EP 102: We're Back! Our New California Facility, Bootcamps & Bear Hunts

Podcast in over a month, mate, and people are kicking off about it.

That's true, because on the Instagram story questions the other day, our singular listener asked where the podcast had gone, and I promised we'd do one today. And here we are, look.

Here we are doing one.

Yeah, do one.

And we're gonna talk about our trip to California. We're gonna give a A splog, spoken vlog.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, we're gonna—

a regaling. And we all know that you never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn.

No, absolutely not.

I am excited for the embellishments.

I wouldn't— no, I'll tell you what, for the story, I'm gonna keep it straight, like verbatim, 100% to the actual truth.

Fair enough. Have you ever? But actually, we don't know that, do we? Because our minds create memories, don't they?

They do.

And it's not really the truth.

So everything is a lie, apparently.

Everything.

When you remember something, you remember the last time you remembered it. Yeah, not the original incident.

Yeah.

And so what happens is through the process of Chinese whispers in the brain. Yeah, internal Chinese head thoughts. You end up fucking remembering completely something completely different. That's why you and a friend, usually you and I, exactly, for example, the steak and eggs.

Yeah, fair enough. Yeah.

Can, can like be fucking absolutely hell-bent on one version of events versus the other version of events. Yeah, because if they just— actually, yeah, yeah, it turns out you're just a fucking idiot. But I'm sure we'll get on to that.

Yeah, we could do. I'm sure we'll go because it does kind of marry to the Aussie trip in terms of the breakfast and eggs problem. Yeah, just slightly different.

Yeah, yeah, Aussies owe us some apologies.

Yeah. On the breakfast front.

Yeah. But I'm sure we'll get on to that. Right, do you want to start us, or—

Yeah, so where do you want to start, like chronologically?

Yeah, we'll go chronologically.

Trip across London was shit, wasn't it?

Yep.

Getting up at fucking whatever time in the morning, you obviously being late, was shit.

Why was I late? I'm here, I can't be late.

But you, you managed it.

I'm literally on site. How did I manage to get here?

These motherfuckers were asking if you were even up at one point. 'Cause I drove past, no lights on or that. And I was like, he's clearly not up. And I was like, oh, I'm gonna have to come and knock on the window and just hope that you're naked or something.

No.

I didn't actually make it to the window 'cause I was all like, come on.

We can't talk about every time I was late because that'll take a lot of the podcast.

Yeah. Alright, can we just, like, put a statement at the start? Everything you hear from now on was late.

Yeah, presume.

Yeah, yeah, everything was late.

Yeah, everything.

Yeah, the only thing that wasn't late was the flight. Yeah, and that— you weren't in charge of that, so that was okay.

Thank God.

Thank God.

Thank goodness.

Yeah. All right, otherwise we'd have arrived tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, the journey down, awful. Obviously we didn't go down the day before even though we told ourselves we would after the last one.

I don't regret it.

No, I don't, because we want to leave our dogs for one more night.

And I really like the fucking Pakistani pack— ah, fucking Pakistani taxi driver. I actually said Pakistani taxi driver there, which I don't think is a problem. I could see how it could be though. Yeah, right.

No, he was a good boy though. Yeah, really nice.

We'll get a ping of him up here. Yeah, I'm sure we'll get a screenshot from his Uber profile or something.

It provided some beverages.

He did. And chewed Alicia's ear off.

Yeah, well, not on the way down. That was me.

Did he chew your ear off?

A little bit. I was a bit— I just—

He's into cricket, cooking, and spending time with his family.

Yeah, which is nice, isn't it?

Which is—

yeah. Yeah, really nice. He's not into having much room in the front seat.

No.

That was— the trip down was awful.

Good stable driver though.

Very stable. He gave us an exact time frame when we went to the services because all of everyone bar me had tiny bladders and needed to pee.

Yeah, fair enough.

He was like, right, you've got fucking 10 minutes because otherwise traffic's going to increase by 12% and we'll be 4 minutes late. Something like that.

Yeah, he was very on it.

He was very on it.

Very on it.

Got us off in the right terminal. What more can you ask for?

No, no, exactly. Yeah, we had Owen last time, didn't we?

Yeah, saddies.

Oh, saddy's away.

Exponential saddy's.

Yeah, basically contagious. It's so strong and potent you can catch it.

Yeah.

And we, we were like, we got off that, out of that van like, fucking hell, Jesus Christ, life sucked out of us.

So it was just the only thing that saved us was the anticipation of going to see Adam, I suppose, that time. Yeah, saved the savior.

All right, all right, then we get to the airport. Yeah, nothing really happens there, does it? Is it?

No, we did get rinsed by that Indonesian lady over breakfast. She's just getting stuck into it.

Yeah, yeah, she said, uh, you took all her height and that's why she was—

Yeah, I took all of her height and she ended up short. Yeah, I don't know how that happened, but we must be twinnies somehow.

I think she's flirting. Yeah, maybe she wants to climb you like a tree. Yeah, she just wasn't very good at it.

No.

But I liked her.

Who are we to judge?

She was a good laugh.

She was a great laugh.

Yeah, she was good. I would have given her one just purely for for being a good, a good. Okay. Okay. A good sport. She was a good sport.

Sporting chop.

Yeah. You know what? You can have one just for being a good sport.

Yeah.

Yeah. There you go. In Bill's Cafe, that was.

It was. Yeah. I'd never been to a Bill's until that point.

Yeah. They're all over apparently.

My first Bill's experience.

Okay.

I know what then. I got a flight in me.

Yep.

You did a lot of napping.

Not as much as you on the way back, mate.

No, no. Well, maybe you, maybe, but there's no evidence of it, so I'll take that.

Yeah, whereas maybe evidence, maybe we'll come on to it, I'm sure.

Yeah, I did knock a couple of fucking clones back, so it should have happened. It did happen. Very glad it did happen.

Last time I had one of them, I got— so I could not— I can't have them again. You have to beep out. Unfortunately.

Fair enough.

You me?

Then what happened? Yeah, I did. I did. Yeah, to be fair, and I'll take part responsibility for that.

Fair enough. Thank you, mate. Doesn't fucking change what happened to me. No, it doesn't. No, doesn't change my truth.

Nah. Yeah.

Anyway.

Anyway, sorry.

What else happened? On the airplane?

Not too much really. That's pretty cool. Fairly steady, isn't it?

Mortal Kombat 2.

I knocked out a couple of Avengers movies. In fact, all of them.

You did, yeah. Well, bar one. I think you missed the first one.

All bar one. I didn't do the first one because I remembered the first one.

Oh, okay.

And then knocked out the last 3, which is great timing because there's supposed to be another one soon, isn't it?

Yeah, Doomsday, 18th of December.

Yeah, brilliant.

We're going to Orlando, Florida studios to watch it, which is crazy.

Crazy. He's going. Are you gonna have a red carpet?

Yeah, probably.

I'd be very surprised if you didn't.

I'm, uh, yeah, I'm a big Marvel fan, and they're probably a big J-Rod fan, to be fair. Yeah, Downey Jr., probably.

It'd be like, oh my God, it's him.

Yeah, and I'll be like—

That'd be amazing.

Yeah.

Oh, and then we had to get a 7,000-mile Uber I believe it was longer than the Uber in Australia.

Yeah, have you just missed the whole of San Fran?

Oh yeah, we stayed there, didn't we?

Yeah, we had two, two, got like kind of two, two days in San Fran. Yeah, we're done. Yeah, maybe two days.

Yeah, we've been there before, haven't we? So there's not much to mention, is there? Oh no, there is. The escape room. Turns out we are absolutely dominant at escape rooms.

Holy fucking shit.

The other, the rest of the team, kudos to them, were Very good.

Alicia didn't offer much, but yeah.

We got separated in the units that we were in. It was like, um, yeah, was it Escape from Alcatraz one?

Yeah.

And you had to be in 2 teams. We purposely got separated because they thought we'd need some violence.

If these 2 fall out in a cell, it was a very confined space.

It was too.

I was looking at things I could have picked up and smashed you over the head with. I was like, he's a big dick, so I'm gonna have to put a meal tray in a pool. Unfortunately, it didn't have to come to that.

It didn't at all. If anything, we— if any of those two were on the same—

Yeah, wave length.

Soap thing when I got told I wasn't allowed to do that and you—

No.

You had my back and actually was the—

It was the truth.

The whole star of it.

Yeah, that was your truth. Yeah.

No, we were very dominant at that.

Yeah, we were close to a record apparently.

We were.

We were getting similar times to competitive escape teams.

Yeah, which you can only assume is not coincidence.

And those that actually did have the record, they were given one hint, whereas we were given zero hints.

Not one hint. I think that—

Disqualified from the record if you have a hint.

You should be. You absolutely should be. Yeah.

So I think, Ian, it's fair to say we hold the record.

Yeah, I'm taking it.

Alcatraz, Escape from Alcatraz, and San Francisco something pier.

Yep.

We've got the record there because it was, it was an hour. It was a difficulty 9.5 out of 10. Yeah, just to—

we don't— we're formidable spiders, are we? Is that the saying?

Yeah, yeah. We saw some sea lions as well.

