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Audio for sleep by hatch.
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All right, I'm Matt.
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And I'm kp. Welcome to the nightly from Hatch, where your late night thoughts go to.
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I'm absolutely fighting for my life over here, kp.
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Oh, my God. I heard of this. What's going on?
B
It's so hot. Yeah, it's. It's really warm. I don't cope well in the heat. I really don't. It's probably 32. So what? It's about 90. Oh, yeah.
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It's too early in the season for this.
B
It is a bit early. I. I just say any, any time, anytime is bad.
A
Yeah.
B
There's never a good time. I wouldn't be happier if it was in a couple of weeks.
A
I always thought that I was like, I prefer cold to hot. But then I did do this winter in New York, which was the worst winter they've had, and it was negative 11, which is. Let's see here.
B
I saw that. I saw the snowstorms. Looked amazing.
A
I mean, it was. It was kind of beautiful. Yeah. Minus 23 Celsius.
B
I didn't even know you could get that in, like sort of built up places.
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I know, it was really terrible. But I still think hot's worse. I do.
B
I just think it's harder to do something about it, isn't it? I can't layer up.
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No.
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Although having said that, I did just. I had one of those realizations a couple of days ago where I just thought, you're a grown man.
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Sure.
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I don't mean to boast. I'm doing all right. I've got a bit of disposable income. I just thought, why are you. Why are you putting yourself through this? And I went on the Internet and I got an ice machine.
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Oh.
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Which I don't know how I lived without that. It's great.
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Like on the countertop.
B
Yeah, Just put it on the countertop.
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Oh, my gosh, these are hot right now. Everybody loves these.
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Oh, really?
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Yeah. A lot of my friends are like, how did we live before this?
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It's just amazing. You just put it. What I do is every night before I go to bed, I fill it with water. Wake up in the morning, go downstairs, flick it on, go and get dressed, come back downstairs. Iced coffee, off to the gym. Come back, another load of ice.
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Wow.
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I've just got. I got so much ice, I can use it on so many different things.
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What kind of ice is it? It's not like the big square chunks.
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Water. Yeah, water. Ice.
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Okay.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Okay. Cool, cool. And it's Cold, dry ice. It's just fog, nitrogen fog in my house. What, like pebble ice or round ice? What kind of ice?
B
I would say, if you can imagine, like a very rudimentary rifle in probably the 1700s, sort of a bullet shape like that.
A
Girl terms, please, Matt. Girl terms.
B
I. God. What. What do. What do girls like?
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No, I can picture it. This is the. This is the machine everybody's loving. It is like a little rounded. Yeah. Bullet. You're right.
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Yeah. Sort of like a bit, but it's two different. So you can have a big bullet or a little bullet.
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Wow.
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Take your pick. And I just like. It's so. I mean, it's a super simple technology, but it's so satisfying that it. It will just keep making it until the ice hits a certain level, and then it obviously breaks like a sensor and it stops making the ice.
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Now, I have a really difficult question, because this is kind of choose which of your children to keep. But we've had this conversation about an air fryer, how an air fryer really changed your life.
B
Oh.
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Now between the air fryer and the ice machine, which is your most beloved child?
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Well, recency bias comes into it, doesn't it? I've not used the air fryer because I'm trying to avoid cooking, because it's absolutely roasting. I mean, it's always. You prefer I don't have kids, but I assume you always like the more recent one more, don't you?
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This is great news for me, the youngest daughter. This is perfect.
B
Yeah, there you go. Yeah. And me, I'm the youngest, so. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.
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There we go. This is perfect for us.
B
Yeah. So I. Based upon that, I think it's the ice machine, however.
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Wow.
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Not the best gadget that I've bought in this hot season.
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Oh, my gosh. There's another.
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Yeah.
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Wow. Cliffhanger.
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I was really. I was throwing money around like there's no tomorrow. I was sweating, I was angry, and I was just. Credit card was out.
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Throwing money around, fueled by anger purchases.
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Slept for two days. I bought. Well, I bought the cat a. A cooling mat.
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Wow.
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That looks like a kiway.
