Dodgy Backs and Angry Sacks

It's the Tired and Tested Podcast, enjoy the safe play zone, over half an hour of laughs and the occasional little moan. Normal life and all this strife is what we like to speak, things like saggy boobs and hangovers that last a freaking week. From perky tits to kill and it's a snack, bitch, when I'm dead. I'm realising that parenting is just living in bumworm dread. Happy listening to the podcast.

So hello there everybody, welcome to episode 15 of the Time and Test the Podcast with me Sophie McCartney and as always I am joined by my gloriously fringed sidekick companion, Oi Oi Lucy! Hi! Right, first off, we need to address the elephant, no offence in the room. You are hunched over your microphone today, just looking like you're in the world's worst place. How's your back, babes? So I've had a bad back for many years.

I was training for the London Marathon, slipped two discs, so nobody should bother doing that. You always have to put that in there. I was training for a marathon. I'm a sporty wanker, guys. Yeah, I tried to be. You did try. I think it was God's way of saying, don't do the marathon, babe. I'm going to just break you back a little bit just to save you from yourself when you actually try and do an actual marathon.

Last week, I have to say, I'd come downstairs, because I do sometimes like to record in the bedroom, but I'd brought myself downstairs last week. Oh my God, Millie, stop tap dancing, go and sit yourself down. And the next morning... Jack said to me, Mummy, I could hear you swearing last night. And he was like, does that mean I can now swear? And I was like, no, darling. So we've set an age that's going to be acceptable for him to swear, which is 37.

And at the minute, he's towing the line on that. He's agreed. He's locked in for 37. How does he know what a swear word is? Well, because he goes to school. Do you know what I mean? And also, they pick up words, I guess, at school. I remember when he was quite little and he came home and he called Evelyn a dickhead. But it was in context because she was being a dickhead.

I was in the kitchen. I was in the kitchen and I could hear them in another room downstairs. And it was just the way he said it. It was brilliant. I was just doing some work at my laptop and just heard him go, oh, Evelyn.

stop being such a dickhead and i was like also trying not to laugh and i called him in and i was like sweetheart i was like do you know what that means and i could see he was like hmm not quite sure what to say what's going to get me into the least amount of trouble so he was like no

and anyway he'd agreed that somebody at school had told him and he didn't actually know what it meant so yeah so I think probably and then I was like well darling that's a bad word that's what we call a swear word and we don't use swear words swear words are bad so I think it's when they've heard words at school and they come back and repeat them and then that's when you reinforce well that's a swear word

right okay and now i'm constantly just trying to censor myself and i'm generally quite good around the kids anyway apart from you know when i'm podcasting downstairs and just effing and jeffing like a drunk sailor

Can we just take a moment because I'm a very proud momager of you after last night because we had the last... gig of 2020 last gig of 2020 that was a good one So I was trying to remember how many I've done this year. I reckon it's like 37 or something. It's like 30 million. Daft like that. Yeah, 30 million. 37 down. And I think I've probably got a casual like 30 left to go in 2024. But you know what? Everyone's like, oh, you're really looking forward to the break.

and i am i am looking forward to the break it'll be nice need to spend some time with the kids and steve um but um i'm also very worried about the fact that because i do this every week and i'll do it a few times a week um that is proper in my brain is muscle memory just like

an hour and 20 minutes worth of stand-up. When I'm going to take two months off, I'm going to go to that first gig back and I'm going to be like, I guess I got nothing. I'm just going to tap dance for another 20 minutes and I'm not a very good tap dancer. Maybe you should just start offering private showings or pay to come and see you on the internet and do a little private show. People might get confused though if I'm offering them private shows on the internet.

I'm not sure what people would laugh at more, my comedy or me nakedly dancing. I don't know. Nakedly? That's a word of the day. I don't think it's a real one, is it? Nakedly dancing. But it was a really brilliant gig. I always get so proud watching you anyway. I'm always just like, oh my God, look at her go. She's like my firstborn. I was in Liverpool. You were scousing it.

