The Frank Skinner Show - Mask Fashion

Episode Date: April 4, 2020

Frank Skinner's on Absolute Radio every Saturday morning and you can enjoy the show's podcast right here. Radio Academy Award winning Frank, Emily and Alun bring you a show which is like joining your mates for a coffee... So, put the kettle on, sit down and enjoy UK commercial radio's most popular podcast. As the UK is still in lock down the team bring you another show working from home - direct from the linen basket! This week Frank has been worried about frozen food and has discovered a new issue with facial recognition. The team also discuss the Potato Lady, a herd of drunk elephants and getting lost.

This is Frank Skinner. This is Absolute Radio. Hello, this is the Frank Skinner Show with Emily Dean and Helen Cochran. We are, I think I said Helen Cochran then. You know what? Yeah, his sister's turned up. We are not live, by the way. We're not live, so don't text the show. But you can follow us at Frank on the Radio on Twitter and Instagram, or you can email us via the Absolute Radio website. That our favourite.

Ah. So, hello, guys. Hello. How are you feeling? Hello. I feel like Helen. Ah. like Helen.

Ah, well, of course, I don't know if that side of the medical business is still operating. That's a good question. It seems less important now, doesn't it? Everything. Everything, apart from survival, seems less important. Indeed.

That's all gone a bit Bear Grylls. Can I just apologise in advance if you can hear the clanking of bottles, I haven't turned to the booze. That is my neighbour doing the recycling. Oh, OK. How lovely that we can hear your neighbour doing the recycling. Again, what's the point?

Not now, Greta. Not now. Yeah. And there is a thing. I don't want to bring things down, but I got up the other morning and my seven-year-old son, Boz, was in tears on the sofa.

And I thought, I don't know what's happened. And then he said, look, I had a really, the worst nightmare ever last night. Was he watching you on The Brits? No, that's banned. He said, now that was when I had the worst nightmare ever. He said, I woke up at 2.15am,

I was so upset by the nightmare, I never got back to sleep, I just lay there. And he was really, really upset. And I put my arm around him and I said look it's just a nightmare tell me what it was about and then he started laughing and said April Fool

Oh! Excellent! And I said to him that is that's quite a cruel one isn't it? Can't be worried we would have picked that up at all No exactly! He's learned from the best Frank. I mean I thought, what do you think of that? Yeah, well, I think we already picked that up at all. No, exactly. He's learned from the best, Frank.

I mean, especially in the current climate, I thought it was a really dark... Anyway, it was a bit... I'm impressed. What's that number nine thing called? Oh, Inside Number Nine. Inside Number Nine, yes. It was a bit like that.

It was an opening to the day like that. Did you decide... so the April Fool, which our regular readers will be familiar with, some of Frank's greatest hits on April the 1st. Oh, yeah. There was the time when you said to your mother-in-law, go for it, Frank. What did you remember what you said?

Was that when the toilet had broken and was shooting water all over the bathroom floor? Yes. You said the toilet had broken and was shooting water all over the bathroom floor yes he said the toilet broken also that my car's been stolen was another one um and perhaps the greatest of all the one that nearly ended my relationship was when i told my partner that i'd agreed to do a television show with gokwan in which I walked around northern towns and cities dressed in avant-garde costumes, talking to people. And the title of it was, Why Are You Wearing That?

And Kath said to me, you're not the person I thought you were when I said I'd accepted it and said, I don't think I can go out with you anymore. But we got over that. We got over that. We'll get over this. All right? Nice positive message in your...

I was going to say, boys, sorry, Frank. I noticed Coronation Street. They did an April Fool, didn't they? They pretended that it had been turned into a cartoon version of the show. Oh, that's good. Well, is it? Oh, wow. You don't want to be talking yourself out of work. Good point. turned into a cartoon version of the show. Oh, that's good. Well, is it? Oh, wow.

You don't want to be talking yourself out of work. Good point. I'd love to watch a cartoon version of Coronation Street. What a brilliant idea. You could bring back then all the dead people. That's a good idea. Oh, man. Get John Coleshaw involved.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Albert Tatlock. I'm serious. I would love to watch that and you could see Ina Sharples in colour which would have been a new thing for me except I did

have a Coronation Street jigsaw which featured a tableau from the Rovers Return which had Martha Longhurst and Ina Sharples and Minnie Caldwell these we have loved and Al of course Frank

and Al of course Al was in it let's not forget that I'm proud to be on the same show I've only ever done Emmerdale myself which let's face it only as a voice I might get the call

when they do the cartoon version. They might ask me to be Annie Sogden. Do you remember your line in Emmerdale? What did you say? I think it was, it's not my sheep, Jeff. Frank Skinner on Absolute Radio. By the way, speaking of my seven-year-old son, he told me that the coronavirus came from a bat biting a chicken and then somebody ate that chicken.

I've then been telling lots of people that origin story without doing any fact check at all i thought it was um from a human eating a raw bat at a what they call a wet market in china where you can buy a raw bat oh sorry that was me half cooked either that or a pangolin they think yes what osborne osborne well he bit a rat on a bit he bit the head off a bat on stage yeah i think i think that was um i mean i don't want to burst any bubbles but i think that might have been the magic of theater oh i think it was the magic of heroin. Yes. I have to say the phrase, the magic of heroin, is not one you hear very often.

Well, you're in Pete Doherty's house. There probably are places, you know, the county, county line houses. Is he in the heroin chair, Pete Doherty? I don't know if he is anymore. I'd like to think he's cleaned up his act. Oh, yes, he has. Oh, yeah. Apologies, Pete. You meant as a shorthand for who?

