Old and Ornery, 24 Hour Death Party, and More with Charles Commins

Episode 34 • 29th August 2025 • 5 Random Questions • Danny Brown

Charles Commins: 00:00:00

Right now, as I sit here, that's where I'm going to say it. And I think the reason for me going to that is because of the fact that if I.

If I go too early, then I'm almost admitting, or if I go earlier, I'm almost admitting that my dad is old, which I don't want to do yet. And the other thing with that is that it's also coming a bit too much, too close to where I am already myself.

Danny Brown: 00:00:26

Hi, and welcome to 5 Random Questions, the show with unexpected questions and unfiltered answers. Hi, I'm your host, Danny Brown, and each week I'll be asking my guest five questions created by a random question generator.

The guest has no idea what the questions are and neither do I, which means this could go either way. So sit back, relax, and let's dive into this week's episode. Today's guest is Charles Commins.

Charles is the host of the award winning It's All Cobblers To Me podcast, founder of podcast production company Vibrant Sound Media and co runner of the largest UK podcaster community Mic's Podcast Club or Mix Podcast club. Get clarification on that.

From Warrington in the uk, Charles spends most of his time running, be that for exercise or simply chasing his two kids around. So, Charles, welcome to 5 Random Questions.

Charles Commins: 00:01:17

Hi, Danny. Thank you so much. That was such a lovely introduction. I'd forgotten that I'd said all those nice things about myself.

Danny Brown: 00:01:26

Yeah, you did not pay me at all to say that about you. And just to clarify, because I know the community that you run.

And Mark, our co, you know, our co friend if you like, and one of the guys, the co founder of Captivate where I work, he's obviously been a part of that. Is it Mick or M I C that you call it?

Charles Commins: 00:01:43

It's actually Mic as in microphone.

Danny Brown: 00:01:45

Yes, Mick sounds podcasting. Why did I not say Mike? And I said Mick Hap must be thinking Irish there.

Charles Commins: 00:01:52

I always say when people think it's Mick, it's because my co runner is called Vic, so they think that Vic must rhyme. So it's Mick, but it's not. It's Mike's podcast club.

Danny Brown: 00:02:07

Mike's podcast and Vic, that'd be Victoria, correct?

Charles Commins: 00:02:10

Yes, correct. Yeah. Victoria Elizabeth Turnbull, just to give a full credits check for her.

Danny Brown: 00:02:16

Vic is lovely, Victoria's lovely. And Charles. I used to live in New Yorkshire back in the, I'm gonna say the 90s.

I moved to in two thousand six but worked in Yorkshire as a young adult and I was living in Bradford And Shipley, that kind of area. So I was a massive Bradford Bulls fan which was a rugby league team.

Now Warrington also has a really famous rugby league team in the Warrington Wolves. So are you a fan? Are you a fan of the team?

Charles Commins: 00:02:44

Yeah, well, I am. I must confess I've not been to a game this season. Um, which judging by how they've performed most recently is probably a good thing.

Um, but I used to have a season ticket probably about 10 years ago, a really good friend of mine. So I, I moved to Warrington in two thousand three to go to university there was, it's sadly no longer there anymore.

As with a lot of these sort of places, they've all been downsized considerably. So there was a university campus in Warrington and it's actually as it turns out where Warrington Wolves now train is exactly there.

They started training there just as I was finishing my final year. And so when I moved in two thousand three, that was just before the Wire as they're known, moved into their new stadium, the Halliwell Jones.

I don't know whether you can call a 21 year old stadium new, but it's, it is to us I guess.

And we went to a couple of games, me and my friends and then one of my best friends at university actually ended up working for Warrington Wolves as their media manager. And so I would go to the rugby with him quite a lot.

I had a season ticket that, you know, he would basically not give me for free or anything but helped me out in terms of getting.

And yeah, for a number of years I went along and then when he left working for the club and went on to passages new outside of rugby league, as it happened, I just kind of sort of stopped going and didn't keep up the season ticket for more than a year after he'd gone. And so then my, my actual going and watching them live became sporadic and is now mostly done from the comfort of my sofa.

So yeah, I've not been to a game this season.

ight at the very beginning of: 2024

Danny Brown: 00:04:54

Yeah, I, I mean I haven't kept up to date with the rugby league scene.

I know like as I mentioned, I was a Bulls fan and when I watched it and went to games like Yorkshire and Lancashire were always the areas that had the best team. So you had Bradford, you had the Leeds Rhinos, you had Warrington, you had Wigan. St Helens was also Another great team. So it's a. I don't know.

Is that still the case now or has that fallen off?

Charles Commins: 00:05:14

Well, more or less. I mean, Bradford are nowhere near.

They're not even in the Super League anymore because they spent far too much money, Danny, back when they were actually good and unfortunately administration almost killed them. So they are still going, but in a much smaller scale, I think.

And they're in the championship or whatever the league below the Super League is called. Yeah, so they're still there, but. And Leeds have dropped off recently as well. Saint Helens are Wigan. They're still the big team.

Wigan, as per usual, are always winning everything at the moment. And with Warrington, as we like to say here, it's always our year, but it never actually is.

Danny Brown: 00:05:53

But in there. But one of these days it's like Delboy.

And sorry for our dear listeners, this is a very UK centric conversation right now, so we apologize, we're going to switch back into normal gear. But just before we get into the random questions, hot seat as well. Charles, obviously you're in Warrington.

gton was that back in October: 1987

Charles Commins: 00:06:24

I was when we first bought our house 12 years ago. Absolutely, yeah.

It's actually, it's funny that you say that Danny, because I've just started a brand new podcast which is for Warrington, it's called Warrington Scoop.

And a friend of mine about a year ago started a newsletter with the same name where basically they collate all of the events that are going on across the town in any given week. And then twice a week on a Monday and a Friday, a newsletter goes out showcasing those events that are coming up across the next few days.

I basically thought it'd be great. Let's. Let's have a podcast to go with this. So we've just started releasing that the first episode came out in July.

We're going monthly so the first week of every month. And yeah, our tagline is there's more to Warrington than just an ikea. So yeah, it's lovely.

It's an old joke that John Bishop once said, I think on a Live at the Apollo BBC comedy stand up comedy program. I'm not sure if it's still going that to be honest, there's always reruns happening.

But yeah, he made this joke about Warrington because it's equidistant, right slap bang in the middle between Liverpool and Manchester down the M62. And he made this joke and I can't remember exactly how it went, but essentially what he said was that the only reason to come was for the Ikea.

It was a joke.

Danny Brown: 00:07:57

Yeah.

Charles Commins: 00:07:57

And I don't know where, why John Bishop thinks that he can say sort of things. He's from Roncorn, so, you know, it's one of those.

But we just thought we will take that little joke and we'll use it as our kind of strap line for our new podcast. And yeah, it's going quite well so far.

Danny Brown: 00:08:15

Love it. Love it. You have to get John on there, John Bishop, to come on as a guest and just challenge him on that old statement.

Charles Commins: 00:08:20

Yeah, that would be the end goal, I reckon, for it. It'll be one of those. And then of course, we'll just have to change tack and work out what the next end goal will be afterwards.

Danny Brown: 00:08:30

Perfect, perfect.

Well, as I mentioned, and again, a slight tangent there, it was a very UK central, because I used to live and work in Yorkshire, which is very close to Lancashire, etc. So that's kind of a little sidestep there. But it's time to bring up the random question generator.

So are we ready to jump into the random question hot seat?

Charles Commins: 00:08:52

Absolutely. I've been looking forward to this so much, Danny. I listen to this and I always think to myself, I wonder what it looks like.

