Navel Gazing around the podcast

The podcast (and the show on 14th November from which it was spawned) was so brills this week that I thought I'd listen again and waffle while I go. I'm trying to savour this because I may not be around for all of the live show this coming Saturday.

If you begin to read this and cannot relate to any of the references, you've stumbled here by accident and should just click on. I dribble this stuff out mainly for my own amusement and based entirely on the assumption that you know as much or hopefully more about the things that interest me as I do without me having to qualify anything.

Now, where's that 'play' button?
Ah, the Ghostbusters theme......is it just me or does Joe have his own private internal beat-counting machine that's a little bit at odds with the rest of the world? My decision to ignore the word 'metronome' was a conscious one.

And so we arrive at the Gummo/Walsh fun. It's so sweet that Joe's diligence in not mentioning too much about his private life has him describing Edgar Wright as "people wot I know" even though Edgar had tweeted Harmony's joyous response to thousands of people. Adam's impression of Walsh was completely incapacitating to me especially when he turned to Star Wars. Love you so much , Buckles.

If you haven't seen how Harry Hill handled the Gummo thing you can check it below, always assuming that you saw the original, silly X-Factor episode from Walsh.


Ever the professional, without a moment's hesitation, Joe rescues Adam's potentially dangerous 'crutch' ditty and even when Adam seems to drag it back down, Joe just pops in the peg-leg reference to keep them out of the dungeon. Of course, I don't mean any of that. Joe's attempts at professionalism are as hit and miss as the rest of the show and we must always give credit to their state-of-the-art shamboliser.

A teasing hint at Boggins gives way to a little catch up on Joe's trip to AFM and his incredulous reaction to Adam's lack of current film news knowledge. Nice little tangent about Joe's film-going buddy, Droopy Eyes. I nearly used that for my periodical Twitter name change but went with stats thing instead, which doesn't feature in the podcast, if memory serves. Nice little floury buns reference sneaked in during the Postman Always Rings Twice convo.

That seemed like a lovely long intro to the main podcast. I do wonder where they get the idea that people can't tell their voices apart. Do they really mean people don't know which face/body to put to which voice or name, perhaps? I can understand that less obsessive listeners may still not care enough to work that one out. Their voices have very little in common to my ear.

So Joe ponders the Doppler Effect and once again, in his gorgeously rarefied world imagines that leafy French is the only place where you might get trees in a sunny avenue making stroboscopic shadows. I live in such an avenue myself, so I fully understand the effect about which he speaks BUT I LIVE IN CENTRAL LONDONIUM! Silly boy.

Will Adam ever get over having to turn down the Stella McCartney request? I am going to side with Joe on this one. It's alright for Adam and his seemingly effortless ability to have an entire room eating out of his hairy hands but Joe is not a live performer and even though he probably would have been wonderful in the event, he would have spent the preceding days being sick in his mouth and swallowing it. I'd just like to think that Stella did not take it as a personal affront and might even consider inviting Messers Buckles and Cornballs to the bash so that they can enjoy all the fun without the pain of performing.

The more I hear about Adam and Joe's respective partners, the more I like them. If my husband decided to trap me in a car for four hours of nothing but the product of his Saturday morning witters, I'd resign myself to deriving whatever pleasure I could from the situation, specifically absorbing the stuff from the other bloke which I don't live with and have to listen to every day. Joe's sweetly placatory line about him being an escape for her and Adam being a dreadful man-prison, with fleshy bars has been quoted and tweeted several times this week.

I too, have signed up to my present IP's advance registration for in-brain wifi installation. It's the only way to go as fact checking is now the spindle around which any progressive conversation pivots.

Rusty Crowe in Monopoly, The Movie gives rise to a few minutes of their favourite kind of talk. The very idea that there might be a KerPlunk movie is more than my tiny brain can contain but "Connect Four, a film by Joe Cornish" can surely only be a matter of 10 years away. I like Russell Crowe well enough but I don't think I would pay good money should Riddles take up Adam's suggestion of where to set it.

This week, it would seem that 'Adam' Is The Best.
Who choses which jingle jongles to put in the podcast? I've always presumed James pops it together after they've left to grab their salmon salad and melon. Somebody in the Castle even took it into their head to make a tiny little sting from Joe's Massage Music, which neither Joe nor Adam had expected or even correctly identified when they heard it pop up a couple of weeks ago.

It breaks my heart that Adam gets so upset about the dullards who smugly note their recognition of the license-free sound loops he uses. The perspective on this is that there are loads of listeners who just tune in, maybe not even every week and have no techie knowledge, no real understanding of the effort put into making jingles. They probably have expertise in other areas. They may be brain surgeons who get the odd morning off to poodle around the internet. Why would their sweet, naive little ramblings matter so much to Adam when he knows that there is a solid legion of dedicated, idiothole nerds who completely understand and love how it all works? I really don't like it when either of them get upset but in the big scheme of things, what a lovely luxury they have to be able to get things off their chests so publicly. Now, buckle down and give us another Song Wars before Christmas please, you lazy good-for-nothings. XXOOXX

Joe alludes to his ego searching on Twitter but if anyone is concerned that he might actually pay any attention to the mindless witterings that you might tweet, consider his comment about Text the Nation. From the mention he gives, you'd think he'd stumbled upon an entire subsection of a psychic tweet-parlour but this is all I came up with. Yes, one of them IS from Yvette Fielding & a couple of other psychic tweeters but the rest are just the outward mumbles of the comment that popped into most peoples minds when the topic was announced. I doubt that he spends more than a handful of nanoseconds skimming over the mentions of his or Adam's name. I reckon he spends his hours searching for more subversive things.