We did. So yeah, they were good. Yeah, they were good.

They were funny.

What else did some big idiot dogs just swimming around and a lot of pit bulls?

Lots of crackheads, lots of pit bulls. I didn't see as much poo in the street as I did last time, which is nice. Yeah, actually there's a poo app to show you where all the Poo is.

I walked past the guy and I overheard him saying, oh, they've cleaned it up in the last few years.

Oh nice.

But I mean, you went within a year almost, did you?

Yeah.

So maybe they've intensified their efforts in the last year.

Maybe.

Yeah, hopefully they knew you were coming.

Yeah.

What next?

Anything else in San Fran? Got some cheesecake, got some ridiculous hats.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Get everyone a hat.

Do we— we have got a picture of that as well. There you go.

Texas Longhorns. Up the Texas Longhorns. Um, chopped a girl.

No, he wasn't on that trip, but he was a big Texas Longhorns fan in America.

In Santa Barbara, was it?

It was.

Any good?

It was into her chop. Yeah, yeah, really good. Yeah.

Do you love her? Do you ever think about her? Yeah, I've thought about her.

Can't say I haven't.

Would you say you miss her?

Yeah, probably.

I think classes is missing.

There was one in Vegas that I do miss, but that's a longer story. We'll come— maybe probably not for this podcast. I'm not averse to telling it, which is— I think this might be quite lengthy, a lot to cover.

Do you think about her a lot?

Yes.

Daily?

Um, weekly.

Okay, still a lot. How long has it been? Oh, if you like over ten years.

Yeah. Yeah.

Do you think we could find her?

I don't know. Should we try?

Try and get her on the podcast. I'm just like a Zoom or something.

Yeah, that'd be amazing.

And you have to profess your love and be like, "I've thought about you every single day since we've chopped." Listen, I don't know if you think the same, but you could be married with kids at this point. A ten-year-old kid.

Yeah.

That could be yours. Could be really tall one in a chicken suit. Oh fuck!

Yeah, there it is. I'll find that picture one day.

Oh God, mate, you keep saying that, but I know it's fucking locked in a vault somewhere.

You've got to do an escape room to get it. Yeah, um, yeah, fair enough. Then we did do the Uber and it broke our own personal Uber record.

I feel like you're skimming over bits, mate. What do you mean? Anything happen in the hotel? It could be a night in the hotel. We had a fight. I had a fight with a guy over some eggs. Worth mentioning or no? Not really.

No.

No, not, no.

Is this a menu discrepancy or a cooking discrepancy?

Cultural discrepancy maybe.

It turns out over medium is how you like your eggs in America.

Yes, over easy are raw.

Yeah.

They're just raw eggs.

They just flip over a raw egg.

And then give it to you and then you're like, right, can you cook my eggs? And they're like, this is how it is. Yeah.

You're welcome.

Okay. All right, then we got the world's longest Uber, which we now have first and second place records for.

Yeah, and it was arduous. Not in terms of the length, in terms of the gobstopper smacking, because I was in the front. Oh yeah, and every now and again the dude would just go— imagine that for 2 hours. In the last 20 minutes I think I messaged Maggie, or might have been in the team even, and just like, I'm going to kill this person. I don't know how I said it.

Why Maggie?

I think it might have been the whole thing. I just remember her laughing about it.

All right, okay.

I think it might have been in a group message. Maggie's probably the only one that was awake at that point and laughed. You were all sleeping a lot.

Sock on.

Sock on again, hibernating.

It's good sleeping.

The joint was good, wasn't it?

Oh yeah, yeah, I saw a video up here. There you are, it's really good.

Around the lakeside, right on Folsom Lake.

Yeah, um, rattlesnakes there, didn't see any, did you?

No, not one. I did go looking for them.

Swam in the lake though, played football in the lake. Yeah, with a very horny, uh, golden retriever.

Yeah, great bloke though.

Yeah, absolutely one of the best blokes I've met.

Yeah, he was just basically one of us, wasn't he?

He was, he was an absolute—

I just like, I get this guy.

Yeah.

He's just into it, whopping, been fairly interested in American football, definitely interested in chopping.

He was great.

He was the man.

He was like one of those blokes, like one of those people you meet on holiday and you're just like, oh, you're great, wish you could come home and we could just be mates all the time. But then it might be quite a lot if you were mates with him all the time. Yeah, so maybe it's like a kind of like a holiday bromance we had with him. We'll try and get some footage of him.

Maybe because Sandra's not a big fan of him, is she? She sees him a lot more More than us, so maybe that maybe there is a thing.

Maybe.

And then so the first what do we do the first weekend? Is that the weekend of the biggest hike?

It's all just a blur. Yeah, it is the world's biggest fucking longest hike.

Yeah.

I'm not a hiker. Don't mind one. I'll do one if I see things.

Yes.

But let's just be real with each other for a second, mate. Let's just try. Let's just be honest with ourselves.

I'm with you.

It was fucking 5 hours.

Yep.

It was the same 50% of the time because we went somewhere there and back.

Yeah, I'd argue more than 50% of the time.

At the very top though, picture.

Yeah.

Kind of worth it actually. It was nice.

Yeah.

It was nice.

What I argue with though, some of the team members were like, oh, it's fine because this amazing lake is at the end of it. I'm like, yeah, but it's not at the end, it's halfway. So we'll have this amazing experience and then we've got to walk back through a burnt forest. Yeah, don't get me wrong, the lake was amazing. It wasn't disappointing at all.

Gives you a bit of saddies though, doesn't it?

It does, yeah.

Burnt forest, it's like Fern Gully.

Yes, but it is— I obviously am a big fan of nature documentaries and I watched one and it is a natural part of the process. Although I think they've become a bit more prevalent, particularly when people are fucking smoking it and just launching the ciggies with gasoline into bushes. That's Yeah, I think that's not natural.

Sandy off Greece. Yeah, yeah, tell me about it, stud.

Yeah, when people are using like arson and pyrotechnics, it's not quite the same. I think a few fires are normal, although I really like to know how they start, like the natural ones.

Yeah, I'm not sure, like, I'm not sure I'm picking up what you're putting down. Well, like, I get it that it's kind of like, oh, thank God They— not thank God they happen, but it's a good job they happen because they need population control. But who's proactively starting them? Yeah, is it fucking like squirrels giving it all like, you know, too many birds around here, and then starting to just—

Yeah, I don't even see any squirrels around there. I did see a whole shitload of hummingbirds though.

Yeah, they were cool one time. Yeah, we stopped for a wee, there was a flock of hummingbirds and they all fucked off and I never saw one again.

As far as I know, they don't usually hang around in flocks.

No, I thought they were they were a singular thing.

Yeah, like solitary creatures.

Yeah, like unicorns. Yeah, but turns out they flock. The national animal of Scotland.

It was like one of them fucking, you know those movies where there's like a biblical thing and it's like a horde of locusts?

Yeah.

It was like that with hummingbirds.

We're gonna have to have a look, mate. Are hummingbirds solitary?

I mean, they must have mates.

What?

To be able to breed, right? They're not asexual, are they? Go on, hummingbirds. Flocks of, like locusts.

Yes, hummingbirds are mostly solitary.

Yeah.

They feed and migrate entirely on their own. No flocks, unlike many other birds. Hummingbirds do not form flocks or travel together during migration. Young birds even fly and navigate their very first migration routes completely solo. Doesn't make sense how we saw that many together then.

Yeah, there was definitely a horde of them.

I think they might be our spirit animal.

It could be.

Males and females only come together briefly for courtship and mating. Not having it.

Or, I'm having it, but you're not.

After which the male leaves and plays no role in raising the chicks.

That makes sense.

They fucking chuck.

See, it's not—

Classic hummingbird, fucking chuck.

Yeah, fair enough.

Female builds nest, incubates eggs, and raises young completely on their own. Extreme aggression.

From hummingbirds?

Hummingbirds are fiercely territorial. When you see multiple hummingbirds gathered around a single feeder or patch of flowers, They're usually chasing, dive-bombing, and fighting each other. Oh, we were in a turf war!

We could have been.

I didn't see any fighting though, but we could have been in a gang war. But they're a bit soft. It'll be like fucking watching Simao trying to fight Michael. You see the other guys in there and they're whistling flat. They'll be like that. They're hummingbirds, they're not silverbacks.

Yeah, Michael waved at me earlier on in the field and it You just know he can't fight.

No, yeah, it was the way he moves. He's got Where's Wally energy, has he? He's got Louis Garou energy. Great bloke though.

Yeah, he is.

Something very important I've missed, mate, and I'm gonna have to dig it out of you. Oh no. Obviously on the way to the, the— well What considerations did we take in terms of establishing where to go on a hike? I am stalling.

Oh yeah, there's only one consideration for me. I wanted to see a bear. It was the place with the highest propensity of seeing a bear.

Yes.

I would have downgraded to a raccoon, but as it's happened, it's all neither. I got excited one morning on the way to the gym, thought I saw a raccoon. Turns out it was a possum.

Okay, here we go. I think I found it. Yeah, I found it.

Have you got the actual statement?

Yeah, so big long fucking chat with ChatGPT. Yep, obviously it's a fairly long drive there.

