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July 18, 2019 - The Delingpod - James Delingpole
01:20:12
Delingpod 28: Dick Delingpole
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Welcome to the Delingpot with me, James Delingpole, And I'm quite excited, I'd say, quite excited about this week's guest.
I know that some of you have been thinking that it's been really too long since we had him on the show.
So, welcome back, guest guest.
Dick.
It's me.
I'm back.
Finally.
I know.
Actually, you know what?
Even though I tried to disguise my excitement there, I think I did it pretty well.
You did a good job of disguising your excitement as seeing your brother.
And shall we just set the scene here?
Because it is quite difficult for me to come down here.
It's an hour and 25 minutes drive.
And I've got a life as well.
I've got stuff that needs doing.
I've got dogs that need walking.
Wives that need keeping happy.
Well, a wife is currently suffering from a badly infected wasp sting, which somehow means she can't cook or walk dogs.
They are famous for that.
Taking out your dog walking abilities, wasps.
Yep, they'll do that.
And contrary to legend, if you leave them alone, they won't bother you.
This wasp was just a little yellow and black bastard.
It just went up, stung her, and buggered off.
It's funny you mention that.
I was...
The fawn had her...
I had an important birthday the other day.
An important one.
And I had to very quickly, because I hadn't got my shit together as one doesn't with wives.
No, not so unlike you.
Oh, by the way, I've got to try and stop swearing.
Do you know why?
Somebody wrote me this lovely, lovely letter from Ireland, I think.
Right.
And he said, absolutely love the podcast.
Just one special request.
My boys and my grandsons, I can't remember which, listened to the show with me.
And they love it too, but some of your language is a bit...
I am actually even now trying to moderate my language.
And you know partly why that should be?
It's because of the whole YouTube thing.
You might get demonetised.
You know you can't even say the people who were the baddies in World War II. If you say that word beginning with N, you could get demonetised.
Yeah, but I'm not monetised on YouTube precisely for that reason.
I don't want to give them the pleasure.
You don't want to have to not say...
No, it's not that.
I don't want them to give them the pleasure, which they would.
They'd enjoy it.
It would be like having sex with donkeys for YouTube workers.
I mean, that level of fun.
That's what they do for fun.
And...
That's not going to play well with your Irish friend.
Why?
Sex with donkeys.
I don't think...
Look, it's factually accurate to say that YouTube censors actually have sex with donkeys when they're not censoring people like me because they probably consider me a Nazi.
Oops!
Oh no.
Anyway, back to the wasps.
Back to the wasps.
No, what I was going to say was, it's the wasps.
That's right.
So, it was the wife's big birthday and as you do when you're a journalist and you're inefficient, I was crazily looking around for freebies, you know, to write about in The Spectator.
And lots of things fell through and it was really quite close to the wire.
And in the end, thank goodness, I went to this hotel.
And...
In Lisbon, called The One.
And it was very nice.
So thank you, The One, for hosting me in Lisbon.
And we were having breakfast on this lovely sunny terrace with a fountain playing next door.
And they brought this array of locally sourced jams and honeys and things.
And as soon as they put down these locally sourced artisanal honeys and jams and things, when this bee came along...
And landed in the jam and started sucking up the jam through its proboscis or whatever it is that bees do.
And we were both very concerned about the bee for its welfare because we like bees.
We like bees and I was really worried that the stickiness might get on his wings and trap him in the jam and he'd die.
I didn't want to move the jam in case the action of moving the jam got his wings stuck.
So we just sat there watching and then a waiter came over and he gave that sort of concerned waiter in five-star hotel with guests being concerned about a bee in their jam look.
And we had to say to him, look, no, no, don't take the jam away.
You might hurt.
We don't want the bee hurt.
He's our friend.
And he said, no, no, it's okay.
My family keeps bees and I like bees too.
It was very sweet.
But I was thinking at the time, one wouldn't have gone through all this for a wasp.
No.
We like bees.
We don't like wasps, even though bee stings are as bad as wasps, aren't they?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But you know that with the bee that he's going to die if he stings you.
That's it.
He's committed.
Also, he's a bloke.
You know, he's servicing the bloody, bloody queen.
Something we can all relate to.
We can all relate to that.
Anyway, that was a massive diversion and then a diversion within the diversion.
It's what they pay for, or rather not pay for most of the time.
What do you want to do?
Because I have got a yes-no list.
I have got the review of the last ten shows.
And I've got a few dick things.
I think we'll go for a few dick things first.
The first dick thing, me making notes, number one...
I've written, you have got to start pushing people to like and subscribe and to generally do what most podcasters do.
Yeah.
To try and publicize your podcast because we've got this issue where you had a massive following when you were Breitbart podcasting.
Yeah.
Like 250,000.
250,000.
And now you're down to scraping through the thousands.
Yeah.
And you need to push.
We're in the tens of thousands, but it's still not, yeah.
Not what it could be or what it was.
So you need to work harder at getting people to, because I listen to it through YouTube on the donkey molesters.
Yeah, yeah.
And, yeah, for that, you've got to like and subscribe to make it work for the person.
Or Podbean.
You never ask people to do that.
Or Podbean or iTunes.
Whenever you mention any Apple product, people go, ooh, I hate Apple.
I hate Apple.
They're so evil.
They've owned your ass or whatever it is they say about Apple.
And, look, I feel the same way about that awful, frightful man who runs Apple.
What's he called?
The frightful PC person.
I don't know the name of the guy who took over when Steve Jobs died.
He's a bit of a faceless sort of grey man.
No, he's worse than that.
He's dangerous.
Yeah.
Anyway, but look, you don't have to go to Apple.
But if you, if like me, you're an artist, well, a creator, and you, you don't understand what are the things that are not called out PCs.
Yeah.
I'd be in the same boat.
I'd be completely lost without it.
So listen to me on iTunes and make comments or listen to me on Podbean or on other things I think I've joined recently.
So Dick, what do they do?
Well, all I know is the YouTube thing when you've got to subscribe to your channel and click on the like button.
But all the proper podcasters are saying this all the time, so I figure you should have to do that.
I should wear people down, shouldn't I? Yeah, okay, listen, special friend.
Okay, do that.
That's the sort of thing.
The other one is...
To be mindful of the good people who've been sending us free things.
I'm thinking Twist Tease, which I'm still enjoying my Twist Tease.
So go to twist-tease.co.uk because they're good people.
And mainly, they love the podcast.
We've never asked them to send us stuff and they've never asked for anything in return.
So I think it's nice to big up your supporters.
Dick, you're so good.
There you go.
Well done.
Okay.
Quite apart from that, it is excellent tea.
It is.
It's really good.
So that was points one and two.
Points three.
Yeah.
I love your list.
One of the many things I like about you is your lists.
Please don't die.
I'll leave you my list.
I went to Christopher Booker's funeral yesterday at the time.
We're at that age where friends are dying.
One thing I learned, not that I didn't know as before, carpe diem.
And I don't mean shag pretty young girls because you're going to die.
I mean, that ship has sailed.
That ship has sailed.
What I mean is, all the older people you know, just spend quality time with them.
Don't assume they're going to be there.
I've had so many people die on me before I could spend the time I wanted to spend with them, and it's really sad.
I wish I could get back that time.
Wise words.
Yeah.
Okay.
Point number three.
Yeah.
Glastonbury.
Oh.
Because you were there when I wrote this list and I was thinking you are in the belly of the beast at that point.
Yes.
You are surrounded by potential haters but I have this theory that So many more of them than we suspect are conservatives in...
I have two stories to tell.
Okay, tell them.
Tell us both of them.
Can I just tell you, first of all, before I went to Glastonbury, and every time I go to Glastonbury each year...
I return with a mixture of joy and trepidation.
The joy is obvious because I'm never happier than when I'm at Glastonbury and or on a horse fox hunting.
