Episode 116 - Chewin' The Fat (1999) - The Culture Swally

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello and welcome to The Culture Swally, a podcast dedicated to Scottish news and pop culture.

(00:21):
My name is Nicky and I'm joined as always by the man who is definitely a good guy,
and not a wank.
It's Greg.
How are you today, buddy?
Good.
A bit fraught because obviously we're recording this on the 14th of December.
Christmas is a year, 11 days away and I've been really busy.

(00:45):
The last couple of this sort of two or three weeks, so it's sort of kept up on me a little
bit.
I don't know, you know, either.
Oh, I see.
I go, "You ready?"
I've not bought any presents for anybody.
Wow, that's not true.
That's not true.
I bought a present for you and I bought a present for your mutual friends, but I've not
bought my wife anything yet, or my daughters, although my wife does take care of the gifts
of my daughter, but I really just get my act together this week.

(01:07):
You feel all ready for Santa coming?
Yeah, I'm fine.
I'm packed.
I'm going.
I haven't bought any presents.
I don't have to.
I did say that to my sister.
What would you do with presents?
She said I'll have a sort of tight when you get here, so I don't know.
I'll probably be a visit, like I'm bought in it's in, and like, so I have no idea.
We're going to wait and send a pick something up for your nieces at least.

(01:30):
Yeah, I'll pick something up for them, but I don't know what.
It's, I have no idea what to get.
I need to, I need input from my sister.
Yeah, it's hard.
Do I get from?
So, so, yeah, but I'll work something out.
It'll be fine.
So, yeah, I'm as ready as I'll ever be, basically.
My main concern is, we're recording this on Saturday.

(01:50):
I leave on Tuesday.
I'm busy on Monday.
Can I get this edited and uploaded before I go?
Because this comes out unboxing day.
That's my main concern right now.
Yeah.
I mean, it's fine.
I'm taking my laptop with me, but I don't want to be sitting at it in it by the pool.
So, yeah.
So, I'd rather get it finished.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's my only concern.
Nothing.
Yeah.

(02:10):
I think you leave because we're so, I know you're, I'm going to see each other on, we're
just like, we just agreed before we started recording that we're going to meet up on
Wednesday when you're here in Dubai, visiting your family.
I leave for Scotland on Friday, the 23rd.
And I think it will be ships in the night and they'll be back because I land back and it's
been, it's 29th, I think you fly out and it's 29th, right?

(02:31):
That's 28th.
Yeah, the technically it's the 30th, but it's like 2 a.m.
Right.
Right.
So, I'll be at the airport at midnight on the 30th.
29th.
Oh, right.
29th, 30th.
So, yeah.
So, well, big.
Nice to see you.
Well, we've seen a lot of each other this year than personal, haven't we?
Yeah, I was thinking that this will be the, this is the third time.

(02:53):
Yeah.
We're in Brussels then we saw each other in the summer and now we're seeing each other
at the fuck, yeah.
Three different countries.
Three different countries.
Yeah.
And our mutual friend is keen to organize our annual union, he and Dubai next year.
He let's say he was going to pick the flights but he hasn't confirmed that he's booked
them so I'm not going to hold my breath just yet.

(03:16):
I'm not going to record all.
That was, yeah, that was completely my fault as well for doing that because I, I just
know this and I can say I basically mentioned the trip that you could, you should take
Barlow because we were trying to sneak that in, yeah.
And then, that's right.
And then he was like, oh, yeah, let's do that trip.

(03:38):
Yeah, let's do it.
Sounds good.
Okay.
It was my fault.
Yeah, that Barlow thing didn't really take off because he rumbled.
Oh, I, and I bated my time as well.
You were, you were like, balls deep in the first message after we agreed.
I took my time and must have just,
the rest of the Scott and when he wasn't driving or at the gym or doing something else,
you know.

(03:59):
So, yeah, we will briefly see each other as you say in Dubai.
I'm looking forward to it.
It'll be very good.
It'll be a nice way to end the year as well.
So, be very good.
And then we'll, yeah, we'll get some in sorted for next year.
Definitely.
Wonderful.
I'm very good.
Yeah, this comes out in boxing day.
So, listeners, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and this is our new year episode.

(04:19):
So we will be looking at something which is, well, you'll know from the title.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's something that is synonymous with New Year in Scotland.
But before we go on to be talking about that, shall we have a look at what's been happening
in the news in Scotland in the last couple of weeks, Greg?
For the last time, it's 24/24, to the gym.
Hello, this is the Outdoor Heavilys Broadcasting Corporation.

(04:48):
And here is what's been going on in the news.
Oh, okay, Greg.
So what have you seen in the newspapers over the last couple of weeks?
You would like to share with me and our lovely listeners?
Well, I sort of changed it up a little bit for this episode.
Because the news broadly is not cheery even in Scotland.

(05:08):
So I thought I would have a look at some traditional Scottish New Year traditions.
Some of which share overseas listeners might not be aware of.
And one in particular, which for reasons I can't put my finger on, seems can I typically
Scottish?

(05:28):
So in the island of Orkney, there's one famous vocal, both Christmas tradition and New
Year's Day tradition, because it happens on Christmas Day and New Year's Day.
And it's the Kirkwall ball game.
Oh!
It's absolutely brutal.
There's a picture of it here, which I might put under Happy New Year post, because I've

(05:52):
done a couple of New Year posts over the years.
It's kind of a cross between the gentleman's game of rugby and maybe like the meeting
of two arch rival firms after a derby game in any kind of tooled up.
No, that's old up look.
So in the days leading up to the ball match, Kirkwall looks like a war zone.

(06:16):
Barriers, limestreats and windows and doors are boarded shut to protect buildings from the
upcoming ramy.
Two teams of hundreds of men face off in a game of football and are split between upies
and dunes.
Originally, your team was based on where you were born, up or down from the island's
sit magnus cathedral.
So if you were north, you were an upie and if you were born south, you were a duny.

(06:39):
These days most of born in the hop.
So the teams are going to pass down through family tradition.
The ball is a heavy, cork filled leather ball.
They kept mead this ball.
Hand made for each game and taken home by the winner.
The aim is for the upies to touch the ball against the wall in the south of the town while

(07:03):
the dunes are trying to get the ball into Kirkwall Bay.
They are the only rules of the game.
A huge scrum with the ball in the centre is heaved until somebody smuggles it to the edge
and makes a break.
They are fake breaks to confuse the opponents and even attempts to take to Kirkwall's rooftops.

(07:27):
Fucking islanders are fucking bastards, honestly.
It's physical and tempers flare, but the game self-polices itself.
The local nut their mates take things too far in the name of tradition.
The average game takes five hours.
Five hours.

(07:48):
Jesus, five hours.
So what better way to spend Christmas on New Year's Day?
Imagine playing it with a hangover on that being brutal.
So the origins of the game are thought to go back at least 300 years.
There's an odd folk story that is to explain the origins of the game.
A mad Scottish tyrant was laying waste to the Viking held caveness in Sutherland.

(08:17):
His name was Tuscur, due to one march to the jutty doubt between these lips.
And he tormented those sweet innocent Vikings.
Tuscur was just a downright evil man.
So one day a young orcadian boy decided that enough was enough.
If nobody else was going to do something about this tyrant, then by God he would do it himself.
He jumped in his dad's boat, rode across the Penton Firth and made his way south to face

(08:42):
this powerful warlord.
Well Tuscur must have underestimated this wee boy because somehow the tyrant fell to
his blade, adding insult to injury.
Though arcadian chopped off the tyrant's head, strapped it to the man's own saddle, then
stole the horse to shorten his journey home.
However, as he rode off all the bumpy track, Tuscur's famous protruding tooth rubbed into

(09:05):
the young boy's thigh and it rubbed and rubbed into the open wound that became quickly infected.
He survived long enough to make it to Kirkwall, stand up in the centre of town, throw the severed
head into the massing crowds.
Very prompt to collapse and die.
Your cadian mob were so furious that they kicked the head up and down the street in a rage.
And mass, mass, the whole ballgame began.

(09:28):
Wow, so there you go, the ballgame.
Fancy a wee, do we round that next time you're up in Orkney?
No, no thanks.
I'm too pretty.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm not as pretty as you and I'm still too pretty.
Yeah, I mean, there was a photograph of some, just like a load of guys in rugby tops and

(09:51):
various different team strips and stuff, just like crushed together.
You just know that they've been looking forward to this in September.
And they've just been training eating raw eggs, punching brick walls.
Just fucking, taking steroids.
I guess it's the sort of game, I think, that you really need to have a few pints first.

(10:12):
Yeah, you know what I mean?
Yeah, so you don't feel, you're loose and you don't feel the blows.
So you're feeling a bit gallous and you're ready to get stuck in.
I think the only way I could be convinced to even get on the kind of fringe of a game
like that is if I had a few pints on me.

(10:33):
Yeah, the ball game.
So yeah, that's my first odd Scottish Hogmanay tradition, but cheetahs up with some amusing
Scottish news that you found in the papers.
Well, I'd say amusing Scottish news.
Well, I have, I've got one amusing one or one Hogmanay one.
I kind of feel I should do the Hogmanay one to link in.

(10:56):
Okay, to yours, but it's okay, I will.
It's called it is from the Scottish sun this week and the headline is holiday hatred.
I hate Hogmanay.
It's been forced upon me because I'm Scottish, says BBC Legend.
So yeah, a BBC legend says that she hates Hogmanay and feels it's been forced upon her
as a Scott.
She said she has stopped celebrating the occasion after repeatedly being told that it's

(11:17):
the biggest night in a year.
Curse Day Young says she hates the holiday and instead of making a big deal, she prefers
to sit with her husband and go to bed at midnight.
Miss Young 56, she told that when there's a will, there's a wake podcast, I don't like
New Year.
I think it's because I'm a Scott.
I think it's some of those kind of forced New Year's eaves.
You're absolutely forced that this is the biggest night of the year.

(11:39):
And you know, it's like when you go to the biggest party, it's the worst party.
Describing the evening as forced enjoyment, she added, now you could also say Christmas
is kind of forced enjoyment.
I'll take that.
Yeah, Christie's a laugh.
I'm in it.
It's not a watertight argument, but there is something about New Year.
I like to sit with my husband, have a whiskey, a glass of champagne and I'm in my bed

(12:01):
by quarter past 12.
I don't like it.
I don't like the forced jollyty.
I'm with you on that, Christie.
I don't like forced fun.
Also, I feel quite poignant about New Year.
It's a time when I'm sitting thinking about what's gone.
On the podcast hosted by Kathy Burke, they discuss how they would like to die and the
arrangements that they would like to make for their funeral.
Miss Young said she wanted to take that dressed in leather chaps to carry her coffee.

(12:25):
She said that in an ideal world, she'd like to be naked inside the coffee before realizing
that she would need one more poll-bearer, so she selected Lenny Craven's to fill the void.
You know, I mean, you could say that.
How would I...
We wouldn't get away with that, and well, I'd like the spice girls to carry my coffee.

(12:46):
You need one more.
Oh, okay.
I'll take this with them.
You know, you can't like that.
Miss Young was born in East Coast, Bright, South Atlanticshire, but moved to London when
her career took off in the 90s.
In 2018, she stepped down from desert island discs after 12 years, having had a crying pain
condition and rheumatoid arthritis diagnosed.
That's a shitty end to this story.

(13:07):
So yeah, Krusty Young doesn't like New Year Greg.
It's forced fun.
How do we feel about Hogmaney?
I mean, how do you feel about it?
I'm not.
I'm not like...
I was used to be the highlight, didn't I?
Well, yeah, I mean, look.
Because I've worked in hospitality my whole life, there's always been...
I've either been working on Hogmaney or I was working the day after.

(13:28):
So that's it.
Not that it ever stopped me.
I think sort of these days, you know, even here, like my wife said, we should do something
for Hogmaney.
We never do anything.
And I'm like, well, what do you want to do?
Do you not mean like, because I haven't gone out for Hogmaney since New Year's Eve 2002.
That was, like, literally the last time I went out for Hogmaney.

