The girl from Mars Confectionery Limited, she worked on the production line combining the nougat and the crispy bits on double deckers.
Is that really true?
Yeah.
That's what that song is about.
Yes.
That's by Ash.
And this is Adam and Joe here on BBC Six Music.
It's a very nice morning, Saturday morning, fans.
Here in London Town, at least, I hope it's nice where you are.
It's sunny, which is nice, it makes change.
Do you know what I'm saying?
I know what you're saying.
And, uh, what's the forecast like for the weekend, Johnny Weatherpence?
The forecast for this weekend is rain, snow, sleet, uh, sun, sand, frogs, fish, all falling from the sky.
Good one.
Yeah.
Hey, that's good.
That's unusual weather then for this weekend.
It is.
It's 14 weather.
Did you, you know a couple of weekends ago, it snowed where I was in Norfolk.
And did it snow here in London Town?
It didn't, no.
But I saw the Norfolk snow on the telly, I think.
Yeah, yeah.
It was quite thin.
No.
No?
You dissing my snow?
They had a report on the news and there was a woman standing in a snowy street and I noticed that the footprints around her had already melted through to the grass.
Maybe she was standing in a hot street.
That's not real snow.
Proper snow.
You know, you step in it and you get a proper crunch.
Oh, it was crunchy.
Was it?
We were.
Sure.
Oh, wow.
Tobogganing weather?
Certainly.
You know, it was a little sticky for tobogganing.
Sticky?
It was unfortunate.
You know how sometimes it gets a little sticky... Caggy.
Yeah.
It started to melt and then freeze again.
Well, no, when it starts to melt, that's when it gets nice and slidey.
Right.
But anyway, it was a bit too fresh, I don't know what, the consistency wasn't perfect, so the tobogganing was, it wasn't good going for the tobogganing, but we had some amazing snowball fights.
Wow.
And rolling the, you know, you could build really huge snowballs with it, because it was nice and sticky.
It was good.
Oh, I'm jealous, that sounds good.
It never snows in London.
No.
Or any of the major conurbations.
It's too warm though, isn't it?
It is, how can we solve that?
By just chilling people out.
really playing a lot of chill out music a massive chill out having a huge like chill play a lot of zero seven and then right it'll really really snow all right i'll do that that's the plan yeah so folks we've got a packed show for you it's literally packed
There'll be very little dead air, and it's exciting.
Am I talking it up well?
Yes, good man, keep going.
Okay, we've got Text the Nation for you later on.
It's a feature.
People text us stuff, we read it out.
Also, we've got Song Wars this week.
We haven't done a song for a while, and we have a National Treasure Song Wars coming up later on.
That's not the Nick Cage film, but songs about National Treasures, which we decided that we would do last weekend, in fact.
I think we decided on the podcast that that would be the subject.
So if you're a podcast listener, then it's nice that we're going to follow through with that.
But listen, I'm going to stop rambling for the time being and play a track right now from one of the hot bands of 2009.
I saw it on the BBC News website.
They had a list of hot bands, which I might tell you about a bit later on.
And this was one of them, Florence and the Machine with Dog Days Are Over.
Dog days are over, you see.
That's Florence and the Machine.
And they are tipped for the top in 2009.
Really?
Do you want to hear some other bands that are on that list?
Yes, this is from the BBC website.
Now, I might throw in some made-up bands here, so you have to identify which ones are the winning ones.
Okay.
Frank music, all one word.
He's a singer, a remixer, and a dancer, and an all-round whiz kid, Vincent Frank, and he creates high-energy robo-pop.
Rubbish.
Rubbish.
With fast neon beats.
Made up.
Rubbish.
And 80s tinged tunes.
Nonsense.
He's real.
Is he?
Frank music.
Frank music.
Frank music.
He's a white guy and he looks sort of weedy, and he looks as if he might lisp.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, obviously.
Um, but he sounds exactly like a cross between keen, current keen, and black kids.
I'm still reeling from the fact that he's white.
Yeah.
I mean, God.
Frank Music.
What's the world coming to?
I'm describing him for you.
Yeah, no, that's good.
Um, Little Boots.
That's real.
Okay.
Have you heard of Little Boots?
Victoria Hesketh.
She used to be in the Synthrock girl group Dead Disco.
Remember Dead Disco?
Everyone remembers Dead Disco to pursue a solo pop path and she's been guided by Hot Chip's Joe Goddard.
Thank God.
He guides her around everywhere.
She would have got terribly lost.
Well, exactly, and or she might step in things.
He's like a seeing eye dog.
Exactly.
Victoria Hesketh is prone to step in things and you can hire Joe Goddard from Hot Chip to guide you around.
Right.
Also, he's good in department stores.
He holds an umbrella up, doesn't he?
He holds an umbrella and like a light stick as well if it's getting dark.
And he says, this way, undies, this way, if you're looking for fairy lights, you'll need to go over there to that department.
He's ideal for that kind of thing.
So little boots, that's exciting.
Stat.
Two former Nazis now.
What?
Two former nurses from Derby who play electronically tinged guitar pop that recalls the white stripes and... What are they called?
De La Soul.
Stat.
Stat.
Is that a medical term?
Yeah.
That's something they shout in ER.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's made up.
It is made up.
Why?
Because you know I like ER.
Why are you called to you?
Yeah.
That you wish that existed I do wish you wish they operate on you the two nurses I was thinking of their act they'd sew up your wounds with guitar strings That's a gun strum your stitches you see I mean that the show is coming together and they could play drenched in blood Yeah, and they plug your winky into an amp.
I see what noise it made you wanted.
What noise you made Oh
That would be your average stat gig.
A human instrument on stage would be good.
You know, like take the whole idea of a Bez type figure a bit further and plug in a person.
And what was Howard Jones' dancer called?
You always know this and I can... I don't.
Chain man.
I don't remember.
Bob.
Chain boy.
Phil.
And he, yeah, you would plug him in.
That's a good idea.
and get some noises out of it.
Like a Muppet phone.
Stat.
Rubbish.
Come on.
Next.
How about Empire of the Sun, right?
Australian duo Empire of the Sun.
They mold 1980s-influenced soft pop synthesizers and blissed out space beats.
Real.
It's about time someone called a band after that film.
Right.
I'd say that's real.
That is real.
But one of the guys used to be in The Sleepy Jackson, if you remember that.
Of course.
And they look like MGMT.
And that's basically as far as... What's meaning what?
That they haven't got shirts on?
No, they're all dressed up like raving ponces.
Oh, right.
And that's the thing for 2009, as far as I can tell.
Everybody's going like early 80s.
Of course, we predicted this.
Maybe it was in a pre-record.
We predicted the next thing coming round was Rave again.
Right.
Because that's what... Well, not so much Rave, but just sort of... I read a big thing in the paper about Rave coming back.
Is it?
Yeah.
So there.
Is that a good thing?
I was never a part of the Rave scene.
Did you go to any Raves?
Not really.
It bypassed me.
I was already too old by that stage.
It's ludicrous.
Listen, more music now.
And is this a free play now?
Oh yeah, it's mine.
This is Cornelius.
He's from Japan.
This is called Drop.
He's having his bath there as well.
Yeah, that was recorded entirely in his lavvy.
In the lav?
In the bowl of the lav or in the bath?
All around the place.
Up the spout, down the vicar's pantry.
Is that a saying?
Yeah, it is now.
You know, that's dangerous though, isn't it?
Especially Cornelius with all his electronics.
Oh, he uses organic electronics.
Oh, does he?
They've only got them in Japan at the moment, but machines powered by Cress.
By watercress?
You wouldn't understand it, man.
It'll be here in a couple of years.
Cress power.
Yeah, all the MP3 players and stuff like that and phones in Japan are now powered by Kress.
That's very good.
Yeah, thanks.
Kress would be a good name for a band, wouldn't it?
Probably.
This is Adam and Joe here on BBC 6 Music.
After the news, we are going to unveil our Song Wars songs and that's going to be exciting.
Of course, last week I played you my Biff Baff Boff demo.
Now, lots of people have said that that is exactly the same as the sweet track, Wigwam Bam.
And that Mallet and Van Dae were subconsciously channeling that sweet song, and were they to actually release that single, they would be needing to send all the money to the sweet.
Right.
Yeah.
Several people texted and emailed and actually told me that socially during the week.
Okay.
Who listened to the show.
I'm not familiar with the song, but that's the thing with, you know, genius pop, very basic pop.
You never know when it's original or when you're just... It's very seldom.
You only have to put a slight spin on it, I think.
I mean, you can't... If there's only three chords involved, you can't sue someone for using those same three chords, even in the same sort of order, really.
And even if they have exactly the same lyrics and stuff.
But you got some exciting feedback from your song, didn't you?
I got some amazing feedback.
ITV2 phoned up my agent and they said that, you know, they do a show called I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Now.
I know I've seen it.
It's presented by Mark Good on Smith.
Yeah, that's right.
But who's the guy from Busted and his wife?
Matt.
Yeah, Matt from Busted.
Matt Willis.
And his lovely wife or girlfriend?
They're kind of the new Rich and Judy.
Right.
They're a couple and they live in the jungle.
Yeah, and he's a very odd shape, isn't he?
He's like evil Tintin.
If Tintin had gone bad, he'd look like Matt Willis.
Yeah, that's true.
Well, he's got his crazy quiff now, doesn't he?
He's got too many things going on.
He's got too many signifiers.
He's got the crazy quiff, the pirate facial hair, tattoos left, right and centre.
He's had some tattoos.
Bit of a pot belly.
which doesn't look good with the new skinny jeans look.
Or maybe it does, I don't know.
It does look good.
But he's got very skinny jeans and quite a little tum tum.
It's funny that you mention that because I've been studying him very carefully.
It's impossible not to because he's got so many things to draw the eye in.
He's like a shop window of a man.
And he's not, I mean he's trim.
He's in good shape.
But he's one of those people who appears porkalicious.
Because he's gone for the new skinny look.
And he's a man that enjoys his life.
He's not a
A fat man?
No, no.
But he's a bon vivir.
I mean, he's got a little bon la belly.
He even used to be a little bit more porksome.
Really?
But now he's not in any way.
Was he the drummer?
He's completely trim.
Impusted?
Oh, I don't know.
Maybe he hid behind the drums.
Was he the drummer?
Was there a drummer in busted?
I don't know.
Did they use drums?
Were they real?
Did they actually happen?
