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March 28, 2023 - The Delingpod - James Delingpole
01:18:05
Dick Delingpole
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Time Text
I love Danny Paul, go and subscribe to the podcast baby!
I love Danny Paul, unless another time subscribe!
Welcome to That DallyingPod with me, James Dallyingpole.
And I know I always say I'm excited about this week's special guest, but I'm not excited about this week's special guest because it's not a special guest!
I'm not special!
You're not special.
You're the only person who's not special, Dick.
Which makes me kind of special.
I'm very excited, Dick, because it's been so long since we last did a podcast.
A lot has happened.
Lots happened.
Incidentally, I'm getting really bad echo back seconds after I save.
You totally are.
We're not having that.
I don't know what's going on.
Hang on.
Echo cancellation.
Shall I turn that on?
It normally asks you whether you've got your headphones on.
Cannot be changed while recording.
We're going to start again.
Start again.
Start again.
No, no, no.
But hang on, let me just check my sound.
Fuck it's so boring.
You know why?
I, no.
I think that's the input.
No.
Try again.
I'll talk now.
Yeah.
That's not echoing anymore.
It's not, is it?
No.
Oh, let's just carry on then.
Okay.
Was it?
OK.
With our audience loving this sort of shit.
Yeah, well, I know.
Think of it as a filter.
Exactly, it's a filter.
I know that there are some people and in a way you, it separates us out from trigonometry.
Your favourite podcast.
You love trigonometry.
Well, obviously.
This is why I don't get to watch you very much these days, because I'm keeping up with Kishin and Constance.
Were their names?
Something like that.
It's the Thunderbirds puppet and the other one.
Somebody pointed this out, once you know that one of them's a Thunderbird puppet, you can't not think about it.
You can't not see it.
By the way, Dick, have I got shaving foam up my nose?
I actually shaved, because after what you said the other day about my hair... You've done a lovely job of it now, though.
I mean, that's just pretty much perfect.
Fantastic.
It does look like a co-murder, doesn't it?
People spend a lot of money on haircuts, and you've proved you don't need to.
Exactly, thank you.
What I wanted to say to you, before we go on, is thank you for your hunter and gather tip.
Right.
That relationship going well.
It does seem to be.
I'm going to read out their ad, actually.
I'm sure they do want me to do an ad on The Dick Podcast.
They must have had a good take-up because they are advertising again after an initial trial.
Okay.
And people are obviously... And we've had... Well, I'll tell you about this in a moment.
We'll just do the formal Hunter and Gather spiel.
As you know, I've recently been advocating the positive impact a real food diet can have on your health.
And I'm not about to stop.
Hunter and Gather have changed the game for me, so I want to keep sharing them with you.
They are an ancestrally inspired real food and supplements brand, simplifying optimal healthy living by making the most amazing range of products.
Their range spans from great tasting mayonnaises and condiments, all free from refined sugar and seed oils, to cooking oils and supplements, such as collagen powder, freeze dried lamb's organs in easy to take capsules, Some people Dick are uncomfortable with the idea of me doing advertising.
on subscription orders which can be cancelled anytime we've teamed up with the folk at hunter and gather to offer you a further 10 off which you can redeem by heading to hunter and gather foods.com and using the code tdp10 enjoy um i think yeah so some people dick are uncomfortable with the idea of meeting advertising i think my own view
i don't know what you think if i'm if i'm pushing products which i i like and and think are a good thing and people are people are buying them and getting discounts i think what's not uh absolutely Absolutely, but obviously it's the thin end of the wedge in some people's eyes and the day you start bigging up things that you haven't even tried and don't even believe in, but I think Hunter and Gather It's a perfect fit for you.
They love us.
We love them.
It's a product that came about through me saying, where the hell can I get hold of mayonnaise that isn't full of rapeseed oil?
And they approached us.
So, you know, good on them.
They stuck their neck out and it's not always the obvious fit to ask someone as controversial as you to endorse someone's product.
So, yeah, more power to their elbow.
I don't think I'm controversial.
What I will say, I love the mayo, I haven't tried obviously the entire product range yet.
I think that their tomato sauce is a bit pure, in that it's not ketchup.
And I think the point of a ketchup is, I mean, whether they use some thing that's not sugar, I don't know, kind of organic manuka Honey made by special New Zealand bees that live above 20,000 feet, or whatever.
Whatever they do.
It's like when you're having a cooked breakfast, you don't really want to have, just my criticism, I don't want you to have to criticise your sponsor, but it's quite thin and it's quite, it's like a tomato sauce rather than a ketchup.
Right.
So it's not sort of preserved tomato, and it needs a bit of sweetness to cut the water contrast with the vinegary-ness.
Well, you've got to overcome years of Heinz ketchup sort of indoctrination, haven't you?
Yeah, but I already have to.
I'm already on to the premium.
I don't use Heinz anymore.
But even so, I think we have to accept that certain things serve a function.
It's like, you can't have jam that's low sugar.
It just doesn't work.
No, no.
Sure.
You can't have pickles that haven't got pickle in them.
We've been using the ghee in our cooking a fair bit, which is great.
And the wife has jumped onto the oil, the coconut oil stuff that she has in coffee.
And apparently that works towards keto.
Yeah, you make a bulletproof coffee.
Have you heard of this?
It's what the Americans do.
They put a lump of butter in their coffee.
And it sounds vile, but when you think the butter is just whipped up cream anyway, churned cream.
But there's this coconut oil, they do, that makes a bulletproof coffee, among other things.
So yeah, she's unexpectedly jumped onto that and loves it.
So yeah, good things.
I think it's important to maintain a grip on some normie things.
I mean, cigarettes.
Are they even normie?
I don't know.
Increasingly fringe.
Yeah, I think almost actually cigarettes now are a kind of badge of An identity badge, aren't they, for the Awake?
Yeah.
Because we know that cigarettes... Well, the other day, at Third Wednesday, I was... I'm off fags for Lent.
It's one of the things I've been trying to give up.
And what I didn't want to do was miss out on the cool kids having a fag round the side.
So, as I left to go and see them, I got to meet a new person who turned up our group, which was David Icke's daughter.
And she was absolutely lovely.
And had I not gone out to Well, there's no such thing as coincidences anymore.
a fag i i might not have met her so um that was really very good liked it a lot that was a sign from god yeah probably well there's no such thing as coincidences anymore we we all know things are happening because they meant to happen yes yeah um That's good.
Well, also, I can understand that after your brush with lung cancer.
It happens every time I take... It happens every time I retake up smoking, but I think it's just something that you have to get used to, a heaviness on your lungs, imaginary or otherwise.
Not wishing to drag the conversation down to a depressing level so early on, but Do you not think that actually lung cancer would be a doddle compared with the stuff that's coming our way?
I mean, the tribulation is going to be horrible.
