Donal Trump and managing emotions in the here and now

It's Stock Up September at Whole Foods Market.

Find sales on supplements to power up for busy weeks.

Plus, pack your pantry with pasta, sauce, and more everyday essentials.

Enjoy quick breakfast for less with 365 by Whole Foods Market seasonal coffee and oatmeal.

Grab ready-to-heat meals that are perfect for the office and save on versatile no antibiotics ever chicken breasts.

Stock up now at Whole Foods Market, in-store and online.

Slip gently from James Hetfield's headlock, you sweltering Brendas.

Welcome to the Blind Buy Podcast.

Happy New Year, you glorious cunts.

We're in the midst of a weather warning here in Limerick City, and we had snow.

There was snow the other day, when it wasn't really snow.

I don't know what I call it snow.

I adore the empty silence of a snowstorm.

When you get a decent dose of snow in Ireland, the world goes quiet.

Everything stops.

Because everybody is relishing the snow.

Like we get like decent proper snow maybe once every five years.

And we were supposed to get this yesterday, so as soon as it began to descend, I ran outside to stare up at the sky.

And I knew by the way it was descending that it was disappointing snow.

It was a type of slithery grey sleet

that fell like a dying bird.

And I watched it dissolve on dog shit.

So it's not real snow.

It's not the fluffy, crunchy stuff that lands with a like a soft puffing noise.

So we got a lot of this pathetic snow that very quickly turned into a kind of tarmacadam slush.

But that slush

that slush melted and now it's like minus four degrees.

So the slush has turned into a very dangerous ice.

Now if you're from Canada or somewhere you're probably laughing at me because minus four degrees is nothing to you.

But we don't have the infrastructure to deal with snow and ice in Ireland so the government just freaks out and tells everyone to stay at home.

Now I've spoken about this particular ice I think the last four years.

We exist in a very strange period because

we are witnessing climate change in real time.

Every year I experience weather conditions that didn't exist when I was a kid.

And this incredibly slippy, sweaty ice.

I've only started to see this in the past four years.

Like even yesterday for instance, we're in the middle of this orange warning and the government are telling people not to leave their homes or take unnecessary journeys.

But also my weather app told me that it was the hottest recorded temperature for that day on record.

So it's freezing at night time.

But then the daytimes are weirdly warm.

So you get this extra slippery thawed ice that freezes again at night time.

And I just don't remember it.

I don't remember this from my childhood.

I remember ice, but the ice would stay frozen.

It wouldn't all be dripping wet at two o'clock in the day.

I remember ice 10 years ago, but not this new sweaty slippery shit.

That's only the past three years.

So I'm in my office now to record this podcast in the wonderful quiet.

But I have to be cautious that I don't leave it too late because as the night progresses the temperatures are going to drop to minus 7 tonight and I definitely don't want to be getting a taxi when it's minus 7 degrees.

Just doesn't feel safe.

So this week's podcast might be might be shorter than I had initially planned.

I've been locked into my gaff the past few days because of the ice and the weather warnings.

So chaos has been introduced to everybody's life.

And Donald Trump is talking about buying Greenland.

Why does Donald Trump want to own Greenland?

Why does America want Greenland?

There's not much in Greenland, it's the North Pole.

Not a lot of people live on Greenland.

Greenland is massive.

It's currently

the territory of Denmark.

But America wants to own Greenland for the same reason that this week's podcast might be short.

Slippery, sweaty, melty ice as a result of climate change.

Greenland is at the North Pole.

It's melting.

It's melting away.

And while all that ice melts away, the rock is exposed.

They did a report in 2023 and now they reckon that Greenland is full of essential raw minerals, critical raw minerals, that we can now mine because the ice caps have melted because of climate change.

So that's one reason that Donald Trump wants Greenland for the United States.

But it's not the main reason.

The main reason is

as the ice melts around Greenland, it's opening up new shipping routes.

