The Unmade Podcast - 5: World Exclusive

Episode Date: November 1, 2017

Topics include gold nuggets, interviewing strangers, world exclusives, boredom, and best man speeches - plus an idea submitted by a clinical engineer. Shaker and Spoon - no tuxedo required - https://shakerandspoon.com/unmade Check out Storyblocks - great stock footage for your next project, including Pink Floyd concept albums -http://storyblocks.com/unmade Support us on Patreon - be like Carly - https://www.patreon.com/unmadeFM Join the discussion of this episode on our subreddit - https://redd.it/7a4qhs USEFUL LINKS The Welcome Stranger gold nugget - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_Stranger The Big Rocking Horse - https://thetoyfactory.com.au Humans of New York - http://www.humansofnewyork.com Golden Pin by Mike Kraus - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJFwzcjN7Rg Brady’s Route 366 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/content/articles/2007/12/12/route366_feature.shtml A Martini - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martini_(cocktail) BBC 6 Music - https://www.bbc.co.uk/6music The Best Man Speech Dot Com - http://www.thebestmanspeech.com RM Williams boots - http://www.rmwilliams.com.au/ Clinical Engineering - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_engineering

All right, I'm going first tonight. I'm excited about my idea. That's like, you're putting it out there. You're putting it out there. I am, I am. I'm excited about this idea. I've been thinking about it for an entire Uber ride today. Right. And I think it's got real merit. It was on my list. I keep a list and I look at this one. I have two names for it and I'll tell you the most obvious name up front and a more creative name afterwards. The most obvious name, I think, is Talking to a Stranger.

Yeah. And the other name for it is Stranger Danger. Right. Stranger Danger doesn't actually refer to the content of the podcast, but it just perhaps sounds a little bit, well, it rhymes, and podcast names often rhyme, and that's all I've got to it. Do they? Do podcast names often rhyme?

Well, it feels like if I say stranger and then some other word, oh, it needs to rhyme with stranger. It needs to rhyme. You know what it could be? I mean, I don't know what the idea is yet, but this is a classic Australian term, the welcome stranger. Yeah, that's true. Actually, that's very good.

Which refers to, for other listeners, a large, probably the largest piece of gold found in Australian history during the gold rush in Ballarat. Is that right? I don't know if it was in Ballarat. I don't remember where it was found, but it was found somewhere and it was massive. So as a little kid, you'd see the picture of the old gold prospectors

with this huge gold nugget. You can still go and see it, can't you? Isn't it in a museum somewhere in Australia, the Welcome Stranger? I remember seeing it in a museum, but I don't know whether it was that or a replica. Oh, yeah. I think as a kid we used to stand there looking at it going, is that it or is that...

And then the teacher would say, that's a replica. But I don't remember if, you know what I mean, like if it is or not. But it wasn't very well guarded in my mind, so it's probably not. The Welcome Stranger. Anyway, maybe we should stop talking about this gold nugget and get to your, like, podcast idea. It's a podcast about a gold nugget. No, no, it's a podcast about...

You travel around the world visiting all the different replicas of the Welcome Stranger. It's such a distinctive shape, the Welcome Stranger, the gold nugget. Like, as soon as I called up the picture of it it was like yep that's exactly how i remember it is it like an american football but a bit more pointy but larger no it's or like a diamond on its side is that that's how i remember it no biggest alluvial gold nugget found 241 pounds 97 kilograms i want to find out what happened to it. So all this would be in the podcast then? At the time of discovery, there were no scales capable of weighing the nugget.

So it was broken into three pieces on an anvil. It was taken to a bank. Didn't you say it was 91 kilos? 97 kilos. I mean, that's basically what a grown man weighs. So what you're saying, there were no scales available to weigh humans at that time. That's a good point. Maybe for that level of accuracy, because when you're weighing gold, like, you know, every gram counts. Whereas if you're weighing you or me, like, what's another

chicken nugget? Yeah, yeah. The nugget was melted down and the gold was sent as ingots to Melbourne for forwarding to the Bank of England. So obviously all those ones we looked at as kids were replicas, which come to think of it, yeah, it's pretty obvious. Seeing it was in a wooden case near the front door of the museum. I'd love to go to where it was found. Is it Sovereign Hill or around Ballarat? That's where I reckon.

It wasn't at Ballarat. There's a famous nugget called the Welcome Nugget, which was found at Ballarat. It was found at Molliegull, Victoria. I don't know where that is. Northwest of Dunnally. Did the Welcome Nugget come after the Welcome Stranger? Which one had the Welcome name first?

See, there's another podcast episode. So the Welcome Nugget was before the Welcome Stranger. So there's an obelisk commemorating the discovery of the Welcome Stranger near the spot, which I'd love to go to, and a replica of the Welcome Stranger is in spot, which I'd love to go to. And a replica of the Welcome Stranger is in the City Museum, Treasury Place, Melbourne, Victoria. Another replica is owned by descendants of John Deason,

who I assume was one of the finders. That's the largest in Australian history, but it's not the largest. I think it's the largest. It says here the Welcome Stranger is the biggest alluvial gold nugget found. Wow. Wow. That's incredible. Well, is it? I mean, the biggest nugget has to be found somewhere but i've only seen one gold nugget that big in my life well by definition only the one that big in my life but you know what i mean it's the i don't

go sourcing them but the one i've seen is the one that's the but of course it would be the one that they'd make a replica of the one that was the biggest no i know but They're not going to make replicas of every gold nugget ever found. You know as well as I do, one of the things that every nation does is makes the biggest of the thing in that nation, and they celebrate that. Yeah. But that's another thing to say, that it's the largest in the world, knowing that there are gold rushes in, you know, Puget Sound and America

and all sorts of other places. So it's a bit like you've been to the big rocking horse at Gamaraka in Adelaide, like, several times. And you've always thought it was the biggest rocking horse in Australia. And you've just found out now it's the biggest rocking horse in the world. And that's like, whoa, now I'm impressed. Well, it's not just the biggest rocking horse in Gamaraka, which is not very remarkable.

You know, I think I've taken my wife to Adelaide maybe four times since we got married, and two of those times we've been to the big rocking horse. What? Why? We just like going there. It's just a nice drive up into the Adelaide hills, and it's just such a funny thing to see. We love visiting the big rocking horse.

It's near Birdwood, which has that nice old car museum, but you don't go to that. You go to a massive, like something age appropriate, you go to a massive rocking horse instead. We have been to the car museum as well at Birdwood. It was, yesterday was the Bay to Birdwood car rally, incidentally. So I was taking a friend to hospital and we got caught in a very slow-moving novelty antique car traffic jam,

slowly moving our way. That just describes adelaide to me man it's just another day really but people were lined up on the side of the road waving at these cars driving past and i found that really i should say charming but i found it bizarre as your friend clings to life in the passenger seat everyone's like waving as life ebbs away on this mercy dash to the hospital. And it's funny you start waving, you know, hello, hello. We're in a Toyota, but we just sort of, hello, hello. It's stuck between a Corvette. It's a shame you don't have that old Renault you had as your first car.

That would probably be leading the rally these days. Oh, it would be. Jeez, that was a great car. That's a great car. Anyway, look, none of that has anything to do with my podcast, which is, well, The Welcome Stranger is a really good name for it. But Talking to a Stranger is a more accurate one. The premise of my podcast, it's a conversation with strangers.

The podcast, you walk up to a person and engage a stranger in a conversation. And there's no given subject matter. And this requires an interviewer with a particular gift for following a conversation and engaging a person who initially surely would be reluctant to talk. But it's based on the premise that everyone has a story or at least it's fascinating to hear about people even if there's no particular reason why you would be talking to them and the variety of the people and there you go, talking to a stranger or the welcome stranger actually works really well. I think the welcome stranger is a better name.

I think it is too actually, well done. Except if you were to then start a podcast about the welcome stranger, you'd have to come up with a cute name for that. Yeah. Because this would be taken. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, we are like taking a potential name for our very niche gold nugget podcast series, which I have to say excites me a little bit more than your idea.

Oh, dear. I was so excited about this idea. But it's an interesting conversation you meet up with someone you understand it don't you of course i do that's the problem though my problem with is like it's it's not very original there was a tv show that used to be on sbs about that when i lived in australia where this guy just went out with a camera and just walked up to people on park benches and would talk to them for 20 minutes and find out you know all amazing things about them like oh i've been caring for my uncle with cancer for the last 10 years and

i mean you and i don't like research everything we talk about to see whether it exists or not but i'm absolutely sure a podcast like this already exists i just think going up and talking to strangers and tell me your story you know it's like strangers of new york as well that that website where the photographer goes up and takes nice portraits of strangers in New York and gets them to tell their story. Humans of New York. Yeah, I just think it's a bit, I don't know, like it's, yeah, it would be cool and well done. It would be cool and I'd listen to it and it would be fun to make. And, but I don't really know what to say about it.

