Don’t Get Shirty: Love, Humor & Detective Work with Karen Whitehouse & Helen McLaughlin

So you guys, you got married and somebody sat on the floor at your wedding. We know about that. We heard all about that on the podcast, which is hilarious. If you haven't listened to it, dear listener, then, go ahead and check it out. Season two is coming out soon. Yeah.

Season three is out. Yeah.

Season three is out. Season two is the one with the suit and the case.

Yes. We did a little take on Scandi noir, and now we've gone to a completely new format, which is speed solving a new crime every 1 or 2 episodes. And that listeners submitted cases and we get up to all sorts of weird antics.

I love it, I love it. I want to know, how you guys decided to do this. You know, somebody shat on the floor of your wedding, which was its own story. We know what happened. I know what happened anyway, I see. Well, no spoilers, I suppose. What happened between the two of you, like when this started out as a story in your life and in your wedding? In your marriage? What? What happened for you guys? I mean.

I'll say the beginning part of that. And I think you take the final part. So, I didn't know anything about this until we got back to the hotel after the wedding. And for people that haven't listened, why, this is quite an amusing case. Is that someone shot on the for a wedding quite early on in the evening. The shits in question. The matrimonial Ted, as I like to refer to it as, I discovered it, along the side a few other witnesses at around 9:00 in the evening. It was in the ladies bathroom. I just felt it was too early on, too far away from any bathroom. And to firm, it was just I walked in.

I was like, that was no accident. Was the first thing that popped into my head. And because we got married on a boat, which is what we call an enclosed crime scene, we knew it had to be one of our nearest and dearest guests that were on the boat, so it was just this amazing kind of murder mystery whodunit set up.

Yeah.

But also, I mean, I think we genuinely like I think had an I put so much effort, and investment into making this amazing day and I'm a producer. We kind of organized, a lot. We put a lot of love into wanting to celebrate our love. And, I think we were. There's a point when you're like, wow, this is kind of funny, but also because I think it was not, it was not an accident. This something that kind of sits with you after it's going, was this a little bit intentional? Was there something actually a little bit more sinister to this?

We talked about this for probably three years, I'd say, and would tell people about it. And then you'd suddenly, if you brought it up somewhere, you'd suddenly realize and you'd look and you'd realize three hours later, everybody's still discussing it, or their own stories or a version of a story, and it's like, there's something there. And I think you were looking for a creative project, weren't you? And the one idea which which fell through, and then we were just like, well, why not? Why not just make something with this huge hole on the floor and then you just start thinking about it and the creative juices got flowing.

And you were amazing because, she gave me such support. She was like, I didn't have the money to make it, even though it's super cheap production. She was like, here's a bit of money to just go and do it. I fully support you, and I think without you we would absolutely wouldn't have made it. And it just became such a what made a lot of people laugh. So we're incredibly proud of having made it.

Yeah. No. It's delightful. I mean, again, it's one of those things where like when you type two people lol, like you're laughing out loud and you're not really laughing out loud. You're just signaling that you are laughing out loud. I definitely laughed out loud a lot during the thing, but that. But it comes back to this question about this thing that was maybe kind of disturbing, maybe kind of sinister. How did you decide even before the podcast, you know, in those first three years, to think it was funny or learn did find the humor in it. Is that a thing that you're naturally gifted at? Did you make a deliberate choice? What was the how did you pull that off? I mean.

I think we like in life to, make lemonade of lemons overall. And I think, that's a really beautiful thing of when something crap happens to you, how can you make it? Into something good? But I think that, I mean, for me, I think most of all, we dined out on the story because it's just quite outlandish and quite funny, and it's so rare to have an enclosed crime scene where you've got your best mates, all in one place, and your.

Family.

And you and your family, you know, had to be one of them. So we dined out in it. I think we laughed a lot, but there were a few quiet moments, possibly more for me.

As we were making it. You realize actually, somebody really did this and then it'd be quite horrible.

And I think you just would be at everyday moments in life. So a dinner party and then you'd be with some of your friends that were at the wedding and you'd look at them and you just go, yeah, actually, it could have been you, and you just kind of lose yourself for a moment and you just start questioning. There are little moments where you question your friendships and my boss, I was like, she was at the wedding. Was there something where I was trying to step on her toes at work or didn't do a good job, and you start kind of your mind starts spinning and.

Everyone is a suspect.

Yeah.

