Episode 115 - Rab C. Nesbitt's Seasonal Greet (1988) - The Culture Swally

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[Music]

(00:15):
Ho, ho, ho, hello and welcome to the Christmas episode of the Culture Swally, a podcast dedicated to Scottish news and pop culture.
And I will tell you this boy, I will tell you this, I am joined as always by the man who loves a soft eject.
It's Greg, how are you today, buddy?

(00:35):
I think it is, in that bit, we're going to get to it later, I'm sure.
But, I know exactly where he's coming from there, because there was something satisfying about a chunky tape player,
where they could soft opening door, you know, just, just glide open, you know.
The ones that sort of like popped open, like you're kind of walkman and stuff like that, they were all a bit kind of,

(00:57):
yeah, my tapes, but like a nice slow moving one, you know.
Well, as Rahab says, it's a moment of sanity in a world gone mad, a soft eject.
[Laughter]
Yeah, I know what you mean, it was something very pleasing about that soft eject button.
But, how are you, everything good?
Everything is good, my daughter has a boyfriend.

(01:20):
Oh! So, I was like, people who have been listening to the podcast, I was thinking this this morning,
people who have been listening to the podcast since the very early days,
and I'm thinking of people like, "Head me," for example, who sent us a nice message,
each other day on them, LinkedIn, not LinkedIn, fuck me, on Instagram.
Um, my daughter would have been 12 when we started doing the culture, as well,

(01:44):
and now she's 16, um, she's got a boyfriend, and if I'm honest,
it's not my favourite, it's taken a bit of a adjustment, as a father to get used to the fact,
that there's a boyfriend and he's here all the time.
Is this the boy that you mentioned to me the other week?
Without going into detail?

(02:06):
That's the very same.
Oh!
Okay, right.
So, okay.
You know, he's on a strike for the other week, but he's, you know, he's a nice kid.
Uh, there's just, you know, dads and their daughters,
and, you know, can he stay over?
But he can stay, but he's in a spare room, which is downstairs by the front door, eight, five, eight,
from that kind of thing, you know what I mean?

(02:27):
So, we'll see, you know, a 16-year-old kiddos, a Lachem, a chokton, right, by next week, you know?
Yeah, I can understand.
I know, because I know from my brother-in-law, my nieces, he was probably quite protective to begin with,
but now, you know, my eldest niece, I think, has been with her boyfriend for quite a few years now,
and, yeah, he's part of the family, basically.

(02:47):
Yeah.
They've been all bobbin and holiday together and stuff, so it's, um,
and it's different, I guess, because they're like, in their 20s.
Well, yeah.
Yeah.
They've been away for like, why don't we, um, I don't have a Saturday night with them,
and we can have a couple of drinks, and we can be the guests in the woman, and I'm like,
I'd die fucking the one to do that.
Yeah, I mean, I don't want that.
I don't want this kid to be too comfortable around me.

(03:08):
You know what I mean?
Yeah, okay.
I don't want him to be uncomfortable, but not too uncomfortable.
[Laughs]
I don't want him to be like, completely comfortable being around, you know, just kind of
being around me like, he's, he's got, because of the events of the other week, he's got a little bit of nervousness
around me, which is, it's fine, you know, I'll, well, kind of keep that little twinge of nervousness,

(03:30):
um, for the foreseeable until we get to know better, but, um, but yeah, it,
I mean, it's the thing, because I remember when I was older, when my daughter is now, like,
I was like 18 and I started seeing a girl who was two years older than me,
and her dad was some Liverpool.
And she invited me around one Sunday night, and, uh, we were just sitting in, we were, we were in her room,
and we were both, we're both like, we were listening to some music and chatting, and we were

(03:53):
sort of allying on her single bed, like, face-niche, all that, but up in her elbows.
Hey, but was, fully dressed on top of the covers, and we were just sort of listening to music and chatting,
and our dad came in to ask her something, and, uh, he was fucking, he was, he couldn't even look at us,
and then he kind of, he kind of took her out the room, and he gave her a fucking ball,
and he was like, yeah, or what?

(04:14):
This is our house, this is our house, and blah, blah, blah, and, you know, when she's like,
or just, uh, or just listening to music that, you know what I mean?
Like, she's just, yeah, but he's on your bed, he's a bullfighting on the bed,
and they, and that, and at the time I thought to myself,
fuck off, you're fucking old-fashioned, old-ass, but now, sorry, get what he's coming from,
you know, I, yeah, I can get that.

(04:37):
I, uh, I try to think if I ever, there was, there was one I remember,
and I would have been, I'd have been quite twenty, twenty one.
And the first girl that I remember meeting like the parents, it wasn't,
in a, it wasn't her dad, it was like her stepdad, but I got on with him, like,
house on fire, we used to watch football and stuff together.
The next girlfriend I had, her dad, it didn't matter who her daughter would have dated,

(05:01):
he would have hated them because he was just that type, and I couldn't do anything right.
I remember the first time I met him, then he, like, I was running to their house,
and he was out, and he came in, and he just stared at me when he walked in the kitchen and saw me there,
and kind of rolled his eyes, and as if to feel like I was cut here.
And I went over to his hand, and I was like, oh hello, Mr. Kill Sice,

(05:23):
that wasn't his name, but I've just made that up.
And he just fucking, gave me a death statement, it's Bill.
Oh.
And I'm like, okay, Bill, like, fine, I do wonder if meat in the parents was fucking based on that,
I can't, so, never gave me a lie detector test, thankfully though, but yeah, you've just had.
The thing is, like, the thing is, like, when the dads are,

(05:45):
about context, kind of makes you feel a bit better, a bit weird getting up to with these daughters,
so he's much of a dude.
Yeah, it's a difficult thing, I get that in terms of a dad, so I'm sure you'll be okay,
you'll find a way, and yeah, it might not last long, you never know.
Yeah, I'll see.
Let's see.
Let's see, so yeah, so yeah, that's my news.

(06:07):
Oh, and of course, we are recording this on St Andrew's Day.
Greg, we had indeed.
Yeah.
Didn't even realise, I didn't even think about that, actually.
Yeah, well actually, I'm going to make Stake Pie.
I was going to make Stake Pie today, but my younger daughter was out tonight at a birthday party,
so maybe make it for Sunday lunch tomorrow.
It was, it was an Andrew's Day Stake Pie, any excuse to get my pie tin out.

(06:28):
And what is a depressing fact is, I'll always remember,
I passed my drive in tests on St Andrew's Day, which means I passed my test 26 years ago today.
That's fucking depressing.
So, that's it.
I don't know if you would have ever saw the ep, like,
Pat Butchers of EastEnders, Pat Butchers last episode,

(06:51):
before they killed, then the Kilda character off,
Christmas or New Year or something like that in the show, because she was, I guess,
the actress is ready to leave.
And there was a meme, there's a, there's a, that's a short scene when she's in the Queen Vic,
and she's just sitting at the bar and a row, and she's having like a last gin,
and everybody's having a lovely Christmas party around her, and that's high spirits, and, you know,

(07:13):
you know, it's so, so, like, somebody's inexplicably doing a Konga, and all that sort of stuff, you know.
And Pat's, Pat's looking around the bar, and she's got a sort of a rice,
mayo on her face, just like, this is what it's all about.
And then of expression changes, because she knows that she's terminally ill, and this might be her last
drink in the Queen, in the Queen Vic. And by the way, remember when I watched the programme, I

(07:35):
remember it, I thought it was quite poignant, really. But someone's made a meme of that,
that little scene, and it says, "When you're enjoying Christmas until you realise that 1995 was 30 years ago."
She's very true, very true.
She really made me laugh. I wonder what Pam's inclined us onto these days.

(07:57):
I don't know, actually. I think she's still alive, isn't she?
Yeah, just enjoying my time.
It's always the rumour that, I don't know if it was true, but her and Patricia Rightlitch were a couple.
Yeah, I mean, she's quite an open homosexual, I think.
Oh, yeah, she is, yeah, and always has.
Oh, yeah, she is, yeah. But I don't know, I know she's not, I don't know.

(08:18):
I don't know if that's a true factor, if it's one of those sort of four-pipes,
stodys here. I don't know if it's a well-known thing, but I don't know if it's actually true or not.
Yeah, no, it's ever going to do.

(08:40):
Her bob wholeness played this saxophone, so the one in the Baker or Baker Street.
I think that has been proven that that's a complete urban myth.
I'd love that to be true.
It's one of those amazing things.
You have to wonder how that, I mean, that's obviously been started by a pissed-up guy in the pub.
That song's come on, yeah, you'll never guess.
Never guess who that is playing the saxophone.

(09:02):
She's like, "Condent, respect it is."
That rumour spread before the internet as well.
Pumps up and down the line.
You know, that can't be presents, but what bus does that mean?
[laughs]
That's you.
And Ted Rogers played the piano on fucking Vienna.
M-O-K, right.

(09:24):
Well, before we air, before we...
I don't know what I've lost a trade of thought here.
Right, shall we have a look at what's been happening in Scotland over the last couple of weeks, Greg?
Here, the jingle.
Hello!
This is the out there heavily spent casting "Cod migration"

(09:46):
and here is what's been going on in the new...
Oh, okay, Greg. What festive stories?
I don't think we've got any festive stories, have you seen
only the last couple of weeks in Scotland you'd like to share with me?
And are lovely listeners.
Well, it's not a festive story as such,
but it will remain you and I of quite a festive time,

(10:07):
where once I go through this,
and it might also remain some of our longer listeners of the same festive time,
because it was CV- it was CV-alized a few episodes of the pod a couple of years ago.
But my story comes from the BBC News website this week.
Oh, we've gone, we've gone high-brown.
We're gonna wee bit middle-class.

(10:29):
And the headline reads "Tartan in hysteria, musical tell story of Scotland's biggest boy band,
who we know are the base-ity rollers."
Oh, yay!
So the Hicks of Scotland's biggest boy band are to be turned into a new musical to mark
the 50th anniversary of their first number one hit next year.
The base-ity rollers took the world by storm in the mid-70s,

(10:52):
trimmed in tartan and caused in scenes of hysteria, whatever they went.
Now the fans who followed them obsessively,
and screamed their loyalty to the cheeky scots,
are to appear center stage in the show "Rolars Forever".
The new show will feature the band's biggest hits,
including "Bye Bye Baby", "Keep On Dancing", "Summer Love Sensation",

(11:13):
and of course, "Our favourite" "Shangalan".
"Shangalan".
I love that song so much.
The show will fall, I believe, honestly,
there's nothing gets me going more than the first couple of bars in "Shangalan".
Love it.
And the break, they can have musical break,
when they do, for they go about "Acapella".

(11:33):
The show will follow the story of two basic roller super fans
who meet up for a Saturday night and relive their teenage years following their idols,
sprinkling some tartan star dust on the project.
That's a great expression.
On the project is a regional roller "Stuart's Woody Wood",
who is serving as artistic consultant.

(11:54):
Woody joined the band at the age of just 17 in 1974,
just before their success exploded with the hit "Shangalan".
He said, "The great thing about the musical was that it was about the fans who,
like the bands, have been around for 50 years."
He said, "Thank God for the fans, they've kept it alive all these years.
I can't wait to be in the audience and watch them react to it.

(12:15):
I think they'll have their tartan out,
she's not a euphemism, their scars, and probably dress up for the occasion."
Remembering their thousands of fans screaming and trying to tear the band members to bits,
Woody said, "It all descended into a mass of crazy."
Although they had great fun at the time,
Woody said being a teenage sensation was not for the faint-hearted.
He said he would not be able to handle it at all now,

(12:38):
especially since he's not a teenager anymore,
and at the age of 67, he'd rather stay at home.
The plays written by the Edward,
the award-winning playwright Danny McCannon,
and directed by a claim theater director Liz Carruthers.
Also involved his current roller, John McLaughlin.
John, a successful songwriter, producer and performer,
was responsible for organising the band's most recently union.

(13:00):
Now he gets to roll alongside his childhood heroes
after Woody asked them to join the band.
John said, "Pretition the musical and playing on a band that had them in total awe
as a child was a full circle experience."
He said, "It's like getting to play for your favourite football team."
John said the rollers were unique and became so identifiable
because of the tartan-clad outfits.

(13:21):
"So they can arm me," he said.
"Even today, they turn up to gigs with tartan scarfs, all happy, all joyous."
He said fans will be able to have a great night out at the show by celebrating the band and their songs.
The show follows Susan and Jenny, who reminisce over clothes, boys and music.
In a time where the height of technology and fashion were phone boxes,
made order catalogs and crispy pancakes.

(13:42):
Every moment is accompanied by a hit from the basic erolars.
From the first time they see the band on TV,
to arousing bands in the shadow of Edam Recastel,
the lives, lovers and emotions of the women are governed by the rollers,
and meeting their idols become the most important things in their life.
So I'm going to scroll down to the bottom because it's great, a long article.
So, roller's forever is going to open at the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow in August next year.

(14:05):
So, plenty of time to get our tickets in the K and get our tartan scars.
Yeah, let's go back for that.
I mean, first of all, this is great.
I think it's brilliant that they're being recognised because the basic erolars,
I mean, I was too young for it, obviously, it worked as well, really.
They were a phenomenon.
And I remember being up in the attic and finding my sister's basic, like, tartan scarf,

(14:28):
and like, denim jacket and her basic erolars annual.
So she was quite a fan.
So, they were, they were huge, and yeah, you're right.
I guess Scotland's first boy band, really.
Yeah, I mean, I saw, and I remember sending you a wee video.
I was at a Christmas charity dinner and dance,
just before we moved to the middle east, actually.

