THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.23 - JOHN ROBINS

Episode Date: June 23, 2016

Adam talks with stand up comedian and radio presenter John Robins about dealing with celebrity encounters, Nectar points and double act power dynamics. For details of upcoming live shows visit adam-buxton.co.uk Thanks to Matt Lamont for additional editing and Seamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This podcast contains bad language. 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 listeners? Adam Buxton here. Welcome to podcast number 23, an EU referendum special. Oh, no, wait, it's a conversation with John Robbins. Tried to do the EU referendum special with Rosie, but got a bit heated. Instead, I have for you a conversation with British stand-up comedian and radio presenter John Robbins. I was in London earlier this year doing some shows, and John came round to my hotel room. Now, I'd seen John and his girlfriend Sarah Pascoe the night before, at the after-show party that we had following the Bug Bowie special that we did at the Odeon Leicester Square. Speaking of which, actually, and before I tell you a little bit more about John,

people have been asking me if there are any plans to do the Bowie special again in London this year. And the answer is yes. The next one will be at the Greenwich Comedy Festival on Tuesday, the 26th of July, between 7.30 and 9.30 ish, I think. There's also a show at the Bristol Comedy Festival on Sunday, the 3rd of July. But you can find details of these shows as well as other upcoming shows on my blog. Here's the jingle for my blog. I've got a blog, I've got a blog

Rooty, rooty, schmooty, rooty blog, blog, blog I've got a blog Here's the address, here's the address. It's adam-bugston.co.uk. So check it out. All right, there we go. It's not a very well-maintained blog. So, you know, go easy on it.

And it sort of explains what you can expect from the Bug Bowie special on the blog. So that's the best place to check out details of all that. But listen, I rudely derailed myself from the business of introducing John Robbins. John Robbins. Here's some John Robbins facts for you. He is currently 34 years old. John can currently be heard, along with his friend and fellow comedian Ellis James, on London's Radio X, formerly XFM,

where the pair present a show on Saturdays between one and four in the afternoon, currently. When our conversation was recorded earlier this year, the radio show was going out at a different time, but then the time changed. Now it's going out later than it used to. It's a good story though, isn't it? John's Twitter handle is at Nomadic Reverie, which is a reference to the title of one of his Edinburgh shows, which in itself is, I imagine, a reference to something else, which I'm not aware of. And whenever I see John's Twitter handle written down as one word, I always think, who's Norma Decrevery? Norma Decre... Oh, it's John Robbins.

Our conversation meandered about from important topic to important topic. We talked about how to handle celebrity encounters and how not to handle them. We talked about nectar points. We talked about the delicate balance of power within double acts. And we talked about the things you do that great for your house or flatmate about the things you do that great for your house or flatmate.

The things you do that great for your housemate or flatmate. You should be considerate or you'll get thrown out of the flat. Okay, 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, yes, yes La, la, la, la, la, la, la La, la, la, la, la, la La, la, la, la, la, la, la I was in a hotel two days ago in Newcastle. Yeah.

And luckily I was on my own. But have you ever experienced the frosted glass toilet door? When you say experienced, how do you mean? As in, have you ever... Luckily I was on my own, but it seems to be the most insane invention ever because it allows you to kind of see the outline of what someone's doing in the toilet from the bed.

Yeah. That's sexy. No, it's awful. When are you going to be in a room while someone takes a shower anyway? No, but if you're there with them. If you don't know them. No, but I'm not talking showers. I'm talking toilets.

Oh, I see what you mean, yeah. You're staying, say you're going to a wedding. Like in this situation, I suppose. Yeah, if I had to go to the toilet and I said, can I do a quick wee? Right. But I was sneakily hoping to do a sort of a high-speed poo. Or crack one off.

Or both. Or whatever. You would immediately know that I had lied about the wee, and then you'd see that I was sitting down on the toilet. It was just the worst. It just seemed to be the most infuriating design. That you would allow someone to kind of just be able to tell what you're doing

in the bathroom yeah i think it's sexy are you not bothered by that well i'd have to take a view once it was presented to me hey by the way before we get uh properly stuck in yeah i thought that we would make it a rule that there'd be no swearing yeah right now normally it doesn't matter i've got no i've got nothing against swearing but i just thought as we're radio guys okay let's try it see how it goes that's not to say that you can't like on the radio you wouldn't even be allowed to start talking about certain areas even if you weren't swearing you can forget about talking anything talking about anything super complicated or unpleasant. Yeah, there are certain bands on what would have been the Radio X playlist that are no longer there, who are no longer spoken of.

Really? Who are they? The Lost Prophets. Because they are called the Lost Prophets? Oh, no, because the guys are. Sorry, I forgot. I forgot. I wouldn't be very good. Yeah. Well, we navigated those potentially very choppy conversational waters...