Yes. Yeah. Can I say, I think I would advise in a pre-recorded show not to do any stuff about Pete Doherty during a major pandemic. Yes. In fact, anyone. Yeah, so it's... I'll tell you another thing I've had is that

we've been using the freezer a bit more. What with our panic buying. Oh, have you done a lot of panic buying? No, I haven't done any. I'm anti-panic buying. But we are... We have like have a thing like a fish delivery where a man comes with a box of fish, you know. And you can't eat like eight pieces of fish in two days.

Well, you could do, but it's not a contest. If you're an eskimo. We've been freezing it. How many words have they got for fish? An awful lot, I think. They've got a lot for twine, fish in twine. Yeah, snow, that's a big one with these people. Snow is there, obviously that's their pee.

They love snow. I wonder how many they've got for fur. Anyway, I have always been anti-f um frozen food it it frightens me um and so all this stuff now has gone in the fridge and i don't know if i have the courage to eat it because i've never i've read so many different things about like if you put a lamb chop in a fridge what you have to do with it before um do you mean a freezer it's safe in the freezer rather yeah yes i was thinking up you hear all these stories of old people's homes having a chicken or a big turkey and then like you know all being very very

ill that's put me off oh yeah here's what i think should happen for you frank now is that they were your previous fears but now if you think of your fears in life as a leaderboard covid19 has jumped to the top and everything else has been pushed down at least one place that is your fear of frozen food might have slipped right off the leaderboard and you could just carry on and eat it like everybody else. Al, I'm loving this. You sound like one of those inspirational gurus they make a documentary about on Netflix. Well, that sounds good.

It's a fallback plan. No, that's a good thing. That's a good thing. Now that comedy's gone. Can I... It's on pause. It wasn't that bad a link. So, if I paraphrase you, what you're saying is not now captain bird's eye yes

on absolute radio we've heard from the outside world this week because we took the liberty of posting up pictures of our home studio setups from last week. And yours has caused a little... I was told I had to. Yes. We've got feedback on all of our home studio setups, but yours has caused a little bit of fuss, Frank, because I don't know if you remember,

maybe you're in the same system today, but you had a laptop balanced on a linen basket and your selfie had a huge stack of books in the background and some scamp, Robert B. Brain, has said no way to treat books unless you've just moved in, in which case I apologise. OK. Oh, my word.

He's calling you out. I don't know why, but stacking books is not a bad way to treat books, is it? Yeah, I mean, I thought, when I saw it, I just thought, oh, he's so learned, his background is Yeah, I mean, I thought, when I saw it, I just thought, oh, he's so learned. His background is books. That's what I thought. Well, you know what? I didn't do what you're supposed to do

when you're on Sky News talking about something on Skype. Oh, yeah. You're supposed to always put the history of Western philosophy by Bertrand Russell behind you. Yes. And I didn't rearrange my books. So I realised there's things like a Pep Guardiola biography and stuff in the background, which is not what I'm trying to project, to be honest. Well, it is.

It's troubling times in that respect because i noticed i had a terrible book on my shelves frank i didn't know i still had it paul burrell diana her true story oh wow i mean come on you don't want to still be having that loitering on the shelves gossiping butlers he was not a man to leave things lighter in on their shelves. The best Paul Burrell moment ever was, do you remember him on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here? He put his hand into a crevice and there were rats in there. And as he was pushing it out of the way, he said, come on, move over, darling. And he called the rat darling.

It was sort of affectionate and I loved it. Sorry, over to you, Frank Skinner, at the laundry basket. Yeah, I noticed, and it's weird, when I took the photo, it didn't actually occur to me what was over my shoulder. And that is so naive because whenever I see anyone at home, all I look at is what's over their shoulder in their house. And people did some great spotting. They actually spotted I've got a poster from Doctor Who's Mommy on the Orient Express on my wall, which was the one episode I was in, of course. And they also, I mean, I looked at this and I thought they've got a better

quality phone picture than me. They spotted the Masters TARDIS That's right from Roger Delgado era. I'm not ashamed of that. Oh yeah well I think so obviously.

Mine just happened to be No I'm definitely not ashamed of it. Well, if they came to my gaff, they would spot a model of the pirate captain. Oh, yes. Which Frank bought me. I do have that on display, Frank. What figurines from Doctor Who do you have, Alan?

Is there an episode with the invisible doctor? I've got that guy. There are episodes with invisible creatures. Yeah, I've got those. If there is one, I can guarantee some monster with bad skin will be saying, Eliminated. Is it Planet of the Daleks when Joe Grant goes into the jungle

speaking to a dictator? Yes, that's the one, Frank. There's invisible people. Yeah, I thought, thanks. Thanks for... I knew you guys would know. I didn't want to make a fool of myself. Frank Skinner on Absolute Radio.

That was a piece of music I can't identify because I'm not really involved in the music anymore. I'm not getting my choices. You know, when I choose my own music on this show, to an hour, gone. Gone during the current crisis. I mean, I miss it. It's not one of the big headlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, though, is it?

No, I know, absolutely. I've been trying to get rid of my choices, basically, since I signed up. And it took this. It took this for them to get rid of my choices basically since I signed up and it took this, it took this for them to get their own way. But I miss it, I think. I look forward to my choices in particular. But, you know, I would do,

I suppose, they're my choices. I'd rather miss your choices. Who'd have thought? Yeah, me too. We've also had a comment. We were talking in the last Link Prank about your home essentially and people commenting on the various aspects of it and do you remember you posted a

video of you working out to joe wicks last week on instagram and cashmarno75 his comment on this video was hmm that door has been cut down a bit too much. You'll get a terrible draft coming under there. And then they decided to have a whole conversation. Disco Shippers said, I can only think there was a carpet there before. I guess you could join a piece to it. He'd need a decent chippy mind. I love that.

