THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.32- TASH DEMETRIOU

Episode Date: October 25, 2016

Adam enjoys a very puerile ramble chat with comedian Natasia (Tash) Demetriou, touching on all the big topical points of the day: bums, wees, dog poos etc. There's also thoughts on the fraught business of appearing on TV panel shows and, new to the podcast, some Kwicque Fyre Kweschuns. WARNING: THIS PODCAST CONTAINS BAD LANGUAGE AND STRONG INANITY Thanks to Seamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support and Matt Lamont for additional editing. Music and jingles by Adam Buxton except 'Humboldt Grabber' (around 21 mins in) which features music from an arcade machine and bass guitar from Dan Hawkins. visit adam-buxton.co.uk for links to Dan's website and Tash in '2016 Friends'. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, you're a child. Yes, I am. Is this podcast suitable for other children? No. Why? Because it contains bad language. I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening.

I took my microphone and found some human folk. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buxton. I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this. That's the plan. Hey, how are you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here, as you well know. Thank you so much for joining me for podcast number 32. I'll tell you about my guest for this week's podcast in just a moment. But for the time being, allow me to paint an amazing word picture for you. We're on the outskirts of Norwich here in the countryside in East Anglia, UK. I'm walking my dog and it's the evening of the day. The sun is going down

over there on the western Hoseiron and lighting up what looks to me like someone's unrolled a load of, you know, you can get cotton wool in sheets. So they've unrolled some of the cotton wool and then tugged at the edges of it so that it's gone into little clumps. It's another classic from my nature description box. You're more than welcome. But look, my guest this week is Tash Dimitriou. She is a comedian and I met her when I was doing a show at the Invisible Dot in King's Cross, a comedy venue. There's always a lot of good folks hanging around there, including a group of comedians who made a pilot for BBC Three in 2015 called People Time. And that featured Tash and her sometime comedy partner Ellie White and Tash's brother Jamie Dimitriou and Darren Johnson, Alistair Roberts and Liam Williams

of the comedy team Sheeps and Claudia O'Doherty. So, I mean, they're all brilliant, those people, in PeopleTime. And that show turned into a monthly web series called 2016 Friends. And I'll put an episode of that on my blog. I've actually written the blog post so it'll be ready for you as you download this podcast, which is pretty together, unusually for me. Back to Tash, though. Over the summer this year, 2016, if you're listening in the future, Tash could be seen in ITV2's current affairs-focused show, Elevenish.

I didn't see Elevenish, but I did hear it was good. And on the weekend, just last weekend, I was watching Harry Hill's new TV show, Tea Time, which was making me laugh. And Tash popped up there as a kind of weird Greek archbishop with a big beard. Tash and I recorded our conversation in late June of this year. In fact, I think I'm right in saying it was the same day that I recorded a podcast with the writer, Sally Wainwright. I'm right in saying it was the same day that I recorded a podcast with the writer Sally Wainwright and that was a fairly sober relatively serious conversation that I had with Sally and this one I had with Tash couldn't really have been more different and was quite a welcome

antidote to the to the post-Brexit gloom that I was certainly feeling. We started off by talking about online shopping and then things just degenerated from there. Bums, toilets, midnight wee-wee lakes, smells of all kinds, picking up dog turds. And there was also some slightly more grown-up chat about the fraught business of appearing on TV panel shows, comedy shows, before we returned towards the end of the conversation to smells, albeit nice smells, perfume, etc., which Tash turns out to be sort of obsessed by.

Anyway, I hope you feel you've been given sufficient heads-up about the purility levels in this podcast. If that's a deal breaker, then cheerio. See you another time. But if not, here we go. Concentrate on that. Come on, let's tune the bat. And have a ramble chat. Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la What have you been doing today? I've had a very smug day.

A smug day? Incredibly smug. Woke up, did some very important online shopping admin. Yeah. What kind of thing? Well, I bought a dress four years ago that I still haven't worn, so I sent it back the other day, and surprisingly, I've not received a refund.

So I called them up to chase that up, and absolutely, absolutely fantastic customer service, and they're looking into it for me. And I can look forward to getting that £55 back. The world of online refunding is more efficient than one might imagine. I don't know if we're part of a privileged elite for whom refunds arrive more easily than they would. No, it's a loophole. Yeah, it's a toilet pole it is genuinely I've sent stuff back you know that's like I've worn it for sure and I've got the money back three years later I've got the money back yeah and I don't know if we should be talking about it because I feel like I have this like circle

it's like the circle of clothes and money that I have like a pocket of about £150 that's constantly... Just going round and round. Going round and round. Being refunded and then invested in something else that you then return. Yeah, I mean, it is like that. And so I look forward to getting that back up to £150 when I get the £55 back for the sailor dress that I never wore. The sailor dress? It's a style I cover.

sailor dress that I never wore. The sailor dress? It's a style I cover, but in reality, you put it on and you're just like, I look like I'm in cosplay. Yeah, that's right. And I'm not small enough of the body or dainty enough of the face. Well, I disagree with both of those things. But do you wear a little pink backpack, a fluffy backpack? And do you kick out one leg? My bum is like a little pink fluffy backpack. And low backpack it's a low backpack and it's very pink and fluffy and red do you have to shave it so there's nothing there's nothing you can't discuss bums because it is just the whole isn't it that's that's the thing that's doing all the work it's the star of the bum show isn't it it is i mean the rest of it is just embarrassing nothing just mounds of nothing and there is one tiny little star that's got the x factor right in the middle yeah and it's doing everything there's two big morons standing either side of the little genius in the middle. Yeah, exactly.

