00:00:00.05 Sami That's good. then Well, can you hear me if I speak at this? 00:00:02.68 alexei sayle Yeah, this is fine. 00:00:03.48 Talal K yeah You sound really good now. 00:00:05.08 Sami Oh, I love that. 00:00:05.30 alexei sayle What episode? 00:00:05.84 Sami I love that. Okay. 00:00:07.00 Talal K and let It was episode 108. 00:00:09.77 alexei sayle On Jeanette. 00:00:10.39 Talal K We have begun recording my Habibis. 00:00:13.65 Sami Let's go. 00:00:14.55 alexei sayle right, let's go. Let's do this. 00:00:16.38 Talal K Fucking hell. 00:00:18.52 alexei sayle OK. Everybody good? Okay, welcome to episode 100 of the Alexi Cell Podcast. And we've got a special guest to join in with the banter with the Alexi Cell Morning Crew, Afternoon, Evening Crew. 00:00:36.18 alexei sayle as It's Sami Abuwade. 00:00:39.19 Sami Hello, how are we doing guys? 00:00:41.37 Talal K Hello. 00:00:41.78 alexei sayle but Thank you. It's Arabs 2, Jews 1 on the Alexi Cell Podcast. 00:00:46.78 Sami In the league tables. 00:00:47.96 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah. Welcome, Sami. What... What? What? Just that. What? 00:00:54.46 Sami No, Abu Wardah, that's my surname. 00:00:56.09 alexei sayle Have a weather. Somebody have a weather. That's what I said, wasn't it? ah Somebody have a what? well No, what? 00:01:01.74 Sami I've had ah had Abu Ward round. 00:01:02.34 alexei sayle What's... Right. 00:01:05.37 Sami um I've had it misspelt as Ab's Warden. I've i've had ah about everything. 00:01:10.17 Talal K Wow. have a wardrobe. 00:01:10.84 alexei sayle Well. 00:01:12.24 Sami Wardrobe, that's a good one. 00:01:13.74 Talal K have a wardrobe. 00:01:13.72 alexei sayle Yeah. So what's... 00:01:15.54 Talal K i used to get, because I'm Talal Karkuti, they used to say Karputi, Halal a lot. 00:01:15.78 alexei sayle good 00:01:20.24 Talal K And then one guy really cleverly went Talal and he kept saying my name. He went Talal. Talal. Talal. Towel head. Towel head. 00:01:30.46 Talal K Looking me dead in the eye in the school playground, to just slowly transforming my name. 00:01:34.17 Sami That's creative. I like that. 00:01:37.11 Talal K to tell I had to give him credit. It was really funny. 00:01:40.15 alexei sayle Yeah, this was on The World at One. 00:01:44.98 Talal K yeah 00:01:45.11 alexei sayle I'm ready for it. 00:01:46.04 Sami yeah 00:01:48.35 alexei sayle It's a bit but controversial. Sammy, so what's going on with you, brother? 00:01:54.36 Sami um been very busy um i watched the diddy doc a couple of days ago that was a pretty big event that's the one that's the one you've seen it too um 00:02:00.22 alexei sayle Ken Dodd and his Diddy men. interesting examples in the jam butty minds it's a it's a it's a example of uh yeah sexual shenanigans in naughty ash i was yes i probably i'm forgetting that you're younger than me yeah so this this yeah you remember yeah 00:02:07.67 Sami you know 00:02:14.46 Sami so what ken dodd had had something called the diddy men 00:02:20.22 Sami I know Ken Dodd. I love Ken Dodd. I don't know about the Diddy men. Tell me about the Diddy men. 00:02:23.86 alexei sayle Yes, he had, well, his his kind of posse were called the Diddy Men. I think they lived in with him in Naughty Ash and worked down the Jambotti Mines. 00:02:28.49 Talal K Oh my God. 00:02:32.92 alexei sayle I don't know whether they came on... 00:02:33.44 Sami Yeah, 00:02:34.04 Talal K They were a little buck tooth puppets with big top hats. 00:02:37.50 alexei sayle Yeah. So essentially Diddy or Small in Liverpool vernacular versions of of him, really. 00:02:41.14 Sami yeah. yeah 00:02:44.91 alexei sayle They were puppets, were they? 00:02:47.19 Talal K They are like clownish minstrel like puppets. 00:02:50.90 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah. 00:02:51.86 Talal K Short and squat. 00:02:53.37 alexei sayle yeah 00:02:53.85 Talal K with big pot bellies. 00:02:55.48 alexei sayle Yeah, but obviously that that wasn't really, I was just making a joke. 00:02:56.41 Talal K um 00:03:00.09 Talal K No, that's to what the new Netflix documentary is, yes. 00:03:01.46 Sami Did you? 00:03:03.26 alexei sayle About Ken Dodd and his Diddy Men. 00:03:04.54 Sami Ken Dodd and his Diddy Man. Have you ever seen Ken Dodd, Sean Puffy Coombs? 00:03:05.96 alexei sayle About Sean Coombs. ah No, I never saw him, I never really fancied it that, just that people say, you know, he'd go on for three hours and you'd help us with laughter. 00:03:16.62 alexei sayle I can't imagine it, really. 00:03:19.71 Sami You never saw him live? 00:03:21.18 alexei sayle No. No. 00:03:22.55 Sami Have you ever seen like ah an extended recorded set of his? Have you ever watched him? 00:03:27.45 alexei sayle I don't think so, Now, 00:03:28.95 Sami it's It's pretty good. 00:03:29.14 Talal K He's just like a shit... What? He's like a shit um Dr Dre. 00:03:31.86 Sami Oh, are you kidding me? 00:03:33.59 alexei sayle a lot of people do speak highly of him. 00:03:33.82 Sami There's no, no, no. He's really good. 00:03:37.72 alexei sayle i liked He had a Radio 4 when it was still... i don't know whether it was called Radio 4 or the Home Service. He had sort Sunday lunchtime was the big time for really popular comedies on them on on Radio 4, you know, in the 50s and 60s, and he had his own show. 00:03:54.17 Talal K Oh, I thought... 00:03:54.50 alexei sayle And he'd say, ooh, what a lovely day to 00:04:00.22 alexei sayle stuff a blancmange through somebody's door and shout, the Martians are coming. Something like that. And he also had a catchphrase, which was, where's me shit? Where's me shit? 00:04:11.32 alexei sayle Which you've got to, you know, it's a good catchphrase. 00:04:13.74 Sami That's a good catchphrase. 00:04:13.72 Talal K it 00:04:13.82 alexei sayle Where's me shit? 00:04:15.75 Sami What's your catchphrase, Alexei? 00:04:17.28 alexei sayle Well, catchphrase death to the Zionist entity. 00:04:20.57 Sami here 00:04:21.24 alexei sayle fri 00:04:23.19 Sami how How does that go down when you when you do a tight 10? 00:04:23.52 alexei sayle Snapping. 00:04:24.69 Talal K No, but he does it with a wig and a silly voice. 00:04:25.05 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:04:25.85 Sami Yeah. What about Ken Dodd? it's Yeah. 00:04:29.33 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:04:29.98 Sami what about what about ken donddt 00:04:32.38 alexei sayle Well, Ken Dodds, of course, was How You Diddle In as well, which I appropriated for How You Sean Coombs Diddle In, he used to say. 00:04:43.86 alexei sayle um 00:04:44.24 Talal K See, I thought we'd switched to P Diddy, that's why I said he was shit. I was thought we talking about P Diddy there. 00:04:48.09 alexei sayle right, no, we're still talking about Ken Dodds. 00:04:50.10 Talal K ah Was there a bit of ah Ken Dodd in, you know, your geezer, Bobby Chariot? 00:04:55.57 alexei sayle Bobby Chariot, yeah yeah. 00:04:57.08 Talal K Yeah. 00:04:56.99 alexei sayle How You Diddle Him was its stolen from Kenton. 00:04:58.90 Talal K Yeah, you said how you did, Lin. I thought I recognized that. 00:05:00.28 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was stolen from Kenton. 00:05:01.26 Talal K yeah Do you want to know the names of the Diddy men? 00:05:04.89 alexei sayle Oh, they had names, yeah. 00:05:05.78 Talal K Yeah. Dickie Mint. 00:05:08.57 alexei sayle All right. 00:05:10.58 Talal K Mick the Marmalizer. 00:05:12.57 alexei sayle Okay. 00:05:13.37 Talal K Stephen. 00:05:14.18 alexei sayle Marmalised is a Liverpool expression for sort of beating up, really. 00:05:16.25 Talal K What does it mean to get marmalized? 00:05:20.79 Talal K So Mick goes around. Okay, he's the tough one, I guess. Stephen Titch Doyle. Little Evan. Hamish McDiddy. 00:05:30.66 Sami mcdiy 00:05:32.35 Talal K McDiddy. Nigel Ponson B. be Small Piece. Nicky Nugget. 00:05:37.91 alexei sayle Oh, God. 00:05:40.70 Talal K This one's very rude. 00:05:40.73 alexei sayle who it 00:05:41.94 Talal K Ben. Tiny Ween. Winston. 00:05:45.53 alexei sayle How many of them were... How many of the fuckers were there? 00:05:46.81 Talal K Two more. 00:05:47.48 alexei sayle All right. 00:05:48.85 Sami Just about 20 or 30 more. 00:05:48.88 Talal K Sid Short. And smarty arty. 00:05:54.17 Sami um And so that's Sean Coombs' crew, is it? 00:05:56.50 alexei sayle Yes, posse. 00:05:57.24 Talal K is Entourage. 00:05:57.34 Sami let's that's That's Puff Daddy's entourage, is it? 00:05:57.62 alexei sayle Yeah, let's... 00:05:59.17 Talal K Are 00:05:59.41 alexei sayle that's Let's drop the um See, I'm not really... yeah I'm more familiar with Ken Dodd than I am with P Diddy, really, because he was after I think he was after my time as a somebody who was interested in music. And he was... Whose big name was he? 00:06:18.20 Sami ah Yeah, well, i was i was, you know, i followed I followed the sort of late 90s, early 2000s hip hop and gangster rap um somewhat casually, but I was aware of what was going on. 00:06:20.60 Talal K we... 00:06:30.02 Sami And um And Sean Coombs just kind of appeared as as an artist, sort of puff daddy. And you don't really question these things. You just go, oh, he's a rapper, you know, because I wasn't that in on the gossip. 00:06:42.68 Talal K Yeah. 00:06:43.45 Sami And so this documentary has has sort of, it's told me what's what in many ways. And it's it's kind of, it's revealed him for being extremely untalented. 00:06:54.94 Sami um 00:06:55.16 alexei sayle Really? all right. 00:06:55.86 Sami in quite quite a quite a funny way, but nothing else that he does is funny, unfortunately. 00:06:56.60 alexei sayle what's that so 00:07:00.55 Sami It's it's pretty awful. 00:07:01.94 alexei sayle how did he get to How did he get to musical notoriety then if he was untalented? 00:07:07.42 Sami Well, apparently he started as a producer and and then started inserting himself into people's songs and music videos. 00:07:09.37 Talal K Yeah, he was a good producer. 00:07:09.50 alexei sayle All right. 00:07:14.46 Sami um And the the documentary heavily implies that on more than one occasion, he used the deaths of other people to um to escalate his his own career. 00:07:27.81 Sami And that's not that's not a good thing. 00:07:30.58 alexei sayle That's not a nice thing to do, is it really? 00:07:32.44 Sami no 00:07:33.78 Talal K He sampled your best mate when when Notorious B.I.G. g died. He used that Sting sample. 00:07:39.77 alexei sayle My best mate, which of my best mates? 00:07:44.44 Talal K Every breath you take. 00:07:44.36 alexei sayle Oh, right. Oh, right. 