - 34:52

So that's the stage I'm at. My body is kind of constantly threatening to be awful, but not quite awful yet.

34:52 - 34:56

You are falling to bits, the pair of you. You've got worms living inside you.

34:56 - 35:02

You've got growths falling off you. Just be like my dad, smear fairy liquid all over yourself.

35:02 - 35:08

Yet another use. And then just head out and carpe that DM. Do you know what?

35:08 - 35:15

It all started when I stopped washing my clothes in floor cleaner. That's it. Around sort of 27, 28, it all went downhill after that.

35:15 - 35:23

It's funny how healthy you are when you're little. So I used to eat raw chicken nuggets out of the fridge.

35:23 - 35:33

Like if mum would have them Yeah, there'd be ones there. And I was probably doing it for 18 months till it was explained to me that that is an incredibly dangerous thing.

35:33 - 35:43

But I think because my body was so sensationally good at dealing with germs, you know, now if I sniffed one, I'd be on the chitter for a month.

35:43 - 35:49

But yeah, this was all just no problem. I think I ate 20 full plums once.

35:49 - 35:54

Stones and all. You know, just had one. And I didn't really have like a bad time on the toilet.

35:54 - 36:03

They just, they just all went through. Now, can you imagine passing 20 plum stones? Like, that's a devastation when they came through.

36:03 - 36:09

God. Yeah. I've got kidney stones, you know, gallstones and that kind of stuff. I've heard of those, right?

36:09 - 36:12

But like, imagine someone who's going to the doctor with like, oh, I've got plum stones.

36:12 - 36:16

You feel like, if that, hey, it feels like it's in the worst part of the body.

36:16 - 36:23

Stones in your plums, that's real trouble. It feels like you should have noticed some change in the discolouration of your skin.

36:23 - 36:31

It should have gone a little bit Willy Wonka's chocolate, factory, where your face should have started to turn a kind of bluish hue or even better, a plum tree should have grown out of some part of the body.

36:31 - 36:35

that's what you want. We're thinking nostril, we're thinking belly button, we're thinking arsehole. That's what we're thinking.

36:35 - 36:48

That's a plum tree coming out of Max's body. Don't go to the doctor, get Titchmarsh in and you're just spooning compost into your face the whole time and suddenly plums start to...

36:48 - 36:53

He's encouraging you to rotate the soil. Yeah. I could be an installation at the Chelsea Flower Show.

36:53 - 37:04

Just that lovely gentle morning TV with, I don't know, Gethin Jones and Charlie Dimmock just strolling through and there on his side is Max, the plum tree.

37:04 - 37:12

42 years ago he ate 20 plums and now he comes back every year just there growing and growing.

37:12 - 37:20

Beautiful. This is Gunter von Hagen's next project. He wants to team up with Monty Don and rather than donating your body to be sort of...

37:20 - 37:24

You could donate your body to become an exhibition like a big old hanging basket.

37:24 - 37:32

I mean, that would be amazing if every year when the summer months came around you could get Nan out of the attic with a load of glad sprouting out of her ears.

37:32 - 37:40

I think that would be great. I think we're on to something here. Right, so we're downstairs and there are four breakfasts on the table.

37:40 - 37:43

Yes. What's your next move? Oh, I'll tell you the other thing as well that happened.

37:43 - 37:49

Sylvie came up to see me just as I was getting my clothes on. She said, ask me what my name is.

37:49 - 37:56

And I said, what's your name, Syl? Now, see if you can work out the meaning of the mistake I made in that sentence.

37:56 - 38:02

It's using her name in the question. Yes. Right? I just automatically did it. I said, what's your name, Syl?

38:02 - 38:12

And she burst into floods of tears because I'd ruined the game. Her rules for games are unspoken and so specific and you only know about them when you've broken them,

38:12 - 38:17

which is always. And then grief sets in. Do you think she wanted a new name for the day?

38:17 - 38:22

Because I do know the kids will sometimes do that. Call me, you know, Emma or something like that.

38:22 - 38:29

Yes, she's always, but the names are always not quite named. They sound a bit like she'll always be like, I am Queen Calensthra.

38:29 - 38:35

Yeah, you know, and it's like, oh, it sort of feels like it could be a kind of name, but it's like a name that she's kind of assembled herself.

38:35 - 38:40

She doesn't have the rights. She hasn't paid for the rights for the actual name and she has to come up with a...

38:40 - 38:47

She can't afford Elsa or Anna. Yeah, so she's got to... Queen Calensthra is what you get bought by your auntie who doesn't have kids, isn't it?

38:47 - 38:50

Oh, I've got your Queen Calensthra doll. That's the thing you like. Oh, what the hell is this?

38:50 - 38:55

Where did you get this from? The pound shop? Let it sleet. Let it sleet.

38:55 - 39:03

So are you both going to work now? Is that what we're building towards? This time, very rarely, we're both leaving the house on the same train.

39:03 - 39:07

That's the plan. You're just going to leave the kids there with their many breakfasts?

39:07 - 39:11

We've got to get... The house cleared. We've got to get all that put away because we've got the cleaner coming round.

39:11 - 39:14

So obviously, if the cleaner comes round, the first thing you've got to do is clean.

39:14 - 39:18

Get the house really, really clean so the cleaner can come round and not think we're awful.

39:18 - 39:33

Then my parents show up. Now, my parents take Sylvie ordinarily on a Wednesday. My parents take Sylvie and this time they're taking Cleo as well because Cleo is too sick to be at school but just the right level of sickness to be with two older people.

39:33 - 39:44

You don't think that Cleo's playing the system here. You know what I mean? The idea of just like, I don't feel well enough to go in today.

39:44 - 39:52

We're not at that point, are we? Well, again, leaping ahead, when she got home, I said to her, at the end of the day, I said, how do you feel?

39:52 - 39:56

And she went, I feel better than ever. And I went, oh great, you can go back to school tomorrow then.

39:56 - 40:04

And she went, oh, oh, oh, oh no, oh no. She lay on the stairs, just lay herself on the stairs and went, oh, the headaches come back and it's actually,

40:04 - 40:08

it's worse than it was. Constantine it up the stairs. No, you've got to have your story straight.

40:08 - 40:13

You can't say I feel better than ever and then immediately backpedal because the headaches hit just as soon as she got into the front door.

40:13 - 40:19

No, she's aware of that game, but she doesn't yet know how to play it Ferris Bueller style.

40:19 - 40:28

Question, how thankful are you to your parents for doing this incredible job? Because we don't, my parents are a long way away and Jamie's dad lives quite a long way away,

40:28 - 40:32

sort of an hour away, too far away to do like a full day. It doesn't do a full day.

