¶ Night Recording and Morning Alarm Failure
Again, recording with me at night time. I don't like this, Tim. I don't like working at night. Because you want to have boundaries or you just lost the vibe by the end of the day? I don't know, because I'm a knight. I don't know. I feel this need to whisper.
I feel like I can't go full energy because it's night time and, you know, people in the apartments and houses around me. I don't know, I just feel this, I feel quiet. I feel like I can't give up my full energy because it's night time. Is that that Englishness, that sort of... You know, nighttime, small, dark, northern hemisphere. Maybe. Cuddle up next to a fire vibe, you know. I have got a can of Red Bull here that I've been...
drinking to try and perk myself up. So all it's doing is making me need to go to the toilet though. Right, okay. Well, it's morning in Adelaide and it's a beautiful morning. It's kind of overcast and wispful. Yeah. And windy and lovely. And I've got a coffee here and I'm loving it. Loving life. When I said, well, I didn't say. When you said you'd rather record in your morning and my evening.
for logistical reasons. I respected that because you always tell me what an incredible morning person you are. And then I come into my office here late at night on schedule and I get a message from you saying, oh, sorry, I slept in. I set my alarm for the wrong time and I overslept.
I'm like, well, I thought you were like up with the sparrows at 5am and, you know, and it turns out if your alarm doesn't go off, you just keep sleeping. I'm not, I'm not, I usually don't have an alarm in the morning. I just sort of wake up and go. The thing is I... i enjoy it i'm like oh here we go but i'm not a super early riser i i don't like that i don't like being forced
to get up, you know, like for a flight or something. I just like to naturally rise, you know, about up our six, chord to seven, something. But then I'm in peak condition straight away. Coffee machine goes on and I'm ready to rock. I prefer it to the night time, but it sounds like we both prefer it to the night time. What happened with your alarm? How did you set the wrong alarm? Look, I sent it for 6.20, but I just did the classic. It was on, like, PM instead of AM. So, just...
Yeah, I know. Old excuse, obvious excuse. But I did naturally wake up at my normal kind of, you know, 20 to 7 kind of time and looked down and went, oh, dear. Oh, you goose. And then a text came through from you saying. You know, you were good for in half an hour. And I was like, well, actually, give me an extra 10 minutes. Yeah. If I had a dollar for every time you've asked for an extra 10 minutes before recording, I'd have.
30, 40 bucks. I just have a green room here and I like to sit in the green room and prepare properly before I go out and meet the... the art and engage in in this um highly creative high wire act of commentary that we that we do well tim I don't want to muscle in on your territory and your turf, man, because, you know, we both have our things. And if you told me you were going to start making mathematics videos or something like that, I'd probably feel a little bit, like, threatened.
¶ Brady Officiates a Wedding
Right. I'm not sure how I'd feel about that. But I, this week, have muscled in on your turf. Oh, yes, you have. Yes. The weekend just gone, I officiated a wedding. Well, this is a very, you know, backroom, off the record kind of... Job, indeed. How has this happened? What are you doing here? Why are you trying this sort of thing? Well, you know I've always been a man of faith. No, no. What happened was...
A couple of friends of mine got married on the weekend. Yeah. And it was kind of a bit last minute. Like it was, you know, for a wedding it was quite last minute. It was like they only had a couple of months organising it. And... A few weeks ago now, they contacted me and asked me to be like the MC at like the dinner afterwards, you know, to introduce speeches and stuff like that. Yep, yep.
That's a good Brady job. I can see you doing that job many times over the years. Hello, everyone. Welcome. It's a great night. Yeah, and I think my friend has seen me do talks before and stuff and thought that, you know.
I was good with the odd gag and, you know, and I could pull it off. So, of course, I agreed to it. And then, like, about a week and a half before the wedding, he calls me up and says, we're not having speeches and stuff afterwards anymore like none of that's happening it's going to be a really low-key affair so we don't need an emcee anymore and i'm like oh brilliant you know off the hook i can just go and have a good time
And he said, but actually we've got another job for you. We haven't got anyone to actually do the wedding, to officiate the wedding, to be like the celebrant for the ceremony. So can you do that instead? And like suddenly like. That's upping the ante, in my opinion. Yeah, I reckon. Yeah, that's a whole other thing, really. It is a whole other thing. But of course I agree, because he's my friend. And also, when in my life am I ever going to get to do that? It's like a...
once in a lifetime thing to do for me. For you, it's not. But for me, it's like, oh, wow. So I agreed to it. But like I had to do everything. I had to write it and all that sort of stuff. And I was just given...
given the job like you take care of it so the first thing everybody asks me are you allowed to do that is that legal are you qualified so just to deal with that quickly the actual proper legal marriage between the man and wife was done beforehand like with by a registrar you know with signatures
someone who is licensed to do it right so that that was already taken care of like an hour before the ceremony so so for all intents and purposes they were married when they came to you yeah okay well yeah yeah so really i was just doing like the public declaration So that was all fine. So really it was just like for show.
