Having dinner sitting next to a grizzly bear. Provoking a hundred muscle-bound men in Coventry. Visiting a laboratory in Spain to cook food using lightning. It could only be YouTube’s most innovative creator… Max Fosh! 

Russell and Max sit down to discuss Max’s Five Brilliant Things, which include many tales of his extraordinary life and the mad challenges he sets himself. Also mayonnaise. He bloody loves mayonnaise. 

A delightful show, delightful company, a delightful man. He also gives a sneak preview of a massive upcoming video…

You can watch all of Max’s work (and you should - it’s clever AND silly - the best combination) at his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/maxfosh

Also please give our Patreon show a look - it’s a whole second show every week with our guests. This week Max gave his solution to the North/South divide, told us his dream projects for the future and he also gave a very in-depth answer (the definitive answer?) to the hundred men vs one gorilla question…

It’s really fun. Have a look by clicking here 

Now be gone. Get out. You are no longer welcome. Come on, haven’t you got homes to go to? I’m trying to cash up here. No you can’t use the toilet. Get out. 

Producer: Dan Atkinson

Line Producer: Daisy Knight

Exec Producer: James Taylor

Composer: Fat Lady Music

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JORDAN BANJO

Jordan Banjo, from the Diversity street dance group, from I’m a Celeb, from Kiss FM is in the studio and his Five Brilliant Things are a huge amount of fun; from watching videos of Mums cutting fringes badly through to smelly pens and a surprising revelation about how old Jordan was before he’d tasted water…

Get thee into this podcast and enjoy Russell and Jordan talking all over these good things. Jordan also tells what it’s like to suddenly become well-known after winning BGT, how surreal that whole experience was.

And as we chatted about on the show, you can hear Jordan alongside Perri hosting the breakfast show on Kiss FM every weekday from 7am on your radio or digital thing. 

And in our extra show, Five Brilliant Questions, Jordan gives some incredible advice for anyone who wants to take dancing seriously as a career, and gives Russell a hilarious run-down of his many tattoos. So many stories!  Click this link to listen to that show:

patreon.com/RussellHoward  

And that’s all the news and weather. Until next time, stay safe and look after each other. Now here’s Julie with the news where you are. 

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From Last One Laughing it’s comedian Harriet Kemsley, who is great company and with some surprising stories; her youth flying in World War Two Fighter Planes to her snowboarding exploits PLUS find out why she could end up imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay… it’s all in this fantastic episode of Five Brilliant Things. 

🎭 Harriet has just a few tour dates left, notably one on 12 June at Leicester Square Theatre in London. If you can go, you should go, she’s a great comic with a superb show. Tickets available here.  🎭

📻 And as discussed in the show, Harriet’s podcast with Amy Gledhill, Single Ladies in your Area is well worth a listen even if they don’t actually go on many dates. Link to listen is here.  📻

🕸️ And finally you can keep up with all of Harriet’s other projects, shows, tours and gigs at her website: https://harrietkemsley.com 🕸️

✨ And if you’re here reading this (who are you?!) then you’re clearly over-invested in this podcast. You should join the hundreds of other enlightened beings who have joined our Patreon Crew. They get all the inside scoops. They find out guests who are coming soon. They get the podcast before anyone else. They get it with no adverts. They also get a whole second show every week, that they help to make. You could be one of those lucky few. Find out what outstanding value it is by clicking here. ✨ 

That’s it for this week. Please do something this week that scares you, unless that thing is, y’know, murder or a coup in a small African republic. Keep it vanilla baby. 

Producer: Dan Atkinson

Line Producer: Daisy Knight

Exec Producer: James Taylor

Composer: Fat Lady Music

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Welcome to May's moments of the month; a show where we round up the highlights of all the episodes of the past month so you can have a nibble at all of them and see if they take your fancy.

May 2025 in the studio we had Kae Kurd, Jeff Innocent, Jordan Stephens and Adam Buxton. Please enjoy this new monthly taster show.

This won't change our normal shows released as usual every Wednesday (or once every seventeen days for our listeners on Jupiter).

If you've already listened to all these episodes by the way there's nothing new really apart from some little bits and bobs in-between the excerpts from the existing episodes. You know how compilations work.

Producer: Dan Atkinson

Line Producer: Daisy Knight

Exec Producer: James Taylor

Composer: Fat Lady Music

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How did the F1 anchor cope when David Coulthard was so hungover he’s got a bucket between his legs just out of shot? When he was hosting the football, how badly was Jake reprimanded for jeering at the Ipswich fans from the commentary box?

