James May's Shed Load of Ideas (2025) s01e05 Episode Script

1
JAMES: Hello.
These days, I spend more and more time in my Wiltshire home
and the pub I own,
thinking about all the big problems in the world
and some smaller ones that annoy me.
Luckily, there's a place I can go to solve them all,
or at least try.
My shed.
Right.
It's here that I have the tools
Let's just saw some wood up.
Mmm.
and a couple of other highly competent blokes
Very good. Brace yourself.
Is she getting a ticket out?
Dirty fly tippers.
and small.
The cereal has gone soggy.
I'll also have to take on other people's problems.
He used to make a sound, and now he doesn't.
By which I mean the locals at my pub who are always bringing me stuff to mend.
Is it a train set?
So, join us and our excitable crew
who will capture our endeavours
That was epic.
as we create
That feels like a terrible thing we've just done.
So, it's never worked? Not in my lifetime.
and repurpose
Wow!
in my shedload of ideas.
What do you think? This is just brilliant.
You might think that sitting on this bench in Wiltshire is very relaxing.
And so it should be, unless your mind is filled with concern
for all the problems of the world and how to solve them.
Right now, I'm keen to take on one of the most persistent problems
that affects the whole planet.
And that's plastic waste.
In Britain, we discard 1.7 billion pieces of the stuff every week,
and while we do recycle nearly half of it,
that comes with its own set of problems.
Back in the olden days, when I was a lad,
the business of rubbish was very simple.
You produced some rubbish, this bottle, for example,
and you put it in the bin. And that was the end of that.
We didn't know what happened to it. We didn't care.
We were blissfully ignorant.
Now, of course, we have recycling. And recycling is a wonderful thing.
I think the key to human happiness is infinite recyclability
and abundant renewable energy.
Because then we can indulge our desires to produce and consume
but without filling the world with our tat.
It does come with a few problems, though.
I mean, this is the brown bin. Is that glass?
Is that plastic? Or is it cardboard?
Maybe cardboard goes in the green one.
But that depends which authority you're living under.
There are 39 different recycling regimes
across the UK alone.
Do you take the tops off bottles? Do you leave them on?
Are you supposed to rinse them out? Take the labels off?
Are you supposed to put green glass separate from clear?
Does that go out on Thursday, or is it the blue bin and it goes out on Wednesday?
People are very annoyed about recycling because it's too complicated.
Apparently, 82% of British households
put something wrong in the recycling bin.
What if you could recycle your plastics,
for example, yourself?
What if you could cut all this out,
all this frustration, all this annoyance,
and at home, simply turn all those old bottles and what have you
into something beautiful and enduring?
Let's try.
In case that wasn't clear, I want to reduce plastic waste and make something useful.
So, I consult my team of recycling enthusiasts,
We're now set at two bar.
and my up-for-anything carpenter, Tony the Tool.
Oh!
And not forgetting our crew, who have been busy collecting and shredding plastic
for our great recycling experiment.
We are planning to make a board game for the pub,
so Tony, Sim and I prepare our garden smithy.
Right, situation report, viewers,
we've shredded all our plastic, we are going to melt it,
we're going to use this little oven and this toasted sandwich maker.
We're looking for a temperature of around 150 degrees,
at which it will become very plastic but not liquid.
Simmy has this attractive pair of silicone gloves.
When we have made our plastic into a plastic state,
one of us is going to knead it
until we've got enough to put in our mould
to make a rectangular section.
To melt plastic safely, it must have a number two on its recycling symbol,
which tells us it's non-toxic.
This can be found in milk bottles,
and without giving the game away, so to speak,
plastic lids are perfect for our counters and board of different colours.
To begin with, we're going to do white,
and we're going to do it in the oven.
The aim of our back garden experiment
is to find out if this process actually works.
By running different heating appliances all at the same time,
we're hoping to generate enough plastic to build our game.
We've got a sheet of baking paper on there in the hope that it won't stick.
TONY: Shall we start with that?
Let's do the same thing with the toasted sandwich maker.
We'll do a different colour. We'll do the top. Blue?
Once heated, the plastic must be malleable enough for us to reshape it.
It's burning.
SIM: So, if we get that on there.
Okay, now let's get some more in here, we could reuse that.
It's getting hard and breaking apart.
