Gadgetory

it's the end of the podcasting year so we take a look back at the year that was 2018 including some lovely festive delights yes it's all coming up on the scene at UK podcast episode 549 hello and welcome to the show joining me is two guests on both sides what a festive treat you started rich so we'll go start with you next return home hello how the devil are you oh well thanks feeling festive we've recorded this in August this is prerecorded oh I don't feel festive are they joking we recorded in November it's it's early to mid December it is December I only came to be festive yeah and what are done by Kate Collins how are you also feeling very festive I even baked my foot first batch of Christmas cookies yesterday with chai spices yeah which we're going you'll notice that I've put some tinsel on our table for festive reasons but I think we can festive things up a little more I did go shopping this morning and I have done some some prep presents first of all a variety of Christmas headwear well we've got a book Rudolph antlers with a broken antler for someone we've got a Santa hat case you down to your right for a - other hats maybe you could pass me them up please it's totally festive this is a adventurers pith helmet - Advent it into Christmas and this is a cheese hat and as you know cheese is very festive we eat a lot of cheese at Christmastime - hatless fine Katie I assumed you may want the cheese I'm leading this adventure so I'm gonna be in the pith helmet but that's not all step into Christmas here we go would anyone like a festive what great Rajon it's all feather boa you know what I'm gonna have it's amazing and it is now roughing him so now in so let me tell you what else we've got on the go wow there's a hole so much Christmas no foot they're gonna Sam forces sack Parmesan and prosciutto hand cooked crisps for Marks and Spencers Kate that's worthless the other hand cut bones and prosciutto crisps are available by berry Co ham hand cooked Kristen marks dispenses thanks rose this is this away from the mic a little bit pigs in blankets with cranberry and orange dip that's it let's get those open put my table probably good crackling crisps with an apple cider and rosemary debt also very festive also notably that I bought these from Marks and Spencers and all of their Christmas range give money to shelter so this is basically charity that I'm doing this is um we've got festive mini macaroons two mini mince pies we'll have them in supplies take the taste away Katie you have them in surprise what else have we got we've got chocolate Santa's we can put those there we can have it those I bought solid milk chocolate Merry Men Merry Men how merry do they look so we have those too and I bought Prosecco yeah have we got something to drink well the answer is of course yes have so I think we should open this we can't go on with a festive podcast without some festive oh wait I do a podcast we are still in today then we're gonna talk about the things that we've enjoyed this year rich that is exactly what we're going to talk about on the podcast today and you know that's because we've already had this conversation so hopefully you've been digging through that your year and then finding out what it is that you want to talk about Kati I hope has been doing the same and I certainly have you know what don't get Prosecco in the might take a glass I'm going to take a glass and Katie take a glass Oh J would you like a glass would producer J like a glass of a second you know classy they have 100 mil 125 millings on them that's how classy they said I'm not old enough to have real glass they said I'll only hurt myself well the real glass has been used in podcast or two always leads to violence it's probably a good thing that we the podcast is is just using fake glass so your that with you so you're right in terms of the podcast we're going to be having a look through the year we've got everything from phones that I've been looking at we've got some of Katy's top news features of the year and this isn't news heavy this isn't timely so this week we're not doing for example the big oh-two data outage of last week which was as we all know a pain in lots of people's and behind yes including mine I got lost oh you are o - I was on a bus and I was just going to Waterloo where I go to you on a regular basis yeah I managed to get lost I had no idea how I supposed to get there I mean I knew how to get there but I don't you didn't know the quickest way to get interestingly nor will the buses because TF ELLs transport network runs on the back of OT s network so the Buster's were all they all could obviously run but they couldn't give their live location so in terms of saying affects everyone I am going to kick off my year in 2018 I talked about some phones if you don't mind as we always know it's the year is basically a battle between Apple and Samsung and still being the case this year do you agree rich how are those which ones you want parmesan appreciate so ample of course earlier in in autumn launched the excess range of phones there's nothing succeeds like excess of a-10s exactly they didn't really push boundaries like the 10 did last year okay so there's a lot of a lot of talk about Apple sort of again losing some of the birds though the sales weren't quite as exciting as they expected with the original with their with the ten before but Samsung hasn't had a great year of it either the S know saying should have stepped in and capitalized this just swooped in so bond with us yeah with yes 90 said that basically was the same phone as the s8 from the year before and there was only I had a couple of camera tweaks which really made any difference than it wasn't an exciting phone and the consumers have agreed like the sales simply haven't been very exciting for the s9 v s9 + Samsung has admitted in its company calls in its in its finance calls that it simply hasn't done as well as it should have and that they need to do something a bit more again and we don't have exact sales figures for this and the same was with the no because they launched the note night and but no eight did okay but that was off the back of the note sevens explosives lost yeah so it's interesting that they have that both companies have kind of gone with a very safe bet they haven't tried to push the boundaries of course and please do correct me if I'm wrong here but from what I understand well the the it's actually not apples most expensive phone that's been its big seller this year that's right it's the it's the the the iPhone 10 R which was introduced as a kind of a sort of a cheaper version it's like the iPhone 5c when they did the plastic 5c unlike the 5c it's not