Hello, my name's Josh. I was brought up on a farm in Timaru. My dad still lives there and sends us regular emails. On the show tonight, I'm going to read one to my mates. 'This week on the show ` Urzila Carlson,' One guy is disabled, mate. Yeah, but he's not as disabled, like, he can still drive. We're not talking about a man` (LAUGHS RAUCOUSLY) ...crawling around the house! He still has some movement! That's true. He doesn't open the car and just... (LAUGHS) '...Jeremy Corbett,' If this is her favourite horse she uses for the gigs, Yeah. is there not a chance she might be out tending the horse (LAUGHS) when your father's shooting missiles into the paddock? (LAUGHS) '...and Dai Henwood.' If I'm putting myself in her position, and my neighbour came over and went, 'Here's a quarter of a pottle of moisturizer from the '70s,' (LAUGHS) (BOTH LAUGH LOUDLY) I don't quite know how I would... (LAUGHS, WHEEZES) respond to that. Thank you, Urzila, for coming on. Urzila Carlson, of course, wonderful comedian. Well, comedian. What was that? Just comedian. I don't like to go with labels. OK, fine. I was just saying, people might question it. That's all. OK. Let's just... Let's agree to disagree. So this is an email from my dad, Yeah. from David Thompson. Subject: Dad. OK. Hang on. OK. So why does he put that as a subject? (CHUCKLES) Because he doesn't like to muck around. 'From David Thompson. Subject: Dad.' 'Today there is a very fine drizzle rain falling. 'The rain has several side effects. One ` is that I can justify being inside typing this, 'and reading my backlog of incoming emails. How much would he have a backlog? Just thousands of emails since the last bout of rain? (BOTH LAUGH) You know when you type you have to check the weather forecast in Timaru and go, 'Oh, he's not going to read this for three days.' (LAUGHS) 'One thing is that I can justify being inside and typing this and reading my backlog of incoming emails.' 'Another is that I may go to town today and purchase some milk, as I do not have a milking cow or goat.' (LAUGHS) Can I say, he's not making a joke here, because we used to have a milking cow and a goat. Yeah. Have you ever tried to milk a goat? I can't say that I have. They have very little nipples. Yeah. And you've gotta twiddle them into a little container, and they give a very small amount of milk. I can't imagine a goat would wanna just stand there They don't like being touched. Yeah. I mean, the goats attacked us as children, so that's... that's all right, just as long as you have a thimble of milk after you milk it. 'Another thing is that I may go to town today and purchase some milk, 'as I do not have a milking cow or goat, and I have not left the town for a week 'other than to help my disabled neighbour retrieve and bury a dead cat from the front of his car. (LAUGHS) So that's... There's a cat in the front of his car. Yeah. So presumably in the grill. Either it's outside the car in the grill or it's just died in the car. Why is Dad`? Well, if it takes two grown men to remove it from the front of the car, you'd think that's a trauma thing. Hey. One guy is disabled, mate. Yeah, but he's not as disabled, like, he can still drive! (LAUGHS RAUCOUSLY) We're not talking about a man crawling around the house! He still has some movement! That's true. He doesn't open the car and just... (LAUGHS, WHEEZES) Is` I don't know. Is it meant to be sad? Is it the guy's own cat? Is it Dad's cat? Is it a random cat? Does he go into it any more or is that it? No, no! The next line is, 'My bowl of breakfast cereal is now sitting in the fridge.' So it goes, 'I have not left the farm for a week other than to help my disabled neighbour 'retrieve and bury a dead cat from the front of his car. 'My bowl of breakfast cereal is now sitting in the fridge. 'My bowl of breakfast cereal is now sitting in the fridge awaiting fresh milk. 