Ep.34: Here it is! Part 1 of the highly anticipated Star Trek Into Darkness review podcast. This episode features The Roarmeister and is a timetravel ep. That’s right, we invite you to hear our hypotheses pre-cinema-visit and then instantly travel through time with us to the moment we got back home after seeing the film. NB: I’m recording a follow-up reviewcast with Flapjack very soon, so if anything was missed out of this one, stay tuned, because there’s one more to come!

Ep.33: The Roarmeister Mega-sode! 1 hour and 41 minutes demonstrating an almost complete lack of rational thinking. Topics covered include, but are not limited to: Beard Transplants & Male Grooming (an oldie but goldie), Roseanne (yes, the 90s TV show – spoiler alert), The Coen Brothers, Themes of masculinity in Spielberg’s debut film “Duel”, AND… Die Harder.

Roary also confesses to a childhood fear of Orion Slave Girls; I share an anecdote about the “hot office” I work out of now and then; and we conclude with an epic – I’ll say it again… EPIC – OMQDG!

Ep.32: The Amish Improv Extravaganza! Here’s another non-episode episode, this time featuring past and future guest co-host, Amishbuttons, and yours truly, engaging in some tipsy, ad-hoc improv theatre. For no real reason besides a bit of a laugh! “Sketches” (if you want to call them that) include:
- Cliff notes to mountain tops
- State of the Union address
- If I Could Turn Back Time
- The “Are Sharks Fish?” Chain of Phone Calls
- Stop The Presses
- Life and Rodents, Vol. 1
- The Time Zone
- Problem Commercial

Ep.31: The 2013 Academy Awards Special. So, where do I begin? This podcast features the often derisive Oscar predictions of Flapjack and myself, the official announcements and our subsequent reactions and commentary, all spliced together in near-perfect chronological order, for each individual category!
*Spoiler alert* We do reveal the ending of Argo quite early on, but I’m gonna say it’s worth listening to this even if you haven’t seen it yet. Might also be worth not seeing it, but who am I to judge…

Ep.30: Creative Writing. As promised, previous guest-co-host Nikulele joined me for a chat about Creative Writing. In this, perhaps the first in a series on the subject, we discuss writer’s block, writing locations, writing for love and/or money, writing holidays, writer research, creative writing courses, communities and collectives, revisiting one’s old writing from back in the day and submitting one’s work to literary agencies. To sum it up, a lot of writing-related stuff. There’s no OMQDG in this episode. Then again, we do cover the similarities between creative writing and “Man Vs Food”, so you can go ahead and take back that sigh, buster.

Bonus Ep: A Sad Day For Die Hard. As a Die Hard Die Hard fan, I obviously went and saw A Good Day To Die Hard when it opened at UK cinemas on Valentine’s Day. Spoiler alert: I was not satisfied. Thus, here is a review of Die Hard 5, aka A Sad Day For Die Hard. This podcast episode is a little bit different from the rest, in that it features only me. But I trust that in-between my ramblings about the cast of Die Hard 5 and the fall of Bruce Willis, you will find a glimmer of insightfulness and perhaps even a chuckle or two. I could say *Spoiler Alert*, but, really, if you’ve seen the trailer for Die Hard 5, then I would stop right there and just listen to this podcast. Enjoy.

Ep.29: Nikulele’s back! This time we talk about trailers for 2013 SciFi movies – including Star Trek Into Darkness, duh, obviously. Nikulele also shares a couple anecdotes from his recent tour of the New World and we vote on our Top-Five cities in the world to visit. Naturally we conclude with an epic OMQDG. Check out the leaderboard on PONKEN.COM to peruse all of the games that have, by now, earned the adjectival attribute “historical”.

Bonus Ep: The Django Extravaganza! That’s right, folks. After all of Flapjack’s pseudo-sensual panting for Django Unchained in the last episode, we finally went and saw it at the cinema. And less than 24h later, we sat down to record this bonus minisode review of it. Needless to say, we effing loved it! *SPOILER ALERT* If you haven’t seen the film, you may want to do so before listening to this ep. If you don’t mind it being spoiled, then go ahead. However, if that’s the case, then you’d be a fool, because it’s an awesome movie and you really should watch it first! As this is a bonus ep, there’s no OMQDG, I’m afraid, but we do make plans for a fantastic Tarantino-based OMQDG to be featured soon.

Ep.28: Flapjack (the artist formerly known as The Jackhammer) returns! This time we discuss Gangster Cars, The Hobbit, Django Unchained, Star Trek Into Darkness and Jamie Lee Curtis’ chest. We also take a 4min break to youtube Mr Freeze’s puns from Batman & Robin (53m53s) and obviously play an amazing OMQDG (1h6m51s) before ending on an Ikea vs. Vulcan rant. Oh, and before all that, we start off with a bonus intro minisode recorded with Flapjack on the road a while back.