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Oh, that's cute. Now, that's nice.
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And I bought a portable air conditioning unit.
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So how portable? How small is this? It's probably size of, like, a toaster.
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Maybe the width of a big toaster.
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Okay, put it in terms of toasters. Is it a big toaster or a little toaster?
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And I would say probably four and a quarter toasters tall.
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Wow. Okay. So it's not like the smallest. It's a hefty little.
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Yeah, I think it's portable in the sense that it isn't integrated into the house. It's not portable in the sense of. I'm gonna go for a walk. Yeah. I'm gonna take my aircon unit with me.
A
This is. I didn't even know they had these because obviously everyone's all space heater crazy. They love a space heater under your desk when it's cold. Space heaters are a big portable heat unit. I didn't know there was a portable cooling unit. Really? Other than a fan.
B
Yeah, well, this does heat as well. It does. I'm glad you asked. Kp. It's a three in one.
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Oh, my gosh. What's the third? Neutral. Keeps it room temp.
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It is. It's cooling, it's heating. It's dehumidifying.
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Dehumidi. That's what I was thinking. Dehumidifying. Wow.
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Yeah. Or it's just a normal. Just a fan, which that's a function you can use. So you put the pipe out the window. Speaking. This is a very quick tangent, but that's three in one. You know, I got a shower gel the other day. That's five in one.
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Enough. How many different things could there possibly be?
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I know. I couldn't believe it.
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What are. Okay. Body shampoo, conditioner.
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That's three.
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Shave, midnight snack. You could drizzle a little bit of it.
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Yeah, energy.
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Energy. Protein.
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Yeah, protein. It's protein. Shower gel.
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Yeah, protein. I boys would buy this. There's definitely something to it.
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What is that? What? Because I. I know like five in ones. That's generally derided by. By women, isn't it? You shouldn't use the. You shouldn't have something that does that many things.
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Yeah. I mean, if it's good at all things. It's not good at any things is what I think.
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You talking to a guy who is good at everything.
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Face deodorizer. Okay. I'm seeing shampoo, conditioner, body wash, face wash deodorizer.
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Yeah. I'm just checking out. It's a l' Oreal Men Expert XL Carbon. It's really. Honestly.
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Oh, my goodness.
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They've gone. Right. We need a product that we. That we can market to idiot men.
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Yeah. Just. I don't ever want to think about it. So just do five in one.
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So it's. And it's a black bottle Men Expert Carbon shower.
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Like carbon.
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Yeah. I don't know what that would. It's gray the gel stuff is grey. So you don't feel kind of emasculated for looking after yourself.
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What are they saying?
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The five is Body, face, hair, shave, moisturize. I don't believe that.
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See, this is the fifth one to me because on the fifth for Irish Spring, they're using the fifth as deodorizer. That's a cop out. I assume that all wash is deodorizing me. I would assume that when I'm washing, I'm not getting more odored in the same way of moisturizer. I go, that doesn't seem right. I assume I'm leaving with more moisture than I came. If I went into the shower.
B
Yeah, that would actually. That would be rubbish and mental if you came out really dry.
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Yeah, yeah. I think they threw that five on. That's a marketing thing.
B
I think you're right because it's. It does make a big difference, doesn't it? Four in one. You kind of go, yeah. What isn't four in one these days?
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Yeah, okay, seen that. And they just. They are phoning that one in.
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Yeah. I think that's nonsense.
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I'd like to go back to the cooling mat because this has been a conversation in my household also. Is that the next purchase that my boyfriend would like to make is a one of those toppers for the mattress that cools. But he is kind of. He'd like to make it himself, he said, because they're quite expensive. So he'd like. This was his plan last night. Get a foam topper, like a 4 inch, just foam topper, cut out spots for tubes to go in, put water in those tubes and then put that on top. And I said, I think we should leave this one to the professionals.
B
I really admire the ingenuity there.
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Of course, I'd like to see it because I do think this is. It's a fun idea.
B
But what happens when the water inevitably warms up? Do you not need like a constant flow of kind of cool water?
