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Aug. 17, 2020 - The Delingpod - James Delingpole
01:14:16
Dick Delingpole
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Welcome to the Delipod with me James Delipod.
And I know I always sound very excited about this week's special guest, but I'm not, because it's not a special guest.
It's Dick.
It's the guest.
It's Dick time.
Dick.
There are going to be so many people who are...
This is going to be like manna.
This is going to be like an oasis after months.
That's how it feels in the desert.
Well, last time you were up here and we were in this very room, although we very cunningly pretended we weren't, remember?
Don't you?
You haven't told...
You know what the police are like.
They could easily go back and retrospectively punish us.
I wouldn't put it...
No, joking aside, if you look at what's happening in Australia at the moment, in Victoria specifically, I know the Australians are quick to say it's not the whole...
It's not the whole of Australia, mate.
It's just Victoria.
Those guys are mental.
Is that what they say?
It's almost exactly like that.
But...
You know, it's full Nazi.
They've even gone for the black shirts on the police.
They have.
But do you know, it wasn't initially...
Back in the day, it was not Victoria, which was Australia's fascist state.
It was Queensland had the reputation of being the fascist state under Joe Bielke-Peterson.
Well, you know what?
We actually, as luck would have it, have an Australian in the room with us right now.
Nodding.
I was actually looking across, and he was giving me visual cues.
Just to fill in our special friend here, because James has visited, he's come up to Worcester to see me.
Well, not really.
You may need to see your osteopath.
Of which more later.
I suggested it's Wednesday, let's go out for a drink and see if any of the guys want to come along.
And of course, everyone does.
What, both of them?
Hector and Simon, another regular, have come up from deepest Leicestershire to come and have a drink with us tonight.
But it does make them available now for questions about Australia.
They're in the room with us right now.
Also, oral sex services, should we require them during the podcast?
If you hear a schlapping sound, it's more likely to be one of the dogs.
One of the dogs, yeah, it is.
But yes, Hector, I noticed you were making comments on Twitter.
You were saying, if anyone is surprised about what's happening in Victoria, then you haven't been paying attention.
Do you want to just expand on that?
Well, Victoria, Melbourne especially, always seem to be...
I was just talking to Simon about this, and he made the point that it's Australia's most European state with sophisticated people who are very knowledgeable about the world and consider themselves very tolerant.
But in fact, like most leftists, they're very intolerant, and they've had some awful governments over the years.
Even the liberal governments, who are like the equivalent of the conservatives, have been really, really authoritarian and awful governments.
So in a way, it's not a surprise that it's happening in Melbourne and Victoria, but in a way it is, because it is supposed to be the civilised part of Australia, but we can see now it very much is not the civilised part at all.
It is a very nasty part.
Yeah, the video of that woman being attacked.
Who, it turns out, was mask-exempt after all that anyway.
Was she?
Yeah.
I wonder whether she can sue or something.
Oh, well, good luck with that.
But I tell you what, it has scuppered Operation Flea to Oz that I'd been toying with.
Yeah, but I think that Melbourne, correct me if I'm wrong, is kind of like the Brighton of Australia in a way.
I mean, it is uber-liberal.
And as it turns out in this whole thing, to no one's surprise, it turns out liberals love authoritarianism.
And ironically, or not at all, it's the Conservatives who are fighting for freedom.
So, as Hector said, we shouldn't be surprised that they've gone like that.
And as an example of just how bad it can get over here, then look no further than those Aussies.
But I'll tell you what, I feel like we've plunged straight into full sexual intercourse without any foreplay.
We do this, though.
I've noticed that in the preamble, we end up going down an avenue that just leads on to a cul-de-sac and another road and a...
Various people have said, because I read the comments on the YouTube channel, and various people said, we want more Dick.
The Dick podcasts are our favourites.
And I think that's really touching.
I'd love to know what proportion of the Delling Pod fan base, what proportion of them think Dick is best.
I mean, not better than me, obviously.
I mean, the Dick podcasts are best.
I think it's because I'm non-specific and, you know, if you're interviewing an economist...
You're an NPC. No, I'm not an NPC. Yes, you are.
Yeah, orange man bad.
I think it's because anything goes and it's quick fire, easy come, easy go, light, generally, hopefully positive.
Somebody used the word whimsy, which I didn't like.
Oh dear.
No, I don't think I do whimsy.
No.
No, fuck Whimsy.
By the way, can I tell you something sad?
I'll tell you something really sad.
Go on.
When I was...
As you know, I've been in great pain for the last fortnight and a bit, and I've been on all manner of painkillers, including Valium, which is great, but a bugger to get off.
I mean, well, yeah, I found it difficult.
I mean, unexpectedly, you know, I thought, yeah, I can just get cold turkey, it's fine.
Anyway...
I was just coming off my Valium, but I was still in great pain.
And I got this email from one of my Patreons.
And she said, Dear James, I just wanted to let you know that I am cancelling my Patreon support for you because you swore.
You've been swearing on some of your podcasts.
and you said that you weren't going to try and swear and on occasion I've heard you discouraging other people from swearing but you use swear words and I think that if you have to swear it's a sign of a limited vocabulary and I'm very sorry
and so I'm cancelling my payment and I was thinking, part of me thought I totally believe in free markets and I think patrons, you know I mean it's entirely up to them whether they want to support you or not At the same time, I was...
She caught me in a moment where I was in the bleakest despair and I just thought, oh my God, one of my patrons has left me.
And I was thinking, actually, to people...
So considering supporting me in the future, if you're going to drop me for something as slight as the occasional potty mouth episode, I'm not sure I want you as a patron in the first place.
Because actually it's worse when you support me and then you...
You pull the rug away from me.
I don't want to sound all kind of wounded and vulnerable.
But at the same time, it's a weird experience having patronage.
On the one hand, you're very, very grateful to your supporters.
And on the other hand, you don't want to be beholden to them because you want to be you.
Well, it's a microcosm of getting voted into Parliament, isn't it?
It's sort of like you do...
Oh God, don't lower the tone, Dick.
That's awful.
Are you saying I'm like an MP? Well, you're pretty...
No, you can't say that.
Pretty soon you're beholden to people.
I'm not buying this analogy at all.
I think it's like saying...
It needs work.
It's like you're saying I'm a child rapist almost.
I mean, you're not.
I know, not literally, but kind of you are.
I just think...
But this is why you'd never make a good MP or an MP at all.
Who are these people who...
Who are these people who say to me, you should go into Parliament.
You should go into politics.
You know, I'd vote for you.
Yeah, right.
I mean, I'd vote for me because I think I'd be...
In theory, I'd be great.
But in reality...
I think at best you could have been an all right MEP because you'd have gone there, caused trouble, had a laugh.
I'd have been very good at the expenses.
Very good at the expenses.
I mean, as long as I had a secretary.
But that would have been positively encouraged.
I would have been, I'll tell you what, I would have been only good with my expenses if I had an assistant.
Which would come with a job.
Yeah, an attractive assistant.
Yes, Senor James.
Oh, she's European.
I think she's Spanish.
Oh, fantastic.