And now I can see before me.

Danny Brown: 00:09:02

Now, you know, and if we ever do, or if I ever do a video version, we'll be sure to share this to you. But. So I've just brought up the random question generator and question number one, Charles.

Pretty easy one, I feel, but let's, let's see where it goes. Question 1. At what age would you consider someone to be old?

Charles Commins: 00:09:20

Oh, no, this is quite funny, actually.

I saw a. I think it was a reel on Instagram the other day, which was somebody saying that, um, they, they, they were asking the question of, of somebody else much, much younger. You know, we'd say a teenager, this exact question. And they said 20.

And then it cut back to somebody else that had been watching the video who basically went, well, I might as well order my casket now, then. And he was quite clearly in his early 20s.

And here I was sat at 40 years of age going, oh, well, if he doesn't think he's got anything left to live for, imagine how it must feel to be me. And I did think, oh, no, it's obviously something that changes, isn't it, as we get older.

My daughter has just turned 11 and I'm sure that if you asked her what she would consider me to be in terms of age wise, am I young or am I old, she would definitely say that I am old. And although partly that would be tongue in cheek, she would also mean it definitely.

Whereas being 40, I feel incredibly young still and you know, I don't like the thought of thinking more or less halfway through, you know, this old life that could be hopefully not quite halfway through but you never know.

And so yeah, for me I don't like, it's a tough one really because so my dad is 40 years older than me and I, I look at my dad and you know, he's, he's had his health challenges in recent years and he's clearly not as young as he once was. And it can be quite hard to sort of watch him going through that process, you know, with different, different challenges that life throws at him.

And it's always a reminder, I think, or it has been for me a reminder of our own mortality.

Because you kind of always say, I think everybody, that everybody who still has their parents with them or just believes that they'll always be there.

It's only really, I know I am imagining this because both of mine are still very much with me but I imagine that most people who, you know, it's only when they lose a parent that they then go oh yeah, you know, that really think, you know, and you sort of go oh yeah, of course, of course that's what's gonna happen. We all know it, we all know it's coming at some point. So I don't know, I don't know what the answer is to it.

I mean, I suppose if I'm going to go as, as straight down the, the line with this as I possibly can. So my partner's granny recently passed away, bless her, and she had a very good innings. She was 94.

Now I would say that, that, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, Barbara, if you are listening up there, I would say that she was old at that age. So I do think it has to be for me, probably anything, 90 onwards. I think that's right. Now as I sit here, that's where I'm going to say it.

And I think the reason for me going to that is because of the fact that if I go too early then I'm almost admitting, or if I go earlier, I'm almost admitting that my dad is old, which I don't want to do yet. And the other thing with that is that it's also coming a bit too close to where I am already myself at 40.

So I think we will always see ourselves as being young, regardless.

I mean, it's very, very daft to say this, but yesterday I was driving home, my partner was in the car with me, and we were sat at a traffic light junction which did also have the, you know, the, the crossing for pedestrians on it as well, the Green Man Redman system that we have in the uk.

And this lovely older lady who had, and she was the stereotypical older lady, she had a little bit of a hunch and she also had one of those shopping trolley, you know, type bags that we, we think of and that get sort of cartoonized, if you like, in the, on the telly. And she shuffled across the road just as the cars were coming at her. Now she was a good hundred yards away.

And of course, you've got to be an absolute moron if you're going to go and run over somebody from that distance away just simply because they thought that they could make it across the road before you got to them. My partner went, who's a nurse? Went, how silly. Just wait for the light, you come on, you know.

And I said, but in her mind, she will still feel like she's 20 or 30 years old.

She won't recognize the fact or won't want to recognize the fact that it takes her longer to cross the road these days and that maybe she should have. Now, if a car had got quite close to her, maybe she would have admitted it then, but that was why. And I kind of just sort of went, this is it.

We all see ourselves as being very, very young. And so therefore we never grow up in our minds, we never grow old. And it's, I guess, only really when.

And again, I am, you know, completely guessing this.

It's only when maybe we get to a ripe old grand age where we're maybe then literally about to say goodbye, that we then sort of go, oh, yeah, I am a bit old now, maybe it's time, I don't know. I mean, what about you, Daddy? Would you go that sort of high 90s?

Danny Brown: 00:15:20

I'd probably go lower only because I'm older than you by quite a bit. I'm now in my mid-50s, so I'm closer to that age. But I can also tell from. And my kids would be the same.

My teenage son, he's 15, big football fan, or soccer for North Americans, etc. But big football fan. And he'll look at transfers and he'll say, why is that player getting signed? He's 28, he's past it.

And thinking, oh, my grief, really, that's the peak for a football player in most times.

But yeah, I found, at least partially, I found as I've gotten older, I can do less things I used to do easily when I was 20, 30, even 40, like yourself, mate, something simple as running up the stairs from the basement. Because I need, you know, I've been downstairs to change the laundry, I'm coming back up to let the dogs out, something like that.

And then my knees started creaking, thinking, you know what? That wouldn't have happened even just, even just five years ago.

So I feel as you get older and there was someone famous that mentioned this and I can't recall who it was, they were in an interview, but they said that, you know, you're getting old when all the people around you start to die and you have less people around you. So whether that's friends, family, relatives, whatever that looks like partners.

Because as you reach a certain age, if you're going by a natural death and not a tragedy or an accident or something like that, you expect people to reach a certain age, you know.

Charles Commins: 00:16:39

Yeah.

Danny Brown: 00:16:40

If they're not sick.

So if that's the case and people are starting to drop for one of a better description, you, as you say, you're thinking, yeah, maybe I'm getting a bit old. So for me, I think I would maybe go. I'm going to say maybe 80, so not too much.

But if you're going by the old sort of three score years and 10 as an average age, so like 70 years old is a good, a good innings, then 80 is kind of up there. But again, it really depends again, where you live in the world, what your economic situation is, because that also plays into the part, right?

Charles Commins: 00:17:13

Absolutely, yeah. You're bang on there with that. I think.

I like the fact that you talk about how you go up the stairs and you think, oh, yeah, just run up the stairs dead quick. And then all of a sudden your knee clicks or something like that.

And it gives you that reminder like, I'm at that stage in my life now where I am trying to make sure that I'm doing things right now so that I will benefit later on in life. So I'm trying to lose that bit of weight that I know I need to lose. I'm, as you said in, in the intro, I am a runner. I do. I've run ultra marathons.

I've run a couple of marathons and Several other distances below that. And I'm trying to get myself back to the fitness that I had when I ran the ultramarathons I did a few years ago.

I'm constantly thinking and aware of the fact that it's not just because I want to do that for my own well being now, especially like my mental health, I, I find running so good for that, but it's also for the benefits that I will get down the line because I will be fitter, I will be physically fitter, I will hopefully be, you know, just as mentally fit as I am now. And that will only be a benefit for me towards later life.

And so, yeah, I guess that while I don't see myself as being old, and I would not admit that at all, I think there is a dose of realism in my mind which says, no, but you're not young either anymore. So therefore there are things that you probably should start doing now to get yourself prepared to have it as easy as possible later.

It's exactly the same as what you might think, I guess with your finances you might think yourself, right, have I got a pension or have I got some savings, whatever.

And then what can I do to make sure that I have got stuff prepared and ready for me or when I retire if I get to that point, you know, similar kind of thinking, I guess, but just less about money and more about beer belly around your waist.

Danny Brown: 00:19:30

Well, that's one reason for sure. But yeah, it's like you say, I think kids are a great, you mentioned it yourself, kids are a great barometer. They'll have no filter.

