BudPod with Phil Wang & Pierre Novellie - Episode 68 - Rabbits On Top
Episode Date: June 24, 2020The boys chat pixies, clowns vs mimes, more of Pierre's dream jokes, slurps, being born on the run and there's correspondence including an India Hotel bum mishap and paedophilic statue update. Get bon...us BudPod on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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It's episode 68 of Bud Pod. Phil, is 68 anything to you?
Episode 68, episode Pixie Hate.
Ooh!
Yes, it is for those of us who are pixiphobic. Pixie Hate.
Now, when you say pixies, Phil, do you mean the mythical creature, the band, or the stylish haircut?
The mythical creature, the band, or the stylish haircut? The mythical
creature, of course.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They
get out of my garden. That's what I say.
I've got signs.
I say just get out.
It's the most
apt application of
the phrase not in my backyard.
Yes, yes.
We're all NIMBYs when it comes to pixies.
Yes, absolutely.
That's your slogan, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There are no atheists in a foxhole, and everyone's a NIMBYist when it comes to pixies.
There are no atheists in a foxhole, and no pixies in my back garden.
There are no atheists in a foxhole and no pixies in my back garden.
I'd like to meet someone who believes fully in pixies and in that whole garden pixies hoax.
They really believe it, but only because it makes them angry.
Right, right, right. So instead of believing in it.
That's what conspiracy theorists are.
Instead of believing in it. That's what conspiracy theorists are.
People who are so addicted to hating things
that they will make up people
and reasons to hate.
Like there's not enough for them
to cope with.
Yeah, that's amazing.
Like the idea of...
Leprechauns are quite like that, aren't they?
You just make up this little man
and his only quality is so that
if you catch him he'll
have to give you a lot of money but you can't catch him right yeah i think get really frustrated
that you've never found one you've never found a thing you just made up yes i i remember i remember
once when i was uh god when i was a child i i i dreamt that i had this brilliant spider-man toy like
brilliant you dreamt it i dreamt i had a spider-man toy and there's a spider-man action figure and it
was just brilliant and i woke up and i was like oh i'm gonna play with my spider-man toy and i
i ran downstairs and i couldn't find it. Yeah. And I spent all day looking
for this Spider-Man toy
until it eventually dawned on me
that no such Spider-Man toy existed
and I just dreamt it.
So, wait, like, how...
What time of day are we talking here, though?
That I dreamt it?
No, no, no. Like, what time of day did you realize oh how long how long you spent furiously searching in your toy box from the morning
till the evening not just the toy box but the storage rooms the basement everywhere the fridge yeah yeah yeah and this is a big house
in Malaysia
and I was
crawling to the
every nook and cranny
looking through every box, every shelf
the reception room
oh man
it was torturous
I eventually had to come to terms with the fact that there was no such toy but i was so certain that it existed so what i'm trying to say is i understand
um people who are conspiracy theorists and i guess people who are very religious
yes yes and that brings us to the main because aren't we all just looking for our Spider-Man toy?
Well, that's it. I was going to say, in a way, listeners, isn't Christ the Spider-Man toy that we all feel like we've been looking for for our whole lives?
Yeah.
And much like Christ, Spider-Man wouldn't hurt his enemies, Phil.
Christ, Spider-Man wouldn't hurt his enemies, Phil.
He would trap them in a web for the forces of judgment to discover them,
in the same way that Christ will blah, blah, blah.
You can fill in the rest.
Spider-Man, ironically, wouldn't hurt a fly.
Oh, very nice.
That would be his main enemy, wouldn't it?
The fly.
Why didn't they never do that? Well, because if if it's your natural prey he's probably not an enemy he's very very easily
defeated well this is that's why maybe that's why i was so whereas an octopus yeah that's hard
that's difficult for a spider do you think that they an octopus or a goblin
because they were like, well, what has more legs? Equal or more numbers of legs.
The centipede is the next villain.
Of course.
Yeah, a goblin. A spider versus
a goblin.
Yeah, it's funny. It's like,
same with Batman. Like, bat,
bat, who's a natural enemy of the bat?
Oh, clowns.
And then Spider-Man, what's a natural enemy
of the goblins, guess i've never seen a
spider defeat a goblin that's true yeah so they must have a thing going yeah the the whole clown
clowns are clowns clowns are weirdly flexible because you have the joker is essentially a
terrorism clown um ronald mcdonald is a hamburger clown Hamburger clown yes
Yes yes yes
Don't pigeonhole a clown
A clown can do anything
You've got a rodeo clown
So that's a cowboy clown
Yeah yeah yeah a clown that works the land
Old school Joker is essentially a mafia clown
Yes
There's gotta be more clowns than this They're so flexible is essentially a mafia clown. Yes.
There's got to be more clowns than this.
They're so flexible.
Well, they're mimes.
Mimes, what is a mime clown?
A mime clown, I guess,
is like an athlete clown.
Because they use their body entirely.
Yeah, well, it's a clown for people with black and white TVs
with no sound.
Right, so it's like an old-fashioned clown. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A colorblind
clown. This sounds like
the beginnings of a Pixar movie
about a civilization of clowns.
Yes. That only
comes alive when you leave the circus.
Yes. And they have their own
economy and their own
civilization, society, and history.
It would be like a Pixar
movie where everyone's a clown
and the little main character,
the little kid, wants to be a mime
and the dad is like,
you better speak up, boy.
Little son of mine's gonna be a damn non-talker.
Although it'd probably go the other way around, right?
It'd probably start black and white as a mime,
like in a black and white world,
and then he discovers the world of color yes which is where the clowns two rival
cities mimes versus clowns that's right yeah that's right and and when he looks at his hand
instead of you know how in uh back to the future this his hand starts to blur out as he as he runs
out of time yeah and and in this movie, his hands start to fill with colour.
Yes.
Yes.
Or like his nose.
His nose gets gradually red.
