Summer Break - place holder

Rob Bell:
Hello, and welcome to Sketchplanations, The Podcast.

But wait, before I go off on a seemingly pointless ramble, this is not a normal episode.

I repeat, this is not a normal episode.

We're actually on our podcast holidays right now.

I mean, that's a bit early, you might think, but that's the beauty of podcasts, isn't it?

There's no right or wrong, and there's definitely no school timetable to stick to.

Okay, so you're on your holidays, good for you.

What are you doing here then?

Well, if we're honest, we missed you.

I also feel like we were possibly a little vague, or maybe I was possibly a little vague when we last signed off from Series Two a few weeks ago.

I said we'd be back at some point in August, maybe, perhaps, you know, I will see kind of thing.

Well, I've actually got my act together now, and I can tell you that we will be back with Series Three on Thursday the 22nd of August, which is only six weeks away, by which time you may also be on your holidays, or just rounding them off at least.

So that's something to look forward to, isn't it?

And I also wanted to acknowledge all the messages that we received off the back of our final episode in Series Two on detecting prostate cancer.

It was a bit of a different episode, right?

And it felt brilliant doing it.

Tom Pellereau:
It actually helped me.

Rob Bell:
It was absolutely brilliant.

Tom Pellereau:
Is that the...

Rob Bell:
Helpful.

Tom Pellereau:
Yes.

Rob Bell:
Helpful, but in a different way helpful.

Tom Pellereau:
Could save your life.

Rob Bell:
What's been lovely is we've had some messages from a number of different people, mainly men, saying that they've gone and done the online prostate cancer risk checker.

A couple have gone on to talk to their GPs about it as well.

And it's really lovely of you to let us know that actually, because it's just lovely to get those messages.

Of course, we wish all of our listeners the very, very best of health.

But that was, yeah, it was different, and it was an enjoyable podcast to do.

I certainly learnt a lot.

Amy was brilliant.

It was fantastic speaking to her, but I wanted to acknowledge that because that was the last one from last series.

We might not have had the opportunity to acknowledge that.

So thank you all for getting in touch with that.

Tom Pellereau:
Shout out to Adam for your message to me.

Thanks very much.

And a number of people have said that they are doing the checker because they really didn't fancy the finger on the bum and they didn't realise that that was no longer part of it.

So, you know, it's wonderful to be able to spread that message and that communication.

Rob Bell:
It was when it was a bit different, right?

It felt good to me.

It felt good to me.

Tom Pellereau:
What, the finger or the?

Rob Bell:
Well, the podcast.

What I do in my spare time, Tommy, is...

But finally, finally as well, we wanted to tell you that you can vote for us in the Listener's Choice category at the British Podcast Awards, which is exciting, right?

And that's every, or probably almost every podcast that comes out of Britain will be saying that right now to their listeners, if they've entered themselves into the British Podcast Awards.

So if you fancy doing that, listeners, just Google Listener's Choice British Podcast Awards and it will pop up.

And then when you go to the page, just search for Sketchplanations or Sketchplanations The Podcast, again, will pop up, click us, do your vote.

There you go.

Now, I mean, full disclosure, I am not expecting to win this award, if I'm totally honest.

I think the numbers for Listener's Choice probably get up into like the tens of thousands, would be my guess.

Jono Hey:
We need a strong late surge to manage that.

Rob Bell:
I mean, hell of a story, right?

If it were to happen.

Jono Hey:
Ragg's to riches.

Tom Pellereau:
I don't think you need to say any of this stuff.

Surely we're close, you know, we're in it.

Rob Bell:
You know, until they're announced, who knows?

I just thought it would be nice for anyone who does listen regularly and enjoys a little bit what we do on the podcast, to be able to express themselves, maybe.

You know, no taxation without representation kind of thing, right?

This is podcast democracy.

Well, if you do feel like it, head to the British Podcast Awards and vote for us.

Sketchplanations is a podcast, that'd be nice.