Put that on there and then
We want to create a marbling effect
but quickly discover it's not really that simple.
I'm not sure the colours are gonna combine very effectively.
The table's gonna collapse.
Polymer-therma plastics melt easily,
but once off the heat, they cool and harden within seconds.
It's gonna take about three days. That's already gone too hard now.
Work it. Work it.
I'm just gonna shove that in there just to see if I can get any shape to this whatsoever.
This is taking on a rough shape.
We've made nougat.
That's not even a quarter of what we need.
Situation update, viewers,
that is what we have created so far.
It's very difficult to get it into a properly plastic state.
It doesn't mix together very well. It doesn't form very well.
It sets fire to grease proof paper. It burns Tony's hands.
Would you like to know, viewers, what it was that we were hoping to make for the pub?
Then you can gauge how successful we've been so far.
It was, is, a chessboard and a set of drafts.
The artists amongst you, like Rodin looking at a block of stone
and being able to see the finished work within it,
will look at that and say, "Yes, yes, a set of drafts and a board."
Oh, God, what are we gonna do?
I've done all that stuff about bins and recycling
and how annoying it is.
But Simmy thinks he may have the answer.
Oh!
I don't know if it's the answer. I think it's worth trying.
We're running out of options, Sim.
So, we leave Simmy with the burden of solving our plastic problem.
I find I think better over a pint,
so Tony and I head to the pub.
We're also meeting a local dude who would like us to repair
his 19th century family heirloom. No pressure, then.
Yes, I am.
Hello. Tony. This is Tony. Hello, Tony.
What is that?
It's a Victorian compendium of games.
That's the book.
The reason it's wrapped up in cellophane is,
because this tray is all broken,
I have the utmost difficulty in getting it out.
Because it all fell apart. So, I put it in the bag so I can lift it.
And it's Victorian, you say?
Yes, but the book of instructions gives us some clue.
So, it's before bridge, even auction bridge.
Yes.
It always amazes me when I see anything Victorian that the type is so tiny.
Yet they had to read it with candles, most of the time
because they didn't have electricity.
"As chess stands pre-eminently and without question
at the head of all the games detailed hitherto"
."..so does the game of whist occupy the position of honour
amongst all the multitudinous games of cards.
It is the game."
There's several pages of this before it tells you how to play it.
Where did you get this from?
My parents gave it to me when I was about 11.
No.
Oh, yes.
All the screws perfectly aligned.
There's a lot of work gone into that.
Before my fascination with the Victorian gaming world takes hold,
we need to find out how we can help.
The main problem is this tray here.
That is a picture of it. Oh.
And you see, there's that tray which sits in there.
To lift it out, there should be a ring at each end.
Ah. So, that's what snapped. Yes.
Now, you can see the holes there. Unfortunately, one of the rings has got lost.
Whether you can get your hands on another one
We can make one.
Let's not forget, Tony, that when this was made,
there were very few distractions.
There was no Internet, obviously, no electricity, no television, no radio.
Just good, wholesome family fun. Yep.
Played by little children in massive knickerbockers
and their parents who were dying of consumption,
but had, at least, that afternoon enjoyed a public hanging at Newgate.
Ah, the good old days.
So, I've got all these bits together,
but where do these belong?
Da-da-dah! Something is missing from down here.
We can reinstate that, I think,
with a bit of careful glueing and clamping,
and then once over with a very finely set plane.
It's beautiful.
Even though it was probably made in great numbers.
What's your ambition for this?
To put it in a in a state, really,
where the grandchildren can play with it again.
Peter, we shall tidy up the box,
replace that bit that's peeled off.
Yeah, and make another loop,
and blend it in as seamlessly as possible.
Yes, leave it with us, Peter. We will be in touch.
You will be astonished, you'll look at it and think, "That's great",
Thank you very much.
This might be a relatively small repair,
but it will involve some intricate carpentry and some light metal work.
But the weight of history will add extra pressure
as we attempt to get Peter's compendium of games
back to full working order.
JAMES: Here in Wiltshire, we're trying to tackle the big issue of plastic waste
by seeing if it's possible to skip the bins altogether
and recycle our plastics at home in our DIY recycling centre.
SIM: Smoking. TONY: It's burning.
Our idea was to make a draught set for the pub out of milk bottles,
but so far our efforts have proved fruitless.