The angrily puckering genius. Yeah, and me and my flatmate today, actually, I thought of something really disgusting. Imagine someone who had a tiny bum hole on their neck. I mean, we could do a whole podcast on that, really. Yeah, I mean, it runs my life. It controls everything. It completely dictates life.

Why are you thinking of bum holes on people's necks? What's the, just because it's a horrible thing? I live with someone who does comedy as well. And he was pretending to be a man. I was pretending to be his PA. And he, there's nothing sexual about this. I just, we woke up and the improvisation started and we went with it.

He was pretending to be an artist who was doing a piece where he lies in bed all day and farts and no one was coming to see it and I was being his PA. And then it sort of escalated from there and then it turned out that he had a bum hole in his neck and it was just shooting out little tiny farts at his neck. Oh, yeah. That sounds like a Bruce Robinson idea.

Have you ever seen How To Get Ahead in advertising? That really rings a bell, but no, I haven't seen it. But I have read my Facebook a lot. And I have Googled myself a lot. Yeah. Who do you live with then? Tom Sturton. Yeah. Is that Edward Sturton's brother? Yes, it is. Oh no, Edward Sturton's son, Ivo Sturton's brother. Oh, is it genuinely Edward Sturton's son? Yeah, I think so. The newsreader? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's his son, yeah. And he lives in the room next to me.

I was just being glib. I want to return, though, briefly to... Oh, first of all, I want to deal with the fact that you're doing comedy improv in the morning with your flatmate. We'd had a coffee, we'd had some sweet, we had a cup of hot roasted energy, and that's what happened. Do you just start talking and suddenly you realise you're doing comedy improv?

Or does one of you say, you know what I'd really like? Is to do some comedy improv. Yeah, up at seven, beautiful cup of java, then it's just a good solid hour of just theater sports improv yeah yes and I don't think there's a better way of starting your day I mean there's no way of it sounding like I'm not we're not the worst people in the world but it's too late for that it's yeah yeah it is no Tom just lies in his bed and my room is a hellhole because I moved in and I am a disgusting materialistic witch. And I've still not managed to unpack since I moved in. We moved in like six weeks ago.

So I just go and annoy him and piss around his room. And if I'm in there long enough, he will start to pretend to be, like, an old posh man in his bed and I'll be his... A lot of it is me sort of being, like, subservient. And, I mean, I don't know if that has anything to do with him being sort of upper middle class and me being a working-class hero. You wish you were working class. I am working class.

No, you're not. I mean, I'm so chuffed that I give up now. I'm a dirty little scrubber. Yeah. So am I. I worked in a mine. I think you're lying. No, I didn't work in a mine.

But I mean, I've done worse. I've done way worse jobs. You did look so like, wow. Yeah, I mean, my jobs, my life, my job. Do you think there have been any middle-class people who were so committed to living the dream of the working-class hero that they've actually gone and got a job in a mine? Gone down in a mine.

Yeah, and they're just like next to all the mining men, just saying, oh, I just thought I'd come down, show a bit of solidarity. What you guys do is bloody amazing. And, you know, really appreciate it. It's such bloody hard work and no-one realises. I like to think that has happened. I mean, I've done it. I've done... What jobs have I done?

I was a cleaner for my friend's parents' houses, Tital Tash. Was that really the name you traded under? Mm-hm. Tital Tash, Tital Tash. Was that really the name you traded under? Mm-hmm. Tital Tash. Tital Tash. How old were you then? Oh, 14. How old are you now? That's not polite to ask a lady that, is it? Or anyone. People can just find out, can't they? Yeah, but maybe, yeah, no, they can. Yeah, they definitely can. So, tea towel tash, how long did that last for? That was a good couple of years doing, it was hall stairs and landing, hoovering,

and then both bathrooms. And it was my best friend's house, who I spent a lot of my teenage years at. And then I remember one time it was really, really depressing because we'd all run in, it had been raining, and we'd come back from school and I'd run into the downstairs toilet and I was so desperate for a wee and just sat on the toilet and then didn't realise that the lid was down.

Oh, it's happened to all of us. And then I was too embarrassed to tell them, so I sort of did the best I could. And just in my head I was like, well, I'll be cleaning this tomorrow, being paid for it, so just wait till then to do a proper job didn't you clean it up at the time well I did but I was like tomorrow I'll give it good I'm going to be disinvading this tomorrow so leave it won't I leave it till tomorrow when I'm getting three pounds an hour pound I tell you one thing now this might be much. One thing that I don't suppose happens to women

is when you get up in the middle of the night and you're half asleep and you need to go to the lav. Oh, for sure. You sit down and for a gentleman or for any person that has a working wanger. Yeah. A worm, little sweet worm. Yeah, for anyone with one of those. However they identify. Who goes to the lavatory in the middle of the night. My technique is to sit down, right? Because A, you're tired and B, you can't be bothered to aim.

So you sit down, you start to relax all the appropriate muscles. appropriate muscles but then too late you realize that more or less everything has gone outside the actual lavatory bowl and there is a pool of wee wee wee wee wee um what in front of your feet yeah like pooling at the base of the toilet because rather than weeing into the lavatory bowl yeah it's just sort of gone over the side of the top oh lovely it's just sort of trickled down the thing and you've got to deal with a wee wee lake in the middle of the night when you're half asleep maybe that's why my old flat like i was always like why does the front bottom whenever i'd clean the flat i'd be like the front bottom of this toilet stinks of piss and I don't know why it's that isn't it it's the wee river it's got to be partly that or it's

a plumbing issue it's not properly yeah I mean the other thing is of course you have a brother right oh god yeah Jamie oh for goodness and so were you ever aware that the toilet Jamie used when you were growing up was absolutely stinky because of his poor aiming skills? I would say. And that's not to impugn. That Jamie's a dirty old. That's not to impugn Jamie, especially while he's not here. I don't want to talk behind his back. I was about to say absolutely not.