Yeah, he's trying to hide it.
No, no.
Don't come in, Mom.
And it's all like a kind of vague analogy to Jack and it.
Growing up.
Rebelling.
I don't think we've just come up with the next Pixar film.
It's really good, actually. I mean, it's better than a lot of the shit just come up with the next Pixar film it's really good actually
I mean it's better
than a lot of the shit
they come up with
definitely sell it to them
yeah
absolutely
I bet in a month or two
we're going to see
this movie trailer
and we're going to go
fuck we should have
said patent pending
I'm going to say that now
patent pending
patent pending
Writers Guild of America
I don't know
yeah
if that happens
then we're just going to
have to get as many
pod buds as possible to I don't know. Yeah. If that happens, then we're just going to have to get as many pod buds as possible to, I don't
know, murder everyone
involved.
We could, yeah, we should
join one of those
bafflingly powerful American
unions. Yes.
Yes, astonishingly powerful.
This is a great joke. Have you watched
Kimmy Schmidt?
Yes, I have, but not for a long time.
Titus' boyfriend,
who's a builder,
he's like,
they always have jokes about how powerful their union
is.
And he's like,
at one point he gets to spend a day with
Titus and he's like,
it's someone's birthday today, gets to spend a day with Titus and he's like oh yeah um someone had a it's someone's birthday today so everyone gets a day off if you um Phil if you had to be a clown or a mime which would you be
Phil if you had to be a clown or a mime which would you be?
Mime less work
Do you think so?
I think so and you can be sad
it's more acceptable to just be sad
a mime can just sort of sit there
and like hmm
put his chin in his hand
just sitting there like
and people go ah yes
it's an observation
on the futility of life it's uh it's it's it's
noir it's sophisticated but that's just how i spend my time anyway yes except now you'd be
doing it yeah and a kind of um delicate white face exactly little crosses on your eyes. That's right. Did you know this thing about how all clowns,
every clown's face is sort of copyrighted?
They've got their eggs, don't they?
That's right, yeah.
So every clown has to have an egg with their particular face painted on it,
and it's all kept somewhere.
Is it in France?
I don't know.
There's this building somewhere full of eggs of all the clowns.
I think it's in some weird village in England.
Oh, is it England?
I don't know.
I think maybe it's like each country has its own clown egg face museum.
I'm not sure.
It's basically that hall of faces on Game of Thrones.
Yeah.
I'd love it if the clown face temple was genuinely imposing.
Well, I can't imagine it's not a little unnerving Sure but I reckon it's unnerving in that kind of way
Of like oh god look what
Look what Nana's done to the living room
Right yeah yeah yeah
Whereas what I would like if it had genuine like
Athenian pillars
That's huge
Right like a clown path Yes yes if it had genuine Athenian pillars. They're huge.
Right, like a clown Parthenon.
Yes, yes.
Yeah, that'd be cool.
That would be cool.
Yes, the Parthenon.
The Parthenon.
The Laugh-a-non.
The Laugh-a-non.
It's a shame comedy doesn't exist anymore, Phil,
because that could be a terrible gig that we both run.
The Laugh-a-non.
That genuinely sounds like a gig in Athens.
They'll cover your flights, but it's only
150 quid.
Oh my good god.
I played tennis this morning.
You did what?
I played tennis. I had a little tennis this morning.
Well, I hope you disinfected the ball.
Each time.
We used our hands, and you have to lick your hand every time, like turning a page of a book.
That's replaced the grunt.
Horrible, horrible noises.
The last time I played tennis was when I was 16 years old.
Oh, yeah.
At school, I played like one day of tennis.
And I was like, oh, this is all right.
And then I never touched it again.
And then this morning, me and a friend went down to a little nearby tennis court and
played a bit of tennis. It was really
fun. It was so good. I might become a tennis guy.
But did it work?
Were you rallying as they say?
Yeah. Really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
My friend, she's played a bit more
so we were just doing the basics.
Just
Pardon me. With my friend, she's played a bit more, so we were just doing the basics.
Pardon me.
We were just doing the basics, just doing a bit of control, keeping it within a little box there,
which I wasn't always doing, but yeah, I was returning the shots and stuff.
It might be my game. It's only taken me 30 years, but I might have finally found my game. I mean i'm so impressed because i like i tried to play tennis a couple of times growing up and it was essentially
hit this ball at your friend who has to like walk over and stoop to pick it up and he hits it back
and then you have to walk to wherever that is and stoop to pick it up and that's it it's right yeah
it's the only sport i've ever played where straight away i'm like this kind
of looks like the sport this kind of looks how like how it's supposed to look like everything
else i've tried has been like oh you're you're trying to i feel like i'm trying to invent a new
game with the same equipment yeah you you've you never get that feeling of i'm doing it. Yeah.
I think, wouldn't it be tragic if your sport,
if we imagine that everyone has a sport hidden,
waiting for them to do it, that they're good at,
like your PE teacher always told you was the case.
Yes.
It would be a shame if it was bear like, you know, bear baiting.
Like it was something that you're never going to do.
Oh, yes, exactly.
Yeah.
Like something medieval.
Or even like archery.
Like how many people have honestly shot a bow?
I always had this very... Right, I've shot a bow before.
It's not as fun as I thought it would be.
It was right after...
It was in Malaysia, and it was right after Lord of the Rings came out,
and suddenly everyone wanted to be an archer because of Legolas.
And I gave it a go.
A friend of mine did it.
Actually, a good friend of mine.
Do you ever meet Nick?
Yeah, I know Nick.
Nick Ashman.
Yeah.
He's a...
Yeah, like he was an archer.
He shot...
I don't know how he arched.
He shot arrows.
He's always the quiet ones.
It really is.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think Nick listens to the podcast.
So, hi, Nick.
Hi, Nick.
But also, he won't mind me saying,
he does have a touch of the
we need to talk about Kevin quality about him.
Quiet old Nick.
