The Pick 3 Show
Three generations, three choices, one epic argument. A fun podcast, where hosts born in different decades go head to head to rank their Top 3 picks on everything. Perfect for anyone who loves nostalgia, arguments and a lot of laughs!
The Pick 3 Show
Ep 61: Lies we were told as children
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A tradition as old as the hills is for parents to reinforce their viewpoint by telling "white lies" to kids. Generally this is to get children to fall in line but sometimes these lies become generational. The PickMaster General challenged Martin, Gareth and perennial bad boy Andy to recount what they were told as children that, with the benefit of hindsight, proved patently false.
Let us know what "mistruths" you were told as children by the very people you trusted the most! Contact us via X, Bluesky or via e mail: thepick3show@gmail.com
Three men with three decades of separation debate three tough choices every week. This is the Pick Three Show. Welcome to another episode of the podcast that challenges the listeners to select their top three choices for any topic that the Pickmaster General chooses from the show's extensive digital database. With the panel having three decades of separation between them, it is highly possible that today's topic, Lies We Were Told as Children, may have some significant variance. Martin grew up in an era where an adult's word was sacrosanct and incapable of challenge. Gareth grew up in the age of glam rock and new romanticism, where many things simply made no sense but where they actually lies. And he is still growing up, so still remains susceptible to adults telling him lies. Only recently I told him he was a good podcaster.
SPEAKER_01No, no. Excellent podcaster. Excellent. So I in writing. In writing, yes.
SPEAKER_02So where could we record an episode which will primarily deal in tall tales and outright lies? Pulling in a favour from a regular listener, we are recording from Belfast City Hall, where our local politicians normally promise much but deliver little. A perfect location to examine the mistruths we were told in our formative years. Generally by the very adults we trusted the most. A good example was Gareth's dad telling him he could ride his grifter uphill, which turned out to be a complete lie. So joining me here in City Hall are my usual colleagues Gareth and Andy. Morning, gentlemen. Morning, Martin. Very grand in here, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Oh, it is. It's uh I thought Martin was gonna get all political there. But thankfully we're not political podcasts.
SPEAKER_02I was worried it would be echoey, echoey, echoey, echoey. But fortunately it isn't.
SPEAKER_00It is, it does look well for such a place, doesn't it? It does. Can I just add for our listeners who may be listening with kids in the car, as a family podcast, this is very easy to listen to today. There's not going to be anything that's too controversial about lies you've got to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think there might be. I think my number one may well that might get headed out demo. Yeah, I mean you you recently maybe told one of your kids an enormous lie.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it's it's finding out this exercise has shown me that the amount of lies I tell similar to my dad told me.
SPEAKER_02Correct. It I think they are lies passed down through the generations.
SPEAKER_00But they're the best ones. I look back at some of them now, I was terrified. Oh no. Couldn't sleep at night with some of mine.
SPEAKER_02Oh now that's interesting. But we'll get to you in a minute because I've decided that Gareth will go first today.
SPEAKER_00He doesn't like to give control up, does he?
SPEAKER_02Just before we went on air, Andy looked at Gareth and said, You go first today. And I'm going, all right. You're making those such calls now. Lack of control. Look, it's not so much a lack of control, it's a realization that structure is important in the whole thing. And your freeform approach to the whole podcasting genre leaves me what could only be described as in stress. Anyway, Gareth, what was the number three lie you were told as a child?
SPEAKER_01Gold at the end of the rainbow.
unknownOh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Go on. And even to this day, every time I see a rainbow go, you know, you immediately think gold at the end of a rainbow. Even you know it's not there. But I know this had deep effects, and and you know, I remember as a 10-year-old, me, two of my mates going, they bored summer day, saw the rainbow, said, Right, boys, let's go and find this gold. And as you kept walking towards that rainbow, it got farther and farther away. And we had to give up. Oh no, tell you we the spade, my dad's spade was ready to go. I was finding that gold. This was like win the lottery. This is before lottery times. This was your only way of making an immediate fortune back then was finding that gold. And about to this day, I love the lie that was told because as I say, even I look at the end of the rainbow and go, I wonder if the gold there.
SPEAKER_02I took a different approach as a child because I got magic beans when I traded a cow at the market, and then a bean stock grew, and I went up and stole a giant's gold.
SPEAKER_01And that was no wonder. It certainly shows what we're in the house that you live in.
SPEAKER_00The West Wing. Well City Hall looks small in comparison. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02I thought we were in your house. No, no, no, no, no. We we built up scale. You know, but anyway, no, one of the things we tried at one point, which was we discovered that as you walk towards a rainbow, it keeps moving away. Yeah. However, if one of you stands still, can you direct your friends to where the bottom of the rainbow is? Because you haven't moved, and so the rainbow shouldn't move. So I would have sent you on ahead with the spade and been directing you, yelling from a distance, left a bit, right a bit, over the kaypat, through the swamp, or whatever, because in the hope that you would get there and then you could dig up the gold and we would share it. Yeah. Except obviously I didn't know you as a child, and we we we weren't actually out on that expedition together. But if you think about the logic of it, can a rainbow move individually for different people? If one person stands still and is watching the rainbow and you walk towards it, can the same rainbow be in two places at one time?
SPEAKER_01Do you know what's amazing? It's amazing how Martin finds something that was really quite nice as a kid sound as boring as in two sentences. No, I'm not doing logic. I go through all these chaos.
SPEAKER_00So tell me, was it a leprechaun that buried the gold?
SPEAKER_01Aye. And I like growing up, you did think there were leprechauns.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. Terrifying those things about it.
SPEAKER_02I thought you know most people were leprechauns, and then they all grew.
SPEAKER_00There's um a little cafe in Donegade E called the Stormy Cup, and it's a load of old Irish travel posters from like the early 1900s, and one of them has a rainbow on it with a little leprechaun. Said, Come to Ireland, find the pot of gold. And it probably was something that Tourism Ireland and the marketing department went, Oh, this is good. Oh, yeah, let's get the Americans over.
