Alex Horne – The Flank

The Transcript:

Stuart: Welcome to get Shirty, the podcast where we ask our guests about the things in life that just never failed to irritate and get them all shirty. The chat focuses on home, work and going out, but could go anywhere. And it’s not all doom and gloom as each guest gets a made to measure shirt, which they design. So we talk about that, too. Funny that.

Taskmaster’s assistant Alex Horne joins the podcast to discuss Taskmaster

Ah, us being tailors m. It’s new episode time, and our guest is someone who everybody knows is actually much taller in real life. Yes, it’s Alex Horne. We spent a really enjoyable afternoon with the man often described by the Taskmaster as little Alex Horne. I know you’re doing the voice in your head. Alex is not only the Taskmaster’s assistant, but also the creator of Taskmaster, an author, a comedian extraordinaire, and the singer and band leader of the horn section, who do a podcast and a tv show and are currently on tour across the UK until the end of the year. Do get your tickets if you haven’t yet. of course we discussed Taskmaster. We aren’t mad, but we also discussed becoming the oldest person in the world. We met Alex’s dog and fish finger sandwiches. Even get another mention. I’m not obsessed, I promise. This was also our first podcast away from the shop, so that was fun.
Get Shirty podcast is our first podcast away from the shop
So here we go. One guest, two mics, three tailors and a host of irritations. Let’s get shirty. Alex, welcome to the get Shirty podcast.
Alex Horne: Thank you, Stuart.
Stuart: My pleasure. It’s lovely to be here and, for, taking up your time and not even in the shop, this is our first podcast away.
Alex Horne: Is it your first one? I didn’t realise that.
Stuart: Away from the shop.
Alex Horne: Well, I’m honoured you came all the way out here. It was from road trip. Road trip.
Stuart: Yeah, I know it was a nice road trip, but, they wouldn’t let me buy any sweets for the journey. No, Sam wouldn’t let you buy. I’m, so sorry to Stuart.
Alex Horne: Yeah. But I do know you’ve had a fish finger sandwich.
Stuart: I did have a fish finger sandwich. That’s right. I wasn’t the only one who ate. It wasn’t just that. I didn’t just sit and make them watch me eat, which is what I do at the shop, obviously.
Alex Horne: So why. Why am I not in your shop? Is it because you’ve been nice to me?
Stuart: Because we are. yes, you seemed quite busy.
Alex Horne: Right.
Stuart: And so with everybody, we sort of give the option of saying, well, look, you know, if you can’t get to us. We’ll come to you.
Alex Horne: Oh, I feel like a diva now. Well, quite pleased.
Stuart: As soon as we got the email, we went, he’s a diva.
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Stuart: This is going to be a difficult one, but no, it was, yeah. So we thought, why not?
Alex Horne: Great.
Stuart: You are, You are the first road trip. we took, a few pictures on the way up, and actually we’re with the fish finger sandwich. Not of the fish finger sandwich, but we took a few photos there.
Alex Horne: Wow. So it’s a whole experience for the listener.
Stuart: It really is, yeah, it really will be.
Alex Horne: And if there are no more road trip podcasts, I’ll know that’s my fault.
Stuart: Well, it will be you that has. Yeah. Essentially just killed that.
Alex Horne: Yeah. Okay, well, I’ll be listening curiously.
Stuart: Good
So today we’re, uh. We’ll talk about your shirt
So today we’re, It’s the get shirty podcast. So we talk about, We’ll talk about your shirt. We have just gone through quite speedily, actually. You were very decisive.
Alex Horne: I appreciate that. I enjoyed the process. I think I was slightly dreading that bit.
Stuart: Oh, yeah.
Alex Horne: Because I’ve never done it before. I just normally go to TK Maxx because then they’re arranged into which size. You just know those are the only six shirts you can choose from. Only one of them is nice. I’ll take that one home.
Stuart: Yeah. Actually, there’s something. Something to be said for that, that sort of ease of shopping. Yeah, but that’s what this should. That’s what tailoring should be, though, I think.
Alex Horne: Well, you made it easy because you held my hand through it, but it’s a bit like building a.
Stuart: Can I let go of your hand now?
Alex Horne: No, never. This is what we’re always gonna do now. But I can never build my own house because there’s so many decisions to make, you know, door handles, windows shape, whereas. And it’s sort of the same with the shirt. But you got me through some of the difficult backplate sections.
Stuart: Well, yeah, well, which is the tricky part. But you did do very well.
Alex Horne: Okay.
Stuart: I know. It’s funny, actually, with tailoring, there’s. I mean, we didn’t even look at suits or anything like that, but with a suit, there are. When you’ve got an option to change anything, the temptation is to change everything, you know, but actuall keep it simple and, you know, go with what works well for you.
Alex Horne: But, yeah, you’re right, because there’s so many options to go for. Just. Can I just have a plain white shirt? yeah, that would seem a wasted opportunity.
Stuart: We’ve. We’ve had. We’ve had a number of those.
Alex Horne: Haven’t really.
Stuart: No, I think it’s three really plain white. I know. Whereas yours is not.
Alex Horne: No, it’s got. Am I allowed to say what’s going on?
Stuart: You feel free. Yeah.
Alex Horne: Well, we know it’s got a couple of cars on it.
Stuart: At least two.
Alex Horne: Yeah. One red, one blue.
Stuart: Yes, very good. Yeah.
Alex Horne: Good.
Stuart: M details. Hint of a surfboard.
Alex Horne: A hint of a surfboard. Yeah.
Stuart: Leafy palms.
Alex Horne: Yes. And we’ve gone for a red triangle detail on the. Just above the hip. What is that? Where is that bit? The flank. Yeah.
Stuart: So it’s like the hem of the shirt. Yeah. But we will call it the flank from now on.
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Stuart: Flank the triangle.
Alex Horne: Flank.
Stuart: The triangle. Flank. Yeah.
Alex Horne: And, ah, inside the cuffs as well. We’ve got some colour. Is that right?
Stuart: Yeah. Inside the cuff. Yeah. So we picked out some accent colours from the pattern of the shirt.
Alex Horne: Burgundy. Good.
Stuart: Yeah, very nice. It’s gonna look. It’s gonna look nice, actually.
Alex Horne: I’ll wear it. I’ll wear it somewhere, like if I have to go on the chase or something and then you can spot me.
Stuart: Yeah. Well, hey, that’d be great. you’ve done the chase a couple of times, actually.
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Stu enjoys Gladiators more than he should
You get to make any money for charity. Oh, so that’s one of those shows where you potentially could win 100,000 pounds for charity in the last round. But in fact, I’ve lost 100,000 pounds for charity. It’s awful. You feel very sad afterwards, but, yeah, it’s,
Stuart: I can imagine. It’s the sort of thing where you take on the responsibility, you feel like it’s a, you know, rather than whatever you leave with, you know.
Alex Horne: Yeah. It’s all or nothing with that one. And the chasers are, ah, the chasers, they take. No, they show no mercy in that. And I know some of the chasers because Paul Sinho has done my show.
Stuart: Oh, of course he has. Yeah.
Alex Horne: And so he takes you down even though it’s. Even though he’s the one who’s stealing the money for charity. Really?
Stuart: Is it all going straight in his pocket?
Alex Horne: Yeah. No, I don’t know where it goes, that’s why. To Bradley Walsh, I think.
Stuart: Yeah. Probably, highest paid chap on tv. So,
Alex Horne: Ah, I do think he’s very good.
Stuart: Yeah. Are you watching gladiators?
Alex Horne: I’ve watched one episode of Gladiators. I did sit my kids down because it’s very hard to find a programme to watch as a family. but they were less into it than I was at their age. But I think that’s the TikTok generation. They can’t concentrate. But they also, actually, to give them credit, they did prefer to be outside pretending to be gladiators than inside watching them.
Stuart: Oh, that is pretty good. That’s pretty good. I have to say, I’m enjoying gladiators probably more than I should.
Alex Horne: Okay.
Stuart: But, you know, the embarrassing thing is I was saying, yeah. But when I was growing up, I watched the gladiators and I really enjoyed it. And then I looked up the dates that the first gladiators went out and I was 20, so I was probably older than I should have been.
Alex Horne: Yeah, it’s just great you’re on the throne. It’s really funny.
Stuart: Does anybody sit in that?
Alex Horne: No, because it’s the worst place. It’s the only place we could. Because it doesn’t face the telly. Yeah, yeah. No, I like that you’re a teleport. No, not in any way.