If you listen to any of my podcasts from the past few months where I spoke about

Israel and the Middle East and one of the big reasons that Europe and America lets Israel do whatever the fuck it wants is because Israel is effectively a gigantic aggressive aircraft carrier in the Middle East that defends the economic interests of the global north not just by protecting all the oil, but because of Israel's proximity to the Suez Canal.

The Suez Canal is a man-made canal

just above Egypt and underneath Israel.

The Suez Canal is the shortest route from Europe to Asia via ship.

If capitalism was an animal, the Suez Canal would be the spinal cord.

The passage of goods from east to west happens via the Suez Canal.

Oil tankers, technology, food.

If anything happened to the Suez Canal, it would cause the collapse of the global north.

So the Suez Canal is one of the reasons you have such a huge Western military presence in the Middle East and Israel.

That's why the Houthis, the Houthis in Yemen, are attacking all the ships that want to enter the Suez Canal.

So the ships are having to bypass the Suez Canal and go all the way around Africa.

which is a huge distance.

It's non-feasible.

That's why the Suez Canal exists.

But the world is round

and as the ice caps melt new shipping routes are going to open up so because of climate change because the ice caps are melting very soon there's going to be this this new shipping route that would allow goods to travel from western europe to east asia 40 percent quicker than using the swez canal China and Russia have already agreed to work together on these new shipping routes over the North Pole, Everyone's just waiting for the ice to melt more.

So that's why Trump wants Greenland.

He wants America to own Greenland so that America can control the brand new climate change shipping routes that are going to emerge in the North Pole within the next 20 years.

Trump by the way doesn't believe in climate change.

The same capitalism, the same forces of trade and globalization, that are causing climate change, that are causing the ice caps to melt are are now being seen as a wonderful new opportunity by billionaires to establish shorter shipping routes.

So when the waters rise and weather gets more extreme, at least ships will be able to travel from Western Europe to East Asia 40% quicker than using the Swiss Canal.

So Trump wants to...

he wants to buy Greenland off Denmark.

and Denmark are like, no, we're not selling Greenland.

And the reason Trump says that he wants Greenland is he says that it's for very important national security reasons.

The same thing they say about Israel, the same thing they say about American presence in the Middle East.

This is for security.

People want to kill Americans.

No, the ice caps are melting and there's going to be very new important

trade routes opening up because the ice caps will be gone.

And in order for America to continue being the most powerful country in the world, it wants those routes to be on American soil.

And that would be the case if America buys Greenland.

Trump today also hasn't...

he hasn't ruled out using the military to just take Greenland if that's what he wants.

And Denmark is in NATO.

So that would mean the United States going to war with Denmark for Greenland.

So Trump isn't even in fucking power yet.

And he's already after threatening another NATO member.

But there's a synchronicity that I see between Trump's words and his behaviors and the time of year that he's saying these things.

There's a Roman god, a god in ancient Rome by the name of Janus.

Ancient Rome,

how it conducted itself, how it administrated itself.

Ancient Rome is...

it's the model, it's the model of Western imperialism.

Britain based itself on ancient Rome.

America bases itself on ancient Rome.

Rome is the model for empire building, continually expanding and then bringing conquered territories, assimilating them culturally into the culture of Rome.

That's what the British Empire does, that's what America does.

And ancient Rome had a pantheon of gods and mythology.

And these gods, their stories and their mythology completely propped up the ideology of Roman Empire.

And one very, very important god was Janus.

The mythology of ancient Rome and how Rome was founded, like the stories, not history but the mythology, is

there was a woman in Italy called Rhea.

Now Rhea was a she was a vestal virgin, like a holy woman, but a virgin.

Now the reason that Rhea was a virgin, a vestal virgin, is she was forced to be one by her uncle.

Rhea's da had been a former king.

but this king was displaced and put out of power by his brother, Rhea's uncle.

So Rhea's uncle is like, she's the ex-king's daughter.

So if she gets pregnant and has a son, that son is the heir to this throne.

So she can't get pregnant.

So I'm gonna make Rhea, my niece, a virgin, a Vestal virgin.

But one day, Rhea gets pregnant.

And everyone is like, oh my god, how are you pregnant?

You're a virgin.

