Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe's Parenting Hell - S04 EP8: Adam Buxton

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

S04 EP8: Adam Buxton Joining us this episode to discuss the highs and lows of parenting (and life) is the brilliant comedian, presenter, actor and podcasting royalty - Adam Buxton. And yes you heard it right, we are very excited to announce we are doing two HUGE live shows in early 2023 - Manchester Arena (Friday 14th April) and London 02 (Friday 21st April) and tickets are now on general sale but going fast!! Thanks - Rob and Josh xxxIf you want to get in touch with the show here's how:EMAIL: [e-mail]: @parenting_hellINSTAGRAM: @parentinghellA 'Keep It Light Media' Production Sales, advertising, and general enquiries: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Introducing Tim's new Savory Pinwheels, the perfect flaky and flavourful snack for those on the go, like me, who's recording this while snacking. Ooh, delicious. Try the roasted red pepper and Swiss or caramelised onion and parmesan pinwheels only at Tim's at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Hello, I'm Rob Beckett. And I'm Josh Willicombe. Welcome to Parents in Hell, the show in which Josh and I discuss what it's really like to be a parent,

which I would say can be a little tricky. So, to make ourselves, and hopefully you, feel better about the trials and tribulations of modern day parenting, each week we'll be chatting to a famous parent about how they're coping. Or hopefully how they're not coping. And we'll also be hearing from you, the listener, with your tips, advice and of course, tales of parenting woe. Because let's be honest, there are plenty of times when none of us know what we're doing. Hello, you're listening to Parenting Hell with... Josh Whittakin.

Rob Beckett first. One, two, three, four. This is Rob Beckett. This is Rob Beckett. This is Josh Whittakin. This is Rob Beckett. Yeah. Oh, it's amazing.

That is incredible. Who's that? It's Kate Nash. She's back. She's back. It's good to have her back in our screens, isn't it? She never went. She never went.

I love that song. It is such a good song, that Kate Nash song, isn't it? Foundations. Anyway, hi both. Here's my three-year-old son, Matteo. Matteo? Matteo? Having a go at singing your names to one of his favourite Human League songs. That's because that's the tune of Don't You Want Me, isn't it?

I've just realised. I'm a freelance musician and my wife's an orchestral player. There's always music at home, but mainly 80s stuff for Matteo and his six-year-old sister, Sophia. That is incredible at three. That is unbelievable, isn't it? Do you want to have one more listen to that? I really enjoyed it. It's brilliant. Yeah, go on.

I mean, it's a shame that's not just our theme tune, really, isn't it? Josh Whittakin. Rob Beckett first. One, two, three, four. This is Rob Beckett. This is Rob Beckett. This is Josh Whittaker This is Bobby Beckett

Says Bobby Beckett at the end as well. Love it. Love that. Part of me feels like he's just done, he's just sang it himself and done something to the voice to make him sound like a kid. I always just feel as well like,

oh my God, should I be doing more with my kids? Yeah, fucking. I've watched feel as well like, oh my God, should I be doing more with my kids? Yeah, fucking hell, I've watched six episodes of Bluey this morning. I watched two Japanese kids, the age of four, twins, playing tennis as good as, I'd say, you know, Greg Rosetsky can play tennis.

And I just thought, why can't my kids play tennis like that? Why haven't I trained them to do it every day? I do think maybe, you know, do the Venus Serena Williams thing. Just get your kids onto a sport and just them to do it every day i do think maybe you know do the sort of the venus serena williams thing just get your kids onto a sport and just make them do it every day i don't know if but i don't know if that's good parenting or not but they will be good at tennis i'm not sure it is i've got a friend whose kid is um a football academy yeah and he's like

eight yeah and he has to train three nights a week and play Saturday and Sunday. They've got to love it as well. So it's got to come from them, I think. And let's be honest, he's not going to make it. Can't wait for this to be played back. It's like when that fan slacked off Frank Lampard. You ever seen that clip? He goes, quite frankly, Harry, you're only playing Frank Lampard because he's your mate's son, he's your nephew or cousin, whatever he is.

He ain't good enough. He ain't good enough. He ain't good enough. You let so-and-so go, and it's a player that I've not even heard of. You let him go and you just kept, Frank, what are you doing? And then Harry Redknapp goes, I'm telling you now, he is going to go to the very, very top of this game. And they're going, oh, yeah, whatever, Harry. And it's such a great clip because Harry Redknapp's so spot on about him.

Well, that's my moment. I don't know what this guy, I'm not going to say the name of this kid. No, but I'm sure he'll make it. No, but the odds are so against it, aren't they? Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's why I've sat my daughter down and said, you're not going to succeed at anything. I've still not taught my daughter to ride a bike.

She's six. That's bad, isn't it? Oh, it's fine. But kids don't ride bikes anymore. It's not like stand-by-me, is it, anymore? No, exactly. It's all about scooters these days. It's all about scooters these days.

You're right, Josh. It's all about scooters. I'm not a bad dad. I'm trying my best. Exactly. We scootered to get a magazine earlier. They don't give a fuck about the magazine, do they? I hate the magazines.

I hate the magazines. They're about nine quid. It's like when I used to get the official PlayStation magazine, you got demos of games. Now, it's like a crap bit of plastic for six quid. Oh, so much crap plastic. You're better off taking them to an actual toy shop and getting a little teddy

for about two quid. And it feels like they're getting a proper thing then. When they're browsing and you go, you haven't opened one of those magazines, all you're looking at

is what's on the front. Yeah, just get them a toy instead. I hate the magazines. Anyway, how are you? What's happening? You all good? Don't you need news? Oh, let's do some

Instagram email messages. We've not done many, have we? Yeah, yeah. Right, okay. Hey, hi, Rob and Josh. Following Josh's rogue baby monitor post, we went to a dinner party when our baby was about six months old and we put the baby upstairs in a travel cot and set the monitor up.

One end in the baby's room and one end in the party room. It went amazing. The baby didn't make a sound, which was quite unusual under the circumstances. We felt very smug thinking how brilliant we looked in front of our children's friends. Parenting absolutely nailed. Incredible. absolutely incredible. So had us shouting and laughing at full volume in her face in her house, you didn't know. Needless to say, she wasn't asleep. Her face was puced with puffy eyes

and smothered her face from hard crying. Still crying and probably had been for a while. Absolute nightmare. She's now eight, though, so apart from the nervous tick and the fear of being left alone, she's completely fine. That's a joke from Rebecca, I imagine, at the end there. but we all have those moments do you know what because it's on that thing of the spotify account where i mistakenly play music into my daughter's uh my son's yes i've had to set him up his own spotify account rob so have you got like a you know you can get

these you can get a family spotify where you get more than one spotify account so now he's he's nine months rob yeah and he's got his own Spotify account. Oh, my God, he's so East London. And I had to lie about his age, because they wouldn't let him. He asked me about his date of birth, and they said he can't have a Spotify account. That's amazing. But they'll be suspicious when everything's like nursery rhymes,

going, this 19-year-old's got a weird taste. He's been listening to a lot of the Joe Rogan podcast. He's got some very fruity views about the vaccine at the moment yeah here's your spotify wrapped um you're a pedophile incel from what you've been listening to nursery rhymes and joe rogan well i am worried about my spotify wraps at the end of the year rob because i've already done six weeks of nursery rhymes the whole thing's fucked mate you're gonna have a well weird rat we've got like an Alexa thing which is like linked up to Spotify or something and like when we go Alexa play um Encanto soundtrack when you do it

they read out who it's by you know normally they go play in the soundtrack but they go play in the official Encanto soundtrack it's about three minutes when they list everyone's name because about 40 people have done it it's. I want to get into Encanto. It's like an assembly. It's like an assembly when they read out all the people that have got their certificates that year. But the kids love Encanto. I've realised I've never actually watched anything. Whenever they're watching,