Yeah. What does it been like to bring that story out into the public? You know, like basically you're saying the seminal story of your marriage, and then all of a sudden your marriage, your wedding is under the scope. Has it been true of your relationship as well?

We both had the idea to make this thing, and we thought it was really funny, and it was kind of started as a joke. But Lauren, the detective, and I were both producers by trade, so we're both advertising producers, so we now sort of probably overproduce and get high quality content. So, we did that. But then I actually took a step back. And I always want to be like, what could be this? What's the best this could be? And, I thought you know, I've always wanted a thing. I've never had a chance to make my own stuff as a producer. And I thought, well, what would I want to make? And what's my mission behind? And I was like, I just want to make content to spread joy to the world.

And it might sound cheesy, but that was my leading, my leading mission. And I think that was. Yeah, I guess what led it all. So I think we both felt an incredible pride of the fact it, nothing happened for like a year and a half after we launched it. We just thought, well, that was fun to make and stupid. But then it went viral and it hit us just as we were moving here to the UK from Amsterdam years ago. And that's why I think we just we never really saw it coming, almost the success that came from it.

Slow burner and then all at once.

But it was a, the moments.

Yeah, it was survival tweets, which you can't really predict how that might spread. And it just went from like zero to like, was it a million in a week or something crazy. Hundreds of thousands in a week?

Yeah, we beat Joe Rogan at one point, which dropped us off.

On the fly home week. What week we beat Joe Rogan, which is insane. Yeah, that's true.

But I think there was a moment where it was a bit weird for us where, I mean, it was fully done with intent because before when I thought it just failed. But I selected press releases. I sent sort of all, you know, wedding pictures in a press pack. And then, like, the sun picked it up and there's a few stories, but nothing massive. But then they got like, all these journalists had our wedding photos and they were everywhere online. Like, you just Google Karen White House and Helen McLaughlin and our whole personal, intimate wedding photos are everywhere. Quite bizarre.

And I yeah, I try not to look at it. Really? Yeah. I don't really I pretend it's just out there, but I don't look at it. I don't like to see myself.

Well, I think the day the I just remember the I feel like it's such a superficial thing. But I know I'm not a superficial person, but there's just like my hair. The day of our wedding was just a bit of an abomination. And, you know, you're like, it was not.

I think.

It was. It was a downer. But great. But it was like a really oversize donut, and I. Anyway, I have regrets. But, you know, when you just make a decision, you're reminded of it in proper, meet viral media sense. You know, like the one day that I make a bad hair choice.

She has one lovely thing about it, though. So we listened a long time ago to a show called My Dad Wrote a Porno. It's a podcast where one of the guys father literally writes a few books of porno, and then he and his two friends, they sit and dissect it and, it's a really funny podcast. It takes you off to some other place because it's nonsense and it's silly and it's just funny. And I remember because I, I was going through a difficult time, after my mother died and we would drive around doing all the different things you have to do, all of that, you know, you get very busy, dealing with the state and so on. And it was so nice. And I think one of the other things we said sitting out with the podcast was if you could give people that kind of escapism, that would be really lovely, lovely.

And we actually did get some people messaging saying they were going through a hard time. They were, you know, things that were going on in their lives, and they just really appreciated the escapism. And that was like high fiving sort of thing. What?

They were all heroes for that reason. It was a very personal podcast to us. I mean, wildly successful. My dad wrote a porno, guys that just geniuses that made that. But yeah, when we got the messages of, you know, my grandma, just passed away. And I'm really struggling in your podcast as being a real sort of, you know, place for me to escape and just enjoy and actually laugh during a really dark time. So, yeah, it was,

It's quite an achievement, really. Those were a couple of the goals in the. And they were well achieved, I'd say. Yeah, yeah.

Do you know why those are goals for you? Like is that part of how you're wired in general or did you just I mean what is not everybody wakes up thinking about wanting to bring joy into the world. Why is that important to you?

Yeah, I guess we we, we've gone through a bit of a journey. It's, so annoying when you're like. We've been on a bit of a spiritual journey. Sounds so awful. But, we have actually, we've done a bit of work on ourselves, and I think we've both had, trials and tribulations to go through. And especially Helen had a very traumatic, period in the last eight years. And it makes you think and once meditate and think what, your purpose is a little bit,

You have to, I think transmuting energy, something negative into something positive. I think that's a good part of why we're here. Yeah, I think that's if you can.

Do that while we're here. Helen and Karen, why we're here or why people are.

