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Sept. 1, 2022 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #471

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	Hello there and welcome to the podcast of Lotus Eaters.
	This is episode 471.
	Today I'm your host Harry and I'm joined by Nick Dixon.
	Hello.
	Hello there and we're going to be talking about the somewhat divisive reviews that the Rings of Power has been receiving.
	Also, what's your second?
	Make 60 Great Again is the name we've got for it right now.
	I was going to call it Canceled for Mago Mom.
	That's a better one.
	It's so good, isn't it?
	Some HBO thoughts got a magamum and is being cancelled for it.
	Correct.
	Guilt by association.
	Brilliant.
	And also how you need to eat ze boogs and drink ze sewage.
	And without any further ado, let's get into the news.
	Friday, the 2nd of September.
	An exciting day for many.
	Certainly for me, Megadeth's new album's coming out, Blind Guardian's new album's coming out.
	What could there be to worry about?
	It'll be the weekend, I can have some beers at the pub with some friends, listen to some great music, and also sit down and watch The Rings of Power.
	That's right, The Rings of Power is out tomorrow, everybody, and the reviews have started to flood in, and they are a little bit mixed for right now, and we'll see what the audience response is like when most people get to see it tomorrow, but I thought this would be a great time to point to an old premium hangout that Carl and John did back in February,
	titled Why Woke Remakes Are Evil, and we all know why this is, as much as they want to try to Paint everybody who has grievances and issues with the depiction of certain characters in The Rings of Power as racist and evil, at the end of the day what they're doing is they're co-opting a beloved franchise, a beloved story, and turning it into something that its creator never intended.
	So you should check that out for a bit more detail on those arguments there.
	But, interestingly, I found it funny that in these recent premieres that have been going on, because they've been doing the premieres for the mainstream critics, and they've also had a number of fans go to these premieres for the first few episodes.
	I think the first two episodes of the Rings of Power, it's going to be released two episodes tomorrow and then one weekly from that point onwards is Jeff Bezos made a few speeches, a few of them.
	And even in this speech, he admits that his son asked him, please do not F this up.
	Please do not F this up.
	Supposedly his son is a big Tolkien fan and knew how important this would be and told him, don't F this up.
	And I can only say I hope that his son is horrified and distraught at what his father has allowed to happen.
	I mean, for one, why you would give the keys to this gigantic franchise, I don't remember the names of the showrunners, but do you know anything about the showrunners?
	The showrunners on this?
	No.
	I barely even knew it was happening.
	It's free on Amazon, and I'm still probably not even going to watch it.
	I can just click it for nothing, and I'm still weighing up, is it worth it?
	Well, I suppose that you feel like you're contributing to the greater tide of evil in the world watching a show like this.
	Certainly I would.
	I think I did see a bit...
	One of our episodes said that they were like woke people with no experience or something.
	Yes.
	The two people behind it have, I think, uncredited writing credits...
	Contradicted as that sounds, on a few random shows here and there, but they've never been in charge of a show, never been in charge of a major production, never directed a film, only, like I say, done these uncredited bits of writing here and there.
	So why Jeff Bezos and Amazon as a whole felt the need to hand these people the keys to The Lord of the Rings and also a billion dollars to make the whole thing, which has so obviously shown itself in the production design and the costumes and hasn't been laundered anywhere...
	I don't understand.
	I don't understand.
	I am starting to think there might be one big money laundering scheme.
	Yeah.
	Well, I'm one of these people.
	I insist there's three Star Wars films.
	I've said it before on here.
	One Matrix film.
	You're absolutely correct.
	Can't remember exactly how many Lord of the Rings films, but the Peter Jackson ones, I'm counting.
	I've read the books.
	I'm not counting this.
	I wouldn't count The Hobbit.
	Really?
	I'm going to be quite generous.
	I mean, they didn't need to make it into three.
	But it wasn't that bad.
	I would have been interested to see Del Toro's, you know, because Guillermo Del Toro was originally attached to it and he was going to make it two films.
	So I would have been interested to see that, but I didn't need it to be like three, three hour long films.
	One would have been fine for me, but yeah, I'm going to be generous there, but I'm not counting this in advance because it's got Lenny Henry in it.
	It has immediately diminished your opinion of it.
	And I bet it doesn't feature Tom Bombadil.
	I mean, does it?
	Nothing ever features Tom Bombadil.
	Because that's all I want to see.
	Tom Bombadil is such an amazing character.
	I read the books when I was 18.
	I'm now very old.
	But the other day, I still watched a YouTube video called Who is Tom Bombadil?
	Nobody knows!
	People are still trying to figure it out.
	Isn't that amazing?
	That's a truly great character.
	It is.
	It is.
	When I read the books when I was 15, 16 years old, I just remember getting to the Tom Bombadil parts and having no idea what was going on.
	They're in the woods, they're wandering about...
	Some guy just shows up and gives them food.
	They start singing and stuff.
	I know they look like children, but...
	Yeah, what people are saying is he's talking, but the video concludes he's kind of just Tom Bombadil.
	Yeah.
	You know, it doesn't need to be more complicated than that.
	But yes, Bezos had said earlier this month that the project, which will likely get big viewership numbers, and sadly that is probably true, people are going to watch this just because it's got the Lord of the Rings name attached to it, it hopes to do justice to Tolkien's work.
	Which it absolutely will not, because let's be honest here, if Tolkien was still alive, the people like Jeff Bezos, the people who Jeff Bezos has in charge of the show, people like Lenny Henry, would be calling him a fascist.
	Yeah, they would be calling him a fascist.
	They don't care about his work, they care about co-opting the aesthetic of it because it makes money and is important to people and they want to smash everything that is important to you.
	Yeah, it's a very different world, isn't it?
	The literary world of Tolkien, his Catholic background, you know, the literary side of what he created versus...
	Are you aware of the private letters that he sent to friends?
	No.
	Because in those private letters, he made it very clear that he was basically just one step away from being a member of Ancapistan, where he said that he would prefer to have people shot who mentioned the benefits of the state to him.
	Really?
	Yeah, very interesting.
	Did you see that tweet the other day that anyone in a Tolkien book who doesn't like smoking is seen as a villain?
	Oh, really?
	Yeah, yeah.
	The state of smoking is a trait of villainy, apparently in Lewis and in Tolkien.
	Every single one of the good guys smokes a pipe, smokes pipe weed.
	Yeah, that makes sense, actually.
	Yeah, exactly.
	There's a large gulf between the literary Catholic Tolkien and some cosplaying fans queuing to watch some rubbish on Amazon.
	You obviously haven't seen some of the promos that were released earlier this year, but they had these insufferable Gen Z zoomer types with all of their ridiculous fashion, silly earrings and stupid haircuts going like, oh my god, I'm so happy.
	It's so interesting and cool to see queer representation and this and that representation.
	And it's just like, you don't care.
	You don't care about what it is that they're doing to the show because you just want something that will reflect your own values back at you.
	Couldn't there be a Tolkien estate that steps in?
	Well, there was.
	There was greatest son ever, Christopher Tolkien, who seemed to have been keeping the reins pretty tight on it for a long time, who then died.
	And as soon as that happened, you know, they came straight in.
	The grave robbers arrived very quick.
	Like when Alex Ferguson left Man United.
	Wrong reference for this podcast.
	I don't watch football, man.
	You're from the area and you still don't know what I just said.
	But anyway, I don't want to derail your thing.
	No, it's alright.
	But one of the most amusing things that came out of this was these tweets showing some screenshots of Reddit posts from people who'd won the tickets to go to the premieres where they'd just been herded around.
	They'd been herded around like cattle.
	Rings of power fans were made to stand in a pen for hours without seats and told to cheer on command for cameras.
	And if you click on some of these images, John...
	Actually, no, if you go to the next one where it just goes straight into this tweet, yeah, yeah.
	Click on the image.
	Here's an artist's interpretation of what was going on.
	Jeff Bezos, Pepe there, feeling sad for his soy brethren.
	They're all there clapping along with the applause.
	And just go to the next one so we can see these Reddit posts explaining the situation where they say, oh, the premiere has been a disappointment.
	Anyone sad they can't make it.
	You're missing nothing.
	We got crammed into cramped pens, being asked to cheer on cue with no speakers, so we can't even hear the audio and have no idea what's happening.
	We can barely hear anyone, and it's hot, and barely any water has been handed out.
	We aren't allowed to leave, or we won't be able to watch the screening.
	Several people have had to sit down near the back of our pen where the cameras can't see them.
	We've been trapped here for two and a half hours now, and now it's starting to rain.
	So, you know, Amazon's showing all of the care that they have for all of the people who make up their viewership base and people who pay their bills are But we can see also here these little updates down here.
	We've been released.
	We survived.
	Godspeed, fans.
	Now let's enjoy the show.
	Oh, more than worth the perils.
	It was magnificent.
	A few people are asking for reviews of spoilers, but I'll have to wait.
	I don't want to spoil it for everybody.
	So they get treated like crap.
	Pushed about, told to clap, used as props for this promotional ceremony, which is kind of to be expected.
	But then the second they get in to see it, it's like, oh, it was magnificent.
	I clapped!
	I clapped when I saw elves!
	It was amazing!
	I came and...
	They're all wet and dehydrated.
	I loved it.
	Imagine what...
	Tolkien would think of fan pens.
	He fought in a world war.
	Do you know what I mean?
	It's just like, wow, how far we've come.
	Tolkien's like, oh, I should put my gun down and surrender if this was what it was leading to.
	Good God.
	And then the next one was another person complaining.
	No, no, if you go to the next image along.
	Thank you.
	I enjoyed the first two episodes, but that premiere was an awful experience.
	After winning two tickets to the world premiere, I expected to go to a red carpet event, see the cast, hear their interviews, and get to share a large room with the creatives behind the show.
	And that's where you went wrong expecting that.
	In reality, I was used as a human prop made to stand and cheer on people I didn't know without being able to hear a damn word they were saying for three damn hours with no seats.
	Then going into a screen with the only fellow competition winners, there was a pointless applause at the end as there was no one that worked on the show there to hear the applause.
	And to be fair, for a Reddit commenter, this person's top comment here says, If you go to a promotional event, don't be terribly surprised if you're part of the promotion.
	Actually has a pretty good point here, but once again, these people not getting great treatment...
	But the second they see it, oh, I clapped, I saw the thing.
	It broke new ground, Nick.
	It had elves fighting on screens with bows and arrows.
	It was incredible.
	It was amazing.
	It did everything I wanted.
	You know, all I've seen is that emo-looking Sauron who looks like emo M&M. Yeah, I don't know.
	Have you watched it yet?
	Are you waiting for it to come out?
	Have you found a way to watch it?
	What, have I got special access?
	Well, I've got Bezos in my DMs right now.
	He's asking how I was doing, and he's like, hmm, I don't know.
	No, I've not watched it.
	And I don't want to watch it, but I have a feeling I'm probably going to have to watch it.
	Because Carl's going to watch it, and he'll want someone to talk to about it, and nobody else is willing.