Because Dan Hannan's Little Helpers rule Spanish.
They're lovely.
Yes, yes.
Little Helpers.
Yes, yes, Senor James.
I know you find...
No, I can't do a Spanish accent.
Senor James, I know you find it very boring doing your expensive...
Expenses.
So I will do them for you.
And that would be great.
It would be worth it just to have somebody do my expenses for me.
But anyway, you missed that one.
Yeah, I missed that one.
That's an episode for another time.
So, shall I tell you the story of having to take the dogs to the vet?
During times of COVID, because the vets have started seeing pets again, and one of the dogs...
Did vets stop doing it?
I think it was kind of emergency stuff, but what they now tend to do is you have to phone them up.
And they meet you in the car park and take your pet away, which is pretty ghastly, depending on what we do.
They bring them back.
So one of the annoying things was having to wear a mask just to pass the dog over to the vet.
And because the vet couldn't understand what I was saying was wrong with the dog, because my face was wrong with the dog, I took along a picture of Piers Morgan, and I held it up to the vet and then pointed at the dog.
And the vet nodded and said, you want its anal gland squeezing, don't you?
And I nodded, and he knew...
That is fantastic.
Isn't that amazing?
I think a lot of people whose dogs need their...
Can you just remind me?
I know it's disgusting actually.
Some people might quite like it.
Some people are having breakfast.
Some people are having breakfast.
Actually, no, let's not go there.
It is a condition with dogs.
And it's something you're kind of supposed to be able to do yourself.
But if their functions aren't going properly, it can lead to this thing needing...
I think...
But obviously, this is a joke story, a gentle listener, because I wouldn't wear a mask for the vet, even though they were actually asking me to wear one.
And I said, no.
No, no.
Do you...
I hope Spaniels don't need their anal glands squeezing, because I think it's only manky dogs like your lurchers.
Well, these were free dogs, yours wasn't it?
Well, I say free, they're rescues, they're quite cheap.
Yeah, mine was an expensive dog.
Expensive dog.
Yeah, really expensive.
Yeah, well I hope you're getting your money's worth out of it.
Yeah, well it actually barked last night.
Yeah?
A lot.
Because of the thunder.
Oh right, yes, that was something else.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's the anal gland Piers Morgan story.
But it got us briefly onto the subject du jour of masks.
Now, just about everyone meeting tonight at the pub will be vigorously anti-mask crowd.
If you're a libertarian, you've pretty much got to be.
But we've all been, one way or another, enjoying mask-free shopping, haven't we?
It's been very exciting.
And I think we've all been through the same experience.
And I would urge all...
Well, urge my only special friend, because there is only one, to brave the supermarkets.
Because every supermarket, as we know, has a security guard and...
And you sort of...
You're stealing yourself before you go through the door.
What am I going to do?
What am I going to say if the security guard confronts me?
Am I going to say...
My wife's having a baby!
Please don't hit me!
Or would you say...
Are you going to be belligerent?
Or are you going to say...
I've got a medical condition which prevents me from needing to wear a mask.
I've got an exemption...
But I'm not going to tell you what it is, because under the Disability Act, I'm not required to do so.
Well, I think that's the answer, but you don't do it in quite such a drawn-out way.
You confidently look them in the eye and say, it's all right, I'm mask-exempt.
And you smile.
And if, in the unlikely circumstances of them saying, what is your exemption, you say, well, under the Disability Act, you're not allowed to ask that, and you should know that.
You're just right, Hector.
This is the approach.
Yes.
It should go no further than that.
And, dear listener, you will find that nine times out of ten, you will not even be challenged.
Go in there, hold your head high, and enjoy your mask-free shopping.
I've not been challenged once.
And I think that it's probably because I look a pretty tasty kind of guy.
I get somebody who can really handle himself.
Like Daron from Fowder, maybe.
It's funny you say that.
One of the things about not wearing a mask is that people can still see your features.
And the number of times I've been accosted by founder fans saying, excuse me, but are you the guy who plays Doron?
And I have to disabuse them of this particular fantasy.
I say, actually, I am Maletroux from Le Bureau.
You see, I haven't latched onto this bureau.
You wait till you get into Le Bureau.
It's just fantastic.
I'd like to work for French Intelligence, the DGSE. We're working our way through the great sort of non-English dramas.
And it's true what you say.
There is nothing good on TV that's domestic these days.
I'm lining up.
I imagine it's called Dunkel.
I'm just guessing.
Do you reckon?
The German series?
The Dark?
Dark?
Dunkel?
Yeah, probably.
You're guessing that this is going to be made soon?
No, no, no.
It's already been made.
It's in its third season.
Some people have said to me, if you like foreign series...
Oh, it has been recommended to me and then someone dissed it.
I think the missus told me it was, I don't know.
No, it's got difficult timelines in it.
That's right.
Confusing timelines.
She had me watching the new series of Das Boot, you know, complete with lesbians.
It's Das Scheidt.
It is Das Scheidt.
I think I lasted two episodes and it's honestly, it's barely anything to do with submarines.
No, it's not.
And everything to do with lesbians.
They're not even good ones.
It's so unrealistic, the way they contrive to get a female aboard a U-boat.
Can you imagine that?
I mean, you know how superstitious?
You know, it's almost like someone's trying to make drift, you know, my woke version of Zulu.
Just reminders.
Well, Drift was going to be more diversity casting, so a few white Zulus, but also a few black Welsh borderers.
Sounds like you're talking about 1917 there, Dave.
Let's not...
That could be a...
I'm just trying to warm up old Lawrence Votz to come back onto the podcast again.
Obviously, I don't want to frighten him off by the thought that I might mention.
But Das Boot being what it is, can you imagine the pitch meeting for it of the guy going, well, you know, Germans and submarines, it's all a bit bloke-ish and war-like.
No, no, wait, wait, we've got...
We've got lots of civilian storylines with this.
Oh, really?
Escaping Jews would be good.
Yes, we've got some of that.
And women?
Not just women.
The women are lesbians.
Oh, this is brilliant.
I'm very much sounding like this is going to be green-lighted.
So hardly any submarine?
Almost no submarine.
Incidentally, this brings me on to one of the things I'd written down that I want to mention.
Things Dick recommends.
That sounds a great new category.
I watch this thing called Pitch Meetings on a channel called Screen Rant.
You can find it on YouTube.
And it's a guy who basically plays two parts, himself and the guy he's pitching it to.
It's a Hollywood pitch.
One guy goes in, he's pitching an idea for a film.
It's about 15 minutes long, each one.
But they've got all the episodes of Game of Thrones.
Every recent Hollywood blockbuster you can think of is being pitched to a guy who's picking holes in the ridiculous ideas.
It doesn't sound very good the way I'm describing it.
No, it does.
Look up Pitch Meetings under a channel Screen Rant.
Just search for those things on YouTube and you'll find pretty much what I was just doing with pitching the Woke Das Boot.
There's so much good shit out on the internet.
Have you ever come across some...
I think it's called TV Tropes.
No.
TV Tropes, they analyse every...
I just came across it when I was looking at...
