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Hello, listeners.
How are you doing today?
Welcome back to Luke's English Podcast.
Let me tell you what you can expect from this episode.
So in the UK, in Britain, on the BBC on television, there's a really popular show And it's called Room 101.
It's a really popular show.
It's the sort of thing that you see on maybe a Friday evening or something like that.
It's a kind of comedy chat show.
It's been on TV for many years and it's a really well-known show.
Lots of British people know Room 101.
The concept of the show is that there's the host and there's the guest.
More recent sort of iterations of the show, you see a host and three guests.
And they sort of compete with each other and stuff like that.
But the basic idea is that a guest is invited onto the show and they name three things which they would like to be removed from the world and banished into this room called Room 101.
Now, the idea of that is sort of loosely inspired by the story 1984 written by George Orwell, which of course is a very serious book.
A very important book.
You might well have read it.
And in that book, there is a room which is called Room 101.
And that's where all of your worst fears and all of the things in the world that you are most afraid of and that you hate the most, they're all in Room 101.
So it's like your nightmare room that you never want to be taken to.
So that's where the idea of Room 101 came from.
But in this TV show, which is a comedy show with famous guests from all sorts of different lines of work, a lot of comedians and actors and celebrities and stuff are invited on.
And yes, they name three things that they would like to be banished into Room 101.
So essentially, three things they want to remove from the world.
And some of the things that people have talked about on the show over the years.
Maybe I can give you a sense of what has been included in previous episodes of Room 101.
People who don't pick up their dog's poo, which is obviously true.
Definitely something everyone will agree should go into Room 101.
People who don't pick up their dog's poo.
I mean, that's awful.
Also things like trying on clothes, like the inconvenience of having to go into a shop and to try on the clothes.
You have to wait at the fitting room and then you have to get your clothes off and...
The little curtain doesn't close properly and it's all very inconvenient and at the end you decide it looks terrible and you don't buy it anyway.
Trying on clothes is one of the things.
Who talked about trying on clothes?
Alice Levine, I think, who is an English radio and television presenter.
Also, phone calls, which arguably are annoying things we all have to do.
Bread in restaurants.
I don't know what the problem with bread in restaurants is, but one of the celebrities mentioned that.
Football players who pretend to be injured.
We can all agree that's annoying.
Coat hangers, you know, those metal wire things that we use to hang our coats up in the cupboard.
Those coat hangers.
Yeah, I could understand why we would want to get rid of them because they're so annoying.
They bend.
They fall apart.
They fall on the floor.
Things like that.
What else have we got?
Cats.
New Year's Eve, people who don't say thank you to you when you stop to let them cross the road at a zebra crossing and things like that, right.
So it's normally kind of not too serious, just annoying things about life, about the world, that we would like to be banished forever in Room 101.
That's the concept of the TV show.
Now, in this episode...
That's what we're going to do.
We're going to take the idea of Room 101 and do it on the podcast, because it's basically a good, fun way to create some humorous conversation and to let a guest rant about some things that they don't like, or to complain about some things that are annoying or have caused them trouble in their life.
OK, and my guest today is Charlie Baxter, the host of the British English podcast.
The British English Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts, you can listen to it.
So Charlie's going to be my guest.
He's chosen three things to talk about, and I'm going to be the host.
And it's my job to listen to Charlie and ultimately to judge whether the things he's brought will be thrown into Room 101 or not.
So it's up to me to decide that, okay?
I'll let you discover... the three things that Charlie has chosen.
They're quite specific things.
And I think you're going to enjoy this.
There's one in particular, one thing in particular here that well, I think it could create some YouTube drama.
I think there could be some YouTube drama here.
I'm not normally someone who goes in for that kind of thing.
But Charlie chose to, let's say, tell a story about a particular person that you might know, a particular YouTube English teacher.
Maybe the biggest, one of the biggest, maybe the biggest English teaching YouTube channel.
Who could that be?
British English Channel.
Female British YouTuber teaching English.
There's some drama relating to her.
And I'll let you discover it, okay?
I'm sure it's going to break the internet.
I'm sure it will.
I'll let you discover that.
We're going to start in just a second.
I should also say that Charlie and I have chosen to do a sort of swap cast this week.
As you know, Charlie's the guest on Luke's English podcast today, but also I will be the guest...
As I smash my microphone, I will be the guest on the British English podcast this week.
So if you listen to this week's episode of the British English podcast, you will hear me as the guest.
And I've chosen my three things that I would like to be banished into Room 101.
I will let you listen to that episode to discover what those three things are.
The British English podcast, you'll find it wherever you get your podcast.
And I will put a link in the episode description for this episode.
What else do I need to add?
Just that there is an episode PDF for this on the website.
You'll find that linked in the description as well.
On the PDF, you'll see a full episode transcript.
So, if you want to read it later, in order to just kind of consolidate some of the things you've heard, to notice some bits of language, because it's very rich with language this episode.
Charlie and I just...
We really got on a roll here and you'll notice lots of different expressions and nice bits of vocabulary.
So if that's your thing, if you're a vocab hunter, if you're always looking for nice bits of English vocabulary, there's plenty for you to notice and pick up in this episode.
The transcript will help you to do that.
I suggest that you just listen to the episode and then maybe look at the transcript again.
Read through it.
And that's where you can actually look at picking out bits of vocab that you can, you know, learn and use yourself in the future.
OK, so you'll find a link for the PDF transcript in the episode description as well.
Right then.
So without any further ado, let's get started.
Let's get into this conversation with Charlie Baxter.
So this is Room 101 on Luke's English Podcast with Charlie Baxter.
And here we go.
Charlie, I'm very curious to find out what your three things are that you've chosen to banish from the world.
Yes.
Was this easy for you?
Was it easy for you to come up with three things?
It's interesting.
It was actually kind of therapeutic in the sense that if something bad goes wrong, you're like you're going in room 101.
And you're like, oh, that's that's nice that that gets rid of that in my imagination.
But then also I started thinking, oh, is there are there better things that I should be looking for?
And you start and I'm starting to look for the bad things in life a bit too much.
You're not normally that way inclined, are you?
You're more of a sort of the glass is half full type of person, I would imagine.
When the sun is out, I'm very optimistic.
Yeah, when it's raining and I feel like I've made poor choices to be stuck in the rain then yeah, I could be a little bit moany, little bit moany.
And I think it's been raining quite a lot recently.
So maybe you've come up with a lot of ideas.
I've come up with quite a list.
I've had to narrow them down.
I've had to decide, you know, which goes where.
And yeah, I wonder whether you think I should go for the, the bigger ones.
Well, they're not that big.
They're all pretty small, actually all little things in life.
It's not like, you know, the Royal family or politics in general politicians.
No, it's quite, quite small things, but yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's, that's quite common.
I think for room 101.
Um, often it's just like little petty annoying, annoying things, little irritating things.
You can decide.
You can decide which one you go with first, but uh let's, let's begin.
Tell us your first thing, and i can.
I'm going to be the judge, right?
I get to decide whether, in fact, i will pull the lever and send this thing into room 101 forever.
Absolutely yeah okay, so go ahead, you get the power.
Yeah yeah, So this one actually comes with a story that's happened very recently and I'm not sure if I'm ready to expose it live on air, but we'll see.
But the problem is very specific.
It's when you go into a bathroom, a public bathroom, and then you see that there's a dispenser and there's toilet paper.
But you cannot detect how much toilet paper there is because it's not transparent in any way.
Wow, this is so specific.
So it's in a public toilet.
It's a toilet paper dispenser.
So you've gone into a cubicle.
To do your business.
There's a toilet paper dispenser in there, but it is not transparent.
It's made of metal or something.
And so you don't know how much toilet paper is actually contained inside the roll of toilet paper.
Right.
Okay.
You've got it.
Yeah, because then you don't know what ratio you've got and how sparing you should be with each piece.
I mean, obviously, you know, we don't want to waste paper.
That'd be terrible.
But, you know, you don't want to...
Yeah, you've got a more.
There's a more pressing, immediate concern when you've just done whatever you've done in the toilet.
Obviously, you're thinking of the environment.
I don't want to use too much paper.
But also you're thinking I don't want to leave this toilet cubicle without having finished the job fully.
Yeah.
And so, yeah.
It puts me in a state of paranoia.
Every pull, it's like, is that the last one?
