Title: Minstrels

Soundcloud Time: 1:10:08
Youtube Time: 1:10:14

Original Record Date: November 21, 2015
Soundcloud Publication Date: January 28, 2016
Youtube Publication Date: January 27, 2016

Please Welcome a Man
Who has just realized that every week Stewart Lee leaves his toothbrush in the dressing room. What a foolish, foolish man he is.

Cool Kids
I was playing on the Xbox. I was playing Metal Gear 5. Some of the cool kids, you know, they can talk to you on it.

Guest Best Known
You know her as Amelia Warner from Holby City, or maybe as one of the panelists from the Radio Scotland quiz show Bad Language, hosted by Richard Herring. They actually went to TV but I am not in the TV version.

Audience

Better or Worse than Last Week: N/A
Like or Unlike Wikipedia: N/A

Member Member Note
Unnamed shown on RH’s hand-held camera
has a “science-y” background
Aisling asks if he believes in karma but he does not
claims he has “a friend in Jesus”
Jijun shown on RH’s hand-held camera
had been to RH’s Albert Hall gig, which he enjoyed
travelled from India specifically to see RH
from Kerala, India
AB’s sister’s boyfriend is British-Indian and they had travel plans for Kerala
Unnamed drinking wine
spoke out on numerous occasions

Emergency Questions

What was the most deluded thing you thought of yourself as a child?

I mean I was brought up in quite a Catholic… So that was all a lot of deluded ideas really, I suppose when you think about it. I do think back, like, all the things – like I remember one time we all had to stand, like, there were loads of bold – when we say “bold” in Ireland we mean naughty. But, like, I often find the word “naughty” it sounds really, “the vicar has a whip,” you know, “naughty”. It just sounds very “naughty”. Um, so I’ll say bold. But like, any time there was a child that was bold in the class had to go and stand in the corner. And one day in our class they just ran out of corners because we were all off our heads on sweets. Um, so we all had to stand along walls so there was only really four kids sat down. And I remember all I’d been doing was talking to myself, like that’s how I got in trouble. And I had just gone, “Oh there’s my flask.” “Aisling! you were talking!” “No, just to myself, Miss!” And she put me in the corner. And I remember sitting there rubbing this little miraculous medal of the Virgin Mary hoping that she would take me to heaven with her so I wouldn’t have to stand in the corner not looking at anything so long. And there were loads of those moments where you think we were so invested in religion as kids. Like, we just… We just genuinely believed in the magic of it for ages. Do you think maybe all of the things that exist in religion were just made by tired parents who just wanted one Sunday without like, *makes whining noises*. “Aw, Jesus is watching you!” “Who’s Jesus?” “He was a man who, uh, sit down now and I’ll tell you. He was the son of this other big man who’s going to getcha.” Like maybe it was just a load of fairy tales. I think we need just as many crazy stories to protect us. I think that’s why religion exists, because imagine if we were just on our own, guys. Imagine if we are. I mean, I know we are, but I really can’t accept it. I mean that would be so scary.

Kettle Crisps are not as nice as they once were. Have I changed or have they? That’s a rhetorical question. If you could travel back in time to compare any food of today with an equivalent in the past, what time would you go back to and what food would you taste?

Try eating? Yeah, I’d like to go back to maybe see what food was like before we had additives and all the sugars and stuff like that. Like whenever – I don’t know, when were things, like, MSG, when were those things invented, Jesus’s friend *referring to audience member*? Sixties? So around then. I think we ruin our tastebuds a lot by all the stuff we put on them. They pump it with water but replace flavourings with things that don’t actually exist. So you can mimic flavourings, ’cause you can get, like, roast chicken crisps. So I’d like to go back to see what food was like when it was just simpler and how people ate maybe then. Because I feel like there’s a lot of conspiracy in the food industry, guys, um, and what we’re being sold and things that don’t actually exist. So you can mimic flavourings, ’cause you can get, like, roast chicken crisps. So I’d like to go back to see what food was like when it was just simpler and how people ate maybe then. Because I feel like there’s a lot of conspiracy in the food industry, guys, um, and what we’re being sold and what’s being put into our food and, yeah. I could go on at length and I feel it’s really alienating so. but you should all watch Cowspiracy. We’re all going to die.

What fictional childhood character’s skull would you like to see in a museum?

