BudPod with Phil Wang & Pierre Novellie - Episode 192 - Fancy Binch!
Episode Date: December 7, 2022Phil has been a fancy binch in New York and Pierre has been dishing out awards. Correspondence from Phil the nocturnal toilet break dancer. Get bonus BudPod on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/...privacy for more information.
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It's Budpod192.
192.
Boo hoo hoo.
I'm crying right now because I just got home, Pierre, from my flight.
And I had to quickly make some instant noodles.
And the only ones in there were, like, I don't know why i bought these but they were ghost pepper super hot
and like the packaging's all black with flames you know when when when spicy food has packaging
that's like do not eat this if you want to live the packaging looks like a 12 year old
um novelty t-shirt yeah yeah and flames like an old like an old um wwf t-shirt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Skulls and flames. Like an old WWF t-shirt of Kane.
That means anything to anybody.
And it was so hot.
It was so spicy.
But I was like, I don't have time to make something else,
and I'm hungry.
So I just wolfed down this super spicy.
They're kind of like noodles that Korean YouTubers eat for a day.
I just wolfed it down.
And then I instantly run to the tap to rub water on my lips.
And then I went to the fridge like, milk, milk.
And I got a bottle of milk.
But because I've been away for a week
I looked at it and it's out of date and I gave it a sniff
and it's sour smelling
so I was like oh no and then I ran back in
and Ian was like
there's some oat milk
I've got next to me this little glass of oat milk
now that I'm using to tend to my mouth
wounds
that's some classic
slapstick stuff, man.
Yeah, it really is.
To sort of be like, oh no!
Whoa, whoa, whoa! And run to a
fridge
while sort of going with burning lips
milk, milk, milk, and then
a big glug of sour milk.
Just good
stuff. Good Charlie Chaplin sort of uh fun
so i'm surprised by this i i you're you're a man who likes spice i do like spice i like all spice
move over spice girls it's a spice boy here i love a spice but this is actually i i but over the last few years i mean um i'm just
telling my gain down here there might be too my voice might be too spicy okay over the last few
years i've i've been trying to wean myself off the chili because all i was tasting in anything
was chili so i've started to take it off and so now i'm tasting the food more but maybe i maybe that's give take landed a blow on my on my
chili um my my my chili abilities so you think you might just be you're not match you're not
match fit you're out of season yeah it might be that might Might be that. But I can now appreciate subtler flavors.
But the other side of that coin is,
I'm susceptible to the odd bit of spice.
It's subsided now.
I'm okay.
But yeah, there was a moment that was like,
I don't think I can record a podcast.
There's so much mucus draining out of my nose.
But now, hang on you say you say that you like subtler flavors now
you're a man who likes a very flavorful foods so what what are you rediscovering sorry sorry i guess
what i mean is i now appreciate flavors that are not that are not just hot spicy chili which used to be the only
flavor i cared about oh okay so you okay i see what you're saying so now just you can just go
oh that's a nice that's buttery yes yes as opposed to just like pouring ghost pepper sauce onto a bread yeah yeah um but i had to rush my lunch because i i i landed from new york this morning
pierre and then i went straight to an audition in the center of london oh bright light city gonna
set my soul that's very sort of um did you feel like you were in a montage about man man man whose
career is going well no i felt like i was in a montage of like new young person to the city
who's about to be taken advantage of right yeah yeah yeah you're like a motown kid yeah yeah yeah
exactly exactly i felt like um a young a young girl, first, like, new to New York,
and she's bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,
and she goes to her first audition,
and then something terrible happens
that completely changes her outlook on life.
I feel like I'm just at that beat before the terrible disaster.
Yeah, like, as you go into audition to be, like,
a real New York showgirl,
then there's like an old scragglier version outside smoking,
and you say to her on the way in,
I can't wait to be a New York showgirl.
And she's like, and says something really horrifying about like,
just don't get stuck in a in an elevator with mr
mcgillicuddy and you're like oh that's some horrible like she doesn't quite understand
it because she's from the midwest yeah yeah oh no is he a boar
that's perfect that's the perfect line
was that the line from your audition today my father can be a bore sometimes and
yeah is that the line from your audition today is that why it's so perfect
no not quite uh yeah um yeah um yeah i felt like i did feel like mr mr showbiz a little bit but
one of the showbiz things I was doing today
was purely speculative.