Were they really one of the biggest bands in the UK for a time?
phone they phoned you up yeah they phoned up and they said would I like to come on the show and play my Biff Baff Boff song yes you what so of course I said there's no way that I'm doing right I can't no I couldn't do it I could well a live performance of a garage band song would be a bit odd wouldn't be a bit strange yeah be like an orbital gig I've learned my lesson with things like that really so plus I was too busy and I couldn't do it so I say anything like an orbital gig actually
I said, I regret that I won't be able to do that.
And they said, well, could we just play the song?
So I said, yeah, you know, you're welcome to play the song.
And there was a big, uh, scurry about like, could you get it over to us as quickly as possible, please?
So I emailed it over and to the producer there.
And, um, but then a while later, he sort of emailed me back and said, thanks very much, uh, for the, um, for the track there.
You know, I'm I really There's a there's a strong possibility that we won't be able to play it just to let you know You know and it was all like he'd switched the power thing right back on me.
Do you know what I mean?
No Like oh he'd made you feel important Yeah as if you had something they wanted exactly and then and then it was like excited in order to get it over quickly And then it was like I'd sent the thing in myself like please please could you play my biff bath bath song?
No, we'll try to play it, Addy, but it's highly unlikely.
But thanks very much for sending in your Biff Baff Both song, and here's a lolly.
How cruel of them.
It was a little bit cruel, I thought.
I bet they didn't even send a lolly.
You know, I never got the lolly.
Never got the lolly.
It would have been fine if they'd just sent lolly.
Do you remember her?
Yes.
My radio rocks.
If she'd come round and sang my radio rocks, I would have been absolutely fine with it, but there was no appearance of lolly.
What a rollercoaster ride.
Imagine making it onto ITV2.
I mean, I still will have to imagine it, because it didn't happen.
Would have been the peak of our career.
Would have been amazing.
Here's a trail for you, ladies and gentlemen, right now.
Is that Daft Punk?
That is Daft Punk.
They're from France, did you know that?
Yes, that was the song called... They're like robot men, they wear hats and robots hats.
They are robot men from the future, they have hats.
Now, last week we were asking you listeners whether you'd had any dreams involving Adam and I. We're supposed to do this earlier in the show, really, for early morning listeners, but a couple of emails came in.
Here's one from Julia Warley.
Dear Joe, I had a dream about you last week.
Unfortunately, it wasn't a sexy dream.
We were standing by the self-service weighing machine in the fruit and vegetable section of Waitrose.
Nothing much happened.
I just marveled at your tall, tall, sturdy presence over me and felt reassured.
It was a bit like you were the giant from Twin Peaks.
Wise and strange and enticing.
I was, of course, also thrilled and aroused by the experience.
Maybe one day it'll come to pass, and I wish it hadn't been such a trivial meeting.
Well, that's an amazing dream.
That's my power.
Yeah.
What kind of dream is that?
There's no progression in the dream.
It doesn't have to be progression.
It's an ambient dream.
Really?
Ambient dream.
Meandering dream.
That's a little bit boring.
Here's one from Fiona.
I thought it was funny to hear that you get listeners writing in about saucy dreams involving you.
I had such a dream years ago and have never forgotten it.
another one about you Adam chased me round a supermarket sweep style supermarket full of inflatable paddling pools on high shelves I was very frightened and when he caught me he started to spank me in one of the paddling pools I didn't as you might expect wake up at that moment but carried on getting spanked for ages
They're dreams.
They're not supposed to make any sense.
Was that real?
Did you do that?
That's based on real events.
Is it?
What's different then?
Maybe they'll tell us during the news.
How long the spanking went on is different.
Yes, it is 9.30 and time for the news.
Yes Song Wars is back listeners after an absence of a few weeks two or three weeks and this week we've written songs about national treasures now we were talking about this again a few weeks ago we by by saying national treasures we mean people who are essential to the fabric of the nation
Yes, Terry Wogan in the broadcast media kind of thing.
The naturalist David Attenborough, Dickie Attenborough even.
People who the country would be worse off without.
That's right.
Jonathan Ross I would put in there controversially at the moment.
And Stephen Fry.
Yes.
Would be mine.
Now, is Fry your choice for your song?
Fry is my choice for my song.
Yep, I've written a song about Stephen Fry.
Right.
And who have you gone for?
I've gone for Lumley, as promised.
Because this is because mainly you saw a show where she went to the North Pole and looked at the Northern Lights.
Yeah.
And you were seduced by her.
Yeah, I think she's wonderful.
She's lovely, lovely, lovely.
Our generation always fancied Lumley, of course, when we were growing up, the New Avengers.
As Purdie, she was incredibly alluring.
I think these are just the lyrics to my song.
Are they?
OK.
We should remind listeners about what Song Wars is, if they're new listeners.
Me and Adam have composed these songs and recorded them and played them using computer software during the week, right?
Although I constructed this one largely from real musical instruments.
Really?
I played all the bits on this one.
That's exciting.
Yeah.
But we've done them since last Saturday.
Yeah.
So we haven't had much time.
No.
So don't expect anything like special or proper.
How wonky is your one this time round?
It's fairly wonky.
It's wonky in new ways though.
So we're gonna flip a coin and the point of this listeners is that you listen to both tracks and then you vote for the one that you like best and the one that wins gets the privilege of being played again next week.
The other one just disappears into the ether.
That's right where it belongs.
I've tossed a coin, heads or tail?
Heads to go first for me.
It's heads.
You're heading first.
Right, okay, so this is my song about Stephen Fry.
There's a little bit you need to know about it.
It is done in the style of Gary Newman, early Gary Newman, and I have tried as closely as possible to replicate an early Gary Newman track.
and sung in the style of the Numenoid.
And the lyrics are more or less a hagiography about Stephen Fry.
You know, they are completely pro, I would say.
And I've tried to include every aspect of his life.
Do you know what I mean?
Every aspect?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's made me feel a little queasy.
Some parts of it might be a little queasy for listeners.
All right.
So here's my song about Stephen Fry.
This is a song about Stephen Fry Including well-known facts about his life in the style of early Gary Newman If you were making a documentary about Stephen Fry You could use this song in it to illustrate different bits He was a tear away when he was young
He was expelled from school and even went to jail He stole a credit card from a family friend But he cleaned up his act and got a scholarship To go to Cambridge University Where he met Hugh Laurie from House He's got a fruity way of talking He uses lots of long words He's nice
made them perfect for playing chiefs and was stunned.
It was clear that they were all so good at acting, which of course they've both gone on to do.
He was marvelous as his hero Oscar Wilde.
Steven struggles publicly with his mental health.
He goes from highs to unbearable loves.
He's done a programme about him that was good.
For fellow sufferers it was comforting to see.
and sensitive.
And if I was gay, I would.
Steven!
Let's go!
He's an author and a playwright and a lovely telly host.
He's made QI into a massive success.
Oh, Alan, did sell some credit also.
A little bit roughs like Peter's friends in two and Spice World.
There you go, that's my Stephen Fry song.
Wow, that's very good.
The Newman impression is extraordinary there.
How are you doing that?
It's like sort of taking a mistimed breath.
Well, you start with Bowie, of course, which is what Newman did.
Right, yes.
Then you start with Bowie, and then you have to go like that, like your voice is breaking every now and again.
At the beginning of each line.
Um, no, at the end of each line.
When you get to, um, I'd like to see you for tea.
Oh, that was good.
That was good.
That was very effective.
Thanks very much.
What an amazing journey through Fry's life there.
Yeah.
I skip, you know, I, there's so much that he's done.
I know.
I mean, he's a massive polymath.
Look at the size of that polymath.
And I didn't get to include Blackadder and Harry Potter and all those other.
Hoping to get out of that.
Because one of the deliberate purposes of this song was to try and inveigle ourselves somehow into the universe of these people.
To the favours of the great.
Well, it's a two-pronged attack.
Yeah.
You know, I could go for a response from Fry.
Himself.
That would be amazing.
Right.
Right.
Or, humanoid.
Oh, the Newman.
If Newman liked the Newman impression, right?
What about getting played on QI?
That's not gonna happen, is it?
You think that's just shooting too hard?
Yeah, one of the good things about QI is that it's sort of cultural barriers are very high, like they wouldn't let jerks like us on the program for a start, you know what I mean?
True.
So why would they start playing stuff like that?
Plus, I don't think Stephen Fry would actually like that kind of thing.
He's the kind of person that only really listens.
It might embarrass him.
It would embarrass him.
Adverse criticism sticks in his head, and kind things that people say about him, or obsequious things, he pushes them aside.
Well, let's see what happens.
We've released that song into the castle environs.
Yeah.
Maybe it'll scuttle into Fry's Chambers.
Uh-huh.
That would be amazing.
So tell us about Lumley.
Well my song is a tribute to Joanna Lumley and specifically this documentary she did where she fulfilled her childhood ambition of going to see the Northern Lights and it was profoundly moving and she saw these lights which are very evasive.
You know you can't tell whether they're going to appear or where they're going to appear or whether there'll be cloud cover and the crew got some of the most amazing footage of the Northern Lights ever.
The Johnny Borealis.
Yeah.
So I've tried to capture that really
So this is my song, it's called La La La Lumbly.
For 55 years of my life, I've dreamt about seeing the Northern Lights.
She was born in Kashmir in 1946.
Her father was a major in the gurgler rifles.
When she was a little girl, she had a picture book.
With a drawing of the Northern Lights, she wished she'd one day see that sight.
She had guide Ferrada, but she did not get in.
They said she'd never be a model too ugly and nothing But she ignored the scorn they poured, confounded her detractors Five years later, she was Britain's most in-demand model and actress La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
But in her mind she could still find her unspoken ambition To see the northern lights before she died was still her mission La la la
La-la-la, la-la-la, lovely, lovely Through absolutely fabulous two marriages, a son And even though it feels as though her life has just begun She journeys over arctic drifts and through the cold and wild And sees the light she's dreamed of seeing since she was a child
Thank you.
I think I can die happy now.
I've got to say that was sort of supposed to be a Kings of Convenience style.
That's beautiful.
Sort of a folk track.
Lovely melody there.
Drifted into the arena of the Pet Shop Boys slightly.
No.
Maybe Queens of Convenience, I don't know.
It was nice.
Something about the posh enunciation that was required.
Was that you saying, thank you?
No, that's Joanna.
That's all real.
She looks at the northern lights and they're amazing.
Yeah.
And she's so moved by them.
She just looks up at them and goes,
Thank you.
Wow.
Starts crying and blubbing.
I, you know, if you don't cry at that doco.