Absolutely not. I'd say the reason why I would never be able to tell what Jamie was doing is because we lived with my dad, who is 50 percent the strongest urine and 50 percent a big poo. Like he is a man of scent. He is a smell. He is a smell on legs he's like there is when we were growing up it was like a small war in our upstairs bit in the morning the farts my dad would do that would seep out of his bedroom i am not exaggerating when i say there was sometimes i'd crawl out of my bedroom and downstairs because if i stood up my nose and my mouth would just pick it up i mean my, my dad is a... Like you're trying to exit a burning house. Yeah, like it was like... Do you ever put a wet face cloth over you?

Yeah, I remember crawling downstairs because it was like to be hit with that density of smell, like a wall at that time in the morning. And you're a teenager, so it's like getting up early is hell on earth yeah is he still with us your dad oh yes yes he is still there what will he be doing now let's have a think he will be probably walking the dogs in the pissing rain and picking up their i mean this has been such a poo heavy conversation but oh well picking up their poo without a bag which i've seen him do so many times,

and squeezing it in his hand. Shut up. Oh, honestly, Adam. Is that true? That is 100% true. Oh my goodness. It's nothing. It's a lot of grass and bloody nothings.

It's lovely. It's absolutely nothing. It's lovely. I mean, the first time I saw it. I mean, yeah. he's a filth stick so that is why i truly i mean he's the dirtiest person and he's a chef he's spent his life he's retired but he's yeah he's spent his life cooking food for people. And he was amazing. You don't watch Billions, do you?

The TV show? No, what is that? I wish I did. It's quite good. It's got Paul Giamatti in it and Damien Lewis. Yeah, I love him. Homeland. From Homeland, right. And it's about a billionaire businessman who is involved with insider trading

and a government official who is trying to bring him down, played by Paul Giamatti. I've been trying to do a Paul Giamatti impression, which basically involves sounding like you're right on the verge of losing your fucking shit. But I can't quite do it.

You looked really good doing that for all the people who were listening. Yeah. Anyway, the reason I bring it up is because there's a scene in that to illustrate the manic level of Paul Giamatti's character's kind of legal self-righteousness and his quest for everything to be just so in the world. He passes a guy walking his dog and he sees the guy's dog doing a shit. And he says, excuse me, Sarah, are you just going to leave that there?

And the guy goes, yeah, well, I forgot my bags. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You have to pick it up. If you don't have bags, then pick it up with your hands. I'm not doing a good Paul Giamatti impression now. It's turning into Jim Carey. And so there's this whole scene, which I said at the time I was watching it with my wife, my wife. And I said to my wife, that's a stupid scene. Because A, there's no way that anyone would have that confrontation and force someone else to pick up the dog plos. Have you got a dog?

I do, yeah. But we're never in the city with it. Oh, see, yeah, no, I mean, people have threatened to run me over because, like, I have had such confrontations about, because if you do generally forget the bag and sometimes at sort of seven o'clock in the morning whatever and the dog's like gonna drop a hot cake hot toddy a hot little shot of brown wine in your um in your front room and you're like right I've got to run down you're like oh for goodness sake I've forgotten

the bags sometimes you I mean it's terrible and I know it's disgusting but sometimes it is like I just just walk the other way and just pretend because it's like what else are you going to do I'm not going to pick up with my hands I'm you know I'm my father's daughter but to a certain extent but um there was one guy who was like coming out of the road and beeped me so hard and was like pick it up so i ended up like walking so far on my way to try and find some leaves because i live i live on like a sort of main main road where there are where nature is has left us do you get told off for things in the street on a regular basis do people shake their heads at you i'm quite clumsy i have dyspraxia.

Is that a real thing that you suffer from? It is a real thing I suffer from, but I do sometimes wonder, is it just a lovely, as a kind doctor has made up a name for being, a massive moose? What is the definition of dyspraxia? It's basically like dyslexia, but physical dyslexia. That's how I feel. Like, it's like, and I think there's two two different types you can be dyspraxic with big things so like you can't catch a ball you can't tell your left and your

right you can't like run without smacking into things kicking people by accident and then or you'll find it very hard to do things like sewing and small things and I'm very good at small little bits and pieces with my hands I can sew you up a sock I can draw you a little picture but I will not catch a ball and I will walk into you until you're into the road and I won't realize I'm doing it really it's all so it's almost like a kind of physical short-sightedness yes big. Big old moose. Big old clumsy moose. Attention. I'm sort of obsessed with people shaking their head at me in the street i think it's because they don't like your podcast no exactly yeah yeah yeah they just think there's that prick with a terrible podcast plus i saw him on eight out of ten cats does countdown the other day and he was fucking shit no you weren't. I saw that dance.

Actually, that's a brilliant segue, isn't it? Yeah. Into 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, which we were both on the other day, although not in the same episode. No, two records one day. Yeah, exactly. Over in Media City in Salford, Manchester.

How many of those panel shows have you done? I've only done, officially, legally, done one other one which was Sweat the Small Stuff, God Rest Its Soul. Is that not on anymore? No, it's not, because BBC Three and all that stuff. Oh, it was a BBC Three one? Yeah. Who hosted that? Nick Grimshaw, and he's obviously... Grimmy?