Those would be my two kind of top things.
But every year I worry that Particularly the environmental movement, but the left generally, are becoming so nasty and unhinged that someday somebody's going to come up to me and say something nasty to me or worse.
So I was a bit worried about that.
Anyway, I was lost and I was looking for directions and I stopped this guy at, I think it was the Samaritans stall or a stall like that.
And I asked him directions and he said, you're James Dellingpole.
I love your podcast.
And then he said to me, but, you know...
Did he then look around to check if anyone had heard him say that?
He totally did.
We then had the conversation which said, there's so much you can't say here, isn't there?
And there was another occasion.
I didn't get accosted this year as much as I normally do.
I do normally get kind of friendly people coming up to me.
And the Sunday afternoon I wanted to go and see Kylie and she was absolutely rammed.
We went off to put the tent back into the car as we do on Sunday so you can go back and enjoy it without worrying about taking down your tent later on.
And it was a mistake because...
For a Sunday afternoon slot, it was so rammed you could not even get in on the side and see what was going on.
Anyway, I was trying to work out where to stop.
You know, you keep wandering and wandering and wandering.
And this chap in a red jacket said, oh, it's James Dellingpole.
So I thought I'd stop by him because he seemed friendly.
And so that was good.
So...
And also, I've got certain secret weapons, like my friend, who looks like Gandalf, who sits in the permaculture field, which is about as hippie as it gets.
And he's like my protector.
We love each other.
Does he cast runes to give you a spell?
No, no.
I think he used to be a high-level drug dealer and then he became a heroin addict.
He now runs a project to help junkies get back on track by gardening and stuff.
It's a great project.
I'm going to have him on the podcast one day.
Anyway, we think he may have been the person who supplied me with my first ecstasy.
Not personally, but he may have been the supply chain that gave me my first ecstasy in the Summer of Love 88.
God.
Yeah.
So, isn't it?
Everything connects.
Yeah.
Only connect, as A.M. Forster said.
Yeah, that's the sort of thing you learn at Oxford.
Well, the next thing I've got written down for my Glastonbury thing...
Water situation.
How bad was that water situation?
Well, again, this is where Gandalf paid off.
Okay.
You see, Gandalf had a secret, had a water, a tap by his place.
So you could drink chai and get free water.
No problem.
I didn't witness any water problems at all.
Next word I've just written, wankfest.
Wankfest?
What about that man's kids or grandkids?
I'm only reading what was in front of me and it's one word and it's probably not officially a swear word.
But it's just what Glastonbury seems to be to me.
And I think you pretty much covered off the fact that actually it's not as bad as...
Conservative friends who might look at it and go, oh my god, that is the bad word that I just said.
It does seem very much like that to people who don't go.
It's a bit like, you know how in Elizabethan times it was actually illegal not to go to church?
Mm-hmm.
So, even if you were an atheist, you had to turn up somehow.
And, you know, you think Shakespeare, he somehow managed in this environment.
And it's a bit like that.
Okay, so everyone's forced to go to church, even atheists like me.
Is Glastonbury the church in this analogy?
No, no.
The guy I worship is the church.
So everyone has to pay lip service.
You approach it with differing levels of enthusiasm.
I would say most of the people at Glastonbury are there, as before, to get completely off their face either on chemicals, on weed or on alcohol.
And these are the people that come up in parties...
They leave their tents behind.
They don't really care about the environment.
But yes, of course, there's a hard game.
And if you go to the green fields and the permaculture fields, you've got the old guard there.
Probably some of them would be horrified to learn that I walked among them.
And some of them would be friendly and forgiving in that way.
I mean, like in the, when I had the naked sauna, when I went off for the sauna.
Was that this year?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I went with Boy to this area in the teepee field, an enclosed area, where there was a yurt with a sauna inside.
Right.
And it was naked.
So you had to go in the nude, men and women.
Right.
And all sorts in there.
And everyone was, it was like Glastonbury in the old days, when it was proper, when you could do that kind of thing.
And there was an outside area where you dried off in the sun, because I wasn't going to pay for a towel, I don't know how much that, it was quite expensive, £10 a session, this sauna, or £30 for the weekend, you know, the whole week membership.
And there was a trampoline.
And I was bouncing up and down naked on the trampoline.
And of course, people outside, there was a wall around it.
There was a fence.
But every time you went up, tackle flying, there was...
People started videoing me, and I was thinking, oh my god, if they knew who I was, they could put it, and Femi, Femi, sorry, and Owen Jones, well, Owen Jones would probably be masturbating over me, I imagine, because...
I should imagine Femi jumping naked on a trampoline would probably be more impressive than you jumping naked on a trampoline.
Let's not go there, Dick, that's no...
Okay, just a thought.
I just have to share these thoughts as they pop into my head.
I wish I hadn't thought that now, really.
I want the mind bleach.
Yeah, you fancy him.
And finally, Miley Cyrus WTAF. Yes.
I came to mock and I stayed to pray.
Miley Cyrus was absolutely, she was brilliant.
She swore too much.
It was quite interesting actually.
You couldn't have her on the podcast unless her gone.
I might still give her a special dispensation and I would let her swear because after that performance at Glastonbury, she was, you know how it is that, okay, these big American stars, I mean, they come to Glastonbury and you think, Are they going to phone in their performance like Kanye West did one year, who's awful?
Or are they going to make an effort?
And she was very conscious that she had to make an effort.
And she implied that this was the culmination of her career so far.
Well, that's a good start.
Yeah, yeah, it was.
And you know what?
You know how you're dreading, with somebody like Miley Cyrus, you're thinking, oh, please don't play all your back catalogs.
I don't really know.
Or if I do, I don't like it very much anyway.
And she didn't.
She did.
She did.
She started doing this song.
I thought, oh my god, she's not doing Nothing Else Matters, is she?
And she was.
She did Nothing Else Matters by Metallica.
All right, yeah.
She did Black Dog by Led Zeppelin.
Well, she knew her audience, didn't she?
She did something raggery.
And then, of course, her dad came on.
I heard, yes.
With Lil Nas X. Is that how I say it?
What's he called?
Is Lil Nas X or something?
What's the rapper called?
I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But you know the song?
No, I don't.
Oh, yes, sorry.
The old town road.
I thought it was something about a dirty horse.
No, you're going to ride on down to the old town road.
Right.
Going to ride to my...
whatever.
Anyway, it was very, very good.
Okay.
And, yeah, it was a perfect moment.
It was a Glastonary moment.
So, hats off.
Yeah, she was as good as the killers in her way.
Amazing.
Yeah.
Well, that's Glastow done.
Yeah, yeah.
And I'm glad that it fitted in with the questions because it was as I thought, which is good.
More dick things or reviews or yes, no?
Well, at some point in the next 10 minutes, we've got to go and have a gin, which I disapprove of, actually, because I prefer doing podcasts straight.
I think one gin isn't going to hurt, especially as it's Friday evening.
It's Friday evening, yes.
It's a beautiful, sunny evening in rural Northamptonshire, and I think to not have a gin would be a sin.
It's a sin.
Yeah.
Yeah, okay.
But what would be best?
What would fit in with those 10 minutes?
You know what, Dick?
What?
We've got our flow.
That's the thing.
We have.
I feel this with you.
It's almost like we could be brothers.
There was a flow that I acquire.
A mojo.
One of the things we've done is we've barely talked since I arrived because we sometimes sort of overdo the preamble conversation and waste some perfectly good conversations by not recording them.
So we've done a cleverer thing here of jumping straight into the podcast.
I can tell you, if I had my way, there would be a Dick and James show once a week, minimum.
We know what this is moving on to.
My ideas for the Dick and James show.
Oh, good.
Yeah.
I've been jotting down some ideas because we're either going to do a comedy show, like the far show with sketches.
