Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe's Parenting Hell - S05 EP34: Dan Schreiber

Episode Date: November 18, 2022

 Joining us this episode to discuss the highs and lows of parenting (and life) is the brilliant writer, podcaster and comedian - Dan Schreiber. Dan's new book 'The Theory of Everything Else' is available now. https://harpercollins.co.uk/pages/thetheoryofeverythingelse And the hit podcast 'No Such Thing As A Fish' is well worth a listen. Thanks, Rob + Josh. We're going on tour!! Fancy seeing the podcast live in some of the best venues in the UK? Of course you do, you're not made of stone! Tickets available now on the dates and at the venues below. We can't wait to see you there... ON SALE NOW  14th April 2023 - Manchester AO Arena 19th April 2023 - Nottingham 20th April 2023 - Cardiff  21st April 2023 - London (The O2) 23rd April 2023 - London (Wembley) 28th April 2023 - Birmingham Utilita Arena  If you want to get in touch with the show here's how: EMAIL: [e-mail] TWITTER: @parenting_hell INSTAGRAM: @parentinghell A 'Keep It Light Media' Production  Sales, advertising, and general enquiries: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, I'm Rob Beckett. And I'm Josh Willicombe. Welcome to Parenting 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... Martha, can you say Josh Whittakin? Yeah. And can you say Rob Beckett? Yeah. Okay, thanks. There we go, that's a good one.

Oh, fuck, I wasn't recording, Michael. Is that all right? Oh, you've changed since we've gone to Spotify. You're so slick now. It's like working with a different man. What, Michael? No, you. I wasn't recording.

I'm joking. Oh, right, sorry. Oh, fucking hell. Fucking hell. I'm knackered. What's going on? What are you saying? Kids keeping you up?

Not really. Working too much? Loads of shagging? What's up? What's going on? Loads of shagging. Loads of shagging. There's too much going on and shag talking kids keeping you up not really working too much loads of shagging what's up what's going on loads of shagging loads of shagging too much going out and shagging is it let's just say this before we move on this is martha who is 17 months old we live in teddington along with her one month old brother theo special shout out to my wife molly who's been a superstar throughout it all i'm working my way through the back catalogue and on to season four now i've got no idea how many seasons we've done.

No? It just seems to just be one long season to me. I hope you continue to be so very relatable. Cheers, Morgan. There we go. Yeah. So, this week I got the private jet to my gig and it was late, Josh. It was a rush.

I've got the school quiz this week, Rob. Oh, have you? Yeah. Oh, you're hosting? I'm hosting and writing the quiz. this week Rob Oh have you? Yeah Oh you're hosting I'm hosting and writing the quiz How do you feel about it? A bit nervous That's not like you I'm just

Out of my comfort zone Because it's not very funny It's a quiz And you're like Am I trying to be making this funny Or am I trying to just do a quiz Do you know what I mean? Right so

I say with a quiz You Write the questions Straight Don't put any jokes in there really You could do a couple do you know what I mean right so I say with a quiz you write the write the questions straight don't put any jokes in there really you could do a couple of like wacky ones

but I think sometimes that's a bit eggy no one wants you fucking around with a quiz they come out for the quiz not for me going you know exactly

keep the quiz the quiz however when you're doing answers joking about the team names people will be chipping you've got the skills to give them a bit of crap back

yeah the team names is a good area I've forgotten about the team names yeah exactly so I think team names I People will be chipping. You've got the skills to give them a bit of crap. Yeah, the team names is a good area. I've forgotten about the team names. Yeah, exactly. So I think team names, I think you'd be fine. So where is it? In the school? No, it's at the pub. It's at the pub.

And how many people are coming? Don't know. Oh. Have you sorted out the mic, the PA? There's a mic. Who's sorting that out? The PTA. Oh.

What? I just think, you know, with a PTA, the Parent Teachers Association, what I'd say is there's a lot of people in there. I'm in a group. There's a lot of voices. There's a lot of opinions. No, no, no.

It's just one woman I'm dealing with. There'll be different people when you're there. Can I predict what's going to happen? Yeah. You've this lovely lady that's booked. It's not going to happen. It's been a very professional experience from start to finish. Yeah, of course. However, you'll be the person who's actually in charge, who's been dealing with you, when you get there. Hi lady that's booked. It's not going to happen. It's been a very professional experience from start to finish. Yeah, of course.

However, you'll be the person who's actually in charge, who's been dealing with you, when you get there. Hi, it's Sarah. I'm part of the PTA. Okay. You don't know who she is. This woman's just come up to you. Right.

Well, we normally do that after the first question. Have you had a bad experience with the PTA, Rob? Oh, hang on. Hello, I'm... Hello, hello, hello. Hello, Stephen here from the PTA. Yeah, so when are you... What time is it starting, Josh?

Eight. Oh, hello there. It's Claire from the PTA. We need to finish at ten because a lot of people need to get to the last train home. Oh, hi there. It's Paul from the PTA. Yeah, so when are you, what time is it starting, Josh? Eight. Oh, hello there, it's Claire from the PTA. We need to finish at 10 because a lot of people need to get the last train home. Oh, hi there, it's Paul from the PTA.

Have you got the prizes? Oh, hi there, it's... Have you had a bad experience, Rob? Just saying. Have you had a bad experience? I haven't had a bad experience. Have you had a bad experience? However.

No, no, no. That's what you find. Okay. It's difficult, isn't it, to do this podcast and still go to school. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. So you haven't had a bad experience. Hypothetically, as the experience you'd had all i'd say is with any

association comms is always a problem right okay yeah good good in any volunteer-based association or non-volunteer based look at the problem elon musk is currently dealing with exactly i'm just saying when it comes to the pta there's a lot of people giving up their time to help and there's a lot of people that have opinions on how it should or should not be done well i'll let you know how it goes do you want some questions yes give me a quiz question okay oh i've got them written in a book should i go and grab the book have you written it on right out on paper yeah because i was in a cafe do you remember when i had my two hours in the cafe you took a little notebook i had a book and i was like a little book i was like this is an ideal chance

to get this quiz knocked out right okay so you've rushed it out in two hours no i haven't finished it what was take that's first number one never forget well you did um i'm all right hey oh oh god that's good see that's the kind of stuff that's the kind of stuff i'll be throwing out there that's the stuff yeah pray pray oh yeah pray yeah i remember that that's exciting josh you're excited about it yeah i am excited yeah oh i should say another thing rob on the school go on did i tell you about our parents evening no how did it go so it went well it was a successful parents evening i'm pleased yeah is she great oh they said they'd never seen anything like it. No, they didn't. That could be taken in both ways.