'For breakfast`' Wait. So he's already put the dry cereal in a bowl? Yes! (LAUGHS) (LAUGHS) (BOTH LAUGH) I didn't realise he had put cereal in his bowl and put it in the fridge. What?! (STAMMERS) How much prepping is going on in this man's house?! You don't have to keep the cereal cold. 'My freezing cold Weet-Bix is now in the fridge awaiting fresh milk.' If it's only him there, if he has made a cup of tea the night before, used the last` It's not like when you live with flat mates, Yes! when you open and go, '(BLEEP!) No milk!' You don't have` It's just you! You go, 'Just finished the last of the milk.' Then 20 minutes later` (GRUNTS, LAUGHS) (BOTH LAUGH) 'Who put the bottle back in the fridge?!' 'For breakfast, I had toast and peanut butter as well as cold cooked broad beans. (BOTH LAUGH) 'Which was surplus to the hot and cold salad I made for lunch yesterday.' Peanut butter on toast and cold cooked broad beans. Yeah. I don't know if he's got toast with peanut butter and broad beans on the toast. No, that's surely as a side dish. Yeah, that's insane. Yeah. Eat that as well as your toast. He's not going to put broad beans and peanut butter together! No, he's not a madman. He's not insane. 'Should we heat these up?' 'No, thanks.' No. No, no. I want cold broad beans with my peanut butter and toast. 'Ofa atu, Dad.' Ofa atu is Tongan for 'love to everybody.' So there we go. That's Dad's email. Thanks for coming along. I really enjoyed that. Does he do group email? This is a group email. Can I get in the email group? You don't get to get out of the group. Wait, what? Once you're in, you get a daily email. Oh. Is it daily? (QUIRKY MUSIC) Coming up after the break ` Jeremy Corbett, (LAUGHS) I love it. I'm going out into the clear fresh air, I'm going to enjoy nature, (LAUGHS) ...but it's a bit quiet, so I might just shoot off some artillery. (BOTH LAUGH) '...and Dai Henwood.' Why are there animal medicines in this internal medicine cupboard? (LAUGHS) Yeah, like, you don't want your Nurofen and your Drench next to each other. (LAUGHS HEARTILY) Corbett. Yes. Really glad you're here. Oh, it's great to be here. Now this is some pretty deep stuff. OK. 'From David Thompson. Subject... ...Dad. Great. 'I am settling into my winter routine of getting up after the sun has risen, 'judging if it is a day that I should have a daytime fire burning for inside work, 'or will I venture out into the clear fresh air?' Most of us would say, 'Let's light a fire anyway.' It's very cold. He's committing to it one way or the other. Oh, yeah, yeah. Straight off, off the bat. LAUGHS: Because you have to` I'm either inside today or outside. If I choose to go out that door, that's it for the day, What if someone rings him, 'Can you give us a hand with the car? Stuck in some mud.' 'Inside day today, sorry.' 'Sorry, I've lit the fire.' 'Fire's lit, I've committed to that.' 'I'm not going outside. Can't help you.' Bit of a conundrum if it really clears and starts to warm up and the sun's there and he's inside with the fire going, sweating. He's like, (GROWLS LOUDLY) (BOTH LAUGH) 'I'm not going out!' 'I am settling into my winter routine of getting up after the sun has risen, 'judging if it is a day that I should have a daytime fire burning for inside work, 'or will I venture out into the clear fresh air?' 'Today was one of the latter, so I glued threaded connections 'on to two different calibre barrels for my air canon.' What?! (LAUGHS) That accelerated real fast. 'For my air canon.' (CHUCKLES) I love it. I'm going out into the clear fresh air, I'm going to enjoy nature, but it's a bit quiet, so I might just shoot off some artillery. (LAUGHS) Do you know what an air canon is? Yeah, it's like an potato canon situation. Yeah, it's like a spud gun. Right. Yeah. Dangerous, wow. So his reasoning for it ` he has it for fishing. He's shooting the bait. Oh, like shooting a line out? Yeah, yeah. He gets, like, a 'Selleys No More Gaps' sealant, empty container of that, fill it up with water, freezes it, My God! ...and that's his projectile that he's shooting. He's making his own giant bullets. He's making his own mortar rounds. Yeah. 