You know, an audition is a purely speculative thing.
So not exactly.
But I've been in New York, Pierre, for about six days.
Thank you to all New Yorkers
for coming to my show,
my sold-out show at the Gramercy Theatre.
It's a real thrill to sell out that theatre.
Really beautiful theatre.
It's the kind of theatre
where I bumped into other
New York comics and they're like, oh, you sold out the
Gramercy. Wow.
Oh, that's good. That's cinematic too.
Yeah.
You've been having a very cinematic time,
Phil. It's hard not to have a cinematic time
in new york yeah um that's where they make every film according to the law it is it is and i went
to um it's almost like the city is a character in itself, Pierre. I went to see the 30 Rock tree,
the Christmas tree that goes up at 30 Rock.
And you know what, Pierre?
It is hideous.
It's one of the ugliest.
It's so horrible.
It's just too much.
It's just all these blue, red lights it's just you there's
so many lights on you can't even see the tree not nice which is just like a giant tree-shaped light
bulb pretty much pretty much i'm going to actually i'll text you i took a photo of it i'll text it
over to you and i'll see what you think um here we go okay see what you think it's okay yeah i've sent
it okay let me see this let me click through from whatsapp to whatsapp
oh it looks pixelated pixelate yeah no those are all light bulbs on it there's so many that's what i mean like
it's it's the tree equivalent of you know when in the simpsons when homer invents the
makeup shotgun and he shoots marge in the face and her makeup's all like horrible and clowny
that's what it looks like it's the tree equivalent of that god it's just so it's so garish oh my god but it looks like
do you know what it looks like it's they're so bright and colorful and so overwhelming visually
that looks like a um you know when you just look into a big tub of sprinkles yes that's what it
looks like yes sprinkles it looks like a tree covered in sprinkles. Oh my God.
Yeah, I see what you mean.
It's very the opposite of the good old Trafalgar Square Christmas tree, sir.
Well, I was expecting, because 30 Rock itself is such a beautiful... Tasteful place a beautiful art deco you know minimalist bits of you know very neat lines
of gold yeah in contrast against like white marble i was expecting a sort of very tasteful
you know there's a very tasteful christmas trees where it's just like one color of tinsel
wrapped around a couple of tasteful baubles and then like a real nice angel up top like a real classy dame
of an angel up top i was expecting that not like basically a light a single light bulb
in the shape of a tree an aggressively almost pixelatedly lit tree yeah it looks like an old crt television it looks like white noise that's very yeah i know what you
mean like the art deco thing is a good point you think that whoever was in charge of the tree
would also be like well you know like it would be like a tree from um who's the fucking guy who
made the movie the the great gatsby who made the movie yeah who made the movie The Great Gatsby?
Who made the movie?
Yeah, the director, the famous director.
Oh, did he do Moulin Rouge?
No.
I mean, he has that smell about him.
It's not Baz Luhrmann.
It is Baz Luhrmann.
Is it? Oh, nice.
That's what I'm saying.
Right, yes.
Because he made it all Art Deco-y and sort of like,
now, see, you're going to give me all that fucking,
what are they always taking, the drug they're always taking?
Snuff?
No, it's the 20s.
It's like fucking meth and stuff, man.
Oh, ether, ethylene, mescaline?
Yeah, it's all this weird, like, 20th century drugs
where we're all just starting to go,
wow, I have energy all day long.
And it's like, yeah, it's meth, man 20th century drugs. We're all just starting to go, wow, I have energy all day long.
And it's like, yeah, it's meth, man.
It's fucking crystal meth.
Yeah, yeah.
I expected it to be different.
Yes.
But on the other end of the spectrum,
on my last day, just before my flight, I went to MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art,
and they have some pieces there.
I saw Dali's Melting Clocks.
Ooh, IRL Clock Melt.
IRL Melty Clock.
Some lovely Matisse's.
And Van Gogh's Starry Night.
That's where it is.