And then your own body starts to tell you. Right. But yeah, it's an interesting one, that, interesting one to start off. And a few before we get older.

I might not even finish this episode because we're both so ancient, clearly. Let's see what question number two brings up. Okay. Yeah, I like this actually. It's kind of a nice little follow on a little bit here.

Question two, Charles. Are you a risk taker? And if so, what is the biggest risk that you have taken?

Charles Commins: 00:20:07

Oh, I could really ruin this by just saying no, couldn't I? But I won't.

Danny Brown: 00:20:12

And then make me work for the living.

Charles Commins: 00:20:16

I, I think, I think, I think we're all risk takers to an extent. You know, risk is something that you have to measure, isn't it?

And, and I don't know, I think with everything in life you, you do kind of without maybe thinking about it.

Sometimes you are assessing the risk of anything that you're about to do, you know, it could be asking your, I don't know, asking your partner to marry you. You know, you weigh up the, the risk of them saying no, don't you before you ask it? Or, you know, buying a house at any particular time.

You know, you weigh up the risk of, oh, is it the right time to buy a house? You know, we were quite lucky when we bought ours. We were in a dip in the housing economy.

So therefore now the house is worth a lot more than what it was when we bought it. So in, you know, the risk then was is it going to go even further down? And we thought, no, it's worth taking that risk now.

Buy the house now and it's paid off. I think the biggest risk for me, well, it's, it's really easy actually. What was the biggest risk that I have ever taken?

It was quitting my full time job in employment to go and start out completely on my own to put vibrant sound media into being and to go out and create that business, become self employed and become completely and utterly self reliant on myself. Now, I mean, I will straight away highlight my privilege here immediately. My partner, Nicola has a really, really good and consistent job.

She is a nurse, she works for the nhs. She is in a, a vocation which is always going to be needed. Right. Okay.

You can argue whether or not it will be nationalized or privatized at some point in the future, but we will always need health care, we will always need nurses and doctors. And so therefore there's not really a massive risk of her not bringing in some money every single month.

And so that enabled me to then go, would we be okay for a couple of months if I wasn't bringing any money in whatsoever? Could we just live off of your wage? So there was an element of the risk being downplayed somewhat by that. I was also very lucky.

And when I left my previous employment that I had shares, it was part of the, the package that you got.

The benefits were that there were shares in that company and when you left or after a certain period of time, you were then able to start selling those shares. Because I'd worked with the company over the length of number of years that you had to before you could actually start selling those.

I was able to and that gave me approximately five to six months worth of what my wages would have been so that therefore I had those. But I mean, obviously I then had to use that money to then set up my business and buy all the equipment that I needed to do everything.

So it wasn't like I literally had six months worth of being able to just sit there and not worry. There was still a huge, huge risk. And the fact is, is that it may not have worked. It may not have taken off.

I may not have got a client that would then start paying me. I may not have then turned and got a second client and so on and so forth.

There was a huge risk that I could have also just kind of frittered that money away and sat on my bottom and just not done anything. And the risk then isn't that, oh, the business fails. The risk is then actually even bigger than that because, well, if I'm.

If I don't make a go of this and it's because I've been lazy or something like that, then who knows what happens with my relationship at that point. You know, I'm putting things like paying the mortgage on the line. You know, we. We had a mortgage then, we still have it now.

And, you know, I wasn't contributing to it. I didn't contribute to the mortgage for about the first two years of my business. It was a huge, huge risk for me to take.

And not just me, but my partner was within, you know, in on that risk, you know, so it was a far, far bigger thing than maybe I realize at the time, because you just kind of go, well, yeah, I'm gonna give it a go, and I'm gonna do my very best to do it and certain to work on it and make it the success that it luckily has been for me. But, yeah, it could have gone so much, you know, the other way. And what would I have done if it had done? I mean, I. I don't know.

You know, I don't remember sitting there and actually weighing up the pros and cons and, well, what. Asking the question, what happens if this fails? You know, at the end of the day, I. I guess at the end of the day, if it had failed, I'd have.

I'd have gone back to retail with my tail between my legs, you know, and just try to go and get another job. But, yeah, luckily, luckily, it's been a success and I didn't have to do that. So.

Danny Brown: 00:25:50

Yeah, and you mentioned, obviously you got. You've got kids. Your daughter's 11, you got two. Two, three.

Charles Commins: 00:25:57

I do, yeah. Rory is two and a half, so. Yeah. Amelia, who's 11, Rory, two and a half.

Danny Brown: 00:26:02

And how old is vibrant? Did you have any of the. Did you have your daughter at the time or.

Charles Commins: 00:26:07

I did, yes. So vibrant sound media is Coming up, it will be seven in September. So yes, we, I think Amelia was four when I quit my job.

So we were at that stage where she was going into school. And I therefore was basically working, you know, that nine till three sort of period in the week when, you know, she was at school.

It gave me that opportunity. And then because of my partner being a nurse, she only would work at that time. She was working three long days a week over 12 and a half hours.

So the.

There would always be two days, normally within the Monday to Friday part of the week where I would be able to go off and, and work for a full day on my own while Nick did whatever with Amelia or you know, a house, whatever it was. So it was, it was one of those things that at the time it was nice and easy in terms of there was childcare if it worked out.

Now, now with Rory and him being two and a half plus, my partner is now working five days a week instead of three long days. She just works five days Monday to Friday, seven till three.

That means that we share the childcare in a different way where I have Rory in the morning and then when Nick comes home from work, we swap and I go to my office. And that is very, very difficult because I'm starting work at like half three, four o' clock in the afternoon.

And that is traditionally, as I think most people will feel the time of day where we all start to flag and dream of the pub or just going home and putting our feet up and things like that. So I have to at that point push through that feeling of wanting to relax and just get on with work very, very hard. But I'm, I'm managing it so far.

Danny Brown: 00:28:13

So you think like you mentioned, because obviously you had, you had a child at the time as well. So it was a big risk, as you mentioned, if it was just you and your wife. It's been still a risk, but last words.

But now you've got to think of a third mouth to feed if something goes wrong and, and your wife's wages can't cover the drop off if you like.

And I know there's like the well known saying where if you're going to start out on your own, have at least six months worth of income in the bank to cover you as you, as you get started. Do you feel like I look now especially post Covid. So during COVID not pre Covid.

So during COVID there was obviously the big change where people work from home because there was a lockdowns and everything.

And it Gave them a happier mindset because now they could also they were more relaxing, still got all their job done, but now they've got time to spend with their kids before school or the partner, you know, earlier because they're not commuting an hour, two hours at home or whatever.

And now you see a lot of companies that are forcing employees back into the office because they want them back in and to, especially in the financial sector and stuff like that. It seems it's very.

So do you think that because, because of that, where maybe people don't have that freedom or don't have the freedom that they want to do something like what you did, is it easier for want of a better description or do you think people are less inclined to try maybe push up on their own now and take a risk like that because of, you know, the situation with companies and working and quick employees, etc.

Charles Commins: 00:29:42

I think that there is definitely, yeah, yeah, definitely. The economy the way it is right now is certainly not as good as it was when I did it. Pre Covid.

I don't think that anybody looks at how we are in the uk, at least, I don't know exactly what it's like, everybody everywhere else and thinks to themselves now is a great time to go and start a business. You know, we, we are still in a cost of living crisis here in the uk.

Everything is just ridiculously more expensive than it was, you know, even two years ago, let alone pre Covid.

So I think that it does make it harder and I think, I think the other thing that is actually happening at the moment, you mentioned the, the finance sector.

