James O'Brien

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1:05Hello and welcome to Table Manners. I'm Jessie Ware. I'm here with Lenny and she's got a little story for you guys about mistakes in the kitchen. Bit of a culinary disaster, Jess. And I don't blame myself. What happened? I followed a recipe from The Guardian. The perfect lamb tagine. And when I looked it up on my index, I had to look at P rather than L because it was perfect. What are you talking about? I save all my recipes. Oh, instead of lamb tagine. Your index. Did you have a spreadsheet? No, it's in my computer. I save all my recipes. So I've got every recipe. There's a book in there somewhere.

1:42So it said, I should have realised, it said 600 grams of meat and then 200 grams of dates, my good measure of dates. Yes, very expensive. Individually light little pack. And then 100 grams of apricots. Didn't mention salt. It was two onions. Where's the acid in that? No acid. There was no tomato ketchup. Nothing. No lemon. No orange. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Did you not think? Hmm. I didn't. Did you not think what would Samin Nosrat do? No. I didn't think that because it said perfect. And it was in The Guardian. So I thought, no, this was going to be perfect. I thought, I felt quite smug. So I did it, cooked it, spent ages doing it.

2:30peeled or you know did all the dates took the stones out did it all exactly as they said well it was like eating something that had sugar in it so i tried i fished all the dates out yeah but haven't they mushed up by this point they had a bit but i tried to find them and then i put i thought i'll put some vinegar in i'll put some tomato puree in olives in it no i didn't at that stage I wasn't sure about adding olives but I put some tomato ketchup some vinegar I put salt in which it hadn't had on the recipe which I think was odd they've like missed I think they've missed out like three ingredients right so then I did all that and then it was still not right so I thought what shall I do I just didn't I couldn't do another one yeah so I went to cook I bought one lamb tagine.

3:22They are very good. For four, yeah. And then I thought, what I'll do is I took out all the lamb from mine and the chickpeas and added it to the lamb tagine I've got and it tastes lovely. You know what, Mum? What? That's problem solving. I respect you. I respect your honesty and I think a lot of listeners will respect that. I wasn't going to be honest. I whispered to Tully and then big ears flapped and said, what's happened? I wasn't going to tell you Actually let's put this to the listeners How many of you I've never cheated before have I I don't think this is a cheat I think this is a solution A solution How many listeners have served up cook meals And claimed it as their own I think everybody does tell me Please write to hello at table manners podcast dot com I did throw away the casing outside But we're not going to tell James Because we'll find out about it on the podcast But when he says it's really delicious, Lenny, what are you going to say?

4:23I'm going to smile and say thank you. Have you gone for a less risky pud? You know how MasterChef, Jess, you make or break yourself with a chocolate fondant. I thought, well, I'm not going to say the words because it begins with S. I thought, it, I'm going to have a go. So this could be the redemption of the cooked agine. It might be the redemption or it might be the tin lid on the hat or whatever. It might be the end of everything. Lenny, whatever happens. It will be all right. You're on fire tonight. It will be all right, darling. Have you got some cream? I've got cream and ice cream. So you're in your element, darling.

4:59Right. Anyway, we have somebody that mum is very excited about. Oh, my God. Maybe you are just too excited about this guest that you read the recipe wrong. I think I was. I was trying to do... No, I'm going to show you the recipe. I've been so excited because I've been reading his book. I just think he writes so well it's so easy to read his book that is out now and it repeatedly gets back into the Sunday Times bestsellers is called How They Broke Britain he has the biggest commercial talk show 1.4 million a week he manages to get the point across whilst also ask the hard questions whilst also sound like he's talking on behalf of the whole nation we've got James O 'Brien coming on the podcast this is going to be Lenny's episode It's my favourite, favourite.

5:45You know, Lenny's going to put on the Radio 4 voice. She's going to get in good. So I'm just going to let you sit back and enjoy the ride, as I will. James O 'Brien coming up on Table Runners.

6:05James O 'Brien, cheers. Oh, Yamas. Drinking a Greek wine. Yeah, let's see if it's any good. Perky We can have something else It probably needs opening How are you? Very well, thank you for having me Thank you for coming Who's going to interview who today? I'm off duty Are you good at being probed? I love it actually You don't know how excited I am That's so kind of you I know you've got form with lefties A lefty can have crossed the threshold Without being love bombed I know Oh, wow, I know. And Alistair and Ed and all that. Alistair and Ed, yeah. Yeah, well, they're professional. Yeah, Ed was the kind of the great surprise.

6:48Yes. He's so charming. Yes, he is. So attractive as a human being. And you had no very little inkling of that when he was in the leader of the opposition. James, which Tory would you suggest that we have on? I did Dominic Grieve quite recently. Yeah, he's lovely, but he's an old proper Tory. Yeah, that's what I mean when they're outside Parliament. The current crop, I don't know, to be honest. There's clearly some who are biting their tongue constantly and sitting on their hands, but I think there comes a point where you're biting your tongue so hard that it ceases to be... You can't use your tongue.

7:21You can't use your tongue. Exactly that. So I don't know. What's happened with the vote? Tonight, I don't know. I was walking around Clapham. I presume... The vote for Rwanda. The amendments on the Rwanda bill. Oh, shit. All the very right-wing Tories don't think it goes far enough. It's not nasty enough. It's not nasty enough. You've got a few in the middle saying it's too nasty. 30p, Lee. Yeah, 30p, Lee. Lee Anderson. Yes. Is Jonathan Houlis following him? Houlis. You've gone for the Greek, because we're having Greek wine, you've gone for the Greek pronunciation of Jonathan Gullis. Houlis. Houlis.

7:52Malakha, he's in Malakha. Do you go to Greece a lot, then? You've got swear words under your belt. I speak a bit of Greek. I love Greece. How? I had a Greek girlfriend at university, and long after breaking out with her, I was still in love with Greece. The language of love. Yes, we go every year actually What's the most romantic thing to say in Greek? Well you can say I love you Sagapopoli Agapimo In fact in the book in the acknowledgements there's two things You've not put the old girlfriend in the book No, don't be ridiculous There's two things that no one else will understand I say thank you to the guy that ran the place we go to in Cardamilli at the bottom of the Peloponnese every year because I got to it's beautiful near Kalamata I've got to stop recommending it otherwise I'm never going to get in there that's where Beth and Ertz been so I say thank you to Stavros and all the crew at Ellie's and then I list 15 men all of whom I describe as having brought me great joy and even my wife said who are these and I said that is the Kid and Mr.

