We Will Fix You

Our fixee loves to draw, but, tired of waiting for the muses to strike, they turn to us for help. To fix it, if you will. To fix them, if you'll permit me to be so bold. Speaking of muses, have you seen Xanadu? Demented film. A word of warning: the final fix in this episode is especially spicy, so maybe don't listen to it when the kids are around or if you suspect you're under surveillance by the po-po or similar.

We're back, and we're hear to help! This time, with our fixee wants help to lose weight without stripping all of the joy from their life. Can we help? Well, it's been a while, but we're oiled up and we're fixing to fix.

We're back.

This week’s fixee has taken upon themselves the thankless task of caring for and aiming to improve the lot of a sexless chap from the internet. That’s right, it’s Incel Great Expectations here at We Will Fix You, with Incel Pip, our good-hearted fixee as Old Joe, and here’s us as Magwitch, just trying our best near some sheep.

This week’s (year’s?) fixee has demanded we shake off the dust, cram our plague masks with posies and set off into the world in search of fixes. The problem? They fancy their best friend’s ex. The solution? US.

It’s a tale as old as time - you’re doing a work because capitalism demands you sell your dignity at the market rate, when your boss starts to micromanage everything you do. Of course you’d turn to us. Because we’ll fix it. And we’ve got a chart!

It happens to us all - a slip of the pen or keyboard, and quite the wrong message is conveyed. In the case of this week’s fixee, they are locking themselves away to meditate, only to later say it was something… quite different. Can we help? Oh, but we’ve got three robust and sinewy fixes waiting to go.

Look. You don’t like it, we don’t like it, but sometimes people need help with other people and their inability to pee correctly. Just… in the right place. At all. The big porcelain bit. So yeah, here we are. Helping. With all the pee.

When we were young, we were taught that it would be the most important thing in the world to have clear, neat handwriting as we would be doing so much of that in our important adult jobs. Well now we have those and it turns out the only writing we do is cryptic graffiti about wasps on the toilet walls. But I digress, this week’s questioner wants to return to their writing stamina of old. Can we, even in these technological times, return them to the strength of the scriveners of old? You’d better fucking believe it, treacle.

This week’s listener doesn’t know when to stop clicking on Twitter’s recommended accounts, and through plenty of fault of their own is now in a race against Twitter’s algorithm and their own capacity for “erotic joy”. The Algorithm may destroy their horn, and they have turned to us, in the dying days of 2019, for help.

This week’s listener knows that particularly modern malaise that comes from having someone confuse their email address for your own. The gift cards, summonses and death threats meant for a total stranger are piling up and so they turn to us for help. And help we shall!

But every single time, every single person is going to ask them, so teeth-achingly politely, for what they’re proposing as an alternative that one of two things will happen.

Our listener is concerned about their nephew, who has recently developed a fascination with the ceaseless rows of teeth found in beloved mascot Sonic The Hedgehog. They would like us to do something about this, and we’ve come at this one from all angles, medical, spiritual, doing nothing - all bases are covered.

This week’s questioner has only gone and got themselves a bona fide nemesis - truly the dream of the dramatically-inclined podcast intro text writer. And yet, this nemesis is shit. Just really not up to the task. What are some low-key revenge-based activities one can engage in when your nemesis isn’t really up to snuff?

Where does the time go? It seems like only moments ago that we were declaring ourselves “on sabbatical” and walking into that suspiciously large gap in the trunk of that lightning-blasted tree, and now here we are, back, seemingly refreshed, and with absolutely no knowledge of the intervening months. Our questioner suffers from this too, though it seems unlikely that they too were found wandering, naked and alone in that fog bank. No, they just find that no matter what, they don’t seem to have as much time as they used to. Can we fix that? Dear listener, you’d better fucking believe that we can.

This week’s questioner hates the rash of “humourous” signs that accompany British protest culture, and they insist that we do something about it. And while we don’t make the laws - yet - there are some things we can offer to help get this infestation under control. And with 100 episodes under our belts, the powers that be have given us a few months, a handful of precious days to slip back into the forest to rejuvinate ourselves. We’ll see you soon, and keep sending those problems for us to fix.

A very special episode this week, as we fix 99 of your niggling problems LIVE, unrehearsed, rapid-fire, except when we go on a long digression about bums or something, with no notes or nothing, with too much to drink, with categorically the wrong equipment to attempt this, with severe technical issues, and more. Ladies. Gentlemen. May we present: 99 Problems. Amazingly it gets to about 25 minutes in before it all breaks down completely. At one point, there was a small fire and we styled it the fuck out, because we’re professionals. Live recording is hard at the best of times, let alone when you’re shitfaced in three different cities. As a result you may hear a loud bird, the odd bump, bang, scream, descent into madness, and, of course, the po-po.

This week’s questioner has taken on a job that perhaps they should not. It’s giving them the right proper fear - the wobbles, the yips, all that bad stuff. It might look like there’s no way out, but when have we ever let you down?

Our listeners, you may surmise, can be delicate. Oh, they put on a brave face, but they get in a tizzy over all sorts. This week’s wants to navigate the tricky and previously unknown etiquette of how to pronounce “pho”. Is it “fuh”, “fur”, or “foe“? Whatever it is, if it’s between our tender listeners and a steaming bowl of soup you’d better believe we’re on the fucking case.

Our questioner, one of the rats fleeing a sinking ship, would like to do something nice for their boss before they leave this job - they’d like to make sure their boss lands on their feet with a nice new job somewhere else. How are they - are we - to achieve this? Let’s find out, together.

We’ve all got that friend or acquaintance who’s prone to exaggeration. Sometimes they’re prone to talking absolute nonsense, inventing stories out of who cloth. But when they’re a serial porky-teller, how do you tell when they are and aren’t telling the truth?

