Chaos at the Cocaine Barbershop

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Shrink me down to the size of a pee so I can be a priest in the kneecap of Daniel Day-Lewis, you clueless Oonaz.

Welcome to the Blind By Podcast.

If this is your first episode, consider going back to an earlier episode to familiarize yourself with the lore of this podcast.

I'm presenting this week's podcast from my brand new office.

My brand new fucking office.

If you're a regular listener, if you're a transcendent Enda or a steaming cuiva,

you know that I record this podcast in an office, in a big giant office building full of other offices.

Nothing artistic happens here.

Nothing creative happens here.

It's a dull, dreary corporate environment.

There's call centers here, data management firms.

accountants, solicitors, risk management firms, insurance underwriters.

There's a a place that just does IT solutions for inventory and warehouse management.

Corporate benchmarking and performance metrics.

What the fuck is that?

I don't know.

I don't know what that is.

One day I was curious and down in the canteen I asked a man what it was and he says we have a number of corporate clients and we measure their performance against each other.

And I looked a bit confused and then he says it's the business version of checking your grades grades against the class average.

And I knew that he was repeating for Batam something that he'd heard from a Yank, which means

he didn't understand it himself and he wasn't thinking about it critically.

Because if he was, he'd have delivered it to me in his own language.

And fair play to him, but I can't imagine, I can't imagine doing that.

I've no context for doing that or giving a fuck about that.

But yeah, I work in a huge office building where people clock in at 9 and they leave at 5.

The reason I record my podcast in an office is because

an office is my idea of hell.

Nothing wrong with working in an office just for me, for me personally.

It really wouldn't suit me.

I'd have great difficulty wearing office clothes, sitting still all the time, needing to adopt a professional work persona, like a personality and a way of speaking and carrying yourself that's specific to your workplace.

For speaking to colleagues and specifically to superiors.

For some people, not a batter, couldn't give a shit.

That's fine.

For me, impossible.

I'd struggle to engage in, to have to do work I'm not that interested in.

And I'm not shitting on anybody who works in an office.

I know.

I know tons of people who work in offices.

I went to art college.

Not everybody becomes an artist.

A lot of people in art college, they just use the fact that they have a degree and then get a job in an office.

Just in an office.

They show up at 9 o'clock.

They wear office clothes.

They sit at a computer doing work that they don't give a fuck about that's not that demanding.

They have crack with their colleagues.

They're very happy with their pay.

And most importantly, They go home in the evening time and do whatever the fuck they want and they don't think about their work.

A lot of people I know who emigrated to Canada and Australia, they're doing that.

They have a degree in something and now they're just in an unrelated office job, quite happy, just cruising, just on cruise control.

And when I meet these people and I ask them, how are you getting on in work?

They just go, ah, it's fucking grand.

It's fucking grand.

I just sit down and do this shit all day.

It's grand.

These people, they're really happy.

These are people.

who have mortgages with their partners, who have kids.

They turn up to a place and then money money arrives in their bank account.

I know a fella, fucking brilliant writer, excellent writer, highly intelligent, very interesting.

He works in like this tiny office in

a business that has something to do with cement.

He loves it, couldn't be happier.

He switches his fucking brain off and then at five o'clock, he reads James Joyce and T.S.

Eliot.

And all he really worries about is a recession or his cement company company leaving Ireland.

Like we've got Ober, the corporate headquarters of Uber are in Limerick.

Half the fucking art colleges inside there.

And when I was like 21, I probably thought, yeah, I'm going to end up doing that.

I'll do that.

I'll just get any fucking office job, turn up, and then do my art in the evenings.

Until I actually got a job in an office.

I worked in an office for...

It was probably only two months, I'd say.

I worked in the fraud department of a mobile phone company where I'd sit in front of a computer and just go through reams and reams of recent online purchases, try and figure out which ones were fake, flag them and then nothing was done about it.

Nothing was done about it because the guards didn't have a department to do anything about it.

Unless there was like the rare occasion where a phone is used in a serious crime.

Then the guards would come in and they'd speak to my supervisor.

But no, all day long I'd just sit in front of a computer, just look at all these names and all these credit card numbers, and I'd figure out fake, fake, stolen, fake address, fake address, stolen, fake name, fake name.

And nothing would happen.

Absolutely nothing would happen.

The sale would be cancelled.

The scammer wouldn't get their mobile phone.

But nothing was sent to the police.

Utterly pointless job.

Really fucking easy.

Great pay.

But I got fired.

I got fired.

Because of neurodivergence.

I now realize it's because of neurodivergence.

See, what I didn't understand was office politics.

