Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe's Parenting Hell - S01 EP27: Dara Ó Briain

Episode Date: July 28, 2020

ROB BECKETT & JOSH WIDDICOMBE'S 'LOCKDOWN PARENTING HELL' - S01 EP27: Dara Ó BriainJoining us in the studio this episode to discuss the highs and lows of parenting (and life) during the lock down and beyond is the brilliant comedian and presenter, Dara Ó Briain.Find out more about the great range of school uniform available from F&F at Tesco here: https://bit.ly/BackToSchoolPC Available in selected larger stores. Subject to availability. Excludes Next.Enjoy. Rate and Review. Thanks. xxx If you want to get in touch with the show here's how:EMAIL: [e-mail]: @lockdownparent INSTAGRAM: @lockdown_parenting(And the NikNak account is @penrosehouse #niknaksafety)A 'Keep It Light Media' Production Sales, advertising, and general enquiries: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The show in which Rob and I discuss what it's like to be a parent during lockdown, which I would say can be a little tricky. So, in an effort to make some kind of sense of the current situation... And to make me feel better about my increasingly terrible parenting skills... Each episode we'll be chatting to a famous parent about how well they're coping. Or hopefully not. And we will be hearing from you, the listener, with your tales of lockdown parenting woe. Because let's be honest, none of us know what we're doing.

Hello and welcome to Lockdown Parenting Hell with... Can you say the following things? Following things. Rob Beckett. Rob Beckett. Josh Widdicombe. Josh Widdicombe. There we go, that is a special one that I recorded earlier because we are at my house.

Yeah, and that is your daughter. That is my, that's my daughter. That is my wife. That's my daughter. And this is the first time we've ever done this in a room together. It feels weird looking at each other. It is odd. You don't know where to look, do you? You know what? I haven't been catfished. You are, as I imagine.

Turn up and it's James Acaster all the time. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so it's been Acaster all the time. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so it's been weird actually because I'm normally just on my own, but now we're looking at each other. How do you feel? I've just realised that because we're at the opposite ends of a table,

normally on a panel show, you're not facing people. This is like Frost Nixon. Yeah, it's quite combative. Yeah. How are you? Yeah, good. I've got to ask oh yeah

did you see the coin that your daughter swallowed no so the penny is still in the stomach and I know this because I've got a metal detector oh does it work well yeah so we I found an area of the garden that was no like beeping and then I got the eldest to lie down no noise youngest to lie down it's been like a week now and it should go between 48 hours and five days it should have gone through so lou's ringing the gp today to try and get an x-ray to make sure it's not lodged can you can you do the beep and then draw across where it is and then go back the next day and see if it's moved i mean it looks like i'm gonna operate on her. But yeah, we could do that.

But he's still in her. But what? How much is it? Lou's been going through the poo by hand, obviously with gloves. But I said, stop doing that. Leave the poo in the potty. Then we'll metal detect her. Oh, yeah, of course.

Going down that route first. She was in with a glove and a bag. No, leave that. So yeah, hopefully it'll come out soon it may as we speak it may have come out or we may have to take it

for a little extra or something to see where it is but yeah fingers crossed imagine if it came out but then she was still beeping oh god yeah there might be more in there

than you think like little Terminator baby she's actually made of metal they're doing x-ray and it's like a full robot this is where you find out you're in a Truman Show style thing

um thank you for coming to East London yes um you know what East London I forget how East London do an x-ray and it's like a full robot this is where you find out you're in a Truman Show style thing um thanks for coming to East London yes um you know what East London I forget how East London East London is

the price difference in shops for the same thing is mental when I got here I got here early and I was starving like you know when you're so hungry

you need something you're having like a sugar you need something so I wanted like a can of fizzy drink and like a bag of crisps just something to keep me going

right so I tried to get a Diet Coke and a packet of Walkers absolutely no chance come on mate who do you think you are? I feel like Nicholas Lindhurst goodnight sweetheart that was filmed in the

I can show you the street that was filmed on really? ok well that's good to know but yeah so anyway I went into a local point of interest do you want to do the

Nicholas Lindhurst vlog? don't give away your location everyone will know where that, so anyway, I went into... Local point of interest. Do you want to do the necklace? Don't give away your location. Everyone will know where that is now. Yeah, so I went into a delicatessen, right? Anyway, so I went in there and couldn't find Diet Coke. Doesn't exist apparently in there. The biggest selling drink of all time. Doesn't exist.

So I got Lemony Lemonade from the Karma Company. I don't even know what that is. That sounds like I've made it up. But I think that's what it was. That does sound like you're trying to kind of riff on it. And you've done quite a bad job. Lemonade, lemonade, caramel caramel. Those bloody caramel crisps.