Do you know what? I get substantially more Scouse when I'm in a room with a lot of Scouse people and there are about a thousand Scousers in and so by the end of it I was like

I was like, proper, proper, proper Scouse. And came home, Steve was just like, bloody hell, what's happened to your accent? And do you know what? There's a few things about what he's realised about being married to a Scouser. And I was telling you some Scousisms last night as well. And there were certain things that you were...

like what are you talking about when you were doing your meets and greets you were talking you were and I was like what the and it wasn't really until I actually I moved away from Liverpool I went to Leeds for uni and that I met people not from Liverpool I was exposed to the world and I realise that other people don't have our words.

And I was explaining our words to people and just being like, what's wrong with you? So I was telling you, wasn't I, that we have, if you're listening into a conversation, you are gagging in. And so you would say to somebody, if you think that someone's listening to your convo, you're like, ee! stop gagging in you gagged would be one

So you're a gag. You're a gag. And I do that with Steve. I'm like, are you gagging in? And he's like, am I what now? So we have gags. We have gagging in. We have, when we go to the supermarket, and the supermarket of choice would be the Asda. Now, it's not Asda. No, it's not Asda. We always frequent the Asda.

So you and a couple of scousers were explaining this to me. Then you're chatting away and she said she called someone from us. And she was like, and I was in Asda. And I was like, hang on, you didn't call it the Asda. No, no, because it's the verb, it's the action.

of going the asda when you're in the asda that's fine you can refer to yourself as being in asda but if just you were going to asda you were going to the asda i don't know it's not the tesco it's not the sanos it's not the oldie it's you're just going to the asda and we put thee in front of a couple of other things as well um in just reference to our youngest children as well now you could be 25 but the youngest in your family and you're still going to be the baby

Oh, go get the baby. 27. This is the thing, because we were talking to one lovely lady came to see us and she had six children. So I was like, oh, what have you got? And she went, two boys, three girls and the baby. And I was like, but what's the baby? Is it a boy or a girl? It matters not. It matters not. You have no identity in life. You have no name. You have no gender. You are just the baby.

So we have that. We also just have the knobhead as well. The knobhead. The knobhead. We just like to put the in front of lots of words. Also, another one that you were confused about was when I was talking about lolly ices. I mean, that's just backwards. Well, it is literally backwards, yeah. We say lolly ice. Yeah, go and have a lolly ice. Again, the first time I said that to Steve, he was like, what? What about the lolly ice? Go and get the lolly ice, Steve.

Yeah, we had some, where I'm from in Berwick, they've got their own language and, right, let me try and think of a word and see if you know what it is, right? see if you can get it's a bit like urban dictionary okay so there's like urban dictionary berwick is like the most northern town in england right just before you get to scotland so there's there's like

It's kind of like Geordie Scottish people mixed together. So we have our own language. What do you think a capture is? A capture? A capture. A capture. Is it somebody who just steals children? right sounds like oh my god you were captured no i'm not on the register it's a girlfriend

You capture. I know. As if you've, hang on, I mean, that sounds a little bit predatory, doesn't it? It does, doesn't it? Yeah, I think, do we think, do we need to track that back where that stems from? Maybe, maybe they need to revise. But yeah, no, it was just like... Your capture. And we used to say Kustibari. A Kustibari? Kustibari. What's a Kustibari? Kusti. B-A-R-I.

Sounds like a really nice sandwich and I don't know why. Is it food? Oh, I really fancy a koosty bari. Oh, it's dead koosty. Dead koosty around the edges. And sometimes you would put koosty bari chit. You'd put a chit at the end. What, like for chips? Kustibari and chi. It just means, like, belta, really good. Kustibari. Mm-hmm.

Hmm. Oh, okay. I mean, it feels like a very long way around of saying it. Do you know what I mean? When I lived in Leeds, there were lots of things in Leeds as well that took me ages to get my head around. Like when you'd ask somebody at the time, they'd go, oh, it's 10 while 2. Sorry, what? Yeah, 10 while 2. 10 past 2. It's 10 well too. Just say 10 past, again just say 10 past 2. Shorter. Why don't we say 50 past 2?

