The Truth Behind TaskMaster Prizes & How Product Placement Works in Film | Q&A

Hello and welcome to another edition of the rest are entertainment questions Question and answer edition Edition um I'm Richard Osman I'm Marina Hyde um hello Marina hello how are you I'm already over my jet lag now I'm very happy To hear from you about your jet lag, I think We should jump right into this. Can I say one thing the way I thought when I got that jet lag I was thinking, oh actually, I felt like I had a little bit of a cold. and it made me think that if you're a game show host, no one has asked this question, but I'm going to answer it anyway when you're a game show host and you have a cold, people think you're very, very sick. because if you had a cold for 3 days, actually on a TV show that means 15 episodes, so they're like oh my gosh, you got a really fancy sick call, it's a chronic illness anyway, that's what It made me think yes, no. one wrote that question, we got questions about literally everything else, but no one said what happens when a TV host catches a cold.

Shall we start with this question from Craig Walker? Thank you very much Craig, why do you think sketch shows don't exist anymore? Watching, oh my goodness, the fast-paced Smack the Pony Sketch Show etc. over 20 years ago, how and why did British comedy change to leave that legacy behind? Part of what it is is a pretty boring answer and then it has become perhaps a slightly more interesting answer. that money, it's very expensive to put these things up and the pool of money available for things like that has gotten smaller, what's gotten bigger is stand-up is huge and the people who do comedy might be going more in the direction of stand-up because stand-up is so big, if you're doing a sketch, what you need are small groups of people to build one of these shows around who's on the circuit and, if not They are, they are not there because they are gone. in the direction of stand-up, then you don't necessarily have these people around whom you can build a show;

It's very expensive because you have multiple sets, costumes, people don't want to see something that almost looks like they're watching. kind of cheap panto and they just put on costumes to give you a basic idea of ​​the character. It takes a long time to do it all and I guess that's part of the reason it fell out of favor. enough, I watched a show recently called something like Deep Fake Neighbor Wars, I think it is and it's really, it's really dark, it's some kind of AI show and there's a Neighbor Wars that shows a strand that I think is sold internationally as a format and they put celebrity faces on these people and made them argue.

I have to say I didn't like it, but I thought about it halfway through. Oh, I see I'm watching a sketch show, which is something I haven't seen. For a long time, the money is, of course, you get huge costumes and for two minutes, whereas in a comedy you know you use your sets over and over again, so it's very, very expensive to do, it's very difficult. Write because you know that writing 24 one-minute sketches takes longer than writing a 24-minute episode of a comedy. It's definitely more expensive to

film

on a sketch show. Generally, they all have equal billing, so it's also quite expensive because you have You have a lot of casts, but yeah, two things, so look at the ghosts and that's essentially a group of sketches, you know, that grew on Horrible Histories, which by the way is one of the best sketch shows of all time.

They made one of the best sitcoms of the 21st century one of the best sitcoms ever produced ghosts, I think we can safely say that now and it comes out of the tradition of sketch comedy, which is broad characters, punchlines, you know, so I think people are going in that direction, but Also in the world of YouTube and other platforms there are so many sketches available now, so many great characters, so many amazing sketches and I think probably the world of sketch shows will come back because it will be every ever cheaper. That will mean there will be less time between recording,

film

ing and streaming, because one of the best things about all of these platforms is that things can be so immediate that you can write, you can make a funny sketch and someone can see it. immediately now this was this never existed before we couldn't have this and it's quite difficult in many ways to keep the P, you know, keep that being or Ron is funny talking about what just happened when maybe it won't be for nine months later that you filmed it, yes, exactly that and by the way, there's a brilliant sketch on Netflix which is Tim Robinson.

I think you should leave, which is crazy, so it wouldn't be for everyone, but it's certainly necessary. um every initial premise of every sketch does that and absolutely pushes it to the most extreme limits of what you can do with comedy. um, if you like it, you'll love it, if you don't like it, after the first five minutes. Please feel free to turn it off, but yeah, it's so often the answer is economics and you know that world too, you know the ones that Craig mentions, oh my gosh, quick show, you know, that world of linear television.