SPEAKER_02Tourism Ireland made the biggest mistake I've ever seen when they didn't actually have at the rugby their former president Michael D. Higgins, dressed sitting, dressed as a leprechaun, sitting on a toadstool. Oh, tell him. And then the the players come to him because imagine the international. Those people they exist. In fact, I took an American friend a couple of years ago. I took them on a leprechaun hunt up around Ballantoi, and I told many a tall tale about that this was one of the last remaining colonies of leprechauns. I'm going to say yes because they might listen.
SPEAKER_00But if I can make them believe that leprechauns exist, well have you ever been to Scotland when the locals are trying to tell you it's Haggis season and the haggis. Oh, they push them off the mountain. Yeah, the best bit of that is just how mu how invested they get into it. Oh, love that.
SPEAKER_02They're good stories. They're great stories. But that's it. It is a story. But honestly, do you still believe there's gold at the end of a rainbow? You're making me sound simple on this. Of course, I don't believe it. So I can just imagine you taking Daddy's spade and skipping off towards the rainbow to go, I'm going to dig up the gold. I did.
SPEAKER_00But you're ten years old. But do you not think this is where ten-year-olds these days? And it's a shame, actually. Yeah. Go on to Google. Is there a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow? Oh, I'm not leaving the house. It's certainly an iPad here.
SPEAKER_02The very googled to ask the thing in the first place. Whereas we went off for adventures. Yeah. And I think that lie is a very good lie. I agree. I agree. Or is it? Because maybe it's true, and you just never got to the end of the rainbow.
SPEAKER_01I'm got what I'm telling you what, I'm going to stand still and get you to do the walking. Right, Andy. Number three. Number three, it's a really simple one. See the way I directed that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's okay, I'll get it in edit.
SPEAKER_00So, number three, specifically to our family, was Uncle Stephen, who's a police officer. If there's anything bad happened, my mum and dad said Uncle Stephen's gonna call around. Now the thing was, and this is my view, my Uncle Stephen, six foot four, big guy, even in his twenties and thirties when I was a kid, had a big bushy mustache, and he looked like your stereotypical police officer. And it was terrible to think that he was gonna come round and oh you've got don't you shouldn't be doing that. Who wrecked the garage? Oh, I'll have to ring Uncle Stephen here. No, no, no, no, don't go fixing it. It was like living in fear. Yeah now. The other side of that coin is over the last Jake, my four-year-old, has a habit now of he loves the police, he loads a little police card, but he also is terrified by the police. If a policeman was walking past or anything, so he came in last Sunday, we they were playing out in the garden, and he'd thrown a ball into our next door neighbours and got stuck in a hedge. And he came in in floods of tears in the call. I was like, Oh no, it's okay, don't worry, we'll get the ball, there's no problem there. It's not the boss, no. Am I going to jail? No, I am going to jail. Brilliant. Like, what? Ruby told me that the police are going to come and arrest me. So the fear of the police still is strong. But for me and my brother, actually, Rick was the one who reminded me of this. He was like, Yeah, it was the fear of uh anything you were doing, or if you guys don't do that, I'll have to get Uncle Stephen around here or not.
SPEAKER_02Did you ever go to Uncle Stephen about the dodgy motor your brother sold you?
SPEAKER_00No, no. That would have been because I think that's a criminal offence. That would have been an open and shut case.
SPEAKER_01But uh I remember being threatened about going to the police because maybe I'd said it hadn't done something or whatever. And I remember being in the car, being driven down the driveway, and then just confessing all.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. Yeah, there was, and actually, it was such an easy get-out from my dad. My dad was usually the catalyst for a lot of listeners of like, oh yeah, don't do you want me to get Uncle Steve? No, and it was incredible. Oh brilliant. He never called right. It was never a moment where if he came. There was also the other side of that coin when we seen him come down the drive for a family visit, it was fear.
SPEAKER_02Again, I always am intrigued by some of the stories that get told, and you know, recently I was given the opportunity to be participate in a major bank heist, but I was thinking I might need another couple of people to join me. I've just discovered it certainly can't be Gareth because he would just fold by the time we got to the end of the street. You know, you wouldn't even oh no, no, it wasn't me, it was them. So again, that level of fear about the police. Funnily enough, I never really had that. I don't think my parents ever used that particular line for me.
SPEAKER_01Were you were you a petrol bower?
SPEAKER_02No. Because petrol was quite expensive. The cost effectiveness wouldn't do it for him. No, I I think the risk gets there was there was never that sort of fear. Put I mean I was much more worried about my dad finding out than the police.
SPEAKER_00Finding out you told us the story before, and you might actually say in one of your your choices a point. Was it being bitten by a dog or something?
SPEAKER_02No, it was um I um was on a a guider, which is the the sort of little go-karts, and uh it I blamed the damaged trousers on a dog. And my dad me. That's in a previous episode. You can go and listen to that um episode, but uh that that was a good example where let's be honest, the parents know when you're so when they tell you lies, they are telling you it to keep you on the straight and narrow at certain times. Although I'm I'm still working out what keeps you on the straight and narrow being told there's gold at the end of a rainbow. But anyway, but the sort of thing is yes, you're absolutely right. Wait till your father gets home would be a line that a lot of people would use. Yours is Uncle Stephen, because that means the parents are abdicating responsibility. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Now there was there was definitely phases of my mom when my dad was at work, your dad'll hear, that's when he comes home and all. But that's not lies, you were told that was the truth.
SPEAKER_02The way to really reinforce it was said we're taking you to Uncle Stephen, who's at Castle Ray Detention Centre today, and you will be staying there until we're satisfied that we know not going there.
SPEAKER_00That level of detail would have terrified me even more, Martin. Thank you for that.
