Pleasuring myself about sycamore trees above the top of Croagh Patrick

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Fetch the heron's breadcrumbs, you perpetual declines.

Welcome to the Blind By Podcast.

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

We're in the clammy bars of autumn.

It's very autumn.

at the moment.

Winter beckons.

I don't mind a bit of winter.

Big fan of winter.

Winter won't let you down.

You know what you're gonna get with winter.

Not like summer.

But the light is disappearing.

The skies are darkening.

There's a chill in the wind.

Nights are colder.

And the wind is aggressive.

Very aggressive.

That autumn wind that takes the leaves off the fucking trees.

And I've been out having wonderful walks.

Look what I love about this time of year.

It's not that I have a problem with summer.

It's just there's too much of an emotional load with summer.

If it's raining you're disappointed because you're like fuck's sake it's summer and it's raining.

If it's hot and sunny you're worried about whether you're enjoying it enough.

Summer's a big deal in Ireland because

We're not built for fucking summer.

The houses aren't built for summer.

So when it's hot, it's too hot.

Nobody has air conditioning.

Summer just feels like a very demanding house guest.

And when summer is gone, you're kind of like, fuck it, I can relax now.

Autumn, I know what I'm getting with autumn.

Good old autumn won't let me down.

And you know it's going to get shitter.

You just know.

So you expect nothing because you know tomorrow is going to be noticeably darker than today and colder.

I find comfort in the reliability of that.

And I get to wear my Gore-Tex.

Most importantly,

I've given up on fucking fashion.

If you're a long-time listener to this podcast, you'll know my battles over the years.

With outdoor clothes, I've completely given up.

I don't give a fuck anymore.

Head to toe.

I'm talking shoes as well.

Alright?

Every single piece of clothing that I wear is purchased because of what it does.

Waterproof breathable Gore-Tex trousers.

Multiple pockets.

Multiple pockets.

I have a pocket near my shin and yesterday I put an apricot

an apricot into my shin

and reached down when I was on my bicycle and ate a shin apricot.

You can't do that with a pair of denims.

I've got full outdoor shoes, steel toe caps.

I could jump in a puddle if I wanted.

I'm a hundred percent I'm protected, I'm breathable.

I could comfortably tumble into a small stream stream and salvage the rest of my day.

I can step over inches of autumn leaves and not be concerned about slipping.

I feel smug.

That's the best thing about fucking autumn.

This is the opposite.

So do you know it's summertime?

It's summer.

It's like Spain.

So you're in the middle of June, we'll say.

Really fucking hot, clear blue skies.

It feels like Spain and you're in Ireland.

Can't enjoy it because you're just thinking, am I doing this right?

Should I be at the beach?

Fuck it.

Should I be washing and drying my clothes?

Feeling guilty about sitting in the shade.

Feeling guilty about being indoors.

Looking out the window and going, looking at wonderful weather.

I should be out in that.

And then you're out in it.

And it's like, I should be doing something different.

until eventually you're just like we've had enough of it now we've had enough of it with the exact opposite of that feeling, the precise opposite of that feeling, is going for a walk or a cycle in the freezing cold, aggressive rain

of autumn and being completely toasty and bone dry.

Knowing that I've got like a microporous membrane that lets air in but my body heat can escape.

Walking into big giant puddles,

inch deep puddles going,

Mike, these shoes are fucking waterproof.

There's no fear of me.

Looking up at big trees getting battered by wind.

The boughs fucking bending with big strong wind.

And then the same wind is hitting me and I'm slicing through it like a Stanley knife.

Cause my jacket has strategically placed wind slits.

Being conscious of my storm flaps.

Show what a fucking storm flap is.

Watch him off, but it's storm flaps.

I think about storm flaps now.

So when the wind, when the freezing wind and rain is battering off me and I have potential openings in my clothing via zips, there's a little a little strip, a protective strip of fabric that goes over the zip and that's the storm flap.

I love

wearing a set of trousers and when you buy the fucking trousers

Like the label the label that hangs off them.

It's not like a regular label.

It's like a little 16 page booklet of diagrams of all the different layers that make up the trousers.

Drawings of how water can't fucking penetrate it.

Reassuring me that I'm creating my own localized microclimate in my body.

But that mastery, that mastery over the forces of nature.

Looking up at a tree and feeling smug.

That's the exact opposite of thinking that I'm not enjoying a summer's day enough.

I'm walking around going, this is awful.

My God.

Sideways rain and a sky the colour of a head-butted testicle.

This is disgusting.

This is bleak.

I have no doubt that I'm doing the right thing here.

Look at that person over there.

Their hair is wet.

Uh-oh.

Still wearing a t-shirt like it's July.

I can see your nipples, sir.

Ah, look at that person.

Fashionable baggy, boot-cut jeans in the rain, is it?

Why are your shins so dark?

And then someone over there is wearing a pair of convers.

Wet.

Wet soaking convers.

Not me.

I'm toasty and dry.

I feel amazing.

I'm like a large bird with multiple, multiple layers of air being trapped between breathable waterproof clothing.

But this all comes at an aesthetic price.

I used to joke and say that, you know,

if you wear head-to-toe outdoor gear, you look divorced you look like a divorced person i used to joke about that nothing against divorced people i've gone beyond that now

i look like

i'm on a catholic a solo catholic pilgrimage to the top of crockpatrick and i'm doing it because i can't stop myself wanking i look like someone who has

intense

deep

sexual shame about masturbating and is trying to turn towards Catholicism and pilgrimages to try and fight it or find answers.

I'm dressed like that.

Someone who...

Someone who has sexual fantasy.

Not even about...

Someone who wants to fuck a wardrobe.

