This is Rock and Roll English. Real people, real English. Here's your host, Martin Johnson. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Rock and Roll English, episode number 354, baby. Oh yeah. In today's episode, we have Boom Boom Cannon. Yes, he is back. And we talk about everything phone related, okay? We talk about phones because phones are...

big in people's lives aren't they not really the best description in the world i must admit um but that's what we talk about but we do it in a real rock and roll way as always okay i'm sure there are things i should tell you but i can't really remember so let's get straight to the conversation which is here i will talk to you at the end but happy listening so

Boom Boom Cannon, how are you today? I'm very well Martin, how are you? Always fantastic Boom Boom, especially after our pre-podcast conversation of pillows, talking about your, in fact share it, tell us your favourite pillow. Yes, I have a really nice kind of firm memory foam pillow.

And I can't sleep with anything else now. So much so that when you're on holiday, you have been known to go home to get your pillow. Yeah. Right. Yeah, that's true. I often now either bring it with me. Right. Or once a few years ago, we were on holiday, not so far from home.

and so I didn't have to travel that far back to get it but I got to the hotel and I saw they had these kind of classic hotel pillows you know huge fluffy your head sinks into them and I immediately thought this is not going to work for me in my my neck I'm sure that was a great start to the holiday for Mrs Boom Boom oh yeah she loved it and I said I'll just be back in a few hours I'm going to get my pillow

if that's not rock and roll i don't know what is uh so um on to today's show how do we usually start the show it's got to be with a review yeah do you think we have one yeah see you know what i'm gonna say yes because i'm sure there is one out there it's just no one has brought that to my attention so let's say yes but we're not going to read one okay just to just

Just to maintain the positive vibe. Okay. So on to today's pod. So last time you were on, I'm not sure if it was in the family pod, but we spoke about, which is something we'd spoken about before, how the thumbs up on the, if you respond to a message with thumbs up, it's not something I particularly like. Okay. But it just got me thinking about things connected to phones because phones are a big thing in people's lives. So I thought we'll talk about phones, but not your standard phones.

We've got different things to talk about. From ChatGPT? Yes.

Mostly, yes. As I said, ChatGBT is so hilarious. Boom, boom. The strange thing was that my memory of my free account of ChatGBT, it kept saying memory form was being really slow. So I started a new account. Immediately just got my vibe again. Oh, really? I thought it was going to take time to build a relationship with my new account, but didn't. Got straight into it. So in fact...

the first one that it came up with. So is, are you a 10% battery and still vibing person? So as I said, that word vibing just immediately understood what kind of man I am. Okay. I'm the kind of guy who says vibing. So are you a 10% battery and still vibing person or are

it's 78 i'd better charge it what what's your vibe first i'd like to say i think vibe you say a lot i don't know if i've ever heard you say vibing yeah i'm vibing the ing form i'm just i'm just vibing man it's just the next step as you said i say vibe vibe is just the next step you should you should start to be honest i would like to be cool enough to say vibing not sure if i am

um no i don't uh i can't really remember what the point was now but am i vibing with 10 percent yeah so you're not vibing so i can imagine i can imagine you you are that it's 78 i need to charge it guy yeah yeah i'm closer to that than really i've been with 10 kind of guy yeah i i really am i do vibe with with 10 i'm like wow i don't care wow and i i kind of feel that

I want my phone to work hard. I want my phone to be a grafter, to get down to that red zone of the battery. And then you give it like a real good charge. I just feel that's more what it's like. So I take it, you know, charge it to 100, get it down to like even below 10. In fact, even if I'm at seven or eight, I'll keep vibing. Good charge and I'm good to go.

but this i think works in a situation where you know you have access to the charge good point but can you can you vibe i was gonna say can you be vibing i don't know how you use that word uh can you still vibe you know in a sort of uh precarious charging situation with with ten percent that is a good point okay so here's the question do you have a power bank

Actually, you know what I do? Because we got bought one for Christmas, but I've not used it yet. Okay, right. Well, whoever bought you that present, hopefully they're not missing. Mrs. Boom Boom's dad. His Christmas present. The Christmas present was a power bank. Oh, yeah. There's nothing that says the magic of Christmas more than a power bank, is there? So if people don't know, power bank is a thing. I like to call it a charger charger because you need to charge it and then... I like to call it a charger charger because it's a word.

