Leave Ariana Grande Alone

0:00At Blinds.com, it's not just about window treatments. It's about you, your style, your space, your way. Whether you DIY or want the pros to handle it all, you'll have the confidence of knowing it's done right. From free expert design help to our 100 % satisfaction guarantee, everything we do is made to fit your life and your windows. Because at Blinds.com, the only thing we treat better than windows is you. Visit Blinds.com now for up to 40 % off select styles, plus a professional measure at no cost. Rules and restrictions apply. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me Marina High.

0:36And me Richard Osman. Good day to you Marina. Hello Richard, did you do anything good last week? I played the Royal Albert Hall with my podcast The Rest is Entertainment. That was fun wasn't it? Every time I actually think about it I genuinely laugh out loud. I said it was a midwinter's night's dream. It was pure chaos and madness and fun. Pure magic. Thank you so much to everybody who came. My favourite bit was my Christmas present to Marina was having her carried on to stage by Nitro from Gladiators at the start of the second half. The roof almost came off the Royal Albert Hall. Can I say it was insane.

1:08I can't believe that actually happened. I was on Nitro's shoulder for a minute plus. The gladiators theme is quite, by the way, the band, the sensation band who are incredible, were playing the gladiators theme at this moment. For me, it was one of the great moments of my life. For Nitro, who's won a number of World and Commonwealth golds, I would have said it was probably out there with most of those for him. Even better as well is when he said he's got a hamstring tear or something, and you said, you mustn't carry me. And he said, you weigh literally nothing. One of the nicest people of all time.

1:41A little bit behind the curtain stuff, the Sensation Band, who, as you say, were unbelievable. They played the theme from Gladiators. They spent the first week learning how to play the theme from Gladiator, the film, until the misunderstanding was uncovered. And then when Nitro comes on, they're thinking, oh, not the theme from Gladiator. the theme from Gladiators. I didn't know that. That's absolutely hilarious. It would have had a very sombre but majestic tone but I think pure trash of the Gladiators theme was much better in the Cirques. They can do it all. So will we do it again? I don't know.

2:12We did love it and thank you to everyone who came. It was an absolute Christmas ball but who knows? We're not two of nature's performers. It's like childbirth, isn't it? Do you know what? I was thinking that at the time. Yeah. As I was sitting there with 5 ,000 people watching me I was thinking this is so like childbirth. what are we talking about this week? We're going to talk about Ariana Grande and the huge focus on her appearance and size during the Wicked Press tour and whether perhaps body shaming is back or if in fact it never went away. We're going to talk about our good friends at More In Common the polling company have done some amazing research on Christmas films and political attitudes like you know what's the most popular Christmas film of Tory voters, of Labour voters, of reform voters we'll learn all that sort of stuff everything Christmassy they've even done which is the best Christmas chocolate Yeah, which, by the way, I have used on.

3:01Yeah, I do too. They're also going to give us a definitive answer over who would win a general election between Martin Lewis and Jeremy Clarkson. We spoke about the other week, so we're doing that. And we're also going to talk about how a 79-year-old grandmother and TikTok are absolutely reforming the race for Christmas number one in the US and the UK this year. We'll begin then with Ariana Grande. First of all, we should say that the Wicked Press tour has been a vibe. It's been Ariana and Cynthia Erivo going round, and it's a juggernaut, this thing. I don't know how many destinations it's had, but they have honestly, not since Margot Robbie did Barbie, has someone sort of just really gone out there and tried and sold a movie.

3:43But there's a very distinct energy to this one. Much as I was previously discussed on this podcast with Lady Gaga's A Star Is Born tour, it's got a real vibe they sort of cry almost in every interview now it's obviously very very emotional I don't know how they're going to do the whole thing all over again this time in a year I hope they're taking on fluids yeah absolutely and they're going to have to do it all over again when Wicked Part 2 comes out next year it's like the London Marathon they need to have stations where people are just holding up cups of water for them we're in Budapest and they're just like take one, knock it back in one of these interviews last week there's been a huge amount of focus on Ariana Grande's appearance and whether she is looking, you know, very sort of painfully thin.

4:23And someone asked her, a French journalist or YouTuber asked her how she felt about it. And she became very emotional and said, I've been doing this in front of the public and kind of been, you know, a specimen in a Petri dish since I was 16 or 17. So I've heard it all. I've heard every version of it, of what's wrong with me. Then you fix it and then it's wrong for different reasons. It's very hard to protect yourself from this noise. And it went on more than that. But I suppose what we're talking today, it's incredibly difficult, as we know, and as everyone has said, being anyone in the public, by the way, and young men have their own kind of issues with this stuff too.

