Bob Dylan’s Dot Balls

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. This is summer at its peak. Whole Foods Market Summer Fruit Fest is your invitation to eat the season. Fresh, organic, and bursting with flavor. Start your day with peaches and organic blueberries and yogurt. Build a grazing board with fresh fruit, prosciutto, and artisanal cheese. Then fire up the grill with no antibiotics ever proteins and fresh produce. Savor the season. Shop Summer Fruit Fest at Whole Foods Market. Imagine buying a toy for your kid, but it doesn't come with batteries. That sucks. But honestly, it's even worse when you buy business software.

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1:28In Salford are Jimmy Anderson and Felix White Hello Hello And in glorious sunny Cainsham Is Matt Chintendorka, King of the Sea Who was actually on the sea last week Being the king of it I was on the sea I am back from the sea Hello Thank you for having me Back from dry land You're welcome for having me Matt, can we start there Greg? I really want to hear about Matchins I have heard about it To be honest with you I haven't I would like it to become officialised With Matchins experience over the last week I've not heard this story and I cannot believe it happened So a guy messaged me called Pat on Instagram Go, cheers And said, if you're ever in Greece, let's go for a beer And I wasn't planning on going to Greece Yeah, I happened to be in Greece actually What about that beer then?

2:17Then he said, he runs a little yacht company, as you do Long story short And then I perked up The second bit's perked me up long story short captain pat invited me and uh five paramedics out onto a little yacht we did pay just did he specify that it needed to be five paramedics is that like was that a health and safety requirement i did i did think i'll bring paramedics just in case i didn't know what i was getting myself into yeah i invite you and five paramedics of your choosing this comes to greece and um we had a lovely time captain pat is a big tailender he extends his invitation to all of you including Sharky go well cheers Pat well we have to bring five each as well yeah that's like 20 paramedics any any oh well Sharky's coming it's 25 paramedics 25 paramedics and um yeah we had a great time Captain Pat is a massive tellender there was I keep saying that yeah there was some moments where he didn't like my paramedic friends don't listen to tellenders so all five of them too busy saving lives too busy saving lives to be listening but there was a lot of There was a few times when Captain Pat would make references and jokes to tell Enders that the other guys didn't understand.

3:33So if we went to a restaurant, it'd be, welcome to Marco's. Thank you for having me at Marco's. The guys didn't really get it. If a baby goes back. No. Baby!

3:46How many babies are going past? A few babies. How are you seeing them? But a huge go-well to Captain Pat for looking after me. And I'm hopefully going back next year. because I love being at sea. My life is... Yeah, we know you do. You're the king of it. I'm cut out for being at sea. Okay, I've got a couple of questions. Firstly, did it take you back to your cruise ship days? And secondly, does it put your work or our collective work into perspective when someone's shouting baby at you but you're also surrounded by five paramedics? Yeah. Well, because they would have thought that there was an emergency with a baby in the sea.

4:22Baby! Oh, God. we're both saving lives in a way it did take me back to my cruise ship days I think I did kind of yearn for it, a little yearn for my days at sea but no those days have passed. No they haven't, you've just finished another bout of them yeah I know but I wasn't working well technically did you just say technically because of HMRC we paid alright, there was a small discount, influencer discount, don't get into that influencer discount brilliant but yeah fancy next year fancy coming out do we can we can we take five of another profession each they have to be NHS heroes oh okay they have to be key they have to be key workers but you get to define what a key worker is okay well I'll take five teachers okay I'm going to take five footballers for Fulham not not key work well I guess they're key workers in terms of the they make they spread joy and happiness.

5:23Jimmy, what five are you taking? Can I take five the pop band, please? Okay, Jimmy's literally taking five. Sorry, can I just also, is this, is he doing that because it's deep tail-enders folklore that you take five and think it's five the most paramedics you can get. Oh, wow. It's the most you can get on a ship. Yeah, I didn't think of that. He probably did think of that because he knows, the thing with Captain Pat is he spends a lot of time at sea on his own. So he's listened to TMS, he's listened to tail enders, and one day he just thought to himself... He's completed TMS, yeah. He just thought to himself, how fun would it be to have actual tail enders on this yacht?