Well, wait till we have to teach time to your children. Why don't we say 55 past two? Why don't we say 45 past two? It's just the way the clocks work. Oh, why don't we say 55 to three?

Again, it's just the way the clock was. I can't go into this because I've had to teach both of my children the time and I feel very triggered by this conversation. Right, well, let me know when you're doing it with Nate and I'll join, okay? And you can join in because Jack is near 11 and he still doesn't get the concept of...

past and to and where i am at which is why i cannot even entertain this conversation is that my standard answer is it just is that is and that is all it needs no further explanation it is just the way of the world who am i who am i to judge it or try and explain it it is just the way past or two it just is it just

Speaking of Jack, just before I came on to do this, I just said goodnight to him and he went, Mummy, can you go pass me that Pokemon ball over there? I went, oh, all right then. It's like this little empty, empty ball. And I passed it to him and he went, And I could hear something inside it shaking. He went, do you want to know what's inside? And I went, yeah, go on. Then he opened it up. It was his toenails.

remember BBC when they were in the broom cupboard, Andy Peters in the broom cupboard? I do remember it but I don't know how this is linking to toenails. Because I weirdly, you just triggered a memory then, I remember watching that and somebody sent in, they used to do this feature where it was like people could like show off what they collected and somebody sent in a quality street tin full of toenail clippings. That's just horrendous.

I'm actually thinking, can you hear Millie tiptoeing past me again? And I'm thinking, I mean, you need to cut hers and stick them in Jack's Pokemon ball. See how much he likes that. Also, your daughter just passively threw some incredible shade my way, didn't she? So, Lou stayed with me last night after she came to one of my shows. And I'd made Evelyn's bed up for her because we do have a spare bed.

room but it's bloody freezing so i was dead kind so i thought right i'm gonna put loose in a nice well insulated room which was evelyn's room and jack's got bunks and so she got kicked out and got put in bunks with jack which she secretly loved and um and they slept in her bed now i'd made the bed for

for you because I'm nice like that. I'm not going to let you sleep in a sweaty seven, eight-year-old bed, am I? And anyway, but I thought, do you know what? I'm going to make it and then losing sleep in it one night and then I'll just chuck her back in. Millie, stop snorting. You hear the dog? She sounds like a pig. You hear her?

She's sleeping at my feet. She's going to go off any second. And so the bed was made fresh. So I've just gone to put Evelyn in her own bed again. And she went, I'm not going in that bed. I was like, well, why not, darling? She went, well, Agent Lucy was in it last night, and I don't know where Agent Lucy's been. I'm like, true, she's a dirty bitch. Wow. I mean, wow. But to be fair... Are we allowed to talk about this? Can we somehow make reference to this?

in a very genteel fashion is this last night's incident last night's incident so talking about where we've been she was right to be concerned to be fair well i don't know whether the setup of this has made it sound like you're the guilty culprit let's just you you tell the story it was not it was definitely not me to clarify to clarify it was neither one of us and i was on stage so i had an alibi okay lots of people saw me so um

Apparently, so legend says, and we have this from a few verified sources who were there in the evening, that halfway through the show and some people got up to go to the toilet, they went into the ladies' loo and there was... Again, I feel bad talking about it because I feel bad for whoever this happened to, okay? But I also don't understand the process of how it happened, which is maybe what we need to discuss. Yes, exactly. There was a smell in the toilet.

And that happens in toilets because it's not where you go to eat your breakfast, is it? It's where you go to get rid of all your leftovers. And anyway, the smell was a poop. It was a poop. We all do it, guys. We all do a poop, okay? We all do a poop. Well, some of us don't, actually. Well, actually, that's true. Lucy, two weeks in. Still not been.

