The Unmade Podcast - 4: An Awkward Hot Chocolate

Episode Date: October 6, 2017

Today's ideas include sports commentary with a difference, dad boot camp, constrained podcasting, the ultimate podcast for Wing Nuts, and disagreeing on the quality of movies. Try AUDIBLE and get a free book with your 30-day trial - go to https://www.audible.com/unmade Support us on Patreon - like Andres does -https://www.patreon.com/unmadeFM Join the discussion on our subreddit - https://redd.it/74nstb Check us out on iTunes and elsewhere... Details here: https://www.unmade.fm/how-to-listen/

All right, let's stop being pissed off now and be funny. All right. We'll be pissed off again later on. Yeah. Well, I do have an idea. I should hope so. Otherwise, this is going to be the shortest podcast of all time. It is.

I have two ideas, as is our custom. Yes. However, I feel like mine requires some warming up. So did you want to go to the traditional flip the coin or do you want to just lead off with yours? Are you confident enough in your idea? Well, I'm willing to lead off, but that doesn't mean I'm confident. Okay.

So my first idea is I think this is the first time that I've suggested a podcast that's like fictional, you know, acting and pretending. Now, I'm not usually a fan of like radio drama. I don't even listen to podcast drama, but there are a few radio dramas in the UK, things like The Archers. And I always think acting on radio is kind of lame. Do you have any thoughts about like dramatized radio, like radio plays? I know they, I mean, they have a longer tradition, obviously, than soap operas on television, I think.

But I've never gotten into one myself. I've never listened to one. I can't think of one that was dominant amongst my family or friends, no. They rarely work, in my opinion. That said, I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest one just because I think it could be fun. And it's kind of not really scripted or acting, which is what I think brings a lot of them down. and it's kind of not really scripted or acting which is what I

think brings a lot of them down this one is kind of improvised and basically what it is it's based on my love of sport and what what my idea is it's a fictional commentary and discussion of a fictional sport and like for some reason I've got to give the sport a name and I've the first name that came into my head and I cannot get it out of my head so this is what it has to be called for now the sport is called tommy ball tommy ball tommy ball and it's this and it's the sport that the two commentators say you and i for example are really are really really into and you can tune in every week and you can hear us commentate the game but you and i have never discussed what this game is so it could be completely different in our head we've never discussed the rules we don't know the

rules we don't know the names of anything like we're just making it up as we go so it's in a it's sort of created in our head what the sport is everyone listening could have a different idea of what the sport is and we never describe it in enough detail for you to really understand it's kind of almost like assumed that the commentators and the people listening are massive tommy ball fans so we don't have to explain all the nomenclature and like when you listen to cricket commentary they don't explain the rules of cricket to you all the time and explain what the ball and the bat and the stumps are this would be the same we just talk about everything in tommy ball like everyone already knows and we we reminisce about the history and the great players

and the in-jokes and the strategies. And you can just tune in and find out what's going on. So is Tommyball the situation for the sitcom, if you like? Because it's a drama, is that right? No, no, no. It's not a drama. There's no scripts. It's not a drama.

There's no sitcom. It's just two guys pretending to be to be watching the game okay so so to be like hey everyone welcome welcome back here to marion park where we're watching it's the actually it's the semi-final of this year's tommy ball championship and we've got we've got the traalgan legends versus the glengarry warriors and well this one's going to be huge tim i i've never looked forward to a game of Tommyball like I have this one. What do you think is going to happen? I'm excited.

I'm excited. Yeah, and you could say, oh, I don't know. I mean, I think a lot of it's going to come down to who double ducks the... Double ducks, that's right. There's been quite a few double ducks this season. More than most. But I put that down to the condition of the do-whackers. That's right.

So clarify for me. So I like where this idea is going. Are we talking about... So the focus of it is the game, but the game is never explained. The game's never explained. We talk as if we are two commentators and people are listening to us commentate on the radio or we're two sort of people in the outer listening. No, no, no.

We're like the official radio commentators. Right, yep. But Tommy Bowl is a sufficiently slow game, like cricket or baseball, that we can just chat and meander. And it's not like listening to a game of football where you have to say, and Jones passes to Smith and Smith passes to...

It's more like cricket where you can just say, and what a lovely day it is today, Tim. What do you think? Oh, it's beautiful. Beautiful Tommy Ball conditions. Because you don't want it to be too sunny, obviously, in a game. For obvious reasons, you can't... Obvious reasons.

Actually, it could be that you can't even play Tommy Ball when it's too sunny because that would melt the chocolate batons or something. when it's too sunny because that would melt the chocolate batons or something. We remember the 1986 summer when we lost half the season because of the heat. Because of the beautiful conditions. Yeah, you can't actually go out on the Tommyball field until it's raining. I mean, the more advanced Tommyball stadiums have sprinklers built in so that you can play even when it's not raining. I mean, the more advanced Tommyball stadiums have like sprinklers built in so that you can play even when it's not raining. But like, you know, kids have to actually wait till it's raining before they can go out. So the point is, so I like where this is going. I like it because

it would be interesting because you're forever guessing the nature of the game and an idea would be forming in your head. Do you have to be consistent? In other words, you know what I mean? Like, can you be inconsistent? So next week you're kicking, there's kicking the game of tommy ball whereas last week there wasn't i will i will come to that because i have some thoughts about that i think in some ways you do but you could always just be adding new rules and the game could just be like so every week it could be i didn't know that tommy ball players wore helmets you've never mentioned that until now i think it's important that like the two commentators like have i mean obviously this lives or die dies by how well it's done by the commentators but i think they should have like

maybe the commentators could not like each other or they could have fundamental differences about tommy ball like one of them thinks it's really important that there's a rule change or they could be really parochial there could be like in jokes there could be like legends of the game that they bring up all the time or one of them brings up all the time. Like I could be a massive fan of Fred Dickerson, who I think was the greatest Tommy Ball player of all time, and you're forever just like getting mad at me for bringing up Fred Dickerson because you don't think he was that good.

That's right. Or you like give me a hard time because you bring up that, you know, Fred Dickerson obviously had that famous six- month ban for performance enhancing orange juice or something. There is a bit of a cloud over Dickerson's past that's never been fully explained. And there could be like catchphrases and things like that. Everyone knows you can't double duck a well-worn snook jumper and things like that. Like there could be like cliches. Never a truer word was spoken like that. Like, there could be, like, cliches. Never a truer word was spoken than that.

This would be, I mean, I can see why this idea already is, it's appealing for the people creating a podcast. I would find this a lot of fun. Yeah. And I think you would too, obviously. I think the Tommyball fans would like it too. Well, Tommyball fans are delighted because it would be the first podcast about Tommyball.