Well, you have to charge it and then you bring that with you and then it will charge your phone on the go. Yeah. It just sounds quite childish. I think charger, charger. Actually, I think it was my mum that coined that one. That is a strange thing, actually, how families make names of things. I'll never forget being at Corporal Comer's house when I was a child and there was the TV remote.

And someone in his family said, have you got the Hoofer Doofa? And I was like, what the hell is the Hoofer Doofa? And that's what they used to call the TV remote. I've never heard that. Yeah. So on the levels of ridiculous names, I don't think Charger Charger is actually that bad. No, you have to be careful with things, the sort of words within the family that you take outside. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I...

I do own a charger charger or what is the real name again? Power bank. Yeah, of course. So I do own one of them. I bought that for a time where I knew I was going to be out all day. So yeah, I think you're right. I don't like vibing knowing that I can't get access to charging. But does the

The power bank is like a backup that you can charge your phone with. So it's charging the phone. Yeah. It's not charging a charger. Yeah, but you have to charge that thing. That's why it's charge a charger. Yeah.

So that's why I don't like it actually, because there are too many things to charge. So you've got to charge your power bank or charge your charger. You've got to remember to do that and then take it out. It's like why I don't have an Apple watch anymore or because I have to remember to charge my phone, headphones, headphones.

usually charging and it's just too too much charging so um fuck it is what i say there is a lot to charge i've recently got into um now with our electricity provider here this is like 40 plus i can see this this story is going to be another rock and roll story like your pillow but yeah keep going that we now have like a spot price on the electricity so you track the price literally you

to hour. I bet you're on that all day. I'm constantly checking it. And sometimes the dream, right? Sometimes it drops into the price doesn't just reduce, but it drops into like minus, um, money. Um,

that's a way of putting it so you get money back by using electricity all right okay the price is like so it's when they have an over supply of electricity they actually want people to use electricity okay and they pay you for using it so at that point yeah you start i mean this happens rarely you have to you have to you know i bet that's why you check it hour to hour because when that happens it must be all of a sudden it's just like right plug everything in

Headphones are getting charged, watches getting charged, dishwashers on. Sometimes I put the oven on just for fun. Extra warmth. Yeah, that would be bloody good, actually. Definitely worth checking hour to hour then. So we've actually only just covered the first point of the podcast there. I was worried we weren't going to have enough. So next one, how many unread notifications are on your phone right now? Yeah.

Email-wise, I think it's often quite a lot. The number on the email app is quite high. My number on my email app, I mean, let me just have a look. It's 5,485. That's crazy.

That's absolute madness. But I mean, I do get emails from people. I just have no idea who they are. Very rarely. I would say 90% of emails I don't open. There could be some reviews in there. That's what I'm saying. That's why I said we have a review. Email is definitely not my forte because I've got like five email accounts as well. Trying to keep it's just too much.

And well, this actually brings to the next one. What's your go-to excuse for not replying to a text slash email for three days? In these days, it's baby. It's baby boom boom. So you said I haven't responded to your email because I have a baby. Pretty much. Yeah.

Just I'm a dad now. You can expect a response three days later. Yeah, I think mine and I think Mrs. Most people's is sorry for the delay being so busy. But I just unspecific. Yeah. And I think everyone is just so busy, aren't they? But in reality, yeah.

I just couldn't be bothered sometimes. You see your message. Oh, yeah. For example, if I get a message from Mrs. R&R, I know that needs to be responded to very quickly. If she sends me a message saying, for example, I don't know, what do you want to eat tonight or something like that? I'm at the supermarket now and I respond two days later.

