Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 233: Frankie Boyle (Live in Glasgow)
Episode Date: March 16, 2024Night two of our Glasgow residency, and Frankie Boyle is at it. Frankie Boyle is on tour with ‘Lap of Shame’. For dates and tickets go to frankieboyle.com Listen to Frankie’s podcast ‘Here Com...es the Guillotine’ on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow Frankie on Twitter @frankieboyle and Instagram @frankie_boyle Recorded by Matt Mountford-Lister for Storm Productions Group live at the SEC Armadillo in Glasgow.Edited by Ben Williams for Plosive.Artwork by Paul Gilbey (photography and design).Follow Off Menu on Twitter and Instagram: @offmenuofficial.And go to our website www.offmenupodcast.co.uk for a list of restaurants recommended on the show.Watch Ed and James's YouTube series 'Just Puddings'. Watch here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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["Saturday Night Live"]
It's Saturday. What does that mean James? Bonus!
It's a bonus live episode from the Off Menu Live Tour 2023 as recorded on the 22nd of
October.
But it's not that anymore.
We're deep into 2024 now, I would say.
Not right now.
15th December now.
No, but when they're listening to this.
15th December 2023, No, but when they're listening to this, when they're listening to this.
December 2023 we're recording all of these. It's 16th of March 2024 or later. Earliest it could be
is 16th of March. Mad. Like this is recorded in the past. Yeah. And we're recording this bit now
in the future past. And then there's the future coming up when it actually goes out. Mad. And
people can then listen to it whenever they want. It's Frankie Boyle is the special guest. At the SEC Armadillo in Glasgow. Yes.
Very excited to have Frankie on the show. Much requested. Yeah. Much requested. Frankie
for a long time. Much requested. And I imagine now we'll get loads of messages saying bring
back Frankie. Oh, I hope so. Yeah. I'd say out of all the live shows we recorded, Frankie is the guest who came out at the top, all guns blazing.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're laughing pretty much from the word go here.
Yeah. It's brilliant episode. Secret ingredient was hazelnut vodka. I mean, there's no chance
he's going to pick it. He doesn't drink.
He doesn't drink. So, but we were glad of that. We're glad that they suggested a secret
ingredient in the audience that he would stay in.
I know Frankie doesn't drink. I wonder if James will remember for the episode. This
is the Off Menu Menu Live episode he just remembered.
Frankie Boyle! Welcome to the Off Menu podcast, taking the wife of humour.
Feeding her the morning rolls of the internet.
Smelling the farts of friendship.
Creating the Scottish Oven of food podcasting.
That is Ed Gamble, my name is James A.ler. Together we own a dream restaurant and every single week we invite in a guest and ask them
their favourite ever star and main course dessert, side dish and drink, not in that order.
And this week our guest is Frankie Boyle.
So excited to have Frankie on the podcast in Glasgow.
As soon as we knew we were doing the tour and we were coming to Glasgow, we were like,
dream is Frankie Boyle.
And he said yes, so we're very, very excited.
You already know the secret ingredient, so let's bring out Frankie.
Without further ado, this is the off-menu menu of Frankie Boyle!
What are you doing, James? I am sorry.
We've got to do this properly, Frankie, you see,
because James is a genie in this.
Oh, right, yeah. If you would like to rub the lamp, that's fine. Otherwise we can in this. Oh, right. Yeah.
If you would like to rub the lamp, that's fine.
Otherwise, we can do it.
Oh, I'll rub it.
You rub the lamp.
Great.
Thank you.
Don't you worry.
Thank you.
Ooh.
Boom.
Welcome, Frankie Boyle, to the Dream Restaurant.
We've been expecting you for some time.
Perfect.
Thank you, Jeannie.
Thank you, Frankie.
Lovely lamp rub.
Very sensually rubbing the lamp there.
That was perfect.
That wasn't sexual.
I haven't got started yet.
You've given us diet iron brew, which is good.
It's like someone used Fanta to wash their car.
Did you really get knocked back at a Glasgow restaurant?
You got knocked back for brunch?
Glasgow restaurant.
Do you not know what that expression means?
You were refused service.
Sorry, he's been in the lamp for thousands of years.
Yes, yeah. I can translate as I go along.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You were a service James.
Yes, we got knocked back, yes.
You got a KB basically.
And I mean that is not untypical, I would say, of Glasgow's attitude to service.
Not untypical, I would say, of Glasgow's attitude to service. I've got a story that happened to me last Christmas that I always think is like,
if you understand this story, you can understand Glasgow.
I went to get my eyes tested at the optician,
and she said, your eyesight has deteriorated quite a bit,
but I wouldn't worry about it.
LAUGHTER
And I said, why not? And she she went because I'm not you
she just goes through her day not worrying about anyone's eyesight
I've had a great day everyone's blind I couldn't give a fuck. Are you a foodie, Frankie? Do you like food?
I love food and I think about little else but food.
But I wouldn't really call myself a foodie because I think to be a foodie you have to
enjoy finer delicacies. I have quite plain tastes. You know, I can't eat something like oysters, which is basically just
licking cum off the back of a tortoise.
You know, somehow that doesn't put me off oysters. If I went to a really fancy restaurant, if I went to like Noma in Copenhagen, like they're
doing wild stuff and they brought me out a tortoise and they went, come on the back of
that, I'd go, yeah, give it a go.
You'd be like, there will be soon.
I don't know why we've gone so low, Swerley.
And I say we.
Is it the tortoise has come or another animal?
Taste it and see, Jeanine.
Very impressive the tortoise could come on their own back.
It's also the texture of an oyster, isn't it?
Unless your favourite texture is a corpse's clitoris.
But there are other foods I like.
What a way to find out that's my favourite texture.
