Triforce! Mailbag Special #44: The Mailbag Speedrun

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Hello, and welcome to another fabulous mailbag.

Mailbag episode.

Insert mailbag number here.

And we have mail.

We have lots of mail to read.

Tons of it.

You've got mail.

You've got mail.

You've got mail.

All right, let's start off with this one.

This is a favourite topic of the podcast of late, Mr.

Greg Wallace.

Oh, no.

Not again.

This is, well, I love hearing these dog shit stories about him.

Heard the recent Greg chat reminded me that my mate gets absolutely fuming as soon as his name is uttered.

This is his story.

I'm an apple farmer and have been all my life.

My dad did it before me, and I can tell you anything about the little red beauties you want.

We often have customers interested in purchasing bulk quantities of apples, and it's often a good deal.

Well, Greg approached us as he was starting a new cider brand and bought a ton of apples from us.

only thing is the bold cunt didn't pay it's been years and the stiff smiling bastard hasn't paid a penny he stole my apples and bloody got away with it that's the story

stole your apples apple thief apple thief he did an inside the factory about cider so stole all those apples well reckon them apples are worth a few bob

could do my own cider what makes him think he can just get away with stealing apples from someone uh i think it's quite hard for businesses to chase businesses for money to be honest with you it is it is, yeah.

It is.

Well, there's this thing where people don't pay in time, right?

It's like there's sort of an allotted period of like, I think it's 30 or 40 days where you can just not pay for that amount of time.

And which I don't understand, by the way.

I've never understood that.

Because I get it.

As someone who invoices companies quite often for work I've done, it'll be at least 30 days.

They're like, oh, sorry, you filed the invoice in this month's accounting period and it won't go out till the next.

I've spoken about this this before.

I complained about this before.

If I owed them money, I'm pretty sure they'd want it immediately.

Why do I have to wait 30 days?

I don't care what your accounting system is.

I don't care.

Change your fucking system.

Pay me, motherfucker.

That's desperate.

In some cases, it's because other people are not paying them for 30 days.

Yeah, of course.

But then if you change the system so that that's not possible, you don't get this bullshit knock-on effect where people are hanging on, hanging on, hanging on, waiting to be paid.

It's ridiculous.

It's ridiculous.

It only benefits the big companies.

It's dog shit for small companies.

It does, but it's because because they can put all that spare money that they've just got on hand into a savings investment.

Or whatever.

Oh, yeah, they can use it for something else and get a couple of percent while they're holding on to it.

And that's a lot of money for big companies anyway.

Let's call him out.

We called him out today.

Calling you out, Wallace.

Calling your apples.

Wallace, pay for your apples.

Pay for your apples, you bald bastard.

Oh, for now, hold on.

That's not cool.

It's too far.

Yeah, well, the bald thing, I'm not a fan of you having to to go at him because he's bald.

You can call him a bastard.

You call him a bold bastard.

That's the, you know, one member of this podcast is fully bald.

You could maybe just watch your language.

Okay, well, sorry, I'll be more careful in future.

Hello, good morning.

Has Sips written any more haiku?

I've a tiny dick, Lorenzo.

No, I have not written any more.

I only wrote

some because I was asked to,

but nobody's asked me to again since, so I have not done it.

It's not my go-to.

It's not how I like to spend my time, generally.

Would you want me to ask ChatGPT?

Yes.

Go on now.

Right as a Triforce haiku.

Small.

This is about having a tiny dick.

Small as the dawn light, hidden in the quiet breeze, yet still brings the warmth.

Nice.

That is what Chat GPT

thinks.

About you, small dick.

Yeah.

Tiny as the dawn light, not coming through my window.

What fucking

tiny but mighty, like a shy turtle who hides, still gets the job done

that's a good one

gets a job done.

It sounds like Craig Wallace wrote that high shy little turtle.

We got an email for you Lewis.

Okay,

mailbag.

I need Lulu dating advice.

Comma shite shag question mark.

I'm after some dating advice.

Maybe I've missed the boat on this.

Spent a while getting to know Alas and went for a date.

It all went went seemingly well.

Spent a long time on FaceTime, phone calls, et cetera, before the first date.

Post date, I was told I connected on a personality level, but not sure I felt the connection I'm after right now.

What does that fucking mean?

Am I basically just a shite shag?

Is that what has happened here?

Maybe I'm acting myself as a shite knight, but I'm at wit's end with dating, as even if you're a good personality fit, it doesn't even matter.

I get you lads are happily married, but I really just wonder what else can I do, even do at this point.

Per asterisk, we had at least eight drinks on said night so wow this is from crazy so he's crazy

he's laser focusing on his what he thinks is his poor performance or um you know something was wrong sometimes you just don't give a lady the tingles that's all and there's nothing you can do about it maybe they like a man with a shining dome uh maybe they like to make up for your bold slur if you're if you're dating um you you're you're really looking for the one i guess right and this is this is where a a lot of people get not really you're not you're people are looking for someone who gives them that tingly feeling right and if and if you don't have it if you go on a date with somebody and you don't want to go out with someone who you don't who doesn't isn't giving get in it isn't isn't into you right don't try and chase it her down or change your ways or do anything like this like you can't fight it like no you're only you could the only thing you control is yourself right and and you you you will find someone who will click with you it's only a matter of time uh i promise and and you'll feel feel great when it happens, but don't dwell on

or may not have done wrong with someone.

They work right for you.

Personality, yes, of course.

Personality is hugely important.

You wouldn't want to have a long-term relationship with someone or go on many dates with someone that you couldn't get along with.

No.

I mean, that's just awful.

But you would also not want to be in a long-term relationship with someone who essentially, you get along with them.

They're really funny and interesting and cool, but you just don't fancy them.

And you have sex with them and it doesn't improve the situation.

So, it's just like, look, I'm sorry, this is just not working out.

Like Lewis said, it's kind of indefinable.

I think it's quite commonplace for men, especially, to try to quantify and break things down as if it's some kind of board game.

And I'm just playing, it's just, I've got the wrong build order, or, you know, I'm playing the wrong cards, or, you know, my equity EV is low with this play.

Sometimes it's just feel.

Love is not something that you can especially quantify mathematically as it was, oh, it was these three things.

It's just indefinable.

So just understand that sometimes you just sucked at that particular thing and that was that.

And the person was like, well, it was the sex was fine, but I don't know, they had this weird expression half the time.

I just didn't like them.

You can't pin it down like that.

It's just some indefinable thing they didn't feel.

And you shouldn't beat yourself up about it.

Try someone else.

And someone else, you'll be fine.

But yeah, when you're dating, or like, you know, you went on a date with somebody, it didn't quite work out.

You probably won't see them again, but you probably had fun or whatever.

You just organize a new date, I guess, right?

Try another date.

I mean, I don't know.

But is this process what people don't like?

I don't know if it's the repetition of it.

Yeah.

You're going through this because you want to meet somebody that you are going to like and they're going to like you.