We're going to get talented actors to play the parts.
We won't necessarily be in them.
Well, no.
We'll most likely be the sort of two Ronnies of this sort of situation or whatever it is.
Or we can stand in the wings with sticks, with pointed sticks and just prod them occasionally.
Well, that's another option.
But this is the...
It's either a comedy sketch or a full feature-length film.
Do you want me to explain this one?
Yeah, yeah.
I'm liking the full feature-length film.
There's a film director, okay?
And he wants to make a woke version of Zulu.
LAUGHTER Okay.
Yeah.
He's going to call it drift.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you like that?
Yeah.
I get your drift.
Yeah.
And it's, I know that the original Zulu, you couldn't really better it because actually it's quite good for, they don't demonize the Zulus.
You quite sympathize with them.
Yeah.
They're saluting us.
Yeah, I mean, it doesn't make out like they're the sort of evil, fuzzy-wuzzy type sort of baddies.
It makes them out as equals to the Redcoats.
But in this one, you are purely rooting for the Zulus, okay?
So in this woke version.
So scene one for our comedy show...
This guy is approaching the BBC to help him make his woke version of Zulu, to make Drift.
The problem is the reception he gets at the BBC is more woke even than he is, right?
So they're up for the idea.
They want to make Drift.
But...
They are insisting that half the Zulus must be cast as white people and half the Redcoats must be black because of their, you know, like the thing with Les Mis.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So obviously that is going to be a problem.
think that he's going to have to he hadn't banked on that at all so we're setting this scene he he's talking with them and they're really into the idea and they keep on throwing things at him so this develops and then either you're cutting to the actual film proper yeah you know it may be several scenes later if it's a comedy sketch show but you've got some of the main scenes going on the battle scenes and the zulus are approaching and you start to notice that half of them are white guys and it's embarrassingly bad and they're not going to be able to do it but they're not going to
And then you've got the ranks of the redcoats.
And who is playing the Michael Caine role of Lieutenant Bromhead?
Oh, it's got to be Idris Elba.
Very close.
He was my second choice.
Stormzy.
Of course.
Perfect, isn't it?
The only problem with that is that Stormzy won't appear in our sketch because he's too woke.
Yeah, we'll have to cross that bridge when we get to it.
But what, you think you could get Idris?
Well, I was quite nice about his TV series.
Right.
His comedy series about him when he plays a DJ. All right.
And I did almost go and see him DJing in Glastonbury.
Idris would work to a point, but you've got to come to the scene when they're singing Men of Harlem.
Because it's done as a rap.
Of course it is.
As a grime rap.
Well, it sounds a bit like Hamilton.
Do you think it'd be that bad?
No, I love Hamilton.
Do you?
Yeah, it's really good.
The tunes are great.
The old Carmen What's-His-Face is, you know, I haven't researched this, so I can't remember his name.
No, but I'd love to go and see that show.
I really would.
Totally.
Right.
Well, I suppose I'd be in it for the costume.
Anyway, look, these projects are going to happen, and I think not least when the special friend gets his or her together, this will happen.
Ask me who's playing Chetwayo, who wasn't actually at the Battle of Rourke's Drift.
Was he not?
No, he disapproved of the whole thing.
He didn't want it to happen.
I've been reading up on it.
Anyway, guess who's playing him?
We've already mentioned her.
Um...
Have we?
Miley Cyrus.
Oh no!
How perfect is that?
Oh my god, that's just genius casting.
Yep.
Well done.
Yeah.
Okay.
So that's, you dealt with that one.
So that's Drift.
Yeah, Drift.
It's up there for grabs.
All I ask for is a credit if someone else makes it before me, but...
You heard it here first.
Yeah, I think that's good.
I do think there's room for a TV channel that does this because Netflix isn't really doing it.
I mean, I like Netflix up to a point, although I think some of its product is starting to become a bit generic.
Some of their movies are a bit kind of made of TV. There's so many of them that, you know, you can just ignore the ones.
Yes, but there's not enough life to, you know, life piled on life or all too little.
I'd rather fewer things on the planner for me to watch, because I don't watch any live TV. I watch whatever is put in front of me that's been recorded.
And just catching up on the things that are worth watching is tough enough.
Well, not least because there's a new sodding series, sorry, a new bleeping series of our favourite.
Stranger Things?
No, no, no.
Are you watching that?
Yeah, I watched one episode the other day.
I like the mall scene.
I mentioned this on my podcast with Toby.
No.
I love the loving recreation of JCPenney and Gap and all these shops.
The fact that they'd have to be lovingly recreated is very near memory for me.
Well, I know, but you think somebody in the whatever department is responsible for running up clothes that look like they're new when the fact they're old...
You know, they created racks of T-shirts and stuff, of early 80s T-shirts.
It's great.
I'm not sure about the plot yet.
I don't know whether...
You were talking about Gamora, though, aren't you?
I was talking about Gamora.
There is a new series of Gamora.
There is.
Gamora is excellent.
I mean, I had to force myself to watch it at first, but, dear listener, it is worth persevering.
Gamora is so good.
It kicks butt.
So, are we going to do one more thing before I do, or should we go and have I do?
Well, I could just mention the other thing on my list, which was, every time I do a podcast with you now and mention my fantastic cigarette cards...
Which, oh my god, Dick, that's...
I feel ashamed.
How so?
The last time you came, you gave me one of your cigarette-mounted displays.
Mounted and framed.
The top-of-the-range premium offering.
And it's beautiful.
I'm looking at it now, and they are totally fantastic.
I brought some hooks for you to hang that, by the way.
But I didn't promote it.
No, you can, you can, you've got plenty of time to wave it in front of you.
I'm going to promote the F out of it.
Well, no, but last time I had a flurry of orders from people who had gone, oh, I better have a look at Dick's fantastic website, delingpolstudio.com.
What is it?
.co.uk?
Probably.
They can just, they can try and keep trying to label the right combination.
There can't be that many delingpolstudios.
No.
It's just, I've got so many websites of other things going with the.uk and all sorts of other stuff.
Are you still selling it for stupid?
No, no, I, I, As a special offer, I've been putting the price up.
Well, bloody right.
People have barely batted an eyelid at it.
They don't.
People will pay for quality.
Well, it is quality.
I was doing myself a disservice with the previous price.
What's more, people actually sometimes get put off if things are too cheap.
They think, I'm not cheap like that.
No.
So, well done.
But the full set of cigarette cards is now £12, which is just chips, really, isn't it?
It is chips, yeah.
But, yeah, go and have a look at them.
There's more being added all the time, and I'm particularly proud of them.
Do you think we...
Should we do...
Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt you.
No, no, that's it.
That was the pitch.
Do you think we should do a few of the podcasts?
Well, I'd like to cover off what I've got written down as number 15 of the podcasts, and we can just talk about that one, which happens to be the Brendan O'Neill podcast live thing.
Because I don't think we've done a pod together since that happened.
And that was the longest ago one.
That was a lifetime ago.
It was a lifetime ago, but what a brilliant day that was.
I mean, it was a great show you put on.
I got to do Yes No in front of Brendan.
We're doing another one, by the way.
What, another Brendan or another podcast live?
Another podcast live.
It was a great concept.
It worked really well.
The audience were really up for it.
You're definitely coming back for the new one.
You might even be the star guest.
I don't know.
Well, I'll tell you what.
Brendan, at the end of it, in the green room, and my friend Simon came along.
And you had to go off and do another show.
And Brendan was going, anyone want to come for a beer?
And I was like, well, we've got to go and see James' other show.
We failed to get into yours.
And then Simon and I found Brendan pretty much about to leave.
And we went, Brendan, do you want that beer?
Yeah.
He went, yeah, sure.
