Something Rhymes with Purple - E.T.

Episode Date: April 12, 2022

Today, Susie and Gyles are blasting into outer space as they take a voyage into the linguistical world of extraterrestrial life. Rock bands and conspiracy theories will be involved in this episode’s lexical discovery as we fly by UFO’s, Crop Circles and Area 51. Also Susie and Gyles share their own run-ins with alien life before Gyles serenades us with a rather Saucy song.  A Somethin’ Else production  This episode features “The Saucer Song” from the musical, Salad Days written by Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds.  We love answering your wordy questions on the show so please do keep sending them in to [e-mail]  To buy SRWP mugs and more head to.... https://kontraband.shop/collections/something-rhymes-with-purple  If you would like to join the Purple Plus Club on Apple Subs please follow this link https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/something-rhymes-with-purple/id1456772823 and make sure that you are running the most up-to-date IOS on your computer/device otherwise it won’t work.  Susie's Trio:  Tachyphagia - Eating very quickly Pica - Unusual cravings, particularly experienced during pregnancy Aflunters - in a state of disorder Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up y'all it's your man Mark Strong Strizzy and your girl Jem the Jem of all Jems and we're hosting Olympic FOMO your essential recap podcast of the 2024 Olympic Games in 20 minutes or less every day we'll be going behind the scenes for all the wins

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Where words come from and where language can take us. And today, me, Giles Brandreth, and my companion, the lexicographer Susie Dent, are going to explore an extraterrestrial world, the world beyond us, the world of UFOs, unidentified flying objects. Susie Dent, have you ever seen such a thing? Do you believe in such things? I think I have to. I mean, I think we have to believe that there is life beyond us. It seems incredibly arrogant to assume that we are the only living beings in this grand universe of ours. I think according to opinion polls, about a third of us do believe in alien life, if you like. And as to whether I've seen something, well, I did have quite a strange encounter, but I completely rationalised it in my head. But I was happily driving along the motorway, it was night time, and to my left was a big field.

And no joke, something that looked absolutely like a spaceship came and landed on that field. Absolute classic E.T. type stuff. And I remember looking at other drivers and thinking, are you not seeing this? And everyone looked completely... Anyway, I've rationalised it. I think it must have been in the sort of early days of drones, but it had the flashing lights. It had absolutely everything. But it was so blatant in front of everybody that I just thought absolutely has to be in a drone. But it was very odd. I just remember thinking, where am I? It was really odd. How about you? Well, I first began to think about this in the 1950s because I was, as a child, travelling across France by train, going for some holiday with an exchange family, but I was on my own. And the train was stopped and we were all invited to get

out of the train onto the track to look up into the sky and to see what we were told was the first space satellite, Sputnik. And it was going to be near enough the Earth for us to be able to see this thing. It was a Russian satellite that had been sent around the world, and this was considered a phenomenon. And after I'd seen this Sputnik in the distance, just a sort of faint light, I began, when I was small, to regularly see things apparently in the skies. But I can't pretend they ever landed near me. All that steps then came down from the side of the craft and small green people emerged. I would have loved that to have happened. So, no. But you're right, the universe is so great, the possibility of other creatures, we must accept that it's there, mustn't we? I think so.

I mean, obviously, I have no idea how these things work, but I think the Ministry of Defence here in the UK first began to investigate UFO reports at the height of the Cold War, didn't they? And I think maybe then they were concerned not so much about invasion from outer space, but from behind the Iron Curtain. So many of the amazing stories, including the Roswell incident, etc. Remind me of that.

The Roswell incident is, it happened in 1947 in New Mexico. And it has invited so many different conspiracy theories but the US government said that debris that was found on the ground there was actually balloon debris so it basically came from a kind of satellite balloon but then other people immediately thought that the trees had been covered up by the US government this was a flying saucer and the Roswell Army Airfield issued this press release saying they had recovered a flying saucer. And the Roswell Army Airfield issued this press release saying they had recovered a flying disc. And then they quickly retracted that statement and said it was a weather balloon. And so it has attracted so many different theories as to what actually happened. And it's probably the most exhaustively investigated claim of a UFO, I think.

And many people will say it's been debunked now, but it was pretty big. Well, people have been looking at the possibilities of these things for hundreds of years. And in Victorian times, became very popular with writers like Jules Verne, turning these extraterrestrial possibilities into great stories. We're here to explore the language. So let's begin doing that. A UFO, unidentified flying object. What's the origin of that? How far back does that go? To the 1940s or before then?