I thought, if I just do the job, which is to flag fraudulent cases, if I just do that, then I'm doing my job.

No.

The office,

it's school on a boner.

I was in a team.

I didn't understand that I was supposed to speak to my team leader a certain way.

I didn't understand that I was supposed to be...

I was supposed to be friends with everybody on my team.

I didn't talk to anybody.

I didn't know that when it came to lunchtime, I'm actually supposed to sit with my team members in the canteen and be friends with them.

And breakfast before I start work.

Breakfast.

I had to sit with people and speak with them.

And if you don't do it, people think you don't like them.

I didn't do that.

I used to go to the car park by myself and pace up and down and think.

I didn't know that I was supposed to sit perfectly still and upright in my chair.

I didn't do that.

I was completely horizontal and forever spinning around.

I didn't know that I wasn't supposed to print out 93 pages about CIA crack cocaine smuggling and read it while also checking for fraud.

And then I get called into the boss's office.

Regional manager down from Dublin.

only only comes to Limerick on Mondays and Fridays.

He looked like the actress Renee Zellewigger and he had this consistent expression on his face like he was wondering if he could smell a gas leak and his dog's name was Ukras and at the weekend he got to Galway and pretended he was a bogger and on his desk he had one of those caricatures of himself but he's hang gliding over Portugal and he looked even more like Renee Zellwiger and I'm there in his office like just after lunch on a Friday after I'd just done a vigorous vigorous bout of pacing up and down in the car park, thinking about how I can trace the street gangs, the crips and the bloods to the events of World War I via CIA crack cocaine smuggling.

But I'm here in Conti's office and he says, Do you really think this is acceptable?

Do you think this is acceptable?

What do we do with this?

What are you doing?

And they start ruffling, ruffling all the sheets of paper.

I don't have any sheets of paper, so we have to imagine ruffling all the CIA crack cocaine sheets of paper.

And if anyone young is wondering, if anyone in their 20s is wondering, why are you printing?

Why'd you print things out?

Why didn't you just keep it on a tab and move between tabs?

This was before tabs.

This is mid-2000s, right?

So there was a time when

reading from a screen didn't count as reading.

You had to print it out and then it was real reading.

It's the first generation to get the internet.

In the same way, if you're in your late 30s, I guarantee you, if you're purchasing something expensive online, you do it on the computer.

You will never buy anything expensive on your mobile.

You have to go to the computer to buy expensive things, which is ridiculous, but that's what we do when we're old.

So anyway, look,

I'm in the office and I'm getting fired.

And

this boss is making a huge, big performance, a big performance about why it's so bad that I use the company printer to print out 93 pages.

And judgmentally, judgmentally holding up the a4 sheets of paper looking at them with a scowl like a school teacher just real patronizing reading reading what i'd printed out with this patronizing look like i'd like i'd drawn a picture of fucking jesus christ giving hitler a rim job just looking at it what what do i do what what is this nicaragua the ci a cocaine This is company time.

You're using company time.

Good.

Good n- I don't give a fuck what anyone says.

Good news is never delivered in that accent.

Nobody with that accent is delivering good news to you.

I think it's best if you judge.

Get your stuff

and just take the rest of the day off and we review it on Monday.

Which is you're fired.

I've just fired you, but I'm not gonna say it.

I'm not gonna say I fired you in case you go nuts.

No, I'm giving you a half day.

Like you're in school.

It's a Friday.

I'm giving you a half day with pay and then like on Monday my p45 arrives in the post and that experience was enough to let me know that I must motivate myself not necessarily to be successful but to to avoid working in an office because it's not just about the work that you do there's a genuine expectation to do loads of small talk to have multiple different personalities depending on the hierarchy of who you're talking to and to be able to tolerate sitting still and focus on something that you're not particularly interested in.

So, that to me is hell, and that's why I work in an office now.

I want to work at the gates of hell.

I don't work in an artist's space or an artist's studio, I'm not even around creative people, I don't work at a writer's retreat, I work in a disgusting corporate office with fire-retardant carpets, anchinos, sweater vests, deck shoes, fire extinguishers, grey walls, casual Fridays, which isn't casual at all.

No one's actually dressing the way they do at home.

It's just less formal office clothes.

Cubicles, gigantic rolls of toilet paper, huge rolls of toilet paper that someone steals every Friday.

Occasional fire drills where everybody has to assemble at a designated point.

And in this space, I write and record this podcast and I write books.

So rather than

turn away from what I'm terrified of, I face it directly.

I record my podcast at the gates of hell, just outside the gates of hell.

My personal hell.