It is always the quiet one.
Finding the best spots in school to shoot arrows from.
Yeah, so I did a bit of archery
but it's kind of
I remember it being kind of surprisingly painful
on the old back
on the old shoulder yeah
on the back of the arm there
have you ever seen the skeletons of the longbowmen
from the Mary Rose
what's the Mary Rose
it's a Tudor warship that sank.
It was like the sort of mega battleship thing.
It was huge.
It had nine decks or something insane.
Wow.
And they found, it sank and they found it
and they dredged it
and they were looking at the skellies,
the skellingtons.
Yeah, the skellingtons.
The skellingtons.
And then the skellingtons that were the longbowmen
that had sort of arrows near them
or had a longbow in their hand whatever the hell the the right hand side of like their upper back and shoulder
was like so distended like so big what the like the bones yeah the but like you could see in their
bones that it was like that's how they could tell they were longbowmen because they were like you
could see here that the overdevelopment of very specific
muscles to do with pulling
a 200 pound weight to fire an arrow
yeah gosh
because to pull that much weight back
people used to have to be so strong
oh man
it's your entire back
having to pull this ridiculous thing apart
and fire a stick at someone.
It's funny because
in Rome Total War, the archers
always look kind of weedy. They always look like
the most snivelling sort of
because they have to run away
whenever infantry come near.
They just look pathetic.
I can't really imagine them being very strong.
Of course they must have been.
They've always given them thin little arms
yeah but they must have looked like
fucking Quasimodo
yeah like you say
in Total War they always looked like
little nerds with their shooty guns
not a real soldier
with a big sword yeah that's true
but on the subject of like
never finding the thing you liked
i always had this rather dark joke of i never made it managed to make it work but
it was like i was my attempt at the at the um baby shoes for sale never worn yeah like a short
sad story of someone giving up on life,
jumping off a building,
and only then realizing they're really into skydiving.
Oh, God.
Is that...
Like, I could never think of a finger out a pithy way of wording it.
That's pretty pithy.
Really?
It's quite funny with stand-up.
I often find that when I'm trying to explain a concept or a joke to a friend that hasn't worked because i can't phrase it i phrase
it really well right because you you all because you instinctively distill it down to its essential
idea and you're not like trying anymore you're just going oh it's this thing yeah yeah yeah it's
this thing about and then a good summation of the idea actually speaking
speaking of which phil we've talked about this on the podcast before comedy in your dreams
did you dream a joke i dreamt some some observational comedy that i don't think makes
sense okay go for it in the dream oh it was great and it was kind of like crushing it yeah so um
you know how on tv or in the world of adverts
like different different um jobs or roles often have different accents
so like a guy driving a white van will always have like a sort of cockney voice
ah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah um for listeners outside the uk this is a real british phenomenon
that even a lot of british people aren't. For example, so many banking adverts have soft Scottish Edinburgh accents because the Scots are hugely associated, especially the Edinburgh accent, is hugely associated with trustworthiness and caution and wise and strategy or whatever.
They're very trustworthy.
And then anything that needs to appear rustic or english is a sort of gruff but ultimately
soft northern voice yes yeah because because you go well what reason would they have to trick me
they live in the north yes they're a man of the soil yes yes yes they're true englishmen they
don't know any city ways of lies and tricks. Yes, that's very much it.
So basically...
And then a southern
sort of Cockney accent.
It seems
to me essentially confined
to betting and gambling.
It's betting,
gambling, it's anything that
you do in the half time of a
football game. Takeaway pizza, beer,
gambling. Right, gambling.
Right, yes.
You dominoes mighty sausage in your face.
Put a tenner on and have a slice of sausage.
Yes, yes.
Yeah, that's right.
So gross manly stuff has always got a southern accent.
Like McCoy's man crisps.
That was very... Yeah, that's a southern thing, isn't it? it right so we've distilled it essentially it's trustworthiness scottish um englishness
northern manliness southern
yeah i mean those those are the the main food groups as far as i can see yeah so
and so yeah so it was based around that kind of thing. And in my dream, in my brain,
and it was in the kind of those dreams
where you're kind of 60% asleep, 40% awake.
A bit like when you have the flu.
Yeah, not nice.
I was trying to apply the accent thing
to family relationships,
like roles within the family.
Yes, okay.
So, yeah.
This is where it starts to get a little abstract.
Yeah, it was really abstract.
I'm listening.
I'm staying with you.
So every mum is northern.
Wait, so the premise is,
well, this is adverts for families
or this is in actual families
every mother is northern
I don't know the vibe
the zeitgeist of every mum in the UK
like cultural mind
so the archetype, the platonic ideal of the mum
is northern
oh would you like some more bread love
ok yes now you say it out loud
this sounds like a good bit
every mum is northern right like oh I don't know about that oh it's all very sort of kitchen sink drama
um yep every dad is cockney or like estuary accent yeah that's every dad is like that i mean and and
i preempted that didn't i with my manly adverts that's it. Every dad has to have that voice and have a kind of a job that makes
people who work in offices feel insecure.
Yes, yes, yes.
And then,
the last one I wrote down, and I kind of
remember how this made sense, but this is
where it goes off track.
All the grandparents are Scottish.
I like
that, you know, because a lot of grandparents are Scottish.
Well, my gran was Scottish. know, because a lot of grandparents are Scottish. Well, my
gran was Scottish.
Yes, and a lot of people I've known and
I feel dated
have always had at least one
Scottish grandmother.
It's like where grandmothers are made, Scotland.
It's probably also like, you know,
Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter as well, that was
probably in there somewhere.
Or I wouldn't worry about that, dear.
Maybe it's the Scottish widow culture.
Yes.
Scottish widow tradition.
Yes.
Of murdering your husband.
Yes, and also a lot of Scottish treats are like proper grandmother treats,
like Tannock's tea cakes.
Of course.
And tablet.
Tablet?