Well, at least we didn't swear. Beautifully. Exactly. We didn't swear. And people who don't know what the hell we're talking about will be none the wiser and their days won't be ruined. And people who do know what we're talking about are probably thinking, move on. why don't you move on they're making the cut gesture that our producer used to make a lot at six music as does this how would you describe that it's so it's a winded up it's a double wind up yeah and then a t and time out after the t uh your last warning is they'll

just fade a track up yeah which is the ultimate the ultimate sort of, that's happened twice, I think. That's the ultimate, like, you gave me no choice. Are there any bands that are not on the X playlist because of political content? Like, I'm thinking, presumably, I mean, the BBC certainly would not play Killing an Arab by The Cure and haven't done for a long while. Oh, I don't know about that,

but I do know that they are very quick to remove stuff from the playlist based on current events. So, for example, because the sort of music Radio X plays is indie rock orientated, there tends to be a lot more stuff about, for example, guns and bombs, just being referenced in tracks. So they're very hot on taking that out. Yeah. And I should say as well that passing reference to The Cure,

that is, of course, not a racist song. It's referencing the existentialist novel L'Etranger. They would encourage us to steer away from getting too deep into the background of that song. Yeah, because it would be confusing, wouldn't it? You'd have to do a very long explanation every time you played it. You'd have to basically read L'étranger in the original French.

And now you'd say, that was Albert Camus' L'étranger, and now here's the cure. I'm going to give you a present. I'm going to give you a present, mate. Oh, mate. Who's going to go first? You go first. I'll go first. I went to Legoland with my children last week.

This is the thing, right? I got an email and it said, you are invited to the premiere of the new Lego movie in 4D. So my mind is blowing at this point because the original, the first Lego movie was good. Yeah, it was great. So I'm like, what the hell? This is amazing. And it says, come and see the

premiere at lego land windsor a full week before the park officially reopens for the 2016 season i was like whoa wait till i tell my family about this so i did and they were like oh you're a genius dad you're at the well we're gonna like're going to see the new movie. I can't believe it. And then my son, who's 13, who's kind of a, he's quite a film buff. And he also knows how to use the internet. He started pouring buckets of scorn on the whole thing and saying, well, I haven't heard anything about the new Lego movie. He sounds very mature.

He is. He's like that, honestly. We call him Victor Mature. Really? Yeah. And I was like, don't just, he's always being, come. We call him Victor Mature. Really? Yeah. And I was like, don't just, he's always being, come on, you're always pouring scorn on my exciting stuff. I'm like, no, I don't know anything about it. I've not heard about it, that's all.

And so then, long story short, it turns out it's not the Lego movie. What it is, it is a Lego movie, like a 12-minute short that they've made specifically for the parks. I should say that it is really fun and good. So is 4D, is that what The Hobbit was in? The 48 frames? No. 4D is just things happening in the physical world while you're watching the film.

So, in this case, usually it involves having your face sprayed with water. Oh, no. It's depressing. It sounds a lot more sort of futuristic than it is. It really, yeah. It's very lo-fi. Actually, it worked out fine, but the moment that I had to tell the children,

it's not the new Lego movie. I think that's another year or so away. It was a bit disappointing. But there was lots of so-called celebs invited, right? Which in practice means more or less anyone who's hosted or been on breakfast television. So who was there? Five years.

I didn't really know. My wife had to explain who they were because she reads more very bad magazines than I do. Lisa Snowden was there. She was causing the most ruckus on the red carpet. Really? Yeah, there was a red carpet. For this 12-minute film? Yeah.

Amazing. And who else was there? Ben Shepard. Ben Shepard. But the big one, quite a big leap, no disrespect to all those people I mentioned, but Gillian Anderson. Really?

Yeah. For a 12-minute Lego film? Well, she's got children, you see. Right. So her children were there. And my son has just finished watching the whole of the original series of the, you know, like nine seasons of the X-Files. Well, even the really, really scary one where the inbred people are living in the house.

Oh, mate, it's so scary. But isn't it sort of darkly comical, that one? Oh, it's just, it was terrifying. It's one of my big sort of memories that formed my phobias and fears in my life. I don't know if I've even seen that one. Another one you're talking about. There's a shot where the camera's inside this old shack and they found a buried baby outside.

That's what leads them there. And the baby's deformed. And they go into the... Speaking of stuff that's no fun to talk about on the radio. They found... They find a baby. It's's been buried but check this out it's horribly deformed and so they look around the flat these these sort of creatures you see the silhouettes of them moving about and then there's these slats of light in the floorboards and the camera just starts to zoom in on these slats of light and it zooms in closer and closer and closer

and it gets right up and you just see two eyes looking out from under the floorboard and they keep their mum in there strapped to a board with wheels on. Best place for her. So that's terrible. I'm getting scared now.

Squeeze was the one that got me. Do you remember that one? That's a very early episode. Maybe even episode three or something. The fellow who squeezes himself into confined spaces. Oh, yeah, I remember that. He's called. And he sort of goes in there and he just coats the whatever confined space he's in,

just coats it with gob, like very yellow phlegm. Remember that? No, I remember the guy. And he makes a sort of cocoon. Oh, yes, I do remember that. But I haven't seen them since they sort of originally aired. You haven't seen the new series then? No, I've heard it's sort of completely insane.

In a good way? In a bad way, I think. Oh, okay. I mean, they're both very good. She, in particular, though, is a pretty formidable actor. I think she's got chops. Yeah, she's amazing. So she was there. She was there.

And so my son was really excited. And I said, shall we say something to her? And he's like, do you think we should? I was like, I don't know, man, it's up to you. If you want to go and say hi, I bet she wouldn't mind. As long as you're polite, you know.

Is this your mature child? Yeah. So he's now dropped his sort of scorn. Yes. He's not saying, I'm not sure that would be wise, Dad, actually, an event like this. Well, he was and he wasn't. He was on the fence. Yeah.

Because he was like, oh, can we go and say hello? Can we go? I was like, yeah, we can, we can. But think it through, though. Like, think it through in your mind. What's the best thing that could happen? Like, I'll pretend to be Gillian Anderson and you be you saying hello. And so we sort of played it out.

