Russell gets his tarot reading live on the podcast! The guest this week is Emma Gannon, the the Sunday Times bestselling author judge for the prestigious 2025 Women's Prize. Between 2016-2023 she hosted Ctrl Alt Delete, one of Britain’s most successful industry podcasts. She is seen as many as the quintessential voice of the millennial generation.
Emma and Russell talk about fascinating areas of unlocking creativity, making time for all the things you want to do (can you have it all?) and singing nuns. A breezy brilliant hour of chat for you to enjoy while you’re walking in this glorious sunshine. If you’re reading this when it’s raining then just pretend.
🍽️ Emma’s new novel ‘Table for One’ (which was discussed in the podcast) has just come out, and you can get that from all the best independent book places. You could go to a local bookshop, or just click here and order it now! 🍽️
⌨️ Emma’s hugely popular Substack newsletter ‘The Hyphen’ is a weekly dose of everything fascinating in Emma’s life and you can check that out here. ⌨️
✨ And if you’re finding that this is one of your regular podcast listens, then it makes sense to subscribe to our Patreon; not only do you get it without adverts, you also get an extra show with our guest where you, the listeners, set the questions. It’s a lot of fun.
Also it’s only the price of one packet sandwich a month.
Click here to find out more. ✨
And with that, our unstoppable force meets the immovable object of the end of this week’s descriptions. What fun we had. The first paragraph was a trip, then we moved through some factual information, and ended up here at a sort of dribbling arse-end of a sign-off. Next week will be better, I promise you that. Something epic. See you here at the end, again, next time, for a real little treat for you my curious little blurb reader.
TTFN
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1:03:14
Tom Kerridge
Did Tom Kerridge save a chef’s life by putting him in a gigantic fridge? It’s quite possible. But why? It’s all in today’s culinary chinwag.
Tom Kerridge brings his Five Brilliant Things, and as you might expect from a chef it takes in some of life’s extremes. There’s an incredible retelling of what it’s like to be on a racing car grid, and Tom’s tales of his old drinking days are the stuff of legend. Please do enjoy.
Do you want to be just as good as Tom is at cooking perfect barbecue food? Well as luck would have it you can do just that. His new BBQ book is out now, ready for you to practise a little before impressing all your friends at the garden party/beach rave/prison yard.
🔥🍖 It’s simply called ‘The BBQ book’ and you can get hold of a copy HERE. 🍖🔥
Otherwise, if you can get a table, and you’ve got a special occasion, Tom’s pubs serve some of the very best food in Britain. It’s worth doing at least once if you can get the money together some time.
In this week’s Patreon show our Patreon team came up with some excellent questions for Tom (‘Do you ever get bored with being asked how to cook the perfect Roast Potato?’) and Tom reveals which country has the best cuisine, and it’s maybe a surprising answer?
Please join us at Patreon by following the link here:
patreon.com/RussellHoward
It’s a really excellent community of people and it’s genuinely great fun to come up with the interview questions together. Come in, the water’s lovely!
That’s all for today. Don’t forget to water your house plants, especially that one in the bathroom you always forget.
Ciao baby.
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1:09:45
Alex Horne
It’s the Taskmaster’s Assistant, Alex Horne! And he’s here to tell his Brilliant things and as you would probably expect it’s a complete delight.
Did you think birdwatching was boring? Guess again! Failing to see the majesty of the French Horn? Let Alex enlighten your ass!
Alex brings an array of delights in an episode that will fly by and leave you with that cosy feeling in your guts. I probably should have used a more poetic word than guts. That description really tailed off at the end there. Guts can ruin anything. Just listen to the damn episode and enjoy yourself.
📕 Alex’s novel The Last Pebble (as mentioned on the podcast) is available to pre-order now here. It’s for teens but to be honest I bet it’s an excellent read whatever age you are. 📕
🎭 And of course you can watch Taskmaster, episodes new and old either at Channel 4 or you can feast on the best bits here. 🎭
✨ And please don’t forget you can get this whole podcast advert-free forever, and get access to our second weekly show, and get it all a day before everyone else… and for a very small amount. Click here to find out more. ✨
Thanks for joining us, we appreciate you, especially you who reads to the end of the blurb. What are you doing here? There’s nobody here but me and a small family of friendly yet hungry cockroaches. Get back to the real world. We’ll be fine.
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1:07:09
Spencer Matthews
What’s it like to be hunted by the son of a murderous Libyan dictator? Spoiler: it’s not a Brilliant Thing, but it is an incredible story from this week’s guest Spencer Matthews.
There are tales of desert marathons, growing up on an island paradise and what it’s like when reality TV thrusts you into fame before you’re necessarily ready for it… A fascinating chat that goes in many interesting directions.
🏋️♀️ You can hear more of Spencer on his new weekly podcast Untapped, which he co-hosts with Jake Quickenden. The podcast explores how far you can push the human body. Whether it’s embracing fitness challenges, mastering new productivity hacks, or exploring lifestyle changes, Spencer and Jake will try it all, and share what truly makes a difference in their lives. 🏋️♀️
🎤 And Russell’s about to embark on a mini-European tour including live dates in Porto, Gibraltar, Berlin, Athens, Sofia and more - check out russell-howard.co.uk for dates and tickets. 🎤
✨ And if you are enjoying the podcast but get fed up with the adverts, you can get the whole thing advert-free forever, and get access to our second weekly show, and get it all a day before everyone else… and for a very small amount. Click here to find out more. ✨
Thanks for being you, keep being you until you can you no more. Byeeee.
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1:01:31
Nina Conti
Nina Conti, ventriloquist supreme, her with the monkey, is in the studio (no monkey) and chooses some incredible brilliant things (the density of an atom’s nucleus! The orange of the inside of an eyelid!). It’s a privileged ramble through the brain of an artist. Please enjoy.
🐵 Ninaontour.com is where you can find out about Nina's extended tour dates for Autumn 2025 including five dates at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London from April 29th. Get your tickets! 🐵
As mentioned on the podcast, Nina’s directorial debut film Sunlight is doing the rounds at film festivals. To keep up with that and find out where you can see it next keep your eyes on Ninaconti.net
🐎 And this is a link to the John Mulaney routine, that Russell mentioned, about a Horse in a Hospital. Worth a listen for sure. 🐎
📻 And please give some serious consideration to enjoying this podcast in its natural form. No adverts, an extra weekly show and access to a community of many other like minded excellent people. Click here to find out more. 📻
And that’s the end. Let’s all do our best to make the next seven days life-changing and unbeatable. Let’s change the world. See you back here in a week for a debrief.
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Each week Russell sits down with fantastic guests to chat about their Brilliant Things; the items, places and people that make life worth living.
Ireland