0:00 - 0:06
Podcasts, there are millions of them.
0:06 - 0:09
Some might say too many.
0:09 - 0:12
I have one already.
0:12 - 0:14
I don't have any. Because there are enough.
0:14 - 0:21
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.
0:21 - 0:25
But nobody is covering the most important topic of all.
0:25 - 0:27
Why is that? Are they scared?
0:27 - 0:30
Too afraid of being censored by the man?
0:30 - 0:35
Possibly, but not us. We're here to ask the only question that matters.
0:35 - 0:39
We try and say it at the same time, Max. What did you do yesterday?
0:39 - 0:45
What did you do yesterday? What did you do yesterday? That's it. All we're interested in is what the guests got up to yesterday. Nothing more.
0:45 - 0:47
Day before yesterday, Max?
0:47 - 0:50
The greatest and most interesting day of your life?
0:50 - 0:55
Unless it was yesterday, we don't want to know about it. I'm Max Rushden.
0:55 - 0:57
And I'm David O'Doherty.
0:57 - 1:11
Welcome to What Did You Do Yesterday? Hello and welcome to What Did You Do Yesterday? My name is Max Rushden. Alongside me, David O'Doherty. Today's guest, I've first met in Edinburgh.
1:11 - 1:33
Oh here we go. In football, was it? You had her on the Guardian Football Weekly talking about Crewe's relegation. No, we have got, like, one of the nicest people in showbiz. So Mel Giedroyc is just, in terms of presenting, we all think we can present. Sorry, I realize you're a presenter as well, Max.
1:33 - 1:36
I think I can, but maybe I can't.
1:36 - 1:52
But any time I've been with her and she has been hosting a TV show, you suddenly realize, wow, she just understands what this is. She elevates the whole thing. She dicks around a lot. She's incredibly funny and inappropriate.
1:53 - 2:00
Exactly. That's what I mean. Yeah. She has her podcast, which is where there's a will, there's a wake.
2:00 - 2:14
Yeah, it's your perfect funeral. And that's why there's quite a lot of funeral chat in this. Not that there is a funeral. I don't give it away. There's some fun. There's fun funeral chat. There's a lot of fun death at the start. And I enjoyed that bit.
2:14 - 2:20
An incredibly.. I know I've got criticism for giving away too much of the podcast, but it's an incredibly unexpected lunch.
2:20 - 2:24
Yeah, there is. Then you would have to say. Yeah, there really is. Yeah.
2:24 - 2:26
And quite an evening then.
2:26 - 2:30
She's lovely. That's what everyone will listen to this thing. She's lovely.
2:30 - 2:56
People from overseas will know Mel as one of the original hosts of British Bake Off, when that was on. People around the world will know her from her forthcoming presenting of an Escape Room show that me, Nish Kumar, Chloe Petts, Ed Gamble and Amy Annette are in, This Way Out. This episode, I kind of want my life to be like this.
2:56 - 3:07
And my life is like this without the hairdo work. We also need to say she's in the next series of Last One Laughing, but we are not allowed to say anything about we don't know anything and she's not allowed to say anything about it, but she's in it.
3:07 - 3:13
She's in it. And from the poster, Sam Campbell is in it. Who we love very much.
3:13 - 3:16
And he will be the guest on our live show in Melbourne on April the 3rd.
3:17 - 3:28
Four o'clock. Four o'clock. No public transport, but Sam is on. So now let's shift the spare thousand tickets.
3:28 - 3:36
Let's bring this back to Mel. This is what Mel Giedroyc did yesterday.
3:36 - 3:41
Mel Giedroyc, welcome to What Did You Do Yesterday?
3:41 - 3:52
Hello. Hello. I'm so delighted to be here. I love talking. Hello, David. Hello, Max. I love talking. I love talking about lists, details, minutiae.
3:52 - 3:55
I'm here for you guys. I'm here for you.
3:55 - 4:10
This is why I was slightly worried about this because of anyone else I know, I foresee a Ross Noble situation where we're two hours into the podcast and Mel is considering rising from her duvet.
4:10 - 4:18
She's considering going to brush her teeth. So I guess we'll start at the start. What time did you get up at yesterday, Mel?
4:18 - 4:27
Clock was set for 6.45. I say clock. It was my phone because you know me, guys. I'm very, very high tech. So these days.
4:27 - 4:30
The last half an hour would suggest that.
4:30 - 4:53
These days, it's not the old teas maid that wakes me up in the morning. Oh, no. We've gone way beyond that. We have a phone that wakes me up. And actually, do you know what? I don't want to go all Ronnie Corbett here. Right at the beginning slash Ross Noble. I won't do that. But it's very rare these days that actually my alarm wakes me up because I'm always awake at sort of 3.48, 5.12, 6.15.
4:53 - 5:09
Did you know what I mean? The merry old hormonal world of being in the latter middle age. So it was a lovely surprise, actually, to wake up with the alarm. I think it was at 6.45. I was straight down into my granola like a horse going into its bag.
5:09 - 5:19
Wow. So no faffing whatsoever. No pick up the phone and have a little look, see all the dozens of people who've contacted you during the night.
5:19 - 5:33
Gods, that never happens. That never, never happens. I'd say I get on average two messages to look at in the early morning. I don't do any social media, so I'm not sort of scrolling through my various feeds.
5:33 - 5:36
The only feed I want to scroll is my granola.
5:36 - 5:46
Okay. Is the granola, you give the impression that it is laid out already from the night before and you literally just sort of slide down the banisters into a giant bowl.
5:46 - 5:56
Yeah, a bowl, like one of those burlesque acts where you're spinning in a martini glass. It's a sort of breakfast version of that. You with a spoon as you spin round.
5:56 - 5:59
Dita Von Teese. Very much like that.
5:59 - 6:03
Her granola show was the best, wasn't it? It really was.
6:03 - 6:11
But as you said that, Max, I thought, oh my God, I should really do that. I should be like a B&B. You know when you stay in a B&B and you go down?
6:12 - 6:21
It's quite bleak and they do the rice crispies. And then they put cling film over the bowl and like, oh, I could so get down with that. Why didn't I think of doing that?
6:21 - 6:34
One of the oddest silences in all of silence is the silence in the B&B breakfast room with another person at another table over there. It's sort of, there's something almost religious about that.
6:34 - 6:38
The tables are too close as well. So you're sort of with them. Yeah.
6:38 - 6:51
It is absolutely extraordinary. And there's always a clock. There's a sort of menacing ticking of a clock, isn't there, in the corner. Yeah. What do you do as you brush past somebody's table to go to the marmalade selection?
6:51 - 6:54
Do you know what I mean? It's very, very odd, isn't it?
6:54 - 6:57
Was there a traveling businessman at the next table?
6:57 - 7:23
Just ignoring you. Just a little nod. The ticking clock is an interesting one because I notice in ads for life insurance or the really bleak one, which is don't have, your loved ones pay for your funeral expenses, you know, those ads to symbolize an old person. They've obviously just got a voiceover person. Max would know about this as the voice of Gaviscon.
7:23 - 7:41
Of course, yeah. Oh, yeah, thanks. Well, I was the voice of Gaviscon for many years, the cartoon fireman. Tom and Tim like to eat on the go. But for Tom, that means indigestion. And for Tim, that means heartburn, sometimes the other way around or both. They use Gaviscon double action. Gets to work in seconds and lasts for up to four hours.
7:41 - 7:44
This is like a private dancer, isn't it?
7:44 - 7:50
I did this on Cameo. I charged 25 grand on Cameo to do the Gaviscon advert.
7:50 - 7:55
Oh, that's absolutely beautiful. And I remember those firemen. I remember them well.
7:55 - 8:11
Yeah. Interestingly, the first set of twins, Tom and Tim, priced themselves out of the market. They thought that Gaviscon couldn't go anywhere else. So then they found John and James, who were some twins in Malaysia. And they sacked off Tom and Tim. Yeah, it was a right old story. Sorry, where were we?