Is that it?
Is that it?
Yeah, it's like thinking that you're going to die every single day.
Yeah, I'm sure it's exactly like that, yeah.
I'm sure it's quite...
You never know.
Your doctor has said, look, it could happen any day now.
In fact, you could die any moment.
I mean, you know, your doctor doesn't need to say that.
I mean, technically, any of us could die at any time.
You know, we never know when an asteroid is going to, you know, hit the Earth or something.
I think that.
I sometimes think about that.
Asteroids.
Do you?
Yeah.
It could just happen out of nowhere and that's us all gone.
Probably will i mean it probably will at some point.
I mean there's going to be something like that, isn't this eventually?
I mean, you know i've, i've heard that if you know statistically, the number of asteroids flying around and um, you know, the likelihood of one striking the Earth and the number of times it's happened in the past, we're kind of due, we're overdue.
An asteroid, I think.
Yeah, a big one.
Because they happen every single day.
Like little ones constantly come into our atmosphere.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's mad, isn't it?
Yeah, they're fine.
Yeah.
But it's the big ones, yeah, that's the trouble.
But anyway, back to more important concerns, which is where...
Yeah, you've gone into the toilet cubicle and the specific problem is you don't know how much toilet paper there is inside this thing.
And so what is it exactly that you want to be banished into Room 101?
I want the transparency to be a governing rule.
That is, the material that needs to hold the dispenser or hold the paper needs to be.
It absolutely needs to be transparent.
Like there's no way that it can be allowed that we can't see how much we've got to play with.
Right.
So opaque toilet dispensers need to be banished.
Yes.
That's the ones that you can't see.
You can't see through non see through toilet paper dispensers.
This is specifically the thing that you want removed from the world.
That is that is that.
But to counter it because I do understand that, being a public bathroom, you want to have it securely fastened so that nobody you know.
I don't know if they do do this, but I imagine that some might go in there and take the whole role.
So you've got to have it securely locked.
Right.
And strong.
So that's perhaps why they are sometimes made of metal.
Yes.
To avoid someone just ripping it open and going I'm taking all this toilet paper and to hell with the world.
I need to wipe my bum at home as well as in public.
I mean, you know, i'm sure people do steal the toilet paper.
Of course they do uh, but you know yeah okay, you know.
What's even even worse, though so soon, is when they are see-through and there's this sort of mechanism that there's one stored up there but you can't access it, like they've got a backup one.
And yeah, it happened to me the other day And I actually do.
You want me to tell you the story?
Oh, please, please do.
So I'm new to Porto, just moved here recently.
New to Portugal.
Yeah, Porto in Portugal.
Was in London for the last three years, drove down.
It's been raining ever since.
There was one sunny day on the weekend where my wife and I we went to the coast, went to Foz and enjoyed a lovely brunch and a beach walk with our dog.
Um, but on that beach walk after the brunch I started to get some stomach cramps and uh, I started to complain to Stacy and she was like Oh, get over it.
It's fine.
And then I was like, actually at points I was like, no, this is actually really bad.
I might have to just, do it here like right now she's like don't be silly i got over it and then 30 minutes later we were walking towards some toilets and she then said oh i need a a wee i'll go and use the bathroom so i was like okay yeah fine and then we got there there were two toilets one was occupied two people were standing near it the other one wasn't so she went in but she was like it doesn't lock It's not like registering.
So I'll just stand out here.
That's fine.
And then when she was in there, my stomach started going.
And I was like, ah, OK, can you hurry up, please?
Something's happening.
And then the other people next to us.
They went and I was like OK, do I sacrifice my wife's dignity by leaving an open door?
Or do I just wait here and see what happens?
Oh, because you were standing there holding the door closed.
Yes.
For your wife.
Yes.
Meanwhile, one of the other cubicles became available.
Yes.
And you had a moral decision to make.
Exactly.
What's more important, my underpants or my wife?
Yeah.
It's a difficult decision.
It's a very difficult decision.
Yeah, my wife is more important to me.
I'll leave it at that.
That's the correct answer, Charlie.
But you know what?
That wasn't the worst of it.
So that happened.
I was like, I'll just do it myself.
Oh, did you actually... Sorry, did you follow through?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, dear.
Oh, my God.
Disaster.
I haven't done that in like 15 years, probably.
I have done that.
15 years ago.
There's another story there.
I was thinking, he's not that young.
Charlie's young, but he's not that young.
It's not like 15 years since he was wearing nappies, unless there was some other medical condition I'm unaware of.
But anyway, it's been a long time since that happened, since you had an emergency in your, in your underpants, like that, yeah.
So i was whispering through the door, i was like, can you hurry up?
I've just, i just like okay okay okay, she goes out, and then i go in rush in, don't really understand the mechanism, and and she's like oh, it's locked, and then it starts cleaning itself.
So the toilet, the public toilet, goes into cleaning mode.
Yeah,
So it's one of those futuristic toilets that kind of has an electric lock on the door and then a self-cleaning system after it's been used.
And what happens?
Because I had my boxes down my ankles, I was going to sit down and it starts shooting water up into my rear end, which is kind of, in a way good, but it was misty, it was not directional enough, and then, and then i sort of sit up.
Suddenly i'm like, oh god, i shimmy over to the corner away from this mist, and then these little pop-up sprinklers come from each corner and they jet my trousers.
So i'm stood there, So you shouldn't be in the toilet at this point.
It's in cleaning mode and a human being is not supposed to be in there while it cleans itself.
Okay.
So you're standing there, it's just sprayed maybe soapy water all over your trousers and you've just been misted with some sort of soapy detergent.
Exactly.
And then the dust settles, and then I go and sit down, do my business, and then I go to get some toilet paper out and it's a non-transparent.
I use a few and then it runs out.
And I'm like, I could do with 90% more than what I've just used.
That is terrible.
Okay, I see.
I feel like you're focusing all of your attention on the toilet roll dispenser, and there's a whole other range of things that could have been the focal point or fetal point maybe of this whole story.
Don't you think?
Of all the things that have gone wrong in this situation, that seems to be just like the final straw.
Maybe that's what it is.
Yeah, I mean, that thing has come up before.
So it was like a good reminder for me that that is a thing.
So you've got history with those toilet roll dispensers.
So after all of this, you're like, and the toilet roll dispenser.
I can't judge how much paper there is.
And you ran out of paper.
You didn't know.
Would it have made a difference if you'd been able to see through the toilet roll dispenser?
If you'd known exactly how much paper there was, would that have made a difference?
That's a good question.
And the answer is probably it would have been worse because I would have been fearing the end all the way through the process.
Yeah, because I would have been able to know that this is not enough for what I need.
So I'm buggered.
But my wife did help me because she went to the other toilet and she got some paper and then she gave it to me because my cubicle was in self-cleaning mode and then it released the lock.
So it was open.
So she was able to access the door.
And then she kind of got bored and, like, walked off with the dog.
Thanks.
Yeah, I mean, you know, Charlie, you know, shat himself again.
How boring.
And so then somebody tried to open the door.
A stranger turned up.
A stranger arrived into the equation, into the situation, too.
Yeah.
So I was like, you don't want to come in here.
You might want to leave it because it will clean itself.
Yeah.
I wonder how often that happens that people, you know the order changes gets all confused because if the if if, the so you, a person goes in, it's not in cleaning mode, they do their thing, they finish, they flush the toilet, they leave, and then the toilet locks and cleans itself and then it becomes open.
Maybe sometimes the order goes all wrong and if you've been in there in cleaning mode and then you go it you, you wait oh, it's confusing, You get out and then the other person comes in.
Then they're in there in cleaning mode as well.
No.
Anyway, I think the issue is if two people like know each other and they leave the door open and the other person goes in, because the door opens, closes and then opens and closes.
And then they think, OK, that person's out.
I can clean.
Yeah, but you screwed up the system by misunderstanding the electric door and holding it.
For that reason, I'm not angry at it.
I'm angry at the dispenser.
Right, I see.
So you take responsibility for all the other things, but it's the dispenser not showing you how much paper.
That's the main problem, yeah, I see.
Yeah, I mean, actually, the main problem should be food poisoning.
If you're a restaurant, don't give food poisoning to your customers.
Yeah.
To be fair, yeah, that's the root of the problem, isn't it?
Whatever it was that you ate that your stomach disagreed with.