So obviously, all to do with science fiction, really. And so a lot of the ones that we're going to cover today first appeared in the stories of science fiction, as opposed to people beginning to talk about them in real life. So 1950s, originally in the u.s but you know even some of the early ones here you'll find an airline pilot i think magazine 1953 and it says the ufo was estimated to be between 12 000 and 20 000 feet above the jets so it kind of replaced flying saucers really and flying saucer again very much a sort of central turn it i suppose of

science fiction that's only a decade earlier first report there is from the times 8th of july 1947 during the past fortnight reports that dish-like objects nicknamed flying saucers have been seen traveling through the air at great speed and have come from the united states and canada i mean did they always look like flying saucers? Interesting that they should be saucer-shaped. Yeah, there's a great podcast. I don't know if you've listened to it. It's called Uncanny.

And if anyone likes ghost stories, I recommend it because it basically takes a particular incident or phenomenon such as, I don't know, reports of a poltergeist, et cetera, and it kind of investigates those. And it's very much a kind of group interactive thing. It's really good. Anyway, there is one in there of a group of schoolchildren in Wales seeing a UFO.

I think we're talking about, I don't know, a whole class of schoolchildren. And everybody described it in the same way. And it was very much a flying saucer, essentially, with kind of flashing lights and that kind of thing. Some of them saw it as being cigar-shaped, but they all saw it. But it's seen by many as a kind of the result of mass suggestion and that all the kids kind of went off and talked to each other about it and sort of then subliminally kind of agreed on a shape and things.

But the flying saucer, I mean, that shape, I think, has been sort of pretty much enshrined in science fiction, hasn't it, for quite a long time. And the one that I saw from the motorway was pretty much that shape, although it had a sort of dome at the top. I mean, it really was absolute textbook UFO, the one that I saw. But it just, I still can't believe it was. It was just a very strange, strange strange thing what is the date for the first use of the word flying saucer at 1947 1947 yeah extraterrestrial that predates E.T. but how it does how much are you a fan of E.T. I loved E.T. yeah I'm with you because it's a sentimental story really it is about extraterrestrials, but in a way, it's just a charming folk story. But yes, it's absolutely gorgeous. So yes, obviously, it did predate E.T. and extraterrestrial goes back to 1868. It's actually talking more in

terms of astronomy and meteors, as opposed to things that come from beyond this earth in the sense that we might use it today and certainly that it was used in et but yeah 1868 so quite a long time the word alien obviously means foreign doesn't it yes from elsewhere yeah from elsewhere so when do we start calling people from elsewhere aliens in the sense of space type aliens. Okay, so it was used for a foreigner, if you like, in the 14th century. So it's pretty old from that point of view. In sense of something being strange, unfamiliar or different is an adjective. That's also the 14th century. And in science fiction, though, as in an intelligent being from another planet, an extraterrestrial, it's 1929 in sci-fi stories. The alien ship it talks of.

Yes, the alien ship, because the idea, I mean, as well as flying saucers, you have spaceships. Yes. And they're not called space planes or space buses, space taxis. They're called spaceships. Yes. Are you going to ask me why? Yeah. Yeah, I actually genuinely don't know the answer to that it's a spacecraft i suppose it was maybe coined on the pattern of an airship

and an airship is you know huge and it's got this kind of rigid very long structure and it was propeller driven so maybe that idea of a ship that then kind of bled into the idea of a spaceship that would be my guess and the alarming notion that these spaceships would land and then they would abduct people from earth to take them back to mars where i don't know quite why the people always seem to be green the people from mars little little green people yes why are they green i wonder people from mars from Mars. I have absolutely no idea. I think the purple people who are real sci-fi lovers, they will probably be able to tell us, you know, which representations of aliens really, really stuck in the popular imagination and then

sort of became these stereotypes, if you like. But to abduct obviously means to be led away. It goes back to the Latin, ducare, meaning to lead. And goodness, that's given us so many words in English. It's given us deduce, which is to draw or lead a conclusion from something, to educate, which is to lead somebody out, to introduce, which is to bring or lead into, to produce is lead forward, and so on and so on. To seduce, which is to lead someone away from duty. So lots and lots and lots. But what about Foo Fighters? I've almost not got beyond a childhood comic that I used to read called The Eagle. And this featured a spaceman hero called Dan Dare. And he had an enemy called the Green Mekon. It was first