8:12 - 8:29
Sorry, no, the point I was making was, in old people ads, to symbolize an old person, they get a young whippersnapper like Max, just to put on an old person voice and to symbolize that there's always the pendulum of a ticking clock in the background, as in,
8:29 - 8:31
I could go at any moment.
8:31 - 8:53
Yes, you're right. I don't know what it is with my algorithm. Well, they're very clever, aren't the algorithms? That's what they are. I'm just getting solid funeral stuff coming through, guys. Have you made a will? There's a special way of cremation, you know, that involves, oh God, sort of petals or ceramics or something weird.
8:53 - 8:58
Stannah stairlifts, obviously. Actually, no, I've moved on from the stannars. It's just funeral.
8:58 - 9:07
Just death now. I got, were you born in 1979? You could get a free hearing aid. I'm 46. Like, this is, what's going on?
9:07 - 9:22
Sorry, this is quite bleak, but it wouldn't be a bad product where, imagine a sort of a steel box that the stannah went into that itself just burned, that just turned you into ashes then.
9:23 - 9:33
Yeah, towards heaven. You just, oh no. Sorry about that. Granola, is it homemade? I would imagine it's a homemade Mel granola.
9:33 - 9:36
Yeah, you know what that pause signifies?
9:36 - 9:44
Again, I feel bad. I used to make a granola and it was the recipe from Paul Hollywood's wife.
9:45 - 9:50
Give me a sec. I will remember her name. No, it's gone.
9:50 - 9:52
Oh no, that's showbiz, isn't it?
9:52 - 9:53
That's really bad.
9:53 - 9:58
If we guessed it, would you get it? Like if we said it, would you? Sophie?
9:59 - 9:59
Sophie Hollywood.
9:59 - 10:01
No, not Sophie Hollywood.
10:01 - 10:02
Joan Hollywood.
10:02 - 10:03
Not Joan Hollywood. Not Joan Hollywood.
10:03 - 10:05
Dolly Hollywood.
10:05 - 10:06
Holly Hollywood.
10:06 - 10:12
What's her bloody name, guys? I spent hours and hours chatting with her.
10:12 - 10:13
She's called Kate. Kate or Claire.
10:13 - 10:15
That's the present, Mrs. Hollywood.
10:15 - 10:19
Oh, is it? Oh, I didn't know there was another one. I'm not really in with the zeitgeist.
10:19 - 10:22
Hang on, the producer. I see Will is typing, has come up.
10:22 - 10:24
Melissa or Alexandra, says Will.
10:24 - 10:25
Alexandra. Alexandra. There we are.
10:25 - 10:26
We got that.
10:26 - 10:27
Alex Hollywood.
10:27 - 10:29
She's a huge fan of the pod, so this will be a nice moment for her.
10:29 - 10:43
Oh my God, that is awful. That's why I'm getting the funeral stuff. No, Alex Hollywood's recipe is darned fine. I've now got to obviously big it up and puff her up. It's a really cracking one.
10:43 - 10:56
I'm sure you can get it online. But this is not. This was a pre-made one from the supermarket, but rather a poncy one. I'm not going to lie. I went a bit poncy. I'm not known for my sort of shelling out hugely on things.
10:56 - 11:07
I'm pretty tight. But on this granola, I thought, no, this is my granola. This belongs to nobody else. It's in the cupboard. Everyone knows it's my section of the cupboard, so I'm going to go big on it. It was beautiful.
11:07 - 11:15
We live in Melbourne, Mel, not me and David, me and my wife. They have Illawarra granola. That's retailing for $15. That's like £8.
11:15 - 11:17
What goes in it? What is it?
11:17 - 11:19
It's something magical.
11:19 - 11:20
Coconut, probably.
11:20 - 11:25
Yeah, we get the more nuts and honey one, but any one of the three packs, it's really good stuff.
11:25 - 11:32
It sounds to me like Mel lives in a share house, and she's got her, it says Mel's granola is ripped.
11:32 - 11:41
Lizzie is crossed out, and it says Mel's granola. That's why you've got to come down early before, you know, the people head off to work and steal all your bits.
11:42 - 11:53
I actually live with my family. It's really sad. I live with my family, but I do have my own granola section, because otherwise, you know, thieving magpie little hands, you know.
11:53 - 12:01
You know what I mean? I hate that. Really annoys me. And if I don't have my breakfast, I am seriously pissed off for the rest of the day.
12:01 - 12:08
So do you have that with just milk, or is there a yogurt, fresh fruit part to the question? Can you describe the bowl for us, please?
12:08 - 12:22
Lovely, lovely question. It has to be in a porcelain bowl. Not porcelain, but like a ceramic bowl. I don't want to eat out of plastic. Do you know what I mean? I don't want to do that kind of thing. And I do like a soup spoon to have my granola with.
12:22 - 12:23
Like the queen.
12:23 - 12:34
It's weird. I don't know what's bloody happened to me, but it has to be a rounded soup spoon. So it's the granola that goes in. There's an outgrow yogurt, which is a non-dairy yogurt.
12:34 - 12:46
Don't know why. I'm not even dairy intolerant. It's just ludicrous. That's happened in the last couple of months. So the non-dairy. Yogurt. The almond milk. I'm not dairy intolerant. I'll say it again.
12:46 - 12:58
Guys, what's going on? Plus, do you know what I really do like? Crushed nuts. So I've got this special crushed nuts mix. It's like a powder. So the feel is dust.
12:58 - 13:07
It's a bit like our cremation chat. It's slightly ashy. A spoonful of that. It's always good to be reminded of where we're all going.
13:07 - 13:18
And then the horse goes into the nose bag and it's, absolute just woof. I've never been a slow eater. Can I just say, never been a slow eater.
13:18 - 13:28
Do you think you'd be allowed to put in your will that I wish my body to be cremated and then used as a granola topper by members of the family?
13:28 - 13:37
Like would they have to do, in order for the great wealth that I'm going to give you all to be unlocked, you have to, that's, no, that's awful.
13:37 - 13:42
No, I like that. The idea of actually ingesting your loved one,
13:42 - 13:52
but hang on, the question, David, is how are they going to know? And who are you hiring? Like your ombudsman comes and checks if they're eating the ashes?
13:52 - 14:01
Because you'd probably just, you'd say to the proprietor of the will, yes, I ate my mum's ashes. Can I have 2 million pounds, please?
14:01 - 14:07
Yes. Who's the cartoonish Tory tall skinny man with the side parting and the glasses?
14:07 - 14:09
Oh, was it Jacob Rees-Mogg?
14:09 - 14:21
I get Jacob Rees-Mogg. He executes my will, and so it's him standing there in his kind of Victorian suit, just watching to make sure that I, although is it cannibalism?
14:21 - 14:24
Is it cannibalism if I've already been cooked?
14:24 - 14:38
Isn't there a thing that says whenever you go, a thing, I love that, really vague. Isn't there a thing that says that when you go via Heathrow Airport, if you're on your travels, that you will be ingesting a little bit of Sid Vicious?
14:38 - 14:54
Because the story goes that his ashes were, spilt in transit from New York where he died back to the UK and some punky kind of crazy person spilt the ashes and they've been sort of swept into the ventilator system.
14:54 - 15:00
He can't be in all the terminals, can he? I reckon if you're in T5, you're not getting any of Sid.
15:00 - 15:03
Maybe not T5. I love a bit of T5, don't you?
15:03 - 15:08
Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one. I'm normally T3. That's sort of my route.
15:09 - 15:10
Are you T2?
15:10 - 15:11
Yeah, to Ireland.
15:12 - 15:20
I will say, David, that if you are ever saying, but is it really cannibalism? You've probably gone too far.
15:20 - 15:26
Okay, we've had a non-dairy alternative granola.
15:27 - 15:38
We are now filled with vim and vigour. It's probably 7.15am. Do we have a coffee or are we straight out to milk your herd?