The Starry Night painting of Van Gogh.
Is that where it is?
That's where it is.
It's in New York.
It's been there since 1947.
I had no idea.
Oh.
Yeah.
And I think maybe it is the most perfect painting I've ever seen in my life.
Really?
It's amazing.
It's so beautiful.
Yeah. I was very moved by Really? It's so beautiful. Yeah.
I was very moved by it.
It's so beautiful.
And what's amazing is this painting you're so used to seeing,
when you're up close against it, you see the texture,
you see the globules of dried paint.
The risen bits in the painting.
And you're like, wow, there it is.
And you can just see like...
One of the stars is like almost a nipple
that painted so thick on it.
Ooh.
So like, it's always thrilling, isn't it,
with art like that where you can see like,
his paintbrush made, did that.
Yeah, you can, yeah.
You can almost see the brush strokes
happening before you.
Yeah.
What a cultural
and literally spicy time you've been having.
It's true.
Oh, I also, on my second
IPA, I went to a very fancy
sushi joint
called Sushi Nakazawa.
And the chef Nakazawa,
he is the apprentice
in, for any foodies out there
Jiro Dreams of Sushi
the seminal
documentary about the Japanese
sushi master
and his apprentice
who's coming out of the ranks
and about to become his own chef is Nakazawa
who opened this place
in New York
and I went and it was pretty spectacular.
What?
Amazing.
Yeah?
Well, yeah, what...
Well, it's a sushi omakase,
so it's the chefs in front of you,
sit at the bar,
and they're making each course of sushi as it comes,
right in front of you.
And you don't get any say about what's in it, it's just the omakase as it comes right in front of you.
And you don't get any say about what's in it.
It's just the omakase.
It's just the menu they have.
And as soon as you've finished one,
they start making the next one and they pop it in front of you.
And one of them...
Well, there was some wilder ones.
Sea urchin.
That was really lovely.
A sea urchin one.
Oh, okay.
It's almost like a custardy, creamy kind of texture.
No.
Yeah.
Sea urchin? Sea urchin is like a sea custard.
That is gross.
It's like a fishy custard.
Fishy custard.
I dream of never eating that.
That's the documentary. Pierre dreams of never eating fishy custard
it's all about how i've worked for my whole life to avoid that exact flavor texture combination
as you know with me like i i i like a savory custard more than most people
i think this is not even the first strange,
astounding custard I've told you about
that I eat on the reg.
I think that's true.
You like a savory custard more.
You like an egg gloop.
You like gloop more.
Savory porridge.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love gloop.
Well, the most extraordinary piece of sushi
Of the night was
Scallop
A scallop sushi
That was alive
It was live scallop
No
It was alive
It was spread out on this bed of rice
And the chef went over and he flicked it
And it went
Like it squirmed.
Like it was trying to get something off
his back.
He went, no.
Yep.
Yep. And then he went
eat it. I was like, oh, just like that
he just ate it.
God.
And I ate it. And it was
fantastic.
It was real nice. It was real nice.
It was real fresh.
Before I get any RSPC fucking A emails
to our fucking address,
they don't have brains, okay?
Scallops don't have brains.
They don't even know what's going on.
It's probably had the time of its life
up in my gob.
I like how you also said it was fresh.
Like, yeah, it sounds pretty fucking fresh.
Yeah, it's very fresh.
I've never had a live scallop before.
It was real good.
What was the difference?
I guess it made me feel like God.
That was the main difference, Pierre.
The feeling of being God, I would say.
I don't know.
It was fresher.
It was sweet.
It was cool.
It was, like I say, fresh.
It was from Boston.
That was a nice touch.
That was from Boston.
Oh, it was superb.
Man.
Superb.
So I still haven't seen Thingy Dreams of Sushi,
but it takes a long time to get to any sort of respectable level, doesn't it?
Yeah, and in Jiro's restaurant,
if you study under him, you spend the first year just making rice,
learning how to shape the rice.
Yeah.
And then the second year, you learn to make the egg,
the little egg sushi.
And it takes years and years and years before he lets it anywhere near the tuna.
The tuna.
That's the main thing
at Sushi Makasi's is the tuna.
