00;00;00;06 - 00;00;28;02 VO Hello and welcome to Transformative Taskmaster, the podcast by fans for fans and belt fans. This week, TK is talking with the creator of the unofficial Taskmaster Treasure Hunt Nathan Show. It's a bit inside baseball this week, but it's not terribly spoilery, so you can still give it a go just for the hell of it. 00;00;28;05 - 00;00;34;05 TK Hello, Nathan, and welcome to the Transformative Taskmaster podcast. 00;00;34;07 - 00;00;35;12 Nathan Show Thank you very much for having me. 00;00;35;16 - 00;01;04;14 TK Yes, very excited to have you here. So I want to give you a little bit of background on how I found you. So I was at, I think, summer camp, or maybe it was a little bit before summer camp in Michigan, and somebody sent over a link to the unofficial taskmaster treasure hunt number two. And I was like, I don't know what that is, but it sounds like a lot of fun. 00;01;04;18 - 00;01;25;28 TK So I went and downloaded it, and it starts with a word search and I won't give any spoilers, but basically the word search is only the beginning to this very fun treasure hunt. And so then I spent the next like three weeks literally doing it so often that I had dreams about it. 00;01;26;00 - 00;01;27;02 Speaker 4 I would wake up feeling. 00;01;27;02 - 00;01;28;11 TK Like, oh, was that the. 00;01;28;11 - 00;01;30;03 Speaker 4 Answer to this thing? 00;01;30;05 - 00;01;43;27 TK And it was it was very, very fun. So I'd first like to ask you. We'll just start at the beginning. How did you get into Taskmaster in the first place? 00;01;44;00 - 00;02;11;05 Nathan Show So I got on board around. Well, not around exactly. Series five. I think I saw it advertised on a train or in, a supplement. In the newspaper, I think. And and thought. Oh, intriguing. And instantly loved it. I think that was a classic line up as well. So, maybe I'm biased because it's my favorite series, but I think the series five was a a great line up. 00;02;11;05 - 00;02;18;03 Nathan Show Really good balance. And yeah, that was my gateway. 00;02;18;06 - 00;02;26;16 TK Nice. And then did you just kind of watch it live from there on out. Like as they came out. Yeah. 00;02;26;21 - 00;02;54;14 Nathan Show Nice to. Yes. And there was one maybe 1 or 2 series that were on Dave, the channel over here in the UK where, they would let you watch the next episode online once the live one had gone down, which was just insane. Like for the first week, it was great, the second one online, but then it was just weird. 00;02;54;14 - 00;03;08;06 Nathan Show I was just like, everyone must have just been a week ahead as they were watching it through the website and not on the television. But yeah, I managed to get to a few recordings, as well over the years. 00;03;08;08 - 00;03;09;12 TK Well, that's very fun. 00;03;09;13 - 00;03;18;10 Nathan Show Champion of champions. The first champion of champions. And yeah, maybe five more since then. 00;03;18;12 - 00;03;23;05 TK Nice. That's awesome. Living in America, I'm very jealous of this. 00;03;23;08 - 00;03;26;19 Speaker 4 Ability to just go to studio records. 00;03;26;21 - 00;03;59;15 TK Well, that sounds that sounds like a lot of fun. So you have your own website. It's Nathan Dot show. Show. And on your homepage you have a few links to things. And the top link says Taskmaster book tasks in which you kind of catalog your run through. Of all of the was it the first tasks like official Taskmaster book that came out that was written by Alex? 00;03;59;16 - 00;04;00;29 Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah. 00;04;01;02 - 00;04;08;20 TK So tell me. So tell me about that because I don't have the book. So I don't know what's in it or anything like that. 00;04;08;22 - 00;04;37;10 Nathan Show So I think it was 200 tasks when it first came out as hardback, and then there were 20 prize tasks listed, and it was supposed to be, stuff for people to do with their friends. But some of it, it sort of encouraged, Marks and Alex said, share your attempts on Twitter and, you know, marks a month, a month and go through them all and give them all points. 00;04;37;12 - 00;05;03;22 Nathan Show And yeah, took it upon myself to do a free task in the book. And then the paperback came out and had 20 extra tasks in it, and I wanted to do all of the prize tasks as well. And I was going through something in my personal life at the time, and, so stuck. So it was a great outlet to just, sort of hide from life and have something to focus on, I guess, in a way. 00;05;03;29 - 00;05;24;07 Nathan Show Yeah. And yeah, it took about, I thought maybe nine months, maybe a year. And it came with the, the title Global Taskmaster Challenge. Global Taskmaster champion, which, you know, for me was just like, yeah, I want to. I want to do this. 00;05;24;11 - 00;05;52;06 TK Nice. Yeah, that sounds like really a lot of fun. And I can definitely relate to the taking your mind off of real life stuff and just delving into this world of Taskmaster, puzzles, more or less, because that's pretty much what your what your treasure hunt did for me. I was like completely I it would be like five hours would go by and I'm like, surely that's surely that's not the time. 00;05;52;09 - 00;05;56;01 TK I was like, I've only been doing this for 20 minutes was so fun. 00;05;56;04 - 00;05;56;13 Speaker 4 Oh. Good. 00;05;56;14 - 00;06;05;03 Nathan Show So glad to hear that and to hear that. Yeah, I was able to do for you what had been done for me by Alex. I was yeah. 00;06;05;06 - 00;06;36;21 TK Yeah, it was really cool. So there was. Now, I only heard about the second unofficial taskmaster treasure hunt. And it looks like there was a first, unofficial task master treasure hunt. So tell me about that one, because when I click on the link on the website. Neither of the links work anymore. So I maybe it's outdated. 00;06;36;23 - 00;06;41;11 TK Like, I don't know the timeline either or anything like that, but, but tell me. 00;06;41;17 - 00;06;42;13 Nathan Show A about to revisit. 