She's not going to be happy. But if I get a message from someone and you immediately get the vibe, you think, you know, I just haven't got the headspace for it. We were talking about this in our pre-podcast chat. There's lots going on. Sometimes you just think, I just can't be bothered. Yeah, 100%. But I also think my...

The amount of time now that I think has to pass before it requires an excuse or an apology is getting longer and longer. Yeah, also true. Yeah, because I actually think most people now totally understand. Oh, yeah, sure. That was four days ago. It's fine. You've been busy. Totally. It wasn't urgent. Totally agree. But as I think we have mentioned before, the biggest crime in the world is the...

two blue ticks because so what I what I have to do now you see the message but don't actually open it so you don't they don't get the two blue ticks but you know it's there but you know what that's the thing that I think drives me a bit crazy because you know it's there it's the back of your mind and you think there's so many of those messages and emails I've got 5,485 emails at the back of my mind so that's why I'm always so stressed I think you should with the emails at some point just

click all delete see I did that a few years ago but then so I just put every email in my inbox I just deleted because my inbox was full and then this happened a few times recently where you'd need an email from a few years ago and then you're like oh yeah no deleted that that's true yeah didn't want the email anyway so didn't want my car insurance that I needed to get but

Didn't want that number. Didn't want, yeah, all of this really important information. Fuck it. Yeah. 5,000 though. So that's a lot. That is a lot, isn't it? Yeah. But there we go. But it's not WhatsApp. WhatsApp are probably about five, I would say. Okay. So next one. So, okay. You get someone's phone number. Okay. Yeah.

So the reason I'm bringing this up actually is because at work recently someone said to me, oh, what's your number? So exchange numbers, like a colleague. And then he said to me, what's your surname? And I thought, why do you want that? Like, for me, so I'm saving me, which I did to this person who I won't name. I'm saving my name as Martin Work.

it's so much more simple. Like if it's surname, I'm not going to remember your surname. How do you save people? Yeah. First name, first name. And maybe if there's two of them, a letter or yeah, some kind of signifier, but very rarely surname. Yeah. Oh, the surname is absolute nonsense. I actually, this reminded me, and I don't know if this is still the case, but like years into my relationship with Mrs. Boom Boom.

I realised she had me saved as Russell Cannon. Years in. Just in case it's the other Russell who probably texts me 50 times a day. Yeah. It's full name, no sort of like

No signifier that was in any way a meaningful person. No sort of like emoji or anything like that. But I mean, do you have that now? How is she saved in your phone? I don't know. Yeah, she's just first name. Right. Yeah, first names. Keep it simple. So Mrs. R&R, whose name obviously Alessia, she is saved as Alessia New because I got tired of the old Alessia and got a new model. Yeah. You're actually...

You're Mart New. Right. I can see that. Mart New. Happy with that? Well, I'm a bit disappointed that New doesn't have a capital N. That is something that drives me crazy. Like capital letters. That's why I think I do have like an OCD. If I see someone write their name, okay, New's not so bad. But if I see someone write a name without a capital letter, it drives me fucking crazy.

Yeah, well, deal with it. That's who you are. You're Mark New. Mark New, yeah. So, yeah, Alessia New. Obviously, I was joking earlier. I hadn't changed her for a new model. It's just a new phone number. But I did quickly go through my phone book. I only got to D, as you'll tell. So, I found Alessia New, Alex Mortgage, Danny Next Door. From the Mortgage family, the mortgages down the road. Yeah.

i've got danny next door and my favorite one this is a recent one actually um is dave doorman he's the man that's going to fix my door so dave's doorman because dave got loads of daves so yeah i could have i suppose we've just gone for dave door but dave doorman i thought he could be confused if you know a bouncer called dave

would also be dave doorman right yeah right it took me a while to get that with doorman bouncer would be one word or no it's like no doorman yeah i know what you mean the doorman yeah i think you a bouncer called a doorman would be one word wouldn't it yeah that's but i've got two words dave oh i see man okay okay because he's not a doorman he's a

He's a man who fixes doors. He's a man who fixes doors. Not a man who stops you walking in a door like a bouncer at night. He's a doorman. Get it. I think the pronunciation is different. A doorman. A doorman. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. So there's still scope to meet a bouncer called Dave. Dave Dorman. One word. Yeah. So Dave Dorman. Capital letters on door and man. Just want to add. Because you've got me as marked new. No capital letter. But whatever. Whatever.