6:05And he made it happen. Totally. We did quizzes. I bet he did. Well, he didn't manifest it. He just messaged you and paid for it.

6:15Manifesting is something slightly different. Yeah, well, that sort of is manifesting, I guess. make is it it's no it's pain it's pain yeah it's pain for something to happen it's a change he's transactioned it can i quickly just say i don't want to take from i just i want to take five left arm spinners oh lovely who taken um thank you so much for your question i'm taking um sophie eccleston i'm taking ranagar haraf i'm taking the woman i can't remember what her name is was born in for sri lanka the other day but an absolute like it was so slow so loopy but ragging it squares you took about four for 16 Trisana or something like that I would also like to take Jack Leach thank you for asking and my fifth and final left arm spinner will be Daniel Vettori oh that's nice yeah thank you so much great holiday yes it does yeah I mean you didn't you didn't mention Phil Tufnell which I find strange yeah because Phil Tufnell's a given isn't he I'm just trying to go a bit deeper no I was just wondering if he was if I Liam Limston'd it again but I just thought you and Phil would have a nice time on a boat i think you think so yeah i feel like he might fall overboard but yeah yeah he definitely would he actually told me a story once about going to see something about sharks i ended up when i was writing a piece in wisdom there was something about the england team of the 90s going out on a boat and they got attacked by a shark and he was on it with like dev and malcolm you heard that story before jimmy no okay i'll research that because i've got it on voice night somewhere but they they got into some sort of storm and were attacked by sharks and then they had to play a test match next day don't tell you feel tough no no okay well welcome to tailenders matching lovely to have you so um you two in manchester you've been doing jimmy book things have been going all right we're on tour having a good time that's well i say we're having a good time we've just done a journey from bath our last venue and jimmy told me halfway through the trip from Bath to Manchester to please turn Bob Dylan off.

8:13I'll tell you exactly what happened, Greg. So we've been going around with this tour and Henry has been driving us around a bit, mainly Felix. They've been listening to Bob Dylan albums together, going through the literally... Very nice time. Felix is top 10. So I get in the car, we're going to the same place, so I'm in the car to Manchester today and I fell asleep after about 20 minutes for about an hour. Quite soon. And when I woke up, I said, how is he still playing harmonica?

8:47It's just too much harmonica for me. Can we please listen to something else? He did say that. It's too much harmonica. Yeah. To be fair, it's a lot. When it feels like Bob's in his next to your head playing harmonica when you're trying to sleep, it's quite a lot. But good for me. i was thinking of you because i was um i was on i was on another podcast recently the off menu podcast we were talking about bob dylan and we were discussing how i don't know if you know if this is true or not but i think it was ed gamble brought up the idea that or the the story that bob dylan used to just sign his autograph in a book with just a dot oh wow i didn't know that and would you be okay with just receiving a book with a bob dylan's book with a dot in it or would you want something a bit more no no i'd be happy i might even be happier for the dot well that was that was the way that's what how what we were thinking because you know bob sort of doesn't really care whether the fans are there or not they're just he's just doing essentially a jam session and sort of doesn't say anything to them sure he's kind of okay with you not being there so it's a privilege that you that he's even half thought about you yeah and he's just got with a Dot.