Now, that led me to think about awards, awards ceremonies, prizes, trophies, this kind of thing, and your experiences with that.

I know, Tommy, you've been to awards ceremonies within your industry, within the beauty product industry.

Is that right?

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, I've been lucky enough to win quite a few awards for the nail polish remover.

And actually, I've got some props over here.

Rob Bell:
Of course, yes.

Jono Hey:
Let me just wheel this in.

Rob Bell:
Oh, what is this?

Tom Pellereau:
My awards tend to be quite big, flashy affairs.

So I always have to feel I have to get dressed up.

So the top hat, bright coloured suits.

I've got those shoes that have LEDs on the bottom, which flash as you walk around.

Rob Bell:
But listen, as I should just explain, Tommy has just put on a bright red or pink jacket and a top hat.

And the funniest thing about all of this is he dashed off to the other side of his room, popped back on screen to do it.

But the funniest thing is he's now made his headphones kind of redundant because the headphones will not fit on his head over or under the top hat.

Tom Pellereau:
There's a market opportunity for headphones that fit.

Rob Bell:
That dangle.

I'm going to have to take that off.

Tom Pellereau:
So yeah, I've been with Style Pro, incredibly fortunate to win really quite a number of awards.

And they are really scary because you're like, oh, we're going to do this when you're sitting at a big table.

There's lots of people around you.

And when you do win, it is the best, best feeling.

And yes, it's very exciting for the makeup brush cleaner and one recently for our new product, which is just about to launch, which is an LED face mask.

Rob Bell:
And you've already won prizes for it.

Tom Pellereau:
Yes, we did a competition recently and we won a prize for that.

So it's a pre-launcher review, which is really, really cool.

Jono Hey:
Weekly occurrence for Tom.

Tom Pellereau:
I wish I'd been doing it for 10 years.

Rob Bell:
I thought I'd put it out there.

I didn't expect this kind of like, yeah, whatever awards.

Jono Hey:
We like them.

Rob Bell:
Just klutzing up the house.

What about you, Jono?

Jono Hey:
At my last workplace, I won the Encyclopedia Award for the most likely to have the answer to your question.

That's good.

Of course you did.

Tom Pellereau:
And have a little sketch for it.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, no, I don't win a lot of awards individually.

I have at both my previous companies won, the companies have won a lot of, a number of awards while I've been there, which has been nice.

And actually one of the best in terms of recognition for my work, you know, which magazine?

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, yeah.

Jono Hey:
Which is.

Rob Bell:
A consumer comparisons magazine, right?

But probably the most trusted, would you say in that genre?

Jono Hey:
In the UK, yeah.

And I think it was Consumer Reviews or something in the US equivalent.

And they did a whole feature and we won the, I think it was the best investor in ISA for new investors or something like that, because it was the most usable.

It had all these interviews with regular people who'd never seen it before and said that we were the best.

That was nice, because I was, that was like, I did that.

Rob Bell:
That is nice.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

So that was a good, but yeah, individually, I won the players player football award when I was about 10 and that was nice.

Rob Bell:
Don't knock it.

Jono Hey:
But it's been a while.

I won a lamp in a tombola once.

That was good.

I don't know if that counts.

Rob Bell:
That's entirely on merit.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I picked four, five, seven came up.

Rob Bell:
I remember distinctly when I was seven years old, that I was awarded top prize at school for the cycling proficiency.

And I didn't expect it at all because they gave out third, second and first place, right?

And third went to someone, not me.

Second went to someone else, not me.

And first place was definitely going to go to Corey Cade, right, this is in America.

I went to school in America for a couple of years when I was a kid.

It was definitely going to go to Corey Cade, right?

Because when he turned up at the weekend to do the cycling proficiency test, which is like your mirror signal movie, it's indicating and then turning and going around cones, all this kind of stuff.

He rocked up on the coolest BMX and he had the coolest kit, right?

This is in the, this will be 87, is that right?