Here, I think. Well, let's say I certainly feel like we're not here to be Grumps. I think we're here to be joyful and happy and spread love and joy and things like that. And I guess, show people that that's a choice, right? It is a choice. Being happy is actually a choice. Or you can choose to go the other way and find yourself in, in misery. And that's yeah, obviously a valid route, but not one for us.

How do you do that when you're not podcasting? How do you guys find joy or choose happiness?

Gosh, that's a question isn't it, dude?

Daily gratitude. Yeah. Good one.

Gratitude I would say I mean get it comes so not I mean on a relationship level. I feel so blessed to have, Helen in my life. I mean, you're just so silly, but stable. And, I mean, there's a lot of joy here. And we have a tough moment. So of course we do. But I think we help each other. We always do help push each other in the right directions and grow. I think in our vows, we always say one of those cheesy lines, we're like, want to grow together? But genuinely, I think the since I've met Helen, the amount that I have personally transformed through her help is massive. I wouldn't.

Say help. It's more support. Support cheerleader. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because we both been working on ourselves and we have we've evolved. I think that's we're quite lucky because I think if one of you is on a journey where you're growing and the other one isn't, that might be troublesome because you become part. And whereas we've been kind of a similar pace, suddenly, which has been, well, handy.

Yeah, yeah. Can you tell what would you tell us about your tough times? You said, of course we have tough times. What are what are those look like for the two of you?

I think our toughest time, the most heartbreaking, the biggest amount of grief that we. Well, you've you had a tough time with your mother. But for us as a couple, we went through the whole IVF journey, which was so incredibly painful. I looking back on it, I wouldn't change it for the world because it's our little I call it my little snowflake journey where I, I'm I'm one of these people that I my main issue was I'm always I was always overly optimistic. I would always win. I would never accept grief or I would always push negativity away, and not deal with it and not deal with it and just be like, well, at least I've got this, or see the positive in everything. And this is really it's so important to sit in, learn to sit in emotions. And it's been my biggest challenge and the failure to have children together over a period of four years, which was just heartbreaking.

It was yeah, every months getting your hopes up and then crashing and then well, you know, having to like put control over yourself, being like, am I meant to be running? No, I shouldn't be like doing high impact exercise. What should I be eating? Should I be having fun, should I not? And it's yeah, I'm.

Assuming.

It was all consuming. And I think that was that for us was a really, really horrific time. But also again, I, I appreciate the journey that we went on together. It certainly got us closer. It helped me work out how to deal with emotions, which wasn't my strongest points.

I think another, let's say, one of the other areas of growth. We moved to the UK about two and a quarter years ago, and we've moved from living in the center of Amsterdam, which is a sort of bustling city. You just step out of your door and there's action and, you know, you hop on your bike with friends, you can call people your, you know, in a bar drinking in 15 minutes sort of thing. And moving to the Cotswolds, which is very quiet. It's countryside. It's a very different pace of life. And I think some of the, let's say, the quiet and maybe more solitude, less spontaneity, it means we've probably had to sit with emotions more, I would say. And so instead of, let's say, avoiding or distracting yourself, you actually sit with it and actually work through some of those things. And I think that's also been very, transformative. I'd say hard as well.

The transformative.

Yeah. Why did you make that move? Why did you make that move from the city to the country?

It was actually a really difficult decision for us because, Helen hasn't got a big family. And so your friends, cos Helen's friendship group in Amsterdam was. It was your family.

I was there for 25 years. Yeah. So it was my home, really. I was there longer than I. We lived in the UK, so.

Yeah, she. As soon as Helen graduated from university, she got her first job and just went to Amsterdam. So it's. Yeah. It's been your life. I went there, on the other hand, with the intention. My sister was, living as an expat out there. She was one of my best friends. I thought, well, let's I'm a bit bored of London. Let's just pop over there for a year, see how it goes. Ended up staying there for 12 years. I met Helen in my fourth year. I don't know, I don't know, I'm not great at mass. But quite, early on, and, I yeah, I missed my family. My dad was getting a lot older and more frail, and he was sick, so I just, I it was a mixture of that needing to be closer to family and but also just feeling a bit.

Amsterdam is a fun, amazing city. And it's one of these, like, picture perfect places, but it's very small and you can get a bit of cabin fever and you feel like you're a bit in The Truman Show of doing the same thing.

You can cause Groundhog Day, wasn't it? Really?