But that's, no, it's not, I don't think it's for show. I think they're really saying it to each other. They want to say it. Yeah, yeah, they wanted to do it publicly in front of their family and friends. So I wrote like, you know, a couple of pages of... speechy stuff. They're not a religious couple, so there was no kind of, you know, of that sort of stuff. So I did a couple of pages of, you know, a bit of talk, a couple of jokes and that, and then...
With your help, I contacted Tim, of course, because for people who don't know, Tim is a church minister and does weddings for a living. So he was able to give me a couple of recent examples of ones he'd done. And I took sort of the... all the different vowels and all the different things that you do, slightly modified them just to, you know, de-god them if necessary. Right. And did all that stuff.
Absolute highlight for me was getting to do that if anyone here knows of any legal reason why these two should not be wed, you know, speak now or forever hold your peace. And did all the, you know, exchanging of the rings and the repeat after me. you know, in sickness and in health and all that sort of stuff. It was brilliant. It was great. I loved doing it. Oh, that's great. It felt a bit like a movie because all this stuff is so clichéd, right? Like...
Yeah. Rightly so, in a lovely way. But it's so ingrained in our culture, all these different phrases and turns and the way things are said at weddings. And you've seen it so many times, whether at weddings or on TV and movies. to be at the front saying it was really like a... It felt really natural. It felt really easy. Yeah, yeah. It was amazing how familiar and natural it felt. It was a great day. And, of course, there are important...
I think I got it right. Like my feedback was good. I loved it. You know, first and only time I'll ever do it. But there you go. You may now kiss the bride. It is a lovely role. And it's great you got to have a taste of it. How many times do you reckon you've done weddings in your... ministerial career look not as much as your ordinary minister because remember i spent 14 years at the college doing academic work rather than kind of in a local congregation so um i think i've done like 30 or so
Yeah. I'd have to count them up. They're all recorded here in, you know, you keep your own books. Maybe it's a bit more, but yeah, that's all. I've done many more funerals. I was going to ask. Okay. More funerals than weddings. How many funerals do you reckon you've done? Oh, I don't know. I don't know. Not that many more. So about maybe 40 to 50 and maybe 30 weddings, you know. Yeah. Maybe a bit less weddings. I'll look them up. Yeah.
But I much enjoy, for the record, I enjoy the funerals a lot more. Really? I do, very much so, yes. Why? For two reasons. One is because weddings have heaps more work and preparation. Like there's heaps of... paperwork and you're dealing with a bride and what they want and everything's got to be detailed and there's a rehearsal and there's weeks beforehand and all that kind of stuff it's really important but just for me it's like
oh, yeah, this is a whole other thing. Whereas I'm more interested in the marriage and, you know, I like a sort of a... a simple wedding that's serious and stuff. And therefore has sort of a lovely joy around it rather than a big over the top wedding. But funerals are, they're like, you know, an hour.
And they're meaningful. I don't know. They're just a heavy, good, strong hour about life and death and existential things and people. So I just, yeah, I really, I feel they feel connected and meaningful and good ministry. Yeah. Yeah, nice. That's just my personality perhaps a little bit in there as well. More of a death guy than a love guy. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Did you make any famous mistakes? You know, there's the classic, the minister stuffed up. And of course, that classic scene in...
Four Weddings and a Funeral when Rowan Atkinson, you know, plays the priest doing his first wedding and gets all the names back to front and everything. Was there anything like that that went on? No, I don't think. There was, like, there was a couple of little, like... you know, human moments like the groom.
initially going to put the ring on the wrong finger and stuff like that. So there were a few, so there were like, there were human moments. Yeah. But there was no like, you know, saying the wrong name or stuff, which was kind of, yeah, I guess a little fear in the back of your head. I was amazed. I've never been less nervous before doing something in public as well. I get a lot less nervous than I used to if I have to speak in public.
To the point where it's... Yeah. But this was... I was very zen about it all. It was really... I was really surprised. There is a natural flow to a wedding, so it's not like it's up to you to be entertaining. It's just up to you to kind of follow the rhythm and the script and stuff, you know, keep them on track. Yeah. And because you're not the centre of attention either, you're kind of meant to be.
be present but invisible really yes you want that's their moment that that helps too yeah yeah yes it does probably the biggest problem i had was my my eyesight's getting is starting to deteriorate And so I had to print the text a little bit bigger. Oh, yeah. I noticed I printed the text a bit bigger on the paper.
But then also the chapel, it was in this gorgeous chapel, but it was quite gloomy, the lighting, in a nice way. Yeah. But the gloomy, I think if the lighting had been any gloomier, I would have started to struggle to read them. read the text because I wasn't wearing glasses. And I think my prescriptions changed in the last few weeks and I need to deal with it. So I did at one point, my biggest fear was, am I actually going to be able to read? Yes. But it was all fine. It was all fine.