I have a friend, a very good friend who works in that sector and he's just been told that he's got to start going back into the office even more than he was. So I think previously it was something like he had to do a total of 16 hours a month in the office.

He could choose how he did that, whether he went in two full days or did four half days, he could choose.

He's now been told that that number is now doubled, 32 or something around that sort of number hours that he has to do in the office every single month.

And he's a bit like that going, so basically now I have to spend 45 minutes sitting in a traffic jam trying to get into the office for nine o' clock in the morning on several occasions in a month.

Whereas what I could have done was just get up in the morning and then get straight on with work and felt better, felt more productive, just got on with it and been happy.

Whereas now I'm getting to the office on those days that I've got to go in feeling grumpy before I've even sat in the door because of the fact that the travel time to get here has been ridiculous. And I really do feel his and everybody else that is experiencing that, I feel their pain with it. I am so, so lucky where I am right now.

Yes, I have my own office. I, I, you know, I rent a very, very small room in what is just a, you know, a building full of tenanted offices.

But I choose to do that because I get more done here than I do at home. If I try and work at home, then I will, in terms of what happens in my head is that I start going, oh, I should do the washing.

Oh, I should put the hoover around. Oh, I should do this. Oh, I should do that.

And then when my partner comes home and the kids are at home, you know, Amelia's home from school, I then go, oh, I should give them attention and we should do stuff together, yada, yada, yada. And so therefore my attention is taken completely away and I'm not focused on, on working.

So I come into the office for me, for my own productivity when it comes to my business and to my work.

If I was working for someone and it was in a, you know, a role which wasn't customer facing and you didn't have to be there in person to do it, you know, like literally you could go, what's my job description? Can I do all of that anywhere in the world? Well, yes, I can. So I would feel aggrieved now at this point of time.

I think that I had to go and be in a specific place at a specific time to get that done, in my opinion. And I know I'm not the only person that thinks this.

It is simply because of the fact that these, these companies are tied into long lease holds on buildings that they can't get out of.

Again, because of the cost of living crisis because of what we went through with COVID You know, you've got to think about the fact there is somebody that is a landlord of those buildings that is relying on the income from leasing that building out for their own, you know, well being and their own, you know, finances. And so because of that, that's why they're bringing people back into the office. It is just simply to justify the expense on the rent on the lease.

And I do feel therefore sorry for the people that are affected by that.

And I tried to Say to my friend, I understand and I feel your pain with this and I understand completely why you, you really are annoyed with the powers that be. It's not necessary his line manager, of course, it's not necessarily somebody he's ever met.

You're just annoyed with the powers that be that you're being forced to do this. But the reason is, you know, this and let's try and let you see what it is.

And now can you understand that this is why they're not going to just let people not be in there at all and therefore not have any reason for paying it and not be able to get out of paying either. It's, you know, the fact is, is that they're not asking you to go back 40 hours a week to the office. It's only 30 or whatever it is a month.

So try and see it from the other way.

To go back to your original question, I, I just think that I know for a fact with him, with that particular friend, not that he's got anything that he knows that he could go and do necessarily.

He's never said to me, oh, I'd love to start my own business making, I don't know, lights for weddings or, I don't know what it, what it would be, but I get the feeling that he, he just isn't even able to look for another job at the moment because the risk is too great. He has got a job that pays him a good amount of money, that covers all of his bills and his expense expenditure every month.

And if he was to start looking at somewhere else, the risk is far too big that he might go somewhere else, the grass isn't greener on the other side, that, that doesn't work out. And then it's in a bit of a spiral of, you know, going downwards. So he sees it as being a case of that's too much of a risk.

Whereas at the time that I quit my job, I was at the point where I couldn't, couldn't stay doing what I was doing for the company that I was doing it for, without my mental health suffering. And so I had to make the change, whether it was to go and do what I did and start my own business or to go and find another job.

Originally, that had been the idea. The plan had always been start looking for other jobs, start applying for things, start doing stuff.

And one day at work I had had enough and I literally wrote my notice and left it on the table in the office for my manager to find the next morning. And that was it two weeks later, I'd served my notice and I, and I was out of there.

Those two weeks were the most difficult two weeks of my life because obviously I had to go home to my partner and say, I just quit and I know we don't have anything actually there for me to go and do. And she was like, I can't believe you've done that. You said you wouldn't do that.

It was hard for those two weeks, but I spent those two weeks proving to her that I could do something that I have now done. So it was the hardest two weeks, but also the best two weeks.

Danny Brown: 00:37:26

Yeah, I hear you. As you mentioned, and it's weird that you mentioned that about your friend because that's a very different kind of risk.

So as you said, I feel everybody is definitely a risk taker, whether it's something simple for want of a better description as asking your partner to marry you or decide and have a child, bring a child into the world. Is it risky to wear flip flops and socks on the beach?

Because you're going to get, you know, mocked and then you come to the main life changing risks, obviously. So yeah, it's like it's.

Hopefully the world will start to get back in a bit of a cure where it enables people to, to have the confidence to at least try and find some happiness outside or as part of their work day. Because obviously if you've got happiness in your personal life, having it in your work life is just a really, really nice bonus to have for sure.

Well, speaking of risks, obviously you've taken a risk, as any guest does to come on a show because you don't know what's going to come your way. So let's find out what question number three brings up. Okay.

You're a tech person or you're certainly someone that's around tech and use it in your day to day job. Charles. So question number three, what would you do if you couldn't use the Internet or watch TV?

And I'm going to include watch TV as YouTube, so that's part of the Internet for a month.

Charles Commins: 00:38:41

Cry. I mean, if I take, just, just throw this out there. First of all, I couldn't use the Internet for a month.

My business would go under, so that would be that. But we're not going to go down that route.

Danny Brown: 00:38:58

No, no, no.

Charles Commins: 00:39:00

If I couldn't use the Internet or watch TV for a month, what would I do? It would be a very, very difficult 30 odd days for sure. I'm a big consumer of media. I have always loved. I mean, my, my true love is radio.

That has always been, from when I was very, very young.

I did the whole cliched thing of taping the songs off the radio and then using them to create my own radio shows and, and all this, that and the other. And then my love just extends towards television and, you know, the Internet is now a big part of that, as you said. You're going to include YouTube.

I think I probably watch YouTube far too much to not be paying for the premium version, if I'm honest. And I don't. I watch, I watch. There are so many things that I am subscribed to that are, that are fantastic and I love watching.

You know, I, I watch people that basically are building Lego cities that are playing, you know, football manager, the, the game.

I watch people that are, you know, documenting lower league football or soccer clubs, you know, all of this, many, many different things, daily vlogs and loads of different stuff. I absolutely adore it. But I will always come back to television as being the thing that I am happy to sit down and just properly consume.

I, I kind of use YouTube as that thing.

I know a lot of people do this where YouTube has become the thing that you just need something on in the background and you're not really bothered about it and you don't need to necessarily go full focus into it. You know, you're making your lunch, you're doing the washing up, whatever it is. You just need something on in the background that you can watch.

Then I will use YouTube.

But for the evening, I will always come back to the television and I'll come back to, these days it's the streaming channels, you know, Netflix, iplayer for the BBC, Disney plus, all of that. And I will watch, I mean, my favorite show. I'm a massive Whovian. So Dr. Who is my beloved. My partner is a Trekkie.

She will literally, she will stick Star Trek Voyager on and happily just sit there for weeks, not moving. So if I couldn't do that, I would really have to find something to distract me from the fact that I can't do it because it would be really hard.