You're a vestal virgin.

How are you possibly pregnant?

Virgins can't get pregnant.

So then Rhea goes, I haven't had sex with anybody, but the god Mars,

he got me pregnant.

And then everyone is like, okay, that makes sense.

That's how a virgin can get pregnant, if a god does it.

Does that sound familiar?

Yes, it does, but this was long before.

This story is long before the story of Holy Mary and Christ, but it definitely influenced it.

So Rhea is now pregnant.

and then her uncle the king is like fuck she's pregnant and she gives birth to not one, but two boys, twins.

And now her uncle is like, fuck this.

Those babies are the heir to this throne.

I'm kidding them.

I'm gonna kill those two baby boys.

The two boys' names were Romulus and Ramus.

So the king orders their death.

Now for whatever reason, He doesn't want to execute babies.

So what he does is he gets Romulus and Ramus and he leaves them by the banks of a river, abandoned abandoned to basically just die.

But then a wolf comes along.

A she-wolf comes along and this wolf raises the two babies Romulus and Ramus and they suckle on the wolf's milk.

So these two babies grow up to be vicious, strong, powerful, determined boys.

and eventually men who are raised by a wolf, ferocious.

And then when they become young men, they discover their true identity.

They go and find their grandfather, the deposed king, kill his brother and then

restore their granddad to the throne.

So then Romulus and Ramus are like, geez, that was great crack.

Why don't we start our own city?

So they fuck off into the middle of Italy and they farm Rome.

They farm Rome as a small little town.

But they want Rome to become great, to become massive.

And they look around and they go, there's not enough people here.

We need more people.

We need a higher birth rate in Rome.

So Romulus and Ramus invite their neighbors, the Sabines, who are from another little village.

Romulus and Ramus say to the Sabines, Come to our little village of Rome and have a party with us.

Bring all your people.

So the Sabines say, excellent, we'd love to come to your little village of Rome and have a party.

So when the Sabines arrive, Romulus and Ramus attack them and then they steal all the Sabines' women and they kick the men out and then they keep the women and then

proceed to force themselves on the women that they've taken prisoner.

They all become pregnant and now the population of Rome grows.

So at the very foundational myth of Rome there you have justification of sexual assault for expansion.

So the population of Rome gets bigger and then the Sabines are like, we want revenge.

they took out our women and they made all the women pregnant we want revenge so the sabines come back to wage war on Rome and they storm the place and it looks like Rome in its infancy is going to be killed the Sabines are gonna are gonna win this war against Rome but then suddenly this god appears by the name of Janus in defense of Rome and he causes a boiling hot spring to form out of the earth and then boil all the sabines alive and Rome is triumphant.

Then suddenly Rome expands and gets bigger and takes the Sabines territory into Rome's territory and Rome begins to protect itself with gates and that god Janus

becomes the protector of gates, the protector of transition and thresholds and beginnings.

Janus is all about empire and property.

Janus protects this gate and this gate denotes Roman territory.

And I decide who goes through this gate and who doesn't.

If you want to come through here, you pay a tariff.

If you want to bring your goods through this gate, you pay money.

Because I own this fucking gate, you bring money to bring it through.

And that becomes a model, we'll say, of Roman Empire.

That's how the Roman Empire expands.

By getting bigger, trade and controlling gates and transitions.

And this is, it's all bolstered by the mythology of this Janus god if the ancient Romans controlled the Suez Canal there'd be temples of Janus all around it

Janus would be on the gate like Donald Trump in in the past week right he said

he wants to buy greenland right that's because of those trade routes he wants to control the Panama Canal The Panama Canal, it's like the Suez Canal, right?

The Panama Canal goes through Central America.

Without the Panama Canal, ships have to go around South America, which is unfeasible.

The Panama Canal, it belongs to Panama.

But Trump this week has said no, I think the United States should own the Panama Canal.

And he's also said he wants to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Again, the Gulf of Mexico being a hugely important trade route for ships.

So what Trump is doing is it's very Roman Empire-ish.

Complete expansion of empire by controlling gates, transitionary points.