SPEAKER_02I know, but I like to try and take it to the point where you realise that what the true impact of this lie was. I mean, as I've told you before, it wasn't a lie. I told my my son, but when he was had been misbehaving at night outside his room, I used to make the sounds of Darth Vader, which just to scare the living daylights out of him. And and you know, I know it's you, I know it's you, and you're just sitting there going and and it's very effective.
SPEAKER_00That was extremely effective, I'll say.
SPEAKER_02I know I could see you actually look nervous. You looked over your shoulder just in case Darth had uh had come in. Anyway, so number three, Martin. My number three. Well, mine's very simple because we were the first generation to really have children's television or any of these other things. And parents used to say, don't sit too close to the television because you'll get square eyes. Now in my 66 years on the planet, I've met a lot of people who sat quite close to the television. Not one of them have I yet discovered to have square eyes. I'm beginning to think my parents weren't being truthful with me on that point. But everybody was warned about how this would affect your eyesight, how this would affect you can't watch for too long. But again, these days, we are spending a lot of time warning kids about screen time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, true.
SPEAKER_02And the amount of time they're on. But I think that's because more that they're not actually doing the other stuff. We were doing the other stuff. We spent the vast majority. Children's television lasted 55 minutes.
SPEAKER_01It only came on at four o'clock or five. Oh, yeah. No, it came.
SPEAKER_02It used to come on um at at the gain, it would have been over by a quarter to six. Yeah. And it came on probably at a quarter to five, ten to five. Because if you remember Crackerjack, it was always on at what time?
SPEAKER_01Uh I haven't a clue.
SPEAKER_02Oh.
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you guys missed it. It's five to five. It must be Crackerjack. Anyway, there was a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01I was chatting about Cracker Jack the other day. Remember, you had to hold cabbages and see who could hold the most cabbages? Brilliant.
SPEAKER_02Cracker Jack pen. You'd have hated it if it if it was turnips. Oh, I know, tell you. You don't really like turnips.
SPEAKER_01But even to think of that, holding cabbages. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Leslie Crowther and Peter Glaze were the ones originally, and then it went on to have Due Francis and your boy who did the Oh, I could crush a grape. I can't remember. I get I mean, I was from the classic era of Cracker Jack. But watching television till your eyes go square. I'm presuming you you heard that one as well.
SPEAKER_00100%. I we use variants of that with the kids at the moment with iPads. It's a different world now with iPads because it's the on-demand nature of YouTube.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And like actually have to say to Lily, our eldest now, it's when she's watching her iPad. I said, What are you watching? Because they watch the YouTube Shorts, which is if we had them when we were kids, we would got we've got nothing to do. Yeah, yeah. It's so addictive, just the little flicks, this, this. That's the problem. So we're like, you're allowed to watch anything except YouTube Shorts. That's where they watch Netflix. She's watching Modern Family at the moment, which she loves. But I always think it's that level of fear that you had. It was sitting too close and you're fighting with your brother who can sit closer to it, and oh yeah, it was a methodology.
SPEAKER_02One of the things that I remember is my dad, we got a video recorder fairly early because my dad sat on the board of the local BBC and they gave him a video recorder so that he could watch certain programs. So my dad was very untechnical, and so he got me to set up the timings for the programs he was meant to watch because he would have to talk about them when he was at a board meeting. He was astounded when it never worked. Never worked, and he blamed me. He said, You must be doing something wrong. And I would go through the whole thing and record something during the day and show it to him, and then I would set it up, and then the next day he goes, That didn't record again. What did you do wrong? Yeah. Until I discovered that my dad was so old school that he used to go around at night turning off the electricity for every appliance. And funny old thing, yeah, the video recorder needs electricity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so but it it's it's funny when you think about the steps that go forward, things that didn't exist when I was first watching TV, no such thing as colour TV, absolutely no such thing as video recorders, to what is available today. Totally, it's too much.
SPEAKER_00I actually seen a really good clip on YouTube yesterday about kids won't realise what it was like to watch Top of the Pops in the early 80s. No, and it was like this this was the only music you could have on demand, and then videos came out and people would record it, then you would play that three or four times a week, and I was like, it's just the world.
SPEAKER_02And you never knew what was going to be on top of the pops. You you might know what was number one, and that would definitely be on, but everything else you're going, please, please, I want that song, I want that song. And yeah, you know, yeah, anyway.
SPEAKER_00Number two, G.
SPEAKER_01Mine follows a similar vein to yours if if you were bad, and if we were bad, we were told we were being taken to the gypsies to live with the gypsies, right? And whenever I whenever I was growing up, it was common to see you know gypsies would have spinning the lay-by's or the caravans would have been white caravans there, uh just setting up camp, you know, like down local places, etc. And if we had done anything wrong, my dad's a threaten that, or if you're walking past them or whatever, and it became emotionally or driving past emotionally scarring that you could be in there living with, but it wasn't, it was more living with another family, yeah. If you get kicked out of your own family, that was the fear of it, and you know, I look back on it now, and I always remember, you know, you were driving somewhere and they'd go past them because it w it that was allowed back then, they were allowed to set up anyone was allowed to set up camp anywhere, and you'd drive past and the fear of actually being taken out of your own family and then being told to live there also.
SPEAKER_00What was the level of badness you had to be at to be? Oh, flipping anything. Anything like you you left a dish in the living room or so.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna think you live with the gypsies. Leave the toilet seat up again? No, you're going to live with the gypsies. Oh, tell you, it was it was a threat there all the time. Funny enough, I'm not a fan of caravaning holidays or mobile homes and that type of stuff. Now it has had that that deep mentally mental scar.
SPEAKER_02No, you're not actually, you've told me if you do you believe that that lie genuinely scarred you going forward? Did it make you nervous? What have you said to your girls over the years when you've been I think the best phrase is threatening them? Um, but when you've been actually saying to them if you don't do Oh no, I totally agree.