I just sit on the sofa with my phone or asleep. It's bad, isn't it? It's bad. But yeah, Encanto's doing pretty well, isn't it? Do you want a... What would Rob Beckett do? Yep, go on. I don't know why I'm falling apart here,

but yeah, I'll try my best to give you some advice. Hi chaps, love the pod. I listen to it while I do my daily walk and it really makes me laugh. I wanted to ask you how to handle cutting your children's nails. My daughter Jessie is really hard work and she screams and cries

if I go anywhere near her toenails with nail cutters. I have resorted to cutting them at night while she sleeps. Amazing what can be done with a sleeping child. I feel a bit guilty about it, but can't think of how I can convince her to let me cut them. Any ideas? We've tried chocolate, open brackets, bribes, and making it a game with her toys,

but nothing seems to work. Help, Jenny. I just think do it at night, but maybe get one of them little, you know, them like camping strap lights for your head. Yeah. Like going down a mine.

Yeah. Little miners helmet. Get little miners helmet. Just do it when she's asleep. Because really one, it's quick and easy for you. Yeah. And she's not getting upset or stressed.

Eventually she'll be fine. This is not like she's got to get over this to survive in the real world. Yeah. So just, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It feels like you've got a solution. Don't break it. You don't need. The ain't broke don't fix it it feels like you got a solution you don't need the nails long don't cut it do you know i mean that's it but i think i think you've got the solution yeah i agree you know it's not like a

real lifestyle skill being able to have your nails cut so just do it when she's asleep yeah i agree also from her point of view if if I need a haircut, right, and a beard trim at the moment, if I went to sleep and someone did it in my sleep, I'd be absolutely loving life. I'd be delighted. Imagine waking up with a fresh trim.

You know when you're like, oh, God, I'm knackered. I've got to brush my teeth. I've got to wash my face. If I could go to sleep and someone could brush my teeth while I slept, oh, man. I mean, you've got to be

a deep sleeper for that, haven't you? Yeah, I mean, there's choking issues there, but... Don't worry, my teeth are clean for the morning. Well, I think that's fine. I don't think you need help.

I think you're smashing it. You've solved your own problem there. Exactly. Oh, I'll just let him have massive long wizard nails. Yeah, one of the two. One of the two. Have you got any other emails, Rob?

Boom of parents in here. When I was about seven and my brother was three the light bulb in our hallway blew it was just us and my mum at home and she asked me to turn the light switch off so that she could change the bulb my mum told me this was really important the trouble was there were two switches that controlled that light so i had no idea which way was off i explained this to my mum and she told me to try my best dutifully i flicked the switch to what i hoped was off. I explained this to my mum and she told me to try my best. Dutifully, I flicked the switch to what I hoped was off. My mum then started to change a bulb and pretended to be electrocuted

along a buzzing sound and falling to the floor, dead. It was only when I was completely beside myself thinking I'd killed my mum that she came clean. Oh, come on now. Needless to say, she found it hilarious. I was traumatised. Thanks, Laura.

Oh, my God. That is brutal, isn't it? Do you think parents just get bored and think this will be a laugh? Would you ever do that to one of your kids? Do you know what it feels like? Maybe having children, because we're still young and we're a bit green into it with young kids. It's having children, like getting a new car,

where you have all rules of, like, I'm not going to drive it down that tight road or I'm not going to go in an underground car park, no food in it, whatever. And then after a while, it slowly just gets worse and worse. And then you think, fuck it, do what you want in it. Do what you want to it. The kids are damaged enough.

What's another story? I've got a new computer. And for the last week, every time it's been suggesting an update, I'm like, I'm going to do the update. Why not? I'm going to close all the windows. I'm going to send the report that that app crashed. I'm going to do the update. Why not? Why not? I'm going to close all the windows. I'm going to send the report that that app crashed. I'm going to have a clean desktop.

I'm going to file stuff. Exactly. But yeah, maybe that's just what happens. So do you think we're going to become worse, less caring parents as it goes on, Rob? Yes. I think that's what happens and then when you've got grandkids

you don't care you just sort of juggle them about throw them up in the air this is funny you know that woman that was drunk at our live shows and shouted how's your dog

yeah this is from Steve hi Rob and Josh just to listen to this week's podcast and can't stop laughing as the how's your dog woman is my wife Tora last week's live show

fell on her birthday and the show was a birthday treat but i made the mistake of bringing her into london early for lunch and cocktails at midday oh mate and she got rather merry before and during the show surprisingly she did remember shouting how's your dog the next morning but did not remember falling asleep on the train all the way home with her face in a ham and coleslaw sandwich or pulled from the shop to try and sober her up. We have a whippet called Wilf, and she was over the moon when Rob got Freddie. It was almost identical.

So she was keen to find out how he was. The live show was great. We didn't stop laughing all night. Keep up the great work, Steve. Oh, amazing. Yeah, so that's a great review for the live show, but you may have to be so pissed you can't even stay awake on the journey home

we should say today the day this is released at 10am is when the tickets have gone on general sale for the two new live shows that we're doing Manchester and London next April which I know is a long way away but there's a you know basically we can't get it sooner

because of the Covid everything's being rescheduled so that's the only time we can get them in the rooms and of the COVID, everything's being rescheduled. So that's the only time we could get them in the rooms. And also, it gives you a chance to get a babysitter. You've got 14 months to prepare. I suppose you just go online and Google it and the tickets will be available, will they? How does it work? That's how it works, right?

We'll put links in everything. Josh, you're panicking about ticket sales. I can sense it. I panic about everything, Rob. If they want to come, they'll come. Don't let them find it. All right, Kevin Costner. Fucking hell.

If you build it, they will come. That's the line, isn't it? Yeah. They'll be fine, mate. If not, it'll be a laugh anyway, won't it? Yeah, it'll be fun. I'm going to go on the mega lash afterwards. I can't wait. We should organise an after party somewhere. Yeah, we should, but we're not going to put that on the podcast. Why not? She's doing a club night in Indigo. Because I'm not sitting there, or someone organise an after party somewhere yeah we should but we're not we're going to put that on the podcast why not

because should we do a club night in Indigo because I'm not sitting there while someone who's had cocktails since midday asks you how your dog is ask your dog

what a what a terrible question what do you want me to say fucking on antibiotics last week oh god right do you want another one yeah one last one last week oh god right do you want another one yeah one last one

okay hi Rob and Josh hope you're both well just been listening to your most recent episode what is the time where Josh couldn't say how many days

in each month without singing the rhyme I'm a teacher and have a much easier way of remembering here we go clench both of your knuckles and put them side by side

starting from the left your little finger knuckle represents January with 31 days. Then February is the dip between the knuckles. Yeah, I've seen this before. So March has got 31, April 30, May 31, June 30, July 31, August 31, September 30. You're not helping. Sorry.