That's probably the best way to find that out.
We always start with still a sparkling water.
Still a sparkling water, thank you.
What, you're going to compare these to?
Are we really moving straight into still and sparkling water?
Are you now just terrified and you're going to huckle me off?
Huckle means to move someone.
I do actually need to be told this.
I have no idea what that means.
There's sort of like, there are some Scottish expressions that there aren't any real translation for.
So it's someone being at it.
Do you know what I mean?
You can't really explain to an English person what that is without, like, Captain Tom's family are at it.
LAUGHTER
No idea. Obviously you know who Captain Tom is. Yeah, but you know his family are at it, right?
I never knew his family were at it.
Yeah.
If they were on now, we'd huckle them off for sure.
Shall I chuck...
If I chuck those phrases into my Shrek impression...
Oh, yeah. Well, I love it. I give me more respect
Never heard Shrek talk about Captain Tom's family before
Well, our next tour date is bright and or somewhere
In my captain Tom's family
It's like doing info in Captain Tom's family.
Because at it, I would say at it, is like having sex.
Sure, that's what we would think.
I mean, of all the things Captain Tom's family are up to.
It can't be that. I mean, it would be...
Maybe that's why they needed him out of the house.
Once more ram. Once more ram, Tom. I've been huckled out into the garden again.
It's for the NHS or something.
Anyway, food. Lovely, isn't it?
I want to know what at it means.
It means you're taking a piss.
Oh yeah. That's cool.
Not quite, but I know know but you know I mean
it's close to that. Pushing it? Yeah pushing it, you're fucking tranching your arm.
Mrs. Captain Tom. This will help me a lot actually, I think after the show you
should just tell me a lot of these because I'm quite addicted to watching
the like clips of Limmy on
YouTube. I really laugh at it but I only understand half of it. I'd love to laugh
at the full thing. I think that to spill us a little bit of water?
I can't really cook.
Uh-huh.
So I eat out a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah. But I did try to learn to cook once.
Because I fell in love with this girl and she was like, can you cook?
And I was like, yeah.
Because start the relationship off on a lie.
And then I learned how to cook breakfast pretty well.
I'd cook her scrambled eggs on toast.
Lovely.
But really well.
Really well.
And then I tried to progress to making gnocchi,
which is quite a big leap.
Yeah, I'd say so.
Yeah, so I bought something called a potato ricer.
Because I thought if I just unleash my potential,
I could be anything.
But actually, if you unleash your whole potential,
you can maybe tidy up your bedside
cabinet and even then for how long? Yeah. So I made this gnocchi and I sent her a picture of it and
it really went downhill from there. Sent her a picture of it first. So you weren't making her
the gnocchi? It was too disgusting to eat but I made it to a standard where it could be photographed.
I love that she, I assumed she was coming over or something.
No, I was just like, hey I'm just hanging out casually making knocking.
And looking back I should have used a stock picture.
Yeah, don't worry about Getty images, That's just something I put on all my photos.
So I think we all know what the next question is going to be.
I don't accept still water. It's too full of contradictions.
You're paying for an expensive bottle of water to be brought to your table and poured over cubes of tap water.
And that to me is too much of a capitalist contradiction. So I want to have sparkling water.
Please, Junie.
Let me tell you.
We've had a lot of answers to this question on the podcast.
None of them have genuinely made me think.
And I'd never thought it was a capitalist contradiction.
But the fact that the ice cubes are made out of tap water and are going to be melted into
the bottled water has blown my mind.
And it doesn't matter so much in Scotland where our tap water is nice.
In England that's basically cubes of sewage. It is.
I mean, can't deny it. There's a noticeable difference
coming here and having some tap water.
London tap water is poison. But I'm sort of proud of it.
Baaaaaah!
Like we talked about this before, like a shower in London, I know what my hair's gonna do.
If I go any further north, it's too soft.
Come out all fluffy, Frankie.
The further north you go, the less interested people will be in your fluffy hair problems.
That'll be it.
Maybe that's why they didn't let us into that restaurant today.
Because I went in and I went, apologies for my fluffy hair guys.
Do you have a table for two?
I'd also like, could I have a little tiny bit of Ribena in my Sparkle Mortar?
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah, a lot of respect to the room for that.
I always like the wee characters in the Rhybena advert, just for being so proudly cannibals.
Yeah.
The little black, the blackcurrant guys.
Yeah, they were so bloodthirsty.
Just like crush our friends into juice and let's drink it.
Yeah. But they themselves also wanted to be crushed, right?
Yeah.
That's the whole death drive right there in Ribena.
Would you like them there at your meal?
Do you want to meet them?
Yes, please.
You can make that happen, Jeannie.
Yeah, I can make it.
I can conjure them up.
I can have them come on the tortoises' back,
whatever you want And yet you can only bring me bread or
I don't make the rules
Together yeah
Thank you boy, I'm probably upset
Pop-Dom's or bread? Pop-Dom's or bread, Frankie Boyle? Pop-Dom's or bread? He just mentioned it, so I couldn't shock him.
But he was about to take a drink, so I thought it's now or never.
Maybe you'll be able to scare Frankie Boyle.
I don't see why I have to choose, but as I have to choose, obviously it's bread.
No one's going to give up all fucking bread for Pop- for poppadoms. Nice though they are.
And also I'm like genetically Irish so my parents are both from
Donegal and yeah they clearly are not from Donegal or they wouldn't be showing any enthusiasm.
You are from Donegal.
Wow.
And you have a, you're from Litter Kenny.
She gets higher every time you ask her a question.
You've been talking on fast forward.
Basically, you won't know this part of Ireland but she is essentially a
time traveler. These are people who eat purple seaweed as a snack. Dulse.