40:32 - 40:40

And so when I see grandparents in like the park, I try and say, look, you could come in and do our family and you're probably not getting paid.

40:40 - 40:49

You're probably not getting paid. So I will really sort you out here. Like, are you like bowing with thanks or are you just slightly annoyed about how they parent your kids?

40:49 - 40:56

Because generationally they don't do everything how you'd want them to do it. The answer is obviously the second one.

40:56 - 41:00

Of course you should be grateful to your parents. I mean, we are incredibly fortunate.

41:00 - 41:07

We've got both sets of parents who both live 15 minutes away. So Wednesdays are my parents, Thursdays are Charlie's parents, my partner's parents.

41:07 - 41:14

So we're incredibly, incredibly lucky. We say thank you. Of course we do. The second the door closes, oh my God.

41:14 - 41:18

Do you see what they were eating? What they were doing? Yeah, OK. What? Sorry.

41:18 - 41:21

They had a nap at what time? They're not even supposed to have a nap at all.

41:21 - 41:27

No, they haven't had much sugar, just a cake, a brownie. You know, we ate pancakes for lunch.

41:27 - 41:39

What was on the pancakes? Golden syrup, of course, sugar. So they're erring on the side of too much decadence as opposed to making the children watch episodes of The World at War and just eat.

41:39 - 41:55

That's what we do at home. Also, you know what it's like. If you're looking after the kids every single week, anything for an easy life if they want to watch 27 episodes of Bluey back to back you just let them watch 27 episodes of Bluey because what's the alternative exactly?

41:55 - 42:12

By the time they're all hopped up and crazy you're handing them back. The only experience of this I've ever had in babysitting where I've babysitted for nephews and nieces and if they happen to wake up at 10 o'clock or refuse to go to bed I'll just be like

42:12 - 42:17

I'll take the worst possible angle on this which is I don't think you should have gone to bed either.

42:17 - 42:25

Like if I was in charge of this let's just party let's have a couple of cans of Heineken Zero you can drink that it's non-alcoholic.

42:25 - 42:31

That's fine. Let's just party. Let's handle some cat turds. Let's go. Have a menthol cigarette.

42:31 - 42:37

Why not? That was great. Okay but you leave the house they arrive shut the door freedom.

42:37 - 42:54

Well my dad does the pick up normally so my dad Dado as he's known to the kids didn't go with granddad he was Dado with my brother's first kids Duke took about 16, 17 years ago Duke Dado different brother but yeah I'm sorry the Viscount as he's also not known

42:54 - 43:07

Viscount Crosby yeah so yeah so he's Dado he takes the kids I don't know what he's doing in the car because 10 minutes later when we leave the house to walk down to the train station the car's still there so there's every chance he's sitting in the car

43:07 - 43:24

for 8 hours he's probably got LBC on he's just there sitting waits till we get back and then hands him back he's just ringing Nick Ferrari to say you're right there are too many coming in lift up the drawbridge don't you think kids yeah absolutely oh no

43:24 - 43:43

he's making them right wing oh god yeah he believes you should give Keir Starmer a chance yeah so the two of you are on the train together this is an adorable scene little matching outfits probably little lunchboxes on your laps weirdly the kids were wearing matching outfits

43:43 - 43:55

I'll say that Charlie and I didn't dress identically but the kids wanted to dress identically which when I was a little kid I hated I hated being dressed the same as my brother the Viscount I hated it the ceremonial dress you just didn't like all the medals

43:55 - 44:06

and the ermine doesn't suit me that's the problem but yeah they go off dressed together Charlie and I we skip off down the road it's lovely when we get on the train the first thing you've got to do at the train station is you've got to

44:06 - 44:17

scan the horizon it's the first train after school pick up time school drop off time even so you've got to scan the horizon to make sure there are no other parents who might want to chat with you for the entire journey oh god yeah because you

44:17 - 44:27

sort of like you know these people but you don't know they're not your friends the only thing you have in common is you've got a kid in the same class so you keep your head down the fact that we're together is good

44:27 - 44:39

because we can talk to each other heads down heads down but then when we get on the train she reads her book I've got to upload a reel to Instagram because I also have a podcast and that's how podcasting works uploading reels to Instagram

44:39 - 44:52

we don't go in for any of that we do not publicise this no way we haven't released any episodes yet we are thinking about it but we're not we're not sure if that's the direction we want to go in this is going to be like Bruce Springsteen

44:52 - 45:04

when he said oh by the way in 1994 I made 15 albums here they all are that's what it's going to be in years to come you're going to go oh by the way back in 2025 we recorded some podcasts here they all are if you want them

45:04 - 45:18

that would be amazing if the Beatles in addition to releasing the making of the Let It Be album they'd be like also we recorded 400 podcasts during the making of all of our albums a true crime they did a they did a true crime podcast in Paris

45:18 - 45:34

they were so ahead of the curve they knew true crime was going to be the thing they knew it was going to be absolutely massive chatting away I'm trying to think of what the true crime would be because all the good true crime happened in the 70s

45:34 - 45:46

didn't it possible you know my immediate thought goes to like Zodiac Killer Manson Family those are all the good ones the Beatles breaking up ended all of that kind of that era didn't it Beatles breaking up and the Manson murders that was the end

45:46 - 46:00

of the summer of love okay so we're on the train you've done your reel yeah this is an adorable scene what book is she reading just as a matter of interest one of mine was it one of my children's books yeah it was one of your children's books

46:00 - 46:14

yeah yeah she was listening to Giggle Me Timbers yep my first album aka Jokes on Hoy your first album and then reading one of your shark books and she's wearing a t-shirt that says I love David and then in brackets but I married Maggie some coincidence

46:14 - 46:27

all of those happening yesterday so how long's the journey because I'm my reels are not good on Instagram but they don't take me the duration of a train journey for some reason I've given myself the job of uploading these things to Instagram and I just don't know

46:27 - 46:39

how to do it and I'm doing it on the train wifi and it takes it's about a 20 25 minute journey she's getting off at London Bridge I'm getting off at Charing Cross once she's hopped off I'm onto my my little brain gym games because you know

46:39 - 46:51

my body may be falling apart but my brain is strong as ever so I'm doing my little elevate games and I'm listening to you know I felt compelled to listen to this album I've not listened to it in ages but it was How I'm Feeling Now

46:51 - 47:04

by Charlie XCX I was like I haven't listened to that in ages and then later on when I was looking at Instagram to check how the reels were doing a thousand views that'll do I don't know I think you're supposed to get like 50,000 views