It's a very conscious decision, a conscious decision that's...

My decision, my decision to work nine to five, even longer, every single day in an environment that I'm terrified of, it's inspired by ancient religious practices, like the Chod practice of Tibetan Buddhism.

In certain areas of Tibet,

there's no earth to bury people when they die.

So they leave people's bodies on the edge of mountains, and vultures come down and eat the dead, and scatter rotting human remains all over these valleys.

Or they have these things called charnel grounds.

And it's an open-air graveyard.

Bodies aren't buried, it's a big graveyard where bodies are just left there.

They decompose naturally on the surface and then these these Tibetan monks they go down and they meditate amongst the rotting corpses of human beings and when they meditate they visualize their own bodies being eaten by demons and they do this to confront death if death is their biggest fear then they plant themselves into the middle of it There's a concept in Buddhism called Maranasati, which is mindfulness about death.

There's a specific specific Buddhist meditation called the contemplation of the nine stages of a decaying corpse or the person meditating.

They focus on the image, they meditate on their own corpse

or the corpse of someone they know and they hold the image of that corpse decaying through nine stages.

There's distension, which is when a corpse bloats.

There's rupture, exudation of blood, putrefication, discoloration, consumption by animals and birds, dismemberment, reduction to bones, and parching to dust.

And those are the nine stages of decay in Buddhism.

There's beautiful Japanese watercolours from the 1700s, a series of paintings called the death of a noble lady and the decay of her body which is it's literally nine nine panels

of a woman's body decaying into dust.

And if me speaking about that makes you feel uncomfortable, it's supposed to.

That's what it does.

We don't think about death.

We live our lives as if we're immortal.

But within Buddhism,

acceptance of death, confronting death, the thing that you're terrified of, living amongst it and accepting it.

It allows you to live to live freely in the present moment, to appreciate the present moment.

When you know that death is definitely going to come, when you know that death could come at any moment, then you'll appreciate the present.

Also a big concept within Buddhism is attachment.

Now attachment in Buddhism is slightly different to attachment in psychology.

Attachment in Buddhism is

we as humans will cling, we will cling and long for

material possessions, wealth, accomplishments, other people's approval.

And we do this because deep down we know we're going to die but we're trying to create this sense of permanence.

We're trying to beat death and it keeps us consistently chasing something that's unattainable.

If only I can do this then I will be happy.

Once I have this then I'll be happy.

If I move over there, I'll be happy over there.

And the way to free yourself from that is to try and live in the present moment, in the here and now, rather than the pain, the pain of trying to create certainty, trying to create certainty.

Whereas living in the present moment is about accepting that everything is uncertain.

You can't create certainty.

You can't control what happens to you.

But if you're in the present moment, you can control how you react to what happens to you.

And that's freedom.

So some Buddhist monks would meditate around a big dirty, rotten, smelly corpse to achieve that.

No I don't want to do that but what I will do, I'll work at the gates of hell.

My biggest fear is being back in school.

That's my biggest fear.

Being in an environment where no matter what I do, no matter what I do, I'm a consistent fuck-up.

I can't really sit still.

I can't do loads of small talk.

I can't stop thinking about something I'm really focused on.

so that I can park it and focus on whatever the office job is asking for.

So I work here in this office, doing what I want to do, doing the things that I love, reading, writing, researching.

But existentially, I'm at the gates of hell, surrounded by my deepest fears, surrounded by the rotting corpses.

No disrespect to the people working in this building.

Lots of incredibly happy people whose needs are being met.

So I'm recording this week's podcast from my brand new fucking office.

I'm in a brand new office.

I asked y'all last week to be thinking of me, but I'm in a new office.

it's on a new floor.

It's really, really quiet.

It's really quiet.

I'm not getting disturbed at all.

There's hardly anyone on the corridor.

And as you can tell, the sound here is fucking immaculate.

It's a smaller room of a window with a wonderful view.

I'd love to do a podcast on what I can see from my window, but I don't want to give away my location.

And I've just spent the entire day.

sticking sound panels to the walls with Velcro.

So no matter how loud I talk, there's not really an echo.

Tiny bit, but that doesn't count.

You don't really hear an echo.

So I've got studio quality audio and no external noise.

No banging doors or talking.

It's really really quiet where I am.

But this week's podcast is more of a fucking phone call.

It's more of a phone call because I've been moving office since last Thursday bringing everything up.

So I didn't get to research a hot tape this week.

But I'd like to tell you about an amusing haircut that I got.

So I got to this barber shop.

It's not really a barber shop, but it is a barbershop.

But the lads in there, I think they're Coke dealers.