There's a gentle little Boggins invocation with the mention of 'raffle ticket' there, followed by a lovely reference to the Planet Hollywood mini-hamburgers. This reminded me that I enjoyed Garth Jenning's silly little Polish Plums film there so many years ago. Can't find it on YouTube but I didn't really look very hard. I love the beautiful timing from both of them with Adam's explanation for the raffle winning.

One of my favourite jingles ends this section. I have no shame so I don't hesitate to do the 'oow hoo hoo, hoo hoo' out loud on the bus, if necessary. No, I don't worry about looking insane. I really don't care what a bunch of strangers think of me if I'm having fun. If they mistake joy for insanity, that's their problem.

They move onto another lovely accent discussion. During the live show, this topic was flagged up before the song that preceded it and I tweeted that they might talk about Peter Sarsgaard in An Education. I was gratified by a couple of generous responses about my psychic abilities moments later, when Adam mentioned it. I really adore Peter's naughty, lazy, sexy voice so it took me a good few minutes to work out what the hell he was doing with it when I saw the film. The piece from that silly, pompous and haughty publication, the NewYorker was a lovely contribution from Joe. Nice little public school boy delivery of the word 'Indiana' there, Joe. Sadly, the Tim Monich article is only available on subscription which I cannot be arsed to do.

Joe shared his 'never again' list which reminds me I must set the DVR for Joe's little panel show thingy on Dave next month.
Once again, the lady partners have my respect because they have to put up with Adam and Joe thinking they are guessing where the music is going to go in a new tune.
They're not guessing. Lady-brains know where most new songs are going to go. The combination of a lady's sixth sense and a comprehensive knowledge of most lyrical combinations and musical progressions gives them a seventy percent hit rate. It's easy if you're not hampered by the singularity of a man-brain. Of course, it's a wonderful tool to amaze your partner with so please don't pass this secret on to anyone.

Okay, Joe is a total genius and he clearly has the raggedy remnants of a lady-brain lurking there. He was supplied with the words so he didn't need to deploy the full lady-package. What an inspired thing for Adam to ask him to do. Getting his little sister to sing along to one of those horrid contemporary churchy songs. Why do they sound so tortured and contrived? Traditional hymns are majestic and uplifting but the modern stuff just sounds like an ego-nerd has tried to crowbar some pretentious twaddle into the kind of tune your uncle would hum on the way home from the library.

I have the power to attract people I'm thinking about towards me. It's really annoying ninety percent of the time.

There's a nice little Madness riff before Adam regales us with Joffles' tale of the podcasterly eponymous Dr Snippington.

Another one of my favourite jingle jongles sneaks in before this week's Boggins discussion and the utterly brilliant aural contributions from listeners*. Was it really necessary for that emailer to contextualise his podcast preferences? I do listen to Answer Me This but it is mercifully short and they are rapidly going off piste. There are fewer questions and more smugitudes than when they started. Despite all the approbation Adam and Joe receive they have the good grace to maintain a charming humility. Of course, I am well aware that I slap and kiss the boys myself but I don't directly channel it to the through the medium of text or email and what I write here, is clearly in jest, with what I feel is a degree of balance for the sole intention of amusing myself. The same applies to the fortress of smugness upon which this blog seems to be entirely based these days.

The pro-Boggins songs are up on the blog but during the week, a very forceful case was made against the sweet, smelly little blighter.

So I've arrived at the podcast outro. Adam is successful in his attempt to turn Joe on with his nipple action, drubbing home the point that he is bendy and just consolidating the situation nicely by recounting the nocturnal emissions of his REM sleep. Joe makes a show of leaving the room for this but I think we all know he will not be able to resist listening to the podcast in full. I would imagine there was a moment when they might have considered doing this bit in the live show but quickly realised, with Joe out of the room, there would be nobody to invert anything that seemed like it might go off the decency scale.
Some people have tried to get Joe's attention on Twitter in order to give him the apparently unwanted details but really, Adam doesn't actually say anything beyond the bare bones of what we'd assume transpired. Adam makes no secret that he idolises Joe and none of this comes as a surprise to anyone bothered to listen to his weekly subtext. It's no biggy. Nothing to worry about, Adam. Don't be scarred or scared. It's perfectly natural. Now move on.