Ep.27: Roary Dies Hard! The Roarmeister and I recorded this episode three months ago after he had finally popped his Die Hard cherry. Consequently, we discuss the greatest Christmas movie ever ad nauseam, occasionally veering off into Groundhog Day-land, and finally attempt to recast Die Hard with the cast of Twin Peaks. Thanks again, Mandy and Jacob of the Nerd Hurdles podcast, for giving us your blessing to play your recasting game on air! Obviously the episode is concluded with an OMQDG (which starts at 48m26s).

Ep.26: The Trekfest continues! This is the second and concluding part of Iwasntinvited’s and my Post-Con Ponkcast Bonanza. So if you haven’t heard Ep.25 yet, go forth and do so poste-haste! In this one, we go discuss – in depth – the remaining panels at Destination Star Trek London (#DSTL), play the OMQDG and tangentially touch upon Stargate SG1. We also chat about motion capture porn and some other non-trekkie stuff.

(PS: Sorry about the weird background noise that appears for like a minute around the 1h mark. I have no idea what that was. Sounds like a TNG shuttle craft, though.)

Ep.25: Holy Freaking Crap! Iwasntinvited and I, Ponken, spent a day at Destination Star Trek London (#DSTL), the first STAR TREK CONVENTION in London ever! Which was awesome! And a total nerd-fest! Naturally, we had to do a post-con Ponkcast, so here’s Part I of a two-part geek-out session!
(Watch out for Part II to be released shortly…)

We also debate unCONventional stuff like whether Kirk banged the stone creature from TOS and the size of Karl Drogo’s schlong.

Ep.24: The Roarmeister returns to Ponken & Friends to nominate the Top Ten Movies of all time, which it turns out is a really easy thing to do since Roary’s seen so many of them. We also discuss the many foreign titles of The Shawshank Redemption, theorise about what happened after American Beauty ended and share our best impressions of Uncle Monty. Et alia.

Obviously, we also partake in the #OMQDG!

Ep.23: After an unreasonably long hiatus, P&F gently returns to the ether, this time with Agent 99, my old flatmate from the ol’ Oxford days. We hobnob for a quick hour about new jobs, films we never recorded but should have, and – and bear in mind that this was very topical when we recorded the ep two months ago – Dark Knight Rises. Agent 99 had seen it at the time, but I hadn’t, so I instead shared some of my theories about what DKR may be all about and she shot them down, one by one. So kind of a spoiler alert, but not really.

We also chat about The Hunger Games and The Olympics (again, very topical at the time) and, as a logical segue, marriage.

Aaaaaand…we round off the ep with a killer OMQDG!

Amishbuttons and Captain Leonpants have an appointment upstairs. Only one way to get there: By catching the most metallic lift there is!
(Shot against a green screen in Amishbuttons’ garden in Venice, shortly before recording Ep.22 of Ponken & Friends.)

Ep.22: How would James Bond order a vagina in a bar? What’s the best job on a porn set? And what the heck is the deal with flight attendants?! We ponder these things and more, then kill a bottle of Absolut and play the obscure spelling game, i.e. How do you spell white? With a “W”, as in ‘sup. Yeah, funny. We also discuss women from various nations, what level of bush is just right and our favourite Buckaroo Banzai quotes. Btw, this episode was recorded in Venice. That’s right. P&F has gone global!

Ep.21: This time, the eminent Amishbuttons came over to London from Venice to hang out, see the sights and record a podcast. We thought of a million different things to talk about and do in this ep, even attempted to make a few lists of stuff along the way, but then somehow managed to not do any of those things at all and talk about the evolution of language instead… which I then cut out, because it ended up being way to drunken and incomprehensible. We also discussed clichés, dissected the staged fouls of Italian footballers, sang various versions of “Let’s call the whole thing off”, watched and talked about a bunch of our youtube films, oh, and at one point I made a politically incorrect joke I’m now regretting not editing out as well. What else? We chat about smartphones and stuff.

Regrettably there is no Obscure Movie Quote Drinking Game in this ep. I’m heading to Venice tomorrow, though, and I’ll track her down so we can record a more sober episode and she can be immortalised in the OMQDG Hall of Fame like she deserves.

