THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.174 - ALEX HORNE

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

Adam talks with British comedian Alex Horne about getting older, being annoying, making sort of funny music, dealing with other people's success, maintaining the success of Task Master, a trip to New York with Tim Key that featured an alarming medical event and at the end there's a dog plop story that you may want to skip if you're feeling sensitive.This conversation was recorded remotely in September, 2021Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for his work on this episode and to Matt Lamont for conversation editing.Podcast artwork by Helen GreenRELATED LINKSBLUE DOT FESTIVAL - 2022THE HORNE SECTION ALBUMS ON BANDCAMPALEX HORNE PRESENTS THE HORNE SECTION 4 episodes from series 2 of Radio 4 show - 2018 (BBC SOUNDS)BOOKS BY ALEX HORNE (WATERSTONES)PEOPLE by SILVER JEWS - 1998 (YOUTUBE)BUDDY HACKETT RECITES A POEM ON THE DICK CAVETT SHOW - 1980 (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. Come on, Rosie. Hey, how you doing, podcats?

It's Adam Buxton here. I'm reporting to you from a field in Norfolk, UK. It is coming up to the end of April 2022. Beautiful day today. It's been lovely all week, actually. I hope you've been able to enjoy some of the super fresh spring weather. Anyway, look, thanks for joining me and Rosie for another podcast. Rosie's very well, thanks for asking. She's up ahead, she keeps looking around when I say her name. It's okay, you go ahead.

I'm going to tell the podcats a little bit about podcast episode number 174, which features a rambling conversation with British comedian and writer Alex Horne. Horne facts. Got some personal facts at the top here. I mean, these are public personal facts, but I thought you might like to know Alex is currently aged 43. He is married to the journalist Rachel Horne, currently the news presenter on Chris Evans' radio show. They live in London and they have three human children and one dog child, Lockie.

After leaving college, Alex made his first Edinburgh fringe appearance with a solo comedy show, aged 21, back in 2000, or, as it was then known, the year 2000. In the decade following the year 2000, Alex gifted us more great live shows, a couple of books, and Taskmaster, which began its life in 2009, more of which later. But it was 2010 that saw, or 2010 if you prefer, that saw the Edinburgh debut of Alex with the horn section. Five talented musicians, Joe Auckland, Mark Brown, Will Collier, Ben Reynolds, and Ed Sheldrake, who replaced Joe Stilgoe, who appear on stage with their instruments, with Alex, and help him to create a unique style of musical comedy

featuring games played with celebrity guests, the occasional parody and many wonderful original comedy songs. Some are straightforwardly very funny. Others, like one of my favourites, Manifesto, are just sort of amusingly uplifting. Wear pyjamas all day long Paint your favourite flower Drink a glass of wine

When you are standing in the shower It's a manifesto This is how to be have a little resto call it z not z it's a manifesto this is how to be try to do your best so keep drinking lots of tea. That's Manifesto by The Horn Section. I've put a link in the description of the podcast to the Bandcamp page where you can buy that and many of their other songs and albums. In addition to their live shows, The Horn Section have made multiple appearances on TV programmes

like 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, The Last Leg, various Peter Crouch vehicles, and in 2018, a two-hour live special at the London Palladium for the Dave TV channel. There have also been three series of half-hour horn section shows on BBC Radio 4. And best of all, in my opinion, there have been seven series of the Horn Section podcast,

each featuring a celebrity guest. I was on it. I was one of the first people on it, I think, back in 2018. But it wasn't until the first lockdown in 2020 that I became mildly obsessed. Alex recently told me that with any luck luck we can expect new episodes of the Horn Section podcast later this year and there are even plans afoot to make a Horn Section TV series. You heard it here first possibly. My podcast conversation with Alex was conducted via Zoom towards the end of September last year 2021. We talked about the ups and downs of getting older, being annoying, making music, dealing with other people's success and the success of Taskmaster, which Alex created as a live show at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2009 and which made the transition to

TV in 2014. We also talked about a trip to New York that I went on with Alex and his friend, the comedian Tim Key, in January 2020. Now, I also recorded a conversation with Tim a few months after the one I recorded with Alex, back in January of this year, 2022, and I thought it would be good to upload that fairly quickly after this one with Alex as

a kind of companion piece, as Tim and Alex are good friends in real life. But back to my conversation with Alex, I'm going to give you a warning because towards the end of the chat, there is a story about Alex's dog, Lockie, and that features dog plop chat, which is, I would say, graphic. And I suppose it was my fault. I did encourage Alex to tell the story after I'd heard him telling a version of it on the Horn Section podcast. But it is disgusting and it could ruin your day if you're squeamish about that kind of thing. So if you're worried,

at the first mention of Alex's dog, skip forward about seven minutes, and you should be fine. I'll be back at the end, but right now, with Alex Horn, here we go. Ramble chat, let's have a ramble chat. We'll focus first on this, Ramble Chat just about to talk to alex horn alex horn has entered the waiting room admit there he is

wow look at you are you in your toilet no i'm not i'm in a grown-up room oh i don't really have an office and the internet's not very good in the kitchen. Why don't you have an office? You're a successful guy. Thank you, Adam. Have we started? Yeah, this is a soft start. It was quite a soft start until you said you're a successful guy, and that really threw me.

That's not something I would say to you socially. I wouldn't say that to anyone, I don't think. You're a successful guy. I experimented with an office. Well, we had a sort of family office, but the kids had taken over it, and I didn't think you're a successful guy I experimented with an off well we had a sort of family office but the kids taken over it and I didn't really like it I prefer working in it on just on a sofa but I sat on my sofa for two days last week and then I couldn't move on day three I had an awful back problem yes you've got to be careful with that I've done the same thing when I was trying to write my book I thought I'm not just going to sit at my desk the whole time I'm going

to take myself into a different environment and see if that is intellectually stimulating. So I went and sat on the sofa in the room of the flat that my dad occupied when he was living with us, surrounded by all his books and bits and pieces, and sat there tapping away for a couple of hours. And then, as you say, realized that I was almost paralyzed because I was in such pain from the position I was in with my laptop on my lap. It's no good. You need to be at a desk in a very expensive editor's chair, staring at the monitor at the right height so that you're looking straight ahead of you. I mean, I agree with all this, but I can't do it, I don't think. I bought a stand-up attachment to a table so it's just a like a tray with legs that you can put your laptop on whatever height you want yeah so i thought i'd stand and write for

a bit because i heard that mackenzie crook stands and writes so he's writing a script so he talks it out as if he's acting it and then writes it all down and it sounded so easy and i did that and i just wanted to sit down so i sat down and then i hurt my back and then i went to nero's as a change of environment because i like stimulation so i went to Cafe Nero but I couldn't walk from the car to the Nero because of my back so I then went home and that was the end of the day has that been a persistent problem for you back pain no this is new this is uh 43's problem I turned 43 two weeks ago it was the day after I turned 43 immediately this will be what this year is it is a bit shit accumulating age i don't really like getting older no i'm trying to think of the

good things about it what do you think the good things might be you know what i think i'm all right with getting older actually do you want to know what i got for my birthday this year adam yes please i got a skateboard and a skateboard lesson. The first of my life with a man called Lee, who was about five foot two. And he had to catch me several times in an hour. And I really loved it. Is that good for someone who's developing back pain, though? I don't know.