9:54Yeah, not even hi Felix, hope you enjoy it, dot. It's just dot next. Yeah, dot, yeah. That would be quite a nice like Bob Dylan tattoo, wouldn't it? Just a dot. Just Bob Dylan's dot. Yeah, Bob Dylan's dot. Yeah, I like that. Jimmy, you're quite deep into that tour now. Are you still writing your name or are you doing a dot? Good question. No, I actually, I think weirdly, it's one of the things I enjoy most about doing these things is actually science. I like writing. oh really and I like doing a fancy signal oh that's something I didn't expect you to say that I thought the show itself or I just can't imagine I mean Bob Dylan would never do meet and greets obviously yeah so when you're doing a meet and greet if I just who do you want it making out to and then to Susan best wishes dot I mean that's just do it in front of her face just look straight in the eyes as you put yeah probably not the best sort of you've got your dot now f*** off yeah well it is basically that but he's not doing meet and greets he's basically just doing a stand and look and he's probably not even looking he's not even looking he'll do it in private the books will be sent by post I imagine yeah and if Bob is listening while he's doing dots for his fan base it was blonde on blonde that Jimmy couldn't get through in its entirety okay Bob so if we can get a harmonica less version of that with the reissues that might be helpful for my next tour with Jimmy me on the menu on today's tailenders um we need to talk about fon buntheon lots of correspondence of uncertainty and some certainty about him as well great we also have some really brilliant little yearns based around um what we talked about last week with um with jamie george england rugby legend and what do you what do you go well as we didn't do go well as we so we'll definitely get to that and we'll have a little chat obviously about some we'll do some ashes chat as well if we get some time.

11:52But it's heating up, isn't it? It is heating up. Yeah, it is heating up. Is it? Well, David Warner started talking again. Can I tell everyone what you've been saying on the shows about your team? Are we leaving that in the room? I feel like that stays in the room. We're keeping it in the room. No, come on, you can't do that. I'm not, I don't, I'm not David Warner, I'm not fishing for headlines. Let's talk about something else. Okay, fair enough. Podcast is sort of fishing for headlines, to be honest with you. so he's just he's just Bob Dylan dotted that one from me but what are you talking about in the shows I've just realised that Bob Dylan might be scoring that's like a dot ball anyway sorry I'll give you one bit from so before the Ashes squad was announced we came up with a I say we I came up with my Ashes squad and I did you had Ray and Ahmed Ray and Ahmed in it and you were picking Josh and I didn't have Will Jacks in it no you didn't so yeah there you go you were starting Josh Tong brilliant insight for the first test?

12:50Yeah, I think I'd start Josh Tong, yeah. Anything else you want to add? What's the juice? What's the juicy stuff? I mean, it's not very juicy. No, well, it's not juicy. I basically said I wouldn't be surprised if Will Jacks bats three. There you go. Oh, I like, there you go. That's what I wanted to hear. There's your headline. Jimmy thinks Jacks might bat three. Yeah, nice. We've discussed that on the podcast and we talked about that. Yeah, maybe we did, yeah. But I'd rather talk about the David Warner. Yeah, come on. premeditated line to camera yeah what was it what did he say can't remember no he said the moral ashes he said moral something didn't he no they asked him what who's going to come out yeah on top basball or straight or yeah and was it something like that wasn't it he was basically saying Australia want to win the ashes and England here for a moral victory sure there's your headline I've got another good headline for you God Anderson 43 to extend playing career into 2026.

13:50I read that today as well. We read that in the car and we were like, oh, what's this? I was like, I don't know. My feed was just all new. While Jimmy's sleeping complaining about harmonica my Instagram feed is just loads of stories about him playing next year and he doesn't know what he's talking about. England great James Anderson is set to extend his playing career past his 44th birthday by signing a contract extension to play for Lancashire in 2026. How about that? Well, I'm currently in talks about extending my playing career. Well, it's happened here, I'm afraid. I've not signed anything yet, so.

14:17put the dot down when I do when I do I'll be sure to let you know yeah if and when I do yeah well you can dot on the dotted line and let us know oh yeah definitely do that that's when you that's when you're dealing it that's when it that's when it I was just saying in my head do you remember this advert don't sign on the dotted line before you talk to tempo do you remember that oh yeah what was tempo what was tempo 7 it was that was like that must have been when I was about 10 that would be an advert on like what was tempo Tempo. Tempo? I've never heard that. Yeah, I remember Tempo. What was it?