Yeah.
You ain't got no heart.
Where can you find that doco?
On the BBC iPlayer, it was certainly there last week.
I don't know how long it'll stay up for.
Right.
Readily available.
So that's the second song, La La La Lumbly.
What's your song called, Adam?
Stephen Fry.
Just called Stephen Fry.
Yeah.
So get your votes in by email, Adamandjo.6musicatbbc.co.uk.
You're not encouraged to text your vote.
No.
We top them up via email during the week and the winner will be announced this time next week.
Exactly.
So if you were listening to this show again and you texted us, the text wouldn't be... A waste of money.
It would be a total waste of money.
A scandalous waste of money.
You know, and the castle would crumble.
No one wants that.
Hey, and you can listen to the songs again on our website after the show.
They'll be stuck up and we'll play them again towards the end of the show, just approaching noon.
Seems unbelievable, doesn't it?
But we're gonna do that.
But first, here's some real music.
This is Laura Veers with Don't Lose Yourself.
That's Laura Veers.
Very nice.
Don't lose yourself.
Have you ever seen Laura Veers?
No.
She looks a little bit specky and superior.
Right.
I like the sound of her.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Like when I was at art school, girls that looked like her were always the conceptualists.
And they would mock me sometimes because my work was too obvious.
Quite right to.
It is too obvious.
Yeah.
Still is.
Thank you very much.
Le sachange.
Ah, wee.
Hey, listen.
Yeah.
Can I say something?
Please do.
There was confusion earlier in the week because our podcast didn't go up.
Oh, yeah.
It usually goes up on... Well, it used to go up on Saturday evening, didn't it, after the show, but because of various disturbances in the castle that you might have read about,
Every podcast is having to be listened to by a robot.
A swear sergeant.
A swear robot.
A filthy robot.
A dirty robot.
A dirty robot.
To check that all the filth and dirt is cleansed from it.
No, you can't say that.
That is disgusting.
That's the dirty robot there.
Kind of thing he says.
No, that's not acceptable.
That is offensive.
Wow.
It's brilliant.
It's like a robot.
Um, so where was this going?
Uh, yeah, no, so it's not going to go up till Wednesday.
No, hello.
Monday evenings now.
Right.
Right.
Or Monday afternoons.
But weirdly, a weird thing happened.
You know, I'm quite obsessed with the iTunes podcast charts.
Sure.
I like to read the reviews and things and check it, our podcast position, and it's usually around the sort of 10, 11, 12, isn't it?
Yeah.
But on Monday, when there was no podcast, it shot up the charts.
Yeah.
It went to number four.
Ooh.
Even though there was nothing there to download, that's the highest it's ever been.
It's very weird.
Someone else noticed this.
In fact, Ash.
Is she our special fan, Ash?
Yeah.
Probably.
She's the keeper of the flame.
Yeah.
She says, Joe often comments on keeping an eye on the iTunes rank, which I also noticed to be around 11 to 13 each week.
What I found interesting was that during one week, there was no podcast available.
Your popularity has shot up to number six in the top 25.
This could explain how Stephen Fry is always near the top when he very rarely releases a podcast.
Stephen Fry and Ricky, you mean?
Or maybe just Stephen Fry.
Well, she's just saying just Stephen Fry.
I never understand how Ricky Gervais stays up there at the top when he's got no new product a lot of the time.
I think it's to do with downloading his back catalogue.
Right.
But those hits still count.
It's just the number of hits, maybe, just the number of inquiries.
Maybe that's why we got up there.
Maybe, because people were panicked and trying to click it multiple times.
Panicking!
Panicking!
Let's not do a podcast!
That's the answer to everyone's problems.
We'll be at the top of the charts.
It'll be a better podcast as well, probably.
Here's a free play for you listeners.
Just like you don't like every old-tempered, short, hairy man with a guitar and a problem.
Oh, I do.
Hey!
I do.
Oh, mud-slinging.
You do.
I do, though.
I really do.
No, I like Green Gart's side in Small Doses.
Right.
He's the lead singer of Scrittipoliti.
And, well, he's sort of the man, isn't he?
Scrittipoliti is Green Gart's side.
Although, when they started out, they were a very different proposition.
They were like sort of agitprop, very angular.
Have you ever heard Skank Block Bologna by Scrittipoliti?
No.
That's an amazingly weird song.
We should play it one day on this.
show.
But this is from the other end of his career, from his album, White Bread Black Beer, which came out a couple of years ago.
And it's very much soft boy music.
And he's got the, he's got his crazy harmonies, you know, he's got like a very specific way of doing harmonies.
Amazing vocal acrobatics always go on.
So he does, he has a couple of little bits of harmony action going, uh, bookending this, this very weedy track, which is nice, like weedy in a good way, I think.
He was one of the great 80s weeds, wouldn't you say?
He was.
You could have a whole gang of 80s weeds, like you'd have the man from The Associates as well.
Sure, yeah, Billy McKenzie.
Yeah, what other great weeds were there?
You'd have Marilyn and Boy George, obviously.
Oh, Edwin Collins as well.
He was very faint.
Was he weedy?
Yeah, but no, but he was rough.
The postcard records, like that was, uh, now that was more punky.
Not really.
He was a big weed.
Do you think?
Yeah, he was a giant weed.
The music wasn't that weedy.
No, it was great.
But, uh, I'm not like... I think he's not effeminate enough.
This is not weedy in a pejorative sense.
This is a we in a light.
Well, it is when I'm talking about it.
Cornish is going to duff you up.
Well, watch out, Green, because he's coming to get you.
This is called Snow in Sun by Squirtie Politi.
As they did.
Yeah.
They did a... Crouched the end there, mate.
Cover of Ace of Spades.
But they did it all like... It's sort of like a country... Country and western... It's very funny.
And they're called Hacey Dixie, which is like... And if you say it fast, it sounds like ACDC.
Oh.
Do you see it?
Do you see it?
So it's double jokes.
In fact, it's triple jokes when you get to the way they play the song.
Anyway, I've got to go now.
Yeah.
Also, well, I might run into you, but if I don't.
Have a wicked Christmas.
Have a great life.
Yeah.
Oh God, a great life.
Never going to see you again.
Yeah.
Well, you never know, but it's been great talking to you.
Yeah.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Oh, do you really have to go?
Yeah.
Bye.
I've got some jelly.
No.
What flavour?
Oh gosh.
Listen, strawberry.
Delicious.
Delicious.
Would you like it?
Yes.
You were going to move on there.
I was.
And I tempted you back with the jelly.
Steven News Time now.
Listeners, this is Adam and Jo on BBC Six Music.
If you don't know what the deal with this Steven business is... You know what I'm going to do?
I've clipped out the original Steven stuff, right?
Oh, well done.
And we're going to put it up on the website this weekend.
So although I can't say to people that they can go to the website right now... They can, because I think the original clip is there on YouTube.
Right, right.
Yeah.
So you can check out the clip on YouTube, but if you're doing listen, if you're listening to this show again during the week, you can go to the Six Music website and you'll be able to find the original Stephen clip.
Yeah.
Which will explain what we're talking about.
I think it's there already.
No, it isn't.
On the website?
It is, yeah, it is.
But maybe not as beautifully edited as you have edited.
How is it on there?
Is it like the whole podcast?
Because someone else, a listener, put it up on YouTube and I gave Claire the link.
She put it up last week.
Yeah, but that's YouTube.
Yeah, but it's on the site.
Okay, okay.
I wish you'd told me about this before I started speaking and you look like a complete idiot!
Sorry!
Thanks.
Is that it?
Yes.
If I just nullified, I've negated your whole spiel.
I was doing it this morning.
I was clipping it out and everything.
Sorry, man.
You should visit our site.
You should go and check it out.
I want to visit the site.
I never want to visit the site.
But the idea is, you're supposed to shout, Steven.
And then if another listener to the show hears you shouting, Steven, you reply, just coming or coming.
Yeah.
Now it happened to me in a shop, the same shop as it happened to you.
Cinema store.
We shouldn't mention it too much otherwise it's advertising for them.
Right.
But I was browsing through tittles in there.
Other cinema stores were available.
And a young shaggy haired young man with a couple of friends came in and as he left the shop with his with his back to me going up the stairs, he said, Steven!
And I was confused.
I didn't know what to do.
I thought his friend might be called Steven.
I looked around.
No one was looking at me expectantly or anything.
So I didn't say anything.
You didn't give him that just coming.
I said nothing.
Denied.
I just carried on browsing.
But then he disappeared up the stairs and it was too late to say it and I felt ashamed and my girlfriend looked embarrassed by me that I'd let.
our supporters down.
This is after you read out that email from the guy at my show the other day.
I just felt lost and hopeless and that I'd let the guy down, let the side down.
But it is a bit of an albatross now, isn't it?
I mean, it's the first time it's happened to me.
It's hardly an albatross.
It's a tiny albatross.
A very, very small albatross.
An albatross fetus.
It's a little mine.
That's revolting.
There's nothing revolting about that.
It's nature.
About an albatross fetus hanging around your neck.
It's nature.
That's why God created albatross.
The fetus necklaces.
You can get them in Camden.
Anyway, that's the end of my story.
I just felt bereft and if that young man is listening at the moment, he had sort of a brown bowl.
Yeah.
Of hair that it was quite long and he was trying to buy the Dark Knight and he'd spotted a copy but he picked it up and he saw that it was region one and he couldn't play it on his machine and he went and put it back on the shelf.
Not missing anything.
Missing a miserable night.
Missing the film of the century.
So I've got a couple of Steven clips for you from a film I was watching this week and you have to guess what it is.
Here's the first one right now.
Oh, look, I'm sorry, Ingrid.
Oh, you're still there.
It sounds exciting.
What's that film about?
Can you guess who that is?
I have no idea, but we should let the listeners guess, right?
This isn't a competition, no.
It's just a fun game.
Just a fun game.
Just a bit of fun.
Have fun.
Because everyone knows that competitions are evil!
So we don't do them here at the Big British Castle, nor should you, if you're thinking of doing a competition at home, stop it!
Here's another little clip there from this film.
Is this from a different film?
No, this is from the same film.
Well...
sounds like a very good film yeah no the first clip I'll just play you again quickly so listeners have a good listen yes
Oh, look, I'm sorry, Ingrid.
That's a very loud phone.
You can hear everything the person on the other end says.
Yeah, he's got his old-school ringer on there.
You might be able to get it from the voice of the actor there at the end, possibly.
I cannot.
Can you not get it?