Let's not worry about the two things. But I definitely thought over the summer, well, I am getting older. So if I want to learn skateboarding, it's probably now or never. So maybe the advantage of getting older is that you realise a little bit that you are mortal. And so you do get on with things a bit more. You don't waste as much time. Is that, I mean, it might be a bit optimistic, but I think I'm quite an optimistic person. So I think that's my frame of mind at the moment.

Yeah, I think you're right that you definitely do feel okay time is getting shorter I really shouldn't piss about to quite the same extent that I used to in the olden days or you piss about more as in you do the right sort of pissing about right productive pissing about or pissing about that you really like that was great pissing about yes that kind of thing yeah exactly yeah what I don't want to do but what i still do and what i imagine i hope you do is look at my phone too much and i'm really trying to stop that's the worst sort of pissing about what are you looking at my problem is i'm looking at twitter because i do stuff on twitter so it's self-fulfilling so i ask people things on it and i talk about it's sort of self-marketing you know it's stuff with taskmaster book stuff so i need to look at it but then something else catches my eye on it and i'm down i'm gone you need to look at it now

this is interesting because this is something i've wrestled with a great deal having come off social media who says you need to look at it why do you need to look at it what practical value does it actually serve or are you just caught up in this whole mirage an ambitious mirage matrix that it might be but i unfortunately i've set a treasure hunt with a book that came out last week and i have to answer questions on it i've set clues and i've hidden clues in twitter which i sent tweets years ago well i can't give too much away here but there's old tweets there that people need to discover. And I've promised I will send a tweet every time Chesham United win by two goals

with a sort of extra clue to the treasure hunt. So Twitter is a useful place where I can talk to anyone I want or anyone can talk to me. And I've always tried to be open and reply to people. And I feel like I would be letting people down if I suddenly said, you know, the grand statement of I'm leaving Twitter is a bold one.

And even if I just stopped doing it, I would feel too guilty. So I have to I don't have to look at it, but I have to be on it. Yes. It's my own fault. I've told people I'm going to be there. So it's like saying I'll be at the cafe at 10 o'clock. I said I'll be at Twitter. Maybe that's what I should do.

Maybe I should say I'll be there at 10 o'clock for half an hour every other day. Yeah, exactly. Like a little AMA at certain points. I think that's fair enough. I don't like just the idea that you're constantly available and that you do have that pressure to reply to people.

Like, how do you deal with obnoxious people? You just ignore them, right? Yes. I was talking to Greg Davis about this. Do you know Greg Davis? Yeah. Tall man. The giant man of Taskmaster.

Literally last night we had this discussion that he was very nice to me. I was on Saturday Kitchen at the weekend, and I don't always enjoy these sorts of programs, but they can be really fun. They're good for promoting your shows. You have to do them. You don't get paid. You do get food, and you get well looked after.

So for those who haven't seen Saturday Kitchen, what channel is that that on I think this one's on BBC One oh yeah so it's good for telling people about your things and the host is lovely and the crew are lovely the production team's lovely but you know it's live telly and you're there to sell your wares and eat food and it's your Saturday morning anyway this one went quite went quite well, Adam. You know, sometimes you're fairly pleased with how you've done. I said some things, occasionally it was all right. And Greg said, you were funny that morning. But I had two messages on Twitter. One said, whose idea was it to invite the awful, annoying, unfunny Alex Horne? He's ruined my weekend. And there was a reply to that saying, yeah, he's awful, isn't isn't he and that was it there was the only

two negative ones but that did affect me and it's stupid i mean not much but there's definitely a surface like it's sort of like being stung by a stinging nettle or something just for 10 minutes but even after that 10 minutes it kept coming back in my head and greg says he feels the same well you know any little bit of christianism it does go in somewhere we're not as thick-skinned as we should be probably so i deal with it by uh telling you on a podcast about it they do lodge there and well i suppose the obvious thing is that they're tweaking insecurities that everyone has about themselves right and there's always a little voice unless you are a total psychopath i'm not far off being a psychopath by the way are you and

occasionally a sociopath so i am generally pretty positive and pleased with myself yeah well you know i'm not racked with self-doubt or what i don't tend to worry about things too much and my problem with this guy was that he was quite logical he just found me annoying and that's absolutely fair enough because everyone finds people annoying but it's because he he acted me so i those messages come up i don't go looking i don't understand why people do that why they mark it for your attention i suppose because they just feel like oh you have to know that you're annoying it's not good enough it upsets them the idea that you're wandering around being pleased with yourself they're like this cannot stand yes he

has to be told he's very annoying everyone keeps patting him on the back and he just seems to go from strength to strength i have to put a stop to it yes and he did he did temporarily and i think i am annoying i do think that sometimes because well things are going fine at the moment things are going well so that is annoying when things go well for people yeah it's much more fun when things go really badly and things get cancelled and badly reviewed everyone likes that yeah yeah it makes them feel good that's great when you see someone like even someone you like getting cancelled you're sort of thinking you're thinking this is great glad it's not me there's a part of you now

like not a big part i'm glad to say but oh yeah it's not me. There's a part of you, like not a big part, I'm glad to say. Oh, yeah. It's always nicer when it's happening to someone else. Yeah. I've not had a horrific thing happen to someone I know well. But yeah, dealing with a close friend's success is a challenge. It is, isn't it? Well, I have this thing with Louis Theroux.

And the dynamic is clear in my mind like he is on a level that is far in advance of anything that i'm ever going to be dealing with which i'm totally fine with because he's he's got a set of skills that i do not have and i'm delighted for his success however there are certainly moments when i'm irked and I do mention them and they do inform little silly comments I make, which in my mind are banter. But I wonder sometimes I worry that other people are going to think I'm being serious and that I'm genuinely angry with him about how I stole some of your bandmates from the horn section. Yes, yes. You're one of a couple of people who've done that. Yeah. So to be clear, this is a couple of members of the horn section, Mark and Ed, that I invited over to Castle Buckles to jam with me for a couple of days. They were trying to help me come up with ideas for music. And I did text you beforehand to ask if that was okay. I didn't

want to tread on your toes. And you said, yeah, fine, and gave me their details. But thereafter, you act as if you're a bit annoyed about it. Now, is that because a part of you is a little bit annoyed about it and that informs the bants or is that entirely invented bants? So I would hope that everyone, especially you, would understand that's entirely invented bants. Yeah. Although I haven't been invited to the castle myself.

That's the only tiny bit of it that I would have liked to have gone to the castle first. You're welcome any time. I wish we were doing this face to face. I really miss the olden days of actually sitting in front of people. But it is nice to see you. And luckily, our technology is working today. So that's good.