(14:49):
So almost exactly 10 years ago, it would have been.
And it was for the Chausians' hospice appeal,
and it was organised by Will Radio in the HAD ABC, Martin Fry and Co, doing a tonne.
And then they had Les Macoin doing some basic erolars numbers with a band,
and I remember a shooting a wee video of Shang-alang,
sending it to you, because it's always been...

(15:09):
I remember that.
Yeah.
It's always been our song, hasn't it?
It's been our song, yeah.
Simon Bates' musical "Come on in a wee minute."
So yeah, I hope it's successful, because a lot of bands have had the,
I guess, they're sort of called "Jukebox" musicals, aren't they?
And the most famous one would be Mammy Mia, the other one, and theirs also.

(15:32):
We will rock you, the Queen One,
and I think Ben Elton of all people wrote the book for that, didn't he?
Did, actually, yeah, you're right.
Yeah, there's been quite a few.
I think it was a take that one.
Yeah, the "Ferriver."
Was that a "Space Girls"?
The "Space Girls" was the one that was called "The "Ferriver."
That was probably "Viva Forever" if it's a "Space Girls" one.
Was that a song, "Viva Forever"?

(15:54):
Live Forever will be the "Ois is One."
And imagine the take that one would have been called "Never Forget."
"Never Forget."
Yeah, I think it right now.
Something like that.
I have watched a three-part documentary on "Boybands" recently.
Yeah, to watch them.
In fact, I've watched it twice,
because I watched it myself,
and then I've watched it with someone else as well.
It was fucking great.

(16:16):
Just transported back.
It was so good.
Yeah, I'd highly recommend it as well, actually.
It's very good.
I'm not to look for it.
Yeah, I know.
I think it's great, and it's nice that they'll get recognition.
I hope it does well, because a lot of these shows open
and then fall by the wayside,
and you have to think,
are there enough fans that we want to go and see
the "Basically Rollers" musical now?
You know, or are youngsters going to be interested in that?

(16:36):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's probably...
probably predominantly women of a certain age of the imagine.
I think my mum was born in 1955.
I think she probably a bit too old for the rollers
by the time they were sort of in their pomp,
she'd been 20.
You know, I think so at a women-born post-1960,

(16:59):
I think would be very keen to go...
I mean, think about the basic rollers to do as well.
I mean, they've got a lot of good songs,
and it's not like a boy band in the sense that
somebody in Perseon,
would they call it in Perseonio?
But the pedophile was gonna put together, you know,
from like a big group of boys,
and then made a fortune of "Rounder Lives", you know what I mean?

(17:21):
They were all musicians and stuff, you know?
I've just... I'm not touching that.
Jonathan King, one of these like, nonces, you know,
those guys, you know,
but they did have a little bit of a scandal,
didn't they?
They're not turning it into...
Yeah, they did.
Somebody was abused in one of them or more.
I think it was, yeah, the manager was abused in one of them, so...
Yeah.
Oh, sorry.
Sorry, people.
That's okay.

(17:42):
But they were still good musicians.
They were, yeah, and they were a lot of fun.
That's the thing.
And, yeah, I think everyone knows the basic rules,
yeah, you put shangela on and everyone's gonna get up and tap your feet
and it's such a great tune.
Yeah, yeah, and the more you've had to drink,
the better it is, especially if there's an attractive young,

(18:02):
sort of 20-year-old student and a little tartan dress,
a little tartan miniscirt just meters away from you in the dance floor.
[laughs]
Ah, that's what it is.
[laughs]
Anyway, yeah,
so that's the, that's the,
by first story, a basic,
er, of Oders musical, which you're first story this week.
My first story is from the Scottish Sun this week

(18:22):
and the headline reads,
"That's rubbish."
Backloads of booze were stolen from a Scottish football club at the weekend
by a gang who used a wheely bin to carry out their dastardly deal.
Police had reports of a break-in during the early hours of Sunday morning
with three males spotted walking towards the ground
and then later returning to a street nearby.
The incident happened at Invergnest-based Highland League Club,

(18:44):
Clachnocuddin's home ground, Grant Street Park.
The three men were seen between 3am and 4am with two of them,
struggling to carry heavy bags full of booze.
While a third pulled a wheely bin packed with booze behind him.
[laughs]
[laughs]
The alcohol was next from the lounge at Grant Street Park

(19:04):
and the bin was last seeing being towed along Telford,
which is about 10 minutes away from the stadium walking distance.
A police spokesperson said,
"Following the break-in shortly before 4am,
the males returned along Kilmure Court in possession of bags,
which they were struggling to carry.
One of the suspects is known to have used a wheely bin to carry items
from Benuea Road into Telford Road.

(19:27):
Cops are urging members of the public with any information,
so they haven't caught them,
have CCTV or dash cam footage to contact them."
[laughs]
And then the rest is about Scotland's League of Nations football stuff.
So yeah, these thieves broke into Clachnicotton's ground,
emptied their bar and used a wheely bin to transport the booze.
"No, it's 4am, surely someone's going to spot them,

(19:50):
carried a wheely bin, dragging it down the road, just full of booze."
I mean, brilliant.
"I'm not advocating burglary, burglary at all."
"No, you got a mile out of your bed, you know?"
Yeah.
"It shows it in juicially, initiative, brother,
that they have managed to do that."
Yeah, I mean, I agree, I'm not a shame, you know,

(20:13):
Clachnicotton, obviously, a small Highland League club.
Especially coming up to the period,
we're coming up to the whole contents of their bar,
it's basically been next,
that's going to cost a lot to the place,
but you have to find that quite funny.
There's no images of this,
but I would love to see the CCTV footage of this guy,
dragging a wheely bin, just clinking away

(20:34):
with bottles like Grant's vodka in it,
just stopping, having a swag,
and then, back on their merry way.
What I like is, there were last-butt 10 minutes away,
dragging that for 10 minutes,
and God knows where they were going to,
that was the last sighting of them.
It's the thing is, you know that that hasn't been planned,

(20:55):
like that is a craze of impulse.
Have you ever stolen it,
and had I out or anything like that?
Well, I've stolen a chair from a front of your old place of work.
We have said that before, yeah.
Yeah, newspapers from the stack in the front of the supermarket,

(21:18):
if I'm walking up Union Street, there's a sun's coming up
when summer's morning, walking past,
whatever it is now, that'll test go metro,
whatever it is, just opposite the D Street Taxi Rank,
get my keys out, cut that plastic,
copy the day the record, sometimes some rolls,
if there's, some of these presents, they'll be rolls there as well,
get a couple of rolls.
Not above, wasn't above,

(21:40):
making a pint of milk in the day,
I'd pack in the day either,
my shame to say.
Just remember this, basically just getting my morning routine sorted
in the work home,
there's something left to go pack it at a square sausage,
that was always behind the road.
Cup of tea, look at the paper, more than sausage,
jockey, a couple of hours, then a bit of work.

(22:01):
Happy days, happy days.
I thought that's why they left them out.
Surely, surely they're not leaving these out
because they don't think anybody's going to make them.
Surely, there needs to be some sort of charitable
to gesture, shocking behaviour, Greg.

(22:21):
Shocking behaviour.
I've seen my call, your ribbon knowledge, had a few souvenirs from
nights out, and I might get confused.
I don't think so.
No, I don't think I did.
Same as you newspapers and stuff,
and there was one night,
we got the Amadeus bus up to Union Street,
and we were walking down to,
it was Chris Play of us flat,

(22:42):
or just live just off King Street.
And we were passing,
there was a threshers at the top of Union Street,
and they'd left out their big chalkboard,
advertising all the deals.
And we were like, that is like, fucking great in your room.
Like so, it was three of us picked it up,
and we were carrying it,
and we got half way to the flat,
and then we just heard, "Rooom, room, room."
And these cops, and they just, to be fair to them,

(23:05):
like they got out and they went, "Put it back."
And slowly, like, curl, curl beside us,
as we put it back, and they went, "Right, fuck off."
And then, went, went home.
The only other time I remember was I think I was walking home.
You remember where I lived.
It was like a 45-minute walk for a time.

(23:25):
And often I would walk home,
because it was, I couldn't be asked,
"Cune for a taxi."
So, I'd go to the shop, get my pie,
botlayer and brew, maybe some reading material,
and then- - For the long trough of home.
And then, there was one night,
I think I was passing, and I picked up a police cone,
and I was like, "I'll have this, this looks good."
And I'm walking up the road,
and it was an old man,

(23:46):
I didn't know what the fuck he was doing out at like four o'clock in the morning.
Walking across the opposite side of the road,
and he just shouted over, "I was ney parking here mate."
I held up the traffic, couldn't it?
Yes!
And he burst out laughing.
And then, of course, I wake up the next morning,
and there's my old panic,
and I'm like, "Have I committed a felony?"
Like, I'm stolen a police cone.

(24:08):
Like, "Surely, shit."
Ended up putting it in a black bin bag,
and then chucking it in the wheelie bin,
like two streets away.
Because I was terrified, getting caught with it.
I remember when I was about,
oh well, I was about 17 or 17,
and I went to Grancararia with my dad,
and my stepmom,

(24:29):
and my sister, my dad's daughters,
like my half-sister.
And they, they were in the habit of going in holiday every year.
And my dad knew that,
I never really got on in my stepmom,
so he never ever asked me to go with them.
Which I wasn't bothered about,
because I didn't want the fucking going hole to go all the way.
But back in most days, you know what I mean?
I was, well, both softened toward each other now,

(24:49):
but back then, like, I don't know if they got on very well.
And he asked me to go,
I think my mom gave me a hard time,
because he was always going away in holiday,
and she'd never asked me to go with me,
so he asked me for a go,
and I knew my mom had given him a bit of a hard time,
so I thought, "Oh, that's a fucking,
"beautiful guy."
"We don't have to go."
So, as a, the place they had been the year before,

(25:10):
they said was a lot nicer than this resort
that we'd got in Grancararia.
I mean, I thought, "It was fine for me."
The best thing about it for me was I could get served,
and my dad, my dad wasn't bothered about me smoking either,
he just saw that, he got home with it, you know?
And him and I became quite friendly with these,
there was a big Irish family that were there in holiday,

(25:31):
so there were two brothers and their respect of wives and children,
and they were great fun.
And so my dad and I, my dad didn't drink,
but certainly he wasn't drinking then,
he had given up years before.
So, I'd be a bit pished and have a laugh with these guys,
and him and I would end up walking back to Ur,
Shally in the wee hours in the morning,
because him and I were sharing a shally,

(25:52):
and Michelle, my stepmom and my sisters were in the one next door.
So, we were walking past, and one of the Shally's said,
"They'll be garden."
Well, they got a sun-down, didn't it?
And my dad's like,
"How the fuck of they got away?
We've got fuck all of them going garden.
How the fuck of they got a sun-down, just to ask it?"
I'll go and get it.
So, pretty good.
But the best nicest memories I got of my dad

(26:12):
is him keeping edges.
I just, I climb over the wall,
thinking like, "How did I pass a sun-down,
"you're over to him, scramble back over,
"and then we fucking ran with a sun-down,
"you're back to the Shally's that we were in,
laughing like fucking little girls."
Again, Michelle was happy,
because she didn't always want to walk up to the pool
so she could sit out in the wee garden

(26:33):
and the day she might go to the pool and read her book,
and I was happy,
because it meant she never came to the pool that often,
Monday, so I'd get my dad to get my all-band at myself.
Um, yeah.
So that was definitely worked out well,
for a year.
Yeah, that was definitely alcohol fuel, though.
Who would you call it?
I don't know, biggest lift, for the-
-Sept. -Yeah, it's just left.

(26:55):
-Suddenly I'm just left?
-El Grandos, son.
-Langere, left, though.
-Yeah, shock, shock in behaviour.
Whatever my mind, well,
I will keep checking the newspapers
to see if there's any update on our
really been banned this and see if they get caught eventually.
-Well, so have you seen this week, Greg?

(27:15):
So this one also comes from the BBC News website,
and it's on the Tayside and Central Scotland page.
Why it's on that page will not become apparent for a minute or two,
so you have to bear with me.
But the headline reads,
"It was their rocking role.
How the ZX Spectrum became a 1980s icon?"
So the ZX Spectrum,

(27:36):
they had a starring role in the revolution
that brought computers into the UK's homes for the first time.
The 8-bit computer arrived in 1982
with its distinctive rainbow stripe,
rubber keys,
and high-pitched electronic screech
as the game's loaded.
More than 5 million were sold,
giving people the chance to dabble in computer programming

(27:57):
and play games like Manic Minor and Jetset Willie.
The device, like all the best inventions,
was manufactured in Dundee,
where the specie, as it's affectionately known,
helped inspire a generation of games designers.
Now its story is being told in the rubber-keyed wonder,
a new documentary which looks at its impact.

(28:18):
Created by Sir Clive Sinclair and his team,
the ZX Spectrum hit the high street in April 1982.
It followed the hugely successful,
if more technically limited, ZX81,
which had been many people's first encounter with home computing.
It cost £175 for the 48-K model,
and £125 for the 16K,

(28:39):
which put it on many Christmas wish lists.
If you go back a few years to the 1970s,
you've got a time where home computers didn't exist,
said Anthony Colfield, co-directed with a new documentary.
Computers were in main frames with air conditioning
and cost many millions of pounds or dollars to create.
The whole concept of having a computer in your home
was completely new thing.