Okay, I'm now trying to decide.
So opaque or non-see-through toilet roll dispensers.
Will they go into room 101 or not?
See, the problem is that there's a sort of cosmetic side to this, which is that those metal toilet roll dispensers look pretty good.
I mean, they look quite nice.
And being able to see the amount of toilet paper, okay, it has its advantages.
But at the same time I don't really want ugly toilet roll dispensers anywhere in every toilet, you know.
I'm very surprised at how superficial you're being with this particular element of your life that needs to be aesthetic.
Well, you know, I have control over my bowels.
So, you know, this is the priority of like, just what does the toilet look like?
But then again, maybe I should be more sympathetic to someone in your position.
But it's not about whether you have control over your bowels.
It's whether you need toilet paper.
And I assume the answer is yes.
Yes, I do.
Yeah, of course.
You're not that neat.
As a parent, I always have some kind of tissues or wipes on me at all times.
So that's always the backup.
But yeah, no, I can't deny the importance of toilet paper in a public toilet.
I mean, that just obviously can't be denied.
I just thought maybe I need to carry toilet wipes or something on me at all times.
Yeah, but I don't know if the responsibility lies entirely with you.
Thank you.
I mean, you know, a public toilet, you'd imagine...
One of the basic requirements of a toilet is that there is toilet paper in it.
Although in some countries they don't.
Some places they just have a little tap, a little hose with water.
You're supposed to spray your bum with it or use your hand.
Yeah.
My grandparents, I used to live in their house when they passed away.
We came back from Australia and it was still being sorted out who was going to buy it from them.
So we lived in there before we found a place in London and they had a.
Do you pronounce it bidet or bidet?
Bidet.
Bidet.
OK, they had a bidet in both bathrooms.
And I got on board with that.
I loved it, actually.
I found it really useful.
So I like the water approach.
I'm very for that because I think a lot of people listening would be like it's gross to use toilet paper.
Water is much more efficient and also better for the environment and flushing all that paper down the toilet.
So yeah, maybe i should have waited until the cleaning mode activated again and sort of utilize the spray a bit better.
Yeah, but you didn't know.
It took you by surprise, so you didn't know, did you true?
I don't know what to do.
I don't know if I should.
Out of sympathy for you Charlie, and your predicament there, I think I'm going to agree and I'm going to put non-see-through toilet roll dispensers that don't allow you to plan ahead with your toilet visit.
I'm going to put that into room 101 Charlie, just out of pure sympathy for the terrible situation that you found yourself in.
So I'm going to pull the lever and the toilet roll dispenser is going to enter room 101.
There it is.
It landed onto the bottom of room 101.
Okay, so congratulations.
You got your first one in.
Thank you.
Very happy with that.
Appreciate it.
Very kind.
Yes.
So what about...
The second thing then.
So the second thing is also a bit of a story attached to it.
And it's dishing the dirt on... Dishing the dirt.
On a YouTuber, actually.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah?
This is a bit of YouTube drama.
It is, actually.
Yeah.
Dishing the dirt.
We need to explain that one.
I mean, that sounds like something from the previous story, but...
So dishing the dirt, giving negative news on somebody else, spreading bad things about what somebody else did to other people?
So dirt in this case would be like bad information, something negative about someone and dishing it.
It'd be like serving it, like putting it out there, as if you're putting it on a dish and then serving it to people.
So basically telling the world something bad about someone.
Yes.
YouTube drama.
Okay.
But the Room 101 is instant coffee.
Instant coffee.
Instant coffee.
Instant coffee.
Right.
So what is instant coffee?
Just I mean, I guess everyone knows, but go ahead and give us an explainer.
Yeah, it could could not be everywhere.
I'd love it to not be everywhere.
And I will move there.
Instant coffee is just granules, dry granules of, I would guess, processed coffee beans that you simply pick up a spoonful of, put them in your mug and then you put hot water on it and it supposedly creates a cup of coffee.
But I disagree strongly.
Okay, right.
Would you like to lay out your case against instant coffee then?
And also, I guess, dish the dirt on someone in the process.
Yeah.
So I'm just I know not everyone's into coffee and I am a coffee snob and I've spent a lot of money too much money on a very nice coffee machine that will give me good espresso.
But even if you're not into it, I feel like, as a host, you should have something better than instant coffee.
I don't know what that is yet.
It's for them to decide, perhaps.
But I just think we're, you know, it's 2025, 26 now.
Can't be making instant coffee.
It's just it's not it's it's not the done thing anymore.
We're beyond that.
We're better than that.
There's no excuse for instant coffee anymore.
You're talking specifically as a guest in someone's home.
When someone invites you in, they need to have something more to offer than just coffee.
Would you like a cup of coffee?
Yeah, it's instant.
I hope that's all right as they prepare it for you.
Yeah, that's the thing because coffee can be so varied.
If you say, do you want some coffee?
And they don't say it's just instant, then you're like well, I need to judge whether I think you're a coffee snob to be able to say yes or no to that question.
Do you know what I mean?
Because I'm quite sensitive to caffeine.
I can't really have too many cups a day, one or two.
So if they're offering me a coffee, I want it to be good.
Otherwise, I'll just have water.
So if they say, do you want a cup of coffee?
And then they give me a cup of instant coffee, I've got to drink that and it's just disgusting.
Because you're thinking, I've got two coffees in me every day.
I'm not going to waste one of those cups on this shit.
Yeah, exactly.
You want the gourmet stuff.
But it also puts me in a predicament where I have to drink this because we're in a social setting.
You know, they're drinking their cup of tea or whatever they're having.
And I'm like, oh, thank you.
Because you can't exactly.
Here you go.
Here's your coffee.
Actually, on second thoughts, no.
And I'll just leave it there, actually.
In fact, could you just pour it away?
I know you've just made it, but you might as well just pour that down the sink, because I'm not going to eat.
I'm not going to drink that.
I didn't know it was instant.
I thought better.
I thought you were better than that.
Yeah.
You can't do that.
No.
And I thought better of this person.
And this was so when I went to their house, met them for the first.
No, I had seen them before, but it was Lucy and Will.
So Lucy asked me, do you want a cup of coffee?
Oh, Lucy... English with Lucy, Lucy.
English with Lucy, yeah.
Oh, really?
She gave you instant coffee?
I know!
I know!
Yeah, no, that... I mean, I had higher expectations for Lucy.
Me too.
I didn't think she would be the kind of, oh, it's instant coffee.
Really?
But I don't think she even said it's instant.
And, you know, she took me... I went via... hers to go to where my wife live, her parents live.
And it's through the Cotswolds.
And she had a lovely house, very nice, very impressive, went in.
And you know yeah, for all of those reasons, I was like surely she's got a good coffee set up, because you know she's kind of in the middle of nowhere.
She's not got a coffee shop around the corner that she can go get a good coffee from.
So you probably have your own set up.
But yeah, she gave me instant coffee.
If she does ever watch this, I think she can handle this feedback.
I think she's bigger than this.
So that's fine.
I feel comfortable.
I think she can probably handle it.
I mean, you know, I guess so.
I mean, I don't think she's that...
She's that sensitive.
I think it's all right.
I don't know.
Do you think, do you really believe, that Lucy Earl from English with Lucy doesn't have a better coffee setup than that?
Is there a chance, Charlie?
And I'm sorry to say this.
Is there a chance that she was like, just not.
She was like oh, there's the good coffee, but I'm not going to give it to Charlie.
Is that a possibility?
I'm flipping it back to you now.
Like the good China.
Don't get the good China out.
It's just Charlie Baxter.
Give him the instant.
We've got Nescafe.
Just give him that, yeah.
Is there a chance?
It's like I'm not going to use my gourmet stuff because the shop is 20 minutes drive away and we've almost got none left.
So you should give him the instant.
It would be funny also if she only had a certain amount left and she made herself an espresso and then she gave me instant.
Like, cheers.
LAUGHTER
Yeah, that would be terrible.
Wow.
Yeah, I am surprised.
Well, is she not a coffee?
Is she not a coffee person?
Do you know about this?
Is she more of a tea drinker or something?
I pray that she's not a coffee drinker.
I think she said, oh, we're not really a coffee drinking household.
So, yeah, for that reason, I kind of understand it.
But still hosting, I feel like I need a certain amount of teas available and I'm not a tea drinker.