And how long have they waited for a dedicated Tommy Ball podcast? Exactly. But I think the game should be slow enough that there is just general chats. And sometimes you could meander, like sometimes cricket commentators meander off the topic of cricket a little bit. So you could sometimes meander off the topic of Tommy Ball into this sort of fictional world that you're spinning. Let's imagine for a second this thing was successful, is a which is a pretty big thing to imagine right but if it was you can imagine like listeners to the podcast would like start creating like their own like wiki or knowledge of things that have been said about tommy bowl so we know for a fact the top that tommy bowl

involves an oval shaped red bowl because that's been mentioned. And we know that Tommy Bowl was played in 1953 because they mentioned something that happened in 1953. And gradually there would be like this sort of this wealth of information that starts to grow about the sport. That is when you start getting caught out in, you know, because you might say, oh, I'll never forget in 1953, Traeragun won the grand final. And then I might like months later talk about another team winning the 1953 final. So then I might, like, months later talk about another team

winning the 1953 final. So, people will start finding, like, contradictions. That's right. I'll start, yeah, fact-checking and designing a game that could fit within the criteria. Yeah. Like, back in 1953, there was, like, a breakaway league or something. So, there were two grand finals or something like that. So... That's true. Yeah, that's true. That's true. This is a fun idea, actually, to think about. I like it a lot. You would find increasingly more and more on the backstories of the two commentators, because they would forever be revealing slightly more about themselves and their lives and their own history.

One of them could be like an ex-player. There could be a whole culture around Tommyball, too, that you keep alluding to, like Tommyball collector cards or people who collect Tommyball memorabilia. They could be of a similar vintage, or one could be a much junior hotshot joint, the commentary team guy, and the other one's the veteran who's feeling threatened. You know what I mean?

That tension could be played out and talking about the new game and the old game. One of them's back in my day, Tommyball was pure, and now it's like the game's been ruined by all these modern developments and things like that. In the open era. That's right. Yeah yeah that's true and whether the statistics of in the olden days compared to the statistics and then you know you know like yeah i know like obviously like fred dickerson's record for most kicks in a game has been eclipsed but it was

different in his day because you you had to play in bare feet or something like you know it could there also could be another mystery around you know one state you could casually drop you know of course just one of the reasons why tommy ball can't be shown on television and so we're actually people's only window into the game because yeah for some reason that's never explained it can't be shown on television yeah because of something that happened in 1978 that you aren't even allowed to talk about. That's right, that's right. Since the Voldemort sort of match.

And all recordings of Tommyball were burned and destroyed, so there exists no photo or video of Tommyball anywhere in the world. Do you know, the premise, the backstory, this wouldn't be in the podcast, but the premise behind the podcast could be along the lines of the fact, it could be a conspiracy. In other words, for instance,

perhaps a game is forbidden from being played, but some parts of the country are so entertained that the government wants it to continue. And so these two fellows have been hired to commentate on a match that's not actually happening, just pretending a sport. Do you know what I mean? To keep the masses entertained.

So people have fallen in love with the game they've never seen. It isn't actually happening. I mean, that could be like a fan conspiracy theory. I also thought as the podcast became more successful, you could have guest commentators or you could employ people like actors or just your friends who are funny to be like players and coaches

and you could do interviews and stuff like that. But it's still all improvised. So you get them in for like a live interview and you start asking them all these incredibly detailed, complicated questions about Tommy Ball and they've just got to come up with an answer on the spot. But the other thing they could do is they could drop drop us in it because they could suddenly say yeah i mean obviously i was playing in the fullback position and as you know the fullback is allowed to drive a car on the pitch and like suddenly suddenly there's a

whole aspect to the game that's like oh my god there are people driving cars in the sport like Like, oh, my God, there are people driving cars in the sport? How does this work? Yeah. It's ridiculousness works if you keep it somewhat coherent as well. You know what I mean? It'd be funny just to see people develop a genuine passion and interest in the game. Yeah.

But the best thing is everyone listening will have a different picture in their head of the sport, and both the people doing the podcast have a different idea in their heads about the sport. Like, you people doing the podcast have a different idea in their heads about the sport. Like you and I would never have spoken about it and like off air would never speak about it. What Tommy Ball is in your head could be completely different to my head. And it would be so much fun to see that kind of get

shaped by each other over the course of a few months. What's it called? Tommy Ball. Just Tommy Ball? Yeah. Not behind the Tommy Ball or talking Tommyball or the Tommyball show? I think we'd be taking the lead enough here on the Tommyball front for us to claim the name Tommyball. I mean, it could be called talking Tommyball or, yeah, Tommyball match of the day or something.

But, yeah, I don't know. I just call it Tommyball. I like it. I like it a lot. I think it's a lot of fun. In fact, you know you've got a good idea, and we've not had many, but every now and then you get the feeling, I want to stop this podcast and do that one.

Well, I have been thinking, and we will come to this later, but if we do continue doing this podcast, I think the logical next episode would be kind of having, making one of the ideas we've had, like, you know, having a vote or deciding amongst ourselves about which one we should actually make a one-off episode of just to see what it's actually like. But maybe Tommyball would be the one.

Who knows? Who knows? Perhaps it could be. It would probably be the most challenging and it could be the most fun, I think. You wait till you hear my next idea. Oh, dear. It's challenging with a capital c have we finished talking about tommy ball as they used to say in the 80s have you ever finished

talking about tommy ball okay everyone it's time for a sponsorship message and i'm going to tell you all a little bit of a secret and that is that tim was really really excited when i told him about this weren't you i am i was i am very excited this I told him about this, weren't you? I am. I was. I am very excited. This is because today's episode has been brought to you by Audible, the people with an unmatched selection of audiobooks that you can choose from. And I don't know, Tim, but when I said we're doing an Audible sponsorship, explain why you were so excited. Well, I've heard them so much.

I've heard the ads for them so much i've heard the ads for them so much they are the market leader in this stuff and so it's so familiar and um so i just thought oh wow it's like oh this is a real podcast now i was very excited i like i like to think of it being a little bit like uh jerry mcguire and the footballer rod tidwell and his wife where it's like you know he only wants to do the sponsorship deals with the four jewels, a shoe company, a car company, a clothing line, or a soft drink. Audible is one of the four jewels of podcasting sponsors. Well, they are. They are way out there. In fact, they are both the Windows and the Apple of their market leader.

They're everything. Well, I can't name another company. Audible is it. Well, that's good because if you started naming another company, we'd probably get in trouble. It felt very excited, like, oh, wow, this is someone I've heard of and it's very exciting. They could use that as their sponsorship tagline,

someone Tim's heard of. That's right. That's right. Well, if I've heard of it, then they've made a mark. Just let me tell people that if they go to audible.com slash unmade, unmade, all as one word, they can go for the 30-day trial on Audible. You don't pay anything. You get your first audio book for free.