And I don't really see how we avoid it unless somehow we get assumed into heaven in that good bit, you know, if the rapture is a thing.
Like that good bit?
Yeah, you could end up with lung cancer in the gulag though, so, you know, it's swings and roundabouts.
Either it wipes you out beforehand, but I don't know, is it best to go into the gulag in rude health?
I don't know.
And I feel bad about doing this because I feel like I'm bumming out loyal supporters who need a bit of optimism, the cheery optimism.
Do you not feel this?
So we all went on the marches and I totally respect, by the way, people who are still doing it.
I feel bad that I wasn't in London.
Last weekend for that march, where Eden and others were.
But I rather feel that they, the Powers That Be, whatever, the Predator class, have played a blinder recently.
Because most people have been persuaded that everything's back to normal.
It's all pretty much okay.
We've solved, you know, the craziness.
We finally dealt with COVID.
Thanks to, you know, a bit of luck and a bit of intervention with these perfectly safe and effective.
Life-saving cure.
Yeah.
And, um, we've got, you know, Piers Morgan sort of saying, sorry, not sorry, because... Oh, that's so annoying.
The science, the science changed.
Hmm.
Yeah.
So, so my views changed with the changing science.
Yeah.
You just, just want to... He's not, he's not stuck in the mud, Piers Morgan.
He's not, he's not going to be bound by morals or honesty or anything like that.
The enemy are going to constantly adapt their tactics, though, aren't they?
It's not like they're going to sit back and go, wow, the other side seem to be winning.
They've got many more rabbits to pull out of the hat.
They're going to continue to play the... They're like AI, aren't they?
Yeah, they learn and adapt and change their tactics.
On the face of it, we don't stand a chance.
Obviously, we know that ultimately we get to win, but at what cost?
Well, the problem is, Dick, OK, I suppose the best case scenario is that, yeah, it's all going to come to pass because the Bible says it is, and Revelation and Isaiah and stuff, they all talk about the stuff that's coming before Christ returns.
So the optimistic scenario is, yeah, but it's going to happen way beyond our lifetime.
There's so much more to play out before that happens.
That's the optimistic one.
So let the kids or the grandchildren or the great-grandchildren deal with it.
But the more pessimistic one is that it's all playing out pretty much according to the Bible now.
And it seems to be accelerating.
And so it looks like we're going to get the ringside seats at the... Have you been watching or watched at all The Chosen?
No.
Oh God, you've got to get on to it, especially with your TV reviewer hat on.
You know this thing that's been... I don't even know about it, what is it?
It's a series that's been crowdfunded in America, so it's all paid for, and therefore they don't have to make money out of flogging it to Netflix and what have you, but it's available in just about every format.
It's a series, a drama series on the life of Christ, essentially.
It's very, very slick, good on correct doctrine and, you know, it's historically, it feels right.
It's got that sort of Life of Brian feel about it, for the gritty authenticity and the sort of first century Judea type feel.
They've got some great actors.
Playing the roles of the various apostles and it's unmissable really.
All of my lot, all my down the Christian rabbit hole lot are absolutely loving it.
But there's a scene in it where, you know the scene where they break through the roof of the house to drop the crippled man in through so Jesus can heal him?
They're in that scene.
So, someone asks from the audience, it's Ask Jesus time, and they go, you talk about there's going to be a judgment when so-and-so will separate the good and the evil, blah, blah, blah, and when is this going to happen?
And so Jesus says, well, what do the... Oh, look, you're completely distracting me with the beautiful British blue.
Isn't he lovely?
Anyway, Jesus basically, to cut to the chase, he says you've got to be prepared for it to happen pretty much any time.
Yeah.
He says the servant's waiting for their master to return.
They don't go and eat his food, sleep on his bed, generally run riot.
They're ready there with lamps that are freshly cut.
You've got to be ready at any time.
So basically the message, if you are a Christian, you've got to be ready now.
It's not a case of we can put it off for a while and do what we like for a bit longer.
You've got to always be ready.
Or let's see how Bitcoin plays out a bit longer and hope that we can yet buy that volcano island and protect ourselves from the icy.
Yeah.
Well, no, obviously I am familiar with those bits of scripture.
I'm dying to get back to the Gospels, because I've just been ploughing my way through the letters, the epistles.
Well, I'm still doing Old Testament in the evening, and I do New Testament in the morning, just reading it just before work, and that works out well for me.
We had a discussion on our Thursday Circle group last Thursday about this Old Testament thing.
It all seems to be very much about how to sacrifice some blemished sheep if you've got leprosy.
But it doesn't seem to be completely relevant to us today.
And I think the whole thing is you're meant to read them in conjunction with each other.
I am not of the view... you know there's this kind of... this...
edgy take on the Bible, which is that Yahweh is in fact Satan or something.
Right!
Controversial, to say the least!
Well, yeah.
And I just think, like... I mean, we don't want to make this all about... No, no, it'll scare the horses.
It'll frighten off the Satanists.
Our Satanist audience will be going, what?
I didn't...
They're discriminating against me!
I'm cancelling my Patreon!
You're dissing Satan again!
So look, sorry Satanist viewer.
We'll move on soon.
viewer we'll move on soon but you read Isaiah which is Old Testament or Or you read the Psalms, which are Old Testament.
And time and again you are blown away by how much they foresee the New Testament.
They predict Christ's coming.
They predict so much.
And the Psalms, for example, were written in about 1000 BC.
So a thousand years before Christ's coming there was... I hope I didn't mention this in last week's episode.
I learned Psalm 2 and there's a bit where God speaks and he says, Yet have I set my king upon my holy hell of Zion.
And then it goes into the voice of the king, who is his son, and it says, I will preach the law, whereof the Lord hath said unto me, thou art my son, this day I have begotten thee.
Well, how would they know a thousand years before Christ's birth that this was going to happen, except if they had the powers of remarkable prediction?
And how can you sort of write off the Old Testament as this kind of other thing when it rhymes so perfectly with the New Testament and echoes it and repeats it?
Yeah, but you do have to wade through a lot of begatting and How to build a tabernacle, how many cubits of wood, the measurements, the precision, the types of cloth.
I mean, it's fascinating in a way, because it's all very hardline Jewish type stuff, not mixing your fabrics and what you can and can't eat.
But, you know, I want to be a completist.
At the end of it, I want to say, yes, I've read the Bible.
So you've got to wade through Leviticus and Numbers, which I'm on now.
And it's like, You know, just to name numbers isn't really selling it to me.
But I'm dying to get on to some of the more exciting stuff.
Numbers has got a lot of lists.
Yeah, Isaiah is the best.
It's like a treat further on, isn't it?
So yeah, we should probably move on from things religious.
One more thing, do you know how Isaiah was killed?
Yes, he was torn in half with a wooden saw.
Which is just, you know, not a great way to go.
So you want to tell me about your trip to Portugal, don't you?