Chernobyl, the Sky series, which is really good.
But before I wrote my review, I wanted to see stuff like, how accurate is it?
Did the guys who went in there survive?
I did all that, because you want to believe every bit of it, but it turns out it was rather fanciful.
It's all kind of made up.
There was no place called Chernobyl.
There was no nuclear reactor problem.
It was actually a wind turbine.
It was a wind turbine, yeah.
One of the blades dropped off, and an owl was slightly damaged.
An owl was slightly damaged, and they closed the hell away off.
In fact, the reaction in the area that we mistake for children, not dissimilar from the overreaction to COVID-19.
Yeah.
Anyway, TV tropes, it sort of...
It puts things into the context of TV land generally.
All these cliches that come in.
So, for example, the mission of no return, whatever those men went on, that kind of thing.
The things they say.
It just analyses.
It's very familiar with every trick of the screenwriting.
So it's pretty much going to ruin every film for you.
Oh, it totally does.
It ruins everything.
I was watching this new series last night with Boy called, what's it called?
It's about, the name will come to me.
The USP is that the hero works for the New York police as a serial killer profiler.
The USP is that the hero works for the New York police as a serial killer profiler.
But get this, he's got special insight because his dad is a serial killer.
But get this, he's got special insight because his dad is a serial killer.
Is.
Is.
It was.
It was.
Is behind bars.
He's behind bars.
Okay.
His dad is basically Hannibal Lecter.
His dad is basically Hannibal Lecter.
Okay.
And he has meetings with his dad and they bond while dad gives him insights into what it's like.
There's basically Silence of the Lambs rehashed.
Yeah, yeah.
So before I watched it with Boyd, he almost never watches TV with me.
I told him that this was the premise.
And then he listed all the things that it's been ripped off from, ranging from Silence of the Lambs, as you say, to Dexter, to Hannibal, to right the way across to House.
And he's talking about how you've got a high-functioning individual and he's constantly in situations where all his colleagues are saying, you've really gone too crazy this time.
Everything's been done before, which is why we are so pathetically grateful when we see a TV programme that...
It's why I like reading Mark Miller's comics.
Yes, he's prepared to break taboos and actually take risks.
I mean, you can see why he's about the richest man in Scotland, can't you?
Well, no, I'm just guessing.
I'm just guessing, but he has got a very good deal with Netflix.
But he generates brilliant original ideas.
And not many people can do that.
Not even committees can do that.
Anyway, how did we get here?
I can't remember.
We got through it through Screen Rant and Things Dick Recommends on YouTube.
And I've got another one to do.
Oh, yes.
One of the Third Wednesday group.
Incidentally, next Wednesday is a Third Wednesday, so either come to Worcester or arrange your own and let me know.
That wasn't why I mentioned this.
They'll let you know.
What will you do?
We've got a website.
We want to actually promote other people's Third Wednesdays.
If you don't want to come all the way up from, I don't know, Nottingham...
Start your own third Wednesday and we'll advertise it for you.
And you can meet Libertarians.
It'd be down from Nottingham, wouldn't it?
Down from Nottingham.
Right.
Down.
It's not really upwards.
It just looks like that on the map.
Does it?
Okay.
So the other thing that I've been looking at on the internet, on the advice of one of the third Wednesday guys, Andy...
Is it...
No.
It's not what you think it's going to be.
Okay.
Okay.
It's yoga.
I've taken up doing yoga in front of a computer screen.
And it sounds pathetic and humiliating and woke.
But it's a 15 minute yoga session.
The chap is called Sean Veig.
V-I-G-U-E. Is it live?
No, but he's got these 15-minute yoga sessions for men.
Look up the one that says it's for beginners flexibility training.
Okay.
15-minute yoga.
And so I've been doing this every morning.
And you do downward dog and you do a child...
Pose, a stretched out cobra and all these things.
But it's been brilliant for my back.
Has it?
So, a little bit of a recommend.
Yeah, you see, you're talking about brilliant for your back and I'm feeling so bad.
I'm in such pain that I'm jealous.
Well, now we can talk about why you're down here.
While you're actually here in Worcester, you finally took up my suggestion that you go and see my osteopath, Ken Brooks, who is a miracle worker.
He has sorted out so many of my friends.
He's sorted out my back.
You walk into Ken's place, bent up double...
And after a lot of screaming and grinding and crunching...
There is some crunching.
There is a lot of crunching.
You come out walking upright, feeling like you're on cloud nine.
And you've got a set of exercises to do afterwards.
But tell us about your experience with Ken.
I've been seeing various people for my condition, which has been really bad.
I've been in enormous pain.
And you mentioned Ken.
And it was on a day when I couldn't get treatment with one of my other people for a while.
And I thought, well, it can't be...
I've got to give it a go.
What's the worst that can happen?
Well, I don't know why I hadn't immediately thought to see an osteopath.
I mean, I've seen sports physios who've been helpful, but I hadn't seen an osteopath.
And partly it's because you want a personal recommendation.
And partly it's because some osteopaths, you can't get hold of them for about until a month's time because, you know, the backlog.
I think Ken is rather in demand.
I think because he's a fan that he was willing to… He probably made special Ken time for me.
And you were nervous, understandably so, because I could tell by the way you were kind of semi-recommending him, but not totally, because you didn't want to commit in case you got the call.
It's James from the paralysis unit, the spinal unit.
It is so true.
Yeah, it's quite a dangerous thing recommending an osteopath to somebody.
It's not like recommending someone who does your toenails or what have you.
Have you got somebody you can...
I once went...
I don't get...
I really should, actually, because I deserve it, but I don't get this very often.
I got a speaking gig in...
What's that?
Palm Beach, I think, or South Beach or somewhere like that in Florida.
An enclave where the very, very rich live.
And this guy was a fan of mine, and he flew me out to Florida.
From where?
Here.
To speak to a dinner.
Was this the one on a ship?
No, it wasn't on a ship.
It wasn't a cruise ship.
No, aren't you thinking of my trip to that special island where the girls look after you?
What's it called?
The one when you went with Toby Young.
Yes.
That's a different episode, that one, Dick.
He was called Brian Epstein.
And he discovered the Beatles, I think.
Yes, that's right.
Anyway, that digression.
We're actually at inception level of digression within digression right now.
You've gone to Florida to do it before.
I did have a cocodermol before this podcast, so maybe that's affecting me.
I will eventually hoik you back onto the track.
We did a talk.
So I spent the weekend with this lovely guy and what do you do with a very rich person in America, in Florida?
What we did, he took me to his favourite pedicure place and we had a side-by-side pedicure.
How sweet.
That's what the toe thing triggered in you.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
I haven't ever had one, but I do looking down at my bare feet right now, I think, possibly.
Don't knock them.
I suspect that Britain's economic recovery may depend on pedicures, which is why the ongoing lockdown situation worries me.
So Ken, tell me about...
You rocked up and you'd accidentally scheduled in a radio interview at the same time.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah, I had to do a talk radio interview.
So I turned up...
Which has got to be slightly awkward.
I tried to cancel it.
