Shower Secrets, Money or Morals, and More with Drew Toynbee

Drew Toynbee: 00:00:00

She won't know I said this. When I first started going out with my wife, she lived in a flat where they. The one toilet in the.

It was a three story flat above a shop and the one toilet was right down at the bottom and the shower was right up at the top. And so one of the first things that I was told when I stayed over was, oh, it's okay, you can wee in the shower because the toilet's downstairs.

Danny Brown: 00:00:25

Hi, and welcome to Five Random Questions, the show where every question is an adventure. I'm your host, Danny Brow. In each week, I'll be asking my guests five questions created by a random question generator.

The guest has no idea what the questions are and neither do I, which means this could go either way. So sit back, relax, and let's dive into this week's episode. Today's guest is Drew Toynbee.

Drew is a freelance digital creative making fictional and factual video and audio content for podcasters and organizations across the UK. He's also the recipient of strange targeting for Ads, which. Which is always fun. So, Drew, welcome to five Random Questions.

Drew Toynbee: 00:01:05

Thank you so much for having me, Danny. I am, I'm thrilled to be here.

Danny Brown: 00:01:10

You are very welcome, mate.

And I feel we need to talk about this targeting ad or the strange targeting for ads, which I know you shared online because one of these recently that you shared was an ad from a brand that was looking for heartbroken men who, who want to get in shape with the Navy SEAL challenge. So, Drew, aiming for a part in the next Expendables movie?

Drew Toynbee: 00:01:34

Well, apparently. So, like, I, so I'm, I'm on, I'm on a weight loss journey and so I get that.

Like, I've, I've been discussing where I've lost weight on WhatsApp and so therefore Meta has that information. So Facebook has, has decided, say, oh, this guy's trying to lose weight. But as far as Facebook knows, and as far as WhatsApp knows, unless. Unless.

Unless my wife is desperately unhappy and is messaging people on WhatsApp about the fact our marriage is about to end, but hasn't told me, then I'm not sure why Facebook decided that a fitness program for heartbroken men was what I needed. Yeah, it absolutely baffling. Normally it's quite good.

Normally, like online online ads, I can at least understand why the algorithm was like, yeah, yeah, just have a look at this. You know you like cooking. Here's a big knife. And I've fallen for it a couple of times.

I bought the, the big Viking knife and it was suspiciously cheap and there's a reason why it was suspiciously cheap and I shouldn't have bought it, but. But I will put it out there publicly via you, Danny. Thank you. I'm not heartbroken. As far as I know, my marriage is very happy. And Mark Zuckerberg.

I'm not heartbroken and I don't need those ads, that is.

Danny Brown: 00:03:00

And we'll make sure to play this episode on Meta or Facebook or whatever it's called. I don't know. I've not been on that thing for a while now. I go online for work stuff, but I generally don't do. Don't pop over there.

But yeah, it's like, normally you'll see these little ads or something in Gmail, right? If you've said something like, this is what I find freakish about.

I'm an Android guy, but I know my wife's like an iPhone person, but I find that super freaky where I'd be speaking about something. And clearly my Android is listening to that because next time I open Gmail, I've got an ad that talks about that very brand or very topic, right?

Drew Toynbee: 00:03:32

Which is like, it's. Yeah, I'm in two minds about it. I read an article that said it's. We, we promise it's not listening, but it's.

It's kind of even more insidious than that.

And it will be because your phone is in close proximity to someone else and you've talked to them about it and they've searched it and they're like, oh, those phones. So maybe that person's interested in this thing as well.

But then sometimes it is just so, like, I'm so sure that I have not searched anywhere online for this thing and now it's advertising it to me.

And yeah, having admitted the fact that I occasionally have in the past when I could afford to impulse bought from adverts that I've seen online, I still partially find myself going, oh, but you know, I don't think I'm that susceptible to online ads.

And then I actually examine what on earth I'm talking about and I'm like, oh, no, I'm a squishy brained idiot and someone tell me the stupid monkey what to buy and I want to buy it. So it's the world we live in, unfortunately. And I think maybe, maybe what I'm saying is I feel like it's.

It is a fair enough trade, in my opinion, from my perspective, to get these services for free in inverted commas if it means I have to look at some adverts.

Danny Brown: 00:05:01

Yeah, I, I hear you.

I keep telling my kids that when they're watching TV and they're using the YouTube app to sign in under their account or kids, because then I get some weird recommendation crap that comes because of their watch behavior.

Drew Toynbee: 00:05:15

Right, yeah, yeah, like, yeah, I could, I could, I could take you on a journey about the time my 5 year old tried or started watching YouTube on my app rather than the kids app. But I will save that for the late night edition.

Danny Brown: 00:05:31

Well, speaking of late night editions. Oh, exactly. A little segue there. But yeah, speaking of late night editions. So I was just, I noticed that you had a new website.

At least new for me when I was like checking out your bio updated because we've known each other for a little while actually.