Yeah. They said she's so good they like to remove her from the school. Yeah. We can't deal with a brain like this. Yeah, we can't. Let's get rid of her. Yeah. But we had to sit on the small chairs. Oh, that's a power play. No, so did the teacher

Really? Was that for everyone or just for you? Because they saw you coming in So we went into the classroom She was like, take a seat And the seat was like It was like a hobbit house Quite enjoyed it

But anyway Did you like it? It feels fun, doesn't it, on the little chairs? I felt like we had 20 minutes And I felt like we didn't have enough 20 minutes is a long time. Yeah. But you felt you could have done longer.

No. I felt like we've done some interviews on here, Rob, while you're watching the clock. Oh, so you were a bit bored at 20. No, I wasn't a bit bored. That's not what I said. Okay. I'm saying I didn't bring enough stuff to discuss.

Yeah, when they go, any more questions? And you sort of like... Yeah, I'm like, oh, shit. I haven't got any more questions. Did you ask any questions? Rose has lots of questions. I'll be honest, I was a bit of a passenger. Okay.

But she's fine. She's getting on all right, your daughter. All good. All good. All good. All good. Oh, that's nice. Yeah.

Well done. Do you want a bit of correspondence before we bring on our guest? Two pieces, please. Here we go. Daylight saving slash more tired than Josh feature. Yeah. Well done. Do you want a bit of correspondence before we bring on our guest? Two pieces, please. Here we go. Daylight saving slash more tired than Josh feature. Yeah. You're not actually that tired anymore, but this is the... No, I'm fine at the moment.

Here we go. Last October, our baby was seven months old and sleeping so badly that my partner and I were doing one hour shifts at night. Fuck that. Sorry. There had been times when I had to do double shifts because my husband had slipped through his alarm. I think one hour's too short.

What's the point? One hour's not enough, is it? Anyway, they're doing one hour shifts. Yeah. Each to their own. There had been times when I had to do double shifts because my husband had slept through his alarm. So it's fair to say that he'd had one or two bollockings. One night I came down to start my shift and my husband went to bed,

falling asleep immediately as his head hit the pillow. Minutes later, I hear an alarm go off and my husband, who was conscious not to sleep through another alarm, sluggishly came downstairs, ready to start his shift. He enters the room and says, that was the shortest hour of my life. He breathed a sigh of relief when I explained the clocks had gone back, and he'd only been upstairs for five minutes. God, an hour shift, that is insane.

An hour shift. At least three hours. You've point is there you've got to you've got to sleep you're up again oh my god you know roisin and rich in dorset uh parenting fail hi rob and josh i thought you'd possibly appreciate a top parenting fail that happened to me i was trying to explain the flu vaccine the one up the nose have you thought i had this shit where they spray flu vaccine up their nose at school yeah i think she has she definitely had a flu vaccine yeah but it's a nasal spray up the nose right okay yeah anyway so i was trying to explain it to my nearly three-year-old so i showed him roughly how it would happen and made a noise as if the little up the nose however this has translated to him running around telling anyone that will listen

that I made him get piss up his nose. Oh my God. Crying, I don't want piss up my nose, mummy. Don't make me. And telling his friend,

mummy made me go to a lady who pissed up my nose. Oh my God. That's racial. Pissed. Yeah. Pissed.

Oh, Josh, I need to tell you, I'm recording this from Tom Allen's house Oh yeah It's exciting isn't it As Lou finally made the big decision and left you

Do you know what, if you did and I moved in here I'd love it It's so nice Yeah I don't know if Tom would It's so quiet And it's so clean And it smells wonderful Josh Yeah I bet it does

And you know when sometimes you go round, like, a friend's house? Yeah. And especially, like, a workmate. You know, we do the same job, essentially, me and Tom. And I'm looking around his house. I'm like, his house is so much nicer than mine. Yeah. And, you know, when you work with someone,

you're sort of at the same level as them at a job. You sort of start thinking about, what's he earning then? What am I earning? You know? You know that? Yeah, but he just hasn't got kids right exactly he's got nothing to spend his money on he's so much better than mine and i'm like why is it better i'm like because he hasn't got children costing him money yeah i've seen the other side

of it here it's nicer you could have what i don't know like a lovely occasional table but instead rob you've got a subscription to disney plus do you know what it's to smell more than anything well you just get some fucking scented candles rob no it's no scented candles will not do enough for what my children produce in our house right what do they smell of well we've got a dog we've got a cat there's always someone having a shit there's always someone cooking something something's getting spilt something's getting cleaned up you know it's like the kids tom's life sounds sterile, Rob. It sounds sterile and boring.

It's not. It's great. It's so calming. No, I know. Who was I trying to convince there? I didn't believe it as I said it. Anyway, he's got a lovely house. So he's very nice.

He let me use his back room. Yes. Sorry. A bit of fun. She was using your back room, Tom. Is that okay? Did you both have a big laugh about that when he said that? Oh, yeah.

Great laugh. Good old laugh. And then he'd done a funnier version of it to me, and I laughed at that more, basically, because he's a very funny man. Josh, should we bring on our guest? Yes. Oh.

Yeah. Trigger warning. Not really a trigger warning. It's the opposite. Email warning. Okay. We talk about something that our guest's child said as a three-year-old. We won't ruin it.

But we'd love your emails if you've experienced similar things. Yes, with a child confessing to a previous life. That's enough, isn't it? Oh, well, it's ruined it. Well, maybe that's a tease. Yeah, that's a tease. Has your child confessed to having a previous life? Yes.

Yeah, but don't just say yes or no. Give us the details. Has your child been reincarnated? Yes, over here's dan schreiber very funny man one of the qives research elves no such thing as a fish podcast and he's got a brilliant book out and he's a very funny man data three enjoy welcome to the podcast dan schreiber hello thanks for having me guys we are very excited to have you, Dan. Well, I've not seen you for ages. We gigged together years ago, and then you've gone on to massive success

with No Such Thing As A Fish podcast. Do you still do stand-up, Dan? No, I haven't done it. I do it as part of the podcast, because we do live shows and we have a first half, so I sort of put a bit together for that. But you and I, we were actually flatmates in Edinburgh many years ago

for about a week period it was like a week where was that which one was that could i just say i've never been more pleased the cameras are on because beckett's confused face at that point how do i not know you was my flatmate fuck was it that hills j goes flat uh no no i was staying with eric lamper and reese james and lloyd griffiths and you came and you just crashed on our floor for a week i remember that yeah so do you do you i do now but basically lloyd was up there and staying with you and reese but i remember i just slept on lloyd's floor for five nights but i was pissed for five days because i didn't do a gig. I just

came up on a jolly. And I remember now seeing you sort of in the kitchen. Did I give you any money for that? No, I don't think so. No. And there's always been a mystery about this house. There was, I remember coming home one day, I think this was in the period when you were staying with us, where I went to the bathroom and up by the bathroom, there was a sort of like hand towel bit just by the sink, where you could, you know, wipe your hands. I was looking at it one day, and it was just smeared in shit. Like, just, like, flat out, someone had wiped their ass on it,

but then just put it back. I blame Lloyd. That is unbelievable. Sorry, I need to apologise, because... Well, because of the towel? No, so I think the problem me and Lloyd had in the world of comedy was, we're not geezers in our world of Grimsby and South East London. We're the lovey-dovey.