Like, it's just like, yeah. It's so patently a good idea. It's an obvious idea. It's just a thing people, you know, people have been doing it since the dawn of being able to interview people. Let's go out on the street and find out what the common man thinks. Everyone's got a story. This friend of mine used to make a little series for the BBC in London called The Golden Pin, where he had this golden pin and he would open up the street

directory of London to a random page and stick the pin in. And then he would go to that point on the map. And the first person that walked past, he would make a film about. That's a great idea. What sort of film? Just like a, you know, like a two or three minute film for the news. Like, you know, it would be, you know, the one I remember watching was some guy walked past with a really big moustache and he went up to him and said, hey, tell me your story. And this guy was a member of like a moustache club every night

where they would get together and talk about moustaches. So he went along to the moustache club and met all the guys there and stuff. You know, I did a series like this when I worked at the BBC called, it was in a leap year, so it was called Route 366. And I drove all around this part of England. And the idea was that I would visit 366 different towns or villages. And occasionally I would stop in one and just get out of the car with my camera and go and

find a story. And I did like a whole bunch of those. So I guess the reason I'm not particularly excited about it is because I've done it lots of times. Yeah, OK. It's not a bad idea. Like, obviously, it's a good idea but i don't i don't really know what to say about it it's like yeah it would make a good thing and i'm sure it has well i know it's

made good things because i've done some of them and i'm sure podcasters are doing them so but i don't want to be i don't want to be all poo-pooey because he was really excited about it and what else did you want to say about it when you were like enthused i'm trying i'm trying to think of something interesting about my own idea like you've just gone you've just shut down now that's it i'm just where would you like to do it like say i say i gave you a microphone and like the kit and you figured out how to use it which would be amazing considering how long it takes you to figure out how to work microphones where would you go and do it like where would you like want to go out into the center of adelaide or would you like to go to some you know rural

location or well part of the premise is that people say well i'd like to go somewhere really spectacular perhaps they also want to go there's there's i guess it's famously done there's on a television show in australia there's a guy that goes off to low socioeconomic areas and you know talks to folks who are not very articulate and that's part of making fun of them i'll tell you what the one of the hard things is that i think i would be okay at and that is picking subjects and people who will be willing to talk to you because like a lot of people are like going to be oh no i don't want to be recorded and tell you stuff about myself and that sort of thing but i remember back in my newspaper days when i was the cadet and i had to do all the rubbish jobs one of the jobs i had to do once a week was putting together this section in the newspaper

called streetwise where i had to go out into the street and with the issue of the day whatever like the big story of the week was and i had to go and get seven people's opinion on that issue, like, just, like, two or three sentences. And we had to take a photo of them, like, a photo of their head and shoulders, their name, their age, where they were from, and then two or three quotes. So, it would say, you know, Bill Smith, 43, from Paraka. And he would say, oh, I think the government's rubbish and they're making a terrible decision about this and that. I think I remember this. Are they all commenting on the same thing? So this and that i think i remember this are they all commenting on the same thing so you get a positive and negative commenting on the same thing when i first started doing it the big problem i had was i would go up to all these different people and say hi i'm brady i'm from

the newspaper and can we take your picture and or no when i was a real amateur i would go up and ask them the question and they would answer it and And then when I said, can I take your picture? They would say no. And we couldn't use it if there was no picture. So, I quickly learned you had to first ask about the picture. And when they agreed to that, then you would ask them the question. But still, when I first started doing it, I would get knocked back all the time. I'd go up to people, there'd be no thanks, I'm in a hurry, no thanks, don't want anything to do with you. You know, it's quite dispiriting being standing out in public, getting rejected all the time. But over like the course of a few months you get such a good sense just from looking at people from a distance of who will say yes and who will say no that it got to a point

that i could just do all seven without a single refusal and i would stand there with the photographer because i had to do it every week whereas i have a different photographer each time so the photographer didn't know the game as well as me and i'd be standing there with a photographer because I had to do it every week, whereas I have a different photographer each time. So the photographer didn't know the game as well as me. And I'd be standing there with a photographer as like thousands and thousands of people walk past down King William Street in the centre of Adelaide. And he'd be like, what about that person? I'd be like, no, what about that? No, what about? No. And then I'd say that one and I'd walk up to the person. What did they have in common? Are they introverts or extroverts or? I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I mean, there are obvious ones you can do. Groups of young people wanting to show off and be in the paper and stuff. But you had to have a mix. You couldn't just have all young people or all men or all women and things like that. For that reason, I can't tell you what they had in common. It just becomes like a sixth sense for who will help you and who will be agreeable and who won't. So anyway, at least I'd have that skill if I was making the welcome stranger. I would love to know what they have in common. I would love to know the people who are willing to respond to a stranger coming up to them and what makes them curious.

Because they're obviously curious enough. Oh, this will be interesting. I find it also interesting that the big leap is having their photo taken, not having their opinion recorded. They're more relaxed about that. Yeah. But i guess if it's not a particularly controversial issue then they're gonna they're not gonna worry about it too much but the other thing about your idea which i mean if i'm in my head it's sort of they're being recorded in situ like on a park bench you're just going up and having a chat with them is finding people who have like the 30 minutes or so you might need and not have to like go somewhere or be somewhere else.

Because what I was doing was just give me two sentences and a photo, whereas the podcast is going to be asking, you know, a good chunk of their time. Because it takes a while to get people to tell you the good stuff. You know, the first 10 minutes is going to be pretty superficial and it's usually after 10 or 15 minutes that they drop the bomb. Like, oh, actually, I spent five years in jail. And're like oh my goodness now i found out now i found your story but that takes time unless they're intrigued enough to want to change their plans to hang around to talk to you and yeah that's right but yeah that would be good if that happens but not

everyone can do that like on their lunch break or there's a certain type of person who who can just like stop what they're doing for an hour just to talk to someone with a microphone usually someone who's walking around looking for someone with a microphone to offer their opinions to i did see this one thing once where a person went out on the street and just went up to people and asked their opinions like and they made it wasn't subtle and unimposing it was forthright like a news service and they essentially wanted to prove the idea, and I think they were making the, this is about Americans, that basically they have opinions about things

even if they don't know what the discussion is. So they would just go up to people and say, do you have any comments, sir? Like with a level of energy and enthusiasm, is this something grand has happened? And then, you know, a certain number of people, the ones I hope would just launch into massive spills with great enthusiasm about it's a disgrace, it's a disgrace.

Not even knowing what the issue was. Furious about what's happened or, you know, whatever it happened to be, yeah, yeah. Let's move on to one of my ideas. All right. What have you got, man? All right, everyone. This episode has been sponsored by Shaker and Spoon,

which is a monthly cocktail subscription box that delivers the craft cocktail experience to your home. They say, think Blue Apron, if you know what Blue Apron is, but for cocktails. Tim, are you a big cocktail drinker? I'm not really, no, no. I kind of think maybe a couple of Australians like us might give the impression that we're kind of like, you know,

we should be promoting sitting in a smelly pub having a beer but I am a cocktail drinker. I know you are, I know. You're quite the classy fellow. You have the floor. As I was saying earlier, going through your many attributes, I think it's associated with, when I think cocktail, I think of madmen wearing a tuxedo, sophistication,

and it feels, unless I'm in the setting where I'm wearing a tuxedo or feeling particularly cool or there's lounge music playing, it feels out of place. But that's probably because I'm not often in those places. Are you often in those sort of contexts? I mean, obviously I'm wearing a tuxedo now. I always wear a tuxedo when recording a podcast, but I don't think we should necessarily think cocktails. I certainly like cocktails no matter what I'm wearing i will have a cocktail in jeans and a t-shirt and i'll tell you what else i guess i do like cocktails because i'm a bit more of a sweet tooth oh yes but not all cocktails are sweet i also do like the the making of cocktails like and one of the most fun birthday parties i ever went to was one where we

all did a cocktail making course and we all lined up at the bar and the barman like taught us how to make cocktails and then we all had turns behind the bar at making them it's actually a really good fun thing process to make them and this i think is another of the things that shaker and spoon are tapping into quite cleverly i i do find it intriguing i think wanting to know how cocktails are made in other, it's a bit like wine. You appreciate it the more you get to know it, and then you start to really, really like and appreciate quality wines. Perhaps cocktails are like that. Once you actually, when they stop being a bit of a mystery, I guess I might be more interested in them. So did you come away from that night knowing a bit more? Like, could you mix a few drinks? Yeah, I could. I mean, I was the guy

