 Mr. Methane is a performing flatulist or petamane. He performs the art of controlled anal voicing, employing the same technique as 19th century Frenchman Joseph Peugeot, aka Le Petamane. He has performed his fart artistry at the world's top comedy festivals in Montreal, Melbourne and Edinburgh, as well as many public and private shows for exclusive clients. We first met in the mid-90s when we did a gala at the Montreal Comedy Festival. Jeanine Garofalo had a follow you. Please welcome, coming to us from the United Kingdom, Mr. Methane. Good evening or good morning, David. I'm not sure what time is it there. So, Mr. Methane, you and I met at the gala in Montreal. I remember Jeanine Garofalo had a go on after you. Do you remember that? I sort of, was that the big show? The one where it was Kelsey Grammer and Brett, Brett, was it Brett, a lady called Brett Butler? Today with a host. Yes, I do. And you were the, excuse me, for one second. I remember Bobcat Goldflate was there as well, wasn't he? Yes, it was Brett Butler introducing Loose Butler. Right, yes, I do remember, obviously I remember the show, but I don't remember, I don't remember who went on after me, because I'm always a little bit deflated after the show, if that makes sense. You know, I have to just go and have a quick lie down, really, and recuperate. I don't think, I don't think many people were that happy to follow, you know, I don't think everybody was that happy to actually follow me. I think Bobcat Goldflate did a set on what, because I did a few different evenings, you know, I did different, I probably did the theatre about two or three times, and one evening they sent Bobcat Goldflate on after me, and he did a whole part of his routine, and he says, well, why do I have to go on last? And they said, because nobody can follow you, and he said, I think the farting guy could follow me, you know, and then he got into this whole thing, he said, I really am sharing the dressing room with Mr Methane, you know, what did he say? Me, me, Mr Methane and Dick Cavett. He said, me, Mr Methane, Mr Methane, Dick Cavett and me, he says, there's a medium of the mind, you know. For our international listeners, Dick Cavett is a public intellectual, when Johnny Carson was hosting The Tonight Show, a more highbrow version of The Tonight Show was on ABC, and it was hosted by Dick Cavett. I remember, I was on the gal with you, it was you, I went on early, Gilbert Gottfried, and then you? Yes, Gilbert, yeah, Gilbert Gottfried, yes, yes, I remember Gilbert Gottfried, yeah, yeah, go on, because I'm interrupting here, I'm just getting excited because it was a good time, you know, I enjoyed the Montreal Festival, it was really nice. And then Janine Garofalo followed you, and then Jonathan Winters followed Janine Garofalo, and I remember walking up, I talked about this on the show last week, I walked up to Janine Garofalo and said to her, can you believe Jonathan, Jonathan Winters had a follow you, and she laughed really hard because she had a follow you, Mr. Methane, so you are truly a fartist, you can fart on command, correct? Yes, it's a muscular flatulence, it's not a dietary flatulence, so I don't use fermentation, you know, dietary fermentation, I actually expand the sphincter muscle and raise the diaphragm to draw air into the colon, and then I close the sphincter and expel the air, so it's sort of an anal breathing technique, very much I'm doing with my bottom, what Pavarotti used to do with his mouth, if you like, if that makes any sense to you. You're actually breathing in through your anus and breathing out? I am, yes, yes, because it's physical, obviously I think we're not meant to give our ages away, are we, as entertainers, but I am in my fifties now, I mean when we worked together I was in my twenties and it doesn't get any easier as you get older. Do you find yourself out of breath? Are you winded? I have to now do, years ago I used to just be able to walk on stage and give it everything, but now I have to actually do about 10 to 15 minutes a day, I have a little room with a table set up to adopt the farting position which is this like fetal position on my back, if anybody's listening you just put Mr. Methane or Mr. Methane as we say over here into YouTube and you'll get to what we call a blow by blow account on YouTube, you know, all the crowd pleasing videos are there, but yeah it's very physical David, so I have to practice now, you know, as you get older your body gets a little stiff, your muscles get a little tighter, you know, the days of my youthful farting days are long behind me and I'm sort of in this age now where I'm thinking that maybe I've done enough now to just actually give a talk about what I've actually done, you know, it's an unusual, there's a whole circuit of after dinner speaking, where people talk about these unusual trades and professions they've had and I'm thinking a journalist recommended that I maybe just talk about, you know, the highlights and the low lights and everything really about being at the bottom end, literally at the bottom end of show business and, you know, and just finish off with one crowd pleaser at the end maybe the blue Danube, you