(13:52):
I've enjoyed gatherings in people's houses and flats since then, but I'm not going out.
And it does feel like, well, there's pressure to do something.
I'm quite happy just watching the BBC on a telly and having a few drinks and seeing the
bells and like, that, I know, maybe I'm in the second half of my 40s and I sound like

(14:16):
a fucking bone and a cunt, but I just, you know, when I was younger, you know, we, you
know, we used to, we, we had some fun, you know, in the sort of, early, early 2000s.
But these days, I'm kind of with Kirsty, you know, I'm just tired, Nikki.
Just tired all the time.
Yeah.
It means staying up after 10 o'clock.

(14:38):
Oh, I know.
It's a struggle.
It's a struggle.
What about you?
I mean, obviously, you're, you've stayed in and kept your, your pal Bobby company, the late
Bobby or pal, because you know, a fan of fireworks like as old dogs aren't a fan of fireworks.
Yeah.
Well, they just, they didn't scare them.

(14:59):
You just fucking annoyed them.
Yeah.
So you used to go to the window of barks.
So yeah, I'd say the last, I mean, I haven't been out in Hope-Bony for the last like eight,
nine years because I had Bobby and I, I actually prefer just to stay in with them.
Yeah.
And keep him company.
Unfortunately, he passed away in September.
So this is my first new year that I don't have him.

(15:20):
But I get, get back from Dubai and there it is.
So I'm probably going to be knackered.
So I, I don't think I'm going to be doing much Mike around our friends house.
I'll wait and see.
Um, don't know.
And then yeah, and then I've got, like, I've got a tattoo appointment booked on the second
day at 11 a.m.
So I'm not going to be drinking.
I don't want to be, because I always rolls into the first, doesn't it?

(15:41):
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
Drinking and then the first end up having a few drinks and stuff.
So I, I kind of would rather just stay sober and maybe have a drum, but yeah, I think I,
I quite like this thought of just sitting in and watching the BBC.
Although it's a bit weird.
I mean, it's even weirder for you, but for me, because it's an hour behind.
So like the bells are going off and I'm watching Queen of the New Year or whatever.

(16:02):
I don't know if that's on this year.
Actually, I hope not, because it was fucking shite last year.
Um, so, but yeah.
And then I think I've done that last couple of new years.
Like I've just ended up staying up and watching Joe's Holland.
Yeah.
And before you realize it to you in the morning, you're like, like, that's fine.
I've, I've done my bit and go to bed.

(16:22):
Well, one of the, one of the, I mean, if you, if you downloaded this podcast for fun,
Hogmini chat, maybe just stay tuned, just stay tuned for true and the fat.
But, um, one of the, one of the best Hogmini's that I've had was my wife and I were both
working in the same restaurant for a while.
She was working part time and I was managing it and she was pregnant with her oldest daughter.

(16:47):
She'd been about two and a half months pregnant and the restaurant would close at six o'clock
on Hogmini.
So by the time we kind of cleaned up and everything, she, she sort of hung onto the end, let
everyone else get away and stuff.
So by the time we'd sort of cleaned up cashed up and stuff, it was, and got home, it was
about half eight.
So we had a quick bite to eat and somebody had lent us the first season of prison

(17:09):
break on DVD and we'd, we'd been watching it.
They'd been watching like an episode or two and night and we had a TV and a DVD player in
the bedroom.
So like, just go to bed and watch a bit of prison break, always.
So we're sitting in bed completely engrossed in prison break.
Like, we just watched another one, yes, they can all on.
And then suddenly there's like fireworks going off outside and then we completely forgot

(17:31):
it.
It was Hogmini.
I was like, fuck, it's going on, but I was like, oh yeah, it's, you're your Zeeve.
So we just said there'll be Bailey's watch on the episode of the prison break and then went
to sleep.
Oh, lovely.
Got to spend it with Wentworth Miller.
We did.
We did.
Lovely wait.
I see.
Wentworth Miller in that guy who did the baddie, who's been a baddie in everything ever since,
you know, his name Robert Nipper, as well, his name.

(17:52):
Oh yeah.
T-bagged.
Yeah.
Prison break was good.
The first season was good.
Yeah, it sort of like, it can all us its way after the second season started, but the
first?
Yeah.
The first season was brilliant.
I had everything.
It was gripping.
It was the next episode because every episode ended on Cliffhanger.
That's right.
Great cast.
I was in love with them, the doctor, Sarah Wayne, Colise.

(18:15):
Yeah.
It was a great show.
Absolutely.
Loved it, but yeah, it did lose its way.
The fear bit.
The second season was okay, but that was them on the run.
And then the third one, they were in like a Mexican prisoner or something.
Yeah.
That was a little bit weird.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyway, so yeah, that's it.
Yeah.
Happy our love for you, Zeeve.
Hey.

(18:37):
Right.
Anyway, so that's Kirsty Young hates new year.
What else have you seen this week, Greg?
Okay, so I'll come on to my next unusual Scottish, or maybe let's say unusual, I'll say unique
Scottish Hugmanay tradition.
So this one, and I have posted pictures of this a few years ago when we sent out a little
happy Hugmanay or happy new year message on our Instagram, but it's the Stonehaven Fireballs.

(19:02):
So Stonehaven is a town just south of Aberdeen on the northeast coast of Scotland.
When you mention local Hugmanay traditions, a lot of people in Scotland will think about
the Stonehaven Fireballs.
Once midnight's passed, the entertainment starts in the streets of Stonehaven.
About 45 locals march down the streets, swinging huge balls of flames around their head

(19:28):
on a bit of wire.
Both men and women take part, they're always longstanding residents of the town.
Each person makes their own ball, with closely guarded family recipes passed down from generation
to generation to make sure it burns brightly and crucially for long enough.
If somebody's fireball burned out before the climax, they'd never be able to show their face

(19:50):
in Stonehaven again.
It takes 10 to 20 minutes to make it down to the harbor, where the fireballs are given
in the last few swings before being launched into the sea.
Think of it as a mix between a bonfire, Hugmanay and the Highland Games, merging together under
the gaze of thousands of spectators.
Like most fire festivals, the flames symbolise cleansing the streets and ridding the town of

(20:15):
malicious spirits for the new year.
Dumping the fireballs into the harbor amongst efficient boats, no doubt helped protect
the locals livelihood, especially since fishermen are amongst the most superstitious people.
As far as written documentation goes, the celebration might only go back around 150 years.
Today, the shape march down the street from light in the fireball to launching it into

(20:38):
the water.
However, early records show people sometimes only swung a few yards at a time before dropping
the steel blazing cage outside their mates house to go in for the drink.
Depending on how many friends you had, it could take a long time to get down the street
to the harbor.
But then again, that's what Scottish Hugmanay traditions are all about.

(21:01):
Stopping in to wish the best of your neighbours.
So have you ever, I've never seen the Stonehaven fireballs in person, I've seen them on the
TV a lot of times.
Have you ever, you ever go over there for that?
No, never.
No, I've always a way to exist and always see the photos in the paper and the…
It was always on the news every year, but no, I've never actually seen it in person.

(21:22):
No.
It's a very cool one I think.
Which is a shame, because it is, yeah, it is a big phenomenon and it's 20 minutes away
from Aberdeen, so…
Yeah.
…should off, but then it's always the logistics of getting there and getting back,
because no one wants to drive a new year's eve to the…
No, exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
…it's a bit of a tricky one, but yeah.

(21:43):
Or otherwise, then you're stuck in Stonehaven.
That's an expensive taxi back to Aberdeen on New Year's Eve.
But yeah, no, it is meant to be an incredible sight though.
Yeah, I mean, certainly, what I've seen on the TV and stuff, I mean, I think the BBC Scotland's
have had cameras there a few times on a Hugman A, and they've sort of broadcast live

(22:04):
from there as part of their Hugman A celebrations on the BBC, but yeah, I think it was always
thought it was quite a cool one, and you, I mean, the guys that, particularly the guys, I
mean, they are at the article said that they'd used to it too, and have no reason to not believe
that, but the guys that I've seen are absolute units that are swinging them around, must
be heavy, so that was fucking massive.

(22:25):
You gotta be so careful.
Yeah.
You gotta be swinging them in a ball of flame around you, aren't you?
Yeah, them, there must be accidents every year that just don't go reported or something.
There has to be.
Has to be, perhaps.
So anyway, that's my second unique Scottish Hugman A New Year's Eve tradition, but what,

(22:46):
which your next piece of news for this week?
So this isn't New Year-related Greg, but I just find the article amusing because there
was just a few amusing quotes in it.
This is from the Scottish Sun this week, and the headline is "Clucking Hell".
A man says he feels shocked and betrayed after being hit with a £100 parking fine for spending
too long eating a meal at KFC.

(23:09):
Gordon Tee, 51, was enjoying a meal at the popular fast food chain with his nine-year-old
daughter, until he left the premises to find a parking ticket on his car-win screen.
The notice was issued by Creative Car Park, the private company in charge at the branch.
Gordon, of Beers Den, told the Glasgow Times, "I've never had a notice like this before.
I felt shocked and betrayed.

(23:31):
It was supposed to be a great day, but I had a shocking experience that left me outraged.
I intended to enjoy a meal with my daughter.
Little did I know I was walking into a trap."
Gordon's building this up a little bit too much.
There's somebody having an upturned KFC bucket on top of a door, so we'd push the fell

(23:54):
on a mouse trap style.
Gordon entered the car park at 4.49pm and left at 6.06pm on November 3rd, meaning he overstayed
the 60-minute parking limit by 17 minutes.
The parking charge notice was for £100, which was reduced to £60, as Gordon paid within
14 days.
Gordon said he was completely unaware of the time limit before adding an hour is not enough

(24:18):
time in a restaurant.
He added, "60 minutes is just absurd.
KFC, slow.
It's not enough time.
I'm not alone in this ordeal, and I know I'm not the only one who is suffrage from this
time limit ordeal.
Numerous people have fallen victim to these tactics.
Something has to change."

(24:40):
The rest, Gordon said he will never go into a KFC ever again.
He is boycott in KFC.
They don't own the car park.
It's run by a private company.
The rest of the article is basically the car park people saying it's the time limit.
It's an hour, you know, that should be enough time.
It's a fast food restaurant.
It should be fine.
KFC have said, "Look, an external company operates the car park.

(25:02):
They do have parking limits, which helps keep our business running smooth."
That said, we know that this guest hasn't had a great experience, so we'd encourage them
to get in touch so we can help make things right, which I think is a nice gesture from KFC.
Now, I would ask an hour in KFC.
That's surely plenty of time, isn't it?
Plenty of time.
Plenty of time.
But also, these private car parks.

(25:23):
I don't think you have to pay them.
I think you can just help me fuck off.
Yeah, I think so too.
That's what I, yeah, I'm sure I've heard that as well.
I'm pretty sure that you don't actually have to pay.
They don't have like a legal, I don't know what legal right they would have to demand money
of you, you know, like it's not that you sign a contract when you park the car to say
that, you know, and especially now when more and more car parks are like number plate

(25:44):
recognition and stuff like that, you don't even get a ticket.
So it's not like you're signing a contract to say, "I'm not going to stay in this car park
longer than 60 minutes."
So with a guy that's going to take him a court for fucking 60 quid, I think I'd be telling
them to fuck right off.
Well, there's a photo of Gordon standing next to a sign which says "Max-Mongparking Terms
Apply, See Car Park Signs or Terms and Editions, Private Land."

(26:08):
So I guess they're saying that this is private land.
There might be something in the terms and additions that as you enter this car park,
you are effectively agreeing that you will pay us if you stay over 60 minutes.
There might be something written in that, but I don't know if that would stand up in court.
It's their obligation to make it clear.
I don't think it's Gordon's obligation to read it, you know what I mean?