No.
Okay, listeners, get thinking.
Let us know if you know which film that is.
Adamandjo.6musicatbbc.co.uk is the
email address, or you can text us on 64046.
Interestingly, we've had a couple of emails in from people who've experienced the same Steven shout.
People are trying this experiment during gigs, even though we're encouraging them to do it between songs, not during songs.
This is an email from Miharu,
who says, I went to see Ben Folds on Sunday.
And being the slightly obsessed fan that I am, my heart was beating slightly faster at the prospect of continuing the Stephen shouting at gigs.
However, as I was standing waiting for the main actor to come on, being on the slightly cowardly side of average, I started to think about chickening out.
Imagine my utter joy when, just before Folds arrived on stage, I heard a strong, affirmative, Stephen, from the back of the audience.
I immediately flung my head back and shouted back, just coming!
Maybe not like that.
Shh, this was responded to by a series of whoops and general giggles all round.
What lovely camaraderie.
Hey hey, Ben Folds, that's good.
And then somebody else at the same gig, Chris.
I heard a great Stephen with a few responses from the crowd at the Ben Folds gig on Sunday night.
I hope Ben Folds would become confused and spontaneously start playing his song Stephen's Last Night in Town.
But unfortunately he wasn't on the stage yet.
So that's I think our most successful Stephen so far.
That's a good result, especially from a weed like Ben Folds.
He would be in the weed gang, wouldn't he?
I don't know.
My weeds need to have long hair and be wearing dresses.
Right, OK.
Fair enough.
Here's a bit of music for you now.
This is Calise.
Is this new Calise or old Calise?
Nah, this is Millionaire, isn't it?
Classic Calise.
Yeah, this is classic with the Andre 3000.
Here we go.
I've never heard that before.
You're kidding.
We've played it on this show loads of times.
Maybe I went out for a whistle.
It's fantastic.
It's got a lovely video.
Very good though.
Calise with Millionaire.
This is Adam and Jo here on BBC 6 Music.
Now we've had some guesses in for the non-competitive competition.
Oh, it's not a competition.
It's not a competition.
It's a fun game that we're playing with the clips, the Steven clips.
Shall we hear them again?
Just hear the first one again.
Oh, look, I'm sorry, Ingrid.
And just to remind listeners that, you know, because of the whole Stephen thing, which you can find out more about on the website, we're just collecting the odd mentions of Stevens in movies, you know, if you find any, then do make an MP3 clip of them and send them along.
But that was one that I came across this week, and a few people think they know what it is.
Julia says, is it Steve McQueen in the Thomas Crown affair?
No.
That's insane.
I don't know how you would have got that.
Also, like, why would, is he called, is the character in the Thomas Crown Affair called Stephen?
Don't remember.
I don't know.
I don't think so.
Anyway, it sounds like Paul Bettany in Woffdy Rom Com 3, says Mike.
That's not an actual Paul Bettany film, although I'd like to see it.
Woffdy Rom Com 3 would do very well, I think, this Christmas.
It would beat Four Christmases, I think.
Don't you reckon?
I reckon.
Wofte rom com 3.
Who is it though?
It is.
Neil and Crouch End has got this one and also a man in Swindon, he calls himself.
He is correct in saying that it is Jeremy Irons in damage.
In Louis Malle's damage?
In Louis Malle's, was that Louis Malle's last film?
Louis Malle's last film is what I mean.
Louis Malle's last film.
I think it may have been.
Was it?
They always go out with a weird psychosexual film like The Greats, don't they?
It's got lots of very torrid lovemaking in it damage.
Yeah, torrid stroke ludicrous.
Lots of desk polishing and legs in weird positions.
Yeah.
Who, of course, the other one who went out with a crazy psychosexual film was, um, your man, uh, Kubrick.
Stan the man.
Yeah.
Yep.
Eyes wide shut.
They get to a certain age, they run out of ideas, they think, you know, I'll scrape the sexy barrel.
Why not?
Have a little sexy fun.
Those were some good Stevens though.
Very good Stevens.
Maybe we'll have some more of those next week.
Thank you very much for texting and emailing all of you.
Congratulations.
Neil and Crouch End, you have won absolutely nothing.
Rightly so.
Rightly so.
It's not about the winning, it's about the taking part.
Now you've got a free play for us, Joe.
Yeah, this is, uh, some hippity hoppity.
This is someone called... Baja... I don't know how to say the name.
Where'd you find him?
Baja Madia.
Baja Madia?
It's a she, I think.
Uh-huh.
She was produced, um... It's an album I've got on my iTunes that I'd sort of never bothered to listen to properly.
Okay.
Do you have anything like that on your MP3 player?
Where did you get it?
Did you get it off a main or something?
I can't even remember where I got it.
I cannot remember, but I suddenly discovered it when I was flicking through.
And guess what?
It turns out to be wicked.
It wasn't suggested by the Genius Bar.
No, I haven't updated my iTunes.
I refuse to update it.
Especially not with the Genius Bar.
And that's just like Last FM, isn't it?
It just tells you similar sounding music, right?
Yeah.
If you like these, you might enjoy them.
You hate it!
I hate that genius button!
Do you hate it more than Scrappy-Doo?
I HATE Scrappy-Doo and I HATE the genius button!
Anyway, this is from an album called Collage that was released in 1996 and she was produced by Guru and Premiere from Gangstar.
It's exciting, isn't it?
You love Gangstar.
This is called Wordplay.
Text-a-nation!
Text, text, text!
Text-a-nation!
What if I don't want to?
Text-a-nation!
But I'm using email.
Is that a problem?
It doesn't matter, text!
Text the nation, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for us to talk about a thing and then ask you to send in your thoughts there on.
Yeah.
It's nearly Christmas.
Is it?
Yeah, it's very nearly Christmas.
What is it?
Three weeks now?
Something like that.
Less than three weeks, maybe two and a half weeks.
next weekend no it's the weekend after that is our Christmas show right which has been pre-recorded 20th yeah and yeah that's a good one to look forward to but I want to introduce a Christmasy theme into text the nation this week right and talk about
Christmas presents, specifically the most rubbish Christmas presents that you've ever got for one reason or another, and maybe homemade Christmas presents as well.
Because the older I get, the more I find it's impossible to buy good presents for people, do you know what I mean?
And around this time of year, like a few weeks before Christmas, this is when you should really start getting your present.
buying in order, right?
Plus no one's got any money this year, right?
Credit crunch Christmas.
Credit crisis is not just a crunch.
Actually, the crunch is over, isn't it?
The crunch is a mere dalliance.
Now it's the crisis.
People are being fired left, right and centre.
Woolies is collapsing.
That's the Christmas present nexus.
Is it really collapsing?
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
So people have got to think of inventive ways, homemade things to give people.
Right.
It's always been the sort of hallmark of cruddiness, hasn't it?
Especially in the 80s and 90s when we were hog happy.
Everyone thought, you know, you don't give someone a homemade present, that's rubbish.
Yeah.
Uh, but now, it's become the done thing.
It's a good way to go, because you can avoid all sorts of hassle, right?
I mean, as we were coming into work this morning, they were setting up all kinds of things with bits of scaffolding in Oxford Street.
I don't know if there's gonna be some kind of stall, maybe they're gonna close the roads there and stop the traffic, or, I don't know, or if maybe they were, I was imagining that they were probably just setting up places where the medics would be, you know what I mean?
Like, to save all the people fainting in a crowd.
Because there's gonna be such a crush.
Yeah, this has got to be one of the busiest weekends of the year, surely, for shopping in London.
So what are we going to ask people to text in?
Well, crappest present that you ever got, stroke, homemade present, or maybe that you gave to someone as well.
So it's crap presents, the absolutely most crappest.
It's all right.
If you're a kid, it's all right, isn't it?
Oh, it's all right any time, I think.
Do you think?
If you're a child, then you can give your parents some kind of clay thing that you've made.
Yeah, that's charming.
Or something like that.
I once gave my dad a hedgehog paper clip.
Last year, was that?
No, it was a few years ago.
It was very nice though.
He's still got it.
Yeah.
I learnt how to make it on Blue Peter.
Did you?
Yeah.
Do they do makes still on Blue Peter?
No, not anymore.
No, you're joking.
They got rid of the makes.
They struck you had a cook up crack.
That's the only make they do on that.
show now.
That's just a bit of humor there.
That's not true, exactly.
That's not true.
My dad used his technique was to write IOUs.
Really?
Yeah.
He would give you an IOU.
Well, no, he would write it out and he would put it in a nice envelope, so it looked exciting.
And that would be for a quantity of money?
No, no.
It would be for things like, I remember one year my sister got driving lessons.
And so my dad wrote a little letter.
He said, I'm going to get you driving lessons.
That's all right.
Did you not ever get one?
Yeah, I think I did.
I can't even remember what mine was for.
I'm not sure I got it.
Sometimes he just gives us stationery.
like a reams of paper, and he'll find like a fruit box or whatever, and he'll put the, like he'll make a sort of mad gift package, like a gift hamper.
So he'll find an old fruit carton from the street or something, and he'll put like some reams of paper in it, a couple of oranges, some batteries.
Wow.
Wrap the whole thing up with newspaper.
And there's your Christmas present.
That's quite good, isn't it?
You must have had some tantrums.
No, we were always quite cool about it because when we were younger, we didn't realize who the presents were coming from.
My mum always used to sort us out.
It was great.
She was on top of the whole thing.
But when it was older and it was clear who was giving what, that's when the gaps in my dad's present giving skills started to show.
So, that's when we got the batteries.
You know, and they're good presents, and he'd always go, useful, it's useful, isn't it?
Because he would be anticipating the disappointment.
His staple present used to be badadass, bath foam.
And that was a good present, right?
But then he, I don't know what, he went off the badadass thing, I think maybe because it's quite expensive.
That's when we started getting paper and batteries.
Do you think it would be okay to give someone a film on DVD that you'd got free in a paper?
No.
Do you think it would be okay, this is an idea I had, to make a homemade box set?
Do you know you go into HMV and you see, for instance, the action pack?
And it'll have a Jack Ryan film, a Bourne film, and maybe an Arnie film.
Just three randomly selected action films, one of which is usually good.
But the other fewer stinkers, you know, they're trying to palm you off with a rough one.
Could I just get some old DVDs off my shelf that I don't watch anymore?
I haven't opened.
Yeah.
Make a kind of box and call it the crap pack with K's all spelt with K's and personalize it like Adam's crap hat.
You're doing little, uh, bits of artwork for the box, right?