And he realized fairly fast that he would just get tongue tied and he wouldn't know what to say. And what's the point kind of thing. But just as we were leaving, we were in the store and I was buying the gift I'm about to give you. And there she was. And so I said, come on, let's go say hi. So I went up and I said, excuse me, sorry to bother you. Just wanted to say my son's a great admirer of your work. She's like, oh, really? Because she's a Brit. Did you realise that? She has a completely British accent.

Really? Yeah, 100%, like cut glass, quite posh. That's amazing. Yeah. And it blew my mind. I was like, whoa. Because her accent in X-Files is perfect. What if she's been taken over by an accent alien and that's how they get you? It blew my mind. I was like, whoa. Because her accent in X-Files is perfect.

What if she's been taken over by an accent alien, and that's how they get you? They change your accent. Well, that would be a very weak premise for an episode. So I'm leaving you. That's for you to pitch. Yeah, I'll pitch that. All right.

But she said, oh, right, what have you been watching? And Frank said, oh, yeah, it's The X-Files. And she's like, oh, my gosh, how old are you? And he's like, yeah, but at that point, her child, one of her children went AWOL. So she's like, sorry, sorry, excuse me, I just have to just check my child's not vanished. So it was one of those things we didn't really know what to do.

Like, is that it? Have we concluded our business? Oh, yeah, oh, no. So we just wait around? And she was like... And then you felt really bad because we were thinking, oh, no, we're interrupting her. When I met Brian May twice, and neither time got anywhere close to satisfying

the outcome I'd wanted since the age of nine. What was that fantasy scenario? Immediate best friends. Oh, yeah. Plays you rare, unreleased Queen tracks. Yes. Invites me around to his house, and that's a definite in the diary. And we both double confirm.

This is after about two minutes of chatting. Yeah. And then I just go to his house, and I sort of become a better friend than anyone he's known since he was a teenager right like and i go around for christmas dinner every year sure and roger then roger taylor through through that then becomes friends so with roger i go out and we sort of have heavy nights on the town yeah whereas brian we have sort of more reflective talk about the stars and yeah yeah

yeah he shows me his grounds. He shows you his telescope. Yeah. But instead, what happened was the first time I said, and I got my agent works with Queen, so he knows them. Oh. And he introduced me. He said, all right, Brian's a big fan of yours here. And I went, hello, I saw you at the Colston Hall in 1994,

and you signed my guitar, and I want to thank you very much. And you went, oh, OK, maybe I remember that gig. And then sort of had a photo. And then the second time, my agent again wangled me, warming up the crowd for their New Year's Eve gig that they did live on the BBC. Good one. The problem is it's tainted the excitement of the fact that you're doing the thing you dreamt of doing for two decades

and yet you know it's going to sort of, the experience of the day will not be this magical kind of, oh, John, come into the dressing room and hang out with us. It just will never be like that. So I did it and then afterwards, there was a problem with me getting access to the dressing room and hang out with us. It just will never be like that. So I did it. And then afterwards, there was a problem with me getting access to the green room because I didn't have the right wristband.

And then I went in and Brian walked around and he's like the one of the band who sort of shoulders the responsibility of I think being the face of them. Because everyone knows who he is. He's got distinctive hair. Yeah. And taylor could walk down probably oxford circus and most people wouldn't recognize him he looks like a kind of dandy santa at the moment yes he does and he was this night was wearing a red velvet jacket as well his beard was quite big but then

brian came over and um he said hello and he was obviously being told to sort of, he had to spend half an hour saying hello to everyone and I was eating a canapé and I said, oh, the canapés are nice. And he went, oh, what are they? And I said, they're sort of miniature prawn curries. Oh, this is going well. And he said, oh, curry. I don't like curry.

Oh. And then he left. Good facts, though, man. That was a heart to heart you had. He doesn't like curry. He doesn't like curry. And then he left. Good facts, though, man. That was a heart to heart you had. He doesn't like curry. He doesn't like curry. And my girlfriend is, I had this image because she was there. She's a vegan.

He's a member of the vegetarian society. I thought they were going to talk about animal rights. I would then weirdly get sort of subsumed into their friendship. You start kissing her. She starts kissing Brian. My fingers start running through his hair. He accidentally kisses you or deliberately. But instead I just found out that he doesn't like curry.

Come on. Well, that's privileged info. That's good, man. So listen. Anyway, it all ended well with Jillian, I think. My son was a little, he came away from it a little confused. You know what I mean? Because I think you do.

It's exactly like your episode with May. And it never stops being confusing. And in the end, I think you realise there's no need. There's no need to shake their hands. I wonder if it, when you're, say you're Brian May's level. Yeah. Say the first time he meets someone super famous. Do you think when you're both at that level, there's no awkwardness at all? I think it must be like that because they do have

shared experiences of life because their life to some degree is dominated by the peculiarities of being famous and how it alters your life for the worse as well as for the better and there will be no awkwardness i guess because you you neither of them has expectations of the other person so right so i think especially because the power because it's a lot about power sometimes isn't it if the power is on an equal footing i think it's also like to put it in context of say your show with joe is that you've been in their life for an hour a week for two years right so it's impossible for there not to be a slight slightly awkward first few seconds because i and i've been in that position as well with stuff i've been a fan of is you sort of assume they're gonna go hey you're the guy who listens to our show

because it's such a personal relationship yes exactly well i've said i i've crapped on about it before about podcasting that that's definitely what you get from that but listen this has been the longest build-up to the smallest smallest present of all time ta Ta-da! Thank you very much. You can describe it for the listeners. It is a miniature Lego figure of Superman, ages six plus. Yes. Do you like Superman? Uh...