It was a— yeah, it was a good hour and a half or so, wasn't it?

So yeah, we were looking for bears because we wanted to see bears, but at the same time we needed to understand Just how safe we were.

Yeah, if we bumped into one.

Yeah, what's going to happen? The likelihood of things happening. Will there be a bear at Bassie Falls? In brackets, the bear. I don't know what that means.

I don't know why I asked it that.

The bear. I find past me funny.

I was such a good guy back then.

Oh God, will there be a bear at Bassie Falls?

Frag it. The bear.

Yes, a black bear could absolutely be around Bassie Falls.

Absolutely.

But I would not expect to see one on any particular visit, which is a weird thing to say.

Yeah.

Bassie Falls is in Eldorado National Forest, Crystal Basin, and the Forest Service specifically describes the forest hiking and camping areas as bear— as a bear habitat.

Yeah.

The broader Sierra Nevada holds roughly 40% of California's black bears.

Which is quite a lot.

However, Bassie Falls is a popular trail, particularly on summer weekends. That human activity may make a sighting on the main trail less likely. So if you go in today, I think of it as a good bear country. Low odds of actually seeing a bear though. Don't deliberately approach, track, bait, or surprise one.

Didn't Chloe buy some jerky for them or something?

Yeah, yeah. I've got this for the bear.

Fair enough.

Chloe, what you got there? I got a Gatorade. I got some of those wee powdered doughnuts. And some jerky for a bear. She's omnivorous. Anyway, if your priority is specifically feeding a bear, I'd choose a different Eldorado location over Bassie Falls. To which I replied, what's bigger, a black bear or 5-time grand final winner Ian Kirk? Brackets rugby.

You enjoy a bracket, don't you?

Apparently. I really do. If we're talking— it's sent me a laughing face. If we're talking Ian Kirk in his Leeds Rhinos prime versus a Californian black bear, yeah, the bear wins the size contest. Okay, but Kirkie makes it surprisingly respectable. And then it gives me all your stats and the years you won a grand final, obviously. Burton, which was— and you can fact-check this— 6 foot 5, 17 stone, 108 kilos during his playing career.

Yeah, see, like, you know, Strongman compare me? Yeah, he competed at 125. Bridges the gap even closer.

Yeah, but an adult male California black bear can weigh 300 to 500 pounds.

It was a good 140 kilos.

Particularly large individuals considering licks are considerably heavier. So if you bumped into the bear version of you, you're fucked.

Yeah, fair enough.

Yeah, you want to bump into the me version of bears and you might be okay.

The Alicia version?

Yeah, the Adam version. The Alicia. Alicia.

I'd rather bump into the Adam version than the Alicia version.

Why is this bear no kung fu? It's got French tip toenails.

Kung Fu Panda.

I said, what if you throw Jacob Morgan the dog trainer in the mix? Yeah, that makes the matchup more interesting, assuming you mean Jacob from Yorkshire Canine Academy, Ian's business partner. Sources confirm he's also a rugby player, although I can't find a reliable published height or weight for him.

Yeah, you do like to keep it in the, in the ether.

We probably outweigh a black bear together.

Yeah.

If we're talking who wins an actual confrontation, I'm still drafting the bear first overall. No, Kurt's 5 grand finals don't prepare you for a 400-pound animal with claws, and I don't think Jacob's gonna get it to heel anytime soon.

Oh, that's a pretty good gag. Yeah, but how many Grand Final rings has the bear got?

Zero.

Exactly.

Oh yeah, at one point— this is funny— it goes, it goes, big black male bear, 300 to 500 pounds. 5-time Grand Final champion Ian Kirk, 238 pounds. Grand Final rings, bear zero, Kirk 5.

Which is true.

Bear is bigger. Kirkie has a better trophy cabinet.

It's not, it's not disputable.

Anyway, we didn't see a bear.

No, we didn't.

We'll never know.

No, there was a lot of discussion about whether we could take one though, but together, and even how we would do it.

Yeah, we went into a lot of detail to the point that we convinced ourselves that we would have been fine.

Yeah, but when we saw—

I was thinking we changed trails off that trail to go to one with more popular, higher bear population, because we'd convinced ourselves we'd be completely okay.

Yeah. I think we would have, because when we saw the one in the crazy outdoor shop, like the stuffed one, I was looking at it thinking, I'd fucking do you. Yeah, I'll distract him up front, you get him behind in a fucking rear naked.

Yeah, he's not nice and close.

He's not coming back from that. It's just not coming back from it. No, mate. So it turns out we could take him anyway.

That was earlier. We're still early doors in the trip here.

I know. Yeah, that's why the egg thing Didn't really make my initial cut. You put in there anyway.

What?

The egg fight.

What egg fight?

Well, come back to it.

Amazing.

The easy over easy with the easy and the too easy.

Oh God, I've sinned twice now. Yeah, bollocks.

Really dragging.

Yeah, all right. Yeah, come on.

Other things did happen.

What else you got?

Um, what are we doing? Was that the Saturday like?

Should we talk about early toast? I feel like we should.

Yeah, we should. Yeah.

Sam recommended a couple of breakfast joints, one of which being Mario's Early Toast, to which we went, and it was amazing.

The first one was the best one, to be fair.

Oh no, it just surprised you though, didn't it?

Yeah, yeah, the one where I definitely didn't have steak and eggs.

No, yeah, clearly had an omelette. No, so at this breakfast place, Cookie sits down and he goes, I think I'm gonna order steak and eggs so I can compare it to Hickory's back home. I'm like, great idea. So he then orders steak and eggs and then proceeds to eat said steak and eggs. And then, all right, fast forward a week or so, we're at, to be fair, a different Early Toast, and he sat there and he goes, I think I'm gonna order steak and eggs so I can compare it to the steak and eggs at home. And I went, well, that's good because you already have done. Good news, Ian, that's already been done. And he went, nope. No.

Nah, no, I don't think so. I had an omelette. I went, no, no, you didn't.

I sat opposite you. You had steak and eggs.

I've seen you start to get a little bit sweaty on the corner.

I was like, uh, no, you had steak and eggs. And he was like, no, no, you, you had steak and eggs. It definitely was.

Turns out when I ordered it and it came, there was like things that really jogged my memory.

Yeah, like they presented it exactly the same in that little bowl with the mushrooms in. I even asked the group, even Maggie verified. I believe he had steak and eggs.

No.

And I didn't say, did he have steak and eggs? I said, what did he have?

Yeah, which is a better way of phrasing it.

And she said steak and eggs. At that point in time, he had an omelette.

I assumed conspiracy.

Okay, did you? You said a fucking message.

You've just gone like this and then gone, someone say steak and eggs.

That's funny.

So yeah, that was quite funny. What else we got then?

I don't know, what else you got?

What were you doing on Sunday?

Anything?

Or was that the Sunday, the hike? Huh?

Where? No, we can't go through every day, day by day.

No, obviously kicked off boot camp, the inaugural boot camp at the, um—

oh yeah, on the Monday. Yeah, what was the hike then on that weekend?

Yeah, the weekend prior.

Yeah.

Okay.

We all got into padel.

Yeah.

That was a throughout thing.

Yeah.

Actually played pickleball at one point as well, which is all right. Not as good as padel.

That was good. Yeah. What's it— why is it not as good?

It's a little bit more stop-and-starty, I felt, because the whole padel thing is very confined.

We can swing that to dog training.

Do we have to? No, brilliant. Fucking fantastic, mate.

Yeah, no, but when people— when you watch people and they're not used to playing with their dog and there is a bit of stopping and starting, then it kills the game off, right?

It does.

Yeah, that's the only thing I was going to say.

Brilliant.

And I've said it now, so it's fine. Now we can get back onto the good stuff.

Great. Anyway, what else we got? Yeah, we had a nice big truck.

Oh, it was a good big truck.

You crashed it, technically.

No, I nudged it.

You dinked it. A dink, I'll call it a dink.

Yeah, but I mean, the thing I had to reverse down on the first night was testing. Oh, you did it, you know it was a testing thing. In the dark as well, the first time I had to do it.

None of the chicks could have done it, and not because they were chicks, just because they couldn't have done it. No, and if—

I mean, one of them couldn't see up the steering wheel.

No, no, really short, tiny little angry human.

Yeah, and then what then? A couple of meals out.

Yeah, some nice ones.

Yeah, decent ones.

Some shit ones. Yeah, there was some crap food and there was some great food.

Like, my, my general came away with a couple of themes, and this is probably a sweeping statement in both senses.

Fuck them.

But from a dog ownership perspective, they're way quicker to grab hold of a tool to fix a problem without Yeah, having any kin behind it.

Well, you can just drive down the street and see a number of dogs on prong collars where you rarely see them out and about in the world in the UK.

Yeah, so they're quite happy to whack a tool on without real prior knowledge. And then this might be just the, the small sample size, so I'm not going to say this is all of America.

Yeah.

And then the food is just like hard to not eat crap, I felt like.

Yeah, but also the crap is tempting and I like potatoes and cheese and yeah, really hard. And we did eat a lot of crap. Yeah, I'm willing to fully embrace the culture there.

Yeah, I really did.