Just waiting to give birth every day now. The problem with the person that had done this poop was that they'd missed the toilet and they pooped on the floor. now and i'm wondering whether a couple of difference or not i'm giving this person the benefit of the doubt okay so i reckon two things must have happened here okay the first of which is that they have been just caught incredibly short like something awful has happened and they just haven't got to the toilet in time

and and i don't know then then they've like been scared and they thought i don't know like a lion was outside the door so they didn't have time to clear up and so they've just they've pooped and run they've pooped and run okay the other scenario is that this person was no pun intended, and they've accidentally pooed and they've not known they've pooed on the floor.

And they've just walked out just having left a turd behind. Maybe. Is this a scenario? I have a third theory. My third theory is, you know, we talked about the phantom shitter at your school. She listened. She reminded herself. She saw when you were, she was like, right, when's that bitch coming to Liverpool? When's that bitch in Liverpool? And she struck again. She struck again.

Well, I mean, maybe, I mean, if I was brave enough, I should have gone and tried to get a DNA sample and maybe done some cross-referencing because at the time, okay, so we just need a backstory on the phantom shitter for anybody who maybe has come to the podcast late and hasn't listened to any of the earlier episodes. school, there was somebody who did a poo in a bag, I think with a wee as well. I don't know.

and then put it in another girl's locker but this girl didn't use her locker and so this bag of poo and wee or it could have been poo and then just over a course of many weeks just broke down to represent something that looked like both. And then this girl then opened her locker and the bag of poo and wee fell out onto the floor. Mass panic ensued. The whole school, we were an all-girls church in England high school. This was a big deal. Hello, sweetheart. Hi. Hello, darling. Hi.

You're hungry. I need to have a word with her. How's your bed? Agent Lucy wants to know how your bed is. Is it okay? She's... Does it smell funny? No, good. Because she's very clean, as a rule of thumb. Right, do you want to get yourself a snack? Something dry with no joy in it whatsoever? A what, sorry? A wrap. A wrap. I thought she said a crap. I was like...

We don't have any wraps. We don't have any wraps. We don't have any wraps. What else is plain and boring in the cupboard? Oh, you'd have a piece of dry bread. Or do you want a banana? It's crummy. It's crummy. Yeah, that's going to make crumbies. If you were hungry enough, you'd have a banana. I think all parents need that as a T-shirt, don't they? What are you choosing? A piece of bread? OK.

You're trying to not get the crust on it. But I love that she's inside the bag of bread, just dissecting it, leaving the crust behind. Oh, tiny! Oh, no, no, Danny, can you close the cupboard and first off, wrap the bread back up? No, Evelyn, open, Evelyn, Evelyn, get back here, open the cupboard. She's like, you're working, can't get mad. Right, now close the cupboard.

Don't get crumbies in your bed and sit up to eat it in case you choke. I love you. Good night. Good night, baby. And she's gone. Did she tell you she loved you back? No.

No, she didn't. Okay, so where we were interrupted was that the whole of our school, we got hauled in to an assembly. We were a very staunch deputy headmistress. threatened us all with DNA testing. It was like 1997. I don't know where they would have had the finances. To DNA test a thousand girls. I have no idea, but we were all like, oh my God. You don't have to go and do a shit in a box. You don't have to go and do a sample. Jillian McKee, you are what you eat. I'm a bit cross-referenced.

What would Jesus do, girls? He probably wouldn't have shat in the locker in the first place. But anyway. You see, the fact is, they were going to go and do that investigation, DNA testing. All they had to do was, right, girl with the locker. You've snogged someone recently. Yeah, what have you done? Which bitch have you fucked up?

Whose boyfriend have you snogged? Done. That's what it was. It would have been some absolute trivial drama that happened back in the day. But nobody knows who the Phantom Pooh was to this day. And so if you ask anybody that went to my high school, I won't reference it. because I'm pretty sure that the teaching staff won't be appreciative of me sharing this story with the world.