(29:00):
A designer, Rick Dickinson's Rainbow Design and rubber keys,
made for an eye-catching product, which made it an instant success.
The computer was manufactured at Dundee's TimeX Factory.
Sinclair chose the TimeX Factory to make his computers
because it needed the work after watchmaking stopped,
and he needed a skilled workforce.

(29:20):
At its height, TimeX produced a computer every four seconds, although,
although not all of them ended up in stores.
Mark Eitel said people in the area got access to
spectrums in the shops, as well as through the back door
of the TimeX Factory.
It got these computers into the hands of people

(29:41):
who didn't necessarily get access to them.
He said, "It kickstarted the imagination of what the world could be."
One of those who fell under its spell was Mike Daily,
one of the founders of Dundee-based DMA Design,
which produced Lemmings,
Remember Lemmings?
Yeah, do.
Yeah, love Lemmings.
And Grand Theft Auto, first one.
Hmm. He said, "My mum's work wanted the database written on."

(30:05):
Sorry, my mum's work wanted the database written,
so they bought a spectrum for me to work on.
It was just good fun tinkering with it and making it do things.
I did play games, but I spent most of my time writing stuff
and seeing how far I could push it.
He said, "The spectrum's influence on Dundee
as a world-renowned computer gaming centre was huge."
He said, "The whole of the original DMA design team

(30:27):
pretty much started in spectrum."
DMA design co-founder Dave Jones worked at TimeX
and when he took with Dundee and say,
he bought an Amiga computer.
Mike Daily said, "That kickstarted DMA
in the whole of the Dundee industry."
So the whole of the gaming route comes from the spectrum.
So if it wasn't for TimeX factory in Dundee,
arguably there'd been no Grand Theft Auto

(30:48):
for all these spotty teenage kids
who sit in darken rooms playing that all the time,
even now.
I mean, how long has Grand Theft Auto 5 been out?
Like, over 10 years,
and people were still playing it online.
Yeah.
Yeah. So I never had a ZX Spectrum 48K
although my neighbor, when I lived in England,
his big brother had one.
But I had my Christmas in 1986.

(31:13):
I got a Sinclair Spectrum 120K+2,
which was just basically a keyboards
with a built-in tape player and a joystick
and a cap handful of games.
And it was wonderful.
Yeah, I never had a Spectrum.
Similarly to you, my neighbor did,
but I can't remember what Christmas it would have been.

(31:34):
Maybe, maybe, 78 to 8.
I got a Commodore 64.
Yeah, my cousin had one.
Yeah, a little bit of them.
Yeah.
I think it was slightly better.
It was a bit better the Commodore 64,
it was a bit more powerful, I think, than a Spectrum.
Yeah, I think so.
So I did enjoy that, but yeah, I never had a Spectrum.
So I never got to appreciate the rubber keytness.
Well, the one to make KDN have rubber keys,

(31:55):
it was bigger.
And it was more the sort of computers of the time,
the keys were kind of plastic and chunky and whatnot, you know.
Yeah, because I remember my...
I guess it was the same as the console wars,
but before the console wars,
because I mean, I had a Commodore,
my neighbor had a Spectrum,
I think my other neighbor had an Amstrad,
which he used to get bullied about a little bit.
And if you go back later,

(32:19):
it was almost like one of us had a SNES,
one of us had a Mega Drive,
and he had a Master System,
right?
Yeah.
I mean, I guess that was the predated console wars for that.
But yeah, that's amazing to know that that was producing
a Time X factory in the Nintendo.
And Nintendo's, that's incredible.
I know, I was at a Christmas,
a Christmas dinner party,
I've got very early Christmas dinner party last night,

(32:41):
the people who are hosting it are going away for most of December,
so that's probably the head of the last night.
And we were talking about computers,
and I was saying how I remembered,
like some games on the Spectrum.
Like every game took within maybe seven minutes.
And remember the game of the Batman film, 1989 film.

(33:03):
That took 30 minutes to load.
[LAUGHS]
So joy, 30 minutes it took to load.
But the game's dead tick a long time.
And remember, a neighbor,
like I was friends with, with a Danish street,
he got a Commodore Amiga,
and he invited us down, see it,
and play some games on it.
And he, I remember the game, the game was Shadow of the Beast 2,

(33:26):
and he popped a P-popped a disc in the side.
And the game was ready to play straight away.
You know, I was, I remember being fucking blown away by it.
I was, we just, we don't have to wait for it to load.
He was like, no, no, I just was ready to go.
I was like, what?
I remember the Ghostbusters game on the Spectrum,
took me a little load,
but once it loaded, you were rewarded by a little sort

(33:46):
of a tinny rendition of the Ghostbusters theme tune
with a wee bouncing ball going across the words.
(laughs)
Yep, I had that game from my Commodore 64.
Yeah. Yeah.
Remember it well. Love that game.
Yeah. That's just this amazing thing,
that you weren't, the kids of our age
were kind of patient thoughtful kids.
You know, they make a game just took a time,

(34:07):
they just took away a load up.
There was nothing you could do about it.
You could go and do something else.
Have a thing.
That's why we have so much patience, great.
Yeah, exactly.
It's it.
Going to be, to be, watch something on the daily,
for half an hour, what was loading,
or read a book,
or nip to the toilet,
or, you know, run up to the shop,
you know, or go to school.
(laughs)
They come back and you keep your head up to play.

(34:29):
(laughs)
Now it's all about instant gratification.
That's it.
This is it.
This is it.
You don't have to work for anything anymore.
It's all in the palm of your hand.
Literally, add figuratively.
(laughs)
Anyway, so yeah, I'm looking for,
I'm gonna have to watch out for that
documentary when it comes out.
They did another one.

(34:49):
The same people did another documentary
about home computing in the UK a few years ago
called from Bed from Bedrooms to Billions
and I think that one was all about
the Commodore Amiga and the Atari ST
and the sort of rise of sort of PC,
home PCs and specifically
well games they could run and stuff like that, you know,

(35:10):
so yeah, I have to watch out for that.
So, that was my second story.
Again, are we a bit crisp?
Are we a bit festive there?
God be no, I've got a spectrum from a Christmas.
1986, got Commodore 64 for years.
We're in about the same time.
What's, which, which your next story this week?
My second story comes from the Scottish Sun this week, Greg.
And it concerns, uh, someone I know you're very fond of.

(35:31):
He's a, a national treasure.
Lorraine Kelly was forced to apologise live on air this morning
after using a Scottish phrase,
she didn't know was a swear word.
(laughs)
The tele presenter, 64, was joined by Emmerdale Actress,
Nicola Wheeler, during the show.
As part of the segment, the pair discussed
the brutal weather conditions while shooting scenes

(35:52):
in the fictional village.
Nicola said,
"There are long and horrible cold days
when you're out in the village all day
and it's raining and windy."
So you've got to have the sense of humour with each other,
because words take up a lot of your time.
(laughs)
So if you're not having fun with it,
it makes life miserable.
So our aim is to have fun.
Recalling her own experience on the set,
Lorraine responded,
"I do remember being there when we did a live show from Emmerdale

(36:15):
and the last time we did it in the school park,
it was lovely and cozy with lots of fire,
but we have been outside and it was bollicking."
(laughs)
(laughs)
Nicola replied,
"The village is like a wind tunnel
because there can be a mile breeze around the village,
but down that main street is like blowing a gale every time."
The show's viewers were quick to react

(36:35):
to see the funny side of the blunder
as they flock to X to react.
One person wrote,
"Ah, ah, ah, Lorraine said bollicking on live TV."
(laughs)
And I'd rather say it,
"Oh, Mrs, Lorraine just said bollicking,
but live caption editor censored it to freezing."
(laughs)
A third way down,
"Did she just say bollicking?"
(laughs)

(36:57):
And a fourth added,
"Lorraine Kelly not knowing that bollikins are rude words though."
(laughs)
Red faced Lorraine,
then apologized for the mistake later in the show.
She added,
"Now, earlier on, when I was talking with Nicola,
I said a bad word,
and I didn't know it was a bad word
because in Scotland,
we say that word all the time."
I really want to say it again,

(37:18):
but I can't,
but I said a word for cold,
which you all know.
But anyway,
(laughs)
So yeah,
and the rest of the article is just about Lorraine Kelly
because she's recently become a grandmother
and yaddy, yaddy, yadda.
We don't need to go into that.
"Ballicking, it's not that bad, is it?"
But I guess for, what,
nine o'clock in the morning,
it, uh, what day was this,

(37:39):
um,
"We'll go eat these,
the food."
Five, yeah,
so it was like Monday or Tuesday this week,
and it's nine o'clock in the morning.
She said "Ballicking, it's, what's fine?"
It's gonna be all adults watching it anyway.
It's not like,
it's not like,
they've got rolling rat on right after the rain's finished
and like,
some kids are gonna be catch on the end of the rain
before rolling rat comes on

(38:00):
and play some cartoons,
you know what I mean?
It's like,
"When the adults watching,
they think Kelly in the morning."
If you're gonna have a kid watching an interview
with somebody from Emmerdale,
you know as well.
But I was watching,
there's a new documentary out on Disney+ about the Beatles
and it's specifically about when the Beatles first went to America
because there's all this footage
that a couple of brothers

(38:20):
who were traveling with them short, um,
and a lot of it is like,
of the girls outside the hotel,
like, screaming their heads off and stuff,
and they manage to track down some of these girls,
uh, who are around, obviously, adults.
Uh,
or just in the hotel rooms with the Beatles
hanging about and stuff like that
and sort of kind of fucking around and things.
And there's a DJ,
uh, quite a famous DJ called Murray the K,

(38:41):
um, who has managed to sort of ingratiate himself
into the Beatles sort of, um,
a little circus layer.
And there's, as seen as well,
just this morning,
there's a beauty telling that story,
with the mind of me of it.
There's a,
there's a clip where he is on the phone
to a DJ who's broadcasting at his radio station
and he's like, "Hey, you know, um,
this Murray the K,

(39:02):
I'm here with the Beatles."
But not that.
And he's like,
giving each of the Beatles the phone
to say something that's being broadcast.
"Bye."
They think it's John Lennon.
He says,
"Hello, it's John Lennon.
I'm here with Murray the Wanker."
"Well, that's it."
[laughs]
Hands of the phone.
But,

(39:22):
obviously, Wanker isn't a word
that's in the sort of American parlance.
And Murray's misheard of,
so Murray says, "Yes, me, Murray the Wacker."
[laughs]
"Here are the Beatles."
And I'm like,
"Just wait the back."
But I'd wait in the back.
I'm like,
"Did he have to?"
They didn't just call him a Wanker.
[laughs]
"Were the back?"
[laughs]

(39:44):
"I'm here with Murray the Wanker."
I was like, "But I was in wheel after that."
Obviously, you got to watch that.
"I've got to watch that again."
[laughs]
Oh, yeah.
It's never a kid that kind of know it.
He's just always the...
The great times.
I mean, of course,
it's always the famous one of five-star
being on "Going Live."
Yeah.
"Why are you so funny?"

(40:05):
"You called a bunch of Wankers."
[laughs]
Oh, yeah.
Oh, was it...
There's two.
Is it Matt Bianco and five-star?
One of them called Wankers and one of them...
"Why are you so fucking shit?"
I can't remember which is...
Which order is, but yeah, that was the two.
And then it was always kind of censored after that, so...
Whenever I bought this in the Lee,
there's a De Lee, I think they put it in the Lee-ins,
so it's cut it.
The thing is, those clips are funny,

(40:27):
but as I've got older,
like I thought of you, sorry, from Matt Bianco,
because he was a fucking Wanker.
But, um...
When they see five-star, I feel a wee bit sorry for them, because...
Yeah, I mean, they're all quite young, you know,
and they're like, "Oh, if I better success,
a couple of records in the top 10,
make some kids give them abuse on Saturday super-store,
like for like, a Saturday morning."
I was like, "It's a bit of a shame, you know?"

(40:48):
"Just come here to sing my song,
and I'm just getting abused
with some fucking kid that lives in Tilbury or something,
like, yes."
Yeah.
But what would you rather have?
Would you rather get a bit of abuse
from fucking John and Stephanie on the phone in
or would rather be interviewed by the fucking Colipso,
the Brexit-Colipso Wanker themselves, my greed.

(41:10):
I think...
Get out of here.
Or I got a bit of abuse on the phone, really.
So, that's what I'd be told, like...
Brexit-Colipso.
Oh, do you...
Um, I think I'd probably get abuse from,
yeah, some, um, some little kid.
Yeah.
Definitely.
So, yeah, that was the name.
It was ball-icking,

(41:30):
but never mind.
It sounds like she got a ball-icking for it as well.
And, yeah.
Had to apologize live on here, never mind.
Have you seen anything else this week, Greg?
No, no worries.
Thories from me this week?
They're Christmas.
Well, it is Christmas time.
So, I had a little thought this week.
And, of course, it's getting to that time
where people are probably going to be start watching Christmas films.

(41:51):
I mean, tomorrow, as we record,
it'll be the first of December,
so that's, you know, maybe the appropriate time
to start putting them on.
Mm-hmm.
So, I pecs three...
I'm not a big fan of Christmas, as you know,
I'm not a big fan of Christmas films,
but there are three Christmas films that, you know, quite enjoy.
So, I wanted to put to you a famous Christmas film,
but I would like you to reimagine it in Scotland.
So, Scottish cast,

(42:12):
what the story line would be, how it would go.
Yeah?
All right, you know, but without that,
I've got, I've picked three films,
and I just, sorry to put you on the spot,
but I think I'll just throw it to you.
So, first of all,
is my favourite Christmas film of all time.
And I've had this conversation over the last few days
that it is a Christmas film.
And I will be watching it this Christmas diehard.
The greatest Christmas film of all time.