Yeah, Grimmy's like a two... He's an angel now, isn't he? Oh, I remember that show. Right. And it was Marvin and Rochelle were the team captains, and my team-mate was Professor Green. Oh, Pro Green. The Doctor. Yeah, yeah.

And then who were we opposite? Talisha from X-Facts are. Yeah. And who else was it? Oh, Sean Walsh. Walshy. Walshy. And did you just do that the one time?

Just the one time. What did you have to do on that show? Play arbitrary games and just try and be funny. And it's too hard. It was all about minutiae, though, wasn't it? Oh, yeah, there was a point to it. Sweat, the small stuff. Yeah, what stuff have you been sweating?

I mean, it was such a blur. I literally was just a plank of jelly. Like, I was just, I just, it's so hard with those shows. I feel like it's such an unnatural skill that you have to acquire to be able to like be good at them and I think there is obviously people that have done it I mean just being very funny and quick is a good thing but just to have that in built on you just being like everything I'm going to say is going to be great so I'm just going to say it and I'm going to have the confidence to do that and it's going to be great

and my voice is very, very, very important. You're absolutely right. And I agree 100% with everything you just said. I was brought up a polite boy. And one of the things I was taught was that you shouldn't interrupt people. Yeah. And you should wait till the other person has finished speaking before you start speaking. I mean, now I've abandoned a lot of that because of my overweening arrogance and self-regard.

But, yeah, the first few times that I went on those kinds of shows, I mean, I went on Nevermind the Buzzcocks years ago when Marc Lamar used to host it. I think that was the first panel show that I went on and it was traumatic. Yeah. I mean, for that show, and I think still for a lot of shows, they have writers and you sit in the writers room in the rounds

and the two writers just sort of riffed as if they were contestants on the game and they more or less just ignored us not in a rude way but they just were carrying on doing their being funny thing yeah and we had notebooks and we were supposed to write down funny things they said oh my god and then every now and again phil because he was used to to it and he wasn't embarrassed or awkward Oh, my, that's hell. And eventually, and me and Midge, you were like schoolboys trying to cheat, you know. We were looking at each other like, I'm going to have that line. Oh, my God. He said, I'm going to have that line. And we were scribbling it down.

It was torture. And then you actually get into the studio. And, of course, the reason they do that is because of what we've just been talking about. Because most normal people don't naturally want to volunteer shit that comes into their head, especially if they're in a TV studio. Yeah. And it's going to be recorded. Yeah. So, you know, they're fed these lines a lot of the time.

And I realised the value of it as soon as they started taping because my head just emptied immediately. Yeah, of course. I thought, well, I can't think of a single funny thing to say. Yeah. And anything I am thinking right now, i'm not going to say out loud so i'll say one of these lines that i wrote down i just thought this is so lame i can't believe i'm going to just say this line that this other guy said and i wrote it down i was like well this is how the show works okay so i said one of these lines at the appropriate point. Yeah. And it got a laugh.

Not a big one at all. No, yeah. Because I didn't deliver it very well. But it got a laugh and it didn't get a groan, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, my God, this is weird. This is how it works. Yeah. I mean, I think the thing about 8 of 10 Cats does Countdown,

it was really good. That's not how that show works, by the way. No, it's not at all no like but i kind of think when i was doing it as petrified as i was and i was on the record that we did it with john kearns was in dictionary corner and he um it was his first time and we were just looking at each other because we didn't speak for the first like 45 minutes we were just like the amount of times i went was that that? Because I would have, no. But I think it's good that you get to actually play Countdown.

And I think that's kind of boring for the team captains because they've just done it so many times and they're obviously absolute wizards. But it actually does give you just something to focus on, just like, well, let's try and spell some letters. And John Kearns, I mean, he was in character when he did it right oh my god yeah and that's um a kind of an extreme character that he does anyway I wasn't there how did that one go down I think he did so well I was so impressed so for people who don't know John Kearns um he is just a very very naturally funny

man and he's found a way of putting that across to an audience by wearing like a sort of monk's wig and some teeth. And he's got glasses. I'm going to be so offensive to his character. That's the sort of. Sort of that thing but i think they liked it because he's like a plonker character and it's a bit cockney and it's a bit like stupid and thick and i think people like that don't they it's almost like tell me if i'm getting this wrong but it's almost like a guy a sort of loserish guy trying to be funny yeah and missing and it's like a bit weird i don't

know it's that's the character i'm not saying that's what john is um yeah no it's absolutely it's fucking brilliant and he's so lovely and great and but just genuinely like a very naturally funny person yeah so so i was on the show afterwards and I was in Dictionary Corner. And I often have videos that I play in, you know. They're bits and pieces that I've kind of retired from my live shows and they don't have anywhere else to live. So I offer them up to 8 Out Of 10 Cats. The entertainment guys over at C4. The problem, of course, is always what's my preamble going to be to get into them, you know.

