S3 EP16: Jonathan Wilson

0:06 - 0:11

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.

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They all ask the big questions and cover the hot topics of the day. But nobody is covering the most important topic of all.

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Why is that? Are they scared? Too afraid of being censored by the man? Possibly, but not us.

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We're here to ask the only question that matters. We try and say it at the same time, Max.

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What did you do yesterday? What did you do yesterday? What did you do yesterday?

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That's it. All we're interested in is what the guest got up to yesterday. Nothing more.

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Day before yesterday, Max. Nope. The greatest and most interesting day of your life. Unless it was yesterday.

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We don't want to know about it. I'm Max Rushden. And I'm David O'Doherty. Welcome to What Did You Do Yesterday?

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Hello and welcome to What Did You Do Yesterday? My name is Max Rushden. Alongside me for life.

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David O'Doherty. A Max booking. Yes, here we go. In the past, some of Max's bookings have been some of our loosest units, let's just say.

1:19 - 1:25

From a What Did You Do Yesterday point of view, there's no judgment there. It's just been highly unpredictable days.

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But now, this is one I've wanted for a while, Max. You have, and actually, this is the first booking where I've booked someone I actually know.

1:37 - 1:50

So today's guest is Jonathan Wilson, who is now, I don't really want to praise him at all, but he is one of the most renowned football writers in the world, probably.

1:50 - 1:58

Wrote the seminal book on football tactics called Inverting the Pyramid. That even, like, Ted Lasso is seen reading it in the trailer.

1:58 - 2:04

The amount of messages we got about that. We're just like, are you serious? And we were all like, that looks shit.

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In terms of that, it's just quite good. We don't want to put people off.

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We have just recorded the episode. Yeah, yeah. For the tape. Where are I to say he's also written a book on the history of Hungarian football?

2:15 - 2:22

I could see a lot of people being, well, maybe I'll just listen to an old off menu instead of this.

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But let me tell you, this is one that's well worth listening to. He's got a new book out.

2:31 - 2:37

He never stops writing books. Like, he writes books all the time. And the running joke on Football Weekly is that we haven't read any of them.

2:38 - 2:41

But we should sell this one. This one is a good one. This is awful.

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The way you're talking about his beautiful books that are beloved is like he's cranking out romance novels.

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He spends years researching, in this case, the history of the World Cup. He's in the catacombs of Hungary.

2:56 - 3:03

You know, like, he's doing proper research. And I'm just trying to write 900 words every fortnight on, like, a game of football I played in 2010.

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And he's actually doing proper work for these books. Yes, what's it called? The Power and the Glory.

3:08 - 3:13

The History of the World Cup. And it is out now. Yeah, it's just out.

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And it's out in America next month, I guess, for Christmas. We've got him on an extraordinary, fascinating day.

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There are so many firsts in this episode. I think we're trying too hard to sell it.

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It's good. The podcast is good. It doesn't matter who the guest is. Whatever we do, the podcast is good.

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It's interesting. And actually, for once, it's not one of your mates banging on about their craft.

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It's... Ladies and gentlemen. It's one of my mates banging on about his craft. This is what Jonathan Wilson did yesterday.

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Jonathan Wilson, welcome to What Did You Do Yesterday? Oh, thank you very much. It's a great pleasure and honor to be here.

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It's lovely to meet you. I know you and David go back a long, long time.

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In a way, it's nice to do a podcast with someone I haven't met because I won't know anything about you.

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I've got no expectations going to this episode. With this in mind, hang on, Max.

4:17 - 4:30

Have you done a podcast with Jonathan yesterday? Because that would be the first time that's happened where we've broken the prime directive and one of us has tried to influence the yesterday of the guest.

4:30 - 4:44

Well, interestingly, the reason why I felt today was better than doing it on Thursday, which was your preferable day, David, without going into the weeds of our WhatsApp group, we would have done one because Jonathan and I are doing one tomorrow.

4:44 - 4:51

But on that podcast, we don't discuss what the guest did yesterday. So I think, Wilson, I think we're in the clear, Wilson.

4:52 - 4:55

Yeah, just about. Yeah, because we're doing some stupid time in the morning, aren't we?

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Because I've got to fly back to London in order to fly to Buenos Aires, because this is a very stupid time in my life.

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Hang on, Max, your other podcast is called What Did Footballers Do Yesterday? Yeah, exactly.

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Where you ask all the footballers in the world exactly what they did yesterday. So tomorrow, me and Wilson and Barry Glendenning will be interviewing Steve Anthrobus about what he did yesterday.

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But we will not ask Jonathan Wilson any questions about what he did yesterday so we can get on with what Wilson did yesterday.

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Can I just say for the tape? No, you will, because by tomorrow, I'll have been at Bodø/Glimt Tottenham and you will absolutely be asking about Bodø/Glimt Tottenham.

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Literally, the only thing I'm talking about is what you did yesterday. Well, not really what you did, it's what did you watch yesterday, which is a sort of separate...

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People will understand. The revelation for me here is almost the definition of journalism is what did somebody do yesterday?

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You know, occasionally it's a few days in the past, but that's what we've just realised.

5:57 - 6:05

You're doing journalism in its purest form in this podcast. You could say. Specifically for people who are interested in what you did yesterday, Jonathan, what time did you wake up?

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Well, probably the first time about midnight 30, as my wife came back from the Oasis concert.

6:12 - 6:21

Right. And then again, it's 3am to get a taxi to the airport. Wow. At 3am, you do a lot of, you know, you go to a lot of football matches,

6:21 - 6:30

but 3am is very early. Like when the alarm goes off, are you just for even a small number of seconds overcome with sadness?

6:30 - 6:39

That's what happens when I have a 3am alarm. Less sadness and just confusion. There was definitely a moment where I was like, I don't know where I am, I don't know what I'm doing, what's going on.

6:39 - 6:45

I probably could have got away with leaving half an hour later, but the problem is I have to write a newsletter for the Guardian for the US market.

6:45 - 6:55

So I needed to be sure I had time to finish that before the flight, which would have been a great idea if security Heathrow actually opens at 4, but it seems to open around about 4.20.

6:55 - 7:01

Just a little tip for anybody who is planning on doing any writing in the Pret-a-Manger in Terminal 2.

7:03 - 7:09

Okay. So it's 3am. The alarm is on. What's the window you've given yourself to get up and put some clothes on?

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So the taxi was coming at 3.30. I probably don't need that long, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

7:15 - 7:19

You always have to check the bag again. I have packed the laptop. I have packed the passport.

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I have got the boarding pass, which I still print out because I'm an old-fashioned man.

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I don't trust phones. They can go wrong. Sure. But Ryanair are no longer accepting your old printed matter.

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No matter how high quality the paper you're printing onto, Jonathan, you're going to have to trust that phone now.

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I mean, thankfully, I'm no longer accepting Ryanair, so it's all fine. Just if I can step in here, and this is a thorny old issue.

7:48 - 7:56

I mean, is this the earliest wake-up we've ever had, Max? And if so, there's not much between the 12.30.

7:56 - 8:10

Just can I ask one question about the 12.30 wake-up? Please. Do you, in that sleepy, comatose state where you don't really want answers, do you feel the need to ask how the concert was, etc.?

8:10 - 8:18

To be honest, I hadn't slept particularly well. I'd made that mistake of going to bed early than I would normally do, knowing I didn't have long to sleep, knowing that my wife would be coming back.

8:18 - 8:24

But the Ryder Cup was still going on, so I was still... We were saying before we came on, it was very like an election in some ways.

8:25 - 8:31

Yeah. But I think part of the feeling was this thing happening in a different country that I could not control in any way, that I was quite stressed about.

8:32 - 8:40

And I'd shut my eyes, but all I was seeing was sort of red and blue kind of emerging on a screen and the wrong colour sort of taking over.

8:41 - 8:45

I mean, this is how badly I slept. I have a worm farm on my balcony.

8:46 - 8:49

Oh, wow. I think I was overfeeding them, which was creating some issues with smell and waste.

8:49 - 8:55

I think I've now got that sorted. But you have to drain off the fertiliser, which I keep in old water bottles.

8:55 - 9:05

But the problem is that it generates gas. And if you don't sort of every now and again, just take the top off, let the gas out, it could, as it did once, explode, which is very, very messy.

9:05 - 9:09

I sort of got into my head, oh, I'm going to be away. I'm going to be in Norway for three days.

9:09 - 9:13

I'm going to Argentina for two and a half weeks. My wife won't, A, she won't want to do it.

9:13 - 9:18

And B, she won't remember to do it. I'd better go and sort of release the gas from the worm fertiliser.

9:18 - 9:24

So there I was in my balcony at about 11pm, unscrewing the caps from worm fertiliser to let the gas out.

9:24 - 9:32

But does, if you open the worm gas, does it make the satisfying sound that, you know, a can of Coke would make?

9:32 - 9:37

No, it's not carbonated. Right. Is it sort of quite a sad... I'm thinking of the carbonated worms.

9:37 - 9:43

Do forgive me. It's sort of just got a sad little sigh, sort of... Oh, okay.

9:44 - 9:55

It would be awful. Imagine if, while you were away, the worm farm exploded and your wife was listed as the first person to die from worm farts, certainly in living memory.

9:55 - 10:02

That would be awful on a number of levels, yes. Tragic, but also comic. I know this is really going into the day before yesterday.