know, just to sort of leave them wanting more if you like. You play Hey Jude on YouTube, you sing along with it. Oh, I do. Yes, yes, yes, yes. That's the best of British compilation with a finish with whole lots of love by Led Zeppelin. Yes. And I finish it, I think with the punchline, this is my whole, my whole lot of and then let out a big colon cough. As you do, you know, I mean, where do you go? It's, you know, some comedians obviously because, you know, I appreciate how comedy works that you can craft a joke over a long, long time and it can just be based on getting a big laugh for the joke and just be about inserting a pause in the right place or an emphasis or just changing it a single word and comedians work for a long, long time to hone the jokes and hone the routine. And then they see Mr. Me thing come on and just blast out a rendition of The Blue Danube by Strauss and everybody's laughing. And they think, oh, well, you know, all the work I put into the vocabulary that, you know, and the delivery and he just comes along and does that. But it is, it's very strenuous. And it's difficult in the sense that if you put together a little show, you're basically telling the same joke with the same punch line. So you have to dress it up in different ways as you, as you move along. So you have to do things like, okay, right, you've, you've, you've broke wind to a classical song. Do something else. No. So then you have to introduce that blow out candles on the birthday cake. Then I might do a bit of popular. And then I might move on to blowing talc so people can actually see the colon coffees like a nuclear explosion by, by placing talc and powder on the seat of my palms. And the crowd pleaser, which you don't normally see at trying to keep it off YouTube. And just keep it for the Mr. Me saying, let's rip DVD. And that's the end of the show. I, I farted out into a four foot diameter balloon attached to somebody's head. It'd be like a William Tell sort of shooting the apple off the head. And I lift my trousers to reveal my derriere, insert the blowpipe and fire this little dart. And it shoots about seven or eight feet and hits the balloon, which is full of talc and powder. And, and really there's nothing you can do that would ever, if anybody asked you for an encore at many people, are you going back on? They really liked you. What's an encore? An encore. So sorry, but what can you do after you've just farted a dart into a four foot diameter balloon on somebody's head? There isn't anything that you can go back on and top it with. You know, that's the end of the show really. Yeah. So you perform all over the world. Is it safe to say you're more popular in Germany than you would be in, say, Great Britain? Yes, it's strange. No, it isn't. I completely understand why the Germans like you more. It's strange that there's also a thing about English people in, to, to a British crowd, I would sound like a northern English man and they'd think, well, there's nothing, nothing in particular exceptional about him. He doesn't even have a BBC accent. He has a northern English accent, which is like a working, you know, a Manchester accent is very much a, an industry, post industrial city, maybe like Chicago. So, you know, you'd be saying, oh, he's just a guy from Chicago, you know, whereas in America, people, you know, some people say that there's times when I sound like Ringo Starr, who used to be obviously the Beatles and then he narrated Thomas the Tank Engine. I always used to say I was the man that put the ring into Ringo Starr, but he obviously, we do have similarities because Liverpool isn't, Liverpool and Manchester only 30 miles apart. So I can switch into that Merseyside Liverpool accent, but in England, it's not like, yeah, he's just a guy from up there, but where in America, people hear a British accent and they go, oh, it sounds even better when this guy does it because he's British, you know, so, so the, the brand travels as well, you know, and the Germans, I think, do like the farting, but they like it even more that there's a British guy making a fool of himself, you know, because it's like, ah, they're crazy stupid English. How did they ever win the war? You know, it's one of those, it's that easy. And I don't mind being the ambassador for, you know, the thing is with England, it goes abroad and then it's like, oh, let's, you know, you think of the Queen and then occasionally you get the current Prime Minister, you know, it was Tony Blair, then it was David Cameron, now it's Theresa May, that, you know, it's very statesman-like or statesman-woman-like or regal. And I don't mind being the person who goes abroad and trashes the brand a little bit and indulges in the little bits of self-depreciation, a bit like Mr. Bean in a sense, you know, role in that. Right, so let me, let Mr. Methane, let me ask you a couple of quick questions. Are you allowed to perform your fardistry on television in England? Are you allowed to perform it on television in Germany? Are there any countries in Europe that doesn't allow you to perform? Yes, it's interesting. In England, when they originally started the, the performances, I couldn't get them on primetime