Would Shanthi Ever Go On Taskmaster?

17:47Romesh Ranganathan:Have fun, Jono. Good luck. You're a good boy. You're a good boy. Do you know, it's actually banned at our kids' school to say good boy. It's like a thing. Why? It's like, say for example, It's being used as a piss take thing. So, for example, if I go, Ben, don't do it, but if I said to you, Ben, can you pass me my phone? And then you pass me, I go, good boy. It's like suggesting you're my little, do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And kids are doing it so much now, it's been banned, saying good boy. What's exactly? Good boy. Other word. Good boy. When somebody says bye, they come and tell you, be good.

18:32What does it mean, exactly means?

18:35Romesh Ranganathan:I'm not sure how else to explain it. Be good. Behave yourself. Okay. Who said it to you? No, I can't tell you on the podcast, but I'm just asking. Was it a friend? Yeah. Don't mention the name. I will smack you. Okay. Is it a friend of yours that you hang out with now? I said, don't ask me any questions, okay? Okay. How old is a friend? Jesus Christ. Change the topic. Ask something else. Okay. How old are you?

19:09Romesh Ranganathan:This episode is brought to you by Apple Watch. Hands up if you think you're getting enough sleep. I can't see you, but I bet you haven't got your hand up, have you? And even if you have, why are you doing that? I can't see you. The worst thing is it can actually impact your health. And the thing is, not getting enough sleep genuinely affects your health. When you're tired, it's harder to focus. You forget things and your mood goes straight out the window. And the physical stuff is real too. Weaker immune system, craving rubbish food, that constant why am I exhausted feeling. Basically, your body starts operating like a laptop with 3 % battery.

19:41Romesh Ranganathan:Sleep quality is influenced by factors such as sleep duration, bedtime consistency, how often you wake up and time spent in sleep stage. But Apple Watch Series 11 has Sleep Score. It analyses these factors every night and provides a classification and a score. You can see how the score is calculated so you can understand the quality of your sleep and learn how to make it more restorative. Find out more at apple.com slash UK slash Apple Watch Series 11. iPhone 11 or later required. Let's have another one. Hi, Romesh. Hi, Shandi. I'm a huge fan of the podcast show. My question is, what advice would you give for growing up in an Indian household where nobody communicates their feelings and gives each other the silent treatment instead?

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21:01Romesh Ranganathan:Holy shit. Well, first of all, thank you for your email, anonymous. Your message, rather. Mum, what do you think? Nobody talks to each other. They give each other a silent treatment. Because everybody's busy at work. They go to work, come back. They are tired. They don't have time to talk. But I don't know. Oh, start making things, cooking. Shall we do this dish tomorrow? and start talking to each other and might break the ice. I don't know. Break the ice? They live together, though. Live together, but they don't talk to each other. Everybody's silent. You will go and watch, what's that, getting married.

21:44Married at first sight. Married at first sight. And dad will watch something else. There's no warmth in there. Yeah, so what should they do? Start cooking different dishes and learn. and bring the family together.

22:00Romesh Ranganathan:I actually don't think that's bad advice. It is. It's good. You know, you can sometimes, you know, the idea of, you know, like sometimes when we're trying to talk to the kids, like our boys, the boys are at an age now where they don't really want to chat that much. You know, if like they come home from school and then you go have a school or whatever, they just go fine, fine or whatever. But then if you go, do you want to play FIFA or something like that and you start playing a game with them and then start chatting with them then, they're actually a bit more open to having a chat because they don't feel like they're being interrogated or they're being put on the spot.

22:35Romesh Ranganathan:So actually, I think what you've done is given really great advice there. You are learning something at the same time, whatever you cook, you touch. Yeah, and then you're in the thing and you can start using that as a light way of kind of chatting and you can sort of slowly change. Create a beautiful dish and eat together. And slightly sort of change the culture of how feelings are expressed in the household. That's a really good idea. yeah so I just like my advice to you sort of what mum's advice is actually I don't want to take it off of her but yeah cooking together no if you have a better idea I think it's a great idea I think it's like get together and do something together and of course obviously as always watch out for malaria okay should we have one more hi Romesh hi Shanti my name is Brian Ranganathan however you want to pronounce it and I wanted to send you guys a voice note as I'm currently suffering from a bit of an existential crisis so having lived pretty much all my life with people being unable to pronounce my name i've heard it all from ranaganathan to rangathan to the mildly racist orangutanathan which is a nickname i had at school jesus um thanks to your fame i now live a life where every single person i meet can pronounce my name absolutely perfectly um the problem this is posing for me is that any single time i interact with a person a new person whether it's professionally at work whether it's somebody calling me from a utilities company an insurance company etc they'll say my name and they'll immediately follow up with i must ask are you related to romesh now i could completely kill their buzz and just talk about the fact that actually in sri lankan tamil culture my surname is merely my dad's first name and which is super boring and it means that there is absolutely no blood relation there whatsoever but i wanted to ask you guys if there's a witty response that you could come up with for me to deliver every single time i'm questioned about my name.

