Plurals

Bonus Guy struggles with singularities.

Transcript

Welcome to a very special bonus episode of The Undercover Intern podcast, coming to you live from the centre of London. I'm your host, Guy Snapdragon, and today is Thursday the 3rd of April 2025. Let’s thought experiment. OK?

I go to a Michelin-starred restaurant, right. I’m all dressed-up, have lost my excess weight, have a really attractive woman date with me. This is a huge deal, I’m not swear around tonight. She’s very probably my future wife. OK, all great. What a beautiful green dress she’s wearing. Classy but also slightly suggestive, like she’s not scared of speeding things up with the right man. This is not a place you can just walk into off the streets, right. They’re playing orchestral music without a singer. We are having some great chat about podcasting software innovation, totally interesting and relaxed. Then the waiter comes over with the menu: “Good evening sir and madam, it’s our pleasure to present Chef’s 12-part tasting menu, a culinary exploration inspired by the land, the sea, and the season. Each course is a reflection of our passion for innovation and tradition. We hope it will delight your senses and create lasting memories”. I can’t work out if the waiter is Welsh, Indian, Jamaican, Irish or Cockney. I look down at the menu and the twelve courses are as follows: Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies; followed by French Sablé Chocolate Chip Cookies; Buckwheat Cardamom Chocolate Chip Cookies; Marbled Chocolate Chip Cookies; Espresso Chocolate Chip Cookies; Sea Salted Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies; Mexican Chocolate Chip Cookies; Lavender Infused Chocolate Chip Cookies; Hazelnut Chocolate Chip Cookies; Almond Joy Chocolate Chip Cookies; Matcha White Chocolate Chip Cookies; and finally Bourbon Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies. Not sure if that’s eleven or twelve, but you get the point, don’t you? Everything on the tasting menu is chocolate-chip cookie. God knows what you’d do if you are allergic to chocolate, or cookie.

This is a hypothetical, right. This didn’t happen. But I’ll tell you what my reaction would be if this did happen. I’d be like: are you absolutely swear with me? I love chocolate-chip cookies, but I don’t want a whole swear tasting-menu of them. I’ll be sick. You can shove your Michelin star up your arse if you think I’m going Dutch for this. What’s next, is your wine menu just milk? Yes, listeners, in this hypothetical, I look at the wine menu and it’s just variations and combinations of  the four milks: cow, human, almond and goat. The waiter’s still stood there, right, and says, “To enhance your experience, our sommelier has curated a selection of milks perfectly paired with each dish.” I love milks, but swear you if you think that any of this is OK, hypothetically. How many Michelin-starred restaurants, or even just Michelin-recommended restaurants, serve exclusively chocolate-chip cookies? My guess is zero, apart from this hypothetical one that I’m sat at with my probable future beautiful hypothetical wife.

I know that Andy Kaufman took his Carnegie Hall audience out for milk and cookies after a show, but that show began at 8pm and I bet everyone had already had dinner. So what constitutes a meal? What is the minimum requirement? And when, if ever, do chocolate-chip cookies become a meal?

I should just say straight up that, if you are listening to this bonus episode, which you must be if you can hear me, you owe me. Please send cash only to ‘The Undercover Intern’ and address it to Off Runway Podcast Studio, London Luton Airport, Milton Keynes. 25 pounds up-front and every additional minute you listen to is 5 pounds. You might not have realized that you had agreed to this, but it’s the law, and you should read Apple’s T&Cs about bonus episodes a bit closer if you’re surprised. If you’ve listened from the start, it’s 35 pounds you owe now because we’re into minute three. 

How many grains of sand in a heap? This isn’t the same, it’s mainly just a question of quantity. With chocolate-chip cookies it’s a question of both quantity and quality. But then am I saying that if the chocolate-chip cookies taste amazing, like they surely would in a Michelin-starred chocolate-chip-cookie restaurant, then they could theoretically constitute a meal, especially if paired with the right milk? I don’t think I am saying this, surely? Or am I? Oh my god, is Liam right?

How many drops of water in an ocean? Again, this is a quantity-only question, but you can at least see that it’s possible however many trillion drops are needed. Seventeen trillion chocolate-chip-cookies still isn’t a meal, is it? How many bubbles in a bubble-bath? Maybe if it’s one of those expensive ones with exotic essential oils, you don’t need many. I’m a shower-man so am not an expert. But even though questions of quality are now in play,  the problem here is that a bubble isn’t a meal. By this I mean that a meal must surely mean more nutrition than a bubble, no?

How many years in a long life? Liam Payne was 31 when he died last October. Not a long life. But when we consider the quality of those years, then perhaps it was a long life? Just look at the year 2011 alone, when One Direction were signed up by Simon Cowell. You had, ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ and ‘Gotta Be You’ plus the whole album of other love songs that year. You have the X-Factor Live Tour with other X-Factor contestants, and in December 2011 One Direction started their own tour in Watford. That’s a year well-lived, but is it more than one year? 