And then you won't need to date anymore because you'll have found somebody.

But do are there people out there who just like dating?

Who like to have,

you know, one week I'm going to meet this person.

We're going to go out and we're going to do something.

Yeah, of course.

It might not work out, but then next week I'll just meet like someone else.

I mean, dude, a lot of people are using these apps and dating just for the sex.

Like they don't want a relationship.

They just need to have sex.

Yes, of course.

They just want to have sex.

And part of that, the game, the fun part of it is seducing people that first time.

Like they really love that.

That's what gives them a buzz.

Right.

So, of course,

they're not looking for the one.

I think a lot of people, if they stumble across the one, that's great for them.

I mean, I'll be honest with you.

When I first met Mrs.

F, I was smitten immediately, like immediately.

And if she had turned around and said, sorry, I just didn't work out, I would have been devastated.

Yeah.

And so I get it.

It's extremely disappointing.

And also, I would have, if I'd had some, some, you know, Christmas Carol style ghost to Christmas future showing me what might have been, I would have been crushed.

They would have been like, you tell me you would have had 30 years of.

of marriage and two kids and a happy life and everything like that because of this this date didn't work out it was all lost don't think about it like that if it wasn't meant to be it wasn't meant to be don't

don't don't

fears that people have with this sort of stuff that you you know that you're missing out on the one or that you're you're it's it's it's it's a horrible thing to try and navigate and i think you do need to have your head like screwed on and and just be like look i i i'm gonna be a good person and i'm gonna you know look out for for people and and hope that good things will come my way you know you can't i think just just you just carry on and just good, good luck to you, mate.

Um, do you want to haiku about Greg Wallace?

Uh, yeah, go on.

Greg's head shines so bright,

blinding us, mid-pudding chat.

Needs more cream, all right?

Nice.

That is good.

Good.

They're good, aren't they?

Uh, all right.

So, here's uh, this is from Joel.

Um, brackets from Royal Leamington Spa.

People from Royal Lemington Spa love to fucking tell you they're from there.

I don't know why.

Uh, I'm in work.

I'm in work, and the office has been live with a topic that has gripped the passions and imaginations of my colleagues.

Now, Joel, you shouldn't have apostrophized colleagues here.

Okay.

This is not the possession.

This is not the Grammar podcast.

No, it can be.

And I was wondering what the three of you would make of it.

Also, using the number three there, you should just use the word three.

The topic is this.

If the world changed, so you could only get food from the region it was created, e.g., pizza has to be made in Italy, where would you live?

Now, bear in mind, I think what they mean with this is that you literally can't transport it from that place.

Right.

So if you want pizza, you can only get it in this part of Italy.

Okay.

Also, what effects would this have on the world in regards to house prices, travel economies, etc.

Some additions I've added onto this are generic products like sandwiches can be countrywide.

So sandwiches are UK-wide, not just wherever the Earl of Sandwich was when he asked for it.

But region famous foods like the Cornish pasty can only be found in Cornwall.

They cannot be transported.

He says, I'm particularly interested to know what Lewis would make of of this, being as dietarily restricted as he is.

I see.

Well, yeah.

So you want to get some chow mein, you've got to go to China.

Right.

It's a nice.

We've had a lot of feedback about the thought experiment.

Some people hated it, P Flex, and they were like, this is the first time we've had to stop the podcast.

They've spent half an hour talking about this.

Other people loved it.

So it was a real...

This is the spaces thing where we talk about space.

I've had about 20 emails about it I'm only gonna read two this week

please yeah let's not dwell on too much but this is similar it's like I really think it's a fun idea that if you if you you could only eat you know because they have done it a little bit with like um EU rules like stuff can't be labeled as a melted Mowbray pork pie unless it's right but it can be sold outside of yes absolutely right so but if it was illegal to like export pizza couldn't be it couldn't be there would be like an underground black market illegal pizza trade going on immediately because people love fucking pizza right but let's imagine magically it pizza is like one of the top a wizard has taken over.

A wizard has taken over.

A wizard has

a food wizard, a food wizard, a wizard with a very specific vendetta against food transport.

Now, here's the thing: right, how does it work for things like animals?

Like,

where are they native to?

Do you know what I mean?

Are chickens all right for everyone?

Or that's like carrots?

It's carrots.

Orange carrots.

Are they only

more like famous food?

You know, like I think it's dishes

rather than raw food.

Like the Cornish pasty example.

Indeed.

Yeah, but like, for example, Indian food has become so anglified that it's basically the national dish of England is a place of origin.

So if it was a dish that was invented in the UK, like I said, I could have a chicken tikka masala, isn't it?

I think that or butter chicken, you could have that.

Yeah.

Okay, but I can't have.

But none of the ones that were from India.

Right, okay.

Well, I think this would be fine because I mostly eat vegetables, although I'd really struggle without tofu.

Is tofu not allowed?

No tofu.

Yeah, do you see what I mean?

Like, there's a lot of things that I do, like, for laffo.

I tell you what, I'd be delighted if I never saw tofu again in my life.

So I'm

very happy.

Fine.

Where's the birthplace of tofu?

Where does it originate?

Probably Japan, I would guess.

Like, soybeans, isn't it?

But it could be China.

It's, yeah, it's bad.

Like, what about rice generally?

Like, can I have rice?

No rice.

No rice, no pasta.

Okay, but

what about big, thick, chunky chips and American-style French fries?

So you can't have American-style French fries, but you can have chips.

Right.

You want fries, you go to go to America.

So you so you could just say, I would live in America for fries, right?

But only from where the fries were initially developed.

Which is where?

Well, not France.

French fries.

Yeah.

So history, origin.

So in 1673, the Chilean Francisco Núñez Núñez de Pineda mentioned eating papas fritas, and women sent fried and stewed potatoes to the chiefs.

The exact shape is unclear, likely cubes.

So there's a dispute between Belgium and France where they're claiming they invented fries.

So take it back.

I thought it was...

So are we even allowed fries?

I don't think we're even allowed crisps.

What the fuck are we even allowed at this point?

I don't think we're allowed crisps.

No crisps.

No crisps.

History.

Yeah, I think this.

I feel like this is not a a real cut and dry.

Yeah, this wizard would constantly be having to make very sweeping, like it would take a long time to go through every food stuff.

But maybe simple stuff.

It's a simple spell.

It's a simple spell.

Simple spell.

He just says no food can be moved, no dish can be moved or transported outside of within 100 miles of its origin.

Right.

So that way it's local.

So if the Cornish pasty was developed in this part of Cornwall, it's

within 100 miles of that.

Let's say 100 100 miles or 50 miles, whatever it is, 100 miles.

So I think, yes, we would have to develop our own dishes using a lot of local ingredients.

But if you get there first, no one else can copy your dish.

There's a lot of rules for this thing.

It's one rule, baby.

It's one rule.

It's not.

It's

multiple rules.

There's a lot of different rules.

The problem is, is that there's too much flexible.

