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July 17, 2021 - The Delingpod - James Delingpole
01:15:51
Life as a Right-Wing Comedian | Leo Kearse
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Time Text
I want to ask you that technical question again because I quite like that.
Because I can see that I've worn this shirt and in the old days this was a shirt that you were told, the kind of shirt you were told not to wear on TV, wasn't it?
Right, it was banned.
It's doing these crazy psychedelic things.
Yeah, because it's got regular parallel lines, so it makes the... Because TV is a series of lines, so it goes really crazy and hazy.
But TV televisions have changed slightly, so they're softer and they've got higher resolution, so it's not as bad.
Is that right?
Yeah.
What are you looking at?
Martin's here.
Hi, Martin.
- Hey Martin, how you doing?
It's, yeah, I'm famed for my really shit production values.
I mean, actually, somebody has very kindly offered to buy me some kit, but I don't know whether I'd know what to do with it.
I mean, I quite like one of those, the round lamp things, you know, with the light all around and there's a hole in the middle.
Oh yeah.
Well, they're about 12 quid on Amazon, so treat yourself.
Yeah, no, but listen, Leo.
I would only want a really good one.
Do you know, it's like, if you're going to get a bit of kit, you want high end, don't you?
Even if you can't use it.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Especially if somebody else is peeing, then like, you know what I mean?
Yeah, I mean, it is one of the great pleasures of this job.
I do get the, I get the, I get the love.
You know, I may not have that many fans, but the ones I've got, it's great.
I mean, really, it's probably like being a comedy star.
Oh, by the way, I better start the podcast officially, formally.
Welcome to The Delling Pod with me, James Dellingpole, and I know I always say about how excited I am about this week's special guest, and I'm really not.
No, actually I am.
It's Leo Kurz.
Welcome to the show, Leo.
Hello James, well imagine how thrilled I am to be here.
I would imagine that's totally sincere and from the bottom of your heart.
I've just been watching your set on environmentalism, which made me love you even more than I did before, because I too care about turtles with single-use plastic up their nostrils.
It was good, that.
Yeah, yeah, that was a clip that went, and man, it's funny, like, people say, oh, right-wing comedy, right-wing comedy doesn't work, it punches down, and it's like, no, it totally works.
I did three shows last night in London, and in front of, not in front of, not at the Tory conference, in front of young, millennial, metrosexual, like, you know what I mean?
Young, woke people, and they loved it.
They loved having all the woke stuff ripped the piss out of.
So did you do environmentalism?
I didn't do that.
I was doing new material.
So I did stuff about politics and sport.
Comedians getting cancelled.
What else did I talk about?
Oh yeah, I talked about the NHS.
I'm in favour of private medical care.
Did you, this would have been maybe too topical and too edgy, but did you do in those really crap footballers who missed their penalties?
Because that would have been quite sensitive, wouldn't it?
I mean, quite on the edge.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I was talking more about... I don't want to touch that as a topic after Andrew Lawrence got completely cancelled.
Like, his entire tour, his agent, everything.
He's like, you know... And I've got people trying to cancel me.
There's a comedian... Well, there's a few comedians, but there's one who's respect... Most of them are open mics, but there's one who's respected, who's like... He's described me as a far-right demagogue, and also said right-wing comedians should all be cancelled.
And anybody who works with them should be cancelled as well, because obviously the left are full of, you know, tolerance and promote diversity, so why wouldn't you completely cancel, you know, one section based on one characteristic?
Yeah, well, I'm puzzled by this use of far-right.
I mean, I'm frequently called far-right, and I don't...
I don't even know what it means.
I mean, I think it just means a person that you disagree with politically.
I mean, you know, if you're a left-wing activist or comedian or whatever, everyone who's not like you is far right.
Absolutely.
No, absolutely.
I mean, I started off in the 90s when I became sort of politically and socially aware.
I started off fairly, you know, left wing, like, you know, I'm in favour of, you know, I'm sort of right wing in terms of I worked in government.
So then I realised actually government's really inefficient and just terrible at its job.
So I became more of a sort of individualist.
I'm for human rights.
I'm for equality, tolerance, and diversity.
And that used to make me left-wing.
And I've stayed in the same place.
And everybody else has drifted towards this sort of Maoist, like, just ideologically rigid, basically communism.
And Like, so me being a sort of individualist means that I'm now, you know, far right or right-wing or whatever.
I'm not even sure that the terms have any meaning anymore because I've noticed that a lot of my followers now, my fans, whatever, are people who would have voted for Jeremy Corbyn, for example.
And, you know, obviously I've got Brexiteers and Thatcherites as well, but it seems to me that the issues now in the world are not about right v left, they're about an evil sort of globalist elite, a sort of machine versus the rest of us.
Yeah, the issues are really individual rights versus government rights.
And for some reason, left-wing people are always utopian in their idea of government.
They think it's going to be this incredibly efficient machine that's going to take your money from you, take the money that you've earned, and know better than you what you want it spent on, and spend it better and more efficiently and get a better deal.
Man, I worked in government.
I've got to tell you, it's just a bunch of disinterested, corrupt apparatchiks completely spaffing money up the wall I thought if anything showed us that government, you know, big government needs to be reined in, it's the pandemic!
Look at all the money they're giving to their cronies for face mask deals or whatever it is, you know, medical treatment.
And so they're printing money, they're stealing, that basically steals money from us.
When they print money, they're not making new money, they're devaluing the money that's in circulation.
So they're stealing our savings from us and stealing our future earnings from us.
And they're not spending it, they're not spending it wisely, and when government power grows it doesn't lead to, you know, more individual rights, it leads to fewer individual rights.
They're bringing through all these, like, and this is where there is some overlap between the left and the right, they're bringing through all these draconian authoritarian laws, you know, the policing bill, the hate crime bill in Scotland, there's going to be one in the rest of the UK soon, that take away our individual rights, our freedoms as individuals.
And It's so important.
There's never been a time in history where larger government has led to, you know, more, you know, better human rights or more freedom or better employment.
Maybe, you know, in certain circumstances like, you know, the New Deal or whatever, you know, there's a A case to be made for Keynesian stimulus.
But I think most of the time there's a huge case to be made for just backing off and leaving people alone and letting them do what they want to do as long as they're not hurting anybody else.
Do you know, apart from your bit at the end, the dodgy bit at the end about the case to be made for Keynesian stimulus, what you've basically given us is a kind of two minute version of Hayek's Road to Serfdom.
Because that's basically what he says in it.
And it's interesting, he even makes the point you made about the left and the right, that Hayek is absolutely clear.
And after all, he saw the Nazis, you know, firsthand.
He makes it clear that the Nazis and the communists were pretty much the same thing.
He calls it collectivism, which is what it is.
It's totalitarianism.
It's collectivism.
It doesn't matter whether they're wearing a red label or a blue label.
They're still really, really bad.
But it amazes me.
Given all the misery that we've got, given all we've been through in the last 18 months or so, that you get this stuff.
You can see it fairly clearly.
And yet, I was looking at my Twitter the other day and I saw something really, really upsetting.
And I think you may have seen it too.
And it was a gaggle of about 30 alleged comedians making a video A comedy video, no less.
They'd written a comedy song showing their musical skills and it was all about, it was to raise money for the NHS, sorry, our NHS.
And I don't know why they thought that the NHS needs money.
I mean, it seems to be, we seem to be feeding it like a... How much are they intending to raise with this song?
Is it going to be like £50 billion to keep the NHS going for a year?
You know what I mean?
It's ridiculous.
It's purely virtuous signalling.
It's them being like, I'm doing sound for the NHS.
