0:00

This is a podcast from The Bugle.

0:05

Hello and welcome to Catharsis. I'm

0:07

Tib Stephenson, full-time comedian,

0:10

part-time, massively unqualified

0:12

therapist for this podcast only. Each

0:15

week I talk to a guest about small things that

0:18

pet peas and big things that maybe need

0:20

release. Why did I make that sound like a

0:22

handjob? Did it mean

0:25

to sound like a handjob? It

0:27

sounds like a happy ending. Anyway, we dive into

0:29

a topical gripe and a historical beef to

0:32

see if we can provide some insight, but

0:34

mainly some Catharsis. You can sweat

0:36

the small stuff with me. This week,

0:38

I want to talk about how people

0:40

are behaving in the heat. Because

0:42

the slightest bit of sunshine. I

0:44

saw nipples on the train the other day. Nipples.

0:47

A man got on with his top off. It's

0:50

not even properly summer yet and we just

0:53

lose our minds instantly. And

0:55

the nakedness of colleagues, like office

0:57

colleagues, you know, it's upsetting,

0:59

isn't it? Lunch hour comes, it's

1:00

straight to the nearest patch of green, even if it's

1:03

a roundabout. People are rolling up their trousers,

1:05

taking their tops off. And I can't eat my sandwich

1:08

now. I know Graham from Accounts has an outie. This

1:10

is not what I need to see. I

1:13

also, I went swimming in the local Lido

1:15

and it was,

1:16

and I mean you might appreciate

1:19

this, my guests might appreciate this, because it's

1:21

a weekend, it's the Lido and there's

1:23

nowhere to swim. It's just, it becomes human

1:26

soup with Larry Londoner croutons.

1:29

And I could just hear, Dave, Dave, I'm a cherub.

1:32

Look, I'm a cherub and I'm hoping that

1:34

someone's not peeing in the pool and it's just someone spitting

1:36

water out of their mouth down my back. So delightful.

1:39

So that's my complaint this week is

1:42

what happens to common decency as

1:44

soon as the sun comes out? Why

1:47

can we not control ourselves?

1:49

And that is a question I should probably put to our

1:51

guests this week. I'm very excited to

1:53

be joined by comedian, author,

1:56

raconteur and Francophile.

2:00

I think it's fair to say. Ian Moore.

2:02

Definitely. Definitely Francophile.

2:04

Well, I'm French. That's how Francophile I am. I'm

2:07

actually French now. And

2:10

your pet peeve there, your people

2:12

stripping off. What I find is the

2:14

first people to take their tops off are the ones

2:16

who've done homemade tattoos. Kind

2:20

of faded and aggressive from

2:23

drunken evenings years ago. And

2:26

they're

2:27

proudly parading these things like the

2:29

Mardi Gras in Rio. It's

2:33

horrible. It's a very British thing, I

2:35

think.

2:36

It is. They're not really doing it in France, are

2:38

they? No. No,

2:40

absolutely not. They just don't. They

2:42

don't take their clothes off. There's

2:45

no need for it. There's absolutely no need

2:47

for it. The French are... Talking

2:49

about the Lido though, the French

2:51

are appallingly behaved as soon

2:53

as they get near water. They're actually like gremlins.

2:56

If you put them anywhere

2:58

near water, they become really

3:00

leery. They're so cool

3:03

the rest of the time. But near water, they are

3:05

very, very leery people.

3:07

Yes. And don't feed them after midnight. No.

3:10

Constantly. They're still at dinner

3:12

after midnight. Unless

3:14

it's wine or cheese, which

3:17

can go on until the small hours of the morning.

3:20

Absolutely. Well, thank you for joining us on the podcast.

3:23

Joining us all the way from France.

3:27

As is the custom on this podcast, we

3:30

like to begin with asking a guest

3:33

about an old grudge. Something

3:35

that you've been thinking about that's under your skin,

3:38

that's getting on your nerves. You wish you'd handled it differently

3:40

or maybe you handled it perfectly, but you

3:42

just want to air it. Get it off your chest.

3:45

Mrs. Waterworth. She

3:47

was my first. Straight in with a name. Straight

3:49

in with a name. I'm not. I'm pulling.

3:52

I'm pulling no punches as far as Mrs. Waterworth is

3:54

concerned. I

3:57

was born in the north. I was born in Blackburn.

4:00

We moved to near

4:03

Kingsland when I was about six

4:06

and I went to the school,

4:08

the first school I was, no it was the second

4:10

school I was out there. I went to about eight different

4:12

primary schools. But the second

4:14

school I was there, the first day, Mrs.

4:17

Waterworth

4:18

put me at the back

4:20

of the class and labelled me the thick

4:22

northerner. And

4:25

it's never ever

4:27

left me. Never. It's

4:31

kind of, I break out in a cold sweat

4:33

during the day and I think, what's up, what's something?

4:36

And I go, ah yeah, Mrs. Waterworth. And

4:39

I like grudges. I

4:41

think grudges are quite healthy. Not

4:45

just carry them around, almost parade them

4:47

like weapons.