(42:33):
How would, how would diehard work in Scotland?
What are you thinking?
Okay, so, I think it's, it's not going to be called diehard.
It's going to be called, "Hod that!"
Right?
"Hod that!"
"Hod that!"
Right?
So, um, so Alex Norton is a bit, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a dish washer

(42:53):
and a former S.A.S assassin, right?
And he's completely let himself go since he left the service,
but he's, but he's, he's had to do that
because he's had to make himself completely unrecognizable
because people are looking for him.
He's seen and done, he's seen and done things for his country
that he's not proud of, you know?
The last straw was been, he discovered the high levels of non-surrying

(43:17):
and royal family and he was like, "That's it.
I need to stop doing this."
So, he's living a quiet, overweight life to protect himself
and he's working as a dish washer at Edinburgh Castle
on the evening, on Christmas Eve for a big S.N.P.
Scottish National Party Christmas dinner, right?
And his wife, who's played by Lulu,

(43:38):
is, uh, she's a high flyer in the S.N.P, right?
And she, she has no idea, because she doesn't, she doesn't even recognise Alex anymore
because he's just, he's completely let himself go.
He got to understand.
Okay.
This was like, he was like sort of, he's gone from sort of Freeman's catalog
1985, handsome, to sort of Alex Norton, 24, right?

(44:02):
Lulu, uh, completely, doesn't rest, she doesn't know, but Alex is never too far away,
oh, he's just keeping an eye on it.
So then the dinner is stormed by this militant English unionist group
led by Lawrence Fox, right?
They've got Lawrence Fox and it's like, like, to play the baddie, right?

(44:22):
So what, Lawrence Fox, it's a Lawrence Fox type character
played by Lawrence Fox.
So Alex is out by the bins, smoking a Kinsett is clubbing, eating this,
smoking a, smoking a Kinsett is clubbing, eating a turkey leg that's come back off a table.
And he hears gunshots, right?
So he, he climbs into one of the big,

(44:45):
one of the big bins, dead to hide from the baddies.
Like a big biff I've been, like a big biff I've been.
So when you think the coast is clear, start to struggle out the bin.
But in the process is checked,
sheft trousers get caught in the bin latch and get ripped off, right?
And he's, um, he's chef's clogs fall off his feet as well, right?
So he's just in like white socks.

(45:07):
So he's in a terrible state and before he's there,
time to get to try and get his clogs up the bin, at least,
a baddies come to see what other commotion is.
And he's passed out a fight for this baddie to have got to have fight for his life.
The, the button on the front of his boxers is off as well.
So if I can pop, hang it out and everything.
But he manages to dispatch the baddie by jamming a turkey wishbone

(45:32):
that he found in the bin right into the baddie's eye,
um, seeing all that.
And he, he, he, he, he, he can run some, there's the baddies like,
trying to like, he's blinded and,
uh, Alex runs him to the edge of the wall and throws him off the cliff, right?
And he falls away down at the bottom.
So at the bottom of the cliff, there's a policeman on duty
played by Matt Castell, right?

(45:52):
[laughs]
He's, uh, he's, he's sitting in his police cruiser when this, uh,
[laughs]
when this, uh, unionist terrorist with a turkey bone sticking at his eye,
smashes in the bonnet of his car.
He's just sitting there on his own just trying to watch a bit of porn on his phone.
Um, so he, he becomes Alex's kind of man in the chair for the rest of the,

(46:16):
for the rest of the siege.
And Alex goes, he can, uh, methodically works his way through the castle,
dispatching the baddies in a variety of inventive ways, saying, "Hod that!"
before they, before he kills them, right?
Finally, he gets Lawrence, he gets, uh, he gets Lawrence,
he gets, he finds Lawrence Fox.
Fox claims that he wants Scotland to be ruled in total by London,

(46:38):
but Alex works out that his real motive is just to see Lulu naked.
[laughs]
[laughs]
[laughs]
So, he's not, he's not a freedom fighter, he's just a fucking pervert, right?
[laughs]
[laughs]
So, Lauren,

(46:58):
[laughs]
[laughs]
So, not in Fines, if Fines has a original turkey leg that he was eating at the start of the siege,
he rams it right up Fox's arse and throws them off the top arthors, arthors, uh, seat.
And then, it kind of turns out, uh, after that, that the jute a bit of a mix up,

(47:20):
instead of a stuntman, uh, doing the fall for Lawrence Fox.
Fox is actually throwing off the cliff for real in a tragic accident,
but nobody gives a fuck because he's a cunt, and then they trade the troll.
[laughs]
So, that's, "Hod that!"
Does he have a, like, a quip, um, you know, obviously John McLean has Yippee-Key Motherfucker?
So, when he's throwing Fox off, is it like, "Hod that?"

(47:43):
You dober.
[laughs]
[laughs]
"Hod that, you got the cunt!"
Fucking mad dafty.
[laughs]
So, there's a happy ending, Alex thinks that there's no way that Lulule recognized him,
but when she wibes, the kind of turkey grease office face, and pulls it, he shakes a wee bit,

(48:04):
she sees the man that she was in love with.
So, then when that's beautiful, by the time Hod that too comes out,
uh, though there's had Alex in the gym, she's got a whip back into shape.
He's back to his 1985 fight and weight.
[laughs]
Obviously, there's the, the wonderful part at the, you know, in die hard,
you have the relationship between John McLean and Al, and, you know,
there's some very touching moments where Al, like, says,

(48:26):
he's never fired his firearm again, because he accidentally killed a kid.
Hmm.
Spoiler alert for die hard if you haven't seen it, but at the very end,
everything's happy, Bruce Willis has saved the day,
and then one of the terrorists comes out, and all of a sudden,
Al blows him away.
Does something similar happen?
Where, not, uh, Matt Castello, like, because he's been watching

(48:46):
porn on his phone in the car, does he, like, spray some gizz in the guy's face to blind him or something?
[laughs]
So what happens is, um, Castello just can't wait to get back to Scott, right?
So even though, [laughs]
So, you know, people are out putting blankets around Alex,
he's shoulders, and now, do those shoulders and stuff and all that,

(49:09):
and then the terrorists who we thought had died,
comes rushing Alex Norton.
Castello's hands are all, they're all sort of clammy with,
these phones all, these, these phones all slick, right?
[laughs]
So, you see, you see, I get a grub, it fires at his hand,
Hitsley, terrorists in the head, and he's, he's, he's the sparse quickly by, uh,

(49:31):
by a waiting policeman.
[laughs]
That's amazing.
I, I, I, I would love to watch, like, that, that, that, that,
fucking broken.
[laughs]
He's just excited.
[laughs]
It's an image in my head now of Norton,
clamoring a fucking big industrial bin, snagging his trusses,
oh, yeah, fucking bastard,
[laughs]

(49:52):
Grey's in his belly end, don't know.
[laughs]
And then, Grey's in his belly end,
don't know chucky's as he's rolling about.
[laughs]
And then, when they make the video game of the film,
so, like, in the PlayStation video game for Die Hard Trilogy,
where John McLean's feet had its own energy,
gosh, Alex's boss,

(50:13):
[laughs]
his own energy,
have his own energy,
energy cage as well.
He's to find power-ups to keep his boss protected
when he's fighting materialists.
Can we tub a,
can we tub a sudicreme?
[laughs]
Yeah.
[laughs]
We tub a, a, a, ice cubes,
like, I'm gonna think of it.

(50:33):
[laughs]
Oh, wonderful.
Right, fantastic, okay?
Yeah, I would definitely, definitely watch that.
Second film,
it's another Christmas classic,
Gremlins.
Gremlins is a Christmas classic,
and I don't care.
It is.
I don't have words with anybody who says otherwise. Um, right, so Gremlins.
Gremlins, Gremlins, he's got three working titles.

(50:54):
The first one is Mick Gremlins.
Right?
Very good.
Okay.
The second one is Beasties,
and the third one is...
[laughs]
The third one is...
The third one is Bastard's of Christmas, right?
[laughs]
Gremlins did spawn some copycats like critters, for example,
so I, I could see a Scottish version, Beasties.
[laughs]

(51:14):
Yeah.
I'm gonna watch critters, it's on IPTV,
they've got all three of them are on there.
I'm not even close.
What is it?
Yeah.
Those are...
Another one called Gullies as well,
which had that famous scene,
the guy getting his boss bitten off by one of them hiding in a toilet.
Um, I was, I was even recovering the video,
wasn't it, in poverty?
The toilet.
Yeah.
We watched that a cup camp,

(51:35):
so it did, that was a particular sort.
[laughs]
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm a rough night.
Um, right, so...
[laughs]
Beasties.
Bobby Carlitle is a, is a, he's a sort of,
wakless inventor, kind of down in his lot,
a person's stone haven, right?
Just, that little time, just south of Aberdeen.
And is, is Suns played by Louis Grieben,

(51:57):
get it from Get Junk?
Yeah.
And so Bobby brings home for Christmas for Louis,
this mysterious week-leacher that he's bought
in Paddy's market, right?
[laughs]
Off this Ukrainian guy.
[laughs]
In Glasgow.
Uh, and it's, it, it's like a cute wee creature
that does the slosh when it listens to music, right?

(52:19):
[laughs]
We're, we're, we're gizmo, sort of sings.
Uh, let's be creature,
does the slosh, whenever there's a sloshable song playing, right?
[laughs]
It's got a wee tart and pattern, and it's fur,
and it, and it, where's a wee tamish ant, all right?
Cute as fuck.
Um, but the Ukrainian guy's given them, he's given,

(52:40):
Bobby some rules that he must stick to, right?
Only feed it shortbread.
[laughs]
Don't, don't ever spill I am brew on it.
And never, ever let it get its hands on a,
on a, on a, on a, on a can of purple tin.
[laughs]
[laughs]
[laughs]
[laughs]

(53:02):
[laughs]
There.
[laughs]
Unfortunately, unfortunately,
we're, as I improved, right?
And, uh, [laughs]
[laughs]
One night, he spells a wee drop of original recipe
on his wee, uh, his wee, his wee tamo beastie.

(53:23):
[laughs]
And, uh, all these other wee, other beasties multiply off it,
but they are not the wee sloshie, nice beastie,
um, like the original one, these are like mischievous little bastards, right?
And eventually, they get into Bobby's garage,
and he's workshop, and they find a whole case, uh,
look, warm purple tin that Bobby's been keeping in there since 1982, right?

(53:46):
[laughs]
So, so, they, they get fucking bite on it, and they go,
[laughs]
they turn into like, they're far, turns into this sort of slick,
scaly, uh, sort of, versace, a tracksuit design, right?
[laughs]

(54:06):
And then they come out to social wee country,
and they're all, they all want to get off their tits on the,
bucky, gack, [laughs]
and purple tin.
And instead of doing the slosh, they just listen to like,
drill techno in the hangabout outside the test go,
trying to intimidate people that are going in
by them boozing vapes, right?
[laughs]

(54:28):
Uh, though, as in Bobby's neighbour,
is an old fella, uh, who, uh, who, uh,
who, who used to work at sea, uh, played by James Cosmo.
Um, he's seen these creatures before,
when he used to work, when he used to work on the supply ships.
[laughs]
And then out of the UK,
[laughs]
traded Walker's shortbread for like, knock off leave eyes,

(54:50):
and, uh, rushing porn, stuff like that, right?
[laughs]
[laughs]
Uh, his wife, his wife, his wife was played by
at, I, the, McCallum thinks that he's just getting a bit old
and he's going to do that, right?
Because Mo'Manage is to, to trick the wee Ned Beasties
on his boat, on any, takes them out to sea,

(55:12):
scuttles the boat, sails back to the shores of Stonehaven,
a hero, and that's the end.
But the original one is still there, the Yurk,
the Ukrainian guy comes up and takes it back to Paddy's Market
for more adventures.
[laughs]
Oh, that is amazing.
That is just wonderful.
Are there any, because obviously,
Gremlins, the one, I remember the first time I watched it,

(55:35):
and the one scene that always got me is the,
the old woman in the kitchen,
or she sticks, or is it, no, is,
has two different scenes.
No, no, it's, um, it's Billy's mum,
I don't know, in the kitchen.
Yeah, it's Billy's mum, yeah.
One goes into blender, and one goes into microwave,
yeah, that's, that always stuck with me,
um, those scenes.
But, uh, anything like that, or did the Beasties,
is it just Cosmo that takes them all out?

(55:57):
No, there's this scene.
[laughs]
I, I, I, I, the McCallum manages to,
Malky free them by throwing a big bag of bacon powder
into our tumble dryer.
[laughs]
[laughs]
They go scutting it and she turns,
she turns a tumble dryer on,
and then knocks it on its face.

(56:18):
[laughs]
Right.
Beasties coming, Christmas 2025,
um, I'm sure we could make some sort of animation about that.
[laughs]
Uh, all right, the third one is
what I would regard as probably a Christmas classic,
home alone.
So, home alone, uh, the Scottish version is simply,

(56:39):
"Hemelene."
[laughs]
"Hemelene."
And it's, uh, instead of it being, like, a wee boy,
it's just, it's, instead of it being a supporting role
for Cosmo, it's a starring role, right?
So, Cosmo plays an old pensioner,
whose wife is a way to visit our sister for Christmas, right?
Cosmo, Cosmo hates the sisters,
like, kids on his little well.