Stuart: We’ll be driving back and I’ll go, Stu, you sat in the throne.
Alex Horne: And he’ll be like, I know, what was I thinking? People do, but not very often just because we’ve got another room where we, you know, this is kind of the grown up tele room.
Stuart: Right, okay.
Alex Horne: But it suits you, Stu. It does. You’re pulling it off. Well, first of all, I’ve done any.
Stuart: Sort of sound engineering from a throne.
Alex Horne: Yeah, yeah.
Stuart: I’m, happy about that. That’s not me. Heavy breathing yeah.
Alex Horne: Apologies for the dog.
Stuart: That’s all right. It’s nice
So this is another first. It’s not her first podcast
So this is another first. It’s the first podcast dog.
Alex Horne: Yeah. It’s not her first podcast. She’s been on quite a few.
Stuart: Right. Is this your, is this your favourite one, though?
Alex Horne: Oh, this is her favourite one. She didn’t get this much attention normally.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: Ah, completely naked. The dog.
Stuart: Yeah. Few.
Alex Horne: She has got an outfit. She’s got a Cheshire munited kit. So we go to the Cheshire United quite often. That’s our local team. And they sell dog outfits. Home. Home knitted by the bloke who works in the shop’s mum.
Stuart: Oh, really? And how’s that going? Because, I know you’re sort of involved with the club, aren’t you?
Alex Horne: It’s going well. So I’m a director of the club and they’re top of the league, which is great, but tailoring wise, I don’t always bring it back to tailoring.
Stuart: Please do.
Alex Horne: But on f. I didn’t realise that on FA cup day you have to wear a tie and a suit.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: And I got turned away from the director’s box. He wasn’t well dressed enough. And I quite like traditions. Yeah, like that. And I was watching, there was an old footage of Chelsea Leeds Fa cup final in 1970, I think, and everyone in the crowd wearing a tie.
Stuart: The whole thing.
Alex Horne: Yeah. Like going to theatre now. People don’t dress up and.
Stuart: No, that very much used to be a thing, didn’t it? it’s funny with having, a tailoring business, there is still a certain section of the public which still do that tradition. We get quite a lot of, like, fathers bringing in their son, saying, right now it’s your turn to get a tailored suit. Not as much as we used to, but we do get some of that tradition.
Alex Horne: So weddings, horse racing.
Stuart: Yeah, yeah. We don’t get too much where we are, actually. Horse racing, weddings, for sure. we’ve done a few for the palace. Going to the palace. Good couple for the Baftas.
Alex Horne: Lovely. Well, that’s interesting. Yeah. Because I just wear. I have been to the Baftas and one at BAfta. I have won a BAFTA.
Stuart: Yeah. Yeah.
Alex Horne: Thank you for being on that.
Stuart: That’s all right.
Alex Horne: But I think I thought, oh, I should get a suit made for this because you see somebody else whose made looks amazing.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: Whereas I’ve got my marks and Spencers or TK Max one.
Stuart: Yeah. Yeah.
Alex Horne: Well, you know, I’ll come and talk to you again.
Stuart: Yeah, do.
Alex Horne: If it ever happens again.
Stuart: Well, I’m sure it will. Yeah. That was, So that was for Taskmaster.
Alex Horne: Yeah. But we. It’s a bit like. So I am a football fan. So Liverpool won the league during lockdown, and we won up after. During lockdown. So we didn’t get to go to the ceremony. It was all over Zoom. which was quite nice in a way, because we all watched in the living room with the kids.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: And then had a sort of party here, but just the family.
Stuart: Yeah. Yeah.
Alex Horne: Whereas if we gone to London, the kids wouldn’t have been there, so it wasn’t. It was nice in a way, but you didn’t have the big party.
You measured me very thoroughly. You measured my elbows. Nobody expects the elbow measure
Stuart: So. Shirts done.
Alex Horne: Shirts.
Stuart: And so let’s look at.
Alex Horne: Can I ask a question?
Stuart: Yeah, yeah.
Alex Horne: How long does it take to make a shirt?
Stuart: Well, it depends how quickly someone needs.
Alex Horne: It, but it’s not an emergency.
Stuart: Yeah, a few. no. So with our shirt makers, generally, we ran about six weeks.
Alex Horne: Well, you did. You measured me very thoroughly. You measured my elbows.
Stuart: We did.
Alex Horne: Which I wasn’t. Expecting?
Stuart: Yeah, well, it’s. Nobody expects the elbow measure. Yeah. there’s all sorts of strange measures that we didn’t have to do, but we’ll keep those to ourselves.
Alex Horne: You didn’t seem impressed or moved by any of my measurements. There wasn’t one where you went, whoa, 42.
Stuart: No. Well, I was hoping for somewhere you just preempted quite a lot of them by saying, I’m not this and I’m not that.
Alex Horne: it’s a fairly standard body. Mine. I think it’s pretty unimpressive. It sort of does the job.
Stuart: What I like is your confidence in it.
Alex Horne: Oh, I’m perfectly happy with it, but, yeah, I mean, I’m glad it’s covered up. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s mostly covered up.
Stuart: So are we at that?
Alex Horne: Yeah, yeah.
Stuart: Well, do you know the bits during taskmaster that we sit at home and go, oh, poor Alex. When you have to do a thing where they seem to make you take. Yeah.
Alex Horne: So I used to think, poor Alex. Now it goes through my head. I basically think, oh, my mother in law’s gonna see this. Yeah, she’ll be cross. But, but I also know they’re often the funniest bits, and I think they wouldn’t be funny if I had a sculpted body that I was keen to get out. Then it. There’s a sort of theory in comedy that you shouldn’t be attractive and a comedian
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: It’s one or the other in America. Quite a lot of the comics are, buff. Yeah. And that’s. You don’t need to be. You don’t need comedy if you’re buff. No, it’s much funnier if you’re slightly sloppy. So, yeah, no, I’m happy to take my clothes off for Taskmaster, but not in real life.
Stuart: Yeah, well, I’m, not happy to take my clothes off.
Alex Horne: Really.
Stuart: M ever.
Alex Horne: Right.
Stuart: M. But I have a taskmaster question. Do you really eat anything? Yeah, but do you mind that or is that just.
Alex Horne: No, I’m very happy to eat anything. My dad hadn’t got any taste buds. We’ve discovered he will just, he doesn’t notice anything that goes in. It’s all just food. And I think I’m going that way. So rig, I can pretty much switch off my taste buds and just eat it. I don’t really care.
Stuart: you, like, give proper, serious reviews. Oh, it’s a bit this. And actually, that’s always crunchy.
Alex Horne: Yeah, yeah. oh, I take it very seriously. It was very first series, Tim key had to cook me a meal using ingredients starting with every letter of the Alphabet. And that included dog food and quinoa. Yeah, and I didn’t like the quinoa actually. But the dog food was fine. It was all right. He made his own pasta. Yeah. So I think once you’ve eaten that, it’s fair game.
Stuart: Yeah, it’s that’s fair kind. Some of them you do. I do look and think it’s amazing.
Alex Horne: How squeamish some people are about food. But no, that’s one of my strengths. All weaknesses, I don’t know. I’ve got no wine. I don’t care about weakness. I don’t care about wine or. But you did bring nice biscuits, which I haven’t started eating. I’m worried there might be. I might have one as a celebration at the end. Is that all right?
Dave Gorman: Sometimes clothing has a life beyond one owner
Stuart: Yeah, of course it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. they are nice. It’s a childhood favourite, those.
Alex Horne: I didn’t know they were still in circulation. Toffee pops.
Stuart: Toffee pops? Yeah, toffee pops. They are. Well, neither did I until the shop next door to our shop there they were on the shelf. So I haven’t seen those, those and viscount biscuits tailors.
Alex Horne: And then Biscuit shop next door where.
Stuart: It sells other things other than just biscuits.
Alex Horne: What’s on the other side?
Stuart: There’s a charity shop the other side. Our office, then the, food shop.
Alex Horne: And do you ever go to the charity shop and look at their suits?
Stuart: Occasionally.
Stuart: Occasionally, yeah. We’ve in fact, we’ve even, we did a home alone inspired window at Christmas and we did get a couple of bits for the window for that.
Alex Horne: Do you think charity shops on the clothing? They should be a little description of the previous owner and it should say dead or alive.
Stuart: I think it should. I don’t know whether they’d be able to do that or just a name. Previous owner. One previous owner very carefully spilled some spaghetti down the front in 1994 or something.