Yes, we had it. Eat it out of bags like crisps. But the other, as I get on to my bread issue
here, the other thing you have in Ireland, you've got a lot of celiac disease.
One percent of Irish people are measured as having celiac disease.
But I should reckon a lot more are like me and just thinking, I think I might have that,
but I'm not going to get tested.
Because if I'm going to die, of all the ways that you could die, if you got to see a playing
card with how you're going to die and it says, the machinery, jealous husband, whatever you know, but you drew the card
that said delicious bread. That's the one I want to have. I love bread. What
happens to you when you eat bread then? Do you have an adverse reaction to it? I
feel unwell, but then I do eat quite a lot of it. Maybe it's just that.
It's just the amounts rather than the... Let's just never find out. That's my strategy.
Do you have a favorite type of bread that you'd like for your dream meal?
For the dream meal I'd like little hot rolls with butter.
And what time of day will you be eating these rolls?
In the morning.
Are they crispy or soft?
There's some confusion here because there's two types of Morton Roll, which is just standard Morton Roll,
and then clearly they have batches that just get damaged in the factory
that they have decided to brand well fired by
which they mean slightly burnt. I'd go for the first one. The first one, the
proper one? Yeah, the normal one. Can you clarify for us? Can a morning roll, can
you only eat it in the morning or is it the type of bread that it is makes it a
morning roll? It's the type of bread. So you can eat a morning roll in the
afternoon and it's still a morning roll.
You can eat it in the middle of the night.
No one's going to stop you.
There's very few bread patrols in Glasgow.
It's more it's a slightly hard shell to roll.
So you can stick a lot more in there
than is supposed to really be in there
without getting grease on your hand.
That's the advantage of it.
What's the most amount of stuff you've ever stuck in the morning, Rob?
Good question, man.
Well, recently I had to move hotels because I stayed in this hotel in London on tour and
the only option on breakfast, they had one option on breakfast, on a printed
menu and it was called the humongous.
And it was a roll with a hard fried egg, like a well fried egg and a sausage and some sweet
chilli jam in it.
But if you said to them, I'd like that sausage and roll thing, they would go, what?
So you had to say, the humongous, please.
And it wasn't so much eating it as saying it,
and I just moved hotel.
I'd like the humongous, please.
Every day for a week, the humongous, please.
Also, if there's only one option you just go in
and go can I have breakfast well some people wouldn't have a big humongous
because it was horrible yeah so they would just have coffee or whatever yeah
even just super in me breakfast was it big it was too big it was disgusting
yeah I guess it was humongous. But how big was the roll then?
It was like half a baguette size of a roll.
I mean, they really delivered something terrible.
But, you know, they put some effort in.
Wow.
Frank, you're doing well, man.
Why are you staying in a hotel that only has the humongous on the menu?
Sounds like you're staying at a truck stop.
I came to my senses and left.
Sleeping in a lay-by.
I was trying to mix things up a bit.
Well, let's get into your dream menu proper, Frankie.
Your dream starter.
My dream starter, one-ton soup.
Because I can say I'm having soup, sounds healthy, I'm actually eating hot pork
dumplings and for some reason greasy water and one cabbage leaf that I can
tell myself is maybe gonna do me some good and really I'm just eating hot
dumplings. For a second I thought you said one ton soup. Yeah. And I thought that must
be the dinner menu at that hotel. I love one ton soup, absolutely delicious. It's not soup
though is it? You're right. It's more like I just get flooded with a feeling of well-being
when I have it. It's like an anaesthetic Like when I have a bowl of one-ton soup I'm just like,
ah I could happily die now. Would you happily like have an operation after it? Like if I gave you a
big bowl of one-ton soup and then we was like this guy's now going to come in and remove your
pancreas or whatever. A one-ton soup and 30 milligrams of Valium and I'll give it a shot.
Don't give away your side dish so early.
Is there somewhere where you've had the best one-ton soup you've ever had?
Where you'd like it for your dream meal?
Do you know the other thing about it?
It's always good everywhere.
They all seem to be able to do one-ton soup.
You know what I mean?
If you're doing a Chinese menu, you can do it.
I think also when I first started to have it,
I was starting to do gigs in London
when I was a little young comic.
And in Scotland and in Glasgow,
and particularly very hard to get food then
after about 10 o'clock, right?
It's really still quite Presbyterian, this country.
And when you go to London and you stay in Soho,
you'd come back from your gig,
and it might be 11 o'clock and you could still go and eat.
And that, to me, was amazing.
She'd have done a really stressful gig
because you were shit at the time.
And you'd be suddenly sitting in a Chinese restaurant
having this beautiful soup in the middle of the night.
And I think it just kicks back all those memories.
That's lovely.
Also, where, so last time I was in Glasgow,
which was like a couple of months ago,
I met a friend for some Chinese food.
I think it was literally just called,
this can't be right, Chinese restaurant.
Ha ha ha ha.
Did someone say to you, do you want to go to the Chinese restaurant?
No, I feel like oh
please
Someone have a clue about what I'm on about no one's volunteering. It was near one of the train stations
Huh?
What's it called in dim someplace? Yeah, what was it called? Dim Sum place. What was it called?
I just called Dim Sum. It's like massive letters outside it.
That's a good place, man.
Like we over ordered, but everything on the menu was incredible.
Last time I was in Glasgow, we were getting late night food.
We got drunk and then obviously I was like,
first thought, I want a munchy box right now.
Let's go and get a munchy box.
I was probably the, like I looked,
it was the bleakest tableau I've ever been in in my life
because I just sat on a bench eating massive munchy box,
like slamming it in.
And someone walked past me and went, pointed at me for ages.
I went, Ed Gamble.
I was like, oh no. I went, can I me for ages. I went, Ed Gamble. I'm like, oh, no.
