The Bad News Show | Triforce #326

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Triforce podcast. Podcast.
Yes. Podcast.
Hello.

So it's sweltering hot. Yep.
Yeah. Here in the UK.
I just want to do my annual reminder that,

yeah, my air conditioning slash heating unit was quite expensive, but it's still the best thing I've ever bought in my whole life because it's 30 degrees out there today and it'll be 19 degrees in my fun little ice box that I'm going to sit in pretty much all day until the sun starts setting later on and then I'll go to the beach.

Not bad, eh? Wow. And can I ask, is it only the,

dare I say it, the studio from which you work that

is cooled and the rest of the house is just left to their fate? Well, the rest of the house is

it stays pretty cool.

It's not too bad because if we just keep if we keep the windows open and we keep the blinds sort of, you know, angled so that the sun isn't just just roasting the inside of the house. Yeah.

It stays pretty cool.

It's big enough. It's airy enough.
You know, it's not like a little sweatbox.

So we've got these things that go over the windows. I've definitely spoken about this before because we've got those things.
Are they like metal things like this in

like France? Like

those shutters? No, I don't know why we never got around to that. I presume it's because it's routinely very hot.
over in France and Italy. Part of the world's over here is sort of thing.
But yeah.

But

I mean, I've always thought those shutters are a fantastic idea for security reasons and for reasons of keeping cold out and heat, heat out and cold out and heat in and whatever.

Either way, for the dormers, we've got these.

It's like a, it's quite a it's hard to describe, but the way a dormer window works for anyone that doesn't know is that it's pivots on its sort of axis, the central axis of the window.

So you open it at the top, and when you pull the window down, it pivots at that middle point. Imagine that.
Yeah, yeah, I know.

So you can get this screen that attaches from the window frame to the far end of your dormer window. You'd have to screw these bits in.
And it's like a sort of, you know, those

protectors you put in windows when little kids are in a car so that when they're in the car, the sun doesn't just beat down on your baby.

Like a

mesh thing. Yeah, it's like a mesh thing.
So, that thing we've got on all the windows in the loft, and it means that you can have the blinds open and the heat gets repelled by the mesh. Because

honestly, that to me, whenever people complain their house is hot and I say, you've got every window open, every curtain wide open, all that hot air is just coming in, and the sunlight is just cooking your house from the inside out.

So, yeah,

keep it, keep it. You got to keep it cool.

In here, though, if I'm in here all day and I didn't have this, it would be like an oven. Like, I remember when I first started working in here and it wasn't even finished.

And I thought, oh, you know what? It'll probably be pretty cool in here. And then summer hit, close the windows and stuff because, you know, like you're recording.

I don't want to, you know, bug people that are, you know, outside. Or I don't want like, you know, if my kids are playing outside for them to get picked up like on the mic or whatever.

So close everything. And within about five minutes.
I thought it would be the way you don't want to get just yelling at the top of your lungs. Well, yeah.

I mean, if I'm getting, you know, if I'm getting really sad here, you know, I'm playing Overwatch or something and I'm effing and Jeffing my head off.

You don't want the whole of jersey to hear your salty rant no i feel like there's like a few days a year when it gets unbearably hot and everyone has their fans on and we just have to like suspend recording yeah there's no because it's like it's gonna be like 30 today apparently and tomorrow yeah it's just

it's inevitable and do you know what i love it

is nice yeah

it loosens things up you know your your schedules and everything are like different because you just you you tend to like sort of um hunker down during the day try to stay cool and then at night when it's starting to cool down there's a bit of breeze or whatever that you go out so it's kind of I kind of like that, you know, it's it's just a break from the routine just go out It is funny.

Yeah, eat some chummets or something. It's nice at like nine o'clock and it was perfectly nice.
But you know, you just think about what that's like in winter. Oh, yeah.

You know, when it gets dark at like 4:30. Well, like when we went to go see Ghostface, we were walking through that park and it was pitch black and it was like five o'clock in the evening.

And it was wet and miserable and freezing cold. And we were all stood in that like warehouse in full jackets.
Yeah, yeah, full winter coats, everything. And it was still cold.
It was pretty cold.

And we were out of there by like 7.30 and it just felt like it was like one in the morning. Yeah.

I know.

It's crazy. Oh, hey, speaking of...
going to see, I went to see Shaka Khan last night. Yeah,

I remember you saying that you were going to see her. Yeah.

Was it amazing? No.

I'll tell you why. First, it was at Hampton Court Palace, which is one of the most beautiful venues I've ever been to.

It's inside one of the courtyards of some part of the palace, and they've constructed this sort of seating arrangement in this, what was once a huge garden, I'm sure.

The sort of regular seating down the front, and then at the back, there's a covered section with kind of stadium-style seating.

Perfectly comfortable, you know, all the rest of it. Nice staging, sound quality was great.

Shaka Khan can absolutely still sing. She's fantastic.
But isn't she like 75 years old? She's 72.

72. Her voice is still absolutely incredible.
She's brilliant. Did they do that one? Shaka Khan, Chaka Kanja, with the harmonica and stuff.
All of that. However, nice.
We'd left by then.

We were there for about an hour and 10. And to be honest with you,

I really like those Shaka Khan songs. Yeah.
But I realized as we were there that we don't really like most Shaka Khan songs.

We only like like two or three because a lot of it is just, it's pretty samey. It's fine.
It's not offensive or anything. It's just like, I don't, I would never listen to this by choice.

It's just one of her sort of less well-known songs. Her peak, her really good stuff, was what I really wanted.
I didn't get it. So, and I was just, this is the other thing.

It was outside, so it was, it was getting pretty, pretty fucking hot. And most of the audience were middle-aged in size and heat.
So as Mrs. F put it, most of the women there were menopausal.

So she said they were just putting off heat like radiators.

So it was just literally sitting amongst all these sweaty, hot, middle-aged fat people like us.

I mean, you knew what kind of gig it was because at the start of it, the gates open at 5.30, shapers on at nine.

So you've got all this time to chill in the grounds of Hampton Court Palace, which is stunning. And you could just sit in the garden.

People were having these lovely picnics, drinking bubbly, all the rest of it.

fantastic but you knew it was going to be a certain age group when they said everybody please take your seats and everybody takes like a minute to get up off the the ground and everyone's all like going

trying to get up so it was really uh

was there a lot of clap alongs as well no there was no clapping but there was a lot of people my age and up sitting down clap alongs that no they were just dancing that is like a big fixture at middle-aged oh god i hate the clap

no it was just everybody was dancing and a couple of people were singing along But

it was just, it was enough. It was nice to see her.
She's an icon.

But I was like, geez, you know, getting out of here is going to be a nightmare.

It's going to be like getting an Uber hug is going to be

since like six or something as well.

Yeah, we've been there a couple of hours. So I was just like, you know what? It was just a nice evening out with Mrs.
F. And she was not into it massively.

She was very sweet of her to just come along with me. Whose idea was it to go? Mine.
It was fully mine. I booked it like two weeks ago.
And when I told her, she was like, oh, nice.

And I was like, ah, shit. I thought she'd be like, oh my God.
But, you know, she sort of like semi-likes a few of her songs, but I realized that I also only know like a couple of her songs.

So it was quite boring, unfortunately. But she was incredible.
She's like, if you were a big Shaka Khan fan, great gig.

Yeah, I mean, I always thought that, like, you know, I think it, like, when you said Shaka Khan, I was like, wow, God, Shaka Khan, that would be amazing.

But now that you mention it, I don't really know much about it. I didn't, well, for one, I didn't know she was American.
Not that American,

but I didn't think that she was Canadian. no I just didn't really think about it at all which uh maybe is the worst of real names

Jean-Marie Tupperware Jean-Marie Tupperware

but also I think I only know like one song and it's that one the i um the uh the one that i i sung earlier the the shaka con one you know the shak con chuck a con

do you do this kind of thing often p flex like book little trips date dates for you and your you and your wife we'll do we'll do stuff like that

i mean mean especially the the general thing is that now we're at an age where the i mean we left the kids alone and it was fine because they're 16 and 13.

so it's like you know previously it was like oh who's going to look after the kids and how long are we going to be and where are we going to go yeah so now it's like they're you know they're old enough if you think about it for anyone questioning that if we hired a babysitter how old do you think the babysitter would be they'd be 16.

we've had babysitters who were like 13 14 looking after two kids yeah we popped all the way into town so crazy you know it's it's 16 and 13. Think back to when you were that age.