	It's going to be work.
	Yeah, it will be work.
	It's like me with the cost of living crisis I keep having to cover on GB News.
	You're like, oh, I've got to watch The Rings of whatever.
	Do you love the books and the original films?
	I love the original films.
	The books I mentioned to you earlier, I read them, I enjoyed them, but the actual prose of the trilogy, and this might change if I go back to revisit it anytime soon, the prose of The Hobbit was fine, really engaging, but the prose of the actual trilogy fellowship through to Return of the King was quite difficult to get through.
	Yeah, stylistically it's not the best.
	It's a bit like Iron Rand or something.
	It's like the ideas are there, but stylistically...
	In talking, the story is great, the characters are great, the whole world is great.
	The actual prose is a little stodgy.
	I think we can agree on that.
	I think that's okay, isn't it?
	I think that's a pretty common opinion to have nowadays.
	We'll get some hate in the comments for that, but...
	Yeah, feel free to leave a comment telling me how wrong I am.
	And to be honest, I'll probably agree with you, because I've not read them in years.
	but there were some more reddit posts on the lord of the rings on prime that i thought were funny because there were people just like who've seen the who've been to the premiere who weren't quite as enthusiastic they didn't clap quite as hard they were the first ones to stop clapping and they say there were things i really enjoyed but overall i found the pacing and the immediate instruction quite flawed and for me the half foots and elrondurin and cele brimbo i'm i'm sorry i'm not a tolkien buff
	so if i'm pronouncing these names wrong uh if these are even names from the books cele brimbo were the most enjoyable to watch and gladriel's arc through the first episode was also enjoyable i'm hoping things before become more concise yada yada and then he ends with let me know if you have any questions and please don't be mad at me for not loving it I really wanted to.
	So he's terrified because he knows any dissent from the consensus opinion will get him dogpiled and eaten alive by the Reddit with all of the completely independent thinkers and individuals who occupy Reddit who want everybody to know that they have big brain opinions might disagree with him on this.
	And there was another one saying feeling underwhelmed where he explained that...
	I think I'm underwhelmed, and that's pretty sad.
	It's only two episodes, but I don't think it's launched the show off well.
	I don't understand why anybody thought it was going to launch well, but fair play.
	But this is just the general fan reaction.
	So let's go over to the mainstream reviews, the critics' reviews, the reviews from the people who really matter.
	And let's start off with the bad reviews.
	Because the bad reviews aren't as much of a proportion as I was expecting them to be.
	I was expecting a few publications, although maybe that'll all come tomorrow when it's released to the general public, and people like Nerdrothic and other such people on YouTube will be able to really sink their teeth into this.
	But this review from Christopher Stevens...
	That states the Lord of Rings, the Rings of Power, is so staggeringly bad it's hilarious.
	Everything about it is ill-judged to a spectacular extreme.
	Cliché rhythm script, dire acting, leaden pace, inconsistency and confusion as it launches between styles.
	Where do we start?
	So it's not looking good.
	Not looking good so far.
	And there's no doubt we can see the budget, because, once again, they handed two unknown guys a billion dollars to make this show.
	For some reason, you know?
	That's more than some third world country's entire GDP. Here you go, two guys who knows what you're capable of.
	And they say, no doubt we can see the budget casts a throbbing glow over the stream like a chest full.
	That's a very strange turn of phrase right there.
	Ultra high definition computer graphics paint ivory cities in mountain passes and conjure gigantic monsters in palaces of dark magic.
	And here, I don't think anybody would be surprised that it looks good.
	Give two people a billion dollars and access to an army of CGI artists, and you're probably going to be able to crap out something that looks passable.
	Although, call me a boomer, I've still never seen any CGI that's better than just Star Wars puppets.
	Oh, in the 1970s and 80s.
	Jabba the Hutt, they still look better when they try to redo Jabba the Hutt, and CGI is still not better than puppets.
	I agree with you.
	I mean, recently I had to watch Zack Snyder's cut of the Justice League for a discussion that I had with Connor that's going to be coming out soon.
	And the CGI in that looked terrible.
	It looked terrible.
	And then you go back to, say, 1979, and you've got a film like Alien, Ridley Scott's original, that still holds up.
	Even the matte paintings in the background and some of the more cheap-looking special effects, the way they use them makes it hold up over 40 years later.
	Whereas, you know...
	Lots of CGI dates and ages very, very quickly.
	Unless you're Terminator 2.
	Terminator 2 actually managed to skirt that line quite well.
	But magnificent visuals are meaningless if nobody knows who the audience is meant to be.
	And it's impossible to guess whether the Rings of Power is meant for children, hardcore fans, or general viewers, because it fails them all.
	No surprise.
	Led by Lenny Henry as Sadoc, the Harfoots talk in a jumble of Jamaican, Irish, and Somerset accents.
	This is exactly what Tolkien wanted.
	Can you feel Tolkien's vision?
	Emanating from this.
	Yeah, yeah.
	The Englishness and Catholicism of the original story.
	Yeah, no, no, no.
	The Jamaican-ness.
	I think you must have mistaken it.
	They're lovable and funny in a slapstick way.
	Poppy Proudfellow trips on an expedition to scrump blackberries and falls flat in a puddle when she lifts her muddy face to the camera like Oliver Hardy she sighs, enchanting.
	Half-Footland is cute until old Mr.
	Brandyfoot slips and snaps his leg with a crack that would make the cast of Casualty wince.
	So it sounds, judging just by this review, like there might be some tonal issues.
	Yeah.
	Just a little bit.
	The only thing I didn't like in the Lord of the Rings films was the comic relief, actually.
	You know when Gimli says something and the whole cinema laughs and you're like, it wasn't that funny.
	It's alright, but I don't laugh.
	I don't mind it.
	I don't mind it.
	I'm not barrelling over, laughing, trying to contain my sides, but it's fine.
	And then there's this other one from Entertainment Weekly of all places saying, the Rings of Power review, Amazon's prequel is kind of a catastrophe.
	Just kind of a catastrophe.
	Just a little bit of an apocalyptic failure.
	Just, you know, let's put it in some nicer terms here.
	That's horrific.
	Yeah, there are ways to do a prequel, and the Rings of Power does them all wrong.
	It takes six or seven things everybody remembers from the famous movie trilogy, adds a water tank, makes nobody fun, teases mysteries that aren't mysteries, and sends the best character on a pointless detour.
	The latter is uber-else Galadriel.
	Do you remember how Galadriel was a fearsome warrior?
	No, she was a sort of ethereal, beautiful...
	No, she was a warrior.
	You were just watching it wrong.
	See, these two nobodies, they were able to interpret Tolkien's true intent.
	Tolkien just messed up when he wrote the original books.
	When he was on the typewriter, his fingers just kept slipping and writing this magnificent ethereal...
	She was a boss bitch.
	Yes, the whole time.
	She was a queen with a Q-W-E-N. With a K-W, yes.
	Double E-N. We were all just misinterpreting it the whole time.
	And she spends the entire premiere telling people to worry about Sauron.
	And in response, people tell her to not worry about Sauron.
	Now that's some thrilling character conflict right there.
	Wouldn't you agree?
	That's the problem with prequels, isn't it?
	Like, oh, some action's going to happen in about three movies time or in a whole series.
	Yeah, that was the problem with the Hobbit films as well, is that Jackson felt the need to try and foreshadow Sauron for some reason, when it just had nothing to do with the rest of the plot.
	Oh, now we're going to have a nice side adventure when Gandalf and Saruman have a fight with Shadow Sauron.
	I didn't care.
	I didn't care.
	Nobody cared.
	Despite all the streaming war headlines, the series is nothing like HBO's Game of Thrones spin-off House of the Dragon, which is a family drama plus dragons.
	Two Rings of Power episodes felt more like an eight-hour infinity war with disparate goods coalescing towards a big bad.
	I don't think Tolkien intended his elves to seem...
	Oh, yeah, they've got to...
	They've got to put it in here because it's Entertainment Weekly.
	You've got to know that they're not saying all of this because they're evil white racists.
	They're not saying it because they dislike that there's black dwarves and black elves or anything.
	So they add this nice little token paragraph in here saying, I don't think Tolkien intended his elves to seem a tad fascist and Jackson didn't worry about casting an ensemble of white British guys and white Americans talking British.
	Talking British.
	Talking British.
	Is that what we're doing right now?
	Talking British, mate.
	Ooh, bottle of water.
	Rings of Power casually diversifies its fictional races, a casting decision that's thankfully normal in contemporary fantasy.
	Don't you love watching a fantasy film, but then you find yourself horrified at the lack of diversity on screen?
	Me neither.
	Also boring, even the Gladwell thing is obviously like, oh, we need more tough women, but you already had one in Lord of the Rings, you had Eowyn, you know, she was the fighting woman, wasn't she?
	Well, interestingly, I think fans of the books complained about that at the time as well, because that's a change from the original novels.
	Well, I was going to say, even that was a touch feminist for me, but I was like, I'll give you, you know, one.
	We'll give you the one.
	Everybody gets one.
	Yeah, because there's Joan of Arc, like it does happen occasionally in history, but Gladwell's not a fighter.
	Well, I think it's because on screen, most people didn't have experience with Eowyn before, so it's like...
	Wait, was Eowyn the one who took out the Lich King?
	The head of the...
	Of the Ringwraiths.
	Possibly.
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	No, she was like that in the books, I think.
	I thought you meant, oh my god, I'm showing my lack of knowledge.
	Yeah, I've forgotten the name.
	They're going to get so much hate for this.
	Yeah, we...
	I made a mistake.
	I made a mistake a few places here.
	But anyway, let's move on to the middling reviews, which seem to make up the main body of the reviews.
	There's quite a few publications all talking about how it's okay.
	They're all basically saying, you can tell that it's got a gigantic budget, but the actual writing is just okay at best.
	Like this Time article saying it's got tired archetypes, and they say, frankly...
	Oh wait, yeah, here we've got to have, once again, any criticism levelled at this show by a mainstream publication, you need to have that paragraph in there.
	That paragraph that says...
	Frankly, it is still a relief to see a fantasy show assemble a diverse cast and create a number of powerful female roles.
	In a world of orcs and anthropomorphic trees, a non-white elf shouldn't raise an eyebrow.
	Can you feel the smugness?
	I hate that argument.
	I hate that argument so much.
	It's so bollocks.
	I'm sorry.
	Because there are ents, we should take all white people out of the show.
	That seems to be what you're saying, right?
	There are ents, which are the trees, therefore...
	Really, you've got a talking tree, but you can't have a biromantic asexual in it.
	It's so disingenuous as well.
	Because it's the same argument that was used for The Last Jedi, if you remember that, when people were complaining that the plot is nonsense and they go, oh really, space wizards and laser swords and you're complaining about character inconsistencies?
	Yes.
	Yes, because the original ones were Jungian archetypes that made sense and had a satisfying arc.
	These ones are absolute nonsense, where a female Jedi just easily beats Luke Skywalker in about two minutes.