A certain amount of like we don't have fizzy drinks necessarily.
But if I know that we're hosting children, I'll probably get some in because they'll want that.
So, yeah.
So you're essentially suggesting that, as a host of a person who's going to come around, you have a basic duty of care for that person.
Yes.
Which includes providing tea and coffee making facilities above the level of a premier travel in, you know.
But I've seen in premier inns they now have these sachets that are more gourmet than Nescafe.
Okay, so just get those in.
They're like these you know longer sticks and it's like a combination of milk and it's kind of instant, but it's you know a bit better, so that would be okay.
Yeah, i mean, i'm not expecting them to buy an espresso machine.
That's above and beyond.
That's, that's too far.
Where are you in on the coffee sort of snobbery?
I don't know how to break this to you, charlie.
Oh no, are you an instant man?
Look at what I've got in my podcast room.
I have a box of instant coffee sachets.
Yeah, but they're sachets.
That's what I was talking about.
They're not the next sachet jar.
It's exactly the same stuff on the inside.
This is in fact worse, because I also throw away the sachets you know, the empty sachets when I'm done.
So it's exactly the same stuff on the inside, but it's just even worse because there's more waste.
And at home, we have a Nespresso machine.
We do have a Nespresso which is, I think, like In terms of quality.
It's obviously a step up from instant coffee.
But it's still not proper gourmet coffee, is it?
I mean, we also have the... How do you call it?
The cafetiere, which in America they call a French press.
Yes.
We have one of them.
But...
Just generally find that the results are never very good from the cafetiere.
The French press coffee maker.
And we have, you know, what do you call it?
Coffee grains?
Is that the right word?
Ground coffee.
Ground coffee.
Ground coffee.
That's what I mean.
You can see that I'm more of a tea drinker.
And so we don't get very good results from that at home.
For some reason, we just haven't found the right coffee.
And the Nespresso machine, it's very expensive to buy the capsules.
And, you know...
We have busy lives.
And so we do have a jar of Nescafe, whatever it is, special, special, whatever.
Can't remember the actual name of the stuff.
But yeah, we do.
We do drink instant coffee at home as well, Charlie.
I'm sorry.
I'm really, really sad to hear that.
I think you've just reminded me that a good option for maybe your situation.
Or, if you don't have a coffee situation enthusiastic, if you're not enthusiastic about coffee and you still want to host and have better than espresso nescafe, just get a mocha pot like an italian percolator.
You know those hexagon, hexagon shaped kind of pots that you twist like that, you put them on a stove and that percolates, i think, the coffee through yeah yeah, yeah.
Or the water goes through the coffee and it's lovely.
I used to have one of them.
I used to have one of them.
I don't know what happened to it.
Why did I stop using that?
I think maybe I kind of melted it or something.
Like one day I forgot.
I left it on the stove and forgot and like the handle melted off or something.
Something terrible happened.
I nearly burnt the house down.
That's a good option.
That's like 10 quid and it will, unless you burn it like you did, it will last a long time.
Yeah.
Okay, so do I accept instant coffee in room 101?
I'm so sad.
Sorry to interrupt.
I'm just so sad and disappointed that you drink.
Is that instant right there?
No.
So this is, I'm drinking, this is water.
Have you heard of it?
I don't know if you've ever.
No, I don't know what it is because it's not transparent.
That cup is not transparent.
I'm drinking listeners, I'm drinking from a sort of a paper cup.
Um, i'm drinking water from a paper cup and so charlie yeah also, you can't see through it because it's not transparent.
Um, this is, i mean, your life is.
It's a nightmare, isn't it?
Just not being able to see through things is that you'd like to live in a world where everything was transparent, you could just see straight through everything.
So then you know where you are, you know what's going on, you can see even before you enter lucy's house.
It's all right, because everything's made of glass, so you can actually see into the kitchen and you can prepare yourself for the fact that there's instant coffee, because you can see in advance.
You know that you want to live in a kind of c3 world.
I was raised in a, in a greenhouse, so maybe that is why.
But yes yes, i'd love that right Right, okay.
Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you.
By the way, this cup that I'm drinking the water from this was filled with coffee from a boulangerie this morning.
When I come here in the mornings, normally I will grab a coffee on the way and then have it here.
Then I use the cup to drink my water from while I'm in my room.
Yeah.
So I have instant coffee here, but I don't I don't actually use it very much.
I tend to just like get coffees from outside.
OK, but that's quite that's a lot better.
Yes.
You're getting the real stuff.
A barista is giving you a godsend of a gift.
But I'm just surprised that you're then able to palate instant coffee in comparison.
Like the contrast is just so different.
In my defence, here in my office, I don't have a sink in this room.
There is one down the corridor, but it's down the corridor.
Who can be bothered to put something on my feet and walk down a corridor and unlock a door?
I mean, it's so inconvenient.
So I just tend to.
I would have my own coffee making machine here and stuff, but i'd have to clean it and then i have to deal with the waste of the the, the coffee granules, the ground coffee, you know, it's just like a lot of faff.
And so uh, instant coffee, just just the sheer convenience of it wins.
It's, it's convenient, i'll give you that but um, Are there other problems that you have with it?
What exactly is the nature of your issue with it?
Is it that it tastes bad?
Is it that it's unhealthy?
What is it?
It's the flavour profile.
Yeah, it's just disgusting.
It smells like a teacher's breath.
It's just awful.
And yeah, it's poor quality.
I imagine it's terrible for you.
I don't know.
I haven't looked into that, but I imagine it is.
I think I genuinely want Nescafe to burn to the ground.
I think that brand itself, I hate.
Why?
Because they are the instant coffee, aren't they?
They pioneered it, I think.
That's their business.
They certainly got a hold of it and they made it theirs.
Yeah.
I think I won the hold of Nescafe in room 101.
So you're throwing the entire company in as well.
All those jobs, all those job losses, Charlie.
Yeah.
But they can go and learn how to make real coffee and share it with the world, because it's such a lovely thing.
They won't be able to afford to do it because they won't have a job.
But, you know, at least... Yes, okay.
Instant coffee.
Is it going in?
Well, I'm sorry.
It's not going to happen, Charlie.
I'm sorry.
I get your point.
I do understand.
I appreciate your argument.
I appreciate your commitment to quality coffee.
What about?
Maybe it's not gone forever, but what about the hosting situation of having something better than that to offer?
Right.
So specifically, the thing that's going to go in is not offering more than just instant coffee when you invite someone.
Right, that's quite a complicated one to stick in.
We'll find a way.
It's having the decency to go out and get something better.
Did you hear that, Lucy, if you're listening?
Did you hear that?
He wasn't happy about the coffee.
Did you get that?
Yeah.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Hmm.
OK.
I see.
I'm very easily persuaded, Charlie.
I'm very I'm a pushover.
I feel like I'm going to put this one in.
I'd like to know what you are like when you host.
Do you think about who you're hosting?
Do you think about getting anything in or do you think they can fend for themselves?
Generally, just like, oh, God, some people are coming over.
Oh, dear.
When are they going to leave?
Just give them this.
And maybe then they'll go away.
No, I don't think that at all.
No, normally we would offer the Nespresso as the like.
Dust off the Nespresso machine and get that up and running and offer that.
If a tradesman comes round, I'll offer them a Nespresso.
Okay, that's decent.
If we have people round, sure, it's Nespresso.
And a range of teas, different types of tea options are provided too.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I agree.
I mean, I agree basically that I think offering instant coffee is...
Yeah, you could do better definitely as a host.
And I'm shocked.
I'm genuinely shocked.
I hope Lucy watches this.
At Lucy's housekeeping.
I mean, seriously.
I expected so much more from her.
Clearly, her priorities are... towards making YouTube videos.
I mean 87 something, 19 million subscribers, and she can't get any.
Clearly, she spends all her time dealing with YouTube and not enough time thinking about coffee.
Charlie yeah clearly yeah okay, in that case, that's going to go into room 101.
Then basically, english with lucy not not providing proper coffee making facilities, that's what's going to go into room 101.
Uh here okay, i'm pulling the lever.
There it goes.
That's a message.
That's a message.
We sent a message to english with lucy get your coffee situation sorted, sort it out lucy, Sort it out.
And this is an indication to the audience of how indirect our culture is.
You know, this is years, years of this brewing.
And I've not been able to say it.
