BBC Six Music Podcasts.
Six Music.
This is a free download from the BBC.
Find out more at bbc.co.uk slash six music.
And now, Adam and Joe.
Happy Christmas from the big British castle.
Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, that's Santa Claus.
He is listening to his favourite podcast.
Oh, what a funny face, but beautiful eyes, though.
Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.
A bear was Fuzzy Wuzzy.
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.
I don't know the rest of that poem.
You've ruined the Fuzzy Wuzzy poem!
If Fuzzy Wuzzy, when Fuzzy Wuzzy lost his hair, he wasn't Fuzzy Wuzzy.
Wuzzy Wuzzy was a wuzz, a wuzz, a wuzz.
Hey, man, is that the phone ringing?
Wuzz, wuzz.
This is Adam and Jo at Glastonbury 2009 live for BBC Six Music and don't forget there's full coverage of the festival for the rest of the day here on Six Music and you can find all sorts of exciting fees from all the stages at bbc.co.uk slash Glastonbury.
You know if you're at home some may say you're in a better position to enjoy the festival than if you're here.
I mean they'd be slightly foolish.
Yeah, because it's been an absolutely beautiful festival.
We've been very lucky with the weather thus far.
Anyway, listen, folks, we're going to fill you in now on how we got on yesterday when we went to the cabaret tent and did a stint of live performing for the crowds and for Black Squadron, who turned up in their hundreds to see us read out some classic made-up jokes.
Yeah, if you've contributed a joke to this show, listen carefully, because you never know, your material might have been read out in front of a Glastonbury crowd.
Check it out.
BBC 6 Music live from Glastonbury 2009 with Adam and Jo.
Hey listeners, we're outside the cabaret tent.
Kevin Eldon is on inside.
It's a very, very packed audience in there.
It is.
Quite a few people have turned up to see us, which is very heartening.
We're just doing this little link outside the tent and would you say 15 people with cameras have gathered around us?
Yeah.
Black Squadron are here basically.
It's the Black Squadron paparazzi division.
It's amazing.
And this is intense Stevenage we're getting as well.
Never has there been so much Stevenage.
There's waving and excitement.
Look, check this out.
If I shout Steven right now, I'm going to get a good response.
Do you think?
Yeah.
Let's try it.
One, two, three.
Steven!
He's coming!
He's coming!
That was pretty good.
He's coming!
Look at that.
That was pretty good.
You know, they've had a tough weekend, so they're not as tight as they might be.
We didn't even arrange that.
That was still high quality.
That was amazing.
That was very good indeed.
So here we go.
Look at them go!
Hey!
Stephen!
This is amazing.
This is maximum Stephen-ish.
If you don't know who the hell we are or what we're talking about, we're Adam and Jo.
I'm Adam.
Hello, I'm Jo.
We do a radio show on BBC 6 Music.
We used to be on television a long time ago, before 9-11.
9-11 changed all that.
We've been banned from TV now.
But we're here tonight to do a very, very fast set, a four-minute set of pure comedy uranium.
These are made-up jokes that our listeners have sent in to us.
Yeah, we have to stress, these are all authored by real people.
You know, they're not made by joke scientists.
These are organic, fair-trade jokes.
you know, for the new millennium.
And to maximise the efficiency of this set, we're going to ask you not to make any noise at all.
If you think the jokes are terrible, please stay silent.
If you think they're amazing, please stay completely silent.
We're going to try and get three minutes of pure silence, and at the very end,
You can let it all out.
You can respond in any way you please.
We'll give you the cue and then you can let it all out.
But until then, absolute silence for these extraordinary made-up jokes.
I'm going to begin by setting the scene with a joke I made up myself that got the ball rolling on our radio show.
I'm very pleased with it.
What do you call a group of wrapping babies?
The No Solids crew.
No noise!
There was some noise.
Here's one I made up when my girlfriend said to me, oh Joe, I've got really bad indigestion.
Quick as a flash, I came back with, well, why don't you get out of digestion?
No noise.
This is a joke from Gareth in Letwick Major.
What do you call an Italian who can talk to the dead?
Luigi board.
Another one from Gareth.
My cat Minton ate a shuttlecock.
Bad Minton, born.
How do you find Will Smith in the snow?
Look for Fresh Prince.
Just take a tiny second to take that in, and let's move on.
It's important for me to tell you that this next joke is written by a four-year-old, ladies and gentlemen.
Oh, you've got these?
Yeah.
What do you call a man with a spade on his head?
The poo monster.
These are from Merrick Cartwright, incidentally, aged four.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
He was being chased by the poo monster.
I know Schwarzenegger was upset last Easter because he didn't get any eggs.
His secretary said to him, does this mean you hate Easter now, Mr. Governor?
And he said, nah, I still love Easter, baby.
That's it.
Made up jokes.
We're Adam and Joe.
Thank you very much to any listeners who've come to see us.
Thanks to everybody else.
We have just come off stage at the cabaret tent.
We just completed our made-up joke set.
And how did you feel it went, Joe?
I was excited.
I think it went really well.
I made a couple of pronunciatory boo-boos, but I feel that's part of my shtick.
It was brilliant.
We turned it around.
People loved that.
I, you know, I ribbed you a little bit about it.
You did, I took it well.
And you took the ribbing really well, you didn't punch me or get very defensive.
I thought you might get angry because, you know, you're the stand-up and I was doing really well and probably level with you, you know, and I just thought you might be getting a bit angry and jealous.
I thought I might be threatened by it.
Yeah, threatened by my, by my kind of untutored stand-up skills.
I thought I'd be annoyed by the fact that you haven't got any formal training.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and there I am.
Sort of like Michael Caine versus Al Pacino, you know.
Yeah, exactly.
But what a great crowd.