It looks terrible. Oh, God, what are we gonna do?
But we may just have hit upon a solution.
So, we need to melt in small quantities.
I think so. And a smaller mould.
I was wondering if, just as an experiment,
we put a little bit of material in there.
It's a piece of his vacuum cleaner from his van.
See, the thing is, ideally, you'd put it into a hot mould,
heat the tube itself with the torch,
let it cool, dunk it in some water,
hopefully it will shrink a bit and a nice round section pellet
of recycled plastic will pop out.
Yep.
Keep going, keep going.
Argh
Man!
Look at that! Ta-dah! Hey!
What a breakthrough! I'm so happy.
I'm so happy. Given everything we've been through today.
It's good. It is good. I love it.
Yeah. We've just gotta refine it. Yeah.
We've just gotta make decent moulds. Yep.
We put the ball in the middle of it,
and we put a lever on something that goes in it,
and then we just ram it down. Yep.
A proper mould will speed up this whole process,
so we waste no time in getting back to the shed.
While Tony makes a start melting more plastic,
Sim and I craft the smaller moulds using my new milling machine.
Which is a lovely machine.
Isn't it lovely?
Lucy wants to give it a name.
It's a Rishton. It is a vertical mill.
So, you could call it You like alliterative names.
Nice.
Vincent the Vertical Mill. Or Ricky Rishton.
It's a girl. I think it's a girl.
Well, you've made the lathe a man, so I--
I haven't made the lathe a man. You did.
The lathe is a lathe.
I think the milling machine should be a girl called Millie.
I'll make a little sticky label.
Update, viewers, number eight or nine or ten, we're not quite sure,
we think we can see an end to the recycled plastic conundrum,
and it involves making some very, very simple moulds,
which we're going to do here on Millie the Milling Machine
and Doris the Drill.
Aw!
Ignition.
Millie is milling.
Bet you £100 is snatches.
Damn!
So, this is basically our mould,
and we're gonna put our plastic in it,
and we're gonna press out the counters.
Using as a press this redundant old pillar drill,
which will ensure consistency,
which is the key to mass production.
CREW: Does the pillow drill have a name?
No, nothing has a name. The mill doesn't, the little mill doesn't,
the pillar drill doesn't, the little lathe doesn't, the big lathe doesn't,
the bench doesn't, my Mini doesn't.
The only things that names here are Simmy and James.
This piece of aluminium is not called Alan the Aluminium.
It's just a piece of aluminium.
Now we've cleared that up, we can get back to making Malcolm the Mould and Peter Piston,
which we need for pressing the counters for our draughts set.
Where would you keep your g-clamps?
Do you want to use the g-clamp that I made as a 15-year-old?
Yes. If it still works.
I believe it does. It's a bit rusty.
That's rather That is rather good.
Did you cast all that, or was it Yeah.
So, you made a wooden pattern? Yep.
Sand casted? Yes.
And used a horizontal mill on those faces, I think,
and then turned everything else
and that was that.
That'll be marvellous.
Now I quickly turn a piston on the lathe.
This will be used to press into the mould to create the counters.
Into this chirk.
Done. All we need now is a bit of molten plastic to go in there.
Job done. Beautiful.
He's in the kitchen, melting a small quantity of plastic
for us to press into our newly made mould.
SIM: Here's Tony. TONY: Anybody order green balls?
Hopefully, this time it will work.
He's got hands of asbestos.
All right, James, would you like to do the honours?
Just Let's try.
In it goes. Where do I stop? Just keep going.
Can we have another one?
It's a bit rough.
Surface finish on the outside is not that great. It's still very hot as well.
I think the alley's probably just sucking all the heat out of it very quickly.
That'll do, I think. See? It's getting better.
That one is better. That's much better.
Yes. Yeah.
All we need to do is repeat the process 23 more times
and build a draughts board.
So, we will now shift to something more interesting than this,
if that's possible.
Once our game is completed,
I'll be bringing it to the pub for everyone to enjoy.
This will give the locals another reason to drop by.
It's not easy running a pub, you know,
what with business rates, the cost of thatching,
spiralling wage costs, people making off with the cutlery.
And on top of all that, I have to think about choosing
the right flavour of crisps. Which got me thinking,
perhaps it's time to revolutionise the nation's favourite pub snack.