4:57So in some ways, and we'll get into this in more detail in a bit, but I wonder if it's a similar story to the paparazzi where things... Things we thought had gone away and they had not gone away. They're absolutely still there and they're just as awful as they ever were. There was a change. I think that's the most heartbreaking thing in this case, particularly. You know, the 2000s were an absolute nadir for all this stuff. And you lived in an era where there was a heat magazine, Circle of Shame, and every part of woman's body, tiny little bits of sweat, everything, cellulite, everything was kind of focused on.

5:26Then it got much better. And so you have things like when the Britney documentary comes out, people are like, oh my God, that's so disgusting. This was lawless. How could it even happen? Yes, what were we like back then? What were we like back then? I have to say I think it's got worse now and I'll get to why I think it's got worse now. This weight stuff has become much worse. One of the weird things was when I was thinking we were going to talk about this, I thought I just sort of remember writing about this ages ago. And I found this article I wrote 21 years ago about this exact thing, about women who are perhaps too thin or people think they're too thin.

5:58And it's written about and how it's written about. And I wrote it for the women's pages in The Guardian 21 years ago. And I was like, I'm looking all the names and it was Calista Flockhart, Laura Flynn Boyer, all of these people, names from back then. But it was really just done in the same way, that same tone of like fake concern that the newspapers use. Last week in the mail, there was a headline, fragile, I'm doing the air quotes, Ariana Grande pushes ahead with Wicked Tour amid boyfriend Ethan Slater's concerns. Again, the air quotes for her health. air quotes are the thing that give you the sort of deniability that you know you're not actually stating it it's just a view there's there are quotes inside like he's told friends he's confused as to why everybody is so focused on this movie when ariana clearly needs help let me tell you one thing he did not tell any friends that we've discussed before that in tabloid lots of tabloid stories when you say an onlooker said or a close friend said those people don't exist they are invented because it looks better than stories being pure narrative to have voices put in.

7:00And also it's not the Daily Mail themselves then saying doesn't she look ill? It's saying friends of friends have said that she looks ill. Worried friends. It's the Donald Trump thing of a lot of people are saying I keep hearing that and then saying the thing you want to say anyway. Fake concern is always the deadliest tone. I find that even if you're writing trying to do satire, if you're writing about politicians or something, you know fears for whoever. yeah because you know how did they really mean to say that sort of thing it's much deadlier than saying what an idiot and sort of shouting in an angry way yeah and it's interesting because there's plenty of there are plenty of articles in plenty of papers about you know health and about body image and about body shaming and you know there's a whole section of the industry that is writing that but as you say that the showbiz and the general news pages do still seem to be just slipping back into that the air quotes stuff you just wonder how they feel about what they're doing at the moment because we do know now zero excuse now for you know what you're doing like as you say you can look back 20 years and you can see what happened and you can see how it affected people and you can see that you were taking advantage of people and you know it was wrong you know it for a fact and if you're doing exactly the same thing now it's hard because you you no longer have deniability you can no longer go oh no i sort of thought i sort of thought maybe it's okay to do because actually i am quite concerned about her and i think it is a shame what she's going through and you know so you know i'm worried and i worry about young women you think no you are doing the same thing that we did before you're doing exactly the same thing we did before and you know now yes obviously i do agree with that although i have to say if you look amongst civilians not journalists and not celebrities people do say oh i'm i'm worried taking my daughter to some extent to this movie i don't like to promote this sort of thing and there is a sort of fine line and this is a rather difficult conversation to have and i'm not saying that's the case in this case at all but in certain cases where saying nothing in itself feels a form of dereliction obviously there are ways of saying it people are very impressionable I mean you know there have been times when someone like Greta Thunberg who obviously suffered a really serious eating disorder before she came to the public eye and her parents have really foregrounded that story and they talk about it a lot but there have been times when I have seen I've looked and felt I I worry, I wonder if this is totally healthy.

9:14And I do mean that from a place of actual concern. And by the way, there are great articles about that. That's what I'm saying. There is an industry where we are writing about this intelligently now and compassionately and understanding and understanding the effect it has. And I just think it's very peculiar that the other side of it still exists, which is the sort of just sniggering behind closed doors side of it. Because actually we are, as a society and journalism as an industry, we understand the issues now. We can write about it. We can talk about teenage girls. We can talk about what it is that they are seeing.