Anyway, let's move on.

Let's

move on.

All right.

These are the only two emails I'm going to read about the Spaces thing because I saw the Reddit post.

Mission accomplished was what my mate sent me because he was delighted to see that his stupid paper on Spaces had angered someone to the point where they were so furious.

Job done, as far as he was concerned.

This is the last word on the matter.

Stop sending Spaces emails.

We had a lot of emails about it, a lot of genuinely very interesting emails, but hello, dads and Uncle Lewis.

These are the guys who emailed in and were excited about it.

I am a construction design consultant on large-scale construction and renovation projects.

Now, first of all, half the people that emailed in were some kind of civil engineer, engineer, architect, and they all took this very seriously.

I am in charge of layout and design and construction projects, which involve rooms and doors and windows, as well as fencing outside of buildings.

I thought the definition of spaces as houses, sheds, gardens, voids was fairly good.

What many people don't know is that we do define these spaces when we plan construction and a renovation project, albeit with slightly different terms.

I won't bore you with them.

I'll just give my opinion on the matter.

Sheds and houses, well defined.

Houses being a conglomerate of sheds is basically how we define them already.

Walls, a roof, a floor, and a door make a shed, and so on.

I'm not going to even bore you with this email.

It's a really good email, Joe.

Thank you.

Counterpoint, if I may, from James.

Hello, lads and dads.

Was just listening to the episode where Pyrrion reads out his data friends thesis, and I would like to chip in my opinion on the matter, which, as mentioned in the subject line, is that it is complete and utter bollocks.

It simply doesn't take common sense into account.

If you stretch definitions enough, anything could be defined as anything.

Sure, by the definition alone of a shed, a water bottle would be a shed.

What's the intended purpose of these objects?

I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who would think it's reasonable to store tools in a water bottle or carry a whole garbage fed filled with water around their back.

Absurdity.

Thank you.

But you know what?

I'd like, this is like in the most recent podcast we recorded, you were talking about maths, P-Flax, and how you had a disdain for maths generally.

This is a load of wank, yeah.

Yeah, this is a load of wank, this whole paper.

I'm on board with this guy now.

Of course, yeah.

What a load of wank it is.

God, thank God we fixed that.

We solved that.

So that's the end.

A lot of people hated it.

A lot of people really liked it.

That's the nature of subjects.

If you can't deal with that, the podcast is not tailored to you individually.

Understand that.

I had a lot of very positive emails about the stupid spaces thesis.

Let's put it to bed.

It's over.

It's next.

It's been put to bed.

It's been put to bed.

What is a bed anyway?

How would you do it?

Is that a shed or a gun?

Anyway, I'll move on.

Triforce movie crossovers.

When you talked about the alien predator crossover it reminded me of the et and star wars link during et there is a scene set at halloween where the alien reacts to a kid dressed as yoda this is true yoda sees uh et sees yoda a kid dressed as yoda walking along the street and he reacts and runs towards him and in phantom menace there's a scene in the galactic senate where you can see that there are some of the aliens are the ones from E.T.

This means that the universe where E.T.

landed on Earth, where the Star Wars franchise exists to the point where a kid dresses as Yoda for Halloween, is also the universe where Star Wars exists as an actual thing in a galaxy far, far away, presumably where the alien in E.T.

originally came from.

So here's my feeling on this.

It's not canon for several reasons.

Number one,

a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

All right.

So that happened so far away and so long ago that there's no way that E.T.

got here and

by pure coincidence, by happenstance, somehow George Lucas had made this movie.

So this guy claims that George Lucas is actually a historian from this world, but that doesn't make sense either.

I think it's just bollocks.

Ah sogians are large, paddle-footed, large-eyed sentients indigenous to Brodo Ahsoge.

See what I mean?

They're about to make this

represented in the galactic senate by Senator Greb Lipes and a trio of aides.

When the Republic became the Galactic Empire, Greb Lipes was charged with treason, and the Asogian's home planet was part of the Empire.

See, this sounds like a Tom and Ben stream at this point.

There are Asogeans in Canon.

It is Canon Caesar in Star Wars.

Wait, E.T.

is a what?

ET is in Star Wars, yes.

But what race is what type of racist, yeah?

The Asogian.

He's racist.

E.T.

is a racist.

They, uh, he's a,

yeah, they are, they are definitely.

I would love them to remake E.T., but he's a real piece of shit.

He's kind of a piece of shit in E.T.

already, though.

He's, he's a bit of a freeloader.

He expects a a lot from people.

Yeah.

And he doesn't really seem to have much to give in return.

He gets blind, drunk, and passes out in the road, scares the shit out of the kids.

Then he gets terrible.

Then he gets sick and he expects everybody else to rally around him and

help him out.

Give him lifts everywhere on the bicycle, eats all their Reese's pieces.

Yeah.

What a piece of shit.

I mean,

he must be like a baby.

Like, he's got the brain of a child.

E.T.

doesn't come across as very smart.

How the fuck did he get in a spaceship and get here?

I mean, the guy, he looks, it's like an animal.

He's basically like a puppy.

Maybe it was like that kid.

Do you ever hear that story about the kid where he was being so loud in the car and unreasonable that his parents dropped him at, threatened to drop him at the side of the road?

He kept going, going, going.

So they dropped him at the side of the road.

And to scare him, they said, oh, we'll just like go around the block and come back and get him just to, you know, just to drive home the point.

Right.

And when they drove around to get him, he was gone.

And they didn't find him for like a month after.

He just

went missing, and they were like distraught.

Maybe that's what happened with E.T.

as well.

Yeah, well, I don't remember if they were or not.

I think they might have gotten into some trouble.

Yeah, but maybe that's what happened to E.T.

as well.

I hope he got home.

Well, yeah, a month, a month later, they said.

Yeah, it's like a month later.

All right, this is one of my favorite emails that we've okay.

This is a great story.

Okay, this is called Dog Sitting for a Neighbor Gone Wrong.

Suck up to fucking clickbait title.

This is from Daniel.

So this is a friend of Daniel's story.

I have a friend that lives in the suburbs of Liverpool.

They were asked by their elderly neighbours if they could dog sit for a week while they went on holiday.

They accepted as it just entailed feeding the dog and sitting with him as he was quite old.

Unfortunately, two days into the holiday, the dog passed away.

My friend rang the couple and told them what happened.

They asked if she could take the dog to the vets.

and then they could deal with it further when home.

So my friend, not having a lot of money and also no car, decided the best course of action would be to stuff the dog into a suitcase and take it on the train into Liverpool to go to the vet they'd asked to take the dog to.

Whilst on the train, an attractive guy started to chat with her.

One of the subjects that came up was work and hobbies, and she said she DJ'd at bars as a side gig.

Once she got to her stop, the guy she was talking to said it was also his.

She thought this was a really nice meet-cue and it might lead to something.

She was struggling to carry the dog-stuffed suitcase up the steps out of the station, so the good-looking stranger said he would carry it up the steps.