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No, I guess not. These cooling mats are really usually just like water tubes in your mattress.
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Oh, is that what they are? Is that the same with the cat mat then? I assume it is. I genuinely. I just written it off as like magic. It feels squishy.
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Yeah. I think it's like a kind of a cold pack that you would put in your lunchbox. It's just like a cooling gel.
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But you don't have to put it in the fridge.
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No. But I think in general, water is always going to be colder than the air around it. Right. Because like, going into a lake or an ocean.
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I guess so. Yeah.
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Us with no science brains. Water is just cold naturally. Always.
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Yeah. And that's science. So.
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So write that down, everybody.
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Yeah. Put some tubes in your mattress.
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I. Yeah. I just know that if it's a homemade one, one day it's gonna burst and we're just gonna be ruined. My whole bedroom, it's just underwater now from all the tubes.
B
That is the risk, isn't it? That is the same. Do you remember when. When water beds were like. That was the real sign of wealth.
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Yeah. There's a clause in leases now, like when you're renting a house, that you cannot bring a waterbed in. Because I assume so many things happened that made landlords be like, don't do this.
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Yeah. Can you imagine?
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But I've had to sign my name saying, I will not have a waterbed.
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Oh, you've actually. You've signed this?
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Yeah. It may be California specific, or maybe it's just landlords are just against it in general.
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But it's a very smart clause to have, I think.
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Yeah. I signed happily and said, yeah, since it's not 1973, I think I can. I'll be okay signing this.
B
Well, yeah, I think the hardest part would be. Would be sourcing absolutely. A waterbed. I honestly, I don't know where you. I was thinking about it yesterday. I don't know where. I've never seen them for sale.
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No.
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Were they actually just not as comfy as everyone thought they were?
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Have you ever even sat on one? I've never even seen it.
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When I was a kid, I remember going around somebody's house, and it was like, whoever it was was very well off, and it was all very plush. And I remember them having a waterbed, and I was like, oh, my God. Yeah, that's amazing. But I don't remember it being particularly. It can't be better than memory foam, can it?
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Well, that's the thing. I mean, it seems so soft. You'd want something a little bit. This is like when you're on an air mattress and there's a little hole in it. Like, I don't find that comfortable. I'm sloshing all around.
B
Yeah. I hate that air mattresses are just. Yeah, that's. That's not ideal.
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No, I really prefer a bed to an air mattress. It's not. It's not good for me.
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Also, how did. Whenever you have water in anything, it goes manky pretty quickly, doesn't it?
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Yeah.
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That whole craze was Was insane. Water beds.
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There was a lot of just like bubbly things at that time. We had lava lamps.
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Lava lamps. Well, I've got a lava lamp behind me.
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They're nice, they're cool. I've been great for some reason. There's certain videos that I see that like really scratch an it brain. And I've gotten a lot of videos of this girl rehabilitating old lava lamps. Like, she cleans them out, puts new wax in them, puts new distilled water, little glitter.
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Is that what that is? Is it wax?
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It's wax. Isn't that interesting because it just heats up and is floating in the water. The wax.
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Wow.
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Yeah. I was also shocked that it wasn't some magical, hard to find thing like neon or something. It was just. No, there's just a light underneath shining on the wax. And then it's just water and wax.
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Oh. So. And then it floats.
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Yeah.
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Why does it float and then sink, though? Why?
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You heat it up just enough to, like, get buoyant.
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Yeah, I'll believe that.
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Water's always cold. Wax is always buoyant.
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Yeah. Science, the nightly science show.
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Yeah, something like that. But I like the videos. She. She cares a lot.
B
Okay, well, according to. Just had a note from our producer here. A lava lamp works through the principles of density and thermal expansion. An incandescent bulb in the base heats the bottom wax, making it expand and less dense than the surrounding liquid. So it rises as it moves away from the heat, the wax cools, shrinks, and sinks back down. There we go. Right? That is interesting.
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There we go. Yep. Because the top of it would cool it down. Now it sinks. Okay, I was just about to say that thermal expansion thing. I was just. It was seconds away.