	Luke Skywalker, as Mark Hamill, as cringe as he is most of the time in real life, at the time when he was saying, Luke Skywalker, the most hopeful, optimistic guy in the galaxy, going off to try and save his evil father from the evil that had taken over him, I'm just going to try and murder my nephew.
	Oh yeah, it was disgusting.
	That movie was just deliberately like, let's take a big dump on everything you love, wasn't it?
	I remember saying at the time the director should do community service, which I thought was generous that I didn't say a full prison sentence.
	Yeah, I think you were going a bit light on him.
	You're right.
	I'm changing it.
	I hope you've let go of your liberal ways.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Full life sentence.
	Far too lefty for me, Nick.
	But let's carry on.
	CNN said, Lord of the Rings, rings of power, delivers spectacle, but lacks the dramatic power to rule them all.
	I... Lol.
	Got em!
	Let's move to the next one.
	IndieWire saying, The Lord of the Rings, Rings of Power, Solid Return, if not quite fit for a king.
	There we go again.
	There we go again.
	My review of new Lord of the Rings thing should just be that...
	I would more happily click on that than any of these headlines ever again.
	But then we move over, and there was a few less of these than I was expecting, but still, we got the Kooming reviews.
	The ones who absolutely could not contain their excitement.
	It's so astounding.
	It's so astounding, it makes the House of the Dragon look amateur.
	Now, I've not watched House of the Dragon yet, but even from people whose opinions I trust, they've been saying a lot better than we were expecting.
	Actually a decent enough show for the first two episodes.
	Whereas I doubt that when people whose opinions I trust get their hands on this...
	It's going to be a similar kind of reaction.
	And they go on in this article.
	I love Galadriel the fighter.
	She's valiant, flawed, and haughty.
	As bloody-minded as she is brilliant.
	Scarred by the horrors of war.
	If that doesn't sound like much fun, wait till you see what she does to a snow troll.
	Which sounds somewhat disconcerting as a sentence.
	I don't want to know what she's doing to anybody's snow troll.
	But if you don't need any more...
	Evidence that the people making this show have no idea what it is they're adapting.
	And if they do, they don't care about it.
	As always, we keep mentioning this, but it's worth repeating.
	I have a couple of small reservations, though, they say.
	Oh, I need to make sure I don't seem like I'm just too, too enthusiastic about this.
	On occasion, there is a whiff of smell-the-fart acting, which is perhaps hard to avoid when every other line is a poker-faced aphorism, such as, A dog may bark at the moon, but he cannot bring it down.
	There's that Tolkien poetry coming through right there.
	That's awful!
	That's awful dialogue, and if that's reflective of the kind of original dialogue they've created for this, this might actually be kind of hilarious to watch.
	If everybody's trying to take themselves seriously while delivering prequel-level dialogue like that, are they gonna go on about sand?
	Is that where we're going with this?
	You know, it is coarse, it's rough, and it does get everywhere.
	And then we've got Forbes as well coming out saying that it's a breathtaking return to Middle-earth and the Lord of the Rings.
	And so that's just a general overview of some of the reviews that we've got.
	But I thought I'd do a little...
	A little test here, which is if we go to the next link, we can see the Rings of Power Rotten Tomatoes score.
	Are you familiar with the general trend of Rotten Tomatoes scores?
	I'm very familiar with them, yes.
	It's a new place that the Cathedral tries to lie to us, but then the audience score puts them right with the actual truth.
	It really does, because if we see here, the average tomato meter for whether it's rated fresh or not from critics is 83%.
	Average audience score is still coming soon, and we'll see how that goes tomorrow.
	But I have a little bit of a sneaking suspicion that I know where it's going to go.
	And we can just see where it's going to go.
	For instance, when we check the Ghostbusters all-female reboot 2016.
	I predict Bezos buying Rotten Tomatoes.
	They don't own it already?
	Actually, don't Fox own Rotten Tomatoes, so technically Disney own it.
	Surely they're not going to allow this series to get like 2% on.
	Let's see anyway.
	We'll see.
	We'll see.
	Because we've got Ghostbusters with a rated fresh 73% from critics and a shockingly high, to be honest, 49% from audience.
	And I can only assume that that's just propped up by reviews from angry feminists who desperately want to defend this masterpiece of cinema.
	Yes, because we should be clear, this is the women one.
	Yes, the 2016 reboot with all-female Ghostbusters that everybody was just clamouring for.
	I found it empowering.
	As a strong, independent woman yourself, it's very impressive that you can come out here with your beard and everything.
	It's very brave of you, Nick.
	Or should I say Nikita?
	Obviously I didn't watch it.
	Did you watch it?
	No.
	To paraphrase Larry David, I hate myself, but not that much.
	Yeah, one of my friends saw it and said it was so bad that he thought that Chris Hemsworth was left out of a few Marvel films as punishment for starring in it.
	Because he plays in this as basically just a complete mental retard.
	Because that's all men can be.
	That's all hot men are.
	You know, just stupid eye candy.
	And we've got the Captain Marvel film that came out a few years ago, the feminist empowerment film, 79% critics, 45% audience score.
	So you can see, actually, as the critic score goes up, the audience score goes down.
	The more critics love it, the more likely it is to be a big pile of poo.
	And what's impressive about that film is, no matter how bad it probably is, the actress, when she speaks...
	Separately from the film, is much worse.
	It's quite an impressive skill, isn't it?
	I mean, she didn't...
	Well, being a middle-aged white person, white man, actually, she doesn't care about your opinion.
	She made it very clear.
	And rightfully so, she shouldn't.
	I, you know, tuned Nick out the whole time on these podcasts.
	And then we've got the classic, the absolute original of this, of Star Wars The Last Jedi, which was really loved by critics.
	91%, 42%.
	You just reminded me, I joined Rotten Tomatoes to write a bad review of Last Jedi.
	Specifically, that's how angry I was.
	Doing your part, you're one of the 100,000 plus in there.
	I've never done anything like that, but I was just like, that is so bad.
	Someone has to pay for this.
	Because no one loves Star Wars more than me.
	I read the books growing up, had all the figures and everything.
	You know, my favourite films.
	And it was so disgusting what they did to it.
	On any level.
	It didn't work as a film.
	Even aside from the woke stuff, first time I watched it, I wasn't really aware of that.
	You know, I was like slightly aware of it.
	And then I read, oh yeah, the purple hair and blah blah.
	But it was just terrible as a film.
	Yeah, I mean, I think after I went to go see it, the Guardian calling me a Nazi for not liking it was literally the first step to my red-pilling myself.
	Right, right, yeah.
	So thank you, The Last Jedi, for that, at least.
	91%.
	It's just like you're just reviewing how far...
	Are you ready to see the worst one, the last one that we'll look at before we finish, okay?
	Are we ready?
	We all knew it was going here.
	Let's see how much critics love cuties.
	86% to a 15% audience score.
	Audience is not so keen on pedos.
	They just review them based on how far they match the ideology.
	That's what the percentage is for.
	You 100% match the ideology.
	You only 86% match the ideology.
	That's all it is, right?
	Yeah, no, absolutely.
	I mean, I think Cuties, that 14% was knocked off the critics because I don't think there was any actual, you know, noncery in the film.
	Right, only implied.
	Yeah, it was only implied noncery.
	They didn't go far enough for the French critics.
	But audiences weren't a particularly big fan of this.
	So I'm sensing a bit of a trend, and I guess we'll see tomorrow when the show comes out, but I'm not expecting the trend to break.
	Not this time.
	Alright.
	Feels like that was the end of your section.
	Can we just check that I'm turned up properly for my section?
	I was fiddling with stuff because I can't hear the...
	Normally I can hear you bellowing in my ear so I just want to check that it might not be on.
	I thought you would have preferred it this way if I'm a bit quiet in here.
	Yeah, I'm just thinking if we play a video I might not be on.
	Is it this one?
	Is this you?
	I'm sure it's plugged in but we'll find out I guess when we play a video.
	I just...
	You get comments like, why is Nick on his phone?
	It's like, Nick's trying to fix technical things in a subtle way.
	Stop calling me out.
	But anyway...
	Nick's very sensitive.
	Very, very sensitive, yeah.
	But the comments are mainly nice.
	Let me have a water and then I'll do my brilliant section which is called Cancelled for Magomom.
	Yeah, it's not make 60 great again.
	That's pretty cringe, John.
	I've gone very tabloid with my section name because I'm trying to get the clicks here, guys.
	He's trying to get that Daily Mail column.
	Yeah, we'll stick a hot woman in the thumbnail and we'll see where it goes.
	So this is actor Sydney Sweeney, who was attacked for her family's alleged politics.
	So she's a famous actor I hadn't heard of because I'm too old.
	She's that famous.
	Yes, but she's got 14 million followers.
	This happens now.
	I actually met a famous actor.
	Listen, is she an attractive young woman?
	She is.
	That explains the followers.
	Yes.
	Well, I met Karen Gillan, who's a famous actor, and I met her and I didn't know who she was, even though she's much more famous than me.
	But the thing is, I'm too old now.
	Sorry, Karen, I don't do autographs.
	I realised later she was in the big short, which is a great movie, but hey, the point is, I didn't know who this young lady was, but she's got millions of followers, but now she's been attacked because her family may be conservative and they may wear the wrong hats, Harry.
	Oh dear.
	So let's get into it.
	They wear the black hats instead of the white hats.
	They wear the red hats.
	So, the New York Post says, woke blowback to Sydney Sweeney party, another sign of left's lunacy.
	So, actress Sydney Sweeney has never shied away from being provocative and taking off her clothes in front of camera.
	Was this a necessary part?
	This is the article.
	You want to scroll down, John?
	Is this what you really wanted to draw attention to?
	Yeah, yeah.
	It says, her numerous new teams on HBO Hit Euphoria have made her a Gen Z pin-up.
	And I had to watch them all, Harry, just to check.
	I mean, you're dedicated to your work.
	Your research is impeccable.
	Exactly.
	So, Nick's news this week.
	Young, attractive woman takes clothes off.
	It's relevant, Harry, because, as it says in the next paragraph, but it was a fallout from a surprise family birthday that has ruffled feathers and threatened her with excommunication from the liberal circles where her sexuality helped make her a superstar.
	I mean, that's always the thing, isn't it?
	Yeah, they're making the point that in the lib world, it's good to do loads of sort of squalid sex scenes.
	Yeah, yeah.
	But it's bad to have...
	It's virtuous to be a whore.
	It's not virtuous to have, you know, family values.
	Yeah.
	And it says, Sweeney, who hails from rural Idaho, may have revealed that her family...
	John's already gone too far.
	It's way, way...
	Sweeney, who hails from rural...
	John, you've gone too far.
	Go back up!
	I think he's just going to the pictures.
	He's not even listening to us.
	He's doing his own thing over there.
	He's watching clips from her series.
	He's like, oh, you're right, there are a lot of new teeth.
	So it says, Sweeney, who hails from rural Idaho, may have revealed that her family holds conservative views that shockingly align with a very large swathe of the country.