9:02Harry is promotion winning squad so it's all in there I love that. All my vices and joys are covered in the acknowledgement. So, I mean, food-wise, can you recommend a Greek for us? A Greek restaurant? In London? Yeah. I mean, Bayswater's pretty good. There's a couple of nice places in Bayswater. There used to be the one that was a major and a micro, macro. Yes, that's right, yes. What was it called? I can't remember. And it was at the back down a little muse place. Yes, that place. I could never find it. No, you can't find it. It's a short story. It's around the back and it's a little muse. and it was delicious.

9:37And then I could never find it again. Someone took me there. Someone took me there and I could never find it afterwards. You two are going to get on there. Is that right? Very well. So we're Greek... Grecofiles? Grecofiles. We're all Grecofiles. What's your first order when you get to your place? Kolo Kifo Keftevis. Oh, Keftevis? Kolo Kifo Keftevis. What are they? The courgette. Oh, the courgette fritters. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Did you get garlic sauce with it or not? Yeah, the tatziki. or the it's like scudalia and and you can't you can order it here you can make it here but there's nothing like sitting down with a C and ordering it first and probably some saganaki as well some fried cheese because that also you can order here see we don't get much fried cheese what are you talking about well when do you have fried cheese I feel like we've delved more into the prawn saganaki which isn't the fried cheese I think it just means fried saganaki just means fried I thought it meant with cheese no no because it's prawn saganaki, which is just fried cheese.

10:35Fried prawns. No, it's with tomato and feta. Okay, but cooked in a frying pan. Okay, fine. You really had to finish that, didn't you, James? No, no, no, we bake it. Well, we're going to let your Greek listeners decide. Yeah, maybe our Greek listeners should decide on that, because us lot, we don't... But we used to always have those deep-fried courgettes. You know, they were like very, very thin. Like ribbons. Crispy ones, like ribbons. Yes. And then have skudalia on top of that. and you had to eat them as they came out the pan yeah but the Colo Kipa there's like nothing else on there and what's the first drink is it a Mithos no I probably probably order some wine so it's a Krasi Korkino because the great thing your pronunciation Korkino is red wine darling yeah but you're doing you're doing very well I'm showing off I'm showing off you are showing off I'm getting quite attractive there you go yeah because two reasons why I mean we're quite well known now they recognise us because we go back every year but also almost in the polar opposite of trying to speak French in France Greek people love it especially someone as pale as me no one's ever going to mistake me for a Mediterranean so when I actually come out with passable restaurant Greek which is all I've got it just creates a lovely atmosphere people love it 30 years I've been twice now to the city lit where Socrates my teacher goes Bravo, bravo Helena And I know One word What is it?

12:08Malacas I'm trying to say hello or I am And I can't get it at all And if I get one word right he goes Bravo Maybe you need James O 'Brien teaching you that Over a glass of wine So you are on Table Manners We are thrilled to have you Mum's got a lot of questions I've read a lot of the book Good. A real lot of it. And, I mean, we're going to talk about the book, but can we start at the beginning, dinner at time, in your childhood? Where were you brought up? Kidderminster. Kidderminster in Worcestershire. So mum and dad are both from Yorkshire. Yorkshire, and they ended up in Kidderminster? Because dad was a journalist, so he got made, when I was three and a bit, he was made the Midlands correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, which in those days was a very reputable and respectable newspaper.

12:57They haven't got a Brummie accent at all. No, no. You managed to avoid that. Well, they did send me to private school, so I think that played a small part in the... I don't have a Yorkshire accent or a Midlands accent, but, yeah, Kidderminster, a nice, normal childhood. Was it a boarding school? Not until... I went to weekly boarding school when I was 10, but only up the road, and only because I insisted on it. My mum was heartbroken. I mean, you don't know these things until you... You were 10? Yeah. And you wanted to go to... Yeah, because I couldn't be the lead in the school play unless I was a boarder, Because if I was, then mum or dad would have to pick me up at like eight, nine o 'clock at night.

13:30And they couldn't really do that because dad would be out on jobs and my sister would be in bed at home. So without telling them, when I realised that I was in with a chance of being the lead in the school play, I applied to become a weekly boarder at school. The headmaster was very surprised by this because my parents hadn't mentioned it. And I went home and told my parents and my mum burst into tears. And I didn't really register at the time how thoughtless that was of me. But I got the part. Did you get the part? Yeah, I got the part. What was the part? It was playing the scarecrow in Percival the Performing Pig.

14:00So it's one of the greats. One of the canon. There wasn't even any kissing in it. You chose the scarecrow over your mother. There's the Scottish play, and then there's Percival the Performing Pig. No, I didn't choose, but it was weird. I mean, it was school in those days. I got in at the very end of that Victorian era almost, when children were still beaten, and the dormitories were still very Spartan, and you'd have, you know, you weren't quite breaking the ice on your water bowls. But, you know, particularly at my next school, bullying was quite normal. So it was very weird, actually. But it was not wholly unpleasant.

14:37And I never regretted it. Did you miss your mum and dad? Yeah, desperately. I used to miss the smell of my mum's hair. I always remember that. Always. What did you smell of? I don't know. Did she have hair smell? She must have worn perfume, wasn't she? Probably. I don't know. it was longcomb what's longcomb's best perfume was it no hairspray it was perfume a perfume so mum worked on the um estee lauder counter in owen and owen in kidderminster for a while around that time so she always smelled lovely and yeah i'd miss that i'd really miss that what was the food like at boarding school perhaps well both absolutely shocking i could not exaggerate how awful it was no i found it inedible but i i was quite i'd been quite spoiled i suppose always mum would cook our favourites and what were your favourites I used to love what mum called it risotto right but it wasn't what was it it was bolognese sauce with rice clever it's delicious and it's probably still try that with the kids it's so good it's so good but that's what I thought risotto was so when I moved to London and I went to a fancy Italian restaurant and I saw risotto on the menu I thought so I ordered a risotto what did you get I got a lumpy soup didn't I which was delicious and I Thank God I really, really liked it.

15:52But it wasn't. So obviously I'd been slightly misled about what constituted. So she'd do that. But also normal mince. You know, mince and onions with potatoes. Was she a good cook? Yeah, I think so. But I think she was a brilliant cook. But also, you know, this was the 70s and 80s, so we'd have Finder's crispy bread pizzas, Finder's French bread pizzas and pancake rolls. Did that feel like a treat? Yeah, they were treats. So what we call now processed food was a treat. It was like mum would normally cook something, have a roast every Sunday with Yorkshire puddings, whatever the roast was. We'd always have Yorkshire puddings.