00;06;42;13 - 00;06;43;04 Speaker 4 That. Yeah. 00;06;43;07 - 00;07;07;27 Nathan Show So what what are they doing? Well, I think there are parts of it that don't work as well anyway. So, so Alex's second Taskmaster related book was, bring me the head of the Taskmaster, where, it was like, Kit Williams. I think his name was a guy in the 1970s, an artist made a filigree rabbit, piece of artwork and then buried it somewhere. 00;07;07;29 - 00;07;35;27 Nathan Show And I think Alex referenced it in his in his book and said, like, it's, you know, sort of a similar sort of thing when he, had, a silver head somewhere, and everyone was, clamoring to find it. And his title, his hunt sort of took lots of different, twists and turns through various, media masquerade. 00;07;35;28 - 00;07;58;02 Nathan Show Thank you. Yes. Morgan's just put in the chat. Masquerade. Thank you so much. So it was Alex's version of masquerade. And as I was participating in it, sadly, I didn't win that one. I had sort of lots of spin off ideas of, oh, wouldn't it have been cool? Has that happened? Or wouldn't have been great if he'd taken it to there? 00;07;58;04 - 00;08;17;08 Nathan Show Obviously the real hammer's amazing, but despite my not winning it. So then at the end of it, I thought, okay, I feel like I've got enough stuff here where I could, do my own version of it. And that, that was fun for me just to make it so for people to actually do it. 00;08;17;11 - 00;08;49;13 Nathan Show And we sold it through the Taskmaster website, and raised money for charity with it was just like, oh, you know, I had enough some making this. But for people to be, paying money to a charity and then maybe hopefully enjoying it themselves. That's brilliant. And it I had things in Google Maps, along on Google Earth, and Street View and on eBay and in various review sites. 00;08;49;16 - 00;09;14;01 Nathan Show But yeah, I think some of them got taken down. I think my eBay listing might have got taken down because I had a picture of Alex as an NFT and, tangible token. Yeah. Selling it for a 1,978 pounds or something related to a year or something. And I think someone, cried foul on it and it got taken down. 00;09;14;03 - 00;09;35;12 Nathan Show And yeah, someone got in touch, actually, because they did the second unofficial hunt and said, oh, I got stuck right near the end of the first one. Where should I have gone from here? I couldn't remember. So going back in, it was like having to do my own hunt. Right? Yeah. Bits. Bits have been deleted or, removed. 00;09;35;12 - 00;09;46;10 Nathan Show So, but. Yeah. So my own link to not work. Oh, sorry. Yeah. You mean the link to that would have been the link to sell it on the Taskmaster website. So I think they took it down when the new one came out to avoid confusion. 00;09;46;13 - 00;10;17;01 TK Yes. Yeah. The. So, if you click through to the first unofficial taskmaster treasure hunt says, download your copy from the Taskmaster store here. That link just goes to the Taskmaster store. But like you said, the book is no longer there. And then there's another link that says you can check your answers and their correct order here. And it goes to a like no longer existing WordPress page. 00;10;17;04 - 00;10;42;05 Nathan Show Oh yes, I remember, yes. Yeah, I think I had to pay the business rate of WordPress to have, quiz. So yeah, I did a multiple choice quiz so people could check their answers but not figure out, what the actual answers were and if they had some information already. So yeah, maybe I'll upload the original one and, just put it on there. 00;10;42;05 - 00;10;51;20 Nathan Show In fact, I'm going to do that. I'll upload the original one and put it on that page for be like, oh no, this this link is broken, right? It's supposed to go after the third thing. 00;10;51;22 - 00;10;52;18 Speaker 4 Yeah. 00;10;52;20 - 00;11;06;18 TK Yeah. I guess that's the danger of doing something online is that things are always going to change around. But yeah, maybe you could make it a task to find all the things that are missing now. 00;11;06;25 - 00;11;08;27 Speaker 4 Oh, so long. 00;11;08;29 - 00;11;17;25 Nathan Show Well, I struggled. Haven't set the quiz to find some of the things recently, so I, Yeah, I wouldn't want to put anyone through that. 00;11;17;27 - 00;11;20;05 TK Yeah, well, that's cool then. 00;11;20;05 - 00;11;42;13 Nathan Show That that leads onto the second one. So at the end of the first one, I've really enjoyed sort of using what, three words and then that sort of formed the spine of the second one as, as you well know. 13th finisher. Congratulations. Ooh. So, yeah, that just felt like another thing that I felt like I wanted to play with. 00;11;42;15 - 00;11;50;26 Nathan Show And again, it was a real joy that other people were happy to give some money to charity and wanted to join in as well. 00;11;50;28 - 00;12;09;29 TK Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was definitely a lot of fun. I because you can print it out, there's a printable version and then there I think there's also Google Sheets or XL version. So I didn't. So I just printed it out because I knew I was going to camp. And my very old laptop does not support. 00;12;09;29 - 00;12;10;25 Speaker 4 Me. 00;12;10;27 - 00;12;20;18 TK Loading a bunch of pages at once. So yeah. So I it's just like a big old crumpled mess with lots of lines through it and highlighters and. 00;12;20;20 - 00;12;22;11 Speaker 4 Stuff like that. 00;12;22;13 - 00;12;43;03 TK But yeah, that was a lot of fun. So how how much time between the official treasure hunt and the first unofficial treasure hunt had taken place? And then also same question between the next two. 00;12;43;06 - 00;13;06;10 Nathan Show Who I would guess. I can't remember when the official one came out of that feeling. It might have been maybe in May to coincide with the series. I guess it probably took about a maybe a year. I would, I would guess maybe 15 to 18 months for the first, for my first one since I liked this book. 00;13;06;13 - 00;13;12;21 Nathan Show And then maybe a year to 18 months for my second one, I think, between the first and the second one. 00;13;12;23 - 00;13;15;04 TK Lots of work. 00;13;15;06 - 00;13;51;16 Nathan Show Yeah, but really enjoyable. But yeah, like you said about things changing online, things changed within, what, three words as well as things changing in the real world, which was really frustrating. Yeah. So it did it. And then it took a few months for the team at Taskmaster to, before they wanted to release it. So I had to recheck it a couple of times, and a couple of times I had to make big changes because stuff had just evaporated from Google Maps and so much so something's disappeared now, and I think I've had to leave a note on the website saying, yeah, yeah, if you're looking for this space. 