I think they're all young lads who just sell Coke.

And the barbershop thing is a front for selling Coke.

You see what I want when I get a haircut.

Just get it done really quickly.

Please don't ask me any questions, no talking at all.

Especially don't ask me questions about sports or what I do for a living or what holidays I've been on.

And those are the three favorite questions of barbers.

So I'm always moving from barber to barber to try and find the one who's the quietest fucking barber.

Because you don't want to be saying, I don't want to talk.

Don't talk to me.

That's fucking rude.

You don't want to do that.

So I'm trying to find the barber who doesn't want to talk themselves.

So I found these lads.

But a month ago.

I'm pretty sure they're coke dealers.

And they're so fucking rude.

They're so rude that they couldn't give a shit.

They do not want to talk to me.

They don't want to acknowledge me.

What do you want?

Can I have what I have now but shorter?

Grand?

Done.

Out the door and it's not terrible.

It's a haircut.

It's a haircut.

It's not terrible.

So last time I went there I was very happy.

I just got a fucking haircut.

All they do is talk shit amongst themselves.

They completely ignore you.

They're the rudest fuckers going.

Brilliant.

So I go there this morning.

They're lads in their early early 20s, right?

And one fella started cutting my hair.

There's about five of them in the barber shop.

So your man, your man puts the towel around my neck.

Pure fucking aggressive with it.

Starts, takes out the razor, starts chopping into the side of my head.

Like he's eating my hair with a knife and fork.

Still doing his job.

He's not looking at me.

I'm invisible.

He couldn't give a fuck.

Only time he looks up into the mirror is to check himself out.

That's it.

He's not even looking at my hair in the mirror, just to check himself out to see if he looks cool.

And then as he's cutting half my hair, another fella comes out of the toilet.

They're all working in the shop and he starts roaring.

Who fucking didn't clean a shit in that toilet?

Who didn't clean the shit?

Now they're all shouting.

It fucking wasn't me.

It was him.

I'm Abbas cleaning my shit.

Go and clean it yourself.

Are you telling me I don't clean up shit?

I'm not cleaning your shit.

Well, it's not mine.

Now no one's cutting my hair and there's a full-on fucking scuffle.

And the five of them are there dragging each other putting each other's cock a fucking barber shop putting each other's collars i'm not cleaning your fucking shit i'm like oh fuck i'm gonna have to get out of here with half a head of hair on me what am i gonna do all of a sudden just it diffuses just diffuses

everyone's sitting back one fella turns up the radio more

and the young lad goes back to cutting my hair there's a little bit of a silence Because they just all tried to kick the shit out of each other.

No one apologized to me.

No one acknowledged me.

Nothing.

No awareness whatsoever that a customer is getting their hair cut while everybody in the shop tried to kick the shit out of each other over a shit in the toilet.

So my fella, young lad, probably 19 or 20, goes back to cutting my hair.

Doesn't acknowledge me, nothing, just cutting my hair, eating it with a knife and fork.

And then an older fella behind me breaks the silence.

He breaks the silence and attention a bit and he announces to the room,

I wish I didn't wear shorts today.

I wish I didn't wear shorts.

I thought it was going to be pure warm because it was sunny outside, but I shouldn't have worn these fucking shorts.

I'm freezing.

Then I look down and he's wearing these short shorts.

These short shorts with his hairy legs out in the middle of February.

So I go, right, this is an odd place.

This is this is strange.

So I'm getting the hair cut anyway.

And the fellow with the fellow with the shorts walks over to the empty, the empty barber chair beside me, takes the the hairdryer that's for customers hair and then just casually turns it on and puts it down his balls and now he's standing there with the hair dryer buzzing away warming his testicles with his fucking shorts and no one is batting an eyelid and then he starts roaring and shouting to the rest of the lads it turns out this fella is the manager this fella's the manager so the manager is warming his bollocks with a hairdryer while shouting to everybody about how his friend got charged 400 quid for a ride in Amsterdam.

And then two of the other lads take a problem with this and say, You're talking out of your arse.

No one gets charged that much money for a ride in Amsterdam.

That's not how much it costs.

It fucking is, yeah.

Why are you calling me a liar?

Why is it me you're calling a liar?

My friend told me.

This isn't my story at all.

I'm just telling you why you calling me a liar.

You're always fucking lying.

That's why.

Meanwhile, the hairdryer down the balls the entire time, incredibly loud, shouting, shouting, arguing about the price of a ride in Amsterdam, roaring over a hairdryer that's pointing at his fucking balls.

Manager puts the hairdryer down, still fucking going, and then walks over to the other fella, saying, I'm not fucking lying about that.

