THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - BONUS - JOE CORNISH RE. ADAM AND JOE AND MSF AUCTION

Episode Date: May 14, 2021

Adam talks with Joe about the publication in paperback of Ramble Book, what Adam and Joe related stories might appear in the sequel and a few of the items to look out for in Adam's auction in aid of Médecins Sans Frontières.Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support.Podcast artwork by Helen GreenRELATED LINKSSEE ALL AUCTION ITEMS ON ADAM'S BLOGAUCTION RAFFLELINK FOR ADAM BUXTON AUCTION LIVE STREAM - Tuesday 18th, 7.30pm (YOUTUBE)DONATE TO MSFRAMBLE BOOK PAPERBACK - 2021 (WH SMITH)ADAM BUXTON'S RAMBLE BOOK (AUDIOBOOK) - 2020 (AUDIBLE)THE SPARKS BROTHERS - OFFICIAL TRAILER - 2021 (YOUTUBE) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening I took my microphone and found some human folk Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here. I am outside, walking along in my hiking boots,

in the county of Norfolk, East Anglia, UK. It's the middle of May 2021. It's quite cold, certainly a lot colder than it was this time last year, if I recall. Gambling in the increasingly tall grass is my dog friend Rosie. We're here for a bonus episode because technically the podcast is on hiatus until later in the year. But if you recall at the end of the last episode with Lee Mac I did say that there was a possibility I might be dropping the odd episode now and then before the the odd episode now and then before the next run recommences properly. This is one such episode. That's a seagull.

Hello, seagull. A lone seagull. Bonus episode, yes. Buckles checks his notes on his phone. Right, I'm calling this a bonus episode of the podcast because despite containing a highly entertaining conversation with my old friend Joe Cornish, it has a significant promotional aspect to it. And I want to be upfront about that.

Yeah? Transparency. First thing I'm promoting is the paperback publication of Ramble Book, which is a sort of a memoir that I wrote. Have I mentioned it before? Well, just to remind you, this is a book I wrote that came out last year in hardback. It's amazing. And the main themes include growing up, falling in love, trying to figure out your parents. Well, not your parents. My parents, well, mainly my dad. Getting into music and films, personal and professional failures, worries about money, class, death, and feeling conflicted by David Bowie's output in the 1980s. There is, as well, don't forget, an audiobook version, read by me, featuring

specially made jingles for each chapter, and an hour-long exclusive conversation with Joe at the end. Because, of course course my friendship with Joe Cornish is an important part of Ramble Book but hey look we've covered all that in the audiobook convo me and Joe and in this conversation today this is all new stuff that I I mean, you know, yes, some of it we will have touched upon before. But this is an all new conversation. And I suppose it gives you a glimpse of what you might expect from a Ramble Book sequel. And that gives us an opportunity to talk about our working relationship with what I would call unprecedented candor. The other thing that I am promoting in this bonus episode is my auction of incredible pop cultural memorabilia in aid of MSF.

cultural memorabilia in aid of msf medicines sans frontier or doctors without borders currently their volunteers are providing much needed medical assistance all over the world especially sad to say in india which is being hit so hard by covid and in israel and gaza where the fighting is affecting so many people so badly. If you're listening to this podcast sometime between May the 14th and May the 24th, 2021, you can browse and bid for items in that auction now. You will find a link to my eBay page in the description of this podcast. You all right, Rose? Or you can go to the front page of my blog, adam-buxton.co.uk, where you will also find details. And if you have no interest

whatsoever in bidding for items of incalculable cultural significance, then please consider making a donation to MSF if you're in a position to do so. Thanks either way. And final thing, please come and join me for an hour of waffling about the items in the auction and maybe a bit of Q&A on a live YouTube stream next Tuesday the 18th of May 2021 at 7.30pm. You can expect to see rare and exclusive pictures, clips and reminiscences of The Adam and Jo Show, my days filming on Hot Fuzz

and working with Radiohead. We've heard all those stories before though. Rosie, no you haven't. Anyway, I'm going to be digging up some bits that have never seen the light of day. Oh, that reminds me of those small creatures I killed and then buried and then dug up again. Rosie, what have I told you about being macabre? Sorry. All right, back at the end for a small slice of goodbye waffle and a mention of another exciting film project that I was recently involved with.

But right now, with Joe Cornish, who I spoke to via the Zoom last week. 6th of May, I think it was. Here we go. Ramble chat, let's have a ramble chat. We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that. Come on, let's chew the fat and have a ramble chat. Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat.

Yes! I think it's very exciting that your book's coming out in paperback because that's not like a done deal. Is it not a gibbon? It's not a that's not like a done deal. Is it not a gibbon? It's not a gibbon. No, it is sometimes a book like like when we did the Adam and Joe book. Right. Very famous book. Yes.