Drew Toynbee: 00:05:46

Yeah.

Danny Brown: 00:05:47

And obviously you're now doing different work from when I previously knew. Well, I still knew you from when I previously knew you the first time. Yeah, you know what I mean? And hopefully the listeners do.

Anyway, and then I shared a new website, so. Okay, that's cool. I'm going to check this out and it's got an interesting fun tagline. I'm going to share it.

Well, you know it, but I'm going to share it with the listeners. So the tagline on the website is I make online content and I'd like to do it with you too.

I mean, come on, that sounds like an onlyfans pitch there, mate.

Drew Toynbee: 00:06:16

That's fair. I, you know, I hadn't, I hadn't processed that. But I'm going to leave it. I'm going to leave it. I mean, the website needs updating desperately anyway.

But I promise you now, I will not change that at all.

Danny Brown: 00:06:30

That's now going to be front and center.

Drew Toynbee: 00:06:33

Absolutely. In hot pink, glowing letters.

Danny Brown: 00:06:38

I loved it. I really, when I saw that, I thought, yeah, that is, that is very much true. And I wondered, is there like a little double entendre going on there?

But I like it.

Drew Toynbee: 00:06:47

I wish I could say it was, but no, that was entirely unintentional. But now it's intentional going forwards. The next time you're on my website, know that it is there intentionally from this point on.

Danny Brown: 00:06:59

That is perfect. I'm gonna get on a T shirt. You should get on a T shirt, mate. Just wander about Soho in London with that T shirt on. Pretty awesome.

Well, speaking of intentional, it is my intention to put you on the five random questions hot seat. So I am going to bring up my random question generator. Are you all set, Mr. Drew?

Drew Toynbee: 00:07:20

I think so.

Danny Brown: 00:07:22

All right, perfect. Okay. Question number one. I don't know if we can go with this, but anyway, question number one, Drew, have you ever peed in the shower?

Drew Toynbee: 00:07:34

Yes, I. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it get. Yeah, I don't know if I need to elaborate on that. It gets immediately washed away. I'm washing myself anyway. And actually.

Oh, no, this would be. No, she won't know I said this. When I first started going out with my wife, she lived in a flat where they. The one toilet in the.

It was a three story flat above a shop and the one toilet was right down at the bottom and the shower was right up at the top.

And so one of the first things that I was told when I stayed over was, oh, it's okay, you can, you can wee in the shower because the toilet's downstairs. So, you know, I, I have, I have immense respect for someone who has the strength of character to not pee in the shower, but I do.

I'm a weak willed human being.

Danny Brown: 00:08:27

Well, I hear you. I'm an older gent these days. My bladder is not what it used to be. So I may be in that journey with you. Without getting too weird, hopefully.

Drew Toynbee: 00:08:41

He says all the best questions start with that.

Danny Brown: 00:08:45

Without getting too weird. Are you direction or just let it flow with the shower?

Drew Toynbee: 00:08:51

Just let it go.

Danny Brown: 00:08:52

Just let it go.

Drew Toynbee: 00:08:54

As long as, like, as long as there's a suitable, like if it's, if it is an enclosed standing standalone shower that's fully enclosed.

Yeah, you know, just if it's a shower over a bath and there's not an adequate curtain or screen, then I might pay a little bit more attention to where things are going. But yeah.

Danny Brown: 00:09:18

Yeah, we don't want to go too deep into this. I will say it does remind me of a conversation.

st Movement, I'm going to say: 2023

We were out after the event and we'd been for dinner, coming back, you know, to the hotel, whatever, and struck up a conversation, as you do, you know, with your teammates when you're, you know, at events, etc. And a question was asked by one of my colleagues about do you think it's normal and acceptable for. And this isn't a random question.

She's like, it just remind me of that for your partner to poop while you're having a shower, Which I just thought Was like, where did that come from?

Drew Toynbee: 00:10:06

I mean, that's. I'll give you my answer to this as a bonus random question.

That's another life conundrum that I've had to face up to when my relationship with my wife started. My family when I was growing up were very much a bathroom and toilet door is locked.

When a person is occupying a space with facilities, the doors are locked and no one else is in there but my wife's family. Complete open door policy on that front. And so still to this day, Em and I have been together for nearly 13 years and.

And I, still on autopilot, will lock and will close and lock the toilet door. And Em still thinks that I'm annoyed with her if I do that because, you know, the, the, the door stays open when.

Luckily, Em's parents do close and lock the door when we're around. That. That has not continued into anything outside of their immediate nuclear family unit. But, yeah, it's.

It took me a while to get used to, but now it's. It's just part of life.

Danny Brown: 00:11:16

Yeah, well, we've got a rule here. I don't know if it's like a Canadian thing or just like a general rule of life.

It sounds like your wife's family has a similar one where if the door's closed, someone's in it. You don't have to lock it. If the door's closed, someone is in the bathroom using the bathroom.