4:48

I

4:50

find it really, I quite enjoy that. But

4:55

Mrs. Waterworth is still, it still

4:58

affects me. It really still

5:00

affects me. Were you thinking of Mrs. Waterworth

5:03

yesterday when you were doing the launch of your new book? Thinking,

5:06

I'll show you. I mean her name's

5:08

so close to Jobsworth.

5:10

It's beautiful. Jobsworth

5:12

Waterworth, yeah. There

5:15

is an element of not

5:18

so much revenge, but for

5:22

instance I did a signing at Waterstones

5:25

a couple of weeks ago in Horsham

5:27

where I

5:30

spent my teenage years in

5:32

Horsham. Normally

5:36

I just sign my name in books when

5:38

I'm in a bookshop. And

5:41

I wrote, this will teach you Mrs.

5:44

Maynard, English A-level

5:46

shouting at me and saying I would never

5:48

make anything of myself. And

5:51

I just wrote like a whole essay in the front of the book. Whoever's

5:53

going to buy it. What an angry man

5:55

this person is.

5:58

drama teacher

6:00

who was like yes but it's not

6:03

a career for you is it? TV

6:06

series after

6:08

TV series later just going yeah

6:11

take that Mrs. Williams

6:13

yeah know what you're talking about do

6:15

you? I think

6:16

teachers plant those seeds I think that you

6:23

know they've all they've got like a list when they

6:25

retire they go yeah upset that one

6:28

really

6:31

got under the skin of that one it's like this like a legacy

6:34

they've got like a legacy list where people

6:36

they've really undermined

6:38

yes and then the ones that do succeed

6:40

they were they'll say well that's why I did it

6:44

I did

6:46

that because I pushed you if

6:48

it had been me telling you that you were

6:50

hopeless and

6:53

had no future in front of you what would you have

6:55

done what

6:56

would you have done? It worked in a way it

6:58

worked you know I'm not saying my whole

7:03

life is built on some kind of revenge

7:05

but my whole life is built on some

7:08

kind of revenge I

7:10

really think that I'm doing my own kind

7:13

of legacy list going well I've got you back I've

7:15

got you back I've got you back

7:17

and did she did she say the

7:19

words did she say about you being northern

7:22

or was it yeah oh yeah she said literally

7:25

said you're the thick northerner you

7:27

can go and sit at the back Wow

7:30

yeah wow and then did that encourage

7:33

other pupils to join in on that do you think

7:35

that opened up the possibility

7:38

no no because I

7:41

was quite feisty because

7:44

like I said that I think that was my I

7:47

was only six and that was my third

7:50

primary school already having moved about

7:53

a fair bit so nobody

7:55

tried to bully me

7:58

because I bullying

8:00

in all forms I absolutely abhor and

8:02

I fight back. So nobody

8:04

joined in, nobody jumped on her bandwagon.

8:08

I did lose my accent very quickly. So

8:13

it must have been something going on. Did

8:15

you turn up what A up Mrs Waterworth

8:17

and then a week later you were like don't worry about

8:20

it. Right well you want

8:22

gravy on your chips.

8:25

Wow so that was your third in third

8:28

primary school. In two

8:31

years yeah. Right.

8:33

I started in Blackburn and we

8:36

went to the

8:39

primary school there and I'd walk to school every day

8:41

with my cousins who lived at the end of the road and we were

8:43

a bit of a gang and then we

8:46

moved to like I said to Kingsley

8:49

and Norfolk. Yeah and

8:54

I got beaten up on my first day at primary

8:56

school in Kingsley because I

8:58

had a funny accent. How I mean

9:04

unbelievable unbelievable no

9:08

no self regard at all in Norfolk.

9:11

And then you moved

9:13

again to Horsham. Yeah we moved again

9:15

we moved to Sussex by which time

9:18

I had I had an Norfolk accent and

9:21

I got beaten up on my first day.

9:25

It's sort of it's sort

9:28

of crazy isn't it I suppose how yeah

9:31

I think you have to be quite resilient because that's

9:34

quite a lot of moving for that sort

9:36

of age of your life.

9:38

It was you I think for the

9:42

first for the first

9:44

few primary schools I did my best to

9:47

fit it. But

9:48

then I think by

9:50

the time we got to fifth or sixth

9:52

I was like oh here we go again and

9:55

just sort of

9:56

slumped in a corner not

9:59

thinking I'd be there.

11:59

but I think it's because it's such a formative, those

12:02

are such formative years of your life that you

12:05

form, that you have, you

12:07

know, they're the first time that someone outside

12:09

of your family, people who just like

12:12

love you

12:13

unconditionally

12:15

or even fight with you,

12:16

but it's unconditional from the point

12:19

of view, if you're fighting with your brother and sister, you know you're

12:21

gonna see them the next day, like you're not gonna- It's

12:23

also that they, in effect,

12:27

you spend more time with them than

12:29

you do with your own family anyway. It's

12:31

like you're there from, whatever it was, eight,

12:34

nine o'clock until four o'clock

12:36

in the afternoon with the same teacher,

12:40

and you might, after that, only get like four

12:42

hours with your parents or your siblings or

12:44

whatever. So they are your main,

12:47

they are your world, you know. So

12:49

if they declare pretty

12:52

early on, got

12:55

very little time for you, it's

12:57

like a sentence and it does stay with you.