(57:00):
[laughs]
[laughs]
So, we can get an empty.
[laughs]
I thought that would be the title you'd go with, empty.
Yeah, that'd be better.
I don't know, an empty.
[laughs]
Um, so Cosmo sees,
setting in his favourite chair,
watching old videos and he's sure on YouTube, right?
He's falling asleep, he's trying to sleep off six cans of 70 shillin'

(57:22):
and a pie supper in the years.
He's too buggy.
[laughs]
[laughs]
[laughs]
He's having a great time, he's smokin' in the house.
[laughs]
He's cutting about in just his dress and gown.
He's livin' his best life, but he hears two burglars

(57:46):
at the end of the drive,
trying to work out if there's anybody in,
because the wife's taking the old Volvo S90.
[laughs]
So, it's no car in the garage,
but obviously, the Hittin' Ring lamp son.
So, the burglars played by Steven McCall
and Johnny Mitchell were trying to figure out
whether they've just got their lights on timers

(58:08):
or whether they're somebody in.
Right, so Cosmo hears them.
[laughs]
And, uh, he sort of slips into the hall
as Steven McCall's got his hand through the letterbox,
having a feel to see if he can get to the handle.
So Cosmo gets them by the hand and breaks his fingers back,
[laughs]
breaks his wrist,

(58:29):
[laughs]
so he's trapped in the door.
[laughs]
He then opens the door.
[laughs]
Dragging McCall into the hall.
He drags them out of the letterbox,
making his arm worse,
and then batters are livin' fuck out of the door.
[laughs]
Johnny, Johnny what's in see?

(58:51):
Johnny what's in sees what's going on
and fucking shoots the undencro away up the road.
[laughs]
[laughs]
Even Steven McCall would get to get an absolute humiliate
and battering from Cosmo.
When he satisfied that
when he feels that the calls had enough,
he phones the police station up in the town centre.
Luckily, support us when he knows that son.

(59:11):
[laughs]
Of course. [laughs]
So, the police when it comes down,
between them the drag Steven McCall to the end,
the Cosmo's drive. [laughs]
Leave them in the road.
Cosmo invites a pull this man in.
They have a couple of the drums.
Pull this man, who could play the pull this man?
Uh, I don't know.
Who's a good old Scottish actor?
Maybe David Heyman, but a good, uh,

(59:34):
a good local Bobby.
Oh, Bobby on the desk.
He's not an actor, but this is very reminiscent
of the real-life story of Duncan Ferguson.
Yeah, so if he could have a cameo in it, maybe.
Yeah, that's a great idea.
So, at least, the things played by Duncan Ferguson,
who Cosmo's been given a bit of,
a bit of acting quotient too, you know?
So, he comes down.

(59:56):
The drag, eh, the drag McCall went into the,
uh, into the road.
Cosmo invites Fergie in.
They have a couple of drums.
It's like, you're, you're managerial career has gone down the shit.
Let's make you into the Scottish Vinay Jones.
[laughs]
Sadly.
Uh, and then Fergie gets in.
He's a police car a bit pissed.

(01:00:17):
Reverse is out of the drive.
[laughs]
Accidentally, reverse is over the top.
It's even the call.
Takes his car back up to the station.
Waits for somebody to phone it in.
[laughs]
The end.
[laughs]
[laughs]
Cosmo's why he comes back.
She wants to know why the letterbox is all spun,
or been broken.
[laughs]

(01:00:38):
Cosmo blames it on the Dath Wains, we up the road.
[laughs]
What did you bring me for your sisters?
[laughs]
Credits role.
[laughs]
Hmm.
Oh, that is amazing.
Yeah, um, I, ah, I think I'd like to see all three of them.
Yeah.
I think Hadad is definitely fun.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Stop you strong.

(01:00:58):
Actually, I'd watch all of them.
They all sound amazing.
[laughs]
Ah, that was incredible.
Thank you so much.
You're welcome.
Ah, yeah.
Okay.
Next year, we'll do Christmas songs.
Okay, right.
But before we go into what,
talk, I can't even talk.
And before we go into what we're going to be talking about today,
let's have a little word from our sponsors.

(01:01:19):
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(01:01:40):
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(01:02:43):
That's SWALLLY, same of this name as this podcast,
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That's DorickSkateboards.com,
link in the description of this episode.
So it was your choice for a Christmas episode.
So why don't you intro what would be
watching for this festive episode of the culture Swally?

(01:03:05):
Well, as you've said Greg, it's Christmas.
So what better way to celebrate them with the man himself,
Mr. Rab C. Nesbit?
Originally a recurring character in the BBC2 sketch series,
Naked Video, which ran from 86 to 90, and we did cover
on the culture Swally many moons ago.
A pilot episode was made for BBC Scotland in 1988,

(01:03:27):
which was a Christmas special, entitled,
"Rab C. Nesbit's Seasonal Greet".
It was broadcast on 22 December 1988,
and then repeated on the network the following year.
To hard, drinking govern resident,
"Rab C. Nesbit", there is no magic for Christmas.
When you have no money,
and you cannot share his long-suffering wife,
Mary or teenage sons, Bernie and Gaseous,

(01:03:49):
enthusiasm for the festive season.
Preferring instead to comment cynically to camera
on its commercial trappings,
the ultimate betrayal is seeing neighbour and best friend,
James E. Carter, working as a department store Santa,
which leads to a fight in a spell in jail for Rab.
This episode contains cameos that I can't believe

(01:04:10):
from Andy Gray, Mary Riggins, Gerard Kelly, Ian Cuthperson,
Ricky Fulton, Jonathan Watson,
Jenny Sadowitz, Peter Capaldi and Andy Cameron.
This is our stone-call classic,
and this was the pilot episode, which then went on to become a series,
I think it ran for nine or ten series,
Rab C. Nesbit.
We'd have covered the first series in the podcast,

(01:04:31):
in fact, is our most popular episode today.
What are your memories of, I mean, "Rab in General",
which I know we discussed in the episode,
but it was a long time ago.
And had you seen this episode before the Christmas one?
I think I had seen it before because the bit when you lay,
the bit where you let Bernie Lickie's bandage.
Yeah, I remember that when I saw it,

(01:04:57):
but I didn't remember everything about it.
I would have only been like,
a living or something when this came out.
But I remember my dad let it in me watch,
write a naked video when I would go and stay with him.
And him and my stepmom both would be the like to...
And my stepmom's got a connection to L.A. and C. Smith.
I'm not exactly sure exactly what the connection is,

(01:05:19):
but they know somebody in common,
or something, I'm not sure.
But I remember it was always one of the best parts
in the naked video was Rab C. Nesbit moments.
And I remember when the series came out,
which probably, I think the series started, I think,
sort of 1989, 1990, something like that.

(01:05:40):
And my mum, yeah, wasn't...
My mum was quite against it because she thought that it sort of...
it was... the character was sort of very stereotypical
and maybe cast a less than favourable,
light and Glasgow.
I suspect also they're growing up.
She knew a lot of Rab C. Nesbit's probably because she grew up in Possil Park

(01:06:04):
and the Milton, like, too, like fairly working class areas of Glasgow.
And I'm sure she... I know that she's probably...
she was definitely related to a couple of Rab Elikes as well.
So, yeah, she wasn't like Keen and me watching it,
but that's the first series which we covered.
I mean, that is probably the one which whenever I think of the character,

(01:06:25):
that series is always the one that sticks in mind.
So, it was the first one that comes to mind,
and the episode when he's trying to sort of try out
with the Pink Elephants, especially, I think that was the first episode that I saw.
But I was very familiar with the character.
My dad's where they've had taped...
my dad would have taped this for sure when it was on,
because my dad was one of those guys who would tape
like, whole series of things that he liked and keep them forever.

(01:06:48):
You know, like when I was cleaning out his bedroom when he passed away a couple of years ago,
he had the tapes of...
like, Black Adder goes forth that he taped, probably the first time it came out
and...
and chewing the fat and...
and he would tape films off the TV that he liked to keep, you know,
they would think a man called Horst was a favorite film of his Excalibur,
not that sort of stuff.
You know, his bedroom cupboard was just for the these old Scotch tapes,

(01:07:11):
for the 1980s and 1990s stuff that he'd kept in tape.
So, I think I would watch naked video on...
that he had recorded when I went to stay with them,
and it would watch, perhaps, you know, as well.
So, I probably will have watched this before,
but it would have been so, so, so long ago that...
I think it was pretty much that he was watching the first time.
I probably did see it, but I probably saw it when I was quite young.

(01:07:33):
Do you remember...
would you have seen this when it came out, do you think?
I don't know, I mean, I'd have been seven when it first aired
if it was repeated the following year,
and I'd have been nine...
at eight, sorry, oh, Jesus.
How did I get two years older in a year?
I would have been eight.
I've definitely seen this before,
because I remember certain scenes.
Exactly as you've said, you know,

(01:07:55):
with Barney looking his head wound,
I seem to remember the scene with Andy Gray in the DSS office.
I remember James Yessanta.
There's...
Yeah, I've definitely seen this before.
As I mentioned on the rap scene episode,
I loved rap scene-es, but...
And I...
When that first series came out on VHS,
I...
and that was back in the day where they used to split.

(01:08:17):
You'd got three episodes on one video,
three episodes on the other.
And I always remember one was green and one was pink,
and I had the green one,
and my uncle had the pink one,
and we used to swap.
I remember getting that green,
Rabsinez, VHS for Christmas one.
And I just adored rap.
I just thought it was hilarious.
I probably...
Looking back now, I was so young,
I didn't understand the whole...

(01:08:39):
I just...
It was drunk man is funny.
And says bad words and hits people with his newspaper and stuff
and headbutts people.
Like, that's probably why.
Going back now and looking at the social commentary and stuff,
there's so much deeper than you think.
And I just liked his rant,
didn't understand them, probably.
But it's incredible looking back at it now,
and there's a couple of scenes in this that are just amazing.

(01:09:01):
This episode for me,
it felt almost like more of a...
It's almost like a series of sketches.
And you could still...
You could see that we're still trying to kind of...
But that's all they'd known,
because they just had Rabsinez from Naked Video,
which was that a series of sketches.
And I know Mary was introduced in Naked Video.
There is a specific scene where she is there,

(01:09:21):
and she has a black eye and stuff.
And it's kind of the...
They beat the shite of each other.
However, I think the character of Rabs changed.
And I can see your mum's point.
He is a stereotypical.
He's a drunk.
He's on, you know, the social.
He's a wasteer.
He admits he's a wasteer.
But he has this rant.
And...
But what I felt this episode showed,

(01:09:44):
and definitely the series is,
he's not a bad man.
He's...
He... there's a scene later on,
we'll come on to talk about it with a judge.
You know, you realise, okay, he does steal this carry out.
But the whole point of this is Rabs trying to get money for Christmas.
Yeah.
That judge has a wallet for the money.
The record...
He's taking that.
And all those problems are solved.
He doesn't take it.
And as he speaks about it in that scene, he's got standards.

(01:10:06):
But he's like, "I will take your carry."
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Look at that, look at that.
You're a pal.
You're a pal. We kept that.
'Cause somebody got all half inch of you, you know?
"Don't take that with you, yeah."
I'm just bloody carrying...
I'm gonna leave you a favour by the way.
He's responsible for...

(01:10:27):
He's a stand up, no!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, that would be a end of episode of Rabs Dood That Money.
Everyone's got the Christmas they need.
He has standards, and although him and Mary argue and beck her,
he would never ever fucking raise a hand to her.
Like, it's more likely she'd be the shit out of him.
Yeah.
And she does quite a few occasions, you know, she'll give him a slap,

(01:10:49):
and that's funny, but the character of Rabs became a lot more wholesome
in terms of domestic abuse isn't funny.
No.
And it's...
He's a likeable guy, but he admits he's a waste earner,
and he just enjoys doing what he does,
but he has an opinion on everything.
And there's a lot of stuff in this, like, I'd forgotten,
and obviously didn't get carried on.
So, for example, in this episode, Mary's pregnant.

(01:11:11):
Like, I guess that's a joke on the Virgin Mary, or maybe, yeah, yeah.
It's only touched upon a little bit,
but then that's when it comes to CVs, that's forgotten.
There's only Gashem Burnie, so there's no other kids.
And it does lead to a great line when...
Was it, Mary says something about you've only risen to the occasions three times?
You've risen your life for three times.
Two of the results are two of the occasions are walking out.

(01:11:33):
There's some of the sofa there.
And of course, the opening scene is...
Well, the opening credits are...
For their time, amazing.
It's an Advent calendar.
And all these doors are opening, and it's just...
AMAZED, it's so well done.
And then it opens in Mary speaking to the camera,

(01:11:54):
which she never did in the series.
But I guess they ditched, and it was that,
"Rab is the only person that can really break the fourth wall."
Yeah.
...when it comes to the series.
But in this Mary's able to, and it does gives you a good...
A kind of opening and rounded view,
when she's talking about "Rab being at the DSS,"
because the kids need to learn the family business.
And, you know, "Rab is a certified psycho."

(01:12:16):
And immediately, you just feel the character of "Rab" as well
when he's talking to his kids and asking, "Look, poor, you've got a ringworm."
You'd emotionally disturbed.
But very prevalent, like when he's speaking to Jamesy,
and Jamesy's like, "I agree with you.
You know, you take away a man's family, and whatever you got, money and freedom."

(01:12:36):
Mommy, go in there, baby, for more than a support, like...
No, no, no, no, no, Jamesy. I mean, in the offense, the offense...
No, but I mean, it's his family, Jamesy, you know?
And when I said done, a man's got to look after his own family.
All right?
"Rab, I'm very true."
Because I mean, "Take a man's family away, Jamesy."
"What's your goal?"
"What's your goal?"

