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About this episode
A lively discussion unfolds as hosts Johnny Smith and Richard Porter explore the whimsical idea of car brand-themed pubs, inspired by a listener's suggestion. They share humorous takes on potential pub names, like 'The Griffin' and 'The Growler,' while critiquing the quirky language often used in automotive journalism. The conversation meanders through nostalgic automotive accessories and the kindness found within the car community, highlighting personal anecdotes of generosity and camaraderie among enthusiasts. The episode blends humor with heartfelt moments, making for an engaging listen.
Topics:
car brand themed pubs
automotive journalism language
nostalgic accessories
community kindness
pub name ideas
In the latest episode of their weekly Q&A spin off, Jonny and Richard answer questions about car brand themed pubs, the planning that goes into this podcast, car things lost to the past, and selfless acts in the car community.
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Hey, it's Raj.
And Noah.
And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong, the show that explores the all-too-human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.
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We'll be talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right,
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Love y'all.
I'm Richard Porter.
I'm Johnny Smith.
And this is On the Other Side of Things, the Smith & Sniff spinoff in which we answer your questions.
Can I start with a listener who signs off as Ken?
OK.
Although their email address suggests that's not their name, but we'll run with it.
They say, evening gents.
Coating Ken.
I hear it.
They say, evening gents.
Coating Ken.
I hear that successful car journos are buying pubs these days,
but I reckon they're missing a trick.
Well, yes, Jeremy's got a pub and James May has a pub.
So that is true.
I don't know anyone else, but that's just it.
Well, I guess Chris Evans, when he was presenting on Top Gear,
he had a pub or he still has one.
Yeah, I suppose so.
So anyway, Ken says they're missing a trick.
They should be going for a car brand themed boozer to guarantee a loyal clientele.
My question to you is, if you were to open a car brand themed pub, what would it be?
Your pub name must, and he's put that in bold,
must be a car journal nickname for the brand.
What will it be, gents?
Pull in the Chevette and Nova owners at The Griffin,
or go upmarket with the three-pointed star.
Oh, these are good.
Cheers, Ken.
As an aside, and I'm sure I've been guilty of this over the years,
it slightly makes my eyes itch when people do that sort of...
Here's the other way of referring to this car company.
Yes.
It's sort of like that brilliant Twitter account Second Dementions,
which picks up on usually newspaper journalists.
You know, so they'll sort of go,
China has announced the birth of a new giant, Panda.
The black and white ursine lovelies or something like that,
and they'll refer to the...
They won't say Panda again because it's like, oh, that's repetition.
Because they don't want to.
But when people avoid repetition of car makes by going,
the blue and white propeller...
Oh, yeah.
It bugs me.
Or...
It is annoying, isn't it?
It's when they also...
They use the hometown of the car maker as a synonym for its name.
I can't bear that.
Ferrari has just announced the new Testerosa.
Maranello says it will be available,
and you just go, Maranello doesn't say anything.
It's a fucking town.
No, exactly.
You mean Ferrari say that?
Just try and construct the sentence more artfully,
so it doesn't feel repetitive to say their name again.
It was always Hethyl referring to Lotus annoyed me,
because Norfolk is a far enough away place
for most people to understand anyway.
Then going in deeper to the name of a village
which most people in Norfolk haven't been to.
Why would you bother?
Why would you do that?
Also, they've been thrown off a bit with some companies.
Jaguar always used to be...
Browns Lane admits that the car is delayed,
and you go, again, it's just a street where their HQ
happens to be, but of course they're not there anymore.
So now JLR has to be...
Gayden says that, but at the same time it's like,
well, but they are also...
They have a facility in Whitley, in Coventry.
Oh, never mind.
Whereas Gayden's friend Whitley has said...
Yes.
Gayden and Whitley, and then it sounds like a crime-fighting duo
from some Sunday night show.
Well, maybe that's the name of your pub.
The Gayden and Whitley.
Yeah, yeah.
I suppose so.
The Lane of Brown.
Gayden Whitley also sounds like it could be,
you know, a friend of 60s man.
60s man.