What's tablet? Tablet. You've been going to the fringe and you haven't been eating tablet.let? What's tablet?
Tablet, you've been going to the fringe
And you haven't been eating tablet
I've never noticed tablet, I know my tunics
You know your tunics, tablet is that stuff that looks like fudge
But it's not fudge, it's much better than fudge
Okay
It's like hyper sweet
Yeah, yeah, yeah
It's basically condensed milk, it's so good
Delish
And then there was more, but i forgot i think in
my delirious state i was good i was pretty happy with northern mums and cockney dads
um and then northern mums and cockney dads
and then scottish grandparents came in and they're like okay and then i seem i think i was thinking
of like what's your brother you know yeah every all the brothers are welsh i think brothers are geordie oh that's interesting
that's brothers are geordie and sisters are scouse
sisters are scouse maybe sisters are scouse
your aunt is Welsh
and your uncle
no your uncle's from Birmingham
I was going to say Cornwall
I was going to say your uncles are
I think West Country
uncles are from Somerset
yeah okay
yeah yeah yeah
who's from Birmingham
your cousins are all from Birmingham
cuz yes very good cousins are all from Birmingham
yes I think we've got it down
it's a good bit
it goes on for ages people are gonna like it
I think I don't even think that's a pretty good bit
well I'm not gonna delete it
I'm keeping the note
yeah definitely definitely definitely
whereas I had a dream last night in which someone called me handsome and that's all i can remember
a lady called me handsome and i really liked it and then
that's all i can remember
that is such a uh crushing lockdown dream.
You're very handsome.
Oh, thank you.
Oh, God.
Oh, no, it's the morning.
Oh, my dreams are so wild and tumultuous.
That's funny.
I had a dream.
This doesn't count as a dream joke in the sense that I didn't it wasn't a joke I came up with during a dream but
the other day I had a very long dream
that was like just a day of lockdown
oh no you dreamt yourself an extra day of lockdown
yes
I think that was the cruelest dream you could possibly have
yeah it was literally just a dream about
lockdown stuff happening to me
during a day.
It is nuts how some dreams genuinely
last a day.
You spend a whole day in a dream.
Yeah, you wake up exhausted. You've already had a day.
Yeah, it's really astonishing.
Yeah, you wake up and it's time for bed.
I've only recently watched
in my
grand tradition of only watching things recently that I should have watched ages ago,
I watched Spirited Away the other day.
Oh, did you finally?
Did you watch, have you seen Spirited Away?
Of course, I'm a nerd. Sure I have.
And Spirited Away, I realized afterwards,
it's an excellent depiction of a very long dream.
You know what I mean?
Everything about it feels like a dream that you have that goes on forever.
Yeah, weird dream logic.
The way characters change and the logic
and what you accept implicitly are very dreamlike.
Yes.
And we've discussed before how many implicit assumptions Japanese media demands of you to accept.
That's right.
Yes, yes, yes.
Like, yeah, the boy can become a dragon and he's chased by paper dolls.
And you go, oh, no, the paper dolls have got him.
Like, you've never seen paper dolls before in your life, but you know that these ones are hurting the dragon when the dragon is the boy yes exactly you go god better
get him in here and get him away from the paper dolls which are also a witch who is the sister
of the witch that is currently keeping me captive but the one that is paper dolls is actually a bit
nicer but right now she's being very mean and and you go in a dream i i can i feel like i remember
having dreams
with that exact logic.
Totally.
And in dreams where you just go,
I don't know who they were,
but they were my friends from primary school.
Yeah.
Because your dream just goes,
yeah, you know, these guys.
Yeah, and I think that's what
I actually found so impressive about it as a film.
It's the most accurate representation
of what it is like to have a very long dream yeah and it's interesting isn't it because if that was all written down it might
seem too much like a dream without the the aid of like such incredible visuals
although i'm a bit torn on the studio ghibli visuals, because sometimes it looks wonderful, but then sometimes they'll be like her parents in
Spirited Away.
For one, they don't look Japanese at all.
I don't know where they're supposed to be from.
they're just kind of
awkward and
they're not very nice drawings.
I think maybe
the Studio Ghibli like bored when they have
to draw a person like that i don't know like this but when they draw you know a river dragon they're
like well of course you'd you'd on on this scale you would have a this pattern and on the next
scale and they go really go to town on the more mythical things but people they're like i don't
know it's got a fucking mouth bothered there's a mouth and
a head i don't know legs yeah so the people end up looking weirder than the fucking you know mud
beasts and stuff well maybe that's it phil maybe people are actually worse than the mud beasts yeah
interesting interesting pierre i never looked at it that way
yeah man it's it's Yeah, man. It's
very good. Like you say, quite feverish
and strange.
The food always looks incredible.
That's the thing, isn't it?
That's the subculture of Studio Ghibli.
The food looks so delicious.
The way it flops about and glistens.
It always looks so good.
And the way they just
fill their mouth with rice and fish and stuff.
And it's got steam.
Mmm.
And the way they sizzle on the pan just right.
Yeah, it's lovely.
They absolutely smash it.
Not like South Park with its lumps.
Yeah.
I always remember finding it disgusting in early simpsons episode where they sit around for
family dinner and nothing more horrific than an early simpsons episode hello bart horrible
awful voices and they sit around yeah it's like someone's done a cheap ripoff of the simpsons
yeah yeah yeah you check the packet and it's it's called the five impsons yeah or just the yellow family or something you go oh yeah yeah
yes exactly and then they're all talking like and then the food they eat
is just like beige a beige beige pile of fluff on their plate.
It's just like nothing.
And then, of course, they all eat only with one fork and with their mouths open,
which my parents didn't mind rudeness too much on cartoons,
but that they will turn it off.
What rudeness?