And one of the things they've been pretty keen to let you all know about is that a very good time to listen to audiobooks, and I 100% agree with this, is when you are stuck in traffic. Yes. Being stuck in traffic no longer should be something you loathe because if you've got an audiobook, it's something you can look forward to. You can download your favourite bestseller, mystery, thriller, and it will transform

your commute into something to a thing of pleasure i can't tell you how many people i know do this now they're working through books they're listening to books they're listening to books that they've never listened they've always wanted to get to and they do it while they drive i have to say though i'm on board with them like you know wanting to promote audiobooks or something to listen to when you're stuck in traffic but surely surely Adelaide, where you are, is the one person where this is not really such an issue. You do need shorter chapters in Adelaide because it's a small town. It's pretty easy to get her in Adelaide. You don't get a whole lot of traffic jams. No, but you do contextualize. I lived in Melbourne for many, many years and you know so there's a 45 minute

maybe an hour commute sometimes um in adelaide honestly it's 10 minutes to work it's 15 minutes if i get stuck in traffic and go get a coffee but for some reason you're still frustrated by those few minutes and so i've got to find something got to find something it's funny how you look for something from the coffee shop to work which is the last sort of two minutes of the journey. It's sort of like, oh, put something on to listen to. Well, maybe like, you know, as Audible continues to rise in popularity, the people of Adelaide will start manufacturing traffic jams just so they can listen to more audiobooks. Wow. That would be a strategic marketing opportunity. It would be. It would be. be a strategic marketing opportunity. It would be. It would be. Meanwhile, people like me living in the UK can enjoy the authentic experience of listening to Audible while in real traffic jams.

But here's the bit we've been waiting for. And this is the bit that Tim has been very excited about because anyone who has heard one of these sponsorships done before knows that we are encouraged to give a recommendation, something people may wish to download as their free audiobook. And I have given this awesome responsibility to Tim. I know you've been researching it and agonizing over it for days. I don't know what you're going to recommend. Hit me. Look, one of the cool things about Audible is not just do you get the books that you want to read or want to listen to being narrated to you, but when an author sadly passes away, you've actually got their voice captured and it becomes somewhat more precious. So

I'm pretty excited about this, but I'm going to recommend David Foster Wallace. Now, have you heard of David Foster Wallace? I'm going to say no. Okay. Is that embarrassing? No. Well, perhaps not. Look, he's an author, and he was one of these gun authors, you know,

that manages to get himself talked about in Newsweek and Time magazine and different magazines for a book called Infinite Jest that came out quite a while ago now, and it was seen as the greatest, you know, sort of postmodern novel of the end of the 20th century. But he wrote a whole bunch of other books as well. In fact, he wrote a lot of essays for a whole range of those sorts of publications. And they've been compiled together. And it's all there on Audible.

I'm in the middle of Infinite Jest, which is a long book. It's a UK traffic jam book, not an Adelaide traffic jam book. It's a really fascinating book, but also David Foster Wallace, he's sort of got a wider spread. He sadly died a few years ago in 2008 or 2009. Gosh, man, are you reading one of his essays right now? Look, I'm recommending David Foster Wallace, and his work is on Audible, but several of them are... Consider The Lobster, which is a particular book with a bunch of his essays, which are very funny

and very witty and unbelievably well written, is read by him. And I'm just saying that's a pretty cool thing. The introduction to the new version of Infinite Jest is written by Dave Eggers. Why are you laughing? Just like telling us our life story. Consider the lobster. David Foster Wallace.

That's Tim's recommendation. Infinite Jest is written, is said to be one of those books that, you know, everyone owns but no one gets to read. And it was that for a long time for me and now I'm into it. But you can listen to it on Audible as well. And I think that's a benefit. You can work your way into what is a dense and amazing book. All right.

There you go. There you have our first and quite possibly last ever ad for Audible if you would like to go to the 30 day trial and have a little listen or you can download another one for free go to audible.com

slash unmade and if you use that slash unmade they'll know that you came from here after Tim's recommendation. And quite frankly, I think they will be amazed. But there you go. We're very grateful for their support. Absolutely.

And if you like essays, you like essays, apparently this guy's pretty good. Okay, so moving on to my idea. And this idea is not as funny, but it's potentially, I think, more sensible. And it probably has more, well, it may have more immediate legs. The name of the podcast is Dad Boot Camp. And it's a podcast that's designed to give the brutal truth about having kids. Now, I've undecided as to whether this is for people who are having kids and right in the middle of it, or for people who have had kids and are looking back on it, or people who have not had kids and find it intriguing because they're thinking about

it or expecting it or whatnot. But it's an idea that I've floated with a friend of mine, and we've laughed and talked about how it is because of the revelations that occur when you have kids. Now, I have a couple of kids, and you don't have some kids, so perhaps you can give some perspective on the interest, if at all, to this, because I know it's not something I would have had probably any interest in right up until the moment I had kids. It's conversation upon conversation upon conversation on the surprising and unique aspects of the demands of becoming a father. It initially came to me the idea of listening to Louis C.K. Now, Louis C.K. is one of the biggest comedians in the world, and I find absolutely hilarious. This is a common theme of his, talking about his kids and joking and the very black humor around it. And there is a black humor aspect to the podcast.

But he talks about, he has a story where he talks about that you're going to go on holiday. You've got the family, you've got the young kids, you're going to go on holiday on vacation. And so you spend days packing and cleaning and packing and cleaning. And then finally the night before when you spend packing and cleaning, you're arguing and where's the bags and all that sort of stuff. And then the next morning you get up early and then you're delayed and then you pack the car, then you're delayed again. And then something happens and someone goes to the toilet and he sort of paints the picture and finally the kids are in the car the luggage is in the car everything's in the car your wife's in the car you close the door and then you walk around the back of the car to your side of the car and he goes you know what

that's my vacation right there those views he goes all year i look forward to those four seconds when I quietly stroll around to my side of the car and then it's over for another year and we're off on vacation. Was this whole thing just an excuse for you to steal some Louis C.K. material, man? That's right. So that part is from Louis C.K. But the rest of it is the podcast is not designed to be a humorous podcast, although there's always something funny about, oh, yes, that's exactly right, that happened to me. But I actually think it could be basically a whole range of things that you just don't know and that books even don't talk about

and that other couples don't talk about or people who are having children don't talk about. And so Dad Boot Camp, and I'll give you an example of this and tell me if you think this is a interesting or be helpful is this going to be yours this time or is this another one stolen from louis ck no this is from jerry seinfeld no no no no this is from uh this no this is this is from me this is some original tim material original tim material from our life situation yeah night terrors yeah before you have kids you have no idea that something exists called no i had no idea night terrors yeah before you have kids you have no idea that something exists called not

well i had no idea night terrors and what they are and what they mean and night terrors are essentially a phenomena where in the middle of the night your kid wakes up and when they're about two or or three or so or a bit older and they just scream the house down like they're possessed by the devil and they scream and they run around and they don't notice that you're there. They're doing it in their sleep and you can't calm them down and there's nothing. And you think it's the end of the world, that something is absolutely wrong with your kid

and you've probably caused it and something's happened. Do all kids do this? All kids don't do this. Maybe your kids just are possessed by the devil. It happens all the time. It happens all the time. Did that happen to us when we were kids? I don't remember do this. Maybe your kids just are possessed by the devil. It happens all the time. It happens all the time. Did that happen to us when we were kids? I don't remember doing this. Is it because I was too young? Well, you don't remember it because it was happening to you and you were asleep when it was happening. Okay. It doesn't happen to every kid, but it happens to many,