Well, you know what? I sort of agree with that. I would have liked to have gone for a walk with you. But I'm not very good at sitting at a table with someone. If me and you were going for a coffee or a beer, I'm not very good at that. I would find it a bit awkward. So I think sometimes i'm better over zoom okay i'm more um more relaxed and maybe more me sometimes um but no i'm very

grateful when anyone takes the band on because i have a lingering guilt that i can't spend as much time as i want with the horn section because of other things yes so anytime that you or james acaster or tim key picks them up and lets them have a play I'm grateful so I'm pleased that you babysat them Adam I'm sure they'll appreciate being characterized as sad lonely children well it's pretty clear what they are the geniuses is what they are was it Mark Brown who came up with the um manifesto song on the horn section podcast yeah he came up with the music and i think i did come up with the words on that one but i i quite often get far too much credit for most of the things in the band they yeah i'd probably come up with five percent of the stuff if you include all music i

mean i come up with no music and a tiny bits of words and i agree they are geniuses and um well i still think all musicians are yeah but they're pretty effortless and also we come up with a couple of albums a year i suppose and i don't understand why all bands don't do that or even an album a week because they make it seem really easy to come up with a song and a you know really catchy song just like that and i was thinking what bands are thinking of recently you know i haven't got a good example but say the fratellis i think i can name two of their songs but they should have done hundreds and hundreds and hundreds yeah i don't know what the problem is maybe an answer might be that it's easier to write a funny song but i don't think it is i think it's

hard to write a funny song much harder i'm't think it is. I think it's hard to write a funny song. Much harder. I'm really struggling. I've got a record contract. Yes, I know about this. Yeah. You've had it for some time, haven't you, Adam? I've had it for ages. And every now and again, I get an email from the person at the label, and I'm always expecting it to say,

you know what, don't worry so much about the record contract. We've decided to give it to someone else who actually does music. But that hasn't happened yet. And they're still hoping that I'm going to come up with some music. I have actually started on a few songs and working with Mark and Ed was the beginning of that process. Although our time together has not so far yielded any delicious ripe fruit. We did come up with a song about wheelie bags. Fertile Territory.

I've tried to do something with wheelie bags before. Have you? Yeah. What was your angle? We wrote a failed musical. It didn't get anywhere. It was based on Vice Versa, the old movie. Oh, yeah, the body swap movie.

Yeah, but our main character in that in the late 1800s was going to be the guy who invented wheelie bags. So I think we all want to know who invented wheelie bags. When did wheelie bags come into being? Was it in the 80s? I think it was mid-20th century. But our guy was the archetype of it. He was the first guy.

Because my angle... I was thinking a wheelie bag song would be funny because it's like they've been around for so long and who cares and you know people have ceased finding wheelie bags in any way novel or interesting so i thought haha i'll do a song about wheelie bags like very outdated observational song and i would do it to like a kind of 60s garage band psychedelic backing, you know, a bit like 96 Tears, if you know that song. So that's what myself and Mark and Ed were working on. But in the end, it just ended up quite stodgy and no disrespect to their musical genius.

It was only a demo that we were putting together. But I worked on this thing for ages, trying to think of funny things to say about wheelie bags and then the other day i was doing some book shows live shows at which i have been singing a little bit of the music that that might end up on some kind of ep and one of the songs i tried out was my wheelie bag song and i sang over the backing track millie vanillie style and um it didn't go down that well right and i said afterwards like what do you think of the wheelie bag song this was in bristol very warm positive oh lovely yeah you'll really find out if something doesn't work if it doesn't work in bristol exactly like pretty much everything is

going to work in bristol but wheelie bag did not work in bristol and i said tell me honestly what you think and a couple of members of the audience just said, it's not as good. We really like you, they kept on saying, but it's not as good as your other stuff. And it's a bit boring. But you're going to stick at it, I hope. Because I mean, we definitely have a rule that the funniest songs we've ever done have been pretty much written in 10 minutes. And I guess that's maybe the same with all music, isn't it? When you really try to force something for a long time, it very rarely comes out well. But we keep the same ideas for years and years.

We've tried to do a song about punctuation for eight years, I think. Punctuation saving the nation. We were going to do physical versions of punctuation with the colons with our fists. And it's just not funny. We've tried it every other year. And I don't know why we haven't got the message. It's not, there's nothing there.

Everyone has stuff like, I know a lot of comedians have things like that, that they just keep hammering away at because you're so fond of them. You just think there is something good about this. Why doesn't anyone get it? Yeah. I was just saying maybe in everything, same in Taskmaster as well. We do come up with tasks every time.

Let's try that one again. And it's another waste of time got to get a wheelie bag everybody got to get a wheelie bag you never need to feel everything anymore if you place some wheels between your bag and the floor but with your album so is it is there some serious music or is it is it all comedy well no i don't think there is going to be serious music on it even though i would love to do that and i keep on my fantasy is that a talented musician will get in touch and say look you know like I know Leanne Le Havas the musician and although I've never said this to her directly because I'd be too embarrassed my dream is that she would say let's collaborate on a serious song but why she'd have to be mad why would she do that like it doesn't make any

sense why would you I can't sing very well I've never written a serious song I don't I couldn't write good lyrics for that kind of thing but it is my dream because I love music so much and the most moved and elated and uplifted I ever get is is listening to music well the male voice though I think you do sing well. And I think the male voice, you can get away with it more. You know, there are so many people like Tom Waits or Bob Dylan, even, that they don't sing very well, but they're really good to listen to. Yeah, they've got character.

Yeah, I don't sing well at all. And it's sort of the running joke of the band is I can't sing, but I'm the singer. But Joe, the trumpeter, keeps telling me he likes my singing. So I think you do sing well. So I think I'd hold out hope for Leanne and you. I would write a song. I know what I would write about. Like I've already, I've started writing lyrics

and I suppose there's something silly about them. Like my favourite kind of music is music that does have something funny about it. Like I loved The Fall and there's a lot of music by The Fall that is funny and odd but it's not novelty music it's not comedy music i also like ween the band and that is much more on the cusp of being novelty or comedy music there's something self-consciously nutty about

some of it and that's why i think some people find it irritating but yes something on the cusp like do you ever listen to silver jews the band no they're really really good the guy is no longer with us sadly but he was really interesting and funny and a very serious tortured soul but also had a very funny sense of humor and a lot of that is in the silver jews music there's a song called people by silver jews that i would recommend to anyone who wants to explore and it's all in there so that's my i feel as if maybe i could occupy that kind of space yeah so yeah so you could be serious topics but written with a sense of humor yeah something with a smile i suppose it would be too much of a stretch to be anything other than that like who do you love who do you what what music do you keep coming back to

oh you've got to understand adam that i've got awful taste of music i listen to the eddie stobart songs for truckers album i really do yeah um i had the best of roy alber Orbison in my car For about four years That's good though It's good but it would just come on every time I turned the car on And I was happy with that So I guess Roy Orbison is my answer Which favourite Roy Orbison song? Well it's the worst one, Pretty Woman