So any kind of rudeness,
like if it was just like a character was being an
asshole that was like no whatever
even a very small amount of
swearing when I was a bit older
but when the Simpsons chewed with their mouths open
and they're all just going
and like splooshing it into their
horrible yellow faces
and is that where your own misophonia
comes from
is that the birthplace
of your own mouth bigotry that i've had to deal with all these years well i think so well i mean
it definitely just comes from my parents but it was definitely used via things like that
yeah it was definitely it's definitely like it was definitely learned it's definitely learned
and it's uh what it's it's it's cultural i mean as well with the old noodle slurps you're supposed
to do that's right i was teaching my friend noodle slurps just the other day i made i i i my cooking's
been i have to say yeah pretty good ivised a soba noodle soup with leftover chicken,
and I used a bit of the bone to start the broth with.
And I had ginger in it and coriander.
Oh, it was delish.
But then I was like, you have to do it like this.
It was great.
One of my happiest memories from a trip to Japan
was going into a cheap and cheerful little noodle place,
like noodle soup place, udon soup. Yeah. And it was just full of like a cheap and cheerful little noodle place like noodle soup
place udon soup yeah and it was just full of you know businessmen on their own just going
just on their lunch break just like it would have been your absolute nightmare but i loved it
and i just thought about the guy who works there the cook who makes the chef who makes all the
noodles every all day that that's a soundtrack to his life is blink a dink blink a blonk blonk
like you know 12 what nine hours a day every day do you think um well to be fair to be fair over the long career that
you and i have had and will hopefully continue to have of going to good asian food places
what's clear to me about slurping the noodles and ramen and so on is that it's an essential
part of the actual like way to get the most out of the food.
Also, slurping the noodles is what it's called when you've really gone headfirst into East Asian culture.
It's like drinking the Kool-Aid.
Oh, yeah, he's really slurping the noodles.
What happened to Bill?
He's really slurped the noodles, yeah.
Yeah, moved to Korea.
The guy hasn't had plain food in years
uh but it's it's because like you're not going to get the some of the like the
so much of the flavor is in the broth and you're not going to get the broth without a bit of slurpy
slurp well yeah exactly yeah so i accept i i've come to completely accept it in the sense that
it's genuinely it's pragmatic it's not like a manners choice right yes yes yes because it is good manners
in the culture exactly yeah and it's what the people who made the food if it's really an
authentic place would expect so that's also part of politeness like i'm not so insane that i want
people to eat like a banana with a knife and fork, you know, because it's impractical. That's just silliness. Um, yeah. So yeah, I've, I've become, I've become slurp. I'm slurp positive
now. Have you seen that, uh, I've done slurp. Have you seen that video that did quite well on,
on online recently of, of, uh of a macaque, maybe,
peeling a banana and pulling off all the sinewy bits?
Pulling off the stringies from the banana.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's so picky.
Mm-mm.
It's one of those moments where you go, I'm not an arsehole.
Nature agrees.
There's something kind of comforting her
about that unless the truth is it's a macaque in captivity and the influence of pernickety humans
has been so great that you now even macaques are pulling pulling the stringy bits off of bananas
i did i did think like what what kind of jungle macaque is just like
to be wild, to be in nature
is almost defined by
a constant need for
just food, like there's never enough
so I did
think like who is this
who does this fucking monkey think
he is
but then if you're a dominant enough species
if you're a good enough
animal then i guess you get a lot of like downtime i mean what does the macaque really have to do
all day so aside from eat a banana and pick bugs out of its kids it's not in a rush it's not in a
rush it's already doing what it's going to do that day which is being a macaque like there's
some animals out there who are basically the fugitive their entire life.
They're just on the run, or they're born on the run.
Born on the run is a great name for something.
They were just born as prey, and they're like, oh, God, from the second they're born,
their parents are just like, come on, we've got to keep it moving.
Come on, come on, come on, come on.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't get a second's rest.
Literally, their first moments on Earth as a living being
are like in an action thriller where someone's like,
there's no time to explain, get in the chopper.
Yeah, like...
Those men aren't the police.
Like a rabbit or a small deer or a fucking worm or a...
Like a fish.
One of those...
Like a salmon.
It's always like, oh, Jesus Christ.
That's why they've always got such wide eyes.
Yeah, and always wriggling.
Exhausting being a Santa.
It does look exhausting.
Where it's like a lion is just like, I'll eat that later.
Do you think lions are like that?
Because that's just what it's like to have an all-meat diet.
You're just like, it's so hot.
It's so hot.
Yeah, my kingdom for a salad.
Just a salad and a rosé would be nice.
Oh, God, is it steak again?
Thanks, sweetheart.
Oh, God.
Exactly. Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Yes, exactly.
What's the word?
Do you think that's why animals like rabbits fuck so quickly?
Because they're just like, quick, quick, quick, quick, go.
Yeah.
Every, all sex when you're a rabbit is a quickie, isn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's no tantric rabbits.
Yeah, there's no rabbit like getting, getting on top and, like, riding out a guy.
It's, like, lusciously.
It's always just on the run,
just in a closet, like, under a bridge,
like, go, go, go, go, go, go.
If you...
What would you do, right?
Imagine this, right?
You're a farmer, okay? and you've got your big like
knobbly wooden walking stick and you're striding across the hills of your farming area
and you've got your binoculars you know you're out for a nice walk and you go
wait what's what's it and you look through the binoculars and there's a rabbit riding another rabbit cowgirl style
you'd call the police what would you do
yeah like she's holding up where she's like
playing with her ears like holding her ears
yeah yeah yeah
and then they see
you're shining a torch on them
the farmer shines his torch on them
And they run away
I swear I just saw that
Yeah you'd be freaked the hell out
You'd retire
Because you could never go to the pub
With all the other farmers and be like
I'll quaint the thing today
Because they'd never believe you
that's true
if you ever saw animals doing any other
position other than doggy style
you would have nightmares for years
yeah
can you imagine cows doing missionary
it's the most horrible thing
I've ever imagined
there'd be no angle
They're all too big, aren't they?