I was thinking, oh, they'll do a lavish hardback edition. And then when that sells to the aficionados in large numbers, six months later, they'll release it in paperback you know for the less wealthy fans but no they decided to put it straight into paperback didn't they whereas like other comedy series like the league of gentlemen like proper comedy series had proper hardback comedy books that were just their scripts even i know but that's a slightly different thing like special comedy books they don't really exist comedy books in the same way anymore because you used to have a show like the young ones for example and then you'd have the spin-off comedy book and it was very much a throwaway affair like how to be a complete bastard that was never a hardback was it i don't remember all i remember is that i was a bit disappointed when the adam and joe book went

straight to the cheap seats but um suffice to say that it's uh impressive that ramble book came out in hardback and now is coming out in paperback just so that every member of the public is able to wallow in its wonders that's right and that's why it has a beautiful redesigned cover helen green who did the artwork for the uh well she does the artwork for the podcast and she did the illustrations for the hardback of ramble book she's done a whole new cover that looks like well it's supposed to look a bit like an 80s film poster a bit like the labyrinth film poster and it has javid hovering in the background as well as a big picture of my dad and you and louis are prominently featured on the front as well yes that'll boost sales well that's the idea

we're hoping that will boost sales yeah it was It was a bit of a problem, though, because, you know, part of it is about my childhood, my experience of growing up in the 80s. So there's a lot of terrible white males in it. Yes. And not so many of any other kind of person. I mean, there's the only women in there are old girlfriends and passing mentions of Sigourney Weaver, perhaps. So I've put them all on the cover. Yeah. Well, maybe you can market it towards people who are more right wing.

That's not what I want. Big adverts in the right wing press. Enjoy the good old racist, sexist days with Adam Buxton. Maybe a quote from Nigel Farage. Have you got quotes on there? No, I went quote-less. Did you think about having quotes on there? Because I gave you some, didn't I?

I took a stand against quotes. I gave you some for the hardback. You did. But you didn't use any. I thought maybe you might use one. No, I think they might put quotes from some of the reviews on the back. I'm not sure. But quotes.

I wish it wasn't necessary to have quotes. And I certainly didn't want to do the whole business of emailing every single famous or mildly famous person i've ever met and asking that's terrible isn't it no i don't want to do that who would be the best person to have a quote from on the front of my book curry edwina edwina curry would be really good that would really especially after what you said about the content being a little bit you know a little bit. Retrograde. Retrograde. Old fashioned. Nostalgic. I'd like to point out at this point, listeners, that it is not in that way retrograde. It is forward.

It just happens to be the reality of my life is that I am a white male man. Who grew up in a segregated community. In an all male segregated community. Listen, are you, well, the other thing I'm curious about is are you going to release a paperback version of the audio book with like thinner audio and like cheaper versions

of all the musical stings read by a sound alike? Yeah, that's a good idea. Who would do it? I don't know know like who's the sort of poundland version of adam buxton man that's a tricky question because i'm the poundland version of so many other people well you just maybe hold a competition for your listeners and see who did the best adam buxton impression it's got to be someone middle-aged inoffensive warm scofield you're

describing philip scofield yeah scofield would be great i bet he'd read it really nicely scofers he's expensive though you'd never get him no that's true i mean he's been massive but listen i think you have a you have a competition with your listeners and the one who does the best adam buxton impression. Rerecords the audio book. And also does all the stings. Have to make sure they were like less good. And then you release it.

Like what's the price differential between the hardback book. And the paperback book. I think. Like a tenner. Is it like a ten pounds cheaper or something. No less than that. I think it's probably more like about five or six quid cheaper. Okay. So maybe like it's got to be like say 35 less good the the just the not the it'd be the same words but just printed on the audio equivalent of lower quality paper yeah more compressed audio yeah that's a good

idea also they could mispronounce a lot of it. I'm listening to an audio book at the moment that it's a really great book. I'm not going to say the name of it, though, because the fellow reading it, who is he's doing a good job most of the time, but he's got some very odd ideas about pronunciation. And he also does a strange thing where he'll just pause in random places in a really odd way. So like I'm going to read from my book right now. Louis was more intelligent than most people in our year. Despite having been. I know what this book is. It's Louis Theroux's autobiography.

And he's writing about himself. Is that what it is? This is from my book. It's Louis Theroux's autobiography, and he's writing about himself. Is that what it is? I know what it is. This is from my book. Despite having been accelerated from the year below, a fact that sometimes made me a little wary of him. He literally does that, this guy who is reading this audio book I'm listening to right now. Also, check out these mispronunciations.

Today he said, instead of enviable, he said enviable. Enviable? I'd stop the recording and go back and rerecord that if someone said that, wouldn't you? Yeah. I mean, I'm sure he had a producer on this thing. It's a big, important, clever book. Anyway, another one was, instead of saying placate, he says placate, like placenta. Sounds wrong as well.

Instead of draftsman, he says droughtsman. What? Droughtsman. That's absurd. I mean, what was the producer doing? Just smoking loads and loads of drugs. Can I ask you some more questions about the paperback book?