'Now that the bulls have eaten all the forage in the big paddock, 'I will be able to use this nice clear space as a test range. Mm-hm. 'One perceived problem is that at my expected operating pressure of 120psi, 'the projectile may travel more than 220m ` brackets, the length of the paddock, end brackets ` and land next door, killing one of the horses... (LAUGHS RAUCOUSLY) 'killing one of the horses that my neighbour employs 'to pull her two-wheeled gig at horse-themed competitions and AMP shows.' He could've stopped at 'killing one of the horses', (LAUGHS HEARTILY) ...but he just had to embellish it a little bit more, just saying, you know, 'When I kill this horse, we're not losing a horse, 'this is a special show horse that pulls the`' What? A two-wheeled gig. Is that a buggy? A gig's like a buggy, yeah. Like the thing you sit on. Can I just say, if this is her favourite horse she uses for the gigs, is there not a chance she might be out there tending the horse when your father's shooting missiles at them? (LAUGHS) (BOTH LAUGH) Let's forget about the horse. Let's forget about the horse. Let's hear more about the` We're taking out humans here. (LAUGHS) 'It could be that with the limited capacity of my pressure chamber, 'that long trajectories are not an issue.' Good. Problem solved. Might not happen. 'Time will tell.' (LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY) So he's going ahead with the launch?! (LAUGHS) 'I was delighted when the first one that weighed 529g flew 100m. 500g. That's the weight of a tub of` Block of butter. ...a block of butter. 'The next one of weight 587g separated in flight, 'so that the ice cylinder flew 48m and the empty plastic sealant tube flew on to 66m. 'The next test was equally perplexing, as the ice fell out at 63m, 'and the empty tube carried on a bit further.' He's no longer telling you about his day. He's drifted off` He's actually talking to himself now, isn't he? (LAUGHS) He's writing down his problems. It's no longer a missive to his family. It's like he's going (GROANS). 'It doesn't make any sense!' 'Why would the container fly on and the ice fall out?' Yeah, how's he measuring how far it went? He's got one of those where he sort of surveys. Oh, the windy ones. Yeah, big, big one. Yeah. I think it only goes to 50, so he's got markers out in the field, test markers, little flags, and then, like, dragged out the next bit. So it's like an Olympic shot put kinda set up. He's got Sickles' drawn. See how far he can go. (LAUGHS) 'I have now melted all the old heads from lead-head nails,' Oh, no, way! No! Don't be going into lead-based projectiles. (LAUGHS, WHEEZES) Ice went bad enough. Now he puts the lead in the ice to change the weight. So he's figured out what the ice weighs, Right. and then he keeps adding more bits of lead to figure out what weight travels the furthest. Right. 'I have now melted all the old heads from lead-head nails, 'and the lead tyre balancing weights that I've collected over the years.' (CHUCKLES) (LAUGHS HEARTILY) Just so you know the background of all the lead. 'I have started to use the lead flashing from corrugated iron roofs, but that will soon be used up.' (BOTH LAUGH) He's got concerns about his lead supply. Yeah, it's running` How much lead do you need?! Well, if you've got lead-head nails in your roof, any reasonable-sized roof, you're gonna be getting a few kilos of lead out of them, surely. Surely he's not taking it out of the roof. No, he can't be. He can't be. He's be looking at it. (LAUGHS) LAUGHS: Looking at it going, 'Hmm.' (LAUGHS) He'll be going over to the neighbours' places. (LAUGHS) Going over to see his neighbour with the horse. 