(26:31):
So fuck them.
Do you think that Gordon was overreacting a bit saying that he walked into a trap and that
I'm not alone in this ordeal?
Ordeal?
I'm not the only one who has suffered.
Newspapers people have fallen victim to these tactics.
Like...
I bet it catches loads of people out, but I don't know if loads of people are spending an hour

(26:55):
in KFC.
Kinsie slow Greg apparently.
I think he's laying it on a bit thick, trying to get his £60 back.
I mean, is Gordon someone who looks like he visits KFC regularly?
No, he doesn't.
Are you inferring if he's a larger gentleman?
I'm just asking if he looks like somebody who could take better care of himself.

(27:17):
No, Gordon looks like he takes care of himself.
He's standing there and he's standing next to the parking sign.
He's got his arms folded in that angry, you know.
I mean business.
He's making a very serious looking face.
No, Gordon looks like he takes care of himself.
Like he looks in good neck.
Doesn't look like he would frequent KFC often.
But they fucked it because he says he'll never eat at KFC ever again.

(27:38):
No, well, you know, that's not really the case that we at KFC's fault, I suppose, it's
not the car park, but I'm sure this way, we're a bit about, was the KFC, did you say?
Darnly, Darnly in Glasgow, South of Glasgow.
Nits Hill Road.
I'm sure it's better places to go than KFC then there.
Gordon, I'll have to find some new places now.

(28:00):
But yeah, have you ever boycotted anything?
I've just petting us.
Well, I mean, my wife made the scribe as petting us.
I would maybe describe it as principle.
But yeah, if I've, like, especially here, if, you know, if we went somewhere last night,
because it was my sister and my brother and law were here for the week.

(28:21):
I mean, last night was our last night, they were leaving midnight, so we went for some dinner
in a pub called Phillyis Fogs.
And you fucking did a glutton for a punish, wait, this is a third time.
I know, you've moond about this place in like three episodes.
No, right, okay, so, well, for people who are keeping a close eye on it, the draft beer
is still off.

(28:43):
I asked the waiter last night, I said, "What, when do you think of the, do you have any idea
when, when it's coming back?"
It seems to be off for a long time and he said, "Oh, it's coming back on next week," can
I say?
So, you told me like two months ago last night, I was here.
It's coming back on next week.
But yeah, there was, there was seven of us and he came over and sat taking a drink, so

(29:04):
there, he took like mine, my brother and the wife's drink order and then walked off.
I had to go and get him and say, "You're going to come back and finish taking the order?"
Yeah, it was just, it just wasn't a good experience.
I said to Paul, I said, "I'm not going back there until they sort this shit out."
You know what I am?
They don't know.
Principled stand.
I still paid full price.
There were various issues, just like my daughters, both my daughters, then her speed and freezing

(29:28):
cold, haven't it send them back?
Like, the food sort of arrived in piece meals, opposed to all that once.
Had to, my meal didn't come.
Had to ask for it.
It came about 15 minutes after everybody else's, nobody came over and said anything, nobody
even apologized and I'm y'all came out and I just thought, "Fuck it."
I mean, my brother and I was paying, or I might have made, I might have kicked off a bit

(29:48):
more.
But I just said, "My wife, we're not going back there."
It's not worth it.
It's, you know, it's not the most expensive place here by any stretch, but it's not cheap
either.
It's other places.
I'm not giving them any money, any more money until they sort themselves out, so.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was me, that's, but it's not petty.
It's principled.

(30:09):
Yeah.
No, that's fine.
I think that's fair enough.
I understand that.
That's okay.
Yeah, maybe, maybe you can explain that to my wife when you see her, if you see her this
week.
It's not petty, it's principled.
It's not.
It's principled.
No, I agree with you on that.
I'm on board with you.
Yeah.
It's fine, I would say.
So.
Yeah.
I'd be the same.

(30:30):
I can't think off the top of my head, but I know for a fact that our places I boy-court
are petty, that's fine.
I can't, I can't think of an example because obviously it's just deep and grained in me.
I do know that after I left TGI Fridays, I swore I would never have worked.
I'd never go in set-foot in a TGI Fridays ever again as long as I lived and I thankfully
haven't been to this day.
Yeah.
We have.
Have I?

(30:50):
Yeah, we had a, we had a paint and TGI Fridays with the beach before we went to see
Kalebel too.
I did, we?
Yeah.
Oh, fuck, yeah.
See, you fucked up.
Shit.
I fucked it.
Fuck.
Bastard.
Oh, well, never mind.
Yeah.
Another place is, you know, like I've worked for an insurance company, so I would never have
insurance with that company ever again.
Yeah.
Stuff probably to spite, but, yeah, I can't think of an example, but I'm sure there's

(31:14):
very many petty ones that I've done over the years.
I was thinking they were you were talking, was there any pubs in Aberdeen that we just wouldn't
go into, not because they were like, big boys, pubs, and feel like hard guys and dodgy,
just because, or just like, they're so shite, we're not going in there.
I would never go into slain, yes, because, because I've heard some finger in there, not just

(31:41):
that.
Oh, I, yeah, that's right.
It was a bit more than that, wasn't it?
It was pumping behind the bootcase.
I, no, I just wouldn't go into slains because it was fucking shite.
I can't think, maybe I was never a big fan of like, O'Neill's.
No, for some reason, but it wasn't like anything hatred.
I never really liked triple curks either, but I would go in there, few guys were in there

(32:05):
with, with, spoken about that.
Yeah.
But I don't think there was any pubs who just be like, I'm not going in there, it's fucking
shit.
I remember, though, there was ECs that we, they, after reopened on Union Street at a refurb,
and I remember going in and they were selling on draft, it was, it must be in a Scottish
new castle pub because in draft, they had McEwan's in Miller, and I was like, I'm fucking,

(32:29):
if that's all the lagger they've got, I'm fucking not going in there.
So I thought, I'm fucking, though I fucking hate those beers.
I think there is a two worse choices.
I know.
I'd Cronenburg to that.
And that would be a nice one.
Well, Cronenburg was the premium lagger.
So I was just like, I'm not going in there.
RSVP, when I realised that it was whole garden, and that was what they were pushing

(32:53):
because I might have, it wasn't sophisticated enough for whole garden.
I fucking not going in there.
Yeah, it was another one that I would do anything to avoid going into.
They're probably the two main ones.
They tilted Wig, but I had gone in there once and had a really, really nice steak pie, and
then I was telling somebody about it and it told me that it was a gay pub.

(33:14):
So I just never went back in there again.
I might be like, why did that put you off?
Because I was in my early 20s and not very, not very worldly, so they are for quite homophobic.
Obviously, as I've matured and stuff, I've left those attitudes behind, but at the time
I was like, well, I don't care how good the steak pie is, I've gone in there again.

(33:37):
You've been fucking horrified.
I remember once getting a steak pie from the illicit still, and I was pretty much just finished
it.
And I noticed on the corner of my plate, there was a pub.
And I...
Do you imagine if that was the steak pie yet in the till?
And then when the waiter came over to collect our plates, he was like, is everything okay?

(33:58):
And I just pointed it at the pub and went, I didn't fancy the extra pub, but it was all
like, thanks.
And he looked a bit horrified and then laughed and then just walked away.
I never got it, like, popped or anything though.
No apologies.
No, no apologies.
I guess because I made a joke out of it.
If I'd kicked off, then probably would have got it for free, but because I made a joke
about the extra pub, it was, yeah.

(34:19):
It was just...
So, yeah, did you ever, before you started, before you started not going in, did you ever have
some food in Slein's castle and get, like, a sort of, fine, like, an ginger pub?
Yeah.
No.
What?
No.
No, I didn't.
I didn't realise it was in the kitchen, because they stayed on top of the cleaning lens.

(34:41):
Fuck sake, I'm supposed to edit this episode quite quickly.
You're giving me a lot of drama here that I need to cut out.
Um, no.
Definitely didn't fight.
I don't think I have radio Slein's, no.
Um, Frankenstein's as well.
That was another one that I wasn't really a big fan of.
No.
I once, I accidentally, like, knocked my glass over in Slein's and it fell from the kind of

(35:02):
top floor onto the mezzanine floor and smashed on the table where somebody was having a meal,
which was a bit embarrassing.
Oh.
Yeah.
Shit.
That wasn't a good day.
It was a pure act.
It was, like, it was in the middle of the day, it wasn't even like, you know, I wasn't,
I wasn't pished around anything.
I was in there in my own.
It wasn't even a wager.
I think I'd have like a pint of coke or something.

(35:22):
You want to try to do a begby?
No, not at all.
I'm still managed to ruin somebody's afternoon.
No, terrible.
No, you do that a lot, Greg.
I ruin people's after this.
I will.
They joking.
Okay, so yeah, so that is, um, pro-gordon.
Yeah.
And it's KFC, but he's boy-cutting them from now on.
Um, have you seen anything else this week, Greg?
No, just to say that some of the other, most of the other sort of Scottish regional hug

(35:50):
mini, said the Brazians quite a lot of them involve fire, funny enough.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Yeah, there's the, I'm not going to describe it, but there's the, there's the, there's
the comrie flambo in comrie.
There's the, the famous one, of course, is, um, is, um, the burning of the clavvy in, uh,

(36:12):
Orcney again, where they, it's a sort of viking.
No, it's not the burning of the clavvy.
Uh, that is in four dices in, um, shetlands up hellia where they set fire to the viking ship.
We saw it when we covered Shetland.
Um, yeah.
The, the story, uh, sort of was, they had that in the background, didn't they?
And so yeah, but I mean, I think what we've learned is that in Scotland and Hugby,

(36:34):
Nee as well as we, we like to get pitched and set things on fire in the name of tradition.
So there you go.
Eight steak pie and bring lumps of coal round to your neighbors.
Yeah.
I do quite like that.
I do like the first thing.
I, yeah, I always like that.
Like I've said in the podcast before, like my mother, but as soon as I was a teenager and

(36:55):
the sort of tallest one in the house, my mother would be standing outside until like five
past twelve, yeah, with a coal, with a, with a, a, a coal and a bottle of whiskey.
And that's so I could be the first foot because I had to be like a tall, dark stranger.
And obviously we didn't have a stranger.
So I was the next best thing.
Tall, dark teenager.
Um, it's a bit of a role play with your mum, Greg.

(37:18):
Yeah.
No, we do have some lovely traditions.
Yeah.
I think it is a lovely thing that, um, we do, but you're right.
A lot of DC to involve setting things on fire.
I guess that's maybe, there must be some deep, rooted thing about burning away the
sins of the last year or something.
Yeah.
Going into the new year, I guess.
Yeah.
Um, and the only other thing is like whatever our favourites, maybe even our second favourite,

(37:41):
Scottish actor after Cosmo, uh, Brian Cox is, uh, has resolved to spend a lot more time
in Scotland now that, um, the Donald Trump has been reelected in America, um, much like
Tommy Flanagan on an earlier episode.
We can look forward to maybe seeing a bit more of Brian out and about.
Yeah, I think there's a definite trend going to be occurring there.

(38:02):
Yeah.
I think that's definitely going to be happening.
So yeah, it's like Brian, yeah, welcome back anytime.
Absolutely.
So, um, well, I was going to say, I forgot about our sponsor, they know it's about to say,
it's your turn to choose, but of course we need to have a word from our Dorick skateboards.
So take it away.
We do, yeah.
So take it away, record it, Mickey, up a few months ago.

(38:24):
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(39:56):
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And that's DorickSkateboards.com, link in the description of this episode.
Oh, okay Greg, so it was your choice, this Hogmanay on what we're going to be covering on
this episode.
So why do you tell us what we're going to be talking about today?
So, our choice for this Hogmanay episode is something that didn't start out as a Hogmanay

(40:16):
tradition.
It became, I think, maybe a brief Hogmanay tradition, I think, after Scottish and Rai came to an
end and stuff, and it's very much in the tradition of a Hogmanay sketch shows like Scottish and
Rai, or Naked Video, which we covered two years, three years ago, we did Naked Video.