Yeah, I'd get into Photoshop and I'd do, I'd print out a property and have a picture of you and a crap pack and it would have explosions behind it and it would have all sorts of copy on it.
You know, do you love crap?
Then this is the pack for you.
Four of the crappiest films ever made.
As selected by Adam Buxton.
That's a good present.
Do you think it's cheap?
I'd love that.
Because the thing is, the outlay of time there and thought.
I can't be bothered to do it.
What you'd actually do is just create the crap pack by picking three DVDs around them.
You know what?
This is the present.
Just the thought.
It's the thought that counts, right?
That was a good present, and I'm thinking about it.
Thanks very much.
So we want to hear your ideas, listeners, for things like crap presents that you've got in a similar style, or maybe crap presents that you've given.
Here's another one.
If you had a pet, what if I gave you that pet but wrapped up in a box?
So then you open it and it's your pet.
It's your own pet.
But the present is you're rescuing it from suffering, from being trapped in the box.
What?
Is that enough for forgiveness?
No, that's completely insane.
It's cheap though.
That's ludicrous.
Do you get my logic?
No, I don't.
It's madness.
What, so you could do it with children?
You wouldn't do it with a child.
Pop the child in a box.
It's the same sort of thing.
It's a way to remind something of the value of something they've already got.
Do you know what I mean?
Just wrap it up and present it to them again.
Yeah.
No, that's madness.
Madness.
I'm going to do it, though.
I'd like to see you do it.
I'd like to hear how it goes.
Now listen, we've got a trail for sports personality of the year coming up now, Joe.
I mean, that's exciting, isn't it?
Who's it going to be?
Bobby Charlton?
Duncan Goodhue.
It could be any of the latest sports stars.
Linford Christie.
Christie.
Mike Tyson.
Martina Navratilova.
Hey.
Hey.
So nearly Queen of the Jungle.
Let's hear it.
That's Archaeologists with Winter Sleep.
This is Adam and Joe here on BBC 6 Music.
It's nearly time for the news, but before that, let me tell you that Text the Nation this week is all about the crappest presents that you've ever got, or maybe given people.
Um, maybe even homemade presents, that kind of thing.
Do email us adamandjo.sixmusicatbbc.co.uk or you can text us on 64046.
We'll read out some of those texts and emails sometime in the next half hour, but right now it's time for the news.
Ooh!
That was exciting, wasn't it?
Sexy, exciting.
That was the Kings of Leon.
What was that one called?
Use somebody.
You see?
It works two ways.
He's lonely.
He could use somebody like company.
But he's using them, isn't he?
He might be using them.
He's exploiting them.
Just like David Van Day might.
Confusing double meanings.
Listen, Adam.
This is Adam and Jo on BBC6 Music.
It's an exciting time to tune in if you've just tuned in, because I'm going to give Adam a present.
An early Christmas present.
Wow.
Now this is something I got free in the Guardian.
Is it my son in a box?
It's not.
That's on Christmas Day itself.
But this is something I got in the Guardian.
I forget what day it was.
But just because it's given away free in a paper, don't go thinking it's not really worth having.
Sure.
Because this is an amazing thing.
This is what was on the masthead of the Guardian.
Sometimes the best.
things in life are free.
Wow, it says free gift wrap by Tilda Swinton.
That's right.
Free gift wrap in The Guardian and that's at the very top, above the title of the newspaper even.
And then inside the paper, because it's got your motor running, hasn't it?
It has, yeah.
What could this gift wrap be like?
Here is the gift wrap.
It was folded up inside the paper.
Maybe you could describe it to listeners.
So it's an A3 sheet of newsprint
But it's blank except for a crudely drawn heart in red with some little dashes coming over.
Who drew that?
Swinton.
Tilda Swinton drew it.
And how long do you think it took her?
Well, I would say less than a second.
Less than a second.
But it's Tilda Swinton.
Yeah.
And it's wrapping paper.
So imagine what you could do with that.
You could wrap things in it and then you'd give it to someone and what would happen?
They would say, this wrapping paper is beautiful!
Who designed that?
They'd say, this wrapping paper's rubbish!
What a load of rubbish!
Who's drawn this stupid heart?
They'd discard it.
And then you'd say, hey, don't throw that away, have a closer look at it.
You know what I'm gonna do with this paper?
What?
I'm gonna iron it.
Really?
And then I'm gonna frame it.
Really?
Yeah, in a frame that costs over 50 pounds.
The Guardian, they do a good line in giving free stuff away.
They had a very successful series of wall charts, sort of traditional wall charts that they gave away.
They sometimes give away free books.
But I'd say this is without doubt the stupidest thing the Guardian have ever given away free.
Ooh, look.
Is it for charity?
It's for charity.
Well, that's the last refuge of a scoundrel.
You're evil.
You're evil.
Charity's the most feeble excuse for any kind of idiotic behaviour.
Well done giving the money to charity, but how is that going to raise money for charity?
Um... It's not as if they're charging for it.
Well, no, that you can bid for the original, and their proceeds go to a charity project.
Them and their weaselly charity expenses.
But it's written in very small letters on the back, so you would be forgiven for not seeing it.
How much would you bid for the original of that?
I would bid, um, six pounds.
Six pence?
Pounds.
Pounds.
I'd go as high as pounds.
That's good.
I mean, she's one of the greatest actresses of our generation.
Yeah, but she ain't.
She's no artist.
I don't know.
Look at the way she's drawn the heart, though.
With the pen.
Yeah.
She's like it's curled over in the middle.
That's amazing, man.
Thank you very much.
It's a pleasure.
Now, we're going to read out some of the emails and texts that we've been getting in a little later on.
Just to remind you, we're asking you for some of the crappest presents that you've ever given or got, and we've already got some very good messages coming in.
Please keep them coming in.
Here's a bit of music right now.
Are we really going to play Tom Petty?
Is this new Petty or Vintage Petty?
What's wrong with playing Petty?
I'm not saying, I'm just curious, that's all.
He doesn't seem like a six-music kind of a person.
But maybe that's very ignorant of me and I'm very sorry, Petty fans.
Here comes my girl.
Tom Petty, there.
And here comes my girl.
Do you think Tom Petty wears petticoats?
Yes I do, I think he does.
And he's very petty.
Otherwise he'd get cold, wouldn't he?
This is Adam and Joe here on BBC6 Music and we're in the midst of Text the Nation.
Shall we have to jingle Ben?
Why not?
So this week's Text the Nation listeners is crap, credit crunch type Christmas presents, super cheap ways of impressing people with a prezi, or the crappest one you've ever got.
We have to think of one feature a week, don't we, for this show.
And sometimes we struggle.
This is a good feature.
That was what I was building up to say.
No one else would have done this.
We haven't struggled.
No one would have done this.
This is good.
This is Radio Gold.
It's the first time anyone's ever done this.
Baker and Ball wouldn't think of this.
They would never think of this.
They would never think of crap presidents.
They don't think of things anyway.
They have it all written for us.
All written for them by elves.
Not like us.
Here's a text from Samantha.
She says, last year, my dad got me a bag of pegs, like the ones you used to hang clothes on the washing machine.
That's good.
I was 16.
I don't have a washing line.
He's dropping hints, isn't he?
Does she not wash enough, or does she not do enough of the housework?
Maybe.
But Christmas isn't a time to drop a hint like that.
Pegs.
Typical dad thing.
Simon Pegg in a box.
That would be different.
That would be sexy.
But dads do do that.
I mean, they're the main culprits in this whole thing, aren't they?
Dad's doodoo?
Dad's doodoo.
Especially if they're architect.
Listen, here's another one from an anonymous texter.
Hi, Adam and Joe.
I wasn't going to send this in, but I sense any contribution would be welcomed.
Correct.
Me and my stepfather once got matching bum bags off my auntie.
I'll read that again.
Matching bum bags.
No problems there.
But my sister noticed that that specific bum bag had been given away free in a certain ladies' magazine the week before.
Free gift bum bag.
But not two of them, though.
She would have gone out and bought a second copy of the mag.
Bum bag.
That's quite good, though, isn't it?
That is quite—is that—you'd be excited by a bum bag.
I'm impressed that she went and bought a second copy of Spritzer or whatever magazine it was on.
Fanny pack.
Fanny pack.
That's what the Americans call them.
Whichever way you slice it, it's not a well-named garment.
You're not allowed to call it that on the Big British Castle, though.
No.
It would cause all kinds of problems.
That's a nice idea though, because you get purses and things on those mags as well.
You can get some good stuff.
You know Radio Times is giving away a flat screen TV next week, just packaged with the mag.
On the mag.
Slipped between the pages, yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
That's a really good one of those LCD tellies.
Yeah.
Is that really true?
No.
Okay, just checking.
Uh, here we go.
Here's another, uh, dad one.
This is for... Oh, actually, the end of this text is missing.
It says... It's Greystoke.
Eraser.
Lord Greystoke.
Mirror.
Come down the stairs on your feet, not using that tray.
On the tray!
Like Lady.
Oh, Lady.
A beautiful Andy Mark Tower.
Not real voice.
Uh, Adam is not the only one who gets paper and batteries for Christmas.
Every year, without fail, my dad gets me a pack of printer paper that I know for a fact came from his office.
I get that as well.
I get printer paper, and my dad has taken to giving me, you know, glossy printer paper, which is sort of, that's the expensive end of the paper market.
But we're still talking only about 10 sheets of A4.
Not even a ream.
Not even a D-reem.
No, no, no, it's not even a D-reem.
And I said, sorry, not A4, but postcard size, like a whatever it is.
Right.
And so he gives me that and he goes, hmm, it's glossy.
Like I'm supposed to be really knocked out.
Wow.
I mean, it is useful.
He goes, it's useful, though.
It's bound to be useful.
Sounds like the Panda Pops polar bear.
Who was the polar bear that said it's frothy man?
Oh, yeah.
He's frothy, man.
Wasn't that a Cresta bear?
The Cresta bear.
There you go.
It's glossy, Adam.
But it's glossy, Adam.
Here's one from Marvin.
Hey, it's my turn.
Oh, you have one then.
All right, then.
I haven't got one.
Oh, yeah, I do have one.
I do have one.
Here's one from Shavorn.
My boyfriend once got a toilet roll holder that was made out of an old stick and a bit of wire.
He hadn't even made it, but he bought it off an old hippie.
What?
He also bought himself a clock made out of an old stellar can.
Now that's quite good.
You can turn anything into a clock.
Yes.