	On Friday, her family threw a 60th birthday party for her mother with a hoedown theme, complete with line dancing, jean jacket embroidery, and a mechanical ball.
	Revelers wore red caps that played on the MAGA slogan, Make 60 Great Again, something many across the political spectrum have done in recent years.
	But what really seemed to upset folks on Twitter was a picture...
	Of a partygoer in a pro-law enforcement t-shirt.
	And finally, there it is.
	John already got to.
	Oh no, he's got the blue line!
	He's got the blue thing, which means blue lives.
	That seemingly innocuous t-shirt was the big problem that she was seeing.
	There's Sydney in a nice hat.
	And there's the evil...
	Keep your eyes on the hat.
	Calm down.
	It's like the first time you've seen a woman on Lotus Eaters and you're just all going crazy.
	Well, normally we insult women on Lotus Eaters.
	We don't feature them unless they're in a full burka.
	That's Callum's new rule.
	So the point is, just her family having this blue t-shirt or Blue Lives Matter t-shirt Prompted a whole meltdown from the internet.
	And of course, they're not down with it because in our country, supporting the police is super woke, right?
	Because the police are now woke.
	It means you're into pride or whatever.
	Happily defund the UK police.
	But in America, it still means you're a Nazi.
	So the images prompted lunatic thought mafia enforcers to jump on Sweeney and denounce her as a Trump supporter.
	They began lobbying accusations of racism, white supremacy and gay bashing.
	And the writer here says, if a shirt or costume makes someone and their loved ones irredeemable, boy do I have news for fans of Prince Harry, who once dressed up as a Nazi for a birthday party.
	Well, didn't Taika Waititi in that film Jojo Rabbit recently literally play Hitler?
	So I guess he's beyond the pale as well now.
	But that was in a film, this is a birthday party, where people are dressed in the wrong hats.
	So if she'd been friends with a Blue Lives Matter guy in Euphoria, that would have been fine.
	That would have been an okay.
	As long as he was depicted as evil and died horribly or something.
	As long as he was smoking...
	What is it?
	Tolkien had people smoking...
	No, not smoking, they're villains.
	Anyway, call back to the previous segment that didn't make sense.
	So...
	So, without making salient points about policy or principles, the angry tweeters conflated conservatism, even perceived conservatism, with bigotry.
	The blowback grew so ridiculous that the 24-year-old was forced to publicly address her mother's Western-themed party.
	And this is ridiculous because all she was doing is photographed near a guy wearing a shirt.
	Correct.
	But she had to...
	I wouldn't say apologise, but she definitely had to address it on Twitter.
	Can we see the tweet?
	There we go.
	You guys, this is wild.
	An innocent celebration for my mum's milestone 60th birthday has turned into an absurd political statement, which was not the intention.
	Please stop making assumptions.
	Much love to everyone and happy birthday, Mum.
	That's actually quite a wholesome way of addressing it as well, because she just relates it back to, by the way, it's my mum's birthday, that's what this was about.
	Happy birthday!
	Yes, but if she's going to get in trouble later, we'll see, because she didn't condemn it.
	Condemn your family, Harry.
	Condemn them.
	You're getting kicked out of Hollywood, Sydney.
	Your breasts can only get you so far.
	Yeah, so it carries on the article.
	It's unclear how her family votes, if you want to go back to it, so people can not read it while you scroll to the wrong bit.
	Nor does it matter or have any bearing on the Euphoria star's ability to act.
	The Sweeney's could be Bernie bros, MAGA folks, or have AOC tattoos.
	But in 2022, politics are religion and people are as fervent as ever with the fringe craze on the left presiding over a new Spanish Inquisition and morphing into keyboard tokemadas.
	Mardis.
	What does that mean?
	It's the guy who ran the Spanish Inquisition.
	Oh, okay.
	The ideology has forced many conservatives, especially in creative circles, into the closet while conspiracy spewing folks like Bette Midler and Rob Reiner are celebrated in the industry until Midler steps on a gender ideology landmine by taking umbrage with women being called birthing people.
	Sweeney's in Actor Chris Pratt has been blasted for his Christian beliefs and falsely accused of being a member of the controversial Hillsong Church.
	Pratt's sentiments are mainstream and, well, quite milquetoast, but that offends the diversity pushers who are only interested in out-their identity politics.
	According to their doctrine, diversity of thought, the most important kind, must be squashed or vilified.
	Of course, there's a long secret history of Republicans in Hollywood.
	There's even a movie about it I referenced on another show we did here.
	Rated R Republicans in Hollywood.
	And you had the Friends of Abe, which was a secret group of conservatives in Hollywood.
	You had people like Gary Sinise in it.
	And then I think Jeremy Boring was in it.
	He had Truth Revolt, which of course became Daily Wire.
	So they come from that secret, you know, Shapiro and Boring.
	I do have people like, most recently, I think Rob Schneider, of all people, has really been shocking me.
	He appeared on the Glenn Beck show recently.
	That was very cool when he said he'd rather lose his whole career than not tell the truth.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	I respect that immensely.
	And Chris Pratt has been able to skirt that line quite well because, you know, people think, oh, he's secretly an evil Nazi or something.
	But the most recent thing I watched with him in it was that show that...
	The Terminalists.
	Yeah, the Terminalists that people were screeching about.
	It was an excellent show, but he also dobbed himself in further by tweeting out a Daily Mail article.
	Well, I think he put it on his Instagram story.
	Making fun of woke critics who hate it.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah, yeah.
	So Chris Pratt does seem to have a little bit maybe in there, but he's probably just nothing more than...
	Just normal.
	Yeah, a normal guy.
	He's held up as this guy.
	Yeah, he's our big hope.
	And you watch Terminalists and it's like...
	I was seeing all these things.
	Terminalist is anti-war.
	Watch it.
	It's just a normal drama.
	I would say the virtues it appeals to are kind of inherently right-wing.
	Family and revenge.
	Family, revenge.
	There's a white family in it that are depicted as good people.
	It's quite spectacular, very, very politically incorrect nowadays.
	Yes, but I'm saying it's normal because when I grew up, I'm older than you.
	In the 90s, that was just normal.
	Oh, it's remarkable to me nowadays to see something like that shown on TV. You were stunned.
	You were literally shaking.
	And to be fair as well, the guy who wrote the books it's based on appeared on Tucker Carlson and other such things as well.
	He's like an ex-Navy SEAL, so he probably is very conservative, but that doesn't necessarily reflect on Chris Pratt.
	Okay, very based.
	Maybe I'll watch it again after I watch...
	Lord of the, whatever it's called, the rings of something.
	Don't.
	So, the article carries on.
	It's why we can't share anything anymore.
	Established media and entertainment properties like Disney have gone so deep into the culture wars, slamming Florida's parental rights education bill or the so-called Don't Say Gay bill, that in response we now have right-wing companies to cover sports and make movies.
	And that's very much what we've seen with The Daily Wire.
	I've covered it earlier on this show.
	Having the Daily Wire kids making their own movies and so on.
	It's a very good thing for them to do.
	At this point, parallel societies is kind of the most peaceful outcome we can expect.
	Well, exactly.
	It says finally in the article, the gulf is so wide it's impossible to see us meeting in the middle again.
	Is this really the world the online inquisitors want?
	No, they want you completely destroyed, but it's true.
	We're going to have a gulf now, and that's how it's going to be, isn't it, really?
	So it's quite interesting.
	That was the article from the New York Post, just to summarise it for you, and it's quite interesting to see some of the tweet responses to poor old Sydney with her possible MAGA family members in shock.
	Who are these people?
	How has this got 46,000 likes?
	Who is this person?
	I found all the they-thems.
	They've all come out.
	This is a they-them, and it's the pronoun people, and they're very annoyed about this.
	So it probably scores higher than you on neuroticism, then.
	Yeah, so these are the people...
	I got 84%.
	These are the people who...
	They saw this Sidney Sweeney thing and they're like, okay, a family have a hat and a t-shirt, therefore they're racist.
	And this is what they said.
	Maybe it's the trauma of growing up in the white, bright state of Massachusetts, but why Sidney Sweeney discourse?
	Do you not walk around conscious of the fact that every white person you meet, no matter how cool, is the child sister or brother of someone who hates you?
	Oh.
	Do you not realise, Harry, that every white person, even if you're not hateful, your sister is.
	My sister's lovely.
	Leave her out of this!
	And then she puts another one...
	Dolly Parton's like 70!
	No, Adele's cousin is a Tory.
	That's just the risk in celebrity worship by fear.
	Now there's a touch of humour saying Adele's cousin's probably a Tory, but see what she's saying, that if you're a white celebrity, it's even worse.
	You're just deep in white supremacy.
	It's pure guilt by association and a complete denial of reality.
	All you need to do is look at Hollywood and the things that these people in Hollywood say to know that this doesn't reflect on them at all.
	Right.
	But let's carry on, because we have another pronouns person, and it's not as explicit, but I've checked their bio.
	I see your anger over Sydney Sweeney and raise you that every single white person you know in America has racist family members, LMAO. And you probably have racist family members as well.
	Now what?
	Can't you feel the love coming from these tweets?
	These are not about hate.
	This is all about love.
	But a blue t-shirt equals racist.
	Maybe this is just the American-English divide.
	Perhaps this is just how they express love in America.
	This one says, another pronoun, this Sydney Sweeney business literally shows that white people are not holding their family members accountable at home.
	Your activism is performative because if not at home, then where else?
	If not the white people in your lives closest to you, then who else?
	So you've got to condemn your family at dinner for their racist hats.
	I mean, thanks for this lovely roast you've done, Mum.
	Also, racist!
	I don't think that's going to go down that great.
	Semi-fascist as Biden would say.
	That's interesting though, because these people have completely internalised the world view that every aspect of your personal life has to be political.
	Your family bonds, the people who raised you, the people who care for you, the people who love you, that doesn't matter if there's minor political differences, if they've said something that you can perceive or interpret as being outside of the realm of acceptable discourse.
	Right, because the state is everything.
	It's a very left-wing idea, isn't it?
	The family's not anything.
	The state's everything.
	Allegiance to the ideology is everything.
	Exactly.
	It's year zero.
	Get rid of your parents.
	And this is all for standing near people with red hats.
	This is like your family condemning you by their perceived...
	So the steps they've done is you're standing near them, therefore you feel the same.
	And by the way, those people are not just Republicans who are 74 million people.
	They're racist, evil people.
	I mean, I have left-wing family, and as shameful that is, if I'm at the dinner table with them, I'm not just going to start screaming soy at them.
	Actually, personally...
	Although I might start doing that, actually.
	You should do, but I actually...
	My mum said, you're going to have to not come over for Christmas, because the arguments for my brother are so bad.
	Because he's one of these people who keeps telling me Trump's going to die in jail, even before the recent raid.
	That's just like his mantra, and he's just completely obsessed.
	And what's he smoking?
	Because I feel like, yeah, I want some.
	He's just smoking being a normal lib, you know, who works for the deep state.