Well, it is the most recent thing that we need to catch up on, and I quizzed you on whether you'd been to Lisbon before.
I have.
I liked the Pastéis Del Nata.
Is that what they're called?
Pastéis Del Nata.
Pastéis Del Nata.
I don't think it's a language I'm ever going to master, Portuguese.
Yeah, it's funny, even when the Portuguese speak to Spanish, I think they revert to English because they're different enough, but it's a very difficult language.
I'll tell you what I like about Lisbon is that funny little Tower thing elevator thing mouth of the river Right where they all set on you and you look at the carvings and it's got sort of pelicans and that's the Belem Tower That's near the monastery.
I was completely underwhelmed by that thing because I had to queue for half an hour for it And when we got in you didn't go inside.
Yeah Do you know that was my mistake?
Yeah.
You idiot.
You idiot.
What was I thinking?
What were you... I fancy going to the tourist attraction.
The man who queued to get inside the Belem Tower.
I don't know if I did or I didn't.
The mistake we both made, Dick, you know there's a queue-jumping pass that you can just get for everything.
They don't tell you about it because obviously they want to keep it a secret.
Right.
There's a Lisbon get-into-everything pass that you just get from somewhere, probably somewhere inaccessible.
You've probably got a sort of goatee.
I figured there had to be something like that because wherever there's a queue there's a way of there's a way of getting around it but you know we were playing everything by ear and just sort of just going with the flow and I think after that we we realized that not all the things with queues on are worth queuing for so we kind of kept that to a minimum and had a much better time of it thereafter.
Did you not like the monastery where Vasco de Gama and others are buried?
No, that was lovely.
That was beautiful.
That's right by that tower.
That's worth seeing, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's worth going in to.
The things I like doing.
Yeah, absolutely stunning.
But the thing I like doing is just drifting around these places.
Just sort of, you know, letting yourself get lost.
Stopping for a coffee and a fag and a pastry.
It's just... For four days it couldn't have been better.
It was absolutely lovely.
So, yeah.
Big up Lisbon.
Lisbon is lovely, I agree.
I think when we went there we rather had the sense that we were pushing the boundaries of available things to do even after like two days.
It's not like...
I know it's an unfair comparison but you go to Venice and you think right this is just like a box of chocolates and I'm gonna eat all the flavors and I'm gonna feel a bit sick and there's so much to do and so much to miss out on.
I didn't really feel after say three days in Lisbon that I'd missed out on stuff.
You know I'd seen the nice shops.
Oh no, there were lots for us to still do.
I'd seen the castle.
We didn't do the castle, we didn't do any galleries.
The Maritime Museum is recommended by our father.
Did you do the aquarium?
No.
And I thought, why would I do an aquarium when it's the same bloody fish anywhere in the world?
Exactly.
There's always a sand tiger, isn't there?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, we could have done a lot more.
We took a day trip out to Sintra, which was the highlight.
I mean, that was beautiful.
And, yeah, it was a great city break and I would place it up there with Tallinn and Budapest as favourite city breaks I've had.
So, you know, that's high praise indeed.
How many more city breaks do you think we're going to get before...?
This is what I keep on wondering.
How many opportunities are we going to get to get away?
Because, you know, they don't want us to travel, even now.
You go to an airport and it is so dystopian.
Right from the moment you get in and you have to queue for that security thing.
And, OK, so they're no longer looking in the sole of your shoe for bombs.
Which was all made up anyway.
Which was all made up anyway.
It was all fabricated.
It was Patrick Henningsen who you interviewed the other day and I haven't listened to that yet but he did a really good talk on it at our comedy podcast weekend when he said that they take all your liquids off you in case they're explosives and they put them in a big pot by the side with all the other potential explosives so by the end of the day They've got a great big massive barrel of potentially explosive liquids.
If they believed it for one moment, they wouldn't treat it like that.
They'd take it out with the leather gloves and masks and dispose of it or something.
It's just a charade to wear you down and put you off travel, make you feel like the sheep that you are.
Yes, you're right.
It's all about demoralising and sort of forcing you to recognise the absurdity of the regulations that you are yet accepting by.
I don't think people do realise that.
I think they say, well, do you think we could go through without these security measures?
And I would go, yes, I do think we could.
But they're having none of it.
Well, I don't want to be on the plane when you blow up because they didn't check the soles of our shoes.
It's just ludicrous.
One time, Oliver, as in my son, your nephew, he got stopped going through customs because he had a fake bullet on his keyring.
And he was mortified.
It nearly put him off travel.
They took it off him.
And it was very much a sort of, what were you thinking, having this fake bullet on your keyring?
Fake bullets, they do.
Yeah, I know.
They could go with fake guns and pretend to kill someone.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Do you know what's really annoying me today?
Today of all days.
Of all days, what?
The time zone thing.
The way that we've... It's like a stolen hour, isn't it?
It is.
I was... I've been...
I read Peter Hitchens just to see what he's moaning on about today, whether there's anything I can extract from him that's useful.
And this one is, look, I was absolutely right about the Iraq War.
It was completely pointless.
And I was right and nobody listened.
That's a good Peter Hitchens!
It's about the only impersonation I can do.
Okay.
And now or then, now or then.
Apart from that one.
And so he was going on rightly about time zones, about the clock change.
And he was pointing out, he said, imagine a situation where your boss says to you, on Monday you're going to turn up No excuses.
No excuse on earth is going to change this.
You will turn up to work an hour early and everyone in the office is going to have to do it.
Everyone in the entire country is going to have to do it.
Which is essentially the nature of the clock change.
It's the powers that be.
Because that's what it really is.
We can even change your time.
We can tell you what time of day it is and there's nothing you can do about it.
And we're going to mess with your body clocks.
We're going to increase, apparently the incidence of cancer increases with the time change.
I suppose because people's body clocks get disrupted and it interferes with lots of things.
I should imagine all those people on the brink of myocarditis heart attacks are going to be sent over the edge by this as well.
Every little helps.
There's always an excuse.
So at any given time, any subject about which there is potential debate, there will always be the pre-prepared counter-argument.
for the clock change and it's something to do with kids coming home from school and they're not going to get run over because it's all it's all bullshit it's all it's all bullshit and yet a bit like the thing you just mentioned about the the liquids at the airport people have been persuaded because they've read so many articles about about Yeah, it's because of the school children.
I mean, if you were Team Toby, that's what you'd do, isn't it?
You wouldn't go, why are we doing this stupid, stupid thing which is unnecessary, damaging to people's health, disruptive, costly, pointless?
Do you want school children to get run over?
the thing is the children the school children and and the and regulation do you want school children to get run over is that what you want to happen yeah yeah do you want Scottish farmers not to be able to grow oats for your porridge Can you imagine being that Scottish farmer?
He wants to go out and do some ploughing at 5am, but it's 6am, so he can't.