Ep.20: Four episodes ago, Paddy turned up at the Ponken Enterprises studio to record two eps back-to-back. This is the second one of those, which is why I exhibit a record-high tipsiness factor from the get-go. In this ep, we discuss Paddy the Swede’s man crushes, Jacko’s pet monkey, Neil deGrasse Tyson vs. Degrassi Jr High, as well as auto-fellatio. I also try to tell about four anecdotes simultaneously and Paddy relays the details of his recent house-move. He also drops an impressive amount of F-bombs throughout the entire ep. We obviously conclude with a quick OMQDG.

The Roarmeister foolishly entered into a slap bet with Nikulele, saying that he would henceforth go without smoking or receive a righteous slap in the face. After five months… he smoked. Behold the awesome glory of Nik’s right palm!

Shot during the recording of the Ponken & Friends podcast (episode 19).

Ep.19: The Oxcast! For the first time in P&F history we recorded an episode in Oxford. And the history-making didn’t end there! A record-high amount of guest co-hosts were present as well. I met with Nikulele, The Roarmeister, Manxie and The Sighmonster in the latter’s new and awesome flat – and during his last week of bachelordom no less – to discuss where he should go on his honeymoon, the failing logic of Home Alone 2, Veet hair removal and watching sexy films with your parents. We also played a bit of “That don’t impress me much” aka Room 101 and conducted a quick manscaping survey, as well as – of course – engaged in the OMQDG.

Halfway through, we paused in order for Nik to deliver a righteous slap to Rory’s face for losing a bet, which I filmed and you can now check out for yourselves in the video section of ponken.com.

Ep.18: The Craig, Akhtron, Jackhammer and I sat down to do what ‘How I met your mother’ might refer to as “eat a couple sandwiches” and discuss every obscure and absurd little thing that sprang to mind.

Do people speak more quickly outside of England? Which is the best wall in the world? Who was the first to say “I’m a lover, not a fighter”? These things and more are debated while we attempt to disprove Jackhammer’s supposed allegation that some ethnicities have inferior hand-eye coordination? (For the record, he never actually said that.) We also chat about Pink Floyd, foreboding piano chords, Gregory Peck’s sex appeal, Tamagotchis, weird sh!t you can do on the Sims, doing a poo out of your wiener and about a billion other things. Apologies for the occasional crunch; We kind of got the munchies. Those “sandwiches” may also explain why this ep is all over the place.

Ep.17: After a super-long hiatus, I swung by Amylicious’ radtastic tabernacle of badassdom on Easter Sunday, congregating with her around a platter de fromage to discuss cheese dreams, being set up with people, pointy shoes, Easter, James Bond, Neve Campbell, the best Goldie Hawn films ever, where the Star Wars actors are today, our favourite Monty Python moments and every godawful element of the movie Taken. And that’s not even the half of it! Seriously. You need to listen to this episode. Anyway, we obviously ended with, like, one of the most amazingly bodacious OMQDGs ever, like seriously, totally, omg, fyi, btw. (Oh, and Amylicious got away with a ring-a-bell foul that I didn’t notice until editing this ep).

Ep.16: Paddy the Swede returned to Ponk Plaza for a P&F Double Bill, i.e. we recorded two eps back to back, the second of which will be edited and released into the ethersphere sometime in the future… Anyhoo, this time we chatted about Koni 2012, Babylon 5 (obviously, albeit briefly), masturbatory games, banging relationship etiquette and dating no-nos. We also perused some of the dumbest questions posed on Yahoo Answers and at one point I entirely missed the mother of all that’s what she saids when Paddy went “it’s stuck in your outbox” – *sigh* – hindsight’s a b-word… For reasons that need not be explained, we obviously played the #OMQDG as well. Hash-tag it!

Ep.15: My guest-co-host this week was Manxie who teleported into Ponk Plaza for a day of chess and cocktails, and to discuss Nic Cage’s blockbuster extravaganza “Knowing”, the rapid development of computer hardware and programming (ad nauseam) and the recent passing of Lucio Dalla (RIP). This episode is like a pendulum of nerditude, swinging between being the chessisode and the songisode, as the mind-blowing OMQDG was flanked by us singing some blues on one side and honouring the memory of Lucio by singing our favourite song of his, “Disperato Erotico Stomp”, on the other.

Ep.14: Return of The Jackhammer! I simply couldn’t keep him away. He popped into the studio on a school-night to partake in large quantities of Guinness and Bloody Mary. We chatted about our favourite killing scenes, love at first sound, Whitney Houston vs Michael Jackson, wearing surgical scrubs, the art of smoking, cheating in exams, Rubik’s cubes and a heck of a lot more. Because it’s the law, we concluded with an utterly bombastic OMQDG!