Once he got to the top of the steps, he took off, suitcase in hand.

We assumed he must have thought it was full of DJ equipment.

She didn't call out to him.

After all, how do you tell someone not to steal a dog with a suit with a dog corpse in it?

We wish we could have seen his face when he opened that suitcase.

Fucking hell.

What the fuck?

My God.

There's no fucking way this is true.

There's no way that this is a true story.

Oh, my God.

Who would make that up?

It would have been in news

at some point

oh my god okay i really like that story i thought it was funny amazing if true yeah um oh i like it a lot holy

man i can't i can't believe that that guy just took off with the suitcase though like that is so ballsy isn't it just to just to just to fucking say yeah i'm stealing this see ya

broad daylight i know it's mad I mean, I guess this is the players.

You help people up the steps with their heavy luggage.

And if it's light, you just let them off.

If it's heavy, you fucking leg it because, you know, there must be something in here.

Maybe some of it's good.

Super shades.

Heavy.

Still.

Stolen dog beneath the stars.

Silent.

Grim escape.

Oh, my God.

All right, this is from Max.

Evening, lads.

I know you're busy, so I'll keep this short as I can.

My name is Max, and I'm a scouser currently living in Melbourne.

I was walking on my way home from work when all of a a sudden I hear screaming and shouting and the sound of two dogs fighting.

See, I've segued into another dog email.

Nice.

I look over and see a larger dog, belonging to a homeless man, biting around the neck of a smaller dog and not letting go.

I ran over the road to help and me and multiple people attempted to pull the dogs away from each other with no luck.

The owner then looks at me and says, you'll have to stick your finger up his ass.

It's the only way to get a dog to release his jaw.

Feeling a bit grim about the prospect, but also not wanting the smaller dog to die, I shoved my index finger up the dog's ass.

It worked.

It worked.

And it released the other dog.

The owner and the dog both sprinted away without a thanks or anything.

Briefly, I was happy about saving the dog, but as I get up and wiped the poo off my finger, I look over and see a large group of people waiting for a tram who'd witnessed the whole thing.

They looked both impressed and horrified at the same time.

Max, that's disgusting.

That is fucking graph.

If I live, that dog is dying.

That dog is dead.

That dog, unfortunately, has to be sacrificed at that point because there's nothing that can be done.

I think I'd have to cut the finger off.

Like, I literally think I'd have to cut my finger off.

What the fuck?

I would never trust it again to be.

I am never doing that.

First of all, I'm never running across the street to help someone else's dogs.

Can't you just hit the second on the nose a bit or something?

I'm never trying to pull those dogs apart if it happened right in front of me.

Third, I'm never listening to an old creepy man who's saying you're gonna have to put your finger up his arse.

I'm never putting my finger up a dog's arse ever.

You

in what world does these poor bad decisions acclimate into this accommodate stupid idea?

He's made a word of me.

He's so fucking mad.

He's inventing words.

God.

Oh, my God.

Just a string of poor decisions there.

And honestly, no, just no.

How no, it didn't happen.

Next.

Next.

Okay.

This is another email.

I've segued these three beautifully.

Anyone that does any podcasting, I hope you're tipping your cap to me.

This is an email from Jeff.

During the filming of the first season of Reservation Dogs.

Huh?

See, it's another dog relate email.

I was booked as a principal role.

That's a speaking role.

This was massive for me as it got me SAG eligibility, which is the hardest hurdle of most people's acting careers.

So I was a bit on edge and trying my best to take this as seriously and professionally as possible.

Fast forward to arriving on set.

I'm taken to the room that this scene takes place in, given the rundown of how it's going to play out, and we run some rehearsals and all that.

During the downtime, while the crew was setting up shot, I was sat off to the side, getting into my headspace as this was a high-intensity scene with shooting and getting shot myself.

And whilst sat there, the other actor involved in the scene comes up and introduces himself as Bill.

I was cordial, shook his hands, said my name, and went straight back to my thoughts.

Well, Bill decided it was time for small talk and started asking me all kinds of questions.

How long have I been acting?

Do I live in Oklahoma?

Do I want to do this full time?

Etc., etc.

I was again cordial and answered his questions, but as shortly and quickly as possible we were minutes away from action i was still not into any sort of character so i stood up and said to bill sorry man i've got to get into this scene and went into another room as i was leaving i heard him apologize and he left me alone for the rest of the day everything went great during the scene and as i was wrapped and sent home fast forward again to when fx was advertising the episode when the name of my scene partner came up and it was none other than comedian bill burr maybe i just wasn't expecting bill burr to be in oklahoma or whatever but i didn't recognize him there on set at all so i'm curious do you think I handled that situation properly?

You think he might have felt disrespected?

Maybe he actually appreciated someone not recognizing him.

I know it's not a big deal, but it's always going to be stick in my head if I miss an opportunity by not chatting with him.

From Sips's biggest fan, Jeff Veal.

Man, whoa.

I wouldn't feel bad about that, honestly.

You just did what you had to do.

I think it's fine, honestly.

I'm sure Bill Burr doesn't really think about it that often.

No offense.

But you know what I mean?

It just, it's one of those things.

It's just, it happens.

Yeah, I would say, think of it this way.

Bill Burr

is relatively new to acting as a thing that he does a lot of.

He's a stand-up comic.

Yeah.

So this is not a world that he's like, he's not a trained actor.

He didn't go to drama school.

He's not been around actors his whole life.

So for him, this is him out of his comfort zone, if you like.

So I'm sure in his experience, this might be a perfectly normal thing that actors sometimes are like, sorry, I can't chat, trying to get into my, you know, I've got to get in the zone, everything.

Because Bill Burr, when Bill Burr acts, he's Bill Burr.

The actors have to act, they have to be someone completely different.

And they're, oh, what am I trying to do?

What, what emotion, you know, what am I motivation?

All that kind of stuff.

So I think he's probably used to not really knowing the etiquette as a on a set.

That would be my guess, anyway.

Maybe.

Yeah, I don't know.

I feel like he's probably been around stuff like that.

But I mean, if I

think I

honestly, like, I think it's it this story reflects well on him.

You know, know, he was friendly and wanted to chat, a bit naive, and then he apologized after, you know, Jeff came out and was ready.

Like, I think, you know, I think it's actually, you know, I thought Bill Burr was more of an asshole, to be honest.

So,

you know, I just got the vibe that he was a bit of a dick.

But, you know, it's quite a reassuring story that he isn't.

Yeah.

We ain't got, I've gotten, we ain't got another Greg Wallace.

He doesn't seem like a huge

fucking emails about Bill Burr being a dick, though.

I don't know if he is or not.

We've already got one enemy of the podcast.

I mean, yeah.

You talk about Jeff.

Greg.

Sorry, Greg.

Yeah.

Jeff's not.

Jeff's the shout-out.

Shout out to Reza.

We've had a lot of shit.