And I'm going to take into all of this, I'm going to add in that I can't watch my DVD collection, my Blu Ray collection either, because I can't watch tv. So that means the TV isn't there hardcore. So I can't go and watch Doctor who, which I've got everything.

I can't watch Star Trek, which we've got pretty much everything. I can't watch all the mcu, which I've got everything pretty much. I would therefore really have to distract myself.

So I would probably do a lot more running than I do now. I still go out two, three times a week at the moment. So, I mean, it would be a lot of running. I'd be doing extra on top of that.

Do you know what I might do is that I might do something creative. When I was young, my parents bought me a Hornby train set. I must have been probably seven or eight, something like that.

And I remember at the time actually being a little bit disappointed it wasn't the Scaletrix.

And I think from what I remember, if my memory serves me correctly, I think I showed that I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't the Scaletrix as well. But from what I understand, horn, the Hornby train set had been chosen because it was more what my dad wanted.

And so my dad was a bit more like, no, I'd rather help him do the train set than the Skeletrics. Fine, complete. As a dad now I completely understand where he's coming from with that. I didn't understand it at the time.

I was like, why didn't you just get me the thing I wanted? Spoiled brat. I obviously was.

So what I have started doing recently is I say recently, the last few years, every September, I take, I say, I take as if I'm in charge of this. I'm not at all.

We go down to my brother in law, so my partner's brother lives in Broadstairs in Kent, which is near Margate, which is the home of Hornby. And there is the.

I can't remember what it's called now, we might have to fact check this, Danny, but there is a museum that is dedicated to Hornby trains. Scalectrics, Corgi, I think it is the model, you know, vehicles.

And there's another thing because now that those, all those different things are all owned. Yeah, they're all owned by the same company.

So it's in the original factory where Hornby was, but we went last year to this place and it's great because there's loads of train layouts that are there. There's a Scaletrics big layout that you play on. It's brilliant, it's fantastic. And there's also an amazing shop, an absolutely amazing shop.

And I have a fairly old now, you know, It's a good 10 years or so. So in terms of how tech moves on very quickly, it's quite old. I've got a scalectrics pack with like two.

I think they're two Porsches, 911s or something like that. And I. It's already quite big. We don't have the biggest house in the world. If you lay it out, that's a full room done right.

You can't do anything else. But I still very, very nearly bought every single expansion pack, more cars, all the digital transformation pack and all this, that and the other.

And was like, I'm gonna do this. This will be great. I didn't. I stopped myself from doing it.

But if I didn't have access to the TV or Internet for a whole month, I think I would be going and creating a Scalextrics track. I would be going and buying. I would take all the money that I would save on not paying for the streaming sites like Netflix and Disney plus, etc.

I take all of that money and I would go and put it into the hands of whoever owns Hornby and Scalectrics now and say, give me what can I have in return for this? And I would take it home and I would create it and I would just play every spare moment that I had. I'd include the kids, of course. I would.

It'd be a big part of doing it. And it would help, obviously, distract them from not having the Internet and Telly and CBeebies especially, which is constantly on in our house.

And I just play. And it would be, you know, creating a track, then throw, you know, getting the cars to go around it. I. That. That is probably what I would do.

Danny Brown: 00:46:25

I like it. I am. I remember having a Skilletrix, and I'm not sure if that's like a very British thing or if it's like a global thing.

But Skeletrics, in case you're unaware, is a racing track like a racing car track. It's got little slots in one of the track, and the car sticks to the slots and you go race each other around the track.

And I remember being a kid back in the UK and Skilletric was always a big thing.

And then tcr, Total Control Racing came out and everybody wanted that because you could swap lanes, you could have lights come on and stuff, and it just looked really cool. But Skeletric is still around. I don't think tcrs. I think Skeletric maybe have bought them and integrated it, but that'd be a great thing to do.

Like, you see, you can involve your family, get your friends around, get really competitive.

Charles Commins: 00:47:08

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I watch, like, literally, if you go. I mean, you couldn't do this if we're sticking to the rules of the question.

But you go onto Instagram or Facebook or wherever and search slot car racing, the amount of videos that are there and it just looks epic.

You know, people are literally taking actual real life circuits and recreating them using their scalectrics or whatever it is that their slot car is made by and recreating those tracks and then racing and it's moved on so much since we were kids. Danny, as you say, you can change lanes now that you can.

Also, because it's digitalized, you can do things like mind blowing, where literally you can use an app to determine, right on lap 10, it's going to come into the pits.

You can still control the cars, you can still do the driving with the little trigger handheld things or the little ones with the circle steering wheel on the side handheld things.

But you can make it so that it knows that in 10 laps time you're going to come into the pits and it will wait there and it will do a randomized amount of time that it's in the pits for. So you might be sat there going, what's going on? Why hasn't it? And in your mind you're going, someone's not put a wheel nut bolt on or something.

Oh no, there's danger in the pits. They've got over all of this imagination just comes straight.

It looks amazing and I would absolutely love, love, love to have enough disposable income to buy not just a bigger set and or more parts, but also like a sort of, you know, a bigger office or somewhere, a warehouse that I could put it into that would then be infinitely large enough for me to just carry on making and building it and adding to it. I have spent hours trawling the Internet looking at what people have done with their scale electrics tracks and just gone, wow.

And some of them are huge, but some of them, you know, would fit in your average sized sort of bedroom that, you know, obviously has nothing else in it but the scale, but you do look at it and just go, wowzers. Either somebody's got an amazing imagination or you've got far too much money. It's probably both.

Danny Brown: 00:49:40

Probably both, exactly. Nah, I like that. As someone asks way, way, way, way, way, way back as a kid, I would totally go with you on that, mate, for sure.

So on that note and being grateful for actually having Internet, let's see what question number four brings up. Hmm. Okay. Yeah. Question four, Charles. If you knew you only had 24 hours left to live, what Would you do?

Charles Commins: 00:51:19

Cool. That's a huge one, isn't it?

Danny Brown: 00:51:22

Throwing in a deep one out of the blue there.

Charles Commins: 00:51:25

I mean, we started off with one that was pretty deep, right? Or it ended up being. And now we've got this. Wowzers. If you only had 24 hours left to live in, what would you do?

I mean, I am an incredibly emotional person and I am someone that today, for instance, my daughter, she went to for her first transition day to her new high school that she'll start in September. And she went off to it this morning, really looking forward to it.

And I waved her off out the door and watched her walk away and I couldn't help but just think, I wish she was still that little tiny bundle of baby that she was 11 years ago.

And when she came home from school, I let her in the door, she came in, I gave her a big hug and I asked her about her day, I asked her if she'd enjoyed it and she'd loved it.

She's found out who's in her form and all of this sort of stuff and she's got a couple of her friends from primary school in her form, which is brilliant, including her best friend, which is great. And I just gave her a big hug and I just told her that I was so proud of her for the person that she is becoming.

But at the same time, and I'm getting emotional thinking about it now, and at the same time, I really miss the little Amelia, the tiny, you know, baby, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 year old, you know, every single Amelia that we've had as she's growing up.

And I got a little bit upset in front of her, I had to apologize to her and I said, I'm really sorry, Daddy's just being silly, you know, I therefore think that if I knew that There was only 24 hours left to go for me, I would have to spend every waking moment with my two kids and my partner Nicola, my mum, my dad, my sister, Nick's family as well. I'd probably just be like going, come on, we're all doing something, we're all going somewhere and we'll go and do something or other.

I mean, I would, I would want to fit in so many different things. So here's the thing.