This week’s listener has a particularly Millennial conundrum for us: how to get their beau to play Pokemon Go? Rather than let on that we are, in fact, really rather old, we approach this question with the seriousness and tact you probably think it deserves if you never knew a time before the internet.

Our questioner this week is plagued by bad dreams. The naughtier Oneiroi are vexing them right up. How can they vanquish these dreams, or at least make them more interesting? Why, by asking us, of course.

Our questioner’s workplace has all gone a bit Game of Thrones. No, not gratuitous nudity behind the photocopier, nor incest in the stationery cupboard - it’s political, and they are not. How can a poor rube survive in an office rife with back-stabbing and intrigue? Why, by asking us of course.

This week’s questioner has concerns dear listener, and they concern 90s primetime landfill sitcom Friends. That, and the youth. We hate both of those things, so we’re happy to help out.

Our questioner this week would like to upend the current state of things and bring joy and light to a dark world. But they also don’t really fancy leaving the house or engaging with any other human beings. How can we reconcile these two opposing and very valid desires?

This week’s questioner has perhaps the most relatable issue we’ve ever addressed.

Sometimes, the things you like stop being fun, whether by natural attrition, the increased interest of other people or, should we dare to admit it, by becoming bad or not having been any good in the first place. What are we to do when this happens? You’d better believe we’ve got some fixes for you, bucko.

One forceful embuggerance of the modern age is the decline of the local shop, something this week’s questioner is abundantly sympathetic to. If only they’d not whinge about it. What to do, what to do?

Public transport - what a wonderful idea! What a horrific pit of disease and antisocial behaviour in practice. This week’s listener is, presumably as some form of penance, temporarily forced onto the bus, and we’re here to get them through it.

Our questioner starts hobbies but never commits to them, leaving them unsatisfied with their efforts. A shame, but is it one our fixers can help address? I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t.

It’s the festive season, and some people just won’t play along. This week’s questioner wants their deskmate to enjoy the festive season so they can really ramp up the non-stop festivity this season requires. What to do? I can think of no better people to bring Christmas cheer than us.

This weeks’s questioner likes to Make Things, and despite the enjoyment they derive from this, their swearing and behaviour while doing so resembles that of a particularly sexually-aggressive chimpanzee. What, then, to do? Why, dear listener, to fix it.

We’ve all watched enough holiday specials to know that you can make your own traditions, that family is where you find it, and not to touch any creek bodies you find - no matter how tempting - lest you get framed for an escalating series of brutal murders. This week’s questioner struggles with that first thing - specifically how to carry on a Christmas tradition without one of its participants.

A very important question this week - when work is getting to you from every direction, how do you find the time and energy to extricate yourself from a bad situation. We’re here to help, and so is Fixbot 3000 - the world’s first automated fixing machine!

A matter of fidelity this week, as our questioner would prefer some more of that sort of thing from their partner. Will we fix it? Very much depends on what you’re willing to accept as an answer.

A superabundance of willing twinkflesh brings with it a hefty helping of people who are in need of fixing and so they turn, not to us, but to this week’s questioner, who would like to return to a rigorous schedule of nobbing without all the troublesome feelings. We’re here to help. It’s what we do.

A traumatic childhood can all-too-easily be transmitted down the generations, but that's not the case with this week's questioner. Rather, they want to know how to praise their partner for raising their children with kindness, but without being a dick about it. We, sensitive as ever, spring into action.

Another bumper week, as four fixers get to the messy (ho ho!) task of reputation management. Our listener has a reputation they would rather shed like so many discarded pizza boxes and browning apple cores. Can we fix that? Almost certainly.

This week's fixee has issues with a chatty colleague. How to find that sweet spot where they talk a lot less than they do now, but without anyone being brought up on murder charges? Will this special four-fixer special episode sort it right out? Right out.

Our questioner today has a problem getting started. With anything. But in particular with their cushy, and notionally self-starting job. How can they be more motivated at work? We'll tell you how...

Our questioner this week struggles with the asymmetric horn. No, not some kooky-but-truculent species of goat. If only t'were so simple. No, they are vexed by a relationship mismatch of morning and evening friskiness. Can we help? Why of course... (Apologies for some auditory oddities on this week's episode. We think it's just lost souls howling through the galvanic ether, but it could also have been Roger's dodgy WiFi)

This week we soothe a troubled soul whose partner has a morning routine (fannying about) that fits poorly with their own need to work from home (actually work). How to marry up two mismatched schedules, and not annoy the teats off one another? How, indeed...

Do you struggle to get up in the mornings? To haul your scarce-animated cadaver out from under the eiderdown becoming vertical and mobile long enough to participate in the indignities of modern capitalism? Are you just a bit groggy of a morn? Our questioner is. Here's how we fixed it...

Gifts are a fraught business and this week's questioner doesn't want to appear churlish, but when family insist on piling on the cocoa solids, but they'd just love something milky-sweet, where do they turn? Why, to us of course.

Our questioner is cut off from their father, but finds that friends don't support this in a way that they would like. What to do? Some sensitive answers from us, as ever.

Our questioner can't get any sleep. Their presumably-beloved wive tosses and turns in the night, hampering sleep and building a terror of the night itself. But can we help? Yes. Of course. That's the whole point.

This week's questioner wants to keep up with the news, but also wants to stay sane in this, the year of our lord 2018. How? How?

Our questioner has a drama-addicted colleague meddling in their life in the guise of legitimate concern. What can be done to ameliorate their dramatic diddling before it causes a genuinely embarrassing incident? We present three bold and distinct options.

What if poetry, but bad? This is the problem facing this week's asker, who is faced with reading terrible poetry at a loved one's funeral. How to get out of this heady combo of bad art and awkward social issues? Of course, we will fix it.