Episode 8 Room 101

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello, I'm Frank Skinner, and welcome to Room 101,

the show where three guests compete to have their biggest

bugbears banished forever to the dreaded vault.

They'll have to argue their case well, because in each round

only one item can be chosen - the final decision is mine.

Let's meet this week's guests.

Joining me tonight are Bafta-winning Katherine Parkinson,

laughter-spinning Russell Howard,

and all the trimmings John Torode.

BELL DINGS

Let's get ready to grumble.

OK. So what is John's choice?

It's those massive pepper grinders.

I mean, even the action is disturbing, isn't it?

Do you know what I mean? Somebody comes up to your table.

You've got some food in front of you. You're about to enjoy it.

They suddenly reach across,

-CROAKY:

-"Would you like pepper, sir?"

Were they from Mordor?

Most of them, yes, they are.

The fact is, as well,

they've cut down a whole tree to make a pepper grinder.

The size of the lathe -

I mean, they have special lathes to make pepper grinders that size.

What an industrial waste. I mean, look at it.

It's just ridiculous.

Just in case you're not familiar with what...

Actually, I've just pulled the leg off the table.

Hold it.

This is it.

Yeah, these babies.

That's small. That's like a normal size one.

Well, it's quite cold out.

LAUGHTER

There's something very, um... how can I put this?

Very male about the big...

-Sexist, you see.

-It is.

-Isn't it?

And yet quite sexy.

You think it's sexy?

When it's done right it must be.

Potentially, when done right, by the right man.

Frank could probably do it in quite a sexy way now.

Go on. See, there you go.

-That's spooky. That's just weird!

-Does it need to be that big?

-There's absolutely no reason for it to be that big.

-No.

-Everybody has got one to size...

-I know the story behind it.

A man in Honolulu opened a string of about 50 restaurants,

and he put normal-sized pepper mills in, when they were just becoming

popular on the market, and within three days, every one was stolen.

So, he got massive ones, to stop that from happening.

Why don't they do it with other stuff?

For example, wouldn't it be great if you were in, say,

a burger bar, and a guy came over...

..if a guy came over like this...

Anyone...ketchup?

No, thank you.

Ketchup? I like that you're backing off. Great.

Faith in the authenticity of this prop. Guess what?

It's not actually full of ketchup.

LAUGHTER

This is another method. Are you familiar with this?

-Oh, yeah.

-You get a tiny one of these, with pepper.

-I don't mind that.

-So you don't take, you know, loads of pepper.

You just do a sprinkle. Have you seen this?

No, it's in quite nice restaurants.

I've stolen a few of these, I must be honest with you,

because, like a lot of people watching, I've got

an Action Man antique commode...

and it's absolutely... absolutely perfect on that.

I have him on there for hours.

Is that how they make pepper?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

OK. So, Russell, what's your choice?

Dreams.

-Ooh.

-Yes. Pointless.

They're meant to be relaxing and calm and blissful,

and then, suddenly, you're getting chased,

your old teacher is there, you've got parrots for feet.

Lorraine Kelly has got an axe.

She's swinging it, going, "Get in the shed.

"Make me marmalade."

It's meant to be relaxing.

They're always awful, you know.

They're always mad, or they're exhausting.

I find the amount of times I'll have a dream where I feel like -

like the other day I had a gap year, like, in my dream.

You wake up - "Are you all right? Did you sleep well?"

"No, I didn't sleep well. I lost my passport in Peru.

"I was braiding my own hair for four hours."

It's horrific.

Losing your passport is a horrible dream, though.

I suggest you get yourself a dream catcher.

That's exceptional. That's nuts.

And this IS your passport.

And then he woke up.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, you know those dreams when it just goes on?

Like, this genuinely happened,

and it felt like the entire nine hours I was there.

I was a cat working in a travel agency,

and I had no skills, because I was a cat, and people were moaning.

I can really remember this Northern bloke going,

"You don't know nothing".

And I'm like, "Meow."

You know, and then you wake up and you're just exhausted,

and then you've got to go to work.

What an amazing imagination you have.

That's the problem.

My recurring dream is me sitting on a bus.

See, that's awful.

That is it.

I had one of those, a dull one, as well.