So the three of us went off to a pub near Euston, found a great little pub, and we had a beer with Brendan O'Neill, and it was the best ever.
It was just the two of us with, I mean, Brendan is a hero, whatever way you look at it, but he is a genuinely chilled out person to have a beer with, and it was absolutely fantastic.
Brendan is brilliant, and I envy you having had that, because actually Brendan was saying to me, When are we going to have a pint together?
Because it was in a Quaker place.
It was at the friend's headquarters, whatever it's called.
So it was a little bit alcohol-free.
So there wasn't even wine in the green room.
It was just tea or coffee.
So to go out and find the pub, obviously quite important.
To be fair.
Absolutely brilliant.
To be fair, you are a better person to go for a pint with Brendan, because you probably have had two or three hours.
A, I was driving, and B, I'm still, although we're going to go for a gin shortly, I'm still on this, more or less on this no alcohol thing.
Yeah, I was a bit worried about that coming down to see you.
It's so boring.
It is so boring.
And yet, you know, necessary.
Because I definitely do get a reaction.
I pay a price, which is a shame.
Right.
So, that was a good one.
Just a few more.
Okay, the next one up was Ben Cobley, who'd written the book The Tribe.
His book is very, very good.
Now, he was interesting because he's not a righty.
He's more of a lefty, isn't he?
He is...
Do you know what?
I feel with Ben that he is a bit like a gay person who doesn't know he's gay yet.
Right.
And so he doesn't speak the language of gay.
Yeah.
To continue this metaphor.
To torture this metaphor.
To torture this metaphor.
So basically, I think, like a lot of people who've been on the left and then seen the right, seen the light, Stop making...
My phone's just...
It was interfering then.
Mobile phone.
I hate the way they do that.
Ben was...
He understands that this whole identity politics thing is absolutely toxic and it's poisoning academe and it's poisoning the media and it's poisoning everything.
But he hasn't quite got over the...
He hasn't got quite to be on the stage where...
Which Nick Cohen always does.
Where, yeah, even though the left's right, the right is just as bad.
You know, capitalism is just as bad and...
They'll never quite come up with examples though, will they?
It's all my feels, isn't it?
Yeah, it is all my feels.
As soon as they encounter the facts, it's all a bit different.
I would recommend Ben's book though, The Tribe.
It's a bit of a Cambridge book.
Not many laughs.
I think the difference between Oxford and Cambridge, one of them anyways, is we're a bit more, they're roundheads and we're cavaliers.
And Ben's definitely a roundhead.
Another one?
Yeah.
Andrew Doyle was next up, aka Titania McGrath.
Well, you see, I love that.
On so many levels.
The thing about that was that you didn't just talk about Titania McGrath.
It was more about Andrew, who is an interesting chap in his own right.
So...
I think Andrew was quite pleased about that as well.
I think sometimes people don't want to be asked all the time about their comic creation.
They want to be recognized as fully rounded human beings.
And I think probably...
I'm probably the first and the last interviewer to talk to him about the meaning of Shakespeare's sonnets, which is what his special subject was when he did his doctorate at Oxford.
But it was nice to be able to talk about that.
No, he was clearly happy with it.
He was almost sort of like, are you sure you don't want to be talking back to time?
No, it's good.
We like him.
Talented boy.
Very bright.
Next up was your old countryside friend, Mike Daunt.
Mike Daunt, or the fat old C as I call him.
I seem to have spelt countryside wrong.
The thing about Mike, there was a terrible moment at the end where it all went wrong.
It did go wrong on the climate change question.
It all went wrong.
But you see, Mike, he admitted to me in the car after I was on the way to the pub.
He said...
I really don't know much about the subject of climate change.
I just follow what my children tell me.
And I said, well, why didn't you effing well say that on the podcast rather than pretending like you knew what you were talking about, Mike?
We really must do something about climate change.
Honestly, James, it's a really bad thing.
It's a problem.
We've got to sort it out.
Oh, listen, you don't know the half of it.
We had to cut out a whole chunk because I just lost it.
And I would have looked like somebody who hadn't...
Yeah, it was awful.
It was embarrassing.
And we love each other so much.
I really like my older friends.
Just one of the great things in life is going outside your age range.
I mean, for friendships.
No, I massively go outside my age range.
I was thinking Jeffrey Epstein.
I was thinking...
Yeah.
The other way.
Yeah, yeah.
It's great because like these people, older people, people in their ages, they feel the same age as we do, which is 20 pretty much.
Yeah.
Right.
I try to tell my younger friends that, mostly the people I work with, that you don't realize.
You see an old man.
I do not.
I am still the same age as you lot, which is sometimes problematic.
The other thing I try and explain to people that it's quite hard is don't be bloody overawed by me.
Don't be impressed by me.
Just talk to me like I'm...
It's quite a hard thing to do, I think, with people that are older than you, you think are more famous than you and stuff.
But anyway, yeah.
No, no, I get that.
Well, obviously not personally, but...
Next up was David Isles.
David Isles.
He was a wildcard.
David Isles had written a brilliant essay and then drove all the way up from Cornwall to come and see me and talk about his thesis, which is a very sound thesis.
Which was a scramble for the centre-left.
Yeah.
He anatomised, I think, what has been the main problem with the Conservative Party and the main frustration for those of us who've seen it, all its conservatism being removed.
And he talked about the fallacy which has prevailed among conservative thinkers, alleged conservative thinkers, which is that Elections are won in the centre ground, which might have worked a while back, but doesn't anymore.
We've now become very polarised.
And the Conservatives have gone for the...
In trying to win over the kind of the left, have ended up drifting further and further left and completely ignored their natural constituency.
Yeah.
Even now, even with the leadership contest, there's some crazy thing where all they had to do was impress Conservative members.
And that's actual members of the party, not just Conservatives.
And yet they're doing these ridiculous TV interviews in which they seem to be trying to appeal to Labour voters.
Well, that's largely because I think that's the TV's fault.
Yeah, and why do they play that game?
I mean, even Boris fell into it occasionally.
Because still, lots of people, not everyone's sophisticated, us and our special friend.
Our special friend has pretty much given up watching the BBC. Don't touch Channel 4 or Sky with a barge pole.
But most people in the public eye, people like Boris, people like Jacob Rees-Mogg, they still think that the mainstream media counts.
And so they feel that they have to obey its...
Well, they can't help it.
The BBC... Somebody had a good theory about this on the BBC the other day.
They said...
One of the reasons that the BBC goes on getting the licence fee, despite being so nauseating and evil and completely left bias, is that it makes a big deal about flattering the egos of MPs of all persuasions.
And Conservative MPs, even though they might be of our mind on the BBC's politics, get seduced by that.
Oh, you're so interesting.
Let's have you on question time and any questions and let's have you on daily politics or whatever the modern equivalent that I don't watch is.
And so they feel, oh, I'm jolly important and the BBC is all over me, therefore I won't demand that the licence fee be abolished.
But you do hear that even massive podcasters, you know, of the sort of level of, what's his name?
Thingy.
Thingy who lives in Brighton.
What?
Skanky Shagger?
Skanky Shagger?
The man with the...
Comedian.
I can't...
With dreadlocks.
The name has just gone.
XX Junkie.
What's he called?
Brussel Brand?
No, the one who...
This is ridiculous.
It's the Alzheimer's show.
It's the Alzheimer's show.
You know what?
I think it's what you'll...
Who's got the biggest podcast in the world?
Well, apart from me.
Hmm.
I don't know.
I can't even think of his name.
Anyway, he does video game type stuff, but he's massive.
But even the likes of him...
Oh, he lives...
I think he's Danish.
Who are we talking about?
PewDiePie.
PewDiePie, yeah.
I think he lives in Brighton.
Does he really?
Yeah.
Why?
If you had loads of money, why would you live in Brighton?
I can't, even if I had no money.