I absolutely, my mom worked nights and it was just me looking after them. I used to babysit my neighbors when I was around that age.
And at the time, I was like, yeah, this is fine. You know, like.

I'd fall asleep on their couch. Like, I'd have to put their kids to bed and everything.
I'd fall asleep on their couch watching like Tom Green or something. Right.
I'd get woken up.

They'd like, they'd come home and wake me up and be like, okay, it's time to go. I got paid like $5 for like a

13-hour babysitting job.

But they ordered, they left money so that we could order pizza and I was allowed to just eat all their food and stuff. But one time I ate quite a bit of their food, to be fair, but they said I could.

And they complained. They phoned my mom and they're like, yeah, he ate way too much food.
It's like, come on, man.

But yeah, it's kind of weird. It's crazy to think back.
I was only like 13 or 14 years old. And it's quite, I mean, I would never leave my kids with a 13 or 14 year old now.

Like there's, there's no possible way that would happen. No, because we knew what we did as babysitters.

Like, I remember I would have been about 13 and I babysat a couple of lads that were younger than me. And we made swords out of rolled up newspaper.
They had loads of old newspapers in the house.

And we made these long swords and we were just whacking each other with newspapers for hours. And the kids were sweaty and then they wouldn't go to bed because they were like super hyped up.

Parents came home. They're like, oh, you're still up.
And there was newspaper everywhere, like little bits of newspaper. And we were like, oh, we'll tidy up.

And they were like, don't worry, we had a great time. It's cool.

And I was like, man, if this was a, you know, if I did this regularly, they'd be like, look, Ted, could you not smash the newspapers everywhere? And yeah. Oh, sorry, I've got to feed the pigeons.

Sorry,

it feels like more work than it's worth, really. You get back, and a 13-year-old has been rolling up newspapers and smashing them everywhere and stuff.

You just think, why did we bother going out to just stay home and not have to deal with all of this extra stuff that's happened or whatever. But

I love that you live.

Pip seed feeding world.

How often do they come by? Three times a day. Wow.
Like clockwork or is it more just well they do a fly-by of the window to see if I'm in here. If the curtain's drawn,

they'll sit on the windowsill and they'll go

till I open the curtain. When I open the curtain, they fly off and they watch me from the roof opposite.

Because, I mean, even though we've got a good relationship, I'm clearly a predator, maybe the apex predator of this room, right? Right. To them, they're like

prey of this whole room. I'm the apex predator.
Wow. You're like a little area boss.

Right, exactly. Yeah.
And they're like, well, all right, he does feed us.

You're like the sandworm of that

room.

Yeah.

I've been playing a lot of Dune recently, by the way. Sorry for you could turn at any time.

Yeah. So in their mind, they're like, he could be playing a very long con here.
And one day, because he's got predator instincts, he'll just snap and eat us.

So they're very cautious, but they know how to communicate with me. Sometimes Mr.
Pidgey jumps in the window and tap dances on my bin because it's got a metal lid, and that really gets my attention.

Um, but yeah, they know when the seeds are coming because they see me get the seed bag out, and once they see the bag, they're like, Wow, he's gonna put the seed out.

They wait on the other roof, and once it's out, they fly over and stuff their faces. I went to uh, speaking of like gigs and going out and stuff, um, I'll just

um give you some context for this one as well because it's a little bit it's not it's not embarrassing, but it's like, it's kind of weird. But

my youngest is pretty much toilet trained, but at that crucial moment in toilet training where there's still accidents.

So it's tough for us to leave the kids with my mother-in-law for too long sort of thing, because

she's not really able to deal with any accidents or whatever. I mean, she can, but it's like, it's not ideal, right?

So we're not really able to go out anywhere or do anything for like a like a length of time where you know um you know we might be just leaving like a big shit fiesta at home or you know like piss everywhere or something so um but recently we went to we went to a day disco which is

which is good it's it's like a it's like a nightclub but they open it at like two in the afternoon and it closes at like eight and then they tidy up a bit and then they open it again later for like you know the real party animals but it's it's meant for like you know older people people who don't necessarily want to like join like the nightly meat market of a club sort of thing.

Sure. And it's like themed around whatever, you know, so like this one that we went to, we went with like some of our friends and it was themed around 80s and 90s music.
So it was great.

You know, it was like every song that was played, we knew.

uh we were drinking and stuff and uh we don't often do this but the big one was that the dj the guest DJ in Jersey, this is in Jersey, was Dave, the drummer from Blur. And my wife's a huge Blur fan.

Oh, yeah. So she got to meet Dave.
Yeah, he was really nice. We're just like, Dave, uh, can we just get a picture with you or something? He's like, Yeah, of course.

We like had a chat with him for a bit and stuff. It was really cool.
So there you go. We got to meet Dave at a day disco for old people.
Dave's old.

He's like in his 60s or maybe late 50s. I don't know.

They're all fucking fancy. But he was playing like he was playing Oasis songs.
He played like like Smells Like Teen's Spirit. He was playing Snoop Dogg.
Oh my God, it was unbelievable.

It was just like

my Spotify playlist, but I got to listen to it not in my garage with other people. It was wonderful.
Is it air conned in there? Yeah, it was perfectly air conned in there. Yeah.

It sounds like, I mean, I can't believe the Habs Court Garden was so unair conned. I mean, obviously,

but like, I know, but like, in a sense, like, exactly, it's outside, but yet the meta portal, like the radiators.

When Mrs. A said that, I was like, oh, shit, that's right.
Just like when we went to a gig.

This was, I think it was either the very start of this year or the very end of last. I went to see,

fuck me. Hold on a sec.
Let me find out for you. Fuck me.
Hold on a sec. I'm just looking them up.

Yeah, no, they're pretty good.

I can't find them.

Check out their early stuff, though. That's the best stuff.
All right, yeah. Katie J.
Pearson. Sorry, Katie.
Oh, yeah. I know you're a massive fan of the Triforce.

I went to see her, her, and she's a solo artist. And so

because she's a woman, a lot of the audience were women. And I was like, man, it smells lovely in here.
I talked about this on the podcast a few times.

And it was literally, Mrs. F was like, well, yeah, there's loads of women there.
So that's all their perfume. I was like, oh, yeah.
So it's one of those things.

Like, I didn't even think of the fact that men and paws or women would act more like tiny radiators, but apparently they do.

So we should spread them out and use them to like, you know, heat up the old folks. There's that great clip, isn't there? And it's makes the rounds every now and then of reddit of that um

that a black lady you're like at a stand in like a baseball game or something when she's got like coils of smoke like of like water vapor like going around her head she looks like she's like on fire it's amazing they're both like giggling away at it so here's something my my youngest the other day i like to i like to have conversations where i'm sort of winding them up uh you know like dads do you got to tease your kids a bit yeah sometimes sometimes it goes wrong and i always think they're going to say one thing but sometimes because kids don't give a fuck, they'll be brutally honest.

So I was joking about, you know, we were talking about how Mrs. F was on her way home from work and blah, blah, blah.
And there was a couple of chores we hadn't done around the house yet.

And I was like, oh, shit, we should do that before Mrs. F gets back.
And my youngest was like, oh, she won't mind. I said, oh, well, you don't know, love.
I said, Mama is far too good for me.

I'm hanging on by a threat. I've got to keep her happy.
And she was like, this isn't what my youngest said. She goes, well, yeah, she is too good for you, but you're a good dad and a good husband.

I was like, what do you mean she's too good for me?

You're meant to back me up here yeah and say something nice but she was like no she was like i can't lie mama's far too good for you i was like damn thanks kid and you get no respect eh

you do everything for them and then they just they just turn around they're like i like this person better than you i know okay damn that is brutal yeah that's you got to be careful sometimes doing these like joke criticisms of yourself because i've had that happen a few times

they've just nodded and agreed with me like i was serious but i i think it's sometimes it's a lot of things, right? Sometimes they're not listening.