We love crisps, but we have identified a problem,
which is that you buy a bag of crisps,
here's a blue packet, which is cheese and onion, and you think, "Ah, excellent.
Mmm-mmm-mmm. They are absolutely delicious.
Peak cuisine."
What if you get halfway down the bag and you suddenly think, "I fancy salt and vinegar"?
So, we were thinking, what if all crisps were plain?
And then let's say we're in my pub
and you have, rather than a packet of crisps,
a bowl of completely plain crisps,
and then a series of flavours,
perhaps in atomiser bottles, that you added to the crisps.
So, you picked a crisp up and you think,
"I think I'll have salt and vinegar for this one." Munch.
Then the next crisp, you think, "I enjoyed the salt and vinegar,
but this time I'm going to have cheese and onion."
Eat.
Every crisp could be different.
Let me talk to you a bit about some of the flavours I was imagining.
Spam, anchovies,
or even combine them in a new flavour,
Ugh, it'd be minging.
Yeah. Spam and anchovies?
It rolls off the tongue. "A bag of spam and anchovy, please."
Cook it up. Pour them in there. Yeah, cook it up.
With the Spam. With some Spam.
This is where everybody says, "To get the Spam out, make a hole in the bottom of the tin."
Yes.
People who give you advice on the Internet.
They're right.
This is a nice looking block of Spam.
When was the last time you had Spam?
About three days ago.
I had Spam and beans when I was left on my own at home the other day.
Right, there's the cubed Spam.
I have, yes.
Okay, that can go on the cooker with a wooden spoon.
While we wait for our flavours to blend,
I think I've spotted another opportunity
to enhance the pub's snack experience.
Mmm. What if
Spam on a cheese and onion crisp. Here you go.
Cheers.
Mmm! Oh, yeah. Mmm.
God, that's good.
That's really good. Mmm.
Does anybody from the crew want to try a
This is the hand of Will Fisher coming in.
What do you think?
That's for Andy.
It's really good.
Well, it's just
Right, back to the task in hand,
which is trying to make atomized flavours for crisps. This needs to be heated up.
I can do that.
Oh, yes.
Within a matter of moments, our Spamchovy mix, you're welcome, is ready.
Pass me a piece of foil. I'll make a funnel. What?
As Tony fashions a funnel out of foil
and pours the infusion into the sprayer.
I'm already convinced this will be a hit in the pub.
I am genuinely quite excited about this.
This could be a world-changing moment.
Spam and anchovy crisp
for the first time in the history of humanity.
It works.
It tastes of Spam and anchovy. That's amazing.
Step aside, cheese and onion. Stand down, salt 'n' vinegar.
A new flavour combination has arrived.
You have to eat them quickly. They go soggy.
But you do eat crisps quickly, don't you? You don't sit and pontificate.
Sometimes you get a note of anchovy, then sometimes you get the Spam first.
So it's a bit of a surprise as well.
The basic idea of that it works.
You can have a bowl of plain crisps
and then add any flavour that the pub can conceive.
There'd be a great big rack of them,
colour coded with little signs that say, Spam and anchovy, spice paste,
and the regulars, salt and vinegar, cheese and onion, prawn cocktail.
It's fantastic. That has completely revolutionised crisps.
They've been trapped for
When were crisps invented? Probably the 1920s. I don't know.
They've been locked into this small minded idea
that the same flavour has to run through the whole bag,
and it doesn't. God, we're good.
You saw it here first. The crisp spray atomiser,
coming soon to a pub near me.
Welcome back to Wiltshire, where, as well as tackling some of the world's biggest problems,
we're also often busy mending personal effects
brought into the pub by the locals.
So, Tony and I are back in the workshop
to get started on the business of mending.
Peter came to the pub and he brought us
his Victorian games box.
These bits are broken,
and Tony is an expert on glueing things together,
'cause that's the sort of thing he does.
There's a lot in here, actually. It's rather cleverly done.
TONY: This appears more broken than when we got it.
The lid, Tony, is coming apart at the back
and needs glueing and clamping.
He doesn't want it restored,
but he doesn't want it to fall apart any further.
So, there should be a little ring in each end for lifting it out.
One of them is long lost,
but it's okay because I have some brass rod
of an appropriate diameter to make another.
Do you wanna make two and make them match?
I mean, that's the original ring.