(40:37):
Yeah, so of course I'm talking about Shrew and the Fat, classic Hogmanay sketch show, starring
Ford Kearlin and Greg Hempel, who were on our very, very first episode of the Culture
Swalloway when we covered still game.
The live show, not the TV series, Caron Dunbar, Paul Raiway, Mark Cox, started off as a radio

(41:01):
series on BBC Radio 1 before being picked up by BBC One Scotland.
The first series was in 1999.
The last series was in February 2002, but we did get five New Year's Eve specials from
it, the year 2000 to 2005.

(41:23):
So you and I had a wee chat about Shrew and the Fat, I think, off it, not recorded, and you
have said that, you know, not a super fan of Shrew and the Fat, is that still the case
after watching some best of us for this episode?
I would say yes.
I did.

(41:43):
Look, I appreciate Shrew and the Fat for what it is.
And did I enjoy it at the time?
Yes, it was very funny.
It was at that time, you know, it ran from 1999 to 2000 with New Year's specials until 2005.
So it was very much of that time, I hate to lump it in with it, but like little Britain,
you know, so comedy was a bit different and tune the Fat did have on watching these best

(42:06):
of us and watching a lot more clips.
It is a show that does employ a lot of catchphrases.
Yes.
And some of those are still recorded, you know, Gunn and O.D. that, good guy, Wank.
I'm on the night shift, you know.
A couple of fannies, the Ice-Mail-Shite, there's loads that you could go into.
And so it is very catchphrase, heavy and it did enter kind of that area of the time, you

(42:28):
know, people would go round quoting little Britain, you know, I don't like it or, you know,
I'm a lady.
In the same way, I remember I used to work with a guy at the Athol, Gordon.
He was like in this early 20s and he would, every shift, he would just come up to me and
whisper in my ear in Ronald Villiers voice, "Wedding him in pump."
And it just kind of, just maybe burst out laughing.

(42:52):
So there was, it is funny, I did laugh when watching these best of us and there was sketches
I laughed at.
Was it nostalgia?
Possibly.
There are a couple of sketches in the episodes you've watched that are absolutely hilarious.
However, it is no surprise that my favourite sketch out of all tune of that and all the episodes
you've watched was written by Raab Florence and Ian Cornel.

(43:14):
Right.
And who went on and that is why I'll come on to this later but I do love tune the fat because
if there was no tune the fat, there'd be no burnist.
Yeah.
And that is why I can't help but like tune the fat because I fucking love burnist.
But we're not talking about burnist the day but I will talk about it a little bit later
on.
It was a very stressful show.

(43:35):
There's no doubt about that and it did replace that kind of exactly as you've said,
Scotch and Ride, there was missing a gap.
In Scotland I think we have a very rich vein of sketch comedy and it's something that
I don't think we get enough praise for.
You go back to naked video as you've said in Scotch and Ride only in excuse.
Okay, that sketch is about a specific topic but it's still a sketch show.

(43:57):
You had absolutely.
Yeah.
And then later you had tune the fat and then I think on the back of that you had burnist
and limmy's show as well.
Yeah.
I think is the kind of holy, the holy, what's the word, not trifecta but the holy amalgamation
of Scotch sketch comedy.
We have a very rich vein of that and I think it shows that some of those shows, especially

(44:22):
naked video you had a spin off, Rapsy Nespin, you know, was the breakout star and same as
tune the fat.
You know, without that we'd have no still game, no Jack and Victor and I adore still game.
I don't know, some of the jokes are a little bit obvious but some are very funny and I
was laughing a lot in some of the sketches here but I wonder if it was nostalgia more than

(44:44):
finding it absolutely hilarious.
I mean, I think, you know, I think with the difference between, I was never a big fan
of a little Britain really and I think there's, there's like a, they can have fun the
mental difference between tune the fat and that little Britain is that although tune the
fat, they make fun of a lot of sort of stereotypes, you know, or they subverse stereotypes.

(45:10):
So you've got like the neds, you know, rap and clinch, or you've got, you know, the old,
the old lady whose memories are all that sex or whatever.
But to me, and maybe it's just because it's from Scotland and I'm kind of predisposed
to feel this way but it always felt more affectionate whereas brass, I, you know, brass,

(45:32):
I, um, little Britain because sometimes feel a bit nasty, you know what I mean?
And, you know, and I just thought the way that they send people up in that little Britain,
you know, it's not done with the same kind of affection as tune the fat, you know what
I mean?
Because like the characters in tune the fat, the either get the up, the either come out

(45:53):
and top or they get their come-up and and that never really, didn't really feel the same
with it Britain.
So I never really, I mean, I, I, I already watched a few episodes of it.
I didn't really like it that much.
Um, but, you know, which tune the fat, I remember first seeing it just by chance really when
it was first shown, the first series was first shown and I watched a few episodes and I

(46:13):
quite liked it but I really, really enjoyed the second series that a friend of mine had
on DVD and we would come back from the pub and watch it.
And I guess we were young, so it's like 22, 23, something like that and it was just fun to
come back from the pub and just laugh at all this absurdity, you know what I mean?
I think you're, you're very right.

(46:34):
Looking back now, little Britain was incredibly offensive because it was offensive to a whole
host of people.
Just off the top of my head, some of the most famous sketches, you know, you're taking
the piss out of homosexuality, disabled, yeah, agents, you know, fat people, I, I, I, I,
I called it fat obese.
Yeah, um, West Indian people.

(46:54):
Yeah, West Indian people.
Um, transgender people, it was taken a piss at that.
Tune the fat is uniquely Scottish in that it's taken a piss at a Scots, but in a humorous
way, there's no malice intendedness.
It's, it's funny.
And that's what I think makes us unique in a way our Scots are capable of laughing at ourselves.
Yeah.

(47:15):
And, and seeing the funny part.
And there's so many characters in tune the fat, maybe that's why I don't find it so funny
because it is so real because these characters do exist.
And, you know, if I can imagine a lot of maybe English or American people not getting the
human in tune the fact because they don't recognize those characters, but we all know a big
joke.
Yeah.

(47:36):
And there are a lot of characters that have come from this that are very dear to my heart
in a way.
There's a lot of characters I don't like.
Yeah.
And the, the two guys in the electrical shop, like those sketches do my tits and I'm not a
big fan of old Betty either.
No.
It's, okay, it's funny one time, but then when she's going on about just getting pumped by
Americans, it's like, okay, I don't really get the joke.

(47:59):
But stuff like Rabma Glenshi is fucking hilarious.
You know, he is absolutely top drawer.
And the Jack and Victor sketches were always great, which is of course, why?
Yeah, it's still game.
I think became such a success.
There are other ones like I do like Harry, Linda and George, like I do, and you're right.
And that's the whole point.
Like is it George?
No, Harry gets his comeuppance, you know, eventually that he's always the, he's a prick,

(48:22):
but he's always the one that is the butt of the joke in the end of the sketch.
Just exactly as you say he does get his comeuppance in the end.
I think, I think the, the, the, the sort of company of actors in this and the writers, I think
This is the strength of it is that I for character.
And because you touched on it before,

(48:43):
they are all familiar.
Jacque and Victor could be anybody who was born
after 1975 grandads.
You know what I mean?
If they were born in the west of Scotland.
You know there's a real sort of oneness, authenticity to them.
And there was one, there was one that really...

(49:03):
One of the dead that wasn't a sort of recurring series of characters.
But they did one of these, a spoof, fly in the wall,
sort of a documentary.
They can be in a second series called The Bulls.
Set around the bowling club in Glasgow.
(Laughter)
And there's, you know, there's a wee bit of that still game

(49:23):
comedy of like old people misbehaving.
They getting up to mischief where they, you know,
as they're doing still game.
And I remember seeing it and just thinking it was the funniest thing.
And it's not even so much the premise.
It's more this, it's the characters and some of the sort of offhand things they say.

(49:45):
Like the one, the bit in that that always sticks out to me is Mark Riley plays
the bowling club chef and he's doing the meal.
He's got a five-king in his mouth and... (Laughter)
Karen Dunbar plays, she plays Agnes.
She's like the club secretary.
And she sees him coming and she says,
"Well, that's a good ad there, that's it."

(50:08):
Like, smoking all over the sausage rolls.
And he says, "Do you want to cook them yourself, darling?"
And she turns to the camera and goes, "I don't know."
Did you see the cover of his horns?
And he's just... (Laughter)
It's that little sort of detail in there,
just that little throwaway line.
I just thought it was so, so funny because it just sort of reminded me of things

(50:32):
that I didn't even really know.
Do you know what I mean?
It just all seemed so familiar and so true to life.
I mean, I think like when this is good, you know,
and you're absolutely right, it's hitting this,
true in the fact.
And especially when you get into the third and fourth series
and some of the New Year's Eve specials, it's very hitting this.

(50:52):
But where it really works is when they really nail the characters
that they're impersonating or sending up, you know?
There are, yeah, there are parts where I did burst out laughing.
And it's, you're right, it's throwaway lines
that you're just like, "Why is that so funny?"
But it is.
The one that really got me...
I mean, my favorite tune, "The Fat Sketch" is in this,

(51:14):
the two episodes you've watched, but I'll come back to that.
But the one I really laughed was when it's forward
to doing the QSC, the home shop in the channel.
And he's got the poor son Elvis and toilet.
He's got the lighter and it's just, it's the throwaway light.
Of course, you've got Greg and his ear going,
"You are what an arse where you are."
And it's the way Greg delivers the light, like,

(51:35):
"Get lighter or for a friend, to enjoy the fact."
[laughter]
Right, okay, what we have here is the Pomoni cigarette lighter.
What, what, you've got to feel 40 bucks?
Look at that gorgeous sort of maroon colored enamel on there.
That's a beautiful piece of work that.
And what can you say about this?
Well, it's good for lighting cigarettes anytime, anywhere,
anytime you're pleased, in fact, because...
That's wonderful, Richard. You can light fangs with it.

(51:56):
Okay, what else can we say about the Pomoni lighter?
Well, let's say all the lights go out in your house,
which is always the trouble.
And you want to try and find the fuse box.
This is all you guys going to get you there.
What's the arse? Oh, you are.
I was just going to help you.
Those lighting problems.
Monogram, of course.
If you want to put a monogram on a thing like this,
of course you can, a little go bar on the front there.
You'll put your own name, or your loved ones name,

(52:18):
or indeed a friend who enjoys a fag, or something like that,
and then...
And come on, you start a regret.
And of course, if you have a thread hanging off your jumper
or something, you could burn it off with this,
and then you're sorted.
John is out in the break.
The little lines like that, that just...
And when they have the...
When they've got the big man in,

(52:40):
with the open all lines to call the big man.
And again, it's car and done bar for these...
Like, this bent next door.
Just because I was... Just because I was blasting Daddy O G
for you in the morning.
(LAUGHS)
Just...
Transport you back.
Just the mention of Daddy O G, just fuck it.
Hello, big man. I like a strong man like you.

(53:03):
Flare's like pushing the boat in a big man.
So she'll throw a one-door.
That's bent next door, called me a bitch,
because I was blasting Daddy O G to three in the morning,
but it was a party.
Well, I see next door calls you a bitch,
and you'll talk to me in a phone.
She'd be flying in a monster with a claw and a hammer.
(LAUGHTER)
That's why you asked big man about his boyfriend,
the gangster, Davey something for Juck Street.

(53:25):
Davey for Juck Street, a gangster.
That way Dick thinks he's a gangster.
Davey, keep your watch in me.
I'm going to meet my wee boy, a brand new saddle
for his bike out of your ass, Juck Street.
(LAUGHTER)
That's the one that is real.
You still put him in a hole, boy.
And see if his Davey areas his head.
You can phone a big man in his mobile.
It's like, no, I know gear in a bar after a show.
A big man will see you all right,
and then we'll go jogging and big Davey's stupid face, eh?

(53:46):
Thanks for that big man.
And tell me when it comes to the dancing,
are you a Walter Arrave man?
And many times you'd be tell,
"Get out that part."
Or a headling at sex is going to be all up at your job.
But yeah, there are some brilliant parts.
And as I say, it is the little bits
that you just don't kind of, I guess, like, the...
Even the galex sock puppets.