who always put a little bit too much sugar in and then everyone would like get their cocktails and say brady's yours tastes so much better and i said yeah that's just because i feel like with sugar right but but yeah i did learn how to make classy ones as well so this is what happens with shaker and spoon each month you get this box with it's like a i received one it's really cool it's like it's quite compact box actually but it feels really heavy because it's full of stuff and each month you get a box and it contains these nice like classy cards that felt like they're a little bit waterproof too which is handy you get these nice classy cards that tell you like all the instructions and the recipe for making the cocktails for that box and you also receive like all the ingredients you'll need,

except the alcohol actually, but I'll come to that in a minute. You receive all the ingredients you'll need, like in all these little cute bottles. And some of them are like tiny little bottles with like, they look like little eyedropper bottles. Like sometimes it'll just be a tiny little obscure ingredient that you would never have had in your kitchen. So you have all these and you'll have like,

or like a fruit or like a drink or a big bottle or like, I think the one I had had like a little box of snow peas in it and a little box of these other like dried, some kind of dried out ingredient that I can't remember now, but I don't know. It's like you're a wizard getting all these like weird things you're going to need to make your magic potions. The way you're describing it i'm picturing like i've got a chemistry set for christmas one year when i was a kid and there was you know what i mean like it hella had a a microscope and it had a magnifying glass and then all these little bottles with things in it that i was supposed to look at yeah and i unlike you was not a science geek and i just sort of look, well, geez, I would have loved a BMX. But years later, I'm actually listening to this going, hey, that sounds pretty cool. It is. It is cool. That's a good way to describe it. It is kind of like a chemistry set of flavors that you'll need to make all these amazing drinks. And each box is like themed around

a different alcoholic beverage. So the box that I received was the gin box. So I could make all these different cocktails with gin, so i could make all these different cocktails with gin okay but they have different different boxes for different alcohol they don't send you the actual bottle of alcohol for for various reasons including there's problems shipping alcohol to some specific places so you go and get the alcohol yourself from a local shop and also it keeps the weight and the size of the box down because if they just had to send you like a big bottle of gin to go with all the cute little potions and things then i guess postage would get crazy so so anyway that that's how it works it's it's really good really good fun if you if you are of drinking age and you've never

had a cocktail party where you sit around and all make the cocktails together then you definitely should give this a try and if you are listening to this podcast and you go to shakerandspoon.com slash unmade you will save $20 off your order which is a I'm told is a super special discount for fans of the Unmade podcast so shakerandspoon that's the three words all joined up together Dot com slash unmade And you will save $20 And you will get this box You do not have to wear a tuxedo But you can if you like

You know last podcast we were talking about the West Wing And there's that line the President Bartlett gives in the West Wing That James Bond when he orders his martini shaken not stirred Is ordering a weak martini. Because if you shake the ice, it breaks down quicker. And so, actually, you're increasing the water content. If you stir it, you stir it carefully so that the ice doesn't chip and you maintain the strength of the martini, of the gin and the vermouth. So, there you go.

There's a bit of a tie-in. Is he saying James Bond's a lightweight? He is. So there you go. There's a bit of a tie in. Is he saying James Bond's a lightweight? He is. He is. He says he's a lightweight. In fact, he, I think, specifically says he is a lightweight. He's ordering a weak martini and being all snooty about it.

There you go. Shaker and spoon are the people to follow if you want to become a true, true expert on martinis and other cocktails. Or you can listen to the Unmade podcast and hear a couple of amateurs just quote lines from the West Wing. Absolutely. My first idea today came about... I was in the car the other day and I was listening to a radio station here in the UK called Six Music,

which is like... It's not like really, really mainstream. It's a BBC station, so it's popular, but it's like a bit more, it's a bit more niche. And it's for all the cool kids who like the cool music, not necessarily all like the top 40 stuff, but like, you know, proper music people. You would listen to Six Music if you lived in the UK.

Right. And they said, coming up after the news, we're going to have the world exclusive of the new single from, and they said the name of some obscure band that I'd never heard of. And like the world exclusive was going to be on Six Music, which just was like the first time it was being played. But they were hyping it up because, you know, radio stations are like the kings of hype. So everything's hype. So this is you. And it made me think about the term world exclusive.

So my idea for a podcast is going to be called world exclusive. And the idea is every episode will feature the world exclusive of something, even if it is something that is reasonably obscure and no one actually cares about the world exclusive of this thing. Much like this song that I couldn't give a hoot about. So just to clarify, you're not talking about, it doesn't cover world exclusives from the past. Every episode is in time.

It is a world exclusive. A world exclusive. So, for example, like, obviously, you know, U2 isn't going to give our little podcast the world exclusive of their new song but some like local musician or local band in some small town in some rural place that no one cares about their songs anyway probably would let us play the world exclusive of their song so we could say today we're playing you the world exclusive of i love you baby by by Johnny and the Pacemakers from Ballarat. And you'd play their song and then you'd interview the band about it.

But it wouldn't just be about music. You could have like some author or maybe even some self-published author because it's like no big deal. And we're going to say, today our world exclusive is Sandy Smith from Traralgon is going to come on the show and read us the first chapter of her new book. And we're going to talk to her about the book. Or it could be like, you could have academics like who are about to publish their new paper tomorrow, and they're going to give you the world exclusive of their new finding about some obscure chemical that is found in grasshoppers. But we've got the world exclusive. We're going to be the first people to tell you about it on the podcast. But it could also be like local

announcements, like news, but like really like rubbish news. But like you'd come to an agreement with people that they would announce it first. Like say your local council has decided that they're going to build an extension on the community centre and it hasn't been announced yet. So the world exclusive on today's episode is Mitcham Council has just approved a $1.2 million extension of the community centre on Unley Road. And we're the first people to tell you that and now we're going to talk to you. And it could be like all commercial products,

like some little local business who no one really cares about. Today, some local manufacturing business has... We've got the world exclusive news that they're now going to start selling three quarter inch lug nuts which they've never done before now but they've just had some manufactured and like they're going to start stocking them in the shop even though these are like quite like silly things and it's like making a big world exclusive hype about things that no one really cares about it's more the the format becomes a way to like get you into like interviews and talking about interesting things so it just does become like a chatty fun show and probably more often than not like an interview show

where you're interviewing people about their areas of interest on what they do but like the conceit the premise the way that you get into every interview and every show is the peg of having a world exclusive and if we haven't got a world exclusive then like we you can't do the show they have to be giving you something that is exclusive and as the show got bigger i imagine your world exclusives might get a little bit bigger as well but at first the exclusives will be like rubbish little things but that would become become funny, wouldn't it? Well, would you make it funny? I mean, are you taking the piss? Or are you dealing with genuine hype and interest and playing it straight?

Do you know what I mean? Do you see it as a... Are you slightly mocking the people or are they in on it? Or are you taking it absolutely seriously? I don't think you're mocking the people, but you will be mocking the specialness of the announcement. Right. So you wouldn't mock the musician. You wouldn't be saying this musician is unimportant

and we're not interested in your art, but you would be making a joke. Everyone would have a slight wink-wink tongue in their cheek, including the people giving you the exclusive. Yeah. There would be a certain little wink that, okay, well, first of all, let's have our world exclusive. Here's the first ever playing of a new song by, you know, this local band in my town.

Yeah. Anyway, tell me about yourself, you know, tell me about the band. When did you guys get together? How long have you been working? Tell me about the song. Why did you write it? So you will be treating the subject matter with respect and interest, but the world exclusiveness would be like a bit of a joke. So it would actually, after a while, I mean, if it caught on,

there would be, and people were aware of it, there is an idea that, hey, maybe we could get this onto world exclusive and that would be a novelty in itself. People would want to get on it. That'd be clamouring. In the end, Taylor Swift would be premiering her songs on world exclusive.

It would become the place to do it. Yeah. You'd still, one week it would be Taylor Swift, and then the next week you'd still go back and do a very minor artist somewhere or a piece of music. You know what I mean? You wouldn't just move to a high level and stay there. No, you wouldn't forget your roots.

You wouldn't forget your roots. Or you could be known as the people you'd turn down, Taylor Swift, because Fruit Shop in Ballarat has added yet another you may remember last year we had the world exclusive of their first fruit they've added to their uh their new repertoire and it would go on yeah i like this idea this sounds like a lot of fun it would be fun but do you remember like i'm gonna do your job for you here tim and let you get nostalgic about the 90s do you remember when like a new michael jackson video would come out and the world would stop and everyone would stay up late and wait for it to be

on tv and it'll be like shown around the world and like new things being released was like a big deal oh yeah now with the internet and 400 things all being released at the same time and a whole series of breaking bad coming out at once and the idea of like a world exclusive or being able to see the first thing for the first time at a set place, it still happens, but it doesn't happen as much. It seems to have lost a bit of its shine. Well, part of it is the world has become much more diverse. So there's so much more product happening all the time, I guess.