That's not the worst one But it is the most obvious one The big O I've got bad Well I listen to I think you might be disappointed in me but i listen to um virgin radio because my wife is a newsreader on it oh yeah and it's sort of lazy it's just on all the time but also their playlist which is very aor works for me sure i like it in the background and i very rarely put an album on but i did buy a record player after

our trip to new york yes um whatever 19 months ago album on but I did buy a record player after our trip to New York um whatever 19 months ago 20 months ago where we had a record player in the little apartment we stayed in so I came home and I bought Rattle and Hum the U2 album which was one of the first albums I bought as a kid do you know the album is a live one sure I know of it I don't have it yeah well you know U2 feel like they've become cold play in people's heads that used to laugh them off a bit yeah but i i really liked them and uh that's a good vinyl album that i will come back to but i also bought just a job lot of things from ebay random 50s albums and i don't know any of the people but i really enjoy putting them on just people i've not heard of because that's what we did in that place we stayed we just grabbed albums and

put them on can we talk about that trip i don't know can we talk about it slightly mysteriously well you tell me you describe what you're comfortable describing well i don't think i particularly want to talk about the purpose of the trip but i don't mind talking about who went on the trip but we can say that the purpose of the trip was a scheme that you and Tim Key were cooking up? Yes, yes, but probably that's enough in terms of the purpose of the trip. Okay. And we invited you along as our sort of mentor and, well, companion, but also documenter. Yeah, I was kind of a host, a camera person. It was a strange trip because it was two months before the pandemic hit. It was heavy snow in New York.

We were there for a short period of time with a friend of Tim's. It was in-out, wasn't it? And also I had a medical problem. I was going to say, like, how much are you comfortable saying about that? Because that was quite an amazing moment. Yes. You know what? I don't think I am comfortable yet.

Again, I don't mind talking am comfortable yet again i don't mind talking around it i've told so few people but occasionally i open up i'm very bad at unpacking when i get home from holidays and trips i don't really fully unpack ever so one of my zip pockets in my rucksack is still got some of the creams i had to use okay like i will describe, I will try and do a description that is not too explicit. Okay. But basically we landed in New York. We went to the Airbnb, which was out in what do they call that area? I don't know anything.

I just listened to Roy Orbison. It was a kind of legendary jazzy area up in the north of Manhattan in Sugar Hill. That is correct. Hamilton Heights area. Sugar Hill made famous by the Sugar Hill Gang, who did... What did the Sugar Hill Gang do? They did a rap song. Rapper's Delight.

That's the one, the big one. The big one, which is kind of the rosetta stone of rap in many ways and we were staying in an airbnb that was run by a guy who ran a kind of uh bookstore that specialized in afro-american literature yes so the shelves in this little apartment were lined with all these incredible books and there was also a record player there and a selection of really great jazz records yeah mainly from the 50s and 60s and every morning well we were there only three or four days or something yeah i think three mornings probably yeah but we would have breakfast tim key would and you would scramble up some eggs i think it was just

him i was in so much pain i would sit awkwardly and eat it right so we have to so i'm going to do my best to talk around the medical complaint yes please to your satisfaction it was soon after landing wasn't it was soon after we got there yeah so the first thing was that when we got to the apartment and we were shown around by this very chatty fellow that used to run this bookshop and he was telling us all about it can i say too chatty just too chatty five percent too chatty yeah but we were we were kind of exchanging looks and i was filming everything and then the first thing that happened was after he finally departed and we were like wow wow, he was chatty.

But it was funny. Like he was a personality. Definitely. He was a character. And then I realized that I hadn't taped any of it. I just taped the bit. It started recording when he left and I thought that I'd switched it off. And that's when it switched on.

That's the worst feeling. Yeah. It's a sad, sad moment. the worst feeling yeah it's a sad sad moment and then the other bad feeling i got was realizing that i'd left my quite expensive zoom recorder that i use for podcasts on the plane yes two bad feelings and so then i spent an hour or two trying to get online and get in touch with the airline to say oh i've left this thing never got it back. You just sort of think like, I know the exact seat that I was in. I know where it was. Don't get it back.

So that was a couple of bad feelings. Then you went off to use the lavatory. Correct. And came back into the room, absolutely ashen faced. Yeah, I think maybe I'd had the worst of the three feelings. And you were just like, you just looked as if you'd seen a ghost, a really, really bad ghost.

And you... I turned to you for advice, you over Tim, I think. I thought if either of you had been through this, it would have been you for some reason, just because you're a little bit older than Tim. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was very glad you were there. Although I did, I really had to um draw on

my friendship with tim we're very good friends but we're not uh huggy and we don't talk about we do talk about emotions but not very often so this suddenly but we became quite physical we had to i mean basically you had it was the first time that you'd had a certain type of bottom-based situation that happens to a lot of people at a certain point. Yes, I could not believe it. They strain a little bit too hard and it does feel as if something important has become dislodged in the bottom valley. It was unbelievable and I thought my world had fallen out of me, I suppose. A little part of it had. And luckily, the person we were staying with, his wife was a doctor.

That's right, isn't it? Oh, yeah, that's right. So I had to take a picture of it. And I've never seen that bit of me before or since. And I was pretty surprised by what it looked like have you still got that picture i guess so but i worry because my photos go on icloud to my children i think in fact i think i got rid of it i got rid of it but i did have to go to the doctors and emergency doctors in harlem yeah which is a pretty frightening doctors late at night with tim and we were dressed in suits

the whole time yes tim and i was black ties it was like the blues brothers but the doctor refused to look at me refused to look at that but he only looked at the photo i took my trousers down he said it's okay i only need to look at the photo and tim was there again looking away and he prescribed me various things i paid a lot of money and then it went back in and everything was all right yeah which is usually the way yeah well apparently yeah but I did change my lifestyle from that moment I've stopped having sugar in my tea and that seems I've not had it since okay did you used to have very very sugary tea yes I used to have three or four sugars my tea and I did actually have sugar in the tea this morning but I've given it up quite often. Yeah. I think we've described it enough.

I think people have a pretty vivid idea of it. No, I think you're right. But I felt really bad for you because I know what that feeling is like, having had that specific thing happen to me and other things that do happen to you. And the first time they happen, you think, OK, well, I'm dying. Yeah. And it's really frightening. And then someone explains, no, it's really frightening and then someone explains no it's okay that's normal that happens a lot and it's a huge relief so I was happy to be able to reassure

you and be almost you know and be extremely confident that I was right that's the other thing I wasn't just saying oh you know you'll probably be fine I knew exactly what had happened to you and I knew that you were definitely going to be fine. Yeah, well, there's a lot of emotions because it was frightening at first and I felt alone on the toilet. And then I came out and told you guys and that was embarrassing to get the words out. But after that, I felt quite liberated

and it was a real icebreaker because we met a lot of people that we'd never met before in a very short space of time who were filming us and we had to tell them everything. And well, when I walked into the room, they all knew about the situation and actually most people had either been through it or wanted to know about it how did they know i didn't tell them well his wife did the

director's wife because i'd had to call on her expertise as well so everyone knew and some of them had seen the photo so it was quite useful i didn't have to introduce myself to anyone. They knew I was the guy with the issue. But I was very nervous going to the toilet. The most intriguing bit was the next time you go to the toilet. It's not the same in any way, but I know that when women have babies, the next time they go to the toilet is quite a big moment. So I guess I can empathise in a tiny way to them.