47:04 - 47:14

but we got a thousand but anyway it was the fifth birthday of that album so it was weird that I was like oh I've not listened to that in ages and then Charlie XCX is posting about it being the fifth birthday of that album but yeah

47:14 - 47:27

so that's what I was listening to as you'll know David my musical references mean that you say it's ages since that was released and I clearly it's too modern a song for me to have ever heard because it was after 1997 when you said this album

47:27 - 47:38

I hadn't listened to in ages I was going different class pulp maybe that would fit into my era I listen to that every day what you're talking about okay good good good good no I mean it's an album that kind of has been in my rotation

47:38 - 47:49

that I haven't listened to for a while but you know when it comes to listening to albums that I haven't listened to for ages I'm all the way back to the 50s 60s 70s I listen to that kind of stuff of course I wasn't alive in the 50s

47:49 - 48:03

60s and 70s but all my references are okay yeah I do sometimes listen to one of those discover channels and I hear a cool contemporary person that will remind me this sounds a bit like the carpenters but then I just go back and listen to the carpenters

48:03 - 48:17

then is the problem you know rather than staying with there was definitely a period Crossbox I would say between the age of 15 and 25 when I was just new things please more new things and now

48:17 - 48:27

but you didn't have any of those references so you wouldn't if you're 15 you're not going you know I would always listen to a band and go oh yeah they sound a bit like this band from three years ago yeah that's true totally but like when you're

48:27 - 48:38

first discovering music it's like all those bands like Nirvana were like oh if you like us here are all the bands that inspire you know like you hear Nirvana then they say listen to the Pixies because they were doing it first and that kind of stuff

48:38 - 48:49

and that kind of it goes back like that but I still try as much as I can to yeah you're in that game you're on Radio X right by the way Radio X you know we play Oasis yeah yeah yeah I thought it was just Nickelback

48:49 - 49:04

or is Virgin just Nickelback no we never play a Nickelback no we are we are the Cortinas the Kooks who else would we play on Radio X Stereophonics bit of Chelsea Dagger yeah absolutely the old Dunces Anthem Kasabians surely Kasabians come in all the time isn't it

49:04 - 49:15

a lot of Kasabian yeah yeah we play a lot of Kasabian it's all of that kind of stuff so actually a lot of that stuff is from when I was about well a teenager into my 20s occasionally we play something new occasionally they'll say this song is

49:15 - 49:30

blowing up on TikTok and we'll play it for a couple of weeks and we won't play it again when I was at Radio Cambridgeshire they would set up the music and it would be like Melanie Brand New Key and I was like I can't I would only play

49:30 - 49:42

they only had like the Scissor Sisters it was the only song that had been like released like in the last 10 years so I just have to keep playing that I love Melanie though I think I've got a brand new pair of roller skates you got a brand new

49:42 - 49:55

key yeah I almost went into Combine Harvest here because I one of the rare instances where the parody is almost more famous than the original song isn't it no one remembers Melanie anymore but of course you remember the words yeah that is true I did a syndicated

49:55 - 50:14

radio show that was by that that makes it sound fancier than it was in about 2005 where it was an hour a week and it was mostly new music but occasionally other odd things and we got in trouble however because Coolio had a CD where he answered questions

50:14 - 50:40

and the idea was you could then ask the questions and call it an exclusive interview with Coolio but there was a tremendous opportunity just to compose new questions and asking Coolio about for example the influence of Steely Dan on his work and then Coolio just like yeah yeah

50:40 - 50:49

that's exactly that's exactly what I was listening to while I was recording this or what I was whatever it was got in trouble guys Matthew you've got to Charing Cross where are we heading?

50:49 - 51:01

We're heading to the National Gallery because I'm going to have a meeting there a work related meeting but the thing I do way too often is I say oh let's just meet in the cafe we always meet in or let's meet in a branch of Leon or something

51:01 - 51:12

because I know where it is and you can find it for this meeting I was meeting with someone I'm helping them with their current tour which is something I'll occasionally do I'll meet with comedians and I'll listen to their tour shows and I'll give them some notes

51:12 - 51:17

and stuff like that but I thought let's meet in the National Gallery because why not?

51:17 - 51:31

It's a spies meet there don't they? It's exactly it's a spy type location but also it's just you know if you're creating art why not be surrounded by beautiful art why not be you know why not be sat underneath Whistle Jacket by George Stubbs while you're you know

51:31 - 51:45

writing your dick jokes I don't know particularly if I was listening to the show I will be doing in Edinburgh in a few months right now and comparing it to a Caravaggio I'd be like it ain't we're not there yet no way it's got a long

51:45 - 52:01

a long way to go this show needs to be re-hung that's the problem we need to get someone in and completely move this all around you'd have to take a step back David and say look Caravaggio had his flaws as a human you're probably in a better space

52:01 - 52:14

than Caravaggio ever was I would say I know but what's that going to influence the show the show's going to be me in a metallic helmet you know what I mean looking really guilty holding a cherubim yes you're right

52:14 - 52:28

why are there sort of eight naked boys in the background this is a weird show that you've got happening here alright okay so who do you know are you allowed to know I won't say who I met it's just it's another comedian but I'll leave it there

52:28 - 52:39

Jimmy Carr it was Jimmy Carr was it Tom Rosenthal who was Rhys James and Pianovelli met him for his I just wonder if he's just getting tips from everybody Tom before he goes off on his no it was not I can tell you now

52:39 - 52:56

if you want to do it by process of elimination you can but it wasn't Tom Rosenthal Roy Chubby Brown it's got to be it was oh my god in two I said these jokes aren't going hard enough mate they say you can't say anything anymore

52:56 - 53:09

you prove them wrong let's go and sit at the Rothko's and I'll talk you through gentle casual racism here Roy this isn't working I tell you what he's got some opinions on art I'll tell you that right now

53:09 - 53:23

do you sit underneath a painting to talk through the show this is quite interesting actually we sat in the the cafe is kind of open plan the little espresso bar is open plan you can still see the paintings but you're not overwhelmed or in David's case

53:23 - 53:36

sort of cowed by their beauty challenged and threatened by their artistic beauty and did you think his show is or her show of course good or bad oh yes it's 2025 Max it's 2025 that's right

53:36 - 53:53

ladies are allowed on the stage now I know I'm disappointed I thought just Roy well no you had mentioned him but I was trying to add to the mystique so people didn't find out which comedian it was I try and keep my despair at female comedians to myself

53:53 - 54:05

with respect Max yeah there's a good chance that the person who it is may listen to this podcast to find out what Crosby really thought about it and if he was now