You know what I mean?
I do material to save my feedback.
It's better.
By the way, I've got my volume turned up to max on my ears, and you're still quite quiet.
Can you make your thing louder?
The volume... I wonder if it's... What if I put headphones in?
Will that make any difference?
Dunno.
Has that made any difference to the volume?
No, but it's probably good practice to put headphones on anyway.
I did a podcast with Right Said Fred and they didn't wear headphones and the feedback was annoying.
What was even more annoying is that some of the twats among my followers blame me for it.
Like, it was my fault.
I'm thinking, I wasn't a recording artist for, you know, since the 1980s.
I haven't had a music career with lots of studio engineers and stuff.
I'm not the one who should know this shit.
Anyway.
I'm going to see if I can turn up the microphone.
It is a crying scandal, I have to say. I have to say.
It's kind of a sign of how bad things are.
If this were a fair and just world, you and I would have teams of people just like, you know, scurrying around.
We'd have so much money.
We'd have teams going around to make sure that we didn't have to do this kind of menial stuff.
But instead, the people who get the teams scurrying around doing the menial stuff are these kind of lackeys, lackeys of the deep state working for the BBC.
Yeah.
Oh, why is everything in Windows?
Everything is like a massive pain.
You've got to like hack in.
It's like when they hack into the computer system in Jurassic Park.
Yes.
I don't know why they can't.
Is Windows the thing that Bill Gates invented?
Yeah, and I thought it'd be the worst thing he was involved in until now.
I don't know what it is with Bill Gates.
He's too helpful.
You know what I mean?
He's got like $250 billion or something.
He's like, he's just too helpful.
He's up to something.
I just don't trust it.
You know what I mean?
Nobody, no man is that helpful unless they're trying to fuck someone.
Well, exactly.
Turns out that's what he was trying to do.
That's why his wife left him.
Yeah.
But I think, you know, I don't know if I had that much money.
I prefer my billionaires to just be, you know, extravagant playboys and spend it on like cocaine and exotic transsexual hookers.
You are so right.
You'd want them to buy their volcano island and have their men in the kind of the jumpsuits on the underground railway doing their stuff, building death lasers maybe, but not trying to... Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I'm sensing though, I'm sensing a bit of hurt within you, Leo.
I'm suspecting that maybe you're a bit miffed that they didn't ask you to be in that comedy video, or maybe they did.
No, I've been, you know, I've been, I guess, 50% excommunicated, exiled from comedy.
So, I mean, there's a comedian just recently saying, you know, saying, you know, nobody should work with me.
And nobody's like saying, what do you mean, you bigot?
Why are you, like, discriminating against right-wing comedians?
Everybody's like, no, this is right.
Comedy's very strange.
It's very strange.
It's like, everybody thinks that it's like one big happy family and we all pull together and help each other, and no, we're just constantly trying to get each other cancelled.
Except for right-wing comedians don't.
Like me, Geoff, Norcott, whatever, we just get on with our thing, do our thing, just write jokes and be funny and smash gigs.
But left-wing comedians feel they've got the signal to other left-wing comedians that, you know, they're purer, they're more ideologically perfect.
You've sort of undermined my next question or my next line, which was, in the past, I've been disturbed by the sort of Is camaraderie the right word?
There's been a reluctance on the part of comedians I've met to slag off other comedians.
It's kind of like... You came to the right person!
We all slag each other off all the time.
There's a rule in comedy.
If you get in a car, we do car shares.
If you've got a gig in Plymouth or whatever, there's no point all four of us driving independently from London.
So we'll share a car and then you can slag off everyone.
Everybody outside the car gets slagged off and then we never mention it.
There's an emerita.
That's, well, okay.
So tell me, for example, I mean, he's after all a fellow Scot about the trajectory of Frankie Boyle.
Cause I used to love Frankie Boyle when he was, when he was telling really sick, when he was funny, he was sick, wasn't he?
I mean, he was like, he was telling jokes about disabled people and about the famous one about Jordan and stuff.
And you thought, yeah, I'm so happy that someone out there is, is, Carrying the torch for sick humour that makes you laugh.
And then he went... Yeah, and there's no excuse for it, other than, you know, like, he said this horrible stuff, like, you know, the thing about Jordan, which is hilarious, and there's no excuse.
It can't be excused.
It's racist, it's sexist, it's a rape joke.
There's no excuse for it, except that it's really funny.
It's so funny.
And I think, you know, if something's funny, that's...
Comedy's got an inbuilt excuse.
You know, you're either funny or you're trying to be funny, you know?
And, you know, I think this shoot, I mean, Andrew Lawrence, all right, it's not, it wasn't funny, but I think he was trying to be funny.
And I think, you know, you've got to extend You know, some sort of just good will.
Don't assume that somebody's coming from an evil place if they're trying to make a joke.
Assume that somebody's coming from a good place, because humour is incredibly powerful in breaking down differences between people and bringing people together.
So if we're all, you know, sitting around with sticks up our ass, just like clapping at Nish Kumar slagging off Brexiteers, that's not much fun, you know.
But Frankie Boyle basically had to evolve to keep a career.
So he's now sort of becoming... I mean, I still think he's quite funny on his show.
I mean, he's just such an efficient, brilliant writer and deliverer of jokes, and just so bitingly, acerbically, nastily funny.
And now, you know, he's got his Frank and Paul's New World Order, and he fills it with all the woke people, you know, so it's...
They're not very funny.
Some of them are funny, but they're not very funny.
Most of them aren't very funny.
And he's just had to do it to sort of stay employed and stay on TV.
Nobody's going to hire a right-wing comedian.
Nobody's going to hire a nasty comedian who's doing nasty jokes.
I mean, they should, because nobody's watching the woke comedy.
Some of the stuff they bring out, like there's a new show called Yesterday Today and the Day Before That or something like that, and it's all Women.
A couple of them are really funny.
Maisie Adams is on it and she's great, which sort of shows up how bad the other ones are.
But it's a terrible viewing figure.
I had like 10,000 viewers for its debut episode.
And this is on Comedy Central, you know what I mean?
So I think that the comedy industry has been flipped by the internet.
It used to be that you'd write material, you'd do it in the clubs.
Take a show to Edinburgh and get spotted there and get on TV or get on Radio 4.
That route is still available to some people, if you don't look like me, but for most people now, You're making a living through YouTube and through, you're getting big and you're building your own audience, your own fan base through YouTube, Instagram, all the social medias like TikTok.
And that's how you're building a following.
And then you don't, then you're cutting out all this industry, all these gatekeepers are gone.
And all this sort of, all this sort of, I guess, quality control, but also ideology control is gone as well.
But what you've described there sounds like a good thing, but is that what you're saying, that it is a good thing?
Oh, it's brilliant.
Yeah, yeah.
Yes, I do.
I do YouTube videos and I got stopped by a policeman yesterday who said he loved my videos.
So it's cool.
It's great.
It's great.
You've got like this direct, really.
The only problem with it is, is I'm a comedian because, you know, I used to do other jobs.
I worked in national security and government and stuff, but I'm sort of naturally lazy and disorganized.
So comedy is great because You get to the show, the show is the deadline.
You've got to get to the show, do the show.
If I'm making videos, it's very hard to sort of give myself deadlines to get a video out and knuckle down and actually do it.
Oh, and also having to work with camera people and directors.
They always want one more take, don't they?
It's really tiresome.
Whereas, you know, you go and do your gig and it's over when it's over.
You don't have to do another set afterwards.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I just film my videos myself.
Well, we've broken up now, but my girlfriend would hold the camera and, you know, I've got a gimbal and stuff.