many, many kids. My parents never mentioned it to me. They never said, oh, I'll never forget when you used to have night terrors, Brady. Well, I wouldn't have mentioned it either, they never said oh i'll never forget when you used to have night terrors brady well i wouldn't have mentioned it either but i'm doing a podcast podcast it's a secret you keep from future parents except except on dad boot camp and what you realize after you finally get some professional advice is that this happens to kids you can't calm them down because i can't hear you they're essentially asleep even though their eyes are wide open and looking at you and that you just essentially kind of distract them, make sure they don't bump into everything. And then slowly they wake up and they go back to sleep and it just happens. So the podcast is an exploration of those things and the facets of them. It's not going to be terribly interesting

if it's one person just explaining them one after another. It could be two people talking and one of them could be a person asking questions who's about to have a kid and the other person answering them. Or it could be a variety of people sharing things. Or it could be an expert who's answering and explaining stuff. So that's my podcast idea, Dad Bootcamp. Well, my first reaction is I feel like the fact that you haven't let me get a word in edgeways for the last 15 minutes shows that this is a podcast you really should make because you obviously have a lot on your mind there's a lot on your chest here that you want to say and i think you need to let that stuff out man let it out i was thinking you didn't have a response and i was just i was i was i was

over explaining okay the second thing that i think might pop into some people's minds, they might think this sounds like it's very aimed at males. I don't think that. And I think women would enjoy listening to this as well. So I think that's okay too. Because you don't want to eliminate half the world's population from a podcast you're making. But I don't think that's a problem.

I do think this is not particularly original. I mean, you mentioned yourself. It's a tried and tested subject of comedy already. Most comedians with kids talk about their kids. Louis C.K. is very good at it. You say it's not covered much with books and stuff. I would argue it is covered a lot in books, and there's not a lot of original stuff to say.

I would also say that I don't know, but I imagine there are a lot of podcasts about it. But that doesn't matter if the two people doing it are good or maybe have some original spin on it. I mean, doing it with someone like me who doesn't have kids probably would be a good idea because it would be a good foil. perhaps the person who thinks well you're an idiot for having kids in the first place or who has no sympathy for the situation because they have more carefree lifestyle and they're like well that doesn't bother me i would just go back to sleep or you know things like that so that that could possibly be the good foil the person who's just like thinks he's living the life of riley whereas you know deep down you think having kids is amazing and although you're telling

these stories you know you're also telling nice stories as well. So I don't know if it's a unique selling point, but at least an unusual selling point would be doing it with someone who is very unsympathetic, very unknowledgeable about things. So has no idea like, oh, I didn't know that was a thing. Oh, what you mean? You've got to actually feed your kids three times a day and stuff like that. So I wouldn't like listening to just two dads talking about being dads because I think that can be quite smug and self... I think dads can be quite smug and self-righteous

and think they're pretty awesome. But if one of the characters isn't a dad, that could be quite funny because, you know, I am interested in fatherhood and having kids, but I'm also interested in people who don't. So the tone of it could be someone who is getting away from the smugness. It could be someone who feels like they're failing. You what i mean like oh my goodness so it could be that tone of louis ck approaches it from the you know i can't believe how crazy they are and i'm i'm i think even comedians though and dads when they when they talk like that it's like a form of humble bragging they're kind of

they're kind of like oh being a dad so hard i'm so bad at it. This is terrible. No one ever told me, you know. But they're kind of bragging at the same time and sort of saying, but I am a dad and I love my kids and I look after them. Like, I think people saying being a parent is hard and I'm bad at it, that is a major form of humble bragging. Yeah, yeah. Bill Burr is a good foil for that as well, just to name another comedian. Of, you know, it's the hardest job in the world he goes really

do you get black lung disease being a mum do you yeah and like lots of idiots do it it's got to remove itself from the phenomena of isn't it amazing being a parent to somehow being able to focus it needs to somehow be able to get past that and having a foil let's yeah someone like that yeah who calls you on it all the time and it needs to be someone who is genuinely interested so what what happens in this situation and do you do that and you know and someone like me who doesn't have kids maybe would be well placed to do that because the same reason that me interviewing scientists in my day job works quite well because i'm not a scientist but i'm interested so i ask i ask questions scientists

might not expect maybe someone without kids would ask you as a parent questions you weren't expecting and like oh right yeah what a weird question to ask i guess only someone without kids would ask that and i need to think about that in a new light i feel like i need to qualify that night terrors don't happen to everyone and you should look up the information yourself yeah people will be like oh my goodness my kid's not having night terrors. Something must be wrong with them. People should consult a doctor in every situation and look it up and research themselves. Did you have night terrors?

Like, have you asked your mum, mum, did I have these night terrors when I was little? I must have asked her in the midst of when we were dealing with it at the time, several years ago, and I don't remember what her answer is, but I think was probably no otherwise i might have remembered it so yeah so they may be reasonably rare when i when i say you know reasonably rare maybe you know one in 20 kids or one in 10 kids or something like you're just making numbers up now aren't you i'm absolutely making those figures up all i know is because you live anecdotally you feel like you're the only one then you meet someone else that it happened to and suddenly like it's like, oh, thank goodness. It happens to everyone because you found one other person

that it happens to. And so it sort of validates your experience somewhat. Anyway, so that's my idea. It's not going to not work in the sense that it's obviously that that might be because it lacks originality. Yeah, I mean, well done and well promoted and well marketed, or if you got lucky. It's a bit of a banker because so many people have kids

and I can imagine it being a successful podcast. I don't think it's the most original idea you've had so far. I think Baldwin was perhaps a more original idea, but I do think it is a solid idea. And the first half of this podcast is supposed to be about your more normal ideas so i cannot criticize you for that this next idea is a perfect example of what i'm finding is happening to me all the time when i think about ideas for podcasts for this show and that is i start off with something which i think

is ridiculous and a joke and then over the course of a days, as I sort of play with it in my head and adapt it and it morphs, suddenly it becomes something which I think is awesome and has to be done. And that's kind of what's happened here. I started off with something that is truly ridiculous. And then when I thought about how would you modify this to actually make it realistic? And then when I thought about how would you modify this to actually make it realistic? Not only have I come up with what I think is a half decent idea for a podcast, I've come up with a whole new podcasting genre. Wow.

Yeah. So I'm not just going to give you an idea here for a podcast. I'm going to give you an idea for a whole new genre of podcasts. Okay. So this isn't the idea. This is what the original idea was that led to the actual idea. The original idea was going to be a podcast called Palindrome. Don't get me wrong. This would have required a little bit of advanced planning

because the idea was perhaps every episode was a palindrome. So the script, the words, forwards was the same as backwards. Now, I know that's not an easy thing to do. Are you talking about the entire podcast? Yes. Right. Or you could do it, you could break it down by sentences if you wanted, or it could even be the entire podcast series.