Now if you're wondering why the fuck I'm talking about Roman mythology and Donald Trump, well the synchronicity that I see is...

So Janus is where we get the word January.

January is it's literally named after the Roman god Janus.

Janus had two faces, one looking forward and one looking backwards, so a two-headed god.

The reason Janus had two heads is one head was looking to the future and the other head was looking to the past.

In last week's podcast I spoke about the very fluid perception of time in Irish mythology and parallel universes in Irish mythology.

An understanding of time that isn't purely linear.

But with Janus there, the Roman god, Janus is very much about linear time.

It's not cyclical.

Janus represents the transition from the past to the future, the new year,

January, the month of Janus.

And January became

the first month of the year, about 50 years before the birth of Christ.

Julius Caesar, who was a Roman dictator.

Julius Caesar is the reason.

January is the first month of the year.

Julius Caesar brought in the Julian calendar, a solar calendar based around the movements of the sun.

And January is the first month because of the Roman god Janus.

So Julius Caesar decided that.

Now the similarities between fucking Julius Caesar and Trump, the way that Trump is behaving right now, saying that he's willing to go to war with NATO, with Denmark, another country so that he can take Greenland for trade routes.

That's pure Julius Caesar.

So Rome was a republic, a democratic republic.

I'm talking here 50-60 years before the birth of Christ, 2000 years ago, a long time ago.

But Rome was the Roman Republic.

But then Julius Caesar rises to power.

He was a general, a charismatic bully, like a strong man, who was very critical of the senators, who he referred to as the elite, like these are the the elitest senators, and the common people loved him.

Caesar would use like populist tactics, like debt relief, land reform to get loyalty from the people of Rome.

Just like this time when Trump got elected he was like, your groceries are too expensive, I'm gonna make our groceries less expensive, I'm gonna put tariffs on China.

The big thing with Caesar, like I said, Rome was a republic, but when Caesar got into power, he declared himself dictator for life.

completely bypassing voting or democracy like Trump with January 6th, which was that was an attempt to overthrow American democracy.

Also Trump has intimated,

he said, if you vote for me, you're never going to have to vote again, which suggests that he wants to stay in power for life.

Whether he can do it or not, that's a different story.

But Caesar, Caesar expanded Rome massively.

He was a colonizer.

He was an empire builder.

Caesar took power in in this powerful democracy, the Roman Republic.

Then Caesar expanded that as far as France, as far as Britain, but took democracy out of it.

He became a dictator and he went so mad with power.

As dictator, his own senators conspired to murder him.

They assassinated him, they killed Julius Caesar because they felt that he was going to destroy the Roman Republic, destroy democracy.

But it was too late.

His heir Augustus just jumped into power immediately afterwards.

So that ended the Roman Republic and began the Roman Empire, which was an autocracy.

It was proto-fascist.

And every one of those Julius Caesar accusations are what people say about Trump.

Trump is an authoritarian, that he's going to end American democracy.

And with the shit he's saying now about taking Greenland, if he's serious about that, then the international order of the 20th century is gone.

And you legitimately enter the era of the american empire the explicit american empire but back to the two-headed god the roman god janus from which we get the month january the worship of janus is where you first really start to see new year's resolutions because janus is looking into the past and reflecting on the past with one head but then looking forward with the other head and thinking about how things could be different.

So Janus is the god of transitions, transitions, the god of the new year transitioning into the next year, not being reborn, nothing cyclical, the linear transition of one year into the next in linear time.

Janus is the god of gates, the god of locks for canals, the god who oversees the transition from one territory to the next and who controls at the gate who goes through, who doesn't, who defends it and who pays a tariff to come through the gate.

So with Janus and Janus's role within within the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, you see a very strong ideological flavor about property, ownership, expansion, permission to move between borders and a linear understanding of time.

Time being something we transition through.

The new year isn't reborn in a cycle.

It's a completely new year that transitions in time and you can take things from the old year into the new year.

And the worship of Janus,

January, it's where we get

it's really where we get the modern practice of New Year's resolutions.