I'm not saying you're dull. I'm just saying...

I think you are.

But you know that thing?

I had one where I was looking at Duracell batteries

and comparing them to Tesco-own for eight hours.

You see, I have quite ordinary dreams,

in which invariably I'm only wearing a pyjama top.

So, I'm just walking round in the supermarket in just that,

and then I realise.

Well, maybe that's looking into your future, you know.

And then, I found this in my dream catcher.

When I used to drink... do you get it?

They're strange, when you... Do you drink? You do drink, don't you?

-Yeah.

-Don't you find the dreams get a bit weirder, then?

Not really, no.

I always used to dream I was urinating. And guess what?

I quite like dreaming.

I like the middle of the day, you know, old man,

half asleep on the sofa, waking up when you sort of snore a bit dream.

That's a good thing.

No, it's not, because you're of a certain age.

I bet you whistle when you snore, as well.

There's nothing... That noise.

-That's what my dad...

-IMITATES WHISTLING SNORE

It sounds like someone is interfering with a Teletubbie.

HE REPEATS NOISE

My dad used to do that falling asleep in the chair, going...

Yeah!

Absolutely terrifying.

Well, I tell you something.

Are you familiar with the Dream ON app?

This app is...

you sleep with your mobile phone, and it picks up your sleep patterns.

It can tell when you're in deep sleep and when you're moving more.

-Right.

-And it gives you sound effects

at the point you're most likely

to dream, and it's supposed to help you into more pleasant...

This is... I'm not making this up.

So here's some of the sounds, for example.

BIRDS TWITTER

So, it will influence your dream. I programmed it for this.

-WOMAN:

-Mmm, well, I wasn't expecting the plumber,

but you'd better come in.

LAUGHTER

Works a treat.

Have you ever had this?

Have you ever been attacked by someone for the way

you've behaved in their dream?

OK, well, I have. There you go.

My auntie said, "I want to have a word with you".

"What?" "Yeah, I had a dream about you the other day."

We were at a wedding. "Yeah?"

"You made love to a pasty." "Well, I didn't do it, did I?

"I made love? What are you talking about?"

She told everyone at the wedding, like it was a thing I did.

Chinese whispers. By the end everyone was like,

"Oh, it's Ginsters". What are you talking about?

Was that in your dream, or was that in reality?

It was in HER dream. No, I haven't touched a pasty.

She is attacking me for the behaviour that

I've shown in her dream.

Right. In public?

I don't know where I did it.

I'd like to imagine that if I was making love to a pasty,

I'd treat it right, you know, but I've never imagined that.

I'd probably take her out for a meal...

A meal would be weird because you'd see all her mates getting eaten.

I have a clip of a child speaking about dreaming and, whatever

we say about dreams tonight, nothing can be as good as this.

This is perfect.

Have you ever had a dream that... that you...you had...

you...you... you could... you'd do... you...you want...

you...you could give some... you...you could...you...

you want...you want them to do you so much you could do anything?

Do you know what?

That's like the cutest version of an Eminem song I've ever heard.

That might make me get pregnant again tonight.

That was so sweet.

GROANS

FRANK SNIGGERS

Right. What is Katherine's choice?

Behave. Yes.

Oh, yeah.

APPLAUSE

This is DJs that join in at the end of the song.

I mean, I love the radio.

I've not listened to your show on the radio,

cos it's too early, but I love the radio in the morning.

It's a podcast.

LAUGHTER

But carry on.

So, I love the radio in the morning,

and, you know, you're listening to a song.

They've played maybe, you know, Elvis, In The Ghetto,

or something really moving, a story-telling song.

You're in that special place,

looking out the window at the morning happening.

And then they just have to crash in and butcher it over the last

two bars, because they can't not hear the sound of their own

voice for more than 20 seconds.

I have actually almost lifted up the radio and thrown it through the

kitchen window because it just, it completely destroys... What's the

point in playing a song if you're not going to let people get to

the nice moment at the end, when the song has finished and done its work?

Yes.

LAUGHTER

Do you do this? Am I putting you into Room 101?

I don't do it... I don't do it that much.

-I did it...

-Oh, I'm so... I didn't realise YOU did it!

I don't do it often.