I didn't know this when I moved to Canada first off, and my wife and I went to visit her dad and his family for Christmas. And we got up in the morning and I wanted to go have a shower, but the door was closed.

So I thought, okay, I'll just go and open the door and go for a shower. Her dad had already just had a shower. He was standing there naked, drying himself off with a towel.

That's when he learned that you don't have to lock doors, but if the door's closed, don't come in. All right, thanks for letting me know that. It was not a pretty sight ingrained.

Drew Toynbee: 00:11:57

I've never been to Canada and I, I dearly hope to one day. But I love the fact that even the Canadian attitude to doors fits with the stereotype of, no, no, we don't need locks. We just.

Everyone understands the rules and follows the rules exactly.

Danny Brown: 00:12:13

And same with burglars and houses. Oh, that was an interesting question to open up this episode. Let's.

Drew Toynbee: 00:12:20

It was.

Danny Brown: 00:12:20

Where did we go from here? I do not know. I can't Wait, let's have a look. Okay. This is a more gentle one, I feel. Drew, question number two. Do you keep a journal?

Drew Toynbee: 00:12:31

I do not. I have tried in the past, but I, nah, unfortunately I kind of wish I did.

I understand the benefits and having been on the journey I've been on with my mental health over the last four or five years, I understand there really are some incredible benefits to it beyond just having these notes to look over for posterity later in your life.

But it, I don't know, I, I get self conscious about it and I, I, I'm incapable of, or when I was younger, when I did it a few times when I was younger, I was always writing for an imagined audience of the person who might find this journal when I'm dead. And it's like my grandkid. And so it, even then I couldn't use it in the way that it should really be used. So it was a bit of a, it was wasted on me.

Danny Brown: 00:13:34

Well, there's a couple of questions I want to ask about that because I know you mentioned that about your mental health and your, your journey with your mental health over the last four or five years and I know you've shared some stories of that online, which I feel could be seen as a journal almost, because normally when you talk about journals, you're on about grabbing a pen, maybe in an actual physical book, a journal book, journaling, which I can't do. I find it really hard to write these days. Not hard. I've got really bad handwriting and I look at it afterwards, think, what did I just write?

I don't know what that is.

Drew Toynbee: 00:14:05

Same.

Danny Brown: 00:14:05

But the examples and the lessons that you've shared online from your own journey, I feel could also be seen as a journal because that helps a, it helps you, obviously it's very cathartic, but it helps so many others that might be going through the same journey or the same emotions and helps them understand why they feel like that and, you know, how they can, you know, get over that period, that particular period and be better prepared for the next time, you know, something happens, an incident happens.

Drew Toynbee: 00:14:36

Yeah, that's primarily the reason that I end up posting things like that. Like it. I've fallen out of the habit of it.

I've kind of fallen out of the habit of social media a little since the functional demise of Twitter, shall we say. Building an online community is very, very hard.

And Twitter was great when I was getting into podcasting because it was so established, and particularly the independent movie podcast Twitter scene was very specific. For one, and really welcoming. And everyone got to know everyone really, really quickly.

And then everyone just kind of exploded out to threads and blue sky, and some people were trying Reddit and everyone's building a discord, and I just. I had too much else going on to keep up. But, yeah, I.

I do feel like it's really important to be open and honest about mental health challenges and experiences where you can. And because it. It can be. It certainly can be cathartic.

And there's got to be some benefit to me, like a kind of selfish benefit when I do it, but it's not. It's not a conscious thing for me.

I just kind of go, oh, I remember those times where it was very bad and very dark and very bad things nearly happened. And I occasionally saw posts from people that I knew that were just like, hey, by the way, depression isn't. It's not.

Depression isn't your fault or depression isn't you. It's something that's happening to you. And all of those things that sound really pithy and kind of throwaway, but for me, they kind of helped.

And occasionally I'll just get a flash in my mind of someone might need to see that and someone.

And I'm just gonna put that out just in case someone needs it and they happen to see it, which is like the lowest effort piece of social help I could possibly do. I could. I could be volunteering time at a local care home or anything else, but I'm like, no, no, no, look how noble and lovely I am.

I've put out a Tweet to my 10 followers.

Danny Brown: 00:17:11

Well, have you ever considered. You're obviously in the podcasting space, you're more on the back end now with production, et cetera.

Have you ever considered, you know, just doing a podcast series? I know my wife, like, a few years back, she had a podcast called Mental Health and Me about her own mental health journey.

And, you know, she said, to your point there, it was very cathartic for her to speak about it, even if, like, she.

She got a decent following, but even if there was no one else there, maybe just one or two people, you know, knowing that she was sharing, that was good for her and it helped others as well. You ever consider doing a podcast? Because that's. It's not easy. We know that ourselves. It's not easy. Right, but it's.

You've got the skills to do that and you've got the topic and you've got the background there.

Drew Toynbee: 00:17:56

Yeah, I like the idea of it, but at the same time, there are some wonderful creators out there already working on that kind of stuff.