television, but obviously I've been performing now for nearly almost 30 years, and it's suddenly over the years, the culture and the attitudes have changed to the extent that about seven or eight years ago, I ended up on primetime Saturday night television in England. In Great Britain, yes, with, I was, I was, I was badgered, which is like, I suppose, what's the word? When someone continually asks you, you know, and won't give up, I eventually gave in to these people. What do you mean you gave in? They wanted you and you said no? Originally I said no, I don't want to do it, I don't want to do it, you know, but they continually said, oh please, oh please, you know, please come, please come. An English term is my drink, you know, that's what I was always saying. So when was the first time you appeared on television? In England, it was late night television in 1990, a show on the independent ITV network, one of the big four stations, it was called the James Whale radio show, although it wasn't a radio show, it was a TV show. And were you on the BBC radio before that? I was on the BBC radio a few years later, suddenly, again, because times and attitudes changed, originally the BBC said no, and then about five or six years later, a new broom swept clean, the popular music channel, and brought all these newer, more edgier DJ presenters in who were given this sort of free reign to try new things. So again, I wasn't on in the prime time, but was on in the evenings. So Simon Cowell from Britain's Got Talent did not like you, you showed up for the auditions. And that was the show that I was actually the first time I was ever on prime time Saturday night television in England, it took nearly 20 years, you know, but the change happened. But you did not do well on Britain's Got Talent? I didn't do well, but I think I always feel that was part of the deal because I didn't expect to do well because I was going to, I was going with something alternative, slightly edgy and not really mainstream, you know, I wasn't, I hadn't got a nice little dancing dog. And then you went to Germany, but then you went, I did Super Talent. I did, I actually got to the semi-finals in that one, yes, yes. Did people complain? Did people complain? The man, I did a few concerts afterwards with a promoter from Switzerland. I was like, did a few of these, these big shows, big, big German shows. And the man booked me because he said, you made television history in Germany. He said, because your performance, I actually farted the dart. And the Germans being the Germans said, I tried to do it in a very English manner and conceal my nether regions, make it tasteful. But the Germans went for a big close-up on the sphincter muscle and the blowpipe going in, because Germans are just Germans, you know. And as that, he said, you made, he said, for the first time on Saturday night television in Germany, he said, we saw a bear anus and a man putting a pea shooter into that anus. He says, so, you know, he says, you did make history and you crossed, you helped to break the doors of censorship open, really, you know. But where do you go? The same happened in Sweden in the early 90s when commercial television came about. My show, apparently, my appearance, blew the doors open for all manner of strange things on this sort of, it was like a David Letterman late night type show. And never before in Sweden they had anything beyond just people sat on a sofa talking very politely. Did people recognize you on the street? In actually, when I was flying back from Sweden the second time, this was in the early 90s, the air hostess said, oh, did you have a good show? She says, I missed the show, but I read in the newspapers that you were coming and before the internet you had no idea, you know, on the internet it's global now, but in those days you had no idea what was going on in another country. So apparently all the newspapers had sort of built up the reappearance or the return of this man who shocked the nation six months earlier. And I had no idea that it shocked the nation because you just come back to England and like I say, there wasn't that internet, so he stayed over there. He stayed over in Scandinavia with the national papers, which obviously didn't really translate across the water to England. We're talking with the performing flatulence Mr. Methane. By the way, a lot of my listeners are aspiring comedy writers, Mr. Methane. And you said air hostess? Oh, yes. Yeah. And that didn't go by me or my listeners. And I'm going to be getting emails from them. Why didn't you jump in when he said air hostess? Because I couldn't. I didn't want to interrupt you. When? What's going on with the air hostess? Am I meant to say flight attendant to this one? No, it was a pun. There's just, oh, there's so many puns. Yes. No, you're right. Sorry, it's like, it's quite late here, some sort of not on the ball, so to speak. I want to get back to technique. So you're saying you breathe in and breathe out, but you don't make a sound when you breathe in, do you? No, there's very much if you, some of the videos on YouTube, you'll hear me, you'll see me flex, sort of flexing my arms against my knees and catching me