	But anyway, we're going to get into it.
	But we can't even talk about politics.
	It's so bad.
	But anyway, another pronoun person very much saying what we're talking about here.
	Seeing Cindy Sweeney get jumped is beautiful.
	If you're white and unwilling to completely shame your parents for their conservative views, you're just as complicit and need to be escorted out.
	What's this response he's put as well down there?
	I'm about to go.
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	Don't worry.
	I've got all planned, Harry.
	And this one's got 46,8 thousand likes.
	These aren't obscure things I'm finding.
	I mean, they're obscure in a sense, but they're doing disturbingly well.
	Yeah, he carries on with the...
	Can we go to the next one?
	If Sydney Sweeney disagreed with her parents' politics, she'd say that.
	Notice that she said it was an innocent instead.
	Meanwhile, the innocence is bigotry.
	I love that.
	Silence is violence.
	Innocence is bigotry.
	Well, the funny thing is as well, you can be a bigot and also still be innocent of any crimes.
	You can still be an innocent person.
	You could hold bigoted views and still be a personable human being to interact with, whereas these people, despite not being bigots, do not seem to be particularly personable.
	Interesting.
	Thank God you've stood up for innocent bigots.
	I was wondering when we were going to have that.
	But yeah, innocence is bigotry.
	It's a heck of a sentence, isn't it?
	You've got to do some real mental gymnastics.
	And a slightly more...
	Oh, let's go to the next one from this guy.
	He says, this is one you were about to talk about, your love for your parents being at the expense of marginalised people is effed up.
	Hold that line while holding them accountable is one thing.
	Ignoring that S and pretending it's not deep is another.
	Eff her, period.
	I don't know if we're going to show that tweet because I've just bleeped out.
	If we show all those, Dip your head in a paint can, mate.
	Jesus Christ, shut up.
	Your love, loving quotation marks, expensive and marginalised people.
	I don't know these so-called marginalised people.
	I know my parents.
	I love them.
	No, no, that love isn't good enough.
	You've got to hold them accountable, Harry.
	I'm sorry.
	Over dinner.
	My crimes against the cathedral are absolute.
	Just maddening.
	This is all a member of a young lady standing near her family in hat.
	Are you trying to give me an aneurysm walking me through these tweets?
	It's depressing.
	I don't know really why I'm doing it, but it's another black pill, I'm afraid.
	I'll come up with a white pill next time.
	The white pill is that we're not mental like these people.
	So you can at least take that home.
	Yes.
	And then this one also has pronouns.
	I've checked all their bios, don't worry.
	But this is a slightly more sane pronouns person that replies, this is so pathologically online.
	Whose expense exactly?
	Who out here is suffering because Sydney Sweeney isn't picking fights with her extended family at birthday parties?
	Some of y'all truly do not live in the real world.
	Thank God someone said it.
	Yes.
	It's still a pronoun person, but a slightly more sane one.
	We found the one guy.
	Yeah.
	And then this next one.
	Most white people are Sydney Sweeney.
	You literally are Sydney Sweeney, Harry.
	Yeah, you might get some good roles coming up.
	And that's another they, them, checked bio.
	Next one.
	This is a bit of fun irony.
	I don't care about the Sydney Sweeney thing because I just assume everyone's cracker family is racist and I'm usually not wrong.
	The crackers are racist.
	But I'm not racist, guys.
	You know, that's actually kind of funny.
	It is quite funny because of the shit.
	And if they have the awareness of the irony, it's funny, though I question that.
	Oh, but then at the bottom he's just saying she just shouldn't have posted those pictures.
	Okay, sorry, you wanted to share a nice time that you had with your family, with people?
	No, not allowed.
	Well, there was another claim that her brother had posted the ones that had more explicit red hats than them, and that she had tried to not post those, but she'd let the Blue Lives Matter slip.
	I wouldn't be shocked if that was the case, because she's probably, you know, within Hollywood.
	Who knows?
	She might be a secret Republican herself, not to throw it out there too hard.
	But, you know, she probably is thinking, like, right, okay, this could happen.
	It'll be ridiculous, but it could, because we all know the world we're living in.
	Apparently she's posted Black Lives Matter stuff in the past.
	Either she's the one who's not like that in the family and they all gently mock her, or she actually is a Republican, like you say, and she pretends not to be for her career.
	It could be either.
	Next one, most of the white folk...
	Hang on, where is it?
	Number 11, do we have that one?
	Oh yeah, let's use this Sydney Sweeney situation to realise that most of the white folk you lust over are exactly the same.
	Harry, stop lusting over bigots.
	Oh no, you're not allowed to jerk it to the unacceptable people.
	You need to do a background check on all your favourite porn stars.
	Lusting is bigotry.
	Yeah, so that one's just really self-explanatory.
	Now, the tenuous allegations inevitably emerge.
	Once someone's being attacked, let's jump in and attack them for all kinds of nonsense.
	So, DJ Bella Farada accuses Sydney Sweeney of being racist to her boyfriend.
	And she's written, All I see are red hats and red flags.
	Ferrada wrote in the comment section of Sweeney's Instagram post.
	So, some guy was doing the lighting and...
	This story has so many, like, it's so ridiculous.
	There's so many holes in this.
	I know, I know.
	Some context here.
	Anecdotally, my boy, like, it's a famous actress.
	She probably has loads of people around her all the time.
	Do we really believe?
	One, that she may have shooed someone away.
	It's possibly, she's a young, famous actress.
	She may well, she's probably been known to shoo some possible.
	I mean, given the scenes that you've said, given the scenes you've said, I wouldn't be surprised if she's pretty consistently having to bath off creeps.
	Right.
	Legit.
	But who knows if she even did this, but the chances of it being racially motivated are approaching 0.00000% I've just gone...
	It's just nothing.
	There's no chance.
	The idea that, oh, he was Mexican and he was fixing lighting near me.
	I don't want Mexicans near me fixing lighting.
	It's totally absurd, but this is the kind of thing that comes out when they smell blood.
	And there's some fun jokes about it, though, at least.
	Let's see this slightly creepy-looking comedian.
	Fair enough, I mean, yeah.
	And someone's gone with the edgy, quite an edgy joke here.
	Sidney Sweeney's dad, after seeing her have sex with black men in season one of Euphoria, he's writing a bad word.
	So these are reasonably funny within their paradigm of like, she must be racist because she was pictured near a MAGA hat.
	If you accept the paradigm for a moment, you can accept the jokes moderately amusing.
	This next one makes a reasonable satirical point.
	Unless Sidney Sweeney forces her parents to vote for Joe Biden at gunpoint, I can no longer in good conscience stan her TV show about high schoolers snorting heroin out of each other's mouths.
	LAUGHTER So, yeah, exactly.
	I mean, yeah.
	She wasn't doing this particularly, you know, noble work in a sense anyway, working in Hollywood.
	No, of course not.
	And then, of course, you get the incest accusations.
	Oh, what?
	Sidney Sweeney's brother looks like he watches all of her scenes.
	He's in a hat.
	He's, you know, he must be incest.
	It must be.
	I mean, what part of the country do they come from?
	We need to recognise this.
	I mean, this sort of thing is just projection.
	As far as I'm concerned, whenever I see leftists accuse people of this sort of stuff, it's like, oh, you've got some skeletons in the closet, haven't you?
	But for them, they probably embrace it.
	They're like, oh, it's a taboo we need to bring.
	But the next one, of course she must be involved in Jan 6.
	It says that she's got a picture of her screaming, and it's, I've never ever been to the Capitol.
	So, fair enough.
	Moderately amusing...
	Because, of course, if you stand near someone with a red hat, you've probably done an insurrection.
	And the last one I thought would be...
	Just me and the boys going for an insurrection.
	Yeah.
	The last one I thought was moderately amusing as well.
	My dad is ten times more racist than Sidney Sweeney's dad.
	Where are my huge bleeps?
	I mean, this is a legit question.
	Yes.
	That's quite a moderately amusing end to it.
	So, anyway, and I got 40,000 likes, so the whole thing's blown up.
	Massive.
	And it was...
	I mean, I'm sorry for that whole segment, really, but...
	LAUGHTER You just wanted an excuse to get pictures of an attractive young woman on the screen to stare at for 20 minutes.
	I don't need an excuse to do that.
	It just popped up on my timeline.
	Okay, you wanted to share your fetishes with the audience then.
	What are my fetishes?
	Attractive young women?
	Is that a fetish?
	It could be.
	Only if you're Leonardo DiCaprio.
	Did you see that?
	Yes!
	Dumped at 25.
	Anyway, that's my segment.
	It's about...
	You're missing the point.
	It's about how you're not even allowed to have family members now who have the wrong political beliefs.
	I think you got that.
	That was the only point in the whole piece.
	Thank you for spelling it out for me.
	I would have never got it without that.
	Alright, give me a sec.
	Ugh.
	Alright then.
	It is time to eat ze boogs and drink ze sewage.
	Life, as we know, is not going well for many people right now.
	And it's mainly because everything's more expensive.
	Yadda yadda yadda.
	We talk about this a lot recently because honestly, it's just on everybody's mind constantly.
	It's the one thing that everybody is worried about.
	And the reason for it seems to be a lot of the sanctions that we put on Russia.
	I've explained this before.
	I'm not going to go through my I don't think Putin's a good person spiel again because Nick's already heard that one and mocked me for it last time as well.
	Did I?
	Well, we mock each other for everything.
	So I just assume.
	Did you say Putin was based?
	No!
	Don't you put words in my mouth, sir!
	No, yeah, no, Putin's not a good person.
	Invading Ukraine, not a good thing.
	Also, sanctions on Russia when they provide ridiculous amounts of energy for the West, not a good thing when it means that everybody's going to starve and freeze over the winter.
	Would you agree with me?
	Is everything acceptable so far?
	Yeah, I agree.
	Why are we putting all this money into Ukraine and more and more people are going to question it as the harder things get?
	Well, as soon as grannies start dropping off over the winter, people are really going to start to question this a little bit.
	Yeah, and people have found they can't afford to take in Ukrainians anymore, which is unfortunate, but that's how it is.
	But the globalists seem dedicated to this war.
	I mean, Peter Hitchens was quite reasonably saying, why can't we negotiate?
	We found that Russia is militarily weaker than we thought.
	But at the same time, these sanctions are more than annoying.
	They're causing a lot of problems economically for us.
	Why don't we say, hey, do you want to end this war?
	But they really want the war.
	But you'll be shouted at for saying that, you know, people will shout at you, oh, you don't, you know, you're not pro-UK or whatever it is.
	It's like, can we just not have the war?
	Well, you're supporting fascists.
	You're supporting a right-wing oligarchy, yada, yada, yada, yada.
	Whereas you actually need to be supporting our left-wing oligarchy.
	That makes it all better.
	You're just supporting peace, really, aren't you?
	And, you know, you're called an appeaser.
	As Hitchens was saying, appeaser just means you have an opinion we don't like.
	I don't want to be sending off our young people to die in war, in a foreign war, you know.
