Chapter 1: What is the premise of the podcast episode featuring Ben Elton?
podcasts there are millions of them some might say too many i have one already i don't have any because there are enough politics business sport you name it there's a podcast about it and they all ask the big questions and cover the hot topics of the day but nobody is covering the most important topic of all why is that are they scared too afraid of being censored by the man
Possibly, but not us. We're here to ask the only question that matters. We try and say it at the same time, Max. What did you do yesterday? What did you do yesterday? What did you do yesterday? That's it. All we're interested in is what the guests got up to yesterday. Nothing more.
Day before yesterday, Max? Nope. The greatest and most interesting day of your life?
Unless it was yesterday, we don't want to know about it. I'm Max Rushton.
Chapter 2: How did Ben Elton describe his morning routine yesterday?
And I'm David O'Doherty. Welcome to What Did You Do Yesterday? What Did You Do Yesterday? Ben Elton is pushing on the national treasure door.
Like Blackadder, certainly. But then the Friday Night Live shows on Channel 4, the fact that they sort of introduced me to stand-up comedy as we know it. In particular, he introduced an Irish stand-up called Kevin McAleer. I mean, it's just, it's such a huge seminal. The Young Ones, I still remember so many bits. They come to my mind of that show.
Yes, we do have a bloody video. It's like when Vivian, the cord won't reach the video. And so Vivian goes outside and pushes the whole house.
What a life. Because that's only, he's written 16 novels, I believe.
Chapter 3: What health challenges has Ben Elton faced recently?
Stuff like We Will Rock You. I mean, are you shitting me?
I mean, if you put it alongside our combined achievements, it's fair to say he has contributed perhaps more to show business.
Yeah, I am intrigued to find out what he did yesterday. We are doing this chat to coincide with the paperback release of his autobiography, What Have I Done? And that is a name with some resonance considering some of the absolute losers we've had on this podcast.
Also, if he just writes it about what he did yesterday, we would have an issue. And I'm specifically quite interested to know how much, in his autobiography and in his yesterday, he reflects on how he looks, not completely unlike my cousin Stuart.
If he is trying to rip off this podcast, I'm going straight to the back, the index, and I'm seeing about washing information, what temperature... What spin cycle? And I'll put it to him during this podcast. Maybe if the potential arises, I'll put it to him and I will come down on him like a ton of bricks. Oh, let's find out. Here is what Ben Elton did yesterday.
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Chapter 4: What creative projects is Ben Elton currently working on?
Ben Elton, welcome to What Did You Do Yesterday? Thank you very much for having me on. And I've just learned that this is the last non-visual podcast and I strongly approve. Podcasts should be listened to. When we discovered how large David's head was, we couldn't actually put it on. We couldn't put it on video.
There aren't screens big enough apart from the only place it can be broadcast is Times Square. So it is going out live on Times Square right now. Maybe an IMAX, you know, that one down at Waterloo. Yes, that's a good idea. 3D, it'd be like the Megalodon shark.
One of my comedy heroes is now slamming the size of my head. I'm not. I mean, that's your man. That's your man, Max.
Chapter 5: How does Ben Elton view his past work in comedy?
I think you look lovely. I think the fear is, though, that this podcast then gets so big and we sign some mega deal that they make us retrospectively make video podcasts. And we have to get Ben back, pay him a huge sum of money to mime along with his own. We literally have to learn off by heart what we said.
Let's keep it for the radio, guys. I love that. OK, Ben, what time did you wake up yesterday, please? I mean, I wouldn't know exactly, but I tend to wake up relatively early, sort of, let's say 6am. And one of the reasons I think I'm more likely to wake up early now is because I'm currently on a, is it a regime or a regimen? Basically, I have to take a pill each day for...
The new development in my life is age. I had never really noticed it before, but I've suddenly started to get things. And one of them was subacute thyroiditis, which is basically a horrible sore throat and sort of tiredness. But anyway, I'm on this pill. But boringly, not like the normal take it with food.
Chapter 6: What insights does Ben Elton share about the writing process?