Yeah. And I think we just felt both a bit stagnant, and needed it massive. I just, I just fancy to change and to be close to my family. And I think you can't really get further away from the center of Amsterdam, of a party city to where we are right now, which is a small, tiny town and.

A thousand people town.

In the middle of the rolling hills of England. They've got a tweed mill down the road and a couple of blocks.

Tweed mill, it's apartments.

Now, but that's literally all we got. A few farms.

It's been a good thing, though. So because your father had, I think he had a fall a couple of weeks ago and your mum was obviously in a fluster and she called and you were able to just hop in the car and go there and be there. And that was it was. That's one of the big reasons why we're here. So you're close and you are that support really. Yeah. So it's been it's been the right thing to do I think.

Yes definitely the difficult difficult.

But also and then let's say it's been transformative as well. So we're there helping your folks being near where your sister and her children. And then I think the the time we've had, I guess, to just become, let's say, was sort of evolving into a new phase of our lives, really.

It's also a bit it's always a bit weird to come back when you're older to the place where you grow up. And for Helen, where now? Where she grew up, really, it was very, very close to it. And I think that's a bit of a you found it a bit confronting. I think in a way, because you it kind of shows you Mark's age is a bit of a marker of. Yeah. Wow. We're we're away from the fun. It's not the fun phase. That sounds like a bad thing to sort of put Amsterdam at that, but is it definitely a different phase for us? It.

That was one of the things coming back and driving to like one of the towns up the road and then memories come back. Memories you've forgotten. I know my my stepfather died of motor neuron, which is pretty a gruesome, illness. And so lots of memories around that came that I hadn't really dealt with. But being physically here kind of brought a lot of those things back. And I've been gradually able to, I guess, process things that I maybe had been avoiding.

Did you did you do your IVF situation mostly in Amsterdam, or did you do that in both places, or had it. Yeah, really? Leave that behind. And what's that been like. Yeah. Is that been part of it for me.

Well when did we I think we left it behind. We may. I made a call, I guess I was, I just couldn't do it anymore. And I think that was like a year yet before we left.

We left in 23. And we were certainly it was definitely in 21 and 22, I would say.

Yeah, yeah. So I think we had a year of processing. It's the first time I've actually actively sought therapy to just try and process the grief. And I did that in Amsterdam, so I felt like I had done a lot of work before we came here.

Was that the lady with the pen?

Yeah. You get lots of when you're going through infertility, like nightmare journeys. You get a lot of hokey thinking people that just. Yeah, I don't know, the.

Lady with the pen.

She was a, spiritual kind of acupuncturist. She just talks. Yeah, I just spent a lot of money, and she just talks absolute bullshit back at me. And. But there was one thing I do remember where she said. Karen. I think she had an accent uncommon where it was from, but she said, here's a pen. And she gave me a pen in my hand. And, she said, hold this pen like it's the thing that means the most to you in the world, and it's a thing that you want the most. And immediately I just held it really tight. And she went, that's the problem. You need to just give the things that you won and the things that you love some space. And I was like, awesome, cool. I just want to get pregnant. So can we just I was like, it's hard to say. But she had a point. And I think it kind of I always I remember.

That she had pictures of loads of people, people's children, who'd sent her, like, success stories and photos of their children. Didn't you ever office. Now I'm wondering if they were actually really said to her if she cut them out of magazines.

I think she cut them out of magazines. The worst one was a meditation that I did where this crazy, she was crazy and an absolute fraud. She was like, I'm going to let you.

See lady.

Differently. No different lady. I mean, there's a whole like black market of dodgy, like fertility experts that I said should be in jail, quite frankly.

Feeding on that, that need.

The need and the misery. But yeah, she was like, I'm going to, guide you in a meditation to meet the soul of your unborn baby, basically. And like, it was some kind of crazy head fuck, to be honest. I was like, that shouldn't be allowed to sort of do that. But I mean, absolute, you know, when you sort of in a meditation, you're trying to open one. I being like, is this still going on?

That doesn't.

Sound right. It wasn't great. No. Awful.

So here you are. Now you're in the country. It's interesting to hear you talk about, like, my brain just kind of is trying to wrap my head around it. This idea that in Amsterdam, you're in a small, contained environment that feels like The Truman Show, and yet you've moved to a town that's smaller, and yet it feels bigger. Is that what you're describing?