I remember very, very much Whitley and...
Whitley and Gayden, we took a lovely walk down Browns Lane.
That's not a euphemism.
Please don't go there.
It's disgusting.
Yes.
I sense that Ken's tongue is in his cheek here,
and so, because I suppose the other options,
apart from the two that he mentions,
is that there's the blue oval.
The blue oval is, of course, the obvious,
and actually that could work nicely.
That could work really nicely.
It's weird how I find these terms slightly annoying in car magazines and websites,
but they are quite good names for pubs.
The Griffin.
There was a pub called The Griffin in London,
which I think was famous for having sort of cheap strippers on.
Oh, nice.
It was a boozer.
I've never been, I hasten to write it.
Good value strip.
This is one of my favourite things.
I mean, this was probably 25 years ago,
but I was told that it was just a regular boozer,
but then a woman would come onto a little stage
and take her clothes off,
and then she would come round with a pint glass,
and you would put 50p in it.
Well, okay.
Classy.
I don't know what to say to that.
But yeah, the blue over, why else could you have that?
Because what about the flying bee?
The flying bee, yes.
Yeah, but obviously not a creature, just the capital letter.
The prancing horse is an obvious one, I suppose.
Yes, the prancing, yes.
The angry bull.
Do people, the angry, I wasn't going to say,
do people say anything?
Because Lamborghini, obviously,
but then how do you describe that bull?
The raging bull, the angry bull?
I don't know.
Yeah.
Bastard bull.
I think I might have done this once on sniff petrol
to sort of take the piss off people who go the blue oval.
The three-point-star was to try and describe the Alfa Romeo logo.
Oh, so it's the snake consuming the man, isn't it?
Yes, or a boy, some people say,
and then there's a cross and some other bits.
Boy eating snake.
Or the Porsche logo.
The Porsche logo is very complicated.
Yeah, it is.
It's actually not a very good logo, not that fond of it,
because Porsche traditionally made quite simple cars
that just did the job well
and that was what was satisfying about them.
The logo seems very fussy.
Very fussy indeed.
Yeah, it's true.
We're sort of used to it, aren't we?
But I suppose it's like,
I always think a good logo is one
that you could have a stab at drawing by hand
and it would be recognizable.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's not the Porsche logo.
It's a very good at drawing.
And what about if you combined the Lamborghini logo
and the Toyota logo,
because one of them's a bull
and one of them's also possibly a bull,
the Toyota T, it's a vertical oval
and a horizontal oval overlapping, isn't it?
Yeah.
So is it like a Taurus?
It was always like a bull and horns type thing, wasn't it?
Or am I making that up?
I think you're making that up.
I thought it was just a sort of stylized T.
Oh, really?
I've just totally made that up.
Wow.
I don't, because there's no,
what's Toyota's connection to bulls?
I don't know.
They're like strong and dependable.
Well made, oxy.
They're very reliable bulls.
Yeah.
Oxy.
I do.
No, I can't think of it.
There's certain companies that have sort of escaped
this treatment, like Volvo.
Yeah.
What they will do, of course, is go,
Gothenburg admits that the car will now be on sale in 2027,
but they don't ever do like the circle with an arrow
coming out of it.
I wish they did.
That would really tickle me.
I like that.
I'm looking at the...
How's the Land Rover referred to as the green oval?
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Oh, of course.
Jaguar, the leaping cat.
Yes.
Oh, now that's a very good,
or the growler.
The growler.
That's what my post is going to be called,
the growler.
Your pub's called the growler.
There'll be someone that goes around with a pike
glass full of pound coins,
and then something will happen.
There we go.
What would you go with?
I don't know.
I'm looking at...
I'm getting bogged down in lots of logos now,
but so you've got the original Datsun logo
with the sort of rising sun behind the slogan,
which is a popular pub name already.
Yeah, I don't know.
I'm looking...
For some reason, I'm fixated with International Harvester.
I really like that logo.
Just the International Harvester?
Yeah.
Though actually, no, hang on a minute.
It might sound like an infringement
on another pub chain.
I've just realised.
Yes.
