Play Until Something Gets Broken

Rob Bell:
Hello, and welcome to Sketchplanations The Podcast, chats about facts and fascinations to fuel your own interesting conversations.

I'm engineer and broadcaster, Rob Bell, and also on the mics, we have designer and creator of Sketchplanations, Jono Hey.

Jono Hey:
Hello, Chaps.

Rob Bell:
And entrepreneur and part-timer of The Apprentice, Tom Pellereau.

Tom Pellereau:
Hello.

Hello.

Rob Bell:
Any announcements you want to make before we get started, guys?

Jono Hey:
I didn't get a memo about that.

Sorry.

Rob Bell:
No, all good.

Just thought I'd give you the opportunity, isn't it?

I have one for what it's worth.

Last week, this podcast switched from having the most total listeners in the UK to having the most total listeners from the USA since we've been going.

So, from now on, listeners, we decided that we're all going to talk in American accents.

I'm going for generic Midwest.

Jono will be affecting a Californian accent.

And Tommy's choice was interesting, but he's gone for the Deep South.

So, how are you all doing?

Tom Pellereau:
This is not something I'm going to be able to pull off.

I'm just at all going to get a glass of water.

Rob Bell:
This time, we're talking about what I think is right to describe as a fun observation that Jono's made and created a sketch for.

That with indoor games especially, you play until something gets broken.

You can see the sketch as the artwork for this episode.

And if you want to see any of the Sketchplanations collection, head to sketchplanations.com where you can also navigate to listen to any of the past podcast episodes.

Right then, Jono, play until something gets broken.

What can you tell us about this?

Jono Hey:
First off, I love indoor games.

Just generally playing indoors is great fun.

And actually, I suppose maybe it comes also with UK, right?

You got UK weather and dark winters and stuff.

So playing indoors is genuinely quite practical and necessary.

Yeah.

Necessary.

Or you've got a small house and a little flat or whatever, and you want to have some fun.

So yeah, I don't know, we play quite a lot of indoor games.

And as a kid, I've played quite a lot of indoor games.

And I don't know if this is an official rule in a rule book anywhere.

But I definitely think it's pretty universal, is that you keep playing as long as everything is still intact.

As soon as something's broken, you're like, actually, maybe we should stop now.

I don't know, you can tell me, maybe you don't, maybe you just keep going.

Rob Bell:
Well, Tommy, knowing yours and your wife's actually, penchant for silly made up games, especially after dinner, perhaps after a couple of drinks or so, I think this matches your experience pretty well as well, doesn't it?

Tom Pellereau:
Well, certainly it matches my experience growing up and also at school.

But, and I was amazed at the time and we have had to stick to it, Sarah has banned all ballgames in the house.

All ballgames from the very beginning, from when the kids were absolutely tiny.

At the time I was like, what does it matter?

You know, they're only young, they're not going to hurt us, only softballs, blah, blah, blah.

And then a friend of ours came around and she was like, yes, you are absolutely right, Sarah, because my kids are now kind of teenagers.

And there's almost no stopping if you allow any playing.

As a result, the house is a lot nicer.

When I grew up, everything was always broken around me.

Certainly because you play so many games and you break so much stuff.

It was just an accident.

Jono Hey:
You play until someone shouts at you.

Rob Bell:
Well, yeah, I mean, it definitely applies to me as a kid.

I can remember it distinctly, usually with my little brother as well.

And particularly where my mum had asked, slash told us not to play that game in here because you'll break something.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
So I do remember my brother and I used to spend quite a lot of time in the hallway, upstairs, outside where the bedrooms were.

You'd just have a relatively long space, long and thin space that you would whack balls back and forth to each other and try and get it past each other.

But there's nothing really in a hallway to break, right?

Well, there wasn't in this hallway.

It was just doors and walls.

That was it.

So yeah, that was a pretty good solution, I think, that we came up with rather than kicking balls around the house next to the ornaments.

Jono Hey:
It probably echoed around the house, smashed into a few doors.

Rob Bell:
It was a soft kind of spongy ball.

Yeah, brilliant.

Tom Pellereau:
But the bodies probably weren't.

Rob Bell:
Well, I was a kid.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I did wonder if there's actually probably the rule number two is you play until someone hurts themselves.