You can't have coffee or tea within 45 minutes. They say that what you do with this pill is you take it the minute you wake up. Now, for me, all my life, get up, put the kettle on. I mean, within minutes, there's a cup of tea and I take one up to Sophie and I've now got in the habit of waking up, taking a pill and then trying to go back to sleep again. We are, Ben.
We have to be very specific about yesterday. This is the key. So yesterday, it's 6 a.m., the pill goes in, and then you stare at the clock. It's like it's making this sort of deafening grandfather clock just tick.
Even worse than that, he stares at a tea's made, and he's waiting for its time to shine.
I'm the tea's made in our house, let me tell you. I'm away a lot, but Mrs. Elton has had a cup of tea brought to her in bed every morning of our marriage for 32 years. She does. Doesn't know she's born, does she?
Chapter 7: How does Ben Elton reflect on his fame and public perception?
When I'm not here, she rings up and says, where's my tea? So, no, I'm the tease mate. I might go back to sleep. I might get up. To be honest, I can't really remember yesterday. I'm going to say I went back to sleep for half an hour, got up, oh, 15 minutes. Because the first thing I tend to do in the morning is look at emails and then look at the news.
You know, I can start that without a cup of tea. And what I do is once the 45 minutes is up, I stick the kettle on and I do two things. I make a cup of tea and I have decaf tea. Right. Which I recommend strongly. I'll tell you why. Because I was drinking like five pints of tea a day at least, you know, writing.
Chapter 8: What humorous anecdotes does Ben Elton share about his dinner with Richard Curtis?
And, you know, as you get older, your blood pressure. So another pill I'm on is the blood pressure pills. You know, the doctor sort of mentioned caffeine, and I discovered that, for me anyway, decaf tea tastes exactly the same as not decaf tea, and I never got a buzz off it anyway. But do you want all this? It sounds very boring. Yeah. In many ways, this isn't enough detail, Ben.
That's what I'm saying. Okay, well, so I make a cup of decaf tea and simultaneously I do something which three years ago I would have laughed at if anyone had said I do. I make myself a big plunger pot of coffee. Now, all my life I've wondered what it is about coffee. People go, oh, my God, I need a coffee. I can't start the day without a coffee. I drink too much coffee.
And back in the 80s, people did it like all day but into the night. Like, you know, you'd go out to dinner. And we could, because we were very successful, very young, my group of mates, my cohort. And everyone would have coffee at the end of the evening. I mean, that was what people did. They'd play strong black coffee and then have cigarettes. And I never understood the lure of it.
Never liked coffee. I'd always have another beer. I said, why are you having a drink? Anyway, about three years ago, just sort of overnight, I started to love it. And I only have it in the morning, but I actually look forward. It's clearly a physical addiction. I can certainly do without it, but it's certainly a physical thing because it's I actually look forward to those two cups of coffee.
And I make myself a plunger. I mean, you know, that's not decaf. And I have it with oat milk. Again, am I going on too much here? No, no, no, Ben. Okay, so liquidy start to the day. I do wonder, if you have two cups of very caffeinated plunger coffee, does that in many ways take away from the point of having the decaf coffee? Are you drinking them both at the same time? Oh, no, no, no.
No, I drink a cup of tea while I'm waiting for the coffee to brew because my son said to me, he said, well, you know, there's nothing wrong with having a couple of cups of coffee a day. But he'd read, you should let yourself wake up first. Apparently, there's a reason. If you let kind of caffeine do your startup. Oh, yeah. There's a reason it's not good.
You need to sort of, I don't know, let your body see the sun or something, realize it's morning. I don't know. But anyway, and quite often, I'll have the tea with a bit of honey. That's something my wife introduced me to.
When I had the thyroiditis, because I gave up sweetening drinks decades ago, but when the thyroiditis was actually hurting my throat, my wife said, well, why don't you have a bit of honey in your tea? And it really was lovely. And I still love it. And it is a really nice thing, honey in tea.
But just very quickly to finish the liquid detail, because this is another thing I've become an evangelist for. is the oat milk. I'm not dairy intolerant in any way, and I still have skim milk in my tea and on my cereal, but oat milk in coffee, and I'll tell you what I do.
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