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Dick.
Dick, you're unenthusiastic and I can understand why, because I've spent I've spent 15 minutes or longer keeping.
20.
What 20.
Well, 19, let's go.
I'm sorry, dear.
I know you get cross with me.
Um do you like my Moscow Sun Town?
Um, I was wondering about that.
I was gearing up to make some sort of comment about how you've been on holiday, but you're not even remotely brown, and uh you've ruined it.
So um could you explain that for a start?
Because I thought you'd been on your um sell out Putin Shill tour of Russia.
I have.
I've been selling out Shilling for Shilling for Putna.
Putler, sorry, forgot to use his proper name.
Yeah, yeah.
And he is the most evil man in the world, and I am do you know what I am?
I'm the equivalent of Lincoln Stephens, who I think was a New York Times journalist, who's the American journalist who went out to the Soviet Union just as kind of Bolshevism was really kicking off and and wrote this piece called I've seen the future and it works.
And you reported on the.
Oh, that should have been the title of your spectator article.
It sh it should have been.
I'm I I'm quite impressed That they ran an article at all saying Russia was really great.
And I I think I wrote it well, partly because it's always it's always amusing to work out what you can actually still get published in the mainstream media.
But partly I did it really as a trolling exercise because my old audience they either think I've disappeared or they think I've gone mad.
And so when I report from from Russia, which they know is an evil place, and there are the cues for for the empty shelves in the supermarkets and people starving, and and they're all barbarous butchers, of course.
They just I noticed that uh in your report, but in the pictures you'd sent to the family that they'd taken you to a special fake full supermarket where the shelves were bursting, there were no cues, there were lovely cuts of meat hanging up in the butchery area and eggs and all sorts of spices and it was just all laid out just for you, clearly.
This is one of the things I was not not in uh expecting.
So for those who don't know, I have been to Moscow for a week.
Um courtesy of the the Moscow Patriarch, the the the patriarchate, so the equivalent of like the Church of England or the Catholic Church, whatever, so the the the Orthodox Church in Russia, and I was on this trip to see monasteries and churches and find out more about saints and things like that.
Um obviously to short shill for evil evil putler.
And I I'd never been to Moscow before, nor actually had I had any desire to get it wasn't the I I want to go to Tokyo.
There are there are places I want to go to more than I wanted to go to Moscow.
But this opportunity came up and I thought, well, I like Tolstoy.
I like Dostoyevsky, and Moscow does appear quite a lot, and I mean obviously St. Petersburg more in Dostoevsky, but Moscow does crop up occasionally, and and I love the Russian authors, and I just I've I just quite like to go and see.
And I I really wasn't expecting it to be as good as it was.
And you gave you just gave an example then.
So um I was taken by this this chap who lives in Moscow, an American, but he lives half the year in Moscow and half the year, he's he's got uh Russian wife.
Um doing a podcast with him um uh uh maybe uh uh after this one, maybe next week.
Um and he takes me to this indoor farmers market near his home.
And there were a few of these dotted around Moscow, so it wasn't like like the the the official farmer's market of Moscow.
They've got these these dotted all round.
And it was a covered market, but a sort of permanent thing, not not a not a sort of weekend thing.
And what you saw for yourself, it was the superabundance of fantastically good ingredients.
It did not look like a farmer's market, it looked like Fortnum and Mason.
It looked but but like Fortnum and Mason, if it were if it drank Carlsberg or whatever, whatever haven't we ever yet.
It's it's um the the the the fruit the fruit um uh section had like these punits of raspberries, which are like sort of almost like mutant sort of Chernobyl raspberries.
There could be a good reason for that.
The punnet was so huge, and the raspberries were so perfect, and then the next door I bought this and it was quite expensive, actually.
It was two th I I I could never work out 2,000 rubles, which is quite a lot, I think, uh a glass of of pomegranate juice from probably the promagand pomegranates came from one of the stars.
Because the thing you realise about Russia, I mean, not that this is exactly a secret, Russia is bloody huge.
And so if if you want fish, they've got they've got fish aplenty from their northern fisheries.
If you want if you want sort of Mediterranean climate stuff, they've got they've got the Crimea, haven't they?
They've got if you want stuff from oh or they've got uh they've got access to places like Georgia, uh, which which which does to bet the Georgian food is the best of that region.
If you want to go to a restaurant, go to a Georgian restaurant.
Um, uh we used to have one back in Hackney.
Amazing.
Amazing.
Um and so they've got stuff way, way, way to the east.
So they've got all the mushrooms in in Siberia, and they well, they've got pffff I I think huge chunks of of Russia are basically birch forest.
And you can imagine how many mushrooms there are in the bir.
I I I wanted to go on a mushrooming expedition just so I could see how many mushrooms there were.
Um I didn't.
Um, because there wasn't time.
I also wanted to go to a banya, one of those steam baths.
That was another thing.
I in fact there were quite a lot of Russian experiences I missed out on.
But anyway, this um farmer's market, whatever it was.
Um I got some raw milk from it.
And you know, you you've you've tried raw milk in England and it's nice and it's creamy and stuff, but this was like the milkiest, rawest milk you've ever drunk.
It was just like so good.
It was a pleasure to drink it it just sort of caressed the tongue and it and it um their their ingredients I think are less less adulterated than ours.
I mean, most people the norm is the normists who sort of poo-pooed my spectator article in praise of of of Russia will not be aware about things like this.
They won't care about raw milk, they won't care about adulterated foods, they don't know about it.
They don't know about chemtrails, they they lined up to to take the the death jabs, and now they're lining up dutifully to condemn evil putler.
They haven't a clue about anything, so I just I kind of don't really care that I didn't win them over.
But I think that for our audience, the audience of this show will totally get how wonderful it is.
Going to a country where you can go into the capital and you can go into farmers' markets and you can get food that hasn't been poisoned that is absolutely nutritious and delicious and amazing.
And there's lots of it.
It's not like they're not the economy isn't tanking, despite what we read in the in the business sections and in the uh the the the Russian propaganda.
The the economy is not tanking.
They're they're doing okay.
The the the restaurants are full.
In i even during the week.
They're all full, and it's great.
Well, it does answer the question, um where are we all moving to?
And um I thought about this, Dick.
Yeah.
So I was thinking, in many ways, yeah, we would all like to move to Russia in that low taxes, tax rate 13%, flat flat tax.
And the reason that they can they can do this is because they tax all their utilities, they're all all the big energy companies and things.
That they bear the brunt of the of the tax burden.
So which which which means that you're much more free to earn your living in in in Russia than you are in the West.
The tax man does not rape you.
Um because the thing is, somebody put pointed out to me.
If you're Russia and you're you've got your ruble.
It's not like in the West where um whenever there's a kind of fiscal crisis, they just print more money.
They they haven't got a Federal Reserve.
They've got to they've got to get their bookkeeping right.
So it's a much more it's a much more sound economy than we have in the rest.
It's not it's it's it's much less less corrupted.
So they've got to they've got to get things right.
So they're not they're not they're not as indebted as we are.
And they're not as owned by central banks as we I don't think they're anyway, but that could be raw there.
Shall I tell you what else is really good in in Russia?
Um tell me.
The reenactment scene.
Oh, is it I've friends from my group, and this was before I joined unfortunately, where the 1914 21 group.
And uh they called 21 rather than 18 because they cover the continuation war between Poland and Russia to at the end of the first world war.
They mostly cover the war in the East.
And so they were prime targets for being invited over for a big show in in Moscow a few years ago.
And they said they'd never been to a reenactment like it.
They obviously couldn't bring their own guns.
But on arrival they said, look, we've got all our uniforms, we've got no weapons.