Alex Horne: I was, I had a thing last night and there was a girl there called Claire who was wearing a shirt, a sort of baseball jacket with the word calendar on it. She bought it in a charity shop in Canada and then she was on the tube in London. and the woman opposite her said, oh, I used to have a jacket just like that. and she was canadian. and they got talking and it turned out it was her jacket. Well, it was definitely the same charity shop in Toronto that she put it in two weeks before. Claire had bought it. So this jacket had gone around the world and made its way back to its owner. Yeah, I like stories like that.
Stuart: Yeah, I did. Oh dear. it’s when life sort of throws something back at you that’s previously been put out. It’s good.
Alex Horne: But also when clothing isn’t a throwaway as well, when it sort of has a life beyond one owner.
Stuart: Well and that’s it. Shoes is the, is the latest thing that’s My son’s on the hunt for as many nice shoes. Ah, he really loves his sort of smart clothes.
Alex Horne: Yeah. That generation is shoes rather than alcohol, isn’t it?
Stuart: Yeah, he loves. Well he said he’s twelve.
Alex Horne: Right.
Stuart: And the other day he said well I, I’d really like some nice shoes. Can we go around the charity shops in where we live? I said yeah, yeah we can do if you like to see. But I’ve got thinking where he’s not going to find anything. The very last shop we went in, his size. Perfect. Nice pair of churches.
Alex Horne: Wow. I don’t know what that is.
Stuart: well church’s shoes, they’re about now they’re about 900 pounds a pound.
Alex Horne: Oh my word.
Stuart: Yeah. And so there they were, seven pounds and it’s in.
Alex Horne: Hysterical.
Stuart: Yeah, I know. And they’re also my size. And I said, no, of course, sam. you can have these lovely shoes.
Alex Horne: Well after your child’s the same size as you. Shoe 1012. Wow. yeah, I’m still a bit above mine but Dave Gorman showing that. Yeah.
Stuart: You know he takes a pair of shoes or a jacket and tags it somehow. Yeah.
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Stuart: Follows it around the world. Let’s get shirty. Let’s get to the point of getting shirt. We’ve sort of, we might have covered some of them already actually. But
Get shirty is about the things in life that get shirty
So the I. The other idea with this get shirty is to talk about the things in life that get shirty. I didn’t segue into that particularly well. That was a me shirty.
Alex Horne: Oh well thanks. Pretty good.
Stuart: I’m still new to this. I’m trying my best. but so we look at it from, I realised the other day there’s people out there who won’t really know what I’m talking about. I call it the like the Mars bar effect. That work, rest and play.
Alex Horne: That worked for me.
Stuart: Yeah, well I’m older than you but so, you know, thanks for that.
Alex Horne: That’s all right.
Stuart: But yeah, I realise anybody under sort of 35 isn’t gonna know what that means.
Alex Horne: White wrestling player. Yeah, I don’t know. We do a song in our tour show about the Mister muscles slogan that loves the jobs you hate, which is 1994. And it turns out everyone knows that slogan. Still kids as well. So I think slogans live on. I think you’re all right with. Well, listen, play.
Stuart: It was a, Miles a day. Helps you work, rest and play.
Alex Horne: Yeah. Which isn’t necessarily true, I don’t think.
Stuart: No. I would love to eat a Mars bar a day, but being borderline diabetic, that’s bad. Yeah.
Alex Horne: I don’t think it helps any of those three things, does it? Maybe rest well, not even that.
Stuart: I don’t know if you’re flagging in the afternoon work, maybe a Mars bar.
Alex Horne: It should just be a Mars bar. A day is nice.
Stuart: Yeah. Yeah. Which is. If you seen that, what’s the Dudley Moore film where he has. He’s an advertising exec and he. I think he has an accident, sort of.
Alex Horne: I think someone’s going to do some googling looking that way.
Stuart: Hits himself on the head and when he wakes up, he stops lying about what all the slogans are. So one of them is Volvo. They’re boxy, but they’re good, is what he comes up with. So that’s that approach. It works for me.
So we talk about work first in terms of what gets you shirty
So we talk about work first in terms of what gets you shirty, you know? And there could be many in your line of work, especially being the taskmaster’s assistant.
Alex Horne: Yeah. Crazy people.
Stuart: Crazy people.
Alex Horne: Thank you, Stuart.
Stuart: There you go.
Alex Horne: I think you might have slightly picked the wrong guest because I’m very mild mannered. I don’t often get shirty.
Stuart: Not even in the. Not like, You know, the stuff around. Because we talk about work, home and going out.
Alex Horne: Oh, I can think of some things. But in general, you are very mild. I mean, I’m also very lucky that I do really love the job. And also I think I’ve got the best job in the job in that. So I used to be a runner in tv, right. So the runners get paid the least, turn up first, leave last, work hardest. So I have been through it, but I. But now I’m at the stage where I can arrive last, leave first and get a taxi here and there. So I’m sort of spoiled now. So I’ve got less to complain about. But there are things also, I like the word shirty. And, you know, it’s not getting angry.
Stuart: No.
Alex Horne: It’s sort of. It’s not even techy, is it? It’s just niggly.
Stuart: Niggly. Yeah. So I would say maybe one below techie. And it’s that sort of sit somewhere between irritated and techy. What’s that one below tetchy?
Alex Horne: Sounds like a horn section song, to be honest.
Stuart: Yeah, it does.
Alex Horne: yeah, I mean, so we film outdoors half the time and indoors half the time. And I don’t like the winter filming because it gets dark too quick. it rains too much. So I do get a little bit shirty when it’s the dark hours. But we’re coming out at the moment, so I’m not sure. Yeah, actually, today’s beautiful day. We’re filming on Thursday, and it’s looking good, so. So the weather can get me down. Yeah, but that’s a bit boring.
Stuart: How about when it takes, like, recently, trying to think, there was one of the outdoor tasks where there were all the, dummies of you, and it’s open.
Alex Horne: The champions of champions. Yeah.
Stuart: Yes. It took one person a long time.
Alex Horne: That doesn’t get me shirty. So during tasks, I. When it goes wrong, I love it. When it goes well, I love it.
Stuart: Okay.
Alex Horne: That’s. I don’t get shirty with the contestants unless they just occasionally, they get the better of me.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: or, they find a way of doing something I hadn’t seen coming. Yeah, that. That annoys me.
Stuart: So in the first series, where everybody waited before, they said, your time starts now. And they gave themselves thinking time that seemed. You seem to crack down on that.
Alex Horne: Are we cracking down? Yeah. Every series we start having to introduce more rules.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: I don’t move the red, green, or. Yeah, yeah. You must stay the next line immediately.
Stuart: because there’s always a loop, I suppose, if they think hot.
Alex Horne: Ah, yeah. Richard Osmond was the first person to find the loopholes. He sort of exposed the gaps in them. And I don’t, to be honest, I do like it.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: I feel like when there’s a loophole, but, yeah, I guess if. If all five comedians do something the same way, that’s disappointing.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: because we all, we sort of pride ourselves on the variety that these brains come up with. But that doesn’t happen very often. I tell you what I also like. So this is not what you want to hear.
Stuart: No. Like, you know, it’s very loosely based around really tell us some fun things.
Alex Horne: Well, in work life in general, I I don’t like choosing what to wear. So if I have to go on a chat show or a quiz, and you have to bring in options what to wear, I find that quite stressful.
Stuart: Okay.
Alex Horne: So what I like about task managers is I’ve got a uniform. It’s a white shirt and black marks and Spencer’s suit because they’re disposable and, they do get ripped and they get muddy. So I liked it. And I’ve got a horrible slip on shoes. But I enjoy just never having to think about
So were you a school uniform person? Did you like all over school uniform
Stuart: So were you a school uniform person?
Alex Horne: Did you like all over school uniform? Yeah.
Stuart: So you didn’t like. Well, it wasn’t called mufti. I was gonna say mufti day. We didn’t call it mufti day. It was non uniform day.
Alex Horne: Yeah. After school you could wear kind of whatever shoes you want. And even that was too much pressure. Cause there were some shoes which weren’t cool and some which were. And I found that very difficult to deal with.
Stuart: I brought the wrong high tech trainers once. That was it.
Alex Horne: Yeah. I think my elder brother wore the wrong colour socks once and that was him done for school life.
Stuart: Yeah. Yeah.
Alex Horne: Never recovered from that.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: So I. Yeah. Choosing an app or. I also don’t like it if I brought a new. I’ve got quite a lot of jumpers. I’m wearing one with a teddy bear on.