breath going, oh, oh, and then you'll sometimes hear, if you're listening very carefully, you'll hear a, and that's the air going in. Can you whistle? Can you, what kind of, what are, what kind of tones can you make? Um, I was, funnily enough, I was watching the, the Montreal, you know, what we were on, we were on about earlier, the gala show in the Montreal festival and I watched the rendition of the Blue Danube and I listened to it and thought, my goodness, that is a lot less tonally, it's a lot less structured than how I do it now, you know, or all the renditions of the Blue Danube that you can watch on YouTube. That's an interesting point, that's interesting, Mr. Methane, because Louis Armstrong said, as I got older, I played much slower, much fewer notes, but I played them better. Do you find that that's true? Yeah, I think that describes me, yes, yeah, that describes me perfectly. You're hitting fewer notes, but the, it sounds better. It is, because you just, you know, what you do is, if you keep the buttocks splayed and just tighten the sphincter muscle, then you get like a rather harsh rasp, like a raspberry, but then you can bring, you can bring the buttocks together by moving your legs, so, so that then the air is escaping through the sphincter and also through the buttocks, so it's more like a, like a gas bubbling out of a swamp, but then what you can do is, on the end note, and you'll notice it on Britain's Got Talent, it sounds like I've gone all the way and maybe caught a bear in the net, and what I've actually done is, I've just relaxed the sphincter on the final discharge, so it sounds like I've had a terrible accident, you know, so, and I'll just go relax the sphincter, and it will just come out like a vroom, you know. I see. Do you have, do you have a tuning fork? Excuse me for a second, do you have a tuning fork? Do you, if you're being accompanied, will you say, we have to play in the key of A or the key of B? Can you play in various keys? No, because I think that the whole comedy lies in the fact that it is slightly off kick, you know, the fart always has to stand out in a sense for it to be funny, that the ones that get the laugh, I mean, I do this thing occasionally where I sprinkle a little talc on the cheeks of the buttocks, I can make it sound like I'm blowing a reed, you know, and you get a piece of grass between your two thumbs and you blow it in it, I can make it sound like a mosquito or a bumblebee, and I can do a quite a nice tuneful rendition, it's on the MrMeatHane.com album, I do a nice tuneful rendition of Swan Lake, and you know, there's times when the farting is so in key that it actually disappears into the music, and then people can't hear it, but the funny bit is when it comes out of the key, you know, it reappears, and then right at the end, obviously again, you just sort of... So is there a key, in other words, there are certain instruments where they say this instrument only plays C major, is there a... Well, everyone says the key of F, you know, because obviously they get a laugh out to saying I'm playing in the key of F. But what is the key, when you are being accompanied, what key are you playing in? Yeah, do you know that's something, because I guess I always get the musicians to, I always give them one for level, and then get them to worry about that. I've probably never, I must go away, next time I'm in the studio, which won't be very long from now, maybe another few weeks, I'll actually... Or I'd say I've got a few musicians in the family, I'll just ask them, basically. Frank Sinatra found, Frank Sinatra discovered that as he got older, and most singers discovered this, that their pitch is much lower, but there's a depth to it, a resonance to it. Are you finding that this happened where you can't play as high, but your lows have more... Yes, I tell you why, because when you're playing high, to play high, I have to really tighten the sphincter, and tighten the abdominal muscle region, because like a singer, when a singer wants to get those high notes, so he doesn't completely ruin his vocal cords, and you can make your vocal cords very sore, you actually tighten your low and abdominal region, and really, you let the air out, you're rationing the air that's coming through the vocal cords, because you don't want too much coming through, because you actually damage them, and I am doing the same thing with the sphincter at the bottom end, so I'm very, very tight, I'm using the same amount of air that I might emit from the colon in a minute on a high pitch, is the same amount that I might just use for a, you know, a big one, and because of that, when you're hitting those high pitches, you are very tensed up, and it is very muscular and strenuous, so you're not in a relaxed state, and so it is more quite physical, so I do avoid, actually, always doing this one, nowadays, in a live show, because I don't know if it adds that much to the show, I can almost miss it out, and people aren't that worried about it, because they just like the songs with the big disparity, and again, we're going back to Louis Armstrong, you know, just play less notes, but a variety of notes, yeah, yeah. That's a great