It's passed us by, but I think the future of sketches is very positive because, as you say, you can write it in the morning, film it in the afternoon, publish it at night and you know you can't do that. with a sitcom, I've got one for you Richard Horn says: Can you keep the

prizes

on Task Master that the contestants brought? Oh, that's a good question from Richard Horn. Alex's brother. He's used my name and little Alex Horn's. last name yeah, I think it's a pseudonym um yeah, it's a we could probably dig deeper into Task Master.

I get it all the time maybe we'll do a um an episode. I'm so obsessed with what I want that I would like to do. which is a lot of fun I'll say it's good you know I'm going to save a lot of this for the um for our special for our emergency podcast um on Taskmaster um yeah if we do it I call it's an emergency podcast otherwise I don't. I will, don't negotiate with me about this no, I'm going to take my, I'm taking no, no, we can't do it, okay, I'm going to talk about everything now. uh you can't keep the awards there's a lot of pressure on the awards because you know they say beforehand you know what the point is I don't remember in mine but you think you really want Greg's points and obviously I know he he has, he, Greg has his, you know he's very capricious and you know he'll do exactly what he wants, but you do it, if you get a point, you want to go, it's an honor, that was a, that was really, you got You bring your favorite blue thing right on one of mine and my son's because this is his personality type and an antique buyer bought a police riot helmet because he saw the police riot helmet.

I say his personality is mine like Well, yeah, I looked at it and I was like, wait and my son was like, uh, uh, I can, I'm sorry, can we really buy it? I said, I think we can, so he bought it, uh, and it was blue, so I took it and I thought, well, for me, this is five, it's the best thing ever, especially like I said and my son bought it, so let's go , you got it right, that's getting a point and my son was there, that was like the episode he came to. I was like Wow, that really broke me, Greg, but uh, he's a tough Taskmaster, that's just literally, we'll go into a lot more detail about the task.

M funny, I'll say this um, I told Alex Horn recently. He was on a my US book tour and so many people in line asked about Taskmaster uh I was. I did an event in I think Nashville, where one of the places and then you'll get all the questions and um, this woman stood up like it was the third question. First can I congratulate you on how you did the yoga balls task on Taskmaster and literally half of this huge audience started with nothing oh my gosh that's amazing that was crazy so I had that and I just returning from a book tour in India? and it was the same thing, there were people there just passing by on the road.

Can I just say that there are two shows that everyone loves? Would I lie to you and Master? Those are the two programs. I say it, but no, you won't be able to see them. um, because people leave their car or their kids or something, so it would be, I mean some of the things that yeah, I could have won or lost, yeah, I've seen swimsuits, I've SE, yeah, there's a lot things that you know can just Don't put it in the a. I think you have to have your best celebrity souvenir and I put up one of my favorite things in the world, which is a high bidder promotional poster of jockey Wilson that he signed honestly.

If my ID was lost, I would have been devastated because it is difficult to replace. It's in my living room. It's one of my favorite things in the world. So no, fortunately you are able to keep what you have, but. Yeah, let's definitely do it because people love Taskmaster, maybe we'll go like Alex or something, well, they have their own podcast, don't they? Yeah, they probably wouldn't let us, but we'll try, yeah. we've never had a guest, we've never had a guest, the first one would have to be Alex, yeah, and the only guest, just, yeah, the only person we've had on the show before since then, but we'll do it three times a week. on the regular show on Tuesday we will answer questions on Thursday and interview Alex Horn every Friday.