It was all fine and it was a great time. And it was a tremendous honour to be asked to do it. Like I feel really honoured to have had even the smallest role in such an important day in their lives.
¶ The "Weddings by Podcast" Concept
Yeah. Anyway, that brings me to an idea for a podcast. Oh, does it? Hmm. We like to draw on recent experiences for our ideas. And it did occur to me, because the legal formalities were done by someone who was qualified and licensed to do it, and that's quite a separate, easy thing to do. And then anyone can be a celebrant and officiate a wedding, as I have proven. Why not have a wedding podcast where people who want to be married by...
your host or your hosts sign up to have their weddings done by podcast. It's a very modern, you know, it's a modern communication format. People love living their lives online and posting to Instagram. being online citizens, why not start doing weddings this way? Where people do their, maybe you could have a part of your business where you have a licensed person handling the marriage, the formality of the actual legal marriage.
But then the ceremony, the public declaration is done on your podcast where they zoom in, they read their vows and their things they want to do. You do a bit of talking with them and stuff and you conduct. Weddings by podcast.
Wow. These are modern times we live in. This is quite different. This is different to just saying we're going to record the wedding and then just put it out online. No, no, no. This has got to be more like interactive, looking and doing podcast intentionally. This is the wedding. This is the wedding.
done by podcast and all the podcast ways, you know. You know, the bride and groom can dress up if they want, but they're going to have the cans on their ears. They're going to be in front of a microphone. They're going to be zooming it. And doing all that stuff by podcast. Wow. Because people love podcasts so much now. I'm sure there's going to be some subset of people who are going to say, I'm up for that. I'm up for doing my wedding by podcast.
I want to be on the wedding podcast. And each week you have a different one. Maybe each Sunday afternoon or whenever the wedding day is, Saturday, I don't know what the typical wedding day is, but every Saturday maybe.
Maybe you could do them live. Other people could watch on Zoom and they make their declaration of love to each other to the entire podcast sphere. Do you know what this opens up as an idea is I wonder about... the legalities of needing to be in the same room as the couple as each other and as the celebrant i think legally you have to be
together like for instance you're in the uk and i'm here in adelaide today let's say that i was marrying you to someone who was beaming in from new york now in the podcast world that's the most natural thing in the world to do but i'm not sure That's an interesting legal perspective. I'm not sure that counts. But maybe if this idea picked up, it would be normalized and suddenly electronic connection would...
would count. Of course, you wouldn't get to kiss them in the same way. Well, at all. But you could send them an emoji of a kiss, I guess, couldn't you? I mean, you make a fair point. I'm not talking about legally. marrying the people. No, I just think that's an interesting sidebar thought. It is. It is. You know.
Yeah, taking something that's like an embodied experience in a room and making it electronic, which is kind of what podcast is. It's a conversation that's not in the pub, but it feels, it's the virtual pub. And how weddings would work. It is a good question. It's a good question. I don't know whether there are any jurisdictions in which you can marry someone without being present.
Yeah, I don't know what happens. I know sometimes people get married in prison, don't they? I don't know what happens there. Oh, ministers go into prisons and you go in there and you're in the same room. Same with COVID. There's a distance. But you need to be with them in the same room and they have to be together. I don't know, man. It's probably not the best idea. It just feels like something. There would be people who'd be up for it. Some people don't take their weddings as seriously.
as ceremonially as others and might be up for, oh, yeah, I'd love to get married on a podcast. I'd be up for that. Let's go on the wedding podcast. The cool thing about it, of course, is you could add in all sorts of little bits of Segway music and you could really edit together, you know, you could, oh, hang on, let me say, you know, I said, oh, I do. Hang on, let me say that again.
I do. And then edit it nicely so it's nice and smooth and have the little music in the background. You could start each episode with like a heavily produced segment about the couple's history. you know, with interviews with people and stuff like that and telling their love story like for like 15 or 20 minutes with lovely music playing under it and then you go and then you do the ceremony recorded live on the podcast. Okay, do you, Fred, take.
Jodie to be your, you know, and do all that and do the stuff. And then maybe even afterwards you could bring in like. like the father of the bride and best man and all that sort of stuff and have speeches afterwards, like again. Yeah, the reception afterwards. Yeah, that's true. All part of the episode. the first the first well not the first dance I don't know what you'd have a first a first something like you know I mean obviously
This would be recorded on video or Zoom or whatever as well so people could watch it. But I'd want it to work as an audio experience. And you could just like, just for like an hour or so, just immerse yourself in the love story of these people. and then live through the vows and then live through the reflections afterwards. There could be something in this. I was just saying it.