Jake Humphrey from the High Performance podcast (and formerly of CBBC) is in the studio with Russell to wax lyrical about his Brilliant Things including the mud in Norfolk, Greylag Geese, his terrible A-level results and more and more and more. 

Jake’s podcast is the one you’ve most likely heard about - the super-successful High Performance podcast where he talks to people about their extraordinary achievements and lives and how they get to those places. Have a listen at https://www.thehighperformancepodcast.com

✨ Aaaand if you like all this that we do, then you can get it unemcumbered by advertisements, and get an extra show every week for a small monthly cost. Find out what an insane bargain it is by clicking here. ✨ 

End of message. Please don’t drop litter, and yes that means putting it in a hedge. Hedges have feelings too. Also if you’ve got a dog and you can’t pick up its poo, get it a nappy. It’s a small price to pay for clean streets and a funny stupid looking dog. 

Producer: Dan Atkinson

Line Producer: Daisy Knight

Exec Producer: James Taylor

Composer: Fat Lady Music

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Adam Buxton, the OG, the Podfather, king of all things Pod is here and he’s not just brought Five Brilliant Things - he’s also brought a load of nearly-ran Brilliant Things! 

Fascinating and funny as always, Adam takes us through why dinner is so important, how he’s unable to invent bedtime stories and which bird has a song like EDM. 

It’s just great! An hour with Adam just flies by and you will come out amused, invigorated and fresh, like a shower if it was funny.

📚 Adam has got a new book out! It’s called I love you Byeee and it’s all about his time making the Adam and Joe show and (this is a quote) ‘the drug hell that led me to nearly dying in the arms of a comedy legend’…

It’s the follow up to his Ramble Book, it will be excellent and you should get a copy now from this link here!  📚

📻 And of course, Adam does his weekly podcast which you can and should get in all your podcasts places. Here’s a link for the lazy-fingered amongst you. 📻 

✨ Aaaand if you like all this that we do, then you can get it unemcumbered by advertisements, and get an extra show every week for a small monthly cost. Find out what an insane bargain it is by clicking here. ✨ 

And that is all that nonsense. If you are still with me, congratulations, you are one of about four people in the world who stick to the end of the blurbs. It’s a real badge of honour and those other quitters don’t know what they are missing. It’s just us down here, me cranking out wordage and you, somehow addicted to this but at the same time wondering if it’s all a waste of time. Well it isn’t. Here, just for you hardy perennials, is a fun fact: Ketchup was originally sold as medicine.

There you go. Your reward for reading to the end. Bye!

Producer: Dan Atkinson

Line Producer: Daisy Knight

Exec Producer: James Taylor

Composer: Fat Lady Music

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From Rizzle Kicks it’s the fabulous Jordan Stephens, and his brilliant things are brilliantly wide-ranging. 

What’s the greatest ever TV show intro theme? The answer is in here, as well as some mind-expanding discussions about the profundity of vegetables. 🥦 Hell yeah. 

💿 Rizzle Kicks have recorded and released a new album which is called ‘Competition is for Losers’ and you can preview it or buy a copy here.  💿

🎤 They’ve also got some live shows coming up in 2025 and 2026 so to find out where they are playing and experience one of their incredible live gigs, check it all out here.  🎤

✍️ And as promised, here's also a link to Jordan's substack which is a great dose of weekly ideas - give it a go.

And in our extra show just for our Patreon crew, you asked some phenomenal questions that led to finding out more about Rizzle Kicks break up and reforming, and a fascinating insight into what it’s like to be an actor on the set of a huge Star Wars film (Jordan was!). It’s not all fun fun fun…

Click this link to join or find out more:

patreon.com/RussellHoward  

Thanks for being part of this blurb, I feel like we did this together, you and I. I mean I did most of the heavy lifting, typing away, thinking up new things for you to enjoy and you just made your eyes move slightly and then made sense of these squiggly lines we call letters and had your brain transform them into ideas and pictures…actually that’s pretty impressive when you think of it. Imagine describing that process to a slug it would have its slimy mind blown. Well done you. 

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Jeff, AKA Racist Grandad by the internet, is in the studio and his Five Brilliant Things are a wonderful trip across a rich and colourful life.