And at Nakazawa there was a series
of three pieces of tuna of increasing
fattiness. So that's how they grade the
tuna, the fattiness, the marbling.
And the fatted belly tuna,
that's the real...
That's the real classy, precious stuff.
So we had one.
The first sushi was the very lean, fatless tuna.
It's hot, cold, raw, great.
And then the slightly fatty one, raw, cold, hot, lovely, lovely.
You're starting to taste a bit more flavor, a bit more fat.
And then the really fatty one, they lay on the rice and they get a blowtorch
and they just go real quickly and the fat sort of renders and crisps up a little oh and you and you pop that
in there and you got the little slightly char taste with the lovely tuna taste and the rice
oh my lord you got you got to do it a couple of omakase places in london You got to do it. There are a couple of Omicase places in London. You got to do it.
Phil, you are a fancy bitch.
Do you think?
You think I'm a fancy bitch?
Am I a fancy bitch?
I think you are...
Yeah, I think you're a fancy bitch.
And I think that if you were a lady, it would be very intimidating to take you on a date anywhere
good
yeah i am i like to think i have the eating habits of an oligarch that's what i'm aiming for
yeah you're not far off you're getting
pretty close to bond villain yeah life scallop is the closest i've ever been yeah bond villain
diet yeah you're not you're not far off there from from sort of uh i think you'll find it's the freshest way to eat, Mr. Bond.
And then... They say scallops are sweetest when they're fighting for their life.
It doesn't have any nerves, Mr. Bond.
Do you suffer from nerves mr bond what um what would the comedy equivalent
be of having to spend a year working on the fucking rice like spending a year just like
telling setups maybe just like working on setups or just microphone out of the stand microphone in
the stand yeah just microphone out hi how's everyone feeling you're all right and then that's
it and you put the microphone back in yeah and everyone goes everyone goes hey and you go okay
and then you just leave yeah that's pretty good that's that would be humbling wouldn't it
it would be and you'd be real good at it by the end for sure you'd be such a confident little
greeter you confident little greeter um yeah you this is yeah i'd say i'd say you're easily in fancy bench territory here my friend fancy bench i am a really fancy bench you got to balance it out what's the least fancy thing
you've done well after the show in new york we me and the acts uh went to a diner and i got chicken palm i got a chicken palm and a beer that's more like it
and the and this portions are so big like i i ate half of that chicken palm and i was
stuffed and i had to leave the rest oh i also went to the famous cat's deli Have you heard of Cat's Deli? Ooh. No.
I think it became really famous once after Harry met Sally.
So the scene where Meg Ryan is coming.
Let's call it what it is.
Coming in public.
The dirty bench.
She was being a dirty bench.
That's true.
The scene where Meg Ryan is coming in a public restaurant.
That's in Cat's Deli.
Cat's Deli Catessin.
Which I think was already well known for having very, very good pastrami.
Which is like salt beef, right?
And it's such a huge tourist attraction now that you go and you have to take a ticket and you line up and and yeah yeah hold on to your ticket and they stamp your ticket with what you've
had and then you pay up at the end but i got these their signature pastrami sandwiches sandwich
which was fantastic i mean the quality of that meat was oh my god so moist so tasty so beefy so good
and but the size of the sandwich you know how thick american sandwiches are american sandwiches
are like cubes cubes of filling and then pieces of bread so thin they might as well be crisps i so i ate again i ate half of that sandwich and i was like i i don't need to eat dinner
it was so rich and delicious so i did a little high low i guess you could say
yeah i did some high low i did some live scallop i did some dead cow. That's good. I think that's a very nice, that's literally a balanced diet.
Thank you, I think so.
It's a balanced diet.
I think so, for sure.
What did I do? Have I done anything fancy?
I hosted, I helped host some awards.
I did a gig. Oh, yeah?
What awards? The C21
International Drama Awards.
Oh!
International drama, for like television drama yeah there was a tv
movie category but yes it was television um all the people who are the big names well there was
no so it's like an industry thing in terms of like buyers and commissioners and stuff so there
was no like actual there were a couple of actors there from like random french dramas but there
was like olivia colman won an award and she wasn't there.
