S13 EP5: You seem really unhinged

0:00This episode is presented by Monzo. Josh, I love the summer holiday, aside from being asked for an ice cream every 32 seconds.

0:07Josh Widdicombe:Well, Rob, that is why it's an ideal time to get them a free Monzo kids account. Help build confidence and independence with their money. You can instantly send money or set up regular pocket money and parents still have full visibility and control from their own Monzo app. Unlike the requests for ice creams from the kids. Monzo's award-winning kids account. Search Monzo. For children aged 6 to 15, parent or guardian account needed first. UK residents only. T's and C's apply. Hello, you're listening to Parenting Hell with... Raffi, can you say Rob Beckett? Rob Beckett. Can you say Josh Widdicombe?

0:48Josh Widdicombe.

0:51Josh Widdicombe:Widdicombe. Jason. Well said. Jason. Very good. There we go. Very good. Very good. Was he doing that from a crisp packet? Yeah, it was a weird sound. Sorry, I was just thrown by the fact. So a bit whimsy then. It took you off your shrine of it, didn't I? Sorry, it's because I just read that this person's from Exeter. I went a bit alternative. Could you ever do whimsy, Rob? I've had a go. I've had a go. Do you know what? I prefer being funny. The dog's barking. Should I sell that out? I thought you preferred being funny. Fucking hell. What a start. The dog's barking. It'll come back. Imagine if he didn't.

1:37Josh Widdicombe:Imagine if that's it. Imagine if that's the end of the pod. Rob never comes back. There's no tragedy. He's just disappeared forever. Who are you bringing in? That is a tragedy. That would be weird. Obviously, yeah, we'd be sad to lose him, etc, etc. I don't think the pod would recover if Rob Beckett went missing now. I think it would become the world's greatest true crime podcast. Yeah, it would be incredible. But I don't think we could go back to me and Romesh talking about our kids, and it would be Romesh. I think you probably could in about four to six weeks. Do you think? I think that might make me a suspect.

2:13Josh Widdicombe:Do you know what I mean? I think that would make people go, oh, he moved on very quickly, and he seems to have wanted to do it with Romesh. So has he bumped Rob off? Yeah, people looking at the new deal structure and what split's going where. Yeah, exactly. Rob Mitch is on a slightly worse split than Rob was. What? We just had quite an interesting chat. Oh. If you'd never come back and you'd just disappeared, and that was the last ever people heard of Rob Beckett. Oh, wow. Whether, A, obviously it would become such a huge news story. Yeah. but whether i would then be able to continue the pod with romesh in four to six weeks or whether that would make me a suspect i if i was you i'd continue the podcast and you just leave my computer on connected to this meeting in the hope i come back do you know what it would people would listen every time and we do um kind of click baity headlines well i think people would for a few weeks just skip through the video is he back is he back no no i just um shut the front door he was barking at the noise of someone doing a leaf blower yeah um should we get back to the opening message oh yeah i'm quite stressed josh to be honest with you i've got a headache really fucking stressed busy i'm to no buffer yeah i'm living a no buff not an unintentional no buffer life i think summer holidays is the king of the and queen of the unintentional no buffer where stuff, because you're out of your normal routine of kids being in school, things get scuppered.

3:48Tensions get high. Stuff's going on. Yeah.

3:52Josh Widdicombe:Hi, Rob, Josh and Michael. I was just listening to the latest episode while out on for a run around Exeter Key. Disappointed not to bump into top runner Josh Whittaker. I have run on the key. Of course he has. Had to write in to answer the question, do we want the podcast to be more professional? The answer is absolutely not. We love the chaos. More guest-free episodes too, please. Have a touch, my son, Rafferty, reading your names. This was recorded when he was 19 months old. Now he's two weeks from turning three. Time is a thief. Anyway, keep staying sexy and relatable. Hannah Fowles from Exeter.

4:26Hannah Fowles. It is mad that we've basically, because we've been busy, just stopped doing guest interviews, but never decided that was going to happen. It's a bit like turning like...

4:35Josh Widdicombe:It's not a decision we've made. It's a decision that's been made for us by circumstance. Well, it's a bit like turning on Match of the Day and all of a sudden there's just no pundits. It's just commentators in the game, which I don't mind. It's like if Match of the Day lost the rights to the Premier League but continued broadcasting. I mean, it's essentially what we are as the rest is football. We're Match of the Day without the clips.