Stuart: That’s very nice.
Alex Horne: And when you wear what, a new one in. It’s like when you have a haircut and you walk into school the next day and everyone shouts haircut at you. There’s a lot of pressure when you’re wearing a new item.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: Into work and everyone talks about it.
Stuart: Shoes. Shoes get stamped on.
Alex Horne: Yeah. New shoes. Yeah.
Stuart: Ties get. Yeah. Pulled.
Alex Horne: Yeah. Peanut.
Stuart: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.
Alex Horne: This doesn’t happen that often at Taskmaster. I don’t, ah, given a peanut too often.
Stuart: No, thankfully. Thankfully you’ve had some shockers. Has there ever been a time where you’ve gone. No, actually that’s. I don’t want to do that. No.
Alex Horne: Rod Gilbert was the worst. He was the biggest bully. But again, you know, he’s doing it for entertainment and. And he found a really good loopholes around things because there’s one task where he had to tie a rope around himself. Yeah. He had to tie himself up.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: But instead of tying himself up, he tied me up.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: And, actually won the task, so. Yeah. But anytime something bad happens to me, the silver lining is that it’s good for the programme.
The Edinburgh Festival started in 2000 and has evolved hugely since then
Stuart: Ah, I think seeing you being born was quite. That was a watch.
Alex Horne: You know, I can give you a sneak preview of series 18. I get born again.
Stuart: Do you?
Alex Horne: There’s a rebirth. Yeah. I can’t tell you who bores me. Bears me, bore me and m why. But it’s a. It’s a, it’s a whole new birth. It’s not as graphic as Sally Phillips’s one.
Stuart: Yeah, that was.
Alex Horne: But it’s quite a pleasure.
Stuart: It’s really evolved.
Alex Horne: Yeah. This been my third birth.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: So in the show. Yeah, I’ve got married, I’ve had a baby, I’ve been born, I’ve been proposed to five times. So, yeah, a lot happens. I haven’t m died yet. I’ve had a five stag twos.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: I think death, we might end with a death. Probably when we eventually end, there’ll be a funeral and a eulogy.
Stuart: Yeah. Well, hopefully that’s going to be a long way off. Well, it’s hard to think of the task, you know, that’s the thing. I think it must be very hard to keep thinking of tasks.
Alex Horne: That’s not the problem.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: I really enjoyed the thinking of the tasks and I think it’s a bit like writing music or jokes that you’re never going to run out.
Stuart: Right. Okay.
Alex Horne: I think. Cause it’s just infinite combinations of little things. but we potentially could run out of comedians, or comedians who want to do it. So we always try to have a household name in there and, you know, we’re just filming series 18 now, so there’s only so many household names who want to do the show.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: But then more household names become house, you know.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: Newer people come through, so. Yeah.
Stuart: Yes. It was such a great format because it started. I’m sure you’ve gone over all this before, so if I’m making you repeat loads of things, because it started at the fringe, didn’t it?
Alex Horne: Yeah. Most good things do. I think in. In the world of comedy was your first fringe.
Stuart: I think I’ve read 2000.
Alex Horne: Yeah. Maybe. Maybe even 99. I did a show with some students and we got a half star review.
Stuart: Right. excellent.
Alex Horne: In chortle dot co dot uk dot. It was the only review we got. And it’s still up there and it’s still wrinkles.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: Yeah, yeah. Never forgiven them. yes, I think I did go up in 99.
Stuart: Ah.
Alex Horne: Which is when, actually, my wife and I got together as well. So that was. I was more interested in her than the festival. And. Yeah. For every year from 2000 onwards till the kids were born. Yeah.
Stuart: Okay.
Alex Horne: I love the fringe. And people say it’s sort of not quite dying, but it’s. It’s changed. It’s more commercial. And it’s the rents. And so there’s a bit of doom and gloom about Edinburgh at the moment, but there are, there are other sort of growth, shoots, what I’m saying. Other signs of fresh shoots. I don’t know what the phrase.
Stuart: Yeah, you know what I mean? There are, yeah, fresh shoots. That’s.
Alex Horne: Yeah, there’s always new things happening. There’s the free fringe where you don’t have to pay and the audience put money in a bucket afterwards. And I think that’s where it’s happening, rather than the big commercial, huge names going on. It didn’t really help.
Stuart: And it seemed. I saw a, comedian tweeted about how much the rent was to stay there, to perform. M yeah.
Alex Horne: But I would say that in my first five years going up, I never made money. That’s not the point. You’re putting yourself in the shop window, but also you’re just having a laugh and being with like minded people and coming up with stuff.
Taskmaster was never meant to be a tv programme
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: So Taskmaster was never meant to be a tv programme. It’s just meant to be a thing we did once and it just happened to sort of work. So, yeah, I think it’s still an amazing place to just go up and experiment.
Stuart: I’ve never been actually.
Alex Horne: Yeah, you should go.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: Tailoring show. I mean, there’s so many shows there. There’s a guy called George egg who cooks live on stage whilst telling jokes. And you wouldn’t get anywhere else. You wouldn’t get that.
Stuart: No. I don’t know if I could tailor and. Well, I was going to say tailor and tell jokes, but I don’t know if I could tell jokes. No, well, that’s true, actually, tailoring live.
Alex Horne: But, yeah, you’d also. You need to make shirts quicker than six weeks. You need to be a shirt at the end of the episode.
Stuart: Well, we could put fitting together for m a jacket.
Alex Horne: You get a lot of podcasts live nowadays, you know, measuring up. You know, the measuring bit would be. I’d like to watch you measure. Would you, Greg, for example?
Stuart: Yeah, that would be, Yeah, that would be good. Well, feel free to, you know, put that to him and we’ll happily do it.
Alex Horne: Okay.
Stuart: Well, actually, we are speaking of, there’s a Tunbridge, Wales, where we’re from. There is a fringe festival there, and we did. We’re going to do a live podcast.
Alex Horne: There we go. It’s going to be the start of something big.
Stuart: Well, it could be small, tiny, you never know. But we’ll, see. Yeah. So, yeah, we’re gonna do that. It seemed like a good idea when I sort of approached them and said, hey, should we do this? They said yes, and we went way well.
Alex Horne: You know, what does make me shirty in the industry is money, I suppose. Like, you should do stuff like that and you should go to Edinburgh and do things. But money is always seems to be the problem. So we do a podcast with a band. There’s six of us and a sound engineer, and, you know, this is fairly unwieldy. Three of you have to drive quite a long way, bring equipment, and, yeah, we’re the same, we six of us coming from all different directions, meeting in the middle and it takes so much. We were losing money every week, but we love it. But we’re constantly trying to work out a way of making it financially viable.
Stuart: Yeah, it’s very tricky. We’re lucky in that it’s. The podcast isn’t how we make our money, it’s to drive the shop, you know, really, it’s a nice sort of add on for us if it had to be financially viable.
Alex Horne: Yeah, well, in comedy, you see so many people who are brilliant or have written these amazing scripts, but to get that script on screen, there are so many hurdles to get over so much red tape. So, yeah, I guess that’s what I like doing. I like the doing bit, rather than the, meetings and the pitching and all the hoops you’ve got to jump through.
Stuart: So that’s work gets shirty. So that’s what. That’s what actually you ended on. Yeah.
Alex Horne: I got pretty shirty though, didn’t I?
Stuart: You did, yeah. Techy. I did get tetchy, actually. Techy’s a funny one because that’s sort of irritable with other people.
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Stuart: So, yeah, I don’t think. You weren’t tetchy. I wasn’t getting waves of irritation.
Alex Horne: No, no. It was quite short lived as well, wasn’t it, reflection? Yeah, I’m all right getting there.
Stuart: You calm down. Your colour went back to normal.
Alex Horne: Well, I looked at the toffee pops over there again, mate. Got me through it.
Stuart: You got a little treat.
Alex Horne: Yeah, I can’t wait. I’m getting quite. I don’t want to now. I want to look, look forward to it.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: Once I’ve popped the toffee pops, you can’t stop.
Stuart: That’s a different thing.
I find the dishwasher quite therapeutic, so I’m enjoying it
Work, rest, being at home. What are the things that, you know, you don’t have to name names. It’s something I’ve said to everybody, if there’s a particular person in the household that does a particular thing. Dishwasher come up more than once, hasn’t it?
Alex Horne: See, I don’t mind the dishwasher. I find the dishwasher quite therapeutic.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: We’ve now got a dishwasher. What I didn’t used to like about it was the cutlery, section.
