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- [00:00]
A
Hello. You're about to drift into an episode of the Nightly, a podcast designed to help you unwind and relax. For the full phone free immersive light experience, visit Hatch Co. Enjoy. All right. I'm Mat.
- [00:32]
B
Hi, I'm Kristen. Welcome to the Nightly from Hatch, a slumber party for pop culture lovers. And Matt, I have to tell you, one of our favorite pop culture benchmarks has been such a major part of my life. The last couple of weeks I've been in New Zealand and every night with my mother in law, we've gone to bed watching Married at First Sight together.
- [00:55]
A
Have you really?
- [00:56]
B
And it makes me think of you because I know you also love this show. And I, I gotta say, I really bonded in a new way with my mother in law watching the UK version of the show.
- [01:06]
A
That's what it's all about, isn't it? Bonding over absolute trash telly. That's really nice.
- [01:11]
B
Absolutely.
- [01:12]
A
It's the UK version, then New Zealand haven't got their own spin on it.
- [01:16]
B
Sadly they don't. They have the us, the Australian and the UK version. They get all three, but they don't have their own version. And I'm not sure if that's because people in New Zealand are just too sensible to get married at first sight or just maybe there aren't enough people in New Zealand.
- [01:31]
A
I think that's what it is. There's not enough people. Yeah, it would just be someone to walk down the aisle and then they're like, oh, you again.
- [01:41]
B
We were in third grade together. Yeah, I know you.
- [01:43]
A
It's like a family reunion. We shouldn't be getting married. Oh, that's cool though. So whereabouts in New Zealand were you?
- [01:51]
B
She lives on the south island, my mother in law, about an hour south of Christchurch and it was high summer there, you know, every day enjoying the sunshine, enjoying the warmth. And now I'm back in New York and it's slushy outside. But that's okay. I refuse to dress like it's winter quite yet.
- [02:10]
A
It's quite the shock, isn't it, coming back from that?
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B
I think you're wearing a jumper right now. That's probably what I should be wearing.
- [02:16]
A
Yeah, I've gone for the long sleeve T shirt. It's somewhere in the middle. What sort of city were you in on the South Island? Cause I've got family over in New Zealand, but they're all north island, so I've never actually been to the south island, but I'd love to go.
- [02:30]
B
Oh, I love that you've been to New Zealand before. My mother in law lives in a town that I like to call farmer comes to town. It's called Ashburton, New Zealand. And there are a lot of tractor stores, feed and seed stores, farmer related equipment sort of shops and so on. And it's just kind of the largest town that exists between Christchurch in Dunedin. And so all these farmers from the mid Canterbury region come there to buy supplies or to do cultural events. And it's a sweet little town or I consider it a small town. I think people there consider it a small city. It's. I think it's under 20,000, but more than 10,000.
- [03:13]
A
Okay. Yeah, that's. It's very New Zealand, isn't it? In a really good way. It feels like it's back in time a bit there, doesn't it?
- [03:22]
B
Oh, yes. While we were there, one of the cutest things happened. Santa came to town to light the town Christmas tree and everybody in town showed up and it felt like I was in It's a Wonderful Life. It was so cute. The whole town was there, of course, wearing shorts and jandals, as they call their flop shoes. Everyone's out there in their shorts and jandals waiting for Santa to show up. And it is so cute. Cause it just feels so small town. I'm sorry, people of Ashburton, I don't mean to sound condescending when I say this, but it really was adorable. It just felt like no irony anywhere to be seen. And then when Santa got introduced to the stage, the emcee dressed head to toe in Christmas gear, he introduced Santa as if he were like Beyonce coming to the stage. And I have never seen a crowd go so freaking nuts. They were screaming, I swear. There were kids crying with excitement, parents just shouting, shouting and giving each other high fives. It was the cutest thing.
- [04:24]
A
Matt, that's so nice to hear. Isn't it? But I suppose for Ashburton, that probably is the biggest show that they will have there throughout the calendar year. And again, no disrespect, because I genuinely think it's brilliant, but I can't imagine it's on many touring schedules. It's a long way away. Yeah.
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B
It's also not a bad celebrity to get, in my opinion.
- [04:47]
A
No. Arguably bigger than Beyonce, to be fair.
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B
I just thought it was so cute. I loved it. It was so fun. And I got to hold a chicken while I was there. One of the relatives has pet chickens, so she invited me over to hug some chickens and that was one of the highlights of my trip so that tells you what kind of town Ashburton is.
- [05:06]
A
I love that. That's on the itinerary of things to do next week. We're gonna hold the chicken.
- [05:13]
B
Yes. And I should send you a picture of me holding a chicken mat.
- [05:16]
A
I'd love to see you holding a.