So I always write some tortured little bit to get me in there and that's the most painful part because I think I just come across maybe I actually just am a sort of unctuous little prick and the audience well that's what I've always said about you Adam yeah no but the audience often doesn't like me you know what I mean like people who come and see my live shows, they know what they're in for and I hope they understand where I'm coming from and so we're all friends. But a lot of the time,

if an audience has never seen me before, I think they think I'm sort of just quite a snooty, silly dick. No, but I mean, I don't know if this will be in the episode because obviously you record for about four hours, but when I was watching you backstage on the screen and you were doing a dance where you were patting your willy and it was making me cry with laughter. And there's nothing prickish about that. That's just a very silly boy running around. That was me dancing to Let's Dance. But, and yes, tapping my... There's nothing

arrogant or pricky. Yeah, no, well that was good because I wasn't speaking but every time I speak, it all goes a little bit wrong and I get very rattled. And every now and again, Jimmy Carr, who's very nice to me, he would sort of look across and he would fire some random

comment at me and I would have nothing literally nothing to come back I can completely and at one point I think I even he sort of said what do you think about that Adam and I was like why are you even asking me I've got nothing and the order and you might think that the audience might chuckle at that but no it was just pure awkwardness the guys who make that show are very supportive very lovely but they kind of gave me a heads up and they were just like just fyi the audiences can be a little bit hostile if they don't know who you are and what you've done yeah so you kind of have to do a job of like being try and be funny but also try and be like this is

who i am this is my thing and the audiences are perfectly nice. They're not mean or anything, but I think they're just, yeah, it's a very broad cross section of people, isn't it? And if you're a tall niche or what you do isn't immediately accessible, they can be quite suspicious. I did a day of a little tiny little stupid thing on Harry Hill's new show that's coming out, which is a piss take of Sunday Brunch, but not... It's not a piss take, but it's like taking that sort of show and, like, making it Harry Hill-ish. Uh-huh.

And I met Stavros Flatley on it and turns out we're sort of distantly related. No way. Oh, for sure. Is that true? Yeah, well, basically we're both called, I saw on the call sheet that we're both Dimitriou and it was an absolute highlight of my life

to meet Stavros Flatley and Laggy, the son, he's 20 now. And I'll tell you, this is a bit of advice he gave me. If you respect Simon Cowell, he's going to respect you back. If you show him respect, he'll respect you back. So that's just a bit of advice from Laggy to me, to all of you. Wow. And for those of you who are listening outside the United Kingdom

and don't know about Stavros Flatley. Oh, right, yeah. Who is he? Stavros Flatley is a father and son, Greek father and son. I think the dad owned a restaurant in Oakwood in North London, a Greek restaurant, and he used to do like a cabaret night,

and this is what they told me. It started out with him doing a sort of fake, like taking the mickey out of Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance, that sort of Irish dance, and he used to do it with a big fake penis that would pop out of his trousers. And then I think somehow from there, something happened and someone said,

you should go on Britain's Got Talent. And yeah, and they went on it and they basically just, they're like two Greek men. One of them's got a map of Cyprus tattooed on his belly, the dad, and they wear blonde wigs and they come out and sort of do a mixture of Irish dancing and Greek dancing. But they do it topless as well, don't they?

Topless, yeah. So you see their tattoos. And the son has a similar physique, quite barrel-chested. Yeah, barrel-chested, beautiful Greek men. And they come out and do a little dance. And it's just very high energy and it just captured the imaginations of the British public. And they were the cypriot susan boyle and they have been working from what laggy the sun was telling me they haven't stopped working for five years doing that doing that shtick corporate events he was on his

way to oxford to get paid 250 quid to just wave in a club good one and then he's bought his he's bought himself a flat in enfield unfortunately for him he said it's a fucking shithole um he hates it he didn't think to buy a nice one no off i honestly it's disgusting he's an absolute shithole he's bought his sister a car to shut her up that's what he told me um but they were he was so lovely and i was dressed as a greek archbishop um as part because the show theme was greek food and um i had a beard and mustache on and got mistaken for a man about 58 times excuse me sir could you move over and i was stressing them out a lot because i was what i was doing was so sacrilegious and really being because also what i was doing on the show was um you know it's sort of this the type of stuff that you just really

look to do um go on and um harry hill hits me over the head with a plate of fair roches and then puts a kebab on my head and then i'm wearing a kebab for the rest of the episode okay and you can't see my Oh, so much fun. Harry Hill. Wow, that's cool. You worked with Harry Hill. Oh, God, yes. Sorry, didn't you know I was a big deal?

Did you? Didn't you know I was a BD? Well, I did, of course. When did you meet him first? Kind of how I met you. So doing gigs at the Invisible Dot. Right. Like, he...

So the Invisible Dot is a little little club comedy club in king's cross in london yes me and um my double act partner ellie white he saw us and liked us and then we've done like a bunch of live shows with him since then kind of like you know you i did your show and then we did the stuff in manchester yeah, and then I guess they were like, right, this is a Greek episode, we need someone to come and have a kebab put on their head. Natasha Dimitriou. And I'll do it.

Good one. I will do it. But also, I didn't realise it was the last record of the series and they'd done like eight shows. And so when they were like, we're going to go for drinks afterwards, I was like, oh, okay then. And then realised I was so deep in a wrap party of a show that I'd been on for five minutes having some really like emotional conversations with people that had like put their heart and

their soul into this show for the past like eight nine weeks and there's me there being like I know it's just been today it's been absolutely so which channel is that for? Sky One, I think. I mean, it's such a good idea. Harry Hill doing sort of afternoon, like Mel and Sue's lunch. Yeah. It's a fun format to take the mick out of, isn't it? And Paul Hollywood was on it. And let me tell you, I was not interested in that man in any way.

You know, I was like, I like Great Richard Bake Off. He's a good presenter. I'm sure he can break a lovely loaf. That's it. Those eyes. Did you fall in love with him? He's beautiful. Is he? He's a, I mean, honestly, like he's a beautiful specimen of a human being. Magic. Wow. Does he smell nice too? I couldn't really smell through the kebab mask. Do you, I mean, we've we've talked about the way your dad smelt. Do you like it when people smell very nice? That's so interesting you say that.

