The thing about Stalemates is our humility. No, it is. We NEVER big ourselves up. We’re shy, bashful, circumspect and coy, and probably other synonyms for shy. No, we are. That’s the way we were raised. We can’t help it. Compliment us and we blush, we “Aw Shucks!”, we wave you away with a big flapping hand. We imagine. No one has ever complimented us. We’d quite like to test the theory.

But no more. In these days of influencers, self-actualised media nodes, braggarts and bores, we have been unable to ignore market forces. We haven’t beaten them – how dearly we’d like to – so we must join them. This is the Stalemates telling you what they’ve been up to – their projects, their schemes, their successes and their soon to be successes.

We’ve been so busy that we actually recorded this podcast ages ago and have already done half the things we’re talking about. But we’re still very amusing about it, so it’s well worth a listen. And given the nature of the work we have decided to fill our lives with, most on the things mentioned are ongoing and hang in the balance like the sword of flipping Damocles.

It’s the uncertainty that gives us our edge. And the panic. The endless panic...

Everyone loves pop music, yeah? Just agree.

Everyone likes movies, yeah? Of course, you do.

So, what could be better than a magical twist of the two? Literally nothing at all. Cocaine donut sex? Get out of town. We’ll take pop stars acting ANY DAY. After the fun we had laughing along with The Mighty Quo’s antics in “Bula Quo”, this time we’ve enjoyed the cinematic sortie of that other pair of denim clad, down and dirty rockers, The Pet Shop Boys.

Yes, The Pet Shop Boys made a film.

Record companies still had money in the eighties, so when Neil and Chris couldn’t be arsed touring, they made a feature film instead. What do the teenage pop kids want from The Pet Shop Boys film? We’re not sure, but we’re pretty certain it isn’t dogfights over Beachy Head, Musical Hall comedy, the theory of the structure of time, leering men in postcard kiosks, a bloody big suitcase, Joss Ackland as a blind priest serial killer in high heels, or Chris Lowe throwing a plate of sausage and egg over Babs Windsor’s head (she didn’t make another film for thirteen years, you know...).

Join Joe and John Stalemates on another cough-a-minute excavation of the pop mine, where we’ll be hacking up great lumps of laughter. Joe was not keen on the film. John was perhaps slightly more so, but only because one of us had to be, in the interest of BBC style balance.

What HAVE you done to deserve this?

Well now, here’s something new from the Stalemates crew – LIVE SUFFERING. In late November 2021, Joe and John elected to take a hop on, hop off Belfast bus tour. It was a bright, sunny day and even the bus was shivering. Joe wore a bobble hat and multiple scarves; John was in his new woolly coat. They thought nothing could touch them. What fools they were. Within half an hour the microphone was frozen in John’s bone white hand, and Joe was lost in a reverie of past loves and fading memories. When the batteries ran out on the Tascam it may have saved their lives.

What follows is often a load of windy bollocks – that’s not John and Joe’s fault, for once – it was just whipping a gale on the top deck, and the mic was buffeted to buggery. That, and the constant catty drawl of the bus’s inbuilt tour guide, throwing monotonic shade over the entire city, renders quite a lot of the following podcast inaudible.

Parts of it sound like the breakdown in “You Made Me Realise” with John hoarsely slagging off the Titanic building over the top of it.

There is a special prize for anyone who makes it to the end. We’ll come round your house and re-enact it. In the warm. With hot chocolate. Please respect our social distancing. X

Did you know that in 2013 Status Quo made a film?

A film in which they are chased around Fiji by gangsters, stopping only to play ukulele versions of their biggest hits?

Did you know it was directed by the Stunt Arranger from Mrs Brown's Boys, and the supporting cast is comprised solely of members of his family?

Of course you didn't. You're normal decent people. You're watching the latest Suranne Jones 9 o'clock potboiler.

A good job, then, that the Stalemates are here to pick up the slack. Because not only have they seen Bula Quo, John Stalemate actually owns it.

Yes, the Stalemates are back - in the same room for the first time in two years and their excitement is palpable. Wine has been sloshed about, voices are raised, and opinions are aired like so much damp laundry.

And between us we have a quantity of sopping linen. Find out that Joe was a teenage Quo fancier, what the band mean by "a polish", and hear a spirited defence of "Carry on Abroad" from the English Stalemate. Obviously.