SPEAKER_01Like my my friend used to say You should save one of my friends, it gives it a better impression that you have more than one. The one of my friends would say to his kids, I'm taking to the white van man. He says, 'Cause there's always white vans everywhere, and they could use that for threat.
SPEAKER_02Child catchers out there.
SPEAKER_01That's exactly it's child catcher, that's a scary one.
SPEAKER_02I know. But again, is that something that parents should still be doing?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you need a bit of fear of authority. You do need authority.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you need discipline for authority, really, you know.
SPEAKER_01And that problem is there's not enough discipline. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I I totally agree. I would actually deliver a few kids to somewhere else and just go. But again, I think that all parents develop whatever it takes to actually make their kids fall in line to whatever the standard they want to. Yeah. But it it is when you look back on it, you do you do you ever feel guilty at some of the things you've suggested?
SPEAKER_01What is this here? Are you on a psychologist? Sigmund Freud.
SPEAKER_02How does that make you feel about it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I know, but you've I think you've got to use those things. They are funny looking back, and whenever we look I look back on it, now I do laugh.
SPEAKER_00Actually, it's funny. Did your brothers were they in on the act? Did you used to say them?
SPEAKER_01Do you boys you don't do? No, no, my my brother who's two years younger than me, that was threatened to both of us.
SPEAKER_02And the way Gareth has already seen about the fact that he would just squeal.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02He would just fold.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I would.
SPEAKER_02Like a cheap suit.
SPEAKER_01Oh, totally, yeah, that's what it was. And I did. So I absolutely did. I like it. That's a good one.
SPEAKER_02When did you develop a backbone?
SPEAKER_00Right, moving on to your number two. Number two, and it's a really illogical one, but at the time it probably made a lot of sense to my mum and dad. When the street lights come on, you have to come in. Now, there th this was changed over the years when we were kids to the police or the government, all kids have to be off the street. So you'd be Playing in the summer, or even sort of like May, June, it was like eight, nine, and all suddenly you'd be like, Oh, street lights. Every kid's parting like this round our street. Now it's a good idea. No, at the time it was we didn't think anything of it. And then we got slightly older, and there were certain kids who pushed back against the law who would still be on this. Rebel without a clue. Police are gonna come around, or the government. It was always the government or the police. There were two angles on it. Right. And then it was to the point where you got older, it's like, Moment, I actually forgot to say that police are gonna come, so it'd stay out longer. Yeah, stay out longer. To be fair, in those their world, they were probably going, This is great. Oh, I know it's great. And it was that older level of the older we got, they can sit and watch TV. Because always the one TV in our house. So if we were in at somewhere, we'd be like, let's put this.
SPEAKER_02Quite a small television by the requirement of your hands moving. I don't think that would have been more than 16 or 17-inch portable.
SPEAKER_01Probably not. But but but do you know what was done like this? Is classic good cop, bad cop. Yeah. And that was deemed as the bad cop was the place of the government. We're being the good cop. We're not telling you to come in, it's the government, etc. But and it's still to this day, everyone uses that type of scenario.
SPEAKER_00But I love I love the fact now if I'm out for a walk and I'm what looking up and the street lights pop on, and like always triggers back to that as a kid because your whole summer, like you go on to uh dig the for the rainbow at the end, you're like, oh, you sort of had no real time. You're told to come in when it gets dark or whatever. There was not really a time scale. I look at our street and the streets around us, never see a kid in that street. You don't really see kids out playing anymore, and that's a bigger thing.
SPEAKER_02I actually really like that because I think that takes me back to a time where parents were quite happy the kids were outside playing. Yeah, yeah. And this was a way of automatically telling them the day's over. Yeah, I like that. And the fact that these street lights come on, oh, there you go, because I never had a watch as a kid. No, I don't. I I remember going off to go fishing up on the north coast from our caravan. Yeah. And my mum said, Be home at lunchtime.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And you would just go, Yeah, then no problem. Yeah. And so you'd go down fishing, and then some random stranger would wander past and make you go, excuse me, could you tell me the time, please? Because I have to be home by lunchtime, and they would look at the watch, go, it's 12 30, and you'd ride, okay, I have another 15 minutes fishing, and I'll wander up and all the rest of it. So those sorts of things, parents were much happier back then to actually let the kids go out and explore. And I think that has been lost in society. Is now too risky. I mean, you know, I would never have done that with my kids, sent them out there. Although my kids did go out with their mates from a couple of doors up, and actually they would play on the street in the summer. We would still be encouraging that. They would be doing all sorts of things, and yes, they'd be getting into a little bit of mischief, but nothing too bad. You know, that's part of growing up.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, 100%. And I think it's I look back on it now and go, it was brilliant because there was a couple of times that it was. I still remember this down our street, one of the street lights didn't come on one time. Yeah, yeah, we're all out still. We can use that angle, that didn't come on. And then the mums and dads would come out, eh? Yeah, come on, they're waving in. And that was us. Anytime there was a broken street.
SPEAKER_02That's pretty good. I like that. Well, did your parents have a particular whistle for you to come out? My dad had my dad used to come out and let a whistle. And if you heard that whistle, go home straight away.
SPEAKER_01My dad's whistle you could hear from at least a mile away.
SPEAKER_02You wouldn't hear about to say miles. I know. I looked at you and you were framing the word miles.
SPEAKER_00Do you think that's a lost art whistle?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yes.
SPEAKER_01I think you're right, actually.
SPEAKER_02The signal whistle.
SPEAKER_01He just you shaped the tongue and you knew exactly his whistle.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Yeah. And that's it. Yeah. Because and he'd be waiting. Yeah. The door would be open. I mean, you you could be half a mile away. Yeah. And you were expected to be back in 60 seconds. Oh, totally.