So we sort of assume that we aren't being that badly behaved, but then I think actually we were awful. Well, I'm sorry, but if in Grimsby wiping your arse on a towel and putting it back is the lovey-dovey world... No, they saved the towel for best in Grimsby. Anyway, Dan, it's great to see you again after sharing that i forgot about for five nights is it flat mates if it's five nights though i think so well if i meet someone i tend to say they're friends like josh i've only bumped into you twice and i'll say my friend josh like i just yeah yeah i just do that. Why not? Why not? The fact you know you've bumped into me twice.

You've got an encyclopedic knowledge of when you met people. Rob did sleep on your floor for five days, so you should know that. So, Dan, can you introduce us to your... How many children have you got? Let's get this out first and foremost before we crack on. I have three kids and I had my third kid 12 days ago. Oh! Yeah. My word.

I'm fresh. Yeah, third time, it doesn't get any easier i've worked out who knew yeah that's good to know because when you've got two you sort of think well we're so good at it now what's another one yeah all the stuff that i forgot has just come back the sleepless nights that i thought god were they this bad last time and i spoke to a friend and they said yeah you were this out of it the other time as well oh my god it just doesn't get easier but now you've got two little ones to deal with as well at the same time and they're sleeping patterns and so i've got a five-year-old a two and a half year old and then now a 12 day old so talk me through the last 12 hours of your life from 11 p.m last night to now you sure there's

not just shit on your tail and you're thinking it's the front of the flat okay so the first thing i forgot happens is that you dread the night in a way where the lack of sleep becomes so great that when you first wake up for the first feed and it's something like 2 a.m you kind of go thank god it's 2 a.m at least we're a bit into the evening last night was the horror of waking up and discovering it was 10 30 p.m and already feeling knackered and being like fuck and so yeah it was a long one last night and then we've got two kids who still come into our bed all the time and so we're dealing with this kind of jigsaw piece of how do we because we have kit my new son in the bed next to us son my latest son my. My new drive. Is it right you're promoting him on this, yeah?

That's what you're promoting. I've got this new son, Kit, yeah? He's available to babysit at any time. I mean, the reason we tried for a third kid is because we wanted a little girl. We thought that'd be really nice. Good for him to hear in a few years, isn't it? Yeah, I hope he comes back to these shows and understands how loved he is. It's quite funny, actually, because we went and we got a private scan to see if it was a boy or a girl.

And we hadn't told the person doing the scan that we'd had kids before. And so she did this big thing where it was a big reveal with lights. The whole room went blue. Oh, that's cool. I know. It was like a real kind of 4D experience. But she went, it's a boy. And both me and Fidel just went, oh, fuck.

She was so confused. Are you going to go for a fourth then? Continue the hunt for? No. Well, give it a couple of years. Chase it down. I know, because we'll forget. You're right.

We will forget and then just go again and then have another boy. You're so positive and relaxed, Dan. Because we've met, obviously, we were flatmates. Obviously, we were flatmates. Obviously, that goes without saying. That goes without saying that we were flatmates. You don't know we were flatmates.

The old shit-smeared sisters. You know, me, Beckett and Shriver. The old Chez Beckett and Shriver. Old Shrez, Beckett and Shriver. Back on the sofa again. But whenever I come away from gigging with you, I'm like, I feel happier now because I've been in the company of Dan Shriver. So how are you still this jolly with a 12 day old son? Yeah, no, I guess that's just my way of being really. I'm fairly happy i really related when i've been reading and listening in sort of like i'll listen to a chapter and then go back and read bits of

your book parenting hell and there's so much i relate to particularly the chapters with both your wives talking about the relationship that you guys have with your kids versus the relationship within the family household it's exactly the same thing that makes me worried for you dan but i know where you're at so i'm there that exactly the same thing that makes me worried for you dan but i know where you're at so i'm there that's the same we're all in the shit so let's rejoin you it's 10 30 p.m yeah you've just woken up for the first time yeah how long did it take to get back to sleep so first was because we're bottle feeding my son because we had the most chaotic of mastitis cases my wife had in our first child that's brutal mastitis yeah man like she has it to a level where doctors are like i've never heard it this bad

whenever we talk about it in midwives it ended up in surgery oh she had an abscess that formed in her breast had to be taken out it was horrific so a quick ignorant bloke thing here what's mastitis is that something to do with the nipple and breastfeeding yeah right it's the milk ducks they get clogged up and it's breastfeeding generally and it can happen with multiple things but yeah it's when breastfeeding turns into a nightmare and a lot of women suffer from it that's a great channel 5 show isn't it when breastfeeding turns into a nightmare absolutely yeah so we bottle feed now. So the first thing at 10.30 is the negotiation. Who's doing the feed to begin with? And that's a quick negotiation because I lose.

I have to do it. Actually, Fenella will do the sort of like 2 a.m. and the 4 a.m. ones. Yeah. The real hardcore ones. I shouldn't complain about that. Yeah, that is the hardcore session, that, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, they really are as well.

Those 10 p.m., 6 a.m pussy slots so pussy slots sounded disgusting is this the kind of stuff you do on no such things are fish with the qi guys yeah this is this is yeah can't wait to get you on but no i mean that's kind of what it is right there's not much story to get you on. But no, I mean, that's kind of what it is, right? There's not much story to tell. You just get up, you feed, and you get back into bed. And he's really kind of the burping.

I thought I'd nailed. I thought two kids now, I'd nailed how to do that. But it's just, they've each got their own ways. Fuck burping. Yeah, man. It's impossible. I just don't believe it's possible. And anyone that can do it, it's just, they were just going to burp anyway. You've just fluked it. I just, I just don't believe it's possible. And anyone that can do it, they were just going to burp anyway.

You've just fluked it. I just don't believe it's... Do you think it's a lie? I think it's a lie. Really? Winding's a lie. Yeah, this is my moon landings. This is the hill I'm going to die on.