Or the other way round.
You know, it doesn't work like that.
A farmer's going to do the shit he has to do when he wants to do it, no matter what time the government tell him it is.
But we know that.
The normies kind of find it difficult to grasp.
I've been writing a piece on the subject and it's going to be an absolute humdinger when I finally publish it.
It's about something like why I don't believe in free speech and why I don't believe in debate.
Because I think both of these things are kind of chimeric.
They're these notions which have been presented to us as Unarguably a good thing.
It's free speech.
We love free speech.
I'm setting up the Free Speech Union to protect it.
It's almost a blockable offence for me.
People coming onto my Telegram channel and saying how, you know, we need more debate.
Debate's a good thing.
We need... Why don't you have guests on your podcast that you can debate more with?
Have people from the other side... Instead of having people you agree with all the time, why not have... Why not have Piers Morgan?
Why not have... Ooh, Peter Hitchens, that would be interesting.
Or Michael Gove, or... I don't know.
Satan.
Satan.
Exactly.
The adversary himself.
And I think it's all bollocks.
I'm not interested in... So, suppose... I was thinking of a few examples.
So, suppose you were going to debate... You would decide whether the moon landings happened or not.
And you had team Bart Sibrel.
I can't remember what his website is.
And you had team... I think it's S-I-B-R-E-L dot com.
You got that?
OK.
Maybe that's a bad example.
But it presupposes that if only these sides can lay out their material, set out their arguments clearly and articulately, the audience at home will be able to go,
On the one hand, NASA, which is a really respectable body, which wouldn't lie to us, and we saw the rockets on, we saw Nixon on the phone, for goodness sake, and astronauts, these are men, men of impeccable virtue.
These are heroes.
They've got the right stuff.
They wouldn't lie to us.
And also, how many, how could you possibly stage this fake thing?
I mean, so many people would have to be in on the fake that it would never be possible.
And then on the other side you'd have yeah, but shadows flags put together with with mask with sticky tape and and tinfoil and and impossible distances and And people would get would sit there stroking their chins and going.
Yeah, I Think I'm going to go for it with that argument, but it's it we've had it we've been given this notion that everything should be up for debate and And what actually it does is it enables the Hegelian dialectic because always the ground moves.
Suppose you've got, my argument is, there's truth and there's falsehood.
But what debate does is always moves the point away from truth towards the muddled ground which is closer to falsehood.
Do you get what I'm saying?
Yeah, yeah.
So we know what the score is, because it's hard-won, this knowledge.
It's a variation on the dog-shit-yoghurt theory, isn't it?
It is a variation on dog-shit-yoghurt theory.
It is.
I mean, I suppose that all my pieces are basically variations on a theme.
But I've been particularly bothered recently by some of the normie contributors on my Telegram channel saying things like, well, what's wrong with trigonometry?
They were okay about the vaccine.
Actually, they weren't.
They really weren't.
the thunderbird puppet um he initially having imposed the vaccine he said he he was going to he was going to take one in his um in it in his in his arm um they're obviously what gatekeepers control opposition whatever and and you only have to think about this and examine this for a few moments to realize this so
So I'm not interested in debating people who are just not clever enough or not astute enough or haven't done the legwork to find out what the truth is.
I'm happy to people to debate stuff.
That's more nebulous like is Putin a goodie or a baddie because that that that's that's worth discussing because the There are arguments and counter-arguments, but some things are beyond argument.
For example, is climate change a load of bollocks or is it really important?
Well, it's a load of bollocks.
You don't need a team of experts from both sides to argue that, to find out the truth.
I was going to put a battery in my thing.
Keep talking to me.
Right.
Another thing we're going to talk about shortly, by the way, is our foray into tribute bands.
Because that was something else that we've done since last we spoke in a podcast.
Going off to Bath to see the band called Musical Box, who are an early Genesis tribute band.
And the tickets were kindly given to us in a shout-out to Dave over in Germany.
Thank you Dave.
Hi Dave and Bia and Jordan.
Thank you very much for the tickets.
It was a lovely gesture and the fact that you're over in Germany was why you couldn't go yourself.
So we saw, in its entirety, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
The proggiest, most up-its-arse Genesis album.
The wankiest, I'd say, of all Genesises.
When Gabriel completely was unleashed.
And all the other band members must have been going, What the fuck is he doing?
He's such a twat.
We hate him.
We've got to do it because he's got the ego.
Steve Hackett, I just want to play filigree guitar solos and Drift Off and Dreamy and Mike Rutherford and Banks.
Tony Banks says, I just want to noodle on my keyboard.
Yes, and my Melotron.
And tend my roses for the rest of the time.
Yes, exactly.
So this megalomaniac takes over and comes up with this sort of rock opera, which you, at least, actually bothered to look at what the storyline is.
Tell us the storyline.
Well, it comes obviously in a gatefold album.
So back in my teen days, where you got me into Genesis, because You'd pick them up on your travels and your on your gap year.
I think it was or or even before that so It's a story about a Puerto Rican called rail who gets whipped off to a weird dreamlike fantasy land where his His dick gets chopped off and he has to go chasing after it because a bird flies off with it in a tube.
And then he meets the carpet crawlers and there's something about wanking.
And it's all sordid and weird and dreamlike.
I like the songs.
I like the whole thing.
I think even though it's not the best Genesis album, I like it.
I enjoyed the gig immensely, partly because the good bits were excellent, but also the bad bits were... The band was so good at being Genesis that they even let you have an insight into a megalomaniac wanker dominating a group of very talented musicians.
And you really got that from the way that band behaved.
I loved it too, although I'm really not a fan of the album at all.
There's not many tunes on it, and there's not many really good excursions on it either.
For me the benchmark is Foxtrot because it's got Supper's Ready on it, and Supper's Ready is genius.
There are no such sublime moments on, or very few on, I think if you'd given the album itself more time, if you'd done your homework and done a little bit of... Oh, Dick, come on, I listened to it so much.
I know, I know.
It was like Proust's Madeleine, actually.
Because I hadn't listened to it since I was probably about 22, it took me, with no interim listening, it took me right back to that moment.
Straight back, okay, right, okay.
So that was fine.
What I liked about it mainly was about hanging out with you in Bath.
We had a good day.
We had a good day.
A nice meal.
We went to the cathedral.
Yep, that was slightly magical.
We were ambling around Bath, you know, in a leisurely pace.
There was no hurry.
Unusual for us.
We're normally having to, because of your terrible timekeeping, we're normally having to rush somewhere.
But there was no rush.
We'd had a pint, I think.
You a half, obviously.
And it was like, well, what should we do to kill half an hour?
And we found ourselves by Bath Abbey.
The doors were open.
Even time, but let's pop in, it seems to be open.
And they said, sorry, no more people, no tourists, it's evening prayer.
We said, yeah, that's what we're here for.