10:03 - 10:14

Forgive us, please, listeners, because they have criticised us recently for that. When the worm exploded, when you arrive at that, the aftermath, could you paint that picture for us?

10:14 - 10:21

Great question. This is real journalism. I'd made the mistake of storing the worm tea, as it's called, under the sink.

10:22 - 10:26

Right. And... It just keeps getting better. This keeps getting better. It was my wife who found it.

10:27 - 10:35

I think it's fair to say she wasn't happy. Right. I was alerted to the problem, firstly, by her scream, and secondly, by the horrendous smell when she opened the cupboard door.

10:36 - 10:40

Because worm tea does smell disgusting. But it didn't blow the cupboard door off, is it.

10:40 - 10:46

It didn't blow the bloody doors off, no. Okay. It went everywhere. And so, yeah, I did the thing that we all do.

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I thought, it's fine. I'll just, you know, I'll wipe it down. It'll be okay.

10:50 - 10:57

So I emptied it, you know, in that cupboard under the sink. It's all your tins of stuff, you know, things to cleaning products.

10:57 - 11:01

That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, there's cloths. Cloths and domestics. Dishwasher tablets. Yeah, exactly.

11:02 - 11:07

So I'm wiping all that down. It's not really, it's getting the thick off. It's not really getting in there.

11:07 - 11:12

We've got one of those, they're called cookers. The things that give you boiling hot water immediately.

11:12 - 11:16

Wow. And they've all gone behind that. And so I couldn't really get in there.

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So in the end, I had to call a plumber to come out to take the cooker off so I could get in behind that.

11:22 - 11:29

He then has to stand there while I'm utterly humiliating, kind of on my knees, sort of scrubbing the back wall under the sink.

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And then finally, when my wife is a fastidious woman, when she says, well, I don't think you're going to get any cleaner than that, then he can screw the thing back on.

11:37 - 11:44

But then, of course, it still stinks. So there was then this sort of awful sort of four-week period where we had to have a couple of doors open, all the windows open.

11:44 - 11:49

And it's sort of an open plan sort of kitchen, dining room, study, sitting room.

11:49 - 11:53

So that's where I work. She works in the study. No, it's just it was in the cupboard, but the smell was everywhere.

11:53 - 11:57

So I had to work in there for three or four weeks. And then gradually the smell did go.

11:57 - 12:03

And I sprayed deodorant on it two or three times a day, which was very much a short-term benefit.

12:03 - 12:08

But, yeah, you take what you can get in those circumstances. We've all learned a lesson there.

12:09 - 12:17

Worm tea. Yeah. I mean, it can be used as a balm, possibly. I know there's fertilizer bombs, so I presume that's about movement of gas as well.

12:18 - 12:24

And this, on a much more micro level, is. So if you have worm tea, store it outside would be my advice.

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If you take nothing else away from today, store your worm tea outside. It's sad when you have to clean the cleaning product.

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You've got the jiff and you need the jiff to clean the jiff. Anyway, so it's three o'clock.

12:39 - 12:43

Are you straight out of bed? You left your clothes in another room. Are the clothes laid out?

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Yes. You're quite an organized man. I mean, I wouldn't do that normally, but obviously I want to disturb my wife as little as possible.

12:49 - 12:53

So, yeah, they're laid out in the cupboard in the spare room. I'm pretty good in the morning.

12:53 - 13:01

Actually, I get alert quite quickly. Yeah, sorted all out. Walked out to the main road for the taxi, which I booked.

13:01 - 13:06

Always get there five minutes early. Just a power move. Assert your authority over the taxi driver.

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You're not waiting for me. I'm waiting for you. Sorry, did you shower, breakfast, anything like that?

13:09 - 13:13

Because you've got half an hour here. Okay. Because I always get sweaty when I'm traveling.

13:13 - 13:19

So I'd rather shower when I get to the hotel. And breakfast, yeah, I've got to kill time at Heathrow anyways when I'm working.

13:19 - 13:24

Okay. So we're in the taxi. And do we listen to anything? Do we talk to the driver?

13:24 - 13:28

It's early. A little bit of chat to the driver. So three or four minutes just to establish good relations.

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Did you learn anything? No. No. I learned it was misty. He told me it was misty.

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He was correct. I think that was the first thing he said. It's misty this morning.

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And sure enough, it was misty. Which is good because it proves that he can be trusted.

13:45 - 13:52

He's honest. Yeah. He can see mist, identify mist, convey the message of mist. Which I think in a driver is a good trait to have.

13:52 - 13:58

We confirmed I was going to Terminal 2. That was helpful. The Queen's Terminal. The Queen's Terminal, yeah.

13:58 - 14:06

Yeah, sometimes I'd listen to a podcast or something, but I just sort of happily dozed till we arrived at Terminal 2 at around about 4am.

14:06 - 14:15

What the driver doesn't realize is the reason London's misty is because Jonathan has released the gas from the worms.

14:16 - 14:26

A pall has fallen all over the whole town. Many people are phoning in, phoning radio, blaming Sadiq Khan on the terrible smell across London.

14:26 - 14:32

This is why reform will win. Damn it. Okay. So we're at the Terminal. Are we hand luggage only?

14:33 - 14:44

Yes. Hand luggage only. Okay. Right. Interruption. Jonathan, this is a very specific point, but because you do a lot of podcasts, you're wonderful writing.

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Every time I've ever gone through a hand luggage x-ray machine with podcasting equipment, something looks like a gun.

14:55 - 15:01

I think it might be the metal of the microphone, but every single time they try and unscrew things.

15:01 - 15:09

Is that the case with you? Every single time. I'm clearly a mock man. Like Heathrow now, they have those, they're like big MRI scanners, aren't they?

15:09 - 15:12

They're not like, it's not the old fashioned ones where you have to take stuff out your bag.

15:13 - 15:20

But I always get quite aggrieved at foreign airports where they haven't progressed. But actually, I think the old fashioned way is quicker because I always get called up.

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So I think this is the first time ever both of my bags got pulled aside.

15:23 - 15:28

It was quite efficient, really. The bloke sort of just finishes the first one, moves to the second.

15:28 - 15:33

He just says, that's mine as well. Yeah. I thought this microphone stand, is this videoed?

15:33 - 15:38

Can people see the video? They are videoed, but we're not putting the videos out for a hundred years.

15:38 - 15:44

Okay. Well, in a hundred years, people will be able to see that I have this microphone stand that I take with me to screw it onto shelves and things.

15:45 - 15:51

And I guess that having watched The Jackal, I'm aware that that possibly could be some kind of sniper rifle.

15:51 - 15:55

Oh, yeah. But that didn't seem to be what bothered them. The thing that bothered them was, you know, the Zoom recording thing.

15:56 - 16:01

This is the first time that's ever triggered. But the thing that they hate is notebooks.

16:01 - 16:05

If you have a thick notebook. Really? Yeah. And they always go, oh, have you got a notebook in there?

16:05 - 16:11

Yes. That's the danger of moving to a post-literate society, that notebooks make you suspicious.

16:11 - 16:18

Britain, 2025. 2025. Yeah. They start going through it with a big black pen, just redacting certain words.

16:18 - 16:25

When we were coming, I can't remember which bit of flying back to Australia. Maybe it was going, we had to get our bags at Perth and put them back in to fly to Melbourne,

16:25 - 16:31

which was a bit annoying. But when we went through hand luggage, they found a small screwdriver.

16:31 - 16:37

And it's like an adult's screwdriver, but it's small. So Ian can use it, young Ian.

16:37 - 16:40

And they said, you know, what's he going to use it for?

16:42 - 16:53

And you know those questions where you're going to say, well, you know, he's going to go up to one of the cabin crew and just an inch deep into their neck and watch the blood, just watch them bleed out.

16:53 - 16:57

It's what you're thinking in your mind. So I just said, he just uses it as a toy.

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But it didn't matter what I said. They said, well, we're going to have to throw it away anyway.

17:00 - 17:04

So you don't need to ask me the question, the purpose that Ian is going to use the screwdriver.

17:05 - 17:09

There was nothing I could say, I don't think, that would have got it through.

17:09 - 17:15

So we did RIP the screwdriver. Okay, but you had to wait 20 minutes, Wilson, for security to open.

17:15 - 17:24

Yes. Then, yeah, went through security straight to Pret. Okay. Treat, I line myself beneath where I was those, the croissants with the ham and the cheese and tomato.

17:24 - 17:32

I used to, I mean, this was terrible behavior. I used to have one of those and an almond croissant, but I've now replaced the almond croissant with one of the fruit tubs.

17:33 - 17:37

Okay. I quite like the Pret in Terminal 2. It's got these little individual booths. It's quite good for working.

17:38 - 17:42

And yeah, so I went and sat in one of those and wrote my newsletter for the American market.

17:42 - 17:47

Do you have a coffee? Yes, I had a flat white. I think Pret's coffee's gone downhill, but it's- It's never been good.

17:48 - 17:55

It's okay. I mean, it's not as bad as Costa. It's probably not as good as Cafe Nero, but of the major chains, it's middle of the road.

17:55 - 18:01

It's fine. It'll do. Yeah, I think it's got to be black coffee only in those kind of establishments, I would say.

18:01 - 18:08

But everyone's different. Maybe you've become fussy with this because flat whites are very much an Antipodean thing, aren't they?