I look like a person who's sexually attracted to wardrobes or vinegar.

Someone who can't get an erection unless they're sniffing a bottle of vinegar.

And

I have to climb Krogpatrick to stop myself wanking about wardrobes.

That's how I'm dressed.

Crogpatrick is one of Ireland's highest mountains in Mayo.

It's said that St.

Patrick spent 40 days up there in the 5th century.

And

people climb it on religious pilgrimages.

Some people climb it barefoot.

It's a serious mountain to climb.

But it's mad religious.

You must certainly need to be...

You need to wear a lot of outdoor gear, really resilient outdoor gear if you're gonna climb Crockpatrick.

It's no joke.

And

I mean not everyone, not everyone who climbs Crockpatrick is doing it for religious penance or to absolve themselves of sin or to mortify their flesh.

Sometimes it's just influencers, influencers in wonderful Patagonia jackets looking fantastic.

Or it's a middle-aged man who's sexually attracted to wardrobes and can't stop masturbating about it and needs to go to the top of Croke Patrick to confront this

very shameful part of themselves.

So I look like the latter.

I look like that these days, and I'm absolutely fine with it because it's that or cold shins.

And I was out marveling at sycamores.

I was getting battered by

just sycamore seeds.

You know, helicopters, watching a strong breeze tear through a sycamore tree and seeing it send hundreds of its seeds into the air and just watching them perfectly

spin and float

for miles off into the distance and just

marveling at the efficiency, the sheer fucking efficiency

of

as a seed dispersal system.

Marveling at the wonder of nature.

And sycamores...

So sycamore trees, they're not actually indigenous to Ireland or to England.

They'd be what's called...

I don't know, is native the right word.

It's naturalized.

So sycamore trees...

They're not invasive.

That's the other thing.

So they're not invasive.

But they don't come from from here.

They're naturalized.

They exist comfortably within the ecosystem.

But with...

But they're still a little bit odd.

They're a bit odd.

Like for instance, like I have a complicated relationship with wind and sycamore trees.

So right now the leaves are yellow and brown.

They're dying leaves.

But like a month ago.

A month ago.

Early September, late August.

And those leaves were green.

But you get that little blast, the little blast of wind wind that you get that autumn wind.

While the leaves are still green, you have to be fucking careful at sycamore trees because wasps.

Have you ever seen a sycamore tree around late August and there's a strong breeze, right?

And the leaves are shaking.

And then the...

you end up with hovering wasps.

The wasps, like loads of...

Like, what the?

Why are there so many fucking wasps in the sycamore tree?

You'd be thinking there's a hive in there.

There's not.

The wind goes through the sycamore tree, and you're walking down the road, and then all these wasps, like 16 of them, just get blown about a foot out from the tree towards your face.

And

so, first off, the interesting thing about sycamore trees is that

they're actually maple trees.

So, they're not from Ireland, they're not from Britain, they're from Central Europe.

They came to Ireland and Britain in the 1500s with monasteries.

Monasteries brought a lot of them over.

But anyway,

so sycamore trees,

they're very thick with sweet sap because they're in the maple family.

And because they have this sweet sap, they have a fucked load of aphids.

Those tiny little green aphids live all over the leaves.

If you look at sycamore leaves, in the summertime, you'll just see hundreds and hundreds of aphids on each leaf.

And what those aphids are doing, they're eating the sap, right?

And then on their backs, they're producing honeydew, which is mad sweet.

So then if you look at a sycamore bark in the summer, the trunk of the tree, you'll see all ants going up because the ants, ants will farm the honeydew off the backs of all those aphids.

But then,

again,

it's the late August, the September wasps.

you know, the county wasps.

Now I've spoken about them before, but

you know we all know that the wasps are aggressive.

Around late August the wasps are definitely aggressive.

So when you're walking on the road and you see that wind going for those sycamore leaves you're frightened.

You're like shit there's going to be about 10, 16 wasps floating into my face now with that wind.

But what makes it interesting is you've definitely seen this.

You've seen this happen.

When the wind hits that sycamore tree, those green leaves, and it juts the wasps out by about a foot.

The wasps are fighting to get back to those leaves.

Whatever's on those leaves, those wasps really want to get back, right?

When the wind blows through it.

What those wasps are doing,

they gather to the sycamore tree because now they're licking the sugar, the honeydew, off the backs of all those aphids.

But then the sad thing about that wasp behavior is

I've done a podcast on this before but the fascinating thing about September wasps is they're actually highly traumatized

so those wasps at one point

had purpose and a community

so those wasps over the summer used to have a hive a wasp hive and they had jobs

and they had families.

And what they would do basically is like wasps, wasps are decomposers so wasps will eat meat wasps will eat a dead rat so wasps would eat meat during the summer bring this protein back to their wasp hive to the colony then they would feed the protein the little baby wasp larvae

but then the larvae excrete a sugary substance and that's what the wasps eat for most of their lives.

And then what happens is those larvae, they grow up to become queens and drones.

They flee the colony.

And then you're left with all of these wasps that have no purpose and have no food source and that are addicted to sugar.

So this happens around September.

So you've got these aimless wasps with no home to go to.

just craving sugar that they can't get anymore.

They don't have jobs, community or access to their sugar.

It's gone.

So they just wander and wander searching for sugar, searching for that hit.

So they'll either chase me and you because we might smell like aftershave or perfume or we're drinking a sugary drink or they're trying to get into our houses so that because they can smell sugar in there or they're hanging around the leaves of sycamore trees licking the backs off aphids.

So that's why in late summer when those when those leaves are green and the wind goes through it, you'll see all the wasps getting gently blown off the fucking sycamore tree.