And one thing I've discovered since, for listeners who don't know, I used to do a podcast called Sequel Pitch, which I really hope will come back one day. And Danny was a guest and he came on and listened to our pitches for Flash Gordon two. And. And I loved it.

But good lord, when you've got young kids and you're just trying to exist in the world as it is now, bandwidth is. Is incredibly limited.

And I guess, I guess to answer that question more specifically, I would really hope that in five or 10 years, when my kids aren't insisting on having my full attention at all times when I'm within 50ft of them, which is absolutely fine and they're amazing and lovely, but good Lord, it's hard work. I would hope I would be able to do something that. But I don't feel like I would be able to do it justice currently.

And frankly, I'm having to be quite strategic, focusing my attention on creative endeavors in podcasting or whatever else, because I've got to pay attention to what might bring in money to pay the mortgage.

And I think I'm more likely to find my way into further work which I find interesting and fulfilling and hopefully will provide value to someone somewhere focusing on the sort of science content that I'm working on in the background and fiction things that I'm starting to work towards. God, I ramble a lot.

I need to do more podcasts because you can tell, I just sit in my shed and just edit videos and podcasts alone like a little goblin. And then I get the chance to talk to someone else in podcasting and just vomit words at you.

Danny Brown: 00:20:10

Well, it's like I remember, how old are your kids, mate?

Drew Toynbee: 00:20:13

One is just about to turn six years and the other is just about to turn 10 months.

Danny Brown: 00:20:19

Yeah, so I. I remember our kids when they were younger. We've got two teens now. So I completely get you on the attention deficit that you have, because it does.

It's just. And I'm going to give you a little bit bad news. It doesn't get better now. They have different needs, right.

So they need you to take them places, they need you to have money to. For these places, etc. So the attention might improve. But you've got a whole other world of pain coming, mate. So I'm just prepping for you that now.

Drew Toynbee: 00:20:48

Thanks. Thanks, Danny.

Danny Brown: 00:20:50

Well, speaking of prepping, we don't have any prep for this because it is random let's see what question number three brings up model one. Okay, Drew, question number three. If you found. I'm going to change the currency here. If you found £100 on the ground, what would you do with it?

Drew Toynbee: 00:21:11

I would. Oh man. Danny, can you tell me where, where I am in this hypothetical scenario?

Danny Brown: 00:21:21

You're just outside an orphanage that's got lots of signs where saying we need food and donation. Not just anywhere, mate. You could be in the park, you could be downtown going to work, you could be on a train, anywhere at all.

I'm not, I can't let you off. Sorry.

Drew Toynbee: 00:21:38

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it, it's, it, yeah, it would, it would depend on, I, I, I'm being honest. It would depend on where I was. If I was just on a busy street and it was there, I would, I would feel compelled to be like, has anyone dropped this?

If I was hiking across Exmoor and I could see no one else around, that's my money now. And that, that but yeah, it's. So there is some degree of social pressure, I suppose.

And I know that the absolutely correct answer is you pick it up and you take it to the nearest police station and you hand it in and so sorry, I'm, I'm admitting that I would act with criminal intent if I had absolutely no way to possibly identify who it belonged to. In fact.

Oh no, I'm, I was about to say, I'm basically telling you I'll do anything I can if I know I'll get away with it, but that's an awful thing to say and maybe edit that out. I'll leave that to your discretion.

Danny Brown: 00:22:46

Well, especially for someone that's got a big knife that they got for cheap.

Drew Toynbee: 00:22:50

Yeah, yeah, no, it's cheap. It can't, can't do damage to anyone.

Danny Brown: 00:22:54

Well, you'd mentioned there though, if you were in a busy place, you're down middle of the town shopping center or something like that. Because I've been away from the UK for many years, so I don't even know what it's called now downtown, down in the city, whatever.

But yeah, if you were in like a really busy area, you're now hoping people would be or someone would be honest. Right. Because how can you prove that's their 100 pound, for example?

Drew Toynbee: 00:23:21

Absolutely. I, I were I thinking fast enough, I might say, has anyone dropped some money quite loudly? But I get there's no, you have to.

You at some point you either have to benefit yourself or have faith that either the, the right person says, oh, yes, that's mine. And that's the best case scenario. Or the. If someone on the street had the audacity to just be like, oh, yeah, that's mine.

Completely dishonestly and just take it and walk away, I would like to believe that that person really needed it. Like, I'll be being honest.

Like, if I was on the street and we weren't about to make the mortgage and I had two invoices that weren't going to be paid for three weeks and we had to pay the mortgage in two days, then maybe I would act differently. But, yeah, it's really hard to have faith in other people sometimes, particularly now in the world for many, many reasons.

And what's messed up is that just from me saying that people would still not really have any idea what my, like, ethical or political affiliations are, which is. I mean, that's just the way the world works. But I do try to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Danny Brown: 00:24:45

1. It's like you say, I mean, it's. It can be tough because you can be the most moral person around.

But depending on circumstances as well, that could completely change your morals in a heartbeat. If you've got a family feed, as you mentioned, or something that you need to do.