I think like the human dynamics of like interacting with other people is always

fascinating to me because, like on this podcast, we don't listen to each other sometimes.

We're just in our own world.

You've had a thought about Chaka Khan and you're like, oh, yeah, you know, and then you like go off down a little rabbit hole. You're like, oh, maybe I should take my partner to go and see.

a chaka khan or something you know and oh i haven't done a date for a while i wonder what's on and then you like you know, you start and then but by that time, you two have said like 10 minutes of chat.

Yeah, I'm like, oh no, I just, I'm sort of trained to not listen now, though, because like, I can't even in my house, like, we, we cannot even have a conversation, like even about something important, like, you know, like we need a two-second conversation just to decide what's happening in the morning, for example, like logistically, you know, somebody needs to take somebody somewhere or whatever.

You're trying to have this conversation, and then everybody in the house just decides that's the best time to either melt down or ask really deep, meaningful questions about like, you know, what the meaning of life is or whatever.

And it's just like, man, I can't even.

But it trains you in the end to just almost like zone out completely and not listen to anything anyone is saying.

I love that you have that three different ages where you have one person who's learning to poo. Yeah.
Like one person who's wants to know how to do this thing in Minecraft.

One person who wants to know, you know, what has is having like an existential crisis about the negative.

We'll start a conversation and then we'll immediately be interrupted with, can I get this game that's not appropriate for me or watch this movie that's not appropriate for me?

And this will be going on the whole time. And we're like, no, trying to have a conversation.
Then the middle one will pipe up and be like, I have a question. And it'll be like,

why is water wet or something? You know, like

that middle kid,

you know, going through the philosophical era.

And then our youngest one will just be repeatedly and very loudly barking like a dog, but reminding you that she's barking like, like, so she'll be like, woof, woof, I'm barking like a dog.

Woof, woof, woof. I'm barking like a dog.
Yeah, I can fucking hear you barking like a dog. You don't need to point out that you're barking like a dog.
I wish you just weren't barking like a dog.

I'm trying to say something.

And that's it. That's

which one to tack on to because sometimes you just want to get down on your knees and also bark like a dog.

You know, um well oftentimes we'll tack on to the the eldest because that's always the more almost pressing one you know because you're hoping

he'll be angling into something and he'll explain the nature of water to yeah you know well and then sometimes

if he's wanting to be heard he'll just be telling the other ones to shut up as well like he has no filter because he's at that age so he'd be like oh shut up shut up oh my god oh shut up oh my god

He's trying to tell us about, you know, his friend, or he wants to go somewhere with his friend or something.

So it's just, it's just chaos. It just completely, immediately descends into chaos.
It's, it, it, it, it's, it's, it's great sometimes and other times, man, it's like so deflating.

You're just like, oh, God, I can't even just say one thing.

So, so sometimes it's just, a lot of stuff will just go unsaid, but luckily we can just sort of pick up each other's, you know, signs or whatever, like, oh, yeah, no, I need to go do this now, or I need, you know, oh, yeah, I've just remembered I have to do this.

So it's, it's chaos, but it somehow works, you know? Yeah. Oh, bad.
Three is not the magic number. I think two, two was the magic number.
Two was was fine. Three is just insane.

I will say, I think it's going to be very nice for you in later years, though, having more, because if those three all go off to have families of their own, although that is a lot of work and stuff, I love the idea of having a big family get together,

all the grandkids and everything. It would be wonderful.

So I'm probably in a position where only one of my kids is going to be having children and has spoken about it. My eldest despises children.
And I was like, I mean, you know, you're still a child.

They're like, no, God, stand them. And I was like, I used to think like that.

But like, my friend, my, a good friend of mine, Ken, he said, we were talking about this because he was getting towards 40 at the time. And I said, are you ever going to have kids?

And he was like, nah. And I said, oh, you you might change your mind when you get older.
He was like, No, I won't. I was like, Oh, you might.
I did. And he was like, Okay.

And then he waited a few hours. And then subsequently, when I mentioned my kids, he says, Do you uh regret having kids? I was like, No.
He goes, Oh, you might change your mind.

I was like, Okay, fair enough. But you can't really just tell people that they might change their mind.
You're just gonna accept their opinions.

Yeah, you gotta assume that people know what roughly what they're doing, you know.

I've got plenty of friends that don't have kids, and I don't think they regret it at all. I think they're just, you know, fine doing what they do or whatever.
I I feel anyone that regrets it.

I feel like I wasn't like,

I think my wife wanted children more than I did at the time, but I was like open to it. You know, I wasn't like dead against it.

You know, you hear about some people who are like, oh, I will never have them. You know, and they'll, they'll, they'll really go to lengths to like stop it from happening or whatever.

I was always like, yeah, no, like, I, I get, you know, I, I kind of want to have kids sort of thing.

And, but now that, now that we've had them, obviously, I just think, oh, I don't know what I'd do without them.

I don't know how my life would be without them sort of thing I don't think I'd enjoy my life without them kind of thing but um but yeah I think I think people that don't have them uh and know that they don't want to have them and are just doing the stuff that they know they want to do I think that's that's good too I think you should

the worst is when people have kids they know they don't want them and then they don't want them when they've had them uh I think that's got to be the worst right it must just feel like shit all the time oh my god but it happens all the time it does happen a lot yeah you've been very quiet Lulu.

What are you up to? Nothing, nothing. Like, well, quiet in terms of volume, we're quiet in terms of getting involved in the conversation.
No, you're just quiet.

I'm just wondering if something's uh, something's happened. If you're busy, no, no, no, no.
I'm just, I'm just

reeling from uh Susannah Reid

going off on one on Robert Jenrick on uh on the news the other day. What happened to Susannah Reed? And who's Robert Jenrick?

Robert Jenrick is that conservative, he's the Lord Chancellor, Shadow Chancellor, or whatever. He's that, he's that conservative guy, but he was on TV doing that fare Dodgers, you know,

like people not paying their fare on the tube. But he was doing that, you know, like he was running up to them and he's like, what makes you think that you're allowed to just not pay?

Like confronting them? So he goes up to this guy and confronts him. And the guy's like, I'm going to fucking stab you.
Get out of my face. Oh, my God.
And he's like, whoa, okay. Like, sorry.

And then like moved on. And Susannah Reed was interviewing him after the fact.

And he was like, he was all chuffed because he was like, yeah, you know, I I was, I was really running them down and like,

you know, getting right in their face and asking them what makes them think they have the right to not pay their fare and everything. And she's like, did you report the guy with the knife?

And he's like, no. He's like, she's like, why that? Why, why not? There's people on the tube.
You knew he had a knife and you didn't report it to the police or anything.

Like, there's children on there and everything. She was like really pissed off.

uh and he was just like oh uh like started stumbling and and she's like you've just made this all about yourself like you just don't care.

You just, this is just a big publicity thing for you and just you. She was like, No, no, no, no, like trying to backtrack and everything.
It was amazing. I'll see if I can find the clip.

It was so good. It was really good.
Yeah. Yeah.
But so, is the implication that it was all made up? Because if he, why is an MP going around doing YouTube style fucking pop boxes? What's going on?

I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know.
It's just a publicity. Yeah, but it's

they're meant to be. Don't fucking tell me we're gonna have prankster YouTube style MPs.
What is happening? Get off the internet. I don't want you on the internet at all.

I want you just digging away, being very boring, and doing some kind of uh trudging bureaucracy and making things better. I don't want you deciding that you need to have a personality online.

Fuck off. Yeah, it's like the big thing now, though.
They're all they all want to do stuff like this.

It never seems to work either, but this was fine. I think I saw the clip on uh, have I got news for you? But I'll put if you want to watch it, I'll post it.

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This is weird. It's weird that you mentioned this show.
I'm not sure it's the same show, but I saw a clip that had a friend of mine in it, uh, who's a revenue protection guy who works on the railway.

And he was sort of confronting this kid who had kept buying child tickets even though he was 18. And he got away with it multiple times.
I don't know, it's interesting stuff.

Like, I saw a friend of mine was doing some work with like local

local sort of groups and like farming groups and stuff.