9:44And yet at the same time, we have this, just the other side of the industry still seems to exist. I wonder if we are as sophisticated as we think we are. You know, Ariana Grande has said herself that she was having Botox and fillers. She stopped when she was 25. So that tells you how long. And she said, I had so much of them, you know, and she said, you know, you're never quite right. Back in the summer, there were all these pictures of, long lens pictures of Lady Gaga at a relative's wedding and everyone was saying, oh, she's pregnant, she's pregnant. And it's like, she's not pregnant. She doesn't even really, I don't know if there's even a slight tummy here, but even from that, you're never just thin enough or you're never just fat enough or you're never just whatever the right size is.

10:21If we are talking about illness, we don't really write about other illnesses in this way. And it's this one thing. And I also feel that there's something about the age of a Zen pic that has made it worse. Right. Because it's become the sort of hook that you can say, oh, did they take a Zen pic? so did they take it i.e you took a shortcut you're morally weak did you not admit that you took as mpick i you're a liar you're morally weak and if you didn't take as mpick then you know why didn't you maybe you need to i feel that there is a level i don't know weight loss drugs are making all of this worse that they haven't at all they've done nothing whatsoever despite the ubiquity of them and particularly the ubiquity of them in the entertainment industry they have done nothing at all to help us reckon with these kind of incredibly ingrained sort of atavistic feelings we have about fat and body weight.

11:12Now, where does that come from in our culture? If you know what I mean, that's a story for an enormous dissertation and many, many books. But in terms of show business and in terms of editors of newspapers and in terms of showbiz journalists, where does it come from? Does it come from the fact that an audience shows a real desire to read about people's weight or does it come from a desire to slap people down a little bit who are more successful and and richer than the journalist i think it comes from both both of those appeal to us and and so i definitely think there is that slapping down thing but one of the things you see that is beyond enormous online now is before and after photos of anything before and after it's such a sort of you know glib but incredibly sort of mesmerizing and listen there's a evolving way to look at before and afters.

11:59There's a reason Home's Under the Hammer is the best show on TV. Yeah. And made for TikTok and made for Instagram is the perfect visual kind of format of our times. Lots of the surgery and the work and also people have never had so much surgery and what they call non-surgical stuff like Botox and fillers and things like that which are just injected rather than involve a knife. They've never had so much as they have now and it's really odd. I mean if you talk to people in the beauty industry or talk to top hairdressers, they will say it's really scary. The 24-year-olds now look exactly the same as the 40-year-olds because they've all had the same things done.

12:33But all of this stuff is seen all the time and people are comparing and comparing and comparing and Instagram has driven this. I suppose now via TikTok as well, the same thing, has driven this stuff completely. And I know that finally over Christmas, we are going to talk about these tweens, the Sephora tweens, because this is to a huge extent is sort of Ariana Grande's market. And so all these little children who like her and always have because she's a Disney star and she's still always had that great connection with really young fans. See all this. And I suppose to some extent, that's why you will have the, there is a concerned mother discourse out there.

13:08Absolutely. And if anyone, you know, anyone in their 20s now thinking that they don't look right or they look old or whatever it is, you will look back at photos of yourself in your 20s and go, I was so beautiful. I've never been more handsome. Why was I not a Milanese cat model? I looked amazing. Amazing. And your skin is amazing. Your eyes are amazing. everything about you is great and that will last for quite a long time as well and if anybody is telling you you need to spend money to look great you already look great there is the trouble is everybody is telling you you need to spend money to look great every single person every person who's telling you need to do that is selling you something every single one of the only people you need to listen to are the people who put water in the taps because just hydrate this is all you need to do anyone who needs surgery anyone who needs plastic surgery get it if you if you need there's lots of conditions you need it for if you are just a regular human being you are never going to look better than you currently do in your natural state and you've got a good 15 or 20 years if at that point you got a bit of money behind you you want to throw some money at the problem please go ahead but if you are in your teens and your 20s by all means take every makeup tutorial in the world and just you know you know have fun but you don't need to go under the knife you are not going to look better than you currently do and you are going to get to the stage people in their 40s are trying to look like you how you look now that's what they are they are literally trying to copy how you look without having any work done at all that is free it's absolutely you do not need to spend a penny give that money to charity give it to wherever you want but you don't need to spend it would you not say i certainly would and i will talk about this a lot more when we talk about the 10 year old craze for all of this and the people influencing 10 year olds to buy skincare it is so utterly bleak I can't even begin to settle in for that Christmas tree because it's coming down the slipway but to bring it back to Ariana Grande I would say that it's very difficult and I do understand particularly with the sort of parental concern it's impossible to live in this culture and to think that it's got any better all of these things that are supposed to help have made things worse the same way that sort of 2000 celebrities it was awful and you had the paparazzi and all of that, the paparazzi is still bad.