I kept trying to cancel it, but I... Or rather, I kept trying to tell them.
Yes, I did.
So I did my talk radio interview in the middle of the osteopath session.
But anyway, yeah, Ken...
Crunched me about.
And I felt terrible that night.
But the next day, I felt in as little pain as I'd been in for that fortnight, which was a great relief.
And you've got a Ken session tomorrow morning, which is why you're here tonight.
I am looking forward to the Ken session in the same way that a Frenchman would look forward to his weekly meeting with his mistress.
Weekly?
I don't...
Bi-weekly, at the very least, I would have thought.
He's French.
No, respect to the French.
I... Well, you like the French anyway.
Well, our French friends, even within our group, are saying this whole reputation for French being frequent and wonderful lovers is misplaced, which is very encouraging because I'd hate to think they were getting more than us.
They couldn't be getting less.
I do think, though, French women are unusually hot.
Do you not think?
I mean, I know it's not exactly controversial.
It's their way, isn't it?
It's their way.
They've got an arrogance mixed with a stylishness that makes even an average-looking French girl just hotter than she would be were she English.
Although, you know, when I was in Germany, I was very struck by how good-looking the Germans are.
In Frankfurt, anyway.
I just thought, what a really good-looking people.
But people say, foreigners say, when they come to London...
Well, they used to say it before London became so kind of such a sort of melting pot, you might as well be in anywhere.
But they used to say that actually British girls were, you know, about the best.
I don't know.
Anyway.
Do you want to move on to another subject?
Let's do a game thing.
Well, it's not so much a game thing as just zipping through your last few poddies.
Oh, yeah, yeah, okay.
Zip through them, because I have upped...
Over-delivering.
That's what I've been doing.
I've been over-delivering.
Ever since I set up my Patreon and my Subscribestar.
Subscribestar, by the way, for all those people who said, I'm sorry, but I just can't subscribe to Patreon.
It's just against my morals.
I just can't do it, so I'm not going to.
Hello, I'm on Subscribestar now, so fuck off with that excuse.
I think it's your winning way that gets you all these Patreons.
I worry about this.
I worry about my...
You see, this is the thing.
I think I'm really good on content.
I'm absolutely shite at marketing.
Self-promotion.
Self-promotion.
All the things that actually really matter.
I mean, I'm not naming any names, but there are people out there who just aren't nearly as good at actual content.
But they get their, you know, the picture quality better and they get their regularity stuff.
And they've probably got a production team behind them.
I don't know.
I think they're just kind of...
They're the kind of people who...
They almost became accountants but didn't and have applied their accountancy skills to making the success of their podcast business.
I'm not sounding bitter am I hope.
The skills don't always go hand in hand do they?
Those who are best at a certain thing might not have the other skills necessary to go with them.
I'm rubbish at promoting my art and my paintings.
I don't put myself out there nearly enough.
But lesser artists than me, I'm not saying I'm particularly brilliant, but even lesser artists than me are particularly good at wheedling their way into galleries or getting their stuff out there.
And they just happen to be very good at self-promotion.
But what they're promoting isn't all that awesome.
It's like the people...
God, I remember this at school.
Come the A-level year...
There were certain people who you'd kind of, you know, as part of the kind of intellectual elite, you know, which I can't help being, but I just am.
I'm just naturally bright, you know.
And I remember there'd always be people who'd been really a bit shit, but worked really hard.
And they surprised everyone.
And they ended up getting a place at Oxbridge.
Bastards.
And just for hard work.
I hate that.
Don't you?
Well, wouldn't you rather be the swan?
Gliding along, you know, paddling furiously underneath but nobody can see you.
That's not even right.
No, I want to be the swan that's not even bloody paddling.
That's me.
I want to be the swan that's just kind of cruising down without any effort at all.
Like the swan you were just an hour ago when we had a little dip in the River Team to cool down on this ridiculously hot day and...
You, me and number one daughter went out for a quick dip, but your arm is so buggered that you couldn't even do a breaststroke.
I couldn't even do breaststroke.
I can't do breaststroke.
So you did glide gracefully down with the current like a dead swan.
I'll tell you what I found disturbing.
There were lots of semi-naked girls there in their...
The modern young lady seems to wear these kind of thong type underwear.
They don't wear anything demure anymore.
No, it was fairly minimal.
And you see these buttocks.
And the annoying thing is that you and I have both got daughters of an age.
Where you look at girls like that and you think that could be my daughter.
No, they're the same age as our daughters and it makes you very uneasy.
It ruins it for you.
It's not right, but I think that nature meant that to happen.
Did nature really?
Yes, I think it kind of.
But basically, it's also nature telling you, you've got nothing they want.
Yeah, but wait till I get some money.
Wait till then.
Because that's the thing.
You say that nature has designed it so that young, attractive women don't even look at people our age.
Which you know is true.
Yeah, but I also know about the power of money to overcome that very, very, very easily.
It can make a man very attractive.
Yeah, exactly.
So this is my plan.
This is the money plan.
I haven't worked out how to make the money yet.
That's the only problem.
Right, well, let's do the podcast review thing.
I'm going to work backwards because I'm still five minutes left on the last one because I listen while I'm working.
And the Donal Blaney, young chap, journalist.
No, Donal's a lawyer.
Who's the one?
No, okay, so he's the one before the one.
Yeah, you're talking about Ronan Maher.
Okay, Irish names, that's the confusion.
I listened to Ronan.
Oh, and that's right, he told you how to pronounce his name.
I'm pronouncing it in the traditional Irish way.
Apparently it's not how you pronounce it in England.
But he has a very lovely, mellow way about him.
And he was actually interviewing you.
I don't know if you're aware of it at the time.
Yes.
But it was nice.
He was throwing things out there and saying, well, what's your opinion on this?
And are you religious?
And things like that.
And you, I could feel that you were in pain and actually not really...
No, I was very drugged up.
That was peak Valium then.
I think it really helped the podcast.
Well, it meant that you were very measured in what you were saying.
Oh, was it?
Yeah, no, it came across all right.
Oh, good.
So that was a nice one.
And it's probably a bit like a dick podcast in that you're not going to be talking about what you think you're going to be talking about.
It was very long.
It was an hour and 40.
Yeah, I know.
We're not going to do that.
We're going to miss our supper at that rate.
Do you know, I can hear the disappointment in the special friend.
There are tears already.
Well, they'll just make the most of what we offer and leave them hungry for more.
So, yeah, on then to Donal Blaney, who, yeah, if I was in trouble, I'd want him on my side.
I'd want him in my trench.
It's like calling in the King Tiger unit, isn't it, really?
Or an Apache squadron.
Apache, yeah.
Or a hind squadron.
I'd take an Apache over a hind.
Would you?
Yeah, nods from the other guys.
Don't hinds have more missiles?
Oh, the hind is the horrible big Russian thing.
Yeah, the Russian thing.
No.
Apache's more nimble.
Our military train spotters are just kind of, oh my god, Tosh's tweet about Prince Harry.
Did you see that one?
No.
What is he called now?
He's not called Tosh anymore.
Burnside, not Tosh.
Burnside, not Tosh.