00;13;51;18 - 00;13;52;02 Nathan Show Yeah. 00;13;52;05 - 00;14;14;10 TK Yep. Yeah, I, I definitely ran into that because so eventually what I did was I made a spreadsheet of the word search. It's this whole thing. And then I like so I basically typed out all the answers that I had, which I probably could have just asked you for the Excel version and. 00;14;14;10 - 00;14;15;11 Speaker 4 Saved myself. 00;14;15;11 - 00;14;37;11 TK A lot of time. But, I wanted to like, triple check my, my work. And yeah, there's at least one place where I had I had an answer and I for sure knew it was an answer. And then but I was stuck on it because it wasn't giving me like the next step correctly. And then when I. 00;14;37;13 - 00;14;55;24 TK Because if you go to if you download the second treasure hunt and you start doing it, there's like an email you can reach out to if you get stuck. And then there's like an automatic reply that will come to you and it'll say, you know, I'll go to this web page for some additional hints or help or whatever. 00;14;55;27 - 00;15;05;07 TK And there's so the, the place that I had found, it was like, if you're stuck on this place, it's actually this word and said. And I was like, I know exactly where that goes. 00;15;05;14 - 00;15;08;08 Speaker 4 So that was actually really helpful. 00;15;08;10 - 00;15;18;20 TK But yeah, frustrating that they change so fast even in the span of a few months. But I still had a lot. 00;15;18;22 - 00;15;46;03 Nathan Show And I didn't realize either that, I was sort of gives different things in the what, Three Worlds website. Yeah. Than Google does or. Yeah. So it depended on which, operating system you're on. So what three words I think sort of sucks up the maps from your operating system. And so where they differ slightly, that also caused a bit of consternation along the way, which I didn't realize beforehand. 00;15;46;05 - 00;16;07;07 TK Yeah. Oh that's not something I would have thought of either because I was on Android and so looking at the hey, you should use eye maps or whatever it's called Apple. Apple Maps. I was like, okay, that actually helps a lot. There were there were definitely 4 or 5 like answers that I found from just from that, that I wouldn't. 00;16;07;07 - 00;16;09;02 Speaker 4 Have found otherwise. 00;16;09;04 - 00;16;09;27 TK So yeah. 00;16;10;05 - 00;16;10;17 Nathan Show I'm so. 00;16;10;17 - 00;16;12;14 Speaker 4 Sorry. 00;16;12;17 - 00;16;20;08 TK Well, it's one of those things that you can't really predict is going to happen, and then you just kind of have to roll with the punches as they come. 00;16;20;11 - 00;16;36;01 Nathan Show Yeah, but frustrating thing was, I sort of tested it to within an inch of its life and yeah, yeah, you make something, you get praised in a big way. And I think it was the idea that came along. It's writing. 00;16;36;07 - 00;16;58;18 TK Yeah. It's almost like how I imagine some live tasks in Taskmaster go in the studio where you'd think the team triple checks everything, and then somebody just wins it and they're like, well, now we have like eight more bowls of stuff that we can shove this electric toothbrush into. But I guess we don't have to do that now. 00;16;58;20 - 00;17;00;23 Speaker 4 So it's like, well, that's like. 00;17;00;27 - 00;17;02;13 Nathan Show One of those. That was the reverse. 00;17;02;18 - 00;17;03;04 Speaker 4 Oh, really? 00;17;03;06 - 00;17;11;07 Nathan Show I think so I saw they had whiteboards and they had to write on the whiteboards. But they'd been given permanent markers. 00;17;11;09 - 00;17;12;07 Speaker 4 Cause I've heard. 00;17;12;07 - 00;17;15;15 Nathan Show Of that. So they went to wipe off the whiteboards and cut them, so. 00;17;15;16 - 00;17;17;17 Speaker 4 Oh, man. Yeah. 00;17;17;19 - 00;17;19;20 TK What a mess. 00;17;19;23 - 00;17;27;02 Nathan Show So it's good to know, like, even even the top people, are flawed sometimes. Like, make, make it minor errors sometimes. 00;17;27;02 - 00;17;56;21 TK Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So let's go back and talk about the original treasure hunt that Alex wrote. So it was called Bring Me the Head of the Taskmaster, I think, and it's an interesting book to talk about now. Yeah. Because and again, I don't, I don't have it or anything, but you can still get it from places. 00;17;56;24 - 00;18;26;17 TK But like the main kind of hype around it is gone more or less because it's finished in air quotes. Because it was basically like this book came out, there was a physical Greg Davis head that was buried somewhere, like in the world. And the answers that you would get from the book would eventually lead you to this place. 00;18;26;17 - 00;18;43;21 TK And whoever got there first, I guess, was the winner. From what I have been able to tell, this was like this huge thing that happened. And there were like video chats with Alex and like, secret, lots of secret stuff. 