I have a question for you. Marina, this is also a very suspicious name. Dave Gorman asks. He can't be the real Dave Gman. I hope it is, yeah, let's pretend it is, I was on Taskmaster, thanks Dave for your, your question, um, Dave Gorman, comedian asks Poss, possibly comedian asks how

product

placement

works

. I see it in many programs. What can a show or a movie be made of that, well there are a lot of rules about

product

placement

on television, it's interesting in movies and because of a show I'm working on, I ended up doing quite a bit of research on, You know, Marvel product placement. and I mean, they make huge amounts of money from it, and sometimes they like to leave a refrigerator cabinet blank and then they'll add the thing in post-production, oh, that's great, because there's kind of a huge competition so you know what's going to be there. on the refrigerator and also certain movies have a kind of established product placement that comes back every time, if you think about something like James Bond, you know he's going to have a certain type of watch, he's going to have a car, he's got, he needs a car, he needs a car , you need a car, listen, you can't trust Uber, you can't, you're a spy, but when people, um, the cars are slightly different, obviously, because it's extensive filming of those action sequences, but things like the watches when people come to the set with the watch or in any other movie where they have some kind of C.

Doctor Strange had a certain kind of fancy watch. Five guys will come onto the set and let you know that everything will be chained to their The briefcase will be chained to its object and they will make a big fuss, like checking that the watches are lit the right way so you can see that it's very meticulously made and, As I say, it's a big business, you make a lot of money with this. um, but there are also things that are this type of, I guess you could call it kind of soft power product placement, so at Marvel they've done a lot of work with the Pentagon and there are certain movies that promote them effectively. kind of thing, one thing that was pretty interesting, this is just a side note, but I thought it was pretty funny, at one point, the Pentagon stopped cooperating because they couldn't figure out where Shield would fit in the hierarchy with the Pentagon and Technically , the Pentagon and I think they came to the conclusion that it looked like the Pentagon would actually have to respond to the shield and at that point they were left out.

Wow, yes, it's fascinating, isn't it? There's quite a bit of that kind of thing, and sometimes they have Huge, they say wait, will this brand exist in Gotham City and they'll talk for a long time about whether they can have the product because they can, to some extent, it's a um, it's supposed to be a fairly realistic world, but obviously superheroes? exists and although Batman, as we know, does not have any Super PS, he is a costumed vigilante, but could this exist in Gotham City? Sometimes, there are promotions only for foreign markets, so people will pay large amounts to have their there.

I think there was a Japanese jewelry store. A Chinese jewelry store where P paid huge amounts of money to be allowed to be in the background of a shot or zoomed in on a shot of a Marvel movie that he was just in whatever. The release in China was or um and that's something we should talk about in a future episode, is how movies are released in China, which is something that people really want, so that's just a little note to me, but there are many in different markets and um. sometimes they get their way, but generally people tolerate something, but they don't like it when it is shoved down their throat, so it has to be done, there is a compensation for money, yes, and money is a fortune to be. made up, I mean, a huge amount of money, it's like every time you see,You know a TV show and they say, um, and we take our contestants to America and there's always going to be a shot of an airplane, you think, well, that's fine with them.

That's the plane. You know they all have free flights. All the crew, they all have free flights, they all show you the kind of front of the hotel and you think, well, they all have free hotels, so you can get paid in kind and stuff like that. The BBC finds it much harder because you can. I don't have any product placement on the BBC, even to the extent that you know you'll watch a cooking show and they'll say, Do you know a shepherd's absolute secret? I put yeast extract in there, yes, and that's because Someone just said I put Marmite in there and said: I'm so sorry, we can't say Marmite, you have to say yeast extract or they go and the clothes, which constantly have to be completely simple or pixelated in the smaller logo, yes, yes.

If you ever come as a contestant on a TV show and you have to bring all your stuff, you can't have anything that has, you know, you couldn't even have a little Adidas logo, you couldn't even have the three stripes. You can't have anything like that you can't have anything if it's going to collide with the background it's almost impossible to wear, that's why everyone on the quiz show wears pastel colored shirts that are like all the men on TV. The show has a short sleeve pastel shirt because they have never worn it before or since, unless they win, this is the shirt.

