“Hello tech support. Uh-huh, uh-huh. In your podcast app? OK. Does the thumbnail have two skeletons on it? Uh-huh. Yeah, I’m afraid you’re going to have to listen to it. Yeah, yeah. The whole thing I'm afraid. It’s only an hour. OK. I understand.”

Wow! This time on Cheerful Despair:

• David F. Porteous didn’t want to shoot lightning from his fingertips anyway!
• Minced beef rocket ship!
• We love the smell of Hersey’s in the morning!

"I tried top [sic] watch [sic] this. It was beyond stupid and not even a little bit funny. Sounded like extreme left wing nonsense and trying to make it sound funny."

This time on Cheerful Despair:

• Extreme left wing nonsense! Wow!
• Beyond stupid! Yay!
• Not even a little bit funny!
  • Plus!
• Trying to make it sound funny!

Recorded in early 2019 and aged in an oak MacBook previously used to produce a fine Scottish audiobook. This episode has exquisite bouquets of:

• Time passes, possibly on the way to taking four consecutive rights and coming back to where it was
• The Apple Store that used to be a Wimpy
• "There was never 'the' terminator, it was always 'a' terminator"
• The hospitalisation of Scottish Author David F Porteous
• The Cheerful Despair Discriminatory Gymnasium and Subscription Sex Prison ft. Tom Hanks
• "Nobody is gonna go to that pub"

As well as delicate hints of our favourite segments Debate Bag and a Christmas Cross Quiz written for a Christmas Special we never recorded (or did we?!? (we didn't)).

Remember, if you don't share our podcast on social media, the terrorists win. Their podcast is very popular.

Now eat an orange.

Denied their sound engineer and recording studio by an extremely rude global pandemic, David F. Porteous and David Candy bring you the subtle flavours and rich aroma of Cheerful Despair from the state-mandated comfort of their own homes. Wow!

This time on the UK's 37th best comedy podcast*:

• Neil Armstrong porks out!
• A touch of the gammons!
• David F. Porteous vs. Peppa Pig!
  • Plus:
• Inconsistent sound quality!
• Sloppy editing!

*Technically true, really quite a long time ago now.

Cheerful Despair takes you back into the warm, slightly moist, folds of its matronly but disturbingly hairy bosom. Other joys we remind you of in this episode:

• The joy of babies - you can't hit them with bricks, you just can't
• The joy of employment - you still can't hit babies with bricks
• The joy of clowns - you can hit them with bricks, and you should

We've probably put something about Star Trek in here too, you know what we're like.

Originally recorded at some point in 2018, probably. A few months before DFP was hospitalised with diabetes he talks nonsense about how fit he is.

We just keep these episodes forever and eventually some of them break out of the cellar. Frankly, if you told more strangers about these podcasts, you'd get more. This is your fault.

-DFP

Cheerful Despair take you on a journey across time and space to celebrate New Year 2018 from the comfort of August 2019. Wow!

This time on Britain's 37th best comedy podcast*:

• The Brigadoon extended universe
• "Vaseline - For a Frictionless Kitchen"
• Tom Hanks in rhyming-slang biohorror shock

Plus!

• Only five sixths of a cross quiz (sorry)
• But fifteen tenths of a debate bag (hooray!)

*Technically true as of 14th July 2019 according to Apple Podcasts - we've got screenshots so you can't take that away from us Apple, even if it was just a terrible mistake

I read once about a podcast that vanished without warning. When it suddenly reappeared, almost two years later, everything was fine. No-one had unsubscribed and everyone just kept listening as if nothing had happened. So, you know, maybe something to think about there.

Anyway, this time on Cheerful Despair:

• How is anti-vax Hercules stored in David Candy’s brain?
• Shifty Un-American Owls
• Yesterday, all my plot holes seemed so far away
• “He wasn’t a warrior princess, he was a Korean man”

Plus!

• Cross-Quiz
• Debate Bag
• The muffled sound of three men eating Pappadums

David F. Porteous and David Candy (who like Star Wars) have been to the movies with sound engineer David Chisholm (who likes football and girls).

Why not listen to the aftermath? Includes STAR WARS THEMED versions of regular features Cross Quiz and Debate Bag.

Caution! From about 30 minutes in, and after ample verbal warnings, we do spoil some plot details of the film. (Sorry about that).

"I don't know how they got into the air ducts, I just want them out. And don't let Jerry screw you around about how he warned us to put the fine mesh otterwire over the vents because otters are skinnier than they used to be. I don't care. I just want them gone."

