17: Oscar Wilde, Freddy Krueger, Spudman, and brilliant women
In this episode, Jules realises just how Gen X she truly is. She also regrets not going to meet her horror hero, muses on her hometown’s quirks, and admires the brilliance of Laura Lexx.
Transcript:
Episode 17: Oscar Wilde, Freddy Krueger, Spudman, and brilliant women
Jules O’Brian:Hello, this is Jules O’Brian with the “Avoid Excessive Cleavage” podcast. The podcast for anyone who wants to grow older gracefully or disgracefully and the podcast that says “no” to unsolicited advice and inspirational quotes.
So this week’s inspirational quote, because I do like to start with one, even if it’s just to tear it apart a bit, comes from none other than Oscar Wilde. And that quote is, “Be yourself,
everyone else is already taken,” which is a lovely sentiment, a bit overused, and it sounds very deep, but I’ve been thinking about it, and especially this week, which I'll go into, but what if yourself still does their makeup like it’s 1997,
and can’t tell the difference between early 2000s fashion and now, and gets disproportionately excited about things like jacket potatoes and slasher films? I promise all of this will start to make sense.
Well, I don’t promise, but I'm going to try. Because if that’s the self that I’m being, which it generally is, I think, I’m not sure if it’s ready for public life.
So this episode is going to be a little bit of a patchwork. Some thoughts on horror nostalgia, a local-to-me jacket potato hero…. Yeah, I know, okay, …just let me say the things I need to say,
alright…. Imposter Syndrome, as ever, sorry if that’s getting a bit repetitive but it’s just a thing that never goes away. And why
Laura Lexx is officially my new imaginary best friend, hero, mentor on all sorts of other brilliant things. So when I do my standard routine, there’s a part of the very start when I’m just sort of setting out who I am. And I always say that I’m from Birmingham because that is, you know,
that’s where my roots are, but it’s just easier to say Birmingham than explaining to people that I actually live in a little place called Tamworth, in Staffordshire, because when you’re doing gigs all over the country, you don’t want to spend the first five minutes
to be set, you know, giving a geography lesson and explaining just exactly what that means and where I am from. Birmingham’s literally a 20 minute drive up the road. But Tamworth is, is it own little bubble that’s, yeah, sort of hidden away from the real world
sometimes it feels like. So, when I first started comedy, I used to do a whole routine taking the piss out of Tamworth; I’m allowed to, right, because I’m from here, but you know, it’s like that thing with your family,
You’re allowed to say mean things, but woe betide anybody else that does it. But I don’t know, when you talk about your hometown, it can start to feel a little bit hacky, or that’s how I felt about it anyway.
And I think perhaps jokes about your hometown only get you so far and I’m not convinced that Tamworth travels all that well, but, like I say, I live in Tamworth, and it’s having a bit of a moment, weirdly, because we’ve got a local celebrity now.
And his name is, his name is Spudman, which sounds like a rubbish superhero. I know, but Spudman is a guy who sells jacket potatoes from a van.
And that’s it, right? That’s the brand, but he’s gone viral. I mean, he’s hugely popular on social media, millions of views.
He’s got that sort of bit of a quirky kind of edge to him. He’s, you know, he’s got purple hair, he’s got a really lovely vibe, and seems like a genuinely nice guy. And yes, and now he’s this full-blown internet sensation.
So his real name, surprising, his real name isn’t Spudman, his real name is Ben Newman, and he’s been on the same spot in Tamworth for over two decades, apparently. I didn’t know this.
So he turned to TikTok during COVID to help keep the business going and now he’s got over four million followers on social media platforms. So recently, there was even a petition signed by over 65,000 people to stop the council from
replacing his pitch with a flower bed in the town centre. I mean, that’s kind of, when you bear in mind that I think Tamworth’s only got a population of about 80,000.
So to get, you know, nearly everyone in the town on your side like that is pretty good going, isn’t it? You know, so bless him,
and I think that’s amazing. And I just sort of, I also can’t help but feel a little bit jealous because, I’m out here, driving all over the country every night, sort of, you know,
and that’s getting a little bit exhausting, I’ll keep doing it, but it’s a bit of a killer sometimes and I’m out here, pouring my soul into videos and talking about the menopause —
notice how I had to pause before I said that then — and Imposter Syndrome again, the slow decay of my cervix and things I don’t want to talk about, and I’m sure people don’t really want to hear
about. But, yeah, but anyway, this lovely guy, Spudman, goes huge just by selling potatoes, and honestly, I love him for that
and I’m really pleased for him for that. That’s fantastic. But I am jealous.
Like, should I just get a van? I don’t know, is that the way forward?
But, yeah, Tamworth has always being a bit of an odd ball town. So for example, a few years back, I always say that a few years back and then it turns out that it was, you know, a million years ago or something.