I was doing it. But I'm reading that. Yeah, but 30. You're not helping. Sorry. I was doing it. I've clenched my knuckles. But I'm reading that. Yeah, but hang on. So, yeah. So you put both your hands out in fists. Yeah, okay. So January is the 31st,

and then February's in a dip, so it has less than 31. Moving on to March, the knuckle is 31, etc. July and August are both 31, then as they are two knuckles side by side when your fists are together. That... How old is that your fists are together. That...

How is that easy? That is mental. That's fucking mental, Emily. Why don't you keep your ideas to your fucking self, Emily, from Leamington Spa? Jesus Christ. There's people trying to drive doing that, nearly crashing.

Fuck's sake, just look at your phone. Sorry, Emily, but fucking hell, mate. Jesus Christ. I don't think that's better than the rhyme. Absolutely not. Insane. Oh, dear. Right, well, Josh, but fucking hell, mate. Jesus Christ. I don't think that's better than the rhyme. Absolutely not. Insane. Oh, dear. Right, well, Josh, shall we introduce the guest?

That's what we should do. I just panicked. I thought I didn't record that, but I have been recording it. Thank God. I did feel it. Do you know what? The panic that gripped you felt like me worrying about ticket sales. When am I going to stop worrying about life?

You can't, mate. It'll be what it'll be. And if people come, they come. If they don't, they don't. I think they will. We sold quite a lot of tickets last time. The show's going to be great. And it is what it is.

You've got to chill out a bit more. And I know it's coming from a man that broke down in tears after a gig for seven seconds and then recovered after being heckled. But sometimes you've just got to not care. Yeah, OK. Fair enough. Well, talking about someone who needs to chill out, Rob.

Yes. Here's Adam Buxton. Adam Buxton's a very stressed man. Love Adam Buxton. He's a great guy and a great episode, this. He's a big podcast fella, isn't he? Loves the podcast. Oh, king of the pods.

Enjoy Adam Buxton. Adam Buxton, welcome to the podcast. Before we start, have you done a podcast before? Do you need any pointers, explanation of how it all works? Or you're good? Am I able to swear? Yeah, as much as you want. So how many kids you got?

What's your kids set up? I'm pretty sure I've got three. Yep. I've got, there's a girl, there's definitely a girl. She's nice and she seems to like me. There's two boys boys one of them's keener on me than the other one they're teenagers the oldest one has gone off to university oh wow last year studying music production that was a big deal because we really thought that he was

never ever going to leave the house and i don't think he wanted to leave the house. The middle one is quite different. He's 17 now. In the best possible way, he doesn't give a shit. I mean, that's a quality that is sometimes a source of anxiety and worry for the lad and also frustration when the lad doesn't do anything or want to do anything or do what you say or what you suggest but then other times i do think actually that's kind of a superpower if you genuinely don't give a shit and you're not horrible which he's not he's like he's

a nice guy and he's got one or two talents he's quite musical i think that that's a pretty good way to be because i was the opposite i gave a shit about everything yeah and it was you know crippling how does not giving a shit manifest itself give an example of him not kind of giving a shit well he doesn't seem to be i mean i've got to be careful not to malign him no unfairly but he doesn't seem overly worried about his academic progress at school or lack thereof. Yeah. And the whole revising for exams thing. Nah, he's not too worried about that.

He's got it down. He's like, it's fine. It's fine. I'm going to do it at the end. This is how I do it. Okay. It's like he pretends that he's got a system he's like no you idiots you don't understand the system is I do it the night before that's how I

do it and then we say yeah but you failed all of those exams I know because I didn't do it that time. This time I'm going to do it the night before and it's going to be fine. I went to school in central London, right next to Westminster Abbey. And I remember wandering around in St. James's Park just before my A-levels with a bottle of whiskey in my pocket thinking, my life is over because I am not on top of these exams and i don't know what's going to happen to me and the school i went to they drilled it into you that you better pull your socks up buxton because otherwise you can forget about the rest of your life you know if you don't get into this university or that university that's it you're done yeah i

really believed it you know and it's such bullshit. So your son doesn't care about that kind of stuff, but obviously you were kind of tormented by it. Do you find it difficult to let go of that yourself? Do you find yourself putting pressure on him with that, or do you feel like you can step back and let it just unfold? Well, I'm definitely, you know, in the good cop, bad cop dynamic that my wife and I adopt like many other parents i'm definitely the cop that's saying hey it's fine you're going to be fine don't worry about it

whereas she's much more on top of all their educational stuff i really do think that too much pressure is put on children and this idea that if you don't get the right exam results, it's all over is bullshit. I appreciate that. You know, we're very lucky in all sorts of ways. They've got a safety net, our children, and there's all kinds of ways that they're spoiled and we're going to be there for them. And not everyone is in that fortunate position. So the stakes are higher and the stakes are high for our children as well you know i want them to do as well as they can and to do some work and understand that you do actually have to try at things for

things to happen you can't just expect everything to come to you yeah but at the same time it is not all over if you screw up your exams you know yeah also sometimes you don't have to try hard genuinely with certain things obviously you have to put effort in with things but for me like with certain stuff if i try hard i ruin it so you do have to make sure you're putting all the effort in in the right places but just by staring at a page for 12 hours doesn't mean it'll help you know I mean where sometimes I think people can be coerced into over preparing and working too hard and that stresses them out as well where some people naturally are better if they're more rested and chilled and relaxed than being so crippled with the pressure of it.

Yeah, exactly. And also it sometimes seems as if all you're training them to do is play a certain system that actually doesn't equip them with all that many skills for what's really important in life. You know, they still don't teach all sorts of very basic things at school. I think they're beginning to do it a bit more. You know what I mean? Like relationships, how to open a bank account, how to do your washing, how to feed yourself properly.

You know, there are more of those elements creeping into education now, I get the impression. And they're beginning to talk about like, oh, you know, treat people with respect and do all that sort of stuff but still there are yawning gaps there that are filled with just a load of stuff that you learn by rote that you're never going to use totally agree obviously you went to a school which was very proper and about results and all that kind of thing yeah who the fuck goes to school in westminster where's this gaff? I've never heard of it. You're not going to believe what it's called, Rob. I can tell you what it's called.

You said it in the word. Westminster School. Yeah, this was an expensive private school that my parents got me into, that my dad was very excited to get me into. He kind of got a last minute deal. Yeah. He got a cheap deal.

You know, sometimes if you book hotels at the right time, you can get quite a nice room for a lot less i think that's what he got with westminster and as a result i started a term later all right did you have siblings as well adam i did yes i was the oldest of three no they didn't go there the thing with my dad which i wrote about in my book was that he kind of overreached financially yeah and he ran out of money a lot of pressure on you yeah i basically emptied the pot oh that's a lot of pressure it was a lot of pressure i mean my brother and sister did start to go to similar schools but yeah he had to take

my brother out and he never really forgave himself for that and there was a lot of pressure on me yeah that i didn't feel at the time my god no wonder you got a bottle of whiskey on the guy in the park exactly but then later on i really did feel like me waggling toys on channel four and doing poo and fart jokes is not what my dad was imagining when he spent all his money and ruined his marriage by sending me to an expensive school. But you got him on the show. Was that a nod to it? I get my dad on the TV show as a kind of slight payback. 100%.

Yeah, it definitely was. That was one of the big things I was thinking, was like, here you go, Dad. You see, it wasn't a total waste of money after all. And I used to love it when we did... I'm talking about a show called The Adam and Joe Show that me and Joe Cornish used to do on Channel 4. And my dad, who was then in his mid 70s, was drafted in to be our kind of youth correspondent. And we'd go off to festivals with him and he'd review records and hip hop and the Spice Girls and all sorts of stuff.