Can I have a selfie?
I went, yes.
So somewhere, there's a photo of me sat on a bench
with a munchie box open with fucking grease around my mouth.
And there stood up like, hey.
So if anyone has that photo, please delete it immediately.
I love munchies.
Delicious.
What are you talking about, mate?
You're lucky you got a whole box of them back.
I'm lucky if I can find a bag.
After a gig, you got a whole box of the munchies.
Don't rise to it.
No, we're just going to leave it. Biscuit in the middle, and the caramel, and then the chocolate on the outside, and it's
all in that little, like...
They fucking would just throw those in there, though.
Yeah.
It's wild what's going on in that box.
Also just going in and ordering a box of stuff.
That's so exciting.
It's the food equivalent of a car boot seal. Yeah. Ha ha ha ha ha.
Because it's not like a set thing. There's not like set things that will be in every munchy box, right?
There's people add their own little twists to it.
Is that fair to say?
Mmm, yeah.
There's always like pakoras and stuff and some chips in there or whatever,
but they go fucking crazy with this.
Pakoras and chips? I think we're talking about different things.
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Your dream main course, Frankie?
Nah, I was very torn here. Your dream main course Frankie?
No, I was very torn here.
I love chicken and I think it has psychological roots, right?
In that when you were a kid, like your dad always got the big bit of chicken, leg of
chicken, right?
And you got some fucking scraggie bits of chicken.
And as a kid I often thought to myself, when I'm an adult, I will eat chicken every day.
And I've lived up to that dream.
It's rarely, I mean, chicken, we all love it.
I love to get it in a Vietnamese place in Glasgow, they do a caramelized ginger chicken
that I really it. I love to get out in a Vietnamese place in Glasgow, do a caramelized ginger chicken that I really like.
Okay, a chicken has to die, but
it's just a fucking chicken.
Yeah, yeah.
And I'm very tempted to say chicken or like a really good fried chicken or something like that, but
I want to be honest and say what my actual dreamer would be.
I'd like to eat all of the icing off a wedding cake.
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Ha ha ha!
Frankie.
Main course. main course.
Last night, last night we had Ian fucking sterling on.
He chose a cheese board as his dessert.
Oh God.
I cried myself to sleep.
I was, I was a happy boy.
You have no idea how good this feels right now. To hear that want to eat all the eyes enough a wedding cake at your main course
Surely in Scotland if you ordered the cheese board, they'd be blowing fucking dust off it before they handed it to you
Yeah, well that's what you get if you invite on a prick from Edinburgh
prick from Edinburgh. Whose wedding have you had the best icing off their entire cake? You know when I was a kid I guess my parents got invited to a few weddings
and they bring back cake like almost apologetically and go oh we've got to give them some cake and I'd be like
give me that shit. I love that fucking white ice, that hard, it's
just basically just sugar. They've put it into some kind of form that I can shove it
in my face. And I often say to the kids, my daughter's in tonight somewhere, I often say
to the kids, I love that wedding cake icing, why don't we get one of those cakes for my
birthday or something? And they always go, oh oh yeah we'll get that and they get like marzipan cake and I pretend to be happy. I'm sorry this is how
you find out about it darling but what I really want is that hard wedding cake stuff. Yeah.
I love the idea of you at someone's wedding. Oh yeah I'm not an asset at a wedding at all. And they're getting on with the
meal and people are doing speeches and I'm like where did Frankie go during the
speeches? Then they go out and they want the wedding cakes butt naked.
It's been perfectly shaved. Yeah. You've got the little bride and groom figure just sticking out your nose.
You've got face first into it.
Do you reckon anyone's ever done video with those bride and groom faces?
Because you could do it.
Yeah, you're asking for trouble really.
Putting those on top of your cake.
So is it royal icing or is it fondant icing?
Because I've been to different weddings have different cakes and I've many cakes at his wedding
Yeah, we didn't have that icing unfortunately Frankie, so you wouldn't have enjoyed my wedding would have been that's one reason. Yes
It's like every now and again again we forget who we're talking to
viciously reminded it's like well he's got more left leaning over the years
more socially aware oh no he's still a fucking grizzly he's still a bear
rip your fucking face off your Your wedding was shit, mate.
I was there.
You would have had a lovely time, actually, Frankie.
Thank you.
I introduced the cakes at Ed's wedding.
You introduced the cake?
Yes.
Who to?
To all of the guests.
He made everyone gather around the cake, all of the guests,
because he said, this is my job. I'm going to introduce the cakes. He made everyone gather round the cake all of the guests because he said this is my job
I'm going to introduce the cakes he invented a fucking job
It's never been a job at anyone's wedding before. Wait, were you passed over from best man? Yes
But yeah James said well I'd like to introduce the cakes and
After the meal we all had to gather around the cakes about a hundred people and James stood on the stairs next to the cake and he introduced all the different layers.
I memorized what was each cake was.
Yes.
So I could say it perfectly to everyone.
I knew what each sponge was, what the filling was, and what the icing on the top was.
Well, you put me on the spot now.
I think one, there was a lemon sponge and a lemon curd.
There was a carrot cake with an orange kind of curd.
He was better on the day, Frank.
I remember that the top one had peanut butter brittle and salted caramel on it.
But it was also the smallest cake
so it's the one that everyone wanted yeah and obviously just you and Charlie
were gonna eat it yeah because it was small everyone was like I want that one
but yeah good luck yeah so James took about ten minutes to announce all the
layers and I looked around at my family who were to be fair baffled yeah my mum
came up to me and said, oh, James is really
like that, isn't he?
So what size wedding cake are we talking?
Because this is your main course.
And how do you want to present it to you?
