My Dad Wrote A Porno - Footnotes: My Dad Wrote A Porno Too

Episode Date: October 24, 2019

Jamie's sister Alexa joins the gang to offer a fresh perspective on what it's like when your dad writes a porno and give us a glimpse into growing up in the Flintstone clan Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to my dad wrote a porno the footnotes now we've got a very very special guest this week I've known her my entire life and I think that she can give us insights on Rocky that maybe even I can't. Her dad wrote a porno too. It's my sister Alexa. Yay! Lex, my God. Lex in the house. Could we call you Ms Flintstone? Is that how you'd like to be addressed?

Yeah, well, you know, anything goes these days. Well, I have loads of questions about Rocky, but I have loads of questions about Jamie too. Oh, that's good. So maybe we should just, you know, the elephant in the room is, of course, Val Harris. that's good so maybe we should just you know the elephant in the room is of course val harris she's no elephant my friend she's a dainty lady yeah jamie's passed in the theater so jamie told us a few weeks ago that basically throughout his childhood he used to spend his saturday nights not night backstage no you said nights you said that's how you like

backstage at the altering, what was it called? It's the Club Theatre. It's now the Little Theatre. Just hanging out with people, writing plays. She was one of the people that I went with. You did it too? Mm-hmm. We wrote a panto once.

An entire panto, Jamie and I, cast the whole thing from our friends around where we lived, had auditions in the cellar. I wouldn't call it a panto. It was a panto. Sorry, auditions in the cellar, anybody a panto it was a panto sorry auditions in the cellar anybody also your friends in the nearby regions how old were the friends because jamie painted a picture of the friends being 50 60 70 plus no between the ages of i don't know 10 and 15

she's saying 15 or 50 1 5 there were the people in the club theater people like mike and john and vicky lane and people those people yeah but they weren't our friend these two are obsessed with the fact that they were our friends they weren't our friends they were our mentors yeah what eight-year-old has a mentor i'm sorry can i just quickly go back to the auditions in the cellar so you wrote a panto you auditioned children a play it was a very serious play you cool fine but you invited children into your cellar

our friends not children we were old we were children yeah we were also children we were 15 or so you were 15 we were like 10

we were 8 or 15 or 20 or so that sounds very dodgy you were 15 inviting children into the cellar I don't think so this was after we'd won

the award for the best play, which was the comedy. Yes, Pick and Mix. Pick and Mix. Oh, my days. Why have all my Christmases come early? No, Pick and Mix was a great one-act play. It actually won the one-act play award.

The Hale One-Act Play Festival Award. The top cellar plays of the year. And it was very highly influenced by Victoria Wood's Dinner Ladies. It was a character piece. What was it about? Dinner Ladies. Literally. It was about two cleaners at WH Smith's.

Or was it Woolworths? Woolworths. I think it was Woolworths. Which is a very... Very upmarket shop. Yeah. It's a stationery shop, right? Pick and mix. And they were famous for their pick and... Yeah, it's a stationery shop, right? Pick and mix.

And they were famous for their pick and... Yeah, it was Woolworths, because they were famous for their pick and mix stall. Do you remember? Internationally, I don't know if... Is that what it's called, where you get to choose your own sweets? Yes, exactly.

Or candies. A little buffet of sweets that you have to pay for individually and via weight. Weight, yeah. And so we played the two cleaners. We were Horace and... Madge.

Madge, okay. And it was basically about us and the people who worked in the shop and their kind of daily trials, tribulations. It was very kind of Ken Loach, Mike Lee. Yeah, sounds it. Sheila Delaney, kitchen sink drama. Lovely.

Sorry, the auditions in the cellar. Oh my God, he's obsessed with the cellar. No, just quickly though. So you'd audition them and then you'd give them parts and then did that go on to be a production? We did used to like put on, you know, little skits and plays for mum and dad. But I guess you guys did that as well. You definitely did.

We've talked about this before. Oh, yeah. Well, we had a rudimentary keyboard. I mean, you're going to use that to your advantage, aren't you? That demo button's not going to play itself. No, lovely. And James, you used to perform, didn't you? Well, I had a Paul Daniels magic set.

And I used to like learn the tricks from that. And then I'd gather the family around and perform the tricks. One was where lots of small sponges became a big sponge. Many sponges. Honestly, my family were dazzled. You don't see much sponge work these days. You don't. You don't.