I just can't do it. Can you do it? No, I sort of... They looked uncomfortable, so you sort of, like, lean them on your hand and then rub their do it no I sort of they looked uncomfortable so you sort of like lean them on your hand and then rub their back and I sort of agreed I was like

I more did it to show Lou that I was trying yeah exactly but as I was doing it I was like this is I've never had to do that

as an adult to burp no and they're just little adults aren't they to a point yeah okay

to a point every child's a little adult right do you find though dan because obviously it's your third like when you say it's quite obviously it's labor intensive getting up in the night and you're tired but it's quite easy but then do you think that's just because you're not psychologically worrying about it because you're more relaxed because you've had two already yeah i'm way more relaxed this time the first two i was convinced that he would stop breathing in the middle of the night. So I found it impossible to go asleep. We'd have to check him every two seconds. I've lost that bit to an extent now, but I'm definitely a nervous dad. I think mainly because I'm just really shit in life. That idea that we're looking after a tiny little vulnerable child. And he came three weeks early, this one. So he's tiny. My whole thing is once they get to that size where they feel unbreakable then you can relax a bit but when they're still floppy it's yeah it's just nerve-wracking yeah i like a baby sort of tiger loaf size you know that tiger brain just that sort of like along the arm rather than like a little sort of sort of floppy underbaked tiny french dick yes exactly bulky

and solid then i can relax a bit more. Yeah, agreed. So when we booked you on this podcast, you thought you were going to be talking about having two kids. No, we knew we had a C-section coming up. Oh, sorry, but you had it three weeks early. Yeah. Sorry. Oh, yeah. Exactly. We had an emergency C-section and we had a planned C-section

and our planned C-section was one of the most chilled out things I've ever been involved in. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's awesome, isn't it? I don't think they should have passed the bong around. I thought that was it. So the first kid I had, Wilf, he was born in 2017. And we were in Tunbridge Wells because that's where my wife's family lives out in East Sussex.

Royal Tunbridge Wells, they'll make you say, the in-laws. Royal Tunbridge Wells, right. wells because that's where my my wife's family lives out in east sussex and so royal tunbridge wells they'll make you say the in-laws royal tunbridge wells right in-laws won't let you get away with that it's royal they're very proud of that down there yeah it's cool hospital by the way you get your own room after you have the baby which is amazing so you get to hang out in there but yeah it was like a you know they said to us bring your music. You can play your own choice of music. And they asked me to bring it on a CD. I mean, it was 2017. CDs were gone at this point. And so I had the stress the night before my son was arriving of sitting with my father-in-law trying to find CD burning software that we could put songs onto.

It was an absolute nightmare. He then snuck on like three eight minute long bob dylan songs without telling me so we're sort of like hoping to nicely time the birth to one of our favorite songs and suddenly dylan comes on with hurricane or whatever some long ass song that he's got yeah so this time around we did the same thing i spent the whole evening burning another cd picking out the songs we want i got in there handed them the cd and they're like what's this what do you think we're medieval here why do you think we have to wait mate five years ago you were what don't give me shit and it was bluetooth instead and so i dj'd while we were going it was really nice

because we only picked four songs and it took way longer so i was going through spotify just picking new songs as we were yeah it was wicked what song was it when the baby came out it was one of finella's choices it was an advert he hadn't paid for the full subscription yeah lisa mattresses it was a uh what was it it was um cinematic orchestra i think they're called build a home yeah i don't know we'll play it in because we're now i should say spotify is a great app we should add that yeah you've moved yes congrats I humbly back your choice to do that on Spotify I think it's the correct decision Dan wouldn't you agree right absolutely so what I was gonna ask you is because you've gone early again for your third kid

your old ones aren't in school yet are they so are they in nursery or have you got child care during the day or is Fenella off work or she's not working what's what's the setup how busy are you no yeah so no Wilf is in infant school so he's in primary and Ted is in a nursery our second kid yeah that's good so they're at school right now which is great yeah that works and people will be wondering about your accent so where were you brought up Dan I was born in Hong Kong you were in Hong Kong and I thought I was getting a bit of a Hong Kong from that accent. Was that what you were? Yeah. Hong Kong guy. And then I was there until 13 and then I was in Sydney

so there's a bit of Aussie in there until I got here when I was 19. And so how different is the schooling now sending your child to school in the UK to what? I'll be honest with you Dan, I thought it was American. Yeah, most people do. Oh, yeah, they do, yeah. And I've lived with you.

Can't believe it never came up while you were sharing a house all that time. And you can speak Mandarin. Proficient, Wikipedia reckons. No, I used to be able to speak it really well. It's gone. But you could have just said you are and no one would check on this podcast.

Oh, yeah. Doi, what could you still tell me? There we go. Yeah, you have let it go one would check on this podcast. Oh, yeah. Do I? What could you sort someone? There we go. Yeah, you have to let it go a bit, to be fair. A bit rusty. A bit rusty. Never mind, mate. Don't let it get you down.

So, where are you in London now, then? Yeah, southeast. I'm in Sydenham. Oh, just around the corner, Dan. Of course you are. I'm Bromley. Every comic's southeast except me. Yeah, Bromley boys.

I've got three Bromley boys. You've got the big Sainsbury's there? Yeah. Where are you? You're southeast? I'm Bromley. Every comic South East except me. Yeah, Bromley boys. I've got three Bromley boys. You've got the big Sainsbury's there? Yeah. Where are you? You're a South East? I'm Bromley. Oh, cool. Nice.

We're well close. We should have a play date, Dan. Seeing old flatmates catching up. That'd be awesome, yeah. Unbelievable. Josh, you're going to have to... Neither of you live in London. Let's just get that very clear now.

Josh, you're going to have to accept you're going to have to move out of East London to enjoy your children. How does your postcode start, Dan? What two letters? S-E. Oh, here he is. S-E.

Oh, you're in London. What about yours, Rob? B-R. Bromley. B-R, yeah, because you're not in London. Bromley. The London borough of Bromley. Oh, no, no.

There we go. So your kid's childhood's going to be way more simple than yours yeah and so do you think did you enjoy moving around when you was that age or did you find it like quite stressful or did you just was it just normal well hong kong i mean it was only two moves which it's not that big but hong kong was a weird place to live because you had every culture smashed together and i kind of look back now that i'm a dad i kind of look back on how was i influenced not so much by the place i was growing up but by my parents themselves because i think i'm definitely more product than my parents and i was the places i grew up in and i keep looking at my kids and thinking how am i influencing them to be like what's the thing that's going to stick

that makes them turn into whatever they do in life because you try and manufacture it to an extent like all the toys such a stiff neck you're like me we're nerds we're trying to influence our kids rob couldn't give a fucking shit let him run free i just to be honest i think the less i have of me is probably for the best let them find their own little journey dad as well your parents both celebrity hairdressers yeah what the least stiff neck job ever what What? Accidental celebrity. They met in Hong Kong as hairdressers. So my dad was from Australia. My mom was from England. They got together there and they opened up a salon.