It's the gap at the top of the door or the bottom. It's at the bottom, apparently. It's weird because we just had the kitchen done and I believe that they tiled on top of the previous tile, so the floor has gone up a bit. It doesn't make any sense. Anyway, I haven't noticed the draft. Frank Leoffa has also commented regarding your workout video.

It reminds me of one of those third reich training films with 50 people in a field practicing well i don't know about that i love the soviet um russian ones when people did those giant pe lessons outdoors yeah it's um it's one of the things i miss about the soviet union it's very incentivizing for the workout to think that you might be killed if you don't do your bunny hops or whatever. I just think... Yeah, I don't get that kind of menace from Joe Wicks. Yes, he's much more chummy, isn't he?

He was dressed as... He ended the week with Fancy Dress Friday. Did he? Joe Wicks. What did he dress up as? He did the whole thing as Spider-Man. That's good. By the way, did you hear one of my alerts then?

No. I tried to switch off my alerts, but I can't work it out. It doesn't matter. What was it? Was it Doctor Who alert? No, I can't see what it was. I just heard a beep. It could have been anything.

Okay. I read a marvellous thing in the Roman Catholic press this week. Is that a tablet? Well, I read the Catholic Herald as well. Is that online? I don't know if it's online. The tablet is. I have it delivered.

Thank you very much. the tablet you can get i have it delivered um the catholic herald was talking about the fact that um due to the um current crisis um people have been kept away from uh stonehenge and it was i think the spring solstice last week right and so the druids um weren't able to worship it obviously it's a big thing for the druids the any any solstice they love a solstice they do and and and that is one of their their key places to go is um in stonehenge so they they said you know we're not the only ones who can't you know um who can't worship at the moment. The Druids have been banned from Stonehenge. And they had a quote from the head of the Tottenham branch of the Druids. I don't know if he was joking or not, but he said, yeah, he said, it's really

upsetting. He said, but the thing is, he said, we have to make sacrifices. Frank Skinner. Absolute radio. So I went out this week, obviously, for a, what do they call it? An imperative journey. All right. Is that the term? I've been calling it mandated exercise okay um no no i had to go um somewhere to get something important and so i i think i've added

the word imperative i don't think that's cropped up during the whole crisis but i like it and um for the first time i wore wore a mask. Did you? A proper, you know, double elastic white mask. Was it what they call an N95 mask? I've learned so much during this crisis. Oh, now I haven't heard of an N95. I like the sound of those. What are those ones, Al?

I've been reading the same articles I've been reading. Are those the ones with the slight sort of bit, almost duck's bill, those type of masks? Maybe. I mean, I'm no mask expert. Mine has got a metal grip on the top, a la Robbie Fowler. You know that plaster that Robbie Fowler used to have

across the bridge of his nose? Yes! I think the idea that you can close the top of the mask tight to your nose so if saliva is raining down from taller citizens, it doesn't get in. I don't want to end up like that gap above my door. So anyway, I put my mask on. And I believe Stephen Merchant's local to you as well. Exactly. I was out put my mask and i believe steven merchant's local to you as well

exactly i was out with my mask on and the first thing i realized is what i've been doing i've been getting very uh lax um optically in that i i don't wear contact contact lenses most days now if you're not going anywhere you might as well just put your specs on you know what i'm saying yeah but if you wear your mask and specs the specs really steam up because the breath is coming up past your robbie fowler getting in behind the and i couldn't see i was in the end i had to take my spectacles off and i thought i can see better short-sighted than I can through this terrible mist so that was that was my uh that was my first problem and then um I realized um my phone went uh a text or an email or something and my facial recognition doesn't operate when I've got uh an anti-pandemic mask on. Good point.

So I had to keep putting my, it's that terrible moral dilemma. Do I raise my mask and risk everything or do I go through the tedious business of putting in my password? So I had to keep putting in my password. But perhaps the strangest mask based experience I had was that um I got a bit of mask envy I passed some people who got really I mean some proper sturdy industrial pseudo-military looking masks things somebody I saw a woman who had one on. Do you remember that Woody Allen film, Sleeper?

Yeah. Yes. There's a mask he wears in that and it looked a lot like that and I thought, oh, man, I wish I had that mask. So I'm going to start looking into, I'd like to get a real beauty because we're going to be wearing it for, you know, it's going to be months rather than weeks. Let's be honest.

A real beauty, Al. Keeping up with the Joneses has changed, hasn't it? It really has. Have you seen the size of the mask next door? There's going to be mask fashion. People are going to say, oh, no, everyone's wearing those black ones. The ones with the dog muzzle, the dog muzzle on them, so they look anthropomorphic.

It will come. It will come. It will surely come. This is Frank Skinner. This is Absolute Radio. This is Frank Skinner on Absolute Radio with Emily Dean and Alan Cochran. We're not live. We're not.

So don't text us. I insist you don't. But you can follow us at Frank on the radio on Twitter and Instagram. And you can email us via the Absolute Radio website. I've never done it worse. I've never done it worse. But it's fine. It's fine.

I think, you know, it doesn't matter now, does it? It doesn't matter. Bigger things, bigger fish to fry. We're all made to amend at the moment, dear. This is no time for perfectionism. I read an interesting piece of journalism this week. I think, again, it might have been in the Roman Catholic press, but somebody went to um they asked

terry wait who is 80 years old now he's still with us yeah he's still with us still alive they asked um they asked you know i think we've dropped that um um terry wait they asked him how he was coping in isolation which I thought was gave Terry Waite a chance to be such a Tony know all

because he said well I spent you know I spent however many years it was in complete darkness sleeping on a floor with no nothing to read and nothing to write on hardly seeing anyone from the outside world. So it's no problem to me. I thought, all right, Terry. All right, man.