But this week, those wasps are gone, they're dead, it's autumn, the leaves are brown, and now what I'm witnessing is

the leaves being stripped from the sycamore trees and then carrying those seeds, those beautiful, wonderful helicopter seeds, and watching them just shoot off like catapults into the fucking distance and be carried.

But the interesting thing about sycamores

and I had a hunch, I had a fucking hunch, right?

Because think of it.

What type of fucking tree?

What type of tree needs that?

I suppose I was thinking about it because of my outdoor clothes, the resilience of it.

What type of tree needs to have seeds that have evolved over millions of years into being perfect little helicopters?

What type of tree needs helicopters that can fly off into the distance to plant another tree?

Why would a tree need that?

I mean, conquerors just fall onto the ground.

Conquers just fall onto the fucking ground.

Same with acorns, they're just chilled out.

It's gonna drop a load of load of fruit and seeds onto the ground here, and it'll sort itself out.

What's going on with sycamore that it needs to try so hard?

Cause

a sycamore helicopter seed, or it's a fruit, it's called a samara the sycamore helicopter seed that's so unbelievably unique and efficient it can it's it can travel for miles on a wind and and and grow into another sycamore tree

i'm looking at it going why does it need that this doesn't make sense but but here's the thing it's not indigenous to ireland it's not indigenous here It's naturalized and it thrives.

It fucking thrives in Ireland.

But this isn't its

indigenous ecosystem.

Why does that tree need to be that much of a hard cunt?

So

where sycamores are from, they're from really thick forests in Central Europe.

Montane forests they're called, that have steep mountainsides.

And sycamores

In their indigenous habitat, they're opportunistic trees.

So sycamores in their native habitat,

they grow, think of a very dense thick forest.

Much taller trees.

Sycamores grow in whatever little space.

If there's a little space that opens up that a bit of sunlight can get through, the sycamore will grow there.

Much

older, taller, stronger, more dominant trees out-compete the sycamore in its indigenous environment.

So it has to be hard as fuck.

It has to have a a real high tolerance for shade because it's a mid-level tree.

All the trees around it are way way taller.

The bits of sunlight are getting through but the sycamore can still do its thing.

And then because its environment is so harsh and there's such competition

it needs to have these helicopter seeds that can disperse for miles away.

Because if it was like a conquer tree or an oak and it's just dropping its seeds on the ground, that's not going to work in its native environment.

So, it needed to have

like, just think of them-the millions of years of evolutionary adaptions it took to have this

seed that spins and flies like a helicopter-like, that's astounding.

And then you take into consideration that it's in these mountainous forests, and then you can imagine that seed for traveling for miles and miles and miles, just spinning and spinning on a wind.

I'm talking the mountains in the Balkans,

the Alps, the Pyrenees, Pyrenees, and also what Sycamore does in its indigenous environment.

On the side of the Alps, right?

Massive mountains.

I'm talking about fellas going up to Croke Patrick, because they can't stop wanking about wardrobes.

Fuck Croke Patrick, that's nothing compared to the Alps.

Giant mountains, right?

With very poor rocky soil.

and these strange forests of tall trees and in the middle of this is the sycamore and what the sycamore does in its in its indigenous ecosystem, it protects the mountain.

It works within the ecosystem to prevent avalanches, prevent erosion.

So the sycamore has these really...

First off, the thick, thick leaves, right?

So the thickness, like at the height of summertime, if you're sitting underneath a sycamore, there's proper fucking shade.

It's a very shady tree because of all those thick leaves.

In the Alps, where it's indigenous, the thickness of those leaves, that protects the soil, right, and the floor of the forest, it protects that soil from getting battered by raindrops.

Because the consistent battering of raindrops in the Alps will erode that thin mountainy soil.

Then the roots of the sycamore tree, they go pure deep and that then stabilizes the soil of the mountain.

So you don't get avalanches, you don't get erosion, you don't get just a bare rock face.

And now you have an ecosystem because the wonder of the sycamore tree.

And then of course it's its leaves returning to the earth and creating soil, but then its roots making sure that that soil sticks and doesn't wash away.

It's one of those things that's hard to describe because you start describing it and before you know it.

Before you know it, you're talking about God.

That's the problem with this shit.

I'm not a God person.

But when you look at something like a sycamore and it's so

Again the word designed It's not designed.

It's evolution over many many years But as a human being it's impossible not to look at it and think that it's designed The sycamore is so perfect for protecting a mountain and then then you have to ask yourself what who wants to protect the mountain and why well it's protecting the the valleys and rivers below.

And when you look at

when you look at the sycamore's role in its indigenous mountain and everything it does for the health of that mountain and the rivers and the valleys below, your brain starts thinking, well, someone designed that for a fucking purpose.

But that's not how it works.

It's evolution across millions of years and deep time.

And it's just, it's that human brain, the human brain, we look at something and we find those patterns

to say this has been created or this has a purpose.

And also,

in its indigenous land, right, in the Alps or the Pyrenees,

the sycamore has

like hundreds and hundreds of species that depend on it, that live in it.

Like there's 130 different species of aphids that live on it.

Fungus.

So there's a type of fungus that grows in the soil with sycamore in its indigenous land where it's a type of fungus that fuses with the tree's roots itself like a conduit between the tree and the soil.

There's lots of birds that live in the sycamore tree.

There's lots of fucking

lichen that grow on it.

There's thousands and thousands of creatures and animals

and fungus that exist with the sycamore tree in its in its native habitat in the Alps.

And all of these things live with the tree and benefit from the tree.

And loads of them kill the tree as well.

There's bark beetles that bore into it.

There's loads of different leaf-cutting insects that eat all the leaves of the sycamore tree.

There's funguses that kill the tree.