And I feel it'd be easier, an easier decision if it was a wallet and it had details in there that you could hand into, you know, but when it's an actual money that no one knows that who does it belong to? How do you get that back to that person? Anyway?

Drew Toynbee: 00:25:15

Yeah, there it would. If the question was if you found someone's wallet on the floor, I would be. What's the best word for it? Flabbergasted.

If you found someone who unironically was like, oh, yeah, I don't care if it's got identifying it, that's mine. Now, that would. I would be very impressed with the chutzpah of that individual. But, yeah, questions like these always make me think of.

And this is such a dated reference now, the Friends episode where Phoebe, where Joey is like, there's no inherently unselfish act. There's no unselfish good deed. And Phoebe's like, no, no, there are completely unselfish good deeds.

And it all comes down to whether it makes you feel good for having done what you consider to be moral, even if it puts you at a disadvantage. And I kind of struggle with that sometimes because I. I try to do the right thing, what I consider to be the right thing morally.

And maybe it's the Britishness about me. Maybe it's my depression, maybe what, whatever my self loathing, whatever it is. But I question myself about that all the time.

Like when I said I hope, I would say, has anyone dropped some money? I know that part of that would be because I don't want to be a baddie in inverted commas and I might feel like a baddie.

And so if I do that, I get to feel morally superior over nothing.

And I find it endlessly fascinating the contradictions within human beings and the frameworks of law and morality and why people follow crowds and why people let bad things happen and why people fight against bad things. And obviously for no reason at all, nothing in the world is happening that is making me think like that at all. Yeah, just I'm waffling again.

I'm so sorry.

Danny Brown: 00:27:22

Hey, no, no, no. It's a conversation. There's like five random question answers are answered, but it doesn't mind me.

I don't know if it was like the Civil War movie or it was based around a similar premise, but there's a saying and I'm going to paraphrase it because I can't remember it quite word by word, but basically society is one bad day away from destruction.

Drew Toynbee: 00:27:43

That movie blew me away, by the way. Like I was.

I'd heard very mixed things and I love Alex Garland and conceptually the idea of there being a civil war in the US has been on my mind for nine years. At this point, just. It's one of those things where I have occasionally said to my friends and family like this is messed up.

But objectively speaking, we are. This is a fascinating time to be alive. Subjectively, it's absolutely terrifying and insane. But yes.

So anyway, that movie really spoke to me on a level that I still haven't actually kind of figured out. I keep watching it and keep trying to get to the bottom of what it is about this movie that is well made and well acted and. But I.

I cannot put my finger on why hits me in such a visceral way. But yeah, there's a fantastic. Are they fantastic?

There's a very readable set of books called Zero Day Code, which is about a cyber attack on the American food distribution network. And effectively there's only enough food in any given area for human beings for three days.

And after, and after that, three days when people can't get food, it's instant anarchy.

And yeah, if, if that breakdown of society, but not, not like Mad Max and Zombies idea of a kind of apocalypse, but a Kind of technological breakdown into anarchy. I would thoroughly recommend those books now.

Danny Brown: 00:29:35

Check them out. My wife's very much a book lover.

She doesn't have the chance to read as much lately because she's very busy with our kids as well with sports and stuff. But I'll definitely check them out because that sounds like the kind of stuff I'd like to, you know, dig into.

It's kind of stuff my granddad always says you need to learn and you need to be aware of the world, etc. You should read that. So I will definitely check them out. Anyway, so that was an interesting little. I say a little interesting diversion there.

Let's have a look and see what question number four brings up. Okay, here we go. And this might be an adult one. It could be taking you back to your childhood. Drew, question number four.

What was not is what was your favourite cartoon?

Drew Toynbee: 00:31:23

What was my favorite cartoon? I am going to go with my gut and say the, the mid-90s Spider man cartoon on TV was. Was my cartoon.

Yeah, there's like adult animation in the last few years has like animation has matured and is seen as a kind of respectable medium and there's some incredible films and TVs coming out in animation.

But as you pointed out, specifically the wording of that question, the only time in my life that I can think of a cartoon and it being so important that I be awake at 9am on Saturday to put on was it ITV or. I can't even remember the name of the show. But yes, the, the, the mid-90s kind of that Spider Man.

And I tried to show it to my kid because it's all on Disney plus and he hated it. So. Fantastic.

Danny Brown: 00:32:28

I'll have to look that. And was that just called because there's been so many animated spider mans over the years.

Obviously there's a new one on Disney plus that I really enjoyed.

Drew Toynbee: 00:32:37

Yes. Yeah, I'm really enjoying that one too.

Danny Brown: 00:32:40

Fantastic. But I'm trying to remember the one that was mid-90s. Was that called Amazing Spider Man? Was it just the Spider man or.

