Jamie and Richard have strong opinions about tea. Neither will back down. This is where we are. Get the popcorn.

Also this week: Richard has been systematically watching Cheers from the beginning and has arrived at a deeply unsettling conclusion — your parents were right, it has all been done before, and Friends basically nicked the lot. He went to see an experimental artist and has thoughts. He also tells a story about the film London Road that Jamie still doesn't fully understand by the end, and frankly neither will you.

Jamie bought tickets to the My Chemical Romance Black Parade anniversary tour at Wembley. Regular listeners will remember Richard's hill in Episode 6. Jamie would like it noted that he is aware of the irony.

Main topic: are we just getting old, or was the old stuff genuinely better? Does anything feel properly unmissable anymore the way things used to? The World Cup is coming, MCR are doing anniversary tours, and Richard is watching a sitcom from 1982. Make of that what you will.

The tea debate is resolved. Sort of. Not really.

Richard built a barbecue. It didn't go to plan. His wife put the food in the oven. Jamie thinks pre-cooking in the oven before finishing on the barbecue is perfectly reasonable. Richard thinks that's the coward's way out. This is where we are.

Also this week: Richard went to see Richard Birkin with a string quartet, recorded with his secret band that isn't remotely secret, got deep into plugins versus real hardware, and played a sound he could not get out of his head. Jamie travelled to Ireland, Bristol, and Rotterdam — the Eurostar felt like a Jason Bourne film and he wants Eurostar and Air BnB to sponsor the podcast. He saw Project Hail Mary and makes the case that Ryan Gosling is our generation's Steve McQueen. Richard got in trouble with his wife over his audiobooks-aren't-reading hill. Jamie actually read a book.

Richard's hill: neighbours playing loud music in the garden and screaming at Alexa. His solution — get in first and play his own terrible music. A battle is ensuing. He is officially an old man. Jamie doubles down on loud speakers on public transport, the pointlessness of FaceTime, and the case that the phone speaker is the worst invention of all time.

Jamie has been rewatching The Newsroom. A show made over ten years ago that holds a mirror to everything happening now — and we still haven't learned. Black Mirror enters the conversation. So does The Thick of It. So does San Junipero, uploading consciousness, and the Ray Ban glasses that are basically the Black Mirror contact lens episode made real. If the world we're living in now had been written as fiction ten years ago, nobody would have believed it.

Also: Jamie's advice in the event of a nuclear explosion is to get as close to it as possible. Richard explains that if we were horses our music would be different. There is a turkey impression. There is Turkey Techno. Don't ask.

The episode ends with Jamie and Richard heading to a local electronic music gig. Jamie is going to get pissed. Richard is his carer.

Richard Makes Jamie Watch Eurovision. Special Episode. The cultural exchange is complete. Jamie made Richard watch WrestleMania. Richard made Jamie watch Eurovision. Jamie went in sceptical, came out grudgingly impressed, and has opinions about the voting system that won't surprise anyone. Bulgaria won. Richard is insufferably right about all of it. The deal is done.

Richard has been to Scunthorpe. The city view from his hotel was a Sainsbury's and a solicitor's. He also went to see David Icke — yes, really! He is convinced Jamie missed out. Jamie does not agree.

This week Jamie dies on the hill that everyone needs to calm down about AI in both directions, the people saying it's going to destroy humanity and the people saying it's useless are both wrong. Richard thinks the whole thing is disingenuous. What follows is one of their better arguments: touching on the Luddite revolution, AI music creation, whether a ghost-written novel is any different to one written with AI, doctors using ChatGPT, and the strawberry paradox. Also: Jamie admits he says please and thank you to AI. Just in case.

Then Richard buys a microphone off Temu that claims to replicate a world class studio mic. It does not. In Nerds Den, now also known as Random Shit Richard Has Bought, the results are assessed.

Also: Bob Mortimer is a comic genius and this is not up for debate.

If you enjoyed this episode, share it with someone who needs it. Or someone who doesn't. Especially your enemies. Like, subscribe, and we'll see you in a fortnight.

Jamie's been to Disneyland Paris, Richard's been to the Shepherd's Bush Empire, and somehow both trips end up in the same conversation, are we being sold experiences or just parted from our money in increasingly creative ways? Richard dies on the hill that anniversary tours need to stop and bands need to know when to quit. Ticket prices, theme parks, and the growing suspicion that someone is always making money out of your good time. Plus: the intro that refused to behave, and Richard's continued refusal to touch the Instagram page.

We're now on Instagram at @ncwytpodcast and you can reach us at [email protected] we want your hills. The things you'd die on. The opinions everyone tells you are wrong. Send them in and we'll argue about them on air.

This is a special. No hills, no topics, no format. Jamie making Richard sit through WrestleMania as part of a cultural exchange nobody asked for but everyone needed. Richard went in sceptical. Richard came out changed. The deal was WrestleMania for Eurovision, so consider this fair warning, Richard's revenge is coming, and it involves sequins.

Jamie dies on the hill that the Star Wars prequels deserve more credit than they get. Richard disagrees. Then they tackle the bigger question, why does every piece of culture now need to be part of something larger, and when did standalone become a dirty word?

Richard did his Bee Gees homework and it's only made him worse. Jamie went to see Prima Facie. Then: are audiobooks actually reading? Richard says no. After that, long form vs short form gaming, the backlog problem, and what abandoning a save file says about you as a dad. Got a hill? We want it [email protected] or @ncwytpodcast on Instagram.

Richard is using Arts Council funding to experiment with creative recording sessions with musicians, starting with a harp player, and gets into the details of microphone placement and what he's trying to achieve. Jamie has been watching Pluribus on Apple TV and makes it his mission to get Richard on board. In "I Will Die on This Hill," Jamie argues that the moral panic around children's screen time is performative nonsense and what actually matters is what they're watching, then almost immediately admits he's not sure he fully believes his own argument. That leads into a proper conversation about Stranger Things finally ending, whether it sticks the landing, and the broader question of why so many beloved shows fall apart at the finish line. Fan expectations, showrunner pressure, and whether any ending can ever actually satisfy anyone.

Jamie went to see Radiohead and has thoughts, mostly about the fact they didn't play Creep and whether that's artistic integrity or just being awkward. Richard spent New Year sober and has strong opinions about Jools Holland's Hootenanny. There's a trip to the snooker, a heated "I Will Die on This Hill" where Richard argues the Beatles are massively overrated, and a conversation about support bands, including Jamie's borderline obsessive appreciation for Brigette Calls Me Baby, who he discovered supporting Morrissey. The lads also get into influencer culture creeping into music and acting, and Richard's Nerd Den this week involves spending £1 on a device that is technically both a speaker and a phone. Somehow this takes longer to explain than it should.