5:03It's mad they don't have any clips. Anyway, how are you, Josh? You said he was very stressed.

5:08Josh Widdicombe:let me take you through yesterday rob let fucking hell this light is bright isn't it i look like i'm under interrogation maybe you are so yesterday rob yeah what a fucking day it was it was queuing up to be a great one okay so both my kids were in class were in clubs yep my son had only wanted to go in on the monday but he'd enjoyed it so he wanted to go back in on the wednesday Lovely. My daughter, we took her around to a friend's house where they were doing this trinket swapping thing. They'd all made boxes to put in trinkets, and then they were going to swap them. Okay. So we went around to a friend's house.

5:51Josh Widdicombe:We had pancakes, and they swapped their trinkets. And then they went off to club. Lovely. Very wholesome. It was so wholesome. Pancakes and a quick trinket swap. Pancakes. Welcome to Exeter. you see really um like unhinged but not in a bad matter just sort of very like chaotic place i'm in a bad place so i had the whole day free i was like this is great yeah i've got a few things to do some emails fine i went out did some uh photography because i love doing that to relax yeah you did yeah well it was in paris you went for a little walk to take photos yeah that was my morning then i went back i had osteopath she's like this is a great day this is a great day then rose is like rose has got the afternoon off as well she's like shall we should we go for lunch on the coast yeah why not it's a half hour drive so we're driving out of exit yeah yeah thinking life is good

6:56Josh Widdicombe:two lanes go into one yeah yeah you know a classic two lanes go into one that's not a euphemism or a kind of reference but and then um a lorry just cuts across us yeah doesn't stop you know you know when you're like oh this is gonna hit me this is gonna hit me and there's nothing i can do about this situation i was slowing down but i was like even if i jam on the break like i'm he's cutting across yeah i'm getting less and less space here yeah his back is just coming across and i've got no choice i'm just stuck yeah i can't do anything rips off my wing mirror no yeah you sit in the albema yeah the older i mean i know so little about cars rob yeah that i said to rose oh um could you google a mercedes garage and she was like we've got a BMW I'm like I just don't know anything about my car yeah but I mean you are looking at the steering wheel with it on it I know but I'm just not interested in cars it's just not I just I can't keep any information in they then when I was on the phone to them they said what model is it I said it's an x3 yeah and they said what's the number plate I read it and they said it's an x1 And I was like, okay, it's the next one.

8:14Josh Widdicombe:I don't know.

8:21Josh Widdicombe:So the lorry just cuts across, takes off our wing mirror. Just the wing mirror, nothing else? Nothing else, thank God. And then you're like, well, I didn't stop. Did he start or did he carry on going? No, he carried on right in front of us. So we could see his number plate. Yeah. We could see also that it was a lorry driver's learning company. Oh, right. Okay. And he had an L plate on. So we take a photo of the number plate. He doesn't stop running. I'm still sure he doesn't even know this has happened. Yeah. Phone the number on the back of the lorry. we're like you've just ripped our this guy's just ripped off our wing mirror on top from road um you blah blah blah they're like okay we'll look into it and get back to you they still haven't got back to us so that's a fucking thing i'll have to chase up today yeah then we phone the the garage yep do you continue with your lunch yeah we do lunch is bringing the garage yeah well we do rose does it while we're driving you know on speakerphone kind of both of us and oh man and also now you're having to you've just been to the osteopath now you're having to turn your neck to look all the time yeah good work's gone and your neck was hurting from cycling exactly it was the cycling it was so painful i told you not to use your neck on the pedals but You wouldn't listen.

9:51Josh Widdicombe:It's just, it's got more turn. It's got more power. It's bigger muscle than my thighs. Come on.