We'll have to look it up anyway.
It was very funny.
He's going to be coming to one of our drinks in the not-too-distant future.
Well, that'll be exciting.
Yeah, that'll be brilliant.
He'll be fated like you are.
Maybe even more so.
Well, he may take the pressure off me because I do find constant adulation quite exhausting, particularly in my present state.
Before that, there was Calvin Robinson, who was there on the premise of a noble, noble cause defunding the BBC. I hadn't come across Calvin before, and I should have done, because he writes quite a bit for The Telegraph, for example.
He's another one of these bright young things.
And, you know, the older we get, the more there seem to be these bright young things.
And they're not even that young.
Bright young threats, as I call them.
Well, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Before that, Brian of London, which I loved because obviously, you know, we heart Israel.
But the only worry there was obviously, is it going to reduce the likelihood of Dick and James going to Israel?
But it's not, is it?
Why would it be reducing the likelihood?
Oh, because you've sort of...
Because I've done Israel.
Right.
I don't think that's doing Israel.
I think that's just a warm-up.
I think that's just foreplay on Israel.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
To use one of your favorite expressions.
Yeah.
Then, before that, I think there was the man with two first names, Nick Timothy.
Yes.
Now, he's kind of lovable.
You can't really hate him.
Respect for coming on the podcast.
Yeah, he didn't need to do that.
I've been a complete bitch about Nick Timothy on occasion.
And he was fully aware of that by the sound of it.
He totally knew it.
But I'm afraid that Nick...
For all his loveliness, he's part of the problem, isn't he?
He's what's wrong with the Conservative Party, because there are so many Nick Timothys out there who don't really believe in free markets or anything, actually.
Is it because they've become so tainted by the journey of getting to where they are?
Or do you think they were never fully on message?
No.
I don't know.
I mean, I've spent so long trying to work out in a state of despair why it is that the Conservative Party is so unconservative.
And I've never really got anywhere with it.
I suppose it'd be an interesting study to see the sort of things these people were writing and saying on their assent to becoming MPs and how their message has changed once they've become an MP. Yeah.
Politics definitely has a corrupting effect on people.
People definitely go native.
But here's my worrying thought.
I think that we are not as representative as we would like to think we are.
That we are probably outliers.
The only reason I say that is because of this polling that gets done.
People like Matthew Goodwin are always going on about this.
Where they say, where the research suggests that although Britain is socially conservative, that economically we are very left-wing, way to the left of where you and I are and our special friend is, I'm afraid.
And that could be the problem.
Right.
That all the wonderful things we would like, you know, like for Britain to become the Singapore of Europe.
I mean, apart from the ban on drugs.
I mean, that would be a bit dodgy.
And I'm not sure about banning chewing gum, but everything else.
A sort of Freeport...
All those things the voters don't want.
They actually want the firm hand of big government.
They want nationalised everything.
They want Melbourne.
They want Melbourne.
Yeah, they do.
Well, look at what's happened with the whole response to coronavirus.
Look how many people.
A loving lockdown, a loving the authoritarianism, a loving wearing masks whenever they get the opportunity to do so.
Loving wagging fingers at people not wearing masks.
Loving not having to work but still getting most of your income paid for by Uncle Rishi.
Yeah.
Loving eating out for free.
It's extraordinary.
While being told to lose weight.
Yeah.
You've nailed it there, Dick.
Right.
Next up was the awesome Kurt Schlichter.
Yes, Kurt Schlichter.
Another man you would want in your trench, giving you fire support.
Well, not least because he's...
You could probably go and put the kettle on, but he would have the whole thing sorted himself.
He's probably strangled jihadists with his bare hands.
Well, actually, no, he's probably turned their heads to pink mist with a Barrett sniper rifle.
From a mile and a half away.
50 cal...
Probably they don't do non-50 cal, do they?
But anyway...
No, I think the.50 cal is at the extreme end of sniper rifles.
Simon?
It's a Barrett Light 50, that's it.
Barrett Light 50.
But other sniper rifles are available, aren't they?
What's the most common calibre for...
The L96 Accuracy International is the favoured sniper rifle.
In case you can't hear that, L96... Accuracy International.
Accuracy International.
And what calibre is that?
760 is a standard NATO. Yeah, okay.
So isn't it true that if a 50...
I don't know why I'm going to military porn here, but if a 50 cal bullet even just goes near your head, even without actually hitting it, it turns it to jam.
So you and I could be...
Really quite crap snipers, Dick.
And still do effective headshots.
Because we wouldn't actually have to hit the head.
We'd just have to aim for a football pitch size target area.
I don't think it's that easy.
Oh, is it not?
No.
Well, I'm thinking of a daisy-cutted bomb.
I'm sorry.
Anyway.
So, yeah, he was pretty awesome.
He was great.
What a man.
Okay, so he served in...
He's been a colonel.
He's a full colonel.
He's commanded a battalion, I think, in Iraq.
He's been a stand-up comic just for the shits and giggles.
He's a lawyer.
I mean, every American is a lawyer.
That's the sad thing about America.
Every educated person becomes a lawyer.
They just do.
It's not enough to hate them for, though, is it?
No, no, no, I don't hate them.
I love Americans.
Yeah, but lawyers, so...
Oh.
We don't love lawyers.
No, we don't.
By and large.
No, no, no.
Apart from the ones that like this pod, we love them.
They're special.
Yeah.
Luke Johnson before him.
Yep.
Luke Johnson, one of the few businessmen, few entrepreneurs fighting the fight for free markets.
I mean, it's extraordinary what's happened to this country.
We are apparently, Britain I mean, we are about the worst place to recover from this fake pandemic.
Well, no one's bloody returning to work, are they?
No, they're not.
Even those who still have jobs?
No.
Partly it's that thing, people quite like Uncle Rich's free furlough money, which is great.
What's not to like about sitting at home watching, what's that Channel 4 series where they, Gogglebox, you know, Well, we were out the other night enjoying the dreadfully named Eat Out to help out.
And I turned to her daughter and said, this is nice, but your children will be paying for this.
And she agreed it would be the case.
So, yeah, it does stick in the craw slightly.
You can't fully enjoy your apparently free meal for knowing just...
Just what an unconservative thing it is to have done.
However, I would add this slight caveat to that.
I went into my favourite local, the Paul Pry in Worcester, that do some fantastic food.
And I talked to them about it and they said it's been an absolute boon to them.
They're busy on days they wouldn't otherwise have been and it's like...
It's pretty much the difference between staying afloat and going under.
Well, Uncle Rich's free money.
Yeah, the free food thing.
It's got people going out.
I mean, it is only Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
So it does seem to be doing the thing it was intended to do.
But who would have ever thought we saw such a scheme under a Conservative government?
Can I just chat here?
Am I interviewing, am I chatting to guest Dick or is this Owen Jones?
By mistake.
I wanted at least to make a plea for the fact that I might be occasionally balanced, but he's not buying it.
No, I don't like it.
I don't like balanced, Dick.
I won't do it again.
Don't ever do it again.
No, I think you'll probably find the hate we're going to get on the YouTube comments now from that.