All you need to do is take an existing clock, smash it up and just have the hands and the mechanism.
Then punch a hole in literally anything.
Yeah.
A friend's face.
And don't do that.
But it would be funny if you do.
It wouldn't be funny.
Have the hand sticking out of their nose there.
Just make sure you put the mechanism on the inside of whatever it is and the hands on the outside and draw a 12 and a 6.
You don't even have to do that.
You can just do dots.
Yeah.
And bang.
It would be good if you got a celebrity clock.
You could ask Britney Spears to pop the mechanism in her mouth and then the...
And then she wouldn't sing as well, so she wouldn't be able to sing.
Exactly.
It's two birds with one stone.
And then you have the hands popping out of her mouth.
The problem is, when it got to midday, it would stop at her nose, so you'd have to remove Spears' nose.
Yeah, and you'd have to wind it up by putting your hand up her bottom.
We'll be reading out more of your texts and emails on the subject of crap presence very shortly.
Right now, here's a free play for you listeners.
This is a mellow one.
You know, it's nice when you get a bit of a mellow tune, right?
And this is an instrumental track, which I found on a compilation called Fuzzyfelt Folk.
And this is really enjoyable.
It's by Claude Vassori, and it's called Folk Guitar.
You would think that would have been used as a theme tune for a lovely program in the 70s, wouldn't you?
But I don't think it was.
A little stop-motion kiddie thing.
Yeah, Oliver Postgate-type thing.
About some furry animals living by a river.
Exactly, having knife fights, that kind of thing.
That was Claude Vasori with a track called Folk Guitar.
This is Adam and Joe here on BBC Six Music.
We're in the midst of Text the Nation right now.
Should we do a couple more before we play this exciting hub combo mash session?
Okay.
Here's one right now from Marvin.
He says, Hi Adam and Joe, the worst Christmas gift I ever got was a video rewinder.
that my mum said was useful and would make my video last longer.
I gave it to her back and told her to get herself a refund.
Who in the world needs a video rewinder?
Parents, if there are any parents listening out there today, you need to get it into your thick skulls that Christmas is not about practicality.
Right.
It's just about indulgence and stupidity and value, isn't it?
Yeah.
Disposability.
Maximum money.
When you're a kid, you're just dreaming that you'll get given something amazingly expensive and brilliantly indulgent, like a huge surround sound system, Blu-ray player, and, you know?
When do you think that urge to receive that kind of thing goes away?
Never.
Never, never, never, never, never.
Yes size is the thing isn't it when you're that age though particularly if you're if you're a child and you're listening to this program with your parents in the same room and I know some families do listen then sick families then there is no excuse
for not giving your kids something escapist.
It's tough isn't it, because as a parent you want to invest in something that will maybe last more than a few months.
Well you don't want your kids to be too materially minded either.
No, you don't just want to go and spend, because the thing is that actually it's not very expensive to buy something giant.
You can go and spend 15 quid on a really giant piece of old crap.
Right.
And they will probably love it for that moment.
So you think it's just size, physical size?
Yeah, yeah, they love the size of this.
Have you ever been tempted to wrap something small in a giant box?
That's something people sometimes do.
Right, yes, exactly.
That happens a lot.
To see the look of disappointment.
Here's an email right now from Selena in El Paso, Texas.
Yes.
And she says, A few Christmases ago my cousin played a present prank on his brother.
He presented his brother with a quite large box.
Of course, his brother was elated, as usually the bigger the box, the more exciting the gift, right?
He opened the box to find a slightly smaller box, which he opened to find a bit of that packaging popcorn.
Right, so she's talking about the pop stuff.
I've never heard it called that before.
Once he got out the box, oh, I didn't read this too properly.
Once he got out the box inside, all the popcorn there was.
Welcome to my world.
It's all gone wrong.
This is what you deal with.
This is what I have to deal with on a weekly basis.
Not all correspondents construct a sentence properly.
They don't do it and they don't use the proper punctuation.
That's the thing.
Do you want a bit more time?
Suddenly you'll get a random full stop.
Here's a good one from Chris in Twickenham.
He says, Hi guys, as a child I was given the game Pop-Up Pirate.
That's a good game.
They're in a barrel, and you have to stick swords in the... No, you have to remove... No, stick swords in the side until the pirate pops up.
You never know which is the sword that's gonna make him pop up.
Right, right, right.
Pop-up pirate.
It was lacking... This game of a pop-up pirate that his dad gave him was lacking the pirate.
My dad replaced it with a cork.
That's classic dad activity, isn't it?
Yeah.
I mean, what difference should it make if it's just a cork with a pirate's face drawn on?
Still the same game, it's exciting.
Again, no excuse for parents to do something like that.
That's outrageous.
That's typical.
How are you getting on with your mail there?
Have you abandoned it?
Well, not really that well.
I might have to have another track.
I feel quite humiliated after launching it.
Also, I felt that I was segueing very well when I launched into it.
It was going so well.
You did a brilliant segue.
You switched from a personal anecdote to a piece of correspondence that tied into it.
I read the first couple of lines and I thought, hang on, this is relevant.
And so my brain started clicking and I thought, this is going to be smooth.
And then you were overconfident, which made you look even stupider when the whole thing crumbled.
I completely crumbled and got away from me.
It was so, it was one of the worst moments of my life.
What an idiot.
What an absolute idiot.
I hate myself.
Now it's hub combo time, ladies and gentlemen.
What is, explain the hub combo.
A hub combo is basically two musicians at once in the hub, but they've decided to take their inspiration from McDonald's here at Six Music and describe it as a combo, which is possibly the trashiest possible word they could use to describe it.
But let's put that aside for the minute and imagine that it's Brills, which of course it is, so that's not difficult.
Oh, dear.
I'm just being rude about the name of the feature, I think, as a feature.
It's a brilliant, brilliant idea.
Just say who's playing.
It was recorded at last night at Maida Vale last night.
And Paul Weller and Adele were part of the combo.
And here it is.
This is Invisible by Paul Weller.
So Estelle isn't even involved, in fact.
So forget everything I just said.
Here's Paul Weller with Invisible.
There you go.
That's Paul Weller.
That's Paul Weller there in the hub combo zone.
I'm sorry I was rude about the, I wouldn't say rude flippant, I was flippant about the notion of the hub combos and that's not the sort of thing a good DJ should do, you should support the endeavors of your station and not be sarcastic and cynical gratuitously.
just to make yourself feel big.
This is what I was doing.
The logic of a bully.
And I'm sorry, hubcombo is a triffic name for them.
For a triffic thing.
For a triff thing.
Weller and Adele there, and you can watch the full... Oh, sorry.
Oh, those noises you're making.
They're spooky noises for my next segment.
Oh, it's exciting.
Spooky.
For my next segment.
I didn't know you had segments.
Neither did I. I don't have segments.
I'm jealous.
I made up the whole concept on the spot.
Wow.
This show's just gone up a notch.
It's exciting, isn't it?
Yes.
So yeah, I was going to say you can watch the Paul Weller and Adele hub combo on.
It runs out on the computer screen there.
Oh, here it is.
Sorry.
It's written down on the piece of paper, isn't it?
On your TV, you press the red button on any BBC TV channel and you can watch him playing that.
Amazing.
Are we going to play anything that they did together, Paul Weller and Adele?
Because it just seems sort of pointless to introduce this combo thing and then just play a solo performance later on.
Be a bit sniffy again there.
I am, aren't I?
I know it's a good idea to call something a combo and then just have one person.
It's a good idea, well done.
Joe, have you heard the song by Pink, which is called Bad Influence?
Uh, probably.
You're aware of Pink, right?
I know Pink.
She's a very tall, sexy sort of, uh, lady.
She's not tall, is she?
I think she seems tall.
Maybe she's just, uh, filmed with shorter people around her.
She's one of these people that is filmed like- Oh, I'm thinking of Gwen Stefani.
I get confused.
Yeah, Pink's tiny.
Pink is more of a, um, little runty person.
Yeah.
And she, like in her videos, they speed up the action.
I know who Pink is.
Yeah, yeah.
She spells her name, instead of an I, she uses an exclamation mark.
And that sums up a great deal about what Pink's life is like.
Yeah.
You know?
She's provocative and punky.
She's very provocative.
She's sassy.
Yeah, but she likes to have a good time as well.
She's like Tank Girl.
She's a bit like Tank Girl, come to life, isn't she?
She's a little bit like Tank Girl, come to life.
She's had a difficult year.
I think maybe she got divorced and she says that her new album is very vulnerable.
It's got a lot of vulnerable songs on it.
In fact, she claims that it's her most vulnerable album.
Wow.
It's her fifth album and the album is called Fun House and this track Bad Influences on there.
I heard it on Radio 1 the other day.
I was listening to Radio 1.
Well, you've got to keep down with the kids, haven't you?
Yeah, you know, and I was listening to it for a while and they were talking and stuff and I listened to all of it for about 10 minutes before I went insane.
You're great.
Turn it off.
But I heard this track on there.
I'll play you a little snatch of this track right now.
Go so what if it's only one in the afternoon
Right, so she's having a crazy party time there.
But were you listening to the lyrics that she was singing?
Yes, I was, yeah.
And the thing is that if you actually listen to what she's singing and then read back the lyrics, which you can do, obviously, by going online, it's a very different kind of vibe you get there.
I mean, that song is unrestrainedly nutty and fun, isn't it?
And maybe she's deliberately being ironic by creating an uptempo
you know, atmosphere, for what seems to be like a scream from the abyss, as far as I can tell.
Here's the lyrics, right?
If you read them out with my scary atmosphere track, which I was just creating there.
Here we go.
You hear that scary atmosphere?
It's a little bit of a scare.
I'm just going to turn up the scary atmosphere.
It's okay.
So here are the lyrics for Bad Influence.
All right, sir.
I'll have another one.
It's early.
Three olives.
Shake it up.
I like it dirty.
Dirty.
Tequila for my friend.
It makes her flirty.
Flirty.
Trust me.
I'm the instigator of underwear.
Showing up here and there.
Uh-oh.
Uh-oh.
So what if it's only one o'clock in the afternoon?
It's never too soon to send out all the invitations to the last night of your life.
Lordy, lordy, lordy.
I can't help it.
I like to party.
It's genetic.
It's electrifying.
Wind me up and watch me go.
Where she stops, nobody knows.
And on it goes like that, you see.
It's like some kind of Edgar Allan Poe.
It's like Edgar Allan Poe.
Or just the confessions of a whino or someone with a terrible alcohol problem.