Now the Babylonians had something similar like 4000 years ago, but that was around March or on springtime.

But when the Julian calendar comes in and you've got January dedicated to Janus.

And Janus is the two-headed god at the gates and one head is looking towards the future and one head is looking back at the past.

So when the people of Rome would worship Janus, they might make offerings to Janus or sacrifices, and they'd make little promises about the new year, about the new year ahead.

They'd look back to the year that's just gone and said, What did I not like about that last year?

Okay, I'm gonna make some improvements.

I'm gonna make a new year's resolution and make an offering to Janus to January.

I mentioned two weeks ago that my

new year's resolution

is

for my emotions

to be something that I respond to rather than something I react to.

I want to pursue that, so I want to pursue that as daily effort.

It's not a goal because

that isn't something you can arrive at, but I want to have it as active practice every single day.

I want to work on having the the calmness

to be able to notice and observe my emotions and respond to them as they pop up

rather than react to those emotions and be led by them or controlled by them.

And what I mean by that is

if

someone does something that brings up anger in me, if I react to that anger, now I'm shouting at that person or attacking that person.

or saying hurtful things that I don't really mean, but I'm saying them in that moment because my heart and anger is driving my behavior so that's reactionary.

Instead I want to work on responding to my anger.

So if anger pops up in me

I want to take a deep breath, notice the anger, acknowledge it, wait, wait until my breathing is calm and then express my feelings.

critically with the person who has brought up anger in me and set some boundaries boundaries and simply say what I feel and that's responding to anger and that's constructive it builds my self-esteem it helps me to set boundaries and it's responding it's responding to my anger in a way that's compassionate to me and compassionate to the other person rather than just screaming and roaring and calling someone a prick there's rarely any need for that unless I'm actually being physically attacked and I need to fight back.

And you can respond and react to positive positive emotions too.

Excitement.

Let's just say something happens, a project comes in that's really, really fucking exciting.

If I receive really exciting news, if I react to that excitement, I can make promises I can't keep or set unrealistic goals.

Like have you ever bumped into someone you haven't seen in ages and you're like, oh my god, I haven't seen you in ages.

I'm so excited to see you.

We must do this.

We must do that.

We must do this.

Let's make plans.

And you might actually mean that in the moment.

You're very excited, but you reacted to your excitement and made a lot of promises that you can't keep.

You don't follow up on them and now you look like a goal.

So when I get excited, I want to pause and evaluate my excitement.

I want to have the calmness to be able to feel the excitement.

but not necessarily allow it to emotionally flood me.

So

I can get excited and happy about something but

not follow through with the words where I overcommit recognize in the moment that excitedness and giddiness feel great but the childlike enthusiasm of these emotions can lead to behaving like a bit of a silly billy if you're not careful.

Frustration.

That's a big one.

How do you respond to frustration?

Respond versus react.

I get frustrated every day.

I'm an artist.

I have to deal with blank pages.

I have to deal with a blank page that I have to fill with words and ideas.

And that feeling at the start of creativity, of any task, of initiating any task, that feeling at the start

where it's difficult, that's frustration.

That feels frustrating.

And when I react to the feeling of frustration, the feeling of frustration drives me.

Then in my mind I start making excuses as to why I need to quit the task.

I start telling myself this is unbearable.

I can't bear this frustration.

I hate this.

I need to get away from this feeling as soon as possible.

I need to quit.

I cannot tolerate this feeling.

Like frustration is a very interesting emotion because when you feel it intensely enough you experience frustration as almost like an itch.

It's an itchy feeling.

Get me the fuck away from this task.

My god, this is uncomfortable.

It's not painful and it's not terrifying, but it's itchy.

I need this to stop.

So reacting to frustration will have me quitting a task early.

It'll have me giving in to procrastination.

It'll have me not thinking about future me.

Like with my neurodivergence, frustration is what kicks in.

when I have difficulty with task initiation.

Like cleaning my fucking studio.

If I let things get too messy, I can get really confused and not know how to make things tidy again.

And I experience that as deeply frustrating.