Rob Bell:
Well, yes.

I think there's a lot to explore here, Jono.

Tom Pellereau:
Some thing gets broken.

Jono Hey:
I had a friend who was practicing a taekwondo in the bathroom and he kicked the sink and broke his foot.

And so, you know, you're probably not going to practice in the bathroom anymore.

In retrospect, you know, it sounds pretty obvious, doesn't it?

But if you've done a few kicks and not broken your foot, you might be like, this is fine.

Rob Bell:
I have a similar experience.

I sprained my ankle pretty badly and had it as a, as a, as a, what was I?

I've been about 15 year old and I was on crutches for about five weeks or so.

I couldn't really wait, so I was on crutches around the house and I thought it'd be fun to swing on the crutches.

So I was swinging back and forth and then I broke my toe because I cracked it on the side of the chest of drawers.

Playing in the house.

While you were already on crutches.

It was the other foot.

So it was alright.

Tom Pellereau:
It evened it up.

Rob Bell:
Exactly.

Jono Hey:
What did you do then?

Rob Bell:
I didn't do it again.

That was the end of that game.

Jono Hey:
Well, then you're in a wheelchair.

Rocketing around.

Rob Bell:
Down the stairs?

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Well, we have a big sort of round bin with different types of balls.

And there are, like, Tom, I totally get it.

A lot of ball games shouldn't happen in the house because the balls are too hard, they're too heavy, stuff will break.

But there's a lot of softballs.

And we've got all different types of balls and different size balls.

And some of them, I think, are fairly suitable.

For example, you might not be able to play football in the house, but you could perhaps play with balloons.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, good.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, balloons.

Tom Pellereau:
It's kind of allowed, actually.

Jono Hey:
But you can still break stuff when you're playing.

Rob Bell:
A balloon could knock over a slightly top heavy vase.

Yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Well, as you reach for it, yeah.

And you can not look where you're going and you can whack your head on the radiator, all sorts of stuff.

Rob Bell:
Great fun.

Great fun.

You've got almost got a dedicated room for the big bin of balls, don't you, Jono?

The spare room?

Jono Hey:
It's pretty good.

Yeah.

We actually say, should we play some front room games sometimes?

Rob Bell:
Great.

Jono Hey:
And we've got all sorts of different games.

There's a sofa bed in there, which makes a good goal sometimes if you want it.

Nice.

We've also got some quite, you can have some quite fun ones.

We've got some glow in the dark balls and somebody got to say cool frisbee when you throw it.

It's really light now.

They make indoor frisbee.

It's super light, but it lights up once you throw it.

So if you go in there and you turn the light off in the winter, it's pitch black.

Tom Pellereau:
That's great.

Jono Hey:
Playing with those is pretty brilliant.

Rob Bell:
What's breakable in there?

Jono Hey:
There's a wardrobe with a mirror.

Tom Pellereau:
Ah, yeah.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Tom Pellereau:
It's got a big crack in it, obviously.

Jono Hey:
Picture frames up on the chest of drawers.

I have played one of those games, not one of the dark ones.

I know maybe it was a dark one.

I smashed a lamp just on the inside of the door, cut myself.

Oh, so we stopped playing that night because it was glassy.

Rob Bell:
That was in the dark, was it?

Jono Hey:
Yeah, well, I forgot it was there because it was, it was, I didn't see it.

Yeah.

So we've got one which isn't glass now, so that's better.

So now you can play again.

Rob Bell:
Oh, that's very good.

Tom Pellereau:
We played a lot of these made up games at uni when we were living together, didn't we?

Jono Hey:
Yeah, it's brilliant.

Tom Pellereau:
The corridors in some of those houses were amazing for just any kind of game, cricket, football, anything.

Rob Bell:
Student halls, the length of those corridors, amazing for putting.

Tom Pellereau:
For putting.

Rob Bell:
For a cup down one end and just hope for the best.

Great fun.

Jono Hey:
Like using the sofas as goals.

I remember as a kid playing with some friends for a long, long time with those soft, short tennis balls.

Rob Bell:
Yes.

Jono Hey:
And there was a sofa at either end and you're on your knees and his goal was one sofa and my goal is the other.

Rob Bell:
Great fun.

Jono Hey:
And you do it with your hands.