But, yeah, literally a few years back, we had two pigs escape from a farm. Oh, here we go, just looking, it was 1998. And they were, because of their escape, they were named Butch and Sundance, because, you know,
they were going to be slaughtered and so they became local heroes for this and they were saved.
There’s a lesson for all pigs out there: just make your escape and we’ll let you live. So, yeah, they became proper celebrity pigs.
The sculptures of them and drawings of them all over the town. You know, I think that’s brilliant. This is what I mean when I say, you know, Tamworth’s got its own little, it’s like its own little
bubble, it’s its own little world. And we also are responsible for building the Reliant Robin. Oh yes, so, you know, the three wheel car that tips over if you take a corner with any sort
of enthusiasm, So Tamworth has given the world viral potatoes, heroic livestock, cars that fall over in a breeze.
It’s also where Sir Robert Peel is originally from, you know, the guy that founded the police force, but maybe we shouldn’t go too deeply into that.
Let’s, yeah, sort of scan over that one a little bit. But one more thing about Tamworth is that we were once ranked third in the country for teenage pregnancy.
I mean, I know, I know it’s not exactly a tourism slogan, but for me, that one always hit a bit close to home because I, this is nothing to be proud of, I was the one running this education programme at the school where I taught at the time.
And you know, nothing says effective educator does it like a town full of, oh, bless them, GCSEs and push chairs. And I promise I’m not being judgmental when I say this, it probably sounds like I am,
I know, I’m honestly not, this is what it meant for me and my lack of, I don’t know, perhaps I just wasn’t putting those condoms on the bananas effectively enough.
That was actually a thing that I used to have to do. Order the bananas, put the condoms on the bananas, and then count the bananas and the condoms back in at the end of the lesson.
Because if you didn’t do that, you definitely have complaints from the bus drivers that were taking the kids home at the end of the day because there’d be banana-filled condoms flying around and all sorts of things.
Oh dear, yeah, so, yeah, and also I should say that I’ve stayed in touch with some of those girls that I did teach that did have babies when they were very young and, bless them, they’ve done a much better job than I ever could have because I struggled
enough when I started having babies in my mid to late 20s, you know, so it’s such a huge thing to be able to do. And it really makes me cross when people are so dismissive and look down upon the whole
teenage mum thing. It’s hard work, it’s really hard to do it right. And yeah, I see some of them sometimes and yeah, they’re doing cracking jobs,
and that’s genuinely not meant to sound patronising. That’s the sort of the teacher in me that still exists a little bit looking back at those kids, I guess, and thinking, “Yeah, do you know what, well done, you’ve done a good job
with those little humans.” Okay, so enough about Tamworth, but a couple of weekends ago, I had one of those weird little sort of reality checks that reminds you just how firmly you’re plant or I am planted in
Gen X territory. I put this horror film on Netflix called “Time Cut” — wouldn’t recommend it —
it’s a bit rubbish to be honest, but as I’ve said before, I do like my horror movies. They are sort of my guilty pleasure, and I just sometimes like having them on in the background while I’m doing other things.
So, I thought, “Oh, this looks like a fairly easy to follow kind of things.” So yeah, it’s called Time Cut. It’s about a girl in 2024.
She travels back to 2003 to try and stop her sister being murdered. So it’s this sort of, slightly weird sort of time travel–slasher hybrid. Yeah, like I said,
wouldn’t necessarily recommend it because I just had it on because I find horror films comforting within reason though the certain horrors that I can’t sit through. Slasher themes don't bother me at all.
My favourite horrors are sort of the creepy exorcism kind of horrors. Even though I have no religious beliefs, they really scare me the most, I think. So there’s something going on there, isn’t there?
The ones I can’t stand are, yeah, the ones I’ve turned off before now have been things like… there’s one called “Eden Lake” and there’s one called “Wolf Creek”. And they have, they’ve sort of have these prolonged scenes of people enjoying torturing people.
I can’t, I can’t do that. So, not that I can’t torture…, I can’t, I can’t torture people… I’m not, no, okay, let’s redo that…
Yeah, I can’t bear to watch that. I don’t find that remotely entertaining. Whereas, you know, oh, somebody’s been possessed by the devil.
Or, oh, somebody’s having their arm chopped off with a chainsaw. That’s all right. That’s all fine.
I’m not coming out of this well, am I? I’m going to move on…!
Anyway, so, yeah, I am, I love a good old horror film. I think, I don’t know what the psychology of it is, but I think it’s something to do with being scared safely.
So for example, I won’t go on a rollercoaster. I’ve never been on a rollercoaster in my life, I can’t stand them.
They, just watching them terrifies me. I hate the feeling of being out of control.