SPEAKER_00There was so much freedom then when you were kids compared to I. Like, even with trackers and stuff, like most kids around now, and this is about year six, we're lilies, and all our wemates have started to get mobile phones. And with mobile phones, then they get trackers, and the school have actually had to say now kids who come in for mobile phones, you'd put them in a box when they arrive, and they they take them out when they leave. And the moms have said it's because they need to keep in contact with them and all. Back to your point. I didn't have a watch when you were that age.
SPEAKER_01But do also as well, it's a lie which I never put in any lake or quarry, someone had drowned or fallen off. Yeah, yeah. And that was the ideal thing for you not to do it. And like there was this wee like bog, wee bit of lake at the bottom of someone's. Oh, someone was there, they they drowned in there, and then you never went near it.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01And then a complete lie.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yes. No, uh, a lot of the time, because if you actually look at the statistics, thousands of people died in quarries. Yeah. And you know, in in abandoned quarries in the lake. Yeah. Don't go to the quarry. Oh, totally. Several people have died down.
SPEAKER_01Or don't be climbing in the quarry either because the people fall off and go, no, I'm not gonna do that.
SPEAKER_02I know.
SPEAKER_01Love it.
SPEAKER_02Though those are the things. Okay, my number two, and this actually I've I've just looked around the room and I've realised this might actually be true. Maybe it isn't a lie. Because Andy told a story in one of the earlier podcasts about not eating his vegetables and throwing his vegetables into the next door neighbor's garden until the point where the next door neighbor came in and said to I'm trying to remember Andy's dad's name. Dennis. Dennis. Said to Dennis, Why are there carrots and various things in our garden?
SPEAKER_00Which podcast was that on? I was trying to uh remember.
SPEAKER_02I can't remember the exact episode now because listeners, there are a lot of episodes, as you know. But the point is Andy wears glasses. Yeah. And I was always told that carrots would help you see in the dark and would improve your eyesight.
SPEAKER_01I'm told that as well.
SPEAKER_02So we used to be really keen to eat up the carrots. Now you weren't told that about cabbage, you weren't told about Brussels sprites. It was carrots. Carrots will improve, and you were throwing your carrots out and you wear glasses. And if now I'm wearing glasses now, but I'm a lot older than you, and mine are only for reading. You wear yours all the time. Did you eat the carrots? I ate my carrots.
SPEAKER_01And if you ate the carrots.
SPEAKER_02Did you see at night? I can see for miles.
SPEAKER_01You see, if you ate the carrots, then you actually would go that night day at night, you'd go out going, Can I see better? Can I see better?
SPEAKER_02And you didn't, obviously, but it was a great Well, I remember I asked my parents once, I said, How?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And my dad said, It's the carotene. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I'd go that's a good one.
SPEAKER_02Oh, right. Okay, so it's there's science back in the day. Oh, yes. That's science. There's science. And I'm going, I've never actually looked up. I bet you carotene's not even real.
SPEAKER_01Funny, I uh you just had their eyes going, I assume carotene was real. Yeah, but like I think this was from the book of Great Lies by parents.
SPEAKER_00It was great.
unknownI don't know.
SPEAKER_01If anything, got people to eat up their vegetables. What was that?
SPEAKER_00Do you think uh the carrot manufacturers missed a trick in their marketing then? Yeah, totally. As an angle for kids to create their own.
SPEAKER_02Tell you they're called farmers.
SPEAKER_00What'd I say?
SPEAKER_02Manufacturers.
SPEAKER_00Well, these days, actually, a lot of the guys who distribute No, they process carrots. They're not well, there's different types of carrots. You can have cut ones and all. But I guess are still carrots cut. Great carrot manufacturers, messed up track. We're great, they're manufacturers.
SPEAKER_02So, anyway, carrots help you see in the dark.
SPEAKER_00I I believe that. That's a good one.
SPEAKER_02To this day.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I I can't disprove it. No, no.
SPEAKER_00Carotene's a very good way to angle that as well.
SPEAKER_02I like that. But anyway.
SPEAKER_01Okay, number one. And this, I've gone a wee bit rogue in this, and this is a lie that I told to my own kids as a parent. And that was that the sensors for alarms that are up in the corner of the rooms are directly linked to Santa in Lapland. And every time you see a red light, that's when it's actually recording. And I got absolutely years out of this. And I used to go, look, it's recording now. They've just recorded you being naughty there. You better get on your best behaviour. Or if you're out of the room, they all they had to do one movement and it goes red and it looks recording because there were obviously movement sensors. And it was the best disciplinary keeping them on the straight line methodology that I ever used.
SPEAKER_00I love that. We we use that still to this day for but not just for Santa cameras in general. Oh right. So any oh Nicole said earlier, actually, Jake, did you do that? No, I didn't. I've got to check the cameras. Yeah. And he and he's so switched on now. He's like, I don't see a camera in here. There's no red light in here. I'm like, oh, he knows the rooms now. But that's good. I like that one.
SPEAKER_02I so wish social services had turned up at your door going, Your daughter told us that she's in her room and you have a camera recording her. You go, no, no, it's just a lie. I tell her.
SPEAKER_00No, you'd be like, it's not me, it's Santa. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Santa is recording them. It was the best thing someone ever told me. And actually, it just complete behavior completely changed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, straight away.
SPEAKER_01Straight away.
SPEAKER_02Behavior in December was always governed by various threats about Santa. Yeah. Oh, you'll just get a lump of coal in yours. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, and actually, I tell a story. My dad actually got a couple of lumps of coal, so he tells our kids that story. That terrifies them more than anything that we've got. Totally. Which is brilliant. No, I like that. It's a great one, actually.
SPEAKER_02Does he get smokeless fuel or or is he full full fat coal?
