Tom Allen: Gardening With Celebs, Fashion Pet Peeves & The 'Mandem'

The Romesh Ranganathan Show

Ranga Bee & Platform Media

Society & Culture, Comedy

4.6 • 715 Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2026

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is this the best gift the show has ever given a guest? A self-proclaimed "enthusiastic novice", Tom Allen is here to chat about his new podcast Pottering, his debut novel Common Decency and why we apparently should absolutely not be wearing belts with waistcoats. This episode in the studio brings you everything from questions with Shanthi, gardening tips, stand-up stories , a game of Misquoted and some very strong opinions on men's style. A Ranga Bee Production in partnership with Platform Media. 00:00 Intro 02:05 Cushion conspiracy 02:50 Wearing suits and fashion advice 04:05 Romesh’s fashion crisis 06:25 Gift giving 10:15 Tom’s fashion pet peeve 15:22 Tom’s new podcast 16:35 Getting into gardening 17:39 Booking guests 18:28 Tom’s Debut Novel 'Common Decency' 20:08 The suburban life 27:10 A question from Shanthi 30:22 How smart should you dress for the shops 32:35 On stand up and telling off the audience 38:43 On Extra Slice 42:47 How posh does Tom rank? 45:34 Misquoted 59:01 Tom’s a football fan 01:02:55 Outro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's nice.
0:00.5	It's nice.
0:01.1	I like a boucle.
0:02.5	Yeah.
0:02.8	Bucle is very in.
0:04.1	Is it?
0:04.7	Mixed textures.
0:05.6	Yeah.
0:05.8	Lovely natural words.
0:07.3	Yeah.
0:07.6	You're a fan?
0:08.1	Yeah.
0:18.1	Lovely. What is it? Are you actually and officially an ambassador? Marks and Smiths? Yeah. So what does that mean? What does ambasseting? What do you get for that? Are you allowed to discuss this publicly?
0:20.5	Well, I am at public.
0:21.5	Yeah, fine, yeah.
0:23.1	Secret ambassador would be pointless.
0:37.6	Very truly. Yeah. No, I work with them as a brand. Yeah, they're great. They're great people. Do you get everything, can you get anything you want from Mark Spencer free? No, well, I've never asked. Okay. But they send you shit. But they occasionally send me things to try.
0:39.5	And then you know the big chocolate bars that go viral?
0:43.5	Yes.
0:43.8	And then they become very hard to get hold of.
0:45.6	Do you have, do you get priority access to those?
0:49.1	On occasion, yes.
	...

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