Drew Toynbee: 00:32:48

Oh no, it's just Marvel. It's just Spider Man. I thought it was the Amazing Spider man, but Spider man, the Animated Series.

Danny Brown: 00:32:58

I think the thing with Spider man is there's, there's so many iterations and like spins you can put on it. You look at the spider verse, which is great, amazing animation. You talk about the 90s Spider Man.

I remember watching the 70s Spider man, which was probably awful. If I went back and looked at it now, I Probably think, what the hell was this crap?

But it's interesting to see how different creators and different artists, etc, take and put their own spin on it and, and still bring something new to a character that pretty much everybody knows or we feel we know anyway. Right.

Drew Toynbee: 00:33:34

That, that makes me think about the general discourse of people ruining people's childhoods because they're rebooting something.

And I think it's amazing that, yeah, we've got Miles Morales as Spider man now coming to the fore and in the Spider Verse movies, which are just mind blowingly good on pretty much every single level. But the fact that for me personally, we've had three live action Spider Man, Spider Men, all three of them in one movie as it happens, that's not.

Those aren't the words I was trying to get to. But they all, they fit and I enjoy all of them still now.

, it was: 2000

Spider Man 3 had good, had impressive things happening visually, which is probably the kindest thing you can say about that movie. But I still enjoyed it for that. And then I loved Andrew Garfield's version. I think the first one is much maligned.

I think the second one is even more maligned. It's great fun. And then Tom Holland comes along and does a really fantastic interpretation as well.

And none of them take away from the previous ones and they all have their own spin on the characters. They all present the challenges that would be faced by someone like that in a different way. And I think you're right.

I understand the frustration that some people, a few of my friends who, who have been as into films as I have for most of their lives, but who are not fussed about franchises and, and find the growth of Marvel to be disappointing in that it's squeezing out, it's taking away oxygen from original. I don't want to say IP but, but original IP and I don't disagree with that at all.

But to write off the, the power that is the, the potential that can come through these characters and finding something new to say with an iconic, like literally iconic character.

I, I do think there's skill there and I do think that there's a reason why people come back to recurring story structures and characters because having that level of familiarity does allow a wider Audience to get into it. Don't get me wrong, I am desperate to find a time where I can have a night off and go and see Sinners.

I am so desperate to go and see Sinners at the cinema and I'm hearing such good things that if I can't make it to the cinema to see it, I will still buy a ticket because I want to support it like new ip. Why I gotta stop saying ip. But yeah, I. I think it's.

I think there's a great deal of skill and talent that goes into making good movies with characters that have existed already so many times and sometimes they're not good. Like there's. There's no two ways about it. I'm not saying that every Marvel or DC movie has been a five star movie because they're not.

But there's a lot of fun to be had and diminishing the achievement. And what any particular version of a character can mean to someone just because another one came before it, I think is really reductive.

Danny Brown: 00:37:18

It's like the Star wars fans.

Drew Toynbee: 00:37:21

You said it, not me. I was trying not to say it. Don't get me started.

Danny Brown: 00:37:24

It's like the Star wars fans and our joint colleague friend Mark. Mark Asquith would say the same thing. You know, that's. It's one of these fandoms that just does its best to disagree with each other. Right.

That's just. And I'll never understand it. Just. If you like it, great.

If you didn't like it, move to another movie or book in a series or whatever and enjoy that one when it comes out and just. It's all good. We've all got our own little choices and preferences.

Drew Toynbee: 00:37:52

Exactly.

Danny Brown: 00:37:53

Well, speaking of preferences, and that was a really poor segue. I need to work on my script writing.

Speaking of preferences is my preference to ease us along to the final question and end your journey here on the five random questions hot seat. So let's have a look at question number five. Okay, here's an interesting one to finish on Question number five.

Drew, what would you do differently if you could relive the past year.

Drew Toynbee: 00:38:24

Damn. That is. That is a question and a half. What has happened in the last year? Um, well, I would have shorted a bunch of stocks before Trump took office.

Let's be. Let's be honest about that. No. Crikey Moses. Oh, man, this is a really hard question.

I think I will be completely honest and ever so slightly vulnerable. I would have. I. No, I would have spent more time planning for how to Parent my eldest son, when the baby came along, it.

Because it's, it's a mental time.

And whatever it is about my brain, whether it's my suspected adhd, whether it's whatever, whatever it is about me, I kind of, with both of my kids, didn't feel like there was going to be a kid and kill until the kid arrived. Like, obviously I knew that. I knew my wife was pregnant and the baby was going to arrive.

And we did all the preparation, but the kind of deep gut level, I, I didn't, I didn't bond with either of them before they were born, if that makes sense. Like some, some men really do. And I just couldn't and I tried and I felt bad about it.

And so I just kind of bumbled along thinking like, oh, if, if, if Archer is negatively affected, if he's not getting enough attention, we'll see it and we'll be able to kind of work with that. But he's not been acting up loads. He's not been struggling loads. He absolutely loves the kid he gets.