- [05:19]
B
That's really what the whole event was. It was just me holding a chicken and it was so fun. I loved it. And then of course, like I said, watching Married at First Sight each night with my mother in law.
- [05:29]
A
It sounds great. I'm so on board with that. I've always thought about having Christmas over there, but I don't know, there's something that doesn't quite work for me because I know every Christmas morning they go down the beach and have their barbecue, their Christmas dinner.
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B
Yes.
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A
And the whole thing, it just seems wild to do that. I just can't picture myself doing it.
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B
Well, they don't want to heat up the whole house by roasting, you know, a turkey or something like that because it's high summer, so it's the hottest time of the year. Let's turn on the oven for four hours. They don't want to do that, you know.
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A
So true. Yeah. For the same reason we don't have ice cream with Christmas dinner.
- [06:10]
B
Yes. Yes. But I recommend it. There's something really charming and different about it for those of us from the northern hemisphere to do Christmas on the New Zealand way. And since you have family there, what town are they in?
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A
They're in Auckland in the North Island.
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B
I love Auckland. Love it.
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A
It's amazing. It's a great place. But I really loved when we went over there, there's a town called Napier which is also North Island.
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B
Yes, I love Napier. It has all these art deco buildings and.
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A
Yes.
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B
Oh, it's charming. Love it.
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A
Long story short, I've got family on both sides who have New Zealand connections. So like my dad's sister moved out there like 20 odd years ago. So I've got cousins and all sorts on that side. But on my mum's side, her mum was born in New Zealand and they moved over to England because they lived in Napier and there was a big earthquake which basically flattened Napier which is why it's now built up in Art deco style because it was at that sort of time. But that's one of my two reservations are Christmas on the beach, I'm not sure about and anywhere that's susceptible to town flattening earthquakes. I feel like I can't relax. So that's the reason they Came to England. Cause they said it's just too stressful living there.
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B
Okay, fair points. But if you just do it once, I think you'll enjoy it. Matt, I think you would love celebrating the holiday season on the beach.
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A
I may well give it a go.
- [07:41]
B
Just be barefoot and run around on Christmas. We never get to do that on the Northern hemisphere. Never.
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A
So I mean, I've never. I've never felt the inclination to, which is probably part of the problem. But yeah, if I was there, maybe, maybe. How long was the flight for you? It's not as horrific as it is from here, is it?
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B
It's a little bit more horrific. We're exactly on the opposite side of the planet from New York City to Christchurch. But we sprung this time for the direct New York to Auckland flight. Which is an 18 hour flight, but sometimes it takes us 48 hours to get there because of all the connecting flights.
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A
Yeah, of course, I didn't realize it was that bad. But my geography is quite poor. I know that usually they stop in Singapore. That's where I've stopped off when I've been, which is also great. Have you been to Singapore? Have you done that on the way?
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B
Yes, I have done that on the way. And speaking of shorts and jandals, that is the place for shorts and jandals. Because Singapore is so hot. I had no idea of how hot it was, but I remember getting off the plane there and just being hit with the heat and the humidity and thinking, oh my gosh, this is the tropics. But I loved Singapore. I loved how beautiful that garden city is. Just, it feels like nowhere else in the world. It's a very different place than I've ever been before.
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A
Yeah, it's like a little paradise, isn't it? Everything's so clean and nice and friendly. The humidity is awful. I will say that I remember I was out there working once because I used to be a cameraman and we were filming something over there and I remember having a camera and doing like an hour or two's work and I was drenched, like wet through with sweat. And all the locals were like seriously concerned cause they were all fine. And there was people coming over going, are you okay? Do you have any underlying health conditions or anything? I was like, no, it's just roasting. It's really hot.
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B
Oh yeah. I never got used to it when I was there.
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A
No, I think you needed a good 18 months or so to really kind of get your head in that. That's what I found is that it was impossible to look nice. Like every time I'd make an effort to go out to dinner or something, you'd step out the front door and be like, oh, great, I look like I haven't showered again for like four days.
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B
Oh, it's unhinged sweaty man. Here he is.
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A
That is what they call me.
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B
Unhinged sweaty man.
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A
So how long were you out there then? So that's like you say a couple of weeks.