plastic it's still it's still a really expensive phone and you know it's got pretty much all of the features that you could wish for but without just some of those little extras that are really pushing the price up at the top end so and I think yeah from what I understand you know they've had to kind of ramp up production because the demand for that for that particular phone is being higher than they yeah I thought it would be absolutely and I think the safe approach that both US companies have taken is what's mendon this year is when hallway Chinese band Huawei has stormed in yeah and it's now the second biggest smartphone maker in the world what so it's really like there's been a big shift in kind of where people are really buying their devices and that I think has been kind of thing of 2018 while we've got what we always assumed to be the most elite brands playing it safe not really doing anything not pushing the boundaries but still charging a super-high amount you've got Huawei coming in and really building on what it's been doing with being a bit more affordable and pushing those technologies further because the the mate 20 Pro which I reviewed isn't brilliant phone it's really really good really high-end it's got cool tech like this in screen fingerprint scanner which was at the time was the first phone that we saw this on it's got this really amazing camera it looks great and it's a good couple of hundred pounds cheaper than it's Apple equivalent so people are looking at these phones thinking well woah is offering a more exciting phone for a better price yeah and they're going towards quoi way it's the same reason why oneplus has been going from strength to strength over the last couple of years and in fact to the extent where they are pushing out so they have announced actually last week that they are going to be next year launching the first 5g smartphone of a UK in partnership with EE so when 5g launches in the UK they will be 1 plus yep a4 wants affordable you know cheap but decent also kind of niche with a kind of cult following not really that well-known yeah very much like a cul a cult brand is now gonna be the launch brand for 5g in the UK which things have really really changed in the industry yeah we would not have been having this conversation at the end of 2017 yeah I would do remember like years now we were talking about upstart brands I mean it's pretty good about 10 years when we were talking about oneplus and away and yeah like wonder why fox and a bunch of other people have formed by the wayside but it is good to see like the market diversifying a bit so it's not just this Apple Samsung monopoly well also the the one thing that I've discovered as well and my talking to analysts about the arrival of 5g in Europe is there's always a kind of whenever there's a new generation of mobile technology there is a there's a reshuffle at the top so the the top brands from the generation before usually kind of fall from grace little bit there's a bit of a everyone has to kind of fight to reestablish they're shorting a little bit and you know we saw that when we went from 3G to 4G in particular in the case of HTC and which now is you know the kind of during the 3G era kind of rose to be maybe number three and thank you and the smart makers and now yeah and and you know we expect this is why for companies like oneplus and you know some of the other Chinese companies Xiaomi so they are seeking to establish dominance in 5g early so that because they know that they've got everything to play for at this point in time when there's gonna be a reshuffle and if they can but now is the time for them to really get absolution point so it's interesting is it thoughtful and insightful points that might be ruined if you are listening to the audio only version katie is wearing a giant wedge of Swiss cheese so that's that's interesting but I have a question dawn can I have a macaroon please a macaroon yeah that's the how how was that macaroon I mean I'm used to french french maid I would say that this is a bit it's not quite light enough okay quite AM stodgy in the sense Nagi more brittle and outer layer and with just a slight chew so I don't have a girl I need to be tuning into the Great British Bake Off podcast technology was a dead end so we just thought baking it one nice Baker yeah I don't know we like a macaroon this one pretty good I'm gonna save that on on my computer until later so that's kind of what's been going on in the year but it doesn't mean that going into 2019 we've actually got a hell of a lot to be excited about really because obviously the year launches with CES and Katy you're going out to CES are there any sort of big major things that you're expecting so far or is it a bit too early to tell looks like it's a bit too early to tell or is it that you're eating another ask you a question you've been prepared for or ask you a question but while you've got a mouthful of food and either way just just just ply one it's not too early to to think about this at all so we're you know we're expecting to see a kind of continuation of some of the themes that we've seen over the past few years for example greater integration with voiced assistants like Alexa and Google assistant so more smart home I thinks about home again is gonna be a really big thing this year it's traditionally not a big show for for mobile but given that it is such a an important year with thee as we just talked about the advent of 5g we are expecting to see some announcements in that area they'll be like the usual kind of slew of TVs and laptops and some kind of you know some things in the audio section as well and I personally am really excited about some of the robotics are gonna be on show there it's always a really cool show to see some robotics some often concepts but also we're starting to see the emergence of real kind of home robots we've had AI bow so you're realizing I bones in you exactly and for thousands of dollars you haven't one of our colleagues in New York Bridget carriers written an amazing review about what it was like to live for a week with either with her with her daughter and that they put together a really cute video with them kind of unboxing I bow and then living with him introducing I bow to and real dog and so that that was really cute so I'm really hoping that we're going to see some kind of interesting things along those lines we're also there the other things that are going to be big topics I think that they're really looking at smart cities and they're also going to be having a new section this year on travel technology which I'm going to be looking at and hopefully we'll see some cool kind of concepts coming out of that - cool um so that's in the beginning of January and of course we've got Mobile World Congress at the end of Feb and that's where we're definitely gonna see a lot talk about 5g we're gonna see a lot of 5g handsets coming out because if 1 plus I've got a fuzzy handset you can bet that most other companies will do we do know that we're not going to see a knife a 5v iPhone next year but I strongly suspect that Samsung's new flagship the Galaxy S 10 and will be 5g and we will see like 5g is obviously going to be a big topic for the show so it's exciting that we are gonna have that logic in the UK it's still a little unclear on what exactly it's going to mean because it's not just that 5g is not just the case that you're just going to have faster data speeds on your phone and then that's it it's about having more bandwidth for more connected devices like the Internet of Things and that sort of thing and it's still not exactly clear how different companies are going to utilize that so I think it's gonna be exciting to kind of see how the launch goes and sort of what what comes up about that but that's that's as much I kind of want to go into on the gadgets side of the show obviously we've had a great year in gaming as well I wanted to mention and big highlight obviously is Red Dead Redemption to which last night actually finally finished the game guys taking me a long time did you think at one point that you finished it turns out you really have not finished it keeps on going and also has the longest credit sequence in the world as well like have I definitely finished Oh is there a bit more yeah I wasn't but I as a phenomenal game really is kind of at the moment the absolute and the cutting edge of what gaming can do at the moment and there has been some things I loved before that Forza horizon for I also loved doing my own Forza horizon road trip around the UK and which is a feature you can go and read I'll put a link in the show notes and it's been good but there's been a lot of games that I haven't been too fussed about far cry 5 was was was fine visually it looked great but it was so far it was busy from what you were hoping for hole rich it certainly was shadow of a Tomb Raider again very mad was it was pretty much the same game as before except not quite exactly it was also just really black just really just not very interesting yeah which which which is a shame because it's a it's a franchise that I think it could lend itself well to a really good film yeah but we'll come on to that because we were we're gonna pick your brains about all film things for the year we're not only we're gonna come to you see you're the highlight of the show so we're saving you for therefore the big rousing did you name him I always I don't like the humanize aspect of it thank you okay try shoot I asked I asked as all I said all to go through our catalogue of the year and kind of pick a feature that is particularly special to you and for me this is a feature that actually has just gone live this week although really I probably stolen this from you but you can say this as well because it's one that Katie and I worked on together where we wanted to find out what hashtag van life is really all about what it's like to do a big campervan road trip and we took a VW camper 2600 miles all around Europe going to these amazing locations on these amazing roads to see what really was involved yeah and I think it was pretty good we didn't break down big millennial travel trends - oh really and what it is is it's this kind of taking the kind of nomad lifestyles for the next level which obviously has been enabled by digital you know online life and you see increasingly people kind of just going off and doing their own thing and working and living as they want and yes yeah this is sort of taking it to the next level often when people do this they don't as Andy and I do kind of take yourself off the shelf and they they often buy a ban and renovator take it out and we were and we also I mean in more ways than one because it's as we said it's a big Instagram trend now a lot of the pictures that you see on Instagram are you only really realized when you actually kind of get out on the road how much work it takes to stage some of these same photos where the vans are like decked out in fairy lights with you know these kind of people lying looking beautiful which is very it's very hard to do you don't look don't tend to look your best when you're traveling in a van and you know kind of firm these these beautiful in these beautiful locations and and we kind of went to find out sort of what you know what the reality of it was like whether it was or whether it was this kind of amazing sort of fantasy that you know is an M viewable state of living and I mean what we found was that when it came to the the freedom that it gave us and the ability to be spontaneous it was really great but you know there were other things about the lifestyle that you don't see on Instagram like the majority of the time you know especially if you're traveling through a country where you can't just well camp anywhere I love a lot of countries in Europe have those laws and you end up parked up you know in a kind of massive caravan park with you know people who are sort of 30 years older than you 40 lots of fans around by pensioner made their home that's the summer and and it's quite noisy and it's very it's not not necessarily that picture right a lot of people do just illegally wild camp anyway because it's it's we were told that it it's off it's the case in Slovenia certainly I believe that the fines that you're likely to get from wild camping would actually be less than you'd pay to camp for a night in a camping place okay anyway so a lot people will do that but the problem is is though when we're there writing for CBS we can't really justify really that we'd need to be we you know we have to be careful and we can't possibly say to encourage any of our listeners to do that but some people do and that's where they get some of that and focus and also the as I mentioned the justone it's is very hard to kind of you know sometimes you do have to go a couple of days without having a shower because you know you're not somewhere where there are facilities it's hard to kind of like look amazing and like feel that you're like your best and like the van gets grubby because you all you know it might be raining it might be muddy right being out and about and then you get in and it's hard to kind of keep keep it free of mud and keep it tidy and keep it clean like this it's kind of hard work to do that so some of the some of the way that it's portrayed is really very unrealistic and you know you have be the