Your friend and mine, Sarah Kendall, she won an award.
She wasn't there.
Oh, did she win it for Frayed?
Frayed.
I'm afraid she did.
She did.
She did.
She won it for Frayed.
Well-deserved.
But, I mean, you and I know, the listeners might not know,
that if you're a stand-up comedian,
But, I mean, you and I know, the listeners might not know,
that if you're a stand-up comedian, you will at some point,
at a certain level, be asked to host awards.
They might not be anything to do with you.
I mean, I've hosted the Risk Trading Awards.
That was fun.
It tends to be a weird magazine puts on some awards for an area of industry.
I've done the VR Awards.
I've done the Virtual Reality Awards. Oh, did you? I've done the vr awards i've done the virtual reality awards or did you i've done i've done oh did i i've done a whole bunch yeah i've done a few they're usually quite nice these
are right people usually cool um i it's difficult isn't it i i made sure in the thing at these
awards they said oh and the
award winners have a have a picture with the host and with the person who gave them the award because
the person who was giving them out was different for each award and was actually someone from
the world you know yeah their world and there was like oh you have a picture with both of them but
because i mean i was just like well unless as they accept the award they lean over to me and say
koji then the having me
in the picture has no meaning it's just like here's me getting an award from this big fancy
commissioner also this guy's there it is weird but it is does seem to be standard i mean i i did like
a movies one before i i left new york and i knew a couple couple people in the crowd a couple of
people who were up for awards and afterwards they were like it's funny how you're in all the photos and I was like oh I just
assumed that was supposed to be in them but I think it apparently became like a running joke
for everyone me leaning into everyone's photos at the um throughout the night but I that's standard
at these awards the host is meant to be in the photo with with the winners I agree with you it
doesn't really make any sense no but I guess it's so you don't look like a lemming on the side just
like yeah just waiting for people to leave and i think it's also because you need to sort of
like shepherd them you need to get them into the right spot for the photo you need to tell them
where to get off and everything yeah i i i chose the lemming life, Phil, to be honest.
Oh, did you?
Right, right, right.
Because I've done that before,
and I've always sort of just thought like,
standing here in this photo,
both me and this person are thinking,
what's this in aid of?
And so I thought, you know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to clap,
and I'm going to sort of retreat
to the other side of the lectern.
That was my strategy i now i now play it so much like i'm having um so much like they're they're
my biggest fans i was that's how i play i'm like well done come on they're not just that you get
to stand next to me and then i smile like oh Can you believe this? That's the only way to play it.
Fake it till you make it.
You behave like a homelander.
Yes.
Is there a new series of The Boys coming soon?
I want The Boys.
There's got to be.
There's another series of Succession coming in spring.
Is it?
Yes.
Great.
Sausages!
That's what he shouts
at one point in the final episode.
Sausages? Yeah, Brian Cox shouts
the word sausages. It's very funny.
The stink's got
in the food!
The stink's got
in the food!
Yeah, that's a great one.
That's a great one.'s a great one or um could we fetch
gray cousin greg a coca-cola
i'd love to see the script if you don't know listeners there's a bit where a weedy character
with no power really is is kind of trying to get as much as he can out of his one
bit of leverage leverage and uh brian cox the big sort of powerful old definitely not rupert
murdoch figure offers him a drink and he just says oh rum and coke which is already an embarrassing
drink to be having at a high part meeting and um he just has neat rum as well, which is embarrassing
if you ask for a spirit in a mixer
and the person you're dealing with
only drinks spirits neat.
Then you feel like a lame-o.
And the way that he gets his butler to bring it
is by referring to it as a Coca-Cola,
as though it's the first time in his life
he's ever said the brand.
It's so funny.
I really want to know
if that was in the script
or if it was improvised
was in his pronunciation of coca-cola script yeah probably wasn't i i think so but then the
script has got so many funny people involved yeah i would just love to know how it came about. But yeah, it's like... It's so embarrassing for the person just sort of going,
you've ordered something that I'm aware is available,
but I have never ever had to say it myself
because I would never dream of drinking it.
Coca-Cola.
