Stalemates Podcast

The thing about Stalemates is our humility. No, it is. We NEVER big ourselves up. We're shy, bashful, circumspect and coy, and probably other synonyms for shy. No, we are. That's the way we were raised. We can't help it. Compliment us and we blush, we “Aw Shucks!”, we wave you away with a big flapping hand. We imagine. No one has ever complimented us. We'd quite like to test the theory. But no more. In these days of influencers, self-actualised media nodes, braggarts and bores, we have been unable to ignore market forces. We haven't beaten them – how dearly we'd like to – so we must join them. This is the Stalemates telling you what they've been up to – their projects, their schemes, their successes and their soon to be successes. We've been so busy that we actually recorded this podcast ages ago and have already done half the things we're talking about. But we're still very amusing about it, so it's well worth a listen. And given the nature of the work we have decided to fill our lives with, most on the things mentioned are ongoing and hang in the balance like the sword of flipping Damocles. It's the uncertainty that gives us our edge. And the panic. The endless panic...

Everyone loves pop music, yeah? Just agree. Everyone likes movies, yeah? Of course, you do. So, what could be better than a magical twist of the two? Literally nothing at all. Cocaine donut sex? Get out of town. We'll take pop stars acting ANY DAY. After the fun we had laughing along with The Mighty Quo's antics in “Bula Quo”, this time we've enjoyed the cinematic sortie of that other pair of denim clad, down and dirty rockers, The Pet Shop Boys. Yes, The Pet Shop Boys made a film. Record companies still had money in the eighties, so when Neil and Chris couldn't be arsed touring, they made a feature film instead. What do the teenage pop kids want from The Pet Shop Boys film? We're not sure, but we're pretty certain it isn't dogfights over Beachy Head, Musical Hall comedy, the theory of the structure of time, leering men in postcard kiosks, a bloody big suitcase, Joss Ackland as a blind priest serial killer in high heels, or Chris Lowe throwing a plate of sausage and egg over Babs Windsor's head (she didn't make another film for thirteen years, you know...). Join Joe and John Stalemates on another cough-a-minute excavation of the pop mine, where we'll be hacking up great lumps of laughter. Joe was not keen on the film. John was perhaps slightly more so, but only because one of us had to be, in the interest of BBC style balance. What HAVE you done to deserve this?

Well now, here's something new from the Stalemates crew – LIVE SUFFERING. In late November 2021, Joe and John elected to take a hop on, hop off Belfast bus tour. It was a bright, sunny day and even the bus was shivering. Joe wore a bobble hat and multiple scarves; John was in his new woolly coat. They thought nothing could touch them. What fools they were. Within half an hour the microphone was frozen in John's bone white hand, and Joe was lost in a reverie of past loves and fading memories. When the batteries ran out on the Tascam it may have saved their lives. What follows is often a load of windy bollocks – that's not John and Joe's fault, for once – it was just whipping a gale on the top deck, and the mic was buffeted to buggery. That, and the constant catty drawl of the bus's inbuilt tour guide, throwing monotonic shade over the entire city, renders quite a lot of the following podcast inaudible. Parts of it sound like the breakdown in “You Made Me Realise” with John hoarsely slagging off the Titanic building over the top of it. There is a special prize for anyone who makes it to the end. We'll come round your house and re-enact it. In the warm. With hot chocolate. Please respect our social distancing. X

Did you know that in 2013 Status Quo made a film? A film in which they are chased around Fiji by gangsters, stopping only to play ukulele versions of their biggest hits? Did you know it was directed by the Stunt Arranger from Mrs Brown's Boys, and the supporting cast is comprised solely of members of his family? Of course you didn't. You're normal decent people. You're watching the latest Suranne Jones 9 o'clock potboiler. A good job, then, that the Stalemates are here to pick up the slack. Because not only have they seen Bula Quo, John Stalemate actually owns it. Yes, the Stalemates are back - in the same room for the first time in two years and their excitement is palpable. Wine has been sloshed about, voices are raised, and opinions are aired like so much damp laundry. And between us we have a quantity of sopping linen. Find out that Joe was a teenage Quo fancier, what the band mean by "a polish", and hear a spirited defence of "Carry on Abroad" from the English Stalemate. Obviously. We're back. We're loud. We're nicher than ever. NB May contain factual innacuracies pertaining to classic tv cop show Ironside.