We knew that. Don't beat us over the head with it. Do you think Terry Ware has a similar feeling that you used to on New Year's Eve when suddenly the pub was full? Yes. Well, yeah. What are they? It's so true. I think it's like at the end of full. Yes. Well, yeah, what are they? It's so true.

I think it's like at the end of, I don't know, it's not quite at the end, but in Heart of Darkness, when the character who's seen all this horror in the jungle comes back to the real world and looks at everyone in a sort of a, you don't know what life's about kind of a way. I suppose it must be like that for Terry. Very much so. Tall as well, very tall. Is he? He's a very tall man.

He's a long white. And he was before his time with the hipster beard. Yeah, he was. Well, he was before his time with self-isolation. Actually, not so much of the self quite low on the self but certainly big on the isolation but i i was an inspiration if you had seen a story this might well have come up in uh in your reading of the catholic news sites this week there's been quite a few online fails with people suddenly having to do workplace meetings from home using Zoom and Facebook Live and whatnot.

And one of those online fails was when an Italian priest activated a video filter when he was live streaming a mass on Facebook. Oh, yeah, I saw that. Are you referring to Father Paolo Longo at the church of San Pietro at San Benedetto? Sounds like I might be. He is my favourite man ever. I'm obsessed by him. To be honest, had it been a Church of England vicar, I would have suspected he'd put that filter on deliberately

in order to appeal to open inverted commas, young people. Those inverted commas. Do they go a bit, I want to talk to you about a little fella named Jesus. I saw a local news story with one who had a ventriloquist dummy doing part of the sermon.

And you wouldn't get that in the Catholic Church. You used to get those biker vicars as well who wore leather jackets. Oh, right. Well, he did say in his defence, Frank, he said, the person who keeps drawing on my face obviously likes to make jokes, which made him sound like a bit of a git

and I kind of warmed to him. Yeah, I like that. That's a good line from him. Frank Skinner on Absolute Radio. I went to the last couple of, we were talking about the Catholic priest and the last link. I went to the last two available masses before masses stopped and still went up to the altar and took communion

and taking communion from another human being's hands. It felt like being on an Alton Towers ride. I felt like some sort of crazy adrenaline junkie. It's risky. I want to check out one of your Catholic newspapers because I want to know if they have like the equivalent of a 3am section do they have like spotted Archbishop of Canterbury

or do they have like a gossip page they have like you know current news that's about as close there's a diary page but there isn't there isn't any the Holy Trinity girls or anything like that. I was wondering if there was a little bit of accidentally on purpose with this priest and the funny hat and the technology mistake.

Because I think priests might be seeing that their job is up for grabs because now that we're all doing the self-isolation thing, haven't the Catholic Church said that people can do confessions from home? And maybe priests have realised, hang on, God can work from home. We're like a middleman here and we're becoming a bit unnecessary. It's the difference between watching football live on Sky and actually going to the games. Right.

Oh, I see. Don't do the confessions to your partners, though. That's TMI, if anyone heard it. Why, the very idea of it. Ridiculous. What I liked about... I can't cope with that much penance. What I liked about Father Paolo... with that much penance what i liked about father paulo is it do i call address him as father frank is that respectful oh yeah oh yeah um so he was live streaming his mass which is a nice idea i think via facebook

live but it was the choice of filters that he'd um unintentionally activated because he had on his purple stole, he had his gear on, but it was the fact that it was a digital robot helmet that came up first, followed by comedy sunglasses, cartoon eyes, and then weights. Brilliant. It did occur to me though,

I think, I don't know, it made me, it was very watch me. Do you know what I mean? I think I would tune into that, to be honest. Well, this proves my point. I think it's the equivalent of looking over someone's shoulder to see what books they've got, though, is that you don't actually, you don't notice them enough.

I felt for him a bit. It could happen to anyone. I didn't know such filters existed i'll be i'll be straight with you it's been a tremendous education this whole thing for me it reminds me do you remember when we had boy george on the show in the day when we used to have regular guests and he'd just come out of prison and he said prison was brilliant because he said i read all the books i was going to read i had a chance to really think about my life that's why i'm i'm hoping to come out of self-isolation with

with that kind of awareness maybe without the big hats nice um and the black neck never like the black neck on george no i mean it was flattering but it's very thin but it's a long way to go. It's a lovely idea in principle, George, but yeah, it's problematic with the sheets, the black neck I find. Well, yeah, I had a landlady who used powder heftily and the collar, the fur collar on her coat was absolutely thick with face powder. I mean, it was... And George must have that. He must have some dirty shirts. That's what I think. It's not just priests that have been blighted by technology problems.

There was a woman who was on a conference call from home and her boss was using some funny filter and accidentally turned herself into a potato and the woman who was on the call has put it up on Twitter. I like that you used the word blighted before the potato. Did I use the word blighted before potato. Did I use the word blighted? Fantastic. Sort of a retrospective punning going on here, Alan.

Thank you. But she sort of humiliated her boss online, and I was thinking, this is quite risky business, because if she then gets sacked for humiliating her boss is that going to become like a another pun is it going to become an HR issue well I mean if you got sacked for humiliating

your boss I'd know two people who'd be out of a job Alan I read this story and the woman the boss is called Lisette Ocampo

and one of my parents friends worked in the theatre what she's done is she's over embraced her own

humiliation oh has she so yes she said she she delivered she started a twitter account in order to discuss

this embarrassing thing that had happened to her of course it's no longer embarrassing once someone embraces it yeah and um one of the things she said was that everything this is an actual quote from lizetto campo everything about the potato story is hilarious. Right. You don't say that about things when you're the sort of chomp. The trouble with Ocampo, not De Campo, who does some very fine work in another area, Gino De Campo, but Ocampo, I find she's not grasping the basic as you say the basic

comedy rule i think it was peter sellers who said what makes cluzzo so funny is that he takes himself so seriously some of the things can i just say she's already said as advice to the people looking at her twitter feed stay planted at home. That's one of her jokes. And also, I yam the potato boss. Right. Okay. Oh. Are we suggesting that perhaps Ocampo

might wear the equivalent of the comedy socks, the Simpson socks in the office? I think as a boss, she might be a chip off the old block, that kind of thing. Frank's not even dignifying that with a response. Yes, I struggle with that. You see, I went to block.