Oh, I'd like about three pounds of it just list on the plate.
So you don't want to strip it off the cake, that's not part of the dream meal.
You want it off the cake already.
Yeah, what about this meal choice makes me look like I
enjoy manual labor.
I'd like you to introduce the remnants of the cake.
If you could.
I'll introduce it to you.
So these are the layers of icing that I've cut off.
A revolving wedding cake like a kebab.
I can do that in front of you if you like.
Donner icing, that's brilliant.
Emptying it.
That would be good actually.
Little bride and groom on the top.
Just still spitting.
Where are your bride and groom slash voodoo horcrux?
Now, have you got them safe? We've got them safe. We, much to, again, my mother-in-law
and my mother's chagrin, we bought these ridiculous ceramic ones where they're beautifully molded,
the bodies are like perfect, and then the faces are just,
the potter has smudged them with their thumb and it's like smiley faces drawn in.
So they've been voodooed to fuck already basically.
I like that the bodies are perfect.
Yes.
When you said the bodies are perfect it sounded...
Yeah.
Sexual.
Do you think anyone is sexually attracted to the figures on top of wedding cake?
Of course. Imagine if you course you fancy your own figure
And then that's on the wedding day you conflicted where we want to go through with the wedding because you fancied your own
ceramic figure
And then when they say does anyone object you have to get it
I'd love to be in that wedding. Yeah. Well, thank you. That sounds delicious I love him.
I'd love to be at that wedding.
Well, thank you, that sounds delicious.
Do you want cutlery with it?
Do you want a knife and fork, a spoon?
Spoon, yeah, why not?
Spoon it in.
This is perfect.
Is there anyone else with you at your dream meal,
or is it just going to be you eating a plate of wedding cake icing?
Oh I didn't know that was a possibility.
Oh of course, it's your dream.
Yeah it's your dream man, whatever you want.
Oh great, I'll have both my kids and the philosopher Slaslov Zizank.
Ha ha ha ha!
I'm, forgive me, I'm not aware of Slaslov's work.
You're not?
No.
He's a kind of neo-Hegelian who has done some very interesting stuff explaining philosophy
through cinema.
So he's done a thing called The Pervert's Guide to Cinema and The Pervert's Guide to
Ideology.
He sniffs a lot and makes a lot of kind of good points.
So you're there,
we're eating a mountain of wedding cake icing with a spoon.
He would love that.
Slasov would be like,
yeah, I can see how that's the decay of Western society.
And your daughter's gonna enjoy that?
She'll be amused.
And your daughters are going to enjoy that? She'll be amused.
Yeah.
And, you know, my son kind of, I think he'll kind of get into it.
Yeah.
I'd probably rather there was some food.
Are they having their own wedding cake icing or are they going to share yours?
I mean, ideally...
Is chicken's't getting married Ed
Ideally they need some other fit, you know, that's a bit kind of disgusting a
disgusting family gathering
Sorry, I'm just reading from the fact that that joke didn't land. Yeah
Too late. Yeah, are they gonna have their own wedding cake? I said, yeah I said, they're not gonna get married and everyone reacted like well, they might do
So play on words, yeah deliberately misunderstood
I
Don't think your kids are getting married. I know there's a possibility. We're gonna meet them after the show
now
absolutely mortified
This is why James stopped doing what the week?
Yeah, yeah, it was even darla was saying bring back Frankie after all of my life
But the stuff that come out the edit.
Well, that sounds like a delicious main course.
It doesn't, but we'll move on.
It does.
That's one of the best main courses we've ever had.
Dream side dish.
I'd just like to have some bread toast and marmalade.
I can think of nothing that goes better with wedding cake icing. Actually, that would go quite well.
It actually does go quite well.
It's quite nice.
Because tell me, Frankie, are you
going to be taking a strip of the icing,
popping it in between two slices of toast,
and having a marmalade and icing sandwich?
No.
That would be ridiculous.
But I do like to sometimes, when I've been in this hotel where they only serve the humongous,
I find you can get by on toast and marmalades pretty well and avoid the humongous.
I might be allergic to bread, I don't know.
I am allergic to marmalades. I'm highly allergic to oranges but I don't care because it's delicious.
Well I can make you unallergic with my genie powers or do you want to remain allergic?
If you could clear that up that would be nice because that's going to give me crippling
stomach pains.
Yeah, happy to. Is that what happens if you that's going to give me crippling stomach pains.
Yeah, happy to.
Is that what happens if you eat marmalade?
You get crippling stomach pains.
Yeah, it's not great, but I don't care.
Life is pain.
Slasov Zizek would tell you this if he was here.
Slaslov's going to love your thing about the ice cubes,
isn't he?
The capitalist contradiction.
He'll have already thought of that.
There's a whole bunch of us out there.
Yeah.
Yeah, so that would be great for me.
I really enjoy to listen to Marmalade.
Anytime anyone's brought up Marmalade on the podcast,
we've always made sure that we ask them,
are you a shred head or a shredless wonder?
Oh, fucking hell. Shred this wonder I've not even considered
that do they do that yeah yeah that's the most fucking disgusting thing I've
ever heard thick cut mom I don't trust people with thin cut which is to me if
someone goes missing just round up everybody who buys thin-cut marmalade. Because he's fucking in there somewhere.
But shredless.
If I found shredless marmalade fingerprints on a computer,
check that hard drive.
Marmalade is supposed to have peel in it. That's what it is.
Yeah. So you're thick cut, straight head.
Yes.
Is there any whiskey in this marmalade?
What?
Have you not ever had that before?
I've had marmalade with whiskey in it. Thick cut marmalade with whiskey. It's delicious.
I'm an alcoholic.
I just remembered as I was saying that.
Can you cure that, Genie?
Because otherwise...
