SERIES 16: Episode 1 - Play Date, Chainsaw, The Tribe, Gong, Merlin, Dangle

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0:40Hell, Lord.

0:41Davina McCall: Holy shit. I know, right? It's been a long time. This podcast will have that expletive mark on it now. What, because I said shit? Yeah. Oh, no. Fuck. Oh, you fucking idiot. Twa. It's terrible, terrible, ladies and gentlemen. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Welcome back to Making the Cup podcast. The trip advisor for your life. I'm Michael Douglas. Sorry, I'm giving him a call. Do you know, I've just realised, I've had cancer. You've had cancer? Yeah, haven't got it anymore. I haven't got it anymore. Kiss goodbye to that. Yeah, goodbye cancer. Yeah, I mean, we did the last podcast, I think. In August.

1:27Simon and Linda's.

1:28Davina McCall: Yeah. in Ibiza maybe. Yeah, maybe. And that might be the last one we did. And we've been trying to bring it back really non-stop since then, but we failed. So much has happened. What happens really? September is like back to work in a big way. Then the Masked Singer, which is mental really, and it's a really hard graft for both of us. And then you got cancer in the middle of the Masked Singer. Just the penultimate show. Was it? Yeah. And then we had a lot to deal with. And then... It's been a lot. Then we got married. With husband and wife. Best day of my life. Was it? I mean, I've loved giving birth to my kids, but this was different.

2:11Davina McCall: Yeah, yeah. This was a different thing. But this was a beautiful, very, very small and very, very intimate event. And pretty private. We managed to keep it quite private. Very private. It was just that somebody took some pictures of us outside and then kind of put them online. so it didn't look like it was very private but it was beautiful and private. Yeah, so we did that. Then we had Christmas and then we threw a New Year's Eve party this year. Yeah, and that was good. Banging that one. Banging. Oosh. Oosh. And now we're back to work. It is Sunday. What date is it? Like the 4th? 4th. Do you know how we know that?

2:49Davina McCall: I was just going to say that. It's my eldest son's birthday tomorrow. Tomorrow. 22. Can you believe it? Happy birthday, Sunny. I bought him a subwoofer for his speakers. Yes. which... You're not supposed to say that out loud. This will go out on Friday. It will be his birthday by then. Oh, OK, OK, fine, fine. He's just about moving to a new flat, and I think that subwoofer's going to cause me some problems. Let me tell you. Yeah, at the flat. The neighbours. It's not going to cause you any problems. Well, it is, because I'm on the tenancy. It's going to cause them the problems. Yeah, that'll come back to me, yeah.

3:21Anyway, ladies and gents, it's such a treat to be back.

3:24Davina McCall: It is. It feels really nice. I've got a brilliant first go. Cancer-free. Yeah, it is nice. I'm not joking. I've got radiotherapy. By the time this goes out, I will be having at 8.40 on Friday morning my final radiotherapy session. On the boob. And I'll be done and my boob will be roasted. Uh-huh. And I'll be officially finished. Yeah, yeah, and then hopefully. Yeah. Fingers crossed. Yeah, done, cancer-free. You're all clear. It's not coming back. I'm going to be very sort of like positive. I'm manifesting that shit. Yeah, as you know, this podcast is a recommendation podcast where we just recommend things that we've experienced or seen or liked or tasted or danced to or listened to or anything really.

4:08Yeah. We're going to try and give them to half an hour episodes. Then they don't get too stressful for us to make. And then we can keep making them. So.

4:17Davina McCall: My first one. Can I do the first one? I'm so excited about it. Okay, so this is an app. And I love the name of it so much. but it's also got a website and the website is go to playdate.com go to playdate.com and the app is just called Playdate you get it from the app store and it is the first dating app in the UK for single parents this is such a good idea so if you're widowed or divorced or separated or just a solo parent you know like my mum your dad but on an app Of course. And they've created this dating app for parents. And it's founded by a single mum called Naveen. And it's like a safe place for parents to chat first off, obviously connect.