Oh, it's not a problem.
That truck over there opened up the back.
Help yourself.
They opened up the back of the thing and there were just guns everywhere.
Everything you could imagine for their period.
And not even in period.
And it sort of they they just helped themselves and just they filled their pockets with blanks and they took part in the battle and the battle was like being on a a war movie set.
You know, there were ground charges going off everywhere.
Really health and safety nowhere to be seen, but all the better for it.
Drones were filming it and uh it was absolutely nuts.
I I'll have to put the footage to you sometime, but it looked like the most incredible visceral change of underwear please type reenactment you can imagine.
And of course Russia comes out victorious every time but you know to to be part of something like that.
So there's me thinking yeah but the things I'd miss if I moved to Russia.
I couldn't do my reenactment.
Oh but hang on it'll only be four times better.
And where's my latest uniform come from?
Hmm a a franco Russian company.
So uh yeah it's it's kinda like the the reasons the reasons to move are are uh few and far between I suppose one of them is our wives wouldn't be all that keen.
Our wives wouldn't have it.
That's a problem.
Wives, eh?
They just don't let us do the nice things.
We'd be forced to remarry uh hot but nevertheless slightly cold Russian Russian cold but in a really hot way.
Cold but in a really hot way.
And that would be a trial we have to bear Dick.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um the what would happen I think is it would be a travelling would be a real bugger.
Because you'd be given the third degree every time you tried to come home on a see to see family.
You'd probably be stopped at the end like what it is for a journalist who is um slightly dissenting today then.
Yeah exactly I know um yeah that was that was my big worry when I came back.
I thought they were gonna section seven me or section three me, which is which is what happened so uh George Gallio Galloway was who who'd been on on a trip to Russia about the same time as me.
I mean I didn't see him there, but he got held for he and his wife got held for five hours at the airport.
And it's extraordinary the powers that they have um arrogated for themselves.
Under first of all the 2000 Terrorism act, which I think was a probably a Blair it must have been a Blair era creation, wasn't it?
Um and then there was there was a sort of an update more recently and this legislation is so draconian and the only way they got away with it, the only way that that that w we're supposed to be this country where we believe in the rule of law and happiest corpus and and all this stuff.
And you think about under normal circumstances what the security services would have to do to get hold of your data communications they'd have to seek a court order.
And the judge would go, OK, well, what's your reasoning for wanting to get the data to communications of, say, James Dellingpole?
And they'd go, well, hope not hate has described him as a right wing influencer.
I think he's been on a trip to Moscow.
And the judge will go, "What, that's it?" and you're trying to get get him under what?
Well and he's a potential terrorist the judge would laugh this request out of court.
Well the old judges would.
Well the old judges would but I think even even one of the the lefty judges, I think they they have a degree.
It's amazing what we put up with to travel, because you really do throw all of that out the window.
And you know you're doing it.
Just for that hour or two that you're in the airport and passing through the security system.
You uh um you know that you're suspending all your liberties and they can do anything to you.
They could stick their finger up your bum if they wanted.
They could make you undress, they can make you um go through a radioactive scanner, they can take everything off you and not give it you back.
They can lock you up, they can do any of these things.
They can ask the most intrusive questions, they can go through everything you're carrying, and you put up with it because you want to go on holiday to I don't know, France or whatever.
And it's just got worse and worse on the on the frog boiling principle.
Uh but this is the thing they're gonna do for the whole um fingerprint scanning and things like that that they're now introducing.
They haven't even needed to introduce it as a a law through parliament.
They just do it, don't they?
Yeah, yeah, they do.
That the um so George Galloway and his wife.
I mean, I I I'm not it's not like I'm the world's biggest Galloway fan, but uh, but uh but I mean he's not a he's not a terrorist.
And the police were able to confiscate his mobile phone, his computer, and they they keep it for two or three weeks.
And so they can they can retrieve whatever information they want.
And it seems to me quite wrong that this this legislation was ever passed.
But of course, that's what our MPs are like.
They just nod through this legislation and and the public are persuaded that it's necessary because it's about terrorists and and terrorists are everywhere, especially Islamic terrorists, apparently.
Uh except the the the definition of terrorism terrorism now seems to apply to anyone who's like slightly edgy on the internet.
It's anyone who doesn't think that the security state is a really great thing.
And they can do it.
They can just they can absolutely fuck you over for five hours.
Imagine what it's like after a after a long flight.
Galloway and his wife come in from Dubai.
Well that's quite a whore.
You don't want to be held for five hours.
Or even worse if you're on a connecting flight.
Yeah, oh well that's it.
Then they'll do it for long enough to guarantee you're gonna miss your flight.
But this is the sort of stuff and it also goes back to what you were saying about Russia, that uh 30, 40 years ago, um well, let's go 30, because we'd have been very young forty years ago, but uh we'd have thought, oh yeah, imagine the sort of stuff you have to go through in Russia, they'd be really intrusive on the security front, and the food you'd get would be all poisoned, I should imagine.
And now this conversation has been the great unpoisoned food you can get in Russia and uh the the terrible lack of freedom in the UK is just turned on its head, hasn't it?
The thing I I I have been planning to write in in my spectator article and and didn't in the end.
I just uh I mean it would have been a bravura trolling exercise on the readership, but it would have been true.
Which is that when you were you and I were growing up, um there was the Iron Curtain and behind the Iron Curtain were all these miserable people in their miserable countries being told by their lying governments you don't want to go to the West.
It's it's it things are really bad.
It's it's it's so decadent and crime-ridden and and and awful.
You're so much better off in the security of this uh you you get health care and and you get looked after and and and you'll you're much better off in the communist bloc.
And obviously they didn't didn't believe it totally, but to a degree that that was the line they were being fed.
Now the position has been reversed, where we are the ones who are living in complete shitholes, and we are being told by our governments you don't want to have a look at don't don't go and look at Russia.
Russia we're gonna stop you looking at Russia even if you wanted to go and look, we're gonna make it really, really hard.
We're gonna cancel all the direct flights, so you can't fly from Europe from the European Union to Moscow.
We're gonna possibly stop you at the border when you come back and and and it interrogate you like like we're the new like we're the new KGB.
We're gonna make your life life miserable.
And you're gonna you're gonna take it.
And people people in the West do not realize that Russia i in ten years time, maybe 20 years' time, the standard of living in Russia will be better than it is in the West.
That's that's where they're going and that's where we're going.
are going downhill fast and they are not yeah it's funny isn't it it's almost like a sort of um an ironic lesson for us and sort of like don't be so cocky about the the wonderful free west that you think you live in um i'd be out there in a flash do you think about how how much brainwashing we get that we are we are a beacon of freedom that america is apparently the land of the the the
lead of the free world and that we live in the free world apparently where you can't where you can't say stuff on on Twitter without getting well obviously we we don't we don't buy into that that woman who is a no lifetime actor whatever her name is Lucy fakery.
Lucy Connolly yeah sorry that's the name um but but yeah we we get s I I was I was sitting on the the the the I I I was talking to some people at the airport and I said you know um on my flight back from Greece because I still I stopped off at Greece on the way back.
Um the tan.
I yeah I I was talking to these these these people and I say you know I'll tell you what it's possible I'm gonna get stopped at the airport when I get back.
I so I'm really not looking forward to why's that I said well I've just been to Moscow and their their faces sort of they suddenly got very serious said well I suppose you must have had your reasons for going there and yeah yeah I did yeah uh and they were they were like it was as if I I had as if I were I'd suddenly whipped out of my bag a uh my my Nazi party membership badge and started doing har Hitlers.
That was their their it was like Pavlov dogs suddenly they hear Russia and they start drooling.