Yeah, man. Does it have a preview chapter of Ramble Book 2? Well. To whet the appetite. Yeah. It should do. I thought we could do that

in this conversation. Excellent. I mean, Ramble Book 2 is not 100% a done deal, but it is a possibility. But's okay because there's really there's nothing better than something that's sort of promised but never turns up don't you think yeah i do just saying yeah i haven't really thought it through i mean now that i'm thinking about it no that's one of the worst things there is no but it's like legendary films that are never made oh i see like stanley kubrick's napoleon uh and then you get a big or jodorowsky's dune okay and then you get a

documentary and a big coffee table book you mean in the cultural sphere yes well it's all potential and no disappointment you know what i mean yes you always imagine the best possible version uh and it's never sullied by the... Dreary reality. By the actual existence of something disappointing. Yes. So talk about Ramble Book 2. Have a sample chapter, sketches, discuss it. Be working really hard on it.

Talk about it a lot in forthcoming podcasts. And never, never do it. You know what? I've actually written some ideas down. One of the main things that people said to me when they wrote to me about Ramble Book 1, I got a few comments from people who had read Ramble Book. Loved it. They loved it. Can I just interrogate what you've said so far a little? Yeah, go on.

How are you receiving these messages? Letters? Letters and emails via my agent. said so far a little yeah go on how are you receiving these messages let letters letters and emails via my agent and they thought it was incredible but one of the things they said they wished there was more of was stuff with you and i you and me you and me is the right one you you and mine you and my my and yo did did you look at the reviews on amazon no didn't read any reviews honestly yeah no i i tried to remove all that stuff from my life did you look at the reviews on goodreads new no reviews haven't read any reviews

i've only received feedback from other human beings via letter that's a good way to do it man because you're unlikely to actually make the effort of writing to you via your agent or publisher unless you really love it or you're so angry about it it's entertainingly ridiculous yeah that's my theory if if yeah people had a massive i mean i'm absorbing generally where the areas of potential criticism may be. Perhaps a little bit too much Bowie in there. Right. How are you getting those vibes? Just sort of psychically walking through the streets of Norwich in the hubbub? Well, no, I can decode it from the things people say in their letters and their emails.

But people did wish that there was more stuff about you and me being on TV in the 90s. So obviously the structure that suggests itself for Ramble Book 2, rather than going through the 80s, this time we would go through the 90s. And obviously that was the decade that you and I managed to get a TV show on Channel 4. managed to get a tv show on channel four and uh our friendship underwent a transformation or at least it was put under a certain amount of strain so that's one question how honest should i be about some of the more tense times what are you afraid of what are you afraid of a lawsuit from jay corn and associates what do you think like what's the darkest corner well i don't know i mean i don't think there's anything too bad i mean i don't know i've forgotten most no but i mean you don't would you rather because i remember when we were doing the dvd the adam and joe dvd in 2004 uh i was editing a kind of behind the scenes story of adam and joe

it was called and there was a sequence in there there was a couple of sequences that i'd edited together where we were just being bad tempered with each other and you said what's the point of including this i think that it doesn't you don't really need it and i felt like i i'm always drawn to that sort of stuff because i want to i've got a sort of confessional urge to share that sort of thing and confess to the times when maybe i behaved badly or there was tension. I want to share it. Anyway, you made that point. And I left one little section in there, but I did remove another one. And it was definitely a good thing to have removed it because it would have just been a bit weird and brought the whole thing down. So I guess I'm worried about doing that.

It seems to me you've got a very good editor. Yes. And that he or she would probably do that job for you. Because in the end of the day, you don't want to repeat beats. You know what I mean? Yeah. You don't want just to have the same story beat, so to speak. So if you found the nugget that expressed all that and wrote it really well, which I'm sure you would, then you wouldn't need to dwell on it that much.

well which i'm sure you would then you wouldn't need to dwell on it that much as long as it was fair and reflected me in a very good light and you in a poor light which would represent the um actuality of the proceedings then that would be fine that would be fine yeah okay that would be fine but yeah no i see that you're listening to a podcast you're on a journey of self-discovery and um i can see that that would be uh interesting station stops on your journey okay good the next station stop is self-loathing 1998 please make sure you remove all your baggage from from your life from your life the next station stop is a passive-aggressive argument with joe about skittles versus m&ms i found a diary entry i wrote when we were on the radio on xfm 2005 and we got in a tiz with each other do you remember that i don't know remind me like when we

used to be on xfm you would read the messages that were coming in on the computer while i was sat on the other side of the desk yeah and you didn't like me reading out the provocative ones no people that were angry yeah yeah and in between in between um like when we were playing music sometimes you would would say, wow, look, check this one out. And you'd read it out. And it would be just people saying, one of them was, I still remember it. Why don't you that continued at BBC Six Music, even when the show was very popular. Because a lot of people just tune in to hear music and they don't like people talking. Yes. But no, I remember you getting very annoyed at that. But that would be fine. I think this is all fine.