kind of person that's willing to put up with a certain amount of discomfort I think in man life exposed yeah I think that for us what we found is that basically it's it was great it wasn't such an amazing holiday an amazing two weeks and but but we wouldn't want to live us it was work but we wouldn't want to live in one like we I'd love to have one of the one with campus parked outside my house ready so if I just you know if you finished work on a Friday you can hop in your best getaway oh yeah well it's like if you want to you finish work on a fright on a Friday you get home and you can just drive straight up to like you know into the the heart of Wales and the mountains yes death Guildford Woking just want to get away - want to get away - stop it yes I'll have more please but it's not something that the whole the idea of like buying this and living and that becomes your life you perpetually travel there not I just don't think you'd be comfortable enough I certainly couldn't do it but it's but it is an amazing holiday and definite something you consider okay if that's you can rent one yeah and you can you know you can buy the vans pre-made you know the VW California ocean we made we had you know yeah not a flat back comfort of two wheels our standards if you want to add extra then you can be rich and so yeah there's mine there's my thing it's in the current if you've seen at magazine which is available excuse me in the US or its online at sina.com you can I'll link to in the show notes I stay in their life it's battery Katie hello tell us about your 2018 okay and I mean I've had a great 2018 you know that's good to know I've been I've been writing about kind of things that are on my beats so like news and features about tech in Europe I've been writing some more some some culture stuff with it's been really fun and I've also been kind of going a little bit off piste as well at times I'm writing about stuff just interests me but I thought I'd just pick out a few different things done with on the more kind of serious side and one story that's really been interesting me from a UK perspective to share ISM there's obviously been this huge data scandal with Facebook in Cambridge analytic er and and the one aspect of it that's really kind of got me hooked is this kind of ongoing battle that we've got weird between Parliament in the UK and Mark Zuckerberg where they really want him to come and testify and talk to talk to them about what went wrong and what happened and he's like no I don't want to come and talk to you yeah UK who obviously he's Congress in the US and he's also been to the European Parliament it's like a lot of US companies it just doesn't really give a crap about the UK I mean the thing is so I spoke to earlier this year to the politician who's kind of really been pushing for him to come to the UK damien collins no relation who is he's the chair of the Digital Culture Media and Sport Committee and he's been leading that Parliament's fake news inquiry and he you know he gave a number of really good reasons why why Zuckerberg should come to the UK I'm including you know the fact that a lot of the things that happened during the scandal you know Cambridge on oolitic as a company is based here and Alexander Cogan who was the the academic who harvested the data and it's based was based at Cambridge University and and you know he it also involves the data of a lot of UK citizens and now Facebook has sent I think at least three people and to answer questions in Parliament and none of whom have proved satisfactory have been able to give the committee the answers that they want it's quite telling isn't it that said that Zuckerberg won't come to the UK which seems to be one of the committee's that's really giving people a hard time yeah and he's gone to Congress and he's just had some like 90 year old senators asking when their email isn't working yeah and you know so I mean that there's been some have been some people doing good working yeah US and Europe how many but but but yeah it does seem like he's kind of ducking the talking issue absolutely and what one thing that they've done as well is that they've said that if Mark Zuckerberg comes to the UK for any reason that Parliament may issue him with a formal summons which means that they're gonna say an arrest warrant okay I mean it's effectively it's not an arrest warrant but they send they send the sergeant-at-arms who is the man in the tights with the thing every shoulder from Parliament to kind of go and fetch him effectively so if he comes to the UK for any reason any reason at all holiday work they dragged him through the streets about the ancient laws of Parliament will finally be applied to Mark Zuckerberg they put him in stocks and in the middle of bank in that five ways crossroads bit but I find this standoff really fascinating and it doesn't look like it's gonna it's been going on now since March maybe and when the scandal broke in fact I think that they'd ask Mark Zuckerberg ahead of the scandal to come and talk because this inquiry that they were doing has been open since last year and so it's been going on for ages than it has there's no sign of it stopping anytime soon and it's just a kind of it's like a battle of wills between them and they're both being incredibly stubborn about it and I'm just curious to see how it's going to turn out next year because they keep asking him to come on facebook Messenger might attend so what else what else would be knowing also sort of tangentially involves Zuckerberg this year is and the kind of the rise of French tech he says he eats more of his macaron McCarron I think your baby and speaking of macarons this whole kind of revolution Leibler tech revolution in France and has come as a result of their president email Emmanuel macron who is really kind of hot on the Digital Agenda and he kind of he's he's done a number of different things this year like he's kind of started this I don't know whether to call a treaty I think the official word for it's a declaration where he's it's kind of tech leaders and governments from across the world coming together to sign and this kind of document that says that they're gonna fight terrorism online and cyberattacks and all this kind of stuff and he's kind of spearheaded this and it was kind of something that he did around the Paris piece for him he also held a big tech4good summit in Paris in May and he's been the first person who's managed to do this where he's got tech CEOs from like IBM Microsoft Facebook uber like or Cisco all of these massive tech companies in one place to talk about the problems of the Internet and for some reason he is just he has been so hot on this issue