Because it was an obvious, silly idea after my weekend. But the more I think about it, the more I'm thinking, this could be a thing. This could be a thing. All right. Let's do it, man. Let's get it happening. Good idea. What's it called? The Wedding Podcast? Yeah, don't, you know, don't overthink it. Hang on, let me overthink it for just a minute. Yeah, till death do us part or, yeah, all that sort of stuff. I do vow something.
that rhymes with podcast how can you put that in there oddcast the yeah like wedding wedcast no nothing's coming good the wedding podcast it is a wedding podcast
¶ Memento-Style News Report and Housekeeping
A bit of housekeeping. Please do. A bit of parish notices. This is a bit back to front. You've done your idea and now you're doing parish notices. You're a classic. I hope you didn't do the wedding this way, where you're like, I now proclaim you man and wife. Oh, and now, have you got some rings? Do you know, when I first started making news reports for the BBC, on the local news, and...
I'd just been taught to make videos. So I'd done all my training and I was seen as like the experimental guy who would always do things in a different way and be creative. And I think I was like, maybe I was influenced by the film Memento, I think, which was obviously a great film. And every time I was given a story or a job to do for the news, I wanted to do it in a different creative way. And one day I had the idea of doing like a news report, like a two-minute news report.
in the style of Memento where I wanted to tell it backwards. Oh, right. And they let me do it. It was crazy. It was a story about this street that was having problems with car parking. I remember this story. Yeah. I remember this story. Yeah, they were having problems with car parking on the days of big football soccer matches. And I said to the boss, I want to tell it back to front.
Because what happened was they were having all this problem with parking and they got the council and the council installed some new signage and lines on the road and it took the problem away. So I told the story where at the start the lines were painted and everything was fixed and then I told the story backwards and the end of the story was all the problems they'd been having with the football crowds. And like...
I'm kind of embarrassed that I did it now because it was so stupid and ridiculous and unnecessary. But because it was new having all these young video journalists making reports for the news and the bosses were being encouraged to let these young people be creative, the bosses just let me... do it and it was ridiculous and it went on the news it went out on the BBC this like memento style film yeah oh that's classic I don't know it was great
It was weird. They were the heady early 2000 days where the internet was, you know, anything was possible, yeah. And the producers of the show probably thought this is stupid and ridiculous, but...
¶ Podcast Updates and Recommendations
They've been told to let these young people like have a bit of a free reign to be creative. Anyway, so that's what I'm doing today, man. I've gone all memento and I've got parish notices here in the middle. I would just like to remind people. that the Glacial podcast, one word a week, is still running. I'd forgotten about this. Every Monday a new word is released. And if you want to go to...
The website, the Unmade Podcast website, unmade.fm. I've got at the top a little link so you can go and have a listen. Find out what's happening. I think we're a good 17 words into it now. Oh. So a sentence will have formed, or perhaps even more than one sentence. We're well into the second sentence now. Oh, right. So if you want to find out what's happening on the Glacial podcast...
Go and have a listen because it is taking some of my time up every week and I don't want it to be for nothing. So please just go and have a listen. Surely people are interested in what the sentence is. I am because I've forgotten. The slowest podcast of all time. Surely there's going to be a record for that. There should be. And also to let people know, all through December, starting on December 1, we are going to have our Advent calendar.
Fantasy Advent Calendar podcast happening. Tim and I have been very hard at work recording these. These are cool. Yeah. We're deep into production. So from 1 December through to 24 December, there'll be one episode a week. If you would like to listen to those, you should be a Patreon supporter. Go to our Patreon page and... become a member, to hear these. It's going to be fantastic. If you're not a Patreon supporter, on Christmas Day...
you will be able to hear them all as one big mega episode that we're releasing on Christmas Day. But if you'd like to have it as a proper advent calendar experience and have one a day, I think they're going to be about... 10 minutes or so per episode. Yeah. That's roughly how they seem to be turning out. Five minutes on each gift, each door. Yeah. Tim and I giving each other these sort of dream fantasy gifts. It's been fun. Check it out.
Also, if you're a Patreon supporter, can I just say, there's so much cool stuff if you're a Patreon supporter, Tim. This is just some of the recent things that Patreon supporters have been able to experience. My wife... receiving her medals, her Tim Hine and Brady Haran medals, like live recordings of her on video, finding out about them and receiving the medals. Not many people know this, our West Wing opening credit sequence with Tim and I.
posing and pretending to be in the West Wing, set to West Wing music, which has been one of the unsung highlights of the podcast so far. You can go and watch that. Yes, I like that a lot. Marble Racers, all by Marble Racers. Three already you can watch with commentary and...
And I feel another one coming, Tim. I feel another one coming. Because they are a lot of work. They're a lot of work. God, I love doing them. And I'm just feeling, I'm starting to feel the hankering. I want to do another one before Christmas and like... I've got other important work that needs to be done, but I'm just thinking that I'm clearing a day for marbles. It's very satisfying watching a marble.
go down one of your elaborate tracks and go down to the bottom. It's a very cathartic, elaborate thing. The fact that you turn it into a race makes it even more exciting. They are a lot of work, it seems. They are. And also for Patreon supporters, occasional extra clips. In a recent episode Tim and I recorded, we had a really interesting talk about the second coming.
and comparing it to the video game Double Dragon somehow. And it ended up getting cut from the episode just because of like the flow of the episode and the way I was editing it. It just didn't quite fit. And I cut it, but I thought... This was still really interesting and it was fun.