But yeah, because I mean, live comedy is becoming... Some promoters are really open.
The good ones are really open and just fair and tolerant and just want people on who are funny.
But there's a lot of ideology in comedy, a lot of left-wing people who think that, you know, right-wing people should be denied representation and denied a voice.
And in Scotland, I mean, it's getting harder for me to get in Scotland because, obviously, I've criticised the SNP, the Scottish government, and the SNP directly own the main comedy clubs in Scotland.
It's mad.
It's like North Korea.
Yeah, Tommy Shepard, you know, an SNP politician, owns the stand comedy clubs in Scotland.
And it blows my mind.
So then loads of Scottish comedians hate me because I've spoken out against the government.
And it's like, man, governments are supposed to speak to power.
They're supposed to speak truth to power and criticise power.
And also comedians don't seem to understand that when somebody's criticising woke culture, when somebody's criticising the left-wing mob on Twitter who control what we're allowed to consume and who's allowed to work and who's allowed to feed their families, We're speaking, they've got the cultural power.
Ostensibly, we've got a right-wing government.
I disagree that the current Tories are conservative.
I think they're quite socialist.
But ostensibly, we've got a right-wing government.
But we've got a very, very, very left-wing cultural power.
And all through the media, through tech, through every part of the arts and academia, and pretty much everywhere now, it's systemically woke.
So by criticizing wokeness, we're criticizing that power.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I worry about that.
I worry where it's going to go.
I mean, can you foresee a time where you won't be able to do your stuff anymore?
Won't be able to earn a crust?
Because you mentioned about how it's good that you don't need to go through... the gatekeepers aren't there anymore because you can do it through the internet.
But actually, the gatekeepers are now the internet.
I mean, YouTube is very censorious.
I can't put a lot of my stuff up on YouTube.
Instagram is, well, they're all owned by the same people now.
That's the problem.
Yeah.
So how's that going to work?
Yeah, this is the problem.
And this is somewhere where the government, although, you know, I've just said that, you know, we need less government involvement in people's lives.
This is somewhere where the government does need to step in and regulate big tech to ensure that they're not being arbitrarily discriminatory against people.
Because at the moment, it's just, you know, tech is hugely woke.
So, you know, I know that at some point I'm going to do something that contravenes, you know, Facebook guidelines, or Instagram guidelines, YouTube guidelines.
And it might be something that's perfectly reasonable, or something that would be a perfectly reasonable opinion, you know, a few years ago.
Look at J.K.
Rowling's opinions, you know, a few years ago, they were very woke.
They were, you know, pro-women's rights, you know, safe spaces for women.
But now, you know, with the, you know, now that we're allowing women like me into safe spaces for women, you know, it's becoming Yeah, I'm a woman.
I identify as a woman.
My pronouns are she and her.
So, and them.
Yeah, well, you can put that evil JK woman in her place for her transphobia.
And good luck to you.
You're quite right.
Absolutely.
I mean, I don't like JK Rowling.
This is the thing.
I mean, I'm not sticking up for feminists at all because they've ruined, you know, they've ruined darts.
We can't have the walk-on girls at darts.
Can't have the walk-on girls at Formula One.
And it's like, how many feminists were watching the darts?
Why have they got the mess with the darts?
That's not their stuff, you know what I mean?
If there's walk-on girls at, like, you know, I don't know, whatever, a cat food factory or whatever the fuck feminists are into, like, then it's affecting them.
But darts, it's just fat guys in the Midlands watching it, you know what I mean?
So just let them have their walk-on girls.
Why deny employment opportunities to, you know, single mums in the Midlands?
Just, like, I don't know why... So, like, now feminists are getting, you know, a taste of their own medicine with, you know, now they're TERFs because they don't like women like me.
Yeah, no, I'm totally with you there and I'm thinking actually how, well, how miserable it is.
All those girls who probably didn't have much between their ears but were nice looking and they wanted to get a holiday job or whatever and they'd go and drape themselves over the racing cars at Formula One And the men were happy.
I mean, it's only men who go to F1.
I mean, it's bloody boring, isn't it?
Oh, it's terrible now.
You might as well put beads on a bit of string and just tilt it, you know what I mean?
There's no crashes.
Remember, there used to be crashes and it was exciting.
You'd see some, like, Brazilian go, all right, you've got 45 million pounds, but now you're on fire.
Now you're on fire.
How are you going to deal with that?
And, like, it was exciting.
And now there's none of that.
They just drive around in their little fucking car.
It's so boring.
You are so right.
So yeah, at least there's naked women.
There's naked women at, you know, the boxing.
I think they still have it at the boxing.
That's one place they haven't tainted.
For all the love I was talking about, I was talking about the boxing last night.
I was doing New Material and Talking about Tyson Fury, because Tyson Fury got criticised with views on homosexuality and gender and women's rights and stuff.
And everybody's like, oh, Tyson Fury's got these terrible opinions.
It's like, yeah, but like, you know, you're a gender studies student, criticising him.
Tyson Fury's spent his whole life practising getting really good at punching people in the face.
in the face and he's brilliant at it you know i mean the best in the world at punching people in the face you're a gender studies student you've been practicing your opinions so obviously you've got the world's best opinions like why are we not criticizing these gender studies students for being shit at punching people in the face it's you know let the sports people be good at the sport and the opinion people be good at the opinions yeah um you're absolutely right i but By the way, I feel that we didn't quite finish off the Frankie Ball thing.
I think this is surely the case with comedy, that if you can swallow your pride and swallow any sense of an obligation towards being funny or having any principles at all, Then you can probably earn an order of magnitude more than an honest grafting comic, funny comic like you could.
Is that fair to say?
If you can break into the BBC, you get the golden ticket, you're made.
Oh, well, I mean, you're not.
I mean, I do stuff in the BBC, like, just a few months ago, a couple of months ago, I was on a show in BBC Scotland, six-part series.
But you don't get much money for the BBC.
It's not loads of money.
Like, I would, you know, I'd get more from doing a run of shows, from doing a weekend at, you know, Hot Water.
You know, they pay, like, something like £1,500 for a weekend.
So some, you know, some TV stuff is good, but, like, It's not the pinnacle.
It's not this, you know, golden goose anymore.
But isn't it the promo more?
It's not the appearance fee.
It's the promo.
That's where the money is.
Nobody's really watching it anymore.
I mean, the first series of Live at the Apollo, like everybody on that series became a star.
Everybody just got such a boost, because it's watched by millions of people.
But now that they're not putting, you know, people quite as good on, the viewing figures have dropped like 96%.
Viewing figures for Live at the Apollo are down 96%.
So people used to be worried about, oh, if I do this material on TV, is it burnt?
I can't do it in the clubs anymore, because everybody's seen it on TV.
Man, you could do Live at the Apollo, walk down the street the next day.
Nobody's going to know who you are.
You can go to a comedy club, do all your material.
Nobody's heard of it.
Live at the Apollo, you get a few grand or whatever, and you get to pretend you're famous.
But the real thing, the comedians are blowing up.
Like Andrew Shultz.
See you later, man.
Comedians like Andrew Schultz, so he built a following on YouTube and then Netflix and all the rest of it come to him and they're like, look, we're gonna give you this big wadge of cash 'cause they want his followers.
They want him to bring his viewers.
- Well, I suppose- - I mean, TV is systemically woke as well.
So they are also putting on a lot of woke comedy.
But it's all dismal.
So it's going to die out.
It's going to die out in a few years.
If they're putting on this woke comedy and everybody's like, wow, this is amazing.
You know what I mean?
This is great.
And everybody's tuning in to watch it.