Coca-Cola? king it could uh could we get mr wang a pint of carlsberg
you go oh no i really i love succession but whenever i'm called upon to remember
i say with any show i love and oh man that show's so good it changed my life oh fantastic
and then people will say a bit,
they'll be like, oh, isn't it good when they...
And I just go, huh?
What?
They do what?
Isn't it good when they hijack that submarine?
Huh?
Huh?
Huh?
What?
Well, I'll tell you how what phil it's correspondence time correspondence correspondence Correspondence Aha, yeah
So this is from Phil
We had a Phil last time, didn't we?
Yeah
A couple of weeks or two ago
So this is from Phil
Is it weird when you get people saying your name?
Because I never hear my name
Yeah, I don't love it.
I don't love it when I hear someone has my name.
But it's fine.
And it doesn't happen too much.
But, I mean, it's pretty rare.
Not as rare as Pierre, but it's weirdly rare.
Especially for a name that is sometimes included in a grouping with, say, like Gary and Steve as a sort of common man's name yeah but it isn't common
they're very few that's true isn't it it gets unfairly lumped in with alex james and matt
exactly um okay so yeah i always say when a Pierre pops up, I'm almost offended
I'm almost sort of like well, who do you think you are?
Phil says dear Morecambe and shite
And he spelt more come as in more cum. Oh, good, good, good. Yeah, I like that.
Good, good.
More cum and scheisse.
You could have gone German.
Ooh.
More cum and scheisse.
More cum and scheisse.
Or is it scheisse?
Maybe it doesn't work that way.
I'm not sure.
No, scheisse would work.
Yeah.
What does he say? As a reverse Pistor reverse historian I started at a random episode
and worked
backwards I
now realize
this is a
terrible strategy
wow yeah
yeah
yes that's
terrible
a podcast
first
however like
an archaeologist
trying to work
out what
they've dug
up I'm
committed to
the bud pod
discovery
great yeah
yeah so okay
so he'd hear a
reference and go
but what could it mean and then delve
deeper each each episode each listen as of sweeping of the brush yes yes the buried porcelain
yeah toilet porcelain yeah um as i have delved back through the pleasure
And pain
That fellow listeners have endured
In their Boel related movements
It has reminded me of my own haunting night
This is good
This is like a Christmas carol
A sort of slightly haunting Christmas ghost story
Like a traditional Victorian
My own haunting night
A pismas carol A pismas carol ghost story like a traditional Victorian my own haunting night A Pissmas Carol
A Pissmas Carol
A Pissma Ass Carol
The last episode that guy could piss his ass
couldn't he
Oh yeah that's true
In a previous life
I worked for a crisis management
Consultancy firm in the city of London
Oh
Wow that's high pressure
Very cool
We assisted
Companies in responding to kidnaps
Extortions and cyber attacks
And even the odd time maritime piracy
Incident
Fucking hell alright yeah I've read about these guys
I've heard about these guys
they have to like
yeah they've got to negotiate with like
the Somali pirates
that capture big cargo ships
coming out of
which gulf is it?
the gulf of Oman?
yeah the Persian gulf
the Persian gulf what's Gulf. What's the Gulf
at the end of the Suez Canal?
I think it's called
the Sea of Arabia. It's the Red Sea and then the Persian
Gulf, isn't it?
Give it a Google because it's going to bug me.
Red Sea, Persian Gulf.
The Red Sea is an inlet
to the inlet of the Indian Ocean lying between the Red Sea is an inlet to
inlet of the Indian Ocean
line between Africa and Africa
yes
oh yes you're right
so
yes
the Gulf of Arden
is what they come out of
so it comes through
we go through
we go through the Suez Canal
Into the Gulf of Suez
Into the Red Sea
And then out
Into the Gulf of Aden
And then out into
The Arabian Sea
So I was correct about that
But where's the Persian Gulf then?
The Persian Gulf is up the other side of Saudi Arabia.
So the Persian Gulf is what separates Qatar and Iran.
Of course, I was getting confused there.
Yeah.
Okay.