So it was Sunday. I don't remember how long it was, five minutes, ten minutes. But I took that clip and I put that onto the Patreon page so people could hear that as well. So that's the kind of stuff that's always appearing there. And you're supporting the podcast. You know, obviously people realise we don't have ads and we can't make this show without your support. So, you know, that's just some reasons to consider it. Suit yourselves. Thank you, Patreon supporters.
And just another podcast I want to recommend, Down With The Kids, co-presented by my wife, Kylie Pentelow. Oh, yeah, right. We've been trying to get her on the show to come and talk to us about it, but because we keep doing these in the middle of the night, she has to stay at home and be in the house while Edward's asleep. So she hasn't been able to come and join us yet. So I just want to give her a plug, and I'll link to it, Down With The Kids.
I'm not joking. It's become my favorite podcast. I really enjoy it. Her and her co-presenter have got a really nice chemistry. They're really funny, way funnier than Tim and I. And as a bonus, you get to hear me get slagged off on a regular basis. Right, yes, okay. For your fathering failures, is that right? And husband failures and just general life failures. So if you want to hear me be spoken about lovingly but derogatorily, go and check it out.
Down with the kids. Get down with the kids. Get down with the kids. You heard about it here first. Actually, you probably heard about it elsewhere. It's doing really well. It sometimes gets in those charts for, you know. third on the parenting podcast charts and stuff like that. Tim and I never get in those charts, so, you know. Gosh. Yeah. I don't know what we're doing wrong, Tim. We're doing something wrong. We're doing lots of things wrong probably.
¶ The Lost Town of Yallourn Spoon
Maybe more marble races will help. Maybe more marble races. Or maybe, maybe more of this. Spoon! Well, maybe, certainly if I'm going to be wheeling out spoons like this. This is a beautiful spoon today. And a very personal spoon. Sometimes I bring a spoon on and it's an amazing spoon, but I don't know from where it came. This one I do. And this one is actually quite sentimental. Now I've found it in the pile. I'm really happy to have.
It's a very elaborate and older spoon. Once again, it's one of these Stuart silver plated kind of spoons with a massive scoopy bit. The scoopy bit is shaped like a shell. It's got that sort of shell look to it. And it's very elaborate all the way. up the stem to the what's the top bit called the head is a handle the handle that's right and then it has a beautiful color picture of a town
called Yelorn, Yelorn, Victoria. Now, if you go looking for Yelorn today, you won't find it. Yelorn was a little country town not far... From Tarelgon. It's in the same sort of Gippsland region. Tim's homeland. Tim's birthplace. People know that. People and everyone knows that. You think? I'm from Tarelgon. Oh, yes. Yeah.
Everyone, people listening to Down With The Kids know that I'm from Taralgon. Right. Everyone knows. So Yelorn was a small town near Taralgon. What do you mean was? What's with all this past tense? Well, it was dismantled as a town.
The reason it was dismantled is because one of the features of the Gippsland region is coal. There's a huge amount of coal under the ground. And so they established... uh in about the 19 i think it was 60s or so the yallorn power station and the town of yallorn was on like a massive mother load of coal so they literally created an open cut pit like they picked up your lawn homes and...
spread them out all over Victoria. So, like, the interesting thing about your lawn as well is they had a very distinctive red roof for some reason. There was a particular kind of red roof that they used there. So these... One by one, these homes were sort of jacked up, put on a truck and sent to other parts of Victoria. How do you do that when houses have like foundations and stuff?
Well, they're not obviously brick foundations. These are homes that are on, what do you call it? Posts and so forth. So wooden homes on posts and so forth. You can often cut a home in half, put half of it on a truck, the other half on another truck, take it somewhere else and re-establish it. because people bought them it's like a cheap home right yeah yeah
So all over Victoria, there are these homes with red roofs. And my father, as we drove along, would say, oh, there's a Yallorn home. Oh, there's a Yallorn home. That's such a phrase that's embedded in my mind. And they dug, and where Yallorne was is just this massive open cut pit with a big dredger that went through and got all the coal and burnt the coal to make electricity that supplied Melbourne. And that's how Melbourne run on the Yallorne power station in the area.
This spoon, Tim, it's got – I can't quite make out what the artwork is. Like in the enamelled handle there, obviously it says Yalloon, Victoria. And it – I can't tell what the structure is. Does this spoon come from when your lawn was still a town? Or is this celebrating the former town, now power station? And can you tell what that image is? I think that image, very distinct in so many Australian towns, I think that's their war memorial that was at the centre of town. It does look like it.
war memorial obviously i never went to your lawn so i don't it doesn't look familiar to me but i even if it was made afterwards or to commemorate the town or something like that like every town would have a spoon um they've put the war memorial in the middle which yes I guess you're about to ask, presumably they moved that as well, and that's gone somewhere special. Yeah. Yeah, I wonder whether your lawn... Oh, here we go. Here's a picture of the...