5:11Davina McCall: And, you know, date. But obviously I think having a kid is a big deal if you're in the dating arena. It's something that if you are older and your kids are all grown up, you might not want to enter into again. It's like you do need to find somebody that gets what it's like to have a kid and is open minded to and blending. And so the features are this is so brilliant. They have also teamed up with a babysitting app. Oh, wow. So while you're on a date. This is brilliant. You can get a babysitter. and if you don't want your ex finding your profile, you can be invisible on the app. To him or her. Yes, to them.

5:55Davina McCall: How good is that? Yeah, yeah. This is such a brilliant app. Anyway, you create your profile, you set your filters, you find your matches and you start chatting and Bob's your uncle. Done. Wow. So Playdate is the name of the app. Do you know whether it's free or not? Oh, do you know what? I don't know. It actually, interestingly, doesn't say. Okay, so you might have to pay or you might have to look at some advertising. Yeah, I don't... How it works. I can't see that it says anywhere and you would think terms and conditions, maybe? No, I don't think so. No. Anyway. All the really good-looking ones are behind a paywall.

6:32Is that how it works?

6:35Davina McCall: What, like us? Yeah, everywhere. I don't know about that. A few years ago, maybe. That sounds brilliant. Me or you. Yeah. Am I going to find you on there? No, I think when you said a few years ago, I was like, me or you. You're getting better with age. It's really fucking annoying, to be honest. You make me feel so good. What's happening to me? You know, I'm deteriorating. Are you joking? Thanks for fucking for that. Are you fishing? Fishing. I was fishing there, yeah. Right, what are you going to talk about? Crikey, what should I talk about? There's so many things. I've done some DIY today. Yeah.

7:07And you bought a little bird table from the garden centre. Yes, yeah. And I decided I would dig a hole in the garden, and put a kind of a log, big tall log, about a seven-foot log, into this hole in the ground. Yes, it was brilliant. So clever. But what I did is that I'd forgotten last summer, I was going to talk about this last summer, is that I bought a mini cordless battery-operated chainsaw. It's eight inches long, the blade.

7:34Davina McCall: Is that the one that you cut your finger with? Yeah, yeah. I don't really cut my finger off with it. Wait, can I just tell you all, he stitched his own finger back together. Yeah, not with a needle and thread, just with like sterile strips. But I thought, I looked at it and I could see the bone and everything. I was like, I shall go to hospital or not. And I thought, this hospital will be like four hours of waiting and all faffing about. My son cut himself once very badly and he went to hospital and they did the worst job. I watched them do it and I was like, is that really what you're going to do?

8:09Davina McCall: You could do better. I thought, I'll do better than that. So I thought about that and I thought, I'll do it myself. So I cut up some little bits of plaster, turned them into strips and pulled the cut across and pinched it together and then wrapped a bit of tape around it. And within it, I mean, look at that. You can't even see where it was. No, and it went right across your finger. You are lucky you've still got a finger. Oh, yeah, yeah. It was right down to the bone. Would have ruined my career, wouldn't it? Yeah. Anyway, the point is I bought this little chainsaw. It's just an eight-inch chainsaw.

8:35I can't remember the name of it or anything, but I am going to recommend it as just one of those things that you should have. If you like pottering around in the garden or you just like doing bits of DIY or there's some things you need to cut and a hand saw won't do it, you might have a circle. I have used this thing for so many little odd jobs. So the other thing is a dugout hole for a fire pit in the garden. And as I was digging, I kept coming across tree roots. Oh, yeah. Whizz down with a chainsaw. Go through it, yeah. Whizz them out. You know, that's a massive job with an axe or the edge of a spade or something like that.

9:08This little chainsaw was so bloody good. Where did you get it? I think I got it at Homebase when they were shutting down. But what I will do is in this week's post on Instagram, I'm making a cut, I'll take a picture of it.

