90’s etc

[illeniazeepee]

[castmeinadream]

[j-loves-j-andilldieonthishill]

James and Jeremy during the nominees for the National Television Award 2006

[thegrandtourmoments]

The Grand Tour 01-10 *the way James takes care of Richard*

[thegrandtourmoments]

The Grand Tour 01-10 *the way James takes care of Richard*

[illeniazeepee]

[fuckajesus]

[russell-crowe]

If you want an excuse, go off about Rhod and Greg plz 🙏 I'm a Taskmaster girlie and I've seen some of Greg's comedy specials but outside of that I don't know much about him/his friendship with Rhod and I'm curious from all the little snippets you post about them 🥹

hiiiii!!!! i'm sorry i left this sitting in my inbox since thursday evening, but this honestly felt like a “buying flights” kind of big-screen commitment, and i wanted to make sure i had (1) my laptop and (2) the energy to really cook something up in response.

i think taskmaster is such a fun first introduction to rhod and greg, but it becomes even funnier once you know more about how their friendship works and where it comes from. the format of the show makes rhod come off as a bit of a meanie towards greg, but in reality, they both bicker just as much, and half the time it’s greg who goes into full Big Meanie mode first. by now, that kind of verbal jousting is basically second nature for them. :’)

mind you, i know most of this from rhod’s side of things, so i’m definitely missing some of greg’s perspective. (sorry not sorry, i have actual days worth of material to go through just with rhodtent (rhod content))

so. they actually met on a comedy course that rhod’s girlfriend at the time signed him up for. greg has talked about meeting rhod in those early days and thinking he seemed “aloof, maybe a bit rude,” which, honestly, tracks. rhod in Very Shy mode can definitely come off as a bit distant. but from that course, a friendship started to form. they ended up doing edinburgh fringe together (they shared a flat for it, which they reference to in taskmaster), performed comedy together in the uk, and did gigs abroad in places like asia (where this story is from) and australia (this story). greg says they "literally started out together" and that "rhod and I have always enjoyed what seems like a humorous, jousting relationship" ;_;

here's a pic of them and two other comedians (who i shall not drag into this post) in 2003:

one of my favourite things about watching them interact is how obvious it is that they care about each other, even if they’re not great at talking about feelings because they are Men after all (please read that with irony). like in rhod’s shyness documentary, where greg goes “i thought we were going to talk about my shyness” and rhod just stares at him like “your shyness?????” and they both look baffled.

and what really gets me is how greg clearly finds rhod’s brain delightful. he’s always laughing at his weird little tangents and poking at him to keep going. as someone with a slightly scrambled brain myself, i find that really comforting. it feels like greg provides this safe and funny space where rhod can just exist as he is without needing to explain himself. or it gives greg material to heckle him about.

they also just get to be really silly together. greg still has that grown-up-but-still-a-silly-man energy that you hear about in stories from his teacher days, and rhod is basically a full-time inner child with a comedy career. i love how they bounce off each other, just grinning like school boys. greg will come up with something oddly specific like “i couldn’t focus because your voice is annoying,” and rhod immediately tries to counter that like a 7-year-old like “well i had to look at your FACE!!” and it’s so dumb but so charming because it’s them?? you feel me??

there’s also this really sweet bit on the stand up to cancer comedy roast where rhod meets up with his two best friends, greg and barry (barry’s the one in my earlier gifset of them climbing kilimanjaro). they’re still joking around, and greg really does not hold back with the darker humour, but under the surface you can feel how relieved and grateful they all are to be there together. it’s very ;__;

and like. ok. if your brain is unhinged like mine and puts on shipping goggles:

the way they’re physically comfortable with each other is fascinating. rhod has kind of a weird relationship with touch. he’s a hugger with friends but also used to cut his own hair because he hated being touched, and he always kind of hovers just out of frame in photos with others. but with greg (and some other guys) he's very touchy and Close and silly and poking at them Quite Literally, so i love the idea of him just quietly growing closer to greg until it’s normal and unspoken and just what they do. but they never address it because of the aforementioned Inability To Talk About Feelings. :)

the old couple bickering dynamic hits different when you imagine them as an actual couple. the banter feels like second nature at this point and honestly if that isn’t love what is (i say, starving for a relationship like this)

i know it’s them being silly but when greg casually goes “strip to the waist, see what happens” or “you’ve kissed me before, i’m sure” or "you can't say rhod and greg davies, people might think we're married" or shaves rhod on camera while laughing like it’s the most normal thing in the world... the shipping part of my brain simply lights up like a christmas tree.

i think they really compliment each other’s insecurities. in my writing (which is still rotting peacefully in my google docs) i keep coming back to this idea of rhod having someone who makes him feel safe and accepted and protected. i love emotionally vulnerable rhod so much and while that is also very much There in his current real life marriage (which i truly, truly adore - they are literally perfect for each other); it's fun to explore a... different type of softness and emotions in a male relationship? but purely in fictional rpf land.

also. grumpy adopted stray and its tired handler. that’s the dynamic. that’s them.

anyway. this spiralled. but i love them so much and i’m so glad you gave me an excuse to yell about them for a while. thank you for coming to my brief ted talk! if you want to get more into them, i recommend listening to the time they were stand-ins on bbc radio 2 together (it's them at their silliest), watching their episode of world's most dangerous roads and watching ask rhod gilbert (it's... an experience). i can hook you up /w those!