9:59Josh Widdicombe:So speak to BMW, right? Yeah. There's no wing mirrors in the UK. They have to be imported from Germany. Right. I mean, surely we're not the first people in the UK that need a wing mirror. It's a popular model. I've seen other people driving this. Is this a Brexit thing? if it is add it to the list just add it to the bloody list so how long do you have to wait to get a wing mirror but we're going to cornwall tomorrow as well oh yeah so you're like this is such a fuck it's it's the cost but it's not the cost it's the fucking faff now do you know what i mean the cost is annoying and we'll have to you know presuming these i'm not going to say what the company was that caught us but i will be naming them if they won't happily i will happily name them if they won't cough up to cover this fucking now we're gonna have to rent a car for a week before going tomorrow i've got to find a garage that will be able to get the part so you can't are you allowed to drive it to the garage i think right do we need to find out do you feel unsafe You're safe without it.

11:18Oh, man. Driver side mirror must be present, steady and intact. Driving without it is illegal. It's the other side. So it's not your driver side? It's the passenger side. Passenger side. Here we go. In brackets, near side. Can be missing as long as the other two rear mirrors work. Great. You're in.

11:40Josh Widdicombe:Great. So theoretically, I could drive to Cornwall. Yeah. That's good news. wow that's better you can buy temporary suction ones from amazon okay we'll get a little temporary have a little temporary suck i can't tell you yesterday how far i was from having a temporary suck but yeah i think you'd be okay yeah get one there'll be a temporary one in the garage as well wouldn't there if you can't one won't come in time online just got text from i was saying the garage can't keep the car for the week can't keep it for the week no so they can't drop it off oh we'll get into it i'll deal with it after this okay is anything else gone on you seem yeah yeah i was gonna say because you seem really stressed that's really frustrating i was fine with that i thought that was the only thing you're like yeah you're just like oh fucking hell we're going so my daughter's doing this theater week yeah right it's good though because she hates performing my daughter which i see as the biggest vote of confidence for my parenting in history but they they've got two options so her and like five of her friends or six of her friends are doing it yeah and you can either be performing or you can be backstage which is making the props oh that's cool doing the sound effects all that kind of stuff so she's like loving it she's like building an elephant that she says is elephant sized yeah for this phileas fog theater thing and so we're going to watch the play at 4 p.m and then we're driving down to cornwall right so it's like jesus fucking christ we've got now that's the deadline i've got to have a car and i've got this car in the garage and then last night yeah so like yesterday was nice kids came home daughter needs a lunchbox smiggles closing up half five it's 5 0 6 okay we'll just drive into town oh no I can't drive.

13:37Josh Widdicombe:I totally forgot. I can't drive. Right. Well, you can, you can drive. So the camera just found out that I legally can't. Okay, cool. Yeah. Right. Okay. So you could, yeah, you're not. Okay. So I get attacks. Also, it does feel weird. You don't realize how often you check your passenger wing mirror until it's a what, you know, when you, you know, when you're not wearing a watch and you suddenly realize you're looking at your wrist. You wouldn't know about that. I dropped. I don't tell you. Why's your watch? I dropped. Oh, Rob. My watch, I dropped it in a bathroom and it just stopped working. Oh.

14:11Josh Widdicombe:Right? It's a nice birthday watch. I took it to the watch repair and they were like, this will need a special part because it's, you know, it's a fancy watch. Right? It's the world's smallest violin, et cetera. I get it. So I go back to the people I bought it from in London. They're like, okay, we'll see what we can do. They don't get back to me. I contact them. They're like, yeah, it's got to go back to Switzerland. it'll be 25 to 30 days until it's got to Switzerland and then they can quote you so it's got to go to Switzerland for me to get a quote how fancy is this watch? yeah it's fancy but it's just the bit they haven't got the bit because along with fucking wing mirrors we haven't got fucking watch bits everything is on mainland Europe okay so the watch is broken so then I bought a casio because i had a gig yeah i actually i had a corporate gig and i needed to be able to time my gig so off the curb my agency when you do corporate gigs you you keep an eye on time you're not just sort of freewheeling and embracing the moment and just however long do you do because you're up there loving it well i know because i want to fill my contractual hours i because once i came off five minutes too early because i looked at my watch and it was wrong right i felt terrible and it have been going well yeah and actually it was fine no one cared but i was i felt awful for it because i thought yeah you've not given them what they you know yeah so but just remember there'll be some people in that crowd they're absolutely delighted you finished early exactly there's always that also i was on before claudia winkelman so it was an upgrade get me off winkelman on get me off get winkelman on that's what people are here for i'm a fast starter at a corporate you have to really you have to put it it's like being like playing a big club you know as a lower league team, you've really got to put a few reducers in early to let them know you're there.