54:05 - 54:19

to go off on it like Max when I say this was bullshit this is like stuff that I'd pull out of the cat litter and he thinks he's going to be doing it in Edinburgh in two months time do you know what I do

54:19 - 54:32

after I watch that show I wash my hands really well honestly I want to wash my brain out as well after that my god okay I'll rephrase the question I take your point see the thing is if somebody asks me if David seems unlikely says Max

54:32 - 54:45

I really want some notes from you on my show right he definitely wouldn't do I would just say it's all great it's no use I'd be no use it's like I couldn't manage anybody right I'd just like if I managed a factory everyone would get

54:45 - 54:59

whatever job they wanted I'd just people please in the moment so I wouldn't be able to give any genuine feedback so that is a skill that you have and presumably I'd trust with whoever you are talking to underneath a constable the hardest thing is to say

54:59 - 55:11

this bit isn't working obviously because but you never say this bit isn't working because you're rubbish and you should give up you say this bit isn't working how do we make it work and then that's the fun challenge isn't it the most difficult bit

55:11 - 55:25

of getting a show together is the blank page and not having the show by the time I come in most people are doing 30, 40 possibly even an hour of material and I go this bit's the best bit we're sticking this at the start this bit could be bigger

55:25 - 55:37

you know or this bit sort of walks around a load of funny ideas but there's really one crucial bit let's get it down to that bit you'll never ever go in firstly no point in saying this is all good because every single comedian I've ever met

55:37 - 55:47

has got a voice in their head that's way louder than mine saying everything you've done is shit it's like two fronts they'll just they'll sort of meet and there'll be a rainstorm it's not what you actually want is you want to be able to say

55:47 - 55:57

I know you're not confident about this bit how do we make it better I can see from the way you're performing it you don't trust this bit or let's step away from it because or like sometimes you'll do a bit for a bit and it goes away

55:57 - 56:08

you must have had this David where you'll just do a joke the first time you do it you're like great this is a new 10 minutes and then slowly but surely it'll just drift off and you have to go what was the thing that made us laugh about it

56:08 - 56:21

in May completely yeah without the panic of it being July and knowing that we're going to be on stage in front of 300 people in two weeks time my colleague says he's a people pleaser and would just say all of this is great but I would imagine

56:21 - 56:40

if you and I were to host Matthew a sports talkback radio show then my colleague would not be slow in giving us tips as to how to lighten it up and the fact that you have so much experience Crossbox of doing a million shows this is an incredibly

56:40 - 56:54

useful and important thing you're doing here no I would just tell other people that you were shit I would tell you that you were good and then I'd be like oh my god you heard that that is bullshit and I think I've asked this before

56:54 - 57:06

when we were talking to I think Rhys James about it but like I would be annoyed if they took a gag that you'd done I'd be like that's my gag and similarly if people if I'm doing a show where people have written for it

57:06 - 57:18

I have to rewrite everything if somebody's written a good line or if I've done a good line in rehearsal then it's gone it's like that is it it's finished forever no you've got to lose that purity you're a performer Max the thing is you're a performer

57:18 - 57:31

that seems mad you know if you write something if you write a good line in a first draft right like say you know say you're Charles Dickens and you're writing the first draft you know of A Christmas Carol and you think oh that's that's a great opening line

57:31 - 57:42

you can't go yeah but it's from the first draft you've got to just all of it is finessing and improving and I'm like my job my day-to-day job is a writer I mean we probably won't we won't get onto it because we're still we're still at like 10am

57:42 - 57:54

but you know I write for other other people a lot of the time you know and I write for comedians and non-comedians alike and there are some people who are like oh I like that line can I have it and I was like that is my job yeah

57:54 - 58:06

my job is writing jokes for you and it has to be yeah I totally get that I just can't and obviously what I'm doing is not is never like comedy in inverted commas it might just be like it's meant to be funny but that's a kind of by-product

58:06 - 58:16

of whatever the show might be but if it's not my thing I just don't feel I feel I don't know if it makes sense but there's just something like if it's gone in rehearsal that's why I don't want to rehearse anything ever it's like nah

58:16 - 58:27

I know what you mean sometimes you'll improvise something and you'll go oh that was just a real sort of lightning in a bottle and if we tried to recreate it it happens sometime on the radio show with Ed and I where we'll have a funny chat

58:27 - 58:39

just about our lives while we're playing you know a bit of Sam Fender or something when that ends the producer will often go oh could you just do the same chat again and we try and it feels a little bit like you're because you lose that spontaneity

58:39 - 58:51

so I do get that but as a performer as a standard performer what you're trying to do is give the appearance of walking out on stage and going oh here's a bunch of things I just thought about and off you go but do it in such a way

58:51 - 58:58

that you know it so well you can do it basically the same every single night so have we had a successful time in the gallery?

58:58 - 59:09

yeah it's been okay yeah no it's always tricky when the tour hasn't yet started and the show is anything you kind of want it to be that's when it's tricky but yeah I think it's going well

59:09 - 59:20

it's going really well and again part of the job is saying this is going well it's not always going that doesn't work that doesn't work it's also going this bit's great more of this for the listeners who may not be aware of English artists at the start

59:20 - 59:36

when Max said this was taking place underneath a constable it wasn't a policeman who was watching over the whole thing that's an English painter so just to be just to be it's not the comedy police just waiting there for you to make a naff pun

59:36 - 59:46

or do a hack premise you can't say anything these days that's what I said as I say you can't say this these days no can't say that okay so is it lunchtime what are we doing yeah it's lunchtime but I'm heading back home as well

59:46 - 59:57

okay so I'm going back home I have a meal deal shocker in that I know I've got five minutes before my train arrives and I grab a bunch of things that I think are in the meal deal as I put them through the till

59:57 - 1:00:10

they're not in the meal deal oh no so I'm getting a sandwich a chocolate bar some crisps and a fizzy water and it costs me like £8.75 and it's like oh no but I don't have the time to go back because I know

1:00:10 - 1:00:21

I'm going to miss the train otherwise and if I don't get home I don't get to pick up my kids so hang on interruption a meal deal should be a fiver shouldn't it yeah about a fiver or yeah and where was the failure

1:00:21 - 1:00:32

because it feels like a meal deal crisps and chocolate it's got to go crisps or chocolate yeah but I don't none of it recalibrated there should be a bit where like you know plus whatever the thing wasn't that isn't a snack but I think I picked up

1:00:32 - 1:00:43

the wrong bag of crisps maybe the bag of crisps was too big or it was just one of those little moments of failure the other thing as well is I didn't realise this until I got the receipt back I don't want to be the kind of guy