15:38 - 15:56
No, listen what happens. The Downton Abbey-esque, doorbell, I don't live in somewhere like Downton Abbey, can I just say, but my husband, for no good reason, has fitted a sort of Heath Robinson old-fashioned brass doorknob thing outside.
15:56 - 16:05
Nobody knows how to work it. The postman never sees it. So none of our posts or parcels ever arrive because people think we don't have a bloody doorknob.
16:05 - 16:19
But anyway, it's a big old brass thing to which he's attached on the other side, a kind of spiky, spring mechanism and then some string that goes via the porch and then he drilled a hole and then it goes into the hall
16:19 - 16:25
and it's connected to a silly old bell that he found at an auction.
16:26 - 16:30
I'm saying Mr. Mel has too much time on his hands.
16:30 - 16:42
Oh, my God. It's not so much that, Max, but I do hear you. It's that he loves to make life difficult for himself. When you can do something easy, no, he hates it.
16:42 - 16:53
He hates that. Do something really, really laborious and difficult. So that, I'm afraid, is the reason for that. I mean, it makes a lovely tinkling sound when you can actually work out what the hell it is on the front of the house.
16:53 - 17:03
So it did. It tinkled and it went at exactly, it was 7.20 actually, and I was delighted to see my lovely friend Jo with a suitcase, a wheelie suitcase.
17:03 - 17:11
She came in and she set up her makeup, hair, all the paraphernalia on the kitchen table.
17:11 - 17:16
Yeah, it was really cool, man. I left her to it because I had to get some stuff ready upstairs.
17:16 - 17:29
So I came down, it was all bloody laid out. And I have to say, these days, gang, these days, there is a lot of paraphernalia that needs to happen to get the old visog in a sort of work fit mode.
17:29 - 17:34
There are lots of lotions and potions. There are three different types of hair dryer.
17:34 - 17:36
Hang on, interruption, interruption.
17:36 - 17:37
Oh, Max, sorry.
17:37 - 17:50
I don't have a lot of hair, so I don't really use a hair dryer. I would have presumed there was, just a hair dryer, you know, that's the thing. So, please, could we delve into the three different types? What are the three things doing?
17:50 - 17:53
If one is drying the hair, what are the others doing?
17:53 - 18:00
One is rotating it. All right. One is, there's a sort of weird circular attachment that goes on one of the hair dryers.
18:00 - 18:12
It's a bit like a mini sort of combine harvester. Yeah. It goes round, and apparently, that gives your hair extra swing, extra body, extra boof. She now has to do that.
18:12 - 18:13
Uh-huh. Okay.
18:13 - 18:14
That's occurring.
18:14 - 18:16
That sounds nice.
18:16 - 18:28
There's a pair of weird clampy things, you know, those weird ceramic long clampy things that act as a, not a straightener. They do act as a straightener, but they also act as a curler, weirdly.
18:29 - 18:37
Anything to give this lank, fricking straw-like, pathetic excuse of a head of hair something.
18:37 - 18:39
This funereal hair. Funereal hair.
18:39 - 18:42
I've got cul-de-sacs. Look, I've got cul-de-sacs.
18:42 - 18:44
This looks great. It looks great.
18:44 - 18:54
Oh, you're so lovely. There's a cul-de-sac there and there's a cul-de-sac there. So I have to sort of slightly do an Arthur Scargill comb over.
18:55 - 18:58
There aren't many people that go into the hairdresser with a picture of Arthur Scargill, to say.
18:58 - 19:14
To the listeners, Arthur Scargill was the head of the miners in the 1980s. There was a famous strike and he had one of those comb overs that you don't really get anymore,
19:14 - 19:28
where it started at the sideburn and was a sort of, I would say, two foot sideburn that he then whapped right over the top, which I don't know what he did on a...
19:28 - 19:41
I recall him giving a lot of stirring speeches, but did he then have to be like, what's the weather like for this speech? Because, you know, you risk... We had a priest in our school and the flap would sometimes rise.
19:41 - 19:43
Oh. Oh, my God.
19:43 - 19:47
And just kind of hover like an Olympic diving board.
19:47 - 20:00
That's right. If there's a whiff of wind in the air, then you're absolutely right. And it's like a sort of an umbrella that turns inside out, isn't it? It can literally go fully vertical and then over the other side. It's so good.
20:00 - 20:05
It was tough on him because no wind was moving Thatcher's hair and that was the big rivalry, wasn't it?
20:06 - 20:15
You're absolutely right. Her hair was immovable, wasn't it? And wasn't it right that if the country was doing well then her hair would be built up higher?
20:15 - 20:16
Is that right?
20:16 - 20:24
Yeah. And if the country wasn't doing so well then in sort of almost respect of that, the hair would go lower.
20:24 - 20:27
Was it done on GDP, on interest rates?
20:28 - 20:51
Question. Mel, you've always had this incredible look with this sort of a tighter pulled back hair or hair that sits down. Have you ever tried to curl it up? Thatcher-esque is the wrong way. Think of someone, you know, less divisive who also has curly hair. What would happen if we tried to make you look like Louis XIV? Would it work?
20:51 - 20:54
In my dreams, Dodds. In my ruddy dreams.
20:55 - 21:04
I would love somebody in the Barnet. Give me Louis XIV. Give me Anita Dobson. Give me Brian May. Give me any of the above.
21:04 - 21:11
My dream dinner party there. Someone will write in and say Louis XIV probably was divisive in some way. I don't know. I'm guessing.
21:11 - 21:16
Well, listen, Brian May is bloody divisive at the moment with the Badgers, isn't he?
21:16 - 21:18
That is true, isn't it? Yeah.
21:18 - 21:23
He wants to perm all the Badgers' huge hair and they won't fit into the sets anymore.
21:23 - 21:37
And also, he doesn't want them singing any Queen songs. They're only allowed to sing his singles. Everything I do is driven by you, Brian May. I just want to sing I Want to Break Free, obviously.
21:37 - 21:39
And so that's been a thing.
21:39 - 21:43
Permed Badger, guys. I love, really love.
21:43 - 21:50
Mel, so is this a beautification that is taking place at the kitchen? Just a daily thing?
21:50 - 21:52
Or are we going off to work?
21:52 - 21:55
Please tell me it's a daily thing.
21:55 - 22:06
Can you imagine if it was a daily thing? I think Cherie Blair had a daily. I mean, she was the Prime Minister's wife, wasn't she? So fair dues. We're talking 30 years ago. Sorry, I don't know why I suddenly lighted on her.
22:06 - 22:11
I know. But what we've learned about your house so far is that you have a man like, do you remember in
22:11 - 22:28
rank films, the shirtless guy who hit the gong. When someone presses the doorbell in your house, a little bell rings and that wakes him up and he has to get up, smear Vaseline on his chest and then hit a gong to say that there's a visitor.
22:28 - 22:41
Dodds, that is so weird that you mentioned him. I'm not lying for a solo second. And I know I'm taking this away from what happened yesterday, but I'm going to just very, very quickly, tangentially tell you what happened two days ago.
22:41 - 22:51
It was two ruddy days ago. We were out on a walk by the canal in West London and we found where that guy's ashes are buried.
22:52 - 22:53
Did you eat them?
22:53 - 22:54
I didn't eat them.
22:54 - 23:01
Okay. Hang on. Did it say, here lies the ashes of the man who banged the rank gong?
23:01 - 23:04
He's called Billy. He's called Billy somebody. And I'm so-
23:04 - 23:06
Billy Bong. He's called Billy Bong.
23:06 - 23:20
Who banged the gong. I can't remember his second name. This was literally on Sunday. Oh my God. He was so excited. He's called Billy. And he is the guy, the rank guy.
23:20 - 23:27
He wasn't rank. He was a lovely guy. He had great pets. That was the actual guy. Isn't that weird how full circle and weird life is?
