First Look Gnomes
Two Dads doing Silly Things.
About First Look Gnomes
Welcome to First Look Gnomes – your all-access pass to quirky insights, unexpected discoverables, and offbeat humour that makes learning fun. Hosted by "Walliams" (broadcasting from the bottom of his garden in Cornwall, England) and Mr Hodgkiss (sharing stories straight from his Garden in Belfast, Northern Ireland), this podcast blends random yet fascinating trivia with genuine, heart-warming dad-jokes and thought-provoking conversation.
Twice a month, these two dads dive into topics that range from historical oddities and bizarre cultural titbits to contemporary curiosities and everyday marvels.
Whether you’re seeking engaging entertainment, a fresh dose of unconventional education, or simply a friendly chat about life’s hidden wonders, First Look Gnomes is here to surprise, enlighten, and delight.
For listeners worldwide—(including those in Laos)—our show is designed to attract curious minds eager for unique, bite-sized revelations.
Tune in on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and all major platforms, and join our community of inquisitive souls who celebrate learning with a laugh.
Remember: Good things come to gnomes who wait… and to those who subscribe, rate, and review!
First Look Gnomes
Gnome Vault: Empire Strips Back & the Rise of Nasal Breathing Devices
Take a trip back with the Gnomes as we crack open the Gnome Vault to revisit some unforgettable first looks. In this throwback episode, we dive into The Empire Strips Back — the cheeky Star Wars burlesque parody that’s taken fans by surprise. Then we switch gears to explore nasal breathing devices, including the Breathe-Easy, and how they stack up against traditional CPAP machines for sleep apnea and snoring relief.
Whether you're a sci-fi fan, a sleep tech nerd, or just curious — this episode has something for you.
🔍 Topics Covered:
- he Empire Strips Back parody stage show
- What is the Breathe-Easy nasal breathing device?
- CPAP vs nasal devices: pros, cons, and comfort
- Natural breathing trends and sleep health
A journey through bizarre internet finds, nostalgic gaming habits, and middle-aged health concerns reveals the authentic friendship between two hosts willing to discuss everything from Star Wars burlesque to sleep apnea solutions.
• Discovery of "The Empire Strips Back," a Star Wars-themed burlesque show featuring "sexy stormtroopers" and "Wookiee erotica"
• Debate about whether adults should continue playing video games after selling old collections and buying new PS5s
• Reminiscing about university days and Mario Kart Double Dash competitions
• The mysterious multiplication of cables in every household despite attempts to declutter
• Testing "Mute" nasal breathing devices and other snoring remedies with limited success
• Discussion of sleep apnea diagnosis, CPAP machines, and the importance of seeking medical help for severe snoring
If you're experiencing heavy snoring and waking up with headaches, please consult your GP about potential sleep apnea rather than relying solely on over-the-counter solutions.
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is this one of the? Is this one of the links you usually send me, williams that give me a warning when I click them.
Speaker 3:It might be similar, yeah, so this so this came up in my recommended searches on my facebook. So if you think about the sort of stuff that Facebook recommends to you based on what you click on and things.
Speaker 2:I'm assuming this is going to be some kind of horny pasty lovers website or something. Women of a certain body shape. It came up on the old Facebook. Should I send it to WhatsApp?
Speaker 3:You haven't sent it to me yet no, so this, this product, I'll let you wowza, wowza.
Speaker 2:Okay, that that is something else. Wow, that is yes. For those, for people listening, wondering what I'm looking at, it is a website called the empire strips back dot com. So los Los Angeles performances from November the 17th. So let's click the About page. So, after a sold-out, critically acclaimed US tour, the Empire Strips Back announces eight weeks in San Francisco. If you missed our sold-out Warfield Theatre show, be prepared for some seriously sexy stormtroopers a dangerously seductive Boba Fett, some tantalizing Twi'leinex and a delightfully lukewarm tauntaun, a lady like skywalker the droids you are looking for and much, much more wowza. So I'm looking at some of the pictures here and there's a, a naked green woman with what can only be described as stockings filled with sausage meat sticking out of a head. There's a, there's a really wookie erotica, and so they they also sell a thing called wookie erotica. So on the, on episode one, there is a wookie covering a woman woman's private parts.
Speaker 3:See, there's a market for wookie erotica, so why isn't there a market for known podcasts?