So here's another one. This one I did think was crazy, but then I thought about it and thought, actually, I'd do this. So do you ever fake a phone call to get out of talking to someone? You want to avoid something or you want to pretend you're busy. Have you ever faked a phone call? I don't think I have.

I don't think I have. That is taking it to a new extreme, like getting your phone out and pretending you're doing something. I think it's easier now. Yeah, but it's easier now because you can just get your phone out and go on social media. But in the Nokia days, sometimes I literally would just get my phone out and just start clicking buttons to...

Yeah, there weren't so many options, were there? No, because you had to start writing a message or just write a fake message to myself. Yeah, or play Snake. Exactly. Exactly.

you know, maybe you want to look like it's more important than exactly. You're playing snake. Um, whilst these days you can just sort of put your head in your phone and sort of pretend that you're busy. But yeah, so my fake phone calls now, it's not to get out of talking to someone. It is generally things with my daughter because, uh, yeah, she,

She's a very impressionable stage. And not that long ago, we passed a prison. And she said, like, what's that? And I said, well, people go there when they're naughty and they have to stay there and then they can't see their families and stuff. And she was quite shocked by this. So if she is not being so good now, I basically say, let me just call the police and they'll come to take you to prison.

So I get the phone out, hello, police. Yeah, and then that will be enough for her to stop doing. Now, I'm not really giving any parenting advice here. I'm not sure if you'll see this in any parenting books about what you should do. How far do you have to develop the conversation with the police before it has an effect? Normally just hello, police. It's enough. It's just us.

That's enough. I don't know if the conversation has ever gone further than that with the police. Well, it may have just like, hello, police. Yeah, I'm just here to tell you that Lara today and then like maybe that's maximum. And then it will stop. Yeah, recently I do feel like I've been a terrible parent. The other day she was a

having an absolute meltdown, like going absolutely crazy because she had just got into bed and then she said that she wanted to go downstairs and have something to eat and it was just an excuse to not go to bed. And she was going crazy and then she stopped going crazy and then went to sleep. I went downstairs and Mrs. R&R said, oh, you dealt with that so well. How did you calm her down? And I was like...

I told her because she had brushed her teeth, if you eat after that, your teeth fall out. Why did you say that? Yeah, it worked, didn't it? I think it's a good rule to have. Like you brush your teeth for night, no more food. Yeah.

Because your teeth will fall out. Yeah. So I think it sounds like solid parenting. Exactly. Although, however, the thing I didn't think about was the next night when we got to that, she said, I don't want to brush my teeth because then I can't have anything to eat. My teeth will fall out. Yeah. But then I told her, no, it's safe. Backfired. Exactly. Yeah.

OK, so we are going to stop the pod there and it will continue in the Rock and Roll English family members area where we talk about some childhood memories and some chit chat things which are not safe for the public. So this is normally where I give you the vocabulary, but I have remembered what I was supposed to tell you at the start of the podcast, which is that audio quality is never quite as good when I record with Boom Boom.

I won't go into the details, but yeah, apologies for that. But yes, I'm supposed to do the vocabulary now. However, I'm recording this intro and outro quite a few days before the podcast goes out because I'm going to Italy next week and I'm not planning on bringing my microphone because when you travel with kids, you don't have that much space to bring things. It's all stuff for the kids.

So unfortunately, there is no vocabulary today, but I will see you in a couple of weeks and I hope you enjoyed the podcast. In the meantime, just keep on rocking, baby. Thanks so much for listening to Rock and Roll English. For more great content and to stay up to date, visit rockandrollenglish.com and facebook.com slash rockandrollenglish. We'll catch you next time.