They start salivating.
Well, the growling, actually, because that's what they've been trained to do.
And I said earlier that these are the people who queued up to take their safe and effective jabs.
And now they are queuing up to defend, to condemn the evil Putla.
And it's not just in this country.
We met a Norwegian woman.
And she was so incensed by the evilness of evil Putla and evil Russia.
That she could barely bring herself to mention that.
I can't remember how the conversation came.
up.
In fact I I it it came up in a conversation about Svalbar they said oh I oh I've been polar bear hunting in Svalbards and she said yes not literally hunting.
No not literally hunting well I should have said that.
And and she said yes there's another country which has um territory in that part of the world and I knew what it was it was Russia because you can see all the old Russian settlements there.
And she couldn't actually bring herself to to mention the name she was seething about it.
These people they've been pro this is what frightens me these people have been programmed for war just like just like in the run up to the first world war people were programmed they were they were keyed up to such a pitch of hatred for Germans that by the time the war broke out they were killing Daxons in the streets.
Do you know about this?
They were chucking stones, stoning little Daxons to death because Germans were so evil.
And this is how easily manipulated people are the that people don't have any idea how propagandized we are in the West against against Russia.
And it goes it goes deep all those Ukraine flags everywhere all the stories about how people put in all stories mocking him and that's why they one of the reasons they don't want you to go that they don't want you to see that actually it's really okay over there and The people are actually quite nice.
They're a lot more cultured than we are.
You don't the streets are safe and clean.
You don't get your mobile phone um nicked by enriching immigrants.
They haven't got much enrichment at all, have they?
They have, actually.
They have, yeah, they've got the people from the star and so all the cab drivers and stuff, and the the all the sort of that the yeah, the the Muslim Chechnya, for example, right is a real problem.
No.
They so you'll see, for example, uh a car driving down the streets with its with lights flashing and it and it's sort of music pumping out sort of rap or whatever.
And the actual Russians really don't like this.
It's it's the they're they're quite reserved and dignified and and and cultured and and they don't i it's what we mistake for unfriendliness.
I mean they are they're they they're not effusive like like the Westerners are and they don't like their peace being disturbed by these these people with them uh it will always be people from Chechnya or or or one of the one of them, sort of the Muslim states.
So they've they've they've definitely got a problem, but it's I mean, everywhere's got a problem, but but I I'd say they're not so their government is not so um blatant about letting it happen.
Right, so they're like us maybe sort of um 15, 20 years ago in that respect.
Yeah, I d I I I suppose what I'm you know, on on the theme of would we like to go to Russia, it's not as simple as yeah, Russia is so totally based, it's great, it's got it's got low taxes, they haven't got net zero.
I mean, that's another thing by the way.
Um they can afford to heat their homes and drive cars because they're energy abundant.
And i in the West we've sort of be encouraged to to kind of mock the fact that they're so dependent on petrol and stuff and gas.
But hey, it's quite useful having loads and loads of natural resources that you can make you give you energy independence and you can export to to people who actually need it, and you can charge them what you want.
It's ever so depressing.
It is it is depressing.
But what do they think of us, by the way?
Well, it's quite interesting.
Um as you can imagine, Western tourists are a real novelty right now.
Um which is which makes it quite a good time to go.
I think that there's a sort of mix of feelings.
There's they think that they too have been propagandized or well, actually not even propagandized, because they know.
So let me let me take a step back.
I talked I got this briefing from this quite senior Russian minister.
And I said um that I was concerned that that that I like what I'd seen of Russia, and I like I like the Russian people and like their literature and stuff, and and I really didn't want to see my people at war with their people.
It just seems absolutely absurd.
We're all Christians, we're all we we sh we should be uniting, not not not fighting one another.
And um I said I'm I'm concerned that certainly the deep state in the in the West, and and possibly elements in the Rush in the Russian as well, uh finding it convenient to have this forever war over Ukraine and uh and uh and I wondered what his thoughts were on that, and also on the degree of of of Western involvement in this war.
And he he got quite sort of uh arsy with me, said yes, you may like your our our literature, but but but we cannot be friends, right?
There would be no peace for between Russia and the West for at least the next ten years.
He said it's getting worse.
And he said, as for Western involvement, he said, who do you think it is that's running all the kind of the missile systems and and controlling all the kind giving all the satellite information and and and all the intelligence and and stuff.
Uh he said, of course, of course, uh American and British and French and German uh and Canadian whatever uh troops are already actively fighting and and not just in the in the sort of the mercenary units, not in the volunteer units, but actually much higher than that.
He said you will you will occasionally read the obituar in the newspaper of this this uh American or British general who has been who has died in a skiing accident um he said that's not how he died um I d I don't I don't know whether actual actual jet general level officers being killed but but yeah we are we are already at war with Russia and it's just unstated.
No one no one ever consulted us.
No one ever said do you do you mind our armed forces being used to go and fight this this this country with whom we have no particular beef.
We we have we have no territorial rivalry.
Do you do you are you happy with that to go and send our our soldiers out there and and maybe subsequently your sons when it escalates I I'm not surprised he felt like that at all I'd feel the same way about us.
And it it's not an easy place to be it's no exactly the deep state or whatever.
And and also I mean not to be hated to quite the same degree but but to be despised somewhat I suppose the people who buy into this shit.
The people who fall for this the manipulation and the Ukraine flags on the side and the Zelensky do you know that Rory Stewart who's got to be a spook by the way but I don't think anyone doubts that.
No apparently he recently did a did a podcast on heroes and guess what it went heroes from Achilles to Zelensky.
Oh god A to Zed How cringy is actually quite brave hitting a a piano keyboard with your penis when you're coached off your f off your face.
Yeah, that's almost career-ending stuff, you know.
He'll never get anywhere in politics if he's done that.
He won't.
So, yeah, but anyway, we were saying to this guy, look, you get a really bad press.
Russia gets a really bad press in the West, and you really need to up your game in communicating your...
Well, the facts.
Because most people in the West imagine, because they've been told by our lying mainstream media
media that Russia just gratuitously went in to attack this sovereign state of Ukraine and that these plucky little freedom fighters were over over overwhelmed and then then fought back by these evil Russian forces and it it's all presented as a kind of gratuitous to expansionism by by the dictator Putin.
And don't forget we're next he definitely wants to invade us.
That's the that that's one of the things you know why would why would ever Russia need to expand to yeah why would he want to come why they want they've got enough land.
They don't need to they've got they they haven't got enough people to the so the population's a hundred and twenty million I think and they've got they've got a lot of land a lot of so much land more land than you could shake a stick at they don't need to expand their territory they just need to protect their borders and that's what they're very keen on.
There is no Russian word for Laban's realm that's an interesting fact.
That's probably that's probably true.
So um the U So we'll explain to this guy look you've got to tr get your messaging across better.
You don't have to make stuff up because you've got a perfectly reasonable case that the colour revolution happened in 2014.
And he said, I have tried to make this case.
I've spoken to British politicians.
I've spoken to American senators.
And I said, hello?
You expected to get through to British politicians and American senators.
They're all puppets of the deep state.
owned by well, the American Senators are owned by Israel, the British politicians are owned by by whoever, by Bilderberg or or or whatever.
Why on earth do you think you're going to change the mind of people whose job it is not to have their minds changed?
You need to be reaching people on a much lower level through the internet and through blogs and podcasts and stuff.
Yeah, politics being downstream of culture.
And uh do you know what he said to me, and this was good this was kind of a depressing.
He said let me tell you a Russian joke.
Depressed already.
Two Russian tank commanders entering Kiev.
One says to the other, what a shame we lost the information war.
I think you've got to be rushing to get it.