They came out in droves.
If anyone's listening to this who was in that crowd, thank you.
Thank you for coming and for giving us such a welcome.
You made two very happy men, very, very old.
Outside my tiny little cafe in Paris, you'll find two men called Adam and Joe.
All day they sit, just talking away.
Sometimes I listen and hear what they say.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, waffles.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, pancakes.
They're making a podcast apparently.
It sounds like a load of old crap to me.
Oh, I am making the joke.
This is Adam and Jo on BBC Six Music.
One of the biggest challenges of coming to the Glastonbury Festival, aside from surviving the festival itself, is the journey.
Oh yes.
It's getting down here.
Like one year you and I drove, didn't we Adam?
Yeah.
Back in the days when we were doing telecoverage for BBC Choice, we drove down.
How long did we sit in a jam for?
Seven hours.
Seven hours.
It was infuriating.
It was.
Nothing worse than being stuck in a jam, as Michael Douglas can attest.
Exactly.
You know, in this big metal box, sitting in the middle of God knows where, Lord knows where, unable to move.
I ran out of music to play.
I had my mini-disc player.
And, you know, I thought I'd done pretty well stocking up for the music.
I was down to the really rotten stuff by the end of that.
They might have improved it over the years, but the roads around Glastonbury become notoriously congested leading up to the festival.
Various local villages have to be sort of circled off by security men and stuff.
It's a big hoo-ha.
It's an absolute diamond hoo-ha.
It's one of the largest of all the hoo-has.
So this year we decided to come by train.
And we got our agents to pressure the BBC into sending us down in minor style, right, a cheap weekend first class upgrade, because the carriages were very full.
So I was sitting in first class, and some other people had had the same idea.
They'd bought the cheap first class upgrade.
And there are a couple of lads sitting opposite me.
I say lads, they were in their mid-30s, mid to late 30s.
Obviously childhood friends.
They sat down, and they'd obviously sort of got off a week's work early, and they were going to relive their youth by going down to Glastow together, like they did maybe 15 years ago.
They went to the buffet as soon as it opened.
How many tins of beer do you think they got each?
Each?
Well, if it was me, I'd go for a couple.
Eight.
Eight each?
Eight each.
Two-hour journey, eight each.
What's the maths on that?
That's unbelievable.
What, four of them?
That's extraordinary.
That was extraordinary.
They started off with quite intelligent conversation, but then... And they were sitting right near me.
I was trying to read my paper, but I couldn't help but listen to every single word they were saying.
Yeah.
They started to have a burping competition.
Did they?
Yeah.
And then the burping competition, it devolved into a farting competition.
In executive class, this is.
This was in premier class.
They started blowing off really loud, classic Raspberry farts.
What the hell?
And I thought, this can't go on, so I broke the fourth wall again, like I did at the King Creosote gig.
Oh, you intervened.
And I turned to them and said, how old did you say you are?
37, with a smile.
That was your opening gaffe.
It was a nice, light-hearted thing to say.
And they looked at me and laughed, but they were mortified.
Nice and light-hearted.
Cornish managed to do his mortifying act again.
Were you shaking while you said it?
No, no.
I'm used to this kind of thing.
I'm a professional party pooper.
Yeah.
And then we had a little chit-chat, that was fine, but they were obviously so freaked out at being caught at being juvenile.
They tried to then turn their conversation into something more intellectual.
I wrote down some of the stuff they said immediately after the farting incident.
People you don't ever want to be stuck in a confined space with.
Number one, Joe Quench.
There was some giggling after the farting had been exposed, and they sort of didn't know what to do next.
Their style was cramped by me.
What a weird.
So they started to talk about films, and one of them said, you know what the best film is ever made?
Citizen Kane.
Do you know why?
Two words.
Greg Toland.
Depth of Field.
75% of all communications nonverbal.
It's about seeing the ceiling.
He started to go super intellectual about Citizen Kane to try and convince me, the Cornballs, that they weren't just fartmeisters.
And they completely stopped guffing.
It wasn't like... The guffing stopped.
But he was really making a conscious effort to try and turn his reputation around.
Yeah.
I don't know what their names were.
I won't embarrass them.
But they were having a good time.
And you know what the sweetest thing was?
When the train pulled up at Castle Carey and the tannoy announced where we were, they both high-fived each other, like a couple of excited 15-year-olds.
It was very sweet.
And they fell out of the train on their faces and fell asleep on the platform.
As far as I know, they're still there.
Are you going to tell anyone else in the festival off today?
I'm going to tell a lot of people off in the festival.
After the show's finished, we should go out there and record you just telling some people off.
They were farting.
Would you have just tolerated the farting?
It was stinky as well.
You can't do stinky duffs in first class, can you?
No, I admire your interventionary skills.
That's very impressive.
How old did you say you were?
But don't paint me as some kind of, like, headmaster type character.
No, why would I?
It was Jovil.
It was friendly.
Yeah, yeah.
We're good pals.
That's cool, good.
This is Adam and Jo on BBC Six Music.
these days.
Jeremy Vine.
Vine.
It used to be, I think I'm right in saying it's Vine, aren't I, James?
Used to be Anne Robinson.
It was Wogan for a bit.
Then it was one of the, was it Paul Heaney?
Points of view that, it's important for every television channel to have a show in which the listeners can get, you know, have their say.
Barry Took was the king, wasn't he?
Was he, back in the day.
But isn't it important for there to be a forum within a channel where viewers can have their say and get a sense of feedback?
They've got to have their right to reply.
Especially for the BBC in this day and age, there's been a lot of scrutiny of the BBC and its values and all that kind of business.
So, in a way, Points of View is a very important program because it should seriously reflect that listeners' points of view are being taken seriously.
And you would have thought that would be reflected in the theme music.