18:08 - 18:17

I don't know if you listen to every midweek episode of this podcast, Wilson, but if you don't, there's quite a lot of this discussion.

18:17 - 18:33

Jonathan, when you're writing the newsletter to this Guardian Football for America, my colleague Max, when he has one of his columns to write, he thinks about it for four days and then writes it in six minutes.

18:33 - 18:42

He's just hammers it out like Jack Kerouac on wallpaper. He just, just the sound of the typewriter comes from the basement.

18:42 - 18:51

And then like Stephen Jay Cannell in the whatever, ident for most of the cop shows we watched as children pulls it out of the machine.

18:51 - 19:03

And it's just done. Is that how you write? I mean, the problem with that newsletter is you kind of have to base it on the 4.30 kickoff normally, not 100% of the time.

19:03 - 19:09

So I bought myself a bit of leeway by doing it more generally on how the title race is shaping up.

19:09 - 19:15

So I'd done a few paragraphs on Liverpool losing at Palace and at Chelsea losing to Brighton.

19:16 - 19:22

I find that I actually write much better first thing in the morning. So what I need is sort of a vague idea before I go to bed.

19:23 - 19:30

And then my brain, my unconscious does the work while I'm asleep. On good days, you get up and it comes out in one fully formed pellet.

19:31 - 19:36

Wow. Like a rabbit poo. Like a rabbit poo. Can I ask a question on background here, Max?

19:37 - 19:42

I mean, some of the listeners will object to this. Jonathan, you're known for your football writing.

19:42 - 19:54

In Olympics time, do they give you clay pigeon shooting or judo? Have you ever done that thing where you're just given another sport and you have to suddenly know everything about it?

19:54 - 20:00

I don't think that's ever happened. The first thing I ever had published in a paper was when I was doing work experience with the Independent.

20:01 - 20:06

And I had to write something about ice hockey. Ice hockey is not that different to football in terms of the basic vocabulary.

20:06 - 20:17

I mean, obviously, there's sticks and ice and skates and goals a lot smaller. But when I worked for the university paper, I had to do some odd sports.

20:17 - 20:20

I actually got very into netball. I think the movement off the ball in netball is fascinating.

20:21 - 20:26

And were I a football coach, I would have them practice netball to get the movement away from the markers.

20:26 - 20:31

You've lost the dressing room immediately there. These overpaid egos. And then he did this.

20:31 - 20:39

Ex-pros on their after-dinner circuit in 25 years going. And then Jonathan Wilson, this iPad tactics nerd who'd never played the game.

20:39 - 20:46

He suddenly got a big goal attack and wing centre. And from then, his days at Chelsea were numbered.

20:46 - 20:51

And he was done. Right. OK. So you write that. Is that all done? How long does that take you?

20:52 - 20:57

Probably an hour or so. Where are you flying to? To Oslo. And then on from Oslo to Bodø.

20:57 - 21:09

So there is Tottenham Hotspur Football Club are playing an away match in the Champions League in, are we in the Arctic Circle?

21:09 - 21:19

Yeah, north of the Arctic Circle. This is the furthest north I've ever been. Previously, the furthest north I've ever been was Reykjavik on a cricket tour where we were beaten 2-1 in the Idega Johnson Arena.

21:19 - 21:24

Right. But we won the third game. The conditions were very alien to us. And then we got them back to Berkshire and absolutely hammered them.

21:25 - 21:28

Right. But on the artificial surface. And Tottenham will be facing an artificial surface tonight.

21:29 - 21:34

The ball just stops in the pitch. It's very hard to get used to. But yes, this is further north than that.

21:34 - 21:42

Bodø Glimt. For people who don't know, one of the great stories of European football, that the club was founded in 1916 as Glimt.

21:42 - 21:48

In 1948, they noticed there was another team from a neighbouring town also called Glimt. So they changed the name to Bodø Glimt.

21:48 - 21:52

Bodø is the name of the, I don't think it's the city, the town. Used to be a hyphen.

21:52 - 21:59

Bodø hyphen Glimt. Oh, well. Then they realised it was confusing on betting coupons. So they put in the oblique stroke we see today.

21:59 - 22:01

I think the only club in the world with an oblique stroke in their name.

22:02 - 22:06

What's an oblique stroke? Like a slash? A forward slash. Yeah, a slash. Yeah, a forward slash.

22:06 - 22:14

Yeah. Wow. They weren't allowed to be in the Norwegian top flight before 1972. The north Norwegian clubs had their own competition.

22:14 - 22:19

Well, they were too far away from Norway, despite being in Norway, to be in the Norwegian league.

22:19 - 22:23

I don't know if it's a distancing or just a sense they couldn't compete in terms of resources.

22:24 - 22:33

Then they sort of, they bring the sort of three leagues together. I think 74 and 75, they won the north Norwegian league, but lost in the playoff.

22:33 - 22:39

76, they won the league and did win the playoff. 77? Do this without notes. This is all memory.

22:39 - 22:45

No one died. This is classic Wilson. Half the audience going, what is this? What's happening on this podcast?

22:46 - 22:50

1977, they finished second in the league and second in the cup. Lillestrom doing the double that year.

22:50 - 22:55

Right. But then in the 80s, they fell from grace. They fell into the third division for a while.

22:55 - 22:59

They weren't even the best team in Bodø. That was Bodø grand. Wow. But they've since come back.

23:00 - 23:04

And under Kjetil Knutzen, they've won four of the last five league titles. And they're second at the moment, quite well placed.

23:04 - 23:10

And they really punched massively above their weight. They're a great story. Yeah. How are they in the...

23:10 - 23:16

So the Champions League, to listeners who may not know anything about football, is the premier club competition in the world.

23:16 - 23:23

It's quite hard to qualify for because you're up against Barcelona, Real Madrid, like the biggest teams.

23:23 - 23:31

And how have a team from North North Norway managed to get it? Is there incredible coaching there?

23:31 - 23:37

Is there a sort of natural Norwegian player that is very talented? I think it is the coaching.

23:37 - 23:43

It's Kjetil Knutzen almost entirely. I mean, the club is clearly well run, but they don't have a massive budget by any means.

23:43 - 23:49

They're not bankrolled by some oligarch or some private equity firm. Most of their players are...

23:49 - 23:56

Well, I think they're all Scandinavian, but most of them are Norwegian. Yeah. They're quite direct in how they play, which direct football seems to be coming back.

23:56 - 24:01

They do have an artificial surface, which maybe gives them a slight advantage. Other teams aren't used to that.

24:02 - 24:08

But they're just a great... One of the few great stories in football over the last five or six years of a team massively punching above its weight.

24:09 - 24:14

Actually, I think not as good a story. I don't know if you've seen what's happening in the Swedish League at the moment, but I was in Malmo last week.

24:14 - 24:22

Yes. But there's a fishing village of 850 people called Mjölbu who are eight points clear at the top of the Swedish League with six games to go.

24:23 - 24:28

What? If you look... Yeah. If you look at the photo of their ground, I think it's six, six and a half thousand capacity.

24:28 - 24:33

But you've got the Baltic Sea. Then there's a sort of clump of trees that they've planted to provide a bit of a break from the wind.

24:34 - 24:41

And then this stadium. It's an extraordinary setting. But yeah, just this fishing village who magically are about to win the Swedish League.

24:41 - 24:45

There is an issue that John Robbins talked a lot about them on his episode.

24:45 - 24:52

So we can't go into great detail about them. Right. So we are in... We're still in Pret.

24:52 - 24:58

We write our column. We wander to gate 34 or whatever it might be. A24, I think it was.

24:58 - 25:05

And we're happy with our seat. Where are you? Aisle? Aisle. Always Aisle. I think it was 25D, I think, on that flight out.

25:05 - 25:11

You bump into a couple of other journalists who are on the Tottenham beat. It's good to have confirmation you are actually going to the right place.

25:11 - 25:17

Yeah. Good. Have you ever gone to the wrong place, Jonathan? I mean, you're a highly organised man.

25:17 - 25:27

But when you're making these early season tracks into the wilds of the tundra, have you ever gone to slightly the wrong place?

25:27 - 25:36

It's more for things like the press conference, because obviously that's not widely advertised. To make sure I have read that right and I'm on a flight that's going to get me there on time for the press conference.

25:37 - 25:45

So yeah, then fly to Oslo. Had loads of time in Oslo. What Jonathan hasn't told us, Max, is that it's a sort of a Nansen or a Shackleton vibe.

25:46 - 25:52

He's also brought 36 dogs and provisions for three years in case he gets trapped in the ice.

25:52 - 25:58

And those tennis racket shoes. That's what he's wearing. What's the furthest north you've been, David?

25:58 - 26:10

I think Reykjavik might be me, having never thought about it. Yeah, Reykjavik. Me and Rhys Darby, who was in Flight of the Conchords and many other things, did one of the first ever comedy gigs in Reykjavik.

26:10 - 26:22

And some people came to see it and other people just played cards on tables while we were standing on a plinth doing our jokes.

26:23 - 26:29

But yeah, we drove. We went to Parliament fields and some of the incredible sights of Iceland.

26:30 - 26:36

But no, Scandinavia wise, I think Copenhagen is the furthest north that I've been. What's the furthest north?

26:36 - 26:49

You probably in the fascinating Rushden years when you were trying to woo your lady by turning up in different countries where she might be and you would just be there, you know, leaning against a volcano in Ecuador.