13:00

Yeah, yeah, you've opted for war.

13:03

Yeah, yeah. You've opted for

13:05

war from day one. You've made your viewpoint pretty

13:08

clear that we know where

13:10

we stand or sit at the back.

13:12

Yeah, so if you're listening, Mrs.

13:14

Waterworth, if

13:17

you're out there, just know. I

13:21

think she's working with the mercenaries in Ute

13:23

Crane at the moment, I guess. Well, thank

13:25

you for sharing that with

13:29

us, your old grudge. What

13:32

a great one. And I'm very happy for you that

13:35

you've

13:35

got this fantastic career. And

13:37

now Mrs. Waterworth can

13:39

view it from the Ukraine.

13:45

I hope so. When

13:49

she's probably, you know, killing

13:53

prisoners of war in a spare time

13:55

and then sitting down to read one of my books, going, I

13:57

created that.

13:59

And then showing it to them going, look what I

14:02

could do. We call topical cream.

14:14

This is where we attempt to apply some

14:16

bam to a stinging news story that's got

14:18

you all heads up. Something that's happening

14:20

in the news. It doesn't have to be protest

14:23

just because you're in France. I

14:25

wanted to see, I wanted to see what

14:27

you would bring to the table.

14:28

Well I'm going with

14:32

the government, the UK government and just

14:35

there has to be, there should

14:37

be at some point somebody who,

14:40

like a parent, like a government

14:42

parent who just goes that's enough

14:44

now.

14:45

You know, you're not

14:47

doing anything, you're basically just

14:49

lining your pockets for when you

14:51

lose the next election. There

14:54

should be something where somebody just throws

14:56

in the towel

14:57

and go, can we get back

15:00

to adulthood now? Yes.

15:03

It's so relentless

15:05

that it's almost, people

15:08

are almost not aware of

15:11

how bad these people are and what

15:13

they're doing. Every

15:16

day there's something else.

15:17

Well you sort of get into a state of apathy

15:20

because you feel like, you

15:22

feel like if you've been shouting about it and

15:25

if you shouted about it all the way through the pandemic

15:27

and if you sort of, I sort of say,

15:30

I

15:31

talk about this a bit in my current show, but I sort of

15:33

say that if you list up,

15:36

if you stack the things that the Tories

15:38

have done over the pandemic,

15:40

they've got more blood on their hands than me trying to remove

15:42

my moon cup, which

15:49

I think if you're not, if you're not furious

15:52

with them at this point, you're going to be, then you're not paying attention,

15:54

I guess. I think it's the PPE contracts

15:57

that we're, you know, we're now, we've got this privileges

15:59

committee. thing with Boris, we've got,

16:02

you know, all of the people who we were told,

16:04

how dare you suggest that they're either lying or

16:06

spinning stuff. And people like Dominic

16:09

Cummings, who are now coming out and going, Oh no, he lied about

16:11

this. He lied about this. You know, Boris

16:14

is shocking and a mess

16:16

and Brexit. We've, it's

16:18

a disaster zone. Um,

16:20

we, we got trade

16:22

deals with other people. The cost of living's gone

16:25

up. No, we can't do anything about the energy

16:27

companies, even though elsewhere in

16:29

Europe,

16:31

people are paying. This is the

16:33

thing. I mean, France, the

16:35

electricity in France has always been

16:38

about four times the cost of it is in the UK

16:41

anyway. It's a very expensive

16:43

thing over here. But

16:45

in the UK, it's, it's

16:48

the same with the train companies. They're run by

16:50

a lot of European companies who have just gone

16:53

over and gone, this is so

16:55

good. We can just cream all this

16:57

off. And, and it doesn't matter.

16:59

Nobody's, nobody's complaining, you know? And then

17:02

the, I've got this theory

17:04

that, um,

17:07

because obviously over here, there's, there's so

17:09

many protesters, so many strikes. And

17:11

in a way the

17:13

French revolution kind of ruined

17:15

France and it's, and it's,

17:18

it's mentality,

17:21

but not having a revolution in the UK

17:23

has ruined their mentality as well. There's,

17:25

there should be like a happy medium where you

17:28

can't, over here, you know, this

17:29

half a beheading, half

17:32

a beheading, right down the middle, guillotine

17:35

down the middle rather than across the neck. Um,

17:38

it's just, you know, if, if Macron

17:41

had lowered the retirement

17:44

age, they'd still have been strikes

17:46

because it's, because it's the season.

17:48

I like it. I

17:52

like it. So we have a, we have PIM

17:54

season and Wimbledon and in France

17:57

it's like, oh, it's protest season. Well,

17:59

I see. Well I see you next season,

18:01

sure. What colour jacket are you going to be wearing?