Speaker 2:so yeah, well, there clearly is. If we're getting listened to in iran walliams, then you know who. Who knows what people like to listen to Exactly. But no, the style the Empire strips back it looks. I will spend some more time looking at it.
Speaker 3:I think it looks quite classy. Actually it's not. You know, it's not. I don't know how to describe it, but it's not awesome.
Speaker 2:Walliams, it's not classy. What kind of world you're living on, classy? How's a big jab of the hood and and some people dressed in weird costumes, while women are garroting around naked. Classy, in what world is? I mean? You should see the stormtrooper outfits. They've got plastic nipples. They've got weird belts covering the crotch area.
Speaker 3:It's have you? Have you seen c3po with its shiny bottom?
Speaker 2:yeah, c3po is a woman in this one with. So it's got metal, she's got metal boobs and yes, it's I was. I am glad wookiee erotica I am. I am glad that you've shared this. I'm happy to have had my first look. I feel it may be my last look as well. It's. It's doing nothing for me in terms of getting me going, should I say?
Speaker 2:it's not meant to get you going, it's just of course it is but I just I've, I've never what I've never looked at you back and just thought, to be honest, I mean in, maybe in the 80s, in the 70s there was, there was more call for lots and lots of hair, but these days maybe not so much. The uh. Yeah, it's an interesting one, but it just, it just got to show the kind of kind of manual walliams you pervert and your facebook suggesting this to you but so there goes.
Speaker 3:Vip omission includes entry, a t-shirt and two glasses of champagne okay so very nice entry to we should say entry to the show. I mean that should be included.
Speaker 2:Yes, there is no bounds and you have to get, you have to, you have to. We want to share with you a little bit of our personality. Now for those who don't know, my good friend here, dan williams, and myself used to play an awful lot of mario kart when we were students and we double dash. I believe Walliams is the reigning champion. Walliams never was able to be the reigning champion because every time we got close I would turn the console off, kick it with a bit of rage I'm not playing this anymore, yeah, yes, and storm off, yeah, throw a bottle of. As you've got older.
Speaker 2:So this, this is a conversation. What is? Are we still? Are we too old now to play video games? Because we, we recently, so recently, I shared, shared with my, with my good friend, dan, and my other friends, that I was get, I was selling my video games collection. So I have collect over the years. I collected many, many, many systems, gamecube being one of them, and it was time, because of you know, getting older now and having a young child who wants some stuff, we said we haven't really got anywhere to store them. So I sold all my old games, um, and in place we, my son had his birthday, he got a nintendo switch, and when was our first look, today's, a playstation 5? Yeah, I bought myself a playstation 5 to replace all the old ones I stopped at playstation 2.
Speaker 3:That was my last console yeah, there's not.
Speaker 2:There's not many adults I know still purchase video games. I have the excuse it's for brain and it's for my son. You know it's it's not really, but yes, we, we, we got rid of all of our old stuff and purchased, took brain to go and get a ps5, which was very exciting, yeah, and it now sits under the tv gathering dust because there's no time to play it, because we're a full-time job, tico's at school and we have other responsibilities of adult life.
Speaker 3:But it's there when you want it.
Speaker 2:I have had a little bit of a play with it, and it's the PlayStation 5, and it's yeah, it's.
Speaker 3:So what are the top games for PlayStation 5 at the moment?
Speaker 2:See, the games that I would want to buy are the top games for PlayStation 5 at the moment. See, the games that I would want to buy are the same games I would have bought many years ago. Fifa, yeah. Mario Kart, which you can't get on a PlayStation, no. But the new FIFA has come out. But I didn't realise, walliams, how expensive the bloody games are, so I thought, oh yes, how much they're now. Yeah, but they were really expensive back in the day though.
Speaker 3:So the new FIFA is £69.99, which I thought was a lot of money, which is a lot, but I do remember back along, as we say down here, back along, back along. I remember some, especially the big games, were like towards 50 quid.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when you think 20 years plus how much years, I don't buy that, williams. I don't buy that at all because back in the day you could buy a pack of haribo for a pound and a pack of haribo still a pound. So if haribo could be the same price why can't playstation? They're just profiteering. Well, it's like these old companies profiteering off old farts like me. You still want to play fifa every so often and do you still get fifa?
Speaker 3:I'm sure my age now, but do you get fifa? The cd.
Speaker 2:You do, you can, you can get a cd or you can get a digital version. So the, the console I bought was the, the cd version, because I'm I'm a bit like an old man who it's like no, what if something happens?