- [10:30]
B
So we were there for two weeks and that was, you know, it was good quality time with family, with chickens, with Santa and so on. But we also were fortunate to take a couple of nice hikes while we were out there. I went to these rock formations called Castle Hill Rock that some of the locals call the Stonehenge of New Zealand. And it just looks like aliens place these weird rocks there, which was very cool. And the rocks at another point in history, I think like maybe 5 million years ago were actually the floor of the ocean and an earthquake brought these rocks up to the surface too soon. It's just, it's just layers and layers and layers of shells. It's millions of years of shells, these white rocks that jut out of the ground and, you know, dum dums over the past few hundred or thousand years have engraved their initials in the rocks and so on, which I don't like at all because the rock is very soft so you can actually carve in it. I would never do that myself. People, please don't do that. Don't go to other countries national monuments and carve your name in them. But I only mention that to mention how soft these rocks are because they are just made out of shells, but they jut hundreds of feet into the air and it's just this amazing place that looks like aliens set up. And I highly recommend people go there if they're ever on the south island of New Zealand. Go to Castle Hill Rocks to see something that might remind you a little bit of Stonehenge.
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A
It's really cool stuff like that in New Zealand because there seems to be some sort of natural wonder like that basically everywhere you turn, like you could just be driving down a road and there will be something every kind of like 10 minutes.
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B
Oh, yes. Yeah. And it's so different from the U.S. because I feel like in the U.S. all right, we're going to see the next big wonder. But it's going to take 16 hours to drive there and you can literally drive from 6am to midnight. And then maybe at that point, if you're lucky, you'll see Something else that's monumental and different from anything else you've ever seen before. And then you'll get back in the car again and drive 14 more hours to get to the next one and so on. Whereas you're right in New Zealand, you literally can drive every 20 minutes or every hour. There's something else, just breathtaking and completely different. Like, oh, I'm in a rainforest now, but 10 minutes ago I was in a desert, but 10 minutes before that I was in a field just filled with sheep. And 10 minutes before that I was at waterfalls. And that's kind of how I think of New Zealand also.
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A
Yeah, they're all how they should be as well. Whereas if those sites were in the uk, it would be. Right, we've got this amazing thing to look at, so we've built a massive retail park at a McDonald's. And also it'll cost you 18 quid to go and have a look at it. Within New Zealand, you are encouraged to just. Just like you say, hike, just walk out and just go and have a look, which is really nice.
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B
And no, we're not going to charge you. Which I kind of think New Zealand should charge us for doing these things.
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A
But, yeah, they probably should.
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B
I'm like, this is definitely worth $10, but you're not. Oh, you're not charging me. Okay, all right. But you're so right. Anywhere else in the world, the us, the uk, Canada, they would definitely put up a casino next to what I was just talking about.
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A
Oh, yeah, yeah. They would name a casino after it. And that would be the thing you go to. I'll tell you what, what's an interesting conversation, I've just thought, because I agree with you, by the way, about people carving their initials into monuments, I think that's probably the wrong thing to do. That being said, where do you think the cutoff is? Because, you know when they find, like, caves and there's people from, like, 2,000 years ago that have scratched their name into the wall, that's sort of all right, isn't it? I went to a pub not that long ago where a load of American airmen signed their name, like, scratched their names into the tables. And now it's like a real. It's a real thing to go and see where people are like, God, this is incredible. Look what these guys did. They put their names in. At the time, people would have been like, what are you doing? Stop scratching your name into the table.
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B
Yeah, how rude. You came to this other country and now you're tearing up their Furniture. Come on, don't do it.
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A
Yeah, it's an awful thing to do. If I came over to the US and just sat in a pub and took out like a compass and just started scratching my name into the table. Just go, you wait, give it 85 years. Someone will be happy to see that.
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B
I mean, I think we've already gone past that point. I think there's a little too much of most of us online already. Do we really need it on a table now?
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A
That's such a good point.
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B
Do I need to carve it into this 5 million year old monument? I don't really need to do that anymore. No. Maybe 85 years ago, most people had very bad Internet. So they're like, how am I going to get my name out there? Right. So I'll carve it in this table in this other country. But we're in a different space right now where everybody's name can go down in history if they want it to very easily. And back then maybe it was harder.
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A
Yeah, I've never considered that before. We're constantly scratching our names into places that people don't want to see it, aren't we?
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B
Yes, absolutely. And I think about how once when my mother was a teenager, her local newspaper, they were going around and asking people how they felt about a new city referendum, about leaf burning. And my mother was one of the man on the street people as a teenager who the newspaper asked for thoughts on this, and my family cut it out and put it in a scrapbook. And it was literally one sentence from my mom, because it was such a huge deal that my mom was in the newspaper in a man on the street interview. That's so cool. And now I just feel like she could have posted that on Facebook and everybody would have just seen it and you know what I mean? Like, she could have talked about that referendum on Twitter, my mom. And nobody would really think it was worth cutting out of the newspaper. In the same way, even if you.
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A
Have like a really funny tweet or something, no one prints it out and puts it on the fridge, do they?