published in 1950, the comic, and it went on till the end of the 60s. I think they tried to relaunch it a few times. But there were marvellous stories, brilliantly illustrated. And that was my introduction to science fiction. And I don't think I really ever got beyond that. So Foo Fighters are beyond my ken. Tell me all about them. Who are they? What are they doing? Okay doing okay so the food fighters are a band really really popular band very sad news recently that taylor hawkins their drummer incredible drummer died back in march i thought i mean i knew i knew about that i didn't know they had to do with the space i read about this poor man but what have they got to do with extraterrestrials and the other worlds food, it became a slang term for an alien spaceship or a UFO. And you have

to go back to the nonsense word foo, which kind of emerged in the 1930s. And it was first used by, you're talking about cartoons, it was first used by the cartoonist Bill Holman. And he had a fireman cartoon, which was called Smokey Stover. And he would put lots of foo signs and puns in there and Smokey Stover was then obviously clearly very very popular but like the eagle I'm sure and so the term foo was borrowed from that comic by a radar operator now he was in the 415th night fighter squadron and he was the one who gave the foo fighter their name i suppose the food not not the band but the foo fighter term so he essentially said that he and a co-pilot had sighted a red ball of fire which appeared to chase them through a variety of high-speed maneuvers and they just could not work out what was going on and Myers apparently became extremely agitated and when they landed he according to the story

had a copy of the comic strip tucked in his back pocket and pulled it out slammed it down on the desk and said it was another one of those fucking foo fighters and stormed out so it's said that he was the one who coined the term if you you like, for UFOs and alien flight craft based on that Smoky Slover cartoon. And I'm not quite sure why the band chose it. It was quite a good name for a band, I would say. It's a very good name for a band. Yeah. Very good. Okay, well, give me some more. Well, there's Area 51. I think Area 51 would be quite well known to anyone who's really interested in UFOs. So this is a place in the Nevada desert, and it is a site of the US government's secret military technology and testing. So it's a test and training facility.

So it would have spy planes, drones, etc. And it essentially has, again, because it's so wrapped up up in secrecy it's helped fuel many conspiracy theories so most famous is the claim that the site and this goes back to roswell again that we mentioned new mexico that it hosted an alien spacecraft and the bodies of its pilot but again as i say u.s government completely debunked that but others claim to have seen ufos near that site some say they've been abducted by aliens and experimented upon before being returned to earth etc so area 51 has become a bit of a shorthand for a place where strange phenomena happen what about crop circles have you ever seen a crop circle i have i've seen photographs of them okay

i've actually seen one and they're really interesting so crop circles these flattened crops aren't they that are said to have been caused by landing aircraft and that term goes back to the 1980s and lots and lots of theories i don't think anyone has completely worked out how crop circles came about but most people think they have evolved through human hand rather than alien hands and that actually some of them are hoaxes some of them i mean they're incredibly elaborate that's what's so extraordinary. But crop circles have been said by many to just miraculously appear overnight. And so the assumption is that they have been marked there by, you know,

they are the sort of remains, if you like, of the imprints of an alien spaceship. But really, really interesting. I remember they were really big in the 80s and 90s. I always assumed that they were local farmers getting into their tractors and creating them overnight because you get them that are interesting shapes as well as being in circles, don't you? You do, but I mean, quite how they could come up

with very, very elaborate things in that space of time, I'm not sure. But as I say, I mean, I think, you know, it depends which side of the fence you want to sit on for those, I'm not sure. But as I say, I mean, I think, you know, it depends which side of the fence you want to sit on for those. But they are incredible. Whosever hand was behind them, they are absolutely incredible to look at.

Would you ever be brave enough to go up in a spaceship if you, you know, found yourself as a friend of Jeff Bezos or Richard Branson who said, you know, fancy a ride? I can take you to Mars. Would you get onto the plane with them? Absolutely not. No, I think I'd get so claustrophobic. You're not a natural space cadet.

Not a natural space cadet. Were there characters in Star Trek? I never got into Star Trek. I always got confused between Mr Spock and Dr Spock. Dr Spock was the child doctor who was very famous because he wrote a book about childcare that we used to bring up our children on. But Mr Spock then came along, and he was played by Leonard Nimoy, I know, on television and then on screen, had pointy ears. And it's Star Trek that gives us the language of the Klingon.