00:07:48.25 Talal K And that was a big hit for him. Was that R.I.P. 00:07:53.21 Sami i once I once got stranded in... 00:07:53.28 alexei sayle Oh, right. 00:07:53.90 Talal K B.I.G. hit. 00:07:59.44 Sami My plane had to land in bad weather in the south east of England. um Sorry, south west of England. And we had to all go to a hotel and there was a woman claiming to be Sting's sister-in-law there. 00:08:11.46 Sami She got very drunk and then told us very inappropriately intimate details about her personal life, which was strange. 00:08:19.19 Talal K Oh, wow. 00:08:19.26 alexei sayle Really? 00:08:20.82 Sami So do you you know Sting then, Alexi? 00:08:23.26 alexei sayle i Well, I know I'm friendly with his wife his first wife more than anything. I did i did briefly no sting. 00:08:27.77 Talal K He used to be Sting's um court jester. 00:08:29.91 alexei sayle I was just caught jester for a brief period. 00:08:33.17 Sami what does that What does that mean? You go around his house and... 00:08:34.55 alexei sayle Just to hang around his house and be funny. 00:08:37.00 Sami That's nice. 00:08:37.98 alexei sayle Didn't, yeah, didn't last very long. But I'm still friendly with his his wife, Frances, the mother of his first two children. 00:08:41.22 Sami Did he play? 00:08:43.58 Sami um nice, nice. 00:08:45.51 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:08:48.20 Talal K P Diddy also, like he he made some really fucking catchy beats as a producer, like some of the biggest hip hop tunes, but it was really basic producing. 00:08:48.15 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:08:59.77 Talal K like He would just take a really popular, a well-known funk song and just loop like the best bit of that song. 00:09:07.13 alexei sayle Right. 00:09:07.96 Talal K And that's how he made his name, really. So it wasn't very creative. But he wasn't a bad lyricist. He had some good lyricists lyrics. um Like, um we are the Diddy men, Doddy's Dottie Diddy men. 00:09:19.93 Talal K We are the Diddy men who come from naughty ash. Tonight's the night the Diddy men paint the town. We'll lose our blues and let our Diddy hair down. So it's some pretty good fucking lyrics. 00:09:30.52 Sami that's good that's to be honest if if a competent rapper rap that i think it would sound sick 00:09:30.42 alexei sayle Yeah, pretty good. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think we we're onto something here. 00:09:39.80 Talal K He just did. 00:09:40.05 Sami um do you want to give it a go alexi 00:09:40.73 Talal K He just did. 00:09:40.86 alexei sayle we have to you have to, you know, that's that thing, you know, ask, you know, to act first and ask permission later because i did I did my song, Play That Funky Music, Jewish Boy. 00:09:41.54 Talal K Mm-hmm. 00:09:47.92 Sami Yeah. 00:09:54.94 alexei sayle did it first and asked for permission later and so I have to give all the royalties for that to the band Wild Chippy who did the song, Play That Funky Music, White Boy. 00:10:05.78 Talal K What's interesting is when, and also your theme song was a rip off of the Mickey Mouse Club theme song. 00:10:05.95 alexei sayle like, 00:10:11.10 alexei sayle Yeah, we got away with that for some reason. 00:10:12.28 Talal K And the BBC lawyers said to you, don't worry about fucking Disney, we're the BBC. 00:10:16.63 alexei sayle And i said, fuck Disney, we're the BBC. Yeah, wasn't over that. 00:10:18.65 Talal K And they're pretty much doing that to Trump now, aren't they? 00:10:22.46 alexei sayle Well, yeah he seems not... 00:10:23.61 Talal K With Trump's lawsuit, they're basically saying, we're not going to entertain it. 00:10:28.09 alexei sayle Yeah, they should have done that more frequently. Yes, ah well, as I understand it. um You know, he hasn't really got a case. You know, there's not not really anything. I don't know why he's doing it, really. 00:10:41.13 alexei sayle I mean, one the odd things about that is people say the BBC did this and the BBC did that about that Panorama documentary, but it was actually made by an independent company. It wasn't the BBC that did it. 00:10:50.97 Sami Right. 00:10:51.26 alexei sayle It was, I think, October Films, I think. um Nobody ever seems to say that for some reason. I don't know why. Yeah. 00:11:00.28 Talal K Interesting. Yeah, nobody seems to say that Israel's committing war crimes on the telly either. 00:11:07.69 alexei sayle They tell very often on the BBC now. 00:11:10.10 Talal K And it's very... 00:11:10.11 alexei sayle It was very good. Actually, The World at One couple of days ago, I think Sarah Montague is in that is in is Israel and the West Bank. and a And there was a very good, most of The World at One on, like Tuesday, there seemed to be a report from the West Bank about settler violence. It wasn't bad for once. 00:11:30.07 Talal K noise. 00:11:30.95 Sami That's good. ah they It's harder for them to to to escape it now, isn't it? 00:11:32.25 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:11:35.39 Sami to To try and pretend it's not happening for a lot the... 00:11:38.14 alexei sayle Well, the West Bank, yeah, mean, yeah, the West Bank is such an obvious example of ethnic cleansing. 00:11:38.63 Sami Yeah. 00:11:42.05 Sami Yeah. 00:11:44.47 alexei sayle But at least it was, you know, the BBC, because then they re kind of reverted to... They led yesterday with, the you know, the Metropolitan Police and the Greater Manchester Police saying that they were going to... Anybody who says the word intifada is going to... Ow! Ooh, ow! Get out! That was quick. Yeah. 00:12:03.83 alexei sayle ah if the Metropolitan Police just stormed into my house and said the word intifada, ow, ooh, ow, get off, ow. 00:12:09.91 Talal K Yeah. 00:12:15.10 alexei sayle and so If you anybody on the demonstration says the word intifada, will be hauled out and arrested, you which apparently is is legally completely baseless, and but it's just kind of soft to the Israel lobby, isn't it, really? 00:12:29.37 alexei sayle Obviously trying to make a link between anti-Zionism and... 00:12:32.06 Sami Yeah. 00:12:35.57 alexei sayle protesting against the genocide and the murders in Sydney. An illegitimate link thereof. 00:12:44.25 Talal K Yeah, those Bondi bastards did provide a bit of a setback to the whole cause really. 00:12:48.66 alexei sayle Yeah, well, you know, yeah, you do, you know, but yes, is it did. 00:12:50.22 Talal K It's very annoying, but it was also confusing. You know how many times I've seen, I've actually fantasized about like if I was ever present at, 00:13:03.00 Talal K some sort of terrorist attack perpetrated by a Muslim. I want to I will go running in and tackle the person because I want the news to see an Arab person taking down, know, I've fantasized about, honestly, because this is such a big part of, 00:13:09.46 alexei sayle yeah 00:13:19.00 Talal K an Arab person's life is seeing these fucking things happen and being, and and just waiting for the news of who did it, who did, ah ah, shit, it's an Arab. 00:13:22.30 alexei sayle yeah yeah 00:13:26.44 Talal K And I've fantasized so many times of, of taking out that person so that the news had a opposite. And now it's actually happened. Um, and, uh, it's the most Arab name and he's got it twice, Ahmed Al Ahmed. 00:13:33.94 alexei sayle yeah 00:13:41.34 alexei sayle yeah 00:13:41.78 Talal K Um, and it's still didn't, it's still depressing to see, but, um, 00:13:47.58 alexei sayle yeah they tried well i mean they have you know that's yeah yeah 00:13:49.31 Talal K It's a weird feeling. It's a very unique and weird feeling. 00:13:50.57 Sami Well, they pushed it and a fake news source said that his name was Edward Crabtree. 00:13:55.80 Talal K Yes. 00:13:56.22 Sami ah Yeah, yeah, there was a fake a fake news site. They got picked up, obviously, by all the social media retweeters. And they they said his real name is Edward Crabtree. 00:14:08.36 Sami It's a very specific, strangely specific name to choose. 00:14:08.77 Talal K Mm-hmm. 00:14:09.75 alexei sayle yeah It lends it more veracity by being so specific, doesn't it? 00:14:11.92 Sami It's a... Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:14:15.13 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:14:16.57 Sami um I found that quite funny. They just have to have to pick a name. 00:14:18.62 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah, and then Netanyahu said at first he was Jewish, didn't he, trying to... 00:14:21.01 Sami pick 00:14:24.02 Sami Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:14:23.94 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:14:26.80 Sami it's It's all up for grabs now. You can just say and believe whatever you want. 00:14:29.98 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:14:30.20 Sami um This is something I'm trying to find a way. 00:14:31.22 Talal K Basically, yeah. 00:14:33.12 Sami It's hard. It's hard to write comedy about this, but you know yeah There is a truth, there is this sort of objective truth out there and and we are departing from it every day. 00:14:44.74 Sami We stray further from the truth and it's and it's there's something quite interesting and juicy there to to sort of think about. 00:14:46.36 alexei sayle Yeah, no yeah, yeah. 00:14:47.26 Talal K Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:14:54.60 alexei sayle Well, so what how's your year how's your year in comedy been? You were at Edinburgh? 00:15:01.18 Sami Yeah, my year in comedy was was very eventful. um I had my show, you came to see an early version of it back in May. And then I developed it further, went to Edinburgh, we got a very late late confirmation for Edinburgh, we had about four weeks notice and we got confirmation for a 115 seater. 00:15:19.22 Sami um And ah we so we were terrified because it's hard to hard enough to sell at Edinburgh, even if you have a good run up. We sold out over half the run. We sold over 2,000 tickets. um And i won two awards, some great broadsheet reviews, a few different interviews, which was nice. um A ah ah very funny attempted takedown by The Spectator, which was was pretty pretty pretty... 00:15:52.18 Sami It was funny. It was funny. It was in a... 00:15:54.18 alexei sayle Deliberately funny or... 00:15:55.61 Sami No, no, no, no, no. It was a very small man whose name I forget. um who was who was who was it was His name was Sean Puffy Coons. 00:16:00.98 Talal K It was Diddy. 