00;18;43;21 - 00;18;45;04 Speaker 4 So. 00;18;45;06 - 00;19;03;22 TK So tell me about, like, how how did that book work? Because again, you can still, like, have it today and, like, do the hunt, but you're not going to, like, get anything because it's already been gotten more or less. But tell me about your experience with that. 00;19;03;25 - 00;19;29;20 Nathan Show So yeah, I think there were also tasks in that book, but having, completed the first book with a lot of tasks and that I didn't do them, and there were there sort of several chunks of the book where there was sort of cryptic writing and Alex saying that, enjoyed the number two and things like that. 00;19;29;22 - 00;20;03;05 Nathan Show So sort of clues that were funneling it towards things. And then there was a grid at the back and there were questions to answer. It's all coming. Flooding back now. And you would answer the questions and the second letter from each word you would put into this, ten by ten grid. And then there were words within the grid, and there were things within the grid, which is where I got the idea for my first, treasure hunt, because I thought, oh, well, what happens if you move the grid somehow? 00;20;03;05 - 00;20;30;06 Nathan Show What happens if you, slip it over or sort of twist it or use a stencil over the top of this? Great to see different, specific letters. But, Alex, this one had this grid, and you found a message within a grid, and then it sort of kicked off from there. And then there were lots of different elements, that needed his interaction. 00;20;30;06 - 00;20;58;08 Nathan Show And there were lots of time locks to let people all catch up to each other. But I think there was one bit where you had to take a photo with an egg or some bread or something. And there was another bit where, he sent a picture through the post. I think I'm remembering correctly. And then you had to, figure out from this picture, what the clue was to get onto the next. 00;20;58;10 - 00;21;21;01 Nathan Show But he would give clues on Twitter because some of them were really cryptic and difficult. And then, as you say, yeah, there was some catch ups on zoom as well for people to ask questions. But it was a lot more involved than mine, a lot bigger. And obviously the prize was 100,000 million times better. 00;21;21;04 - 00;21;27;04 TK I don't know, having my name up on a website is pretty cool. 00;21;27;06 - 00;21;48;25 TK Yeah. I mean it makes you really wonder how much time does this man have? Because he must be a time traveler. Positive. Like, how does he have the time to do his band and his show and and and and and like, it's nuts. 00;21;48;27 - 00;21;51;16 Nathan Show And see his family and. Yeah, they were ideas for the show and. 00;21;51;17 - 00;21;55;09 Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah. Wild. Yeah. 00;21;55;11 - 00;22;04;00 TK So you said you didn't like when was there only one winner for the original treasure hunt. 00;22;04;02 - 00;22;33;01 Nathan Show Yeah. So. And, Oh, I think I was in the top 100 because the top 200 people got a jigsaw piece. Oh, cool. So he made a jigsaw, and then he sent one piece to each of the top 100 people. And savagely the first the people like, who were first and second, as it were, into the final heat. 00;22;33;03 - 00;22;56;08 Nathan Show Both got taken, somewhere near a field where the head was and just the two of them, like, knew they had a 5060 shot. Oh, my. Oh, no. Which, you know, I'd like to be like, I imagine it was a great experience for the runner up, but to know that you'd been that close must have been like. 00;22;56;10 - 00;22;57;23 Nathan Show Wow. Devastating. 00;22;57;25 - 00;22;59;04 Speaker 4 Yeah. 00;22;59;07 - 00;23;21;22 TK That's wild. So how did it work? Well, like, were there, like elimination rounds or something? Like, how did they get to the it was it just like the first two people to do something or reach out to Alex. And then they had kind of like a scheduled event or something. 00;23;21;25 - 00;23;46;26 Nathan Show Yeah. Yeah, I think it was the first two people across the line for one. So there were sort of blocks of time where there would be a puzzle. So the picture, that he sent out, and then people would have, like, people would complete it and then, after a month or so many weeks or whatever, he would sort of give out clues periodically. 00;23;46;26 - 00;24;09;04 Nathan Show And if people hadn't got through that, that chunk of it, the, the hunt just moved on to the next thing. Okay. So you sort of got left behind, if you didn't manage to solve things in time, but then I think when it got to the end, it was the first two people that gave him the correct answer for whatever that, penultimate chunk was. 00;24;09;06 - 00;24;37;18 Nathan Show And then, he found somewhere sort that distant between the two of them. So I think there was still bits of the hunt where they were just sort of making it up as they went along and, I think it was the, trouser. Telford, the had one of his editors, who sort of was quite heavily involved had, and so I absolutely tool that that's a part. 00;24;37;21 - 00;24;57;24 Nathan Show And at one stage I was writing out every letter from every page. Yeah. In a ten by ten grid, and I found a little Easter egg in one of them. Oh, really? I think it's a, pussycat or something. And there was a bit that referred to the Owl and the Pussycat, in a different clue. 00;24;57;24 - 00;25;23;05 Nathan Show And I don't know what the, it was just an Easter egg or whether it was a direction he was going to take it in, but changed his mind because I think he was, shocked by how many people sort of got involved. And I think it might have taken a right turn up at a certain point because, yeah, it felt like they were making it up on the fly at some point. 00;25;23;07 - 00;25;25;22 Nathan Show Yeah, but this one I'm not right. 00;25;25;25 - 00;25;37;13 TK I mean, it's it seems like such a lot to keep track of, like, like because you were saying even with your stuff, you're like, I couldn't go back and do my first one again. Like, I don't know. 00;25;37;14 - 00;25;40;03 Speaker 4 Anything about what I did. 00;25;40;05 - 00;26;04;06 TK Yeah. So, like, you got to really keep track of, like, every single thing. I think that's kind of why I made my spreadsheet for The Unofficial Treasure Hunt Part two, because I had printed out the physical paper, and I had marked it up so much that I could not read it anymore. And I was like, I just need to do this online. 