Wow. moment so i guess i can empathize in a tiny way to them wow but it was a good bonding moment because we were all a little bit jet lagged you know you come off a plane and you do feel discombobulated anyway and then we're standing in that little groovy book lined jazzy room in sugar hill in suits in suits in the snow yes in the snow well this the snow hadn't started at that point but a couple of days later it was a blizzard it looked amazing but i've not the things we've shot i haven't looked at since so we're that's in a vault but we will no doubt talk about this in years to come yeah i hope so it was great fun and it was an interesting project typical of uh you and tim i would have thought and i really do hope it sees the light of day at some point i'm checking my account at the memory bank the memory bank the memory bank we're thanking you for banking on your memories i'd like to take out a happy memory thanks The memory bank, the memory bank

Oh, sorry, but you're very overdrawn I will repay with interest When I get back up on my happy feet The memory bank, the memory bank I'm very sorry, but we're closing your account My what? Where am I? The memory bank, the memory bank

We're the nice bank. Would you like to bang with us? But yeah, I loved that trip. I loved those breakfasts of scrambled eggs and toasted bagels and listening to jazz on the record player. And the other thing that I remember is the Buddy Hackett poems. Oh, yeah. Because in the toilet of this Airbnb was a book, and it was called The Naked Mind of Buddy Hackett.

Wow. Have you bought that since, or did you steal it? No, I thought about stealing it from the place, but I just thought that would be so low. Do you want to describe the cover that you're holding up to me? You describe it. You're the guest. Well, there are two gentlemen in the picture. There's also what looks like a cormorant hanging off a hat stand in the background.

So there's a gentleman wearing a suit and tie on a little fold up picnic chair. It's Buddy Hackett. It's Buddy Hackett interviewing a naked Buddy Hackett. Am I correct? They're both Buddy Hackett, aren't they? They're both Buddy Hackett. Yeah. So this is the naked mind of Buddy Hackett.

So lying on a psychiatrist's chaise longue with a bowler hat on his genitals. Yeah. Arms folded, big smile. And then there's a picture of a goat in the background with the word Joe underneath. So there's a lot going on. Buddy Hackett, born in 1924, died in 2003, American actor and comedian. Best remembered for his roles in The Music Man, where he played Marcellus Washburn. He also played Benji Benjamin in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Do your listeners follow through with your niche references? Because they should with this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think some of them do. This is a good copy that I bought off Abe Books. I'm not sponsored by Abe Books or anything. I'm just mentioning them because I've used them before and they seem like a good service for secondhand books. I paid £37.50. That's quite a lot of money for a book. It is quite a lot of money for a book,

but I wanted to own it because it reminds me of that trip and it's such a happy memory. It's an amazing book. And also, it turns out that I got a signed copy. Oh, well, then it's not a lot of money for that book. Look at that. Signed to Donna and Bob from Buddy Hackett. Oh, even better.

That's, I have to sign, I imagine you have to sign things. Yeah. And I always wonder where they end up and what people do with them. Yes. But the idea that they get passed on or bought for £37.50 is great. Absolutely. I think this is worth more than £37.50, though. No, I don't.

Because in the morning we would sit at breakfast and after we'd had our scrambled eggs and bagels, we would read little bits from The Naked Mind of Buddy Hackett to each other. This is all true. Yeah. And it's a strange book because, you know, Buddy Hackett was a comedian. And yet the poems in here are mainly serious. It's like he's sort of being deep and he's sharing his wisdom that he's accumulated with people in a poetic form i'd love to hear one adam yeah okay here's a random one so this is what we would do at breakfast really is open at a random page and then you me or tim key would read one out and then we'd rate them

toys a lump of coal a string and a nail were hiding under an old icebox. The little boy knew where they were. He tried to let enough days pass by so that he could forget about them. Then rediscovery could excite him as discovery had once on the warm kitchen floor when snow was on the streets. Yeah. What rating would that have got? Because you see, that's, you know, it's a little poetic vignette. It's not actually a poem, that one.

No, he just thought, I'll write that down. The Naked Mind of Buddy Hackett. And also, do you remember the back cover? Oh, that's, yeah. So there is a photo of him with a very wonky mouth and about four teeth. And his eyes aren't quite right, are they? And his shirt is open. So there is a photo of him with a very wonky mouth and about four teeth. And his eyes aren't quite right, are they? And his shirt is open.

I'm going to put in the description of the podcast, I'll put a clip of Buddy Hackett doing one of his poems. It's a sweet poem written for his parents' 50th wedding anniversary that he recited on the Dick Cavett show. Do you think there's an equivalent of him in the english or british entertainment scene not now but that kind of thing used to yeah you used to get a lot more of those in the 70s and the 60s right like um ken dodd who is my comedy hero he produced lots of just genuinely serious songs yes i mean they were they weren't serious. They were about like happiness. But in his live shows,

Tim and I went to see him three times live and there were 20 minute segments that were entirely serious and boring. Where he was talking about just life and philosophy. Yeah, or just singing straight songs or doing ventriloquism, but with no jokes. And then he would be really funny again for a bit. But he was quite happy just, yeah,

to speak his mind for a bit and then go back to the really good one-liners. There you go. Perfect example. So that's an exact equivalent of someone like Buddy Hackett. True, actually. And I'm sure there's people in America doing the same as we are now

and looking at a picture of Ken Dodd going, there he is. He's made the decision to put that photo on his book. Can you believe this guy? And he walks around. He has like a duster. He has teeth. I don't know if they're real, the teeth, but they stick right out.

And this guy's got crazy hair and a duster. He waves the duster. I've got my tickle stick in my children's office. In its plastic sheath. I've not ever got it out because I want to keep it forever. But it was all very sweet. And we met him a few times and he was the loveliest guy and i was quite affected by his death yeah um i had to do a talking heads and i don't get moved often but i found myself oh my

god i might cry on camera and it would have been fine but um yeah i don't know why but he represented a sort of different generation my grandparents generation and watch i watched him with my parents and things like that uh and he was a very innocent man i think apart from being guilty of tax fraud oh yeah that's right yeah well he was he was always innocent he was always proved not guilty but i think his shows were half about that even in the 2000s half about how long the show was if the show wasn't about how long it was it wouldn't have been long and then some really good jokes and he used to have his jokes written on his hands jokes that he'd written on that day about topical news stuff so he was yeah he was a really good he was a productive man yeah that's amazing that you were so into him like what were you

watching then with your folks i guess it was him at the palladium really old-fashioned cabaret show you're not cabaret shows just variety shows and that's what we do with the horn section i'm sure it's directly from that we really like having music and variety acts and we did a show at the palladium and that felt really important we had all our parents came and watched it and there were lots of posters of him up on the walls and it's probably my favorite thing i've done you know that that would be the thing that i say was the best thing i've done that was televised right it was televised it was two hours long which is really stupid and i remember it going out i was on a sleeper train to the isles of silly we're down to cornwall and we were turfed out at three in the morning because the train broke down and we're all put in taxis but i was watching the

response to the show come out as you do it went down well but it turned out only a hundred thousand people watched it and we really thought well this is going to be the start of our tv career but they we were told pretty swiftly afterwards now that's it thank you for that particular project was that sky now that was dave and i'm grateful that they gave us any opportunity to do it but um yeah we really thought we were really proud of it but though it shouldn't have been two hours long and it probably shouldn't have been at the palladium and we also put everything we did in it so we were then bereft of material i mean they took a real punt that's amazing that they gave you that amount of latitude with it yeah it was an interesting project and dave are really good at

putting things on and doing things and if something works they will carry on doing it and i think it worked creatively but it didn't work financially in any way i really enjoyed it i thought it was great i mean you know i'm a fan of you and the horn section the horn section who became one of my obsessive crushes during lockdown i think a lot of yes you were our biggest fan by miles that's not true but god i loved it and it really cheered me up on a number of occasions and it was yeah i mean lockdownered me up on a number of occasions. And it was, yeah, I mean, lockdown was bleak for all sorts of reasons. Why do you think, because you did get in touch and it meant a lot to us, you getting in touch to say that it meant something to you.