And if I react to that feeling of frustration, I put off cleaning my office and it gets messier and messier and messier.

And it just snowballs into a much larger problem.

So what does responding to frustration look like?

The first step of responding to frustration is just naming it.

Naming and acknowledging, Jesus, this is really frustrating.

this isn't this doesn't feel too pleasant at all and then noticing and acknowledging my desire to quit and the

my inner monologue that's telling me to quit noticing those words and then I look at my breathing I look at my breathing

and I ask myself is is this really too much

is this really that painful that I have to walk away?

Like is this unbearable?

Because I reckon I can tolerate this frustration.

It's not nice, but I reckon I can tolerate this frustration.

And also, frustration is...

it's a given, it's a guarantee.

In any task that's a little bit difficult, frustration is guaranteed.

So I'm going to breathe.

And I understand this isn't going to hurt me.

Nothing bad is going to happen from frustration.

I'm an adult.

I'm going to breathe.

And I'm going to tolerate this frustration.

and continue on with this task.

And I tell you what, when you do that, it feels fucking amazing.

Tolerating frustration and getting over it and finishing the task feels incredible and it reduces the chances of frustration popping up again.

Here's a really good exercise for frustration tolerance.

Really simple one.

Don't get into an argument with a stranger on the internet.

The next time you're on Instagram or Facebook or whatever the fuck, and you see a stupid comment from a silly bastard, or worse, you've written a comment on Facebook or whatever and a stranger is having a go at you underneath your own comment.

You feel triggered, you're angry, you must reply, you must show them you've been humiliated publicly, you must reply.

Tolerate that frustration, don't reply.

Ignore it, don't reply, don't reply to the stranger on the internet.

Very rarely, very rarely do you need to get into an argument with a stranger on the internet about a thing.

It's incredibly rare that that needs to happen.

And resisting the urge to do it, resisting the urge to do it, noticing the feelings of anger that come up, noticing the emotional flooding that can happen when a stranger says something shitty to you on the internet.

Tolerate that frustration.

It feels fucking amazing and even better.

Every time

you resist the urge to get into an argument with a stranger on the internet, every time you do that and tolerate the frustration and you feel good, go and do a task that you were putting off.

Answering an email, folding your socks.

Because you've just gotten a big chunk of free time.

Because let's be realistic here about arguing with strangers on the internet.

It's never just one comment.

If you're not careful, you can end up arguing with a man called Declan on Facebook.

You could do two hours of that.

If you have a social media profile, are you telling me you have never wasted two hours of your life arguing about bullshit with a stranger on the internet and then coming away from it going, what was the point of that?

So next time the arch comes up, don't argue with the stranger.

Right?

That's gonna feel great because you just noticed all those triggering emotions and you tolerated the frustration of not doing it and then acknowledge all the free time that you now have because you didn't argue with the stranger and use that chunk of time to do a task that you were putting off and if you do that it's like growing self-esteem in a pot it's a wonderfully powerful exercise

in a kind of a safe test tube environment.

I think that's why it's so powerful.

It's a little test tube environment.

If you're in the shop, if you're in the shop and a stranger all of a sudden is very rude to you or starts an argument with you, that's a very triggering situation.

That's fucking difficult.

If you work in retail, if you work in retail or any job that deals with the public, you might have to face that once a day.

That's very tough.

To be dealing with a situation like that in in real life.

When a person's in your face being confrontational, it takes a lot of self-control and emotional awareness to remain fully calm in that situation.

But when it's a man called Declan underneath a Facebook comment and Declan is saying, your opinion is stupid, that's a lovely test tube environment there.

That's a scientific environment.

Declan isn't physically present in the room.

There's no potential threat of physical violence or escalation.

Because Declan's not here,

you can choose.

You can choose the amount of time it takes to respond to Declan's comment.

Every time you could get into an argument with a stranger on the internet, every one of those times, that's actually an opportunity.

That's an opportunity to train yourself to notice very difficult triggering emotions and then respond to them.

Think of the last time, think of the last time a stranger triggered you online.