Not everyone's looking at everything all the time. Whereas, you know, once upon a time, Michael Jackson, mums and dads and grandparents all just sort of, you know what I mean? Tuned it at once because it was a big deal. There's been like a fragmentation of content. Yeah, yeah. No one's even quite as big as Michael Jackson either.

You know what I mean? The world, I mean, this is the funny thing. The really big superstars, just in the music world, you've got Adele, but there are big bands, but not super, super bands like there were back then with multi-generation. Anyway, that's beside the point. But that notion of the whole place stopping for a world exclusive.

Politics is another area, I guess. Well, it's not quite the same as in a grand announcement or a particular speech or a major resignation. It's big news, but it's not breaking news, is it? It's that you're wanting to focus on. It's actually the launch of something. I just think the media still has this preoccupation around exclusive newspapers want exclusive stories and people want world exclusives they want to be the first to have things you know glossy magazines

are a bit are really bad for it here's a world exclusive wedding photos of some nobody celebrity i like i like the conceit of a podcast like a little pokey little podcast bigging up everything it does to be world exclusives but the things are like things that no one else wanted anyway i like it too the the other thing that still works as is um interviews you know the getting the first exclusive interview with lance armstrong you know after the whole debacle so you could do that as well we will be speaking to you know there's no particular product but we will have the first interview speaking to us only yeah we've got we've got we've got the first we've got the world exclusive first podcast interview with the new mayor of can town council that's right the championship bowler ladies because the thing

i like when people do world exclusives is they also, like, will make it the world exclusive of that format. I remember watching this documentary about, funnily enough, about the Shroud of Turin, which I've talked about before. And it was the first time it had ever been recorded in HD. The whole documentary was saying, and now for the first time, the world exclusive, we're going to show you the Shroud of Turin with, like, HD TV cameras. And you'll have things like, and now here's the world exclusive. We're going to show you the Shroud of Turin with like HD TV cameras.

And you'll have things like, and now here's the world exclusive first radio interview that's been given by some famous sports person. They've already done a TV interview and a newspaper interview, but this is their first and only radio interview. So we could do that with podcast. Here's the first podcast interview with people who've given a thousand interviews, but have just happened to have not done a podcast before. It's a world exclusive.

It's a world exclusive. What counts as a world exclusive? I guess anything happening in the world or that hasn't happened anywhere else in the world. You have to be the only person on the planet to have that thing. Yes, but it... Genuine world exclusives imply that the world would be interested so that's the funny thing yeah that's the one criteria we're not applying to this idea otherwise we're all living world exclusives every day like yeah the world exclusive i've arrived at work no

it's the world exclusive news i went and got coffee at work down the road. I mean, you and I are enjoying the world exclusive of this conversation. We are. We are. People listening to the podcast later, they're a bit late to the party, but you and I were here for the exclusive. Well, we've put a media ban on it until its release. It's embargoed. It's embargoed.

Embargoed is what I mean, yeah. Yeah, this conversation is embargoed until I edit it and put it on the internet. I certainly won't be telling anyone about it. You're embargoed. Safe with me, man. Do you have – well, you've given us a few examples, but – I mean, each edition of the podcast, man, would be the world exclusive of that episode, no matter what you did.

It would be. So this could be the world exclusive. And if you ran out of ideas or you didn't have something to launch, it could be the world exclusive first episode with nothing to launch, world exclusive podcast. And you could talk about how there's nothing to launch. Or what you could do is if you couldn't be bothered recording a new episode, you could, like, re-release an episode and it would be the exclusive rerun,

the first rerun of that episode. first rerun that's right yeah well that was the other thing going nostalgic the other thing is when a movie would appear on tv for the first time that was amazing oh that's a premiere that's that's a world premiere our premiere sure yeah hey i've got an idea for another podcast. World premiere. This is an example as well about like scraping the bottom of the barrel for exclusives. Because since we've got like, you know, pay TV and cable channels and that. Now what happens is when some film like Harry Potter is shown on like free to air terrestrial television for the first time. They call it like, you know, the free TV exclusive or the terrestrial TV exclusive of Harry Potter. Like it's been on TV a million times and on Netflix and everywhere,

but it's the first time it's on like three or four free channels. I could literally press three buttons on my remote control and watch it at 3 a.m. in the morning, but they're putting it on 8.30 this Sunday. a.m in the morning but they're putting it on 8 30 this sunday and i'm supposed to reorganize my life to come and sit down to celebrate this exclusive yeah this is the this is the first chance you can watch it interrupted by ads every 15 minutes that's right that's exactly right this is a it's a diminished product i guess there's new new models of um yeah of cars and of big products like that

that come out as well the people could talk to we are doing this or we are planning this or and yeah but they're not going to give you the world exclusive for your little podcast like you know apple's not going to give you the world exclusive on the new iphone not yet i'd like to see this done oh well i think this would be fun to put together i don't know how successful it would be in the long run but it would be fun if it caught if it caught on yeah if it was really successful it would be good if it was really terrible and no one successful it would be in the long run, but it would be fun if it caught on. Yeah, if it was really successful, it would be good. If it was really terrible and no one listened, that would be less enjoyable.

I agree. I appreciate you laying that out for me. That's pretty much how everything works in life. If you did it and then broke your leg in some unrelated... That would be even worse. But if you did it and, like your leg in some unrelated... That would be even worse. But if you did it and, like, halfway through your first episode you found, like, the world's biggest ever gold nugget, that'd be awesome.

That would be awesome. That would be awesome. That would be a world... It would be a world exclusive. What have you got? Let's have the world exclusive of your next idea. My idea for this, though, I can't work out whether it's something that's a real goer

because I do find it genuinely intriguing or whether it's just ridiculous. And I'm sure you'll point out which one it is. It's what I'm here for. Sounds promising, doesn't it? The title of my podcast is Bore Me Stupid, an interesting podcast about boredom. Now, let me explain okay i think that boredom is quite a fascinating topic and so i am intrigued by things that bore us and that people find boring and i'm remember hearing a person describe recently as an incredibly boring person

i remember thinking that's, it's particularly harsh criticism of someone. And, but I think that's intriguing. I was intrigued. Why are they boring or what makes that boring? So my podcast idea is an exploration of the theme of boredom and it could contain things that are boring. Now I'll come back to that in a moment. You must think that's ridiculous, but the premise is it's an interesting podcast about boredom. So containing things that are boring, it would also contain some discussion of why this is boring. So what effect is this podcast supposed to have on its listeners? They're not supposed to be bored by it.

They can't be bored by it or they'll stop listening to it. I mean, that would be of novelty value. You could have a boring podcast, but we may already be making that podcast so you could choose a variety of things so you could say well this is what is the most what is the world's most boring song or what is the world's most boring book or what is the world's most boring television program or film or the person what what is the world's most boring television program or film or the person what what is the world's um most boring person and people have to nominate someone they know who's the most boring person right a family member or someone like that and we get them on and we interview them and we say what makes them boring and why are they boring so it's an exploration

of boredom yes and each in each episode will go into a different genre but the idea was always to pick out something boring from that genre it's sort of an ongoing quest to try and unlock why is this boring and i think it's i'm betting on that it would be interesting to try and unlock why something is boring what's something you find boring tell me some things you find boring so i've got an idea of some of the subject matter that'll be on the show boring tell me some things you find boring so i've got an idea of some of the subject matter that'll be on the show some things that i find boring oh that's interesting um it's intriguing to think about boring it's a fascinating subject it is a fascinating subject i think being bored i think when you become bored suddenly going i'm bored why am i bored i thought

i tell you what what's what's boring and this is something that you and I spoke about or text about a little while ago, and that is other people's dreams are boring. Yes. Yes, they are. They're very boring. So we feel enthusiastic about our dreams. We have a dream, and I want to tell you about this dream. And hearing it named is tolerable.

A person giving a long explanation of their dream. Now, why? It's probably because it doesn't feel like it matters. It's in the abstract in it, so it's not related to real life. Why do you reckon dreams are boring? Well, my dreams aren't boring. My dreams are awesome. Other people's dreams.

I don't know. I don't know. It's because, yeah, it's because they make no sense, basically. I think my problem with this is, don't get me wrong, I am capable of becoming bored, but I find very little subjects boring. Like, I find everything interesting. Yes.