Oh, he's a twat, isn't he? Oh, I swore. I mean, I used to say that word on XFM. Until one day someone wrote in, I think, and said, it doesn't bother me, but heads up, that's like the C word in up north. I never knew it was offensive until I used it to refer to Michael Portillo, who was on telly with my stepdad, when actually that's a very offensive word. I basically thought it meant twit.

We have, like, I don't know if you and Joe had this, but we have sort of broadcast-approved replacements, so when we're angry on the show with each other or having sort of an argument, and some of them, I once called Ellis a son of a coin. Oh, yeah. He called me that, maybe. No, he once called me YouTube.

Yeah. And tube is quite good. But then we found out tube actually is a term some people use. Yeah, yeah. Which I didn't know. It's a bit like bell, isn't it? Yeah, YouTube. Massive bell.

That's a Tim Key one. He likes using that one. Does he? Yeah. You absolute bell. likes using that one does he yeah you absolute bell i play football with him and his the word he's uses most that is feces because that's absolute feces that was well he'd be good on the radio then he could delegate it yeah so i got your superman key ring thank you very much i mean i love those little mini figs yeah. Yeah. And would you ever use a key ring?

What does that tell you, mate? Look at that. Look at those bad boys. You've got a bottle opener on there. Come on. Super cool. You're crazy. I am pretty crazy.

Is there room for Superman on there? Shall I put him on now? Go on. Oh, great. He's probably still warm. I've been... You've been sort of humbling him for about half an hour now. I'll put him on

with the keys to the Fabia. Pride of place, mate. The Fabia. What kind of car is... I don't know anything about cars. Skoda Fabia. Skoda. 1.4 diesel.

Oh. 2004 plate. Pretty sweet ride. I don't know. I don't know anything about cars. I know that we've got a stupid giant one. Do you not drive?

I mean, I do drive, yeah. You do drive? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh. I love to drive. I'm a brilliant driver. Really? I don't know.

I'm not sure I'm a great driver. And I really, I mean, I don't think you're supposed to admit, you never hear people admitting that they're really not that good at driving. There's a great YouTube video of British drivers swearing that have been captured on their dash cams and it's just all edited together. And what's great is they sort of edit themselves because he always starts with a...

BEEP! WANKER! Oh, you're not allowed. Oh, now I've done it, haven't I? That's worse than the T word. I think, isn't it? Bums. Anyway.

But it's quite funny. But apart from the ones where someone actually clearly has got hurt and I have no tolerance for YouTube videos of people getting injured. I know, that's the problem. I wish that they could give them certificates. Yes. And say, like, guaranteed no one killed or maimed. Yeah, so like this skateboarding fail compilation is amusing.

Yeah. This one is genuinely terrifying and upsetting and makes you beed. Yeah, so like this skateboarding fail compilation is amusing. Yeah. This one is genuinely terrifying and upsetting and makes you be sick. Yeah. Because I can't do that. No, but the ones where they land on their heads and stuff. The landing ones. And you think, well, he's not going to get up from that, is he? Have you seen the one where he goes to do a trick

and he's running along with his board and instead of doing the trick, he just runs off into the distance holding his board. It's really, really funny. Oh, that sounds good. I like the way you say he, as if it's just one guy that skateboards on YouTube. Ian Skateboard. No, I know, it's annoying,

because I do like those fail compilations. And before, I don't know what happened, I guess I just put two and two together one day. I tell you what I thought, naively, I just thought, well, they wouldn't put them up if there were people killed in them and stuff. Because on TV, when you watch You've Been Framed and things, I would say that they're not going to show anything that ended in death or disability. But it's any impact on a hard surface, that's my sort of, one of my things I can't deal with. Even if they get up and walk away from it?

Yeah, slipping on ice, slipping on a dance floor. Face plant on pavement. I can't. I was once walking to a gig, actually, at night, and an old lady was walking past me, and she... You know when I had, like, my hood up, so I looked ominous,

so I tried to just look as less, as least threatening as I possibly could. So I sort of gave her space. Put your knife away. Yeah, set the guns to relax mode. At standby. And as I passed, I just heard... Oh! And she'd just gone straight headfirst into the pavement.

Oh, no. And there was that brief moment where I thought... Why didn't I film it? What should I... LAUGHTER Why didn't I have my GoPro? Where I just thought, hmm, what do you do here? Yeah.

What do I do? Because the street's silent, there's no-one there, it's just this woman, face flat on the... Oh, not moving. Not moving. And I just... And then you go, oh, you help, you idiot!

Your sort of normal brain comes in and you're like, just go and help her. So I just sat with her for ages, sort of just leaning on me. Yeah, because she would have just been shocked, I guess. Yeah. Is she okay?

She was very old and her friends eventually came running around the corner and said, Oh, there she is. We wondered why you'd been out so long. What have you done to her face? Yeah. And they sort of took it from there, really.

Oh, man. That's hard. Yeah. Getting old. God. What are you doing launching into that story when it ends like that? I don't know. I remembered funny bits.