I think they could still fit
I think missionary
They could do missionary
Cows could do missionary
I guess birds
Kind of do missionary
They have to because that's where their pads are
Weird bird fuck I think some fish Birds kind of do missionary. They have to, because that's where their pads are. Yeah. They have to rub pads, don't they?
Weird bird fuck.
Well, like when...
I think some fish even do missionary, which is nuts.
Well, they just kind of explode all over each other, don't they?
I think they're different.
There's some, like, salmon...
The lady squirts...
When a lady salmon and a boy salmon love each other very much,
the lady salmon just sort of squirts her eggs into some rocks
and goes yeah you deal with that
and then the man salmon comes and like
he has to pull out a magazine
full of fish in it and he has a little
wank and he squirts
imagine if that's how humans did it
where you just walked into an alleyway and there were a load of eggs
and you go ha ha ha
yes
also I've just had this thought I like fish sperm do fish sperm look like little people and there are a lot of eggs. You go, ha ha! Yes.
Also, I've just had this thought.
I like fish sperm.
Do fish sperm look like little people?
Is that how it works?
Yeah, they look like tiny synchronized swimmers.
Do guy fish call their sperm my walkers? yeah they jog my joggers they look like they jog yeah they're just a light jog towards the eggs
yeah if you look at fish semen under microscope just loads of people go but but they're jogging
at that pace where like someone's trying to cross the road a bit faster as a favor to a car right yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah they kind of half jog they they they give you a little wave
through the microscope all right cheers sorry just off to the egg cheers
oh my god imagine the relief of being that farmer and spending years being like, I'm telling you, the rabbits on my land, they're different.
They make love.
They make love.
They don't just fuck, they make love.
Like I've never even seen.
And then eventually someone, like everyone's laughing at you.
It's like that scene from Beauty and the Beast.
You know, crazy old Maurice.
It's true.
They did. They dated cowgirl. You know, crazy old Maurice It's true, they did
They dated cowgirl
I saw them fuck
With lots of love
No way, who say
He's lost his marbles
I guess the rabbits on my farm
Are different I guess the rabbits on my farm are different.
And then eventually, I've seen it too.
The relief.
We've come up with two great kids films today.
Brilliant kids films.
Really good children's films.
Clowns vs. Mimes and and rabbit love rabbits on top
rabbits on top and the beast i don't know yeah i think beauty and the rabbit sounds like a
different kind of film but i mean it's not like disney hasn't played an important role in this
in this tradition i mean the sexy foxes from Robin Hood, are you kidding?
Oh, mate!
Their sex tape
would do so well. Who wouldn't want to
watch that? They'd be the
new Kardashians. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh.
Robin Hood's
not even wearing pants.
Yeah, they're already ready and raring to go them
and winnie the pooh yes well that's the funny thing isn't it is that that robin hood fox is so
sexy but it's very rare for a man to be able to carry off a covered top and a bare bottom
that's right it's not a sexy combo it isn't
it's not a sexy combo yes yeah Disney have a lot to answer for
when it comes to all the
the sexy animals they've made
and all the kind of like
sexy animal enthusiasts that you might find
online that are referenced in
memes
what memes?
you got all the furries right they dress up in those suits
oh yeah
and bronies is that quite an old Oh, yeah. And bronies?
Is that quite an old thing, bronies?
Yeah, the bronies thing.
Like, guys were into My Little Pony.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Very surreal.
I've never...
My younger sister was into My Little Pony,
and I've never thought,
oh, I'd love to be mates with them.
Right, yeah.
But then maybe I wasn't trying.
Maybe it's my fault.
Well, maybe you need to open your mind
Grandad
You little stick in the mud
Shall we
Have a look at some correspondence
Yes, let's do that
Letters, emails, phone calls
Your sister.
Keep a straight eye.
To whom you are referring.
Letters.
Correspondence.
Correspondence.
It's correspondence.
We're going to do a correspondence special next week, listeners.
And maybe quite a few of them.
Maybe we should just try and break the goddamn back of this thing.
Yeah, I mean, it's become a farce the amount of times we've said
we're finally going to get to the bottom of this mailbag.
I mean, we never do.
It's kind of like, was it the Golden Gate Bridge mailbag?
Yes.
As soon as we're done reading, it is refilled again.
Golden Gate Bridge
that's been covered in shit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
By the time you've cleaned the shit off of Golden Gate Bridge,
you have to start again. Yeah, exactly.
So,
Bill gets in touch.
Bill!
Talk to Phil. There you go.
Hello, PNP included.
Nice, I like that.
As a founding farter,
tatataco tweeter, and a previous emailer
of authoritarian thoughts, I thought I'd get in touch.
You mentioned recently, so this is
actually a recent one I picked.
You mentioned
recently about universities going bust without
international students.
It is literally my job to persuade these students to come here.
Ah.
Primarily, I used to travel around India promoting the university I work for.
Now I get to travel around California persuading Americans to travel here.
That's not a bad gig, is it?
And he says, yes, we are all fucked currently.
Yeah, gosh.
And what a sweet gig to lose Yeah what a shame
Just travelling around the world going
Hey psst
You want a degree
Like he just opens up his coat and just loads of degrees
Hey psst hey
Hey kids you want
Your education to get a little higher
I got M fills I've got B size You want your education to get a little higher?
I got M-fills.
I've got B-sides.
I've got B-A's.
Whatever you want.
You want an M-A?
It's going to take me a little more time, but yeah, I can do that.
You want a jurisprudence?
I got a couple in the back.
But yeah, of course.
So he says, we're all fucked currently fucked currently He says I have a few stories
Both poo and non-poo themed
But I thought I would garnish your day with a poo story
Garnish our day
That's very funny
That took place in Mumbai
This is a higher education poo story
That's right
This is a poo story that has come with an invigilator
Yes
The poo more travelled by So a poo story that has come with an invigilator. Yes, the poo more travelled by.