00:16:04.09 Sami And he um he he was right he had this compilation and the head the the title of the article was like, 10 disgruntled woke comedians or some shit. 00:16:04.34 alexei sayle yeah 00:16:13.67 alexei sayle All right. 00:16:14.42 Sami um and And I had a paragraph, a whole paragraph to myself and my show where he consistently, every other sentence is something that's factually incorrect about me. 00:16:20.85 Talal K Aw. 00:16:25.58 Sami And what's funny is my PR reached out to them saying, hey, say what you can have your opinions, that's fine. 00:16:27.35 Talal K oh 00:16:31.77 Sami just You have to fix the factually incorrect things about Sammy's childhood and where he was born and all this kind of stuff. And and ah the the editor then replied to her, 00:16:43.64 Sami within 24 hours, a very long email describing exactly why they were not going to put factually correct information in the article. 00:16:55.99 Sami So we clearly, um no, I wish it was Michael Gove. 00:16:56.03 alexei sayle there's a michael gov oh no wasn't he yeah i'd read crabtree yeah 00:17:00.49 Sami It was some genuinely very forgettable name, very forgettable man. But um yeah, it was Ahmed El Ahmed actually. And um t he, so we've we clearly rattled them. 00:17:09.50 Talal K hu 00:17:15.87 Sami It was quite it was quite a good feeling because his this guy's boss took the time, the time out of his day to write a lengthy email in response as to why they weren't going to publish facts about me, which was, well, I counted it as a bit of a win, to be honest, because, i mean, spectator readers, you know, they 00:17:16.90 alexei sayle yeah 00:17:28.66 Talal K Jesus Christ. 00:17:34.42 Talal K It's sad though. 00:17:36.85 Sami when when they gather the single brain cell they have between them, you know, they can just about muster muster up enough sort of thought to to to finish an article in that publication. 00:17:48.41 Sami But so I'm not too bothered about, you know, the people who read The Spectator and what their opinion is. 00:17:48.61 Talal K Yeah. yeah 00:17:54.09 Sami ah So it was just, it it was nice. It was a nice feeling to rattle to rattle them because they have nothing else to go on. it was It was a good feeling because it's like all you have now are your lies. 00:18:04.61 Sami So that was that was nice 00:18:06.42 alexei sayle Good, I should publicise that. i Actually, think the um Spectator headquarters used to be in my street for years, and they used to invite me every year to the Spectator Christmas party. 00:18:21.43 alexei sayle um I think it was a Christmas... No, summer party it was. Summer party, which I used to go to, really. um and i think this was... It's an inconceivable time. It was kind of like a bit like you know the Christmas... 00:18:34.17 alexei sayle you know It didn't seem to matter whether you were left or right in those days, really. 00:18:37.08 Sami Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:18:38.05 alexei sayle We mixed freely. It was a bit like the Armistice of Christmas in the First World a War when the men from the British and the German champions played football and danced with each other. 00:18:43.61 Sami You had a football match, did you? 00:18:48.22 alexei sayle um but it was And it was the most... Cars used to pull up and disgorge. I think it was sure it must have been during Thatcher era. mean, she was never there, but a lot of her ministers were. It was the most extraordinary drunken um party I've ever been to. Just spirits were saved in massive measures, really. So you would see various Tory grandees. 00:19:18.42 alexei sayle And there were there was also the sort of comedy establishment back then, people like Miles Kington. It was actually quite nice. And Geoffrey Bernard, i remember Miles Kington got coming back from the bars and all action-faced. 00:19:33.11 alexei sayle And he said, Geoffrey Bernard has said, I just saw you calling me a cunt on the television. ah ah and then let Jeffrey Bernard would be there every year gradually missing a limb as H1 was chopped off with his alcoholism really hopping about on one leg and on no leg yes no no no no literally he would be 00:19:53.29 Sami Oh, literally. I thought you meant metaphorically that he would have his appendages removed. 00:19:57.81 alexei sayle He'd be missing various limbs because of his smoking and his and is drinking over the years. 00:20:01.15 Sami Right, yeah. 00:20:04.25 alexei sayle So, yeah, i went for a few years, and then I went one year and just thought, this isn't this isn't funny anymore. 00:20:11.03 Sami would you have gone on do Would you have gone on TV and called him a cunt after he had his limbs removed or am I getting guys mixed up? 00:20:11.24 alexei sayle Stop. 00:20:14.82 alexei sayle Geoffrey Bernard. 00:20:18.46 alexei sayle I think that would be... that no i would never. I mean... I did, you know, there was a play in the West in End for a while with Peter O'Toole and, what ah what was her name? a I can't remember her name now. um About being locked in. 00:20:38.23 alexei sayle it was called Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell and it was about, it was written by Keith Warshouse, I think, and it was about, The set was The Coaching Horses, on which is just off route which is on Old Compton Street. 00:20:50.93 alexei sayle It's in the corner of Old Compton Street and Dean Street. the set was to come And then you could go for a drink in The Coaching Horses afterwards. But it was about Geoffrey Bernard being locked in The Coaching Horses overnight. 00:20:59.61 Talal K Oh. 00:21:04.50 alexei sayle And it was a play which was just having a laugh about alcoholism, really. I remember a lot of American tourists being... um ah un amused about it but i remember we went to see it and sitting in front of us was Keanu Reeves and I remember Keanu Reeves saying I whether he was with Alex Winter I don't know if it was Bill and Ted it may have been Keanu Reeves went back at at the interval you know went to see and he said dude we're gonna meet Lawrence of Arabia laughter laughter laughter 00:21:20.56 Talal K Wow. 00:21:20.92 Sami Wow. 00:21:40.08 Sami That's funny. Is this pre or post Matrix Keanu Reeves? 00:21:40.95 alexei sayle and ah Pre, pre, yeah. 00:21:44.80 Talal K must be pre. 00:21:45.83 Sami Pre Matrix, but he was a big deal. 00:21:47.09 Talal K This 99. 00:21:47.22 Sami He did point break. 00:21:47.99 alexei sayle Still a big deal, yeah. 00:21:49.25 Talal K The TV movie was made in 99. So i imagine the play was running before that. 00:21:53.78 alexei sayle Geoffrey Bernard, yeah, it was made in the... 00:21:55.46 Talal K Matrix is from 1999 as well. but 00:21:57.91 alexei sayle It was pre-Matrix, I think, but it was still a pretty big star. 00:21:59.80 Talal K Sarah Berger and Annabelle Leventon were in it. 00:22:02.78 alexei sayle They went in the play, who was the play? It was... 00:22:08.48 alexei sayle I can't remember now. But, yeah, that was the spectator party. anyway and then Then they stopped inviting me. And then they moved, or vice versa. 00:22:18.81 Sami why Why do you think they stopped inviting you? 00:22:21.75 alexei sayle um I don't think they thought it was funny anymore, either, really. The joke of me being there had kind of worn off for all of us, I think. And then they they moved from Doughty Street. They moved to Victoria or somewhere. But it's also, you know, where I... 00:22:36.86 alexei sayle I would stop and sometimes... Boris Johnson was the um was the editor and i would stop and chat to him. 00:22:43.56 Sami Oh, right. What was he like back then? Exactly the same. 00:22:47.20 alexei sayle It was hard to... Well, no, I did it. I got a bit out of it, really, which was... He was he was all right. I mean, he I got a bit... I did a bit... i'm ah I think my first stand-up show when I came back to doing stand-up about just being seduced by his kind of upper-class charm. 00:23:05.57 Sami Yeah. 00:23:06.14 alexei sayle And sort of go, oh, Mr. Johnson, oh, you golden hair, Mr. Johnson. Oh, insult me in Latin, Mr. Johnson. And then developing this fantasy of being in the First World War and Boris being my my officer. 00:23:22.04 alexei sayle um He was, well, he didn't seem, you know, again, he seemed like, again, it was partly, it seemed a bit of a joke, really. i didnt met cook with the re The first time I met him, I had a, I had a, 00:23:35.22 alexei sayle a blue, Nivola blue Alfa Romeo 166, which was a very distinctive looking car. Absolute nightmare to drive. Anyway, i was it was parked on the square, and as I was going up the square, I saw Boris Johnson, because he wrote about cars for Esquire, and I saw him, he was sitting on the roof of a, I think, a Mercedes S-Class with his feet sticking through the sunroof, as it were, so he was His feet were in the car and the rest of him was on the roof. 00:24:06.76 alexei sayle So I pulled up in my Alfa Romeo and said, oh, hello. and He said, oh, that's yours. is it he directly to He'd noticed it. Then we had a chat. And then I met him on the street. one And then i i thought he would said he was reviewing. I don't know if anybody is interested in this. But yeah I remember he said he was reviewing a Saab convertible. 00:24:24.98 alexei sayle And I said, you know, that's just a Vauxhall Vectra underneath, Sarbza basically. And he said, oh, no, really? And he got out a leaky fountain pen and made some notes to that effect on a piece of paper. 00:24:36.71 Talal K Hmm. 00:24:39.16 alexei sayle And so I helped him write his motoring column. 00:24:42.97 Talal K Nothing wrong with the 00:24:44.97 alexei sayle Vauxhall Vectra. No, no, it was fine for its time. fine for its time 00:24:49.17 Sami Alfa Romeo's, my ah my sister's fiance back in the 90s had an Alfa Romeo. And all I remember about it was he had to wake up extra early in the morning in the winter to to warm it up. 00:25:04.44 Sami That was a thing back in the, you had to warm your car up. 00:25:06.62 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:25:06.84 Sami You you don't have to do that anymore. 00:25:07.35 Talal K Well, 00:25:08.66 alexei sayle No, you have to warm it up fors for it to start kind of thing. no 00:25:13.21 Sami Yeah. 00:25:13.94 Talal K but I have to. 00:25:14.14 Sami Well, and as in, I remember him trying to trying to start it 00:25:14.36 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:25:14.82 Talal K My air con doesn't work, so I have to warm my car up. No, it's, yeah. 00:25:18.81 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:25:19.69 Talal K Or if your windows are like frosted over as well, it's like to get the heat, to get the air hot. 00:25:20.15 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:25:25.11 Talal K Takes off a while. 