Yeah, exactly.
But what he's saying is, well what's the information war to us?
We're gonna win the we're gonna win the fighting war anyway.
Right.
Um and it and it's annoying because I sort of when I was looking at the comments, I mean I suppose I shouldn't have done, but I'm a sort of masochist.
I was reading I was reading the comments at the spectator below that.
And we're talking about so these are these will be spectator subscribers, and as we know, probably a lot of the people of our persuasion, sort of intelligent people, the free thinking people, will have given up their spectator subscriptions.
Yeah.
About the time of of of the the pandemic.
That they'll have bailed, they'd have seen that the magazine was just basically working for the deep state, um, and and shilling for the vaccines and stuff, and they'll have hated Fraser Nelson.
Quite rightly so.
Um but so it's a kind of it's a it's self-selecting audience of people who are gonna be antipathetical to the kind of views that we might have and our listeners might have.
Um also we have to remember that comment sections are now heavily populated by 77th by d uh it's it's because you think about how the propaganda system works, it's very important that that 77th Brigade, etc.
infiltrate the comment section in order to give a false impression to the to the general reader that that particular viewpoints are more representative sensitive than they are.
Yeah so so there were a lot of very very anti James Stanley poll.
How can he be shilling look at look at all the all the Ukrainians that m that that evil putners murdered and etc etc.
And I wasn't sure reading these comments how many of them were just 77th MI6, MI5, quite a lot of them I would say.
And how many people from just really dumb people who've just had their brains removed?
And I can't work out which of which is I can't believe you're encountering dumb people who've had their brains removed on Twitter.
No, we're talking about spectator con spectator companies.
Oh right.
Okay.
Well, I think seventy centers all over Twitter as well though.
These are people who who I imagine would think of themselves as as as being informed, worldly, urbane.
Tra well travelled.
Hmm.
Or at least that was the kind of the impression they sought to give in the comments, but I just got the impression of other people who've been whipped up into this frenzy of ignorance and prejudice by a lying media.
So how are where are you on orthodoxy now?
Dick.
If I could show you the beards I saw, they make you the you you just like feel like like when you compare yourself to King Dong John Holmes.
Um what a lovely comparison.
So well, I just That they were just like the beard uh one one man I said, you just you've got the most amazing beard.
I I can't believe how you spend your beard is.
And he has a twin brother who's got a similar beard.
Um the beards are good.
What about the chanting and the icons and the dick the icons and the chanting are something else.
So you go into these churches um and there's there's there's a service on pretty much all the time.
And you can just wander in.
You don't I get the impression you can do that.
It's like a a sort of wander in, wander out, and you know, it it doesn't really matter.
Yeah, you get you wander in, wander out, get your fix.
Kiss an icon, light a candle.
That's what they do.
Cross yourself a lot.
Well, I don't even get bored, I think you get transported.
It's like so um there were moments where it was like that feeling you get when you're e'd up at a rave, but you're not you you haven't taken any pills or anything.
You're just being transported by the ecstasy, the beautiful.
It is absolutely extraordinary.
It's it and and you you quite often have a choir on one side and the choir on the other side.
So you have this their equivalent of the of the the altar, well or rather probably the the rude screen in front of the the the altar.
Instead of that, they've got this wall of icons, which is called the iconostasis.
And it's just it it screens this off from the back section of the of the church.
I mean uh author Bros and sisters m will probably correct me, I'm probably getting details wrong.
But essentially uh this represents the the barrier between the spiritual world and the and the material world.
So so the the congregation are all standing at the front in the material world, and the priests will come in and out of doors in the iconostasis at points in the service representing this sort of um the intermingling of the spiritual and the and and the material world.
And you'll have the choir coming in and out, the most beautiful singing you you've ever heard, the s the sung liturgy, and they'll be singing the psalms and they'll be well, you don't know what they're singing 'cause it's all in Russian.
Um but it is so so I I could just it's like going to a gig that's free and it it it it transports you to it somewhere far more beautiful than ever Nick Cave detected.
I I sometimes th sort of think that way about just doing Evensong on a Sunday at Worcester Cathedral or Matins at Hereford Cathedral, but um you know you're thinking this is a fantastic venue, really great music.
And although I will be giving some money to the collection plate, it it's effectively free.
But if it if you're saying it's that times twenty, forty, a hundred, then um I might have to give serious consideration to Orthodoxy.
That there's actually an Orthodox church really close to here, and there's not one for miles beyond that.
And I think they do a service something like once every two weeks.
And a friend has recently started attending, and they're very welcoming and and uh you know, they help you with all the background information on the saints and what you've got to know about that.
But with the new Archbishop of Canterbury just being installed, it sort of like makes you think the church really has gone.
But the the church went ages ago, but the church is not really about the administrators, is it?
It's I know people say that, you know, why should it matter to you w uh who who is Archbishop of Canterbury, but it just it just shows that the rot is continuing.
That they're not then they haven't slammed into reverse to get back out of this.
No, and and they're not going to because that's because they're Satanists.
You've got to remember that.
I I I I think I think people who don't understand and or or rather remind themselves daily that the world is run by Satanists who want to do evil and they they want to affront God in every way possible.
Um to be cons continually surprised by by what the Pope does or what the Church of England does.
It's like, hello.
This is what this is what Satan does.
Here's something I think a lot of you are going to be interested in if you live anywhere near Bradford in the north of England.
It's UK Bookfest, it's being called.
And basically, it is a massive second hand book sale from one of my one of my followers.
So there's going to be all sorts of interesting stuff.
He's got a hundred thousand books.
Um for sale, including 40,000 children's books.
But you know why this is important.
Um they're trying to destroy all all all the the the printed word and replace it with erasable e-books.
This is your chance to get your hands on the on the real thing.
Uh they've got maps, antiquarian books, foreign language books.
Uh they are priced.
Three pounds a book on on Thursday and Friday, two pounds a book on on Saturday and Sunday, one pound a book on Monday, and ten pounds a bag on the Tuesday.
So your best selection is going to be right at the beginning, obviously, when books are slightly more expensive.
But it sounds like if I lived anywhere near Bradford, I would go.
It's on the 23rd to the 28th of October.
So the first date is 23rd of October, which is a Thursday.
Um it's at Biz Space Business Centre, Knowles Lane, Bradford, BD49 SW.
I'll put the details below.
But it sounds like a really good deal.
I uh and I think so.
That's why I I don't get I mean I thought it was a good bit of good bit of trolling by the Church of England.
I thought yeah, I thought respect.
Somebody pointed out it it's it's like Doctor Who.
It's getting so we've got the got the the female one now, next we're gonna get the black gay one.
Um We've had lesbian dinosaurs.
Yeah.
It's it's gonna happen, and and don't be d don't let it get to you.
Except it so when I when I go to Well, you know, I've got I've got I think there are six churches in our parish.
All of them 13th century or earlier.
And I think why should they be I do a pretty good reading on a Sunday.
Why should they be denied me and my presence in the pews just because the Church of England uh the Archbishop of Canterbury is an annoying woman.
And why should the the tradition c carries on despite the the the organization?
That said, so that's my defence of of of of sticking with the CM.
The other thing is we get a lot of latitude.
When you Orthodox Orthodoxy is fantastic.
It's got it's got all it and uh it it's particularly attracting young men, by the way.
The people who are really joining the Orthodox Church are young men because they want rigour, they want the kind of discipline, they they like the fasting.
There's lots of fasting involved, lots of things you can't do.
But also, and this might we might find this more tricky, things you can't believe.
You know, that the they that they don't they lay down the line of on on what what the orthodox position is on stuff.
And most of things will be in total agreement, like the Psalms are great and and saints, they've got so many saints.