The nice mention of the pompous email and subsequent retraction restores listeners' faith in how thoroughly they read the emails. Just because they're not read out on the show or podcast, doesn't mean they've been ignored. It's just an issue of volume and long may that last. When the mails stop comin', the show stops hummin'.

Just when you thought the delights of the podcast were over, Adam rammed a couple more giggles down our ears with a blessing from gods we don't believe in, even a blessing from Boggins and his corrected goodbye. Thank you, man.

Once again, my tenses are all over the place but do I really have to go back and correct all the bloomin' things? It'll take away any brio and freshness that might be in here if I start thinking in one static timeline.

In other news...........Adam made a brief blog update to say that BUG will start 10 minutes early tomorrow. I'm sure this is out of his control and it might just be a tactical move at the BFI because BUG starts a bit late sometimes. I do hope everyone hears about this change, though. You wouldn't want to miss Eric Wareheim's Depeche Mode offering on the big screen, now would you?

I haven't posted news here for a while so I'll mention that lovely Lucy has joined ranks of Blog Squadron leader and has made a couple of posts. There are 10 blog entries in November so far, which is pretty good going in the big scheme of things. I hope the team know how grateful we are.

We've had specially selected Black Squadron photos, Boggins tribute songs* sent in by listeners, an absolutely stunning animation from Ben Tucker and an amazing, interactive soundboard from Simon Whittaker. I continue to gape in awe at the talent of Adam and Joe's listeners in the knowledge that it is such a glorious tribute to the wonderful men they are, that people are inspired to spend what is probably an insane amount of time making this stuff. It's truly humbling.

Black Squadron Felt Pen Tattoo pictures went up fairly quickly onto the website this week. They just need to sort out the little orange camera pegs & I'll be happy.

There's a nice bit of kudos in Andrew Collins' blog today if you scroll down to the weekly podcast figures. It's amazing that these two stupid men, wandering around the tiny cabin of 6Music, a digital-only station, if you will can out pod the great Radio 2, mark-overstepper himself. I used to switch straight over to Jonathan in the old days but now that the entire show is recorded, I just think, "what the heck, I'll catch up when I've listened to Adam and Joe's show a couple more times". Is it good blogisquette to put thoughts in inverted commas? I've often wondered that. The whole blog is nothing more than a big, ungainly thought, isn't it? It is good blogisquette to write all this drivel in the first place?

Somebody tweeted or blogged that casting for Attack the Block was all done and dusted but I'd doubt that. Probably aliens needing extensive prosthetics might have been locked down nice and early but what do I know? (not as much as I'd like to, is the answer). Edited to add that there was a casting session today, looking for kids who don't need licenses, can work adult hours but look younger. Also seems it's a 10 week shoot starting at the end of January. Brace yourselves for some lost Saturday shows. I smell six day weeks or at least 11 day fortnights. I shall mourn the lost but I'm so incandescent with joy that this is all happening for Cornballs.

Empire Magazine had a little tweetpoll about Song Wars.

Somebody has done a playlick from last week's show.

There was a tiny mention in the Daily Telegraph, this week.

Friend of the show, Ben Mercer had a little giggy this week and has some more coming up. He has pledged to give his amazing Sontum of Quolace rendition if Black Squadron members make themselves known to him at a gig. When I last checked, he also needs to get laid so why not pop along for a completely fulfilling evening.....(sorry Ben, I'll delete that if you like).

Kimika (as featured with heavy Cornballs name-stumbling interaction and intimate Buckles moment at the Electric Proms) did this incredible drawing in what seemed like no time at all. Poke around her Twitpic area and you'll see the whole thing taking shape.

Lunabee made a Save Boggins picture.

As always, countless YouTube nuggets from the Adam and Joe archives are tweeted on a daily basis.

Eddie Izzard instigated a bit of Stephenage via his Twitter feed during his show tonight. I'm trying to ascertain if anybody recorded it but I can only see one reply on Twitter.

Going slightly off topic, I'd like to link lovely Edgar's beautiful tribute to the late Edward Woodward. This was stolen and ravaged by The Times earlier in the week and caused the sweet fellow an amount of anguish that upsets me as much as when Adam and Joe are hurtified. It seems only right to note Simon Pegg's thoughts on the same subject.

Another little net-upset fell at the feet of Duncan Jones last week as he was provoked into explaining how harmful the accidental discovery & distribution (specifically, critique and comment thereon) of a screenplay in the early draft stage can be. I really hate it when these lovely people work so hard to fill our shabby little lives with carefully honed bundles of entertainment but have to waste their time and emotion responding to the careless comments of lesser beings. As I typed that, it made me wonder if I too am guilty of such thoughtless missives.

Right, I think I've made this long enough to ensure most people have given up after the first sentence.

Finally, I had a nasty shock when my bill came from EDF, the electricity suppliers. It was bulging with unexpected financial demands. This was particularly irksome since I'd rejected their earlier, smaller estimate and phoned in my own reading on Saturday morning. It turned out that I'd punched in the number 64046 as my meter reading. I'll let that one settle in your minds for a while before you lay the charge of 'idiothole' at my feet. It's a fair cop.