You'd live in the Cotswolds, wouldn't you?
Yeah, but anyway, even the likes of PewDiePie are...
Vajazzled by BBC. Are they?
They've got a much greater audience than any of these BBC channels.
And yet, the idea...
Oh, BBC though.
Paul Joseph Watson isn't.
No, no.
But he is the exception that proves the rule.
Right.
All the others are...
They'll...
I won't do it now, Dick.
I won't do it.
And it wasn't because I was taken up the arse by Andrew Neil on that show.
This predates that.
I just think the BBC is evil.
Do you know what?
It's a bit like...
It's a bit like going to one of Jeffrey Epstein's parties and saying, look, I'm not going to sleep with underage girls.
I'm going to make sure they're over 18.
You know, even if you only do shows that...
I was thinking about my friend Tom Holland about this.
Tom Holland does a history show on the BBC and I was listening to him the other day and I was thinking, I love Tom and you're a great historian, Tom, and you're a real talent.
But actually, it's still the BBC. Or their cake programme.
What's it called?
Cake Watch.
The Great British Bake Off.
Or whatever the equivalent is now.
Yeah, it's nice.
But this is bread and circuses to disguise the evil of the BBC. It's all bread and circuses.
Everything they give us.
I mean, the older I get, the more I realise that.
It's...
It's more and more cynical.
It's like heroin outside the school gates.
It's like saying, we're okay, really.
And you're not...
They're not okay.
No.
No.
And the nature programmes.
That's another...
But they're not even...
They didn't even pretend to be okay.
No, but they've got great photography, haven't they?
The stereotype eco-fascist Chris Packham.
But you speak to...
Normal people, the norms.
Yeah.
They will still say, oh, but the BBC's nature documentaries are such beautiful photography.
We need to reach these people.
Did you see that pod of whales and the sea?
And I say, no, I didn't because I don't watch it.
Did you say, I know not of your pod.
Seek the big blue.
Because that's what I'd have said.
And 0.1% of your listeners would know the reference.
I like to think 0.01 actually.
And that's the kind of reference I like to make.
But that 0.01 person is really lapping it up right now.
Yeah, exactly.
Should we have that gin?
Yeah, let's do that gin.
And then we can jump back into this.
Okay, great.
So special friend, you're going to be listening.
I'm going to put it on pause.
You're messing around with the very fabric of time.
I am, aren't I? Yeah.
I'm breaking the fourth wall.
Yeah, okay.
So...
That's gone straight to my head, that stuff.
No, I'm alright.
That's because you've been depriving yourself of it.
But what was a teacup, dear listener, is now half a glass of gin and tonic, which is very, very much an upgrade.
By the way, this gin is really good.
Fisher's gin.
Yeah.
I think...
Was this the stuff we were given for our Christmas podcast?
No, you had that.
Anyway, it's very, very good.
Alright.
You know where we got to?
No.
After David Isles?
No.
Gerard Batten.
Gerard Batten.
What a lot of water has gone under the bridge since that.
I was very glad that I got Gerard because I knew when I was doing the podcast with him, I sensed doom for UKIP. He was sort of saying, Brexit party, flash in the pan.
And I was thinking, oh mate, it's not going to be like that.
Mm-hmm.
But there it is, yeah.
Well, you know, he couldn't say otherwise.
He's a decent sort.
A very decent sort.
I think his problem is that his own decency is his undoing because, you know, in supporting Tommy and Sargon, he's essentially pissed on his chips as far as the party goes.
Can I first apologise for that interruption?
That was because the batteries died in my H5 handy recorder Zoom.
And, well, that's what happened.
By the way, can I apologise to the nice man in Ireland?
Because there has been more swearing.
You actually used the phrase on chips.
Is that bad swearing?
No, no.
Maybe not.
Maybe not.
No.
I don't think that's bad.
If we cut ourselves off at that, we can't even say Nazis.
Nazis, yeah.
Oops.
Oops.
Yeah, right.
Gerard Batten, anyway.
Yeah.
Yeah, he's a good man and I think it's a shame because now UKIP are effectively cutting him off from being able to stand in the next election, so I hear.
And, you know, that's it.
It's probably over for them as a party.
People say to me, some people say to me, look, it's a bad look for you to stick up for Tommy Robinson and say I'm kind of the UKIP of podcasters.
But I think my job is to be, to tell it like it is, without fear or favour.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
No, I realise that it's probably, I don't know, do you think it's made you more friends than enemies doing that?
Because I know there's a lot of people out there who say, actually, who really admire you for your stand on that.
It's effectively just doing what's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And isn't everyone a bloody expert on law at the moment?
Oh, what are you thinking about?
I'm thinking about Tommy being sent down again.
Suddenly everyone is an expert on the legal system.
And why he had to go down because he broke the law.
Yeah, right.
So, yeah, that's Tommy and Gerard.
Next up was Harry Miller, ex-police and anti-PC crusader at the moment.
Yeah, now, I wonder how...
I hope we've got lots of police listeners, and I imagine those that are police who listen to us are police.
I'm nauseated by what's happened to the police force, as it used to be known.
It's probably called a police service now.
I don't think you can call it force.
The force is a bit strong, isn't it?
Yeah.
That implies they might upset people.
I want to return to life on Mars policing.
As I think most of us do.
Well, I have police friends in the reenactment world, and I don't know any of them who love the situation.
Nearly all of them have been counting down the days until they get out.
And they've got great stories to tell of...
When times were good in the police service, force, whatever.
When you could actually arrest criminals and stuff rather than policing the people's internet for hurtie words.
Yeah, and the shenanigans and the fun and the...
Yeah, but...
They hate it.
And the new intake are woke as anything.
Woke as F. Yeah, as F. And just, it's doomed.
It's doomed like the universities, like academia.
This is why...
Talking about the coming Boris Johnson prime ministership, I hope that this is going to be the turning point.
I hope that we've reached the watershed in woke politics, and I hope we're going to have a Trumpian revolution.
And I do hear...
I do hear on the grapevine, good things.
I mean, obviously, this is wishful thinking on the part of things like the European Research Group, the sound wing of the Conservative Party.
But Boris, for all his faults, and we know the main one, which is his desperate desire to be liked, Boris does at least get the liberty thing.
He doesn't like the nanny state.
And I think if he can roll back the nanny state, that would be a jolly good thing.
Well, we know that he is the only one that holds out any hope of saving the party, because if Hunt gets in, which is ridiculous, it absolutely won't happen, but they are definitely finished.
But Boris might just save them.
I'm possibly on the more pessimistic side, if you want to see it, in the Conservative Party's viewpoint.
I think Brexit Party are going to...
I think that's probably what's going to happen.
I think it has to happen.
I'm sure I've said this before, but if we are in a situation where the Brexit party has to rescue the country, that means there's going to be an awful interim period in which we have Jeremy Corbyn and...
I don't think they'll let that happen.
No, exactly.
I think there is a realisation among the conservative people Establishment, if you want to call it that.
The people who contribute to the economy, people who don't just sponge off the state, people with nice houses in the country, people who love Britain, they're not going to tolerate the possibility that a sort of Venezuela-type Marxist regime takes over Britain.
And therefore, they're going to swallow their pride.
And they're going to say, okay, we'll do whatever is necessary.
So self-preservation will...
The deals will be struck.
The deals will be struck.
Have we covered that one?
Yep.
Next up was two podcasts.
See ya.
Your friend, Ronan Connolly.
Who was incredibly Irish.
He was.
Honestly, I was looking for subtitles at one point, but it was as Irish as it gets.
We love Ronan.
Very, very...
He's a great character.
He's an independent scientist.
We like independent scientists because they're not beholden to the man.
So that was all on the whole...
Again, someone technically from the left...
Renan would not consider himself a man of the right, certainly, and he is seen through the...