It's a slow news day - nothing to see here - so why not listen in to part two of Stalemates' dissection of David Bowie's worst album? So many reasons. However, true to form, the Stalemates pull a lot of positives out of "Tonight" and the cultural flotsam it leaves in its wake. Hear Joe say something wise about "Station to Station" and John suggest that the music industry is now over and THAT'S OKAY. Joe eviscerates poor Sir Tom Jones and they fall out over the relative merits of Bowie's tie in film "Jazzing for Blue Jean" but are reunited in their condemnation of John's Bowie impression, which no longer sounds like "Bad Suggs" but just sounds like John on the way back from the dentist. You'll come for the Bowie but you'll stay for the Stalemates (even if one of us sounds like a wasp in a matchbox)...

We're back, Back, BACK like a dose of the clap! Yes, the Stalemates return to really give your gag reflex a run for its money. This week Joe and John turn their attention to the David Bowie album "Tonight". Why? You're asking. Surely that's one of the lowest points in the Bowie canon. Well, yes it is. But we thought we'd carefully comb and sieve it for hidden gems and we found...none. None at all. It really is quite bad. So we insult it in an entertaining way. So enthralled are we by its poverty of inspiration that we've run to twice the length of the actual album! But don't worry - we've snipped it in two. Oh yes. If you like this there is EVEN MORE TO COME. NB This is a Covid-y, Zoomcally podcast. So while Joe sounds like he could be in the room with you - don't worry he's not - John sounds like a man treading water in an upturned super tanker, clinging to the body of a dead colleague until help comes. It never has and it never will. We give you part one of "Tonight" by David Bowie. His worst record? Let's find out...

In a change to our usual programme John comes over all "hello trees, hello sky" as he picks wild flowers gaily in a summer glade. Meanwhile Joe turns to poetry, the last refuge of the scoundrel, and asks the question "What's so funny about peace, love and understanding?" His plaintive answer is that he doesn't understand the question, wonders just how much is still owed to Joy, and who the hell is Joy anyway? Join Stalemates, pack up your troubles, and just get happy. X

The coronavirus pandemic have brought many weird changes to everyone’s lives. One unexpected outcome for Joe Stalemate, is that his mother has become his, erm, walking buddy. She may be known as a fearsome, formidable widow (and that’s just in wrestling circles) but starved of the oxygen of Johnny Stalemate's Class 3 atmosphere these past few months, these regular Rambles with Eileen (a hastily discarded early title for this podcast) have become an indispensable fixture in pal Joey's otherwise bustle-free pandemic schedule. So, this is a one off, limited edition, collectors item Stalemates lockdown Special. "Stale Mater" if you like. That was John’s idea by the way. He’s generous to a fault that one... Enjoy the Stalemates Special. We'll be back real soon with a regular slice of our steaming delicious thought porridge. WARNING: The sound quality is, well, somewhat rustic in parts. This is in keeping with the earthy content.

Never has the difference been more marked between your two friendly neighbourhood Stalemates. Joe is sweetness and light: out strolling with his mother, clicking his heels and twitching - the latter in the sense that he is now a keen ornithologist: its not a bad reaction to his medication. John on the other hand is a glowering misanthrope, railing against the world in all its iniquities and absurdities and all because he has a sore foot and can't go out and play in the sunshine. Between the two of them they cover all of the subjects - seriously, ALL OF THEM, you'll not need to listen to another podcast ever again. Plus there's cool music, opinions and all the speech impediments you could ever wish for. Oh, and Trump gets an ABSOLUTE kicking. Enjoy. After you've enjoyed this podcast, wash out your ears with our New Normal playlist. It's dead good. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0TcpwPmhQ4hagUGWvvzMcQ?si=aZXBEf8_Sdy79SWFHKSaNQ

A plague is on the earth. We are all of us tidied away and hidden. We are separated like eggs in a box or customer service advisers in their cubicles. We're all stuck at home, blarting about on social media, nominating each other for "challenges" such as naming things you've heard and seen. It is, not to put too fine a point on it, a good time. Which is why we recorded this episode of Stalemates. Heroically. We've both been ill. We probably neither of us had Covid19 but we're both self-isolating. I mean John would be anyway as he hates the world but Joe has been bouncing off the walls. He leaves little marks like a moth. So here we are. The Stalemates. Alone but together. Stitched up like a pair of kippers. Isolated but splenetic. We’ve got a “Splendid Isolation” playlist to go with this podcast. Fill your impoverished ears here: https://open.spotify.com/user/stalematespodcast/playlist/24t5K28Pcl9xEtk0ARmIEX?si=xZcwRCfZSlSgkBB0Pfu0EA