So with the, with the setup being that absolutely everything that I'm about to say would have to happen with all of those people present, I would have to go and watch Northampton Town Football Club play one last time. I'd have to. And if they weren't playing I'd rock up and I'd bang on the door and I'd say, you better start a match right now. Get on with it.

I'd probably sit down and watch a Doctor who episode. That would have to happen. I'd have to.

And I mean, it'd be very, very difficult to know which episode, let alone, well, blimey, which doctor to even choose, let alone which episode. It would be so hard. I might have to. Actually, when we. When we finished recording that, I might have to start, like, making a list and working out.

If I.

If I ever actually come across this situation in real life, which, touch wood, I won't, I need to know because I can't be wasting hours working out which episodes I need to watch. So I think I'll probably start working that out at some point soon. So I'll have to do that. I'd probably record a podcast.

I'd probably get into my office and just record something. It would be like my, My. My last. Not last will and testament, but, you know, my last thoughts.

It would be the last thing that I put out there and I'd probably do it.

And then I put it out on the Internet and I'd make sure that I uploaded it to a certain hosting provider that both me and you love that I won't mention, just in case the mark doesn't pay you.

I would put it out there and I would be turning around to all those family and friends and going, now you've got to promote the heck out of it, because if you don't tell anyone, it won't actually get heard. So please do more promotion than I have actually done work making this happen.

And if you're a podcaster listening, there is a hint in there somewhere. I would, on top of that, go to the pub and go and have a beer, because I like pubs. I devoted. Devoted. I spent 15 years of my life working in pubs.

I loved it. I loved the interaction with customers. I loved the actual job. I loved looking after beer, loved doing all of it.

Didn't like the cleaning so much, but, you know, who does? So I need to go to the pub and I therefore have to go to the pub with my friends. And it's not just you're close, you're. You're really close mates.

Like, I go out to the pub most Fridays. It's not every Friday, but most Fridays we go to the pub. There's. There's four of us.

And I would say, out of the four of us, I'm probably closer to two of them than I am. The other, the other one still friends, don't get me wrong here.

But then there's more than just those three people that we then meet in the pub and we talk to every week. You know, they're acquaintances, they're not friends, they're not anything. The only place I ever see them is in that particular pub.

But we chat and we have a good time and we enjoy each other's company. I'd want to spend at least some of that day with them.

And I think as well, I would probably do some other little bits and pieces that are just, I suppose, tying up loose ends almost. I'd go for a walk just for clearing my head. I'd probably do that on my own. I'd definitely then go out for a run with my running club friends.

I'd make sure that a big group of us went out and just did 5k or something, just to do it one last time. I'd then do the daft things like I take my car onto the motorway and I'd see how fast it can go. I'd do it very late at night. I'd be very.

As safe as you can be. Right. I'm not, you know, saying that you should do this. I always remember my dad when I was younger, where we lived in Northamptonshire as A.

The A1, which is the original long stretch of road that went. Connected Edinburgh to London. And there didn't used to be any speed Cameras on the A1 at one point in time, way back when. My dad used to.

After he got a new car a couple of weeks later, once it had warmed up, he used to say, you don't want to do it too early, son. He never talked like that because he's not from north, but, you know, he'd say, you need to. You need to give it time to bed in.

And then I'd go and see how fast it could actually go and I take it to the A1 and I never got. I did that. I was able to do it with my very first car. My first car was a Renault 5. I always. Yeah, Renault 5, little Renault 5, lovely.

They've just brought back an electric version that I really want to buy. So, I mean, that might be another thing that I would do, is I just go and buy that. I managed to take that onto the A1, see how fast that could do.

It got to 93, which is a bit of a letdown, I'll be honest. It had a choke and everything, Danny. So, you know how old it was. So I'D probably do something similar.

I take my current car, which is a Kia Sportage, which will definitely go faster than 93 miles an hour. I'm telling you, not because I know through experience, but because I. I've seen tests, he says with a glitz in.

Danny Brown: 00:59:23

His eye, a little glint there.

Charles Commins: 00:59:25

And I would go and I would take it somewhere.

And because I know that I'm not going to be here the next day, the car's registered to me, it's going to be obvious that it's me driving it because of the way cameras are these days. And I'd smile as I went through them. They wouldn't have to be being paid. So therefore I would just go.

I'd probably take it somewhere like the M62 and then just floor it and see how fast I could really make it go. That'd be something else. I, I would do it as safely as possible. I reiterate that again, I'd close off the road to make sure I was the only one on it.

Etc. So, yeah, there's, there's, there's far too many things that I'd actually, you know, want to do than I could definitely do, I think.

But I, I think that I would have to do as many things as possible because knowing me and knowing how I am, I would very easily spend that 24 hours on my own crying. Because I think that is actually the reality, is that if I knew that it was the end, then that's how it would start.

It would start with a lot of tears and a lot of pain and anguish, I think, which is a horrible way to end this little monologue.

But I therefore know that inside I would need to do as much as possible, pack as much stuff in as possible to make sure that I had the best last 24 hours ever.

Danny Brown: 01:00:57

Well, and that's it.

I think even though obviously it's sad that it would be your last 24 hours on the planet, I feel it's like almost a privilege as well to know this is happening. So, you know, like, so many people just drop down dead or get hit by a bus or anything like that and taken away without, you know, prior knowledge.

So I think, I feel almost like it's like a little privilege where you can plan ahead and really make sure that for the people that are left behind, they leave you with a high, so to speak. Right. But I do like the fast cars.

I used to try get my little Ford Fiesta 1.1 liter screaming down the M62 between, you know, Hawk, which is in the Scottish borders back to Bradford, where I lived and worked at the time. And that was always fun, mate.

Charles Commins: 01:01:45

It is always fun. I mean, it's very illegal, but fun.

Danny Brown: 01:01:48

But fun.

Well, that was a bit more of a serious question, which sometimes happens, but on the show, which is why I love the format so much, because it does open up so many different questions. So let's see if we can finish on a little bit more of a kind of like a happier one sort, so to speak. So here we go.

Charles, question number five on the random questions. Hot seat. Who is the most famous person you have met?

Charles Commins: 01:02:14

Most famous is quite hard to determine, right, because that could mean anything. Because I could think somebody is really famous and you kind of go, who?

Whereas, yeah, you could, you could turn around and say, oh, I met this person who is really famous. And I could just be like, so what? Not. Not bothered by it.

And at the same time, I've met quite a few famous people, but to try and then put them in a ranking and put somebody at the top, it's quite difficult, I think. I met Grim. Nick Grimmy. I met Nick Grimshaw at the podcast show a couple of years ago. Nick Grimshaw is a radio presenter here in the UK.

He was the Radio 1 breakfast show host.

He's now currently on the breakfast show on 6 Music, but he also used to do, a long time ago now, I used to do an evening show on Radio 1 which was very, very good, quite late at night, sort of 10 o' clock in the evening, which was really good.

And I always do think that as much as we all cover in radio, the Breakfast show as being the biggest show on any station, doesn't matter which one it is. Actually the best shows happen in the evening. They're the ones where the presenters are actually allowed a little bit more leeway. They're.

They're given a little bit more on that length of rope for them to just go and play. And that evening show was, was, was great.

I mean, I, I go back and, I mean, I know no one can see this, but behind me I have, you know, the famous Kallax unit from Ikea, which is the, the Squares unit of Squares, if you, if you're not sure. And one of those squares is devoted to books.

Now, most of them are business books and things, but there is always one book here and the reason why it's in here amongst all of the business books that I have bear in mind, we've got things like Jessica Abel's on the Wire, which is, if you're A podcast producer or a podcaster. You should. You should get it. It's a graphic novel. It's not a book book, it's a graphic novel. But it is fantastic.