Yes. Is that right? Tell me about Star Trek. It's more your generation, Susan. Yeah, I loved Star Trek. I used to be just a regular watch, but I didn't follow it as many people did. So, I mean, there are real, like Doctor Who, I mean, they're real, real Star Trek fans, aren't they? Apparently you can learn Klingon on Duolingo on the app, which is really interesting. Klingon is really complicated because it kind of relies on the fact that it is very, very different to other languages.

And also it's quite specific. So there are lots and lots of words relating to warfare and weaponry and cursing. There's quite a big variety of cursing as well and lots of in-jokes as well. So it's quite a complicated language, but some people have really learned it fluently. I can't believe that if there are aliens

and creatures from other, why would they be speaking at all? Could well be done in other ways. You know, they could think something and you could think it too. They could communicate by, you know, touching your nose. And that would, through the tip of their green fingers, that would communicate. You might, well, you'd still have a nose.

They might not have. And they'd be feeling your nose with their digits, if they have digits. I mean, it's all, it's just too funny for words. But people with brilliant imaginations do create these worlds and people get completely hooked on them, don't they? Yeah. I mean, I would genuinely be really, really interested in looking at all the now declassified information on military UFO sightings. And I suspect that the purple people will know a lot more about this than we do. But there is absolutely no doubt that there are lots and lots of recorded incidents of unexplained objects. And some may have explanations from meteorology or astronomy, but a lot of them probably wouldn't. So I would absolutely love to look at some of

the evidence for this, because as we say, I think there is bound to be something out there, but possibly not green. Well, if you are a purple person with something to contribute, or even better, if you are a purple person with something to contribute, or even better, if you are a purple person from outer space, if you are an alien listener, we are here with open arms, ready to welcome you into the purple family. Do get in touch.

If you can use conventional means, that will be easier for us. It's simply an email to purple at something else dot com. And it's something else without a G in the something. Yes, absolutely. So that would be good. And just to remind people as well about our extra content too, which you can find if you're interested. Giles and I have done various little bits and bobs, haven't we, of subjects that are close to our hearts, swearing for me, and poetry for you, I would say.

Yes, that's the difference between us. And you can get hold of this by joining the club, as it were. It's £1.89 a month, and you get all the episodes ad-free, and you get discount codes on the merch and things like that, as well as access to these exclusive extra episodes. So that's all fun. But you also get a break. We throw in a break.

No extra charge. OK? I'm just going to take a call. There's some little green people on line two i must just have a word with me bumble knows it's hard to start conversations hey no too basic hi there still no what about hello handsome who knew you could give yourself the ick that's why bumumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat.

Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Are you ever minding your own business and start to wonder, is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch real? How do the Northern Lights happen? Why is weed not legal yet? I'm Jonathan Van Ness. And every week on Getting Curious, I sit down for a gorgeous conversation

with a brilliant expert to learn all about something that makes me curious. Join me every Wednesday as we set off on a stunning journey of curiosity on a new subject and dive into the archive of more than 370 episodes. Listen to Getting Curious wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to Something Rhymes with Purple. And we're coming now to, I think, Jaz, this is probably my favorite part of each episode, which is when we hear

from the Purple people and just look at their emails and their questions, because it always sends me scurrying off in different directions. And we have one, I think, from Ian Farthing, a purple person. Dear Susie and Giles, I've heard that when an actor plays a role, the term derives from Shakespearean times when paper was scarce and it was too expensive to give each actor a whole script. So they gave him a cue script, which was just those actors' lines and the preceding couple of cue words. When the parts were being handed out to the actors for rehearsal, they would be given their cue script rolled up in a scroll. So you might be given a big roll or a small roll, depending on how many lines you had.

Is this true? Thank you, Ian, who, as you can probably tell, is from Canada, from Vancouver in British Columbia. What do you reckon, Giles? You might know this one, actually, with your deep knowledge of Shakespeare, etc. I reckon that this is a long-standing urban myth. That's my instinct. But you have done the research

and you can give us the definitive answer. Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? I am delighted to say that actually this is true. It's like an elaborate episode of Call My Bluff because in the early 17th century, the word roll with the circumflex or a little hat above the O came over from French into English. And that in turn does go back to an old French word, rule, meaning a role. And this was indeed originally the role of paper on which the actor's part was written. So role, as in R-O-L-E, and role, R-O-L-L, are actually very, very close siblings and very intimately linked when it comes to the theatre and it reminded me as well of a rigmarole you know rigmarole is a sort of palaver isn't it's a lengthy complicated procedure and