But nobody knows and it is probably going to be everybody's. You know, like if you were on your deathbed and they were like, is there anything, Sophie, that you'd want to know in the world? I'd be like, yes, God. I want to know who shattered the locker. That's all I'd want to know. And my life would be complete. I have so much joy and happiness, but I just have one.

Like desire to know who did that anyway. But yes, so that's the backstory of the poo in the locker. So maybe you're right. Maybe a girl from my school was in the audience and she came. With a vendetta. She's back. But it wasn't my locker that got the shit in it. So I don't understand what the vendetta with me would be. You know who you need to get to that would be brilliant.

for this investigation. Disney+, good old Wagatha, Colleen Rooney, and it's kind of on our home turf. She'd work it out. So did you watch it? I did. I watched it last, it was actually just last week I watched it. And do you know what? Good on Colleen. She's definitely cleared her name because there's not a chance in hell it wasn't Rebecca Vardy. Do you reckon? See, I haven't seen it. I did see it on Disney and I was like, oh, I'm just not sure that I want to. You've not seen it.

no it does seem like something that i would watch and then loads of people told me to watch it but i tell you where i was just with on it i was just like oh i just i just i worried and this might not be the case because i haven't seen it but i'm worried that maybe that whole court case situation was for the benefit of a disney plus series is that not the case is it retrospective it's not happening at the same time

No, because it's like a couple of years later. Kind of like a backstory. It's a back. She's reflecting. Yeah. Oh, no, it's the biggest waste of lawyers' legal fees. Ever. It is ridiculous. The amount of money that was spent on that case. Was she actually found guilty of it? I mean, if you were found guilty, I don't know whether it was officially a crime or was it? Yeah. So what happened to Rebecca? Well, she had to pay a hell of a lot.

of money i don't think she's going to be invited back on i'm a celebrity get me out well maybe she will just maybe she will get us back because you know they like somebody i mean controversy didn't they no press is bad press this is it but no it's it's it is you need to watch it i recommend

end it because I watched it quite quickly it's one of those ones that I binged because you could just binge through it tell you what I've been binging on Disney I've been watching Only Murders in the Building which I love Is this a drama or is this a reality? No, because I was telling you about this and you thought that it was an actual real true crime podcast with Steve Martin and Selena Gomez and they were investigating real murders. I was like, no, babe.

kids program on Disney hang on a minute Steve Martin have a podcast with Selena Gomez and they're trying to solve murders seems unlikely but i'd watch i mean i'd watch it if they actually did real life murders in the building so i've been having an interesting conversation this week with one of my friends and as a mother of two boys i feel that you'll be

kind of partial to this as well and i feel like it's it's something we need to discuss um about the beginnings of puberty oh god and i don't think i'm going to be able to deal with this very well hang on how old is the beginning of puberty well it's kind of around about now 10 11. i am waiting patiently from under a table

to be hit with this. And we kind of get a little bit of the, we're getting mood swings and we're getting kind of eye rolls and answering back. Everything's a chore. But then the next day is lovely. Lovely. like a different child, and then the next day, it's like, so that stage I can kind of deal with, because that's just like, I can go, it's just hormones, and I know all of it is just hormones, but I tell you what, it's gonna be the physical things that I'm not.

not going to be able to deal very well with like all the boy bit issues all the boy bit issues do you know there are different stages of puberty well there's non-puberty fluffy puberty and then full grown wiry puberty right No. So, okay. And there is a scale of puberty and I feel it's like, I can't tell you the name, but I feel it's like either like the Richter scale for earthquakes or whatever the scale is that they use for chillies.

something along those lines and I think my issue with boy puberty is um well I don't have boy bits and so I'm not entirely sure and I have not grown up I have a sister and so I am just I don't feel equipped i feel like i need to read some books and i need to google things but i definitely can't google image it's called the tanner scale the tanner scale of puberty

So, so phase one is the, is like the child like stage. Okay. So that is, you know, just like child Willy, child Willy and a little parent. child testicles okay then the next stage after that stage two is when they then start to get It's the beginnings of the pubes. It's the beginnings of the pubes. But they're not pubes as we know it. They're not pubes as we know it. They're just kind of like...