And there weren't really any Western salons there at the time in the late 70s, early 80s. And then Madonna exploded into Asia and everyone wanted Western haircuts. And they were basically the only Western salon there. So, yeah, they started anyone who came in like my mum would do madonna's hair or when president george bush senior came in she would do like his hair and uh you know that's the better end of the anecdote there dad yeah well it depends what haircut bush had if he had a madonna haircut and that's a better anecdote yeah let's have a look at your head duck down dan my hair is chaotic it's like i've rebelled oh yeah it's good though isn't it yeah yeah so did you meet madonna no i never did i remember meeting anna nicole smith oh wow

yeah if i had to guess a name that's that's the memory i have that one what was she like well actually i was more interested in meeting her bodyguard because the movie the bodyguard had just come out at the time. And so she had this huge bodyguard with her. And my dad was like, he's a bodyguard. And I don't know, I kind of just didn't pay attention to her. Are you sure you're straight, Dave? I know.

Because if I was a 13-year-old boy living in Hong Kong and Anna Nicole Smith turned up, I don't think I'd be looking at her bodyguard. Buff boy bodyguard, yeah. Raging hormone teenage boy. Here comes Anna Nicole Smith, the playboy bunny. Who's that big fella behind her? He looks nice.

Meanwhile, I'm in the UK dreaming of meeting Anna Nicole Smith and not a sniff of meeting Anna Nicole Smith. He just likes big burly blokes. Yeah. Kenny G. That was another highlight. Kenny G.

Kenny G. Kenny G. Yeah. He had a long, kind of thin mullet, didn't he? Did he? Yeah, he had

longish hair down the back. Do you know Rob? No, no. He's the saxophonist. That was a tough job for a barber because from what I remember there wasn't that much of it

and he was making it large. Yeah, Kenny G looks like a cockapoo, doesn't he? I'd go to dog groomers before a hairdresser's for that. And did you ever consider going into the family trade? No, I actually, I gave my son his first haircut, Wilf, and I assumed that lifetime of growing up in salons would have just sort of osmosis come into me so gave him his first hair butchered him like properly I had to zoom my parents to go what do I do how do I fix this yeah yeah just absolute nightmare so no I've got I've got no skills in the hairdressing world at all and are you passing on to them now i have met some parents that are they're academics and they're lovely

people but i was out with them and their daughter knew too much for a five-year-old already right now you are a man of facts yeah your new book the theory of everything else a voyage into the world of the weird we will come to but i first want to ask are you someone who's kind of trying to pass on lots and lots of knowledge to your children or are you rob i'm rob are you yeah all i'm trying to get into them is the culture of stuff that i like so for example my son we were watching the tottenham hotspurs match with liverpool last night and wilf was looking at the uniform of Tottenham and he said, is Andy Kaufman on that team? Andy Kaufman, the surrealist comedian.

Yeah, the comedian who Jim Carrey played. Yeah, that Jim Carrey played. He said that because one of the toys, one of the first few toys that I bought for Wilf was from Andy Kaufman's WWF period where he was fighting as a wrestler. And the toy is released where he's wearing blue shorts white leggings and a white top and wilf just assumed andy kaufman must be a so that's what i'm passing on so you're trying to indoctrinate them into your tastes rather than

your knowledge yeah exactly i just keep buying them like they're toys it's amazing they're like literally mixing up paw patrol toys with mork and mindy toys. So they're into like 70s culture, 70s American sitcoms and Paul Patrol. Basically 70s comedy, yeah. I bought my daughter's load of resting figures and they had one of Ric Flair and Macho Man and they called it Daddy and Romesh. Macho Man's got quite the tan, mid-80s.

Oh, that's awesome. I met Macho Man in Hong Kong. I interviewed him on radio when I was like eight. No way. Yeah. More interested in his body Kong. I interviewed him on radio when I was like eight. No way. Yeah. More interested in his bodyguard? I thought he was the bodyguard when you see him.

That's why he likes him. Yeah. Because, like, you know, you work on QI. You're one of the QI elves. Are you still doing that? No, not really. Because when the podcast started eight years ago, that really took off. And I was always really bad at the QI questions. I always came up with a lot of tubious crap stuff that's what i'm saying you're more of a you're more of a loose neck in

stiff neck clothing you are dan yeah i'd say you ride with the stiff necks be actually a pretty loose celebrity hairdresser parents lived in hong kong lived in australia you're basically nicky clark who you won't know who it is because you didn't even grow up over it nicky clark no i don't know that's not the kind of river he was our celebrity hairdresser when we were growing up. Oh, okay, cool. So you sort of stopped working as a researcher on QR when the podcast came out. Is that right?

Yeah, because that sort of, you know, we very quickly got a lot of listeners and we very quickly turned it into a live show. And I just became obsessed with just trying to have as much fun with that as possible. So yeah, step back from that and a few other things. But yeah, I agree. I love being around the academic-y types but i'm not really you know i didn't even graduate high school really i went to a weird hippie riddell steiner school yeah which

um i found out recently is not hippie but that that doesn't matter it was quite a racist but what school was it it's called riddell steiner yeah it's quite out there isn't it aren't they obsessed with the number seven possibly that would fit into it just as part of that kind of cosmic, you know, interest and stuff. Right. It's kind of like, do you know Montessori, Rob? Do you know those schools where they kind of focus on the creators? Yeah, where basically the teachers can't be bothered to do a lesson plan. There you go.

That was my upbringing. Yeah. Just let them do that for a bit. They'll be all right. Yeah. I think I'm accidental Montessori. But they just so happen to be sat in front of the football on a Sunday. They decided to watch that.

That's fine. Were your parents a bit hippie-ish then? Yeah, we moved into a very hippie area in Australia called Abalon. And I was always surrounded by people that were sort of like either conspiracy theorists or new age kind of people. Yeah. Just kind of like that. Yeah. So Steiner was was very much that and will your kids do that kind of thing or that's what i'm trying to work out because it's the other thing you're trying to emulate your childhood to an extent and go well that worked for me will it work for them so should

i do that but then it turns out private schools cost so much money that i don't know how i could afford to give them that kind of education i'm gonna try though you thought about cutting hair well let's talk about your book attempt to get the money so that you can send them to a hippie school yeah exactly exactly so your book the theory of everything else which i'll be honest right we get a lot of books sent to us dan oh yeah this one isn't going on my wall outside the house and that that is the biggest cover of an eye can pay. Oh, wow. They don't even bother sending most of the books to me.

I'll have this one, though. So you cover loads and loads of different... It says on the front, ideas, beliefs, claims and facts in quotation marks. Yeah. It says, Dan, you've covered whether ghosts exist. Oh, yeah. Do they?