Man, nobody is!
They're all watching like Bill Burr, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock.
People are actually good at comedy.
All these guys are like, you know, anti-woke and, you know, probably, you know, classic.
Liberals or libertarian type, you know, people for individual rights, not collectivism.
Yeah, I didn't realise that actually I was going to learn stuff from you when we were at the beginning.
That is interesting.
So, I mean, do you think comedy is dying on its feet?
Club comedy is pretty healthy.
There's some amazing clubs out there, like Top Secret Comedy in Covent Garden.
Best comedy club in the world.
It's just amazing.
And they book a really diverse line-up.
They'll have all the left-wing comedians, obviously.
Really, really diverse, not just in terms of ethnicity and stuff, which people always You know, I seem to think of diversity in terms of ethnicity, but I think in comedy club it's important to have diversity of opinion and diversity of voice as well.
So across, you know, the class divide and across, you know, the ideological divide as well.
So yeah, Top Secret are amazing.
They're doing really well.
They're like, you know, I was there last night.
So I did a double header with my mate Danny before the main shows and we had 184, 184 in.
Just to see our two-hander, us trying out new material.
And then the main shows, both upstairs and downstairs, sold out.
And I did spots on there.
So it's great.
It's paying so many people's mortgages and bills.
It's great to see hot water in Liverpool again.
I mean, I don't do that club very often.
I'd love to do it more, but they're, you know, hugely successful and they're really, you know, making the best of social media.
Some of the older clubs aren't doing as well.
The ones that, you know, haven't sort of kept up with the times.
And you can see it when the booking gets a bit lazy.
And you see some of them are trying to like, you know, they're like, oh, we better, you know, they've just been booking the same like bald 50 year old guys.
For so long, they're like, man, we better like get some like, you know, get some fresh blood in.
But they don't get the good fresh blood.
They get the, you know, the ones that the agents are pushing.
So... But when you say... Nobody wants to get lectured.
What are the Times saying?
Are the Times saying they want more kind of anti-woke or what?
Yeah, they do.
I mean, like, I think people want, you know, more diversity.
I mean, I book nights, and I always, you know, want to get a diversity across, like, gender and ethnicity, so that people in the audience feel represented.
You know, I run this show called Hate In Live, which is really fun.
Basically, the audience writes down what they hate, and it goes into a bucket, And then we pull it out and the comedians have to see why they hate that thing.
And it could be anything.
You know what I mean?
It could be absolutely anything.
Could be Jeremy Corbyn.
Could be the rituals of duck blood-filled platypuses.
Could be vaccines.
You know, whatever.
Anything can come out of that thing.
I'd like that.
And the comedians on the spot.
Oh, everybody, man.
People love it.
We just did it at Cambridge Comedy Festival.
It's the most fun show.
I think even I could be funny doing that.
I could be like...
Because the reason I couldn't do what you do, or rather wouldn't want to do what you do, I mean, never mind my absence of talent or whatever, is that I have died at public speaking events.
And I found the experience so horrible that I never want to have that to happen to me as a matter of routine.
How long did you have to do when you died?
Because it's the worst when you're like, you launch into, you're doing an hour show and you launch into it and you're like, man, you look at the watch and you're like, man, four minutes in and you're already sweating.
You've got a dry mouth.
You know what I mean?
You know how you feel.
I'm trying to start that lawnmower.
You know how you can tell pretty much within the first 30 seconds whether you're going to, whether you're going to go down well or whether you are, whether it's not going to work and you're never going to claw it back?
Yeah.
And I think I knew within 30 seconds that And it was, it was an after dinner speaking event.
And, you know, I sort of, well, you can't, you can't run away.
You can't drop out.
You can't say, oh, yeah, this isn't working.
Because you want to get paid.
Do you know what?
I wasn't even paid for this.
I wasn't, I was not even paid for this event.
So it was a completely pointless statement.
Oh my god!
Yes.
I don't know what I was thinking.
Then we will book you for Hate In Life.
Yeah, yeah, quite.
Because we know that you're free.
What was I thinking, Leo?
It was like... I don't know, because those things, honestly, after dinner speaking is normally very well paid, because it's so difficult.
It's so difficult.
Those weird gigs, like charity gigs and like...
And, you know, sports gigs where you're, like, talking to a room full of, you know, a football club eating their dinners and stuff.
Man, those gigs are so tough.
Awards ceremonies.
I've done these things, man.
I'll do it because it's, like, it's money.
You know what I mean?
I'll do it for, like, 500 quid, like some golf club in Essex.
But, man, you go up there.
And the thing is, it's always booked by somebody who's seen you at the comedy store or at Top Secret or something.
And they're like, oh, yeah, this guy's going to be amazing.
But obviously, Top Secret is set up perfectly.
It's just perfect.
All the chemical elements are there for comedy to happen.
Everybody's there to see comedy.
They've paid.
They're invested.
They're pointing the right way.
I'm lit.
I've got great sound.
You know what I mean?
There's intro music.
Everything's professional.
Everything's slick.
Then you turn up to this like, you know, golf club, they just throw you on and like, you know, it'll be like, you know, after there'll be a raffle and so everybody's checking out the raffle prizes and then somebody's gone up and said about how, you know, they're raising money for their wife who died and everybody's crying and stuff and then And then they're like, welcome to Studio Curse, and then you've got to go on.
There's no stage, you're just standing on a bit of carpet, no light, and you've got this horrible radio mic that keeps cutting out, and you've got to try and make them laugh, and then, you know, you can see them tutting because you said the word dick, and it's horrific.
Yes.
And you get that money, and you're like, man, I'm in the car, and my wheels are spinning before the guy's even, like, said thank you very much, you know?
But what's always worse is that you have to have the dinner beforehand and they're all getting steadily drunk and you, I mean I don't know about you, I don't like to drink before I speak because I need my mind sharp in case things go wrong.
Although sometimes I think maybe you need to.
Oh absolutely, you've got that slurred voice.
Yeah, and so you've got to put up with all this, and you're having this conversation, you're pretending to be polite, but all you're thinking about is, oh my god, I've got to speak and entertain these people, and what if it doesn't work?
I'm not sure that if you pay me all the money in the world, I'd ever do an after-dinner speaking gig again.
But you told me, because I asked you about this, and I loved your story about One of the nights you died, go on, tell us the story, you know, the one about the NHS party.
Oh, God, yes, this is in Glasgow.
Man, this is in Glasgow, the Rotunda, which, you know, man, I love it, but it can be a tough room.
It's quite a big room, it fits like 300 or something.
And Christmas gigs, man, they can be tough.
This is a Christmas party gig.
And like, so everybody's, you know, normally comedy clubs are comedy, comedy fans and comedy Christmas gigs!
It's like one person.
Because they've got, you know, office people have to do something for Christmas.
So one person will be like, why don't we go and see some comedy?
There'll be like one comedy fan.
So he drags all these like people who hate comedy to this comedy club.
And none of them are there to see comedy.
They want to get drunk.
They want to shag the receptionist.
You know, they want to do cocaine in the toilets.
Nobody's there for comedy.
They don't get it.
And it's busy and it's noisy and all the rest of it.
So I went up on stage.
Went up on stage.
Oh, and this is the other thing.
So the promoter said, Because there was just me and another act on, and an emcee.
So the promoter said to me, I was supposed to be like closing, like headlining, and the promoter said to me, I'm going to put you on first because I want a safe pair of hands to like make sure that, you know, we get off to a flying start.
And as soon as he said that, I was going to die.
I knew it.
That was totally jinxing me.
So I went up.
And I'm like, is it going bad?