26:49 - 26:58

Accidentally went to Newfoundland. Yeah. I still think it might be Reykjavik. I can't think, you know, unless Vermont is further north than that, but I don't think it is.

26:58 - 27:04

I think so. Just talk about gigs in Reykjavik. The team I was playing for when we went to play cricket there was the Authors XI.

27:04 - 27:10

So you have to have written a book to play for us. We've got some quite famous people on the team like Sebastian Falk's novelist, Tom Holland, the historian.

27:10 - 27:16

Wow. And part of the whole sort of funding for the trip was we were doing this event in this hall.

27:16 - 27:22

It was ill-conceived and it was 11 of us on stage where clearly two of us would have been more than enough.

27:23 - 27:30

And Iceland had, I think, a World Cup qualifier against Ukraine on first. So I think it was maybe some kind of student union.

27:30 - 27:33

And the place was packed to watch this Iceland-Ukraine game. And we were on afterwards.

27:34 - 27:41

So, of course, the final whistle goes and the hall just empties. And the MC bloke was absolutely hammered.

27:42 - 27:47

There we are, sat out on this stage. And we just watched this audience just drifting out.

27:47 - 27:51

And there's maybe about a dozen left. And then they finish their pints and they go.

27:51 - 27:57

So eventually there's four people left, two of whom were married to people on the stage, 11 people on stage performing to an audience of two.

27:58 - 28:02

Because even the wives left. It was just too embarrassing. But what can you do?

28:02 - 28:05

You just have to go on. The show must go on. We've been contracted to do it.

28:05 - 28:11

So we did it. When I was hosting fantasy football on Sky and it was like, this is your life for a footballer.

28:11 - 28:16

Sometimes you'd get a guest on and like so many, tickets were free just as an email and whatever.

28:16 - 28:21

Sometimes you'd get, you know, Jerzy Dudek. We had so many because Liverpool won the Champions League.

28:21 - 28:27

When Michael O'Neill came on, the whole Northern line, every Northern Irish person in the UK was there.

28:27 - 28:31

But there was one guest and I won't name them because it's not fair, where only one person turned up.

28:31 - 28:36

So we made them sort of take their football shirt on and gave them like an earpiece.

28:36 - 28:39

So it looked like they were just part of a crew and we just didn't have a studio audience.

28:39 - 28:44

Just seemed the nicest thing to do. What do you do on the flight, Wilson?

28:44 - 28:49

I slept mostly on this one, but on a shortish old flight, I will listen to a podcast I read.

28:49 - 28:52

We don't care about other ones? No, I just listen to this podcast and this podcast alone.

28:53 - 28:58

Good, thank you. What's it called again? Yes. You'll get the vibe eventually of what it's called.

28:59 - 29:03

Okay, so we land. And is that a nice experience? Is it easy to get into Norway?

29:04 - 29:15

Yeah, it was all very efficient. There was a slightly overexcitable woman on security who seemed determined to, I don't know if they do time it, but she seemed determined to break some kind of record in getting people through security.

29:15 - 29:21

There was a photographer just behind me. He was obviously a bit worried about his expensive cameras and he was like, just calm down.

29:21 - 29:23

And she was like, no, no, we've got to get you through. We've got to get you through.

29:24 - 29:29

And then the tray before mine, as she sort of pushed it through quickly, went flying off the conveyor belt.

29:29 - 29:37

And so you had earbuds and batteries flying everywhere. And me and the photographer were like, she's going to calm down now.

29:37 - 29:41

We can relax. But then there's some poor blokes who are scrabbling about on the ground looking for his earbuds.

29:42 - 29:48

And it was quick, at least, once we got through there. Yeah, very smooth. Nice terminal, I'd say, in Oslo.

29:48 - 29:53

Interruption there. I'm going to say one of the least dignified moments of contemporary life.

29:53 - 30:04

For those of us lucky enough to have AirPods or similar is the infinite bouncing AirPod in a busy place.

30:04 - 30:12

And you have to go into this kind of tuck like you're a number six in rugby clearing a ruck and just head off in the direction of it.

30:13 - 30:20

Just bringing people with you in the hope that you can find this 75 quids worth of tiny, tiny tech.

30:20 - 30:26

Like, we left, we've got the AirPods and the AirPods Pro. And we've left the AirPods Pro on one of the flights.

30:26 - 30:31

We don't know whose fault it is. I think it must be Jamie's. Because she just leaves.

30:31 - 30:36

She, like, leaves one somewhere and one somewhere else. You can track them. Max, there's a global tracker on them.

30:36 - 30:39

Is there? If you just go to your Find My iPhone. I believe so, yeah.

30:40 - 30:45

I tend to only have the left one in, ever. Like the kids. Well, it makes me look like Sam Allardyce.

30:45 - 30:50

That's what I think. Basically, my left ear is very well shaped for AirPods. My right ear.

30:50 - 30:56

It's like the BFG. It's the BFG. Now I knew this. He's got one flapping elephant's ear and just one normal ear.

30:56 - 31:01

But I'd left that in my other coat. So I had to have the right one in only on this trip.

31:01 - 31:06

So it has not been, every 10 seconds I'm going to push it back in, which has not been comfortable.

31:06 - 31:11

It astounds me that you wouldn't be always put the AirPods back in the pot person.

31:11 - 31:17

So my wife just leaves them in coat pockets. And I spend most of my day going through coats trying to find the AirPods.

31:17 - 31:23

It's because when I came back in on Sunday, I had to go to the concierge to pick up a parcel.

31:23 - 31:27

I just took it out, dropped it in the pocket while I spoke to the concierge and I forgot to get it back in.

31:27 - 31:34

I don't need your excuses. I don't need your excuses. Question. Are you in a tiny propeller plane going to Bodo?

31:34 - 31:41

Oh, yeah. Second flight. And the journalists and the cameramen and you're all piled in and the pilots have walked past you and goes, you know.

31:41 - 31:48

A chicken or a polar bear just sitting at the back placidly, you know, reading the express.

31:48 - 31:59

I was hoping for something like that, but no, it was very boringly mundane. It was just a normal internal flight, a slightly smaller plane than the first plane, but it was still three across the aisle on both sides.

31:59 - 32:05

I think the weirdest plane like that I've got was I did an event at the University of Javaskala in northern Finland a few years ago.

32:05 - 32:11

Wow. Took off, I don't know, it's like 10 p.m. flight out of Helsinki. Helsinki Airport was completely deserted.

32:11 - 32:16

It was like being in 28 Days Later or something. There was just nobody about. You couldn't get coffee anywhere.

32:16 - 32:22

Nothing was open. The lights were dimmed. They were obviously on sensors, so the lights would come on as you walked past them.

32:22 - 32:25

That was this place where I was like, am I really meant to be here?

32:25 - 32:30

Have I sort of breached security in some terrible way? Even when I went to the gate, there was nobody there.

32:31 - 32:36

Then eventually, about 10 minutes before we were due to take off, some steward woman turns up plus one other bloke.

32:36 - 32:41

We were on this plane, probably, I don't know, capacity 60, 80, something like that, and two of us.

32:41 - 32:46

They sat us opposite each other on the aisle. It was just really awkward because I didn't want to talk to him.

32:47 - 32:53

You sort of think there's two of us on this empty plane. Then land in Javaskala, which is absolutely in the middle of nowhere.

32:53 - 32:58

I wasn't entirely clear how I was meant to get to the university. Initially, I thought there'd be cabs.

32:58 - 33:10

There weren't any cabs, but thankfully, they had sent somebody to pick me up. Walking out of an empty airport onto an empty plane, getting off at another empty airport, it was really disturbing because I had no idea where everybody had disappeared to.

33:10 - 33:17

Actually, two plane stories, if I'm allowed. When we emigrated to Australia, it was still COVID.

33:17 - 33:21

There were two tickets. They had to fly business. There was no one in economy.

33:22 - 33:31

It's a complete madness because only a few people were being allowed into Australia. When you opened the curtain and you just saw an empty plane, you were like, this is a horror movie because you don't have empty ones.

33:31 - 33:41

But the smallest plane, I think, I flew from a place called Turbo in northern Colombia, which is not accessed by road, to Medellin.

33:41 - 33:46

And the runway was one of those runways that's got horses and donkeys on it until about five minutes before.

33:46 - 33:50

And so someone shoos them off with a broom. And it's like Jimbo the jet set.

33:50 - 33:53

It was like as fat as it was long. There's like six people sitting on us.

33:53 - 33:57

And then a guy next to me just said, oh, by the way, these planes, they got from Canada in the 60s.

33:57 - 34:02

It lands at 60 miles an hour. I was like, it means nothing to me. But honestly, it was like it was stationary.

34:02 - 34:06

It was like it was falling out of the sky. It was just not moving.

34:06 - 34:22

Anyway, do you have a small plane story, David? Yes. In 2005, I had been supporting Tommy Tiernan, very big Irish comedian, on tour for the whole winter.

34:23 - 34:28

And as a gift, his promoter had given him a Liverpool season ticket. And we were both doing the Edinburgh Fringe.

34:28 - 34:35

And he said, I've decided to splash out. What are you doing tomorrow afternoon? And I said nothing.

34:35 - 34:40

And he had hired a private plane, which was the two of us and the pilot.

34:40 - 34:47

We flew to Liverpool. We got a limo to Anfield. We watched them beat Sunderland.