She was going to pop up and start jigging around and say on are you john robbins should i give you your present yes please i've even got more presents for you this is a very sort of uh self-involved present because we had some merch done for our show oh yeah and i remembered when people used to get uh steven t-shirts yes did you have official ones made for you then or did it was it listeners that made them well listeners started making them and then we did two gigs recently where we took some along we've got some made up and i wanted to give you a our version of steven is are you on email uh-huh uh because we i just said it once when we were trying to work out how to introduce people's correspondence are you on are you on email so that became one of

the yeah callbacks so the thing is are you on email and then the callback is oh you absolutely have to be these days so that's what people say unfortunately there weren't any t-shirts more expensive has more expensive implications for merchandising than steven just coming yeah but um so i got you uh a copy oh wow of my autobiography no which i wrote for the show a robbins amongst the pigeons that's true i love it by john robbins wow you've done a book so we did it over 30 weeks i mean it has to be said it's very thin oh yeah so i used to read out from tony blackburn's autobiography poptastic right which is pound for pound the funniest thing you'll ever read in your entire life it's so like i partridge the book yeah i think it was a reference point for them in researching i part Park Tridge and writing it.

There's a bit where he's talking about being flown to a restaurant by Noel Edmonds in his helicopter. And it's a classic, needless to say, I had the last laugh moment, because they're in this restaurant. And a waitress comes over and says, oh, I'm very sorry, I don't hope I'm being inappropriate. And sort of Noel turns as if to go, don't worry, Tony, I'll deal with this. Probably just looking for an autograph. And Tony Blackburn writes, but it turns out she was actually interested in me because I'd sold her a dehumidifier on QVC just one week earlier.

Oh, my God. That is the tip of the iceberg. So I then wrote my own story in that self-aggrandising style. And that's what I'm holding in my sweaty hands? Yes, Sir Robin's Amongst the Pigeons. Oh, good one. And so you've got real anecdotes fused with your partridge-esque blitherings. Thanks very much, man.

No worries, man. I'm never going to read it. No. That's the most I'll read of it when I just read that. That's fine. No, I'm joking.

Relaxing with a group of people Sitting round the cool and jazzy sofa Everybody's eating cake and pies and crisps And sipping fizzy pop from cups Relaxing with a group of people

Sitting round a cool and jazzy sofa Everybody here is eating cake and pies and crisps And sipping fizzy pop from cups 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 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 i'll give you the second gift it's um 20 push pins from paper chase and they look like ladybirds they do look very like ladybirds.

They're my favourite pushpins. Now, usually, if you'd met me three years ago and given me these, I would have just thrown them back in your face. Would you have pushed each one of them into my face? Each one individually and spelled out a non-broadcastable word in ladybirds. However, this is the sort of thing that my girlfriend will go insane about. Yeah. I probably will have said in my intro, but in case I didn't,

your girlfriend is the comedian Sarah Pascoe. Yes. Female comedian Sarah Pascoe. I'm sure she'd appreciate that. She loves it around the house. Comedienne. Yeah. But she'll love those ladybird pushpins, mate.

You've got a board, right? A cork board or something like that? Message board? We don't have a message board. Where's she going to shove the pins? Well, knowing her, it will be all over the shop. In your ass. With flagrant disregard for the terms of our tenancy.

Oh, okay. Don't you want to get a big... We've got a big... I love big cork boards, but I've realised that they are more or less pointless. I mean, we've got a few family pictures and things that end up on there and that's nice. But more than that are just scraps of recipes and things. And when you go to Sainsbury's, you get like, if they've calculated that your shop was five pounds more expensive than it would have been elsewhere, then you get a voucher for five quid for the next time you go back there.

Obsessed with them, mate. Ludicrous. Absolutely obsessed with them. But they're brilliantly calculated to expire just before you need them. Let's talk nectar. The most I've ever got on that shopping saving one was 25 pounds. Whoa. And the cashier lady called other cashiers to come and...

£25? £25. I thought it didn't go over £10. No, it does, because I bought... So my girlfriend got me, for Christmas, a holiday to Barbados. Oh, good. I got her an electric toothbrush. Quite right.

I mean, some of those electric toothbrushes are very expensive. Some of them are. The one I bought wasn't. The one I bought was £20, reduced from £50. So my voucher, because obviously Asda was selling it at £50, was for £30 and then another bit was £5 more, so it worked out as £25. That was a big day for me.

I've got the most Nectar points in the world. I wonder if you do, because I've been collecting mine for nearly 20 years. Have you got a receipt on you? I don't generally keep my Sainsbury's receipts. Well, I keep them for arguments just like this. Really? Yeah. No, I haven't got one.

I've only ever spent them once when I was trying to give up smoking for the third time and I felt bad about burdening the NHS with my nicotine patches, so I spent my nectar points on them. Good one. But have i'm wait i don't know what i'm waiting for i mean i used to you know i talked about them on the on the radio back in the day with joe and said that i was going to have a big points party and i never had that and i said you know i was going to invite all the listeners to the points party but then i had a genuine i was watching the news and seeing some miserable stuff happening to some poor group of people or something. And I thought, what am I doing having a points party?

Just like wasting this money when I should just give it to people that need it or whatever. You can't donate nectar points, can you? Well, no, just buy some food and give it to some people who need food. But buy it with cash and then get the nectar points. So it's win-win. Right. Your points are worth... Can I say?

Yeah. Your points are worth £256.64. That's around a quarter. You're kidding me. Of what I've got. No way. Yes way. You got a grand of nectar.