16:25So you went home every weekend? I did until I was 13. And then where did you go? And then I'd stay at school. And then when I went to my next school in Yorkshire, a place called Ampleforth. Oh, my God. I'd be away for a month. And yeah, it was horrible in many, many ways. But the food there was shocking. Are you Catholic then? Yeah. O 'Brien. Yeah. That's a clue. It meant a lot to my dad, the Catholic element of it, but the food was unbelievable. The first thing I used to do, I still do this. My mum notices it. Dad's not with us anymore. I go back to Kilimanjaro. I've got my own home now, I'm very glad to say, with a family and two children, and I have a rough idea about what's in the cupboard and what's in the fridge.

17:04But whenever I go to my mum's, I was 52 last week, whenever I go to my mum's, I open the fridge, check out what's in the fridge. Oh, Jesse does every day. Because you're hungry or just because you're... I've already delved in and just had a little pick of a bit of cheese. I'm literally still holding this sense of finally there's food in this. No, I'm just greedy. Yeah, well, it's perfectly normal behaviour, isn't it? So would you say the bolognese risotto was the kind of memorable dish of your childhood? For home cooked, that was my favourite dish. My sister's was fish fingers and chips. And then on Fridays we'd get fish and chips from the chippy.

17:41That was a treat as well. But, yeah, there were other things. I used to really like cold ham and new potatoes with salad. Mum would do that as well. I'm trying to think. I'm not doing her a great service, but she'd cook. She's still with you, your mum? Yeah, yeah. Does she come for Christmas? She's not very mobile at the moment. So she came for last Christmas, but she couldn't come for this Christmas. So we went up there in between Christmas and New Year. My sister cooked. My sister started cooking quite late, in sort of her mid to late 40s. She suddenly discovered an enthusiasm for cooking, which is really, really nice.

18:14So food did play quite a big part. And we'd go out quite a lot. I realise now that Dad was putting it on expenses, which I didn't realise at the time. Good for him. Exactly. So we'd go out for Indian food and Chinese food, which was still relatively new. There was only one or two Indian and Chinese restaurants in Kidderminster at the time. I think the combination of having really good food at home and really awful food at school had quite an odd effect on me for a while. so it's almost bingy. Did you go on holiday in England or did you go away? No, I think they were spending so much on school fees They couldn't afford anywhere else.

18:53We couldn't really, so we stayed in a caravan in Brittany one year and we stayed in a weird cottage in Filey that some distant uncle owned and you had to put five pence pieces in the meter but no, we'd never really holidayed as kids and I think it was presented to me as your dad doesn't like going on holiday but I realise now that they kind of bankrupted themselves sending me to that bloody school. So, I mean, you had this acting ambition initially. Yeah. And then your dad was a journalist. When did things change for you? When did you want to go into journalism? Do you ever do that thing where you've got a story and you can't remember whether it's actually true or not?

19:36Oh, yeah, let's go with it. It's such a good story. Okay, go away. So I thought I was going to be an actor. I wanted to be an actor. I got expelled from school. Oh, what did you do? Cannabis, which doesn't sound like a very big deal. I know, but it was 1990. Were you selling it? Were you smoking it? I wasn't selling it, but I was... How did you access it? Well, we would go illegally into York. We'd get a taxi, me and my best friends. So you didn't go to Betty's for a... No, but I did. My old English teacher took me to Betty's. I sat down and he says, I have terrible news. So my old English teacher, Mr Davey, drove me into York illegally to meet my girlfriend.

20:14I was going out with a girl who was the granddaughter of a famous poet. She was the granddaughter of a poet called William Empson. And your English teacher loved this. Well, because he'd known William Empson in Hong Kong during the war. I think that they'd both been spy adjacent, but obviously he could never talk to me about that. And William Empson had been thrown out of Cambridge because a cleaner found a condom in his drawer. So this would be the 1930s. You weren't allowed to have a condom? No, apparently not. Well, I think you weren't supposed to have sex outside marriage, I presume. 1930s.

20:43He wasn't gay or anything. No, no, no, nothing like that. I thought they would encourage that. Mr Davey might have been, but William Empson definitely wasn't. But he could not believe I was going out with the granddaughter of this poet that he'd known in Hong Kong in the 30s. And he caught me one day looking quite depressed, and I said, I really want to see my... He said, oh, God, I'll drive you. So I got under a blanket in the back of his car. Oh, my God! He drove me into yours. Is this true? No, this one's true. but they're all true but the next one I'm not 100 % sure is correct it's not as good as this one and it takes me to meet my girlfriend I go and meet her and we spend a bit of time together and then I say come and meet Mr Davis she goes I can't I've got to get back to school because she hopped over the wall as well she was at a boarding school she was at a boarding school in York called The Mount would you believe how did you meet her?

21:27well we used to go into York at the weekends with like pockets full of money that all our mates had given us and then we'd score and take it back and dish it out. But how did you meet the girlfriend? She'd be in the pubs and the wine bars that we used to. Smoking cannabis as well. No, we didn't really do it in York, but we'd go out for a drink and have a... And I got to Betty's, and Mr. Davy's waiting for me, and I said, Rachel couldn't join us, sadly. She had to go back to school. And he goes, I have terrible news. And I thought, fuck, we've been busted. I'm going to get expelled. Because, you know, that's it.

21:57It's straight out the door. And he'd be in all sorts of trouble as well. And I said, what, sir? And he said, they've run out of muffins.

22:09What was worse? Not seeing Rachel. I always feel that a boy should have muffins with his English teacher. Oh, my God. He was lovely. It was a touch of the Uncle Monty's about him. But to answer your question, so I got expelled, and the deal with Mum was, I have to get a degree now. I can't apply to drama school. I have to have a safety net. And if I get a degree, then she'll help me go to drama school. Mum and Dad will help me go to drama school. Did she see your performance? She did, yes. that may have influenced her reticence and then in my first year at university i saw michael sheen i went to the london school of economics and i saw michael sheen in when she danced with vanessa redgrave and he was only a little bit older than me i think he got i think he may have more or less the same age i think he got cast in his final year at rada and this would be my first year at university and i just remember thinking there's no there's no point mate i'm not even close to this guy so that was the end of that so journalism happened because you just well what did you do at lse first philosophy right okay it's supposed to be philosophy and economics but because i'd been expelled from school i didn't have a great deal of support during my university application period and i got i got into lse you must have been incredibly bright it wasn't stupid um but i got there on my first day the course i was signed up for involved economics and the teacher said, my daughter loves this story.