23:27 - 23:33
Do you think because there was so much Vaseline that his ashes are sort of oily?
23:33 - 23:34
Max, please.
23:34 - 23:44
Would they burn really blazingly because of the Vaseline? Or would it actually stifle? Stifle the fire. They'd burn really well, wouldn't they?
23:44 - 23:45
You'd think so.
23:45 - 23:48
I don't know. It creates an extraordinary flame.
23:48 - 23:50
We need to get this back on track. Mel.
23:51 - 24:03
So you get beautified with your huge, closer to God hair. They've hired a special car for you, like Postman Pat's van with the really high ceiling so your hair can fit into it.
24:03 - 24:08
There was no car involved. Oh, no. I'm down with the kids. I keep it very, very real.
24:08 - 24:25
I travel pretty much on a daily basis to central London, from the outskirts of London where I live, on the magnificent, the absolute game changer, the thing that I've been, well, I was waiting for for 17 years, the Elizabeth line, guys.
24:25 - 24:30
Oh, it's really good. It's purple. Young Ian Rushden loves the Elizabeth line.
24:30 - 24:30
Oh, my God.
24:30 - 24:31
He's not wrong.
24:31 - 24:44
Yeah. I can't tell you. I'm absolutely bloody obsessed. And again, this brings me to another day in my diary. Very, very quickly. But I'm going to have a ride in the cab of an Elizabeth line train in about six days.
24:44 - 24:52
Wow. Max's three-year-old son. He is obsessed. He lives in Melbourne, yet he watches YouTube videos of the tube.
24:52 - 25:03
Oh, man. He is a boy after my own heart. The reason that we moved into the area that we are living in, in the outskirts of London, is because of the Elizabeth line.
25:03 - 25:08
I was always obsessed with trains when I was a kid and infrastructure and public transport.
25:08 - 25:09
And that has never left me.
25:09 - 25:17
We like to watch the Elizabeth line on YouTube, which is almost as nice as being on it itself. You're just on the sofa watching it. It's good fun.
25:17 - 25:21
Oh, I'm so glad for your son. That is incredible. And he's been on it, presumably.
25:21 - 25:31
Oh, yeah. And he's got a jumper that says, Mind the Gap. In the hood, it has the tube map. In the hood, sort of like, ah, you should get one. You get it at the Transport Museum.
25:31 - 25:42
I love that. That's my favorite museum in London. Yeah, it's a great one. And I think what I'm going to do on that special day is I'm going to go to the Transport for London Museum and then go and have this cab ride.
25:42 - 25:54
I met this incredible engineer. She's called Isabel, and she was one of the chief crossrail, which the project was always called before it became the Elizabeth Line, chief crossrail engineers, and I'm going to meet her.
25:54 - 26:07
We met on this radio show, and I just loved her, and she's going to take me in the cab. I'm super excited. But that's for another day. Yesterday, I was on the Elizabeth Line, as I am always, and I felt weird, guys.
26:07 - 26:21
I'll tell you why I felt weird. Because I'm with the commute. I'm on the, what was I on, the 8.50, so it's prime, you know, sort of rush hour time, and there am I in full ruddy makeup and a massive hairdo.
26:21 - 26:24
Are you getting on early enough that you'll always get a seat?
26:24 - 26:25
No, I was standing.
26:25 - 26:41
No, the 8.50 is always standing, but there's a really lovely sort of positive message that comes through the Tannoy system when you get the 8.50 that says, there is plenty of standing room on this train, so it's not, like, disastrous, but you don't get a seat, basically.
26:41 - 26:52
Now, Rob Beckett, when he's getting the train into London, would sort of wear a disguise and play Candy Crush with his head down. Are you, you know, you're just there, standing there?
26:52 - 27:04
I'm totally loud and proud. I'm a total has-been. Bake Off finished, Ross, years ago. I'm a Z-rider, guys. I want you to know that, and it is something I completely embrace.
27:04 - 27:15
If there is one person on the train who vaguely kind of goes like that and looks almost sad for me, then I'll give them one of those.
27:15 - 27:26
I'll give them a 1970s thumbs up like that. Double thumbs up. I am not troubled remotely on public transport. If I do, it's an absolute joy and an honour. That's all I'm saying.
27:27 - 27:32
I know I'm out there. The face is there. The hair is big. I'm speaking loudly on the phone.
27:32 - 27:36
You've got a big name tag that says Mel Giedroyc.
27:36 - 27:41
It says, I used to be on Bake Off 10 years ago.
27:41 - 27:55
Well, I think things are about to change for you and me because me and Mel spent four days in Belgium making an escape room show.
27:55 - 27:56
Come on, Dave.
27:56 - 28:09
It's going to be bigger than adolescence was. You know, Starmer will be in Parliament being like, I'm absolutely, everything's changed since I saw that episode of This Way Out. It's coming soon.
28:09 - 28:15
Oh, Max, we were in Belgium. We were in bloody Belgium. It was so much fun.
28:15 - 28:18
I heard all about it. There was lots of lube. That's what David told us.
28:18 - 28:31
I was covered in lube, Mel, because you were the presenter, so you were just watching us. But me and Nish Kumar, wherever we turned, the next thing would be, you just have to climb up this roof.
28:31 - 28:43
BTW, it's covered in KY jelly. I don't think that'll be mentioned in the broadcast. Yes, but it added this sort of lube-y frisson to that entire four days.
28:43 - 28:56
Oh, my God. Whenever I looked at David, Max, he was struggling, struggling to get up from a floor, usually on a slant. It was absolutely exceptional.
28:56 - 29:01
He has a long body and short legs, so it's not designed for these things.
29:01 - 29:02
Yeah, thank you.
29:02 - 29:09
That's why they picked me for the show. They were like, let's get the least stable people to, then try and wade through lube.
29:09 - 29:16
It was extraordinary, and it will be extraordinary viewing whenever it comes out. I don't even know when it's coming out, sometime this year.
29:16 - 29:18
Mel, where are we going on the Elizabeth Line?
29:18 - 29:26
Right, so we're going on the Elizabeth Line into Tottenham Court Road, which is one of my favoured stations. I do love Tottenham Court Road.
29:26 - 29:27
Yeah, it's a good one.
29:27 - 29:41
Now, my daily fitness routine is to walk up the escalator. That's something I set myself every day. So, you know, on the London underground, the London transport system, for those of you who don't know it, basically people stand on the right
29:41 - 29:47
on the escalator and they get pulled up by the escalator's mechanism itself. But if you go on the left, you're freestyle.
29:47 - 29:57
You can walk, run, you can overtake people. So I do that every day. Whatever baggage I'm holding, whatever's going on, I will walk, I will march up that escalator.
29:57 - 30:01
And the Tottenham Court Road one is a big old escalator, yeah?
30:01 - 30:08
It's a ruddy long one. I'm out of the escalator. I'm trying not to look at the cupcakes, which are on the left-hand side there's a cupcake stall.
30:08 - 30:19
Ignore those. We whisk through the ticket machine. We walk up some more stairs and then we're out and the glory of London is there in front of us. New Oxford Street.
30:19 - 30:23
Are you going to one of the many vape shops on Oxford Street?
30:23 - 30:25
She's going to the Harry Potter vape shop.
30:25 - 30:34
Oh my God. Why are there so many Harry Potter bloody shops? There's one not enough. Also, those World of Sweets shops, they're a front. They're a front.
30:34 - 30:37
I think they might actually be a front. Yeah.
30:37 - 30:47
You can go in and you can buy sort of Twinkies and Lucky Charms and Pop-Tarts and sort of very, very weird things and no one's ever in them.
30:47 - 30:54
So what's the front for? If you go in and you say, Stevenage, they take you to the back room and you can buy arms. Do you think? What do you think it is?
30:54 - 31:06
Thanks for Stevenage. I very much appreciate it, Stevenage. I'm imagining it's some kind of smoky den. Is it arms or is it just poker? I don't know.