singer you're singing from the diaphragm, and the way I understand the way you're describing this, you too are singing from the diaphragm. I am, yes, and I do, you know, I understand the technique, because in the past I've had singing lessons, you know, in the younger years, so I understand about the use of the diaphragm, the abdominal muscle region, and rationing the air coming out on the higher notes, and I'm literally doing the same with the bottom end, you know. And I just noticed, Mr. methane, I just noticed you cleared your throat. What happens during a show when you have to clear your other throat? Oh, it's a difficult one, because if without keeping it clean, because obviously I realize people could be having, you know, people could be eating, listening to this. It's very difficult, because you might want to clear your throat before a show, but if you clear your throat too close to the show, because you know, obviously you've got to make room in there, if you're too close to a show, you can have problems that, how can I say this? You've lubricated your passageway in such a way that it doesn't open up to admit the air. I mean, there's no way I could draw your diagram, but either way, none of this is particularly... So you have to time your... Yes. And so it must be very... It's a grueling... It's a very... It's very disillusioned. Eating as well. You know, you can imagine him, you know, because anybody who goes to the gym, you know, you don't go and have a big meal. You don't go to, I don't know, big boys and have burger and fries, and then go down to the gym and have a strenuous workout, because you've got indigestion and you feel a little bloated, and it's the same with this. You have to eat a few hours before... Is it a precise schedule? Is it very precise? If you know the show starts... If the show starts at 10, if you go on at 10 o'clock. Yes. I'd want to revet by seven. So I wouldn't want to eat any earlier, because with it being strenuous, I don't want to go on stage feeling hungry and weak. So I need the energy that the food gives me, but I don't want the food to be lying in the stomach and making me feel bloated, because I'm actually catching my breath. I'm laying on my back, and I'm catching my breath, and I can't... If I've got a stomach full of food, I can't do that. So... And as I understand it, as I understand it, this is... The sounds you're making are not a byproduct of fermentation. This is... They're not. No. So it has nothing to do... It has nothing to do with the food you're eating. No, but you don't want to full stomach, because I'm actually... What I'm doing is very physical, and because I'm laying my back, I don't want stomach full of food, just because I do use an awful lot. I almost create the vacuum. Uh-huh. Do you think... But let me ask you a question, Mr. Methane. Do you think it's misleading to call yourself Mr. Methane when, in fact, what's coming out of you is not methane but oxygen? It is. It is. I totally agree, and it all came about, because I just cannot shake off Mr. Methane, because... But it is misleading. It is misleading. Oh, it is, in a sense. Yes, he does lead people up the wrong passage, if that's the right... And it came about, because I used to be just called... When I first started, I used to work on the railroads, and they used to call me the incredible farting man from Buxton, Shumtinyards, Buxton is a little town in England, and, you know, there was a freight yard there where they used to switch the wagons or shunting, as they call it in England, so I was the incredible farting man from Buxton, Shumtinyards, and then somebody said to me, I went on a tour with a rock group called the Macklabs, and they said, we need a persona for you, and I said, okay, they said, we want to call you Mr. Methane, or, you know, Methane, and we want you to come up with a costume, a superhero costume, because we're going to make this character, we're going to write a song about this character who can solve all the world's problems with a fart, and so they wrote a whole song, and I put this green costume, I made this green, devise this green superhero costume, and they wrote the song, and it is actually on YouTube, it's the Macklabs, Mr. Methane, the song is, and, you know, I do sort out all these early 1990s problems like German unity, you know, with a fart, and the press got hold of this, they liked, the English tabloids loved this guy in a green suit and Mr. Methane, and suddenly, I was stuck with Mr. Methane, I couldn't, you know, I'd got a brand if you like, and this brand was him, and yet really, I was using Petomania, you know, which is obviously muscular flatulence as opposed to dietary, but let me ask you, let me ask you, a little bit does come out, you know what I mean, there is a little bit to Methane, because as the air goes in, it blows a little bit of dietary fermentation out with it, so it's a bit like one of those drinks that Tony has, you know, the market's a drinker, and you find out that what the market needs on is actually only a tiny percentage of the overall total of the contents of the bottle, you know. Right, are there any competitors out there? Um, there was a guy called Gaseous