9:19Davina McCall: Yeah. And I'll post it on there and you can have a little look. It was 65 quid, two batteries, a charger, a spare chain blade. And it was... And you have used it a lot. I've watched you. I just love this little thing. It is brilliant. So yeah, I spiked, if you like, I carved a spiky end onto the log and then speared it into the hole and then filled the hole with soil. Can I just tell you that even you just talking about DIY turns me on. Does it? I'm allowed to say that now, aren't I? You're my husband. I think in this day and age. You're my husband. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's completely normal.

9:56I'm allowed. Yeah, you're allowed. But it is sexy.

10:00Davina McCall: Yeah, yeah, okay. You making things is like one of my penchants. Something I'm going to talk about, you're going to be a bit annoyed that I'm talking about because I've stolen it off you. Yeah, it's okay. I'm used to. It is The Tribe, which is a brand that we found at a festival that we went to. Yeah. And they are called The Tribe and their website is thetribe.berlin and they just make the greatest clothes ever. So some of the slogans on the back of their jackets that they've got. So Michael's got several of these jackets and some of my favourite jackets you've actually got are these ones. They're made out of sequins, multicoloured sequins and on the back is written, think less, dance more.

10:50Davina McCall: But another one that they've got, which is like, they've got like a pilot jacket and it's got make love great again. Yeah, yes And then this is one of my favourites that we saw at that festival last year And that was that awkward moment between birth and death

11:08Davina McCall: And they've got so many absolutely brilliant I've got four jackets from here now But they've got like tote bags If you want to buy any gifts for anybody They've got really nice little balaclavas They've got the tote bags with all of those on And again, that awkward moment between birth and death, which is really funny. They've got fantastic sweatshirts. And some of them are, if you're interested, are written in German, which I also think is really cool. And they've got amazing hot water bottles. So my daughter, Holly, just loves hot water bottles. And I've got her one of these. Yes. So good. So, yes, the tribe, Berlin.

11:52Davina McCall: go and follow them also on Instagram. They are really amazing. Now, Christmas this year, Christmas presents. Yeah. You know, it's... You excelled yourself this year. Well, I'm going to talk a little bit about that. Yeah. Now, you are quite a difficult person to buy for. I think you can appreciate that. I can. You've got a lot of the stuff you want, you've already kind of got. So I try and kind of think outside the box a little bit. You really did that this year. particularly expensive, but something very thoughtful or something, you know, that really leans into something that you've been working on or thinking about or whatever it is, you know.

12:31And I've done some great, great, yeah, some great presents over the years, but every so often I really get stuck.

12:39Davina McCall: Oh, you get stuck? I thought you were going to say I excel myself. Well, I have done a tough one. Because this year... Well, this year was a bit of a wild card, really. But I loved it. Instagram, as you do on a daily basis, and then stumbled across somebody hitting a gong, a huge 36-inch gong. And I was like, bloody hell, that gong is beautiful. You know, it was so, so stunning. It was. When I say gong, I mean a big gong. You know, like the guy does at the beginning of the film. Shall I go get it? I mean, it might be a bit, yeah. Stay there. Stay there. You're going to get it. Keep talking. Tell them about it.

13:19I don't know if the gong stick is there or not. might be downstairs in the bottom so yeah so i was like wow the gong looks so beautiful let's see what it is and anyway it turns out it's what's called a sonora gong and it's a giant big brass bronze disc obviously it's about 36 inches is the one i got um i think i got let me see what which one it's called i got the deep gong um it's called um now it came from america it was expensive and they also had to pay import duty of nearly 400 pounds when it came in so i was a bit like

13:55Davina McCall: holy shit balls you know i'm gonna go and have a look for the things okay go on yeah go and have a look and then you can bang it but davina bought herself a lot of sound bowls um in the summer and they're these glass bowls that you bang with this leathery stick and then you rub this the leathery stick around the sound bowl and the sound that comes out of it is breathtaking it's beautiful and I was like okay the gong the sound bowls and all that kind of stuff when we're meditating and relaxing and stuff like that anyway this thing turned up and I was like I wonder if she's gonna think what the hell has he bought me anyway she opened it and I was like wow it's mega and then I bought this stand to go with it and I got it on the stand and then I gave her the the bong stick or whatever it is that big drum stick and she hit it and honestly we all about fell over the sound was just incredible.