31:06 - 31:19
When we were 11, one of the older kids told us that the cafe on the corner, just a sort of a very basic greasy spoon, if you asked for the daily special,
31:19 - 31:33
they took you around the back and you got a blowjob. Like it was, it was one of those myths that had just moved through time based on absolutely nothing except one of the kids was a bit older and knew that we'd all think this was true.
31:33 - 31:40
But it's possible the Harry Potter vape looking-sweets, yeah, has something like that going on.
31:40 - 31:41
I don't know. I just think
31:41 - 31:43
you get a Hufflepuff if you go out at night.
31:43 - 31:57
I think most of the people on Oxford Street at certainly a commuter time of day is just not the time for a handjob behind. And then you're going to the office. You just feel so rushed around there. That's just not when you want a blowjob.
31:57 - 32:01
That's put a nasty taste in my mouth, guys.
32:02 - 32:10
I'm not tasting Pop-Tarts anymore. I'm tasting something altogether other. Which I really don't appreciate at nine o'clock in the morning.
32:10 - 32:13
Where are we going, Mel? Where are you taking us?
32:13 - 32:24
So anyway, we're going. We're taking a right. We're going down New Oxford Street and we're heading for... Oh, on the left is the Museum of Comedy, which is so great.
32:24 - 32:35
Have you ever been there? It's got a sort of chalkling face outside. It's underneath a church. It's in a crypt. And they keep sort of, I suppose, artefacts, interesting things to do with comedy.
32:35 - 32:47
Anyway, that's the Museum of Comedy. If you're interested, we're heading into Bloomsbury. We're heading into very complicated, almost like the tube map itself of London, that all those relationships, you know,
32:47 - 33:00
Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, Vanessa Bell, who was boffing off who, all that stuff, whose children belong to who, the Bloomsbury group, all that stuff. We have a little nod in their direction from a hundred years ago, which I always like to do.
33:00 - 33:14
And then we go across a very, very big road with a complicated cycle lane and you'd be interested in this, David. Big old cycle lane. You have to watch out because you don't want to crash into, you know, a cyclist.
33:14 - 33:21
And then we are at the headquarters of Where There's A Will Is Awake, which is the podcast that I do once a week.
33:21 - 33:26
I was doing that yesterday. Guess who was the guest? Oh my God, what a joy.
33:26 - 33:27
Give us the clue.
33:27 - 33:31
If I say the words, the human joke machine.
33:31 - 33:33
Of course it was.
33:33 - 33:36
Oh, I love Tim. Love Tim Vine.
33:36 - 33:40
What an absolute flipping treasure that guy is.
33:40 - 33:41
Unbelievable.
33:41 - 33:55
Just so nice, so lovely. And we laughed and we laughed and we laughed. I mean, the podcast is all about death. It's about your fantasy funeral. You know, who's going to be there? What are we going to eat for your last supper? Are we going to eat some ashes?
33:55 - 34:07
We'll get onto that. Who's in the will? Who's at the wake? All that sort of stuff is really, really good fun. Tim had, I'm going to say about 250 jokes about funerals, all of which were hilarious. They were, hilarious.
34:07 - 34:14
Tim Vine, during, I think I mentioned this to you, David, during COVID on TalkSport and there was no sport.
34:14 - 34:26
And so I think Charlie came up with Trust Darts, where we would get people with a dartboard to put their phone by the dartboard on loudspeaker and then throw the dart so you'd hear,
34:26 - 34:29
and then they'd yell, 20. And Tim Vine got to the final.
34:29 - 34:31
He's very competitive.
34:31 - 34:43
Very competitive and very good at darts. He's up against Steve Sidwell, the former Reading midfielder. And then Steve Sidwell ghosted us and Tim still needs to play the final.
34:43 - 34:57
And if you look at my direct messages to Steve Sidwell, it looks very much like a date that's gone wrong. But we're still plugging ahead that one day we'll play this final. It's been five years, but Tim is very much, you know, he's in the final of Trust Darts.
34:57 - 35:01
And Steve, if you listen, you need this game. Great game.
35:01 - 35:13
Here's a curveball. I realize we need to talk about Mel's day, but I love a person with a highly unexpected talent in a direction you didn't necessarily know initially.
35:13 - 35:22
So Tim Vine is the king of the one-liners. Look him up. The waiter brought my food and it looked up and said, you have the most beautiful eyes.
35:22 - 35:37
You look so wonderful in this light. And I said, waiter, I asked for aromatic crispy duck. So that kind of thing. But then once I was with him at a festival in Australia and he said, let's go into this place.
35:37 - 35:48
It was a proper karaoke bar, not with booths, but rather with just people having drinks. And he put his name down and he went up and he sang.
35:49 - 35:54
Nope. He sang, what's the Bee Gees song? I'm ready.
35:54 - 35:56
How deep is your love?
35:56 - 36:10
In falsetto. But it was one of those things where strangers just, it was like a sort of 80s rock video where everyone's just talking and then slowly, people start to pay attention to this beautiful rendition.
36:10 - 36:20
And basically, it got as close as you'll ever get to a standing ovation from a bunch of strangers because it turns out Tim Vine sings like the Bee Gees.
36:20 - 36:32
That's incredible. I mean, I've heard his Elvis, but I've never heard his sort of higher register. That's really good to know. That's brilliant. I love that man.
36:32 - 36:34
We do the pod and now what's happening?
36:34 - 36:43
So we're out of the pod. Now, this is slightly insane. I've changed my shirt because I was in a sort of slightly casual T-shirt affair.
36:43 - 36:58
The hair, obviously, let's not forget, was fully rigid and made up. I never get made up for the pod, guys. That's coming later. I do my own makeup, which is something like what you're seeing now, which is fairly low key and slightly shit.
36:58 - 37:09
So it wasn't that. It was the full bells and whistles. Let's not forget that. Now, I've changed my shirt. I've still got some slightly casual canvas trousers on and a pair of some sort of working boot.
37:09 - 37:17
But I think I've got a smart shirt on. All's good. I put into my maps on my phone the old Bailey.
37:17 - 37:26
Was the three hair dryers was to make a sort of judge's wig. And you are, you are actually presiding over a murder case.
37:26 - 37:31
You take out your little gavel out of your bag.
37:31 - 37:35
Listen, it could well have been for that reason.
37:35 - 37:47
So, anyway, I put old Bailey into my maps and it's great. It's a 20 minute walk that continues my kind of doing my exercise on the trot as we found out earlier.
37:47 - 37:58
I don't like going to the gym. Gyms are boring. Gyms are terrible. They're really expensive. You get up, you feel a bit depressed. I don't know if you're like this. I go twice and then I never go again and I've spent like 200 quid. I hate the gym.
37:58 - 38:10
So, this is my working every day. The whole of London is a gym to me. This is my second part. It's an aerobic exercise for solid 20 minutes. I'm marching to the Old Bailey.
38:10 - 38:21
Sheila has been in touch on the email and she says, you've got to be at this particular entrance to the Old Bailey very much at 20 past 12 and if you miss that, then I'm afraid it might be game over.
38:21 - 38:29
Interruption. For our listeners, we have many listeners around the world such as a milkman in Denver and several Australians.
38:30 - 38:36
The Old Bailey is the sort of central criminal courts. Is that what it is?
38:36 - 38:39
Of London Town. Why is it called the Old Bailey?
38:39 - 38:45
I don't know and I should have found out yesterday. That's mad. I don't actually know.
38:45 - 38:49
It is because the photographer David Bailey. His dad.
38:49 - 38:50
His dad. His dad set it up.
38:50 - 38:53
And his dad was really old when he built it.
38:53 - 38:56
That's why. Mel, what are we doing there?
38:56 - 39:08
It's a whole palaver. I've got to bring photo ID, guys. So I brought my old driving license. Anyway, got through, went through, very exciting. I've never been, anywhere near the ruddy old Bailey.