Like the sycamore is a hardy tree because it grows up, it's from a tough, tough environment in the Alps.

And it has evolved perfectly to work on that mountain range but now they're in Ireland.

They're here in Ireland and they're not from here and they're not necessarily invasive.

You see they probably were at one point when they came here in the 1500s.

Now they're they're naturalized.

So sycamores in Ireland they thrive under what's called the enemy release effect.

It doesn't have all these these leaf cutter insects that eat it or these funguses that kill it.

They don't exist in Ireland or over in the fucking UK.

So now you have this hard bastard of a tree,

this really tough tree, and the environment isn't tough on it at all.

Like in the Balkans, a sycamore tree might support maybe 130 different species of insect.

In Ireland, the sycamore has maybe 20 species of insect that depend on it.

Like what I described when I say, be wary of a sycamore in late August with the wind, because you'll get a slap off a lot of wasps.

Like that's strange behavior there.

That behavior is only 500 years old.

That's weird.

They're Irish aphids, Irish wasps.

And it's just weird.

Weird things are happening on the sycamore tree.

The wasps are wanking about wardrobes.

Sycamore trees in Ireland and over in the UK.

They've got quite low biodiversity value.

They're not...

Like an indigenous tree is like a giant apartment block.

An indigenous tree is like a city, like a city where all different types of organisms survive within the ecosystem.

Not sycamores.

Sycamores are just these hard, hard trees, these really resilient, tough trees in an ecosystem that doesn't challenge them.

And this is...

Sycamores, they don't need their helicopters here in Ireland.

They've no need for them.

But they they've still, they go far and wide and this is why, I don't know, you could be on a train.

You're on a train in a shitty railway track in the middle of nowhere and there's sycamore trees, little saplings of sycamores growing next to train tracks.

And it's like why?

Number one, their wonderful helicopter seed got to travel that far to make it to the train tracks.

And two,

sycamore doesn't give a fuck about gravel.

The sycamore is supposed to be grown on a mountain that has fuck all soil.

It doesn't care about the gravel or on the train track.

It'll find its way down there and establish itself.

You won't see an oak tree, a native oak near a train track though.

But it's hard to really

because

they're naturalized now, you see.

Sycamores are no longer.

They wouldn't be actively invasive.

It's like they've won.

they've done their thing.

They came over in the 1500s to 1600s with the gardens of monasteries, really, monasteries.

And then when the monasteries were dissolved, gotten rid of under Cromwell and everyone after Cromwell, then monastic gardens in Ireland were then replaced with the big Protestant houses.

But sycamore, it displaced

our native trees.

Ash, hazel, birch.

I mean, Ireland was a rainforest.

Ireland was a rainforest covered in indigenous trees.

And now it's not at all.

Ireland is a strange landscape.

Like the trees, they weren't just cut down by people.

They weren't just cut down and felled.

The likes of Sycamore played its part.

I mean you think of the Irish place names.

Derry means Dirra, that means an oak grove.

There's no fucking oak left.

Yall, down in Cork, means yew.

Ah, fucking Mayo means plain of yew trees.

Trim in Clare, Elder Tree.

Inishkeen means island of the ash trees.

Sycamore,

with its

wonderful big, thick thickets of leaves.

These thick, thick leaves that that evolved to be in the fucking Pyrenees or the Alps to stop rain from battering off the mountain.

Now this is in Ireland and those thick canopies of sycamore are covering the earth and the native trees can't grow.

And it's sycamore as well as highly tolerant of wind and very very tolerant of salt.

Any coastal salty wind, sycamore doesn't give a fuck about salt.

And it's seeds, it's seeds of course that disparse everywhere.

So I was just thinking about sycamore this week while I was walking and looking at it and looking at those wonderful seeds.

I I suppose what struck me was,

you see, I knew I'd never really had a good think about sycamore seeds.

I've been dealing with them my entire life.

But this week, I just went, holy fuck,

what's going on with that tree that it needs to have those helicopters?

Nature does that for a reason.

What's going on?

I gotta follow that.

And I did.

And I was so fascinated with the results.

It's like, yeah,

this tree grew up tough, really really hard and it needs those seeds but here in Ireland

it doesn't it

it it's you think of I'm always conscious of invasive species you're thinking about your Japanese knotweeds and your rhododendrons

and these things are

spreading spreading and kidding everything and they're invasive And it's just fascinating to think of the sycamore as

that was once invasive, invasive but it won that won

and now it's native

and

it's impossible to see its trail of destruction

its trail of destruction can only be measured by by absence

its trail of destruction can only be measured by

why are so many counties in ireland named after trees but the trees aren't there anymore.

And like I said, an indigenous tree is like an apartment block for all different life forms.

And a forest is like lots and lots of apartment blocks.

So you lose all your hazel and yew and ash and elder and elm.

Then you lose the massive amounts of indigenous insects that rely upon these trees.

The fungus, the lichen, the mycarziae.

Then you lose your pollinators.

Then you lose your birds and animals that live in that forest.

You lose the leaf litter,

the root structure.

The soil carbon declines.

Then you end up with groundwater flow.

You see, because all that leaf litter by the indigenous forests, that's the forests, that soaks up the rain.

But now that's gone.

So now you end up with floods.

And then that changes the rivers of Ireland.

But now the soil integrity of the rivers has changed because you don't have the native trees and the root structure and the soil holding them together and it goes on and on until you end up with no salmon in the river or no mussels and you have an empty landscape the empty landscape that we see today but you've plenty of sycamore and nothing's named after sycamores there's no ancient irish names named after sycamores the only shit that's named after sycamores are

like modern housing estates.

You'll get modern housing estates and they're called like Sycamore View, Sycamore Terrace.