14:50I got it from, it's called grottasonora.com and it's an American site, so you don't want to get it from there. But you can go to like Gear for Music, which is a big music shop in the UK and I've noticed they do gongs as well. Let's have a little look while we're on here. Gongs, Gear for Music. But you want a big one. You don't want something too small. 12 inch, 12.5, 18 inch, 24. Are you ready? Yeah, I think so, yeah. I'm just having a look at what they've got gear for music. You're probably rooking around about, you know, for a decent really... So there's a 24-inch one there at£323. OK, this is the magical deep sonora gong.

15:57Wow.

15:59Davina McCall: What I love... Still going. What I love is that it goes... And then it comes back. Yeah. It's unbelievable, and it is the most beautiful thing... Yeah. ...I have ever seen. It is so stunning. It really is, like, special. It's incredible. So I've bought a wall bracket for it. So I'm going to put it in the bedroom, actually. Yeah, so we can go, OK, start. Start. Are you ready? Bong. And then in. In. But it's beautiful. But have a look at Gear for Music. They're around about£300 for a 24-inch gong. But they are all so beautiful. They're like pieces of art. They really are artistic. In their own right, you know.

16:43But New Year's Eve, we had a bit of a party, and I DJed between about 10.30.

16:47Davina McCall: Oh, my God, wait, I've just got to tell our listeners. Michael DJed. I keep saying this, but I've just never felt so much love for one person in the room. You gave it such welly. I did. But you also played some really brilliant, like, absolute crowd filler, like, crowd pleaser floor fillers that everybody just loved so much. Yeah. And you were so funny. But like funny and cool, like not funny, stupid or I mean, oh, my God, it was just amazing. It was brilliant. But the great thing is we had the gong. So every time you had a beat drop in the song, you go bong and then the music would come out. It's just like, what the hell is going on here?

17:34So it turned into this lovely interactive instrument that everybody could ever play with in the middle of this party. But anyway, so go and check it out. If you're interested in that, you like meditating, you like the idea of this kind of ceremonial thing that you can open and close a moment in your life with. It's just a really, really special thing. So it's a Sonora gong, and you get two types of sticks. You get this lovely fluffy one, but you get this rubbery one that you can rub down the gong itself and it goes... You know, it's just...

18:05Davina McCall: And you're actually quite good at that. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of quite impressive. Anyway, okay, so that's me.

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19:45Davina McCall: I have got a lovely app that people can download, which I have really enjoyed using, called Merlin. And it is a bird ID app. So you can go to the app store. But I'm going to tell you about it first. So you just hold up the phone and you press identify and it will give you photographs of all the birds that are singing in your garden at that present time. And there will be like a photo ID kind of shortlist. And sometimes you can take a picture of a bird and it will help you ID that bird. So giving you kind of photographs of the closest matches to what they think it could be. And then you can go, actually, I think it's this one.

20:33And then you can ask Merlin like questions about the bird and it will try and help you ID.

20:40Davina McCall: and then you can save birds to a life list. So it's like the birds that are in your garden. I mean, it's just like the gift that keeps on giving, but I've never been into birds. I don't know even who I am. Who am I? You are a bird. I'm a bird. Top totty. But it's actually so lovely. I think it's been made by Cornell University. I mean we've already talked about this but I think that it's free iPhones and iPads and on Android Android 7s or newer yeah I just think you download it you don't pay for it or anything it just and I think they get lots of data from it oh okay that's how they fund it but it's absolutely knock out knock out isn't it yeah Yeah, yeah.

