Now, obviously, I thought you were going to say yes.
Sorry, I appreciate that it's on me being blindsided by this.
I didn't expect no to hurt so much, Marianne.
Hey dear, are you just preparing for a rejection there?
Um, sorry, it felt so real.
It felt so real.
I know, I know, but are you preparing for someone to say no to you?
I'm preparing to ask, but I think it's realistic to explore every venture and every possible outcome.
You could have given me a heads up before you told me, you just told me to say no to you.
And now I feel awful bad because that felt, I mean, I know you were getting ready, but that felt real.
No, I didn't think you were, Marianne, don't worry.
I was just sort of putting her face onto your face and like feeling the way, because you just said no with not that much of an inspiring delivery.
But in my head, Marianne had about like three to four minutes of uninterrupted, not necessarily gently letting me down,
but calling me out on the mistakes that I've made over the last four to five years of our relationship.
If you think that you're not meant to be together, why are you asking?
No, I think, I think I would like it.
I just, I don't have a good read on whether or not she would like it.
Right. Well, how about this?
So I'm going into this blind.
How about this? You give me the ring and I'll practice in her and I'll let you know what she comes back with.
I don't want you to steal my girlfriend.
No, I won't. I don't want, I don't want another.
I'm celibate. I'm done with all that.
I don't need another.
I, they're just hanging off me and I'm keep telling them no.
You know, it's the rejection that makes them want you a little bit more.
No, I appreciate that must be hard for you, sister.
It is. I'm like, I'm married to God.
So please stop. But they just, some of these little, I'm sorry to use the phrase, hound dogs, but they just don't respect.
And sometimes, in fact, some of them are like, I do respect, I know, but it just makes me want you more, sister.
And I'm like, stop climbing over that, stop climbing over that fence.
These prisoners, hound dogs.
Welcome back to Dunbracken.
Mayor Anders took a trip to Iceland last week and was so impressed by the airport lounge that he has decided to introduce a duty free lounge here in town.
You can find it behind the bus stop at the old abandoned shed that the kids have been loitering at.
But don't worry, you won't have to be scared of those unruly teens anymore now that there is a paid security member and staff at the duty free lounge,
where you can lounge completely free of any and all duties in your life.
Is there anyone sitting there?
Oh, yeah. Sorry. Can I sit here?
Yeah. Yeah. No, thanks.
Go ahead. Yeah.
Just get my laptop out and...
I'm actually, I'm just going to be doing a bit of work and I'll have headphones on.
So if you need me to move or anything, just let me know.
No, it's fine. You have the headphones on.
So I'll have my headphones.
There's your filter coffee, Sam, just the usual.
Thanks very much. Thank you.
Thanks, Kenny.
Hi, Kenny. Can I get a latte?
Ah, there's a queue.
I asked you like 10 minutes ago.
Yeah, it's not waiter service.
You have to come up to the counter like everybody else.
I just don't want to lose my place.
I have my laptop here.
Okay. Yeah, fine.
Hey, sorry. Hey. Hi.
Hey. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah.
Sorry. Do you know, is there a way that...
Is there an end you have to do with the waiters and stuff?
They give me like a little bit of a course.
I'm not interested in giving you date and advice.
I'm just trying to do some work.
I'm not looking for the number and I just want to know,
is there like... Because they won't let me order a coffee.
I went up to the front and they said,
nope, table service. I went back to a table.
They said, nope, order in the queue.
I don't really know what your situation is here.
I'm just writing a screenplay.
I didn't ask.
If you want a coffee, then you go up and get a coffee.
And Sam, oh, here's a wee Amaretti biscotti for you.
Thanks very much, Kenny. There you go.
Wonderful stuff. Yeah, I'm quite busy.
So enjoy your coffee and your screenplay.
No, I don't have a coffee. That's the...
I guess I'll just leave my laptop here, I guess, and join the...
There's like three people in the queue.
Are you going up to the counter?
Yeah, I am going up to the counter.
Well, you know, I'm not going to watch that for you.
I'm quite busy.
So that's all right.
Just people trying and trying to get, you know,
keep your eye on that. Then there goes 10 minutes.