So, while I can be bored by things, you know, insufficiently stimulated, there are very few topics I find boring. So it'll more be a case of, oh, I remember watching this film and I became bored. What did it do wrong? I think boredom's an interesting topic to talk about for a while. But whether there's a whole podcast in it or not, I don't know. Would the podcast benefit from having one host who is like unashamedly

boring like one normal host who's like you know an interesting character because you because you need that but one of the hosts is like a boring person who is very dry yeah yeah you know has a quite monotone voice and never never gets too excited about anything a dull person it could be focused around them and their world and the things that they love so their favorite film and it's a really dull film i mean i don't think they necessarily have to be like you know the advocate of boredom like i mean they don't like boring things either but they just are dull and boring and maybe you never even reference that like you know that's just you know i don't know it feels like it would benefit i feel like a podcast about boredom with two quite dynamic interesting people yeah yeah i feel like it would be funny maybe you have a third host who's just

just a bit of a dry boring person but you never call them boring it's just it's almost like it's almost like ironic that you have this boring host when you're talking about how you don't like things being too boring like ian chapel commentating in australia ian chapel the cricket commentator yes that's right he would be very good he would be a very good host he is a very boring just keep coming back to repeating some of the same comments over and over the other thing is in life i think the older you get in life the more you appreciate boredom because boredomom often means, boring means reliable. Like I don't want a fancy car. Like my car, I had trouble with my car today. It's so frustrating. And I just want, I don't want a spectacular car. I just want a boring car that doesn't break down. You know what I mean? Or a boring car that's reliable. Is there anything you are into that

you don't think is boring that you are aware that pretty much everyone else finds boring? tell you that you don't think is boring that you are aware that every pretty much everyone else finds boring there's lots of things i'm into that my partner finds boring what's like the shining example of that oh like rock biographies that i read you know that she doesn't have any knowledge of the person you know existing really and has no interest in hearing anything about them. That's one thing. Football, no, no, that's not true. She likes a bit of football. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I get the feeling that if I wasn't around, it would never be watched ever again.

No. What about yourself? Do you have a secret passion you're aware is boring to everyone else? Well, I like to think I have the ability to make it interesting to everyone. So, like, I am well aware of the fact that space and stuff is quite a nerdy thing to be interested in, but I always think I can make anyone interested in it with the tales I tell and with my passion for it.

I don't know. I guess I'm quite interested in plane crashes the tales I tell and with my passion for it. I don't know. I guess I'm quite interested in plane crashes that people think is a weird interest, but it's not a boring interest. No, no. I'm quite interested in sports statistics. Yeah, you are. And that is something that is definitely an acquired taste.

That's unbelievable, the stuff that you remember. I can pore over sports statistics for hours and I'll be sitting on the sofa one day and i'll think of some obscure statistic like you know what cricketer went the most innings ever without scoring a duck or something which is like a zero and i'll like get out my phone and look up the list and look down the list at all the people and you know i quite like finding obscure sporting statistical feats in a given sport. And one will just come to me.

And there'll always be a list or something somewhere on the internet where someone has already compiled it. And I love going and looking all of those things up. I'm surprised you don't just look up your own records that you've kept. You look up your own notebooks. Oh, here they are. I remember you inventing a game and keeping statistics on the game you've invented, like a card game, a cricket card game.

Yeah. We don't talk about that. All right. Save that for another day. Because that's very boring. That's my next podcast idea. What was it called? It was card cricket.

I didn't invent it. I improved and modified it. Oh, right. And then I would and then i would keep exercise books full of statistics of the fictional games that i had played unbelievable that's unbelievable i couldn't believe that when i saw that that's phenomenal but then again yeah it was phenomenal it was fascinating how boring how pointless it felt but i guess all sport is ultimately pointless except for its enjoyment in you know and all that yeah i mean in a perfect world we would just abandon sport and all go and

sit around and read rock biographies of people from the 90s well this is true not just the 90s but but you you're 80s as well yeah i don't know i do relate to that and i suddenly i don't know remember how many you know albums were sold by this person when or who produced a song or something like that and you don't even you can't even choose these things like i don't try and remember that stuff yeah and i forget major things to do with my job and major aspects of life that i should remember and i want to remember them they are important to me but then you remember obscure details about things and it's ridiculous i was like well i'm not trying to remember this how did i know that still the amount of time i

spend walking up and down the stairs in my house singing advertising jingles from the 1980s australian television is scary yeah how well i can remember the all the words to all these ads the sofa shop the sofa like the sofa like some some crappy sofa factory in adelaide that i hope isn't even open anymore and i can remember the theme song like the sofa shop is your only stop for the sofa you need the sofa shop yeah come and drop in we have a sofa designed for you choose your fabric match your curtains too the sofa shop ain't gonna cost what you think it will don't you do a thing until you see the sofa shop Yeah.

I know. These things stick. And I don't know how, but they stick. But you do a good job of that. You do turn subjects that many people found boring at school and you make them interesting and engaging. I'm a showman. You are.

You're a showman. That's popularising. I'm a born entertainer. I'm an all-round entertainer like David Brent. You are. Now you're getting a bit boring. I was never able to make card cricket statistics interesting, though. No, no, no.

No one can do that. What's the most boring film you've ever seen? My dad and I walked out of the cinema during Malcolm X. Oh, really? A Spike Lee joint. I've never seen it, but, yeah, you're not motivating me. What about you? What's the most lee joint i've never seen it but um yeah you're not motivating me what what about you what's the most boring film you've ever seen oh i've become ruthless with films i walk out of them or turn them off it's so easy to turn them off now that you know they're i guess in

a world of netflix when you walk out of a cinema do you do it like quietly and discreetly or do you like make a fuss like oh, oh, this is outrageous. And walk out like. A couple of times I've been, I remember years ago, it was a sequel to an action film. I can't quite remember. And I just remember walking out like feeling deeply self-righteous about the fact that I was leaving. You know, like I'm above all this.

I've made a stand. Well, of course, you know, I'm the burk that paid the money to go in in the first place. Before we bore people anymore, should we crack on to the final idea? Tim, we have another sponsor. This is one I have not encountered before, but I'm very interested in, and this is a company called Storyblocks. Storyblocks is all as one word and this is one of those companies that does like stock video, stock images and stock audio that

you can use in your projects. So if you're working on a little film or opus on the side that I'm unaware of you might want to be looking into these guys. I'm not working on an opus on the side, but I know these are handy. They're super handy. They're very handy for me because I am making videos on the side, as you're aware. Just let me tell you. Basically, Storyblocks says that they're positioning themselves to be an industry disruptor. And unlike when you and I were at school, Tim, being a disruptor is now a good thing. Wow. Basically, they're saying they're the first and only subscription-based stock media company

offering unlimited downloads from their member library of content for a modest annual fee, which is currently $149. And I can tell you, as someone who does use stock footage and things in their work, you can really burn through money or credits or whatever a different company uses really, really quickly. So this offer is more than a little bit tempting. I think that sounds good. There's two groups of people who I think are the means

by which I know that this is a good deal. One is at work. So we have a marketing person at work and they're forever creating things and I'm forever asking for you know images we need better images you know everything is needs to be imaged up you know brochures and and websites and stuff but there's also friends who um make video projects themselves and i'm not just meaning you but people who do it for um for fun you know who edit things up and short films and weddings and all that you know what i mean like so it's just

having yeah i know they'll love something like this yeah something that's really affordable well apparently this this member library has over 400 000 images 150 000 videos and 100 000 audio clips and i just want to say like i make videos for a job so people are probably going to think i'm really excited about the video and And I'm a bit excited about the video, but audio is the one thing I always need a lot of stock footage of because there are so many things I film or animations we make, and it just doesn't quite work without sound. And sometimes you've got to go and get sound effects or beds or bases underneath. So I'm always desperately trying to find audio.

And I went and had a listen to some of the audio on Storyblocks and I was very impressed. And I think it's the audio on their site that's going to get me to sign on first and foremost. It's so much easier with this audio these days than the old days. Like, I remember seeing the making of movies like Star Wars and older movies and how they, you know, there's those people that are in charge of finding the sound effects

for certain things within films. Foley, Foley artists, aren't they, they're called there's those people that are in charge of finding the sound effects for certain things within films. Foley. Foley artists, aren't they, they're called. Are they? Okay. And I remember them, I always remember they go to the sound of lightsabers and the sound of guns. And the unusual ways they have to make them by hitting, you know, a piece of wood against wire. And it just creates an unusual sound.