I obviously didn't say anything in the moment.
I was like, oh, this is lovely.
Lovely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How are you?
And it's taken this video to be able to have the guts to back, stab her in the back and say this and hope that somehow this video gets to her.
So that's how Brits deal with confrontation.
Yeah, it's very sort of underhanded, isn't it?
Yeah.
Well, what an indictment of British culture.
Maybe I'm the odd one out.
Would you say that Brits do do that or I'm a bit savage and I'm a bit of a bitch?
I don't know.
I think that probably.
I don't know if anyone would if invited to someone's house and given instant coffee.
I don't know if anyone would just turn around and say
Fucking hell, this coffee's rubbish.
What's the matter with you?
Don't you have normal, proper coffee?
Come on, Lucy.
Fuck's sake.
I don't think anyone's going to do that, are they?
I think most people would probably be polite enough to sort of say, oh, thanks a lot for the coffee.
Well, they might not go the extra mile and say, mm, this is delicious.
Mm, what is this?
Nescafe Gold Blend?
Ooh.
I don't think they would do.
I don't think you did that either.
But I don't think anyone would instantly criticise the coffee if they'd been invited round.
But would they years later then?
Make a YouTube video about it.
Oh, this is what you've been building up to this.
So I've got to get my got to get my YouTube views up to get that message back to Lucy in the most indirect way possible.
But genuinely, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders now feel a bit easier.
Like, yeah, it's a bit therapeutic.
We'll wait for Lucy to respond in some way.
I get the feeling there will be no response whatsoever.
She will never see this.
But just in case she does, then you know well, we look forward to seeing what the response will be.
And maybe this is going to be a huge storm on YouTube, a massive YouTube drama.
The coffee files.
What would it be?
Coffee gate.
Oh, Coffee Gates.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's good.
I'm on a few WhatsApp groups with her.
Maybe she'll kick me off them.
Something like that.
You'll suddenly find that you're not getting notifications from that group and you'll search your WhatsApp and wait, but it's not here.
Oh no.
I've been, I've been cancelled.
She probably knows enough people in YouTube to ban my channel.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's it.
It's over for you now.
Oh dear.
Better go.
And I don't know, since Nescafe's been bankrupted, maybe you can set up some sort of coffee company making convenient coffee.
Instant coffee.
Why don't you set up an instant coffee?
Nah.
But good quality.
Good quality instant.
That could work.
Do you think it's possible to make good quality instant coffee?
I mean, it should be the instant process.
Does that not ruin the quality?
I don't know.
I'm no expert.
No, it does take a little bit of time to give some love into the cup of coffee.
Aeropress is another one.
I use that for camping, an Aeropress.
Surely a tent would be a better idea for camping.
Aeropress, what's that?
It's like a cylinder pressure, a bit like a cafetiere, but it's like this very unique brand that have done so well that there's a real cult around them, that there's annual competition of people making the best coffee they can possibly make with an Aeropress.
Yeah, it's quite cheap as well.
It's not too much money.
Batman, it's just plastic, so it should be.
It's a cylinder.
Yeah, it's two cylinders that like push together and then, yeah, out comes some lovely coffee.
Good coffee happens.
Good coffee happens, exactly.
Yeah, okay.
All right, well there, Lucy, you've heard all the different options.
There's Nespresso, there's Aeropress, there's the Cafetiere, there's the Italian thing that I melted.
You know, there's lots of different options, Lucy, so pick one and just sort it out.
Right.
Let's move on, Ben, to your third and final thing that you think should go into Room 101, Charlie.
OK, so this is a bit weird.
I understand you might ban it, but I want to try it.
So when I go into a restaurant, I sit down, look at a menu and I read the menu.
Especially this is stupid because we're teaching English, we're teaching languages.
We should be able to do this.
We should be able to read.
We should be able to read.
But for some reason, firstly, I don't know how to read a menu.
What?
I just look over it.
Because I'm also socializing.
Normally, it's like I haven't seen that person in a while.
So I'm juggling the socializing.
And I'm looking down and the waiter comes over.
He's like, what would you like?
I'm like, I don't know.
And I look back.
And and it's just it's just these weird shapes on the paper.
I do look I do feel like I've got dyslexia for a food menu.
But also beyond that, if I do actually spend the time of like.
OK, the title of the food is this and this is the ingredients.
Nothing happens to me.
There's no emotion or there's no like connection with what I'm actually going to eat.
I feel like any pictures.
I mean, I don't want to be that person, but I also do.
I love pictures.
Do you have a picture menu?
He can't read menus.
He can't read.
Do you have anything?
But my argument here is, you know, we're buying something that is so far from language.
We're wanting a sensory input of food.
You know, why are we dealing with words?
Words is so like we can do better than that.
You mean we need a whole new paradigm of communication for menus?
So just simply, like you're saying, words, language, written language is not enough to somehow capture the experience of eating the food.
You're thinking these words, it's just not enough.
Can you actually maybe directly, can I taste the food first?
Just add more senses.
I want to see it.
I want to taste it.
I want to feel it, touch it, hear it.
In my defence, what do we do when we go to an ice cream parlour?
Yeah, we can see the ice cream.
You've got a good point.
And taste it.
You get a couple of tasters.
But Charlie, this is going to completely ruin the restaurant business if every customer who comes in wants to taste every item on the menu and see it.
No, I'm not saying that.
The whole restaurant system will just be brought to its knees by this change.
It's just not practical.
No, I don't expect that.
But I'm making the point that words don't do enough.
I think photos, if they're done in a tasteful, artistic way, I think that would be the way to go.
But I just...
I also don't like a QR code because then we're on our devices as soon as we sit down.
So I don't know the solution.
I'd like to find one together, potentially.
So you're suggesting that we get rid of traditional menus with words and you replace it with just I don't know, just something better, please.
Yeah, the menu opens up and says, I don't know.
Something else?
I don't know.
Uh, ask the waiter to try, you know.
Good luck.
Yeah, now the.
The closest thing i am satisfied with is when there is a qr code additionally, so i can open the menu, look at the words, feel like i don't know what they mean, and then later on i look, i scan the qr code and get the photos In your defence, Charlie.
These days, restaurant menus are often written with a lot of pretentious fancy language.
Aren't they?
I've heard that it's adjectives add money to the dish.
Like the more adjectives they can put into it, the more money they can charge for the dish.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Yes, that makes sense.
So if it's basically I don't know what, like a steak and chips, it would be like a pan-seared rump of Angus beef lovingly marinated in pepper sauce with blah-de-blah-de-blah, blah-de-blah-de-blah.
Just what you need is beef, steak, and chips marinated.
That's what you need.
That was like you were reading a menu.
That was very good.
Yeah, exactly that.
Exactly that.
And they also remove the price apparently, and that helps improve sales, because we don't concern ourselves.
Oh, no, it's not the price.
It's the currency next to the number.
They remove that, apparently, psychologically.
That improves or deters us from going for the bigger one, the more expensive dish.
So if you see, like you know, pan seared beef rump with I don't know what's a fancy word for chips, I don't know what that would be like Belgian fries beer battered, double glazed something Yeah.
Beer battered, double glazed potato fritters or something like that.
It's like, you mean chips.
And then a number next to it, let's say it's 37 because it's quite a fancy restaurant.
And if it said 37 pounds, you'd be like, there's no way I'm going to buy that.
37 pounds.
But because it says 37, you're like, 37?
Yeah, it's fine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I've got 37.
Yeah, yeah, no worries.
37, I can count to 37.
It's not that high, is it?
Yeah, no worries.
This one's just 37.
No, no, it's 37 pounds.
37 pounds?
Why didn't you tell me?
Pounds?
37 pounds?
Of course not.
I'll go for the one that's 36.
36.
We are in the UK.
We do deal with pound sterling.
I thought it was just 37, like, I don't know, 37 bits of stone or something.
I don't know.
37 pounds and this changes everything.
Yeah, it does something apparently to our brains.
But yes, I don't have anything against adjectives.
I like the senses being stimulated.
As an English teacher, I'm very happy to hear you say that.
Charlie Baxter quote, I have nothing against adjectives.
British English podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.
Great podcasts.
But yeah, I just... What do you feel about when you read a menu?
Are you fine about reading the menu?
Are you normal?
Well, you know, I live in France, so there's the whole other level of the fact.