(54:08):
Yeah, the sketch set that made me laugh.
I remember not really finding that funny before,
but I did laugh at this one when...
It is the lump of hash turns up.
For the pullers.
For the pullers.
For the pullers.
For the shoe tube.
And then it's...

(54:28):
RISLA!
Isn't it?
Just coming on the car in the bar.
I mean, often in this, she fucking steals the show.
Yeah.
And the one that...
The one that always may be laugh is the kind of uptight chemistry teacher.
Yeah.

(54:49):
You can ask me questions like that when you start bringing a decent bag to school.
Matt.
Yes.
What's up with the Jaina?
You can ask those type of questions, K- enough, wouldn't you?
Start bringing a decent bag to school.

(55:11):
Dickiness.
No.
Turn the page over.
And there is a picture of our mans.
You can see it in front of you.
Just draw that picture, right?
Draw it.
Draw it.
The picture of the penis less.

(55:33):
Yes, that's me.
Yep.
Yes, just draw that.
Draw it.
It is.
Yeah, she does have some brilliant lines with that.
And then just...
And the kid asks her for a powerful, great one.
And I mean, that's his thing.
One of the most famous sketches probably from Juno Fat is just Karen Dunbar and two kids.

(55:57):
Oh, yeah.
And I believe that...
And it's hardly...
I don't think she speaks...
I think she only says like a couple of lines in there.
I do believe that sketch has been removed from subsequent transmission nowadays.
Possibly.
It is a little bit traumatic, but it is of course the...
She's a swatchy, I find it.
And it's a look at her face, which is like...

(56:20):
All right, then.
I thought she was saying that.
Drives off.
Genius.
And you're right.
Karen Dunbar is an absolute...
I'll say it again.
Genius.
Like the...
Some of the performance she gave, so just absolutely phenomenal.
Yeah, she's really, really funny.
And she got... she got a spin off sketch show, the Karen Dunbar show, that she did with Tom

(56:45):
Yurie.
And she had some good characters in that as well.
Like, she was just...
Like, they get a walkin' home from the dance and the glass go like that, sort of stuff,
you know, like, to the habit.
Yeah.
Yeah, she has some really, really good characters in that.
But I think it's her face.
I mean, she's got a rubber, really expressive face.

(57:05):
You know, which it does... I mean, I still think...
I don't think it was in the any of the best of it that we did, but...
And she kind of flares on ush rolls and she's like...
Yeah.
Well, that's definitely shite.
You know?
Yeah.
But she's great at doing the dead pan acting as well, you know, with the...
And it's another great sketch, but so childish, the invisible boss, yeah.

(57:29):
And...
And she's like, "Oh, you're staple.
Stapelers levitating."
Oh, wow.
That's amazing.
It's like...
But such a ridiculous premise, but Ford Curen is brilliant in this sketch.
This is, well, the physical comedy that he does.
And the way when she says, "Oh, I think I hear the boss coming."

(57:51):
And his facial expression is like, "Fuck sake."
Just to go out and then come in, pretending that they can see him.
It's, yeah.
That's another sketch that I thought was really, really funny.
I mean, Ford Curen is another one, because Hemingrad Hemphowr, both very, very, very funny.
But there's something...

(58:12):
He's got a kind of looseness about Ford Curen, and that really cracks me up.
There was a sketch that he did that wasn't an ongoing one.
I think it only did it once, where he plays this...
As we, Italian, Gladys Wee-jen Bardberg, who's opened a salon with his daughter, played by
Karen Dunbar.
And he ends up...
He's like, "Where are all the punters?"

(58:34):
You know, they usually...
There's a line...
Everybody, polismen, firemen, you know, doctor, waiting for a haircut.
And he ends up shaving Julie Nimble Smith's head.
You know, 'cause she wants something.
She says, "I'll just want something, a bit choppy at the front, something, a bit bold,
because a bit short, at the front, she's at the head."

(58:56):
(laughs)
But before that, he's like, "Are you adding something to the deed?
Maybe I'll be squint at the auto trader."
(laughs)
After he shaved her head, he can at least then go, "Jory Bag for the weekend?"
I don't remember that one.
Yeah, that's Jory Bag for the weekend.
I do remember that.
He's got, he's got like, I saw a barber's smoke on with the scissors on the shoulder,

(59:21):
and he's got like, you remember how barbers, those old barbers would always have like,
really almost like Lego hair, just like a macula,
with like a wee round fringe and everything, and just off the one side, a wee bit.
And he's kind of got a wee bit, a wee bit of a squint in the way, moves and everything.
And I can't do it, but he nails that Italian glass region accent.

(59:43):
"Gee's piece, you know what I mean?"
"It's just so funny."
But I was sort of glad that they only did it the one time, because I don't know,
I don't know how many miles you could get out of that character of your one sketch.
And I think, you know, they were a bit guilty of doing some of the characters to absolute death.
You know what, I mean, just be the same joke, but I had slightly different situation,

(01:00:07):
and by the time you got to, like, even sometimes in one episode,
there was an episode of people running out for their scream van,
at fate from different sort of situations.
And I think they do it like three times, it's like one way that the Ford Kiernan,
there's a doctor delivering some really terrible news to Karen Dunbar, about her son.
And just before he gives the news, you hear the jingle, the scream van, and he goes running out.

(01:00:29):
And she's like, "Get me a 99!"
You know, and it's like funny the first time, but then they just do the same joke, essentially,
like three or four times in the same episode.
And it's like, "Pff, alright, it was funny the first time, but you know?"
"I, yeah, I would agree with you on that."
And that's something I had written on my notes, actually, like, tune the fact is, effectively,
it's the same joke's repeated, but it works.

(01:00:49):
Each show you'd usually have the same characters.
I think I haven't worked enough episodes recently to remember,
but I seem to recall, there was like, there would only be one appearance of each character in each episode.
So you'd only get like one Ronald Villiers, one Betty, like, sketch, one Jacket.
But it would be, you're right, it would be the same joke in different situations.

(01:01:13):
And that's, it's great.
And that's, technically that's what all sketch shows do.
You have to have the characters that you know and love, because when they come on screen,
you think, "Oh, great."
You know, the fascio was the same.
It was always, you know, Ted and Ralph or Scorture or...
Yeah.
...it was always the same thing every week, just a different thing.
And you kind of looked forward to your favorite character coming on screen,

(01:01:35):
so you'd be looking forward to it.
What I like about sketch shows as well, and tune the fact in particular, did this,
you would get your random gem that stands out that there's nothing to do with any characters,
so like, taste, idres and space.
Yes.
For example.
(laughs)
So, a one-off sketch that probably cost quite a lot of money to pick together,

(01:01:56):
because we'd have to get that set, everyone's in uniform.
And Greg, Greg Hempel was living his fucking best life,
because he always wanted to be a doctor, a doctor who...
Always went to being star-track, didn't he?
Yes.
He certainly did.
And yeah, he is seasoned as element there, and it does have some fantastic set-fasers to
walk you.

(01:02:17):
(laughs)
You know, robot, you've got he-haw-cawke.
(laughs)
That's, you know, it is a great standalone sketch that just works in terms of this.
And that's the...
Did you ever see the standalone sketch they did where they sent up the Peter McDougall
plays?
I don't know if I did.

(01:02:37):
I think it's in the second series, and it's sort of makes a bit of fun just a boys game
and elephant graveyard and stuff, but it's got the classic line.
Hard man fiend, bro!
You can't even get a hard man fiend, bro!
(laughs)
But, it's quite funny.

(01:02:59):
It's like, come in soon from BBC Scotland, just another elephant graveyard Saturday
the boys game or something like that, you know, send them up.
So yeah, in terms of Ford and Greg, they are a wonderful to black.
You've said Ford is a real comedy genius in terms of the way he gives things.
Greg, often more of this straight man, but does have his moments as well.

(01:03:24):
Yeah, he's funny.
I mean, yeah, he's really funny.
He's great in that, he's a taste-sighter since space.
But really, really funny in that.
And as a victor, one of the best Jack and Victor elements that didn't make it into the
still game show, that he always liked to tune the fat or the songs when they're all sitting

(01:03:44):
in the pub, because Majesty's home for the blinds, and if you're going to break a heart,
be sure to break a fat girl's heart, they're bigger.
If you're going to ruin someone's life, make sure she's not a skilf.
And they sag without music, all.
The thing is, they're actually pretty good singers because Paul Riley and Mark Cox play

(01:04:07):
in early versions of Winston and Tam, are really good at harmonising as well.
So they do.
Again, there's a real sort of authenticity to these little renditions that they do, the
backstage lavy.
And that makes it great as well, seeing Paul Riley and Mark Cox, not just as Tam and Winston,

(01:04:28):
but as the other characters, and they're not just background characters as well.
They add a lot to the show, with the way they relate to Greg and Ford and the reactions
and stuff.
So for example, like the car salesman sketches, you know, great.
And effectively, they're handing that over to Paul and Mark to do the kind of big punchline

(01:04:51):
parts.
And that shows a lot, because that could have easily just been Ford.
And it does the over the top, but they're obviously kind of not repaying, but you're probably
better suited for this.
Yeah, Mark, why don't you do this?
So it does really add to it.
It's great that they're able to do that.

(01:05:12):
Yeah, because in the first couple of series, it's really just Ford and Greg that are doing
those prominent roles.
I think the car salesman came in maybe series three or four, you know, and maybe there's
been a bit of a conversation around along the lines of, you know, we don't want to
just be supporting actors, setting up, setting up, they can appear often stuff, you know,

(01:05:32):
because the point of thing is, is Karen Dunn-Barr is not really treated like that at all.
I mean, she's got sketches that the rest of the guys aren't even in, like the ones we just
spoke about, like the teacher, for example, is just her and a little, and a little the young
actors, you know, there's loads of sketches that she actively leads.

(01:05:54):
And Greg and Ford and the other guys are sort of, and that are sort of kind of back in her
and stuff, and that's been, that was the way through it all, but for whatever reason, like
Paul and Mark, as you say, it's only really in the third and fourth series that they sort
of come out of the background a bit more, you know?
Yeah, and I think it works.
Having them there, and I guess it takes the load off of Ford and Greg in a way as well,

(01:06:20):
not having to be the focal point of every scene.
Yeah.
And I think they do get a lot more to do.
I did laugh at the, and it reminded me especially this time of year, you would always have these
adverts for these albums.
Oh yes, songs.
So the Donald O'Daniel Jesus Christmas album, I wrote down all of the songs that are listed

(01:06:45):
there.
To go for 12?
Yeah.
So Judas is no friend of mine.
Lot salty wife, table for 12, role-boulder, stone me, Papa failure bucket.
There's a big old buddy, Bush.
I can see your house from here.
I'm waiting Jesus sandals as a tribute to the boss.

(01:07:05):
I've been sitting in this in bin, hot cross fun, and it's not my face in the Turing Shroud.
And in Taglight, soak your granny's niggas this Christmas.
Fuck sake.
But you see, that's one of the fun things that go back and watch in these old episodes,

(01:07:32):
because although like, I mean, to us, it's like, well, doesn't seem that long ago, but it
is like over 25 years ago.
It's like a quarter, but a quarter of essentially it go by modern standards.
A lot of the stuff's a little bit un-PC, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
In particular, the adverts.
A you gay?
A you gay?
For the, for the phone in, for the, the night chug phone in, you know.

(01:07:58):
Actually, that's one of my favourite few of the fast catches.
So gay.
But I mean, it's, it's not sort of poking fun.
It gay guys, but it's sending up those really low budget late night adverts used to get
for sort of phone in, like an ITV and stuff when they started going 24 hours, you know?
It's a fine line though of what you would get away with now, because I know there was

(01:08:20):
sketches edited out when it was recently re-uploaded to a high player.
So I think like the smokers are no longer there?
Yes.
Like with a voice box?
Yes, that's been removed.
Karen Dunbar, Swatchier Fanny has been removed.
How far do you go though on, on certain things?
Like again, one that had me laughing a lot in the, the episodes we watched was when it's

(01:08:43):
Crescent Davey in the Portra cabin when they've got the CCTV of the bus, the bus driver,
and the way forward to that woman was wreaking a mess.
Fair enough, Davey.
Fair enough, Davey.
Fair enough, Davey.
Would you get away with that now?
Like, effectively just run over an old woman and said she was stinking her piss.