My God, it's a good job I got food poisoning on return because I think I put some weight on, lost a bunch of weight.

Where did we have ice cream?

Oh yeah, we went to a shop owned by—

what was it? Salt and something?

Shake and Salt? Something?

Shake and Bake. I don't know.

Yeah, the one by The Rock anyway.

Rocks. Yeah, which was amazing.

And you had, uh, blue cheese ice cream.

I did.

Yeah, it was pretty good.

It wasn't shit, was it?

Blue cheese and what?

You remember?

Pear. You did remember.

Yeah, something I do.

No. Yeah, it was pear.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was.

I'm just gonna start gaslighting you now.

Yeah, that would be amazing. I like that dog.

It's well cute. It is really cute. It's got little white paws.

He's She was so bloody spicy on Monday though. She was coming through the bloody window and then the car park.

She, get out, trying to fucking headbutt everyone. She get on everyone.

Came through the door.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

I think one of the problems we'll have in California is a lot of having to work to undo tools. Yes, poison tools and stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a little bit of that on the first boot camp. Um, not so much as much on the second one, but there was a bit on the first one. Yeah, um, most of it surmountable. Yeah, okay.

What else, mate?

Um, we, we weren't there as long as I thought because we came back on the Thursday.

Yeah, it was like 2 weeks. I'll turn everyone— 2 weeks, 2 weeks.

And obviously we, we left on the Wednesday night Because we didn't want to do what we did here on the way down because we didn't have our dogs. Yeah. So we went down. I didn't particularly fancy driving down at fucking shitballs in the morning, so we went down on the night and we stayed in a lovely place.

Oh my God, I feel like I've just skimmed over the trip and finished it now though.

Yeah, it's done now, isn't it? Is it? I'm over it. Fair enough. No, not really. Go on, what else have you got?

Adam was there. Was he? Yeah, sure.

No, he wasn't. He was good to see him, actually. He gives a little morale boost. Yeah, a little morale boost. I don't particularly needed a morale boost, but he just— yeah, I wouldn't say like we were dipping. I'd just say we were maybe above our own baseline and he just tickled us up above.

Yeah, fair enough. Maggie did a lot of standing.

She did do a lot of standing and not a lot of talking.

No, for 2 weeks didn't say a word.

Look, maybe 2 to 3.

Still don't know if she had a good time or not.

No, no, you never will.

Fair enough.

She's tired.

Still tired?

Yeah, I do know that.

So he's tired?

Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know, mate.

Well, it's kind of a mental decision not to be, isn't it?

What? You're always whinging about being tired. Always.

Who's been whinging this week?

Me.

Susie's shaking her head vigorously. Neither of you have really.

I have. I've been sleeping. I wouldn't be whinging. I was asleep. I can't whinge whilst being asleep.

No, it's true.

Yeah, he's going to sit and go, "I'm tired." I've seen him since we got back.

Like, what the fuck is this guy?

I've become just nocturnal and accepted it.

Accepted it.

No, Kate just keeps going. I'm like, I'm I'm going. It's like three o'clock, and I'm like, "I just need to sleep." She's like, "Well, just go sleep," and then just. Then just get up and be awake at nighttime. I've just been working on my laptop, but like, I suppose it doesn't necessarily matter, does it? 4, and then I go back to sleep. But I'm slowly getting back. I had a full night's sleep last night and then woke up at a normal time.

Oh nice, woke up at 6, went to bed at like 10. 6, it's not a normal time for you.

Oh, don't, because I'll tell everyone what that guy said to you in the airport, because you know I'm gonna.

Oh, Alicia, do you remember The Mexican guy at the— oh, yeah, the Mexican guy. I've probably got— I think I might still— have I still got the pigeon?

Carry on. Dangerous water. Yeah, I've got videos of people in dangerous water. I did a picture of Kirky hugging someone there.

It's a video.

Oh yeah, ping the video of Kirky hugging someone and then Alicia trying to climb a big Mexican security guard like a tree because she's an absolute tart. Because she's a floozy.

Yeah, there was. Yeah.

Oh yeah. You were good at paddle, mate, but you're just big and immobile, I guess, to a degree.

Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, court was just a bit too small for me. Kept nearly going through the glass.

Yeah.

And did go over the net.

Yeah.

But I did get— I got the technical point.

Yeah.

But then I just fouled.

You lost the point on a fault.

Yeah, which I don't think's on.

To be honest, there was a referee. There's like an impartial ref.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, but I'm not gaining advantage by falling over the fucking net and really grazing the side of my knee, getting some abrasions to the elbows. That's not an advantage, is it?

No. We also bear witness to the first Mexican national Chinese paddle player. Yeah, he was pretty good.

Yeah, yeah, it's true.

Yeah, yeah, we did made history, that boy.

There's probably a bunch of stuff we've forgotten.

There'll be a lot.

And then as we, as we reclaim our sleep consciousness, yeah, we'll probably remember it.

It'll just all come flooding back to us.

What was quite cool for me, I met a couple of dogs that have been on the remote program. They came and joined in the boot camp.

Oh, nice.

That was good to see them.

That's good.

Good pair of dogs as well, to be fair. They were already up there.

Milo, Blind Milo.

Yeah.

And Hennessy.

Hennessy?

Is it Hennessy?

I don't think it was Hennessy. I've had a total mental block.

Um, what's her name? The retriever, obviously.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Head's fallen off.

I'm sure it's an H.

I was literally thinking about this morning. Might just be Hallie.

No.

No, it's a white shepherd.

Like Hesselwood or something. Kennedy.

Kennedy. Nice. Wasn't an H. Not even close. H. Yeah, yeah, it's not too far.

No.

Yeah, yeah, nice. So that was good. Interesting.

Yeah, it's pretty good.

They were pretty good. They were like, yeah, ticking boxes really by coming, but it's nice. What else then?

The NorCal facility is pretty cool.

Yeah, it is very cool.

Really cool. One of the coolest. We'll ping a bunch of piccies and vids and whatever up.

Yeah, nice. These shirts are pretty cool.

These shirts, they had quarter zips as well. Yeah, but don't suit you.

Doesn't suit me? That looks way better. You got into the crewnecks over there, to be fair.

I bought about 5 crewnecks, mate.

5 caps. 5 to 6.

Yeah. Hey, we want to watch a baseball game, which is fucking really good.

How the fuck did we forget that? Pick up—

we'll ping up some pickies here.

Yeah, I took no pictures on that holiday— not holiday, trip.

Well, I don't have social media, so I didn't take as much, because of social media, you only do it just to show other people.

Yeah, true. And then maybe that's the good thing about it, because it forces you into taking pictures. But I think— yeah, I think I took a selfie in the gym.

Nice, mate. Do you want to ping that up or no?

I could do, sure.

Yeah, go on, we'll ping it up. Maybe show me that picture of you with a fucking flaccid penis.

Oh yeah, nice.

Yeah, can we bring that up on that? We'll just put a thing over it. Yeah, yeah, we'll bring it up. Okay. I don't know why, it's just like it wasn't even in America. No, no, it was just months ago and he was just like, what do you think of this, mate? I was like, I don't know why you've gone for the flaccid choice. You look great. We can't like fucking put a sad little Hawaiian penis there. When he gets tired, you can call him J-Rod.

Yeah, nice.

Hawaiian J-Rod. Just go full J-Rod. Oh goodness.

We had some tiramisu. Oh yeah, we did.

Yeah, in that place.

In the place where I had three desserts and nearly vomited just before baseball.

Yeah, see, this is where we need pictures of that. I think we I might have.

I've got a picture of the tiramisu.

All right, there you go.

Not the place.

It was a good place that. That was free baseball.

The desserts were the best thing about it though.

And you had three of them.

And I had three of them.

I couldn't get through one to be fair. They were so rich and moreish.

Talk about that, didn't I?

Like.

Big.

Yeah, and you dominated three.

Yeah, but I did feel pretty pretty ropey at the baseball, to be fair. Yeah, and you know you got a baseball shirt.

Got a baseball shirt. That's me and my baseball shirt.

Big Cats fan now.

Big River Cats fan. Baseball was the baseball was sick, mate.

Yeah, it was gonna be shy, and it wasn't. It wasn't.

It was gonna be stupid things that Americans are into. Yeah, and then it'd just be shy, but it was actually class.

Yeah, and it was like all in good spirits. It wasn't like. Fucking, um, yeah, some football games were a bit nasty. Everyone was just like proper like sound.

Yeah. And they were good athletes too.

They were fucking— they could throw a ball and they could sprint.

They were fast.

Yeah.

Good glutes on them and that.

Yeah. Powerful looking hindquarters.

Yeah. Like osses.

Like a—

yeah, yeah.

I was gonna say a deer, but yeah, fine, a hoss.

Yeah. Yeah. But the baseball was one of my favorite bits. Really enjoyed it. Um, all right.

You drove?

I drove.

We drove a couple of times. Yeah, no, normally you totally refuse to do—

sorry, normally I don't like driving at all. Normally, no.

Wasn't too bad though, was it over there?

Nah, that's okay. Big roads, just do whatever you want apparently. Yeah, as long as you don't get caught or something.