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Well, you never stop going on about thermal expansion. Honestly, you get a start on thermal expansion.
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Oh, my God. I will not stop.
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We haven't got time for that. And in case you're wondering, I said a very quick flick through the pillow fort encyclopedia there. Just for some closure. Waterbeds fell out of popularity due to practical hassles like leaks.
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The.
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The need for constant heating and massive weight that caused apartment burns.
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Oh, because they're really heavy. That makes sense. Because it's like. Yeah, you're filling up a giant thing with water. It must be so heavy.
B
Well, they're about £2,000, generally speaking.
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Oh, my goodness.
B
Also. Yeah, they were. They were cold because like you said, water's always cold. Water is always cold. Yeah. So you had to heat them up.
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Oh, my goodness. How would you Heat your water bed.
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No idea. Again, you don't want to get like a. Just sort of putting a lighter underneath it.
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Yeah.
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I don't really know how.
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Just boil a kettle and just top it off every night.
B
Yeah, good question.
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Interesting. Well, yeah, it sounds like a big pain in the butt, to be honest. I'm fine with us moving past that.
B
Yeah, I can see why they. Why they went out of fashion.
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Now I'm back again to the cooling mat. For your cat. Does she like it?
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No, hates it.
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Great. Perfect. All is well.
B
Yep. Five quid. Five quid down the drain. Absolutely. Not bothered by it. I've got more use out of it so far.
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Yeah.
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Just because I. Feels nice on my toes.
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Well, there we go.
B
So it's not a complete loss.
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The kiwi's cute.
B
Yeah, the kiwi. I was actually. I was torn because the options were orange, watermelon, kiwi. Yeah, we'll go through a real kiwi phase at the minute. Big fan of kiwis.
A
Okay. I don't think I've told you something completely supernatural is happening in my backyard. I didn't know. And stop me if I already said this to you, but I'm growing passion fruits. The people before me planted it.
B
Oh, yeah.
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I didn't know you're supposed to trim it down by 70% every time. Like every season, you have to trim it back by like 70% of the plant you got to get rid of. So now. Nobody told me this. Yeah, I. The. The fruits are weighing my house down because there's so many of them I have and I can't cut them. Cause I'm like, well, this seems wrong to get rid of all this, like, fruit before it's ripe. Like, I need a few more weeks before these get ripe and I can give them to all my friends. But the house is like coming down because there's ropes that are like holding this thing up and it's like pulling on my roof right now.
B
That's. So right now your. Your landlord is thinking, it's all good. I got the waterbed claws in. Everything's gonna be fine. And then out of Nowhere, K with 3 tons of passion fruit and pulls the house down.
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It might be that much. It might be £2,000. Just like the waterbed. It. There are 200 plus fruits.
B
Wow.
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And. And I'm finding them in spots that I didn't even know the. Because it's like a vine that keeps growing. It has to grow. Like each vine grows a foot a day. I swear I came back from a Trip. I was gone for 10 days. The vines are. Now I'm finding them in a different tree on the very top of that tree. The vines have moved over to a different tree and now they're at the top of the orange tree.
B
At the risk of sounding really stupid here, it's a passion fruit because I've eaten it a lot in stuff.
A
Right.
B
But is it like a little orangey type thing? Okay. You know, I have eaten one of them before.
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Yeah. And the flavor is very good. Like, I like a passion fruit iced tea. I like them in drinks very much. But I. I'm here. My friends are saying, just cut the plant now. It's fine if you waste some of these pre ripened fruits. You have to just make this, make the decision. But that just feels really wrong to me. So I'll let this house crumble.
B
Yeah. That's the only. The only logical thing to do is let the house.
A
The house is gonna go. Yeah, the house is gone.
B
It's great having that on tap, though. Passion fruit. So you just got loads of them, have you?
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I think they're gonna be ripe in a few weeks. And they're only ripe for like a few days. Like, they'll turn purple. And then it's like quick. You have to pick all of them. So it's gonna. I have to like take off work those two days, I think, because I'm gonna be just up to my elbows in passion fruits before they turn bad.