It is a lost art. For good reason, I would argue. Darren Brown's put it aside, hasn't he, and the like. More fool him. David Blaine, like, I could get in a giant glass cube or I could make a massive sponge out of tiny sponges. But anyway, we're not talking about me. We're talking about Dad and how Dad's newfound career

has kind of impacted the Flintstone family, right? Well, OK, so let's take it back a bit. So what was your reaction, Alexa, when you first heard about your dad? When did you first hear about it for a start and how did you react? Was it a surprise? Oh, huge surprise. And quite frankly, I was really annoyed because I'm the first born here. Was I sent the manuscript?

So it's your inheritance, really? Yeah, no. Who was sent the manuscript? The boy. The Mortons pride themselves on not being remotely a sexist family. And quite frankly, I beg to differ. As do the books, a little. Just a touch. so why do you think he sent it to jamie over you i think it was some sort of weird honorary filial you know demonstration of love i don't think he would have

thought that you would understand but were you surprised because we've met your dad before like this all started were you really surprised like you know what he's like i was not surprised when i found out how hilarious it was and how brilliantly sort of naive it has the stamp of dad as you talk about so much all those little details when we drink to the you know furniture and you know items like that it's very dad but it's also i think it's a bit glorious i think it's pretty wonderful to do that at that time in your life i mean why shouldn't everyone do that well i mean you know in various forms whatever whatever the the medium is that they choose i mean not everybody needs to choose pornography no no and dare we call it pornography at this stage i don't know

i mean he could have written pick a mix too but no he decided on belinda blink it's been done he's nothing but an original very true very true when you think back to your childhood with jamie and the others and the other gals um what's the like biggest rocky moment that you can think of where he's been a wind-up merchant i mean i know they were constant right yeah oh my god i mean so many you say that and i'm bamboozled with options so this is just part of a campaign of trying to screw these kids i mean i remember being a teenager once and i was allowed to have sort of mini not quite a house party but a group of people around and we were all very drunk and it must have been about two or three in the morning

and mum and dad were out and they came back and we were in like you know we were allowed in the nice sitting room so obviously trusted friends jealous you know group of gals and guys

you know having a really nice time we were all quite pissed mum and dad came in obviously dad absolutely blasted completely off his tits and he comes in and he goes everyone I'm Yuri Geller

and he comes in and he goes everyone I'm Yuri Geller and he pulls he pulled a spoon out of his pocket and started to try and bend the spoon to impress my teenage friends and I just remember thinking do I go mortified or all my friends were killing themselves laughing going he's an absolute legend and that's when I think I just realized he's wonderful and I just laughed my head off and ever since then they were like how's Yuri? You've got to embrace it that's the thing about Rocky like don't push against it just let it

come into your life. Let that spoon not bend because it won't. Family holidays as well Jamie's always told us about how he used to burn CDs with just 20 versions 20 repetitions of the same song on it what else would happen on holiday with your dad? One of my favourite stories is when we had a caravan attached to the car so you've got four children and obviously our wonderful mum wilma in the front and the caravan's attached it's all

fine apart from dad decides that he wants to take the scenic route uh-oh we're going up this limestone hill basically in rural france with a caravan. Oh, my God. Yeah, you remember this. Oh, no. And mum was like, I don't think this is sensible because the water's been high. We had to go over some kind of little ford thing. It was like midnight. And it was midnight. And there were lots of children.

I think I was about 16 or so. So everyone's younger than me. So this is a, you know, this is a troop of youngsters. It's late at night. Are you in the car or the caravan as the kids? We're all in the car. They would never dare put us in the caravan with the vehicle moving alice is that not allowed it was dad driving no you shouldn't even be in the car yeah exactly the car you take your life

we'd be safer in the roof rack to be honest anyway so we're going up this stupid limestone hill essentially and because we've been through the ford before the caravan comes disattached right so the caravan disattaches it so it's been clunked too much ah brick sharn we all have to run up we've all got flip-flops on it's the summer in france it's been raining it's all slippery we have to try and push a caravan up a limestone hill wait how old are you how old is this band of mechanics 16 i am and then everyone's down from that so what's the youngest like eight seven little seven year old i think actually no i have to say she was no use just they were put to the side they were put on the verge the little ones the little girls sorry they'll hate that but they were put to the side because that was dangerous

it was fine for us to risk our lives but but not the little girls. Just imagining, like, little Bea, like, oh, so tired, been asleep in the car. And I was like, no, get your gloves on, you're pushing the caravan. You won't any sleep tonight, you're pushing that caravan up a limestone hill. But can I just say, we did push it up the hill and we continued on our journey for the next four hours. We did. So it was not in vain. I mean, that's why the Flintstones had so many children,

because if you get into those predicaments, you're going to need some kids. A workforce. Absolutely. But it's literally the Flintstones as well. You know when they had their feet in the car? It is. That's where it came from.