I interrupted - I played Vertigo by U2 a while back,

and in the middle of it, I came in and started talking.

In the middle? That's even worse.

Yes, because they'd interrupted my iTunes music with their album.

They started it.

I tell you what I do more and more, I found, as I get older.

There are lots of songs I just don't know the words to at all.

That does not stop me singing along.

So, Elton John is one of my favourites for this,

because you can get away with knowing almost no words at all.

So, if you get something like Candle In The Wind, I'll know

the first bit and I'll go,

# Goodbye, Norma Jean...

HE SCATS NONSENSE

And it works perfectly well.

Kings Of Leon are exactly the same.

HE SCATS NONSENSE

You see?

Do you not sing along to songs yourself?

Yes, I do.

-Surely that's...

-Yes, I do, but, um... Yes, that's a good point.

I do sing along to the song myself, but... Yeah, OK.

Well...

Thanks, Russell. You've saved me a lot of time.

I tell you what I do like, and that is a fabulous radio voice.

There was a guy in America who had fallen on hard times,

but although he'd fallen on hard times,

he's managed to retain his fabulous radio voice.

-MAN:

-Hey. I'm going to make you work for your dollar.

Say something with that great radio voice.

When you're listening to nothing but the best of oldies,

you're listening to Magic 98.9.

Thank you so much. God bless you. Thank you.

And we'll be back with more right after these words.

And don't forget, tomorrow morning is your chance to win

a pair of tickets to see this man live in concert.

APPLAUSE

Oh, they have the best homeless people in America.

So, anyway, at the end of that, um, I feel your pain with DJs who sing

over songs, and dreaming, I don't think you know what you've got.

Your dreams sound great.

You should learn to enjoy them more.

Oh, here we go again.

I would like to have your dreams...

-Yes.

-..instead of putting them in Room 101.

You should write a book. Your special dream book.

I'm going to do one.

The author's picture on the back is just me in a pyjama top.

Anyway, the upshot is...

I hadn't really thought about this, John, but now you come to

mention it, the whole pepper thing is just ostentatious.

I've had enough of it.

I'm going to put enormous pepper grinders into Room 101.

Yeah. Good.

And so the next round.

OK. What's John got up his sleeve?

Predictive text. I hate it.

My spelling is atrocious, right? So, that's fine.

If I want to write something down, I want to take

notes on my notes on my phone, if it's phonetic, that's fine.

Or I'm travelling...

but they come out with the most bizarre words in the world.

When you write menus and stuff, it just makes words up.

So, for instance,

there's a restaurant I go to all the time, and one day it

had on it a plate of roasted peppers and aboriginals with pesto, because

it was supposed to be aubergines, and aubergines became aboriginals.

And as an Australian, you can understand that actually

cutting up an aboriginal and putting it with pesto is not a good idea.

APPLAUSE

I have a friend who was on a date, and she texted him...

He was at the bar, saying, "I'm upstairs with wine",

but it said, "I'm upstairs with wind."

LAUGHTER

The other one that's really, really annoying is,

when you use your notes, or something,

and you actually just want to write, I don't know, a word or something,

and it just comes up with the most ridiculous thing in the world.

What if people did it? If you said, "I'm feeling g..."

and they went, "Good? "Glandular? Gambian?"

On the misprint front,

this is an edition of the Bible which came out in 1631.

Maybe one of the most famous text failures of all time.

You see there... maybe you don't spot it at first,

but the second one came out as, "Thou SHALT commit adultery."

I've used it as a loophole with my priest a couple of times.

So, do you use it much, John?

No, I hate it. I don't use it, at all.

-You can switch it off, can't you?

-Well, you can.

It's the, sort of, the spell-check changed my words whilst I'm...

And typing recipes, you use, sort of, weird words

and weird phrases, like "mise en place" and, you know, bits of

French and bits of Italian, and it just changes on you halfway through.

You go, "Argh!"

That's what really upsets me more than anything.

Put a red line under it and say, yes, it's spelt wrong,

and I can make a choice, but don't change my spelling of my words.

Have you ever typed in "Torode"?

Yeah. Well, it used to come up as "torrid".

-Oh.

-Which was always quite nice.

I tried it, as a homage to you, and I got "toroidal", which is

a word I'd never heard of. Do you know it?