that goes back to ragman roll and a ragman roll was originally a legal document that recorded a whole list of offences but it was again in scroll form so you would unroll it and you would look at the entire list of offences and other legal cases that were on there. And because it was so long and slightly unmanageable, rigmarole became the long rambling thing that we associate it with today. Oh, well, that's fascinating. And I wouldn't have discovered that if it had not been for that intriguing inquiry there. So thank you very much indeed, Ian Farthing in Vancouver. We're going to stay international for our next letter, which comes from Joseph Fry, and we're going to stay in a way in the world of Shakespeare, because I think immediately

of Sir Toby Belch, the character in Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night. You'll see why. Hi, Giles and Susie. I'm writing from Cincinnati, Ohio, and I'm also an avid purple person. Thank you. The other day, I was thinking of the three words belly, belt, and belch. I found it interesting that all three begin with B-E-L and are related to the stomach, waist area, in one way or another. I was wondering if these three words have related etymologies, or is this just pure coincidence? Well, what is the answer for Joseph? I'm not sure if it's pure coincidence, because I always hesitate before saying no, absolutely no connection whatsoever. Because at some point, as you know, the word detectives and the word detection carry on.

And so it's quite possible that there will be some ancient ancient root perhaps in this sort of reconstructed language that we have called Proto-Indo-European where we will find some connection but they did all start off with something very different so I'll go with belt first that did look very different it goes back to an old English word but ultimately a Latin word baltius so not with an e b-a-l-t-e-u-s which meant a girdle and actually you know um baldrick in blackadder the brilliant brilliant comedy series that was called baldrick the character yes played by tony robinson yeah yes so baldrick was it might possibly go back to the same idea this baltius in latin because a baldric was a belt for a sword which was worn

over one shoulder and reached down to the opposite hip that was a baldric that was why baldric was so named so probably a link there then we're going to go to belch now that is probably simply imitative of doing a belt or a burp and in old english it was similar belcherton so that one it pretty much reproduces its sound and then we have belly which again is apparently unrelated so that goes back to the old english belly b-e-l-i-g which came as you can probably tell from german and a belly was a bag and the idea is of something being full or swollen or sort of quite inflated which is why quite often your belly gets very big and very full. So three very, very different routes into English. And I suspect certainly not in recent times, linguistically

speaking, and there is no connection, but who knows, maybe going all the way back, there may be a few threads here and there. An intriguing question, prompting some very interesting answers. Thank you, Susie. And thank you for corresponding with us. Wherever you are in the world, if you want to get in touch, the easiest way is to email us. It's purple at something else dot com. And we do see all the emails and we well, we cover as many of them as we can in each episode. But we have to find time also for all the other good things we have to offer, which always includes a trio of intriguing words, researched and loved, cherished and shared with us by Susie Dent. What are your three words this week? Well, Giles, are you a pingler? Do you play with your food? Do you sort of eat in a slightly picky

way or do you just tuck in? Oh, a pingler is somebody who plays with their food, a pingler. That's not my word, actually. I think it's been on my word before. No, I know it has been. And does it relate relate to a pang which is the french word for a kind of pin that you put in your hair needle in your hair it probably is possibly related and that you just sort of take little teeny tiny bits as if you're sort of pricking with a needle but what do you eat heartily when you eat at the moment i'm pingling more okay because i'm on my low carb diet as i was sharing with people the other day and that means no bread rice pasta or potato and but i take whatever i'm given and so i poke about on the plate and usually the meal ends up i look as if i'm leaving more than i've actually eaten because i'm picking out

the odd pea that i'm allowed to eat a Oh no, it sounds great. And I poke the potatoes and the sauce to the side. Okay. Well, I think you need a bit of tachyphagia then. Tachyphagia. Who? T-A-C-H-Y-P-H-A-G-I-E. And tachyphagia is fast eating. So it's eating really, really quickly.