It's so long ago. Yeah. I think it's all fine. I think you should really get in there. All right. I think it's all fine i think you should really get in there all right i think it'd be exciting it would be like hunter s thompson or you know one of those scurrilous tell all books um that's what you want from a book like that like the motley crew book

or a really good rock biography you don't want the anodyne version do you wow this is great i mean you are you are absolutely pushing me i did say earlier that as long as the it reflects really poorly on you and brilliantly on me all right i'll bear that in mind that's the caveat that's good because already i've started to write some of it like i wrote about toitanic and what that meant in terms of our relationship. And then that was another point of conflict when we did that interview with Time Out. Do you remember? And Time Out phoned me up when Titanic was going to be broadcast on Film 4, when Film 4 launched.

And it was on their first night of programming they showed the full director's cut of your brilliant titanic toy movie yeah brilliant but uh time out phoned me up because that was back in the day when we kind of were scrupulous about never saying like who did what on the show it was always like we we we we did everything together and um they phoned me up and i think they quoted me as saying i a couple of times rather than we which we always tried to do and then you read it back and you were very upset because really you're getting upset now just hearing it again you did almost all the work on toy tannic yeah so you phoned me up and you said what the fuck have you said now oh like i was always saying terrible things what that would have been pent-up rage yeah i thought that that would be a good old

spicy nugget it's just like uh yeah pent-up rage like a little um a little uh hot steam geezer over a volcano little rage when you're just having a little stroll rage far across the arid arid tundra and suddenly a hot geezer just bounce up your back your backside but um i think this is fine i have to say like you can test drive some of these points of antagonism and see whether I've got anything left in my system, you know, and there's nothing. That's fine. You've told that story, in fact, I think,

either in your podcast or in one of your many long speeches about yourself. Yeah, on other people's podcasts. On other people's podcasts. That frankly will merge into one long self-aggrandizing monologue. We were doing, you and I, an interview for the Radio Times the other week because the Adam and Joe show is now available to view on Britbox, all four series. And so we were doing an interview about that. And it was a strange experience because it was the first time in, well, 25 years that we, or thereabouts, that you and I had done an interview about the Adam and Joe show. And it was, it was strange how we slotted back into our respective roles and started trotting out the same patter that we used to when we were interviewed about

it in the late nineties and early two thousands, except that at one point, at one point you said, I finished making quite a good point about how the whole DIY aesthetic was important to me because it was a gesture towards kind of decentralizing the power of television and all that. So anyway, it was a great little speech I made. And at the end, you said with the Radio Times interviewer, yes, I remember you saying that in the 90s when we were interviewed. And it's still as boring to hear you say it now as it was then. Your point is?

Where are you going with this? I don't know. Where am I going with this? I don't think, didn't I say that i think yeah i i think i set you up for it actually and then you followed on by sort of repeating it and then i shut you down yeah to move things on that's how we do it but it all sounds good i'm really looking forward to ramble book two even if it never appears how about i need some stories stories for the sequel what are the big stories that i didn't write about in the first one about us in the 90s that I can tell? Well, you could do everything, couldn't you?

Like Takeover TV was weird for me because it was basically your gig. And I was working in film as a runner, but feeling very frustrated that I was sort of, you know, so near but yet so far to doing film. And then you got this offer to present Takeover TV. So you really got the break to actually be making stuff that was going to be. I'd had a couple of short films broadcast, but like at midnight on a Sunday on BBC Two and stuff. But in terms of actually being on television before midnight, you got that opportunity first. So that was certainly weird for me.

And I remember sitting down with you in a cafe in Brixton probably and full of all sorts of weird feelings of uh you know competitiveness and um just peculiarity that this was what had happened and also trying to think well you could because i you know surprise surprise had quite highfalutin ideas of uh being a filmmaker and then the opportunity that arose was not necessarily as uh dignified as um you know one might not that's the wrong word dignified but you know not as sort of um you had to slum it with buckles being my sidekick for a while and it was quite and that must have been no that was very i felt very privileged but but it was talking bottoms wasn't it i mean both of us on takeover

tv i didn't do any felt a little bit no but some of the stuff on there was like yeah not necessarily what you would want what your parents would want you to aspire to so you really had to think like okay well just the opportunity to put anything on is so valuable, whatever it is. But yeah, I guess that's where that would have started for me. That's interesting. It's just a weird situation. It was a very unusual situation to be producing stuff

for broadcast television entirely on our own. Very unusual in that year, in those years. But did you have to give yourself a pep talk or did someone else give you a pep talk and say hey look i know this is not exactly what you want to be doing you want to be making films not making weird late night trashy tv but this is a foot in the door this is an opportunity you've got to go yeah yeah no i made it i absolutely made a decision because i i chucked in my job right but i do think the any conflict or weirdness probably grew out of the fact that it was basically your gig like you are you answered the advert in the nme you got asked by world of wonder to present the show right and then you came to me and said, help me out, man.