1:00:43 - 1:00:57

who complains about things being expensive these days yeah the chocolate bar was a date bar covered in dark chocolate £2.80 worming chocolate worming chocolate of course worming chocolate that's what it is £2.80 do you know what it was they put it right next to the grenade bars

1:00:57 - 1:01:10

so it was like healthy but not that grenade bars are healthy but you know they're the protein loading the ones that you go oh I must be a bodybuilder because I've just eaten a bar that tastes like a birthday cake I must be Arnold Schwarzenegger on Muscle Beach

1:01:10 - 1:01:25

in 1987 do you know what I pointedly refused to buy a punnet of blueberries yesterday because they were $12 it's like £6 and I looked at it and I thought that is like 50p a blueberry it's not on no blueberries for the kids I was like that's not good enough

1:01:25 - 1:01:36

I hate being an old man who complains about the cost of things because that's all old men like the other day I was in and I know we're not supposed to talk about the other day but the other day I was in I was at Godstone Farm

1:01:36 - 1:01:49

and I was ordering lunch at the there's like a little soft play where you can have your lunch and the food's rotten but you've got to it's the only thing that's there I found myself saying to the girl behind the counter who by the way is 16

1:01:49 - 1:02:02

and just doesn't care right no interest in the cost of anything she just doesn't give a shit I found myself saying and this is a real have your cake and eat it too I said do a lot of people complain about the prices here not I'm complaining

1:02:02 - 1:02:17

about the prices I thought that's even worse have the courage of your convictions Crosby say this seems too expensive but don't pretend like you're doing a survey oh I just want to check for my project lots of people complaining about the fact that it's 27 quid for three paninis

1:02:17 - 1:02:29

no okay no just want to check I was in a one of those organic delis I think it's on Farringdon Road was this before Covid I've told this story on the radio so many times Charlie Baker takes the piss out of me for it and I'd never complained

1:02:29 - 1:02:39

about anything like I just can't do it but we went and bought like a peach and for some reason she gave me a receipt and I'd never asked for a receipt for a peach and it said six pounds right

1:02:39 - 1:02:49

so I was like this can't be I was walking for ages with Jake going this cannot be right it cannot be six pounds for a peach this is like fucking disgraceful and I was like I'm going to go back she was like don't go back

1:02:49 - 1:03:00

it's like you know like let's just carry on I was like no I've got to go back so I walked back and I went it says six pounds here for this peach and they went oh yeah and then I was like okay

1:03:00 - 1:03:13

I had to just leave again and go yeah it was a six pound peach they didn't fuck up they were just like oh yes that's what peaches go for in this deli six pounds that's too much for a peach we're talking a single peach just a peach

1:03:13 - 1:03:26

was it an absolutely big peach not really I don't think it was all right I don't really remember thinking this peach was like the zenith of peaches it was a giant peach it had a boy and some huge insects inside it we know Max likes to consume fruit

1:03:26 - 1:03:41

in volumes of 20 as well so it absolutely bankrupted him he went I spent six quid on this peach 19 more please and I felt it on the way out and I was like right so we are home unless anything remarkable happens on the train journey we get home

1:03:41 - 1:03:55

the cleaner is leaving she tells me that the toilet is broken we knew about this already this is not the cleaner has not broken our toilet we knew about this already she says that the toilet the upstairs toilet is not flushing so having a sort of can-do spirit

1:03:55 - 1:04:06

I'm straight in there I'm lifting up the cistern I'm taking the stuff out I'm looking at the ball cock I'm looking at what's going on I can work out what's going wrong which already is exciting to me because I'm not a big fan of

1:04:06 - 1:04:21

I'm not a very sort of practical person I can tell what's going wrong but I can't quite work out how to fix it I'm just doing all these kind of like tiny adjustments I'm tinkering you know like when you see somebody DJing in a club and you're like

1:04:21 - 1:04:33

he's not doing anything there you know he's got a bit of CD playing and he's just pretending to you're David Guetta but at the cistern of your ideal standard David Guetta I beat the closing party he's not doing anything he's put the CD on of course he is

1:04:33 - 1:04:46

I'm doing that kind of vibe do you get on YouTube? yeah I get on YouTube this is for today I think when I get home today I'm going to get the YouTube videos out but I tinkered away on it and I managed to refill the cistern

1:04:46 - 1:04:59

so it does now flush it's a usable toilet but not a it's not a high functioning toilet it's a one flush only how long do you leave everything in before you do the one flush that you've managed to get it back to that oh you're saying

1:04:59 - 1:05:15

are we on one flush a day like a sort of family during the blitz or something you can't be flushed there's only one flush per street isn't it there was only one flush a street and number 36 had done it and we all had to wait

1:05:15 - 1:05:31

it was great times the answer is so simple you piss in the cistern and when the cistern's full of piss you use that to flush the turds away thank you case closed thank you very much I've taught my cat to piss in the cistern as well

1:05:31 - 1:05:51

so everybody's contributing what next I get a text from Charlie saying don't forget Charlie XCX thanks for listening to my album from five years ago it did feel like that when I saw her Instagram I was like oh I was listening to that album today

1:05:51 - 1:06:04

but yeah I get a message from Charlie my wife Charlie and she says don't forget we've got an appointment with the mortgage advisor and I had forgotten I didn't send back a message that suggested I had forgotten which does mean that

1:06:04 - 1:06:12

we don't know if you're telling the truth about how many times you're up in the night you know what we're saying is you routinely lie I'm already an unreliable narrator here now

1:06:12 - 1:06:24

you know that this is you can't trust me Max you know a guy who's doing alright because the toilet breaks in the house immediately he's on let's get a new house let's just get a new one let's get out of here and leave it

1:06:24 - 1:06:38

it's really sad when it you know if you have two toilet breaks in the same month and you have to move the kids move school and then do it again that's what they say isn't it it's like the most stressful thing the most stressful things are divorce bereavement

1:06:38 - 1:06:51

and having to use the toilet in your own house the three most stressful things okay so is it the kids do you get the kids before the mortgage advisor what's the order of play here mortgage advisor we meet with our mortgage advisor we're coming to the end

1:06:51 - 1:07:01

of a five year fixed which actually okay was great for us you know it turned out that was good advice from him and he's like I don't know what to tell you now

1:07:01 - 1:07:12

another five year fixed worked alright last year so it's that kind of it always feels like when you're meeting with people who actually have a real job that requires real knowledge and thought that you're just doing basically it's like doing sort of you know when you do a

1:07:12 - 1:07:24

French oral exam if you can show you've got even the tiniest bit of understanding of what they're saying to you and you can say something back that's kind of in their language we're going to give you a pass that's what it is the trick at the moment

1:07:24 - 1:07:38

is you just have to mention bond markets something to do with Trump has had an effect on bond markets so if you just go we just don't know what way the bond markets are going to go immediately you've put your yourself in there at a very high level

1:07:38 - 1:07:41

and this person's not going to this has nothing to do with Barbara Broccoli selling it to Amazon has it?