Archer is Owen, the baby's favorite human being on the planet. It's absolutely wonderful to see. But Arch is still having to adjust.

And one thing that I've realized in the last few months through kind of discussing, discussing with my wife and kids, behavior goes up and down all the time anyway. And he's five and he's in school and he's got so much going on, so you can never be exactly sure.

But we realized when things are mad and I'm scrambling to find work and Em's got a baby pooping everywhere and Arch has got to go to school and he's got clubs and, and someone's gotta walk the dog and the cats have run out of food and we've got too many pets.

And I've realized that there may be chunks of time where the only kind of interaction that Archer gets from us is us being annoyed cause he's playing up. And I really, really would go if I could go back and warn myself about that and be like, hey, at all times if Arch is doing something good.

And good can mean sitting quietly and playing on his own, because this kid does not like to play on his own. He has to have someone else around. If it's another kid, fantastic. But when he doesn't have a friend round after school, that's me or his mum.

So if he is sat doing something on his own and not demanding attention, that's awesome. And he needs to be, that needs to be recognized. And I've not been good at doing that until the last couple of months. So there we go. That's my answer.

I would be better at that.

Danny Brown: 00:42:11

Do you think? Because I'm a parent like yourself with two kids. Ours is a bit older than yours now but I do recall that age and their attention.

We talked about that earlier. Matt, do you think sometimes as parents we might feel we aren't doing enough? You mentioned it there.

You'd like to have been more present on the Good Times and recognise that more and let our children know about that. But you think sometimes that's on us that we feel we've not done that.

Whereas your son's probably super happy anyway and isn't even thinking he's not getting attention because he's just in the space with his parents and the pets and the, the little one. Etc, that's.

Drew Toynbee: 00:42:51

I, I hope that's the case. I, I really do hope that's the case and I'm, I'm not, I'm not mass. My Em is quite into m. Likes to scroll Instagram reels.

I'm, I'm not an Instagram reels person but Em's Instagram algorithm knows that she's a parent to a kid who's around 5 years old and so she just constantly gets videos about oh if here's how to do, here's how to help your kid or how to deal with the kid being different etc, etc and it seems to be quite a, quite a millennial thing to be hyper aware of parenting styles and potential impacts you might be having.

And it's a funny joke but also it feels very true that, you know, you have no idea when the day that I, I'm not going to remember if I got frustrated and shouted at Arch for refusing to eat his vegetables. I won't, I won't remember that that's happened. But he might remember that for the next 20 years.

Like the, the time daddy went, Daddy snapped because he wouldn't eat some broccoli. Like so I really hope you're right. I, I really hope you're right and often I, I can sort of go no, we're doing, we are doing a good job.

Like ultimately I, I do, I do believe that he will grow up being like, well whatever, whatever they mess up. I know my parents loved me and did their best for me and that's all you can really hope for. But you know, I just, I don't want to mess up my kids.

Like I'm messed up and it's not my parents fault that I'M messed up. But things they did contributed to me being messed up and I'm so desperate for that not to happen.

But then you get into the self fulfilling prophecy thing of oh, maybe if I try so hard not to mess them up, I'll mess them up more. And you just have to, you just have to do your best and wait and see.

Danny Brown: 00:44:58

Yeah. Well, it's interesting you mentioned like use the phrase messed up there because I'm not even going to try to be in your shoes. But I always feel.

Not always, but I feel that's an interesting phrase that I hear a lot. Like I am a co founder of a charity, a non profit that helps mental health in teens at school, at high schoolers, university goers.

And it's a phrase that pops up like messed up, something's wrong with me, I'm not. Okay. And oftentimes like it's the least messed up. It's people that don't have issues, for want of a better phrase.

But people that don't have issues that might be more messed up so. Because it might be that they're putting on a facade whereas you're being upfront and, you know, public and honest if you like, with.

I suffer from this and this is, I hope I don't pass that on to my kids, but there's nothing wrong with that. Kind of messed up, for want of a better phrase. I'm not a psychologist, I'm not trying to say anything like that.

It was just interesting to hear that phrase, you know, and people feel the mess that when, when we're not, hopefully.

Drew Toynbee: 00:46:09

Well, yes.

And, and being open and communicating, communicating openly, that's, that's like something, something that my wife and I have learned together over the course of our relationship is we, we, we obviously we got on incredibly well. We had a really good relationship when we first got together or we wouldn't have got married.

But when my, when my breakdown happened and we both realized the degree to which I had not been communicating my feelings even to myself. Yeah, it's a, it's a really, I really like the way you've made me think about that, Danny.

Because yeah, I am messed up, but the way that I deal with it is the least messed up way to deal with it. And I like that a lot. So thank you for that.

Danny Brown: 00:47:07

Yeah, no, for sure. And I like that phrase in there, you know, the least messed up way to deal with it is the most. I'll have to listen back to my.