You know, the joke was, ha ha, here's this posh old guy and he's totally out of touch with this stuff. But it was funny to hear him rant about it because he hated it all. Are you going to sue Jack Whitehall for stealing your idea or just leave it? Well, I don't think we invented the idea of getting your parents involved with fun shenanigans. The thing about Jack Whitehall is that he's always on screen with his dad. I never really was. We always just used to leave him to it, my dad.

But I really did think, here we go, look, I've come good after all that money you wasted at the school. Here we are on TV because he liked being on TV, my dad. Well, he was a writer, wasn't he? A wine critic kind of thing. Is that right? Yeah, exactly. He was a travel writer and he wrote about wine. Yeah, that was his big passion. And he loved walking. Travel and wine is all very sort of like about money and sort of like, you know, there's always a next level up. And I suppose he sort of translated

that into schooling as well, where that school is probably one of the best in the country, I imagine. where that school is probably one of the best in the country, I imagine. Yeah, he came from a big working class family in Sussex and his parents helped to run an estate for a wealthy family. They basically had it drummed into them that they would do anything they could to be part of the establishment, you know, that they would move up the social ranks. And so my dad always aspired to being part of what he saw as the right people and the right environment and go to Oxbridge and read the right books. And plus he was a clever guy who worked really hard. So it's not as if he didn't belong there. Do you know what I mean?

Like it's not as if he didn't have what was required. How does that reflect then kind of upbringing that you've given your kids? What do you take from that and then place onto them as a parent i'm raising them to be working class because that's what everyone aspires to now everyone hates posh people so i'm bringing them up as eastenders jelly deals for breakfast stuff like that yeah swap rosie for a whippet. That's right.

Rosie's your dog, by the way, not your daughter, just to confirm to the listeners. Now, it's very tricky to walk the line between, you know, your instinct as a parent is to do well for your children, is to give them the things that you never had. I mean, I had pretty much everything that I could possibly need when I was younger, but there's always going to be a gap there, whatever your upbringing is like. And for me, the gap was a closer relationship with my own parents because they sent us off to these schools. You know, I went to boarding school

when I was quite young. Oh, was that a boarding one, the Westminster one? Well, actually, I'd been to boarding school before then. And by the time I got to Westminster, I said, oh, I want to carry on boarding because I was sort of institutionalized. Yeah. We lived in London, so I could easily have gone home. I could have been a day boy.

But I said, no, no, I want to be a boarder. I want to I want to carry on with that life because it was more fun. You know, you're a big boy. You're grown up. That kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Intense friendships.

And did you ever wank on a biscuit? Is that a thing or is that made up? I never took part in the sticky biscuit ritual to which you are referring. Soggy, I thought soggy biscuit, sticky biscuit, same vibe. So did it happen? I've heard soggy biscuits, sticky biscuit, not that I'm aware of.

I never, ever heard of anyone actually doing that. No. Are you going to spell it out for the listeners now or am I? Well, you'll stand in a circle, I imagine, and masturbate. And then the person that ejaculates last eats the biscuit covered in semen. That's the one. That's the one. We have a lot of older listeners that may not be aware.

So I think it's great to spell that out. Just in case. I want to go back to my point. I don't want to be k burley here i don't want to pressure on this were there biscuits at least can you confirm or deny biscuits in the boarding school yeah there were lots of biscuits we used to get free chocolate digestives but no there was no custard cream action none None of that. No special fillings. That didn't happen. I mean, going to school in London, we felt that we were not part of that kind of super posh public school elite world.

In fact, we looked down on those people. We made jokes about Etonians and how stuck up they were and how out of touch they were. We felt that we were just regular guys. You know, it didn't occur to us. You were like urban inner city kids. Yeah, exactly. Plus the uniform was different.

You know, we didn't have to wear sort of tail coats and straw boaters and things like that. We just wore a black suit. So we looked like Reservoir Dogs wannabes, you know. And you were listening to, like, I've read your book, which I loved. I realise I'm, like, telling you about your own childhood. But basically, you know, you say you were kind of, you thought you were urban and stuff,

but you were watching films and you were getting stoned and, like, you know, you've made two very long-term friends there that we're aware of, like, still aware of, Joe Cornish and Louis Theroux. And so, like, I look at that and I go, it seems like quite a fun, cool place with you guys hanging around. Were you the exceptions?

Were you the rule? I think there was a lot of people there like that. It felt fun. It felt vibrant. After a while it did. For the first year, it felt grim. I'd been at a co-ed boarding school and I really liked being around girls, you know,

and I liked the fact that it kind of balances out the laddiness and it's more kind of, you can talk about your feelings without anyone kind of beating you up and things like that. So when I got to Westminster, which was all boys until the sixth form, it was a real shock and I didn't like it. And I didn't know how to talk about football and cars and all this stuff that these other boys were talking about but then after a while you know after I met Joe and Louis and people like that you know I got lucky basically I fell in with that crowd and they were all very funny and motivated and cultured and I just tagged along and we made films and put on plays and I really really lucked out you know but it's not the same for so many other children I think now especially looking at

my own children they're not having the same time at school that I did I don't think at all and sometimes it doesn't click in the least and they don't make any friends. But I think everything happens a lot later for children nowadays. Don't you reckon? Like, I think a 19-year-old now is often kind of the equivalent of a 14-year-old when I was growing up in the 80s. In what sense? There's kind of an innocence. Right, yeah. That stays with children a lot longer.

Yeah. In certain ways. Obviously, you've got social media and things like that. Less independence, I think, physically. Online's different, but out and about. When you were 13, you could go down the park on your own, or 12 or whatever. But now, I think people are more wary of letting their kid,

especially in London, go out on their own. Exactly, exactly. So we were left to our own devices, and we had that independence that being a boarder kind of instills. Even though Joe Cornish, for example, was a day boy, he was more of a mysterious figure. He would disappear at the end of the day. But the rest of us were all banged up together, as it were,

and would go on adventures and you kind of escape from cold hits and you sneak out after hours and wander around London and go to arcades and go boozing. And it was good fun in that way. And would you have considered ever sending your children to boarding school? No, not for a second, because I think what you lose is pretty significant. For me, I think the thing I lost was a close relationship with my parents. The older I got, the more I regretted it. And the more I envied friends of mine who had different quotes, more normal relationships with their parents. I never understood people who phoned up their mom every day and things like that. You know, it's like I spoke to my mom a couple of times a year in my 20s.

Not very often at all. You know, I'd seen them... Actually, I'm exaggerating. I'd see them at family occasions and definitely at Christmas, which I always look forward to. But there was definitely not a closeness there. Yeah.

Which I really regretted. And I do blame that on boarding school. And what do you do with your kids to kind of readdress that? Do you feel like you've got a much closer relationship with your kids than you had with your parents? What I do to make up for that is I smother my children

with my creepy attempts to be their best friend and I stunt their emotional growth by keeping them far too close to me and telling them I love them all the time so that any semblance of independence is completely squeezed out of them but i imagine that for the like the 19 year old is at uni now you're cool you're a cool dad you're like you know you're in the public eye but you do a cool podcast and your shows are sort of like they sort of come back as like cult hits almost even though they were on telly years and years ago those ones with adam and joe stuff So has he mentioned any of that to you?