Wouldn't you?
Yeah, I have no idea what the theme music is.
Well, this is the theme music that the BBC have decided to use for Points of View, and they have kind of improved the rest of the show.
In the old days, the letters used to be read out by sort of comedy voices, do you remember?
Yeah.
And it was just a tiny bit dismissive and making light of people's complaints.
And I think they changed that.
It's now presented by Jeremy Vine, and in the old days it was in a sort of front room, a cosy sort of front room with some flowers.
Now it's in a sort of, he's leaning on a control desk.
It's as if it's more serious and like the news and as if your complaints are really getting to a place that matters.
But they've made all those improvements.
but they're still using a theme tune that maybe doesn't reflect the necessary respect for their listeners.
Because I would imagine it would be something like the news, you know?
Yes, serious and important.
Like a current affairs thing.
Yeah, yeah.
Well no, this is the theme tune they use.
You made that up.
No, that's the real theme music.
I had to edit it a bit there because the iPlayer kept stalling.
Ah, it does that.
Is that really the theme music?
Yeah, that's the theme music.
Blah boobity baya, blah blah.
Blah blah.
Let's have it again.
Blah.
Blah boobity baya, blah blah.
Blah boobity baya, blah blah.
Blah blah boobity baya, blah blah blah blah blah.
The BBC has been in some quite serious trouble in the last year or so, and that's just a tip to my colleagues in the castle.
You might want to change that music.
Who made that?
I mean, whoever done that is a jingle genius for a start.
Yeah, it's good music, but maybe on the wrong show.
On the wrong show.
See, that would be good theme music for our show.
It would, well maybe we should sing over it or do an extended mix of it.
We should do a jingle for it, we should do a new piece of theme music for their show.
We should send them the Black Squadron music or something.
I'll try and think of some new music for their show, right, and they can have that and we can use blah boobity bye.
We need to find out who composed that.
Who composed Blah-booby-dee-blah-yah?
I'd love to go to a live concert by them.
Wouldn't you?
I wonder what the album's like.
For their encore, they'd come out and they'd do that four more times.
Anyway, message to Vine there and... Play Blah-booby-dee-blah-yah!
Let's keep an eye on the next series of Points of View and see whether they stick with that music.
I'm sick of playing Blah Boobity Baya.
It's all anyone asks for.
We're reforming the band!
Oh no, we're going to have to play Blah Boobity Baya again.
The largest amount of pots, pans and kitchen implements ever used at once on a pop record.
Did you know that?
That was Kiss of Life by Friendly Fires.
You invented that fact though, didn't you?
Yes.
That was an invented fact.
We should have an invented fact jingle on this show.
We'd be playing it round the clock.
That was an invented fact.
That was based on spurious guesswork.
Could be the other jingle.
Yeah.
Kiss of Life by Friendly Fires is the song we just played.
Friendly Fires are presenting a show on Six Music this Sunday as part of our month of mercuries.
And they didn't win anything at the Mercury's, I'm afraid to say, but that hasn't stopped them putting their chin up, jutting their chin out and saying, never mind, there's always next year.
There's always the chance we might get a Mercury nom next year.
Who won the Mercury nom last year?
Well, the big Mercury winners were Elbow, weren't they?
Ah, were they?
And this year it was Speech to Bell.
I mean, Elbow was sort of well-established before they won the Mercury, so there's no question of them fading from view the way some people who've won the Mercury Prize in the past have done.
Have they really?
Do some people consider it as a bit of a kiss of death?
Well, it's a poisoned chalice for some people, isn't it?
Who was the guy Ronnie Size and his represent?
Right, you don't really want opprobation from above, do you, if you're a rebellious pop type?
No, exactly.
You don't want to be form prefect.
You don't want to be stroked by the head boy.
You don't want to be at the back of the bus flicking Vs. Well done, Speech to Bell.
Well done.
All the chaps think you've done a brilliant job on your album.
Your gobbing in the street is the best gobbing in the school.
Well done with your phlegmy bits.
You're a naughty chap, and we think that's great.
Top marks.
Here's a prize and a cheque to go with.
We've given up trying to get everybody to speak proper.
From now on, the whole school gonna speak not proper.
And you're going to be the leader of them.
Wicked, well done.
Grib, grib, grib it.
Grib, grib, grib it.
Listen, I'm not going to dress the same way as you, just so you know, or behave like you, or actually listen to the records you're buying, making, but good job, there's the check.
I want people to think I'm cool like you.
Stand next to you, give you a prize.
Look at me, disco dancing.
Speech to bell, come round for dinner with me.
That's not the head of the Mercury, it's a little song he sung just backstage after he'd given her the prize.
You know, the people that decide the Mercury prize, the nominees and the winners, are nothing like that.
Freddie Mercury.
It's nothing to do with Freddie Mercury.
They're all young, intelligent, groovy people, nothing like the way we've just characterised them.
It's another made-up fact.
It's another made-up fact.
You see, we just have to have that as a music bed, basically, not a jingle.
Now can you hear that I've got a cold?
Yeah.
Listen, as Adam came in today looking very under the weather with a terrible cold.
Yeah.
And you're doing very well done coming in.
I've got some medicated tissues.
Well, I wasn't sure if I should come in because, you know, a few months back, it was a big deal on the news.
It was like, well, if you've got a cold, should you go into work?
And the consensus was, no, you shouldn't because it's putting your co-workers at risk of the pandemic.
But then I thought, the pandemic's over a little.
You just flinched because I shouted.
Well, I did because you said that very loud and I suddenly had a sort of medical flash frame.
I should have covered my mouth with my... I could see the disease molecules flying through the air towards me.
I'm covering my mouth with a medicated tissue now.
I had a macro flash.
Is that better?
Yeah, that's better.