I think I am like, I think I have a smell fetish. I think from growing up in a house where everything smells of poo and garlic, I am obsessed with nice smells. And I would say my biggest weakness financially is perfumes. Oh, what perfume do you like? Oh my God, here we go. Le Labo, Santal 33. Is that real?

For those perfume lovers out there, you know what I'm talking about, girls and boys. That scent, man oh man. I like the way you said it. That could be the new advert. Le Labo. What was it called? La Labo is the make. Santel 33 is the scent.

La Labo. Santel 33. That's how you said it. La Labo. Narcissa Rodriguez, for her. J'adore by Christian Dior. Gucci, envy me. It's fresh.

It's fruity. So you've got loads of differentior. Gucci, envy me. It's fresh. It's fruity. So you've got loads of different smells. Yeah, no. People are like, what? You don't have a signature smell. I did have a dream of having a signature smell. And then I realised my nose is a little rat and wants it all. To the point that once my friend was like, oh, my God, I met this girl tonight and she smelled so good.

And I was like, what was the perfume called? And within seconds, I was on the Boots website and I'd ordered it and I hadn't even smelled it. It arrived, I hated it. I think it's the same as when people who are obsessed with shoes or something where something happens in your brain where you're like, no, this will change my life.

No, this, like it genuinely, when I smelled that Santel 33 smell, I was like, well, it's like £100 a bottle. I mean, I've only ever bought one bottle and I've still got it, the same bottle. But I mean, that's a ridiculous amount to spend on some liquid. But I was like, no, no, this will be it. This is the thing. So you saved that for super special occasions?

I was saving it for super, oh, molecule the scent that um you can't smell on you but others can is that real that's what they tell you at liberties and i bought it diptyque oh my god diptyque philosophic whatever it's called i thought diptyque were candles they do perfumes boy oh you're gonna get some perfumes from them ood just, just oud and anything. Apparently the price of oud has really gone up. Oud sounds like a sort of authentic Arabic thing. I think it's like a Moroccan something. Oh, well, no, an oud is a musical instrument, isn't it? I mean, it may well be, but it's also something

that they're chopping up and putting in perfume. OK. Wow, you love perfume. I love perfume. I love the amount of hogs I've got with because they smell nice. And what's going to seal the deal man-wise then? Is he Miyake for men? That got me into a lot of hog trouble back at university.

A lot of pigs. A lot of pigs in my room because of that. My brother's smell makes... I mean i i do sort of fancy my brother because he's so brilliant and lovely and he smells wears paco ruban million which is a very common one my dad's favorite smell is um rose and so every year for christmas he gets a bottle of marks and spencers very very much for women, rose perfume. Uh-huh. Oh, it's lovely. Makes me feel like a special prince.

And what about deodorant? Deodorant? I stress about deodorant because of all the aluminium, Adam. What's that? There's aluminium in deodorant, isn't there? Oh, I don't know. I haven't got that. Metal.

Well, you know, like, so basically you sweat. Your glands underneath your armpit, they absorb everything as much as they excrete everything. They're just big old suckers. And I do worry about putting so many chemicals up them. But then I went for a while trying out all the sort of aluminium free, like my mum just has a rock, like a weird rock that she puts tap water on and like dabs, but she stinks.

Oh. So it's an actual stone. I thought it was the name of the product. No, it's like a weird rock that she's like. Because there's rock cosmetics, aren't there? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's not that. Like my mum is like a very holistic fool. She loves it all. She loves komb kombucha she loves potato water yeah you know

if it's so she uses a stone but she smells yeah she smells and i and for a while i was doing it i was doing all the aluminium free mr toms and you know i didn't feel unclogged and i stank I didn't feel unclogged and I stank. So back to the usual. And also, smell's very important to me. Yeah, yeah. Like, if I had, I used to, when, you know, when you'd be like, if you had three wishes, what would one of them be? And one of mine was always my sweat to smell like Fructis shampoo.

Fructis. Is Fructis still available? I don't know, but at the time it was blowing my mind how fruity it was. What was the one when we were young? Timotay? Timotay. Yeah. Exactly.

Timotay. I mean, I'm a real creature of habit. I am very gradually transitioning from one fragrance to another. You know, it's mainly on the CK line. And maybe they'll introduce a new form of ck and it's a little bit like max mac computers for me as well you know i'll buy whatever new version of that comes out like a kind of moron without investigating what the alternatives are and it's the same with the old ck and timothee for ages that was my go-to that was your girl

shampoo i can still i just couldn't believe. Wasn't that a ridiculously sexy advert as well where she like, like a coconut came all over her head? Right. I just remember being like, whoa, that's sexy. Yeah. I want to be that woman. But the smell was amazing.

Yeah. I mean. I think you can still get it in particular like Turkish supermarket. It was so fragrant though, wasn't it? It was almost like you didn't need to wear any other fragrance because the smell coming from your hair. I mean, I'm trained as a makeup artist.

Did you? So I'm very big on products. Perfume is the worst, but, I mean, closely followed by, like, creams. Yeah. but I mean closely followed by like creams yeah and also I made friends with um Claudia O'Doherty like through doing comedy a few years back and she's feeding my habit seriously she knows her way around cosmetics and like a beauty vlog but is she someone who's into so-called ethical cosmetics and uh organic stuff or is she not fussed that much i just i mean i'm not suggesting that we should be a person if she no i don't think if that's like i'm i've been vegetarian pretty much my whole life i'm big on

global warming very big on it love it love it absolutely love it but yeah i i it's terrible that if someone tells me that a cream is going to get rid of black circles under my eyes, I very rarely check. God, that's terrible. Oh, God. Oh, you're bad. You're going to go to hell.