Who are you calling a liar?

Now there's another scuffle.

There's another little mini scuffle, roaring, shouting, pushing, tugging, and then it just diffuses.

It diffuses like the last time.

And then I start to realize, oh fuck, if this is just what they do all day long.

They just fight each other all day long in the barbershop, probably

doing lines of coke or speed in the jacks.

And they're all highly strung, highly sensitive, ready to kick off at any moment over anything, all day long.

And I'm there internally weighing.

It's like, right, well, this is fucking chaos.

But at least no one's even acknowledging me.

They don't care that I'm here.

They don't want to know what I do for a living.

They don't want to ask me about fucking anything.

They don't give a a shit about me.

And this fella's still cutting my hair.

I'd rather this than having half a head of hair with a very friendly barber asking me what I do for a living.

Because obviously I have to lie.

I have to make up a new job each time.

Manager goes back.

Starts putting the hairdryer down his shorts again.

Shouldn't have worn these shorts.

Shouldn't have worn these fucking shorts.

I'm freezing.

Give me your pants.

Give me your pants.

I'm not giving you my fucking pants.

Give me your fucking pants.

Just for a half an hour.

Give me your pants.

Swap the shorts.

I'm not swapping the fucking shorts with you.

If you came in wearing shorts, I'd give you my pants.

No, you fucking wouldn't.

Now I'm waiting.

I'm waiting for the third scuffle, the third scuffle to happen.

And then the quietest one in the corner says to the manager, Look at the steady or scrawny legs.

He says,

I seen better legs hanging out of a sparrow's nest.

And then they all start roaring, laughing laughing at this.

And they've forgotten what they were fighting about.

And then there's just this dead silence, and everyone goes on their phone.

Like they're trying to think about what they were fighting about.

And then the fella who's cutting my hair, who's the youngest young fella, who's about 19, he breaks the tension.

He breaks the tension by saying, you know, the most expensive thing about Amsterdam,

it's not the riding.

It's not the drugs.

It's the food.

The food is the most expensive thing in Amsterdam.

sort of fucking skin you.

And all the other lads who are older,

they all look at him and they go, Whatcha mean?

And young lad goes, Last time I was over there,

it was like 40-40 Euro for a roast beef dinner.

Roast beef dinner was 40 Euro.

Fuck you buying a roast beef dinner in Amsterdam for?

What are you doing that for?

You know, like roast beef, it's it's gorgeous, like Yeah, but why are you buying roast beef?

What are you doing?

Like, who goes to Amsterdam

and spends forty quin on a a roast beef dinner?

There's this weird tension in the room, and now all the older lads are looking at my fella.

He's stopped cutting my hair, and now my fella is getting a bit nervous.

And a fella in the corner says,

if you get a roast beef dinner for 40 quid over in Amsterdam, you're gay.

No, I'm not.

Why are you spending 40 euros on a roast beef dinner in Amsterdam when you could be spending that on a ride?

And then they all start to chime in.

They all start to gang up.

And the poor young fella was cutting my hair and all the older lads agree that the straightest thing to do in Amsterdam is to eat the cheapest food available to allocate further funds to the purchase of sex and drugs.

That is the correct way to budget in Amsterdam.

And if this fella is admitting to spending 40 quid on a roast beef dinner in Amsterdam, then that means that he probably wasn't having sex at all and is lying.

And this adds further weight to the the thesis that he is, in fact, gay.

And the young lad didn't have a response.

You got a sense that like balance was restored because now all the older lads could agree upon something and pick on the younger lad.

And the manager walked over again and put the hairdryer down his balls.

Young lad finished my haircut quietly.

I got the fuck out.

And he forgot to do that thing where he brushes the hair off my neck.

So I have lots of itchy hairs down the back of my t-shirt now.

But another reason that this week's podcast is a phone call

rather than a diligently researched hot take.

So there's one issue with my new office.

There's no light switch.

There's no light switch at all.

The light in this office is motion sensor.

So anytime I move in this office then the light is on.

Now that's a bit of a nightmare because I could be in here, I could be working an 18 18-hour day inside here.

And I like to have soft, low lighting when I'm working because consistent bright LED all day long makes it difficult for me to concentrate.

Now all the offices have these motion sensor lights because it's a way for the giant corporation that owns this building to save money.

So they don't want you having a light switch in your office.

But I put in a request.

I put in a request going, look, I'm in my new office.