I love all their saints.
In fact, I'll tell you about my saint experience.
It was just well, several actually.
So I went to venerate several of their their saints.
So you I I read in the piece I went to visit um Saint Matrona.
And Saint Matrona was the she came from this peasant family.
Um she had visionary powers and um she was sort of became a you know an adult during during the in the in revolutionary times where it wasn't wasn't a good time to be a to be a Christian.
Um but she's venerated throughout Moscow for her healing powers and uh so you so you you go and see her bones and you when you get you get a choice, you get two lines.
There's either the queue to venerate the icon of her on the wall of the church dedicated to her, or there's the much longer queue, the hour maybe, to go and venerate her bones.
But I went to some more.
So I went to the boss monastery outside Rome.
ru Moscow the most the most important just just like where I I can't remember I can remember the name of it it was all in Russian we were we were driven driven outside to these monasteries and and and and it was it was it was all great but I d I didn't I didn't didn't chop down the names.
And there are these churches which have got greatest hits collections of bones, of relics.
So you'll get this glass case and in one bit will be, say, this box containing a fragment of the True Cross, a stone from, a bit of stone from Golgotha.
since Stephen's uh arm um um uh uh and th a few a few other saints that you never but you you quite often get apostles and all sorts of things but the the the and the true cross and you get something from the Virgin Mary and etc.
And if you read your Bernard Cornwall books you will find scorn being poured on on all these things, you know, like if you if you could add all the the fragments of the true cross together you'd get a forest and and and stuff.
So in the West, we're invited to force scorn on, well, I mean, particularly in sort of the post-Reformation West, aren't we?
Protestants are supposed to scorn saints.
When you think about it, before the break with Rome, they were part of our Christian heritage too.
And so I went to, what you do is you, I was like, I'm a fan of the people.
taught by this babushka to oh that's the other thing Dick they all wear they all wear um headscarves and it's so cool it's just so cool.
All the women wear headscarves and it's great.
So you get the beautiful singing and the incense and the women in their headscarves and some ah some of the voices of those women.
So anyway well I'm you cross yourself by the way is it left shoulder or right shoulder first you see this is the thing.
So the I don't know I don't know how the Catholics do it but I know they have the Orthodox do it now.
So you get your your fingers like that three I think three fingers and it's forehead belly button tummy button right and somebody told me that they on Mount Athos they were taught do it like you mean it's like and you bow.
You do it again and then you go forward and you kiss the the um the relic with you you kiss the glass mostly although in one case with with Saint Matrona this was this was freaky.
I I was expecting to kiss the glass and they lifted up they lifted up the um the glass so that I was I I was guessing the actual kind of uh the cushion and this this sort of lovely smell came out of it the the one it's one of the the the the the tests for their saints they don't the bodies don't smell the bodies don't rot.
It's one of the saints'tests they do.
So what they tend to do is they exhume the bones after a period to see what the colour is and what the spell is.
Anyway.
Right.
So I was...
I did various of these saints'boxes, and I came to one containing...
Yeah.
had a bit of St Paul in it so we're talking a bit a bit of St. Paul, a bit of the bit of the true cross and a few a few a few Russian local saints as well.
Kind of pick a mix.
And I was thinking, well, you know, St. Paul, I I we have the I have his arguments, but but but like better better go and um anyway.
I um I did this.
Maybe it wasn't St. Paul, maybe it was somebody else in the box, I don't know.
But whatever.
I got this incredibly like I was transported.
Um and this tear appeared in my eye.
And the guy I was with who's an author broke called Conrad, I did the I did the podcast with him.
He he he witnessed this and and he I mean he takes his orthodoxy very seriously, and he said that's a gift from God.
Um you you you get these special gifts when you when you you I mean it was it it was it was mind-blowing actually.
It was a really really amazing experience.
It was something that I've never well very rarely had.
It was it was it was I felt amazing afterwards, and it was a really beautiful thing.
Yeah.
So where's your nearest Orthodox church where you are?
Oh my show in the ceiling, it's all right.
David's going to look at the ceiling to see when Hello David, how are you?
Are you are you you're not making tea?
I thought you were this name, isn't there?
Showing David.
Well but it's it's tea time.
So now make tea.
Thank you.
We'll be quite thin.
*laughs* Yeah.
Thank you.
This this is what this is what we get the big bucks for.
Did that sound soon enough?
What did that sound like a Was that a kind of genuinely reassuring soon or was that a kind of Well look, we're we're on the um fifty-one minute mark, and you know we I I I my attention span doesn't go much beyond an hour.
So you'll get your tea soon.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um like the the tea during the podcast, that's all.
Anyway, so no, I've got non-limbing.
Because apparently although our local one, which is my side of the river in Worcester, um it's in Brandsford, but the place where it all happens on a higher level.
So if you want to go and get confirmed into orthodoxy, it's Shrewsbury, apparently is our biggie locally.
But um Yeah, I I'm definitely gonna look further into it.
It it it sounds like uh a very dulling pole thing.
Yeah.
It would make me very unpopular at home, but I but I agree, it's quite it's quite tempting.
Well there's no harm in dabbling, is there?
It's not like it's a one or the other.
It's still a belief in God and Jesus and and of all of that stuff.
There's a uh a very good monastery in Essex where you can go as a kind of uh you know, like a like a what's it called when you go and stay in a monastery?
Um Sleepover.
Sleepover.
Where they have these two hours retreat.
They have these re retreat.
Sleepover sounds cool, though.
No, the sleepover's great.
Let's go with sleepover.
So they do two-hour sessions of the the Jesus prayer.
Right.
You see, I mean, you know, to be honest, I'm I'm I'm kind of on the way there already, because I do the Psalms all all day, which is what they're very big on the Psalms, and I do the Jesus prayer a lot.
Um so they you do the Jesus prayer 150 times a day as part of your basic.
Um it's like Orthodox boot camp.
So they do they do the Jesus prayer, which is Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.
Yeah.
Um they do it for two hours.
Um just just that with it with candles and and I mean it sounds pretty cool.
It's pretty amazing.
Because do you know about you know about the the way of a pilgrim?
The way of the pilgrim.
No.
Yeah, I I I I would give I would give you this, but it's like I I'd feel like the crack dealer outside the school gates.
Pushing at an open door.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
So this was the um this was the a massive best seller in Russia in the late nineteenth century.
And it was written by anonymous and it's about the way of a pilgrim and he's orthodox and it's but he's uh a hesychast and you kind of want to be a hesit because Hesekast's the ones who the there's there's a bit in um in um I think St. Paul tells us that we should pray without ceasing in the in the epistles.
Um and so the the Orthodox have interpreted that.
I mean, well, they they they talk about this in the book.
How do you pray without ceasing?
Because obviously you've got things like like feeding the cat and stuff and walking the dog and okay, so you can you can you can get a bit of praying in by doing those things, but but but how do you pray without ceasing?
And the aim of becoming a hesit is to is to you repeat the Jesus prayer so often that that it i i it's like your body carries on carries on um speaking it even after you're whatever you're doing, the prayer is always with you.
And that's what Do you know the funniest thing that it's almost I wanted to talk about this thing that I I kind of experienced this morning and I thought I'd hit you with it as a complete sort of uh apropos of nothing, but this fits in.
See what you think.
You know I do Psalm 91 every day whilst lifting my feet slightly off the ground.
While I'm on my back, I'm not standing at the time.
That would be a levitation which I haven't quite achieved.
Um But I'm now say I've been doing this for over a year, so my Psalm 91 game is very strong.
And I can completely think other thoughts while reciting it out loud.
Yeah.