Well, but this one's International,
so it says screw you.
You've got local Harvester, you loser.
Take your parochial carvery and shove it.
Yeah, that's right.
What if you did just call your pub the Rising Sun
and you catered towards JDM enthusiasts?
We did Sushi.
Sushi.
It's a sushi pub.
Alcohol-free sake for people who are driving.
Yes.
And lovely katsu curry for Sunday lunch.
I think you've answered my question for me, Richard.
Thank you for that.
I much appreciate it.
Someone write in now and say that katsu curry
is not, in fact, Japanese.
I think it is.
I think it is.
I think it is.
It is, but I've read the story about it.
The reason it came about is because of the British,
basically, are responsible for spreading curry spices
around the world because of our colonial past with India.
The British went to India, discovered curry,
discovered it was delicious
and could make food more interesting,
and then exported it around the world.
Curryverse is the same thing.
Curryverse comes from Second World War, I think.
British soldiers bringing curry powder into the country.
And then just dipping sausages in.
Yeah, I think katsu curry came from sailors
bringing curry powder to Japan
when they were just merchant shipping.
And everyone went, oh, this is good.
Well, I think we've answered that really comprehensively.
A bit too comprehensively.
Yeah, too.
But hey, thanks, Ken.
Yeah, I'm going to go on to a question from Pat Brown
off of Suffolk.
Hi, you pair of pork swords.
Listening to the podcast of the day,
Johnny announced that he'd inherited some top trump cards
to pass on to Richard.
Richard sounded surprised by this,
suggesting that even though you were recording
a podcast together, Richard had no idea
how Johnny was going to start the show.
I wondered whether this was done for dramatic effect
or whether you pair have had absolutely no communication
prior to the show.
On the subject of the questions you were not expecting,
I was sitting with my nine-year-old son a few days ago
and for reasons I will not delve into,
a picture of Shirley Bassey in a boiler suit
came up on my phone.
Upon which my son asked,
Upon which my son asked, is that Michael Jackson?
Anyway, thanks for always making me chuckle
and keep up the work.
I mean, the Shirley Bassey in a boiler suit
being Michael Jackson,
I think the Shirley Bassey in a boiler suit
was that sketch from that iconic sketch
from those two old comedians
who I've completely forgotten the name of,
who used to be on at Christmas,
not the two Ronnies.
More common wise.
More common wise, yeah.
I think that's where that stems from
because I think she ripped a skirt
or did something and they put her
in a boiler suit at the end of the show.
But so, to answer your question, Patrick,
off the sofa.
I mean, that, absolutely.
It's like, it's sort of a sweetly naive question
as if you think that anything of this was planned
or disgusted and fancily.
You've heard it.
It's an absolute shambles.
Well, that's what I'd like to reiterate to listeners
is that we don't plan this.
Like, we write down, at best,
we write down a couple of observations
or thoughts or prompts,
you know, I write them in my phone,
Richard will write them in his phone.
He won't show them with me,
show them to me and I won't show mine to him.
And we're lucky if we phone one another
at the time we say we're going to,
let alone anything else.
And we focus so hard on making sure
that we're recording it at the right level
so that it sounds okay audibly.
That's as far as we get.
And then everything else is just completely winged, isn't it?
It's totally winged.
So, and don't be surprised
because obviously you've heard it,
you know how shambolic it is.
So yeah, we have no idea
what we're going to really talk about
or how long each subject's going to dwindle.
Sometimes I say something
and I think it's going to be a chuck away anecdote
and it becomes the main conversation of the show
or we come back to it a week after week
for whatever reason, like, I don't know,
the clown, the FNC clown or Prelude 2.2
or on that side of things or...
Yes, you make a throwaway remark
and the next thing you know it's on a t-shirt.
Quite, quite.
So that's the truth of it, Mr Brown off of Suffolk.
Yeah, thanks for asking,
but no, just as Johnny said,
we don't plan any of this.
So last week was it that you said
we've been given some top trumps.
First I'd heard of it.
Yeah, and I've actually put a picture of it on our Instagram
because Rich hasn't seen them yet.
