The Kitchen Is On Fire

So this is it. The end of the line. Game over. Butch and Sundance going out in a blaze of glory or John Virgo and Jim Davidson going their separate ways after ‘Big Break’ is not renewed for another series of brilliant snooker themed light entertainment.

The TickyOff Boys have towered over the world of podcasts for decades now. The awards too numerous to mention (Three Nobel Peace Prizes, a Field’s Medal in advanced mathematics, four A* at A-Level, a fifty metre swimming badge, Most Improved Player Chichester City Colts 1989, Horse Rear Of The Year 2001 and many many more too numerous to mention such as Grand National Winner 1974, Miss World 1980, 1981, 1982, Largest Marrow Widnes County Council Allotment Fete 2002, Grammy awards for best packaging and best guitar solo on a Latin Salsa track, WWF Wrestlemania Tag Team Champions 1988, and other awards far too numerous to mention).

It’s time for them to pass the torch, hand over the baton, step aside, let others attempt their own journeys to the very peak of human achievement via the medium of a vaguely food based podcast.
They go out as they came in, talking nonsense, delivering great wisdom and basically keeping it so real that reality itself somehow becomes even more real than humankind ever believed it could be in reality…..

In this emotional final farewell, James wants to kill cats and had a terrible salad at his own wedding. Sam really wants a hug from a prior podcast guest and is afraid of trampolines. There is a long and involved discussion about horse feet, why you shouldn’t kiss your Dad on the lips and they finally answer a question TickyOff fans have asked for years: What do you wear in bed?

There’s also time for a long promised deep dive into why Magpie failed, Dame Barbara Cartland and some discussion about piles.

This was TickyOff and one day the true majestic wonder of it will be studied and appreciated by the human/alien hybrids that will rule Planet Earth millennia from now. The TickyOff Boyz accept the gratitude and the love of you all. We know what we have provided, how much we have raised up civilisation. We are very humble human/God people. You’re welcome.

This week’s episode is sponsored by wine providers to the stars dropwine.co.uk

Direct download: TKIOF-THE_END_PART_TWO.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:31am EDT

Guess who’s back this week for their second bite of a TickyOff shaped apple?
MiMi Aye, that’s who. MiMi is back to talk up an aural storm about her new book ‘Mandalay’, family trees, Twitter beefs and eating chicken on Burmese trains.
Meanwhile, James regularly risks decapitation on trains to Yorkshire, has an Apple Watch and is a huge fan of ‘The Princess Bride’.
Plus, Sam doesn’t enjoy the music of Prince, discusses the physics of ice skates and reveals that his Nan used to buy him some very unsuitable music when he was a kid….

Somehow Episode 199 also features a vast array of celebrities including Rutger Hauer, Nigella Lawson, Ryan Reynolds, Jet Li and David Bowie. If that ain't a TickyOff-shaped dinner party, I don’t know what is.

This week’s episode is sponsored by the atom splitters of wine delivery dropwine.co.uk

Direct download: TKIOF-EP199-ANIMAL_CROSSING.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:52pm EDT

Albert Einstein.
Marie Curie.
Paul Daniels.
All incredible scientists whose insights and incredible brains pushed humankind to ever greater heights. Add to this absolutely legendary braintrust two further names, James Of Ramsden and Sam O’Herlihy AKA The Gawddarn TickyOff Boyz. The reason their names deserve to sit alongside the science nerds named above? This episode of TickyOff.

Who else could conceive of a ghost named Derek? Who else could open a sandwich shop yesterday? Who else could slag off a beloved steak based restaurateur this much? Who else can update the humble fork to a new and spectacular level?

Get those wacky Nobel folk on the phone, The TickyOff Boyz just ordered a few Peace Prizes and a bag of medals. To go. Wake up.

This week esteemed baker, writer, photographer and general Flour Lord Dan Lepard is here. Dan creates mouth sounds for your ears on topics ranging from learning before the internet, eating at other people’s houses, wanting more anger in food writing and why restaurants should maybe stop trying to bake their own damn bread. The three mouths available for this week’s episode also get into the problem with ‘cucina povera’, food as a psychedelic drug, the world marmalade awards and the genealogy of classic restaurant dishes.