Stuart: Okay.
Alex Horne: Because I was a big fan of putting all the forks together in one area and the spoons in one. And then I was told that they don’t get cleaned that way because the forks. This is the sort of stuff you want in your pork.
Stuart: It’s exactly this. Yeah. So the forks will sit in each other. Yeah.
Alex Horne: But when you take them out, you just grab them in one hand. But now we’ve got a third layer to our dishwasher. We’ve got plates, bowls, cups, then a little slidey, little shallow shelf at the top. And I’m enjoying that. They all lie down next to each other. They’ve got little segments. They don’t sit, and also, they can’t touch each other because they’re little segments. So I’m enjoying the dishwasher. I don’t mind drying up either, because that’s a little bit of peace and quiet, and it means I’m not on my phone for a bit. The phone is the thing that winds me up.
Stuart: Right. Okay.
Alex Horne: And trying to, every now and again, I have this wave of thinking, oh, my God, what am I doing to my children? You know, we’ve all tried to get our kids off phones, but.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: And they’re meant to be limits, but I think they’ve worked out how to get around that.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: And it’s easier not to pester, so I’ve got to be a tougher parent at some point and get them off the phones. But it’s also getting myself off my phone, so. Yeah, washing up gets me off my phone.
Stuart: Yeah. Well, that’s good. It’s, Yeah, phones aren’t good. It. See, with me with dishwashers, I just like them loaded a particular way. So it sounds like you’ve got your system.
Alex Horne: I’ve got a system, yeah. Sometimes my wife puts, saucepans in there.
Stuart: Right. Okay.
Alex Horne: And that you don’t, then why? It just sort of blows my mind that she thinks that you can do that. So, I mean, I thought you could.
Stuart: Can you?
Alex Horne: Well, whatever she says goes, yeah. But I would never think of putting the saucepan. That’s just out the box thinking, yeah.
Stuart: What, putting a saucepan in?
Alex Horne: Would you ever put, like, a pair of shoes in there? Like, why wouldn’t you put a pair of shoes in there?
Stuart: would you?
Alex Horne: You put them in the washing machine? Sometimes.
Stuart: Trainers.
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Stuart: Yeah, that’s true. Especially if you put them in one of those little special bags. Yeah, but I’m not.
Alex Horne: I’m always a bit confused by what the difference is between a dishwasher and a washing machine.
Stuart: That’s for clothes.
Alex Horne: Yeah, but why can’t the clothes go in the dishwasher? I get why cutlery? Why crockery? They need to go running around. Are they? Ok. all right.
Stuart: That’s good. Yeah.
Alex Horne: Ok. You’ve cleaned the glue up.
Stuart: You can cook a fish in a dishwasher.
Alex Horne: Can you cook a fish in a dishwasher? Should you?
Stuart: I don’t think you should, but you can.
Alex Horne: Ok.
Stuart: There is enough heat and steam in a dishwasher to cook.
Alex Horne: Wow. So it comes out clean and cooked.
Stuart: Yeah, exactly.
Alex Horne: Ok, well, I’ll be doing that just.
Stuart: As Rachel leaves me
Amy: I saw something the other day which is dishwasher madness
Alex Horne: Finally.
Stuart: just as a quick aside, when we’re talking about dishwashers, I saw something the other day which is dishwasher. You know, it got me shirty or it, was a moment of madness, for sure. Have you seen the video of Sarah Beanie, of the household tv fame?
Alex Horne: Big fan of Sarah beanie.
Stuart: She’s a very nice person. I was lucky enough to meet her once. She was very nice. What she does in her house. She has one drawer, and when the dishwasher’s gone through, she takes the thing and just tips the whole thing.
Alex Horne: In plates and bowls?
Stuart: No, just the cutlery. Just tips them in and just tips it into one drawer. Wow. So they’re all loose. Amy, what are you doing in one drawer? That’s madness, surely.
Alex Horne: That is extraordinary.
Stuart: Yeah. I mean, and we trust her. We trust her, with our household investments.
Alex Horne: Are you sure this could have been an AI. Deep fake?
Stuart: Well, it might have been. We’ll have to look that up. So she’s just got a big drawer.
Alex Horne: I mean, what’s she doing with other aspects of her life if she’s doing that? What’s her sort of underwear drawer look like?
Stuart: Well, just thrown in.
Alex Horne: Surely socks are in a different drawer.
Stuart: You would. You would think so.
Alex Horne: Everything else.
Stuart: Yeah. They’ve got. They’ve got to be paired.
Alex Horne: Yeah
Stuart: Balled up.
Alex Horne: Gotta be.
Stuart: Yeah, surely it’s got to be. And don’t put those in the dishwasher. I mean, you could. Well, you could try it. The fish in the top could be done. So it’s so dishwasher’s okay.
Alex Horne: That’s quite my calm zone.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: I’m not great just to bring it back to clothes for a second.
Stuart: Yeah, I.
Alex Horne: This winds me up. Shoelaces.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: I get irritated every time I put a pair of shoes on.
Stuart: Okay.
Alex Horne: Because it feels so. Such a basic. I think we should. We’re beyond having to tie our shoes, and I don’t understand why we haven’t embraced velcro more or zips or on shoes.
Stuart: Zips would be good.
Alex Horne: even I don’t mind a buckle.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: But they’re having to tie two little knots every time you put your shoes on. I feel like that’s a waste of my time, so.
Are you disciplined enough to undo shoelaces when you take your shoes off
Stuart: Well, are you a. Are you disciplined enough to undo, the shoelaces when you take your shoes off, or are you kicking from the heels?
Alex Horne: I would kick from the heels. And I know, you know, I should be telling off my children for doing that, but they do it, and I’m all for them doing it. I think you’re just wasting your life. You know, you don’t want to get to your deathbed and think, I spent 15% of my life tying, ah, my shoes up.
Stuart: yeah. And have you worked. Have you worked that out?
Alex Horne: It’s about at least 15%. My shoes at the moment. I don’t have many shoes.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: I’ve basically got two pairs of shoes, but the laces are slightly too long, so I have to do a triple knot. So not only am I tying them up, then. Gonna untie them.
Stuart: Yeah. That’s not.
Alex Horne: Oh, that winds me out.
Stuart: Twelve years, you reckon?
Alex Horne: If you’re into your 1812 years.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: I’m not sure. I’ve done quite the math on that, but there’s definitely a year of my life, I reckon.
Stuart: Well, we’ll send you something you can get, sort of self tying shoe.
Alex Horne: Really?
Stuart: Yeah. Ah, which are. Have you seen these? they’ve got, like, a telephone cord type twirl on each end.
Alex Horne: Okay.
Stuart: So you just.
Alex Horne: They look good. It doesn’t matter.
Stuart: Well, they look. I mean, they look interesting.
Alex Horne: Yeah. Yeah, I’d be interested in that.
Stuart: Yeah. And you just throw one bit over the other and they sort of tangle up.
Alex Horne: Do they work?
Stuart: I’m gonna say yes.
Alex Horne: Okay. Okay. I’m gonna hear no.
Stuart: Well, I think. Take from that. I’ve never tried them myself. I’ve seen them, but I think it’s when you.
Alex Horne: Yeah, when you sort of some. I go through busy patches in my life when I am very busy. And at the moment, it is. And I even got slightly cross this morning. I had to go to the toilet. I saw there must be a better system than having to go to the toilet five times a day. yeah, I would just do it once a week for 40 minutes.
Stuart: I mean, sure, you could probably get other things done in that. Exactly.
Alex Horne: Well, you know where it is.
Stuart: Do all your life admin.
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Stuart: For 40 minutes. Yeah, yeah.
Alex Horne: It’s the interruptions I don’t like well.
Stuart: And they always come at slightly the wrong time.
Alex Horne: Yeah, I’m fine at the moment, by the way. That wouldn’t they? Good.
Stuart: Yeah. And the 40 minutes start now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Alex Horne: I don’t think you’ve got a solution for me for that. Have you got a twizzly thing?
Stuart: I’ve got. No, I’ve got, no solution for that. No. But I don’t think I’d like the thought of, carrying that much waste around in me.
Alex Horne: Imagine the relief.
Stuart: Yeah. I mean, I’ll be lucky if I can sort of leave 40 minutes in between, let alone go for 40 minutes.
Alex Horne: You’re not. That’s backwards thinking. Because I think, like, camels do, you know, it’s other animals do it.
Stuart: That’s true.
Alex Horne: It’s just, mindset.