	Or crippling our economy.
	Yeah, I mean, yes, I am an isolationist.
	Thank you very much.
	I don't think that's a bad thing.
	But interestingly, Carl did a recent interview for all our premium members on the website with Sebastian Gorka, who I think is aware of a bunch of this stuff, isn't he?
	He may well be.
	I wouldn't like to speak for him.
	Yeah, didn't he get into an argument on GB News with Leo?
	Oh, did he?
	Yeah, I think...
	No, no, aren't you thinking of Lembert Opic?
	Oh, yes, I'm thinking of Lembert Opic.
	Gorka got in a different argument with Darren McAfee on GB. That was about...
	Yes, that was the one.
	And he just shouted at him, and then Gorka said, why have you had me on?
	Why am I even on?
	That was a great...
	It was...
	It was brilliant.
	Good question.
	And I don't think that this interview, given that it lasts more than five minutes, goes quite so spectacularly wrong as the interview that he did with GB News.
	So if you're interested in hearing about Sebastian Gorka talking about Trump and talking about the war for America's soul, then you can check that out if you're a premium member, which starts at £5 per month.
	Anyway, so the attitude that we've just been describing from the Western leaders is summed up quite nicely from this person, the German chairwoman of the Alliance 90 and Greens Party of Germany, a woman called Anna-Lenna Baerbock.
	I think I've pronounced that right.
	Just explaining to everybody that, you know, you might starve over winter, but we need to do it for Ukraine.
	So just play this clip and it'll sum it up quite nicely.
	But if I give the promise to people in Ukraine, we stand with you as long as...
	You need us.
	Then I want to deliver.
	No matter what my German voters think, but I want to deliver to the people of Ukraine.
	And this is why, for me, it's important to be always very frank and clear.
	And this means every measure I'm taking, I have to be clear that this holds on as long as Ukraine needs me.
	We are facing now wintertime where we will be challenged as democratic politicians.
	People will go on the street and say, we cannot pay our energy prices.
	And I will say, yes, I know, so we help you with social measures.
	But I don't want to say, okay, then we stop the sanctions against Russia.
	We will stand with Ukraine, and this means the sanctions will stay also in wintertime, even if it gets really tough for politicians.
	Even if it just gets tough for the poor politicians.
	But that's democracy for you, isn't it?
	People pay your energy bills with communism.
	That was like...
	Don't worry, we can always print some more money.
	That never goes wrong.
	Have some magic money.
	I heard this amazing place, Weimar Germany, they printed all the money they wanted.
	Nothing went wrong.
	Yeah.
	Disgusting.
	And every single time, with these people, she's on the World Economic Forum.
	I mean, it's not a surprise anymore, it's just kind of confirmation, really.
	Just, oh, evil politicians saying that you should starve for Ukraine, saying that democracy is politicians not listening to the voters.
	It might just be like a fan page at this point, they just add them.
	As soon as they hear something like that, they're like, add them onto the website.
	Oh my god, she's amazing!
	They just collect them all, right?
	Like Pokemon cards.
	Oh, this one especially hates the voters.
	Amazing!
	But, yeah, so we get stuff like that.
	It sums up the attitude, and as a result, we get problems like we've got in the UK, where the politicians are refusing to step back or potentially appease Russia in any way whatsoever, like you said, and instead just decide, well, we've created this problem by government.
	You know what's the best thing to solve it?
	To just throw money from the government at people.
	Like, we've got the cost of living payments in the UK going out in September.
	Ahem.
	I'm saying, you know, millions to be paid in September, are you one of them?
	And this might be useful for some of the viewers out there living in England who want to know whether they are eligible for stuff like this, because whether or not the government printing loads and loads of extra money is a good thing, they're going to do it anyway.
	Might as well try and get a hold of it while it's going good.
	So they're giving out money over the next month or so.
	Cost of living payment was a later scheme to be announced to soften the blow of bills and such.
	Three types of cost of living payments.
	These include cost of living worth £650 for those eligible, disability cost of living worth £150, and pensioner payment worth £300.
	And over 7.2 million households have already received the first half of the main £650.
	So you know the way that people's bills are like doubling?
	Here's 650 quid.
	That'll sort it.
	For the entire winter.
	It's like you go out into the street and some robber mugs you, beats you, has his way with your woman, steals your wallet, and then tips you a fiver for the pleasure.
	Yeah, you're right.
	I saw Zahawi talking about this the other day.
	It seemed woefully inadequate and just more printed money.
	Because Liz Tuss doesn't really, it's not clear what they're going to do.
	Boris is on holiday.
	We haven't got the new PM. We're about to get her.
	But what can they do at this point?
	A little handout, that's it.
	Yeah, that's it.
	And it's not going to do anything because the £650 cost of living payment is paid in two installments.
	And to qualify, claimants must be one of the following means-tested benefits.
	It must be on one of them.
	Universal credit, working tax credit, child tax credit, pension credit, income-based job seekers allowance, income-related employment and support allowance, and income support.
	So you already have to be in dire straits and living off the government to get this extra payment off of the government to help you go along.
	Which isn't great when a lot of the people struggling are going to be family households who aren't necessarily going to be taking government benefits off of anything.
	Maybe because of pride, maybe because they...
	Never needed to in the past, but all of a sudden they need to and they can't get access to this.
	So, fantastic.
	And it's causing not just issues with general households, but with actual public infrastructure as well.
	Like those worries that schools might have to...
	Oh wait, actually, first...
	Yeah, there's a unit...
	People are trying to support this, support each other in community ways without having to resort to the government by doing quite nice communal things like school uniform exchanges and such that are saving people money by, say, your kids in year three.
	The next person at this place has got uniforms that they don't need anymore.
	The size for the year threes, you know, you can just exchange stuff with each other.
	So it's quite nice.
	And this one, which was a Hope uniform exchange, helped 50 families in Western Supermare in one morning.
	Which is quite nice.
	We shouldn't have to be resorting to this sort of stuff constantly because the government keeps screwing us all over.
	But it's nice that people can private individuals can come together in these circumstances.
	But then we've got the schools in England are being told not to cut days over energy prices because this might be something that actually has to happen.
	Because the schools are not getting their energy bills cut.
	They're not getting any support.
	Insane.
	of stuff, they've only got the same budgets that they had last year.
	And all of a sudden, if the energy prices are doubling, then over winter, there's fears that they might have to close on some days.
	Insane.
	I mean, I suppose we already found you can just close schools entirely.
	So why not close them for a few days, you know, in lockdowns?
	But I knew the three- and four-day weeks were coming.
	It won't just be the schools.
	It'll extend.
	We're going back to the 70s.
	It's going to be a great adventure.
	Oh, this is going to be...
	Hopefully we'll bring back funk and disco as well.
	I mean, can we get rid of this trap crap and SoundCloud rappers and stuff?
	Bring me back the Bee Gees.
	You're right.
	The reason that's in my head is because we did a piece on GB News about you should become a vegetarian because it's cheaper.
	No, it's not.
	It's already questionable.
	No, it's not.
	And what it was, there's a vegetarian advocate who's basically saying, don't see it as poverty, see it as an exciting adventure.
	LAUGHTER It was like, okay.
	So I think the three and four day weeks have been an exciting adventure.
	Did she go around the streets of London and Manchester saying that to all the homeless people?
	I think it was actually a man.
	I love the way you assume it was a woman though.
	I mean, yeah.
	I hear some insufferable vegetarian saying something like that and I immediately picture a woman.
	It's true.
	It's true though.
	But yeah, they're saying that they're not going to do that, or at least the government is saying that you can't do that, so instead what might happen is bigger class sizes, because we know that more kids for one teacher to look after at the same time results in better education every single time.
	At least that's my experience.
	We had classes of like 20-odd people, even at A-level, but that wasn't big enough.
	Let's double that.
	Let's see how many we can get into a class.
	What are the parents going to do?
	They're going to suddenly have to cancel work.
	What are they going to do?
	Yeah, I mean, parents are going to be struggling enough as it is.
	And then the kids are going to be off school for an extra day when they're supposed to be at work.
	So they're going to have to take that day off work.
	So they're either going to have to waste holiday days or just not get paid for that day.
	So all of a sudden, the financial squeeze that we're under, people get worse.
	It's terrible.
	It's absolutely fantastic.
	And one of the other things is they're coming after the pubs.
	They're coming after the pubs next, did you know?
	And this is just awful, because energy bills, the price caps, also aren't for businesses.
	So pubs are finding their energy bills going to £35,000 when they were £13,000, which is almost tripled.
	Which is not something that any business would be expected to be able to manage.
	And sadly, we're not expecting them to manage.
	So I saw a figure from a Guardian article as well where it was saying about 70% of pubs are expected to potentially close, or at least they're under threat of closing because of this.
	We covered this.
	They had the lockdown.
	Now they've got the cost of living.
	And I think you've got a statistic about 300% or something, or 400%.
	But apparently, I read that some of their...
	Oh, that's the costs.
	Some of their utility costs are going up 500%.
	Really?
	Jesus Christ.
	So they're coming after...
	I mean, we've known they're coming after your kids for a while.
	They're coming after your job, because if the kids aren't at school, you're going to have to stop working so that you're able to look after your kids.
	Not necessarily a bad trade-off, just would help if you weren't also being crushed financially at the same time.
	They're coming after the pubs as well, so you've got nowhere to meet socially with your friends and family and just have a nice time, relax with a few beers.
	So that's great.
	Yeah.
	And then they're also telling us, as if all that doesn't help enough, to be less squeamish about drinking sewage water.
	You missed the fish and chip shops.
	They're coming for them as well.
	Oh, Josh and I covered that the other week.
	But yeah, they're coming for the fish and chip shops through extra regulations for fishing, aren't they?
	Yeah, and isn't it also to do with the war?
	I would imagine they're not also being helped by the price increases as well.
	So, coming for the fish and chips, coming for the pubs, coming for your kids, coming for your job, and now they're telling you to drink sewage water.
	This is the world on leftism, really, isn't it?
	I mean, it's the WF, whatever you want to say.
	I think leftism sums it up.
	Everything's collapsing.
	I just think, never mind even the war and the lockdowns, just a results-based culture is incredibly rare, I've found.
	Just doing things properly.
	There was always mediocrity, right?
	But there wasn't such an extensive ideology based on promoting weakness and failure.
	That's got to have an impact eventually, don't you think?
	Well, I think it's all intentional.
	I think the promotion of an ideology based on weakness and failure that doesn't teach people to be resilient or be able to manage their emotions, that teaches people to only exist in the moment and not think about the future.
	Right, that's white supremacy.
	Yeah, obviously prudence and delayed gratification.
	Jordan Peterson recommended that so it's verboten, you're not allowed to do such a thing.
	It's all intentional because it makes people weak, makes people soft, people aren't able to look after themselves.
	And then this sort of stuff comes about and the only solution that people have to themselves is More government.
	Yeah, more government.