39:08 - 39:20
It's the amazing building which on the top has Lady Justice. I don't know if she's called that, but I'm going to call her that. Lady Justice with a blindfold. But actually, it's not a blindfold because she is all seeing.
39:20 - 39:34
It's almost to prevent her from seeing too much. But she is all seeing. And in one hand, well, she's got scales, hasn't she? And she's got a sword of justice and some scales and it's all very exciting.
39:34 - 39:42
Anyway, I get through. I am led into a corridor which I can only describe as smelling of cabbage. There's quite a cabbagey whiff.
39:43 - 39:53
And it's quite 1970s. But then, lo, more doors are opened and suddenly we're into that place that you've seen on the films and in TV shows.
39:53 - 40:00
Probably starring Olivia Colman. Yeah. Some very gritty heavyweight judge. I'm thinking, do you know what I mean?
40:00 - 40:09
And there's marble everywhere and there's statues and it's like, okay, and also, the lady that took me through described the flooring.
40:09 - 40:16
She says, notice, we're not on carpet anymore. We're on wiped down floors because there's often a lot of fighting.
40:16 - 40:28
Whoa. So is that what you've done? Have you been in a fight and now Lady Justice will judge as to whether it was your fault for beating up all those Chelsea fans on the Elizabeth line?
40:28 - 40:34
I'm going down, guys. I'm going down. Yeah. I'm going down for a long stretch of time.
40:35 - 40:47
What a twist that would be if Mel revealed afterwards that she was in prison recording this and had got used her one phone call to record this entire podcast.
40:47 - 40:54
Really long, really long phone call just to try and make it, you know, last as long as possible.
40:54 - 40:59
I know in a previous life I did a couple of murder trials as a court reporter.
40:59 - 41:01
Oh, you were a court reporter, Max? Wow.
41:01 - 41:13
Well, I wasn't, but I think they just ran out of court reporters. I was like the wacky guy on the radio who just like tobogganed down a hill and then I suddenly had to be like, okay, these guys are going down and I've got to get this right.
41:13 - 41:17
And I just asked the person next to me. I was at a really high profile trial.
41:17 - 41:19
It was the Damolola Taylor trial.
41:19 - 41:29
And the jury came out and they said, have you reached a verdict? And the foreman stood up and they went, we have. And then one bloke on the end went, no, we haven't.
41:29 - 41:37
What? And then everyone was like, what's happened there? And nobody knew. And I'm sort of with like the Sky News crime correspondent and the BBC, and I'm like, I'll just repeat what these guys say.
41:37 - 41:50
And they had to have a retrial. And the weird thing was, because it's sort of like someone's place of work, when they're doing the retrial, they're just talking to these two barristers going, can you do June the 5th? And like, this guy's like, actually, I've got, I've got a mini break in Prague.
41:50 - 41:58
Could we do July? And you're like, there were the murder suspects sort of there and going, oh, what's happening? Yeah, weird. I don't know. What are you doing there, Mel?
41:58 - 42:00
What are you doing there, Mel?
42:00 - 42:04
Yeah. Do you know, this is the maddest thing. I had lunch with some judges.
42:04 - 42:09
Whoa! From Bake Off. Old judges from Bake Off.
42:09 - 42:21
Prue Leith. Paul Hollywood. Mary Berry. That's it. No, with some real life judges, it was the most extraordinary thing. They have a very strict lunch break.
42:21 - 42:34
Okay. So they have an hour, actually 55 minutes. So they've done their morning session and then they have their lunch break. So this is the crazy thing. I think their jobs are so tense and hard.
42:34 - 42:43
I mean, these are amazing. Women and men, they're just, they're so nice as well. I felt like I was really in a room full of wisdom guys. I'm sorry if that sounds a bit woo woo.
42:43 - 42:46
I felt very honoured and very humbled.
42:46 - 42:51
Question. Yeah, go on. But why are you having lunch with three judges at the Old Bailey?
42:51 - 42:56
I can't quite work it out. I think they just get people in just to sort of take the lid off a bit.
42:57 - 43:01
So it's not being filmed. You're just having lunch. I'm having lunch with them.
43:01 - 43:10
So this is a thing. A few months ago, I was in a production with the English, National Opera of HMS Pinafore, which is a Gilbert and Sullivan show.
43:10 - 43:17
Lovely show. And I was just in there basically titting about. I can't sing opera, but somebody got me in to do some sort of extra stuff.
43:17 - 43:25
It was really, really fun. And anyway, a couple of the judges were in one night and they asked me to go for lunch with another lovely guy from the show.
43:26 - 43:35
Yeah, I know. So I got this random email through saying, will you come for lunch with the judges? I was like, hell yeah. They were so lolz. They're really funny.
43:35 - 43:43
Did you feel the need to just occasionally lapse into songs from HMS Pinafore? I am the captain of the Pinafore.
43:43 - 43:55
They would have been fine with that. They would have been fine. And also Tim Vine had loaded me up with some ready, fresh out of the oven, prepared jokes.
43:55 - 44:03
If I felt like I wanted to fire one out, which were things like, you know, he said, look, if somebody's really talking at you for a long time, then you could just look at them and say, well,
44:03 - 44:11
that was a long sentence. Which sadly I forgot about. I should have fired that off.
44:11 - 44:24
But you know that situation where you're with people that have really done important, good stuff. They're actually really funny as well. And it's a bit humbling because you sort of think, yes, well, I do this for a living.
44:24 - 44:36
You know, you feel like a bit of a twat. They're just making really good gags. They're dry as hell. And they're also, they're really lovely. They really listen to you. So if you've got something to warble on about, they really listen to you. I love them.
44:36 - 44:47
I'm obsessed with the judges. I don't know if I'm ever going to be invited back, but my God, it was lovely to go there once. It was sobering. It was sobering as well. They were all in the gear. They were all in their gear.
44:47 - 44:59
I love judges' celebrity lunch. They're like, who should we go? Why don't we get Brian Blessed on Thursday? We've got Mel on Wednesday, Brian Blessed on Thursday, and David Siemens on Friday. Okay, well, this is fun.
44:59 - 45:10
It literally is that. And if one of them has a particular interest, so two of them had a particular interest in Gilbert and Sullivan, not Gilbert O. Sullivan, Gilbert N. Sullivan.
45:10 - 45:19
So that's why they got us in. I mean, it was really random. And I sort of thought, God, I'm really, I'm so lucky with what I've got to do in my career.
45:19 - 45:27
I get to do these really crazy, random-ass things, and it was great. I did see the dock where the Yorkshire Ripper was, and that sent a chill through.
45:27 - 45:42
This is the old baby. These are heavy-duty, ruddy trials. It's quite a kind of, and it makes you think, my God, I never want to go to prison. I never, ever, ever, ever want to go to prison. God help me. I hope I never have to go.
45:42 - 45:56
I've always had a sort of premonition that I'm going to go to prison at some point in my life. I think it's just from being a kid where maybe there was a lot more shows set in prison, Porridge, and these kind of things.
45:56 - 46:06
And I think Porridge is a really accurate, when I watch those documentaries about US penitentiaries, Porridge is a real accurate reflection of what it would be like there. I think you're right.
46:06 - 46:11
I'd love to go to prison if it was Porridge. If it was like that with all the gags and stuff.
46:11 - 46:19
Ronnie Barker, this is good. Okay, so where are we off to now? Because we still haven't established why you're in full makeup, so this is exciting.
46:19 - 46:32
The hair is a little bit lower. You know, there's a little bit of mascara slightly awry. The lipstick's long gone. The crevices on the face are now showing through the thick powder that was applied at 7.20 in the morning.
46:32 - 46:38
So you can picture the scene. Anyway, next stop is Battersea Power Station.
46:38 - 46:42
Oh, what a tour. This is an amazing day you've picked.
46:42 - 46:55
Let's all remember the classic Pink Floyd album cover, which has Battersea Power Station on. It's that one, guys. I've never been inside it. Apparently, it's been turned into a shopping centre and some sort of luxury flats and all that kind of business.