and so such a kind of so shown kind of a real leadership he's actually managed to persuade them all so like leave America leave Silicon Valley and come and have this conversation with him which is quite impressive and I went to and I got the best wine yeah he offered them a cheese plate come on over we've got unpasteurized cheese and then they come over and they expect some cheese and a man in tights comes up and once on the back of the head drags them off to the chambers actually yeah in fact I've just heard a piece it's gone live today on CNET some big story of today which is about all of the ways in which Europe's impacted Silicon Valley share from GDP our antitrust Cambridge analytic her and some of this stuff to do with France as well but like he's also he's not he's not giving you know he's not kind of k'tau into them and sort of sucking up to them micron he's also he's been quite harsh on them and you know insisting upon more regulation and saying that regardless of cuz the EU is still discussing whether it's gonna be taxing these companies more he said screw you I'm gonna tax the tech companies anyone regardless next year so they'll be taxed in France so yeah I just found that a kind of real interesting sort of trend that I've been watching throughout the year tell us about Taylor Swift yeah okay I mean I don't need to be asked twice to talk about Taylor Swift tells about Taylor Swift but but now you have asked well I definitely will tell you and so yeah Taylor surfs had a really interesting year in terms of tech nology she had a great year just generally musically winning a bunch of Awards but she well then Taylor will drink to that yes but she's also you know she's she had that one of the big news stories of the last few weeks was that she struck this deal with this new record deal with Universal Music Group that means that she's and one of the kind of caveats that that deals we discussed in the podcast a few weeks ago actually is that if Universal share sells it shares and Spotify that it will have to kind of hand out the the profits that it makes from those shares to all of its artists that was one of the things that she wanted front incentive written into her contract she's also she's kind of trying to wield her influence I would say in terms of she's also she after she posted on Instagram ahead of the midterms they about her about who she was voting for in the midterms and encouraging people to get out there and votes she they saw a huge spike in voter registration but in her home state of Tennessee and where she's a registered voter but also all over the US which really kind of you know it was a one of those big stories of the year that showed the power of social media and what happens when and speaking of social media I also did a big feature on her use of social media this year which was kind of looking into the way in which she reaches out to fans online and interacts with fans online and then uses turns those interactions into real life encounters so she shield she'll find the people work she stalks her own fans and you know she'll she'll if she sees someone that she likes what she sees something that she finds funny she'll take screenshots and sort of get them she'll invite them to her something that she wants she has turned fans houses and find out where they lived and just turned up and given them things as well which if they did that to her she probably wouldn't be too happy so so you had a good you've had a great Taylor year those links in there is also resulting than you meeting but more excitingly when you met Tim berners-lee I wouldn't say more exciting and you know a bigger fan of his I maybe work his later single quite so strong I mean I think we all Sir Tim berners-lee a lot you know not not in any kind of monetary legal sense I've got his emails I just I'm not biting without him we couldn't be sitting here wearing these hats having this conversation right now yeah we've all got a lot of thank berners-lee so yes I interviewed Sir Tim berners-lee at web summits in November I was there in Lisbon for around a month so I think around a month around a week and the I kind of kicked off my I literally landed in Lisbon jumped in a taxi and headed straight over to the first thing that I did was interview Sir Tim which has been a real something to do for ages and we talked we talked a lot about something that he actually launched later that day at at website which is something that he's calling the contract the contract for the web and it's a kind of it's it's his vision and for bringing the whole of the world online and also protecting the freedom of existing Internet users and future Internet users as well I can't give a contract on something that's alright that's you're already on though you signed at the beginning as how it works thanks for the legal he's wearing the traditional lawyer outfit yet strange that he is not a legal authority so don't take legal advice from this man if you ever see him rooting around in your bins so yes lovely chat and he was you know I think he recognizes that that the internet isn't perhaps know as this kind of positive a place as it always could be or should be and he he said to me in the interview and that the contract it to a certain extent paints a picture of the world in which is is better than this one and it says that we can do better than what we have now so it's kind of it's this of hopeful yeah that sounds good so that was a real that was really great talking to him because obviously he's had had a huge influence on the world as we understand it today and what piece would you like to highlight this is a piece I wrote a week or so ago which was sort of I would say review but it was more of an essay really on my personal reaction to Netflix's six parts documentary series dogs dogs dogs that's a lot of dogs yeah and I just thought that this was really it was quite unusual it was not really something that it's not the kind of like standard Netflix fare I don't think it is because it's really beautifully shot sort of ode to dogs and the kind of the way in which they've enhanced our lives and and the way in which we kind of can help we help them as well and particular stories exactly so it's there are lots of different sort of things that each episode focuses on something different a different story around the world and the first episode for example is about therapy dogs and there's warned about fishermen in Italy who takes his dog out with him on his boat every day in their relationship and how he how he relies on this dog to help him what about rooming in Japan which is really really fascinating insight into the culture but yeah actually that was one of the things I