00;26;04;06 - 00;26;33;11 TK So that I can, like, control F and just search for the word that I need. And even then there were a bunch of so like it starts off with the word search, which is massive. It's like 40 by 40. And there were a couple that I remember specifically that at some point. So like you answer a bunch of questions like what, 270 something, 74 questions is something like that, whatever. 00;26;33;13 - 00;26;35;10 Nathan Show Whatever. 81 times three is. 00;26;35;13 - 00;26;36;13 Speaker 4 Yeah. 00;26;36;15 - 00;26;43;18 TK 81 times three equals 273. That's it. 00;26;43;22 - 00;26;46;13 Speaker 4 Yeah, sure. 00;26;46;16 - 00;26;46;26 TK I'm not. 00;26;47;01 - 00;26;51;11 Nathan Show I anyway. Well, whatever, 81 times three is oh oh. 00;26;51;11 - 00;27;24;16 TK 243 I don't know where I got the seven from, but so 243 questions and so basically you I think you can pretty much do it in whatever order you want, but it makes the most sense to go through the questions, try to answer them and then match it up to the word search and but then so I went through like all 243 questions and like without looking anything up, just off the top of my head, I probably could answer like a dozen. 00;27;24;18 - 00;27;26;01 Speaker 4 Sometimes, like. 00;27;26;08 - 00;27;46;18 TK Because I kept double guessing myself too. And so then what I did was I went to the word search and just looked for words and was like, okay, if I can find, like a long word, that's probably going to be in here. But then there's something like, like obviously spoilers for the word search, but one of the words is cheerleaders. 00;27;46;20 - 00;28;04;05 TK And I found later and I was like, perfect circle leader. That's great. And then I found cheerleader and I was like, oh, I guess I can just go further down, okay. And then I was like, oh, but this s doesn't make sense here. Like, I don't need this s. And then I was like, oh, it's cheerleaders. So I took me forever to. 00;28;04;05 - 00;28;06;07 Speaker 4 Figure out who it is. 00;28;06;09 - 00;28;26;13 TK And then there's another one where I, I had gotten it was like this kind of a similar thing where I had found what I thought was a word, but it wasn't. And so one of the letters was like one letter off of what it actually needed to be. And so I ended up with Rancho Man. 00;28;26;15 - 00;28;27;07 Speaker 4 Just like. 00;28;27;07 - 00;28;28;15 TK I don't know what Rancho. 00;28;28;15 - 00;28;31;04 Speaker 4 Man is. It's like, no, that's not. 00;28;31;11 - 00;28;31;28 TK That's the. 00;28;31;28 - 00;28;32;27 Speaker 4 Wrong. 00;28;32;29 - 00;28;33;16 TK Sequence. 00;28;33;16 - 00;28;36;14 Speaker 4 Of letters. So it's like, but like to. 00;28;36;14 - 00;28;44;29 TK The to the very end, I had like three words that were in the word search that I could not find them as the answer to one of the. 00;28;44;29 - 00;28;49;00 Speaker 4 Questions of like, what's around? So, man, I'm not sure. I don't like. 00;28;49;02 - 00;28;56;04 TK Oh my gosh. And then I figured out what it was and I was like. 00;28;56;06 - 00;29;03;06 Speaker 4 Well, that makes a lot more sense. What's so funny? 00;29;03;08 - 00;29;05;02 TK But yeah, so I mean, very common. 00;29;05;04 - 00;29;07;05 Nathan Show Sounds like it could be a ten sign character. 00;29;07;07 - 00;29;35;09 TK It really does. Honestly. I was like, is there some like, because, you know, there's like, yeah, there's, some differences between, you know, British and American isms and like, so this particular answer that I was trying to find was like, if so-and-so had his job in America, what would it be called? And I was like, Rancho man, apparently. 00;29;35;11 - 00;29;36;02 TK 00;29;36;05 - 00;29;39;14 Speaker 4 But like, that's obviously not a thing. But that was. 00;29;39;14 - 00;29;53;09 TK So frustrating because I was like, is there such thing as a Rancho man in America? I don't know, I've lived in America my whole life, and it doesn't sound familiar. I don't know, maybe it's like a Gen Z thing that I don't know about. 00;29;53;12 - 00;29;54;17 Speaker 4 It's just like going. 00;29;54;17 - 00;29;55;17 TK In circles until. 00;29;55;17 - 00;29;58;01 Speaker 4 I figured it out. I'm like, oh my gosh. 00;29;58;03 - 00;30;23;02 TK So that was fun and frustrating, but mostly fun. Okay, so so back to to Alex's book. So you said you made the top hundred. So was that like the second to last kind of bracket of people, or were there a couple more that you didn't make it into? 00;30;23;05 - 00;30;34;20 Nathan Show No, I think it was the yeah, second to last bracket. So you even you were even there in the top two or the top hundred or like beyond. 00;30;34;26 - 00;30;43;07 TK Right. Do you know how many people participated like total? 00;30;43;10 - 00;30;46;00 Nathan Show It felt like a lot. 00;30;46;02 - 00;30;47;09 TK Well, it's over 100 I can. 00;30;47;09 - 00;30;48;10 Speaker 4 Tell you that. 00;30;48;13 - 00;31;00;09 Nathan Show Definitely over a hundred. Yeah. And it sort of blew up a little bit on Reddit. I was so I was trying to like, moves it because I thought, you know, I'm the global taskmaster champion. I need to. 00;31;00;13 - 00;31;01;26 Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah. 00;31;01;28 - 00;31;19;25 Nathan Show I need to try and plan my. I'm sorry. And, Yeah, but I think that there's a lot of collaboration. I probably collaborated with people at certain points when I was stuck, I think, but I didn't have, like, a team, and I think there was several teams, maybe one. I think that was one team that had about 20 people in it even. 00;31;19;28 - 00;31;31;12 Nathan Show But, but guess well over 100 people finished. But I would be surprised if it was more than 2 or 300 that finished. But the good stuff is how many started. 