34:47 - 34:53

I'm sorry, Jonathan Wilson. One nil in an open first game of the season clash.

34:53 - 34:57

It might have been two nil. We then flew back in time for our gigs.

34:57 - 35:06

And I performed to six people that evening in Edinburgh. I couldn't really tell them that I'd been on a private plane that day.

35:07 - 35:12

All right. So we're in Bodo, the most northerly place you've ever been. Tell us what happens.

35:12 - 35:18

Well, it's a very small place. So the great thing is, it was 25 minutes walk to the hotel.

35:18 - 35:23

Oh, lovely. And it's great. No faffing about with taxis or metros or anything like that.

35:23 - 35:26

So yeah, just walked. And it's very beautiful. I hadn't expected it to be as attractive as it is.

35:27 - 35:32

That even where they've got, it appears to be, I don't know, some kind of oil refinery or something on the other side of, I guess it's a fjord.

35:32 - 35:35

I'm not really sure what the... Yeah, probably a fjord. Has to be a fjord.

35:35 - 35:39

Come on, let's be real. If it's not a fjord, we've all been lied to our whole lives.

35:39 - 35:48

Some kind of inlet anyway. So yeah, it's quite rugged. It's quite bleak. We've got those very colourful clapboard houses, Norwegians like.

35:48 - 35:52

So very bright red. So it completely lived up to the stereotype I was hoping for.

35:52 - 36:02

And then I get to the hotel and it's essentially a doll's house. Wow. I would say as a journalist, I would almost rather have a desk than a bed in the room

36:02 - 36:06

on the grounds I can probably sleep in the chair, whereas I find it very hard to work in the bed.

36:06 - 36:14

Wow, that's like something Ernest Hemingway would say, Max. Yeah, I'm standing in the tiny vestibule with the toilet behind me.

36:15 - 36:21

Standing, because there's no chair in the room. I've managed to clamp the microphone onto the one shelf in the room, the one bit of furniture.

36:21 - 36:25

The, what is it, two and a half feet long strip of wood they've nailed onto the wall.

36:25 - 36:31

The bed was maybe, I don't know, 18 inches around the bed on all three sides.

36:31 - 36:39

I did think earlier on I could set the laptop up on the windowsill. And there's a bedside table thing I could have clamped the microphone on.

36:39 - 36:43

I could have sat on the bed. But it turns out it's south facing. So the sun is absolutely belting through there.

36:43 - 36:50

So the curtains are now closed. It's painted an absolutely disgusting shade. Actually, if you just look behind me, because of the way the light is, it looks okay.

36:50 - 36:57

It looks like caramel-y. In real life, it's got this kind of weird sort of prison green, snotty brownness to it.

36:57 - 37:02

Dirty protest. That's what it reminds me of. I mean, Norwegian prisons are famously comfortable, aren't they?

37:02 - 37:19

I was thinking, should I commit a crime to get better accommodation? So walking in from the airport to the, the only time I've ever witnessed that was one time I was going to Cairns in Queensland.

37:19 - 37:27

And the taxi was driving me and my friend into town. And someone had decided to walk.

37:27 - 37:33

And the taxi screeched to a halt and threw the door open. And the taxi driver was like, get in now!

37:34 - 37:41

Because crocodiles sometimes eat people on that road. So you shouldn't walk it. But there wasn't this risk.

37:41 - 37:46

I presume. It's late September. It's very low risk. It's very low risk in Norway.

37:46 - 37:59

You know every year a polar bear gets stuck on a piece of floating ice, hasn't eaten for the entire winter, and then eats some children on their way to school.

37:59 - 38:05

Probably where you are, Jonathan. That fear didn't cross your mind? No, it didn't. But I'll take a taxi back to the airport tomorrow.

38:06 - 38:20

Now you've alerted me to that danger. I realise I've been reckless. How tragic that on the day his wife is blown up by a worm bomb or whatever, he gets eaten by a lost polar bear in Bodo.

38:20 - 38:23

He'd be good for book sales. Is it 24-hour daylight? Is that where we're in?

38:23 - 38:28

No, no. It's... I don't know what time it is. I mean, it went dark early evening, like normal time, I guess.

38:28 - 38:33

Right, OK. It's actually remarkably mild, I'd say, mid-teens. There was quite a heavy shower yesterday afternoon.

38:33 - 38:40

But this morning, beautiful and bright, lovely day. Any northern lights? Yes. Any shimmering greens and blues in the sky?

38:40 - 38:48

So, did the press conference yesterday, wrote with my piece, went to a restaurant. Hang on, I think we're going quite quickly here.

38:48 - 38:51

So, we just wait for the northern lights. It's exciting to know that they're coming.

38:52 - 38:57

It's debut on What Did You Do Yesterday. I don't believe Dara O'Briain saw it in Chiswick.

38:57 - 39:02

So, this is very exciting. But we need to get into the... We haven't had a press conference yet.

39:02 - 39:05

You know, there are so many firsts on this episode. It's the furthest north we've ever been.

39:06 - 39:13

There's so much to get into. Yes, Dave? We check in to the hotel, to the cute hotel with the tiny shit-stained walls.

39:13 - 39:19

What time of the day are we, Jonathan? That would have been around about 3 p.m. mid-afternoon, Norwegian time, which is obviously an hour ahead of UK time.

39:20 - 39:25

Where would you say the Spurs team have come in? Oh, that's a good question.

39:25 - 39:31

I would suggest earlier that day, but I wouldn't be 100% sure about that. Are they also in your hotel and the tiny little bed?

39:31 - 39:36

Mickey van der Ven has got... Neck is all like... It's just too small for him.

39:36 - 39:44

Thomas Frank, the Tottenham manager for listeners who don't know, will complain about the tiny brown hotel they stayed in where they were served by a doormouse when they entered.

39:46 - 39:54

Ibsen's Norwegian, isn't he? It hadn't occurred to me that Ibsen's play, The Doll's House, might actually just be about a really, really tiny hotel he went to once.

39:56 - 40:01

Right, it's 3 o'clock. When's the press conference? Press conference was half 7. Oh, so what did we do in the afternoon?

40:01 - 40:08

I did some work in my room. That was it. What were you doing? I was finishing my substack, which I'd largely written in Oslo Airport.

40:09 - 40:16

I had some tedious bank-based admin to do, so I was doing that. And then I was prepping for the press conference to write the preview.

40:16 - 40:21

It's press conference half 7, so you don't have a huge turnaround to meet print deadlines back in the UK.

40:21 - 40:36

What happens at a Champions League press conference? I'm imagining it's a sort of school-type room, and you're all sat on those 1940s desks, you know, that fit two people with a little hole for an inkwell in front.

40:36 - 40:45

The world's great football journalists have all been crammed into this room, and Thomas Frank, the Spurs manager, has to go and stand in front of a blackboard and explain his tactics.

40:45 - 40:52

Is that what it's like? Pretty much, yeah. Yeah, so it's those, the chairs, I guess there's some modern university chairs.

40:52 - 40:55

They've got the flip-up thing on one arm, which is easy to have a laptop on your knee.

40:55 - 41:01

So how many journalists were there? I don't know, 25, 30, something like that. I think British journalists, maybe half a dozen.

41:02 - 41:11

Yeah. Not a blackboard, but the sponsors board with all the different... Oh, yeah. So Thomas Frank was there, plus Lukas Bergvold, the Swedish Tottenham midfielder.

41:11 - 41:17

He was surprisingly nervous. He was not good in his press conference. But Thomas Frank gives good press conference.

41:17 - 41:21

He knows what he's doing. But they are boring. I mean, they're generally terrible, and you never learn anything.

41:21 - 41:26

And they say, we respect the... I imagine. I think that you say, the opposition manager, we really respect them.

41:26 - 41:30

It's going to be a tough game. And, yeah, we're really looking forward to it.

41:31 - 41:40

End. What was the interesting stuff yesterday? He got a little bit tetchy about Sergio Romero, the Tottenham's captain, centre-back Argentinian.

41:41 - 41:45

He's been left behind. Christian. Yeah, Sergio Romero's a former Manchester United goalkeeper, isn't he?

41:45 - 41:51

Christian Romero. Wow, that was a real nerd moment. None of the listeners... I just wanted to rescue Wilson.

41:51 - 41:58

I've now become a proper old football man, where I get the surname right, but the first name is just beyond me now.

41:58 - 42:02

I did that during the World Cup, didn't I, with... I kept calling Rafael Leal, Emerson Leal.

42:02 - 42:10

I can't remember. Yeah, well, anyway. You're forgiven. Does anyone bring up any nice stuff like...

42:10 - 42:21

Because Thomas Frank is Danish, isn't he? Yeah. Then, what's-his-name is Swedish. So you're effectively in Scandinavia with two Scandinavians.

42:21 - 42:26

Is there any great questions to ask there? You guys, is it great to be home in Scandinavia?

42:26 - 42:36

There was definitely some Scandi banter. Yeah. Oh, right. One of the Norwegian journalists asked, does it make it all the more impressive what Bodo Glimt are doing, the fact their team is mostly Norwegian?

42:37 - 42:42

And Frank was, actually, they've got two Danish players, and I think they're the important ones, which gets a great laugh because...

42:43 - 42:50

It's the easiest crowd. Well, it's either the easiest or the hardest. For about 5% of your life, it'll be the hardest crowd you ever play, but 95% will be the easiest.