Has that been brought up at uni? Because Adam and Joe is sort of one of the quintessential sort of, they're the people you get into at uni, I found. I don't know if it's because I'm older now, but are you getting any feedback from your eldest? No. No. Are you a cool guy?

Do you ever say to him, hey, I'm a cool guy and I'm your dad? He thinks I'm cool. Yeah, he likes what I do. And sometimes, sometimes I worry about that as well. I basically, I worry about every single thing in parenting. I just don't have, there's basically tiny little windows of confidence when you think, oh, actually, I'm pretty nice and I'm a pretty good parent. Oh, but 98% of the time. And I was talking to Guz Khan about this when he came on to my podcast, and I kind of explained to him how I feel just diffident and anxious and scared that maybe I should never have had children. I've just brought these people into the world so I can screw them

up and extend universal unhappiness a bit further and does just looked at me and he was like fucking hell that is not you should just chill out he's like well if i get to the end of the day and they're all still alive it's jobs are good and yeah actually that is the best way to look at it and i'm making out like i'm in existential turmoil the whole time i'm not there's many many. And I love... I think you are a bit, aren't you, Adam? I mean, definitely a fair bit, yeah. There are definitely a lot of moments where I do just think, oh, I'm not cut out for this.

How did you cope when they were little then, Adam? Now, obviously, it's slightly different worries. You know, essentially 19-year-olds are grown up. How did you deal with them when they were little and they had a temperature and not well before they could communicate and stuff like that was that difficult no actually it was easier when they could before they could communicate it was easier because it was very one way you know and you could indulge your fantasies of being a fun dad which that was the thing for me i was talked into having children,

basically. It was not something I ever imagined I would do. My son now, and a lot of his friends as well, very few of them want to have children. I don't know if that's a generational thing, but I was like that when I was younger. I just thought, no, where am I going to have children? That's clearly a terrible idea, way too much work. And I'm not the kind of person that would probably do a good job of it. But then I met my beautiful wife and in the euphoria of getting to know her and then getting married and just building this new life together, when she suggested having children, I just said, yeah, that'll be fun. Good job. And I understood, I swear to you that we had had a conversation and she said, don, that'll be fun. Good job. And I understood, I swear to you, that we had had a

conversation and she said, don't worry, I'll do all the work. You carry on pissing about and doing whatever you do for your so-called career. I promise you, we had that conversation. She says we definitely did it. Anyway, so we had children and for the first few years it more or less worked out the way i imagined sure it was definitely way more work than i expected i was shocked by that feeling of permanent exhaustion and immediately started fantasizing about things that I used to do, like just sitting down for a while and doing nothing. I think I'm just going to sit down and watch TV for an hour or so. I might play a video game for a while. Now I'm just going to go out and see a film on my own or all that sort of stuff. You suddenly think, oh, I can't do that anymore. And it's quite a nasty shock. I hadn't really

thought about it. How old's your youngest? My youngest now is 13. So you're getting to that stage where in a couple of years, you know, she's not far off getting a Saturday job or whatever. Do you find yourself twiddling your thumbs a bit on weekends or is it still busy with them taking them places? You're just a cab driver now. Yeah.

Well, to be honest, my wife is the primary cab driver. Yeah. She has instilled in them a love of sport. That is not something that was ever a part of my life when I was growing up. In fact, me and listening to music and reading poetry to each other and playing soggy biscuit but the sport guys they were to be avoided at all costs mainly it must be said because we were shit at sport yeah and so we just didn't want anything to do with them but my daughter is really good in fact all the boys are quite good although they haven't really stuck with it i say all the boys the other two, although they haven't really stuck with it. I say all the boys, the other two. But my daughter is great.

So she plays everything like netball and hockey and cricket and all this stuff. And so every weekend it drives me slightly nuts, actually. She's off doing that. Do you go and watch? I watch sometimes, but not that often. Have you got into it because she's doing it? Or is it still as much as you enjoy your daughter doing well and enjoying herself you're just like i don't like this sport it's mainly that yeah especially especially cricket i mean that is just the worst. Absolutely terrible stuff.

Absolutely terrible stuff. A brutal way to describe. Also, as well, imagine if your daughter's waiting to go in bat. You're literally just watching strange children play while your daughter's on the sideline. Yeah, she might not be on the pitch. Netball, however, amazing. Really good.

I loved watching her play that. And she's fantastic. She's so much the opposite of what I was and am in so many ways. It's amazing. I mean, all the children have qualities that I really admire and envy. And it makes me happy whenever I see them being good at that sort of stuff. But she's amazing. She has self-control.

And, you know, we play video games. she'll say okay that's enough i've got some work to do now i'm like who where the hell did you come from because i'm like come on we can play one more how much work have you got to do you don't have to do any work do me a favor you're 13 play some more video games with me i want to play video games now it's that sort of dynamic you live in um norfolk i presume you lived in london originally so did you move out because of the kids yeah when we had our third child our daughter that was the deal my wife morally blackmailed me and she said at one point like i i just thought you know i couldn't believe that we'd had two children i was like wow look at us we've got two children this is ridiculous and i thought well we're definitely going to stop there

and she said no no i i really want to have a third child i was like are you joking oh my god we were just coming through the tunnel. Now you want to just plunge us right back in. I said, okay, but if we do, then let's move out of London because there's no point in being in London. We're not going out. We don't see anyone. We don't get to have any fun. Let's at least just go into the country so I can just have some space and you know wander around the fields. Had you always wanted to live in the country? Yeah I think so I grew up in the country in Wales with and my dad always loved walking and being in the countryside and it rubbed off on me and also I just like the idea of having a lot more space you know we live in a farmhouse now

that's surrounded by barns and I just like having these big spaces that I could fuck around in and hang up a big green screen and do video stuff and try things out. You know, get a drum kit, things like that. Where was you in London then? Was you right in the centre? Yeah, we were in Stockwell. Oh, right. Yeah, I grew up in South London, so I liked that part of the world. But it was a long way from all the yummy mummies up in North London.

That's where my wife would have preferred that we were. Oh, really? So did she not want to move out then? Was that more you? No, she was cool with moving out because we ended up moving quite close to where she grew up in Norfolk. She's from this part of the world. That's why we ended up here. So we were close to her folks and it made sense. Has Joeish got kids he does he's got a daughter now because he's obviously one of your

best friends so it's weird when your friends don't have kids at the same time so it's a bit of an age gap between your kids yeah massive age gap his daughter is only just about two oh wow so it's so weird when your friends are going through different things to you yeah it is odd it's so weird when your friends are going through different things to you. Yeah, it is odd. Although it's nice. It's nice to see the effect that it's having on him, you know, because it can't help but take some of the edges off a person, don't you reckon? Yeah. So you're just a ball sack of a man.