18:03

Yellow? Is it going to be yellow? Well

18:08

I admire it. Quite aggressive. Oh wait,

18:11

I know the people who admire it, but it's

18:14

not, it's like for

18:16

instance, all kicking off in

18:19

Paris and the biggest cities

18:21

like Marseille and Lyon and Rouen

18:24

as well.

18:24

It wasn't

18:27

about the retirement age. It's just,

18:30

it's extreme politics,

18:32

like you've got Le Pen on the right

18:34

and Melanchot on the left, and Melanchot

18:36

is just as bad as Le Pen. But

18:41

creating something that wasn't really

18:43

a problem. Right. You

18:46

know, and it's just about, the

18:49

difficulty Macron had is that because

18:52

his

18:53

party is so completely new is

18:55

that it hasn't got like a media base

18:57

or it hasn't got traditional supporters. So

18:59

it's too easy to turn on him.

19:02

Right. And

19:05

the right and the left obviously love all that and

19:07

just, and stoke it completely. I

19:10

was walking through Paris a

19:12

few weeks ago just before

19:14

I was stuck in Paris actually because there

19:16

was a train strike I couldn't get home. But

19:19

they were expecting big protests

19:21

that evening and it was, it was

19:24

like a ghost town. It was like a wild west.

19:27

The barriers were up, shops were shut. It

19:30

was really unnerving

19:33

that they knew that this would all kick off.

19:35

And, but there's nothing you can

19:37

do. I saw a video

19:39

and I don't know if it's true, which was

19:42

like literally Paris burning in

19:44

the background while people are sat outside a cafe.

19:47

I don't know whether that's, I

19:49

haven't. I think that was fake.

19:52

It was a fake footage. It was a fake

19:54

photo. Right, right. I know that. It's

19:57

wonderfully French.

19:59

I mean, a friend of mine,

20:02

she sent me a picture. She was on a protest

20:04

and she had a glass of wine

20:07

in her hand and a bottle of wine

20:09

in the other. I'm walking down

20:11

the middle of Paris, surrounded

20:14

by, you know, violence and anger

20:16

and just pouring herself wine.

20:19

A little, that's so

20:21

funny. I'm very angry, but

20:23

I'm also going to smoke this Golluah. Exactly,

20:27

exactly. I

20:29

will protest, but with insouciance. I

20:32

deeply care, but I also don't care

20:34

at the same time, which isn't that so funny?

20:37

Because that's the colliding of the two things,

20:40

because protests suggest you deeply care,

20:42

but the whole French attitude is, I

20:45

do not care, I'm quite gavolier

20:47

than sure. It's like they've all turned up and just

20:49

gone, well, I didn't know this was going on. I'm just here,

20:51

you know.

20:55

That's so funny. That's so funny. So,

20:57

but yeah, because we were sort of like,

21:00

oh, we admire,

21:02

we admire it, because they're like, they're going

21:04

to protest and riot

21:06

about the pensionable

21:08

age. And we're just sort of sitting here going,

21:11

oh, we'll just freeze our way through winter.

21:12

That seems, that seems reasonable.

21:14

We'll freeze our way through winter. We can't afford

21:17

to eat. And our government ministers

21:19

are literally pooing in our own rivers. Yes.

21:22

And we're going to do nothing about it. We'll just

21:24

float them down the shit stream. It's

21:27

just, it's so, at what

21:30

point, at what point does, does

21:33

the, does English society go,

21:35

do you know what I've had enough? Well, do you know what we'd like

21:37

to do? Instead of going let's

21:40

protest, let's complain. What we like to

21:42

do is

21:43

police each other. So that

21:46

was the thing that happened.

21:49

I've spoken about this before, but when they, you

21:52

know, when they, the energy price caps came out

21:54

and stuff, it was a lot of people coming online going,

21:56

you don't know hard, you know, those

21:58

sort of people like. had to share one square

22:01

of chocolate between 12 of us, you

22:03

know, like that kind of, that

22:06

sort of mad. So it's people telling other

22:08

people that, that you don't know how, you

22:10

don't understand it. We did this when I was a

22:12

little and you go, yeah, and that was crap.

22:15

And you shouldn't have to do that again. And especially not

22:17

after you've worked your whole life to

22:19

not experience

22:20

hard times. Damien

22:23

Green, a Conservative

22:26

MP, was

22:28

talking about the sewage in rivers.

22:30

And so it was perfectly normal when we were

22:32

growing up to swim in sewage.

22:36

But

22:39

that's not a good thing. That's

22:43

not a defense. Oh, come

22:45

on back in our day, we just swam through the shit

22:47

and got on with it. That's the

22:49

problem with youth today. I didn't even bother swimming, just swallowed

22:52

somebody else's shit, didn't get wet that way.

22:55

Just open your mouth and let the turd in, it's nutrients.