42:50 - 42:58

Apart from centre court. Yes. Yeah, yeah, true. Literally anything goes. Sparrow is nearby, and they are rolling in the aisles.

42:59 - 43:07

Honestly, David, you play centre court. If you're ever feeling like you're not sure about a work in progress, just go and do it before Goran Ivanevic versus Stefan Edberg.

43:08 - 43:16

You will bring the house down. I know. The problem is you have to perform in the very high chair with that weird mic that you have to sort of stoop to talk into.

43:16 - 43:21

Code violation, if anyone heckles. Right, so we have the press conference. Do we have the Bodo people?

43:22 - 43:28

Do they turn up as well, or are you just at the Tottenham? They'd done earlier in the day, so it would not have been possible for me to get there without leaving on Sunday,

43:29 - 43:34

but I was covering Newcastle the Arsenal on Sunday. Okay, so we have this. They say thanks.

43:34 - 43:41

Lucas Bergwell puts in an absolutely woeful performance for a 20-year-old Swede sitting in front of some journalists.

43:41 - 43:53

Should be ashamed of himself, but Frank delivers. And now where do we go? Anybody fancy dinner, I say to the other English journalists?

43:53 - 43:56

So, sorry, you're all writing it next to each other? You all go to a little room and all write your stuff?

43:56 - 43:59

No, no, it's in the press conference, you're writing it on your knee. Okay. In the stadium.

44:00 - 44:15

Because this is such a delightfully rinky-dink sort of match that, you know, come after Christmas when only the big teams are left, it'll just be much more, I flew to Paris, I got the train,

44:15 - 44:28

I'm now in Parc de France watching PSG. Do you take the opportunity to write the piece like, they say it only rains twice a year in Norway.

44:28 - 44:36

You know what I mean? I think as I walk the route from the airport to my clapperboard hotel, you know what I mean?

44:36 - 44:42

Do you reflect where you are in the piece? I think I would have done had Tottenham not played here four and a half months ago.

44:43 - 44:49

And Arsenal have played here relatively recently as well. So one of the journalists there was making his third visit to Bodo.

44:49 - 44:57

So Bodo became his big story back during COVID. So Rory Smith, the Observer's Chief Football Writer, very, very good journalist, good friend of mine.

44:58 - 45:05

He did the first big Bodø story, but he did it all with phone calls because he literally couldn't leave the UK.

45:05 - 45:11

And he's now massively annoyed that everybody else is ticking off Bodø and he's still never been there.

45:11 - 45:16

So the great gag on the WhatsApp yesterday was, Rory, have you got any restaurant reservations in Bodø?

45:16 - 45:24

Oh no, you haven't actually been there. Right, so you finished and you sort of put your hand up going, finished!

45:24 - 45:32

And everyone's like, ah, you bastard. And then, so what you say, dinner anyone? Will there be like 20 really sort of half-finished previews?

45:32 - 45:38

And they go, and Thomas Frank thinks, Wilson's ass said it's dinner, so I've gone.

45:38 - 45:43

There's a process of negotiation. You're sort of trying to work out, A, who's really up for dinner?

45:43 - 45:55

B, who's nearly finished? And because it was by then, I guess around about quarter to nine, and I was having been in Malmo the previous week, where I'd done a speech at the City Archive in Malmo,

45:56 - 46:03

bizarrely, and I don't understand why this happened, but they asked me to go and do a speech on the 100th anniversary of the change in the offside law.

46:07 - 46:17

I thought, I'll treat myself, and I'll book quite a nice restaurant after that. And the latest I could get a reservation was 8.15, because Swedes eat really early.

46:17 - 46:20

So I was worried that Norwegians would be the same. They don't seem as bad.

46:21 - 46:25

Because it was quarter to nine, it was like, why don't you go off and find somewhere, and then let us know where you are.

46:26 - 46:32

So I set off for a Spanish restaurant, which had been recommended by Jack Pitt Brook, one of the journalists who has been to Bodø before, not like Roy Smith who hasn't.

46:33 - 46:36

And I got there at seven minutes past nine, and they said, I'm sorry, the kitchen closes at nine.

46:37 - 46:42

But the Italian next door, I think, stays open later. So I went to the Italian, and they were open.

46:42 - 46:49

I settled down. I got some very nice baked potatoes with a sort of truffle aioli, some linguine alla babbiata.

46:50 - 46:57

Interruption. Truffle is a sort of crime against humanity. Do you know my issues with truffle, do you?

46:57 - 47:02

Well, my issues, let me tell you my issues with truffle, and I'll hear your issues with truffle.

47:02 - 47:11

There is something about, and I think it's because I have a very acute sense of smell, that I think it's stronger for me than it is for your average Joe.

47:11 - 47:19

And so when I lived with my flatmate Gabby, and she used to put truffle on a lot of things, I had to ban it from the house because I just find it far too much.

47:19 - 47:26

And now it's getting everywhere. And in Melbourne, because they get so silly about breakfast, they're starting putting truffle on your scrambled eggs.

47:26 - 47:34

And, you know, you have to get rid of it because it's, I don't mind a mushroom if it's a plain one, but as soon as they start veering into truffle territory,

47:34 - 47:41

I'm unhappy. Wilson, your issues with truffle. So on my 40th birthday, I was at a very nice restaurant in Zermatt in Switzerland.

47:41 - 47:53

He's like James Bond, Max. If you read some of James Bond's early reports on like the Cup Winners Cup, they were really quite good.

47:53 - 47:56

And he had to really turn around quickly because he had other stuff to do.

47:56 - 48:01

He was being chased by odd job. I mean, actually being a football journalist would be great cover as a spy.

48:01 - 48:12

Yeah, I think about it as a stand-up comedian to do a crime during the interval because you would have the alibi, which is your honour, how could I have robbed that bank?

48:12 - 48:22

Because I was engaged from eight to 10 doing my show, but the judge would never think that there was that 15 minute window in the middle where I could rob those jewels.

48:23 - 48:32

I think like by the 15th time that you've booked the venue next to the crown jewels of that city and it's always 45 minutes into your set.

48:34 - 48:39

And you're wearing all the jewels in court. I think they might smell a rat.

48:40 - 48:48

I don't know. What's your issue with truffles? You're at Zermatt. So the sixth of the seven courses was a truffle cheese with meringue.

48:48 - 48:56

Right. And it was just too strong. I just, I overdosed on truffle. I had to order extra meringue to try and tone down the truffle.

48:57 - 49:04

First world problems, baby. It's more than first world. What's one step above first world problems?

49:04 - 49:11

1% problems. The sixth of the seventh course had a bit too much truffle. So excuse me, Garcon.

49:11 - 49:24

Triple the meringue, please. 1% problems was Jay-Z's much less popular follow-up to 99 problems. The number of people just empathizing with you there, Wilson.

49:24 - 49:32

It's just exploring. They're going, oh, that again. Yeah, I know. It's like, you know, treading on an upturn plug and when the sixth of the seventh course is a bit too truffling.

49:33 - 49:39

So there's basically sort of four or five years where I guess like you, the smell of truffle turned my stomach.

49:39 - 49:45

Even chestnuts. I couldn't be in a room with a chestnut. And then thankfully, I've been able to reintegrate it into my diet.

49:45 - 49:51

Right. So I had the truffle aioli last night. But I'm still not the truffle fiend I used to be in my 30s.

49:52 - 49:56

Right. That's a little pig that you used to be. How much more meringue did you need?

49:57 - 50:01

I mean, several eggs with. I saw why they put the meringue with the truffle cheese.

50:01 - 50:04

You needed that sweetness to cut through it. Well, of course. There was not enough.

50:04 - 50:09

I needed more. It seems late in the dish for truffle. It was the cheese course.

50:10 - 50:14

Is that obviously the sixth or the seventh? I'm not an expert in these. Well, penultimate is often the cheese course.

50:14 - 50:29

Right. Okay. Just to bring us back to Norway. Is it the old problem, like a stand-up comedy festival where you have to book a table for six because a whole bunch of people have said they'll come and then two of them end up coming

50:29 - 50:37

and the staff are really annoyed because you're sat at the biggest roundy table like Kim Jong-un and Putin?

50:37 - 50:43

That can be a major issue. Then there's some repeat offenders who I now would try and avoid for dinner for that reason.

50:44 - 50:46

But this, I was getting my own food and telling other people where I was.

50:47 - 50:55

So I messaged Tom Olen from the Times and said, I am in Olivia, this restaurant down by the waterfront in Bodø.

50:55 - 51:00

There is space. And he said, great, we'll be there. Probably around about quarter, 10 to 10.

51:00 - 51:05

So I said to the waitress, when does your kitchen close? She said, 10 o'clock. I said, look, I've got four friends coming.

51:06 - 51:10

Are they still going to be able to order? And she said, why don't you order four of them?

51:10 - 51:20

And then we'll make sure the food turns up sort of five to 10. So I took a photo of the menu, sent it to Tom, got the order back for four pizzas and then they turn up and five minutes later,

51:20 - 51:24

their pizzas are served. Because that's the collaborative effort you need at the highest level.

51:25 - 51:33

So I have a question then. So say you have news hounded out some intel, right?

51:33 - 51:44

Supposing Mickey Vandeven, you've met him in a coffee shop and he just happens to mention in passing, Thomas Frank, we're not going to play with a goalkeeper tomorrow.