And I find that fascinating.

And I suppose the other reason I'm fucking thinking about it is

because of Man Con.

Because Man Con died.

And

thinking about things I'd have loved to have said to him,

I'd love to have an old sycamore fucking hot take for Man Con.

Because he's the only person I can think of who...

who would be willing to listen to me.

Who would really want to hear that.

The only person I can think of who'd like to hear that sycamore hot take

is Mankon, and he's gone.

And I wanted to do a question-answering podcast this week.

I didn't intend to speak about sycamores for that long.

I wanted to do a question-answering podcast.

But one question I was fucking asked, I can't remember who asked it, but it stuck out to me.

Someone asked me on Instagram

about the autistic experience of grief and if that's different.

And I reckon it is a bit different because

so

my definition of friend.

Man Kon was my friend.

And I might have only met him once every two years, like physically, in person.

I might have met Man Kon once every two years.

And any person who I'd consider to be a friend,

I might see this person

physically once a year.

But I'd stay in contact frequently via text or email and only

about mutual interests.

That's the thing with the autistic experience.

Like I don't have friends friends.

I don't have any person who I just hang out with for the sake of hanging out.

I don't understand it.

I have people with mutual interests.

who I contact about these interests and that's often the autistic experience of friendship.

And I've lost about three very close friends over the years and the experience of loss is really strange because for the most part it's

it's a person in your phone

who just doesn't respond anymore and it's an area of interest that now gets really lonely.

Like I'd have a very close friend about maybe 15 years ago and this person

they were my music person.

This person was my music person and they died and the grief pops up, still pops up as

I don't know, I'll hear a song and I'll want to share this song with that person more than anything in the whole world and they're gone.

I can't.

And now this

week there with the sycamore, the sycamore hot take.

The one person I want to send that to, the one person who I want to get feedback on that idea from, to speak to about that's Man Khan and he's gone.

I know what he'd have loved specifically because you heard him last week on the podcast.

He was big into

the Irish sacred trees and big into places that were named after trees.

I mean that's where I learned it from from listening to him.

He would have loved the little quark there that the only time in Ireland you hear shit named after a sycamore is it's it's a modern housing estate.

Alright this was supposed to be a question question-answering podcast.

I don't think I've gotten to one question.

I'm gonna have an Ocarina pause now, and then maybe I'll answer a question after the Ocarina pause.

For this week's Ocarina pause, I'm gonna shake some chewing gums, and then you're gonna hear an advert.

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Tremble, confidence at every turn.

It began as three friends and a humble record shop.

It ended up as one of the most influential record labels of all time.

Beggars Banquet.

Welcome to States of Independence, the podcast that dives deep into the hidden histories of the world's greatest independent record labels.

I'm your host, Rob Fitzpatrick.

Join me for new conversations with label founder Martin Mills and a host of his most remarkable alumni.

Subscribe to States of Independence now on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcast.

Commercial payments at Fifth Third Bank are experienced and reliable, but they're also constantly innovating.

It might seem contradictory, but Fifth Third does just that.

They handle over $17 trillion in payments smoothly and effectively every year, and were also named one of America's most innovative companies by Fortune magazine.

After all, that's what commercial payments are all about.

Steady, reliable expertise that keeps money flowing in and out like clockwork.

But commercial payments are also about building new and disruptive solutions.

So Fifth Third does that too.

That's your commercial payments.

A Fifth Third Better.

You would have heard an advert there for some bullshit.

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

If this podcast brings you mirth, merriment, distraction, entertainment, whatever the fuck has you listening to this podcast, please consider paying me for that work because this is my full-time job.

This is how I earn a living.

This is how I rent out my office, pay all my bills, pay for the podcast equipment.

Most importantly,

It's how I have the time each week to write and research the podcast to fail.

sometimes I record a podcast and it's not good enough I don't put it out so I record a second one a new one I have the time to do that and to explore and to fail because this is my full-time job all I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month that's it 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 everybody gets the exact same podcast i get to earn a living.

It's a wonderful model based on kindness and soundness.

Patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast.

Also, it keeps this podcast fully independent to be listener funded.

It means that no advertiser comes in and adjusts the content in any way.

Upcoming gigs.

Last gig of the year.

Right.

On...

Halloween night.

If you're around Mead on Halloween night, come along to the Polka Festival.

Polka Festival in Trim in Mead.

What does the word Trim mean there?

Well, Trim literally means Balya Aha Trim.

It means townland of the Ford of the Elder Tree.

So that tells us about Trim in Mead.

At one point there was elder trees there.

There might have been one elder tree that was quite old that people could have worshipped.

Whatever was going on, there was an elder tree there that was so important they built a town around it or a castle.

If you want to know where I'm getting these names from, there's a brilliant website called loganum.ie, L-O-G-A-I-N-M.ie.

And that'll give you names, history, and meanings of places in Ireland if you type them in.

2026 gigs, Waterford on the 23rd of January, in the Theatre Royal.

Come along to that.

Then 2nd of February, Vicar Street, up in Dublin.

12th of February, Belfast, the Waterfront Theatre.

15th of February, Galway, Leisureland.

28th of February, Killarney in the INEC.

I've got some fucking work cut out for me in February, lads.

Then...

Carlo.

I'm gigging in Carlo.

In March.

Don't think I've ever gigged Carlo, have I?

Fuck it, fair play, we'll give it a go.

In the visual arts centre in Carlo.

Then Cork, beautiful Cork, on the 26th of fucking March, Cork Opera House.

Listen, there's more.

We'll chill out.

I'm working on a website that has all my gigs on it.

We'll chill out now.

Um

what do we throw in there for the crack?

Oh fucking Limerick.