Stuart: Evolution, maybe, and dehydration.
Alex Horne: Yeah. Well, I’ll try it.
Stuart: Okay.
Alex Horne: I could change the course of human.
Many years ago, you were trying to become the oldest man on Twitter
Stuart: Well, actually, one, of the things, I was going to talk to you about, actually, was. Yeah, I was going to the toilet. No, it did sound serious. But you, many years ago, did a thing on Twitter where you were trying to become the oldest man in the world.
Alex Horne: Man, ongoing attempt.
Stuart: Well, and you seem to be doing very well.
Alex Horne: Yeah, I’ve gone up quite a few places since I started.
Stuart: All right.
Alex Horne: So when I was born, I was the worst person in the world at being the oldest person in the world. I was the youngest person in the world briefly, until that title snatched from me.
Stuart: Damn it.
Alex Horne: But, yeah, no, I still think I’m on track. I actually got sponsored by innocent smoothies to be the oldest man in the world for a year. They paid me a wage to be healthy and not die, and I didn’t die. And I was hoping this was going to go on for the rest of my life, but they sort of saw that they can’t lose quite a lot of money here.
Stuart: The thing is back in. Because that was 2010.
Alex Horne: Was it?
Stuart: I think.
Alex Horne: Oh, this is good to know.
Stuart: Yeah. And the reason I know that is because that was the first time we ever had any interaction.
Alex Horne: Is that right?
Stuart: It is. So there are, three or four we tweeted back and forth.
Alex Horne: Right.
Stuart: And I am one of the people that you are following on that. Wow.
Alex Horne: See, I’m off Twitter because I got hacked last. About three weeks ago and I still not back on. And actually, I’m quite enjoying the piece. It’s like a holiday, but, oh, it’s.
Stuart: Nice to still be in touch with you.
One way of becoming the oldest is to kill everyone older than you
So, 14 years later, we’ve finally met in. In person.
Alex Horne: But you are one of my nemeses, being older than me.
Stuart: Well, that’s true.
Alex Horne: One way of becoming the older, oldest person in the world is to kill everyone older than you. Yeah, it’s the extreme method.
Stuart: Well, it’s quite extreme. Are we. Will we be allowed to leave today? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re all right.
Alex Horne: No offence, you. I don’t see you as an imminent threat.
Stuart: No. As due to the general look of ill health.
Alex Horne: Well, I think, you know, I think probably women are more of a problem because it’s oldest person in the world rather than oldest man in the world. So I don’t know how I’m going to get through this. Men just men don’t.
Stuart: Oh.
Alex Horne: So, you are a problem.
Stuart: You shouldn’t have googled.
Alex Horne: Yeah, yeah. No, I don’t know if I will. I’m confident and I’ll get to the top ten, I reckon.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: But that little bit, you know, when there’s gonna be an old woman in France who’s older than me and that’ll be really annoying.
Stuart: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it will. But look, we’re here to support you.
Alex Horne: Thank you.
Stuart: You know, we’ve had you back since.
Alex Horne: Well, every funeral we go to. Yeah, there’s a silver lining.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: There’s another one gone.
Stuart: Yeah. Yeah. Ah, I’m that little bit higher up the ladder.
Alex Horne: Yeah. I think I like to be the oldest person in, you know, bit by bit, like the oldest person in the town, then. The oldest person in the county.
Stuart: Yeah, yeah. Slowly. Yeah, yeah. Sort of take over the world that way.
Alex Horne: Exactly.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: Because I’ve never been the best at anything.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: I think I’ll be the best at being the oldest.
Stuart: But surely now you’re the best taskmaster’s assistant.
Alex Horne: Well, no, probably not, because, now it happens in other countries and I quite often get told that the one in New Zealand is actually funnier, or the one in Sweden is more efficient.
Stuart: Who would tell you such people tell.
Alex Horne: You things, do they? Yeah. I mean, sometimes I go looking right.
Stuart: Never go, looking.
Alex Horne: There’s something called Reddit, which I was. Well, people send me things, and then you go down a rabbit hole. Yeah, yeah. No, arguably, I’m not the best assistant. I’m definitely not the best looking. I’m definitely not the best dressed either. The one in Sweden’s got a little moustache and a bow tie. You love him.
Stuart: How many countries?
Alex Horne: Yeah, yeah, that’s true. Yeah, that’s true.
So how many countries is it in now, do you know
Stuart: So how many countries is it in now, do you know?
Alex Horne: I don’t know. I think there’s about eight or nine that make their own. They’re the ones I really like. They’re sort of self governing. And the swedish one is much bigger than ours in their country. It’s Saturday night, sort of glitzy entertainment.
Stuart: Right. Okay.
Alex Horne: format.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: So it’s much bigger there, which is, which is extraordinary. I was in Portugal recently in a bar and didn’t realise it was on there and looked up. And so it’s a similar set tonight.
Stuart: Okay.
Alex Horne: They’re both on thrones, but I didn’t rewrite. I didn’t know what the task, didn’t know what was going on.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: But that was very surreal. So it’s, you know, that’s, that’s a constant source of.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: Amazement and enjoyment. Yeah, I love it.
Stuart: Yeah. Well, it’s such a great format and it’s constantly, enjoyable. You know, it never stops. Even though it’s the same format, it remains fresh every time you get new people in.
Alex Horne: Well, that’s new people. And we never repeat something. That’s probably the key. But it does mean it’s a bit of a nightmare for us. It’ll be much easier. you watch something like, what’s the one with Ben shepherd? Where the money?
Stuart: tipping point.
Alex Horne: Tipping point. You think that’s one task, but they’ve made it last. That’s the whole show. Have they done that?
Stuart: Have you ever thought about doing the greatest hits where you bring redo tasks? But you know what?
Alex Horne: It’s been suggested and I think we’re just resistant to it because once you’ve sort of broken the seal, someone find a way of doing it. I think you’ll be disappointing. And actually, we’re doing something. The one we’re trying to do, a taskmaster live experience.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: there’s a crystal maze, one we can go and do. The crystal maze, which I love, and taskmaster is kind of ripe for it.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: We had lots of conversations. Would you, when you go into the house, would you want to do tasks that you’ve seen on the telly or new ones, and I think it has to be new ones because otherwise it just that sense of deja vu or. Yeah, you’ve seen how someone else has done it, so, yeah, it’s a challenge every time, but we want it to be fresh.
Stuart: Yeah. That’s a great idea.
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Stuart: I think.
Alex Horne: I think it’s gonna happen.
Stuart: Oh, brilliant.
Alex Horne: But we’ll know. Concrete news, which, it’s that word money again.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: you have to put a bit of a risk into it, but I think it’d be good.
Stuart: Yeah. Yeah, I think it’d be good, too. I’ll definitely go for that.
Brings us round, actually, to going out. I find going out quite tiring
Brings us round, actually, to going out.
Alex Horne: This has been very nice. It has good segue.
Stuart: Played right into my hand.
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Stuart: So, Yeah, going out. Where are your git shirties? Going out?
Alex Horne: I mean, part of it is just leaving the house. I get shirty just leaving the house. I do really like being in the house.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: Because work’s quite, varied. I get quite a lot of my kicks at work, I suppose.
Stuart: Yeah. Yeah.
Alex Horne: And there’s quite a lot of perks to the job and there’s some travel and stuff with the band, so I feel like I’ve got my nightlife as part of the work.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: So I find going out quite tiring. I like going to the pub. I like going for m, a dog walk. I like going to watch a local football team, whereas I find shop going to a shopping centre or a museum. So inordinately tiring.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: I feel like climbing a mountain is less tiring than doing Christmas shopping in a shopping centre.
Stuart: Oh, yeah.
Alex Horne: An hour of it. You feel like you’ve run a marathon. It’s so weirdly tiring.
Stuart: Yeah. Well, is yours added to by a constant? Well, I wasn’t gonna say. I was gonna say other people going. There’s, there’s that.
Alex Horne: There’s a bit of that. I mean, I’m quite frail, ego wise, so I like.
Stuart: Where you wear that giant big sign that says, no, people are very polite.
Alex Horne: Genuine. Generally, I think, because the show. The people who like the show tend to be quite nerdish.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: My sort of people. So, no, I don’t get hassled at all.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: And if. Yeah, generally, if I don’t get spotted, if no one makes eye contact, I think. What?
Stuart: Yeah, I mean, was I wearing my m mask again today?
