Hello and welcome to John Richardson and the FutureNaut series six, episode four. It's the Christmas special.

And how special are we feeling this morning, Edward Gillespie? I'm feeling quite special. Yeah, it's Christmas party season, isn't it? Mm-hmm. And, yeah, it was... I'm referring to the text I got from me this morning saying, I am really hungover. Well, yeah, it was the Forward Institute, responsible leadership. Oh, ironic. Christmas party last night. And so I was leading from the front. I had to get the last train home. You know it's the Christmas season when you look around the carriage and go, oh God, everyone's asleep and dribbling on themselves. And yeah, what a state. I'll tell you what, having been on those trains, asleep is the very best. So yes, I was feeling a little bit ropey this morning. Yeah. I'm getting better now after water and lots of camomile tea.

So you're hungover and for listeners, Mark, who is of course now our producer and editor,

has called the software that we used to record this podcast to C Word.

So he's arrived full of Christmas cheer.

I've had a very, I've had a pretty stressful week, I have to say.

So I'm hoping that this Christmas episode will be a ray of light.

It's also weird to be recording it so early, isn't it?

Because obviously listeners will be hearing this just before the big day,

but obviously we're recording this in August.

I tell you what, if that's the case,

it really is the Ford Institute, because they had their Christmas party bloody early, don't they?

Exactly. They're always ahead of the curve. We recorded our 8 out of 10 Cats Christmas special one year in February. And I'll tell you what, that really pissed people off because the audience didn't know. I thought

we were coming to a normal show. They just got over it, just taking the decorations down, just got into that. All right, then, come on, let's do this. Trees off, snowballs everywhere. They were fuming. That's completely mad. Ten months ahead. Yeah. So what have we been up to? Ed's been getting hammered.

I had a flu shot booked because of the news.

The news said get your flu shot, don't spread it to your nearest and dearest. So I had it booked in for 11.15 yesterday, and it got cancelled at 11am. So instead, I went to the supermarket and bought loads of chocolate. That's what you get. Does that also keep the flu off? Well, if you're going to go down, go down smiling. It's not the first time you said that, is it, John? We're in a really ambiguous area now, aren't we? We're trying not to swear to keep it clean, and it just means we're leaning into those innuendos a little bit.

You've got that cheeky look on your face saying, well, I didn't swear, so that's fine.

So are we ready for Christmas? I can see on our little camera feed here, Ed, that you've got the

Christmas lights up behind you. John, you look like you're in a prison somewhere. So a different vibe

coming from the two of you. It's Christmas everywhere, right?

No one's done a Christmas movie set in a prison, have they?

Favorite Christmas movies?

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