Victorian fingers went through that.
We won't get rid of that, but I think they should match.
While I reacquaint myself with my ancient soldering kit
It has some solder paste, various solders,
two tins of flux that I've had for, I'm afraid to say it, 40 years.
Tony begins the delicate job of glueing the tray inside the box.
Is it sticking together?
Yeah, it's just fiddly,
and there's so many little bits, I think I'm gonna use masking tape to clamp it
'cause it doesn't need a lot of pressure. No.
Heating the rod makes the metal easier to bend.
Have to do this without setting fire to the Victorian Games box.
That would make the job a lot more complicated.
Right, leave that to cool naturally, and then it will be more malleable.
This bit at the back
it's gonna need some quite hefty clamping and probably leaving overnight.
That is now much easier to bend because it's been annealed,
which is a sort of posh metal worker's way of saying, "made a bit softer."
Man in heaven, virtually perfect.
See, that annoys me, that. That one's not in the same direction as all the others.
That's properly weird, Tony.
Don't you line them up? No. On your light switches and your plug sockets? No.
They've got to be in the same direction. That's disgusting.
They've gotta be at the right tension,
which may not be with the slot in the right direction.
You can't compromise integrity for lining your slots up.
I think visual aesthetics are better than safety.
I like a certain amount of randomness.
Look
Whoever did this originally has lined them up horizontally.
That's probably why that one came undone.
Next, we focus on the lid repairs.
It's not split. It's merely come away. It's slightly warped.
So, we need to get some glue into the gap,
but Tony is taping the inside so that any glue that goes all the way through
doesn't run down and spoil the inside of the lid. Very wise.
That's nice. The glue is squidging out, which is a good sign.
Yeah.
With the lid of the box clamped and secure,
I can return to crafting two identical brass rings,
which act as handles for the tray.
Beautiful curve.
But somehow there, I've Maybe it was when I squeezed the pliers,
I might have twisted it slightly in my hand.
It appears I may not be bothered about screws and light switches being aligned,
but I do like my rings to be perfectly circular.
That's not bad.
It's not bad, but it's not good, is it?
Here's a little jewellery mending tip
you probably never thought you'd be getting from me.
The mistake people make, if I can demonstrate,
is you take a ring, say, from your necklace and you think,
"I need to open that one up to put another one in", or whatever,
and you open it by doing that and pulling it apart.
You will never get it back together. Always open it by doing it that way,
Ah.
and then, when you push it back together,
the ends will be tight against each other
Solder it. Clamps itself. Yeah.
It's perfect.
So, you are a bit of a perfectionist, aren't you?
Not really, but people are watching.
Well, at least I hope they are, because next is the incredible science of soldering.
The way I always do this, because it's very easy to put too much on,
clip a tiny bit of the solder off,
I put a bit of fluxite on there,
and then, if you put your little scrap of solder
Oh, will it stay in place?
You can simply heat it up and then that little bit will run into the join.
The trick with soldering is to heat up the metal near the join,
rather than the joint itself.
Oh, wow. Oh!
That's impressive.
That's very impressive.
Excellent.
That was very satisfying.
I'm not good at chess. I sort of know the rules.
Joined a chess club for a laugh.
I thought it would be exciting and it wasn't.
Yeah. I don't know what got into me.
What were the alternatives?
There was a Rubik's Cube club. That was new.
I wasn't a member of any clubs.
We had gangs and, you know, a few people were interested in
making stuff out of wood and building bicycles.
Some others were interested in photography.
So, you just You sort of formed natural clubs,
but they weren't formalised, 'cause if they were formalised,
they'd involve a grown up, and that would spoil it.
We have. Although, where's Simmy?
We don't really acknowledge it, do we? But it is a club.
Yeah.
See, that's already a massive improvement.
Rings are lush. You've got the nicest rings I've ever seen.
The trick is to do that then get a bit of tension around the corners, isn't it?
So, all that's really left to do is for you to assemble and glue.
Is that the dominoes tray?
Yeah, this was for the dominos.
give it a bit of a wipe down, check the gloomy marks,
and then give it back to Peter and
This is so nice.
This is quite zen, isn't it, this?
Mending the old Victorian box.
Yeah.
Now all that's needed is a good night's sleep.
But that's not always possible.
Here's a fact I recently discovered.