And that's the sound that suddenly you realise is familiar. You hear all the time with the guns. Whereas now, you can just go to a bank like this. But actually, and this is what happens, the people who make all the sound effects for these libraries do that. They're just doing all the hard work for you, and you still end up quite often using unusual things as your sound effects. But someone else has actually gone out in the wind and the rain

or climbed to the top of a mountain or done something dangerous to get the sound for you storyblocks also has this this value-added extra thing called the marketplace which is on top of the the member library with all those clips in it and what that is is millions more digital assets that are continually being contributed by artists from around the world that's like the a la carte menu and you do pay a small extra fee for some of those things but you also get access to that like bonus library and all the revenue from those things go to those artists who are going and banging bits of wood against wire and stuff like that that's good i remember pink floyd had this idea after they'd made dark side of the moon which they thought was an amazingly experimental album which was and was a huge success they had the idea of making an entire album out of

household objects so no traditional uh instruments at all so they had you know you had to bang utensils and they said they did this for about a week and they realized this is sounding rubbish but i can't believe it took them a week. But apparently all the sound effects were incredibly helpful, like just to spice up future albums. Like they were just around the place. Do you know what the problem was, Tim? They didn't have access to Storyblocks and their incredible library.

I mean, if Pink Floyd had used Storyblocks, maybe they would have been more successful. Perhaps they would have. Perhaps they would have been. Imagine if someone Floyd had used Storyblocks, maybe they would have been more successful. Perhaps they would have. Perhaps they would have been. Imagine if someone joined up with Storyblocks and then created an entire album only using the sounds on Storyblocks. Well, you could do that. And you know what? It would only cost you the flat annual subscription.

So, there you go. there you go now if you want to if if we have sold you on the idea and i think that pink floyd idea must have go to storyblocks.com slash unmade storyblocks that's the word story like bedtime story and blocks as in building blocks except it's all one word storyblocks.com slash unmade go and have a look at them there's also a link in the show notes and our thanks to them for sponsoring this episode. I'll tell you why this is also handy because it's such a large library. There's nothing worse than using a stock image for, you know, like a conference or a brochure or a particular purpose. And then a few months later, seeing it on some other organisations, you know

what i mean on their facebook gif or something like that and realizing oh that student can't be both at their college and that college or attending you know what i mean buying that car as well as buying this bike that's just too yeah that's that that's the digital equivalent of turning up to a dinner and wearing the same outfit as someone else that's there. That's true. Yeah, yeah. Oh, how embarrassing. I've used the same stock image. It's the same person who's like, oh, my goodness, I'm over here. And now I'm over here.

It's the same equivalent of a star turning up in one movie and then turning up in another movie and then being totally unbelievable because you still remember them from the movie before. Like that actor that played Terminator 2, if he suddenly turned up in a romantic comedy, you're like, well, hang on a second. You're the new Terminator. We can't accept you as anything else but that now.

Yeah. Like imagine if he was in Terminator 2 and then he turned up in like a Storyblocks stock image of someone like eating a carrot. No, no, no. You can't do that. You're the Terminator. Or worse yet, you could watch Terminator and go, that's not the Terminator, that's the guy that eats a carrot

in the Storyblocks stock image. That's right. That's right. This film is ridiculous. This may just be, I think he's just an actor. I'm beginning to think maybe he's not a robot from the future. Maybe he isn't. But maybe that's all part of his plan.

robot from the future maybe he isn't but maybe maybe maybe that's all part of his plan my idea is called best man and it is a weekly or monthly or periodic analysis discussion review critique of best man speeches so okay so ideally ideally actual best men would send us in their speeches before or after they'd been made and we could have them reading it in one scenario we could read it uh you know they would just send us the text and we would read it and like stop and break it down yeah uh so they could be like in advance what do you think or it could be this is what i did they we could also include in situ recordings if they were done of high quality of the actual speech being delivered yeah like at the wedding so it could be done that way and we would just like go through it and sort of say that

what we thought was good what we thought was bad the hits the misses because there is there is nothing well there are things more interesting than best man's speeches but best man's speeches are very interesting and they're very like they they run the full gamut of emotions of glory failure very funny very unfunny, very emotional, very unemotional. They're a very heightened thing and I think they would be worthy of a podcast. I like this idea.

The immediate thing comes to mind about the in situ, in the recording. But also the other thing that comes to mind is the in-jokes. Surely there's a lot of in-jokes with best men that we won't get with their speeches. Do you know what? I don't agree. Or I agree to the extent that that's true for everyone, though. Like when you go to a wedding and the best man makes a couple of in-jokes,

like, oh, we'll never forget what happened that day at Marbella. Like everyone's experiencing the in-jokeness. Like the crappiness of in-jokes in best man speeches is part of the best man speech experience and whether they should be included or not included and how they should be used is part of the best man speech critique. It's true in this podcast, you won't know the bride and groom and everyone at a wedding at least knows the bride or groom. But I've been looking at a few websites about this just this morning. And there's one website I was looking at

where people submit their best man speeches and you can read them like for inspiration and ideas and people give them star ratings and there's hundreds and hundreds of them. And I was reading a couple of them and I didn't know the bride and groom, but I still appreciated the art form or lack of art in the speech itself. So I don't think that really matters. And I think it would be funny to go through best man speeches and critique them. You shouldn't have done that. And all that was a genius move. This was really this was good work.

This was bad work. Yeah. It's a really interesting thing, though. I've been looking at another website called thebestmanspeech.com, which is basically just a place where you can go and, like, plagiarise and cobble together all the different parts that you could need in a best man speech and, like, bolt them together to make your speech. Like, they're even broken into categories.

Like, okay, here's the category of humorous wedding observations. here's the category of all the things you can say to introduce yourself here's all the things you can say to character assassinate the groom here are a bunch of amusing friendship reminiscences you can use here are humorous takes on the bride and groom's relationship here are nice tributes to the groom here are compliments you can pay to people at the wedding here are some humorous closing lines you could use here are some sentimental closing lines okay okay okay here are some thank yous and here are some and you just take all the bits you need and you put a speech together yeah and they're literally there for you to literally paste the text there's even an add to clipboard feature and you can pay money to access the better stuff i know i know i know of someone who's done this in fact i think a lot of people often

these days google you know what i mean funny joke for best man speech or something like that at least to at least to get it going or to have some little thing in there but i remember hearing a speech once and we were standing we were on our feet applauding at the end of it because it was just amazing. And then you sort of suddenly realise, hang on, that was pretty much just a routine. Like that guy was just basically killing the crowd. It was basically just like entertainment

and there was not a lot in it that was really related to the groom. It was just, he basically just got up and just did a set. Some material. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was all great. Have you ever up and just did a set. And it's a material. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was all great. Have you ever noticed when you're on planes and. It's great to be here tonight, boy. But they, for instance, yeah, he got some from a website,

like he Googled it. And so I thought, oh, that's interesting. That's kind of cheating. But you're talking about, so the pressure would be on for not the same jokes to come up again and again and again. No, but that would become, that could become part of the funny thing of the podcast. It's like, because the sameness of best man speeches, like the things they all do and the things they do different would be part of what you observe.

Like week on week, it's like, here we go. Here's another person using this particular quote, or yes, you know. Like, you would start recognising the things that people all do the same, and the things that make a good speech different. So, I wouldn't mind that some of the speeches had a sameness to them. We would be, you know, the hosts would be joking about it, wouldn't they? Here they come, here they come. Like that scene in the movie, The Wedding Crashes, which is not a great movie. But, you know, they're sitting there and going this

scripture that script and they're just calling out all the typical wedding because obviously weddings are have cliches and we all do it don't we like you know do you think their readings are going to be bible verses or poems and like you you're making predictions before the wedding and i mean i don't know how common it's becoming now for bridesmaids and maids of honor and the the other half of the wedding to-do speeches. That's becoming more of a thing now. So maybe you could include those too. But there's a certain cliché-ness to best man

that I think is quite funny. Well, they're supposed to be the... They are funny. And the pressure... I think the best man feels the pressure to be funny, which is why websites like the one you've mentioned have become popular. There is a certain rhythm to it

and there's the pressures on to pull something out. So you've been what you said you saw one where everyone like stood up and applauded because it was so good. Have you ever been to weddings where the best man speech has been like horrendous? I can't remember one that's horrendous. I've heard stories, but I can't remember. You know, people come back and say, oh, well, it's the sort of thing you talk about at a wedding reception, isn't it? You know, it's almost time for the speeches or something. And, oh, we heard once that was, you know.

Often they're just boring or they're, you know, you're just praying that they're short, I guess. Or they're meaningful. Have you seen any car crashes? Yeah, I've seen some good ones and some bad ones. A thing that people do these days, which i think is a bit pretentious and posy is they read speeches from their phone like they write they make their notes on their iphone and yeah then they read it off their phone i'm not a big fan of that i went to a wedding where the groom actually did that he started reading his speech from his phone fair enough

that's where he'd written it but he didn't put his phone into like you know airplane mode so all of us in the audience started phoning him and texting him on his phone all the way through the speech i had a friend who gave a speech that by some accounts was good and by some accounts was a bit edgy uh and it got cut from the wedding video oh by someone in the family but i didn't see the speech so i don't know what it was like. But it's, like, something we always talk about and joke about. Because I don't know. And, like, you know, he insists it was quite a good speech. And I believe him because he's, like, an honest guy.