Keep talking.
If I carry on talking like that... It's very rustling because of the beard.
Right.
I can't do that.
It's ridiculous.
But no, I did wonder if I should come in but then on the other hand the good thing about having a cold Is it it does give a special quality to your voice, right?
a special kind of a tomboy
Yeah, no, it's good.
It's sounding good.
I sound a bit like the lady.
Who's the lady that does the sort of trails before our show starts?
Can you play that thing?
The sexy bored one.
The sexy one.
She says everything the same way.
I'm so bored.
She is sexy.
Six music.
Today from two, John Holmes.
Yeah.
From midday, Liz Kershaw.
What?
And now, it's Adam and Jo.
Who cares?
She just talks like that.
Stuff them down the toilet.
All the time.
Who cares?
Listen, darling, I'm going to the shops.
Do you want anything?
Actually, hang on.
Tonight.
What?
Half price.
Fish fingers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you want fish fingers for tea?
Okay.
That's what we'll have.
Do you want potatoes?
Or broccoli?
7.15?
Or both?
The bill!
What's that?
I don't know why she extended it there.
I think she got stuck.
Adam!
Adam!
Adam!
Adam!
Adam and Jo!
Adam and Jo!
Adam and Jo!
On the radio!
So Joe, MPs, expenses?
Oh I'm glad you've brought this up because there hasn't been enough talk about this subject in the media.
I know you like hot-button topics.
I love hot-button topics.
I saw Dervla Kirwan, do you know the actress Dervla Kirwan?
She was in Bally Kiss Angel and she's a well-known TV actress.
And she was on The One Show.
Is it still called The One Show?
Yes.
With Adrian Childs and The Lady.
And they were talking about MP's expenses and they just asked Dervla Kerwin.
And I thought maybe she'd come out with some kind of wishy-washy.
Yeah, you know, well, that's shocking.
That's what I would come out with if I was asked about that on a TV show.
She was absolutely adamant.
She said, it's a disgrace.
It's an absolute disgrace.
We've been let down.
I spent my whole life being honest.
I never fiddled a single thing in my life.
And I think it's shocking.
And even Adrian Charles was like, what, you've never fiddled anything?
Not a single thing you've been dishonest?
No!
Came the answer from, she said it nicer than that, she didn't shout.
But her attitude was saying... Well now I'm worried about you and Adrian Charles.
Why?
Because you've clearly fiddled things.
Have you not fiddled nothing?
Never.
Never.
You're like Dervla Kirwan.
I've never fiddled anything.
I don't believe you.
I don't believe you.
I do believe Dervla Kirwan.
I don't believe you.
You are the fiddler.
You're Johnny Fiddler.
What thing to accuse me of?
What's your evidence?
You're the Yehudi Menuhin.
Oh, I fiddled.
You loved to fiddle.
What, where's your evidence?
I don't know, I'm projecting.
I fiddled lots of things.
Clearly.
Have you never, you've never taken like toilet paper from work?
Uh, no.
Bit of computer printing paper?
Pens, sometimes I steal pens.
You're the fiddler.
A biro?
Is that bad?
Yes.
Could an MP be thrown out of court for nicking a biro?
Definitely!
What about a lighter?
Sometimes I go home with other people's lighters in the past, I've done that.
Public apology.
I hereby apologise unreservedly to listeners of the BBC4 in 1985 taking Chris Barnes's Bic lighter accidentally from his house.
Now you've busted Barnes for being a filthy smoker.
He's not going to thank you for that.
This was in the 80s.
Yeah, well, everyone smoked in the 80s.
That's true.
It was healthy back then.
It was acceptable in the 80s.
That's the only thing you've ever fiddled, is it?
Pretty much.
You've never tried to... You are such a liar.
No, I'm not a big fiddler.
I'm not a big fiddler, but I'm he can't even look at me Well, I'm not looking at cuz I remember I'm starting to remember some of your fiddles What about the photographs that we've got of your fiddles all the good times that we used to have oh, okay That was stealing
That wasn't as subtle as fiddling.
Fiddling's a nice word for stealing.
That was just theft.
I may have done some shoplifting in the 80s, but that's something that lots of kids go through.
That's not true, and we're not encouraging it by any means.
No, it's a terrible thing, but that's a bit different.
That's a kind of rite of passage when you're discovering the nature of property and theft.
You weren't shoplifting though, come on.
I was.
Kind of.
Wasn't technically shoplifting.
As a member of the big British cult, you could even get thrown out retrospectively for admitting something like that.
Something I did in 1986.
Definitely, definitely.
Come on.
If they're putting people in prison with DNA evidence, you know, I mean that's murder obviously, it's slightly different.
yeah they could retrospectively uh caution you hang you out because they don't the castle can't believe that this link has ended up with me being forced into a criminal confession i didn't force petty shoplifting i did in the mid 80s
when it started out with MPs tax fiddling and now I'm on the ropes.
I've already got eye twitch and a bad chest.
I didn't want you to confess to any grand larceny.
I was interested in like pens and printed paper.
I've been skillfully manipulated.
I've been skillfully manipulated by Sherlock.
Buxton into making a confession.
A couple of weeks ago, was it a couple of weeks ago, we did a little grunting masterclass.
Yes, a couple of weeks, yeah.
Yeah, I was harnessing Adam's skills as a screen actor to just take you listeners through some of the grunting skills that are required for performances in action films.
That's good, man.
What was that?
That was lifting a manhole cover with a body lying across it.
Yes.
Very good.
Very good.
Important part of any actor's repertoire to be able to grunt for big screen movies.
But I've always been fascinated by the Archers, the Radio 4 drama series.
Are you a listener?
I listen every now and then.
I'm more often in a room when other people are listening.
Sure.