And then, like, there's this guy talking really loudly at this table.
And I was like, I turn around, I'm like, oh, you know, excuse me.
You mind shutting up a bit?
I'm trying to do some comedy here.
And he was all, he turns around, he's all, fuck off.
You know what I mean?
Like that.
I was like, man, that just fucking saw red.
I was like, you fucking prick.
You fucking, what the fuck?
What the fuck did you do?
You told me to fuck off?
You want to fucking get up here?
We'll have some fucking MMA.
And you tell me to fuck off.
I thought it was being funny.
I thought it was funny.
But the whole room just went silent.
And then I thought, oh man, oh, I misjudged that.
And I was like, OK.
So then I've got this bit of material that, man, it always works.
If I'm dying, I can do this material, and it'll just dig me out and get everything back on.
But I didn't.
And they're all still staring at me, just in disgust, in absolute disgust.
Then the promoter flashed me off, he said it was the quickest he's ever flashed anybody off at that club and I lasted about 10 minutes and I came off and then in the interval like this woman came up to me all like you know quivering with rage and it turns out Oh no, it was actually a nice person came up after her.
So this nice person told me, was all like, oh, that guy who like, you know, shouted abuse at you and then you wanted to fight him.
He's like this, he's like a, what do they call it?
Something, a modern apprentice?
Some sort of, anyway, basically the workplace, like, Dev, like they've got some sort of hire for like, you know, disadvantaged, you know, dev kids.
Yeah.
And he was their sort of mascot workplace.
I mean, there's, you know, there's words that I'd like to use.
Yes.
I'm not allowed to use because it's 2021, but he was one of them.
And so he's like a sort of mascot that they, you know, I just tried to fight him.
And all the women fought.
And he's like 17 or something.
He came up to me with his mates.
The guy came up to my belly button and he's all like...
Like, he told me to fuck off!
I'm like the comedian!
Like, you know what I mean?
I know, but like, yeah, normally I have my safety on my hands with shows like that.
What you do is you just come out and you play over the top and they get on board.
But yeah, somebody telling you to fuck off, like, that's quite... it was hard for me to... What's the material that you've got that's so funny that you always win?
How do you find such material?
It won't sound so great, but it's about... It lasts about seven minutes.
It's about buying a train ticket online.
It doesn't sound that great, but, man, it kills.
It totally kills.
Okay, so imagine you're dying now, and you've just... I was about to do an impersonation of the Annoying Kid, but I'd better not, because people will cancel me.
It looked a bit like you.
Imagine I'm the Annoying Kid, And I've just been swearing and stuff and you realize you're dying.
Okay, what do you say instantly to introduce your train ticket sketch?
How do you get there from dying to the intro to the trains?
I think what I'd normally do, I mean, like, I think if you just let the tension hang in the air for a moment, like, if you've completely lost the goodwill in the room, you're, you're a little bit, you're a little bit screwed, but if you just let the tension hang in the air and then you break it with just, like, the funny, you know, like, you know, Well, that didn't go the way I hoped.
Or something like that, then you can sort of break it down.
And then just turn around to somebody else, do a bit more crowd work, talk to somebody on the other side, say, how's your day going?
I like those jeans or whatever, they look painted on.
Whatever it is, do something.
I don't know, whatever it is.
Whatever it is, do something. - Distraction. - And distraction, yeah.
And also showing that you're not just an angry person who wants to fight.
You've got to show that you're a nice person who, you know, just got told to fuck off and that's why you reacted quite strongly.
But also, every gig's a learning experience, you know.
Now, I don't react, I try not to react angrily to people who are being, like, dicks.
Well, it's better to just hang back and let them, you know, let them Hang themselves with their own words.
And when you've finished the gig and you've died, and you go home...
Man, that's like the only time it's happened.
It's not like I die regularly.
That was like two and a half years ago.
So let's just be clear about that.
I'm the safest pair of hands in the circuit.
Always kill it.
And always kill it with stuff that shouldn't work.
People are like, oh, right-wing comedy doesn't work.
It's punching down.
Well, obviously it's punching.
Everything is beneath me.
You know what I mean?
So obviously anything I punch is going to be punching down.
Yeah.
And also, yeah, right-wing comedy isn't punching down, it's punching up.
Well, absolutely.
They invent these phrases which shortcut argument.
So we all know that right-wing comedy is punching down.
We all know that punching down is a bad thing.
We're not even asked to question it.
And actually, what we should be saying, why is it punching down?
What do you mean by punching down?
What are you saying here?
But no one ever does, because those are the tricks they always play.
I like going to comedy gigs, but there's no way I would go to a comedy gig if I had to wear a mask.
What's the deal now?
Oh, so you wear a mask, or you don't have to... James, you know you don't have to wear a mask if you say you're exempt.
Yeah.
What should I do?
You just say you're exempt.
Yeah.
Any time, you know, I mean, in some comedy clubs, you know, I'll wear a mask because, like, you know, I don't want the club getting into trouble.
So, like, if I go into the club, I'll just wear a mask.
But then when you're sitting down, you don't have to wear a mask if you're a punter.
When I'm on stage, I obviously don't have to wear a mask.
That's lucky.
But...
That wouldn't work.
I do this on stage, but it's a true story.
I was at the station.
This policeman said, you know, where's your mask?
And I said, I'm exempt because, you know, if you say you're exempt, you don't have to wear one.
But I thought, because it's a policeman, I better give a reason.
So I said, I'm exempt because they give me anxiety.
And he said, where's your lanyard saying that?
And I was like, lanyards give me anxiety as well.
And I said, man, judo, 3D chess.
Yeah, of course it worked, man.
And at the end of the day, if anybody says anything, I just say, I'm transgender.
And then everybody backs off.
Nobody wants to mess with a transgender woman.
I have got... Somebody contacted me once and told me about why they didn't wear a mask and why it was really, really upsetting for them to wear a mask.
And I was thinking, it's so horrible.
It's to do with kind of being raped by a relative with a hand over their mouth when they were a kid.
And I've been keeping that in reserve, you know, if anyone tries to... Fuckin' hell, man!
But normally... I wouldn't start on that.
You know when the police want to go away and cry?
Well, you see... He's just doing his job.
I generally go for the mask exempt option.
I don't wear the lanyard obviously.
I was in Devon recently and I only got challenged once.
It was a fish and chip shop and the guy said to me, I'm going to have to ask you to wear a mask.
And I just said very nicely, I haven't got one.
I'm exempt.
And he said, Oh, you're exempt.
Oh, right.
Fine.
And that was it.
That was the worst.
If people realize this, if people realize that all you need is a bit of kind of good natured confidence, and you know, I really am exempt, you know, you got to believe it.
And that works.
Yeah.
Yeah, I get that masks might improve things a little bit and reduce the spread of the virus by 20% or something like that, but it smudges my lipstick.
You know, everybody's talking about this virus like it's a bad thing.
I just want to free up some parking spaces.
You know, we've got a lot of people in London and nowhere to park.
Like, why is everybody, you know, everybody's like, oh my God, people are going to die from the flu this Christmas.
Now they're talking about there's going to be 60,000 deaths from the flu.
It's like, just let people, sometimes people have to die.
They can't live forever.
We're all going to die at some point.
If you don't die of the flu, it's like that guy, remember there was that guy, William Shakespeare, the first guy to get the vaccine.
Yes.
He died.
And he died like three months later, because he's old.
And it's like, so what?
So he had the last year and a half of his life just spent like locked inside, no human contact, no love, no affection, no seeing his family, just so he could like, Live for three months after he got the vaccine?
Like, no, just let people fucking live and, like, enjoy their lives.