But other people say it wasn't, like, it was controversial. And there's a director's cut out there somewhere. There's a director's cut. I'd love to see it now. So would he. Just for his own, put for his own like peace of mind it's often the place where a clash between the level of humor of the people in the bridal party or particularly the male members of the bridal party clashes with the presence of all

the family you know what i mean the older generations the sorts of things that are never it's like suddenly it's all in the one room under headlights on the most important day of their lives. You know, I'm talking about the whole family. Yes. And that can turn bad. Yes. Yes. And like people's past can be a sensitive subject.

They can be. So I'm looking at the bestmanspeech.com here. And they've got at the top of the website on the main page they have some top tips i might read a couple of these and you tell me if you think they're good tips they say be optimistic and congratulatory towards the newlyweds even if you know it's not going to last which i find quite a weird tip but could they be any more frank have you ever been to a wedding where you knew it wasn't going to last? No, not like that. Not on the day.

Number two, by complimenting the bride, her mother and her bridesmaids, you'll get a guaranteed round of applause. That is true. That is true. That is true. There's a few things you can say that are guaranteed to at least get there. But that just buys you time. That doesn't make it a great speech.

In fact, I would just continually praise the bride and just have applause for hours. Doesn't the bride look beautiful? Random applaud for the bride. Everyone's like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. No, but seriously, she looks great, doesn't she? Let's have another round. At what point will people stop applauding?

That's right. People start booing. Boo, no. We've gone off the... Move on. Let's do it. She doesn't look that good. Point three.

Make people laugh and get to the point. Wedding speech jokes are best delivered with short, sharp lines. That is good, but get people laughing is easier said than done. Yeah, exactly. Like, there's some... My advice to someone who's... They may as well say give a great speech it's like what yeah our tip to great speeches is give a great speech

wow my advice my advice to someone giving a speech would would be don't try to be funny if someone is naturally funny and a funny person of course they're going to give a funny speech because they're a funny person but never tell someone to be funny because If someone is naturally funny and a funny person, of course, they're going to give a funny speech because they're a funny person. But never tell someone to be funny because then they'll try to be funny. And if it's not their thing, my advice is be sincere. I absolutely agree. And be nice. Yes.

Be nice. Yeah, I think so too. When in doubt, be nice. Tip four, jokes based on a common experience are a great way to unite the wedding guests. It's true. jokes based on a common experience are a great way to unite the wedding guests. It's true. But what common experience of 400 different extended family members got to share? You know what I mean?

That's obvious. That's obvious. The wedding they just went to. Yeah. So you reference the wedding and the room you're in and the ceremony that just happened. Yeah. Yeah. Number five, don't insult the bride or her friends.

Obviously. Number six is true. and not everyone does this, and this is what will bring you unstuck. Never refer to ex-girlfriends or boyfriends, especially if they're there. But just don't refer to them at all. No, that's good. Good advice.

Number seven, use anecdotes that everyone can relate to. But the second part of this sentence is the important part, which don't require a lengthy backstory to explain there's nothing unfunnier than like extraneous detail and backstory oh yeah before i before i tell you this gag you're gonna have to there's a few things i need to explain there's nothing unfunnier than that i still say that an extended backstory given before the story is still better than an extended backstory required after the story in other words and it's funny because if you're doing your backstory after the joke then something's

going wrong that's right because you can't get like retrospective laughs that's right that's right so yeah so if i told it was funny i get it now what you said before was funny That's right. Because you can't get like retrospective laughs. That's right. That's right. So, yeah. So, if I told it. Oh, it was funny. I get it now. What you said before was funny. Tip eight is try to say everything in less than nine minutes. Good advice.

Short speech is a good speech. Yeah. Tip nine is a good tip. Avoid gimmicks. If your speech relies on props, videos or a dance routine, it's probably about as funny as your neighbor's holiday snaps. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Which is a really unfunny way to write that tip,

which makes me worry about the person giving the advice, but it's still good advice. They probably could have just left out the bit where they say it's probably as funny as your neighbour's holiday snaps because it's not funny. Props, if you're using props, that's an alarm bell. Yeah. It could still be good, but it's an alarm bell.

Yeah, the pressure's on to for the laugh to be as um as big as the prop you know what i mean if you've gone to that trouble but the the other thing that i've seen happen as well is is is it turns into a bit of a 21st speech and what i mean is that the speeches are unequal i mean obviously the best man's giving a speech for the if you like for the groom but he'll also mention the bride, how beautiful she looks. But it can sometimes be a bit like one person. It's all about the one person. Oh, and they happen to be getting married today.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's story after story after story. That's, you know. I agree. I agree. And I like a best man speech that puts a nice amount of spotlight on the bride. Although the groom's speech often of spotlight on the bride although the groom's speech often uh

focuses heavily on the bride also but well there's a tradition around these things isn't there like like the groom's the groom is supposed to toast the bridesmaids and the best man is supposed to toast maybe maybe it is the bra i don't know there's some sort of complex formula traditionally how these things are supposed to work the more we move towards a world where one of the bridesmaids makes a speech as well the better i think i think that's the way forward but we haven't quite got there yet it's still it's still not super common but oh really i would have thought that was quite common i haven't been to a wedding for i don't think i've been to a meeting for a year or so i was at one a few days ago well which is what made me think of this obviously but anyway best man speeches i think i think this is a fertile ground for a podcast because it's all dealing with you know the spoken

word and audio yeah the pressure i agree i think the pressure's on i mean you want to have some pearlers you know what i mean you want to have something in the podcast every week which is like i don't know joke of the week or best moment or, you know what I mean? Something like that, that you couldn't just deconstruct a mediocre best man speech. Not a mediocre, unless you were good at deconstructing, unless the deconstructors were funny. Oh, that's true. But I mean, there are so many best man speeches out there. I mean, I'm looking at websites full of them. So I don't think it would be super hard to access lots of them and therefore be able to cherry pick good

ones to all ones worthy of critique at least we haven't mentioned of course the classic four weddings at a funeral um film about the classic film about weddings and the classic speeches within them but they're quintessential examples of them well i didn't feel like i had to mention four weddings at a funeral because it's it's your job to reference dated uh films and songs so i was just waiting for you to do it yeah i've been holding back but finally it's come out what year was four weddings in your funeral is it in your sweet spot 1994 oh good yep so it's good we saw it together we saw it together do you remember i i do not remember but please don't be insulted by that we saw many films together back in those days we do any film i saw back in those days i i assume there's like a 60 chance i was watching it with

you that's true that's right i have since moved on to like other films and things like that i i thank you can i just just indulge me a minute longer i read an article the other day that said that hugh grant who is still making films now but not as regularly basically the the sorry i read an article the other day that said that Hugh Grant, who is still making films now but not as regularly, basically the, sorry, I read an article recently that said that the English romantic comedy is effectively dying because any film that doesn't contain Hugh Grant loses money. That's what they said. They said basically we've built this industry,

in the Richard Curtis kindis kind of you know forwardings in a funeral era on hugh grant and if a film doesn't have if it's a romantic comedy and it doesn't feature hugh grant if it does it makes a hundred you know million pounds or dollars and over and over but if it doesn't then it bombs and so they're trying to they've failed to move past the Hugh Grant era it's just this isn't an English comedy it hasn't got Hugh Grant that's exactly right that's exactly right the whole world just imagines him when they want to be in that particular genre Colin Firth makes a bit of an inroad but he's not quite as quirky and funny he he's um the fluffy head and you know lovable and all the rest of it so um they're unable to move past the, it may be a dead genre.

I have to say, man, I got married in England at like a big, lovely English country home in the English countryside with lots and lots of English people eating lots and lots of English food. And it felt all very lovely and British. But I do feel like the day was slightly poorer for not having Hugh Grant there. Really? You just... Something was missing and I think maybe it was him.

It was him, yeah, yeah. Just with his glasses and his fluffiness and his sort of confused look. Just making a few awkward comments and then giving a rogue smile. How sick would he be of going to weddings and the comments that would come from people, ah, here at a wedding, and he'd just be there in his tux and standing there. You know what I mean? With his wife or whoever he's with.

I don't know who he's with. Is he still with Jemima? I don't know. Imran Khan's ex-wife. Anyway, whoever he's with. You know what I mean? He goes to a wedding and it's, ah, here we go. What would people say to him?