23:35The teacher said, has anybody here not got a maths A-level? And there's about 120 kids in the room. About 30 of us put our hand up. And then he says, OK, now has anybody here not got an economics A-level? And probably about 40 of us put our hand up. And then he said, like laughing, because anyone just put their hand up twice. And I look around the room. No one else. There's literally not a single other person. So I thought, this is going to be interesting. and I wasn't cut out for that so I dropped that bit of it and just did the philosophy which was lovely Did you work for a newspaper? Back in the day?

24:09Yeah, kind of I couldn't get arrested when I left college so I carried on with my student job I worked at Aquascootum on Regent Street do you remember Aquascootum? Posh raincoats and suits and I liked it and I always worked in retail I was a 40 long in those days close to a 44 regular now I don't know how that works. And I carried on doing it. And it was just reaching the point where I didn't think journalism was going to happen. I'd applied for all the traineeships. And did you want to be a journalist? Yeah, that was always. You decided this was your part. If I wasn't going to be an actor, then I wanted to be a journalist like my dad.

24:44That was all I ever wanted. Oh, yeah, because your dad was... A lot of us grew up just thinking, all I want to do is what my parents did. Because you don't know anything else. So, James, what I really want to know... Yes. Please, God, when we have a change of government, what are you going to do? This has been a very rich vein for you. Yeah, good for business, bad for the soul. That's how I'd describe it. So you're not going to have a go-up here, are you? I mean, obviously, if he does bad things, I'll be after him like a rat up a drainpipe, with a sense of betrayal, which I never have with the Tories.

25:16But I don't think he will at the moment. But have you always been a Labour voter? You did vote for Boris, didn't you? Yeah, well, I think I did in 2008. Is that like an ironic vote? Kind of. I wasn't very political. I know that sounds hard to believe, but I wasn't paying attention. I wasn't very, very engaged. I was a showbiz journalist. I was never a political journalist. He's very... Showbiz? For which paper? Yeah, I ended up as showbiz editor of the Daily Express when I was about 27. Fuck it. It's a very different paper. Calm down, seriously. It was edited by Rosie Boycott, who founded Spare Rib magazine.

25:55She was a brilliant feminist, a huge liberal. She organised the legalised cannabis campaign that got Paul McCartney involved in it. Did she smoke a lot? Well, I don't remember. Is that how you got the job, James? Yeah, I used to sort her out. No, I did. No, Christ no. But it was not. I have to qualify that when I say I worked for the X-Men. Yeah, right. Because it was a complete, I don't know, because I needed work that I would ever have turned down work on more right-wing papers. But it was not a right-wing paper. so I ended up doing a little I got offered a job on telly because it's a mad one this so you start getting booked to do paper reviews or late night appearances on Five Live and and then things just escalated to the point where they'd be inviting you onto breakfast television to talk about Liam and Patsy's relationship and you knew nothing none of them know anything the royals are the same none of them know anything but you just sit there and sound plausible Do you make it up?

26:54Do you... You never make it up, but you just sort of say, well, obviously, you know, things aren't looking great, and then the presenter would say, well, you can say that again, they just got divorced. Do you ever regret anything that you've said? On air? On air or as a showbiz journalist? One thing, yeah. One thing I feel really, really bad and quite silly about was the Beckhams. Why? Because the two or the three big icons of our generation that I loved from the start were the Beckhams and Robbie Williams. There's a review, and I can't find it because it's not online, of Robbie Williams' first album.

27:38I gave five stars to, I called it brilliant, and at the time everyone was slagging it off. It was only when Angels came out that his career started coming back round again. And I wish I could find it. I'm sure Robbie can. Have you seen all that bloody archival footage? I'm sure he's got it. But I did, after David Beckham got sent off in the World Cup for kicking that Diego Cilio. Yeah, no, of course, we all loved him. Well, not then we didn't. I loved him. You and me saw the truth. Jesse and I used to go to Chelsea and they'd be going, boo, and we'd say, piss off, leave him alone. Good. We did, didn't we?

28:10We loved him. So I got the first interview. In fact, my entire journalistic career was based on getting this interview because everybody wanted it. I was completely unknown. How did you get it? I got it. I don't know I've ever told anyone this before I love that I got it by giving very I don't know I got it partly by giving very warm reviews to all of the other clients that the PR company had oh my god you know I'd say yeah that's a that's a brilliant banging tune yeah right so you got me so you get the interview with that and you got the interview and I got the big interview with both of them Victoria was there she was eight months pregnant with Brooklyn just to time it, to place it in space and time.

28:53Yeah. And I just thought they were lovely. And he was so shy. He so didn't want to be there. I mean, and she was so... She supported him a lot, didn't she? Do you know what she did? She did his hair and makeup. We had hair and makeup. And she did it. So without telling them, I put across the bottom of the photograph, I put... Hair and makeup by Victoria. Hair and makeup by Victoria Adams, as she was at the time. So what do you regret? Oh, I'm coming to that. Share it with the group, James. So I was a favoured journalist. Oh, God. And I think it was even in the diary that he was going to come round to my place in Earl's Court after a Chelsea game in top-secret circumstances, and we would talk about me ghosting his first autobiography.

29:37And then they got married, so you'd have to check the timings. I might be slightly misremembering. And for reasons I can't quite remember, I must have had a real dry patch of bylines. I must have not had a byline in the paper for a couple of weeks, which as a showbiz editor is quite a big deal. And so I wrote a piss-taking piece about their wedding. Are you mad? Yes. Well, I didn't think they'd care or notice or know. They wore purple and sat on throne. Now, this would have been post you doing the interview with him, where you actually got on well with them. Really well, really well. And so...