I went to the last word. Weirdly, the one pun I've done on purpose, Frank didn't spot all the accidental ones he jumped on. She also then, in the midst of all this lightheartedness, Lisette Ocampo... I'm giving him the right roasting owl. Yeah. She said, she talks about their company, and she says,

our work is to fight for progressive values, not easy during the Trump administration. I thought, not now, Lisette. Yes. Not now. Spodface, stay out of it. I thought it was some sort of Duke of Edinburgh filter she'd put on when her face wore it.

I think I saw her eyes and lips. Better get those jokes in. Oh, God. Frank Skinner. Frank Skinner. Absolute Radio. The Spod filter. You remember that band?

Yeah. Yes. They, it reminded me of stuff. Yeah, there was a comic uh a cartoon character called sam spoddykins ring any bells never heard of him it was a it was a go on i just said i remember the store spud you like i think we told you recently um the restaurant i think you only learned recently that it had closed down no only learned recently that it had closed down no i think i thought it had closed down and then we got we got some um some people get in touch to say that you know things like there's one in wigan you're right anyway back to spuddykins

it may have gone in in the interim yeah but um But Sam Spudikins was in a... When I used to drink every night in public houses... You remember public houses? Yeah. There was... The Salvation Army used to come round on Friday nights with their periodical. And it wasn't the

Watchtower. Is the Watchtower, is that the... That's the Jehovah's, I believe. Oh, that's right. Anyway, they had their Salvation Army magazine and it had a cartoon strip in it called Sam's Body

Kins. It was a talking potato who imparted moral wisdom. And in the days when there was always people going around pubs and there was an Irish guy who used to come in and collect for a local hospice. And my friend called him Irwin. And we always called him Irwin. We called him Irwin to his face. How are you, Irwin?

And it turned out that my friend only called him Erwin. We called him Erwin to his face. How are you, Erwin? And it turned out that my friend only called him Erwin because when people put money in his tin, he used to say many tanks. And Erwin was Rommel's first name. A German officer who had many tanks. And it completely became his name. Although not what he's subsequently become most famous for. No, probably

probably not. But those people, you know now it's all drug dealers but in the old days there was all sorts of interesting people coming round pubs plying their wares including the Sam Spodekins agent.

Well, there was a wonderful man, Frank, in Hampstead, in the old Hampstead village, who when me and my friend Jane, because she lived there when I was growing up, we'd wander up there and he was Canadian. He wore a big hat and a scarf and he'd say, hey, you folks like poetry? And he would read you his poetry that he'd written. And he would frequent the hostelries, I believe, as well.

I'm guessing. And read poems. I believe so. I have no evidence on this. But was the poetry really bad? I'm going to take a fifth on that. All my instincts say that it will be Yeah And don't get me wrong

A lot of great poetry has come from underneath a big hat I mean, Alfred Lord Tennyson Wore a few whoppers in the millinery department Do poets like hats, do they? Well, they used to. Traditionally, they do. Well, Damien is it well. She loved a hat, Frank.

Yeah. Carol Ann Duffy may be a hard hat. I can't see her in anything floral. I think the liberate writers like hat because it's an easy rhyme, isn't it? Huh? Little Tiffany? Any liberate writers listening? Cat, because it's an easy rhyme, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Little tip there. Any limo writers listening?

I mean, you've got cats. You never know, do you, what you're going to pick up on this show. Cats, bats, topical. I think we should leave all the possible rhymes for hat. While we're still operational. Oh, you don't want to continue? No, no. I feel it getting closer.

Frank Skinner. Frank Skinner. Absolute Radio. Absolute Radio. So, I know there's not a lot of people out there in the actual outside world, but people from other homes, have we heard from them? We have a bit. We have?

We have a bit. I have a message here. Morning all. i hope you're keeping safe and well i wanted to inform you as i know how frank feels about people having that that this website has attributed a quote which is included in one of frank's classic anecdotes to frank himself i forget who the original quote belongs to but frank never neglects to correctly attribute it when he tells the tale indeed it's i don't know what it is but yeah it's frank's guinna quotes and number two is you can spend your whole life trying to be popular but at the end of the day the size of the crowd at your funeral will be largely dictated by the weather now you always quote who that is but i don't i don't know who it is. I can't quote him by name

it was an American football coach who was interviewed and the interviewer said you're not very popular at the moment are you and that was what he said. I'll be honest with you I've improved what he said grammatically You have but the

I don't think he would have said determined but it's very much his But the I yeah, I don't think he would have said determined. But I it's very much his thing. And I thought it was a great I love the quote. But no, I've never claimed it to be mine. Well, in your book, you I mean, I'm about to tell you what you wrote in your book here. Please do. I'm 63. Well, it's one of my most thumbed volumes. here please do i'm 63 well it's one of my most thumbed volumes and you do i remember the exact passage and you do say this was said by an american it was like a baseball a sort of um

american football i think he was in the nfl as i recall yes but i i did uh quote you in my book I used that quote and I attributed it to you Oh did you? I'm afraid I may have But isn't this what often happens when you look up a I'm not saying this is a famous quote but when you look up a famous quote it often says oh well it's often attributed to blah blah but it was originally

and I think what happens is that people are not necessarily nicky I think they quote somebody and whoever quotes them can't be bothered with the introduction so they just do that glad we've sorted that out apparently a lot of the things that we think

are funny things Oscar Wilde said Americans think are funny things that Dorothy Parker said well there you go and a lot of people think that Winston Churchill invented the phrase black dog to describe depression. But Samuel Johnson used that same phrase for depression in the 18th century.