Four out of ten couples are not sharing a duvet fairly,
leading to a lot of bedroom drama and ruined sleep.
But I think I could put an end to all that here and now.
Here is a problem that has plagued couples
ever since the invention of the duvet,
which was sometime in the mid-1970s.
The double duvet is, by its nature, something to be shared equally,
but it isn't, is it?
Even with a modern, same sex, mixed race, gender fluid couple like this one,
you will get problems when one of them rolls over in the night
and steals part of it from the other.
For example, Simmy, if you imagine you're asleep
and you roll over and you steal There you go. You see?
And now Tony thinks, "Hang on a minute."
There is, I'm afraid, no happy ending to this scene.
But I've had an idea.
SIM: Yes?
What if This is very simple.
I've got some bungees.
What if we bungee each corner to the floor
Ooo, that's nice. Yeah.
And a sort of, almost like a floating duvet.
Or a cable tie.
Cable tie is a good idea.
Do you want to double them up so they're longer? Possibly.
'Cause then they'll
That'll do.
Hogging the duvet is big news in Britain,
outranking the age old problem of snoring
as the main reason for nighttime squabbles.
If this works, no more.
My idea is the bungees, which will be under equal tension
on all four corners, will centre the duvet.
If somebody pulls it one way, obviously, it will spring back the other.
And this will be unknown to them because they'll be asleep.
But the duvet will always be in the middle.
Makes you change, him doing all the work, doesn't it? Yeah.
Makes a change us just doing nothing.
Oh, it's moving.
There might be something in this.
Also, if you had a height adjustable bungee anchoring point,
you could make more of a hovering duvet
for very hot days, such as today.
Ooh. Ooh.
That's a nice draught. It is.
Be asleep. This is a serious experiment.
Obviously, in the final version of this, it will be adjustable there.
Oh, will you
Ah!
James, I think you've cracked it.
It's not bad at all. It's very good.
Just mind your eyes.
Yeah, if the bungees become unhooked for some reason
Look at that.
Automatically centred duvet.
The end of the argument.
We've solved it.
Thank you.
There's your happy ending.
JAMES: You join us, once again, in Wiltshire,
still working away, recycling our own plastic
to create a game for the pub.
But we also like workshop games,
so we've invented one that tests our basic knowledge of physics
and makes use of eggs past their sell-by date.
It's called The Yolk's On Us,
and that's the last egg pun there will be in this sequence.
But it does involve an egg. We've got a box of eggs
that have gone way past their sell-by date.
There are two indentations in our simple rig that hold the egg.
Eggs are famously very strong in that direction. Supposedly,
you can drive a tractor over them and all sorts of things.
But the winner is the person who gets the most weight on there without breaking the egg.
How are we gonna balance everything? It'll be like Buckaroo.
Oh, okay.
I'm gonna start with this hammer,
which weighs 876 grams.
So, I'm going to put it there. Sim, it's your go.
Anything? Anything at all,
Oh, Sim! Oh, bold!
That's quite heavy.
Jeez.
But you've written it in a bit. Bit premature because you might break the egg.
Might break the wood at this rate.
I'm just getting it beyond the line.
It's funny. "The egg was thinking, 'I've got this. I've got this'."
This game is great,
but because Tony didn't get to demonstrate his engineering prowess,
it's only fair we play best of three.
Fourt thousand one hundred.
But let's be clear
Ooh, he's gone right there.
At this point, we're all in it to win it.
Nineteen 1,919.
I'm not feeling that, um
Ooh!
You've played a very tactical game, Tony. I have to win.
There's a little bit of water in it.
The average egg can withstand a surprising amount of weight,
up to 35 kilograms when pressure is applied evenly.
So, I'm going to add 1,231.
And I can't put it any further back than that.
Simmy I'm finding this genuinely tense.
Four hundred and forty-five. Whoa.
Whoa! Whoa.
CREW: Yep.
That's good!
If this game wasn't exciting enough,
for the final round, we decide to add more drama.
There's a minimum weight limit of 500 grams.
Simmy
The Pro Hex Head Screws.
Ooh, he's just He's ballsy.
CREW: Ooh!
That's so braking. Ooh!
It's never taken this much weight.
Winner!
Ah. So, I got a lose, so I'm down to nought, and you had the most,
Wa-hey! It's zero
Everybody has zero point.