Gary, I don't know what happened to him, he was a milkman, apparently, who started doing... And he was lactose intolerant, probably. Possibly, yes, I was, I had a bout of lactose intolerance earlier this year, which was quite distressing. I was depleted after I had a bit of flu over the winter, and with that, and, you know, the flu had all the good bugs in my intestinal, and made me lactose intolerant, which wasn't good for a week or so. But yeah, there was Gaseous, there was a guy in Japan, apparently, but I've never actually met face-to-face with it. There are a few guys on YouTube doing the same technique. Are they as good as you? Well, none of them. In terms of stamina, there is a guy, I think he's called the Fartmaster. There's a few things going on there. One is he covers his face, so he's obviously embarrassed about doing it. I mean, I cover my face, but it doesn't work, I still get recognised. And I'm not worried about, you know, a bit like Daft Punk, you know, if you go on the internet and say, what do Daft Punk really look like? You'll see pictures of them, and he doesn't worry me, you'll see pictures of what Mr Methane looks like, you know. But this guy covers his face up, and he does this long, long, long, juicy, rasping fart that lasts longer than a minute, and he says, I have broken Mr Methane's record, but they just seem to be doing as many farts as they can, or for as long as they can. And the thing is, I like to pump a tune out, and I like to have a little chat with people if they want to listen or not, you know, that's their business. Are there any women who do this and then accompany themselves with a quiff? Yeah, now I've heard about a quiffing lady, and I forget the name. Oh, yes, she used to write to me. She was a lady, I think she was like, she had a sort of semi-soft, semi-erotic porn side, and she used to write to me, and I'm sure she was called the Queen of Quiffs, as you would be, you know. The Queen of Quiffs had write to me, and we never got together for the duet. I think she wanted to get together, but there was a bit of a problem. But she could do her own duet. She, well, yes, she could. I don't think she did the back bottom, though. This is the trouble that she only did the front. And I have actually once, there's a guy the guy in the States, he's very good. He does this thing where you play a tune with by putting the palm of your hand under your armpit. And I once did some kind of a duet. Oh, on Japanese television, we have in England, we have the world's loudest belcher. He's called the Burpa King, and he holds the records, the world's loudest belch. He's in the Guinness Booker Records. And I actually did the little duet with him on Japanese television, where we did the Blue Danube between the two of us. Do you have groupies? Do you have groupies? You do, it's strange. It appeals to the more, it's not really a lady's thing or a girl's thing. If I was 17, or if there's anybody out there who's 17 thinking of getting into this, I would say still getting to rock music and picking guitar up. Failing that, getting into comedy, you know, just stand-up comedy. And you know, you absolutely fall back as to become a farting man, really, because if you're looking for the girls, it's just not a girl's thing. But when the girls do turn up, you tend to find they are the more interesting intellectual types, because, you know, wild and sort of slightly offbeat things appeal to, you know, there's a fine line between genius and madness, you know. And lots of people, I think a lot of the girls have been attracted to me think they may be on the trail of a genius, you know, where really they're just talking to a lunatic. How old were you when you discovered this? I was 15 and I discovered I had a sister who practiced yoga and I used to emulate her yogic positions and I was in the full lotus position and I noticed that I had this ability to breathe both, you know, fore and aft. And then I went to the school the next day and said to the guys at school, you never guess what I can do. And they said, oh no, you can't do that. So we went to the squash courts because the acoustics were great, you know. And I gave a performance in the squash courts. Nothing exceptional, just a few blasts, long ones, short ones, fast ones. And it became a bit of a lunchtime. I became a pumping prodigy in the lunch hour. And, you know, people had actually give a little bit of the pocket money to stand in the gallery and watch me blast a few out. And he really built, you know, he built from there. But I did actually stop him because I realized it wasn't a great thing for attracting the girls, you know. So for a few years, I did actually, that's how I came to pursue a career on the railroad, you know. And then I realized that just being normal wasn't for me. And I thought, wouldn't it be mad if you could actually, you know, you've got to do this now while you're young. You've got to see if you can actually make a living from breaking wind like the French gentleman Joseph Pujol. I'm going to ask you about Joseph Pujol in a second. Yoga. Oh yes. I like yoga. When you do yoga, you're told to breathe. And you feel good when you breathe. I'm going to ask