14:51Sign on the dotted line before you talk to Tempo. Do you also remember... What on earth is that? Sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm going to look it up now. Don't sign on the dotted line. There we go. Tempo. Electronics retailer, Tempo. There we go. Yeah, nice. That's a way of joining up Jimmy's Contract Talks and Bob Dylan. And stuff from the 90s. Perfect. Correct. yeah look i've got i found it oh my god play please play it

15:25oh no that's different hang on one sec okay well maybe we can find it another time while we're fishing another one's coming in my head remember big boy big boy who do you think you are you ain't as big as toshiba sorry sorry sorry let's be i remember that one but i do remind I do remember you pay for your front, you get your back done free. What? No. It was like a glazing advert. Oh. No. Do you remember Curry Motors? No, go on. How's that go? Curry Motors, nice people to do business with. Oh, yeah. I do remember that. I do remember that. That's so shit. Too many syllables. Nice people to do business with.

16:09with trail finders nice people to do podcasts with okay I'll tell you what I played I played Jimmy at paddle yeah I saw this I saw I saw how do you think I did Jimmy I'd love to hear about that you did well I was wondering whether the five paramedics would come along to paddle as well at one point because you were looking slightly worse for wear but I thought you did great you thrashed us didn't you oh really well we switched up didn't we me and Jimmy played together it's quite nerve wracking playing with Jimmy and when you hit it into the net or you overshoot it it's a bit like a drop catch and you're you're waiting oh yeah the eyes yeah no it's not it wasn't but in your head it is Jimmy's very understanding I was getting angry and Jimmy was like actually calm down calm down you're gonna have a heart attack

17:13is jimmy annoyingly good at paddle like he's annoyingly good at all sports um i can confirm he's annoyingly good at that he's he's got a great range of shots he's got an engine on him he didn't break a sweat he just looks very good whatever he does nice people to do business with To play paddle with. To play paddle with. John from Idols, a nice person to play paddle with. Oh, we've got the advert. Let's play it. Yeah, hit it. Stop. The tempo sale is now on. So. Don't sign up about it live until you talk to tempo. Oh, wow. That's so different to how I remember that. That's so worth it. Brilliant, lad.

17:57It's actually, well, I think it is worth it because musically, Felix, that was even more involved than you remember it was quite a beautiful yeah no it was a good arrangement yeah you know what I'd like on that the only thing I was missing was more harmonica for Jimmy Anderson but I liked it otherwise if we could work that out yeah that was more that was more of a musical arrangement than I expected thank you very much for fishing that out can we have it one more time yes please stop the tempo sale is now on so don't sign off a dotted line Until you talk to tempo Talk to tempo There's a few vocal ranges there as well Yeah A few backings Yeah Yeah Maybe we should learn that as an arrangement Between Five of us including Sharky Definitely And we call our band The Five Paramedics Yeah So do harmonies on that The band's called The Five Paramedics And it's five part harmonies From adverts we half remember And the record sleeve's just a dot Good episode guys Right.

18:59Let's carry on because if you thought that was good, you wait for the next bit. On the last episode of Trailfinders, we discussed Cambodian player Phon Bumthian. This was after the listener Bryn emailed in to point out that this mysterious character Phon had played 15 T20 internationals for Cambodia. Count them. Without scoring a single run, count them. Or taking a single wicket, count those. Count them. He has only batted twice, count that. Once at 10, count to 10. And once at 11, count that. And has faced a total of seven, count them, balls. Both times finishing on nought, count that, not out.

19:40Since then, we've had emails from listeners who are very similar to Fon. This is Hamendra, who writes, Hello! Goal cheers, goal cheers, goal cheers. Listening to the last podcast and a mention of Fon Bunthian brought back memories of my childhood. For context, I went to a boarding school in India and was good at football and hockey, but surprisingly not at cricket. We used to have 40 over, count them, inter-house competitions. And for about three years, I can't not do it now, our house was short a player. So I was drafted in. Over three years, I played eight. Count them.