SPEAKER_00Full fat coal, all right. So jumping onto my number one, which is slightly similar to your number two about being given the gypsies. My number one is the bad boys' home or the porstel in Malayle. Oh, and actually, the fact that most Sundays we would go for a drive and it would be sort of living in Bangor, it would be down sort of Donica Dave, Malayle, a Bally Walter, do a little loop round ours. It was my numbing meat boring. But the bit they used to me and my brother always say, Well, what's that big place there? We were always like, That's a bad and it was actually at a time a bad boys' home in the sort of early 80s and all. It was like a juvenile detention centre. So when they said it, me and my brother at the time were like, Who goes? How do you get there? Well, and they just in the front seats obviously something clicked. They went, Why are they asking questions about this? Oh well, you have to be good in school, you have to eat your vegetables, all the stuff that and it was like it then became second nature in our house. We're gonna drive past it again on Sunday. We can drop you off if you keep doing that. Stopped whatever we were doing. Oh wow, and it was the the fact it was a bit like your story of the gypties, they were in loads of places because you can we visualize that we'd been past that place so much we knew every single bit of it. Oh every Sunday drive, we were in fear.
SPEAKER_01There was one just over a little dip and up on a hill beside my granny's, and the threat of it. And every time you started walking out to the car leaving your granny's, you looked at it and the door, please no, I don't want to go there. Yeah, it was like you were so scared of it.
SPEAKER_00Oh bad boys, yeah. Always always, and actually, anyone from around the sort of banger area, there's a couple of people who've put the same in theirs. Uh it must have been like a governed by fear thing. Oh, totally.
SPEAKER_02Am I alone in thinking that you might have benefited from a couple of weeks in there just to maybe get you on the street now? Because you are an agent of chaos.
SPEAKER_01Him saying that probably gives you fear. Oh, yeah, of saying that. Martin be one of the people in there, the corrections officer.
SPEAKER_00You would have made a good corrections officer.
SPEAKER_01Oh, you would, you'd be excellent.
SPEAKER_00That could have been a missed calling in life.
SPEAKER_01Or the child catcher and should I do the bang bang?
SPEAKER_02I don't have the nose for it.
SPEAKER_01No, you don't.
SPEAKER_02But but outside of that, I mean again the concept is quite appealing. I mean, I'd be more catch and release, you know, rather than you know, you'd you'd be going, I just I've caught you. Yeah. Don't let me catch you again. Yeah. You know, and maybe get kids scared onto the straight and narrow. Obviously, the the child catcher was a little nasty, isn't it? But yeah, I wonder if you're not going to be able to. By the way, my parents were exactly the same. I had heard that a few times. I was hearing the story the other day that one of my business partners, son's best mate's cousin, had to go to the because he's home. Yeah, gotten to the bad boys' home because he he misbehaved in school. Uh apparently his grades dropped a touch, and and you're going, okay, don't let my grades drop a touch. You know, it's also true. It's like a lot of things. You never knew anybody, but you knew of somebody whose brother's best mate's cousin had gone. And you're going, hang on a second, what connection is that? I like that. You had no internet to check that up, the validity of those stories.
SPEAKER_01That's the point is who parents didn't lie to you.
SPEAKER_00No, no, they were right.
SPEAKER_01And then then you'd go and tell your mates, my dad told me. And they did go to the barbers.
SPEAKER_00Oh, we drove past that last week as well. The word is well, borstel. What a word.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it was just the word borstel was was absolutely terrifying. I'm intrigued that it still existed for you. Oh, you're 20 years, 20 years behind me.
SPEAKER_01Omnomatope, the word that sounds like it's whatever it's meaning. Oh, you like it? You mean reading Yeah, you you you like that, don't you? Word of the day toilet roll. You were sitting there this morning. Onomatope and looking at it and going, but there's a there's a word. Sounded scary.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. And actually, see if you're driving past it, you've no desire to drive from Melisle to Valley Walter, the building is still there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And actually, I we I would drive past and go, it shudders. I know. And there's actually new built housing in one part of it, which is some of the land. I go, imagine living here overlooking that. Oh, gee.
SPEAKER_02Well, if it's no longer used, the only thing you have to worry about are the howling ghosts in the night.
SPEAKER_00Funny you say that. There was a Northern Ireland paranormal TV show setting that as well. And actually, there's a bigger story about there's a hidden tunnel to the rocks, but that's another episode we'll go into.
SPEAKER_01And it's like Hydebank down there, which was always set behind the trees, go, what's in there?
SPEAKER_02Although one of my one of my favourite things is I was looking to buy a house at one point, and my dad didn't like the location where it which is Royal Lodge up at the top, and he didn't like that. And his way of asking a question about it was so sorry, just some just to get the location correct, you go up past the young offender centre, but it's before you reach the lunatic asylum. Yeah, yeah. That was his way of phrasing it, and I to this day I'm going, Yeah, you're not a fan of the location, you know. But it just I I love the way people you can frame it in such a way as to make people very unnerved.
SPEAKER_00There's a there's a line in an Alan Partridge episode in his buying house, and he drove past a young offender's place and he said to the state agent, he says, Can I just check what that building is? And he said, Well, it's a it's it's uh for deaf offenders. And he says, Will there be lots of noise or no noise then? And then there's like a big pause that's like people going, yeah, I don't know. But yeah, the poor stuff for me. Number one.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Well, my number one, and this one's very personal. This one resonates to this day, and it was told by my cousin's parents, who I spent a lot of time with. My cousin Jeremy. He and I were good mates, his siblings were all much older than him, and so we were we were very close, and I used to go and stay at their house and you know.
SPEAKER_00Big Lord of the Rings fan as well.
SPEAKER_02No, he wasn't. Never never liked Lord of the Rings. But anyway, I heard this statement live because one day we came back to the house and Archie the Beagle had gone to the farm.
SPEAKER_01The big farm.