Just dark, straight hairs. Regardless of ethnicity or hair texture, you will get just dark, straight, very soft apparently, hairs.

I don't know whether one can plaque them, unstyled and out, if they sound all lustrous and glossy like that. They're not wiry pubes. They sound, you know, quite nice pubes. Like, kind of, I'm looking at the end of my hair and I'm wondering whether it's... similar anyway so that's the next phase okay the phase after that isn't the wiry pubes oh no the phase after that is the bit where the willy stays the same size, but the testicles expand massively.

just have a giant pair of man balls giant ripe and ready avocados just hanging in their pants but matched with a little willy how long does that want for then i don't know how long and it also said which i because i then i spent after this conversation with my friend i traumatized myself and i spent an evening googling the situation

Again, not with images. And it said about the scrotum enlarges reddens and thins. I thought, well, that doesn't sound like a great situation to be in, does it? So your poor child has to walk around with like a giant... Thin but angry pair of bollocks in their pants. An angry ball bag. It's just a really angry ball bag. This makes me think that maybe potentially God is a woman because if God was a man, they'd make the willy big first because that'll make the willy look even bigger.

But they're not showing it to anybody at that age, right? And then, I think the next phase isn't that they then get the wittly tumult. the the scrotum i think they then just get the wiry pubes so the poor kids gonna have a tiny willy wiry pubes and a giant angry ball bag and then the final last stage is the willy catches up and everyone's on the same page finally but i just like i'm not gonna

going to be able to deal with this? This is a lot. Do you remember getting pubes? No. I remember having really fluffy armpits. It was like they were just like really fluffy but I don't remember them being like oh I've got pubes. It's weird, isn't it? You just don't remember. I still haven't gone into puberty in my armpits. I never really got armpit hair. Yeah, I've had mine lasered. But, you know, my gran, we call her Dirty Gran. She's 99, bless her. She's nearly 100.

Love Dirty Grand. Yeah, Dirty Grand. But when I was younger... She, I must have been about 15, 16. I can tell you about Day Grant another day. She's great. She's got some brilliant stories. Great value. We need to get her on as a guest. Yeah, she's... Get her to do an urban dictionary. Yeah, she'd get it right. Straight off. She would. It'd probably be one of her entries in.

there 30 grand there she is there she is but um she told me out of nowhere you know lucy i don't know why you all bother with like trying to get rid of all your pubic hair because when you get older they all just fall out. Who knew? Did you know that? Who knew that? No, I didn't know that. I thought they'd probably go a bit grey around the edges. They just fall out. Well, that's something to look forward to. I mean, there's low maintenance, isn't it?

Maybe that's why so many old ladies go swimming, because it's just so liberating that they don't have to do the push. I'd swim more if it wasn't such a life admin of having to trim everything downstairs. That's the worst bit, isn't it? It's the worst bit. So maybe that is why you see all the old days. Theory of a 70s swim. There you go. There you go. That's a great fact of the day.

Right, Luce, are we ready for some urban dick? Trenary. Fun off. Should just be called urban dick, shouldn't it? Luce, what kind of utter filth have you got in the corner of my feet for me this week? Well, you requested some Christmas specials, didn't you? I forgot about that. So, Mrs Claus is here to deliver. Right, let's go then. Snowballing. What do you reckon? Snowballing. I think I know this. Does it involve war or sex? Yes. Okay. Is it when maybe you have maybe performed a certain act?

and a gentleman, they've been very happy, very pleased with your work. A for effort for everybody. You passed the exam and they have joyfully given you a gift in your mouth. for passing the happiness exam which you go I don't want that back you bastard and you spit it into his mouth oh is it you're very very very close but it's worse How is it worse? How is it worse? I'm proud of you babes. That's two nights in a row I'm proud of you. Two nights in a row. So snowballing.