00;31;31;17 - 00;31;32;28 Speaker 4 00;31;33;01 - 00;31;41;16 TK Yeah, that's interesting for the thousands. Yeah, I might maybe Alex knows if I can ask him at some point. 00;31;41;19 - 00;31;43;01 Nathan Show He definitely know. 00;31;43;04 - 00;31;44;13 Speaker 4 Yeah, he's got it. 00;31;44;16 - 00;31;47;00 Nathan Show Yeah. I didn't know how many books were sold as well, I did mine. 00;31;47;07 - 00;32;26;11 TK Oh, that's true. That's a good point. Yeah, it reminds me, like, the collaboration thing you were talking about. Reminds me when I was, I went to New York in January because Greg and Alex came for the series 19 premiere, and they had three live tasks. And then the winners of those tasks would go up on stage for like the final thing, which ended up being the like, Greg will read a story and whenever he says a homophone of a color, you pop the balloon from the latest series, which I was like, I was there for that one. 00;32;26;11 - 00;33;01;21 TK But like obviously different because people from the audience. But there was one task where so the task was like, Greg is going to read out a list of either like blue or pink, and we each had a card that had blue on one side and pink on the other side, and, you know, Greg was it was like this, I don't know, maybe a hundred words long of either blue and pink and just this pattern that wasn't a pattern. 00;33;01;26 - 00;33;35;24 TK It was just random. And the task specifically said, like, you're not allowed to record this as he says it, because you have to memorize it and then show afterwards. And like, there's no way anybody's memorizing this hundred word blue or pink pattern of words. But it got to the point where there were a decently large group of people that were getting every single answer right, and it was like, well into the pattern. 00;33;35;24 - 00;33;46;10 TK It was like, you know, 40 or 50 in. And we're like, there's no way you remembered this. Like, and and so Alex was like, who's cheating? And pretty much everybody raised. 00;33;46;10 - 00;33;47;16 Speaker 4 Their hand. 00;33;47;19 - 00;34;04;15 TK Because they were like, well, you didn't say we weren't allowed to like, write it down. And he's like, and we're like, no, no. Like you couldn't record it. And so like, half of the audience was against the other half of the audience because we're like, no recording means no writing it down, no recording it on your phone, you know, like no voice recording, no blah, blah, blah. 00;34;04;17 - 00;34;19;03 TK And so eventually it was like every single person that was still standing, like, admitted to Alex that they had cheated in some way. And so then they were. And that was really awkward because Alex was like, well, I'm not really. 00;34;19;03 - 00;34;19;22 Speaker 4 Sure what. 00;34;19;22 - 00;34;33;26 TK We do from here because like, how do I pick a winner? And so Greg just ended up picking this person, like near the front that had gone pretty far, like by herself and was we were pretty sure wasn't shootings. 00;34;33;28 - 00;34;36;08 Speaker 4 It's a sentence I'm going to answer. 00;34;36;10 - 00;34;45;19 TK But it was it was so funny because even in like a live task, it kind of went wrong. But it was really. 00;34;45;21 - 00;34;48;13 Nathan Show Being awesome, to do as well. I really enjoy that one, I think. 00;34;48;16 - 00;34;50;00 TK Yeah, it was very stressful. 00;34;50;02 - 00;35;17;21 Nathan Show I, I got disqualified at a similar thing. He, so in the first task, Master Burke, with all the tasks, one of the task was to turn up, in Chesham on a certain date, and that was awesome. Like, you might still be able to see videos of that on Twitter. And maybe even online elsewhere. And people, like, there must have been 200 minimum 200 people there that day. 00;35;17;24 - 00;35;41;29 Nathan Show And then it was so much fun. He repeated it the next year that everyone went to Chesham United Football Ground, and it was in there rather than in a park in Chesham. And they ran, they ran some tasks there with The view. It's getting five people to be the final five that would do a proper taskmaster run through. 00;35;42;01 - 00;36;06;21 Nathan Show One of the tasks was everyone had a piece of card when we were, shown into the into the ground, one of the tasks was whoever can get their paper airplane that they make with this piece of card closest to a spot on the football pitch, like one to see in the in the final. And it didn't say you couldn't walk onto the pitch. 00;36;06;21 - 00;36;07;25 Speaker 4 Oh no. 00;36;07;26 - 00;36;31;20 Nathan Show Jump to the barrier, go to all the way up to the spot and just dropped my plane. And I thought I had the perfect solution, but I got disqualified. Because although it didn't say you're not allowed on the pitch, it was, Alex said it was implicit. So I fell foul of trying to be too clever, man. 00;36;31;22 - 00;36;33;05 TK Let's see that. 00;36;33;07 - 00;36;33;14 Speaker 4 They. 00;36;33;14 - 00;36;41;24 TK Really have to write it down at this point. They should. They should have learned by Richard Osman. But you can't just not. 00;36;41;27 - 00;36;42;22 Speaker 4 Specifically. 00;36;42;22 - 00;36;50;22 TK Put stuff in a task and not expect people to find loopholes. But yeah, well, we also yeah, yeah, we all. 00;36;50;22 - 00;36;53;11 Nathan Show Think it was better for Richard Osman. 00;36;53;13 - 00;37;10;08 TK Yeah. No, he definitely did did a lot better. I keep thinking he was the winner of that series, but I don't think he was. And I haven't rewatched the earlier series in a while but no. Yeah. That. Oh yeah. Catherine Ryan. Catherine. 