I think that's actually the name. Yeah. Couldn't get crisps. I could get potato chip slabs for £2.25. Guess what flavour? Ready, sorted? Pate. Pate?

Pate Ardine's flavour for £2.25. In the end, I found something I wanted, and I picked it up, went to pay, went, you can't buy that, yeah? What? I went, what do you mean? It's down there. Do you know what I got it out of?

The food bank box. It was the food donation box. There was anything in there that I wanted. It's a packet of Watsits. But it was the box for the food bank. I know you mean it's a lovely gesture

but that's the only thing I wanted. You said look I'll pay for a bag of slabs to go in the food bank box and I'll take the You can't be on the telly

and take stuff out of a food bank box. That's just the rule of life. But that was the only thing in there that was aimed at me. At my demographic. So what did you have

in the end pateau slabs I just had lemony lemonade from the karma company we were getting some free advertising

pateau slabs it's both full of fat in my mouth but you've got a lovely house though I don't want

to criticise though I would say your house it's beautiful your house it's very cool loads of cool

interesting stuff right but I would say one of the least child friendly houses it's beautiful your house it's very cool loads of cool interesting stuff right but i would say one of the least child-friendly houses it's dangerous isn't it it's if i came around if you were looking to adopt or foster i would go you're gonna have to rethink this it's not suitable for how is how's your child not into stuff well so i i did i did say to rose last night i said rob's going to 100%. This will be the discussion of the podcast is how dangerous our house is. So when we had our daughter, we switched from a glass table with sharp corners for our coffee table to a glass table with rounded corners. And we tried to do some allowance to the fact we have a daughter.

But to be honest, it's a lot of knickknacks. Yeah. Do you know what, though? This house is amazing. But if you don't stop the knickknack buying now, you're going to have the mad cat house in about 40 years. Yeah. You love a knickknack.

I love a knickknack. But you've got to stop buying the knickknacks or you'll run out of room. You can't buy knickknacks in our deli. I can tell you that for free, mate. You'll have to get a bus to buy a knick-knack, but you've got to stop buying the knick-knacks or you run out of room. You can't buy knick-knacks in our deli, I can tell you that for free, mate. You have to get a bus to buy knick-knacks. Nice and spicy. But no, it's beautiful, there's really cool stuff, and it's the stuff we used to have in our flat, in our house,

but then we had to get rid of it and then not buy new stuff, because you've got a brass palm tree with spiky leaves from the base to the top do you know this is bad but my wife has started a an Instagram feed of her knick knacks oh really

that sounded I think it's called OnlyFans that's what the kids call it so she started I'll give it Penrose House is the Instagram

all the different things she's got yeah so it'd be an awful time to say I'm afraid we're going to have to replace everything and suddenly she's like

yours has got everything's got a bit of character to it there's a lot of character going around there's a lot of characterful things to take an eye out

yeah if your knick knacks like were a type of person they would be drama school they've got they've got they've got they've got something up their sleeve but if you look at long enough you'll find but i love it i don't feel like

i don't be disparaging but there's a lot of corners there's not intricate stuff there's a lot of corners but if you're you know he thought it was three if she hasn't broken it now she probably won't well that's the thing you give them the respect that they're you know able to deal with it and maybe she's she's actually learned that glass is dangerous by being around it so much. Well, have you had friends over to play yet? No. As I walked in, I didn't even have my daughters.

I had a panicked anxiety attack of imagining them being in there, smashing your knickknacks. They would smash through your knickknacks like no one's business. They would smash through knickknacks like a little butt head on a lonely Saturday night. Full multi-pack of knickknacks like no one's business. They would smash through knickknacks like a little hothead on a lonely Saturday night. Full multi-pack of knickknacks smashed.

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for 72 months with down payment. That's just $267 bi-weekly. Cash value of $40,294. Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus. For details, visit your local Ford store or Ford.ca. Do you have stair gates? I didn't see stair gates. We've got a gate on her bedroom.

Oh, right. So she can't get out of the bedroom. She's still in the cart. Of course, yep. I got a bit of advice that you basically don't take them out of the cot until they've climbed out of the cot, which sounds like a very dangerous way. She's been in there two and a half years.