Speaker 3:I want a physical copy.
Speaker 2:I want a physical copy because, you know, even though I've just sold all of my video games to MakeSpace, I still need a physical copy of the new games, which is ridiculous, but it's very different these days, william. So, instead of buying the games, you can pay for a subscription which gives you access to a game library. So I didn't actually, when we bought the console, I didn't actually purchase any games. You pay this 12.99 a month or whatever it is, and you have access to the library of games. So we've played a few, we've downloaded a few, but a lot of the games we downloaded it for brain. So we we downloaded one power rangers beat em up game, which is really good and brain's quite good lit, and was it like a tech and type thing like tech and but you're the power rangers.
Speaker 2:So yeah, nice, you know I am starting to to question whether it was a good thing to go and buy. Could I got something cheaper? Well, could you know, could have, you know, paid something off the mortgage or, you know, put it towards christmas you know it's you know they say that thing, that they the. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. So I'm not quite sure when I'm going to stop making stupid purchasing decisions. Oh never we never do.
Speaker 2:You know? Do you know what the PlayStation has mainly been used for so far?
Speaker 1:DVD watching yeah, to play the Sonic 2.
Speaker 2:DVD. So the child is absolutely. It's just an expensive DVD player.
Speaker 3:Sting 2 is a good film. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, because we did an absolutely mickey mouse degree, you know, let's be honest about it. Well it was, we had to go in once a week and just change some colors.
Speaker 3:But without our multimedia degree we would never have launched this podcast well, let's be, I have, I can hold my hat.
Speaker 2:Welcome to first look. Gnomes, episode two, part two. We got really interrupted by somebody treading on the broadband wire and us getting disconnected. We were in the in the middle of a discussing our multimedia degree, a highly intellectual conversation about our ability to deal with multimedia degrees. Just for those listening, I used to be nicknamed scott boy at university due to the amount of due to the amount of leads that I had, and to be to be done over by technology is actually quite ironic. But uh, there we go we had a.
Speaker 3:Well, I've got a box of cables. You definitely had a box of cables I.
Speaker 2:I got rid of all my cables, if you remember, just saying I'm throwing them all away. But would you believe I now actually have two big new box of cables and I don't actually know where they've all come from. I have no idea what half the cables are. I have no idea where they come from. Yeah, I and I don't actually know where they've all come from. I have no idea what half the cables are. I have no idea where they come from.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I tend to I don't know if it's maybe it's people of our age, greg, but you need a cable. You go to the box of cables. There's not the cable that you want in there, you buy a new cable. It doesn't work, you add it to the cable.
Speaker 2:That's it. You just the amazon cables and, yeah, the the random, the random iphone chargers, and the random it's the short cables. It's like headphones that come with, like these short charging cables. Like why is there a charging cable that's, you know, six inches long? What am I going to do with that? When it's six inches of an eight, six inches is plenty. What am I going to do with that? When is six inches ever need Six inches is plenty, greg, that's plenty Get the job done, doesn't it, Walliams? It?
Speaker 3:gets the job done. Anyways, this is a family podcast, Greg.
Speaker 2:I was talking about cables. I don't know where your smutty mind went to Empire bloody Empire strips back. Oh, here, smutty boy went to Empire bloody Empire strips back. Oh, r, here you go, I'm going to send you this. This is going to have a first look at them. Blue, them, blue titties. Oh, let's have a look at some blue titties. Oh, I love my some blue titties. Me, oh, green titties, love me, some green titties. Oh, look at those hairy Chewbacca titties.
Speaker 3:Mmm, let me pull your hair to you, michael, for the listeners as well. Craig is half-naked at the moment, are you okay?
Speaker 2:you'll have to um. Anyways, you'll have to beep that one.
Speaker 3:Yes, I'll um but uh, this arrived in the post. I don't know if you can see that there.
Speaker 2:Craig mute breathe more, snore less, sleep better so I purchased these last week.
Speaker 3:Yeah so yeah, breathe more, snore less, sleep better. It's a trial pack. Okay, so you've got small, medium or large. Yeah, find your ideal fit, so you've got to try all three sizes.
Speaker 2:Give the listeners some context. Wadims, is this due to your snoring, or have you brought this for Georgia because she snores like a trooper?