Hmm. Good question. Jimmy Savile’s skull. I think we could all give it a kick. Technically he was; the version of him in the sixties and seventies is very fictional. So yeah, thank you. I just got heckled by philosophy. My childhood skull is Bosco. Big shout out – Yaaaaay! There we go. Where are those people in from? Dublin, there you go. Bosco, best guy I ever knew. Bosco was this tiny, really badly made hand puppet that was like crack to Irish children during the eighties and early nineties. Like, oh my God, but – *Audience member shouts.* Oh, the magic door! *In child’s voice.* “Knock, knock, open wide. See what’s in the other side. Knock, knock, forever more.” What then is it? *Same audience member shouts response.* Go on through the magic door. You see? Lyrics like that he was spinning. *RH suggests that AB and audience member riffed that.* Secretly from the Irish Tourist Board. “Go and plant some charm around England because no one’s coming anymore.” Well, we do not know if he or she was a boy or a girl because we never really found out. *In child’s voice.* “He had – he/she had this high-pitched voice”, which I thought was very modern to have a he/she […] for children at that age. He/she had a high-pitched voice and red hair and little red, rosy cheeks. And he lived inside a little box and everyone had dungarees around him. And he’d always do a big adventure day and it was always to Dublin Zoo. Like, they never went anywhere else but Dublin Zoo. And as children we were like, “Oh my God, where are they going to go next Dublin Zoo again!” And we should have caught on eventually; you clearly only get rights, the TV company, to go to Dublin Zoo. But, oh my God, we loved Bosco so much. And really everyone, particularly of my age group, gets really a kind of like, buzz from remembering Bosco. Just fondness. Yeah, I’d like to see Bosco’s skull at the British Museum and there will be a queue of one person there waiting to see it.

If you were the Prime Minister, would you use nuclear weapons?

No, absolutely not. I would rather die on behalf of not choosing nuclear weapons than try and poke the bear, as it were. Yea, absolutely. I’d die for that cause. Take you all with me, guys. Taking you all with me. I’ll be honest, I think it’s about time someone stepped up and said, “I’m not going to fight no matter what happens. We may all get killed because of it but unless one of the big guys says, “No more,” you can bet your bottom dollar that the evil guys are not going to stop. So someone has to eventually stop. Like why would you go in to a peace talk with a gun? It just doesn’t make any sense. So sometimes someone’s gotta kind of go *in southern drawl*, “I came in here with no knife, no gun, just my word, and a trust and faith in this situation.” And that will make the baddie go *in Russian accent*, “Oh, well then, maybe I will also put down my gun.” We can all get along.

What celebrity would you like to be stroking your head as you die?

Oh, is it just like I’ve died of a natural death of old age? *RH envisions being hit by a car.* You’ll never believe who ran over you. All of Little Mix. Um, who would I like to stroke my hair? That kind of seems kind of – *Gasps* David Attenborough. Oh, can you imagine dying and having, “Here we go now. The young female stand-up comedian, often found in bars and clubs making self-deprecating comedy about herself because she’s in a male-dominated environment is now slowly slipping away. And I’m slowly stroking her hair.” Oh yeah, David Attenborough’s voice. Yeah, I think it would be, yeah. *RH asks if it isn’t strange that Attenborough would be narrating her death.* Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I’d like that, to get a vibe of what’s going on.

Kickstarter: Tim Turner says, “Richard Dawkins claims to have seen dogs doing a 69. What’s the worst lie you have told to impress people?”

That I saw two cats doing a 69. What’s the worst lie? I mean, when you’re put on the spot for what lie to tell… This is so, again, I doubt even the Dublin people will know this. When I was at school my nana grew up on the same island as this famous woman, Peig Sayers, who was like a really famous Irish writer. She was this old Irish woman who used to speak about how tough life was on the islands and was just really known for her sort of tales of hardship and sheep. And my nana’s mother, so my great grandmother, taught her on this island. There was only about twenty of them that lived on the island. But by the time I got to school I kind of fandagled the story that Peig Sayers, the famous novelist, was my great grandmother. And I know people are like, “Whoa, celeb gossip, Aisling.” It’s a really bad lie, but I lived with it for quite a long time. And I remember my teacher looking at me with sort of revery, like, “Here we have the grandniece of Irish literary… You know, they just looked at me with such respect. I got caught in the lie and then couldn’t really get out of it.

Notes

RH mentions how much he loves the British Museum.

RH states that his favourite of the British Museum exhibits are the Sutton Hoo discoveries.

RH mentioned going to the British Museum for his 40th birthday and particularly enjoying the bog body exhibit.

Desert Island Dicks: Richard Branson, Richard Madeley, Richard Bacon, Richard Whiteley, Richard III

An audience member suggested Richard Bacon for Desert Island Dicks. When AB asked who Richard Bacon was, RH confirmed that he was a future guest and that the ticket-buying public were asking the same question.

RH recounts hearing that Richard Whiteley had died.