really enjoyed most about it really the dogs were almost a kind of conduit for as understanding the stories of these humans you know they were just almost like a lens through which we see explore these like very very human stories and I found it really interesting the way that it sort of automatically enhanced your empathy for the subjects great story so I would I would love it if people would would read that and and also definitely watch it obviously as well as emotionally read your piece I will put that into my list of the CNET essential reading list and as a top up my Prosecco I must ask you about any particular picks from the food I got well I'm gonna be honest these crisps here whichever ones these are is that the ham yeah that's the hammond parmesan they're Grimm these ones just the plain ham ones I'm not sure I'd like to play home playing have a delicious ham and cheese I think a foul these mince pies these little tiny mince pies are really lovely so sorry rich I know you don't like them but men were nice Jay would you like a chocolate man he doesn't want chocolate man you're saying maybe you'll have one later maybe you'll add some more Prosecco then you're welcome to come and help yourself because we're nice like that you see on this on this show yeah um but speaking of me being nice I'm gonna give mr. rich you've seen a lot you've done a lot this year it's been a big year for you for many reasons oh why don't you tell us all about it well I got married to rich thanks thanks very much clean clean we got more Prosecco okay are you sure you should be drinking rich champagne that's in that's amazing okay yeah okay so thank you for joining what it what a year what a year it's been and so in the kind of movie and TV front it's been it's been quite funny I can't believe it's been it's the sister we're still in the same year the Black Panther came up for some reason that seems like it's just been with us forever I don't know when did that come out that was any good February or March it's amazing yes bring it we had quite a few so I've liked it on the blockbusters run they were quite a few like big dumb movies that got really choked a lot of funny people went to see it I think the immune Rhapsody venom the Meg yes a venom was Wonder for me I haven't seen it I remember you saying like that is the classic big-budget lots of discussion about it a lot of people didn't like it but it's just a big dumb Rock it's it is a bit yes done wrong city and you know I think we're gonna see if we're gonna see a lot more of those next as well so rich TC not this trend for these big dumb movies that people actually really enjoy going to see their money on cheating that in some ways that's a reflection of kind of the of what else is going on in the world a little bit like there's a lot of overwhelming stuff happening in like the political sphere you know we've got climate change you've got antibiotic resistance you got all of this other stuff going on this you know it's not like the news has not been easy over the past year or so and do you think that these this kind of like real sort of immersion into these sort of quite escapist yeah maybe maybe I mean next year is gonna be it's all about the familiar I think there's gonna be a lot it's it's all sequels it's all reboots so I mean if you look at things like Shazam the DC movie that's going to be like a big fun movie movie about shows out there making a movie no that's TV show but Shazam but they're making a movie about it oh yeah I'm sure you had this conversation before it's called Kenya Beach's arming is where Jamie Foxx played name that tune with Shazam I was a TV show there's a real thing do you remember that from when that comes up anyway so yes no I can't tell if you're joking no that's a real thing that was a real TV shows on this year well maybe that's June I'm sure it was but yeah that's I think that's possibly true I mean that said though if you look at you know especially as these blockbusters and franchises the series become longer and longer and longer they do actually become quite dark if you look at Avengers I mean you look at the end of infinity war which came out this year which was huge like half the living beings in the entire universe were were killed in that and so when we get to avenge is end game we've just had the trailer for that and that's coming up in April that's gonna be that sometimes can be quite dark look at the other half yeah they get the other half yeah exactly they come back the other half and a Captain Marvel is gonna be before I think Captain well was gonna be a little bit lighter that that looks like a lot of fun that set in the 90s and it's a Marvel movie that set in the past that looks like a lot of fun um yeah I mean this there's there's kind of there's there's so many sequels but what they're I mean you should look at isn't it just isn't he a load I mean so they make the Marvel movies and the Star Wars movies and they make the Disney live-action movies like everything is just wall-to-wall Disney next year yeah because they're remaking not one not two but three of their Animated Classics have been redone as live-action now it's technically they ever one calls it live-action it's basically just an animated but animated with computers few human actors in it so I think probably photo-real would be a better way jungle book movie exactly that exactly and they're giving that treatment to Dumbo the lion king and alladin Aladdin is my personal favorite Disney film of all time so I'm really interested to see whether it can recapture that magic that I just made me fall in love with that film is a child who's the genie in it is it Will Smith in the original Oh in the new one is it I can't remember I think it is okay yeah and that Dumbo is being directed by Tim Burton so that could be kind of interesting but it does meet him Burton yes so because because of that because of because of the Marvel movie so you've got Captain Marvel coming out in March you've got then you've got Avengers coming out in April and and then you've got all the Disney movies you've got Star Wars coming at the end of the year that means that you're basically a Disney movie like every month and also what's happening next month next year is that Disney is launching Disney Plus which is the Netflix of Disney be the big Disney streaming service and what they're doing is they're putting all their old stuff on that and then they're also remaking all their old stuff so there's actually gonna be remaking or remaster really no actually remaking so for example they're redoing stuff like The Rocketeer three men and a baby just like the list is actually n list of stuff that they're remaking they're