And also, man, this... because now everything's happening on social media.
People are so toxic on social media.
I was at Cambridge Comedy Festival at the weekend.
It was amazing seeing all the comedians in real life.
Even the ones who'd mugged me off, you know, on social media were all nice to my face and stuff.
And it was so, it was so nice.
People need that direct, because social media is like, it's like road rage.
Everybody, you know, nobody realises, you wouldn't talk to somebody in real life like you talk to, like people talk to people on social media.
Like Christian Reilly wouldn't come up to me, you know, at a comedy club and be like, you know, you should be banned from comedy, you fucking asshole, you fucking right-wing cunt!
Like, it just wouldn't happen, but he feels happy to say it on social media.
So, yeah, I think we need to get back to real life and real human communication and bonding and warmth and affection.
I hate to sound like a bigot, but that's, you know, my right-wing ideal is just, you know, I believe in human affection and warmth.
Now, I'm with you on that one.
I was going to ask you, because you must get a sense of where the generations are, whether there's any hope for them or not.
Do you get sort of mixed crowds, sort of mixed age ranges in your gigs?
Oh yeah, hugely.
I mean, I think the sort of core age range for my videos is mostly men, and they're mostly sort of between 40 and 65.
So, you know, they're the people watching my videos.
But top secret, if I'm doing the top secret, it's very young, you know, very studenty, you know, very young, you know, right on crowd.
But man, what I've noticed, like, especially with my nephew as well, like, the young people that are coming through think all this woke stuff is completely bullshit.
Because they can see through it.
They can see it's just like, it's just another religion.
It's just like, you know, these are the strict doctrines that you've got to stick to.
And, you know, except with, at least with Christianity and, you know, Islam, they're written in literal stone.
They don't change every week.
You know what I mean?
So like, now this week, you were a good person last week, but now you're on turf.
You know, it's just these religious doctrines you've got to stick to, or you've got to pay lip service to, but obviously nobody's really, you know, that pure.
So it's this weird sort of performative religiosity.
But the younger generation can see right through it, and they're just like, well, this is bullshit.
And also they're abusing the rules.
Yeah, my mate's a teacher, and there's kids at the school who just have, you know, different pronouns and stuff, just to fuck with the system, you know what I mean?
Which isn't why I transitioned, by the way.
I'm a genuine woman.
Yeah, you are.
No, I can see that, and I respect that.
Absolutely.
Thanks!
I'm glad you said that, because otherwise I'd report you to the police.
Yeah, well, obviously, you'd have to.
Yeah, funnily enough, I was on the...
I went on the campaign bus with Loza, because you were also a Reclaim Party candidate.
That's right.
I was going to become king of Glasgow.
I recommend your campaign video.
It was the best campaign video anyone's ever made.
It was almost like, I don't care whether you vote for me or not.
It was good.
It didn't get you many votes though.
Well, I thought running for election I'd get to go on TV and go on all these debates and stuff.
No, because I'm basically an independent candidate.
Even the things that I organise, the SNP have got such a grip over the country.
They got me deplatformed from a Hustings, an independent Hustings.
They said, they realized me and Michelle Ballantyne from the Reform Party were going to speak at this.
They said, no, no, no, no political speakers, just the scientists and doctors and stuff.
What else?
The BBC.
I used to, you know, I had a monthly thing on the BBC.
It was like 150 quid and that got cancelled as soon as I ran for office.
And the thing that really cost me the election, so the one opportunity I had to get my message out there, was you get to do an election address.
The Royal Mail delivers Your message delivers a leaflet to every household in the region, in the whole of Glasgow.
So we had 330,000 leaflets printed with the printers.
The thing is, man, because we were trying to do everything like properly as if we're like, you know, a big political party.
So, you know, our advisor said, man, you got to like have them printed in Scotland because it'll look bad if, you know, the election address is printed in Essex.
And then other people in Scotland said, no, you can't have Scottish business involvement, because the SNP controls so much of the economy in Scotland, because the public sector is a much bigger proportional economy there.
No business wants to be seen to be going against the SNP, because they'll lose work.
So I don't know, it's George Galloway got his leaflets printed in Essex.
So there was some sort of screw up between the printers and the Royal Mail, and my leaflets didn't go out.
And, you know, that was my one chance to get the message.
It was an amazing leaflet.
Really communicated.
Didn't go out.
Just got pulped.
You know what I mean?
So, I mean, we definitely learned some lessons for next time, but I would have got a lot more votes if, you know, those leaflets had gone out.
And also if I was more organized and less lazy.
Yeah, but that is faintly sinister, isn't it?
I mean, let's be honest, it is the kind of shit that would go down in Nazi Germany.
I can say this, maybe you can't, but the SNP are National Socialists.
It's just like...
Oh, absolutely.
And they're trying to, you know, increase the, you know, they've got this hate crime legislation and, you know, this legislation that's taken away people's rights, like, you know, they tried to make children the property of the state rather than, you know, responsibility of the parents.
And, you know, all this stuff.
I mean, The mad thing is, I thought, okay, this hate crime legislation is coming through, but it's going to be a while before we see really horrific stuff happening.
Just like last month, Marion Miller, I don't know if you heard about this, but Marion Miller, so she's a feminist, or TERF, gender critical feminist, with two autistic sons, and she tweeted a picture of a suffragette ribbon.
So it's, you know, it's on its side, it's got the ribbon and the bow, And somebody complained that that was transphobic because it could be constrained to be a noose.
Even though it was directed at anybody, it didn't really, you know, mention transgender people or anything.
They said, oh, this could be unfair.
You know, I perceive this to be a transphobic hate crime saying, you know, we're going to... Such a leap of the imagination.
But she's been arrested and she's being charged.
She's arrested, taken into custody.
She's got two autistic kids.
It's so Orwell-y.
Like, it's worse than Orwell.
It's horrific.
And this is where we're starting from, you know what I mean?
And also, everybody's right behind it.
The whole society, you know, all these woke pricks are like, you know, oh yeah, no, yeah, lock up this mother.
Send her to jail.
She tweeted a picture of a suffragette ribbon.
What a scumbag.
You know what I mean?
Burn her.
Burn the witch.
You know, and you see the mobs, you see the glee of the mobs on Twitter being like, oh yeah, we're destroying this person.
And you say to them, yeah, but like, you know, like Andrew Lawrence, you know, you say to them like, but yeah, he's got a family.
He's not going to be able to feed his family.
Like, yeah, he doesn't deserve, his kids don't deserve it.
It's like, what the fuck?
Like, a moment ago you were saying Marcus Rashford was great because he's getting school meals out to the kids, but you don't want these kids to eat?
Like, what the fuck?
I don't know.
There's no logic or like, you know, or like just reason to it.
It's so weird. - Yes.
Yeah.
That in a way was why I was asking that question about the, well, you sort of reassured me about the up and coming generation.
We're talking sort of school-age generation or a bit older than that.
Yeah, I'm not saying I spend a lot of time hanging around playgrounds, but basically my nephew's like 12.
Fuck, I hope he's 12.
I mean, you can't get your nephew's age wrong.
Oh, you can't.
That's interesting.
That age group.
He sees right through the bullshit.
I mean, he's a teacher and he says the stuff in the curriculum is horrifying.
You know what I mean?
It's so politicized and it's so, you know, I mean, they're really pushing this sort of Sort of transgender, non-binary agenda, like trying to make it the cool thing to be, instead of just saying, you know, yeah, fine, if you're trans, that's fine, if you're non-binary, that's fine, if you're straight, that's fine, you know, it's all like, oh, celebrate, oh, you're special, you know what I mean?