And one group of these people have got this sort of city farm set up for, they don't call them kids or children, they're called young people, very importantly.

And they sort of, the young people make all the decisions on this farm, you know, about what they're going to do. And they have to feed the animals themselves and

figure out what they're doing every day anyway. They're very like, the idea is it's like empowering for young people

to, it's very hard to talk about them as not children because they are, but you know, the whole point is to like give them their own space and build up independence and all this stuff, right?

And it's all very well-meaning and quite hippie, I think, from what they were telling me.

And so, one of the things that was happening was they were asked to build like a kind of community garden and project there.

And so, they thought what they would do is they'd get the kids involved and ask the kids, young people, what they want from it.

And so, they got them all together and they had this round table discussion. And the young people just want Minecraft.
That's it.

That's it. They just, they're like, yeah, Minecraft.
And so, you know, the team were a little bit, because they're not really into like

gaming and they don't, you know, it's not really their thing. And so they weren't really sure what that meant.
And I think, like, for me, that would be like, oh, great.

I reckon you could probably figure out a way to make a little Minecraft style garden, right? You know, you get some wooden,

wooden cubes, you know, to sit on and you get some like, you know, grid-based pattern. It's very American, right?

You know, building a, you know, very organized, you could easily have some design that would, would, would make that quite interesting, right? And quite easy.

But I think it was for them, it was like something that they were almost like surprised because they felt like these kids were almost not homeschooled necessarily, but certainly supposed to be in this environment where they were protected from that.

And so not and not influenced so much by the outside world you know i think the whole point of this independence is to get kids to think you know i think that to me the whole thing read like the idea of this this place was for kids to discover stuff on their own but to to an to an extreme and i said like it sounds like you know they're supposed to rediscover maths you know it's like lord lafly stuff you know like it's like what you have to you do have to give young people some guidance or else they are just gonna

do nothing or it's inevitable that they are full of the influences of the modern world like minecraft anyway right that you can't somehow keep these these young people pure so that they will make these pure decisions right like this you always have to warn them against all the problems or else they're just going to be vaping up and you know stabbing one another yeah um

will they be stabbing one another and vaping

hell yeah that's what it's always every time somebody says something like this it's always like

the worst possible scenario, which it doesn't apply to like 99% of the population. You can't just have a load of unsupervised young people.
Like, you know, they'll get bored enough.

We knew what it was like. They'll get bored enough and they won't just stab each other.

They'll find something to do.

It wasn't as innocent as the newspaper fights.

There were always people in our class having like, you know, smoking behind the bike sheds and then, you know, having sex with each other.

It was, it was, you know, that's what it was like when we when we were at school, anyway.

I mean, then, and I think we were, I think it was like you said, the child minders were younger, but also we would go off on school trips and there'd be like one teacher with you know 40 kids, you know, camping.

There was always one guy, one girl sneaking off together, and like, you know, all this stuff.

And I guess it still happens, it must have happened today, but it's like you can't trust kids to like behave properly if you just

vape and cyber on their phones stop cybering in there

uh anyway i i am um i'm i'm positive i think the the general the general way these things work is actually very positive but i think we are like the like like like duke of edinburgh and these these things they do build it was a disaster for my eldest powerful disaster they're helpful right it's your you're you what do you mean disaster i mean was that

the big you the man you are today? Is that like the camp?

It's like a boot camp for young people. They do a massive hike.

It's not. It is.
It's a bunch of things, but one of the things is indeed a big walk. Now, the problem I had was that the person running it at my eldest's school

seemingly wasn't an evil bitch.

I see. I'm pretty sure I've spoke about this at the time.
I don't know if I did, that it was the hottest day of the year. Oh, yes.
Does that ring a belly? That would have been like

this. You know, when you when you live in an air-conditioned office all the time and you don't go outside the whole year and you have to organise Duke of Edinburgh.

Because a lot of these people aren't actually outdoorsy people at all. And yet the Duke of Edinburgh, you have to do this incredibly exhausting hike that no one prepares for at all.

Well, yeah, I mean, the main thing is that a hike in that heat, I'm always thinking, you know, it's going to be one of those BBC articles.

School regrets sending moron teacher to look after 20 fucking kids. Do you know what I mean? Like, you know, your kid is going to be one of the ones that disappeared down a crevasse or something.

That's what I'm always worried about. Yeah.
But the thing here was, it wasn't like, oh, this is dangerous. It was just, what a shit lack of planning.
For example, we got there and I said,

you know,

is my kid going to have to carry this huge rucksack in this heat? And the organizer was like, oh, yeah. And I said, it's like 35 degrees.
Are you sure that this is like okay?

They're going to have to lug it. It's really heavy.
And she was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's part of it. I said, But, you know, this list, oh, no, the lady said to that's right.

She said, Well, maybe you should have packed less stuff because the bag was heavy. But there's a list that they give you of all the stuff.
You gave us a list to have. Yeah, I said, You gave us a list.

And then we put everything on the list.

And she just laughed. And I almost, I wanted to throttle her.

Those lists are a joker anyway, because they're just there. for them to be able to turn around and say, well, you didn't pack what was on the list because you missed like one thing.

And that and that's their escape from every possible thing that could happen or any sort of criticisms you could have of it. Well, you didn't pack the funions.

So what do you expect?

So I think that the main reason what you were meant to do was coordinate with the other kids in your sort of troop, if you like, and say, I'll bring the this, you bring the that.

But there's no mention of that on the sheet. It doesn't say talk to the other three people you're going to be in a group with and make sure that you don't have to carry everything.

It was just assumed that they'd figure that out or something. And the thing is, when you have a kid who's neurodivergent, they're talking to other people that they don't really know for them.

It's like it really challenging. So to just dump it and say, well, it's the hottest day of the year.
You're carrying way too much stuff. Off you go.
And when I went to pick him up,

I was like, this is absolutely fucking ridiculous. And we were just angry about it all the way home.
Yeah.

I know what you mean.

We've had a couple of

things like that. Not as bad as that, but certainly I hate when they plan stuff, but

it's like, oh, we've planned this whole thing. And then you get to the end of it and you're like, I've done all the fucking work.
Like, you have not provided a single thing.

You've planned this whole thing. Nobody wants to do it.

You haven't been at all generous in providing anything.

It's just been somebody sat in an office and typed up a Word document of of all of these pain in the ass things that i now have to do that you will not do like you you you expect them to turn up you won't even give them a bottle of water you know like it yeah it's it's mad it is madness but we've had some good ones equally we've had some pretty some pretty good ones that were really well planned and we didn't have to do anything nice those are the best ones but uh they're few and far between for sure A lot of it is just like, they'll send you the forms and everything and you're just like, how the fuck am I signing my kids up for this?

Like,

it'd be easier if they were just at home and I organized something, you know, what I mean. Like, this is more work than that.

And they're meant to be out and taken care, looked after all day, pretty much, you know, like they have all these things in place for safeguarding and all this and stuff. It's like, great.

Can you just give them some water? Oh, no, we can't give them water. Well, what the fuck? Like, it's like, it's so stupid.
Like, some of it is so fucking stupid.

On the other end, it's got to be tough being these people who are relatively underpaid for what they do and have to deal with every day and a huge amount of overtime and like, you know, dealing with so many different things.

I mean, it's such a massively complicated thing being a role model and a, you know.

an educator to to to but in so many different ways right you're dealing with kids across the the age groups and like different personalities, and also like all the parents. You know, you have to

be this, you're kind of the butt of a lot of complaints as well. And, and also, you've got the people above you telling you to do, do this and do that.

And everyone asks you to do something all the time. There's always something that I know teachers are always being said, oh, could you, could you watch the chess club? Could you do this thing?

Can you do this thing? Like, it's like constant favors and extra work, you know, because it just keeps getting piled onto you. You know, someone has a fun idea that then turns into a commitment.

And I think it does grind you down. It's a shame because you end up with people leaving.
And then the only people you have left are incompetent people too. Yeah,

those are the ones that stay. It is always the incompetent ones.
It's a shame because they're crying out for teachers. Over here, they're crying out for them.
They just can't. Nobody wants to do that.