So this is what happens when you get old. You forget the the sentences and the structure of that. But I like how you phrase that. And, you know, you set that there. I feel that's a.

Like you mentioned, that's the perfect way to have an outlook on that. Right. Well, speaking of messing up or not messing up, we have made it to the end, and I don't feel there was some dogs.

And for the listeners, I'm going to be editing this out. There was some dog barking earlier because my deliveries arrived or something.

That's why we don't do this live or have a video version because it will just all appear. But, Drew, you made it to the end of the five random questions.

Drew Toynbee: 00:47:51

Yeah.

Danny Brown: 00:47:52

As is only fair, I've had you on the hot seat for the last 40 minutes or so. It's only fair that I now hand the reins over to you and put me into the question.

Drew Toynbee: 00:48:01

Hot seat mine for you, Danny. And I'll come up with another one if someone else has asked you this already. What's your favourite life hack?

Danny Brown: 00:48:12

You know what? Like for me, I guess. And it's not a life. I don't know if this is a life hack or not.

I feel it is because I feel there's a certain way to do this, and if you do it any other way, it's not going to be as effective. So to me, that's a hack. That's a life hack. When we try to get our. Our kids are very busy. They're both competitive athletes.

So my son does competitive football, My daughter does competitive cheers. So they're always busy. So generally, I'm the one that does a lot of stuff at home. So my wife takes them to the sports events and training, etc.

So I get into a habit of how the dishwasher has to be arranged. All right? So when I'm loading it up, I've got plates here, eggs here, pots, cups.

And it has to be arranged that way because if you don't, it's chaos and you won't use it effectively when it comes to space. Yep.

So I would just tell the kids, okay, as you're facing the dishwasher, if you're coming in from the kitchen door that leads up to the backyard and you're facing a dishwasher, think what does I say? It's not like a phrase or anything, but it's like bowl, glass, cup, bgc, bgc.

Because it's like you put the bowls in because they take up the most space, then the glasses, because they've got the middle rack, which has got wider areas between the forks.

The prongs stick up and then you've got the back end that's got the cups because that's where the, the prongs are a bit tighter and you can put the handles through and just hold the cups in place. So like a bcg. Have you BCG today? So I guess. Does that count?

Drew Toynbee: 00:49:45

I think it does. I think it does. I think a hack.

I'd be interested to know if there's any kind of definitive, definitive definition, if there is any kind of official definition. But I like to think of it as unexpected efficiencies. So. And that, that is an unexpected efficiency. Absolutely. Make it like having a.

Not just having your own way of loading the dishwasher, because I've got my way of loading the dishwasher and it is not the way my wife loads the dishwasher, but trying to pass that on as a, as a, as a structured thing for people around you. I, I would say that's a hack. Thank you.

Danny Brown: 00:50:23

You're welcome. And that's. I thank you for making me think about that because I'm a life hack. You could go anywhere. But yeah, I'm going to go with that one.

Drew Toynbee: 00:50:30

Cool.

Danny Brown: 00:50:31

So Drew, I have really enjoyed Chattery.

I knew we would and we've like this is the second time for us to try get together because the first time that was just chaos and try to organize it and life happens unfortunately.

So I appreciate you taking time, you know, the second time around for anybody that wants to know what you do, wants to maybe do stuff with you online and film it. I've gone by your tagline. Have to get that back in there and just learn about more. More about you in general. Where's the best place to either.

I know you don't do social media that much anymore, so where's the best place to connect with you and maybe even bump into you if they're at events or anything like that.

Drew Toynbee: 00:51:07

I am definitely hoping to be at the podcast show in London in May. If I can make it work, I will be there. If I'm going to be active on social media, it's going to be on blue sky.

Just look for Drew Toynbee if you want to check out my suggestive and nowhere near up to date enough website. It is drewtoinbee.com and I, I need to change that because it's not even the name that I sort of send out on invoices.

I have a slightly different company name so it just feels very self indulgent.

But I, I'm working with the I'm working with the domain name that I got when I was an actor and thought I would need a website because I was an actor trading on my name, which didn't happen. But there we go.

Danny Brown: 00:51:59

And I will be sure I have to get back on and have a question about the actor. That's like, you sneaked that in there, you monkey.

But, yeah, I shall leave all the information to Drew's site and obviously Blue sky in the Show Notes.

So if you're listening to this episode online on the website or whatever podcast app you can prefer to listen on, be sure to check out the show notes as always, and the links will be there to take you through to Drew. So, again, Drew, I appreciate your time today and for coming on and answering five random questions.

Drew Toynbee: 00:52:26

Thank you so much, mate. I've loved it. It's been so good.

Danny Brown: 00:52:31

Thanks for listening to five Random Questions. If you enjoyed this week's episode, I'd love for you to leave a review on the app you're currently listening on.

And if you know someone else that would enjoy the show, be sure to send them this way. It's always appreciated. Until the next time, keep asking those questions.