To the point at which I was thinking, would it be possible to think Psalm 1 say whilst saying Psalm 91?
I don't know what that would achieve, but I'm almost at the level where I can faultlessly recite one psalm whilst thinking through another in my mind.
Yeah.
I wonder if that's a thing.
If it's not, it should be.
It could be it could be a thing.
It could be Yeah, why should it be but you must have got to that level where you you're you're so comfortable with the reciting, it's the equivalent of muscle memory to actually recite it.
Yes, I I have got to that, although I I I I'd still doubt myself, and often my the sort of the the subconscious part of my brain carries on while my conscious part is trying to work out is stumbling over over the the Yeah.
Yeah, definitely Yeah, there's kind of like little demonic elements that are trying to wrong foot you.
Yes.
What we used to call monkey thoughts.
Yeah.
So there is a um uh orthocis um friend Izzy uh has just been in Greece visiting ortho ortho places and and and getting blessings for her her um prayer beads and stuff.
And I think she's gonna I think she's gonna bring me some of her prayer bridge, which which could be good for going through my my Jesus prayer.
Um and she came upon this monk um I mean a ol old monk is uh uh one of the one of the saints who made a list of all the psalms and their function.
So so they he he he worked out that they have an another function beside their their formal function.
So he had a a psalm for I don't know, when you're in danger in travelling or Psalm for snake bites.
Um a psalm for when you're worried about your family, psalm for uh uh kidney problems.
And is it obvious or is it sort of like a hidden extra meaning?
Uh hidden extra meaning.
Right.
Um and but he he he'd found them very effective.
And so I was thinking I must remember that list and and make sure that you got the numbering right, because of course they number their psalms differently.
Oh right.
They they they supposedly have 151 psalms instead of 150, I was told.
Um but I do like their reverencing of their saints because they've got a lot of holy people who live lives which are kind of inspirational.
Um I mean m my my my one of my favourites being I didn't realise he'd been made a saint Saint Pasios Um of Mount Athos, or uh um he was a good one.
But before we move on from Psalms altogether, by the way, did you know that Psalm 91 is the official psalm of the um US Navy SEALs?
Funnily enough, I've heard this from um from American special forces people.
Guess what?
What?
I met this guy who's fought with special forces in the Donbass.
Right.
And I said to him when you go into combat, do you do you re recite Psalm 91?
He said, Yeah, of course.
Of course.
Yeah, it's Stir.
It's the it's the psalm that we use.
Yeah.
Well, thou shalt not be afraid of the arrows by night.
Yeah.
Um I c I can't pick it up in the middle.
There's me saying like I that I I've noticed this.
I find it very hard to put them up in the middle.
Yeah.
You're you're and also tell you what else I've found.
What's that?
When I do my morning exercises, my my sort of pilatas exercises or my gym exercises might be ones I've been given by my um osteopath or whatever.
Um I find that it's much easier to remember the beginning of the psalm when you start doing the exercise.
So I associate psalms with certain exercises and the same thing.
I think that pr that's probably what I've got now.
Yeah, and different points of the dog walk.
I know exactly when I will do Psalm 137.
It's just when I get to the gate that leads to the walled garden.
Um and and then Psalm 19s will have gone the other side of the gate, and and that's but takes me through the avenue avenue of apple trees before the the it's just like um people think we're a bit mad, but in a good way.
Yeah.
It's um I mean obviously we're not gonna get half the things we should be talking about done in this one podcast.
Whatever that matter, we can always come back to it.
But what is anything else you want to know about about uh uh Russia?
Yeah, loads and loads.
Because our audience might not realize that um I've been champing at the bit to speak to you about Russia, but you haven't allowed me any information because you wanted to do it here.
So what our audience yet again is getting is authenticity.
You're um this is the first time getting to hear about any of this, apart from the odd message to the family group chat.
Do you want some war stuff?
Um yeah, but that that's a whole nother you're not gonna we're not gonna we're not gonna get anywhere with that in in the time available.
Well, I'll tell I'll tell you a bit, because it's quite interesting.
So I I spoke to this young guy, well, he I mean he was thirty, and I I think he'd he'd gone out there at the beginning and he'd been with a a drone unit.
And I mean he was he was like one of us who was sort of I'd say upper middle class.
Um so it was it was like you or me going to um an and exp and it was it sounds pretty his his best mate was killed.
Um he said that one day um the the the Ukrainians hated them so much because they were having such success with their drones that they sent in a tank especially to take out their unit and they were hiding in this basement while this tank shelled their shelled their um Building their their building.
But somebody else told me um I said well ha has the war changed since the beginning.
Said absolutely tactics have changed completely.
So drones have become so important now that so ubiquitous that um tanks you kind of knew this had been rendered obsolete.
Um in that the only way a tank can advance now is with a with a massive drone screen and preparation of of of the of the enemy position before before before it advances because there are drone operators on both sides, and the drones, by the way, is a are supplied by the Chinese.
And we're we we're talking hundreds of thousands of drones.
It's like uh um so all the infantry now carry shotguns to shoot down the drones before they come and grenade them or explode in their faces or whatever.
And so they get they they've got to be quite good at good shots.
Um say uh say a tank appears on the scene.
Instantly all the drone drone crews will be going but let's get this tank, is it be a really good you know I I want a medal for taking out a tank, so but there's a competition to take out the tank, and they just they just do.
It's like armour is is pretty much obsolete now.
Um but it's utterly terrifying that that what this this chap told me that when he hears a lawn being being mowed now, he gets PTSD.
You all you're thinking about is the noise of these these drones.
It must be so horrible.
And I was thinking this is really the last thing we want to be sending our uh sons, even daughters out to.
This is where the Satanists who run who run the world want us to end up.
They want us they want m they want to murder our children in the in the trenches and the and the no man's land, the grey zone is now thirty thirty miles wide.
It was they said in the early days you could see you could see the enemy soldiers like two miles away.
Now it's thirty miles away, and and and there's a sort of dead zone in the in in the middle, which is which is owned by the the drone operators.
And they don't you can't advance in units of more than three people um because it's too much of a of a risk that that you'll instantly get targeted, so they might leave you alone, there's only three of you, but but if there's four or five you'll get taken out.
And now they advance using electric motorbikes.
So it's like like like scramblers.
So imagine warfare four hundred years ago.
It was very much you were definitely face to face with your enemy.
Uh and the introduction of musketry meant that you could kill a man at fifty yards.
And they found that utterly horrific.
The idea that you know you haven't you know of course a a crossbow will do the same, so will archery.
But then with the rifle you're talking two hundred yards and more.
And then you get to the point where the terrifying prospect of being able to be killed by an enemy that you can't even see.
And now we're into the territory of, you know, it it literally miles and you've got the control as if you're in the same room as your weapon.
Um and it's equally terrifying.
Each each stage it just gets that much more detached from you know, you you are a video gamer killing a real person.
It i it mind-numbingly horrific.
And perhaps the majority of of of the population in the West, uh the ones who are jabbed up to the hilt, they are of a mind that that actually it would be a good and desirable thing to for us to go to to commit to this kind of war.
Yeah, because they're not the people who are gonna have to go, are they?
But they're you know, it will be their kids.
But but it but it's right because of course all all all Putler wants to do is he he wants to in he wants to take over the world.
Well they've been trained by everyone.
We don't deserve it.
But but you you look at these people, look at the average person, the evening.
But every every November we all dutifully go to these services and talk about the glorious dead.
We've been brainwashed from an early age to think of the whole thing as being rather glorious and splendid and desirable.
Yeah.
And um i it's it it's ongoing.
So you've got a a population that's never experienced war, but thinks it's a great thing and uh is eagerly taking sides in whatever conflict is going on, be it Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, you name it.