So a poo story that took place in Mumbai.
Not a deli belly, but a Bombay belly.
Although an alliteration which I think everyone likes,
but the colonial alliteration doesn't have the same ring to it.
Will we get rid of Bombay named products next?
Now, I've been told by Indian people that they still say Bombay.
Yeah, it's that sort of thing it's like just because some places has a new name doesn't mean people that
like it or that was given to them under any nicer circumstances like burma is a much nicer
name than myanmar i would say yeah and it's not like the people who took over burma were not a vicious military hunter
so it's like what name do you go yeah i have heard that the the myanmar thing was like by the
the demand of like the evil military dictatorship genocidal dictatorship so you go well is that the
same is that good i don't know maybe we should be like mr burns and just talk about like siam and
prussia just deliberately fuck it up as old as possible so people think you're just mad Maybe we should be like Mr. Burns and just talk about like Siam and Prussia.
Just deliberately fuck it up as old as possible so people think you're just mad.
Anyway, so now this story starts with me working with educational agents.
They essentially push students to go to certain universities, and we as a university pay them a commission on every student enrolled.
Oh, okay.
A bounty, if you will, Phil.
Yeah.
It varies per institution,
but it can be anything between 10% to 25% of first-year fees.
That's loads.
Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
Now, I often have to go to dinner
and sit having conversations and so on with these agents.
Wait, wait, wait.
The agents commission is tend to...
No, no, no.
Yeah. Oh, no, first-year fees. Well, no, are they not saying... agents and a lot of the agents could the agents commission this tend to no no no yeah oh no first
year fees well no i they're not saying as you're not saying for the university
foreign students make up 10 to 25 percent of first year fees going into the university no no no this
is the commission paid to the agents really yeah that's loads okay um now i often have to go to
dinner and sit having chats with these agents And a lot of food comes past me
And I have to politely eat whatever is placed in front of me
I'm a vegetarian when I travel
As it is easier to explain
And you get away with not having to eat various awful products
Clever
Plus you can eat extremely well as a vegetarian
In the Indian subcontinent
And he says but I still have to eat, eat and eat
Whatever is given to me for risk of offending any party
Now I am in Mumbai And he says, but I still have to eat, eat, and eat whatever is given to me for risk of offending any party.
Now I'm in Mumbai, and we go to a restaurant that specializes in street food, lovely food, all different dishes.
Now after a few hours of general food malaise and discussions about a London University business degree, I begin to feel a bit worse for wear.
Like I have been squeezed in the stomach, And I just need to go to the toilet So I get up from the table
And excuse myself and ask a staff member where the toilet is
There is no toilet I'm informed
I'm confused
A restaurant without a toilet
I ask my agent to help me out
And I'm informed that there is a toilet
And not just a western toilet
Think French service station style
Just a hole in the ground
Oh yes, classic, squatter Just not a western toilet. Think French service station style. Just a hole in the ground.
Oh, yes. Classic. Squatter.
Yeah.
He says, I approach the toilet with trepidation,
but to my surprise, I'm quite adept at using this approach to emptying my bowels.
No real problem.
I think it's supposed to be a bit better. I think the orientation that it puts your body in is actually more closer to how we're naturally supposed to poo.
Well, there was that squatty potty.
Ah. Remember that? That step you could buy?
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
And it puts your legs up in front of you
on the bog, so you're doing like a crouch
without crouching.
Yeah, like a frog in it.
Yes.
The bog frog. That's what they should
have called it, the bog frog.
That's a good mystical creature. Yeah. That's what they should have called it. The bog frog. Bog frog. That's a good mystical creature.
Yeah.
That's like something from the later Harry Potter books.
Yeah.
Which is running out of ideas.
Running out of ideas.
Then there was a bog frog.
And it had a wand.
I don't know.
Yes.
So that was all sort of fine, says uh he says my real problem came later
in the evening i had a trouser touching journey from south mumbai to the center of the city back
to my hotel and i made it it was all fine the problem came in the evening i plainly and simply
shit the bed thanks for keeping it simple bill. I was sleeping peacefully one second, and the next I was in a malaise of shit.
A malaise?
Yes.
A miasma.
Yeah.
Watery bile, he says.
Oof! Yikes!
With a similar colour to Session IPA.
Oh, I can see that so clearly.
Dark yellow-brown.
That's such a good reference point.
Because it's got a bit of froth as well.
From the sheer force.
Horrible. I've grossed myself out there.
He continues, it was bad.
Yeah, it goes without saying.
It seeped through the mattress protector into the mattress.
Oh, Bill. I stripped the bed and went mattress protector into the mattress. No, Bill.
I stripped the bed and went and sat on the toilet.
I rang housekeeping from the bathroom as there was a phone in the bathroom
and the brown muck was still seeping from me.
That's how regularly this happens.
The hotel manager's like,
we're going to have to start putting the phones in the bathrooms because...
They were just saying, saying look we don't know
what it is but white people come here and they've just burst
they pop like fucking turd balloons we've got a clue put it in the loo
you know i'll put the tv in the loop We have en suite telephones
Yeah
So there's a fan in the bathroom
He says they would be up as quick as possible
To change the sheets
Now I was in quite a posh hotel
Nice bathroom, view from the bath into the bedroom
With a nice piece of glass
But I had forgotten to lower the blind in the bathroom
So I was in full view of my own
bed and my toilet.
Full view of my bed and my toilet.
I realized this too late. As the housekeeping
came in, they saw a fully naked me
with some poo placed upon me
scrambling for the blinds
and a bathrobe.
I slipped and fell on the floor.
Oh, man.
No.
Oh, no.
Better save some dignity.
What?
Oh, no.
So he slips and falls on the floor.
I lay in a heap on the floor in full view
while the staff were changing the sheets
of my recently ruined bed.