20:16Over three years. Ready, Fee? Over three years, I played eight matches and batted at number 11. Count that. Twice. Counts it. Without scoring a run. Counts that. Run. I never bowled or caught anyone. No, and I only remember saving one ball. Counts it. Crossing the boundary, probably saving one run. Counts it. For f***ing sake. Why have we ruined our own podcast? Oh no, okay, I'll just say it really quietly now, just so you can keep your flow. But I can't not say it in my head now. Well, that's fine. I'm sure there are other loosely based cricketers out there with similar feats to Fon. Go well, cheers, Hemendra.

20:56Cheers. Yeah, it's really nice that people have, I mean, Fon, as we said last time, he was, he's the ultimate tail ender, really. The spirit of that, showing up without doing anything or adding anything is very much what tail enders is all about. Yeah, not contributing in any way. A similar email from Catherine, dear GeForce, Felix, matching Jimmy and Chardonnay to the movie. Cheers. Go on, cheers. I've just listened to this episode in which you discussed the unusual international career of Cambodian player Phon Bunthian. And I have to say, it didn't seem mysterious to me at all. In fact, it seemed familiar.

21:29I play for a local women's team and our best players are, for the most part, all-rounders. Meaning in league games, they bat the top of the order and also do most of the bowling. This means the less abled players like me often don't bowl and bat lower down the order as well. Until this season, I'd only bowled one wicketless over and scored one. Count that. This year, as we now have a second team, I was also allowed to bat higher in the order in a few matches. So I reached the heady heights of five runs in one in this count. My bowling has still not improved sufficiently for league cricket, but I did take a wicket in a friendly match before going on to bowl four.

22:09Count them, no balls. Balls so wide they missed the pitch. so you see the explanation could be that Fon has been picked as one of the best of the rest he perhaps is not one of the top bowlers and also not one of the top batters but he was in the top 11 players available for Cambodia on the occasions he was picked I hope this maybe solves the mystery go well warmest regards Catherine go well Catherine cheers makes a lot of sense I do want to get closer though to Fon I think we definitely the search goes on did we say taking a catch yes Yes. He has. He has taken a catch, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm just trying to figure out why he's in this team.

22:50Like, I get the, you know, the club cricket thing where, yeah, all-rounders do, you know, you get four or five best players try and do a bit of both, and then that leaves everyone else with less to do. But we're talking about Cambodia. So, were you saying the quality? might not be maybe there's not you know there's 11 players in Cambodia 11 cricketers yeah 9 million bicycles in Beijing we were talking about you could the court sub could be in Cambodian cricket phon might just mean sub yeah so it could be court phon yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Fond Fielder Fond Bunthian We looked that up but it doesn't translate as substitute Yeah Oh He's on as the Fond Bunthian He's on as the substitute fielder the substitute Bunthian Exactly Yeah Yeah Well it might be that I don't think it is that but the mystery continues to a certain extent and look Jimmy Anderson's come off and they bought on a Fond Bunthian

23:59We should try and get that would be a great Taylor Lenders joke for any village cricket next summer say oh I'm just going on as the Fon Bumpian yeah we've got Fon Bumpian because John's done his knee in so I'm going on as the Fon Bumpian if if you like what happens quite regularly when the scorer shouts Bowler's name please if that ever happens it's got to be Fon Bumpian oh my god so good that's so good we could get if anyone ever says Bowler's name all tenants have to shout back Fon Bumpian and see how many times we can get Fon Bumpian on scorecards across England yeah and he might go from having more wickets to 500 wickets in one summer.

24:40And it'll all be counting, count them. And it'll be going towards the record. We just want him to have, he might just have a record-breaking season next season. I can feel it. Wickets, runs, catches. Top scorer, most wickets. Count them, count them. Von Pumpian. That is such a good idea. There you go. We'll do it next year. Right. Well, look, and I'd love to get hold of... Let's do that for next season. Let's get hold of Fonbunthian at some point. We're surely only a few degrees of separation, separation from Theon, away from him. So let's... Great, man. This is summer at its peak. Whole Foods Market Summer Fruit Fest is your invitation to eat the season.