Can you put a light switch in my new office, please?

and I told them I was autistic but they turned it down they said it's gonna cost 500 quid to put a new light switch into your office you're gonna have to pay that yourself and I found that out this morning when I got back from the barber's and that was really disappointing because I rent this office I'm a tenant I shouldn't have to install light switches for 500 quid.

So I was really fucking disappointed about this and upset about it.

So I bit the fucking bullet and I said, no, where's the solution?

There has to be a solution here.

So what I need is, I need to be able to block the sensor whenever I want so that I can choose when the light is on and the light is off.

Like a makeshift light switch.

So the sensor is up on the ceiling and it's like

a smoke alarm up on the ceiling.

And if I can just cover that.

temporarily then the light should go off.

So this morning I'm like, I need to invent a contraption that will allow me to cover the sensor and uncover it at my discretion.

So I get thinking.

Well the first thing I started thinking about was the history of light switches.

You know artificial light is quite a modern invention.

It's maybe 150 years old.

And it made me think about

all the neurodivergent people who didn't know that they had light sensitivities because artificial light didn't exist.

Like dyslexic people, like widespread literacy, right?

The ability for everybody to read.

That only really starts popping up from the 1600s onwards and mainly into the Victorian period with industry and schools.

So there were people before writing was completely widespread and everybody could do it and schools existed.

There were dyslexic people who may not have known that they were dyslexic.

They just went about their fucking lives without the need for reading or writing because the common people didn't have access to these tools and skills.

I always give the example of pubs.

You know, pubs that have names like the nag's head or the king's head or the dog and duck.

That's an old English thing from when before writing was widespread.

If you had a pub or a tavern or an inn, like three four hundred years ago and the majority of the population couldn't read, you wouldn't put the name of your tavern on the fucking sign outside.

You'd put a painting of the king's head or a painting of the dog and the duck.

But that's why pubs have those types of names.

But also I can't help but think

there were people who were dyslexic and dyslexia is a neurodivergence.

There was dyslexic people who didn't know they were dyslexic because writing and the ability to read these things weren't widespread.

And also this ridiculous idea that the the capacity to read and write is a sign of intelligence which is bullshit but it's just sometime around the the mid 1700s all of a sudden people are getting access to education going to schools and then dyslexic kids start popping up and the teachers are saying you're stupid you're thick because you can't read and write and that's how we measure intelligence and now that child is internalizing that message and they grow up to believe that they're stupid because the teacher said so and the system is against them.

But about 200 years before that, if they were born 200 years before that, they may never have found out they were dyslexic.

And the same must have existed for neurodivergent people with light sensitivities.

Before

the advent of the electric light bulb, which is the 1870s, right?

When the electric light bulb gets invented, before the electric light bulb,

they reckon that

at night time,

the average person living in a city using candles or maybe an oil lamp,

that their house would have had about as much light as an open fridge.

So you imagine opening your fridge.

That's the amount of light that an entire household would have had prior to 1870.

A neurodivergent person who's sensitive to light, to artificial light, they're just going to be getting on with their lives.

They're going to be getting on with their lives unaware of an excessive light sensitivity unless the sunlight sets them off.

But in general, with neurodivergent people, it tends to be artificial lights that some people can experience as overwhelming.

And then slowly, as we start to light society and things get brighter at night time and more intense, you start to see people experiencing great stress because of all this artificial light.

So I'm back in my office and I'm thinking, how am I going to cover that sensor?

What will I invent?

And while I was thinking about the history of artificial light and light switches, I thought about these lads called link buys

in like London and Manchester prior to gaslighting.

So we're talking fucking early 19th century.

So really, really poor children, really poor kids, a lot of them Irish, in London, Manchester, and Liverpool around 1800.

Little kids used to take up this job called being a link by and a link boy was literally a child who'd get their hands on like a long stiff piece of rope.

Then they'd dip this rope in tar and light the top of it.

So they had a cheap flaming torch.

And wealthy people in London and Liverpool and Manchester would rent out these little link boys

to follow them around with a flaming piece of rope to light their way as they walk the streets.

In a London where artificial light didn't exist, you just got a little child, a little urchin, a little Irish urchin walking in front of you with a flaming piece of rope.

Wonderful imagery, I can smell it.

And often what these little link boys would do is they'd work with criminal gangs.

So they'd find a rich couple and they'd light their torch, they'd light their piece of burning rope and bring the rich couple around fucking London in the dark alleyways.

and then they'd lead them down an alleyway where all their kids are waiting and they'd rob the rich people.

people but while i was thinking about the link boys with their long pieces of flaming rope and i was looking up at that sensor i'm like right i need something like a stick so i looked around and i found an old selfie stick you know those fucking chinese selfie sticks that are telescopic so i got one of them now how do i cover the sensor up on the ceiling what will i use so what i i started to think about the fucking the fella in the barber's earlier on shoving the hairdryer down his balls because I don't think he was wearing underpants.