Speaker 3:No, this is for me. My snoring has escalated, especially since covid, so I do suffer from sinus problems anyway, especially after a beer or two. So apologies in advance, georgia, or not in advance, because I'm listening to this podcast. I do apologize for the evening of the 7th of october.
Speaker 1:You snore like a.
Speaker 3:Wookiee yes, I snore like a Wookiee, but yeah, so I received these this week. And what is the verdict so far. Not great actually. So I tried the small size, craig, but they didn't fit. Well, they did fit, but they didn't really do the job on my nostrils.
Speaker 2:Can you explain how these work, what the concept is? Do you shove them?
Speaker 3:up there. These ones are plastic jobbies. You basically shove up your nose and it's got a little attachments on it so you can actually adjust the size of the actual hoops. So you're going to adjust the size of the hoops for your nostril. Small didn't quite work, so the small doesn't go up and deep enough okay, whereas the, the medium size, the medium size you can stick in, it, does penetrate a little further through the through the nostrils. But I need to, I need to expand the actual hoops themselves a little bit more. It does. The large is too big. The large is too big. But yeah, I mean the medium size did help, but because, because, but, because you need to reach a bit further back.
Speaker 3:It's because it's more, because it's more of a sinus issue so it didn't seem to help as much, so I've gone back to, so I've gone back to, so I've gone back to. I use right, I use strips as well, not empire strips back, but strips. They seem to work, um, but yeah, I stopped using the With the plastic nostril things. So what's the technical name? Mute? What are they called? It's a nasal breathing device designed to increase airflow through your nose during sleep by gently opening airways. Now, craig, there's nothing gentle about these things. So you whack them up there and it stretches you open. Oh yes, you don't want to go too big, too quick to be honest, Gently does it.
Speaker 2:You have to ease it in.
Speaker 3:Williams. Yeah, so in the next couple of days after using it, I had some sort of little cuts on the bottom of my nose, so I think I was too forceful with it. Okay, but I need to try it again.
Speaker 2:But we are men of a certain age. Walliams, Snoring is a very common issue. I'm sure right now we could insert some stats about the amount of men and women that snore and the amount of partners that want to kill their other partners because of the snoring and I know you've always had the same problem. Insert stats here.
Speaker 1:An estimated 45% of adults snore occasionally, while 25% snore regularly, often disturbing their bed partners slumber and possibly their own too. You're more likely to snore if you're overweight or a middle-aged or older man.
Speaker 2:So, being a man who has also had the Breathe Right nasal strips, I remember when I went.
Speaker 3:Did you have some people with this or did you have the strips?
Speaker 2:So I remember a a long, long time ago. I can still remember when I got I bought it was like a clip. So I remember I was going to, I was going to vancouver and I, the first night I was there, I was staying in a hostel and I remember, like flying to van Vancouver, moving to Vancouver, it didn't bother me at all, but the idea of the shame of knowing that I used to, you know, snore so badly. The shame, the shame I was. I was like, oh, flip me, I'm going to go into this room with six other blokes and I'm going to snore like a trooper.
Speaker 2:So I bought this like it was like a clip, and it was like an L-shaped clip and you used to have to kind of push it up and through into your sinuses and then push it right to the top of your nose and again it would do the same thing that's too deep.
Speaker 2:Well, it was too deep. And I remember putting it in there and like, okay, I've got this metal clip up my nose, but I did feel like I could breathe better. Yeah, and I remember the morning I woke up I said to everybody oh, sorry, was I snoring? And they were like yep, I was like, oh, was it bad? And like, yeah, I was like, okay, sorry about that everybody. So it didn't work. But I remember that the nasal strips, the breathing strips, they do help you breathe but they don't necessarily help you stop snoring, because a lot of the time with snoring it's not about being able to breathe. So it's a bit of a con walliam hot in you because, because snoring is caused by the, the skin in the back of your throat relaxing that's why I'm closing it as well.
Speaker 3:Do you know what it is when you're subconscious and you know you're snoring and you can kind of feel it, but you're in sleep? Yes, that makes sense that's it.
Speaker 2:So being able to breathe is is a different issue from the snoring. So it's like actually snoring generally is classed by your larynx. I think someone one of the people in the comments can tell me this, because I'm not going to google it right now, but I think it's something in your larynx or something relaxing and there's a bit of skin that kind of closes over, which is not your transverse.
Speaker 3:No, it's not your transverse no, it's, it's a bit.