And so it was always a little bit weird as to, you know... Who's steering the ship? Yeah, who's driving the bus? It always was weird. And that was inevitably just because of... It's not as if we were a band that had been gigging and the band was suddenly signed. It was almost like we were a band and you were the lead singer and you got signed. And then you came to the band and said you came to like the bassist or the drummer or whatever and said, listen, help me.

Help me out. I need you to play with me on this thing. Yeah. So that was probably so that was probably the that was probably the source of it i never thought i was a presenter i always was a director and a writer and a sort of behind the scenes person even when we did plays and stuff but the annoying thing was that you were better at presenting than i was probably oh i don't think so that's the thing is that part of the sort of skewed power dynamic thing was me being desperate to on the one hand maintain any idea that i was driving this thing or i got

us this gig but underlying all that was just this kind of chronic insecurity about i haven't really got the goods for this and joe's a lot more funny yeah but it happened very suddenly didn't it we didn't exactly i mean we had a bit of a bit of a run-up doing takeover tv but it did happen very fast before we knew it we were being asked to fill 25 minutes on channel 4 made of our own stuff and this is obviously before youtube and before creators really were as uh common as they are now well that sort of thing is is sort of um around more isn't it so yeah i don't think i think we can we can forgive each other and ourselves a certain amount of psychological you know um wrangling just given the given the circumstances i don't know there's

a lot of stuff i can never forgive you for but i'm gonna write about it good okay i'm ready yeah no there's gonna be there's gonna be gnarly long passages of uh very bitter complaining yeah and as much name dropping as I can manage. Yes. Like who are the big name drops that we could do? I remember bumping into Ewan McGregor at a gig in Brixton. I think it was, who was it? Maybe Blur or Beck. I think it was Beck we went to see towards the end of the 90s.

And Ewan McGregor was over at the bar and we had just done a parody of Trainspotting with toys. That was the first thing on our first show, wasn't it? That's right. Yeah. And I went over to say hello to Ewan McGregor and said, we did a thing on Trainspotting on our telly show. Didn't say it like that. And he'd seen it. He said, yeah, it was great. I thought, wow, we have bust through into some other realm here. You do a name drop. The first pop star we met was...

Baby Bird. Was Baby Bird. And we were terrified. Yeah. Like in retrospect, comparatively speaking, he's a brilliant musician, but he wasn't that famous. Stephen Jones, he was very much a cult concern who had sort of busted through into at least the margins of the mainstream.

He was an NME hero. Super hot at the time, but we were terrified. When we met him, he was just at the point where he was going to become a proper mainstream star for a while, I think. Because I don't think You're Gorgeous, which was his big chart hit, had come out when we met him. He just released four EPs or four albums of homemade stuff. And he got quite irritated, I remember, when we were asking him about outsider artist type like we we played him some shooby taylor and we used shooby in the theme tune for the adam and joe show and he

he bristled you know he he didn't like that people would assume he was into that sort of stuff you know just because he did homemade stuff he's like no no i'm i'm trying to make my stuff as good as possible this is just ridiculous what you're playing me you know what i mean i do know i do know what you i know exactly what you mean i remember that has been quite an excruciating sesh though because of our general levels of internal anxiety oh yeah we were so nervous we met him at the chrysalis in the chrysalis building you remember just everything seemed so anything that was like official or part of mainstream media was terrifying to us, wasn't it? Because we were just a couple of homemade ninnies. And I just felt like a ninny.

Yeah. But also I didn't have the I didn't have this. Like, I really cared. And I think the best thing is, is not to care. I cared in a bad way. Yeah. I was very self-conscious. And so that made the whole prank element that crept into the Adam and Joe

show. Very, very difficult. Tell me about it. Traumatic. Write about, tell me about it in Ramble book too. Well,

I'm going to, I've already started writing that. Have you? Yeah. Shall I read you a little bit of what I've written about? Yes. This is the preview of Ramble book too, that this is work in progress yeah it's exciting sometimes louis theroux would suggest ideas for things he thought we should have a go at and one of these ended up being in the first ever episode of the adam and joe show

we went into a food store on brixton high street and i filmed as Joe opened any package that advertised 20% free, emptying 20% of the contents into his pockets, then putting what remained back on the shelves. It wasn't long before we were approached by shop assistants asking what we were doing, to which Joe replied, it's okay, we're just taking the free stuff. Our producer Debbie had got us permission to film in the shop from the owner, but his staff had not been warned, so their bewildered responses were genuine. When a few onlookers got involved and the mood shifted from bewilderment to anger, we called the owner who emerged from his office to reassure staff and customers that it was all

a hilarious prank, whereupon we made our grateful apologies and went back to the office to review our footage. There was just about enough to cobble a piece together, but a lot of what I'd shot was unusable because my hands had been shaking so badly. The thing is, I'm not a huge fan of pranks and practical jokes. Maybe that's because I'm really nice and don't enjoy exploiting another person's goodwill for a laugh. Or maybe it's because I'm a conformist coward who feels threatened whenever the rules of society are disrupted. Or maybe it's both.