You've probably just actually killed my career.
Thanks, Dick.
Thanks.
Well, look, I'll just sell it as me putting out an ad for the poor pry and I might get a pint out of it.
Carry on.
Just try and dig yourself out of this hole now.
Alistair Haynes.
Yes.
He's great.
He's a Hector friend.
Yeah.
He's from Bristol.
He's been writing stuff on the Hector Drummond magazine.
He's a civilian turned warrior.
HectorDrummond.com.
Yeah.
Which, of course, has become the must-read site throughout the scandemic.
It certainly has.
In fact, Hector was onto it from the moment this thing started.
He was all over the Neil Ferguson stuff saying, do you know who this Neil Ferguson guy is?
And this was mid-March.
You were all over that.
I was writing that this February.
Yeah.
So, you know, credit.
Yeah.
This is one of the things that really, really puzzles me.
Is that...
In the beginning, when...
For those of us who'd been kind of lurking on the internet and looking at all this kind of scary footage of people being welded into their houses in China and the internet rumour mill.
It did seem for a time, I thought, that coronavirus was a hideous new viral threat, the like of which we hadn't seen since the Spanish flu.
Well, that was because that was the bloody message.
But now...
I mean, not...
OK, not everyone reads Hector's site.
I know most people do.
But we've got Toby's Lockdown Skeptics, which is fantastic too.
We've got all sorts of resources, all sorts of...
Perfectly reputable scientists providing hard-headed evidence that this has been oversold.
And yet, you were talking about, before we started this podcast, you were saying that Hector and Simon, one of the reasons they'd come all this way for the drinks was because they were fearing, we're going to get another bloody lockdown.
They're both nodding sadly right now.
How can we do this?
When does the madness end?
Well, you see it being done incrementally by the papers, which I will not take a paper now.
I will not put the BBC on in my house or my car.
Don't let the BBC into your house or your car.
It's cancer.
And you wouldn't let cancer in, would you?
So don't do it.
But you see when people are retweeting articles from even the Telegraph, there was one today about nine out of ten pubs are not complying with COVID regulations.
And you just think...
I know what's happening here.
They're setting it up so that they can re-close down the pub.
So they've got an excuse.
They're getting their excuses in early.
They're saying, look, it wasn't working.
And all they want it now is for a few cases to appear.
Well, they'll get them because if they test, you're going to find people have got...
If you test them, they will come.
Yeah.
You can see what they're doing, but every single one of the main papers and all the channels...
Sky News are the ones coming out with it.
Sky News are like the epicentre of evil, aren't they?
They're sort of Trotskyite nasties.
They've long since abandoned all pretense of neutrality.
I don't understand that.
How can a former Murdoch organisation suddenly...
And yet its sister operation in Australia is at the complete opposite end.
Why can't we have Sky News Australia over here?
Well, this is what...
Surely there's a gaping hole in the market for a vaguely right-wing news organisation.
so you're a media entrepreneur and you're looking at a market and you're thinking ok so you've got the BBC very very very very left you've got Channel 4 very very very very very left you've got Sky very very very very very very left You've got The Telegraph, pretends to be conservative.
Newspages, woke, SJW, bollocks.
You've got The Mail.
The Mail used to be a conservative newspaper, now Remainer, Covid, absolute scaremongering.
You've got The Guardian.
So you'd be looking at this media climate, you're thinking...
I wonder whether we might offer something different.
I wonder...
There could be a gap in the market for a...
You'd think, wouldn't you?
You'd think?
You'd really think.
Because even talk radio...
No, is talk radio the same as times radio?
No, times radio is a new thing.
Okay.
Is it?
But the thing is, talk radio and I like them up to a point.
I like going on their shows, but they initially sort of tried luring me over with promises of shows and things.
And then they drop me like a hot...
It was like you invite somebody out on a date and then suddenly you won't return the calls, having initially kind of fluttered a lot like you were going to put out.
And I get the feeling that...
They're just like controlled opposition.
I don't want to sound like Alex Jones here, but I think a lot of...
The people that they'll allow to be their radio presenters are kind of...
They're not like we are.
Not really.
I suppose they're drawing from the same pool of talent as the existing broadcasters.
So you might find someone with broadcast experience.
Where are they going to have got that broadcast experience?
They're going to be tainted, aren't they, to some degree?
Yeah.
Yeah, there is that.
I mean, just give our friend Julia Hartley Brewer, for example.
I mean, Julia's great and she's feisty and fluent and lovely and funny and so much going for her.
But she's got the Trump derangement syndrome thing, which is as far as a kind of woke radio boss would be a point in her favour.
She's quite unsound en masse.
They'd never allow somebody as uber sound as me to have a show because I'm just too sound.
The radio would explode.
Yeah, it's like what you're saying, are we outliers or are we actually representative?
Are there many more like us?
And what I'm finding with the third Wednesday group, I know I keep going on about it, but actually it's been a salvation, correct me if I'm wrong, Simon and Hector, for a lot of people in the group...
Who are joining in on the chat that we have on WhatsApp in between our drink sessions, that they're actually meeting in real life people who think like them and they thought they were the only ones.
And it turns out they've got a lot of friends who, yes, they'll wear the masks, they'll pay lip service to how dangerous COVID is, but actually they don't believe any of it.
So I think you've got a huge amount of people who are doing the Don't want to rock the boat, don't want to stick their head above the parapet.
So although we might be outliers as people who will be out and proud about these views, there's a heck of a lot of people who aren't buying it but aren't prepared to speak out.
I tell you what I have noticed about the fans that I meet who accost me occasionally at Malibu Station and the people I meet at your Libertarian Drinks.
They're more than averagely intelligent.
Your libertarian drinks crowd, I look at some of their conversations on the WhatsApp group and stuff, and I'm thinking, bloody hell.
It's high-level stuff.
Any of these people could have been my contemporaries at Oxford.
And you don't normally have that experience.
So maybe we just attract intelligent people.
Even those who consider themselves to be less intelligent in the group are way above average intelligence.
But they sometimes feel intimidated by the level of the conversations and the big words being used.
But even they are very well informed and bright.
And the women folk are more than usually attractive.
And the men have much larger penises than the national average.
Enormous.
It's like Horse of the Year show is what it is.
So that's another big plug for Third Wednesday Dreamers.
We can just finish off the last two because they're going way back now.
We normally have about 10 in between.
This is why people have been crying out.
They want the manner that is Dick.
Well, I haven't even listened to the Mads Grant one.
People have been distracted by just looking at Mads Grant.
She is a little bit of a pin-up girl for the Third Wednesday group.
And what about you?
No, we don't want to do that right now.
No, I'll tell the others later on.
Why can't we say on the podcast?
No.
This will be something people want to ask us privately.
But Dick, now that people see you're all cagey, they're going to be thinking it's much, much worse than...
They're going to be thinking like you've got a kind of shrine.
I don't want to do it.
I'll tell everyone later.
This is another incentive to come to drinks.
I'm not going to kiss and tell.
Dick has not got a thing for Mads.
That wasn't the story.