There's a couple of other focal points in the past, right?

Greg is maybe the newest one.

I'm sorry why I said Jeff.

Who have we talked about?

Jeff Capes.

Jeff Capes died yesterday.

So I want to say this week's shout-out is to Jeff Capes.

Jeff Capes.

He

won the Strongman competition twice.

And he was a shock putter as well.

I think he was Britain's best ever shock putter, if memory serves.

He came down to Bournemouth Pier when I was a lad and we all went to see him and he tore a phone book in half and he did that thing where he flexes his bicep and you hold on and he lifts you up off the ground.

It was great.

It was great to meet him.

He was a lovely guy.

There was a lot of stuff about Jeff Capes back in the 80s in the papers, what he ate for lunch and stuff like that.

And yeah, it seemed like it's...

He's kind of a bit of a...

Steroids.

Maybe not more recently, but I think in the 80s, he was a a bit of like a household name in the sense that, you know, you would say like, oh, you got to be Jeff Capestop in this.

We didn't have anyone back then.

There was hardly any.

He was our Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He was quite, I mean, fairly, fairly young, considering.

He's like 75.

He passed away.

Oh, wow, really?

That's a good age for someone who

had a really tough physical life.

That's what I said.

The pressure on this guy's heart must have been crazy, all that lifting and stuff, eating two roast chickens for lunch every day.

Crazy.

So he was particularly known for his incredible hand and arm strength, easily tearing London telephone directories in half

and bending rolled steel bars.

I feel like tearing a telephone directory in half is a technique thing, though.

It's a lost art.

Yeah.

People don't do it anymore.

I think if you practice enough, you'll get good at doing it, you know?

You think so?

Sure, buddy.

Sure.

Just Just practice.

Think how much fucking strength you need to tear a phone book in a house.

Yeah, but if you get at the right angle and stuff, you know, you can get all you need is like one little tear to get you started and then away you go.

I mean, if you do it one page at a time, it's quite simple, apparently, I guess.

Yeah.

That's how I would do it.

Yeah.

I think he still holds some world records, such as the Bray Marsh, the Bray Mars stone throw, which is kind of like a Scottish shot put, but it's the lobby in a rock instead, I guess.

And he used to hold the Caber Toss world Record.

I was going to say, is there any Cabertoss accolade in the world?

That's a good one.

The old Cabral.

Yeah.

Very impressive.

Very manly.

Very manly.

That's fantastic.

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All right, been re-watching Sips's prison architect series, Summer Slam.

Oh,

it's an old one.

On episode 35, he asked the question: Anyone that lives near a prison, are you not constantly scared about the prisoners breaking out?

I can only offer my experience, but the short answer is no.

Okay.

I live on an island in Kent that houses three prisons: HMP Swellsite, HMP Elmley, and HMP Stanford Hill.

Now, I think I've been to this island.

The The Isle of Sheppey.

Yeah, I've been there on holiday, and there are, you see the prisons when you're driving around.

It's a nice area, nice butter camp.

I was born in Gillingham, but I have lived on the island my whole life.

The island is about as much of a shithole as you'd imagine.

How do you spell Gillingham?

G-I-L-L-I-N-G-H-A-M.

Interesting.

Okay, carry on.

Why?

Well, it's not Gillingham.

Oh, is this a GIF-GIF reference?

I'm just asking.

Okay, because there is a Gillingham in Dorset that's pronounced Gillingham.

Right.

So just saying.

Just saying.

jiff loving idiot

there have been there have been countless escapes in my couple of decades on this island and not once have i felt scared or in danger the generally accepted theory is if you're going to escape you'd get as far away as possible as quickly as possible however i think this may be due to the fact that all the prisons are very close to hearty ferry which is the closest point to the mainland.

Right.

Most escapees swim over from there.

So to answer Sips's question, from probably

89 years ago, ago, no, I am not scared.

Because if you're an escaping prisoner, you're going to bolt as far away as you can from the prison, which in our case means getting off the island in some way.

That said, there's been multiple times where both bridges have been shut off and effectively the whole island goes into lockdown to try to locate the prisoner.

P.S.

Can't remember what episode it was, but Flax was bitching about Gillingham, specifically Gillingham FC.

Love you, Flax, but respectfully, fuck you up the gills.

Fuck you, Molly, all right?

Because Gillingham is the only place I've ever been to where we lost to a fucking Andy Hessent Hessentel, a late goal.

And when we were in the coach on the way back to Bournemouth, every fucking cunt in Gillingham came out into their front garden to flip us off as the coach drove through town.

Fuck you, Gillingham.

I'm never going back.

We're in the fucking Premier League.

Where the fuck are you?

It's a shithole.

I hate it as well.

Yeah.

Cheers for the email, Mom.

Thank you.

Oh, fucking hell.

Oh, that's funny.

Oh, I suppose you would.

I suppose if you would, if you did escape from prison,

you would try to get as far away as possible.

Maybe next time somebody escapes from prison, try hiding very close to the prison.

They'll never expect to find you there.

You know, just

hide underneath like hiding underneath the carpet on the side of the wall of the prison just for a couple of days.

They'll never think to look for me here.

And then that's when I'll escape properly.

I'm sure that's happened where people have hidden, basically, they've escaped from their cell, hidden somewhere else in the prison,

waited, and then made their actual escape later when everything's died.

The search radius has expanded, sort of thing.

Yeah.

All right.

So for context, please don't use my name, Missimo says.

So for context, I am in the Royal Military Police.

In regards to mailbag 40, when talking about prisoners of war, Section 5 of the Armed Forces Act 2006 is failure to escape.

You can be charged with failure to escape.

Therefore, it is illegal legislation for soldiers to attempt an escape if captured by the enemy.

And if they're found to have not taken a chance to do so, they could technically be prosecuted.

If you're interested in any more military facts or stories, let me know.

I would love to know if anybody has ever been prosecuted for not attempting to escape a prisoner of war situation.

The Armed Forces Act 2000 failure to escape.

I'm just going to look up the rules for this.

That was to try to escape.

So, sorry, is it illegal to escape or not to escape?

No, it's illegal failure to escape do you want the text yes um so subsections two and three apply to a person subject to service law so a member of the military services who has been captured by an enemy a person to whom this subsection applies commits an offense if he is aware of steps he could take to rejoin her majesty's forces he could reasonably be expected to take those steps and without lawful excuse fails to take them a person to whom this subsection applies commits an offense if without lawful excuse he intentionally prevents or discourages another person subject to service law who's been captured from taking any reasonable steps to rejoin.

A person is found guilty, um, may be punished and uh, okay, not more.

Here's my question: go on.

What if it's their day off?

Do they still have to work on their day off?

Well, you think you get a day off in military prison, you've been captured by the enemy, you might not even know what

that is.

Well, no, but hang on.

Imagine I'm a normal soldier, right?

And I work

normal hours during the day and all that stuff.

And then a war goes on, and I'm like allocated specific times.