Could you like, if someone goes to sit down,
you don't have to be watching it,
but you could just say like, oh, that's somebody's laptop.
If someone other than me comes and takes the laptop,
could you just say that's someone's laptop?
No. All right.
Cheers. What was it, Sam?
Yes, cheers.
OK, bye.
I'm really sorry, ma'am.
I'm going to have to ask you to leave.
You don't have lounge access.
You didn't check in with one of the members of the staff
as you came in and you're filling your plate up with
a suspicious amount of mac and cheese and potato salad,
as those are the free food that are currently on buffet.
My husband has lounge access.
Can you redirect me to your husband?
I'm using his lounge access.
We can extend that.
OK, good. So I'll just continue.
No, we can extend that if you present a valid pass.
Keep lifting this.
As you come into the lounge.
Shrimp? This is shrimp?
Did you say? Is that what you said?
That's potato salad.
I've never had fancy food, so it confuses me.
It smells like shrimp.
Well, actually, we typically don't leave the meat out.
That's sort of a...
You'd order that with one of your servers.
You'd order that with one of your servers because we...
Doesn't taste like shrimp.
We put the low cost food out for folks like yourselves.
Wow. What's that supposed to mean?
Or was it spelled out very clearly right now?
Ma'am, this happens to us quite a lot, multiple times a day.
My husband has his concubine in here.
Typically people...
Well, no, your husband has lounge access.
Is that what you're telling me?
Someone tries to steal his lounge access?
Is that what you're telling me?
What I'm saying is we're very used to running in with duty-free bags
and trying to fill up as much potato salad and mac and cheese
and lettuce as they possibly can.
Hey, have you ever had a bad day
where you just wanted everyone and everything to just fade away?
Have you ever wanted to just take a moment for yourself?
Have you ever wanted the Earth to swallow you up whole?
Well, now, that's a possibility.
Now that can happen.
I'm J.K. McLean, and oh, boy.
Do I have a thing for you.
I have created the first ever scream hole.
That's a hole in the ground where you can scream as much as you want.
By using Mother Nature's own beautiful soil,
I have been able to soundproof every one of my scream holes
so that no matter how loud you are, no one will be ever able to hear you.
The Church is trying to shut us down
because ever since we started up scream holes,
less people have been going to ask for God's forgiveness.
Why go to God, a man who judges you mercilessly,
when you can go to a Mother Nature
and be absolved of everything you want to say
into the void of soilly darkness below?
But don't just take my word for it.
Hear from some delighted customers.
Scream holes have been 100% proven to give you more time in the ground.
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Hi.
Give me a glass of your filthiest white wine.
Okay.
Hey.
Go on.
What year is it?
This year.
Oh, you are awful.
Go on.
What is it, Chardonnay?
You asked for white.
Indeed.
Fill her up and give me the rest of the bottle as well.
I've got a beautiful woman to attend to.
You may have noticed her.
No.
Derek, would you just give the man his wine?
Literally.
You're on probation as it is.
You're just not serving people fast enough.
There's a whole queue there.
Look.
I know you're the whole...
There's a whole crowd.
Yes, in here.
Hang on a minute.
Do hurry up.
You may notice in the corner table my beautiful date.
Derek, he's a man.
He's telling lies.
There's no woman over there.
Just give him his...
He wants to drink a whole bottle of wine to himself.
Just give it to him.
Charge him £12.50.
I heard that slander against my character.
I have a very, very beautiful woman sat there in the shadows.
I also have a beautiful woman in a shadow.
And I would like a tomato juice and vodka, please.
Derek, you know how to make that, don't you?
You just open the can of tomato juice.
But more importantly also, we're in agreement that we're both beautiful women that we're waiting on.
Right.
Hang on.
There you go.
There's your dirty wine and there's your cheap Bloody Mary.
Don't look at...
My good man, will you stick it on the tab?
What?
We don't do tabs.
Sorry, we don't do tabs here.
You need to pay.
Pay in cash.
OK.
How much would it be?
£12.50.
The entire bottle?
Mm-hmm.
Very cheap pub.