making High School Musical the musical so it's always kind of crazy stuff I kind of feel like next year I can't you know sequels and reboots just kind of folding in on themselves there's being remade and remade and remade kind of culminating with Pokemon detective Pikachu oh yeah what the hell is that about what is going on a brilliant yeah I do think there's this you know there is some original stuff happening though so for example there's Quentin Tarantino's making a new movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood which has just everybody now which Quentin Tarantino did detect the Pikachu that would be cool there was a room who's gonna make a Star Trek movie at one point really yeah I mean I presume that's just a review that they're never gonna happen Tarantino Star Trek movie yes it's about that it's about the you know Charles Manson yeah I mean it's got Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt are playing a lot are in it there's loads loads of people are in it margot robbie is playing Sharon Tate who was murdered of course tragedy by yet by the child Manson following she's brilliant and she's fantastic and Damian Lewis is playing Steve McQueen which is interesting I kind of he's got the kind of face for it yeah Vincent see how he kind of pulls that off and there's also those few other movies there the Goldfinch and Annette the kid who would be king from Joe Cornish so that's like a kind of modern school daze kind of update of at the King Arthur myth made by Joe Cornish guy who made wrote and directed the type of block that could be interesting might be fun even seen see what that's like there's gonna be movie called radioactive about the life of Marie Curie and there's gonna be a couple of movies about true stories of real-life whistleblowers which is quite interesting there's one called Official Secrets which stars I think Kiera and Keira Knightley may be I think as a British whistleblower who leaked some documents about the Iraq war and then there's the report which stars Adam driver as the whistleblower who leaked the information about the CIA's torture programs so there's that kind of stuff is going that's going on there's also Tom Hanks is in a world war two movie called Greyhound which sounds like there's gonna be a lot of fun Christian Bale is in a movie called Ford V Ferrari about the LeMond demands demands the the mom the lemons 24 hour endurance race starring Christina Bell that is how Christian Bale will pronounce it accent um and also a movie that can be out on Netflix which we have a date for yet but it's the Irishman so this is Martin Scorsese making another crime epic in the style of Goodfellas and mean streets nor his other classic crime movies and it stars the dream team cast it's got to Nero it's got Pesci it's got Pacino it's got Harvey Keitel and yet this is like the ultimate mixed feelings for me because those guys are really old and so what they're doing is they're using cutting-edge CG they're gonna use them them digitally de-age them to make them look and I just think I don't know if that's gonna work it's really not have them be I don't have nothin don't know anybody tell about have them be their age they are I'm doing well this story is it's a it's it's about the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa and it's based on a true story or it's based on a kind of like a version true events about the the guys whom who claim to have been involved in the in the murder of Jim or the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa and so it is kind of like I can't help getting the feeling it's a little bit of a swan song for these guys getting the band back together one last time it's interesting it's on that it's on Netflix and Netflix obviously has been in the in the press a lot there's been a lot of back sort of back and forth about what about Netflix's relationship with kind of big proper cinema in a sense which brings me actually to probably the best film of the year which is Roma if that's on Netflix now you should give that a watch again that's a movie that deserve to be on a big screen it had a limited cinema release but it's absolutely fantastic deserves to be seen in the big screen if you can and so yeah so I'm not sure about the Irishman I'm a little bit unsure about that one but yeah looking back over this year I think it's been a pretty good year if you there's stuff like destroyer when the Col Kidman I don't know if that's available to see over here yet but that's absolutely fantastic there's searing stuff first man I thought was great underrated didn't make much money after that absolutely fantastic so a movie called the guilty which is Danish you get a chance to take that out you should the first one the aardman one no it's not it's d yeah it's the oddmund story of Neil Armstrong oh that isn't gromek get a rocket and they go to the moon the Arbonne so it was early man that early my fav men playing you can see where I got confused that was linked to the World Cup wasn't it she won the World Cup no never there's been absolutely crazy doesn't it yeah and another movie that I saw right the start of this year was speaking about like Facebook and Cambridge and let's go and stuff was called the cleaners and it kind of was too relevant it kind of was so timely that with all that happened this year with Facebook that it just sort of almost got buried but it's an essential documentary if you get a chance to see it it's been I think on PBS in the u.s. very recently but if you do get a chance to catch that then then then look out for it and so yeah that's been that's been this year and in terms of the stuff that I that the stuff that I wrote and yeah where do you want to highlight what all aha I think we're the most interesting thing about this year's been I spent a lot of time talking to people who work behind the scenes and so for example I talked to the the guy did the makeup for first man which was really interesting you know you kind of you look at a movie like that and it feels quite natural and it doesn't like it was really wearing much makeup but you know it's an animation because it's an animation yes everyone's made out of clay yeah but yeah but yeah so a lot of a lot of kind of a lot of work goes into making something look like no works go into it and it's very similar thing with with visual effects as well now we all know about you know Black Panther infinity war Star Wars or the rest of it where the visual effects really obvious because the superhero is flying around the place punching each other through walls and shooting you know face of beams out of their knees really happen that's all in natural life no exactly and in real life that