Alex Horne: Yeah, no, that’s not a problem. It’s just. I just find it exhausting. So I’m sort of into Internet shopping, which is also depressing. So I like the high street.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: and museum. I feel like I should be more cultured than I am.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: but I get very bored in an art gallery.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: I like the first room, and then I’m gone. M so I think I’m disappointed by myself rather, rather than the place. Yeah, I like the gift shop. I’d go straight to the gift shop.
Stuart: Gift shops, good.
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Stuart: See, for me, it’s like galleries, pictures with faces. So the portrait gallery is more interesting than the landscape.
Alex Horne: Oh, yeah, yeah. Do you read the cards?
Stuart: No, I mean, m maybe if the picture, if I think, oh, I like that. I’d like to see more of what they’ve done. Then maybe.
Alex Horne: How long can you look at a picture for?
Stuart: Or not long? No, not long.
Alex Horne: I’m getting through that gallery quick.
Stuart: yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the ones where if you go up close, you see something like the pointillism stuff.
Alex Horne: magic eyes.
Stuart: No, I can’t do those.
Alex Horne: Okay. I go to a gallery which is just magic eyes.
Stuart: Can you do those?
Alex Horne: I can do it.
Stuart: It’s when people go, oh, look, a dolphin. I’m going, I don’t know what that is at all.
Alex Horne: Yeah, it’s always dolphin, but it is.
Stuart: Always a dolphin or some other tribal tattoo.
Alex Horne: Yeah, yeah.
Stuart: Generally they’re the two things, but no, like, where it’s made up of lots of little dots.
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Do you abstract art? Yeah, I quite like body works
Stuart: There’s textures to it.
Alex Horne: I quite like that when they make a face out of other people’s faces. Do you like that?
Stuart: Yeah, that’s all right. Yeah. What the other, yeah, lots of little faces.
Alex Horne: Yeah, I quite like them.
Stuart: Yeah, they’re all right. I don’t, I don’t mind them. I don’t know. This is taking a turn I wasn’t expecting. Abstract for me is abstract art. Is it? Yeah.
Alex Horne: Do you abstract art? Yeah, I quite like an event art thing, like body works. Did you see that one when it was going to somebody where it was all, dead bodies sort of put into different positions? I’m quite into that. It turns out.
Stuart: Yeah. Well, that’s pretty.
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Stuart: And I did the, Anthony Gormley one. That was pretty cool.
Alex Horne: Yeah. Actually, I think I like physical.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: The cloud, three dimensional one.
Stuart: It wasn’t called a cloud in a box. Can’t remember what it was called, but you sort of walked into a giant perspex box and within, you took one step in and you couldn’t see anything right at all. That was a bit weird.
Alex Horne: I went to one which is very, very lifelike sculptures. But I can’t remember the artist and I really like that.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: Were they. They were oversized?
Stuart: Yes. Very good.
Alex Horne: Yeah, I like that one. Yeah. But I feel like that’s. I don’t know if that’s good art, or not. I guess it’s, again, a bit like my taste buds. I don’t have very refined senses of taste or sight or smell.
Stuart: But isn’t that bad? So you have no senses?
Alex Horne: Not really. I mean, I like what I like, but I would happily have a fish finger sandwich or a seven course tasting menu. It’s all kind of. I like it all.
Stuart: Yeah. Yeah. Which is just everything.
Alex Horne: I think. I like everything.
Stuart: Yeah. Well, hey, if you like everything, then there’s. There’s little chance of being disappointed.
Alex Horne: Yeah, well, the same with cars as well. I can’t get into like. Yeah, I like all. I mean, they get you from a to b. I don’t. I can’t get excited by a car. Except I also quite like all cars.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: Quite like little ones. Quite like big ones.
Stuart: The little ones. I do not prefer a little car. Do you actually?
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Stuart: Because, I don’t know, they’re easier to park. That’s what I like.
Alex Horne: Have you found the name of the artist?
Stuart: Yeah, Ron Merck.
Alex Horne: Oh, well done forgetting that. But, yeah, I think in general, going out, I get disappointed with how tired I get, how quickly.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: I don’t like going to the theatre. I find that quite. Testing.
Stuart: Okay.
Alex Horne: Unless it’s really good. But I’m quite often just sat there going, wow, you’re just pretending.
Stuart: Yeah, well, that’s one of those things. I mean, there is that moment where you’ve got to suspend. You’ve got to sort of go to where they are. And I think I find that quite difficult when something, you know, like if someone’s rustling, I find that at the cinema, there’s a noise that takes me out of that moment. Then I’m, I’m in trouble.
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Stuart: And then I’m distracted.
Alex Horne: Although I do. I’m a fan of the cinema because of the no phone, phone thing again. Because if I’m watching a film here, I get tempted to look at something.
The time when I’m at work I’m most happy, right
So.
Stuart: Yeah, right.
Alex Horne: But, yeah, no, in general, I think my general shirtiness happens more in my times when I should be happy.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: At the times when I should be at leisure is when I get shirty. The time when I’m at work I’m most happy.
Stuart: Right. So it’s the time when you’re sort of. I, Was gonna say sort of having to manage your own time a little bit where you haven’t got those things you’ve got to do and where I think.
Alex Horne: I might be workaholic. Maybe that’s the problem.
Stuart: Perhaps that’s what it is.
Alex Horne: Yeah. I’m not very good at first. Two days on the holiday, I’m bad.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: With the family’s. We’re all bit techy until we settle into a routine, but it takes a little while to adjust.
Stuart: And do you have a routine? You know, imagine because you’re filming quite a lot places, do you have that sort of routine where it’s filming days? I’m there at nine, I’m home.
Alex Horne: Yeah, it’s not too bad. I never work weekends anymore, so it used to be a comedian. Used to be always Friday, Saturday, Sundays, which is no good for family life. So we’ve made a rule, I mean, very rarely anyway.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: Although I am working this after. But most weekends are sacred, which is great. Yeah. And I’m lucky to sort of have a day job. Most comics don’t, but Taskmaster is quite all consuming, which is good.
Stuart: Yeah.
How many tasks do you do yourself to test on the show
So when you’re filming you’ve. Is it all filmed over the course of one week?
Alex Horne: Well probably three days a week. Three days a week. The other two are sort of prepping for.
Stuart: Right, okay. And how many of the tasks do you do yourself to test?
Alex Horne: Yeah, I don’t do any. So it’s half done on judgement and sort of feel instinct.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: You sort of know how that will work.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: And then the other half you have to tinker with a bit if it involves props and. Yeah.
Stuart: Ah.
Alex Horne: How long something should last. So there’s, yeah, a bit of testing, but I’m tend to not do. We’ve got a team. We got.
Stuart: Well, in the early days, was it always a team or did you. You have to sort of.
Alex Horne: Well, when I say team is so three people who, they’re researchers on the show or runners or producers. but the very first series, Phil Wang was brought in to test things. Oh, really? Before he was actually a bigger name than he is. Yeah. So he was a comedian. So we got him to test stuff, but wrealised very quickly there’s kind of no point if it was something like do the most impressive thing with a potato.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: There’s no point getting someone to test it because there’s five comedians will do it in a completely different way. So, yeah, we don’t really test vigorously. We’re not like a factory testing rubber bands.
There’s a balloon factory in Chesham called bee Looney
I went to a balloon. Sorry. Listen.
Stuart: Yeah. No, no, please.
Alex Horne: I went to a balloon factory on Monday. Yeah, sorry. No, I’ve never told anyone this. There’s a balloon factory in Chesham called bee Looney.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: It’s one of Chesham’s. Chesham used to make beer. I can’t remember. Four bees, I think.
Stuart: Right. Beer. Balloons.
Alex Horne: Yeah. Balloons. Wasn’t one of the four, but it is now.
Stuart: Bread.
Alex Horne: No, bats. I think you might need to do some more googling. Do you mind? Googling what? The four bees were made in Chesham. I can’t think of any of them. Yeah. What four things are made in Chesham beginning with bee? Is it all for that? It might not be bee. Anyway, they now make balloons.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: And if you print something on a balloon, you. I couldn’t believe this. You have to inflate the balloon to then print on it to then. And then it goes small again. So they’ve got this machine which inflates a balloon.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: and then they print on it and then it goes round and then it deflates it again.
Stuart: Wow.
Alex Horne: You’ve got this special balloon, anyway.
Stuart: Like a reverse, I think. A shrinky dinky.
Alex Horne: I suppose so, yeah.
Stuart: Yeah, there’s that. That’ll age. Yeah, that ages me.
Alex Horne: Yeah, that. That’s something that neither of us understand the reference.