15:17But the fandom has become so difficult with social media. We talked about Chaperone. We talked about all of those things. Again, it's very difficult to think that a period of progress has not been followed by a massive period of regress that has been complicated by the new technologies, be that social media or be it semaglutide or be it whatever form of weight loss thing people are using. There are awful people in the world. And the age of social media means we hear from all of them in a way we didn't used to. And we can block and block and block. but we do hear from the worst people. And some people's job in life is to knock other people down because they feel uncomfortable.

15:51But some people are just mean, right? And some people are just uncomfortable with themselves and need to knock other people down. In the olden days, it was easier to avoid that. And now you cannot avoid it. And Ariana Grande can go on a TV program or go on a press tour and 98 % of people who are decent human beings can kind of go, good on you and I hope you're okay or whatever it is. Or we hear from every single one of the other 2%. Like we constantly hear from it and we constantly have to then think about what they're saying. We constantly have to confront it. She has to confront it more importantly.

16:20And it's just it's so tiresome and so boring. And I don't know what you do because you can't really say to those people stop because they're doing it for a reason. Some people are doing it for money and some people are doing it because they're deeply unhappy with themselves. And you can't really overcome either of those issues. And, you know, as I say, a section of them are doing it particularly of the fandom because they feel actually concerned. Yeah. either way it has actually taught i mean i suppose the word noise is perhaps the best way to describe it but it must it's obviously quite deafening it's very very hard still probably harder than it was 10 years ago in fact i think definitely harder than it was 10 years ago to be a young female star in the public eye yeah i think so but and i would say more importantly just talking to people who are listening to this podcast if it's an issue that affects you just that conversation is around the whole time anyone who does have issues i've had issues with my weight my whole life and I will do for the rest of my life.

17:10So that conversation is going on in my head the whole time anyway. It's not like a conversation is quiet. But when it's in the culture as well as in the media and people are having views on it, people are talking about it, people are telling you about it, you know, it's hard. So anyone who does have that, I would say you don't have to worry so much about what people are saying about Ariana Grande. Worry about, you know, just talk to people who you love, talk to your friends, understand that you're beautiful and loved and all of those things and get rid of the shame of what it is about weight that upsets people, what it is about losing weight, what it is about putting on weight.

17:38Try and lose that shame by talking about it. But people who are constantly writing about it are not helping, I would say. But it is very, very, very, very hard to be a human being, is it not? And it's very hard to be a human being in a world where stimulants are constantly pushed upon you by every industry they are, because it's just the world that we live in. And so if you can ever take a little bit of time, a little bit of space, just remember who you are as a human being. Remember you're loved and remember that there's no shame, you know, and everyone's going to have addictions. everyone's going to have difficulties and not worry about this cultural conversation going on the whole time.

18:10Just take a little bit of time out from it all. And that goes for Ariana Grande as well. Right. Shall we proceed to the break? I actually have a small present for you after the break. No, we need to talk about the present you got me at the Royal Albert Hall as well. Also, after the break, I've got a present for you, which is I'm going to tell you what's going to be Christmas number one. Oh, OK. I can't wait. OK.

18:31Welcome back, everybody. Welcome back. As discussed, I have a present. Wow. If this is a year's worth of a Zen pic, I think it undercuts what we've been talking about. That's my view. Whoa. For the benefit of the tape. Amazing. I am passing Richard a copy of the legendary Radio Times double issue, which actually comes out on Tuesday, the day this podcast comes out, but which I managed to go behind the counter at a Central London newsagent. And yes, get this. It's not where you want to go, is it? Behind the counter at a Central London newsagent. No, I loved it back there. and a highlighter as well and traditionally as always a highlighter and on the front cover we've got Wallace and Gromit or as the BBC now call them Gromit thank you so much oh my god that's so exciting it's a great by the way the Radio Times Christmas issue is such a legendary thing me and my whole childhood I still try and get it every single year and they've done so many good things in that because obviously I had to buy one for myself as well and I've already cracked it open you know Outnumbered is coming back on Boxing Day and all the children are now grown up.