you one last question about this. And then we'll talk about lepetamine. Breathing down under. Yes. Is that relaxing? I know that when I take deep breaths, I'm relaxed. Do you take deep breaths through that sphincter? And does it relax you? Well, do you know that the thing here, the thing with this is that when I'm performing, when you're performing on a stage, you know, before you go on, there's that absolute dread of you can't do a performance. If you can't when you go on, you need that adrenaline rush. And so you think, you know, what the hell am I doing here? You know, oh, I want to run out of the fire exit. I want to run down the street and run away. And then they go, well, come on stage, Mr. methane. And you walk out. And all of a sudden that that that adrenaline turns into an energy to perform and get through the show. So you never quite relaxed until there's that show tension that that adrenaline of the show. Has there ever been a has there ever been a time on stage when you had butterflies in your stomach and they flew out of your sphincter? No, no, but they have caused you see, this is the thing that that that tension, though you need it for the performance can cause you your muscles to be tight and not really help you to relax the sphincter enough to draw the air in. It's difficult. It's like an every show, you know, when you're having a bad show, sometimes the timing isn't going quite right. And you sort of get a little bit anxious. And that anxiety isn't good. I mean, I'm thinking at the end of the show, especially when I fart the dart into the balloon. If it doesn't go first time, because maybe the dart comes out and doesn't quite straighten itself up to pierce the balloon, and it bounces off. That's fine. And then you send to if you get it the second time, people think it's part of the show. But if you miss it the second time, people start to go, you know, and then you get a little bit panicky. And you may be because you haven't got a rear view mirror. You're shaking a little bit. You really want to get it. You don't place the the pea shooter. You can't quite see where you're placing the pea shooter as you grip it with the sphincter muscle. And so you're like, oh, and you're a bit panicking. And it just gets worse and worse. And it's the biggest relief in the world when that balloon pops, you know, because you know, it's the end of the show, you know, it always gets a big sort of resounding hooray from the audience, you know, hoorah. And and you thank you very much. And then there's this huge sort of like post, you know, there is that relax relaxation. But because it's the the post show sort of, oh, I've done it again. I've got through another show, end of the show, and everybody's cheering and clapping and waving and saying, thank you very much. I'm not able to notice whether it's the anal breathing that's relaxing, if that makes sense. It's obscured by the the adrenaline of the performance. But but here at home, I think when I've had me 10 minutes practice in the morning, I always feel a bit a bit refreshed, a bit like somebody has maybe had a bit of colonics, you know, and then going out to face the world afterwards, and they feel fresh inside, the room isn't fresh inside, you know, and I never open the door to the postman. If I've just been performing upstairs, you know, I always sort of say pass it through the window or something, you know, before you go before you go, you would use the term about the peristaltic waves and the petamane. I'm curious about the Joseph Pujo, aka Le Petamane. Yes, yes. What is what does petamane mean before we find out who Joseph Pujo was? Pet means to his French for fart. So petamane is the farting, fartman basically, is French for fartman, petamane or petamane and then but I do think there's a slight translation. I'm not sure, I'm not an exact expert on French. I mean, they did start teaching, when we joined the EU, they did start teaching it as at school. So you know, you're part of the EU now, so you're going to learn a foreign language, the French are just over there, learn that. And I think the old peto man might also be a slight translation might be fart maniac. So not just just fart man, but fart maniac. So by the way, for one of my listeners, his name is Nickname, I'm not going to do the EU joke, the EU, EU joke, I'm not going to do that, because I want to keep the interview going. When did you first discover Joseph Pujo, who was also Le Petamane? You were doing this before you knew there was a Le Petamane. I was. And we went to watch, we went to the local cinema to watch. I'm not sure, I think it might, yes, I think it was Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And you know, they always used to have a little trailer, a little film on before the main feature. Oh no, he could have been the life of Brian. Anyway, it was one of those two. But beforehand, there was a little 20, 15, 20 minute short film. And it was, I think it was a script by, I think Galton and Simpson, who were two quite famous British script writers, wrote it. And it was about the life of Le Petamane. And it was played by an English actor called Leonard Rosita. And I think we ended up enjoying that