She's the instigator of underwear.
Yeah.
Is that because she started a fashion of wearing your underwear over your clothes?
Wow, like a superhero.
I don't know.
I think so.
I think she started, like, wearing your bra on top of your shirt or your panties outside your trousers.
Right.
Yeah, well, that could be it.
I mean, she loves the idea that she's a bad influence.
Later on, she talks about
Get calm down.
I know your son said he was in my house He's the captain of the football team, but I turned him out.
He wasn't the first he won't be the last to turn it down This happens all the time.
I mean, it's her life's completely unraveling there, but she's having a little party moment
I mean, that's shocking, don't you think?
It's depressing.
It's really brought me down.
I think Pink's having problems.
I think she must be having massive problems, surely.
And she needs help.
Yeah.
Is there any way that we can organise some kind of charity?
Do you think she's sort of partying and everyone's dancing but really she's... Crying inside.
She's going to be found slumped in the corner of the club.
Almost certainly.
In tears and nearly dead.
And then people will look back at the lyrics to that album in a very different way.
We should have listened.
Yeah.
To Adam Buxton reading them out.
We should have listened to Adam Buxton.
We should have believed Buxton.
It's just a little warning for you there pink fans.
Now we are going to play some more music now and after that I think we'll have some more
We'll have some more text with Text the Nation, your crepus Christmas presents.
This is a Q-tip classic.
It's not from his new album.
No, it's from the one before.
This is Breathe and Stop.
Very good.
Well done.
That's Q-tip with Breathe and Stop.
Let's return now to Text the Nation and we are asking you to tell us about some of the crepus presents that you've ever received or maybe that you've ever given.
homemade presents, that kind of thing.
I had a thought.
Yeah, go on then.
The key thing for all present giving is a shrink wrap machine.
Ah.
If you have a shrink wrap machine, then you can make any old thing look new.
That's right.
You can also take anything you're given back to the shop and get your money back.
Probably without the receipt because it's shrink wrapped.
Right.
Right.
Isn't that true?
That must be true.
I mean, that's a very good idea.
How much do they cost?
Probably not that much.
You know, it doesn't cost that much to get a laminating machine, does it?
No.
But a shrink-wrap machine, that would be different.
That's bigger hardware.
We should look into it.
Still worth it, I reckon.
Because that would be great if anyone out there knows about shrink-wrap machines.
Do let us know.
Here's a text from Vivian in Glasgow.
She says, Hi Adam and Joe, last Christmas my aunt sent me her old underwear.
What?
I don't know whether I can read the rest of this.
Have you read this one, Ben?
Yeah.
I don't think I can read that one.
It wasn't filthy underwear, though, was it?
Yeah.
What?
Yeah.
What, you mean like saucy?
Not actually soiled.
She's incontinent.
She wears tenor lady pants.
What?
Let's skip over that.
Let's skip over that one.
Brilliantly skipped over.
Is that true?
That's extraordinary.
Would someone's gran actually send them their own pants?
You hand down clothes though, don't you?
Yeah, you do.
Pass me down.
Well, I could understand it.
I mean, it would be... Ladies might do pass me down knickers.
Certainly.
I mean, it would raise an eyebrow.
But if you're... It's like when a man gives his son a family heirloom, like a watch, a classic watch.
A mother does the same with her pants.
It's less common, I would say, but it surely must have happened, especially if your mum had some beautiful frilly knickers from the 40s or whatever.
That would be a beautiful family tradition.
Yeah, but not soiled.
Just clean them up.
That would be a bad family tradition.
Here's an email right now from Abby Cornwall in Edinburgh.
And she says, My granny once made a Christmas card for me out of the cardboard base that frozen pizzas come on.
She folded it up and wrote, Merry Christmas, Love Grand, with black marker on the pumpy bit, so that it was all really wonky, and it looked like a head case had made it while sitting on the bus.
She cut the corners off the envelopes that she'd received with Christmas cards,
And she cut them into tiny triangles and stuck them all round the Merry Christmas bit and then folded it into a semi-circle shape.
The worst of it was that she hadn't even wiped the cardboardy bit, so that when I opened it, I ended up with greasy fingers.
Also, she once brought me a white plate with a small fluffy cat, small fluffy cat head with skew-if eyes, really squinty looking, one green and one blue, under a glass dome in the centre of it.
She's mad, my gran, but ace.
Love the show.
Thanks, Abby.
I read that out very badly.
You've read the whole thing out.
And that's good, that's good.
I'm just learning, because you usually read this, but Ben, our producer, has foolishly given me a couple to read out, you see.
Ben doesn't know what he's doing.
Joe's the king of this, and I'm just learning.
That's not true at all, as you could see from my pant.
All right, reading king.
Read one out.
Here's one from Adam, and here's one from Adam in Norwich.
My older brother, many years ago, when he was about 15, I really, really wanted a saxophone.
My parents couldn't afford this, so they made one from loo roll, buttons and plastic beakers.
While the carefully created device was wonderfully made, when he unwrapped it, it broke his little heart.
I think when you're a child, that's the angriest you can ever get at Christmas, or the most confused and upset.
Because you love your parents, yet they seem to have punched you in the face.
It's supposed to be the happiest day of the year, yet you feel furious.
I'm feeling angry even now.
My, um, sister-in-law, she came round last year, and she gave my boys the gift of books.
And they are, well, they, at that time, they were three and five.
So unable to read all that confidently.
And the gift of a book at that age is like being handed a steaming pile of dog pops.
And they immediately unwrapped it eagerly, right?
They're already a little suspicious when they saw the package because they thought, hmm, a large plastic truck doesn't usually come in this kind of packaging.
So they rip all the paper off, there's a book.
What was the book?
It was like, it was a good book.
Clive James' TV essays.
Yeah, I was like, Russell Brand's my bookie work or something.
No, it wasn't.
But it was a nice book that she got them and one that I'm sure we've subsequently read and enjoyed together.
But they instantly burst into tears.
As soon as they saw it was a book, they were just like, they threw it on the floor and they weren't having it.
Listen, we're going to come back to this text the nation.
And when we come back, it's going to be so polished.
It should be really slick.
We're going to segue a couple of tracks.
You know what the thing is?
I even read that one out to myself before and I still ruined it.
Well, you're going to have a last chance to try and save your reputation.
Our final text donation link is going to be amazing.
It's going to be really slick coming up a bit later in the show.
So keep them coming in.
The text number is 64046 or email adamandjo.6musicatbbc.co.uk.
Now, is this Joe's free play here?
Oh, it's just, it's Glass Vegas now, is it?
Or a trail first.
It's exciting, isn't it?
Like, describing to people how confused we are.
Here's some sounds.
You know, that was a free play listener's.
That was a band from the 80s called ABC with Poison Arrow.
Do you think it's necessary to explain who ABC are?
It probably is, isn't it?
You never know.
Yeah, you never know.
That album, though, is a classic, isn't it?
uh lexicon of love yes yes absolutely doesn't it appear on like q magazine's top album lists it's properly respected isn't it now yeah yeah it's a stone classic you know i've got a signed copy have you really do you think that's worth anything i bought it when it first came out i didn't meet the band or anything but they just had a few signed copies on the shelf at hmv back in 82 or whenever that was like they sometimes have signed books in bookshops yes i knew uh but so do you think that's worth anything
No, no, no, it's disappointing, isn't it?
Sometimes you buy stuff that you think is going to be valuable in future, especially as a kid.
And then when you get to our age, a long time has passed.
So things like that should increase in value.
But then you go on eBay and you find the depressing truth is you're still only going to get a fiver for it.
In fact, they probably cost worth less than the initial outlay.
Yeah, I know.
That is disappointing, isn't it?
Because the thing is that it's all got to be pristine and all that kind of stuff.
That kind of value ink builds up incrementally over hundreds of years.
Although I would imagine that if your name wasn't on it, then it's probably worth more.
Right, my name isn't on it.
It just has their signatures.
Well, it might be priceless.
Wow.
It should take it along to Ante and Rocha.
Get in touch with Fiona Bruce.
It's time for the news now, ladies and gentlemen.
It's just gone 11.30 and here it is.
Why would they even go for the last little four seconds there, do you think?
Song's not quite there yet.
We'll just need a little extra.
Endings are very important.
Dingleberry on the end of the song there.
And the last thing that stay in the listener's head.
Yeah.
That was the Kaiser Chiefs sounding very much like XTC, I thought.
With Good Days, Bad Days.
This is Adam and Joe here on BBC Six Music.
And I think we're going to maybe wrap up Text the Nation now.
We are asking about crap presents that you have got or given in the past.
Maybe we won't wrap it up.
Maybe we'll have another one after this.
But here's a couple that, obviously, I'm going to have another go at reading.
Good luck.
Thanks very much.
Dear Adam and Jo, the worst gift I have ever seen given was a gift my stepbrother got from his mum.
She had told him she was going to get him a guitar for Christmas.
And lo and behold, she says, Claire says lo and behold, instead of lo and behold, she spells it L-O-N-E, behold, which is an egg corn, I think, isn't it?
Right, what does that mean?
Well, it's, as far as I know, it's like a sort of phrase or a word that you've misheard.
You've turned into a different phrase.
Yeah.
So the term egg corn comes from the fact that some people think acorns maybe were egg corns.
So she's gone for lo and behold instead of lo and behold.
Other ones include minefield instead of minefield.
Yes.
I used to think it was communal garden.
Like communal garden.
Instead of communal garden, I used to think it was a communal garden.
There you go, a little eggcorn there.
Nothing wrong with that.
Claire from Liverpool.
Oh, sorry, I torpedoed your story there, Claire.
It was going so well as well.
I was reading it really well.
Lo and behold, on the day that she had a guitar-sized box wrapped up under a tree.
However, he opened it to find that all it contained was the guitar case for the guitar that he wanted and a small note which read, This is for when you manage to save up and buy your own guitar.
Love you, Mum.
It was cruel but very funny, and he still hasn't managed to save up for the guitar to put in the case.
That's from Claire in Liverpool.
Thanks, Claire.
There's a lot of cruel parents out there.
Not cruel, but parents who choose Christmas as the day to teach their kids something.
Ah, yes.
It's the wrong day to choose.
That is, birthdays.
Hugh and Kent says, past present highlights from my dad as a child have included a shoe in a sole,
A garden-centre mug, shoe polish, a yellow plastic poncho, and get this, a Christmas card sealed in its original plastic wrapping.
That is good present-buying from Dad.