20 years. It's not like the system's not been around for 20 years I think it has Oh I don't know maybe it's not 20 years But family shopping I wish I had a family now I've got three children

I'm going to call Sarah and tell her I've changed my mind We were both on Well you are We were on XFM as it was. It's just X now, isn't it? We're in your slot. Are you? Steady on. Oh, keeping it warm on a Saturday morning.

Thank you. What is it? Are you 10 till 1? 10 till 1. That's a good slot, isn't it? Mm-hmm. Because you've got then the rest of the weekend, and also it means that you don't go too crazy on a Friday night or do you well I started out it was my definite sort of non-drinking night was a Friday

when we started that sort of slipped because the problem is once you set a precedent because inevitably the first time you get a bit drunk the night before and turn up a bit worse for wear, you have an amazing show. Right. And you think, oh, it's so good when I'm loose. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So then you think, oh, I have to bloody have to now, don't I? In fact, Tony Blackburn attests to this in his autobiography, Poptastic. One of his tips for presenters is to stay up a bit late the night before.

He says you're sort of on your toes a bit more when you're tired and i agree with that how much do you prepare for your shows we have a weekly quiz where we ask each other five questions on a topic and the winner gets to pick a track but that's been going on for two years now so the topics have become you have to change topic after you lose so they become quite obscure so i think ellis's topic is well it was the patron saint of saint of wales mine was the town of glastonbury so we have to prepare those questions we read through the emails in the morning and in the week but apart from that it's uh it's just riff tastic yeah just doing a bit of riffing. That's the way to go. I mean, that's what we used to be like, me and Joe,

but then we sort of ruined everything by, or I ruined everything by suggesting that we write songs. Oh, that was great. Yeah, but it put a very unpleasant burden on our week. I think if it's every week, you have to get to the point where it's something you can do or not do. And people don't go mad if you don't do it.

Because my original pitch to Joe was, and this was after I'd bought a new computer and it had GarageBand on it. And it had the little jingles on. And I was like, oh, well, you just sing nonsense over a 30 second jingle and that's it. You don't do any more preparation than that. I was like, let's just sing nonsense and then we can play them to each other in the studio. But then within a couple of weeks, we were both trying to outdo each other

and get really ambitious and put beats and loops together and all this. But that's interesting because it starts off as fun, then becomes super competitive, which is more fun if you're listening because you can hear that it means something i mean i got i went into a genuine k-hole about the whole thing we had to do a song about piracy about download illegal downloading and joe just tossed something off

over a over a jingle or like he hadn't put the music together himself really and i i was like brian wilson losing my mind doing harmonies and different sections and i was like this is my magnum opus and i'd had a string of losses as well and it had got into it was becoming one of those things where the audience thinks it's funny to keep voting against me oh that's not like like i'm a celebrity get me out of here when they when they start picking on someone yeah and they always get picked for the trials and it becomes a bit cruel and it sort of rolls on and it was happening to me and i appreciated that on on one level it was sort of funny but at the same time it genuinely hurt because i just thought this is not fair i'm putting loads of effort in i i deserve to win i

mean looking back on it uh i was insane i'd lost my mind but i genuinely it was winding me up the only time there's ever been genuine tension in the studio that we when we've done the show but actual real world mood yeah always. Always from me. Oh, is it? Yeah. Yeah. Always. And it's twice.

It's been questions that I thought were too hard because you have to start easy and progressively get harder. One of them was what were John Deacon's a level results, which I got wrong by one. I said two A's and a B. It was three A's. Sorry. Three A's.

Yeah. The second one. And it still annoys me. So Brian May was my topic for Winner Plays On. And the first question Ellis asked me is, how tall is Brian May?

With or without hair? So we begin a myriad of vagaries of that question. Not week one. He got that from celebrityheights.com. That's where you go when you've run out of what was his first solo album called. And what year was his PhD handed in?

No disrespect, but you should know both of those things. Well, I do now. He's six foot one and his PhD was handed in in 2009. Did you not make an educated guess for the height though? Yeah, I did. Yeah, I got the height wrong by half an inch. Oh, that's very sad. I got the PhD wrong by one year.

I'm so sorry. But that's an absurd, an obscene thing to ask someone. Yeah. The other time was... And you got genuinely knocked. Yeah. The other time was my question, my topic was, I used to collect farthings when I was little and a teenager and in my 20s.

That's great fun. Who wouldn't? I mean, we've all done it. So my question topic was the golden age of farthings, 1674 to 1901. Where'd you go to collect farthings? Coin fairs, eBay. Oh. It's just those two.

You don't just go down into sewers? Oh, no, because they'd be probably damaged or sort of weather damaged. So you want shiny farthings. But he asked me questions on farthings outside of the golden age, and it's now known as Farthinggate because I went a bit potty. Did you? Yeah. The other time was when I was rude about one of the bands we played.

And that was our producer that got angry at me then. Oh, okay. Which is fair enough. We used to get that all the time. Who mans the computer on your show? Who looks at the feedback? Oh, we've all got the feedback screen. We've all got access to that.