Shite.
Don't pay attention to the fact we both only ordered one drink for beautiful ladies.
I hope my beautiful date won't spit out as soon as she takes a mouthful of this £12.50 wine and say,
shit, it tastes like vinegar.
Well, here, look what I'll do for you.
I'll rub out the decimal point there on the receipt so it looks like you spent more.
Very good.
Yes.
Could you rub out the Mary in my receipt so I just pay for her bloody?
So then my date, who is real and exists, lives on gold?
Clarence, you have issues, man.
You come in here every...
Oh, come on, don't sell me shortly, God.
OK, sorry, Clarence, you're deranged.
Thank you.
No, he's a regular.
I know he's a regular, he's me fucking brother.
I drove him here.
Part of our income, though.
So would you just let him be, give him his fake Bloody Mary and...
Grant.
...give this man his bottle of terrible white wine?
There you go.
Delicious.
Oh, that just reminds me.
Here in this carrier bag, I have copies of the film 28 days later on DVD.
I'll come round.
If anyone would like to buy one off me...
Oh.
No, no, sir, you can't.
No selling merchandise in the pub.
It's not merchandise, it's films.
I could bring popcorn.
No, we're not watching the films, I'm selling them.
No, Clarence, we don't have a DVD player.
You can't watch it.
And so you can't sell DVDs in my pub, I'm sorry.
How about Blu-rays?
I'm so alone.
This is more of a Blu-rays establishment.
Whoa, you just sold me?
Why?
She owns the pub.
Well, could you sell DVDs and give me, say, 60%?
Yeah, if you give us a percentage of every drink you drink.
Nobody ever pays attention to Clarence.
I do give you a percentage on every drink I drink.
I think that's how it works.
No.
Derek's my home brother.
Clarence.
Yeah?
I'm in an argument over here which I'm losing.
Shut up.
There's this drink, would you give it to him?
Sorry, Derek.
I think...
Derek!
Derek, why are you...
No.
That's coming out of your wedges.
I am going to spend a few moments with my beautiful gate.
Nobody has paid me any money yet.
Ta-rah.
Oh, dear me.
Lover boy walked away without paying.
What are you going to do about that?
I wouldn't take that.
God, he took the wine.
I'd fight him.
Right, I'm going after him.
I'd box him.
Box the head off him.
Don't you worry.
I'll mind the bar.
Gary, can I stay in your house tonight?
Clarence, don't worry about it.
I'm running the bar now.
What do you want?
Real drink this time now.
Not a fucking bloody.
Come on.
I want the white Russian.
What?
Yeah, I bought this in the Judy Free store.
They just didn't have any containers,
so they put it all in the bag for me.
So which shop in the Judy Free did you get that potato salad from?
Jerkins.
Sorry, I'm not familiar.
Which shop?
Jerkins.
Yeah.
They sell potato salad by the bag now.
I see.
I'm sorry, ma'am, but my potato salad's leaking if you can let me leave.
You're keeping me in the lounge, and I don't have access to the lounge.
I was merely going through here because I was diverted.
Listen, I'll let you go.
OK, thank you.
Because you're just going to...
You win this battle.
I'm Jakey McLean, and I started Screamholes with only one goal,
to give my wife a place to get away from my incessant shouting.
On account of I lost my hearing in this one year,
one day at the Halloween parade when a small child
lit a firework that caught on an electric fence,
causing a horse to be mildly electrocuted and kicking out
in a spasm that saw it attack me and kick me straight across the ear,
bursting my ear drum in an instant.
I was in constant pain, and I have never been able to regulate my voice since.
Last year, before Screamholes, my wife was filing for divorce,
and now, because of Screamholes, our home life has never been better.
Our sex life too, because when I'm getting too loud in the bedroom,
she can put on the Screamhole Mini on top of my head.
The Screamhole Mini is a box lined with our Mother Nature approved soil,
which is the only natural, vegan, and sustainable soundproofing on the market.
And not only that, it means that you can take the Screamhole experience with you
no matter where you go.
You can scream in the office, in the car, on the toilet, at the bar,
and no one will be any the wiser of what you're screaming or what you're screaming about.