We've got our g golfs in a row here
okay okay so we had to work in shifts is the point he says to always be able to cover the
many time zones yes gosh yeah this is real shit yeah uh one fateful and regrettable evening myself
and a cheerful venezuelan colleague i like that i like the idea of it called ernesto
that's not it's like the kind of contact you'd meet in cuba in like a hemingway novel or something
a cheerful venezuelan my colleague for the evening was a cheerful Venezuelan man called Ernesto. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.
A superstitious
but proud man.
So there on
the night shift, him and Ernesto.
Despite
the alluring premise of our work,
there were times when absolutely nothing happened, and you
just sat in an empty office in the soulless
financial district.
Yeah, right, right, right.
Which after the bars closed resembled scenes from 28 Days Later.
This was one such night.
Kind of sounds like the dream job to me.
I love sitting at night and doing nothing.
It must be like Canary Wharf or something, which is an eerie, eerie part of London.
Yeah, well, he says City of London, so it must be.
Right.
Or like that sort of ilk, definitely. Yeah. Yeah, well he says city of London so it must be. Right. Or like that sort of
ilk, definitely.
Yeah. Bank.
Our office was in a shared office block
with investment banking types who spoke
loudly on mobiles and in a slang that suggested
Wolf of Wall Street was not a cautionary tale
of excess but in fact a self-help guide.
To go to the toilets you had to leave your
sanctuary and go to the stairwell where the toilet block
was communally shared between four offices
like an apartment block in the Soviet Union
but with nicer decor
At around 1am
Ernesto came back from the
toilets within an unusually quick
time but now had a
Vietnam War style thousand yard
stair
Normally so cheerful quick time, but now had a Vietnam War style thousand yard stare.
Yeah.
Normally so cheerful.
Yeah.
Considering the line of work, it must be pretty extraordinary
what he's seen. Curious as to what
had caused this, I asked,
but all he muttered was, don't use the toilets.
Someone
just don't.
This is Hemingway-esque.
He said nothing more and quietly went back to work.
This piqued my interest.
Ernesto was not the kind of guy to hold back chat
and had all sorts of cheerful, amusing anecdotes
about being held at gunpoint in Caracas
and getting the police to move murder victims away from his parked car.
So whatever had happened...
Could you get these murder victims
out of here, please?
I'm sorry, could you get these
bodies out of here?
Sir, this body is in the way of my wheel.
So whatever had happened must have been truly
terrifying for this narco gangland survivor
Yeah exactly
So we went back to work
And the uneventful shift continued
Several hours later
As sleep deprivation hit my short term memory
I left for the toilet
Forgetting the shell shock inducing fate that awaited me
I confidently pushed open the door
And strided into the men's
toilets and was immediately in peril.
I glanced down to note that
across the entire floor was a protracted
smear of liquid brown excrement.
Ay caramba.
In a blind panic, I turned
to grab the door and realized what
had terrified Ernesto.
Oh no. What's on the door? For the unfortunate investment banker what had terrified ernesto oh no for the on the door for the
unfortunate investment banker who had come before us had had an event an eventful night as the
oh sorry they've written a bit strangely he's still traumatized um whoever had come before
us had had an eventful night as the rear of the men's door and all across the handle was a continued dirty protest of shit.
Oh no.
How do you open a box
with a crowbar in, Phil,
without using the crowbar
that's already in the box?
It's like a classic trap.
Yeah.
He says I was trapped.
It's like something out of Saw.
I want to play a game.
You need to leave the bathroom.
You'll have to touch the poop.
You'll have to touch the poop.
You came in here to so shamefully get rid of.
Well, it looks like you're going to have to get intimate with that with which you hate.
Touch the poop it would be very funny to say to the
to the puppet on the tv screen you're really fucking immature you know that
whose whose shit is this why why does that matter
why why is that why is that important?
So he's trapped As I gazed at the shit stained door slamming shut
It wafted the stench back to me
Wincing and trying not to breathe
I was now fully able to comprehend
How badly the banker's bowels had released
Somehow he had managed to shit on the floor
Fall on it
And then seemingly conducted a silent movie style
Slapstick fall and slip routine all over the room.
Oh my god.
The walls, floor,
cubicle doors, sinks, and even urinals
had brown handprints on.