It's written in a whole different language, Charlie.
So I've got to understand the French as well.
Oh, God.
All right.
What is that?
It's just steak and chips.
Yeah, all right.
I'll have that.
So there's that.
But no, in England, no, of course.
I kind of agree with your point about how irritating it is that menus often don't really describe it in a clear way.
Instead, you get a lot of fancy language that is a bit confusing, and you can spend quite a lot of time sitting there just trying to understand what it is you're going to get.
So I agree with that that menus should have a purpose, which is to tell you exactly what you're going to get.
And when they confuse the matter with too much descriptive language because they're trying to raise the price of the food, then that's definitely irritating.
So I agree with that.
But I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater and just get rid of printed menus entirely.
I mean, you could raise your vocab potentially, maybe, you know, like embrace adjectives.
Yeah, I'm sure you're fine.
But I think it is on me, actually, because I sound very sexist here, but I don't cook.
My wife cooks.
She's been raised right by a chef.
Her dad was a chef.
Her whole family know how to cook really, really well.
I used to cook when I was at uni, but basic stuff.
And then she took over.
We were like, oh, I should probably keep it up for the first five years of our life.
We did one meal a week where I did it and I took forever to cook a basic meal.
And she was like, just give up, Charlie.
So I haven't cooked properly for a very long time.
Occasionally when she's feeling sick, I'll do something different.
But so my food vocabulary is very poor.
So it is probably something to do with that.
And my understanding of how to prepare food and I just eat it and think yum or think yuck.
And that's that's my IQ with food.
So that's probably why I struggle with a menu.
Yeah.
Hmm.
I'm not going to put written menus into Room 101.
I might put pretentiously worded written menus into Room 101.
But I think your original statement was written menus.
Is that not right?
I can't put that into Room 101, because I'm not going to go into a restaurant and just try to cross my fingers and hope for the best.
I want to see what I'm going to get.
Yeah, I do agree with that.
It's absolutely fair.
Do you like photos?
Would you like to see nicely taken photos of the food?
It sounds like a sales pitch.
It's like, do you like photos?
Well, yeah, of course.
Who doesn't like photos, right?
It's like, well then, try my new photo menu.
No, of course I like photos, but I don't know.
Why don't restaurants use photos more in their menus?
Why is that?
Is it because every time you see a menu with photos on it, only certain kinds of kind of crap restaurants have photos, don't they?
Well, I think what happened was Brits went abroad.
We couldn't understand their language.
And then...
They figured out they don't.
They sell more if they slap a photo of the pizza on the menu in really obvious resort kind of restaurants that are just focused on the location and not about the food.
And I think that kind of plastic laminated album of menu with loads of photos yeah, somehow made the whole industry look at it and think no, we're not doing that.
So i think it's got a bad name for it.
But since covid, i think some of the qr codes have created some really nice options of apps and like good photography of food.
So i think yeah okay, you may have a point there that there's a, there's a, there's a sort of a gap in the market for a more high quality, high end menu with photos on it.
Yeah.
So yeah, that's another thing for you to innovate Charlie, as well as decent quality instant coffee.
You could go for a high, high class photo menu.
I mean, I was in a cafe yesterday and I had a double screen up.
My friend told me that I should never do that again.
He was like, that is so geeky.
I've got like a like a monitor above my laptop.
It's like a portable one.
And I thought, Oh, I'm geeky.
Yeah.
I'm enjoying myself here.
And then I looked to my right over this, over the other side of the table.
And this guy, he had these sunglasses on, but they were like out, like really far out of his head.
And I was like, that's weird.
And he kept looking over at my screen.
I was like, Oh, he likes my screen.
And then I looked closer and he had these like weird little lenses under the sunglasses and And I realized oh, they're virtual reality tech glasses.
And he was doing all this head movements in the cafe of like looking over there, looking down here, like interacting with the technology.
And so I just thought maybe we could put a pair of glasses on and get the food in front of us.
That would be cool.
This is the future.
Yeah.
That you'll get virtual food, sort of like holograms.
Yeah, on your table and you can imagine hmm, do I like?
Am I happy with this situation, with this plate of steak and chips on my plate?
Hmm, yeah, looks pretty good.
Yeah, I'll have that please.
Or swipe right, swipe left kind of thing.
Swipe right, swipe left and you get the different.
You get a little simulation of the food in front of you.
Yeah, well, this is probably the future, Charlie.
That could be cool.
Another thing I just thought, sushi trains.
I like them.
Really like sushi trains.
Sushi trains, yes.
Yeah.
The rotary sushi situation.
Because you get to see it.
This is true.
Physically.
You know what?
I think that all of the things we've been saying, I said it would break the restaurant trade.
But no, of course, the Rotary Sushi restaurant has already solved this problem, hasn't it?
Yeah.
That is a wonderful thing.
I do love those restaurants.
Yeah.
Thing is, it does last quite well.
Sushi?
Yeah.
Whereas like a fried egg or something going around a sushi belt for about an hour.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
Or something that should be hot, like a good sort of like plate of hot soup, onion soup, or something that's really hot.
Yeah, yeah.
So after two minutes, it's like, well, no one's going to eat that now.
Yeah, yeah, of course.
Only works for certain food.
Yeah, maybe it's like just one.
It's not even a loop.
It's one train and it goes into the bin.
Like you can grab it now or it's in the bin.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's on your head.
You know, if you don't eat this, it's going to get chucked away.
And so it's like the restaurant holds no accountability for this.
It's the customer's fault if there's a lot of waste at the end of the evening.
Yeah.
On the subject of different types of menus, I'm sure that in other parts of the world it's kind of a bit more normal to have photos on menus.
I think that, especially these days with iPads and stuff, there will be high-level, high-class restaurants with menus on iPads or devices which have wonderful pictures on them.
I'm just imagining there's probably someone listening to this going, but in my town there are plenty of amazing restaurants with pictures on the menus.
That probably is the case in some places.
Yes, actually I went to one yesterday and it was a beautifully done, artistic sort of storytelling menu.
And it was like telling about their brand, what they believe in, and then the chef themselves, and then what dishes they really like.
And it was a full bleed picture of the signature dish.
And I got it because it looked amazing.
Full bleed?
Full bleed?
Does that mean like full size?
I think so.
I don't know what that means, full bleed.
I thought it's just when you die because you lost a lot of blood.
That's what I thought.
I don't want that in a restaurant.
No, yeah, full bleed printing means to the edge.
Oh, I see.
So it's printed all the way to the edge of the page.
There's no there's no border around it.
So the picture takes up the entire page.
Right.
Yes.
It's called full bleed.
Yeah.
The ink bled all the way to the edges of the page.
Yes.
And yeah.
And it looked great.
I had it and it was great.
I thought that's it.
So this is possible.
Another world is possible.
You've got a glimpse of another better world, Charlie.
And you thought, this is the world I want to live in.
Enough of these paper menus with written words.
The downside though, I will add is, as I said Stacey, she comes from a background of food and chefing.
And she said yeah, but if you do commit to something like that, you can't change your menu very often and there's a lot of other marketing that comes into it and lots of costs, so you'd be paying for it.
So, because it's printing costs of, and photography costs and stuff for each time you change the menu whereas yeah, otherwise you can just type one out and print it off and it's pretty simple, So we would be paying for it.
But, you know, if they didn't put the currency with the number, we'd be fine.
We'd be fine with it.
That's right.
I mean, I sort of understand the concept of using sometimes language and written language doesn't do the job.
You know you can't.
It's like uh, what is it?
Talking about food maybe is like dancing about architecture.
Have you heard that comparison made before?
I think it was like maybe David Bowie or someone who said this, or he quoted it from someone else.
You can't talk about music.
Like talking about music is impossible or talking about art is impossible, but it always falls short language.
We don't have the um, you know the richness, the flexibility of language to be able to do justice to the music we're trying to describe.
So talking about music is like dancing about architecture.
Okay.
That one method of communication can never really describe another.
In the same way that language can't describe music, dancing could never somehow get across the idea of something that you could communicate through architecture.
Yeah, that's nice.
A good example.
It did make me go slightly cross-eyed at the beginning, but yeah, it makes sense.
But it's not going into Room 101, Charlie, sorry.
Paper menus are going to stay and...
Hang on, it's not paper menus, it's just... Well, written menus.
Okay, okay.
