Susie Dent

Russell Howard’s Five Brilliant Things

Avalon

Comedy Interviews, Comedy

4.5 • 566 Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2025

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From Countdown's Dictionary Corner it’s Susie Dent! Susie is here with her Five Brilliant Things and they are as fascinating and vocabulary-expanding as you might hope; but it’s not all words, Susie also tells us about her special relationship with a rock. Is it Dwayne Johnson? You’ll have to listen to the show to find out! Alongside these revelations Russell and Susie luxuriate in some of the far corners of words and meanings; if you’re even remotely interested in finding out some new language-based tidbits then you won’t be disappointed in here. And with Christmas fast approaching, here’s some gift ideas for friends and relatives of any age: Susie’s brand new books! For the younger members of the family Susie’s book ‘The Roots We Share’: Susie has searched far and wide to unearth words and phrases - old, new, and long-forgotten - that celebrate harmony, unity, and the universal languages that connect people across the world. That book can be found HERE. And for older readers, Susie’s just released ‘Words for Life’. From wabbit to dust bunnies, and from the strange history of arse to the best ways to describe moonlight, Words for Life offers a full year’s supply of verbal vitamins guaranteed to brighten and boost every day. Here you will learn of the Mother-in-Law’s Dream as well as the Yuleshard, and discover expressions that can fix (or at least nail) the problems of modern life, whether dealing with unrequited love or unsatisfactory politicians, eating a whole packet of biscuits or forgetting someone’s name. Grab yours from HERE. And Russell has just released a whole load of extra dates for his brand new tour show ‘Don’t Tell The Algorithm’. There are shows across the whole UK in 2026: You can book tickets at https://www.russell-howard.co.uk We also recorded a second show with Susie for our Patreon listeners; there’s a clip at the end of the episode and for fans of the podcast so please have a listen. If you’ve already had a listen and you’re here to find out more…click the link here for ad-free shows, early access and a special extra show just for you every week - have a look! patreon.com/RussellHoward Please enjoy the multitudinous gratifications contained within this audio chronicle of lexicography. I fly! Producer: Dan Atkinson Line Producer: Daisy Knight Exec Producer: James Taylor Composer: Fat Lady Music Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, my friends, welcome to Five Brilliant Things, where I sit down with fascinating people to talk about the things they love.
0:13.0	My guest today is the Queen of Dictionary Corner from Countdown. It's Susie Dent.
0:19.0	Now, as you can imagine, we spoke spoke about words we spoke about all the words
0:23.6	german words swear words there was a phenomenally interesting thing if you are unlucky enough to
0:31.6	find yourself in freezing water what words can help you get over the pain quicker anyways it's a
0:37.0	really good episode.
0:38.2	Enjoy.
0:38.7	Here is Susie Dent with her five brilliant things.
0:43.5	Susie Dent, where do we find you?
0:46.6	You find me sitting at home in quite a little...
0:52.1	I like to call it my study, but that's a bit of a grand title for it.
0:56.0	I'm surrounded by dictionaries, obviously,
0:58.6	but also quite a few props from 8 out of 10 Capsiders Countdown.
1:02.0	So to my left, I have a giant pinata of me,
1:06.5	who's incredibly scary looking,
1:09.0	kind of urging me on.
1:10.5	I've got Sean Locke's Difficult Dictionary on my top shelf. Oh, nice. And I've got a Barbie doll fake of me as well. So those are all staring down at me. That's where I am, in Oxford, I should say. Oh, lovely. And a beautiful painting in the in the background. Oh yeah, thank you.
1:28.3	That is from Sri Lanka. Is it really? Yeah. It's lovely and stretched. How'd you get that in a
1:32.5	suitcase? I didn't. It was actually a present from a friend of mine who lives out there.
1:39.0	And I think it's supposed to go vertically, but I don't, my walls are not high enough or posh enough. So, yeah, I've just put it at landscape, but it's pretty. Lovely. And your car is broken down, which is why you're not with us in person. Yeah, I'm really sorry. I have flocked this poor car to death. Yeah, it's honest, last legs, basically. basically it's 170,000 miles it's time for a new one
2:03.1	Russell how are you gunning it how do you drive um I just got a bit image of you just like foot down
2:10.1	you remember when jabe and carrick a spat out the window similar kind of i'm imagining that
	...

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