So she's still in the cot. So she's kind of, she's penned in there. But yeah, we don't have a stair gate on the main stairs because there's one on her room. Yeah, you don't want to rush don't rush the bed no because if you can get away with being in the cot and she's sleeping well there's no need because she's only going to get out in the night i don't want her to be able to get into our imagine having access to knickknacks midnight oh my god open the door and also you've got lovely beautiful

old sort of traditional doors yeah do you know what i mean it's not there's not a tight handle on there there's not a tight breeze would open that because you've got character here do you know what I mean there's not a tight handle on there there's not a tight handle a breeze would open that because you've got character here do you think I've built a compound in my house

mine's like a shutter island what's your most dangerous item that you've got because what happens with us is we bought an old

house that needed loads of doing to it and we were getting the refurbishment done as the kids were at peak break stuff age so we were all getting it done with a view of no they can't do that so ours is very sort of safe and it's not padded cell you know sure i've got a couple of knickknacks but we've got a table that we had to

move and i had to move it into a room the kids don't go to move into my office which is too big for my office but it's the only safe place they're not allowed in my office really because they go everywhere else and it's like a it is literally just a glass office, but it's the only safe place because they're not allowed in my office really because they go everywhere else. And it's like a, it is literally just a glass coffee table with sharp edges. The worst of all. They lean on it. Every time they've been in my office,

they nearly smashed it by leaning on it. Yeah. Oh, we've got the glass coffee table. Is it in our shed? The sharp glass coffee table that we're selling here. And then you'd be able to get that out when they're what, 18, 22?

I've had this discussion, right? That I don't think it's worth holding onto a coffee table for a good decade no however good the coffee table is you don't need it for a decade also as well i just think dangerous as a human you fall through that you're dead and it's not like windscreen glass you seem like death dagger like shards i mean how crap is our life that really we're worried about when we can reintroduce a coffee table into our life? That's what children do.

And it's something we're quite passionate about. This conversation's gone for five minutes and we've both got more to say and had loads to say about a coffee table that we don't even care about. The thought that when my daughter goes to university, I'll think, first thing I'm going to do is get that coffee table out there.

You'll put a big pot of squash on it that coffee table out and I bet you'll put a big pot of squash on it and it'll smash I bet you did at the end of a sitcom episode so what do you think the Instagram account should be changed to

just pictures of very safe furniture well no no I mean maybe our listeners could go onto Rose's Instagram account

and then suggest ways to make that knickknack safe oh that'd be good yeah safety features knickknack safety hashtag knickknack safety it's gonna absolutely ruin it why don't you please send us photos of your knickknacks or coffee tables you've had to hide away you've had to decommissioned knickknacks decommissioned knickknacks but children you know that's all that's the other thing we've got to decommission knickknacks decommission knickknacks but children you know that's the other

thing we've got to set up is the Instagram account and I think we should let Rose and Lou run it they can respond to what we've said

in this and tell if it's true or not and take the piss out of us that's perfect that's an on air meeting we've just done

that's an on air meeting we'll try and set it up before this goes out otherwise someone's going to steal the lockdown parenting

we'll charge us that person at 21stair meeting we'll try and set it up before this goes out otherwise someone's going to steal the lockdown parenting charges that person at ball 21st century fox.com and guys i'm going to put up early publicity photos of you where you look like a couple of balance so if you don't buy it off me that's 100% what someone will do i'm going to register it now while we're doing this so today um we are joined by, we should say, Friday's episode we will be catching up with. We've had a lot of correspondence about Rob's trip to northern Spain. The doomed trip to Spain. The doomed trip. That's now banned.

That's now banned. Against the law. Bloody Boris listening to the podcast trying to stop you going to Spain on holiday. Yeah, I think he heard all them sort of absolute like zingers we did about it when he was in intensive care. So if you want to get in touch with us, you can follow us on Instagram,

handle to follow. And also you can get in touch with emails with your knickknacks this way. Email us hello at lockdownparenting.co.uk or we're on Twitter at lockdownparents.

Now, Dara O'Briain. He's like our sort of, he sort of groomed us in a way, didn't he? He did, Rob, but we're not allowed to talk about that legally. We've signed those non-disclosure agreements. He took us under his wing on Mock the Week. He did. Taught us about how to, you know, make jokes out of big or small numbers. Always, for me,

the number was never big enough or small enough to be a funny number. There's nothing funny about 50. Now, he needs to be 0.0.1 or 10 trillion. I'll make a trillion up. That wasn't a number. It's a funny number. Did you do the one where Andy Murray was there?

No, I didn't actually. But I did a League of Their Own that wasn't a number. It's a funny number. Did you do the one where Andy Murray was there? No, I didn't, actually. But I did a league of their own with him the other day. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And it turns out Andy Murray's got a massive knob. What? I saw it on an X-ray. He's got a really massive knob.