We're back. We're loud. We're nicher than ever.

NB May contain factual innacuracies pertaining to classic tv cop show Ironside.

It's a slow news day - nothing to see here - so why not listen in to part two of Stalemates' dissection of David Bowie's worst album?

So many reasons. However, true to form, the Stalemates pull a lot of positives out of "Tonight" and the cultural flotsam it leaves in its wake. Hear Joe say something wise about "Station to Station" and John suggest that the music industry is now over and THAT'S OKAY.

Joe eviscerates poor Sir Tom Jones and they fall out over the relative merits of Bowie's tie in film "Jazzing for Blue Jean" but are reunited in their condemnation of John's Bowie impression, which no longer sounds like "Bad Suggs" but just sounds like John on the way back from the dentist.

You'll come for the Bowie but you'll stay for the Stalemates (even if one of us sounds like a wasp in a matchbox)...

It's a slow news day - nothing to see here - so why not listen in to part two of Stalemates' dissection of David Bowie's worst album?

So many reasons. However, true to form, the Stalemates pull a lot of positives out of "Tonight" and the cultural flotsam it leaves in its wake. Hear Joe say something wise about "Station to Station" and John suggest that the music industry is now over and THAT'S OKAY.

Joe eviscerates poor Sir Tom Jones and they fall out over the relative merits of Bowie's tie in film "Jazzing for Blue Jean" but are reunited in their condemnation of John's Bowie impression, which no longer sounds like "Bad Suggs" but just sounds like John on the way back from the dentist.

You'll come for the Bowie but you'll stay for the Stalemates (even if one of us sounds like a wasp in a matchbox)...

We're back, Back, BACK like a dose of the clap! Yes, the Stalemates return to really give your gag reflex a run for its money. This week Joe and John turn their attention to the David Bowie album "Tonight". Why? You're asking. Surely that's one of the lowest points in the Bowie canon.

Well, yes it is. But we thought we'd carefully comb and sieve it for hidden gems and we found...none. None at all. It really is quite bad. So we insult it in an entertaining way.

So enthralled are we by its poverty of inspiration that we've run to twice the length of the actual album! But don't worry - we've snipped it in two. Oh yes. If you like this there is EVEN MORE TO COME.

NB This is a Covid-y, Zoomcally podcast. So while Joe sounds like he could be in the room with you - don't worry he's not - John sounds like a man treading water in an upturned super tanker, clinging to the body of a dead colleague until help comes. It never has and it never will.

We give you part one of "Tonight" by David Bowie. His worst record? Let's find out...

We're back, Back, BACK like a dose of the clap! Yes, the Stalemates return to really give your gag reflex a run for its money. This week Joe and John turn their attention to the David Bowie album "Tonight". Why? You're asking. Surely that's one of the lowest points in the Bowie canon.

Well, yes it is. But we thought we'd carefully comb and sieve it for hidden gems and we found...none. None at all. It really is quite bad. So we insult it in an entertaining way.

So enthralled are we by its poverty of inspiration that we've run to twice the length of the actual album! But don't worry - we've snipped it in two. Oh yes. If you like this there is EVEN MORE TO COME.

NB This is a Covid-y, Zoomcally podcast. So while Joe sounds like he could be in the room with you - don't worry he's not - John sounds like a man treading water in an upturned super tanker, clinging to the body of a dead colleague until help comes. It never has and it never will.

We give you part one of "Tonight" by David Bowie. His worst record? Let's find out...

In a change to our usual programme John comes over all "hello trees, hello sky" as he picks wild flowers gaily in a summer glade. Meanwhile Joe turns to poetry, the last refuge of the scoundrel, and asks the question "What's so funny about peace, love and understanding?"

His plaintive answer is that he doesn't understand the question, wonders just how much is still owed to Joy, and who the hell is Joy anyway?

Join Stalemates, pack up your troubles, and just get happy. X

In a change to our usual programme John comes over all "hello trees, hello sky" as he picks wild flowers gaily in a summer glade. Meanwhile Joe turns to poetry, the last refuge of the scoundrel, and asks the question "What's so funny about peace, love and understanding?"

His plaintive answer is that he doesn't understand the question, wonders just how much is still owed to Joy, and who the hell is Joy anyway?

Join Stalemates, pack up your troubles, and just get happy. X