Are they literally crying out for them? They're crying out.

They're crying out. Where are the teachers?

Teacher!

Teach my teacher! No, but there's a lack of teachers because it's the Jersey's a funny one because because it's expensive to live here.

A lot of people will just go off to university and not come back. So they might go to university and train in teaching, but they'll never come back because it fucking costs a fortune to live here.

And if you're not lucky enough to have some generational wealth or something,

you're fucked. Like there's no way you're buying a house over here.
There's no way you're living day to day without really just being, you know, like a paycheck away from doom.

So a lot of people just don't bother coming back.

Yeah. So I mean, also, if I've, if you were young, like if you were 21, would you really want to be on Jersey? Like, probably not.
Yeah, if there was opportunities, but there's none.

Unless your mom and dad are like, you know, really established. What are you going to do at 21 on Jersey? There's, there's.

In terms of fun and culture and stuff, you're going to want to go to the mainland.

You would want to travel for sure. I think it's an all right place to live.
It's just so expensive. And, you know, like

when you're just, when you're just at home chilling or going out with your friends and stuff, you don't really think about it much you know like it's a good place to to come back to after you've been traveling or you might go somewhere for a couple of months even like traveling like a longer longer whatever but you come back but the thing is this like i said it's the opportunities it's the

there's not like a massive resource pool of people and there's not a massive job market either there's just lots of the the the industry is finance right like it's all all the offshore banks and everything are over here so those are those are all the jobs so if you don't want a career in finance

yeah, you're probably just going to leave as well because

everything else is impossible to

get. And

it's made worse by a lot of factors. But with teaching, I feel like if more people wanted to teach and the pay was better and the conditions were better, and you had

more teachers with smaller classrooms and less teaching assistants, honestly, like

I feel like teaching assistants are just

the whole idea of teaching assistants.

I never had a teaching assistant when I was a kid. Like we had one teacher for our class and our class was like, you know, maybe 30 people, but sometimes not.

But like at my kids' schools now, there's like two, three teaching assistants, but there's so much weird overlap between the teaching assistants and the actual teachers.

And the teaching assistants are almost like saying that they're teachers, but they're not. They're not trained.
They haven't gone to school to learn anything about teaching.

They haven't done, you know what I mean?

Like these, these are people that have just, they're glorified, like, you know, lunch monitors or whatever that have just been given more to do, but not, they're not getting paid anymore. But

it's a bit of a problem when you have people, you know, it'd be like at the hospital if the nurse was like, oh, yeah, no, I'm a doctor. Was like, no, you're not a doctor.
No, you're.

Worse wasn't a nurse.

I'm sure you know how to do a lot of cool stuff or whatever, but you're still not the actual doctor. And I think like teaching assistants kind of not always.

I don't want to shit on teaching assistants. It's not a job I would do.
And to some extent, I think it is needed. But like,

there's a lot of weird politics involved, you know? And then in the end, you're just looking at it and you're like, why are there this school?

You know, like they're constantly saying, oh, teachers don't get paid enough. There's not enough teachers or whatever.
But there's like fucking 100 people on staff at this small school.

And it feels like there's like four or five teaching assistants in every class.

So the teaching assistants are there because the schools have to take kids that previously would have been sent to like a special school. Yeah, that's that's another big thing.

They have to take these kids with behavioral schools. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I don't know if it's because the budget was cut to the point where these kids don't have a special school or the places are super limited in those schools. I don't know the details.

Over here, the places are super limited. There is a school

for kids that have special needs. And some kids really do need it.
And I think those are the ones that are prioritized. They get to go to the school, but they just will not open another one.

I don't know if it's because they can't staff it or it's just too much.

Almost certainly budget.

But so, the answer to the fact that, to be quite honest with you, from everything I've all the teachers I know and have spoken to, and all the teachers that have emailed me, and I know a lot of people who have been teachers or who are actively teachers or retired.

And every single one of them says that the classes are getting less and less manageable, that the kids are an absolute nightmare to get them to stay calm, to stay seated, to focus focus on anything, yeah.

Um, and it's getting very, very complicated to do that alone with a class of 30 kids is

just leave them to it. Do you know what I mean? Like, I think, like, maybe, maybe that's the way like we do it.
We just battle royale it out, you know,

stick them all in a big, in a big, um, like prison complex and see which one's learning. I know you're joking, which ones learn.

I'm sure, Flex, you've come across this as well, and I'm sure most parents have probably come across this.

But if in your in your um kids' class, if there is somebody who does need a bit extra, is disruptive, or you know, some people with like quite severe ADHD, for example. Yeah, yeah.

If they, if they have an episode where something doesn't go their way or whatever, like

my kids have had situations where this has happened and the kid is trashing the classroom, like throwing chairs, breaking glass, everything.

And the kids are just trained to slowly shuffle out of the classroom and stand in the hallway until it's done. But this happens like two, three times a day.
I know. And you just,

what is going on here? Like,

I think, look, everyone is different and every situation is different. And at the end of the day, like, maybe it is healthier and better for everyone if these,

you know, people are brought into normal environments and taught with other kids.

So other kids learn how to deal with people like them because they are going to have to deal with strange people their whole life.

You know, you're going to have to deal with people who, these people grow up and they exist in the world and they walk among us, you know, and

they were awful children and awful teenagers and awful people. And learning to deal with them early on may

and also normalizing them and trying to sort of get them to be normal members of society. It's like being in, it's like we're rehabilitating them in a school early.

I know, but I think they need way more than that, though. I think they need people who know how to

deal with them and

get them through. It sounds like this, what isn't being dealt with right now with some structure.
I imagine. But

this isn't an isolated case, though. This is happening.

This is every school. Like some of the kids at these schools, like there was this one kid in my youngest year, and he was absolutely out of control.

And I'm sure that every single day that he came into school, the teachers were like, here we go again. I mean, he was hitting kids constantly, biting kids constantly.
And I mean, hard.

When your kid comes home with a welt on them and you say, what happened? And they're like, oh, you know, little Johnny today, he was having a bad day.

I mean, are we preparing them to deal with different people or are we preparing these kids to be victims? Because you're just saying, well, sorry, you just got to take it. Fuck off.

I don't think these kids should, the moment the kid gets violent, you've got to do something about it rather than just say, well, hopefully they'll be better tomorrow.

One of these kids chased the headmaster around with a massive stick and was like whacking him and stuff.

And my kid said that that when she saw the headmaster later, he was in tears because he was like, what am I meant to do? Like he was just completely frustrated.

So the idea that, oh, maybe it's good to expose the kids to this, I don't agree with that at all. I think it's super unfair on these kids.

They're like eight, nine, 10 years old having to deal with these incredibly complex issues. And the government or whoever has just dumped these kids in these schools,

it's awful. It's absolutely awful.
But there's just nothing they can do. There's no, there's, I mean, you can't.
We managed in the past. You can't just expose them.

I'm sure we had the money for a school where you could put these kids when you had people who were trained in looking after them. And now they just dump them in the general population.

These kids don't get any better. And all the other kids get the shit kicked out of them.
It's not.

Yeah, they suffer for it because, you know, most, I think a lot of kids will just sit there and do whatever the teacher is teaching them.

They'll just quietly sit there and go along with it. It's fine.
But yeah, some of the disruption,

we're not talking about like, you know, the class clown here. You know, we're not talking about somebody who's just like, you know, doing fart noises in the back or whatever.

We're talking like a major meltdown, like actually

quite threatening behavior and stuff. Yeah.
And it's, it, it, it, it's pretty bad.

But I mean, I mean, both of my kids that have gone through school, there's, there's been one or two in their years so far. It's no coincidence.
And then you hear about it from other parents as well.

Like they're, they're in a completely different year, a completely different class. And there's always one or two of them that are just every day.
I think you're, I think think,

you know, these. Well, again, each situation is different.
And I think some of these special

education places are terrible and the conditions are terrible, and they just are awful for everyone involved.

I think a lot of the time it sounds like the adults are not equipped or even know how to deal with these people in the best way.