Was it because you could imagine us mucking about, do you think, and making things during this difficult period? Yeah, I mean, I went back through and listened to all the episodes that i hadn't heard before so stuff that was recorded before the lockdown as well right yeah i like the kind of gang mentality i think you're very funny on it i love the songs and there are i'm constantly impressed by how good the songs are so like musically interesting because that's the holy grail for me is you want something that's funny but also that you can listen to it more than once so it's not just totally boring and basic and quite often the bits of music on there are really intriguing and strange and complicated oh really ambitious yeah especially from will and ben actually ben the drummer when we rehearse he

will always say actually can we do something interesting here and mark and joe will go oh do we i don't think we have to but he'll always push it and they'll always do it and i think a lot of it is because their friends are musicians and they are very worried that the musicians listening will go well they're just phoning this in they want to impress their musician friends in the same way as us comedians want to impress our comedian friends yes you know if you did an obvious joke you would feel like you've let yourself down and if they do an obvious musical thing they would feel the same so they're trying to impress their friends i think yes i was also encouraged to have robbie williams on my podcast because he was on the horn section podcast and when you did the version of angels at the end you did a kind of reggae arrangement

i thought he did it just right he didn't go all kind of ironic on it yeah but that song was funny because we put that song out during lockdown not out we just it was on the podcast we put a video of it out and we thought it would be huge because it's i think he did it really well the band really slaved over their version of it yeah just barely made a splash it's very interesting it's very hard to know how to obviously go viral or make any impression at all it's true isn't it it's really weird the stuff that does cross over because i've had that same thing you know you reach a point of visibility and you think oh well i've got x number of people who connected with this thing i did so now I'll probably get a similar engagement with this other thing, which I think is really funny. And no, there's absolutely nothing.

Well, yeah, I mean, this isn't a plea, but we're on a sort of tour at the moment with the horn section. I don't know when this is going out, but we had, like most people, postponed gigs, which we're now doing this autumn, which we're going to happen a year and a half ago. And I think people would presume,

because I'm on telly quite often sometimes that the tour would sell really well we're only in small you know 300 seaters but there's plenty of tickets left it really isn't the case that they're sold out and you see other people doing these arenas and they're all sold out yeah and i don't know i don't really question it but we are very culty the horn section we're very not mainstream even though we did this bbc one program with peter crouch and we're always on Countdown and that sort of thing. But the people who like us really like us, but lots of people just aren't interested at all.

And that's why I'd much prefer to be a few people who like us a lot than a lot of people who like us a little, I suppose. Yeah, you want to be like the Velvet Underground of comedy. Yes, but it'd be nice to fill the rooms. Because there's six mouths to feed. Yeah. I did a show in London the other day at the Royal Festival Hall. Yes, Tim Key was there.

Oh, yes, Tim Key came along. That's right. Yes. Well, in fact, a few friends of mine came along. And that was something I hadn't really thought hard enough about. I just invited a load of people. Oh, you invited me, actually. Yeah.

Yeah. invited a load of people oh you invited me actually yeah yeah and then i realized at a certain point that i'd actually run out of allocated guest tickets and i'd invited too many people and i had to email a couple of people and say um actually you know that thing i invited you to that you said you did want to come oh dear me oh That didn't look good at all. So my email to you saying I can't make it, you must have really been pleased. Yeah, I was celebrating. Every time I got one from someone saying, oh, I'm really sorry, or if they pulled out. I got a few people who pulled out. You know, I invited Ramesh Ranganathan.

But he'll pull out. He'll pull out. Man, he is Mr. Pullout, though, isn't he? I think I was an hour away from meeting him in LA for a coffee yeah we were both there a few years ago and I was quite lonely and I was really pleased to see him and he pulled out an hour before. I mean I am not in any way attempting to shame or impugn him he is just one of the busiest people in the entertainment world at the moment it is ridiculous I don't know how he maintains any actual friendships or a marriage or yeah

three children same as mine oh i definitely look at him because a lot of people accuse me of being you know you get that the busiest man in or whatever oh yeah i think i'm nowhere near because i'm pretty organized and i know what i can and can't do his diary is ridiculous there's a few people like that i just don't understand how they fit it all in and are consistently good. No more. Where is the feeler? Where is the feeler? How hard is it to put the feeler away? In the exact same place day after day. Maybe someone put the feeler in the wrong door.

Maybe it's Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? but yes do you feel as if you're properly across everything so i mean the main thing is taskmaster that rolls on and shows no sign of stopping do you have it in your head that you would stop it at a certain point or take a break at least? Because that's the tough thing with a real juggernaut like that. And I think we can call it a juggernaut at this point. I don't know what a juggernaut is.

Do you know what a juggernaut is? I think it's a big truck. It's a big truck. Yes, yes. Okay, but you're talking metaphorically. I'm talking metaphorically. I don't believe that the show is an actual big truck, but it's a really successful one.

People love it. It's always on. It has reinvented the way that TV is made at the moment. And that must be a strange thing to witness, to see that you have done something so influential that TV channels are restructuring the way they produce comedy and the main innovation being to have a cast for a game slash panel show that you then stick with for an entire season or series yes so yeah are you maybe you're not in a position where you're able to speak freely about

the future of the show or how you feel about it. I can talk more freely on this than my anal problems. Okay. We never used the word anal before. No, but I think you said bot-bot, so there was a hint there. But we now know it's more inside than outside, although it became more outside than inside. Yeah.

Well, look look we have got to film two more series for channel four that's contractual i would definitely like to carry on because well there's two reasons i really enjoy it there's plenty of people who i would still like to do it you know i'm looking at you at the moment i hopefully i always hope people don't feel like well i don't want to do it now it's's series 14. Why am I this late to be invited? But as you know, there's a lot of factors involved in casting things. But anyway, there's a lot of people who want to do it. I really do enjoy it.