So, like, the first word of episode one is the same word as the final word of episode 10. Wow. And the second word, so... It's not going to be an improvised podcast no no i don't i don't think many people could improvise that i also think it would be awesome if you never told anyone until the end like at the very end you just like put a post on twitter saying by the way if you enjoyed those 10 episodes here's something you may not have noticed about them they're exactly the same backwards are you yeah okay. Okay. Now, where does...

So, that's a fascinating if slightly geeky idea. Yeah. Where does it go? Well, let's move on because obviously I don't think you and I are sufficiently clever

to make this podcast. But this is where I had an idea for a whole new genre. And my genre is called constrained podcasting which is based on another thing, which is called constrained writing, which is a well-known literary technique. I mean,

poetry is a form of constrained writing. Some forms of poetry are, but there are more extreme versions of constrained writing. So I'll give you a few famous examples of constrained writing. And I think you'll very quickly see how you could make a podcast series where each episode was constrained in a different way. So perhaps one of the more famous examples is this 50,000 word novel that was written called Gadsby, which doesn't use the letter E. Can you imagine doing an episode of a podcast where you cannot use any words that contain the letter E. Wow. Can you imagine doing an episode of a podcast where you cannot use any words that contain the letter E and you have to kind of do it on the fly? So it is done on the fly.

Are they heavily scripted? Well, I don't know. In my head, they're not. But in my head, they're more of a game. So it's a bit like every time you make a mistake, the other person calls you out on it. Yeah. So I'd be like,

Hi, Tim, how you doing today? I'm trying to think of another one. Well. Yeah, yeah. And then you say, well, and I'm like, you're mucked up. But you could reply, brilliant. How are you doing? Good, thanks.

What will us talk about today today and like eventually people can make mistakes and you can you could ring a bell every time someone makes a mistake or i don't i don't know that's that's a very that's a very difficult one right not using the letter e but there are forms of constrained writing which maybe would be more doable or you could even have like just like 10 minute sections where you do it let me tell you about some other ones uh there was a 2004 french novel called the train from nowhere which was written entirely without verbs i don't know how hard that would be there's a there's a 2008 novel called let me tell you that uses only the words allotted to ophelia in hamlet wow so you could have like a restricted diet of words that you have to that you can use That would be quite hard to do on the fly.

I mean, famously, Green Eggs and Ham was written using only 50 different words as a result of a bet. I don't know how hard it would be to do a podcast episode using just 50 different words. Yeah, keep going. There's one called, a novel called Never Again, which no word is used more than once. So once a word's been used in the podcast, you couldn't use it again. There are lots of interesting examples. I won't go into all of them, but someone produced a version of Robinson Crusoe, but only using words of one syllable. This wouldn't be a good podcast, but there is a book called The Gates of Paradise where the whole text is just two sentences.

One of them is very, very long. There is a novel in which each paragraph comprises only a single sentence, but you could do a podcast where you're only allowed to say one sentence and then you have to stop and the next person talks. So, there'd be no big monologues. So, it's one sentence at a time. I like that idea. I wrote down some other ideas of my own here when I was thinking about it earlier. You could have a rule that you have to do a whole episode of the podcast with no questions in it. So, you can never say something.

You can never ask the other person something. So, they just have to keep talking. Or you could have an episode where every sentence has to be a question yes you could couldn't you do you think it would work so every you could do one where every sentence has to start with i so it's sound really egotistical so every sentence you say the whole podcast has to be i think you know i want to know what you think about so it would sound really like that you could do another one which would be really silly where every sentence has to start with once upon a time so so every so it could be like once upon a time there was there were no planes and people had to like go around on ships what do you say to that you could have another rule where like every 60 seconds at least like there's like there's

a clock every 60 seconds at least someone has to use the term i'm no expert but or or forgive me if i'm wrong but like you could have like a term that has to be used all the time and another thing i thought about this podcast idea is if you were doing like a different rule for each episode you could have a thing where you don't tell people what the rule is. And sometimes it would be really obvious, but other times the rule wouldn't immediately be obvious. And it would be, it would actually be a few minutes or maybe even longer into the podcast

until you figure out what the rule being used is. That's very good. So there's two things that come to mind first. Another idea could be that the entire dialogue needs to be um famous quotations back and forward and back and forward yeah or cliches cliches saying cliches oh actually that's quite fun yes that does touch on some other ideas we've talked about but yeah yeah it does yeah you wouldn't want to throw the baby out with the bath the question that comes to mind is this is is the focus of the podcast the restrained writing?

Constrained podcasting. Constrained podcasting. The reason these things work when they work is because they are the focus of, they're giving something in that form. In other words, you've got the novel Robinson Crusoe that's been presented in this way. It's not the novel restrained story in a particular style. story in a particular style so you need to decide what you're going what is going to be the topic of conversation that the form is going to be inflicted upon rather than just yeah yeah and sometimes you could make the topic of conversation lend itself to the constraint to make things a bit easier for example if you had an episode where you had to start every sentence with once upon a time which i don't think is the best idea but it is an idea the topic for that podcast could be something historical so you

have lots of excuses to say once upon a time and the one where you have to say i'm no expert but could be science or something some some topic where you are not going to be an expert yeah something related to it that makes it work in a way. But you've got to be thinking, are the people enjoying, they've got to be enjoying the topic of conversation as well as the form of appreciating the form of what's going on. That's not necessarily true. There is a radio game show in the UK that's quite popular that some British people might be thinking of, which is called Just a Minute. And the idea there is you do have to talk for a minute about a randomly chosen subject. And there are constraints. You're not allowed to pause to think. You're not allowed to repeat. You're not allowed to say the same unusual word twice. You can say the twice and things like that,

but you couldn't say, for example, banana twice. And if you pause or if you repeat, the clock stops and someone else takes over from where you were. And then the talking continues. And whoever is talking when the minute expires wins the round. To be honest, I'm not as interested in what they're talking about because it's just a minute about some item that's in the news. And it is funny to hear what they say, but it's more funny to see if they can do it

and the other contestants will start teasing them. It's almost the jokes in between when they get caught out that is funnier than the minute. So I could imagine on a constrained podcast where we say you can't use the letter E during the official talking time, whenever you fail, that would be the funny thing and you'd laugh at each other and you'd sometimes break out of character and talk about how hard it is with this constraint,

why this constraint is hard and what's easy about this one. It would become quite meta, the podcast. It wouldn't just be about the actual thing you're talking about would be less important than the meta funness of the two people trying to deal with the constraint. It certainly wouldn't be a good two-hour podcast. I'm thinking, you know, 20 minutes or something. Are you thinking constrained podcast or restrained? Constrained is the word.

Constrained. Constrained podcasting is the word. Constrained. Constrained podcasting is the genre. I don't know what the name of the show is. I would hope thousands of shows would start popping up all around the world in the constrained podcasting genre based on the success of ours. I think this could, I think you might be onto something. I think I can see this appealing to, we haven't nailed a particular podcast idea, but a podcast which talks about a whole variety of these would be, you know, could be the initial one. I can see this appealing to a range of people. I can see people finding it really fascinating and leaning in.