But show me, show me a masked killer, a stalker, people are like, “Oh, yes. Home, this is like a weighted blanket for my soul.” So weird.
But I nearly, a few weeks ago, there was a horror movie convention on in Farnborough. I don’t even know where that is. But I was going to go because Robert Englund himself, that’s Freddy Krueger, was going
to be there and you could pay to have your photo taken with him; I was so close to going.
And, you know what, now, how I’m kind of wishing that I had, despite everything I’m about to say, because Freddy Krueger, he’s iconic. I remember being in high school.
It was one break time. We were in the canteen, and my friend, Sarah Reynolds, if you're listening, “Hi.” You probably don’t even remember this, but I remember it so clearly,
And I hold it largely responsible for me falling down this rabbit hole of horror movies, which has sort of lasted my whole life. She told me the whole plot of “Nightmare on Elm Street”, like she was around a campfire.
I can understand why she’s gone on to become such a successful international teacher, because she’s just got this way of talking and expressing, oh, God, it was just brilliant, so she, yeah, she told the whole plot of Nightmare on Elm Street, and I was hooked.
She, you know, was talking us through it and she was doing that whole “One, two, Freddy’s coming for you,” thing. It was brilliant.
And I can remember being desperate after she told us that, that, that break time in the canteen, to see it. Now again, — this is going to tell you how old I am, —
I had to wait for weeks to be able to get it on VHS from the local video shop. I mean, this was even before Blockbuster was a thing. I mean, how old exactly?
Let’s not think about it. And then when I finally watched it, I was utterly obsessed. And then after that, every new Elm Street film that came out, I was, I was just there for
it. Robert Englund holds this sort of weird nostalgic space in my heart. And I’ve seen interviews with him and he’s always this, he’s just a lovely, lovely guy.
And I priced up going to this horror convention, largely just so that I could meet him and get my picture taken with him and the, you know, the knife fingers glove and everything. And by the time I’d factored in all the boring stuff, you know, petrol, parking, entrance
fees, blah, blah, blah, blah. It was going to cost me over £300, probably near £400. And I didn’t go, I mean, now I’m kind of regretting it.
I don’t know where I would have gotten that money from. I haven’t just suddenly got, you know, spare cash to do that, but yeah, absolutely classic.
And this is very much a first world problem, isn’t it? But you know, where else am I going to meet Freddy Krueger? So I am a little bit sad about that.
But anyway, so what was I saying? So going back to that slightly rubbish horror film, Time Cut. So there’s this bit where she arrives in the early 2000s and everyone’s like, “Whoa,
what are you wearing?” Because she’s supposed to look futuristic, right? But to me she just looked normal.
So she’s travelled from 2024 back to 2003. Like I just looked at her and I thought, “Well, I can’t see the difference.” I don’t know the difference between early 2000s fashion and now.
Isn’t it just the same? But then I can hear how ridiculous that is because, you know, in 1990 if someone had said, “Oh, God, the fashions today are the same as in 1970.”
Of course, I’d have gone “Don’t be so stupid. Everything is completely different.” So is that a sign that I’m just this old woman now that is still dressing, you know,
so, I don’t know, oh, God, it’s horrible that you sort of realise, you suddenly realise your age and you’re thinking about things you haven’t thought about before.
With makeup as well, I see girls online. So these young, beautiful girls online mocking 90s makeup trends and I think, “Oh, that’s, I think that’s just my face.”
Because, you know, it’s still, to me I’m still doing the same things I’m sure I am that I was doing back in the 90s and it is sort of, I think what I’ve got on my side is that I’ve got two daughters who are 19 and 24.
So they do kind of tweak things for me a bit and they’ll, you know, they don’t pull their punches and they will, yeah, tell me if something looks off or if I need to change anything. So yeah, that’s kind of, I guess, maybe that’s helping and there’s not been any massive changes
that I’m aware of but enough. Thanks to the fact that I’ve got young people living with me once they’ve moved out, anything could happen, couldn’t it? I’m going to look like a real throwback and that’s quite, quite a scary thought. Although
not particularly for me, I’m not necessarily the one that’s got to look at it, am I? I’m just going to look like this, you know, it’ll be, “our bless her. You can see when she was having a good days, can’t you?
You can tell her best days are behind her, oh it’s tragic.” Anyway, so changing the subject completely. I’ve started doing more comparing lately, so hosting comedy nights.
So that’s something I’ve always been a little bit nervous about because I think, because I’ve seen so many brilliant, brilliant, compares so many people who are really good at hosting and I’m very aware that if you’re a shit comedy night host, you can ruin a night, can’t you?