B
What are you gonna do with them? Can you make like a pie or something?
A
That's interesting. I think I'm gonna have to just juice them and freeze a lot of them and then use them throughout the year.
B
Good idea.
A
Right? And then give them to a lot of neighbors. I think you can make passion fruit ice cream, it seems. Which sounds kind of nice.
B
That'd be nice. I nearly bought an ice cream maker actually on my cooling splurge.
A
But you have an appliance addiction.
B
I don't know what it is a real problem. Yeah. I love an appliance. My girlfriend, she went mental about the ice machine.
A
She didn't think you needed it.
B
There's no room on the worktop. I've got an air fryer. I've got a food processor. I've got an ice machine. It's only a galley kitchen. It's small.
A
This is why I can't go appliance crazy. I love all them, but there's no space at all for actually cooking things.
B
Yeah. But then the other argument is, do you need to cook anything? If you've got ice, all the appliances.
A
If you have ice, you don't need to cook anything else.
B
That's some more science for you. If you've got ice, you don't need to cook anything. Just eat the ice.
A
Well, is she taking advantage of the ice maker?
B
Because if so, do you know what is great? So she did, to be fair to her, admit to me last week that she was on the phone to her friend and she said, oh, God, Matt's been. He's been. Actually spent a lot of money on an ice machine. What do we need an ice machine for? There's not even any room for it. And then she had to go back on herself because about halfway through the call she made a. She used the Soda Stream that I bought and made a fizzy drink and put ice in it and was like actually clean around. Yep, that is pretty good.
A
That is. I mean, to have a bubbly drink with some ice in it. That's luxury.
B
It is luxury. It used to be a waterbed, but now the peak of luxury is a fizzy cold drink.
A
Absolutely. It's time to head to bed. I would like to say goodnight to the. We didn't really shout any people out this time. I'm just going to say goodnight to the concept of waterbeds.
B
Yeah.
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The creator of. I think it was a really good idea and it could come back around. Everything's cyclical in this world, so there could be another waterbed era coming. So good night to you.
B
Yeah, I hope so. I mean, in a similar sort of vein, I'd like to say goodnight to whoever was responsible for there having to be a waterbed clause in landlord contracts. Whatever happened there, you know, it was amusing. Like that must have been really fun.
A
Yeah, it wasn't fun for the landlords, but I bet you had a real laugh.
B
Yeah. So good night to you fun guys.
A
And good night to you listeners. And good night to you, Matt. I'll talk to you next time.
B
Night. K.
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Sam sa.
B
To learn more about our phone free light and audio experience, head to Hatch Co. You can also follow us at Hatch Podcasts.
Podcast: The Nightly
Episode: The Nightly Science Show: Lava Lamps
Date: June 13, 2026
Hosts: Matt Bragg and KP Parker
Produced by: Hatch Podcasts
This cozy, lighthearted episode of The Nightly dives into the odd wonders and questionable science that fill our late-night thoughts. Hosts Matt and KP banter about surviving summer heatwaves, their new gadget fixes (ice machines, portable ACs, and even "cooling mats" for pets), and the nostalgic mysteries of waterbeds and lava lamps. Witty, playful, and gently meandering, the conversation blends everyday struggles with off-the-cuff science lessons—making it the perfect bedtime listen.
Matt laments about the oppressive heat (32°C/90°F) and admits he doesn't cope well.
KP and Matt debate whether extreme cold or heat is worse, tying in stories of brutal New York winters versus roasting summers.
The quest for relief results in gadget-buying sprees:
More gadgets enter the chat:
On Choosing Between Heat and Cold:
On Appliance Addiction:
The Five-in-One Shower Gel:
Waterbeds and Leases:
Science, According to The Nightly:
Warm, slightly absurd, and always welcoming—Matt and KP’s late-night chat brings out the best in drowsy humor and “vaguely remembered science.” The banter is good-natured, self-deprecating, and peppered with cozy frustrations and nostalgia.
Listeners looking for a calming, witty wind-down before bed—with just enough quirky science and gentle laughter to distract wandering thoughts and let you drift off.