But another one who has got views that are associated with the right, so he finds himself questioning his allegiances, which was quite interesting.
Bella Debrera.
Bella Debrera.
My notes here say, Sound Australian Institute of Public Affairs.
Yeah.
And also, I'm going to be going to Australia next year.
I think.
Guest of the IPA. Great news for you.
Whoop-de-doo.
Australian needs me.
Hello, Aussies.
Hello.
I'm coming.
Not that kind of coming.
Oh, stop this.
Now...
Moving swiftly on, James Holland, War, Tanks, History.
Apart from a brief moment where you were talking at cross-purposes over two different books.
Yes, he was talking about Ken Tout, and I still haven't read Ken Tout's Tank book.
We were talking about Tank Action, which is written by...
Well, it was...
What was the guy's name?
Tank Action.
Again, the name is gone, because...
Anyway, I've yet to read the other one, but Tank Action...
By the way, by the way, Dick, James Holland's book, Normandy 44, I think it's called, is very, very good.
I'm just coming to the end of it.
It's a doorstopper of a book, but it's fascinating insight into...
Well, the...
The history of Normandy, which you haven't really had before.
It talks about it in terms of the build-up of the materiel necessary to win.
How was it we defeated the Germans?
It explodes a lot of myths.
We have this idea that we were fighting these fanatical SS. Which is true in some cases.
There were some SS units, which were, you know, Das Reich, for example, who were just absolute bastards and burned the entire village of Orador.
Who were delayed in getting their tanks over to the front because of actions from the Maquis.
Well, that's why they burned that village.
But they also massacred a number of Canadian prisoners.
They were very nasty.
But they were probably the exception rather than the rule.
By that stage, the German army was in pretty dire shape.
A lot of old men and boys.
It was inevitable that we were going to beat them.
But the point that James makes is that if you are a totalitarian nation, where the whole country is militarised, you can tolerate a level of casualties, and the Russians were the same, the Soviets were the same, Which free nations made up of citizen soldiers that they won't tolerate.
So all this talk about how we were too cautious.
No, we weren't too cautious.
We were just trying to preserve the lives of our men and using the weight of our materiel, the fact that we could constantly produce Shermans when the Germans could not produce so many Tigers and Panthers and Mark IVs and so on.
Anyway, well worth reading that book.
Obviously, I could listen to any of your war-y history-type friends endlessly, so that was a great treat.
Next up was Kurt Zindulker.
Kurt.
Lovely Kurt.
A bit of a wild card, that one.
Well, we like the wild cards.
No, wild cards are good because they mix things up.
Kurt's doing very well.
Public Occurrences, his video channel, I think is going from strength to strength.
One of the things I like about this new world, one of the few things I like about this new world, is the disintermediation which enables citizen journalists to appear and you no longer need to work for the BBC to get your...
Get your news out there.
He's just a guy with a cameraman who goes out there and films stuff and reports on the news like proper journalists should.
Did he come over here?
Did he do that in London?
He came here.
Which finally brings us up to the one I think is possibly the best of all, which was Matt Ridley.
Which I only listened to yesterday, and it was absolutely brilliant.
Do you know what?
Talking about, we've had a request for people who I've asked onto the podcast who won't do it, The List of Shame.
And actually, Matt Ridley was on The List of Shame.
Matt can be very grand sometimes.
He's a lord.
It's what comes of being a lord and what comes of being from a landed family.
I mean, he doesn't need to work.
I have great respect for people who don't need to work and who do anyway.
He's had a tremendous career, despite being from this northern coal mine-owning family.
Right, that's what he mentioned about his stake in coal.
Anyway, I remember asking him onto the podcast, he said, I don't want to do podcasts.
Why would I want to do that?
What's in it for me?
He couldn't be asked, basically.
And this time he said yes, and I was so glad he did, because he was delightful.
He was really sort of...
It just sounded like you couldn't disbelieve a word he was saying.
To the point where I have passed this one on to friends at work saying, look, you know I've got these, what you consider to be crazy views on climate change.
You've got me down as a climate denier and you don't understand why and we tend not to talk about it because it's difficult and you don't want to upset me.
But can I just get you to listen to this podcast?
Because it encapsulates very well My side of the argument.
And they've promised to listen without prejudice and to actually take in.
And I think it's a really good one to pass on to your friends who you have avoided the subject of climate change with because it's very, very difficult to say why it is that you're a climate sceptic.
And this is climate scepticism 101.
It's the basics.
Well, the thing about Matt...
Matt and I, is that we're proper naturalists and proper environmentalists.
We're genuinely interested in things like puffins.
The puffin is one of the poster children of the climate change loons.
They say that puffin populations are...
Are diminishing because of climate change.
And it's complete rubbish.
Well, and he's got that answer, hasn't he?
If it is a problem, how come the ones to the south are thriving and the ones to the north are the ones that are suffering?
Or the way around?
I actually made Matt envious by describing my trip to St Kilda, where I was desperate to see a puffin.
I mean, I went to Lundy Island many, many years ago when the kids were very small.
With nary a puffin.
With nary a puffin, because they've all been eaten by rats, which have now been eradicated on Lundy Island.
So the rats eat the eggs, obviously, and now there are no longer any rats to eat the eggs, I imagine there are many more puffins on Lundy.
But we went up to St Kilda, which is an epic, epic journey.
I mean, it's about as far west as you can go in the British Isles.
And no longer inhabited?
No.
Well, there's an American radar station, a British radar station there, so sparsely populated.
But yeah, you're right.
The people who used to live in the village, they've all gone.
They were evacuated.
Because we've got...
The Ossian album, St Kilda Wedding.
Yes.
Which is all about the last wedding to have taken place while there was still a hardy population on St Kilda.
Is that Give Me a Last for the Love of Land?
I think it's on that one, yeah.
Now we're revealing our secret love of folk.
Yeah, I know.
Our secret love of folk.
It'll be Aaron Jumpers and Fingers in the Ears.
Nothing wrong with that.
I still haven't been to crop-ready...
Festival.
That would be a good one, wouldn't it?
It would be very good.
I like a bit of...
I like the theme tune to Gentleman Jack.
BBC... BBC... Lesbian...
Yeah, we see that thing.
It's about a 19th century lesbian landowner.
And, you know, you're supposed to go, isn't it amazing?
She's a lesbian.
Oh, wow.
And, you know, I think...
I don't think it was aimed at you.
No, but nice theme tune.
Right.
Done by these lesbians.
Oh, folk lesbian.
Folk lesbian, yeah.
So, are we there?
We're there with the reviews, because that brings us bang up to date, although I don't know who you'll have in between recording this and whether this is going to go out next Thursday or what.
A very nice gentleman called Rex came round earlier today.
Have you been seeing other people?
Rex is an atmospheric physicist who's worked in the world of meteorology and had come to tell me that anthropogenic carbon dioxide theory is rubbish.
And, yeah, he'd come over to conferences, was so desperate to meet me that he actually took a cab all the way from London.
What?
I know, I know.
Think of the carbon footprint on that.
Oh, yeah, I know.
Well, he didn't care about the carbon footprint because he knows it's rubbish.
And so he'll be on the podcast, probably the one after this one.
All right.
Okay, so I'm thinking I've got a special thing going on next week, and this will in no way be able to publicize that, even if it came out on the day of it, but it won't.
My libertarian drinks.
Your libertarian drinks?
I'm almost thinking that it needs a little theme tune.
Libertarian drinks.
Something like that.
Yeah.
Libertarian drinks.
Needs work.
I think it does need work, yeah.
So I decided that I was fed up of the people I drink with every Wednesday.
Yeah.
And I wanted...
I wanted the sort of people who listen to this show to be drinking with me and the sort of people I communicate with on Twitter every day.