This week on Cheerful Despair:

Lies about Leith - a place you've probably never been, and if you rely on the signs, you will never get to

The Ultimate Otters Quiz???

The longest Debate Bag we have ever had

Speculation about the D&D stats for the God of Abraham

David Candy meets the local The Batman for Leith - I bet you thought that wasn't going to be mentioned again, but it was. It's a callback! It's right there, a lesser spotted callback!

....Please like me.

-dfp.

"I don't care how many Shannon McNamara has, I am not spending five pounds on another fidget spinner! Why not listen to that stupid podcast instead?"

This week:

• We offer our code-breaking services to GCHQ. Uh, you're welcome...
• Cheerful Despair remembers Lady Diana the way she would have wanted. With a quiz.
• Sir Isaac Newton commits various acts of political self-harm in the name of science!
  • plus
• Will David F Porteous be ostracised by his people for his controversial views on doner meat?

There are only two things that come out of the Cheerful Despair Podcast Studios - steers and episodes of the Cheerful Despair Podcast - and this doesn't look like a steer. Whatever a steer is.

In this episode:

• We plot to send people who are in one geographic location to another geographic location
• Glenns the vodka man; pushing boys into wells since 1972
• David Candy meets another person
• Andy Peters shakes a duck corpse in front of a camcorder
• The minimum amount of cheating necessary to win
• Escape from a Council flat

Plus Cross Quiz and Debate Bag - which we think you like, and that's why we keep doing them.

Benefiting from many local amenities, this bright and stylish 2-bedroom podcast features tasteful neutral decor and returns for its 15th episode.

This week:

• David F Porteous will never get a massage in this town again!
• Join the Aryan Brotherhood of Edinburgh Taxi Drivers for a DVD marathon
• David Candy's toaster is too short
• We meet the extraordinary individuals behind Scotland's traditional home-made vaccines

plus

• Will Captain Britain take back control by leaving the League of European Superheroes?

On this week’s action-packed instalment:

• Sign up! - For the Cheerful Despair Academy of Football
• Chow down! - On our secret recipe for beans on toast (The second ingredient will shock you!)
• Hook up! - With Edinburgh’s sleaziest billboard lion
• Blast off!  - To a whole new world of cancer, chemical toilets and floating liver aboard the USS Summer Holiday

plus

• Tune in! - To the olympiad of automaton combat that’s setting wirelesses aglow across the Empire and Dominions

Now of course it’s entirely up to you, but we've been talking and it really feels like the polite thing for you to do would be to rate us on iTunes. In fact you could follow us on twitter @podcastname and like us on Facebook @CheerfulDespairPodcast too. But remember this is your decision. There’s no pressure.

“Jean, when you’re over next weekend, can you ask Mark to look at my phone again? Yeah. It’s that thing with the skeletons. Yeah. It’s come back. Okay. Okay. Thanks love. See you on Saturday.”

On this week’s episode:

• Can David F Porteous and David Candy save the world?
• Sir Barry Thunderdome wants you to share the rewards of the hit phenomenon that’s set to sweep Australia!
• Do the kids think David F Porteous is cool? (They don’t).
• Plus! We exclusively reveal Cheerful Despair’s official brand of cigarettes. Then, for health reasons advise you not to smoke them.

Don't forget to rate us on iTunes, follow us on twitter @podcastname, like us on Facebook @CheerfulDespairPodcast and follow us home from the bus stop.

DC

Season two of my favourite podcast comes to an end in typical style with a flurry of racism, and a battery of insults directed at anonymous/famous man Chet Hanks. Join us in wondering what he ever did to deserve this.

It can't be miserable optimism - so it must be Cheerful Despair! #NotMyTagLine

(Episode recorded in July 2016, before Earth's last reserves of hope were depleted).

Cheerful Despair, that pod-cast you forgot you subscribed to, returns. It's honestly better just to listen and not make a scene. We'll just leave a small tip and not eat here again.

This time:

• Have your sandwiches been Phil-ed?
• Wow! In a new segment, we meet John, an extraordinary individual.
• Also! David F. Porteous (who was educated by the state) is taught how to pass the port.
• Plus! We invent a new trendy artisan snack for hipsters, then foolishly share the idea with the internet. (Do not steal our genuinely quite good snack idea for which we have no legal protection. Thanks.)

Good night and good truck.

-DC. For, and on behalf of, DFP.

Welcome to another episode of Cheerful Despair - the podcast about how Star Trek the Next Generation has too many damn nerds. (This is the sound of the internet eating itself).