We'll have some of that.
And so we went in and did the last 10 minutes of evening prayer.
And it was lovely, wasn't it?
There were only about, what, maybe a dozen people in there, at tops?
And I think they only mentioned Ukraine once, or maybe not even... They mentioned it in a very balanced way though, didn't they?
They just listed it on a long list of places that need our prayers.
Yeah, things like something like, we pray that Zelensky may smite the Russians, but that also Putin may smite Zelensky in his Nazi wars.
I wish they were talking in terms of smiting, but unfortunately they weren't.
It was just a wishy-washy, namby-bamby, why can't we all be friends.
We had the narrow escape, didn't we, in the Italian restaurant.
Do you remember that?
How so?
Well, we wandered around for hours trying to decide where to eat.
We didn't really want pub food.
We wanted something a bit not above pub food.
We didn't want a steak because that would have weighed too heavily on our stomachs during the gig.
Oh, and also I was going, because the next day, this was rather overshadowing me, I was going out with the Heathrope, and I was really quite nervous about that, because, you know, jumping stone walls and stuff.
So I was thinking, should I be here at all?
But so we ended up, we were looking through this, we looked through the window of an Italian restaurant.
And there was a man, there was a couple inside and the man was going, come on.
Yes, yes.
He was making some, yeah, he was, he was all that.
And-- We were trying to look at the menu which was in the window right next to him.
He pointed to his table and we thought, yeah, this guy is pushing too hard, we're not going to get there.
So we walked round the block and looked at about a dozen other restaurants and found their menus wanting for various reasons.
And finally we came back and the man was still there!
He was gesticulating to us that this was really excellent.
So we went in and the man said, we haven't got a table for you.
And we said, oh please, please, please.
Suddenly we really, really wanted the restaurant.
Rather regretting our earlier decision not to go to this Italian restaurant.
And finally the man found us a table.
So he went over to this couple and he said, we come in here because of you, is it really?
He said, oh yes, we've got the fish, freshly caught from Brixham, a bit of lemon sole, it's delicious.
So you and I both ordered the lemon sole.
Because actually, it was the right thing to eat.
It wasn't going to be too heavy.
It wasn't going to be pasta or pizza.
Yeah, it should have been perfect.
We needed soul food, didn't we, Dave?
Hey!
Was that a terrible pun or was it a no?
No, it was a really, really bad pun.
That joke only works visually, because soul and soul sound the same, even with the different spellings, so it's absolutely crap.
Absolutely shite.
Remember we are sharing a hotel bedroom that night.
Very nearly a single bed, but I managed to get them to sort that out.
I booked it correctly as a twin room, not a double room.
It was their mistake.
They sorted it out.
We've got separate beds, dear viewer.
Don't worry.
I saw on the... well, they didn't think we were a gay couple, didn't they?
Well, everyone in Bath did, yeah.
Everyone the whole bar did did we do anything to disabuse them of this though?
No, no because we don't care so the soul arrives and I see these fashionable smears of sort of beige II colors on the plate and I think I I What would give a beige smear?
Well, the one was a seafood sauce colour, wasn't it?
That unmistakable sort of... What was it?
What was the orangey seafood sauce colour?
That's fine.
That's obviously a kind of shellfish reduction, giving that orangey colour.
But what's this beige colour?
And I was thinking there was only one vegetable that gives a beigey colour like that.
And I said to the waiter, I said, excuse me, what is this?
And he said, it is Jerusalem artichoke.
It is a Jerusalem artichoke!
And I knew then, I said Dick, don't!
Stop!
And it was, it was like one of those where the person is about to open the garage that's the door that's tied up to the grenade explosion.
And I just save you in time.
You saved yourself.
Jerusalem artichoke.
I saved myself.
Jerusalem artichoke is, I mean, I think that most of the vegetable kingdom is God's creation.
But I think that God said, I'm going to let Satan make one of the vegetables.
And I'm going to make him taste one.
He's going to make one that's superficially nice tasting, makes a delicious soup.
Tastes just like other artichokes with the leafy, the rather satisfying to gnaw your way through.
And then cut out the hearts afterwards.
Like, not in an Aztec way, but in a nice way.
But this particular vegetable, this root vegetable, is going to give you the smelliest farts imaginable.
And couples, because this season coincides with Valentine's Day, so couples on their first date are going to be going out for a Valentine's dinner.
And then they're going to eat this vegetable, which seems so nice, but it's going to make the man fart so much, and the girl is going to be so repelled that she will not put out, and their date will be ruined.
And let's call it Jerusalem, to add insult to injury.
Yes!
By the way, apropos of everything you just mentioned there, have you worked out what Zion is?
Have you talked about this in Thursday's Circle?
No.
Done Babylon, but not Zion.
I quite want to know what is the deal about the Holy Hill of Zion.
Right.
What happens on it?
Well, I'll make that a task.
I'll set it as homework for Thursday's Circle.
I mean, by the way, I've rather pleasingly, I've come across, sorry, Satanist, which is the Bible.
We're back on God again.
I have come across some satisfying mentions of Jha in the Bible.
Right.
And, you know, and I'm thinking Jha, Rastafari, and Zion train and stuff like that.
You can see where the Rastas get it from.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's quite it's quite pleasing and Babylon, I suppose.
Yeah.
Anyway, so going back to the after that digression back to Genesis the other thing I know are we on Genesis the book or the go out run to the gig ironically called Genesis.
Yes.
What are the band called again?
Musical Box.
They're called Musical Box, named after, obviously, another Genesis song.
What I also liked about it was that everyone there was of a certain age, apart from a token boy, a token youth, who'd been obviously dragged along by his dad.
Yeah.
On some sort of weird experience of my nostalgia son trip.
But one could make jokes that everyone got, so there was...
I went into the loos and there was a long, long, long, long queue and I, um, I, I jested about the, uh, that there were going to be comfort breaks after After every song, I think it was, because each song lasted 20 minutes.
The song's been 20 minutes, yeah.
And there was much rivalry.
Actually, my joke was funnier than that, but I can't remember what it was.
But there was much rivalry over the fact that we're all getting old and Genesis write really long, slightly tedious songs, which is good.
Have we mined the Genesis scene now?
I think we've taken that to its logical conclusion.
My favourite bit was the restaurant riff.
That was good, I thought.
What was your favourite riff?
As far as our relating of the experiences goes.
um what we oh don't you you've got to tell them about the scene that the scene that you filmed come on the um we're at the cafe no no No, we were trying to capture scenes that demonstrated Genesis at peak wank.
OK, so the thing about musical boxes, they own, not own, but Genesis have allowed them the rights to the costumes and the slideshow from the original 1974 performance.
So, you've got three screens doing a slideshow, which is really very dated now, obviously, but back then it was quite high tech.
So, images constantly changing across these three screens.
So, that was one thing, but the other was the costume.