46:55 - 47:00
I've never actually been inside. I don't know if you guys have been or indeed any of your wonderful and faithful podcast listeners.
47:00 - 47:10
But anyway, that is where I'm bloody heading for. An eight hour press launch for the second season or series.
47:10 - 47:16
I should say series. I am British of Last One Laughing, which was a show that went out last year.
47:16 - 47:30
Oh, wow. You're in this, of course. In fact, this ties into so Rob Beckett's difficulty with being on the tube was that wherever he went, there was a giant poster with his face on it behind him.
47:30 - 47:39
So this is what you're heading into now. This is the second coming of Giedroyc. You're about to be everywhere, little lady.
47:39 - 47:45
Dodds, I'm not sure. I'm not allowed to say anything about what happened on the Ruddy Show.
47:45 - 47:53
Which makes an eight-hour press launch trickier, isn't it? You just say no comment. You've had good training because you've been saying no comment, no comment, no comment.
47:53 - 47:55
I've been in the bloody courts. In prison.
47:55 - 47:58
And now people are like, what's Bob Mortimer like in real life?
47:58 - 48:04
No comment. No comment. Friend of the podcast, Sam Campbell, of course. One of the funniest people who's ever existed.
48:05 - 48:13
Is extraordinary, isn't he? And what I will say on the show, series two of Last One Laughing, is that guy was like a ninja.
48:13 - 48:23
That guy was like, I mean, they all were. It was an incredible collective, bewildering collective of people in that mad room.
48:23 - 48:36
And it's all done in a day. And it's just so mad. But anyway, it was really lovely to see everybody, to see the cost of that show yesterday. Because of course, we hadn't been able to laugh together. You know, we hadn't been able to have loads of lols.
48:36 - 48:49
It was all just like, you know, keep it as deadpan as you possibly can. So it was really lovely to see people. There were a few drinks imbibed at around two, three, four o'clock in the afternoon, which is always real danger zone for me.
48:49 - 48:51
Are we straight on the shampers?
48:51 - 48:54
It was Bacardi and Diet Coke.
48:54 - 48:59
Oh, God. That is 14-year-old end of the garden, pre-drink with a Bacardi.
48:59 - 49:10
She had a Primark bag with a big bottle of Bacardi and a couple of mixers and she'd hid it in a hedge for a week. And then there was slugs in it.
49:10 - 49:19
And sort of the crevices of the made up face, you know, sort of something like Alice Cooper on top, a shirt from Bake Off 10 years ago,
49:19 - 49:30
you know, sort of showbiz shirt and then just shit canvas trousers and working boots, trying to sort of work the room, but heavily two sheets to the wind on the old Bacardi and Diet Coke.
49:30 - 49:34
That's the truth of it, guys. I'm giving you the unexpurgated version.
49:34 - 49:38
Hours is a long time. Like what are you doing in hour five? What's happening?
49:38 - 49:50
I don't understand it. It was sort of, no, I mean, it was delightful and obviously a complete pleasure to be there talking about, you know, a lovely show and all that and seeing everybody. It was makeup touch-ups, but I was late for that.
49:50 - 50:04
So I kind of missed that. I had a little bit of touchery-uppery. Then it was straight into a dark room. Everything was very dark. It was very slightly dystopian with lots of very, very, very delightful PR people.
50:04 - 50:07
Sort of manoeuvring you from one thing to the other.
50:07 - 50:09
Ah, so you're sort of junkets with this and that.
50:09 - 50:19
Yes, it was all sort of, now we're going to do a colouring in thing. Then we're going to do something comedy with a tea towel. And then we're going to come through here and we're going to talk about the first joke you ever told.
50:19 - 50:32
Then we're going to go in through here into this other darkened space. We were sort of divided up and I was with lovely Amy Gledhill, who I am such a fan of. She's brilliant. She's so brilliant. And Alan Carr. So it was the three of us.
50:32 - 50:34
Oh, well, that's funny.
50:34 - 50:41
Titting about. We had sort of marker pens at some point. It felt like we were sort of almost back in kindergarten. It was lovely.
50:41 - 50:43
Did you shit yourself?
50:43 - 50:50
This is all for the socials. I, for a moment, I had a lovely idea that it's three sheets.
50:50 - 51:05
Mel is screaming out Women's Weekly as to who won. You know, just don't. Nobody say who wins. I tell you, have you got money? I tell you to put money on it.
51:05 - 51:17
No, honestly, there were some slightly, you know, I was trying to sort of hang in the background of things, frankly, because there's 10 of us and I'm sort of thinking I'll just very much just lurk in the shadows here.
51:17 - 51:29
So I don't say anything inappropriate. But there was a slight possible mishap into the world of Eurovision where I was just overexcited and I possibly said something about Katie Boyle that I shouldn't have said.
51:29 - 51:44
But I figured to myself, this is a trendy young show on a streamer No one, frankly, with no disrespect to Katie Boyle, who I adore and always will, no one's going to pick up on that. I don't think the front pages are going to be running with
51:44 - 51:45
that today.
51:45 - 51:57
I used to house sit for Ardal O'Hanlon in the Father Ted era. And on a press junket day, whatever, eight hours of the same interview over and over.
51:57 - 52:07
And with like Horse and Hound magazine, it was a Q&A and it was like someone said, something like, you look a bit stoned when you play Father Dougal.
52:07 - 52:21
And Ardell was like, yep, I take all the drugs. I take them all before every time we act. Front page of the paper in Ireland the next day, minister's son, Ardal's dad had been a minister in shock drugs confession.
52:21 - 52:31
And the house I am house sitting in has actual paparazzi outside it. Like I have to go out and read a prepared statement or something.
52:31 - 52:37
You're the guy in Four Weddings and a Funeral, aren't you, in your underpants?
52:37 - 52:41
That is brilliant. That's such a good story. I love that.
52:41 - 52:50
I could have ruined his career. I could have gone out in my undies and been like, oh yeah, Ardal can't come out. He's inside. He's taking a load of crystal.
52:50 - 53:05
I used to do those junkets for the BBC. It's like the 15th interview that someone's got. I remember having to do David Schwimmer, who'd clearly been interviewed about a hundred times already by the time I got to him. And then my recording in equipment didn't work.
53:05 - 53:17
So I had to get him to walk down a hotel corridor. We found a plug and sat on the floor by this thing. Like, I'm not designed. Everyone else looks so slick and shiny. And I'd like come off the breakfast show looking like shit.
53:17 - 53:20
This isn't working. Can we just go down there? He was very amenable.
53:20 - 53:23
I bet he loved it. I bet he loved it.
53:23 - 53:24
He was quite nice.
53:24 - 53:26
Mel, what time do we get home from this?
53:26 - 53:32
I junketed my way around and it was lovely to see people. I'm not going to lie.
53:32 - 53:45
The latter hour, of my time there, was a bit hazy. Yeah. I know I saw some people and I was hugging them a lot and possibly shouting, I haven't seen you for ages and doing all that stuff.
53:45 - 53:51
Paul Hollywood's ex-wife's granola. That's how you gotta start your day.
53:51 - 54:06
Alex Hollywood. Alex, I love you. Alex, I do. Alex, your granola is the best. I'm just sorry. I just momentarily forgot your name. It's the menopause. Yeah. So I think rock and roll guys, I think I left it about nine. Come on. Rock and roll.
54:06 - 54:08
That's a long day.
54:08 - 54:15
9pm for me these days, whatever kind of time I'm getting up in the morning is pretty late to be out and about.
54:15 - 54:18
Are you being driven home or are you getting to the Elizabeth line?
54:18 - 54:23
Do you know what? Very kindly, there was transport on the way home.
54:23 - 54:24
Lovely stuff.
54:24 - 54:31
And it was a really lovely big old back seat with chargers. You could charge up your phone.