I get it, this much incredible content has probably already melted your grey brains out through your earholes but guess what? There’s even more packed in here, like a porky farce in a chicken’s chest cavity. Sam thinks he might have seen the Turin Shroud, Dan visits a number of Turin adult cinemas and James wonders on a decision with planet destroying possibilities:

Is it time for them to quit The Tickyoff for good?……..

This week’s episode is sponsored by the really lovely and kind people at dropwine.co.uk

Direct download: TKIOF-EP198-PROVABLE_IDIOCY.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:14pm EDT

This week on Thee TickyOff Sam and James get straight into vast, slab-like topics such as James’s son’s first day of school, a weird/nice message on Instagram and the stressfest that is opening Sons + Daughters. James is so British he makes his own daughter poorly and Sam may have seen his first actual real-life, scientifically undeniable GHOST!!! It’s a hell of a Devon based tale.

Then Dishoom’s Naved Nasir arrives and the three mouths on aural display, display sounds (again, aurally) to your ears in a non-visual, an aural, manner. Naved dishes all on his origin story, giving away his recipe secrets in the new Dishoom cookbooks, building a great company culture and keeping control of an ever expanding menu. He also gets into how it feels to run such busy restaurants while maintaining what first attracted guests through the doors.

This week’s episode is sponsored by wine chaps/fellows/gents dropwine.co.uk

Direct download: TKIOF-EP197-THE_SECRETS_OF_DISHOOM.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:15am EDT

Firstly a little note, our mighty sandwich shop Sons + Daughters opens soon in Kings Cross! Listen to this episode on the way there and you may hear word of a TICKYOFF FAN EXCLUSIVE OFFER!!!

Now, on with the babble….

Guess who’s back?
A bunch of easily preventable diseases? Correct. Anti-vaxers, a plague upon yer unvaccinated houses.
Fascism? Correct. Fascists are, much like love is in mega hit ‘Love Is All Around’ by Wet Wet Wet, all around.
Twee and dull indie pop band Bombay Bicycle Club? Yep. I was surprised too, but they are indeed back and dropping some more twee and dull indie pop 'bangers' as we speak.

In a world where awful things keep coming back, we need something amazing to come back. Something magnificent and brilliant and mindblowing. Something like the goddamn TickyOff Boyz packing another galaxy humping episode of the solar system’s favourite podcast* The Goddamn TickyOff.

*We checked, and aliens think all that NPR nonsense, and Maron, and that buff fella and the freakynomics chap all SUUUUUCCCCKKK. We are massive in Saturn and could not be bigger on Pluto. Don’t write in to our email address that I’ve forgotten to tell me: ‘Oh well actually Pluto isn’t classified as a planet now actually I think you’ll find actually’. Because if I could remember the damn login then I’d reply: ‘Actually, don’t be unkind to Pluto. you can’t take that designation away just because someone cleaned the lens on Hubble and found that Pluto was actually just some birdmess on the glass that made it appear as if there was a planet there. That’s incredibly mean to them and at this point considering what we’re doing to Earth I’d say that our rock barely still qualifies as a planet too so pipe down planetary nomenclature pedant!’

Well, that really went somewhere.

Anyway, this week the Boyz slip right into some pig offal chat, Yorkie bars, holiday romances and the merits of cargo pants. James is irritated by a French fishmonger and Sam tries to impress a girl by killing someone.

If that wasn’t controversial enough Giles Coren shows up and……is Giles Coren. Unrepentant, Gary Lineker dissing, risotto loathing, music hating, peacock eating Giles Coren. He’s back from Greece, might be a secret vegan and while he may not enjoy eating dormice, he’s not shy of putting down a peacock or two.

This is what you’ve been missing all summer. While the world burned itself and its moral compass to cinders, The TickyOff was just waiting for its moment to return, like a soothing aural salve for the grim ills of humanity. Sound based Savlon for the sore graze of humankind. You don’t get that from bloody Maron now do you? Wake up.

This week’s episode is sponsored by intergalactic wine pedlars dropwine.co.uk

Direct download: TKIOF-EP196-EATING_PEACOCK.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:41pm EDT

1