So, for part of the thing with Rail trying to get his cock back, was he has to go to see the doctor of something or other.
Anyway, the Peter Gabriel character ends up in this costume that's covered in balls.
He looks like a pantomime leper.
And including big actual balls hanging down and he's lumbering across the stage and it's quite a good song playing at the time I think.
It was quite a good song.
I've forgotten what it was as well.
Anyway, it was absolute peak wank as far as this particular type of genesis thing went.
So yeah, I was filming that bit, and I've got to put it together as a Dick's Out film at some point, but I haven't had the time to look at it.
Well, you should, Dick!
Of course I should, but it's like... Like today, I only just managed to get back in time from the military affair I was at to come and do this with you, so...
Going back to our wedge of the day.
It's so bloody annoying.
We've had an hour stolen from us.
We should not be doing this at this time.
We should be doing it an hour later.
Take it out of a bloody Monday.
Or not at all.
Or not at all.
Leave time alone.
By the way.
Mentioning having your penis cut off or whatever it is that happens to rail I was reminded of because somebody on Twitter today put up a meme from Lawrence of Arabia about no prisoners and and Peter O'Toole looking quite excited about the idea of leading a charge where there's no prisoners and
I was reminded by what I learned from John Hamer about what happened to Lawrence of Arabia when he got captured by the Turks.
Right.
Because the film is quite guarded about this.
It doesn't really tell you what happened.
But apparently his genitalia got so mutilated that he couldn't have sex again.
Oh God.
And, I mean, I don't know about you, but that's killed any wish-I'd-been-Lawrence-of-Arabia fantasies for me, especially when you know that his motorbike accident was staged by MI5.
Was it now?
You know that?
No.
Yes.
What, he knew too much?
He was dropped off by MI5.
Yeah.
About Churchill.
Ah.
He was a wrong'un.
Well, that is an entire new rabbit hole.
Well, not new, but it's a rabbit hole all of its own, isn't it?
The Churchill was a wrong'un rabbit hole.
That is one of the King Royal rabbit holes, I'd say.
You have to be down a few others before you get there.
It's one of those ones that's already down the main rabbit hole and you've got to go fairly deep down that before you can go sideways.
That would be the rabbit with nasty pointy teeth and a mean streak a mile wide, wouldn't it?
Beyond any rabbit you've seen.
Yep.
We're not going to go there today.
No, let's not.
Forget I mentioned that one.
I was going to play, although, funnily enough, before the show started, I was wondering about a new game.
A bit like the Yes No game.
Which would be something like evil or not evil.
Well, that's still Yes No, isn't it?
Well, it is a bit.
Actually, you're right, it is exactly... Are you debating whether or not evil should be a yes or a no?
No, you're right, it is... So scrub that thought.
OK, we're not going to do evil or not evil.
But we could do it as a yes-no.
And our viewers, listeners, will know immediately what we're talking about.
There must be loads of other stuff we haven't talked about that I want to talk about.
Yeah, well, you've done the Neil Oliver Show since we last podcasted together.
Do you mean to say that it's been that long?
Yeah, oh yeah.
That came after Genesis.
That came after Musicalbox.
But, again, the lovely thing about that was not so much the show itself, which was great, and I sat through some of it, but I was busy doing merch.
It's meeting the Sharklings and other fellow travellers on the thing, hanging out with Bob Moran and Abbey Roberts and, you know, just the gang who assemble.
You know, Deck and Jules from Scotland, you know, they're just...
When our gang is together, it is so lovely.
It's such a good, good group of people.
And in talking about this, I want to say to all the people that I didn't hang out with...
How really sorry I was not to be able to hang out with everyone because I mean I really do like all the people who come to my I mean some of them are a bit odd and some of them you know but but I but they're lovely people and and I I did feel bad but I don't know I there seems to be no way around it no way when you've got what 900 people yeah Coming to your own event.
You can't have intimate conversations or special times with all of them.
But what we did get was we had the pub afterwards for those who made it to that particular pub who found out where it was.
Some didn't.
Some didn't.
But I mean it's like you can put out to some degree where we're going and a lot of the time it's a last minute plan anyway made by someone else.
But Neil Oliver himself was good enough to come along for a pint.
He was.
To chat with people.
He was a thoroughly good egg.
He was out there Well, on the pavement outside the pub, pint in hand and chatting with all comers.
So that was great, that was really nice to see.
Do you know my favourite bit of all?
Of the whole evening?
Was it going for drinks at the hotel?
Yes, but what particular aspect of going for the drinks?
I don't know.
Andy buying you an expensive Japanese whiskey.
No, that was really good.
I dodged something.
It made me so happy.
You'll understand this.
Go on.
So there was a terrifying moment.
We'd finished at the pub and I was thinking, I might just have got away with this.
I might be able to go to bed now.
And people said, yo, where are we going to go now?
And so people like Abbey Roberts and the gang were all plotting about these exciting late-night drinking adventures we were going to have.
And somebody said, yeah, let's go to the so-and-so hotel.
And it was in Mayfair and we were in in Westminster so there must have been about 20 of us at that time 25 maybe left and So that would have involved five cabs at least going to this hotel you know a way away a cab journey away and And then being stuck there and having to get home again.
And I suddenly had a really bright idea.
I said, like, my hotel is two minutes walk from here.
Maybe they've got a bar.
And it turned out, suddenly I became the leader, and it turned out they did have a bar.
So instead of going to the cab and having this ordeal from hell, which it would have been, So that was I'm afraid to say that was it was a really good bar as well and and they were really welcoming of this large group of largely drunken weirdos and they let us in and Yeah, well more than that.
It was almost like it was the perfect balance between Busy enough for us to not feel like we were providing the sole entertainment, but empty enough to be able to accommodate us all comfortably.
It was heaven sent.
It was heaven sent.
Another heaven sent thing.
Yeah, it was good.
Yeah.
So, yeah, a good time had by all.
We've definitely got to do more of these big, big events.
That's the way ahead.
Perhaps outside London.
Definitely outside London.
I hated it.
London is a hellhole.
It's horrible.
By design.
Thanks Sadiq Khan.
Little by little.
I have to tell you Dick I For people who don't listen to London calling which is probably quite a lot these days given the direction.
That's kind of even me now Yeah, it's it's I I'm slightly worried.
We talked about this a bit didn't we?
That Tobes has been got out.
Hmm that that I Because his position on things like vaccines and vaccine injuries has got more establishment as time has gone on, not less establishment.
I mean, if the evidence is pointing one way...
And the evidence is getting stronger all the time for vaccine injuries and so on.
It's a bit of an opposition to go from, yeah, I pretty much accept vaccine injuries and vaccines are a bad thing, to, oh, actually, no, I think they're good in certain circumstances and for, you know, the right age groups and at-risk groups.
And I think that vaccine injuries are overdone.