That caused one of our big arguments, me and Joe. Really? Yeah, when he would just read out negative stuff that was coming in. And it really got to me you know and i was like mate stop reading that out especially lie while you're when you've got to come back on and exactly so you can't come back on with hurt feelings and people not know why i always remember a time in in the real world though when i was introduced to uh someone's boyfriend um and it was at a screening of one of our adam and joe shows the show we used to do on channel four and we had a party a screening party for series two and a friend of mine came along with her boyfriend and uh i was sort of nervously

going around afterwards and saying hey how you doing oh thanks for coming you know and i just sort of said did you like the show you You know, just for something to say. And she said, yeah, it was great, yeah. I was like, oh, how about you? You know, Mike or whatever his name was. He's like, no, not really my sort of thing. Oh, come on, mate. And I should have just gone, oh, all right, okay,

see you later. But I was like, oh, okay. Well, I mean, what is your sort of thing? And he just sort of reeled off a load of stuff that I love you know Larry Sanders and I like Chris Morrison and all that oh yeah I love that too but I think it's also it's a it's a very often a man in stand-up nights if there's someone that takes against it will often be a man who's there with his partner for a female partner yeah I got the feeling that it was a little bit of a power play. I'm the

funny guy in this relationship, mate. Yeah, yeah. And if someone's sort of looking up at you with any minor level of sort of being impressed or enjoying it, I can understand someone going, I would have been exactly like that if I'd gone to see stand-up when I was sort of in my 20s with a girlfriend and they were laughing at the person. I'd be like, you weren't like this yesterday when I made that great joke in the kitchen, were you, though? And I tend to make you laugh every day and go, where's this guy when you are struggling, when your self-esteem is low?

I'd be that. Yeah. And that's obviously what's partly going on in their minds. Yeah, exactly. Can I ask you a question? Go on then. So Ellis and I, the sort of dynamic works quite well because I'm sort of Johnny Big Potatoes in the world of our relationship.

Yeah. But that's not actually reflected by our career trajectories. Oh, yeah. And I wondered how, becoming increasingly aware, Ellis is involved in a lot of extracurricular activities. Is he? Doing very well. You're getting worried he's straying.

I mean, he's been popping up on TV. He's in quite a lot of sitcoms that he doesn't seem to have been able to wangle me parts in. Right. Even when those parts cried out for specific areas of knowledge that I have and probably could have got inside the mind of. Yeah, yeah. So it's becoming increasingly clear

that his mortgage is not necessarily being paid by the balance by robin's work yeah is it magnanimous to ask your listeners to write a script of a sitcom that would feature you so ellis is in josh uh the sitcom that josh would have come oh yeah i sort of suggested that it would be more than i actually wrote an episode outline that included me... Oh, yeah. ..as a character obsessed by Queen, who comes to move into the spare room. Yeah.

It's not been... They haven't been in contact about that yet. But I'm sure it's in the pipeline. Yeah. But Ellis is in there? Oh, he's got his main part. Is he? Main part, yeah. And also, it's very funny.

I don't know if you've seen it, but it features a sort of a revolving cameo fest of all our sort of friends in stand-up. Right, except you. Except me, notable. Don't let it get to you. Just sit back, play the long game. Don't start thinking, well, this is bad and, like, making crazy. Don't start killing people. Oh bad and like making crazy don't start killing people I mean the worst

I think you know I may but I don't mind referring to these kinds of things now because I feel like they're in the past and I remember me and Joe watching Pete and Dud oh not the when they're doing Derek and Clyde yeah

that horrible scene where he's putting crisps in his hair. I mean, he's been so horrible to him. Oh, it's just the worst. And he's just being vicious, and we're supposed to think that he's being funny, and Dudley Moore's kind of tolerating it, because technically Dudley Moore is doing him a favour by being on the show, because he's such a big star,

he doesn't need to do it anymore, and he's aware that Peter Cook cook peter cook looks incredibly bitter even though supposedly people that knew him say he really wasn't and he just was he just did think he was being funny and i think that's how me and that would be a similar dynamic to me and ellis yeah because i know those recordings where especially the when dudley i think it's dudley moore's either mum or dad had cancer so a lot of the cancer ones are peter cook bullying him but doing it in a sketch so he can't he can't come out of it and the my favorite sketch of theirs the ticket one with his mum that's great because Dudley wins that.

He's funny and he takes over the bit and then Peter Cook at the end just shuts him down. And it's essentially because he's gone, no, you're not winning. I will put a full stop at the end of this sketch. So it's sad to hear, but it's also you can't tear your ears away. The other thing is that you tend to read a lot of your own hang-ups

into those kinds of things. And it might well be, you know, we don't know what the real dynamic between those two was. And it might well be that they just knew each other's limits and they reveled in pushing each other as far as they could i mean it's hard to read it that way when you look at dudley moore i mean it seems fairly clear that he is suffering and he's just like this is awful and this isn't funny and this is uncomfortable and peter cook's just like i i don't care i'm just going to push you as far as i can but who knows you know i guess what i'm saying is that i know

because me and joe are probably better than peter cook and dudley moore and i think very well respected in that way and um people look at our relationship and they think what was really going on there do you think there'll ever be an ed Edinburgh Fringe show where two actors play you and Joe? Well, funny you should say that. No. No. This is a question that I stole from Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. OK.

It's a question that Seinfeld asked Will Ferrell. And I thought it was a good question. What things do you do that your partner objects to or gets angry about? We had a bit of an argument last night, actually. Did you? After you came back from... Because you guys went... Well, Sarah went to the show I was doing. Yeah, Bowie Bug.