You saw it on an X-ray? Has he swallowed a coin? Yeah. But no, they put an X-ray up. I didn't realise it. And you can see a massive knob. And I felt like, how annoying is that for Tim Edmund not only

has he won Wimbledon twice he's got his massive knob swinging about oh poor tiny Tim and also as well got carried away

because he was on it with Romesh and then there was all talking about mums and dads oh yeah your mum not here Andy she normally

follows you about Andrew as well Romesh you fucking losers Andy Murray's a knight in the realm he's an Olympian why are we talking, Romesh, you fucking loser. Andy Murray's a knight of the realm. He's an Olympian. Why are we talking about Romesh's mum?

Yeah, okay. Here's Dara O'Brien. Hello, Dara O'Brien. How are you? I'm very well. I'm very, very well indeed, actually. Yeah, this is nice. By the way,

even though we're doing this over kind of a Zoom type thing and it's not video, I'm still staring at the screen. Like, I'm doing all the social stuff. I'm looking down at a laptop screen and just for somewhere to look. Yeah, hi guys. Yeah, exactly.

You feel rude looking out of a window. It feels like if you're looking at a screen, it's politer. I might Google pictures of you both and just put them up on the screen. So I have something to make eye contact with. Dara, so what's your kind of situation in lockdown? You've got your wife and kids. Yeah, wife is working. So she has purpose to her life and she comes home and I say, how was work?

And what was it like out there? And you have the kids. Yeah, and I have the kids all day. Yeah. And so that's been going for a while the so the three of them some

they're of varying ages between 12 and 4 and the 4 is back at school the 12 has in has her school supplies basically

tons of stuff and the 8 the 9 is in my hands very much so and that has narrowed down a lot that schooling part of it that you

know he will be good at fractions let's just be obvious about that he'll be really good at fractions and planets but the art is out the window no i was gonna say i'd have a lot of faith in you being a great home homeschooler dar i think, you know, if people had to pick a celebrity to do homeschooling, I think you'd be high up there. I've heard that a lot, actually. A lot of other parents say this to me. Oh, God, they must be great. They must love it, you know, because it's, you know, all that energy and stuff.

They, you know, like it's an episode of Stargazing Live every day for three hours with images being cut and look we got call in some things and oh look now let's go to this incredible no they i found with my own kids that that i do the things of going i am and how but this is another example of it and they go i don't want to do another example of it i don't care if this teaches it better ah you're just putting more work into this and i'm going no no no, I'm embedding the knowledge by placing it in different contexts. And no, you're doing more. The words I'm embedding the knowledge

doesn't really cut through with a nine-year-old in the way you do. They don't get pedagogically, they're not understanding what's going on here. They're not seeing the sophisticated methodology I'm using here. They just see extra work. And well, I'm there going, wait, but what if we flipped it all?

No, I don't want to flip it all. Tell me what exactly I have to do so I can stop doing it. Absolutely a bare amount of it. And I'm there like standing on a table going, oh, captain, my captain. They're going, I want out now. I want just this to be done.

But when you're a kid, you sort of think, once I've got my GCSE, learning's done pretty much, isn't it? I want out now. I want this to be done. But when you're a kid, you sort of think, once I've got my GCSE, learning's done pretty much, isn't it? I've got that, that's my staple and I can move on. They're not interested about the further learning. Look, there's a thing my dad used to do where you'd go to him, you'd go, how do you spell binoculars?

And he would go, how would you spell it? And I remember hating that. Absolutely. Just, oh, would you just spell binoculars? And like, I get it. I get what you're trying to do. Could you just, I'm in the middle of a thing here. If I can just write the sentence with binoculars in it, I'm done.

But I don't need a whole learning moment. It's horrible. Yeah. And I started doing that. I absolutely started doing that. So, you know, and not only that, we were treading a drum,

but it just actually really, it actually really does teach some spelling in the name of my words. They hate me for it. Absolutely hate me for it. So no, I'm not the sought out one at all. Are you a good cop or a bad cop as a dad, though? Or what's your kind of role?

Shouting? Can I have shouting as one of the things there? Turns out much more of a shouter than I thought I'd be much really yeah much more of a blindly furious uh person than i presumed i would be yeah no no it's it's it's a surprise to me as well and to them a lot of the time just how what i oh I have told you to hold the fork correctly. The kind of, you know, just, yeah, not great. Have you had a moment in particular, Daryl? No, no, no, just, you know, they just don't, you know, they don't listen. It is, it turns out, no, I'm very impatient about things not being done

the way they should be done. No, it's awful. Honestly, it's a thing that I should probably have a talk about because it's like, oh, for God's sake. But they will,

I've also had kids whom I utterly adore and they're a wonderful creature. But it is like, it's a type of love you have for your kids is the love, both the love

at the start of the relationship, of a romantic relationship. In other words, I cannot wait to see you. Everything about you is beautiful. You light up my life. You're amazing. You're fabulous. And the end of a relationship,

you know exactly the stuff that makes me more angry than any other human being. And it's the two of those together. Oh, that's a perfect description. Dara, have you had a moment in particular where you sort of lost it with the kids it was shappy corsandi had a moment where she flipped out over some milk tray and it was called the milk tray moment within the family um have you ever had a moment where you flipped out and it's been reminded um they've not been brought back because i'm mortified when they bring the back up and I get angry again. No, I told you.