00:25:26.68 alexei sayle My 166, it would drain it. of If I left it for a week, the battery would be flat. 00:25:31.61 Sami Yeah. 00:25:31.70 alexei sayle It just drained about. So in the end, I had an isolation. Switch fitted. And seeing as we've come, we're on this tack. I drove, I also drove, well, the movie I made called Thief Lord in Luxembourg, I drove there in an Alfa Romeo coupe, red coupe, to Luxembourg. 00:25:49.21 Talal K What, you drove all the way, you drove to Luxembourg? 00:25:51.78 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah. 00:25:53.50 Talal K What, they couldn't afford a bloody ticket? Well, yeah. Yeah. 00:25:56.34 alexei sayle No, because obviously I wrote about it and then a photographer flew out and took photos of me. 00:26:02.22 Sami It's called Thief Lord Herder Diber. 00:26:02.41 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:26:06.62 Sami Is a German-British family drama film? 00:26:06.81 alexei sayle and I was caught. Yes. It was written by Cornelia Funk, the German J.K. Rowling. 00:26:16.57 Talal K And this is where you became like a father figure to Aaron Taylor Johnson in real life. 00:26:17.75 alexei sayle And I played the character. Yes. and de joe And the guy, for the kid from 1917. What's he called? George. 00:26:28.54 Talal K George McKay. 00:26:28.76 Sami Yeah. 00:26:28.66 alexei sayle George. George McKay. Yeah. Also, he was in it as well. And Aaron Taylor Johnson. Yeah, they were both. 00:26:34.26 Talal K And you played Barbarossa. 00:26:35.93 alexei sayle Barbarossa. 00:26:37.47 Sami Wow. 00:26:39.81 Talal K The Thief Lord. 00:26:40.76 alexei sayle I was also, I actually think, as soon as but I also, there's an awful, there's a tremendous number of programs now, this is on um the television, where people buy cars and do them up and then sell them at tremendous loss. 00:26:56.73 alexei sayle And I don't understand. The first one was Mike Brewer who did Wheeler Dealers. He should be very annoyed because there's hundreds of them now. But one of the things also that the people in them, 00:27:07.89 alexei sayle who are selling cars or buying cars, all have to indulge in banter, self-deprecating banter, which don't know whether that's a very British thing, really. 00:27:14.58 Sami yeah 00:27:19.52 alexei sayle They've all got, and then laugh kind of falsely about their deficiencies. 00:27:23.70 Sami it started with with the with top gear and the clerks and sort of too all right 00:27:29.75 alexei sayle Yeah, that was slightly slightly different. These are real yeah these are real real-ish people, really, buying cars at auction or selling cars. 00:27:37.56 Talal K Is it like masculine macho banter? 00:27:37.78 alexei sayle But they just... No, I think it's some kind of... what They feel compelled to do it. I don't know what it is, really. i I'm throwing this out there. I'm trying to think of a bit, really, if I'm honest. But um I don't know. They just kind of have to go... her he's Look at him. He's stupid. He's... 00:27:59.28 alexei sayle he's drinking his tea upside down. They say things like that, you know, and then they sort say, you know, mechanics and, u could look at this, it's a, oh, look at his car, it's a, 00:28:11.42 Sami He needs to wake up ah early in the morning to warm it up in the winter. 00:28:13.62 alexei sayle Yeah, it needs to wake up, yeah, or his battery drains, or he's got Boris Johnson on his roof. 00:28:14.81 Sami Yeah. 00:28:17.02 Talal K Yeah. 00:28:17.08 Sami Yeah. 00:28:19.60 alexei sayle Look at him. I don't know. I think don't know whether it's, don't know whether it's, if anybody, whether it's required, it seems to be some kind of requirement of British people in these lightweight documentaries to make fun of themselves or their workmates. 00:28:34.61 alexei sayle They feel compelled. Nobody's telling them to do it. They feel compelled to do it. I don't know why, really. Nobody's serious. You know what mean? 00:28:40.73 Talal K Yeah. 00:28:40.92 alexei sayle Nobody, nobody says, I believe, you 00:28:42.74 Talal K It could just be a case of just filling that runtime. You know, don't edit it out. We need to fill 60 minutes. 00:28:48.41 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:28:49.22 Talal K Like, just keep it in. Fuck's sake. 00:28:50.84 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:28:53.50 Talal K Or they just they just really want to have some sort of personality when, in fact, they are incapable. 00:28:58.78 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:29:02.68 Talal K I do miss pimp my ride as well. 00:29:06.63 alexei sayle Oh, right. That was a different thing. Again, that was what I think that was when I was out all the time. I never really saw it. That was like MTV. It was that MTV. 00:29:13.92 Talal K MTV, yeah, and then ah they would like you know refurbish someone's car, but in like a very inappropriate and kind of impractical way. 00:29:13.98 Sami Yeah. 00:29:24.06 alexei sayle Right. 00:29:24.90 Talal K They'd like take someone's beaten up old Ford Galaxy and then they'd put some make it look really flashy, new chairs, new paint job and everything, but then they'd always put something in the boot, like a fucking aquarium in the boot, 00:29:38.70 Sami Yeah. 00:29:39.26 Talal K Or like a ping pong table that comes out of the boot. And is this they'd always put some novelty oversized thing that just renders the boots unusable for its intended purpose. 00:29:49.40 alexei sayle Right. 00:29:52.42 Talal K They'd be like, oh, we've put a complete three bedroom bungalow in your boots. All you have to do is press this button and you wait half an hour for the mechanism to unfurl this bungalow. 00:30:05.35 Talal K you'd sit there. 00:30:05.88 Sami and And a family of four comes out. 00:30:07.35 Talal K Yeah. um 00:30:09.24 alexei sayle And that was popular, was it? 00:30:09.42 Talal K It was extremely popular. 00:30:11.93 Sami Yeah, yeah. 00:30:11.94 Talal K Yeah, a Exhibit hosted the American one. 00:30:12.20 alexei sayle Amongst you kids? 00:30:14.34 Talal K And then this really popular guy, Tim Westwood, hosted the British one. 00:30:17.85 Sami ah 00:30:19.58 alexei sayle ah Tim Westwood, there's some fertile shit. um but I mean, I always thought, even before the allegations, that... yeah the the i mean it was the I mean, that's also typical. Like the self-deprecating banter, that is also... 00:30:32.82 alexei sayle Typical of Britain, isn't it? That Britain, obviously, the BBC felt that they needed to respond to the wave of hip-hop and gangster rap and so on. 00:30:42.90 alexei sayle So they appointed as the the kind of arbiter of taste in his late actor, the son of a fucking bishop he'd been to public school. I mean, Tim Westwood, with his fake American accent. 00:30:53.21 Talal K and spoke like a yeah 00:30:55.04 alexei sayle I mean, he's like fake, you know. 00:30:58.94 Talal K my brother's had some interactions with him and he's not a pleasant person and he could tell ah long before any of the accusations um 00:31:04.70 alexei sayle Really? 00:31:07.99 alexei sayle Somebody shot him, didn't they, while back? 00:31:08.12 Sami Was there gonna be a, someone shot Tim Westwood? 00:31:12.34 alexei sayle Yeah, before he became... Before all the stuff came out about him, yeah, somebody shot him. 00:31:18.81 Talal K which probably just gave him more street cred. 00:31:18.97 alexei sayle It was so enough. 00:31:19.13 Sami Wow. 00:31:21.66 alexei sayle I guess, yeah, maybe he had himself shot. But um I just think that's typical of fucking Britain, yeah. 00:31:27.35 Talal K Yeah, he was shot fucking out again in 1999 in the gangland style hit. 00:31:31.45 alexei sayle That was a busy year, wasn't it? 00:31:32.73 Sami You think it was if he he was Puff Daddy arranged his shooting? 00:31:36.44 alexei sayle possible or or puff did or ken puff did he yeah he was strapped the doddy was often bbc like entertainment christmas party doddy was always strapped and always had like always had a nine underneath yeah tickling tickling stick and a in cold python 00:31:40.17 Sami It's Ken Diddy. yeah 00:31:53.82 Sami Ooh! Have a tickle! Bam! 00:31:59.67 Sami ah 00:32:02.97 Talal K Oh my God. 00:32:06.33 Talal K Two men on a motorbike pulled alongside Tim Westwood's Range Rover. 00:32:06.68 alexei sayle Yes. 00:32:10.01 Talal K Certainly got a Fiat Pinto underneath that Range Rover. As he drove through Kennington, South London on Sunday evening, shortly after he performed at Lambeth count Country Festival at Brockwell Park, which we've spoken about. 00:32:17.21 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:32:22.94 Talal K It's at the end of my road there. um Yeah. And he he was, they would try to assassinate him. Yardies. Probably for faking their accents. 00:32:32.68 alexei sayle All right. Yeah, geez. 00:32:34.46 Talal K it's for 00:32:34.81 Sami Well, there's there's been ah there's been a spate of ah white English guys who have made a career out of um basically putting on a Jamaican patois and performing music. 00:32:34.84 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:32:45.85 Talal K Yeah, who's that ginger guy who speaks to Jamaican? 00:32:48.54 Sami there's Well, there's a couple. There's M.R who's done very well out of it. 00:32:51.70 Talal K Yeah. 00:32:52.12 Sami um And there's another one, a guy online who's... 00:32:54.33 Talal K your Blood clap pussy hole. 00:32:56.12 Sami Yeah. 00:32:56.13 Talal K You're not Jamaican. I'm Jamaican. I saw him debating a Jamaican on this YouTube and he just kept calling him a pussy hole. 00:32:59.86 Sami Yeah. 00:33:02.57 Talal K It's like, dude, you're the white guy who's speaking like ah like a Jamaican. 00:33:08.70 alexei sayle This isn't a joke, they're just... 00:33:11.77 Talal K No, he's like, I had Jamaican friends all my life. So I just speak like that. 00:33:17.27 Sami I think it's, it's yeah, it's it's interesting. It's not so much that he's doing it for me. It's that it's the amount of success that they get. It says a lot about what the industry is like. 00:33:25.08 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:33:25.45 Talal K Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. 00:33:28.17 Sami you know It's like, yeah, it's it's everything around it. 00:33:28.44 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:33:31.22 Sami Often with these things, you get, you know someone will do something, it's you know not great. But the question that's never asked is not like, you know oh, you know why did this person... 