1:07:41 - 1:07:54

it's nothing to do with that that's a different bond market different bond that is a different okay that's the bond market I care about I think I'm too trusting with all you know anything financial by basically saying you could tell me anything because I'm not really listening

1:07:54 - 1:08:08

but you know I can't be fucked to speak to another one so whatever you say is fine yeah he also looks after lots of people like in the entertainment business so he's absolutely onto a right I've found a load of people who've got whatever side of

1:08:08 - 1:08:19

the brain is left side brains I've just found a load of people who anything I say to them what you really need to do is all that money in your account if you transfer it to my account that's the best thing for the market at the moment

1:08:19 - 1:08:31

if it stays with me rather because if it's with you then it's just going to get taxed or have you heard about these tariffs all of that kind of stuff move it over to my yeah it's the Cayman Islands account that I've got just move it

1:08:31 - 1:08:43

over to me not that we're at this level but you know anytime someone in show business gets in trouble for money it's always because their accountant saw them come in isn't it yeah it's always because the accountant said hey this is alright to do do this thing

1:08:43 - 1:09:01

it's like it's one of those it's one of those situations so anyway yeah so he owns our house now he leaves in his golden car with his golden hat I didn't tell him about the toilet so it's one all let's call it one all shall we then I've

1:09:01 - 1:09:14

just about enough time to make a tuna pasta bake hang up some washing my jeans absolutely stink the last thing that happened to them was my daughter threw up on them on a car journey so I put them in the wash they don't seem like they've come

1:09:14 - 1:09:24

out better they seem like they've come out worse you know what I'm going to say there pop them in the dishwasher love just throw them in with the cat shits and whatever else is knocking around that's what I've started doing now

1:09:24 - 1:09:34

is I just put on that outfit for the day and get in the dishwasher and put myself in a conno I guess I've gone from 20 minutes to 60 minutes getting ready time I had to drip dry on the walk to the station but

1:09:34 - 1:09:50

apart from that it's a winning system but if you are in the dishwasher you can get if you catch it right you'll get a couple of sprouts as they're flinging around the turny thing look cross box if those kids couldn't decide as to whether they wanted porridge or

1:09:50 - 1:10:03

Cheerios there's no way everyone's going to eat a tuna pasta bake for goodness sake yeah you know what for some reason I think and this has got to be our fault I think we gave them too much leeway at breakfast time the phrase what do you want for

1:10:03 - 1:10:17

breakfast gets used quite a lot whereas we never say what you want for dinner we say this is dinner right yeah yeah kids need consistency and as parents we've not provided that because we've said breakfast is a buffet breakfast is carte blanche anything you want for breakfast if

1:10:17 - 1:10:27

you want a yogurt go for it if you want grapes go for it if you want you know all of this kind of stuff it's completely on us this because we should have said from day one breakfast is porridge in fact you know what it's porridge

1:10:27 - 1:10:37

for every meal it's like prison this is what you're getting you go up to the big pot with your little wooden bowl you can't say please Sarah I want some more you have your gruel and you sit down and you watch you see babies and

1:10:37 - 1:10:52

that's it and then it's bedtime and then the mortgage advisor has asked that we all stitch these wallets for export together so we do that all day and then we have sad pasta in the evening it's perfect that's right you've come home from a hard day at the

1:10:52 - 1:11:04

jam factory so your kids are soon to be back do you find this that you like when Ian is at childcare I really miss him and I'm like oh my god oh let's go and get him a bit early why not be nice and then

1:11:04 - 1:11:18

within five minutes of being in the house I'm like oh why this is an incredible noise so you're saying you love the idea of him more than the actual him no yes it turns out I fell in love with the thought of you yeah yeah to quote

1:11:18 - 1:11:30

Chapel Roan no he's so unbelievably adorable but at the same time but quite often he sort of says I don't want you dada go away and then I'm like I'll do it squarely in the other room and mum was like oh fuck I've got to go in again

1:11:30 - 1:11:42

you know no Max I love my kids oh wow no I'm only kidding I know exactly what you mean especially if they come back from the grandparents all hopped up on sugar I'm saying to Sylvie I'm going to serve you dinner Sylvie and she's

1:11:42 - 1:11:53

like no no no I want you to sit in my cauldron she's like I've got a cauldron I need you to sit in it and I'm like yeah okay we can do cauldron after I've served you dinner you've got to eat your dinner because it's half past five

1:11:53 - 1:12:05

and you're like no cauldron and then she's on the verge of tears unless I pretend to sit in a cauldron and then she just walks walks around me and she's got a little wand with a star on the top of it like a witch's wand it's

1:12:05 - 1:12:19

made of wood and if you try and get out the cauldron you're getting that straight to the scalp you're getting the corner of a wooden star straight on the head you know immediately the hierarchy is in place I've measured you this tuna pasta make I don't want

1:12:19 - 1:12:38

tuna pasta make crack when Dado made us have our third monster energy drink earlier on he let us do cauldron violence how long are you in the cauldron for I mean it felt like forever yeah it felt like a long time I'm in the cauldron I'm constantly

1:12:38 - 1:12:49

trying to either suggest that Cleo takes my place in the cauldron and she spends some time in the cauldron and Sylvie you know whacks her over the head or that we go look let's put a pin in cauldron time and

1:12:49 - 1:13:01

let's go and have some food you need a kind of fourth official don't you to like put up the subs board and he goes number six Matthew is being replaced by number 24 well this is what two parents are doing they this is you know you're tapping out

1:13:01 - 1:13:15

you're going I'm going to go off and do something else you go and do a bit of cauldron while I you know get this dinner see how Max has football solutions to every problem there with this VAR with this fourth official how do we start to

1:13:15 - 1:13:31

slow down these kids with the view to bedtime then crossbucks again it's all about the sort of ritual so once once dinner is over and actually the kids are pretty good they ate the tuna pasta bake although Sylvie did say during dinner say I'm hungry I'm

1:13:31 - 1:13:44

hungry and I said yeah you've not cracked this system here you're eating food and I said look there's your dinner and she was like no I don't want food it's like well what are you hungry for then