Dogs, some cats, not mine, they are guilty of tachyphagia. And my son. Yes. They sit there and just gobble it all down. Yeah. Instead of savouring it. Oh dear, not mine. They are guilty of tachyphagia. And my son. They sit there and just gobble it all down instead of savouring it. Oh dear, not a good idea. Not a good idea. Okay, so that's the first one, tachyphagia. Another food one, any purple person who has listened to this and has been pregnant at some point might recognise the word pica. And the pica is a slightly strange craving that is particularly associated with

pregnancy i didn't really get any strange ones i just wanted lots of cake i remember but pica here is a reference to the magpie and the magpie's omnivorous appetite and if you look in medical textbooks from centuries ago you will find that pica was not only ascribed to pregnancy but also to hysteria and insanity pica just because of course it was a woman's ailment and then it was consequently thought as being slightly hysterical and my last one kind of describes me today i'm quite coldy don't really feel i'm on top of things so i'm a bit a flunters a flunters is a-f-l-u-n-t-e-r-s and it means in a state of disorder i like that and how long has that been around the word of flunters is A-F-L-U-N-T-E-R-S, and it means in a state of disorder. I like that. And how long has that been around, the word of flunters?

Oh, that's dialect, so I suspect at least two or three hundred years. Very good. Well, I've been pondering about what poem to share with you, and I've failed to find the lyrics that I wanted to read to you as a poem. Often I find that song lyrics work very well as poetry, particularly if it's by a great songwriter like Cole Porter. You can read almost any of his song lyrics out as poems, and they work very effectively. In the 1950s, when I first saw my first Sputnik, and when I was reading the Eagle comic

and discovering, you know, that world of sci-fi, there was a very successful musical running in London. It ran in New York as well, called Salad Days. For many years, it was the longest running musical in the history of British theatre, written by two people, Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds, who I got to know. And indeed, many years later, Julian Slade and I wrote a show together about A. A. Milne and Christopher Robin. Ali Jones, now father of the famous international film star, Amelia Jones, he played Christopher Robin in this musical. Anyway, I was a friend of Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds.

They wrote Saturdays. And in Saturdays, the hero has a variety of uncles, one of whom is a spaceman. That's the point of the story. And he's called Uncle Zed. And he's got a flying saucer. And there was a wonderful song about that flying saucer. Did you ever see your saucer as saucy as mine? If you want to see a flyer saucer, the saucer's quite divine. I can't remember the words and I can't remember the tune and I can't sing it. But I'm very much

hoping that Lawrence, our brilliant producer, will do a little bit of research and will be able at this stage to play a snatch of this wonderful song, Uncle Zed's Saucer Song from Salad Days. You never saw a saucer so saucy as mine. You never saw a saucer that's even half as fine what joy and pride it is to ride upon my astral courser oh aren't I clever nobody ever saw such a saucy saucer oh isn't he clever nobody ever saw such a saucy saucer it's a very charming witty song about being a spaceman in a spaceship oh that, that is excellent. The poem I'm going to share with you really relates to the poem I did last week. As you remember, last week, I spoke my own

poem about how to lose two pounds a week. Well, not everyone approves of people watching their weight. Some people think this is not a good thing to do. And indeed, my experience is often I take off the weight, then I put it straight back on. Anyway, there's a marvellous poem called Against Dieting by Blake Morrison. So I thought as a counterpoint to what I read last week, this week, I should share this with you. Against Dieting by Blake Morrison. Please, darling, no more diets. I've read the book on why it's good for one's esteem. I've watched you jogging lanes and pounding treadmills. I've even shed some kilos of my own. But enough.

What are love handles between friends? For half a stone, it isn't worth the sweat. I've had it up to here with crisp bread. I doubt the premise too. Try to see it from my point of view. I want not less, but more of you. I like that. A nice poem, isn't it?

It is a nice poem. Really sweet. Thank you so much to everybody who has listened to us today and followed us through our, I hate the word journey when it's used like this, but you have been there for us throughout our, how many shows is it now? Oh, hundreds. Hundreds. There's a whole back catalogue. My personal trainer, I use the word rather loosely, my friend Tamsin, who sometimes exercises with me, she only discovered us a few months ago and she's been working her way gradually

and she does it every evening when she's making supper. She listens to a different episode. She's almost caught up. Well, hello to Tamsin. So thank you for that. And do please keep getting in touch. We love your questions. As I say, favourite part of the show for me.

Purple at somethingelse.com is the email address. Purple at something without the G, else.com. Something Rhymes with Purple was Giles, produced by Laurence Bassett and Harriet Wells, with additional production from Chris Skinner, Jen Mystery, Jay Beale and what can we say? Well he was the original afflanter. Oh right yeah. It's Gully. He's all over the shop.