I got pulled over by the cops.

You did?

That was amazing.

You got your rectum searched.

Yeah, which is most enjoyable, obviously. Yeah, that was a bit crazy because obviously you're supposed to have your license and registration, and I had neither of them.

Yeah, and they, they let you go scot-free? Yeah, they did.

It was a little bit strange. Yeah, Sam could not believe I'd not got some sort of penalty or jail time.

But could they nick you, like stick you in?

Yeah, but I think because—

you know what's incredible? Neither of us after that point went back out with a license or registration of a horse. Both of us had them as well. Mine was in my bag, yours was in Chloe's possession, and we were just like, we'll do it again. Maybe there's a lesson there.

And also, the immediate morning afterwards, when you and I were driving down the Saturday morning, we passed that copper and he did a U-turn immediately after us. I just said to you, ah, fuck, he's done a U-turn. Have you got your license? Nope.

Obviously not.

Why would I have? It was literally last night.

Yeah, I had a, uh, taxi driver suddenly break out into a Borat impression. That was good. Americans are wild, aren't they?

That was the, that was the night when I was getting arrested.

It was?

Yeah.

Anyway, and then Then what? Towards the end, anything else exciting happen?

This is the end.

Any good? What was the song of the trip for you, mate? What takes you back there?

Probably, I don't know the name of it, but with Big X plug on it and the country one that he does with that chicko.

Yeah.

Any idea what it is?

Hope is hell at night.

Yeah.

Straight through the morning.

Please get depression.

Yes.

And feel like shit.

I was like, I'm the biggest, the largest.

That's what the bear would be singing if he beat us up.

Yeah, if he bumped into us over our dead bodies.

Life was like, oh yeah, like an animated blood out of our neck. AI animated black bear with that music in the background just like backing us up. Yeah, probably quite easy these days.

Is there a limit? Like, let's, let's have a look.

Let's see what it'll do.

Yeah, there is.

Interestingly, I don't necessarily disagree with this. But not in what sense? There was a young man, a very keen baseball fan at the game, and every 2 to 3 minutes he would shout, stop using AI! I didn't really know.

I don't know either.

What he was talking about. The only thing I could think of was, are they using it for some sort of refereeing decision?

Yes. But only thing I could think of. That set him off initially.

Yeah.

But he was really passionate about it, wasn't he?

He was very passionate and an unusual—

Why are we running? Running makes me uneasy.

Yeah, around here usually running means combat. There's no combat in there. No combat?

Is there a limit to music on YouTube before you get even a few seconds of cop— All right, no, no chance. You can't even put a small clip on.

Can we?

You can be the voice.

Do you want to be the big black guy or the sexy country girl? I'm probably the girl, aren't I?

Yeah.

I've got the voice of an angel, to be fair.

Yeah, and a smooth asshole.

Yeah, I mean, to that note, um, Mr. Optima himself asked me why I wasn't hairy the other day on the Instagram story. So why aren't you more hairy?

What, what has he seen?

I don't know. Obviously he's in California. Maybe he sees me running around on the beach with no shirt on, Hasselhoff style.

Have you seen Free Guy?

Um, Fall—

it's not Free Guy.

Fall Guy.

Nah, Free Guy with Ryan Reynolds, and he's a video game character comes to life.

Uh, I know what you mean, but I haven't seen it. No.

There's a big muscular version of him on there. Reminds me of you. We'll ping him up here.

Big idiot guy. What else then? Anything else? We keep remembering little snippets. I know, I keep saying memory joggers.

I always fucking laugh about talking about the baseball. Yeah.

Any more—

people like to hear about our conflicts, fallout with anyone else.

I feel like yes.

You had a run-in with the, uh, I think it was largely a positive run-in though. You had a run-in with a German Shepherd. They're good, aren't they?

Yeah. It was talkative on Monday as well.

Yeah, I can imagine. They had a run-in with, um, uh, service servo.

Oh yeah, that was strange. Yeah, that was strange. So the first time we had to fill up with juice, yeah, I went to obviously the servo, yeah, and you can pay at the pump.

Wow.

So I'm like, brilliant, you put in the amount that you want and just stops, like, so you can't fuck it up like you can here. If you want to put £100 in, you end up putting £101 in, you're just like, oh, what a dick.

Yeah.

Anyway, I tapped my card on there, it didn't work. Tapped my different card on there, it didn't work. Chloe tapped her card on there, it didn't work. I'm like, for fuck's sake. So I went inside and I was like, mate, this contactless pump thing's not working. He was like, oh yeah, sometimes the connection's not great. You can do it in here if you want. I was like, okay. And then he goes, or you can go to a different pump. I was like, okay. And if the same thing happens again there, he's like, oh, then you'll have to come in anyway.

Right.

Okay, well, I'll just pay here then. Logic. And then he said that. So I said, okay, I'll have $100 worth of fuel, please. And he was like, yep. So he fucking rings that through, charges my card, and I was like, okay, cool. So it'll just stop as it would have done before on the $100? And he was like, nah. I was like, well, what happened then? So then I started having a little to and fro with him, and it wasn't heated, but it was just a bit like, but that doesn't make any sense then. So what if it goes over $100? I'm gonna have to come back in. And he was like, he didn't say fuck it, but in my head he did. But he was like, oh fuck it, I'm just gonna come with you. So then he escorted me to the pump. He starts showing me, and he shows me how to lock it on and lock the, the thing on. And then I said, so this will just cut off $100 then? And he went, yeah. I was like, right. To be fair, it started off quite strange because as I arrived on the forecourt, a young lasso came over with a box of Snickers and said, did I want a Snickers? I think I had to pay for it, but That was weird too.

Yeah, like a crackhead.

Yeah, child though.

Like a smackhead child about 9. Sure it wasn't like one of those Girl Scouts selling cookies and you've just labeled her a smackhead?

I could have.

Maybe we got a picture of her up here. Stop using AI.

Exactly like that as well.

Freak that kid, wasn't he?

Yeah, very odd. But you know, he was into the game and he was in good spirits.

He was in good spirits.

It was sick, that.

Yeah, I'd love to go back to a baseball game.

The only bit that didn't— that became less good spirits, you know, when they threw the balls into the crowd, you could see like grown men like pushing kids out of the way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're just like, good point.

I don't know about that bit.

They sell them in the shop. shop, mate. It's in the shop, mate, for about $5. Go buy one.

I'll go buy you one if you stop beating up kids. Yeah, Jesus Christ.

Yeah, it was crazy. I say that, but that was me at one point.

Oh yeah, that would definitely be you.

I knocked someone clean out. A little Girl Scout smackhead, just straight fucking chest kick. Yeah, just for a baseball. Nudge in the fucking shoulder. Yeah, yeah, right. Anything else at all? Do we need to talk about anything else at all?

I feel like there's gotta be. I feel like there is.

Yeah.

I feel like it's on the tip of me— tip of me tickler.

Let's just sit and think and then—

Yeah, just watch us—

We'll just cut the thinking out.

Think for a while.

We'll fast-track the thinking with something elevated. Or you can leave it in and just be really like—

fast-forward it now if you want to.

No, I don't think there is.

No, no, you're doing more stripping. Oh, that makes sense. You weren't specific though, were you? Yep, but that could be the pole.

Is it just one layer of wallpaper? Oh, so bad, innit? So bad.

3 so far.

3 layers. Is anyone helping you?

The Mexican.

Is anyone helping you?

The big Mexican. Just imagine how easily you could reach the roof door.

Yeah, get the big Mexican round. Okay, enjoy the Mexican burrito.

She's going.

Enjoy his taco. Yeah, fair enough. I've been asleep most of the week.

I've not even been allowed permission to go for a hospital appointment. Well, let me go. They're just like, no, you needed them that day. I know, it could be a life and death thing. Horrible, aren't they? Yeah, they're a little bit.

Yeah, we get fully bullied. There's no— we've got no power around here anymore. No, I don't know if we have. That's why it annoys me when people call us misogynistic, because we're actually victims to them. Yeah, they rule us. The only time we say jump, we say how high.

Any power when it was two blokes in a field with one lead between us and three dogs.

In it.

It's the only time.

It used power cable as a leash. So fucking screwed.

Shoelaces.

In it.

Yeah. I got a funny dog, a funny like dog related story.

Go on then.

I had a real like you know where those just like fateful days where you go somewhere and everything happens.

Stuff.

So I got I went to bedclothes this morning because it's on the way to work. I'll just do a nice lap of there with the boys before I come in. Yeah, do my cardio on it. Yeah, so I get there and I pull up and I change my shoes from my Crocs to my walkers and I'm like, brilliant. E-collars on dogs, just pulling out the frisbee, about to let Flea out of the van, and 2 fucking kelpies like run over and try and get in the back of the van. I've got a big fella staying with me, he goes mental at them.

Who? Odin.