About 170,000 people die each day. But Liam Payne from One Direction only dies once, and his death is surely more important than the other 169,999 fatalities on that day combined. Like Rita Ora said, Liam Payne was one of the kindest people that she knew, and Rita Ora must know absolutely loads of people. I know for a fact that Liam Payne was kinder than the other 169,999 people who died on 16 October 2024, almost certainly, and we all need to respect that. He was definitely prettier than all of them, pre-impact, and famouser, and we most certainly need to respect that. 

I have respect for Liam Payne except maybe the next time I audition for the X-Factor you won’t giggle with Simon Cowell when I try to hit the high note to Wuthering Heights. Maybe the next time I pass you on the X-Factor stage, you won’t point and mimic with Cheryl Cole, like a couple of evil children. I guess you were a child back then, though Cheryl certainly wasn’t. I never forget an insult, Liam, and I’ve had my eye on you for fifteen years. How dare you mock me like that. I guess there won’t be a next time, hey? How many times do you laugh at me before making a lifetime enemy? Just once, Liam. Just once is enough. I would just say, also, if you’re prone to balcony-jumping, you should ask for a ground floor room at a hotel. Or get an AirBnB bungalow or something.

How many hairs in a beard? I don’t swear know. How many needles in a haystack? That one isn’t a good example, is it – a million needles wouldn’t make a haystack. Hay is essential for a haystack. But you surely get my point? When does the singular become plural?

Remember that this is a bonus episode, so we cannot expect it to be of the same quality as the regular weekly episodes. More tasteless and hateful content is inevitably going to get through the cracks what with there being less time to edit etcetera. I’m also tired and sleep-deprived. This is minute six, so I think we’ve hit 50 pounds that you owe me now, payable within 30 days.

How many steps in a journey? That surely depends, in part, on the destination? Every journey begins with a single step, except those taken by car, plane, tram, bicycle, roller-skate, elephant, rocket, bus, wheelchair, submarine, horseback, bobsleigh, ferry, skateboard, hovercraft or other non-step-essential methods, but can a foot-journey end on step three? Step four? Step five? Step six? Step seven? Step eight?.... I don’t know. I think I’ll know it when I say it, but I don’t know when that will be. Step nine? Step ten? Step eleven? Step twelve? No, twelve steps isn’t a journey. What if you were a giant? That’s silly. There aren’t giants, are there.

How many hotel balcony-floors in a fatal fall? Certainly three, by the sounds of it. But two? Again, it’s not just a quantity question, but also quality. Head-first and surely two would be plenty? Wearing a padded giraffe costume having just returned from an animal-themed fancy dress party and maybe even four wouldn’t be enough. The more I think about this, the more I realise that I don’t know anything about the plural world. Or worlds. 

How many words in a language? My entire worth is in language, in these words that I speak to you, and I feel insecure when that is threatened. This threat to language, as well as my personal vendetta, hopefully explains my visceral reaction to Liam’s claim that his last meal was a chocolate-chip cookie. I thought he, as somebody whose worth was also related to language, as well as his looks, youth, kindness, music and dancing… I guess he relied on language less than I, but that’s not an excuse to use it so cavalierly. Though I have to admit that it was his friend who actually said those words about chocolate-chip cookies being his final meal, after he died. His friend said it after he died, Liam didn’t eat chocolate-chip cookies after he died, that would have been dangerous. But anyway, Liam shouldn’t have friends like that, who are so sloppy with words. It’s damaging. It’s irresponsible. If words don’t mean anything, then nothing doesn’t.

How many sheep in a flock? Three sounds about right. Three healthy adult sheep is a flock. I’m calling it. Three balconies, three sheep. Three’s a crowd. Maybe three high-quality chocolate-chip cookies is what makes a meal? I don’t know if I’m going to find a definitive answer, is it all just arbitrary? While cookies can temporarily satiate hunger, they just do not meet the comprehensive criteria of a meal from a nutritional standpoint. However, acknowledging the philosophical aspects, I accept that there are scenarios where cookies could be considered a meal by some individuals. Thank you, Liam, for continuing to make me think from beyond your life on earth. I forgive your mockery, especially now that you are dead. Your legacy will be a long one. How many years in a long legacy? Probably 100 or so, around the same number as bubbles in a bubble bath.

How many minutes in a bonus podcast episode? Are we into the eleventh yet? Almost? OK, you owe me 75 pounds if you’ve listened to this full bonus episode, or 25 pounds if you listened to less than a minute, but more than three seconds. If you listened to between one minute and one second and nine minutes and 59 seconds of the podcast, you must interpolate. If you don’t know what interpolate means then take a serious look at yourself. How many years in understanding the word ‘interpolate’? Maximum 16, I’d say. I’m Guy Snapdragon, and I’ve been your special bonus.