Well, you can play it at home if you've got some eggs that are well past their sell by date,
some pieces of wood, some screws,
a piece of plywood to protect your table,
even though you've made screw holes in it. You need some scales as well.
And that's an eggs-it.
But it's not all fun and games, you know.
We have also been working hard to reduce plastic waste.
Our goal was to recycle some ourselves
and transform it into something exquisite and enduring,
a game fit for the pub.
Have we been victorious?
So, viewers, we are ready to show you our draughts set for the pub,
made out of recycled plastic.
Not just recycled plastic, plastic that we have recycled ourselves.
This is such a big moment.
Because we're blase about the idea of recycling,
we say, "Yes, I recycle everything",
when what you really mean is you put it in a different coloured bin bag.
You haven't done anything different from what you were doing in the 1970s,
i.e. throwing things away. It's just now you put it in something with a colour
so you think, "I'm saving the environment." Rubbish.
The way you save it is to not recycle it in the first place.
You take it and you turn it into something else.
That's what we've done. Ignore this box.
We've just put it in this old chess set box
so that we can do what, in TV, is called a reveal.
Is everybody ready?
It's possibly a bit smaller than you were expecting
from the amount of angst and energy that was involved.
I think the word is homespun.
It's brilliant. It's exquisite.
It is exquisite and it shall endure.
Here is the board.
You might look at this and say, "That's very small."
I say it's convenient and travel size.
It's quite amazing how much plastic it took to make that small set.
That's a very good point because we had a massive heap
of milk bottles and milk bottle tops.
Yeah.
In the interests of entertainment,
for this game, we will be playing speed draughts.
Although I must point out Simmy is at a slight disadvantage.
He is colourblind, and red and green look the same to him,
which is something we didn't consider, rather stupidly, when we made the set.
That's red, though. Yes.
Okay, that's right.
I couldn't see it!
You're playing a man who can't tell the difference between the two sets.
I take the wins where I can.
Oh, I forgot you could go backwards.
I forgot.
I am.
That's Tony, that's you.
Why is that there, then?
Because Tony'sit up.
There you go. The first ever victory
on the Royal Oak homemade recycled plastics draughts board
was won by a man who can't see it.
So, there you have it. We drank the milk, collected the bottles and tops
and turned them into something useful,
something that may well outlive us all.
Now that is the true definition of recycling.
Before Tony demands a rematch,
we must move to another part of the pub to meet Peter
and return his Victorian games box,
which has been fixed for the first time in 150 years.
There wasn't a great deal wrong with it,
but it was coming apart at the seams here and there,
there was a loop missing, there was a bit broken off.
I did tell him I'd make it look like a repair.
I think that's fine, though, because I really struggled with making it look like new,
and I think every little mark tells a story,
every bit has got a story behind it.
Hello. Here is Peter. PETER: Hello.
Nice to see you again.
So, your Victorian games box, Peter, we spent quite a bit of time on it.
Yes.
Various joints around here have been re-glued.
Yes.
I made you a new one. I did promise I would make it look like a repair
Yes. And so it is.
And now, if we opened it up
Da-da-da-dah!
And remove the very wordy instruction book,
you will see, sir, two loops
Well done.
Those have been freshly made by us,
and Tony has reassembled this entire tray.
And it was almost impossible to get it out. Yes.
And if you tried, it fell apart, literally,
because all these pieces were loose.
There's no rhyme or reason to why it's made the way it is. Yes.
When it came apart Yes. literally, every piece of it fell apart. Yes.
And there's lots of little pieces.
But we haven't spoiled
the very extensive patina and story that is within the wood.
I think that's the important thing, 'cause every mark's got a story behind it. Yes.
And we had this dilemma, didn't we, about whether we'd clean this up and make it look brand new.
It would ruin it.
Yes.
but we fought that urge.
Well, I think they will.
We used to play a little bit with my children when they were small,
but now the next generation have come along,
and hopefully the grandchildren will enjoy it.
And that, sir, is for you.
Right, well, thank you very much indeed. I'm glad I brought it along.
Absolute pleasure. We were fascinated by it.
Don't sell it. No, don't sell it. Certainly not.
Oh, no.
It will do many generations yet.
Goodbye. Thank you for coming. Bye. Bye.
That's another satisfied customer.
Pint.