Well, you spoke and we listened! You said...can you make Stalemates even more rambling and incoherent than before? We said: not a problem. You pleaded with us...can you make punishingly long and almost completely devoid of structure? We said...happy to oblige. You were crying out in the night...please, can you avoid the given conversational topic almost completely and just waffle on about anything that comes into your sweet heads? We said...that's uncanny BECAUSE THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT WE'VE DONE. Welcome to the first Stalemates of 2020 - literally the only time John and Joe see each other now John's given up drinking. In this sparkling, spanking panty fresh episode we discuss the decade that was the 2010s. The decade that neither of us remember. Joe didn't even remember that this was the decade we were discussing and researched the previous one. We talk about the death of pop and the birth of Ed Sheeran, Joe, so like Scorsese in so many ways, mauls the Marvel Universe before admitting he has only ever seen DC comics films (I know!). John points out the top three biggest selling books of the last ten years have an unlikely provenance and the pair of them dismantle Bowie's elegiac Blackstar song, before admitting it was alright anyway cause it was Bowie. All this and the pick of the pops theme getting seriously headachey with us bickering over the top of it. You spoke. We listened. This is all your fault.

John and Joe Stalemate have done it again: they've got drunk watching a film. Joe's hosting skills are the envy of genteel society and his refills came as quickly and often as if he were a waffle waitress with a bottomless cup. So, by the time we came to the end of the film, the lost "nasty little classic" The Last of Sheila, we were both tight as owls. We might have had the occasional livener on previous podcasts - strictly to lubricate the throat you understand - but this was the first time we set out on the adventure in quite so rubbery a manner. Nevermind, you have to follow the dollar - the whole world is doing drunk podcasts why would we buck the trend? So here is Stalemates: Half Cut - all the usual gubbins but in a looser, free-wheeling style. I can't remember what we actually talk about so this episode takes on a thrilling property. We shall be glued to this one. Cringing like bastards."

John is suprised to find that he loves The Linguini Incident. Joe is unsurprised to discover that he quite likes it. Both agree that it's probably rubbish. Join Stalemates as they watch this weird 1991 David Bowie movie, pull it apart, and then clean forget to put it back together again. There's a Bowie acting masterclass with candyfloss, Roseanna Arquette dressed as Lady Miss Keir mugging off David's slightly sinister advances, John Stalemate makes a confession about Dinner with Andre, plus startling use of the word "piffle". Join Stalemates as they take a thin white duke (look) at the Tin Machine of Dame films...

In which Stalemates whet their dulled blades on the flinty subject of Folk Horror. It's a bumper - if bitter - harvest as they discuss "the big three", John does an uncanny Poetry Corner, and there's also time to take a detour around Nicky Henson's helmet.

For their slightly delayed 10th podcast, The Stalemates blow off the cobwebs by doing old favourite Doctor Who. Joe uses the word "trope" a lot and learns how to pronounce "scion", John explains how Stephen Moffat badly served himself. John and Joe's Poetry Corner makes its debut (and possibly final) outing, and Michael Jackson in the Tardis divides the Stalemates 50/50. Approximately...

In which the Stalemates watch style-themed slasher The Eyes of Laura Mars, Joe likes a poem and John forgets that he likes David Bowie's top 5 smash hit Fashion.

In which Stalemates visit an allegedly ghost-infested rectory in the city of Lisburn in the dead of night, and attempt to commune with spirits. The kind that don't return to haunt you in the morning. WARNING: Best listened to with the lights on...

In which John admires the tiny eyes of Professor Alice Roberts and Joe wishes he was on the gravy train...

In which Stalemates take their podcast to the stage, tell real life ghost stories, get heckled with poetry requests, discuss the vagaries of Punkie Night and explain why Halloween 3 isn't rubbish. PLUS extra aggressive passing Dickensian urchins! All this and Rentaghost too...

In which the Stalemates estimate the death of Victorian plastic, 90s indie bands are derided and cyber clogs are invented

Stalemates Episode 4 – Old Skool by Stalemates

Stalemates Episode 3 – The French by Stalemates

Stalemates Episode 2 – Time by Stalemates

Stalemates is a theme-time cultural podcast presented by Joseph Nawaz and John Higgins. Each week a random word is chosen and our heroes twist and spindle all possible meanings out of that word. All in an attempt to find a way to play a Roxy Music song that’s tenuously appropriate.