Or I catch the beginning and switch it off.
But I do love the archers and it's occurred to me that there's a special skill required for acting in the archers.
Similar to the skill of grunting for action films.
In the archers it seems to me moaning and sighing is very important.
That's good.
It seems to me when I listen to the archers on Radio 4 that they're constantly...
Oh, coming into a room and sighing, making tea.
And then sighing again.
And then that's the end of the scene.
That's the default tone of The Archers.
I think so.
It's sort of ennui.
It's something that permeates Radio 4 drama as a whole is sort of abject sighing.
It's a good way of emoting on the radio.
Yeah, well it's important, you know, it's obviously you can't, there's nothing to look at, no face to express, so you've got to use the voice as a, I mean you know this Adam already as an experienced actor, you've got to use the voice as a tool in radio very particularly, but I don't know, maybe sometimes it gets a little bit much on the archers.
there's a little bit too much sighing i i wondered what would happen for instance if i took an episode of the archers and removed everything but the sign uh-huh uh i wondered what that would sound like so i done it you've done it let's have a listen this is what it sounds like
Thanks.
Anyway.
Tom.
You see, it's not bad, is it?
No, it sounds good, man, because you've got ups and downs, peaks and troughs in there.
I mean, it starts off quite fruity there, there's a little... Well, it does, it sounds like quite a dirty evening in Ambridge, doesn't it?
Ambridge, what's it called?
Ambridge, you're right.
Ambridge.
It's like Cambridge.
Yeah, Cambridge.
Yeah, no, that was nice.
It starts off very, very saucy and then gets a little bit tiring and then...
Yeah, and then, ah, Tom.
Annoying.
Yeah, and then it sort of kicks off again.
Yeah.
But can you, are you good at sighing there?
Could you do that sort of sighing?
What if, just come in the door and say, you've come home from a busy day's work and you're just calling into the house to see if anyone else is there.
Go.
That's good, you see.
What about if the inspector has come to inspect the drainage systems on the farm and he's laid down a lot of new EU rules on how you're going to have to put the drainage down and you're telling your husband about all the new EU rules?
Well, there's a lot of new EU rules about the drainage.
That's good!
You really did that one well.
I mean, I exhaled as much as I could.
What about just, you've had a hard day and you've just had a sip of tea and you've put the teacup down and this is a sigh that just expresses all the ennui in your life, you know.
Okay.
I'm going to sip the tea first, right?
Just to warn you, there'll be a sound effect for that.
No, no, that was terrible.
Too much.
Yeah, that sounded like a horse doing a poo.
You said everything.
You said, put everything in there.
Yeah, but it came out as a incontinent foal, horse, stallion.
Alright, alright.
I don't think anyone in Ambridge would sip tea like that.
Well, I'm doing it.
I'm exaggerating.
You're not a very good supportive director, I must say.
Man, I can see you in one of the Underworld films, yes, but not in The Archers.
You're too big.
Too big?
I think we need an actor or actress from The Archers to come and teach you about sign.
I can do subtle.
That's good you see.
That's better isn't it?
I mean the drinking was still too much but yeah.
We were talking the other day about songs that you kind of customise so that you can sing them as part of your everyday routine.
This all started with someone saying that they sung, uh, lock the taskbar, lock the taskbar.
Only somebody emailed us in annoyed that we said it in a kind of posh voice and elongated the A. Oh yeah.
Because of course it could be taskbar.
Yeah, lock the taskbar.
If you're from a different area of Britain.
That's how I got quite angry, in a class-orientated way.
Really?
Via email, yeah.
People do that, don't they?
Said we were too posh to execute that joke properly.
Class war.
Tough luck, Buster.
Yeah.
Socialist worker.
Yeah.
Well, we've got a couple more here.
Some good ones have come in.
Actually, this one is from Steve, aka Stephen!
Mark Curran, the man at the very epicentre of the Stephen phenomenon.
He's one of the founding stones of the show.
He is the Rosetta Stone of this program.
Steve Curran says, when my flatmate and I are drinking red wine, we sometimes open the bottle a little beforehand to let it breathe.
It improves the taste, of course.
When we do this, we like to sing,
Let it breathe.
Let it breathe.
Let it breathe.
Let it breathe.
To the tune of Let It Be by The Beatles.
That's good.
Yeah.
That's a posh one as well.
I like that one.
Let it breathe.
They hold hands and sing that one as well.
Yeah, everyone could sing in unison.
Why?
Well, that is so bourgeois, isn't it?
While they're waiting for their wine to breathe a little bit.
I love that.
Here's one from Graham.
He says, I used to have a pair of blue boxers with pictures of wolves on them given to me by my mum.
Mum gives the best pants, don't they?
I love his mum.
I mean, they always give good pants.
Mums have just got a really good sense of pants.
They're born with it.
Yeah, it's true, isn't it?
Yeah, mums and pants.
They know their pants.
A woman.
Which I became very attached to, my wolf pants, says Graham.
When donning them of a morning, I used to sing to the tune of Mr Sandman, Mr Wolf Pants.
show me your pants bong bong bong bong make them a nice pair of blue shiny scants yeah not sure what to say nothing mr wolf pants oh show me your pants bong bong bong bong
Mister Wolfpants.
That's good, Graham.
He says it used to amuse me no end and may actually have led to the early demise of some of my relationships.
Worth it though, I think, and I miss them dearly.
It is sad when a favourite pair of pants is no longer usable.
do you think he sung that when he was with a lady and maybe they were reaching a special moment an intimate moment in their relationship and he comes and he was dropping his straw bridges and the wolf pants could you think he would sing that at that moment mr wolf pants would that get a lady going would things continue as planned you don't see that in many films do you imagine though
I just finished that bit for him.
I think that would be a sexy scene in a film.