It was brilliant.

It's actually a genuinely good game.

Rob Bell:
Can we talk about the sketch a little bit, Jono?

Because it's quite funny.

Jono Hey:
The sketch is a bit silly, isn't it?

Well, I was trying to picture the sort of thing, maybe a little bit over the top.

It's quite funny because somehow, somehow the lamp has gone directly through the TV.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, yeah.

This is your front room.

This is Front Room Games, isn't it?

This is the lamp that you broke.

Jono Hey:
That's pretty much it.

No, it wasn't a standing one, fortunately.

And we don't have a TV in there, nor do we have like a jug or a freestanding mirror.

But it looks like they were probably having a great time until...

Rob Bell:
Look at that.

Look at the guy flying through mid-air.

He's so committed to that game.

He's having such a great time.

Jono Hey:
All in on this game.

And then sadly, they lost the TV and somebody's going to start shouting, maybe you'll land on some broken parts.

Rob Bell:
You know, what are those drawings called?

It's kind of an illusion of the eye.

Is that a thing?

An illusion of the eye?

An optical illusion.

That's it.

Sorry.

You've got one of those.

I'm thinking of the one where the steps continuously go up and up and up and up and up and up.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, like the Escher, Impossible Staircase.

Rob Bell:
There you go.

You've done the Impossible TV lamp combo, it seems, with this, Jono.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, you know, the joy of doing this as one of the early sketches was when it was just not digital and it was just a pen and I couldn't erase anything.

So that's what it is.

Tom Pellereau:
I love it.

Jono Hey:
That's what it was.

Tom Pellereau:
I love it.

Jono Hey:
I wasn't going to fix it because it's done.

Rob Bell:
Don't fix it.

It's good.

It's perfect.

It's perfect.

Jono Hey:
For what it's worth, playing indoors is really fun.

And in general, I think it's nice if you have the luxury of having a small space that you can make that doesn't have precious or valuable or extremely breakable things in.

It's quite nice to be able to try different things and not have to worry too much about the consequences.

You have a lot of fun doing that and you probably learn a lot of stuff.

Yeah.

Because I was thinking about that with our house.

We don't really have enough space for a workshop for making a mess and cutting things and not having to worry about the floor and sweeping up afterwards immediately, that kind of thing.

It's good to have a space like that.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
I wish more houses did.

Rob Bell:
A messy play space.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Or you just have it like your house as a kid, maybe, Tom?

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
The stuff's already broken and it doesn't matter.

Tom Pellereau:
We had a lot of messy rooms.

It's brilliant growing up.

We grew up in a big house out in the middle of nowhere and we had a lot of space, a lot of mess in a lot of different rooms.

One of the funniest ones that I do remember, although I think I must have been pretty young, was actually an outdoor game with this, where dad and I were playing, it must have been some kind of cricket game we were playing.

I think it was like a tennis ball rather than actually a hardball.

Mum came to the window and for a joke, dad threw the ball as if he was throwing it at mum, aiming for the brickwork just above the window.

He did it absolutely perfectly once and she slightly flinched and it hit there.

He went again and of course you all know what happened.

He missed the brick and went straight into the glass and smashed the glass.

Obviously, mum was not very impressed with that.

I think she just walked off and dad was like, Oh no, I'm pretty sure we spent the rest of the day.

Even funnier as a kid to watch an adult do something like that.

That's so funny.

I remember as if it was yesterday.

I often think, Do I actually remember that or do I just remember the stories and I've heard the stories so many times.

Did it actually even ever happen possibly?

Brilliant image though, isn't it?

Jono Hey:
Just your dad just turning and just chucking the balls straight through the window.

I love it.

Tom Pellereau:
He's giggling.

Oh, oops.

Jono Hey:
Now that you mention it, I put indoor games here, but we've been at somebody's house playing cricket in the garden until somebody puts it straight through the greenhouse.

Yes.

Then everybody has to stop playing cricket, but it was fine until that point.

Tom Pellereau:
It's so selfish, isn't it?

Some people just ruin it for everyone.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Greenhouses, it's just not, you know.

Rob Bell:
They're not fair.