Maybe that was the inspo. What an image. No, yeah, that was a particularly horrible one. Do you listen to the podcast? Oh, absolutely. You've heard it all? Yeah, I love it. So what do you,

what do the wider family, as the representative for the family right now sorry jamie um the mouthpiece what does everyone think so proud and that's why we're batshit that's why we're mental i know it's mad to say that but honestly i feel so so proud for so proud of my dad for just being such a mentalist to sit down and do it in the first place. And so proud of Jamie and, you know, always been such a wonderful brother of mine and so proud of all his achievements,

not to sound all blah, but it's true. What are you reading? You're reading this. No, but what's it given you? I mean, what I would say as well is I have to say it's a huge testament to my mum because my dad wouldn't be my dad, wouldn't be allowed to be my dad

without my mum's support and her amazingness. We to talk wilma she's cisco great there were moments though at the beginning right where she was like i don't think so not happening oh no she doesn't listen no offense to jay no she doesn't i mean she doesn't want to ruin her marriage she listened to emma thompson yes some of the michael sheen likes. She won't listen to this. No, she won't. Say what you want. You don't have an Oscar. Sorry, darling. I mean, no. Yeah, but so she'll listen to some footnotes,

but she doesn't listen to the content because that's not what it's about for her. She's very proud of Dad. She's so, so proud of Jamie, you know. What does she think we do? Yes, it helps not to listen. She's got that lovely poetry show that they do. She calls it Jamie's show. No, she does not.

She does. She said to my friend, because my friend was like, are you going on any holidays? And mum said, oh, we're just going to be seeing a bit of Jamie's show. That's very euphemistic. That's like when my aunt says, oh, James has got a special friend. Yes. Yeah, exactly.

Yes. And what's their relationship like? James, that's none of your goddamn business. Thank you, Alex. But she kind of manages him, doesn't she? James, that's none of your goddamn business. Thank you, Alan. But she kind of manages him, doesn't she? She's almost become Rocky Flintstone's manager at this point. Poor, poor woman. I mean, you can all empathise around this table.

Well, the thing with mum and dad is they are an extraordinary partnership and that's what they are. No one really manages anybody. They are a partnership. They are a duo. And there are moments when it might appear that one person is kind of cooperating a little bit about that because they wanted to do something else but essentially it is a partnership and there's no manager I mean you've met Rocky there's not really any managing of the man so if you have listened to a lot just going back to

before is there anything that you've noticed from real life is there stuff you're like oh my god that's from that um certainly his travel around the world certainly his fascination my dad is such a people person he can talk to as Jamie mentioned he can get on with anyone in any language he's extraordinary he has this wonderful bonhomie he just oozes it and everyone's just like ah he's great and I've been to Brazil with them because I used to work out there and honestly, it is a hoot. Anything you imagine is nowhere near as funny as the actual situation

that you get. Brilliant story. So he needed to get some kind of rat trap or rat poison or something. I can't wait to come stay. For a friend. And he did this whole charade.

He was doing that. He pushed his lips up, was doing the teeth, was doing the claws at the face. Finally, Mike was scuttling along with his fingers along the um the counter to try and get this product and then the word is ratos and that was the word same thing happened when he acted out diarrhea in the pharmacy the word is gia here it's literally like and then i was like yeah here

doing all the pointing never last so much in my life vomito was the same spent all the time acting being sick repeat to faith the word was vomito I mean you can't make it up as you said you can't make it up I feel like if he got rid of the ratos he might not have the d'orio and the vomito are there any bits in the book which have particularly made you uncomfortable as uh offspring of rocky flintstone occasionally yes i mean i isn't surely the sexy stuff yeah some of the anatomical details perhaps yeah some of the sexy stuff especially when it's just a bit gross as we all know but also that i find that more hilarious but i'm also a bit like oh bless you you're nearly there you're just so

often so close so close you know he's in the right area geographically sometimes. And he's got the sort of, he's trying for the mood. He's trying for the sort of moment, but he doesn't. And also, can I just say, I think her tits hung like pomegranates is a bloody great simile. Do you know what? Actually, since the early days, yeah, loads of people have pointed out that it's another text. Like, it's a thing. How pert they are.