Yeah.

Yeah, this is in the 80s.

So he had all the kit.

Well, of course, Corey Cade's gonna win.

And everyone's like, oh, man, it's gonna be amazing.

Corey's gonna win because he's a cool guy.

And then my name was called out.

I remember it.

Tom Pellereau:
I was like, what?

What?

Jono Hey:
That's been some mistake.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, it was brilliant.

I've still got that trophy.

I will post a picture.

I'll put a link to it in the podcast description.

The trophy of my first place cycling proficiency.

It's on my shelf in my bedroom at my mom and dad's house still.

Jono Hey:
Cory, if you were listening to this, you were robbed.

Rob Bell:
You were robbed.

Hard cheese, mate.

Tom Pellereau:
At school, I won the design prize, as you might be necessarily unexpected to hear.

And my granddad was like, do you think the design prize needs a cup?

And he produced some little cup that he had.

And we gave it to the school.

And from now and forevermore, the school design prize is called the Pellereau Prize.

And there is a little cup, which is quite cool.

It's at my old school.

The design prize is the Pellereau Cup.

Rob Bell:
That's nice.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
That's brilliant.

Actually have an award named after you.

Yeah.

After your dad, maybe.

Tom Pellereau:
And I've had to kind of try and live up to that forever and more, you know?

Jono Hey:
And succeeding.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Well, yeah, from all those prizes.

Jono Hey:
Tom, do you remember, we had a boss once and he told us a story about, it's not exactly an award.

He told us a story about somebody who started a business, I think, making fertilizer.

And he was like, well, why are people gonna pick my fertilizer?

So he created a certification for that, like an award.

And he gave the award to his brand of fertilizer.

It looked much better, you know, when it was put next to each other in the stores.

And then, yeah, the thing that started happening was that all the other brands of fertilizer started asking them if they could get the certification.

He pretty made a brisk business out of the certifications, not just the fertilizer.

Rob Bell:
Oh, that's mad.

I thought you were gonna say that he, and then he wouldn't award anybody else certification.

Jono Hey:
Keep it to yourself.

No, you award it to others, but you get them to pay.

For the award.

Tom Pellereau:
And you still get rewards.

Rob Bell:
That's award and reward.

That's award.

Jono Hey:
Genius.

Rob Bell:
God, that's clever.

Jono Hey:
We should start an award.

I've never started an award.

It's a nice thing to do, right?

Rob Bell:
I did some stuff on certification before.

It's not very fun.

Jono Hey:
We could do a fun award.

A fun award?

Rob Bell:
Let's do the fun awards.

That didn't take long, did it?

Thinking about this, there's two different types of awards, right?

There's ones that you know you're in for a shout, right?

So when, Tommy, you're at those award ceremonies, I guess you've...

And I don't know if anybody...

So anybody listening who doesn't know how award ceremonies works, you basically nominate yourself into these awards and you pay for the privilege, right?

Into these industry awards, okay?

So there's a bit of that going on.

So whilst they're at the awards and we've been recognized, well, actually, I did tell you about me and I paid you to listen to me and assess me.

That's how it works.

That's just how it works.

So there are those where you know you're in for a shout.

And then there are other awards where you don't necessarily know it's coming and it might be something that's been awarded to you completely out of the blue that you didn't even know you're being considered for.

And they're quite nice, but I'd say that they're quite different.

They're quite different emotional experiences, I think, to go through.

Jono Hey:
What's happened?

I mean, has that happened to you?

Rob Bell:
Well, it was, because I was thinking through it.

So I was doing some environmental campaigning a few years ago, a decade or so ago.

And I was given the Green Ambassador Award for Southwest London by the Southwest London Guardian, right, which is a newspaper, a kind of regional London newspaper.

I didn't even know that I'd been put forward for it.

I was just received a letter one day saying, oh, you've been awarded this, and I'm great, that's nice, thanks.