(01:09:04):
Where do you draw the light in terms of what is acceptable in terms of comedy?
Is it bad to call somebody a wank?
Now it is.
I mean, I guess it's, you know?
I mean, it's probably going to be true of any kind of comedy, you know?
I think if you were at a go back and watch some old episodes of like Monty Python, for
an example, that that came out in the late 60s and early 70s, there's probably some bits

(01:09:26):
and bobs in there that just wouldn't be able to do now, you know what I mean?
For whatever reason, you know, the might poke fun at minority or something like that.
I think you have to sort of take it on its own merits, you know?
At the time by those modern standards, it was fine, but by our modern standards, you
know, some of it's a bit problematic.
I mean, I was thinking about the, this obviously the, the ongoing, sort of one note joke of the

(01:09:53):
lighthouse keepers, which I mean, I think the only one that made me laugh is when Greg
Hemp has character open sees poor magic to find that for Keir and Sean B. Bras and Bustash
and all the naked ladies, but there was, there was one where Ford Keir and his character

(01:10:15):
pretend to have hung himself.
And fuck yeah, remember that.
I mean, you know, that's even for sort of the early 2000s, you know, where the benefit
of hindsight, that's probably wasn't in this never going to be your right.
I joke about someone pretending to have committed suicide, but you know, I cannot sense it
if about it.

(01:10:36):
Like my daughter watched a wee bit of the first best of that we looked at for the podcast
with me and there were some bits that made her sort of chuckle with other bits that she
just kind of either would over her head or she just didn't think were very funny, you
know what I mean?
But that, yeah, I was going to get that with comedy, but some comedy ages better than other
comedies, right?
I just wonder in terms of nowadays that how far, because it happens a couple of times in

(01:11:01):
the episodes we watched of the 14 year old boy, oh that's him just started masturbating.
Yeah.
Like could you do that now because is that not exploiting a teenager?
And I mean, it wasn't in the episodes we watched, but a very famous sketch, of course, is
the, he's got a stoner.
Yeah.
And then, now you're granny knows.

(01:11:25):
Could you make fun of a 14 year old boy's erection?
Probably wouldn't get away with that in the BBC nowadays.
No, there was another one that it wasn't on this one and it was the one that actually
a couple of films with the two guys, the two guys that I think are actually split by Greg
Hemphill and he goes in the bad and there's two guys.

(01:11:47):
They start shouting, "Archie, Archie, Adam, they're fondling them."
And they keep shouting "Tetis" on a couple of films that I'm in all that until they storms
off, shouting something like "Gave me a baston" so whatever, but it's that kind of one note
you know, and it's like, well, it's probably not acceptable now.
And I don't think even, even a, politically correct joke done over and over and over again

(01:12:09):
in a sketch show series, I think it's probably going to wear itself out quite quickly, you
know what I mean?
They did do a good line of the, one of my favourites in the episodes you watched is the Greg
Hemphill as the news reporter, where he's speaking about the sketch.
The court, the court, court room artist, yeah.

(01:12:30):
The one in this episode was, was fantastic, the Mon then, and the, the artist was replaced
by a policeman and it's just sketch drawing.
The one that always remember that and it wasn't in these episodes is the, the Christmas
one where they arrest like a department store Santa and he's dressed in the, the Santa
seat in the box and it's all the drawings and he's like, the defendant then inquired of

(01:12:54):
the judge fan seat and he said, I think he asked him to take off his ridiculous costume.
The sketch is the judge is wearing basically, has a big beard wearing the wig if we're not
red cloak and stuff.
And then Santa bears his bear arse to the court and it's all sketched, it's all spotty and

(01:13:17):
he's like, the light on that first one was my, my, my, my clusky have reported the pan
then the video shop window in order to secure a copy of Pegs and Nickers 4.
It's a strange thing to steal from the video shop Pegs and Nickers 4.
Never seen it.
It's, uh, might have to look for it later.

(01:13:38):
Um, what I doubt, my, I, I alluded to earlier, my favourite sketch is, say it was written
by Ralph Laurence and Ian Conell and it's, the one where Greg Hempel is bursting for a
shite.
It is if you can use Ford's toilet.
It's just the glass door.
It just starts peeling a tangerine.
Just watching.

(01:14:00):
That for me is, is just, and that's why I think, as I said earlier, I think tune the fat
walk to Burnus to get run.
The summing about Burnus and it just has an edge to it.
Yeah.
That just makes me laugh so much.
I can never imagine Ford and Greg doing scenes like the Paul and Walter, the, you know,
the ice cream boys, the ice cream boys.
I can never imagine how to do that.

(01:14:21):
Or one of my favourite Burnus and sketches I sent to you earlier this week.
It's the one where the, uh, my dad and the mad uncle's.
Yeah.
And the spoons, the pen, chair and use the cario, cremacryphal.
Are romp.
Why are you taking my daughter to a romp?
Get the handcuffs in this, Boone's.

(01:14:43):
It says next.
It will have you, it will have you doubled over laughing.
Why would you want my daughter doubled over?
Hey, they got it spot on those starting Russell Brandt, a beast, a sex beast.
Like fucking hell, you got that spot on, didn't you?

(01:15:05):
A beast.
Anyway, we will talk about Burnus tonight later, too, definitely because I've, uh, viewed
like that.
The other characters that are probably a bit polarised, but I've always had a really soft
spot for are the, the, the banter boys.
And I think I got a bit fed up with them because people used to say that to you all the

(01:15:28):
time.
Oh, you have, you have a, like, you have an conversation, you made a joke.
Oh, the banter.
I think your friend, Elph, just to say it quite a lot.
The banter, Jamesy would say for some reason.
And I, and, but obviously with the passing of time and coming back and watching those
characters again, they are funny.
And they're also quite clever as well because there are definitely people who live in Glasgow

(01:15:52):
who are a bit like those two.
They're not, they're obviously those characters are taking it as far as it can go, but, you
know, there are people in Glasgow who have maybe grown up somewhere nice like Bishop
Briggs or something, but who, you know, we want to have a little bit of, like, TV honest,
my mother has become a bit like, oh, she has.

(01:16:13):
She's not quite.
Oh, hang the suppers were here for the banter.
Like, she's not like that, but, you know, my, my mother doesn't talk like she spoke when
I was a kid and stuff, you know, she's got a much, she's got a Scottish accent, but when
she does drop in a few, so at Glasgow isms, it's a bit kind of, a bit uncomfortable, you
know, like, you don't talk like that anymore.

(01:16:35):
But, what should these two really made me, they really, really made me, they've not waffed
my half, but, they've been smiling my face, watching them doing the banter boys sketchies
in the, yeah, it does have its moments.
And I think it is, again, it's maybe on a stagia purpose, but it is, yeah, funny when they
are especially in this one.

(01:16:56):
I got it doing the baddest.
Yeah, through in, through in that book, a rabie burn, this whole rabie burn, suggested
stuff.
But I suppose they could come back to the point you made earlier, you know, they, they're
clearly supposed to be quite almost actual stereotypes as well.
And you probably, probably wouldn't get away with that so much now, you know, I've, that,

(01:17:20):
yeah, probably not.
That's what a well dressed camp, sort of, a John and Muntip character, you know, they, they
probably get a bit of a backlash if you can out something like that now, but, yeah, I,
I, I, they're doing this, my, all.
I mean, there's one that wasn't in the episode we watched, but again, there's always a funny,
funny one, but it's, uh, can't done bar again, a sketch on her own when she plays the, the

(01:17:44):
depressed taxi can do it.
And she's always talking about how our boyfriends keep dying and stuff and how our life's so
terrible and she's just smoking and drinking whiskey throughout the sketch, like, they're
like, okay, I, I, would you get away with that now?
Because I guess that's making fun.
She's obviously a highly depressed and different.
It was another one that she used to do where it was just her and her own talk to her mum and

(01:18:08):
the phone and she's talking about how our husbands doing this and that and how he's such a good
guy.
He's clearly like a complete bastard and he's cheating on her and she's like, she's like, you,
he brought home one of those Kosoven refugees, Mum, she had nowhere to go.
He's looking after her up the stairs just now when you hear this.
Yes.
Do you hear that, Mum?

(01:18:28):
That's him teaching her how to say yes.
It's really funny hearing her fall in language, spoken your own horse into her.
It's really funny.
How many wives could say they've got a husband that would do that?
That's right.
I remember one of those where, so like, he fucks off to tenoree for something.

(01:18:49):
He's like, yeah, I couldn't go because I've, I've got an old, when the old passports,
I've got one of the old blue passports, he's got a new red one, so I can't go.
He's, he's, he's pond all the furniture and stuff, which is like, I'll need to go, Mum,
that's the bay, if you collect the beanbag.
Have you, if you've got a favourite character or I've, I've been chewing the fat?

(01:19:13):
I mean, I mean, I mean, I, I mean, my favourite characters are probably Jack and Victor because,
you know, they have some great, there's great sketches that, in this, that, you know,
that, and it could just be a scene from still game, like, the one where, where Jack gets a
taser delivered.
He's like, I told her on the internet, he's like, oh, he had dirty bastards.

(01:19:39):
And then we said that this sketch, when they're reading their books, and Jack finishes his
cowboy book, and Victor's reading more of a sort of intellectual history of the battle,
the styling, grad and stuff, and they're, they just start sniping each other.
And then, some of those chewing the fat, Jack and Victor sketches were just brilliant.
They're really, really good.
So it is probably, it's probably Jack and Victor, if I had to save any character from like,

(01:20:04):
a burning house that would be those two.
But yeah, there's, so, I mean, I don't mind the two salesman, electronic salesman, they're
sometimes quite funny, you know, when they're, like, making up nicknames for the person
that they're trying to sell to and stuff, you know?
Yeah, I would agree.
I think Jack and Victor, just because of what they went on to achieve, I, I'm a big fan

(01:20:25):
of the big man.
Yeah.
I'm a big fan of big chalk as well.
And I do like, it made me laugh a lot.
Like, I do like Harry Linden George.
Yeah.
Especially the countdown sketch was good.
It's the way forward.
It's like, remember, where's the dingy, dude?
Oh, it's in the rumbly, bumbly.
All right, you don't know what it means.

(01:20:45):
Well, that's not exactly good enough, is it?
You need to know what the word means.
No, you don't, Harry, as long as it's in the dictionary.
Wonder what kind of world it would be if we just went wonder and about it, uttering words
we didn't know they mean enough.
We're fairly foolish, world, wouldn't it, one day?
There's my dingky, dude.
Oh, it's in the rumbly, bumbly.
Oh, by the way, what is it, dingky, dude?
Oh, I'm not sure, but I know it's a word.
Exactly.

(01:21:06):
No points.
Run Minby is the currency of the old Republic of China.
That's it.
Chinese money.
That's right, Chinese money.
Look at you, who have done that over the jobs there, eh?
Take net as your own, pass it off as your own information.
It is a word.
Well, fine, you both have eight points, think.
Oh, is your one, George?
Ben.
Yeah, yeah.

(01:21:26):
I'm receptacle for household waste.
And his sketches can be hit and miss, but they are quite funny.
I remember not liking him that much when I first watched the series, but watching it back,
I do find him amusing, and it is Ronald Villiers.
And the opening sketch effect of these, like, that's the ball gun the phone for you, Captain.

(01:21:50):
I'm like, he's tasting his star check, audition.
There's a brilliant one when the Heming Karen, Ben Barra, having that over-dump and a Tally
porn film.
I knew exactly what you were going to say.
I've got that, Ben.
I'm the punter.
It's, it's, it's Luke who's sucking three.
Is the name of the film?
Because I watched that sketch.
Okay, it's again, it's, it's, it's those little essays.