And uh yeah, everyone's so sure of their righteousness.
And uh you know, but they're so detached from it.
I d I I wanted to say uh if if if I thought it was worth engaging with these people, which it's not, because you A, you don't know whether they're not intelligence services or um and B, why would you engage them anyway, because they wouldn't wouldn't get it.
But the people who were sort of um demanding you were decrying me for engaging with Russia because of evil putler.
And I was thinking, well, okay, now do Israel.
Presumably if I'd been on holiday to A Lat or something somewhere, I wouldn't be getting the same the same condemnation.
But what what's the difference between Well, you were criticizing the Russians for not having their PR game sorted out.
I think uh Israel has probably um got the mar stolen the march on that one.
Their PR game has been a lot stronger.
They're good at that.
Not least to conflate in everyone's mind Israel from the Bible with Israel uh on the modern map.
That was a top move.
I I tell you what one thing I noticed that that you know you don't have conversations where the Russians are going, yay, Putin.
He's our guy.
They're just as they're just as cynical about their politicians as anyone.
It's not like they're super fans.
No, they're not super fans.
Some of the stuff is good and some of it's bad and But I think they're probably happy that they've got a guy who's well fighting their corner, defending their corner, because otherwise the the West would be walking all over them.
It's sad being on the side that you're not actually rooting for, isn't it?
It is.
It is.
It's like being a conscientious objector or worse during the first world war.
I think that's what I'd be now.
Suffragettes giving you white feathers for you to participate in their satanic blood sacrifice.
Yeah.
Talking of which I'm putting my nineteen forty French uniform on tomorrow to go to Avancroft to take part in a nineteen forties weekend.
I would it's a slightly more hollow experience, my reenactment since I uh woke up to uh history being a lie.
Yeah.
Do you think there'll be old radios playing in the mood?
Oh, uh undoubtedly.
And there'll be girls wearing that.
Red lipstick and hair done up and yeah, yeah, all of that.
Um the thing I tell myself though is uh whether I am reenacting um a lie or not doesn't actually matter.
What I'm actually doing is dressing up as one of the poor sods who was flung into this for whatever reason.
I've never been necessarily reenacting the history.
It's always been about walking a few miles in the shoes of one of our forebears.
So uh I think that's still valid.
Oh.
Sorry, I just remembered Verishargin.
What do you think of him?
Verishagin.
What's that?
Russian war artist that I sent you a Oh gosh, those were rather good though.
How much do you like him?
I love them.
Amazing.
He was uh he was a uh Vasily Verishagin was a painter, obviously a war artist, a traveller.
So he had he travelled in the Caucasus and sort of the travel to the to the east.
Um I was blown away by his stuff.
I just think he's really he was a he was a uh a nihilist as well.
Um but so he wasn't he wasn't exactly sort of gung-ho for uh g for war.
I think I think that his sympathies were with the with with the the ordinary soldiers like yours that uh That's the only place to be.
Yeah.
But uh anyone watching this, have a look.
Look at the pictures of Vasily Vereshargin.
They're amazing.
Particularly the one in that in that the one I sent you with uh of the the soldiers in that fortress somewhere in the desert.
They look like a sort of Russian foreign legion.
They did, didn't they?
Yeah.
And they're all waiting, the the gates are about to be stormed by the enemy, whoever the enemy are.
They look like the forlorn hope or whatever.
Yeah.
Powerful pictures.
Maybe Dick and James do Israel has now become Dick and James do Moscow.
It would be so good.
And we could do the galleries and the churches and the uh farmers market, so the restaurants.
Just the culture.
That's what we're into, isn't it?
They'd pro addict they'd take part in a reenactment.
They'd probably love it.
I just can get there before before the West provokes the war they want with because I think the West is really hot for war right now with Russia.
I mean I think actually the West is always hot for war.
Yeah.
Just that they have to they have to leave a sort of give decent amount of space before they start the next one.
Um yeah.
Anyway, Russians, we we we uh and by the way, Ukrainians, we d we don't want you to die in this forever war either.
Well that's another thing that's a problem, isn't it?
At the moment you're remotely sort of um complimentary in any way about Russia.
Oh, you must hate Ukraine.
So you just we've just gotta end it.
We're just we're just with the ordinary people, you don't want war.
I I think and and and Christians uh that's the other thing too.
Oh the thing that I got you.
Right, yeah, well I'm looking forward to that.
Yeah, the thing I got you is so good.
Good.
Um but um the people I spoke to see this as the battle between the uh the the the final battle, but they're they're orthodox Christians and they get it, and they see it with the battle of forces of evil, and they totally get that that we shouldn't be fighting Christians.
They totally get the importance of the family.
They have big f they they're into having big families and they're not into kind of the moral corruption and the squalor that we've allowed to take over the West.
And these raw milk, isn't it?
I know.
There's no need to sell it any further.
Uh oh and I've by the way, another thing.
Your horrible your horrible nephew.
Um the other day.
When I was in was it when I was in Greece, uh he said, Dad, do you want to do you want this the it's the last hardball egg?
And I s uh or shall I have it?
I said, No, I think I should have it.
Um so I had it sitting on my plate and had my Greek salad and thought, oh I I'll have my my my egg now.
And I cracked it.
And it was it w it was a joke.
He'd he'd or a yoke because he s insisted on calling it.
Um and and the the it hadn't been cooked at all, and and and and the stuff started coming out.
I said, You busted, you bloody idiot.
I I went to the market in Calamata to get those eggs and and and they're really good eggs, and and you're you're just your joke is stupid.
And I thought, I know how I'm gonna get my revenge.
I'm gonna eat the egg um raw.
So I went and got a cup and and and put it into the into the the cup, cracked the egg into the cup, and stood over the edge of the balcony in case I vomited as I did it, and I rank down the egg.
And it was really fine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a thing you should do.
I think you'd want to do it on kind of artisanal eggs rather than vogue standard.
I find this story quite distressing.
No, it's good.
It's good that they're they're good for you.
Yeah, raw milk, raw eggs.
Right.
And raw meat.
Um the person who gave me your thing.
Yeah.
Do you want me to Don't do it now.
Okay.
The person who gave me your thing.
He's called Vlad.
Alright.
All the best ones are, and the worst ones.
He's about six foot five.
Um he comes from Siberia, where apparently they're all like that.
And um I've the first I saw of him was a video that somebody posted of him wrestling a bear.
He was play wrestling this bear.
And the bear he was giving a good account of himself with this bear.
And he towered above me.
I mean I I don't know whether you know I'm I'm not six foot five.
Um and he also has guess what, a pet.
Um.
Think think more think more Siberian than that.
Wolf.
Yeah.
He's got a pet wolf.
A wolf, not a wolf hound.
Which he adopted it as a puppy.
And what kind of what what colour is the wolf?
Um is it uh white.
No.
Grey.
No.
Black.
Yeah, it's a black wolf.
Right.
So he wrestles grizzly bears and he's got a black wolf.
And he comes from Siberia.
And I said to him I said, Vlad, I really don't want my sons to be fighting your sons.
Because this is just ridiculous.
Well it wouldn't last very long, would it?
And we did that no last very long.
And we did that thing where where we there's there's a sort of fantastic Russian manhug.
They really want it manhugs, it's great.
I love it.
Yeah, I there's so much love about Russia.
I'm there.
Yeah, I think.
Even though I would have to give up my wife for a colder yet hotter version.
Younger goes without saying version.
Jacqueline James go to Russia would be a would be a a jolly fine thing.
It really would.
How are we sponsored?
Sponsored by Gazprom and Cats.