21:38So I started to do this thing two days ago, which I've got you doing as well. So this is a little health recommendation I stumbled across. And it was to hang yourself from your arms. So a bit like you're doing a pull-up, but don't do the pull-up. Just dangle. And dangle for two minutes, two minutes a day, it said.

21:58Davina McCall: And if you're doing it from a door, you could do it like with your feet lifted up off the ground and your ankles crossed over or something. We've got a pull-up bar that hangs, that clasps onto a door frame, the architraving around the door frame. Now, I bought one of these for 11 quid at TK Maxx. I got a slightly better one off Amazon that was more like 65 quid that you can do other things on. It's got different shaped bars. So you don't need specialist equipment. You could just get one of these pull-up bars from Amazon that claps onto a door frame and then you dangle. but it was essentially saying that it was one of the greatest things you could do for your body certainly if you're a little bit older and what it does to your spine in particular which is your spine obviously can start to get compressed as you get older that's why people get shorter there was one guy claiming in the comments that he'd grown an inch and a half after doing this for over two months he basically hanged for two minutes a day now I thought, I've seen these I can't believe that you can actually hang for 10 minutes.

23:02Davina McCall: I tried it today for the first time. I could only do a minute. But I am getting to an age where I'm already struggling to open a jar. I'm hoping that this is going to help me. Well, one of the things it does strengthen is your grip, because you have to grip hold of the bar and hold your weight with your hands. I think that's what's going to help me. So forearms, hands, fingers, they all get an enormous workout. out but to dangle there your your body your shoulders your lats your chest your core your spine and all your bones get pulled apart so it's brilliant for your joints apparently so anyway this guy said look do this every day for a month and tell me you know it hasn't done wonders for you and I was like I'm always looking for new ways to do this so my recommendation this week is if you've got the opportunity try it see if you can do it I didn't think because I remember at my son's school, you know, like they have like a summer fair.

23:57And there was a thing where if you could dangle, you paid a quid. But if you could dangle for longer than two minutes, you won a fiver or something like that. And I watched people try and do that. Nobody could do it. So I was like, yeah, dangling for two minutes is too hard. I did it yesterday. No problem straight off the bat. I've just done it again half an hour ago. It's much harder today.

24:18Davina McCall: I mean, I've just got to say that I consider myself to be quite strong, but I could only do one minute. So just to say, like, don't worry if you are somebody that can't do the two minutes. You're with me. But, yeah, just a good recommendation. I'm going to do this and I'll update people as we get into February and that and see how it's gone. But I've really kickstarted a workout vibe going in a big way since January 1st. Yeah, thank you. I'm very proud of you. I'll quickly just talk about a song. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't Lose Time is a song by Weevil. Weevil have also got an album out called Choraphobia.

25:03Davina McCall: That's their new album. Don't Lose Time isn't on that album. It's a single from before. But I'm just also saying Choraphobia is also absolutely amazing. Great song, isn't it? But Don't Lose Time by Weevil is one of those songs that I would highly recommend that you listen to on some good headphones and walking somewhere. It's got a great walking rhythm and you will be marching through wherever you're going. Should I put the reset on New Year's Eve? Oh, it is. What a banger. Michael and I once just sat down and listened to it so loud. Yeah, led down. And we didn't even dance or anything, but it is a dance track.

25:49Davina McCall: It's a stunner. But it is really, really good. But good headphones, or if you've got really good speakers at home, just tell everyone to shut up and play it and just sit through it. If you've got a gong, sound the gong before it starts. Sound it until it finishes. And I mean, it's a good five minutes long. It's maybe even six minutes. It's like a six-minuter. We've had a couple of shout-outs. This one's three weeks old. This is the newest one we've got. We haven't been doing it. But this is from, I think it says, Joe Forest House. Yeah. He is on Instagram and he says, I just wanted to say how much I miss you guys.