And then I have a ramble, like a little tangential ramble, about Stanley Milgram. Do you know him? Tell me who he is. He was responsible for the electrocution experiments that tested obedience. There's a book about him called The Man Who Shocked the World.

Do you want to hear my ramble about Stanley Milgram? I don't know. Yeah, you're smiling, so I feel I'll hurt you if I say no. If it's shit I can just look up on wikipedia i don't really care ramble in the early 70s dr stanley well i'm getting the milligram bit milgram i'm getting the milgram bit yeah you're getting the milgram bit i tried to stop it in the early 70s dr stanley milgram conducted an experiment in which he instructed his students to board a subway train in New York and ask someone to give up their seat, though there was

no obvious reason for them to do so. You might imagine that most people would refuse, especially on the New York subway in the 70s. Surprisingly, though, around two-thirds of New York subway passengers gave up their seats willingly when asked to do so by Milgram's students. The results of the experiment demonstrated that the average person tends to be either more obedient or just nicer than you'd expect. Either way, the people affected most dramatically by the experiment were not the seated subway passengers, but Milgram's students. Deliberately disrupting these social codes was so upsetting

that many of them felt physically sick and i conclude unless you're a sociopath pranking whether done in the name of entertainment or academic study is painful that's what i liked about that eric andre film bad trip oh yeah that the majority of the pranks in it actually showed the general public in a very good light yes exactly the majority of the time they're trying to diffuse the situation or make the person who is comically suffering feel better bad trip i thought really made me feel all the vast majority of it made me feel really warm and cuddly and that human beings generally were good which is what milgram found out exactly and the great thing about eric andre is that the joke is always

generally on him he's the disruptive element and it's about how people react to it you know it's not all about humiliating people or making them look credulous or stupid it's about like look at me i'm totally out of control and yeah how are you going to react to this big dose of absurdist chaos being uh unleashed in front of you yeah because the second prank idea of louis that we, you've talked about before. You break it, you pay for it. That's what I carry on and write about later on. Yeah.

So that's the sort of example of when the scales tip too far in the wrong direction. Yeah. When you're doing something that's genuinely... Horrible. Yeah, horrible. Well, no, it wasn't meant to be horrible. So this was a prank where we went into a shop that had a sign it was a china shop uh in south london and it had a sign that said

you break it you pay for it so we went in and deliberately broke things uh and then paid for them but the lady who was in there minding the shop we don't you know we'd arranged this with the guy that owned the shop but the lady in there operating the till was quite upset and frightened by these people coming in smashing stuff up the claw hammer was a mistake the claw hammer was a mistake yeah that was a miscalculation oh it was terrible oh it was much more fun just doing silly stuff like people place yes i just like just being silly and confusing and odd anyway well there you go that's quite that's a little preview of some of the amazing stuff that might go in ramble book too as far as uh our show went but also adam and joe show

related as this is a nostalgic adam and joe show ramble i am of course auctioning some incredibly rare and valuable adam and joe memorabilia in uh well as this goes, it'll probably be next week. Wow. What have you got? What's in the booty bucket? The Buckles booty bucket. Can I call it that? That would be great. OK.

What's in the Buckles booty bucket? Buckles booty bucket. Let me check. I mean, I've got crates of shit. Crates of shit? Yeah. And since we moved house, we've been slowly rationalising everything. And since we moved house, we've been slowly rationalizing everything.

And it's the last corner of the last cupboard to be rationalized is Cornball's cornucopia of crusty crap from our careers. What do you think the most valuable item you have is? What? Adam and Joe related? Yeah. Or anything. Oh, man. Well, a lot of my old magazines are actually quite valuable, like copies of Grand Royal at Beastie Boys magazine. Old zines, Ben is Dead, stuff like that are actually quite valuable. Really? Because I'm looking them up on the internet.

Yeah. Like for how much? Like, I'm only talking like £100, that sort of thing. That's quite a lot. That's quite a lot for an old thing. For a worthless mag. A worthless old mag. I was going to auction off my sailor's hat and T-shirt.

Oh, my God. Wow. That's probably got Buckles' DNA in it. That's got a load of DNA in it. Yeah. Yeah, sweat. Anxiety sweat. Yeah.

Rage sweat. Anxiety. Rage. Cornballs-induced rage sweat. Cornballs-induced rage sweat sweat, prank sweat, shame sweat. You know that is the most delicious of all sweat. Like if anybody buys that, they just strain some hot water through it and sip it. You'll be taken back to those angst-ridden days.

