Oct 10, 2026 · 1 hr 56 min · 22 segments
We're back in the studio after our EPIC show in the town hall last week! Joined by Arlo, formerly known as pixie one, Jimmy and Nico talk holidays, and back to school. We also say thanks to the…
Matilda by Roald Dahl Read by Kate Winslet The Reader of Books It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers.
Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.
Some parents go further.
They become so blinded by adoration they manage to convince themselves their child has qualities of genius.
Well, there is nothing very wrong with all this.
It's the way of the world.
It is only when the parents begin telling us about the brilliance of their own revolting offspring that we start shouting, bring us a basin, we're going to be sick.
School teachers suffer a good deal from having to listen to this sort of twaddle from proud parents, but they usually get their own back when the time comes to write the end of term reports.
If I were a teacher, I would cook up some real scorches for the children of doting parents.
Your son, Maximilian, I would write, is a total washout.
I hope you have a family business you can push him into when he leaves school, because he sure as heck won't get a job anywhere else.
Or, if I were feeling lyrical that day, I might write, It is a curious truth that grasshoppers have their hearing organs in the sides of their abdomen.
Your daughter Vanessa, judging by what she's learnt this term, has no hearing organs at all.
I might even delve deeper into natural history and say the periodical cicada spends six years as a grub underground and no more than six days as a free creature of sunlight and air.
Your son Wilfred has spent six years as a grub in this school, and we are still waiting for him to emerge from the chrysalis.
A
particularly poisonous little girl might sting me into saying, Fiona has the same glacial beauty as an iceberg, but unlike the iceberg, she has absolutely nothing below the surface.
I think I might enjoy writing end-of-term reports for the stinkers in my class.
But enough of that.
We have to get on.
Occasionally, one comes across parents who take the opposite line, who show no interest at all in their children, and these of course are far worse than the doting ones.
Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood were two such parents.
A scab is something you have to put up with until the time comes when you can pick it off and flick it away.
Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood looked forward enormously to the time when they could pick their little daughter off and flick her away, preferably into the next county or even further than that.
Matilda by Roald Dahl Read by Kate Winslet The Reader of Books It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers.
Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.
Some parents go further.
They become so blinded by adoration they manage to convince themselves their child has qualities of genius.
Well, there is nothing very wrong with all this.
It's the way of the world.
It is only when the parents begin telling us about the brilliance of their own revolting offspring that we start shouting, bring us a basin, we're going to be sick.
School teachers suffer a good deal from having to listen to this sort of twaddle from proud parents, but they usually get their own back when the time comes to write the end of term reports.
If I were a teacher, I would cook up some real scorches for the children of doting parents.
Your son, Maximilian, I would write, is a total washout.
I hope you have a family business you can push him into when he leaves school, because he sure as heck won't get a job anywhere else.
Or, if I were feeling lyrical that day, I might write, It is a curious truth that grasshoppers have their hearing organs in the sides of their abdomen.
Your daughter Vanessa, judging by what she's learnt this term, has no hearing organs at all.
I might even delve deeper into natural history and say the periodical cicada spends six years as a grub underground and no more than six days as a free creature of sunlight and air.
Your son Wilfred has spent six years as a grub in this school, and we are still waiting for him to emerge from the chrysalis.
A
particularly poisonous little girl might sting me into saying, Fiona has the same glacial beauty as an iceberg, but unlike the iceberg, she has absolutely nothing below the surface.
I think I might enjoy writing end-of-term reports for the stinkers in my class.
But enough of that.
We have to get on.
Occasionally, one comes across parents who take the opposite line, who show no interest at all in their children, and these of course are far worse than the doting ones.
Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood were two such parents.
A scab is something you have to put up with until the time comes when you can pick it off and flick it away.
Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood looked forward enormously to the time when they could pick their little daughter off and flick her away, preferably into the next county or even further than that.
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