But also, I've managed to get out of a lot of the process. So I don't go to the edit, whereas I used to. And I used to have to stay with the director every time we filmed. I used to stay at his house because it was so all-consuming. Whereas now I can get home and it could... But basically, we're much better at making the programme. So it's pretty much a pleasure. What it does is eat into horn section time,

but it doesn't eat into family time too much. So I think I'll carry on, as long as it doesn't feel like we've run out of ideas. It's a pretty boring answer, but it's a juggernaut that's quite fun to be sat in still. And in terms of it being weird, it is weird that it's it's a juggernaut that's quite fun to be sat in still yeah and in terms of it being weird it is weird that it's i don't think it's transformed anything but you definitely see you get sent pitch ideas and they mention taskmaster quite often saying we would like

it to be a bit like taskmaster what i want is for people to use comedians better i don't think talking heads is a good use of a comedian i think some panel shows don't show off the best sides of a comedian whereas if you i think what we're quite good at doing is letting people be themselves and showing off their funniest sides and that was probably because tim key did the first series and he's not a panel show person but um was very comfortable well it was comfortable ish doing it so he made people realize that you don't have to be josh widdicombe to do it although he was brilliant at it but you can be all sorts of comedians to do it i always feel very tedious when i talk about it no i think you're right though i think that was one of the biggest and most heartening aspects of the whole thing and and of the success of the show was that it did seem to be redressing the balance in favour of a more idiosyncratic...

This is such a boring sentence. I'm going to abandon it. No, well, I felt that was my sentence. It was a good... It's just a better use of comedians. It's got more heart to it. Yeah, that's enough, isn't it? It's less of a kind of, you know, rabbit in the headlights.

Go! Say something funny! Yeah. Now! Because that's the thing about panel shows that i hate so much that i've wanged on about on this podcast before is that sense of basically having to be a little bit rude you know i was brought up nice you speak when you're spoken to you wait for someone else to finish talking before you say something but that's no good on a panel show

you've got to get in there and you've got to have sharp funny elbows and you better be confident and you better be funny on cue otherwise you're not going to make the edit and that was yeah you know that's been the case with so many things yes yeah we definitely stumbled upon a way of not doing that but we sort of cheat because there's an element of that in the studio where people do start having to we're not not having to but they do flex that muscle a little bit when they're talking about what they've done yeah but actually people are respectful because they're in it for the whole series so they're not desperate to get their words in and also the editing it's the same team that's done it from the beginning and we i think are kind and show people

in the best light and make sure it's even-handed and we also really like vulnerability i like it when people aren't doing jokes and there's a bit of sadness or frustration. That's all part of it. I was in the studio last night. We'd finished something last night and the whole prize section at the beginning was actually really tender and wasn't gags at all. Not many laughs.

And I'm hoping that we can keep that all like that. I think it's fine. But that's partly because we're however many series in, so people trust us, hopefully, at this stage. Yes. Presumably, the transition from one channel to another was a painful process and a concession to making the most of the success of the show. That must have been difficult. It was. I'm not ashamed of anything, but it was, you're right, really painful, which sounds so ungrateful, I suppose. But it was splitting'm not ashamed of anything but it was you're right really painful which sounds so ungrateful i suppose but it was splitting up with dave who were the only people who supported us at

the beginning although channel four did pay for the development at the beginning and then turned us down and then dave were the only people who went for it and they were great from the off and they really got behind it and we really liked the people and made friends you know and we had to say actually we want to go to a bigger channel which is fundamentally what the only reason why we left was so more people could see it so it was yeah it was painful and it felt like everyone was going to go that we're chasing the money and i suppose there is an element of that that you do get paid more but mainly it's because we wanted more people to watch it my mum doesn't know how to find dave but she knows where channel four is and i think she's fairly typical and it's because we wanted more people to watch it. My mum doesn't know how to find Dave, but she knows where Channel 4 is,

and I think she's fairly typical. And it's actually turned into quite a family show. There's a bleeped version that's on all four, which Dave did as well, but I think more kids are likely to watch it on Channel 4, and I really like it when generations watch it together. So it was a sort of no-brainer, but it wasn't a no-harter, if that's the phrase.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's all it was. And they've been supportive. We've spoken since and we've met up, me and Dave. But it's definitely not the same as it was. And it's something that's, well, hopefully we will do something together again in the future, but I don't know.

Sure. It's like, I imagine, like splitting up with an actual romantic partner. Yeah, you say you'll stay in touch and meet up for coffees, but you don't because the new partner doesn't want you to either. That's right. But then maybe one say you'll stay in touch and meet up for coffees but you don't because the new partner doesn't want you to either that's right but then maybe one day you'll go and you'll have a shag and your new partner will understand or will they not find out they won't find out because the shag will never get broadcast how does that work in the metaphor uh how does it work

you'll do a pilot for dave and it'll be sexy and fun but it won't be quite the same and no one will ever know about it okay until one day channel four do find out about and then they freak out ah and oh no i'm not getting divorced from channel four throw you out of the house yeah yeah uh one of the things that of course is impressive about the show is the constant invention. Have you now got a games team that you sit around with American style and think of these things with? No, we don't at all. So the system is still, I come up with all the tasks. However, the production team, lots of whom have been there from the beginning, do chip in with ideas.

And they also, more importantly, fine tune my ideas. So I can't say they're 100% mine, but they're all through my brain and there's absolutely not a room full of writers. And I think we might be idiots for that. In New Zealand, they're making it at the moment and they have to come up with all their own tasks because they show our version as well.

And they have a team of really good comedians coming up with the tasks and the tasks are really good. So maybe that's what we should have done, but couldn't bear to say right my brain's done let's get new people in because i think it's not that impressive well it might seem impressive the amount of things that come out but it's just like you doing this you know that's just my job is to come up with the tasks and i don't come up with jokes anymore because i can't so it's just that side of my brain and i really enjoy it and it's not a hardship to walk around thinking, okay, what if they walk into a room

and, you know, poke each other on the back with either a sausage or a finger. Yes. Yes, please. Yep. Yes. You have a dog, right? Yeah, we've got Lockie.

She's over there. I walked her this morning. I think I'm really close to my dog, like we probably all are. But I was walking with her this morning, just looking at her, thinking, I really, really, really like you. I know. I think she feels the same. I really do. I think she feels the same i really do i think she does i'm sure she does how old is loki she's two well it's spelled l-o-k-y but it's pronounced loki because the kids named her and we don't know why it's something to do with the marvel character but not you know it's pronounced wrong and spelt wrong okay but she's a girl and they didn't

want a girl sounding name she came in the october before lockdown but she sounds like it's a girl and they didn't want a girl sounding name. She came in the October before lockdown, but she sounds like it's a lock, you know, there's a hint of lockdown in the name. And it's sort of just before everyone got dogs. But I'm so grateful for her during lockdown. She was our little saviour. Although I did hear you on the horn section telling a story that I was, I must say, surprised made the edit. Yeah, we gave a warning before it went

out i think because will didn't think it should go out we've done the story why don't we try um well we don't have to call it a i don't think can you bleep that word just just to keep it intriguing do you want me to get rid of that no just the word just for fun i don't mind i think people know exactly what's happened by now but i think it'd be fun i'll say that again um well we've done the story about your medical emergency in new york and i think we did a good job of talking around the worst of that so let's see if you can recount the dog story in a similar way my dog story was which she did a lot in her first six months, was she would do her business. She would do a poo.