(01:12:57):
"No, hang on, I've nothing."
"Nothing except money and freedom."
"I've got a good money and freedom, I like to meet you, you know?"
"A man that has other riches."
"A man that has a pretty big line,
standing here on it."
And...
"What a hell, you doing by the way?"
"I'm working on my motivation, Dad."
"I'll stick my toe up your crevice, I'll have my jaw read it."

(01:13:21):
Well, it's a thing, because the interesting thing about the programme is that, you know, if you think about the two doors down pilot is sort of similar to this,
in the sense that a little two doors down is not set at Christmas, it's set at New Year,
but by the time the programme becomes, you know, it gets commissioned and becomes a series,
a lot of the elements have changed, you know?

(01:13:43):
The house, I remember, the house and the two doors down pilot was a wee bit fancy,
original, I think, as I recall.
And, you know, there's characters in it that don't make it to the TV show, there's some cat, you know,
they obviously, Jamie Quinn replaces Brian Guthrie,
I'm a Brian Guthrie, Kevin Guthrie and stuff like that, whereas with this it's not a lot of the elements are that changed, really.

(01:14:08):
There you go, obviously, Alex Norton doesn't make it to the TV show as dode,
but Brian Petter is there, Tony Roper is there, is James, they, they, they, the Nesbit family are all there,
even the, even the set that is their house is exactly the same.
Yeah.
The only real difference is I could see is, exactly, you should say, Alex Norton gets replaced with Ian McCall,

(01:14:32):
but the same character is dode, and the one thing missing from this pilot for me is Barbara Rafferty.
Yes. Ella, Ella, she's not in this or mentioned at all, which I thought, because you don't know if James A is married or anything,
he never mentions anything.
Yeah, but, but,
family, doesn't he, but it doesn't, you know, so there's not to this, no, suggestion, because they're in the series, they don't have children, the chorus, really.

(01:14:59):
The chorus, no, they don't know.
I think there is a, there's a whole subplot about that, about how James, he can perform or something.
But even, you're right, like, even the barman, Dougie, played by Charlie Sim, is the same actor that played, you know,
and the set of the two ways is the same as well. So there was a lot that came from this that moved into the actual series, just a couple of, basically that.

(01:15:23):
And obviously, maybe being pregnant was never mentioned again.
But it's like you see in Tudor's down, the whole plot of that, I mean, the whole plot revolves around Hogan A party,
but there's a big subplot about how their other son is coming home from the army, and that's the big ending.
He's never mentioned ever again in the series, like he was just wiped from existence.
Yeah, I guess, I suppose, maybe, like, on this occasion, they've had the advantage of, because I think, you know, James A does turn up in naked video,

(01:15:53):
you might not, you might, the character might not be fully formed, but I suppose the probably enable a test of some of these elements and sketches and things,
you know, before they got, before they get to the stage of writing a sort of Christmas pilot,
which maybe the Tudor's, but obviously the Tudor's down guys, then we aren't able to do that either.
And you're right. James does pop up occasionally is just kind of this other jakey in naked video, whereas here he's already kind of fully formed.

(01:16:20):
Yeah, they're talking about him, how he had it to change his name, because he would cut a lock money.
He's just changing it by default.
I don't know what his name was before.
But, yes, it's just ridiculous little things like that that just make it so funny and you just get the,
and because even throughout the series, Rob, it's his best friend and him and James, but they always end up arguing at some point about something

(01:16:46):
that James he's done to piss him off, because Rob is a man of standards and principle.
Yeah.
So when they've all said their boycott in Christmas, they want a boycott Christmas, and for James A to have do this,
and when you see him as Santa, it's a beautiful scene when he's like,
"That's fucking a gov'n team tattoo."
Yeah, but I can't.
Just like, wait a minute.

(01:17:06):
Wait a minute.
It's got a bottom line, bro, between his high-tech trainers, that's so beautiful.
And that's a wonderful scene where James just keeps shouting in the kids face,
"Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, he had two seconds, yes, he's, I need to still be Santa with this, the wee boy.
He boy asked them for Stephanie Beachham, and he says, "Oh, I don't know if they're the house, right?

(01:17:28):
I can't remember what the consolation was.
I can't remember either, I said, "I don't know if I've written that down."
So obviously to talk about, I mean, Rob, Gregor, for sure, fantastic Scottish actress,
just got a new show, come out, which I haven't watched yet.
No, me neither.
Which I've been really meaning to you, with Greg McEw, who,
Yeah.
Oh, I'll have cut that out of this episode, actually, when you were talking about Greg McEw.

(01:17:49):
Um, actually, let's relate to Tudor's time.
I need to watch it, because it does look really good, only a child.
And now, obviously, Gregor Fischer will always be synonymous with me for Rapsy Nesbyn,
throughout, you know, the whole of Nicky video.
Well, he appears on, I don't know when, when did I introduce the news clip on this,
but he appears on every episode of this podcast with...

(01:18:10):
Yeah, he does.
...a news jingle.
Yeah, he does.
And I think Rapsy Nesbyn made him such a character, of course, he was in Scotch and Rye beforehand,
and then, of course, just the voice game...
...just the Rapsy Nesbyn as well.
And then, yeah, he is.
Um, he's in a film I want to do quite early next year as well.
I think he was in an episode of City Lights, and then the "Boldie" man, of course, was like another

(01:18:34):
kind of spin-off and, and Para Handy.
Now, the last thing I saw him in was a show called The Cockfields.
I don't know if you...
Yeah, I see.
If I watch that.
So, the one I saw...
I saw the pilot, and he's not in the pilot, is he?
Is it a different actor who plays the father who passed away, I think, didn't he?
So, the pilot and the first series, it's Bobby Ball.

(01:18:57):
Bobby Ball plays...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, it's...
...and Sheila Johnson, it's the...
...the mum.
Yeah.
And then, Bobby...
I listened to your podcast.
It's David Earl and Joel Wilkinson that wrote it, and Joel Wilkinson obviously stars in it.
And they said that, literally, they'd just finished writing the second series,
and then they got the phone call that Bobby had died.
And they were like, "Right, what do we do?
Do we just scrap the character?

(01:19:18):
Do we...
...what do we do?"
And then they recast with Gregor Fisher.
And he...
It's beautiful.
He plays the role so differently, but so similar as well.
Yeah.
And he's great.
Is this cantankerous, kind of, old Scottish man that's just, you know, pensioner?
And I think it's probably quite a similar character from what I've seen of only child that he's playing in that.

(01:19:40):
Right.
So, I guess he's kind of made his little niche now, but I don't know.
I need to watch it, but I did read one review that said it's very good.
Yeah, I need to see it.
I'm not out of the chance to check it out.
Yeah. I was watching them on, um, so there's on YouTube,
there is an appearance that he did on Wogan around the time that the first series,

(01:20:00):
Ramsett and Ez--
Ramsett and Ez, but it came out over--
For overseas listeners or younger listeners,
Wogan was the chat show hosted by Terry Wogan that used to be on at, like, seven o'clock.
I mean, most nights of the week, like after the news, I think,
it was about, like, this sort of, like the kind of tonight show is,
or the late show is in the US, and it was-- there was not on that late.

(01:20:21):
And he's on there with, um,
Griffrey's Jones and Adrian Edminson, because they are--
Oh, wow.
--they were promoting something,
and not that he was in, so they had their bet,
and then he comes on and he's interviewed,
and he's, you know, I think, you know,
and he says himself, you know, he's quite humble,
especially when it comes to Ramsett and Ez,

(01:20:41):
but because, you know, he's the same in this interview,
Wogan's saying, you know, you've created--
how do you create a character like Ramsie and Ez,
but in these, like, well, I didn't create the character.
The character was, you know, that was written.
I just acted the character.
He said, Ian Patterson created the character,
and he's a fantastic writer.
He said, you know, it's writers and directors and producers and everything.

(01:21:02):
He said, I've just acting here.
I didn't create the character.
But once I had watched that wee clip,
there's another clip from the same show,
and he comes on in character as Ramsie and Ez,
but he has an argument with Terry Wogan.
[LAUGHS]
Which, I would dodge it, watch, it's only for a couple of minutes.
And it's at the top of the show when Wogan's introducing his guests
for the evening, and Rab just wanders on to the set,

(01:21:25):
and has a routh about how his programs go and downhill.
[LAUGHS]
I really do, you know.
[LAUGHS]
But he almost breaks at one point, Gregor Fisher.
And it's really good.
It was really nice to watch.
It's only a couple minutes.
I'll send you it, and you can give it a watch, really good.
I think it's a testament to the character as well

(01:21:46):
that I do love his interactions with everyone.
You know, when he's in the two ways, it's funny.
That's kind of the typical sitcom scenes.
But for me, the character, Rab, is when he's just
wondering about in his own, talking to camera,
and running about something.
So it's beautiful when he's in Princess Square.
It's such a beautiful shot when he's in the glass elevator,

(01:22:06):
and he's speaking to the camera, talking,
and then wondering around and asked Jonathan Watson
for a 50p, and to say, I used to ask for 10p,
but I decided to say, you know, for the inflation
spare to ask for a 50p.
And then interacts with all these buskers
and people selling sports socks and typical Rab,
then just headbutts this robot mind.
So that robot mind, it was not--

(01:22:30):
he was not-- that guy is Robbie the Robot,
and he used to be in the Canis Street for years.
Oh, really?
As a real busker.
Robbie the Robot.
Wow.
You can miss out some--
And the thing is, like, no one's 100% sure exactly
who the guy was, because he always, which is just,
sort of, turn up in character and do a bit of sort of body
popping in character as Robbie the Robot.

(01:22:51):
But there's a bit of mystery about him.
When I was a kid, I was a little bit frightened of him.
I was a little because I was a little
and things like that used to get me the fucking creeps
when I was young.
But yeah, he's--
so he's a bit of a famous sort of 80s legend of--
80s and 80s and 80s legend of Glasgow,
Robbie the Robot.
I did not know that, so that makes no sense.

(01:23:12):
And now I look at it.
He's not even in the credits for the show.
That's--
Oh, that's--
Yeah.
So that adds to the mystery even more.
Oh, that's fascinating.
Yeah, I'll leave that.
That's a brilliant bit of--
There's an article from Glasgow, Hawaii,
for the Daily Record.
I'll send you.
For a few years ago, where just people
were talking about their memories over.
As I feel who you think they know who he was,

(01:23:33):
it's the same.
There used to be--
And I used to think that I had dreamt this.
But it turns out I hadn't.
And there's a Facebook page that devoted to it.
But there used to be a Buck Rogers Cafe in Queen Street
in Glasgow.
And the theme of the cafe was the TV show Buck Rogers
in the 21st century.
And apparently--
I remember that taking me in there.
And that's a set up, because I was we,

(01:23:53):
I thought it was a bit of a dream.
But people were all dressed up as aliens and stuff.
And I'm being a bit frightened.
So fucking, like, Jessie, when I was we--
I was frightened, like, she'll be dumbies,
and everything, honestly, I can't tell you.
And the guy that played Twique in--
the guy who wore the Twique costume, apparently,
was this--
was the polite little person.
We would have called him a midget back in the day.

(01:24:15):
But that little person from Drum Chapel,
who apparently hated children.
But there's a Facebook page devoted to it as well.
Glasgow was a funny, kind of cool, odd, weird place
in the '80s, and I was like, it, Glasgow City City.
Well, you can see that from here as well.
And of course, even the first episode--
not the first episode, but one of the first in the first series,

(01:24:38):
one of the episodes is, of course,
set around the fact that Glasgow is European City of Culture.
Yeah, that's right.
And the whole was based on how Glasgow is trying to upgrade
itself.
And of course, that's when they meet the--
South American of the Cuban, like, piccolo band.
And turns out one of the guys got a broad gov'n accent.
Yeah, that's right.

(01:25:00):
Well, this will be broadcast.
So this was broadcast around Christmas time, 1988.
And that was the year that Glasgow hosted the Garden
Festival, the Glasgow Garden Festival, which was a big part
of Glasgow becoming the European City of Culture in 1990.
Because I went to the Garden Festival with my dad.

(01:25:22):
And then the other time, my granny and my cousin.
And it was a fucking big deal, the Garden Festival,
really, really big deal.
Because they built it on the site of all the load of closed
shipyards on the Clyde.
But it was cool.
OK.
It was cool.
It was good fun.
So they ate all this Glasgow regeneration.

(01:25:45):
And then for--
it kind of makes-- it probably proved
to be like really fertile, sort of, right in ground for the in-person
to put this character who is sort of, I guess, in some people's
minds would be reflective of this sort of bad old Glasgow.

(01:26:05):
This-- you know, the kind of no means city Glasgow
and drop it into this new modern late 1980s, early 1990s,
city of culture and having them sort of rub up against it.
And he does a little bit in this episode, especially
in Finns of Square, when he's tapping the dice.

(01:26:26):
And then he's been in the diners in the fancy restaurants for coins.
But I think the best example of it is what you just described
that episode in a first series when they're having the dignitaries
from overseas and stuff like that.
And these arguing with tourists and James
he's doing is real Glasgow tour, you know?
Yeah.
I think it's a different episode in the first years as well

(01:26:47):
that he does go round by called the New Build Flats in Clyde.
And then there's some shops selling old pictures of all the old
Glasgow bands.
That's one when he bakes the pedal for the rats,
spits it on the window.
Yeah.
Yes.
God, it's amazing.
That's the one.
Yeah.
That's very much a theme of Rob.
And yeah, you're right.
You do see the kind of beginning of Inklings of Here of--

(01:27:09):
Yeah, you're right, because he's in Finns of Square.
And then when he goes to the department store
and he's using the soft eject.
And he asks the shop assistant, he's like, I'm going.
I'm going.
He knows he's not-- he's not welcoming this world.
Yeah, he doesn't belong there anymore.
No.
He's never lost anything, isn't he?
She plays a shop assistant who wants them off without speaking.
She was married to Phil Collins.