more than we enjoyed Monty Python. And suddenly, my friend said, this is you, you could do this, you know, look, look, look. He's performing on stage and, you know, and that was it really, that was like a light bulb moment for them, but not for me, because by then I'd decided it wasn't too cool for the girls, you know, and I had to get really into my 20s and think, oh, you know, who cares? You know what I mean? I mean, you don't get anywhere in life by following the crowd, you know, you just be yourself and be unique and individual. And you'll either get slagged off. And, you know, there'll be people in your funeral saying, well, he always was a weirdo. Do you know what I mean? I never lied to him. He was a weirdo. Or they'll say, he was a genius, you know, the man was a genius. He was a bit mad, but he was a genius. And so, you know, I just thought, well, this divides people's opinions. I shouldn't think, you know, I shouldn't, I didn't have any great desire to be liked. He doesn't worry me that people like Simon Cowell slag me off because I know that it's a reaction, you know, that it's creating a reaction. And of anything, I like that because I haven't got a statement, a political statement to make through farting. I'll leave that to the politicians, you know. But, you know, I like the fact that it sort of opens up in people a debate. When you've left the room, you know, they'll say, well, I like that. And there's someone I'll say, well, I thought it was disgusting. And, you know, I was just talking to somebody actually, he's wrote a book about Charles Dickens death and Mr. Pickwick. And he was actually just saying earlier, because he's going to write a little bit of a blog. And he's talking about a passage in Mr. Pickwick. And there's actually a reference in there from around 1830. He said, you know, and around that time, he said, he's saying, this is a period when the victory, when Victorian 1830 Victorian prudery started to happen. Before that time, the old cartoonists like James Gilray would have an anything goes policy in their drawings. And they would happily show the king farting and shitting, you know, the change in public morality is summarized when one character says it's as though we no longer fart. And so it's this debate about morality, you know, that some people say, oh, no, I didn't find it funny. It was disgusting. And the others say, well, actually, you know, it's the first thing we laugh at as a child. And it's probably one of the few things we can always laugh at. You know, so I like to leave that debate and also just he gets reaction. But I don't get too theoretically involved in it myself, you know, to me, and I'm quite happy to drop the bomb and leave the room, so to speak. Well, we're all out of time. We've been talking with Paul Oldfield, also known as Mr. Methane. And he has been conversing with us from where in Great Britain? I'm up in the north of Manchester. I'm in what they call the English Lake District, which is the last county before you get into Scotland. Well, when you come to America, I'm hoping you play Boston, because that's Beantown. And then you go to Chicago, the Windy City. Oh, the Windy City, yeah. And your tour will be complete. MrMethane.com. It's MrMethane.com, right? That's the one. And then on there, you can see all the Mr. Methane products, including I do personalized greetings for people, which I share to them via YouTube. So if you've got somebody you like, or maybe somebody you dislike, you know, buy them a little Mr. Methane personalized greeting. Do you do wedding proposals? Anything. Anything. You know what I mean? Unless I'm asked to endorse something illegal or create public disorder. I mean, a few people ask me to do sort of things regarding Donald Trump before the election, because in England, the word Trump means to break wind. Does it really? And yes, it does. Yeah, if you're Trump in England, it means to break wind. And yeah, obviously in the States, it doesn't mean that. But it does now. It does. Yes. Yeah. But I don't like to get, I very much like to just keep it to the farting and not get involved in the political stance because I want both sides of the debate to enjoy, you know, I want to reach out to the alt-right as well as the left, you know, because that's a good link. We got to wrap it up. We have to wrap it up. But to you. All right, let's go. But that's a great message. That's a great message for you young comics who are listening. Take it from Mr. Methane. Political humor will divide an audience. It will. It literally will. And the best English comedians, the best English dublats in history was more common wise and they always stayed away from politics and everybody loved them. They hold the record. Their show, their Christmas show has never been, nobody has ever beaten the ratings for their Christmas show in the 1970s. And they're loved by the entire nation, whether you're on the left or the right. Everybody loves more common wise. I think what Mr. Methane is saying, give it to them right down the middle. Yeah. Yeah. I suppose so. Yeah. Thank you, Paul. From the bottom. Thanks, David. Thanks for having me and have a good rest of the day or evening. Thank you.