	I mean, I haven't got a great thesis on it, and I haven't been talked about, but I just think all this collapse, although you can say, yeah, it's Schwab and everything, but in a broader sense, it just must be...
	Everything we built was based on certain principles, and we've abandoned all of them.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	But this came from an article written in the Sunday Times, I think it was, where a man who's a member of the Environment Agency, a government institution, Sir James Bevan,
	It said that if we start to recycle sewage water, so I think what normally happens with tap water, I looked into it to make sure I wasn't getting it wrong, so normally, you know, you get reservoirs and you get rivers basically just filled up by the rain, you get the water from there, you filter it, you treat it for water, purification, etc., and then it goes to the taps, and as part of the pipes in your taps, there's a mechanism in there that separates all the salt content from it, so you just get nice clean water.
	Whereas this is just saying, let's get the sewage water and then just get it straight to the water purification.
	Which might work.
	Which might work.
	But just on a purely aesthetic level, no.
	No, I feel like being told that what we're drinking is purified sewage water is, if nothing else, just on an aesthetic level, humiliating to the average person.
	We've worked out where the next pandemic's coming from.
	Yeah, and that's also, yeah, depending on how well you trust the company's ability to treat all of this sewage water, which, you know, given how great all of our infrastructure has been going recently, I don't necessarily trust it.
	So he says, we need to remember where water comes from when we turn on the tap, what comes out started in a river, lake, or aquifer.
	The more we take, the more we drain those sources and put stress on nature and wildlife.
	If we're going to get there, we're all going to have to think differently.
	Some of these measures will be unpopular because, once again, democracy.
	I think people got sold democracy on the idea of people governing themselves, right?
	People choosing people who represent their interests.
	No, democracy actually means politicians and unelected officials telling you what they're going to make you do.
	That's all it is.
	But they just say, it will be unpopular.
	Closing schools will be unpopular.
	So will drinking sewage and eating bugs.
	But we're going to do them all.
	Yeah, and he finishes off saying, future governments will need to show political will, the political will to humiliate their subjects.
	And crush the people.
	And crush the people.
	So, this is what we've got to look forward to this winter.
	Huddle close to your families, maybe invest in some wood fires, although Rory's told me that there's some issues with that as well.
	Do whatever you can to stay warm, and remember not to trust the government.
	And, anyway, let's move on to the video comments.
	Just to give you some context, this is what a slightly used bucket of mop water looks like.
	And this has some sort of detergent in it, so that way it sanitizes the floor a little bit better than just water.
	Yeah, if someone takes a deuce in this, I'm going to definitely know that they did.
	Because, yeah, you can't hide that brown.
	No, you'll have no context for that.
	He's not talking about the sewage water.
	No, yesterday when Callum and I were doing the podcast, I was talking about Notting Hill being a complete S-show, Manchester Pride having dog fetishists running about and just advertising it, and then New York, there was a clip of a man, a poor janitor, I feel so bad for the guy, just doing his job, cleaning the floor with a mop and bucket, while he's got his back turned, some homeless guy just sits on the bucket and starts taking a dump.
	And I felt so bad for that guy.
	So bad for him.
	But that's why you don't live in New York.
	Is Denmark doing alright?
	Well, right now here in Denmark, we are having a big debate whether we should just outright ban Muslim headscarves in school.
	The interesting thing, though, is the split in the public.
	We have the usual, oh, that's racist, but also a lot of, no, that doesn't belong in school because that's not Danish.
	And what is nice is that the people who are pro-Denmark are not afraid of speaking out and are not getting arrested for speaking out, so that's nice.
	I'm still jealous of Denmark.
	Well, I find that, Mark, interesting.
	I always thought it was kind of socialist, but then quite recently they got very tough on immigration.
	There was all that talk...
	Yeah, they got very...
	Well, because Scandinavia's been suffering under immigration massively.
	Sweden, similarly, is just talking about sending everyone back, isn't it?
	Good!
	Sweden's been suffering...
	I remember a few...
	Like, when I was still in high school, like, ten years ago, some of my teachers were basically gaslighting all of the students by being like, now, you might hear some reports from Swedish cities like Stockholm and Gothenburg and such...
	That they have ethnic enclaves and just areas of the cities that are just complete no-goes.
	Well, actually, I watched this one documentary where a guy went to a no-go zone and nobody stabbed him, so it doesn't happen.
	Within 15 minutes, he wasn't stabbed.
	I know, incredible.
	So this problem doesn't exist, and this is the sort of stuff...
	That I was being taught was kind of pro-immigration propaganda, so I can only imagine what's going on in schools nowadays, and it's why I desperately want to homeschool my kids when I have them.
	But that'll be easier said than done, right?
	Well, you may as well homeschool them, because they're only going to get three or four days at school.
	Yeah, I suppose so.
	And then whenever there's a lockdown, they'll be sent home, so...
	Yeah.
	As if you're allowed to homeschool, they make it difficult now to even do that.
	Yeah, they are.
	It's ridiculous.
	But anyway, let's move on to the written comments.
	So, Generico101 says, Why do these leftists fine always find something special that took a lot of effort to make and is cherished and loved by so many people, then invent a way to irreversibly destroy it in the most soul-crushing way possible?
	Like Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars, or Doctor Who, or all of Western Civilization.
	Well, that's because they hate you, they hate the Western Civilization, and they hate the products of Western Civilization, and they want to, as Carl has pointed out many times, use it as the skin suit for conveying their messages.
	Sadly, I know lots of...
	Shall we say, unique individuals who don't care about any of the political messaging, so they say they don't care about any of the political messaging, and will just watch this stuff because it's got the Lord of the Rings brand attached to it.
	They're complete consumers.
	And, you know, they don't understand that when they're watching this stuff, they are having basically less than subliminal messaging wired directly into their brains when they're watching it.
	But they don't care because it's flashy, got explosions, oh, and it's wearing the skin suit of the thing that I liked 10 years ago.
	Yes, and it's just completely hollowed out from the original meaning, but yeah, they won't realise that.
	They'll only know the skin suit.
	I don't want to say they're purely in it for the aesthetics, because the aesthetic also has value to it.
	They're in it for the really shallow aesthetics.
	They want it to kind of look like what they remember.
	There's also just normalies.
	I went to The Last Jedi with my family, which must have been a long time ago, so I can't imagine that really happening now, but we saw it at the cinema, but they just all liked it.
	Yeah.
	Like you say, there were flashing images and sounds.
	They don't even consider, even outside of the obvious political messaging, they don't consider the fact that these shows and films are just terribly written.
	I came out of The Last Jedi, and this was before I was even well-known for critically analysing films around my friends.
	But even I was like, why didn't Holdo tell anybody about this plan that she had?
	Yeah, what was the terrible subplot with the annoying girl at the stupid casino?
	It was all just poor filmmaking.
	Yeah, it was just like that plot line went nowhere and was kind of a big waste of time to extend the run time.
	What was the milk thing, the milking...
	Yeah, like Luke Skywalker's...
	Lean milk.
	Luke Skywalker's change from Luke Skywalker into Crabby Old Hermit would have kind of needed some connective tissue between the films to explain that.
	And they were all just like, but the explosions, bro.
	Didn't you see when Kylo Ren had the fight when he chopped Palpatine 2 in half?
	He was too soft.
	He was beaten easily because he's not a woman.
	And then even Luke, the only...
	Even half decent bit was Luke hologram projecting and managing to fight as a hologram.
	Now that...
	The only good...
	But then he dies.
	Exactly.
	And then he dies immediately.
	And I couldn't even...
	Why didn't he just show...
	If you could have killed him off anyway, just have him show up in person.
	And they can't...
	They can't do that.
	They're not even...
	They can't kill off Luke.
	I don't even know what happens in the other ones if he comes back, but there's no way...
	I just said no.
	Well, I mean, somehow, in The Rise of Skywalker, I've not watched it, but I've seen Mauler's review of it, somehow Palpatine returns.
	Literally, they reintroduce Palpatine, he's just alive, and that's the explanation they give.
	Oh, somehow he's returned.
	Great, alright, fair play.
	Anyway, that went off in a bit of a tangent.
	I know, my anger about Last Jedi is still there.
	It's still there, yeah, same.
	Baron Von Warhawk says, When it comes to the Rings of Power, don't watch it.
	Don't even hate watch it.
	Let it fail.
	Not only does this have to...
	Not only does it have to fail, but it must fail spectacularly.
	What was that, John?
	I just saw something on screen.
	Okay.
	It was Sidney Sweeney.
	LAUGHTER But it has to fail spectacularly.
	It has to be such a complete and total failure or else this will just happen again and again.
	The only way to keep woke remakes from happening is to let it explode like the Hindenburg.
	That is true and I want it to happen and I'm hoping that it has a greater chance of exploding just because they have pumped so much money into it.
	Could this take down Amazon as a business?
	I hope so.
	Yeah, I see the argument there for not watching it.
	Carl's watching it, so he's ruining that.
	And you're going to have to watch it.
	Yeah, Carl's going to need someone to talk to about it, so I might have to.
	I probably won't even hate watching it.
	My fiancé wants to watch it as well, just almost purely to watch me suffer.
	Yeah, actually I don't do hate watching it, so I won't watch it.
	I tend not to.
	People have been telling me to watch She-Hulk so I can hate-watch it and talk about it.
	I don't want to.
	I just don't want to watch She-Hulk.
	It looks...
	It looks awful.
	Edward Woodstock says, But yeah, I'm not excited for tomorrow's release, or it wasn't until Harry mentioned the new Blind Guardian album.
	I quite like what I've already heard.
	Yes, I've really, really, really gotten back into power metal recently, and all four singles from Blind Guardian's new album have been absolute bangers, especially Blood of the Elves.
	So, do you know what power metal is?
	I know what it is.
	Yeah, and I know you had a band that was power metal that got rid of you.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I still like the genre, though.
	It's basically the only place where European people are still allowed to celebrate European culture, because it's all about knights and mythology and fighting dragons and saving princesses and traditional virtues.
	The Sabaton Count, their amazing last stand, which is about the Swiss guard.
	Do you know that one?
	I don't think I've heard that one.
	That's so good.
	It's Christian metal.
	I play it in the gym.
	You're like, rowing to Christian Mel.
	It's so good.
	It works, though.
	I've been listening to Powerwolf recently.
	They're like the Germans, and they write songs about Christian stuff.
	And they're the sort of stuff they really make you want to go and just lay siege to a castle.
	You've got to check out...
	Am I getting it right at the last stand?
	That's what it is, isn't it?
	It's so good.
	It's about the Swiss guard who saved the Pope and saved Catholicism.
	It would be better if it was Protestantism for me.
	I'm sure O'Connor would love it.
	While you carry on, just let me check I'm getting that right, because I suddenly...
	Yeah, of course, I'll go on.
	Justin B's comment.
	As a massive Lord of the Rings fan, I have no interest in watching the Rings of Power.
	I have stopped enjoying the Jackson films over the years due to some of the pointless changes that they made to the story, and I feel they cut the main point of the story out, the scouring of the Shire and the Hobbits learning to defend themselves.