51:44 - 51:55

We're going to play with 11 outfield players. And then you go for dinner with the rest of these losers who don't have this intel.

51:56 - 52:00

You'd have to keep that under your hat, wouldn't you? Because you'd be splashing it tomorrow.

52:01 - 52:10

Yes. It's a case-by-case basis. What do you share? Because obviously there's a safety in numbers thing that if you share with them, they'll share with you.

52:10 - 52:14

So there is a tendency for the pack to act like a pack and they all protect each other.

52:15 - 52:22

But there's also an understanding if you get some extraordinary exclusive that you've got off your own bat and your own merit, then you're allowed to go off and do that yourself.

52:22 - 52:27

But the sort of codes are kind of quite rigorously enforced and not always entirely clear.

52:28 - 52:33

I mean, obviously, I'm also a journalist. I'm just never in this position of having any news that anybody...

52:33 - 52:39

Are you? Are you, Bill? Neither am I, let's be honest. They don't tell me that on Match of the Day, which is where I get most of my information.

52:41 - 52:50

So if you got a good enough scoop, they would still let you back into the fold for kind of your sort of bread and butter information stuff.

52:50 - 52:57

It's the extent of the scoop. The more interesting it is, the more readily you'll be allowed back in the press pack.

52:57 - 53:05

So say a press officer messages one of you and says, for instance, Romero's been left behind for precautionary reasons.

53:05 - 53:10

That would be expected you would share because otherwise a press officer has to tell each of you individually.

53:10 - 53:18

Okay. Got it. If you have tracked down a story or stumbled across a story off your own bat, then you're entirely at liberty to use that as you wish.

53:19 - 53:30

You might think it's worth trading. I mean, that's the calculation you make. I mean, do you think, because I wonder this sometimes when, and you know, on the radio, it's the sort of desperation to break the news first and stuff seems a bit odd

53:30 - 53:34

to me if I'm in the middle of a quiz about how tall footballers are.

53:34 - 53:37

I'm like, I don't care that the West Ham has been sacked. You know, people will find out.

53:37 - 53:46

But in terms of those kind of scoops, because of social media, like they just don't seem as, A, they're probably harder, right, to find because everybody knows everything.

53:46 - 53:54

But also, it's not really getting the scoop, because people can react to the scoop and write a better article about whatever the news is.

53:54 - 54:02

Yes, that's true. But you still see the transfer journalists, for them getting out first, even if it's 30 seconds before somebody else, that still means a lot to them.

54:02 - 54:09

And those, you know, David Ornstein's, your Fabrizio Romano's, they are still the most followed, best paid journalists there are.

54:09 - 54:15

So there is a value in it. There's also, often you're trying slightly to cover your tracks.

54:16 - 54:25

So I've got quite a good contact at a Premier League club. If I just spewed out stories on that club all the time, it'd become pretty obvious pretty quickly where the information was coming from.

54:26 - 54:33

So it makes more sense for me to feed some of that information into the system and I will then get some information back.

54:33 - 54:36

Like a double bluff. Well, no, just sort of, it's not coming from one source.

54:36 - 54:43

It's not being projected to the public from one outlet. And also I then get information back in return for that.

54:43 - 54:49

So everything becomes better informed. and also just the sort of journalist I am, you know, I'm not a news journalist.

54:49 - 54:54

So there's actually, for me to break a big news story, there's not really a huge amount of point.

54:54 - 55:05

It's much more useful for me, for my analytical stuff, my features, to have more detail and be better informed than to do one, one newsy hit that within 10 minutes everybody else has got anyway.

55:05 - 55:15

Sure. And not connected to who that source is, do you think Pep Guardiola should have, you should have put him not on the top table at your wedding because that sort of gave it away?

55:16 - 55:20

I mean, you weren't at my wedding, so. No, true. Although you were invited. I was invited.

55:20 - 55:32

I was a long way away. Yeah. David. We eat Italian food. Does everyone end up arriving before 10 o'clock and it's not one of those situations where they've turned the music off in the restaurant,

55:32 - 55:39

someone's mopping and the little eyes are staring at you through the serving hatch. It worked perfectly, the timing.

55:40 - 55:50

So, we had our food, we had a drink and then we got invited to the Tottenham Team Hotel to have a drink with the Tottenham media staff and it was there that I saw the Northern Lights.

55:50 - 55:57

Ah, okay. And is that normal, sorry, for a football club to say come and have a, you know, come and say hi, like let's have good relations?

55:57 - 56:01

partly I guess because everybody's in a foreign town, slightly bored, not really knowing what to do.

56:01 - 56:10

Yeah. I mean, particularly for people who cover, for instance, Tottenham regularly, to have a sort of friendly relationship with their media department, it makes sense on both sides.

56:10 - 56:20

yeah. There was, what, half a dozen of them, half a dozen of us? Jonathan, are Spurs, the football team, staying in a really posh hotel or are they staying?

56:20 - 56:27

Well, I'm imagining the Norwegian opposition, they're all boat builders and they're sleeping beneath their craft.

56:28 - 56:35

The ships are coming into the harbour bringing the striker back from his lazy crab netting episode.

56:35 - 56:43

But are Spurs in a fancy place? I mean, it's nice. It's not mega fancy but I guess Bodø's not really sort of well stocked with really fancy hotels.

56:44 - 56:47

But yeah, it's nicer than my hotel, certainly. I imagine they would have a chair in their room.

56:49 - 56:55

Do the Tottenham media staff pay for the drinks? They did last night, yeah, which is a very good one, yeah.

56:55 - 57:03

Are drinks really expensive in Norway? I haven't dared to look at the conversion rate but yes, I would imagine so, yeah.

57:03 - 57:08

And you can claim all of this on expenses, that's exciting, isn't it? You can't claim booze on expenses.

57:08 - 57:14

Can you not? Okay. Just get Spurs to pay for your six snake bites that you ordered on a tray.

57:15 - 57:32

Talk about the Northern Lights then. So is it like, are you all looking out over like there's a big glass window and you're there with your martinis and then it's suddenly this green and red and blue sort of hue comes across from the left to right

57:32 - 57:39

like this? I think we got there slightly too late for the best of it but yeah, sort of a green smudge in the sky.

57:39 - 57:46

I'd seen them before in Reykjavik where I'd say they were pretty disappointing. The other thing I've learned is they look much better on photos than they do in real life and on lights.

57:46 - 57:52

Yeah, I've heard that. But yeah, it's a sort of eerie unearthly sight. It is quite sort of moving, I think.

57:52 - 57:58

Do you get existential with the Daily Mail's Tottenham correspondent and start thinking about the meaning of life?

57:58 - 58:09

Not last night, no. No, okay. Fine. But when you're staring at the lights do you just keep talking about you know, any old nonsense or is there a kind of moment?

58:09 - 58:14

Shingards have got a lot smaller that's what they're talking about as they look at one of nature's wonders.

58:14 - 58:19

To be honest, the Tottenham staff had been there longer and had oh, it was better 10 minutes ago, look at this.

58:19 - 58:23

So mainly I was looking at photos of when it was better than what I was seeing myself.

58:23 - 58:35

When my friend of my dad was at the Grand Canyon with his wife and mother-in-law, it's a sort of terrible mother-in-law, not a joke, but you know, sort of cliche.

58:35 - 58:44

They literally see the Grand Canyon and the first thing that she says to her daughter is, what hand cream do you use?

58:44 - 58:53

You can never forget this. Looking out over one of nature's beauties. It's an important question.

58:53 - 59:12

Like it is fascinating, maybe with Northern Lights more than anything else, for centuries ago, people not to see it and think either it's evidence of God or there is something very important happening here.

59:12 - 59:23

Whereas now we realize it's, what's it caused by? Atmospheric heat or something? But it would be impossible not to think this is maybe Valhalla or whatever up there.

59:23 - 59:30

Oh yeah, and I think even more so before people had electric light. There's just weird lights in the sky.

59:30 - 59:37

It must have, I don't know, maybe if you grow up with it, maybe it doesn't have that power, but I don't see really how you couldn't be sort of awestruck by it.

59:37 - 59:51

Yeah, I've seen Murmuration once, which is where a million starlings, I think, all fly together and do these sort of loop the loops and seem to be creating these shapes.

59:52 - 1:00:02

And yeah, I was genuinely, I mean, moved is too strong a word, but enthralled by whatever the fuck was going on there.

1:00:03 - 1:00:18

Murmurations, I think, are incredible. So I remember there was a friend of mine's parents used to own this quite big house on the Isle of Arran off Scotland and we'd go at New Year and you had to get the boat over from Aldrossan and there was

1:00:18 - 1:00:25

this really rough pub on Aldrossan Harbour and the train gets into Aldrossan and we had sort of, I don't know, like an hour to wait for the ferry.

1:00:25 - 1:00:33

We're in this pub, all of us drinking our pints of Tenants. It's sort of twilight and suddenly these murmurations started just over the harbour.

1:00:33 - 1:00:36

It was absolutely stunning. I think it was moving. I think moving is not too strong.

1:00:37 - 1:00:43

The seventh of the seventh course was murmuration of Starling. Thank God you need some meringue with that.

1:00:43 - 1:00:50

Do you know what I mean? To get all of them down. Okay, so I mean you're working and you've got up at three o'clock in the morning.