It's more space, more like, I think there's a when I think it's the feeling of, intensity that we felt in Amsterdam. And I can only say that it's about cortisol levels. I think there's.

A buzz in a city, isn't there, continuously like you, there's, there's movement, there's music, there's, you know, there's a constant vibration almost. And yeah, you feel it, you know, especially in very busy cities. Whereas here there's not that it's very quiet, it's very still.

I think it's the I called it microaggressions when I only when I got out of the city. And Amsterdam is a bit of a crazy city if you've ever been it's.

People on.

Bikes. As soon as you step out of your door, you've got bikes that aggressively go past you. They'll try and clip you with your elbow drums or knock you down. You've got so many tourists that can't fit. They don't have pavement, so people are spilling out to the road. You've got angry taxi drivers, people shouting. There's loads of like hardcore trance like techno parties going on. There's like drunk people, there's people on drugs, there's like dog shit everywhere. I don't know, there's always just selling out. It's a beautiful city, especially the Unesco heritage site of the canal about. But when you live there, you just absorb these little microaggressions. You don't notice. When we moved here to the countryside, just step out the door and you just can breathe a thing.

And you can see rolling hills, you can see countryside and rolling hills. I think connection to nature is pretty important for that, say, grounding and recalibrating.

Yeah, I'm into it. I'm sort of like I'm trying to figure out in my own life how to slow down and just like, even just read for pleasure, you know, just like read a book for no reason other than because I want to, do you guys do you read pleasure. That that just occurred to me. Like, do you ever just read for leisure? What do you read?

Helen cracks me out with what she reads for pleasure. Mine is very much like a lovely novel that I'll just, you know, take me away somewhere. Helen will just be that many times. They will be, like, trading or some crypto technicals sort of book.

Or read things like atomic Habits.

Or. Yeah, that.

Sort of thing. Yeah. You know, like iterative change or let's say a lot of a lot of stuff about personal growth. I think because I'm trying to learn to trade forex and you need to be really present. And so to be present, you need to have dealt with a lot of, I guess, any, any baggage basically, so that you can think trying.

To learn to trade. Why do you say foreign currencies.

So foreign currencies. So there's this fundamental thing.

You're actually trying to learn a technical skill.

Yeah. So this fundamentally.

Was like I was trying to learn to trade forex like it's like a spiritual thing. You're trying to. Okay, this is like selling.

Screens in her office, and she knows it's.

Quite funny because it's fundamentals. It's technicals into, in terms of reading the charts. Then it's let's say risk management and probabilities, which is, you know, more maths and tangible. But then there's a behavioral element to psychological element about how you handle yourself in moments of stress and how you behave. You have to behave counter to what your intuition might be. So yeah, it's been really, it's funnily enough, that's been one of the things that's really driven me to keep evolving and keep changing is trying to get better and better at that. So yeah. So I lead.

Trading books about your trading is like an amazing therapist, actually. It gives me a reflection.

I had no idea when I started it. That's how it would go. But yeah, it's so I'm reading. Yeah, I guess so. Self-Help kind of things.

It's like you're. Is it your job? Is it your hobby? Is it just a side hustle that you have going on or.

That's my hobby. It's my hobby that hopefully will become my job one day.

What do you have? What's your actual job? Do you have an actual job?

I'm in cybersecurity. Like banking, insurance, okay, that kind of thing.

Sure.

She's pretty badass.

What's. Yeah, quite boring really.

It's not really, is it?

It probably sounds more interesting than it is.

Well, you got two keywords in it cyber and security. Those are guys are kind of fun.

I guess it's topical.

Yeah. And then. Karen, what are you doing? Are you doing the podcast? Do you have other hobbies? Are you doing other things or how do you.

I am this close to, giving up my day job to focus purely on comedy podcasts production. So I'm do the occasional jobs in advertising and I still really enjoy it. But, now we're on a big mission right now to do an always on show for season three, and keeps tackling the world's weirdest and most fun comedy crimes. To try and get. You know.

I'm going to brainstorm one because I want to be on I want to I want my crime to be on the show. I just got to figure out how to find one around. So I'll figure that out here shortly.

Anything that, makes you laugh, but there's a slight, sinister edge to it when you think about it. Oh. Sweet spot. Yeah.

It's quite cool, really, to sort of, let's say, carve your own path and gradually launch it so that you can step out into a new career. It's pretty I think it's, I would say brave, but it's, it's, it's you've been gradually building it. So for, for a few years now that it's sort of it's becoming a, let's say, stable structure of its own that you can step onto. It's quite it's quite cool.