Can you imagine though?
if you met a girl, and without prompting, she sang to you that song, you know?
So you drop your trousers, and she sees your wolf pants for the first time, and she just starts spontaneously singing, Mr. Wolf Pants.
In that slightly sexy breathy voice.
She's really excited.
Mr. Wolf Pants.
That's far-fetched, man.
That's really far-fetched.
Yeah, but you would know that you found the one.
Yeah, if that happened you should just live on a desert island on your own, the two of you, forever.
Your wolf pats would just explode off you with excitement at that point.
Yeah.
Now, we had a few messages from people who had heard my voice on the Philippe Starck sort of, what would you call it?
It's not really a documentary, is it?
No, I don't think it is a documentary.
It's one of those kind of elimination shows.
It's a reality series.
It's like a reality elimination thing, a little bit like The Apprentice.
It's a design apprentice.
Right.
The Apprentice for contemporary design.
And it's on BBC, is it on Tuesday evenings?
I don't know.
Sometime around.
It's a prime time proposition, though.
It's like a nine o'clock thing.
And he's a ridiculous over-the-top French design figure.
I mean, he's a legend.
He's also quite brilliant.
In the industry.
You reckon he's brilliant, do you?
Well, he's very, yeah, he is, because he's completely distinct and you can tell a Philip Stark thing.
Can you?
What's his most famous design?
The Philip Stark golf ball, of course.
Is that true?
Yes.
It is a triangle.
Well, someone suggested the other day that I replace, or fool around with the VO, because I do the voiceover, right?
You do the voiceover, yeah, and it is disconcerting for, I mean, I sat down and watched it the first week it was on.
And I'm trying to do a serious one as well.
Yeah, but it's hard not for it to be a bit funny, even when you try and do your serious voice.
I was directed to be serious by the director.
But it's odd, and especially when we know that you do quite an outrageously peculiar French accent yourself.
It does not sound dissimilar to Stark's outrageously peculiar French accent.
Well, with that in mind, I've slightly retooled the first minute or so of the programme.
Good one.
World-renowned designer Philippe Starck has set out to find Britain's best young creative talent.
Great design is all about the unexpected idea, like a bed made out of glass, or a glass made out of glass and a bed.
From hundreds of online applicants, he chose 12 to join his school of design in Paris.
Bonjour, les Anglais!
Now he's putting them through their paces to find the best of the best.
I use the best of the best.
Yes.
OK, you stay.
Thank you.
One up-and-coming designer who's worthy of a place at his own agency.
I am crazy, OK?
I'll say what I think, because I'm a genius.
Look at my nipples.
So far, he has challenged them to rethink everything they know.
OK, you know mugs, OK, for drinking the coffee, the tea?
Rethink.
Instead, use the smashed hat of a tramp.
He has praised their high moments.
And slammed their low ones.
And when students fail to meet his exacting standards.
A return journey through the Channel Tunnel beckons.
I want you to go out through the Channel Tunnel now, like a big fart, because that's what you are to me, a massive, great fart of a person.
Go, go away, get out of my sight, out of it now!
And take your lolly chair with you!
That's a better program.
Oh, come on.
It's a much better program.
You know what I'd also like to hear is the voiceover done in that voice as well.
the whole thing wall to wall just insane Frenchorama and have instead of British students insane French students as well that was excellent thanks thanks for doing that
You downloaded it quite fast Using your broadband And some clicks done by your hand Now you're listening to it In your house or in your car Or above or in a plane Hope it's nice wherever you are
That was the specials with Rat Race.
Very nice to hear that.
Don't know if you saw the specials playing on Jools Holland the other day, Joe.
I did, yes.
I mean, they performed very well.
They're still sounding fantastic.
But Terry Hall didn't look as if he wanted to be there in the slightest.
Or do you think that that's just his shtick?
I think he's always, you know, he's never been a sort of enthusiastic performer.
That's part of his skill and his mood, isn't it?
Right, he's got a kind of lugubrious demeanour.
Yeah, that was always the sort of duality, if I may be so pretentious, of their music, wasn't it?
It's getting me hot.
You know, they sung about slightly depressing things, but in a sort of cheerful, scary way.
Upbeat way, yeah.
Yeah, but then with sort of gloomy, moody bass lines and stuff.
I wanted to reach in and give him a little tickle and a hug.
How would he have responded?
Slap me away?
I don't know, it's hard to tell.
I think he would have liked it.
I've met him once and he was very nice indeed.
Well there's no question that he's a nice fella.
But as far as your performing persona goes, you know what I mean?
But it's good.
There's room for all kinds of moods, shades, colours.
Is there?
You know, yeah.
On the spectrum.
On the pop spectrum.
Yeah.
Absolutely true.
Anyway, I was very happy to see them back again.
They sounded great.
And... I'll tell you what I worry about on later.
What do you worry about?
It's Jools' presentational style.
It's because it's all about the conference, bro.
This is Australia, because it's a band.
It's becoming incomprehensible.
Brilliant band, fantastic noise, Jack Pignatte!
That's alright, all the key facts are there, the salient points.
Brilliant band, exciting, Jack Pignatte.
He just seemed a bit drunk on that one.
Do you think he gets a little bit drunk?
No, he's too professional.
No, he's too professional.
That's his thing, man.
He's not drunk.
Yeah.
He's definitely not drunk.
He might have a little flute of champagne at the hootenanny.
Yeah.
But the rest of the time, definitely.
I think every day's a hootenanny.
For Jules.
Wake up.
It's a 24-7 hootenanny.
Bit of boogie-woogie.
Morning.
Ah, hootenanny.
Not again.
All right.
Ladies and gentlemen.
I'm going to have some breakfast.
This is the British wonderful bacon and eggs.