They don't ship you off to Baghdad and say,

you're working nine to five or whatever.

I think.

No, but no, but you have like a week on and then a couple of days off.

There's not like, there's not like something.

Yeah, but if you're captured during your week on, which is probably when you're going to be captured, it's an extension of the time.

Imagine you've worked a full week.

It's overtime.

Okay.

And

you've got a couple of days owed to you.

And so you're like, well, I'm going to take those two days out.

And you see an opportunity to escape.

Are you still on the are you still on the clock?

on a strict roto when you're out there you can't just do it two days

i i i didn't punch in i didn't punch in today so technically i'm not at work i'm not a soldier yes you've signed up you're a member of the service yeah well

again this was a big thing about it's always been a thing but like because it was the it was in the um it was a big part of what they were talking about in the wager where you know when their ship sank who was in charge do you know i mean there was they were no longer being paid by you know by for the hours they weren't you know if if you come out of military prison after two years do you still get paid two years of wages probably fucking not no you're not

paid love the delivery on that though

case closed yeah you don't even get to accumulate holidays while you've been captured for two years or anything exactly they're not feeding you they're not you know that's why you get such a cheap payment for being in the military often it's there's got to be but if you put you up and they feed you

a prisoner of war for like two years there's got to be some compensation coming your way when you get back.

You'd hope so.

Let's find out.

Let's find out.

Yeah, well, that's another reason.

What's the compensation for

being a long-term prisoner of war?

Yeah, let's know.

I'd love to know.

Next fucking killer is today.

Okay, this is

from Andrew.

This is more of a question.

Prince Andrew.

No, Sally.

Luckily not.

After listening to a range of podcasts, I've noticed different trends in podcast formatting.

Formatting.

Triforce triforce or mbmbam what's my brother my brother and me okay is a once-a-week show while shows like the rest is entertainment and held by sexted my boss is a main show at the start of the week and a short one towards the end of the week is this just a way to satisfy advertisers has this been a conversation at all whilst growing the pickaxe podcast platform is it just different publisher styles thanks for any thoughts i don't think we've ever thought about

it an extra episode if we actually wanted to make money we would definitely do extra episodes and put them on a patreon or something you know we have got the patreon where you can listen add free but other than that we haven't made a lot of extra effort and the part of the reason is because it's hard to get us together for this amount of time you know doing these episodes

i'm going away on holiday for the next couple of weeks perian's going away on holiday after that i'm not going on holiday mate well work holiday work you're working i'm doing you're doing drafting it's tricky to for us we we do it because we enjoy it i'm not going anywhere

mostly.

I'm free.

We've all got other revenue streams.

I'm dabble in the podcasts while you guys are away.

But

I don't think

our format has been determined by ads or anything like that.

Certainly, we didn't even have ads for the first few years.

It's just convenience.

I think we get together once a week.

We have a good chat.

That makes a podcast.

And I think that's why the weekly format works well.

I think other people might toy with with different ones and if they work for them, great.

And if they're doing it for the money, great.

But I think you'll find that most people just do it because they enjoy it.

Most of the time, if people aren't enjoying something, they'll stop it, even if it's paying well.

And you can tell usually that they're not enjoying it because they'll start phoning it in and avoiding it, you know?

Yeah.

Anyway, this is from Josh.

This is a local boy to me emailing in.

It's funny how your opinion of things changes over time.

So I'm going to share with you something I was immensely proud of in my teen years, but now don't know what to think of it.

So we can, we can provide judgment on this.

I'm a fellow Twickenhamite, and my proudest moment as a teen was having sex on Twickenham Green in broad daylight underneath the cricket pitch protectors.

That is impressive.

I like to think there's a little bit of me out on that green.

Every time I'm on the bus going through Twickenham, I'm reminded of it.

At the time, of course, all the boys thought I was the shit.

Now, I'm not so sure.

I look back on it as such an odd thing to do.

So what's your take?

Should I be proud or not?

I wonder how many under.

He says Twickenites, but it's Twickenhamite.

Listeners, there are.

I always thought I'd bump bump into you at some point, but clearly, but it's not my face, my fate.

So who am I to argue with God?

Jesus.

Maybe I'll bump into you in the pub one night.

Look,

the cricket green, the Twickenham Green is a triangular shaped green at the sort of western side of Twickenham.

There's Twickenham High Street and all that.

You go further west, you get to Twickenham Green, which is more my neck of the woods, and it's

bounded by a big fence on all sides.

And there is a big cricket pitch and a cricket pavilion on the green.

And when it's not the season, they want to protect the grass.

They put this big tarp out to protect the crease and the lovely green area.

And obviously, it's not something you would want to get under because it's normally quite damp under there.

I don't know how, I guess you just go under there like a couple of worms

and have sex under there.

It's in broad daylight, so I'm assuming that you must have been.

I mean, I know a lot of school kids hang around there after school.

I don't know how old you were, Josh, but

it's impressive,

I guess.

But at the same time, a lot of kids playing on the green.

So probably not a good thing to do, would be my guess.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, I don't know if it's a source of pride, really.

It's something that happened that maybe you look back on and just think it happened.

But, like, I don't know.

It's not like you're making it seem like it was once just such a huge source of your pride, and now it's not so much.

But, like, there's, I'm sure there's other stuff that you're really proud of that you could just focus on instead of that time you had sex on a cricket green.

Under a tarp.

Like the tarp is this is not an attractive proposition.

No, they must have been like school kids themselves at the time.

I'm getting um, I'm getting chat GPT to write me haikus.

I'm bored of this um rugby thing.

Sorry,

period.

Okay, haiku message.

Rugby thing.

What are you talking about?

Sips in cozy streams, witty jokes, and quirky games.

Laughter fills our screens.

Wow.

Laughter fills our screens.

How does the AI know?

It doesn't know.

It just said laughter fills our screens.

You can't see laughter, can you?

You can when everybody is hitting you with the big

LULs.

How about this one?

The laughing man face.

Pyrrhion's sly wit, angry bald man, rage unleashed, chaos in the mix.

You're really enjoying these?

These are terrible.

It's so shit.

Oh, fuck.

Sorry.

I've been just going through.

Did one about the guy having sex under a tarp on the cricket pitch?

About guy having sex on a cricket pitch.

Under a tarp.

Under a tarp.

In broad daylight.

In broad daylight.

Under starlit sky.

No, no, sorry, that's okay.

In broad daylight.

Hang on, I'll do that.

Beneath the sun's gaze.

On a pitch.

Beneath the sun's gaze.

On a pitch, a daring play.

Wickets witness love.

It's actually quite quite good.

That's good.

Wickets witness love.

I like the alliteration.

Wickets witness love.

Do you want another email, or are you just going to do haikus for the next 13 minutes?

No, no, no.

We could just do haikus, honestly.

What do you want to do?

Let him do a haiku.

You do the email and he can haiku off the haiku between them.

You do a haiku about this next one.

I've listened for years.