Screamholes!
Sister, how do I make Marianne want me rather than me having to choose after her
to tell me no to my face?
Through a series of carefully played out manipulations.
No, I mean, can I do it in the next few hours before I plan on proposing to her a dinner?
Well, you know what? I have a few calls with some prisoners to make,
and we could maybe get them on on it, because they're all fairly terrible people.
So we could really put two good noggin and two just real hound dogs.
Am I one of the good noggin, sister?
You are. You are.
And you could continue to be, but sometimes in love, we need a little war or two.
Have you ever read Tolstoy?
I didn't. The title put me off Love and War.
I thought it was a film.
It is, but the title put me off.
Tolstoy 1, Tolstoy 2.
They have theme parks for it.
I believe you're mistaking the great Russian writer of Anna Karenina with Randy Newman,
because, and let me be clear, just like with the hound dogs, you do not have a friend in me.
I'm providing you with a service.
I do not get paid, so I guess.
This is sounding too much like the Marianne in my head, sister.
Just trying to help you if you want a carefully laid out plan of manipulations that you could carry out in two to eight hours, two to eight days, or six months.
Ideally four hours.
Well, in one hour, I'll be going to the prison.
Would you like to come with me?
Maybe you could get rejected by some hound dogs.
I've been rejected by a...
I was going to call you a child of God, but aren't we all children of God canonically, even though we may not agree with that?
Sorry, sister.
No, no, don't worry.
The funny thing about being someone's child is that no matter how old you get, they still stay older than you.
God is older than all of us.
I was just sort of applying that I'm agnostic.
I didn't want to offend you.
Marianne's also annoyed that I'm agnostic.
She's like, get off the fence.
That's OK.
Choose a side.
Has she been to the prison?
I keep saying get off the fence to them, but they are trying to choose a side and the side is me.
Freedom.
Oh.
No, I think that's a secondary.
It's just the no gets them so riled up.
So does the teaser.
Should I bring out the ring at dinner and say, Marianne, I thought about asking you to marry me, but actually, I think I'm going to visit prison for a little bit.
Wow.
That's a great idea.
I'm rejecting her without asking her, but I'm putting the idea in her head that I was going to ask her.
Funnily enough, rejecting her is step three on my two to eight hour plan of manipulations.
Step three is rejecting her.
Step one and two are opening the door and cooking dinner.
What if I've booked in a restaurant, sister?
Should I cancel that now?
Yeah, because it makes the rejection more meaningful if it's in the middle of a home cooked dinner.
What if it's public?
You could bring a home cooked dinner to a public place like a prison.
Don't do that.
It gets them all the more excited.
Learn from my mistakes.
So I should break up with her.
Hold on.
Why am I breaking up with her?
I love this woman.
Yeah, but the no makes someone want them all the more.
She wants what she can't have, like a prisoner who wants freedom, but mainly me.
Even if they got freedom, they could never have me.
So, sister, in your eyes, as a woman who's very wanted, religiously and sexually.
Yeah, God fulfills me sexually all I need.
And by that, I mean, I fulfill myself sexually with his guiding hand.
Sister, I don't need this.
Sister, I just asked you to say no to me.
And you started crying.
Yeah.
Which just brought back all the memories of those hind dogs.
But I haven't fallen into the trance.
You've rejected me and I don't want you, respectfully.
That's because, as you said, I did not put any moxie or anything into my rejection of you.
You'll know if you get rejected by me.
Sister, are me and Marianne going to stay together?
If you follow my series of plans and machinations, no.
So I should ignore you and propose to her?
Yes.
OK.
OK, I probably won't go well.
That's why we got into this.
I'm going to go to the prison now and reject some man.
Hey, sister, maybe I'll see you there someday.
I hope you do.
Fuck, you've beautiful eyes.
No, stay on your side of the bench.
There's a reason the Vikings were able to pillage and destroy our lands.
And that's because our houses were made of soil.
So we didn't hear them and their pesky, humongous army coming up on us.
Take back your country by taking a little bit of land home with you today.
Screamholes Viking edition, out now.