Then it becomes the lucky shirt, which it is exactly, but they've literally picked it up from M&S on the way or what. The wardrobe just has rails and rails of pastel colored men's shirts that don't clash with the background of the set that doesn't have busy frames or anything, so it makes it harder for the BBC, you know? they'll say oh, we're making our version of a frozen dessert, you say, that's a vonetta, sorry, it's not like that, we all know it's a viona, so anything that's a name that you can't say at all on the BBC , but now you know that companies are making complete programs.

Mars and Spencer have in Mars and Spencer have a lot of different things and there's a limit even on channel four or five or ITV, there's a limit to the number of times you can mention a product. and if you've mentioned it three times, then you have to start describing it as something else, so you might say Marmite a couple of times, but from then on we have our old friend, yeast extract, extra yeast in the spirit. I'm going to do a little cleaning up on this, and that is that last week, when we were talking about Channel 4, we said that ITV and Channel 5 did not have public service obligations, they do, of course, what I meant was that they are not publicly funded so let's just correct that we don't want to be a yeast extract for people this year exactly and if I can also add something, just saying I'm really enjoying my PG advice, it's very refreshing.

Not even even sponsored, you've done it for free, although we're available to be. Do you know if York C wants to come and make a counteroffer? Could York just seem angry at social media? get involved in everything, get involved in every fight, beef, whatever, yeah, yeah, they should have that brilliant one where the guy was furious when he found out the tea wasn't from Yorkshire, he said it comes from India, he said , come on, and they said okay, I don't know what to say about the tea, but yeah, listen, get in touch, Yorks, your tea, so that's the product placement, oh, here's a good one.

Richard Fraser Webster says I love your podcast about the two of you, but it's good, it's a good way to Start, if you want your question read, oh, sorry to start, but it seems to me that Richard loves almost everything on it on television. Can he wax lyrical for a second about something he doesn't like? News or question time do not count. oh, that's smart, that's smart, little Cod in the end, he closed you there uh, yeah, it's a, in general, my rule is that you always know with Twitter or anything, if you like something, talk about it if you don't like something.

Don't talk about it, it's difficult, literally half of my career, so no, no, I don't have those qualities, yes, exactly. Fraser knows this, so yes, you know, FR has been very clever, he's trying to drive a wedge between us, right? He, Marina leaves, no, you have no problem saying things about that idiot, there is nothing, he loves everything on television, uh, there are a lot of things I don't like. I tend not to talk about them because it's difficult to make television. shows I was trying to make a bad show, uh, I don't like it when things are vague, I don't like it when, uh, I don't like it on daytime TV, when absolutely every voiceover is full of puns , TRUE? every voiceover is full of puns because of Dave Lamb's voiceover on Come Dime With Me, which did change the date on television forever because they said, "Oh, well, we can make jokes and we can, we can , you know, it's truly iconic, yes, but Dave Lamb writes that and with his producers and he's really, really good at it and since then it's been endless daytime TV shows that have that slightly humorous voice-over and every time there's a game of words they have to go Boom, they have to beat it like they beat a drum and they say oh no, can you just say um, that's a great idea because it's about eggs and go hear if a pun

works

, just say it. well if you have to go that's a great idea so I can't stand it if I ever watch that and daytime TV and often, also on some late night shows, when they make those puns like that, you think that It's not humor, right?

Dave Lamb is funny, he's not, he makes puns sometimes, but you know he'll lighten them up by being really funny to the contestants. and knowing that a generation has genuine comedic timing, so puns on daytime television, uh, I don't like them, we talk a lot about traitors. I just watched Series 2 of the Australian Traitor. I have trouble with the casting because some of the least insightful people in the entire world are on that show and I found it quite difficult to watch at times. Traitor series 1 Australia one of the best traitors of all time. Absolutely brilliant.

The Australian Traitor Host. Roger Corsa. I love it. I think it's amazing. but honestly, I watch this series because it's still one of the traitors and it has big twists and turns and this this that and the other, there are three or four contestants that will drive you absolutely crazy, I mean, literally, to the extent that I It was like me. I honestly don't know if I can watch the next episode. I can't, I can't keep watching these people driving this bus off this cliff. uh, and yeah, listen, there's, there's, there's shows that I don't love, uh, but uh, and there's a there's a you know what I have this is funny yeah I just mean I could maybe maybe I just wanna say we're gonna get this out of him over a period of many moons and we Yes, we'll draw, we'll get more out of this.