Relaxing. What do you think I'm going to get for the sailor hat and t-shirt that is i mean that is a piece of iconic memorabilia from a legendary cult tv show well there's a couple of ways it could go i'd say one way it could go is that you get its actual worth which is probably about a tenner but it's more likely to be somebody who actually wants to give money to charity who's prepared to inflate the sum as a generous as an act of generosity as a gesture yeah as a gesture which that sometimes happens in charity raffles that's what i'm counting on yeah yeah they want to support meds on frontier and all i mean maybe i should buy it so i'd have the full set because obviously i've got the

joe t-shirts so there's the sailor hat and t-shirt there is um my star wars jabba the hut model that turned up in many of our toy movies and it also turned up in an episode of Travelman with Richard Iawaddy when I went with Richard to Lisbon. Also, Vinyl Justice items. A helmet with a record on top. Wow. Notepad and badge from the American version of Vinyl Justice on VH1. Wow. And then there's a few toys from the toy movies.

Oh. I would imagine that you've got most of the toys who appeared in your toy movies however i do have your steven spielberg from saving private lion do you am i allowed to auction him off of course i've got the wonky house have you got the wonky house yeah i'm pretty sure i've got the wonky house that's from our wonky house from two've been framed you've been framed got Chewbacca's wonky house from Chew've Been Framed. Chew've Been Framed. It's spinning around really fast and bits are flying off it.

Say it like you said it before. My wonky house! What's happened to my wonky house? Anyway, I've got the wonky house. Anyway, I've also got a few toys that were in star trek next generation toy movie and uh the version of snatch that i did called twat and i was trying to figure out if i should sell them as a job lot or individually probably individually what do you reckon yeah i reckon more things they're going to be like bartering is it like an auction like where you watch the sums go up yeah it'll be on ebay so so at the end of the show all the items have gone no after the show there will still be a day or two for people to

make bids right yeah like international like oil billionaires yeah uh australian billionaires elon musk when the word gets out and as this podcast goes out the idea is that if you go to my website adam-buxton.co.uk on the front page should be details and links to the um auction going on on eBay. And there will be details of when the live stream is happening, where I just talk a little bit more, maybe show a few clips relating to some of the items. What time of day is that going to happen? That is going to be 7.30 on Tuesday, the 18th of May. Prime time. Yeah. Tuesday, the 18th of May, 7.30 p.m.

Another couple of items that I have which are not Adam and Joe related are two of the helmets that I used for the Radiohead video for Jigsaw Falling Into Place that I directed with Garth Jennings in 2007. And their bike helmets sprayed silver with a doweling pole in the front.

This is pre GoPro technology and they are both signed by Johnny Greenwood and Tom York. One of them, their camera is still working. The little black and white security camera. Wow. It's probably got some hairs trapped in it. Again,

very good for a Jurassic park style DNA. That's right. Extraction. hair's trapped in it again very good for a jurassic park style dna that's right extraction if you want to do a some sort of a tom york theme park with clones of tom york in big pens yeah what would happen if the power went down in that one and they all escaped love fucking mind bending music Bending music and some arguments. We can't get modern angst back online. But that's going to make that item very, very, very, very valuable, probably just from a scientific point of view. And it's a little irresponsible to sell it to the public, really, because you don't know what hands it might fall into, you know,

in terms of villains and what they would do with the tom york clone just i'm just saying be careful with it what else have you got that's non adam and joe uh i have a bit of hot fuzz memorabilia wow so i've got because i was in 2006 i got the part of Tim Messenger. And for anyone who hasn't seen that film, spoiler, I get killed by the spire of a church going through my head. And they built a big reproduction of a Buckles and with a prosthetic head. They did a cast of my head and blew it up. And on the day where they did the special effect and exploded the head and lots of gore came out everywhere, I went around and I collected up bits of the exploded head. And I've got quite a good chunk of the face, which still looks weirdly like me. They did it twice.

They did the special effect twice. So I got a nose from the first one, which really blew up and there wasn't much left of that one but the second one when it blew up there was most of the face so i have the the face from the exploded tim messenger model in a plastic bag with it's still got bits of hair and fake blood on it and and i have the um the name of my character laminated and put you know that went on my dressing room door when we were on location in wells and i have the call sheet and all the like the list of all the shots and when they were done although when all the shots were done on that film and i okayed it with edgar he said it was all right to auction this stuff so what do you reckon hundreds of pounds for that exploded tim messenger face well yeah that sort of

stuff does fetch big money they have auctions of movie props like that oh yeah and people spend thousands of pounds but it's recognizable as you yeah 100 yeah is it mountable in some sort of glass case or is it too bitty? It's a bit bitty, McLean. I tell you what you could do. Go on then. You could take it to the repair shop. Adam Buxton has bought the fragments of his face from the film Hot Fuzz. This was the peak of his acting career and it holds many fond memories.

