“Hello tech support. Uh-huh, uh-huh. In your podcast app? OK. Does the thumbnail have two skeletons on it? Uh-huh. Yeah, I’m afraid you’re going to have to listen to it. Yeah, yeah. The whole thing I'm afraid. It’s only an hour. OK. I understand.”

Wow! This time on Cheerful Despair:

• David F. Porteous didn’t want to shoot lightning from his fingertips anyway!
• Minced beef rocket ship!
• We love the smell of Hersey’s in the morning!

"I tried top [sic] watch [sic] this. It was beyond stupid and not even a little bit funny. Sounded like extreme left wing nonsense and trying to make it sound funny."

This time on Cheerful Despair:

• Extreme left wing nonsense! Wow!
• Beyond stupid! Yay!
• Not even a little bit funny!
  • Plus!
• Trying to make it sound funny!

Recorded in early 2019 and aged in an oak MacBook previously used to produce a fine Scottish audiobook. This episode has exquisite bouquets of:

• Time passes, possibly on the way to taking four consecutive rights and coming back to where it was
• The Apple Store that used to be a Wimpy
• "There was never 'the' terminator, it was always 'a' terminator"
• The hospitalisation of Scottish Author David F Porteous
• The Cheerful Despair Discriminatory Gymnasium and Subscription Sex Prison ft. Tom Hanks
• "Nobody is gonna go to that pub"

As well as delicate hints of our favourite segments Debate Bag and a Christmas Cross Quiz written for a Christmas Special we never recorded (or did we?!? (we didn't)).

Remember, if you don't share our podcast on social media, the terrorists win. Their podcast is very popular.

Now eat an orange.

Denied their sound engineer and recording studio by an extremely rude global pandemic, David F. Porteous and David Candy bring you the subtle flavours and rich aroma of Cheerful Despair from the state-mandated comfort of their own homes. Wow!

This time on the UK's 37th best comedy podcast*:

• Neil Armstrong porks out!
• A touch of the gammons!
• David F. Porteous vs. Peppa Pig!
  • Plus:
• Inconsistent sound quality!
• Sloppy editing!

*Technically true, really quite a long time ago now.

Cheerful Despair takes you back into the warm, slightly moist, folds of its matronly but disturbingly hairy bosom. Other joys we remind you of in this episode:

• The joy of babies - you can't hit them with bricks, you just can't
• The joy of employment - you still can't hit babies with bricks
• The joy of clowns - you can hit them with bricks, and you should

We've probably put something about Star Trek in here too, you know what we're like.

Originally recorded at some point in 2018, probably. A few months before DFP was hospitalised with diabetes he talks nonsense about how fit he is.

We just keep these episodes forever and eventually some of them break out of the cellar. Frankly, if you told more strangers about these podcasts, you'd get more. This is your fault.

-DFP

Cheerful Despair take you on a journey across time and space to celebrate New Year 2018 from the comfort of August 2019. Wow!

This time on Britain's 37th best comedy podcast*:

• The Brigadoon extended universe
• "Vaseline - For a Frictionless Kitchen"
• Tom Hanks in rhyming-slang biohorror shock

Plus!

• Only five sixths of a cross quiz (sorry)
• But fifteen tenths of a debate bag (hooray!)

*Technically true as of 14th July 2019 according to Apple Podcasts - we've got screenshots so you can't take that away from us Apple, even if it was just a terrible mistake

I read once about a podcast that vanished without warning. When it suddenly reappeared, almost two years later, everything was fine. No-one had unsubscribed and everyone just kept listening as if nothing had happened. So, you know, maybe something to think about there.

Anyway, this time on Cheerful Despair:

• How is anti-vax Hercules stored in David Candy’s brain?
• Shifty Un-American Owls
• Yesterday, all my plot holes seemed so far away
• “He wasn’t a warrior princess, he was a Korean man”

Plus!

• Cross-Quiz
• Debate Bag
• The muffled sound of three men eating Pappadums

David F. Porteous and David Candy (who like Star Wars) have been to the movies with sound engineer David Chisholm (who likes football and girls).

Why not listen to the aftermath? Includes STAR WARS THEMED versions of regular features Cross Quiz and Debate Bag.

Caution! From about 30 minutes in, and after ample verbal warnings, we do spoil some plot details of the film. (Sorry about that).

"I don't know how they got into the air ducts, I just want them out. And don't let Jerry screw you around about how he warned us to put the fine mesh otterwire over the vents because otters are skinnier than they used to be. I don't care. I just want them gone."

This week on Cheerful Despair:

Lies about Leith - a place you've probably never been, and if you rely on the signs, you will never get to

The Ultimate Otters Quiz???

The longest Debate Bag we have ever had

Speculation about the D&D stats for the God of Abraham

David Candy meets the local The Batman for Leith - I bet you thought that wasn't going to be mentioned again, but it was. It's a callback! It's right there, a lesser spotted callback!

....Please like me.

-dfp.

"I don't care how many Shannon McNamara has, I am not spending five pounds on another fidget spinner! Why not listen to that stupid podcast instead?"

This week:

• We offer our code-breaking services to GCHQ. Uh, you're welcome...
• Cheerful Despair remembers Lady Diana the way she would have wanted. With a quiz.
• Sir Isaac Newton commits various acts of political self-harm in the name of science!
  • plus
• Will David F Porteous be ostracised by his people for his controversial views on doner meat?