This meal's gonna go on for a long time.
Very irresponsible Genie.
You go, oh, by the way, you can have a drink today.
Day four of the meal. All three lads have ordered the humongous. Butter on
the toast before you put the marmalade on? Oh my god, no, I hate that. I can't believe
people do that. That's so fucking disgusting. I know about half of people do that. Yeah. But it is horrific that you would put butter, which is fine on toast, and marmalade, which
is a totally different texture and consistency.
So you're just like, I want my marmalade toast to taste of slime.
Basically, I want it to be greasy and I want the marmalade to kind of fall off.
And those are not good urges. And I don't trust those people.
Do you think you would have fucking loved that drawing.
Paddington was turning around and it was your face on Paddington.
Paddington, Peruvian demon of the underworld.
Time to go, Mum.
Marmalade. A very different sketch that they
shared on social media
and Paddington
ripping her face off.
I forgot you were a bear.
Would you ever keep a marmelade sandwich under your hat?
You were wearing a hat when you arrived here tonight.
Would you ever keep a Marmelade sandwich under there?
A bunnet?
A bunnet sandwich?
Yeah, why not?
Yeah.
Why not?
Your dream drink, Frankie?
My dream drink would be a very peculiar drink that you can only really get in Donegal in
Ireland, where I used to
always go...
Yeah, we know.
I used to go on my summer holidays there every year, and my parents were from there, it's
the middle of nowhere.
And what entertainment there was involved, your uncle would say say do you want to go out for a run by which
he meant I will drive you in my car to the nearest pub and I will drink for
several hours and play cards and you're kind of stuck in this pub in the middle
of nowhere and what we would drink is this drink called football special, which they made to kind of look like beer for a kid.
So it's a kind of fruity pop, but it has a thick head of chemical scum.
And it settles like a pint.
So we were like, yeah, we're drinking too.
And obviously we'd be absolutely out of our minds on sugar. And I think they changed the recipe,
because probably too many people mutated or something.
But it was amazing when I was a kid, football special.
You could feel like you were a kid and you were a part.
You were joining in.
So why do you think you are an alcoholic, frankly?
You'd better trace it back to anything.
What is in Football Special?
Yeah, what's the flavour of Football Special, which is a great name.
It's so funny that it's called Football Special.
You have no idea how much it's up in Ed Street, that kind of name.
It's very funny. We can't explain why to you.
If you don't find a drink being called football special funny
Then we can't help you
And lead you to why it's funny and there's no logic in it's just it's just a silly name and we find it funny
But like football special is a funny name. Just thought what would kids like football?
They are like football and it's special. There you go. Get that down you shut the fuck up while we play cards
It's another good accent.
We've all done good. Yes.
Everyone's done well.
I like that thing, you know, there was a big phase in Britain
for maybe about 15 years of having Irish pubs in Britain.
And they were like not like any Irish pub I'd ever been to in childhood.
So they had lots of little drawers, like Irish people had, you know, anytime you go to a
pub there's like a hundred drawers in the wall and a bike hanging off the ceiling and
all that kind of stuff. Whereas an actual Irish pub that we would go to, it would be
like more a cement floor, a dog that begged for crisps,
and an alcoholic asleep with his head on the bar
who would be served if he woke up.
How often was that dog barking?
It got a lot of tato crisps, but it was never satisfied.
Tato crisps but it was never satisfied. Potato crisps is another mascot who's clearly got sort of masochistic tendencies, right? Because he's a big potato.
Yeah.
But he's more of a sadist.
He's just overseeing his potato brothers being...
He's a kind of West Brit Irishman, do you know what I mean?
Who's like decided to have all his other potatoes
fed to folk.
And he's actually doing quite well.
He's got a nice hat and a coat.
So you think he's got no designs on being eaten himself?
He's just-
Oh no, that's how he stays out of it.
Yeah.
He persuades his friends, he's a Judas goat of a potato,
to be executed in his stead.
Have you been to the Tato theme park?
No, but I want to go.
Yeah, me too.
I'm desperate to go.
I can't offer anything more for this conversation.
Neither of us has been.
I was hoping you have.
I've never been.
I've heard about it.
I'm not desperate to go.
Why? Because it's a theme park based around a packet of crisps.
If it was a theme park based, you know, on wedding cake icing, I'd go immediately.
Is that Mr. Blobby theme park that's all kind of overgrown and haunted?
I'd like to go there and like take acid or something. Yeah.
Do you think Blobby's still knocking about there?
Still lives there?
On like two tabs of acid, he'll come back.
Yeah.
He'll be straight back.
That'd be a great horror film, wouldn't it?
Yeah.
Like a group of young people visit the overgrown Mr. Blobby
theme park, and then you just hear.
The killer is Mr. Tato.
Yeah. They take Blobby's mask off at the end, there's a massive potato under there.
Horrific. Have you met Noel Edmonds?
Good question man. The honest answer is I don't know. He's a master of disguise, Edmonds, as you know.
But no, I've not met him.
I would like to meet him.
I read a funny story once where, you know, he's into this universal ordering.
Yes.
What's all that?
It's this kind of self-help thing where you're like, if you write a letter to the universe
saying I want this, that and the other, it'll all happen for you.
It's all in belief, right? And he says, and this is a great system. In fact, my
friend just came round the other day and said, I'm a bit behind on my mortgage or
whatever, and I explained this whole system to him. And you're like, he just
wanted you to lend him some money. You monster. How dare you tell your friend to beg the universe?
Also in my head his friend is Mr Blobby.
Yeah.
Blobby, Blobby, Blobby! Blobby, Blobby!
Oh, Blobby, Blobby!
Blobby, Blobby, Blobby, Blobby!
You've just got to write a letter to the universe, Blobby.