Do you believe in ghosts? I don't know dad i wouldn't want to stay in a haunted house overnight on my own right he can't do hotels on his own never mind a haunted house i can't do hotels on my so really he can't he has to take a special pillow and he doesn't like it it's i've got a bad neck that's not a ghost thing so it's not that i believe in ghosts it's that i'm not confident that they don't exist yeah okay what about you Rob I don't believe in ghosts but I believe in sort of the universe this sounds a bit wanky but it's sort of the stuff going on in the universe it's sort of like you

think your ego likes to tell you can have an impact on the world but a lot of the time it's sort of slight fate and slight you're a bit lucky with how the the penny drops kind of thing and sometimes weird things happen and it sort of links up and you want to put a label on it so you'll call it a ghost synchronicity and stuff right yeah that kind of stuff that i loved that's my favorite thing when i was doing the book synchronicity was my favorite anytime something feels like destiny is played a part yes even if you don't believe it i read this story which is in the book which is that um in 1981 ronald reagan there was an assassination on him. And so he came out of a hotel,

someone shot at him and his Secret Service guy quickly grabbed him and threw him into the back of a limo and they drove out of there. And they worked out during the drive back to the White House that he'd been shot. So Jerry Parr, the Secret Service guy, went against all protocol and he said, get him to a hospital now, which you shouldn't ever do with a president, a random hospital. They get him there. They find out that if they got there five minutes later, he would have died. So he managed to save the president's life and he was sort of heralded as a hero, sort of big character. The only reason that Jerry Parr became a Secret Service agent in his life is because when he was a kid, he went to the cinema to see a movie called code of

the secret service all about the secret service and he fell in love with the lead character thought it was incredible and then became that later in life the actor playing the role of the secret service agent was ronald reagan oh yes please no so there we go he saved himself it's full circle yeah i love it he seeded it and that's what i'm i'm into synchronicity i didn't know what i was into can i just say of course it's a story from dan about a bodyguard what is this all about this bodyguard obsession exactly it's all linking in and i'll wipe my arse on that towel for a story

and a podcast in eight years time at the end of a fridge. Yeah. But that's what I sort of believe. I sort of, these weird things happen and people try to explain it

by ghost, but that's a great one. I've got a good synchronicity story. Oh yeah. We should probably talk about kids in a minute as well, but I'm quite enjoying this.

Fuck it. We're going to come back to whether ghosts exist as well because I do need an answer on that yeah yeah we'll do we'll do the ghost stuff next um when i was going to do my first ever gig i like i applied to do a gig and they went yeah literally did it on a wednesday and up the creek and i went yeah come down sunday and like replied on the thursday which never normally happens normally it's months and months for those sort of gigs will briggs isn't very good at replying no exactly you can leave that in and

when i asked him about it he said he came back from edinburgh and i was literally the last person that emailed him oh so you were the last time i got the gig on the top of his emails because i said how did i get this gig it's my first everyone went to be honest you know i was busy it was the first email and i said come down sunday that's so good and anyway so i nearly cancelled it because i wasn't ready for i'd never done a gig before my first ever gig and it's a massive club. And I was waiting to pick my brother up from the station. I was like, no, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it.

And the radio, a song come on the radio, Ask by the Smiths. And it's like, one of the lyrics is, shyness is nice, but shyness can stop you doing things in life you like to do. That lyric. And I was like, yeah, actually. I want to do it, but I'm scared. So just do it. So I went and did the gig.

And just before I went on, in the interval, they had a playlist on. That song came on, and I heard that line. Oh, my word. This was like in 2009. Yeah. Not like a chart song. It's not even one of their biggest hits. Yeah.

It wouldn't be in their top five songs on Spotify, the best out. And it's not a song that you put on a playlist for a night out. No, no, exactly. You know, yeah. So I was just i was like bloody and that's always sort of stuck with me those little weird moments i think people try and label it but maybe synchronicity is the right thing whatever it is but yeah that's what i believe in but ghosts are they real or not dan well i don't i don't know i don't know

if they're real or not it's the same thing with synchronicity they're just fun aren't they yeah yeah and they've influenced the world have you got a good ghost story in there dan well i've got a thing where it's the paranormal and the kind of the occult i've got stuff in there hit me up with that hit me up with that one of my favorite things is is the beatles right so ringo star please here we go here we bloody go ringo star do you know why ringo star has such a unique drum beat no so he's known to have this thing where he's got the ringo swing it's where his drum beat is just ever so slightly out of time it's just like a millisecond lazier so in studios people like dave grohl will say like they'll yell out like give us more ringo which means get a bit

looser with it and so on so the reason that ringo has such a weird unique drum beat is because his grandmother performed multiple exorcisms on him as a child to get rid of his left-handedness and expel the devil out of him so that that is the only reason so he how does that yeah so she was known as the voodoo queen of liverpool right that's what he called her and she was obsessed with the idea that left-handedness meant you had the devil inside you did the exorcisms on him as he started learning the drum so he bought a right-handed kit and was drumming right-handed. But then when he moved out of home, he went back to being left-handed, but he kept a right-handed kit. So he drums backwards on a drum kit, right? And in order to drum, to get to the toms, if you're leading with your right hand,

that's a really easy way. But if you lead with your left, you have to go underneath. And that little underneath bit gives it that millisecond delay that means the beetles have their beat that's what gave it to them exorcisms yeah that's one that i like great do you know what fuck parenting let's just talk about the book give us some more give us some more well okay actually i've got a couple more yeah sorry girl i've got the shane warne one have you had a shane warne one i've seen his documentary because he's got incredibly strong wrists and massive hands and it enables him to probably spin a ball so he could really do that spin in cricket. And apparently he broke his legs when he was a two-year-old. So his dad built him like a little skateboard.

It was a wheelbarrow. Yeah, like a wheelbarrow. And he used to pull himself along with his hands on this little skateboard to get around because he couldn't walk and he was only two and wanted to play. And it built up these huge wrists that really were powerful when he was doing his cricket. So cool. He was amazing.

I saw a clip yesterday, last night, about Freddie Flintoff when he was on Jonathan Ross's show. And he was talking about how ahead of one of England's matches, someone told a ghost story and he got so petrified that he had to get into bed with one of the other players and spoon him all night because he was worried. Do you know, I once stayed in a hotel that was so scary. I've had to share a room because it was just it was just too scary that was like a me too story

it was consensual separate beds do you know dan akroyd it comes from a family of ghost hunters like actual ghost hunters oh yeah they used to do seances and all that sort of stuff and so him writing is that where ghostbusters comes yeah it comes from him not parodying it's him having total knowledge of it and he claims that he once woke up in bed with a ghost sleeping next to him and he thought what do i do i'm not sure and so he spooned it and just stayed the night with the ghost supposedly wow come on dan that's what he says that's what dan and check this out i only discovered this the other day it was too late to put in the book i have a bunch of other ghost stuff in there but yeah ghostbusters you know sliber yeah yeah that green famous ghost in ghostbusters yeah the guy who was designing it couldn't get it right and