16:02Josh Widdicombe:Could I say something for the listeners? Yeah. As of August, I can't say what this is and Michael might edit this out. We're going to cut all of the football references on this. Yes. But if you do like the football references, they will remain in existence. I'll stop doing football references. It's a bit like when Emma Raducanu is hitting a volley serve. I've already tried to get into Wimbledon because there's a new English guy that did well. yeah he was fit as well wasn't he I googled him not a bit of me not I know nah he was French born different side of the tracks French born mum's French dad runs we're even important fucking tennis players we can't get any bits over here well no but and I think he's like his dad's like a billionaire hedge fund manager and he went to internationals so it's hard to get behind him like yeah yeah you know someone Radicala's from Bromley isn't she she's from Bromley I've never seen her since she's absolutely binned us off do you know what I mean So, you know, Andy Murray and Jamie Murray were proper.

17:04Yeah. Love them too. Love them. Love them. Struggled with Hinman. I quite like Rizitzki actually. Guys, if you're worried, don't worry. We'll be doing a tennis show.

17:16Hey, we're just two young bucks that love sport.

17:20Josh Widdicombe:Yeah.

17:23Josh Widdicombe:So, so then what happens? Yeah. We have to rush to Smiggle. Oh, no. Yeah. I get a second watch. I get a Casio. Got your Casio. And then I was struggling with the strap, and it fell down a floorboard in my house, and I couldn't reach it. I got my daughter. She's got smaller arms, but she couldn't reach it either. So it's currently... Okay. You're like... You are like... It is like... I've said this before, that comedians don't really... You don't really want to be a comedian. Your life is just a farce, and then you report back on stage or on a podcast. Like, Sean Walsh is the same. Everywhere he goes, something goes wrong.

17:56I know. I know. But is that because we're too manic and we're stressing and running around?

18:01Josh Widdicombe:ACAS is the same. ACAS's life is just these wild events. Do you know what I mean? It's just because we're weirdos. It's because we're weirdos. I got in a car after, this has ruined me this week, because I was in Manchester doing 8 out of 10 cats. But I got a car back, like driven back. It's such a long way. I got in at 4am and it just ruins you for a few days. Now I'm old. I can't do it. You should go out drinking until 4am and go out to work the next day. I'm dead. So funny. They got in the car and it was a local car company, Manchester. He went, what have you been filming? And I went, oh, eight out of ten cats is countdown.

18:34And he went, oh, I've stopped watching that since the great man Sean Locke passed. And I was like, oh, you know, oh, yeah, no. He was absolutely amazing. He went, yeah, he's brilliant. It's not the same since. I was like, okay.

18:49And he was like, what did you do on it? I was like, that's sort of his job, actually.