Oh, Blobby, Blobby!
Oh, Blobby! Oh, Blobby, Blobby. Ah, Blobby.
Ah, Blobby, Blobby, Blobby.
The universe just can't understand the letter.
It's going Blobby, Blobby.
Blobby, Blobby, Blobby.
Is he happy or sad?
I can't quite work this out.
I hate to come back to a question,
but what is in the football special?
Did you ever find out?
I think the chemical has changed at some point because it started to not taste as good,
but it might just be nostalgia. I don't know.
But I think it was supposed to be fruit flavoured, but what alien chemical fruit? I don't know.
But it did. It had a kick to it.
Well look, I'm feeling very excited as we
get to the dessert now because you've already had so even if you did choose a
savory here which I don't think you're gonna everything has been sweet so far
but was special yeah we're looking good. What's your dream dessert, Frankie? Hagendas Choc Choc Chip Ice Cream,
which has been discontinued.
And I don't know why I have to live in this timeline.
LAUGHTER
Hagendas used to do a chocolate Choc Chip Ice Cream.
So it's like the Hagendas Belgian Chocolate Ice Cream,
but with chips of chocolate in it.
And it was amazing.
I did notice there used to be quite a lot left
in the freezer.
And I was like, why aren't people buying that?
Must have not done so well.
Then they discontinued it.
And I was like shaking.
And I was doing Mock the Week at a time.
So it was being around 2008, something like shaking. And I was doing Mock the Week at a time. So it was being around 2008, something like that.
And one day, I was walking around London
trying to write the show.
And I saw a lid of chalk, chalk-chip ice cream.
And I was like, oh, man, it must,
they must have got it near here.
There must be some
Near here, yeah And so I looked in all the shops around I couldn't find it and I was supposed to be you remember in that show that on
The Friday or whatever they give you the scenes we'd like to see you
So you had to spend all weekend writing these jokes kind of thing. Yeah, and I was like
I've got to find this ice cream. That's more important. So I went home and I looked up, how do you find something?
And there's like this whole...
You looked up how do you find something?
Yeah.
What's a search pattern if you're looking for something?
And there's a guide on there, there was a thing of like,
how the SES search for someone, right?
And you go out in a spiral from the last place they
were seen so I had the lead and I worked my way out for like three days while I
was supposed to be writing this show googled how to find something. You followed the rules of the SAS,
which is go out and aspire up on where it was last seen.
You spent three days doing it, and you didn't find it.
I didn't find it, but I did write quite a good joke
about ice cream.
So we find that episode of Mock the Wing.
If you see that, that's what was going
through my mind at the time.
And you look knackered on that episode as well, don't you?
Yeah. Man, it was some great ice cream.
Chalk, chalk chip.
Little tiny chocolate chips.
They were sort of too small,
and I guess that's why it was a commercial failure.
But it was great.
I believe it was great, because I've never seen...
Like, you know, I've watched a lot of you
It's the first time we've met today, but I've watched watched you on various programs. I've never seen you look so happy. Yeah
Chop chop chip ice cream and then described it your eyes lit up you looked really like a giddy little kid
You were so excited about it. Yeah, there are forums about it on Reddit, I remember, at the time.
There are other people who are like, it's sort of like a kind
of, you know, like the Mandela effect.
So some people are like, oh, I think
I lived in a world where Mandela died in prison.
And people are like, no, that didn't really happen.
And people sometimes go, maybe I fell through
from a different timeline.
And maybe I came from that good choc-choc chip timeline,
and I'm doomed to be here.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
And if I could just get back there to the choc-choc chip.
I mean.
Would you like Nelson Mandela to join you for dessert in the dream restaurant?
I think he'd like that, wouldn't he?
Mandela would love it.
It'd be an awkward first five, ten minutes, but then we'd settle into it.
Yeah, I think so, yeah.
Passing it back and forward.
Well, you've had a bit much there, Mandela.
I've been looking for this for quite a while, actually think so. Yeah, I snipped back and forward. Yeah. Well, you've had a bit much there Mandela
I've been looking for this for quite a while actually Nelson if you could just slide the pot over to me. That would be great
What so I mean the thing is that must still and you must still think about this is that if you saw the lid there on
the floor then
It must have come from me like it can't be that someone dropped that on the floor
when it was still in circulation and it's just never been swept up.
Well, so like, did you check the cinemas or the theatres?
There was one cinema about there.
I did check it, yes.
I also, and this is this is where I think the evidence leans towards.
Someone was eating a tub of choc-choc-chip ice cream in a van
and threw it out the window.
Oh, God.
Did you check the splatter pattern?
It was too late for that, but it seems to me, yeah,
so maybe someone had some in a freezer somewhere,
dug it out, ate it in their van,
had some shredless marmalade, abducted someone.
LAUGHTER
I'd love it if they'd abducted someone and everyone was out looking for that person
and they were going in the opposite spiral.
LAUGHTER
And you bumped into them and said,
thanks so much for helping us try and find
this missing Percy.
Like, not quite.
Now I'm imagining that in your basement,
there was a massive board, cork board, loads of pins,
and all the pieces matter written on it.
And you're just figuring out where this ice cream was.
The fact that you've even considered that it must have been someone who had it in their
house before it had continued, went out in a van and threw the lid out of the window.
That wasn't even something that you had to improvise on the spot just now when I asked
you about it.
That was already one of the things you considered.
There's also the possibility that someone is taunting me. Yeah. They know about my love for Chok Chok Chip
and they have placed clues in my path.
Maybe it's you from a different timeline.
Yes. Savory Frankie.
Well, I mean, obviously, it's too fast.
That's like, that's the height of like, you are mock.
So maybe it was one of the other mock the week panelists trying to slow you down.