What would be the thing? What would be the line that he would always get? Like people would always come up and say, what would they say to him? Oh, perhaps a line from the film or just why am I always at weddings but never actually getting married or something like that? Because what are they going to say to him? You just said, you said, huh, Hugh Grant

at a wedding. Surely, I hope people are going to have something more creative to say than that. I don't think they would be creative. I think you just sort of, well, look, here we are. Or they might give the speeches from there's a great best man speech that's given there. He gives one early on, which is quite sincere, but then there's the other one.

Or maybe, what, do they come up to him and say, well, I guess now it's five weddings and a funeral. Well, that would be the... Yeah, that's sufficiently crap. Well done, man, you've come up with that. I thought that was pretty good, actually. I was going to work that into the best man speech. Or the poor guy at his funeral.

One day he'll die. And the pressure's on the priest or the person giving the eulogy to make a reference. Four weddings and two funerals now, I guess. Boom, boom. Boom, boom. Very good. Well, I think we've had four ideas today i don't see any we've had four i would not i would not comment on their quality i i i won't either

i all right but there's definitely been four i've never been more underwhelmed by my own response to your response to my first idea i'm sorry i feel i feel really guilty about that one because you were so excited no no and then i was like no you popped the balloon but i i did but soon as i it's like i had the idea but all i had was the idea and I didn't think past the idea. You know what I mean? Like I didn't go, hang on a second, is this a good idea? I just thought it was. It's not a bad idea.

It's just like. It's too common. It's like, oh, I've got an idea for a podcast. We'll have like, we'll have these two people talking to each other and we'll record the audio and then we'll release it onto the internet so other people can listen to the audio. But it's a premise. It's a basis on that.

What if newspapers took the first line of their stories and put it in bold type to get your attention? That would be a radical idea. Basically, your idea was interviewing people you haven't met before. As opposed to interviewing people you have met before. Just quickly, you can support the Unmade podcast on Patreon. It is patreon.com slash unmadefm.

Let me check that's right. Is that right? I always forget because we've got a different angle. How many thousands of dollars have you lost us because people have been going to the wrong address wanting to give to the Unmade podcast? Damn it. That is right.

Where can I donate? That is right. That is right. Patreon.com slash Unmade FM. I wasn't sure if there was like some, how the FM worked, but that's it. Patreon.com slash Unmade FM. And if you do, one of the little treats that may be bestowed upon you is to get a quick mention in this section of the podcast and today

that treat is bestowed upon carly who is a listener from toronto in canada you ever been to toronto no no i've not been to canada I have. I've been to Toronto a couple of times. And one of the times I then went down to Niagara Falls, because you can get to Niagara Falls from Toronto pretty easily. And as we were driving back in Toronto, the weather turned and it started getting bad. And we were looking at the CN Tower, which is the big famous, really, really tall tower in Toronto. It's like the one in Sydney, but on steroids. It's even bigger. And it got hit by a lightning bolt as I was looking at it. I watched it get hit by lightning, which apparently

is not that amazing. It gets hit by lightning all the time, but I was pretty impressed. Wow. So Carly is a master's student in clinical engineering at the University of Toronto. I do not know what clinical engineering is. I don't either. There's a lot of engineering. There's a variety of civil engineering, mechanical engineering, computer. What is it? Electronic engineering. I'm looking up clinical engineering. I assume it's to do with medicine or something. But yeah, clinical engineers design, develop and maintain equipment for diagnosing illnesses. So I guess all those little machines that you see wired up to people and going

beep, beep, beep. They're like designed by people like Carly, maybe. Marvellous. Good to have a nice refined intellectual level of listener tuning into the Unmade podcast. It kind of increases the pressure a bit, though, if I think people that smart are listening, all these clinical engineers. Maybe we've got a huge support base amongst clinical engineers. That's a niche I didn't think we'd be in.

It could be. That could be our niche, like our thing, like the clinical engineer community are really into guys waffling about podcast ideas. But Carly certainly listens to the show, and she has an idea for a podcast, Tim. What is it? I'm keen to hear now.

What does a clinical engineer think a good podcast idea is? Well, I'm a bit reluctant to share it because it's better than most of ours. No idea. She thinks each week a new guest comes on the show with their most recent credit card statement and they have to go through it and try to remember and explain each purchase and it would feature guests from all walks of life. The focus would not be on budgeting or anything like that. The goal of the podcast would be for listeners to gain an insight

into human nature based on the way we spend money. That is a really great idea. That's a really interesting idea. It's pretty good. Wow. You could also do that with people's internet search history, but that might get dicey pretty quick. Also, that's true.

Or in a similar vein, they're rubbish. There's the classic idea of people going through celebrities' rubbish to find, you know, oh, goodness, they eat, you know, these particular brand of chips. How amazing. The credit card one is more interesting because obviously it's got all variety of purchases. Do you know what the last thing you purchased was?

The last thing I purchased today was a pair of purchases. Do you know what the last thing you purchased was? The last thing I purchased today was a pair of boots. I bought a... Bought a pair of boots? I did, I did. I bought a pair of R.M. Williams boots at Trims in Adelaide. Oh, I love Trims. Yeah. Well, the traditional Trims store sadly closed down, but they've kept an outlet open, thank goodness. Oh, the good one in the centre of town closed. The sprawling, messy one. Oh, the good one in the centre of town closed. The sprawling, messy one. Yeah, yeah.

It had been there like 100 years. It's terrible. And they went to financial difficulty, and I don't know why. But I don't know why they've still got a shop open, an outlet. I don't know if it's a new owner or what's going on, but they're still there. And it's the best place, I find, to buy R.M. Williams boots. I've got a brown pair I've had for years. I had a black pair before that, and I've got another black pair now. Now, this episode has been brought, to buy R.M. Williams boots. I've got a brown pair I've had for years. I had a black pair before that.

And I've got another black pair now. Now, this episode has been brought to you by R.M. Williams. No, it hasn't. R.M. Williams haven't given us a cent, so I'm not even saying their name again. Okay. You're not mentioning R.M. Williams and their boots, which are said to last a lifetime. And they have some sort of strange guarantee

where if you keep them for 50 years, you get a free pair. It can't be 20 years because lots of people have a pair for 20 years and you can get them re-sewn or you can keep wearing them. But I could be remembering that wrong. But people have them from an extraordinary long period of time and they put photos in their brochures about here's a pair that are 50 years old. Anyway, I love them. They're super comfy.

You're such a hoarder, Tim. That sort of deal is made for you because you keep everything. Stuff that's, like, you've had for 20 years for you is just, like, new stuff to you. Like, you're forever sending me, like, pictures or, like, some hand, like, some jokey picture I scrawled when we were in school together and gave to you, and, like, you send it to me on Facebook,

like, oh, look what I just found in some old box. I'm like, oh, for God's sake, man, throw that stuff away. I am nostalgic for that sort of stuff. So those photos and little keepsakes and anything you ever wrote to me, man, I've just kept and treasured away. Well, we're already showing why it's a good idea, because the first thing I asked about what you spend money on leads to a whole bunch of, you know, stories and nostalgia.

And I think Carly's on to a winner. I'm sure such things must exist. It seems such a good thing to do, but maybe it doesn't. I don't know. Nice one, Carly. Those clinical engineers, they're smart. They are. They are.

They've got good ideas. Unless, unless, unless Carly is a representative of a whole pool of them. They've all pulled their ideas, voted, and this is the one idea that really made the cast. And she's like their spokesperson. That is possible. Whether or not you are a clinical engineer, we don't care what you do.

We will accept your support on Patreon and be grateful for it. So go to patreon.com slash unmadefm. Get in touch and in due course, you may or may not hear from me. And I may say, tell me about yourself. Tell me your idea for a podcast. And it will be discussed here on the show. I don't know if we'll continue mentioning ones that are better than our ideas because it makes us look bad. But in this case, we have.

But we don't appreciate you showing us up with your good ideas. No, no. In fact, if you could just email those separately beforehand. To Tim, secretly to Tim. That would be helpful. I'd be like, gosh, Tim, the standard of your ideas recently has really increased. What's going on? You're like, oh, nothing.

I've got a couple of clinical engineers working for me. Full time. You're actually sending them money. They're actually making money out of you. All that brain power. Carly's supporting us out of Patreon out of sheer guilt because of the amount of money you actually sending them money they're actually making money out of you all that brain power carly's supporting us out of patreon out of sheer guilt because of the amount of money you're sending her meanwhile surgeons in in operating theaters across the world are saying she's the standard of our equipment's gone down lately what are the clinical engineers doing where

where are they putting all their good ideas i don't know let's go listen to that podcast by those two guys