'I'm shooting some projectiles, I might kill your horse. That outside shed...' (LAUGHS HEARTILY) And he finishes it off ` 'As a night cap, I am trying a mixture of my duty free Bundaberg rum 'with orange cordial, and it's very pleasant.' That's not a drink, is it, rum and orange? I've never heard of it. Look, I'm gonna do a quick... Oh, here we go. It's not a drink. See, for most people, 'I am trying' would mean 'I'm drinking', 'I'm tasting'. Yes, right. But with him, it's actually an experiment. Well, see, this is the thing. We're laughing about his rum and Thriftee, maybe this is a delicious drink. Could be. I'm certainly` We can try it. We've gotta get this rum and Thriftee thing happening across the country. And I guarantee, it doesn't matter what he's drinking, it will go down pretty quick. Oh, yeah. (GULPS) He's had a big day. Disgusting. (BOTH LAUGH) (GULPS) Also hideous. (HISSES, SHOUTS) (LAUGHS) (SHAKES) That's a hell of a drink. (GRUNTS, EXHALES) (LAUGHS HEARTILY) 'Vomited 587g of vomit.' 'Froze it, and it went 200m.' (LAUGHS) (LAUGHS) 'Ofa atu, Dad,' he signs off. 'Best wishes.' (SIGHS) Been wonderful, Jeremy, to talk about this sort of stuff. We must catch up again for a rum and Thriftee. A rum and Thriftee and just go over some of the stats from the firing range. Sure. Absolutely. Find out if the neighbour's horse it still with us. (BOTH LAUGH RAUCOUSLY) Coming up after the break ` Dai Henwood. That, I feel, is the story. Not the buttons. If anything, you could drop the buttons from the email, and spare another sentence on how your neighbour got chased by a ram. One guy is disabled, mate. Now, Dai is short for the Welsh name Dafydd? Yeah, Dafydd which is Welsh for David. Well, there we go. Right, well, this is from David. Got a doozy today. 'From David Thompson, Subject: Dad. 'I have just finished some delicious mussels that I gathered a few days ago.' That` Can I just` I really enjoy mussels, but you've gotta be so careful where you're gathering. Yeah, well, they grow quite well near the Freezing Works. I think it's probably a bit of stuff comes out of the Freezing Works and then kind of gets... Is there any shellfish collection rules around there? Probably. I imagine your dad's not a stickler` (LAUGHS HEARTILY) ...for biohazard signs. 'I found in the past, that if I keep the mussels in a bucket with no water for three days 'and just kept cool by a camp cloth draped over the bucket, 'the mussels retain the seawater they were full of when harvested, 'and either keep recycling it around inside their shell or partially marinate in it, 'or something.' What? Like, you're meant to flush mussels with fresh water. Are you? Yeah. Why? So they pump out all the bad stuff. Mm. That's why the supermarkets have that fresh water constantly going over, so they're pumping out the seawater and the sand and the grit. No. (LAUGHS) And they're not refrigerated? No. (LAUGHS) These aren't refrigerated, but kept cool by a camp cloth draped over the bucket. I don't know what a camp cloth is. Do you know what a camp cloth is? No, I'm envisaging a bigger tea towel. (LAUGHS) A big tea towel is what I'm thinking. Yeah. I don't know what a camp cloth is. Well, I'm thinking along the wax cotton, the wax canvas where you can hang it up and collect water in. Oh, I see, right! Like a multipurpose. And that would work perfectly over a bucket of stinking mussels. (LAUGHS RAUCOUSLY) Cos it would seal it off. If anything, you should probably keep mussels at a sort of lukewarm temperature for a few days. (LAUGHS) Is it wet? I think it's` Yes it's a damp` Oh, hang on! Maybe it's a damp cloth and he's done a typo. (LAUGHS LOUDLY) Yes! It's a damp cloth, not a camp cloth. (LAUGHS) 'The mussels retain the seawater they were full of when harvested, 'and either keep recycling it around inside their shell or partially marinate in it, 'or something.' Or something. (LAUGHS RAUCOUSLY) (LAUGHS) Chuck 'em in a bucket and something happens. And then ate it. They're either marinating in their own juices or they're just going off. That's so gross. I' cleaned out one of the medicine cabinets today. 