SPEAKER_02No, it had gone to the farm. Now, this was a couple of days after Archie had gone on a rampage and absolutely destroyed the kitchen. Oh no. And we had come in, we'd all been out, I'd been saying with them, and we came in, and the kitchen was in tatters. Archie had gone into the cupboards, he'd ripped open the boxes, everything else. But two days later, when we came back in, Archie had gone to live on the farm. Now, with respect, I now believe that Archie didn't go to the farm, Archie went somewhere else. Archie took a good fittled beating. I think Archie maybe went to sleep somewhere.
SPEAKER_00Just for biting up some boxes of cereal and stuff.
SPEAKER_02Well, actually, there's a there's an extra bit to this story because many years later I came home one evening and Debbie and Mark and Johnny all sitting around, and Mark and Debbie are very excited. She goes, Right, you need to get your tea, get changed, we're going out, we have a surprise for you to go and get you your birthday present. I'm sure you love that. Right. And Johnny, my younger son's going, You need to tell him. You need to tell him where he's going. And they're going, No, no, it'll be a great surprise for your dad. All the rest of it. And they went, I think you should tell him. I said, I think now that he's said that, I kind of want to know what I'm doing. I said, Right, well, we are going to pick up the puppy. You're getting a puppy for your birthday.
SPEAKER_03And I went, Why am I getting a puppy for my birthday?
SPEAKER_02Oh, well, look, what we've done is we've picked your favourite dog breed and you're getting a puppy. It's all arranged, you're going up to see them tonight. We're not bringing it home tonight, but we're you're going up to see it. And I went, What is my favourite dog breed? I was thinking that. And I said, Beagles. Because you always used to talk about Archie. And I'm going, Well, yes, we talked about Archie because he bit every one of us at some point. He destroyed the kitchen and he went to live on the farm.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, a cautionary tale.
SPEAKER_02At which point I went, Oh, but you really look look at the picture and this little picture of a puppy, a beagle puppy. I'm going, yeah, it's cute as pajigans, but it's gonna grow and then it's gonna eat the house, and then it's going to do all the rest of it. And Johnny's going, Told you, told you dad wasn't gonna like this. We never even went to see the Beagles. We just I vetoed it. Did the kids went?
SPEAKER_00Did the kids have a dog grown up?
SPEAKER_02No. They both have dogs now, they're both absolutely love dogs. And we look after their dogs a fair bit, but that's because you know, at the just outside the West Wing, there's a few acres they can run wild. But the whole thing about that lie is it resonates to this day because Archie never went to the farm.
SPEAKER_00I like the way he explained that to our listeners who probably thought that was a very disproportionate attack in a kitchen to go to the farm, but he had prior form.
SPEAKER_02Oh, he had quite significant prior form. Uh Archie Archie was how could you best describe it in a polite way? I think Archie was psychologically disturbed. Oh, really? He never he wasn't an affectionate dog. He just seemed to be they'd had a previous Beagle which had been fine. But this one when they got Archie, Archie seemed to have a different gear. Oh, and uh they they weren't too keen on him. So that that is the lie that I most remember. It's the you know we talk about the one that jumps into your head straight away. Straight away. That was my straightaway moment.
SPEAKER_00I like hearing it live as well. Solidified that. Oh, true.
SPEAKER_02Well, except the listeners will hear a recording, so they won't technically hear it live. Right. Okay. Listener choices, because any of the listeners, how many of them used the new website? Oh, which is thepicthree show at gmail.com.
SPEAKER_00Well remembered, Martin.
SPEAKER_02Gareth is in fact the uh person that that email will arrive with.
SPEAKER_00Do you think any of our listeners will actually use this?
SPEAKER_01No, they'll use this WhatsApp.
SPEAKER_02So normally normally they don't send you anything.
SPEAKER_01My first one for Rodney Maxwell It's a good week for you. I can't say that his one uh because it's just it's just in case kids are listening. Second one uh what is tabioca is good for you. That rule you got for school.
SPEAKER_02Well, it definitely isn't that tapioca was not good for you, in fact, it was disgusting.
SPEAKER_01Then from Johnny Kerr, the he sent it to me rather than Martin. Uh that for number one, that the Easter bunny didn't visit us because we lived at the top of a hill and it couldn't hop that far.
SPEAKER_02Which is odd because I mean bunnies skip. Oh no, and they would so they they could get to the top of the hill.
SPEAKER_01Number two, that the dog is going to live in the farm like you, Martin. And number three, watching too much TV will give you square eyes. Did you and Johnny live together?
SPEAKER_02No, because as I've explained to you before, up until the age of 10, stroke eleven, I was on the planet and Johnny wasn't.
SPEAKER_01Right, that's true.
SPEAKER_02So living together would have been tricky. Yeah, yeah. Had you done?
SPEAKER_01That's we done.
SPEAKER_02You've put your phone down. I know I have.
SPEAKER_00Great effort. You got one. Two Patty messaged in the classic line when you're older, you won't have a calculator in your pocket to walk around in. And then he says, and dictionary, encyclopedia, map, camera, every song, every mate, games, console, all the stuff you sort of told. Number two, which is slightly contentious, police are always your friend. Oversimplified at best. Reality is more complicated. And the third one is you'll understand when you're older. Sometimes true, but mostly just a shutdown tactic.
SPEAKER_02Yes, you will understand more when you're older. In other words, I'm not going to explain this to you now because you might see the flaws in my argument.
SPEAKER_00Thomas said then eat your greens to become big and strong. If the wind changes, your face will stay like that.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I've had a couple of those if people have said that. I Don't think I ever actually heard that expression growing up.
SPEAKER_00He was just such a a nice, happy child, Martin. Yeah, true. Never with a mean face.
SPEAKER_02Oh no, I I had a I had a lovely face as a child. And I know I have a great face for radio.
SPEAKER_00His third one, swallowing apple pips meant an apple tree.
SPEAKER_02Oh yes, absolutely. So true. That's the other thing is swallow chewing gum.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And they were going to actually expand.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yes, and that would block certain things. Yeah, Ben Campbell sent then, similar to my number three of Uncle Stephen, his parents came up with another lie, which was PC McGonagall was on his way to arrest me for being bold. So there was a and he used to look out the window in fear of PC McGonagall.