I know, but I'm just thinking, I don't even think. There was a while where I was on the PETA website and I was checking every, because there's a really good chart on there where you can check what's friendly and what's not. and i guess i spend my money on good quality products which often are much more ethically made than the more like high street stuff yeah tell yourself that go on i haven't even checked i mean i mentioned that and i it didn't even occur to me to check it's one of the many many things that i'm just blindly stumbling through in my stupid stupid fucking pieces of shit just sat here yeah crapping on about wheeze and bums when the uk's just just voted itself out of the fucking

european union but then i just think what else are you gonna do It's so sad and so worrying in so many ways. I mean, I just don't feel like educated or not educated. I had a good education. I had a fine education. What am I talking about? But I feel so like inadequate. I just don't know what to say. I feel terrible.

And I, you know, I obviously voted and all that stuff. I voted to remain. But people in my family voted to leave and they have good reasons and they have bad reasons and I just feel the only thing to do is just to try and find a positive outcome find something in this like the fact that it's got people so alive and awake with feelings about it channel them into like a force for something positive or I don't know, rather than just farting your way all over Facebook. Or talking about farts on a podcast. Yeah. All right, Tash, we're into the quickfire questions section. Oh, amazing. This is a new segment that I'm trying out.

Oh, brilliant. OK. I call it quickfire questions, but I think I invented that phrase, by the way. The quick is also spelt with a K. Like quick fit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The quick is also spelt with a K. Like quick fit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You didn't come up with that? Well, it's spelt, no, it's not like quick fit because that's just K-W-I-K. This is K-W-I-C-Q-U-E. Anyway, some of these you can just answer quickly if you're able to. Yeah, definitely. Others might send us off on stupid tangents. With quickfire questions, it's all cool. All right, what's the most irrational thing you do on a regular basis?

Probably use social media because it is... It's a madhouse going on, like, looking to see if someone's clicked like on a photo. What's that on Facebook? Instagram, baby! Instagram. Facebook's old, man. Yeah. What about Twitter? Twitter's dying, sorry. Is it? No, it. Instagram. Facebook's old, man. Yeah. What about Twitter? Twitter's dying, sorry.

Is it? No, it's not. Well, actually, I met someone who works for Facebook and he said the phrase, Twitter's dead. Do you get in less fights on Instagram? For me, the whole world of Twitter is bound up with getting in little... Fights. Fights.

Yeah. No, Instagram is just images, isn't it? It's literally just photos right i love an image i love a weird image i love to google like sausage bouquet and see what comes up and you're going to find a woman with a bouquet of sausages or i like to google like small brown trousers and you're going to find some small brown trousers somewhere. And so you post the image, or you link to the image, and then the reward is... You just post the image, and the reward is some sweet little, a sweet little heart with a number next to it, and that number is how successful you are in this world. And do people leave comments as well? You can leave a comment. I don't know, I guess it's less embarrassing than with Twitter. I mean, I can be worrying about a tweet for about 45 minutes.

And that's a lot of your day. Oh, mate. I mean, that's, I'm trying to say mate-less. So I'm going to take that back. Oh, gosh. Friend. Oh, golly. That's, 45 minutes doesn't seem too long. I've wasted whole days worrying about that kind of thing. Yeah. Your name is Tash Dimitriou. I've wasted whole days worrying about that kind of thing. Yeah. Your name is Tash Dimitriou. Does anyone call you Ms Tash? Oh, yeah. I've had Tash for a long time at school.

This guy called me Gash and I thought it was... That's not cool. I thought it was affectionate and I was like, I've got a nickname. Didn't know what it meant. Very innocent, sweet girl I am. Tash, Rash, Pash, Gnash rash pash ganache sash flash flasher flash gordon grash gruler nasher gruler gruder mike that's me and my oldest friends jean and

rachel we have nicknames for each other and it went from tash p pash, growler, then nasher, and then somehow gruler, and that's what stuck. Grueler, gruler lody. What's the lody bit? I don't know. Just noises, affectionate noises. Grueler, gruler stuck. Grueler, gruler, growler, howler.

That's nice. Big, fat, annoying bitch. Stupid cow. That's nice. Big, fat, annoying bitch. Stupid cow. Thick idiot. That's just your parents, what they call you. Yeah. What always lifts your spirits? My, this is going to be a sincere one, I guess my dogs are the stupidest, most foolish, stupid idiots in the world,

but how can they exist? Because they're so stupid. What kind of dogs are they? They're both chanfray size, and they are Teddy and Pig, and they have... Pig's attitude stinks, but I respect her so much. And Teddy is such an idiot, and Pig loves to have sex with my leg and Teddy loves to be held like a

baby oh god I love them so much they really they bring me such a they and my friends and my family and just people nice people I feel very lucky all the time to know so many nice people. Aha. That's very nice. That's a nice answer. When you go through passport control at the airport, do you think that they should check your privilege as well? Oh, for God's sake, yes. What's the last film you really enjoyed?

Oh, oh, this is a good one because I enjoyed... Oh, X-Men, Apocalypse Now. X-Men, Apocalypse Now. X-Men, Apocalypse Now. I'm sorry, but Oscar Isaac's head in that, I can't believe it's not gone more viral. It is the stupidest looking thing I've ever seen. He looks like a big blue lung. Right. And he's so evil and it just doesn't work.