Can we, we can put an asterisk on Fraser's question and come back to it every few weeks. Yeah, that's funny, so Fraser, Perma's question, Perma's question, exactly that. I'll also find one for you that will get under your skin, yeah, uh, but yeah, yeah, there are things that, but when I don't like them, I really get really angry, yeah, port ingr and I'm sitting there. How can, how can this be on television? That's how they may have made that decision and then still thought it was a good idea and put it on TV. Honestly, it drives me crazy, but yeah, I'm not going to listen to Li too.

I'm not going to say that about a well. I'm going to try to get you to say those kinds of things. Marino, I have a question for you, but first we have other matters. Nick Holland has been in touch. says this is possibly an East Enders dofd moment for you, uh, we've talked a lot about gladiators, Bradley wson, bony W's son, who, by the way, still makes excellent weapons on uh, on BBC One, with great hearings still, yeah, uh, Nick says, Barney Walsh's mom. I guess Bradley Walsh's wife, Donna Derby, used to be the head cheerleader for the original Gladiators.

That's great, isn't it? The cheerleaders were called GeForce and they are the only thing that the new series seems to have eliminated, yes, the last one. The place you'll see cheerleaders is darts by the way, it's the one thing they won't refuse to get rid of and according to Jet d Newale, uh, Bradley Wolsh met Donna on the set of Gladiators in the 1990s. Wow, done a little. little do I say that I met my wife on this show maybe she has done it in the interviews but I haven't seen it that's great, isn't it okay?

Okay, so he met his wife and I was about to say that Barney met his mom, but you didn't. how it works yeah that's not how it doesn't that's not how it's not like that spoil it but that's not how it works thanks Nick uh marina a question for you from Ron just one name why is there such a big difference in the number of episodes in a season among British shows? and the US shows, the answer to that mainly is that there are smaller writing teams on the British shows, and historically we've had things written by one person, two people, you know, sometimes B3 almost everything in the American television in comedy drama, whatever it is written. by writers' rooms and they're big, they have many, many people in there and that can sustain a 20-season, 20-episode season, whereas we could have a six-episode season which, in fact, in the most recent wga hit one of the things.

What they were asking for was like minimal staffing in the writers' rooms, which is a lot compared to everything in the UK, you know, we don't have any of that, but there was one exception that everyone called . the Mike White Clause now Mike White is the guy who writes the White Lotus and he's almost unique on American television in that he writes the entire show and you just don't have that, they just don't have it and part of what they do is Part of the reason for this is that they have invested a lot of money in these shows and they want to get a bang for their buck and they want to have a lot of episodes per season, particularly in the old network days, and they want to keep them coming. season after season we also have something in um, it's a cultural thing, also in this country we have something where you can where people say, you know, I've done two six-episode series of, for example, the office and Ricky ha can say I .

I think that's where it should end. I think we did everything we wanted to do now. I don't know how many seasons, the American version, which was brilliant by the way, but it had many episodes for much more than six episodes per series. and it went on for I don't know what Nas would say, yeah, I think it's like 20 episodes times nine seasons, yeah, and it was absolutely brilliant, but it takes huge amounts of writers to do that and keep it at a good level of quality, um, and culturally we've always had things that are brilliant, we love them more than anything and they last two seasons, um, because that's when the creators want to stop them, if you're signing a contract with us, you know, I'm the Various development deals that I've done with us, television and deals for shows that G have aired, they're not saying, oh yeah, you want us to invest huge amounts of money in this show and its development, then do it and then you can leave after two seasons two seasons If you don't like it you have you have you have if it works and it's successful you're sort of hired to stay you have to have the option to stay for seven seven years actually in something like comedy seven is the key, right? seven is the key seven is the key if you are actually signing if something goes well for a seven-season contract because they want you to stay, you can't just say well, I think we have done everything we would like to do with these characters, but That's why the eighth season of any great long-running American comedy is interesting because that's when Steve Carell leaves, that's when Donald Glover leaves.