Speaker 2:It's a bit of skin that when you're breathing it kind of flaps and vibrates, which causes the noise. I should know more about this because, for our lovely listeners to know, I do have a conditional sleep apnea.
Speaker 3:Maybe something in the back of your mouth goes floppy.
Speaker 2:It does indeed. So the only thing I have found that you're snoring is either getting buff or being not buff CPAP. So the continuous positive airway pressure machine that you've probably seen. People, like one of our good friends, calls it a bane mask. You shove it on your face and it helps you breathe. But I remember being a recovered snorer, the sleep apnea machine that I have. You're a recovered snorer.
Speaker 3:Is that what you class yourself as?
Speaker 2:Oh, no, no, If I didn't have a sleep apnea machine then, no, I would snore like an absolute beast. But the machine. I remember the first night when I had it and it's deadly silent. So I remember Lesley-Anne was at her absolute wit's end with my snoring. I'm sure georgie feels the same and, yes, I remember the. The first night I put this machine. I was like, oh, this, this feels funny, but slept like an absolute baby. I woke up in the morning and not only had I slept better, but leslie ann had slept better as well, and she has been a yeah, an advocate of the years.
Speaker 3:There's some mornings I wake up with such a banging headache and you can. I definitely snored loads last night because I would so.
Speaker 2:Sleep apnea is quite bad. It's what killed. Speaking of, you know, the empire strips back. It's what. It's the that was put as the reason of princess leia. What was her name?
Speaker 2:carrie fisher's carrie fisher's death really yeah, because you can't breathe. So when I, when I got diagnosed with sleep apnea, they do a test on you. So you go to sleep and they do a test called a apnea index. They give you an apnea index score and it's basically how often do you stop breathing in the hour? Yeah, and it's anything uh like zero to five is normal, five to fifteen is milder than 15 to 30 is severe. So they measure this and they give you a score and then they will decide whether they need treatment.
Speaker 2:But most people who snore have some kind of level of sleep apnea. Yeah, and yeah, I don't know how severe yours is. But for any listeners out there who are snoring heavily and waking up with headaches, go and get your apnea checked. They'll probably the doctor will tell you, yes, you've probably got it and yes, what you need to do is lose some weight. But we all know that's not as easy as just yes, okay, I can lose weight dead quickly, especially getting older, while I'm getting older. But yeah, get it checked out. You don't want to be having to shove stuff up your nose if it's not going to actually help you. You feel like it's helping you breathe and it probably is. It's helping your sinus, probably not helping you snore.
Speaker 3:No, she can get that spray stuff in it as well.
Speaker 2:But you can, but again, it doesn't stop. It doesn't stop your throat relaxing and all the muscles around your neck relaxing and the actual air, the your airway, becoming blocked. So because that's nothing to do with your sinuses, it's all back down in your throat. Go and get it checked. My advice to you and to any person who is listening to this if you're suffering from the snoring, go and get it checked by a gp.
Speaker 3:We have that responsibility to our viewers, so weers not viewers Sorry.
Speaker 1:Hopefully they're not cartoonists.
Speaker 2:No, I hope not, because I've got no clothes on. So I am a naked podcaster, everybody A naked podcaster, a naked podcaster and a naked podcaster with a beer. Hey, I look great.
Speaker 3:What can I say? Yes, that was my first experience. Yeah, with, I forgot what it's called again a nasal breathing device and out of 10.
Speaker 2:How would you, how many stars would you give this device out of 10?
Speaker 3:oh, are we doing stars? Are we sure we need to do a number of gnomes, or a number of gnome hats or fishing rods? How? Many fishing rods or what's a gnome, I would say so.
Speaker 2:Gnomes either have their trousers up or they're flushing their bottom, trousers down. So would you say trousers up being a good thing, trousers down being a bad thing? Is this, trousers up or trousers?
Speaker 3:down. I think you kind of answered it for me, but I think the trousers are showing a bit of a bit of bum crack, not full cheek, because it does help with the breathing but it doesn't stop the snoring. So I think you've got a couple of cheeks hanging out together.
Speaker 2:A couple of cheeks hanging out, not a glowing review.
Speaker 3:But its modesty at the front is still covered.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, no willies with the names, is it? You don't get any of that? No, not a lot. Not porno names, not on this show. Probably any porno names you get is probably in your Facebook history. Oh, dear me.