Think of the physical anger you felt gritting your teeth, clenching your fists, the temerity of them.

Think of that immediate rush in your body, the sudden immediate desire to respond to them as soon as possible.

Notice how loud, how loud your fingers are.

Like, have you ever been in a public place?

And you can tell that someone is arguing on the internet just by how hard they're hitting the keyboard.

They're not aware of that, because they're arguing with Declan.

They're not aware of that feeling.

They're not aware that they're baiting the keyboard.

But you don't have to do shit.

You don't have to do shit if someone says something to you online.

You can completely ignore it and there's no consequences whatsoever.

You can move on with your day.

So the next time that someone triggers you online, Notice the initial feeling, the initial threat.

Notice the initial threat and then say, brilliant.

Thank you so so much Declan for giving me this opportunity to notice my feelings respond to them and then not reply to you at all because it doesn't matter it doesn't matter Declan and now because I've tolerated the frustration of that I'm gonna go to the kitchen and wash a single dish try that try that for the crack I'd intended for this week's podcast to be

a much longer mental health podcast.

I was going to go into transactional analysis, which is it's something I haven't spoken about since 2018 and I'd love to revisit it because it's so helpful.

But there's been an orange weather warning.

The past three days there's been an orange weather warning and this has completely fucked my shit up and I haven't been able to to go into my office to access my books and put in the amount of research that I needed to put in.

So

This is a slightly short podcast this week.

It's about 10 minutes shorter than usual.

And I think we'll have a little a little ocarina pause.

We'll have a little ocarina pause right now.

I don't have an ocarina, but I do have an Aztec death whistle, which I'm going to blow into very, very gently.

I don't know what that sounds like to blow into it very gently.

But this is the Aztec death whistle pause.

It's a fucking whistle that's supposed to sound like someone being murdered.

But I'll blow into this and you're going to hear an advert for something.

See if I really give that a proper blow.

Now it sounds like someone's screaming, like someone being hacked to death.

We're not gonna do that.

It's Stock Up September at Whole Foods Market.

Find sales on supplements to power up for busy weeks.

Plus, pack your pantry with pasta, sauce, and more everyday essentials.

Enjoy quick breakfast for less with 365 by Whole Foods Market seasonal coffee and oatmeal.

Grab ready-to-heat meals that are perfect for the office and save on versatile no antibiotics ever chicken breasts.

Sock up now at Whole Foods Market, in-store and online.

Did you know adults 60 plus lose more than $60 billion each year to financial exploitation?

Greenlight's new Family Shield plan empowers you to monitor your accounts for suspicious activity, protect yourself with up to $1 million identity theft coverage, and reassure loved ones that you're safe with location sharing and place alerts.

Get peace of mind today at greenlight.com/slash protect.

That's greenlight.com slash protect.

Raise your hand if you want your nails to look perfect all the time.

Me too.

I'm Sarah Gibson-Tuttle from Olive and June, and this is exactly why we created the Manny system.

We wanted to make it possible for everyone everywhere to give themselves a beautiful manicure at home.

With our tools and our long-lasting polish, each manicure with our Manny system comes out to just $2.

That's right, $2.

No more $30, $40, $50 Mannies that you get at a salon and they take hours.

Now you can paint your nails on your time and love them more than ever.

And by the way, when people ask, who did your nails, where did you get them done?

you're going to proudly say I did them myself

get 20% off your first Manny system with code perfectmanny20 at olive and june.com slash perfectmanny20.

That's code perfectmanny20 for 20% off at olive and june.com slash perfectmanni20.

Sounds like the ocean if it had a cleft palette.

Right, that's enough of that.

That was some adverts there.

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 mirth, merriment, merriment, entertainment, distraction, whatever has you listening to this podcast, if you enjoy it, please consider paying me for the work that I put into this podcast.

Because this is my full-time job, this is how I earn a living, this is how I rent out my office, it's how I pay all my bills, this is how I have the time and space to fail.

This podcast is only possible because it's listener funded.

So if you would like to fund this podcast, just go to Patreon.

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 that, don't worry about it.