I got a little prize for it, and then entered into the kind of larger national awards, which I didn't win.

So, but then there are other things like, so I host award ceremonies sometimes, which is great fun.

I absolutely love it.

Tom Pellereau:
I imagine you're very good at that.

Rob Bell:
It's a feel good factor.

It's a bit like, you can't really do a bad job, I don't think.

You're just up there having fun and enjoying other people's enjoyment of being told that they're really good at something.

It's nice.

Yeah.

Jono Hey:
My favorite awards was the one where Steve Martin was doing it for Paul Simon.

And Paul Simon was getting this sort of lifetime, lifetime contribution to American culture.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
And so Steve Martin's there and it's huge, you know, incredible celebrities in the audience.

And he starts, he's like, you know, it would be easy for me to stand up here for the next few minutes and talk about Paul Simon's consummate skill as a songwriter and a musician.

But this seems to me neither the time nor the place.

I just took everybody by surprise.

This is brilliant.

Genius.

I don't know, it's not quite the same, but maybe nominated for award he didn't expect.

It's not exactly an award, but I got a letter from Who's Who in America one time.

So I was like, based on your profile and achievements, we would like you to be part of Who's Who in America.

And I gradually realized that it's a bit like, awards are a business.

So that sounds nice.

I'd like to be in some book of Who's Who in America.

And so you go through some things and you answer some questions and then they say, yeah, and you can have a bit of a bigger profile, just pay $800 and we'll make sure you're in every issue with a photo.

I didn't realize it was like that.

I think I can't tell if I was got or if it was a good thing.

Rob Bell:
So in fairness to awards and awards as businesses, I should mention that the British Podcast Awards are very amenable to small independent production companies who like us, like we're just three guys who do a podcast and we've submitted our application and they will give you heavily discounted.

They do give heavily discounts for that kind of thing, which is great because it means that we can do it and we can hopefully be there in amongst everybody else.

But who knows, who knows?

I've got big ideas and little pictures.

Jono's got the little picture.

Jono Hey:
Whenever you say big ideas.

Rob Bell:
Tommy, you're on mute.

You're on mute, so you couldn't get in there fast enough with it.

Tom Pellereau:
I tell you what, I don't think any of my children are getting any awards tonight.

It sounds like it's properly kicking off outside as Sarah's trying to get them to do it.

Rob Bell:
Oh, hence the long-term mutes.

Tom Pellereau:
Hence the long-term mutes.

Rob Bell:
Well, listen, we only came on as a little placeholder, really, until we're back from our summer holidays with season three.

So no sketches this week.

Although I did try to find something in your archives, Jono, to do with winning or awards or trophies or prizes or something like that.

But it seems that you're just too darn modest and humble.

Jono Hey:
Did you not find imposter syndrome?

Rob Bell:
No, it didn't pop up under the searches.

Jono Hey:
Which is basically somebody like collecting an award and being like, it shouldn't have been me.

Why is it me?

It's like you getting the Cyclone Proficiency Award, not Corey Cade.

Rob Bell:
Not Corey Cade, yeah, exactly.

Jono Hey:
You were like full on imposter syndrome.

I should add that as an example for the sketch.

Rob Bell:
I will also link this.

I will link to...

Because we need a sketch for the artwork, right?

So let's make it imposter syndrome.

And if we feel like there's more to come to it in series four, then we can do that.

I think we will probably be back with a series three teaser at some point before we get going again, in earnest.

But if you missed that, or if indeed I miss it, then we will be back on the 22nd of August with series three of Sketchplanations, The Podcast.

So have a lovely summer, go well, stay well.

Jono Hey:
Goodbye.

I'm going to add Corey Cade in the audience of that sketch, Throwing a Tomato.

Forever now, I look at that sketch and I'm like, that's Rob stealing the proficiency award from Corey.

Rob Bell:
Thank All music on this podcast is sourced from the very talented Frank Cinelli.

And you can find loads more tracks at frankcinelli.com.