18:56anyway let's uh sit in awkward silence for four hours

19:01Josh Widdicombe:thankfully i've killed the conversation

19:06Josh Widdicombe:so oh then we rushed to smiggle yeah get a taxi to smiggle right because i promised my daughter we'll go to smiggle before the car thing happened we run to smiggle get there six minutes before closing yeah turns out it's wrong on google it's 6 p.m oh lovely lovely so we then stand in smiggle forever because children can't choose anything in smiggle i'm not i don't know if i love smiggle they were so nice they were such a nice i'm not saying the people i'm just gonna say this rob the difference i know i'm i know i'm boring about about like exit v london and i know it's unbearable yeah the difference in the level of service is out of this world do you think people are calmer and nicer they're just more they're not fucked off they're like oh you're someone from the area and you're so smiggle really nice and we went to waterstones up in london it's the kind of place where like a lorry will just smash into your car and drive off where exit us it's about caring for your fellow man isn't it down there in that little wonderland well i don't want to tell you i wasn't surprised when we phoned the lorry company that they didn't have a local code on their uh oh here he goes you're you've become racist to anyone that's not from exeter what is what is your xenophobic exetonian are you an exetonian uh and i am an ex well no an exetonian would be someone i think that way went to exeter school um so if you're from exeter what's your name devonian devonian is devonian i suppose i don't think yeah yeah yeah um anyway i smiggle we do smiggle we do waterstones we do nando's yeah yeah the big three then um we're more of a hunky dory pizza express waterstones crew that's our top three if you had to pin me to a wall and say where are the three places the kids want to go is that yeah yeah um also after waterstones it turns out my son needs a lunchbox but he hasn't wanted to say that because he wanted to get a car from waterstones instead but then when i got my daughter a book and him a car he suddenly remembered he wanted a lunchbox so we ran back to smiggle and made it with five minutes to spare for the 6 p.m deadline as well then we go to nando's yeah lovely and then we go and then we have to go to waitrose he wants to get the bus to waitrose two pounds fifty so did you get the bus to the shops in in the first place no we got a car because we didn't have time to get the bus because we promised because of the a load of cleaning stuff so i did that yeah then walked home get home fluffball's walking funny you've got to be fucking kidding me this fucking cat is this the one that was panting in the heat fucking kidding me this is her fourth trip so what's she been for so far panting yeah uh fight with another cat and now this plus she was returned to the vets by someone else because she was in their house while we were on holiday and then the vets phoned us and said they got fluffball right okay so she's full time plus plus she's been spayed so that that was a another another trip yeah yeah well i would say though you do love a trip to an emergency room even with your children you loved it down there we haven't been since we went to exit i think it's because it's a friendly yeah Yeah, it's a London thing.

22:57Josh Widdicombe:People don't get hurt in Exeter. Was there any injuries in the crash? Get this. The hit and run with the lorry? No injuries. No injuries. There was no injuries. Yeah. It's quite visceral when you get hit, when a bit flies off your car. It's loud and scary. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not saying it's not. It is. No, no, no. I was just saying. It shocks you. It's like when you fall over and it suddenly feels weird. Oh, I hurt my hand really bad. See that in there? Oh, yeah. Oh, what? Bloody hell. I was trying to do a flat pack, and rather than get the right thing I needed, I was stabbing at it with a screwdriver, slipped off, retracting my hand.

23:37Oh, God. It looks like Stigmata. It does, doesn't it? I know. It's really hard to play golf with it, actually. Oh, no. So just, if you see me shanking a few out there, guys and gals, I'm coming back from injury. Tiger Woods after one of his car crashes. You've not got a little glove, Rob. Yeah, so I had a plaster on it and a glove, and it gave it a bit of protection. But I'd have a little glove, yeah. And I wear the little glove. I always wear the little glove. I wear it for putting, which they tell me off for. The golfer boys. Yeah. Yeah, well, just tell them that you're a fucking renegade. You can't get the right feel for it.

24:10Anyone that's really into sport, apart from football, is a pervert. You are? No, anyone that's into sport that has equipment, get a bit perverted with it, where it's like, oh, you've got to have a real feel for the glove off. Well, that encyclist, oh, you've got to have that lycra on you. I'm not a gear guy. No. Fluffball's leg.

24:28Josh Widdicombe:So then we're like, oh, fuck, it's out of hours. So our local vet, they don't do out of hours. So you've got to go to Crediton. How bad's the leg at this point? Because I'd probably. Well, Eddie died when her legs went. Right. Because it shows that something's gone wrong in the thing. So we phone them up and they're like, you should bring her in. Okay. She's unable to spring. She's walking like she's dragging her back legs. Okay, that's not good. Not good. So then I'm like, fuck, I haven't got a car. You've got to be fucking kidding me. My only criticism, I'd say, of this story so far is it took me seven seconds to find out it was legal.

25:10I'll tell you who I won't be telling.

25:12Josh Widdicombe:I'll tell you who I won't be telling. My friend Lucy, who drove me to credit to them back. How far is that? 25 minutes each way oh and you could have done it could have probably got lucy yeah so she drives me to crediton fluff balls okay crediton what so that's a real place yeah so i'll just check yeah of course yeah checking they think it's soft tissue they're not sure she's got she has painkillers she's got them at 9 p.m every evening for a week which makes obviously the fact that we've got people coming to feed our cats a lot more difficult because they were going to do it at 9 and 5.30, so now we've got to find someone who can come and deliver a painkiller at 9pm every evening.