19:35They've redone an exact Radio Times photo that they did right back from when they were tiny and now they're all so good. So, by the way, that comes out on Tuesday. This is not sponsored content. It's really not. But also, by the way, the present you bought me at the Royal Albert Hall, I bought you Nitro, but you have got me genuinely, listen, you can look at my IMDB if you wish, you can look at my Wikipedia, you got me an executive producer credit, you bought me an executive producer credit on a film called Another Plan from Outer Space The Doomed. Yeah, and it's actually on, not only is it on your upcoming producer credits, which include two things, The Thursday Murder Club, directed by Chris Columbus and produced by Mr.

20:11Steven Spielberg's company, and this one, which I'm going to let you know is probably going to rate considerably lower. You don't care about things like averages and ratings and sales, Richard. We showed a little clip from it, didn't we, at the Albert Hall, and it looks pretty special. That was the first one, yeah. I can't believe that Hollywood is open to financial, you know, corruption. But anyone can become a producer. Anyone can buy an executive producer credit and it's actually going to be on imdb so i'm i love both of my presents thank you now christmas number one uh last year we predicted it right we predicted christmas number one book last year so we're going to do the same this year i want to talk about one very specific song that has caught fire in the last few years there's traditionally ever since the advent of streaming christmas songs are huge at christmas in the uk and we've had the holy triumvirate which is wham last christmas mariah all i want for christmas is you and the Pogues, Fairy Ted of New York.

20:58Those are the three that have sort of always been the top three Christmas songs in the UK. Now, the Pogues has now dropped out of that top three. Into that top three has come a song which for years would have been at the very end of all those, you know, now that's what I call Christmas compilations. And that is Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee, which has become absolutely huge. It's become huge over here and it's become absolutely massive in the United States. So this was recorded in the 50s, Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. Brenda Lee she was 13 years old when she recorded it so if you're listening to it that's a 13 year old singing incredible voice incredible voice one of the greatest for 13 that is extraordinary vocalists of all time it was written by a guy called Johnny Marks and Johnny Marks who really specialised in Christmas songs he wrote A Jolly Holly Christmas which we might know the Buble version of but he also wrote Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer did he?

21:48it's weird to think that someone wrote that yeah but you know what I mean it feels like they are lyrics Richard it feels like it's been I suppose so I mean are they? So he wrote that, but he wrote Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. She recorded it at 13 years old. Now, as I say, it's bumbled along for a few years. Brenda Lee is very much still with us. Yes, she's still alive. And at 78, she joined TikTok. And on TikTok, she decided to do a lip sync version of Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree with Casey Musgraves and various other country stars. And it meant that last year, at the age of 78, Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree went to number one in the US on the Billboard Top 100.

22:23In the US, they don't have Christmas number one singles. There's only been two in history, which are Mariah Carey, that went to number one, and the Chipmunks song by the Chipmunks. And Mariah's song, by the way, went in 2019. By the way, if you are a member of our club, we've got a whole special episode all about Queen of Christmas herself, Mariah Carey. We have a lovely bonus episode alongside our It's a Royal Knockout episode, Steven Seagal episode, Die Hard. We've got all sorts going on there. Die Hard is yet to come out, but anyone will continue. So at 78 years old, she became the oldest woman ever to be number one on the US Billboard 100.

22:55The next week, she had turned 79, so became the oldest woman again. And this year, at 80, I suspect it might go to number one again. So that song has become absolutely massive. It's become massive because at 78, she decided to go on TikTok, which is why this year, I suspect it's going to be top three in the UK rocking around the Christmas tree, when for years, it's sort of hovered around the kind of 20s or something. So the question is, what's going to be Christmas number one? In the UK? In the UK. Can I just say how, you know, I'm sure Rory's already done this explainer on the rest is politics about how Chris's number one's calculated, but let me just chime in anyway.

23:30So any number one is done, sales, it's Friday to Thursday in the given week. Download sales is one thing. Streams are counted depending on whether the person has a paid or a free subscription to the service. so 100 paid streams equals one sale and 600 free streams equals one sale so basically the sort of stream to sale ratio is kind of 200 to 1 and you could and you're also only at any week you're only allowed three tracks in the charts they're not going to if you have your album out and like everyone loves everything and they're streaming the whole thing like Taylor Swift or whatever you can only have three in the charts but that's how they're doing it now tell me what's going on this year please well that means of course that I mean forever and ever and ever now it's going to be a Christmas song that's number one because people are streaming it, people are playing playlists and what have you.

