Nnireggub

Warming Up

8242/21161

I hate to give a plug to The Rest is Entertainment…

….as the success of podcasts like this and other ones with johnny-come-lately- big names is part of the reason that I have been getting much less advertising revenue recently and very few sponsorships. And no one can blame the advertisers for that. Whose podcast would you rather put your ads on?

And I worry that Osman hasn't got enough money yet, so let him get some more, just to be safe. He genuinely deserves it.

Fair play to Osman and Hyde, it's a fantastic listen and lifts the curtain (a little bit at least) to show what is going on behind the scenes in show business and how things work. Their episode on the new Noel Edmonds documentary is fabulous and I hope ITV has paid them some money for covering the show in such detail because I can't imagine anyone would listen to this episode and then not seek out the programme.

Osman mainly attempts to defend Edmonds (but still provides details and insights at least about that kind of personality - his theory about why bit stars choose to go a bit left-field with their philosophies rather than acknowledge reality is gold. He is a very wise man and I love that he loves all kinds of well made stuff, regardless of whether its high brow or populist (and is a champion of populist stuff). He seems very grounded for someone who has had such success (and is so tall), but fingers crossed things start going wrong for him and he starts believing in something insane himself.

Anyway, of course I watched the first episode of Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure tonight and it is well worth your time. The best bit of ep 1 is Noel thanking a statue of a knight, but you will have to watch it to even begin to understand what that's about.

The thing that bothered me though, partly as a comedian and partly in a business sense is why Noel called the pub on his otherwise classy estate the Bugger Inn. I am all for swearing but that would be off-putting for certain people surely. Maybe the sort of people that Noel doesn't like.

But mainly my issue is that it doesn't make sense as a joke. Noel has made a living from Crinkley Bottom style innuendo and seaside post-card Carry On cheekiness, but naming a pub the Bugger Inn suggests he still doesn't understand how innuendo is meant to work.

What is Bugger Inn meant to mean?

Is it a pun on Buggering? Seems a bit on the nose. Well not the nose. Is it a gay bar or just somewhere where anal sex is encouraged for all? Or just an inn that welcomes buggers in the less bummery sense of "you old bugger." Maybe.

It can't be a play on Buggering around or Bugger all or Bugger Off, because Inn is not the opposite or really associated with any of those words.

And if you're doing innuendo you don't actually say the rude word out loud or at least disguise is. The Fawcett Inn, whilst possibly implying lack of consent, is an innuendo. The Cock In also works as long as accompanied by a picture of a cockerel. But the Bugger Inn. What is it? Is it meant to sound like Burger King? No, that would be even weirder.

Someone suggested it was shorthand for "Is the bugger in?" but if so it would really need a question mark. Goldfinch liker on bluesky said that the dull real answer is when they were fitting it out there was a big fixture and someone said "We'll never get the bugger in".

It still doesn't really work.

I don't think I should really be trying to work out how Noel's comedy brain works given he's given all his drinks saucy names too. The lager in the bar is called "The Tits Up" which is a bit like that B sharps joke in the Simpsons, where it seems witty at first but gets less funny every time you hear it. Except Tits Up doesn't seem clever at first.

How long before the patrons just ask for lager and ignore the name? Will anyone always order Tits Up and laugh every time they do so? Apart from Noel.

Despite him not understanding how comedy works and yet still having hundreds of millions of pounds (though some bankers - not that one- did their best to steal those from him) and despite him having insane ideas about crystals and mumbo jumbo and thinking he can cure cancer (not in the documentary) you do end up sort of liking this insane, vulnerable man, who just wants everyone to love them (in spite of all the things he is).

And he does look impossibly good for 76. I doubt that he has a crinkley bottom.

ITV haven’t paid me for mentioning this show. Nor The Rest Is Entertainment. I reckon they’ll all do OK without me.