22:58

Like that's the kind of stuff where, where

23:00

it feels so mad. It feels

23:03

so mad that you kind of go, there are people

23:05

that we can turn to and we

23:08

can campaign, we can protest, we

23:10

can speak up, but you'd rather just

23:12

tell each other, oh, you don't know hard.

23:15

You don't know hard, you don't know difficult. Swimming

23:17

in the shit, enjoy it. Enjoy swimming in the

23:19

shit. Have a nice

23:22

summer. It's time to swim in the shit.

23:24

It's such a crazy defense.

23:27

But it's not a defense. It's like, don't

23:29

worry about it. Yeah, we've really

23:31

screwed up. But don't worry about it.

23:33

We used to screw up all the time. So

23:36

we're going to continue. What we like

23:38

in this nation is tradition. And

23:41

our tradition is making a mess

23:44

of it. Yeah. It just sort of feels, it feels,

23:48

it

23:49

feels mad. And then when you go, we want to

23:51

go back to traditional values and go, is that

23:53

the kind of values you want to go back to? That's

23:55

right. Let's bring back tuberculosis.

24:00

back to CB. Well, polio

24:02

is on its way back. So, you know. Excellent.

24:05

Good, good old fashioned Victorian values.

24:08

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we

24:10

used to go, in fact, that was, they used to swim

24:12

in the sea. The

24:13

Victorians used to go to Blackpool

24:15

and Brighton and they would go for, they'd pramulate.

24:18

They called it walk. That's what they call walking. We all call

24:20

it walking, mate. It's a bit of walking, isn't it? Pramulating.

24:24

And then they would swim

24:26

in the sea for health purposes.

24:29

But that still makes me laugh. Just the idea of someone

24:31

swimming through

24:32

it. Oh, look, William Ashheath.

24:34

I

24:39

like the idea of it somehow. But then they'd

24:41

have these little boxed off areas, wouldn't they, for

24:43

modesty so that you wouldn't see them in their fall.

24:46

Yes. They'd

24:48

have tracks, didn't they? They had tracks going

24:50

into the sea. Yeah. Nobody

24:53

could see. I'd say, yeah, I'd

24:55

bless the Victorians. Yeah. There must

24:58

have been far more going

25:00

on underneath the Victorians,

25:02

what we know of Victorians. Yes.

25:04

There must have been. Oh, there

25:06

was definitely a CD underbelly. A regular perversion.

25:09

Yeah. Normally from the Royal

25:11

Family, as far as I'm aware. Well, listen,

25:14

I'll tell you what, if you were depressed during

25:16

Victorian times, you'd have like,

25:18

if you went in as a woman and you were depressed, they had

25:20

a big,

25:21

a big dildo, a big vibrator.

25:24

So you'd get, you'd get freaked off.

25:26

If I'm depressed now, I go to the doctors,

25:29

you know, I'm going to get some Prozac. What

25:31

if I want to be freaked off? Why

25:34

can't we bring back the Victorian method? Just

25:37

a gigantic vibrator with

25:40

three different people manning it with goggles

25:42

on going, we need to make this woman well.

25:44

Well, you'd be

25:46

lucky to get an appointment to start

25:49

with, but they should, they,

25:51

if it's, look, if it's that simple,

25:54

there should be like the civic

25:56

dildos like that in, in, in town

25:58

centers.

25:59

I'm going to the Civic Dildo. I'm

26:05

going to the local dildo. Me

26:08

and Gladys are just popping down to the Civic Dildo.

26:13

Oh my God. Amazing.

26:16

Imagine how happy everyone would be. Just

26:19

fantastic. That

26:21

is the kind of thing that draws

26:24

society together. Where are you

26:27

going? I'm going down the Civic Dildo. All right.

26:30

I'll see you there at three. Thank

26:35

you for sharing your topical cream. I

26:41

fully agree. I'm with you. I'm

26:44

going to take some of the French method but not

26:46

all of it.

26:47

I am definitely taking the drinking wine while

26:49

you're on it

26:50

though. Oh, this is the

26:52

only way to protest. Wine

26:55

and cigarettes.

26:59

This is a section of the podcast where we ask for an

27:01

unpopular opinion. A thing

27:03

that everyone hates but you love or vice

27:05

versa. Well, we've kind

27:07

of covered

27:07

that really because it's the idea

27:10

of the French. So

27:14

my idea of the French, my romanticised,

27:17

my grandmother was half French. My

27:19

romanticised idea of

27:22

French people. The

27:25

reality versus how people think French

27:27

people are.

27:28

Yeah. I think that there's

27:31

obviously there's centuries of

27:34

antipathy that has grown up between

27:38

the British. No, sorry, not the

27:40

British, the English

27:41

and the French because the

27:44

Welsh, the Irish and the Scots adore

27:47

the French, I think. But there's

27:49

this idea that

27:51

the French are filthy,

27:54

work shy. Yet

27:56

at the same time, great lovers. I don't think you can be

27:58

filthy at work shy. a great

28:00

lover. But it doesn't work. I've tried it.