Just the stubbornness of it, the sheer, there has been, yeah, there's been certain topics on which I get very kind of, yeah, that I've said this to a million times. Could you not do that this way? You know, it's been like, you know, get your feet off the table. We are eating our dinner, you know, that kind of stuff.

Like how often do we have to say that to you that was the thing when i was a kid it was like elbows off the table was the thing and now i'm enforcing feet off the table and you're like how much have standards dropped in the 20 years since i was a kid this was elbow it's a no it's feet i had a um conversation at tea time today my daughter's arm whose arm was just draped into the middle of the table they uh and i would take your arm off the table she said why and we're like just move like slightly further down it won't put in in you why she said there is as i'm trying to give out to her i have a routine about how stupid the whole elbows on the table was why Why was that a thing?

And I had a whole routine dissing the elbows on the table thing. And here I am, gone total full circle on this. So do you think you're like your parents? Are you parenting in the way your parents parented? That's a sentence I could have said better, surely. Yeah. I mean, by all means, edit and do it again if you want to. You should hear how your dad said that first time.

Running for the family. Do I? Yes and no. I mean, they are the model for certain things, but I'm probably that irritating. Why don't we think about this kind of thing? No, just tell me the answer. In that I do. But I'm not sure, actually, because I don't think I've forgotten so much of my childhood i had this it was a lovely

time but it wasn't a thing that i remember really vividly do people remember their own childhood is that a thing no i remember like the tv and the computer games more than i remember the actual experience of being a child if that makes sense it perfect sense. I think there's a lot spoken, whereas I remember everything from 16 on vividly because it was like at 16, I got to choose everything from here on in. So therefore 16 was me. That was, you know,

and everything up to that was the containment of me. So no, I don't remember specifically how it was in that regard. I don't, my father would think where he had a no raised voice thing, which I completely fucking ignored. The, which was, the, he had a thing

because my father was a trade union negotiator and he said, don't make me use my trade union voice was a phrase that he said. And we, oh, trade union face or trade union voice? One of the two.

Either way, we never got to see this mythical trade union face that he had, this work face, as mythical Trey Jr. face that he had, this work face, the sternest possible face that you could think of. But the good thing about that face is it stops at quarter past five on a Friday. Yeah, knocks off. You don't have to do anything.

On the dot. And so does everything else. When it stops, everything stops. That was the thing. That's how it worked. I asked him years later. He said, no, sure, there's no. There was no.

He said there was no. He just came up with this bluff. you know, you do not want me. We bluffed you the whole way through your time. The whole way through. That there's another thing, and that happened to be what he said, you know, don't make me use my work face, my serious face. Don't make me use my jungler's Christmas week voice. That would be our burden. There's two endos

In a free stag news Listen to me roar Look you're seeing My stargazing face You don't want to see My mock the weak face If I Have your kids seen

Your telework And your live work They've seen They've seen stuff like that I loved Robot Wars Came to see Robot Wars I'm not sure If they've seen

Mock, but my 12-year-old daughter has seen all the Mock GIFs because they pop up. Or she actually, she was sending me a load of GIFs the minute she got a phone.

She got a phone recently at 11 in the air and she sent me loads of funny GIFs. So I just sent her a GIF of me doing a dance on the thing and that kind of

shut that conversation down. Yeah, isn't it cool? Oh, yeah. Here's a GIF of me. You that kind of shut that conversation down. Yeah. Isn't it cool? Oh, yeah. Here's a gif of me. You dance ruined it for her. Yeah. It's like the threat I constantly hold over her is that I will do strictly. Oh.

I'll do strictly. I'll do strictly. And you know what else we'll do? We'll go around to your school and we'll dance in your school. And we will. Oh, that's amazing. We'll do a VT, a funny, I even do quotation marks because, you know, they're only funny. I will do a funny VT with you and your friends. Oh my God.

Imagine being in school and your dad turns up. Yeah. With some 23 year old dancer that he's pawing. Everything is wrong about it. That's amazing though. Oh, wow. What a threat. I don't think there's a better threat.