It's marvellous.
This is the cooker.
Over here is the cooker.
It's brilliant.
And over here we also have the toaster.
And over here is the garden.
It's wonderful flowers from the garden.
That's him in his kitchen.
Yeah.
I want to be there.
It's my wife, it's my wife and my children to get in the car, bring in the car, round and across the car.
I love it in Jules's world.
It's brilliant.
Can we go there?
That's how he conducts his daily life.
Every week.
We should get him to do some links for the show, shouldn't we?
Yeah, he's definitely going to now, isn't he?
Definitely.
Definitely.
He's on his way right now.
In his little Fiat Punto.
Adam's really great and he's wonderful.
Joe is really, really, really brilliant.
They're fantastic.
But which one is the best?
It's Adam.
I went on holiday to Spain and me and my lady partner, we booked a couple of nights in a very posh spa hotel.
Ooh.
We thought we'd go posh at the beginning and then go a bit cheaper for the main body of the holiday.
That's strange.
I would do it the other way round.
Well, we ended up spending the whole holiday in the spa.
Yeah, because we didn't like the other place.
Anyway, so when we first got there, we decided to book ourselves some treatment.
Have you ever had that kind of thing?
Yes, I have.
Have you been to a spa and had a treatment?
Yes, on my honeymoon.
Have you had a massage?
Yeah, and it was, it really takes it out of you.
Have you had an elaborate massage?
Certainly I have.
Like, like, you know, exotic orange aromas of the Himalayas.
Had the whole thing.
I mean, it was everything but sensual.
Do you know what I'm saying?
OK, well listen, let me talk you through my massage.
I was very excited and I find, my problem is I find massage, whoever does it, slightly erotic.
Of course!
Even a sort of grisly old football manager massaging David Beckham's shin.
Your sports injuries.
I would imagine there was a sexy frisson.
Sure.
An unavoidable sexy frisson.
Human contact.
So that's the first thing that gets me anxious before the massage, which is supposed to be a very relaxing thing, that's the whole point.
And it's not something you do very often, presumably.
No, no, one does it as a special treat.
So I thought, I'm going to be so relaxed.
This is, when I finish this massage, I'm going to be more relaxed than any man has ever been.
Was your lady partner having the massage at the same time in the same room?
She had hers before.
But in a different room, right?
In the same room.
In the same room.
But you weren't there together.
There was only one massage.
It's very boutique, this place.
It's one massage room.
It was cleaned between massages.
Anyway, I thought, after this massage, I'm going to be so relaxed, I'll be unable to walk.
But weirdly, the massage made me very tense for the following reasons.
Reason one was the erotic nature of the massage.
And I knew I was going to expose my naked body to this woman.
Oh, totally naked?
Well, it wasn't naked, but... So I go into this little room, and the following sort of music is playing in the background.
This isn't the real music, but I've attempted to recreate the sort of music in the massage room.
Nice and new-agey.
Thank you.
Can you hear the Amazonian... Sure, the birds and... Oh, there's chanting.
Yeah, that was what was going on.
Was that you chanting there?
No, well, that's me, but I'm just trying to capture the actual chanting that was going on.
I love music like this.
I genuinely do.
So I go into this room, this music's playing, this very lovely woman with black curly hair, all wearing sort of floppy black clothing.
She's got limited English, so she says, Hello, sit.
Please take off clothes.
I go, okay, so I take off my clothes modestly, and she exits for that.
Not all clothes!
But she leaves me a tiny, tiny plastic bag.
Ah.
Very small, what one might call a dime bag.
Right.
With some sort of article of clothing in it.
So she leaves the room, I unwrap the article of clothing, and it's the smallest little paper thong you've ever set your eyes upon.
A thong!
So I slip on this tiny thong, completely naked now, with a little piece of string going between my buttocks.
Ah.
and a tiny little bag for my bits and bobbins at the front and i put this thing on and i feel very exposed i think i can't the woman can't come back into the room and see me like this so i wrap a towel around myself sure she comes back in she says take off towel i take off the towel reveal my tiny little man packet yeah that's not in a state of interest you might have to loop the massage music james
So I'm feeling a bit compromised because of that, you know.
She starts giggling.
She's repressed a smile and I lay on the bed and my massage involved being covered in oils and then rubbed with salt.
And then, yeah, it was like a chicken being prepared.
And then she put some sort of herbal sauce on me.
Coriander.
And she was being very invasive.
Well, not that, she was being very uninvasive with the thumbs, but they did get very, very close.
to certain areas.
To special places.
And it was oily.
So if she'd slipped, that thumb would have gone right up.
Yeah.
I mean, it was within seconds of happening.
Well, she's a professional.
She's not going to let that happen.
Does that sort of thing happen to you?
Not on a regular basis.
It's never, no.
But it did.
I mean, I know what you mean.
The massage I had, I mean, it was extreme.
It's an inch away from danger at all points.
But listen, how did you feel afterwards?
Uh, well, there was a- let me just get to a moment in the middle where I was lying on this bed, I was lying on a sheet of plastic covered in oil and salt and herbs.
Coriander, yeah.
And then she wraps me up in this plastic, because that's part of the, uh, you know, treatment.
She pops you in the oven.
And she says, I leave for ten minutes.
You lie, relax.
So I left, uh, she left the room, and I was lying there wrapped in plastic, covered in all these things, listening to the massage music.
Let's fade out the massage music for a bit to try and recreate that moment.
And for about a minute, I felt really relaxed.
Yeah.
But then I started to feel like an idiot.
Like this was the stupidest thing to be doing.
Lying wrapped in plastic in a tiny little room, completely on my own, listening to, like, insane... Good music.
I like music.
Good music.
Yeah.
To good Amazonian chanting.
Sure it is.