I think he was just fucking barebacking the shorts with his bars.

I think he went just straight shorts, no underpants at all and that's why he was so cold.

And that made me think underpants, underpants.

I've got spare underpants here in the office.

I always have there's a shower in my office so I always have spare underpants, t-shirts, socks.

So I'm like, okay, I've got a selfie stick and now I've got a set of underpants.

If I could put the underpants around the sensor up there, then that's sufficient to block out the light.

Okay.

So now I'm figuring out how do I get the selfie stick to reach up there so that I can place the underpants on the sensor and how would I stick the underpants to the sensor.

Double-sided Velcro.

I've been sticking sound panels up all day and I have a load of this double-sided sticky Velcro.

So that's it.

I climb up on the chair and all around the sensor I place loads of sticky Velcro all around the sensor.

And then on the underpants is the other side of the sticky Velcro that's now stuck to the underpants.

So now I've got underpants on the end of a selfie stick and I'm raising them up to the sensor and trying to get the Velcro to stick up there on the ceiling.

What a brilliant invention.

What a great fucking invention I have.

And I'm so distracted.

I'm so distracted by everything I'm doing.

It just dawns on me.

And it's like, man, you're fucking trying to stick underpants to your ceiling.

You're trying to stick a set of underpants to your ceiling.

If anyone outside your office is looking in the window at the top, they're just going to see these levitating underpants.

The fuck are you doing?

And I paused and I thought, this isn't fair.

And also,

This is this shit that I've spoken about two or three podcasts ago.

This is this shit

where autistic people end up behaving in really eccentric, strange, weird ways in order to meet their needs.

What are my needs?

I need a light switch.

I need to turn the light on and off at my discretion and to use a soft lamp that's being denied to me because it costs 500 quid.

And I'm so used.

I'm so used to my entire life, whether it be school or whatever, figuring out ways, roundabout ways, to meet my own needs so that I can just exist as a regular person.

The plastic bag on my head, for instance, to avoid small talk.

I'm so used to these bizarre interventions to try and meet my needs that I didn't just stop and say, hold on a minute, this isn't fair.

This actually isn't fucking fair.

I'm paying the same money as everybody else.

to rent out my office 24-7 so that I can use it to work.

But because I'm autistic, that big bright light light sensor, after a while, stresses me out and makes it difficult for me to work.

Otherwise I wouldn't even be thinking about it.

I just I wouldn't even notice it.

I wouldn't care, like all the other offices.

There's offices on my corridor where people are able to sit so still at their desk while they work that the light turns off.

Whereas I have to pace up and down all the time.

And I thought this isn't fucking fair.

This isn't fair.

I shouldn't be charged 500 quid in an office I rent to have a light switch installed.

So I looked up the law and lo and behold there's a thing called the Equal Status Acts 2000 to 2018 where a service provider, the company I rent my office from, are legally required to provide reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities unless doing so would cause a disproportionate burden on the company.

Now the company I rent this office from, I looked up their annual turnover.

It's 3 billion Euro.

So they'd need to prove that spending 500 quid on my light switch would be such a disproportionate burden on their business that they'd cease trading.

So I said, fuck that.

I'm not sticking any underpants to the ceiling.

I'm not doing this ridiculous shit with a selfie stick.

This is the stuff that Nora Divergent people.

This is where we get reputations for being eccentric.

And yet it is pretty eccentric to be levitating underpants up towards a fucking censor.

But I shouldn't have to do it in the first place.

The people I'm renting the office from should be allowing me to access the exact same services as neurotypical people.

So I sent in a formal request, a formal request for a reasonable accommodation under the Equal Status Act 202018.

And I'll wait to hear back.

But I'd be surprised.

I'd be surprised if they said no because it's so clear-cut.

But you know the other thing I started thinking then after that?

After reading that that law of the Equal Status Act, it doesn't just protect people with disabilities, it protects people

from gender discrimination, from

racial discrimination, from homophobia.

And I thought about that lad back in the barber shop.

Now I know nothing about his sexuality, but I do know all the lads in there going

You're gay if you buy roast beef in Amsterdam.

I do know that's absolutely devastating.

If that lad was gay or bisexual.

Even though I witnessed multiple crimes, they were kicking the heads off each other.

I witnessed multiple crimes in that barbershop.

Okay, let's have a little ocarina pause.

My ocarina, because I'm in my new office, is currently packed away in a box.