We all met at the... So we met afterwards at the after-party. Right. Which, do you mind me saying, was one of the worst places on Earth? We won't say the name of the establishment, but it was very sort of footballers wivesy i can imagine it being sort of there being cctv footage of a championship footballer hitting

someone in there i mean the people that organized it and helped us out there are very nice yes but it was it's just not i feel terrible now i didn't mean that no listen that's your opinion i know what you're saying the music was a little loud and it wasn't very relaxing. So it makes me, I got very edgy because I can't, I'm not good with noises. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And loud. It was maddening that you couldn't really just, I don't understand the logic. The place was perfectly lovely.

It was the music that made it hard. It was just too loud. So when I can't hear people talking very well i tend to sort of i shut down and back off a bit right and i think sometimes that comes across as being standoffish disinterested because i can't hold a thought in my head with loud stuff yeah yeah so she was there her her friend katie our friend katie was there and i just i wasn't as engaged in the conversations i should have been because in my head i'm thinking i'm going to explode what i can't think so she doesn't like that when you when you shut that's

an actual yeah when i shut down because i tend to be more sort of solitary, I think. You have to be sort of solitary to do stand-up and not go insane because you spend so much time with your own thoughts. In your own head, right. I'm fine on my own. And so is Sarah. But I think if I retreat too far, especially around other people, that could be tricky. And so what was she specifically chippy about,

if you don't mind me asking? And if you don't think she would mind you saying? I was thinking about this on the way. What she was annoyed about was that I was not chatty enough, basically. And she was absolutely right, because I wasn't. Because I couldn't concentrate. You did do one thing at one stage oh god that i thought oh mate you're gonna probably have to explain that when you get home

what was it she was saying something have i done am i the worst and you said something like i think i just made that point or you said something like that like i i'm pretty sure i just said that and she was like okay and i thought whoa mom and dad no there was a point we might have to cut this because this argument is still has not quite been resolved yeah i think maybe well don't worry don't worry. Don't say anything that we can't broadcast. No. All right. No, she doesn't get angry at anything I do in the house because she's an insanely sort of relaxed person.

I'm the one who gets pernickety about stuff. Uh-huh. Heating. Mess. Heating. Spills not being cleaned up immediately and efficiently. Quite right. What's she doing? Is she just tolerates it we

shouldn't we shouldn't rag on her while she's not here oh no but she once spilled a glass of wine and just left it said it's white wine it'll just soak in i got so angry that it was like not anger but just like what planet do you live on yeah have you gone in completely insane no that's too laid back. Yeah. Yeah. That's too much. Um,

but I tease her about it. It's all teasing is a very good way of diffusing anger and sort of managing to get your gripe across. Doing it in a nice way. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it,

there's an art to it and I, I'm by no means the master of that art after 13 or so years of marriage, but I'm trying to get better the the trick is to sort of put your point across to express the things that annoy you without sounding like you hate that person yeah and that you're nagging them you know i don't want to be a nag but at the same time it's like wow i've mentioned this loads of times and it's still happening. What do I do? I don't know what to do.

She sent a tweet the other day, two days ago, saying my boyfriend's away, so I'm enjoying my freedom by leaving the fridge door open for the entirety of the time it takes to make this sandwich. Does she not have, is there not an alarm that goes off when the door's left open? Well, yeah, I am that alarm. Yeah. But so I was going to reply,

and I must have drafted about eight different versions of this tweet saying something along the lines of, my girlfriend's away, but luckily she left the heating on for three hours when no one was in the house, so when I come back, there are the remnants of warmth here. But I couldn't make it funny. Yeah, it just sounded too bitter.

Yeah. Heating on to be 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Yeah. Well, I'm glad, though, with my wife that her gripes about me are aired a bit more easily than perhaps they used to be. And now she... So she's pointed out a few things that I do that are quite annoying.

I mean, I tend to leave windows open and stuff. What? I like the fresh air, but she doesn't like it. I mean, you can leave the heating on as much as you want. You're not going to do as much damage as leaving a window open. Yeah, it's true, isn't it? I think one of Sarah's big gripes with me is that I have a way I think things should be done.

Admin, house stuff. And if she deviates from that, I get quite bossy about saying, sort of, this isn't how we do that or that's or if you do that this is why we have files for these things so that we don't not have the thing when it's and all that but so she i can be quite bossy about saying no we're not doing it because that's not how it should be done uh-huh so i have to sort of be a bit more relaxed about things yeah yeah yeah you sound like a monster a monster who's never lost his keys wallet or phone.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. There we go. John Robbins. Very much enjoyed meeting John Robbins. I'd only met him a couple of times before that conversation

and the first time actually was it last year at the Greenwich Comedy Festival. This year of course I'll be doing the Bug Bowie special but last year we were on the same bill and had a very enjoyable conversation for an hour or so after our sets and we talked about frank zapper and van morrison that was good fun for buckles it's not too many frank zapper van morrison conversations that happen around the house normally i'm not complaining you know it's good to uh keep those for a special occasion rosie rosie come and say hi come say hello come on rosie rosie are we still friends after the big um brexit argument that we had oh dear still giving me a dirty look i'm, you know, I've listened to all the debates and all the facts and I'm just trying to do what's best for the majority of people.

I know, of course I know, I'm privileged and... Don't look at me like that. You might be wrong for all you know. Oh, you've done a shit on the floor okay thanks very much indeed to matt lamont for edit support to seamus murphy mitchell for production camaraderie and to you for downloading this podcast hope you enjoyed it and i hope you will join me for another one sometime soon. Do take care out there. Good luck. I love you. Bye!