30:14And I wrote something like, as the doves took off... Not nice. into the darkening sky so the last vestiges of their credibility went with them or something terrible like that. And if you'd said to me at the time, that's a bit silly, I would have said to you, don't be daft, they're not going to care. But they really did. They did care. She really cared, apparently. And the PR that I'd spent a long time cultivating, who I actually really liked as well, but she was a notoriously fierce PR. She fucking went for me down the phone. I mean you could keep holding it well nor do I now you asked if there's anything I regretted these aren't stories I'm proud of yes it is it was awful behaviour so that yeah more than anything else did you know what you were doing when you did that no no idea I needed a byline Jesse I needed to get my name in the paper because it hadn't been it's a very high pressure these aren't excuses they're explanations it's a high pressure environment and you know I was cocky late 20s a lot of people quite keen to see me fail so I was always conscious of pushing the boat out but what a shitty thing to do on their wedding day have you ever have you ever seen them since I saw them at the Albert Hall I forget what the gig was and we were all in the posh bits and she did she recognise you yeah and then she then she remembered so this is going back a long time so it wouldn't have been long afterwards and I saw her face go oh it's that lovely bloke that interviewed David and then I saw the face go oh and he's the bastard that and that was that so I'm really sorry about that I'm sure they're listening to the podcast maybe they accept your apology I don't know I hope so it's very sincere what has been your maybe it's hard to say your proudest moment or the thing that has just felt the most terrifyingly brilliant piece of well for LBC Was there one moment where you were like, this, everyone's listening, you could hear a pin drop?

32:22I'm not that fussed about names. I don't have any booked guests on the show. I don't chase headlines, which might be a mistake.

32:34So, I mean, when people, and I don't know why this happens psychologically, but people sometimes tell you stuff they've never told anybody else before there's a sort of almost like the confessional the relationship between the caller and you have to have spent years in the job to build up that sort of trust but we did and and continue to do quite a lot or we did a lot more before politics went mad on child sexual abuse and people would ring in adults were ringing and grown men would ring in and break down in tears. And that was both profoundly horrible and profoundly special. So those would be, in terms of the actual moment on air, they would be the most powerful.

33:19Off air, and this happened surprisingly often until about 2020, people would tell me that the show had changed them enough to change their politics. so there's one chap who's now trying to become a Labour candidate who was a member of the EDL when he started listening to the show and he came to see me at a gig and he sat in the front row and he was staring at me to the point where I was quite unnerved yeah but he was just trying to pluck up the courage to come up afterwards and he gave me a letter I said I can't talk to you but please read this and he'd left his number on it so I got in touch with him just to say thank you and that that happened about that happened about a dozen times not specifically EDL members but quite often people who'd been persuaded by very far right or very unpleasant rhetoric, and then they'd tune into the show and just sort of slowly think, well, hang on, that's bollocks.

34:13And then they'd hear people ring in with the same opinions that they had, and it generally doesn't go well for them. And so those are special moments for me, a sort of combination of on-air and off-air. And then career-wise, probably I did an interview with Nigel Farage in about 2014 that went berserk and i mean truly berserk and it's sadly in a way it was before viral clips were a thing but it was you know it was it was huge news the next day he was dragged out of the studio by his own pr it was what was the discussion around the discussion was around him being a racist liar and and no one else had done i couldn't understand why so because i'd follow it And there's a friend of mine called Alex Andreu who writes, he does the Oh God, What Now podcast now and writes a bit.

35:03And he'd written for the New Statesman. It's about half a dozen things that had come to my attention about the fascists that they were knocking about within the European Parliament, the hardcore National Front racists that he'd been knocking about with when he was trying to get into the top of UKIP. the stuff that he'd said about people speaking foreign on trains despite the fact that his own children spoke German at home all of this stuff actually really concerned me you know I thought this is weird because he was still a bit smelly for the for the mainstream media in 2014 they still but I just you know I just had a sense that because of callers a great thing about my job is that I get I get a proper opportunity to find out what people are thinking and when people are sharing with you really pungent opinions and you dig into where they come from quite a lot of roads were leading back to Nigel Farage you know on the immigration stuff and the Muslim stuff was more what's his chops little Tommy 10 names but the immigration and the racism and the Brussels stuff in 2014 that was all Nigel Farage so he comes on quite a convoluted process by which he comes on the program and I just hit him with all the stuff that I know and it's just all there and and it it was it was it I mean it was terrible for him but it didn't and people like Dan Hodges who writes to the on Sunday now wrote the next day Farage is finished his career is over the son wrote the next day this is a clearly racist position the son came out against him and on my side the mail commissioned me to write about what a toss potty was and I remember thinking at the time and saying at the time to my wife and my listeners I said it's not going to touch the sides you should see my inbox people love it people think he got the better of me you still go on YouTube and like 10 percent of the replies on that clip will say he got the better of me which is a bit like saying someone who's just been beaten five nil actually won so how did you feel when he became a presenter on LBC I was very uncomfortable and very unhappy did you ever think about leaving um I did yeah of course I did think about leaving but what would that have achieved in the sense did you come across did you come across him only once he's resilient isn't he yeah of course he doesn't care and that's he does care he's desperate to be liked he's desperate to be liked he ate fucking penises and balls that's why he did I'm a Celebrity that was terrifying although lots of nice people have done I'm a Celebrity he is or Matt Hancock well no not Matt Hancock I was thinking more of my mate James McVeigh out of the family.

37:43He's Harry Redknapp. Pete's Andre. That was a good year. He's desperate to be like... Would you do I'm a celebrity? I don't think I could. I don't think I'm... I'm really bad with rats.

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39:11Mum, can I help with any of the food? No, it's almost done. What are we having? So we're having lamb tagine with couscous and some tomato and cucumber salad and some beans. I hope it's all right. You know it will be. I don't know. I've heard previous episodes. Nothing's ever gone wrong.

39:31So whilst Mum serves up, I would like to ask you your last supper. You've got a starter, a main, a pud, and a drink of choice. I've got a horrible feeling that I'm a cliche. So my starter would be a stone cold prawn cocktail. I had a very good prawn cocktail at the weekend. Where were you? It's this new restaurant called The Dover in Mayfair. Okay. And it was really fab. What was in it? What made it different? It wasn't loads of Mary Rose. It had like a little tomato and horseradish dipping thing. It was on this tower. I'll show you a picture. I mean, maybe it wasn't saucy enough. to be, it was fabulous.

40:10Go on, where have you had your best prawn cocktail? Well, do you not have like that, that, oh look at that. Yeah, it looks fab, right? That does look nice. It looks good, right? What's, what's it on, just on lettuce? It was on like, it felt like almost like kohlrabi or something like that, but also lettuce, iceberg lettuce. It was good. So, so you've got that memory of the perfect one, which would be at the Burnie Inn. Where's the Burnie Inn? The Burnie Inn was a steak, your mum will know. I know So it was like a steakhouse. In most towns outside big cities, the Burnie Inn would be the only restaurant with metal cutlery.