I haven't unpacked everything yet.

What I do have is a tin of fizzy mineral.

I've got a tin of

fizzy mineral and I'm gonna tap this and then you're gonna hear an adverb for some bullshit.

This is the fizzy mineral pause.

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That was the fizzy mineral pause.

Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast.

If this podcast brings you distraction, mirth, merriment, joy, whatever the fuck has you listened to this podcast, please consider supporting it directly.

This is my full-time job.

It's how I earn a living.

It's how I rent out this office.

I deliver a podcast each week, regardless of circumstances, no matter what the fuck happens, I turn up and I deliver a podcast.

And I do that because I'm so unbelievably grateful that this is my job.

I'm so grateful that this is my full-time job.

I adore every minute of it and I will never take it for granted.

And I want to be here each week.

For ye perpetual declines who listen to this podcast, I want to be here each week speaking about what I'm genuinely passionate about.

So all I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month.

That's it.

And if you can't afford it, don't worry about it.

You can listen for free.

Listen for free because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free.

Everybody gets a podcast.

I get to earn a living.

It's a wonderful model.

Patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast.

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Upcoming gigs.

I had a cracker there in Galway there at the weekend.

It was wonderful fun.

So I've got my next gig is in Drahada on Friday the 21st.

That'll be fantastic fun.

Got a lovely guest lined up for that.

Then on the 28th of February, Belfast Waterfront Theatre.

Not a lot of tickets left for that one.

Only a small few tickets left for that.

March, the iNeck in Killarney.

I've got a cracker of a guest for the iNeck.

That's on

the 7th of March in Killarney.

Cork Opera House on the 13th of March.

Only a few tickets left for that.

Australian was eating that sold out.

Limerick on the 23rd of April, lads.

My biggest ever Limerick gig, University Concert Hall.

That's nearly fucking sold out.

I did not expect that.

I actually don't have that big a following in Limerick, even though I'm from Limerick.

Most of my listeners are outside fucking Ireland, but I can't...

Who the fuck are these people in Limerick that are turning up to the University Concert Hall?

That's my biggest ever gig in Limerick.

So...

You're literally down to...

There's like 10 tickets left for that Limerick gig.

I can't fucking believe it, but there you go.

I can't believe I'm going to be doing a gig beside Yarti's coach.

That's where that gig's gonna be.

That's sacred land.

That is.

Yarti Harn is an otter that lives by the river.

He's the patron saint of this podcast.

And I'm gonna be gigging

a fucking stone's throw from his coach on the 23rd of April.

And I'm very honoured to be doing that.

Then I'm off to fucking

England and Scotland, right?

In June.

I've not known for May, have I?

In June.

Bristol, Cornwall, Sheffield, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, York, London, East Sussex, Bexhill, and Norwich.

Those gigs are setting up quickly.

Please get your tickets.

Blindboy, what is it?

Fane.co.uk forward slash blindboy.

It's where you get your tickets for the England and Scotland tour.

That's all I have time for this week.

I hope you'll excuse the absence of a hot take

and that you were happy with this phone call.

I've had some people say they prefer the chaos of the phone calls.

I say phone call because this has been 50 minutes of me ringing you up and telling you about my day.

But I've been

moving office and I'm moved in now.

Hopefully, I'll get that light switch situation sorted.

I'll catch you next week with a hot take.

In the meantime, rub a dog.

Genu flick to a swan.

And look out for

New Zealand flatworms

they're this new look them up they're this new invasive species called the New Zealand flatworm

and they're really becoming a problem in Ireland they're they're they look like earthworms but they're fucking flat you know if you see one

you won't mistake it right but they're they're really becoming a problem and the problem with the New Zealand flatworm

they kill the native earthworm in Ireland Earthworms are essential for the health of our soil, crops, biodiversity.

And these New Zealand flatworms, they're killing our earthworms, replacing them, breeding like mad.

And worst of all, the New Zealand flatworm, it has no benefit to the earth and the soil.

So look up that New Zealand flatworm in Ireland.

Maybe if you find one, go onto biodiversity.ie, log your siting with your location

and look up what we're supposed to do.

I don't know what we're supposed to do if we do find the New Zealand flatworm.

I'm assuming we're being asked to kill them because they're so dangerous, but I don't know that.

Look that one up.

So,

genuflect to a swan, rub a dog and research about the New Zealand flatworm.

Take heed.

And if you see a native earthworm, if you see a native earthworm and they're on a footpath or whatever, maybe just pick it up and put it into some leaves.

Because they're in trouble and we need them.

We need them for the entire ecosystem.

Dog bless.

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