A ball sack of a man. That must be mad watching someone like start. So your daughter would have been 11 or whatever at that point you're watching someone go from the moment of having a baby do you even relate to that now do you know i mean does it feel a complete different part of your life i suppose it feels a little bit like having grandchildren yeah enough time has gone by that i forget the worst aspects of having children that age and I just think oh sweet but nothing about it personally makes me want to go back and have more for my wife I think

she sees that sort of stuff and she goes oh I wish we could have one more I don't think so I don't really enjoy the stage. I like it when they're sort of toddling around 18 months, but that first zero to 18 months, I don't look back with any nostalgia, really. It's tough. No, the very first few weeks, I remember that being magical, like dreamlike and wonderful. But then when the reality kicks in,

especially when they get ill, like our first son had quite a lot of health problems when he was younger also i was away for about 10 weeks me and joe went to japan to do a tv show for bbc3 out there and my wife had to deal with all this stuff on her own and i felt really bad and worried because he was in and out of hospital. It was just grim, that part of it. Yeah. Even before he started getting ill, it was like you're just trying to keep them alive and you're just, your brain is cycling through all these catastrophic scenarios,

like, you know, carrying him down the stairs in my arms. And I'm thinking, I might trip any second. And if I trip, I'll tumble down the stairs and i'll completely break this child oh that's what goes through my mind completely that is exactly my monologue it's awful and you just scroll through the rest of your life after that had happened and it's just appalling i mean i think it's the mind's kind of self-defense mechanism of just keeping you on your toes reminding you of all the terrible things that could happen if you're not careful, you know. But it is so exhausting and scary and unpleasant.

So, yeah, when they start getting a little more robust and then, miraculously, when they start communicating with you, then it gets a lot more fun. Yeah. I think we need you and need feedback. That's why this is our job. Yeah, it's three people that thrive on interaction, I suppose, to an extent. Yeah, well, maybe that's men as well, though, isn't it?

It's a weird thing for, I mean, I don't want to generalise too much, and I'm sure there's a lot more to it than this, but... Just generalise away. I just accused you and all your mates of wanking on biscuits. No, but there's got to be some fundamental things going on between men and women and the difference that it makesurious notion of a legacy and being remembered and all this kind of bullshit. Legacy is the biggest shit of all time. What's the point of working towards something that you'll never be there for? Well, exactly, exactly. Exactly. And far more valuable is bringing a life into the world and giving it a good start and turning that person into someone who enjoys being alive and makes the world better for other people as well, you know.

And it's a physical, hormonal, actual thing when, you know, a lady has a baby or is a bloke. It's sort of you're there while it's happening, but it's not your body. You know, it's not coming out of you. No, exactly. Unless arnold schwarzenegger in that documentary yeah right i think it's really underrated how are you with teenagers and talking to them because you're very open and you're very kind of honest about how you're feeling do you manage to communicate to your teenagers in that way because like obviously all the things that teenagers go through relationships or having to chat to them about drugs or whatever how are you with stuff like that i'm very happy

to talk to them about it but again you know the worry is there's always a worry and the worry is that you don't want to go too far i was saying before about what my son thinks of me you know we get on great and we have a lovely time. We went to see a band the other day. We saw Johnny Greenwood's new band, The Smile in London. And then I bet you could introduce him to Johnny Greenwood as well, which must be big points, right? Yeah. It's exciting to be able to show him that life and reap the rewards of my career, such as it is. And we had such a great evening and it was like, wow, this is exactly what I imagined like the best of being a dad would be,

you know, to share these kinds of enthusiasms and good times with my son. But the whole thing of being your son's best friend is a weird thing. Like with my dad, it was not that at all. It was like, well, you don't want to be best friends with your children because there's all sorts of drawbacks it's much harder to create boundaries it's much harder for them to establish a sense of independence it's quite useful sometimes whether you love your parents or not you go through a stage of pushing against them and thinking that they're twats and wanting

to be on your own and wanting to do the opposite of what they want to do you know but it is heartbreaking as a parent if you do want your children close to you to see them do that to see them pull away i just can see my future he's drawing you into the worry womb so many of the things just go i'm just like oh yeah i've lived that lived that. I've lived that. That's my head. That's my head. That's exactly what I go through. And then I'm like, oh, and this is going to be the teenage years. You two shouldn't meet up without me or Gus Kahn.

At no point should you, and probably me and Gus Kahn shouldn't be left alone. Between us, we can get a right level of how we should be feeling. That's for me, the primary worry is i don't want to infect them with my overthinking bullshit but at the same time what i do want to do is do the things that my parents were never able to do for me so to talk to them straight about things that really are important and to give them a sense that they can talk to me about all this stuff rather than hide away like there was no way I was ever going to talk to my parents about sex or drugs or anything like that I was like no that's too embarrassing and I just want to keep that stuff to myself and I want to go off and be furtive and creep around and keep all of that stuff secret have you had to do any telling offs

for your teenage boy especially the older teenagers coming in like drunk or things like that or spending money or not paying you back? And is there any big moments where you've had to lay down the law? There's been nothing totally catastrophic because I think most of the time when they're in those situations, they know they fucked up. And actually us being angry with them is not what's needed. It's usually like, oh, man, you know, because you feel bad for them. So you say, OK, well, never mind. Don't do that again. You know, things went wrong, not because they were malicious.

Yes. But the times you get really upset and angry are if you think that they've been unkind to someone else. angry are if you think that they've been unkind to someone else yeah you think that they've been one of those people who were bullyish or just unkind or um you know thoughtless or whatever faye ripley's daughter run up a bill of like was it a thousand pounds on uber because she was just getting ubers to school and secretly did it and then they got the bill and then faye said no you can't go on holiday with your friend now she was like 16 17 because you need to pay that money back so she cancelled the holiday of her mate in like a month's time which is like a big move but needed to be done i think obviously you don't want to rub their nose in it if they've done something bad but you know repercussions as it

were community work kind of stuff there's never been anything so catastrophic that it's had to come to that i'm glad to say so you're implying basically you're a better parent than faye ripley which i think i agree on no no i think faye ripley's a good parent i think that that to me that's the she's doing the boundary setting that i'm probably too weak to do um i don't know no i feel as if i would i'd lay down the law i'd send them to prison i to prison. I'd beat the shit out of them if they did something really bad. Obviously. Tie them up to a barn for the night just so they know who's boss. Oh, man.

It's much more like rudeness and things like that that I get really upset about. You know, it's just sort of interpersonal skills. If they're not willing to look me in the eye or give me a straight answer or if they're just sort of grumpy with me for no particular reason that i can discern that's when i turn into a massive arsehole and yeah start saying go to your room and not anymore but that's that's what it used to be like when they were younger i was just thinking about the things that used to be dangerous as far as running up bills were apps that they're free apps. But then it's like, do you want to buy a sword for six quid and all this gems, gems? There you go. a sword and gems bill of £1,600.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Get out. Yeah. So many gems. They didn't freak out because obviously it was clear that the kid didn't know what was going on. And also we both knew that the joy that this child must have felt when it was like oh my god i'm just getting all this stuff for free this is great i can unlock anything this is

crazy it must have been the most intensely brilliant feeling until they realized like oh shit this is real money and that feeling oh must have been equally and oppositely appalling oh my god so did the kid realise themselves and tell the dad yeah and they came in and they were crying oh no they just thought this is it it's all over now i'm gonna be killed oh god that is absolutely brutal. Oh, I'd hate that. That would be the worst feeling, especially because the kid's so oblivious. Yeah.

I think they were able to not pay the bill or at least pay a much smaller bill. I think they were able to get in touch. No one's ever needed 1,600 quid's worth of gems. Do you know what I mean? Except Donald Trump. It's like ordering, like, 2,000 bananas. You know I didn't order them

i meant to put 20 exactly you're supposed to get a call at that point from the lord of the kingdom yeah suspicious activity of your gem purchasing welcome kingdom dweller however we couldn't help noticing you appear to have purchased more gems and swords than the ruler of this empire. Did you mean to purchase them and do you have the permission of your parents to do so? How are you with phones? That's another thing which I find like utterly terrifying, like phones and social media. Oh, man. I was watching something on BBC Three last night.