Stuart: Oh, do you? Not either, no.
Alex Horne: What’s a reverse shrinky dinky?
Stuart: Well, a. Ah, shrinky dinky was a thing that start off big, but the end product was small. So you heat them in the oven. You’d, colour them in, cut them out, put them in the oven, then they’d shrink it like a key ring. Right. I thought every. I thought. Oh, there you go. Look. That aged me.
Alex Horne: yeah, I think if I didn’t do taskmaster, I think I’d happily work in a balloon factory. It was really fun and occasionally they popped, so everyone’s on edge.
Stuart: Right. So how big do they have to.
Alex Horne: Not that big. So they’re six inches.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: Okay. But I really enjoy going to a balloon factory.
Stuart: Sorry.
Alex Horne: I don’t know. Maybe that’s big. it will, yeah.
Stuart: For a balloon. Who? I don’t know enough about balloons, but.
Alex Horne: It did perk me up a year. And I think I enjoyed going to a balloon factory much more than going to the theatre or an art gallery.
Stuart: Right.
Alex Horne: I’d happily go to a factory, all right.
Stuart: Perhaps that’s why Greg Wallace always looks so chirpy.
Alex Horne: It does look chirpy.
Stu tells me Chesham is a historical market town
We’ve got news on what four bees are made m in Cheshire.
Stuart: Four bees. boots.
Alex Horne: Boots.
Stuart: Beer.
Alex Horne: Beer.
Stuart: Brushes.
Alex Horne: Brushes.
Stuart: And. Baptists.
Alex Horne: Baptists.
Stuart: Baptists. We said that on the.
Alex Horne: I only got beer out there.
Stuart: That’s disappointing because it’s very historical. So Stu tells me Chesham. Yeah.
Alex Horne: Historical market town. Yeah.
Stuart: Goes back a long way.
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Stuart: 4000, 8000 BC.
Alex Horne: Wow. Well, I did know that there’s a. Yeah, there’s a. I’ve got a picture of the queen ethelred or someone over there who. Yeah.
Stuart: Was,
Alex Horne: Apparently, buried here. Yeah. And the football team are called the generals because of the general. General Baptist church here. This is pretty dry stuff, isn’t it?
Stuart: Well, it is, but that probably worries you more than it does us. Yeah, I quite find it out, all the little things. Yeah.
Alex Horne: It’s good to know about your town. So we. Yeah, we moved here 20 years ago and really sort of embedded ourselves here. And this will be it now, I think.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: It’s a good size. It’s manageable.
Stuart: Chesham.
Alex Horne: Yeah, it’s probably not. It’s probably a bit smaller than Tunbridge wells, is it? Or Tunbridge.
Stuart: Wales isn’t sprawling. Yeah, it’s sort of. The town itself’s probably bigger. Trouble is I don’t really. We drove in at a fish finger sandwich. Drove here. So I can tell you about the fish finger sandwiches.
Alex Horne: I know all about the one little bit. I imagine you were served by someone. Waiters who all wear, czech shirts in the tavern. And little aprons or not. No.
Stuart: there was definitely little aprons. Yeah.
Alex Horne: But I like, a cafe which is relaxed. But you know who the serving stuff are because they’ve got a look. Not necessarily a uniform, but they’ve got a. They thought about it. Yeah, I do like that.
Stuart: Yeah, this is me.
Alex Horne: Yeah, you can.
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: Because otherwise I’m always worried about asking the wrong person for the pill.
Stuart: Well, yeah, I got. I got. I did a meerkat, apparently. Did you? When I was in there?
Alex Horne: Yeah. Did it work?
Stuart: not immediately. I had to sort of.
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Alex Horne: An unfulfilled mirk is not good.
Stuart: It’s very sad.
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Stuart: We nearly just turned the car around and went home. I was distraught, but. Yeah, no, it’s, not good. But yeah, it was very nice fish finger sandwich. And that’s. Fish finger sandwiches have come up before as well with, Adam Buxton.
Alex Horne: Oh, really?
Stuart: And, I went with tartar sauce and he never has gone with tartar sauce.
Alex Horne: I’m always a fan of tartar sauce but I don’t understand why it’s only with fish. I would have it with other things, with everything. Yeah, but you don’t get the option often.
Stuart: No, no, you could carry, you could just carry it around your own jar.
Alex Horne: Yeah, I quite like chunky tartar
So anyway. I can imagine Buxton doing ketchup and rocket in fish fingers
So anyway. Yeah, good. Really?
Stuart: Yeah.
Alex Horne: I can imagine Buxton doing ketchup and.
Stuart: He’S never gone with, they’d rocket in a fish finger sandwich as well.
Alex Horne: Yeah, I’d go, rocket.
Stuart: Yeah. But he was like, no, and he said he wasn’t Jamie Oliver, that sort of thing he’d do. But there you go
You have to name an off the cuff shirt that made you shirty
So, from a point of kit shirts, I think we’re here. I can’t think of anything else to, say. We’ve talked about sort of desperate sort of things that you’ve thought, this is my opportunity to get it off.
Alex Horne: Get yourself off my chest.
Stuart: Oh, no, I wasn’t going to mention the hat.
Alex Horne: What’s happened? What’s the hat you have to mention?
Stuart: yeah, I wasn’t going to mention it because we couldn’t do it.
Alex Horne: Is there a physical hat you normally bring? This is why you don’t do on the road.
Stuart: Well, this is why, you know, perhaps we should have done a test on the road beforehand.
Alex Horne: I mean, I’ve got.
Stuart: After the first couple of things, we did an off the cuff, we started going, well, let’s do an off the cuff get shirty, where you get given, something.
Stuart: And then you have to say if there was anything about it that made you shirty. But because the name worked, it’s off the cuff.
Alex Horne: Great name.
Stuart: But then we couldn’t think of how to deliver that, so we just put all the things in a bowl of hat. So you then picked. So you picked the thing out of.
Alex Horne: A hat because you can’t pick it off the cuff.
Stuart: No, but as Adam Buxton pointed out, you could attach them to a cuff of a shirt and then you just pull one off the cuff. But then we thought, well, that’s. We could do that. But then we thought, no, we’ll stick with the hat. Because then it becomes the legend of the off the cuff.
Alex Horne: But we forgot. Quite confused.
Stuart: Yeah, yeah, we forgot the hat.
Alex Horne: I mean, I think you should embrace more of the parts of the shirt. You know, a section where you collar them or you hem them in or at the end you say, now you’ve got a button in, but I think you should really go more in, more involved. That’s nice.
Stuart: I’ll have to introduce the flank section. Now, you’ve renamed the shirt yeah, that’s not a bad idea.
Alex Horne: Well, I’m sorry about the hat bit. Well, I think we have discussed everything in the world and we. There’s not much we’ve not touched on.
Stuart: Well, I think. Yeah. From every detail.
Alex Horne: Mmm.
Stuart: I think so, yeah.
Alex Horne: We’ve not done a lot on politics and m religion, but I’m alright with that.
Stuart: Yeah. And it’s, We don’t tend to take it down that route unless someone’s desperate. Yeah, Tony did, actually.
Alex Horne: Yeah.
Stuart: he did a little bit. He sort of flared. Yeah, he’s very big in the git. Shirty. What’s your irritation like? No, Tony Rod from MasterChef.
Alex Horne: He, that Tony.
Stuart: That Tony, yeah, he sort of went quite right. He got quite so well.
Alex Horne: That’s where I think I’m not clever enough or engaged enough to get shirty about politics. I, know I should. I can’t be bothered.
Stuart: No, that’s all right.
Get Shirty podcast thanks Alex for being such a great guest
So, look, on that note, we’ll say thank you very much for your time.
Alex Horne: Perfect.
Stuart: It’s been a pleasure talking to you.
Alex Horne: You too. Thank you, Stuart and Sam.

Stuart: What a lovely chap Alex is. And so generous with his time as well. We have to say thank you for, him letting the rabble that is the get shirty podcast into his lovely home. We did reward him with a couple of packs of toffee pot biscuits, for his trouble, so can’t be all bad. Thanks for being such a great guest, Alex. If you are looking for tickets for the horn section tour, do nip to their website. You’ll find all their dates and booking details on there. There will be a link in the description for the podcast. As usual, thank you as always to to dat Hazer for the music for the podcast. Thanks also to Stuart Wilson for editing and production. And to Sam, as always, for keeping us dotting the I’s and crossing the t’s. Until next time, do try not to get too shirty.