[russell-crowe]

ask rhod gilbert: s02e08

[russell-crowe]

greg getting pulled by a six-foot twig powered entirely by sheer determination to sabotage the others

[russell-crowe]

ask rhod gilbert: s01e01

[fornootherreasondave]

“Protect me.”

[theimportanceofbeingidle]

We were beyond close.

Visit Original Link

Matt: I love the stuff where you go back home, and you go in your old room. It’s so small. No wonder that you and Noel don’t get on. Because the size of that room and then going on road together for 25 years.

Liam: We were beyond close, you know what I mean? That’s why it’s a bit… We were beyond close, you know what I mean? That’s why it’s a bit painful we’re not hanging out together.

[virtuosticsloth]

"Certainly, I'd never envy George's predicament of being caught in the competitive, psycho-sexual crossfire of Messrs. Lennon and McCartney, nor question the sincerity of the pain he expresses about it in this song."

- Allan W. Pollack

[undying-love]

Alright, Undying Love? I went for a few pints with my older white male Beatles obsessive pal yesterday. He knew Alister Taylor a bit, just from being in a prominent nineties band around other Beatle-love blokes. He's sympathetic to maybe J+P being quite... y'know, close. but also reticent. In fact he mentioned emphatically that john and paul never roomed together on tour. I know you've discussed this before, but can I have one of your gorgeous comps to prove his silly ass wrong? No problems if not. You're not a bloody jukebox!

Much love 🧡

Of course!

Bob Bonis, who booked their hotel rooms during their US tours, said. “They always had a suite. George and Ringo stayed together in one room, and John and Paul in the other bedroom, and a big, big room between them."

“Paul sleeps with his eyes open though,” Lennon said with a frozen smile.“Yeah— and you speak in whole sentences in your sleep,” McCartney countered.“What kind of sentences?” I asked.“It seems,” Lennon replied loftily, “that my most frequent phrase is ‘Well, get on that bloody bus then." (The Big Beat Craze, Daily Mirror, 1963)

They shared a room in during their French tour, 1964, at the Goerge V hotel in Paris, where they wrote Can't buy Me Love.

“At the Sheraton, Malcolm Searle was given privileged access for his daily 3AK bulletins. Reporting from the kitchenette of the penthouse suite, he chatted to Paul, John and George, as Paul cooked steak and spuds for his and John’s dinner. The conversation turned playfully camp when Searle called Paul “a regular little housewife” and described the gingham apron he was wearing. “Does he cook for you very much?” John (indignantly): “Don’t say it like that, it sounds funny.” (Inside the Beatles Australasian Tour 1964, 1964.)

“The Beatles hated to have separate suites when they were on the road. They happily doubled up to share a couple of bedrooms between the four of them and the pairing off was a random business that took place on the spur of the moment.” (Tony Barrow)

"[John and Paul] often shared the same hotel rooms, not only in the early days when the group was too poor to afford suites, but even later on when we were touring the world and staying in five-star places. They changed around though; it wasn't always Paul sharing with John..." (Tony Barrow)

"It was only me that sat in those hotel rooms, in his house in the attic; it wasn't Yoko, it wasn't Sean, it wasn't Julian, it wasn't George, it wasn't Mimi, it wasn't Ringo, it wasn't Miles. It was me that sat in those rooms, seeing him in all his moods and all his little things." (Paul)

And of course, Paul and John have said multiple times that they would write songs in hotel rooms during tours (in a 1964 press conference in Boston, Paul said he and John wrote songs during late nights at their hotel rooms), so it was also something very practical to do, to room together. It doesn't make sense that they would never do this.

Btw, I'm curious about why he's sympathetic to the idea of John and Paul being that close. Did he say why? Like, did he say if heard something from Alistair or somebody else?

[amclennonblog]

I love John and Paul’s relationship “plot holes”

Like when Paul said they had never met someone who was gay before Brian Epstein while it’s known that Paul used to attend gay bars in Liverpool when he was a teenager. Why would he lie?

Or how there was always a one single bed in their rooms.

Or how they didn’t usually shared a room, but every time someone was around them, they always said John and Paul were sharing a room and George and Ringo sharing another. Why would they lie?

Paul always saying John is not gay and if he was he would have tried something with him because they were so close he’d know, but Yoko, in little time, noticed something strange in their chemistry and thought something was going on between them. She also openly said John was bissexual, but never found someone good enough to catch his attention even though he actually said to Harry Nilson that he fell for Paul’s looks. How does these things work together? They don’t. Why is Paul lying about not knowing? Is it possible he really didn’t know, even being that close, did he never noticed anything?

PLOT

HOLES

[let-letitbe-deactivated20251023]

I admire Paul doing whatever the fuck he wants. My fav unreliable narrator <3 lol

[camilleelizabethc]

Shameless plug for my fanfiction (in which Paul finally stops being a fucking liar)

[illeniazeepee]

Talking about Paul being an unreliable narrator (not McLennon related) I read a quote from him recently where (I’m paraphrasing because I can’t find the exact quote) he said he was terrible at school and messed around and was only really any good at Spanish. Then you’ve got multiple contemporaries of his, including his own brother, saying he was super intelligent and passed everything without even trying. It’s a weird lie to tell and I don’t really get it. Was he trying to sound cooler, more edgy? I don’t get it.

[ohsonewtome]

jill furmanovsky talking about this 👇🏻 photograph