He hasn't got a kind of wank shrine to Mads.
I'm trying to dig you out of a hole.
You've just lost another half dozen patrons.
I'm trying to dig you out of a hole.
Stop you being embarrassed.
First it's a horse penis and now it's a wank shrine.
Dominic Frisbee.
I have a wank shrine to Dominic.
I do.
I wear a top hat.
And a bow tie.
And I dance around.
No, a cravat more of a...
Dominic is actually, he's like, he's not like our dad, obviously.
But when I'm driving along in the car, for one of my many treatments that I have, there's one treatment where I have to drive for an hour and a half, and obviously I get bored.
I listen to Spotify, but I get distracted after a time, and I need human interaction.
And so I ring up you.
I ring up Pa.
Sometimes I ring up Helen.
That's our sister.
And then I ring up Dominic.
And he's normally available for me.
It's a question of availability.
He doesn't get to.
And we talk about gold and Bitcoin and his new song.
I am enjoying his book.
The Daylight Robbery.
It starts off very light, and then it gets heavier and heavier if it gets into the whole Bitcoin bit.
But I think it's a must if you want to understand current economics.
It's about his tax book.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's very, very good.
The History of Tax.
It sounds like it should be incredibly boring, but it couldn't be further from the truth.
When you realise that the American Civil War was not about slavery, it was about tax, ultimately...
I hadn't realised the degree to which the North had been reaping the South.
I mean, economically.
It saw it as a cash cow.
And I think the Southern states were trying to get independence from Washington.
Who wouldn't want to not pay tax?
The slave thing is a much better narrative, isn't it?
It's much easier to sell generations of school kids.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
And then finally, the wonderful Simon Dolan.
Simon's been on twice.
And we love Simon.
He's a new discovery.
He's come out of nowhere.
I had never heard of Simon.
He's a bit like Hector.
Hector came out of nowhere.
There's a few heroes.
Alistair Hames came out of nowhere.
It's cometh the hour, cometh the men.
You say Hector came out of nowhere.
He'd previously run a very successful group called Skeptics in the Pub.
And it's pretty much pioneering what I've been doing with Third Wednesday.
So, yeah.
Yeah, but even Skeptics in the Pub wasn't exactly a household name, whereas now Hector is the go-to man for...
Anyway.
For COVID scepticism.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, that's the pods bit done.
There was one thing I had written down that...
I've got a question to ask you.
Go on.
Is there a yes-no game this week?
No.
Right, that's the correct answer.
It's a shit answer, I might say.
I know it'll be disappointing a lot of people, but...
Yeah, in a way, Sir Dan of C's lists have taken the place of yes-no for the go-to soundness register.
Can I use that as an opt-out?
You don't look convinced.
Can you repeat the question?
You're not the boss of me now.
No, I know.
I knew where you were going.
But anyway, what I had got written down was my yellow mattress awards, which have been running, rumbling along nicely on Twitter.
I like your Nazi yellow mattress.
I did a nice little logo of a...
A mattress with a lovely big piss stain with a roundel saying Yellow Mattress Awards.
And we've been dishing them out to worthy...
This is only the nominations.
Nominations, we haven't.
So we're going to have a fantastic ceremony where all the nominees will be invited.
There'll be Matt Hancock, Jeremy Vine, the Mayor of London, the entire county of Cornwall...
How deserving are they of the yellow mattress?
Essentially saying, if you don't mind, we will take the money, but can the tourists stay away, please?
Because they're diseased and horrible and we don't want to die.
Not dissimilar attitudes prevailed in Sorkum the last time I was there.
There seems to be...
This attitude that...
Well, I think part of the problem is that there are the retirees who go down there and they don't care about the local economy.
They don't give a shit whether the pubs are...
No, it makes...
It has no effect on them.
It makes no difference.
So...
But going...
It's not just the retirees.
As you know, one of the things one does in Sorkum, if one hasn't got a boat, which we don't, because we're not really yachty people.
Not anymore.
We used to.
We had a chug chug, but we're not yachty people, are we?
No, God, no.
Yacht wankers, I think, is the proper term.
Don't say that.
What?
We've been invited on a yacht.
On a boat.
I'll happily go on someone else's yacht.
Yeah, we've been invited.
It doesn't make me...
Alright, we'll scratch the yacht wanker comment.
No, Dick, Dick, Dick, Dick.
We were invited.
And now you bloody tell me.
Yeah, I know.
Because it got completely ruined by my bad back.
Oh, your bad back stopped me going on a yacht.
Yeah, it was going to be...
In fact, there was talk of doing it on the...
On the podcast.
We're doing a yacht podcast.
Well, suddenly I like yachts.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I know.
The people who sail them are the finest among us.
Yeah.
One of my reasons for hating yacht wankers is our uncle's apartment in Salcombe is a few yards uphill from the Salcombe Yacht Club.
And you can hear them having their parties late into the night and During, whatever it is, week.
There's a week when they sail a particular type of little sailing dinghy.
And they are the particularly boisterous, noisy, aggressive crowd.
And I've hated them ever since.
The night they kept me up until 2am with their singing and their singing sea shanties.
It's like my first night I went hunting.
And I stayed with a weird mix of people, including Steve Hilton's wife, Rachel Whetstone, who used to be a senior advisor in the Tory party.
A weird mix of restaurateurs, of cooks, and all sorts of people.
And one of the people there was this foreign posh woman, you know, like titled.
And she kept me awake on the night before I was going hunting and I wanted to go to sleep so that I would be in a good state.
What was she doing to you?
She was doing nothing to me.
She was partying in a kind of foreign way.
But were you enjoying staying up?
No, I was in bed listening to the noise of...
She was German or Danish or something.
And I was being kept awake.
I see, right.
But it was just her?
She might have involved other people as well, but she was the instigator.
I thought it was off.
It is, when you want your sleep, you do bitterly hate anyone denying it.
Yeah, you do.
So you were admiring my new version of the Yellow Mattress Award, which was a special down-under thing.
This is nicely book-ending this podcast, because we started off with a rant about Australia, and we're ending with one, because I didn't think bed-wetting was a good enough description of the Victoria police.
It's not bed-wetting, it's fascism.
And so I did a swastika-shaped piss stain on an upside-down mattress.
Very clever.
See what I did there?
Made the background blue, put seven-pointed stars, is it?
Seven-pointed?
Come on, it's your flag.
You don't know how many points on the stars of your flag.
I counted them on a thing on Google.
I think there's seven.
It's special.
That's a quiz question.
If you've got that wrong, if you've now put into my head the idea that there are seven stars...
No, seven pointed stars.
How many points there are on the star?
I think there's five stars or something, but there's specifically seven pointed stars.
It's going to come up in a quiz one day, and I'm not going to know because you confused me now.
Go with seven.
Yeah, but that could be the wrong answer.
And probably you've cost me dinner at the Ivy, a trip staying at a rich person's house in, I don't know, Mykonos.
I've gone on, completely ruined our yacht trip.
Yeah.
Maybe cursed our trip to Israel, ruined your career, and lost you several patrons because of the wank shrine.
Don't swear!