Basically, what I did was invite everyone I know on Twitter to come have a drink with me, which is a stupid idea, but it really worked.
And I've already had the first one.
And I had to work at it.
I had to, because libertarians are notoriously difficult to pin down.
So I wanted it to be in my hometown of Worcester.
I've been to one of these do's in London, which is great, where I met a lot of people who I'd only ever seen digitally.
People like Obnoxio the Clown, Ban the BBC, organised by Andrea Urban Fox.
That's her Twitter handle.
And it was down in Clerkenwell, and it was a lovely summer evening, and we were all outside drinking and just...
Looking round at each other thinking, wow, this is great.
These are all instant friends who I feel I know so well already.
Gaz the journo.
So many good characters.
And I've been thinking, how good would it be to have a Midlands version?
Yeah.
And so I put the message out, and people responded.
They DM'd me.
I didn't necessarily want to announce a pub saying, everyone come here if you fancy it, because I didn't want the idea that there'd be trolls and ne'er-do-wells, which I don't think I need have worried about, because I had it in a Spoons.
I had it in Worcester's local Wetherspoon.
There are two, but I had it in the postal order.
And what I did was I printed out little badges for people with their Twitter avatar on.
Oh, dear.
How sweet is that?
That is so sweet.
If I'm talking to someone who I've only known by their Twitter handle and I don't know their real name, I know them as whatever they are.
Yeah.
Slender Man, for instance.
You know, it's sort of like his name might be George, it might be Bob, what have you.
You know, I know him by the picture, by his avatar, and I know him by his Twitter name.
stick that on him and other people go oh you're so and so so special guest was fen beagle who happened to be in the area because he he was going to the safari park to do some sketches of animals and he came along and i met him before and he's a lovely lovely chap and um so that was a big bonus the fact that i knew at least one of them But they all started coming out of the woodwork.
I arrived there at seven, which is when it started, and there were all these grinning faces.
And in no time at all, we had 17 people around a table.
We kept having to add more tables.
And it was a mixture of ages, a mixture of genders.
Well, both genders were represented.
And it was very, very good.
I'm amazed you got that turnout for Worcester.
Yeah, for Worcester.
I mean, a lot of people had come from, you know, far and wide, you know, Coventry, Stratford, that sort of...
Extraordinary.
Yeah.
But...
I will come to Wondek one day.
It was just great.
And you don't need to sort of hesitate before you say something positive about Trump, for instance.
You can just go straight on in there.
He is our God.
And, you know, so many of the things that you assume with people you've just met, like you have to pussyfoot around your radical views.
But this lot, no, everyone was already there.
You said Ein Reich und Führer and everyone was saluting.
Everyone cheered.
Fantastic.
And it being in Spoons, your friend Mr.
Tim.
Yep.
And they did us proud.
And for the next session, which will have already happened by the time dear listeners are listening to this, they've got us a little alcove to have to ourselves.
So long may it last.
It was a really good night out with great company.
And if you're listening and fancy popping along, it's going to regularly be...
Third Wednesday of the month at the Postal Order in Worcester.
Right.
So just come along.
Introduce yourself.
You don't need a badge.
So Antifa, you know where to go.
Yeah, but Antifa and a Wetherspoons, I can't see it.
I wouldn't put anything past them.
No.
We'll deal with it.
Do you think it's time, Dick, for the...
For the yes-no game.
Well, I think there'd be trouble if we didn't have it.
It was either a yes or a no.
Well, this yes-no was supplied out of the blue by...
Our friend, Jason, who is your sound man.
Sound in both senses of the word.
Sound in many ways.
And I didn't know who he was when he got in touch, but it's a list I could have written myself.
Oh, fantastic.
He absolutely has nailed how this thing works.
So see what you think of these bad boys and girls.
Boris.
Yes.
Piers Morgan.
No, I don't think so.
John Cleese?
Yes, surprisingly.
Eric Idle?
No, surprisingly.
It's the whole Python thing.
Tom Watson?
Oh, no.
Michael Ebenezer Kwajo Omari Uruwo Jr.?
I think I made some clues.
Stormzy.
No.
That's his real name.
Although, weirdly enough, weirdly enough, boy, at Glastonbury, just to revert for a moment, I had to leave Glastonbury for a day to go up to daughter's prom, her high school prom, as we call it over here.
We have to call them, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And...
So I missed out on Stormzy and Boy felt rather about Stormzy as I did about Miley Cyrus.
Because he can let all that nonsense about the Labour politics and stuff wash over his head.
Is it a good show or not?
And he thought that Stormzy rose to the occasion.
Well, maybe they'll get on well when they make Drift together.
Yeah.
That'd be fantastic.
I love the fact that Michael Ebenezer Kwajawamari Uro has Junior at the end of his name, just in case he's confused with all the other ones.
Delia Smith.
Oh, I've used her recipes a lot.
I don't know the answer to this one.
I don't know.
I mean, the question is, is she woke?
Do you know what?
I think that's the toughest yes-no question there's ever been.
What does your gut say?
Um...
I like her recipe for corned beef hash.
That's a cop-out though, isn't it?
Is that a yes because of her corned beef hash?
I suppose yes.
Okay.
Steve Coogan?
I'm guessing a no.
I think he probably is.
Andrew Neil.
Yes.
I like the fact that you still like Andrew Neil, even though he gave you all...
Even though he had my arse.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I'm that kind of person, Dick.
I'm a bigger man.
Yeah.
Elizabeth Hurley.
Yes.
Apparently she's an out Brexiteer.
Oh, yes, yes.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Hugh Grant, inevitably.
No.
He was a fan of yours for a while, wasn't he?
He was.
Do you know what?
That's an indication of just how Brexit Britain has kind of created these divisions where none existed before.
That's my one sadness, that there was a time when Hugh Grant would have been on side.
Maybe he will come back.
Maybe he'll red pill one day.
Maybe Elizabeth will.
No, because it isn't just Brexit.
It's also the whole Levson thing and his whole anti-freedom of speech stuff.
Of course, yeah.
Michael Caine.
Yes.
That one's easy.
Ian Botham.
Yes.
Also easy.
Jeremy Clarkson.
You know, I'm going to say no.
Yeah.
You know what?
He should be a yes, yes, yes.
He's a cuck.
Yeah.
He's an absolute cuck.
And I think it's all the more inexcusable that he's a cuck, given this persona he has of this guy who likes to drive his car fast.
Clarkson on a tractor.
Yeah, yeah.
Countryside Clarkson.
He's liberal elite.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's a string of Jeremy's here, because after you had Jeremy Clarkson, there's Jeremy Hunt.
Just a groan.
Yeah, exactly.
There's Jeremy Corbyn.
This is where Jason understands that there's little themes that kick in with it.
And Jeremy Kyle, who was more topical a month ago than he is now.
He is, yeah, but we like Jeremy Kyle, I think.
I hope he doesn't top himself or anything.
I don't think so.
Where's he going to go?
Oh, come on.
He's got talent.
He'll move on.
He'll come up with something.
He'll probably look back and say it's the best thing that ever happened to him.
Yeah, but he had this vehicle there, didn't he?
Yeah, but get a new one.
Right.
Like Jeremy Clarkson, he'd get himself a tractor.
Yeah, right.
Tim Henman.
Oh, I don't know.
There's a few sporty ones coming up here.
Okay.
Yeah, because it's topical.
Well, probably, yeah.
Andy Murray.
Oh...
I think a bit of a gnat, isn't he?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We'll say yes.
All right.
He's very big of you.
I'm obviously feeling generous with the gin.
Rafa Nadal.
I like him, yes.
I just don't know these people.
I think there's a tennis theme emerging here.
Roger Federer.
I love...
I saw him.
Yeah.
I saw...
You went to Wimbledon, didn't you, with your boy?
I won my lottery ticket, you know, the way you get...
you apply for...