it came to a deadline and he needed to get it done perfectly and he claims he did a lot of drugs and was trying to design it the night before it was handed in and the ghost of john belushi who was one of the big american comics of blues brothers and so on came to him and posed for him and slimer is based on the ghost of john belushi that is in ghostbusters it's mad but listen hey on kids stuff yeah let's we'll just say that's the theory of everything else uh which is out now is it dan it's out now and it is i'll just say it's one of those books where i just basically found stories like the ones we've been talking about that you can tell in the pub in the dinner table it's got it's just all those stories that gives you goosebumps at the end of it that's a lot of

bang for your buck yeah exactly how are you finding these stories we will get back to just last question last question yeah yeah how do you discover all this stuff? I make them all up. Exactly. It's all complete bollocks. That's the thing. It's so hard to work out what's true and not true because so much of it is just, like there's a chapter where a guy worked out that we could talk to plants

because he was the CIA's guy who did lie detection machines. So he was the first guy to do polygraph and he attached a electrode to one of the leaves of a plant and he started communicating with it because it started responding on the machine and he thought what the fuck is going on here and he worked out that there was a kind of telekinesis connection between him and the plant world and this was a huge boom in the 1970s where everyone

like the reason everyone talks to plants now is basically because of this guy from the 1970s where everyone like the reason everyone talks to plants now is basically because of this guy from the 1970s thinking that there was communication but he thought we could start a police unit like an elite unit who can catch murderers because he had two pot plants in a room and he had six people lined up to come in the room and only one person was going to go in and basically murder one of the plants and then that person was not going to tell the others that they'd done it. So it was a sort of who did this. They all then came in a lineup. And the one remaining pot plant that was in the room picked it out, picked out the murderer in a lineup using the polygraph. And he thought, fuck, we've got plants that can discover who the murderers are now.

We should get this out to the police. We should start an elite force. It's like all these kind of like, but then you read the story and you're like where's the truth i mean there is no truth in it right because it's mad as shit but it's informed the world and changed the way that we all are now with plans that's amazing but i don't know what to believe in these stories the dan was i love these stories but how bored is your wife of them oh my god she hates them she hates them yeah yeah hates them. Yeah, yeah. But she's in the book.

She's in the book because weird shit happens to her all the time. She's one of those people that as soon as someone comes up to her, they just tell her their weird story. We had a plumber come over. This was during lockdown. And he came in, said hi, and Fenella showed him into the bathroom. And I went to the kitchen to make some tea. She came in three minutes later and went,

God, what an interesting guy. I was like, oh yeah, how so? She went, well, he was born in Kazakhstan and apparently when he was a kid, he was sitting in a field and an eagle swooped down, picked him up and flew away with him. And I was like, hang on, you were with this guy for three minutes.

How did you get this story? And I asked him and it was true, he said. He said his mum fortunately saw the eagle flying off with him grabbed a big stick and was able to beat the eagle down and like a lot of people say that's not true but a few years back before this story i did meet a guy who was a eagles who steal children expert and i saw a file of his so i know that it is a thing that happens but so she's actually more a magnet for the weird stuff and one thing that i didn't put in the book and i'll be curious to see if you guys had this with your kids because i put this up on

twitter and the response i had to it was thousands of replies from parents globally talking about a similar thing so this is the tweet i put up this was in august 19th 2021 interesting bedtime chat with my three-year-old tonight daddy i had a family a long time ago and my mummy was called Socky and I was called Anki, but then I died and now I'm with your family. Oh my God. Oh God. I listened to a podcast about like a previous life thing. Yeah.

And they had all the details and stuff and it all checked out and there were kids and it was weird. It was so weird because I don't really necessarily believe in that kind of stuff. I've not had that. It would freak me the fuck out we were so scared he was asleep we were just reading in bed and he just sat up and then he uttered that sentence and i quickly got my phone out and i've got a recording of the rest of the story of him just telling us me interviewing him and him explaining god where he was and stressing me out oh my out. You're stressing me out. Oh, my God. I'm stressing, I'm biting me nails now. I'm panicking now. I've sat on one foot. I've sat on one foot.

Are you sat on one foot? He whipped the foot up under his bum. Oh. Well, maybe that's true. Maybe we do have other lives and we're just a consciousness and this body is just a vessel for a bit. Guys?

No, I'm just... I've sat on my foot now as well. I'm feeling weird. So what did you do? Did you research it? No, so I recorded him and did you ask him to spell socky because that could be spelt in a variety no he started when we were interviewing him he started crying like getting really emotional when he said i was left i was abandoned and i was alone and it was really hard to work out where to push him in the conversation and he was three he's three and so i put this up on twitter and honestly thousands of replies it still comes virtually every day even though it's a couple

years old now people saying i was in a taxi cab in new york with my son and we were riding through and he and he pointed out the window and said i used to shop in that pet shop and it wasn't a pet shop it was a delicatessen but then the taxi driver went oh my god that is insane 10 years ago there was a pet shop there fucking hell and it's not there anymore oh my god oh my god i'm getting all itchy i'm rubbing my nipples i don't know why i think that what i'm nervous and excited so you guys haven't had that with your kids yet you haven't had the past life no i don't want to have it with my kids i'll be terrible so i i know you're going to offer a mealy-mouthed response to this, but do you believe it? No, I don't. No.

No, no, no. Oh, you don't? You think it's all bullshit? I don't know what it is. It tends to be... Someone who follows me did a chart of all the people that replied with stories and worked out that something like 80% were people who had three-year-olds.

It was in that gap, in that vicinity. We're through it, thank God, with one of them. Yeah, you're past it yeah just put a lid on it keep it quiet don't scratch the surface that's what i say it's always the best approach so do you have a lot of followers that sort of because i obviously with the qi and then the podcast are quite into facts you said one of your followers like did a chart and analyzed the data on that yeah and you know i've got a few followers i don't think any of them would do that is that josh who does that for you he does that a stat to me but yeah i love a stat that's really interesting and so how did you deal with it with your kid did it come up again

did you chase it down again yeah i did because i was interested to see how the story would change days after and it didn't. The names stayed the same. But then, I think, it then turned into a performance, because he is still a three-year-old. So you're suddenly like... If he's getting attention for it. Exactly. He'll think, this is a fun story. So we were out in, I think it was a Hastings area, and he pointed at a building and said,

oh, that's where my old family was. And we're like, come off it, mate. We're done. We're done. We're over this. Fuck it, I'll change the record. was and we're like come off it mate though we're done you're done i'll change the record you had your moment come off it mate cut the shit dan have you got any holidays booked with the newborn are you putting a line on the holidays until they're older no we're gonna're going to go back to Australia in my brother's getting married next October. So that's that's the first biggie, I think. So you'll be

flying with a six and a half year old, a three and a half year old and a one year old. Yeah. And the prices to get back to Australia. No one told me this about parenting. And I assume that everyone must have known it. But I didn't realize that once you become a parent and your kid goes to school you now live in the most expensive bit of the world you can only travel when you're going on school holidays which is when everyone's traveling like everything is at its peak cost in order to be someone now who exists in the world and i didn't realize that and you've got to buy five seats. Five seats. To Australia. Oh, and you're going to hate every moment of that journey. Like the journey, not once you're there.