Yeah. Um, he goes mental at him, so he fucking shut the door and they like just scoot off. Staffy sees them scoot off, flies over. Staffy, just a random Staffy from across the field somewhere, runs over, hits the Kelpie, but not like in a shitty way, just like in an overpowering body checking him. Yeah, yeah. Kelpie turns around and then the bully's like, like, oh, it's today. Yeah, I'm like Doesn't go back to the owner, just stays in the vicinity of like, I'm not too sure. I probably kind of want to fight you, but I'm just not sure if I should. They recall him about eight times, doesn't eventually does, and I'm watching this pan out thinking I'm not getting mine out of the car yet because this staff's coming this way. Sees me, fucking runs at me. I like he's a really nice dog. I give him a bit of a fucking pat and a rub down, but they try and recall him. They can't. They're so like, oh, really sorry, really sorry. I was like, it's fine. Shut the door again. They get him in the boot. Boot's closed, fine. I get out, I see where the kelpies go and think I'll probably go a different way. Went the other way. 2 pugs and a German Shepherd. German Shepherd sees Flea and just comes gang in it. Yeah, yeah, come steaming over. The woman's like, I can't recall him, sorry, sorry. Like shouting him doesn't work. Gets right up to Flea. Flea's got a frisbee. Flea has a little grumble at him, but like a back foot, like jump away, like just Fuck off. Like, yeah, it does it again. I was like, you're gonna have to stop that because he— they're gonna have a scrap over this frisbee. 2 seconds later, probably on the cusp of where it might have become a fight, Bumble runs in, headbutts the fucking shepherd, gets him decent, like under the chin. Shepherd's like rocked a bit. He does it again, and I'm just like, that's probably the best thing that could have happened here. He's just gone, nah. Anyway, she comes over, grabs dog, fucking walks off and that. I get about 200 meters down the field.

Christ.

And then this little tiny white dog sees us, don't do anything initially. Just as we go past, we're nowhere near it, like 25, 30 meters away, and it's just in between the owner and us, just going absolutely fucking batshit crazy.

These are also the dogs that people deem are well-behaved enough to go let off a leash in public.

Yeah, yeah.

Imagine the ones that aren't.

Yeah, yeah.

These are the good ones.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, really like— but this was all in the space of 5 minutes. I'm like, oh God. But yeah, funny. Um, it does make me question who Bumble thinks he is. Like, it—

yeah, absolutely.

But, but, you know, he had his brother's back.

Yeah, he did. That's funny.

Absolutely rattled him under the chin. It was amazing. It's like he'd just gone, you—

is the lady all right in the end?

Yeah, she was fine. She was just very apologetic that she couldn't get the thing back. Like, it was a big thing as well.

Like, was it— what color was it?

Black. Because we're at the distance, I thought it was Tilly, you know, has been here quite a bit. I was like, oh, it'd be sound because it's Tilly. And I realized it wasn't, but we're still like 50 meters away.

Jesus, that's not Tilly.

Yeah. And it's just like Fuck. She goes, oh, I think he thought it was us, that Flea was her sister, his sister. I was like, he's just sniffed him though, so now he knows it's not his sister and he's still pestering him. So like, uh, really?

He's got a cock.

Yeah, and balls.

He's just sniffed his cock and balls.

Yeah, decent set of balls on him these days. The bag.

No. Rugby tomorrow, mate, you coming?

Of course I am.

2 more games.

Yeah, 2 more games.

It's gonna be a great story. You know, sponsors, want a decent vehicle? VIP 2211. 2211 VIP. Should be the other way around. Anyway, doesn't matter. You want a Lamborghini off Ford Focus prices?

He's your guy. Nice.

If you want some canine wood, specific wood for your canine— pass that, I can't reach it. Bespoke dog training carpentry such as—

yeah.

They're your position boxes. Yeah, nice.

And there's sandboxes in there as well.

Sandboxes.

Paul Sandbox.

Sandbox.

Sandbox.

You could get a wooden dick spoon.

Yeah, which we get told off for showboating. Oh, I didn't— do you know what I didn't take a picture of?

Oh, you need to wash yours. Look at that.

Oh yeah, yours is way better.

Yes, clearly someone else has been using it. Oh, shit, Lucas.

What I didn't take a picture of was, you remember them tiramisu sweets I got in that, the world's biggest— was it the world's biggest sweet shop?

It was the world's biggest sweet, allegedly.

Yeah, don't, don't buy it.

I'm not buying it either.

But yeah, I bought tiramisu sweets in there and I ate 2 and threw the rest away because they were disgusting.

Oh, were they?

Yeah, awful candies.

though, as opposed to like chockies.

I like them individually.

We did have those chockies that were very nice from that shop. Yes, they're fucking so good. Yeah, I wish I'd bought more of them.

I wish you'd bought more of them because you gave me some. I wish you had bought more.

I wish you bought some for yourself so I didn't have to give you some of mine.

Yeah, that's fair, but you didn't tell me about them though, so—

Huh?

You didn't tell me about them.

So I just picked it out as a surprise for you, to be fair. Then I regretted it. Yeah, regretted my kindness.

Do you remember? Was it the same shop where you had to ask advice about?

It was close by.

Ass tablets. Yeah. Yeah.

That was a poor lady. Hey, will this stop me? What is it?

Can we tell that story?

Yeah.

I don't see why not. It started. Didn't start well because Alicia and I were just catching up with you as you were towards the back of the shop, and she's telling me a story, something to do about mum, and she went, "Yeah, my mum the slack." She's awful, that little thing, isn't she?

And this white lady turned around and looked at her like, how did that come out of your—

she didn't do that because she's American, but like, obviously just come out of her mouth and she's just been like, whoa. And then at the same second, you were obviously like contemplating these meds.

So I have a thing when I interact with real people in public, I try and like throw them off as best I possibly can because I believe we live in a simulation. So I try and catch out the NPCs. By saying stuff that they wouldn't normally expect.

Yeah, they're not scripted for.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

So I catch them all the time. In fact, so many times on— whilst we were away, if I was getting served something and I'd just do my thing of like, I don't know, I'm gonna give— we'll give the example of this one in a second. But, um, yeah, 2, 3 people asked, is he like this all the time?

Yeah.

Is it? And they— yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, yes. So anyway, we have a member of a party, of the party, that's poorly.

Yep.

And they're bum-weeing.

Poorly bottom.

Yeah, weeing out of their bum.

Bot-bot pee.

For argument's sake, we'll just say it was Chloe.

Yeah, fair enough.

So we don't like drop anyone in it.

Yeah.

But just, we'll just say it was Chloe. Yeah, okay, it wasn't, but for argument's sake, we'll say it was.

Yeah, it's plausible that it could have been, that Chloe was— she's a human—

weeing out of her bum. Yeah, a lot.

Ass piss.

Ass pissing Chloe. Chloe piss bottom. Anyway, it wasn't, but it was. Say the story, it was. Yeah, right. So she's Glued to the toilet, shitting out of the IV needle.

Sobbing.

Sobbing. So she's dehydrated on 3 fronts: tears, ass piss, and regular urine.

Yeah. Any vomit?

Yeah, and so 4 fronts.

4 fronts.

4 fronts, right? That should be a medicine name.

It should be.

It should be. You're on the shit so bad you're bum-weeing. You're also vomiting. You're gonna regularly piss, but not that much because you're not consuming much fluid. And then it's all just so bad. You're also crying about it as well, really badly. Yeah, you need Forefront.

Yeah.

Anyway, I had one of my moments. I knew I needed Diarrhoealite. No, it wasn't Diarrhoealite, it was Imodium.

Yep.

for said person that wasn't but was Chloe.

Yeah.

And I turned to the lady next to me and I said, hey, will this stop me shitting my pants?

Yes, which is a valid question.

And she's like, fair enough. And she was really taken aback by it. She was like, oh, um, uh, I've not used it for a while, but yeah, I think so. So I looked at the box and I turned back to her. I was like, okay, so I just stick it straight up my ass then? And she went, oh yeah. I mean, no, no. I went, okay, well, what do I do with it? She's like, you shouldn't swallow it. I said, after it's been up my ass? She's like, no, don't, don't put it up your ass at all. I was like, oh, okay. That was it. Yeah, she had a pretty wild day.

Yeah, she did. Yeah, I don't know what she thought. I wonder if she thought leaving—

I'm on a single-handed mission to convince American people that British people are even weirder than they are. I think every single one I've interacted, they have that belief.

Yeah, and I believe that they will have told the tale of it as well.

Yeah.

To the best of their memory, it spreads like Planet of the Apes. Yeah, virus.

Yeah, so there you go. Anything else, mate?

No, not from that trip.

No crazy funny stories, are there? There's no wild animals involved. No good bird life.

Yeah, there was, to be fair.

So if we've got you, by the way, We have an ask for you. Obviously, we've not posted a podcast in a month because we're just not sure how many people like it. And so if you want to— if you're a fan of this podcast and you want to—

You don't even need to not like it necessarily.

Sorry?

They don't need to necessarily like it, do they?

No.

Just so long as they listen to it for some reason.

Yeah.

Even if it's just to fucking hate on us.

Yeah, yeah, true. You know, as long as it enters your ears. Yeah. Um, you want to do us a favor and just send it to someone, or post it on your social media, post it to your Instagram story. It can actually just go a really long way. Um, take a screenshot and just say, you know, tag us or something. Tag Ian.

I don't know, there'll be people everywhere just sending it to people they don't like.