And of course, screamholes aren't all we offer here at Screamholes.
Oh, no.
We have just finished up construction on our first ever Screambox,
which in layman's terms is a big box that you can sit in and lie in and under the ground
to get what it's really like to be a dead body under the soil.
So you don't have to have existential fears anymore.
Screamholes.
And sorry, I was just following the trail of loose potato salad.
I was wondering.
Get out of here. It's mine.
It's mine. Get out of here.
Get out of here.
I'm so sorry about that.
You're following the potato salad because you are responsible
or you're looking for who's responsible.
Well, I'm hoping to find the source.
I see.
I'll be honest.
Are you a member of the Lounge?
Do you have priority pass?
My friend has access.
No, I'm afraid that's not how this works.
Unless you have an uncanny resemblance to your friend
and photographic ID that makes you resemble your friend.
But I would hope that you didn't have that because that stuff's kind of,
you know, we're kind of disciplined on that stuff.
I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to intrude.
I'm just going to grab the potato salad.
No, sir.
Can at least use a container, please.
Don't take our plates.
OK, no, I'm sorry. I'll just take the bowl then.
Fine, you win this battle.
I could I get a lot.
Wait, we're sorry.
There was a bag that I'm just I was about I was about to order,
but there was a bag that was at a table there.
That's that's did someone move a laptop there?
Bags are your own personal responsibility.
We don't we don't do not read the sign as you can.
I understand my own personal there's a guy sitting there.
But I was I was about to order a latte, but I need to.
Sam, here's a wee cruffin for you.
Oh, thanks, Sam.
The word. What did you see?
Sorry, I don't know who you are.
So don't I was the guy with the laptop.
The you don't know me, so don't I know your name, Sam.
I know you have some sort of in you have.
If you could actually just mind your own business,
you've ordered four different things.
You've got four different.
You haven't ordered anything.
And they keep so how does it happen?
What happened to my laptop?
Just to be clear, I'm not interested.
I know you're not interested.
You keep so then drop it.
No, where where did my laptop go?
You had to have seen someone lift my laptop.
I'm very busy writing a novel.
All right. I'm quite screenplay.
What's your novel about?
None of your business.
Oh, what a great and cliched answer, Sam.
When you go fuck your novel.
OK, that might make it more interesting.
Can you deal with this fellow?
What's happening?
Have you seen threatening me?
I've seen a laptop.
So if you don't mind.
And here's a wee frappuccino for you as well.
How did he order that?
When did he order that?
So have you have you ordered it?
No, there was a laptop here.
No, he's a bag. There's my no.
I don't order here.
No, I know you're trying to order.
No, I was about to order.
If you're here at the table, this is not where you order.
I was about to order at the till.
Well, that is where you order.
So have you ordered to come back?
No, I haven't ordered.
Why are you sitting here if you haven't?
You have to make a purchase if you want to sit here.
I was I was already sitting here.
What have you ordered?
You've had this conversation.
That's what I'm asking.
If you're sitting here, what have you ordered?
I haven't ordered anything.
Well, if you haven't ordered, you can't sit here.
That's the rules of the cafe.
There was a laptop here.
What happened to the laptop and the bag that were here?
Was there a laptop?
Did you see someone lift it?
Laptops are your own personal responsibility.
I understand that there's a sign saying that.
I'm asking if you just happened to.
Sam, can you believe him?
Yeah, Kenny, can you just like I know it's difficult.
Just try and keep it down.
We've been just trying to work here.
Sorry, Sam.
Thanks.
Here's some chocolates as well.
Thanks very much.
Fuck this.
Back to Dunbracken is created, produced and edited
by Connoth McVeigh.
For more information on the podcast,
you can follow us at DunbrackenPod on Instagram.
Guests this week were Patrick Meyer, Marcus Keighley,
Laura Conlon, Gerda Donley, Robert Vaughan, Jemma Burnett,
Owen Heading, and Arne Marshall.
The opening and closing music was created by Connor Mallon.
And you can check out his entire album, Unearthed,
on Spotify now.
We look forward to welcoming you back to Dunbracken very soon.