War Memorial in Yallorne from 1961. I have to say the resemblance is not strong, which has me questioning our guess. Okay. Well, it's not a power station. It could be a particular feature in the town. I don't know. You're right, though. It does look like some kind of monolithic structure. And to the sides of it, are they supposed to be like... Trees or depictions of birds? Yeah, they are. No, trees.
No, that's right. Trees and then there's a little bit of sky at the top. And maybe it's like their skate park. Maybe it's not a war memorial, but I don't think so. I don't know what it is, but there will be a picture of it in the notes if you want to go and see this picture of your lawn. Presumably...
Your dad may have got this when your lawn still was a town. Did your dad remember your lawn? Oh, much more than that. This is the other part of the story that makes this so personal, is dad lived in your lawn and was a postman in your lawn. Oh, wow. Yeah, this is where he went to live and became a postman. And he gave up hairdressing, which he'd done in Mowi, having come out from Holland. He's Dutch.
And he settled in your lawn, lived in your lawn. And in fact, I've seen in dad's papers like a clipping from the Gippsland newspaper that talks about the whistling postie in your lawn because it was such a small town. He'd walk around whistling and people would know that the post.
is bringing their post because they could hear him whistling as he whistled along, which sounds like a little quaint English, you know, novel. But that's literally I've read a newspaper that talked about him as that. So that's why he had such a connection with Yalorn. And then they...
pulled it all apart and he moved to Tarelgon. I'm looking at Wikipedia now. Yallorne was a company town in Victoria built between 1921 and 61 to house employees of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria, which operated the nearby Yallorne. power station. And as Tim said, expansion of the adjacent open cut brown coal mine led to the closure and removal of the town in the 1980s. Okay, that makes sense. Oh, that late, right. That late, yeah. So while the township no longer exists...
At the 2006 census, the adjacent region classified as your lawn had a population of 251. So there we go. So I'm glad to have found this, actually. I'll keep this in a special place. Your lawn is, I sort of, it's like, it's where my dad was kind of, you know, just before he met mum. And so it's just like, it feels... Significant. Oh, man, a spoon commemorating a town that no longer exists. This is incredible. It's like a holy grail. Yeah, well, that's right.
And I've got it right here. Magnificent. Do you think when this makes its way onto the Unmade Spoon card collection, do you think it would be something like a gold card or a special kind of... Foil, like a refractor or whatever they call them, like those special shiny while silvery ones? Quite possibly. You know what I think? I think we should not make the Yalorn Spoon card, and it's like a card that doesn't exist. That would be quicker. Let's see. Let's see.
All options are on the table. Or it could be pieces of a card. Like the card could be made, but then it's like cut up and spread amongst all other card packs. So like the towns. So every time you buy a card pack, you get a little piece of your lawn card, but not the whole card. Your dad could be there going, oh, look, there's a piece of your lawn spoon card.
¶ Introducing The Boring Object Podcast
It could be red on the back, like the red roofs. Let's go. Maybe we're overthinking it. Do you have an idea for a podcast? Yeah, well, I tell you, it's not a million miles away from the spoons themselves. Although the spoons are spectacular, extraordinary objects. I have an idea for a podcast where we explore boring objects. So the history of and the use and the invention and the shaping and refinement of.
Boring Object. This is called the Boring Object Podcast. Right. I like it. I like catching. I just looked down right in front of me now. I've got this bulldog clip. Right? It's just sitting there held papers together yesterday. Give us a bit of foley work. Give us a click by the microphone so people can hear your bulldog clip. There we go. You can flick these around and clip them.
You're always tempted to put it on your ear when you were young at school. You put it on your ear like you've got to clip it onto something or your nose. Where did this come from? Who invented this? How have they been around? Was it refined? Is this its final form? a way it could be improved the bulldog clip the paper clip i've got here some post-it notes the post-it you know classic you know is sort of a more recent invention but getting even more boring like i've got
toothpicks here, a stapler. Now, stapler's quite a complex piece of technology, but I feel like it's working. I think staplers are clever. Do you know, I can't remember if I've talked about this on Unmade before. I probably have, because I've talked about everything, but... you know that I've never been that much into cooking, right? And you also know I've never historically been like the most healthy eater. So vegetables have never played a huge role in my life. Right.
But in the last three or four years, they have started playing more of a role in my life. I've gotten more involved with cooking. Good. And eating the odd vegetable. And I have, for the first time, with any real serious intent, started using vegetable peelers. Oh, yes. Just your basic vegetable peeler. Yep. And I think they are truly remarkable.
Because I've always looked at them sitting in drawers and thought, how could that effectively peel a vegetable? It looks clumsy. It doesn't look like it would do the job very well. But now that I've started using them on a regular basis to peel potatoes and carrots and other things... I am truly amazed by how effective and good they are at their job, just your basic vegetable peeler. And...