The staff, ever so polite and ever so courteous,
entered my bathroom and dutifully replaced my towels
that I had placed around myself by this point
and left a little business card saying,
your room was cleaned by Abhishek.
Please apologize to Abhishek.
Please pay his family a restitution every day for the rest of his life.
Bill says, thank you, Abhishek,
for stepping into the war zone of my brown missiles.
Yes, indeed.
He says this was in week one.
Like Omaha Beach.
The flap on the boat.
You can't stay on the beach.
He says I was in week one of a three week trip.
I was booked to stay in this hotel again at the end of the trip too, and when I
rechecked in weeks later
from what he says, the staff had provided
me with the Indian version of Imodium
and hydrating salts on my pillow.
Wow. How nice is that? Oh, that's so sweet.
That's so nice. They were like, we remember you, the
bum explosion man.
Ah, yes. The brown
the water balloon full of brown liquid.
Yes.
Do you remember you?
Yes.
The water balloon full of session hail.
Imagine like this.
Is there anything like the kindness of strangers in a scenario like that?
When you need them the most.
When you the most need
someone to not be like, oh my god!
Yeah, you feel like you're
in a Bible story.
Yes!
Yeah!
The parable of the shitter.
Ah, the prodigal poor.
Yes. Yeah, has returned. And yea, the prodigal poor. Yes.
Has returned. And yea,
the man who hath helped the shitter did make no mention of the smell
or ye mess.
For it was known to the man
that both he and the shitter would receive
their due
in the kingdom of God.
I remember a story that Bill reminded me of.
So trying to keep your eating requirements simple
when eating abroad.
Yes.
As someone I know,
he's sort of a live comedy producer
and he travels around a lot.
But he's surprisingly fussy about what he
eats for someone who travels so much and he was in china once and he was at a chinese dinner and
he doesn't like he doesn't eat fish of any kind he's one of these people can't eat any seafood
and they presented him at dinner with a big fish like a big chinese style steamed fish just just like
lying on some black beans or whatever i'm sure it's delicious but it's just like like the nightmare
if you don't like seafood just a full fish laying yeah looking at you and and so he said oh no i
can't i can't eat this i'm afraid i don't because the nice thing about chinese people is you know
they're they're really into their eating requirements and so if you say like
oh I don't eat a particular type of food
they're like oh of course of course and they take it away
and so he said I don't eat seafood
I don't eat seafood and they're like oh of course
so they took the fish away
and then they came back with another fish
and they handed it to him
just there
like that and he went
oh no sorry I can't eat this i don't eat seafood
and they said oh no yeah it's fine this is from a river
no way yeah that's how that's how specific chinese eating requirements can get where they go oh of
course yeah oh we'll get you nothing from the sea this is from a river that's amazing completely
different did they think he was doing that kind of chinese thing of like oh you nothing from the sea. This is from a river. That's amazing. Completely different. Did they think he was doing that kind of Chinese thing of like,
oh no, stuff from the sea has a hot energy and I need cold energy.
Absolutely.
Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's amazing.
You can say, oh, I've got arthritis now,
so I'm not eating anything from seawater.
Living in seawater.
And they go, yeah, of course, yeah.
Yes, yes, yes.
The wrong energy for my whole thing over here yeah there's this um
idea of heatiness i grew up with you don't want your body to get too heaty and some some foods
make you very heaty yeah and some foods foods combat the heatiness so if you just said seafood
makes me very very heaty they go yes of course there's something from a river do you do you remember that um i
think it was you and me we were speaking to a a couple who i think one was like chinese chinese
and one was british chinese when and where was this was that someone's birthday it was in oh no
maybe basically what it was was this guy's wife was like chinese as in like from china chinese
and he'd gone and like visited their like their whole you know extended family this is my husband
kind of thing and um he was he was saying that like none of them could believe that westerners
drank like water with ice in and stuff right yeah yeah yeah because they were like that's so
dangerous that's so bad for you you're all yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah cold drinks are not really on after when i went when i went to china
you always drank hot water yeah if you didn't if you like you didn't fancy drinking anything
you i'll just have some water and it would just come by default hot and i got really into it and
and i'm now kind of addicted to hot i love it if it's late at night and I want a hot drink I just have hot water
it's great, it's really calming
I've been over caffeinating myself
like a mad thing
yeah man
we've got a little email
from Lewis
Lewis, tell us about your poo-is
well, so
another more
recent one
Lewis says, hi PNP
In this week's episode
You mentioned the architecture of New Broadcasting House
The pedo statues
Oh yeah
So he says, Little Tommy Robinson was correct to be outraged
The sculptures on the front
Were by Eric Gill
A celebrated artist of the time.
So he says what he may not be aware of, he being Little Tommy, is that Eric Gill also did a number of commissions for TFL, including their former headquarters near Victoria, and even assisted with a typeface for the underground.
Plus his own typeface, Gill Sans, is widely used today on the covers of Penguin Books to the john lewis logo and the band block
party and the standard typeface of the bbc itself yikes he says wow he does everywhere
it's peters all the way down yeah he says yikes koji lewis thank you for that lewis terrifying
that's a great fact of course gil sands A font that I was obsessed with for a while.
At uni, I set my default font on Microsoft Word to Gil Sands.
That's incredible. I didn't make that connection.
That's a great little tidbit.
Isn't that amazing? Excellent work.
I think that's pretty good.
Before we start diving into the correspondence
with both feet, as they say?
Yes, yep, yep, yep.
An illegal tackle into the correspondence.
That's right.
We're going to get sent a red card
for how wonderfully we tackle the correspondence.
We're going to...
Lockdown is the time for everyone to get around
to those things that they haven't done before.
Like getting sent off.
Like getting sent off in Like getting sent off.
In a metaphorical game.
Well.
Good to talk to you Pierre.
I hope you have a nice week.
And I hope you too Podbuds have a wonderful week.
And we'll talk to you soon.
Thanks guys. Bye.
Bye.