28:06

Unless you're into someone who hasn't washed

28:08

and can't be bothered in the sack. Yeah,

28:11

exactly. I remember

28:13

before we moved to France,

28:17

we were out walking the dog

28:19

one day and we saw this guy

28:22

who we regularly saw walking

28:24

his dog.

28:25

And we said, oh, we won't

28:28

see you again. We're moved to France. And

28:30

he said, oh, France is great.

28:33

It's just full of French people. And he

28:36

wasn't the first person to say that. This

28:39

idea that France

28:43

is a wonderful place if you got rid

28:45

of all the people in it and put English people

28:47

in it, that it would be somehow

28:50

better. I was sitting, as

28:52

I

28:53

tend to do, I sit outside the

28:55

local bar and just read or

28:57

whatever. And I was there one

29:00

time and they say, obviously English tourists

29:03

walked past. And this woman

29:05

said, oh, this is such

29:07

a beautiful little town. What it needs, though,

29:09

is a right good chippy. No,

29:11

no, it doesn't. No, it really does. You

29:14

can't go on for

29:19

that. We

29:20

do not want your English fat

29:22

chips. No, you

29:24

put gravy. You put gravy on your chips.

29:27

No, put wine on your chips. Because

29:30

I'm French

29:33

and I'm English. And my

29:37

son had this as well because my son, my oldest

29:39

son was born in the

29:41

UK. But we moved here when he

29:43

was four. And for

29:46

a lot of the time he was at

29:48

school. He was quite aggressively

29:51

English. He was very proud

29:53

of where he came from and proud

29:55

to be different to everybody else

29:58

in the village school.

29:59

Aggressively so, you know,

30:02

you'd get into fight, typically English. And

30:06

but then when Brexit happened, he

30:08

completely changed. He raced

30:11

practically wearing striped shirts with onions

30:13

around his neck. I'm so

30:15

French now. There's

30:18

a real,

30:19

there are, it's a very distinct

30:21

attitude. The French see themselves almost

30:24

as a race rather

30:26

than a nationality. Right.

30:30

And I really, I love

30:32

that. I love that. And

30:34

the idea that I think a lot of, I

30:36

remember

30:38

a well-known comic saying to me once,

30:40

the French hate us, don't they?

30:43

And no, the French don't

30:46

hate the English. Not one bit. I

30:48

don't think most of them even know the English exist.

30:51

They really don't care.

30:52

They don't give you any thought

30:55

at all. They're not interested. Yes. They

30:58

don't hate you. They're just,

30:59

they're not thinking about English, the

31:01

English, they're just being French. Yes.

31:04

They're just busy being, l'Ivertis, egalitarian,

31:06

fraternité, sororitée. Let's

31:10

bring the women

31:10

in. It's a full-time job being

31:13

French, you know, it's not

31:15

something you take lightly. You have

31:17

to, there are certain, I think, criteria

31:20

that you have to, you have to match up to every

31:22

day.

31:23

I think we see that glamour. We see that,

31:26

you know, that kind of like shabby chic of French,

31:29

no matter what it is, it's chic, even if it's

31:31

shabby, because you've got chateau

31:34

everywhere that people can just buy, you

31:36

know, for like the mortgage on a house

31:38

that you would have in London. You can

31:41

just... Why do you think I'm

31:43

here? We sold our little box

31:45

in Crawley and bought,

31:48

you know, a dream property. It's

31:50

a wonderful country. Well, and

31:53

also, is it your wife is French, right? Well,

31:56

no, I made that up. Okay. He's

32:00

half French, my mother-in-law's French, but

32:02

you can't go on stage as a comic and start talking

32:05

about your mother-in-law. You just can't. You

32:07

can't, not anymore. There's too much baggage.

32:10

Who is who?

32:11

This is

32:13

Bernard, a French Bernard Manning. Misdure

32:16

Manning. Misdure Manning, yes, my

32:18

mother-in-law. I think the French don't hate

32:20

the English. I think they like it when

32:23

you

32:24

attempt to integrate, speak the language,

32:27

because barging in and

32:29

speaking English in France is quite

32:31

entitled.

32:33

Oh yeah, definitely. But

32:35

there's also the reverse of that

32:37

and the old saw about speaking French

32:43

and

32:44

they will reply in English,

32:46

which is annoying. But

32:48

then I was in a French restaurant in London about

32:51

three weeks ago, and he was

32:54

speaking to me in English when I was replying in

32:56

French. And so you kind of

32:58

get the inverse. Right,

33:02

right.

33:02

I like to try, even when

33:04

I was in Belgium at the end

33:06

of last year, so I was sort of trying

33:09

in the French places, and I'm

33:11

aware that there's regional,

33:12

like the Belgian accent

33:15

is gonna be different as well. And

33:17

then there's obviously the Flemish

33:18

bit that I can't. Nobody speaks

33:21

there anymore, not even the Flem's. But

33:25

I was trying, and then I was just having to

33:27

ask them to slow down.