24:15And we had the era of X Factor, which went away. Then we had the era of Lad Baby, who did all their songs for the Trussell Trust. That's gone away. And I think now it is just those Christmas songs are going to be battling it out year after year after year. So last year, for the first time ever, Wham! got Christmas number one. Mariah still hasn't had Christmas number one. She's been number one, but it hasn't been number one at Christmas. The Pogues will be in the top ten. I say Brenda Lee will be in the top ten. a few songs which are sort of creeping up the charts a little bit Underneath the Tree by Kelly Clarkson I think might break into the top 10 for the first time ever this year and might keep going in that upper trajectory Feliz Navidad has never been in the top 20 it looks like it might be in the top 20 this year but I think the Christmas number one for the next 10 years is going to be Wham!

25:00versus Mariah and then maybe something else might come along but it'll be another one of the Christmas songs I hate to sound a note of negativity but is there something that you know what, for me all of this stuff the fact that it's just the same things again and we're going back to these same furrows, I quite understand it because it's comfort, whatever, but it does seem to fit with me with all those, you know, those words like bed rotting and the idea of escapism and that kind of general... Bed rotting? You do know the phrase bed rotting? People just staying in their bed and can't get out and just like, what's the point?

25:31I'm removing from life. Right. It's one of the words of the year, maybe last year, well, whatever, recently it was one of those words of the year. It's about a withdrawal from the present. And there is a general, obviously, there is a sort of, there's a withdrawal from the now, from the current, that there's a sort of general negative view around in the world. And I find it quite odd. It's not sort of necrotic, but it is slightly like there's nothing new being created. And the same thing, we're going back and back to the same thing. I don't know. Honestly, I don't think that's right. I think the charts are reflecting a certain thing, which is because we have streaming.

26:04We absolutely have the most mainstream things at the top all the time. Whereas the chart used to be what's new, what's new, what's new, because you'd have to go out and buy something. Whereas now you don't. It's literally what are almost everyone in Britain putting on a playlist is essentially what's going to be number one. And so lots of people are trying to be Christmas number one again this year. Even Simon Cowell is back, Callum Scott and Leona Lewis. Reverend and the Makers have done a great Samaritans charity song. So lots of people are still aiming for this. Christmas, like the final episode of An X Factor, everybody starts listening to music at the same time.

26:37and they all listen to the same music. I cannot see a way in the next 10 years we can get rid of the military-industrial complex of Wham versus Mariah. And also, they really buy into it. Andrew Ridgely's off doing lots of videos, so's Mariah, giving lots of money to charity and all sorts of things. East 17, I think it's the 30th anniversary, they beat Mariah to Christmas number one when it first came out. So everyone's still going for it. Don't think it's a moribundity of where we are as a culture because there's been amazing music that's come out this year. I just think that there's something very specific about Christmas and the fact that suddenly it's not just music lovers who are streaming music every day.

27:14It is everybody is doing it. And once everybody does it, suddenly Dairy Milk is the most popular chocolate bar. Ready Sorted Walkers are the most popular crisps. And Wham versus Mariah is going to be the Christmas number one battle now until the end of eternity. Oh, my God. As a result, it doesn't mean anything. I don't think like in the same way that when we were young Christmas number one meant a thing and you were aware of what was coming this is like a totally meaningless thing in the culture like completely meaningless for anyone in like Gen A for Daphne, Gen Z too I just think it means nothing at all Yes, I think that's right I mean in America Christmas number one's never meant anything over here it's been a sort of fun thing that we kind of invented we created it and made it this battle every year and I think that for those of us you know who remember and hark back to those days and you know Shaken Stevens becoming Christmas number one or Pet Shop Boys becoming Christmas number one and you know things like that and it was exciting yeah now it is the law of diminishing returns to the point where just the idea that a 79 year old woman on TikTok might somehow gatecrash the top three I now find exciting at our Royal Albert Hall thing we did a World Cup of Christmas songs we did and beforehand Richard was like just to let you know it will be Mariah or it will be Wham Joey, who is one of our producers who did the draw, used to work at FIFA.

28:34So we knew that the one thing was that the draw couldn't be rigged. Yeah, and then the Qatari National Anthem won the World Cup of Christmas songs. All my family were like, no, there's no way. Because what actually won it was Fairy Tale of New York. And my family were like, no, you were absolutely, you totally fixed that. Because everyone knew because they hadn't played the full chorus. And I was like, we genuinely did not. And thank goodness that they were able to do it. because when we went off to get ready, I think they then practiced it and it was absolutely faultless and everyone went nuts and was standing up and their phones were waving.