Shoe prints, and in one case, a partial
facial profile silhouette.
Surely not. No. No.
Come on.
Fucking hell, man.
Like Harrison Ford in Star wars when he gets frozen
that kind of like a poopy face emerging out the wall
yeah i love i love you i know just in a big pool
oh man and this guy's in a suit remember the whole time he's wearing a suit
oh yeah and he's basically let's call it what it is he's break dancing in his own shit
oh man i and and like you never have a backup suit do you i mean
hopefully this guy whoever he was like cycled to work he could dress like that
yeah oh that's worse is it worse to be covered in lycra at least i hold everything in
no i just mean if you got to change your clothes because you never have two suits with you
No I just mean if you gotta change your clothes Because you never have two suits with you
Oh yeah
So he stands stationary this guy
It's like something out of Squid Game
Um
Now stuck in a minefield of turds
Hanging half out of one of the toilet stalls
Was the offending underwear
Suit trousers and a single shoe
No
It's like the guy popped like a balloon of shit he just went
and the shoe and the trousers and stuff was just hanging there like uh from the explosion um
all the crisis management training in the world did not prepare me for this moment
in the end i managed to tiptoe and slowly parkour my way around the room like a sleep-deprived, shit-gagging ninja.
Until I had...
But how did he get out of the cubicle?
Oh, no, it was the door to leave the bathroom.
Oh, the whole bathroom?
Yeah, the whole bathroom's covered in this stuff.
Oh.
Oh.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
Creeping around until I had retrieved enough hand towels to escape i did
this all without vomiting that's a funny sentence to write and i didn't vomit once
it felt like the worst physical game ever from crystal maze after an extensive decontamination
session in a different toilet i returned to the office i slowly and silently stumbled back in ernesto um excuse me ernesto turned to look at me i forgot i quivered
he slowly nodded and returned to his computer
just a silent nod we never spoke of that night, but we both knew what each other had endured. This band of brothers forged in shit.
Nice.
We never uncovered who the offender was,
although I still occasionally wonder
how they managed to walk out of the building
past the security guard without trousers or a shoe
and covered head to toe in shit.
Koji, Phil.
Walking away like Kaiser Soze.
Yeah.
Like trying to...
Limping, but it like...
Like the shoe just slip it slip
the shoe is slipping because it's covered in shit i think it's cycling gear a lot of those
guys do gym before or after work or in their lunch break i bet you that's what he did
that he's right that he changed into cycling gear yeah cycling gear or gym gear and as he
walked past the security guard the guard was like, two sessions in one day, huh?
And the guy had to be like,
haha, yeah.
I just love to exercise.
Yuck.
Yuck.
I quite like the sound of this job, though.
Just sitting up late at night
waiting to get a phone call about pirates.
But you've got to stay up all night
and then, like, when you're sleep deprived
and tired then suddenly you have to be on and you have to negotiate with pirates to save someone's
life yeah that's true that's true that's less fun do you think do you think you could be like
you could say to the pirate, can you call back tomorrow?
It's a bit late over here.
The pirate's yelling like, do you know what it's like out here?
And you say, just wait till you hear about this.
And you tell them all about the bathroom.
Trying to get relatable with them.
Hey, we both have struggles.
My weird city bathroom's
covered in shit.
know hey we both have struggles my my weird city bathroom's covered in shit
like you're high on chat i'm here on was a cat cat i think it's yeah cut cut cut cut i'm covered in shit we we've we've all got our problems we're high on chat chat Phil and now we're about to board we're about to board
the
highly valuable oil tanker
of Patreon.
Yes.
Excellent. Sign up to the Patreon
for the bonus episode coming this
Friday.
Do do do do do.
Friday for that Friday feeling.
As we mentioned
my and Pierre's tours are
on sale so do get tickets to
see us beautiful boys live
yes please
for the love of god
Soho Theatre the tickets
they're fading fast January February
next year and then an autumn tour
big old autumn tour
so for the love of god uh buy some tickets
and buy tickets for phil as well and you can see just how you see if you can see him being
cinematic live on stage yes absolutely see what new york is raving about um but until then bye bye