It's taken a lot of hard graft. And yeah, talking back to Helen's atomic habits, it's just showing up every single day, keeping the faith. Just not getting knocks. When things don't work out or you think you failed, just, you know, keeping positive, resilient and resilient and just keeping focused on the goal and my goals. Just been to be able to breathe a bit more work from the most beautiful countryside, spreading, making content to spread joy to the world. And I'm like, if I can get that God, I feel that's success for me. So I'm just working as hard as I can to try and get there.

You get there.

I have a, I have a question. I kind of wish I'd asked a little bit earlier because I think about my work in therapy as detective work. Like, I sit down with a couple and they come in and they've got this mystery that is, you know, it's not working the way we want it to, or something went wrong or we lost something or something lost it, whatever it is. And so I think about my work kind of as a detective. Is that an identity that the two of you have cultivated? Do you feel like detectives in any way, or is there anything to learn about detective work from you, or from your podcast, or from what you learn from the podcast in the last five years or so?

Gosh, I mean.

I know it's the gag, right? It's the gag is we're bad at being detectives and learns like, I took this online course and maybe I can, like, try some stuff out, but like, is there are there actual principles and practices that have emerged in the sleeping at a mystery zone that are that are valuable for you?

I think, it's a really basic one, but just don't make assumptions. There's some natural, sort of when you, we've made so many mistakes along the way where we pride ourselves on being unqualified.

Yeah.

Detectives. And, Yeah, I think it's so amazing when you just go into it. And we're trying really hard to solve these cases. And we just naturally, in season two, we made such a mistake because we, really just went with all of our biases about what a suspect should be.

And yeah, we we've we've really missed it.

We did. Because you kind of have your, prejudices in your head. And if you don't treat everything as like anyone has the potential to do anything, and you really have to dig to the truth and not bring your bias pretty, it's actually really hard not to bring your bias to something. And I think that does apply to relationships because you you know, I think we had a bit of a bicker earlier today, and I think it was we're getting better now. I think it's saying, actually, I'm going to take a step back and try and explain, you know, so we don't fall into the biased point of view. So I was like, actually, no, I wasn't being like that because of this. That was a really kind, reason of why I acted like that. And I think it's just. Yeah, not judging people. Too quickly.

We dealt with that quite well.

I thought I could have probably said sorry.

I know you did, because I went I.

Went this morning. Yeah.

We had I think I was asking for advice on something. And then Karen was upset. I'd listen to a friend's advice and not her advice and was a bit, I don't know, sure. See about it. And and I was like, why are you being so mean? I'm just asking for your help. And then and then I was like, I'm just going to like, go away for a while. So I went to the hardware store to pick some stuff up and, and.

He sidle back in and I went, I have to apologize. And it's it's just it's always really harder than being the one that has to be like, I was a bit of a dick.

I think it was really good because then that, like, neutralizes it immediately. And then we actually talked about the root cause of it, and then everyone's like, oh yeah, I get that, I get that, and then it's smoothed over. It's yeah.

Did you say for charity?

She was shirty. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Make me smarter. Tell me which is that shit. Is that a is that you saying shitty with an accent or is that some other.

No, it's a bit like shorten and let's say grumpy and. Yeah.

A bit.

Terse.

Yeah. Terse. It's a good English word.

Yeah. I was like, I'm gonna use it. You were sure. I'm gonna use it when I'm in London.

I. Yes, exactly.

Don't get shirty with me. You don't get to.

Serve tea with me. Yeah, I'm the concierge at my home, so.

That'll be perfect.

Should we send you with a pack of a few English isms that you can kind of just.

Totally. Yeah. I'll take. I'll try them out. I'll just practice because I'm all about practice. Well, before we go. What what do you what advice do you have for people who are, I don't know, planning a wedding, thinking about getting married on a boat, just thinking about getting married in general. What would you say is the secret?

Have a forensic scientist on your guest list. Make sure you've got DNA kits. Just be really vigilant. Record everything. Make sure you get the CCTV footage immediately after because it does make.

Everybody up right away.

Exactly.

And be really selective about the guest list.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Just really check you really want them to be there and you trust them? That would be.

Although. Yeah, you just never know. That's the thing. Yeah.

You never know what your friends are capable of. Oh, family.

Okay, okay. And do you have real relationship advice as we part?