That's how it works.
Yeah.
If you're a member of a tennis club, you get to apply, and randomly they allocate you tickets.
And we got caught one, and I saw Roger Federer.
I saw...
Venus, no, Serena Williams.
I saw...
and some other tennis players.
Yeah.
Oh, and?
And?
And Megan.
Megan turned up.
Megan.
The ghastly Megan.
Yeah.
Somebody tweeted to the person, or somebody messaged the person sitting next to her saying, oh, I think Megan's appeared.
Right.
And, and, boy, he spotted her.
I didn't.
But obviously, if we tried to take photographs, we'd have been shot.
Yeah.
Not that I would have tried to take photographs.
Megan.
Megan.
Yeah.
Cricket as a sport.
Yes.
You've just discovered cricket, haven't you?
I just think this is an appalling thing.
Dick, I went to Edgbaston.
That was another thing.
I had my week of sport.
On the Tuesday, I went to see India versus Bangladesh at Edgbaston.
Right.
Great atmosphere.
Lovely people.
Just really...
He was surrounded by either Bangladesh or India.
There was no...
There was no tension.
And it was...
I hate to sound like I'm woke, which I'm...
Which I don't think I am, actually.
I don't think anyone...
But it was quite fun being about the only white people there.
Right.
And just like it felt like going abroad and...
During the Raj.
Yeah.
Yeah, but I didn't have a punker wall or I didn't have an elephant with a howder on top to...
Not for lack of trying, I bet.
Yeah.
Do you know what?
I think the vibe was so good they wouldn't have minded.
If I'd turned up in a pith helmet with my tiger shooting rifle, they wouldn't have battered an eyelid.
They'd have probably applauded me.
Because you know what?
Indians and Bangladeshis don't go for that PC nonsense.
They don't.
It's part of the world that PC has escaped.
You know what?
I get very positive comments from Indians and Bangladeshis and Pakistanis about my moustache.
I get a lot of admiration because a lot of them have said, back home, that's what we would be growing.
But over here, to try and blend in, we tend not to because it's too overtly our own culture.
Certainly.
When you meet officers in the Indian and Pakistani armies, they all have moustaches like you.
Big, proud moustaches.
Yeah, they do.
So, obviously, I take it very well.
It's nice.
The sport of football.
No.
I don't ever want you to go down that road.
Tell me about this.
I got taken to a football match once, and I think it was a local derby.
It was like Cheltenham versus Kidderminster or something awful like that.
And I was assured that this would convert me.
This would make me love football.
And I've never been so bored in my life.
Was it women's football?
No, well, it might as well have been.
No one scored any goals or anything.
It was just ghastly.
I'm What about this thing about this promotion of women's football?
Well, listen, we'll come on to that because we're very nearly finished with this list, but there's a nice segue, so I don't want to ruin it.
Don't ruin the segue.
Because the final name on this list, well, actually, let's do the penultimate one first.
Kim Doruk.
Oh, no.
Sir Kim Durham.
But he's still a no, even with his knighthood.
And the final one, Megan Rapinoe.
Do you know who Megan Rapinoe is?
I imagine that she...
I'm guessing she probably plays girls football.
Girly football, yeah.
Which team?
Well, it would be either America or...
It's that American World Cup winning team.
She's the...
The team that got beaten by the Dallas Under-15 boys.
That's the one.
The very same.
That's the one.
So how exciting must that match have been?
Well...
She's really all over the media at the moment.
She's, you know, she's got the looks.
She's got this sort of lesbian chic sort of look and she's got a very toned body and she is vulgar and brash and...
Right, so it's like Miley Cyrus.
But Miley Cyrus can do Black Dog.
I bet she can't do Black Dog and I bet she wouldn't do a Metallica cover.
Possibly not.
But I think the whole narrative is like, they're trying to act like their male counterparts.
And why not?
You go, girl, that sort of thing.
And she is the face of this whole new thing.
And it is ghastly.
It's just...
I hope it brings the whole edifice crashing down.
Over my head.
This girls football thing is just...
It's completely...
I say completely.
Obviously, it's crossed my radar, but I've just gone...
Basically, I've got my batteries of Flak 88s that have just taken them all out.
Well, there was...
Someone at work tried to feed me the line that...
Women's football would be every bit as big as men's football if only it had had the millions poured into it over the years.
Who said this?
One of my friends, colleagues.
This is the thing.
One of the great joys of my job is that I don't have to deal with woke people.
I don't have woke work colleagues.
Well, definitely not at Breitbart.
Nobody's woke there.
But this...
I mean, okay, that argument might have had legs, were it not for the fact that an American team, Dallas, not even a national team, but a boys under 15 team can beat the national team.
Now, you can't say it's because they've had millions of pounds poured into their team.
It's because of the oppressive male culture, which has persuaded the girls in these football teams that they're not good enough.
And so we created the monster that is a 15-year-old boys team beating women's football.
If it hadn't been for our society's sexism, which we need to address at every turn, those women would have beaten those boys, no question.
It really is...
It's too ghastly to even...
But I haven't got an opinion because it's football, so I shouldn't have an opinion, but I kind of do.
It's a bit of a dilemma for me.
Are we going to end on this depressing note of women's football?
No, no, no.
I think I have got more.
Have I got more stuff?
We had the Yes No.
We had the Review.
We did Glastonbury.
Self-publicising.
We did Libertarian Drinks.
We had My Cigarette Cards.
We did the remake of Zulu.
Which is called?
It's called, hang on.
Drift.
Drift, yeah.
Drift.
Drift.
So I got distracted because I actually, rather naughtily, I checked my Twitter feed and I just got, isn't that bad?
That is awful.
Checking your Twitter feed during, you've got the screen open.
No, but it was open and it sort of flashed up, a message from Tim Stanley.
What's the main regiment involved in Zulu?
German knowledge question.
Well, I don't know whether this is accurate, whether the film was accurate, but in the movie it's the South Wales borderers, isn't it?
Ah, but that was the problem.
They weren't called that until two years after that.
So what were they called then?
It was the 2nd 24th Warwickshire Regiment.
You see, that's exactly why I was hesitant.
Yeah.
Because I knew.
It's one of those little conundrums.
It's like, well, why do they sing Men of Harlech?
Why are they apparently all Welsh men?
And they wouldn't have done.
They wouldn't have done.
Ah, but they are based at Brecon.
Brecon.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know.
It's one of those odd things where, you know, like the Worcesters were based in Ireland.
I think the regular standards are in Brecon.
Yeah.
There you have it, you see.
It all makes sense, but they weren't called the South Wales borderers until something like 1881, and this was 79, something like that.
Okay.
Just ending on a little pub quiz factoid.
Yeah.
Better than ending on women's football, for sure.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, I think that that brings this week's podcast to an end, doesn't it?
We've now got our chicken laxer, the women folk.
The problem about doing these podcasts is that the women don't like it or they get annoyed.
It takes a guest out of the equation, it takes a host out of the equation and we're just disappearing off to a room.
But I'm sure we're not the only husbands.
That have experienced this problem.
Slightly pissed off wives.
Boys doing...
Wives and daughters, actually, when it comes down to it.
But there we are.
So, buy my cigarette cards.
Okay.
The wife's appeared and she made eating gestures.
Buy the cigarette cards.
Come along to Libertarian Drinks.
Buy twist teas and the gin that you got.
Fishers.
And see you next time.
And I'm sure there's another thing.
Have they got to like my podcast?
Oh, like and subscribe.
Yeah.
Click the button.
Whatever it is you know you've got to do to help us.
Yeah.
Monetize us.
Yeah.
Keep us going.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Okay.
Bye I love Danny Poe I love Danny Poe Go and subscribe to the podcast, baby.
I love Danny Paul.
I'll listen another time.
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