Oh, look, see now, imagine if you went on and you did that stupid thing where you fell in love with your dance partner, right? And then, but midway through this process, you brought this woman to this child's school and introduced her. That would be a front page splash. Here's your new mum.

You better learn Russian because she's... Hey, I just got us a new Coca-Cola Spice. Nice. What's it taste like? It's like barefoot water skiing while dolphins click with glee. Whoa, let me try. Nah, it's like gliding on a gondola through waving waters as a mermaid sings. Nah, it's like Coca-Cola with a refreshing burst of raspberry and spiced flavors.

Yeah. Try new Coca-Cola, with a refreshing burst of raspberry and spiced flavors. Yeah. Try new Coca-Cola Spiced today. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone.

Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. Um, Dara, you've written two books. Three kids' books. Three kids' books now, yeah. Sorry, the one I've just finished is the third.

And so the first one, there's one about astronomy and the sky space. The first one was about the very, very big. And the second one was about the very, very small things, you know, you can't see with your eyes that are around you, fields and electrons and whatever things, right? So the first one was really good. The second one was okay, but the first one was really good. Like really, you know.

The second one covered a bit too much ground, but it was still funny and it was nice and. Second one was okay, but the first one was really good. Like really, you know. First one was, second one covered too much, a bit too much ground. It was still funny and it was nice and it would be my companion piece. But the, honestly, I'd hold the first one up as a, if you have kids,

it's a great space. What age group is it aimed at? 7 to 12, 8 to 13. That kind of age. Like the top of primary school. Really curious, very, very ahead of themselves kids at the bottom

and to the top of primary school maybe into the first year. And how do you kind of write for children like have you been have you just done it i know i like how you would imagine to write children or are you giving guidance on how what they um no they never come back and this is scholastic who do tons of these kind of books like whatever they never come back and said hey maybe you should make it more idiomatic or you should make groovy more yeah kids love that here's a here's a funky thing to do isn't isn't the space groovy kids i'd be so paranoid the whole time doing anything

like that they're trying to make it not sound too old or too young i know wowzer i say kids this is This is, it's pretty amazeballs. No, no, no. No. Hello, bae, I said. Have your kids read the books, Dara? Is your daughter, the 12-year-old, read your books? 12-year-old, yeah, enjoyed the second one more than the first one, actually, because she had more biology. And the nine-year-old loved the first one.

Have you signed them? Weirdly, the nine-year-old asked. And you go, you signed them? Weirdly, the nine-year-old asked and you go, well, I am in the house. You don't have to, you know. Could I get a selfie as well, Dad?

That would be really good. I met him once. Dara, how was you with your kids when they were younger as well? You know, it's so different now.

They're older and they're learning and they're almost proper adults with like there is i mean it was grand i mean i remember the the bit i remember vividly with the number three for example was i was changing a nappy at some hour in the morning with number three and i was i had this thing of this isn't this isn't tough why is this not tough this used to be really tough um you know that getting up and doing the thing bleary-eyed and all that i said oh wait i have no i've sacrificed everything that this is no longer a sacrifice when i got to the third one i realized

that i'm up anyway all the time with them so i'm just this is just another stop in this punctuated sleep so yeah forgotten about happiness yeah that's gone what it was like to be happy so then you don't miss it. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. It was more the sleep, really, I was focusing on. But yeah, there is a fold over. Yeah, that's what I meant, sleep as well.

I'm happy. I'm really happy. It's fine. Were they good sleepers, Dara? Yeah, there was a... I remember... Do you remember you were there when Andy Murray came into Mock the Week?

Yeah. Yeah, and he was just out. He just had whatever kit. he just had um whatever kid they just had their first kid and you know we're doing that thing we go oh and he said oh and he's rolling his eyes like whatever it's grand and he said oh no still not sleeping six months still still not sleeping uh and i was there and i had a two-month-old who had just decided yeah and immediately down eight o'clock seven or whatever time we put him down bang and i'm going i could tell andy murray that uh but it sounds like i'm being a bit like

no really don't sleep is it oh mine's great mine's already gone um doing fine there was a um actually the coolest thing we did was it was on number one terrible it wasn't working out at all wasn't number two i think it wasn't working at all. Number two, I think it was. It wasn't working at all. Awful. It had to be hugged to sleep. You know, just walked around, hugged, until eventually, I think the sheer body heat

eventually conked them out. That happened. We got through the first one just doing that. That's called suffocation, Dara. Suffocating. I basically choke-holded my proletariat. But then, maybe we. Suffocating. I basically choke-holded my proletariat. But then, maybe we're going, we can't take this. And we're talking to somebody

who said, no, no, this is what you do. And gave us a phone number of a sleep expert woman who you hire for a couple of weeks. And this woman phones you. Like, at 11 in the morning, phones you. And you pick up the phone and she just says, put the child down now.