Yeah, written menus.
Menus based mainly on the written word.
They're going to stay, I'm sorry.
And again, I refer to your wife, girlfriend, girlfriend, wife, partner?
Wife.
Your wife.
This is true that if we got rid of them, then restaurants would have to spend a lot of money taking expensive photos and printing them and, you know paying, shelling out lots of money for full bleed uh, photographs on their menus um, and so no sorry, we're just going to stick with the written word, um in this instance.
Charlie, fair enough again, i'll let you, i'll let you innovate something.
I'll let you innovate um, a better solution.
Okay, and get back to us on that one.
Yes okay yeah, i'll have a think.
Fair enough was that two of three?
That was three of three.
So we had... As in, did I get two out of three in room 101?
You got two out of three in room 101.
So the things that went in, the first one was toilet roll dispensers that are not see-through.
Yeah.
Because, you know, none of us want to be in the same predicament you were in.
So I think it's better, safer for everyone if those go into room 101.
Second thing was Lucy from English, with Lucy not having anything other than instant coffee in her kitchen when guests, or maybe when just you, come to her house.
So that's in room 101.
Lucy's got to raise her game in terms of coffee-making facilities at home.
And the third thing is...
Wait a minute.
I'm confused.
The third thing is the menus.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we got two out of three in room 101.
Oh, yeah.
So the second one sorry was instant coffee, which is not going to go into room 101 because it's just too convenient.
But I will.
Oh, I see.
How confused am I, Charlie?
I'm really confused at this point.
Yeah, so you're giving me a specific thing within my second case that will go in Room 101, which is the hosting sort of rules and acceptance of certain levels of hosting.
I just can't remember what.
But instant coffee is not going in because you've got instant coffee.
Instant coffee is not going in.
But I kind of threw you a bone in the sense that.
Yes.
Yeah, you threw me a bone.
And so you gave me one and a half out of three in room 101, let's say.
I did.
Did I?
Kind of.
Yeah, because paper menus are not going in.
That's it.
Written menus, written menus are not going in.
I'm glad we sorted that out.
You helped me with my short term memory there.
Thanks a lot.
All right, Charlie.
Well, this is really good fun.
And I enjoyed this a lot.
And of course I was on.
I will be on your podcast doing exactly the same thing.
Um, naming my three things.
Yeah, we've already recorded that.
That's that's available now because we're publishing these during in the same week, so that that will be available now.
So if listeners want to know what i uh wanted to be banished into room 101, they can listen to it.
Uh, what's the best way for people to find that episode?
Yeah, on YouTube, the British English Podcast or any podcast app Spotify.
I also upload video.
So yeah, anywhere and everywhere, the British English Podcast.
And it was a really good one.
You brought up three nice options, which were fun to go through.
So I highly recommend it.
But yeah, thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Just before you go, so you talked earlier about how at the moment you live in Portugal.
You recently moved to Porto in Portugal.
Can you just tell me a few things about the move?
So I think last time I spoke to you on this podcast you lived in Australia, but you moved from Australia to London and then from London to Portugal.
So can you just tell us about how that happened?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean we've jumped around quite a bit now because we've done five or six different countries over the last 15 years.
And, um, we've done it in like three year stints, three to four year stints.
So we did Australia and then we came back to London.
Um, i think london has a lot to offer.
It's got everything, but it's not quite suiting our lifestyle.
So after three years of trialing that, we thought okay, we're done with that, we'll move on.
And we are thinking about making a family and we want to be around stacy's family for support and, you know, to be around them.
That would be lovely to be around them, of course, and food yeah um, so we will probably go back over there, which is Worcester.
We'll probably live in Worcester, but between London and Worcester we thought well, let's have some fun in different cities before we need to go over there.
Um, And we wanted to escape the winter.
So we thought well, let's go down to the bottom part of Europe, where it's not that far down, but it's a bit further down.
And we thought we've we've heard great things about Portugal.
Generally, we've been to Lisbon and we heard Porto is like a smaller, less expensive version of Lisbon.
So we're like, oh, that'd be great.
And they were like, and it's really digital nomad friendly.
So yeah, my wife also works online, so we're able to move around quite freely now.
And yeah, so we packed up our house in London and sent my in-laws with a load of stuff to Worcester.
And then we took the essentials in our car, which was our sausage dog, two suitcases each and my piano.
So we actually took my piano in the car.
What kind of piano?
It's an electric piano.
It's a Roland FP-10.
I don't know if you know the models.
Oh, yeah.
No, I don't know that particular one, I think.
Okay.
But it's just, you know, it's more substantial than a keyboard, but not a full blown piano.
Yeah.
But yeah, so we took that and loads of other stuff and my gear as well.
That's accumulated over the years.
Audio gear.
Yeah, and then we drove all the way from London to Porto.
So we got in the Eurotunnel train, which I found fascinating.
I've never done that before.
I've done the ferry crossing multiple times, but have you done the train in a car?
Yeah, I have.
It's amazing, isn't it?
Because you sit in the car.
You drive the car onto a train and then the train you sit in the car.
So you're in a car, on a train, in a tunnel under the sea.
When I did it, I had my bike in the back of the car as well.
So I had my bike in a car, on a train, in a tunnel, under the sea.
There were probably boats going over the top, so under boats, you know.
Yeah, it's exciting.
You just sit in the car, going through the tunnel, on the train yeah, and you arrive at the other side and you drive off the train and there you are in france.
Yeah, there's the sound of accordions, people eating baguettes and stuff and people shrugging their shoulders.
Yeah yeah, exactly.
It's the most uneventful, exciting thing i've ever done.
I think, because you're just in a car, you're just, you can't even see out, That's it.
It's just concrete going past you really quickly.
Yeah, but the idea of it is quite fun.
And driving into the train was quite mad.
It's exciting, isn't it?
Yeah.
It's like the six-year-old boy inside you is just absolutely delighted at the idea of driving onto a train.
Yeah, it really is that, isn't it?
Yeah.
Because I see my nephews, they're just so obsessed with little diggers and little construction things.
Their brain is so wired to be obsessive over it.
And it is the child in us that likes that.
It's my son.
He's, I mean, you know... you know, gender identity and stuff.
And, you know, people say, oh, boys are into these things and girls are into these things.
We didn't really particularly put, I think.
Push our daughter towards ponies and horses and unicorns and sort of like, encourage our son to be into trains and trucks and stuff.
But that's exactly what they're both like.
And he's too.
And he will just spend an hour just building stuff.
He just gets all his toy cars and puts them all in a big line.
And that's a garage.
And he just loves making garages.
And he'll just build train tracks out of Lego train sets and stuff.
And he'll just do that.
If you try and stop him, it's just all hell breaks loose.
It's like, no!
I must be allowed to construct this large garage with a little train track on the side.
Yeah, but what about your sister's lovely pink doll?
No!
No!
Only diggers!
Yeah.
Yeah, it is mad.
It is mad.
Yeah, I think...
Yeah.
But yeah, so we got off the train and then we drove three days through Europe.
It was delightful.
We had an Airbnb in each spot.
We went from Calais to Le Mans to Bordeaux to Biarritz. to Lyon and then, um, Porto.
It's great.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Great, great road trip.
Um, so, uh, uh, so yeah, you wanted to leave London.
You wanted to try and escape the wet wintery, the wet weather of London and you arrived in Porto and it has not stopped raining.
Goodness me, I've never seen anything quite like this.
In Australia, it used to rain occasionally for 10 days straight and it was really hard.
But we've been here, I think, a whole month now.
And I don't think I've seen a day without rain yet.
It's been every day, really, really strong winds, horrendous rain.
I think what satisfies me is when we get into a taxi and they're like yeah, we've never seen this before.
Or they're like...
I don't remember a time that it was this wet because if it was like, oh yeah, this is winter.
I'd be like, I'm an idiot.
What am I thinking?
But apparently it's unprecedented.
So I can't, I can't judge that.
I, you know, I can't play God.
No, just pure bad luck on your part there that you escaped rain and you just got more rain.
It's going to improve.
It's got to improve.
It literally has to improve.
Like there's no worse than this.
There's been trees down.
There's been power cuts.
There's been deaths.
I think even.
Yeah.
Nightmare.
Okay.
Well, good luck.
I hope that the rains, the 40 days and 40 nights of rain, end.