He brings it to charlene the face reconstruction expert she will attempt to put it back together hello adam what have you got for me here you're if you be you you be you uh this is the prosthetic of my face that was exploded in the film hot fuzz oh it's amazing yes it's, it's very fragmented. Can you tell me what it means to you? Well, it was my one of my first film roles and one of my last as well. And they took the cast of my face of my whole head, in fact, when I was quite hungover one day in 2006. And I remember when I saw the dummy of my character, Tim Messenger,

I was sad because I thought, wow, I'm not a very attractive man at all. Adam is going off on a tangent. Hmm. Well, we'll attempt to put it together. We'll do our best. Thanks very much for bringing it in. We'll see you in a couple of weeks.

If this doesn't mean anything to you, you haven't seen this program. No, I can imagine it though. though it's very it's comfort television how long's that been on literally all the time for a few years it's a big hit and so then we go into a montage of these lovely experts in this beautiful um woodland glade in this little rustic hut working away at your face stitching it And every now and then they'll come upon a problem and they'll go over to another of the artisan repairers and lightly touch them on the shoulder and say,

Hello there, Stefan. Oh, hi. I got a little problem with the stitching on the face. Yeah. Well, just let me have a go at that. It's very soft and very gentle. They're very nice to each other. Sounds nice.

And they'll stitch the face together and they'll source the exact same rubber and they'll get the right eyes. And then a couple of weeks later, you'll park your car half a mile away from the repair shop and then walk down a wooded glade where they'll film you. And you'll bring your daughter and maybe Edgar, too, or something. Maybe not. Why am I bringing my daughter well that's what they do on the repair shop it's very cozy and familial and emotional and uh and you'll come in and they'll have the face with a cloth over it and they'll go how charlene will say hello adam i don't know these aren't the real names and then she'll take the cover off and there'll be your reconstructed face

beautifully done just as if it was never crushed and you'll say oh wow you gotta cry oh wow and i'll put my i'll walk around the desk and just give you a little hug it's really amazing to see it again i feel like it's 2006 and all the bad things that have happened in the last few years haven't happened yet but obviously 9-11's happened and the other things from the past the bad things in the past they've happened but the other future things after 2006

they haven't happened and that's what this phase means to me thank you it's been such a pleasure to work on it. Such a privilege. Thanks. Adam. Adam leaves with his reconstructed face.

He gives it to his daughter. Who wears it? When she kills tramps. That's a bit of a um dark twist dark twist very dark twist i'm sorry wait this is an advert for squarespace every time i visit your website I see success. Yes, success. The way that you look at the world makes the world want to say yes. It looks very professional. don't want to stop. And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop. These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with Squarespace. Just visit squarespace.com slash buxton for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch,

use the offer code Buxton to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. Continue. Continue. Hey, welcome back, podcats. Joe Cornish there. And speaking of my daughter i've just remembered i'm supposed to pick her up from cricket today and so i've got to walk back quite fast otherwise

i'm going to be one of those terrible dads terrible dads terrible terrible terrible dads that um turns up really late and their child is the only one that's left sitting on a bench looking forlorn and unloved. I mean, you never know. It might end up with her enacting that nightmare scenario that Joe Cornish was outlining there. Anyway, I'm very grateful to Joe for talking to to me there making the time thanks man don't forget to check out those links for the auction for msf please explore right now and maybe join me for the

live stream on youtube on tuesday may the 18th at 7.30pm. And of course, if you haven't read Ramble Book so far, why not check out the paperback? Now, I mentioned in my intro that I'd been involved in another feature film, another Edgar Wright feature film, no less. in another feature film, another Edgar Wright feature film, no less. And yeah, this is a little bit of an exaggeration because it's not one of Edgar's narrative features. It is a documentary feature about one of my favourite bands, Sparks. It's called the Sparks Brothers. Edgar's been working on it for a few years now. And it is a comprehensive overview of the career thus far of Ron and Russell Mayle, two of the most unique, consistently surprising and delightful artists in the world of modern music. Zootime is she and Zootime.

That's one of their most famous ones. This town ain't big enough for both of us, but in a career that has lasted nearly five decades. No, five decades. They made their debut in 1971, and they just keep on putting out interesting stuff in all kinds of styles across the decades. They are quite unique. And Edgar, being a longtime fan, spotted that no one had really done a doc about them, so he thought, well well i better do it myself that's what he's done with the aid of many sparks fans including myself who talk on camera about the band and their influence

alongside contributions from the male brothers themselves ron and rusle, who are Sparks. Check out the brand new trailer for Edgar's film The Sparks Brothers. Link in the description. See what you think. The film itself is out in cinemas on July 30th, 2021. Though, says Edgar, our Sundance London Q&A on July 29th will be beamed across the UK the night before opening. All right, that's it for this bonus episode. Thanks once again to Jake Horne.

Thanks to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his production support on this episode. Thanks to ACAST for their ongoing support. I'll start putting out episodes of the podcast regularly or after the summer probably but before then yeah there might be the odd uh extra episode coming your way until then i hope you're doing well and you're in a position to enjoy the easing of restrictions. Don't go crazy with that hugging, though. We don't want another wave. And anyway, not everyone deserves a hug.

But I think you do. Come in. Take care. i love you bye Bye. Thank you.