33:29

And I was giving it a shot. I think

33:31

that's the thing, is if you're willing to try,

33:34

and they're like, oh, it's nice that you tried,

33:36

but I think this sort of demand that

33:39

English people can definitely have traveling

33:42

around the world of going, we're just English,

33:44

isn't it? It's English, and you're like, good God,

33:46

no, you're not in England now. So just

33:49

attempt to learn a couple of phrases just to

33:52

help you along.

33:52

It's just the basics, just the basics.

33:55

Don't say hello, don't say thank you. Say

33:57

bonjour, say merci.

33:59

It's really not that difficult. The

34:03

idea that you can just walk

34:06

into a boulanger and just say, point

34:08

at something and then say thank you in English.

34:11

It's so rude. It's

34:13

so rude. And they

34:16

do love it when you make the effort. I've been here 18

34:18

years

34:18

and they're getting tired of my

34:20

efforts. To

34:26

get French nationality I had to do

34:29

language tests and it was just, it was an

34:31

appalling exercise. But

34:35

I have still, even now, I have no

34:38

idea how I got through that. I mean,

34:40

I am essentially fluent now,

34:42

but

34:44

I remember my wife said,

34:47

we were filling out the application form

34:49

to take the French test and she said, why don't we

34:51

just put you down as a mute?

34:55

How

34:58

long has it taken you to get to fluency, do

35:00

you think? Well,

35:02

I don't like to admit that there's fluency

35:04

because if people think you're fluent, they're

35:07

going to talk to you and I'm not keen on that.

35:12

Immersion is the best

35:14

way to learn a language, I think it is, is to be

35:17

immersed in a society

35:19

or in a place and

35:22

you don't have any choice.

35:25

No, exactly. Exactly. It

35:29

kind of, you know, I've tried over the

35:31

years, you

35:33

know, the thing is obviously

35:36

as comedians we're used to,

35:40

if we're not being understood,

35:42

we can't do our job.

35:45

So I found it really hard

35:47

that I had to kind of suppress

35:50

my natural instincts

35:52

to be sarcastic or

35:54

whatever because I didn't have

35:57

the language skills to be able to do that. Yes.

36:00

And even when I tried, sometimes

36:02

it was a disaster. Many,

36:04

many years ago, we were

36:07

having the loft converted

36:10

into a bedroom. This was the day after

36:12

the World Cup final in 2006, when

36:16

Zinedine Zidane got sent off

36:18

for headbutting.

36:19

Yes, I remember this. The Italian

36:22

player. And the

36:24

builders were upstairs. And I

36:26

went in and said hello. And I went, that's

36:29

Zidane. He's nuts, isn't

36:31

he? And they downed tools. My wife had to persuade

36:33

them to come back. I was just trying

36:35

to be funny. I didn't, I wasn't slagging

36:38

him off. I was just saying he's a bit

36:40

mad, didn't he? And they just took

36:42

it so badly in my wife's house.

36:45

Had to persuade them to come back and

36:48

carry on. I go, he's English.

36:50

He doesn't understand. He doesn't know what he's saying.

36:52

He doesn't know what he's saying.

37:01

Before we go, a couple of things. I'd

37:03

like to get into a listener problem, because

37:05

I do a section of the podcast called Angry Ant,

37:08

which is where people send me their issues. And

37:10

I have a couple here. The first one I

37:13

just want to put across says, dear Angry Ant,

37:15

is it okay for people to use their Zoom cameras

37:17

like bathroom mirrors? I don't want to see anyone

37:20

poking their eyeballs or sticking a swab up

37:22

their nostrils or showing me that judgy

37:24

face where they consider if their

37:25

eyebrows are on straight. So

37:30

here's one of the things I found during

37:32

lockdown when the Zoom first

37:34

started, and we're on a Zoom now.

37:37

I, men are so unaware of

37:39

their angles. Women, I think, we take

37:42

photos. I'm always like, don't be shy, go high.

37:44

But the camp, you know, men during

37:46

those, seem to have think the most

37:49

flattering angle is directly up the

37:51

nose.

37:51

I know exactly

37:53

what you mean. I know exactly. In

37:57

full, like full view of nostril

37:59

hair.

37:59

So, yeah, so

38:02

I think it's that in the middle of having

38:05

been on a conference, on a Zoom with lots

38:07

of people, that there's someone there just

38:10

checking how they look the entire time.

38:13

I think I'm

38:16

not suffered from that because I'm so vain.

38:19

I'm aware of my angles

38:21

at all times. My laptop at

38:25

the moment is I've got a specific

38:27

stand

38:28

that I bought just so that it's at the

38:30

right angle. So you don't

38:33

see all 12 of my chins. Yes.

38:36

That's the thing. We're in

38:38

showbiz, so we're always aware of the angles. But

38:42

I do find that it can be distracting. I'm

38:45

like, if you're going to do that, just switch your camera off.

38:48

But if you're going to be pottering about and

38:50

doing, you know, I've got this bookshelf behind me.

38:52

I could be taking things off. I could be flicking because

38:56

what it says to you is the person's not engaged with

38:58

what you're saying. So I don't think it is okay.