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B
No, they don't. It's a different era, but in some ways that's good. I'm a big believer in everybody should have access to the tools to express themselves. You know, I'm not one of those people who's like, oh, no, only the emperor should have access to language, pen and paper. Like, no, everyone should be able to read and write and everybody should be able to have the tools to get their thoughts out there. If they want to just don't carve them into a monument. Don't do it that way.
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A
I'm totally with you. With the one caveat being, unless someone is slightly similar to me and what I'm doing and they're better at it, in which case you've gotta move off my turf. I'm trying to make a living here.
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B
Matt, you are one of a kind. You are such a gem. There's only one of you. Nobody could ever be you. So I don't think you even need to worry about that.
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A
I mean, that's good news all round really, isn't it? I'm actually. I'm going to a place called Fleet this weekend for a show.
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B
Fleet?
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A
Yeah, it's in a county called Berkshire and I always like to check what the vibe is in places that I'm going to. And I looked up the sort of local news for Fleet out of interest, and particularly the village called Spencer's Wood, which is where I'm going. And it might be the most English place I think I've ever seen.
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B
How so?
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A
It was this headline that caught my eye and then I had to click on the article. It was a feature article by a woman who said that the council doesn't give a flying fruitcake about my listed home.
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B
That's one of the most British sentences I've ever heard, isn't it?
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A
Even for me, I was like, whoa, that's a bit on the nose.
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B
Oh my gosh, that's so funny.
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A
And then I thought, surely that's just a headline to entice you in. I'm sure Ms. York doesn't actually speak like that. And then I looked down the article and so basically her grievance is she's got a listed home, which is an old building. They're building a new housing estate just down the road from there. And she said that my house has been shaking to buggery.
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B
What does that even mean?
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A
I. Again, I mean, I know what it means. It's just this house is shaking a lot. But particularly when you're essentially a huge legal battle here with a multi million pound housing corporation to go in your opening gambit in the court. Just saying, my house has been shaking to buggery. It's not going to end well for you. God bless her. I hope it works out. But I just. I love that people still seemingly talk like that in some places.
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B
Oh, I. I love this cozy mystery, you know, the cozy British mysteries where there are always older ladies who are knitting tea cozies and so on. That's happening in this town.
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A
Oh, yeah, yeah. Have you watched the Richard Osman, the Thursday Murder Club?
- [19:56]
B
Yes, I have. I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.
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A
It's a really good watch, actually. I quite enjoyed that. I read the book and I enjoyed it, but which is unusual. I think I enjoyed the film more than the book, which doesn't happen often.
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B
I feel the same way. I also enjoyed the film more than the book.
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A
It was just a ridiculous cast, wasn't it? What a crazy lineup for a film.
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B
Oh, yeah. It's like, oh, Ben Kingsley and. And Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan. Yeah, the cast is just ridiculous for this and just so charming and people.
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A
Are being murdered to buggery and nobody gives a flying fruitcake about it. Pierce Brosnan is excellent in that as well. I'm a huge Pierce Brosnan fan. I think with all of it as well. It's that real. Like it's really twee and a bit sickeningly sweet. But they pulled it off and it's actually good to watch.
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B
Yeah. They really seem to have a sense of humor about what they're doing and it does feel at points that they're kind of winking to the audience saying, we know this is so cute. We know this is so delightful and we're just gonna lean into it. We're not ashamed.
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A
It is very self aware on that front, which I guess it probably had to be. But yeah, huge fan of that. If you've not watched it, you should go and watch that.
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B
Highly recommend. So tell me a little bit more about Fleet here. So you're going to be there doing a show?
- [21:17]
A
I'll be going to Fleet. They will get the set menu of comedy across 30 minutes. It's in a village hall and it's like the biggest thing that will happen in that village that month. So everyone's really grateful that there's a show going on and they're always really nice to do. Always really nice people.
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B
Oh, that's so sweet. I love that you're going to be at a village hall too.
- [21:38]
A
It's exactly what you'd expect as well. Proper. It's a real village hall and for me I just prefer them to arenas. Arenas are a bit obvious. I like to do the village hall circuit. Less money. Sure, but I feel like you get more out of it. I'm telling you, arenas are just not for me. Too corporate. Too much money. Get me in a village hall where I can smell them. I mean, on that note, Kristen, I think it's about time we turned in for the night. But it's been a pleasure talking to you.
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B
Tonight, as I fall asleep, I'll be dreaming of you in Fleet.
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A
Yeah, perfect. We'll go to Fleet and we'll go pick up a chicken. We'll hold a chicken and we'll watch someone's house get shaken to buggery.
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B
Oh, what a beautiful image to fall asleep to. Good night, Matt.
- [22:29]
A
Good night, Kristin. Sam. Foreign. To learn more about our phone free light and audio experience, head to Hatch co. You can also follow us at Hatch Podcasts.