The juiciness of fruit thinking about adam and eve and the apple the forbidden like i just think that's not what he was come on this is revisionist history like it's not what he was thinking about when he wrote it drunk on sangria come on he's got a lot of bible knowledge dad i'm telling you it's subconscious but it's sorry i think you could go back to it a little bit some of this is not bible worthy some of this would be i would say frowned upon alexa i really want competitions for reciting the scriptures at school yeah it was dead good him and his brother they took every gospel by heart are you says could he still do it to this

day no he's he's he's uh lost the faith hasn't he a bit i think the faith might have lost him more to the point also i can imagine your dad remixing them and being like as long as it's ballpark you don't like it's just you know roughly the same stations of the cross so at some point you did this yeah whatever simon of sirene who somebody yeah tell us more about brazil because you mentioned it's a wild time do they party a lot over there and oh they're so much fun i mean honestly sometimes keeping up is quite hard and a good few years younger than my mum and dad obviously because they're my parents but i do have to sometimes gird my loins and go come on lecture cracking on do they go to carnival yes i've been dad's joined in in the parade one time i lost them um at a carnival in the northeast near her sea feed around there i was

a bit worried about losing my parents and i'm sure they i mean they didn't even notice i was gone so that's great they're just having a wonderful and i found them dancing to dire straits just flinging themselves around in this incredible sky spangled with stars with all these everyone just dancing and laughing and just wonderful they are party people aren't they they are they really are does rocky talk about the books and the podcast quite a lot these days or is he does he is he good at keeping them separate he's much better at keeping them separate, actually. I remember once Jamie saying, Dad, it's Christmas.

You are Dad, not Rocky. And he was like, okay, doing that mocking and pretending to listen to you face. But he did actually listen, bless him. Yeah, he did. Because I think you can get so excited about things. And that's that whole point about his effervescence and his enthusiasm for life, which our family do, I would like to say,

you know, have as a whole. But that's part of it. And he's not doing it to be irritating or to be arrogant necessarily. He's doing it because he's so, but that's part of it. And he's not doing it to be irritating or to be arrogant necessarily. He's doing it because he's so, ooh, what's happened, Lecce? And it is exciting. You know, this show's done, you know,

crazy things for him. It has. And he's so proud of all of you. And he loves it. Do you know, the first time he played me an episode of the podcast, I was in Spain with mum and dad and he went, Lecce, just listen to her.

They've just made it magnificent. Oh! He was so proud. He, when you were ripping the piss out of him, you were rinsing him, that everything it was worth, he was in hysterics. Watching him listen to it is brilliant. Yeah.

When I got back and played the Lynn episode, he was literally bouncing off the walls. He was so excited. I mean, he was writing more songs, but... I've never seen him listen to an episode. Oh, you should. It's absolutely adorable.

Because that's the thing we get asked most, like, how does he take it? Because obviously we do occasionally criticise him. Every now and then. And people are always like, is he not upset?

But he's just, the phrase I always use is impervious to offence. Like, he's just somebody who, but he loves it. Yeah, and he really thinks it's funny.

Like, because he can see his own flaws. He's not stupid. Like, he's literally like who but he loves it yeah he loves it and he really thinks it's funny like because he can see his own flaws he's not stupid like he's literally like that's that's fucking true she's got me there yeah exactly because also he never wrote these

thinking that he was a great writer you know it isn't like he's you know been struggling for 60 years to become this great writer he's now got the time to do it like this was just a bit of fun in the garden shed literally if we were to get him a token of our appreciation and affection what do you think is the perfect gift for rocky flintstone oh that's a good question he's quite tough to buy for yeah but he's also very sweet you could literally get him a chocolate orange

oh we'd love that thank you yeah honestly i mean that's default every christmas for me but when you bought him the poster and you signed it and he absolutely loved that that was i mean he's never gonna cry but if he could ever be brought to tears emotionally for rocky he loved that yeah we did get him a poster of the uh was that the royal albert hall loved, so proud. Because it's a team, you know, and as much as, obviously, he is very much Rocky, he knows he's part of a team, he loves being part of the team, he's so proud of all of you, as well as, obviously, so amazingly surprised and loving the fact that his work has found this spotlight, but he's so proud of what you guys have done.

So he would, yeah, something like that he'd love. Well, we feel like we've joined the Flintstone family family business we're sort of adoptees aren't we you're just like two more of his children really i would push that caravan any day of the week true love it's been so nice to have you on because it's just given us a bit of like a different perspective on what we might normally like you've made him sound like a more because we hear like the silly stories and you know like alistair's always like critiquing what he does but it's nice to just hear about him as a more rounded human being

Alexa I feel like to top it off you should say the thing that really only you and Jamie and the girls can say. My dad wrote a poem. Yes he did!