Community, yeah, uh, you know, I was just thinking, um, It's always sunny in Philadelphia, it's amazing because they're on season 15, everyone's stuck around, no, this is really fun, but that's what you know. the joy of finding an American sitcom that you like is that suddenly there are 200 episodes for you, so if it's community or office or Brooklyn 99 uh and you watch two episodes, you're like, I love this. Well, you have the next few months of every night you can watch two episodes of this, it goes on and on and on, it's a great joy and yes, you're absolutely right, but they wanted you to have that feeling because of syndication, you couldn't syndicate a program in America i.

Rerun it unless you have 100 episodes so you really want to get to that magic number and then you can rerun it, it can be very successful and even reach different operators in the UK. We can rerun anything we don't need to get to 100 episodes. Before we didn't have much to rerun and that was a very important part of it, so yeah, if you got into something and they wanted you to get into it and they wanted it to rerun foryears and years and years. and they have these huge Behemoth type of shows like I Don't Know or I Love Lucy or whatever that went on forever, yeah, and that's what they wanted, you had to get to 100 episodes or you couldn't get it into syndication and that's where real money comes. for creators too, interestingly enough, that's going to come back too, you know, the key with Netflix and some of the other streamers is that returnability thing, that comfort of watching thing where you know you just stand out if at any point you think, oh , there's an episode of Friends, I'll watch it and we've kind of lost it to binge-watching, you wouldn't, you wouldn't watch an episode of Ozark, you know, and that's actually what they want back, those shows that whenever they're on you'll just see them, but yeah, having a big old writing room is the way to do it and the question is, well, why not?

If we do that here, if it's so incredibly profitable, 19 times out of 20 those programs completely fail and it's just that we've only listened to friends and Fraser and yeah, we and we don't, no, we don't spend. with the same amount of money, they have a lot more potential eyeballs, although nowadays when you can see everything and you can see things from the UK, you know, the Dy girls can go on Netflix and become a big hit again, but imagine If there were 100 150 episodes of Dairy Girls, how happy we would be. It would be wonderful, wouldn't it?

If you just think, because I would spend, you know, look, I am culturally. I think they said it, Lisa McGee said it brilliantly and she did it the way she did it and it came out the way she wanted. In reality, it's just different. It doesn't mean I really love the US office, for example, but I also love the UK office and it's totally different. That's a very good show to see the completely different way the two countries treat it now. I want to watch 150 episodes of GS dairy, uh, Ron, of course, we expanded on that, thank you very much, Ron, okay, here we go.

We have a question from Darren Fetcher Darren Fletcher, the football commentator, all the former Man United midfielder, yes he was, he could be something called Darren Fletcher and he's a continuation of you. What if Ron we had Ronaldo? What has it been, oh Dave? Gorman Ronaldo Darren Fletcher okay, fuzzy tracking Darren says you said you don't have time to read so you can blurb when you're writing, but do you also have to stop reading anything in the same genre for fear of contaminating your work or is it easy compartmentalizing no one wants wants an accusation of unintentional plagiarism is a very good question and every writer will say something different I mean, the key to writing is that you have to read all the time, you know, that's why you're writing a book otherwise you know. that you have to be a reader, what you don't want to read is something that comes out at the same time as your book and is better than yours or something that is terrible, you don't want to read bad writing and you don't want to read and write, you're jealous of that .

I think that when you are writing, after writing, you read the best books in the world, but while you are writing, it is my brother who, like you. I know in Sueden, who said the thing is you have to listen to music from the '60s and '70s because you can't while you're recording you can't listen to your contemporaries because it's too uh and I think it's the same as when I was writing the first one. book, I found all the Patricia Heith Ripley novels, yes, because they are brilliant, so my brain doesn't get smaller reading them.