40:44And it was steak. Oh, okay. And it was steak, prawn cocktail. These were the days when you could have grapefruit juice as a starter. But the Ivy do an amazing prawn cocktail. Do they? Yeah, they do. And so do the... It's come back. It's in vogue, I feel. Yeah, but it never went out of vogue for me. I can't... Or oysters. Oysters? Yeah, but I always think that's not a proper starter. So it was my birthday on Saturday. Your birthday? Thank you. And we went out for dinner. And because it was my birthday, I ordered oysters and a starter. Yeah, damn right. Which was nice. They did a crab toast, which was incredible.

41:20Yum. Where did you go? We went to a new restaurant in Brentford called The Waterside, which is Sam Harrison's place, the same guy who has The Riverside in Hammersmith. So it was a good meal? Yeah, it was excellent. Okay, so you're having oysters and a prawn cocktail? Yeah, I think so. and then? It's a tough one isn't it? It is a tough one James but you ask the tough questions so you know I don't think I enjoy any meal as consistently as a really good cod and chips with mushy peas Oh well where do you get your cod and chips from? Well it's quite hard in the south east Is it? Yeah No we've got a great one.

41:57Poppies is alright there's a poppies as a chain We've got Ollie's, we've got Mox's Ollie's in Hern Hill Yeah. And we've got moxons. Okay, exactly. Who are a fishmonger. Well, I'll try that out. Have some of that and have some of that. Jess, can you help people? No, it's all right. It's all under control. You think? Yeah, chill out, Mum. So that would be, I'd find it very hard to beat that. Ever since I was a kid, that is my meal of champions. But it's hit and miss, isn't it? There's nothing worse than... Actually, fish and chips is lovely. Oh, it's nothing like it. It is delicious, actually. Okay, so we're going fish and chips?

42:34Lots of vinegar? Yeah, loads of vinegar. Brown sauce. Brown sauce? Brown sauce. Always brown sauce. Oh, that makes sense. Because it's tangy. I get that. Of course it makes sense. Did we get a little bad sausage on the side? Back in the day. Savaloy and chips for a snack on the way home. I think that's what your teacher might have got you. It's in his dreams. Pudding. sweet person sweet kind of guy I don't know as I'm getting older I'm not enjoying sweets as much as I used to I was a huge sweet and also sweet sweets you know like penny sweets quarters quarter pound sweets I used to eat coming out my ears but not as much as I used to be I like a cheesecake I like do you know actually again quite straightforward it would be a good old fashioned custard tart like a little custard not a Portuguese one I like the Portuguese these ones but I'd go for a it used to be Greg's doesn't do them but before Greg's there was a bakery chain called Wimbush or they used to do sweet cakes as well and that would be the yeah be a custard tart, crumbly pastry.

43:48And drink of choice My favourite alcoholic drink is a martini, a vodka martini Oh, with a twist I like it very dry with an olive Dirty then. You're not dirty, that's when you pour in the juice. They do want at the This restaurant I went to on Saturday, they call it the TW8 martini. And they do it with caper berries. Like really big fat capers. And it was good. And a little bit of the caper berry juice in it. I've never had that before. That was very special. Or a nice glass of red wine. Or ginger beer, if I'm feeling abstemious. I love ginger beer. I'm sure when you were showbiz editor, you must have wined and dined people.

44:28Yeah. Where was the spot to take people? Well, it varied, so... Was it Nobu? I think Nobu was a little bit later. We went to the Hempel a couple of times in South Kensington. I remember going there with the Lighthouse family. They were lovely lads, Paul and Tunday. They were really, really... What was this song? There's loads, but Lifted. We can be lifted, lifted. I loved them. And I hated the fact that people thought they were a bit naff, because they were not naff. Paul Tucker, the songwriter, his dance music credentials were impeccable. But you know how it happens sometimes, is that bands that are brilliant musically just get a weird reputation that they don't deserve.

45:05Who were you a massive fan of, apart from the Lighthouse family and Robbie Williams, that you also gave five stars to? Oh, Ian Brown was solo by the time I got on Sir Fleet Street, but the Stone Roses all day long. The Verve broke through during that period. I did Ian Brown on a... I'd been dumped the night before. By the Greek town? Yes, it was actually. Oh. We got back together later. time but I've been dumped transatlantically I was in a bit of a just a bit of a tizzy yeah so I turn the tape on I start interviewing him and I say uh 10 minutes in I say I'm sorry I got dumped last night and I'm just not focused I can't remember I've forgotten what I've already I'm just in a right old mess what did Ian Brown say and he just said I don't worry about it he said just just write what you want.

45:53I love that! Don't make me sound like a twat. And then I think we'd kind of just had a couple of beers out at the minibar and I went home. Wasn't that nice of him? And did you just write something? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'd have drawn on what I had on the tape and then I think I'd interviewed him once before. And these weren't massive articles, they're only about 500 words. Oh, that's very funny. Very kind of him. Have I missed the bit when you got to LBC? No. So tell us how you got there, James. Well, I was the world's worst showbiz editor. I could write. I could write good stories, but I never recognised.

46:32My antennae, my news sense, was non-existent. Best example of that, probably, when I was at the chart show. Yeah. And Geri Halliwell was performing. And Chris Evans was in her dressing room. And I just thought, oh, that's nice. And I open up the newspapers the next day, and every other newspaper obviously has the story of their burgeoning romance. Oh, were they in a relationship? About ten minutes, I think. I didn't know that. I'm just crap at this. My phone would ring at midnight every night and it would be the night editor saying the Daily Mail have got this story, the Sun have got this story, why haven't we got this story?

47:06And I'd have to say it's because it's not true. And it was true, but I just missed it. I was rubbish. So the paper was owned by the same guy that owned most of Channel 5. And they were launching a TV show. called The Right Stuff. Oh, yeah, my friend Amol worked on it. Yeah, after my time. So was that a pleasant experience? It was, actually. We moved to Norwich. I got out of newspapers, which was good. We were just married. My wife was still working on Fleet Street most of the time, but we got to spend a lot more time together than we would have done if we'd both been still on newspapers. And it went nuts for me overnight.

47:43I got offered a chat show by Anglia, so I did a regional chat show for ITV. I was being offered documentaries. and I just thought that's how it worked. I didn't have an agent. I just thought this is easy. Why do people always talk about how hard it is to get into telly? And I was just for about 18 months, we were rocking the house and then it all ended. The production company, I think Anglia lost the contract to make the programme. The new people making it didn't want the same panellists on every day. So they started rotating and then you'd be booked a bit less and a bit less and clearly I was being squeezed out.