24:22Romesh Ranganathan:Thanks a lot. Love the podcast. See you later. Just off the top of my head, in Sri Lanka, Ranganathan is equivalent to Smith. Is it really? No. It's not. I'm just trying to think of a response. Actually, Ranganathan is not the correct pronunciation, is it? No. Ranganathan. Ranganathan. It's a God's name. Ranganathan. Krishna. Ranganathan. Ranganathan. You should be very proud to have the name. Yeah. Thank you, Brian. Brian, isn't it? Thank you, Brian, for your message. Yeah, thank you, Brian. And you should be proud about your name and enjoy. If somebody asks, are you related to Ramesh, Ramesh Ranganidhan, say yes.

25:04Why not?

25:05Romesh Ranganathan:Brian, I'm going to tell you this now. Thanks for your message. You are allowed to say that you're related to us. Related to us. We actually bequeath permission, don't we? I'm giving you the permission. In fact, this is what I'm going to say, Brian, this is my promise to you. We're cousins, right? You can tell people, yeah, he's my cousin. And if anybody asks me if I've got a cousin called Brian, I will say yes. Definitely, yeah. I think that's the best way to tackle it. How come he got an English name, Brian? I don't know. How? You were talking to your son, Jonathan. I don't call you Jonathan.

25:35Romesh Ranganathan:Well, that's my first name on my birth certificate. The reason we call you Jonathan, your father thought you will get a job easily. Yeah, I know. So maybe that's what that case is with Brian. Brian is... Do you think he's lying? Do I think he's lying? Do I think Brian is lying? Lying? No, I don't. Why would you lie about that? If you're going to make up a name, you wouldn't make up Brian, would you? You'd make up like Wolfgang or... Bonesaw. Ask him to... Brian, you say, yes, I am related to Ramesh Ranganathan. Or Honky Tonk or something like that. You wouldn't make up Brian. if you could have any other name mum what would it be like cool name cool name for man for you for me sylvie

26:30who cares about your poops ollie does that's why ollie's science-backed gut health lineup helps support your family's regularity from daily probiotics to fiber gummies your kiddos will love find it all on ollie.com that's o-l-l-y.com these statements have not been evaluated by the food and drug administration this product is not intended to diagnose treat cure or prevent any disease there's nothing wrong with that name it's just it's so mad how quickly that came to you

27:05Romesh Ranganathan:Why do you want to be called Sylvie? Just Shanti, Sylvie. My sister, I had a sister. She passed away. She had typhoid, called typhoid, four months old. Her name is Rajini. Okay. Well, that felt like a cool, dark, unnecessary detail. Now for a special part of the show, altogether different. This is all about the weird and wonderful. And no offence, but working with this, I feel like I'm surrounded by it every day. We are mad. Listen, you don't have to be We're crazy You don't have to be mad to do this podcast But it helps Bit of a different bunch to the regular podcast It's like a little podcast feed We're a bit serious It's like working in a fucking zoo What?

27:52Romesh Ranganathan:I don't know We're idiots Oh, absolute idiots Will is such a character Wild He's so weird and wonderful Oh, he's so crazy. The other day, I came in. He's supposed to be setting up the cameras. He was just smearing his shit on the wall. And crying.

28:18Romesh Ranganathan:So wacky. So wacky. Such a crazy guy. Off the wall. Yeah. Off the wall. And then the other day, I came in, and I went to say hello to John, and he normally was sat at the desk. I said, where are you, John? he was dragging his bum across the floor like a dog with worms. Guilty.

28:40What about Ben? What about Ben?

28:47Romesh Ranganathan:And Ben was checking his emails. Okay, let's talk about this. I had work to do. He is crazy. He's had to get on with stuff. He's crazy. Do you know, on WhatsApp, he leaves red receipts on. He doesn't give a shit. It's important for people to know. With old double ticks, if he will know when he's seen it. He doesn't care. It is mad here.

29:14Romesh Ranganathan:Okay, let's talk about something a little bit crazy. It's something altogether different. A TV show. Taskmaster, which is genuinely one of the best shows on TV. Yeah. Do you like Taskmaster, Mum? I do. Brain Child of Alex Horne. He did it as an Edinburgh show originally. Many, many years ago, I was approached to do the first ever series of Taskmaster. In fact, here's a fun fact for you. I'm the first person to ever complete a task on the TV show Taskmaster. I did the first day in the house. Alex, isn't it? Alex Horne, yeah. Greg Davis is the Taskmaster. Alex Horne is kind of the... Yeah. Assistant.