They have a style that is almost impossible to copy. so you can't assume any kind of mannerisms and uh she's dead so she's not a rival in any way so that's the ideal combination and the book that I'm writing at the moment that's going to be announced next Tuesday. I wonder if we can announce it on the podcast? I think you better get a podcast exclusive to that. It's pretty disgusting. I know, but everyone wants an ex, that's the one but they want a piece of yes, they cut that B off, no, yes. Keep it, we're going to have a part, yeah, have a part of that, so the book I'm writing right now.

I'm reading Middle March for the first time. I've never read it before and again it's brilliant, suddenly I'm not going to write as George Elliot uh and spoiler alert, she's no longer with us so she's one of those, she's a woman, wait a minute George Elliot, wait a second, yeah, um, so it's, it's really good. question, so I don't think writers read things in their own genre while they write, they do it right after, you can go back and do it, so I think you have to try to find things that make you a better human being.

I really feel like when I'm writing a column I get up early in the morning and I want to write a column about something I just won't read. I certainly wouldn't read anyone else's column about that and that's you. I have a very limited time well, my deadlines give me a certain amount of time you have a limited amount of you know a very limited amount of time to write the column. I could write it in two or three hours if I'm thinking about a column that someone else has written, it's very easy to trust, I just don't read it because then you think that if unfortunately I've replicated all the same ideas, I once wrote an almost identical column to a friend of mine about a story, um, that was really funny and we looked like it, we were like this was a mind M we were, uh, it was Marina Jackal, it was a friend of mine, Matthew Norman and both, there's a story about a secretary that he had done some kind of scam. her boss or whatever and we both wrote it, I mean, almost word for word, into the Dolly Parton song 9 to 5 and the movie, and it was, I mean, it was almost identical, it was really weird, um, but that It was just kind of a strange occurrence. but I try, so you can legitimately say I'm really sorry, I haven't actually read yours, um, but I definitely think about sometimes, when you're in a hurry and you're writing, if someone has said it really well, it's really hard to think about. the slightly different way you say the same thing, even if you've had that thought completely independently, which you probably have, so I find it a lot easier not to read anyone's stuff, the plagiarism thing is easy, I never do it are you.

I'm going to copy someone's quote into a book, but when someone reads a great stylist, sometimes you do it the next day, you know if I'm reading John L. Car, uh, and I'm thinking, oh, try to figure out why. there is him a much better writer than me, okay, so what is he, what is he doing, huh, and he gets in your head and suddenly you start the introduction to the next chapter you're writing and you say, it's a bit further? involved than you normally do, you're describing the environment a little more and people are being a little more clever, you think so, you were just reading John L Car, idiot, and then every once in a while, you know, then You have to go back, but you know the whole point of writing is that you are a collection of your influences and so when you read someone, you think I love the way it's written and you and you can figure out roughly why you love it.

So when you take all of that, you learn a lot from it and actually, as you say, it becomes a kind of adapted recipe and you add all kinds of other ingredients to it and it's part of finding your voice, yes, exactly that, but It's like that. really great question and it's something that writers often talk about, that there are certain books that are impossible to read when you're writing, thanks Darren and also great job on the comments or on the football whatever Darren Fletcher is. Thank you very much for all the questions from him, it was fun, yes, it was great.

Our producers just said there's literally a warehouse full of all these questions, but keep sending them because they're so good. The rest is entertainment. gmail.com and us. I'll be back on Tuesday with an exclusive on my book if Penguin's lawyers allow it, but also what are they going to do? I mean, what are Penguin's lawyers going to do? This is what I talked about on the record with Penguin's lawyers. Now you're coming to get me, he pleaded with Penguin's lawyers. I'm an ex, come and sue me, come and sue me, and I could spend a week trying to find more TV.

I don't like it because I enjoyed it quite a bit, right? I know I won't. I hope to know. I will find many things. See you on Tuesday everyone, bye.