You can listen for free.

You listen for free.

Because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free.

So everybody gets the exact same podcast and I get to earn a living.

And that's a wonderful model based on kindness and soundness.

Patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast.

And if you have an iPhone, don't sign up to Patreon and the Patreon iPhone app because Apple are greedy bastards and they take 30%.

So if you are becoming a paid patron, then do it via desktop, please.

Go to the URL.

Couple of gig plugs.

Fucking Dublin.

Dublin this month on the 27th.

I'm up in Vicker Street.

A wonderful Monday night gig.

My Vicker Street gigs are fantastic.

That's nearly sold out.

There's a few tickets left.

Come to that up in Dublin.

27th of January.

Galway, Leisureland, the 9th of February.

Not many tickets left for that.

Come along to that.

Wonderful Galway gig.

I love Galway.

I don't gig Galway enough.

Drada on the 21st of February.

Crescent Hall.

28th of February.

Belfast Waterfront Theatre.

Wonderful Gaff.

I love Belfast.

March.

The Ineck in Kellarmne.

On the 7th of March.

Then the 3rd of fucking 13th Cork Opera House as part of the Cork Opera.

No, Cork fucking podcast.

I can never say the Cork Podcast Festival.

I call it the Park Cod

Park Cod Past Festival.

The Park Festival where you passed COD.

The Cork Podcast fucking festival.

This is probably my sixth year of headlining that fucking festival.

And I can't, I can never pronounce the name of it.

The Cork Podcast Festival.

13th of March 2024.

Then,

Oh, fucking Limerick, is it?

When the fuck am I doing that Limerick gig?

What the f-

Thursday, the 20th of March, Limerick University Concert Hall.

Biggest ever Limerick gig.

Please come to that.

I'll be fucking mortified if a load of people don't come to that gig in Limerick in March.

Then when I'm finished, Limerick, straight off to Australia and New Zealand for a tour that's sold out.

And then...

Oh, I've a little bit of time off there.

I've got May off

fucking UK big festival there not festival big tour in England and Scotland right

starting in June June 25 a lot of these nearly sold out Bristol Cornwall Sheffield Manchester Glasgow Edinburgh York London East Sussex and Norwich go to fan.co.uk forward slash blindby for those gigs.

Look it's a slightly short one this week.

I gotta get the fuck out of here and try and get a taxi before it drops to minus seven degrees.

It's currently minus three but I don't want to leave it so late that it's minus seven because I don't think that's safe on the roads for a taxi and I could

I could do without sleeping on the office floor.

I was half thinking of it.

I was half thinking of fuck it sleep on the office floor you know the humidity of it.

No blanket or nothing, just my face on a fire retardant carpet.

And it's like there's no need for that.

There's There's no need for that.

I understand.

Like I was thinking like an asceticism vibe.

But like I could just meditate.

I don't need to sleep on a fire retardant carpet in my office to experience humidity and gratitude for having a bed.

So instead, I'm just gonna cut the podcast a little bit early and I'm gonna leave now and get a taxi while it's minus three degrees.

I shouldn't even be out.

I'm not supposed to make unnecessary journeys under an orange weather warning.

But no, fuck it, my podcast is a necessary journey.

I'll catch you next week.

In the meantime, rub a dog.

Shelter a ladybird.

Ladybirds wake up from hibernation when it's really cold and they try and find their way into your house.

So shelter a ladybird.

I'm currently sheltering a ladybird in my kitchen.

She came in this morning.

I unsuccessfully tried to feed her a dry Cheerio.

Um, wink at a swan.

Wink at a swan.

Swans are out.

Wink at a swan.

Alright, dog bless.

I'll catch you next week.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash?

Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies.

Try it at progressive.com.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates.

Potential savings will vary, not available in all states.

Imagine the impact when everyone gets the right tool for the job.

That's Odo.

Every app is designed to be easy to use, so employees spend less time learning the software and more time doing their jobs.

Experience true speed, reduced data entry with Smart AI, and a fast UI.

Check out Odo at odoo.com.

That's odoo.com.