00:33:41.94 Sami do this. it's The question is never asked is, you know, what about everyone around them who facilitated this? 00:33:47.16 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:33:47.64 Sami um and they They never, they they those people, that group always get away with it, don't they? They never, people people people want something to sacrifice. People want, to you know, people. 00:33:56.41 alexei sayle Yeah. No, it's They go from project to project. Strengthened. But it's unusual a shooting in, I mean, relatively unusual shooting in Britain, isn't it, really? Yeah. 00:34:09.43 Sami Yeah. Yeah. 00:34:11.45 Talal K Yes. 00:34:12.28 alexei sayle Yardies, can I do my... I don't know if I did... I think I did it on Sandwich Bar. i do you know yeah There was a moral panic about Yardies, wasn't there, in the 80s and 90s? And they're actually the film Predator 2. 00:34:25.30 Talal K Oh, yeah. 00:34:25.85 alexei sayle which stars Danny Glover, but he goes and sees the the the head of the yard. He's in Los Angeles, King Willie, who is aware that the predator is amongst them, and King Willie says, there ain't no killing what can't be killed. 00:34:35.36 Talal K Yeah. 00:34:40.78 alexei sayle There ain't no stopping what ki can't be stopped. This is dread man, truly dread. 00:34:48.73 Sami This was set in, where was the ah RD, where where was that in London? 00:34:53.18 alexei sayle Los Angeles, et cetera, and a heat wave in Los Angeles. 00:34:53.91 Sami In LA, in LA. 00:34:56.36 Talal K It's such a good film. 00:34:56.41 Sami Wow. 00:34:57.48 Talal K And then they do there there's a voodoo element to it as well, isn't there? 00:35:01.59 alexei sayle Yeah, well, yes. oh I think Keanu Welles is kind of, yeah, also voodoo-ish as well. 00:35:05.20 Talal K With the Yardies. 00:35:05.99 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:35:06.99 Talal K Isn't that mixing up Yardies, Jamaica and New Orleans by throwing voodoo in there? 00:35:07.29 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:35:10.15 alexei sayle On Haiti. Probably. Well, Hollywood is not, you know, no respecter of. 00:35:13.34 Talal K Yeah. 00:35:17.35 Sami They're well known for deeply researching the cultures that they represent. 00:35:19.19 alexei sayle yeah 00:35:20.41 Talal K yeah 00:35:20.76 alexei sayle I do like that. 00:35:20.98 Sami a 00:35:21.68 alexei sayle I do often think, though, you know, when when the co-op has run out of peter bread, I think, you know, there ain't no killing. what this is This is dread, man, truly dread. 00:35:32.02 Sami yeah 00:35:36.65 Talal K I'll never approve co-op pita bread. saying as 00:35:40.09 alexei sayle He won't ever approve of it, no. 00:35:42.21 Talal K Supermarket pita bread. 00:35:42.36 Sami You can make it work if you if you just put a little bit of water on it put it under the grill. You can make it work. 00:35:49.49 Talal K Hmm. 00:35:49.76 alexei sayle That's a good tip. Thank you for that. so 00:35:51.32 Sami Tiny bit of water, hot grill, couple of minutes, and it it gets moist and it sometimes it expands. 00:35:55.54 Talal K Just go to your Turkish or Arabic supermarket. Go to the bread section. 00:35:59.26 Sami Yeah. 00:35:59.82 Talal K You'll get three three packets for a pound. 00:35:59.99 alexei sayle Not everybody 00:36:00.22 Sami Yeah. 00:36:02.20 Talal K Put two in the freezer. You're fucking sorted for pita bread for the next few weeks, mate. 00:36:07.35 Sami Yeah. 00:36:07.33 Talal K Chuck it straight on the hob. Toast it on the hob. Over a real flame. 00:36:10.51 Sami That's good. That's good. 00:36:12.28 Talal K Splash water on it first. 00:36:15.35 alexei sayle Not everybody has that, you know, that, um, 00:36:16.35 Talal K This upsets me. Favourite supermarket hummus. Go. 00:36:23.81 Sami Delphi. 00:36:25.34 Talal K No, ah no, own brand supermarket. Which supermarket makes the best tasting hummus? 00:36:28.47 Sami Oh, probably Waitrose. 00:36:32.00 alexei sayle Waitrose. 00:36:32.41 Talal K Oh, really? 00:36:33.46 Sami Yeah. 00:36:34.61 alexei sayle I don't, yeah, I don't really like supermarket homes very much. 00:36:38.29 Sami It's generally not yeah not that good. but um i'm going to i'm gonna and i need to go ah and speak to all the um Algerian shops in Frinsbury Park in a couple of weeks because I've got my my show at Frinsbury Park Theatre, at the Park Theatre. 00:36:39.73 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:36:54.90 alexei sayle A nice little theatre at the park. 00:36:55.38 Sami at end end of jan yeah i've got 11 nights at the park theater so uh there's a really big algerian ah community around there and a big part of my show is talking about algeria and the algerian resistance and um so i'm gonna go and have a chat with those guys and see if they're they'd be up for spreading the word uh 00:36:58.58 alexei sayle Oh, cool. 00:37:04.12 alexei sayle Yes. 00:37:16.12 alexei sayle How are you going to go to how are you going to get them all together? Is there like and is there a meeting of the Algerian Grocers Association though that you will address? 00:37:23.86 Sami um ah Yeah, it's... 00:37:25.95 alexei sayle Or you we would do that thing where you tell them, send them a thing saying they've all won a boat. 00:37:26.94 Sami i 00:37:30.94 Sami yeah 00:37:31.35 alexei sayle And then when they turn up to pick it up, it's just you. 00:37:34.14 Sami It's me. um I have gathered you here today too. 00:37:36.34 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:37:37.30 Sami um i think I think I'm just going to go door to door. and But that's not a bad shout. 00:37:42.84 alexei sayle Oh, I see. Okay. 00:37:45.74 Sami I should i should i should advertise an event, maybe put on event an event to get them in the same place. 00:37:50.07 Talal K Do a live screen, an outdoor screening of Battle of Algiers. 00:37:52.24 alexei sayle Yeah, get them. 00:37:55.80 Sami Yeah, that's not a bad shout. 00:37:55.90 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:37:58.01 Sami ah So, 00:37:58.74 Talal K Or just put put some posters up in the shops, in their shops as well. 00:38:01.94 Sami yeah, that's that's that's probably what I'm going to do and buy some of the amazing food and and say hi. 00:38:07.75 Talal K Pita bread. 00:38:08.89 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:38:10.26 Sami So, yeah, I'm going to be buying a lot of pita bread. 00:38:13.19 Talal K Let's have fun day out. 00:38:13.34 Sami Let's just put it that way. Yeah, I think it'll be nice. 00:38:16.12 Talal K Tell me when you go. I'll come with you. Maybe we'll film some content of you chatting with chatting with the Algerians. 00:38:19.31 Sami I love that. 00:38:20.82 alexei sayle Is your Arabic and their Arabic compatible? 00:38:24.54 Sami They understand my Arabic. I don't, I understand Algerians. 00:38:27.21 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:38:29.18 Sami Algerians for me are the, in terms of not including Egyptians, North Africans, ah just because i I understand Egyptian Arabic broadly, but um when you go west of Egypt, it changes. 00:38:42.50 Sami the Arabic and yeah, it does change quite radically. 00:38:42.80 Talal K Mm-hmm. Quite dramatically, yeah. 00:38:46.34 Sami I think Algerians are the ones, as is the is the dialect I understand most easily, I'd say. ah And I think Moroccan is the most difficult because yeah, it's really, really hard. 00:38:56.68 alexei sayle Ready? 00:38:56.81 Talal K Mm-hmm. 00:38:59.46 Sami It's it's almost, you know, it's called Darija, it's almost like a different language, there's a different vocabulary as well, but it's the same grammatical structure. 00:39:04.45 Talal K Mm-hmm. 00:39:07.35 Sami And so they they understand a lot of sort of Palestinian and Lebanese Syrian sort of Bila de Shem languages, and but we don't always understand them. 00:39:21.83 Sami It's like a little mini form of colonialism, basically. 00:39:22.13 alexei sayle Right. 00:39:24.87 Sami It's the Arab colonialism, which which Arabs don't like talking about. 00:39:24.85 alexei sayle Right. All right. it' so Really? 00:39:29.82 Sami Yeah. 00:39:30.74 Talal K Yeah. 00:39:30.97 alexei sayle but it's also a bit of a, mind you know, I'm ah a terrible serial, you know, i if I know a couple of words of any language, I will use them really. But then with Arabic, they don't know that I'm not from some, like somewhere like Yemen or 00:39:45.56 Sami Oh, yeah. 00:39:45.88 alexei sayle Yeah, Nigeria or somewhere i didn't know somewhere where these people speak out. So they, so they always think I am Arabic. If I just say shoe clown, you know, half one and you know, they they they say, but you actually want to be or whatever it is a you Arabic? 00:39:54.07 Sami Yeah. 00:40:00.16 Talal K It's too Arabi. 00:40:00.86 Sami I too... 00:40:01.27 alexei sayle And I assume I don't know what is 00:40:04.56 Talal K It's too Arabi. I suppose it's quite similar, actually. 00:40:05.85 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah. 00:40:07.35 Sami i was at I was at a wedding last night of a friend of mine who's, who's has she has an Algerian mother. And um there were relatives there. i I couldn't, I was looking at a couple of guys and I was like, you could be an Algerian sort of uncle or you could be a geezer from Essex. 00:40:25.42 Sami I couldn't tell. I absolutely, it was impossible to tell until I went and spoke to them. Because Algeria is medi I mean, it's all Mediterranean culture really. So it's, you know, everyone around the Mediterranean kind of looks the same. 00:40:34.10 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:40:38.01 Sami um Yeah, it was it was it was really interesting. 00:40:40.34 Talal K mm, mm. 00:40:42.52 Sami Yeah, it was my it was my first... I went to my first lesbian wedding last night. It was really fun. 00:40:47.66 alexei sayle Oh, man, I went... Really? 00:40:49.82 Sami Yeah. 00:40:49.96 alexei sayle Actually, I was going to say I've been to... I've been I went to a lesbian wedding in the 90s, I think, in Bournemouth. Actually, no, it wasn't. No, actually, the couple getting mad weren't lesbians. Maybe it's later. 00:41:05.21 Sami It was just... 00:41:05.12 alexei sayle just forget out about that. 00:41:08.18 Sami was 00:41:08.38 alexei sayle um Really, well, congratulations. 00:41:09.69 Talal K Well, congrats. 00:41:10.58 alexei sayle How was it? 00:41:10.88 Talal K Yeah, congrats. 