Did you see that show about Instagram? No. Oh, my God. I mean, it is a total nightmare. The thing is, as I was watching it, I was thinking like, I do think the narrative about social media is a little skewed in some ways. I do think that there are positives and that it can be helpful for certain people and certain marginalized groups and maybe it's even positive for forming certain friendships and things like that but it is impossible to ignore how horrific so much of it is and watching this show last night made me so angry these kind of

poor people who had been sucked into this bullshit on Instagram who were changing and damaging their bodies in order to live up to the expectations of what they thought everyone else was getting involved with. Oh, the Instagram effect. Is that what it's called? I think that's what it was. I didn't watch the whole thing. And, you know, it was this woman who'd had surgery to enlarge her ass. They'd done liposuction on her tummy and stuck it into her bum because she thought that, oh, the big wiggly bum

was the thing to have on Instagram. And she thought that would boost her numbers. And then, and her logic was big bums are in. So I'm going to get big bum surgery and then I'll get better numbers. And then that will make me a more successful influencer. And then when I have children, I'll be able to take care of them better.

And I just thought, no disrespect, but I've spotted a number of flaws in your logic stream. And the first flaw for her, sadly, was that her surgery was a total nightmare and didn't work out well for her at all. She had all sorts of health related issues. And all of this stuff is juxtaposed with these interviews with these fucking guys, these sort of hipsters from California who developed all this software and all the algorithms that make it incredibly addictive. And they've all got their absolutely perfect, neat little haircuts.

And to do them credit, they were sort of saying, yeah, we didn't think hard enough about how this was going to pan out for actual real users. Yeah. Who maybe didn't have the kind of upbringing that we did or, you know, different pressures. So they're thinking about it now, but then none of them thought about it at the time. All they were thinking about was like, this is great. This is going to make our application way more addictive, which is going to be great for the business. And I'm going to get promoted. And this is exciting.

We've developed some crazy new algorithms that are going to be totally irresistible. And aren't we geniuses? So it was a total picture of hell. And I thought, oh, my oh my god you know my daughter is playing with this stuff she's upstairs scrolling through instagram now probably tiktok's so addictive is it does she got tiktok yeah she's got tiktok that is really addictive because it's basically instagram is sort of like you follow people and you see what's going on and after a while you go they're annoying me fuck this but what the for you page does on tiktok it creates an algorithm for you so you're not even

picking what you're looking at it just keeps churning it out and you feel like a foie gras goose that's been filled up and then i just cannot cope with anything that's longer about 25 seconds i had to delete it from my phone for a bit yeah my boys actually are not fussed about social media at all so for some reason that's bypassed them and they're happy without it but yes i do worry about my daughter even though she's very smart and she's too young to have a presence on there herself so she's mainly just yes looking at other stuff that's on my to-do list for today actually sit down with her and say i I was watching this programme last night and it tweaked a lot of my deepest fears

about being a shit parent, so can we have this conversation again? Because we have had it before. Oh, God. So will you be sitting her down this afternoon when she gets home from school for that chat, then? Yeah, man, definitely. Just to check in.

Because, I mean, I do trust her and I do think she's fine, but then I'm sure that's what the parents of all these other children who've fallen foul of it thought you know you just think yeah you'll be all right but then you don't know what's going on in the head of a child and you don't know what things are worrying them you know i used to be really excited about showing all my favorite films to my children that was one of the main fantasies i had about being a parent and i definitely showed them a few things that they were too young to see well i think we watched i mean nothing terrible what was the worst one i mean we probably watched alien a little bit too young. But even so, you know, 13, 14, perhaps.

That's quite a scene to see, isn't it? 13 or 14, the John Hurt scene. Yeah, even though for modern viewers, when the actual alien pops out, it's really not that frightening. No spoilers, I've not seen it. Oh, it's good, man. Have you really not seen Alien? And I'm joking.

But the films that actually ended up traumatising them were the ones that I thought were going to be totally fine. You know, things like Labyrinth, actually, with Bowie. They couldn't even make it through that. They found that totally terrifying, but they were a little too young. Gremlins, that was fairly scary, I think. Bits of Zathura, which they really liked.

When you feel you're showing your kids something that you loved I'd feel a pressure on that you know like when you're showing a friend a YouTube video or something and suddenly I can see all the problems with it I can see suddenly the moment I'm showing it to a friend and saying this is funny it feels like the unfunniest thing in the world to me and I get kind of neurotic about it. The thought of sitting down with my children and going, this means a lot to me, I want you to enjoy it. Yeah. I can't imagine that plays into your personality type.

No, it's a lot of pressure and I did have to get beyond that feeling of slight resentment when they didn't connect with it the way that I did. I sat my daughter down and we watched... What did we watch? There was something we watched that i thought you are gonna absolutely love this i think it was ferris bueller's day off and i sat down one afternoon with her and i was ready for it to be like this incredible bonding

exercise and she was like yeah it was fine but she just didn't get it and i and then i thinking about it i thought of course she didn't immediately love it because so much of it is of its time. It's quite dated in all sorts of ways. They need something contemporary, I think, to get really excited about. Has she sat you down or your boy sat you down to watch something that they love? Yeah, we were actually in the lockdown.

My 17-year-old said, let's watch Eric Andre'sre's bad trip and what is that and we were like do you know that film have you seen it i've not seen eric andre's bad trip oh man do you know who eric andre is no he's an american comedian oh i recognize him now he does this thing called the eric andre show which is this sort of insane it's a bit like vic and bob yeah plus meets jackass or something you know sounds good and it's on adult swim it's really good and he's a really really funny guy but a lot of his stuff is quite extreme pranky stuff right not in a cruel way all the jokes are always on himself he's very good but eric andre's bad trip is like a feature length pranky movie.

And we all sat down to watch this as a family. And there's one scene where they go to the zoo. And it's all shot a bit like Borat, you know, with real people who don't know what's going on. And he's playing all these characters. And these scenes are unfolding in public. what's going on and he's playing all these characters and these scenes are unfolding in public there's one scene where they go to the zoo and eric andre's character somehow gets trapped in a pen with a big randy gorilla and ends up getting basically violated by the gorilla and then just when you think that's extreme enough and all these people are watching and

they think it's real even though it's obviously a man in a gorilla suit they're all freaking out and filming it on camera phones and going oh my god get him out of there and eric andre's screaming like help me help me and it's just getting it's a bit like that bit in um the revenant you know what i mean it's like a sexy sexy version of that bit where dicaprio gets attacked by the bear and then just when you think it's gone pretty far there's just a long long cum shot from this gorilla that just goes on and on it goes everywhere anyway that was the most extreme part the rest of the film was really quite sweet and uplifting and very funny. And so that was a great moment because we were all very sceptical.

We just thought this is... And Phil the gorilla spunk. This is not going to work out. Actually, it was a hit, that one. And I think our son was quite pleased about that. So did your 13-year-old watch it as well? Yeah, we all watched it. Blimey.

It was a family movie. Wow. And she liked it. Everyone liked it. That was a massive It was a family movie. Wow. And she liked it. Everyone liked it. That was a massive hit, that one. I bet. But then we've had other ones where they just all sort of drift off one by one. And it's usually me and my eldest son are the...