29:50Romesh Ranganathan:Yeah. Kind of. It was Alex's idea. Was it? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. He did his Edinburgh show. I'm pretty sure I explained it. But, and also, you know, they've done pretty well. And now it's on, I don't know what even series is on now, but it's, America it's popular. The world, like they're doing worldwide versions of it. Your watermelon clip was like the one that first blew up, wasn't it? Yes, it was actually. You nearly died choked, didn't you? I nearly choked, yeah. In fact, they sent the footage of me choking on the watermelon as part of the edit to the channel. And the channel said, you need to cut this down a bit.

30:25Romesh Ranganathan:Because it looked brutal. Yeah. You know? I was pulling watermelon out of myself. It's crazy.

30:33Romesh Ranganathan:Did you know when you did it, did you think, oh, this is going to be a huge show? No, I didn't actually. Because it's one of the biggest, it is the biggest comedy. Yeah, it's massive. I didn't know, I got in before the money came in. Series one, do you know what I mean? They didn't even, you know, you had to walk there. It wasn't in the studio. They filmed it at Clapham Grand, you know, and then it got really, really big. It is an amazing show. Do you watch, my kids watch it all the time. Do they? Yeah, they said that I'm... The children don't... They said I'm not one of their favourite contestants on it.

31:04Romesh Ranganathan:Who's their favourite? I think they like... Oh, who did they... They quite like Guz Khan. Yeah. Acaster they liked. Rob Beckett they liked. The big moment was... Maisie Adam is doing very well on the current series. She's developed sort of a rage issue. She gets very angry on it. Was it Joe Wilkinson? Was it the potato? That was the big one, wasn't it? Yeah, that was the big one. Actually, do you know what? Tree Wizard that I did on the show, I still, when I go and tour in America, people come up to me and go, it's a tree wizard. Oh. I mean, outside of the show. Yeah, yeah. Don't say it with that much of enthusiasm.

31:40Romesh Ranganathan:But the point is, it's still remembered. You know? Taskmaster's great. How much have you watched, Mum? I haven't watched this year. You were on it, weren't you? The beginning, isn't it? Yeah. Were you? Yeah, tiny bit. I think they snipped her out. Were you actually in the show? I never watched it. I can't watch, that's the only series I've never watched a minute of is mine. Really? Yeah, because I don't want to watch it. And also, yeah, but there's lots of, you know, it's a great show. You should watch it. Okay, I will start watching it. All right, great. It genuinely is an amazing show and it is a Romy recommend.

32:15Taskmaster.

32:16Romesh Ranganathan:Yeah. I think you'd be a good contestant on it, actually. Why? Eating this big, big thing. No, thank you. No, you don't know. It's not all eating. There's other stuff as well. Like one of the tasks, actually they gave Josh Whittacombe a fake task, which is count the number of baked beans in a can. Stuff like that. We had to draw a horse while riding a horse. Had to find, had to high five a 50 year old in a shopping centre. So it's all sort of variety of things. I think you'd be quite good. I think you'd be really good. Taskmasters are what we recommend and you can watch it alongside all sorts of altogether different shows on Channel 4.

32:52Romesh Ranganathan:Channel 4 has something for everyone. So stream something altogether different today. That is it for today's Thursday episode of the Ramesh Ranganathan show. And Shanti, join us on Monday where we're going to have another amazing guest. And who knows how it's going to go? Because it gets wired up in here, doesn't it, mum? It gets proper cray-cray. Tell him how crazy it gets, mum. Oh, yes. What do I say? Just whatever you want. Tell him how crazy it gets. I can't say anything. Just tell him how crazy it gets, Mum. See, she's shut down. That's how mad it gets here on the Romesh Ranganathan Show.

33:29Romesh Ranganathan:See you next time. Who knows what the fuck's going to happen?

33:36Romesh Ranganathan:If you've enjoyed this episode of the Romesh Ranganathan Show, make sure you follow wherever you get your podcasts. Apple, Spotify, YouTube, all the big ones. And you can enjoy more great content like this. And in fact, I'd go further to say, even if you didn't enjoy this episode, just follow anyway for shits and giggles. And on the Thursday episode, we're going to be taking questions from viewers and listeners. Oh. So that's exciting, isn't it? It's interesting. Yeah. And if you've got an interesting story or a question for my mum and I, or even like a family dilemma you'd like us to help you with, please do get in touch via our email address, podcast at rangaby.com, or you can voice note or text on this number.

34:15Romesh Ranganathan:07731 6233 55. I'm Ramesh Ranganathan, and this has been the Ramesh Ranganathan Show. what a narcissist. See you next time. Oh, shut up, Romesh. Legally, we can't say drinking Storm makes you smarter and more focused. But with zero sugar, 200 milligrams of caffeine and immunity support, you're smarter and more focused for drinking Storm. Storm, good energy in, good energy out. Energy for life. Pandora jewelry brings the sparkle to your summer. now with even better prices. Enjoy up to 50 % off select styles from personalized pieces to must-have favorites made for the summer. Timeless designs that shine with you through every moment wherever the summer takes you.

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