A Christmas card that you can give to someone else next year.
Kate in Keeley says, my mum once told all my family that I needed a purse.
So for Christmas, I got eight purses.
This is made worse by the fact that it's my birthday on Christmas Day.
That happened to me once.
I made it known that I wanted a bag out of desperation, you know?
Because my family very nicely always says, what do you want for Christmas?
It's so hard to buy you presents.
So I rack my brains and one year I just said, I don't know, like a bag, man bag type thing.
I got bags from everybody, like ludicrous bags.
Bags galore.
Maybe there should be a preview day.
A presents preview day.
It would happen a week before Christmas to give the weekend before Christmas to give you time to replace the present.
You would preview the presents.
That's good.
And be able to say no, no, yes, no.
My dad just writes very specific lists now of what he wants, yeah.
He's a good man.
Here's another one from Corin from Birmingham.
When I was seven, my brother and sister got new bikes for Christmas.
Seeing them from afar when we came down that morning, I was sure there would be one for me.
No, only my old bike.
which my mum and dad told me the fairies had cleaned and sprinkled with magic dust.
That is rough.
It was as dirty as it always had been.
Poor Corin.
That's hardcore.
Here's one from Dave who was thinking about your idea for repackaging things and putting them in boxes, specifically living things and pets.
He says, Joe's pet in a box idea is actually a hit in a park in Laos.
You pay to give some chirpy sparrows in a cage
Freedom.
The gift of freedom, yeah.
They're caught again later.
Quids here.
It's a good idea.
It's a money-raising scheme.
Here's one from Mega.
What?
No.
Well, let me not bother with the name.
I'll read out the text.
Dear, dear Adam and dear, dear Joe.
for the last few years i've received coloring pencils with my name on them it's very tiresome and you can't really give them to charity shops for a fairly obvious reasoning also last year they even spelt the name wrong so it came up as drain hill instead of adrian hill
Drane Hill's a good name for a man.
You used to give a good gift, which was, uh, inscribed pencils, but you'd make them inscribe something stupid.
What did you have on them you wanted?
Well, Totties I had one.
Was it, was it, uh, me who gave the Totties one or did I receive them from Zach?
I can't remember.
I don't remember, but that's a good gift to get personalized stuff, but get them just to write something idiotic on them.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's always fun.
Here's one from Will and Beck.
He says, or they say, one year me and my wife both agreed not to buy each other a present.
It was possibly the most miserable Christmas morning ever.
And that's the thing that actually me and my wife have said that this year as well.
Credit crunch Christmas.
We said, listen, no presents.
But that's useless.
But then if you break the present embargo and the other person doesn't... You're in trouble.
It's real trubs.
Have you got one more there before we wrap up Texanation?
No!
Okay, well that's it.
Thank you very much indeed.
We had so many and there's too many to read out.
And the ones that I tried to read out, I couldn't even read them anyway.
We don't have a sexy assistant.
We usually have a sexy assistant in the studio to help go through the Texan emails.
But for some reason, we haven't got one this week.
We don't know what's happening in the console.
She's on a sexy break.
Maybe it's because I was rude about the combos.
They've withdrawn our… They're taking stealthy revenge.
…withdrawn our funding.
So, thank you very much for all your texts and emails.
Apologies if I ruined the reading of your message there, but we'll have more text-to-nation next week.
We're going to remind you of Song Wars after this next track, which is another blast of wonderfulness from the Hub Combo recorded at Maydaville.
That's more like it.
Uh, recorded at Maida Vale last night.
This is Paul Weller and Adele doing chasing pavements.
I even said it was Estelle earlier.
Right.
Made a complete mish-mash of that time.
That's business as usual for us though, isn't it?
Here we go.
Yes!
Nice one, Adele!
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,
That was Paul Weller and Adele recorded live at the hub combo session at Maida Vale last night.
And you can see them performing that by going to any BBC TV channel and pressing the red button if your technology is little but there has a red button.
It's nice to punctuate a sentence with a little burp, I think.
People love a bit of a burp.
It just makes us human.
We're not these untouchable, brilliant, polished radio machines that people think we are.
No.
We're human.
We're capable of making mistakes.
Are we human or are we dancer?
You see, that's the question, isn't it?
Now, we're going to remind you of our Song Wars songs this week.
Let's have the Jingle Jingle.
It's time for Song Wars.
Now I can already see this is going Adam's way.
No, is it?
Yeah, because yours is funnier, you know?
And people seem to have this thing about funny things.
They like them, you know?
More than things that aren't funny.
I don't know what it is.
It annoys me.
Listen to the bad grays coming out of Cornish there.
But, you know, what I'm saying is just because mine isn't necessarily, like, funny... Yours is tunefully brilliant.
I mean, I've hijacked a Gary Newman tune for mine, so... But don't, but make sure you listen to these songs carefully, is all I'm saying.
Don't make Malcolm Bladwell style snap decisions.
Well, we're gonna play yours first now, anyway, so have a listen to this.
This is my tribute to Joanna Lumley's documentary where she went to see the Northern Lights and this is a kings of convenience style kind of mellow folk number.
This is called La La La Lumley.
For 55 years of my life, I've dreamt about seeing the Northern Lights.
She was born in Kashmir in 1946.
Her father was a major in the Gurkha Rifles.
When she was a little girl, she had a picture book.
With a drawing of the Northern Lights, she wished she'd one day see that sight.
She applied for Rada, but she did not get in.
They said she'd never be a model too ugly and nothing.
But she ignored the scorn they poured, confounded her detractors Five years later, she was Britain's most in-demand model and actress La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
But in her mind she could still find her unspoken ambition To see the northern lights before she died was still her mission La la la
My only dream is that we won't get to see her.
Something's happened.
Thank you.
I think I can die happy now.
I'm worried that that won't mean anything to people who didn't see the documentary.
There's no solution to it really, I'm just going to stay quiet.
That's one of your musically strongest efforts, if I may say so.
Nice of you to say.
A friend of ours was staying with us the other weekend and we were having a couple of tinnies and for some reason I was forcing some song wars songs on him.
And although he got a chuckle out of a couple of mine, he said with genuine awe and respect, wow, Joe's a really good musician, isn't he?
Like, about a couple of years.
Who was it?
Was it Paul McCartney?
It was Paul McCartney.
Wow.
From the Beatles.
And he was round there.
Wow.
And I said, come on, Macca, listen to mine.
I mean, come on, that's funny.
Who was it, really?
Funny stuff.
It was Dan.
Oh really?
He's good on the guitar.
He's a musical genius.
He knows his sausages.
Absolutely.
So here is, just to remind you folks, these are songs that we've challenged each other to write about national treasures.
People who are wonderful, you know, national treasures.
And they are people.
Joe's Gone for Lumley.
I Went for Stephen Fry.
Here's my song about Fry.
This is a song about Stephen Fry Including well-known facts about his life in the style of early Gary Newman If you were making a documentary about Stephen Fry You could use this song in it to illustrate different bits He was a tear away when he was young
He was expelled from school and even went to jail He stole a credit card from a family friend But he cleaned up his act and got a scholarship To go to Cambridge University Where he met Hugh Laurie from House He's got a fruity way of talking He uses lots of long words He's nice
coming.
He did a lot of sketches with you Laurie from House.
Both of them were clever and unfashionably.
Hodge made them perfect for playing chiefs and was stunned.
It was clear that they were all so good at acting.
Which of course they've both gone on to do.
He was marvelous as his hero Oscar Wilde.
Stephen struggles publicly with his mental health.
He goes from highs to unbearable lows He's got no program about think that was good For fellow sufferers it was comforting to see They probably won't use this bit in the documentary He's highly intelligent and sensitive And if I was gay I would
He's a North Miranda playwright and a lovely telly host.
He's made QI into a massive success.
Oh, I love dibs of some credit halls so.
a little bit roughs like Peter's friends and two and Spice World.
That's the worst you've ever seen.
That's my Stephen Fry song.
So we're asking you to vote for either Stephen Fry or Joanna Lumley in our song wars this week and also over and above that we're hoping that we might even get some Fry and Lumley action, right?
Some kind of response from Fry or Lumley.
Or their people.
Lumley lives in the same neck of the woods as you used to and I always have.
She's a stockwellian, I think.
Mm-hmm.
So maybe I could post that CD through her letterbox.
I would certainly make her day.
She would be frightened.
She would be frightened.
She would be frightened.
The email address is adamandjo.6musicatbbc.co.uk.
Vote for your favourite, either Lumley or Fry, Joe or Adam.
Yeah, vote for it via email, please.
Now here's a track before we say goodbye to you.
This is the Beastie Boys with Fight For Your Right To Party.
The Beastie Boys with Fight For Your Right To Party.
You have been listening to Adam and Joe here on BBC Six Music.
Thanks for listening.
Yeah, we really appreciate it.
Thank you for all your texts and emails.
And don't forget the podcast of the highlights of this show, if they find any, will be available on Monday evening.
And you can listen to the whole programme again, all three hours, on iPlayer or just by clicking Listen again on the 6 Music website.
But now here in the studio with us live is Liz Kershaw.
Hello, Liz.
Hello, are you filling?
Yeah, well, we're doing our hand-over.
You took me DJ hand-over.
I'm really pleased to be included like last week, but have you got any delicious buffet treats?
I haven't got no brawn spoons.
No prawn spoons.
I came in early because I thought there'd be some grub.
I thought they might pull the prawn spoons from the interstitials, but I was saddened to see last night that they were still pushing them.
In the ad, in the TV ad.
Yeah.
But Kerry Katona's disappeared.
No, has she?
She's not in the TV.
No, she's still there.
Yeah.
Oh, she might be feeling a bit sick because she's had a lot of mini kievs.
But I didn't see her.
Your voice, Liz Kershaw.
It's so good, isn't it?
Listen to that.
It's so commanding, don't you think?
Yeah.
I mean, you've got... Do you like that voice?
That DJ voice.
Do you think so?
She's a proper DJ, Joe.
I've had 25 years to... I used to talk like this!
That's how we should talk.
But like Margaret Thatcher, you know, with experience, it's been lowered.
It's commanding.
I bet you don't say Arminar a lot, do you, on your show?
What are the kings of Arminar?
Not usually.
That wasn't a good start.
Anyway, are you off for what you're doing today?
Anything exciting?
I'm going back home on the train if they're running.
That should take me no more than about seven hours.
What are you doing, Joe?
I'm planning to watch Christine and Near Dark.
I'm glazing over now, see ya.
Six music.