(01:27:30):
Oh, well, she really.
Oh, that's a nice hat.
Yeah.
In fact, right there.
Yeah, it's spits.
I mean, I think that's the--
I think even in the sketch, she's on naked video
before they got a TV show commissioned.
You know what I think it is?
He is this sort of trapped in time street philosopher.
It's kind of railing against the sort of changes in class.

(01:27:54):
You know, like, I guess, you know, they get some point.
The 1980s, a big part of the working class
became upwardly mobile, you know what I mean?
Sort of empowered by that, sort of, and stuff like that.
People being able to buy their council houses,
all that sort of stuff.
Well, another big part of it, sort of
anguished because there was no industries for them
to work out and stuff.
And then the sort of aspirational middle class,

(01:28:15):
the very well-to-do middle class and the Tofs.
And there's that-- there's that moment in this
when he talks about killing the middle class.
So it's just like in the working class,
so it's just like the scum in the Tofs.
It's just-- and we'll all have a square goal.
We'll have a square goal.
People often say me, "Ab, see if you was a prime minister.

(01:28:36):
What would you do?"
And I say, "Well, you know, see me, see you,
see if I was prime minister."
The first thing I would do would be assassinate
order working class.
And then I'd assassinate order middle class.
Because that's me, I'm a kind of middle-of-the-road guy, you know?
And that would just leave the Tofs and the scum.
And we'd all stand there, you know?

(01:28:57):
Getting chilled up there for a square goal.
And the Tofs would have the army on their side.
But the scum would win because they've got order bull terriers.
They were commuting to London, and so they wasted a siting.
So I left that we'd done that.
We'd nick up Balmorrow and Malkyrup, you'd grouse and get
a fish and pee all the chase, not feel.

(01:29:17):
[LAUGHTER]
That's me, you know?
I mean, actually deep down.
Am I way by at the, that's no.
As he does, when he's, you know, when he's speaking,
when he finds the judge in the street, and he's talking about how,
you know, back in the day, he's talking about kicking the share,
guys, and, you know, we all had standards.
And it was just about fun.
And we'd always leave the money for the bus fare home.

(01:29:39):
Like, you know, you had to have standards.
Well, he is a man of impeccable, not, not, the, standards again,
but I have two principles.
Thank you.
He is a man of principle, but he just has, and that's
the whole point of this episode, because they effectively agree
the four of them to boycott Christmas, but then James,
he gets a job as a department store Santa,
Rab discovers this, and then ends up in the jail.

(01:30:01):
And that's the whole premise of this episode, basically,
that Rab is sticking out for his principles,
and James is kind of going against that.
And I love that James, he's cover so he is that he's a child
and a counselor, because he'd been one of the last people
that he would want to be counseling your child, if, him,
that was the case, but for some reason, the guys all buy it,
and they think it's fine.

(01:30:22):
You know, my questions, would you say the way past night?
- I always do, neither do they watch talk to anybody,
or they say, "I was late getting back my work."
- What? You got a job now?
- I, my Christmas job, innit?
- What, none?
- No, hell, no, no, no, it's safe.
I look on it like social work, no.

(01:30:46):
- Giving me wings in that, can I respond in the back
to me, can I, you know?
- A counselor?
- Yeah.
- Hi, that's right, hi, I'm a child counselor.
- Oh, hey, is that a time?
- It's the only thing, get back, you know,
'cause it's late night, counseling and I,
only, you know, a counselor, bloody,
maybe I co-op, right?

(01:31:07):
- Jeez, what?
- The thing is as well, you know, they,
with everything that sort of happened at the BBC, you know,
they, you have to kind of, it is sort of teased to you
that James is going to be working as a store Santa
because we see what he's looking at in the newspaper
and we see him clocking the advert for the store Santa
and the department store.

(01:31:28):
So I remember, I was thinking to myself,
watching it when he's talking about,
he's saying, "Hey, he's a child counselor
and everything else."
Like, "Oh, he's got the Santa job."
But, you know, for anybody who didn't clock that
and time put it together,
and everything that's sort of gone on at the BBC
over this, this come out from the past 20, 30, 40 years.
Some of the language that James uses,

(01:31:51):
you know, you're a bit kind of,
if you don't, if you're not,
end on the joke that he's going to be Santa Claus,
it's a bit kind of, "Ooh, you know?"
There's so many wonderful things
that just transported me back in this,
like, when they're in the two ways
when they have the massive bells bottle on the bar,
which is the Christmas collection.
I mean, do you still get that nowadays?
You'll probably be a Christmas when you're in Maud.

(01:32:14):
You probably go to the local pub at some point.
I'd love to know if they have, like,
a big bottle on the bar,
full of like two pieces.
- A coin, five pieces. - Like Christmas appeal.
I was a sort of thing, like,
a granny or a grandda would always have,
like, on their bedroom or in the living room,
you know, mean, just like, full of coopers.
Well, I remember my local golf club
always had a massive bottle of bells in the jar
and people would put money,

(01:32:35):
I didn't know what the money went to,
but the appeal was for something.
- Christmas appeal. - The appeal.
- Yeah, the appeal.
- Definitely, but you think the thing that took me back
in the two ways were the bar towels on the bar top?
- Oh, yes. - Yes.
- A laid out in the bar top, you know,
those diamonds, bar towels.
And the BBC isn't supposed to have a product placement

(01:32:57):
in this fucking iron bro, there's tenants, taps,
just bells, whisky.
It's all sorts of-- - Daily record.
- Daily record. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Everything's just there.
Because of the way they're funded,
they're not supposed to, they prominently feature products,
but they're all, you kind of have to prominently feature
some of those products, especially the bottle of iron bro,

(01:33:17):
'cause that kind of became James's trademark,
having the glass bottle of iron bro,
hanging at his jacket pocket.
- Maybe it's 'cause we're Scotland,
or a third-world country, so we're not,
but you're right, but even when he's in the department store
and stuff, and what took me back as well
was like the massive wall of subitio.
- Yes, there was, there is Rav's passing.
- Did you ever have subitio?

(01:33:37):
- So I had a team, I never had a pitch or anything,
but I think my granda bought me a blue team,
it's my granda's big Rangers fan,
it was just like sort of a living guy's in the Goli,
the Goli was in green as always,
or yellow, I think, yellow in the players were all in blue,
and they were like, "Oh, son, there's that angel subitio team."

(01:33:58):
I remember my neighbor having a pitch,
and the balls were big, like ping pong size almost,
weren't they, the balls?
And it was, I don't know if it'd been a bit complicated
and not really getting into it, you know what,
I mean, I think I was probably just,
I probably just missed it, maybe I just missed the beauty
of just a little bit too young for it, rather.
- Yeah, no, I never had a subitio set,
but I had friends that did, nice love playing it

(01:34:20):
when I went right into theirs, but I never wanted one,
'cause just, too big to set up and end up.
- The rules were, it wasn't just a case,
it wasn't like a frantic game,
you sort of took it in turns, right,
and you had to kind of flick your player at the ball,
and you could remove them, I said,
"Yeah, obviously, you had to bear in the mind the offside,
you could remove them a certain way,
and all that sort of stuff."

(01:34:40):
And I don't know, I just, I like playing with action figures
and stuff where I just do what I wanted with them,
It was just, that sort of, it was,
'cause it wasn't a board game,
but in the light playing board games,
'cause, you know, it was usually,
there was usually this complex and stuff,
and I like playing with action figures,
'cause you could just do what you wanted,
but subitio it was sort of,
I don't know, there was sort of like, martial fun,

(01:35:01):
which I wasn't really up for.
- And nice kind of memories as well
when Mary's being so lovely at Gashem Burney,
and says, "Oh, it's Christmas, you know,
"what would you like for Christmas?"
And Gash says, "I want a Porsche,"
and she says, "You'll get a shoot and you'll like it."
(laughs)
- And then when I'm in, is they getting a present like this?

(01:35:21):
(laughs)
I never was really into, it was till later,
I was into kind of shooting match,
but I never had a shoot and you little thing.
- Yeah, I, I, I was in a couple of shoot,
I know, over the years, usually from,
it was usually, those sort of presents you got from,
maybe like parents, friends who didn't know you at all,

(01:35:42):
Oh, just back.
I would always, I'd always seem to end up
with a one or two spare Beno books that year,
or sometimes I would get a topper or a beaser,
which was quite good because,
I knew I would always get the Beno and the Dandy off my dad,
but, you know, like the beaser, the topper,
except, so they weren't guaranteed.
So it was cool that somebody's from, yeah,
one of those ones, but occasionally I would get a shoot.

(01:36:02):
'Cause I think they shoot how the,
the Royal Rovers carthestripping it, didn't I think?
- I think it did, yeah.
- Yeah, I quite liked Royal Rovers.
Because Royal Rovers, I think it went,
it was in the, it was in like stuff like the Victor,
or the Hotspur and stuff,
and it kind of moved across the DC Thompson
before it ended up in shoot,
which I guess was a sort of natural home for it.
- Yeah.

(01:36:22):
- I prefer the fish myself.
- Yeah, I like the fish.
- Yeah, I like the fish.
- I like the fish, the fish was good as well.
- The other part that made me really laugh in this
was the Chekhovs gun, which is, of course,
something that is mentioned early on,
and then you get to pay off later.
- Yeah.
- And of course it was Doty's Red Cycling Sharks.
- Yeah.
(laughing)

(01:36:43):
- And I can imagine Alex not in Huddat,
Wade and Red Cycling Sharks at the end.
- He's re-night every loo-loo. (laughing)
(laughing)
- He says, he says, he says, he says, he says, he says, he says.
See me, see me, see me, see me, see that always makes me laugh.
And people don't do that, that much, thing's not going anymore,

(01:37:03):
but where I hear people say it,
if I'm making this street and I over here somebody,
see me, see me, I said,
no, I'm no buying anybody any presents,
but if you want to get me something,
I take a pair of the way, Red Cycling Sharks,
with the gallus wee badge on the side,
they'll have that them up, so they, (laughing)
it's beautiful.
- Absolutely perfect.

(01:37:24):
And then to pay off later,
I burst out laughing when he's,
raps me and cart in the way into police car,
and he's just there with his red cycling shorts,
so she'll wind them off.
Andra in the two ways as well,
is eating a packet of chewed our crisps.
Remember them?
- Oh, the funny thing about that is
because of the sort of stuff I like to look at on Instagram,

(01:37:45):
there's a site called,
it's got the word 80s or 70s in it or something,
and it played the old, one of the old adverts
for chewed our crisps,
which were always set in Newcastle,
chewed our crisps,
and it's the one with the paper boy,
where he's living on his papers on his bike,
and he bribes a wee boy with a packet of chewed our crisps
to deliver the paper to one, to the one on the high flat,

(01:38:07):
'cause I'll let's remember that one.
- Yeah, remember that just for,
just watched it this morning,
just saw the,
I was looking on Instagram.
- Those for the days, those for the days, eh?
And as Mary says, of course,
Scotland, we are known for mutton pies and heart disease.
(laughs)
Fucking, I love a mutton pie,
I've loved a mutton pie in fucking years.

(01:38:28):
- Years, yeah, that's great.
- A long time,
- So good. - So good.
- A lot of time,
a pie supper has been mentioned.
- No, I'm gonna get it,
I'm gonna get it,
I'm gonna be in Glasgow for three days over Christmas,
and I'm definitely, definitely,
paying the visits to the blue lagoon at some point
for a rolling chips from a lunch,
and it'll be a pie supper when they come in.
- And there are so many cameos in this as well,

(01:38:50):
and some of them don't even speak.
Like, for example, Gerard Kelly.
- Yeah.
- Doesn't say a word,
but of course, Gerard Kelly being the wonderful actor,
he was, like, all you need is his facial expressions,
and it just conveys everything and his mannerisms,
- Yeah, yeah.
- And gets everything across,
but like, rookie fulton, for example,
is like one line,
and yeah, gone.
And it's just a giant sandwich.

(01:39:12):
It's been screened for like three seconds,
and probably the biggest cameo is Peter Capaldi.
He does have a good little rant,
of course, as this Christian preacher, kind of, of guy,
and wraps getting really involved,
and the great line that Rob Deliver
is about how he's talking about Pringle sheep,
and, like, you know,

(01:39:34):
and he was like, fuck, right,
and off, Pringle would have been,
and a huge back then.
- Yeah, and Capaldi's obviously getting pissed off
with them getting involved,
and basically tells him where he go.
- Jordan and Neil Baptist.
- I don't understand.
- Jordan and Neil Baptist.
I don't understand why that is cut
from the one that is always on.
Maybe it, I don't know what it's to do with,
but for some reasons,

(01:39:54):
always cut from whenever it gets uploaded to YouTube,
but it is available as a separate clip,
which is bizarre.
- That's interesting, yeah.
- But fantastic amount of accounts,
even Jonathan Watson has like one line in this,
and it's just, they've just roped in older friends,
basically, to have like a little bit.
- Yeah, 'cause it's not even a funny,
it's not even like a funny moment.
Andy Gray has a good cameo as the DSS guy.