And I think, you know,

tons of kids medicated, especially in America. Like it's a a whole, it's a very thorny topic because you are dealing with a complex set of problems.
And

a lot of adults, I think, just assume they're a good kid and they're, they're, but they're blind to the, the issues, you know, and they think that it'll just, they'll grow out of it or, you know,

the thing is, is sorting this out,

the thing that always gets me is that this is, uh,

this is the biggest investment into the future, sorting this out, but nobody will ever look at it that way because it doesn't make a lot of money right now.

But what use is it not failing like any of these kids? Somebody who has behavioral issues or

has some special needs of some sort and not being able to give them the best and help them.

These are people that need to function as adults at some point, right? They're going to be out in the world. And if they're not sorted out, dealt with,

you know,

given everything that they need at this early stage in life, they're going to be bigger problems later in life, right?

Like for society, and it's going to cost a lot more to deal with them when they're not functioning as adults, right?

Like there's already loads of adults that cost society so much fucking time and money when a lot of this stuff could have been solved a long time ago if people actually just generation ago

these people these are these are going to be the people that parents have bad kids and the generation teachers but it can be broken and it is routinely it's not guaranteed that bad bad people will breed more bad people but all of these kids are going to go on to become adults that do stuff you know like we're we're not you're not going to be i'm not going to be 75 years old and going to see my 95 year old doctor you know what i mean like i'm going to be 75 years old i'm going to be seeing a doctor who's like 30 who is right now at school you know what i mean like it makes total sense to to put more investment into this and sort it out so that in the future things are better but but nobody's ever around for long enough to to do it and it always seems like it's such an aside you know the focus is always just on like oh you know how can we kill more babies in another country you know like and and plow millions into that billions into that rather than just sorting out these these things that really need to be sorted out at home first it doesn't make headlines does it it doesn't that's it it's much better to do it's sad and they're kids as well.

I mean,

for as annoying as it is when they're, when, you know, when, when this is all happening or whatever, I feel bad for them.

They're kids, you know, like they're not, they're not having a great time, are they? Constantly being yelled at, pulled around, pulled out of class. Like, you know what I mean?

There's got to be a better way to do this. But I guess it just, it always just comes down to money and lack of money and

everything that that

feeds into that as well, you know, not paying people properly to do these like specialist jobs, not giving them incentives to ever even train for these specialist jobs, you know, like it, the whole thing just feels like a bit of a mess, honestly.

And that's just like some brief first-hand experience with it. You imagine how some of the teachers and you know principals and whatever feel about it.
Oh my God.

Yeah. So this is it.
I think kids do lack, it depends what age, but they definitely lack a certain awareness of, and I think kids are very selfish.

And I think that can persist through into young adulthood if they're treated like if they're spoiled, you know, to be so used to having everything the way they want.

You know, you certainly see it with

teenagers going to uni who can't look after themselves, can't cook anything,

are slobs. Like, I mean, online was the same, right? And I think a lot of us are the same.
And I think that the history does repeat itself because we're doomed to, right?

I've watched, I've been watching the couple of these turning point documentaries on

turning point. I watched the Vietnam War one.
It's good. It's interesting.
There's a good one about 9-11. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Oh, I saw that one.

It's amazing how many parallels there are with like today. Yes.
It's like

60 years ago. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Hold on. Are you talking about turning point as in the conservative

series Netflix documentary series, but they've got different ones.

There's a 9-11 one. There's one about hunting Bin Laden, I think.

Oh, there's a VNA. So when you said I've been watching a lot of Turning Point videos, I guarantee you quite a few American listeners.
Oh, right, no, sorry.

On Netflix, there's a series of documentaries

called Turning Point.

Well, basically, they're called that because that's when that sort of post-war aura of

the good government toppled and it's led to you know the government lying to the people and the lack of trust and it's really led directly to where we are now um and you just see you know the the idea of you know making decisions and political decisions about wars and things around election times and around

you know

so many awful decisions that result in you know the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people are entirely to feed feed the egos of politicians.

And it's just, it's terrible, really.

It's a wild day.

And it does feel like history just is repeating itself. It's all the same bad actors, though.
It's the same people. If you don't learn from the mistakes of the past, you're doomed to repeat.

It's the same people 30 years ago that were just spitting the same old lies and nonsense, and they're still around. Spitting the same old lies and nonsense.
God, this is a real depressing podcast.

Sorry, everyone.

Sorry. Like, I think it was, I think Shaka Khan sent us off on one.
I think, sorry, I don't think we recovered from it. I was expecting Flax to be like, man, I loved that Shaka Khan show.

I was ready to, you know, through Flax's experience, enjoy Shaka Khan. I said, it was just disappointing.
There's a lot of people doing good stuff. Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you want to hear some news from

Lew's News?

Give us the most depressing news.

Wait, wait, wait. I've got a news article before we start.

Three real depressing news. Cool.
Here's a quick

flax facts

to give you up

a little paratiff ahead of the Lose News

main cause. Is that this is this social, what do you call it? Like a sort of social media inspired game called Run It Straight, where you just have two players, one with a ball, the other one

that is technically the tackler, and they just run at each other as fast as possible. And a kid died in New Zealand of a serious headache.
Oh my gosh.

Because, of course, this is the dumbest fucking thing that you can think of. So, yeah, don't do it.

It's chicken, basically, is what it is, right? It's just two kids running. I mean,

the point is

the viral game going to be running at a brick wall as hard as you can. Like, what would he do? There's a lot of these ones that were.
It's always been this dumb.

That is such a macho thing, though, isn't it? A rugby-style tackle game. You can imagine that we're not losing anyone important

doing that, though, are we? Geez, we'll just tell that kid's family. Yeah, his son was probably not gonna make it.
We are fucking idiots.

Yeah, we are on a mediocre podcast, and between us, we've decided no big loss here. Yeah, no, no,

no.

So, we got a section called Do I Give a

Count

turns out not accounting company

uh de la what de la de la de la douche de la toilet into douche

toilets

got them fucking got them

big fancy knobs yeah they have gotten into the idea of workplace wellness where coffees are trying to

job stress with volume with with time like time off for volunteering uh discounted gym memberships, free therapy, these kind of things, right?

But this one is apparently some of the staff are being given a thousand dollars to spend on Lego and puzzles, wow, meant to empower and support their journey towards thriving mentally, physically, and living your personality.

You know, what would also help them thrive and live to their fullest and stuff? Just paying them a living wage would be

nice too. I mean, I I think people that work there probably do earn quite a bit anyway.
But

so, this thousand dollar subsidy, I guess it's like a bonus, but basically, they can also spend it on kitchen appliances like blenders and refrigerators, going to spas, uh, personal portable cooling fans, and ergonomic or cooling pillows.

Uh, so yeah, they can, or they could just spend, they could just buy one Millennium Lego Falcon, nice Star Wars, yeah, really nice of them. Uh, they earned uh 67.2 billion in profit in 2024.

So good for them. That must feel great.
Yeah, no shit. No shit.
You work with money. You make money.
Fucking hell. So

the

in terrible news about awful things. AI, Meta have an AI public feed, which is...
apparently a gold mine of accidental oversharing. Right.

So a thread highlights the issue and share some examples. Basically, there is confessions of affairs, medical questions, legal dilemmas.

This is people admitting this stuff, like thinking that all visible to anyone browsing the apps discovered. Right.
So people are speaking to AI and telling them personal things. And even Alberta.

And as a person with Meta's AI assistant,

they are sharing it with other people. Oh, no.

Oh, shit. And it's just like, it's just this

insane list of things that people have. It's like my,

I don't know,

it's just chat logs with AI, basically, that are awkward. Okay, so this is all browsing.

So someone asked them,

you're supposed to be my wingman. Where's my big booty future wife at? Okay.
And the Facebook AI replied, you're on the hunt, huh? Well, I'm I'm more of a help you find your style kind of wingman.

Uh, what's your go-to for meeting people in Oak Grove or West Lynn? And then he replies, West Lynn, is that the Cougar City?

And then the AI app replies, West Lynn's got a rep for having some older, more established conditions, but Cougar City, that's a new one. What's your deal breakers for finding a future wife?

And he says, Are you trying to set me up with a cougar? And do you know what I mean? And then he's like, No cougar set up here. What What are you looking for? And he says, big booty and a nice rack.