1:00:50 - 1:00:57

So do you drink yourself silly or just have a couple? No, I just had a couple and then I was back to the hotel probably by half twelve.

1:00:57 - 1:01:03

So I was desperate to sleep. I was naked. Yeah, you'd been up for 18 hours.

1:01:03 - 1:01:17

18, yeah, because obviously this is an hour ahead, yeah. It's 24 hours since Mrs. Wilson woke you up to sing half the world away with her to celebrate the reunification of the Gallagher brothers.

1:01:17 - 1:01:22

Do you do anything when you go to bed, to Wordle or something like that, or is it just in, collapse?

1:01:22 - 1:01:30

Well, last night it was just in and collapse. What I like about Scandinavia is, this is going to sound weird, but they sell milk you can actually drink.

1:01:31 - 1:01:36

And I like it, because I'm basically a four-year-old child in many ways, I like a glass of milk before I go to bed.

1:01:36 - 1:01:39

Wow. So at home I'd always have a pint of milk before I go to bed.

1:01:39 - 1:01:45

And it disturbs me that abroad it's quite hard to do that. But Scandinavia, the milk they sell in the 7-Elevens is drinkable.

1:01:46 - 1:01:54

It's not full of the UHT stuff that you get in hotter places. Wow. I'm hoping tonight on the way back from the game to be able to pick up a pint of milk.

1:01:54 - 1:02:00

You have a pint of milk before bed every night? Yep. A whole pint? Yep.

1:02:00 - 1:02:06

Do you down it in one? Two or three normally. Wow. 20 minutes before I want to go to bed.

1:02:06 - 1:02:12

20 minutes before, okay. Familiar thing would be if I'm watching an Endeavour or a Foyle's War or something like that.

1:02:12 - 1:02:16

Try and get it about one hour 10, one hour 15 in so you've got around about 20 minutes left.

1:02:16 - 1:02:19

Yeah. And then watch the last 20 minutes with a pint of milk and then bed.

1:02:19 - 1:02:24

Full cream or? No, no, semi-skimmed. I'm not a monster. Semi-skimmed. No, I understand that.

1:02:24 - 1:02:31

Well, that's everything we needed, Wilson. Oh, you're very welcome. Thank you. What a fascinating glimpse.

1:02:31 - 1:02:40

You know, we have had a lot of comedians shitting on about their upcoming gig or whatever and then the gig went fine.

1:02:40 - 1:02:47

Whereas what I like about this is tomorrow is probably a more glamorous day because it features the match.

1:02:47 - 1:03:09

Whereas this is the, you'll listen back to this in 50 years time, Jonathan, and surrounded by seven course meals and your own private Aurora Borealis because your book on the history of the drop ball in South American football has gone double platinum.

1:03:11 - 1:03:19

And you'll think this was my life. I love it. It's a, it's much more cultural than I thought it was going to be, Max.

1:03:19 - 1:03:24

It's what I'd say about Jonathan's day. You know, he has engaged with the, with the town.

1:03:24 - 1:03:29

He's achieved stuff. He's written two bits as well. Three, three things. You've written three things.

1:03:29 - 1:03:34

Newsletter, sub-stack and preview. What was the sub-stack about? The fallback when you can't think of anything else.

1:03:34 - 1:03:40

Worming today. Have a, have a rant about VAR. Can't go wrong with VAR. Yeah, yeah.

1:03:40 - 1:03:46

No, I, I annoys me, but we don't think, call us now. 03717, double two, double three, double four.

1:03:47 - 1:03:53

What's up with VAR? Would you get rid of it? David O'Doherty's got some strong opinions and he'll tell you more after the break.

1:03:53 - 1:04:04

This show brought to you with Tool Station. In it for the trade. Max, I think we managed to pull this off.

1:04:04 - 1:04:17

Jonathan was a great guest and a great booking, but even for people that have no interest in football whatsoever, I think he's presented a day in the life more so than, you know,

1:04:17 - 1:04:25

us getting two wrapped up in five, three, four or whatever that is called. That's too many players, actually.

1:04:25 - 1:04:29

Maybe there was not quite enough history of Bodo Glimt. That's what I would say.

1:04:30 - 1:04:34

I mean, no one even debrief after the guest has gone, David, but he's still sitting here.

1:04:34 - 1:04:42

What are you selling, Wilson? Lots of books. What are you selling? Yes, my history of the World Cup came out early in September for you in the UK.

1:04:42 - 1:04:46

It comes out late in October in the US. It's called The Power and the Glory.

1:04:46 - 1:04:52

It's the greatest book ever written. There's no point underselling it. This is going to single-handedly save literature.

1:04:53 - 1:05:00

Yeah, it's an in-depth history of a World Cup and not just the goals and the games, but the socioeconomic, political, cultural background as well.

1:05:00 - 1:05:04

Because a lot of our listeners have no interest in football, they will still be interested in this.

1:05:05 - 1:05:13

Probably more so, yeah. Good. There's stuff about the Opera House in Manaus, there's stuff about a sadomasochistic brothel in Rome.

1:05:13 - 1:05:19

There's something for everyone. Great. The two things you need. Jonathan Wilson, thank you for telling us what you did yesterday.

1:05:20 - 1:05:34

Thank you, Wilson. Cheers. Thank you. So Jonathan Wilson there. So this is exciting, David.

1:05:34 - 1:05:39

We had the Northern Lights. We had the most northerly episode, the earliest wake up.

1:05:39 - 1:05:48

Yeah. So much stuff. I've met Jonathan a couple of times with you. Well, I wasn't worried that we were going to go too deep into football tactics.

1:05:49 - 1:05:56

But as soon as the worms got mentioned at the start, I really relaxed. I was like, here we go.

1:05:58 - 1:06:10

This is the stuff we're looking for now. Do you know, in a way, it's a shame he wasn't at home because he would have watched an episode of Vera and he could have talked you through every single moment of every episode.

1:06:10 - 1:06:21

It's like got spreadsheets dedicated to Vera and Morse and Midsummer Murders. Him and I were actually going to start a detective TV show podcast.

1:06:21 - 1:06:25

In the meeting, it transpired that I just didn't know. I knew Death in Paradise.

1:06:25 - 1:06:29

But, you know, once I really got tested, I was really out of my depth.

1:06:29 - 1:06:32

But I also think like genuinely, like it's a bit like the Mary Beard episode.

1:06:33 - 1:06:39

The reason you get comedians on is because they're funny. And so that's funny. But sometimes it's nice just to hear about a day.

1:06:39 - 1:06:44

And even as a football journalist, I don't really know how I've never sent to football matches.

1:06:44 - 1:06:47

You know, I ask people what the games were like. I watch them on the TV.

1:06:47 - 1:06:56

So I don't really know that process. You know, the bits you share with other journalists and the bits you don't and the sort of the relationship with the press team and all that kind of stuff.

1:06:57 - 1:07:06

For some reason, I was just really taken by landing in an airport that's so small you walk to your little clapperboard lodgings then.

1:07:06 - 1:07:12

Interestingly, the episode is out at the weekend and he would have flown home before.

1:07:12 - 1:07:17

So he may have been eaten by that errant polar bear before we put out the episode.

1:07:17 - 1:07:29

If that happens, maybe we re-record the intro to say, you know, posthumously, he said, as he was being mauled, he said, please can my yesterday be put out on Sunday?

1:07:29 - 1:07:36

Oh, wow. Yeah. Thank you very much, Jonathan Wilson. Thanks, Wilson. RIP and RIP. Yeah.

1:07:36 - 1:07:41

If that has happened. Sorry. Just so we don't have to re-record this bit as well.

1:07:41 - 1:07:46

We're covering ourselves. We're covering ourselves. We should do that every outro, shouldn't we? May they rest in peace.

1:07:46 - 1:07:53

He will be missed. And if one of us dies in the next three days, may we rest in peace.

1:07:54 - 1:08:00

May you rest in peace. May I rest in peace. And maybe people listening, they are, that doesn't work, does it?

1:08:00 - 1:08:08

They're still alive. All the listeners are alive. If somebody is put in their will that they want to be either cremated or buried while listening to what did you do yesterday,

1:08:09 - 1:08:15

may they rest in peace. That does seem unlikely. If you are still alive, please let us know by contacting us.

1:08:16 - 1:08:25

This is hell. To get in touch with the show, you can email us at whatdidyoudoyesterdaypod at gmail.com.

1:08:25 - 1:08:32

Follow us on Instagram at yesterdaypod. And please subscribe and leave a review if you liked it on your preferred podcast platform.

1:08:32 - 1:08:39

And if you didn't, please don't. Hey, thanks, David. I had a lovely time doing this.

1:08:40 - 1:08:44

I really enjoyed that. Thanks a lot, Max. In it for life. In it for life.

WDWDY #74: Hoovered Under The Duvet

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S4 EP4: Vittorio Angelone

WDWDY #55: A Soapy Explosion

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WDWDY #54: A Yesterday Like Any Other

S4 EP2: John Kearns

WDWDY #53: Do yesterdays dream of electric cheese?

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WDWDY #52: Duelling Cheeseboards

The Great Christmas Bunny Emergency (Part 3)

The Great Christmas Bunny Emergency (Part 2 )

The Great Christmas Bunny Emergency (Part 1 )

S3 EP27: Rob Auton

WDWDY #51: In Fairness To Lube

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S3 EP16: Jonathan Wilson