I'm gigging the University Concert Hall in Limerick on

is that the 9th of April?

Should we worry about it later?

University Concert Hall Limerick, you can't miss that.

That's the one.

That's the one I did.

I did it last year and I didn't think I'd be able to.

I didn't think there was enough people in Limerick who listened to my podcast.

Because

my podcast is more of an outside of Limerick thing.

It's more of a fucking outside of Ireland thing.

Said a lot of fucks this week, I think.

It's more of an outside of Ireland thing.

But yeah, come along there to Limerick on the

9th of April.

And then we've got that big massive tour.

Make sure no one put leads inside there.

Got that big massive tour of England, Scotland, and Wales in October 26.

Brighton, Cardiff, Coventry, Bristol, Guildford, London, Glasgow, Nottingham, and Leeds is there with a big red cross through it.

So that I don't accidentally call that out.

Apologies, Leeds.

There'll be no Leeds.

You know the crack.

It's a lot of fucking gigs, live podcasts.

Good fun.

Good, enjoyable fun.

If you want those English dates, feign.co.uk forward slash blindby.

The rest of the dates you're gonna have to fucking google it.

Google's gone to shit.

That's the thing now.

Like Google has gone to balls.

It's really really bad the past year.

It has to be deliberate.

It has to be deliberate.

I'm getting ready to stop using Google entirely.

I think they're trying to push everyone towards AI because Google is not working as a search engine anymore.

Like all of those live dates I called out there.

I don't know, fucking mead, poker festival, blind boy.

Normally you just type that in and it brings you to where you get your tickets.

I don't know if I can trust Google anymore.

I don't use it for podcast research.

Simply can't use it for podcast research because Google search now prioritizes just very recent.

So if I was to try and go learn about sycamore trees there and I wanted articles on sycamore trees, like the best sycamore tree article might have been written in 2012.

But Google isn't going to give me the most relevant result for my search.

It'll give me the most recent result for my search.

I've stopped using Google for podcast research.

DuckDuck and Go

is a very good...

That's a very good Google replacement.

DuckDuck and Go.

That feels a bit like old internet.

If you search for something on duck duck and go it'll give you relevant research and it won't it won't give you fucking adverts either you might have guessed this week's podcast is a bit of a phone call look lads i'm rattled from mancon magon's death to tell you the truth like last week's podcast my my head was fully up my arse

it's just a big shock It's a big shock.

It's a big shock when someone's here and then they're not.

And your brain has to do catch-up with that reality.

Like I know that Man Con is dead but I don't really.

I don't really

because

when I was doing my sycamore tree walk this week and getting excited about it and thinking about sycamore trees,

I was getting excited because I was thinking, fuck it, Man Khan's gonna love that now.

And I wasn't verbalizing that, but my emotions, my feeling was,

I can't wait to tell con about all this sycamore tree stuff he's gonna love that and then i have to come around to the reality no i can't do that that's over that's over that's gone forever can't do that and the experience of that is shocking it's shocking and confusing and my thoughts are a bit scattered and rattled this week as a result of that i'm gonna answer some questions ashling o'brien asks, can I ask you a potentially annoying question as a new listener?

Is there one episode that is your favorite of all you've done?

I've made an episode every week for the past fucking eight years.

So to say is there one episode that's my favorite?

I can't answer that question.

The one episode that pops up

is I think it's called Hieronymus Bosch from maybe 2020.

I think I called it Hieronymus Bosch.

The reason...

So Hieronymus Bosch was a painter, a very surreal painter from around the 1500s.

And I was having difficulty for a long time trying to find information about Hieronymus Bosch because there was very little information about him.

But I knew I wanted to do a Hieronymus Bosch podcast because His paintings were so unique, so surreal, so strange.

He used to paint visions of hell in the 1500s.

And I knew I wanted to do a Hieronymus Bosch podcast but I was hoarding off I'm like no not until you have your hot take not until you have your hot take it will come something will reveal itself and then eventually it did

I had like the thing with Hieronymus Bosch is he stands out as being so unique as painting this fantastical landscapes of hell with weird creatures in the 1500s.

But I ended up finding out that he he was actually heavily influenced by an 11th century poem from Cork in Ireland called The Visiotsnogdalis.

And I found out that Hieronymus Bosch, I found out that our modern vision of hell may possibly come from Cork.

And then I found out about Hieronymus Bosch.

He was good friends with a bishop or a priest.

Catholic.

who used to sell indulgences, which means that this priest used to...

If you were wealthy enough, you could give this priest money and then you could buy your way into heaven.

And this priest used to hold dinners for wealthy people.

And Hieronymus Bosch would come along with his paintings and his paintings were, there were triptitch, there were three panels, like a wardrobe that you'd open out.

And he'd open the first panel and it's like, here's the Garden of Eden.

And then he'd open the middle panel.

and it's like this is your life now your life of sin and then he'd open the final panel this is hell this is all the torturing that's going to happen to you because of all the sins you're doing the drinking and riding and whatever and this pattern started to emerge where

it's possible that hieronymous bosch's paintings what they were were like

scary propaganda movies to frighten rich people into paying indulgences to basically to frighten rich people at dinner parties to say you are sinning like you're you're doing loads of sins loads of riding loads of gluttony.

You're gonna go to hell.

Well, give that man money over there, and then you won't have to.

And it reminds me a bit of those conferences that they have now for billionaires in New Zealand, where they're trying to sell doomsday prepper compounds to billionaires by freaking them out about societal collapse.

So, to answer your question,

I wouldn't say that's my favorite episode, but it just came.

What I like about that episode is that

I've got lots of hot takes all all the time, different pots that are on the bile.

But I might wait two years, three years before I'm ready to do a hot take on a particular subject.