00:41:11.64 Sami Thank you. It was... 00:41:12.24 alexei sayle To get off with anybody. 00:41:13.32 Sami they No, just I couldn't. 00:41:14.42 alexei sayle Good place to pick up women. 00:41:15.64 Sami I couldn't. um it was It was so... 00:41:17.08 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:41:20.44 Sami Because I think, you know, once once people are sort of openly expressing who they are in that way, there's no room for... 00:41:27.92 alexei sayle Hmm. 00:41:29.62 Sami for for the tension or uppityness or stress of a lot of other kinds of weddings I've been to. 00:41:37.88 alexei sayle No, right. Yeah. 00:41:39.68 Sami I've definitely been to weddings that have had an unspoken tension in the air for for an unknown reason. and And it was the opposite of that. 00:41:46.54 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:41:49.32 Sami it was It was one of the best weddings I've ever been to. It was very loving and friendly and relaxed and everyone just got on. um and then we danced and uh a friend of mine brought dirbeka a tabla the arabic drum he played you know him kareem samara uh you know him dalal kareem you know kareem no okay fine uh and he he brought and then i had to go on the drum as well and it was it was really fun and everyone was dancing and it was it was fantastic really really beautiful 00:42:10.81 Talal K No. 00:42:21.69 alexei sayle good I think josh i've been i went to it have been to a lesbian wedding. It was about five years ago. I think it was in Hampshire somewhere. 00:42:30.26 Sami you 00:42:30.97 Talal K Yeah? 00:42:31.77 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:42:32.66 Talal K Pioneer, Alexei. You're a pioneer. 00:42:34.49 alexei sayle Yeah, it's not that. Not that. Not that sort of innovative, really. 00:42:42.30 Talal K um Respect, shout out to all our lesbian listeners out there. 00:42:45.11 alexei sayle Yeah, all the lesbian listeners... 00:42:47.19 Talal K Big ups and big ups and and enjoy have good weddings. 00:42:48.15 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:42:52.53 Talal K Enjoy your weddings. 00:42:53.40 alexei sayle Yeah, it was a, yeah. 00:42:55.06 Talal K Where are they going on honeymoon? 00:42:57.57 Sami Oh, I didn't ask her that actually i need to I should have I didn't even think to ask. um 00:43:01.62 Talal K where Where did you go on your honeymoon, Alexi? 00:43:04.63 alexei sayle We didn't really have a honeymoon. We went to Greece, I think, the year after. We didn't really have a honeymoon. 00:43:10.33 Talal K Which part Greece? 00:43:12.96 alexei sayle We flew into Athens and then went to an island beside was whose name I can't remember. 00:43:21.10 Sami Lesbos. 00:43:22.07 Talal K 00:43:22.36 alexei sayle No, wasn't. No. 00:43:27.04 Talal K D-I-D-D-Y, we are the Diddy men, Dotties Dottie Diddy men, we are the Diddy men who always have a bash, we're full of Diddy joys, we make gay and Diddy noise, we are the Diddy men who come from naughty ash. 00:43:39.86 alexei sayle No. Yeah, I thought, thank you. Yeah, the the energy was definitely slipping there, wasn't it? I'm glad you injected it. 00:43:47.00 Sami ah i 00:43:48.03 Talal K Is one of them a bit racist? is that It looks like one of them's wearing in a turban. One of the Diddy men's wearing like a turban style thing. 00:43:55.29 Sami It was a different time, Talal. 00:43:56.89 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:43:57.65 Sami You can't judge Ken Dodd on the values of today. 00:43:59.32 alexei sayle No. 00:44:02.33 Sami okay he's ah He's a national treasure. 00:44:04.46 Talal K That's fair. 00:44:05.78 alexei sayle No. 00:44:06.07 Sami um Yeah, fine. 00:44:06.20 alexei sayle That's... 00:44:07.52 Sami He might have made a few racist puppets, but you got to look at his work as ah as a whole. 00:44:12.98 alexei sayle That's what to say as well. that Of course, this is a little known fact, but the Top of the Pops was actually produced, came out of the light entertainment department. 00:44:18.49 Talal K Yeah. Yes. yeah 00:44:26.18 alexei sayle So if you were a comic, you had a novelty song out, you were always guaranteed... a slot on the pops, which of course was very powerful in those days. And I, i for example, was on the pops twice in my novel to hit, or my hit, A Load Jungle at New Motor. 00:44:36.76 Talal K yes 00:44:43.90 alexei sayle So Ken Dodd also, a lot of a lot Ken Dodd had a string of hits, really, because you know you could always get on, if you could always get on the top of the pops if you were ah a light entertainment star of the BBC. 00:44:50.20 Talal K Oh, yeah. 00:44:54.09 Sami Well, he did music. He would do a song. He did a song. 00:44:58.03 alexei sayle His biggest one was happiness. Happiness, happiness, the greatest gift that I possess. I thank the Lord that I possess more than my share of happiness. 00:45:06.20 Talal K Thank the Lord, because I've been blessed with more of my share. 00:45:13.45 Sami That's beautiful. 00:45:14.33 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:45:14.52 Sami what was what What songs did you have on the top of the pops? 00:45:17.30 alexei sayle Well, just allowed junk got new motor already a motor, Gottineum motor. 00:45:19.42 Sami Oh, yeah. Yeah. 00:45:20.95 Talal K Oh, you went on twice with that same song. 00:45:23.10 alexei sayle I was on live once and then they played the video once. 00:45:24.64 Sami Thank you. 00:45:26.36 Talal K Okay. 00:45:27.35 alexei sayle Radio 1 wouldn't play it at all. 00:45:29.21 Talal K That doesn't count. 00:45:30.07 alexei sayle Radio 1 only played it a maximum of nine times, just had to play it because it was in the charts. Radio 1 hated it. But it didn't matter because I was a star of BBC Light Entertainment, so I was on top of the box. So fuck you, Radio 1. 00:45:44.37 Sami That's right, fuck you, Radio One. 00:45:44.76 alexei sayle Jim Westwood wouldn't have it on his shunt. Yeah. 00:45:46.97 Talal K yeah Yep, yep, yep. 00:45:47.42 Sami um Tim Westwood should try and do some standup comedy. 00:45:48.18 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:45:50.31 Sami That's what he should do. 00:45:50.36 alexei sayle Yeah, maybe get back in his fake... 00:45:51.83 Sami See if he can. I think it was a simpler time back then, wasn't it? The the comedy, I've spoken to you about this before, Alexi, but ah I feel like I've been out of the comedy scene for a couple of years, sort of, but I've still been doing comedy. I've just not been paying attention. 00:46:08.24 alexei sayle Right. 00:46:08.54 Sami And even even in the last two or three years, things have changed drastically. and i'm sort of having to sort of learn how how it all works now in terms of the industry and what what people are what people are watching what people are listening to and and and 00:46:23.09 alexei sayle What's changed? Tell me what's changed. 00:46:24.57 Sami i think I think it's just gone, it's its started in 2020, but it's it's gone fully online now. 00:46:24.63 alexei sayle How long to know? 00:46:29.89 Sami if you're If you're not an online comedian, you're not a comedian. 00:46:31.93 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:46:33.91 Sami And i resisted I resisted online for so long. 00:46:34.39 alexei sayle Really? 00:46:36.63 Sami I didn't have an Instagram account until 2020. I didn't know what Instagram was when everyone, and it was blissful. It was it was it was amazing. it was It was peaceful, not having to engage with that crap. 00:46:46.33 Talal K Mmm. 00:46:48.76 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:46:48.95 Sami And now um and now you you have to you have to engage. you we are all We have all become the unpaid labor force of Mark Zuckerberg. 00:46:57.56 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:46:58.18 Sami We all work for Zuckerberg now, even if, you know, no matter what you do, if if you're if you're a professional content uploader. You're uploading content for free and Meta is making money off the ads. 00:47:08.57 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:47:10.66 Sami And it's it's and we're all just happy. 00:47:10.81 alexei sayle yeah 00:47:13.22 Sami We're all just happy to do it. It's it's a bit depressing, but it is what it is. 00:47:16.13 Talal K Mm-hmm. 00:47:16.22 alexei sayle yeah 00:47:16.34 Talal K is 00:47:16.98 Sami It's it's hard to talk about it without sounding like ah an embittered embittered comedian. um But it's it's changed so much. And I think another thing you're seeing is You're seeing comedians with really large followings who then will will book either ah a spot or will have a full show and sell out a tour and make a lot of money. 00:47:39.51 Sami But they they haven't done their time. And they're they're just not they're not there. 00:47:41.91 alexei sayle Yeah, well, that criticism, yeah. 00:47:44.02 Sami They're not there, are they? and And that's kind of... 00:47:47.00 alexei sayle Well, that's what we felt very much about, Sammy Obey, didn't we? 00:47:49.53 Sami Yeah, yeah. And I've i've i've still not seen his stuff live, but... some 00:47:55.58 Talal K Oh, it was depressing. 00:47:55.76 Sami It's kind of, it's kind of, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's getting, it's getting depressing. 00:47:55.66 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:48:00.14 Sami That's what it is. It's not even about individual comedians. 00:48:01.11 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:48:03.18 Sami It's getting really depressing. You know, it's like, Oh, well, you know how, what do we have to do now? You know, you have to, you have to film your your standup and then put it online for free. And then everyone gets to see it. 00:48:11.61 alexei sayle Yeah, well, I know, I mean, people I know, producers and stuff, they say these, a lot of these online people, which does sound like old geezers, but they don't have the, they don't have the craft to do it live, really. 00:48:12.50 Sami And, 00:48:24.16 alexei sayle They can't do it live, you know, because it's a very, it's a very specific skill, stand-up comedy, and doing it, yeah, yeah. 00:48:29.69 Sami It takes years to hone as well. You can't just step on a stage. 00:48:32.31 alexei sayle yeah No, no, it's true, you have to, you have to learn that craft. 00:48:36.63 Talal K It came pretty naturally for me, actually. 00:48:37.26 alexei sayle LAUGHTER 00:48:39.64 Talal K Kind of did it straight away. 00:48:43.64 alexei sayle Yeah, right. 