-What does it mean, Frank?

-It means donut-shaped.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Anyway, what's Katherine angry about?

OK. It's women who, er,

cross their legs when they're having their photo taken.

So, somewhere along the line there became this sort of position

that every woman who's having her photo taken,

sort of, head-to-toe photo, has to sort of assume this position.

Obviously, it's supposed to elongate and slim.

Can I say? I'd never heard of this before.

So, can you just tell us, what is the theory behind it?

I don't know what the theory is behind it, but basically

you're supposed to stand...

You can see I look better now.

Yeah.

Everyone is supposed to stand like that

when they have their photo taken.

I felt, when I was, sort of, assuming this position,

like an idiot for doing it, cos of course you're just going,

"I'm doing this cos it's the thing to be done".

Also, it's very difficult to do when you've got heels on,

because you lose your balance, and you have to sort of throw

your body a bit forward to stay

balanced in that position, and then you look really, really stupid.

Um, and so after that I just sort of...

I stand with my legs ajar, and then you look like you're

in a birthing position, and that's not good, either.

Well, when I knew you'd chosen this, I thought, "I've never even

"been aware of that phenomenon," but since, I notice it's everywhere.

Just an example, this is Miley Cyrus arriving somewhere lovely.

There she is, doing exactly that.

It's quite strange, don't you think?

The outfit is quite strange.

What's she wearing? She looks like a cheese grater.

Well, for the sake of symmetry she should have crossed

her cleavage, as well.

I took my mum to a premiere.

It was one of the coolest things I've ever done.

I'm going to have to stand up to show what she did. Right?

So basically, what the ladies do, they do

this thing where they walk to the camera and do that.

-Does that annoy you? They do the sideways thing.

-Oh, yeah.

I've got a very short neck

and I just look like a budgie when I do that.

So, my mum is five foot, and nobody had taught her,

so all the paparazzi were there, and Mum just kind of ran at them

and just, kind of, went like that.

It was genuinely...

It was like watching a Yorkshire pudding move carrots out of the way.

That thing that you're on about, we've got Anne Hathaway,

actually... It seems the least natural pose you could ever...

I mean we're over here, Anne.

I've done that pose, but only when I've been at a urinal.

LAUGHTER

Did you see the Oscars?

At the Oscars, just everybody, everybody was doing it.

I don't know if you saw this.

Outrageous.

But you're right, though.

Now I know about it, I see it everywhere.

I bought this the other day.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Anyway, what's Russell's choice?

Grumpy kids.

CHEERING

Exactly. Right?

I was in a restaurant the other day, and I heard a child say,

"Oh, Wagamama again."

I used to lose my mind when I went to a Harvester.

Lose my mind.

Go into school the next day.

"Salad bar. Amazing.

"I had an Italian dish called a la-sag-nea."

They've got everything. They're whining.

They've got wheels in their shoes, iPads, Sky Plus.

If you'd shown me Sky Plus when I was ten, I'd have thought

you're a wizard, like that, pausing the telly.

And, like, could have been so much worse...just...

every kid I see today, like, I'm talking about ten-year-olds...

IMITATES WHINING

..just whining, tubby messes, and...

It just does my head in.

But it could have been worse.

You could have grown up in the '80s, where, you know,

the telly was awash with offenders and, you know...

It was, you know.

And, like, think of the hours we played the recorder.

The HOURS we did that. Have we ever needed it?

I've never been at a party, "I know what this needs."

IMITATES RECORDER

Girls in the corner, "Do you know Little Donkey?

"You know I do."

We have a picture of you when you were a, I think, 12-year-old,

-Russell.

-Oh, really? OK. Oh, there you go.

Ah!

-Ah!

-What a happy child.

APPLAUSE

Well, I haven't seen that for a long...

I look a bit like Harry Potter's German pen-pal.

Who would have thought that, when I sat for that picture it would

end up on telly and people would just be, like..?

-I know. Yeah, just...

-"Just smile. What's the worst that can happen?"

"All right."

When I was at school, the big game for us was a thing called

pile-ups, where one kid lay on the floor and 50 kids lay on top.

You'd be on the bottom, thinking,

"Shouldn't my ribcage be inside my blazer?"