I think to be honest, it, you probably don't want to hear this, but I think it's about the staff just finding the right person. It just shouldn't be that hard.

It shouldn't be that hard. Yeah.

I think I feel so blessed like it is. I mean, it wasn't easy if I was straight before I met Helen and she was the first woman that I am. I had a little dalliance before I met Helen, but, it was just. I didn't even think twice. Never look back.

I think you taught me, let's say, to approach every situation from a place of love. And so that sort of compassion and love and kindness, and that's something I think that has really helped our relationship to sort of flourish and be quite mature in how we deal with each other.

And I think really the big one is, I mean, it is compromise. We had some absolute clangers of arguments.

In the first year, in.

The first year, really.

But I'm still in that one to.

But yeah, really bad. And I just because I'm not an argumentative person, it takes me so much to get to an argument.

I don't like to see you angry. It's really quite.

Scary when I when she pushes me over the edge and I change and I suddenly get angry. It's so rare.

It's happened a handful of times and I'm always like.

She squeals and runs away. It's quite fun. But I do think it's about learning your love language, because I think what I realize, and this is a message I want to get out because it saves like God, it's helped us so much and, really improved our connection. Was when we had a tense moment, I think. Helen, I think you won't mind me saying that you've got a bit of a fear of abandonment. So whenever we go into tense bad arguments, your instinct would be to push me away and say, well, we'll just break up, that I'm leaving, I'm leaving. And then I would obviously react going, that is so not I don't want to break up.

That's such an extreme, ridiculous, response. And then so we would spiral and be like, that shows like immature way to respond and like you don't mean that. And then all I learned is that she just needs me to come and be there and hug her and say, I'm never leaving. I love you so much. It it took a lot for me.

To be the better person to.

Do that, to do that. But once I did and I was consistently showed that I am sticking around and you understand what your triggers are and why, and you dig deeper that, I mean, it really, really helped us to learn the love language. And you know that I need a lot of praise. You need.

Praise. You need constant recognition for whatever it is, whether it's something you've done or said or produced or whatever.

It's free, isn't it? Just be like, wow, that was that was really cool what you did today.

I should say, set an alarm just to sort of remind constantly.

Wow, the kitchen looks great. Oh, you know.

That's the guy. Yeah, I give, I give, I give, I get a lot of men that advice anyway I look at I look at them and I see that they have an Apple Watch and I go just tell Siri yeah to every two hours, remind you to compliment your wife and is like, I can do that. I was like, yeah, you can do that. And yeah, she's usually sitting right there and I'll say, don't tell her. I said that though, because you don't want her to know that Siri is the one who is prompting you. But even the act of recognizing that's a priority and a skill that you need to develop is as a loving act.

So I think I think the other thing as well is to avoid two bottles of white wine in one sort of session. You know.

That the.

The only arguments we have had really, that were really bad were after drinking white wine, for some reason, we just were like, no, we just have one bottle. No white wine. No.

What are you okay if you have like red wine or tequila or.

Yeah. Anything else? Just the white wine. We realized they just seemed to be some crazy trigger.

Turned into monsters. Really?

Yeah. So yeah, we have to again.

That is. That is not. That's real. Like, if you're like, oh, we only argue when we have white wine. Don't have white wine. Like, it's just it's not that complicated. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty fine.

After two of those like arguments for like yeah cutting it out.

Although I think we're quite both quite nice. Maybe we should just do it one night and release the bitch. Let's let's do it. See what happens. Let's do it at your.

Sister's wedding and see how that.

Goes. Yeah, that'd be fun. Yeah.

That's awesome. Listen, I love talking to you guys. It's been fun to collect a little bit more of your story, to get behind the scenes of who sat on the floor of your wedding. Do you have anything else that you want to share with the whole wide world? Other. Your audience is bigger than mine.

Just if you have any known crime crimes or comedy mysteries that you are desperate for two unqualified detectives to solve for you, then just message us, DM us at APS who sat on the floor at my wedding or our website. Who sat on the floor of my wedding.

Dotcom 100%. I'm going to find a mystery. I'm going to submit it to you because I want to be. I want to be a part of the party. I want to keep you guys, thanks so much for hanging out with me this morning or this afternoon. And wherever it is, you have.

A lovely time in England. Yeah.

Enjoy. We'll give you a few. We'll send you a few sentences that you can impress the brain. Yeah, yeah.

So some of these phrases of Cockney rhyming slang. Yeah.