00:48:44.63 Talal K yeah it did. 00:48:44.70 alexei sayle um 00:48:44.82 Sami Yeah. 00:48:45.19 Talal K well 00:48:46.10 Sami But it's it's changed. Yeah, it's it's it's drastically changed. And it's a different game now. 00:48:48.92 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:48:51.13 Talal K It is weird. And like back in the day, you wouldn't have to prolifically write material. 00:48:52.83 Sami It's weird. 00:48:56.14 Talal K every Like you wouldn't have to change your set every month, you know. 00:48:57.51 alexei sayle That's also, yeah. Well, the old-time comics used the same material of their old life, didn't they? They had one hour or 20 minutes, which they'd tour forever, i mean literally forever. 00:49:07.70 Talal K Yeah. It's kind of my. 00:49:10.23 alexei sayle noticed, yeah, Red Richardson, son of Peter Richardson, the comic strip is doing adverts for gambling for Red Casino. I so i don't know whether he got extra for selling his name. 00:49:21.75 alexei sayle He has a big online presence. 00:49:23.22 Talal K yeah. 00:49:23.77 Sami Yeah, I didn't know he was Peter Richardson's 00:49:26.85 alexei sayle Yeah, she keeps it quiet, really. 00:49:28.66 Sami Yeah, a lot of them. 00:49:28.86 alexei sayle Which good for him, really, buddy. 00:49:30.10 Sami Yeah, asked yeah, um yeah. 00:49:34.10 alexei sayle Also, I had to recommend her daughter. 00:49:34.42 Sami Yeah. Yeah. Really? 00:49:36.90 Talal K Oh, wow. 00:49:37.85 Sami Did you know Rick Mayall? 00:49:37.98 Talal K oh 00:49:39.10 alexei sayle Yes, yes, yes. 00:49:40.09 Sami Yeah. i I wish I got to meet him. 00:49:40.86 Talal K Fucking hell, Sammy. What kind of question? You come on the Alexi podcast and you ask Alexi, famously come out 00:49:43.80 Sami I don't know. I don't know who knows who. 00:49:44.82 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:49:45.84 Sami I don't know who knows who. Well, he... He doesn't, he didn't know, he didn't know ah Dodd. 00:49:49.75 Talal K he in the same truth as Rick Mayall. 00:49:50.94 alexei sayle We started... 00:49:53.36 Sami He didn't know Diddly Dodd. 00:49:55.79 alexei sayle Rick didn't know that. 00:49:56.05 Sami I shouldn't call it. I don't want to, I don't want to. 00:49:57.88 alexei sayle Yeah, no, when me and Rick started at the same time together. 00:49:58.36 Talal K Diddly dodd. 00:50:00.87 alexei sayle And, you know, did the awards together. 00:50:01.18 Sami Yeah. um And yeah, I really, i really wish I got to meet Rick Mayall. He seemed, he seemed like a lot of fun. 00:50:07.92 alexei sayle Yes, well, actually, I did a, I did a, a Giles of Benefit few weeks ago with Mitch Benn. And Mitch Benn is organizing the, or has several venues at the, I can announce this, the, 00:50:21.87 alexei sayle Rick Mayall Festival in Droitwich, Rick Mayall's hometown. I'm going to do some stuff there in the summer next year. 00:50:28.45 Sami Oh, very nice. 00:50:28.51 Talal K Oh, 00:50:31.10 alexei sayle Me and Nigel, I think. Or you me and, I mean, separately all together. 00:50:33.69 Talal K Oh, that's nice. 00:50:36.09 alexei sayle Yeah, I thought, why not, you know, Droitwich. 00:50:39.58 Talal K If you want to do a live podcast there, let me know. 00:50:39.60 alexei sayle Home of Kevin Turvey. Yeah, we could do yeah, yeah. 00:50:44.38 Talal K allla 00:50:45.02 alexei sayle I'm just, yeah. 00:50:45.82 Talal K We can just talk Rick Mel's anecdotes all evening. um 00:50:54.58 Talal K Right. 00:50:54.97 alexei sayle Kevin Trevay. 00:50:56.25 Sami How's your cat, Dalal? How's Claude? 00:51:00.12 Talal K So I've had to re-adopt my old cat. He's 14 years old. I've had him since he was a baby. um i moved out of my mum's house few years back and couldn't take the cat with because landlords don't really like that sort of thing. 00:51:06.26 alexei sayle but believe can you 00:51:15.62 Talal K But my mum recently threatened to to break his neck if I don't come and take the cat. And so we now in my one-bedroom flat have a ah her 00:51:27.92 alexei sayle What a happy cat. Well. 00:51:28.76 Talal K ah it almost incontinent aged cat um and he's he's beautiful and he's ah he's we've we've we've trained him up he's not pooing on the floor every day anymore he's meowing at me all throughout this recording he's been meowing at me he's very hungry but he's doing very well 00:51:48.63 Sami um no I can't hear it. that's ah Can you you show him to us? 00:51:50.60 alexei sayle No, I can't hear it. 00:51:51.67 Sami Can you bring him up? Can I say hello? 00:51:53.83 Talal K come here boy come here good boy 00:51:56.60 Sami Have you met Claude, Alexei? 00:51:58.46 alexei sayle Not in person now, only over the internet. 00:52:00.25 Sami He's a very good cat. 00:52:01.94 Talal K Hello. 00:52:03.45 Sami Hello. 00:52:03.51 Talal K Oh God. 00:52:03.86 alexei sayle Looks like my cat, Tiger. 00:52:05.87 Sami Yeah, he's great. There he is. 00:52:08.09 Talal K but your po po Oh, a good boy. Say hello to the podcast. 00:52:12.49 Sami There he Hello, Claude. 00:52:13.75 Talal K Um, so you can't just put the headphones on it. 00:52:16.01 Sami Claude. 00:52:20.06 Talal K Okay. Say hello. 00:52:24.78 alexei sayle Hello, Claude. 00:52:27.11 Sami He needs the monitors on, otherwise he's not he's a professional sound guy. Yeah. 00:52:32.18 Talal K Poor guy. He's very tolerant of all that bullshit. 00:52:33.13 alexei sayle That was your... 00:52:35.02 Talal K Look, he's still right here next to He hasn't run away. 00:52:34.94 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah. So they also related to that conversation, and it was also something I was listening to on the radio this morning, which I knew about anyway, is these micro-dramas. 00:52:37.85 Talal K um 00:52:45.76 alexei sayle You know, they started out in China, and they they've film yeah they filmed in the phone form, vertical, yeah, and they're two many two minutes long. 00:52:51.13 Talal K The verticals. 00:52:52.57 Sami yeah 00:52:53.57 Talal K I've not seen any of these, but i keep hearing this fucking word. Yes, carry on. 00:52:58.20 alexei sayle So we could do micro-podcasts. I thought two-minute podcasts. So it would just sort of consist of me going, yeah, I used to have an Alpha Romeo, and then that'd be it. really ah Even more, but even less satisfying than normal podcasts, which people seem to have been enjoying recently for some reason. 00:53:08.23 Sami Yeah. 00:53:15.82 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah. 00:53:16.41 Sami um The micro dramas, I saw one when they first started coming out um and because they have to keep your attention, there's ah there's an enormous there's a massive plot twist every, it feels like it's every 10 seconds because you just have to keep, they have to keep you watching. 00:53:23.22 alexei sayle yeah 00:53:29.35 alexei sayle Right. 00:53:32.17 Sami And it's it's um it's like the end it's the end stage of of the internet. 00:53:32.25 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:53:37.05 Sami it's it's Because there are so many plot twists, it becomes meaningless, but you can't stop watching. 00:53:41.50 alexei sayle Right. 00:53:43.99 Talal K Where do you watch them? 00:53:45.53 Sami I can't, it just got fed to me on Instagram about a year ago. 00:53:48.75 Talal K Are they on Insta? I've never seen one, ever. 00:53:51.00 Sami um And yeah, it was it it was intriguing, but it's part of this thing of, you know, everything's a bit shit now where it's like, and you can't sit down and just absorb well-constructed, masterful piece of art over, you know, an hour. 00:53:58.39 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:54:05.53 alexei sayle No. 00:54:08.55 Sami It's everything's trying to keep your attention. 00:54:10.94 Talal K Well, I've just finished my... ah third term, second term of ah of an acting class i've been I've been taking part in just to kind of, you know, keep it fresh. 00:54:22.84 Talal K ah And all my castmates are like 20, 21. They're all like drama school doing this extracurricular thing. And they're all like talking as if verticals. 00:54:35.34 Talal K They're like a they they're like a big thing. They're getting paid well to do them. 00:54:40.21 alexei sayle No, they're doing them because they' i mean they've come out of China, but they're sort spreading now around there. 00:54:41.02 Talal K Yeah, and one them 00:54:43.96 Talal K No, yeah. While I was there, one of them was like, I want to tell everyone something. I got i got a role. I got a role in a vertical. And everyone like, congrats. Nice one. Patting him on the back. 00:54:54.17 Talal K And I'm like sitting there with my 38 year old ass going, what the fuck is a vertical? I still have yet to see one. 00:55:01.38 alexei sayle No, I knew. would have known. 00:55:03.67 Talal K And I have to say, I'm sorry, I don't bring up, I don't i feel guilty when when Claude comes up. I want to give a shout out to our fallen comrade Wilf. He is the podcast cat and he will always be the podcast cat. 00:55:13.08 alexei sayle ah Thank you. wow 00:55:16.06 Talal K So oh I love and miss Wilf dearly and I'm not trying to steal his valor with my Claude. 00:55:16.70 alexei sayle Thank you. 00:55:20.22 alexei sayle We all do. 00:55:23.16 alexei sayle No, it's okay. That's all right. That's okay. 00:55:25.46 Talal K ah Look, we have to wrap up. I have a question to ask both of you, but maybe Sammy can provide some inspiration here. 00:55:29.40 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:55:32.60 Talal K um i have an important thing we need to discuss before we wrap up the podcast. But before that, I just want to quickly promote the Patreon, please. 00:55:36.93 alexei sayle Yes. 00:55:40.96 Talal K Dear listeners, comrades and friends and and lovers, please go to patreon.com forward slash Alexi sale podcast. What was that, Sammy? What website? 00:55:52.07 Sami Patreon.com forward slash Alexis Sale Podcast. Give them all... 00:55:54.58 Talal K I didn't hear it. Alexi, what was it? What was the website? 00:56:00.20 alexei sayle access our podcast forward slash Patreon Patreon 00:56:04.92 Talal K Exactly. If you head over there, you can support the show for like three quid a month, five quid a month, 10, 20. And you get access to full video episodes. 00:56:14.96 Talal K You get to see Sami Wardez, Sami Abu Wardrobe's mustache in in the flesh on your screen. You get full video episodes. 00:56:21.98 Sami in four k 00:56:23.28 Talal K You get to watch Alexi, Lisa, Nigel watching The Young Ones, which starred Rick Mayle and Alexi Sale, which they both made their break from, Sami. And you get to see Alexei shooting guns, all sorts of cool stuff. 