We've talked a lot about them as kids, but more recently, and I won't say exactly how recently, but definitely as an adult, there was a period where instead of going out on a Friday night, a good mate of ours and I would stay in on Friday nights and set up a quite convoluted bunch of firing ranges around the flat with various different targets, and like point systems, and we played with a whole load of Nerf guns that we'd built up.

There was even one Saturday afternoon where I remember there were about six of us, and we had a massive team battle royale with Nerf guns around the house.

It was a flat for about two hours, really high adrenaline, really funny, but I do remember that came to an end when someone took the Nerf bullet to the eye, and it was like, okay, we should probably stop this now.

It was fine, but that's probably enough.

But as someone now in their mid 40s, who keeps themselves relatively fit, there's no way I'm as flexible as I used to be.

I do find that with outdoor games, it is often we play until someone gets injured.

I'm thinking like Five of Sides is an absolute classic, isn't it?

Yeah.

The pulled hamstring.

How many times have we all seen that?

If you don't play that regularly.

We've been out mountain biking a few times, us three with others, haven't we?

I don't think anyone's had a massive crash, but if they had, that's definitely them out for the day.

And probably we all go, oh, we should probably stop now.

And you know, the last run when you're skiing or riding on the mountain, you go, oh, come on, just one more, just one more.

Jono Hey:
Dangerous.

Rob Bell:
So I do feel it's a very similar vibe for adults as kids, isn't it?

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, it's a different type of injury.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, different type of break.

Tom Pellereau:
Different type of break, sorry, yeah.

Jono Hey:
Until someone breaks on it, yeah.

Until someone pulls a muscle.

I do remember being on a school trip once and it was like the first night and there was like seven of us in this hotel room and I don't know, everybody was like, right, pillow fight.

So everybody was like having a thing with pillows and then the door was closed.

It was night and one guy picks the pillow up over his head, goes for a massive swing, completely takes out the lampshade at the top and the light fitting and the room gets instantly plunged into darkness, which is quite fun anyway.

Everybody dives for their bunks and then the member of staff, I just remember the member of staff opening the door with a massive, what's going on?

Poor guy standing in the shower of glass and we're pretending we weren't having a pillow fight.

Tom Pellereau:
Everyone pretending to be asleep.

Jono Hey:
I was just lying on my bed.

I don't know what he was doing, swinging his pillow.

Tom Pellereau:
On his own.

Jono Hey:
Should take more care.

Tom Pellereau:
What are you doing?

Jono Hey:
Yeah, what are you doing?

Tom Pellereau:
Someone pretends to yawn.

Oh, I was trying to sleep.

Jono Hey:
Is that what's going on?

Yeah, it's that kind of situation.

Rob Bell:
That's the same as when you're at the beach, you're at a swimming pool and you're playing with a ball, when it goes a bit awry and it's going to hit somebody else, and everyone just dives under the water, anyone who can hold their breath the longest comes up, and it's all been dealt with.

Jono Hey:
You just hold your breath as long as you can.

So the problem goes away.

Rob Bell:
And then I make sure that when I do come up, I'm turning the opposite direction.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, it's just coming out from a little swing.

Ah, where is everybody?

Bad people.

Just as a little connection before we finish, I just thought it's come up before, but this one really reminded me of the Generalised Peter Principle.

Does that remind you?

Rob Bell:
Yeah, go on, remind us of that, Jono.

There's a sketch for this, isn't there?

But remind us of Generalised Peter Principle.

Jono Hey:
Well, first of all, the Peter Principle was employees rise to their level of incompetence in an organisation.

Rob Bell:
There's a podcast on that.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

And the Generalised Peter Principle was anything that works will be used in progressively more challenging situations until it fails.

Rob Bell:
Yes.

Tom Pellereau:
Loading up cars, that kind of thing.

Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

So it's like, you know, you play an indoor game and you're doing, or you're doing your shooting around the house and then you go, right, let's go for this one.

And then you smash something and then you stop.

Classic Generalised Peter Principle at work.

Rob Bell:
It's absolutely brilliant.

Jono Hey:
Pretty typical example.

Rob Bell:
I'll link to both Peter Principle and Generalised Peter Principle as well in the show notes.

What else does anyone want to add to this before we close out play until something gets broken?

Tom Pellereau:
Really makes me want to go and just do a lot more of that kind of playing.

Yeah.

Maybe houses should have like deliberately sacrificial things.