Sort of a lean in podcast. You know what I mean? Like, ah, there he goes. Or you're waiting for them to mistake or. If I'm honest, I think it is not a good idea for a podcast and it wouldn't work, but's a good one to talk about on this show i think it would take a lot of work but i think it could work and you could have an english professor who's there or a haiku expert or someone like that who was explaining yeah the way it worked i think it's fascinating it is fascinating and it may be fascinating you're right for 15 minutes it may not be fascinating week after week you could have a

twitter episode where each sentence you say to each other has to fit into 140 characters and things like that. I think, having heard this, these will pop up if they haven't already. I like the idea. I think there's probably websites that talk about these kinds of things, and if that exists, then surely a podcast that explores them and explains them. People would be interested in it,

even if they're not the nerds, aficionados of them. I'm the sort of person, I'd be interested in the explanations of them. Maybe that's the format for the podcast. For like 10 or 15 minutes, you talk about the constraint and famous examples of it and how it's done and why it's done. And then the last 10 minutes of the podcast,

you like have a crack at it yourself. Let's see if we can do it for the next 10 minutes to show how hard or easy it is to do on the fly. So there's just 10 minutes of the podcast you like have a crack at it yourself let's see if we can do it for the next 10 minutes to show how hard or easy it is to do on the fly so there's just 10 minutes of silence while you're jotting away on a notepad okay we're back we're back how'd you go or if you were like a really good actor which you and i aren't you could have that last 10 minutes pre-scripted but make it sound really spontaneous and people would think oh my god they're just doing that on the fly. Those guys are awesome.

But you'd actually spend three weeks preparing it. Yeah, yeah, indeed. All right. Now, you can support this podcast on Patreon. It's patreon.com slash unmadefm. And one of our supporters who we're going to talk about today is Andres.

Andres? Andres? Andres? Andres? He was supposed to tell me how to pronounce it. He didn't. He was born in Bogota in Colombia, but he's lived most of his life in America and he's currently in Salt Lake City. So he is who we're talking about today, our featured Patreon supporter. Are you excited, Tim? I am. I wonder if it's Andres. I had an uncle Andres in Holland, but Andre, Andres? I like your pronunciation. How do you say that? Andres. Andres. Andres. I don't know. Which I'm not even sure what it translates to in English. It could be Andre or it could be Andrew, but anyway.

I don't know. I mean, the Dutch one's probably different from the Colombian one as well, but who knows? Who knows? Who knows? But however you say it, we like him because he supports us on Patreon. And I sort of send out these messages to our Patreon supporters when they're randomly chosen so that I can talk about them here on the show. And this is what Andres told me about himself. He said, I am very spontaneous.

I will convince my friends to do a last-minute road trip and we will leave with just the clothes on our back. Back in December 2016, around 8pm, I convinced my two buddies just to go on a road trip to Colorado through a blizzard. So he sounds like my kind of guy. He's pretty adventurous. Would you ever do that, Tim? Like if I just said, come on, man, don't pack a bag,

just what you're wearing. We're going driving through a blizzard. Would you be do that, Tim? Like if I just said, come on, man, don't pack a bag, just what you're wearing. We're going driving through a blizzard. Would you be up for it? Well, the driving through a blizzard doesn't sound very inviting, but the hitting the road does. I remember years ago, I was on a date with a girl. This is a long time ago. And we went into this conversation. And she liked to think of herself as very spontaneous.

And this idea that if we just got on a plane tonight and flew somewhere, she'd be up for it. And so I said, all right, let's just go and catch a plane. And she wasn't up for it. You called her bluff. It's one of those, I won the argument, but didn't really get to a second date. It was one of those. No, I don't think so. Basically you humiliated her. I was right. And so, therefore, I lost. Anyway, not having a change of clothes thing would bother me a little bit. But, you know, I wouldn't want to get too smelly.

But I'd still do it because, you know, you could buy more clothes on the road. But here's the funny thing, right? When I send out these messages to people, I also say to them, have you got an idea for a podcast? If you've got an idea for a podcast, we'll talk about it on the show. And his reply to that was, not yet. I haven't got an idea. And I'm like, bamboozled by this because he has an idea. He just told me his great idea. What a great idea for a podcast, just like going on random road trips with your buddies unannounced and just like recording it along the way the way and having, like, a microphone with you and saying, all right, guys, jump in the car, we're recording this,

and we're going to Colorado and just, like, documenting the trip. What a great podcast idea. He wrote it there. He had the idea. He just didn't see it. There you go. This is the derivative of the great classic novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

These two guys hit the road and off they go um oh here we go again is this going to be like your audible ad oh no it's a book it's a classic book i never thought you you were always so much more bookish than me when we were young and you had so many books in your house and and now i mention a book and you you're talking about like it's a foreign object i'm not i'm not i'm not anti-book i'm anti you doing like boring descriptions of the books all right anyway it was nice to meet you andres from salt lake city born in bogota taker of adventurous road trips we've done a couple of long road trips haven't we we have we have that's true long drive to queensland in my little holden Marina. I think that's precisely 20 years ago,

you know. I think that was 1997. Go away. I think it was. Go away. Do you know why I think it was? Because I remember the Rolling Stone magazine I was reading in the car, which had Blur on the cover and talking about their Blur album, the self-titled, which came out in 1997 So I think it's definitely 1997 I knew it would somehow involve 90s pop culture It was in the 90s, come on So if you would like

To be discussed on the show And maybe have your ideas discussed You can go to patreon.com Slash unmadefm and become one of our generous supporters. But if you do support us, it doesn't mean like you have to be discussed. Like you're not going to be discussed against your will.

I like randomly send messages out and invite people to contribute. And if you don't contribute, like we're not just going to start talking about you. So, you know, if you value your anonymity, you know, your secret's safe with us yes we'll probably not pronounce it correctly anyway as so your anonymity will be safe nevertheless i'm sure andres is seriously regretting emailing at all now but but we

appreciate him and who knows maybe one day we will join him on one of these awesome road trips without a change of clothes my podcast idea is called the west wing weekly weekly now this i know exactly what you're doing a very very popular podcast is a podcast called the west wing weekly and it's it appeared 10 years obviously you're familiar with this and i'll explain it for those who aren't it appeared 10 years after the the conclusion of the west wing which was a very popular sort of eight series exploration you know drama series on television emmy award winning and fantastic tv show well brilliant it's what it was really one of those first ones that was sort of come out on dv people would binge watch. It's one of the early binge watch television shows. I caught the train to London yesterday

and I watched two episodes on the way and two episodes on the way back. I'm dipping back into it as we speak. There you go. It's just really fantastic television, high quality. And, of course, Aaron Sorkin, Academy Award winning script writer, created the series and wrote the first four seasons of it and so forth. Anyway. Cool.