You're going, wait, what?
I don't know.
I don't honestly know.
It does worry me.
Yeah, and I think that the Team James crowd, I mean, there's a lot of the ones that I talk to, because most of my lot are obviously Team James, it's like, no, I can't watch that anymore, I just spend my time screaming at the computer, whatever it is they listen to the podcast on, because it's just so frustrating.
It's like what you were saying about reasoned debate, it's like two people who are never going to convince each other.
Yeah, yeah.
I was talking bollocks.
And it's not you!
Yeah, exactly.
And it's not me.
So why would I want to listen to somebody talking bollocks?
That is increasingly how I feel.
Anyway, I wanted to tell you about my last days hunting.
The last day of the hunting season.
Because I had really not been looking forward to it.
A, because I was ill.
I'd been ill from the previous Fortnight Agoes hunting and I'd just been ill all that time and I thought I was going to have to cancel it.
And secondly, because when I'd done the same country this time last year, I'd kind of, I'd fluffed it.
So, I'd tried taking a hedge, not done it with any confidence, or not done it very well.
I came off.
And ran.
You know, I came off.
It didn't hurt myself, but my horse scarpered.
And when people had finally retrieved it and brought it back to me, I noticed that my saddle flask had been drunk dry, or most of it had gone anyway.
Well, they'd drunk it dry as a reward for having retrieved my loose horse.
Oh, right.
Is that what they'll do?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, you can kind of understand that I mean I wouldn't do it but I can see why they did it because it's annoying having to go and get somebody else's horse if they're a dick and they've come off and you know because what you really want to be doing is carrying on riding.
You don't want to be rescuing somebody else.
So after that incident I had then I'd taken the rest of the hunt really gingerly and I'd hung around at the back with the people who go through gates and hadn't jumped anything and I just felt like a bit shit.
Like in The Red Badge of Courage.
Have you read that?
No.
I think he flees the first battle.
Right.
And you don't feel good about yourself.
You really don't.
It's not like... Do you know, by the way, that Horace Who wrote, Dolce et decorum est, pro patria mori.
He came up with that line.
He was at the Battle of Actium, and he ran away.
What year is that?
Well, it's the one where Antony and Cleopatra were defeated, I think.
Okay.
I didn't realise it was that old a thing.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, yeah.
It was taken up, ironically, by By Wilfred Ode.
Anyway, that was a side track.
So I then had the whole of the summer looking back to my last hunt of the season and thinking, you know, just a wimp, James.
You didn't really acquit yourself very well and you're not that good a rider and, you know, it was just haunting me.
I had a whole six months to think about this and dwell on my inadequacies.
So this time I went out again and again wasn't looking forward to it, fortified myself quite heavily before the match with some port and stuff and it was a huge field 150 riders which is just enormous particularly when you get fences where there's only enough room enough for one rider to go for the time so you're queuing up and it was all boggy and stuff but later on
These hedges started appearing and I said to my fellow writers, you know, should I, should I, do I have to do this?
And they said, well, it's up to you, you know.
And I said, yeah, but, and then I overheard some other people saying, should we go for it or not?
And, and, and the other person said, oh, these hedges are quite nice.
You'll do them easily.
And I thought, well, I'll listen to this random opinion.
And, and so I did that.
I trust them.
I did.
So, yeah, exactly.
I know, I know.
Random.
They're saying what they want to hear.
I trust them.
That's right.
That's exactly what it was.
You're right, Dick.
Yeah, they weren't from the experts book of experts, hunting expertness.
You didn't check them up on Wikipedia to see how reliable they were as witnesses?
No, I didn't even see what they looked like, I just heard the conversation out of the corner of my eye.
You may even have imagined it.
Yeah, exactly.
The first hedge was going down a hill, down a slope, so like this.
So I've got to... how do I do it?
Yeah, anyway, I can't... Next time you'll have to get a little plastic horse and a little railway set hedge for me and you can... Yes!
That would have been good.
So anyway, I went over it and did it and it was fine.
And then... then...
There are bits where you're hanging around, waiting for stuff to happen, you know, you're doing the chat, and it's the fieldmaster who decides when the field moves on, which is you, the field, on the horse.
And I could see this hedge ahead, and then I could see a... you go over the hedge, and then you take a sharp left and you go over another hedge.
And people were aware that this was probably going to be the next destination.
And I was looking at this thing and saying, oh, there's a gate down there.
I could, I could do the gate if I wanted to.
Should I do the gate?
Cause I, you know, I've, I've survived one hedge and, and, and will I survive the next, you know, maybe I, and I thought, sod it, James, you've got to, you've got to do this thing or you will, you will experience the, the whole summer of hating yourself.
Of hedge regret.
Yeah, Hedge Regret.
And so this is a bit you'll love because it's just like all those battle reenactment you do.
So suddenly you see some of the horses in front start to take off and suddenly you can hear the thumping of hooves all around you as everyone accelerates towards this hedge.
You take off, too, and you're thinking, right, there's no turning back now.
And you're going faster and faster and faster towards this thing.
And as you get nearer, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, obviously.
And as you get closer, you're thinking, where am I going to jump exactly?
And you go where you think you're going to do, and your horse has already closed off.
That's other ideas, yeah.
Yeah, other ideas.
And then you're flying over this thing, and people are flying over either side of you.
And then you take a left-hand turn and you go over the other one.
And you look to your side, and like as not, there's this pretty girl who's just dumped it as well on her horse.
And you go, how fucking amazing was that?
And she goes, yeah, yeah, I'm still buzzing.
And it's just great.
It's really got sod all to do with foxes, hasn't it?
People who don't like your hunting think you're dead set on tearing foxes apart, but really, it's just about the next hedge, isn't it?
It's just about the next junk.
We don't hunt foxes, Dick.
Anyway, that's illegal.
That's an evil rumour.
We hunt trails.
I did see this enormous great big fat trail wandering around in front of one of the hounds.
And the hounds were a little bit shocked and the trail wandered off into the woods.
Right, is that how it goes?
I've never, ever, ever been on a hunt where they've caught a fox.
Ever.
Just never.
As we've established, I've killed more foxes than you.
When I hit one on my way back from the Glastonbury third Wednesday and I still feel haunted by it and there's nothing I can do about it.
But yeah, that happens.
I think a lot of a lot of people are so stupid so ignorant that they actually think that here is James Daly put on his horse and he's he's chasing after fuck I feel like I'm trying to ride down a fox or something no I'm not I'm just trying to stay alive jumping over things with my horse jumping over fence jumping over hedges that's what I'm trying to do and then see whether I've got time to have a quick snifter or even a fact I actually was one point where I actually rolled a rollie in the saddle which I was very pleased of yeah that's very cool
It's very hard getting the backing out of your hunting britches.
And you've got gloves to get rid of, I suppose.
You've got gloves and you've got your stick.