Yeah, you should listen to these two. It's like most Send them this podcast.

What can you never buy back? Time. There you go.

AIDS.

I don't know these days. No.

HIV, you're all right. AIDS, you're fucked, mate.

No, I don't know.

Right.

These days.

Let's have a look.

These days, currently, does AIDS affect your life expectancy?

Greatly. Okay, greatly.

Right.

Does AIDS? How do you want me to word it?

I don't know because you've got to be specific with these prompts with the AI.

Yes, I'm using AI. I just said, does AIDS affect your life expectancy nowadays?

Sure, it was a bit disappointed we couldn't hook up with the Optima when we were over there, so we're gonna have to go back and. I'd like to see you and him arm wrestle, if nothing else.

HIV is the infection. AIDS is what can develop when you untreat HIV.

Yeah, that's true.

And this is—

Untreat it?

Okay, you're fine. If someone has already developed AIDS, that's more serious and can affect your life expectancy. Well, it can. It's not saying it will.

Yeah.

However, starting HIV treatment can allow the immune system to recover considerably. So an AIDS diagnosis today doesn't mean Someone only has a short time to live. See, if you're asking because you or someone you know has recently been diagnosed with AIDS, fuck's sake. I got dark, didn't it?

We don't live in Donny.

Yeah, is Donny like an AIDS capital?

Yeah, it was at one point. I don't know this for sure.

It's gone fully numb there.

It could be pure speculation, but I believe there was a doorman Who was rampant? I don't know that for sure at all, but I was just smoking everyone.

Just giving out AIDS.

Could be total bullshit.

Hey mate, there he is. Good boy, is. Oh yeah, how's it going?

All right. I won't fall over outside again.

No. Yeah, I do. Yeah. I bet you've not forgot, have you? I was mortified. I was like, I'm going. You got a baby there.

I'm leaving.

Yeah. That's cute. What's his name? Oscar.

Oscar.

It's like a dog's name, but it's good.

You see that? He's like, yep.

Hold him or no? Come on, can he come on the podcast or no? Sound, sound.

I'm buzzing with this.

Will he cry in that?

Probably if you hold him.

Nah, nah.

I don't know.

Dan Garbutt's baby.

Yeah.

Won't let me hold it.

Yeah, that makes sense.

That big.

They know, mate, don't they?

Is he massive for his age? All right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's amazing. Nice class.

Don't fall again. Look, mate, you're falling through an Oscar.

My God.

I want one, mate. Let's adopt one.

I find it terrifying.

Why?

I don't know.

Why? Okay, do the smile again. I like the smile.

Yeah, that was good, the smile.

The smile was good. The mic's in the way. Oh, you want to touch that?

There he is.

This is the first time we've had a baby on the podcast. How old are you?

When do you start speaking?

What's his middle name?

Philip.

Philip. Nice, solid. Is that one of your granddad's names? No, it's my dad. Your dad.

Nice. Phil.

Oscar Phil. You okay? Oh, it'd be class if you threw up everywhere.

Yeah, it would be.

When did you eat?

Because Phoebe was like—

Yes.

Do I?

Brilliant. You can come on more often. How old is he? Five months. Jesus Christ!

Crazy.

Oh my God! You are huge. You are huge. Is he good fun? Not at night. Sleeping or not?

Nice.

He wasn't last night. We're friends again. You're friends again. Friends again. How's your dog? All right.

Yeah, he's all right.

How's he been?

The blocky.

Who's this guy? He's been really good. He's actually pretty neutral with him.

No.

We let him have a snack.

Do the smile.

Do the smile. Smile.

It's probably difficult signing your name, to be fair.

Hey, say hi. When, when would you start speaking? You're not crying. That's great. That's awesome.

And incredibly surprising.

I know. Susie, take a picture of Oscar and I. There you go. Well, Kirky could be in it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Where's that digs? Amazing.

We do that. Baby and dog. Do it. Do it. Do it. Yeah.

Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah.

It's working.

It's working. It's working.

Right now there are lots of bad words. It doesn't really matter, does it really? Fuck shit balls. It doesn't straight over your head. This means nothing to you at this point. I'm still not going to use the C-bomb because it doesn't feel right, but still. Right, you're going to go back to Mama. I hope he gets a job here one day.

That'd be amazing.

Yeah, wouldn't it? Yeah. And there he is. Oh, that's amazing.

That'd be class.

I've had a baby on the podcast.

Tick. That's a first. Tick. Yeah.

You'll listen to that one day. I hope we're still doing podcasts. Imagine, and we'll bring him on when he's ten years old and then twenty years old.

Remember that board came on? I don't know about American.

You'll probably be in an urn on there.

Yeah, fair enough.

Yeah.

Big urn.

Yeah. Very.

Yeah.

Do you know where they just use a sample of the ashes? Do you want me to do your whole thing? Yeah. Sound.

Sound. Make me into a diamond then.

Yeah.

Okay. Be a colossal diamond.

Cockring. A diamond cockring.

Yeah. Nice. It really helps stretch your pec out as well, like with the weight of the diamond.

I don't think— do you put it on the end?

Do you?

It's not like a Prince Philip. We've just had a baby on here, mate. We just had a baby on here. They're gonna watch this podcast back and go, oh, we'll give them one, we'll give them one listen with Oscar. And no, we'll get a message, please take our son off that podcast, you absolute fucking freaks. Right.

Yeah, I mean, you could, you could have 2 versions. Huh? You just cut one of them.

Yeah, yeah, the baby-friendly version.

Yeah, PG or Universal even.

Or if he goes and plays it down his crèche or something, shows all the other kids. Hey boys, look at this! They can look at me on a podcast. Oh God, my whole podcast! Take a look at this. Oh yeah, your boy asks his own big screen. What's the matter?

I was looking at your shorts. What are these?

Oh, I just picked them up. They're more my casuals. Why have you— they're my dinner shorts. I didn't think you would or anyone else would notice. Falling out of them.

Yeah, because they fall out.

Because they fall out of me.

Yeah, everything falls out of the pockets.

Yeah, so we're not even gonna give him a shout out and get fucked, to be honest.

Yeah, fair enough.

Okay, anything else?

I don't think so. What's coming up? What's coming up the next few weeks?

I don't know.

We got— I think next week is a fairly normal week. A week after, we got super camp.

Yeah. Oh nice. Do you want to do— yeah. Why am I doing it, man?

No, you are our super camp.

Oh yeah, what are you gonna say?

Do we want to do what?

Here's my thinking, and, and maybe a listener of the— listeners of podcasts might be into this.

Easy.

You know, obviously we do a boot camp here. Yeah, and, um, people need time off work to come and do it a lot of the time unless they pull a sickie. Kudos to you people. Kudos to the real ones.

Fuck the system.

Shout out to the real ones that fucking fully pull a sickie. They rock up here and say, don't put me on social media because the gaffer thinks I've got bum wees and I'm on the forefront.

Yeah.

If we did a boot camp from the 28th to the 1st, where they've already got that as holiday anyway. Yeah. Let us know in the comments if you'd be keen on coming up. If you're a previous boot camper, we'll give you 50% off. I'm just thinking if people are running out of annual leave and they're all saying, hey, we gotta come and do it next year.

That's true.

Yeah, so we'll cram in 50 dog boot camp on that week and no, no one else will come and work except for me and you, and I'll be asleep. So it's just you. Okay. Yeah, but it'll go down in law. You did a 50 dog boot camp once. You won't, you young kids.

I'd be in that fucking un signing affidavits about two dogs.

Two dogs on that bouquet.

Two dogs on the bouquet.

Two damn dogs. Two damn dogs on the bouquet. Remember, guy? Fifty dollars. Christmas Day, fifty dollars.

I think he's dead though.

He's dead. He had diamond cock ring there. You got his ashes? Is he on anything? What is that on his— what is that on his cock ring pillow there? 50 goddamn dogs. He wanted real ones.

8 dogs.

So, I think we could do 50 dogs.

I don't think I could do 50 dogs well on my own.

How would you do 50?

I'd give it a fucking go, wouldn't I?

Yeah, to be fair, you would, mate.

It probably wouldn't go well. Yeah, fair enough. If we had 5 trainers though, 50 dogs.

Yeah, it'd be sound.

We just elongate the day a little bit to get through the rotations.

Yeah, just start at 8, finish at 5 or 6. Let's do it, let's do it.

All right, $50.

$50. We got 50 car parking spaces on it?

No, no way, even close. Right, well, could be the limiting factor. We're gonna have to build that damn multi-storey.

That seems easy now.

I know.

Yeah. Should be.

I'm not concerned.

Yeah, fine.

All right, all right.

See you at the Tony Dog Boot Camper, and then if not, we'll see you at Christmas.

Are we gonna be— so we're only gonna do more podcasts by request, or are we—

no, we're just saying we'll still do them, but we just want to know you— we need more people to listen to them to justify doing them.

Yeah, that's true.

Or just someone, because you can't just have that one guy listen to them.

No, but did message on Instagram, took the effort out and time out of their day to say, hey, where the fuck—

He did, didn't he?

I can't remember who it was. I don't want to say he just in case it was a she, but because I can't remember the handle.