Finally, thought I'd share my experience in the board game industry as I thought you would enjoy it.

I work as a consultant in the board game industry, working on many different aspects from game localization and crowdfunding to manufacturing.

I've worked on hundreds of board games, including games featured on the Games Night channel like Skyrim.

As you can probably expect, the board game industry is an absolute mess when it comes to business practices and organization.

The vast majority of projects and deals are discussed over far too many beers and events and shows.

It's very much an industry of who you know rather than what you know with

the vast majority of projects never going off the ground simply because they don't know who the right people to talk to are.

Licensing an IP is always interesting as I often see people online saying, wouldn't it be great if we got a game with Insert IP here?

However, the truth is much more simple.

It essentially boils down to the minimum guarantee the IP holder can demand, combined with how drunk you can usually get the representative.

Just thought I would share the above, as it's an industry with a large following, but internally is a very closed community.

Any questions, let me know.

Oh, interesting.

Not an industry I'd ever really thought about before.

Well, I did say I had an idea for a board game when I told Lulu about it a couple of weeks back.

I'm not really the right person to talk to.

Well, we play board games.

That's true, but I don't make them.

No, but I mean, it was like, I don't know what to do with this.

I think it would be a good game, but I don't know.

What do I just fucking make it myself out of bits of card and then we play test it?

And then what's the process from that?

That is the process.

Just knock it together yourself, see if it's actually fun.

And then, if it is, then you can carry on.

But if it's not, as most of them aren't, you should just let it die.

Yeah, I think, I think, like, you just knocking it together yourself.

There's a bunch of things you could do.

Like, I use there's a little thing called tabletop creator, which you can buy on Steam.

Oh, yeah, I've got a lot of fun.

There's one from Card Creator as well.

But

I got one for a discount.

I think actually it costs you about 50 or 60 because it's like kind of a pro app.

So it's

£167.

Yeah, fuck that.

I did see that you can buy cards and counters and boards like for a board game, and you just write on them.

And I guess that, because I think having the physical game would kind of be nice.

And you could knock that up dead cheap.

I saw it online.

You can get all the bits quite cheaply.

So I guess you'd want to just design it.

But anyway.

Yeah, I think, yeah, I think there's, anyway, there's a lot of tools you could use.

But I mean, I totally agree.

Like something like Frostpunk, the board game, did two and a half million on Kickstarter, you know, and they, the one they followed it up with, which was Dying Light, the board game.

God.

I think that did, hang on, I can look up how much it did, but I think it was not as good.

And it's because there's obviously a certain interest in certain game types and other things.

Oh, 1.1 million, not bad.

You know, I think, you know,

these days, these Kickstarted board games are so elaborate.

You know, you get all of these things with them.

You get tons of models.

You get some 3D print FTLs.

You know, you get all sorts of extra gubbins.

You know, they kind of have to have these very stretch goals with constant adding new things.

You know,

these board games are like marketed, not just a board game.

It's like the board game and the first three expansions before you've even had it made.

You know, and that's kind of crazy to me that that's what's going on.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A lot of time I'll buy a, I'll get a board game and it will come with three or four extra boxes on the side.

Even the Frostpunk board game came with that and it's like

very weird.

Yeah, I don't know how I feel about board games.

I would still like to make my own one, but I think it's hard to stand out.

And certainly going to things like the UK Board Games Expo, you see that there's so many, and some of them are really, really cool.

And you're like, oh, damn, my idea is nowhere near as cool as this thing.

And this thing's done really badly.

So like, maybe I shouldn't do this.

Yeah.

All right.

You want to

be interesting, though.

It is,

get some sort of insight into the world of board games.

It doesn't surprise me.

The business side of board games.

Getting drunk is a big part of it.

All right.

It really is.

Go, man.

Next up.

All right.

This is from Jake.

Recently, the podcast has been a flush with firefighter tales.

That's true.

It was a couple of weeks ago we were talking about firefighters.

We were talking quite a bit about firefighter tales here.

However, historically, the roots of this podcast have been tales of prison.

Gentlemen, I bring you a collision of both worlds.

Oh.

For six years, I worked as a correctional officer in Washington state.

Our state has a program in which inmates can work for our natural resources department as fully certified wildland firefighters.

As a correctional officer, I scoffed at the idea of the bad guys doing something good.

However, after being a part of the mismanagement of the American prison system for far too long, I realized maybe I could help be the change.

So I traded my badge for a chainsaw, and the rest was history.

I went from being the bad guy to leading 10 guys with felony records and tattoos on their face into burning forests and communities overnight.

At first, I was concerned that all of the guys under my command were just on my crew to get a shorter sentence or maybe clemency.

However, quickly after seeing them go into action, I could see that they just needed a purpose.

Two years later, hundreds of homes and acres saved by a crew of the last people you'd think would be the ones to do it.

I now realize maybe there is more good in the world than bad.

I have a plethora of stories fighting wildfires side by side with these juggers.

If you'd like to hear more, Jake, please do tell us

that's crazy oh i really like that take that is you know just give people a purpose and or a good something to do you know a role in the world and uh yeah especially something crazy and brave like that right very cool i think it probably works too because if you're not if you're if you're kind of like just a civilian you know I don't think they would really turn on you.

I feel like if you were a prison guard and you were leading the chainsaw gang or whatever, there'd be more scope for them to potentially, you know, if the shit went down, push you into the fire or whatever, you know?

But because you're like just a, you know, like no, you're not, you're no longer associated with the prison system in any way.

You're just doing this

fire rescue stuff and they're coming with you.

It's probably safer and, and, and a good thing too.

You're saving lives.

Crazy.

I think that's really neat.

All right.

This is from Luke.

Hi, lads.

Longtime listener from the maligned colony of Australia here.

You've discussed the most influential technological advancements of the human race.

However, if you could erase or outlaw any technology, what would it be?

Controversial and poorly considered takes are encouraged as usual.

My choice would be personal cars, forcing mass transit to get better, reclaiming roads as usable space, or comment sections, because I think they have contributed to creating a society of cunts that think they need to vocalize an opinion on everything.

I would just, I, yeah, comment sections, just social social media generally i would get rid of personally i just think of i just think get rid of get rid of social media platforms sure let's get rid of smartphones the internet no let's keep those things but just artificial intelligence get rid of like uh instagram and twitter

i would get rid of supermarkets get rid of facebook almost supermarkets supermarkets

great call personally because i think they've done a lot at home yeah i think they've driven down prices that farmers can get for things which has over a a lot of dairies and farmers.

They've destroyed high streets.

As much as people blame internet shopping, people still go to Tesco's and Safari's and all that shit.

It would be much better for the high street, instead of all that money pouring into the pockets of shareholders of Tesco and all that kind of stuff.

The butcher, the fishmonger, the guy that runs our small hardware store, these big superstores have destroyed communities.

They've led to all this out-of-town developments of these huge concrete areas where all people do is park and shop, park and shop.