Where do you stick them?
Well, I gave my stick to this girl and we had so many good conversations.
And do you know what?
I always go for the conversations out hunting.
No?
Straight down the rabbit hole.
Yeah?
9-11, Plandemic.
9-11, Plandemic.
What's your opener?
Oh, which conspiracy theory do you want to know about?
Because they're all true.
That kind of thing.
That's my shut-up line.
Nice.
You're already on to a winner because it's not like you're going to get too many, well, let's say Corbynistas there for a start.
They're all going to be of a conservative disposition to start with, aren't they?
Well, I don't buy into the idea of conservative or not, I just think they're crazy.
No, but I mean what we used to call conservative, as in, you know, that they're going to be old-fashioned, countryside-style, traditional beliefs.
I think it's not even that, it's just that they're up for it and they're up for a bit of adrenaline and a good time and so they're kind of more, they're not so hidebound because they're all doing something stupid which is borderline illegal and they're having a crazy time and they're just a bit more out there.
The other thing I like about the party, apart from the adrenaline stuff about it, is that you know how when you go to... I mean, you didn't go to parties very often.
No, like never.
No.
So when you go to a party, there's that thing where you look at the room and you think, who am I going to talk to?
And you think...
How am I going to extricate myself from this conversation so I can cover the room and move on to it?
And with hunting that decision's made for you that you might have a longish conversation or you might have one that lasts 10 seconds and it all depends on what the horses are doing at that time.
Yeah.
And you're never short for Topics to talk about, because basically you've just done an amazing thing with the person next to you, a really scary, exciting, wonderful thing.
Yeah.
So you've got that instant bond.
It's like soldiers must feel in combat.
It is like the reenactment thing you said.
I mean obviously I've never been in proper combat, but doing the 200th anniversary of Waterloo in front of the I think 300,000 people watching us is something ridiculous.
No, it has to have been 30.
Yeah, it couldn't have been 300.
30,000 people in grandstands watching you doing this thing, and there's about 8,000 re-enactors on the field.
So, after that, there's a battle that's lasted maybe six hours.
In the beer tent, it's an amazing grinning at each other going, Did that really just happen sort of thing and you're having a fag and you're having a beer and you are best mates with everyone around you before you even start talking to them.
So yeah, I get that amazing camaraderie of having that shared experience.
There's nothing to touch it.
Where do you piss if you're on the battlefield for six hours?
You go where there's the least people and face away from them and everyone knows what you're doing.
It's just what you do.
I've got a feeling that in real battle they'd have happily just... I've got a feeling that most of them would have happily just pissed themselves and carried on.
Have you ever formed a square?
Yes, of course.
Yeah, and had cavalry charge at me.
It's an amazing experience.
Wow.
And I did it as British, facing the French.
Were you a redcoat?
On that particular one, yeah.
And what regiment were you?
I think I was still 9th East Norfolk then.
So I was a corporal, so I was a file closer, sort of like end of line, so I was bang on the corner for that.
But you do it out of necessity because the cavalry are charging at you and you don't want them running around you if you're in line.
But you're there and they're charging towards you and the ground is shaking And you just can easily imagine what it must have been like if they were genuinely out to try and kill you.
And you've just got to trust the fact that the horse has got more sense than the rider, and the horse isn't going to ride into a wall of bayonets.
It's going to veer off at the last second, but you're never quite sure that they're going to do that.
The idea is that a square is unbreakable for a horse, you know, that they won't be guided into that sea of bayonets.
Right.
Um, yes.
The sands of the desert are sodden red.
Red with the wreck of a square that broke.
Well, that's the thing.
You've got to not break.
That's it.
You've got to hold your nerve.
Front rank are kneeling, right?
And then successive ranks stood behind them.
So, it really is quite a formidable thing.
You've seen the paintings, haven't you?
I have.
By Lady Whatson.
Lady Butler Square at Catra Bra.
Admittedly done enough years after the event to not quite get the uniforms right.
Well, she was a lady as well, Dick, so she wouldn't have known.
No, she wouldn't have known.
Yes, the Gatling's jammed and the Colonel's dead.
And the regiment's blind with dust and smoke.
So, I thought that French drill was different from British drill.
They all have line, column and square.
It's just standard formations for repelling enemy or being least vulnerable to artillery.
Of course, square is very vulnerable to artillery because you can get a cannonball straight through A dozen men, but when they're in line you might just take out two.
And you don't want to be caught in column when you need to open fire because there's not enough guns that can be brought to bear.
So both sides, all sides, had those three main tactics.
It was how well they deployed them.
How many ranks in a square?
Well, it depends how many there are of you at that time, but there will normally be at least three.
And then you've got the drums and colours and the offer... It's a bit like a shield, wasn't it?
It is.
But complete on all sides, because the cavalry can go right around you.
If you're isolated in the field, if your battalion has been advancing and then you advance too much and the cavalry come out, you're screwed.
So that's why you rapidly form square, but you have to practice it again and again to get it right, to know which side of the square you're on before you even start the manoeuvre.
I'm very impressed that you actually have the skills to form a square.
It takes a lot of practice, it really is a difficult manoeuvre, and you've got to make it look good as well.
For reenactment, you have to behave like the soldiers of the time.
You have to accept the fact that you're going to receive orders from a bloke who is normally your mate, and you're going to have to do exactly what he says.
Yes, but I suppose my question to you is, given the nature of military reenactment, you know, you're going out with a bunch of mates of a weekend, where there's going to be a small number of you from your local unit.
But when you've got to form a square, you need lots and lots.
When do you get the time to practice OK, so you're away for an entire weekend, and the battle that the public is seeing is only going to take place for a matter of hours.
So, for that weekend, the mornings are spent doing drill in ever bigger units.
So you start off with just your section, and then it's just all the Brits that have come along, and then in the early afternoon you might do another session where everyone is practising the same manoeuvres.
But you should already know the manoeuvres, and you've all learned from the same drill manual, which was the drill manual of the time.
So, it shouldn't be a big ask to ask you to do the same thing, but with more people.
I see.
Dick, I've noticed that it is the time when you go and cook.
I have to go and cook, yeah.
I've got to get those potatoes on.
In my Hunton and Gather Ghee, which is very good for roast potatoes.
Do you know what I'm making?
No, I don't.
I have no idea.
I'm making beef brisket.
Oh, nice.
How long is that going to take?
Well, this is my worry.
I need to go and pay attention to that.
I'm not sure that I trust the slow cooker.
Right.
So we've both got to go.
So, well that was good, Dick.
Good mix of stuff.
Sorry to that Satanist again.
I hope we covered it when we talked about war at the end.
Satan loves that.
He does.
He does.
It's his favourite.
He's like, blood sacrifice.
Yeah, yeah.
Go for it, lads.
Bring it on.
Bring it on.
Right.
Right.
OK.
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