(01:40:18):
And obviously, Capaldi has got a good cameo.
Viverdoms and doesn't speak.
I'm just gonna say, Ricky Fohl's got a couple of lines.
Russell Hagener's got a decent part in it.
Ian Catharicin's got a decent wee monologue
to deliver when he's reading the rabbi sentence.
- It does, yeah.
- And then Mary Riggins as well as Charlie Berman,

(01:40:40):
Salvation Army, when Raps, what is that about?
Is it all about the Hems?
But you get the impression that he's genuinely trying
to understand, like I don't know what this is,
but what is it?
Is it the Hems?
- Yeah, it's quite good, no wait.

(01:41:00):
It's funny, Russell Hunter, you mentioned, of course,
he is the guy that shares a cell with Raps,
what he's on his hunger strike.
(laughs)
- And...
- But Russell Hunter pops up in series one
as two different characters.
He's in one of the early episodes as just a drunk guy,
and then he actually plays the pink elephant.
- Actually, he is.

(01:41:20):
(laughs)
- Right, all they have to do is...
- Oh, the rab.
(laughs)
- Just mentioned.
When Rab has his hallucination, what he's on,
under strike, and he's in this,
the white suit with the black string vest,
and he's drinking champagne.
- He's just slew-should up.
- It's fucking hilarious that I've just seen

(01:41:42):
this vision of beauty calling to him,
but he's like, no, why would you be interested
in scum like you?
- I like him as well when he's on his hunger strike,
and he's, he's like, he's got pictures of foods
based up to his cell wall.
(laughs)
- Instead of, he looks better to be pictures like,
page three lassies and stuff like that,

(01:42:02):
but he's just got food on there.
(laughs)
- Yeah, well, I guess that's what he's fantasizing over
when he's in prison rather than, yeah.
- Rab's not interested in Sam Fox or Linda Lysardy,
he's a pie supper.
- It does say, he does say he's missing these nukes,
but he does actually, right, yeah, he does,

(01:42:23):
which is amazing because maybe he does say,
he's only racist flagpole three times.
(laughs)
- I think it was smart not to have her having a baby
when the, when the, when the, when the series got picked up.
I think it was a, it was good to leave it out.
I think that's not sure how we've done that, you know?
'Cause the, the whole point is it,
'cause Mary works in Rab doesn't, you know?

(01:42:45):
He's, that's one of the big sort of themes of the TV show,
is that he's the waste there who can't get a job
and all that sort of stuff and she goes out
and earns you about money and he's always trying to tap her
on boozing fags money.
- Yeah, you're right, and I think it would have added
something else because at least with Gashin Bernie,
he can always take them along with him
when he's going out doing something

(01:43:05):
and it was always great subplots at the city of culture episode,
for example, they're stealing all the fucking iron
from great, great things in the, yeah.
And selling it to scrap.
And if you had a baby involved in that,
then it's, it's too much of a thing
that they always have to have involved and always there
and then guess then it kind of goes down

(01:43:26):
a murky path of neglect and child abuse, right?
- Yeah, yeah.
It's okay if you smack in Bernie with a newspaper and stuff,
but with a baby, you have to have a very different tone
and of course, Rob, I think with a baby
would be a wonderful kind of father,
but maybe not wonderful, but you know what I mean?
Like it would take that element out.

(01:43:47):
So I think you're right, it's a very smart decision
that they didn't continue with that and have that in.
- And Colin is good because obviously he's played
about young lady was an actuality, you know what I mean?
His condition, you know, he was we and everything.
So the character of Bernie that he sort of creates is,
you know, he's not exactly a many version of Rob

(01:44:11):
and as much as he resembles him a wee bit
with his headband and everything else and stuff.
There's enough of a commonality there for it to be some,
but it's also this, you know, of the two of the two sons,
I like Andrew Fairley as Gage,
but I think Bernie's the more compelling characterly,
you know, Gage kind of, in the series he sort of becomes

(01:44:32):
a bit of a straight man to Bernie's, you know,
a bit of an Ernie Weiss to Bernie's Eric Morcombe.
- Yeah, Gage, this more of kind of the,
becomes like the art student, daydreamer
wants to go into bigger and better things.
Bernie is always the one that comes like that quick quip
and always comes out with a, yeah, a killer line.

(01:44:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that you just kind of help it laugh at.
And it's funny because it's coming from him, you know?
- Yeah.
- Because as you say he's a lot older than he's playing,
he's meant to be, he meant to believe he's a child.
It's, yeah, it's a bit like the cranky's, no way.
(laughing)
- Well, quite as this could say, I think it's like,
"rankies." (laughing)

(01:45:13):
- Genet cranky was nearly clean,
and little this part in, in Haudda,
so she was, but I thought she was probably too old.
- Yeah, possibly.
I did think we were going for,
I was going for X-O,
I kind of stung in a like, but more,
it's exactly why I thought you picked Lulee.
- Chris he has a little bit of a necklace origin
about, so, more glamorous,

(01:45:34):
kind of glamorous stung in.
(laughing)
- So at the end, Rob's obviously had enough
with Christmas because he doesn't get his Christmas dinner
'cause he hates Christmas and he adips just getting arrested again
so he can get some of that piecing quiet
and gets carted off to jail.
But, kind enough for a gives James E in the end,
but not really.
- Yeah.
- And, that's where he ends.
- Yeah.
- He's back off, hanging out the police car,

(01:45:55):
flicking the vees and off to prison,
then we'll find out what happens to him
at the beginning of series one,
which we've already covered in the podcast
if you have a look back on your episodes.
- Yeah, and they sort of resist the urge to have things
kind of turn out, you know, like,
'cause there's a moment when on Christmas day,
when they're late and Mary's got a Christmas dinner out
for the three of them and he hasn't got a plate.

(01:46:17):
(laughing)
He heads up to Stephen Hurson,
like planting it on the window wall in the camera,
really.
You know, there's no sort of redemption for Rob
and it sort of sees the error of his ways
and decides to enjoy Christmas if they
60s guns to the bit of end.
And I suppose I don't know if they knew

(01:46:38):
when they were filming this and making this
if they were gonna get picked up for a series.
You know, so that, you know,
particularly that could have been the last time
we saw Rob's scene is, but potentially if they hadn't,
made the series.
So our last image of him is hanging out a police car,
given the ease, which is something quite nicer about that.
You don't know what it's, it sort of fits quite nicely.

(01:47:00):
Yeah, it does, yeah.
It's quite a fitting end.
You're right, there's not really a resolution.
He's still, that's exactly what you say,
though, that is the character of Rob.
He sticks to his guns.
He has a philosophy, he has a way, he has an opinion
and yeah, there's not much gets in the way of him.
That's Rob for you.
Definitely not.
So, shall we put Rob through our penultimate awards

(01:47:22):
of 20 to 24?
Let's do it Greg.
Well, we know what's first, don't we?
So, the Bobby the Barman award for the best pub.
It's got to be the two ways, even if there was another pub.
The pro crowd, the two ways would still win.
Love to go for a pint in the two ways, without a doubt.
Amazing.
Next one.
So I think this one is quite a tricky one to decide on,
but the James Caws more award for being in everything

(01:47:44):
Scottish.
So many to pick from.
Yeah.
We don't even mention Missy's Capaldi, Elaine Collins.
She's not what we've seen in the J.O.s, what else is she?
Yeah.
Of course, yeah.
Yeah.
It's true, there's a lot to choose from, purely because of his
placement in the Swally Tally, which I know is only stuff
we've covered, but it has to be Alex Norton.

(01:48:05):
But Brian Petterfers in with the hell of a shout as well.
Petterfers, they are just in terms of sort of ubiquitous
Scottish actors, there's a case for Russell Hunter
and Ian Cuthwitson as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think Macquillin, your tease-out award for me is,
poor Robbie the robot getting a severe dose of the malchain

(01:48:27):
you can't see.
I definitely had that, because it's quite unexpected.
I also want to give a shout out to the very end, where Rob
goes to shake James's hand and then just pulls him into the frame
of the police car.
I think he had the door frame.
It's fucking broken.
[LAUGHS]
Next award, then, there's none in it.

(01:48:47):
We'd been in the UN McGregor Award for Gratua's New
Day, but nothing known you to say.
Then it's the Francis Beckby Award for Gratua's Sweating.
So there's not a lot of Gratua's Sweating,
really.
There's the odds, bugger off and bloody this.
So I'll move on then.
Next then, would be the archetypal Scottish moment.

(01:49:07):
What did you go for for this?
Guy seven sport socks on the off a table.
And that's what City set up.
Did you do it for the same?
I don't know if you could selling sports socks on the street.
Yeah.
That's exactly what I've got.
Sport-selling sports socks on the table.
It was either of that, or it was between the department

(01:49:28):
store Santa, Jamesy, giving a wee plastic kilty.
That's the gift.
But yeah, selling sports socks for me, but that a doubt.
Yeah.
And then last one is Sean Connari Awards for Who Wins It?
The Gregor Fisher.
Yeah, but that doubt is Gregor Fisher.
But there's some great performances in this.
You know, a Lainty Smiths great.

(01:49:50):
Yeah, I mean, obviously, but that doubt you can't.
You don't have RAB, like Tony Roper is Jamesy,
but it's Gregor Fisher's show.
Yeah.
So it has to be Gregor Fisher's RAB.
Well, that doubt.
Absolutely.
So if you want to go back and watch RAB Sinés
but seasonal greets, you can find it on YouTube.
And you can find the scene with Peter Capowdy, which

(01:50:13):
has been cut from the version that's on YouTube.
But that scene is intact.
And you can even see when you watch the show,
there's a bit of a sloppy cut when RAB Sinés sent her,
which is obviously where that scene was originally.
So look at it, I watch.
So that was our Christmas episode for 2024, Greg.
RAB Sinés, but seasonal greet.

(01:50:33):
So on the next episode will be our Hogman show, which ironically
comes out on Boxing Day.
So we're quite early, but it's just the way the calendar works
this year.
But it's your choice.
So what do you tell us what we're going to be looking at
for Hogman A this year?
So some years ago for Hogman A, we watched a classic Scotch
comedy show which used to be broadcast every Hogman A.

(01:50:56):
We're Ricky Fulton, Scotch and Rye.
Scotch and Rye, for a very short time,
was replaced by a Scottish sketch show which
shows a lot to Scotch and Rye itself,
also a lot to make a video.
And so it became a bit of the new year tradition
for a couple of years alongside only an excuse.
So we are going back and watching the best of Tune the Fat.

(01:51:20):
Oh, wonderful.
So yeah, Tune the Fat, it wasn't a program that was originally
recorded for a new year.
It was a annual series of sketches, a sketch show series.
It's where the characters of Jack Invictor, who
went on to have their own arguably much more successful show,

(01:51:40):
still game came from, much like RAB Sinés,
it was spun off from there.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to not watching the Fat for a long time.
I've got a feeling that some of the jokes are going to be a bit
like the sketch and Scotch and Rye with the guys
trying to tell the joke about the Irishman, the Jamaicans,
that perhaps we better have a different time,

(01:52:04):
but I'm looking forward to having a laugh at them anyway.
Yeah, it's been a long time since I've watched Tune the Fat.
Actually, yeah, that's going to be great.
I will go back, but yeah, you're right.
It may be was--
What would that mean?
It must be 24, 25 years old now?
Yeah, it must be.
I think the first season of that.
Tune the Fat, so a 99 or 2,000 something on that.
Wonderful.
Well, look forward to watching that for our new year episode.

(01:52:27):
And you're right, it did become synonymous with New Year
for a while, but although it was a series,
so it definitely counts.
Great.
Well, thank you very much, everyone for listening.
I hope you enjoyed the show, and I hope
you all have a wonderful Christmas.
And you can get in touch with us if you would like.
You can get an email us on cultureswalley@gmail.com.
You can follow us on Instagram at cultureswalley.com,

(01:52:50):
or you can follow us on X4Million or Twitter at SwallyPod.
And you can visit our wonderful website as well, can't you Greg?
Can you find us at cultureswalley.com for links to all
other episodes and some features on Scottish television
and film and give us some draft?
Fantastic.
You have to make a steak pie?
No, I'm making that small.
I think I'm going off.

(01:53:11):
Oh, tomorrow, so I'm off to take my daughter to a birthday party.
I'm dropper off at a birthday party.
Very nice.
We'll have a lovely time doing that and dropping off.
I will.
And you've got a social engagement.
You've got a social engagement tonight,
so you have a nice time, too.
I do. I have a birthday party, too,
attend, so yeah, I'm very much looking forward to it.
So be all good.
Wonderful.
Right.
Well, on behalf of, well, I was going to say on behalf

(01:53:34):
of Greg and I, but you can speak for yourself.
But yeah, because this will be our last episode of Christmas.
So I would like to wish all our listeners a wonderful Christmas.
Hope you have a good one.
Have a good one.
I wish you a happy new year on the next day.
I'm still going to consider both.
Yeah.
Exactly.
All right then, buddy.
Till next time.
Till next time.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I love this, right there.

(01:53:55):
One, ten.
Wait, wait, wait.
Ready?
Here.
Uh-huh.
Shoff DJ.
[SPEAKING SPANISH]
Hey.
I love that.
I love that.
I'm so good.
A moment of sanity.
I want to go ahead, my aunt.

(01:54:16):
[LAUGHTER]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(upbeat music)

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Episode 115 - Rab C. Nesbitt's Seasonal Greet (1988)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 115 - Rab C. Nesbitt's Seasonal Greet (1988)