That's it.
So thank you, special friend.
I've enjoyed your company.
This was the last podcast I should ever be doing because I know that my career is now ruined by dick.
That's not a very nice way of finishing.
And the good news is I was only joking.
This is not going to be the last podcast.
No, but you might have to wait another 10 weeks before you get another one.
And what if they lock down again?
Oh dear.
You know, I'm going on holiday.
I'm going to Greece.
When?
I booked some flights to Greece.
Like...
Very soon, isn't it?
Very soon.
Yeah.
But whether it will be soon enough to get there before the lockdown, I don't know.
How are they policing people, isolating when they get back?
Are they going to send people to your doors?
I don't know.
I would imagine that if you're a top celebrity like I am, it's going to be quite difficult for me to go out and about because, you know, just people, the paparazzi are going to just...
Well, one of the Yellow Mattress Awards was for Ed Davey, who had tweeted...
I've asked Kent police, asking them to investigate whether Nigel Farage has broken quarantine rules.
He was in the USA on the evening of June the 20th, but was out and about earlier today.
And that was dated the 4th of July.
So, yes, you've got the Ed Davies of this world.
You've got exactly how Ed Davie talks, except he's Sir Ed Davie.
Can you imagine?
No, I can't.
It's ghastly.
It just makes you not want a knighthood anymore.
I'm so not getting a knighthood.
I mean, you know, what I mean is when they offer me, I'm going to so turn it down.
Are you, though?
Really?
Well, it depends.
Couldn't you convince yourself you were rehabilitating the award by taking it on?
No, it totally depends.
It depends on if...
Okay.
If the knighthood is being awarded by...
I know...
Under the premiership of Madeleine Grant.
Oh, well, there you go.
The premiership of Madeleine Grant.
And who is king at this time?
Who is king?
Have we had a revolution?
It's not a Windsor.
Yeah, I'm wondering about that.
Because I'm not a Republican.
I'm not an anti-monarchist.
We love our royals.
And yet...
In theory.
And yet, I mean, they've been ruined, haven't they?
They really have.
When Phil and Liz go, what does it leave us with?
I mean...
Charles is bad, and I worry about William.
He seems to be thick and woke and arrogant.
It's not a really good combination, is it?
Maybe their kids will be alright.
But how?
By reacting very strongly against their parents in a way that these two haven't.
No, that's the problem, isn't it?
How are we going to leave this on a positive note?
We're going to have something nice.
This is a song of hope.
What's that from?
It's from...
The song remains the same.
it's what plant says before before he obviously we'll dub the we'll be dubbing the original over the top of this at great expense I'm so excited.
There's a lady who's short.
Is this the drugs kicking in?
Hang on.
Do you think that's cheered people up?
I'm not sure it really has.
So come on, use your artistic imagination, because that's what you're here for.
Well, look, let's just urge people to get out there and meet other people IRL. Get out there, start a third Wednesday group, or just meet friends that...
That's your answer.
Give a plug to your...
No, it's not.
It's a plug to friendship.
It's a plug to getting out there and meeting new friends.
We don't do friendship, Dick.
Come on, that's just like...
That's for those accountancy podcasts I mentioned.
They can talk about friendship.
We can do better than that.
Come on, have another go.
Have another go.
I don't know.
Hector, I'm throwing it over to you.
Simon.
Bye.
Should we buy Hector's book?
Yeah, that's great.
We're having more product placement.
Hector's book, remind us what it's called, Hector?
It's called Days of Wine and Cheese.
Days of Wine and Cheese.
Although Hector tries to deny it, it's based on his time as a philosophy professor in a British university, and it sounds...
Bloody ghastly.
Actually, wait.
What?
I'm worried that there's loads and loads of stuff that I'd meant to say.
Yeah?
That I... Well, you don't take notes, so, you know, how do you expect that to happen?
I've got two pages of notes.
People I should thank.
Obviously, number one, my patrons.
On Subscribestar and Patreon.
DrinkTwistTea.
DrinkTwistTea.
Send gin.
Yeah, send gin.
Whiskey's good too.
As long as it's nice scotch.
Actually, I really want...
I was given a bottle.
I was meant to give you...
There you go.
We got there.
You're meant to give to me?
Yes.
A bottle of really nice whiskey.
From the guy who invited us on his boat.
Smooth.
Yeah.
And I forgot...
I forgot.
I had to send the wife out to buy whiskey the other day because I very cowardly didn't want to go mask-free to buy whiskey.
I thought it was unlikely that someone who couldn't go and buy some could drink whiskey.
I've got to go and buy some rolling papers shortly.
Well, this is it.
Can I have a bottle of whiskey?
I can't possibly disclose.
I can't wear a mask, but can I have some king-sized Rizzlers, please?
Actually, I'm going to tell you a funny story about that thing.
Go on.
We...
Our very old school with our...
Jazz Woodbine.
Am I allowed to say that word without giving away the game?
Possibly.
No one will guess, will they?
No.
I like...
Old school.
I like to use two, three small papers rather than one large paper.
It seems to be, like, newfangled and cheating.
God, Grandad, you really need to...
Yes, well, this is the thing.
So the kids came back from university, and I think they may have seen their mother rolling one or something, or I don't know, or they'd heard tell that they're...
Right.
And they just found it the most hilarious thing.
It was like listening to music on a wind-up gramophone or something.
Right.
Is it a generational thing?
Does our generation roll their choice?
For rolling normal roll-ups, my daughter keeps reminding me of the time that she had an 18th birthday party and all her friends...
Well, I came into the kitchen, because you have to be in the house at that age.
And they were all incompetently trying to make roll-ups, because at that age, it's the cool thing to do.
Is it?
I looked at them.
Hey, it was really cool.
You're doing it all wrong.
And so I sat down and showed them how to make a proper roll-up.
And they now forever know me as the cool dad who showed them how to make a proper roll-up.
And I think it's a fantastic reputation.
But as far as the Jazz Woodbinds thing is, I don't know what the prevailing wisdom is on That, but I like the silver king-sized Rizzlers.
The very thin paper?
Yeah.
I think thin paper is good, although I've never smoked a joint made with licorice papers.
What's a joint?
It's like a beef or lamb.
It's a cut.
Because we were talking about jazz woodbinds, which is a completely different thing.
Oh, is it?
What are they?
Yes.
God, we're going round in circles now.
Just before things went really crazy, before the lockdown, in fact, I went to a very good play in London with Loza.
And it was, yeah, it was great.
And he got me into smoking cigarettes with licorice leaf papers.
Oh, right.
So there we are.
Nice.
Yeah.
Well, do you want to come next door and eat green lentils?
Yes, I do, actually.
I'm really hungry, actually.
Good.
Because I've made some really nice food for you.
Let's go and do that.
Okay.
So, thanks, guest.
Well, it was nice to end on a high in the end, wasn't it?
Yeah, it was, yeah.
Right.
See what I did there?
Yeah, I did, yeah.
Okay.
Bye-bye.
Sorry, everyone, for all the things I've forgotten to say to thank you for.
But next time.
Okay.
Bye-bye.
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