And it's killed any sense of community or

they're dying anyway, all the people

because people are just ordering stuff on Amazon now.

Well, good riddance to them, good fucking riddance to them.

I just replaced it with another load of shit.

I don't know, like, um, it's tough.

There's so many technologies that are

double-bladed or whatever, you know.

There's they cut back

at the same time as AI, you know, I'm sure it will have a lot of helpful things, but it's terrifying.

Um, so, God, what can we get rid of?

Let's

it'd be be nice to get rid of like plastic.

You know, everything should be made of wood.

Let's get rid of Skynet before it's too late.

Plastic would, unironically, as useful as plastic is,

and it's incredibly useful.

The problem is, we are really going to pay the price for it.

It's just too cheap.

It's long-lasting.

It's too cheap.

It's just used for everything.

I mean, think about how many water bottles countries use every day, especially in countries where you don't have good, safe drinking water.

Those aren't being recycled.

They're just ending up in the fucking ocean and in in landfills, and they're going to be around for thousands of years.

This plastic is going to be there, just fucking hanging about.

And we don't know long-term effects going to have on people's health and this shit.

Get rid of that.

And that would be a good one to get rid of.

That's depressing.

Plastic is incredible.

Plastic is so good.

We dig up like ancient coins and stones and stuff, and we try to learn about ancient civilizations and stuff.

People are going to be digging up like

LOL dolls, grungy, shitty Coke bottles.

Yeah, dog shit lumps of bios.

It's all half decayed.

Yeah.

It's awful.

And large chemical companies, I get rid of them as well.

I was reading about the Voyager probes that are still like sending back

info.

They were launched in the late 70s.

70s, yeah.

After the,

you know, after the success of the moon landing, there was kind of this brief period where they were flush with cash and invested in, you know, before it all got withdrawn.

And the Voyagers were these two probes that was quite famously sent with those gold discs on.

Yeah, they have with sort of the Vitruvian man and a little bit of language and a little bit of a representation of, you know, to try and tell aliens who discovered these probes what we're like.

And it's a bit, they're a bit out of date now, what those, what's on those gold discs, but they're still kind of interesting.

And they also got us basically the pictures that we have of the outer satellites, you know, like Jupiter and Saturn and Uranus.

It's kind of, they're very cool.

Anyway, they have, they're still, I was wondering how we communicate with them.

There's this thing called the NASA Deep Space Network, right?

And there's three sort of satellite communications complexes, one in one in

California, one in Madrid, and one in Australia, in Canberra.

And it's basically that way, it covers the entirety of deep space at all times.

Like one of those facilities is looking into deep space at all times.

So they never kind of, they can always be in communication with it which is it's fascinating how these facilities were set up so long ago and are still going and you know how they can still receive data from this thing that's you know that hasn't required any it's not exactly no one's been you know working no one's been given any maintenance for the last 50 years

um yeah it's just really cool i think to see stuff like that um i i just wanted to bring that up since australia was mentioned i don't know i was just kind of google earthing around these sort of facilities you know that that are all over the place in the world.

And there's some fascinating places where, you know,

they're either in use or derelict now with loads of big old satellites pointing at space.

I think we've sort of lost a bit of that wonder that we had, you know, back in those days, you know, the idea that, oh, you know, there's a brave new world out there, the new frontier space.

So there is a couple of things I think happened.

First of all, it became very easy to cut the money going to NASA if you just said,

and other space agencies as well well what are they doing what a waste of money and instead of being pitched as like it was pitched as this big patriotic thing in America to show the rest of the world especially the Russians what we could do as a democratic capitalist society we can do much better than their dog shit communist ideology so that was the idea was that there was like a patriotic pull to do something as a country and to support it and as soon as it had served its purpose it would serve the it served the interests of a lot of people to destroy any interest in NASA because that way they could cut back on spending.

So I think it very quickly went from being a source of patriotic pride to money that they, in their mind, was just going out the fucking window.

And a lot of the people that were working for NASA probably weren't Republicans anyway.

So let's slash the funding to it.

And they were successful.

They slashed a lot of the funding and put in the minds of a lot of people.

This is just my opinion.

But having spoken to a lot of older Republicans who grew up in that era, they're like, man, they get paid even if it fucking blows up in the launch pad.

What a waste of of money!

And seeing it more as a business investment rather than an investment in the future of humanity.

Um, there's also a big tendency for people like Elon Musk and all Jeff Bezos to be obsessed with space.

And people are reasonably pointing out maybe we should fix the fucking planet first instead of focusing on fucking Mars or Venus, which is just a fast forward to what our planet will look like if we don't fucking do something about the state of the environment.

So having a look at space is all well and good.

I love it.

I absolutely fucking love it.

Um, but I understand people's desire to perhaps invest that money at home as well um so it's a shame yeah it's always interesting when you hear about like these um i don't know like when i'm when i'm going around i always like feel like oh i i know sometimes when you're driving somewhere it's really interesting to see oh what the heck is that place you know just driven by and it's like goon hilly earth station or something it's like a load of old satellite dishes that closed down you know years or at least closed down visiting you know but i i remember going to these types of places as a kid and being like wow giant satellite dishes What are they having?

Well, they still have them.

Like, they're just further out.

Like, I mean, for instance,

they did the thing with gravity waves.

That was a huge experiment.

There are big listening stations still out there listening.

And I know that there was some big news story.

It was clearly clickbait about how they found this signal, but everybody says it's load of bollocks, all this kind of stuff.

Like, there's still lots of space stuff happening.

I mean, the James Webb Space Telescope is incredible, the pictures that that's getting.

But I think people have kind of, it's more of the same.

Much like the initial moon landing had incredible viewing figures, people can't name who the 12th man on the moon was.

They don't give a shit.

So I think the interest in these things drops off quickly because essentially, the first time you do it, amazing.

But after that, you realize that the moon is really not that interesting.

And that shots of distant galaxies, it's like, yeah, that's incredible if you're into space.

But for the average person, what am I fucking looking at here?

What am I meant to make of this?

We're never going to see it.

It's never going to work.

This isn't going to whank me off.

Yeah, exactly.

And I would love to, I would love to work at one of those big satellite observatory places just as it's like closing down and being like the person in charge of closing it down, being the last person to shut the doors.

The last thing I would do before I shut the doors is I would print out on one of the computers, we are coming, and then I would lock the doors and close them and just walk away.

I think that'd be so funny.

It's a great prank.

Somebody would break in and find that.

that message freshly printed off the computer and just start freaking out, you know?

I think that'd be amazing.

That's a great prank.

That's such a good prank.

I like that a lot.

Yeah, I would totally do that prank.

Beautiful, beautiful.

Good stuff.

Thank you, Sips.

Well, I think that's a good place to end on a show.

Yeah, just with that.

Just ending on a prank, yeah.

Got him.

All right.

Well, take, take it, take it easy, everyone.

Thank you for listening to another mailbag.

See you next time.

Thank you.

Bye.