I feel a bit sorry for kids now, though.

I live in quite a, sort of, posh bit of London,

and I think the kids there just don't get enough sugar.

They ask for a Cornetto, they get a little box of raisins.

That's not parenting.

Exactly.

I remember... Do you remember Angel Delight? Now, there's a pudding.

Yes.

You have one bit of that and you go, "I'm going on the roof".

And my sister -

it's one of the greatest moments in the Howard family.

My sister was eating Angel Delight, and she goes,

"Dad, what's Angel Delight made of?"

And my dad just went, "Dead angels."

That's parenting.

Me and my brother were like, "This is the best day ever."

And Nesquik.

Oh, yeah. Damn right.

I used to have that in water.

-Yes.

-GROANS

We were poor.

Are you booing me for being poor?!

Very good for making cakes.

Instead of using sugar - flavoured Nesquik -

you use chocolate flavour or strawberry flavour instead

of using sugar, and then you've got strawberry or chocolate cake.

-Oh, right.

-And that cake, I tell you, your kids are running round

the back yard - "Whey!"

People are writing your stuff down, John. Fantastic.

But on predictive text it says something else completely.

The technology thing, I mean, as you said, they've got everything now.

I remember occasionally, towards the end of school,

-VHSs were just coming in, when I was at school.

-Yeah.

And sometimes, a teacher, instead of doing a lesson, would show us

a VHS, and there was a man called Mr Barton,

and he would bring in the telly with the VHS recorder on wheels,

and he used to wear a lab coat.

A lab coat!

I'm glad we're a bit more technology-literate than that.

That's what does my head in.

It's just like... it's just everything.

Be a bit more joy-... Like iPods.

How extraordinary are they?

You've got every song you love in your hand.

It's amazing. Then we had Discman.

Do you remember the Discman, with the CD? It was great.

You'd be, like, listening to it like you were a butler,

just having to, kind of, carry it around like that.

Awful.

I'm mostly moaning, but I guess the whole point is that you

should just be happy when you're a nipper and it just feels like maybe

they've got too many things and should have those taken away.

It's difficult, isn't it?

Because I didn't have sushi until I was 25 and I love it now,

but my kids will probably have it when they're five,

and it's that weird thing of... You should have stuff to look

forward to, rather than just, "Right, there's everything".

It feels like they've got everything, so it's kind of harder

to get towards fun, because you kind of go...

if you start off on fun...

..it ends up on cocaine.

LAUGHTER

I'm going to show you a clip, to prove that it's a dangerous life

being a child now,

even in what you would think was the safest of environments.

OK. Young girl meets the Queen.

Watch that young girl.

AUDIENCE GROANS

She was fine.

LAUGHTER

Good job he wasn't with a bayonet.

Kids should be jolly, I think.

Yeah. Well, thank you for your advice.

Because, I think it's the sort of thing, we had

nothing and we were always happy.

Like, mainly because I grew up with my brother and he was amazing.

My brother, genuinely, when he used to get really giddy

he used to get naked, up until the age of about five.

It was amazing. And over nothing. It used to drive Mum mad.

"Do you want some toast? Just nod. For Christ's sake, just nod."

I wish he still he did it. He got a mortgage the other day.

That would have been amazing.

Oh, it's difficult, this one.

I know what you mean about the old predictive text,

because I like the joy of spelling things wrong

and making up words and saying odd stuff, and it does keep

correcting you all the time, which is a really bad thing.

Grumpy kids, you're right, but I'm sure kids,

when you were a kid, used to be grumpy, as well.

-That's part of...

-Probably. It's just...

Part of the thing.

The crossed legs thing, what I like about yours, I think

for women who've got one very ugly knee...

..that's really helpful.

That's very personal.

I wasn't referring to that one.

Anyway, look, the bottom line is I think that the language is sacred,

and our right to get it wrong and to mess about with it is important.

So I am going to put predictive text into Room 101.

APPLAUSE

Very good.

Good job. Hate the bloody thing.

And that brings us to the end of the show.

Well done, John, you were the most persuasive guest,

so you are this week's winner.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you to Russell Howard, John Torode and Katherine Parkinson,

and thank you. Goodnight.