00:56:38.58 Talal K I'll put a picture of my cat up there and ah and you'll just be supporting this Marxist podcast, which will never have an advert on it. 00:56:48.66 Talal K If I ever put an advert on this fucking podcast, I'll eat my cat. And ah I love you. Please support the show. It means a lot. Pays the bills, pays my rent. 00:56:59.18 Talal K Love you. Thank you. Bye bye, Tati. Bye bye. 00:57:01.05 alexei sayle Thank you. 00:57:01.42 Talal K Now the question I have, pay yeah that was patreon.com forward slash Alexia Sale podcast. 00:57:01.43 alexei sayle Thank you so much. 00:57:04.73 alexei sayle that 00:57:06.10 Talal K Question I have is ah Christmas coming up. Normally on Christmas day, we put out a podcast. For all our listeners and for anyone who doesn't do Christmas, like a lot of people I'm very close to, um like people who don't have people to hang out with on Christmas, we put out a little pod. 00:57:26.97 Talal K What should we do this year? We're gonna record probably tomorrow for like half an hour, 15 minutes. Any ideas what we can do, what kind of novelty 00:57:35.22 alexei sayle What do we usually do? I've got a complete... 00:57:37.94 Talal K We've done one where you read out, ah you did a Christmas message kind of, it was like a hallmark. 00:57:44.02 alexei sayle ah Has Amherstee been in touch with you? Because I did that Christmas, alternative Christmas message for Amherstee. 00:57:49.66 Talal K No, they haven't been in touch with me. 00:57:50.60 alexei sayle They still haven't been... I don't know what the hell is. Never mind. 00:57:53.79 Talal K Um... 00:57:54.04 Sami ah You could sing some carols. 00:57:56.15 alexei sayle Yeah? 00:57:56.34 Sami um You could... You're giving away. You need 00:57:59.54 alexei sayle Hark there, old angel, sing, glory to the newborn king. 00:58:05.88 Sami to wait. a 00:58:07.42 alexei sayle Peace on earth and mercy. 00:58:07.61 Talal K Should we do... Save it. 00:58:10.07 alexei sayle Okay. 00:58:10.89 Sami you're giving it away you need to you need to wait 00:58:13.72 Talal K You have a beautiful singing voice, Alexei. 00:58:15.35 alexei sayle I told you didn't. I don't. i But I am one of the few Jews who knows, like, lots of, because my mother, you know, I was going into school, like, in my fifth year or something. saw all these kids hanging about in a classroom, and I was late. 00:58:29.82 alexei sayle And I said, who were those kids? And they said, those are the Jews. And they they were excused excuse um assembly and could come in late because they were Jewish. 00:58:38.10 Talal K Oh. Oh, right. 00:58:40.93 alexei sayle And I said to my mum, why didn't you tell them I'm Jewish? She said, didn't want you to be feel left out. 00:58:49.86 Sami I have a story about that. I went to school very briefly in London for a year or so when I was ah a young boy. I was about six or seven years old. And um first of all, i i found it very strange. 00:59:02.86 Sami I had to strange that in in the UK, in the state schools, you you go to school in the morning, then you sing Christian hymns in the morning. 00:59:10.40 Talal K Mm-hmm. 00:59:11.00 Sami That was odd. It was fine. I was very happy to to get involved. um But there were these meatballs in the school lunch. There were these meatballs that had, they were so, so tasty. 00:59:25.21 Sami They had ketchup injected into the core and they had a ah crust and they were my favorite meal for lunch. 00:59:28.29 alexei sayle Wow. 00:59:34.19 Sami And then one day queue up and I say, can I have the meatballs please? 00:59:34.16 Talal K Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 00:59:38.30 Sami And the dinner dinner lady says, what's your name? And I say, my name's Sammy. Is it Sammy? Abu Wardrobe. I say, yes. She says, you're not allowed. 00:59:49.48 Sami You're not allowed this. And I say, why? She says, because you're Muslim. And I said, well, I've been eating them this whole time. Like, what's like, you know, like if I'm going to hell, I'm going to hell. 00:59:57.14 alexei sayle Yeah. 00:59:59.99 Talal K Shit. 01:00:00.09 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:00:00.26 Sami If if you're going to hell, you're going to hell. Let's just carry on. 01:00:02.81 alexei sayle Yeah. 01:00:03.58 Sami you know, let's just pretend nobody ever said anything and continue. 01:00:06.46 alexei sayle Yeah. 01:00:07.10 Sami But she she refused. She refused to to feed me the 01:00:09.49 alexei sayle Was there a haram? 01:00:10.58 Sami really, really tasty pork meatballs, because they they had pork in them. 01:00:10.59 alexei sayle were poor, presumably. 01:00:12.94 Talal K Fuck. 01:00:13.57 alexei sayle Fuck. 01:00:15.02 Sami Maybe the ketchup as well, who knows? um But no, no, I think she got let she got a notification somehow that I'm a Muslim, so I'm not allowed my favorite meatballs. 01:00:18.46 Talal K She was just assuming. 01:00:18.55 alexei sayle Do you... 01:00:24.27 Talal K Shit. That's fucked. I would have fucking kicked off, mate. 01:00:29.12 Sami So the thing is if she had just said nothing, i would have been I would have remained innocent, right? 01:00:35.06 Talal K And you would have gone to heaven. 01:00:35.12 Sami Because I would have been ignorant. I would have been ignorant of what I was eating. 01:00:36.70 Talal K Yeah. But instead, you're pignorant. 01:00:40.54 Sami And yeah, right. um It is what it is. i um Yeah, no, I know... 01:00:44.38 alexei sayle you know Do you know lots of Christian hymns? and i You weren't there long enough to... 01:00:50.86 Sami um or just Shepherds wash their socks by night. 01:00:51.48 alexei sayle All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small. 01:00:58.51 Sami What is it? 01:00:58.90 alexei sayle Oh, yeah. That's ah that's a gut's a carol, really, yeah I think. 01:01:01.66 Sami Yeah, ah the shepherds and the the with their flocks. 01:01:03.68 alexei sayle Watch their flocks by night. It's all seated round the... 01:01:06.23 Sami um there was I just remember Christ a lot. 01:01:07.29 alexei sayle Yeah. 01:01:09.38 Sami but 01:01:10.04 alexei sayle Yeah, well, you know, there will be really easy things. 01:01:12.47 Talal K We three kings of Oriental, trying to smoke a rubber cigar. 01:01:15.77 Sami That's a good one 01:01:17.98 Talal K It was loaded and exploded. And then we did ah we did a Jewish one at school. Shalom, my friend, shalom, shalom. Shalom, my friend, shalom. 01:01:29.53 Sami one. That doesn't sound like a traditional Jewish. That that doesn't that sounds like a modern writing. 01:01:34.94 alexei sayle yeah We had a bit in the 60s in Liverpool. We had a Beatles one. We three Beatles from Liverpool are. John and on a bicycle. 01:01:46.92 Talal K In the car. 01:01:46.83 alexei sayle George in a car. Something on a thing. George on a bicycle. I can't remember now. Following... 01:01:55.29 Sami My mum... 01:01:55.31 alexei sayle I'm sorry! George on a bicycle, following Ringo Starr. 01:02:00.02 Talal K Ah, good one. 01:02:00.14 alexei sayle There you go. 01:02:01.49 Sami Was that as a religious hymn from Liverpool? 01:02:02.32 alexei sayle We four Beatles from Liverpool. Is that really just... Yeah. John in... 01:02:07.22 Sami Yeah, my mum babysat Paul McCartney's little sister, I think. 01:02:09.34 alexei sayle John on motorbike. 01:02:11.69 Sami that was Yeah, yeah she would she saw him a couple of times, but then he got famous very quickly, so she stopped seeing him and she left she left the country. 01:02:11.90 alexei sayle Really? 01:02:21.40 Talal K Guys, we don't time for this. 01:02:23.29 alexei sayle right. 01:02:23.61 Sami okay um Okay, fine. 01:02:24.15 alexei sayle All right. 01:02:24.26 Talal K what' What should we do for our Christmas episode? 01:02:24.89 alexei sayle All right. right. Bye, everybody. 01:02:26.50 Talal K Are we going to sing hymns? 01:02:26.71 Sami Plug my show. 01:02:27.33 alexei sayle don't know. 01:02:27.99 Sami let me plug Let me just plug my show just for a second. 01:02:28.53 alexei sayle I'll... Yeah. All right. 01:02:30.91 Sami My show is on. Peace the Resistance. It's sold out ah for six nights in London. Sold over 2,000 tickets in the Edinburgh Fringe. And has had rave reviews, won two awards. 01:02:41.34 Sami It's your chance to see it at the Park Theatre in Finsbury Park. January 29th to February 7th. Get your tickets before it sells out. 01:02:49.27 Talal K Please. It's such a good fucking show. 01:02:51.03 Sami Please. Please. 01:02:52.01 Talal K Sami is a master. 01:02:52.95 alexei sayle Yeah. 01:02:53.67 Talal K It's such a good fucking show. 01:02:55.67 alexei sayle Indeed. 01:02:57.94 Talal K Thank you. 01:02:57.94 alexei sayle Well, why don't we just do the Christmas... we We record the Christmas show and see what happens tomorrow or something. 01:03:05.24 Talal K Okay. 01:03:05.85 Sami Just see what happens. 01:03:06.87 Talal K Yes, we'll see what happens. 01:03:07.80 Sami Put a Santa hat on and open open a stocking. 01:03:09.90 alexei sayle It's fairly close Christmas. It's like Jules. 01:03:11.93 Sami Why don't you each fill a stocking for each other, send it to each other's houses, and then open it and ah talk through the gifts you've given each other. 01:03:20.66 alexei sayle Okay. 01:03:21.59 Talal K Shit, if only I had that kind of planning. That's such a good one. um Good idea. 01:03:26.58 Sami You can... 01:03:26.86 Talal K Next year, we'll do that. we'd have time to do that. 01:03:29.21 Sami Yeah. 01:03:29.88 Talal K um All right. 01:03:30.26 Sami Okay. You're itching itching to stop this, so... 01:03:31.32 Talal K All right. um 01:03:33.22 Sami ah 01:03:34.49 Talal K We have to. 01:03:35.77 Sami Yeah. 01:03:36.31 Talal K Okay. I've got to feed my little Diddy. 01:03:37.76 alexei sayle Well, because David Diddy Hamilton's coming on next. We've got a we' got to hand over to the the the lunchtime guys, the lunchtime crew on Podcast FM. 01:03:50.80 Sami Featuring Sean Coombs, Sean Puffy Coombs. 01:03:52.22 alexei sayle Marky Mark. and Yeah. 01:03:53.37 Talal K Tim Westwood and Ken Dodd. 01:03:54.24 alexei sayle Mark Wahlberg. 01:03:54.81 Sami a 01:03:56.76 Talal K And Aaron Taylor Johnson. 01:03:56.82 alexei sayle Yeah. 01:03:58.44 Talal K The Afternoon Zoo crew. 01:03:59.13 alexei sayle George Mackay. Yeah. All right. Bye-bye, everybody. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. 01:04:03.52 Sami Goodbye. 01:04:05.55 Talal K Don't leave, Sammy. 01:04:06.86 Sami I'm here. Don't worry.