You don't really want to go back for that fucking wedding, let's be honest, Dan. Since Zoom's arrived, I think we could get away with that. Yeah. It's my brother. I can watch it. He don't care that much. Yeah.

We went back in March of this year. So we had Wilf and Ted. Ted was under two because that's another thing when, you know, you start paying for tickets when they turn two. So it's a scramble just to get in as many as possible. Yes, that last one when they're still on your lap. But then you've got a 23-month-old on your lap. It's this boulder. And they don't want to be there. They need a chair.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. God, the first flight that we did was the first leg because in COVID times as well, you can't really stop in the countries you'd usually stop in because of COVID restrictions in Australia. So we had to fly direct to Darwin, which was, I think, was a 16 hour first leg flight. 16 hours. So even though the kids were amazing, the kids slept for 10 hours on the first leg. And there's another six hours even if your kids are perfectly behaved it's still awful yeah it's still chaos yeah and the fights that my wife and i ended up having on that we get on really really well but like we were pushed to a limit and when we got off the plane everyone was like oh the kids were so good and we were like were they really in there and one guy just went the parents were not and apparently we were so chaotically yelling at each other just like every time i sat down fidelity

needed just another thing yeah why don't you tell me when i open the fucking thing exactly it's because it's 16 hour flight we bought like all these activities i didn't use any of them but like you know as a result there was like 20 bags, 20 different things that I had to fucking navigate to find. That is definitely a dad job, isn't it? The bags. It was honestly, it's the most stressful thing and not for the kids. Getting it out the top.

What we do is we get like a wheelie case and then we put their backpacks in the wheelie case because they never wear them. They'll never pull their own bags. We get like one wheelie case that I'll push along and we put their backpacks in that so it's easy to get to because when you're trying to carry a kid's backpack in your hand it's awful yeah it's too many things fenella bought these ones where they sit on them and they can ride them trunkies trunkies trunkies yeah but they don't sit on them and ride them with ted who was under two his legs didn't even reach the ground oh the worst i'm stuck with the trunkie with a two-year-old who's crying or under two because he can't move oh my god just a nightmare whoever invented the fucking trunky how long are you going

to australia for uh i don't know a couple of weeks i guess maybe three weeks yeah because that's going to be interesting for like a jet lag as well with kids right yeah yeah i have terrible jet lag so that's fine it means at least you're up in the evening. And also, I'm around family, so we can just give the kids... We'll stay in the house, and it's such a beautiful bit. Have you guys done Australia? Yeah, Rob's just about to go to Australia. Yeah, in the next couple of weeks.

What are you doing? Are you touring? Yeah, I'm doing Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney, then Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch. That's exciting. I know, yeah, can't wait. So where are you from in Australia? Sydney yeah so in the northern beaches we live right next to the beach where Home and Away is filmed that's our local beach oh Summer Bay Summer Bay yeah that's amazing have your parents ever done the uh the hair of any of the cast of Home

and Away yeah definitely yeah yeah are they still celebrity hairdressers or now they're just normal hairdressers no they're now normal hairdressers? No, they're now normal hairdressers. Yeah, the celebrity was in Hong Kong. That's all done now. They still have photos of Madonna on from like 40 years ago. Yeah. Hey, can I quickly say, I've been listening, my wife and I, part of our 12 days of having our kid,

every single night we've been listening to the audiobook of Parenting Hell. Yeah, thank you. It's honestly, we've been crying with laughter. Oh, thank you. It's honestly, we've been crying with laughter. Oh, thank you. It's absolutely amazing. I think it's one of the funniest books that I've read in years. Oh, thank you. Get the audiobook.

Oh, my God. Well, thanks, Dan, for listening to it. Yeah, thank you. It's so good. Guys, it's so good. It's so good. Oh, thank you. Well, not as good as your one.

Thank you. I was hoping. Well, to be fair, this has been a book loving. That's more or less brought us to the end. We've got the final question, though, Josh. Final question, yeah. Final question. What one thing does your wife do that annoys you

that you haven't brought up, but were she to listen, this would be your way of telling her? And what one thing does she... How would you put this, Rob? I always don't know how to put the positive one. What's something she does that's absolutely amazing as a parent that you forget to remind her about or tell her because you sort of take it for granted sometimes yeah so the first one is she really

needs to stop throwing away my retro toys that i buy for the kids yeah i agree with that so just because michelangelo from the original ninja turtles series is missing a leg doesn't mean he goes in the bin it's a precious toy so yeah she needs to hear that yeah can i suggest a storage lockup we've just got a storage lock up we've just got a storage lock up and all my shit's gone in there yeah the other day i went in to drop something off and i just sat on one of the chairs that was in there for an hour and it was nice oh you mean you didn't even play with any toys or anything you just to get away no no i just sort of sat there in the dark pretending i was sorting out my little box you just hung out in there like you're in solitary confinement yeah like a hannibal lecter yeah in just a warehouse a little room in a warehouse

it is a bit like prison it was quite nice it was a sunday it was really quiet it sort of felt like the bleakest bachelor pad of all time so so what's the what's the positive thing dan what's the great thing about fenella ah she's instilled empathy and kindness into my kids in a way that i don't think i ever could have imagined myself doing i keep noticing how polite they are around people which is not what i am like i won't say the formal sort of thank yous and pleases and and looking out for making sure that everyone feels like they've been served a drink. Like she's so good at reminding them to look at the room around them and to make sure that everyone is included as part of the room with kindness. It's such an

important thing to have kind kids. And I couldn't have put that into my kids because I'm just too busy just buying them toys. Whereas she's like, she's working on the core soul of them and yeah that's the thing that she needs to hear from me more i would say oh that's lovely thanks dan thanks good luck with your book and the podcast and thanks for coming on thanks man cheers dan thanks guys dan schreiber i love dan schreiber j Yeah. I'm really excited about reading his book. I think... It's absolutely my thing. He's one of the...

Like, whenever I gig with him, I sort of leave happier. He's so positive. And he's always got loads of facts. I reckon he'd be a great person on a stag do just to sort of bond the two separate groups. You know, sometimes on a stag do, there's like the friends from home, the work friends, the uni friends, just him in the middle.

Or he'd be the ideal person to live with and forget. And wipe your arse with his towel. Yeah, was that you? Absolutely not. I'd rather go out of a shitty arse than wipe my arse on someone's towel. There we go, that's the end of the episode. We'll be back on Tuesday. I'll die on that hill.

Dan Shriver, buy his book and listen to his podcast. Really good guy and very funny bloke. And we'll see you on Tuesday. I'll see you on Tuesday, J'll see you on tuesday josh see you on tuesday bye