Absolute radio here. Winston Churchill did come up with the phrase power nap, apparently. Look, I don't want you to fall out over Churchill and Johnson again This happens all the time Rowling in the pub over Winston Churchill and Samuel Johnson This is what happens when Englishmen get together They always argue about this thing I had some replies to my pictures

Did you? Yeah What pictures? Well, we put pictures up last week, you may recall. Someone said my splashback was looking immaculate because I've got tiles with my copper pans. Oh, that's what a splashback is. Yeah.

Oh, nurse, did you think it was? Well, I never knew. I thought it was something to do with um smoking marijuana what was that thing but when you blow back down someone's oh is that a splash blow back blow back yeah anyway you remember that film blow back mountain big stoner movie stoner movie i love a stoner movie I'm not a stoner myself but Pineapple Express which I think is currently on Sky Cinema

check it out I once watched it on a transatlantic flight and Adrian Childs the popular presenter came over to me mid film and said mate, mate

I took my headphones off I said what you said everyone's just staring at you mate you're laughing too much I said well they shouldn mate. I took my headphones off. I said, what? He said, everyone's staring at you, mate. You're laughing too much. I said, well, they shouldn't have comedy films on. You're talking about... But it's a brilliant movie. Mate, mate, get off me.

Frank Skinner on Absolute Radio. This is Frank Skinner on Absolute Radio with Emily Dean and Alan Cochran. We're not live, so don't text us. But you can follow us at Frank on the Radio on Twitter and Instagram, or you can email us via the Absolute Radio website. You remember that old favourite? And free, free on the website.

Talking of old favourites, Frank, I would like to, well, I'd like to have a discussion about Sir David Attenborough, SDA, because I know I'm actually quite a fan of his. I know you have mixed emotions, really, regarding David, don't you? Do you? Me too. Yeah, I don't like that thing of him letting lions creep up on him parlours and not saying anything about it. I mean, if I did that in my personal life,

if I was in the jungle and I did that, I'd feel bad about it. If I then filmed it and sent it out to loads of people, I'd feel ghoulish. Well, I think it's also because that's your nightmare kind of film isn't it you know you hate the sort of person rifling through the drawer when the torch is outside and the security guard's coming in it's a similar feeling of dread i imagine yeah but just just what's wrong with look out that's surely is um maybe he thinks the animals don't Maybe he thinks the animals that are in peril don't speak English and that they won't understand the look.

I know he's a great man and all that, David Attenborough, blah, blah, but there must be some part of him when he sees the lion creeping up on the impala, there must be some part of him thinking this will be great television when it tears it apart. Oh, do you think? When the penguin doesn't make it up. Oh, this one was not so lucky. Someone will text in and whatever they do, email in and say,

oh, you don't get impalas in the same place as lions or something like that. But I'm using impala as a for instance. Yeah. Why don't you like him, Al? Is it because he's a bit neggy about Trump? And I'm a keen Trump supporter, as you know. No, I just have mixed feelings about him, I think. Do you?

Yeah. I have mixed feelings about most people that are. Do you? Yeah, well, I have mixed feelings about most people that are in the public eye when they say stuff. You know, when they talk, I think, oh, you're actually a bit silly, aren't you? Fair enough. So what's been his thing this... Oh, it's the lost thing, isn't it?

He's talking about lost. He's been sort of lamenting the end of getting lost, essentially. And he was asked this week, he did an interview for Time Out, and he said children and teenagers will never know the true freedom because smartphones have essentially wiped out the problem of losing your way. But what was brilliant was he used what I would call a not particularly relatable example he said it's like when I was in Indonesia in 1955

sailing on a small boat between islands no one knew where we were and there were no mobile phones Have you ever watched those old black and white films of him in Indonesia in 1955? He's usually got his shirt off at every opportunity. He's a real dashing English adventurer and he's

out there invariably capturing animals to take back to zoos so he was a bit of a wild man Can I just say yes and let's leave it there Look, I'm not anti-David Attenborough, of course not,

but when he says that people have got iPhones and blah, blah, if you just drive out of any major city centre in Britain, you will watch the process which I call 4G, 3G, GPRS, E, dotted line. That's what happens to your reception as soon as you get away from a major hob. So I think he must, he's either got a brilliant phone or he hasn't been getting out much. I know none of us have, but I mean, generally. Frank Skinner. Frank Skinner. Absolute Radio. I know none of us have, but I mean, generally. So we were talking about Sir David Attenborough.

Yeah, I found it a bit confusing, his message, that young people are never going to experience freedom because they've all got an iPhone, and so therefore they'll never get lost. He seems to equate being lost with freedom, which, I mean, I've been lost a few times in my life, but I never think, oh, this is really liberating. Not knowing where I'm going to work. I mean, I got lost in a car park once,

and do you want to know what my response was? Ah! Yeah. I mean, I didn't find it liberating, trust me. No. Well, this last two weeks is the longest I've been I mean, I didn't find it liberating, trust me. No, it's not. This last two weeks is the longest I've been without getting lost, perhaps in my lifetime, because I haven't been out.