So...
No, actually, when you send me those pictures
after we'd recorded, I was quite surprised
by the cover of those top trumps,
which was, if anything, sort of even more dreary
than I expected.
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I was going to move on to a question from a listener
called Paul McCarthy, who says,
Dear Flutes, I was recently reminiscing
with my wife about the fact you don't ever
see men on TV ripping telephone directories
in half as a show of strength.
No.
But this is true, I think.
That's true.
It felt like it was a thing you used to see
because there's no directories anymore.
Yeah, well, that's what Paul says.
He says, presumed this is a result of the transfer
from analog to digital.
Who needs yellow pages anymore?
With this in mind, what do you think
has been lost in the same respect
on the automotive side of things?
What's been lost?
Well, tearing phone books in half was
it was just one of those things that sort of
feels like it was on the TV quite a lot.
It's probably in the 70s as well.
If you're talking about show of strength
or prowess in the automotive world,
I think the in-car audio world is still around.
But obviously, because manufacturers fit really good
quality audio systems to their cars
because they collaborate with, I don't know,
Bose and Harmon Kardon, Mark Levinson,
you name it.
Cars have got surround sound in them now,
but rewind time.
And cars came with really crap in car interfaces
and real dog's mess, you know, paper cones, door speakers
and twin knob radios.
So the prowess was sometimes to say,
oh, I've added a graphic equalizer.
I've added a CD player and a tape deck
or an amp and some subs.
And it's got a six speaker system,
which only came with two.
So there was a real nerdy world.
And of course, you'd proclaim your absolute dominance
over others by listening to high quality loud music
and showing it off.
So and that's why the whole theft thing became prevalent
because obviously people knew cars were packing expensive audio.
So I missed that.
And I think that's lost a little,
although retro audio seems to be having a bit of a renaissance.
So what else?
Well, I wonder also if things that once seemed to be commonplace
like seat covers.
Oh, it felt like a lot.
So maybe it's because car seats were made of crappier stuff
and they wore out more quickly.
Maybe I don't know,
but it felt like a lot of people in fact,
or maybe we'd put seat covers on quite new cars
to keep the seats nice.
Yeah.
For, I don't know when they sold it or whatever,
but you'd see sort of visibly fluffy non-factory seat covers
in regular cars.
There was one in the recent barn find I did of that,
like Breona Saab.
It had, yeah, had leopard print seat covers,
really quilty plush ones.
And the lady apparently put them on the car
when it was new and they'd never been off.
Like the perfect case in point.
And I just can't imagine anyone would do that now.
And I just, I wonder if it's because car seats have got better.
Yeah.
And so there's, there's had more durable maybe.
And so there's less need to do it.
I don't know if it is purely a fashion thing as well.
It would just look sort of dated doing it.
It would.
I'm not sure.
What about added lights?
There was an added lights thing.
Yes.
People used to add lights
because presumably the standard headlights were crap.
So.
Yeah, that's it.
I wonder a lot of this has been driven away
by the fact that cars generally have just got better
in quite subtle but important ways
that you don't need to kind of finish the job yourself.
But.
Yeah.
I also, is it, it's probably a bad time
to be someone who makes aftermarket wheel trims.
Yeah, yeah.
Relatively few cars now have wheel trims.
So, you know, alloys have become a thing on all but the most very basic cars.
Yeah.
Which is why I think we miss, we miss the deals.
I think that's why we've gone full circle.
But then.
Like nerdy people, I mean.
Yes.
The thing is about, I always thought that most aftermarket wheel trims
made you realize how much car designers earn their money
because they did sort of didn't really work.
The designs didn't quite suit the car somehow.
No.
In the way that the factory trims would.
But obviously the factory trims, you've got to go your dealer
and they're probably like a hundred quid apart
for something stupid.
And you could just get, you know, a whole set of four
from Halfords for a lot, a lot less than that.
But, but yeah, they didn't quite, quite sit.
They didn't work, did they?
Somehow you could spot them.
Well, if you do still see them around,
but I don't think that there was probably in the 80s and 90s,
they were, there was probably a boom time
to be an aftermarket wheel trim seller.