1:13:44 - 1:13:58

okay power so then it becomes the ritual and the ritual is squashies they're very into their squashies and this is a loophole here in that they're basically big Haribo but they're multivitamins so the kids know the treat is they get a multivitamin to them

1:13:58 - 1:14:11

it's like a sweet to us it's giving them a multivitamin so it's milk and squashies Sylvie will have her milk Cleo will have a little cup of milk they'll eat the squashies they'll watch a bit of whatever the final couple of shows on CBeebies are I

1:14:11 - 1:14:23

think it was they're watching in the night garden yesterday question time question of course yeah we really want to see the next episode of World at War come on dad dad who showed us the first half I want to see if our brave boys pulling off the battle

1:14:23 - 1:14:38

of Jutland so that becomes the winding down time and it was good because prior to that Sylvie had found a rubber cricket ball and was playing a game where she was trying to hit a bulb in the ceiling she was like I'm going to try and hit

1:14:38 - 1:14:50

this it's like no you're not that's not happening telly goes on milk comes out squashies go out I go upstairs and I run the bath and then it's bath time so it was very perfunctory today normally there's a bit of sort of playing about it but I was

1:14:50 - 1:15:03

doing bath time and bedtime on my own so I try and make it as as unfun as possible because you don't want to you don't get them too hyped up you don't want to make it so much like they're Melvin Bragg on the podcast you've got the lights

1:15:03 - 1:15:22

off bit of in our time exactly the games we would ordinarily play are either troll or soldier or policeman and the troll is a guy who comes in it's me with my jumper like up over my up over my head like butthead in Beavis or Beavis and

1:15:22 - 1:15:32

Beavis and butthead yeah like that and pretending to eat them and then he'll do a poo in the bath and then the soldier plays the soldier plays a version of Simon Says which is soldier says and then the soldier and that'll be like alright you horrible

1:15:32 - 1:15:43

lot kind of thing that's the soldier yeah and then I wrap up in the same towel and I stick him on the bed and we play burrito which is where I wrap them up like a burrito we play the song tequila by the champs and I move

1:15:43 - 1:15:59

their legs along to that get a load of cheese over them cover them in sour cream yeah just one avocado you have to pay extra for avocado it's a quid and it's brown and I'm going to scrape out the absolute tiniest corner of a steel dish it's going

1:15:59 - 1:16:15

to be disgusting great so do they go to sleep they do they do Cleo has just started really getting into independent reading so she can sit in her bed and read independently and I will sit there next to Sylvie and

1:16:15 - 1:16:27

unfortunately we're at the stage now where they want someone to hold their hand while they fall asleep it's a bit like you Max getting into the car now this is lovely and beautiful and a wonderful moment but it does mean that if you're doing it on

1:16:27 - 1:16:39

your own it prolongs bedtime because you want to do one and then the other the other thing they want is I've got to go Spotify private browsing for this because they always want kids songs to fall asleep to and

1:16:39 - 1:16:51

it ruins my Spotify rap to otherwise oh really do you actually because my Spotify rap is utterly ridiculous now yeah it's just Sigur Rós because we talk about it on this podcast a lot and

1:16:51 - 1:16:58

Blippi and that's it yeah absolutely last year I got a special message from the Wiggles to say thank you for being such a good listener

1:17:01 - 1:17:18

and it's like I'm actually listening to Charlie XCX but I don't get a special message from Charlie do I get a special message from the people it's a you know rockabye lullabies honestly genuinely if I didn't go on private Spotify browsing I would have the first

1:17:18 - 1:17:31

five songs of the Lion King lullaby album that would be my entire rap not bad not bad there'd be no like oh in June you turned into a real surf punk dude or whatever they tell you it would always be like in January you're

1:17:31 - 1:17:44

trying to get the kids to sleep in February kids to sleep March December it was Christmas songs trying to get the kids to sleep they've gone to sleep now do you have a little downtime or are you straight to bed I mean this has been a

1:17:44 - 1:17:57

pretty busy day must be half seven it's half seven yeah it's only half seven now so Charlie's getting back I'm offering her some of the tuna pasta bake she's turning her nose at it I put it in the same way the kids do so she's back and she

1:17:57 - 1:18:10

the first thing she clocks is the smelly jeans she's like right what's the matter about the house have you put them on I've hung them up I've hung them up in one of the in the kids playroom basically because that's where we were hanging out

1:18:10 - 1:18:22

the washing and she's like oh they stink and so she she investigates this further and she goes ah right I think actually everything on this clothes rack stinks and I think the washing machine stinks and so we go okay

1:18:22 - 1:18:33

fine right we have a little bit of food together we watch an episode of the studio but in the back of my mind I know that I'm getting back in the car which let me tell you now I'm not what does the car stink of vomit why

1:18:33 - 1:18:45

because my daughter puked on me so it all ties back in getting back in the car at 10 a.m. to drive to the 24-hour Tesco to go and buy a bunch of different products that will hopefully make our washing machine clean so the washing machine essentially similar to

1:18:45 - 1:18:58

Lenore yeah you know you've got puke and puke is now throughout the whole system yeah I take out the filter you know again I know how to fix the washing machine basically I've you know drain it and

1:18:58 - 1:19:11

take out the filter and just this horrifying eggy water just pours out of it it's just grim so when I go home after this I'm gonna see because I this morning I put on a wash I know we're not supposed to do what he did today

1:19:11 - 1:19:27

but this morning I put on a wash based on the washing machine being cleaned overnight so hopefully my advice would have been to put the jeans on remember that Levi's ad from the 80s of the guy who gets into the bath with the jeans on the idea

1:19:27 - 1:19:40

that they sort of shrink to fit well that would have been you last night but with your two feet on the in the bath in a twist to soldier soldier it's called soldier pukey trousers soldier it's like move up there kids I'm getting in here this

1:19:40 - 1:19:53

is the only way I can get rid of this terrible smell yeah either that or just pop them on and run through a field of something that smells gorgeous like lavender yeah you know if I sort of frolic my way through a lavender field then

1:19:53 - 1:20:01

it'll sort of give a kind of air freshener type vibe to it but anyway I bought a box of stuff the name of the guy who sold it was a doctor yeah and

1:20:01 - 1:20:16

it's not Dr. Beecham yeah Dr. Pepper you've put Dr. Pepper in there yeah yeah absolutely yeah Dr. Fox had a line in these things as well bizarrely you know he would promote sort of tinny pop music but as well he would help you clean your washing

1:20:16 - 1:20:27

machine so this 10pm Tesco trip you come back with all this and then you're back in the washing machine to set that up before you go to sleep do you know what to be honest I didn't mind it I love I love a 10pm Tesco