Ep.13: Sexisode Part Deux – The Valentine’s Day Edition. Catwoman once again lent her sexpertise to Ponken Enterprises, and together we discussed silly topics like journalism and gender roles… and super serious topics like spanking, Valentine’s Day dogging, French knickers, Catwoma’s bra collection and sonnets – à propos of which, Catwoman also demonstrated why Shakespeare was (and I quote) “a gimp”. What else? Well, Ponken shares the “Chris the Penis Guy” anecdote, we pull topics out of a top-hat, and the episode is obviously concluded with the OMQDG.

Ep.12: Nikulele and I met up on the interwebs to discuss the Oscars: to pass judgement on the nominees, peer into the time vortex and predict who the winners will be. Alas, the Gods of Skype were not kind all the way through, so the sound quality is a bit meh, but the cinematic indictments are top notch and the audio gets pretty crisp and sparkly just in time for – yes, you guessed it – the OMQDG!

Ep.11: So Many Bees (aka Maura) visited the Ponken Enterprises studio and immediately jumped into a Flowshart of SyFy original movies. We also discussed such varied topics as going to the United States of Freedom, The Wire, Jean-Claude Van Damme, RyanAir, Twitter and Doctor Who (et friggin alia). There was also a bit of chatter about So Many Bees’ appreciation of Neil Gaiman and my loathing of Lennier on Babylon 5. Obviously, we played the OMQDG, but *spoiler alert* this just lead to a sudden death mini-round metamorphosis into the Obscure TV Show Quote Drinking Game (OTVSQDG!)…

Ep.10: The Roarmeister turns up at Ponk Plaza on New Years Eve to discuss the Highs and Lows of 2011, New Years resolutions and super-glueing pubes to people’s faces. We then discuss ‘manscaping’ and business-speak before heading out to check out the fireworks, only to return at 3am, eating the grossest KFC meal ever and dissecting time zones and plotlines from classic, Australian TV-series “Round the Twist”. An ad hoc improvisation of “The Ponken Song” and one week later, we reconvene on Skype, this time joined by Shaky Jake, to debate Brazilian cake farting, badtastic band names and how all of society is geared toward getting some. We also engage in three quick but legendary rounds of the OMQDG.

Ep.09: This week I was privileged enough to hobnob with Paddy the Swede and engage in some cheese-flavoured chatter about the deadliest warrior, the best striptease songs and (not) our Christmas wish-lists. Perhaps best of all, though, was our (totally successful) attempt at creating the best and most bodacious Christmas/Action/Sci-Fi movie mash-up EVER!!

Ep.08: Five minutes after I got back from a brief sojourn in Italy, Nikulodeon and The Roarmeister stumbled into Ponk Plaza to partake in sushi, martinis and puerile banter. Luckily, we remembered to record it all. Among our topics of conversation were last meals, space travel, first world problems and bad band names. Obviously, for the ‘die hard’ fans of the show, we played the Obscure Movie Quote (Drinking) Game as well…

Ep.07: The Sexisode. Catwoman undulated into Ponk Plaza two weeks ago to discuss perfect asses, perving vs checking out, sex in strange places, sex in the 20s, sex in literature and sex in general. There was also a slight tangent about bathroom habits and sci-fi (respectively), but that just lead to chatting about dirty boudoir banter and a few rounds of the Obscure Movie Quote (Drinking) Game.

BONUS EP: Immediately following the recording of Ep.08 (even though, yes, I, Ponken, mistakenly say “Ep.07″ – stay tuned for that one), Roarmeister, Nikulodeon and I sit down to briefly summarise the OMQ(D)G rules. Bear in mind, this was at ca 7 martinis o’clock…

Ep.06: This week, Flic steps into Ponk Plaza with some fresh croissants and joins Ponken in downing some rum and discussing projectile fruit, Welsh phonology and Bon Jovi Dreams (et alia). They also tangentially touch upon the publishing industry before progressing to the Obscure Movie Quote (Drinking) Game.

Ep.05: Ponken, Manxie and The Roarmeister (Ep.01′s Rory) assemble in the Ponk Cave to nominate the best and worst movie villains of all time, not to mention to debate the merit of doing-it music, but end up digressing to topics like marathon’ing TV shows, Morgan Freeman’s marital status, and Ponken’s broken toilet, to name a few. Naturally, the vicious battle known as The Obscure Movie Quote (Drinking) Game is also fought on the misty plains of nerdom.

Ep.04: Ponken is joined by Jackhammer and Amanda (aka The Herry Monster), and right off the bat this podcast goes entirely bonkers. Four (4!) hours of unobtainium was edited down to two and a quarter hours of pure gold-pressed latinum!