I'm trying to think, no, I like wheel trims.
And I also think, I think really people are finally in nerdy circles,
certainly, first of all, the exceptional circles.
They're finally realizing that some wheel trims
were actually really well designed and quite cool.
And because they've all but gone and everything,
like you say, is alloy, suddenly steel wheel, everyone goes,
oh, I'd quite like to put steels on that.
And I'm sure that's why I like steels because everything's got alloys
and most alloys are quite average and disappointing.
I think there's a sort of simple functionality to a bare steel wheel.
Yeah.
If it's done right, probably, you know, with the centre caps,
it doesn't just look like your trim's fallen off.
But yeah, it just sort of seems no nonsense, doesn't it?
And I think that's appealing and very classical
because the design of steel wheels is usually very, very simple.
So yeah, better that than a fancy, but ultimately quite horrible alloy.
Yes. Yeah, exactly.
One more that popped into my mind is the rubber strips hanging
from the back of cars supposedly to reduce car sickness, I think.
Oh, the earthing strips.
The same earthing strips, yeah.
Yes, I do remember the earthing strips.
In the 80s, once you'd finished watching a man
tearing a phone book in half on the telly,
you'd walk outside and you could almost instantly
see a car with them on it.
Felt like they were everywhere.
I remember that and I remember those little fingers
plastic fingers that used to stick onto the boot lid
to make it look like you'd slammed someone's fingers
in the boot lid. Oh, yes.
Do you remember those there with deep in the 80s?
Yeah, but that's something from the 80s
that has definitely gone away is funny in inverted commas,
things to put on your car, the trapped fingers,
stickers in the back window that, you know,
my other cars are Porsche and stuff.
Garfield on suckers.
Garfield on suckers.
Wasn't that you could get one with it was a man
and when you squeezed an air bulb on a pipe,
it made him drop his trousers to show his ass.
I have tried to find one of those for,
actually, I was going to give it to you for a birthday.
They are so rare.
So rare.
Yeah, they are so rare.
It used to call something like Mr. Fatty Bums
or something like that.
Yeah.
What?
Yeah, honestly.
I didn't know that.
Yeah, because he wore a T-shirt
and his head was facing the other way, wasn't it?
Because he was looking back with a cheeky grin on his face.
Yes, yes.
That's right.
God, I know there was a lot of comedy accessories for cars
for a while and Mr. Moon, Mr. Moonyman.
Was it Mr. Moonyman?
Well, that would make sense.
Yeah, what kind of money do they go for?
Well, I saw one that went for several hundred quid.
What?
Yeah, what?
Believe.
Oh, God.
I know.
And they're not really around, so it's quite hard to find one.
You've got me thinking now.
Maybe I'll have another look.
Maybe I'll have another look.
Anyway, there we go.
There's a counter through history there.
I've got a question here from
long-time,
long-time Patreon,
Fergus MacGyver,
and visitor of our events,
and late break show events as well.
Dear flautists,
I have a troublesome American RV,
the one that was part near your stage
at Festival of the Unexceptional 2024,
if you remember.
And it's forever breaking down with a new fault.
I think I'll call it the kidnap van.
Yeah, one time it broke down on our way home
from retro rides weekend at Goodwood.
The ignition amplifier had failed.
Ever hopeful,
I joined the Mopar Muscle Association UK Facebook group
while I was broken down at the side of the road near Petworth.
And I made a plea to the community for help.
Within minutes,
someone had replied to me saying they lived 15 minutes away
and they would deliver a spare ignition amplifier to me
to help me on my way.
I was utterly amazed
and I was touched by the kindness
and good spirit of the classic car community
to help a fellow motorist in a time of need.
What's the most generous and selfless act
you've ever witnessed in the greater car community?
Cheers, Fergus.
Oh, I've said your name wrong again.
It's Fergus McEva.
McEva, McEva.
Sorry, Fergus.
So that's a very good one
because I've known some very, very selfless acts
and people that just go above and beyond
just to help someone and keep a car on the road
and all of that kind of stuff.