As you know, we walked to the same restaurant after the radio show every week, and I still take the wrong turn if I'm leading. I mean, I have a clinical issue with getting lost. So he's wrong there. Also, as a senior gentleman. Also, if an interviewer, Al, if an interviewer asked Frank, when did you get lost? I mean, they would actually have to rephrase that question to,

when did you last successfully manage to find your way somewhere? That's how often you get lost sorry i thought public figures were shot down in flames though if they said sweeping statements which didn't include minorities and i am one of the getting lost a lot minority and i don't see why um sir david attimer isn't being dragged over the coals for oppressing me um i did notice something though boys which i would like to point out to you which was i read the article in question and how it occurred during the interview which was in person i just wonder if this has been lost in translation because the interviewer said before leaving i ask him if there is something

he experienced as a child that he wishes teenagers could could have today getting lost he says and off attenborough goes oh are you sure he wasn't telling him to get lost and he just missed the end of it lost well this is what i think yes i think he hated the interviewer. He was getting lost. It's just an old school put down. Get lost. Well, it's just weird that it was the last sentence of the, the last words of the whole interview were getting lost.

Yeah. I think he was telling him to, you know, he started at the end, he started going on about what the damage that human beings have done to the planet. I think. Oh, that doesn't sound like him.

Yeah. Not now, David. Yes, it does. It sounds exactly like him. I'm sure he's a great man. The thing is, though, I don't know how you feel about this, Al, but I'm a fan of a maze. As you know, I love Hampton Court. Oh, yeah. And it's kind of a home from home

I go there whenever I can do people use smartphones in mazes now? oh that is a good question to get their way out that would be right up there with the pub quiz smartphone user yeah yeah two minutes on Google Maps and you're out

but would it actually show a maze? wouldn't it just tell you to go straight towards the exit and not acknowledge the hedgerow? Going over to our transport correspondent, Alan Cochran. I don't know if it detects hedgerow. Oh, on the subject of me being the transport correspondent, before the lockdown, I had quite an embarrassing incident. After one of the last gigs I did before all this kicked off i was driving out of liverpool late at night

very tired and it was raining already and i was a bit confused leaving of liverpool i got a bit confused as to you know there's sort of road markings and then there's marks on the road where cars have sort of worn a line or oiled a light. And I drove so badly, the police pulled me over thinking I was drunk. I haven't seen these dotted lines that other motorists have accidentally put on there. It was just a bit confusing confusing and then he said to me um what went on back there then i said i just got confused with the layout of the road he said uh have you been drinking tonight sir i said i haven't had a drink for five years

although i told my jokes about drinking that night but which is i'm afraid exactly what a drunk would say i didn't tell him that. But yeah, they pulled me over and wanted to check. That's how bad my driving is, even though I'm the motoring correspondent on this show. I give the impression of being intoxicated. Well, perhaps those people from the 70s who say, I drive better after I've had a drink,

were actually spot on. Don't do it, don't do it, by the way. Frank Skinner on Absolute Radio. Before that, I did refer to people drinking and driving in the 70s. Can I say that? It's very bad, and Absolute Radio has quite a strong policy on it. I think they're anti-general. But I was listening the other day. I can also say,

not just Absolute Radio, they're not swimming against the tide here. Company man Skinner. I listened to In the Summertime by Mongo Jerry the other day. Oh, yeah.

And it's, I mean, it's from the 70s. It's a great track. It reminds me of all those beautiful summers of yesteryear. Oh, can you remind us, Frank, of how it goes, please? It goes, In the summer time when the weather is high, you can ride up and touch the sky. Ray Dorsey. You've got women.

You've got women. Oh, it's horrible. Well, that was the first thing, because he said, you got women, you got women on my mind. I know, he said, I think it's I got women on my mind. I don't think you can say that anymore, Ray. And then he says, have a drink, have a drive. I've got to see what you can find.

And I thought, this is getting worse and worse. It's like I had a packet of love hearts this week and they included one that said, hog me and one that said, kiss me. And I thought, these are going to have to be made illegal in the current situation. Well, they're going to have to update the love hearts to say consensual hugs.

Yeah. I don't think there's any hugs allowed now now i'll look forward to a future well consensual is love hearts just say now wash your hands yes yeah that would be um that's a lot of my love life did you read about the um on this show many years ago, we talked with some enthusiasm about a gorilla at London Zoo. Kombucha? That managed to get into a... Yeah, he got into a... You try it. Oh, such instant recall.

Kombucha, yeah. He didn't escape. It's suggested escape. He got into an adjoining room to his cell and drank five litres of undiluted Ribena. Well, it was blackcurrant squash, which makes me think it was snide Ribena. Yeah. Like he had Costco Ribena.

They're not going to give the old grillies. They're not going to get proper Ribena, are they? It'd be my mum's Ribena. It'd be good enough for them. I think it was for human consumption, wasn't it? Wasn't he in the cafe a bit? Oh, I thought he'd managed to get into his own store. Oh, I see.

The supplies. I'd be very surprised if they give them blackcurrant cordial. Well, he had five leases, though. To be fair, it's administered out of a power hose. It'd make his fur very sticky. Can you imagine, what's his name, Al? Kombucha? Kombucha.

Kombucha. I think so. Kombucha. Should we say kombucha? Yeah, let's call it the whole thing. Can you imagine the state of that fur? The matted arms and, oh, be like Richard Keyes. You're a saline that he spilt any of it.

He might have knocked it. I imagine he took them a bit like eating lockets, that they were in individual cartons, and he just swallowed them wholesale he got really strong out what happened he got very strong out and I think he got a bit silly he got aggressive

and over excited well he had a sugar rush it took three keepers an hour to get him off the ceiling. We were talking about the Ribena, Gosling, Simeon, Kambucha in the last link. What was moving towards this was a story in in the papers um recently about a bunch of elephants uh yes got really drunk 14 of them frank they well there was a picture of two of them like properly flat out on the floor? Do they even...