Telling you how all the greats that work in audio create their stories, do storytelling. It's brilliant.

But alongside that and a copy of radio production, the fifth edition by McLeish, which is something that anybody that has ever done radio or studied radio in any way, shape or form will know. I've had that book since I started university. I refer back to it now.

w, it's probably earlier than: 2003

Was the greatest, in my opinion, the greatest radio DJ of them all. He was a champion of new music.

He was so knowledgeable about the music industry and about bands and artists, and while his show was probably heavily leaning towards sort of guitars and that kind of genre, he still knew everything about every type of music. It was fantastic and sadly missed. And he, he's an absolute legend and he is the person that really, truly, honestly made me want to be on the radio.

And I've read that book so many, so many times. He passed away far too soon.

My radio station, when I was at university, the student radio station we had at the time that I actually arrived at the university, they had a new radio building being built. So my first year, we were in this little broom cupboard thing where there was carpet on the desk. It was very rudimentary.

We moved into my second year. These purpose built radio station studios. There were three actual studios in this little building. One of them was the.

Was specifically for the student radio station. And then you had two others that could be used by us, the students, when we were doing our work. And what was Studio 2?

So this was one of the other studios that wasn't the one that was being used by the student radio station. That was John Peel Studio and that was the one I always booked out to go and use.

I never booked the other one because I. I just had to use John Peel's one. Even though John Peel never set foot in Warrington at campus and, and the university never had a clue, he was already gone at this point.

And it was just like, what a tribute to an absolute legend. So that book sits there and I wish. I wish I had met him. I really do.

The point in this is that going back to you know, meeting Nick Grimshaw at the podcast show, Pretty big. He was on Radio 1 Breakfast Show. And I guess really my, my big sort of most famous people would all come from radio in that sense.

But I, I don't think in terms of like the biggest. But I'm trying to think, I know that there is going to be somebody in the back of my mind that afterwards I'll go, I can't.

Of course, I should have mentioned this person. So hard when these questions, they really are random. They really. We really do not get to prepare. I'm just like, I'm going, I've met.

I've met lots of sports people as well, but again, how do you rank them as to who was the most famous out of all of them? And again, I think a lot of them would be rugby league players. So most, most people in the world would go, who. You know.

So that probably wouldn't really necessarily do anything. Do you know what? I will tell. I will tell this story because she is pretty famous. She's on the tv. She's still on the TV to this day.

When I was very young and maybe 10 or so, where we lived in rural Northamptonshire, there was like an annual carnival or festival or some kind of event that happened in a big field, not as big as Glastonbury, but, you know, one of these big sort of fields, and there was some kind of like, festival going on there. My parents packed us off, me and my sister, my mum and dad, all of us packed off into the car to drive 45 minutes down the road to this.

Wherever this festival was happening to go and see it. And I remember we stopped at a petrol station at some point between home and the place that we were going, and it was just a normal petrol station.

We got there and from what I can remember, we were literally just stopping to put petrol in. And yet who was there but a young. As she would have been then, a young Michaela Strachan. And not only was she just at this.

She wasn't just at this petrol station just topping her own car up with petrol or anything like that. No, no, no, no, no. She was there doing something. She was there for a reason.

She had animals with her in these little cage type things and she'd get them out, but it was just like, what's good? Michaela Strachan. And as a. As a kid who was really, really into the really wild show with Terry Nutkins, Michaela Strachan.

I can't remember the other guy that was on it. I was just like, wow, this. And I remember being like, it's Mikaela Strachan.

And I just remember speaking to Mikaela Strachan as a very, very, very young, young boy. She must have been 20, you know, quite young, early in her career, more or less.

And like now I watch her on Spring Watch and I think I've met you, you've shown me a Tawny owl or something, you know, she's probably the most left field and yet most famous person that I can think of right here and right now. And it happened a long, long, long, long, long time ago, Danny. In the Most Ridiculous Place as well.

Danny Brown: 01:11:02

Bruce Lee. I mean, I loved watching her on the same show, mate. It was always fascinating.

And you learn so much from her because she made it fun to learn, as did Tara Atkins and the other presenter, the co presenter, who neither of us can remember his name. So we apologize. I will find out who that is and put a link in the show notes and I'll link back to.

I'm sure there's gonna be YouTube videos of that TV show. So I hear you. And yeah, you're right. It's like it's varying levels, right? Who's famous to you because of your career or your interests, etc.

Unless that it's stratosphere, like a Tom Cruise or something like that, you know, it can be very geared towards personal experience, etc. But I love the fact that you met Mikaela Strachan. That'd be awesome.

That'd be a nice one for me to meet as someone that enjoyed watching her on the tv.

Charles Commins: 01:11:45

Who would you say is your most famous person you've met, Danny?

Danny Brown: 01:11:50

I don't know because when I first moved to Canada, I did a lot of freelance work for a music website as I was going through my equivalent of the green card process. And I met a lot of indie music people that are now bigger names.

There might not be bigger names to a lot of people, but they're now bigger names in the grand scheme of things. So Tom McCrae, I interviewed Tom McRae, who's very UK indie creator, who Brandi Carlisle interviewed. You know, met and interviewed her.

So people like that, from my own point of view, I've probably not met really famous people.

My grandma used to get Sean Connery delivered milk to her when he was a teenager, before he became into the bodybuilding and the James Bond and all that.

As a teenager back in South Queensferry, which is just outside Edinburgh, he had a milk around and he delivered to my granny and there's a whole Bunch of stories that my granny could tell about that, which we won't go into because it's a family show. But, yeah. So probably vicariously through my grandma James. Barn. That's what I'm gonna say.

Charles Commins: 01:12:48

Nice. I like that. That is very good. By the way, it was Chris Packham. How did we not know that?

Danny Brown: 01:12:53

Chris Packham. There we go.

Charles Commins: 01:12:54

It was Chris Packham, who obviously is co presenting Spring Watch with Michaela Strachan these days.

Danny Brown: 01:13:01

Perfect. It's always good to see your childhood famous people still going, you know, going back to that old age question, Right? What?

You can't because they're old. Well, Michaela Strachan's still doing the thing and, you know, Chris Pack is still doing the thing. Do we class them old? No, not at all.

Because they're part of our childhood.

Charles Commins: 01:13:18

I'm trying to think now because there are obviously, you know, there's a lot of people that we'd have grown up watching on the tv and you sort of think, oh, they, they maybe not around anymore in terms of you don't see them on the telly. And you sort of go, well, are they still alive even?

You know, you might think to yourself, you know, there's, there's plenty of people, Tony Hart, for instance, who definitely is no longer with us, and lots of, yeah, lots of different people that I can sort of think about, you know, and who are they? But, I mean, I, I sort of go back to. So I was always a, you know, a BBC kid when it came to children's TV when I was young.

And so, you know, I, I remember, I, I think probably Andy Peters was the main presenter for the Broom Cupboard as it was back then. I mean, there was Philip Schofield before him, but I don't think we're allowed to talk about him anymore. So we'll zip that one out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I, I, you know, but I know Andy Peters is still around.

I mean, he's not necessarily front of camera anymore these days, or at least not that much, but he's very, very much behind the camera producer level in TV and very, very well, you know, regarded in the industry. And whenever I've seen him appearing on the tv, he looks pretty much the same as he always did.

You know, he, if anything, he looks even better these days.