Well, this one is an act where cum is passed from one person's mouth to another's mouth. Do you have to say cum? Can we not just make it sound like slightly nicer? What do you want me to call it? Ejectile fluid. Ejectile fluid. Magic white juice. Sounds like Tippex. Um... But... Okay, the fluid. We'll just go fluid. The fluid. Oh, no. I read it wrong. You were right. Oh!

Oh, is there like, is there a confetti cannon? There needs to be a confetti cannon. Much like what happens just before the snowball happens. There needs to be an ejaculation of something. Not fluid. right i read it wrong so i i feel like i'm catching on to the sophia mccartney filth brain i read it as an act where comments pass from one person's mouth to another mouth all right sorry magic magic white stuff uh but i read it as

that somebody came in somebody's mouth. I said came, not come. Then it was passed to one person and then they carried on passing it around the room. That's what I read. How many people were in the room? Pass it round everyone in the house. I'm just going to knock and wake my mum and dad up. Do you want, do you want? Your turn. Who else is in the room? Your turn. Do you want the context sentence?

Oh, go on then. I don't think we need it, but yes. Go on. Faye would only give Kev a blowjob if he agreed to try his own cam. They ended up snowballing as Faye's great at blowjobs and Kev didn't want to lose out. And that's from Scotch Jock. Oh, so it must have been someone in Scotland. Scotland! A deep-fried Mars bar and a snowball, please. I bet that Kev never wanted a blowjob after that again, if they were the rules of engagement.

I'm loose. Have we got a parenting tale slash fail? I mean, who is going to be the lucky, lucky receiver of an iconic London triple threat mascara? Well, this is a first. Oh. It's from three people. It's a joint submission. How does that work? So they're going to have to share the mascara. Oh, it's not hygienic. You're not meant to share your mascara.

We might be able to squeeze threes out, three out. We'll see what we can do. Oh, but it's good. It's also very super relevant. Oh, nice. Festive. Very festive. Lovely. Okay, go for it. Okay. So, hi, Sophie and Lucy, loving the podcast. Thanks so much. This is a joint submission from three of us. We've been talking about your latest episode where you discuss bribery, which reminded us of a rather epic parenting tale. You know, last week we were talking about...

How you get your kids to a line and run up to Christmas. Yes, just toe the fucking line. So, backstory, we met four years ago at baby sensory class. Oh, lovely. Yeah, and now... Baby makes no sensory. Yeah, but now we've made it a new tradition to get the train from Newcastle to Edinburgh every year for a Christmas day out without our children.

Much better. I think that's why I went to Baby Sensory, was to just make some new gal pals. Just to find some friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you could just abandon your kids and go off and have a lovely Joel's. Yeah. So... Last year, we got on the train, obviously very joyous, Christmassy, and we spent the journey catching up about the kids and how we were all dealing with the Christmas excitement at home. The back spizz was flowing.

Conversation started with us all discussing and agreeing about how much we hate elf on the shelf and how we pity the mums. I think it's very mutual. Yeah. To your point. Swap it this year for one from the top shelf. Yeah, one from the top shelf. You're welcome. And we were talking about how we pity the mums that have to try and create imaginative ideas every night. This then moved on to a conversation.

about how we all added evidence of Santa when the kids go to bed on Christmas Eve. One of my friends had to get a new carpet after her husband went too far with creating sooty... Footprints from Santa's. Sooty footprints. From Santa's many chimney trips. Another friend said. She was hoovering fucking glitter. For months. Anyway. As we were enjoying ourselves, we were approached by a rather stern-looking woman. She said...

Oh no! So... They then sit in silence for the rest of the journey and then They got off the train really sheepishly and they saw two very upset children probably around six maybe and eight.

we felt like very naughty children but we're heading back up to Edinburgh this year and we'll just spend the journey talking about the weather oh god so right i won't i i even on socials i don't even talk about i don't talk about Santa, don't talk about the tooth fairy because, again, kids can be around new parents with scrolling. I feel fairly... This is a safe space because no parent in their right mind who's already listened to this podcast is going to listen to it with their children around.