So this podcast has come up called the West Wing Weekly and it has two hosts, one of which is Josh Molina, who is Will Bailey in the show. It's an episode-by-episode deconstruction and analysis of the West Wing. So the idea is you'll watch a TV episode and then you'll listen to the podcast episode afterwards and they'll talk about it in depth. But what I found recently is in conversation, listening to people talking about the, not the West Wing, but talking about the West Wing Weekly and how much they love it and how they don't miss an episode. I have an idea for a podcast which talks about the West Wing Weekly.

Each episode where you deconstruct that episode of the West Wing Weekly as it deconstructs that episode of the West Wing Weekly. Each episode where you deconstruct that episode of the West Wing Weekly as it deconstructs that episode of the West Wing. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. After I had this idea, I then thought of another idea which came up, which is years ago on another television show in the 90s called Mad About You. Some might remember it.

It had Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser. And Paul Reiser's a filmmaker, and his big break in making a film was to be able to create a film, which is the making of the making of Titanic. And so this idea, the making of Titanic, that's interesting. The making of the making of Titanic is getting a little bit desperate. This analysis every week would be an in-depth analysis of the hosts talking through and how they talk through and their particular personalities. I actually have not listened to the West Wing Weekly. It's something I keep meaning to do. I keep meaning to start the West Wing again from the start and go through the process. Have you

actually listened to the West Wing Weekly? Is it worthy of deconstruction? I have listened to it. I've listened to a couple of dozen episodes. Do you watch the TV episode first or do you just listen to them cold? I don't. But the reason I don't watch them as I go is, quite frankly, because I've seen them so many times. So I've watched the series through over the last, what is it, 15 years, probably through five or six times all the way through,

like you, I dip into it and then I just keep going with it because it's addictive and interesting and safe and it's a guaranteed enjoyable hour. And so I just know them. And so when they talk about them, I'm conversant enough with their episode to be able to enjoy their discussion of it. Is it a good podcast?

Is the podcast good? It is a good podcast. I mean, it's kind of nerdy. I mean, this is the Trekkies of the West Wing, or Wingnuts as they're called. You know, you've got to really be interested in the West Wing. But they are, and they take it seriously as an art form, and they take the script seriously.

They take the characters incredibly seriously as they talk about the backstories, and they analyse the lines of dialogue and the developing romantic relationships and political relationships. They also look at the issues behind it. So when they come to talk about the Supreme Court, they'll get someone in to talk about the Supreme Court or the intelligence services and the CIA and the FBI and history. And they also get the actors in as well to talk about it. And Aaron Sorkin himself has appeared a couple of times times and so that gives the whole thing a lot of credibility so let me ask you

two questions first who's your favorite west wing character my favorite west wing character um is probably josh okay who's your favorite west wing weekly character josh melina okay and who do you think would be your favourite character On West Wing Weekly Weekly? Well Whoever Whoever's called Josh That's right

Yeah it's What do you call those Chinese dolls? No Russian dolls aren't they? You open it up and there's a little one inside Matryoshka or something The nesting dolls They've got Matryoshka or something I've made a video about them

Which has their official name, and I can't remember. With that in mind, there's no need to stop with my podcast, of course. Someone may be likewise inspired to continue on. Yes. Without doubt. It's turtles all the way down. That's right.

Having listened to several episodes and found it compelling enough to jump to the next one because I've been on a long trip or something or looking forward to it when I'm going, zipping down somewhere in the car. You do find the rhythm there. They spend some time, you know, talking about, they give an overview of the story. And so they're in jokes about, you know, the host's inability to read out the synopsis of the episode. And they have merchandise, like they have t-shirts, not West Wing t-shirts, West Wing Weekly t-shirts for sale

on their website yeah so i think well if something's uh big enough to have merchandise it's big enough to have a podcast about it that's the threshold is that once you've got merchandise you can be podcasted about if someone's willing to pay money to wear a t-shirt from a podcast and i know who i'm talking to here while i'm saying this as well then it's worthy of having a podcast about that there's enough interest that people will listen to someone talking about the thing if they're willing to watch him to wear a t-shirt or a badge they have badges as well americans love those little badge those pins they wear i tell you what a good idea for a podcast is, Tim. A podcast about things that's about t-shirts,

like things that sell merchandise t-shirts. And like each week you talk about a different thing that you can't believe you can buy t-shirts for. That's true. Like this week, this week we've bought ourselves a West Wing Weekly t-shirt. So what is the West Wing Weekly? And what's on their t-shirt?

And why is it so popular? And who's listening? And then next week, it's like today we're talking about a Rubik's Cuba who sells T-shirts. Who is this Rubik's Cuba? What's on the T-shirt? Who's buying these? Like, anyway, sorry, I'm hijacking your idea.

T-shirts are a whole thing. They're like sneakers. There's academic essays written about T-shirts as a form of protest and a form of interest. And they are fascinating because people willingly advertise and put their interests on them, don't they i mean they're always the thing people want to buy like you know i've i've been involved in some merchandising across you know my various jobs and t-shirts is one people always is always one people are into like it seems to appeal to everyone and you know you can do something niche like you know sneakers or vinyl records and things but it's always t-shirts that everyone's like yeah i'll get a t-shirt or they'll contact you sometimes people will contact me about one

of my youtube channels and say can i get a t-shirt of this channel i think people have almost come to expect t-shirts it's the cliche isn't it i've been there done that got the t-shirt it's um yeah it's they're fascinating what do you think of my idea, the West Wing Weekly Weekly? I think it's silly and it would never happen and no one would listen to it. But it made me laugh when you said it. I think if you did one and you did a couple of episodes, it would get mentioned on the West Wing Weekly. True, true. Simply because they'd be flattered and they couldn't not mention it.

So you're banking on success by getting some free promotion from the originators. That's right. I think that will steal away a few people. And they may listen to it with novelty value, but then would be, I think that I would be embarrassed that I was listening to. I was a little embarrassed listening to the West Wing Weekly, I have to admit, because it felt trekkie. It felt nerdy like you remember that episode in the west wing where one of josh's staff turns up wearing a star trek top and josh says so talks to her and says look we can't you can't wear a star trek top at work she's like oh but

it's wonderful to be a trekkie and he says yeah but you know you're being obsessive and i think the west wing weekly is being a bit obsessive and i felt a bit awkward listening to it for the first time except that it became really quite enjoyable and a bit addictive um but i think this really takes it too far yes it would take it too far i mean almost i mean the way podcasts have become so popular sort of is preying on people's obsession and things they want to listen to like in more and more detail niche specialization so i mean most podcasts that i'm into myself are like for people who are like way too interested in the thing they're listening to so i think i think it's kind of excusable in podcasts and you shouldn't feel bad about that you know these these cult tv

shows do lend themselves obviously to podcasting whether or not the the podcast themselves lend themselves to i mean it's this isn't this idea isn't a million miles from your notorious groundhog day podcast idea obviously yeah i must make a commentary while we're discussing previous episodes as well is my baldwin idea that one thing that's occurred since that episode um we recorded that episode, of course, is that I've read Alec Baldwin's biography. Oh, God. So, which is one of those biographies

where you really kind of jump through the bits you're familiar with. Like, I really started reading around the time when I became familiar with Alec Baldwin, which basically is the hunt from Red October onwards. And then I just sort of journeyed through my enjoyment of Alec Baldwin's life. Not any of the... So basically I'm reading things.