26:26No pressure to come back because I know there is lots of much more important things going on for you both right now. Thank you, Joe. But I do miss your cheerful chatter. I just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you.

26:38Davina McCall: Oh, that is the nicest message ever. Thank you, Joe. Yeah. We're actually great now. Ever since the 1st of January, everything's changed. Yes, I don't know if anybody else felt a huge shift in energy, atmosphere, spiritual goodness. It was the supermoons. Something happened, really, just towards the end of December and then literally the beginning of January. We got married and it was the supermoons. And last night, me and Michael went outside and it was last night was the third, the evening of the third of January. And it was the full moon for January. And it was the final super moon of this series of four.

27:25Davina McCall: And we saw five shooting stars between us. We went outside probably about half past midnight just for half an hour, got wrapped up and just stared up in the sky. We saw five shooting stars. The super moon last night. It was mega. Unbelievable. It was so exciting. So, like I said, I don't know if anybody else. Let us know if you felt just a shift. I think I had the hardest year of my life last year. I think it was so hard. It broke me, really. I would say by November, I was done. I just thought, oh, I don't think I can recover from this. And I cannot tell you how good I feel. Yeah. But you have.

28:07Davina McCall: Yeah. And you're amazing. Well done. Thank you. I can't tell you how good I feel at the moment. It's the best I've felt for as long as I can remember. So Amanda has sent us a message. Amanda ate, get healthy. I like it. It's Amanda ate, get healthy. It's a number eight, not ate food. Yeah. There's probably a link there. Davina inspired me when I started my fitness journey. She doesn't follow me anymore. Oh. It's fast enough to pass on. healing thoughts to her she encouraged me to keep my fitness going i'm encouraging her to stay strong and i'm sending love thanks very much um let's have a little look uh oh man glad to hear davina is okay sending much love and light to you both uh yeah we had a few people messages in october and i messaged a few back uh just basically saying yeah we're really going to try and try and get on top of this thing very sorry to hear davina's going through it with the breast cancer diagnosis i'm not sure if this is helpful or not but my mum was diagnosed with stage for breast cancer at 57 she had a lumpectomy and chemo prior to that uh to shrink the lump first as hers was very fast growing no sign of anything in the lymph nodes and she had some radiotherapy as a precaution my mum's been cancer free for many years now 74 and going strong and even had her first tattoo recently um wishing you all the love and strength on the journey be kind to yourself and it's an emotional roller coaster and have a good rest all your listeners will be here for you when you return nikki i just want to say and that that is really really helpful and every time i hear a story about somebody that's had breast cancer and it's never come back has really really helped me um feel positive and um manifest so thank you very very much That was really helpful.

29:58Those messages have been lovely, haven't they? I'm going to finish with one thing that I heard today from Jimmy Carr.

30:07Davina McCall: Yes. Oh, yes, this is great. And I thought it was fab. Somebody had asked him a question about play. I'm going to play this and then we'll say goodbye. Funny as a kid. Fucking hilarious. But everyone was funny when they were a kid. Every one of you was funny as a kid. you just fucking stopped

30:31we don't stop playing because we get old we get old because we stop playing

30:36Davina McCall: yes so good this is play this is play I'm of the opinion we are the playing animal everything in society that we love, the whole of society itself is based on play like if you drop one human in the jungle you fed the animals drop 10 humans in a jungle you've got an apex predator our great advantage is working together cooperation and cooperation is downstream of play we learn to work together through playing anything you give a fuck about is play whether it's sports you go and see whether it's theater whether it's comedy whether it's music playing is everything and the reason you're here this evening is you might think naively i'm the only one performing you're all performing in the audience we're all playing our part.

31:24It's just fun, isn't it? So good. He's so good at the moment. He's so good. He's really, really found this philosophical edge to himself. Yeah. Thank you, everyone, for your patience. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Davina. We'll see you all very, very soon. We love you. Yeah, lots of love.

31:44Davina McCall: Bye-bye.