SPEAKER_02Uh was he not in like Trumpton or Cameron Green or something?
SPEAKER_00Potentially, actually.
SPEAKER_02The sort of thing where Postman pats mate.
SPEAKER_00We've got a couple of other ones here that I'm trying to read with uh you throw us a few in.
SPEAKER_02Well, uh I would because mine are written down, so I can read them quickly.
SPEAKER_00Mine are very much written down, but I don't want to say anything that our our listeners will find uh slightly. Um I've got that if you don't eat your dinner, it'll be sent to the starving kids in Africa.
SPEAKER_01Oh why.
SPEAKER_02Our life was slightly different, which was that phrase was used, but it was very much there are kids starving in Africa, and you're turning your nose up at the street, and my response was always, Well, they can have it. Which turnip. Yep. Uh Courtney Thompson sent through parents have eyes in the back of their head. Oh wow. I've looked. I've never seen them.
SPEAKER_01I've never got them.
SPEAKER_02If you eat your carrots, you'll be able to see in the dark. And if you turn the wee light on in the car, the police will arrest you.
SPEAKER_00Nicole said that to me this morning. How many of your listeners have said that? I said, not a single one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it blinds you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you can't stream. You can't drive.
SPEAKER_01You can't see, you can't drive.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I can't drive. The wee lights on. The wee lights are lights on, yeah. You know, Victoria Danun again is another one said, if the wind changes, your face will stay that way. If you go outside with wet hair, you'll catch your death of cold.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I have gone outside with wet hair many, many times, and you'll be sorry when your dad gets home and she's written, I never ever was. But it was always a threat given to you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Ron sent in if I was bad, I would be sent to the workhouse, which when I was very young, lad, thought that Scrabble Tar was a said workhouse. I could see that pointing up. Number two, similar to your number one, Martin, that my dog Abby the lab was going to the farm. We never saw Abby again, and we forgot about it a week or so and we couldn't remember he's gone. Now, number three, this is maybe the best one a listener sent then. I was reading this and stuff like that. You don't know that yet? Oh well, I think it'd be hard to beat this one. Best one looked slightly long. When I was a teenager, I left the door, front door unlocked all the time of our house. And one day, mum and dad came home. I had left the door unlocked, and I had gone to a friend's. So they moved all the expensive stuff out of the living room, TV record player. And when I came home, they pretended we'd been burgled. I was in tears, went up to my room. I was stayed there, woke up the next morning, they'd put all the stuff back together. Oh, brilliant. They teach me a lesson. Brilliant. Love that. I do like that.
SPEAKER_02So what in fact they taught Ron was that they lied to him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, which when you think about it. Taught him as a lesson. You've learned your lesson. You've learned your lesson. Yeah. The fact we're liars is irrelevant to the lesson you're learning. You have to continue to trust us except when we lie to you.
SPEAKER_00I like that.
SPEAKER_02But actually, it is it is quite good. And uh anyway, Jack Sullivan, if you pee in the pool, a blue ring goes around you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was a classic. Yeah, yeah, that's a good thing. And it never happened to you, I'm sure it didn't? Never happened to be.
SPEAKER_02I told you my eldest son got thrown out of Castle Race swimming pool for pain in the pool.
SPEAKER_01What? But he was standing on the side.
SPEAKER_00See how fares goes down.
SPEAKER_02They came to me and said, We're throwing him out of the pool because he's obviously paying. And I said, But all the kids pay in the pool. And they went, Not from the top diving board. I've heard that before. You got the story. Anyway, you ruined a damn good joke there. Not not good, Skippy. Anyway, uh Jabbit Williamson. Oh no, sorry, Jack Solomon's other stuff is policemen come round to check all kids are in bed in time. Oh, yes, which we've had before. And cracking your knuckles will give you arthritis. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01That peeing in the pull that it reacts to chemical was a classic because it I said purple. Yeah, you know, I'd sure that probably 100% of kids would have done it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Uh Janet Williamson sent in this won't hurt as a plaster is ripped off you. Oh aye. Oh it always hurt.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And Ashley Parks, his ones were if you watch too much TV, you will get square eyes. Yep. This geometry stroke algebra lesson will really help you in later life. He said it never did. But he went one step further because Ashley was smart. He thought, even if it's going to, I don't need to worry about it. And so he married a Maths teacher. So he's got himself covered. And his biggest lie that they were told as kids was it's coming home. A football promise that was made many, many times. Oh, that song in 86. Never come home.
SPEAKER_00I've uh finally Pete McQuellen. Number one, that was a starving child in Africa would actually want the garbage my mother was cooking. Number two, the beer doesn't taste nice. And number three, I was getting sent to the bad boys home in Malayal. Oh, so I want it.
SPEAKER_02That does seem to be a fairly regular occurrence from people in your neck of the woods.
SPEAKER_00Pete McQuellen, yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, there are plenty of lies we've all been told along the way, and sometimes the ones told by your parents they resonate with you for a long period of time, and you still remember. I like the fact that Gareth admits he now uses most of them himself, or has used most of them. And he is obviously still lying to his kids because Bonzo the Catfish um recently passed away peacefully, and yet we know that it was during a burning house fire, and he had been boiled alive and then munched by somebody else's catfish. Not rescued. I'm not going back in there for Bonzo the Catfish. Oh, I love it. And so there are lots of things. Listeners, you will have your own. Feel free to share them with us via the email, which Gareth is? Thepicfreeshow at gmail.com. Very good. You can also use our social platforms if you want to interact with the podcast. But until we're back talking about another subject chosen by PMG, my name is Martin.
SPEAKER_00My name is Gareth. And my name is Andy.
SPEAKER_02And we'll see you all again very soon.