(01:22:12):
I don't know that one.
You know what I think?
Well, that's me on my top off.
I'm the, I'm the performer, but eh, I don't they sinks.
That's it.
There's a, Jack and I think one of the reasons that I like Jack and Victor is because there's,
and same of all, like, Ronald Villiers is maybe a wee bit more one note, but Jack and

(01:22:36):
Victor aren't at all.
And they're one of my favourite sketches with them.
It's not in this.
But Paul Riley, please, a kind of, um, old kind of, I guess, kind of kind of, uh, Jimmy
Tarbock type character called the cheeky Charlie Gifford and he's getting interviewed in
front of the King's Theatre and Jack and Victor accidentally walk in to the interview.

(01:22:56):
And, um, they go, look, look, look, Jack and say cheeky Charlie, chunky.
No, no, no, chunky Charlie, cheeky and these, the, the, Paul Riley's, you know, um, cheeky
Charlie Gifford and he's, he's trying to talk about how he'd done a really successful show
at the Kings where comedians would usually get fucking bottled off as in Glasgow.

(01:23:17):
And the interviewers, like, oh, do you want to, do you want to, eh, be in the interview
guys?
Like, oh, yeah, okay.
And, um, it's like, so you were saying, Charlie, you did five, you've, you've, five curtain
calls.
Yeah, yeah, five curtain calls.
Like, oh, no, no, no, son, that's, though, he never made it to the end son because he was
where they'll just be assured. They end up battling them pro.

(01:23:39):
(laughs)
Victor sings, you see that scar on his forehead?
He'd be, oh that was meward screw type. Remember that?
(laughs)
- So Jack infected obviously became the breakout star
which led you in the fact and obviously went on
to have a very, very successful sitcom in "Still Game",
which is very dear to our hearts.

(01:24:00):
We've still, I mean, it was our first episode.
We did "The Live Show".
We've still never actually covered "Still Game".
- No.
- I think we might rectify that next year
and maybe look at the first series
because it's too good not to.
- But they wonderfully broke out and you can see why
and they had such huge success with "Still Game"
and it's a national treasure effectively.

(01:24:21):
- Yeah.
- And do you think, 'cause "Still Game" became very popular,
I think, and it's on Netflix,
so I think it became popular kind of nationwide.
A lot of English people discovered it.
- Yep, yep.
- Do you wonder if a lot of people maybe went back
and found chewing the fat after they'd watched "Still Game"?
- I don't know.
- I mean, on this, like here are somebody like us
who can't watch something without going on Wikipedia

(01:24:43):
and finding out all about it.
I don't know if you might not realize
that Jack Invictor sort of came from,
or the iteration of "Jack Invictor" that went "Still Game"
because the versions of the characters
that are in "The Stage Show" we covered
are actually a little different to the iterations
that are in "Still Game".
I would say "Jack" is probably quite similar,

(01:25:05):
but "Victor" in the show, "The Stage Show"
seems a lot older.
And obviously, there's more of a kind of harder,
there's more of a kind of "Still Game" as well
to the characters in "The Stage Show".
But I think a lot of people probably wouldn't realize
that "Jack Invictor" sort of came to attention

(01:25:26):
through chewing the fat, I don't think, you know?
Not nice, they got the right shape on to Wikipedia watch, you know?
- So obviously "Still Game" ended and it still...
- Obviously there's a new comic book come out,
so it is still kind of living on in a different format.
- Yeah. - Do you think Greg and Ford will do anything?

(01:25:46):
Again, I mean, Greg's done comedy with "Rab Florence".
They've had that "Queen of the New Year" show
the last couple of new years.
I'll be honest, it's not very good.
And I hate to say that because obviously, I love "Rab Florence".
I think he's hilarious and Greg Hempels great as well,
but for some reason, it just didn't hit the mark with me.
But I wonder, of course, they've launched a successful whiskey

(01:26:09):
as well, which they won like a legal battle
with Jack Daniels, I think, because the whiskey's called
"Jack Invictor" and "Jack Daniels" tried to say,
"No, no, no, no, you can't have a whiskey called Jack"
something and I think they won the legal battle
'cause it's a whiskey, not a bourbon.
So, you know, and it's named after characters,
it's not named after anything.
But I wonder if we'll see them do anything,

(01:26:30):
like, comedy-wise again, 'cause I know they fell out
for a while, they got back together,
I know Ford's had some personal tragedies,
I think his son passed away, so, but I just wonder
if they'll do anything, you know, together again.
Maybe, I mean, I think they are.
I think they have a good relationship.
I saw them being interviewed on the TV

(01:26:50):
about the still-game comic book, and they do.
You know, sometimes, like, double-axe kind of struggle
to be successful in their own.
They sort of need each other, you know,
and I think that's maybe the case here
with these guys, it might even be the case
where Rav Forrinson, Ian Cornel, you know,
in terms of producing comedy,

(01:27:12):
I mean, the last thing they did together was the Scots,
which was good, you know, it was a good show.
But, you know, Ford's done, you know,
he did deer green place with Paul, up with Paul Riley,
and Greg Hemphill wasn't involved there.
You mentioned some of the stuff Greg Hemphill's done,
he's, you know, a heak, but we're laughing about him

(01:27:34):
in the taste-siders and space episode,
but he did actually audition for the role of Scottie
in the newer Star Trek films that ended up going
to Simon Pegg, and he managed to get a wee small part
in the Deadpool vs Wolverine film.
- He came out, yeah, the other this year.
But I think, you know, I think they're at their best
when they're writing and performing together, I think.

(01:27:56):
- You get Ford has the chops to be a serious actor as well,
you know, I think he showed that in the field of blood.
- Yeah, he did.
- And it was a, I guess it was still a comedic kind of role,
he did have some great one-liners,
but it was also a serious job,
and playing, you know, a closeted homosexual man,
and just, I thought there was a lot of,

(01:28:17):
that was a really great performance from him,
and that showed what he can do.
So, yeah, I wonder if there's more of that in their future,
or if they're just happy just making their whiskey,
doing their comic books, and maybe,
they probably earned enough from still game.
- I'm sure, I'm sure.
- I'm sure, I mean, Ford has a,
they could literally blink and you'll miss it
apart in Gaines of New York, the Narsquare Scasier,

(01:28:40):
and it plays a fireman with a big beard,
and these, they must be on screen for two seconds,
most.
You know, so I think there's that aspiration has been there
for both of them to maybe do more,
maybe less comedy and more sort of straight acting.
But I was reading an interview with Bill Murray today,
and he was saying that to do comedy well,

(01:29:01):
you have to be able to be a straight actor, you know?
I mean, when you think of,
when you think of how,
he's best performances, you know,
like he's often very dry, very deadpan,
and very funny, you know?
So, I don't know, I guess it's hard for these guys,
you know, they're getting on a bit and stuff now,
and if it's not really happened for them by now,

(01:29:23):
probably not gonna happen,
it's not gonna stick to it, but they're good at it.
- I read a review of "Tune the Fat on IMDB."
It's a bit long,
but I just wanted to get your take on this review.
So are you okay if I read this out to you?
- Sure.
- So this is on the tune of that page, "NIMDB."
I didn't get the name actually,
the person that left it, but it doesn't matter.
Scottish sketch comedy has never made it to the worldwide market.

(01:29:46):
However, we have many talented comedians,
such as Billy Conley, Ricky Fulton, Frankie and Josie,
and the crankies.
Nowadays, the only Scottish comedy series left
is "Tune the Fat," which consists of a series
of vulgar gags primarily based
on modern glasswee-gen slum culture.
Unfortunately, instead of laughing at the eccentricities

(01:30:07):
of the neds and the slags
who inhabit the graffiti-decorate tenements
of Castle milk and Easter house,
the producers have decided to join the neds
and to laugh with them.
After all, it's just good banter, isn't it?
I have noticed that the show has covered
almost every possible kind of underclass vulgarity
and criminal behavior.
It is reverse snobbery.

(01:30:28):
If someone says a posh word, they are laughed at.
(laughs)
That is part of the tune in the Fat Routine.
The upper-class stereotypes from Edinburgh
are supposedly amusing because they take interest
in Glasgow banter, which consists of incomprehensible
and vulgar dialogue, crime and deviance,
and unmanorally, an undignified eccentric behavior.

(01:30:50):
And the countrymen, who just because they endorse
Scotland's cultural heritage, or what is left of it,
they are subject to pranks from juvenile delinquents.
Finally, an old-fashioned teacher
because she has a rural accent and is fairly strict.
Something that is unusual nowadays is mocked
and overpowered by her class of irresponsible
and disrespectful children.

(01:31:11):
Why should we find the detritus
who spoil much of our country funny?
Is this comedy?
For what reason is this the most popular comedy series
in Scotland?
Perhaps because it is the only comedy series.
In summary, tune the Fat is a glass region,
self-indunctions, crude and unintelligent
disaster of a television program.
If you happen to be from Glasgow

(01:31:31):
and be a member of the underclass,
you might enjoy this series because it is made
by filthy minds who cater for filthy minds
all over Scotland.
Scotland must grow up mentally.
Our culture is dwindling down the toilet pan.
May intelligence be our savior.
May intelligence be your savior.
(laughing)
Fucking get a life, that's a whamp.

(01:31:57):
Definitive.
Fuck off, come on.
Hardly toilet humor.
I mean, yes, there are a few sketches,
but there's a lot of funny stuff.
And I think we've, you know, having spoken to you,
I've become a bit more of a fan.
It is very, as we said earlier,
that's what I like about it.
Like a lot of sketch shows, like we said,
I don't want to heart back to a little Britain,

(01:32:18):
but they took a, they took the piss out of nationalities,
races, disabled, tune the Fat.
It's all Scottish.
It's take it, it's poking fun at ourselves.
It's all people we recognize and realize.
And it's, it's harmless fun, really.
Nobody gets hurt.
I think, I think one of the, you know, for better or worse,

(01:32:39):
I think, you know, whether it's to do with the internet
or whatever, but I think like,
you wouldn't get something like true in the fact now
because everyone's encouraged to take things
really seriously.
Well, we shouldn't laugh at the Ravnick Lynch character
because he's a stereotype of a certain type of young man,
and a certain part of Scotland,

(01:33:01):
and a certain part of Glasgow,
and you know, he might come for, you know, he's bad,
he'd be the shout of Umoriz,
Mum might be a drug addict and stuff like that.
You know, they, well, that might be the case,
but the character's not designed to be looked at that closely.
All these guys have set out to do is to give everybody a laugh.
That's all that's the, the objective of tune the Fat

(01:33:24):
and still game and Berniston and Monty Python
and then, and I suppose even the objective of a little Britain
was just to give people a laugh and entertain, you know.
You know, I'm sure that Britain never set out to offend anybody.
They just maybe were a bit indelicate,
don't think that Greg and Ford and Rav and Ian

(01:33:45):
and all the writers and performers on tune the Fat
set out to offend anybody.
And I don't know anybody at the time to be particularly outraged
by anything that untune the Fat,
even the stuff now that,
even the stuff now that they've sort of taken out,
you know, I understand why they've taken it out because,
you know, it is a more sensitive time
and making, making fun of people that have had,

(01:34:08):
they call it track, track of the armages or whatever
because they've had the flaws and because they smoke too much,
you know, it's, I get, they've quite taken it out
because in the modern, in modern parlance,
that could be quite offensive to people
who have maybe lost relatives who have passed away
from smoking-related illnesses or whatever, right?
Some people might, you know, they might be upset by that

(01:34:31):
and I'm sure the last thing these guys
wanted to do when they wrote that was upset anybody, you know what I mean?
So I understand why some of that's been removed,
you know, he's a swatchier fan,
easily the most famous line from tune the Fat
of all the four or five series,
but you know, maybe it's not appropriate these days,
but again, none of this was ever written

(01:34:53):
with the intention of hurting anybody's feelings
just to give people a, you know what I mean?
And that's it, that's the whole point, you know,
it's Scotland as we are,
we just like to take the piss out of ourselves and laugh at ourselves
and that's the whole point is because if we're laughing at ourselves
then we're not fending anyone in a way.
So I agree, I think it is a bit of a different time nowadays.