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26:03Matching Tendulkar, king of the sea, fresh from the sea, still drying himself off, still probably washing his little swimming shorts, his speedos. You put a holiday wash on yet? I have done a holiday wash, all dried out. I've got a new contraption from, I don't know, that's too boring. What do you mean you've got a new contraption? It dries your clothes. It's like this little tent thing and you hang them up in this tent and it doesn't go into it. What do you mean? in your in your house it's a tent it's like a it's like a i think a little coat hanger thing that extends up and it's got these arms and you hang your clothes in there and then you put a tent over it and then you turn on this machine and it dries them and gets all the creases out 35 you've given your wet clothes a pagoda yes yes but an indoor one say it's like an indoor pagoda do you put your wet clothes on you and then you sit in the tent and it dries and then you're ready for the day.

26:58Your wet clothes. Oh, right. He hangs himself up inside it. Yeah, and then when he's dry, he just walks out the house and gets on with his day. Yeah, like, yeah, cracking cheese, Gromit. And he gets inside his invention. Yeah. Yeah. Do you guys want a quiz? I'd love a quiz. Go on. Yeah, go on. Welcome to a brand new original quiz. Thank you so much for having us on a brand new original quiz. V, could you come up with like a theme tune on the fly? Oh, for God. Well, yeah. It's called See It, Say It, Salford. Oh. Welcome to See It, Say It, Salford. Don't sign on a dotted line until you see it, say it, Salford.

27:43That do? Yep. Fantastic. Well, that's do. Thank you. A little more than do. Today. Don't sign on a dotted line until you see it, say it, Salford. Okay, go. Sorry. It's Felix versus Greg today. I have gone to great lengths to supply quizzical apparatus mmm is it a ten each I delivered you a package yesterday yes Greg I sent you a package I've been sent a matching dropped off a secret package as if it was Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy yesterday in Bath and I've carried it with me to Manchester and I'm about to can I open it now I'm matching okay oh Oh, God, it's that horrible thing where you get your mouth gets jammed open and you have to say silly words.

28:30Oh, no. Dental mouth extenders. Oh, my God. No, man. Oh, come on. What are you doing? I do all this sort of wacky s***, but Felix is an actual rock star. Come on. No, man. He's better than this. So what did you do? Did you put it in your mouth? No, he is. I'm not, but he is. I've sent you and Felix now a list of words. Mate, no, no, no, no. I don't want to do it. I can't believe this is what you've dropped off yesterday with such high importance. I mean, I'm excited about it. Do you think that would do that? There's so many of them. Yeah, you do get a lot. You've sent me 12. There's different sizes for different sized mouths.

29:16So I'm right in saying, oh, f***. So we've got to measure our own mouths. So.

29:23what the f*** man what the f*** you dropped this off in Bath for me to carry to Manchester

29:33where's the small I'll find a small one you put the big bit in first I can't really no that's not it I don't think you think that's definitely not it for you what do I do Ed Oh, it's vertical Cracking cheese, Garnet Oh my god I like that I like that, okay Did you Did you send these to I'm just going to quickly say I'm already saying this is not going up on socials Right I've already said no to the socials click on this Okay So, V, you have one minute. I've sent you a list of words on your phone. You have one minute to say those to Jimmy. Jimmy, you just have to say what Felix has said. Five runs.

30:37Sharky, can you be able to time to run? Oh, they're so hard. There's a horrible problem with this, is that when you laugh, it's really painful. It's really painful. And it's also really funny. So let's get on with it. Okay, ready. Do you want to go first? I can't believe I just made a Wallace and Gormit joke and now I look like Wallace. Okay, Fee, you got your phone? I got a phone, yeah. Okay, ready? Every time you get ready, I'm scared. Every time you get one right, you'll get a ding. Yeah.