Jackhammer dislikes the work of Z. Dechanel. Amanda finds Pacino utterly disappointing. And Ponken wants John Woo to be abolished from cinemas. Together, they share anecdotes from the good ol’ days of studying latin at school, and contemplate everything from the definition of a chav to the morality of Edith Piaf. They also turn the Obscure Movie Quote Game into a Drinking Game and conduct the most absurd, tangent-filled cinematic slaughter to date, making up the rules as they go along and debating ad nauseam what the score is.

Ep.03: Ponken and Nikul discuss such diverse and bodacious topics as, to name a few, Paul Newman’s salad dressing, pranks they’ve pulled at work, and the evolution of Star Wars. They also talk about how they got into their spare-time indie publishing venture, Lion Lounge Press, as well as, on an entirely unrelated note, the ninja of Yeovil. And then they even conjure up an ad hoc twitter competition, so have a listen to find out how you can win the radtastic prize! Naturally, the podcast is concluded with the Obscure Movie Quote Game.

Ep.02: Ponken and Manxie debate the virtues of living in Archway, recast Keanu Reeves’ character in “Devil’s Advocate” and discuss the benefits of owning a sonic screwdriver. They also play with a Nerf gun for a bit and, of course, have a go at the Obscure Movie Quote Game, proving, indubitably, that they are thoroughly awesome and rocking.

To conclude, they watch and review the film “Thor”, but only after they use their Precog abilities to predict the entire plot from start to finish.

Ep.01: Ponken and Rory discuss the book industry, their mutual loathing of the Twilight saga, their favourite podcasts and some random stuff like Star Trek and an ad for a tragically named brand of mouthwash. They also play the Obscure Movie Quote Game and are generally bad-ass.

Tired of not having any luck with the ladies? Have you had enough of more attractive and charming men getting all the attention? Were you not fortunate enough to be born Italian?

Well, look no further! Just come to our genetics laboratory and ask for “The Italian Treatment”, and we’ll turn that boring, unattractive self you were born with into a debonair citizen of the world.

Starring: Manxie

Manxie and Ponken are two nerds with a disagreement. What is better? Star Trek or Star Wars. While Manxie never goes anywhere without his lightsaber, Ponken plays with his Star Trek Pez collection. Disagreement turns into an epic battle when Manxie challenges Ponken to a duel. Two nerds enter the arena. Only one can be victorious.

Why do Morpheus and Neo get all the attention? That’s what our two protagonists ask themselves. Luckily, they have a cunning plan to remedy the situation…

Starring: Manxie & Ponken

Teaser #3 from 2010 for the sequel to Star Trek: Swing Shift… Star Trek: In Full Swing, featuring The Roarmeister, Nikulele and Ponken.

Alas, the full feature was never produced. However, you can enjoy the heart-breakingly awesome teaser footage nonetheless.

Teaser #2 from 2010 for the sequel to Star Trek: Swing Shift… Star Trek: In Full Swing.
Nikulele, The Roarmeister and Ponken critique Sigh’Mon’s quarters at Starfleet Academy.
(This teaser ends in a way that might not make sense to those who haven’t seen Swing Shift yet.)

Alas, the full feature was never produced. However, you can enjoy the heart-breakingly awesome teaser footage nonetheless.

Teaser #1 from 2010 for the sequel to Star Trek: Swing Shift – Star Trek: In Full Swing.
A paraphrase of the very first teaser in the Swing Shift franchise, this one stars The Roarmeister, Nikulele, Sigh’Mon and Ponken.

Alas, the full feature was never produced. However, you can enjoy the heart-breakingly awesome teaser footage nonetheless.

In this, the final instalment in the ‘Two Crazy Flatmates’ Quadrilogy we meet a hippie whose beliefs include blaming the bathroom light for the senseless death of polar bears.

Starring: Manxie & Ponken

This third instalment in the ‘Two Crazy Flatmates’ Quadrilogy flaunts a dude who takes his budgeting just a tad too seriously…

Starring: Manxie & Ponken

In this, the second instalment in the ‘Two Crazy Flatmates’ Quadrilogy, we encounter a specimen of that most loathsome of crazy flatmates… the insensitive one.

Starring: Manxie & Ponken

This first instalment in the ‘Two Crazy Flatmates’ Quadrilogy poses the question: What’s worse – having an untidy flatmate, or living with an OCD neat freak?

Starring: Manxie & Ponken

Avete capito bene amici. Tutto quello che avete sempre sognato in un’unica, fantastica, meravigliosa e tecnologica offerta.

That’s right, folks! Everything you ever hoped and dreamed of is now up for sale in this unique, amazing, glorious and technological offer. And it’s in Italian!

Starring Manxie & Ponken