And you go, okay. And then no matter what the child is doing, you pick them up and you put them into a darkened room and you close the door. And then an hour later, she rings you and says, get the child up. All right. And you go and you do this. And now I'm making it sound like. It's like a hostage situation.

Hostage. Exactly. do this and now i'm making it sound like it's like a hostage situation hostage like exactly like is that mel gibson movie with a ransom and that she's on some voice changing software put the child down now it's all robotic like you go okay fine we're watching everything you do do not do not contact the police um but you do this five, six times a day and she basically goes, no, do that, bang. And within three days,

because I think what people do, and I'm saying this just with this tiny amount of experience I have is they want their child to be, to get tired and then fall asleep. And they don't, kids don't do that. They don't get tired and fall asleep. They get tired and they get cranky

and they stay awake longer. So you just basically go, no, this door closes. It's, you go to sleep. Door door closes and that you give them more sleep and so the child was just wandering and drunk on sleep and then like after a couple hours put the child down and then we put the child in again we had the call yeah that's like i know it never got to the point where you know the phone would ring and the child would, on a Pavlovian response, just go. But it was amazing. It was genuinely amazing.

And we do it from a very early age as well. But did that just hold then, after those three days? The pattern got set very, very quickly. We kept on to it for a little while just to make sure. But after a couple of weeks, it's working. Or three weeks, and that's what she does. But she, we never met her. We did this with Tujan, we never met the woman.

Wow. Yeah. And so she was somewhere in, you know, I looked, the number would pop up and it's like an 01504 or something. You know, some random thing. So I'd known her, to this day, no idea where she was, who she was.

Oh, wow. There's a bit of, you know, catfishing about it. We don't know who this person is. How was you at the births as well? Because you're such a confident, composed individual. Was you calm or did it freak you out? No, it was all very, it was grand. It was all very, you know, it was a fine, controlled environment.

It was all lovely. And there's a photograph of one of the first ones arriving, first one coming out and i had the camera out and said here you go don't take a picture and i took this picture which i think doesn't exist on any because we lost a computer and we lost a hard drive of of a computer once and i think it got lost and it's probably as well because she was backlit and covered in vernix and the hands were out like, and I was like, oh, Jesus. I remember going, we'll never marry that one off. That's going to be a problem. We, when, so when my daughter was born,

so we were having a natural birth, but then we had to have an emergency cesarean and you go in and it's really scary because it's like an operation but one of the um nurses she was like oh do you want me to take photos on your camera and the photos she's taken are some of the most intense bloody photos i've ever seen in my life jesus they're properly like like an alien coming out of a kind of like... Oh sweet Jesus. You know, I'll tweet them afterwards

guys so you can all enjoy them. But they're so desensitised to it. Well totally, yeah. My wife's a surgeon so she's perfectly comfortable in that kind of situation with the S with Grant whereas I'm like being moved around like a big lump. But the photographs are all taken from if you imagine i'm up the top end head end down right down there's

nothing where she's cleared on the other end so she's taking yeah she's got all of this brilliant kind of stadium down view like like she's got great camera angles on it you want to see that you want to remember this oh yeah yeah. What happens now is I'll go back. You know, when you have to go back through your camera roll to find something. Yes. And you'll just get to like these 20 photos. Whoa.

I don't want to. And yet I know I can't delete them. They're special. And yet I know I can't delete them. They're special. So does the Apple algorithm just throw them up on this day? You know that one you can watch on your photos where it will show you all the photos of the person with the same face? Yeah.

Yeah. Does that not? It hasn't come up yet. It hasn't just done those. Well, that was the thing I always had. Again, try to make it work as a routine. Never really did. Which is, if you say to a parent,

oh, your kids are lovely, go to the photographs. And you say to them, go backwards through the photographs. Because if you go backwards through the photographs, there's a point, four months or so, six months I'd say,

where it stops looking like your child and just looks like a generic baby. Because they look like generic babies. And looks like a generic baby because they look like generic babies and then there's a point like where they move into the features a fat version of the features that have you know yeah yeah but it is but there's definitely a point with a generic baby and we have these three block mounted photographs of them crawling around uh each of them that are in the bedroom and neat i think i i don't know my wife admits this but i have no clue which one is which there's a photo of my wall and at some point my daughter

looked like mo molan and i don't know where that was and i thought that's fine i would have remembered but on that day i thought it's that tiny mo molan what's happened if you flick backwards through the photographs it's my child my child my child my child who's this he's just a baby

just a baby a generic baby on my phone did you have names or did you decide when you saw them because some people go oh we were going to call him