I wait until the information reveals itself to me and I don't do premature hot takes and that episode sticks out for me because I waited.

I knew I wanted to do a hieronymous Bosch episode.

I didn't have the information and I chilled out and I waited and I said something's gonna reveal itself for me.

Just trust the process.

And it took about two years.

And then that beautiful hot take just came to me and the information, the research aligned with it.

Sarah Clifford asks, What's the strangest experience that you've had with the podcast?

Do you know what's really fucking weird?

It's just

the concept of fame, right?

And what I mean by that is,

So this year I went to...

I did a tour of Australia and I sold out

the Palais Theatre in Melbourne, which is the largest seated venue in the southern hemisphere.

It's like 3,500 people.

Sold that out in fucking Melbourne, in Australia.

Like who's playing there at the moment?

Tim Minchin,

Crowded House, UB40.

Those are household names.

You could go to anywhere, anyone in Melbourne in Australia and say, have you heard of UB40?

And they'd all go, yeah, yeah, I know UB40.

Might not be a fan, but I have a vague awareness of who UB40 are.

But you could walk around Melbourne and say, who is blind by?

And like, no one knows.

Like, literally, I'm nobody.

But at the same time,

I can sell out the same place that UB40 is selling out.

And that's really strange.

I don't know what that is.

I think

we're leaving a monoculture.

So UB40 existed in a monoculture.

UB40 were played on the radio, played on TV.

So everyone had a carcer awareness of UB40 or Tim Minchin.

Everyone knows the comedian Tim Minchin.

But now we're moving away from that monoculture into polyculture.

So you can be not famous at all, unknown,

but

sell out the largest seated venue in the southern hemisphere.

And the dichotomy of that, I just find it, it's nuts.

Now I love it, obviously, because I don't want to be fucking famous.

And then the other really, really strange thing that I found, and I'm using Australia as the example because it's so far away.

And also after eight years, I don't have the Irish audience anymore.

very small amount of Irish people at that gig, maybe 20%,

which is odd for an Irish podcaster.

Any other Irish podcasters that'll be gigging in Australia, it's going to be mostly Irish people at the gig.

So, what I found nuts was

see three and a half thousand people showing up.

Those are mostly people who just stumbled across this weird Irish podcast

where a fellow with a bag in his head talks and they just stumbled across it and listened to it privately.

And then all those people come together at a gig

and because I got mails afterwards like there was one person and

their neighbor their neighbor just like three streets down they met their neighbor at my gig and then they went oh you you listen to that blind by podcast I do too and that's where they're both at the gig together but these people like live a couple of doors down from each other and have never said to each other, I listen to Blind Buy.

And that's a real, a very very strange trend that I see in Australia and also when I'm gigging somewhere like fucking Norwich.

You do the gig, it sells out, there's all these people in the audience and then everyone's looking around going,

oh I live in Norwich, here's a bunch of people around me from Norwich, I know some of these people.

And I guess we've all just been listening to this podcast, but we haven't spoken about it or said it to each other and i get messages from people confirming this like norwichians or whatever you call people from norwich

just going oh i thought i was like the only person in norwich who listens to your podcast we know now because we're in the same room and blind boys up there and i find that so fascinating and confusing and a little bit scary because

It's like the exact opposite of how

mainstream media worked.

You can sell out the venue in Norwich or in Melbourne where famous people sell out

but no one knows who the fuck you are and it's it's way better.

It's better because you don't get you don't get any bandwagon people.

Everyone who's shown up for the gig is there because they really want to be there and if you have an audience full of people who really want to be there then you get a wonderful gig.

You get a really lovely, lovely, wonderful gig and you have to remember too

I'm 20 years gigging

I'll be 20 years gigging next year

I've been doing this a long time up on stage gigging

and for the first 10 years of my career I know what it's like to have that monoculture mainstream fame in fucking Ireland in Ireland monoculture mainstream fame

and to do a gig and 40% of the people are there because they genuinely like what you're doing but 60% of the people are there because they have a vague awareness that you're on television or doing something, a vague awareness.

And when you have those type of gigs, it's actually, it's very difficult to do a good gig.

It's very difficult to do a good show and to make it an enjoyable experience because you don't have audience cohesion.

You don't have that wonderful collective empathy that you get when everyone wants to be there.

So to come around full circle where

just the absolute privilege to be to be doing live podcasts and knowing that every single person in that audience is there because they want to be there and they really like the podcast.

Oh fuck it.

I love it.

I love it so much and I really want to protect it.

I want to protect it and keep it that way and try and not have that type of

mainstream

like I so I had a tough week this week After after because of Mankon, I had a bit of burnout

which meant I did fucking silly things.

Actually I was quite proud with how I handled it.

Three deeply triggering things happened to me last week.

Triggering things for an autistic person.

Within the space of a half an hour, I lost my keys.

Now that was my keys for everything.

My fucking gaff, my studio, everything.

I lost my fucking keys

because the

tracker that I have on my keys to find them.

I lose my keys all the time.

It's a an order divergent thing.

So I have a digital tracker on my keys at all times so I never lose them.

The battery went on that so I lost my keys.

Was locked out of my gaff.

Then I smat then I was so pissed off with that I dropped my favorite tea mug and smashed it.

And then I got a puncture on my bicycle.

Now those are quite triggering things to happen for me.

They can I could really shave myself over that, but I didn't.

I was very happy.

I dealt with all of that really calmly.

I managed to find my keys by being calm.

Regarding the mug, I said, fuck it, the mug is broken.

I then found the exact mug on eBay and had it sent to me.

And then I calmly repaired my own bicycle tire.

And I was very happy with myself because, like I said, those are very triggering things.