1:20:27 - 1:20:38

trip yeah okay I love living near a big 24 hour Tesco it's I think you get a lot of a real sense of the area you're living in when you see who's shopping late at night you know a lot of pensioners who are there for the bargains

1:20:38 - 1:20:49

it's either going in the bins around the back or they're sticking out for a penny you know there's all the pensioners buying their discount offal there's entire entire families as well

1:20:49 - 1:20:58

just like entire families who have decided to do their big shop at 10 o'clock on a Wednesday night I love it it's like kids in their school uniform just still cutting about I love it and they you know it's like zombie land they get to run around

1:20:58 - 1:21:12

these kind of basically deserted it's I really really enjoy it so I'm I'm back I'm I feel re-energized I'm trying to clean the washing machine and then then it's bedtime then I put on my little got a little headband with speakers in no like you

1:21:12 - 1:21:28

look like Ed Moses the 400 meter hurdler that's a very obscure reference that's your most obscure ever glasses on to did he have speakers in his as well yeah he did not for the hurdling fans who love this podcast it's a very on-point reference for the 80s hurdling

1:21:28 - 1:21:40

fans they're waiting for a Tony Jarrett to and a Huey Teep and then we'll have collected all of them now I remember Ed Moses because what you should do is he would part the hurdles wouldn't he that was what he used to do he would just throw his

1:21:40 - 1:21:57

arms wide and the hurdle would fly off to either side and he'd run unencumbered all the way to the end of the chosen hurdler he would lead the other hurdlers out of hurdling he was banned for actually by the IOC Seb Coe was furious with him okay

1:21:57 - 1:22:08

so what are we listening to to go to sleep well what I'm basically looking for to fall asleep is to go to sleep to is anything that says like NPR at the start of it any podcast that tells you that you're listening to

1:22:08 - 1:22:22

NPR or that it's from a you know WNYC or whatever you know like any of those kind of things it's got to be a softly spoken Chicagoan with a load of letters before the name of their radio station talking about something is it like the history of

1:22:22 - 1:22:37

gladioli or something like that who brought the daffodil to America that sort of thing absolutely yeah it's that kind of thing you know what actually this is about a sort of snake eating its own tail I found a new podcast about somebody who was making a

1:22:37 - 1:22:55

podcast about getting fired from another podcast so it's like I started that last night and I was like yep I think we can all comfortably type our initials into the end of podcasting we've achieved peak podcasting this is a three part series about getting fired from a big

1:22:55 - 1:23:07

famous podcast which I think is this American life but I love it I love it I was like yes absolutely a podcast about podcasting where do I sign what time do you do is off so a little bit later than it normally would be because of the extra

1:23:07 - 1:23:21

trip but the dream is to be in bed by about 10 o'clock asleep by about 11 after a little bit of reading or possibly Charlie's very good if you'll read in bed whereas I'll probably watch a bit of watch a bit of telly on my phone yeah show that I'm

1:23:21 - 1:23:32

watching that she isn't watching I'm gonna start reading again and I think five years but for now it's trying to get in bed at nine you know we're not in that period are we you certainly are not if you've got a 17 week old kid forget

1:23:32 - 1:23:48

about reading yeah you'll start reading incredibly simple books and you'll be really delighted to read those well that's what Max finished Richard Osman's book by reading one line a day for three years you can have too much Osman can't you I think that's

1:23:48 - 1:24:04

the way to do it weirdly I'm so busy that's how I finish his audio book I listen to Richard reading one line of it each day hey Matthew thanks so much for doing this did you feel that was a good day yeah I feel so rude I didn't

1:24:04 - 1:24:20

ask you guys what you did yesterday oh well let me start listen I could do five more minutes let's rattle through it no I thought that was a pretty typical typical day of mine yeah I was impressed by your practical skill fixing skills to be honest even

1:24:20 - 1:24:33

you know I'm used to Max here who if the Lou stopped working yeah would just I fix the toilet sheet and the shower I have done both those and I didn't try and sell the house and then the fact that you tried to fix the

1:24:33 - 1:24:45

washing machine as well getting into the filters all of that this is a new side of you that I didn't know there was so hey I've got a can-do spirit yeah I know from past experience that I can't do but that's never robbed me of my candy spirit

1:24:45 - 1:24:52

thanks so much for doing this thanks it's been a total pleasure thanks for having me

1:25:00 - 1:25:20

so there we are that was Matthews yesterday I'm with you David as you said to him very impressed with his sort of DIY attempts fixing bathroom appliances I think that was impressive very much enjoyed how you misremembered Nadia actually getting stuck in a robotic litter tray

1:25:20 - 1:25:35

I know I'm sorry said with such conviction said with such conviction to I was like I was sitting there going maybe she did I'm sure she didn't actually do that no why would anyone actually get stuck mixed up dreams and

1:25:35 - 1:25:53

reality again I did enjoy just this a very in-demand guy for as a writer and but also more importantly just sitting in a cauldron as well which yeah I'm imagining a big plastic cauldron but I'd say he's just sitting on the carpet in the sitting

1:25:53 - 1:26:11

room as his daughter hits him with a wand David do I need to sort of officially state for the tape that I love my children just do you know what it is there's just certain times when you're like oh don't you love it when they come back

1:26:11 - 1:26:32

20 minutes late and you're just on your own and you're just sitting on the toilet and you're crying with joy because your stupid children aren't there they're the only times when I think it might need a tiny clarification well you just like keep me on the straight and

1:26:32 - 1:26:50

narrow here David like if I ever start veering towards mentioning any kind of time when they're a little bit tiring because I do want to come across as a decent guy ultimately in all of this okay well you're not quite doing that yet but we're in this for

1:26:50 - 1:27:03

life and we're still early in the process we can all change as people yeah we can change there'll come a time when I'm delighted with whatever my kids are doing and whatever coffee I get I'm happy with it we just haven't this is a process of re-breaking

1:27:03 - 1:27:18

me down and rebuilding me that's what essentially this is I don't know though it'll just be like Ian Rushden goes off to collect his Nobel Prize for physics and you're like it's just so nice when he leaves the house all these books about physics that are everywhere

1:27:18 - 1:27:40

oh I love those moments when I'm alone and happy if you want to get in touch with the podcast it's to get in touch with the show you can email us at what did you do yesterday pod at gmail.com follow us on Instagram at yesterday pod and

1:27:40 - 1:28:12

please subscribe and leave a review if you liked it on your preferred podcast platform and if you didn't please don't hey thank you David in it for life thanks for agreeing to do this and appearing to still enjoy doing it everything is normal Jesus

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