Is that... Do they sleep... When they sleep, elephants, I can't remember ever seeing an elephant sort of lying on the floor before. Are they like horses in that they sleep standing up? Or do they? Well, oh, you see, this is when we need our readers.

But you know what? I'm not going to Google, and I'd love our readers to tell us, please, in time for next week. Do they lie can you can you picture in your mind apart from these two drunks can you picture an elephant lying down yeah i don't want you to go into my personal life thank you but um in fact i think i'll have seen just about everything when I see an elephant lie. No, I don't think they do. I think they sleep standing up. I suspect you're right.

What, they close the eye? Like the giraffe, I imagine, does similarly. Does it? The giraffe. Do you remember Geoffrey the giraffe? Was he on Rainbow? Geoffrey the giraffe. Oh, no, was he a London Zoo favourite? He fell. He fell to his knees.

Oh God. Couldn't get him back up again. And the process, I think, of trying to raise Geoffrey, I think was too much for his delicate constitution. And he passed. Oh. Absolute radio where real wildlife matters.

So yeah I think anyways but these ones were properly flat out on the floor completely drunk. Smashed water. The main problem is that elephants if when they get drunk they can still remember everything.

Very good. Oh yeah. Oh lovely Frank. Lovely. elephants um if when they get drunk they can still remember everything very good oh yeah oh lovely frank lovely or do you think that's why they're terrible friends to have isn't it you don't want these people spies imagine if they're the gorillas won't have them i mean can you imagine you should have seen the state you were in last night kombucha oh my god what are you up to do you think it's the other way around you think actually all elephants have just got such good memories that they're drinking to forget? They're just attempting to smash up those grey cells. Well, I don't understand why they drank.

It was corn wine, wasn't it? Yes, they drank 30 litres of corn wine and they passed out in the tea plantation. But I believe they were taking advantage of the fact that it's, you know, the workers on the farm were currently self-isolating. So it was unmanned. Oh, is that what it is? Or unpersoned.

But when you say taking advantage, are you suggesting that there are some people who actually drink alcohol for the taste? I mean, do they? Yes, because they drink it. They couldn't have known that it got I mean, do they? Yes, because they drink it. They couldn't have known that it got them drunk, could they? Well, I believe elephants have form on the alcohol front. They eat golden berries, I believe, until they get drunk. Yeah, I still can't work out whether the elephants knew

this stuff would make them drunk. So what do elephants know? You can tell us on Twitter, Instagram and email. Frank Skinner on Absolute Radio. So here's a question which you may or may not know the answer to. Is there such a thing, you know when people talk about zebras or mules and they say, yeah, they're part of the horse family or tigers and ocelots.

You know, they'll say they're one of the cats. Is there such a thing as the elephant family? Are there other animals who are part of that? Lovely question. Are they just mammals then? But I know what you mean. What is their subdivision? Cats and dogs and horses are mammals.

Yes, what is their subdivision? Do you think there's a whole load missing in the middle? We've only got elephant and mouse at far ends of the spectrum. That's why they're frightened of each other. Yeah, exactly. They can't cope with that big an eddy. Nobody likes a jump cot. Exactly.

Can you think of anything else in that family? Hippo. Hippo. Surely a hippo is some sort of relative of an elephant. No. No, any of them. I almost think. Really?

Tapir. What about the tapir? Oh, you're good on your animals. Well, I had a tapir. There used to be collector's cards in tea, packets of tea when I was a kid, Brook Bond tea. And there was something like Animals of the World and I had a tap here in that and I remember I had no,

I'd never heard of it before. Strained, got a nose like a bottle opener. Yes. As I think David Attenborough once said. I'd like to know where they get this reputation for memory, the elephants. How is anyone testing that?

I know it's Yeah, I wouldn't want to put a lot of money on it. Also, is that entirely accurate? Because one thing they apparently do is they leave a mark. They leave their scent, the elephants. They certainly do. When they found alcohol.

This is where me and the elephants overlap. When they found alcohol, so they know to return to it, they will leave scent there. It is very similar to men. Did they leave a pair of trainers hanging on the telegraph wall? Is that them? When I was a kid, people used to say, if you got drunk, you saw pink elephants.

Are you aware of that? Yes, I am, yeah. No, I've never heard of that. Yeah, it was... I actually saw spiders crawling on the ceiling, which was less colourful and more terrifying. Oh, dear. Yeah, I don't think it was. I actually saw spiders crawling on the ceiling, which was less colourful and more terrifying. Oh, dear. Yeah, I don't think you were supposed to go.

You weren't supposed to go and do that sort of close research. Yeah, and also people used to say, oh, he got a bit elephants last night. You know that elephant's trunk is rhyming slang drunk. Oh, is that right? It's all been brought together in this story like a fabulous cluster. Fair play to the Cockneys.

I love rhyming slang. The thing is, the elephants, they do have the metabolisms to cope with it, I find. A bit like sort of people in theatre in the 70s. They've just developed, you know, they've evolved to cope. Also, I didn't know there was such a thing as corn wine. You could get rice wine as well. It makes me think the great manufacturers have been leading us up the garden

after their exclusive powers. You can make wine out of anything. Good point. Anyway, on that note, I'm sure there'll be a lot of home brewing going on during the current crisis not a frank so can we say that must be a boom industry okay

so there you have it Sarah Champion is up next so listen to her I'm sure she's got a lovely linen basket she'll be hunched over and you know what if the good Lord spares us and the creeks don't rise,

we will be back again this time next week. Now stop in. This is Frank Skinner. This is Absolute Radio.