doesn't usually happen yeah but yeah but but nowadays the visual effects industry actually works for everything there is visual effects and everything you see so looking at history their period dramas and Sicario to is example I interviewed the visual effects people who worked on that movie it's hyper real it's set in the real world it's kind of like ripped from the headlines story and yet it's absolutely full of visual effects you know making the the sort of the sets and and the sort of the action sequences work so that's that was absent fascinating and also I got to play with the actual one the actual dinosaurs from Jurassic world for well we'll highlight those yeah and it brings really the podcast to a close except oh there is one last thing that's coming at 2019 men in black International OH new many bygone yeah human baby and II could write a movie review yeah the last Star Wars movie as well bringing the current trilogy to an end which will be fascinating that's next thing yeah yeah actually speaking of this year this year's ending strong bumblebee into the spider-verse Aquaman all great in diverse by diverse is the animated Spider Man yes what is man it looks really good it's one of my movies of the year Wow and it's instant in cinemas no it's probably now I don't know your life I only know about that because the trailer came on a Sony Xperia review handsets it was one of their you know it came on their to show up hug like nice the screen lows and so I was like oh this looks pretty cool and yeah when so I saw the trailer on this phone that's a great story it's a great story before I bring the show to an end games any issue as well I think I think I might actually finally watch Game of Thrones it means I've got to watch the entire thing before Mars you know you could always Christmas this guy you need a long flight to watch all the Game of Thrones Yeah right before we end I do have a quiz Oh put it in there I didn't put it in the script because I do want to surprise ya this is this is very retro I'm gonna pick this Prosecco drink some quiz Prosecco I'm thinking of my surface so that you can't see because I've written down okay only a few questions we've we've got a quiz with quiz ready I'll have a little top up too if you don't if you don't mind ever so much oh we need to begin yes yes the Galaxy Note 9 was launched this year with a whopping six point four inch display rich but what was the size of the first Galaxy Note phone oh I mean it wasn't actually a phone such a question was a phone it wasn't it was a phablet my points to Gryffindor any real any real guesses it was me first make a noise make a buzz noise pretend you're an angry Hornet angry Hornet yes okay I'm gonna go with current one is 6.4 okay this is finite we've got a 5.9 from rich 4.5 so do we have to work out who's in the middle it's 5.3 which i think is exactly in the middle no closer yeah rich gets the point yeah there you go and yeah okay this year saw the launch of the film Bohemian Rhapsody which we've talked about starring rami malek as Freddie Mercury yep that's correct I win but tell me how many earth days make up one mercury year relevance relevant questions 750 to make up one mercury year hmm pick a number any number gonna hurry your answer okay I'm gonna go with 288 it's a perfect 21st of a Sun it's gonna have a much shorter but for bonus point if one mercury year is 88 days how many earth days make up one mercury day sunrise to sunset yeah amazing also gonna answer the question yeah so how many earth how many earth days in one mercury day sunrise to sunset three for three days in one make every day yeah it's actually 176 Earth days elapse I said four so I was between one sunrise sunrise on Mercury because of the way that you know that's why I knew it would earlier this year we saw the launch of the iPhone X s but can you tell me three uses for excess human hair a cello bow wigs no Briggs one we've put our cases stuffing your shoes so that they don't squeak sound squeak putting down on spilt champagne clothes the circular oil spills is one legitimate use for human hair human hair is used excess human hair is shipped and used to mop up oil spills Wow okay Richards got one these got to really do you want to try and get one more okay no you cannot grow it like these are legit uses you could have gone with growing food and because it's often and used to create like a a webbing to help protect crops cleaning oil spills making wigs making clothes and nesting material for birds what was the starting storage option for the first iPhone beep 2 gigabytes which any less than that I reckon Oh 512 megabytes do you think I think it was probably that yeah I think 512 answer yeah 4 gigabytes really expensive was that that was the yes I was the entry according to what I googled earlier I am using a Microsoft Surface but can you tell me what is the slipperiest surface in the world slippery steps in the world I reckon probably is it graphene it's always graphene the answer these not far off oil it's a material called bomber which is material that consists of boron aluminium and magnesium it is a super hard substance that is just the third hardest to diamond and cubic boron nitride which I know was on the tip of your tongue rich you can apply this material to industrial things and they will be very slippery and as in very low friction but also extremely hard wearing so his believer that can save industries upwards 160 million dollars a year that is put into youth that does absolutely bring us to the close of this but you've had as many crisps and festive food as you want if all winners here have a festive Center we are already made thank you very much for joining us for this bumper festive episode we will put all of the articles we've talked about in the show notes why you're still talking and you're not handing over a prize what do you want you don't want there's a man I've already got a man I'm already eating enough of them to feel a bit sick so I don't want any more than I'll find your prize later okay that's fine a prize excellent do you make sure to let us know any of your comments by emailing the show we've seen at UK podcasters TBS ID calm you can tweet us with rich-rich night well at rich night well that rich no well yes twitter.com slash rich like well with a K and I'm Katie he got married so he no longer cares about anything you can find me with a battery HQ or see net on his usual social channels with at sea net and yeah leave your comments as well below in YouTube make sure to LIKE and subscribe to Cena for more and we will see you in the new year make sure to have a wonderful Christmas and a great new year and same goes to both of you see you next time