Yeah, don't be a disgusting cis person, that's like being white, you know what I mean?
What are you, like a Brexiteer?
Oh, you're disgusting, no, you've got to be transgender, that's the only acceptable thing now, you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, they're really pushing it.
But he says the kids, you know, a lot of the kids see right through it, because kids are always questioning authority.
You know, I know, I'm sure you did when you were a kid.
I did when I was a kid.
And, you know, you sort of see through all this, like, performative religious bullshit.
Because wokeism is a religion.
It's just one without any sort of forgiveness or, you know, doctrines that are set in stone.
Yeah, the story I was going to tell you about the Lawrence Fox bus, I think we were in Sutton, somewhere like that, one of the London suburbs.
These school kids came past and there was this boy, I suppose he was about 16, and he had long hair and he was wearing lipstick.
And there was something about him I thought, you're not transgender because you're confused about your sexual identity.
You're just taking the piss.
You're just pushing it.
Like when I was at school, we'd sort of, we'd get our ties and we'd rebel by getting our mums to narrow the ties for us, you know, so they look like sort of drain pipe ties or shoestring ties, whatever, rather than the fat 1970s ties that the school shop actually sold.
Kids will always try and find ways of rebelling, but I hope that is it.
I hope that there is a generation out there, because I'm not sensing much rebellion from Like, going back to that fish and chip shop, there were some noisy kind of kids, probably kind of public school kids, you know, and I was really shocked by how diligently and dutifully they were all wearing their masks, even outside, and I thought... Yeah, the outside!
On the beach!
Yeah, as I say, I don't wear masks on the bus, but I wear one at the beach, in my car, and in the shower.
I mean, it's important to wear a mask.
People are just mad.
I know this is a disease that kills, but it doesn't kill.
It's only dangerous because it spreads so quickly.
You know what I mean?
I get that we've got to reduce the spread, but it's not that dangerous.
It's not like... I mean, we had AIDS!
Well, we didn't have AIDS, but in the 80s, In the 90s, there was AIDS, with a 100% fatality rate.
None of this, like, 0.1% fatality rate bullshit.
And, like, we didn't have lockdown for AIDS.
Where was the fucking AIDS lockdown?
We were throwing members of the royal family into hospitals to shake hands with them.
None of this, like, you know, masking up and, like, staying in your living room for a year and a half.
Yeah, there's a whole other AIDS rabbit hole we could go down.
I mean, I was... I won't do, but I was watching that, what's it called, Doctor Who guy, writer, who did the series about AIDS people, you know, Russell T. Davis.
I like his stuff.
He's, you know, and he did this drama about a bunch of gay men in the 1980s and about how they all, you know, half of them get AIDS and stuff and the other half worry about getting AIDS.
And so I started looking at the actual number of people who actually died of AIDS.
And, you know, it was presented to us at the time like this was the plague that was going to kill us all.
But actually, it was really quite a minority event, you know, in terms of the actual death toll.
Compare the death toll with the attention it was given.
And I mean, actually, this thing we're having now is a replay of that on a larger scale.
Not many more people are dying, if even more people are dying.
I mean, if you look at the... And it's mostly people at the end of their lives who are going to die, you know, within the next, like, few years anyway.
Or, like, fat people.
And it's like, man, I can't believe someone came along that killed fat people and we tried to stop it.
It's like, And also, there's still fat people.
A year and a half into this pandemic, there's fat people.
And it's like, whoa.
If you're still fat, that's worse than not wearing a face mask and licking every doorknob in London.
You know what I mean?
Never mind the normal fat guy diseases, like diabetes and all the rest of it.
If you're still fat a year and a half into a coronavirus pandemic that specifically targets fat people, man, You can't tell anybody to wear a face mask.
Yeah, people often say this, people of our persuasion, they look at, you get this footage of the 1970s, and you realise how great the 1970s were, and you look at these scenes, a beach in the 1970s, there are no fat people on that beach.
Now, is it because... Yeah, you've got guards patrolling the beach, making sure Like, they either roll them in the sea, where they can start a new life.
You know what I mean?
Surprisingly graceful in the water.
Or they're just sent back.
It just didn't... I mean, it could be that whaling was more... was still a thing in the 1970s.
Maybe they were all harpoon.
But I think probably... A Japanese guy just pops up.
That's one possibility.
Or the other possibility is, yeah, I suppose the other possibility is that everyone ate incredibly well in the 1970s.
But I don't, I don't recall eating incredibly well.
That's not the answer.
We had stuff out of tins, don't we?
I mean, when we were children, yeah, we had alphabetic spaghetti and stuff that kind of been that.
Yeah.
It's good for your brain though, getting all those like words Yeah, that's true.
Well, I mean, that's why I'm so literate.
That's why I got into, you know, good university and stuff, you know, to read English.
But the thing we had in the 1970s, which we don't have now, is the notion that being fat was kind of an undesirable thing.
It wasn't sexy.
Whereas now you have all these kind of body positive bollocks being churned out by the, you know, you have models that make you want to throw up.
Yeah yeah yeah it's terrible and like people need an excuse like you know like there's ever been a problem with lack of fat people like there's there's plenty there's plenty of fat like I don't I just I think I think it's kind of it's kind of ridiculous and it's also bad for the people because not only is being fat like they've got this thing where like you know I'm uh healthy at any size and it's like no that's not medically true um healthy you know below a certain you know bmi and i'm actually i'm over
i'm over my bmi i'm for a skinny person i'm surprisingly um fat heavy but um surprisingly fat yeah so i mean there's other stuff you got to look out for there's like um you get the stealth fat that like settles around your organs even skinny people can have so you can have like stealth fat you got to watch out for that but it's not it's not healthy and then also man these sort of messages these body positivity messages are lying to people's
So then, you know, I've got female friends and I'm like, oh yeah, I'm so, like, you know, empowered and, you know, I don't need to be.
I'm just, this is the way my body's meant to be.
It's like, your body's not meant to be.
Your body's like that because you drink, like, two bottles of chardonnay every night and eat shit from the takeaway.
Like, your body's not meant to be like that.
And the thing is, they're being told they're beautiful and stuff, but They're not.
And like, men are looking at them being like, you know, you know what I mean?
Which, you know, maybe they don't want that.
Maybe they don't want that weird sort of 70s cartoon guy going, but, but, you know, I know, you know, you know, somebody's not beautiful.
If they post on Facebook, a picture of themselves, you know, fat and stuff.
And they say like, Oh, guys, I'm so beautiful.
And people agree with them.
Like, if you were genuinely beautiful and you posted on social media, guys, I'm beautiful, everybody would be like, the fucking size of the head in this prick?
Like, you know what I mean?
Have some, like, shame.
If you're not beautiful and you say you're beautiful, everybody says it's brave and stunning and you're wonderful and beautiful.
There was a, um, I don't, I don't, I can't listen to the BBC anymore because it's just like shit.
Um, but, uh, so I'm, I'm always on the lookout in my car for stuff to listen to.
We were traveling down with, with the kids, um, uh, to Devon and we were listening to old episodes of Desert Island Discs.
And the best one I've ever heard was the one with, do you remember Clarissa Dixon-Wright, Two Fat Ladies?
Yeah yeah okay so clearly she's it is the best ever does it undress and what's great about her is that she's absolutely frank and she talks about things like how how awkward even back then uh people were discussing the concept of fat you know they felt awkward about using the word even though they were called two fat ladies in the series and but no one wanted to address this issue but Clarissa was, she knew she was fat.
I mean, the reason she was fat was because she poisoned herself on, she had tonic, quinine poisoning, you know that?