00;37;10;08 - 00;37;11;15 Nathan Show Right. Yeah. Catherine. Ryan. 00;37;11;17 - 00;37;28;16 TK Yeah. But we had a similar thing in the New York premiere where you had you had to make a paper plane and then try to fly it, like into Alex's open mouth as he laid down on stage. And whoever got the closest would what it was. 00;37;28;20 - 00;37;29;05 Nathan Show Like, 00;37;29;08 - 00;37;52;22 TK It was very strange, but it was also annoying because, like, I was on the orchestra floor. So you know, like in row K or something. So I'm at a heavy disadvantage because I don't have the height advantage from the balcony. But I also am like, does you know how many of rows in front of me? So I was like, well, there's no way that my. 00;37;52;22 - 00;37;53;23 Speaker 4 Plane is going to be. 00;37;53;23 - 00;38;01;18 TK Going anywhere near. So I think the person that ended up winning was from the balcony, I'm pretty sure. But it was so fun. 00;38;01;21 - 00;38;06;08 Nathan Show But did it say you couldn't? You couldn't step from your spot? 00;38;06;11 - 00;38;08;23 TK It's a good point. I'm not sure if it's the two. 00;38;08;23 - 00;38;10;11 Nathan Show Walked up and just dropped it on. Mean. 00;38;10;19 - 00;38;21;22 TK I feel like a mob situation would not have been ideal. I think it did say you have to stay in your seat. And I do remember Greg saying, like, sucks for the people. 00;38;21;22 - 00;38;25;26 Speaker 4 In the back, but, you know, whatever. 00;38;25;29 - 00;38;27;11 TK But yeah, that was. 00;38;27;14 - 00;38;28;27 Speaker 4 That was a good one. 00;38;29;00 - 00;38;57;24 TK Yeah. And then the first one was one they did at the previous year's New York visit, because they rented out like a 100 person venue, which they severely underestimated the amount of people that wanted to come to the venue. So they ended up packing like 200 people in it. But that task was like Alex would ask a bunch of questions, and the number that you got would call like a burner phone that Greg had. 00;38;57;24 - 00;39;11;04 TK So the task was like, Call Greg, you know, and then and we're like, so. So he says, Call Greg versus wins. And we're like, okay. And he's like, oh, I guess I'll help you out. 00;39;11;04 - 00;39;11;21 Speaker 4 And then he like. 00;39;11;21 - 00;39;32;05 TK Start saying question, you know, like, how old am I going to be in whatever year? And how tall is Greg and all this kind of stuff? But then it was confusing because we're like, well, are you using an American burner phone? Or like, what's the area code? You know, so I was, yeah. So, so the first one was called Greg. 00;39;32;07 - 00;39;59;03 TK The second one was, I think, the pink and blue. And then the third one was the airplane. And then the final task altogether was the people doing the puffing the balloons thing. And that was funny because like, we've we've seen it done in series 19 for a live task. But they had those, the things that were used to pop the balloons. 00;39;59;05 - 00;40;22;05 TK I don't know if they were ducks, I guess they would have been ducks because they were yellow and they looked weird. But the those this one guy who, like, got to take his duck pen with him. And as is American tradition at this point, something Jason bazookas Martin Lucas, he was like, I'm going to he's like, I don't want this. 00;40;22;05 - 00;40;35;24 TK I'll give it to some random person in the audience. But of course, being in America, he like goes to throw it and there's this huge pin on the end of it. And Alex is like, no, no, no, but it was too late. 00;40;35;27 - 00;40;36;11 Speaker 4 And he. 00;40;36;16 - 00;40;49;04 TK Thrown that into the audience. Nobody got hurt, fortunately. But Alex was like, oh my gosh, I need to not give Americans sharp things anymore. Oh my gosh. 00;40;49;06 - 00;41;05;22 Nathan Show Dangerous. Yeah, yeah, they did that. I've just remembered I did the phone call Greg one. The Chesham as well. And they. Yeah. Great fun. So yeah. How did you get tickets to the New York thing? Was it, was it difficult to get into and was it awesome. 00;41;05;24 - 00;41;32;15 TK So I didn't go to the very first one, but the second. So this year's one, it was a venue for 1500 people. So it was it did sell out in under two hours. I will say that. But I have a friend group who, like, there's maybe like 100 of us in the group. Not all of us are active, but, 14 of us ended up going together because we all live in different time zones. 00;41;32;15 - 00;41;50;06 TK And so we were on the lookout for, when the tickets would drop. So basically, like, one of us was awake when they dropped and they were like, I'm just going to buy 14 tickets. And so it ended up working out. And Lee, like all paid her back and stuff. So, but yeah, it was really awesome. It was like so much fun. 00;41;50;08 - 00;42;10;08 TK I grew up in upstate New York, so like four hours away from the city. I don't really like New York City. Not really a huge fan of cities in general. And it was also so cold because it was January and it was snowing, and I was miserable because I live in California now, and I don't ever want to see another snowflake. 00;42;10;10 - 00;42;12;09 Speaker 4 Again in my life. 00;42;12;11 - 00;42;37;19 TK But it was really cool that they came over again, because I don't think I still don't think that they realize how popular they are in America. Because like, again, it's sold out in under two hours and they like, I mean, our friend group was constantly like walking around the city trying to run into them because we were like, we know that they'll probably go to Central Park. 00;42;37;19 - 00;42;50;06 TK So we walked around Central Park, like for hours and hours trying to run into them and we never did. And then later they posted that picture where they had been sitting for a portrait in Central Park, and we were like, see, we told. 00;42;50;06 - 00;42;53;21 Speaker 4 You they were going to be in Central Park. 00;42;53;23 - 00;43;34;00 TK But yeah, it was really fun. And then they did a couple interview like we knew they were doing Seth Meyers, but none of us got in for that because there was like a huge wait. And then he did another they did another interview. I don't remember with whom, but it was at the NBC Studios building. So we waited outside that building and I got to run into them, which was very exciting because I wanted to tell Alex that I was going to like, get the Patreon thing for his horn section, podcast, which no longer exists because it was such a hassle to do. 00;43;34;00 - 00;43;52;21 TK I think, it was really fun. And he was like, are you sure? Because, like, that's a lot of money. And I was like, yeah, I'm sure. So like once that email goes through, I just know that it's not an accident. So I ended up going on the Horn Section podcast, and then he came on this podcast, like really early on, which was wild. 00;43;52;21 - 00;44;21;00 TK He was like episode five, but he's such a sweet man. And it was a lot of fun, like getting to meet them in person and like, just being in the same room as them. And they're both, like, so funny and so surprisingly kind people, I guess, you know, in the world of celebrities being assholes to people, it's kind of almost hard to find people that are, as genuine as as those. 