Rob Bell:
You're saying that there's an element of satisfaction in something getting broken and that we should revel in that.

Tom Pellereau:
Well, just, you know, maybe when I'm a grandparent for the kids, I'm just going to have certain things up so that they can be broken so the games will stop without me having to be the killjoy to stop the game.

But it actually doesn't matter.

Jono Hey:
Precariously planting vases and stuff in the room where the kids are playing.

Rob Bell:
Vases, yeah, made out of even more breakable than just normal ceramics.

Tom Pellereau:
But it's not going to hurt you.

Rob Bell:
Or the stunt vases from the films, so they really shatter and smash.

Jono Hey:
Small charge in there goes off.

Tom Pellereau:
And inside it'll say, I told you to stop playing.

Jono Hey:
There's been some fairgrounds we've been to and there's actually a type of store, isn't there, where they've just got some really cheap mugs and old plates and stuff that people don't want anymore.

And the store is you pay some money and you chuck some balls at these old bits of crockery and smash stuff.

Rob Bell:
Great fun.

People quite like it.

Yeah.

Jono Hey:
It's quite fun.

You know, so if you wanted to get rid of some stuff, I guess you could have a room smashing things.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, it's really nice.

I did that once in Northern Ireland.

I was filming over there and we're at this pottery factory called Belleek.

So it's quite nice by appointment of the Majesty, the Queen.

There's some in, at the time, there's some in Buckingham Palace, some Belleek Pottery.

And within the factory, there is this box, this perspex box that you can see through that is full of seconds, not seconds, it's kind of defects of the porcelain.

Tom Pellereau:
Explosions or that sort of thing.

Rob Bell:
And within it, they've got this big stick with a kind of like a thump on the end of it and you can just smash it.

It's there for their employees to go along and just smash stuff if they want and then move on.

They're just walking by.

Oh, have a quick smash.

Smash, smash, smash, smash.

And then just move on.

I thought he's absolutely genius.

Jono Hey:
That is great, isn't it?

I've never really had something like that.

Rob Bell:
You're right, Tom.

It's really satisfying.

Jono Hey:
Get your stress out after a tough meeting.

Yeah.

Just going to smash some plates.

Tom Pellereau:
One of the best fairground things I've ever been to, and there's probably a reason I've never seen it again, I was pretty young, must have been like eight.

And there was this car at the fairground, right?

And it had been obviously quite a bit smashed up, but you paid and then you got given a hammer, and you could just go and smash on this car.

It's the most ridiculous thing.

But people loved it, and you could pay different amounts for different sizes of hammers.

So obviously, I was a kid, so I get the little one.

But there were adults there with sledgehammers, and they could fight for a few minutes on this.

That is so cool.

Obviously, you wouldn't be allowed to do it now, and there's a reason that you don't do it again, but it was very enjoyable.

Jono Hey:
Quite a sort of cathartic experience just smashing something.

It's really fun.

If you get to destroy a room in a house or something, because you're remodeling, to come in and break stuff, it's quite fun.

There's like computer games now, video games where you just smash things.

The games you smash it, you just go around smashing stuff.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
I mean, it made quite a good team event, wouldn't it?

A work team event.

Rob Bell:
Have either of you ever intentionally smash something?

Out of frustration or anger?

Jono Hey:
Don't think so.

Go on, Rob.

Have you?

Rob Bell:
I don't think I have.

Jono Hey:
Walk till on.

Rob Bell:
No, I don't think I have.

I'm not like that.

I will shout to myself, but I don't think I've ever smashed anything intentionally.

Apart from those ceramics in Northern Ireland, but that was just very loud.

Jono Hey:
It's like punching cushions or something.

Rob Bell:
Yes.

Jono Hey:
Get your stress out.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
You have a punch bag just to whack something.

Rob Bell:
Tom's about to smash something there.

So I think let's say that's it for this episode.

Thank you all for listening.

Thank you, Jono, for reminding us of the importance of and giving us the opportunity to revel in being big kids again.

May it never stop.

Until next time, go well, stay well.

Jono Hey:
Goodbye.

Tom Pellereau:
Thank you.

Rob Bell:
All music on this podcast series is provided by the very talented Franc Cinelli.

And you can find many more tracks at franccinelli.com.