Oliver but it was you know he was more of a Greg and I think he's just at the head I would like not to think that it would be

characterised in that but we didn't do it in that voice it's kind of like we met him we knew we knew who the Baltasar

and no we didn't until we we shortlist we did shortlist down and and then it got narrowed down when we

when we got to see them but yeah and also because it had to fit with O'Brien so it kind of my office was kind of trapped in a world

so it couldn't end in an O. You had to rule out Mario straight away. No diphthongs. Could be allowed in that one. Yeah. The, so no Cassandra's. No Brian. No.

Oh, awful. It would have been the worst. The worst. Brian O'Brien. No, it's Brian O'Brien. What? Come on, mate. Keen O'Brien.

Oh, that was well. Brian O'Brien. So Dara, a couple of your children are back at school. You're teaching one. And so you haven't yet had a day to yourself, just you in the house alone. What would you do when you finally have that moment? No work.

You can't do your book, just you. Just me? Well, by the obvious, right? Wanked yeah and really you saw the different comic approaches of Dara O'Brien and Rob Beckett in a moment there

that's why I'm not the wake work massive wank yeah honestly you know just fucking run a bath massive wank yeah honestly you know just if I can run a bath the

yeah if I had the thing to myself I don't know would I watch something would I play a game I haven't played a video game

the in ages because because the ones I want to play are too grown up I would nerd up a bit I think yeah but the

but then after an hour time for another wank so yeah play are too grown up. Nared up a bit, I think, yeah. But then, after an hour, time for another wank. Thanks, Dara. It was amazing. A pleasure, that. That's a delight. Dara O'Briain. Wonderful man.

Lovely fella, isn't he? Do you know what? For someone who's so massive and intimidating, he's really happy, silly and fun. But if he wanted to be, if you said he was like some gangland enforcer before he smiled or spoke, you'd believe it, wouldn't you? Yeah. I've got a question for you.

Would you do Strictly? I always have the same answer for this. I would do anything if I needed the money. So, yes. I think I could be coerced and convinced by my daughters when they get to an age, and if they want me to do it, where obviously his daughter doesn't, but sometimes you see, like, dads and their kids,

they're going, oh, yeah, we're really... So if they really wanted me to do it, because my wife, they love Strictly already, I think if they weren't showing me any attention or love, I think I could get bullied into doing it as some sort of desperate plea for their attention. Do you reckon your wife would want you to do it? Depends who I've got partnered up with.

I think I'd go for the same-sex couple. I'd very happily do a same-sex couple. Anton Dubek. Ah, Dubek. Dubek and Dubekit. Yes, please. What a double. The smile on display.

We'll get a Colgate advert off the back of that. I think the country would love you, you and Anton Dubek. I think we'd get ivory Colgate advert off the back of that I think you'd be I think the country would love you you and Anton I think we'd get ivory poached to be honest

anyway back to Dara lovely man genuinely he'd be a much more educational parent than I would at no point

did we ask him do you watch Bing because we presumed he didn't do you know what I mean oh yeah we know he's not watched Bing I just felt a bit like he feels like he's a proper grown-up was like how's all the births

so they find it's like yeah all fine i was like but then he plays computer games that's the thing you've got you've always got to remember he's a computer gamer he's got that achilles heel being a child yeah would you want to play computer games with your dad uh when i was a kid my dad it's not that he didn't like he's like no but it's like it would have been a completely foreign experience to him do you know what i mean playing a computer game yeah my dad just used to do the thing where he'd move the you know you move it up in the air like oh yeah yeah but now that that technology's come in so maybe it was way before his time my dad when he was playing mario kart he invented the wii but i um do you think

there's a chance if you're dara's son you'd be playing some kind of online game and then he'd walk in you'd realize you've been fighting dara who's in the other room fighting you oh yeah that could happen couldn't it but they all know didn't they but i'd love to play computer games with my kids but um i've actually been playing call of duty war zone josh oh yeah and i'm and i but there are children on it i did a stream the other day and I was playing with a 16-year-old, right? Because he was like, oh, add me to do it. I had him at 16 and his name was Stokesy, but his name on Call of Duty was Jihadi John.

Oh, no. I know. Did you think you found him? Thank you, Tadara. Absolute pleasure to talk to. We'll be back on Friday with some of your correspondence and an update on our weeks. Thank you very much, Rob.

It's been a pleasure. Cheers, mate. Bye. Bye.