00;44;21;00 - 00;44;31;12 TK So especially Alex, like, Alex is the one that I've been in touch the most with. And he's been nothing but just kind. 00;44;31;14 - 00;44;33;01 Speaker 4 Cool. 00;44;33;04 - 00;44;54;06 TK But yeah, so it's similar. And I imagine that you've been in touch with Alex because you or or maybe it was somebody else because your treasure hunt would have had to go through the official Taskmaster website. So was that something that you reached out to Alex for, or he reached out to you, or how did that happen? 00;44;54;09 - 00;45;24;21 Nathan Show So in that instance, I reached out to him and he was very helpful and put me in touch with the marketing people who would then put it through their website. And they were very helpful as well. I called Joe, but previously so I was in I was mentioned in his, second book because I won the first book. 00;45;24;23 - 00;45;48;14 Nathan Show And when I completed the final task in the first book, I invited him along. And he he was the like, because that's just how kind is it showed up. And yeah, the final task with me, and then for the first, for my first treasure hunt book, the prize was a papier maché taskmaster trophy that I made. 00;45;48;16 - 00;46;07;14 Nathan Show And then the runners up prizes were the mugs. That had a picture of that trophy on. And I thought, well, I'll try to upscale it a little bit and asked Alex to sign them, and he, of course, agreed because he's such a gentleman. But he invited me to the Taskmaster house so that he could sign them there. 00;46;07;16 - 00;46;32;10 Nathan Show And I just miss Julian Clary. Julian had just been doing his tasks that day. Oh, and he sat me in a room with a whiteboard that had, the next two series glasses. Contestants mapped out how, like, when they were coming in to do their. Yeah, so many days. Then I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe he's just left me. 00;46;32;10 - 00;46;33;08 Speaker 4 And all. 00;46;33;10 - 00;46;36;16 Nathan Show This information. And now I've just got to keep it to myself or two. 00;46;36;17 - 00;46;37;25 TK Oh no. 00;46;37;25 - 00;46;57;17 Nathan Show It would have been probably a year. But yeah, amazing. And I still went to his house for something as well. I can't remember what that maybe that was to get. I can't remember, I went a top to his house briefly on an occasion as well. And, like, the man is just so friendly. 00;46;57;20 - 00;46;57;29 TK Yeah. 00;46;58;00 - 00;47;00;08 Nathan Show 00;47;00;11 - 00;47;34;26 TK Yeah. Pretty wild. He's the best. Well good times. Yeah. Well, I guess I don't really have any other questions for you. But definitely update that first unofficial treasure hunt webpage so that people can check it out. And then anybody is free to go to the second unofficial one, because I'm pretty sure I'm just going to check that these links. 00;47;35;03 - 00;47;57;27 TK Yeah. They work. Yeah. All money I think, goes to charity. It's like $7 on my page. I don't know if that's pounds or not, but seven bucks, if you're using USD. Yeah. 7999. Maybe it's for whatever. I mean, I bought it, I should know, but. 00;47;57;29 - 00;47;58;19 Speaker 4 I don't have. 00;47;58;19 - 00;48;27;22 TK A good memory. But you can choose to donate more if you would like. It'll give you the the PDF download two, version two of the treasure hunt. That's through the official taskmaster store. You can also go to Nathan Dot show, and it'll be, easily linked on the front page. And also, if you scroll down all the way to the bottom of the unofficial Taskmaster Treasure Hunt two page, I'm right there is number 13. 00;48;27;26 - 00;48;32;22 TK Yay! So excited. That's like, oh man, I'm in the Hall of Fame. 00;48;32;22 - 00;48;34;24 Nathan Show The final finisher at the moment. 00;48;34;26 - 00;48;58;10 TK Yeah, that's true. As of recording this, there's just 13 people that have finished it. So pretty exciting. Yeah. Lucky number 13. Well, it's been really nice talking to you. Thank you so much for coming on our podcast and talking to us about all of the treasure hunts and all of that good stuff. We hope you've enjoyed your time. 00;48;58;13 - 00;49;05;05 TK And, hopefully we'll we'll see more hunts yet to come at some point. 00;49;05;08 - 00;49;11;18 Nathan Show Oh my gosh, don't tempt me. Thank you for that. Like so. Well, do it even if it's just a game that's going to go. 00;49;11;20 - 00;49;13;06 Speaker 4 Yeah. 00;49;13;09 - 00;49;23;02 TK Well you know it's what what do they say about things coming in threes. The rule of threes. So you got to do at least one more. 00;49;23;05 - 00;49;29;02 Speaker 4 At least two people. We know what to say. Now you got do great things. 00;49;29;04 - 00;49;30;20 Nathan Show Thanks a lot I'm going to have to do one now. 00;49;30;24 - 00;49;32;14 TK Yeah. All right. See you in a year and a half. 00;49;32;14 - 00;49;36;13 Speaker 4 Then when that comes out. 00;49;36;16 - 00;49;45;18 Nathan Show Thank you very much for having me on the podcast. It's been a pleasure. And, I'm grateful that I didn't have to make up some, frantic on the spot. 00;49;45;25 - 00;49;55;09 TK Oh, yeah. Now, we only do that to Alex so far. You all right? Well, thanks again. 00;49;55;11 - 00;49;56;03 Nathan Show Thank you so much.