The ones left. The only ones that watch the whole thing. Oh, that must be heartbreaking when they're slowly leaving. I'm going to have to check out this gorilla cum shot. It sounds like a great, great movie review. She's a biscuit in a suit away from being at your school. It would be embarrassing if I actually re-watched the film and that isn't in it.

I just sort of imagined it. I just wish that that had been in there. You just drifted off for five minutes and fell asleep. That's an interesting thing. It's very difficult to watch things. Do you know what I mean? Like keep track of everyone's watching box sets and they're watching two in the evening

and all that kind of stuff. And that period when you've got young kids, it's like you're almost taken out of culture for five years, if you know what I mean. Yeah. But as someone who's so obsessed and their career's so based within it, did you find that difficult?

Did that happen to you? Not really, because when our kids were little it was all about dvds so i used to cycle off to this shop in the west end in london and they sold import dvds as well so i would just pay ridiculous amounts of money to get all these american imports of movies that weren't out in the UK yet. And I'd watch everything like that. We'd just watch everything on TV. And then we'd do all the box sets.

And, you know, I was mainlining culture that ended up being talked about as part of the mainstream anyway, like The Sopranos and The Wire and Lost and 24 and all that sort of stuff we were watching when the kids were little so i didn't feel disconnected how did you find the time i just don't know where i got the time do you know i mean every night once we've got them to bed it's eight maybe and then we'll eat and then we're like by

half nine we're like done we're out this is it have you ever heard of telly supper telly supper yeah mate that's how we watched it. It was like we never sat down at the dinner table in those years. As soon as the children were in bed and the baby monitor was quiet, which it only was for about 20 minutes at a time before the green light started flashing and it would be like... And it was like, oh, fucking hell. And it was like, oh, fucking hell.

But as soon as they were in bed, it was like four episodes of 24 or something. We'd just be trying to... Because I think me and my wife used to party hard before the children arrived. So we still had that mentality of like, come on, we've got to get our fun in before we both pass out. Adam, thank you so much for coming on. It's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you.

We've got one final question for you. And it's the one thing that your wife does that annoys you with her parenting, but you don't really bring it up because it starts a row. Is there anything that she does that gets to you, Adam? If she listened back to this, she'd go, yeah, he's got a point.

Oh, that's a tough one because she is a great mum. And I imagine after 19 years, you've probably had all the rows you can have about kids there's not anything there oh yeah but there have been some big ones sure i'm trying to think of something funny the thing is that most of those kinds of rows are really just angsty and go to the heart of all sorts of big worries you have about what you've done with your own life you know what i mean but you know we've rowed about is she over cautious are we too helicopterish yeah i used to love cycling when i was young and i i loved that sense of independence that it gave me

and i want them to get into that as well and you know we're out in the country but she's like no man the country's way too dangerous and i just was convinced that she was wrong about that and then i spent a day researching it and yeah it is more dangerous to cycle on little country lanes than yeah to be in town so that's been a bone of contention i love that you spent a day researching whether it's that it's the most adam buxton thing i've ever heard i didn't want this row to keep because it used to happen fairly regularly it would be like she'd be like can you go and pick up the kids from tennis or whatever and i'll be like why can't we just put them on a bike and they can cycle to flipping tennis and then they can cycle back and then we

you know we don't have to do quite so many car journeys and keep the planet alive for a couple of years longer what about that and she'd be like well if you want to kill your kids then yeah great so i thought i'm gonna have to research this and it turned out that she was right to be worried and so you know we don't have that row anymore but even so i mean come on you can cycle kathy anyway but um what's the thing she does i mean she's too nice to them how about that really i just think she is too generous and nice she does this thing at christmas of getting everyone stockings and this is like stockings in addition to presents on christmas day right and in the stockings are more presents than most people get for their main Christmas day.

You know what I mean? Yeah. And I just think that is pure madness. But there's nothing I can do. There's no way that I can have the conversation without just seeming like the most horrible, gritty old bastard in the world. But I just think like, no no all these presents and you are wrapping every single one in wrapping paper and the waste oh i can't bear it anymore and the spoilingness it's torture but there's so many things that i do that are worse that i don't really have a leg to

stand on it's been a pleasure speaking to you, Adam. Thanks so much for doing the podcast. I've loved it. Thanks, Adam. Hey, it's really nice to talk to you guys. And good luck with your chat about Instagram. Yeah. Thanks very much indeed.

I hope it goes well. And I would like to point out just before we conclude that overall, my experience of parenting has been very fortunate and continues to be wonderful and i don't know what i would do without my children i can't imagine life without them and yeah i feel very lucky i think three of worries that speaks to the amount you care for them and enjoy it i don't think that comes across as someone who's or you just worry in that you think that you've slagged them off too much and they're going to listen back to this and hate you?

I mean, there is that. God knows. God knows what kind of hang-ups they're going to be tortured by and screwed up by and writing about in their memoirs. No, as a rule, everyone knows that we all love our kids dearly and it's an amazing experience.

We've had a couple of guests who have questioned it, but you're not one of them. Oh, yes, I'm absolutely heartless. But you're a good guy. Yeah, thanks. Thanks very much, Adam. Adam Buxton.

I'm a big fan of... Does he call himself Buckles? Yeah. Bless him, though. You can see him working his way down a worry well, can't you? Yeah. Like, if he just keeps talking. The worst thing was all of those things he said

about having young children are what I think now, and I'm like, oh, God. I'm watching my life unfold here. Do you know what I mean? He seems happy, though. He is, yeah. It just shows how much you care, doesn't it? But, yeah, but then you shouldn't care too much.

No, I know. I feel that as well. He doesn't realise how funny and how good he is at what he does. He's brilliant. He's always so put himself down of, like, you know gonna i was just tagged along with joe and look he's hilarious his podcasts are amazing his live shows are amazing he's brilliant on panel shows he's such a funny bloke um and really lovely fella as well he's a kind of alternative national treasure isn't

he i've seen people with a quarter of his talent bowl around like they're the new richard pryor but it's it's good to work with you, Rob. So I... I loved Adam Buxton. Thank you so much to him for doing it. Yeah, no, check out Adam Buxton's podcast. Really good. Interviewing different guests. Oh, it's incredible. He interviewed Paul McCartney.

Did he? Yeah. That'll be us one day. Oh, man. What a booking. You absolutely not giving a shit. Me sweaty and shaking. Oh, God. Who's this auntie I'm talking to?

Why does he keep saying cool? He's 75. Cool, yeah. Yeah, so, like, yeah, just having kids is, like, cool. That's all American scouts. I bet not slag him off too much in case we get him on. Yeah. Imagine saying that about a Beatle.

Oh, God. Just absolutely rinse him. Oh, yeah, you can't have Paul McCartney because he heard it and Rob was slagging him off. Oh, God. Yeah, on imagine saying that about a beetle just absolutely rinsing him oh yeah you can't have form of gardening because he heard it and Rob was slagging him off oh god yeah he's a huge

fan of the podcast to the point where he's listening to the Adam Buxton outro he only listens to the outros weirdly

he doesn't listen to interviews or the chat ones he likes them because they feel a bit more freewheeling don't they it feels like

that's our actual selves because we know we're about to clock off like the later stuff the later Beatles stuff, where they can really just go crazy. Right, I'll see you on Tuesday. See you on Tuesday. Bye.

Bye.