'I transferred animal medicines to the wool shed, 'special screws, buttons and fittings to somewhere else, 'and ladies' beauty products to my neighbour.' First of all, why are there animal medicines in this internal medicine cupboard? (LAUGHS LOUDLY) Yeah, like, you don't want your Nurofen and your Drench next to each other. (LAUGHS HEARTILY) I've found cod liver oil in there from the '70s and said, 'You've gotta start throwing out some of your medicine', given it to him, and then the next time I've been down there, he's halfway through the cod liver oil. So his idea of throwing it out is consuming it. (LAUGHS) Yes. Also, expiry dates aren't a thing put there by The Man to oppress you into throwing your things away. They're not put there to trick you so you throw it away and you have to buy another one. No, they're actually put there so you don't poison yourself. (LAUGHS UNCONTROLLABLY) Also the medicine actually works. 'Transferred animal medicines to the wool shed, special screws,...' They shouldn't be in the medicine cupboard. I imagine he would hoard screws. Yeah. So if you're throwing something out and it's got screws in it, they're all coming out of that thing to be used elsewhere. He kept truck batteries out the front of the house for a very long time. 'But I'm a farmer,' he kept saying. 'Throw them away, throw them away, please, God 'throw those batteries away,' and he didn't, and last year, he broke them open and melted down the lead plates inside them to make fishing lines. That's the reason why he was keeping them. He just hadn't gotten round to it yet. What's the safety level of breaking down old truck batteries? I don't know imagine it's very safe at all. But, you know, he broke open a battery, melted down the lead in a crucible, formed them into a fishing weight, so he saved, you know, $6 or $7. Yeah. 'Transferred animal medicines to the wool sheds, 'special screws, buttons and fittings to somewhere else, 'and ladies' beauty products to my neighbour, who is presently blue and black from the hip down to the foot 'on one leg after she was attacked by a ram last weekend.' The beauty products I understand. She's got attacked by a ram, so` (LAUGHS RAUCOUSLY) (CHUCKLES) That, I feel, is the story, not the buttons. (LAUGHS LOUDLY) Like, I wouldn't like to know where the buttons went, I'd like, if anything, you can drop the buttons from the email and spare another sentence on how your neighbour got attacked by a ram. (LAUGHS) Now these will be old beauty products as well. If I'm putting myself in her position and my neighbour came round and said, 'Here's quarter of a pottle of moisturizer from the '70s, (BOTH LAUGH) ...I don't quite know how I would respond to that. (WHEEZES, LAUGHS) 'Spent most of yesterday shucking mussels, putting them in empty used teabags, What?! So we've gone back to the mussels from the ram. Yeah, but we've gone back to the mussels in a very, very weird situation. Shucking. No, putting them in empty teabags! Yes, yes. Sorry, yes. He doesn't like to throw out teabags. As you know, he's a recycler. He'll dry them and empty them, and then put mussels in them, and then put them on a hook to use as fish bait. 'Spent most of yesterday shucking mussels, putting them in empty used teabags'. There's your day ` putting mussels in teabags. What do you reckon ` 50 mussels? I don't know how long it takes. 'At Ward Beach, caught nothing in the cray pot, probably as I used an old pastrami sandwich as bait.' (LAUGHS RAUCOUSLY) I'm not a marine biologist, but I don't think crayfish eat sandwiches. For the pastrami to make its way into the cray pot, it must've been devastating as well, cos he loves pastrami. That must've slipped down the side of the couch or something and just been` Or just lost it for a while and a couple of months later gone, 'That's a bit whiffy.' 'I might use that.' 'I love it, surely the crayfish will love it.' 'Ofa atu, Dad.' So that's this missive. See, when I go fishing, I buy a frozen bait. But you buy bait, Dad just uses stuff. Sandwiches. Captions by Starsha Samarasinghe. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2018