And they're pure autistic person in burnout things.

I lose the keys, then the keys

I broke my mug because I lost my keys.

So, this is how burnout works.

You lose the keys, really important, right?

Then you begin to panic because you're panicking, then you drop your mug.

Then, the panic of that means I cycle into glass.

A cycle of clumsiness

that just spirals and spirals and spirals until you stop functioning

and I mindfully I dealt with every part of it and I addressed each issue and I was solution focused and got it sorted and I felt fucking great.

I felt wonderful.

I didn't panic over the keys.

I found them because I was calm.

Ordered a new mug, repaired my own bike, felt great.

Then I went to the supermarket.

And as I got into the supermarket, right, there's duns.

I'm like, why can't I get in the door?

What's happening here?

And there was a kerfuffle.

And I was going, this is strange.

It's like, it's like a Wednesday.

Why is there a queue?

And then as I got into Duns, I realized, oh, lots of people were gathering around a person.

And the door was being blocked.

And as I got closer, I recognized the person.

It was a limerick.

It was a Limerick micro tick tock influencer this person has about maybe 15 000 followers right so that that's micro influencer someone who that's would say not enough followers to get an ad sponsorship yet and i know this person to see because they come up with my tick tock algorithm every so often and she's she's an influencer She's an influencer.

She's very good at posting content, at speaking.

People like to look at this person and engage with their content and they're popular enough in Limerick to have 15,000 followers.

Now I'm not shitting on influencers or anything like that.

I have respect for anybody, anybody who goes online and does, as long as you're not being mean to people or hurting people, who gives a fuck?

Anyone who goes online and goes on TikTok and puts themselves out there with anything and has the confidence to do it and they're not being mean or hurting anyone.

Anyone who does that has got my respect.

I'd much prefer to see a person expressing themselves and putting themselves out there than not doing it because they were scared to try and that includes influencers.

But the point I'm making is

I couldn't get into duns.

I couldn't get into fucking duns because there was a crowd around somebody.

around a limerick micro-influencer.

And as I got closer to her, I could see

she had big shades on

and she had the cap, the peaked cap that celebrities have to wear.

And I'm like, oh my fucking God,

this person can't go to Duns.

There's like seven women talking to her

and trying to get photographs with her.

And she's just trying to shop in Duns.

And this is a Limerick micro-influencer with 15,000 followers.

And I'm just saying, having spent the fucking morning with my punctured bicycle and my lost keys and my smashed fucking and coupled with that dressed dressed

Dressed like a Catholic going up to Croak Patrick because they can't stop wanking about wardrobes dressed in full head-to-toe Gore-Tex looking like an elbow Was I fucking glad was I fucking glad that I've got a plastic bag on my head and no one knew who the fuck I was I thought if someone with 15,000 followers

can't go to Dunns and do their shopping and has to wear shades and a hat hat.

And I've 250,000 fucking followers on Instagram.

If they can't do it, what the fuck would that be like for me?

And throwing autism in on top of it.

It was hard enough just getting myself...

That's the thing.

I had a morning a barn out.

And it was hard enough just getting myself to Dunns to buy my dinner.

Thank fuck on top of that I don't have to take into consideration.

If I go to Dunn's today,

will 20 people try and crowd around me and talk to me and ask for photographs?

And

it's a strange thing.

I can't.

It's hard for me to judge

whether or not that would happen.

If people knew who I was, I can't tell you, see, because I've never fucking dealt with it.

But Christ,

I just thought to myself, I hope that person is built for that.

And

I think they are because I think the type of...

The type of personality who would like to be an influencer, the type of personality who's totally comfortable with, here's a video of me buying a coffee today.

The person who's comfortable with that is probably also comfortable with being stopped in duns.

But what I'm getting at is I wanted questions this week and I asked everybody on Instagram for questions and

I got I got about I get about 43 messages a minute.

on Instagram.

That's how many messages I get a minute.

And I try and read as many as possible.

And to anyone who sent me a message on Instagram, apologies if I've never responded.

I do try and read all of them if I can, but having the time to...

If I left my notifications on my fucking phone,

my phone gets hot, like literally hot, and Instagram just shuts off.

because of the amount of messages I get every every minute.

But thank you to everyone who was sending me messages and asking me questions.

I appreciate every bit of it.

So, also, I don't have time left to answer more questions this week, even though I think I just answered two.

And there were thousands of questions sent in.

But I'm going to be back next week

because a hot take will reveal itself to me.

And in the meantime,

rub a dog, marvel at a sycamore tree,

wink at a trout,

wank about a wardrobe of Crockpatrick.

God bless.

You know, we love recommending new movies for you guys to watch, and I'm obsessed with Regretting You.

You.

It's based on the best-selling book, Regretting You, introducing audiences to Morgan Grant, played by Allison Williams, We Love Her and Girls, and her daughter Clara, who's played by McKenna Grace, as they explore what's left behind after a devastating accident reveals a shocking betrayal and forces them to confront family secrets, redefine love, and rediscover each other.

Regretting You is a story of growth, resilience, and self-discovery in the aftermath of tragedy.

It also stars Dave Franco and Mason Thames with Scott Eastwood and Willa Fitzgerald, and it's in theaters this October.

It has an all-star cast based on the book written by number one New York Times best-selling author Colleen Hoover and director Josh Boone is no stranger to bringing these books to life.

He's the guy behind the fault in our stars.

It's the perfect film to share with your best friend, your mom, your grandma, your high school niece.

It's filled with love, tears, and laughter, balancing comedy with romance and drama.

But you know what?

Sounds right up our alley.

It'll be available in the U.S.

October 24th, 2025.

To watch on the big screen, see it at a theater near you.

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