39:00

I mean, she's asking, is it okay? I

39:02

don't think, I think it's fine

39:04

to use your

39:06

camera, your phone camera

39:09

as a mirror. I'll often do that on the train to

39:11

check myself out.

39:12

But I think in the middle, in the midst of

39:14

a phone call,

39:16

if you're there just like doing your eyebrows

39:18

and like checking yourself out,

39:20

I'm going to be raging.

39:22

Well, also buy a mirror. Yeah.

39:25

Yeah. There's, you know,

39:28

but things

39:31

like like you're on a tube or a train and

39:33

women

39:34

are putting on full makeup on

39:36

the tube or the train, even though it's rattling around.

39:39

And then I was in a tube and

39:42

this woman started putting hairspray. A

39:45

cloud of hairspray.

39:47

We were all being maced.

39:50

See I have

39:52

a, I do my makeup on the train and I've got it down

39:54

to such a fine art. I'm like, if you

39:56

think you've seen skill at the Cirque du Soleil,

39:58

you haven't seen me

39:59

on eyeliner as a train breaks

40:02

into the station. That is some higher

40:04

wire stuff. I could take an eye out. I'm

40:06

very skilled at this, but I do think there

40:08

is a line. I think I don't want to see

40:10

you doing ablutions. I don't want to see

40:13

anything that should be done in, I don't

40:15

want to see tweezing. I

40:16

don't want to see shaving. I don't want

40:18

to see, I

40:20

seen someone, I think even putting in

40:22

eye drops

40:23

where you see like people pulling at that, you see someone rolling

40:26

their eyelid back is a bit like,

40:29

is a bit much. Well, I can't have it. Clipping,

40:31

clipping nails,

40:33

clipping and filing. Anything that

40:35

has skin or

40:37

body detritus. Nasal

40:39

hair. Yeah. Floating into

40:41

the, you're filing your nails, like bits of

40:44

your dead fingernail or just like sort of

40:46

flying across the tube

40:49

carriage and landing on me. I don't think

40:51

that's okay,

40:52

but I don't mind, I don't

40:54

mind a mascara or seeing someone put lipstick

40:56

on. I think that's, hairspray

40:59

is too much. I think there's something quite

41:01

attractive about a woman who carries around a

41:03

small mirror as well. Right.

41:06

I quite, because it's kind of, it's kind

41:08

of old Hollywood chic,

41:10

French chic maybe that, that

41:12

you have that kind of, and you just take out a pocket mirror

41:15

like that. Men can't do that.

41:17

Yes. Yeah. Can

41:20

you imagine how fine you look if you just,

41:22

just the thought of it, seeing a man take out a mirror

41:24

and just

41:25

sort of. Get the twizz

41:27

and take some nasal hair. It

41:31

doesn't work. It's not the same effect.

41:33

The husband had those, went

41:36

to the Turkish barbers recently and had after

41:38

his cut, they do

41:41

the nose wax, which is where they, it's

41:43

two, two

41:45

big cotton, cotton buds with

41:48

wax on them that are then shoved up there.

41:50

And then they just pull them out in a one

41:53

and

41:53

it looks

41:55

eye watering.

41:57

No, thanks. No,

42:01

you're just going to have to live with

42:03

my ZZ Top, a tax moustache,

42:05

I'm afraid.

42:10

Well, thank you very much for coming on the

42:12

podcast, Ian. Before you go, I would

42:15

like to find out if you have anything to plug. Obviously,

42:17

there's a book, so tell our listeners where

42:20

they can catch you, where they can buy the book and

42:22

what you've got coming

42:22

up. OK, Death

42:25

at the Shadow, which is the third in

42:27

the Follie Valley series, came

42:29

out yesterday, June 1st, and it's in all

42:33

bookshops. Not just good ones, it's in all

42:35

bookshops. Bad ones, middling.

42:38

Especially bad ones. Mediocre

42:40

bookshops specialise in it. And

42:42

it's on Audible as well, and I've read that.

42:45

And then I've got another series

42:47

starting in October, which

42:49

is more serious. Death at the Shadow

42:51

is what it

42:52

is, it's comedy, cosy,

42:55

crime. Whereas

42:57

the man who didn't burn as she

42:59

was by the title is not so funny.

43:02

Yes. It's a more serious

43:04

crime. But that's what's coming up. And

43:08

I'll be sort of zipping about signings

43:10

and all of that.

43:11

Thank you so much for coming on

43:13

the podcast. So go check Ian out. I

43:16

would like to say I am doing a work

43:18

in progress at the Edinburgh Fringe for one week

43:20

only, midday at the Monkey Barrel. You

43:23

can catch me. Thank you for listening to

43:25

the podcast and we will see you

43:27

next time.

43:28

You can listen to other

43:30

programmes from The Bugle, including

43:32

The Bugle, Catharsis, Tiny

43:35

Revolutions, Top Stories and

43:37

The Gargle, wherever you find your podcasts.

43:39

Bye.