She had so many bottles of tonic.
She drank two and a half bottles of gin a day in her alcoholic phase.
And the tonic that she drank with that, the quinine destroyed her, her Adrenal gland.
Her adrenal gland worked overtime and so she could never get thin.
But she was very unapologetic.
She didn't try to pretend that being fat was a good desirable thing that we should all kind of feel comfortable about.
That's what we've lost, this sense that it's not a problem if you're fat.
Except in so far as you shouldn't expect ambulances to be reinforced to carry you to your bariatric hospital, you know, to your bariatric bed, your specially wide bed.
And you shouldn't expect the whole economy to be closed down just because there's a bug going around that kind of seems to get you more if you're fat.
That shouldn't be the deal.
Yeah.
I totally agree.
It's so true, you have to agree with me.
I had fat activists at my show.
This was back in 2018, I think.
But basically, yeah, halfway through the show, these fat activists stood up, kind of slowly.
And one of them shouted, one of them shouted, we're fat activists!
And I had to agree with them.
They were fat as fuck activists.
Like, I managed to get away from it.
I got away by walking up a flight of stairs.
What did you do, actually?
Did you kind of... They stood up and, like, the real... They stood up... We're back to this.
Man, it was so weird.
People were laughing.
You know what I mean?
But they said... Man, they were super angry, because I did some joke about...
I did some joke that went on the internet about, for a lot of it, it's about fat people living in the sea.
So I said global warming, you know what I mean?
I said sea level's going to rise, and the whole joke was premised on the fact that the sea level's rising doesn't matter, because it happens really slowly, so you just walk up the beach, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Like, you can get away from the sea, which I know isn't the truth of why global warming's a bad thing, but it's a fucking joke, you know?
This is what people don't understand.
Sometimes comedians are joking, you know?
And I also said, so I said the only people would be caught by that is fat people because they're too lazy to walk up the beach.
And so they can they can go live, but they can go live in the sea and eat a seafood diet and it's remarkably slim and they can rejoin us on land afterwards.
And like the bit is funnier than that.
But yeah, so these people really got the hump about it because the whole bit they said was laced with white privilege, patriarchalism, heteronormativity and something else that is probably great.
Well, fatism, I mean body negativity or something.
Body negativity, body shaming.
Body shaming, yeah, absolutely.
It's very insensitive.
I was going to, because I was watching that very set before we started this podcast and I was, part of me was thinking how can I prod him into kind of delivering little kind of excerpts from that show.
But I was thinking, it's quite hard to do, isn't it?
I mean, I like the bit where you're snorkeling in Bali, if you remember that, and your thoughts on that.
Oh yes, there's all this plastic floating in the water.
This is true, man.
Like, I don't know, I normally go to Bali like twice a year.
There's an island there.
When things reopen, man, it's the best place in the world.
You land at Denpasar Airport and it's like half an hour in a taxi to the ferry port, like an hour, hour and a half on the ferry.
You're on this island called Nusa Penida and it is just, it's insane.
There's like manta rays, there's cliffs.
It's just the most insane place.
It's super cheap.
So I go there on the way to and the way back from Australia when I'm doing the festivals.
But yeah, I was there.
I was snorkeling with manta rays, and there was so much plastic on the water.
There's a lot of plastic pollution in Southeast Asia, in the oceans.
There's these big manta rays, and, you know, they're hoovering up and stuff, but it was all banging off my head, and I was like, man, if we just made this shit heavier, just make the plastic heavier, then it'll sink to the bottom of the sea, no fucking problem.
Like, nobody gives a... can't even see the bottom of the sea.
That's... well, I think people should watch your...
I'll put the notes about where to see your stuff and stuff and you've got links to that set which is really good.
I don't want to bum you out, I don't think you're ever going to be able to go back to No, I don't think it is.
I don't think it is.
I think it's going to happen.
And it might happen surprisingly quickly.
Because as long as deaths... I think Britain and Israel are way ahead of other countries in terms of vaccinations.
So even though cases are rising, Deaths aren't rising.
It's going to become an endemic illness like flu that we just learn to live with.
And you know, if 60,000 people die from it every year, man, 60,000 people die from it.
Like people have got to die from something.
You can't live forever.
So we're going to get back to normal and we're going to be able to fly places.
And the thing that's going to change is like now there's a lot of stuff has moved to remote working.
Some flights.
Might be sort of screwed.
You're not going to get that sort of well-paid, that sort of lucrative business travel that subsidizes people like me who fly in the scumbag seats.
I still think it's going to come back.
I love your optimism, and I hope that you'll prove right and that I'm not, because I would love to be totally wrong.
Leo, it's been really, really good to have you on this, and I'm going to put this out Very soon.
Unedited because I don't do edits.
So please don't email me after.
It's so tiresome.
People email me and say, oh, I think I said something, you know, insensitive about.
I kind of think, fuck off.
You know, that's the point.
It's normal just to We should be allowed to, you know, make mistakes or step over the line.
I mean, this is the thing I hate with all this cancelling of comedians.
Like, comedians are always, you know, transgressing over the line of social acceptability.
Sometimes you do that and it's really funny.
Sometimes you do it and it's not.
And we've got to be able to, like, do it and learn.
You've got to be able to crash the car to find out how fast it can go.
It makes Formula 1 more exciting.
So, you know, I don't want comedy to be this, like, sane, sanitised, everybody's scared, everybody's self-censoring so they don't say something that's going to get them cancelled.
I think it's vital that we've got the ability to offend.
I apologize to everyone who was... One of the sad things, Leo, is that I get these occasionally guilt-inducing letters, and I do feel genuinely guilty, from people who say, I'm a massive fan of your podcast, and I've been trying to kind of de-woke my 12-year-old grandson or whatever.
But can you warn me next time about all the swearing?
And it's true.
It's the only reason that I try really hard not to swear.
I mean, with a Scottish comedian, a swearing free show, it's not going to happen, is it?
It's not going to happen.
You could have told me at the start instead of the end.
I could have done it.
Do you know what, Liam?
That would have involved being organised, and the thing I always forget to do at the beginning of the show.
I mean, partly because I think it's just so boring, but partly because I'm always, I'm like a horse at the beginning of the Grand National.
I just want to get on and just jump those hurdles.
And win the race, or roll over and, you know, be one of the horses that gets shot, whatever.
But the thing I meant to say at the beginning and never do is, please, everyone, if you love this show, and I know you have, don't forget to support me, because, like, we're getting all our freedoms taken away from us, and people like me do need to earn a crust, you know, in this system which is trying to crush people like me.
You can support me on Patreon, on Subscribestar and at my website dellingpoleworld.com and yeah, you can give me Paypal donations, whatever.
And I'll put links to Leo so that you can help him feed his starving Bairns, as I believe they're...
You're starving, Ben?
Oh yeah, they can get a sugar butty.
Yeah, a sugar butty.
Five pounds!
Used to eat a bit of margarine and some sugar on it, and some white bread.
Man, you know the average age of coronavirus deaths in Scotland is actually older than the average life expectancy.
Yeah.
In Scotland it's not a disease, it's an antioxidant.
The Scottish diet is so bad you can actually introduce a Chinese bat virus and Scottish bodies are like, what is that?
Is that fibre?
Yeah, exactly.
So Covid has been a boon to Scotland.
It's increased the life expectancy in Scotland, which I think is... Yeah, some people are living in their 40s.
That's good.
All right, Leo, it's been really great having you, and we must do it again sometime.
It's been an absolute joy.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks for having me, James.
Speak to you soon.
Cheers.
Thanks a lot.
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