There's a wonderful camaraderie.
Oh, you've got me.
I can't think of one off the top of my head.
I know... Oh, yes.
I know someone who...
I had a problem with the Dodge.
It was Mopar related, actually.
That's really good. Mopar related.
I had an issue
and I bought a new part
and it didn't seem to solve the car's problem.
I think we'd ascertain that it needed a type of part
that was not really remanufactured anymore.
And a guy in the States who was on the forum
said, I've got one.
I've been keeping it for a spare for my car
but it sounds like you're in a moment of need.
And he said, it's only really light.
He said, you can have it.
Just pay the postage.
So because it was small, I kind of got it UPS 36 or 48-hour delivery
to me.
And he didn't want anything.
He just wanted a...
I'm just glad that...
Basically, I'm glad I've hoarded it for this long
because it's helped somebody.
And it's justified me
probably having it in a cupboard for 10 years.
And I'm a bit like that.
I'm at that point in my life
and I've got things in cupboards that I've had for ages
and I think, if I can help somebody,
then at least it's that handing on or whatever they call it.
Handing down?
Yeah, it's just passing it on.
Isn't it passing a good deed on?
And then it ultimately is cyclical
and the good deeds will come back to you
if you pass them on.
And it's treating others like you want to be treated
and all of that simple stuff.
So that's what it's about.
And I'm really...
I'm a big fan of it.
I'm a big fan of it.
It's a sort of version of it.
Remember there used to...
Or maybe they still do advertise Patak Philippe watches
with the you never own of Patak Philippe.
You merely take care of it for the next generation.
Oh yeah, yes.
I always thought it was a bit wanky, but...
It's a little bit wanky.
Yeah, it's a little...
It's a one where I think a chap
was sitting in a chair looking at it
because there's a kid on his lap,
presumably one of his kids.
And the kid staring at the bezel of the watch,
transfixed by its beauty.
But the other thing to...
I know something happened.
I was on a big charity road trip in India
in a Hindustan ambassador.
And we had a big puncture.
And we'd already lent our spare tyre
to another person on the rally
because they had a puncture before we did.
And we didn't know what to do.
And these two chaps pulled up on mopeds.
I've probably told you this story before,
but these two chaps pulled up on mopeds
on their way to work.
They communicated to us.
And they said,
oh, we know a guy runs a tyre shop
like about 10 minutes from here.
We'll take it for you.
And they took the wheel off with us.
They insisted on helping us take the wheel off.
We didn't have all the tools we needed.
The guy put it under his arm
on a step through scooter.
Bloody hell.
And rode off with a wheel and tyre under his arm
and came back like half an hour later.
We were starting to think,
do you think he's ever going to come back?
He came back with a secondhand tyre
that was good enough.
And he didn't want any money for it.
And this chap didn't look like the wealthiest bloke around.
He did not want any money for it.
He was actually a little bit offended.
So in the end, just down the road,
we saw there was someone selling food
at the side of the road.
So we basically bought him breakfast
and his friend back breakfast.
And he said, oh, it's fine.
And the tyre was, it was great.
But I felt so, I was amazed by the generosity.
I was totally amazed by it.
It was really lovely.
I think it's, particularly it feels like
the world is in a very turbulent state at the moment
for various reasons.
And it's always nice to hear just stories
of genuine human kindness.
Absolutely.
For simply for the reason of being kind
and generous in spirit.
So that's lovely.
I feel like I've heard various stories like this
over the years and I can't immediately
think of a specific one.
But I think this is probably quite a good one
to throw out to listeners
and ask for their experiences of generosity
within the car community.
Because I know that there are lots of examples.
Hello at smithandsniff.com.
If you've got a story to share with us,
we'd love to hear them.
If you've got a question for this Friday spin-off show,
it's also the same email address.
Put Ottersot in the subject line.
If it's a question, don't bother.
If it's not, it just helps us to sort them.
Because we are shambles.
We are.
We'll do this all again next Friday.
They'll be back for a regular show on Monday.
Until then, goodbye.
Bye everybody.
Fred Meyer. Fresh for everyone.
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