So you wouldn't be right in that week.
Maybe it's Andy Parsons.
Wouldn't put it past him.
Wouldn't put it past any of them.
We'll never know.
The thing is though, I really want to know.
So in my head this is another bit of a true crime podcast, a spin off of Off Menu.
That would be good wouldn't it?
Where we try and find...
We might need to get someone a bit better at solving things.
We need a fourth person to do quite a lot of the work.
Yeah, who's the best at solving things?
Ordemann?
Ordemann? Martin Lewis? Martin Lewis might be up for it, we don't know.
It's going to be tricky approaching him with this idea really.
Are we trying to track down who threw the lid out the van,
or are we tracking down the ice cream?
Actually, the ice cream.
Well, we just want to know what happened.
We need closure.
We want to know how that lid ended up there.
We want to know where Frankie could
have got the ice cream from around that point,
if it was possible.
We'd also like to find anywhere that still serves the ice.
So there's multiple goals in this.
I'd want to find an actual tub of it for Frankie.
I'm gonna find how that lid ended up there
and find out where I did sell it around that time
near that location.
I'm always surprised by how few people have heard of it.
Does anyone remember Chalk Chalk Chip?
Not my hand, just, and not really that that enthusiastic, like yeah, that shit is gone.
That delicious chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips in it.
Fuck it. You know?
Well, look, sometimes if we talk about food on the podcast, it gets sent to us.
Maybe if someone from Haagen-Dazs is listening, this might be the impetus they need to bring back the flavour as a limited edition
and call it Frankie Boyle's chocolate chocolate
That's an outside bet isn't it?
Now because we're talking about ice cream what consistency do you like the ice do you like to mount a bit do you like it?
Pretty solid pretty solid frozen you like it completely, just straight out the freezer?
Straight out of the freezer.
Sort of burnt almost from the freezer.
Yeah.
Wow.
So you don't like it as often at all?
I lived with someone like this for a while, one of my housemates.
I couldn't believe it.
They just get it out of the freezer and just start chipping away rather than let it melt
a bit first and then it gets soft.
Yeah. No, I'm in that camp
And also there's a lot of strategy there isn't there if you're sharing ice cream. You're like if you're chipping away that top layer
You're doing a lot of hard work
for little reward
And then the other person is getting all the ice cream
so you want to you want to strategize, really. If Slasov Zizek is third on that ice
cream, he's going to get a lot more than you. Because you've got to break the surface frost.
So what are you saying? You're letting someone else chip the top layer off so you get more
ice cream for less work? Or are you willing to put the work in?
You could do that. But yeah, no, I'm willing to put that work in, man.
Why not?
But yeah, I like it frozen.
Wow.
I still respect it.
I'm still glad that you chose that.
And this is one of the most beautiful menus
I've ever had on the podcast.
Let's read your menu back to you now, so you feel about it,
Frankie.
You would like?
Chrome would like access to the microphone.
Oh, shit. You would like oh chrome would like access to the microphone. Oh
Shit I'll post okay instead of canceled and now that's coming up. Yeah the screen as I'm saying it
It's weird. What can happen with a magical menu James. It's magic paper in there, isn't it? Oh
Certainly not a Google. I've googled that phrase by mistake
Ironically on a food podcast need to reject the cookies
And it's come up with beneath oh you choose music video for Lewis Capaldi how I'm feeling now
What happens if you use the internet in Scotland it just immediately gives you a Lewis Capaldi video.
How have you done this?
I can remember the menu, it's my menu.
Yes.
This is a format point.
You would like.
Are you going to try and remember it now?
Yes. Yes. You would like... Are you going to try and remember it now? Yes.
Yes?
You would like sparkling water.
Yes, please, with a little Ribena.
You would like a warm...
Don't help him, Frankie, because this is going to be fantastic.
It's a little Ribena and it's...
You want a warm morning roll with butter.
Warm morning roll with butter as your bread course.
You would like...
One ton soup as your starter.
You would like all the icing from a wedding cake as your main course.
Not forgetting that one.
Brown bread toast with marmalade for your side dish. You would like football special
as your drink. And for dessert you would like the chocolate chocolate ice cream, Haagen-Dazs discontinued.
The off menu menu of Frankie Boyle.
What's more for Frankie Boyle? Frankie Boyle everybody!
Thank you so much for coming to Off Menu Life. You've been absolutely brilliant. Thank you very much. Good night!
Good night.
There we are. Thank you so much to Frankie for coming on the podcast. Thank you, Frankie. And Frankie is now on tour with Lap of Shame.
Go to frankeboyle.com for tickets, please.
We will see you next week for another...
Bonus! Bye! Of shame, go to FrankieBoyle.com for tickets please. We will see you next week for another... B-b-b-b-bonus!
B-b-b-b-bye! Hello, I'm Sarah Pascoe.
And I'm Cariad Lloyd.
You might remember us from the peak of our careers, appearing on the excellent Off Menu
podcast.
It's the greatest we've ever felt and we know we'll never achieve that again.
But if you remember those episodes and enjoyed what we did, you might be a fan of our book
choices and our new comedy podcast, Sarah and Cariad's Weirdos Book Club imagine us not talking about food but talking about books but with the
comedians you know from off-menu like Nish Kumar, John Kern, Sophie Juker and more
we're not copying them we're doing our own thing it's totally different it's about books
it's about books but there's no genies involved it's a space for the lonely
outsider to feel accepted and appreciated just like James A Custer's
bedroom a place for the person who'd love to be in a real book club
but doesn't like wine or nibbles.
You can read along,
share your opinions,
or just skulk around in your raincoat like the weirdo you are.
Thank you for reading with us.
We like reading with you.
I've got the ending one as well.