I guess that's how we describe it. Always before we could get out to pick it up, she would eat it fully. And then she would come up and sit on our lap. And if you hadn't witnessed it, she would always come and sit on your lap and then burp in your face. And I grew to quite like the smell that was

the that was the problem with it but on christmas day i don't think i said this on christmas day last year we had our first ever christmas just us as a family with no visitors because of lockdown yeah and we enjoyed that just the day itself we didn't think we would you know everyone was sad we didn't see our family but the day itself we loved it's just the five of us and dog but she must have done what what i've just described but she then puked on a brand new sofa shit so christmas morning 10 o'clock my wife was cleaning shit vomit off a brand new yellow sofa and we were just we're literally just saying this is wonderful this is the best christmas we've ever had and then it was shit vomit terrible it was awful there's nothing worse really you never get used to the

shit i think because rosie's got this thing where she will sometimes she'll go out and she'll find a place which is off the beaten track. Literally, metaphorically, go over in a corner by a shed or whatever and have a dump. Great. And then we'll have to scoop it up and pop it somewhere else. So but then sometimes it's as if she is deliberately doing a poo where someone is likely to step in it. And last night I was walking over to my nutty room from the house and it was dark. And sure enough, I thought, oh, I've trodden in something. But I didn't even think like it didn't even cross my mind that it was one of Rosie's tods.

Yeah. Until I got to my shed and then looked at my shoe and I was wearing trainers that have very deep treads you know yeah not only are they deep treads but there's like a hole inside the tread as well so there's just so many opportunities for stuff to get inside there and be incredibly difficult to remove well I'd really like to hear exactly your removal process because for me it's hot tap and we've got a utility room i suppose to call it but it's very small it's where we like clean things yeah so suddenly we're introducing shit to that room but i will also smell it again and again and again in the heat of the vapor yeah but i'll put the shoe to my nose right up oh you keep i keep smelling it

going no i can still smell it but instead of scrubbing it for ages i'll scrub it for a bit and then smell it and then a little bit more and i think you never lose that smell because then it's sort of the smell is in your nose so you're actually smelling what's in your nose rather than what's on the shoe so what do you do you scrub or do you yeah similar sort of thing well i squirt a load of washing up liquid on it first of all right as if that's going to neutralize it somehow i think that makes it worse and then and then i blast it under the hot tap but in the past i have blasted it too strongly and yeah bits have ricocheted back onto my face which is then you know which is appalling and you're sad and angry and you're sort of gagging

and the whole process takes a long time out of your day that you know you can't afford that time no and there's no good there there's no there's no fun no no but when i remember when i was a teenager thinking quite often i think this is a rude thing to say but i think somewhere in the world at the moment there's definitely two people having sex. I remember thinking that when I was a teenager. I had that thought, yeah. Thinking that was quite exciting. But now I'm thinking, right now, there's definitely at least five people cleaning shit off their shoes.

I mean, there's probably a thousand people doing it right this minute. And I'm more interested in that nowadays. Smelling the shoe constantly yeah we had an incident when the kids were little when one of them had a nosebleed in the bath we had the three under four so one was in the bath just bleeding away and my wife was dealing with him and then the two-year-old wandered in and uh grabbed my wife's hand and put a shit in it which which he'd done in the bedroom and picked it up and just put it in her hand

and she was dealing with blood and looked down and suddenly had a shit in her hand yeah 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. I love browsing your videos and pics, and I don't want to say yes it looks very professional I love browsing your videos

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Yes. Eight. Continue. hello beautiful wolf you want to say hello to the podcats oops drop my glasses i love you oh you've got a small head oh you've got a small head all right see you later if you've just rejoined us after skipping Alex's dog plop story welcome back I think you missed a really good ploppy section but I understand it's not for everybody, that kind of thing. I'm very grateful indeed to Alex for his time.

And if you'd like to explore the world of the horn section a bit further, there's a few links in the description of this podcast. And the companion episode to this conversation with Tim Key will be with you quite soon. Can't say exactly when, because I get, I get ambitious. I think, yeah, I'll drop them both on the same day, do some same day dropping. But then I realized like, oh, it takes me longer than that to do these, doesn't it? And then, um, there's a bit of a delay. Anyway, I hope it'll be out in the next few days, and then as a kind of... Well, it's not a bonus, because it'll be a regular...

This is boring, isn't it? It's coming soon. I wanted to tell you about a festival that I'll be appearing at later this year. I will be appearing at the Blue Dot Festival in Jodrell Bank, the observatory, about 22 miles south of Manchester. On Saturday, the 23rd of July, the festival starts, I think, on the Thursday and runs through till Sunday, 24th of July. I'm not sure exactly what our slot is going to be. I'm going to be doing a Best of Bug show.

So, you know, big screen. I'll be showing some great music videos made by other people. And reading out some YouTube comments including a few of my own bits of nonsense singing a couple of songs perhaps that sort of thing I'm looking forward to Blue Dot I've never been before

but it seems like a cool place the observatory that is and a great lineup. Bjork is headlining on the Sunday, so that's very exciting indeed. We've got Groove Armada. Wouldn't be a festival without Groove Armada. Mogwai, Metronomy. Metronomy are playing also on the Saturday.

That was my one stipulation. It was like, please, don't mind what kind of slot we get for Best of Bug, but can it not clash with Metronomy are playing also on the saturday that was my one stipulation was like please don't mind what kind of slot we get for best of bug but can it not clash with metronomy i'm very keen to see them who else over the weekend you've got spiritualized koji radical kelly lee owens stewart lee is going to be there also on the saturday i think he's going to be there, also on the Saturday, I think. He's going to be presenting a screening of the documentary about the legendary cult band the Nightingales, which I spoke to him about when he appeared on this podcast last year. Great doc, well worth seeing, if you haven't seen it already. So anyway, I put a link to the blue dot site in the description of this podcast and i hope you can make it along but right now i'm going to wrap things up rosie

come on let's head back i'm going to leave you with a tribute to the horn section podcast which is me saying my thank yous this week in the style of Alex Horn, giving shout outs to the Horn Section podcast Patreon supporters, which he does at the end of the episodes. And he says the names of the people who've been supporting them on Patreon over an incredible piece of music. It's a little synthesizer tune by Ed Sheldrake of the Horn Section. So, yes, here are my thank yous over the Horn Section podcast, Five Dollar Holler theme by Ed Sheldrake.

Thanks to Seamus Murphy Mitchell. Five Dollar Holler theme by Ed Sheldrake. Matt Lamont, that is, because he's an edit whiz. Also, thank you very much to Helen Green. She's the podcast artwork queen, yes she is. Oh, she rules the artwork biz. Mmm, she's a queen of artwork. Oh, Laura, Laura, lovely artwork. It's quite flattering as well, isn't it? If you were an illustration, what kind of illustration would you want?

I'd be a great Helen Green illustration, Chuck. Her artwork is so nice and charming, and I wish I could say the same for my Harry Who won't even come to my birthday At least have her as a confirm Thank you to you as well for listening to this I really appreciate it. How about a kiss?

No, that's a bit much. I tell you what, let's just have a hug instead. Instead. Come here. Now you just go carefully. It's frightening out there. I love you. Bye! Now you just go carefully. It's frightening out there.

I love you. Bye! Give me like a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pat when they bums up. Give me like a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pat when they bums up. Bye. Thank you.