And actually we couldn't sponsor by the by the by the Russian mainstream media because I mean like it's not like it's not like as I said before, it's not as though there aren't normies in Russia as well.
Most of the Russians are normies.
They only get certain elements of this stuff.
But we might as well get money thrown at us because people are going to say this has already happened with you.
Anyway.
Yeah.
Exactly.
I I I'll give you an example of um at the I when I was out there I met Ian.
Um and Ian is a a sharkling.
Right.
And he's he's gone out to live in Belarus with his mum with with his mum.
His mum was awake before long before we were.
Right.
And during COVID, his m his mum went, I'm I'm having I've had enough.
I'm gonna go and live in Belarus.
So he's he bought her a house in a village outside Minsk, and his mother's very happy.
With her dogs and cats or whatever.
Um anyway, so we so we went to this restaurant, and Ian explained to me said the Russian waiters, they don't do this and can I tell you about our menu today and and and uh they don't do the effusive stuff.
They don't they don't they don't chat, they don't do the chat, they just formally they're they're much more formal.
But I've seen this misrepresented as as like the Russians are horrible and cold and Surly.
And it's and it's not that.
I mean I did actually have a Russian in it in a restaurant called Chaikovsky where I had my best dish apart from the one that's in the Georgian restaurant, I had black dumplings with cod and shrimp.
And what was amazing about it was the the the so the black jumper things are nice, it's like the some sort of pastory thing.
But the sauce was one of the best sauces I've ever had.
I thought it would be made with wild mushrooms, but it hadn't.
It must have been some kind of seafood reduction.
Which which had that sort of umami quality of uh of mushrooms.
And it was just like amazing.
Um anyway.
My point was about generally apart from the the the chap in that in that restaurant, uh Tchaikovsky, um who told me by the way that the re that dish is so legendary that people come come from St. Petersburg, which is like a four-hour train journey away, just to that restaurant, just to have that dish.
Right.
Um They generally don't do the chat, they it's just it's just not the tradition.
They just they're there to kind of take your order and bring it to you, and that's it.
Well, listen, we've got to do more of this.
Because we're overdue for this one anyway, but I I'm I'm going now.
You want a cup of tea.
I'm probably almost at beer time, it being a Friday.
And um I've got to get my shit together for tomorrow, so uh, it's been good and yes, we have Dick and I have been deliberately starving ourselves of any conversation.
With the only communication was are you ready to do a podcast?
And you said duh.
Duh.
Yeah.
But you said you had to fiddle with your settings.
I said nit, I said yes.
I did.
Do you know what um a wolf is in Russian?
No.
Volk.
Volk.
And do you know what a a horse is in Russian?
It's something counterintuitive, isn't it?
Yeah, it is.
Just like dog or something, right?
Loshut.
What does that translate as?
Horse.
Yeah, but what does it sound like?
Loshit.
Right.
No, not getting Russian.
No, it's it's it's quite although there's some there's some helpful words.
There was the lots of false friends in that the the thing that looks like an like an N is um an I and the And the thing that looks like an H is a yar.
I do like the fact that it's got a different alphabet.
That that's very much in its favour.
Yeah.
Anyway, look, I'm gonna go.
We'll get we'll get into another thing.
Well, thanks everybody for for watching, listening.
And don't forget to support me.
Um like you need more support apart from putler.
Sh Yeah, exactly.
This this show is now sponsored by Gazprom and I I'll have to I'll get a new uniform if it is.
But I suppose I was trying to explain to these these Russians like if you're gonna spend money on propaganda, why not just get a bunch of sort of halfway sympathetic podcasts and bloggers to come over to to pay for their expensive flights and just let them don't feed them any information.
Just let them loose and let them find out for themselves and report back.
They're happy to do it enough for reenactors.
They get treated like royalty out there.
I really do want to get out there and do one.
I you d one one final thing, you should have been there when just before we left, I went into a Russian um cigarette shop.
Well it w the shop was called um Tabak and Pivot, which means tobacco and beer.
Right.
And we we've just ordered a representative selection of Russian cigarettes and this massive queue sort of built up because we while while we're delaying everybody.
And the excitement that was caused by by English tourists in Moscow.
You know that the there was a woman in the queue trying out her rudimentary English, there was somebody else being shocked that I was buying tobacco for my daughter.
But they were nice.
They're nice.
They're they're I I like the Russians.
Uh um, yeah, so support me on on on substack they uh Jake was lying, I'm not I'm not supported by by I'm not I didn't get sponsorship from the Russians.
Um so if you can.
I like it when you buy me a coffee and send me little sweet messages and you when you subscribe it uh I makes a difference.
Thank you, those of you who do.
Um great.
Okay, well we'll speak soon, I hope.
S sooner than this recent gap anyway.
And you won't you still don't know what the thing I've got.
No, no, well I'm gonna have to come and see you soon, aren't I?
I want to do uh I want to do horse riding with you again and and bring my and bring my uh incumbent wife.
You can do that.
Yeah.
I want it to be a surprise for her because uh I know how much she'll love it, but um I want her to experience the joy that I experienced when I came along with you and uh I said, look, be okay as long as we don't gallop, then we're galloping.
And that's I'll be okay as long as they don't make me jump, and then we're jumping.
And so I want her to do that.
This will go out, actually uh this is a call out.
I'm I'm doing another of my um riding days.
Um i uh where we do we do a bit of jumping and stuff, and the last one was fantastic.
It was i inevitably it was almost all women.
Um and and even those who didn't who came initially not wanting to jump, they ended up jumping.
And it's the best.
It might only be a half barrel, but I'm I'm this is a different place.
So this is okay.
We do this at a cross-country course and we have lunch.
If you want to come, I think there might be two or three places, not more, but but if you want to be surrounded by lovely women, mainly, um, Sympatico and on Great Horses, and it's on October the October the 20th, there's lunch as well.
But so contact me by hook or by crook.
Seriously, you're gonna love it if the spaces, so do try.
October the 20th.
Um horses, you you've got to be a sort of like you know, not not total beginner, but but yeah.
Um, thanks, Dick.
I'm gonna have a brother.
We'll speak soon and enjoy your tea and and love the family.
Yeah.
Alright.
Bye bye.
Bye bye.
Global warming is a massive con.
There is no evidence whatsoever that man-made climate change is a problem, that it's gonna kill us, that we need to amend our lifestyle, and in order to deal with it, it's a non-existent problem.
But how do you explain this stuff to your normie friends?
Well, I've just brought out the revised edition, my 2012 classic book, Watermelons, which captures the story of how some really nasty people decided to invent the global warming scare in order to fleece you, to take away your freedoms, to take away your land.
It's a shocking story.
I wrote it, as I say, in the well, 2011 actually, it the first edition came out, and it's a snapshot of a particular era.
The era when the people behind the Chine Climate Change scan got caught red-handed, tinkering with the data, torturing till it's screamed, in a scandal that I helped christen Climate Gate.
So I give you the background to to the skullduggery that went on in in these seats of learning where these supposed experts were informing us.
We've got to act now.
I rumbled their their scam.
I then asked the question, okay.
If it is a scam, who's doing this and why?
It's a good story.
I've I've kept the the the original book pretty much as is, but I've written two new chapters, one at the beginning and one at the end, explaining how it's even worse than we thought.
I think it's a good I think it still stands out.
I think it's it it's a good read.
I'd obviously I'm biased, but I'd recommend it.
You can buy it from James Dellingpole.co.uk forward slash shop.
You'll probably find that mic, just go to my website and look for it, James Dellingpole.co.uk.
And I hope it helps keep you informed and gives you the material you need to bring round all those people who are still persuaded that it's a disaster, we must amend our ways and appease the gods, appease Mother Gaia.
