BOB ON NATIONAL EXPRESS COACHES
“In the eighties, they tried to go a bit fancy. And I was always going from the northeast. So they started having hostesses. I love the Geordie accent, and they always try to be a bit posh if they've got one of those. So they go, [in Geordie accent] ‘Hello, welcome to the National Express to…’ [laughter] ‘…to London Victoria. Now, we've got sachets of coffee…’ [laughter] ‘…tea bags, and hot water’ [laughter].”
BOB ON A KEDGEREE
“It's just one of those nostalgia things, my mum was a cook. And she could do the most amazing kedgeree. And ever since she passed, I've never had a kedgeree that lived up to it, and I just wonder if it exists, and I think Angela might be the lady to do it.”
“Gorgeous, innit? It's one of those things that gets better after a while as well.”
BOB ON AIR FRYERS
“I've got a turbo twin-two drawer.”
“[I use it for] Everything, nearly.”
“Yeah. Chicken, thirty-five minutes. Yeah, whole chicken.”
“I brought it up because I take a power bank, you know, a little power bank to the, to the riverside, and then I can use the air fryer, and that's really opened out me cooking, um, opportunities.”
BOB ON BURNING HIS HOUSE DOWN AS A KID
“‘Cause I burnt my house down when I was a kid, so I've got a bit of a reputation. I was only seven, I didn't say I'm gonna burn me house down [laughter]. Accident, sparklers into firework box. Fireworks went off. Ran through to kitchen, like a hero, with the box, and they all went off in the kitchen. We spent about half an hour with Flash and Ajax and that trying to clean up all the burns. Went back to the living room [makes whoosh sound], ran next door to the old lady who lived next door and said, my house is on fire, and she said, ‘Yeah, we thought it was’ [laughter].”
“In a funny way, I was lucky. If I'd just burnt the kitchen floor and everything I'd have been in such big trouble. But because I burnt the house down…[laughter]. What can you say? [laughter]”
BOB ON DISLIKING PIZZA
“I mean, I just would never choose to have a pizza, you know? I don't think the bread's got much taste. I'd rather have tinned tomatoes, and sardines on toast maybe. I don't dislike pizza, but I would never bother having a pizza. You know when you grub around in your freezer to see if there's anything. I would go fish fingers. Before pizza. I'd even go frozen peas before pizza. It's nice, innit? With some mash or something?”
BOB ON FISH AND CHIPS
“Getting really hard to get decent fish and chips nowadays. Really tricky. I imagine it's the price of the cod or something, but…You tend to just get the little tail end and…”
BOB ON BIRDS EYE BOIL IN THE BAG BEEF
“No, that's my favourite meal ever. With, um, powdered potato and tinned peas. I just love that, but sadly they don't do it anymore. With parsley sauce.”
BOB ON THE GREATEST PIE
“Upex Pies in Middlesborough is a great pie. I used to like the pie they used to do at school dinners. The steak and kidney pie, but… there you go. No puff pastry. No thank you.”
BOB ON COOKING
“Eh…My wife's a great cook, so, and I think she enjoys it. So that's fine by me [laughs].”
“As I say, my mum was a cook. So when I was a little boy, she always taught me to cook. I was her little helper, you know, topping and tailing her Brussels sprouts and gooseberries and things. So yeah, I'm okay. I'm good at cooking the meats. And my mum always said, um, the test of a chef is their egg work. That's what she always said. I don’t know if that's true. So I'm quite good at eggs, she's taught me, I can do good scrambled eggs and omelettes and stuff.”
BOB ON ONLY EVER GOING TO ONE DINNER PARTY
“Yeah. That's still the case, yeah. Sounds like torture to me, I think it's because I was brought up in pubs and that atmosphere, and I'm comfortable then, and you can have a chat. I hate that sort of formal fear. I mean, it's for different folks, it's not for me.”
“The few people that I know don't invite me to anything.”
“I'll occasionally go out to a restaurant. Three times a year, I would probably go out. You know, wedding anniversary and a dull day in February. Something like that. And then if… yeah, maybe it's only two. Maybe it’s only two.”
BOB ON HIS MUM
“My mum used to do an egg curry. It was just rice, eggs and this sort of curry powder. Someone must have introduced it in the seventies. Some brand of curry powder.”
“She and my dad ran hotels, but she ended up teaching cookery at school.”
“I mean, my mum taught me when I’d go shopping with me, mum, she wouldn't buy any potatoes until she'd scratched and sniffed them. Because if a spuds got no smell it'll have no taste. So the more earthy the smell from the spud. And that's the key to it, isn't it? Is just having a really nice spud.”
“And she always cooked a lot of offal, you know. Just 'cause of money saving. And bacon bones and things. So I've still got an affection for that, for kidneys and liver.”
“But we had a problem, she would cook sheep's heads. And none of us boys would eat that. And she used to eat quite a lot of tripe. And again, none of the boys would eat it. She loved it.”
BOB ON HIS NEW BOOK
“I find books difficult. I don't like lots of prose and stuff, I like things to crack on. So I tried to write the sort of book that I would read. And on Would I Lie to You? I spin these yarns on there. And I thought, I wonder if I can do…”
“So, um… yeah, in this one, it's me, I always write it as me. His girlfriend disappears and um, he doesn't know where she is, and then four or five people suddenly - they come into his life or whatever. And it seems to me that some of them might have something to do with that disappearance. But who is it? It's a kinda whodunnit mystery.”
“It takes about an hour [from beginning to end]. I think, I don't know, they take about maybe four months or something, but there's a limit to how much you can write in a day. You can promise you'll do eight hours, but it'll never happen. You can maybe do two, three hours. I try and do a thousand words. I just sit on my sofa with my laptop with the telly on. Watching Married at First Sight, all that stuff I like. And then just type away. Till it says a thousand words.”
BOB ON SNACKING
“Well, Ringos for sure.”
“Um, absolutely. I like cashew nuts. I like the- I think their shape's quite amusing. And… you know that stuff, I love rubbish, it's such a shame.”
“You know, when I had my bypass the dietician came in afterwards, I said am I ever gonna eat cheese again? And she said, you can have a matchbox size, every week. That's all. That broke my heart, you know. There'll be people out there who do stick to it, but I think I'm probably in the school of thought, I'd rather have three years less.”
“And the truth is, if the, if the wife’s away, I watch zombie films, and I absolutely will have a doner kebab. Uh, it's risky for me - risky for me to include that in the show.”
Picture by Harriet Langford