So it's one of those where you kind of go, well, I watched you when I was a kid, so I would have been at most a teenager, you know, sort of 15 when you were on the TV doing that. And at the Time, you must have been in your 20s at the earliest. So therefore how old? You sort of go, well, how old are you now? Yeah, are you? Yeah.

It's strange, isn't it, how good genes, mate.

Danny Brown: 01:15:15

Some of us are blessed. Some of us, like me, are not. So good genes. Good genes. But I like that. It's a nice way to finish off after a little bit more of a deeper one prior.

So, Charles, we've reached the end of your time in the hot seat and I think we survived it fairly well, as is only fair because you've been in the hot seat for the last about an hour or so. One of our longer episodes. I loved it. It's only fair that I throw the baton over to you, good sir. So it's time for your question for me.

Charles Commins: 01:15:42

Yes.

So this question I've chosen, it is random, but I've chosen it because something happened with me and my friends over the past sort of, well, week specifically. But it's happened. We've talked about this a few times over the last couple of years down the pub. So the question is, Danny, is.

Is there a fashion that has come back around that you absolutely hate?

Danny Brown: 01:16:10

I can't think because. So I'm a bit of a hermit. I'm fortunate to work remotely full time.

My wife is, and we live in a little village that's pretty much away from civilization. So you don't really see a lot of people wandering about the streets and stuff like that. And I'm trying to think if there's a fashion.

Actually now we don't think it's a fashion. So see, for me, I would have said chinos, but I think chinos has always been around of just coming, gone.

And they're not quite as ridiculous as when I was a kid.

Charles Commins: 01:16:43

Yeah.

Danny Brown: 01:16:44

But I've seen more kids now and maybe this is just like the generation, but a lot more kids, teens like my son's age that have got mullets, really, really bad mullet. And it's clearly a choice because I don't think it's the parents forcing them because they seem very comfortable on their skin, which is great.

And I'm thinking, why?

Charles Commins: 01:17:07

Yes, you're right. So this is exactly it. This is part of it.

So a year or so ago we noticed, me and my friends noticed that there's become this trend of where the younger generation are now wearing socks with their flip, what we would call flip flops, but they call sliders. Because that's not as cool as saying not sliders, mate.

Danny Brown: 01:17:33

I've got it Correct. They're slides. My son corrects me so many times because he does that. He wears socks with his slides. And I'm saying they're sliders.

So don't say that to me, son.

Charles Commins: 01:17:41

Oh, crikey. Okay. But to me, that's ridiculous. You don't wear socks with open shoes. Open toed shoes, essentially. Let's bracket them all into that.

So Crocs, that's another one that could just get in the bin. But that wasn't around, I don't think, in the first place, when I was younger. So that's fine. I just don't get it. And I don't get why they look.

And then you're right, recently, there's just a lot of mullets going on. And I don't know whether you've noticed because I'm not sure.

I know you mentioned the rugby league before, but Rugby union right now as well, the British and Irish Lions are down under in Australia. And there's an awful lot.

And I think this has been the case or anyway to in Australia, but there's an awful lot of not only mullets, but mullets and tashes. You know, very 80s, very stereotypical Australian 80s. But it's not just on the Australian players, it's on the flipping Lions players.

And I cannot, I just looking at it and going, oh, my word. What. What is going on? I. I just can't stand it. I just look at it and just go.

If I'd gone to school wearing white socks, pulled up, you know, I'd have been derided, I'd have been teased. And yet now my daughter, not only does she wear white socks, but she then tucks her, you know, tracksuit bottoms into the bottom of her socks.

And I just think, what are you doing? You look ridiculous. That isn't allowed. That is a crime against fashion and everything and all that is. Stop it immediately.

And she's like, oh, dad, you're so old. And I'm like, no, behave yourself. Look at yourself in the mirror. She goes, everyone wears it like this. And you're just like, oh, no.

And I just think to myself, how have we as a generation, how have we as a bunch of millennials allowed this to happen?

How have we given birth and raised this generation to believe that it's okay to wear socks with your flip flops and then call them something ridiculous instead of flip flops? How is it okay for you to grow your hair into a mullet and think it looks cool? How are you? How is it okay?

That you're gonna add a mustache to this as well. I mean, there are. There are words and names that shouldn't be repeated that you would get called.

If you ever look like that or you saw someone when you were a kid who had a mullet in attach, they would get names assigned to them. And yet here we are, allowing our children. I just. It's a. It's shocking and something should be done.

Danny Brown: 01:20:37

I know. Bring back. Bring back. What is it? National.

Charles Commins: 01:20:42

National service.

Danny Brown: 01:20:43

National service. Bring back national service. Get them in the armies. Get the heel shaved. That will teach them.

Charles Commins: 01:20:47

Oh, Dan, We've gone right back to the beginning now, and we can answer. Finally, we can answer that question of how old is old? We are.

Danny Brown: 01:20:56

You're old. If socks and slides and mullets are out of fashion, well, that was a nice way to bring everything full circle.

Charles and I really appreciate this and enjoy this chat.

For people that want to know about your new podcast or existing podcast for the work that you do with your agency or just, you know, send you random pictures of their mullets, where's the best place to connect with you and find out more about you?

Charles Commins: 01:21:22

I would say there's two places to come and connect with me. The first one is on LinkedIn. Come and just find me, Connect me, send me a message.

Say, hey, just don't start your message with something that you want to sell me, please. That's the only caveat that I would give. Come and connect with me on LinkedIn.

And if you don't want to connect with me as such and have to actually talk to me and things like that, you can follow me on Instagram, basically just search at Charles Commons. I'm sure Danny will put a link into the show notes for both of those. But, yeah, I'm on there most days. Come and check out my stories.

I tend to use it a bit like a vlog and you can see what I'm doing day to day. And then my grid is usually more of the. This is. This is the big stuff. These are the things that I really want to show. So, yeah, come along, find me.

All the information about all my podcasts are on there. It's the Warrington scoop. It's. It's all cobblers to me, is the other one.

You want to find out more and become an avid fan of Northampton Town, then come and join us. I promise, it's not a cult. And, yeah, come and say hello. It'd be great.

And if you're a podcaster, I have to mention it, if you're a podcaster, please come along, join our community of brilliant like minded podcasters at Mike's Podcast Club. We are doing monthly meetups online, so it doesn't matter where in the world you are, they're just done on Zoom and we just get together.

We either have guest speakers to come and talk about a particular subject or we open it up to the whole room and the whole community for our podcasting Q and A. Where basically you come in with a bit of a problem that you've had that month regarding your podcast and you share it with a group.

And then the community of podcasters that have got many different experiences, they will try and help you get through it, either through the fact that they've experienced it themselves and they'll tell you how they dealt with it, or they'll just give ideas that they've got. But either way we are all coming together to help each other to make better podcasts. So come and check that out.

We're ikespodcastclub on Twitter and you can join us at meetup.comm I c p o d and it's completely free.

Danny Brown: 01:23:39

Perfect. And as Charles mentioned, I will leave links to all of that in the show notes as usual.

So if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast app or even online, be sure to check out the episode shownotes out and that'll all link through to Charles. So again mate, really appreciate you coming down today. Darren, you're not even here.

Coming online today to the green room and sitting in the five Random Questions hot seat.

Charles Commins: 01:23:59

Thank you Danny. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Danny Brown: 01:24:04

Thanks for listening to five Random Questions.

If you enjoyed this week's episode, I'd love for you to leave a review on asking app you're currently listening on or over at 5randomquestions.com review and if you know someone else that would enjoy the show, be sure to send them this way. It's very much appreciated. Until the next time, keep asking those questions.

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