48:17and when you're not on telly every day, people aren't ringing you up to offer you other stuff. And I said to Lucy, I'm going to have to go back to newspapers. This is dried up now. And she said, I realise now very diplomatically, instead of saying you were crap at newspapers, she said you're really good at broadcasting and I think you should give it a year. Where did you meet Lucy? At the Express. Oh, at the Express. And so I did. And towards the end of that year, LBC offered me some swing, some holiday cover. And that's kind of where it started, how I got in, just to pay my tax bill. It's now like, well, I mean, it's huge.

48:55Yeah, it's an amazing story. You have the biggest news... Biggest commercial radio talk show, which, considering the first show I did 20 years ago on Sunday night, no one rang me for an hour and 15 minutes. So I'm having to repeat the same stuff again and again and again, repeating the phone number until it was like... Oh, my God. That's terrible. And then at 11.15, so it was 10 o 'clock on a Sunday night, and the slot I'd taken over from hadn't been a phone-in show. Listeners are quite creatures of habit. Yeah. So no one rang in. And at 11.15, finally, one phone line lights up on the switchboard.

49:31And I recognise it, and it's my wife ringing from our landline at home. And she calls herself Miranda from Ladbroke Grove. What was her question? Something about, I was talking about Diana, Princess of Wales, and trying to get her story going about that. actually made nice sensible contributions and then my best mate luke obviously realized what was happening and he's an actor and he rang in and for reasons i've never fully understood he he decided to adopt a northern irish accent in case anyone recognized

50:05on the radio also it's one of the hardest accents to sustain and halfway through he stopped sustaining it laps straight laps straight back into his sort of Notting Hill twang

50:21I feel like we need to go back to food for a bit even though this is fascinating and brilliant is there anywhere else you go regularly you go to Greece is there anywhere else that you'll go and do you go for the food or are you going for the vibe are you going for the music or switching off sorry you do have a mouthful so I'm so sorry I've just asked you that question when you've got that. We've been to Venice. My wife loves Venice. Oh, it's gorgeous. So expensive. It is expensive. And we've been three times. And the first two times we went, we didn't have good food. I don't think the food is great.

50:55No, I don't think... The duck ragu is their famous dish. Is it? It's a bit of a taste, isn't it? Duck ragu. And it's delicious if you get the right place. But I don't think we... When we went to Venice, we didn't eat well, did we? No, but maybe we just didn't know the spots. That's the point. It's a bit like being in Leicester Square and looking for a hotel. So the last time we went, and we stayed in an Airbnb rather than a hotel, and we just hit the jackpot on every meal we had. Thank you. A little bit further from the main drag, every meal we had was extraordinary. And I can remember some of the meals we had there, some of the pasta dishes we had there, which were good enough to want to go back for that.

51:37Oh, right, okay. And also Lucy loves Venice, so I'd like it is gorgeous it really is I want to know have they tried to poach you for other programmes I can't really answer that question do you think you'll be staying at the LBC I can say yes but I can't go into too many details but also you know the landscape is very right wing now the new broadcast platforms that are being set up are slightly to the right of Genghis Khan so which is really weird actually and I don't write about this because it's too self-referential. But if you have managed to take a leftish liberal position and turn it into the most popular show on the market, why are they all setting up stations to be right-wing?

52:24Why are they all trying to emulate the... So you look at what's happening at LBC, people like Sheila Fogarty coming in, people like Emily... Carol. Carol Vorderman and Maitlis Sopal and Lewis doing the podcast for the newsagents, Lewis doing a show on LBC. and much, much more, the transformation from when Hopkins and Farage were on the station, and it's much more popular now. So the people setting up GBBs or Talk TV are not doing it to be market leaders. They're doing it for different reasons. What are they doing it for? They're doing it for influence. They're doing it for influence. I mean, Jesse, it's so terrifying.

53:04It is terrifying. It is terrifying because when you track, Boris's for example just Boris's journey yes it is terrifying how he got there and it was all kind of calculated it wasn't just by chance no and and sponsored as well I thought Alistair explained this on on on on table man is better than I can and because he's so much closer to the action and he's he's been there and been around the block and played the bagpipes but that that that combination that Venezuelan writer he quotes who talked about the three Ps populism, polarisation and the other one. Oh I did it again, sorry. Are you a broadcaster?

53:46Yeah but I'm a very maverick broadcaster who breaks the rules on a daily basis. Should I have a go at these? Can I help? No, no, no. I just need to know how many, as being a journalist, how many episodes of Toberman did you listen to before coming on here? And were you terrified? I'd listened to a couple back in the day because you were very early adopters. Oh, thank you. And it still pops up on my notification. So I listened to Andrew Ridgely quite recently. Oh, he's lovely. I was so jealous. I couldn't get him on mine. And I know for a fact that I'm a bigger Wham fan than either of you. No, you're not.

54:23I am. No, you're not. Hey, everybody, take a look at me. I've got street credibility. I may not have a job, but I have a good time with the boys that I meet down on the line. Go on. Young Guns. Go on. Is that Young Guns? No, next verse. Yeah, no. Last Christmas. My God, you and Alistair Campbell would really get on. We do get on quite a while. You could go back to back with Wham and Abba. He says, yes. No, I like Alistair. He's a force for good. He is. He is a force for good. And he doesn't ever get jaded, which I find quite hard sometimes not to get jaded. But his appetite for the fight is undimmed, isn't it?

55:00Yeah, I came across very powerfully in your interview with him. I would like to know, if we were coming to your house, what would you cook for us, James? Well, I bought a new oven, so we've just had a lot of work done. And I bought a new oven that has a rotisserie in it. Have you tried it? Yeah, and I have not got the hang of it, so I would not cook you a rotisserie unless I've had the chance to practice. Oh, here's the thing. What? Do you know that St. Ilguer blue cheese cream? Yeah, love it. Stick a tablespoon of that in a bowl of sprouts and thank me later. Oh. Oh, that's a pretty good idea.

55:39That's my first recipe. Okay, so would that be our starter? Yeah. So I'm not joking. You must... You know that with a vodka martini would be delicious. That's my desert island dish. That would be bloody fantastic. I mean, it's like you go, oh my Christ, how come no one else has thought of this? It's just extraordinary. And you don't need the chestnuts or the pancetta. You just do the sprouts, a spoonful of the santalgur. Nine minutes. And you're away. You'll be laughing. So we'd have sprouts with santalgur. Yeah. And then we wouldn't have the chicken rotisserie until you've done a few more things.