But yeah, thanks to you. All right, we'll wrap her up.

Yeah, fine. Don't be a fool.

Wrap your tool. Don't give people AIDS.

Lots and lots of AIDS. Even though it might not affect you ever.

Yeah, do you know what? Fuck it, don't wrap up. Just go for it. It doesn't really matter anymore. You'll be fine. You just take some medicine and you'll be sound. So in fact, AIDS or not, do what you want. Just pull out if you don't want a kid, if you don't want an Oscar. But if you want an Oscar, leave it in.

Yeah, he was actually not too bad.

He was all right.

He was okay. Yeah, not a bad dude.

He did the smile too. I'm sure he did 2 of the smiles. It was funny.

Yeah, it's Jamie at the camera.

Also, very funny baby video here. Very funny. That's it. It's just funny.

All right.

It's called like Baby Wants a Fight or something.

Oh, nice.

I'll show you. Fuck it. Fuck it. We got time, haven't we? It's not like it's— it's not like it matters.

There he is.

This is his room. That's so funny. It's only on TikTok. I don't have TikTok. Do you have TikTok? Do I waffle?

Yeah, fair.

Yeah, Conor McGregor, baby. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah.

Where's he even learnt to posture up like that?

I don't know. I don't know.

Pretty good though. That's just good genetics. It's like when collies just immediately know how to herd Sheep. Yeah, he's fucking just like fucking— here we are.

Yeah, okay.

He's probably called Liu Kang.

Oh God, is that a Mortal Kombat guy?

Yeah, yeah. Big game of the weekend though. Yeah, I'm excited.

You going now?

Awesome.

Bye, Oscar. We love you.

Just on that note, could be one of the biggest grand final stories of all time if you get into the playoffs.

It would be. We were at ninth, mate.

In fact, I read an article about Hulk AR giving it big sticks because they scraped the last playoff spot. They've got sixth, and it'd be like the furthest. I think we won it from fifth, so if they won it from sixth, it'd be like a fucking legendary thing or something, even though they're just not as good as us. But I get it.

If we scrape it, we'll win it.

Yeah, which would be amazing, wouldn't it?

Hundred percent.

But I was talking to um. Sadi's earlier on, and he was saying if obviously you get to the final, do you play in a different ground, like a cool ground?

Yeah.

In which case, are we fucking having a day off here? We're having a day off like a public holiday.

It's gonna be a national fucking holiday. Yeah, it's gonna be a bus. It's gonna be a bus. We're gonna get our guy to take us all.

Nice. He's gonna have to get a bigger vehicle.

He's got 8 slots. Bigger vehicle. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, but that's okay.

I'm only in the YCA bus. So it's still only like 9, isn't it?

Yeah, but you could just pile people in the back though.

Yeah, true. Get all the pissheads in the back like Michael and Chloe.

Yeah.

Fred, probably.

People who can't get out of bed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, nice. Yeah, we will, we will. That's exactly what we'll do. We'll close this place.

Yeah, brilliant. And people will be understanding of that.

We'll invite all our boot campers.

Oh, amazing. Our graduates. Amazing.

Socialization class would be great if we actually held it at Whatever ground it was, because Stanley's dog friendly.

Yeah, I know, but if you go to like somewhere swanky like Headingley, you might struggle.

It's usually like Fev or something. Is it like a Dewsbury ground or something?

Yeah, fair enough.

Don't think they'll be dog friendly, will they? No. Surely all the flat coppers in Fev go down with their ground or something.

Whippets. Yeah, you assume so.

Oh, we'll invite everyone on the podcast.

Yeah, amazing. We'll livestream it.

We will livestream it.

Susie's up for that, she says.

What date are we on?

It's weird, so you've got, you've got 2, um, no, you've got 2 league games, then you've got a week off because it's the Super League Grand Final, and then you start your playoff campaign.

How many playoff games will there be?

3? So 6th plays 3rd. 4th place, 5th in 2 eliminators. So then you— okay, then you end up with 2 motherfuckers left, and then the top team plays the bottom seed out of those 2, and second plays the second seed out of those 2. The top seed out of those 2.

Out of their original standings, or out of—

Original standings, I think.

Gotcha. So we'd have to beat So likelihood would be, if we scrape into 6th...

Yep. You gotta beat 3rd.

We'd go and play 3rd.

Yep. Dominate them.

Which we could, but...

And then you'd play top in a 2nd elimination final.

Yeah.

You dominate them. Because they get promoted anyway, so they'll just be on the piss.

Yeah, fine.

You dominate them.

And we'd end up playing likely someone who was 2nd.

Yeah.

So we'd have to go through...

In the ultimate final. of combat.

We'd have to beat—

so, uh, you basically gotta go through and beat them.

First, second, and third.

Yeah.

Oh, that'd be sick, wouldn't it?

Yeah.

We're gonna do it as well.

Fair enough.

We're gonna have a big bonanza. Yeah.

Can we have Mad Monday?

Yeah, we'll have Mad Monday.

Mad Monday here on the boot camp.

Yeah. Guys, uh, great to have you all. Ignore the lads in there.

Yeah.

Just—

We're gonna have to run this one till Saturday because—

They're like spiders, they won't bother you if you don't bother them. Okay, just leave him be. Let's just have a— yeah, nice.

Yeah, it's exciting though, isn't it?

Really exciting. Really exciting anticipation. Yeah, right.

All right then, wrap it up there because I don't know if anyone at all would want to listen to that last bit. Maybe we could put like a graphic thing up saying the next bit is like proper shit talk about J-Rod's rugby or something. Oh, it's the rest of it anyway, isn't it?

Fuck them. Fuck them. You're gonna listen to it.

Yeah, okay, let's just listen to it anyway. Like, it's not It's not that bad, is it? People probably listen to it in the car or headphones while they're walking the dog or something anyway.

Yeah, it's not like the—

It's not really taking time out of the day to go like, oh, I've got to hang on every word these dicks say. Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

What are you doing?

Nothing.

Texting?

Some people are just something, aren't they?

Yeah.

Aren't they?

Yeah. We fighting someone?

Nah, not really.

Can we?

Yeah, it's been a while. Yes, we didn't fight anyone properly in California.

Yeah, I nearly had a fight with Alicia today.

Like, we needed that fight with the bear.

Yeah, I do. I feel like it would have just satiated her.

Maybe we should do a semi-pro Jackie Moon and fight a bear. It's like a big marketing event.

Truck violence returned. Yeah, it did a bit.

A bit.

Not as bad, I don't think.

You're fucking driving, mate. That's the common fucking denominator. It's loose as fuck. I'm not saying mine's much better.

I do a lot of mothing. That was the— that was a phrase coined this time. Mothing. Yeah, just like drift towards the light.

You were doing—

I was like drifting towards Indian casinos.

Yeah, swerving and shit.

Yeah, yeah, fair enough.

Anyway, let's finish her up. Yeah, how long was you going on for?

1 hour 31.

Jesus. We usually cut a good hour out, don't we? It's an hour 31 now.

We have a full hour this time. I think 30 is gonna go.

Yeah, yeah, we should take wages. I think you say what you want nowadays. Like, I'm almost certain shit isn't allowed as an allowed word.

It's definitely in America you're allowed to say shit.

It's on podcasts and shit all the time. Yeah, everyone says shit.

Yeah. No, like it's not even really a movie with Tropic Thunder where he said don't go full. So they literally right. Yeah, I'm saying it. They talk about it. Yeah, I feel like this you could do like a front pouch pocket sleeveless with a hood.

Mate, I don't know. No, I'm not convinced. Where would you put your sleeve logos then, huh?

Oh yeah, central, central back.

Oh nice. Yeah, what about when your hood's down though?

One in the hood, I don't know.

Yeah, I'll get you one for next podcast.

Yeah, fair enough.

And you're gonna— you said it now, so you're gonna—

yeah, who had you— someone bought that t-shirt and I was so envious of the, like, the retro logo.

What t-shirt?

Okay, a Wildcats t-shirt. Was it Wildcats? Rivercats, not Wildcats. Wildcats is a movie, isn't it?

Um, Maybe Chloe or something.

Yeah, real good retro logo though. I do like a retro one. Well, these are fucking great.

River Cats, they're called.

River Cats. Yeah, these are great. Yeah, I've got one of them too somewhere. It's really nice. Yeah, I'm really sort of like— I'm mildly envious of the word, like how it looks.

NorCal. Yeah, yeah, sounds good, looks good.

Not that Yorkshire doesn't, but it is good.

We should maybe sell it, really. I bet people would want it.

Yeah, probably. Yeah.

And let us know in the comments if you want to buy some YCA merch.

I don't know, can you just do that for myself? But I had like proper crew sweater envy out there because you look great in every crew sweater you tried on. I don't know if I can get away with crew sweaters. I've got one, well, and I will wear it.

I don't know. Let us know in the comments if you think Kirkie looks good in— ping this crew sweater.

Or like a—

Yeah, just drop in the comments. Yeah, fair enough. Sound right? Right, we're going now.

Let's go.

Bye everyone.

Bye everyone. Bye.

Bye, Ian.

Bye, Ian.

Say bye, Ian.

Say bye, Ian.