54:31 - 54:32
A little bottle of water.
54:32 - 54:42
I had some water. I opened up the tissues just because I could. I didn't need them. I think there was some mince, you know, some mince, not beef, the mince, the, you know.
54:42 - 54:46
I love mince beef in the back of an Uber Comfort. That's a lovely idea.
54:46 - 54:55
You get back, you hit the button, they wake up, the rank, the Billy Bong who then has to hit his. He's like, oh God, I thought she was in bed.
54:55 - 54:58
She might have her own keys though. That is possible.
54:58 - 55:02
Here's the ruddy thing. The fam had all buggered off. They weren't even there.
55:02 - 55:14
They were away for the night because there was no fam. So I got in and very lovely Ukrainian friends of ours who used to live with us when the invasion happened,
55:14 - 55:28
but they have since moved away, but they were coming back to stay with us because they're moving somewhere else and they're really, really close friends there. They're like family. They were doing yoga. They're very committed. That's what greeted me and it was absolutely delightful.
55:28 - 55:29
I stumbled in.
55:29 - 55:31
Sorry, how many Ukrainians are doing yoga?
55:31 - 55:32
Two Ukrainians doing yoga.
55:32 - 55:33
Two Ukrainians, okay.
55:33 - 55:48
Big shout out, Vic and Nick. I absolutely adore them. They're like, you know, children to us. She's pregnant, which is very exciting. She's having a baby soon. So she's into all the whole pregnancy yoga thing and they're packing up because they left this morning.
55:48 - 56:02
But it's really nice to be talking to you guys actually because they're moving on. They're going to the South Coast, which is all very exciting. Absolutely wonderful. They've set themselves up here and it's a wonderful, wonderful thing.
56:02 - 56:15
They weren't so happy when they were trying to do their yoga last night and Three Sheets Giedroyc comes in, opens a bottle of stolen fizzy water over them and is just firing Murray Mints as they try to downward dog.
56:15 - 56:28
And also that thing, you know, when you've been on the sort of press junkets and you've been talking about yourself, all you want to do is just talk about yourself. You know what I mean? It's right here. Yeah, and I did this and I was really, I did, awful, awful, awful.
56:28 - 56:35
I put myself to bed pretty quickly. I scraped off the makeup. I didn't get you down, no, I didn't get the hairdo down. Couldn't be arsed.
56:35 - 56:38
So you're sort of levitating above the pillow.
56:38 - 56:44
There's loads of pins. It's really sort of really painful because every time you turn over, there's another hairpin.
56:44 - 56:55
But what's happened this morning is I haven't washed the hair. There's actually, for me, there's a lot of body in the hair today because it had no work yesterday. So I'm feeling quite good about that.
56:55 - 56:57
So what time do we nod off at?
56:57 - 57:08
Oh, very much as soon as the head hits the pillow. I'm thinking it was probably, so nine o'clock, I left the venue would have got in, I think it was about 9.41,
57:08 - 57:18
maybe that I got in or 9.40. Say hi to the guys, chat about myself, obviously. Don't let them get a word in edgeways. Just let them get on night, then up to bed.
57:18 - 57:26
I think probably lights out before 10 o'clock. Oh, I'm reading. It's a ghastly book. It's absolutely ghastly, but strangely gripping.
57:26 - 57:30
Oh, it's Jack Reacher. I bet it is. Killing flaw.
57:30 - 57:34
It's called, entitled, The Rise and Fall of the House of York,
57:35 - 57:49
Somebody sent it to me. It is so ghastly and depressing, but gripping. So I'm on page, God, 291. I've read 291 pages, guys. I've got about another hundred to go, I reckon.
57:49 - 57:53
It's about York City, is it? It's their travails in the National League.
57:53 - 57:54
Is that Prince Andrew?
57:54 - 57:57
Yeah. Don't call him Prince anymore, though. Just call him whatever.
57:57 - 58:11
Yeah. It's unlikely he's going to get a tube line ever named after him. You know, Elizabeth is, probably that'll take care of that lot. The Andrew line wouldn't be travelled on a lot.
58:11 - 58:25
It would be a really murky line. Really murky, horrible line that no one ever gets on or wants to go to. And it's full of sort of water and mud and everywhere. So I did, I read about two pages.
58:25 - 58:38
I got thoroughly sort of slightly bilious and a little bit angry and slightly depressed and then shut that book. And when... Went blissfully off to sleep, thank you, before 10pm, which is always the dream. The dream.
58:38 - 58:39
What a day.
58:39 - 58:50
It was a really busy day. It's so mad that you've asked me to do this show about what happened yesterday. Because life is great, isn't it? And life can be up and down and exciting.
58:50 - 58:57
And, you know, it's not often you get a day that busy and you just happen to catch it on that mad day that it was full of those wonderful, mad things.
58:57 - 58:59
Max, I don't believe this.
58:59 - 59:01
She does this every day, doesn't she?
59:01 - 59:05
Every single day. I'm like, oh! Makeup is all over the kitchen table.
59:05 - 59:08
I'm having lunch with the Attorney General again.
59:08 - 59:13
Oh, of course. I'm off for lunch with Dame Cressida Dick and the Metropolitan Police.
59:13 - 59:29
Oh, God, I'm very real. I keep it very, very real. That was a very, very sort of weird, rando, mad, showbiz, hairdo, makeup, nonsense, beautiful, bewildering, gorgeous day.
59:29 - 59:36
Well, thank you for capturing it for all time with us. Mel Giedroyc, thank you very much for telling us what you did yesterday.
59:36 - 59:41
Oh, I've loved telling you what I did yesterday, and it's just been a sheer delight to hang out with you guys.
59:41 - 59:44
What a day, David.
59:45 - 59:53
Lunch with the judges. That's really great, isn't it?
59:53 - 1:00:03
We do say what a day. If you compare it to some of our other more low-key days where people just
1:00:03 - 1:00:05
put the washing on.
1:00:05 - 1:00:12
Compare it to, say, Huge Davies Day, which was based around computer games on a dog turd.
1:00:12 - 1:00:22
That is an extraordinary amount of accomplishment and activities. She talks herself down so much.
1:00:22 - 1:00:29
I know it's jokerly, as in I used to be something, but she's doing all this work. She's one of the greats.
1:00:29 - 1:00:41
Do you think, you know, when they go, you know, where did you realize you made it, and you go, oh, well, maybe it was this break or this show, and you go, it's when the judges at the Old Bailey email you and ask you for lunch, you know? That's the moment.
1:00:41 - 1:00:56
Max, even her intro to that was, oh, I was dicking around in HMS Pinafore. She was in, like, the most talked-about production of HMS Pinafore because she sings like an angel in addition to everything else.
1:00:56 - 1:00:57
Oh, my goodness.
1:00:57 - 1:01:10
And for the tape, we've done two records. I'm still in Austin, Texas. I think my voice is not as deep as the midweek mayhem that you probably heard before this episode. But, David, I am tired now.
1:01:10 - 1:01:13
That's unusual, isn't it, listeners? It's very unusual.
1:01:13 - 1:01:18
No, but it's a different tired. This is a different self-inflicted tired.
1:01:18 - 1:01:32
Yes, because you had 36 beers with celebrities. Listeners, if you would like to get in touch with the podcast, if you have anything you would like to raise whatsoever about this or indeed any episode, this is how you would get in touch.
1:01:32 - 1:01:47
To get in touch with the show, you can email us at whatdidyoudoyesterdaypod at gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram at yesterdaypod. And please subscribe and leave a review if you liked it on your preferred podcast platform.
1:01:47 - 1:01:57
And if you didn't, please don't. Thank you, David. I'm in it for life. But I'm not in it for the next three minutes. Life.
1:01:57 - 1:02:03
With the exception of the next three minutes, you are in it for life.
1:02:03 - 1:02:05
Thank you, David.
1:02:05 - 1:02:10
Talk to you soon. Bye, guys.