56:12Oh, I'd do a lamb. I'd like a lamb on the barbecue. So you get a butterflied leg of lamb from the butchers. There's a great butcher near us called Wyndham House who've got a place in the garden centre around the corner. You know how garden centres... Oh, is that right? It's a garden centre. Yeah, the one in... So there's two reasons to go there for foodies. Number one is the Wyndham's butcher. Number two is my friend Enzo, who has the ice cream van in the car park. Enzo, if you mention my name, Enzo will sort you out. Get your free ice cream. He also sells olive oil. If he's been at home in Italy recently, he'll have some top-of-the-range artisan olive oil.

56:51I love you, James. You say I'm not much of a sweet person, but you're shouting out your ice cream bloke in a car park. Yeah, although, you know, he does this pistachio thing, which isn't really as sweet. Oh, I love pistachio. But it's got pistachio oil in it, and I think he gets them in from Italy as well, and it's like a big mini-milk on a stick. Oh, my God. But it's quite savoury, you know, with a pistachio. It's not too sour. It's extraordinary. Well, Michael McIntyre. So I'll get you one of those. Okay, thank you. I love that, actually. Michael McIntyre came on here, and he talked about having olive oil on his ice cream when he went to Italy.

57:28So, yeah. Are they in? Are the fondants in? They're in. I think it's going to be more than nine minutes. That sounds all good. It sounds slightly sparse. Brussels sprouts and a pistachio ice cream. No, you distracted me. You distracted me. The lamb, the lamb. So I do a butterflied leg of lamb that Wyndham's prepared and they put it in a sealed bag with all the garlic and rosemary. Oh, wow. And then you barbecue. And I do a half and half barbecue. where you put all the charcoal on one side of the barbecue and you sear the lamb for about two or three minutes each side on the... Above the coals. Oh, right.

58:02And then you move it to the non-coal bit and put the lid on and it cooks to absolute... How many minutes? So it's half and half. No, I use charcoal, but you've only got charcoal on one side of the... How hard is this? How would it... I don't understand. You put the lid on and it's working like an oven. Okay. How long would you cook? So 40 minutes, I think, for a barbecue. Possibly slightly longer, but I've got a Heston Blumenthal meat thermometer from TK Maxx. Okay. Do you like it rare? Yes, I do. But the thing with a butterflied leg of lamb is that the ends of it are not rare. No. So it's a pièce de résistance.

58:38It's a win-win. There's something for everybody. Yeah, a win-win. So you can give them the sort of, like, you know, nice bit, the nice crunchy bit on the end, and then other people can have. So I'd serve that. Probably not with sprouts and blue cheese. What would you do? With that, a salad and a salsa verde, you see. That's one of my things. I like salsa verde. Yeah, I used Jamie's recipe for that. It's really good. Yeah, and he puts all sorts of stuff in there, like gherkins. Anchovies, the gherkin juice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look at that. That is what I call moist. That's more than moist. The worst word in the world.

59:09Sorry, I heard you say that. Rick Astley. Yeah, and what was Alistair's word as well? Portion. Portion. This is yummy, man. this is really good except it shouldn't be in the other way around but I was it's supposed to come out so you have the crusty bit oh I see that's good mom I'm gonna have some cream on it too just to really seal the dill of cows today that's great mom good job quite easy to make actually don't say that no just take the applaud this so do you have a nostalgic taste that can transport you back somewhere good or bad what a great question pear drops pear drops all the time proper big fat ones that cut your mouth to ribbons and that weird flavor that you get off the back of them was there a particular place you be eating them in the back of the car on the way back to no there was a talk shop at school just to go Enid Blyton for a minute and you could order quarters of sweets.

1:00:13I never had any money. But it wasn't that. I think pear drops go back to Friday sweets. So there was a sweet shop on Hurcott Road in Kidderminster where Tom Watson grew up. Former Deputy Deer. We didn't know each other. Our mums knew each other. I think our mums were both people that it took two hours to go around Sainsbury's because they had to stop and say hello to everybody. But there was a proper sweet shop at the end of the road. and you'd order a quarter of cannabis. So, okay, pear drops or cannabis? These days, pear drops all day long. Mum, this is really good. James O 'Brien, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you.

1:00:50Do you want another? I can't. How can you do two chocolate fenders? No, I can tell you now that I had a dicky tummy yesterday. Oh, shit. Don't say that. That could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Do you want... No, I knew I was going to be all right, but this is the first time I've eaten since 11 o 'clock yesterday. You've done very well. I knew I was going to be fine without going into detail. But you don't want another one. But I don't think I'll have another, no. No, Mum, it's quite rich having a whole fondant. That was exceptional. It was delicious. I'm not going to have another one. I don't think they'll keep.

1:01:19Do you not? No. All right. Give one to next door. I can't go next door with fondants. Why not? It's only it though. They could eat it and watch traitors. I don't even know if they're there. James and Brian, thank you so much. Thank you. What a treat.

1:01:47Mum is just busy enjoying her wine. You were loving the fact that he was having a few glasses with you. I loved it. Yeah. I love a wine drinker. She's gone. So what did you think of the tagine? It was good. I nearly told him. I know you did. And he will listen and he will find out. Well, listen, so now, James. I think we shouldn't. James, we apologise. It was, I'd say, 70 % Lenny. 30 % Cook. Or 60-40? No, no, no. Definitely 70-30. But we had to give you something to eat. Yeah. And actually... The energy went into the chocolate fondant. Yeah, and you know what? That was all Len. Do you know what's clever about chocolate fondant?

1:02:31What? I made it last night. So it was in the fridge. Oh, a little prep. So you could prep it and then just pop it in. Pop it in? Yeah. It was bloody, really good. Did you like it? But James O 'Brien, we do apologise that that is the first time that we actually have had Cook enter the meal. And I nearly told you. And then I just thought that was cruel. James O 'Brien, what a brilliant guest. Delightful. The amount of information he can retain. I can't even remember my children's names. But he knows about everything. He knows about everything and he's just incredibly measured. But he does go for the bad guys.

1:03:08He does go for the bad guys. And he does love a good guy. But he, I loved hearing the Beckham story. And he looked so embarrassed. Yeah, he should be. That was me. Thank you, James O 'Brien, for being on the podcast. Brilliant guest. Lenny was, Lenny was a revved. Yeah. And we'll see you next week.

1:03:54We'll be right back.

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