Jimmy, so it's like,

I think a lot of this can just be laughed off, though, by people. They just say, oh, it was just joking around with the AI.

They're probably dead serious at the time as well when they're chatting to the AI, trying to get like advice and stuff.

It's so funny.

So that is that's happening. And then

Mattel, Mattel,

massive corporate toy overlord Mattel, have teamed up with Open AI. This is like the fucking evil, like the heel team up for, you know, ultimate bad guys, super villains.

Toy Maker Mattel are looking to develop AI products. So Barbie, Hot Wheels, Polly Pockets are using AI to create experiences around their games.

And I guess this just means, guys, we're using AI to do shit now to make art to make to replace stuff

to make fake games. Do you know what I mean? It's just a whole it's basically the news is like

good. We're doing it and we're trying to frame it in a nice, we're trying to spin this in a nice way.
But

that's happening. And now only made 1.3 billion last year.
Not nowhere close to Toilette and Douche. In the final bit of bad news, Amazon and Walmart are looking at teaming up to make their own crypto

for

customers to use. Get rid of us.
Check out. Get rid of us right now.
Eliminate us.

Bring the bombs.

So that is

Kelby. Lose news.
Thank you so much, Lewis. Wow, that was great news.

I've never felt so pissed off in my whole life.

I didn't come up with it. I didn't compile those ones, but

then it's all very

interesting. It's just, it's, look, it's hot.
It's hard to be enthusiastic and upbeat when it's so fucking hot. It is, yeah, that's true.
Sorry, guys. We live in a country.

Well, I mean, I live in a dependency of the country that you guys live in

that prides itself on complaining about the weather all the time.

The weather is never perfect. It's impossible.
And therefore, the national pastime is to just complain about all weather. Even on a nice day, you still hear people complaining about it's too hot.

I don't like this new stuff. I don't understand crypto and vapes and AI.

Stop new basketball. I had a great conversation with my mother-in-law the other day about AI because she said, do you think, like, should I be scared of AI? Like, is it moving too fast?

Like, what's going to happen? I said,

not really. Like, just.

it'll it'll whatever happens it'll probably be pretty gradual and uh you know whatever and then we were talking about TV, TV becoming in houses, you know, like, cause she was, she's old enough to remember being a child, not having a TV in the house.

Nobody she knew how

we kept our television at the bottom of the gun.

Yeah, it's very much like that. Next to the top.
But it was really interesting because when TVs became the Norman houses, so they were affordable enough for the average household to have a TV in them.

She said immediately, so many things changed because there used to be big family gatherings. Like on the weekend, they'd go out all together as a family.
They'd go do all these things.

They would stay over at people's houses overnight because they, you know, had too much to drink and stuff. And all the kids and cousins and everything.

And she said it was like, you know, everybody just did stuff together all the time. And then the minute they got a TV, nobody ever talked to each other ever again.

She said, it's because TV fucking rules. Everybody just sat indoors and just watched TV all the time.
Yeah, it's a shame. Nobody went out anymore.

Like, so I mean, don't get me wrong, people still go out, people still do all that stuff. But she said she noticed, like, especially like in her family, it was just like, no, done.

Everybody was just like, you know, like on a Saturday, they would normally go out and stuff, and everybody'd be like, no, I'm just going to stay home, watch TV.

This is like in the 50s.

People are like that now, but it's been a long time. Plans for the weekend.
Ah, my plan is to watch television.

Wonderful new invention. In in full glorious technicolor

i say darling shall we watch some television oh let's

when it was just new this new idea apparently um it was weird though that uh if you think about it that a lot of the technology gets much more quickly into the hands of the average person now it feels like than used to happen like televisions in your home was like holy And now

smartphones

when smoke, when smartphones came out, pretty much everybody, like they did these deals where you pay this small amount every month and lots more affordable for the average person.

So they'd go out and get these smartphones and now like everyone's glued

much on them though. It's basically just having like a really powerful computer in your hands all the time.
It's on mini laptop all the time. It is.

You can do everything that you would need to ever do on a laptop, you do on a phone easy. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, look, lads, before our entire...
Is there somebody being electrocuted in the background of what? No, it's a reversing truck. Right.

There's a lot of, sorry, yeah. Which is, it's reversing to electrocute this guy.

It's just a daily electrocution mobile. It's annoying, isn't it? It's, oh, God, he's going to hit that thing.

He's fully going to hit the wall. Oh, my days.
This lad is, he's not a good reverser. All right.

He's going to have to go and do a little extra bit of turning.

There we go.

He was just driving a tall wall.

All right, anyway, sorry, I realize that's completely.

Look, here's a quick update. First of all, if you have anything to say about what we've spoken about in this episode, please do email me in.
Love to read your emails. Keep them coming.

If you're interested in the shopping lists, I've been putting them up on my Insta in batches of 10 with no commentary. Make of them what you will.
I should have found one the other day.

I forgot to grab it. Got it.

They are fascinating, those shopping lists. The funny thing about those shopping lists, PFLAX, is there always something really weird on them.
Always, at least one thing.

Well, you're like, what do you think about it? one thing that doesn't make any sense? Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's like, it's like, you know, Danger Dan.

What's that?

Like, what is that? I'd love to see a really specific one where somebody was like buying stuff, but they put the reason why they were buying it as well. Oh, you see that sometimes.

Like, the list is like peanut butter for my balls or something, you know, like that would be so funny.

So, my favorite is the one that's it's uh, it just says one fags, pork pie, one beer. That's it.
That's the list. Nice.

I know. Yeah.

It's so like, it's like they've decided what they've planned their day out. And I respect that.
Man, I saw a guy in the store the other day buy four beers and one pack of blueberries.

And he got up to the till and the lady was like, you know, you can get another pack of blueberries. It's like a two-for-one deal.
And he was like, nah, thanks. I just want.
one pack.

She's like, no, but it's two for one. Like you get one pack for free.
And he's like, no, thanks. I just want one pack.

because I think he was literally just going to the park to like drink four beers and eat some blueberries, but he didn't want two full things of blueberries.

Yeah, he didn't want to lug around an extra pack of blueberries for that reason, but yeah, so this one, the one that people really find funny, and I like it, is that when they have the name of the shop at the top of the list, but you're writing the list to go to the shop, you don't need to then check the list, where was I going again?

Unless you're very elderly, I'm pretty sure when you set out to go to Aldi, you know you're going to Aldi. You don't need to write at the top of the list, Aldi.
I just thought it it's quite funny.

And one of the things here is

early sinus relief. What is that?

Awfully.

So, all right, I've got to say this: that my favorite thing to look for in all these lists is how many different ways you can spell broccoli.

Turns out there's a lot, a lot of ways. And we all know what it is.
Just put brock. That's what most people do.
There's no A in broccoli. There's at least one double set of letters.

Some people, this guy's put brock alley. I'm like, fair enough.
Like, I don't fucking know either. I think you're 100% right.
I've seen proccli misspelled. It's so funny.

It's just one of those words that people are like, I don't know how many C's or L's or whatever. I'm just going to put brock or just bosh it down.
I'll know what I mean.

Do you see a lot of people write espresso?

Of course, all that kind of stuff. Espresso pods.

But the funny thing for me is as well, there's clearly, you know, the way you've got certain terms in your family for certain foods that it's like a shorthand and you know what that is?

when i was a kid that what what we called those sort of flat chicken steaks that are breaded and then you oven cook them we would call that favorite chicken because it was our favorite they're escalators

yeah i get it we called it favorite chicken and when my my mom would write a list she would write favorite chicken so when you see these lists it's a in a way a little vision into the lives of those people so when they put dog steak that means something to someone you know what i mean they know what that means.

So I really like that story element, too.

Give me some dog steak and some broccoli.

We went through a brief phase where we usually just get Heinz ketchup, but we went through a brief phase where we were really into daddy's ketchup.

And one time we had a list and it said daddy's sauce on it, which was crazy.

You should, mate, you should try.

Just put ketchup. Just put all gold.
The South African ketchup, Tamati Seuss, all gold. It is the best ketchup I've ever had.
And if you use it for cooking as well, it's incredible.