I'm only looking for things that I already know about Alec Baldwin. So basically you read the biography about your personal relationship with Alec Baldwin. That's exactly right. It's basically... That's like... That reminds me of when I sometimes sit down to watch a film with like a friend or like, you know, my wife or someone, and we're going through all the different films we could watch. I'm, I'm heavily biased towards making sure we watch a film I've seen before, because I know it will be good, but she hasn't seen before. Cause I don't want her to see a

film she's already seen. So I'll be going through going, oh, we should watch that one. It's really good. Have you seen it? And she'll say no. And I'll say, yeah, well, let's watch that. But she'll be, have you seen it? And I'm like, yeah, but let's watch it again. Like, I always want to watch films I've already seen because I know they'll be good and I'm

familiar with them. But I don't want her to watch a film she's seen before. I'm exactly the same. I am exactly the same. And I've never heard anyone say that before. Can I ask you, is the reason because you don't want her to be... You don't want to be annoyed by sitting through something that she likes and you don't like?

Or are you worried about the evening not going well because we didn't watch something good? What's your rationale? I think my rationale is I want it to be a film I know is good, so I don't watch a rubbish film. And I want it to be a film, I want her to enjoy the film as well. And I think if we watch a film neither of us has seen before, there's too much risk involved, unless we've checked it's a good film.

And if we watch a film she's seen before and I haven't, I feel like she's kind of got the advantage over me because she knows what's happening and when you talk about the risk and i know what you mean by the risk the risk of oh is this going to be a bad night is it because you the pressure is on for you to curate the evening to be relaxing and to go well do you know what i mean like it's no i just don't like watching crap films but you don't but but that means you would never see a film. Under what circumstances do you see new films?

If I think it's going to be good because of who's made it or who's in it or I've heard good things about it. Does that mean you – is it different in the cinema? Are we more tolerant of seeing a new film in the cinema? Probably because you're there and you're going to sit through it and you're not going to switch channels. You can't switch channels. You can't switch channels. You can't look at your phone. Normally you wouldn't walk out,

whereas many times I've bought a film on iTunes and we've watched the first 10 minutes and we've just looked at each other and gone, this is rubbish and turned it off. But you're less likely to walk out of a cinema after you've gone to all the effort of going there and paid for your ticket and sat down and you're far from home. My theory is that you're going to enjoy a film more at the cinema even if it's not a you can sit through a mediocre film at the cinema and have a greater level of

enjoyment than at home the stakes are higher at home i don't agree the stakes are higher i don't agree the stakes are higher but i just think going to the cinema is a nice experience anyway you've you've eaten something yummy you're in a big special place. There's a bit of a feeling of anticipation and a communal feeling. Just going to the cinema is a nice experience. That adds a couple of bonus points to the whole thing. You can sit through something and go, oh, it was a nice night, even if it wasn't a great film. You get a coffee afterwards.

Yeah, whereas at home, it's like you're slumped on the couch. It's like, you better entertain me. Like, you better be a good film or you're gone. It's just... So, are you a person, if you're watching the film with someone and you are thinking this isn't very good, but you're wondering if they're... If you're on your own, you would have turned it off.

But you're watching it with someone, so you keep going, wondering what they're thinking about it. And at what point do you go, are you enjoying this or not? You home you can do that more like you do that pretty early on like within 10 minutes you will probably say what do you reckon is this working if you're feel if you're already enjoying it you won't say that because no because you only say that if it's not right you kind of look across and look at the body language and but you've got to be careful with that i remember going and saying i know you like bjork right and i don't i don't my wife my wife does like bjork and she knows that i don't and i remember um she recently did this really special concert at albert hall in london it was a really big deal it was a one-off it was really hard to get tickets and my

wife managed to get tickets at albert hall in like this special like balcony box and everything and it was an amazing view and it was amazing thing and then bjork came on and started doing her out of tune wailing that she does and like about about 20 minutes in i was kind of feeling quite smug thinking, see, she is rubbish. Like, this is all out of tune. Everything sounds the same. This is terrible. And I kind of thought I picked an opportune moment when she started like her fifth song or so.

And I leaned across to my wife and said, is this still the same song that she was doing at the start? Because I think they all sound the same. Thinking that she would laugh and look at me and think this would be a shared comedy yeah and then i looked at her and she was almost in tears from how much she was enjoying the experience like it was amazing to her and when i and when i said that the look of evil she gave me like like i cannot believe you just said that this is like a life-changing experience and you've just like completely diminished it by by bringing down.

And I'm like, oh, whoops, I misjudged that. So you do have to be careful that the person the person you're with is not enjoying the experience too much. It is funny that way. I can understand that, too. My experience of similar to that was we saw the film, the Terence Malick film, The Tree life which is a very experimental avant-garde kind of film um and as he tends to make but this one was especially so just snapshots no real coherent narrative and after it was finished this was after it was finished the lights came up and everything and we're there with some friends and my friend on my left just just mocked just you know in a

shared experience go that is two hours we won't get back you know, in a shared experience, go, well, that is two hours we won't get back, you know, that sort of hilarious experience. And I looked over to my wife on my right and she had tears running down her face. And it was the most... We've now got a film poster in our back room of the Tree of Life that I bought her because it's her favourite film. And, yeah, so that was an awkward hot chocolate

afterwards as well. That's a good idea. Imagine starting a podcast called An Awkward Hot Chocolate and it's just you pick, you always pick something that the two of you completely disagree on, like a film one of you loves and one of you hates and you just talk it through for half an hour each time. That dynamic often comes up in podcasts.

Yes. But just to actually set it up. Although you would need pre-thinking to find those things first of all, don't you? Yeah, you'd have to just pick, you'd just have to create some lists of things you like and don't like and go for it. Well, there we go.

So the West Wing Weekly Weekly may not have a lot of shelf life, but it's spawned a few more ideas in the conversation. Yeah, the T-shirt podcast, An Awkward Hot Chocolate. An Awkward Hot Chocolate is a good name. Yeah, it is a good name. An Awkward Hot Chocolate. It just sounds like a good name for a band, although Hot Chocolate is the name of a band.

An Awkward Hot Chocolate could be a good cover band of hot chocolate songs. An Awkward Hot Chocolate could also be a notorious incident that happened in the 1963 season of Tommyball. An Awkward Hot Chocolate. That's why it was banned from TV. notorious incident that happened in the 1963 season of Tommyball. That's why it was banned from TV. A hot chocolate. I like the idea of that being a move in the game somewhere as well.

A hot chocolate, yeah. Unexpectedly, in the third quarter, he pulls a hot chocolate. His third of the season.