On this episode:

• An initial half hour about Star Trek, which you can easily skip
• Noel Edmunds magic box that cures cancer
• I loved David Candy, he smelled of mould
• Remember when Prince Adam came to Scotland?
• They're like baby pigeons
• That's clever enough for religion
• And regular segments Cross Quiz and Debate Bag

Until next time - may your trucks bring all the boys to the yard.

- dfp.

As relentless as the passing of time and the approach of a referendum on the political destiny of this Moderately Good Britain - so arrives another episode of Cheerful Despair, featuring:

• The actual sound of regular segment Cross Quiz being written
• Dried Homeless food
• My favourite colour is anarchy
• The actual sound of regular segment Debate Bag being written
• Elon Musk vs Romanians working in Subway
• How one man's hatred of furry animals gave us Velcro (other hook and loop fasteners are available)

Government will soon send you a letter explaining why you should listen to Cheerful Despair, but the Daily Mail thinks we're crap.

Trucking - Excelsior!

- dfp

With profuse apologies for the failure to keep our promises for weekly uploading - even though we specifically say in this episode that this is a thing which is happening - here is a bumper episode to make up for it.

Featuring regular segments Debate Bag and Cross Quiz, plus:

• The former artist currently known as Prince - better or worse than your mum?
• David Candy's obsession with the past
• You're Pavloving yourself
• The Power of Greyskull is self-confidence
• He's got a pint of whole milk down his trousers
• Sincere requests for you to send pictures of humus to @dfpiii. Please send pictures of humus. Do not send actual humus. We cannot stress this enough - do not send actual humus.

Hurtling straight at your ears like a bullet from a golden gun (which, presumably is either less dangerous or certainly no more dangerous than a bullet from a gun made of another metal) it's the Cheerful Despair Podcast!

In the first episode of our magnificent second series you can expect to hear:

• Donald Trump's views on crimes committed by fictional characters played by the actor Tom Hanks;
• Time travel and racism;
• David Candy's favourite colour - you'll have to listen to find out, but it's shocking. You will be shocked by this one colour-liking fact;
• and all the usual schtick including Cross Quiz and Debate Bag.

An innovation for this series: this episode is being broadcast before we record episode two. If you have a theme you'd like us to discuss or a question you want us to answer, please submit them on twitter to @dfpiii

Few dared dream that when we began posting podcast episodes that one day we would have posted six and that would be the end of season one - but that event and that day have arrived.

In the final episode of Cheerful Despair, prepare yourselves for:

• Everyone involved to become sad and frustrated with the whole process, to say nothing of their lives
• The Ultimate Slavery Quiz
• A desperate appeal for you to love us

Until we meet again, possibly in a future life, in a parallel universe, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day, keep on trucking.

DFP.

Welcome to the fifth and second to final episode of season one of the Cheerful Despair podcast. In this episode:

• An extended discussion on the bum hose;
• All the lyrics to Katy Perry songs we know;
• Do you remember the Crazy Frog? I remember the Crazy Frog. I remember the screams;
• One or more Draculas and a Frankenstein and a Herby Goes Bananas;
• I couldn't even tell you if there is a Blue Peter any more;
• Do you remember when I killed myself?

REMEMBER TO RATE THIS BASTARD PODCAST. And none of this four stars or below shit. Get on the iTunes, give it five stars, or I'm going to glue your pets to the ceiling.

Much truck.

DFP.

Welcome to the fourth episode of Cheerful Despair, subtitled "the episode I uploaded without re-listening to". In this episode:

• Things
• Various stuff
• Almost certainly some kind of reference to Hitler and / or time travel

If you enjoy the show, then remember to rate us on those ratings sites they have now. Or just send money.

Please begin trucking.

DFP.

The third episode Cheerful Despair has arrived, this one subtitled "There are just too many things for all of them to be things at once".

In this episode of David Candy and David F Porteous's yet-to-be-award-winning podcast:

• The global conspiracy about vaccines
• Powering through with a mix of Nespresso and Cialis
• For every day that I grew a beard I had less of a home
• E.T. suffered from Stockholm syndrome
• Paranoid and frightened all the time, and very, very needy
• Pandas are useless

Leave comments, rate and - most important of all - subscribe for future episodes.

Do not truck unless it is safe to do so.

DFP.

Welcome to the second episode, subtitled: "If Stephen Hawking could walk, he'd never have got a  film made about him."

In this episode:

• The syphilis of Adam Smith
• Governor wanted, must have own wig
• How am I going to build a proper commemoration plaque on my Hitler shrine if I don't know his birthday?
• The golden whores of London

And remember, guys - as I always say - continue to truck, if you have already begun to truck, otherwise do not begin trucking.

DFP