In case you’re not aware, Jeff is one of the UK comedy circuit’s top acts but for decades was unknown outside the clubs. Now, after all that time, he has become Insta-famous.

This wonderful episode of the show takes in 60s reggae record hunting, working on a dog track and the dos and don’ts of wearing a dead man’s silk pyjamas. 

Jeff has recorded his latest special and it’s on Youtube for all to enjoy. He is best tasted live, of course; to watch his Special and find links to get to Jeff’s live shows including future tours, you need to keep your eyes on https://www.jeffinnocent.com

And in our extra show just for our Patreon crew, Jeff tells the most astonishing story about the wildest behaviour of his youth. It’s a bit more strong flavoured than the main show this week but a fascinating, utterly absorbing story that has to be heard to be believed…

Click this link to join or find out more:

patreon.com/RussellHoward  

And now the moment we’ve all been waiting for, the obligatory over-long indulgent sign-off. The business is completed, and now almost as a point of spite you have to wade through this unnecessary punishment of words. Here you still are, reading on, maybe in the hope that at the end there will be a reward for your continued presence, your efforts. You’ve got an inkling that it will fade to nothing but you’re still here. That stupid part of your brain that contains hope is urging you to continue without stopping to consider what even could the reward be? What would be worth all this waste of time? Is there anything?

Reader: there was nothing.

Until next time.

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What is the rudest thing a therapist can do during a session? Kae Kurd found out and tells a belter of a story in this episode all about it.

This quite brilliant Brilliant Things takes in perverts watching Panda sex, it covers the beauty of Rottweilers and there’s even a bit of perineum sunning in there for good measure. 

Kae Kurd is a fantastic British-Kurdish comedian and gives incredible insight into what it’s like gigging around the UK had how he weaves his fascinating cultural heritage into his comedy.

🎤 Kae is going on tour in 2025. Over September, November and October he’ll be all over the UK’s theatres with his brand-new show ‘What’s O’Kurd’. 

You can get tickets and find all the dates at kaekurd.com  🎤

At that same place you can watch his last two specials in full for free, and you can get hold of his weekly podcast too. It’s all there. As you’d hope.

💥 If you’re enjoying this podcastness and you want it even podcastier, as in no adverts,  an exclusive extra show every week that you help to make, and getting it all a day early… all for less than the cost of one sandwich a month… then click here to find out more.  💥

And so the podcast word scribe closed his antiquated typewriter and made sure the submarine was still on course, doing one last upload for the week. He stared out of the dirty portholes at the murky darkness, hoping to see a passing crab or lantern fish but still nothing. It would be another nine years until he would see the surface again, he contemplated, but it was worth it in order to keep pumping quality content across the internet on a weekly basis. He grabbed his 5 Brilliant Things branded duvet, shuffled over to his bunk and slept a good long sleep.

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Russell gets his tarot reading live on the podcast! The guest this week is Emma Gannon, the the Sunday Times bestselling author judge for the prestigious 2025 Women's Prize. Between 2016-2023 she hosted Ctrl Alt Delete, one of Britain’s most successful industry podcasts. She is seen as many as the quintessential voice of the millennial generation.

Emma and Russell talk about fascinating areas of unlocking creativity, making time for all the things you want to do (can you have it all?) and singing nuns. A breezy brilliant hour of chat for you to enjoy while you’re walking in this glorious sunshine. If you’re reading this when it’s raining then just pretend. 

🍽️ Emma’s new novel ‘Table for One’ (which was discussed in the podcast) has just come out, and you can get that from all the best independent book places. You could go to a local bookshop, or just click here and order it now! 🍽️

⌨️ Emma’s hugely popular Substack newsletter ‘The Hyphen’ is a weekly dose of everything fascinating in Emma’s life and you can check that out here. ⌨️

✨ And if you’re finding that this is one of your regular podcast listens, then it makes sense to subscribe to our Patreon; not only do you get it without adverts, you also get an extra show with our guest where you, the listeners, set the questions. It’s a lot of fun. 

Also it’s only the price of one packet sandwich a month.

Click here to find out more. ✨

And with that, our unstoppable force meets the immovable object of the end of this week’s descriptions. What fun we had. The first paragraph was a trip, then we moved through some factual information, and ended up here at a sort of dribbling arse-end of a sign-off. Next week will be better, I promise you that. Something epic. See you here at the end, again, next time, for a real little treat for you my curious little blurb reader. 

TTFN

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