I hope you got your your arc sorted out.
You got, you've built an arc.
I don't know if god told you about that.
I haven't.
Yeah, i didn't get the message.
No, that's a bit rude, isn't it?
You don't know.
Anyone called noah, do you any chance?
If you do, you might want to just like hey noah uh see, you're building an arc there.
Any chance that my wife and i could?
And my sausage dog.
He's like are there two sausage dogs in that?
No sorry, the animals go in two by two.
Did you not hear the song?
Yeah, there are two, but they're both female.
We've got a problem.
We've still got a problem.
I've never fully understood the story of Noah's Ark, the general logic and logistics of it, but that's another story for another time, isn't it?
Charlie, thanks for coming on the podcast again.
It was really good fun.
And Room 101, what a nice idea for an episode.
Nice one.
Yeah, it's good.
Thank you very much for having me.
It was a pleasure.
Yeah.
Indeed.
Indeed.
All right, mate.
Well, good luck.
I hope you have a reasonable weekend and that the clouds part and the sun comes out.
We do have a sunny icon tomorrow.
It's the first time since coming here.
So thank you.
Yeah, I will enjoy it.
Brilliant.
Brilliant.
OK, mate.
But yeah, enjoy.
Have a good one.
I hear Paris is better right um, what better than?
But in terms of weather at the moment yeah, the weather's okay.
I mean, it's just sort of like uh, like it's like england, it's like london okay it's, it rains, then it stops and the sun comes out and it rains again.
You know, it's more or less the same weather as it is in london.
In fact, i've heard, statistically paris gets more millimeters of rain than london does.
But no one ever talks about that, do they?
Somehow, Paris still has this reputation of Paris in the spring, and the flowers are blooming and the sky is blue and everyone's sitting around on pavements and stuff.
But London's the one that everyone says is rainy all the time.
But I don't know.
I would guess I haven't lived there so you know better.
But I would guess London is more just constantly grey and drizzle, whereas Paris gets showers, gets the millimetres up, but there's more sunshine hours.
Yeah, something like that.
Or when it rains here, it really rains.
It pours.
Yeah, when it rains, it pours.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Whereas in England, it's just like, well, let's just drizzle for a while and we'll just rain.
But we're not going to rain that heavily, but it will be wet and depressing.
Whereas in Paris, it's like, OK, so we rain now.
OK, let's do it.
And you just get loads of rain and then it stops and it's quite sunny for a while.
So when it rains, it rains more heavily maybe.
And when it's in England, it's just a general sort of drizzly nightmare for about six months.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
All right.
Listen, we must end this conversation sooner or later.
We might as well do it now.
Lovely to talk to you and speak to you again soon, mate.
Likewise.
Take care.
Bye.
Right.
So that is the end of that.
Thank you again to Charlie for being the guest on the show for this one.
Listeners, I really hope you enjoyed that.
How was that for you?
I'm always curious to know how it was for you.
So leave your comments in the comments section.
Did you understand the basics?
Did you understand the basic things?
Obviously, the three things.
The first one was toilet roll dispensers, where you can't see how much toilet roll is actually in the dispenser.
And Charlie told this story of how he had an unfortunate incident with his underpants because he ate something that gave him a bad stomach and he had to go to the toilet.
But he wasn't able to go there in time because he was being such a gentleman and holding the door of a public toilet for his wife while she was using it.
And he had no choice.
He had to go right there.
I mean I won't go into the details, but I think you understand that he had an accident in his underpants.
And then he went into this electronic toilet, which went into cleaning mode while he was in there trying to do his business.
The toilet suddenly started spraying him with water and soap and stuff.
Sounds like a nightmare.
But the final straw?
The last straw was that when he finally went to get toilet paper from the toilet paper dispenser, he wasn't aware that there were only a few pieces of paper left.
And of course, he used, as he said, about 10% of how much he actually needed.
And so that was obviously a terrible disaster for him.
And...
He focused all his attention on the fact that he couldn't see how much toilet roll was in there.
So he was unable to judge, you know, how much how economical he had to be with the paper.
I agreed.
I said I sympathized with him and agreed.
And so the opaque toilet roll dispensers went into room 101.
The second one, this is where the drama could come from.
Right.
And Charlie told a shocking story of how he was invited to Lucy's house, which is somewhere in the English countryside, apparently quite far away from shops and things like that.
So anyway, he was on his way to his wife's, on his way to his parents-in-law's house.
They stopped off to see Lucy and Will.
That's Lucy's husband.
Are they married?
I can't remember.
Yeah.
I think they are.
Yeah, they are, aren't they?
So they dropped in on that.
Sounds lovely.
You know, a nice trip to see Lucy and Will.
Is it Will?
I think it is at their house.
But Charlie was shocked that Lucy gave him a cup of instant coffee.
Instant coffee.
And of course, we're all shocked.
The Internet's going to be shocked by this, because we all look at Lucy and we think there's someone who's got top level coffee making facilities in her home.
Her kitchen is going to have an excellent coffee maker in it.
You'd imagine she's going to have some good quality coffee.
Right.
You understand, right?
Of course.
Lucy's going to have good coffee.
But Charlie was given a cup of instant coffee.
And he has never forgotten.
I got the impression it was a couple of years ago, even.
And Charlie's been holding on to this information all this time.
And he was so shocked.
But he chose to use this platform as his platform to spread this gossip, this malicious gossip.
Which, could I mean, is this going to bring?
Is this the end?
Is Lucy going to get cancelled as a result of this?
Everyone's going to be like, I'm not listening to, I'm not going to watch Lucy's videos anymore.
She just drinks instant coffee.
Maybe this is going to be a turning point.
I don't know.
But anyway, it was specifically.
We decided it was specifically Lucy Earle from English, with Lucy said not having anything better than instant coffee to provide to guests, or maybe just Charlie.
And that went into Room 101.
I wonder if Lucy's ever going to see this.
I've just been thinking, should I send this to her?
I'm pretty sure I've got her email address.
Shall I send this to her?
I don't know.
I think maybe what I'm going to do is I'm going to wait and just see if she finds out about this independently.
She probably won't because has she got the time to listen to this?
I don't know.
But there's probably a good chance that she'll never discover this.
Or maybe one of you is a follower of Lucy or something and you're going to share this with her.
I don't know.
But if she never finds out, then maybe I will share this with her and I'll stir things up a bit.
I mean, it's all a bit of a joke, isn't it?
Really, obviously.
I mean, that's obvious.
I don't need to say that.
But, you know, it's all just a bit of a laugh.
I don't think this is the sort of serious criticism that's going to really affect Lucy too much.
I think she's going to find it all pretty funny, to be honest.
Who knows?
Maybe I will...
Maybe I will give Lucy the right to reply.
I think she deserves that much, doesn't she?
Maybe she gets... I should give her the right to reply.
Maybe I should invite Lucy onto the podcast in order to explain herself, to defend herself.
Right?
That would be...
That would be equitable of me, wouldn't it?
That would be fair.
That would be fair play to let Lucy explain herself.
But maybe she's going to be just too ashamed or too offended or shocked and hurt.
I don't know.
You can tell me.
What do you think?
But that went into Room 101.
And the third thing was menus, where the food is described just in written English written language rather than any other kind of option.
Menus with written descriptions.
And that did not go into Room 101.
I might have put pretentious menus with unhelpful descriptions that are designed just to kind of add value to the food so they can charge you a lot more money than they should be.
I might add that into Room 101, but that's not what was presented.
It was menus with written descriptions that they stay in the world.
Okay.
PDF transcripts available in the episode description.
Check it out.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right then.
And yes, go over and listen to my appearance on the British English podcast and hear the things that I talked about.
I had a really good time.
I had a really, I had such a good time ranting about three things.
I don't know if you're going to agree with me on my choices and my reasons for choosing them.
I think there's There's one that you are almost certain to agree with me on.
There's one that I think will divide my audience.
Some of you will think, yeah, I agree with you, Luke.
And some of you will be like, no way, man.
So you can find out by listening to the episode.
You'll find a link in the description.
Otherwise, the British English podcast.
OK, nice one.
Thanks for listening.
Thanks for watching, everybody.
Leave your comments in the comment section and have a lovely morning afternoon, evening or night, wherever you are in the world, whatever you happen to be doing with yourself at this moment in time.
But until next time, I will just say good bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.
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