But I'm also embarrassed by that because I sometimes will be with a group of people, like adults like me in their 40s, and I just want to tell them how amazing I think vegetable peelers are. But I realise how stupid that makes me look.
Because these people have been using vegetable peelers since they were little kids and therefore they're quite like, you know. But I just want you to know if you have not used a vegetable peeler very much in your life and you come across them later in life as I have, they are miracles.
They're so fast, aren't they? Fast and efficient. We should be thankful for vegetable peelers every day. And to look at them, as I looked at them for many years, I never appreciated how good they were. Like I thought, surely you could make a better tool than that. to peel a vegetable, but I don't think you can. I think we nailed it. No, they're safe. They're fast.
You've got to be careful with your fingers when you first get going, but remarkable. Certainly better than the knife, which I guess is what came beforehand. No, no, kudos. Kudos to... Sir Alfred Vegetable Piela, whoever invented the Vegetable Piela, because you were on an absolute winner there. Boring objects all around us, man.
They're boring objects. But I do like the idea not only of the history, like the paperclip. Who invented the paperclip? How did that come about? All that kind of stuff. But I also like the idea, how did it find its final form? because they have a distinctive form, but also is that its best form? Do you think it can be advanced in any way? Yeah. Scissors.
I mean, scissors are everywhere. Scissors are boring, but they're remarkable. Two blades coming together in a way that's safe enough to hand to a child. Gosh, how do you do that? Clever. Clever scissors. I mean, not all scissors should be handed to children. I should just point that out. Take care when you're handing scissors to children and always hand them handle first. Yes. And don't run while holding scissors.
No, indeed. Famously, you should never run. I'd like to know where that came from and the person and the wound they have. I'm sure there's a grisly story to go with the whole don't run with scissors thing. No, I like this, man. I like it. You're right. You know, I love a good boring object. Yeah, some of these objects, you know, the spoon, the fork. The coat hanger. They haven't changed for thousands of years, which makes you think.
It's as good as it gets. Are there objects that stayed the same for thousands of years and then someone suddenly said, hang on, this could be a better way? a disrupting design that just sort of transformed it like I wonder about the doorknob I feel like the doorknob was round for a long time and then suddenly the idea of having it as a horizontal bar just like oh gosh that's
Way easier on the wrist. That's quick and fast. Yeah. Incredible. Yeah. Hmm. I like this. I like this. I'm very happy with this idea. I think there's...
¶ Boring Objects: Perfection, Improvement, and Play
There's legs in this idea. Oh, well, I mean, I have no doubt the idea already exists. It's such low-hanging fruit, but I still like it. I want to talk about it. I want to talk about boring objects. Can I mention another boring object that I think everyone's trying to improve but isn't improving? Please. Sneakers.
Yeah. I feel like the pressure's on sneaker companies every year to say, here is a massive new revolutionary way in which our sneakers have improved, and I don't think they've improved that much. They have improved, certainly, you know, back...
People playing basketball in, you know, like Chuck Taylor, you know, Chuck's in the 60s and so forth wasn't a good idea. The Reebok pump, so pumping that little basketball on the tongue of the shoe to... give it a little bit of extra pressure and a bit of course the air you know the airsole the nike airs and things like that certainly adding more support was wise like you know yes who would have thought that making them more comfy would be good but i feel like there's a limit
I was really big on my Adidas Torsions, which had that torsion bar put into the sole of the shoe for a while. I loved my torsions. It's almost like that was holding your foot together. I remember that torsion. You'd point it out and talk about it. And I was like, oh, wow. Otherwise, how would the front of your feet, like your toes, be able to talk to your ankle? Like, that's right. You'd be falling all over the place. But thankfully, you had that there.
Other objects that are being constantly tinkered with, I think, are things in the bathroom, the safety razor. with more blades and lubricating strips and hinges and new things on them. The toothpaste seems to be... There's constantly, you know, new toothpaste pro with, you know, you can get pro toothpaste now and ultra and like quantum toothpaste and all this sort of stuff. Interestingly, like the...
The tube isn't changing, though, is it? Like the actual technology of dispensing isn't really changing. Well, for a while it did. When I was young, those toothpaste pumps became a thing where you would pump them out and there was like a little... cap that would close when you finished pumping to kind of cut off the excess. So they did play with that for a while, but it went away. So we're back to the tube, it feels like. The toothbrush, of course, is constantly being...
tinkered with with new little springs and bristles and abrasive bits on the back to brush your tongue. We're constantly trying to improve the toothbrush. But it's not. really improving is it but i mean it's not it's fundamental character is still the same i mean the grip's changing but you know like it's and we always go back it feels like we always go back
And then go adventure again with new designs and then come back. So, yeah, those things in the bathroom are being tinkered with. But I think we've already got them. We just have to accept we've already done it. Toilet paper, dispensing. Kind of, you know, a roll. It's just kind of there. Toilet paper itself. You know, you get triple cushioned, extra absorbent. And, you know, they're always trying to. Yeah.