That's the end of the story.
She came back in, I unpeeled my plastic, I had a shower, washed it all off, and I sort of felt weirder and more tense than I did when I went in.
Yeah, did you?
Because the thing that can happen with a massage, like a really amazing massage, is that afterwards you feel totally drained, and it brings like a lot of toxins out of you.
I don't know what exactly it does to you, but you feel much worse than you did before you went in, like for a day.
I'll tell you the other strange thing she did.
She massaged my face.
I didn't know what expression to have on my face.
Do you know what I mean?
Because my eyes are closed and hers are open.
I wanted her to think I was really relaxed.
So I tried to look as relaxed as possible.
Then she starts massaging my face in such a way that it opens my mouth.
Like that.
So I'm making silly little noises.
while she's massaging my face.
Anyway, this whole very serious ritual to me was just like a comic assault course.
That's the other thing that can happen is you can get the giggles.
Our friend Garth was telling me about when he got a massage and he just started laughing hysterically and he couldn't stop.
Like every single touch he was just howling with laughter.
And they weren't able to administer the proper massage in the end because he was incapacitated by chuckles.
I got hurt, it hurt me quite badly as well.
Her thumbs were really causing me pain and I didn't want to say anything because I thought it would be unmanly.
It was unmanly for you to go and get the massage in the first place.
In the first place, wasn't it?
Yeah, it was.
It was expensive as well.
I bet!
That was nice, it was relaxing just hearing the story and hearing the music.
Yeah, we might put my massage music up on the blog as well, and then if you want to do an erotic massage with your partner, you will have some inauthentic Amazonian rainforest chanting.
Send us the video.
Do you mind if I just do a little massage on you during this next song?
Not at all.
This is Passion Pit.
Can you do the balls?
Of your feet, yes.
Yes, certainly.
Textination.
Text, text, text.
Textination.
What if I don't want to?
Textination.
But I'm using email.
Is that a problem?
It doesn't matter.
Text!
These are some responses to Text the Nation, which is all about interviews or auditions and awful experiences you've had therein.
This is from Simon in Wimbledon.
I had an interview for an engineering firm last year.
Partway through, my phone rang, but luckily it was on silent and only vibrating.
I tried shifting my leg to move the phone deeper into my pocket to reduce the sound of the buzzing, but in doing so, answered the phone.
It was my mother.
And I also put it on speakerphone accidentally.
All so, all with my dexterous right thigh.
Hello!
Simon are you there?
It's mummy!
said the voice.
Needless to say the rejection letter I received three days later was very polite.
Well you don't want to work for a firm that's going to reject you on the basis of a mummy call.
I know, you would be hired instantly by the Adam and Jo Corp.
Absolutely.
Just for still using the word mummy, you'd be right in there.
Yeah, you'd be made MD.
In fact, that's one of our application criteria.
Exactly.
Do you call your parents mum and dad or mummy and daddy?
And they'll get all confused and they'll think, oh, I don't know.
That's the right answer.
Mum and dad probably is the coolest thing.
Mum and dad, thank you very much for coming in.
Get out.
Get out!
Here's another one from Mariel.
She says, at the end of an interview which I thought had gone well, the interviewer got up to say goodbye.
He stood uncomfortably close to me.
So I thought, oh, he's going to kiss me.
Okay, just go with it.
Don't be uptight.
It's all very media.
So I kissed him.
Only to look down to see his outstretched hand waiting to shake mine.
So I kissed that too.
It still makes me cringe three years on.
well done mario again you would have got the job at big british castle instantly yeah we would have gotten more than you bargained for probably at that very interview hello hey you're our kind of girl now you're not the kind of person who causes trouble are you
That's our rigorous interview procedure.
Here's one from an anonymous texter.
I'm a casting director and have had many difficult audition times.
One particularly awkward audition, I recall, was when I was working with a very well-known director who asked an actor the typical question, so what have you done recently?
To which the actor replied, no, you first.
Needless to say, he didn't get the job.
That's great.
You might as well.
If you kind of sense you're not going to get the job, you might as well.
But no, because then you get a reputation.
Because the reason these casting directors are so eccentric and difficult is because there are not many of them and they're enormously powerful.
Sure.
Right.
There's four or five really famous casting directors in London who American studios hire to see actors and they're megalomaniacs.
I mean, I'm never going to get an acting job now that I've said that.
They've got maybe a distorted sense of power, possibly.
Yeah.
I'm sure some of them are very nice and lovely.
Some of them are lovely.
They are.
They're brilliant people.
Well, the guy I had yesterday was amazing.
He was amazing.
He was nice.
But no, sometimes they're brutal.
I mean, you hear all sorts of stories.
There's an actor friend I had the other day who was... I came out wrong.
There's an actor friend I know, I didn't have them, and they were telling a story about doing an audition where the casting director was just flicking through a copy of Heat.
Really?
Yeah.
That's a cattle call, you know, that's no good.
Here's another one from Kate, who says, an interviewer asked me, when you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I truthfully answered, a fairy.
She looked appalled, so I hastily corrected, well, queen of the fairies.
She looked so shocked that I started giggling and couldn't stop.
I didn't get the job.
An executive fairy.
in charge of a large department of a fairy task force.
He's one from Tamsin.
Aggregating fairy power.
I had a fit of giggles in my first job interview many years ago when the interviewer asked me if I saw myself having a quote, big job in the future.
Oh dear.
Lindsay Norwich, who supplies her age, 31.
When I was 18, I went to an interview for the role of campsite person.
I was asked what my worst characteristic was, to which I replied, sometimes I get a bit angry.
I've never worked on a campsite.
These are very good.
It's the understatement that really sells.
Jingles.
Christmas jingles.
Where's the bells for the jingles?
Who need the jingle bells?