(01:35:15):
Well, it definitely is, but yeah, I think that people are a bit sensitive
and I mean, what would you be left with?
If you went through every sketch that we looked at
to take out anything that could possibly offend everyone,
what are we going to be left with?
The lobsters.
For copying Greg on the football touch line.
Yeah, yeah, it's a, it's a manager and the lobsters, yeah.

(01:35:37):
That's almost it because you can't have run over layers
because it's a shame he's a struggling actor.
You can't make fun out of him.
Yeah, yeah, he's obviously, he's probably on the spectrum anyway.
Yeah, yeah, so you can't take him out, you know,
the can't make fun of the science teacher and stuff,
the shoe shop guy taking a sniff of the shoe,
that he's got a fetish, so it's, you know,

(01:35:58):
happy making fun of him.
But you're right.
It's, yeah, what are you left with really if you break it down?
Well, that's it.
None of it is offensive.
No, I don't think so.
And I think something that is, you know,
getting the categories in a minute,
that can sense them coming towards us,
but I think one of the things that is really quite unique
about the whole of Scotland,
that I don't think is unique about the whole of, say,

(01:36:20):
England or near this neighbour,
I think it's unique in perhaps certain parts of England,
is that kind of gallows humor that is almost universally enjoyed.
You can't, you know, well, certainly people of our generation
can't, you just couldn't be too sensitive.
You had to learn to laugh at yourself and take a joke and, you know,

(01:36:43):
because that was just how we grew up and,
and I'm certain it was the same for like our parents' generation
and our grandparents' generation, you know,
life would be hard for a lot of people,
especially in these big industrial towns and cities,
but that ability to have a drink at the end of the week
and have a laugh and, you know,
fucking, Billy Conley has made a career,

(01:37:05):
like an enduring career out of self-depreciating humour.
You know, like, Billy Conley will poke fun at people,
but he'll take the piss out of himself and, you know,
he's always done that, is every special stand-up, everything,
even just been interviewed and parky or whatever,

(01:37:25):
makes always just make fun of himself.
And that's kind of, that's something like incredibly Scottish about that,
that ability to be able to laugh at yourself and where you come from
and some of the strange characters and ways of life that we have.
You know, I think, I think,
shooting a fact, there's a pretty decent job of,
can I celebrate it and all that?

(01:37:45):
Yeah, I would agree with you on that.
Completely.
Okay, then, so shall we put,
shooting the fact through our svalier awards?
Let's do Greg.
Okay, so first up will be Bobby the Barman.
Is it?
Bobby the Barman, the award for the best pub.
Few choices there.
What did you pick?
I mean, you only saw the corner of it,

(01:38:06):
the pub that Jack and Victor have us sing song in.
Exactly the same.
Yeah, I go with that.
I don't really want to drink at the pub with them
when Greg complains it's not much head and his pipe
and then forwards.
I don't fancy drinking there.
I do remember that was a running sketch
that that barman's an arsehole
and just is constantly out to get Greg on different things.

(01:38:27):
Possibly, I can't remember.
I would definitely go with, yeah, the pub Jack and Victor
sing and look like a nice little snuck.
Yeah, yeah.
We'll be fine to be sitting in there listening
and singing about his majesty's home for the blind
and stuff like that.
Next award then, the James Cosmow award
for being an everything Scottish.
For me, for this, I think I picked Ford
because he's the one who's been in the most

(01:38:51):
of the stuff we've reviewed
and as much that he's been in still game, he's been in
the deck collector, he's been in field of blood.
So I had to pick Ford, but what did you pick?
Or who did you pick?
Ford.
Yeah, Ford, yeah, exactly.
You said, like he's been in a few of the things
who covered exactly, she said, the deck collector
and field of blood.

(01:39:12):
Yeah, yeah.
Just when you look at his CV, he's done more stuff outside
of, yeah, still game or tune of that.
Traumatic stuff, yeah.
Yeah.
Next then, the Jake McRillan award for Sudden Violence.
I went with Victor Tazering Jack in the balls.
So I've got that as I had that.

(01:39:34):
And I also have Ford's chef character
losing the plot and smashing up the clues
because it can't balance the
all of them top of the sliced tomatoes.
You do feel that frustration of you.
The way it's masterfully done the way it builds up.
And again, the second sketch of that
when you can't get the bottle of wine hope here.

(01:39:55):
You do feel for him and you just feel it
fucking bubbling and rising and rising and like,
fuck it.
It's, yeah, we've all been there.
It's a good one with it plays a barista
and he's holding out two coffees from Mark Cox
and Mark Cox is like fishing about in these pockets
for change, taking ages.
And the coffee's obviously hot.
And he ends up just like throwing the coffees
over Mark Cox and screaming.

(01:40:16):
So, then, well, our next award would usually be
the Humigregan Award for Extreme Uditay.
There is the off-camera,
um,
Carrondom Bar's Genitals,
but I'm sure,
I'm sure she never lifted her skirt up
for those V-boys in real life.
So, we'll move quickly on to the Frank Begg Bay Award

(01:40:38):
for Gritutus Language.
So, not a lot of Gritutus.
Sweating in this, a few bastards.
And obviously, the one I'd run for is the Wank, Wank,
good guy, Wank, good guy.
But did you go further?
The scene where Carrondom Bar's speaking to Greg Hempel
and he's the boss and he's just stating that his,

(01:41:00):
his wife's are.
Yeah, do you know him?
Yeah.
And when she slaps him,
she calls him a clatty bastard,
which I did like.
Yeah.
Let's end that.
There's not the ones we've watched,
but in the mock-flying wall documentary,
the bulls that I mentioned earlier are on.
She's got a good one, Carrondom Bar,
where Greg Hempel and Ford's characters start,

(01:41:23):
sort of having a bit of a fight
because they're like rival-bothers,
and she's like,
"I won't have my Shagon Club Puss Tundante,
a Shagon Boxing Ring.
Yeah, Peter Bastard!"
(laughs)
Next one then, archetypal Scottish woman.
Again, a rich smorgasbord to pick from here.
I went with Ronald Felaire,

(01:41:44):
saying that he played a corpse in Taggart.
(laughs)
(laughs)
That's a good one.
I went for a bit of an off-field one,
but I went for the impatient bus driver
because I've never,
(laughs)
I've been living in Aberdeen
I used to get the bus quite a lot,
and when I lived in Glasgow,
I got the bus all the time.

(01:42:05):
Never met a cheery bus driver in my life.
I've always just never looked very happy at the work.
(laughs)
It's so funny, my uncle was a bus driver.
And there was a couple of times I got on his bus,
and just accidentally,
I was waiting for the bus and it just so happened,
he was doing that route that day.
And he was always a fucking miserable looking Bastard,

(01:42:25):
until he saw me and he's like,
"Oh, Nikki, how you doing?"
But it was almost like it was part of the job,
he just had to look miserable.
Yeah, yeah, and it kind of broke character when he saw me.
It was weird.
I suppose the big habit
of getting a beaten down by some of the people
they have to deal with, you know, every day.
Last one then, the Sean Connery Awards,
a hard one to give out, I would say this one,

(01:42:47):
but who wins, shouldn't have that for you.
I want the Ford and Greg.
You give just because there's, and of course,
the spin-off, still game and jack and victor,
argument could be Carrington Bar,
because she is fantastic in this,
but yeah, I want the Ford and Greg.
What about you?
Well, I think that's fair.
I think, you know, there are times
when Carrington Bar runs away with it for sure,

(01:43:08):
but it's the Ford and Greg show, absolutely.
So, well, anyway, that was a tune the fat review there.
We watched, there's two best-all tune-afate episodes in YouTube.
Search for them, you should find them
because we probably won't remember it to put the links in.
It's been a very good one.
But if you want to watch more tune the fat,

(01:43:29):
I think pretty much every series is available in YouTube.
And yeah, there are worse ways to why the way the evenings.
Yeah, they watch the...
Definitely, better tune the fat.
But anyway, for our next episode,
which we have first episode of 2025,
and Mark's, 25th, Mark's the fifth year of the podcast,
let me get into the summer.
Wow.
Which is...

(01:43:50):
Jesus bonkers, I feel like we're doing that that long,
but here we are.
But you've got the first pick of the new year,
so what we watch in the next episode of the culture, as well.
Well, we'll be back in two weeks time, Greg,
with our regular best of the news episode.
Which I've already put together,
and I will send that through to you once I've finished editing this episode.
So you've got a double whammy.
You can listen to that in your flight back.

(01:44:12):
But two weeks after that, we'll be back with our first episode of 2025.
So on our first episode of 2024,
we looked at the wonderful 2-E3T.
And you believe that was nearly a year ago, Greg?
I know.
We talked about 2-E3T this year as a phone by.
So in the same or similar vein,
I would like to go back to 1994 this time.

(01:44:33):
And revisit something I have been dying to watch again for ages.
So we're going to join Swally favourite, Katie Murphy,
Swally favourite, David Tennant,
and firm Swally favourite, Ken Stott.
Because we are going to be taken over the asylum.
Ah, brilliant.
I've never seen that.
Really? Yeah, don't know how.
I watched it when it first came out in 1994.

(01:44:55):
I cannot remember much about it, but I remember enjoying it.
And so I'd have been 13 when it aired,
so I remember really enjoying it.
But I haven't seen it since.
So I've been dying to watch it again.
And because it's six hour long episodes,
I've been waiting for a suitable time in the calendar.
And since we are now, I think we've got like a month

(01:45:15):
before we record next.
So anything.
So I thought it was kind of the perfect time
to watch six hour long episodes.
OK.
Starting the year with a bang.
So I don't know if it's available online anywhere, folks.
I should have checked that before, because I do have it.
And I've given it to you, Greg.
But I'm sure it's available somewhere to watch.
But yeah, from 1994, taking over the asylum.

(01:45:36):
Oh, yeah.
I'll be forward to watching that over the next month.
Great.
Well, thank you very much for listening.
Everyone, hope you enjoyed the show.
And we would like to wish you the very best for the new year
and for 2025.
If you want to get in touch with us, you can email us
on cultureswalley@gmail.com.
You can follow us on the socials.
We're on Insta@CultureSwalleyPod or X, formerly on this Twitter

(01:45:59):
@SwalleyPod.
And we have a wonderful website as well, don't we, Greg?
We do.
You can find us at www.cultureswalley.com for a thanks to all our episodes
and some using features in the Scottish media.
Fantastic.
Up to the next site in this weekend, Greg.
No, just getting ready to fly home on Friday,
just by the cup, I've had a busy couple of weeks.
So I'm going to move from this room into the living room,

(01:46:22):
find something to relax too, and have a light down the sofa
and maybe watch something.
I'll be there.
If you watch the latest five episodes of Cobra Kai,
I have not watched the latest ten seat episodes of Cobra Kai.
So I need to, I need to...
Oh, if you know.
No, no, I'm well behind.
So maybe that's my last thing I'll stick that on.
My daughter's off to a party.

(01:46:43):
My oldest daughter, that is.
So I might end up, I've sort of promised my younger daughter
at the watch home with her, so that might be a card for later.
We'll see.
Wonderful.
Well, have a lovely time.
I will.
And all the best for new years,
it's a Christmas, but this comes out in the 26th,
so we'll have had Christmas, but all the best for a new year.
And I will look forward to seeing you in 2025.

(01:47:05):
Happy new year.
Till next year.
Till next year.
Yeah, do you mind?
Do this.
If you're going to break a heart, be sure to break a five-kittles heart,
that's a good one.
Next figure.
If you want to ruin someone's life, be sure they're not a scourge.
Skinny girls are fine, but when you dump them, they just run and find another.

(01:47:31):
But when you crush your chubby's heart, she remains with all the fatties on the shelf.
My shoulders creaking, and my hands with all the fatties on the shelf.
Oh, my gosh.
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(01:47:51):
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(upbeat music)

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Episode 116 - Chewin' The Fat (1999)

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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 116 - Chewin' The Fat (1999)