So this is a safe space. But like, you know, you can be flicking through your phone, can't you? And like have your volume on and something could come up. So I never talk about it. But imagine, imagine. Can you imagine? Like Jack still believes.

Jax believes. That's good. Because he's supposed to be the same. I know. And I'm going to have to tell him. I'm going to have to tell him. How are you going to tell him? I know. Because he's going to hate me forever. I think he knows. You're just going to wait until he finds out from his mates. No, because I'm going to have to tell him before he goes.

You come back to high school. With a giant ball sack. You still believe it's in Santa. With long lustrous pubes, but like, I believe. I can come back on up. But it's little telling. Do you know what Ryan? I'm 95% convinced he knows because he has made noises about it being Steve and I in the past but we're like if you don't believe you don't receive so we just gaslight it.

him into believing yeah yeah yeah because and then he lives in a fear that actually if he says it out loud he's gonna get fuck off for Christmas but I tell you what it's weird right that he yeah he is very suspicious of Santa but he has unwavering

belief in the tooth fairy. He's never questioned me. And I tried him the other day. I tried him the other day. He was talking about his tooth being wobbly and I was like, oh, what do you think's gonna happen this year when your tooth comes out? Fully expecting him to be there.

You're just going to stick a grid on my pillow. And he's like, well, maybe. Maybe Hairy, because that's the name of his tooth fairy. Maybe Hairy's going to maybe give me a fiver. I was like, no, she's not. Hang on a minute. His fairy is called Hairy Fairy. Have you never questioned this before? Just always waiting for a hairy fairy in his bedroom. Like all lads at some point in their lives. God loves an optimist. What was the logic behind God?

Well, do you know what? It's only really in this exact moment that I've put that direction together. I've got to Harry for Harry. At what stage of puberty do we get ahead in the Tannis scale? Stage three. Stage three on the Tannis scale. Oh my god. Oh my god. I can't believe this.

His little fairies to draw pictures of her um with their wings and just try and like butcher up a little bit to make her a little bit more accessible to a little more I gave her a really hairy leg so she wore footy boots But it wasn't for my legs, was it? She's grown down. She's like, I'm waiting this shit out until I'm 80. No point getting laser. I've got another 60 years to go.

Harry, Harry, stop it. But you know, I always had in my head as well that maybe when the kids were older that I would, because I am a Sunday Times number one bestselling author to my sofa, that I would dabble in children's books. And I was going to make a story about Harry the Doof Fairy. Oh, my God. Harry the Fairy. Oh, God. If you want to snap that one up. before the hairy fairy snaps you up so yeah so we have it and Evelyn's is called twinkle twinkle and hairy

So this is clearly... They're going to take these names into their future lives, aren't they? I'm definitely going to have to get them before you die. Come on, I'm a hairy fairy. What are you doing tonight? I'm just going to be in my bed waiting for a bit of hairy fairy. To leave me some money. That's it for this week's Parenting Failed Tale. I think I should win the iconic mascara. Do I get one? Do I get one for Hairy Fairy?

Will you post it to me? Thanks babe. I love the fact that you have just discovered your parenting fail whilst chatting to thousands of people.

Good, good, good. Yeah, lovely. Okay, well, we'll have the same next week. Sophie's childhood traumas for children. And if you too have a similar parenting fail... that you would like to send in, you can send it to TiredAndTestedAtACast.com and if we read your parenting tale slash fail out, you will be a very happy recipient of an iconic London triple threat.

mascara so i think that's all points of admin and crossed off i'm off to go and have a very serious conversation with my child hit the jingle it's the tired and tested podcast enjoy the safe place zone over half an hour of laughs and the occasional little moan

Normal life and all this strife is what we like to speak. Things like saggy boobs and hangovers that last a freaking week. From perky tits to kill and nits to snack, bitch, when I'm dead. I'm realising that parenting is just living in bumworm dread. Happy listening to the podcast. Thank you.