There's another narrative that flows through this. There could be an ongoing competition or even a massive survey to define the most boring but... perfect object that could be a way through this as well like what's doing its job in the simplest form it possibly could and i think that would be an interesting conversation particularly for people to vote for as well what are some contenders for that i'm thinking the fork I'm thinking The Pencil. Yes.
The pencil feels obvious, like it's always existed, but it's actually quite a complex little piece of technology, isn't the way it's come together? Wrapping it in wood, you know, and lead and how that works, or graphite, whatever it is. Even the pen is... pretty clever yeah yeah it's a good one the pen is a good the ballpoint pen is a good example of us having something for a long time you know pencils and quills and fountain pens and that and then
People probably think, well, you can't improve on that, can you? And then someone came up with a ballpoint pen that's like, game changer. Doesn't blotch. Yeah. Boring objects. The more boring but useful, the better.
It could be like all working its way towards that finale. What is the world's most boring object? That's right. It could be the hundred and we're counting down and that would give it a real sense of dynamic and... would you include the wheel or is the wheel too general and adaptable like is the wheel an object or is that i feel like that's a bit i feel like that's neanderthal you know what i mean like i feel like that's almost a given i know the wheel isn't a given but circles exist in
So I think you've got to take it the next step. Okay. I'm thinking a top 10 might be the match, the safety match. Yes. Yes. Very good. Yeah. I'm a big fan of the match. A lot of people like the clicker.
But I'm a big fan of the match when it comes to lighting the barbecue because our automatic clicker thing's broken. You know, how you push a button on it, that sparky thing's broken. So I'm pulling out a match. And it's always, look, I'm seriously, it's a high wire act. And in fact, I burnt my finger.
the other day because i was putting the grill back into place and so forth but that's all part of it in my mind i'm a big fan of the match i'm known in our family for my inability to strike matches successfully right i i seem to always break them They always break as I push them up against the abrasive. I feel like there's someone in every family like that who's just like everyone looks and goes, give it here, don't do it. No, you're doing it the wrong way. What are you doing? It's me. Yeah.
I'm the guy. I'm the guy that can't strike a match. You're okay? You're okay with matches? You can handle them? Oh, yeah, I'm very good with them. In fact, I used to... Have this little thing, I shouldn't say this in case children are listening and they do this, it's dangerous. Man, this late in the podcast, no one's listening. It's just you and me, man.
There's two things. You can actually position a match on the matchbox in a certain direction and flick it with your other finger. Yes. And it flies off into the air in flame. Like a burning comet, yes. I have done that. I do enjoy that. Yeah. Don't do that, children.
Don't flick matches. Or adults, indeed. Yes, other middle-aged men. Anyone. Don't go anywhere near it. Don't do that. And do not run with scissors. I think the running with scissors is over. Like, I think that... that warning that aphorism has more currency disproportionate to the actual risk in running with scissors like it's much it's much better for instance to run with scissors than run with a knife like
Running with a knife is way more dangerous. At least scissors can be closed. Yeah, but young people don't often have knives. but they do sometimes have scissors. They have access. Young people have more access to scissors, like if you're making collages and things like that, you know, in craft time. So a young person is more likely to have scissors. Oh, okay. If young people had knives all the time, I think don't run with knives.
would also be a saying. But I like to think most young people don't have knives. So it's not so much that it happens pervasively, but it's actually that it's a more relevant warning for young people. Okay. Don't run with glue would also be good. If I was a teacher at school, I'd be like, don't run with glue because that's going to be like, take more time to mess up. At least if, you know.
Like the glue is going to be like, oh, you've got it on this and you've got it on that and you've got it everywhere and people could slip on it. But I hear the danger in the scissor situation. If you could spend half an hour doing either of the following two activities, which one would you choose?
Activity one, popping bubble wrap. Activity two, submerging your hands in that white glue you use for craft, letting it dry and then let it go clear and then peeling it off your hands in big... continuous pieces I would say activity two only because I did a fair bit of activity one like the other day
something came a book i bought on ebay and it came wrapped in bubble wrap and i immediately put down the thing i'd bought and just went click click click click click for a bit and then i actually this is the kind of dad i am he's i actually instead of putting it in the bin
I left it on the dining room table for other members of the family to come past and enjoy popping. Nice. I was like, oh, other people will want to have a go at this too. So I actually left it. And nice of you to leave a few unpopped bubbles for them. But, God, how great was it when you were a kid putting that glue all over your hands and letting it dry and then peeling it off? Yeah.
And that's not the clag, is it? Remember clag was primary school? No, not clag. You would do it with aqua deer. Aqua deer was the brand. Oh, is that it, is it? I remember using aqua deer, but yeah. You could peel it off. Yeah. Very satisfying. Love it. Love it. On that note, I'm going to end the podcast so I can go and cover my hands in glue. Yep, I'm beating you to it.