You know, you can sort of, although, you know, there’s that assumption that you’re not the one that’s there that’s meant in inverted commas to be “funny.” But you are because you have to read the room, you have to balance the atmosphere, you have
to keep any dickheads in line, you have to, you know, lift up anybody that, might not quite be feeling it, you have to prepare people for the kind of vibe that they’re about to get with the next act, whatever.
And if you struggle to do that, you, yeah, like I say, you can ruin a comedy night. So I’ve been watching, um, Laura Lexx who has been doing this thing where she’s been putting, um, her MC-ing online and then she does a full sort of breakdown of what she’s, what was going
through her head, what she was thinking about, um, why she says the things that she does, the moments where she’s thinking, “Oh shit, this isn’t going the way that I wanted it to go.”
Or she’ll say, “Look at this person’s odd reaction,” or, “Look at my odd reaction, I wish I’d dealt with that differently.” And it’s brilliant.
It’s a perfect example of sort of, yeah, I’ll watch brilliant hosts and all you’ll see is that sort of, that age old metaphor of the swan gliding across the lake. But what Laura is doing is really talking me through the sort of the swan’s legs flapping
underneath the water. And I’m so grateful to that for that. It’s making me kind of go, “Ah, okay, it is all right to have those feelings.
Oh, shit, am I doing well enough while I’m doing this? What’s the next thing they’re going to say? I’ve got to make sure that I’m sort of one step ahead and I’ve got a comeback for that.”
Or I’m, you know, like I said, not trying to be overly funny but making sure that I’m keeping control of the night and it’s clear that I’m the safe pair of hands linking everything together.
So yeah, I’m really, really grateful to her for doing that, I think it’s absolutely brilliant. I wish more people were doing it because obviously there’s so many different styles of
comparing and it’s brilliant watching her and I’m finding it fascinating seeing the train of thought that she goes through. But yeah, I’d love to see more people doing that and talking about it.
I used to host much more when I very, very first started doing comedy because I think it’s that thing or ignorance is bliss. I didn’t know what I was doing and I just thought, you know, “Oh, how hard can it be?”
Oh my god, I’m so embarrassed I used to think that. But yeah, I just kind of used to do a little bit of material, talk to the crowd and not
overthink it, whereas now that I’ve been going for a few years and I, as I say, I’ve watched so many brilliant compares I get right inside my head about it and worry about not being good enough, but it is something
that I’m doing more of and it is really comforting to know that actually even people that you look at and are in awe of and think, “Oh my god, you’re amazing at this. How are you doing it so competently, so confidently, not sort of batting an eyelid when anything
gets thrown at you? And actually, inside you’re going, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.” I love that.
Absolutely brilliant. Sort of that, just, you know, speaking the truth and being brutally honest about it, it’s so helpful.
What I will say and what I’m finding so difficult to get my head around is that underneath nearly every clip that Laura posts, there will always be at least one man going, “Not for me,” or slanging off her appearance, but just every time and it’s exhausting and she is dealing with
it like a true pro, she’s a woman and a half because I had to turn off my TikTok comments, not that I use it a great deal, I post one really silly video a week that’s probably about 10 to 15 seconds long, it’ll just be a really silly, I don’t know, play on words or something
daft. But even underneath those, I would just get unpleasant comments and I know you’re supposed to leave your comments on because that’s what pushes your video out more, but I just couldn’t
deal with them, my skin just isn’t thick enough. So I turned comments off and hey, you know, again, first world problems, hardly the end of the world is it, but I thought that’s just for me being really silly, but loading silly clips,
it’s really not a big deal, it’s not that deep and yet people take time out of their day to comment on it. Laura is putting something out there that is important if you’re into this sort of thing
and you care about the way that you perform, you know, and it’s so so helpful and yet people are having to wade in and say negative unpleasant things, but she just kind of deals with it. I think I’m getting the impression now that she’s just ignoring it.
I’ve seen her come back at people a couple of times, but I imagine it must just be absolutely [doorbell rings] exhausting to have to deal with that all the time, uh, somebody at my front door and the dog’s going mad, so if you can hear that, hopefully somebody else will go and answer that.
So just want to say, Laura, if you ever hear this, because we never gig together, but I hope we get to do that one day. Actually, you’ll probably not want to gig with me because I’ll just be asking you a million
questions; no I won’t, I promise. But I think you’re just an absolute legend for sharing sort of the messiness behind the magic and for sharing your working out, I guess, for giving people like me permission
to be a little bit scrambly, to know that it’s kind of okay not to feel as though you’re totally in control. I’m so grateful to you for that.
And for flipping the bird to the trolls as well, absolute wankers. So yes, thank you for doing that. I massively appreciate it.
Right, that’s, I think that’s me done for now, that’s everything I wanted to talk about, so thank you for listening, if you have. I’ve enjoyed just this sort of random train of thought, and yeah, hopefully I’ll see you next
time. Take care. [ENDS]