My boss at the grocery store used to call it catsup. Like

cats up. There's that Simpsons lime.
He used to say to it. It's like nuts.

I was looking at the models because I think he would kill me with his bare hands. Ketchup? Ketsup.
Katsup. Ketchup? Ketsup.
So, yeah,

if you find that scene, I don't know what the difference is between them, but ketsup is obviously what it used to be called. Yeah, it's weird.
I wonder where the word comes from. It must be German.

Yes. It's simply an older, less common spelling of ketchup.

Right. There you go.
I guess he was just

an oldie worldy kind of guy.

I used to work with him. He used to call it cats up.
And

I'm not even joking. I used to work with a French-Canadian man whose name was Jean-Guy, but we did not call him Jean-Guy Tupperware because

he was dangerous and insane. Okay, do you want to hear, here's a recipe for you.
James Mies,

who was around in the 1771 to 1846, was an American scientist, horticulturalist, and medical doctor. That's when people were just all of these things.
Yeah.

So he, the first known tomato ketchup recipe that he published in 1812, it has been around for longer than that, but this was the first published recipe.

An early recipe for tomato ketchup includes anchovies and insects.

Okay. Not at all.

The thing is, like, if you don't tell them, they fucking love it. Do you know what I mean? They go ham for it.
They're like, oh, fucking love rat ketchup. Yeah, it's like soil and green.

They're lapping it up.

Yeah, if you can, if you can spin it as well, if you can come up with a way to say it, like, you know, instead of insects, you say, you know, land shrimp, you know, and, you know, instead of like, what was the other thing?

Cowbrain? What was it? Cowbrain. I've forgotten already.
What is he saying? What did you say? What did you say the other ingredient was that was disgusting? Rat tongues. Antovies and insects.

Antovies.

Again,

anchovies, everyone eats anchovies, right? It's not a choice. No, it is.

It's something

anchovies. Hello, me.
Love them. Love an anchovy.

Say, calm down. Disgusting.
I love them.

Who eats anchovies? Oh, me.

I was always told that nobody liked them. No.
Mayocross. They're not.
They're amazing. Ever had a kipper before? Hell yeah.
Love kippers. Fucking hell.
Sinks actually sad, but they're really good.

Cockineal. Cochineal.
Cochineal. It's a little wing-ed insect.
It's a sessile parasite native to tropical and subtropical South America and North America. What? And they put that insect.

It's a colorant in food and lipstick. It's easy to use.
What do you use for everything? Or natural red sweets used to have it. You get it from the bugs.
Oh, my gosh.

Add some ground-up bugs to your ketchup. It really is.
Yeah, except you don't market it as like anchovies and insects. Oh, they're real ugly little red bastards.

That's where they get the colour from?

Yeah, look. Next time you read something red, look, this is where it's come from.
I've just put it in the disc with these little red bugs.

They're like little berries. Yeah, well, turns out people have been using them for a very long time.

Maybe that's because they look like little berries, but if you dry them and crunch them up, you get some.

What happens if they're left to live and reproduce naturally? Well, then you get more. No, but are they like a huge pest? Like, do they bite you? I don't know.
I don't know what a sessile parasite is.

I've got a whole nest of little

red bugs in my asshole. All right, here's what a sessile parasite is.
It's an organism that is permanently attached to a host and cannot move independently.

Lots of marine organisms like bivalves, sponges, and corals are sessile and can be affected by parasitic conditions. So, barnacles and shit, they just latch on.
What are you going to do?

Can't do anything about it. Fucking interesting.
You ever see the bottom of a boat hole just covered in barnacles? Yeah, weird. They are weird animals, yeah.

But you know, they're meant to be on rocks. You put a boat in water, they're like, Well, fucking live here.
We don't know the difference. There's some

travel the world that way as well. Yeah,

there's a sessile oak tree, which is a classic species of big oak tree. And it's a good insult.
I know there's one called the Fuck Tree,

which is in Hampstead Heath, where they

fuck against it.

Gay people fuck against the tree. Right.
Fuck tree. It's a fuck tree.
It's famous. It's been...
Yeah, here you go. Look, it's been

established in a gay cruising area, and it's famous for its slender truck. There you go.
You know what I'm going to do? Next time someone is being lazy, I'll refer to them as sessile.

That is a good insult because they'll have to look it up. God, those little bugs look gross.

There's the fuck tree. Look, it's like...
Oh, yeah, it looks like a chaise lawn. Oh, Hampstead Heath.
Yeah, fair, fair. It's more like a sound.

I did see on Reddit

someone posted that they walked into the gents' toilets at one new change, which is a sort of shopping area in central London, right near Bank.

And it has restaurants and some high-end clothing and stuff. It's like a mini outdoor mall kind of thing.
It's got multi-levels.

This guy after work, he was there and he went to use the toilet on the top floor and he walked in and there was just a bunch of lads in there.

And they all sort of turned to look at him and he was like, just went to urinate. And then they just got back to wanking each other off.

They just stopped to watch him piss. And then they got back to each other.
No, they just stopped to make sure he wasn't like, you know, going to be an asshole about it.

And once he just clearly got on with his business, they were like, right, back to work, lads.

Just whanking each other off for sexual toilets. Yeah.

And he was like, it was quite shocking. And they'll do it and they'll look at him and think, You want to join in? Because you know, more the merrier.

Um, in a way, it's very, uh, it's very uh acceptable, it's very open, yeah. You just turn it up if you want to.
I don't want to hate to have sex in a public toilet, you want to lend a hand, you can.

I don't even want to shit in a public toilet

experience pleasure in one. I mean, it's weird to me, yeah.
It is, it is, but equally, you know, imagine

having sex in a Gatwick airport toilet cell.

i don't think i'd be even able to get hard i think my dick would retreat back into my body like there would be a hole there like

in an airplane toilet you're in the plane you're at 35 000 feet yeah i don't feel

i don't feel like they're that they're pleasant to be in either really i try to avoid them as much as possible air airplanes

when i'm on a plane i'm

i feel like i'm pressurized like like in the cabin and um my silences are all painful i'm all fucking dizzy and weird. I can't even fully stand up in an airplane toilet.
Like I have to crouch a bit.

It's awkward

to piss in one of those. Also getting into them sometimes, you have to like open that door that sort of cantilevers or whatever it is, accordions.

And you've got to sort of sidle in there like this tiny cupboard because God forbid there's any space to breathe on those fucking planes. Yeah, yeah.
Just fill it with seats. And

guaranteed there's somebody waiting outside to get in after you because they're quite busy.

So anything that you do in there any little smell or anything you you leave in there is is leaving a a lasting impression on the next person coming in and you know like if you're sitting on the plane the pressure and everything i don't know about you guys but like i'm full of farts so if i get into the bathroom i'm i'm going for it like yeah a lot of the time i feel like

i don't poop on the plane i've never

i go to the toilet thinking i'm gonna poop but it's just farts i don't think i'd be able to i don't even think my uh brain and body would be able to work together to accomplish a poop on a plane.

Like, I just hate it. They're both completely

doing their own thing. Maybe it's a pressure thing.
If you lived on a plane for your entire life, would you ever poop? I don't think so. You'd land, it would all come out.
It depends on the plane.

Like, if you're on the plane, if you're an hour 20 into the podcast, that's why we're talking about poop.

Maybe a luxury private jet I would poop on, but no, I wouldn't poop on like uh you know, Pan Am flight 1125

from uh

going to Pan Am I would hold it in Pan Am flight

oh man they've been out of business for four years I think Pan Am yeah a long time eh I think uh I think it was the I think Lockerbie kind of finished them off right god yeah maybe lads we've got to stop this it's an hour 20 you know we should do we should do what Ludwig did with his podcast and we do two hours and the second hour you got to pay for that's how you make the money

well people didn't get their value out of the first hour that's what I'm saying. I think people would realize that.

This is not worth it. We had to make up for it a little bit.

Oh, man.

Wow. Yeah, it is.

It happens.

Thank you, everyone. It's good to see you.
Good to see you. Good to listen to you.
Good to talk to you.

We'll see you next time. Yeah, see you next time.

Bye.

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