But I love... It's mad that they had an actor that talented underneath all that it was it was ridiculous i will support the x-men franchise to the day i die sure because i think i'm not like a big you know sort of sci-fi fan or whatever but i think it appeals to the thing in my brain the the same thing as the soaps, like, collect them all. Like, Captain Planet, there was the yellow one who controlled fire. There was the, you know, like, I like, I think I like that sort of thing in my head and I like how, you know, in X-Men it's like,

you've got the red woman who's, like, so powerful and then you've got, you know, like, silver woman controlling the thunders. Were you one of the writers? Yeah, I mean, I don't like people to know... I think it's time to bring in the red man to control the thunders. Yeah, no... We've got an ice lady.

We should have an ice lady and she freezes everyone. Purple's disco. There's a purple one who just controls the funk. Yeah, no, I really like X-Men. i went to it a while ago and was like and then obviously wolverine happy noise yeah we were talking about a night we went to the recently me and my friends went to this really weird night when we went on like a little weekend trip to ramsgate and there was an it was a really weird garage night that we like stumbled across and there was an mc on it called mc rice and all he did over the track was like muna muna muna muna ate the apple beat the bear seat to the cat rice eat the cat eat the dog after the yeah rice that is all he did

and we were there for about three hours and that was his only contribution and he had a huge he was quite overweight and had a t-shirt that just said rice

on the back rice 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. 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. There we go. Tash Dimitriou. Thank you very much indeed to her for coming on the podcast. Now, what else? Business.

Business. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Oh, it's very flappy in the trees over there. There's a lot of partridges around. Norwich, of course, is associated with the partridge, albeit the Allen partridge. But what was I saying? Oh, yeah, just sort of little bits of business. Nothing much, really.

A few of you heard me talking about Joni Mitchell and Hegira and Jaco Pastorius and that kind of thing. And let me know that you had also tracked some of those things down and enjoyed them. That's very gratifying. things down and enjoyed them that's very gratifying as Bill Hader said on this podcast that is one of life's great pleasures I think is giving and receiving recommendations for those kinds of things and exploring isn't it what can I recommend to you this week it's all pretty mainstream for me this week actually I've been listening to the Michael Kiwanuka album, Love and Hate, a former number one album, as far as I'm aware. And now this is going to sound very reductive, but I would characterize it as sort of later with Jules music, i.e. music that's almost a bit too good. You know what I mean? Like the pedigree is too good,

too polished, too slick, too tuneful, too steeped in heritage, fine rock and soul heritage. Like a lot of it sounds like, well it reminded me of Curtis Mayfield in parts and Pink Floyd you know stuff that I love but sometimes with that kind of music you almost feel as if there's not enough room for you there because it's too perfect almost too classic you know and I'm drawn to music that's a little bit more wonky often and has bits missing in one way or another so that they feel more personal to me somehow anyway all this is building up to the fact that actually the album's so good, the Michael Kiwanuka album, that it barely matters. We played a video of his at Bug for a track called Black Man in a White World, directed by this fellow Hiro Murai, who's a very talented LA director. And then I bought the album on

the strength of that. That's really good. what else jingles there's a couple of new jingles in this week's show you will have noticed and one of them features some music that actually i didn't compose that i stole so i hope i don't get sued i stole it from i recorded it on my phone it was from an arcade grabber, like, you know, one of the grabbing machines. And it was in a mall in Humboldt County, Northern California, when we were out this summer, me and my family, visiting Northern California. We stopped off in Humboldt, went to this quite depressing mall, and I was wandering around there with jet lag.

Early one morning before all the shops had opened I needed to go and buy a pair of shoes and this music was playing echoing down the empty corridors in this mall it was like a scene from one of the Living Dead movies but the music was making me smile so i i recorded a bit and then stuck my usual selection of stupid beats on top of it but then this fellow got in touch with me via my soundcloud page dan hawkins and he said oh i like the podcast if you ever want any bass playing for any reason then let let me know. I'm an

online bass player. So he has this website where people get in touch and they send him a track and say, can you stick some bass on that? And he sends it back with some bass on. You know, you can tell him what kind of style you're after. Anyway, I sent him the Humboldt grabber jingle and he sent it back within a few hours with this bass on it, which is really good. And he didn't do it on the condition that I give him a shout out at all or anything. He didn't ask for anything. He just was doing it in the spirit of interaction. So thanks, Dan. I'll put a link to his website on my blog. Here's the blog address. I've got a blog. I've got a blog. I've got a blog. Here's the address. Here's the address. It's adam-bugston.co.uk So check it out

There you go I think that's more or less it For this rambly outro Thank you so much to Seamus Murphy Mitchell For his production support And to Matt Lamont for additional editing Can't exactly guarantee when the next podcast will be with you But it should be sometime within the next couple of weeks

I've got a few more exciting guests Before I take a break at Christmas time when the next podcast will be with you, but it should be sometime within the next couple of weeks. I've got a few more exciting guests before I take a break at Christmastime and regroup for 2017. Rosie! Rosie! The gloaming is turning to the darkening, and when the darkening comes, it is not wise for whippet

poodle cross dogs to be out bouncing. No, no. The wise pipette will return to the warmth of the house for a scritch scratch in front of the fire. Rosie!

Ah, here she comes. All right. Hey, listeners, thanks very much for joining me. And until the next time we share the same sound space, take extra good care. I love you. Bye. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. care. I love you, bye. Bye. Thank you.