	That's fair, and I hated the first of the Hobbit films enough to almost walk out of the cinema, so much that I never watched them when I had free access to them.
	From the previous previews and discussions, ROP sounds like it's Absolutely it will.
	It will be.
	They will rub it in your face and they will tell you that you're a bigot if you don't like it.
	And, you know, as much as you've developed those difficulties watching the original Jackson films, I still love the extended editions.
	And going back to the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring, especially with the music, just feels like wrapping myself in a warm, comfy blanket, you know?
	I'm actually thinking about re-watching them now we've done this segment.
	And I just want to give my recommendation I forgot to give in the main section.
	Watch the Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, a Catholic worldview.
	Or if you don't watch the whole thing, just watch the clip called Lewis and Tolkien Debate Myths and Lies.
	Brilliant clip on YouTube of an actor playing Tolkien explaining to a young C.S. Lewis why Christianity is true.
	By reference to Myth.
	And it's really good because it's kind of like these actors who, you know, it's like a cheaply made movie.
	And I really like the kind of cheap movie vibe of it.
	Oh, yeah.
	It's very wholesome.
	I mean, just because it's cheap doesn't mean the production has to be bad or the acting has to be bad.
	Right.
	And it's from this movie called Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, a Catholic will be.
	So check that out, guys.
	And also check out that 20-minute video of who is Tom Bombadil.
	I think it's worth watching.
	And I was right.
	It's called Sabaton, The Last Stand.
	You've got to listen to that song.
	Yes, I will when we're done here.
	Lord Nerevar, Amazon have said that the performance of Rings of Power will directly influence their future streaming projects.
	As tempting as it may be, no hate watching.
	Well, that will also take in the critical performance, I would imagine, as well.
	Obviously, they'll be looking at raw numbers, but that raw numbers for a first season of something, especially something as...
	High profile is a Lord of the Rings property.
	Only go so far because the critical performance will show you how much people will drop off at the next season.
	So if they do get big numbers, that's one thing.
	But if the critical performance suggests to them that we're going to get a 50% drop off, that might still get them to change tune.
	That makes me think another quite base thing you could do is just watch the first 12 minutes.
	And then you like turn off and discuss so that they register that everyone turned off after 12 minutes.
	What happened at 12 minutes?
	And you just, that's almost in a way more damning.
	Like I tried to watch your thing, but it was so bad.
	I stopped after 12 minutes.
	I think I'd have the discipline to do that.
	You know what I mean?
	Isn't that more damning for the metrics than just didn't watch it almost?
	I suppose so, yeah, because it would show that you were interested, but hated it so much, you couldn't even make it 15 minutes in.
	That really does send a message.
	That's quite devious.
	I like it.
	Sophie says, Yeah, actually, that's a good point.
	Avatar The Last Airbender is very Asian-based, and that's perfectly fine.
	It's basically an ethnostate.
	Oh well, that's the world that they set up.
	No, I don't want blacks in Middle Earth either, and that's not racist.
	I would, though, love an Avatar The Last Airbender-style show based on African mythology.
	This is the thing I always say.
	That would be really cool to see something based on African mythology, but no one ever does it.
	No one ever does it over in the West.
	Do you know why?
	Because we like Western mythology over in the West, or at least that's what sells.
	But no one want to put that kind of effort into a product that doesn't already have a fan base.
	Black people have pointed this out, and they are correct.
	This kind of tokenism not only tries to erase Europeans' old history, it is also completely ignoring and dismissing that Africa and other black nations do have their own story that Hollywood is just ignoring.
	Good point there.
	Shall we go on to your comments?
	Yeah, let's have a look at the MAGA mom comments.
	That's it then.
	We need to purge this heathen in the name of our holy diversity.
	It's a good summary of that section.
	To be fair, I hope this happening to her just completely redpills her.
	I want her to come out on the Glenn Beck show with Rob Schneider.
	That's the only thing I didn't really address.
	Will she actually be cancelled?
	She's gotten a bit of trouble.
	Will she be redpilled?
	Will she be cancelled?
	Who knows?
	We'll have to see if she gets taken off the next series of Euphoria.
	Yeah, that would be the next level, wouldn't it?
	Omar Awad.
	Oh, that's absolutely what it is.
	It's friend-enemy distinction.
	Free Will 2112.
	Maoists want you to denounce your parents and live the pie.
	Correct.
	Casey Darling.
	How can you tolerate the views of your own family?
	You must shave and ostracize them if you want to be truly tolerant like us.
	I know a bit of an issue when you've called 74 million people semi-fascist.
	Robert Longshort, I love Nick's Philly D style attempt for the massive tatties, is that pronounced?
	Tatties, yeah.
	For the YouTube thumbnails, well done.
	Yeah, it's part of it.
	Are you ready to be our number one watched video?
	They get that title right.
	But yeah, it's part of it, isn't it?
	It's all part of the game.
	No, I just picked topics that interest me, guys.
	That was just a joke.
	And big-breasted women, very much interest Nick.
	I never thought I'd get...
	I'm so pure, I just approached it as an interesting topic and then I was like, oh really, there's something wrong with this.
	Bald Eagle, 1787.
	I see Nick too as a man of culture.
	That segment was a nice breath of fresh air.
	Also, it's nice to know how shallow the left is.
	How hot white woman, who is famous and attractive, is only allowed when she spreads their propaganda.
	Otherwise, the hideous whales become self-conscious and begin to rock the ship and may cause a capsize that makes the Titanic look like child's play.
	Yeah, there's probably an element of jealousy going on as well.
	That's a good point there.
	The leftists are not quite as attractive as Sydney Sweeney, if what I've seen online is anything to go by.
	A lot of it was just hate that she's young and hot.
	Yeah, so on to what Vicky or John has labelled as freshly filtered pee.
	Captain Charlie the Beagle.
	Is this actually true?
	Oh, very interesting.
	Therefore, any man that drinks this water is ingesting minute but consistent amounts of estrogen.
	This has already been shown to have an adverse environmental impact, so it's only a matter of time before the mainstream media admits to it, but it will be too late.
	That's very interesting, actually.
	I was not aware of that.
	Although I did read as part of it that apparently London's already been looking to introduce this for a long time, and are looking to have all of London drinking filtered sewage water from their taps by 2025.
	And if the estrogen thing is anything to go by, that really explains London, doesn't I don't trust London tap water.
	I'm from the north, from the country.
	I'm a hobbit.
	You're from the Shire.
	Yeah, although the Shire's probably more the home county, isn't it?
	But I'm from...
	I don't know what the north is.
	The north men or something.
	But we had...
	I don't know what it is in Lord of the Rings, but I'm from an area where we have such pure water because it's a little village.
	It's just for us, basically.
	But London tap water, I don't trust.
	So I drink bottled water, but you can't even get that now.
	I know it's insane, but you know the normal 500ml?
	They've all gone, so they don't want you to...
	The bottled water's gone.
	They want you to drink the sewage.
	I specifically bought a filter for tap water so anything I drink that comes from the tap goes through the filter first and then it goes in here.
	Okay, is that enough to get rid of the sewage?
	I'm not sure.
	I don't know, but it's the best.
	It's the best I can do.
	Either that or when I'm at the gym, they have lovely mineral water that just comes straight out of a tap there, so that's always good.
	I'll fill up on that.
	Sophie Peterson says, Well guys, I hope you all have your emergency food supplies.
	I forgot to say in the clip, years ago I remember reading that people were saying, what are your predictions for the future?
	One of these speculative Tomorrow's World type articles.
	And it was saying, what is your prediction?
	That one person said running water in houses will disappear.
	And now it's looking like it could happen.
	Running clean water maybe.
	Yeah, they didn't think about sewage water.
	Michael Burry from The Big Short, you remember at the end of the movie where it says he's investing in water?
	Watch The Big Short, I need to.
	It says he's investing exclusively in water now, and you go, oh, this is the guy that predicted the 2008 crash.
	You're like, oh, that doesn't sound good.
	Now I'm starting to see why.
	Yeah, no, that makes sense.
	Big Short's the one where Christian Bale's playing Metallica on the drums, right?
	Correct.
	Yeah, I'll need to check that out.
	Colin P., if the government really wanted to do something useful, they would drop the green taxes and even consider lowering VAT on fuel, but of course they are ideologically incapable of doing that.
	Personally, for me, I think that if the government wanted to do something useful, they would disband themselves, but...
	That's just wishful thinking on my part.
	Israeli Crusader says, I unironically consider myself an imperialist.
	I don't think a worse argument could be made for any foreigner than I don't care about my own voters.
	I'm here for the foreigners.
	"Free will and this idea that we must choose between helping Ukraine or having heating is nonsense during World War II.
	Britain and America managed to keep the heating on whilst fielding huge armies to fight the Germans and also sending massive amounts of aid to the Russians and other allies.
	So our leaders are saying that the West cannot still do this rubbish, they just don't want to." Yeah, once again, the rising prices does have a massive thing to do with the green agenda.
	We could have had much better sustainable energy systems domestically than we do otherwise if it weren't for the fact that they were just, you know, stopping them from happening.
	Because otherwise, ooh, they'll pollute too much.
	like, "Ooh, duh." Yeah.
	Kevin Fox: "Three day a week, rolling blackouts, rising inflation.
	Okay, who's the funny effer who swiped the Tory manifesto for the script of life on Mars?" Yeah.
	Kevin Fox: "The left are collapsing the system and society.
	This is dangerous move because it coalesces people into a movement to counter them.
	Just look at Germany 33 33 to see how well that works out." Sorry, is that...
	yeah, 33 33.
	Casey Darling in Communist China, kids wear coats in their unheated schools and the majority of cooking oil contains a large percentage of reused sewer oil.
	God, that's disgusting.
	Which is exactly what it sounds like.
	So if the feckless Tory government's goal was to move the UK closer to China, job well done.
	You know, you thought it would have filtered through Canada first, given, you know, Trudeau's admiration for them, but I suppose maybe we're the testing ground for that one.
	Liz Trusser just announced she's going to be tougher on China and move them up to the higher threat level, same as Russia.
	She also said that she might ban variable speed limits on motorways and such, but to this I will say what Carl said, which is that if a Tory says they're going to do something, I just guarantee they won't.
	Sorry to take out the pep in your step there, the smile faded.
	I didn't believe she'd do anything.
	Alright then, but I think that's all the time we've got for today then.
	Thank you.
	Can I just say one thing?
	Yeah, can I. You never give me a chance.
	I always forget.
	Normally, you say to guests, anything you want to plug in?
	I know we don't do that here.
	I forget you're a guest, you're just part of the furniture.
	Well, that's true.
	At Nick Dixon Comic, or Nick Dixon on Getter, or whatever.
	Follow Nick on wherever you can find him and check him out when he shows up on GB News where he's even started hosting recently.
	What big boy.
	Anyway, thank you very much for watching.
	That's all we've got time for.
	We'll be back tomorrow at 1 o'clock British Summertime.
	Thank you very much for watching.

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